Transcript for #1354 - The Black Keys

I'm a big fan of yours, man. Well, thanks. You've become my, we're just staying in the way here. You've become my, my late night television. I don't watch. I don't watch like, you know, Jimmy Fallon or anything. I put on your podcast on YouTube.

But you're also like my Oprah. And I was thinking, you need a whole cast. You need like a gay okay and I do. I'm willing to be your doctor Phil. Yeah.

Like Dr. Oz?

And as I'm saying, you need to do you need to do that? No, I need a real one. Okay.

Well, I assumed all these people were kind of unqualified for there.

Really? Yeah. Dude, that's my favorite of all the kind of reality shows. It's like the judge's duty bail of character.

That's right, judge.

Man, I don't think that they're real bailiffs. I haven't got that. He's a fake bailiff? I just assumed it's Hollywood, man.

I think that's a much higher paying gig than a cop. Yeah. And with, you know, give a cop a break. With that type of money comes corruption and, you know, that's true.

Yeah, they plan to go on a plan to do it. We have what happened to this dude. What's a massive guy you're talking about?

This dude got set up. Could he get a cut to like for murder? This dude got 150 grand a year job. Put the fucking gun on him.

My friend has the largest O.J. Simpson T-shirt collection of the free O.J. juices loose in the world. And he had it exhibit here in LA a couple of years ago at a museum. It's like 150 shirts. Pretty amazing. But you know who I like to follow on Twitter? We were talking about it earlier. I don't really look at Twitter that much, but I do like how they can say a lot on Twitter.

It's just like crazy. It's as extra crazy and he was offering like a For $2,000, you can spend the night in a tent with him and like look for a big fire.

Yeah. It started with him when he shot his finger off and then it fell off, you know, he was tweeting about that. That's what paked my interest.

He's one of only four people. I think that has 40 homeruns and 40 steals in a season. I mean, he was on steroids, I think.

Have you seen what Andre the Giant could drink in everybody? Oh, yeah. It's incredible.

Yeah, he would drink like 24, literally 24 beers in like a half hour.

You think it's important to kind of be reminded of like your position in society in the world. When I was a 10 or 11, I was listening to the, I was getting driven home from a little league game by my dad. Who's one of the sweetest guys ever? Right, I'm going to listen to the Indians game and this new shortstop with the time was terrible, and J-Bell dropped the ball. And that's like, Dad, I bet you own the better shortstop than J-Bell might have to stop the car. Patrick, I love you so much, but you're alive, and there's no possible way. There's only like 50 professional short stops, and there's no way. And then that's it. I just was like, oh my God, but I realized at that moment, I was like, Man, my dad's never gonna bullshit me. That's kind of cool. That's very cool.

He pulls the problem with, that's the problem with a lot of kids today. They've been bullshit in their whole life for like, oh yeah, you're the best.

It's crazy. It's a wild dude. Wild man. I mean, it's cool that a guy that I mean, his like story is incredible. If you hit you if I had him on him guessing that you should have him on.

It's another Bash brother was found out Mark McGuire. I don't know, man. I don't know much about the I mean I know the difference between doping and steroids or what I kind of feel like if you're I don't know about steroids necessarily, but if you're right in a bike cross France and like I don't know I think like you should dope a little bit I'm not doing it, someone needs to do it.

I mean, you do a bunch of steroids. he was describing to me the process of that he literally was doing he wanted a bit get big you know and I was like so what do you do what do you do when you're big he's like well you got to start taking these estrogen blockers and all this stuff I was like what the fuck he's like yeah if you don't if you don't take your body starts making testosterone and I was like let the fuck I was like well that's what I mean like this is probably controversial statement but I like Well Bruce Jenner said that he like did steroids for breakfast. I mean, do that. You think that, like, depleted his testosterone?

Is that where like he was, oh they can say because out there looking for big foot. Is it because he just needs to clear his head.

That looks like when you have like a real gejo guy and then like the generic gejo guy.

Well, his head looks like it's been photoshopped on.

Is it like how Gallagher has Gallagher's brother?

The only way to get published is with that resolution of photo. But this is crazy. I don't know if you look Facebook or if you have it, but I do have it. I keep it with my high school friends and my parents and friends and stuff. The amount of stuff I see retweeted or reposted. I'm from the left and the right is just so crazy, man. These weird fake websites with the most outrageous. And you can tell that you know most people know it's fake because they're like one like everyone's just afraid to acknowledge to the part like you're on the way. Man, that is that. That's not really how they can say go, man.

Dude, that's my Instagram. I scroll back a couple years. I'm like, what the fuck happened to me? I'm like fucking quit smoking. I get like 35 pounds. I've got went gray and like fuck man.

Not smoking is a I feel amazing, but it was a weird addiction. I had a heavy addiction. How many cigarettes were you smoking a day? A lot, man. Like two packs easy. For about for like 18, 19 years. I know, but I had a baby coming, and I just set a date. I know books, no, no anything. No pills, or any. I set a date, and I bought a 12 pack of beer, and four packs of cigarettes, and went into my studio. And just smoked every cigarette, and drank every beer, and just felt like shit on purpose, knowing that I wouldn't want to cigarette, and I never smoked cigarette. But I did gain a lot of weight. I mean, chicken parmesan tastes a lot better when they're not smurfing. It's a great. If like, you know, I don't know, you have kids. I had my first kid last year and you end up, you go through that, you know, I think most people go through it. It just realized like, oh shit, like I'm almost 39. I got a stick around for this kid and cut the bullshit. That's what motivated me to do it. It really affects your taste buds, huh? I think it affects your metabolism a lot. It makes you speedy, right? It makes you speedy, it makes you, it just, it's, it's, it's, it's your appetite. Yeah. You know, I, I eat like normal meals now and I just came late, but before I realized I was just like barely eating food.

Yeah, but it does the first couple of days. You chase the dragon. Once you're back in there.

Well, I do like, I don't, I feel like everyone's in my life. It'll be in a situation where I'm like, oh man, I actually really do. want to cigarette, but instantly I'm like, that will mean, for me, buy a whole pack, being right back on it. Although I was like, as like, well, maybe, maybe I'll go to give myself one week in the year and I'll just torture myself and allow myself to look forward to that one week in the year, smoke some cigarettes.

I think I'm capable of it because I do have pretty good willpower. I mean, I was able to quit.

I know, I mean, but then why do you want to open it? But then I would open up the store to this whole thing like, why do you need anything? That's a good point. I mean, and then it's like, it's because it's fun. And if I could do it for one week in it, and it's to be less harmful than every day, you know? I mean, everybody has addictions. Everyone's full of addictions. Whatever it is, like, I'm addicted to sleep. I think that's my biggest addiction. I was like, I'm like, that was my biggest fear really about having a child like, how am I going to sleep? What? I need, you know, I mean, like freaking out. And to this day, I'm like, oh, I get up to take my stepdaughter to school at like seven and then I'm like, I come back in the house and I just sneak back into bed and I try to avoid having to wake up to take care of the baby. I have excuses ready to go, like I got so much to do later today, and I'm just gonna come for hours.

Solidity, healthy addiction. I think if you don't get enough sleep, it's the worst thing for you. I mean, that's when I feel the craziest.

I know that I know when I've reached the wall of exhaustion. It's like when I go, I need a nap and then I lay down and I just have a full on like existential crisis, like all so strict, I get really stressed out when I'm tired.

I don't know, I found it. It's only like that once when you're like 15.

Well, smoke, I do smoke the cigar bones on that and I think that there's the thing about the similar between the two aside from the nicotine is because you don't get much nicotine from a cigar. It's like not near.

But it is like you're okay. It's like I'm telling myself and everybody around me like fuck off for how long I have this time to myself. I mean, so it is like it is like it is there there's that aspect to it and I don't know. I mean, I think if you market it cigarettes right man, you can get every motherfuckers smoking because you could just say like it's like the new caconeb it's like Like, like, Native Americans use this shit. Like, it's a natural antidepressant. Get on the fucking American.

And I got, I actually bought a jewel based on a recommendation from a, from a friend years ago. So long ago, they follow me on Twitter. They must have looked at who was buying this shit. And I was one of the few people that was verified or something. It was 2014 or 15. And that's when I knew that I could not be vaping. I hate it and I was like the man and I you look like an idiot, but be like It's like temperatures thing for me It's like it's too hot. It's like fucking gross and it's like my as well does not be smoking. I'm sure you're gonna smoke the jewel thing, but it's weird cuz my my stepdaughter at all for friends like Fascinated by the jewel specifically It's like an epidemic with these like high school kids that want and I'm like that's funny joke until you all get addicted to cigarettes cuz that shit fucking real

I don't know. Yeah, there was, yes, I was probably not moving around. That's probably just from looking at their iPad all day.

It's Facebook, one like post.

But that's why this is why it's just the cigarette lobbyists trying to shut that down.

What are they doing? I don't know. I don't think that the government should be regulating that kind of stuff. I mean, it should make sure it's like safe, but it shouldn't outlaw it. I saw the California or someone

Well, I mean, I feel like, uh, I don't know. I mean, I feel like weed wasn't that hard to get when we were in high school, but now it must be way easier. So I don't know.

We all are for a new, probably weed. I mean, people, people, people, I know people here that like, when I was smoking, like, oh my god, I can't believe you smoke. And then there's like smoking a joint. I'm like, fuck off. Yeah, fuck off and like try to drive around in their Tesla and I'm like that's a cool. That's fucking car, but what happens when you get like a 300 pound battery full of heavy metals in the dump like a hundred years from now? I don't know. It's fuck happens. Who fuck knows?

that the thing about the Tesla and all these electric cars that I think that they're really smart and cool, but the idea of having to filter all these rare earth minerals into one place. That much. So first time that's ever happened.

It's an interesting argument. I had a buddy who had leukemia and bone cancer actually, and the doctor, his doctor who wasn't a quack, I think he was at Cleveland Clinic, was like, this is from having too many heavy metals in your system. That's how you got this. You're having metal or out of control. And the doctor said, did you grow up near a mine? And the kids ask his parents, he's like, what's this about? And like, oh yeah, we had you on a commune in Colorado. We lived there for your first year of life. In a mind like in a old mind it was like an old minding town Yeah, and instead of that's probably what it came from I don't know I don't know I don't know I'm talking about me. I'm not but that that makes sense think you would get that from a mind I mean if it gets in the air Yeah, we'll be through your filter in like the heaviest metals down so you're like if I don't know if you're been to like There's a town with it called a Jerome Arizona my wife from from Sedona and near there. There's this little mine in town called Jerome. It's really cool. Like kind of touristy spot but there's this giant slag hill I mean it's massive and it's just like all of the all of the shit that wasn't copper or gold or silver but was heavier and sinking to the bottom when they're looking for that stuff and then they throw and that's the kind of shit that's the rarest mineral stuff that they make you know cadmium and whatever else with them so it's just laying around Well, it's just your your when you're it is mining towns with ice would concentrate it because it was all the stuff they wouldn't use it in the waste it was waste it was waste it was waste stuff until did they know Has anybody done some sort of an environmental test to find out what effect it's out on the water or the I don't know man the soil and I don't know, we'll find out.

Well, I've also heard that lung cancer, a lot of it is caused from actually the fertilizer used, which is, and when you, it's like a pulmonium, the same shit that used to kill the Russian. spy, you know, it's like basically like it's an isotope of lead I think and if you if we heat it up it becomes this isotope and over years of smoking your body builds up small amounts of plenic plutonium eventually you know you and that mixed with the carbon the radioactive carbon isotopes of smoking you know That's why, I mean, I think you figure that out. I'd still be smoking if you could just get rid of those two things.

Would it heal the brain damage?

No, I mean, how'd they can say go if he knows that?

I mean, it's exciting. I personally prefer to ignore all medical stuff because it freaks me out. I went to the doctor to get a physical for the first time, and it was just based on me like I quit smoking and I'm getting some weight. Let me just figure out where I'm at. And we also needed one for our tour, so I was like, insurance. Yeah, we had to be physical. For insurance, I went and I was like, what's up with this? How's my heart looking? The woman literally, the woman is putting my heart like, I can't get this other. I don't, I think I got it right. The EKG thing is like, It looks really good. And then it did some blood work and it looks really good. There's some high levels of this and that. What's that? We don't really know, but just we'll check in in a couple months and I was like, came back. Yeah, I think you just gained some weight, but we're not really sure. Like basically, I don't know. I mean, I've seen medicine say people's lives before. And then I've seen also like it be like, you know, seen, you know. It basically it feels like they still don't know what the fuck is happening in your body. A lot of times. So it's like it's best to like probably avoid a lot of that shit. It's like try to avoid getting sick.

If you can, that's my medical advice.

Well, I mean, I went and they told me that I had to say elevated liver and so I'm not like, they have from drinking beers. I mean, no, actually, it's just like, it's not like, it's not like, it's not, it would be different to be the opposite. I was like, well, it's a from like, I don't know. Don't worry about it. I went to this other guy. You're like, oh, okay, yeah, you've got some fat in the liver. And I was like, is it because I gained weight? Because that's why I'm here in the first place. And I probably went out to it. I think what should I do about it? And I just lose some weight if you can.

I'm just like, stressing out now. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'd be better off not getting this physical because I could have diagnosed myself of being a fat ass myself. I don't need this shit.

It's all about that. Because look, I had this person to be like, um, look, if there's something really that you really need to be stressing out about, I'll let you know, but otherwise, I'll stress out for you. I'm like, what the hell? I work. I need, if I know there's one thing that, And like, you know, someone really close to me had a really severe life threatening episode earlier this year that was very fucking traumatic for everybody involved and clean myself. And I ended up gaining like 20 pounds in a month basically, 15 pounds from this and I haven't really been on a shake it. And that's what led me to the get this physical. But watching this thing happen to this person was very close to me was like, I was like, what, the bedtime manner was just like insanity. Because it was the first time I've been in a real someone that wasn't, didn't have a long-term illness just like life, it's life or death. And it was like, there was no, there was no comforting. It was like, oh yeah, at any minute, this person could die for like five days. I think it's or anything you could do like, No, not, we've done everything. Just, you know, just, uh, sit tight. It was like, fuck. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, do you think? Well, the idea that this one person had to sit me down and tell me what was going on and like the look in this dude's eyes, it was like, He looked freaked out. But he wasn't calming me at all. But he also didn't want to lead. He couldn't pretend it was going to be okay.

No, man. I can't imagine. I could never do that job.

I mean, I've experienced intense stress from doing the thing I love the most, which is playing concerts. I mean, I've experienced it firsthand, like, and that's way different.

Obviously, I'm not like telling someone they're fucking loved ones, like about the fucking die. But do you still feel... Man, it's all just for me, it's all about just being in the right head space. you know I mean like when we first started playing we would play these indie rock clubs you know because we we come from that background like I guess what they would call now hipster shit or whatever And that was just people who like, you know, really passionate about certain types of music that wasn't massively appreciated. You know, we're just still kind of what we're into. But because of that, most of the people that were coming to our shows were like the high fidelity type record store clerk, you know, you're playing a show and it's just like, arms crossed. But afterwards, pretty good. You know, we'd be a little, we'd be a 22 year old kid. And the gatekeepers were like 30, you know, 32 year old. Now I would look at them as pretty, maybe being like, you know, supportive, but at the time, it was more supportive, but at the time it felt more like judging. I mean, so if I get in the wrong headspace, headspace, then I'm out on stage, I'm like, oh man, I've been scared of like judge, judge us, or something. You know what I mean? Like what you're looking at is big crowd. But then I ultimately do, I ultimately tell myself, I was like, the worst band of all time has played the more, more, you know, like some terrible, like manudos played the more people. You know what I mean? Like this isn't that many people. Like tonight we're playing the wheelchair. Like there's like 3,000 people. It's like this beyond us. Like the worst stand-up comedian. Like I don't know. I don't know man. Like the fifth Jonas brother could sell 5,000 tickets in LA probably. So it's less stressful when I like, or Gallagher 2 could buy sell 3,000 fucking tickets in Los Angeles. Come on. That's how I look at it, you know? I'm like, oh, we deserve to be here more than that person. You put our time in.

No, I read this thing that capped to be part one of our favorite musicians said and it was like if you've started, if you think about what you're doing, you've already lost. the battle, and the reality is that I don't need to think about, and I know Dan doesn't need, we don't need to think about what we're doing. So because we're not thinking about what we're doing, the trick is to stay in the moment with music, but I can play and not think about it, and then I start thinking, what's that person fucking thinking about? I'm like, I got this other conversation happening here, and it's like an intruder. Yeah, it's like, I like the temporary schizophrenia, right? Like Pat, what if you just stop playing? Like a devil angel. Yeah, there's like, I actually remember thinking that on stage of glass and very, you know, there's a 200,000 people who are close to that. And like, oh, I just stop playing. What would happen? It's like, it's something, either ready, maybe we don't do that.

We both, it was intense for both of us, actually. Because you know, it was, I mean, you should tell us story.

You know what I mean? I was just exhausted really.

I don't I don't drink that shame. But you know, I think we also have been playing these shows and it was exhausting.

Our schedule was in middle of summer with hot as hell and I would think I was severely dehydrated. But I mean, I was, because we played this one show in Des Moines right around this time. This was in 2010, right? So this is, this is when this happened was, a lot of blues at 2010. And this is the festival that we had played like four times before. So it wasn't like something new. And we weren't even headlining this time. It was just like, we were on stage doing something. I'd actually looking forward to the show. But this is like a pivotal moment for me. It was like, I, I just kind of missed the beat of a song. Something that no one else even noticed other than probably Dan. And then I was like, oh shit. And I got like, I spun out. And then I just kept spinning out. You know what I mean? Like a panic attack on stage. And when you have like a panic attack, like, you know, you tend to get a panic attack doing the same thing you did before. So I for a while was having a panic attack every time I was on stage. But I got through the set and everything was fine, but I was like, fuck, and a part of it was that I looked out and they were like 50,000 people. We've been playing this festival four or five times before and to like crowd starting that maybe 5,000 people. And now here we are the way most of the festivals watching us play. It was like, oh shit, what the fuck's happening? Finally people were here and they're like, I can't fuck it up now. And I was like, boom. Well, you know what, I went to those, I went to go see this dude here in LA in Santa Monica and then Carrie Gainer, like, a specializes in, like, do you have a test? I mean, look, man, I didn't know what to do. This gets so good, man. I didn't know what to do because I didn't, I got a couple of friends who are like, man, this gets a beta blockers. Get some, get some value, drink some beer. I can't do anything that shit before I go on. I can't be relying on that for a play. So I was like I got a recommendation to go see this hypnotist who specializes in like quitting smoking and fear of flying and also stage fright. There's a lot of like actors who are gonna do like plays for the first time. So I went to go see Carrie. It is house and we were playing some shows at the stadium. And he did this thing, he hypnotized me in the second night. Like I went that the first night we played. It was like better the second night we played. It was like pretty much gone. And then I woke up in the hallway of the Roosevelt Hotel. And the stairwell I might underwear at like seven in the morning. And I'm literally in this in the in I'm in the staircase in my underwear It's seven in the morning and I I'm like, what the fuck? And I just remember like this number like seven oh eight I think it was like seven oh eight that only been to the room one like two two times and my girlfriend at the time was in there luckily and I went and knocked on the door she said what the fuck were the fuck were you going I was like I just don't know

This dude is very weird. This guy, Kerry, I remember a couple things specifically that he said. And I went, so he said, you know, you're afraid of messing up. That's the whole point of being in a rock band. It's okay to mess up. It's not supposed to be perfect. I mean, perfection isn't something that anybody even wants. You know what I mean? Like if you go to like art gallery and you see like a Thomas concave painting, no one wants that shit. He was telling me all that he was telling me this shit like he was like basically like You know, your personality is, you know, everyone's flawed, right? Human beings, it's okay, like, whatever. You're not supposed to be perfect. You have no desire to be the, you know, there's no drumming competition you've entered. You know what I mean? I came up with like, yeah, fuck it. Like, I'm supposed to just be here having fun and it worked. And then I got really nervous a couple years later when we were supposed to play the Grammys on TV and I just got really fucking nervous. So you got it about it. And I think I had nervous because it's just like one of the things that's not natural for us. It's like we're going to be playing music on stage with all this pop music and stuff to have nothing to do with what we're about. But we couldn't say no. I think we had to do it because we couldn't just knock it till we tried it. But we had sat through the Grammy performance before. And it was atrocious. I mean, it really is, like, so alienating, especially when the big pop stuff comes out. It's like, what we do is something different. So I went to go see him before we played the Grammys. And he did this whole thing. Like, well, I was hypnotized. And I remember it, like, when they tell you 30 seconds you're going to start. It's 30 seconds till you're on, you're gonna start smiling when they get to like 15, it's gonna get bigger. When I say four, like you're stuck, it'll stop smiling. And I was like, anyway, this shit for a fucking, if you watch the video, I'm just like smiling the whole time. And the minute the song ends, like I just dropped my drumstick, so like he, me the fuck outta here, I'm never doing that again. But it was, I will say it was like, I think it's the best TV performance.

I would get hypnotized again if I needed it. I just, the stress, just the stress. I would do the Grammys again, possibly, sure. But it was like at the time, you know, it just seemed like I'm the stress stress. And then like this whole, all this, I think, I had a couple of issues about the Grammys because the first time we ever went, we won two Grammys. This is the weird thing. We go and the words that we're nominated for were given away at the Pre-Talicast. The first time we were nominated for Grammys, this is on our record brothers. We're there February 2011. And my brother Michael was nominated for Grammy. So he for record cover of the year for our record. So Mike wins a Grammy first right off the bat. First award of the day record cover. Mike wins. It gets down to like the alternate the opera category. We win like rock performance of the year or something. When we go in the Staples Center Conference area, whenever we go, collect our award and we're standing on the side of the stage and they say, Next up are the rock song of the year. They list all the nominees including us so we stay there because we're on our day for this award and I and also Neil Young for whatever song and like so Neil Young wins that and I like this is Neil Young's first Grammy award and at that moment I was like what the fuck my brother Michael has had a Grammy longer than Neil Young. I'm like that's the fucking crazy. I'm like Plus two knuckleheads have to. And then we go and we win a Grammy right after him. We win an alternative out of the year. So now we have more Grammys than Neil Young within 10 minutes. And I was like, this is all kind of fucking insane, isn't it? Like, none of it makes sense. I start looking, none of my favorite bands of fucking Grammys. Like, the clash, none of the fucking Grammys.

No, so I'm like, what? So then anyway, I'm thinking about this the whole day, it's like this isn't saying. I mean, it's exciting, it's cool, but it's also like, it's like, it means a lot less when your favorite bands don't have great, that should have them. How does it greatly work? Well, it's the way I was going to finish this thing, really. Okay, because this is what the apprehension I have about the Grammys is like this. day ended with us going back to the hotel we're staying at, which at the time was the Chateau Morma and TMZ was there and it popped out. Like we tried to like just avoid the Werner Brothers has a party there. We're trying to avoid all of that stuff just to go hang out with our friends and a camera little bumps out at the liquor locker right there in the corner and like and the guy asked me he's like how do you feel about Justin Bieber not having a Grammy and I was just like I'm sitting there thinking about the clash you know what I mean and like Justin Bieber he's got I would like I'll tell him my Grammy's for all the money he has basically I'm trying to say like the motherfuckers should be happy just to have a fucking career Um, I said something like that. And I wasn't, it was just like, I'm not, you know, it wasn't even like a nestle and knock on Justin Bieber. It was just like, that's my response to the question. I'm thinking about something else and I'm getting a car and we leave. And then the next morning I wake up to a tweet. This is right at the height of the anti-bullying shit, too, which is like, you know, Justin Bieber, I don't bully him. He's like, the drummer from the black he should get slapped. At the time, I was like, thought it was the funniest fucking thing that I ever had. But I was like, you know what? I can't deal with any of that shit. I don't want any of that shit. And so I realized like, that was my experience, my apprehension about playing the Grammys all came back to that. It was like, what is the fucking Grammys? What is this shit? Like, we're just jerking ourselves off, like, congratulating ourselves. Does anybody watch this shit really cares about us?

It's also, like, it's, you know, ultimately it's in a different than any other election. Like, the year that we were nominated for out of the year, So it's so is Jack White so aren't we split our votes? You know what I mean? Like someone had to get a vote for us or Jack or like mom for it and sons. It's ultimately complete nonsense.

Yeah, why we didn't bundle that was the whole motivation between this record was like It was to not not partake in the current bullshit in the music industry, which is, so check this out. Do you mind if I explain it? Please do. Okay. We had a conversation with our manager. about this record, right? You know, release it. And it went from everything like we have family. We don't really want to be on the road for a hundred days this year. We don't necessarily want to do anything. We don't. We don't want to do anything. We're not excited about, you know, so it came down to the promotion and stuff. And it was basically is that we want to get in front of people and play our songs and have fun, you know, and the conversation came up with about the actual album. Warner Brothers was interested if we wanted to bundle it, which is when you include the record like with a ticket, right? And a lot of people have been doing it whether you buy a t-shirt and you get a record and it's a digital download link. And I said, well, how does that work? And I said, well, you would give $5 from each ticket back to Warner Brothers and then you would get a record sale. And I was like, that doesn't make any sense to me and to Dan. And then like, yeah, I'm not well. It's the only way you're going to get a number one record. So if you want a number one record, you got to do that. And I was like, well, I was like, well, So it's one to one like we give five bucks back and then we get a royalty and we get a ticket sale. And now you don't get a royalty and you only get a you only get a album sale count if they click the link and I have like we have a 50% click through. So in other words, we would pay $10 per sale on Nielsen SoundScan. by giving the money back that we've sold on tickets to Warner Brothers to our record label. I was like, fuck that fuck that shit. At this point, that is a crazy deal. Check out we've sold 250,000 tickets on this tour. So we would give back 1.25 million our record advance for this record was less than that. so that so it I was like if Dan and I were just on our own record label we could give ourselves five dollars per ticket and count and we just keep the we just take the money from the right hand to the left hand give you a link if you counted it we get the sale we keep the money that's basically what the fuck was going on you don't mean And it's all based on fear, like all of the shit. Like, do you want to be relevant? You know, that's basically the conversation that is basically being had, not that direct, but it's like, as an artist, you better try to get to get the good numbers, get that first week up there. And Dan and I are basically like, fuck that. Fuck it. It doesn't even fucking matter. People are going to come to the shows, or they're not going to come to the shows. We're going to make records. People are going to buy them, and they're not going to buy them. And I think that it's really detrimental to the music industry. To pay two close attention to certain metrics, man. It's like the whole system right now with these majors is like science shit that has the most social media interaction, the most streaming. And I was like, you know what? When I was nine years old, I bought vanilla ice as Ice Ice Baby. And I listened to that shit. I'm not joking. Like 250 times in a week. Like I'm fucking idiot. Like that's who's listening to this shit. There's getting a billion streams in a month. It's like fucking nine-year-old moron. I like our fans have like, you know, they got like 150 albums that they listen to on a sort of rotation at least and ours may be one of them a month I mean so like it's a different fucking audience you know I mean it's you look at Instagram and you see these certain people I've never even heard their music they had and they have like 10 million followers

That's exactly right, but that's the problem is that there are two different things that play at play here. There's the music industry itself, which is like certain people who work in industry high-ups are like we need to sell records, we need to we need like this pop producer to work with this writer and this artist and we need streaming numbers and then there's certain people you know like the old garden like the Lenny Warnaker or Seymour Stein or you know even lots of young guys too but you know they're like actually what we're doing is curating art that we really like and it's either going to sell or it's not going to sell and a lot of the records that we grew up listening to most of them were records made by these kind of insanely eccentric weird people that never saw records but have changed our lives and like captain B. for it being one of them you know like Tom Wades has sold some records but still like he's it's a much different type of commercial viable thing but these artists or why we make music. You know, it has nothing to do with this shit. It's like the difference between like the Vogue's, you know what I mean? And like the Fugs. It's like there's a lot of these comparisons that you can make about what we do in our place in the music industry is, is to do what we do. And for a while, we were taking part in like the main stream aspects of music. You know what I mean? We were playing like the MTV Movie awards and having these insane weird experiences only because we we hadn't done it before and we felt like we had to do it and I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't change anything but at this point like I think Steering is far away from all that shit is is what we want to do right now

Check it out. It's like we played the MTV movie Awards in 2012. We got all for it to do it. We watched it when we were kids. We were in LA already. It was like, whatever. Aerosmith came out and introduced us. And now I'm thinking like, why would they agree to do to be on the MTV music awards? What are they going to get from that? The whole thing was kind of bizarre. It's all really bizarre. They need to be in the spotlight or something. We were just like, I think we realized how goofy it was while we were there. But we got it in the same experience because we now a Johnny Depp. in Joe Perry and Steven Tyler and this is crazy because after the after we do this song wherever we're outstage but out backstage by the trailers and I'd like to see Steven Tyler and Joe Perry and Janet that talking and we walk over because we just want to see what they're talking about and I'm just like I'm looking at the shit they're all wearing the craziest accessories like they're dressed up like you know Mark types of rock stars we ever and they're like talking about and Steven Tyler and Jill Perry talking about transport how they're gonna get their arsenal across state lines and I think what like yeah, man we can't we travel with a goddamn arsenal I think what like yeah, and AR-15's like we have fucking grenades I think this is insane.

I think it's worth it. We're here today just to hear these guys feel like they need to travel with grenades But then I was thinking about there. Have you ever seen their video game?

Dude, the arrows with the video game.

Dude, if you watch their video game, after hearing this conversation, Dan and I were pretty too, you're like, oh, this makes complete sense. Good. It never made sense to me. It's like the Terminator arcade game where there's like, you know, back in the early 90s. It's that, but it's them. It's like a fucking insane. You should put a clip up of that.

Yeah, and then it brings up a whole other thing, which is like, oh, no, we're weird. After the bottom, after the bottom clon shit, like this is a real fucked up game to look at. Yeah, seriously.

It's like it's called cocaine psychosis.

I didn't even look good. They can't nap him.

They were really nice. I didn't realize they had a trouble with weapons.

I, you know, I mean, once you had it, like the first time I ever really had a panic attack, I had one, and then I kind of didn't have another one until this moment on that state, on the opposite, but the first time really was, on a way from Amsterdam to London, Dan bought some mushrooms. And I guess they were legal there. I never, I didn't, Dan bought them in part of them. We were traveling in a van at the time, and they were giant fresh mushrooms. Not even dried? No, man, it was like a meal. And then he bought him, he like, you guys, you should take some, you should take some. I like the stem and it was massive. I mean, it was like eating a burrito. And after like 20 minutes, after 20, 30 minutes, it's like, I don't feel, I don't feel anything. And Dan's like, I don't see the fucking rest man, I don't know. I eat the rest of this thing as a massive ass thing, and like, it's like sweating. It smells like portable mushrooms, seeping from my skin. And I yell up to the driver. I'm like, sorry, I'm just spin out. Like, how do you get this to stop? He turns around. He only wore black and his shades on. And I thought I really thought at the time he was like satin. He's like drink loads of beer. I was like, what the fuck? And then I just like, in the back just like, oh fucking like freaking out for like two hours. And finally we stop. I'm like, we got, I got the fuck out of this van. This is this is in 2003. It's a long time ago.

We get out and like, I just think it's a fresh airman. We stop at this gas station in Belgium and I Walk into the bathroom with Dan and they're like this woman's like speaking in French like You know like it's basically saying they caught I was like what the fuck is what's happening? Dan like it costs money to pee here, bro And I'm like what is like I know man's that crazy and I'm like fucking freaking out and I all I had was like 50 euros and I put it on the tray and Dan grabs it and puts it in my pocket and then puts like a nickel there. Dude, it doesn't cost that much to pee. And then we both start laughing at that moment. And then I turned the edge from that. And then it was an amazing experience to be started being like, laughing at like how clean their dumpster was. Even the dumpsters here clean. They're like bright red. You can eat off it. You can eat. You can really truly dumpster dive here to be like eating a regular meal.

Yeah, all the light came in and yeah And then it seemed like it was crazy because when we got back in the van three fucking hours later like our driver like dude we gotta go I said we've been here for 20 minutes. He's like it's been three hours of you guys look like talking about this dumpster and I was like no way So we get back in and dance Dan like out of nowhere his girlfriend I guess maybe had the time do you want some bubble go and we've been on tour for a month and I never seen this bag it was like a trash bag for a gumball and I'm like oh my god what the fuck's happening I think this listen to his music, man. So he put on NWA and I was like, we both started laughing. I was like, it sounded like Fisher Price music, like so plastic and brittle and like, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude And then he put on Captain B. Fart's safe as milk and it was like the most incredible sounding record I've ever heard. It was fucking insane. But it was that experience that first opened up me. I've experienced in that like what the fuck's happening? Like kind of fight or flight but for no reason panic attack thing. And I think, yeah, I deal with it mostly, but just when I'm on stage, I still get them occasionally, if I come in too fast.

It's the first time I've ever felt it, man.

I just think I took way too much. I'm really sensitive to, I'm really sensitive to getting high, like, yeah. It's not in my system. It's not for me.

I don't think I could. I like bullshit, I know. But I definitely, I know.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm dance personal. How am I? That's basically it.

Well, I was exhausted that day because we were kids. We were kids partying for I was. I had never been to Europe really. We were an Amsterdam. I smoked weed the night before which I don't do. We were drinking. And I barely got any sleep. So it's super shitty feeling. So every time I'm like, basically tired a more prone to that shit and it happens like at the airport and then like the airport to me early morning flights just it Always kind of like that was really hectic and like everything's fucking moving around and tired like fuck this is a fucking miserable and Festivals sometimes they're so crowded and like But now I haven't had them I haven't had a problem with them really, but the hypnotism shit worked so

It is. It is strange. I think it's like when people go see like a life coach, maybe that's what they're looking for. Yeah, just a test. Some positive reinforcement.

It's like, when you look at Instagram, so it's like, man, I'm just so happy. I don't know. There's people kind of like this cult type of mentality on Instagram. There's a whole There's a whole scene there, self-help. Man, it's like, kind of centered. Everyone in this kid went to a boarding school and it's disappointed their parents.

Yeah, you can't just be have dreadlocks.

Yeah, it's also when someone has a continuous message, it's always the same, and it's always positive.

Yeah. That's the best movie ever made probably about music. It's like, it beats Final Tap. It's like, if there was a competition, I have to come down on some kind of monster. It made me actually like the, I mean, it made me as a fan, appreciate those guys in a weird way. They're dysfunction. Like they became characters. Well, at one time, I'll watch the movie and I'll be like, oh man, like, Lars is so annoying. Then I'll watch it again. Like, I'll still think Lars is annoying, but I like, I still think he's right. Or so, I have a different review every time I watch it. But ultimately, I do, I am just, I end up liking those guys because of it more.

Well, yeah, it's like David versus the Glyath type of thing. I'm a clearly people shouldn't steal, but is it Metallica's job to tell people that? Maybe, but maybe they should have gone directly to Napster or to the record label. But when streaming first started becoming like a real thing, we had to talk with a friend of ours who'd basically encourage us to look at it and not do it. and I went into with our manager when we were talking to someone at Warner Bros and said we didn't want to do it and they were like kind of outraged and like you can't not do it you can't not do it and I didn't really know time, but I found out a couple months later that they... I found out a couple months later because I was quoted in Roenstone talking shit about Sean Parker and Spotify. What happened is I ended up getting a phone call from Daniel Eck, the owner Spotify. And we had lunch together. And he's a fucking cool guy. He's a nice guy, very intelligent. And I really saw his side of it for the first time. And he basically, without explaining it correctly, was like, you know, that he's paying our label to get our music, what they do with the money he can't control. And he's really like that. At that moment, I realized, oh, yeah, there's some stock being floated to these companies, which there was billions of dollars of stock was sent.

They gave us, they gave us like a couple hundred thousand dollars of it out of the billion because they paid it to us and the way the label does was they paid it as an artist royalty and it took all these deductions off of it and it was made up number. There's a lot of money in the music industry right now. And the problem is is that I'd say not, okay, so my favorite bands For the most part, don't have hit songs. They don't get played on K-rock. They don't have like a Makarina type shit under, that's gonna be coming their way. You know what I mean? And that's what pays money is like, because they treat almost every stream the same. It's like, there's a different, there's a royalty rate for if you pay for Spotify. And there's a royalty rate for if you're listening on the free service. But what they need to do, in my opinion. As I need to say, this guy is a Joe listens to music. He has good taste in music. He follows 500 bands, which means that there's no possible way that he's going to be listening to all 500 of those bands in an even a six month period of time. But when he does choose to listen to a song, it's worth like X. like 10X versus this person who's listening to Old Town Road a thousand times a day. You know what I mean? Because Joe is like actually engaging with our thing and not just streaming the song for free and like a monkey, like, you know, like a Pavlov, you know, whatever, mouth-solvated and every time they hear those little little Old Town Road, whatever. I was, I look at my Spotify thing and I'll go months, and I have all, I pay for all of them, I have like YouTube, Apple whatever I don't have title, but that's because they didn't they they gave ownership to like 12 artists and they're like fuck you what the fuck is that? Just keep the ownership and pay a higher royalty you fucking cock suckers Honestly, so I'm like so anyway, I look at my Spotify listen to like I was like a hundred songs a month It's barely anything and I'm like the way to really do this. It's fair is you take my ten fucking dollars Right and listen to a hundred songs. That's it cuz I've got so many ways to listen to music that you listen they take that ten songs and you give every buddy Ten cents But that's not the way they do it. They're like, we pay 0.005, 6, 7 cents per stream. How could you fucking know what you pay for stream if you're if you're a distribution service? Do you see them saying? Yeah. I'm giving you $10 and you're gonna take 30% off the top like Apple music used to do when you'd buy a CD. And then you take seven books and throw it towards the artist. That would make sense to me. But they don't. They're like, they're paying, they're keeping all this fucking cash, but they're keeping it in a pile. And then at the end of the day, they're just satiating like, you know, Rihanna's $100 million check she gets every year. I mean, I know a lot of artists who just, they get checked $2.50 for a whole year on a record that normally would sell like 5 or 6,000 copies. But there's no need, like you have to basically be an idiot to buy a CD. nowadays, you know, because it's a digital file that you ultimately could download from Spotify under your phone and have it with you forever.

You know, unless you don't have the internet, you know, if you're in Alaska or North Dakota, maybe you need to have a CD.

I'm not worried about us, man. It's like the new bands coming out. The new bands trying to break it. That's what I'm worried about. Yeah. It's like we're fine. But it bums me out.

I think in a way, it's like when we first started, our first record deal. What's with the small label not far from where we are here? And the deal is this. Give us 12 songs. Pay for the recording yourself. We'll master it, which is the final process of making a record. It costs a couple hundred bucks. And we'll send you 50 albums and we'll give you like 12 percent of the money we make. That was it. And we're going to have a $500 marketing budget. That was that was that was the deal. You know what I mean? So we basically I mean we made this record paid for it ourselves and we went on tour with this agent named Ralph Carrera, a book that's a tour that kind of a mercenary agent who would like book the label I think paid him a couple hundred bucks to book us as tour. And it all kind of started steam rolling, you know what I mean? But we had no infrastructure, we had no management, we had no agent, we had nothing, we just kind of gotten advanced, started going. And I think in a lot of ways, nothing has changed except for that when we got to the second level, you know, the set. Like, there was a couple of thousand dollars there, for us to make a record, there was opening slots, that you know, touring was a little bit different then. But I think we've always kind of done it in a way that was pretty DIY. And the way it's the same way it has to function now. The only difference is there's fewer record labels that are going to sit there and give you $15,000 to make a record. And maybe give you 10 grand to help you buy a van. And that's the hard to step. That's the threshold where things bands are having a hard time getting through. What you get through there, then it's like, then you get to where we were for years, which is you're on a bigger label, you're making records and no one's paying attention to you. The only reason why we ended up getting attention paid to us, I think, by Warner Brothers, for our six record brothers, It was a kind of a heavy time. I'd just turn 30 to just turn 30 and you know when you turn 30 it feels like you've gotten old. You know, I mean, and like especially in the rock and roll business. And we had this record, I thought it was great. And I went to talk to Leer Cohen with our manager, this will be ours, this one of the guys, heads of Warner Brothers. And I was like, we're like, we're the most synced band on Warner Brothers, which is when you get a song on a TV show or a movie or a commercial. And there's no other band for the last two years. This had as many syncs as we have had. But we have that I don't even know who works the radio department at Warner Brothers and we've been on your label for like four or five years and Leo or basically like that fuck he prioritized us like that week and for the first time was like we're gonna work on your band And when that happened, that's when the law will lose a shit. That's the radio, K-rock, everything fucking changed. You know what I mean? It took us six or albums and it took us all those syncs. All that shit, all getting called sellouts all the time for a while, for grabbing our songs. The same dudes that we're at are first shows with their arms crossed.

I think that it's different. I think that for this type of thing, it comes from that idea that like, maybe like, oh, that band, like, they're, I like to better when it was at my secret, my friends and I share it. I don't want to share it with this dude. That's why it's dangerous to have your song in certain things. Like, if your song comes on, in Walgreens, you better watch out, man. That's a red flag. We've had opportunities to have our songs sent to top 40 radio. If we won record of the year for Lonely Boy, Warner Bros. was going to service that song to top 40. It would have never been a hit. But if we would have won that Grammy, it could have fucked a whole band up. I've seen it happen with lots of bands. Like you just kind of, it's just like you become like play school level.

It's not. We would have changed, but the thing is is like you start accessing like You start accessing, you start acquiring a fan base that's more fickle and maybe more annoying. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, I bet you as a Cubs fan, like a Chicago Cubs fan in 2017 was like fuck this world series shit. Every motherfucker wearing a fucking cubs hat. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. And I know exactly what that would feel like. It's probably the same thing. It's like someone's going in there to get like someone's going to get shaving cream and this band that used to play it like the fucking cast ball in San Diego is playing it while they're checking out like they're probably like fuck this fuck this listen if you guys put out the same music that you put out in that time period it wouldn't have mattered

That's cool. That's one of my favorites too. I love that song. That's the funny thing is like when you start looking like sometimes I just nerd out and I start not like when I'm just like sitting at home or look at like play counts of songs that one is one of those songs that when we recorded like this is one of our best songs and it's it was one of the least purchased least. But it's funny because I think it's one dance favorite too. It's like fucking great song. Most of the stuff that You know, that's what's important about music is it's just to do what you are good at what you feel, you connect to and I think that I guess that's ultimately what I'm trying to say is that it's always been this way where there's always been this noise of like, you know, annoying, annoying, bad kind of mainstream music and the problem is is that because everything is getting streamed on the same platform and There's no more and like there's less independent record stores. There's less. There's no college music journal. There's not there everything's kind of compared to it's like you know you listen to like the new like purple mountains record, which is a guy who unfortunately passed away this summer, front of ours, David Berman. I mean I think it's maybe his greatest work right and the record has a maybe a million streams or something and then compared to like Oh, whatever Drake is doing, it gets lost, it's completely lost. I think that there needs to be a better way to highlight this stuff. It's still crazy to me that there isn't like a website that I can go to as a crazy music fan that I think is curating music that I actually want to hear. And we both have really open minds when it comes to music. But there isn't one thing that's just like highlighting stuff from the underground from mid-level rock.

I don't think I don't think many people actually even listen to that.

It's also hard because I think that they're part of the problem actually. Yeah, like the way that they've programmed the four or five rock channels. Like there's a channel in there called the spectrum. Dan has a show in there. And it's like the AAA channel, which would be like KCRW here or whatever. Like the morning becomes eclectic. I'm trying to think what song it was exactly that heard, but they started tapping in, like this should be a format that's highlighting like You know, I think music that's current, music that's coming out, you know what I mean? And they were playing a couple of you two songs on there the other day. And this is a band that plays the Rose Bowl. Why the fuck are you playing them on a fucking AAA? You fucking asshole. You know what I mean?

And then I go and I look to the alternative station. And the alternative station is playing like pop music. You know what I mean? Like a little pop music. And then you go to the alternative channel and they're playing like five or six artists or the indie channel there's like there isn't there's like almost there's I don't know there's like under representation of of of I mean, I didn't even put it this way. I went to France this summer for a month. I always wanted to take this trip. My family, I went to South France, rented a car. And I decided, I didn't even hook my phone up to the car for weeks. I just, right, I turned it on. I scanned a radio and I've heard a song relate. You know what the fuck is that? on this channel called Radio Nova, which is a nationwide, not digital, trust, drill, station on in France. I heard this song and I was like, oh man, that's like a new song by a Damon Allburn from Blur, from a record called Africa Express. I never heard it's amazing this song. I was that not playing anywhere in America. I listened to this channel every day for the whole trip and every single day. I heard maybe two songs in like 21 days that I knew. It was all new. It was all current. Some of it was classic. Even the classic stuff. It was like a Janice job and song I'd never heard. It was like true. I felt like I entered a different dimension. And I came back to the US and I put on my satellite radio. I was like, why am I hearing the same fucking bullshit? There's so much good shit out there. And even when I go to the algorithm, my algorithm on a, I was sitting with this guy in John Vandersly's other days. Well known indie producer, we were looking at our algorithms, our pre-determined Spotify. thing and every single thing was something that I listened to already except for one artist and it was something that I didn't even care for. Like if all the technology was all the ways to hear all the millions of songs on Spotify, they still haven't figured out how to say she ate new, like someone's desire to hear new music. Do you know?

I think that they've gotten their ass so far into metrics and statistics that they've stopped any sort of actual curation using taste. And the only way you get to something worthwhile is through taste.

Man, I've had a show on that channel on that. I've had a show on that with that company for five years. I do it for free. I don't get paid. Five years every month. I had this one artist that I worked with. I was like, I really think you should consider this for something that you might want to put on a playlist. Really? Like, this isn't some pay-old issues with five years. And they're like she doesn't have the social media numbers we're looking for I think you know what that means that you're what you're adding is just some dumbass it's good at social media like I mean Yes, I mean that's that that's what qualifies you to get in the radio them were all fucked

Well, I think it's a good taste. I think that you're not, I think that the social media thing is a lot of it. I mean, I think it's fake. I think the numbers are fake. I think that there's a couple of these, I don't know, I don't want to name names, I don't want to talk shit about it, but it's like this form of music that it's like pop rap. thing that it's always like some white dude tattoos all over his fucking face that just came out of nowhere and like there it's always like the social media is always like I mean I've cleaned up my act of So glad to be alive and bringing them music to you soon. But they never had a hit. And but like they have like 500,000 likes in this shit. You're gonna look at who's liking it. It's all like mindless kids. You know what I mean? Not to say that that's bad. But I'm saying like you can't as an adult like program and radio station. Look at that. Like this means something. You know what I mean? I mean honestly, if you go back to 1991 right to when Nirvana's never mind came out. Like they didn't have the equivalent of social media, they didn't have shit going on. They had a fucking song that is knocked everybody across the fucking face. And because the programmers are looking at these other dumb metrics, they're not going to get that song across. I mean, Billie Eilish, I think thing is pretty cool actually. But I think there's a Billie Eilish that we found every month. You know what I mean? It's not that there's so much good music and to be able to go to France to hear American music on the radio is insane.

Because we need someone to give us the opportunity.

Speaking of young Jamie, we're playing a festival in Vegas on Saturday and a little Wayne is going on before us. Oh, shit. Which isn't the first time that's happened. That's a good story. We'll tell you.

Yeah, I would never matter personally because music's cool, but we've got big Wayne to come out with us.

Wayne Newton. Oh, no shit. Yeah, we like we got little Wayne before us. We have to have big Wayne with us. So we booked that Wayne Newton.

I know.

We played this festival with Lil Wayne. It was called the Virgin Mobile Fest and it was a it was a free fest. Yeah, Baltimore. Yeah tickets for free. They paid us. They paid bands well and everything. The studios played. We got to hang out with the studios and like which was amazing because we're backstage and like the Ashton brothers are sitting there. Chainsmoking. arguing about how to change like a catalytic converter. I'm like, this is so fucking Detroit man. This is amazing. And they're so real. I think this is fucking true. Yeah. I was like, fuck me. I was just in awe. Just like this shit. There's like, and then a couple hours later, we, uh, little Wayne's supposed to go on the same stage as us. Right for us. Right for us. And the stage managers like absolutely no buses near the stage.

So we had a park our shit like way across the field or whatever and we're we go over to on the golf cart whenever and he's Will Wayne's supposed to be done he's not even there yet and we're like what the fuck's happening and then so he shows up The bus rolls up right to the stage, right across the track, giant, giant, like dense in the track. And him and like, I'm not joking, 30 of his friends get off the bus probably. And just immediately go right to the stage. Everybody looks at the little way and music starts playing from like a CD player. And they play a whole set. They are whole set. And we're supposed to be out at this time. So we're like, look at the clock, our set's almost done and they're still playing. Like, the fuck's happening. And then it all ends with him getting an electric guitar and like, I don't even know what the fuck he was doing, but it wasn't playing it. But it was loud and it was like, people were, I think he thought that like he could pretend to be a guitar player at a festival and people would understand it. Like, would just not know that it wasn't good. And I was just like, this is fucking crazy. Like, and kind of have to crowd kind of bought it. which is also good for my anxiety. It was just like, you don't even have to be good anymore. It was like a tart. But then we were like, you know, we're like, this are sets. What time do we do now? The stage range is like, well, obviously you're going to get paid and we're like, obviously. And we can need to play a full set or three songs. No one paid for a ticket. We're playing three songs. One of the fighters right out of here. So maybe he does that again this time. So if he does, like, you might get there only to see us play the only boy with Wayne Newton. Which would be worth the cost of a mission.

We should.

I don't want to go on a limb 15. I don't want to go on a limb 15.

Well, you know, he just left the blink when I do two tour. I read because, you know, the people don't at the arena shows obviously. People don't all get there for the support ban. So he was probably like half full room and I think left we could give him a full room in Yeah, I'll take that. I'll take that head cuz we could go play blackjack for an hour We knew it might not be available though.

That festival? Yeah, or the bottle of blankway two thing?

What? What for?

It's a festival, so it's curated by a talent buyer, usually in connection with like age or live nation.

Yeah, festivals now are odd. I mean, I think it's cool to have odd pairing. And it's like, like I said 11 years ago, we had the same pairing with Will Wayne. But I think I do think, you know, the festival thing has gotten a little bit. It's getting, you know, it's, you know, festivals are kind of for, for younger people. So because that there's a lot more, You know, there's like a lot more pop kind of stuff. You know, I think we're one of the few rock bands playing the whole festival really. I mean, one of the few bands of the drum set, that's for sure. That's strange time, man.

Do you feel like... I don't think we're gonna do that many coming up. I think this might be one of the last ones we do for a while.

Well, we pulled out a woodstock for that reason, for that reason.

It was more money than we'd ever been paid for a show. Our age. I was like, what the fuck? Are you sure you want to? What? I don't know.

We had paid for it. It took four days if I'm checking. Like, we're like, wow. Cancel it. It's a, it's not going to be cool. I don't want to play that as our first show back. And he's like, well, there's a good chance it's going to get canceled. And if you cancel it, you're not going to get paid. I'm like, why would we want to have a headline if that's what gets canceled? Like, it makes us to look like we can't.

I was like, I don't, I don't, I don't feel comfortable taking money like that.

And they all had that haircut that went on back then, where that you'd shave, like the sides in the back, and then pull the top back into, you know, not an angst. And the metal ball, the metal ball necklaces.

It was like, I don't know, ball bearings. You know, yeah, sure.

At least I worked at a record store when that corn record came out in 1999 and it's when I first really got a glimpse of how fucked we are. There's like a modest mouse record to come out and like I sold it two or three copies of it and they're just like droves of morons coming in and saying I need that new corn record. I would think we had boxes upon boxes like fuck man. We're fucked. And I went into the bathroom and I was like, and thinking about this and the bathroom, that place was just covered in like pornography. And I was like, this is like, so fucked up. And then the movie, it actually came out. And I was like, this is fucking living in this shit already. And then the last five years of happened, I was like, we're fucking so deep into this shit, man. So deep.

Do they need it for certain areas? I went to this I went to this rural, rural county fair outside of Nashville a couple of weeks ago because my wife want to take our baby to see the little piglets and stuff. So we go into that like the 4-H kind of area and it's cute and like you know real like real motherfuckers who work their asses off in there. But then we go into the actual fair part where and it is these corn these people I sold corn records to like 20 years ago are now there and dude I bought Okay, they had lemonade, right? Which is basically like crunchy, like crunchy lemonade, there's so much sugar in this shit. Like everyone's getting like diabetes on the spot. I ordered three large lemonade, there's six dollars a piece, right? I gave the woman a $20 bill, and she gives me back 15 bucks and starts. And starts talking to me. And as she's doing, and as she's doing, she's like, she's like talking about fucking, I'm not joking, wheel of fortune. Just to no one. I'm like this shit. Oh my god. I was like, what the hell? What do I do? Do I give her? Do I actually don't correct this shit? Like it's gonna be way too complicated. Just take it as like to take the money. Don't feel guilty. Oh my god. You're gonna embarrass her. She doesn't even know what's happening. She's talking about fucking Vanna White and like Fuck, and I looked around like, man, oh, there's a lot of fucking people on pills in this country or something. Oh, yeah. And then that's where I started going as rant on the way home. My baby's trying to sleep. I'm like, how is Bernie Sanders talking about paying back college loans when there's people who don't have a middle school or high school education? I mean, these, a lot of this comes down to just fucking education. And I was like, that's a really weird way to talk about, get it, you know, spending tax dollars. I can like, is on paying back college loans.

That's everybody done. I actually went to this art school for it.

I went to the school for two quarters called the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, right? And I didn't know that it wasn't accredited. I didn't know shit. They came and recruited me and I couldn't get into any art school. I had horrible grades in math. So I tested into like four years of remedial math. So I was like, I don't want to fucking do that. I like photography or whatever. And after two quarters, I had a teacher who just came up with me in the morning, like, after a 10-30 class, like, week to whiskey, and he said, I need to talk to you. And he busted out his portfolio, which is all at this point. This is like 1998, the shit's from the mid-70s, you know, dusty. All the colors are faded. Do you want to do this with your life? And it's photographs of cupboards, cabinets, photographs of cabinets. You get the fuck out of here, kid. You're like, you're like, this degrees meaningless. It's unequited. You want to fucking be loading cameras with your fucking life. You're the only one in here that gives a fuck. And I think you fucking serious. I'm fucking serious. And I went home and I was like, Dad, I think I made a mistake. And this school's like $8,000 a quarter. It was fucking expensive. uh oh wow and and I dropped out so then I dropped out and I had this whole other experience but fast forward to 2014 we're on tour we're about to go to Pittsburgh I talking to the Pittsburgh Post because that they're like and I like oh yeah man I love Pittsburgh from Akron two hours away I actually used to live there I went to this school um actually it's one of the biggest scams of all fucking time and I'm like what school are some Pittsburgh and I it became like local news for weeks like So I just did, I did a pre-tour interview with the same writer a couple of weeks ago, he's like, hey man, remember that interview we did about, uh, I do talk about talking shit on the artists to the Pittsburgh, I was like, they went out of business. And like, literally they kind of hold you accountable for it. And I'm like, well, how does a college go out of business? Because they're scamming fucking kids. Oh, it was a scam. A lot of colleges are fucking scamming. You know, I mean, I was like, I know, I had a relative who was going to, uh, I've paid for a lot of fucking liberal arts schools. You would be surprised how much I paid for. I don't ever went to a school. I help out family members of the shit. I paid for a year in Oberlin, which is not fucking cheap. You know what I mean? I should get a fucking honorary degree from this shit. I paid for this shit. I don't have to fuck that shit. I got asked to pay for some of Lewis and Clark, you know, and he's fucking $60,000 a year. School in Portland. Man, and there's a school called Oberlin liberal super liberal arts school, really cool radio station, a lot of cool people go the conservatory, you know, I mean, a very liberal school. And Dan, I pretty liberal motherfuckers, you know, and it's not far from Akron. It's close. So I would drive to Oberlin. They had good shows there. Yeah, 60 miles at my girlfriend went there at the time and I would go see concerts and all kinds of shit. But every time I would go there, like all these kids that were like from New York City, which kids from New York were never big. Oh man, I would express an opinion about something and they'd like, man, you're just a townie dude, like, just a townie. I'm like, fuck you motherfucker. Like, who the fuck are you? You just have your parents have a bigger bank account in the mind. That's the only difference you fucking asshole. And I don't feel bad that you don't have a job after you have a fucking degree here. You fucking dick.

I mean, I'm serious. I don't feel bad that you don't have a job after a college going to college. I was like, what? I mean, I don't know. I was like fully prepared to it when I dropped out of school. If the bike keys thing hadn't worked, start a long care business. I don't know. Wash people's fucking windows. I don't really know. I wasn't gonna write papers. I wasn't gonna write academic papers. I knew that much. Believe it or not.

I don't mean it. My step my step daughter has her friends over right and I'm like And I was like, she had her birthday party, she had three of her friends over there all 14. And they were over for two hours already. I was like, beautiful day in the summertime. And like, I go up into their room. And there's no sound. I'm like, they're all under devices. And I'm like, you guys need to get me your fucking devices. Get out of the room. I'm like so jacked up like sergeant slaughter. And I'm like, as I'm mad, I don't mean to sound this irritated. I don't know why I do. I just don't mean to sound that. I really don't care as much as I sound. But we need, I need to show you that there's other stuff to do and you guys should be hanging out. Um, and then like it was weird because I was telling them like you know when I was a kid we used to watch troll 2 and like we would have super watch troll 2 and make fun of it troll 2 the movie the movie yeah So I'm like I go up there like late night like one in morning. They're all watching troll 2, but the thing is like they're deep into the movie. I'm like oh my god. We always turned it off after the first ever. You guys still forgot to tell you you guys are gonna warp your brains watch it all troll 2

Oh, there is a movie. I think called troll, but it's not, but it's not related. They're not related? No, troll two isn't related.

No, no, I could be wrong. I could be wrong by I really believe. I really believe troll 2 is related to troll 2.

I don't think I don't think the troll won't even exist actually.

I don't know, this is a big thing actually.

Well, I kind of, you know, there's this video story when we were kids who.

I don't think there's a troll one man.

No, that's it's not related though man.

I think Leonard part six. There's a Leonard part five or four three or two one

Well, that's back in the time when like things were made that were horrible and it was almost like the people didn't realize how bad they were.

Yeah, it's a revelation something about great bad movie, so it's it's they're fun Well, you know how like the secret knowledge of things like videos getting passed around before YouTube and It's not different the music was the same way. It's like you get this. Absolutely. It's weird record would come across your like the first like Matt site Matt professor dub record What you would never find it in Akron anywhere you get like a dub copy of that But it was like that with videos too. Like just go away.

Yeah. Our Steve Bannick was.

Dude, I've never seen it, but while they were making that, we knew someone who was in touch with Jessica, because we were, we were in the Jessica based on that PBS thing from the early 90s.

We were watching these stuff in like 95, 96. Seriously? Look at them. Yeah, well, check it out. We were playing our first show at the Raymond and our very first show at the mother church. At the mother church in the country music. We had, we had Jessica come down from West Virginia and dance. And he got so fucking drunk. There's video of it.

No one since Hank Williams.

Yeah, he got, he literally got thrown out the back door with his shoes fell off.

Yeah, and then like someone accused us of stealing his shoes. I like the dude fucking lost his shoes. I still do.

Oh, yeah. He didn't. I didn't because by the time he was there by the time he I saw him was wasted and it was and he was wild. Yeah, it was like, for real. Sometimes the joke just gets like, oh, that's okay. The joke gets do a real shit. I thought he was coming like actually to happen to a shit, but he was just so shit-faced. You couldn't do it.

I try to show people that like, oh, yeah, this people like You know some people like why the fuck would you watch movie like that? How could you say it to influence on you?

But that's one of my favorite states.

Mr. George. Yeah. George.

There's something like kind of magical about that state, actually. You go in there. Oh, yeah. This is fucking cool. There's this weird diners. You know that the thing is it's like there's no industry so people Don't have jobs obviously and then they also have their own property that were properties completely worthless It's like a lot of America's like that you know when people tend to forget like A lot of people we're so used to seeing it.

Yeah, when I'm in like anywhere, including home in Nashville, I'm like fuck the $3 million for that fucking house. I was like, you could buy the whole fucking city block in the Akron's $3 million. There's a house for sale in Akron right now that was the co-founder of Good Year tires mansion to 1.7 million. It's like 18,000 square feet. It's fucking insane.

Yeah, and there's a three-bedroom apartment around the corner from our hotel in Santa Monica. What would you take?

One of them is made out of all materials you can get at Home Depot and one of them's hand carved woodwork.

It's like it will sit. It feels like the same size to me as Cleveland or Detroit. I know it's slightly bigger population wise, but footprint wise, it's smaller. I think you drive through Cleveland. It takes a long time. That's a long, if you're going lengthwise, at least. Otherwise, it's like, we're like short. It's like two miles wide. But it's like 30 miles long.

It was weird. And these guys weren't like financially successful, but they were critically watered kind of individuals.

So what we wanted, I mean, we looked at that idea of making a record. That's all we wanted to do. It was making a record. You know by the time we were selling that like 152 energy rooms We were like we fucking have made it. This is it. This is fucking awesome. This is what we wanted and and then We would be like what if we tried to sell out the 400 feet room What if you know it would just kind of slowly went and then finally we got to this point where we were like Well, what if we try to play mass in Square Garden? And our manager's like, yeah, you could do it. And what I could do is do it. And then we did two nights there. And that's literally we started from playing our history in Brooklyn. And New York was like, we've opened for a scob band on a Monday night. In a Brooklyn for 50 bucks. We drove all the way from Akron. Eight hours. Eight hours each way. Make $50. That's our first show in New York. Wow. Yeah, that to the fucking barclays or whatever. But it all started. It was like honestly, when we got to the point when we were playing a troupe, we were like, we fucking have done it. We fucking got there. And they're like, well, there's another venue down the room.

Well, it's always your age and I guess another venue.

You know, I mean, Dan and I are both pretty confident, but we're also, but we're not like, we do know that I think you're only as good as your last show, really, you know, as good as your last record. You know, you can't escape by ownership.

Dude, it's like my favorite band is growing up with D-Voke as they're from Akron and they're like this different kind of crazy band punk band. There is something special about Akron.

Yeah. But you watch a band like D-Voke, so they say get to L-A and whatever happened there, the change that happened. It's something I mean that's something the Dan I've been I mean I think actively trying to avoid is that That kind of thing, you know. But yeah, that's like, I go home to Akron. I fully accept and know that I'm going to get made fun of for certain things. I mean, I'm going to be like a real individual get my shit thrown at me by my friends and they're going to make fun of me for whatever. Rightfully so. But yeah, Akron's, I mean, Ohio's, and the Midwest is an inspiring place because it kind of is a vacuum in the people who are operating there like 99% of them are operating just because they have no other choice that, and they love doing what they're doing, music wise. You go to New York because first time and it's like, you know, the small little band has a connection to the biggest producer. It's like that here too, you know, I mean, it's like, it's like true. People like a group, anytime it's like 14agers playing music together here, like, you know, We're gonna give you a big deal and get you on MTV. It never fucking works out. I mean, that's like it think about the amount of fucking bands that have come from Los Angeles. How many great rock and roll bands have come from LA? I mean, seriously. It's a fucking massive city. It's the biggest county in the country. It's a music industry is here. that take the last 20 years a great balance from Los Angeles. You wouldn't have a long list. Same with New York City. You know, if you go the last 40 years, the list doesn't grow that much.

Here's what I think is best. I think if you can really integrate with the music industry peripherally from the outside, it's always best.

Like, if you end up signing a major label, like, we almost signed, we got some offers early on to sign to major labels. early on, and we did not do it. Mostly because they kept being strong along, like the contract will be there in a week, a week of past. We're gonna show two weeks of past, we call. It'll be there next week. Finally, we were like, fuck this. We realized at the age of 22, we realized if we signed this ship, and they can't get a contract to us to even look at in six weeks, if we make a record, there's, we're gonna be so fucking long jammed. We're never gonna be able to do this shit. So we took the gamble and we signed with the small indie and just kept fucking going. And when we finally went to a major, it was on a subsidiary of a major with really supportive president and we were kind of on the outside still, even over inside running outside. and we were able to do our thing. We've never had an R guy sit around and tell us to speed a song up or whatever. But the problem is if you get in without having some of those boxes ticks and you get in, you sign a big record, deal off the bat, some fucking dumbass who has a communications degree from like fucking Pepperdine. They're gonna be sitting down next to you big. I think the hi-hat's too loud, bro. I mean, K-rock can't play that. The drums are, they just gotta know he's talking about, you know what I mean, and like that's that right there, and when you get those notes coming from some dude that's your A and R guy that doesn't really notice doing it. I mean, there are good A and R guys, but most of them are these types of dudes, and now be like, yeah man, and it's basically what they are doing right then when they're telling, they're getting in your head of like, You got to change the high hat on the mixed man. What they're saying is when this record fucking fails and I can't deliver that any sort of fandom to you that I want to say that you turned the high hat down too low or I turned the high hat you didn't turn down low enough. There's all cop outs everywhere. And the only way to get through that is to, we learn how to make records ourselves in a basement. We had a tape machine, a hundred dollar tape machine, and radio shack microphones, and we recorded our first record like that. We did our second record like that, our third record like that, our fourth record like that. And finally, we, went into the studio danger mouse and we knew how to run a mixing desk. You know what I mean? We knew what we liked. So if someone came in that wasn't danger mouse and was like this or one of the mixing dangers we've worked with. If someone came in and said the kick drum sounds like shit, we'd be like fuck off. We know what a kick drum drum can sound like we've been doing this And I think basically if you can spend the time get the time and get the that's why that's why like back in the days like You know, a record deal, a record, a band takes years to develop. You know what I mean? It took us eight years before we got us on the radio of actively making record to touring. And a lot of these stuff set up with labels where they want like a hit on the second record. You know, I'm married to a woman who sold millions and millions of albums. And of songs that she wrote, you know, and when she turned in an Americana record, Like Warner Brothers gave her such the run around the shelves of record to cost 800 grand a make because they said there wasn't any hits on it. That's that's no way to be an artist. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And so we've just always avoided that.

No, man. And then they charge your for it and then the dropper. I mean, that's that's that's why.

Yeah, they've never released an ages dropper. Yeah, dude, that's how they do this shit though. The archives of these labels are filled up with shit that's been shoved. Really? Hell yeah, man. And I don't know the business. Well, my, my, I learned all this stuff early on because my uncle Ralph, who Dan mentioned, was signed to Warner Brothers in the late 70s. He made a record with his band called Tin Huey at sold like 5,000 albums, you know, like failure. And then they gave him like 30 grand to fuck off. uh... and they made some right they made a record in between and this fucking shelter happens all the time

Dude, I think there's a lot of good records. But I also think... I also think... I think there's a lot of records that started off really good and then some Pepperdine dude is like... Remix this. You need to remix it. You need to do that. You need to add this. You need to do this. Do this. Some dude is just guessing. You know? It's like it's not hard to just guess. It's like if I'm looking at remodeling your kitchen and you're an idiot, you just wait. put the stove here up, fuck that, put it over to the left actually. If you're really a producer or musician that makes records and you turn in a record, it's so frustrating when you get someone that doesn't know what they're doing coming back like that. Maybe you should do this. I actually had that happen to me. There's this band called The Sheep Dogs, this Canadian band that actually, this record ended up going platinum in Canada. And in the US, it never even got pushed to radio, not even one song. But this guy Chad Blake, who didn't like work with all the time, who's mixed their last four records, he mixed this record. This guy is like a genius, an audio.

So he's a bad ass. This whole records budget was like 60 grand, including them living off of it and shit. So I took the entire budget and it was spent on a little cheap studio. of some friend of mine who's gonna engineer it, them to live and the rest of it went to Chad to mix it. So I get the mixes back and this ain't our guy listening to the mixes and it's like, I think the high hats too loud on this song. I'm not joking. And I'm on tour, I'm on tour of Dan and I'm like, I called the angel myself, what do I do? He's like, you know what to do? I'm like, send him the same mix and label it, mix four and tell him it's been large. That's right. But then you like you also need to remember you you are fucked down. They will never service this song because that's the cop-out. I was like bullshit. Just watch and it is exactly what happened to Mike and I caught him like a year later and like did your fucking genius he's like well I've been through this shit Yeah. Because check it out. If you're an ANR guy, right, you're getting like probably six figures. You report to a senior ANR who reports to a vice president who reports to the president and that if you stick your neck out and you say I want to take a million dollars from the fucking machine and I want to I want to bet bet at all in this band or even a quarter million dollars. The odds of any band making it are probably one in a hundred. I'm going to talk about even breaking even. So if you're only an idiot with ever really get behind a band that is unproven. So your whole job is to deflect blame. That's what the problem is. You know, like if I was going to sign a band and someone offered me if you said I had a million dollar budget to sign a new band like I also wouldn't Just give them all the money because there's no way I'd make it back. You know what I mean? Yeah But yeah, that's the music industry dude just fucked up and then you know you spend years and years and years And if you're lucky like we didn't I've looked out and then you look back and it's like I don't even know how I happen. There's all these other factors that come into it, you know, and you go try to help a band. Something that worked for us would never work for another band. So there's no formula to it. And it's really random. It's similar to this shit. I was talking about ancestry.com and how she doesn't care about her ancestors. And I was like, you don't care about ancestors. That's interesting. But think about the odds of you existing. It's like you go back just like 20 generations. Then it means that you have like over a million grandparents. I think it's like 2 million grandparents. And just 20 generations. I think about all the fucking sperm and eggs. And the odds of those, each one, fucking happening, it took 2 million, 2 million people fucking. And that happened over and over again to get to your ass. You don't give a fuck about any of it. I think that's just fucking ignorant, obviously. And if you want to buy into the Elon Musk simulation, remember this? That means there's some other fucker sitting at the simulation, who made that motherfucker? So it's like, you know what I'm saying? The simulation had been made by some motherfucker. Like there's always something deeper that thing about, the thing about any It's unexplainable. The fact that Dan and I grew up next to each other, the fact that we were close in age, the fact that we have able to put up with each other's shit and find each other amusing after 30 years of knowing each other, it's all fucking insane.

No wrong. But I don't, I mean, I don't like what the same person was saying to me that they're atheists. That's fine. You're allowed to believe that, but you also have to accept that there's possibly that's not true. And they're like, oh, that's what I believe. And but then they went on to say that they believe in demons. And I was like, you got it. I think my, you know, my, my, my rationale about all this stuff is it, it's, it's simple. I thought, I'm talking about to my stepdaughter who's so smart and so sweet and really changed my life in a lot of ways. And we were swimming in the pool. talking about life. You know, and one of these conversations that it's like, she's like, what do you think that there's a God? She asked me and I said, well, we don't go to church or anything. And I said, I said, I don't know. But I was like, this is something interesting to think about. I was like, whenever I think about that, I try to think about the end of the universe. It's a very end, like the edge. And I can't picture it. I can't picture it. I can't picture it. I can't picture like infinity. You know, I can't grasp that at all. And as a familiar fact that we can't grasp infinity will lead someone like maybe Elon to believe that there's a purposely that was left off in some sort of simulation or whatever. But maybe that's would be the argument. I think that the fact that I can't picture it, maybe I'm just an idiot, but it makes it that I think that there's maybe something more, there's definitely something more to it, that possibilities way open. But I do think, what do you think?

But then what does that mean? I don't know. A simulation has to be a simulation that why would it's a simulation of what from what

We've science futures. Yeah, future. Right.

I think with if you're on the sea or it gets like a billion in your service.

I think that the, you know, it's interesting to think about. When I really talk about something that you don't know the answer to, the simulation or the short, mere dimensions and stuff. I think it's all fascinating and it's all possible, man. But I do think when it comes down to a part of the thing that causes anxiety, it's part of it, it's accepting that something is real. Sometimes when you're having a panic attack or something, it's just even fucking happening. It's just even fucking real. And I think being in the moment as much as possible. When I really truly feel like I'm living in the present, I really feel like you can really feel how special life is. Yes. If I was a billionaire and I married the same chick twice, I would think I was living in a fucking simulation too. That's what I think about Elon. It's really fucking smart, but he's a billionaire and he married the same chick twice and he didn't get married anybody. You wanted He gave it a chance. I don't know dude. He might be living in a simulation.

You know my my stepdaughter went to his school for a while at Astro Really amazing experience for her

For some of his children and for some of the employees of his companies. Really?

And then marry the same chick twice.

It might prove that he's a genius, just that.

I think it's worked out really amazing and like a thousand different dimensions. Both marriages.

He did it because he needed it to work out in the third dimension.

I always have a couple reoccurring dreams. But I had one last night that was fucking insane.

No, it was it was it was based on something that sort of is read I have this dream I am read it was read a cream rhyme in a house that I'm vaguely familiar with but there's all these additions that I Discover and they're always on like they're usually either really rickety and dangerous or like really beautiful and completely need to be fixed up and covered like Scooby-Doo house type thing Last night I had this dream where I was in a house I used to own with my wife and Like there was a home invasion and I had something that they needed and they basically told me that if I I had it hidden and I said if I they're gonna come back if I didn't give it to them. They were gonna kill me and I Would I was like trying to figure out how to keep this thing hidden and I'd still I woke up from it like what the fuck Of course I had to pee like I didn't right now Go be man.

Tyler Tyler, um, an iron touch. Everyone's well.

Yeah, I agree the fireman. Yeah, you know, I don't know much about, I mean, yeah, I think the chance is a good example of like breaking into the industry, different in a different thing. Do you think different way, but I also think that like There's, it's just interesting to see how all the stuff shakes out 10 years from now. Who's going to be around? What matters? I mean, back to my wife Michelle Branch. She's sort of millions of records. She's insanely talented, individual, and totally amazing person. And her audience was commercial radio, you know, top 40. And the thing about top 40 is it's like it's the same type of person that goes to watch whatever's popular on television or keeping up with the Kardashians. Like someone who watches keep up with the Kardashians is probably not familiar with Gilligan's Island. You know what I mean? And five years from now, when there's something different, then keep me up. Well, probably not that show price will be ruined. But you don't understand. It's like, it's whatever's freshness to newest. And so you end up, if you end up developing a pop, this is why we're talking about not going to get put on the radio, because it's a different type of fan. It's a less personal type of fan when you get played on top 40. It's like, you know, when you go through, when I go through like certain friends of mine's parents records, they'd have like all these records. Oh yeah, you still listen to that, you still listen to that. And I go through Dan's dad's records or my dad's records by dad. It'd be still listening to that shit. The point is that these people were buying like Billy Ocean records. And my dad was buying like cream records. And he was a fan of music. And this person was a passive pop fan. And I think that what you're experiencing is when you try to compare pop Maybe some of this pops up has some sort of credibility because it's independent or whatever But I think they're very it's very weird thing trying to figure it out like I think book in a festival nowadays is probably fucking really crazy That's why the woodstock thing was fucking they didn't know what to do They booked like when we were told about the festivals like we were gonna have line Saturday night when the lineup came out it was like chance to wrap her us, and I forget who else is on it, but there were a couple people who were like three headbinders, and like that's, that's insane. Like, what are you thinking? You're gonna sell 150,000 tickets at $700 a pop, fucking idiot. Just do a festival for 30,000 people. Do two festivals, two weekends do a pop festival, do a rap festival, do a rock, do whatever it is. But don't get your obligation per night was like 10 million in guarantees or something. So, that you fucking dumbass is like, You're like, I wonder why the fuck does it? With that guy fucked up the first woodstock. And it's 50 years later, he has a fucking figured it out yet. It's that 50 years. It's like, well, you get it in 50 years, dude. Mike, you'll get it. 50 years now, you'll figure it out, buddy. You know, it's like, that idea of a repeating shit that doesn't make sense is like, we've all done it, but like, even Elon's done it.

The music business is the way it set up the way it is because there are independent people who have made it. very successful careers without having to engage the machine, right? But traditionally, if you wanted to sell out Madison Square Garden traditionally, there are people like Fish or whoever who have done it based on the backs of whatever things that they've done. But traditionally, if you want to make a record and you want to get some Madison Square Garden you need promotion, you need radio, you need exposure, you need publicity. Now, almost all of that stuff you can get for free if you have like enough bullshit up your sleeve on social media. You can get enough 13-year-old streaming your shit. You get to fucking a message without a label, without a publicist, without any of that shit. You know, a band like us in the situation that we're in now, like You know, we can, we're in a position to be able to look at the music in the stream. Like, this is, this is just crazy that we're paying this person, this bunch of money to do what they're doing. This is fucking insane. And like, we can really talk, have open conversations with like, people, like, we're not giving you Warner Bros. $5 a record to bundle this shit because we're paying you to be under record label so that we get a fucking number on sounds can that we, ultimately, you'll brag about, like, fuck all this. Fuck it. But no, but you can't do that. That's a way that's power strong. It's still set up is that if you're on a label, you most band signed this record deals. They got to give that fucking money back to the label. It's a 360 deal. They got fucking not any of that, but they get access to your ticket sales, like straight up, like profit.

No. In fact, it used to be set up where a tour was a loss leader for to sell a record. Yeah. That's why you'd see bands like, I don't know, fucking huge bands in the 70s, bad company or whoever They would sell fucking huge ask fucking stadiums for like three dollars to take it. Maybe have a bunch of support sell a couple million rock records find out the manager stole the fucking money. You know, right, I'm more about it. That's like it's like the tail a little this time. You know, yeah, it's like I come from like a indie rock background and it's always it was just sort of like a And to end us to and it's like You know, when we're coming up with like, even kind of having any knowledge of the business, it was like, it was considered uncool. Don't you think so? A little bit.

And to kind of really know, like, like what you know now, what you just described, the way you, but we've always been fascinated by it. So I've always paid attention to it. But it's funny now when I'm just like realizing, you know like what this whole take we took a break for off the road for four years and when we came back three years after a break to make a record it was like we again we we had cleaned a lot of of perspective you know and our conversations when we first started making this record aside from like Watching the news and talking about that and making each other laugh and shit. It was like, this band is something really really fucking special. The fact that we're sitting in this room, 18 years after starting this band, and it fucking working out and we're working here. We need to make sure that this ban is always something that's fun and not a burden and not stressful. It shouldn't be stressful. It should be fun. It's rock and roll. Yeah. And I think that we've been spending the last year figuring out how to make every decision. So that way, you know. So like, first of this show, we were like, do you want to do this TV show, this TV show? You know, we want to do it. We both watch the show, Rogan, listen to Joe Rogan. I would happen to watch it. We want to do shows. podcast. That's what we want to do. That's what's important to us. We don't want to play with stock. It's not important to us. It doesn't speak to us. These are the things we want to do. Taking that type of position with the band and also looking at the business side of it, this is fucking bullshit. This is ridiculous. What this band should be giving us is the ability to help other bands, which is what we do all day long when we're not touring. In the last five years, dance produced probably like 15 albums for other artists. I've done a handful myself. He has a label, puts out other people's music. There's a lot of fucking work. When we're not three and we're still working on other music and the craziest thing is this. We've sold millions of records. We've made between the two of us something like 60 plus albums. When I finished a record, I'm really proud of, and I sent it to one of the brothers. The last time I did that, they didn't even fucking respond to the email. When that shit happens to you, you know what you want to do? Tell them to fucking themselves. You know what I mean? And right now we're in a situation where our record contracts done. And I saw what happened to my uncle Ralph.

But what we need is we need people to work with people who understand that the blackies is very important to us, but it's also a vehicle that we can leverage to help our other artists, when we're producing shit, and it's so fucking infuriating. to have been in this business for 20 years and honestly understand the business better than most fucking managers and be treated like dog shit by this person that you've made millions of dollars for. Do you know what I mean?

No, but it's different because it's different. We don't need shit, but if you take a new artist from Nashville, you say, and you make a record for them. OK. OK. They need the agent. They need they need they need they need to go on tour. Right. They need to do all the stuff that we did, but we were like malnourished. Freaks we were we were we were losing money the whole time we were able to lose money because our our our my rent was $145 we started and we practiced in my basement and Dan lived in his parents house we didn't have we could we could make like $200 a month and be in the rest or in the black Wow, but no no one else is like that's not realistic. No, so if you really want to Well, here's what's real if you want to start but if you want to help why isn't it realistic

Well, I'm just saying that most bands aren't too pieces, most bands aren't like human cockroaches, like When we first started a dance like I need one ton soup every day. That's what I need. Three dollars and fifty cents. We could get a one ton soup. I did a pack of cigarettes. Wow. But yeah, so you do need some finance.

I'm thinking that might work, but also... It would work, man. If we just tweet at Mark Zuckerberg that we need $145 million.

They're going to need an agent to bookshelf. Well, yeah, but I'm saying what I do think is what I'm saying, well, the music industry, what is actually something that I think that I think we're trying to figure out now is basically how to actually really work again truly independently. You know what I mean? Where it is something that we can figure out a way to actually do the things we're passionate about, which is a lot of it is making records and And helping, and even to make a record and press it, it's like at least $10,000 in a minute. So I guess what I was trying to say was like, you'd expect that someone would look at your work and the respect is enough to kind of step in and help out, because it's not like you're asking for $1 million a year to finance some shit, just asking for like a couple hundred grand. But that's the problem with the music industry. Is it certain labels are willing to give like a SoundCloud rapper like 15 million dollars, you know? But then they look at a band and they can't quantify their metrics like maybe the black keys or whoever and they they don't give a shit.

But this is right at this point, this point to us, physical distribution, which is something physical distribution of like, like, LP, that's crazy though. How much is that? Yeah, but I mean, real lot of people buying that? No, no, no, no, no. I mean, for us, really, it isn't, isn't tons, there's some marketing, there's some stuff like that. But honestly, I mean, we get more from like a live nation, probably.

It's like he does check this out. We had this dude who was president of a label at one point. It got back to me that he was taking credit for our success. He wasn't even around when we broke. You know what I mean? And the credit he was taking was the most genius fucking credit. This is how smart these fucking people are. He said, yeah man, you know, I really think I really take a lot of pride in that band and really help them a lot by just staying out of the way. Who? He didn't even write a check for... to or support or no promotion. He's taking credit because he was smart enough not to fuck it up. I mean, it's like, I take personal credit like a bow-jangle chicken for them being successful or the new... the new... the new Popeye's chicken sandwich. I take a lot. I take a lot of credit. I take a lot of credit though and that chicken sandwich, man. Because I didn't buy one, I didn't fuck it up. I didn't like put the wrong post up.

Those are the two options, didn't you?

Dude, there's a lot of credit that gets taken for a lot of shit. Didn't.

We're like in the fucking top 0.001% of this shit and still fucking annoying every single fucking day. The trick to the music industry is to, it's because If you really love music, like the way that Dan and I do, where it is, still the thing that we're most passionate about. You're like, I love music. I only think about music. Listen to it all day. But yet, you have to find that fine line where, like, you don't win, like, you make a record, you're really proud of, and no one fucking hears it. And no one that works with you, even response to an email about it, you have to find that space where you don't want to kill everybody. You know what I mean? And you still want to go make another record.

No, the trick is to find, find that still learning. That's the industry changes is to learn how to pivot and make it, make it, make it, have it make sense.

The problem is, is that no one is investing in fucking real bands. They're investing in a songwriter. They're investing in an artist that was a puppet that they can go and say this person is going to listen to this shit pop machine.

If I was to run a record label, the main difference would be that I would look at it as, let's try to fucking break even. That's realized that some of the most important records here have never sold a million copies, like the Ramones, never sold a million copies of any of the records. There may be the most influential punk band. So what is, this redefine what success is, success is getting behind art that we really are proud of. and not getting trampled and getting the support that it needs. This all seems doable. Yeah, but then you're describing with you seems doable. But then think about this. This is the problem. This is the crux. Is then you think about the removes. And you realize this is a band that toured in a van for 20 fucking years. Do you want to subject a band to that? No, you want to be able to elevate that band to the point where they're actually doing that comfortably. I mean, and that's the hard part. I mean, can you, though?

That's why Metallica has these therapists trying to figure out how to fucking look.

I don't think there is because it's been going on for a little.

The angst is important because it is, uh, it's valid. I'm also not, we're also by the way, not that angsty. But when I do talk about the business, I get the little angsty. But, um, I have a pretty chilling individual to be honest at most of the time.

Well, you know, I mean,

Yeah, I'm sure the drive is like the thing it's like you know where I When I, I found this photograph that I just hung up in my road case of Dan and I play one of our first shows and like, oh, this is important. I should be, I should make sure I have this hung up because it just reminds me of all the fucking days that we spent like being fucking miserable in a van because we love music so much. We go play a show for fucking nobody and maybe make enough money to get like a motel six room. share a bed, get up the next day and go to Waffle House. I keep fucking doing it for years and years and years and years. But it does take that type of motivation and it's frustrating when you do that and then you get to a point where it is the point that we're at and You feel like you've gotten really good at what you do and you help another artist and it's you realize that like after all that work, it's like the myth of the surface. It's like after all that work, it doesn't move the fucking clock at all. Still these same motherfuckers aren't fucking, aren't fucking helping, you know? And then you start realizing like what really has made a difference. I mean I've heard I've heard people say take credit for our success be say that it was because we played the spike spike TV video game awards What about eight that is watched.

You know, but dude, that's the kind of thing that you're up against. And that's the fear of the music industry. That's the fear of it. And we said yes to everything, because we were banned for like eight and a half years, then finally we started breaking. And it was like, for the first time, here's the offer for SNL. Here's the offer to headline Coachella. Here's the offer. We had to say, yes, everything. Even a spike TV video game awards. And even, especially when someone's like, you really should do it, you really need to do it.

It was worth it. It's worth it for that. Right. But the point is that what actually moves the needle, what actually moves the needle is like, does it, is it playing, co-bear, is it playing these things? I don't fucking know, man, because I watch baseball and then I put on your podcast and then I go to bed. That's what I do in the evening. So I don't know who watches that shit, but I know that I know my step-to-order doesn't watch that shit. I know she doesn't even have to work to fucking TV remote. She watches YouTube all day. You know, I mean, the times are fucking changing, you know, and I think that that's the hard part of trying to pivot with it. And I think if you're, it's like guys are age who are running these labels looking at these view counts in the shit and they're all fucking getting it wrong.

Well, we're going to restart the BMG music great. I'll be called the D.P. T.B. T.B. K. All right. T.B. K. Music Club. And we're going to support us. What we're going to do is you send us 38 cents. We'll send you 50 albums and your parents will then write us a letter saying that you enter a contract as a minor and let's avoid it.

I mean, we learned to play together. I never played drums with anybody aside from it, Dan, and me even playing drums in the band, it's like because it was a kind of an accident. I only had a drum set because I wanted to be a guitar player, and I wanted people to come to my house and play the drums. Before I had a driver's license, I got a job washing dishes and bought everything you need for a band. My friends would come over and they were all pretty much better at guitar than me, but Dan came over and he was like the best guitar player of all my friends and I was like fuck what's my bass or drums? I was like well you can't just jam guitar bass. I sat down at the drums and that's what we did in high school. So we learned to play together man. So because of that there's like there is like a psychic kind of connection you know I mean we play now on stage with a couple other guys and it's it's good it's easy it's fun but there is something when the two of us start playing where it is we can like work in between beats you know it's pretty liquid our goals never been like to be this tight kind of rigid like I mean like tightness isn't something it's more about like the energy, the feeling.

We've been through it, man It's hard.

I mean, if I could go back in time and give like our 22-year-old selves of one piece of advice, it would be like, don't, don't, don't tour with your girlfriend until you have a kid and they can come out for a couple of shows. This would avoid that shit. And also probably like, don't really have a girlfriend till you're like in your late 20s, probably.

Dude, it just codependent motherfucker like me that it was just really hard. I had to get through it.

But yeah, it's just hard. It's like the hard part is that I'm up for the work and dance up for the work. And when we're on tour, I go through a period of time where I get phone calls and they're like, what the fuck are you doing motherfucker? You know, you know, like I miss you like that guilt or it's just like I'm like literally in the back of a Ford economy like with like a torn-up copy of TV guide Read it for the fifth time because it don't make money no cell phone or like with a Nokia phone like getting a guilt trip and stuff It's like too real to even talk about our first tour at Number Dan having to stop at the pay for it. They have to be at the pay for it every hour. I remember that my brother Mike was with us. I was like, oh man, like sucks to be down. And then like literally like an hour later. I have to get to the pay for myself. Don't ask his being.

Yeah, but I mean, that's the thing is like it's what I guess what does it kill you make you stronger. I read somewhere that's not actually true. It like some shit.

Yeah. That's why that's why we're able to get to the spot where here we are 2019 and I don't think we're insane people. We're pretty close to the same people we were when we were in our 2020.

I'm not because I was way too small for me. But yeah, I think that there's a time like maybe 2012 our shit was really blowing up. I mean, we could do no wrong. there was a there's a there's a there's an alternate universe for sure where we turned into complete dickheads number of dickheads actually out there we died multiple times at the shadow it's like yeah and this it is in this version of reality Dan and Patrick don't play the spike TV video game words they overdose at the shadow more mom

I think that the best thing that ever happened to us is that we didn't experience success to our sixth album. And it is because if we would have got that when we were 23, we would have never been able to sit down and realize what fuck was going on.

I think that's just where the, I think that's just where like the uniqueness and the crazy thing. That's the crazy thing about life is that it is certain things are rare. It shouldn't be that crazy that a relationship like Dan and I is so rare, but it is. There aren't that many of them. I mean there are a lot of like friends who start off playing music but they end up most of the stories and like in either just failure giving up hating each other or some shit first of that so that but yeah simulation I mean dude The simulation there has to be simulator to play the simulation on and that's the problem

Well, I used to wake up in the morning and Like, uh, drink a couple coffee, smoke a cigarette, play a video game, jam on my drums, drive around, hang out my friends. Now I wake up and I do so much shit. And none of it isn't necessarily stuff I want to be doing. That I do think that there's no way we're in a simulation because I would never fucking simulated that.

Yeah, no, that's why I think we're not living in a simulation because every time I do make a decision to change something, it gets better.

I mean, it might be... I'm telling you, the biggest argument against the simulation. I'm telling you. Is the Elon Musk married the same woman twice? Yes. Straight up. But why not? Send it to your quantum physicist. Send it to him. To say, like, my dude has this theory.

Yeah. Send it to him. See what you can do with it. Tell the crack the numbers on that shit. Yeah. There's seven, there's three point five billion women on it. And it's guy married the same person twice.

That's like when you look at like, I mean, I've been married three times like a dickhead, but it's like, if you go, I was saying, if you look at my Wikipedia, I was like, I was like, I was joking, like, I had to get to wife number three just so I could like have that like kind of fence kneel fucking Wikipedia page. But it is like guys like that. There's no way you're looking like oh he's married the same woman from 84 to 85 back 88 to 89 back again like who does that shit Larry King does that shit yeah Larry King he just got divorced again at 85 saw him last year we saw him last night

He looks very, he looks very old.

Is that thing where you get that age and you just have to like, they get forced to just drink slim fast all the fuck a day.

I could see how he, he might marry a previous wife. If she was going to take care of him in his last couple of years. And they were close still.

That would make sense.

I could see that. That's sweet, that's kind of like a... Pretty sure. That's like an Oprah best seller type.

I'm just gonna believe it the way you told it, because I prefer it that way. It's some simulation, it is that way. That's a beautiful way of getting away with some sort of facts. What if troll one was part of troll two? I've been like, oh shit. Different dimensions. Different dimensions.

Do you know what do you You know how harmony Korean? He wrote the movie kids and spring breakers. He drew. Oh wow. He's friends of ours. And he was telling me this thing that blew my mind like five years ago. He's like, there's this movie called the peanut butter solution. Have you heard of it? No. He's like dude, he's like everyone who watched this movie as a kid. It was made an aired on TV in Canada. He's like, go look at the YouTube comments. It's crazy. And I went and looked at all the comments the same like, oh my god, I watched this as a kid and I forgot the whole thing. I just now remembering it. Everyone every comment was that way. He's like dude, it was like mass hypnosis the way it was edited It's like that it kind of created everyone to like forget that they were watching that they saw it and Maybe maybe there is a troll one it was troll hunter. That's what it was

It's probably inspired by troll too.

True, too, and then they're like human size, but... Yeah, okay, so it's not like... I mean, it's really an incredible film, the first half of it, the rest of it. I would not recommend it. Actually, Dan's brother, it all takes place in this town called Nilborg, which is even one of the best parts is that it takes place in a town called Nilborg, and the little kid sees the sign in a rear view mirror. Nilborg is goblin back. So it's actually about god. True, it's just about god ones. So Dan's brother had to let personalize play a higher play that said no bug.

But through the rear of your mirror, man, said Goblin. Pretty genius.

Dude, that's my favorite thing on Earth. This is when someone like un-follows you on Instagram, like, oh shit, my phone was hacked. The amount of phone hacking is going on. Yeah.

It's a playbook for an step when I'm a one just my count was hacked. Yeah, it's a move. I like it when like literally as I people it like I just hang out with at the bar and say that it's like I did get my my Gmail account stolen once

They just steal your Gmail. Dude, I got 65,000 emails. Unready emails in my account. I'd like love for someone to hack into that shit. Hey, nothing is just seen in it. Passing out for me, huh? All my emails are cool, period. Sounds good, period. Sitting around writing thoughtful ass emails. That is not me. I don't have time for that shit. Call you on the phone if I need to. Oh my god. Yeah, my shit was hacked and what did they do with it?

What was it? They hacked in there and they found a direct message to you asking if we could be on the show.

When I got into my last Twitter, well, I've had two Twitter incidents. One was with Justin Bieber. And one was early on. I tweeted like, And like 2010, I tweeted like, uh, something so stupid, not even funny. Like Madonna's crush. We were on a tour bus and like we'd drive into a show and S&L was on. I said, oh Madonna's crush on it on S&L. And it was Lady Gaga. That was the fucking joke. But a year later, it wasn't even like funny. Because she wasn't like that famous right there.

Well, a year later, some like Gaga monster found it. It was like, you know, go kill yourself. And I just, I think I was one of the first people to maybe take this, I mean, take this tactic. I started just retweeting the most vile shit that was like, you're fucking asshole, kill yourself. And I just retweet it. And it was like, once again, right with this bolt, like before, it was like the thing before the me too is the bowling thing. No stop bowling. And it was like, these people were just like fucking crushing me on there. And that's when I started being like fuck Twitter, man. Like fuck it.

Yeah, but like you could spend anything however you want to do it, but my Twitter mob was like fucking at the time was like 3,000 people in Ohio.

Yeah, but then you know the just to be everything happened and it was like I just I realized at that point like it's a real Like A these are all kids these are a lot of these people are just fucking idiots like you shouldn't like you would be if you were 13 yeah It was like spout off anything like all these kids like are going to at some time some point get a job at a corporation someone's going to go through their shit deep and like get caught into the office.

Dude, in 1981, the one of the biggest films I think are not biggest. A big film was silver streak. My brother will older brothers obsessed with trains. Back to your works for Amtrak now. But in that movie, there's a scene where Gene Wilder has to put on black face.

You know that of course we've never gone now and I can see that so I find it funny, but at the time when I saw that for the first time when I was six or seven like You know, that was a different time.

But what? I don't know, man. I've never worn a black face and I sure just fuck would remember it if I'd ever put it on this one. I never was like, I don't remember that.

Thomas Howell. Who was it that said they couldn't remember wearing it someone that got trouble the lot of person before?

It's the way from Kentucky. I don't know. I could tell you all everything I was for Halloween. I was Orville Reddenbacher.

Oh my god. And you know what I was thinking about the other day? I was thinking about how fucking insane Dugi Houser is. I was like if I was fucking sick in a 12-year-old walking in the fucking office like Seriously, that's right.

He's a 12-year-old doctor. I mean get the fuck out of here motherfucker. Yeah, like seriously But then after was he, dude, I don't know, but then I realized something. I was like, this, not only was he a doctor, but like every night after the day, he would sit down and his computers and do his journal, which is I know for fact that like, I don't know for fact, but I'm pretty sure that the whole basis of sex in the city is based off of that. I think that they are connected, you know how like, They say that family matters is a spin-off of South Park. Perfect strangers.

Perfect strangers is supposed to take place in the same universe as family matters, but I do think sex in the city takes place in the same universe as Duki Houser. And maybe if you think of What's that guy that she's always trying to date? That's a set. Mr. Big? Maybe Mr. Big's dukey house or is it an adult?

I've almost done it. Well, a couple years younger than you. So we were subjected to that shit. But now kids don't even watch it. There are three channels when we were kids.

Here's the thing about touring. It's like, let's say Dan walks in and it's like, man, I fucking hate the fucking bus. What happens is a typically a manager says, oh, you don't need the fucking, you just fucking fly private. Dude, you hub out of, well, how about a Jackson Hole on the West Coast, dude? Yeah, it's fucking great. The thing is, is that the manager is still getting the same cut of whatever you're making, you're just spending all of your cash. The most genius thing you can do in the music business, if your music business manager or business manager is to get your client to spend all their money because they just have to work more. And your shit comes off the top, you know what I mean?

We did a personal chef and a trainer and, oh, everything. Yeah, by a match. Yeah, by a match.

They might have to go off. Crashed a Ferrari on stage every night then, huh?

I have, I have a Buffalo head of my house, Ted NewJick. Gave you? Gave to Michelle.

Wow. What's huge? 68. He killed it in 68.

That's what he told Michelle's brother was his drum tech for a year.

It's so easy to do, man. Let us come on here again.

I'm not opposed.