Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Webset's podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Wesley Schultz of Illumineers. Wesley the band
Speaker 1: has a new album.
Speaker 2: Tell me about it, Thanks, Bob. Yeah, we have new album.
Speaker 2: It's called Automatic. We finished it last June, so we've
Speaker 2: been waiting to put it out. It feels like forever
Speaker 2: and it's what do you want to know?
Speaker 1: There's a Okay, well let's start. Why the delay in
Speaker 1: releasing the album?
Speaker 2: Honestly, I'm not quite sure. I think there's a there's
Speaker 2: sort of a thing people say about setting up a
Speaker 2: record that I don't really understand that well, that a
Speaker 2: lot of younger artists don't seem to need to do
Speaker 2: it all, so I don't like and it's working for them,
Speaker 2: But it was kind of a good thing for us.
Speaker 2: As much as we start to blend time on the
Speaker 2: road and then recording, it seems like it there's never
Speaker 2: like a pause to take a breath, So it was
Speaker 2: kind of, in a weird way, suite to take a
Speaker 2: minute and regroup and just get ready for about two
Speaker 2: years on the road. But I don't I wish I
Speaker 2: had a better answer. I've been told that the things
Speaker 2: take time to organize and behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Okay, the Luveneers were signed to an independent label. Was
Speaker 1: that a conscious choice.
Speaker 2: And no, the choice was The choice was basically like
Speaker 2: when we were starting out. It was twenty twelve when
Speaker 2: we finally got any attention. We've been trying for myself
Speaker 2: probably ten years at that point, and with Jare about
Speaker 2: seven or eight. And so we had put out or
Speaker 2: we had gotten the song ho Hey put on this
Speaker 2: TV show is called Heart of Dixie, and they played
Speaker 2: the whole song. They had muted the dialogue like on
Speaker 2: the show, and so they played the entire song, and
Speaker 2: our song was nowhere to be had. You couldn't get
Speaker 2: it anywhere. It was like the worst If you were
Speaker 2: trying to blow up, this would be like the worst plan.
Speaker 2: And so the only place you could find our song
Speaker 2: was on a site called day Trotter. It's this place
Speaker 2: outside Chicago where you drive out as a band and
Speaker 2: you'd record versions of your songs live. So that's the
Speaker 2: only place people found it. So we shot up I
Speaker 2: think the like second all time and like day Trotter
Speaker 2: at the time. But at that point Majors and Indy
Speaker 2: started approaching us and offering us potential deals, and none
Speaker 2: of the deals were very good, especially from the major side,
Speaker 2: and it was a lot of like multi year deals,
Speaker 2: three to five record deals, and we just wanted a
Speaker 2: one record deal. We wanted to know whoever worked with
Speaker 2: us would want to do well like we wanted to
Speaker 2: do well, and we actually gave the right of first
Speaker 2: refusal at the time to Daniel Glass. We really wanted
Speaker 2: Daniel Glass to do this record. He had worked with
Speaker 2: Phoenix and Mumford and Sons and among other bands, and
Speaker 2: we thought, well, if he could do it with pretty
Speaker 2: different bands that aren't sort of on the traditional path
Speaker 2: per se, maybe he could do it with us. And
Speaker 2: he came to our show at the Mercury Lounge and
Speaker 2: he passed on it. He was like, I'm good, no thanks,
Speaker 2: but I wish you guys all the luck in the world.
Speaker 2: And so we ended up going with Dualtone, who at
Speaker 2: the time I think they had Brett Dennen as one
Speaker 2: of their artists, but he was on the way out.
Speaker 2: He was heading somewhere else. So it's kind of like, man,
Speaker 2: I guess it was the only fair deal that was
Speaker 2: being offered, so we took the fair deal and we
Speaker 2: could own our own music and you know, keep it
Speaker 2: all like in house and do one record deal. So
Speaker 2: we ended up doing that.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you said it was a fair deal, you
Speaker 1: got to own the record, And was it a typical
Speaker 1: indie deal fifty to fifty split of net.
Speaker 2: It was something like that. It's since you know it
Speaker 2: changes over time slowly. I think it was something like that.
Speaker 2: It was almost like going in on a business venture
Speaker 2: with someone where they they're not giving you any money
Speaker 2: up front. Really, we had already made the record, we
Speaker 2: had recorded it for like our management at the time,
Speaker 2: I think front of us money to do that. It
Speaker 2: was like ten grand to record the album, and then
Speaker 2: it was and then we ended up scrapping the whole
Speaker 2: mix of the album because we didn't like what the
Speaker 2: original producer had done with it. So then we took
Speaker 2: it to Sound City and Kevin Agunis remixed the whole
Speaker 2: thing from scratch, and I think we then double the
Speaker 2: budget to twenty thousand, which looking back, that's a pretty
Speaker 2: good way to make a record compared to what records
Speaker 2: cost today. And yeah, we remixed the whole record. I
Speaker 2: had heard a story about Damien Rice early on, before
Speaker 2: we had had any record deal, and how he had
Speaker 2: like scrapped an entire record he had saved up to
Speaker 2: make because he didn't like how it sounded, and that
Speaker 2: stuck with me. So when it came time for us,
Speaker 2: we didn't. It sounded way polished and all these comp takes,
Speaker 2: it didn't sound like us, It didn't sound like human.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we remixed it and then went on from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did the song get in the Dixie Show
Speaker 1: to begin with?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, Like somebody heard it and they called it
Speaker 2: sync it. They synced it to the show. They offered us,
Speaker 2: you know, a few thousand dollars or something. I forget
Speaker 2: what it was, but it was like more money than
Speaker 2: we'd ever seen in our lives, and we're like, whoa,
Speaker 2: that's amazing, let's do it. And our management facilitated, like
Speaker 2: helped us figure it out with our lawyer and got
Speaker 2: it on there. But it wasn't like a well planned thing.
Speaker 2: Like I said, we would have had the song at
Speaker 2: least somewhere to like download it, and it was nowhere.
Speaker 1: Okay, you made a one album deal with Duel Tone.
Speaker 1: You're still with Duel Tone. Yeah, so you must have
Speaker 1: liked it after one album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've been great. I mean the year we worked
Speaker 2: with them, the opening two years we worked with them,
Speaker 2: it was they were a lot like us. They were
Speaker 2: like the little engine that could. They won an award
Speaker 2: for best Best Record Label with five or fewer employees.
Speaker 2: They had I think four people, and they were they
Speaker 2: got us like we had gotten on the Grammys and SNL.
Speaker 2: We were just doing things that it doesn't normally happen
Speaker 2: to a band that is not on a major. So
Speaker 2: it was it's kind of like a fairy tale in
Speaker 2: a way. And then we were basing a lot of
Speaker 2: our decisions on we had heard from. We have a
Speaker 2: really wise lawyer. His name is Richard Grabile, and he's
Speaker 2: been doing it for a long time and he's kind
Speaker 2: of like always I always turned to him when I
Speaker 2: need really deep advice, and he was just like saying
Speaker 2: that all these whether it's a major or an indie,
Speaker 2: the person that signs you is your cheerleader. It's like
Speaker 2: a coach who drafts a player. And if that coach
Speaker 2: or that executive in a label gets fired or leaves,
Speaker 2: the next guy that comes out comes after him isn't
Speaker 2: necessarily going to be brooding for you or trying to
Speaker 2: help you as much. It's so you was. His point
Speaker 2: was always know who you're working with, and if you
Speaker 2: do one record deals, there can't be that much instability
Speaker 2: within that short period of time, so you can kind
Speaker 2: of control a lot more of your destiny and how
Speaker 2: much attention you're getting from your label, because sometimes you'll
Speaker 2: there are a lot of stories of bands that sign
Speaker 2: like a three record or five record deal and the
Speaker 2: guy who championed them leaves pretty soon into it and
Speaker 2: they're kind of shelved or ignored, not prioritized in any way.
Speaker 2: So I think we were just mainly concerned about how
Speaker 2: fair the deal was. We enjoyed the people at Dual Tone,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't I gotta give most of the credit
Speaker 2: to Richard Grabil. He really helped us navigate these things
Speaker 2: that we were just frankly just happy to not be,
Speaker 2: you know, working side jobs, which was just happy to
Speaker 2: be able to play music and get I was thirty
Speaker 2: at the time, so I wasn't sure it was ever
Speaker 2: gonna happen, So there was not a lot like being
Speaker 2: taken for granted. But I feel like it helps to
Speaker 2: be a little older because you can say no a
Speaker 2: little easier because you've been the whole thing has been
Speaker 2: a failure up to that point.
Speaker 1: So, okay, you're in Colorado, Grables in New York. Ha'd
Speaker 1: you hook up with him?
Speaker 2: So there was a band called Rah Rah Riot and
Speaker 2: there my neighbor happened to be friends with one of
Speaker 2: the band member's parents, and that was their late that
Speaker 2: was their lawyer. And so I remember I had my
Speaker 2: wisdom teeth taken out and I could barely speak, and
Speaker 2: I got this management contract offered to us, and I
Speaker 2: sent Richard an email and I was like, please, are
Speaker 2: you Are you gonna work with us? Because I had
Speaker 2: I had there was the only lawyer I knew to contact.
Speaker 2: It was the only person I had access to. And
Speaker 2: he's like, I only listened to physical copy. So I
Speaker 2: had to send him a CD. And then I kind
Speaker 2: of said, hey, it's been a couple of weeks and
Speaker 2: I just got this management offer. Can you please get
Speaker 2: back to me one way or another? And he's like,
Speaker 2: don't sign that and call me right now. And so
Speaker 2: I called him and I could barely speak, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, redshird, I just got my wisdom teacher
Speaker 2: like and he was so excited for us, and he
Speaker 2: loved the music and he started helping us immediately. So
Speaker 2: we luckily didn't sign some really bad management contract to
Speaker 2: begin with, and he helped us kind of navigate it
Speaker 2: all from from there from there on.
Speaker 1: How many managers have the Lumineers had.
Speaker 2: That type of manager, like I'd called a day to
Speaker 2: day not a tour manager. We've had just two.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the guy who will offered you the contract,
Speaker 1: did you end up making a deal with him or
Speaker 1: did you move on?
Speaker 2: We did, but we amended some things on that that
Speaker 2: had we not, it would have been a mess, you know,
Speaker 2: to ever like break up with that manager. You know
Speaker 2: there's like sunset clauses and things like that that they
Speaker 2: put in there is like it helps them, but it
Speaker 2: hurts the artists. You can't really move on very easily.
Speaker 1: So how did it end with the first manager?
Speaker 2: So Dave Minor was He's based out of Seattle. He was.
Speaker 2: It was Dave Minor and Kristin Green and there were
Speaker 2: a few others, but they were like the main sort
Speaker 2: of managers entitle and Dave was like basically canceled. He
Speaker 2: was like accused of something like double digit sexual harassment
Speaker 2: charges that was in like twenty seventeen or eighteen, and
Speaker 2: so it all happened like really fast. He called us
Speaker 2: on like a Wednesday, he said, this articles coming out
Speaker 2: and I want you to know about it first, and
Speaker 2: he tried to kind of explain it and we were
Speaker 2: like whoa. And then talk to the lawyers, and then
Speaker 2: by Sunday we had let him go and as well
Speaker 2: as like the whole management, we wanted a fresh start,
Speaker 2: and and then we interviewed that I don't know if
Speaker 2: you want to go there, but we interviewed like ten
Speaker 2: more so after that, we're making our third record and
Speaker 2: we're in the middle of it, and we scheduled like
Speaker 2: nine or ten two to three hour meetings throughout the
Speaker 2: course of like a week or week and a half
Speaker 2: where they all flew to Denver and it was some
Speaker 2: of the most amazing management groups and managers and you
Speaker 2: could ask for because at that point we were like
Speaker 2: proven goods to some people. So we met with like
Speaker 2: az like just people I'd only heard about or see,
Speaker 2: you know, seen on documentaries, and it was really it
Speaker 2: was really cool to hear their their viewpoints on how
Speaker 2: either they could help us or their philosophies about music
Speaker 2: and how to essentially like help their artists. And we
Speaker 2: ended up going with Activists, which is run by mainly
Speaker 2: Bernie Cahill Matt maher mayor I think you say his name.
Speaker 2: I always messed it up because I had a friend
Speaker 2: grown up. They went by mar and anyway we like
Speaker 2: and you know, an Anna cole Ender is also someone
Speaker 2: if she ever listens to this, ione her to know.
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for. But but we ended up going
Speaker 2: with them. But it was something where I didn't really
Speaker 2: expect to go with them, you know, like if you
Speaker 2: just base it purely on roster. There they were working
Speaker 2: with Ded and Co and I'm just I had I'd
Speaker 2: seen the dead and different iterations of them, and it
Speaker 2: just felt like, well, we're not a jam band. I
Speaker 2: don't know how they're gonna know how to deal with
Speaker 2: us in terms of like that's such an improvisational band.
Speaker 2: We're more like a writer kind of band. And then
Speaker 2: when we heard them and we had a meeting with them,
Speaker 2: it was just kind of like it felt like a
Speaker 2: perfect fit in their personality and what they were trying
Speaker 2: to do, and they had just had a person leave.
Speaker 2: It was Zach Brown had left them to start his
Speaker 2: own management group, so it was like he had left
Speaker 2: and left this void that they were just all had
Speaker 2: everyone kind of ready for us. They didn't have to
Speaker 2: hire kind of many more people to make it work
Speaker 2: with us, So it was kind of like good timing
Speaker 2: for both both sides. But it was kind of surreal
Speaker 2: because we were working on our third record and writing
Speaker 2: it and then having these race sort of stressful meetings
Speaker 2: with these you know, people who were all big deals
Speaker 2: and we're having them in these shitty like I remember
Speaker 2: we had meetings in this coffeehouse and then this dive bar,
Speaker 2: and that was like we do back and forth each
Speaker 2: day two hours and one or two hours in the other,
Speaker 2: and it was just like you glaze over after a
Speaker 2: certain amount of like hearing the same speeches over and over.
Speaker 1: So since you were dealing with the top layer of management,
Speaker 1: what'd you learn about visions, personalities? What was the experience
Speaker 1: like and what were they selling you?
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure. It's like we made a T
Speaker 2: shirt with all the things that were sett in every
Speaker 2: meeting over and over as a joke, because there would
Speaker 2: be like the thirty thousand foot view is are they
Speaker 2: say boots on the ground or they'd say it was
Speaker 2: very like there were some platitudes or cliches they would
Speaker 2: throw out there. I think what I was really really
Speaker 2: had a nose for or wanted to hear was what
Speaker 2: they really thought they could do and had done with
Speaker 2: their with bands in the past. Like I really enjoyed
Speaker 2: speaking with the manager of the Black Keys. I thought
Speaker 2: he was so thoughtful and he sort of customized things.
Speaker 2: When he was talking about them and how he did things,
Speaker 2: it was like, well, that's a real thoughtful or artistic
Speaker 2: approach to helping a band grow. It's not just like
Speaker 2: paint by number make them bigger. He was because I
Speaker 2: was commenting, like I love one of their videos where
Speaker 2: it's this dinosaur or it's just saying lyrics and it's
Speaker 2: like a dinosaur puppet and then there's a girl at
Speaker 2: the pool and it's I think it's called my ex
Speaker 2: girl or my next girl, and you know, things like that,
Speaker 2: and so I think, you know, he was an example
Speaker 2: of someone we really wanted to work with. But the
Speaker 2: the deal breaker for us was like he was a
Speaker 2: one stop shop. He was a one man band. So
Speaker 2: if the Black Keys were putting out a record and
Speaker 2: we were putting out a record, there's only one of him,
Speaker 2: you know, and we needed like we needed a team,
Speaker 2: you know. So uh, But he was an example of
Speaker 2: someone just like really impressed me as far as like
Speaker 2: how he wasn't just treating every act the same, and
Speaker 2: he had done his homework on us and had figured
Speaker 2: out ways he thought we could do some things better.
Speaker 2: So but it's a little bit like some people surprise
Speaker 2: you with like how they just kind of show up
Speaker 2: and they maybe rely more on their reputation than having
Speaker 2: anything original to say, and that that could be That
Speaker 2: was disappointing for me. But on the flip side, some
Speaker 2: people really shock me with how much energy they put
Speaker 2: into it and like thoughtfulness they had, because I think
Speaker 2: that's what it takes. It's really not especially now more
Speaker 2: than ever. You need to figure out how to make
Speaker 2: an audience understand an artist in the way that the
Speaker 2: artist feels authentic to otherwise it won't work. And you
Speaker 2: have a lot of examples of I mean, I know,
Speaker 2: I think you interviewed Billy strings On here. I met
Speaker 2: him at Willie's ninetieth birthday, and just thinking about how
Speaker 2: two decades ago, I don't know if he has the
Speaker 2: same opportunity. And now, all of a sudden, you have
Speaker 2: this person who's like a musical household name, and he's
Speaker 2: playing a style of music that isn't necessarily always in vogue,
Speaker 2: but people know about him. I think that's pretty great,
Speaker 2: But that also takes either the artist or the management
Speaker 2: with the artists to try to communicate that out to
Speaker 2: the to the audience.
Speaker 1: Let's go back a step. How'd you end up with
Speaker 1: a manager in Seattle?
Speaker 2: We were doing a residency in New York and me
Speaker 2: and Jerry grew up you know, we ended up moving
Speaker 2: to Denver, but we grew up in New Jersey and
Speaker 2: we just we were, you know, a short drive into
Speaker 2: New York City, and so we were. We did a
Speaker 2: residency at the Living Room. It doesn't exist anymore. It closed,
Speaker 2: but it was like this great, amazing club that in
Speaker 2: New York that I want to say. It was like
Speaker 2: near Chinatown. And it was the unique part about it
Speaker 2: was they didn't charge a door fee on like almost
Speaker 2: every other small club. They just passed the hat and
Speaker 2: so it offered you a chance to play to strangers,
Speaker 2: kind of like Rockwood Music Hall is now to play
Speaker 2: the total stranger and have people just walk up and
Speaker 2: discover your music. So we had done a residency I
Speaker 2: believe it was in let's call it February of two
Speaker 2: thousand and eleven, and we had or twenty ten, it
Speaker 2: must have been, and we had we had five tuesdays.
Speaker 2: I think there was happening to be five tuesdays in
Speaker 2: that month. So the management flew out for one of
Speaker 2: those and express this was the Seattle based management, that
Speaker 2: they might be interested in working with us, and they
Speaker 2: wanted to feel us out, and honestly, we didn't have
Speaker 2: any other like suitors at that point. We were like whoa,
Speaker 2: this is cool and then things and we were recording
Speaker 2: all these songs at our home studio and like at
Speaker 2: Jared's parents house at that time as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, what did the first manager do to help your career?
Speaker 2: I think he saw so Dave Minor was a is
Speaker 2: a restaurant guy and then he got into music. So
Speaker 2: I think he's he looked at it differently, which I think,
Speaker 2: you know, some people like anything it can be a disadvantage,
Speaker 2: but I think he's he just saw he saw certain
Speaker 2: pillars that were important to like what we were trying
Speaker 2: to do. So one of the things that he instilled
Speaker 2: in me and maybe understand was that the whole, like
Speaker 2: music as a whole, is like you know, if you're
Speaker 2: a band, all of the things that you do beyond
Speaker 2: the music. So the music is the most important thing,
Speaker 2: and that's the true art. And then when you're out
Speaker 2: and managers are trying to help you promote it basically
Speaker 2: get it heard in some way and recognized and distinguished
Speaker 2: from the ocean of other music that's out there. He
Speaker 2: was really big on this idea that like it's all
Speaker 2: an ecosystem. So you don't want you want your live
Speaker 2: oh you should be wor on your live show. You
Speaker 2: should be putting a lot of energy into sounding good
Speaker 2: live and having a good show. But also you want
Speaker 2: to if you want radio to play your songs, you
Speaker 2: have to visit radio stations and you have to you know,
Speaker 2: kind of like put in a lot of miles in
Speaker 2: terms of doing that. You can interview with different publications.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that they're going to say nice things
Speaker 2: about you, but you know, you kind of just you
Speaker 2: have to put yourself out there in a way that
Speaker 2: I thought it was just like you make good records
Speaker 2: and people find them, and it was. It was very
Speaker 2: apparent after that that touring will, will is and will
Speaker 2: always be the most important thing you do beyond the
Speaker 2: music you make. It's like, if you're not willing to
Speaker 2: tour and tour hard, you're just kneecapping yourself immediately. So
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think part of him is you
Speaker 2: made me understand that there is there's more to this
Speaker 2: than just the making of the music, because I think
Speaker 2: me and Ja were so dedicated as writers and we
Speaker 2: just love writing music that we didn't really want to
Speaker 2: have time. We didn't really want to do the other things,
Speaker 2: and we had to learn how to do those things.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have success, your a known quantity. What have
Speaker 1: Bernie an activists brought to the table.
Speaker 2: I think I think one of the things they did
Speaker 2: immediately that it really impressed me was we were making
Speaker 2: an album, our third album, we called three because it
Speaker 2: was about it was our third album, but then it
Speaker 2: became about these three generations, all focused on how this
Speaker 2: this matriarch we called a Gloria, she was an alcoholic,
Speaker 2: and how that kind of had this splintering effect, this
Speaker 2: ripple effect through the family and how it affected each generation.
Speaker 1: And wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we get to Bernie.
Speaker 1: How did that become the theme of the album.
Speaker 2: It was my mother in law just passed away. It
Speaker 2: was about her, so like ever since I got together
Speaker 2: with my wife, Brandy, that was in two thousand and ten,
Speaker 2: we've been I mean, I wrote the song dead Sea
Speaker 2: on our first album because she said, you never let
Speaker 2: me sink down. You're like my dead Sea. Because she
Speaker 2: was dealing with this really heavy thing and her dad
Speaker 2: had died. My dad had died, so we bonded over that.
Speaker 2: And then her mom was a severe alcoholic. She could
Speaker 2: drink like a gallon of Tito's vodka day and was
Speaker 2: arrested in different jails, and she was homeless and she
Speaker 2: got taken into the emergency room ninety nine times in
Speaker 2: one year. I mean, she's and we bought her house
Speaker 2: at some point when we finally had a little bit
Speaker 2: of money, and we had a victor from that house.
Speaker 2: It was just sad, like the whole thing. So there
Speaker 2: was nothing left for me to do in a way
Speaker 2: except write about it. I was trying to process it,
Speaker 2: and I asked Brandy, and then I asked her family
Speaker 2: if that was okay in a way. Is that okay
Speaker 2: with you guys. I'm not trying to, you know, make
Speaker 2: you feel terrible buy us, but I'm this is how
Speaker 2: I'm dealing with it. So we made this record, and
Speaker 2: then we had made these music videos for previous records.
Speaker 2: You know, the first album was kind of like they
Speaker 2: were ambiguous videos. Second one, Cleopatra, had some really I
Speaker 2: think interesting videos. This great director, Isaac Rove Shunkar, I
Speaker 2: had to come up with this idea of like tying
Speaker 2: a through line through all these songs. So on the
Speaker 2: third record, we kind of wanted to ticket to like
Speaker 2: a different, different level. And so I have to get
Speaker 2: his name, he says, Kevin. I should know this. I
Speaker 2: just haven't spoken to him in a little while. He's
Speaker 2: the man, though, give me two seconds of just looking
Speaker 2: up his name. Kevin Phillips is his name. So Kevin Phillips.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons why we hired him was because
Speaker 2: he would often cast and work with people who look real.
Speaker 2: They didn't look like models or Hollywood. It looked like
Speaker 2: a documentary almost, and so we we wanted to do
Speaker 2: a song every song had its own music video and
Speaker 2: it formed a short film. So our activist comes in
Speaker 2: is we tell them we want to do this. The
Speaker 2: label wants to help us a little bit, but basically
Speaker 2: Jared and I self finance the videos and it's a
Speaker 2: lot of money and they they're supportive of this whole thing.
Speaker 2: And the album is pretty dark. It's pretty in a
Speaker 2: way depressing to certain people, but we really Jare's brother,
Speaker 2: who's my friend, died of a heroin overdose at age nineteen,
Speaker 2: so between him and Brandy's mom, there were things to
Speaker 2: sort of sing about and feel like grounded in, and
Speaker 2: so we made these videos and they were pretty like
Speaker 2: unflinching in that they try to tell the story of
Speaker 2: what was really happening with an addict and how it
Speaker 2: affects a family, and they got they helped us. Activists
Speaker 2: helped us along the way, and they got it into
Speaker 2: They helped us get into Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF
Speaker 2: and the Nashville and Geneva and a bunch of others,
Speaker 2: and they kind of really helped us try to get
Speaker 2: that thing seen as best they could. And that I
Speaker 2: remember sending our manager, Bernie Jimmy Sparks, which is like
Speaker 2: the longest song on the album and it's a story song,
Speaker 2: and he was like super into it and supportive right away.
Speaker 2: And that wasn't like a hit. That wasn't like at
Speaker 2: all what a manager typically wants to hear, which is
Speaker 2: like they hear a song that's short and fast, and
Speaker 2: they hear dollar signs. He was in this long, like
Speaker 2: six or seven minute story song. So I think in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways we got off on good foot
Speaker 2: good footing with them because they supported us wholeheartedly in
Speaker 2: trying to get this three film scene and the album heard,
Speaker 2: and it it eventually got optioned into making to be
Speaker 2: made into like a TV show, and that's like still
Speaker 2: in the works. We're gonna see what's gonna happen. But
Speaker 2: like John Mark Valet was like involved in it and
Speaker 2: he was gonna spearhead the whole thing, and then he
Speaker 2: tragically passed away and so it's been tabled a little bit.
Speaker 2: But that was all through this new activist management group
Speaker 2: that like kind of got creative with how to help
Speaker 2: us get this album heard.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back and do a little backfilm. So
Speaker 1: Jerror's brother died of a heroin overdose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when he was nineteen. Yeah, so I grew up.
Speaker 2: My brother is Ja's age, my little brother, and then
Speaker 2: I was friends with Jerr's older brother's name is Josh,
Speaker 2: and so I mean we were real close when we
Speaker 2: were young, and we used to me and him, we
Speaker 2: would take drawing classes together and spent a lot of time.
Speaker 2: He'd come on family vacations with us and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And then, yeah, he had a lot of social anxiety
Speaker 2: and he would sort of self medicate, I think, from
Speaker 2: to try to deal with it, and it just kept escalating.
Speaker 2: Like I was there when he took his first drink
Speaker 2: and you could see like the way he drank was
Speaker 2: to the point of it was to get out of
Speaker 2: his head and get out of his body. And that
Speaker 2: seemed like he only knew how to take it to eleven.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like a middle ground, and he just I
Speaker 2: think he kept searching for things to numb that feeling
Speaker 2: of anxiety that it was really deep within him. And
Speaker 2: Jerre was sixteen at the time, and it was a
Speaker 2: lot for him. It would be a lot for anybody
Speaker 2: in any age, but to be that young and to
Speaker 2: lose your brother, it was like pretty pretty awful.
Speaker 1: Is he something you can ever get over? I should
Speaker 1: be asking him, but I'm talking to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think so. But I think it's something
Speaker 2: you learn how to live with and try to try
Speaker 2: to not It's not like you're trying to forget him
Speaker 2: or forget it, but you're trying to like live with that,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It seems like that's the
Speaker 2: way Jarry's trying to deal with it. It's still remember him,
Speaker 2: but it's I think it's it'll always be pretty pretty
Speaker 2: raw and just under the surface.
Speaker 1: It still exists in retrospect. Well two things. Did you
Speaker 1: see it coming?
Speaker 2: No, I mean not really. I was like eighteen when
Speaker 2: he died, and he was nineteen, and he went to
Speaker 2: rehab and sort of had to get pulled from our school.
Speaker 2: And I remember dropping off like he played guitar and
Speaker 2: so did I. And I remember dropping off like guitar
Speaker 2: player magazine to him. Afew me and a buddy walk
Speaker 2: went over to his house and he wasn't like allowed
Speaker 2: to come to the door. And his mom, who I love, Kathy,
Speaker 2: she she took the magazine. She said, thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Joshua really loved these and so it was like the
Speaker 2: sort of last time I saw him, but I didn't
Speaker 2: even get to see him, but we kind of knew
Speaker 2: something was a lot more serious than we realized. And
Speaker 2: then but at the same time, you're so I was
Speaker 2: so young and ignorant of like you just feel invincible,
Speaker 2: so you're you don't think anything bad's gonna happen like that.
Speaker 1: So we're in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Did grow up a little town called Ramsey, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: It's near you know, it's funny. I think Springsteen has
Speaker 2: a reference to mahwa and Johnny in ninety nine, right,
Speaker 2: and it's right, that's our neighboring town.
Speaker 1: I certainly went to college with people from Mahwah. So
Speaker 1: what was the town like growing up.
Speaker 2: It's a tiny town, fifteen thousand people, suburb, a lot
Speaker 2: of commuters into New York City. I'd say like middle class,
Speaker 2: upper middle class. It's like neighbors to the town that
Speaker 2: The Sopranos is set in, Like it's it's kind of
Speaker 2: like the Surprise is the real like wealthy area in
Speaker 2: that and that was Upper Saddle River kind of like
Speaker 2: near us. It's an interesting place to grow up. It
Speaker 2: was a really for me idyllic place because you were
Speaker 2: in this what felt like safe place, like a little
Speaker 2: safety bubble, but you're on the doorstep of New York,
Speaker 2: where it feels like anything can happen, and there's all
Speaker 2: these all this it's known as the greatest city in
Speaker 2: the world, and you're right next to it, but you're
Speaker 2: kind of out of the madness as a kid, but
Speaker 2: you have access to it. So I thought it was
Speaker 2: a beautiful place to live.
Speaker 1: And at what point did you start going into New
Speaker 1: York alone?
Speaker 2: It was like nineteen twenty something like that. We went
Speaker 2: into show, I mean my first show. I have a
Speaker 2: tattoo of it on my arm. Is like me and Josh,
Speaker 2: Jerry's brother, went to go see Bob Dylan and Joni
Speaker 2: Mitchell at Maison Square Garden when we were like fifteen.
Speaker 2: And then I remember I went and saw Neil Young
Speaker 2: solo at the theater there when I was sixteen. So
Speaker 2: I went and saw shows really young. But as far
Speaker 2: as playing shows, we weren't playing shows until probably like
Speaker 2: twenty one.
Speaker 1: And what did your parents do for a living.
Speaker 2: My mom was a preschool teacher and my dad was
Speaker 2: a psychologist.
Speaker 1: And are they still with us?
Speaker 2: My mom is my dad passed away in two thousand and.
Speaker 1: Seven, and were they together when he passed?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what was it like.
Speaker 1: Having a psychologist for a father?
Speaker 2: You know, it was perfect for me. I was a
Speaker 2: sensitive kid who had a lot of feelings. I could,
Speaker 2: you know, how to work through a lot of them.
Speaker 2: And he was a great listener. I don't think like
Speaker 2: doctors and like any other profession, not all of them
Speaker 2: are created equal. I just he was particularly good at
Speaker 2: what he did. You know. He grew up in a
Speaker 2: family where his brother went to Vietnam and two weeks
Speaker 2: in he weirdly he volunteered to go to Vietnam. Two
Speaker 2: weeks in he got killed. And that was his oldest brother,
Speaker 2: and he had there were four brothers altogether, so he
Speaker 2: was the he was the second youngest. My brother was sorry,
Speaker 2: my dad was, and so when that happened, it kind
Speaker 2: of just shattered the family. It made the parents go
Speaker 2: pretty numb. And so my dad was was I think,
Speaker 2: pretty dead set on trying to make people connect and
Speaker 2: feel again, and that was one of his like special
Speaker 2: powers or something like. He came home from college and
Speaker 2: his family still talks about how he he hugged everyone
Speaker 2: in the family, mom, Dad, all the brothers, and he
Speaker 2: told them he loved them, and that was the first
Speaker 2: time they had ever done that, and he was the
Speaker 2: one to sort of crossed the picket line of that.
Speaker 2: So I think he was a very to me, a
Speaker 2: very interesting guy because he also before that got in
Speaker 2: a lot of fights as a kid. He was a
Speaker 2: really tough dude, and then came back and found this
Speaker 2: new part of himself. I found out he could be
Speaker 2: a really good listener, and so he had his duality
Speaker 2: of like we all knew he was a badass and tough,
Speaker 2: but he was really good at just holding the space
Speaker 2: for someone like a teenager like me at the time
Speaker 2: when I was growing up and listening. So I could
Speaker 2: confess anything to him. And the rule was like I
Speaker 2: wouldn't really get in trouble necessarily. It was it was
Speaker 2: a bigger, much bigger sin to lie. So if I
Speaker 2: told them I smoked weed or drank, they were like,
Speaker 2: all right, well, keep it a moderation. But like if
Speaker 2: I kept something from them, it's like, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Just tell me what you're doing, you know. So honesty
Speaker 2: was encouraged and and I felt like I had a
Speaker 2: real listener in my life. And I've had a therapist
Speaker 2: since then with the band and Independent, and they they
Speaker 2: are not all the same. So I feel like, looking back,
Speaker 2: it could be really annoying to have a therapist as
Speaker 2: a parent, but in my case it was it was
Speaker 2: really nice.
Speaker 1: So how many kids in the family?
Speaker 2: We had three? I had an older I have an
Speaker 2: older sister and a younger brother.
Speaker 1: And how did they co pandle your success?
Speaker 2: They do well with it. I mean, I think they
Speaker 2: were just worried because I was almost I was basically
Speaker 2: thirty when I got signed. So like I remember going
Speaker 2: to my brother's like college family weekend, and I had
Speaker 2: long hair, and I was this dude who like worked
Speaker 2: at restaurants and in that awkward, creepy like you're twenty five,
Speaker 2: twenty six and you're like pursuing something that at a
Speaker 2: family weekend when you're meeting other families and they're like, hey, buddy,
Speaker 2: what are you doing here? And I'm like, oh, musician,
Speaker 2: you just come across like an idiot to a lot
Speaker 2: of people, or misunderstood or just kind of outcasted. But
Speaker 2: I felt like they were really supportive of me, and uh,
Speaker 2: I think they were very secure in who they were,
Speaker 2: so when it blew up, there were moments when my
Speaker 2: brother would tease me, my little brother and say, like,
Speaker 2: you know, we went to like they'd get together and
Speaker 2: my mom would be like playing videos of me like
Speaker 2: at some show, and he's like, West isn't even here?
Speaker 2: Can we just like hang out? And I think that
Speaker 2: I think that's like eased off, and my mom is
Speaker 2: cool down with that and listen to my little brother.
Speaker 2: But I think she was she was just excited because
Speaker 2: I think she was relieved. But I think there it's
Speaker 2: a testament to them because they're both pretty like accomplished
Speaker 2: in their own right and and do their own thing,
Speaker 2: and it can be happy for me, and I'm obviously
Speaker 2: really happy for them, and so they've been like a
Speaker 2: big support system through it, through it all.
Speaker 1: Do you know why your name Wesley?
Speaker 2: I gotta some sort of genealogy thing for my uncle.
Speaker 2: It it was it was in the family, but not
Speaker 2: much beyond it was somebody's middle name. It was either
Speaker 2: gonna be Keith Wesley or Wesley Keith Schultz. And it
Speaker 2: became I like Wesley better than Keith, So it worked
Speaker 2: out okay.
Speaker 1: So you're growing up, you say you're a sensitive kid,
Speaker 1: good in school, bad in school, athlete, loan or what
Speaker 1: kind of kid were you?
Speaker 2: All of those things. I was pretty good athletically, depending
Speaker 2: on the sport, so I fit in that way. I
Speaker 2: was good in school as far as like I knew
Speaker 2: how to I knew how to pass classes and get
Speaker 2: decent grades without having to try extremely hard, like I
Speaker 2: knew when I had to try, Like, you know, you
Speaker 2: read the cliff notes, you don't have to read the
Speaker 2: whole book. You know. That came later in my life
Speaker 2: when I started actually reading books. But I was like
Speaker 2: very comfortable being alone and missing parties. But I was
Speaker 2: also lucky that I kind of navigated between different groups
Speaker 2: because I was like into athletics but not really and
Speaker 2: I was like, I felt like I could hang with
Speaker 2: a lot of different social groups, but I was never
Speaker 2: really fully with one of them. And then I was
Speaker 2: like I felt pretty alone a lot of I don't
Speaker 2: know why, but I always had this deep sense of
Speaker 2: longing and loneliness, like just in a temperament kind of way.
Speaker 2: So I was always writing poems and poetry and rhyming.
Speaker 2: I always loved doing that, And you know what began
Speaker 2: is drawing. Me and Josh were drawing, and that was
Speaker 2: the kind of solitary thing. It became writing, and then
Speaker 2: it became playing guitar and stuff, so I would say.
Speaker 2: And then in school I was like I got in
Speaker 2: trouble for behavioral stuff, like, you know, just goofing off
Speaker 2: in class and being a bit of a having making
Speaker 2: my friends laugh. And maybe I remember I was supposed
Speaker 2: to be on some honorable thing, but they kept me
Speaker 2: off because of my behavior. It was like my mom
Speaker 2: was so mad. But in a way, it was pretty innocent.
Speaker 2: It was more like you know, telling I didn't like.
Speaker 2: I didn't like when any adult was condescending, so I
Speaker 2: or if I feel like I was being forced to
Speaker 2: do something, so I would act out against that. But
Speaker 2: it was overall pretty innocent.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now people around the world know your name,
Speaker 1: you played it tens of thousands. How does that help
Speaker 1: or not help with your loneliness.
Speaker 2: Well, in some ways, it gives you access to really
Speaker 2: interesting people. I've heard that said, and I agree. It's
Speaker 2: like I've met some people that you just get to
Speaker 2: meet them. You don't have to. They're if they're on
Speaker 2: the inside of fame so to speak, and quotes there
Speaker 2: and they feel like you get that there's less to
Speaker 2: talk about in that zone of life and they can
Speaker 2: just be a human being, and I crave that. Like
Speaker 2: if I remember I got to meet Chappelle, or shit,
Speaker 2: i've met a comedian I really like today's Shane Gillis,
Speaker 2: Or there's different people in comedy world, or in let's
Speaker 2: say restaurants, Like we joked that the chefs are like
Speaker 2: the rock stars of our world because we're it's you
Speaker 2: get to meet all these different people that are excited
Speaker 2: about what you do and you're excited about what they do,
Speaker 2: and it's a beautiful way to share. I would say
Speaker 2: we're we're in a unique position as as the lumineers
Speaker 2: because no one really knows what we look like on
Speaker 2: a large scale, or knows my name, or they know
Speaker 2: our songs. Our songs might be famous, but our our
Speaker 2: personal lives have been I think we got grandfathered in
Speaker 2: to like this generation that we weren't. They didn't ask
Speaker 2: that of us, and they no longer want that from
Speaker 2: us anyway. So like if I could be totally wrong here,
Speaker 2: but I just went and saw day. You know a
Speaker 2: few months ago, and like, I don't think whether they
Speaker 2: have a TikTok account or not, it really matters. It's
Speaker 2: like it's green day. And I feel like in some
Speaker 2: ways those if you're an older artist and you start
Speaker 2: to try to keep up with the jones as it
Speaker 2: can be awkward anyway. So just like another, I like
Speaker 2: the mystery of some of the bands I grew up
Speaker 2: listening to, and I feel like our fans hopefully don't
Speaker 2: mind that there's a little bit of a layer of
Speaker 2: mystery there, because it is like annoying to me that
Speaker 2: if if if I was to be asked to be
Speaker 2: a broadcaster full time of my life and my personality
Speaker 2: and hey, I'm over here with the it's just I
Speaker 2: can't do that. It would I would suck at it
Speaker 2: and know one it would make this a lot less fun,
Speaker 2: you know. It's like all all the perks of like
Speaker 2: So I think I think basically like most of it,
Speaker 2: I never really cared that much about. But I love
Speaker 2: getting to know people like that. You don't get to
Speaker 2: see that side of them that often.
Speaker 1: So at what point do you pick up a musical instrument?
Speaker 1: How old are you?
Speaker 2: It was like sixteen fifteen sixteen. I mean I was
Speaker 2: playing trumpet, you know, you know, in school, and I
Speaker 2: remember that. I I remember the guy telling me you
Speaker 2: were verbe. We didn't get along that well, and he said,
Speaker 2: I want to put you first chair, and you're the
Speaker 2: best trumpet player, but you don't practice your scales and
Speaker 2: I can't tell the rest of the students that it's
Speaker 2: okay to do that. And I was like, well, I
Speaker 2: could play the songs better than anyone else. He's like,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, and I was like, I don't agree with this,
Speaker 2: and I just like walked down. And I always felt
Speaker 2: like it was like, well, what's the point of this.
Speaker 2: I thought it was to play the song? So I
Speaker 2: knew I had like some level of acumen when it
Speaker 2: came to that and like remembering lyrics and holding a
Speaker 2: melody and things like that. But I didn't really pick
Speaker 2: up a real instrument again until I was sixteen and
Speaker 2: I played started playing guitar.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're growing up up. It's the MTV era. To
Speaker 1: what degree were you watching MTV into those acts into
Speaker 1: popular music?
Speaker 2: I didn't have cables, so I wasn't watching it. I
Speaker 2: wish I did. I would say I was really, really
Speaker 2: much more into My dad had all these. He had
Speaker 2: a few tapes that were in rotation in our car,
Speaker 2: and we take like long road trips, so it was
Speaker 2: mostly that. To be honest, I never music videos were
Speaker 2: an exotic thing. I didn't really see many of them
Speaker 2: growing up. I remember seeing like Soul Asylum, Runaway Train.
Speaker 2: That's like one of my most vivid memories.
Speaker 1: So what tapes was your father playing.
Speaker 2: He had the Cars Greatest Hits. He's the big Greatest
Speaker 2: Hits guy. He had the Cars, Billy Joel Talking Heads,
Speaker 2: and then he had this Leonard Cohen The Future album.
Speaker 2: I think those were like the only ones we ever heard,
Speaker 2: and they were great.
Speaker 1: Okay, so why did you start playing the guitar?
Speaker 2: I saw? So my brother in law is now he's
Speaker 2: a Green Beret colonel, but at the time he was
Speaker 2: just entering military school at West Point and.
Speaker 1: It would slow down a little bit. So you met
Speaker 1: your wife at a very young age.
Speaker 2: Oh so, no, this is my I'm sorry, my sister's husband. Now.
Speaker 2: At the time, it was their boyfriend girlfriend and he
Speaker 2: was going to West Point. So they knew each other
Speaker 2: in high school. They dated and then he was going
Speaker 2: to West Point and Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds came
Speaker 2: through and did their duo thing, and he got me
Speaker 2: ticket and I went and saw it with him, and
Speaker 2: my mind was blown and I felt like it was
Speaker 2: watching like a magic trick. And I soon after saw
Speaker 2: that Neil Young solo show, and again I was like,
Speaker 2: how do you do that? What is that? And then
Speaker 2: I started playing guitar and within a year or two,
Speaker 2: I think I started playing guitar in like ninety seven
Speaker 2: or ninety eight, and and I have an old CD
Speaker 2: of like Christmas of ninety nine. I made my dad
Speaker 2: loved if you made him gifts, like he didn't want
Speaker 2: you to buy anything, so I made him a home
Speaker 2: recorded like covers album with actually with some originals on
Speaker 2: it that I still have, like a CD where I
Speaker 2: recorded on that really like the tiny little mic that
Speaker 2: they used to give you with a computer, you know,
Speaker 2: just a shitty little But I started playing because because
Speaker 2: I saw these shows. I would say, I couldn't believe
Speaker 2: how entranced I was by these shows. And then I
Speaker 2: remember just it reminds me of Howard Stern because he
Speaker 2: talks about watching his dad with the radio and how
Speaker 2: he just was fascinated by that and wanted to be
Speaker 2: that to his dad. And I couldn't relate more to
Speaker 2: the idea that I would sit there on these drives
Speaker 2: with my dad and he'd be like hitting me in
Speaker 2: the arm and be like, listen to this. Listen, like
Speaker 2: listen to what playing a Warren Yvonne song and be
Speaker 2: like like and start laughing, that's hilarious, or talking heads,
Speaker 2: you know. He focused a lot on the lyrics, and
Speaker 2: I think because he was a shrink, he loved when
Speaker 2: people were right on the edge of like and they
Speaker 2: were so honest with what they were saying. And I
Speaker 2: remember and then I remember him saying about Billy Joel,
Speaker 2: like listen, all these styles this guy could do, and uh,
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, like, wouldn't it be cool if he
Speaker 2: thought that of me, Like not consciously, but just like
Speaker 2: it was just like, this is my hero and his
Speaker 2: hero is in that coming out of that speaker. And
Speaker 2: I think that really drove home for me. Like, as
Speaker 2: I reflected back on it, I was like, why was
Speaker 2: I so fascinated by this? It's like, well, because I
Speaker 2: saw this dude that I he was my whole world
Speaker 2: and that was his whole world. Was this music, even
Speaker 2: though he wasn't like a musical guy himself. You know,
Speaker 2: he didn't sing or anything, but he was just into it.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're like in high school, you started playing the
Speaker 1: guitar acoustic electric, You take lesson what songs you're learning,
Speaker 1: playing out what does it look like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was acoustic guitar first. My mom had
Speaker 2: an acoustic guitar, which I actually reference on the new
Speaker 2: song Automatic. H I said, I never say my mom,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. The new song, same old song on Automatic
Speaker 2: has the reference to her guitar geting stolen because I say,
Speaker 2: I'll never see my mom's guitar again. It was this
Speaker 2: like Yamaha nip On Ghaki, like they made him in
Speaker 2: Japan FG one, which is like a beater of a guitar,
Speaker 2: but it's amazing guitar for if people want to buy,
Speaker 2: they call it a poor man's Martin and it's just
Speaker 2: this great guitar. It's just not good for touring because
Speaker 2: it'll break down. But I had that. So its acoustic guitar.
Speaker 2: And my first song was a Dave Matthews song. It
Speaker 2: was like when I'm walking by the wall, it was
Speaker 2: just I forget the name of it, but I remember
Speaker 2: open for him and wanting to play it for him.
Speaker 2: It's like but U And the next one, one of
Speaker 2: the ones soon after that was Tangerine by led Zeppelin.
Speaker 2: It was like a lot of I learned Dave Matthews
Speaker 2: because I felt like that was like some of the
Speaker 2: hardest rhythm guitar to play while singing, and I kind
Speaker 2: of knew that, so I was like, if I can
Speaker 2: learn this, then there's a lot of other songs I
Speaker 2: can learn that are going to feel easier than this,
Speaker 2: because he had a lot of stretches and really intricate stuff,
Speaker 2: and I think it was free fallin'. I have that.
Speaker 2: I took lessons for a few months and that's all
Speaker 2: you really need, and I have the early lesson book.
Speaker 2: I saved it all these years. He taught me basic
Speaker 2: scales and basic chords and some blue stuff, just stuff
Speaker 2: to like I said, just give me a really basic
Speaker 2: foundation and then I'll just hopefully take it from there.
Speaker 2: And because I didn't like having to do it, but
Speaker 2: it kept me going, you know, for the beating part
Speaker 2: of it. And then soon after I just found myself
Speaker 2: like wanting to write songs because I love writing poetry.
Speaker 2: So I've heard John Mellencamp describe, you know, his guitar
Speaker 2: playing as a vehicle for the lyrics, and I always
Speaker 2: felt like, I just really love the lyrics in the music,
Speaker 2: and the guitar and any instrument was just a way
Speaker 2: to put that on put that out there.
Speaker 1: And at what point did you start playing with other people?
Speaker 2: Pretty soon after I was probably like seventeen when I
Speaker 2: tried joining a couple of different bands in town and
Speaker 2: we played some talent shows, and I remember played first
Speaker 2: time I ever played with a band. We played Hotel, California,
Speaker 2: and I said, I have like footage of it. It's hilarious,
Speaker 2: but I was so scared going into it. And then
Speaker 2: unlike sports, where if I was scared going into it
Speaker 2: and I took the court, it's like a lot of
Speaker 2: bad things would happen with sports, a lot of things
Speaker 2: that like didn't go the way you practiced it. With music,
Speaker 2: for some reason, it went better, and it was like
Speaker 2: felt locked in and that those nerves were no longer
Speaker 2: like hurting me. They were like creating this, this better,
Speaker 2: better thing coming out of me, which was like a
Speaker 2: totally unique feeling because I had really love sports growing
Speaker 2: up and now would get out there and just like
Speaker 2: try way too hard, and for some reason, music it
Speaker 2: was just different.
Speaker 1: So you join these bands or the bands playing gigs,
Speaker 1: or you're just rehearsing.
Speaker 2: Mostly rehearsing, mostly trying to do home recording, occasionally do
Speaker 2: a talent show, occasionally play a coffee shop, but nothing
Speaker 2: like nothing's nothing too crazy or impressive.
Speaker 1: So you see Neil Young, you go to these shows,
Speaker 1: you get inspired. At what point does the thought because
Speaker 1: I want to do this for a living.
Speaker 2: Pretty early on, I mean I was, I was ending
Speaker 2: high school and I told my parents I didn't want
Speaker 2: to go to college because they were very dead set
Speaker 2: on it. They had saved up and my grandparents had
Speaker 2: saved up so that I could go to school. And
Speaker 2: I was like, you're wasting your money, like I don't
Speaker 2: want to do this, and they were like, well, we
Speaker 2: really want you to do this, so if you do this,
Speaker 2: like we're not going to financially support you, but we
Speaker 2: won't slam you for pursuing music once you finish college.
Speaker 2: And I think they thought, if we give him four years,
Speaker 2: he's moved on from every obsession he's ever had. Because
Speaker 2: I used to be kind of obsessed with things. He's
Speaker 2: moved on from every one of those, so what's the
Speaker 2: odds are He's just he's gonna get that out of
Speaker 2: a system and then he's going to find something that's
Speaker 2: more steady work, you know, more like a normal job.
Speaker 2: So you don't go to college, no, So I tried
Speaker 2: to convince them. My dad had a good pitch. He's like,
Speaker 2: I want you to go away to school, and I
Speaker 2: want you to like find yourself outside of this town,
Speaker 2: outside of this family, and just get through it. Like,
Speaker 2: just do it. It's not a punishment. You'll have a
Speaker 2: good time. But like I always felt like I was behind,
Speaker 2: you know, like I could be in the real world
Speaker 2: trying to make it in this and you're asking me
Speaker 2: to do that. So then when I got to school,
Speaker 2: I went to the University of Richmond, where my sister
Speaker 2: had gone, and uh, I started playing a lot there
Speaker 2: and I remember, like I kind of cringe looking back,
Speaker 2: but there was like a courtyard with a gazebo, and
Speaker 2: I would sit in the gazebo and it like I
Speaker 2: would sing at the buildings of dorms. Like, thinking back,
Speaker 2: it was so obnoxious, but I think I just wanted
Speaker 2: to get this self consciousness out of my system. So
Speaker 2: I would just play, like for an hour. I remember
Speaker 2: people yelling out the window was like shut up, you know, like,
Speaker 2: and I would just keep playing. And then I played
Speaker 2: at the and played the mics, and I just started
Speaker 2: playing a lot and formed. I formed a band. I
Speaker 2: called it like Wesley, Keith and Co. And I had
Speaker 2: different people coming and going, but most of that there
Speaker 2: were I remember I had the biggest I would say,
Speaker 2: the biggest event that happened to me, or the biggest
Speaker 2: thing that happened to me that was really serendipitous, or
Speaker 2: it was like the reason I was supposed to go
Speaker 2: to school to that school was In college at All,
Speaker 2: I met this guy, Charles Arthur, who's an incredible musician,
Speaker 2: and he was an adjunct professor there where he gave
Speaker 2: lessons and I took lessons with him. I decided, you know,
Speaker 2: I know how to do rhythm guitar. I want to
Speaker 2: learn how to solo. It'd be so cool if I
Speaker 2: could solo. And I went to take lessons with him
Speaker 2: and we sat down and we almost never picked up
Speaker 2: an instrument. We just talked about music and the approached
Speaker 2: to it. And I didn't really learn how to solo,
Speaker 2: but I learned how to write songs with him. And
Speaker 2: there is a minimalism to what he brought to the table.
Speaker 2: He was like, how do you say the most with
Speaker 2: the least? So you know that old that old adage
Speaker 2: is like, if I had more time, I would have
Speaker 2: written you a shorter letter. It's like Mark Twain apparently
Speaker 2: said that. I don't know if you did, but it's
Speaker 2: it's like every note should matter, and every word you
Speaker 2: say and every and he taught me just how to
Speaker 2: create tension and then relieve that tension. It was a
Speaker 2: very incredible experience just talking music with this guy that
Speaker 2: I still keep in touch with and we still talk often.
Speaker 2: And whenever I get a new album, I said it
Speaker 2: to him, and whenever I make a new album, I
Speaker 2: mean and whenever I get a gold record, I send
Speaker 2: him a copy with his name on it as like
Speaker 2: a thank you for showing me how to write music.
Speaker 2: And he lives at he lives still in Richmond, and
Speaker 2: this is a guy who plays in a lot of bands.
Speaker 2: But it was funny because he plays in some wedding
Speaker 2: bands and he's like, you fucker. I got to play
Speaker 2: your songs now at these ways. It's so good.
Speaker 1: So how did you finish college? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I finished college in five and then I came home
Speaker 2: planning to just leave, you know, I was gonna come home,
Speaker 2: kind of collect my things and then find a city
Speaker 2: that I felt like I could work side jobs and
Speaker 2: play music. Maybe New York, I didn't know. And then
Speaker 2: soon after I met I had known jer but I
Speaker 2: really kind of met him at that time where a
Speaker 2: friend of mine was playing drums that I'd played with
Speaker 2: a lot, and I was like, let's jam, I want
Speaker 2: to play some gigs in the city. And then he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: can jare come? And I was like, I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't really want anybody else there. This is a pain
Speaker 2: in the ass to try to coordinate everybody's schedule. And
Speaker 2: then he's like, come on, come on, just let it
Speaker 2: and he came in and we kind of hit it
Speaker 2: off musically, and that that other guy justin ended up,
Speaker 2: you know, having kids, getting married and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: so he was he couldn't can continue to pursue music,
Speaker 2: and Jared and I kind of just stuck with it.
Speaker 2: And at the time my dad was sick. He had
Speaker 2: like a three plus year about with cancer, and so
Speaker 2: I was staying home for him in a way, and
Speaker 2: I was and I was staying home to play music
Speaker 2: with Jerr, but I really didn't want to be home,
Speaker 2: and so there was there was a lot of pride
Speaker 2: that was it hurt my pride be you know, past
Speaker 2: a certain age. But I stayed and it was kind
Speaker 2: of good looking back in terms of we were able
Speaker 2: to do a lot of experimenting home recording and just
Speaker 2: with no overhead, you know, no money being spent, just
Speaker 2: recording in this anonymous way, driving into the city, constantly
Speaker 2: gigging and just seeing that side of it before we
Speaker 2: really got a break, and you know, any spotlight was
Speaker 2: on ut, which is I think important for every band
Speaker 2: because I think the nightmare scenario would be that you
Speaker 2: come up with a style and a song that you
Speaker 2: really hate, everybody loves it and they want more of
Speaker 2: that from you, and you you don't even want to
Speaker 2: play it. So I think by the time I remember,
Speaker 2: something really shifted where I was in this Brooklyn apartment
Speaker 2: and I was I ended up writing like a ton
Speaker 2: of really good songs in this really dark period living
Speaker 2: in Bushwick where, But I like O Hey and Flowers
Speaker 2: and your Hair and all these songs. But I remember
Speaker 2: writing Flowers and sending it to Jare, And the great
Speaker 2: thing about Jerry is he hears it and he goes,
Speaker 2: I love that car alarm in the back the background,
Speaker 2: so he's trying to recreate that. And but I remember
Speaker 2: playing that for my little brother, and my little brother
Speaker 2: has always been supportive, but he's not effusive in praise,
Speaker 2: like he's not going to tell you something's great if
Speaker 2: he doesn't believe it. And it was really sweet because
Speaker 2: that was the first song I'd shared with him a
Speaker 2: ton of songs. That was the first time he said
Speaker 2: it's a really good song. Like it was kind of
Speaker 2: surprised him. And you know, whenever you do something like
Speaker 2: that and you have someone in your life that doesn't bullshit,
Speaker 2: it was really a moment to be like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: thought it was good too. And from Flowers came Classic Girls,
Speaker 2: came Stubborn, Love, came out Hey, came Dead Seat. They
Speaker 2: were just pouring submarines. They were all just like pouring
Speaker 2: out of us. But before that, it was like the
Speaker 2: pipe was clogged, and all of a sudden, it was
Speaker 2: just like boom, stuff started pouring out of us, and
Speaker 2: none of it was that similar to the last song.
Speaker 2: So it was a really strange, cool time of like
Speaker 2: we crossed over some hump.
Speaker 1: Okay, what were you doing for work at that point?
Speaker 2: At that point, I was working at a butcher shop,
Speaker 2: a deli butcher shop. You know. We'd like sliced meats
Speaker 2: and ground the beef and like triple ground it and
Speaker 2: then like weigh it and work behind the counter doing
Speaker 2: the lunch meets. And then I worked next door to
Speaker 2: that place at a Starbucks, and then I worked at
Speaker 2: a our local country club restaurant that I had gotten
Speaker 2: fired from five years, probably a different part of it.
Speaker 2: So I just found I found all these different jobs
Speaker 2: I could do, uh, and I worked all those kind
Speaker 2: of like at the same time, like in little spurts,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So when did you guys decide it was a duo
Speaker 1: or the two of you were going to be together.
Speaker 2: I think it just kind of happened naturally, like people
Speaker 2: would come and then they'd peel off. You know. We
Speaker 2: had our first guy, Justin, who was amazing, you know,
Speaker 2: life just kind of happens. And then our next guy, Dave,
Speaker 2: he became a school teacher, and I remember we were
Speaker 2: we told him like he described it as like he
Speaker 2: thought we were being delusional in retrospect because we were like,
Speaker 2: are you sure you want to do this? You sure
Speaker 2: want to leave? Like he's like, I'm getting this teaching joby,
Speaker 2: what are you guys talking about? And and the next guy,
Speaker 2: Joe bran Support, who's really accomplished musician in his own
Speaker 2: right to this day still records and plays music and
Speaker 2: he's insanely talented, he peeled off. So we had these
Speaker 2: people like a third member come and go, third member
Speaker 2: come and go, and it finally just was easier to
Speaker 2: look at it more like, Okay, we're the we're the nucleus,
Speaker 2: and anyone else who joins is is probably gonna leave,
Speaker 2: so let's just like do it in the house. Let's
Speaker 2: figure out ways to do this ourselves, or just view
Speaker 2: it that way. So then we renamed the band Wesley
Speaker 2: Jeremiah as like a an idea. It didn't really stick,
Speaker 2: but we always liked the name. We always like a
Speaker 2: band for some reason. That was our generation was like bands.
Speaker 2: So we were we were, you know, romantic, We were
Speaker 2: romantic about the word band. Like we thought it was
Speaker 2: so cool to be in a band, which is why
Speaker 2: we ended up naming it the Lumineers. But that was
Speaker 2: even that was an accident. That was like a we
Speaker 2: were at an open mic in Jersey City and there
Speaker 2: was like an MC who was running the open mic
Speaker 2: and he's like, up next, we have the Lumineers and
Speaker 2: we got on stage were like, we're not the Lumineers,
Speaker 2: but uh, we're Wesley Jeremiah. Nice to meet you guys,
Speaker 2: and and then I was like I kind of like
Speaker 2: that name. And then that was an instrumental band, and
Speaker 2: then they broke up and we just kind of adopted
Speaker 2: the name, and then we were certain it was going
Speaker 2: to have to get taken away because it was like
Speaker 2: a dental veneer company. And our lawyer was like, no,
Speaker 2: it's unrelated. It's not the same you know Lane or something,
Speaker 2: so it's yours. Like whoa, this is crazy. So it
Speaker 2: kind of stuck. But it's something that the band name
Speaker 2: is a hard thing to arrive at because they all
Speaker 2: sound stupid.
Speaker 1: When you first Sam, Okay, you come home, you're living
Speaker 1: at home for three years, you're woodshitting with Jerry. At
Speaker 1: what point are you guys playing out and saying we're
Speaker 1: trying to make it.
Speaker 2: Almost immediately, like that was my mentality because I was
Speaker 2: twenty one and I was like, we're going to go
Speaker 2: into the city. I remember played The Bitter End a
Speaker 2: ton that was like a big one for us, and
Speaker 2: then we got into Rockwood Music Hall, the living room,
Speaker 2: this space called the bag It In. There was a
Speaker 2: ton of them in the Lower East Side in New
Speaker 2: York that we were playing, and it was just kind
Speaker 2: of trying to cut our teeth and get experience in
Speaker 2: doing all that and hoping someone would notice, and no
Speaker 2: one really did. I mean, that city's wild. And when
Speaker 2: I was I decided to move there. And Jay was
Speaker 2: still finishing school at William Patterson and so I decided
Speaker 2: to move there.
Speaker 1: And like.
Speaker 2: I was like, man, how do these kids who are
Speaker 2: here in bands make it work? And I realized pretty
Speaker 2: quickly that all the kids who are making it work
Speaker 2: there were like trust fund kids. It wasn't like there
Speaker 2: was no way to really live in that city unless
Speaker 2: you were the son of a millionaire or the daughter
Speaker 2: of a billionaire or something. It was like you had
Speaker 2: to have some sort of backing and we didn't have.
Speaker 2: I didn't have that. So I was like there for
Speaker 2: a little while, taking it really seriously, but also doing
Speaker 2: the math and realizing that all the time I used
Speaker 2: to have when I was living at home to write
Speaker 2: music with Ja and record that was all going away.
Speaker 2: And I was joking that I got really good at
Speaker 2: making hot and cold drinks, but I was not getting
Speaker 2: better at music because I was a barista and I
Speaker 2: was a bartender, and I was all these things that
Speaker 2: I didn't care about and I so I was like,
Speaker 2: I'd be better off in Buffalo, New York versus New York,
Speaker 2: New York because I had no time for the thing
Speaker 2: that I knew I had to put all this energy into.
Speaker 2: So we moved to Denver just because a couple of
Speaker 2: friends were like, this is what the rent costs. And
Speaker 2: I remember being on a subway platform and Jar wasn't
Speaker 2: gonna do it. He was like, all right, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go start a studio with Joe Brandsport, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I kind of just gave him my
Speaker 2: sales pitch on why if we try to make it
Speaker 2: work remotely it's not gonna work, then what do you
Speaker 2: You can always go back and make that studio. But
Speaker 2: you'll never have this this chance, you know, and he,
Speaker 2: like God bless me, he took the he you know,
Speaker 2: he bit the pitch and we went and we drove out,
Speaker 2: and Denver was a much better place at that time
Speaker 2: to try to be making it.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing in New York. How often are you playing?
Speaker 1: And what is the experience. It's not like the band
Speaker 1: has a brand name. You're playing to people who don't
Speaker 1: care usually. What was it like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't name ourselves Lumineers until we moved to Denver, honestly,
Speaker 2: and that was two thousand and nine, end of two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, So between two thousand and five and
Speaker 2: nine we were just going under different band names. And
Speaker 2: the thing was you always had your friends at those shows,
Speaker 2: somebody hopefully, but you didn't really have anybody new because
Speaker 2: the way a lot of those clubs work is that
Speaker 2: they take any money from your fans, who are if
Speaker 2: their fans are friends, mostly friends. They take their ten
Speaker 2: dollars door fee or whatever, they sit them down. They
Speaker 2: make them buy drinks at a comedy club, you know,
Speaker 2: one drink or two drink minimum, and when your set's over,
Speaker 2: they kicked them out. They're not even allowed to stay.
Speaker 2: So it is a vicious circuit that you get exposed to.
Speaker 2: But there was something exciting about it, and there were
Speaker 2: glimmers of hope, but overall it was like pretty it was.
Speaker 2: It was all about just like wanting to make it
Speaker 2: any way. It's like if you were in a movie
Speaker 2: but you were an extra. You know, it's like you're
Speaker 2: not really no one gives a fuck whether they're or not,
Speaker 2: but you feel like you're part of the movie. And
Speaker 2: that really mattered to us at the time. And then
Speaker 2: I remember my buddy who was my roommate, Matt Maddy Collins.
Speaker 2: He said to me it was like the Goodwill hunting
Speaker 2: scene where he's like kind of like, I love you, man,
Speaker 2: but if you're still hearing five years, I'm going to
Speaker 2: fucking kill you. Like he said, you have the same
Speaker 2: five or ten people coming to every show and that's fine, man,
Speaker 2: but like nothing's changing here, Like you need something needs
Speaker 2: to change, you know, And he's like, I believe in you,
Speaker 2: but you gotta like do something. Something's gotta give, and
Speaker 2: that's something given. Was definitely moving somewhere else. So we
Speaker 2: we took the plunge based on just what became what
Speaker 2: felt like a Merry go Round where you just or
Speaker 2: twilight Zone or what's Groundhog's Day where you're every gig
Speaker 2: feels like it starts to blend in with the last,
Speaker 2: because they're all just nothing's changing or growing, it's just stagnating.
Speaker 1: And were there any glimmers of hope? Were there people
Speaker 1: who interested it when it faded away? Anything that happened
Speaker 1: in those years.
Speaker 2: I think we had it, our glimmers of hope. We're
Speaker 2: not so much external at those gigs. It was a
Speaker 2: lot more of it had to do with breaking through
Speaker 2: on a song, you know, having a moment where you
Speaker 2: feel like the song is dead in the water, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden you part emerges and you
Speaker 2: feel like you climbed up some mountain together. I think
Speaker 2: there's a reason. You know, this year marks twenty years
Speaker 2: of me and Jared making music together, and the only
Speaker 2: thing that has really kept us here. You know, it
Speaker 2: isn't like the rider we get backstage or something. It's
Speaker 2: it's writing music. It's like the core of what we
Speaker 2: love to do, we get to do without anybody bothering us.
Speaker 2: And I think that is the ultimate ultimate high for us,
Speaker 2: So those were like what kept us going. I think
Speaker 2: was like the joys of like the simple act of
Speaker 2: getting to write music.
Speaker 1: Tell me about thinking about giving up?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I didn't really have much
Speaker 2: of a plan outside of music. I was like, my
Speaker 2: dad's really cool. Maybe I'll try to be a psychologist.
Speaker 2: I did undergrad as a psych major. But I think overall,
Speaker 2: I just kind of felt like I want to see
Speaker 2: this through. At the same time, as you're getting older,
Speaker 2: you're like, well, the world hasn't told me that this
Speaker 2: is working, So who's crazy here?
Speaker 1: You know that?
Speaker 2: I think that was the dark hour was like I
Speaker 2: remember I went home one night from working this waiter
Speaker 2: job or bartending job in my hometown. My mom had
Speaker 2: her college roommates over, like the once a year they
Speaker 2: get together and have this dinner, and they had done
Speaker 2: that this tradition, and so they see me and they're like, hey, Wes,
Speaker 2: And I'm like twenty six at the time, I'm not
Speaker 2: feeling great about anything, and I'm not happy to see
Speaker 2: them because you know, you're gonna get like a lot
Speaker 2: of questions. And I had worked a long shift and everything,
Speaker 2: and I kind of just felt embarrassed, you know, and
Speaker 2: the lady was like, I, I just we just have
Speaker 2: the best idea, you know, all these kids like want
Speaker 2: to learn math, you should write math songs. And I
Speaker 2: just went up and like cried, Like I went to
Speaker 2: my room and I just cried. I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: such a fucking loser, like and I will not do that.
Speaker 2: Like there's a part of me that was like I
Speaker 2: didn't make music to make money. I just like I
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it like that. That would be like that
Speaker 2: would be.
Speaker 1: Counter.
Speaker 2: It wasn't why I was doing it, And so I
Speaker 2: felt really misunderstood that someone would think I would want
Speaker 2: to do that, and that you just feel like people
Speaker 2: don't really get why you're doing it. And I come
Speaker 2: home from my mom me watching like American Idol or something,
Speaker 2: and I'd be like, ugh, it's like there's this element
Speaker 2: of that show that all that show is is Broadway singers.
Speaker 2: That's all it is. It's not like artists. These I'm
Speaker 2: sure they they're artists and how they sing, but this
Speaker 2: isn't like what I'm into. This isn't the type of
Speaker 2: artist I want to be. This is operatic, technical singing.
Speaker 2: I want someone who's like baring their soul and in
Speaker 2: a way a shitty singer that is risking it all
Speaker 2: by putting it out there. And so even that was
Speaker 2: weird to come home and you're like, maybe I'm the fool,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And then like years later,
Speaker 2: American Idol was licensing our songs so that contestants could
Speaker 2: sing it, and I'm like, this is so fucking weird,
Speaker 2: like our song Angela or something, and You're like, I
Speaker 2: don't know how to square this, but but life is
Speaker 2: weird that I think that. I think I just kept
Speaker 2: my head oblivious, like and I have deliberately kept my
Speaker 2: head down and like stayed oblivious to a lot of
Speaker 2: it and tried to I kept trying to tell myself
Speaker 2: that this is like just part of the like the
Speaker 2: hero's journey or something. You're like, you're gonna do it.
Speaker 2: This is just make your story even better, you know,
Speaker 2: like just trying to convince in any way that you're
Speaker 2: not being an idiot.
Speaker 1: In the back of your mind was wherever like if
Speaker 1: this doesn't happen in five years, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: do something different.
Speaker 2: I think what I thought was if this doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: And I have kids and I'm going to some open
Speaker 2: mic and my kid has barely enough to eat, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, sorry, I got to go to the open mic.
Speaker 2: I think I would hang it up. I just don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't like I don't think that's in me. I
Speaker 2: think I would want to provide. I'd be like, this
Speaker 2: is wrong. But if it's just me or just me
Speaker 2: and a girlfriend, you know, can go on for a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: So what degree was this pursuit for stalling a serious relationship?
Speaker 2: Like did it hurt having a serious relationship? Is that
Speaker 2: what you mean?
Speaker 1: Or yeah? Sort of like were you so listen, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people. Everybody's different, okay, but especially
Speaker 1: in the millennial generation of which you were a member,
Speaker 1: they know the score. They know there's winners and losers.
Speaker 1: You gotta basically get a job base a certain amount
Speaker 1: of money, you know, otherwise you're going to be on
Speaker 1: the wrong end of it. So consciously, did you say
Speaker 1: I'm going to wait to do all that until I
Speaker 1: have you know, I've broken through, or did you conversely
Speaker 1: find or maybe simultaneously find that women said this isn't
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't get a lot. I didn't get a ton.
Speaker 2: I felt like college, you were the coolest dude ever
Speaker 2: if you could play guitar and sing and you were
Speaker 2: also in school. And the minute I left college, it
Speaker 2: was like, what just happened? You have no you have
Speaker 2: you have no, Like all the game is lost, it
Speaker 2: felt like, and all the attractiveness that the same thing
Speaker 2: they liked you for they are repulsed by. They think
Speaker 2: you're delusional. I remember seeing a teacher that I kind
Speaker 2: of had a crush on, you know, like, come to
Speaker 2: the country club where I was working. I was cleaning
Speaker 2: the salad bar at the end of the night, and
Speaker 2: she was like, are you all right? It's everything alright.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, like because I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm a musician. I'm actually you saw her. It's like
Speaker 2: if she went to an asylum and was talking to
Speaker 2: a crazy person, and I'm like, oh no, she thinks
Speaker 2: that I'm crazy, you know, so I think there there
Speaker 2: was like when I moved to Denver, I had I
Speaker 2: felt like there was more of a culture around being
Speaker 2: an artist. But in New York, at least the experience
Speaker 2: that I had, it was pretty hard to link up
Speaker 2: and meet people that way, because yeah, it's a pretty competitive,
Speaker 2: successful city and if you're just like this on this
Speaker 2: part of the totem pole, it's not very interactive. So
Speaker 2: when I moved to Denver, I met a lot more
Speaker 2: like gypsy like people, some carnies you know that like
Speaker 2: got what we were trying to do. And then it
Speaker 2: was a little easier to date and to meet people.
Speaker 2: So I met I met my wife. She threw like
Speaker 2: a house show. She threw a house show for like
Speaker 2: her best friend where we show up, and my wife
Speaker 2: was like dating a woman at the time. So I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: like I'm a Jersey boy, and I'm just categorizing, like, oh,
Speaker 2: Denver has house shows, and that's a lesbian, and that's
Speaker 2: Harry Armpit and that's a you know, like you just
Speaker 2: I just moved there, and so it turned out she
Speaker 2: was not a lesbian. She would just have I've been
Speaker 2: dating a woman at that time and had dated men before.
Speaker 2: But for about a year I was just talking to
Speaker 2: her like a friend, and that was like a really
Speaker 2: nice way to meet somebody because I wasn't putting on
Speaker 2: any fronts. I was just like being myself and she
Speaker 2: she happened to like that, and it's not how you
Speaker 2: draw it up, but it was a beautiful way to
Speaker 2: meet somebody in the sense of like there was no fronting. Uh,
Speaker 2: it was just like candid talk. You know.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to be a tabloid guy here.
Speaker 1: But you dropped in there that you had dated men.
Speaker 1: You can just give a little bit about what was
Speaker 1: going on there.
Speaker 2: No, I hadn't dated men. She had dated men.
Speaker 1: Oh why did I stopped? I'm glad I stopped.
Speaker 2: I heard it wrong, Okay, So like I didn't know
Speaker 2: that my wife and also dated men, right, and I
Speaker 2: figured she was just only going for women.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're in Denver. Two things. Could it have
Speaker 1: been anywhere? Or was it that you just new people
Speaker 1: in Denver and it made it easier? And once you
Speaker 1: got to Denver, what was different? And how did you
Speaker 1: start to climb the ladder?
Speaker 2: I feel like it could have in a way, it
Speaker 2: could have been anywhere, but the people who I met
Speaker 2: there helped helped out, especially someone like Stealth, who's our
Speaker 2: piano player now, in the sense that he shared all
Speaker 2: of the contacts he had and possibly have in music.
Speaker 2: He's like, here's where you can go in the West Coast.
Speaker 2: Otherwise you go out to the West Coast, you don't
Speaker 2: know where to play, you don't have anybody interested in
Speaker 2: coming to your show. So he just gave me a
Speaker 2: Rolodex because he had been touring with his band on
Speaker 2: a very grassroots level and a DIY house show kind
Speaker 2: of level. So he's the first guy to take us
Speaker 2: out busting went to Boulder and busting on the streets
Speaker 2: for money, and then gave me this just long list
Speaker 2: of people to call an email. And that's how we
Speaker 2: did our first touring. And I feel like Denver was
Speaker 2: helpful because if you're on a coast, you stick to
Speaker 2: that coast unless you're just really getting after it. But
Speaker 2: when you're in Denver, you got to go left or right.
Speaker 2: You can't really stay there. There's only a couple of
Speaker 2: cities you can really play. So it was like it
Speaker 2: was on I mean the first tour we did that
Speaker 2: was a real deal tour that was DIY. We went
Speaker 2: took a mini van and a little U haul trailer,
Speaker 2: the smallest one they had, and we drove it all
Speaker 2: the way out to the West coast, all the way
Speaker 2: up the coast through the country down the East coast
Speaker 2: back in thirty days and just played a ton of shows,
Speaker 2: and it was like that was a baptism by fire
Speaker 2: in the most beautiful way. Had I gone somewhere else,
Speaker 2: let's say I went to Buffalo, New York, I think
Speaker 2: I just stay on the East Coast, and then that's
Speaker 2: less of like a baptism, that's less of a challenge,
Speaker 2: you know. So I think being in the middle of
Speaker 2: the country had its pressures of like, you're gonna have
Speaker 2: to go and one's not that much easier than the others,
Speaker 2: so you got to go all over. It made us
Speaker 2: think about it differently.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you you got in a van and
Speaker 1: you started playing, how'd you get the gigs?
Speaker 2: I called, called an emailed. I was the tour manager,
Speaker 2: so I was calling and emailing all these people that
Speaker 2: Stealth had given me and just like googling places, and
Speaker 2: we found that the best impact and the best way
Speaker 2: to really come back to that city and see real
Speaker 2: people come out wasn't playing clubs. It was playing people's
Speaker 2: living rooms. So you like, on our first album, you
Speaker 2: hear a lot of the influence of kind of bus
Speaker 2: styles singing and performing. When you're busking, you have to project,
Speaker 2: and you have to sing really loudly and almost scream.
Speaker 2: So a lot of that album is just it's like
Speaker 2: informed by those gigs. You know, you kind of like
Speaker 2: glean what's going to work in that style room, and
Speaker 2: then that ends up on your record by accident. But
Speaker 2: I would say you kind of just take a leap
Speaker 2: of faith and you do that first few gigs and
Speaker 2: hopefully someone has steered you correctly, like this is a
Speaker 2: good place to go. And so we just did a
Speaker 2: lot of that. We called people that we knew would
Speaker 2: have friends come out, even if they didn't know the band,
Speaker 2: so'd be like, hey, can we just we just it's
Speaker 2: almost like we're not going to pay you, but we'd
Speaker 2: almost pay you to do this, Like can you just
Speaker 2: get some people here? All we want is bodies in
Speaker 2: the room. We want to just play to people. And
Speaker 2: there's so much of our previous musical life have been
Speaker 2: spent being so proud of posting on the website all
Speaker 2: the gigs we had scheduled. And then you get to
Speaker 2: that gig in Philadelphia or Virginia or wherever, and it
Speaker 2: looked nice online and on the flyer and no one's there.
Speaker 2: And then when you go to a house show, everyone
Speaker 2: has a different feeling about it and they're kind of
Speaker 2: forced to commit there, they're really engaged in listening, and
Speaker 2: the next time you come to town, you almost it's
Speaker 2: like double the people. There's some deep, deep intimacy impact
Speaker 2: to that that I never knew until I did it.
Speaker 2: And then it became like a way to to really
Speaker 2: effectively tour and like make it somehow work while you're
Speaker 2: being a busboy on the side.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about touring the West Coast, you
Speaker 1: were mostly playing living rooms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mostly people's houses, house shows.
Speaker 1: And was this a self sustaining tour or was it
Speaker 1: in the red.
Speaker 2: It was like break even territory, like you maybe maybe
Speaker 2: lost a little bit, maybe you made a little bit,
Speaker 2: but nothing nothing significant, nothing gained or lost, but the experience,
Speaker 2: you know, and I think the belief that if you
Speaker 2: could do that enough, maybe somebody would invite someone with
Speaker 2: some connection to somebody and it would get on somebody's radar,
Speaker 2: which weirdly, like I remember, our publicist Jim sent a
Speaker 2: video of our house show, of a house show of
Speaker 2: ho Hey to the booker ofl and then a year
Speaker 2: later we were on the show. So it's like those
Speaker 2: things have a way of they keep playing a big guard.
Speaker 2: You're playing a lot of seeds, and you just never
Speaker 2: know where thing's gonna come from.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you went on this tour, was it like, well,
Speaker 1: we never did this before, let's try it, or was
Speaker 1: there already momentum.
Speaker 2: We had never done it, and let's try it. And
Speaker 2: then we did it and enjoyed it, so we did
Speaker 2: another one. I think we did probably three.
Speaker 1: So at what point did you feel it's starting to
Speaker 1: turn I think this might work.
Speaker 2: I think I went home for Christmas and we were
Speaker 2: gonna record and we were gonna have that residency at
Speaker 2: the living room, and my brother said, did you know
Speaker 2: that ho hey house video show? The House Show? Uh?
Speaker 2: They put on YouTube. That thing has like five thousand
Speaker 2: hits And I was like, no way, no fucking way.
Speaker 2: And we looked and it had like six and I
Speaker 2: was like what. And that was it was around that time,
Speaker 2: like the four or five six thousand hit mark where
Speaker 2: I was like, something's happening here. And then we played
Speaker 2: five shows at the living room and then we used
Speaker 2: that as kind of like a satellite here in New
Speaker 2: York every Tuesday. Where else can we go in between?
Speaker 2: So we went to Virginia, went to I think Pittsburgh,
Speaker 2: maybe we went to DC, we went up to Maine.
Speaker 2: We went all these different places in between those five gigs,
Speaker 2: and by the fifth show, the living room, that show
Speaker 2: sold out. So it was like, over the course of
Speaker 2: a month we even saw a half empty room to
Speaker 2: a sold out room. It was really cool.
Speaker 1: It was like.
Speaker 2: Really innocent, you know, you're just like the room probably
Speaker 2: helped forty forty five people, but for us, that was
Speaker 2: like playing Madison Square Garden. It was like, I cannot
Speaker 2: believe these people are here, and it was people. Suddenly
Speaker 2: there's people there we didn't know, you know normally, like
Speaker 2: how did you find out about It's like, oh, it
Speaker 2: would always be a friend of a friend, and then
Speaker 2: that's how you kind of know something is breaking a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that's where they make the connection with the manager.
Speaker 1: How long after that is your song in the CW
Speaker 1: TV show And how long after that till ho Hey
Speaker 1: gets on the radio?
Speaker 2: I think that happened probably November October November something like
Speaker 2: at the end of that year. That song was recorded
Speaker 2: and then made it onto that show, and then we
Speaker 2: were signing management because we had recorded that at some
Speaker 2: point that year. We had recorded our demos that year.
Speaker 2: So the following year we're going through the label process
Speaker 2: and it gets released I want to say it in
Speaker 2: April of twenty twelve. And at that point when that
Speaker 2: album came out, oh hey, it was already on the
Speaker 2: radio a couple months before that, and it had kind
Speaker 2: of like shot up into different formats and it was
Speaker 2: all just news to us.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the first time you heard it on
Speaker 1: the radio.
Speaker 2: I was living with my girlfriend who's now my wife.
Speaker 2: We were that's a different whole other story. We were
Speaker 2: living in the basement of the nanny. She was a
Speaker 2: nanny for this family and they let me live with
Speaker 2: her in their basement. They were like the nicest people,
Speaker 2: the Swedish family. So I was like living with them
Speaker 2: and sort of helping to nanny like babysit a little bit,
Speaker 2: and they like would hire me to give their kids
Speaker 2: music lessons just to be nice to me, because I
Speaker 2: think they felt bad. And then I was making some
Speaker 2: sort of Swedish like we were using dough and making
Speaker 2: these Swedish pancakes or something and my hands were like
Speaker 2: covered in flour and we were in there with their
Speaker 2: kids and it comes on on the radio station and
Speaker 2: it was the first time I heard it. It was like
Speaker 2: I wanted to like get my phone out and text somebody.
Speaker 2: And my hands were covered in flour from the cooking
Speaker 2: we were doing. And we were about to leave for
Speaker 2: for tour at that point, and and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: that's a good sign. And I think we had just
Speaker 2: found out we were going to play Conan and that
Speaker 2: was a real dream come true. We just love Conan O'Brien,
Speaker 2: and like things were happening, you know. I think we
Speaker 2: got in a south By Southwest after years of rejection.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, that's like the sort of irony of
Speaker 2: festivals like that south By and stuff like that. It's
Speaker 2: like you're almost getting in when they already have heard
Speaker 2: about you, which is not the point to me, but uh,
Speaker 2: it seems to all snowball are happen at once sometimes.
Speaker 1: So were you pinching yourself? Did you believe it? Did
Speaker 1: you feel like well deserved? Did you feel like it's
Speaker 1: gonna operate in any minute?
Speaker 2: I think I felt like the ladder. I think I
Speaker 2: felt like easy comanies ago, and I was I felt
Speaker 2: like I was in a dangerous place, like I needed
Speaker 2: to protect myself, and I was, you know, I was
Speaker 2: thirty at the time, and I was like I had
Speaker 2: this attitude of like, I don't want them to make
Speaker 2: me someone I'm not. I want to I want to
Speaker 2: feel like true to myself. And so we'd go to
Speaker 2: photo shoots and they would have a rack of clothes
Speaker 2: and I would get upset up, like why did you
Speaker 2: bring clothes? Like I have my clothes. I'm gonna wear
Speaker 2: what I wear, you know. Even down to that, it
Speaker 2: was like, really remember going to the Grammys and they'd
Speaker 2: be like, here's some free sunglasses. You just have to
Speaker 2: take a photo. I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 2: fucking take a photo. Like it was. I felt like
Speaker 2: the industry as a whole, whether it was imagined or real,
Speaker 2: it felt like it was just to sort of like
Speaker 2: soften you to change in a way that I didn't like.
Speaker 2: And I didn't feel safe around. I felt like I
Speaker 2: was always in this weird danger zone of maybe whatever
Speaker 2: I thought made us who we were was gonna be
Speaker 2: played around with and rooted out of us. So I
Speaker 2: was like really wary of the whole thing, and then
Speaker 2: I wasn't so concerned about like whatever was going to
Speaker 2: happen next. I just felt like a lot of this
Speaker 2: stuff felt cheap, like it wasn't didn't mean that much
Speaker 2: to me versus some other things in my life, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, it felt like objectified, and I don't really
Speaker 2: know if that's a healthy way to look at it.
Speaker 2: And I think other people around me were enjoying it
Speaker 2: a lot more. I think now I feel in a
Speaker 2: really happy place with it, because I feel like there's
Speaker 2: a level of like independence from some of that and
Speaker 2: security where I'm like, I felt like we built a
Speaker 2: trust with an audience that doesn't can't be like taken
Speaker 2: away from us in an instant. But at the time,
Speaker 2: it felt like there's some people out there who just
Speaker 2: like want to make it known that they can make
Speaker 2: you and unmake you.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned a couple of times of being in
Speaker 1: the Grammys, you have this incredible peak with ho, Hey,
Speaker 1: to what degree has that been in your mind for
Speaker 1: the ensuing decade plus we're saying, Hey, you know, I
Speaker 1: have to go back to that pinnacle where I want
Speaker 1: to go back to that pinnacle.
Speaker 2: I think we were really we were really lucky to
Speaker 2: have a like the album. First album, I felt, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm super proud of that record, and we had Stubborn
Speaker 2: Love is like a follow up to that to ho hey,
Speaker 2: and my manager at the time brought up this really
Speaker 2: good point that I had lost sight of. He said,
Speaker 2: you know, if any band had that song and that
Speaker 2: was their only song off that album, they would be
Speaker 2: over the moon. That is a big deal. It's just
Speaker 2: was like you're talking about ZEITG stuff when you talk
Speaker 2: about what happened around o Hey. That's not as lightning
Speaker 2: in a bottle. That's almost circumstances way beyond anyone's control.
Speaker 2: And when we came out the second record, I was
Speaker 2: I felt like we had made an even better record
Speaker 2: and like instinctively, you know, and then I felt like
Speaker 2: we were really really lucky that Ophelia had the connection
Speaker 2: it did and it had its own moment where we
Speaker 2: didn't feel like we had to prove that was just
Speaker 2: a fluke, you know. I felt like that already with
Speaker 2: having Stubborn Love in the mix, but then having Ophelia
Speaker 2: just shoot up, and then we had Cleo and Angela
Speaker 2: on that second record. It was. It was definitely strange
Speaker 2: to to you know, you come out of the gates
Speaker 2: with your first album and you get nominated for Best
Speaker 2: New Artists and Best Americana Record, and then you put
Speaker 2: out what you feel is a better record that connect
Speaker 2: to a lot of people, and it's just crickets from
Speaker 2: the Grammys. There's not like a nomination. But I don't
Speaker 2: I've learned over time that that's like, that's just a
Speaker 2: strange world. I don't I don't necessarily understand how things are.
Speaker 2: I know we don't fit neatly into a box, so
Speaker 2: that probably works against us with some of that stuff.
Speaker 2: And I know we're not on a major I know
Speaker 2: we don't play the game as well as other people.
Speaker 2: But it was surprising to be like, I'm just kind
Speaker 2: of shocked we got nominated at all, knowing what I
Speaker 2: know now, and then we got to play the show.
Speaker 2: It was kind of a miracle for us because that
Speaker 2: a lot of our friends and family and just fans
Speaker 2: thought we had won because we had played the show.
Speaker 2: So like in a lot of ways, it's it's a
Speaker 2: really beautiful break like turn of events and break for us.
Speaker 2: And now we've kind of remained under the radar as
Speaker 2: far as that goes. But I guess you just you
Speaker 2: take your breaks where you can get them. That's how
Speaker 2: I kind of view it. It's like, at first, you
Speaker 2: don't understand it and it doesn't make sense, and it
Speaker 2: can be kind of like deflating, but it's also a
Speaker 2: strange measure of yourself. If that's how you're like viewing it,
Speaker 2: you know it's a kind of a trap.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's four years between the first and second albums.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 2: We toured a lot, and we just we wanted the
Speaker 2: first album we only had ten days to make to
Speaker 2: record and I think five days to mix, and this
Speaker 2: one we wanted like a chunk of time, so it
Speaker 2: was like six weeks. We just kind of waited. We
Speaker 2: didn't record while we were touring, so we waited until
Speaker 2: touring wrapped up, which was lasted something like three years,
Speaker 2: and then it took a half a year to write
Speaker 2: and record the record, and then by the time it
Speaker 2: came out it was four years. But I didn't particularly
Speaker 2: care that much about how long it took. I just
Speaker 2: thought the fastest way to plummet is to put out
Speaker 2: a mediocre record, So I was like, as long as
Speaker 2: this is strong, we're our chances of like survival and all.
Speaker 2: This is way higher than if we rush something to
Speaker 2: please someone. I think today's people making music have a
Speaker 2: lot of fear around people forgetting about them, and I
Speaker 2: just don't agree with that. I think I get really
Speaker 2: turned off when I hear music that sounds rushed. It
Speaker 2: sounds like half baked versus someone who, oh yeah, remember that.
Speaker 2: I love that band, and every time they put something out,
Speaker 2: I fucking dig it. So I was never really too concerned.
Speaker 2: I know our management was a bit or a label,
Speaker 2: and our management are concerned about those types of things,
Speaker 2: but it never really bothered me that much.
Speaker 1: So what is the process? Do you say, oh, it's
Speaker 1: time for a new album, let me write songs. You're
Speaker 1: writing songs all the time.
Speaker 2: I think it's you're always kind of collecting little little
Speaker 2: song ideas, little parts of songs throughout touring and then
Speaker 2: off tour. I sift through all those ideas and Jerry
Speaker 2: sends me his ideas to sit through those, and then
Speaker 2: you you often react to those ideas and come up
Speaker 2: with new ones, and then you kind of smash them
Speaker 2: all together. Those good ideas and that makes a record,
Speaker 2: and then some of us just written on the spot,
Speaker 2: but a lot of it is just like ideas that
Speaker 2: have been existing independent of each other, just sitting around
Speaker 2: on your voice note voice memo thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if the record that's coming out automatic imminently,
Speaker 1: if that was cut in July, when were the songs written.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was cut in like May June. So songs
Speaker 2: were written. I want to say, they're written March, like
Speaker 2: end of March, early April.
Speaker 1: So they were written right before the record.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, and they weren't really written. They were just
Speaker 2: really rough, rough, rough sketches. They were not well written
Speaker 2: or recorded at all. They were just quick notes, quick
Speaker 2: voice memos. Meet Jared and I did around a guitar
Speaker 2: and a piano usually and just hey, I think this
Speaker 2: is the melody. And then and then I would take
Speaker 2: like I would take a adder all and just walk
Speaker 2: around the park and just mumble to myself like a
Speaker 2: schizophrenic person and just get a bunch of lyrics written
Speaker 2: between when we finished sort of demoing the the rough,
Speaker 2: rough ideas and then trying to fill in the blanks
Speaker 2: with some lyrics. So it was like that that area
Speaker 2: of time was just a lot of constant like trying
Speaker 2: to create something, and it was and then when we
Speaker 2: got to the studio, I think it's our it's I
Speaker 2: think it's our best record on a lot of levels,
Speaker 2: mainly because take the first record, for example, we we
Speaker 2: had written all those songs over the course of like
Speaker 2: three four years, and then we had performed them hundreds
Speaker 2: of times, and so by the time we went in
Speaker 2: to make the Alb it was like you knew everything
Speaker 2: about the songs, and there wasn't discovery, There wasn't like
Speaker 2: that feeling of danger or curiosity. It was just like execution,
Speaker 2: almost like you'd been putting on a play and now
Speaker 2: you're gonna do the movie of it. And and this
Speaker 2: one was there's we had no we call demo ititis,
Speaker 2: where you've done something so cool as a demo and
Speaker 2: now you're all you're really trying to do is like
Speaker 2: pantomime thatt recreate that, and that's impossible. It's like I
Speaker 2: always say, it's like if you ever have the best
Speaker 2: date with your partner, every time you go back to
Speaker 2: that restaurant and try to recreate it, it's always not
Speaker 2: as good. And there's something about that process that we
Speaker 2: did on this one where you can hear us being
Speaker 2: like children just exploring and like playing around like they say,
Speaker 2: play music like we were playing for the first time
Speaker 2: in a long time, and it was It was really beautiful,
Speaker 2: and it kind of it was surprising that twenty years
Speaker 2: in Jere and I were as excited as we've ever
Speaker 2: been for something. It made me feel good about me
Speaker 2: and him and a band and what we're doing because
Speaker 2: I know there are elements of this where bands kind
Speaker 2: of get into it for other reasons and then it
Speaker 2: kind of becomes something different over time. And for us,
Speaker 2: it was like, wow, this is great. Can you know?
Speaker 2: There was such a a wellspring in it and I
Speaker 2: think you can hear on the record and we did
Speaker 2: most of them takes are live. They're like really there's
Speaker 2: a a lot of humanity and all of it.
Speaker 1: So was there like hard start date that you were
Speaker 1: working towards. Yeah, And who's the producer on the new album?
Speaker 2: There's three it's like us, me and Jerr and then
Speaker 2: David Baron and Simon Fleee.
Speaker 1: So you've continued to work with Simon Felice. What does
Speaker 1: he add to the mix?
Speaker 2: I think he has this kind of like raw instinct
Speaker 2: when it comes to things that are working, and an
Speaker 2: ability to unite the troops. You know, he kinda when
Speaker 2: things are starting to splinter off, he can bring the
Speaker 2: room back together. And he's really a savant when it
Speaker 2: comes to lyrics. So I really love to check in
Speaker 2: with him about stuff that I'm doing. What do you
Speaker 2: what do you like? What do you really think of this?
Speaker 2: And he'll tell me just shoot me straight with that.
Speaker 2: And then David's more of he's a great producer in
Speaker 2: his own right, but he's he's also a wizard when
Speaker 2: it comes to the engineering side of things, and he's
Speaker 2: an artist in his own way when it comes to,
Speaker 2: you know, presenting a guitar, presenting a vocal or presenting
Speaker 2: piano drum sounds. It's like he's really pushing that to
Speaker 2: the limit as far as like what what's possible and
Speaker 2: how raw you want to make it? And like with
Speaker 2: the vocals, for example, all the vocals are like sitting
Speaker 2: really upfront in the mix and not a lot of
Speaker 2: adornment for most of them. Like a song like Automatic,
Speaker 2: the title track is just like right, he describeses like
Speaker 2: it's holding right in the center, right at you, and
Speaker 2: he's just encouraged us to be really brave with our
Speaker 2: choices and mixing, and I think it and he was
Speaker 2: the one who wanted it to be like get back
Speaker 2: the Beatles, where it's a big, open room and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of bleed and you're kind of like playing
Speaker 2: all together live, not multi tracking and doing everything separately.
Speaker 2: So he's a big he was like the instrumental force
Speaker 2: behind that.
Speaker 1: So how do you feel about your touring band playing
Speaker 1: on the record or other musicians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean on this one, it was just me
Speaker 2: and Jerr and then we brought in a violinist who
Speaker 2: this violin player was from the area, and then it
Speaker 2: was not Lauren Jacobson, who's been played with us on
Speaker 2: every record since the beginning. She wasn't she wasn't in
Speaker 2: the immediate area the day we wanted violin, and so
Speaker 2: we we tried out and we didn't want to have
Speaker 2: her on call in terms of it just felt like
Speaker 2: we weren't even sure if what we wanted, so we
Speaker 2: called someone local, weren't sure if that wasn't sure, if
Speaker 2: that was gonna be a placeholder or whatever. And then
Speaker 2: it worked out and Lauren was super understanding of what
Speaker 2: we were trying how it all unfolded, which credit to her.
Speaker 2: With regards to the other instruments we have Byron Isaac's
Speaker 2: on bass and he tours with us. He used to
Speaker 2: play with Leavon home and for like six years and
Speaker 2: wrote a song or two on his Dirt Farmer record,
Speaker 2: and he's an amazing musician in his own right. We
Speaker 2: met him on the second album and he's been with
Speaker 2: us ever since. So he played with us a lot
Speaker 2: live for this for this album, and then we had,
Speaker 2: you know, a choir of three singers that would come in,
Speaker 2: amazing singers and they would do backing vocals, and we
Speaker 2: had a little bit of James Felee, Simon's brother who
Speaker 2: has sang on our records a lot. He's fantastic. He's
Speaker 2: in the Police Brothers.
Speaker 1: Okay. Even when Ho Hay was a hit twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: the landscape was completely different from the way it is today. Today.
Speaker 1: You look at the Spotify Top fifty, you can look
Speaker 1: at the top five records and people a vast swath
Speaker 1: of the public, even music fans, have never heard them.
Speaker 1: So when you put out a record today, I mean
Speaker 1: the old cliche used to be that the tour was
Speaker 1: the advertisement for the record. The record is now the
Speaker 1: advertisement for the tour. You make a new album, not
Speaker 1: to mention the fact, I'm sure you'll sell you know,
Speaker 1: physical product, whatever, but eighty four percent of the revenues
Speaker 1: now or on streams. What are your expectations.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I try to keep my I try
Speaker 2: to keep everything kind of like as a surprise. I
Speaker 2: don't really know on tour where I'm gonna be the
Speaker 2: next day. I don't look too far ahead, and it's
Speaker 2: almost like not on purpose, but it's instinctive. So I
Speaker 2: like being surprised if people connect with it. I think
Speaker 2: that was what was cleansing about making an album. Three
Speaker 2: was like I knew it wasn't gonna do quote unquote
Speaker 2: well like I knew it. I was like, this is
Speaker 2: not that type of record, and I still want to
Speaker 2: make it. I think it's important that we make this record.
Speaker 2: And it kind of tamped down whatever that part of
Speaker 2: my side of my brain or that ego part of it.
Speaker 2: It was freeing to just make something for the sake
Speaker 2: of making it. That's probably you know, that's how you
Speaker 2: should make every record. And so with this one, I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll say that the early responses of playing it live
Speaker 2: are really special, and I don't think that's I think
Speaker 2: that's a strong indicator of it's more. I think the
Speaker 2: more the bigger question is like, well, anyone know it's out?
Speaker 2: And if you're not dating or Kardashian, does anyone know
Speaker 2: your music or something? So I think there's ways people
Speaker 2: cleverly promote. Whether it's Jack White, who I think does
Speaker 2: it super artfully, it's like a genius when it comes
Speaker 2: to letting you know he has a record out.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like we've always been a slow burn and
Speaker 2: hopefully things take hold, but it feels like a trap
Speaker 2: to like want something specific to happen with it. And also,
Speaker 2: I've been proud of every record we've made, and they're
Speaker 2: not always they don't always hit the way that you
Speaker 2: thought they would, or the songs like look we have
Speaker 2: on on the album three, we had a song called Donna,
Speaker 2: and I don't know what the streaming numbers are on that,
Speaker 2: but like live, that's a big song for us, and
Speaker 2: that means so much because it's a slow, piano, sad
Speaker 2: song and I just love when those things. I love
Speaker 2: when I feel like the audience is choosing something organically
Speaker 2: and they haven't been force fed something, because obviously when
Speaker 2: something like Ophelia happens or oh hey, that stuff is
Speaker 2: force fed, it's like a duck, you know, making the
Speaker 2: foie gras. It's like the audience is it's forced upon them,
Speaker 2: and I don't that's part of the game. But what
Speaker 2: made me really happy or mental lot to me was
Speaker 2: when people like songs I Slow It Down or Donna,
Speaker 2: or songs that never made the radio. You know. Those
Speaker 2: are those show you that an audience is is discerning
Speaker 2: and does have a taste, and they tell you by
Speaker 2: by how they listen to it online or had a show.
Speaker 2: You could just feel. And that's to me, that's a
Speaker 2: lot more like sustainable and reassuring, and I try to
Speaker 2: focus on that because otherwise it's like, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: not just turned forty two or not like a young band.
Speaker 2: This isn't like the new shiny thing. And I hope that.
Speaker 2: I hope that's it's a situation like Tom Petty Wildflowers,
Speaker 2: where it's like a renaissance constantly. I couldn't believe being
Speaker 2: a teenager listening to that album and it feeling so fresh,
Speaker 2: and I could go backwards in his catalog and get
Speaker 2: blown away, like it's so such a cool feeling, and
Speaker 2: I'm I've always been enamored by that situation. Just it
Speaker 2: was a very formative time for me. I remember holding
Speaker 2: that CD. It was that brown paper like CD the
Speaker 2: outside of it, and just being like, who is this guy?
Speaker 2: And then remembering realizing that I'd heard all these songs
Speaker 2: on classic rock stations by this guy, and yet this
Speaker 2: is something he has to say, that's brand new, that's
Speaker 2: maybe the best thing he's done. You know, it's so
Speaker 2: so impressive. So I'd like to believe that it comes
Speaker 2: from like the audience sort of finding it and gravitating
Speaker 2: toward it. But they're so out of our hands.
Speaker 1: So you play a gig, you know, if a band
Speaker 1: prior to the turn of the century goes on the
Speaker 1: road and they play the new music, people go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom, what is your experience?
Speaker 2: They do that too, They also stay I mean we
Speaker 2: so we'll play our whole new album live every tour
Speaker 2: we're doing. If that's the if that's the tour we're on,
Speaker 2: if it's like the bright Side tour, we're playing the
Speaker 2: bright side albums, the automatic or You're gonna hear the
Speaker 2: album like, and I think the trick is committing to
Speaker 2: that and fans expecting that is probably an important thing
Speaker 2: for a band to do. Now as you get older,
Speaker 2: who knows how that plays out. Like I remember seeing
Speaker 2: Bruce Springsteen or Tom Petty and they'd have new albums
Speaker 2: out and they would play like chunks of the album
Speaker 2: select tracks, and I see that as cool too, But
Speaker 2: for us it wasn't. Maybe it was encouragement by our
Speaker 2: booking agents or management or something I don't really know,
Speaker 2: but instinctively, it was really fun to play new stuff,
Speaker 2: even if I feel like you break people in enough
Speaker 2: to it the shock goes away or something and they're
Speaker 2: just they're down with it. And like we opened for
Speaker 2: You two in twenty seventeen, and that was the first
Speaker 2: time I think in their career where they had really
Speaker 2: like kind of looked back. They played Joshua Tree as
Speaker 2: an entire They were going to play the whole thing,
Speaker 2: And it was thirty years or something anniversary and we
Speaker 2: were opening and they started playing stadiums for that. Two
Speaker 2: nights at the Rose Bowl was the first gigs we
Speaker 2: played with them. And so they had gone from playing
Speaker 2: arenas to stadiums because they were willing to play older stuff.
Speaker 2: But I thought, what a testament to you two that
Speaker 2: they've continued to like do what they wanted to do
Speaker 2: and not being like dance, Monkey Dance, I'm gonna play
Speaker 2: only the hits and I'm gonna I'm gonna enjoy these
Speaker 2: stadium gigs. They were like, we want to play it
Speaker 2: our way. So if our way means you play arenas,
Speaker 2: that's great too. And uh so they're they're playing arenas
Speaker 2: as like almost their version of an underplay versus like
Speaker 2: playing just the hits. And I think for us playing
Speaker 2: the whole song, playing the whole album, uh for for
Speaker 2: for audiences has been it was tough in the beginning,
Speaker 2: but it was all we had. Like we put out
Speaker 2: our second album, what were supposed to do? We didn't
Speaker 2: enough music to fill up like the whole the whole time,
Speaker 2: unless it was cover songs. So from the beginning we
Speaker 2: were forced to play our whole records. And now it's
Speaker 2: just an old habit that I think is a good
Speaker 2: one to have.
Speaker 1: So I had to get hooked up with Louis Messina.
Speaker 2: That's a really good question.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Uh, he came into our world early on and believed us,
Speaker 2: and he works with just heavyweights and had this weird,
Speaker 2: like it's like otherworldly enthusiasm for music for a guy
Speaker 2: who's been doing it for a while and been very successful.
Speaker 2: I think you'd expect someone to walk in the room
Speaker 2: that was a little more businessman, cold calculated, and he's
Speaker 2: like jumping up and down, and he's like tearing up
Speaker 2: at shows and he's like a kid. You know. It's like,
Speaker 2: it's great to see. I mean it. It sounds like
Speaker 2: it should be a prerequisite to work in music that
Speaker 2: you love music, but as you probably well know, not
Speaker 2: everybody who ends up here actually likes it. So it's
Speaker 2: nice to be around people who have that fire and
Speaker 2: that passion and in his case, believed in us way
Speaker 2: more than we ever believed in what it could. I
Speaker 2: hesitate to even say it that way, because I don't
Speaker 2: I think it's odd to like want to play a stadium.
Speaker 2: I don't, that's not like an ambition. But he, for him,
Speaker 2: that's exciting. He's like, I'm gonna get the most people
Speaker 2: at your show, and it's really cool. And he's kind
Speaker 2: of He's made it happen in a lot of ways
Speaker 2: for us, and I think him just expressed in a
Speaker 2: faith in us has made people who haven't paid attention
Speaker 2: to us maybe take us a little more seriously because
Speaker 2: Louis he's like, he's like a mafia dude that like,
Speaker 2: you know, you're a made man if you like he
Speaker 2: kind of like expresses I believe in that, and suddenly
Speaker 2: people go, well, maybe there's something there. And so it
Speaker 2: was a big thing for us. It would be like
Speaker 2: getting a really positive review in a magazine where people
Speaker 2: read it. It's like that's before anybody kind of took
Speaker 2: a chance on us.
Speaker 1: Okay, he had to play in Chicago in a stadium.
Speaker 1: What has been You know, You've done a lot of
Speaker 1: work where no one was paying attention other than being enthusiastic.
Speaker 1: And you know his impromod of being Louis, what is
Speaker 1: he added into the mix? And what does he foresee
Speaker 1: going down the path? I know what he's told me,
Speaker 1: but I would hear from you.
Speaker 2: I think he well, I like I can. There's a
Speaker 2: few different ways to talk about it. One is I
Speaker 2: think he knows from just a wealth of experience how
Speaker 2: to like promote a show that I would just never understand,
Speaker 2: Like he just knows how to find the people that
Speaker 2: might go to a show and get them that information.
Speaker 2: So I on a base level, he's just a genius
Speaker 2: when it comes to like how to do that. And
Speaker 2: then I would say, it's our job to deliver a
Speaker 2: show that is memorable and like you want to come
Speaker 2: back to. So it's like there's a deal there. He's like,
Speaker 2: blow their minds. I'm going to bring him here, blow
Speaker 2: their minds. Like and he whenever we see him, he goes,
Speaker 2: I just need one more song, just one more song,
Speaker 2: Like he's always like talking about one I need one
Speaker 2: more song or two more songs, something like that. And
Speaker 2: I know what he means, but I'm like, it's if
Speaker 2: I knew how to do that, I would just do
Speaker 2: it for you. But it's not that simple. But I
Speaker 2: think the other side of it, I think he I
Speaker 2: think he like challenges our management and the band and
Speaker 2: the booking agents to sort of go for it in
Speaker 2: a way that everybody's so cautious that he's like, why
Speaker 2: would you what? Go go big? Like try it, And
Speaker 2: there's something that's a good person to have as a
Speaker 2: part of the mix in the room, you know, Like,
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of conservative people and he's
Speaker 2: not like that. He's a dreamer, so he's always like,
Speaker 2: you know, pushing the envelope and getting us and and
Speaker 2: the other part of it is I think he's he's
Speaker 2: aligned with us in the sense of he's not someone
Speaker 2: who's gonna throw out a bunch of money and give
Speaker 2: someone a big advance. He's like, if you win, I win,
Speaker 2: and if I win, you win. We're going in on
Speaker 2: this together. That's not like you know, someone's gonna lose.
Speaker 2: And you know what I mean. I think there's like
Speaker 2: a there's like a we're all in this together aspect
Speaker 2: of this that is. I think that's why his business
Speaker 2: works because he's like taking a chance right there with you.
Speaker 1: So, how has it worked financially? Not that you want to,
Speaker 1: but if you stopped playing music right now, is there
Speaker 1: enough money to make it to the end?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I don't know, but I've talked to
Speaker 2: my people, and every once in a while it's something
Speaker 2: I don't like thinking about as far as like I
Speaker 2: feel like it's just a strange side to this, But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think there's an element of this that if I
Speaker 2: wanted to live a life that was, in my estimation,
Speaker 2: a really good life, I could do that, and that
Speaker 2: makes music become a choice. But I also think it's
Speaker 2: a funny thing because I was discussing this with Simon
Speaker 2: Felice a few years ago, where we got into music
Speaker 2: on the back of the nineties and early two thousands,
Speaker 2: when everyone was like, man, there's no money to be
Speaker 2: made in this bit there, and so it was almost
Speaker 2: like you were joining the Peace Corps or like becoming
Speaker 2: a teacher, where everyone's kind of looking at you like,
Speaker 2: you know, there's no money, but I'm glad you exist.
Speaker 2: And so to have that flipped on its head, and
Speaker 2: now people are sometimes doing music to try to make money.
Speaker 2: It's bizarre to me. But I feel like like I
Speaker 2: was standing in front of my house the other day
Speaker 2: and these people were walking by and they were like,
Speaker 2: I live in Denver. And these people were walking by
Speaker 2: and they parked the car and they're like, it's a
Speaker 2: beautiful house, and like I looked, I'm like thanks. Man.
Speaker 2: He's like, wait, you live there, and I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I lived there, and I was with my wife and kids.
Speaker 2: And then he turns I don't believe him, and then
Speaker 2: the person goes, wait, you live there, and he's like yeah.
Speaker 2: And I was talking to a neighbor and they I
Speaker 2: don't believe him, and I was like, I told my
Speaker 2: wife lear I was like, I think that's the nicest
Speaker 2: thing someone's ever said to me. It is like, I
Speaker 2: don't believe him because we didn't really get into this
Speaker 2: for any of that, and so it feels okay to
Speaker 2: to have things go your way and have something nice
Speaker 2: because it wasn't the reason. It's just kind of like
Speaker 2: I could take it or leave it. I enjoy I
Speaker 2: enjoy parts of it, but really it's just like the
Speaker 2: joy of I'm sitting here in my like workshop home
Speaker 2: studio thing. This is the best part of it. And
Speaker 2: then music somehow made its ability to buy a house
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, but all of it. It's it's
Speaker 2: cool because none of us got into it of that
Speaker 2: era for money. It was the opposite people thought we
Speaker 2: were being more on So in that way there's a
Speaker 2: guilt free aspect. I remember our first house, like these
Speaker 2: dudes while I was walking that was with my wife
Speaker 2: and he's like, oh, go back to mommy and Daddy's house,
Speaker 2: and I was like, all right, man, it's just like
Speaker 2: there's an element of this that I feel like, uh not,
Speaker 2: You're just like this is all kind of funny money.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really make sense. There was no promises about this.
Speaker 2: This is just like this happened to be the era
Speaker 2: we were born in. It could have been twenty years
Speaker 2: ago and I would be in a much different situation.
Speaker 2: It's it's all fucking timing and luck in some of
Speaker 2: that stuff. But the bottom line was I loved music,
Speaker 2: and now this is cool that we're getting paid at
Speaker 2: all to do it.
Speaker 1: So you're going on tour in Europe? What do the
Speaker 1: lumineers mean in Europe? And we now really truly have
Speaker 1: a worldwide business because people can stream your songs or
Speaker 1: not stream your songs all over the world. So what
Speaker 1: do the lumineers mean outside the United States?
Speaker 2: That's a really good question. I mean, like when we
Speaker 2: go to the UK, the UK has like almost never
Speaker 2: played us on the radio ever. We were too old
Speaker 2: for BBC one, we're too young for BBC two, they said,
Speaker 2: and so it's like very grassroots or they heard it
Speaker 2: on like I think they got us on a commercial
Speaker 2: or two, so there's like some way for people to
Speaker 2: hear the song. To me, it's it's it's kind of
Speaker 2: like this underdog thing where it's just we recently got
Speaker 2: to go to Poonie or Pune in India when we
Speaker 2: played a show. There's like fifteen thousand people there and
Speaker 2: we were like, this is insane, Like you know, suddenly
Speaker 2: Spotify exists and smartphones are in everyone's hands all over
Speaker 2: the world. There's places that English just the second language
Speaker 2: and they're playing to a large crowd of people. It's
Speaker 2: it kind of blows my mind. I don't I think.
Speaker 2: I think country to country it's pretty different. Like if
Speaker 2: you take Ireland, I think Ireland likes us because of
Speaker 2: the storytelling, but it's it seems to differ place to place,
Speaker 2: and it's like almost like not for me to understand.
Speaker 2: But like you know, a I would take a band
Speaker 2: I've always loved, like growing up, like The Killers. The
Speaker 2: Killers are like probably arguably bigger in Europe than in
Speaker 2: the States, and I feel like we're bigger in the
Speaker 2: States than we are in other places. But we've gone
Speaker 2: back so many times to to Italy and to Spain
Speaker 2: and to Ireland and Germany that you start to see
Speaker 2: it slowly grow and it feels like trustworthy or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know how the right way to say it,
Speaker 2: but it feels like at least something that feels like,
Speaker 2: all right, maybe this is a real thing versus in
Speaker 2: the very beginning. It was like when we first went
Speaker 2: to Europe on our first album, and then we returned
Speaker 2: on the second album, I think our ticket sales like
Speaker 2: divided in half, and it was kind of shocking. It
Speaker 2: was like, whoa, no one's here, what the hell's going on?
Speaker 2: And then we we've sort of like, over the next
Speaker 2: two to three albums, have built everything back up to
Speaker 2: where it once was. And I think that's an interesting
Speaker 2: thing to happen to somebody. It's like you realize in
Speaker 2: the beginning, it's kind of like a moment in time
Speaker 2: and you're and then you slowly grow back into this
Speaker 2: original thing that you thought was so easy, and it
Speaker 2: was like a lot of hard work to get back
Speaker 2: to the thing you thought was easy or it thought
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I guess it just happens. Like it
Speaker 2: doesn't just happen. It went away just as fast as
Speaker 2: it happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, Once when somebody listens to you. You're very much
Speaker 1: a thinking guy and a little bit like Lloyd Doebler
Speaker 1: in the movie say anything, you know. I don't want
Speaker 1: to sell anything. I don't want to believe in blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah. So I don't know, Jerr, is
Speaker 1: this just okay, We're going on the road. People know
Speaker 1: who we are, We're obviously doing this podcast. But to
Speaker 1: what degree, or you or somebody on social media, to
Speaker 1: what degree is this being worked? Because it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like you're working.
Speaker 2: It worked in terms of like advertising it or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, promoting it, making people aware of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, my wife always jokes that we just married
Speaker 2: the wrong people because we're like not married to famous people,
Speaker 2: and that would have helped our career a lot. No,
Speaker 2: there's not. I mean, I think we try to promote
Speaker 2: it in the way that we would receive. We put
Speaker 2: up a couple of billboards with lyrics on it. I
Speaker 2: think we want to send some lyric books out to
Speaker 2: some fans. We sent like tape recorders out with a
Speaker 2: new song or new album on it to certain people.
Speaker 2: But it's not overly done because I find a lot
Speaker 2: of that cheesy and probably not authentic to like, I
Speaker 2: don't think we'd come off doing it well anyway. There's
Speaker 2: some people are just naturals. They're like, that's what they're
Speaker 2: about and they know how to do that. I just
Speaker 2: I don't and I don't care. So I live with
Speaker 2: the I live with the understated rollout and like, you know,
Speaker 2: let the chips fall where they may. But like, in
Speaker 2: another way, we've we put a lot of behind the
Speaker 2: scenes work into Like there were a lot of years
Speaker 2: where we were showing up to radio station early morning
Speaker 2: the day of a gig and playing an in studio
Speaker 2: session and doing an interview. We did a lot of that,
Speaker 2: I think to try to like plant seeds of maybe
Speaker 2: the radio will support us in some ways, or you know,
Speaker 2: there's different ways to do it. But I sit back
Speaker 2: and total admiration of someone like Jack White, who can
Speaker 2: he can promote something and somehow it's just so cool
Speaker 2: the way he does it, And that's just don't I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't have that like same instinct. I can't. I wish,
Speaker 2: I wish he could help us. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: there's a charm to like letting people find it. I
Speaker 2: think they feel like they own it a little more
Speaker 2: if it's on their terms, which is why hit songs
Speaker 2: don't feel as personal to people. I think they just
Speaker 2: feel like they were shoved into your face, and if
Speaker 2: they're good, it's almost a surprise, you know. It's like
Speaker 2: it's like, I'm sure Bruno Mars has some amazing songs,
Speaker 2: but all of them feel like they're just like pushed
Speaker 2: directly into my ear and like it's a little aggressive
Speaker 2: versus like I don't know. I got into Time out
Speaker 2: of Mind, that Dylan record from like ninety nine, I
Speaker 2: want to say ninety seven, and I listened to that
Speaker 2: NonStop this whole recording session. I don't know why. It
Speaker 2: just gave me a lot of comfort and I kept listening.
Speaker 2: I've still listened to it, and it's kind of like Rodriguez.
Speaker 2: There's these albums that I get into. They feel like
Speaker 2: mine because nobody forced me to listen to it, And
Speaker 2: maybe that's part of it. Maybe that's like I mean,
Speaker 2: we were we were sitting in with Zach Bryan. I
Speaker 2: think he's an example of someone who the fans tend
Speaker 2: to feel like his music is their music, and I
Speaker 2: think part of that is that he released this is
Speaker 2: a lot and doesn't really like having an extravagant roll out,
Speaker 2: and it's just like a here it is unadorned. This
Speaker 2: is it direct to you. And you know there's something
Speaker 2: to be learned from that because everybody thinks that they
Speaker 2: know what they're doing and how to promote a record. Well,
Speaker 2: like he's kind of broken that mold, at least for himself.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many people could pull it off,
Speaker 2: but he's a good example of like, hopefully some good
Speaker 2: music can find its own way.
Speaker 1: Well, Wes, you know we did that piano together. I've
Speaker 1: seen the lumineers, but I'd be lying if I didn't
Speaker 1: say I was anxious, Like I knew you were sort
Speaker 1: of a low key talker. I said, well, you know
Speaker 1: house is going to play out? Am I going to
Speaker 1: be able to go? But you know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: what a thinker you were, and you know how you're
Speaker 1: true to your beliefs. So it's been a real pleasure
Speaker 1: talking to you, and I know my audience will very
Speaker 1: much enjoy listening to you. So thanks for doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and I revealed I was gay at one point.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you're gonna see it on GMG and in five minutes.
Speaker 2: You know, that's the way to promote this record now
Speaker 2: that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Okay, just before we go, you just put this hat
Speaker 1: back on. This is AWD. Is that the logo from
Speaker 1: the super Room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's like I got it at of trendy
Speaker 2: shoe stares as all well dead, but I I think
Speaker 2: it is. I think it's like you'll see it on
Speaker 2: the Superrew thing.
Speaker 1: Well, do you have a suber U. I do.
Speaker 2: I have a super U out and the Catskills and
Speaker 2: I have a it's unrelated, but I have a Toyota
Speaker 2: land Cruiser here that I've had for like ten years.
Speaker 2: That that's my real baby. The superw is just a beater.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, what year is your land Cruiser?
Speaker 2: Eighty seven? Nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's the giant station wagon style, not the
Speaker 1: one that looks like a jeep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like I think so it's kind of that
Speaker 2: classic like if you see the drug dealers in the
Speaker 2: old movies or old like Netflix has that, uh Narcos, Yeah,
Speaker 2: all driving that, they're all driving they are, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: that's my that's mine.
Speaker 1: So you have a place in the Catskills yeah.
Speaker 2: I have a place in a place called Palinville. It's
Speaker 2: right in your Woodstock. We made the last four records
Speaker 2: out there, so it's just like the first. We were
Speaker 2: gonna make our second record. We had found a studio
Speaker 2: in the woods of Colorado in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 2: and like three weeks from about to record there, the
Speaker 2: owner called me or called our management and said the
Speaker 2: price it tripled because I guess they found out our
Speaker 2: band or something who we were, and we were like
Speaker 2: what No, So we ended up changing plans and going
Speaker 2: out to the cat Skills for the first time, which
Speaker 2: turned out to be like an hour north of where
Speaker 2: we JOURNI up just fell in love with the area,
Speaker 2: and so I have a few yurts out there in
Speaker 2: a house and it's like a little bit of a
Speaker 2: compound where we spent a lot of time. We make
Speaker 2: records out there. I produced records with David Barrett out there,
Speaker 2: so it's like a beautiful Do do you spend time
Speaker 2: out there? Have you been out there?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Where do you go to Woodstock or where do you go? No?
Speaker 1: I mean I've been to the Catskills. I worked in
Speaker 1: the Catskills, which this is like before you were born.
Speaker 1: This is like the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 2: But like, what do you remember where all.
Speaker 1: Those hotels went out of business? Yeah, okay, and there
Speaker 1: were summer camps there. I worked at a summer camp.
Speaker 1: You go to Manaicello, I remember, you know, actually seeing
Speaker 1: the Woodstock movie for the third time at a theater
Speaker 1: in mana Celo and going to the Delhi. So yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up in Connecticut. That's not awesome,
Speaker 1: so believe me, I know the cats skills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're I mean, it's just kind of like
Speaker 2: a really beautiful place and it's close to the city
Speaker 2: in a weird way to have like both of those
Speaker 2: places nearby each other. But yeah, we go out to Hudson,
Speaker 2: New York a lot like Sogerate's Woodstock and then Hunter
Speaker 2: Mountains just around the corner.
Speaker 1: So wait, wait, wait, wait wait Are you a skier
Speaker 1: a little bit? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I snowboard ski?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well Hunter Mountains you know with ski area, yep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you live in Denver. Need to partake of the mountains.
Speaker 2: A little bit, I like genuinely don't. I generally don't
Speaker 2: do it that often, only because I don't want to
Speaker 2: fuck up an entire tour by like tearing an MC
Speaker 2: and a c L. But like, weirdly enough, the epic
Speaker 2: pass that you can buy for vail Rea. They that
Speaker 2: works at Hunter. I know it's wild. So you like
Speaker 2: Simon Fleece came out here a couple of years ago
Speaker 2: and he's like, my past works out at your spot
Speaker 2: in Colorado's wild man.
Speaker 1: So since you grew up in New Jersey and you
Speaker 1: have a place in the Catskills. Because no, the world
Speaker 1: is smaller than ever because of the Internet. But there
Speaker 1: are differences between the East Coast and the West coast.
Speaker 1: So what is the difference between the East Coast and Colorado?
Speaker 2: Pretty big? I mean I felt like the East Coast
Speaker 2: was like, at least music making wise, it was pretty doggy,
Speaker 2: dog pretty like old school competitive Your gain is my loss.
Speaker 2: And then in Colorado was a lot more like there's
Speaker 2: a lot more Kumbaya in the air. Like stealth helping
Speaker 2: us right off the bat was one of the biggest
Speaker 2: things that happened to us, you know, so I think
Speaker 2: part of it. I mean I remember walking to work
Speaker 2: in Colorado and the guys I said to a guy,
Speaker 2: how you doing, Like that's just an East coast. How
Speaker 2: you doing right? And he was like pretty good the weather,
Speaker 2: and he like launched into this explanation and I was like,
Speaker 2: is this real? This guy's like talking to me right now.
Speaker 2: It was so friendly, and I was I was I
Speaker 2: found myself when I first moved here, like what's the catch?
Speaker 2: What are you trying to do to me? What are
Speaker 2: you trying to sell me? And it's just pretty kind,
Speaker 2: you know, Like so I had to adjust to that,
Speaker 2: and I think people actually found me to be quite cold,
Speaker 2: hence the song asshole. But it was like I think
Speaker 2: I was pretty like unnerved by how nice everyone was being,
Speaker 2: and I was like I didn't find it very authentic.
Speaker 2: You know, No one's just nice. And then I've been
Speaker 2: here long enough where it's just normal to me now,
Speaker 2: and when I go back East, I can kind of
Speaker 2: switch back to that and I definitely understand it a
Speaker 2: lot more.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: We brought my wife's family out to New York City
Speaker 2: and then the cats goes for Christmas and they were
Speaker 2: like they had never seen people hawking at each other
Speaker 2: or yelling at each other, and I was like, this
Speaker 2: is just normal to me. I was like, I was
Speaker 2: going to the Museum of Natural History as a kid
Speaker 2: and seeing like drug addicts on the street and like
Speaker 2: homeless people and just wild behavior at a sort of
Speaker 2: young age that this is like they're in their twenties now,
Speaker 2: like her brothers in his forties and their kids are
Speaker 2: their teens, and they were just like, well did you
Speaker 2: see that? Guy?
Speaker 1: Yelled the other.
Speaker 2: Guy like yeah, that's like a day in New York,
Speaker 2: Like what's the big deal? So I felt lucky. And
Speaker 2: when I moved here, the biggest thing I noticed was
Speaker 2: like New York and New Jersey, the sort of tri
Speaker 2: state area as a whole, has this hustle to it.
Speaker 2: There is an urgency to everything you're doing that I
Speaker 2: was out hustling people just working normally, so it prepared me.
Speaker 2: I had advantages here just because people were a lot
Speaker 2: more chill, and I was like, what what are we
Speaker 2: doing here? Like what's going on? Like when is band rehearsal?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Like I need my coffee, let's go. Like no one
Speaker 2: was like like that, So it was a cool thing
Speaker 2: to come out here and be like, oh, maybe in
Speaker 2: New Jersey I was average speed, but here I'm like working.
Speaker 1: At listen, I can talk to you forever. We're gonna
Speaker 1: call it a close now. In any event, till next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left six