Speaker 1: There's a song from the mid nineties that I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to. It's called Everything Falls Apart from a
Speaker 1: band called Dog's Eye View.
Speaker 2: Fall then Against the Shadow Food.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's about being young and frustrated and a
Speaker 1: little bit self destructive, which I for sure was at
Speaker 1: the time. It came out in nineteen ninety five, right
Speaker 1: when Sudden Impacts relationship with Michael Bivens was falling apart,
Speaker 1: and its lyrics, whether or not the writer knew it
Speaker 1: at the time, are ripped from real life. Dog's Eye
Speaker 1: View was a band started by a guy named Peter Stewart.
Speaker 1: Peter had always wanted to be a rock star, to
Speaker 1: have a song on the radio, to have a video
Speaker 1: in rotation on MTV. He'd seen that bon Jovi video
Speaker 1: Wanted Dead or Alive, where they're touring the world in
Speaker 1: private planes and playing to stadiums, and he said, that's
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: That will make me a whole person.
Speaker 1: And as Everything Falls Apart began to take off that
Speaker 1: wish like it was just about to come true. He
Speaker 1: remembers a moment in Paris during a European tour when
Speaker 1: he heard what he had always dreamed of hearing.
Speaker 3: So We're playing four nights there and maybe night two.
Speaker 3: You know this is pre international cell phone, maybe night two.
Speaker 3: I go down and there's a payphone downstairs, and I'm
Speaker 3: told that my manager wants to talk to me.
Speaker 1: Dog's eye View had toured with Counting Crows the year
Speaker 1: Counting Crows blew up. Adam Duritz even wore a Dog's
Speaker 1: Eye View T shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1: But what Peter wanted for himself to have a video
Speaker 1: on the air on MTV had remained just out of reach.
Speaker 2: And so do do do?
Speaker 4: Do?
Speaker 2: Do? Do?
Speaker 3: Call him up long distance and he says, I have
Speaker 3: great news. MTV added you. You're in the buzz bin.
Speaker 3: They're playing it six times, sixteen times a week. I
Speaker 3: remember this clear as day.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The video for Everything Falls Apart didn't just get added
Speaker 1: to MTV's rotation. It got added to the buzz a
Speaker 1: thing MTV did from nineteen eighty seven until it stopped
Speaker 1: playing music videos. The buzzbind was a seal of approval
Speaker 1: from the network, like a verified blue check mark that
Speaker 1: said this is an artist to keep your eye on.
Speaker 1: Other buzzband artists from around this time were Dave Matthews,
Speaker 1: band Stone Temple, pilots, counting crows themselves. Dog's eye View
Speaker 1: had arrived. Peter Stewart had gotten exactly what he wanted.
Speaker 1: A video on MTV sixteen times a week. Guess what
Speaker 1: happened next? And I said, wow, why not twenty of course?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah? Was it?
Speaker 3: That was like there was no moment of jubilation. There
Speaker 3: was no there wasn't like there was no arrival. It
Speaker 3: was fucking devastating because it was like, I need more,
Speaker 3: like that's not that's not enough.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to Peter Stewart about the Dog's
Speaker 1: Eye View experience, what was good, what fell apart, and
Speaker 1: where he is now, and I will continue on my
Speaker 1: quest to track down all of Sudden Impact, a group
Speaker 1: for whom everything fell apart before it even had a
Speaker 1: chance to come together. This is Waiting for Impact, a
Speaker 1: Dave Holmes passion project. So here is where we stand.
Speaker 1: I have spoken with Aaron Kane, the lead singer of
Speaker 1: Sudden Impact, who started as Too Special and later became
Speaker 1: White Guys, and then even later became the Outsiders and
Speaker 1: then also became Outsiders for life. He has given me
Speaker 1: his part of the Sudden Impact story that It all
Speaker 1: started with a poster that they showed to Michael Bivins,
Speaker 1: who signed them to Capitol Records and put them in
Speaker 1: Boys to Men's Motown, Philly video before he even heard
Speaker 1: them sing. I've spoken to Tim Byrd, the group's producer
Speaker 1: and some say, the sixth member of Sudden Impact. He
Speaker 1: confirms all of the above, which is wild, and he's
Speaker 1: told me more of the story how the group left
Speaker 1: Capital to go to Bivin's biv ten Records, who then
Speaker 1: dropped them, and how they then got signed to Boys
Speaker 1: to Men's label Stone Creek, which then folded entirely. Aaron
Speaker 1: and his brother Noel left the group after that, and
Speaker 1: two new members joined. I've tracked one of them down
Speaker 1: and I'm going to see if he'll speak to me
Speaker 1: about the whole thing. I also have an email into
Speaker 1: Sudden IMPACT's main songwriter, Todd White. No answer yet, but
Speaker 1: while we wait, let's get into Peter Stewart. I loved
Speaker 1: Dog's Eye View in the mid nineties when I was
Speaker 1: feeling very alone and very confused, Having his voice in
Speaker 1: my ears honestly kept me going. He was alone and
Speaker 1: confused too, and if he had found his place in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: That meant I could too.
Speaker 1: Peter had dreams of stardom, he had plans, he had persistence.
Speaker 1: But I think what I really connected to about him,
Speaker 1: what really inspired me, was his ambition.
Speaker 2: I'm in awe of people who just decid.
Speaker 1: Guide what they want from life, no matter how unrealistic
Speaker 1: or improbable, and don't let anything stop them from getting it.
Speaker 1: I think it's why I'm attracted to the sudden Impact story. Honestly,
Speaker 1: if I were those guys, I would have thrown in
Speaker 1: the towel three names ago.
Speaker 2: They kept pushing, and I admire that. So did Peter.
Speaker 1: Peter got into music with a head full esteem, but
Speaker 1: it was what was on his head that might have
Speaker 1: made the difference.
Speaker 3: This is where my entire life turns on Jewish hair.
Speaker 1: Later in this episode you will learn how the sensible
Speaker 1: Long Island buzz cut of Peter Stewart met the infamous
Speaker 1: San Francisco hair extravaganza of Counting Crows Adam Duritz and
Speaker 1: changed his life forever. But before that chance meeting with
Speaker 1: a famous quoth, Peter was figuring himself out. He was
Speaker 1: just out of Northwestern University, playing music, living in a
Speaker 1: basement apartment in Chicago. That basement apartment, by the way,
Speaker 1: with its high windows through which Peter had a view
Speaker 1: of people's feet as they walked past, would eventually provide
Speaker 1: the name he would go on to record under Dog's
Speaker 1: Eye View, but at the time he had not yet
Speaker 1: settled on a good name for the folky acoustic sound
Speaker 1: he was developing.
Speaker 3: I think we were either called the gravity Beavers at
Speaker 3: that point or Monster, both terrible names for what we
Speaker 3: were doing. Monster is a bad name in that I
Speaker 3: think people think you're going to show up and be heavy,
Speaker 3: and then you show up with an acoustic guitar and
Speaker 3: and you know, it's sort of you look even less cool.
Speaker 3: But yeah, So I was playing in bands and doing
Speaker 3: a lot of I don't know if you ever did this,
Speaker 3: a lot of putting like a mix of I think
Speaker 3: it was flour and water together and hanging posters on
Speaker 3: light poles to you know, for your band, Like you know,
Speaker 3: pre Internet, pre all that stuff. You'd literally go with
Speaker 3: a bucket of this goop and hundreds of pieces of
Speaker 3: paper and go around to all the light poles in
Speaker 3: the neighborhoods in Chicago and put up these posters for
Speaker 3: for your band, and in winter in.
Speaker 2: Chic that's a really cold option. That's a really cold
Speaker 2: thing to do.
Speaker 1: But you needed that kind of gumption if you were
Speaker 1: going to make it in the early nineties, and as
Speaker 1: we know from sudd An impact, if the right person
Speaker 1: sees the right poster, this guy's the limit. After a
Speaker 1: couple of years on his grind in Chicago, he determined
Speaker 1: that he was ready for the big time. He packed
Speaker 1: up and moved to New York with a pretty sweet
Speaker 1: opportunity right off the bat.
Speaker 3: I'd been talking to this woman at a record company
Speaker 3: called Imago for months and she was, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: come to New York.
Speaker 2: I'll get you a gig. Come to New York. I'll get
Speaker 2: you a gig.
Speaker 3: And she kept saying, you know, every every Tuesday. I
Speaker 3: think it, well, I don't know if it's Monday or Tuesday.
Speaker 3: Every xt day of the week. There's this guy named
Speaker 3: Jeff Buckley. He plays at this place called Shane. I'll
Speaker 3: get you a gig. Play before him. You'll see, you know,
Speaker 3: you'll play to tons of people. He's the thing in
Speaker 3: New York right now, right, I've never heard Jeff Buckley
Speaker 3: at this point. Great, so I literally moved to New
Speaker 3: York and she gives me this gig at Shane, and
Speaker 3: I am, this is it right?
Speaker 2: This is one of many? This is it? That we're
Speaker 2: not it?
Speaker 3: But I get there and my first night there, I
Speaker 3: go down to Shnee. This is my big gig and
Speaker 3: it's literally Shane who ran Shane, and like someone making
Speaker 3: coffee and a person because for the first week ever,
Speaker 3: Jeff's run has ended. Jeff had finished, he'd finished a
Speaker 3: big finale the week before. He's done with Shane, and
Speaker 3: he's moved on to greener pastors and off to make Grace.
Speaker 3: So my first big gig was literally like thud.
Speaker 1: Kiss that is last Goodbye from the classic album Grace
Speaker 1: that Jeff Buckley had just left Shane to make. And
Speaker 1: that voice is why Jeff Buckley influenced a whole generation
Speaker 1: of singer songwriters, including Peter Stewart. We'll come back to
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley a bit later in the show, but for now,
Speaker 1: like me in New York in the mid nineties, Peter
Speaker 1: is tempting to pay the bill. He's getting some stage
Speaker 1: time where he can, and what happens next is a
Speaker 1: real ride.
Speaker 3: A friend of mine called me and asked me to
Speaker 3: open for a band, an Irish band called The Fat
Speaker 3: Lady Sayings, And so I went down I can't even
Speaker 3: remember where. It was, some tiny club and I went
Speaker 3: down to open for them, and it was fine and
Speaker 3: they were cool, but they were taking five to ten
Speaker 3: minutes between every song to tune their guitars and like
Speaker 3: get their shit together. And they were playing the next
Speaker 3: night opening for of all people, Howard Jones at like
Speaker 3: the Beacon or somewhere, and I was like, you guys
Speaker 3: need some You need a roadie, You need someone to
Speaker 3: hand you guitars and tune guitars. And they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: that'd be great.
Speaker 2: Can you do that?
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, absolutely, So I went up and
Speaker 3: did that for them, and at the end of that show,
Speaker 3: they were like, look, we're going off on this two
Speaker 3: month tour of the state. We could use a roadie.
Speaker 3: You can open gigs for us if you do it.
Speaker 2: How about it? Yes? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: The band and the sound guy and Peter tour the States.
Speaker 1: Seven people, four of them chainsmokers, one van. The tour
Speaker 1: is not boring.
Speaker 3: They were sleeping on people's floors in Boston. They were
Speaker 3: sleeping on floors of some people who are running guns
Speaker 3: for the IRA, so there was a lot of weaponry around.
Speaker 2: Terrific.
Speaker 3: We came back to New York where they played Cafe
Speaker 3: Wah as an Irish band opening for a funk band
Speaker 3: on Funk Night, which was not great. The singer broke
Speaker 3: his arm skiing in the middle of the tour, after
Speaker 3: we'd had to send the road the sound guy home
Speaker 3: because he had a mental break, full psychotic episode. Then
Speaker 3: the singer broke his arm and I had to play
Speaker 3: guitar for them.
Speaker 2: It was a very exciting tour, but through.
Speaker 1: All of it, Peter is listening to a cause that
Speaker 1: of a record that hasn't been released yet.
Speaker 3: I had had an advanced copy of the first Counting
Speaker 3: Crows record, August and Everything after someone a friend of
Speaker 3: mine who worked at Gefen, had given me a cassette
Speaker 3: and I was obsessed with it. I loved it, and
Speaker 3: it was before it had come out. I was just
Speaker 3: it killed me right. It was right in my vein
Speaker 3: of what I like to do and I like to hear.
Speaker 3: And so in the middle of this Fat Lady Singhs
Speaker 3: tour they were playing. They were the second opening act
Speaker 3: for Counting Crows at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit, and
Speaker 3: it was Counting Crow's first ever headlining gig outside of California.
Speaker 1: Peter is a big Counting Crows fan at this point,
Speaker 1: he's dying to share a bill with them, So, like
Speaker 1: Todd and Allen of Sudden Impact, with a dream in
Speaker 1: their hearts and a poster in their hands, he takes
Speaker 1: a chance.
Speaker 3: I said, look, I know there are two other opening
Speaker 3: acts I need to play on this gig. I love
Speaker 3: this fucking band. Let me play on this gig. And
Speaker 3: someone relented and said, you can play literally at seven
Speaker 3: o'clock when the door's open, doors open, you play fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: So great.
Speaker 1: I'm on the keg fifteen minutes of stage time at
Speaker 1: seven pm, before anyone's even left their homes to come
Speaker 1: to the venue, while the bartender is still cutting up limes.
Speaker 1: But it's enough to give him a little swagger when
Speaker 1: he has that important interaction that hinges on Jewish hair.
Speaker 3: So before the show, we're up in the dressing room.
Speaker 3: Since just sort of one communal dressing room and Counting
Speaker 3: Crows are not known at this point, there's been no
Speaker 3: radio play, there's nothing. They're just building up and I
Speaker 3: see Adam from across the room, and I walked up
Speaker 3: to him and I said, hey, how are you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm the opening act, right, which is way better than
Speaker 3: saying like I'm a big fan. So I said, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm the opening act.
Speaker 2: My name is Peter.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, hey, great, great, nice to meet. I
Speaker 3: was like, listen, I've always wanted dreadlocks. How long did
Speaker 3: it take you to grow those? He was like about
Speaker 3: like three hours.
Speaker 2: Man. I was like, what do you mean.
Speaker 3: He's like, it's a weave, it's it's I was like,
Speaker 3: all my life I could have had dreadlocks if I
Speaker 3: just like spent money.
Speaker 1: Peter and Adam Durrettz get friendly. They exchanged phone numbers,
Speaker 1: and because this is a time in history when you
Speaker 1: would talk on the phone, they do.
Speaker 3: And a few weeks later they were coming to maybe
Speaker 3: a month later, I'm not sure how long. They were
Speaker 3: coming to New York to play a gig at Wetlands.
Speaker 3: The night before they played Saturday Night Live, and somehow
Speaker 3: I was you know, I was pushy and doing a
Speaker 3: lot of finaggling. So I basically said, hey, I have
Speaker 3: a band, can we open for you at Wetlands?
Speaker 2: It's like, you're sure open for us at Wetlands. That'd
Speaker 2: be great. And I think what it may have even
Speaker 2: been worse than that.
Speaker 3: I think there was someone opening for them, and then
Speaker 3: they played, and then we closed for them at Wetlands, right,
Speaker 3: so after everybody left, we started playing.
Speaker 2: But again it was one of those things like I
Speaker 2: just want to be in the game.
Speaker 1: A few days later, Peter's phone rings, and again, because
Speaker 1: this is a time when people talk on their phones,
Speaker 1: Peter picks up.
Speaker 3: Adam called me or his manager called someone did and said, look,
Speaker 3: we had an opening act for two weeks. You know,
Speaker 3: we're going off on the Northeast tour. We had an
Speaker 3: opening act. He just dropped out. Can you do two
Speaker 3: weeks of touring with us solo? It's like, yeah, yes,
Speaker 3: I can't. Yeah, absolutely it can. So I was along
Speaker 3: for this ride where count Crows were this cool band
Speaker 3: and there I loved their record, and they're playing the Wetlands,
Speaker 3: which was a little club, and we played and and
Speaker 3: I was going to go off on tour with him
Speaker 3: the next you know, the day after Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 3: and they played Saturday Night Live and it just went.
Speaker 2: It just changed, right, It immediately. You know.
Speaker 3: I was on tour with them, and it went from
Speaker 3: like playing the Wetlands to playing a bigger place to
Speaker 3: the small place you're still booked in is packed and
Speaker 3: everyone like, all of a sudden, you could feel this
Speaker 3: thing rolling.
Speaker 2: It's very rare.
Speaker 3: That a band has like a meteoric rise like the
Speaker 3: Crows had.
Speaker 2: And I rode that. I rode that whole thing. You know.
Speaker 3: It was like they're on the cover of Rolling Stone,
Speaker 3: They're on cover of Spin, They're on you know, all
Speaker 3: these things they're doing, like these TV shows, and I
Speaker 3: got to be along.
Speaker 1: For all of it, right, and just like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And they're not just on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1: Adam Durretz is on the cover of Rolling Stone in
Speaker 1: a Dog's Eye view T shirt.
Speaker 3: Yes, which again goes to how annoyingly uh in it?
Speaker 2: For myself I was.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was just constantly pushing, like which I
Speaker 3: think you have to do to some degree. But it's
Speaker 3: like I'm the guy going, oh, well, what you need
Speaker 3: is for me to come on the road and roady
Speaker 3: for you and open for you, right, and and Adam's
Speaker 3: about to go do the you know, his first ever
Speaker 3: like magazine cover shoot, and I'm like, so, so you're
Speaker 3: gonna wear my shirt?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Can you please wear my shirt? Well?
Speaker 1: It worked, it did, but it's it's you know, okay, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little cringey in retrospect. But as we've learned
Speaker 1: by now, even the least probable, even the wildest kind
Speaker 1: of ambition, can pay off. Peter Stewart has found himself
Speaker 1: in the right place at the right time, and that's
Speaker 1: because he's made the decision to be everywhere. Roadying for
Speaker 1: bands and playing for empty rooms brought him luck, but
Speaker 1: it was luck that he manifested through bold action. And
Speaker 1: this brings me back to an aspect of my own
Speaker 1: personal story that still kind of scares me a little bit.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety eight, I made the decision to show
Speaker 1: up at fifteen fifteen Broadway to audition to be a
Speaker 1: VJ on MTV. This is a decision that has fundamentally
Speaker 1: changed the entire course of my life to the point
Speaker 1: that I honestly don't know where or who I would
Speaker 1: be if I hadn't gone. It gave me the life
Speaker 1: I have now, and the thing that haunts me about it,
Speaker 1: the thing that I think about at three am, when
Speaker 1: I can't get back to sleep. Is how close I
Speaker 1: came to not going. Here's the deal. The first day
Speaker 1: of those auditions at MTV was the day after Easter.
Speaker 1: I had spent Easter with my group of friends in
Speaker 1: New York City, where we'd cooked bacon and eggs and
Speaker 1: taken the Staten Island ferry back and forth because you
Speaker 1: couldn't afford brunch in the circle line. I didn't tell
Speaker 1: any of them what I was planning on doing. It
Speaker 1: felt so foolish, like a thing a child would do.
Speaker 1: I figured there would be a lot of big characters
Speaker 1: showing up for this thing, so a guy like me,
Speaker 1: kind of a low key everyman music nerd, would have
Speaker 1: to be seen early before the casting people got tired
Speaker 1: of faces and voices.
Speaker 2: So I set an alarm for four AM.
Speaker 1: And when that alarm clock screamed at me that morning,
Speaker 1: those tall red digital letters spelling out four too, my
Speaker 1: eyes burning and my body horizontal and cozy, I said.
Speaker 2: What am I doing? I'm twenty seven, I have a job.
Speaker 1: It's time for me to put aside childish things like
Speaker 1: showing up and trying to be a VJ for a
Speaker 1: network who's demographic I aged out of a month ago.
Speaker 1: Who does this? How foolish? Go back to sleep and
Speaker 1: then go to work like a man. I turned off
Speaker 1: the alarm. I blinked a heavy, sleepy blink, and then
Speaker 1: another longer one, a third blink, and I would have
Speaker 1: gone back to sleep. My eyes would have just stayed
Speaker 1: closed until it was time to go to my regular job,
Speaker 1: and I would have gone about the business of a
Speaker 1: regular day. I would have missed my chance. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is that got me out of bed.
Speaker 1: I know I didn't want to get out of bed,
Speaker 1: but I did, and I showered, and I put on
Speaker 1: a black, tunicy kind of shirt that I guess I
Speaker 1: thought was trendy, and I took a taxi to Times Square,
Speaker 1: where I was one hundred and sixty eighth in line.
Speaker 1: We got brought into the studio in groups of twelve,
Speaker 1: and when my group was called in, I was at
Speaker 1: audition Station seven, where the casting guy saw something in
Speaker 1: me and sent me to another room where I talked
Speaker 1: to more casting people for a half hour or so,
Speaker 1: and then they told me they'd call by Tuesday at
Speaker 1: midnight if I made the top ten. And they called
Speaker 1: at eleven fifty seven pm on Tuesday, and I borrowed
Speaker 1: a good going out shirt from one of my roommates,
Speaker 1: and I showed up the next morning, and then I
Speaker 1: made the top five and they gave me access to
Speaker 1: the wardrobe room, where I got to wear some of
Speaker 1: Matt Pinfield's bowling shirts for the rest of the process because.
Speaker 2: We were the same size.
Speaker 1: I got to practice Awards show podium banter on Live
Speaker 1: TV with Pauli Shore.
Speaker 2: I think I made a biodome jo.
Speaker 1: Kathy Griffin did a challenge where she was a different
Speaker 1: kind of difficult interview for each of us. We had
Speaker 1: to run across the street to the Virgin Megastore and
Speaker 1: grab our three favorite albums and defend them.
Speaker 2: Mine were the first Benfolds five record, day, Las Souls.
Speaker 1: Three Feet High in Rising, and Tommy Keene's songs from
Speaker 1: the film Perfect Now. It was obvious seeing Jesse Camp,
Speaker 1: this tall, beautiful, eighteen year old weirdo, that he was
Speaker 1: gonna win. He was a character, and that took the
Speaker 1: pressure off of me. I relaxed, I enjoyed myself. I
Speaker 1: bantered with Kurt Loder. I sasked him back when he
Speaker 1: said he hated Paul McCartney in Wings? How can you
Speaker 1: hate Paul McCartney in Wings? And the voters voted and
Speaker 1: I lost, And I said, Dave, have your emotions about
Speaker 1: this later. Now it's time to put a smile on
Speaker 1: your face and go to the after party and start
Speaker 1: trying to get in some other way. And I did,
Speaker 1: and I pushed, and now I'm here. I wouldn't be here.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be doing this right now, being in this
Speaker 1: room talking into this microphone if I had blinked that
Speaker 1: third time.
Speaker 2: So I guess the moral here is say yes, get.
Speaker 1: Up early for that stupid audition, Print up your poster,
Speaker 1: even if there's nothing for that poster to promote. Ask
Speaker 1: a famous friend to wear your T shirt, make a
Speaker 1: T shirt, take a chance.
Speaker 2: Success often really does.
Speaker 1: Come down to being in the right place at the
Speaker 1: right time, and there will never be a right time
Speaker 1: for your right place to be bad. So Peter Stewart
Speaker 1: and Dog's Eye View are on tour with Counting Crows,
Speaker 1: the band that is becoming the biggest band in America,
Speaker 1: and the buzz is growing for Dog's Eye View as well.
Speaker 1: What were you hoping? Was it fame that excited you.
Speaker 1: Was it connection with an audience that excited you? What
Speaker 1: about your music, like, what was the impact you were
Speaker 1: hoping to make.
Speaker 3: Well, it's complicated, right, and I've had a lot of
Speaker 3: time to think about it, so I'm not sure. At
Speaker 3: the time, it was a combination of a couple things, right,
Speaker 3: So in it, in the roots of it, it started
Speaker 3: with a combination of I was incredibly depressed, very lonely
Speaker 3: teenage boy, right, and I picked up the guitar. And
Speaker 3: the first thing that happened to me musically in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways was you know, my dad had died
Speaker 3: when I was really young. I had all this stuff
Speaker 3: around it. I picked up a guitar and then someone
Speaker 3: turned me on to Cat Stevens and the song Father
Speaker 3: and Son, and it was the first time I ever
Speaker 3: felt like heard and understood and and and music immediately
Speaker 3: became this thing where I felt less alone in the world, right,
Speaker 3: and I felt like I got.
Speaker 2: It and it moved me so deeply.
Speaker 3: So part of it was wanting to participate in that, right,
Speaker 3: wanting to be moved by music, and wanting to move
Speaker 3: people and wanting to you know, explore that. And part
Speaker 3: of it was you know, sort of self therapy. Right,
Speaker 3: write sad songs about sad things I'm feeling, and I
Speaker 3: feel like less sad and if anyone, if it communicates
Speaker 3: with anyone, great.
Speaker 2: That's mixed almost fifty to fifty with.
Speaker 3: Being around at the inception of MTV, right and and
Speaker 3: I wish that this was less the case right for coolness.
Speaker 3: But part of it was the Wanted Dead or Alive
Speaker 3: music video by Bonchovi.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I was, you know, sitting in my room. I'm you know,
Speaker 3: I'm in high school or junior higher high school, and
Speaker 3: there are all these shots of like, you know, like
Speaker 3: guys getting into like limos and guys getting into planes
Speaker 3: and guys getting girls, and you know, I've seen a
Speaker 3: million faces and I've rocked them all. It's like, fuck yeah,
Speaker 3: fuck yes, that's what I want.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So, so it's this weird combination of those two things.
Speaker 3: And on the darker side, which comes out, you know,
Speaker 3: sort of proves itself later, you know. So much of
Speaker 3: it was the chase, like I just want to get
Speaker 3: a record out, I just want people to hear me.
Speaker 3: I just want that thing. But there was some internal
Speaker 3: thing where I thought that that would fix me. Right,
Speaker 3: I thought that would make everything okay, And I really,
Speaker 3: you know, I couldn't have articulated that to you at
Speaker 3: that point, but there was this element of like, well,
Speaker 3: surely Jon bon Jovi stepping onto that plane, you know,
Speaker 3: or in his leather pants, or you know, seeing a
Speaker 3: million faces and I rocked them all on that stage
Speaker 3: has no problems, right, Totally, life is you know, heaven
Speaker 3: opens up and you feel amazing all the time. So
Speaker 3: so part of it was that, right, I really thought
Speaker 3: that if I had a record out and or a
Speaker 3: hit single, all problems solved, I would immediately become someone
Speaker 3: who is comfortable in their own.
Speaker 1: Skin and happy dog's eye view gets to play in
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger venues. Peter sees okay, maybe not a
Speaker 1: million faces, but certainly into the thousands of faces, and
Speaker 1: he rocks most of them softly. But most importantly, he's
Speaker 1: selling his homemade cassettes at his merch table and people
Speaker 1: are buying. He attracts the attention of Columbia Records, who
Speaker 1: fly him to New York to meet the big wigs.
Speaker 3: I literally the next week went to Columbia Records, and
Speaker 3: it was sort of like all the dreams.
Speaker 2: You would have of like, you know, Dylan or you
Speaker 2: know whoever.
Speaker 3: I went into a conference room at Columbia Records with
Speaker 3: Donnie Yner, the president of the Wibel and my manager
Speaker 3: at the time, Marty Diamond, and this guy Mitchell Cohen,
Speaker 3: and okay, play a few songs in the least acoustically
Speaker 3: friendly environment you've ever been in. Right, it's a fucking
Speaker 3: conference room that's deadened, and it's like you play guitar
Speaker 3: and goes yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And totally adiseptic and clean and floresca and just just nothing.
Speaker 2: But you know, I remember playing the song.
Speaker 3: And just sort of like walking up a chair onto
Speaker 3: the table and playing it above them, and I remember going, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, I like this kid, I like this, And
Speaker 3: you know, a.
Speaker 2: Couple days later it was they're going to offer you
Speaker 2: a deal.
Speaker 1: The band records the album Happy Nowhere, which contains the
Speaker 1: single Everything Falls Apart and honestly about a half a
Speaker 1: dozen more bangers. But for a long time, Happy Nowhere
Speaker 1: sits on a shelf, waiting to be released and waiting
Speaker 1: some more. As we know by now, that happens a lot.
Speaker 1: Sometimes those albums never stop waiting. This feels like something
Speaker 1: Pixar should explore, and then a very strange gig changes everything.
Speaker 3: The record was either going to come out in ninety
Speaker 3: five or ninety six, right late late ninety five or
Speaker 3: ninety six, and it was unclear what was going to happen,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't necessarily you know, no one necessarily heard
Speaker 3: a big hit on it, and it wasn't necessarily a
Speaker 3: priority at Columbia. And I had a very weird gig
Speaker 3: come up, which I got asked, and this is before
Speaker 3: we were assigned, Yeah, I mean before we were the
Speaker 3: records out.
Speaker 2: There's no way people really knew about.
Speaker 3: Us, right, So someone reached out to me and said
Speaker 3: that Michael Eisner, the head of Disney at the time,
Speaker 3: his son is graduating from college and really wants you
Speaker 3: to play at his graduation. First of all, I know
Speaker 3: that they wanted Soul Coughing to play, or they wanted
Speaker 3: Cracker to play, or they wanted someone to play, and
Speaker 3: their dads had gone down the list to who's an
Speaker 3: artist who we can get to play? Right, There's no way.
Speaker 3: First of all, we weren't like a party band, and
Speaker 3: second of all, come on, it was a great foreshadowing
Speaker 3: of my entire career in music because they picked us
Speaker 3: up in New York City in a limo and took
Speaker 3: us to a private plane and flew us up to
Speaker 3: Cornell or wherever it was, and picked us up in
Speaker 3: a bedley and took us to the gig.
Speaker 1: It's a dual graduation party, Michael eisen Son and the
Speaker 1: son of Mickey Schuloff, who at the time was the
Speaker 1: president of Sony, which owned Columbia Records. It is a
Speaker 1: very weird and suddenly a very important gig.
Speaker 3: And then we set up and play and it's among
Speaker 3: the worst gigs you can play.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It is both of those families in a restaurant, an
Speaker 3: Italian restaurant, both of those extended families and grandparents and
Speaker 3: uncles and aunts and some teenagers, you know, and the
Speaker 3: kids graduating from college. And the first thing that happens
Speaker 3: we step on stage and it's just fucking squealing feedback,
Speaker 3: and you will just watch a bunch of old people eating,
Speaker 3: just grimace. And then we play some folk songs for
Speaker 3: these kids on their college graduation because their parents got
Speaker 3: us there. And then the very drunk son of what
Speaker 3: the eisnerer kid? Right, the very drunk kid. His dad
Speaker 3: pulls me aside says, my kid wants to jam with
Speaker 3: you guys, right, And I was like, we don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm not that kind of guy. I
Speaker 2: don't have songs to jam on.
Speaker 3: I don't and we don't have another guitar, so it
Speaker 3: wouldn't be appropriate, right, So I turned that down. And
Speaker 3: then they asked us to play a second set, and
Speaker 3: we do and some kids are like, you know, parents
Speaker 3: were like, oh, dance, dance, and we're like, play the
Speaker 3: most upbeat, sad folk song you can play.
Speaker 1: Thanks probably to an open bar, the gig is a
Speaker 1: success and Michael Eisner intervenes on Peter's behalf.
Speaker 3: And Michael Eisner goes, so, when is your record coming out?
Speaker 3: And I said, you know, I don't know. It might
Speaker 3: be it might be October, it might be next year.
Speaker 3: We're not sure. And he goes, no, It's coming out
Speaker 3: in October, Mickey October, and literally, like they get into
Speaker 3: this weird power play about when Sony's gonna put out
Speaker 3: the record, and the next day it got slated for October.
Speaker 3: So this single came out in like November of ninety five,
Speaker 3: and immediately, you know, immediately started getting traction and being
Speaker 3: a being a thing.
Speaker 1: You know what happens next, The video gets added to
Speaker 1: MTV's buzz bind, it gets played sixteen times a week,
Speaker 1: and the thing that Peter thought would fix him doesn't.
Speaker 1: That is very much in keeping with the character of
Speaker 1: the lyrics, you know, which I think at the time
Speaker 1: like listening to it. So if that if the album
Speaker 1: came out in ninety five, I would have been twenty four,
Speaker 1: and I was in New York and you know, sad
Speaker 1: and lonely and self destructive and self hating and all
Speaker 1: those things. So the record really spoke to me on
Speaker 1: a deep level in a sense that made me feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know this guy. I know this guy, and so
Speaker 1: to hear you say that, it's like, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that guy would react that way.
Speaker 3: That record continued to grow and continued to be a
Speaker 3: hit single, but there was a there was definitely you know.
Speaker 3: Part of the reason I mentioned that the ascendancy of
Speaker 3: the Crows, right and that thing, is that that just
Speaker 3: never happened for us.
Speaker 2: Right, We by by by all.
Speaker 3: Accounts right as successful, like more successful than you could
Speaker 3: really hope to be.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: You play a lot of shows, you get a record deal,
Speaker 3: you have a hit single, like that's that's dreams, right.
Speaker 3: Thirteen year old me is like yes, right, but there
Speaker 3: was a weird thing when it didn't progress to the
Speaker 3: next level, right, it didn't. You know, we went on
Speaker 3: Letterman and the next day was a day and there
Speaker 3: was this sort of slow realization that it was just
Speaker 3: it had gone really well and gone up and was
Speaker 3: blowing up and things are great and it's a hit
Speaker 3: record and now go do another one.
Speaker 1: And how are like, are you psychologically do you have
Speaker 1: the self knowledge to know that this is not this
Speaker 1: is not feeding you the way that you were hoping
Speaker 1: that it would.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of me trying to push it.
Speaker 2: I'd done so much to push.
Speaker 3: It uphill, right of like let me be Erodi, let
Speaker 3: me wear my shirt, let me do this. You know, push, push, push,
Speaker 3: and at a certain point you can't individually push the
Speaker 3: machinery anymore.
Speaker 2: Right, So it got to a.
Speaker 3: Point where you know, I would just I mean I
Speaker 3: had to, you know, really make amends to my manager
Speaker 3: years later because I realized, like I would just call
Speaker 3: him twenty times a day and going have you done this?
Speaker 2: Have you done this? Have you done this have you
Speaker 2: called this person?
Speaker 3: And so I spent a lot of time worrying about
Speaker 3: trying to push it forward and zero time enjoying the
Speaker 3: experience of it, the process of it. It didn't fix me,
Speaker 3: so it had to get bigger to fix me. Like
Speaker 3: I knew then, I knew that if the record sold
Speaker 3: a million records or we had a second hit, then
Speaker 3: you know, and I was playing bigger venues, then I
Speaker 3: would feel better.
Speaker 1: This speaks to a thing I've been thinking about a
Speaker 1: lot lately. Dreams are good for you. They can give
Speaker 1: your life purpose, direction, discipline. But the essential problem with
Speaker 1: dreams is that they don't make sense.
Speaker 2: When you set a big goal.
Speaker 1: You know, when there's like a dream you have for yourself,
Speaker 1: you imagine it happening, but it is happening to some
Speaker 1: future version of you who's like something has been fixed
Speaker 1: in between the dreaming and the event, and ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: I've achieved a few of the goals that I hope
Speaker 1: to achieve, and it's like that just happens to you.
Speaker 2: It just happens to the dumb version of you who
Speaker 2: was there before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it happens to the version of you that happened
Speaker 3: yesterday and you don't feel any different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of incredible that Peter Stewart can write
Speaker 1: those lyrics I got what I wanted and now my
Speaker 1: life is just boring, and then be surprised when they
Speaker 1: end up being exactly true to his life. Self knowledge
Speaker 1: is a process. But Dog's Eye Views album Happy Nowhere
Speaker 1: stalls after everything falls apart as it's run on the charts.
Speaker 1: They don't even make a second video from that album,
Speaker 1: but they do go back and record a second album, Daisy.
Speaker 2: So that record there.
Speaker 3: Was a combination of things, right, first thing was that
Speaker 3: they weren't promoting it. Second, you know, it didn't have
Speaker 3: an obvious hit on it. Third, the initial the launch
Speaker 3: for that record was, you know, we were going to
Speaker 3: go tour Southeast Asia and Australia and New Zealand with
Speaker 3: Counting Crows, and like a week before, like that's the
Speaker 3: week before the record comes out, and a week before
Speaker 3: the tour, they were like, we're not going to do
Speaker 3: the tour, and they just canceled the tour. So we
Speaker 3: were scrambling. So it just things things weren't working and
Speaker 3: and part of what was happening was also I was
Speaker 3: I was a big periodic binge drinker the time, right,
Speaker 3: So I wasn't you know, I wasn't drinking all the time,
Speaker 3: but I definitely like the last show we did on
Speaker 3: the Happy Nowhere tour, we literally had all flown home,
Speaker 3: and then I landed in Seattle and someone someone caught
Speaker 3: me up and said, there's a radio show in Saint
Speaker 3: Louis tonight that everyone forgot about, so you need to
Speaker 3: fly back to Saint Louis and play. I think it
Speaker 3: was Mississippi Knights was the name of the club.
Speaker 2: Right, and play.
Speaker 3: And so we flew back and playing some radio station
Speaker 3: show for some radio station that wasn't playing us anymore.
Speaker 3: And it was the first time, one of the only times,
Speaker 3: but I got completely blackout drunk on stage. I was
Speaker 3: so pissed off to be there and so done with it.
Speaker 3: And I found out the next day that we that
Speaker 3: we did a three song encore that I had no
Speaker 3: memory of. I'd been on stage playing in a blackout.
Speaker 3: It's a little scary, but it's also a little rock
Speaker 3: and roll until it isn't. We played the DC Chili Cookoff,
Speaker 3: which is yet another you know gig that sounds as
Speaker 3: bad as it is played at noon on a hot
Speaker 3: stage in DC. I was wearing Vinyl motorcycle pants perfect
Speaker 3: and it was I was. I drank a bunch of
Speaker 3: tequila before noon, and during our last song, I jumped
Speaker 3: off an amp and landed, you know, like that classic
Speaker 3: Eddie Vedder thing, Like I grabbed the top of the stage,
Speaker 3: but I'm not strong enough to hang on and i
Speaker 3: can't lift myself up, so I'm literally just hanging there
Speaker 3: and slowly slipping off as I then fall to the
Speaker 3: stage and just crumple.
Speaker 1: Like that big Eddie Vetter stage move. The second album,
Speaker 1: Daisy does not quite land. Columbia Records drops him. Peter's
Speaker 1: on his own again.
Speaker 3: Matchbox twenty would take me out on a tour, playing
Speaker 3: second stages on their arena tour, like on their Amphitheater, right,
Speaker 3: So I would drive the eight hour Hump alone in
Speaker 3: a rental car and then play it two in the
Speaker 3: afternoon on the second stage and then watch my friends play,
Speaker 3: you know, the lights would go down and people and
Speaker 3: I watched them play and I'd think, I'm not this
Speaker 3: is not working, man. I'm not growing. I'm not like,
Speaker 3: I'm not developing as a human. I'm seeing the same
Speaker 3: places over and over.
Speaker 2: I was drinking more because I was miserable.
Speaker 1: Peter gets sober and he likes it. He begins to
Speaker 1: get work as a sober companion for actors who were
Speaker 1: trying not to relapse on set. He gets to travel
Speaker 1: the world, and his cover story is that he's the
Speaker 1: actor's assistant.
Speaker 3: I'm the assistant who in the person says, hey, get
Speaker 3: me a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1: I go.
Speaker 3: You can get your cup of coffee, get your own coffee.
Speaker 3: So when a director turned to me one day, he
Speaker 3: was like, you're the worst assistant I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Something else is going on here.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, Peter has recorded an album under his
Speaker 1: own name, and the independent label he signed to wants
Speaker 1: him to go off on tour the way that he
Speaker 1: had been driving himself from town to town. But he's
Speaker 1: over that by now, so that album kind of fizzles.
Speaker 1: And it's a shame that Peter stewart solo album, Propeller
Speaker 1: is really good. It's on streaming services.
Speaker 2: Go listen. He'll get two millions of a penny.
Speaker 3: And the final indignity of my interface with the music
Speaker 3: business was literally so I was I had a publishing
Speaker 3: deal at the time, and the publishing deal owed me
Speaker 3: some money, and I didn't have a lot of money left.
Speaker 3: And the label had said, hey, you know what, We're
Speaker 3: going to put the record out, but we're just going
Speaker 3: to put it out digitally on our digital store. And
Speaker 3: I said, and I talked to the publishing company and
Speaker 3: they said, your contract stipulates that there has to be
Speaker 3: one physical record in one physical store or we.
Speaker 2: Don't pay you.
Speaker 3: So I had to get the record company to print
Speaker 3: a box of CDs and go put one at Amiba
Speaker 3: Records so that it was in a store that I
Speaker 3: could get paid. And I know they printed, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe I don't know, a couple hundred CDs and I
Speaker 3: have most.
Speaker 2: Of them in my garage.
Speaker 3: But it was just so like on the way out
Speaker 3: the door, it was like, here's the thing you gotta do.
Speaker 3: You gotta beg for them to print a CD so
Speaker 3: you can get paid.
Speaker 1: What had begun with high hopes and ambition ended with
Speaker 1: an errand and that was that for music as a profession.
Speaker 1: Peter went to graduate school to get his masters in
Speaker 1: clinical psychology. He worked in in patient substance abuse treatment
Speaker 1: for a few years and now he's in private practice
Speaker 1: as a therapist in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 2: Does that fill you in the way that you were
Speaker 2: hoping music? Would? You know? Yes? But other things do too.
Speaker 3: Right, if I was looking just to this job for fulfillment,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be enough, you know. And similarly, you know,
Speaker 3: if I could go way back and have a life
Speaker 3: with other things in it when I was making music,
Speaker 3: maybe I would have been more fulfilled by music, right,
Speaker 3: But because all chips were in on how my record
Speaker 3: was doing on any given day, there was no fulfillment.
Speaker 3: And and now I mean I really not to be
Speaker 3: too cheesy about it, but being sober and really working
Speaker 3: on the underlying issues as a man right as a
Speaker 3: human being, and trying to figure out like trying realizing
Speaker 3: that there's no number of times that can play the
Speaker 3: song that's going to satisfy me. There's no there's nothing
Speaker 3: that's going to fill this void. I have to find
Speaker 3: contentment in other places. And so to me, doing all
Speaker 3: of that work and doing the work to find to
Speaker 3: be comfortable in my own skin and have contentment has
Speaker 3: allowed me to have a family, allowed me to have
Speaker 3: a relationship, and allowed me to have a job that
Speaker 3: I really love doing most of the time. But when
Speaker 3: I don't love doing it, I have other things that
Speaker 3: fill me up, whether it's running or my family.
Speaker 2: Or other things.
Speaker 1: As with a lot of people who decide to get sober,
Speaker 1: Peter's decision was motivated by a moment of clarity. And honestly,
Speaker 1: Peter's moment of clarity it's pretty fucking glamorous.
Speaker 3: You didn't ask this, but I'll answer it just for fun.
Speaker 3: I had a moment like part of my you know,
Speaker 3: moment of clarity, as it were, of deciding to get sober,
Speaker 3: thinking I might need to get sober. I was in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas for a wedding. My girlfriend at the time
Speaker 3: had just dumped me, and I was in Las Vegas
Speaker 3: on a boat on Lake Mead or whatever it's called
Speaker 3: lake whatever, the fake lake is out there sitting on
Speaker 3: the roof of the boat, tripping on ecstasy, and I
Speaker 3: had this, you know, I was on ecstasy sitting in
Speaker 3: the boat.
Speaker 2: I felt amazing.
Speaker 3: Everything was great, and my friend, who had a bunch
Speaker 3: of drugs with him, was swimming from the one boat
Speaker 3: to the other boat, and I knew he was bringing
Speaker 3: more drugs. And as I was to come down from
Speaker 3: the ecstasy. I started thinking, you know what, there's not
Speaker 3: enough ecstasy in the world to keep me feeling the
Speaker 3: way I'm feeling. And there's not enough there aren't enough
Speaker 3: women in the world or relationships in the world to
Speaker 3: keep me happy, and there's not enough money in the world.
Speaker 3: I have to fundamentally change everything and not be looking
Speaker 3: for something else to make me happy. And then and
Speaker 3: then I had this debate with myself where I said,
Speaker 3: what if and this is my big fear, Right, what
Speaker 3: if I get happy and I no longer have many
Speaker 3: songs to write? Right?
Speaker 2: What happens? Then?
Speaker 3: Am I willing to make that deal? And I didn't
Speaker 3: know that was going to happen. But if i'm what if?
Speaker 3: I what if it happens? Am I willing to make
Speaker 3: that deal? And I just had it.
Speaker 2: I was right. I was like, you know what, fuck it?
Speaker 3: If it's that, if I have to be If contentment
Speaker 3: and happiness means I never write another song, I'll take
Speaker 3: it because I can't.
Speaker 2: I'm so fucking miserable that I can't do that.
Speaker 3: And as it turned out, I feel like I wrote
Speaker 3: my best songs after I got sober. But in a way,
Speaker 3: later as as I've eased out of it. You know,
Speaker 3: I've written probably three songs in the last fifteen years
Speaker 3: because I don't have There's just nothing I want to
Speaker 3: I'm not in that pain, I'm not.
Speaker 2: In that turmoil.
Speaker 1: The day after I spoke with Peter, he emailed me,
Speaker 1: and I'm just going to read his email out loud.
Speaker 1: I woke up with a memory of something that I
Speaker 1: wished i'd said on the podcast. Don't know if you
Speaker 1: can add more later. Basic gist was this realization I had.
Speaker 1: And let's say two thousand and seven or so, I
Speaker 1: was doing a sober companion gig in Australia and I
Speaker 1: was running on a hotel treadmill, looking at the Sydney
Speaker 1: Harbor and thinking about my music career. I must have
Speaker 1: been listening to music, and suddenly I had the thought
Speaker 1: that at any point in the early to mid nineties
Speaker 1: I would have gladly traded my career and life for
Speaker 1: the critical acclaim and songwriting talent of Elliott Smith or
Speaker 1: the voice, critical ACA and success of Jeff Buckley. Yet
Speaker 1: here I was running with a beautiful view of Sydney
Speaker 1: and they were both dead.
Speaker 2: It's funny to think about.
Speaker 1: What we're sure we want at the time and how
Speaker 1: lucky we turn out to be not to get it.
Speaker 1: So I have some leads on the guys from Sudden Impact.
Speaker 1: Aside from Dave Smith, I have an interview request out
Speaker 1: to Michael Bivens. I am inching closer to finding out
Speaker 1: what happened to those guys. But as that story comes together,
Speaker 1: the other bigger mystery still eludes me. Why does this
Speaker 1: story have meaning for me? Why can't I stop thinking
Speaker 1: about it? As I often do when I'm in need
Speaker 1: of guidance. I call my friend Scott Gimpo and we
Speaker 1: talk about pop music.
Speaker 4: We grew up with records that stayed on the charts years,
Speaker 4: but I mean like kids that went once yeah.
Speaker 2: And now is it a volume game?
Speaker 4: Is it just there's so much stuff? It is?
Speaker 1: It's that there's so much stuff. And then it's also
Speaker 1: you buy something or no, actually you don't anymore?
Speaker 2: If you stream.
Speaker 1: Something, yeah, like it was, you know, you saved up
Speaker 1: a little bit of money and you bought the cassette
Speaker 1: or the CD, and then it was there to remind
Speaker 1: you that you had it, and you could listen to
Speaker 1: it right and play it in your car, and then
Speaker 1: that reminds your friend, Oh I got to pick I
Speaker 1: gotta get that too, And then that lasts like so now,
Speaker 1: even records that I that I stream when they come
Speaker 1: out and love the next day, I've completely forgotten and
Speaker 1: there's nothing to remind me.
Speaker 2: It's just stuff to keep me swimming forward. A simple
Speaker 2: prop to occupy your time, simple to occupy my time.
Speaker 1: You know, we've we've talked about sudden Impact for eighteen
Speaker 1: years now, right, and that's the thing that didn't happen,
Speaker 1: that stayed in our minds well.
Speaker 5: But there was enough of a repeater that of Motown,
Speaker 5: Philly that initially it was like what was that at
Speaker 5: the end, Like oh, wait, that thing's coming up at
Speaker 5: the end, to like oh I can't wait for that
Speaker 5: thing to come out of the end. Yeah, the repetition
Speaker 5: of the video engaged your imagination, and I think that
Speaker 5: seared it into our brain forever.
Speaker 4: And then in addition to that, it never being fulfilled.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the mystery of it never been satisfied.
Speaker 4: I don't have a good memory, but I know I'll
Speaker 4: remember that moment the rest of my life from that video,
Speaker 4: and I will never not take a moment to think
Speaker 4: about it. Even if you get closure, whatever the ending is,
Speaker 4: we know that that record didn't come out. It didn't
Speaker 4: there was no music video to follow that up, there
Speaker 4: was no additional move to the point point ended it.
Speaker 4: And thus it's just a prime example of ambition and potential.
Speaker 4: And I don't think it has a negative valance on it.
Speaker 4: I don't look upon its unfulfilled potential or anything like that.
Speaker 4: I just hold it up. I mean, it is amazing,
Speaker 4: but I hold it up as an example of audacious
Speaker 4: creative ambition that I want to aspire to.
Speaker 1: There, Scott has said a word that really resonates with me,
Speaker 1: a word that gets right to the point of what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say here.
Speaker 4: That word just keeps on coming to mind. Audacious. Wouldn't
Speaker 4: want to be audacious like that?
Speaker 2: This is my moment of clarity. Audacity.
Speaker 1: That is what this show is about, people taking bold
Speaker 1: action and seeing their lives change because of it. If
Speaker 1: VT Nicole Brown showed up at a hotel lobby in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and sang in her idol's face,
Speaker 1: so did Hayden. Todd and Allen ran up on a
Speaker 1: celebrity and asked him to sign a poster for a
Speaker 1: group that barely existed.
Speaker 2: Aaron Kane hit on someone's girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Audacity is what connects all of the people I have
Speaker 1: spoken to so far. Karen Kilgareth got up on stage
Speaker 1: to do something that scared her to death. Peter Stewart
Speaker 1: struck up a conversation about here Damien Fahe spent two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars its structure. It's why I connect to the
Speaker 1: story of Sudden Impact. The things in my life that
Speaker 1: I'm proudest of my book Esquire getting up at four
Speaker 1: am to do something embarrassing that bought me a new life,
Speaker 1: those are audacious. The things I'm ashamed of, flunking out
Speaker 1: of college because I was in a gay shame spiral
Speaker 1: are failures of audacity. And if I'm sometimes restless at
Speaker 1: this time in my life, if I sometimes find myself aimless,
Speaker 1: it's because I've forgotten my audacity, because we've talked about
Speaker 1: them so much in this episode.
Speaker 2: Let's put it in Counting Crowe's terms. Listen to this yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, That yeah is from the very end of rain King.
Speaker 1: From Counting Crowe's debut album August and everything after that
Speaker 1: is the yeah of enthusiasm. Of confidence, of optimism. That
Speaker 1: is Adam Durrett saying I'm gonna be famous and I
Speaker 1: cannot wait.
Speaker 2: That yeah is all of our best selves.
Speaker 1: But too often we get weighed down by self doubt,
Speaker 1: by insecurity, by fear or vanity or shame, and we
Speaker 1: end up like this, yeah, Yeah, that is the yeah
Speaker 1: that ends counting crows a long December just three years later.
Speaker 1: All of life can be summed up by those two yeahs.
Speaker 1: It's easy to be a long December at this time
Speaker 1: in history, but the world needs you at a rain King.
Speaker 1: Rain King is the one who gets out of bed
Speaker 1: when he wants to sleep, the one who goes out
Speaker 1: on a cold Chicago day to paced up flyers for
Speaker 1: his show, the one that goes clear across the country
Speaker 1: with a poster and a demo.
Speaker 2: Be rain King, Friends, I am getting the life lesson I.
Speaker 1: Didn't even know I needed, and I'm getting it from
Speaker 1: Adam Duritz and Sudden Impact. Next time, I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk to a guy who joined Sudden Impact in their
Speaker 1: final form, the one that actually finally released music. And
Speaker 1: because I am going rain King from here on out,
Speaker 1: I'm going to track down one of the most famous
Speaker 1: faces in music via history, A guy who inspired a
Speaker 1: million swoons, and I know that because about four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand of them came from me.
Speaker 2: Baby, Baby, you do not want to miss the next.
Speaker 1: Episode of Waiting for Impact, a Dave Holmes passion project.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly Right production written by me
Speaker 1: Dave Holmes, produced by Hannah Kyle Crichton, recorded, mixed and
Speaker 1: sound designed by Andrew Epen. Additional engineering and assembly by
Speaker 1: Analise Nelson. Music by Ben Wise, artwork by Garrett Ross.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgareff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1: Follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at exactly
Speaker 1: right and follow me at Dave Holmes. For more information,
Speaker 1: go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com. Binge The show ad free
Speaker 1: on Stitcher Premium for a free month. Head to Stitcher
Speaker 1: Premium dot com slash impact and enter promo code Impact
Speaker 1: when you select a monthly plan, listen, subscribe and leave
Speaker 1: us a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts