Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with
Speaker 1: Chris Thiely.
Speaker 2: I'm just playing alone with I'm just playing alone with.
Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to the show. I'm Norah and with me
Speaker 1: as always is Oda. Hello, Sarah, Oda am today's show,
Speaker 1: we have Chris Thely.
Speaker 3: He is I think he's a genius. I was gonna
Speaker 3: say he's a bit of a whiz. He is amazing.
Speaker 1: He's an old friend and brilliant mandolin player, musician.
Speaker 4: And he's been playing music since he was just a
Speaker 4: wee wee child.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Five.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He came on the scene a long time ago with
Speaker 1: his band Nickel Creek, which sort of took the bluegrass
Speaker 1: scene by storm. But and he's had this incredible solo career.
Speaker 1: He took over for Garrison Keeler's Prayer Companion. They renamed
Speaker 1: it Live from Here, and it was a brilliant takeover
Speaker 1: of a show and he really found his own way
Speaker 1: with it. He has played with every brilliant musician I
Speaker 1: can think of.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like he's known as just one of
Speaker 4: the great greatest bluegrass players out there.
Speaker 3: But he's also so versatile. He can play, he can
Speaker 3: do so much more. Yeah, so much more. I don't
Speaker 3: like genreing people. Really. I mean, I'm just gonna say it.
Speaker 4: He's a genre buster.
Speaker 3: It's not genre.
Speaker 1: Him, sorry, but I feel like he really floats through everything.
Speaker 4: He definitely does. He's a mold breaker. Yeah, he's incredible.
Speaker 4: And he's also, like what.
Speaker 3: A nice guy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and a smooth speaker. I feel like he's just
Speaker 4: very well spoken. Yeah, he told some great stories.
Speaker 1: We had so much fun talking and I could have
Speaker 1: just talked to him for hours and played music with him.
Speaker 1: The fun thing about this show today is all these
Speaker 1: shows are different. Everyone has their own level of suggested
Speaker 1: songs from me, and then they throw songs back at
Speaker 1: me and suggest other songs. I usually try to stick
Speaker 1: to their catalog, but Chris suggested all these random covers
Speaker 1: that we do. So this is a kind of a
Speaker 1: fun one where we're just sort of jumping into songs
Speaker 1: together for the first time and wild cards. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: also we do some songs from his catalog as well though,
Speaker 1: And so we're going to drop in on the Chris
Speaker 1: Theely episode. I hope you enjoy it. We're gonna start
Speaker 1: this episode with a song from his solo album called
Speaker 1: Lay songs. This is a Hazel Dickens song. Please enjoy
Speaker 1: Chris Thiely.
Speaker 6: I feel shodos ah upon me.
Speaker 3: And the juice back and to me.
Speaker 6: Before gold de sisters and brothers.
Speaker 3: Won't she come and sing for me?
Speaker 7: Sing we sang together in that plain little church with
Speaker 7: the bench.
Speaker 8: She all one?
Speaker 5: How did to my heart?
Speaker 6: How precious the moments we stood shake in hands.
Speaker 5: And sing in a song that birding is heavy? My
Speaker 5: way has gone, baby, I must travelorld that is long, and.
Speaker 9: What one sold hard? My dear brother, did you call
Speaker 9: and sing me on song?
Speaker 7: Say those same sweet said together in that.
Speaker 10: Plain little church where at the bend she's all boy.
Speaker 11: Helping to my.
Speaker 6: Heart? Bursious the moments we stood shaking hands and sing
Speaker 6: in a song.
Speaker 12: My home beyond that dark river, yours sweet faces, no
Speaker 12: more I will see.
Speaker 5: Unto winy weather. There's no more sad parting.
Speaker 13: Wants you come and sing for me? Sing those hymns we.
Speaker 14: Sad together in that plain little church with the benches
Speaker 14: all one. How dear to my heart, how precious the
Speaker 14: moment we stood and.
Speaker 5: Same song?
Speaker 1: I love that song? That was so fun We didn't
Speaker 1: even try it first. It's so funny. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: so excited to sing with you and to do this.
Speaker 1: But as soon as it was so naked, you know,
Speaker 1: in the beginning, and as soon as time for me
Speaker 1: to come in, I was like.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to say.
Speaker 15: There's actually there's a weird amount of space when it's
Speaker 15: just mandolin and voice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 15: A lot of space so that any choice you make
Speaker 15: feels like a big choice.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love how naked it is.
Speaker 1: And this album is this song is from the album
Speaker 1: you made in a church, right.
Speaker 15: Yeah, in Hudson during during the pandemia the great what
Speaker 15: have you persists.
Speaker 1: So upstate you were in this church, yeah, with an engineer.
Speaker 15: Yeah, just just just the engineer and me and we
Speaker 15: would you know, we would test and and then go
Speaker 15: into the go into this church and and play that
Speaker 15: that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 15: I was, uh, you know, staying up late thinking about
Speaker 15: all this kind of stuff, especially during the early stages
Speaker 15: of all of this, you know, kind of deprived of
Speaker 15: my my church, which is playing shows, and you know,
Speaker 15: playing music with me like what we just did that
Speaker 15: feels feels really spiritual to me. Yeah, ual, And and
Speaker 15: again like an opportunity to kind of sort of hold
Speaker 15: your heart out and and say here's some stuff I'm feeling,
Speaker 15: and how do you how are you feeling? How do
Speaker 15: we feel about it together? Not getting to do that
Speaker 15: for the first time since I started making music, you know,
Speaker 15: it was crazy. It was felt crazy. And but I'm
Speaker 15: assuming for you too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but as you know, with young kids, it was
Speaker 1: it was a nice distraction, even though it was not
Speaker 1: easy having them, it was it was it wasn't just
Speaker 1: sitting there without anyone, you know.
Speaker 5: Right right.
Speaker 15: Yeah, And I feel like call and I probably got
Speaker 15: to forge something that we might not have naturally gotten
Speaker 15: to forge otherwise, like my life the way.
Speaker 3: It normally is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you're gone a lot, gone a lot. But
Speaker 1: they were a good age. I think our kids to
Speaker 1: be home with us, you know, as good as you
Speaker 1: can be.
Speaker 3: I don't know totally.
Speaker 1: It was hard for everyone, but I feel like that
Speaker 1: was that's a nice age to.
Speaker 3: Have that experience with him. Probably. So back to the church.
Speaker 1: Back to the church, I'm pretty fascinated by people who
Speaker 1: grew up in church also, and there's many different types
Speaker 1: of that. And so in your church growing up the
Speaker 1: fire home and Brimstone. Yes, yes, So did you play
Speaker 1: in church? Was there a lot of music in the church.
Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah, there was, and and ours though that that
Speaker 15: church was very much the Christian contemporary thing. It was
Speaker 15: basically pop music with with Jesus lyrics.
Speaker 1: Okay, so not not not what you came to do.
Speaker 15: No, not what not not what we just did or
Speaker 15: or and also not the thing that really lights me
Speaker 15: up like these old you know when you when when
Speaker 15: I was going to that Episcopal church at the top
Speaker 15: of nob Hill in San Francisco, Like the music is good,
Speaker 15: really really good, like some of the best that human
Speaker 15: beings have ever made. You know, you you you sing
Speaker 15: Corrals the box.
Speaker 1: Set, you know that's so beautiful.
Speaker 15: Yeah, with a with an incredible organ and a beautiful
Speaker 15: choir and and then everyone singing along and you know,
Speaker 15: you've got the hymnal.
Speaker 3: That has the parts.
Speaker 1: Yea, the hymnals with all the parts that used to
Speaker 1: fascinate me as.
Speaker 3: Some people grabbing.
Speaker 15: And actually the first church when my parents so my
Speaker 15: parents were actually not religious at all and then converted
Speaker 15: when I was eight.
Speaker 1: Wow, so you didn't grow up until you were eight
Speaker 1: in church?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then it went.
Speaker 15: Intense, and then they went, Yeah, so they were you
Speaker 15: know the yeah, hell have no fury like the like
Speaker 15: they're recently converted.
Speaker 3: That's pretty intense.
Speaker 15: Yeah, they were to go from zero to one hundred,
Speaker 15: zero to one hundred, and so they Yeah, they kind
Speaker 15: of just kept graduating to more and more intense versions
Speaker 15: of Christianity. Wow, until and I think it actually played
Speaker 15: a part in us leaving southern California and moving to
Speaker 15: a Murray, Kentucky. I think that getting into sort of
Speaker 15: the heart of the Bible Belt was part of I mean,
Speaker 15: they also anticipated that I would move to Nashville when
Speaker 15: I left the home. They didn't want the family nucleus.
Speaker 1: To oh, so they moved there later when you were
Speaker 1: already I was fourteen, You were.
Speaker 3: Already okay, wait, you were already to then, right, playing
Speaker 3: shows during the summer, usually with Nickel Creek. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 15: Nickel Creek started when I was eight, okay, actually the
Speaker 15: same time conversion.
Speaker 3: Okay, but this is so confusing to me.
Speaker 1: Wait a second, So you converted to church, you started,
Speaker 1: but when did you start playing mandolin? I was five, Okay,
Speaker 1: so that that really had nothing to do with church.
Speaker 3: No, for you Okay, I know.
Speaker 15: Yeah, the the that was just this pizza place in
Speaker 15: southern California called that Pizza place had live blue grass
Speaker 15: every Saturday night.
Speaker 3: How random? So random?
Speaker 15: And although bluegrass and pizza places that that's like pizza
Speaker 15: places having a blue grass night is kind of a thing.
Speaker 3: It is. I guess it's more Irish bar.
Speaker 15: Did you ever go to the uh the village had
Speaker 15: that great bluegrass night forever the bagging in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, presided over by sheriff Uncle Bob. I never went,
Speaker 3: but I heard about it.
Speaker 15: Oh my god, it was so good. I wonder if
Speaker 15: you still doing it. I haven't, I haven't been for
Speaker 15: a long time. But that was a great bluegrass night,
Speaker 15: not at a pizza place. Sadly, maybe the only thing
Speaker 15: preventing it from.
Speaker 1: So you started playing mandolin, from going to the bluegrass
Speaker 1: at the pizza place.
Speaker 15: Yeah, and then and yeah, and then mom and dad
Speaker 15: got I think they just got really scared about having
Speaker 15: kids and not having answers about things. They were raised
Speaker 15: more or less without organized religion.
Speaker 3: I feel like.
Speaker 1: That's rare for the past generations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think there was so On dad's side,
Speaker 3: there was. His dad was.
Speaker 15: A total atheist. And then his mom was sort of
Speaker 15: new a new ager, like an early new Ager, and
Speaker 15: she was a metaphysical therapist, and yeah, she was amazing everywhere.
Speaker 15: I wish everyone could meet my grand Barbara makes you
Speaker 15: rest in peace. But then on my mom's side, I
Speaker 15: think just kind of not really atheists, but just sort
Speaker 15: of not practicing anything, and then got into a little
Speaker 15: new agey ness later on her dad's side.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 15: And so I think they had us and got really
Speaker 15: really scared. I think they felt that they had been
Speaker 15: as I mean, we all are messed up by our
Speaker 15: parents in various ways, and also you know, kind of
Speaker 15: saved from the world by our parents in various ways.
Speaker 15: Like there, it's just a it's a cocktail all the time,
Speaker 15: I feel like, of positive and negative impact. But I
Speaker 15: think they just got so scared that they didn't have
Speaker 15: any kind of answers, and fundamentalist Christianity provided a bunch
Speaker 15: of answers like you could do this, here's what you do,
Speaker 15: and here's what you don't do, and as long as
Speaker 15: you do those things, everything's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: I would have never thought of that as being a
Speaker 1: recent a turn to religion, but totally is It makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense.
Speaker 15: I certainly, having you know, a kid myself now can
Speaker 15: see the appeal in a way that I maybe went
Speaker 15: through a long period of my mid twenties and thirties
Speaker 15: not really seeing the appeeling.
Speaker 3: Trying without it. Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: I feel like the sense of community, like in socialization,
Speaker 1: is something I would enjoy now having kids, whereas in
Speaker 1: my late twenties and thirties, I just wanted to go
Speaker 1: and have blinders on and just anonymously and yeah, now
Speaker 1: I have to meet everybody in the congregation, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And for me, I was more.
Speaker 15: Self absorbed to not really looking for a disavowal of self,
Speaker 15: you know, looking more for the affirmation of self at
Speaker 15: that time.
Speaker 3: You know, for worse and for worse. It's all a journey.
Speaker 1: It's just a journey. It's all good.
Speaker 3: And here we are, Here we are.
Speaker 1: Wait, so when did you start touring with Nickel Creek.
Speaker 3: Then we started, well, we started really touring.
Speaker 15: When I was eighteen, but we were like summer festival warriors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for like throughout high school.
Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah, lots of lots of summer festivals and things.
Speaker 15: And dad Dad played bass, with Nickel Creek. Then okay,
Speaker 15: so Sean and Sarah, but brother and sister.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 15: And then it was my me and my dad and
Speaker 15: that must have been fun. Oh, it was, It was great.
Speaker 3: It was great.
Speaker 15: And also I think actually that dynamic prevented me from
Speaker 15: from ever really rebelling from the fundamentals Christianity.
Speaker 3: That and by the way, now mom and.
Speaker 15: Dad are super moderate on all that stuff, and like
Speaker 15: actually very very they're they're good lefties.
Speaker 3: They're like the most liberal people in all of Kentucky,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: And they're still in Kentucky.
Speaker 15: They're still in Kentucky church now, they still go to church,
Speaker 15: but now it's a very different vibe.
Speaker 1: They go to a different church than they moved to Kentucky.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 15: Yeah, well the that the hell Fire and Brimstone Church
Speaker 15: was in Kentucky, but then they moved.
Speaker 3: They they I think so much credit to them.
Speaker 15: They kept their ears open the whole time, like even
Speaker 15: as fascinating that.
Speaker 3: They are amazing, they're amazing people.
Speaker 1: Do you talk about religion with them now? About like
Speaker 1: where you guys, you talk about the past? Yeah, every
Speaker 1: where they took you and everything.
Speaker 15: And there was there was this there was this period
Speaker 15: I feel like in my mid twenties, as my middle
Speaker 15: brother and I kind of went off into the world
Speaker 15: and would come back for holidays, you know, with sort
Speaker 15: of news news from the wide wide world. And I
Speaker 15: remember coming back home, I had I had my barber
Speaker 15: across the street from my apartment in the East Village
Speaker 15: at will from Whistle who is gay and has a
Speaker 15: kid with his with his husband, and I remember were
Speaker 15: sitting there in the barber chair like hearing this, hearing
Speaker 15: him talk about his little boy and his husband and
Speaker 15: and just bouncing that against everything that I had been
Speaker 15: raised with, going like there's nothing.
Speaker 3: Why is this a problem?
Speaker 15: Yeah, Like this seems he loves this kid that hurt,
Speaker 15: and he loves his husband, and he and his husband
Speaker 15: seem like great parents.
Speaker 3: Like he's showing me the pictures.
Speaker 15: It's all just like all the family units I was
Speaker 15: raised there at Like it's the same.
Speaker 3: So why why does my religion condemn this man to hell?
Speaker 1: The wheels were like really turning.
Speaker 15: Yeah, they were really just sitting there talking to people
Speaker 15: about their their lives. And that's the friction. That kind
Speaker 15: of friction is what I feel like I'm missing in
Speaker 15: my in my current life like that everyone, So that
Speaker 15: that friction like with me sort of teetering on the
Speaker 15: you know, still carrying some fundamentalist Christian baggage with me,
Speaker 15: but kind of teetering on the edge. I was in
Speaker 15: all of these conversations with people who felt different ways
Speaker 15: about things than I at least had felt, and that
Speaker 15: kind of friction.
Speaker 3: Helped me grow so much.
Speaker 15: And like, could I take that kind of friction now,
Speaker 15: you know, like with people who don't feel the same
Speaker 15: way about about various things, but I might be able
Speaker 15: to learn from well.
Speaker 1: But I think that's part of why things are so
Speaker 1: bad right now with the polarization, is that people can't
Speaker 1: just have conversations like that right now because whatever it
Speaker 1: is in the air and the media and the social media,
Speaker 1: there's just so much anger or they're not having those
Speaker 1: kinds of healthy debates. They're just getting angry, right And.
Speaker 15: Do we just feel like anything that's not an agreement
Speaker 15: or that's not actively agreeing with you a threat?
Speaker 1: Is that what we I think that's how people are acting.
Speaker 1: And I don't think I think that if everybody could
Speaker 1: take a step back and have those kinds of a
Speaker 1: healthy debate maybe we'd be in a better place, you know, globally, right, oh.
Speaker 3: God, nasally.
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 1: When you guys hit like really big, How old were you? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I really not really big. But when you
Speaker 1: guys were huge, No, but I mean when you when
Speaker 1: it started getting really.
Speaker 3: Big, like got big, Yeah, bigger, bigger at least. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was we I was like.
Speaker 15: Nineteen twenty, I think is when is when that first
Speaker 15: record that we made for for Sugar Hell, which I
Speaker 15: mean they thought was going to do like a bluegrassy thing,
Speaker 15: like seven thousand copies would have been the contract was
Speaker 15: sort of old for selling seven thousand copies, and then
Speaker 15: the record company could make sure that they made enough
Speaker 15: money to pay for it from selling you the record
Speaker 15: to sell at festivals. Yes, that was a significant part
Speaker 15: of the potential income for a bluegrass record label. Yeah,
Speaker 15: and then and then, I don't know, Alison agreeing to
Speaker 15: produce was a big deal.
Speaker 3: Alison Kraus.
Speaker 15: Alison Krause, And oh, she's incredible and such a great producer.
Speaker 3: That she's made so many records, so.
Speaker 15: Many records, and she has such she has such a perspective,
Speaker 15: she has such a sound in her head that she's
Speaker 15: always chasing for whatever she's part of.
Speaker 3: She knows what she wants.
Speaker 15: She knows what she wants, she really she deeply does,
Speaker 15: and and anything that's not that is like nails on
Speaker 15: a trackboard to her, which was really helpful, I think
Speaker 15: for us as kind of headstrong, you know, cocky musicians
Speaker 15: who have been fairly coddled by the bluegrass community up
Speaker 15: to that point. And I had a really strong I've
Speaker 15: always had a sound in my head too, so to
Speaker 15: run up against someone like Alison, who's the sound that
Speaker 15: she heard in her head was maybe a little louder
Speaker 15: than I heard at.
Speaker 3: That point in my life, you know, was amazing.
Speaker 15: And that was another source of those conversations, kind of
Speaker 15: mind expanding conversations, which is talking to Alison about the
Speaker 15: world music first and foremost, but then also just about
Speaker 15: being alive. But I think then the old Brother where
Speaker 15: Art Thao thing happened and we were we rode that
Speaker 15: way that if you had one record, if you had
Speaker 15: one blue mass record, you had O Brother where Art
Speaker 15: Thou and you're like.
Speaker 3: Man of constant sorrow. And if you had two you
Speaker 3: had that and something of Alison's. And if you had three.
Speaker 1: Then you all said nicol Creek's amazing.
Speaker 15: Because we were young, and I think sugar Hill they
Speaker 15: like re. They redid the cover of the record so
Speaker 15: that we looked a little bit more fashionable.
Speaker 1: I was looking at the cover recently and when I
Speaker 1: was trying to, you know, figure out what songs we
Speaker 1: were doing, and you look quite dashing your teenagers. The
Speaker 1: frost tip was that like a slight justin Timberlake frost
Speaker 1: tip situation. Holy, they were, Yeah, it was gorgeous.
Speaker 3: It looked amazing. Everyone in Nashville had frosted tips. Really, yeah,
Speaker 3: oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 15: Because I mean I think it was Nashville would have
Speaker 15: always been. It felt like we were one step behind
Speaker 15: living in Nashals like being one step by So the
Speaker 15: in sync would have been those would have been Yeah,
Speaker 15: that's fashionable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what that's what you do. Let's do always judging,
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Always judging. Okay, So I haven't thought about this song
Speaker 1: since I wrote it.
Speaker 3: Did you write it for the movies?
Speaker 15: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I got a new manager, John Silva, and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: you ever want to get into soundtrack stuff? And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I've never thought about it. Well, Jed
Speaker 1: Appatow's got this movie and he's looking to like do
Speaker 1: stuff with people. So I started corresponding with Jed Appatoo
Speaker 1: about writing some stuff for the movie. And he was
Speaker 1: explaining the movie this is forty. Meanwhile, I'm like thirty
Speaker 1: at the time, no kids, no husband, I was recently single,
Speaker 1: I think even, and he's like, yeah, marit it's about like,
Speaker 1: you know, being in your forties and being married with
Speaker 1: kids and just like and then he just wrote me
Speaker 1: like stream of consciousness emails of lyric ideas and it
Speaker 1: was like always Judging. It was something like that. And
Speaker 1: so I wrote this song from that from his email.
Speaker 1: And you played on it together.
Speaker 15: That's that's right, we got we. I in essence played
Speaker 15: on it with you, but not actually with you.
Speaker 3: And John Brian produced it. John Brian produced it. The
Speaker 3: great mad scientist of music out there.
Speaker 1: And you know who else is on it is Lindsay
Speaker 1: bucking He's the one doing this, He's doing Always Judges.
Speaker 1: He's on the and I've never met I mean, I
Speaker 1: grew up obsessed with Fleetwood Mac, but I've never met
Speaker 1: Lindsay Buckingham in my life.
Speaker 3: I've never crossed cross on the five.
Speaker 1: He's like fingerpicking on it and singing on it. I
Speaker 1: feel like nobody ever heard the song. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: even actually in the movie in the end, it was
Speaker 1: just on the soundtrack.
Speaker 3: So, oh my gosh, so here it.
Speaker 16: Is always jretching, always judging, never loving, always dredging.
Speaker 17: Always dredging, never looking.
Speaker 16: Woe's wedding bed is swimming?
Speaker 18: Ball ways judge the one you love to her she
Speaker 18: lay now she's.
Speaker 5: Good, never loving, always judging.
Speaker 2: You don't pretend that it's you're blood.
Speaker 13: Thing you not die, never hugging, always judging.
Speaker 2: When you say you don't need me, I do.
Speaker 3: BALLI blood is when the cat is spinning, you say.
Speaker 15: That it's.
Speaker 5: Brow fay you now for dry.
Speaker 17: As juching, always judging, never loving, always judging, love's judging,
Speaker 17: never fucking.
Speaker 5: Who is winning at the same.
Speaker 8: Chilling?
Speaker 16: Who's your check? Always judging, always judging, Neva laughing, always judging,
Speaker 16: always judging, Neva hugging, always spinning, mad is spending.
Speaker 3: Crap? I bet you who is my head is spinning?
Speaker 19: Who is winning?
Speaker 3: There we go? That was so fun. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I never thought I would ever play that song anyo,
Speaker 1: did I nor did I that was fun.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: And now we're in our forties and married with kids.
Speaker 3: And now it really rings. It resonates, I get it.
Speaker 3: It resonates, good guess.
Speaker 1: So so, okay, Live from Here, Holy crap. I mean I
Speaker 1: grew up listening to Prairie Home Companion.
Speaker 3: Did you you too? Yes? Oh? Absolutely, it was.
Speaker 1: I mean I think a lot of any NPR kid
Speaker 1: did pretty much. He was a huge part of my life.
Speaker 1: My mom is a lifelong m PR radio on. I
Speaker 1: think it's come from a lot of just the two
Speaker 1: of us. Lose like company, you know, and so Prayer
Speaker 1: Own Companion. We would listen to it, and then we
Speaker 1: would listen to the rerun every weekend.
Speaker 3: You know, the boat Like a lot of times.
Speaker 15: What would happen is we'd get half of it during
Speaker 15: a drive on Saturday and then the other half on Sunday,
Speaker 15: like intentionally, Okay, what half did we not get?
Speaker 3: Then we're going to listen to that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have so many memories of people on it. So
Speaker 1: you took over the show and then and then they
Speaker 1: changed the name to Live from Here, and which I
Speaker 1: think is a great name for it. Thank you, because
Speaker 1: you moved around. You did this, You hosted the show
Speaker 1: from different places. You took it on the road basically, Yeah.
Speaker 15: And Garrison did. Garrison would always he would tour it too.
Speaker 15: But of course it was very much centered in and
Speaker 15: Saint Paul and I got I remember driving in. I
Speaker 15: was in southern California, and I remember hearing you do
Speaker 15: an episode.
Speaker 3: I forget what record.
Speaker 15: You were touring behind, but you He had you on
Speaker 15: a sketch where you were a call waiting.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, sketch.
Speaker 15: It was good, and you were you were like a Yeah,
Speaker 15: you were the voice of call waiting.
Speaker 3: That was fun, singing, singing, you're on hold, You're on.
Speaker 1: Hold, You're on I hadn't thought about that since then.
Speaker 1: My brain doesn't remember things anymore.
Speaker 3: That's crazy. I forgot about driving.
Speaker 15: I mean, but I feel like when you're when you're driving,
Speaker 15: that was what that show.
Speaker 3: That was the most magical.
Speaker 15: It's like if you're you're just you're going from point
Speaker 15: A to point B and that show is on. It
Speaker 15: was just it was so transportive and talk about commune
Speaker 15: a church like experience.
Speaker 3: I feel like that show was church like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he talked about religion without being religious or
Speaker 1: pitchy about it, you could still listen to life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the human aspect of religion.
Speaker 15: It was beautiful and I feel like all the various routines,
Speaker 15: like it's going to start with this song and eventually
Speaker 15: you're going to get a guy noir sketch and eventually, yeah,
Speaker 15: you're going to get the like Wobgone story.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's like we'll get you.
Speaker 15: And Rich Rich Dwarski and the Guys All Star Shoe
Speaker 15: Band like doing that. The crazy sort of jaloppy sound
Speaker 15: of that band was always so infectious. So yeah, when
Speaker 15: he he asked me to do it, which came out
Speaker 15: of the clear blue sph.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it came from him. He asked you
Speaker 1: to take over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I wanted to retire.
Speaker 15: Yeah, he was like, I think, I think I'm bringing
Speaker 15: it in for landing and was wondering if you'd be
Speaker 15: interested in hosting.
Speaker 3: It, which I mean I hadn't been groomed for it. Yeah.
Speaker 15: I'd even felt like at times that I would do
Speaker 15: something on the show when I would be on a
Speaker 15: fair frequently, but okay.
Speaker 1: Like the perfect guess.
Speaker 15: I loved you know, I loved sitting in with people
Speaker 15: and and he would sometimes give me a I remember
Speaker 15: he gave me a slot one time for a for
Speaker 15: a song, and I did. I did a solo version
Speaker 15: of the White Stripe song that Leaves in the Dirty Ground,
Speaker 15: which had some yodling and and it got it got
Speaker 15: a big reaction.
Speaker 3: Was at town hall.
Speaker 15: It got a big reaction, and afterwards he was like,
Speaker 15: don't do that again.
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell if he was joking or oh, you couldn't.
Speaker 15: I couldn't tell. I don't think he was joking though.
Speaker 15: I think it was like that that. I think maybe
Speaker 15: that broke the spell of the show for him. Crazy,
Speaker 15: you know that it was like that wasn't in the
Speaker 15: spirit of things wow, Which was a big lesson to learn,
Speaker 15: like to not the show has a vibe and just
Speaker 15: any any anything that you're doing has a vibe and
Speaker 15: you can actually so don't always go for the jugular, yeah,
Speaker 15: you know, don't always like.
Speaker 1: Don't force something into a the wrong Sorry I had
Speaker 1: to say, I don't know, but like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Don't force the wrong thing. Yeah, sometimes like this seem
Speaker 3: wrong to me. No, you know, I did, I think
Speaker 3: it was. I think it was a.
Speaker 15: Good I think it was a nice moment, but I
Speaker 15: also think his reaction to it was a really amazing
Speaker 15: lesson to learn about the like the power of radically
Speaker 15: strong taste that like if he's he's presiding over this
Speaker 15: world and you know he's he's he's micro creating, he's
Speaker 15: like he's he has this world and the world has rules,
Speaker 15: like the world there's gravity, and there's oxygen and there's
Speaker 15: you know what I mean. Yeah, And so I always
Speaker 15: thought about that moment when I when I when he
Speaker 15: asked me to take it, to take the show of
Speaker 15: like how how can I? Obviously I can't continue facilitating
Speaker 15: same world. I have to, like you have to make
Speaker 15: your I have to make a new world for it.
Speaker 15: But also I have to like transition it slowly. So
Speaker 15: then all of us who who count on that world weekend,
Speaker 15: week out, we still have some of the stuff. So
Speaker 15: it was it was interesting. It was a really amazing
Speaker 15: learning experience, that whole show. And then it got COVID canceled.
Speaker 3: I know, so how long did you do it with
Speaker 3: the year where he was kind.
Speaker 1: Of was he still involved when he passed it on? Yes,
Speaker 1: so he still helped, like.
Speaker 15: He helped, Yeah, he helped with the first especially the
Speaker 15: first season. He and I were in pretty close touch
Speaker 15: about about it. I don't think he was listening though.
Speaker 15: I don't think he would ever listen to the show Interesting.
Speaker 15: He never listened to it when he did it either. Okay,
Speaker 15: he would never listen to Interesting that he.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't listen after he handed it over. Probably it would
Speaker 1: have been too hard for him to not try to, Like.
Speaker 15: That's what he said. He said, there's no way. That's
Speaker 15: just not going to be helpful for either of us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me listening is that's really funny.
Speaker 15: But I I but he was so generous with with
Speaker 15: you know, help kind of anytime I had a question
Speaker 15: about any aspect of it or you know, wondering about
Speaker 15: this seems.
Speaker 3: Like a you know, you don't need to do that thing.
Speaker 3: I would do that. Here's why I would do it.
Speaker 3: You don't need to do that. Yeah, those kind of
Speaker 3: conversation the news from like oh god, yeah that wasn't Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was never going to happen.
Speaker 15: But but like, you know, the sketches, we started doing
Speaker 15: different stuff with the sketches, and then and and the
Speaker 15: whole thing became. He really encouraged me to make it
Speaker 15: far more music.
Speaker 3: That's great, but that's perfect, which it was.
Speaker 15: I mean he was always kind of threatening to make
Speaker 15: it more music oriented himself, like that's what he loved
Speaker 15: to do.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean he's saying on it, but it wasn't ever.
Speaker 1: I liked his voice. Actually it sounds like home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like sounds like I mean his singing voice
Speaker 1: as well as a speaking voice. But you just have
Speaker 1: so many more options with what you know and what
Speaker 1: you can do and how you can adapt to other musicians.
Speaker 15: His one condition, it was like you, I want you
Speaker 15: to host the show on one condition, which is that
Speaker 15: you keep singing.
Speaker 3: Duets on the show.
Speaker 1: But that's that's like the best part of it. That's
Speaker 1: and that's like your bread and butter. When I asked
Speaker 1: you about what songs you wanted to do for this,
Speaker 1: you kept throwing out songs that neither of us have
Speaker 1: ever done.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm.
Speaker 1: It's so exciting, you know, it's so fun to like
Speaker 1: interact with people that way. I saw you do a
Speaker 1: thing with tank from a tank in the Bengas. Oh god,
Speaker 1: she whoa well, she's insanely amazing poetry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, her poetry is beautiful.
Speaker 15: Oh my god, I mean, I love them. I knew
Speaker 15: about the music, but I didn't know about her poets.
Speaker 1: I know me neither till later, but her brain just
Speaker 1: goes so many different places.
Speaker 15: I didn't know about her poetry until, like Thomas Bartlett
Speaker 15: played me her doing poetry to you play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were improvising and it was fun. She that
Speaker 1: was fun when we did the recordings with Thomas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Thomas loved her. Oh god, she's amazing.
Speaker 3: She's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But did you feel like were there any limitations on
Speaker 1: who could be on the show musically or was it
Speaker 1: pretty open? Did it gear more towards acoustic.
Speaker 15: Early early on, I was really careful about trying to
Speaker 15: kind of lead basically just trying to drop breadcrumbs the
Speaker 15: whole way so that people could follow. I feel like
Speaker 15: that's really important as as a host of something that's
Speaker 15: different than than being an artist. I feel like as
Speaker 15: an artist, part of our job is to just surprise people,
Speaker 15: you know, to kind of.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they think that, though, I think
Speaker 1: that's more fun for us. Sometimes they like it, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they're like, I don't know if I like that.
Speaker 15: Right, you know, But I also feel like, well, I
Speaker 15: mean that is that's the great balancing act that we're
Speaker 15: all playing. But but I ultimately, you know how they
Speaker 15: they say you have to be true to your audience
Speaker 15: of one. It's true, right, you know, And if if
Speaker 15: I crave, I crave being sort of uncomfortable in the art,
Speaker 15: like I want I want, I want to be challenged
Speaker 15: by a by a piece of art. And what I
Speaker 15: realized as the host of that show is that that
Speaker 15: instinct was only gonna serve me to a certain extent,
Speaker 15: and that I needed to I needed to make sure
Speaker 15: that people felt safe so that they could enjoy when
Speaker 15: they were challenged. And if I if I it was
Speaker 15: basically the opposite of being true to your audience of one.
Speaker 15: Although although I found within myself someone well and I
Speaker 15: thought of my relationship with the show and how it
Speaker 15: was a source of comfort and like a like a
Speaker 15: true north or like calibrating my week. You know, It's
Speaker 15: like here's Garrison and here's that song that the you
Speaker 15: know here that will piano from Downey Avenue. It's like
Speaker 15: it's not that I'm a massive fan of that song,
Speaker 15: but that song put me in.
Speaker 3: A spot, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would, it becomes a nostalgic, it's a touchstone
Speaker 1: for people.
Speaker 15: And so then when I would hear, I was trying
Speaker 15: to imagine, what are the things that I can do
Speaker 15: to put people in a place where they'll where they'll
Speaker 15: relish those tense moments of being challenged by a piece
Speaker 15: of music or by an aesthetic that they're not familiar with.
Speaker 15: So if they're kind of familiar with a routsy sort
Speaker 15: of Americana aesthetic, then you know, the show absolutely was.
Speaker 15: In the first season of me hosting was very grounded
Speaker 15: in that and with occasional little adventures. But by the
Speaker 15: last season, you know, Got All the Way to Common
Speaker 15: was on show, and I mean, god, Tank Tank, just
Speaker 15: like did.
Speaker 3: She have a whole band on the show? Yes, they're incredible.
Speaker 15: Oh my god, And it was was amazing. They were
Speaker 15: on when we had the show in Durham.
Speaker 3: North Carolina, not New Orleans.
Speaker 15: No, I wish that New Orleans show was made. That
Speaker 15: was we did the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, so fun
Speaker 15: and sylvan Es was on that same show, so it
Speaker 15: was like the Press Hall Jazz Band was like very
Speaker 15: much in the wheelhouse for our audience. And then Silvan
Speaker 15: ESSO was going to be adventurous for them, you know, yeah,
Speaker 15: kind of E dmy It's like laptop and and Amlia,
Speaker 15: you know, amazing and and so that that was something
Speaker 15: I was always trying to keep in mind.
Speaker 3: So if I was going to do, stretch them in
Speaker 3: one spot, have.
Speaker 1: A something familiar.
Speaker 15: Yeah, so here's we're gonna have an adventure over here
Speaker 15: and we're gonna have like we're gonna have a spa over.
Speaker 1: Here, part party spa over here exactly. Well, you picked
Speaker 1: a song for us to try, which I'm excited about
Speaker 1: and is different for me, and I feel like it's
Speaker 1: going to be a challenge.
Speaker 3: And even though it's a simple song, which which are
Speaker 3: you talking about?
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the radio Have you done it before?
Speaker 3: Okay? No? I actually, oh god, talking about the radio show.
Speaker 15: Though I did a I played it, not sag it
Speaker 15: behind a piece of poetry.
Speaker 1: Once the music part, because it's so haunting.
Speaker 15: I feel like that world, the whole idea of creating
Speaker 15: a world, I feel like they're so they're so.
Speaker 3: Good at that.
Speaker 1: I remember that when I was listening. I mean I
Speaker 1: remember this from when it came out. I knew the song,
Speaker 1: but when I was listening to it for this. I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's got a lot of weird chords.
Speaker 3: What are those weird chords?
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, oh, it literally has two notes
Speaker 1: that repeat and it's but it creates weird chords, but
Speaker 1: not really, but it's the illusion of it's so beautiful
Speaker 1: and it's so visual, right, and it's circular, and it's
Speaker 1: yeah that he takes it and then yeah, and that's.
Speaker 3: All he's doing.
Speaker 15: And then at the very end he brings this Yeah,
Speaker 15: but that's it. Those are that's that's the material. And
Speaker 15: he spins quite a web with with very few notes.
Speaker 3: I know, shall we try it? You're gonna sing it right? Sure?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 17: When Ama the pearly gates, this will be my verty
Speaker 17: when Memphis Pleas is just beneath and he's reaching up
Speaker 17: to God.
Speaker 14: This is one for the God all days and I
Speaker 14: have it all here in red.
Speaker 5: Blue green and red bloom green. You are my center
Speaker 5: where I spin away.
Speaker 9: Out of control on vidy tape boom videtage bomb B.
Speaker 7: Saying no.
Speaker 20: Psis my one, saying goodbye, Kazack.
Speaker 8: Can do.
Speaker 5: Face two face talking.
Speaker 17: To you before no matter what, and now.
Speaker 5: You shouldn't be a fake.
Speaker 6: Because I know two A day has spent the most perfect.
Speaker 3: Day at ever. Sime woh song. That song is crazy.
Speaker 1: When you told when you texted me like I think
Speaker 1: I hear a rhythmic thing I can do?
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I know you do, and boy
Speaker 3: you did.
Speaker 15: That's one of the craziest moments of sound, Like yeah,
Speaker 15: that when they start messing with that in that track,
Speaker 15: the kind of like washing machine, yeah thing, what even is?
Speaker 3: What are they doing?
Speaker 1: But it's weird, but it's rhythmic. It makes sense within.
Speaker 3: I loved that.
Speaker 15: I was trying to get on that kind of at
Speaker 15: that pulse.
Speaker 3: I always hear in my head.
Speaker 15: Do you know Matt Chamberlain, the great Oh yeah, great
Speaker 15: La based drummer. I mean I used to be Seattle based,
Speaker 15: I guess, but now he's in l A. I always have.
Speaker 3: Like a w W Chamberlain, like what, yeah, what would
Speaker 3: Matt play? And he's got that? Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 15: Oh yeah, I didn't get the rhythm of the right.
Speaker 21: Oh oh, and then there's them.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it just kind of falls off. Oh god, yeah,
Speaker 3: did you hear he did?
Speaker 15: He did a I always have to I always hesitant
Speaker 15: to suggest that we do a Radiohead song together because
Speaker 15: I just always it's like a covering tick of mine.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, just I always.
Speaker 15: That's one of the things I think about their world
Speaker 15: building that is so appealing to me is if they
Speaker 15: feel like video games to me, like where you can
Speaker 15: just but kind of open ended video games where you've
Speaker 15: got a character and you just get to walk around
Speaker 15: in these songs And.
Speaker 1: What a way to describe it, look under That's kind
Speaker 1: of incredible.
Speaker 15: So I feel like when I when I've read that song,
Speaker 15: it feels like that to me, where I'm just like
Speaker 15: I'm in a video game and I get to I
Speaker 15: get to like look under a rock and see what's there.
Speaker 1: You get to choose your own world within their world.
Speaker 15: Yeah, they don't spell things out all the way almost ever.
Speaker 3: They always leave.
Speaker 15: I feel like they always smear some stuff so that
Speaker 15: you can finish it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like that's a crazy way to think of it.
Speaker 3: And like they're not that there's this feels unfinished to me,
Speaker 3: but just that.
Speaker 1: There's nothing unfinished about it, but it's it's it's like
Speaker 1: an abstract painting where you can kind of fill in.
Speaker 15: The cracks, Yes, where your participation is actually necessary. It's
Speaker 15: not just desired, it's like necessary to finish the art.
Speaker 3: Every but he will hear it differently.
Speaker 15: Yeah, and I feel like that's and I think he
Speaker 15: does that lyrically as well.
Speaker 1: Oh these lyrics are deep, right, they're really heavy.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm so into it. They're beautiful.
Speaker 1: Also, Mephistopheles must be a Greek Yeah, Gospheles.
Speaker 3: Isn't that one name for the devil?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, all I could think about was mister
Speaker 1: Mustopheles from Cats, So I don't I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess that shows what I learned growing up.
Speaker 15: But also also the scanchion that he's sound. That you
Speaker 15: found a way to sing Mephistopheles. Yes, it's dual natural.
Speaker 1: Well that's why I didn't want to sing it because
Speaker 1: I was like, how am I going to sing Mephistopheles?
Speaker 1: Because I want Chris to say it? But the lyrics
Speaker 1: are beautiful. You did it well just beneath. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a killer song. Oh my god, have you ever met
Speaker 1: any of them?
Speaker 15: I met the drummer, Oh cool, yes, Phil, he's the
Speaker 15: sweetest dude. I met him at at an award show
Speaker 15: in London. He was at the same table that I
Speaker 15: was sitting at. Yeah, and uh, that's fun.
Speaker 3: Oh and I got to I mean I ged him
Speaker 3: so hard, him so hard. Yeah. What is that is?
Speaker 15: When you you go up to someone that that who's
Speaker 15: work you love and I love your work? Yeah?
Speaker 3: But what does it come from the word germ?
Speaker 1: I don't know, you get your germs on him?
Speaker 3: Maybe so I don't know. I knew what you meant,
Speaker 3: but I just didn't know where it came from. I
Speaker 3: don't you know what. I don't even know where I
Speaker 3: heard that the first time? Am I making a word?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 15: No, I'm sure it's a thing I just to someone
Speaker 15: and it was and I did it and he was
Speaker 15: very gracious. I was talking about specific grooves. Do you
Speaker 15: remember that one time when you're I was very I
Speaker 15: was very Chris Farley about it.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love that. I remember that one song where
Speaker 3: you play this awesome that.
Speaker 1: The Chris Farley's guess is the best thing in the
Speaker 1: world ever with Paul McCartney.
Speaker 3: Is it true? What was it that that the Love
Speaker 3: You Magazine to the Love You Take? Is that true?
Speaker 3: Is that true? Is that true? Can we do two more?
Speaker 3: Would that be too much to do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh wait, we've got yeah, we gotta do that
Speaker 1: wet about them. I want to do the Tom Paxton
Speaker 1: song because it's so special. And so you have a
Speaker 1: new Punch Brother Brothers record where you did the whole record,
Speaker 1: the whole Tony Ice record.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, Tony Rice. Who tell me about him?
Speaker 15: So Tony, it's so it's so interesting the I mean, what, like,
Speaker 15: what a legend he is in the bluegrass community and
Speaker 15: kind of a relative unknown outside of it, although there's
Speaker 15: there's certainly, you know, pockets of musicians who who you know,
Speaker 15: are very influenced by him outside of the bluegrass community,
Speaker 15: but in you know, within the bluegrass community.
Speaker 3: He's he's on Mount Rush, you know, and was one
Speaker 3: of the first people to.
Speaker 15: You know, the first thing people think of when they
Speaker 15: think about Tony Rice, if they think about Tony Rice,
Speaker 15: is is his guitar playing. He really changed the game
Speaker 15: in terms of flat pick guitar and and non bluegrass
Speaker 15: flat pick acoustic guitar players would almost certainly have studied
Speaker 15: up on what Tony did with with an acoustic guitar
Speaker 15: and a flat pick.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Oh I'm done. What is the flat pick.
Speaker 15: So a flat pick as opposed to like playing guitar
Speaker 15: with your fingers. So fingerpicks just picks that mold to
Speaker 15: your fingers, you know, like like like what a banjo
Speaker 15: player uses or you know certain guitar players, whereas a
Speaker 15: flat pick is just an actual it's a flat pick.
Speaker 15: But he's playing and you're going back and forth. So
Speaker 15: I flat picked the mandolin as opposed to like fingerpicking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where you can do all at once. It's kind
Speaker 3: of yes, yes, okay, So he was a flat He.
Speaker 15: Was a flat picker and kind of yeah, a total
Speaker 15: master of the flat pick guitar and solo. He he
Speaker 15: he was one of the early players to really make
Speaker 15: guitar a soloing instrument in a bluegrass band. Previous to him,
Speaker 15: it was it was not the rhythm, the support, Yeah,
Speaker 15: predominantly support. And I wish Chris Elders from Punch Brothers
Speaker 15: were here to give you the real, the real straight
Speaker 15: Yeah that's right and now, but it's so him and
Speaker 15: this guy Clarence White and Doc Watson was another another earlier,
Speaker 15: but people think about that part of his Doc Watson,
Speaker 15: but he he was also a tremendous singer. Uh, and
Speaker 15: song curator is I. I feel like one of the
Speaker 15: things that goes a little under heralded about him is
Speaker 15: his ability to find a song's best best self, like
Speaker 15: find the best songs and then find that song's best self. Yeah,
Speaker 15: just that that whatever he would cover, to my ear,
Speaker 15: became the definitive version of that of that song. And
Speaker 15: he would get in there and and fundamentally change these things.
Speaker 15: So he wasn't just here's my thing, here's me doing
Speaker 15: this song. It was like here's here's this song, and they.
Speaker 3: Became the best ever. Here's yeah, here's.
Speaker 15: Just he would bounce himself or he would Yeah, he
Speaker 15: would bounce his ears off of these songs and they
Speaker 15: would be forever changed. So listening to Church Street Blues,
Speaker 15: that's what the record is called Church Reet Blues. That
Speaker 15: that's been lasting. Yeah, the Tony Rice record and Punch
Speaker 15: Brothers decided to cover the whole record. There was like
Speaker 15: a in the pandemic. We wanted to do something together.
Speaker 1: So you take it together. Okay, so you just decided
Speaker 1: to cover this whole record, to be creative and.
Speaker 15: Cover the whole record and then try and emulate rather
Speaker 15: than again do the thing that Tony Rice would have
Speaker 15: never done, which is like, okay, well yeah, we'll just
Speaker 15: do a band version of Church Street Blues.
Speaker 1: It's completely different from the Tony right.
Speaker 15: We would we we wanted to, you know, be like Tony, like,
Speaker 15: let's let's bounce ourselves off of his record and see
Speaker 15: what happens, see what results, like.
Speaker 3: Our our inner ears.
Speaker 15: We've been listening, all five of us have been listening
Speaker 15: to this record since we were little.
Speaker 3: It's made such an impact on the musicians that we are.
Speaker 3: Did you guys know Tony? Yeah him.
Speaker 15: I knew him really pretty pretty well. Critter new Critter
Speaker 15: new him the best.
Speaker 3: Probably.
Speaker 15: He actually apprenticed himself to Tony for spent spent I
Speaker 15: think a week or two at Tony's place. But I
Speaker 15: would run into him at these festivals that we were
Speaker 15: talking about, and he he really he was. He was
Speaker 15: always a fairly he was a private fellow, kind of
Speaker 15: kind of reclusive, but really generous with with musicians that
Speaker 15: that he thought were promising. And he kind of took
Speaker 15: me under his wing.
Speaker 1: Helay, he really loved to play and.
Speaker 15: He yeah, so he would he would have me sit
Speaker 15: in with him sometimes and you were you were just bulletproof,
Speaker 15: when you're like foundations of the Earth, kind of the
Speaker 15: feeling like you could build, you could build a city.
Speaker 3: On top of his rhythm guitar playing you know.
Speaker 15: So, so yeah, so this this, well, whatever we're about
Speaker 15: to do, I guess it's sort of basically.
Speaker 3: Exactly bounced off of.
Speaker 15: The Punch Brothers reimagining of Tony's reimagining of Tom Paxton's
Speaker 15: lasting on my mind.
Speaker 6: It's a lesson too late for learning.
Speaker 5: Made of sand, made of sand, in the way of
Speaker 5: a night.
Speaker 3: My soul is turning.
Speaker 5: In your hands, in your hand.
Speaker 6: You've got reasons a plany.
Speaker 3: For going.
Speaker 10: This sign no, this sigh, no.
Speaker 6: For the weeds have been staidly going. Please don't go,
Speaker 6: Please don't go?
Speaker 5: Are you going in no way?
Speaker 22: With no word of farewell? Will there be not a
Speaker 22: chase left behind?
Speaker 23: I could have loved you better. I didn't mean to
Speaker 23: be unkind. You know that was the last thing on
Speaker 23: my mind.
Speaker 6: As we walk along, My thoughts a tumbling.
Speaker 3: Round and round.
Speaker 5: Round down round.
Speaker 6: Underneath our feet, subways rumbling underground, under ground.
Speaker 7: Are we gone with away?
Speaker 3: With no word of farawell?
Speaker 22: Will there be not a chase left behind? I?
Speaker 5: Could have loved you better.
Speaker 3: I didn't mean to be unkind.
Speaker 6: You knew that was the last thing on my mind.
Speaker 6: As I lie in my bed in the morning.
Speaker 10: Without you, without you, every song in my head dies
Speaker 10: apport it without you, without you, without you, without you,
Speaker 10: with that you, I love it.
Speaker 3: That was all. I love it. That was in seven.
Speaker 1: I have a hard time with seven, but I also
Speaker 1: love it.
Speaker 15: It's it's it's weird to me that at this point
Speaker 15: five feels almost like a three or four level of
Speaker 15: naturalness to me, like there's something you.
Speaker 3: Do a lot of it. I do a lot of five.
Speaker 3: Seven is funny, it's got.
Speaker 1: It's got a rhythm.
Speaker 3: Though, Oh, I feel like I love this so hard.
Speaker 15: When you when you just I think, come to terms
Speaker 15: with not not like letting it go as a normal thing.
Speaker 1: Well, when you're not counting and it falls in naturally,
Speaker 1: it's yes, I wasn't counting, but I still had a
Speaker 1: hard time falling him. But I still maintain that you
Speaker 1: should play with my sister and Nushka.
Speaker 3: We need to do something together because she.
Speaker 1: I mean, she plays in seven a lot's star player.
Speaker 1: But also I just feel like you guys would have
Speaker 1: a nice meeting of the musical time signatures.
Speaker 3: I would love. But also, yeah, just melody play. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you guys.
Speaker 1: Would play well together. I think also mandolin and sitar makes.
Speaker 3: A lot of sense, right, I never played with.
Speaker 1: A star player both a high timber, but I think
Speaker 1: would gel and I think you would both.
Speaker 3: You know, make it gel.
Speaker 15: I think the the plucked aspect of it makes it, yeah,
Speaker 15: makes it like a kind.
Speaker 3: Of a natural. But do you bend notes? You barely don't.
Speaker 3: I don't know, because you go out of tune. Exactly.
Speaker 15: Mandolin tension, mandeline string tension is so high that the
Speaker 15: force that requires to actually get a bend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you're out. It stayed stayed well, So
Speaker 1: she'll take care of the Bendy's.
Speaker 3: I told you to put the Bendy's in there.
Speaker 15: I think you guys should play it against one of
Speaker 15: my favorite TENACIOUSD moments.
Speaker 3: Oh the Bendy's. But he says, he says. I think
Speaker 3: he is arguing with Kyle.
Speaker 15: Kyle. Yes, he's exactly should have done a song, my god,
Speaker 15: which one is your favorite?
Speaker 3: I just know, finish your story?
Speaker 5: What does he do?
Speaker 15: Oh no, no, it's just I think they're writing a
Speaker 15: song quote unquote together, but basically KG is doing it
Speaker 15: and then and then Jack takes credit for it because
Speaker 15: he told him to put the Bendy's.
Speaker 3: I told you to put the bend You to put
Speaker 3: the Bendy's in there.
Speaker 1: I played greatest. I played tribute for my kids the
Speaker 1: other day because we just watched School of Rock, which
Speaker 1: holds up by the way I saw it to I
Speaker 1: almost got emotional, probably because I haven't been to a
Speaker 1: live show since the pandemic, but when they did the
Speaker 1: live show, the Battle of the Bands and the audience,
Speaker 1: I got emotional.
Speaker 3: It's a good movie. It's a great movie. Oh my god.
Speaker 3: I hadn't seen it since it came out.
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with Jack Black during that whole era
Speaker 1: of tenaciousity.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was the best. He is amazing.
Speaker 1: He's so good in that movie. He's so earnest. He
Speaker 1: reminds me of like when Will Ferrell and Elf. The
Speaker 1: earnestness of the character. It's just it's just so earnest,
Speaker 1: and he's just got the funniest It's just so funny.
Speaker 3: That's why it works, right.
Speaker 15: Yeah, he believes it's a large part of him that
Speaker 15: actually just wants this to be real and like a
Speaker 15: thing I've never met. I've never I met him very
Speaker 15: briefly backstage at Largo once Nicol Creek did like a
Speaker 15: little thing at this is early on and Sean I
Speaker 15: think I left to go do something, but Sean was
Speaker 15: still there and Jack Jack was back there and he's like, man.
Speaker 3: Good show, good show.
Speaker 15: I until you're working on your arms, your harms, And
Speaker 15: Sean was like, all right, sorry, come again.
Speaker 3: Your harms. Man harmony vocals. That's so funny. He's amazing.
Speaker 1: Just anyway, that dude, Jack Black, Please, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: let's start a band.
Speaker 3: He should do the podcast.
Speaker 1: That would be fun. That would be my dream come true.
Speaker 1: You're all my dream come true. Every guest is a
Speaker 1: dream come true. Ah, thank you for doing this. Can
Speaker 1: we do our last song? Which he's another one. You
Speaker 1: suggested that you've never played this song. No, I have
Speaker 1: never played this song.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, long time listener, first time call her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like I have heard the song. When
Speaker 1: you suggested it, I played it. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think I know that song, but I didn't really
Speaker 1: know it.
Speaker 15: It Also, even even what I was pretty sure I
Speaker 15: have it has that era about it as a song
Speaker 15: that has always existed somehow. Like sometimes sometimes people it's
Speaker 15: almost like when you when you're writing a song, you're
Speaker 15: kind of excavating songs.
Speaker 3: It's not necessarily like you're you don't. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you ever feel that way sometimes.
Speaker 15: I guess that's the way I like to feel, is
Speaker 15: when I feel like I found something as opposed to.
Speaker 3: Like I wrote it. You know, that's the best song.
Speaker 15: But this, yeah, this, this feels to me like one
Speaker 15: of those songs. It was in the earth and Judy
Speaker 15: Still found it.
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about Judy Still, and so I
Speaker 1: was googling, and it just I almost don't want to
Speaker 1: say too much before we play the song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's just.
Speaker 15: I might start crying, right, Yeah, play the song and
Speaker 15: she she's a pretty magical person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her story is very intense. Judy Still, it's j
Speaker 1: U d ee. Yeah, in case anyone listening has not.
Speaker 3: Heard her, and then Still like windowsill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so do you want to sing this? Do you
Speaker 1: want me to sing? What are we doing?
Speaker 3: Let's try with you, Unison. It's double check, right, it's
Speaker 3: double check.
Speaker 1: Her Her vocals always sound kind of like weird and
Speaker 1: digital because she's doubled all of her volts.
Speaker 15: Yeah, even sometimes I wonder if she tripled them. Yeah,
Speaker 15: sometimes it gets it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we can. Can we pull that?
Speaker 3: That would be hard right without?
Speaker 15: I mean we could, Why don't we get to that point?
Speaker 15: I'm like, so, I would love to hear you sing.
Speaker 3: It if you're a practicing it. In case, I would
Speaker 3: love to hear you sing it. And then I'll but
Speaker 3: I'll get in there. I'll get in there.
Speaker 1: Love rising from the maids.
Speaker 5: Promise made.
Speaker 8: This sound.
Speaker 24: Only this, only wrath touching me, Lie awain sound, sweet
Speaker 24: communion of the kids.
Speaker 5: Side, safety through the grave.
Speaker 24: Enter reached me with a ray, silently swooping down, just
Speaker 24: to show me.
Speaker 1: How to give my heart away toward.
Speaker 25: So Crystal cry while I'm sleeping and call my name.
Speaker 25: And when he came down, saying die Eastern, then a
Speaker 25: new song was so.
Speaker 3: Until some word we breathe.
Speaker 19: One and still.
Speaker 11: Wispoke sos bursting in the sky, here the sun.
Speaker 1: Novasting cry.
Speaker 24: Shammy memory, Come and hold me.
Speaker 19: While you show me how to fly.
Speaker 26: Sound sifting through the glade. Entering reached me with a ray.
Speaker 24: Silently swooping down, just to show.
Speaker 19: Me how to give my heart away, my.
Speaker 3: Lea sparkling holes, con feel.
Speaker 24: My dreams to sending on the fiery beams.
Speaker 5: I've seen them coming down.
Speaker 1: Quick, lad, where Abby is?
Speaker 3: La solus gently and say gone on, my pal yourt.
Speaker 19: Way and still lie the whistler, lie.
Speaker 24: Rising from the mast, promise me.
Speaker 8: This and only this.
Speaker 27: Holy breath touching me.
Speaker 8: Lie Quin.
Speaker 19: Song, Sweet Communion of lookis.
Speaker 3: And that was our episode with Chris Deely. Oh wow,
Speaker 3: Sweet Communion of a Kiss. It's a song just about
Speaker 3: a kiss. Oh my god, that song slays me. Hell
Speaker 3: So that was a fun episode. That was great. I
Speaker 3: love playing music with him so much.
Speaker 19: He's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully we can do it again. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much Chris for being on the show. Thanks for listening everyone.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to talk really slow because the last song
Speaker 1: was so mellow, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Trying to not scare you with my voice.
Speaker 4: Enjoy the rest of your day, have a wonderful day
Speaker 4: or night.
Speaker 3: We love you.
Speaker 27: Thanks for tuning in. Our show was produced by me
Speaker 27: and Sarah Oda. It was recorded by Matt Marinelli and
Speaker 27: mixed by James Landry. Additional engineering by Greg Tobler, artwork
Speaker 27: by Eliza Fry, and photography by Shervin linez
Speaker 3: All Right Yo Sea