Episode 818 - Marc Mulcahy / Phil Elverum

Episode 818 • Released June 7, 2017 • Speakers detected

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

00:00:10Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:14Marc:What the fucksters?

00:00:16Marc:What the fuck publicans?

00:00:17Marc:The few of you out there, how's it going?

00:00:19Marc:What's happening?

00:00:20Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:21Marc:This is my podcast.

00:00:22Marc:What the fuckacrats.

00:00:24Marc:All right, just evening it up.

00:00:26Marc:I am back.

00:00:27Marc:I am back at the cat ranch, back in the hills of Highland Park, where I belong in my slowly crumbling casa, Casa La Crumble.

00:00:37Marc:I don't know what that means.

00:00:38Marc:So today on the show, Phil Elverum and Mark Mulcahy, two different musicians, songwriters,

00:00:49Marc:I didn't know much about either of them.

00:00:50Marc:This is the truth.

00:00:51Marc:This is how this worked.

00:00:52Marc:Phil sent me his record and a bunch of other ones.

00:00:57Marc:Now, I didn't know of him.

00:00:58Marc:I did not know of his former manifestation, the microphones.

00:01:06Marc:I didn't know about Mount Erie.

00:01:07Marc:I didn't know.

00:01:08Marc:I don't know anything about him.

00:01:09Marc:uh my uh my partner i guess that's the word i'm going to try out uh sarah had knew of the microphones and i there was a period of music there that i just was not uh i i was too old or too something i just didn't somewhere between 2002 and 2012 i just missed a lot of stuff

00:01:30Marc:Wasn't as engaged, but she knew of the microphones and there was a world of that type of lo-fi kind of experimental music around.

00:01:38Marc:But I didn't know of him.

00:01:39Marc:And I got this record with a nice personal note and I listened to it.

00:01:45Marc:His new record, which is called it's released under the name Mount Erie.

00:01:50Marc:It's called A Crow Looked at Me.

00:01:52Marc:It's available now.

00:01:53Marc:And it was just one of those moments where right out of the gate, the tone and the sound and the words and his voice just kind of struck me in a very real way, in a very deep place.

00:02:05Marc:And I listened to it and it was a devastating record.

00:02:08Marc:And, you know, I invited him on the show to talk about this devastating record because the backstory around the record is devastating.

00:02:15Marc:But there was something beautiful and poetic as dark as it might have seemed or might seem in subject matter.

00:02:24Marc:It was beautifully human.

00:02:26Marc:And I was interested in it.

00:02:28Marc:And that was just a record that was sent to me.

00:02:32Marc:Mark Mulcahy as well.

00:02:33Marc:I didn't know a lot about Miracle Legion.

00:02:36Marc:I wasn't a fan or had no real knowledge of him, but I was sent one of his solo records and I played it and I was like, this is a real dude.

00:02:47Marc:This is a real guy.

00:02:48Marc:There's some depth to this.

00:02:51Marc:This guy's been around and he's got some depth here.

00:02:55Marc:And I liked the music.

00:02:58Marc:And I became sort of a fan of his from his solo work.

00:03:02Marc:And that was a long time ago now.

00:03:03Marc:It was over a year.

00:03:05Marc:And finally, it sort of came around that Mark was around.

00:03:08Marc:And I got him in here to talk to these guys.

00:03:11Marc:These guys are, I would say, veterans to a certain degree.

00:03:14Marc:Certainly, Mulcahy.

00:03:15Marc:Mulcahy's been around a while.

00:03:16Marc:And Phil is not that old.

00:03:18Marc:But he's certainly been around a while.

00:03:19Marc:But I didn't know anything about them.

00:03:21Marc:But it was all new to me.

00:03:23Marc:These were two instances where the music came to me and moved me a certain way.

00:03:31Marc:And I'm happy to be open to that.

00:03:34Marc:And I talk about this a lot.

00:03:36Marc:I'm at this juncture in my life, this age where my life is what it is, whether I've done it intentionally or not.

00:03:45Marc:I am 53 years old, childless, divorced.

00:03:49Marc:I'm okay with money.

00:03:51Marc:And and now I've got a little time and it's sort of like what what moves me?

00:03:57Marc:What brings me joy?

00:03:58Marc:What you know, what engages me?

00:04:00Marc:What are my responsibilities to myself and others at this point in my life?

00:04:06Marc:And how the fuck do I have a good time?

00:04:09Marc:And I'm realizing that expectations are sometimes a little, you know, you got to be careful of them.

00:04:18Marc:Be careful of those expectations, the good ones and the bad ones.

00:04:22Marc:You can always expect an end because that's inevitable.

00:04:26Marc:But I don't know, you got to temper that shit.

00:04:29Marc:So I do engage with music.

00:04:31Marc:And when it moves me, I'm happy about it.

00:04:34Marc:And I was glad I could talk to these guys.

00:04:36Marc:There's some heavy stuff in today's show.

00:04:38Marc:I'm not going to deny that.

00:04:40Marc:Phil Elverum is here.

00:04:43Marc:His most recent album released under the name Mount Erie is called A Crow Looked At Me.

00:04:47Marc:It's about some very difficult and heavy stuff.

00:04:52Marc:It's about grief.

00:04:53Marc:It is an active artistic expression of grief.

00:04:56Marc:It's available now wherever you get music.

00:04:58Marc:And this is me and Phil having a conversation.

00:05:06Guest:Music

00:05:06Marc:You know, you sent me your records, the microphones record and the Mount Erie records, and then the new record, which is under Mount Erie.

00:05:17Marc:It is, but it kind of is its own thing.

00:05:19Marc:But yeah, it's Mount Erie.

00:05:20Marc:And...

00:05:21Marc:I get a lot of stuff that looks like stuff.

00:05:26Marc:And he wrote me this very nice letter.

00:05:28Marc:And, you know, the subject matter of the record is obviously devastating.

00:05:34Marc:But I had no idea about the microphones.

00:05:38Mm-hmm.

00:05:38Marc:And I didn't know anything about it.

00:05:39Marc:So I put the record on.

00:05:40Marc:I was very taken with the new record immediately.

00:05:44Marc:And that doesn't always happen.

00:05:47Marc:And then I sort of asked around, well, my girlfriend in particular, who was a microphones fan.

00:05:57Marc:And you were part of this world of music that I kind of missed somehow.

00:06:03Marc:That there was a period there in the 90s

00:06:05Marc:She was dating Devendra.

00:06:07Marc:Oh, okay.

00:06:08Marc:And there seemed to be this Bay Area kind of lo-fi, poetic, you know, I don't know how you would classify the music.

00:06:16Marc:I avoid having to.

00:06:17Guest:But you sort of fit into that spectrum a little bit, right?

00:06:20Guest:I suppose, yeah.

00:06:21Guest:I mean, I've been doing it for 20 years, so maybe I fit in at different spectrums, different spectrums, different points in different spectrums.

00:06:28Marc:Right, but there was a...

00:06:29Guest:period there where the microphones which was primarily you it's just me yeah it's all just me it's mount erie the microphones it's all just me yeah occasionally i have collaborators but i think of myself more as uh a descendant of the pacific northwest stuff grunge whatever oh really which is i'm

00:06:50Guest:younger than that i'm younger than nirvana no of course but maybe you grew up with it i grew up with it that was my portal into this stuff really oh for sure yeah where'd you live anacortes washington how far is that from seattle like two hours a little less than two hours northwest north it's anacortes is in the san juan islands uh-huh so yeah almost in canada very beautiful i love that that's my favorite part of the country is the pacific northwest me too the weight of it

00:07:18Marc:Yeah.

00:07:18Marc:Right?

00:07:19Marc:I mean, to me, it seems normal.

00:07:21Marc:But like even your sound, you know, you can hear it in the sound of people that come from there, even Nirvana.

00:07:30Marc:Right.

00:07:31Marc:Yeah.

00:07:34Marc:The gray of the sky, the jagged kind of heaviness of the rock of the coast.

00:07:40Marc:Yeah.

00:07:41Marc:You know, the feeling that you're closer to the top of the world than other places.

00:07:46Marc:To me, it's like there's a poetry to it that's dark but not sad.

00:07:52Marc:Yeah, no, for sure.

00:07:54Marc:So you were a kid seeing Nirvana?

00:07:57Yeah.

00:07:57Guest:Yeah, you know, I was into MC Hammer and stuff, and then Smells Like Teen Spirit came on the radio.

00:08:03Guest:How old are we talking?

00:08:04Guest:Let's see, that was 91.

00:08:05Guest:I was 13.

00:08:07Guest:Yeah.

00:08:07Guest:And I grew up outside of Anacortes, so Anacortes is a small town, but I grew up five miles out into the woods.

00:08:13Guest:In a barn?

00:08:14Guest:Basically.

00:08:16Guest:And my parents were building our house when I was growing up.

00:08:19Guest:Yeah, forever.

00:08:19Guest:It took many years.

00:08:20Guest:And my room was the first that got finished.

00:08:23Guest:So they moved me into it.

00:08:24Guest:And I was living in this construction site.

00:08:26Guest:One of my walls was this tarp flapping in the wind.

00:08:29Marc:Oh.

00:08:29Marc:Oh, my God.

00:08:30Guest:So, it's that kind of off-the-grid rural living.

00:08:33Guest:Well, more Twin Peaks, though.

00:08:35Guest:And also, Twin Peaks was on TV at that time.

00:08:38Guest:And so, I remember watching it when it was on TV, watching an episode, being so spooked.

00:08:45Guest:Right.

00:08:45Guest:Getting to stay up late to watch it.

00:08:47Guest:And then, good night, everyone, walking down the trail to my room in the construction site with the actual owls.

00:08:53Guest:And, you know, it was Twin Peaks.

00:08:55Guest:Who's everyone?

00:08:57Guest:Oh, my parents.

00:08:58Guest:Just the parents?

00:08:59Guest:I have a brother and sister as well.

00:09:00Marc:Yeah?

00:09:01Marc:Yeah.

00:09:02Marc:And so what was the incentive of your family to go to the woods?

00:09:08Guest:Well, let's see.

00:09:09Guest:My parents were born in 1955, which makes them a little too young to be first wave hippies back to the Landers.

00:09:19Guest:So they were sort of...

00:09:20Guest:second wave okay that exists right so no it certainly does it good so they weren't hippies but they were like fuck this yeah pretty much and you know not so radical more just like hey this seems nice to go to a rural area well what'd your dad do oh he's a uh stone mason so he knows how to build things yeah pretty much is the house stone

00:09:43Guest:yeah it has this huge russian stone fireplace in the core of it you know it's very beautiful around yeah oh yeah they're still there oh my god and that's a and what's your mom do she's a massage therapist ah so they're very like body and stone body and earth earth people yeah and they're good people yeah i like them

00:10:06Guest:So, are they Swedish?

00:10:08Guest:No.

00:10:09Guest:My last name's Norwegian.

00:10:11Guest:So, yeah, my dad's side goes back to Norway.

00:10:14Guest:Do you have Norwegian-accented relatives?

00:10:17Marc:No.

00:10:17Marc:It's like five generations or something.

00:10:20Marc:Did you change your... What is your last name?

00:10:22Marc:How do you pronounce it again?

00:10:23Marc:Just Elvrum.

00:10:24Marc:Elvrum.

00:10:24Guest:Elvrum, yeah.

00:10:25Guest:Because I wrote it down wrong.

00:10:26Guest:Well, I did change it recently.

00:10:29Guest:It's E-L-V-R-U-M.

00:10:32Guest:That's what my parents' last name is, but the traditional Norwegian spelling has an extra E in there.

00:10:38Guest:It's a town in Norway.

00:10:40Guest:Elvrum?

00:10:41Guest:Elvrum.

00:10:41Guest:Elvrum?

00:10:42Guest:Probably in Norway they say Elvrum.

00:10:45Guest:Oh, so you put the E after the V.

00:10:47Guest:Elverum, yeah.

00:10:49Guest:I mean, you know, I started putting it in there when I was in Norway, just so I didn't have to have the conversation over and over about, oh, sorry, my name, yeah, I know it looks misspelled.

00:10:59Marc:Right.

00:11:00Guest:Are any of your siblings music people?

00:11:02Guest:Not really.

00:11:03Guest:no no not really my there's music like you know casual amateur music in my family all the time but yeah not in the way that i am right i'm music people so when did you when did the guitar playing start uh well yeah so around when i heard nirvana on the radio and realized oh regular people can make music too not just um famous looking people yeah famous yeah

00:11:29Guest:I don't know if that makes sense.

00:11:30Guest:It really was a breakthrough, yeah.

00:11:32Guest:Kurt Cobain and those guys on the cover of Rolling Stone looked like regular people.

00:11:37Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:11:37Guest:And then from there I discovered the local record store and they had more obscure stuff that I followed the thread back to K Records and more obscure Pacific Northwest stuff that my world opened up.

00:11:52Guest:Like who else?

00:11:53Guest:Beat Happening was very big.

00:11:55Guest:Do you know about K Records at all?

00:11:58Guest:No.

00:11:58Guest:Oh.

00:11:59Guest:Well, yeah, that's definitely my portal into music.

00:12:03Marc:What's K Records?

00:12:04Guest:K... Was that a label?

00:12:06Guest:Yeah, K is... I mean, they still exist, but it was Calvin Johnson from the band Beat Happening.

00:12:13Marc:I know the name Beat Happening.

00:12:15Marc:I've probably heard their songs, but I don't have a record of theirs, and I have a lot of records.

00:12:19Guest:It's difficult to summarize, but Olympia, it was the Olympia thing.

00:12:24Guest:Is this the 90s Beat Happening?

00:12:26Yeah.

00:12:26Guest:Early 80s.

00:12:27Marc:Okay, so they were like the grandfathers of the label scene up there.

00:12:32Guest:Right, yeah.

00:12:32Guest:Okay.

00:12:33Guest:And it was like a particular version of punk.

00:12:36Guest:Right.

00:12:37Guest:The definition of punk that was not... It was not masculine.

00:12:40Guest:It was more inclusive and...

00:12:42Guest:There have been lots of different eras.

00:12:44Guest:So I came along after they had been going for 15 years or something, showed up in Olympia and was led into, Calvin had a great studio called Dub Narcotic Studio.

00:12:53Guest:He gave me a key too.

00:12:54Guest:And that's how I ended up making all those microphones records.

00:12:57Guest:So it was just you in the studio with your nylon string guitar?

00:13:00Guest:With all kinds of stuff, yeah.

00:13:01Guest:Huge amps and drums.

00:13:03Guest:It was an amazing kind of... I think Calvin was going for sort of an Andy Warhol factory type dream.

00:13:10Guest:Just this beautiful room of resources that's available for whoever.

00:13:13Guest:And who were the other artists around?

00:13:16Guest:When I was there, Mira was there.

00:13:18Guest:Modest Mouse had some records on K. Built a Spill.

00:13:22Guest:Built a Spill.

00:13:23Guest:Halo Benders.

00:13:24Guest:Brett Netzen.

00:13:25Guest:Yeah.

00:13:26Yeah.

00:13:26Marc:He's off the grid.

00:13:28Marc:Yeah.

00:13:30Marc:He's up there, you know, fertilizing his plants with poop.

00:13:34Marc:Yeah.

00:13:34Marc:The last I talked to him, that's been a few years.

00:13:36Marc:I imagine that doesn't shift.

00:13:37Marc:That only gets, you go further down that rabbit hole.

00:13:40Marc:You can't go back from that.

00:13:42Guest:He's a good player.

00:13:43Guest:Yeah.

00:13:44Guest:There have been so many eras of that version of the Pacific Northwest thing.

00:13:49Guest:Sub Pop as well, I'm sure you're familiar.

00:13:51Guest:Came out of that?

00:13:52Guest:No, Sub Pop and K sort of came up concurrently.

00:13:54Guest:At the same time, right.

00:13:55Guest:But sort of developed their own distinct, you know, one is a Seattle thing, one's an Olympia thing.

00:13:59Guest:I'm talking about regional differences here.

00:14:02Guest:Sure.

00:14:02Guest:And what do you see, what do you hear sonically the differences are, tone-wise?

00:14:06Guest:Seattle is darker than...

00:14:08Guest:Harder.

00:14:09Guest:Harder, darker, more gritty.

00:14:11Guest:Yeah.

00:14:11Guest:More masculine.

00:14:14Guest:And Olympia was more geared towards feminism and well, the right girl thing.

00:14:21Guest:That's right.

00:14:21Guest:That's all Olympia.

00:14:22Guest:Right.

00:14:23Guest:Yeah.

00:14:24Guest:So you were there for that.

00:14:26Guest:I was there just after Riot Grrrl stuff.

00:14:29Guest:I was there when it was sort of morphing into who knows what else.

00:14:32Guest:And I was just doing my own thing.

00:14:35Guest:I would record my songs at night, and it was very much like a solitary thing.

00:14:40Guest:I was just really into recording and being alone.

00:14:42Guest:Right.

00:14:45Guest:But you're not a drug guy.

00:14:46Marc:I'm not a drug guy, no.

00:14:47Marc:You're just sort of like a very sensitive way to the world guy.

00:14:54Yeah.

00:14:55Guest:Yeah.

00:14:58Guest:You really summed me up.

00:14:59Guest:This interview is over.

00:15:02Guest:Is that true?

00:15:04Guest:No, yeah, that seems right.

00:15:05Guest:I'm a sensitive weight of the world guy.

00:15:08Marc:Well, no, I mean, you hear it very immediately.

00:15:09Marc:I mean, it resonates with me, and I just didn't know the music, and I listened to, like, a microphone's record, and I listened to the new record.

00:15:16Marc:So you layer sounds, but it is all you.

00:15:20Marc:But, I mean, you don't just play straight in, and then that's the end of it.

00:15:25Guest:yeah no it's a recording project or it started that was my way of getting into music i wasn't into writing songs but i was so excited about this multi-track record four track recording just this idea that you could combine sounds so and you weren't into writing songs no i just wanted to record sounds to get these i was i was like wow what if i had a really low bassy rumbly thing and then a high pitch thing

00:15:50Guest:and then uh it's sort of like fred frith or somebody or just like uh layers of like uh it's john cagey yeah like using using the studio as the instrument and i had to start writing songs just to have something to record and then since then did you show up there why did they let you use the studio if you didn't even play things i was making tapes in my hometown what were they uh these noise experiments you know with beats to us

00:16:18Guest:I was just really obsessed with it.

00:16:20Guest:That's why it was called the microphones.

00:16:21Guest:And all my songs used to be about like the preamp, compressor, the technology of it, really.

00:16:28Guest:I was into singing about gear.

00:16:32Guest:Kind of using metaphors about it, but mostly singing about here's how a preamp works.

00:16:37Guest:Careful about feedback.

00:16:39Guest:So there's a humor to it.

00:16:41Guest:No, it wasn't funny.

00:16:42Guest:It was like an emotional teenager.

00:16:44Guest:Oh, really?

00:16:44Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:16:45Guest:It was about how the microphone loves the speaker, but it's this star-crossed love.

00:16:51Guest:Right.

00:16:52Guest:Were you sad?

00:16:53Guest:Not truly sad, you know, in a teenager way.

00:16:57Guest:Yeah.

00:16:57Guest:How old are you now?

00:16:59Guest:38 now.

00:17:00Guest:Oh, wow.

00:17:01Guest:You're a young guy.

00:17:03Guest:38 seems old to me, but yeah.

00:17:04Marc:Yeah.

00:17:05Marc:Thank you.

00:17:05Marc:So, were there the other musicians around?

00:17:10Marc:I know you work with some people.

00:17:11Guest:Yeah, when I moved to Olympia from Anacortes, it was like moving into a world of amazing people doing their things and resources.

00:17:20Guest:Because I heard women singing on one of the records I listened to.

00:17:23Guest:Yeah, I've got friends that sing with me sometimes.

00:17:27Guest:Yeah, I've made some friends over the years.

00:17:30Guest:But when you started doing this and it became popular, I mean, how did you tour with it?

00:17:34Guest:Well, I just still kind of tour in this way where I load up the car.

00:17:40Guest:But when it was mostly sound experiments, what would the microphones do out there?

00:17:46Guest:There were a couple of attempts of playing...

00:17:48Guest:playing it live where i would try and i was look like a one-man band playing a drum and a guitar and an organ and just people were laughing so because that was not the desired effects clowny no that's not what i was going for so i just sort of accepted early on that i can't translate this and i developed i think that's why i started writing songs because it worked better when if i'm going to perform in front of people to be communicating something

00:18:11Marc:Well, what did you want out of it?

00:18:13Marc:If you didn't want to really write songs, what was the evolution from sounds to these... I imagine you're finding a great deal of relief layering sounds.

00:18:23Marc:Yeah.

00:18:23Marc:Like, you know, there's something very satisfying about having something... Because it's a very open...

00:18:31Marc:So like I can see it making sense as you do it and you kind of wrangling these different layers and noises.

00:18:38Marc:There's a real orchestration to it that doesn't play by any rules.

00:18:41Marc:Yeah.

00:18:42Marc:That I imagine has to create once you hit that place where shit seems right.

00:18:49Marc:It's sort of like I could live here.

00:18:50Guest:Yeah.

00:18:51Guest:Totally.

00:18:51Guest:Exactly.

00:18:52Guest:Yeah.

00:18:52Guest:Producing.

00:18:53Guest:Yeah.

00:18:53Guest:And composing.

00:18:54Guest:Yeah.

00:18:55Guest:And the blurriness between producing and composing.

00:18:58Guest:With just sounds.

00:18:59Guest:With sounds and instruments.

00:19:01Guest:Yeah.

00:19:01Guest:Or I'm going to take this piano and put the mic 200 feet away.

00:19:04Guest:And what happens then?

00:19:06Guest:Yeah.

00:19:07Guest:It's exciting.

00:19:08Guest:Yeah.

00:19:08Guest:Of course, that's not the type of record I just made.

00:19:10Guest:I sort of...

00:19:11Guest:I make records like that that are these worlds of sound and sometimes I just write some songs on the guitar and make records like that.

00:19:18Marc:My girlfriend said that when she had a microphones record that you would do the... Like there was some sort of fold-out pop-up thing that you made.

00:19:26Marc:Oh, she had that one?

00:19:27Marc:Yeah, what is that?

00:19:28Marc:And I was like, where's my fold-up pop-up thing?

00:19:30Guest:Yeah, that was...

00:19:31Guest:Yeah, that was my second album on K. It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water is the title.

00:19:35Guest:And I had this idea that, yeah, it would be a gatefold LP that popped up, like a pop-up.

00:19:40Guest:Right.

00:19:41Guest:But my idea about how to die-cut them didn't pan out, so I just had to get a crew of people together and we hand-cut them with X-Acto knives and glued them together.

00:19:49Guest:And it took a month of people constantly in my house.

00:19:54Guest:Yeah.

00:19:54Guest:And so when it came time to repress.

00:19:56Marc:Working on the record, how many press, how big a press?

00:19:57Guest:Just a thousand.

00:19:58Guest:Yeah, it was really labor intensive.

00:20:00Guest:That is labor intense.

00:20:01Guest:So that was.

00:20:02Guest:So I wonder if she still has that.

00:20:04Guest:It sounds like a rarity.

00:20:05Guest:It's a rarity, yeah.

00:20:06Guest:The repress was not a pop-up.

00:20:08Guest:What was it called?

00:20:09Guest:It was cold.

00:20:10Guest:It was hot.

00:20:11Guest:We stayed in the water.

00:20:11Guest:That was from 2000.

00:20:14Marc:And how do you, well, how do you construct songs?

00:20:17Marc:I mean, previous to moving through the feelings of this new record.

00:20:21Marc:I mean, what was your process?

00:20:23Guest:I used to, well, it was very studio based.

00:20:25Guest:I would go in the studio.

00:20:26Guest:I have a studio in my town.

00:20:28Guest:Yeah.

00:20:29Guest:In Anacortes.

00:20:30Guest:And it's just, it's in an old church, like a Catholic church.

00:20:34Guest:That's not a Catholic church anymore.

00:20:36Guest:So it's this big, beautiful room.

00:20:37Guest:And I would just go in there and, uh, explore these kind of raw ideas.

00:20:43Guest:What would it sound like if I put this thumping thing through the subwoofer and hit the gong over here and play this organ?

00:20:50Guest:Um,

00:20:51Guest:And then I would sort of wrestle that idea into a song.

00:20:55Guest:So the words are actually the final element?

00:20:58Guest:More or less, midway through.

00:21:00Guest:And then I was also singing about really kind of big questions, a lot of metaphors, trying to make big statements about life and death in the universe.

00:21:10Marc:Well, what were the big questions for you then?

00:21:13Guest:What does it mean to be alive?

00:21:14Guest:What's the point?

00:21:17Guest:So you have that current of malaise.

00:21:22Guest:Well, no, it's not a sadness or a melancholy.

00:21:24Guest:It's just... It's an honest question.

00:21:26Guest:Yeah, it's an honest question.

00:21:28Guest:Now I ask it every morning.

00:21:29Guest:Yeah, seriously.

00:21:30Guest:I mean, we exist.

00:21:32Guest:Isn't that weird?

00:21:33Guest:That's basically my feeling.

00:21:35Guest:Right, but some people seem to have a good time.

00:21:36Guest:Yeah, I have a good time.

00:21:38Guest:Do you?

00:21:38Guest:Yeah, often.

00:21:39Guest:In fact, the fact that I get to ask these questions and make this music, that seems like I'm doing pretty good.

00:21:47Guest:Do you ever get to a point where you're like, oh, I've got closure on the what's the point thing?

00:21:52Guest:I doubt it.

00:21:53Guest:I mean, what would life be like then?

00:21:55Guest:I don't know.

00:21:56Guest:Relaxing?

00:21:57Guest:Enlightened?

00:21:58Guest:Yeah, maybe enlightened.

00:22:01Guest:Yeah.

00:22:01Marc:Did you grow up with any religion?

00:22:03Marc:No.

00:22:04Marc:So you don't have that hanging over you to maybe jump back to if necessary.

00:22:10Guest:no i don't have any of that i've maybe tried to like read buddhist books just to see if that clicked with me yeah no good some of it did in like a poetic way maybe but not the actual like i'm not gonna meditate to get enlightened i don't think yeah it makes me anxious i get the opposite effect from meditation yeah i don't get the enlightened i get the sort of like oh my god

00:22:36Guest:Well, I honestly don't know if I believe that enlightenment is a real thing.

00:22:39Guest:Yeah.

00:22:40Guest:I mean, it seems a little bit like believing in heaven, which I just don't believe in belief.

00:22:46Guest:Well, right.

00:22:47Marc:It's a trick you play on yourself to get by.

00:22:50Marc:Yeah.

00:22:51Marc:And I imagine people will be critical of that.

00:22:53Marc:I mean, either you can live in the trick or resort to it occasionally.

00:22:57Marc:I think that's the difference between spirituality and religion.

00:23:00Marc:Yeah.

00:23:00Marc:right yeah totally like when do you use it or are you just always in it if you're always in it then uh yeah that that becomes somewhat of a i don't know i've been having a lot of these conversations lately they don't get me any closer to god yeah we can stop no i don't mind so when did you um start working with or meet uh your your wife

00:23:23Guest:I met her in 2003.

00:23:24Guest:Genevieve?

00:23:24Guest:Yeah, Genevieve.

00:23:27Guest:Genevieve.

00:23:28Guest:Yeah, she's French-Canadian.

00:23:30Guest:From what part?

00:23:31Guest:Well, Montreal.

00:23:32Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:23:32Guest:Yeah, she's a Montreal kid.

00:23:33Guest:How'd you meet her?

00:23:34Guest:Her dad was English-Canadian, so he lived in Victoria, which is really close to Anacortes, 30 miles.

00:23:41Guest:Yeah.

00:23:42Guest:She was setting up shows there and met a lot of people that I know through music.

00:23:45Guest:She was a promoter?

00:23:47Guest:No, she's a graphic novelist, cartoonist.

00:23:49Guest:She's got some books on Drawn and Quarterly, the publisher there.

00:23:52Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:54Guest:But she was also a musician.

00:23:56Guest:What's her last name?

00:23:57Guest:castray i mean it's a pen name yeah but yeah shouldn't be of castray and um so yeah i met her through setting up shows there and she offered to set up some shows for me and i said yes let's please set me up as many as you can and we ended up going on this little tour together around the all those islands around vancouver island little towns love it up there yeah it's very beautiful

00:24:19Guest:I want to live up there.

00:24:21Guest:Yeah.

00:24:22Guest:You can.

00:24:22Guest:I can?

00:24:23Guest:Yeah, you're invited.

00:24:24Guest:They'll let me.

00:24:26Marc:So you felt instantly drawn.

00:24:30Guest:Yeah.

00:24:30Guest:I mean, even before I met her, people that knew both of us were saying, oh, Phil, wait till you meet this person.

00:24:35Guest:It's going to be crazy.

00:24:37Guest:I think people just knew we were well suited for each other.

00:24:42Marc:How did it go?

00:24:43Marc:Did you work together?

00:24:44Marc:How did it start?

00:24:47Marc:She moved down to Anacortes?

00:24:49Guest:What happened?

00:24:50Guest:Yeah, pretty much.

00:24:52Guest:We went 100% all the way.

00:24:54Guest:We were like, let's have kids.

00:24:56Guest:You're my person forever.

00:24:58Guest:It was like, yeah, certainty.

00:24:59Guest:2003?

00:25:01Guest:2003.

00:25:02Guest:A lot of people we knew were freaked out.

00:25:05Guest:They were, Phil, who's this person?

00:25:07Guest:Are you sure you're going to get married?

00:25:08Guest:This is so fast.

00:25:09Guest:How long were you married?

00:25:10Guest:13 years.

00:25:12Guest:We got married pretty much right away.

00:25:14Guest:Yeah.

00:25:15Guest:On leap day in 2004.

00:25:16Guest:Well, partially because she was Canadian, so she could live with me.

00:25:22Guest:Oh, it's so funny because now I want to go the other direction.

00:25:26Guest:Go to Canada.

00:25:27Guest:Yeah.

00:25:28Guest:Yeah, I mean, that was our plan, just to leave the, you know, 2003.

00:25:32Guest:It was also a terrifying time.

00:25:35Guest:That's true, yeah.

00:25:35Guest:Politically, and same war is happening.

00:25:39Guest:But we just couldn't figure out where in Canada to move.

00:25:43Guest:And after a long time sitting there trying to figure it out, we realized, oh, well, I guess we live here.

00:25:48Guest:Oops.

00:25:48Guest:So did you guys create music together?

00:25:51Guest:Not so much.

00:25:52Guest:We were both pretty stubborn, solitary.

00:25:56Guest:leave me alone type people.

00:26:00Guest:And that somehow worked together.

00:26:02Marc:The one thing that struck me when I put that record on, because I don't even know if in the note you said what happened.

00:26:09Marc:I think in the note you just said that your kid is wanting to talk from hearing me talk in your kitchen.

00:26:17Marc:Yeah.

00:26:18Marc:What's your kid's name again?

00:26:19Marc:Agat.

00:26:20Marc:Agat.

00:26:21Marc:And I thought that was very sweet.

00:26:23Marc:And then...

00:26:25Marc:And then I put the record on and it was just like, I think the first song, within the first two lines, you say death is real.

00:26:38Marc:Or is that the first?

00:26:39Guest:That's the first line, yeah.

00:26:41Marc:death is real yeah and i was like oh my god what's happening yeah and then like um but then like it didn't like once i realized as each song went through and they were very descriptive i think more descriptive in a way that was related to real life than the other record i listened to it was not fragmented in any way there was a narrative

00:27:04Guest:Right.

00:27:05Guest:Well, yeah, there was a shift.

00:27:09Guest:When I was talking about how I used to tackle these big questions and use metaphors.

00:27:12Guest:Yeah.

00:27:13Guest:This new record, all of that was like, why was I thinking before?

00:27:16Guest:How cocky of me to try and talk about mortality.

00:27:22Guest:Yeah.

00:27:22Guest:What did I know?

00:27:24Marc:Well, it's speculative.

00:27:26Marc:You may not feel like you knew anything, but it's something none of us know about in terms of experiencing it firsthand, right?

00:27:38Marc:But it's something we're heavily aware of, and we're managing a certain lack of acceptance or terror moving towards some sort of acceptance of it as we get older, and you just got delivered a very premature blow.

00:27:52Guest:Yeah.

00:27:53Marc:Well, how old is your daughter?

00:27:57Marc:She's two, just over two.

00:27:59Marc:So when did... So you had this child and your wife wasn't ill?

00:28:07Guest:No, she went in just for a regular checkup, like a postpartum four months thing and had a little abdominal pain to the regular doctor.

00:28:16Guest:And it was like...

00:28:18Guest:You know, oh, there's a suspicious looking little thing here.

00:28:21Guest:We're going to do this other test for you.

00:28:23Guest:And then that test led to more suspicion.

00:28:26Guest:And just within the space of a few days and a few scans, like everything crumbled.

00:28:33Guest:It was insane.

00:28:35Marc:So there was a diagnosis within days?

00:28:38Guest:Yeah.

00:28:39Guest:Well, yeah.

00:28:40Guest:Our local doctor saw the scans and we're like, it's inconclusive.

00:28:46Guest:We don't know.

00:28:47Guest:And Genevieve was like, could it be cancer?

00:28:49Guest:Is it cancer?

00:28:50Guest:And the doctor said, oh, likely.

00:28:54Guest:I'm so sorry.

00:28:55Guest:Do you want to talk to the chaplain?

00:28:56Guest:I have to go.

00:28:57Guest:Somebody's giving birth.

00:28:59Guest:It was just a very bad social.

00:29:01Guest:Some doctors are not good at that.

00:29:03Guest:Yeah.

00:29:03Guest:This one wasn't.

00:29:05Uh-huh.

00:29:05Guest:And so we hung on that word likely for 10 days until our next appointment where we were going to Seattle to get the actual biopsy.

00:29:13Guest:And we're like, what did she mean?

00:29:15Guest:Likely.

00:29:16Guest:And what?

00:29:16Guest:The chaplain?

00:29:17Guest:Yeah.

00:29:17Guest:That was, what are, is she going to die?

00:29:21Guest:Yeah.

00:29:22Guest:And just like, and we hadn't tried to put it out of our head.

00:29:24Guest:So in that 10 days, that was a very weird 10 days.

00:29:29Guest:But then, yeah, she went to Seattle and it was confirmed.

00:29:33Guest:We still didn't really... We had this baby.

00:29:36Guest:We brought the baby to the appointment to get the bad news.

00:29:42Guest:And that doctor in Seattle had to...

00:29:46Guest:How was he?

00:29:47Guest:He was good.

00:29:48Guest:I could tell he was just horrified at his job that day.

00:29:51Guest:Was he an oncologist?

00:29:53Guest:He was a, yeah, a surgical oncologist.

00:29:58Guest:So we were going to him to confirm that this tumor was not surgically removable, non-resectable.

00:30:07Guest:It had grown around, it was pancreatic cancer, so it had grown around her...

00:30:11Guest:vessels uh-huh i'm yeah i used to know so much about this stuff but i'm actively trying to block it out sure my mind but yeah i remember these days very vividly and i remember specifically having this crying baby in my arms in the doctor's office as he's like i know that having the baby there was making

00:30:32Guest:the rawness of his job that much harder yeah yeah yeah so I kind of feel sorry for him now we could have gotten a babysitter that day but we just were our mind frame was like idealistic right it can't be that bad they're gonna tell us good news today thinking positive sure trying to live your life

00:30:50Guest:Trying to live our life.

00:30:50Guest:We were new parents and we were just on this other path.

00:30:54Marc:And so then you get this confirmation and the reality shifts and the process of acceptance must be horrendous.

00:31:04Guest:Yeah.

00:31:05Marc:Because you don't want to.

00:31:07Guest:No, we didn't want to.

00:31:08Guest:We just drove home in this kind of haze with a screaming baby.

00:31:13Guest:What was the prognosis?

00:31:17Guest:Well, the way they talk about it is...

00:31:20Guest:positive thinking and optimistic but we also were like looking at the statistics on the internet which is not great not good to do maybe psychologically right of course but couldn't help yourself

00:31:35Guest:Couldn't help ourselves.

00:31:36Guest:And my mind has this thing I can't turn off where I just have to like prepare, get ready for what's likely to happen.

00:31:44Guest:Try to have some control.

00:31:45Guest:Yeah.

00:31:46Guest:Yeah.

00:31:46Guest:So through all of this, I've been trying to act positively and think positively while at the same time in the back of my mind preparing for the worst case scenario.

00:31:56Marc:Was there any possibility of treatment?

00:31:59Marc:I mean, did you go through that sort of like, we got to change the diet, we got to...

00:32:04Guest:Yeah, for sure.

00:32:05Guest:She started chemo right away.

00:32:07Guest:And we, there were some experimental surgical techniques that we ruled out first, like different.

00:32:17Guest:Yeah, we very quickly went into the world of cancer, both alternative cancer stuff and mainstream cancer stuff and up and coming like immunotherapy.

00:32:25Guest:Uh-huh.

00:32:25Guest:different like laser surgeries at this place in cleveland oh but it costs a hundred thousand dollars what blah blah blah yeah just immediately into that world and and was there a time frame for they know they never at no point did anyone tell us you have this amount of time to live

00:32:43Guest:Because that's a fast cancer.

00:32:46Guest:It is.

00:32:47Guest:And she lasted longer than she was supposed to, I think.

00:32:52Guest:I mean, even though they never told us.

00:32:53Marc:Well, from the point of diagnosis to her passing, how long was that?

00:32:58Guest:14 months, I think.

00:33:00Marc:Oh, my God.

00:33:01Marc:So you did have some time.

00:33:03Guest:Yeah, it wasn't a good time.

00:33:04Guest:I mean, it kind of doesn't count because she got absorbed.

00:33:08Guest:She transformed into a different person.

00:33:11Marc:i shouldn't say it doesn't count that's too heavy but yeah like what kind of person just fueled by the the a kind of aggravated optimism and need to yeah yeah i mean

00:33:30Guest:When I knew her, when I met her and when we lived together for all those years, she was like kind of a confrontational, skeptical, hardcore punk type.

00:33:44Guest:Yeah.

00:33:44Guest:And... And you liked that.

00:33:46Guest:Comfortable with pessimism and negativity.

00:33:49Guest:In fact, most of her music and art that she made was about like...

00:33:54Guest:embracing the darkness right okay process this stuff get into it chew it up don't get lost in like rainbowy yeah positivity but then she got that's not quite like you though like you're a little more i'm into the darkness too but you seem to uh like um

00:34:11Marc:I have a bright demeanor today.

00:34:12Marc:Oh, you do?

00:34:13Marc:Yeah, I think so.

00:34:14Guest:Oh, good, good.

00:34:15Marc:Los Angeles.

00:34:15Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:17Guest:Okay, and then she turned into... Yeah, part of what happened to her through the desperation of, like, trying to be alive... Yeah.

00:34:25Guest:...was she embraced a lot of stuff that, to me, didn't seem like her.

00:34:30Guest:Right.

00:34:32Guest:Well, there's, I guess, but you'll forgive her that.

00:34:37Guest:Oh, for sure.

00:34:38Guest:Like what?

00:34:38Guest:Like, for instance...

00:34:40Guest:everything she did everything she tried everything she got into unicorns and angels and uh tarot and um all kinds of extreme diets and she just tried everything um and i i i need to be careful talking about that stuff because yeah i don't blame her at all who knows how i would react and transform it just was disorienting to live with well i think you're just trying everything

00:35:07Guest:Yeah.

00:35:08Marc:I think like when it would seem to me that when one becomes, you know, terminal that, you know, it's a, it's a type of, it's very hard to, to, to be giving in any way I would imagine because, you know, I mean the struggle to, to, to find a way to survive versus, you know, being there for other people, it's gotta be tricky.

00:35:35Yeah.

00:35:35Guest:yeah it was okay for her to be absorbed into it yeah it was sort of like the stated roles that we i i held down the house i took care of the kid yeah i did the shopping and yeah she was like in her studio drawing sometimes but mostly just listening to like meditations on youtube and getting tarot readings over the internet from people and

00:36:01Guest:just doing all that stuff how would the tarot readings oh i don't know remedy i don't know i mean i i sort of turned the other way honestly i was supportive but i was taking care of this kid i was buying groceries and like calling the insurance company yeah living in the hard realities of right oh right right and so yeah i was disengaged from that stuff

00:36:26Guest:yeah you just allowed her to space out of necessity for for sure for her but also for you to do all the other stuff it and it really helped her i think i think that a lot of that did prolong her life but at the same time it wasn't her and she was absorbed in it staying up late just lost in that world

00:36:46Marc:But yeah, but I guess I imagine if you were just hanging around panicking too and doing the same thing, it wouldn't have been good.

00:36:53Marc:It was probably the distance in that way of practicality was probably helpful.

00:36:58Guest:I suppose so.

00:36:59Marc:Because what are you going to say?

00:36:59Marc:Like, stop doing that?

00:37:00Marc:Or like, wait, I found another tarot reader.

00:37:03Guest:It was more, the reason why it's even an issue is that it was more that she wasn't available to have any sweet three-person family time.

00:37:12Guest:Right.

00:37:13Guest:She was inaccessible to our daughter.

00:37:16Guest:That was hard and sad.

00:37:20Guest:But understandable?

00:37:21Guest:But understandable.

00:37:22Guest:Yeah.

00:37:22Guest:So I complained about this stuff and forgive her for it.

00:37:27Guest:Maybe I shouldn't even talk about it.

00:37:28Marc:Well, what happened when she became physically ill?

00:37:34Marc:I mean, did it change?

00:37:37Guest:Yeah.

00:37:37Marc:What was that process?

00:37:38Yeah.

00:37:38Guest:Yeah.

00:37:39Guest:She, her body transformed.

00:37:41Guest:So pancreatic cancer is a digestive cancer.

00:37:43Guest:So she couldn't digest food.

00:37:46Guest:So her body was, she was kind of starving and she got very skinny and, um, and then she was doing chemo as well.

00:37:54Guest:So that contributed and she had no hair and then she got jaundiced.

00:37:58Guest:I mean, it was the whole, the whole thing.

00:38:00Guest:Which is very bad.

00:38:01Guest:Did she find any solace in the child?

00:38:04Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:38:05Guest:Tons.

00:38:06Guest:Yeah.

00:38:07Guest:I mean, she was keeping her alive in a lot of ways.

00:38:10Guest:And then Shenvia was working on a book for our daughter that Drawn and Quarterly is going to put out.

00:38:17Guest:She's working on a board book, a kid's book, although it's very heavy because it's unfinished.

00:38:23Guest:It's mostly finished, but she didn't finish it.

00:38:26Guest:There's a book about a mom who's trapped in this bubble.

00:38:30Guest:and this kid that wants to play with the mom the mom's sorry i'm in this bubble oh my god yeah it's very heavy did she write it all when she was ill yeah it's illustrations so it's you know because she's a cartoonist so they're like little paintings there's 16 pages very beautiful and then the end of the book is the bubble pops and the mom walks away and can breathe freely she's no longer hooked up to the oxygen tube and

00:38:55Guest:you know she was drawing this with the oxygen tube hunched over her death just trying to like get the last pages done and she didn't finish it she didn't finish it and we're gonna publish it in that way so you know a fucked up kid's book i don't know what parent is gonna read this to their kid but it's it you know it needs to come out yeah so were you the primary caregiver yeah

00:39:22Guest:yeah and then we had a big crew of people friends and family that were helping a lot too and she passed away at home yeah yep they we brought a hospital bed in and hospice and everything she she tried chemo a bunch of different times she even we went to hawaii a year ago god it seems like so long ago but it's a year ago from like now and

00:39:46Guest:to do this um naturopathic retreat which turned out to be a big scam but anyways oh that must have been a horrible revelation it was horrible but at that point it was like just money whatever yeah we have bigger issues right and

00:40:05Guest:and like so how long has she been gone july 9th she died so less than a year yeah less than a year yeah so short i i dove right into this like making this record and going back out into the world quickly i don't know why i did that i well i kind of do i was living in this uh

00:40:29Marc:under these restraints of like being a parent being a caregiver well you know when i listen to it like that's sort of like the the kind of interesting and and and daunting thing about it and i you know not not that it's a

00:40:48Marc:reasonable comparison but after my after my second wife left me you know I I was working through it as it was happening publicly because that's how I work through things and

00:41:08Marc:I don't know if it was a good decision or appropriate necessarily, but it was what I had to do.

00:41:14Marc:And like when I listened to the record, which, you know, really starts, it seems like you started writing that stuff fairly quickly after she passed away.

00:41:23Guest:Yeah.

00:41:25Marc:Because it was all those questions that you seem to have had.

00:41:31Marc:Many seem to have been answered in a very...

00:41:36Marc:sad way yeah and very real like the you know death is real that that you know that is not a surprising thing and intellectually we all know that but the tone of of that first song is that it's real and um

00:41:55Marc:And there was no way I could prepare for it, and I didn't expect it to happen now.

00:42:02Guest:Yeah.

00:42:03Marc:But I've been living with it coming for a year.

00:42:10Guest:Well, and also that the version of death that is real in real life, like an actual person dying, is a completely different thing than the death that gets sung about in art, like reflected in art and music and...

00:42:25Guest:talking about it in literature the actual experience of the thing is kind of unsayable right and you said it all well i attempted to but i don't know if i still think it's unsayable it's i still feel like my record isn't the same thing as feeling it of course no of course but like but the immediacy of it and the details in the poetry are are very uh they're sparse but very pointed yeah and and i think that does have

00:42:53Marc:You know, like, I can't feel what you felt.

00:42:57Marc:But you can feel what you felt and you have your feelings.

00:42:59Marc:And I understand, yeah, you know, it's not... It's never going to be the same or you're not going to know in your heart really from the physical vessel what that feels like.

00:43:10Marc:But you can certainly feel like you reckoning with it.

00:43:13Guest:Yeah.

00:43:14Marc:And I guess what I was going to say is that, you know, given the time frame and given, you know, the need to...

00:43:22Marc:To get out and be part of the world and to put these songs together as part of your grieving process.

00:43:30Marc:I don't know that you're... I don't know that you're done.

00:43:34Marc:No, of course not.

00:43:35Marc:I don't think there is a done.

00:43:36Marc:No, but I mean like... I think like, you know... Like that was the feeling I got that you're like, I've got to... I have these feelings and I've got to put them... I've got to get some control over them.

00:43:49Marc:Yeah.

00:43:50Marc:And these are the songs.

00:43:51Yeah.

00:43:52Guest:yeah but i mean how is your life i mean do you are there moments where you're like oh my god she's you know she's gone yeah yeah of course there are those moments still they are becoming more spaced out you know that those harsh realization moments it's not even harsh always it's more just weird surreal like yeah i can't believe this is actually real it's not a conceptual thing did you break down

00:44:18Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:44:19Guest:Lots.

00:44:19Guest:All the time.

00:44:21Guest:All over the house.

00:44:22Guest:And, you know, my daughter just is like, Papa's crying.

00:44:26Guest:And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm crying.

00:44:27Guest:It's okay.

00:44:28Guest:She's just used to it.

00:44:29Guest:It's been a while.

00:44:30Guest:How did she handle it?

00:44:32Guest:She's young enough that I think she's kind of oblivious to the existential aspects.

00:44:38Guest:But she knows she's gone?

00:44:39Guest:Does she remember?

00:44:40Guest:Yeah.

00:44:40Guest:I don't know.

00:44:41Guest:She hasn't quite put it together yet.

00:44:45Guest:She knows who Mama is.

00:44:46Guest:Oh, she was a year old when she died?

00:44:48Guest:She was a year and a half.

00:44:50Guest:But also just there are pictures of her around the house.

00:44:52Guest:She's this presence and people talk about her.

00:44:55Guest:So she's a person that my daughter knows, but it's just a person she never sees.

00:45:04Guest:Like a friend that went on a long trip.

00:45:05Marc:It's interesting because she's probably not going to have anything to hold on to.

00:45:09Guest:No, it seems unlikely.

00:45:11Guest:Yeah.

00:45:11Guest:Like actual memories.

00:45:12Guest:Right.

00:45:13Guest:People often don't have them.

00:45:14Guest:Although this kid is an incredible rememberer, so who knows?

00:45:17Guest:Yeah.

00:45:19Guest:Yeah.

00:45:20Guest:What's your plan, man?

00:45:26Guest:I don't have a big plan.

00:45:27Guest:I mean, in terms of music and stuff, I wasn't planning on making more music.

00:45:33Guest:I wasn't planning on making this album.

00:45:35Guest:If anything, I thought music was like irrelevant to my life.

00:45:40Guest:I would just get some job and it seemed like self-indulgent to be focused on creativity in the way that I had been in the past.

00:45:50Marc:But on another level, you know, sadly, it's a pretty, like, it's a beautiful record.

00:45:59Marc:And it's a brilliant record.

00:46:01Marc:And it's an honest record.

00:46:03Marc:And somehow or another, it connected you to something very non-intellectual.

00:46:14Marc:That's what I was going for.

00:46:16Guest:Yeah.

00:46:17Marc:Well, I mean, you know, and also like to handle that, to manage that, you know, on the record and have it not be like as a listener, you know, I felt part of your process, but I didn't feel leveled or sad for you.

00:46:33Marc:You know, like, you know, I felt like I was being carried through the experience of something that's very human and very tragic.

00:46:42Marc:But, but

00:46:44Marc:part of life yeah sure you know your process how anyone deals with grief and the actual you know loss of somebody you know and um and that's a that's not an easy thing to do it's probably the best writing you've ever done i feel that way thank you thanks for all those compliments yeah i mean i am proud of it i'm terribly sorry for your loss it's a devastating thing

00:47:07Guest:Yeah, it is.

00:47:09Guest:I didn't think through any of this.

00:47:10Guest:I didn't conceptualize it.

00:47:11Guest:I just came out of me this way.

00:47:13Guest:Yeah, I feel that.

00:47:14Guest:It was sort of like dipping into a stream that was already flowing.

00:47:18Marc:But your impulse was to deal with it creatively because that's what you are.

00:47:24Guest:That's true.

00:47:25Guest:Once it started coming out, it was feeling so good to work on it, to work on these songs.

00:47:29Guest:I would run up to that room whenever I had a chance and get back to work on it.

00:47:35Guest:It was just feeling so therapeutic.

00:47:37Marc:Yeah, because you literally sort of answer these questions.

00:47:42Marc:If those stages of grief are real...

00:47:50Marc:Which they are.

00:47:51Marc:It feels like they're all in there.

00:47:57Marc:I don't know.

00:47:58Marc:In a jumbled up order, yeah.

00:48:00Marc:Well, but kind of.

00:48:01Marc:I think that there's a lot of things that are going to keep coming back.

00:48:06Marc:But I imagine that.

00:48:08Marc:You know, denial is done.

00:48:11Marc:Uh-huh.

00:48:13Marc:You know, acceptance may be rocky, but it's there.

00:48:17Marc:Uh-huh.

00:48:18Marc:Right?

00:48:19Marc:But, you know, depression and anger, those are probably going to come at you.

00:48:24Guest:Yeah, that's true.

00:48:24Guest:For a few more years.

00:48:25Guest:I might make an angry record next.

00:48:27Guest:That sounds good.

00:48:31Guest:It does.

00:48:31Guest:It does sound like creatively fun.

00:48:34Yeah.

00:48:34Guest:Well, you didn't experience that?

00:48:36Guest:Oh, sure.

00:48:37Guest:Yeah.

00:48:37Guest:I think, I mean, we had a year of pre-grieving before she died.

00:48:43Marc:That's the thing about prolonged illness, huh?

00:48:45Guest:Yeah.

00:48:46Guest:And I have friends who have lost their partner abruptly, car accident or...

00:48:52Guest:And they don't have the advantage.

00:48:54Guest:Advantage is a weird word to use, but it's true that I felt like I'm further down the path.

00:49:00Guest:Right.

00:49:01Guest:And then somebody that lost that part.

00:49:03Marc:Well, that's the interesting thing about, and this was not as long as long-term illness can be.

00:49:08Marc:No.

00:49:09Marc:And she was, you know, had her mental faculties.

00:49:13Marc:Yeah.

00:49:14Marc:So you were afforded that opportunity to have those conversations.

00:49:19Yeah.

00:49:19Guest:Yeah, although she wouldn't acknowledge mortality.

00:49:23Guest:She didn't want anyone to talk to her about the possibility that she might die.

00:49:27Guest:She fought all the way till the end?

00:49:29Guest:Yeah, till her last breath.

00:49:32Guest:That's who she was, a fighter.

00:49:35Guest:So she didn't change.

00:49:37Yeah.

00:49:37Guest:Yeah, that's true.

00:49:38Guest:I mean, and that's my proof for that.

00:49:41Guest:All this stuff that she kind of, this new outfit she put on of rainbows and unicorns wasn't really her.

00:49:47Guest:It was just desperation.

00:49:50Guest:Yeah.

00:49:51Guest:But yeah, she didn't change.

00:49:52Marc:That's a whole other song.

00:49:53Guest:Yeah, you're right.

00:49:56Guest:Wow.

00:49:58Guest:She did an amazing job of having cancer and dying.

00:50:02Guest:Yeah.

00:50:04Guest:That's a weird sentence, but she did incredible at it.

00:50:08Guest:She did really good at doing chemo.

00:50:10Guest:She was best friends with all the nurses.

00:50:13Guest:She was just so... She knocked it out of the park.

00:50:16Guest:Grace.

00:50:17Guest:Yeah.

00:50:17Guest:She died really well, even though...

00:50:20Marc:i'd rather she didn't yeah i hear you do you want to do a song okay which one do you play which one do you like to play i was gonna see i have these new songs but uh i didn't know if you wanted whatever you're happy with you know if there's a song from the record that you know you find to be uh something that you like to play uh

00:50:44Guest:I might play, yeah, maybe I'll play this song called Forest Fire.

00:50:48Guest:It's a good, it's relevant to the stuff we talked about.

00:50:50Guest:Okay.

00:50:59Guest:Sounds good.

00:50:59Guest:Okay.

00:51:01Guest:I'm going to close my eyes while I sing.

00:51:03Marc:Okay, and I'll just watch the levels.

00:51:05Guest:Okay.

00:51:06Guest:Yeah, don't watch me.

00:51:12Okay.

00:51:15Guest:The year moves on without you in it

00:51:21Guest:Now it is fall without you I had to close the windows and doors without you coming through I kept them open for as long as I could But the baby got cold I watched the calendar bulldoze

00:51:52Guest:This whole past summer was a lingering heat wave And I remember late August, our open bedroom window Going through your things with the fan blowing And the sound of helicopters and the smell of smoke

00:52:16Guest:from the forest fire that was growing billowing just on the edge of town where we used to swim they say a natural cleansing devastation burning the understory erasing trails there is no end but when i'm kneeling in the heat throwing out your underwear the devastation is not natural or good

00:52:41Guest:You do belong here I reject nature I disagree And in the hazy light of forest fire smoke I looked across at the refineries And thought that the world was actually constantly ending And the smell and roar of the asphalt truck that was idling Just out the window tearing up our street I missed you

00:53:10Guest:Of course And I remember thinking that the last time it rained here you were alive still And that this same long heat that I was in once contained you And in this same heat I opened the window next to you On your last morning

00:53:33Guest:So you can breathe and then so you could ghost away And now so the room will hopefully Stop whispering

00:53:53Guest:The grind of time I'm not keeping up with The leaf on the ground pokes at my slumbering Grief walking around, severed lumbering

00:54:12Guest:But slowly Sovereignty Reasserts itself I don't want it though And betrayal winds Who and how could I Live

00:54:44Marc:That's great.

00:54:46Marc:Thank you.

00:54:49Marc:You feel all right?

00:54:50Guest:Yeah.

00:54:51Marc:Thank you for coming.

00:54:52Marc:Thanks for having me.

00:54:53Marc:It was great meeting you.

00:54:54Guest:Yeah, likewise.

00:55:04Marc:That was beautiful.

00:55:06Marc:It's a beautiful album, and I don't...

00:55:10Marc:I'm sorry he had to go through what he went through, but processing it and elevating it through the music helps everybody.

00:55:20Marc:I really believe that's true.

00:55:22Marc:So this guy, Mark Mulcahy, he's got a record out.

00:55:26Marc:It's called The Possum in the Driveway.

00:55:28Marc:You can get it wherever you get music.

00:55:31Marc:He was formerly and sometimes currently in the band Miracle Legion.

00:55:36Marc:He's got a hell of a beard right now.

00:55:39Marc:And he left his hat here, but I was able to get it back to him.

00:55:42Marc:He'll also be performing the album, The Possum in the driveway, in its entirety on three shows in the Northeast at the end of this month.

00:55:50Marc:The Parlor Room in Northampton, Massachusetts on June 21st.

00:55:54Marc:Lyric Hall Theater in New Haven, Connecticut on June 22nd.

00:55:57Marc:I think I played there.

00:55:59Marc:And Joe's Pub in New York City on June 27th.

00:56:02Marc:I played there.

00:56:04Marc:Nice rooms, good venues where Mark Mulcahy will be performing the entire The Possum in the driveway album.

00:56:12Marc:I was happy to talk to him and it was fun to hear him sing and play guitar.

00:56:17Marc:So this is me and Mark Mulcahy.

00:56:25Marc:I don't know where I got it, but somebody sent me Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I love you.

00:56:31Marc:Out of nowhere.

00:56:32Marc:And I listened to it, and I was like, Jesus Christ, this is great.

00:56:38Marc:Found it very moving somehow.

00:56:40Marc:Very honest.

00:56:41Marc:Some earnest music.

00:56:43Guest:Yeah.

00:56:45Guest:Thanks, yeah, I think so.

00:56:47Marc:You think so?

00:56:47Marc:And I was like, what the hell?

00:56:48Guest:I tried it that way.

00:56:49Guest:It was like one day of recording for each song.

00:56:52Guest:I just hit it, man.

00:56:53Guest:Just nail this song today without any waiting until later on and bringing the other guy later on.

00:56:58Marc:Oh, really?

00:56:59Guest:And it was a real positive, you know, like...

00:57:01Guest:After I did it, I didn't think of it because I'm not that smart.

00:57:05Guest:But after I did it, I thought, okay, we're always moving forward.

00:57:08Guest:We're never going back to fix the thing.

00:57:10Guest:It's never backward.

00:57:11Marc:Oh, so it did have some.

00:57:13Marc:So it was there.

00:57:13Guest:It's a different positive.

00:57:15Guest:Usually you're laying everything out and doing all this, and then the other guy's going to come in Tuesday, and you have a list of things you want to do.

00:57:20Guest:Everything was done?

00:57:21Guest:That was great.

00:57:22Guest:I always wished I could make a record that way.

00:57:23Guest:It still took a year.

00:57:24Guest:It was like 12 days.

00:57:26Marc:The days were spread out.

00:57:28Marc:One day a month.

00:57:29Guest:But it was real forward moving, you know?

00:57:31Guest:And I really, I haven't done it since, but I would like to.

00:57:34Marc:Well, that's odd that I registered, because that's what registered to me, is that I didn't, I kind of knew Miracle Legion, and you seem like a wholly formed guy.

00:57:44Marc:I didn't do any research.

00:57:45Marc:I get a lot of records.

00:57:47Marc:So I put it on, and then I was like, who the fuck is this guy?

00:57:50Marc:And I think I tweeted it, and I think we talked on Twitter a bit.

00:57:53Marc:But it just felt very immediate.

00:57:56Marc:It felt emotional.

00:57:58Marc:It felt like it was happening.

00:57:59Marc:So I'm glad that my ears read well, that you did that.

00:58:03Marc:So you mean you did it all live to tape, or just the session was all in one day?

00:58:07Guest:The session was in, yeah.

00:58:08Guest:No, there was lots of overdubs, but we'd keep going.

00:58:11Guest:And then the guy that I was working with, Henness Cat Henning, he would say, sounds pretty good, man.

00:58:17Guest:It was pretty good.

00:58:18Guest:It wasn't really a lot of fussy fussiness.

00:58:22Marc:So there wasn't, and that was an intentional method to stop you from over analyzing?

00:58:32Guest:Well, the thing was, the record that I'm, you know, humping now is the record I had all kind of made before I made the record you're talking about, Mark J. Mulcahy.

00:58:40Guest:And so I had that record all done, but it was kind of older, and I thought, you know, I kind of haven't made a record in a long time, and I'd rather make an immediate record.

00:58:48Guest:Right.

00:58:48Guest:When I wrote, like I'd write the song the week before.

00:58:51Guest:And it all just felt, I wanted to feel like I was coming from the new, you know, the Phoenix me, you know.

00:58:57Guest:Sure.

00:58:57Guest:Up and rising out, so...

00:58:59Guest:It was just like new material.

00:59:01Guest:I still love the other record, which that's why I put it out, but it just was better to do something new.

00:59:05Marc:How many times have you phoenixed?

00:59:08Guest:Man, because I've been playing with Miracle Legion, and the other night was our quote, watch my air quotes, our last gig ever, but we played our last gig ever 10 times.

00:59:17Guest:Yeah, the governor of rock and roll is whatever stupid metaphor that was.

00:59:24Marc:But that one, the one that I latched on to, Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I love you.

00:59:32Marc:How was that the Phoenix?

00:59:33Marc:How did you feel like that?

00:59:35Marc:How is it different life-wise?

00:59:40Guest:Well, I hadn't... So what happened was... I mean, I think a lot of people know, but my wife died, and we had two kids, so I stopped doing anything for...

00:59:53Guest:probably four years.

00:59:54Guest:Didn't play, didn't record, didn't make a record, didn't do anything.

00:59:57Guest:I'm sorry to hear that.

00:59:58Guest:Yeah, I know.

01:00:00Guest:What happened?

01:00:01Guest:She just dropped dead.

01:00:03Guest:No warning, no nothing.

01:00:06Guest:It was pretty shocking.

01:00:08Guest:So that was just a... That was a place where...

01:00:15Guest:you know i had an obviously a totally different thing to do but still had the brain that i always had which was just keep duh you know yeah make music right and so it was kind of a a real crushing of my normal self to do a thing that i you know i was happy to do because i wanted to and all but but uh and finally i thought okay i'm gonna i gotta get you know i gotta get back to my brain you know he wants me to do this other thing

01:00:41Guest:yeah and so that's the phoenix part is that i just really wasn't i wasn't really clear like what was going to happen to me you know yeah but i've made records i've always made records even though i really didn't have any chance at success you know i still would make it and hope and yeah i never made one thinking this is the one that's gonna do something for me you know

01:00:59Guest:So I would have made it anyway.

01:01:02Guest:It's stupidness.

01:01:04Marc:Well, I guess I think there was sort of like, I think that Phoenix idea or just moving through grief and using that to process, using music to process it.

01:01:17Marc:I mean, it works, right?

01:01:21Yeah.

01:01:21Guest:You know, a long time ago, this is boring, but I was playing baseball.

01:01:26Guest:These guys, let's say baseball.

01:01:27Guest:And I played baseball when I was a kid.

01:01:28Guest:And I'm like, okay, let's play baseball.

01:01:29Guest:And the guy hit a ball and I just started running like a mental case.

01:01:33Guest:Like I was 10 years old.

01:01:34Guest:Like it's still in your head.

01:01:35Guest:You still want to do the thing that you did a lot.

01:01:38Guest:Yeah.

01:01:39Guest:So this was even bigger for me.

01:01:41Guest:And so, yeah, it's a...

01:01:44Guest:Something about just giving your brain the chance to do what it wants to do instead of trying to make it do something all the time that you want to do or it doesn't want to do.

01:01:53Guest:That's exhausting.

01:01:53Guest:Your mind or whatever one of those things.

01:01:55Guest:But doing the thing you want to do, then your brain says...

01:01:59Guest:Or your mind.

01:01:59Guest:I don't know which one, but one of the other.

01:02:01Marc:What about your heart?

01:02:01Marc:Does that play in?

01:02:05Guest:You know, I put a lot into it.

01:02:09Guest:For me, the best part of music, I love to sing, but I love writing lyrics.

01:02:16Guest:And I put a lot of myself into the lyrics.

01:02:19Guest:Even if they're stupid, I still want it to be good stupid or good silly or good whatever.

01:02:24Guest:So I put a lot of it into there.

01:02:27Guest:And so that's where my...

01:02:28Guest:And then when you're done, you go, yeah, that all adds up in a good way.

01:02:33Marc:Or no, that was... Do you write when you write?

01:02:35Marc:Is it just sort of like bits and pieces?

01:02:37Marc:Or do you kind of find... Because, like, I mean, your songwriting is pretty amazing.

01:02:41Marc:And it's very moving.

01:02:42Marc:And I'm new to... I know this is going to sound weird.

01:02:45Marc:But I'm sort of new to actually paying attention to lyrics.

01:02:51Guest:You know, me too somewhat.

01:02:53Guest:Me too.

01:02:53Guest:There's certain guys I do.

01:02:54Guest:And then most people I don't really know.

01:02:56Guest:Isn't that weird?

01:02:57Guest:Well, it's weird when you put on some song that you've been known for 30 years like, you know, I don't really know the lyrics.

01:03:01Marc:I don't know one bit of this.

01:03:03Marc:I have no idea.

01:03:04Marc:And maybe the chorus and I'm probably not getting it right.

01:03:08Marc:Exactly.

01:03:08Marc:But like, you know, you seem to like, you know, really capture something and it's emotional.

01:03:13Marc:But so how did you guys start?

01:03:17Guest:we started where uh ray and i raised the guitarist mr ray people call him uh he was the guitarist and and we had been the side bananas i was a drummer i started as a drummer so yeah he was a drummer we were the guitar player in different bands and then we thought we'd just try to do our own band yeah try to write songs we never had done anything and and what was how old were you

01:03:38Marc:Probably a kid.

01:03:40Guest:20-something, you know.

01:03:41Marc:And what was going on up there?

01:03:43Marc:What were the bands?

01:03:44Marc:What was driving you?

01:03:45Marc:Because you guys certainly fell into a world, right?

01:03:48Marc:I mean, that was the first wave of, I guess, what they would call alternative rock.

01:03:53Marc:Yeah.

01:03:53Marc:College rock.

01:03:55Guest:Yeah, it was a great time, actually.

01:03:57Guest:It was Gang of Four for us, the gun club.

01:04:01Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:04:02Guest:In the beginning, we really modeled ourselves on the gun club, even though we don't really sound like that.

01:04:06Marc:On that first record, like I'm preaching the blues.

01:04:08Guest:We tried, yeah.

01:04:08Guest:Fire of Love.

01:04:09Guest:Totally, yeah.

01:04:10Guest:Love that guy.

01:04:11Guest:He's another goner, but...

01:04:13Guest:He is, man.

01:04:14Guest:And that record was really the best record.

01:04:17Guest:Yeah.

01:04:17Guest:He became a great guitarist.

01:04:19Guest:Jeffrey Lee?

01:04:21Guest:Yeah.

01:04:22Guest:Before, actually, before I was in Miracle Legion, Ray and I, we promoted a lot of shows.

01:04:28Guest:We brought a lot of bands to New Haven.

01:04:30Guest:You did?

01:04:30Guest:Yeah.

01:04:31Guest:We really did a lot of promotion.

01:04:32Guest:And I learned a lot.

01:04:33Marc:I learned a lot about it.

01:04:35Marc:Oh, interesting.

01:04:35Guest:Tons of people, man.

01:04:37Marc:You ran the thing.

01:04:38Guest:You were like, we're bringing the new music to New Haven.

01:04:40Guest:Yeah.

01:04:40Guest:I would go to the club and say, look, I can get these bands.

01:04:43Guest:What venues back then?

01:04:46Guest:Well, the sort of... The Great American Music Hall was a place in New Haven.

01:04:53Guest:Maybe once in a while somewhere in Hartford.

01:04:57Guest:But kind of steadily at a place called The Grotto or The Brothers Three.

01:05:03Guest:You know, weird little places.

01:05:04Guest:So this was like 1980?

01:05:06Guest:Later than that.

01:05:07Guest:It was sort of a big...

01:05:10Guest:Well, you know, like I did maybe, well, whenever the replacements, I remember having the replacements for like, you know, when they were unknown or... I didn't have any money, so they have to be unknown.

01:05:19Guest:I did Mission of Burma a lot.

01:05:21Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:05:21Guest:Yeah, every time they came, you know?

01:05:23Guest:Yeah.

01:05:23Guest:Perubu.

01:05:24Guest:Yeah.

01:05:26Guest:But I did, I fell into like all the California hardcore came through and I did, you know, Black Flag and DOA and Dead Kennedys and...

01:05:33Marc:Was that at the time where it was still kind of word of mouth, punk rock?

01:05:38Marc:Because I talked to a lot of cats that, well, I guess it might be a little later than that, where most record stores didn't carry that shit.

01:05:47Marc:Okay.

01:05:47Marc:Right?

01:05:48Marc:So they had to find the one guy who would carry those records.

01:05:51Marc:Or like a lot of these punk guys, they had to get the British records from a dude.

01:05:55Marc:It was a kind of subversive world of punk fans that would take care of each other.

01:06:00Marc:So were you on the kind of like male list of like, you know, dude, do you know a place we can play?

01:06:06Guest:I was that guy, but I wasn't a punk.

01:06:08Guest:I wasn't a punk at all.

01:06:09Guest:We had suits on.

01:06:10Guest:We were like, probably kind of hated by them, you know, the misfits, you know.

01:06:15Guest:Oh, right, right.

01:06:16Guest:A more British trip?

01:06:17Guest:No, no, but somehow those were the guys I'd get calls from, you know?

01:06:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:06:22Guest:I wouldn't get a call from, I don't know.

01:06:24Guest:I don't know.

01:06:25Guest:And I worked with a couple of agents that would have like, oh, you know, like the Feelys or something.

01:06:30Guest:Oh, I love the Feelys.

01:06:31Guest:The Bongos.

01:06:32Guest:Yeah.

01:06:32Guest:All that kind of stuff.

01:06:33Guest:All the stuff that was around.

01:06:34Guest:Yeah.

01:06:34Guest:Everybody would go on tour and...

01:06:37Guest:you know there's there was a finite number of bands so it's easy to manage the whole so you were the point guy in new haven yeah yeah and so i learned you know i learned a lot about like i didn't i didn't really know about touring how that worked or really what it was and so uh i saw a lot of things and it helped us you know do kind of more than we might have done i suppose yeah what about sound wise did it influence you that way

01:06:58Guest:Not so much, no, I wouldn't say so.

01:07:00Guest:I don't know what we were thinking about trying to do.

01:07:03Guest:We were doing, like Jay says this thing, I like people who go to the end of their ability, like a singer, and we would just go to the end of our abilities.

01:07:13Guest:Yeah, so you didn't have any driving influence?

01:07:16Guest:We had this idea of like,

01:07:17Guest:we never sounded like queen obviously but queen was a band that would do any song any kind of song right so that was a the openness of yeah how we would think about it yeah if it went one way or another it was fine right so we were never you know we got sort of compared to rem a lot and i know i i read that but i didn't hear it i think we saw we seemed like them but i don't think we sounded like them that was my

01:07:40Marc:No, he definitely had a little more of that thing that, what's his name, Ray?

01:07:47Marc:Right.

01:07:47Marc:Something more.

01:07:48Marc:Mr. Ray.

01:07:49Marc:There was something I could hear from his influences in there that R.E.M.

01:07:53Marc:did not do that.

01:07:55Guest:Maybe, yeah.

01:07:55Guest:We had a good, you know, playing with him, because I don't know if it's clear, but we quit playing 20 years ago, and we've been playing.

01:08:02Guest:I've just finished yesterday in San Francisco.

01:08:04Guest:Last gig.

01:08:05Guest:Yeah, the last gig of history.

01:08:06Guest:Yeah.

01:08:07Guest:So we do have it.

01:08:10Guest:We just have that thing.

01:08:12Marc:You hadn't played with them in 20 years?

01:08:13Guest:Not really, no.

01:08:14Guest:And then you guys got together?

01:08:16Guest:We all got together, the four of us.

01:08:17Guest:What about the other two guys?

01:08:18Guest:Did you play with them?

01:08:21Guest:Well, that was the TV show band that was Polaris.

01:08:24Guest:Polaris, yeah.

01:08:24Guest:So we did that, and that's what sort of opened the door to thinking, what about we get Ray?

01:08:28Guest:Because Ray wasn't in Polaris.

01:08:29Guest:Ray was just out.

01:08:30Guest:Ray was out.

01:08:32Guest:I don't know how much to get into everything, but we were assigned to a record label out here.

01:08:39Marc:I like hearing those stories because I think it's... The black hole of music, you know.

01:08:44Marc:You know, there's just this weird, like, demonic element to the record business of yore that, you know, I talked to a lot of cats who were, you know, in the music business in the 80s and earlier, that it just becomes some sort of nightmare and you lose your freedom somehow.

01:09:03Marc:So, you know, like, to sort of just do what you want to do, one way or the other.

01:09:09Yeah.

01:09:09Guest:Yeah.

01:09:11Guest:Well, that did happen to us.

01:09:12Guest:I mean, most of the time that we were just, you know, mopping along and doing a record as often as we could.

01:09:18Guest:But then we did get to the point with that label.

01:09:20Guest:I was going to say Morgan Creek that we couldn't get out.

01:09:23Guest:I mean, they just wouldn't.

01:09:24Guest:normally you just get released and that's your that's your bum out you know right they wouldn't release us and we were just stuck with nothing so you did surprise surprise surprise in that no we did that we were for a while we were on rough trade which is good record that's a great level yeah we did we did uh two or three records with them and an ep and and that was all good and then they went bankrupt see they you know we were you know we were just part of these things that didn't work so they went bankrupt and then we we had nothing you know

01:09:52Guest:But like the guy you were just talking about, we never said, ah, man, it's not working out for us.

01:10:02Guest:Nothing feels stupider than being like that, but that's what it was.

01:10:05Guest:We just kind of would always keep going, and we had this kind of tenacity or something.

01:10:09Guest:Not towards success, but just like, let's keep doing it.

01:10:12Marc:And what was it, like you said before, like, I don't know if that's, you've grown into this, what do I want, this resignation that, you know, you're not going to make the big record.

01:10:28Marc:You're not going to make a hit record.

01:10:30Guest:But when you started, I imagine you... I don't think we ever had that idea, you know.

01:10:35Guest:We just didn't think of it that way.

01:10:37Guest:It seemed so unlikely to have... You know, this was a time when the bands that were having hit records were, you know, I don't know, Bon Jovi or something.

01:10:45Guest:It was, you know, theoretically in some story that Nirvana just...

01:10:50Guest:bludgeoned the whole thing to bits but there were but at that time that was sort of the beginning of the college charts right sure yeah and we wanted to do better believe me you know we we expired and thought and tried and you know um so and we had you know managers here and there and we you know we tried all these things and we it's a lot of you know man you know it's like there's so much luck and timing and you meet the right guy and you're in the right spot and you're the thing people want i used to always say that

01:11:16Guest:I don't blame Hootie and the Blowfish.

01:11:18Guest:They just did their thing.

01:11:19Guest:They didn't try to do anything but be that, and it just was the right... Right.

01:11:24Guest:They were on the top of the wave at the right second, you know?

01:11:26Guest:I like at some point you had to let go of Hootie and the Blowfish.

01:11:30Guest:Well, sometimes, you know, in my time of liking music, and then when I liked music and I just wasn't a musician, that was a better, that was a sweet time to me.

01:11:40Guest:But when you're in it, you know, it's different.

01:11:42Guest:And there's times when something comes along, you're like,

01:11:46Guest:you're like oh shit that's what that's what and I went to see them at this like radio station jingle along with all these new bands yeah yeah and they played and I was like oh my god that is so awful you know and I mean I'm not trying to insult them because you know no of course not I'm sure they're a nice guy and he seemed like a great guy you know but I was like that is just really and it was like here it is and then they started to just really elevate and I'm like holy shit man I have no chance in this game none

01:12:16Guest:And then that just goes away, you know?

01:12:17Guest:And then there's another one after that, you know?

01:12:19Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:12:20Guest:But so we always, you know, me and we just kept always chugging along.

01:12:24Guest:So we got on this Morgan... I was going to tell you that we got on the Morgan Creek and they went... I don't know what they were doing, man.

01:12:29Guest:They made up a label to release the Robin Hood soundtrack, basically.

01:12:34Guest:And they signed a bunch of bands.

01:12:35Guest:Which Robin Hood?

01:12:37Guest:Kevin Costner?

01:12:38Guest:Kevin Costner, yeah.

01:12:39Guest:And so...

01:12:40Guest:That's what it was.

01:12:41Guest:Oh, they were a film company.

01:12:43Guest:They were the film company.

01:12:44Guest:And they made some good movies early on.

01:12:48Guest:Right.

01:12:49Guest:So they created a record label?

01:12:51Guest:What was the- They created a record label with all the guys from the old labels.

01:12:53Guest:The guy, the head of the company was the guy, the head of the company.

01:12:58Guest:And they opened the doors with gold records everywhere.

01:13:00Guest:Yeah.

01:13:00Guest:You know, like, wow.

01:13:01Guest:But it was like- They hadn't even started yet.

01:13:03Guest:Bob Seger gold record.

01:13:04Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:13:04Guest:And the head of the company was the guy who arranged, and these are great dudes too, amazing guys to hang with, arranged the Beatles in the swimming pool in Hollywood picture.

01:13:17Guest:So he goes- That was his credit?

01:13:19Guest:He's going back.

01:13:20Guest:Well, I'm just saying, he was- Yeah, yeah.

01:13:22Guest:He was going back.

01:13:22Guest:David Kirshenbaum was an old guy that used to just- So that was their press.

01:13:27Guest:They're like, look who we got.

01:13:29Guest:Come on, kid.

01:13:31Guest:We're going hardcore.

01:13:32Guest:But they didn't have any clue, really, I don't think.

01:13:34Guest:So we couldn't get out anyway.

01:13:35Guest:And that just- Did you make a record with him?

01:13:37Guest:We made one record, and we prepared another record, and then never, it's nothing.

01:13:42Marc:Well, what do you mean they couldn't get it out?

01:13:45Marc:They have no distribution?

01:13:46Marc:They didn't want it yet?

01:13:47Guest:Everything's on hold right now.

01:13:49Guest:We're on hold.

01:13:49Guest:Everything's on hold.

01:13:51Guest:And I was like, well, how long is it going to be on hold for, man?

01:13:55Guest:This is what we have.

01:13:56Guest:This is all we have.

01:13:57Guest:You're all I have.

01:13:58Guest:And so it went for a couple years.

01:14:01Guest:I came out here.

01:14:02Guest:I'd come out here.

01:14:02Guest:They had a place.

01:14:03Guest:Their offices were in...

01:14:05Guest:century city yeah tall buildings yeah and uh i said dude i'm gonna jump out this window man i'd be in there like i had like a um unabomber hoodie on yeah i'm threatening the guy to jump out the window he's like i can't help you man like that i can't open the window for you want me to open the window they probably had me insured you know so um glad if i jump out the window

01:14:26Marc:So that was Drenched was the record they put out?

01:14:28Marc:Drenched, yeah.

01:14:29Marc:And then the next one, they just sat in.

01:14:31Guest:They did another one.

01:14:32Guest:So we fiddled up.

01:14:33Guest:But the reason I was telling you that was that in that time, when you asked me, was Ray in Polaris?

01:14:37Guest:No, because he's like, I finally had it.

01:14:40Guest:I can't do any.

01:14:42Guest:I quit.

01:14:42Guest:He got married.

01:14:43Guest:I'm quitting.

01:14:44Guest:I don't want to do anything.

01:14:44Guest:I got offered the Polaris gig on my own.

01:14:48Guest:They offered it to us, and he didn't want to.

01:14:49Guest:So I said, could I try it?

01:14:50Guest:And that's kind of where I started being my own man.

01:14:53Guest:Yeah.

01:14:53Marc:Oh, okay.

01:14:54Marc:So the Polaris gig, you had to change the name for legal reasons.

01:14:58Guest:No, I just got the job doing the music.

01:15:00Guest:It was purely hired to write music for the show and record the music for the show.

01:15:07Guest:The band was sort of an afterthought.

01:15:08Guest:How did you get that gig?

01:15:10Guest:He said, I love Miracle Legion.

01:15:12Guest:The guy who made P.P.?

01:15:12Guest:Will, yeah.

01:15:13Guest:I love Miracle Legion.

01:15:14Guest:And I said, well, I don't think you're going to get Miracle Legion, man.

01:15:17Guest:Because the other two guys joined up with Frank Black.

01:15:20Guest:Oh, they did.

01:15:20Guest:They were the Catholics.

01:15:21Guest:Oh, they were.

01:15:22Guest:Yeah, sure, sure.

01:15:23Guest:The rhythm section was the Catholics, and they were like, I'm in the Catholics.

01:15:26Guest:This is good living.

01:15:27Guest:I'm in a tour bus now.

01:15:30Guest:Did that bum you out?

01:15:32Guest:In the time before I got the gig with the Polaris gig, with the TV show, I was, man, now I got nothing.

01:15:37Guest:Everybody's gone.

01:15:37Guest:I can't do anything.

01:15:39Guest:Were you guys friends?

01:15:40Guest:Were you devastated?

01:15:41Guest:Yeah, we were friends.

01:15:42Guest:I mean, we've always been friends.

01:15:43Guest:Friends is like when we're together, we're friends.

01:15:45Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:15:47Guest:Like someone would get out of the van after a tour, and I'd go,

01:15:49Guest:Well, hey, friend, I'll see you next tour.

01:15:52Guest:Like, whoa, no, man, I'm going to see you tomorrow.

01:15:53Guest:I'm like, no, you're not.

01:15:56Guest:So I got that job.

01:15:57Guest:And then, yeah, they invented the band just to be in the open, really.

01:16:00Guest:Right.

01:16:00Guest:So you're on TV?

01:16:02Guest:They said, you guys want to be in the open of the thing?

01:16:04Guest:We play the theme song.

01:16:05Guest:And that became a thing, but we never did a thing with that either.

01:16:08Guest:Up here, I'm not all full of great ideas.

01:16:12Guest:And so I never did anything.

01:16:16Guest:And then this guy offered us a gig.

01:16:17Guest:That was the same kind of thing.

01:16:18Guest:I don't know how many years it was.

01:16:19Guest:15 years later, a guy's like, I'm doing this Nickelodeon project.

01:16:25Guest:would you guys want to play?

01:16:26Guest:And we never had played a gig at all.

01:16:28Guest:We never did anything.

01:16:29Guest:And it's like the biggest thing I have, I've done, you know?

01:16:32Guest:Was the Nickelodeon Project.

01:16:33Guest:Was this band that everybody, when we came out to play, it's like, okay, it's like three or 400 people, every town crying and screaming and loving and weeping.

01:16:43Guest:Were they kids?

01:16:44Guest:Was it a kid's show?

01:16:45Guest:It was a kid show.

01:16:46Guest:It was a kid show about two brothers.

01:16:47Guest:It was live.

01:16:48Guest:It was on a cartoon.

01:16:49Guest:And it was a very well-written show.

01:16:53Guest:It wasn't for my sort of place in time, but for a kid that had a great soundtrack.

01:17:01Guest:It had magnetic fields.

01:17:03Guest:Iggy Pop was one of the characters.

01:17:04Guest:Stipe was one of the characters.

01:17:05Guest:I don't know how I missed that.

01:17:09Guest:Patty Hearst was in it.

01:17:10Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:17:11Guest:So it was this really well-done thing that...

01:17:12Guest:I think was a smart thing for a kid instead of most of the crap.

01:17:18Marc:So some of the people involved got followings of these new group of kids.

01:17:22Marc:They were kids.

01:17:23Marc:Well, you know Toby Huss.

01:17:25Marc:Yeah.

01:17:25Marc:He was in it.

01:17:26Marc:Yeah.

01:17:26Guest:I wish I kind of remember the show, but I don't think I saw it.

01:17:30Guest:He probably wouldn't have watched it.

01:17:32Guest:I'd watch it with my mom because I was in it.

01:17:33Guest:And then after like two episodes, she's like, that's enough.

01:17:36Guest:It's good to see you there.

01:17:37Marc:Yeah.

01:17:38Guest:I'm glad you're doing well, son.

01:17:39Marc:I don't want to watch this.

01:17:40Guest:You're on TV.

01:17:42Yeah.

01:17:42Guest:But now you have an audience for Polaris.

01:17:45Guest:Polaris is a great thing.

01:17:46Guest:It's like what you really want.

01:17:50Guest:You go in there, everybody's dying to hear it.

01:17:52Guest:Everyone's crying.

01:17:53Guest:Everyone's so united.

01:17:54Guest:It's like this beautiful gig where everybody's in the same place.

01:17:58Guest:There's no assholes.

01:17:59Guest:Nobody's dealing the wrong thing.

01:18:01Guest:Everybody's real reverent.

01:18:03Guest:I loved it, man.

01:18:04Guest:I really had a great time.

01:18:05Guest:I hope we do it again.

01:18:06Guest:I bet we won't, but I would.

01:18:08Guest:What, soundtrack?

01:18:09Guest:do this show we did a tour we toured all over the place with Polaris uh huh I don't know if I made that clear but yeah we hadn't played the guy offered us one gig and we thought it sounded you know okay so we kept going yeah that's the way it is man yeah and that was where you got your biggest following of Polaris I think so so far yeah

01:18:28Marc:Now, talk about how you... It seems like you worked with some people.

01:18:33Marc:Once Miracle Legion, when you downsized it... Crashed.

01:18:38Guest:So the album, Me and Mr. Ray, was that... That was after the Crazy Huff quit.

01:18:44Guest:The original drummer and the second bass player who had poisoned his mind.

01:18:49Guest:They quit.

01:18:50Guest:And so we said, oh, man.

01:18:52Guest:But it's always like, oh, man.

01:18:54Guest:They quit, man.

01:18:54Guest:Let's make a record over this right now, because that's all.

01:18:57Guest:It's just one thought.

01:18:59Guest:Let's make a record without those guys.

01:19:02Guest:So we had all these songs that we didn't really think were too good.

01:19:07Guest:And so we went and said, let's make these songs a record and see what we can do.

01:19:11Guest:And it all turned out real beautifully.

01:19:13Marc:Well, that was a successful, that was a good record.

01:19:16Guest:That's a great, I mean, excuse me, that was a great record for us, yeah.

01:19:19Guest:For me, I thought I achieved a lot of things I wanted to achieve.

01:19:22Marc:Did you get any traction?

01:19:25Guest:Probably not, you know, not really.

01:19:27Guest:Where'd you record it?

01:19:28Guest:We recorded it at Paisley Park.

01:19:30Guest:That was another super bonus.

01:19:32Guest:Somebody came up with the idea that, why don't you guys go to Paisley Park?

01:19:35Guest:And I'm like...

01:19:35Guest:Yeah, sure.

01:19:37Guest:Where's that?

01:19:40Guest:So we went to Presley Park.

01:19:42Guest:In Minneapolis?

01:19:43Guest:Well, it's a little outside of Minneapolis.

01:19:44Guest:And was Prince there?

01:19:45Guest:Prince was there.

01:19:46Guest:Only tangentially, man.

01:19:47Guest:I've never had a conversation with him.

01:19:49Guest:And I thought, like I walked by him one time and I was like, hey, what's up, dude?

01:19:54Guest:He was super nice or whatever that's worth.

01:19:57Guest:But now I read, after he died, you realize, you read all these things about what a great dude he was and he was always like involved.

01:20:02Guest:I bet I could have said...

01:20:04Guest:You want to play something?

01:20:05Guest:He's like, sure, man.

01:20:06Guest:It's cool.

01:20:07Guest:He's just a musician.

01:20:08Guest:He's just a figure.

01:20:10Guest:I wish it's of a regret.

01:20:13Guest:I suppose that's one of them.

01:20:15Guest:And who produced it?

01:20:16Guest:It was produced by a guy who was a total prick.

01:20:18Guest:We got rid of him and went to this other guy, Paul Coldery.

01:20:22Guest:He's the guy that fixed it.

01:20:22Guest:He's the guy that produced all those Boston bands that you name anyone, he produced them all.

01:20:27Guest:Is he still around?

01:20:28Guest:He's around.

01:20:28Guest:He mixed Mark J. Mulcahy.

01:20:31Guest:oh he did yeah oh that's great he's a dude man love him you still have a relationship with him still doing the work let's do he's the same let's just do it man he's made he produced the radiohead record and whole and has done huge things but like could you mix this sure oh yeah let's go you know yeah give me 500 bucks well which radiohead record the first one pablo honey that's good that's great yeah you friends with those guys

01:20:54Guest:no i've met the singer is a big fan of mine tom tom that's a nice fan but i've met him a couple times but yeah we don't have any he's done your songs right he did he covered a song that that uh all for the best which is you know one of our great songs i guess and uh uh it was just in a um tv show called the imposters and they used his version and you know it was good you know

01:21:18Guest:It was a good moment.

01:21:21Guest:Good to write a song.

01:21:22Guest:Yeah.

01:21:22Guest:Surprise check.

01:21:23Guest:Surprise check.

01:21:25Guest:It's an amazing thing when you get paid that you wrote a song and you didn't actually do anything.

01:21:28Guest:You just get an envelope in the mail.

01:21:30Guest:Somebody calls me, I want to do that.

01:21:31Guest:I want to do that.

01:21:33Marc:Yeah.

01:21:33Marc:That is the best part, it seems, about music is if you've got your publishing.

01:21:40Marc:If you write the song and it's a good song, it's like, now go out and make money.

01:21:47Guest:Go somewhere, please.

01:21:50Guest:Iggy's had an amazing run of that with...

01:21:54Guest:A few songs, right?

01:21:55Guest:With Lust for Life.

01:21:56Guest:Yeah, Lust for Life over and over, you know?

01:21:57Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:21:59Guest:The Pixies have had a lot of good luck with that, too.

01:22:01Guest:Have they with what?

01:22:02Guest:Well, you know, like Where Is My Mind?

01:22:04Guest:Where Is My Mind was in something, and they were in an Apple song.

01:22:07Guest:I forget, an Apple ad.

01:22:09Guest:It's just people.

01:22:12Guest:You know, like Rich, the manager, he calls all the time trying to find these opportunities, but it's strictly, I like that.

01:22:18Guest:Hey, I like that guy.

01:22:19Guest:Yeah, it's never gonna happen with businessmen calling each other.

01:22:24Marc:No, it's a weird way it happens.

01:22:25Marc:I read that when they first did Search and Destroy, they used, remember, they used Iggy's Search and Destroy for a Nike ad that they ran in movie theaters.

01:22:35Marc:And I'd know a guy who's on the other side who's in the management realm of the music or does, you know, behind the, you know, not a musician anymore.

01:22:44Marc:And he said the guy who used that song for that commercial was just going through titles.

01:22:50Marc:Like, it was nothing to do with Iggy Pop.

01:22:53Marc:He liked the title search.

01:22:54Marc:Search is Destroyed, and then he listened to the song.

01:22:56Marc:It's like, oh, yeah.

01:22:57Marc:So it was like, it was just this random thing.

01:23:00Marc:And just started, there you go, Mr. Osterberg.

01:23:04Marc:Here's a quarter of a million dollars.

01:23:05Marc:Surprise.

01:23:06Marc:Have a good week.

01:23:08Marc:So when you do a show like in San Francisco last night, what are the crowds?

01:23:12Marc:Who's left?

01:23:13Marc:Who are they?

01:23:15Guest:We're good for like 250, 250 people.

01:23:17Guest:And because of the variety of at least me and Polaris and that, there's a good mix of people.

01:23:24Marc:Which album do you think did it outside of the Polaris record?

01:23:28Marc:Is there a Miracle Legion crew?

01:23:31Guest:A lot of people like Drenched, which I'm kind of half and half on.

01:23:35Guest:That was the one that got the most attention and had the most money behind it in the ad and billboard.

01:23:39Guest:We were on David Letterman.

01:23:41Guest:That really got a lot of, you know, the usual, the hype you associate, you know.

01:23:46Guest:Right.

01:23:46Guest:A lot of people know that.

01:23:47Guest:But a lot of people know, you know, they find it.

01:23:49Guest:You know, people are, you get a lot of, it's very encouraging, like, right, to find, especially kids who find Polaris.

01:23:55Guest:And they look and they look around and they find all the records and they want to know everything, you know.

01:23:59Marc:Yeah, I know.

01:23:59Marc:I'm in the process.

01:24:00Guest:Gives you some hope, you know.

01:24:01Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:24:01Guest:It's always out there.

01:24:03Guest:It's there now.

01:24:03Guest:And especially, Rich has made everything totally available.

01:24:07Guest:Who's Rich, your manager?

01:24:09Guest:Yeah, the manager.

01:24:10Guest:He's found a way to get everything on all the places you can buy records.

01:24:13Marc:I know it must be difficult with your wife passing away, but how did that change the way you approach the life in general?

01:24:28Guest:Did it...

01:24:29Guest:Hey, man, to be brutally truthful, it's just I have to provide.

01:24:37Guest:I never provided before I had kids.

01:24:40Guest:I wasn't a provider.

01:24:42Guest:She was?

01:24:43Guest:No, well, I mean, we had money.

01:24:44Guest:We just had enough money to kind of... The two of us, she worked, I played, and we were fine.

01:24:48Guest:Right.

01:24:49Guest:But, you know, I just look at what I'm doing in a... I still feel, you know, like an artist, you know.

01:24:56Guest:Right.

01:24:56Guest:But I also know that it's all... I have to bring home some... I can't... I have to bring home money from it.

01:25:01Guest:Yeah.

01:25:01Guest:How old are they?

01:25:03Guest:They're 11.

01:25:03Guest:Twins.

01:25:05Guest:Oh.

01:25:06Guest:Right.

01:25:06Guest:It's just a responsibility.

01:25:09Guest:And it's made me grow up quite a bit about what I'm doing and it makes me approach, it's turned me a lot more professional about what I'm doing than I would have been.

01:25:21Guest:I wouldn't have given a shit.

01:25:21Guest:I would have, like, if this was 10 years or something, I would have come in and given you a hard time just because I thought, who is this guy, you know?

01:25:29Guest:what does he want what does he want out of me you know i would approach everybody like that what do you want out of me fuck you you know and i you know i you know it doesn't make any sense to think that way obviously for whatever reason you're thinking that way but but i know you know i have a i feel like you know i'm really no i feel i was gonna say earlier man like i've learned more since miracle legion than i knew all and all the time i was in it i've learned about how to sing how i can sing differently and

01:25:53Guest:How to write and just everything about it has been, you know, it's really the thing of the more you know, the more you realize you don't know anything.

01:26:03Guest:Right.

01:26:04Guest:So I'm in that.

01:26:05Guest:That's where I am.

01:26:06Guest:Zen wise.

01:26:08Guest:I know I have a long way to go kind of thing.

01:26:10Marc:Well, it's also interesting when you come at it, because I'm the same as you, and maybe that's why I get attracted to the records in that when I set out to do stand-up or whatever my chosen craft is, which is comedy, I just wanted to, I wanted to say something.

01:26:28Marc:I wanted to do this thing.

01:26:29Marc:Right.

01:26:30Marc:I had no plan.

01:26:31Marc:You know, people like in show business, some of them have plans.

01:26:34Marc:You know, they have points they want to reach.

01:26:35Marc:They keep a consistent hairdo.

01:26:38Marc:You know, they maintain stylistic elements.

01:26:42Marc:They make connections.

01:26:43Marc:They do all that shit.

01:26:45Marc:And I entered it sort of like, I'm here.

01:26:47Marc:When does it start?

01:26:52Guest:I know the idea.

01:26:53Guest:Yeah.

01:26:54Marc:We did the thing.

01:26:56Marc:I mean... Where's the guy?

01:26:58Marc:Why isn't somebody here?

01:26:59Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:27:00Guest:I thought they were going to come get us.

01:27:02Guest:Yeah.

01:27:02Guest:When are we going to be picked up?

01:27:03Guest:Yeah.

01:27:04Guest:And just to go slightly on, we did... Like America Legion, we had a great success right off the bat.

01:27:08Guest:Yeah.

01:27:08Guest:Boom.

01:27:08Guest:We went to England, which I'd never even... I'd never been there, you know?

01:27:12Guest:Well, that's what... And boom, we did well.

01:27:14Guest:And Seymour Stein called us.

01:27:17Guest:And everything was going great.

01:27:18Guest:And then...

01:27:20Guest:what how it goes well i mean so which album was popular in england it was called the backyard it's our first record okay an ep that's when eps could go huge it just struck somebody man it was like the perfect tune yeah but nobody knew how to capitalize nobody knew what to do in this country or what anywhere you know but in england we had a video on mtv right away when we made a video this girl this woman we know made a video kelly reichardt if you know her she made the video for it and uh

01:27:48Guest:Everything was, we're like, all right, well, I guess, you know, I guess that's it.

01:27:52Guest:Let's go.

01:27:53Guest:Yeah.

01:27:53Guest:And then, deesh, nothing.

01:27:54Guest:Nothing?

01:27:55Guest:Like a rock.

01:27:56Guest:But what about, but it got you to Britain?

01:27:58Guest:Yeah, we toured around England, yeah.

01:28:00Guest:I mean, it helped a lot.

01:28:01Guest:It helped us a lot.

01:28:03Guest:Did people come in England?

01:28:05No.

01:28:05Guest:Totally.

01:28:05Guest:You know, it was getting played on the radio and that's when England was NME and everything mattered.

01:28:10Guest:You know, we do a photo shoot for every of the melody maker enemy.

01:28:13Guest:There'd be, oh, the photographer's coming.

01:28:14Guest:I want to take you, I want to take you to the green over to the hemp and the Hempstead Heath and take some shots around, you know, someone's graveyard.

01:28:21Guest:So it was really crazy and exciting.

01:28:24Guest:I wonder if that's where York got windy.

01:28:26Guest:Yeah.

01:28:26Guest:Well, he got wind of that song, All For The Best.

01:28:29Guest:Him and his brother, he said, my brother and I heard that on the radio.

01:28:33Guest:We went to London and bought a record, and that's it.

01:28:36Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:28:36Guest:He's told me.

01:28:36Guest:I mean, he genuinely loves that tune, man.

01:28:39Guest:And he's not kidding.

01:28:41Guest:I mean, he is not fucking kidding.

01:28:42Guest:The first time, I somehow went to see them play in New York, and I got on the guest list somehow, so he knew I was on the guest list, I guess.

01:28:50Guest:Yeah.

01:28:52Guest:i'm at the show and he comes up it comes up for the anchor so when you want to dedicate this song to mark mulcahy i love the next song and i'm like what you know did he play it he played i'm no it wasn't all for the best it was something else yeah but it was their song but yeah but he dedicated it to me and i'm like and i'm looking at my friend who's the only other guy who knows who i am yeah at this gig you know and it was just i'm like

01:29:15Guest:That was crazy.

01:29:16Guest:So I went to meet him.

01:29:17Guest:I went backstage.

01:29:18Guest:I'm like, dude, you know.

01:29:19Guest:And he was like, ah, ah, ah.

01:29:21Guest:You couldn't.

01:29:22Marc:Wow.

01:29:22Guest:And then, you know, that was, I don't want to oversell it.

01:29:26Guest:That was pretty much it.

01:29:26Guest:I've never really seen him again.

01:29:28Guest:No, but like, you know, but isn't that beautiful, though?

01:29:30Guest:I mean, clearly that song shifted something in his head.

01:29:33Guest:Totally.

01:29:34Guest:And his brother, too.

01:29:34Guest:I know his brother a little better.

01:29:35Guest:I've toured with his brother's band.

01:29:36Marc:What's his brother's band?

01:29:37Guest:They were called The Unbelievable Truth.

01:29:39Guest:Uh-huh.

01:29:40Guest:And he couldn't.

01:29:41Guest:They were pretty good.

01:29:43Guest:He couldn't get away from being Ty Merrick's brother.

01:29:45Guest:That's tough.

01:29:46Guest:So it's hard.

01:29:47Guest:The burden of sibling fame.

01:29:49Guest:People would accuse him of not changing his name.

01:29:51Guest:You should change your name, man.

01:29:53Guest:Yeah.

01:29:53Guest:What?

01:29:55Guest:Yeah.

01:29:56Marc:But I like that.

01:29:57Marc:I like that.

01:29:57Marc:Like, you know, that you don't know how.

01:29:59Marc:That's a beautiful thing about music because it's kind of magic like that.

01:30:03Marc:Right.

01:30:03Marc:You don't know when it's going to drop in.

01:30:05Marc:Yeah.

01:30:05Marc:That's why everything's always available.

01:30:06Marc:Like, you know, music doesn't go away.

01:30:08Marc:Like I just get I'm just now because I've had this vinyl resurgence set and I realized how much shit.

01:30:14Marc:I don't know nothing about, and you can't.

01:30:16Marc:I always get insecure even when I talk to you because you've done a lot of work, and I know there's got to be at least one or two people out there who are going to be like, I can't believe you didn't ask him about his dog.

01:30:28Marc:You talked about it in a song, and I can't accommodate that.

01:30:32Marc:All I can do is continue to be curious, but you don't know when it's going to drop in.

01:30:35Marc:I'm going on a goddamn Lee Morgan tear.

01:30:38Marc:He's been dead forever.

01:30:40Marc:Yeah.

01:30:41Marc:Like, you know, nine people love Lee Morgan.

01:30:43Marc:And now I'm like, how did I not know about this guy?

01:30:45Marc:How was I going to know about him?

01:30:46Guest:I don't know.

01:30:47Guest:I'm the same.

01:30:48Guest:I mean, I don't know.

01:30:49Guest:I know what I knew up until I started playing music.

01:30:52Guest:Right.

01:30:52Guest:So I know.

01:30:53Guest:Old shit.

01:30:54Guest:Yeah, I'm on YouTube looking at Deep Purple videos.

01:30:57Guest:That's me.

01:30:58Guest:That's where I'm at.

01:30:59Guest:Yeah, I think you played to the heavy-hearted dudes.

01:31:02Guest:Maybe.

01:31:02Guest:You know what I mean?

01:31:03Guest:Maybe.

01:31:04Guest:At these gigs we just played, this guy, I flew from Chile to see the show.

01:31:09Guest:You don't know.

01:31:10Guest:It's what I like.

01:31:13Guest:And they start hugging you.

01:31:15Guest:You know the hug that he... He needs it.

01:31:19Guest:Yeah, I know, and I'm happy.

01:31:21Guest:Can I have a hug?

01:31:22Guest:But then it's like...

01:31:23Guest:Okay.

01:31:24Guest:Okay, man.

01:31:25Guest:Hugs are hard to get out of if they're sincere.

01:31:29Guest:It's not like a baseball hug after a home run or something.

01:31:33Guest:It's like a real solid hug.

01:31:35Guest:That's hilarious.

01:31:36Guest:Hugs are hard to get out of if they're sincere.

01:31:39Guest:Well, they're really... And you really get... You can feel it.

01:31:42Guest:And the Polaris thing, I was saying, they're crying.

01:31:44Guest:They're bawling.

01:31:45Guest:I'm looking across these...

01:31:46Guest:Every fifth person is weeping, you know?

01:31:49Guest:Yeah.

01:31:49Guest:To hear this tune that's from their brain.

01:31:52Guest:Their brain's like, oh, my God, it's the thing that we all... When we were kids.

01:31:55Guest:Let's cry.

01:31:56Guest:Yeah.

01:31:57Marc:And it's a happy, you know, crying, but... Not everyone can write songs like that, buddy.

01:32:02Guest:No.

01:32:03Guest:I have one song, dude, and I don't know if you've ever heard it, but it's called Don't Talk Crazy, and it's about a guy who gets wounded in war and comes home.

01:32:12Guest:you can't no one can listen to it it's like it's unlistenable song it's just so i'm crying right now i honestly got i'm a little bit crying thinking of the tune really and i'm not saying anything about me which record doing it's on any record it's not even fair you can barely get it you can't i should take it out it's too painful and you know i'm not saying that i've done something but it's just it's just the the idea of this thing you know it's just too much to it's too much to bear you know

01:32:39Marc:I've always been sort of moved by stuff like that, to have a melancholy or a depth to it like that.

01:32:47Marc:And I guess that's what I heard in your music, because there's a frequency of emotion that people operate from creatively.

01:32:59Marc:Yeah.

01:33:00Marc:And I don't know that they can explain it, you know, but it is what it is.

01:33:04Marc:And, you know, if you're one of those people, you're not going to, you know, fill stadiums, but you're definitely going to change lives.

01:33:12Marc:Yeah.

01:33:12Guest:You know what I mean?

01:33:13Guest:I think I have that.

01:33:14Guest:Yeah, I do.

01:33:15Guest:I do.

01:33:15Guest:I do too.

01:33:16Guest:Irishness of some kind of.

01:33:18Marc:Ah.

01:33:18Guest:Something like that.

01:33:19Marc:I was just talking to somebody about that today.

01:33:21Marc:Oddly.

01:33:23Marc:Because I have this weird connection to Ireland that's emotional.

01:33:28Marc:I'm just a Jewish guy.

01:33:30Marc:I'm not Irish in any way.

01:33:32Marc:But when I go there, there's part of me that's sort of like, I'm home.

01:33:35Marc:Yeah.

01:33:37Marc:Well, you know, we're downtrodden.

01:33:39Marc:Yeah, but you're downtrodden, but acceptance of it.

01:33:43Marc:Yeah.

01:33:44Marc:That there is a point of view through the darkness, through the bog.

01:33:49Marc:Yeah.

01:33:49Marc:You know, that, you know, we keep going forward.

01:33:52Marc:Right.

01:33:53Marc:You know, no one said this was going to be easy.

01:33:56Guest:Right.

01:33:57Guest:That's what I'm saying.

01:33:58Guest:Even about everything about I've been doing music.

01:34:00Guest:It's never been... Right.

01:34:02Guest:Because I had some huge success, I'm going to build on that.

01:34:05Guest:Yeah.

01:34:06Guest:It's just been I'm going to keep going.

01:34:08Marc:Keep going.

01:34:09Marc:Keep trucking.

01:34:10Marc:Keep going and experiencing the feeling, the struggle.

01:34:14Guest:But sometimes I feel, you know, I meet the guy that used to be in the band and he's, you know, a lawyer or he's got something good.

01:34:19Guest:I'm like, fuck, man, why didn't I do that?

01:34:21Guest:You're not meant for that.

01:34:22Guest:Why didn't I make the right move and get out and get... How often do you spend thinking along that line?

01:34:30Marc:Not that often.

01:34:32Guest:I do, you know, I do...

01:34:35Guest:I wish I could have all those things, but I don't.

01:34:38Marc:When I used to think like that, which I try not to, it's much more specific now as opposed to crossroads regrets.

01:34:47Marc:Here I am at the crossroads.

01:34:50Marc:I think I'll just stay on the one I'm on.

01:34:52Marc:But when I do choose to sort of be... The only way I can put it into any sort of context, which I do, is there was no way I could have done that.

01:35:03Marc:It's not in me.

01:35:06Marc:I'm not that guy.

01:35:07Marc:There's no way.

01:35:08Marc:It's very easy to judge yourself against other people's successes when they take this other thing.

01:35:12Marc:But think about the time that you might have done that.

01:35:16Marc:There's no way you would have done it no matter what.

01:35:19Guest:You mean realistically, I would have flunked at most of those things unless somebody gave me some perfect chance at having a job that was just the right one, but I don't know what that would be.

01:35:29Marc:Exactly.

01:35:29Marc:And when those guys make that decision, they let go of something.

01:35:33Marc:I think so.

01:35:34Marc:Of course they do, that you're not willing to let go of.

01:35:36Marc:Like when I was at my lowest and I was going to quit comedy, I was like, well, there's only a couple options and one of them is not living anymore.

01:35:44Right.

01:35:44Guest:You know, I'm always at UPS.

01:35:46Guest:I would say that's, look, man, we got to turn the lights off right here.

01:35:49Guest:Daddy's going to go.

01:35:51Guest:UPS, huh?

01:35:52Guest:Heading over to UPS.

01:35:53Guest:I figured I could do that.

01:35:54Guest:Yeah, get some.

01:35:55Guest:I could deliver, you know, drive the truck, deliver.

01:35:57Guest:Get some coverage.

01:35:58Guest:Yeah.

01:35:58Guest:You know, get some insurance.

01:35:59Guest:It feels like a doable job to me.

01:36:01Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:36:01Guest:You just got to wear the outfit.

01:36:02Guest:Maybe FedEx if I could get a little, if I shoot a little higher.

01:36:06Guest:FedEx.

01:36:07Guest:If something.

01:36:07Guest:But it does seem like, you know, a job that anybody could sort of work their way into.

01:36:11Guest:Yeah.

01:36:11Marc:I guess there's jobs like that, but look how old we are.

01:36:14Guest:I don't want to do it.

01:36:15Marc:But that was the other thing, man.

01:36:17Marc:It's like when I was at my lowest, I was already in my 40s, and I'm like, the last job I had was working at Edibles.

01:36:22Marc:You know, I'm going to go apply.

01:36:24Guest:You're like, man, get a grill job.

01:36:26Guest:I don't know.

01:36:27Guest:I was talking about you worked at the magazine store.

01:36:29Guest:I said, hey, how's that job going?

01:36:30Guest:Well, I had the job at the magazine store.

01:36:32Guest:Well, in the magazines.

01:36:33Guest:That was the last one.

01:36:34Guest:Otherwise, I had nothing, you know.

01:36:38Marc:But, all right, well, you want to play a song?

01:36:41Guest:If you want me to.

01:36:41Guest:I kind of bumped that on you.

01:36:44Marc:Oh, no, no, I didn't know.

01:36:45Marc:I didn't know if you wanted to.

01:36:46Marc:Yeah, I do that all the time.

01:36:47Marc:I mean, I like when people play.

01:36:48Marc:If you feel like it.

01:36:49Marc:I'll try.

01:36:49Guest:I only know a couple from the record, but I haven't been playing at all.

01:36:55Guest:Yeah?

01:36:56Guest:You want to try it?

01:36:57Guest:I don't keep up.

01:37:02Guest:You know the song The Fiddler?

01:37:05Guest:From the new album?

01:37:05Guest:Yeah.

01:37:06Guest:I just listened to it.

01:37:07Guest:This one's from the new album.

01:37:13Guest:It's called The Fiddler.

01:37:14Guest:Now there's a little town around here That huddled down that crack Well... Tee-too-doo

01:37:39Guest:Now there's a little town around here that had a dam that cracked Flooded and washed the high school into the river The local chiropractor came to have predicted it Is it the proofs in the backs that I straighten?

01:38:14Guest:But there's a fiddler who plays While the bakaloo train Steams a steely scream Into the underground A trance less serene He can hear himself dream But there's always a moment in between

01:38:44Guest:There's always a moment when somebody's listening to you.

01:39:11Guest:Now there's a million to one chance that everything will be fine.

01:39:19Guest:There won't be any fuck-ups or problems this time.

01:39:26Guest:So get back on the bus and stay focused on us.

01:39:33Guest:There's black girls and champagne and a waterbed if you

01:39:45Guest:Forget it, man.

01:39:48Guest:What happened?

01:39:49Guest:I'm not playing it right.

01:39:50Marc:That sounded so good.

01:39:52Guest:You want to try it again?

01:39:54Guest:I'm just fucking it up.

01:39:55Guest:Give me another chance at it.

01:39:56Guest:One more chance.

01:39:56Marc:I thought it sounded great.

01:39:58Guest:I was into it.

01:40:00Guest:Can I take another try?

01:40:01Guest:Of course.

01:40:03Guest:Do you think so?

01:40:04Guest:I think so.

01:40:06Guest:Don't be too hard on yourself.

01:40:10Guest:See, that's the guitar.

01:40:10Guest:All I'm thinking about is, are you fucking up?

01:40:13Guest:If someone else was playing guitar and I was singing, I wouldn't be thinking.

01:40:16Guest:Okay, here we go.

01:40:22One, two.

01:40:28Guest:Now there's a little town around here that had a dam that cracked Flooded and washed the high school into the river

01:40:47Guest:The local chiropractor came to have predicted it He said the proof's in the back that I straightened

01:41:06Guest:But there's a fiddler who plays While the bakaloo train Steams a steely screen Into the underground Trance less serene He can hear himself dream But there's always a moment in between

01:41:37Guest:There's always a moment when somebody's listening Now there's a million to one chance

01:42:07Guest:But everything will be fine.

01:42:11Guest:There won't be any fuck-ups or problems this time.

01:42:17Guest:So get back on the bus and stay focused on us.

01:42:25Guest:There's black girls and champagne in the water better if you're new.

01:42:36Guest:Now there's a fiddler who plays while the baker on the train steams a steady scream into the underground The trance left serene, he can hear himself dream

01:42:59Guest:But there's always a moment in between There's always a moment in between There's always a moment in between

01:43:20Guest:Always a second when somebody's listening.

01:43:42Guest:Yeah.

01:43:43Guest:I kind of screwed it up, but I don't care.

01:43:45Marc:No, it sounded great.

01:43:47Marc:It sounded great.

01:43:50Marc:Should have practiced.

01:43:53Marc:Well, come on.

01:43:54Marc:No, I'm happy with it.

01:43:55Marc:All right.

01:43:56Marc:It was great talking to you.

01:43:57Marc:You too, man.

01:43:58Marc:Thanks for having me.

01:43:58Marc:See you another day.

01:44:04Marc:You got it.

01:44:06Marc:Nailed it on that last one.

01:44:08Marc:Mark Mulcahy.

01:44:09Marc:Again, the album is The Possum in the driveway.

01:44:12Marc:Good record.

01:44:13Marc:Don't forget, you can also go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod related things.

01:44:19Marc:Pre-order that book.

01:44:21Marc:Pre-order the book, Waiting for the Punch.

01:44:23Marc:It's going to be good.

01:44:24Marc:It's coming.

01:44:25Marc:It's coming.

01:44:26Marc:All right?

01:44:27Marc:Okay.

01:44:33Marc:I should play some guitar.

01:45:10Guest:Boomer lives!