Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Soccer Mommy is one of the standout singer songwriters to
Speaker 2: merge over the last half decade. She was born Sophia
Speaker 2: Allison and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, where she started playing
Speaker 2: guitar at six years old. Sophia started posting her songs
Speaker 2: on band camp in twenty fifteen under the name soccer
Speaker 2: Mommy the summer before moving to New York to study
Speaker 2: music business at NYU. Two years later, she dropped out
Speaker 2: after signing her first record deal with Fat Possum. Since then,
Speaker 2: she has released four albums and toured with artists like
Speaker 2: Vampire Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers, and Mitski. Soccer Mommy's latest album, Evergreen,
Speaker 2: is a reflection on grief and loneliness, and was described
Speaker 2: recently by Pitchfork as the most laid back and pastoral
Speaker 2: music of her career. This is broken record liner notes
Speaker 2: for the digital age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's Bruce Alum
Speaker 2: with Soccer Mommy.
Speaker 3: You've got name, You've got to face all these things.
Speaker 4: I don't know Send James, It's Slyes Sun. You've got
Speaker 4: a name. You've been with me? Where Argon Hashi faces
Speaker 4: on a no.
Speaker 5: Sles Bsnoyay, it's so makes.
Speaker 4: Sense based the lever.
Speaker 6: Fheard not the chance had ask her though, I'll ask you.
Speaker 4: I've got a name, You've got a big sho.
Speaker 7: Out of careny thing, and.
Speaker 8: I ne.
Speaker 4: N escape from.
Speaker 3: Gibbert say linn if I moed.
Speaker 5: Bosing, It's makes sense. Bosnoid leve fhard not the chance.
Speaker 4: Side give th bosing. It can't forget boss, like.
Speaker 9: The things on itself, for had not the chance side
Speaker 9: tell the thing.
Speaker 4: A sell the thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's the first it's the first grade song. Well
Speaker 1: actually it's the first song and the first grade song
Speaker 1: off your new album. So, Sophie Allison soccer mommy, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming in. Yeah, thanks for having me,
Speaker 1: your total trooper. You come in, you pick up the guitar,
Speaker 1: I need some reverb, and then you just sit down
Speaker 1: and play. That was no muss, no fuss.
Speaker 8: It's always easier alone without it, without a band with you.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, they're bringing you down.
Speaker 8: Well no, it's obviously I love playing with them, but
Speaker 8: it's it's simpler. Yeah, you know, it's more straightforward. Everything
Speaker 8: I write is just guitar and vocals. While I'm writing it,
Speaker 8: So it's just like playing its simplest form.
Speaker 1: Okay. For the guitar players out there who were saying, wow,
Speaker 1: how'd she get that sound? What was your tuning?
Speaker 8: It's open D. It's da D F sharp ad.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so like dad, dad, but you turn down
Speaker 1: the F sharp exactly? Do you write a lot in that?
Speaker 8: I do? Actually, I use it a lot. I mostly
Speaker 8: use that open A, which is e A C sharp
Speaker 8: eae and standard.
Speaker 1: When did you, cause you started playing very young, when
Speaker 1: did the different tunings come in?
Speaker 8: That wasn't until like soccer mommy, pretty much until I
Speaker 8: started writing songs for that. I think it was probably
Speaker 8: about when I was like nineteen or twenty. I think
Speaker 8: it's just a really good way if you've been playing
Speaker 8: guitar for a long time and you kind of know
Speaker 8: the neck a bit, you know chord shapes to take
Speaker 8: all of that knowledge out of your hands a little
Speaker 8: bit and to kind of erase that, like you can
Speaker 8: get a little bit like formulaic. I think sometimes when
Speaker 8: you know where to go next, and it definitely takes
Speaker 8: that away.
Speaker 1: Does it take a lot of rethinking or is it
Speaker 1: the sort of thing you find a chord, you find
Speaker 1: a good sound and then you move it up and
Speaker 1: down the neck a little bit.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's kind of you have to rethink a lot,
Speaker 8: but you do find things that I think in open
Speaker 8: a for example, if I were to play like a
Speaker 8: dominant seven chord just anywhere on the neck pretty much,
Speaker 8: if I were to play that kind of shape, it
Speaker 8: would be a minor chord, just randomly found that out.
Speaker 8: But you just kind of you mess around until you
Speaker 8: find something that sounds like a chord, sounds recognizable, and
Speaker 8: then yeah, you can put it, put it anywhere, and
Speaker 8: just have to maybe work around open strings sounding a
Speaker 8: little funky and try to stay away from those if
Speaker 8: it's not working.
Speaker 1: I've read somewhere your father was a neuroscientist.
Speaker 8: He is a neuroscientist.
Speaker 1: What does he study.
Speaker 8: I have no clue he does. He was, like, I know,
Speaker 8: he was studying amphibians when I was younger. I think
Speaker 8: he just runs like a lab for college students now,
Speaker 8: so he's not doing anything crazy, you know, it's just
Speaker 8: kind of lab work.
Speaker 1: I think he would have some he would have some
Speaker 1: thoughts on open tunings and how you it sort of
Speaker 1: rearranges your neural pathways all that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think it really does. It completely makes you
Speaker 8: relearn that which you know, and like chord shapes, you know,
Speaker 8: you have these new chord shapes that if you were
Speaker 8: to blame in standard, it's like mush.
Speaker 1: How did that change your song writing?
Speaker 8: I think it just gave me more space to be inspired. Honestly.
Speaker 8: I still write in standard too sometimes, but it's a
Speaker 8: lot easier to come up with something new and fresh
Speaker 8: and something that triggers something new in your brain, you know,
Speaker 8: melodically or just kind of vibe wise, if you don't
Speaker 8: have such a set idea of what you're going to
Speaker 8: do and what you can.
Speaker 1: Do, does it become a little more almost subconscious what
Speaker 1: you're doing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you're just looking for sound, honestly, like when you're
Speaker 8: doing an open tuning and you don't know chords, You're
Speaker 8: just looking for something that sounds cool, and you're just
Speaker 8: like putting your hands in places kind of guessing and
Speaker 8: if something sounds weird and you can just move your
Speaker 8: finger over a thread, move it up a thread, down
Speaker 8: a fret, see if that changes anything. And then once
Speaker 8: you get those, yeah, those kind of shapes, you can
Speaker 8: get a little bit more normal with what you're expecting
Speaker 8: to do and chord progressions and all that. But it
Speaker 8: definitely is something that kind of unleashes this freedom in
Speaker 8: the same way that people can write amazing music without
Speaker 8: understanding an instrument at all. It's like you can kind
Speaker 8: of get a freedom out.
Speaker 1: Of it, and some people, if they learn an instrument too,
Speaker 1: will feel a little constricted.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you've got a lot of and you always
Speaker 1: have in your music. You've got a lot of really
Speaker 1: sort of harmonic moves in your songs. Do you write,
Speaker 1: is it the harmony come first and then the melody?
Speaker 8: It's always chords first. Yeah, it's always always guitar chords,
Speaker 8: not necessarily the entire song written out, but I kind
Speaker 8: of find a chord progression or something and start working
Speaker 8: off of that with like lyrical and melodic ideas. Those
Speaker 8: lyrics and melody usually kind of form together. The lyrics
Speaker 8: maybe take a little longer. She tweaked a little bit,
Speaker 8: but I try to make sure those are intertwined, because
Speaker 8: I think that cadence and everything is really important.
Speaker 1: You have a I think it's in the song change.
Speaker 1: I think you've got a nice I think you've got
Speaker 1: a nice key change right at the end of the chorus,
Speaker 1: which I can't I can't quite remember what the aggression was.
Speaker 8: I don't know what the key change goes. I wish
Speaker 8: I could tell you, because it's in a crazy tuning,
Speaker 8: so I have basically no idea what I'm playing. It's in.
Speaker 8: It's like a Joni Mitchell tuning that I that I saw,
Speaker 8: but it's I think it's dac fa fa D. I
Speaker 8: think dak fad.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: That sounds like something definitely strange.
Speaker 1: It's a very deep holl you're going into if you're
Speaker 1: doing Joni Mitchell tune. Yeah, yeah, what did you just
Speaker 1: hear one of her songs and start looking them up?
Speaker 8: No? I think Actually my guitar player, Julian, who's my partner,
Speaker 8: who had tuned one of the guitars in our house
Speaker 8: to it.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
Speaker 8: Sometimes we'll just give me one and say try this
Speaker 8: and if I can't. If I don't find something in
Speaker 8: a minute, I'm like, I don't like this one. If
Speaker 8: I find like a really pretty sounding chord, I'm like, ooh.
Speaker 1: Interesting, You've also and I'm not I don't remember the song.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot of boro chords and songs you
Speaker 1: go to a lot of miners. When people that expect
Speaker 1: a major one song, you've got a really nice walk
Speaker 1: up from like the minor sixth, the flat six flat
Speaker 1: seventh to the tonic, which is really unexpected. Songs are
Speaker 1: full of you know, in an era where most songs
Speaker 1: we hear have like four chords, Yeah, yours are always surprising.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I love chords and I love you know, surprising
Speaker 8: changes that make you like kind of feel it. I
Speaker 8: guess when it comes to a point in a song
Speaker 8: and there's a strange chord and you're like, WHOA interesting.
Speaker 8: I think that was something that used to be used
Speaker 8: a lot more in particularly in pop music, Like even
Speaker 8: when I was growing up. I think there's a lot
Speaker 8: of really sneaky stuff going on in pop music. You
Speaker 8: don't see it as much now, I don't think, but
Speaker 8: I think you can still make things that are catchy
Speaker 8: and you know, poppy, so to speak, and have those
Speaker 8: kind of things start in there and it's kind of
Speaker 8: like being sneakily kind of crazy in the middle of
Speaker 8: a song that's right like pop.
Speaker 1: And you know, you give people a little like you said,
Speaker 1: you got a jolt when you find those things, So
Speaker 1: of course it gives the listeners that too.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's I mean it feels good when you hear
Speaker 8: people do that. I mean you look at like Nirvana
Speaker 8: even for example, and you hear these kind of sometimes
Speaker 8: slightly off chord progressions that are really satisfying with the
Speaker 8: melodies and everything, and I think it inspires something a
Speaker 8: little different, a little more exciting.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I hear quite a bit of Elliott Smith and
Speaker 1: you're playing too, But I don't know if.
Speaker 8: That's I love Elliot Smith.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so I'm not You're not going to stare
Speaker 1: at me blankly.
Speaker 8: Like what, No, I love Elliott Smith?
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I think a lot of the major mindor
Speaker 1: borrowed chords he does that a lot. I hear that
Speaker 1: in you, and that's Beatles, I guess ultimately. But yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we're really nerding out on chords, So maybe we should
Speaker 1: back up. The new album is Evergreen. Tell me about
Speaker 1: how it came about.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, it's a long process writing an album.
Speaker 8: I pretty much started right after the last album came out,
Speaker 8: So summer twenty twenty two is when I really started
Speaker 8: getting into it. Changes, which you brought up earlier, is
Speaker 8: a little older. Actually, I wrote that during making the
Speaker 8: last album and said this is not gonna fit and
Speaker 8: kind of kept it for later.
Speaker 1: Now, are you the kind of writer who I'm sitting
Speaker 1: down every day, you know, pencil, paper in hand, guitar
Speaker 1: at the ready, to write for three hours.
Speaker 8: I'm really not. I don't actually usually write anything down.
Speaker 8: I don't kind of log anything. If I'm gonna log it,
Speaker 8: it's gonna be like a quick demo that I just
Speaker 8: have kind of done, and that's that's done.
Speaker 1: You use your phone.
Speaker 8: Uh no, I'll usually I have like a tape machine,
Speaker 8: like I have like a four track task am like
Speaker 8: a porta studio that I'll use and I'll just put
Speaker 8: one mic and ta yeah, oh and I'll do yep.
Speaker 8: I make tapes of my demos.
Speaker 11: I like it.
Speaker 8: I think I'm a very scattered person. I put them
Speaker 8: into the computer obviously after where. But I like having
Speaker 8: knowing that there's just a pile of like physical tapes
Speaker 8: of all my stuff that I could go back to
Speaker 8: if I lost something or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know you could even still buy those.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can.
Speaker 8: You can buy cassettes. Yeah. No.
Speaker 1: I even the old task because it.
Speaker 8: Was oh yeah, no, there there, it was a used one.
Speaker 1: It's not new, Yeah, because famously that's what Springsteen did Nebraska.
Speaker 8: Yep, yeah, I'm from I mean, I'm from Nashville, so
Speaker 8: there's a lot of that stuff floating around. I feel
Speaker 8: like that's kind of something that a lot of people
Speaker 8: had and nobody wants anymore in Nashville, so you can
Speaker 8: you'll find a lot of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what spurred the writing of this album.
Speaker 8: Most of the songs are about just a loss that
Speaker 8: I had in my life and kind of going through
Speaker 8: that process. They're not all about that, but there's a
Speaker 8: lot of that in the record, and I think that
Speaker 8: was really what kicks did you know? It's it's time
Speaker 8: to write about something different. I think every album, even
Speaker 8: if there's similarities, you know, you have all these themes
Speaker 8: and these ideas that you're stuck on for a while,
Speaker 8: and it takes time after the album is finished being
Speaker 8: made to kind of get your head off of writing
Speaker 8: more stuff that fits with this idea and move on
Speaker 8: to something new, even sonically, like just kind of what
Speaker 8: kind of vibe you're wanting? And em was the first
Speaker 8: song that I wrote for this album, and I think
Speaker 8: it really felt like fresh and new compared to what
Speaker 8: I had been doing, and it was very clear to
Speaker 8: me what I was going to be doing for the
Speaker 8: next little bit of time.
Speaker 1: Was it a conscious thought, I've got to write about
Speaker 1: this loss.
Speaker 8: No, Honestly, I don't think writing is ever conscious for me.
Speaker 8: I think, you know, I sit around, I play guitar,
Speaker 8: and I don't really like to trying to think of
Speaker 8: how to the nicest word to put it, but I
Speaker 8: just like, I don't want to sit around and shred
Speaker 8: or learn other riffs or do stuff like that. I
Speaker 8: don't really do that. I just sit around and I
Speaker 8: play chords, and if I find something I like, I
Speaker 8: start writing a song with it. And I think the
Speaker 8: music inspires the you know, the theme of the song,
Speaker 8: the ideas behind the song, you get from music itself.
Speaker 8: You get a feeling and you can move off of that.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the sound on this album, and for
Speaker 1: people who haven't heard your previous album sometimes forever they should.
Speaker 1: First of all, thanks, but it's a very lush album
Speaker 1: with a lot of studio effects, a lot of production.
Speaker 1: This one is is lush, but in a different way.
Speaker 1: It's got beautiful string arrangements, and I don't know how
Speaker 1: much you had to do with those particularly, but it
Speaker 1: feels a little more austere, a little more direct maybe
Speaker 1: than the previous album. What was the feeling you wanted
Speaker 1: from the record?
Speaker 8: I wanted that, honestly. I wanted it to feel direct.
Speaker 8: I think it being something really personal. I found that
Speaker 8: the last album was not unpersonal, but it wasn't as
Speaker 8: personal as some of my work has been in the past.
Speaker 8: And writing this album just felt like when I was
Speaker 8: I don't know, seventeen and writing songs to put on
Speaker 8: band camp, and it was very tender and intimate in
Speaker 8: a way that was a little bit uncomfortable. Like at
Speaker 8: that point in time, I didn't really want to share
Speaker 8: music with people. I knew I might post it on Twitter,
Speaker 8: but I was not gonna publicize it.
Speaker 1: This is when you were seventeen.
Speaker 8: Yeah, when I was first starting like soccer mommy stuff
Speaker 8: and posting on band camp, it was very it was
Speaker 8: kind of secretive and private because it felt really personal.
Speaker 8: And it felt like that again, you know, it felt
Speaker 8: really really straightforward and personal, and the songs themselves, I
Speaker 8: just wanted it to be like that at the center,
Speaker 8: that really basic stripped back version like what I just played.
Speaker 8: I wanted that to be at the core of everything
Speaker 8: for every song, and there to be you know, accompaniment
Speaker 8: around it to help it blossom a bit. But I
Speaker 8: wanted to feel, yeah, just like light and airy and
Speaker 8: remind me of music that makes me feel like lifted
Speaker 8: and you know, feel emotional, but like light, like I'm
Speaker 8: riding the wind a little bit, which for me is
Speaker 8: like Emmy Lou Harris, Joni Mitchell, like that kind of
Speaker 8: stuff I listen to all the time when I'm feeling
Speaker 8: that way, or like Jankly like pop stuff that really
Speaker 8: just kind of you can feel it it feels so light.
Speaker 8: So the strings were part of that idea. I did
Speaker 8: not arrange the strings. The person who played the strings
Speaker 8: arranged the shrings and did an amazing job off of
Speaker 8: like notes. You know, yeah, I really I wanted strings
Speaker 8: and flute in particular on the record really really bad,
Speaker 8: and I was very specific about that because I think
Speaker 8: it's part of what pulled it together sonically. I think
Speaker 8: if there had been since or like melotrons and things
Speaker 8: like that, it would have just not had the same
Speaker 8: feeling to it. It really needed to be that like
Speaker 8: organic kind of sound that's a little bit imperfect. And
Speaker 8: Ben the producer found a flute player and found Raven
Speaker 8: who did the strings, who's in the UK, and he's amazing.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There, and there's very you know, particularly Evergreen, which is
Speaker 1: the last song, has a very different string sound. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it's even a solo string, but it's violin.
Speaker 1: But it's it's got really lovely textures throughout.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a haunting. I think we had mentioned like
Speaker 8: Johnny Greenwood type of thing, and he really took to it.
Speaker 8: It just sounds, you know, a little eerie, a little haunting.
Speaker 8: Those kind of stretches between chords, I think really bring
Speaker 8: it to life.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more from Soccer Mommy after
Speaker 2: the break. We're back with Soccer Mommy.
Speaker 1: So let's go back before you press send on band
Speaker 1: camp or upload. I guess you're born in Switzerland, right,
Speaker 1: but you grew up Nashville, Nashville, okay, and your was
Speaker 1: your family musical?
Speaker 8: You know, My parents are not super musical. My dad
Speaker 8: does play guitars as like a hobby. My grandma was
Speaker 8: a pianist, but I didn't really know her, so I
Speaker 8: definitely didn't get it from family, you know, forcing me
Speaker 8: to do it or anything. I was kind of the
Speaker 8: first one in the family when I was really young
Speaker 8: to be like, I want to play music, and then
Speaker 8: all my siblings kind of did too.
Speaker 1: Are you where are you in the family order?
Speaker 8: I'm middle, I have an older sister and I have
Speaker 8: a younger brother.
Speaker 1: Okay, And then what was there a particular song or
Speaker 1: memory you have of music growing up that piqued your interest?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't. I don't even know what started it,
Speaker 8: to be honest, I know that the first music that
Speaker 8: I was listening to was like my dad's CD collection,
Speaker 8: which was, like, we all really liked The Who and Springsteen,
Speaker 8: so he had CDs of that, like greatest Hits that
Speaker 8: we would listen to a lot. And I always really
Speaker 8: loved Springsteen. I still do love Springsteen.
Speaker 1: Do you love Springsteen from your music?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I know it's not it's not exactly an obvious pull,
Speaker 8: but I think he's just such an amazing songwriter. Honestly,
Speaker 8: I think he for something that's kind of like macho, like,
Speaker 8: kind of like greaser manly energy. A lot of the time,
Speaker 8: his lyrics can be so beautiful. I think they paint
Speaker 8: such vivid pictures in my mind of like stuff that
Speaker 8: just reflects I think American you know, small town not
Speaker 8: even small town, but just not big city type of life,
Speaker 8: like just certain like normalcies that really, you know, paint
Speaker 8: a beautiful picture.
Speaker 1: Was there a song in particular that that you liked
Speaker 1: of his?
Speaker 8: I've always loved I'm on Fire. When I was younger,
Speaker 8: I loved thunder Road. I still love that one. I
Speaker 8: think the entire like opening lyrical part of that song
Speaker 8: is absolutely amazing. But yeah, it was a lot of hits,
Speaker 8: so it was like the hit boring in the USA,
Speaker 8: you know, hearing that kind of stuff. Hungry Heart was great,
Speaker 8: but but yeah, I always loved that kind of stuff.
Speaker 8: I think that was the first thing that really made
Speaker 8: me love music that in like early two thousand's pop
Speaker 8: from I was like five or six years old, so
Speaker 8: that kind of stuff was really big.
Speaker 1: And what was what was your first instrument?
Speaker 8: Guitar?
Speaker 1: It was okay, yeah, And did you take lessons or
Speaker 1: did you just sit down with one?
Speaker 8: One day I sat started with me sitting down with one.
Speaker 8: I had gone to a like charity concert for my
Speaker 8: brother's preschool and gotten a toy guitar, and I played
Speaker 8: that a lot. It sounded awful, and after enough time
Speaker 8: my parents were like, okay, let's get like, you know,
Speaker 8: a little baby who's to guitar? And I just loved it.
Speaker 8: So I took lessons for a lot of my life,
Speaker 8: you know, just casually took guitar lessons and just always
Speaker 8: really liked it. But particularly for the songwriting. I liked
Speaker 8: writing songs on it more than anything.
Speaker 1: What were your first songs like?
Speaker 8: My first song was called what the heck Is a Cowgirl?
Speaker 8: And it was, you know, pretty much just a chorus
Speaker 8: and me shrumming a open guitar with no chords basically,
Speaker 8: but it was mostly nonsense, I would say. I by
Speaker 8: the time I was like, I guess, like seven or eight,
Speaker 8: I started playing with one of my friends who lived nearby,
Speaker 8: like across the street and was a drummer, and we
Speaker 8: were both very very young, but we would play songs
Speaker 8: together that were kind of like pop rock.
Speaker 1: I guess was there a moment where you thought, I
Speaker 1: think this is more I want to do something, This
Speaker 1: could be my life.
Speaker 8: I always wanted to do it. I think I can't
Speaker 8: remember a time where I didn't want to make music
Speaker 8: for a living. But I think I gave it up
Speaker 8: like the dream a little bit when I was probably
Speaker 8: like maybe like sixteen. I think I just kind of
Speaker 8: reached a point where I was like, what are the
Speaker 8: odds of this just becoming like a career for me?
Speaker 8: I just like to play music, and I just got
Speaker 8: a little bit realistic about it and decided, you know,
Speaker 8: I'm not going to go to college for music. I'm
Speaker 8: not going to do that. I'm just gonna go for
Speaker 8: a normal thing. And honestly, it wasn't depressing as it sounds, but.
Speaker 1: You're making it sound pretty.
Speaker 8: I think it was just it was just like I
Speaker 8: can play music for the rest of my life, no
Speaker 8: matter what. Like I can do this for myself regardless.
Speaker 8: And around the time that I was graduating from high school,
Speaker 8: I particularly was like, I'm going to start recording my
Speaker 8: songs in a really basic way and putting them on
Speaker 8: band camp just for me, just for fun, because it's
Speaker 8: something I like doing, it's something I want to work at.
Speaker 8: And there was no expectation of, you know, it becoming
Speaker 8: what it eventually did. But I think that was good.
Speaker 8: I didn't. I think it can be very defeating if
Speaker 8: you if you really want to do something and you
Speaker 8: really care about you know, music, and you're like dying
Speaker 8: to do it for your life, and you get old enough,
Speaker 8: we get to reach a point where you say, this
Speaker 8: is not going to be more than, you know, just
Speaker 8: a hobby and something that I love doing. It's I'm
Speaker 8: gonna have to work at something else.
Speaker 1: You thought you'd get the disappointment out of the way early, Yeah, like.
Speaker 8: Crush it before. Like I'm not gonna like spend years
Speaker 8: of my life hoping crush it. Crush it early, you know,
Speaker 8: and then if it happens great, it doesn't mean you
Speaker 8: have to stop. I think that you know, being realistic
Speaker 8: about it. I think it is to an extent. I think,
Speaker 8: you know, being real about your chances at success. It's
Speaker 8: not about whether you're good it's something it's not. It's
Speaker 8: just about if something you have to say is of
Speaker 8: the moment, honestly, and it's it's a little bit of
Speaker 8: luck and it's a lot of hard work. You can
Speaker 8: do all that hard work and still be saying, you know,
Speaker 8: I need to get a job.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: But then what what was the impulse to put stuff
Speaker 1: up on band camp?
Speaker 8: I think it was just for fun. Honestly, I got
Speaker 8: like a back to the task that point. I was
Speaker 8: not in a band. I've never really been in a
Speaker 8: band besides my very young two piece childhood band. But
Speaker 8: I just wanted to, you know, I was writing songs
Speaker 8: and I got for I think for Christmas or something.
Speaker 8: My dad gave me one of the Porta Studio task
Speaker 8: ams that is digital, which makes it really easy to
Speaker 8: transfer to using the tape one because they're very similar,
Speaker 8: but it's a digital one, which those are really great.
Speaker 8: They have like internal mics and them, so you can
Speaker 8: just record with it onto there and go for it.
Speaker 8: You can sing into the into the thing, you can
Speaker 8: pop it in front.
Speaker 1: Of your You could have done all that just with
Speaker 1: garage band though, or yeah you could.
Speaker 8: But I like working on not a computer. I don't
Speaker 8: really like. I don't know why something about the computer.
Speaker 8: There's too many options of things to do to something.
Speaker 8: I'm like, let's just get the raw sound sounding pretty,
Speaker 8: you know, pretty good. Let's see if we can make
Speaker 8: it away that we like to hear it and deal
Speaker 8: with it, because I think I get I get crazy
Speaker 8: if I start pulling up eques and all this stuff.
Speaker 8: I start losing my mind.
Speaker 1: See it's nice. Having scarcity is good.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think so. I mean at the time, I
Speaker 8: just wanted to get the songs in a place where
Speaker 8: somebody could listen to them, not in this you know,
Speaker 8: produced type of space. I just wanted to do something
Speaker 8: really simple, pop them up and kind of have them
Speaker 8: for me, like, you know, these songs are more than
Speaker 8: just something I played for a while and then never
Speaker 8: thought of again after a couple of years.
Speaker 1: How many tracks would be on those early.
Speaker 8: I'd usually pop like four or five onto a drop,
Speaker 8: so to speak. I deleted a lot of them at
Speaker 8: this point, but I kept up some of the stuff
Speaker 8: where I was like a little bit more, had been
Speaker 8: doing it a little more and was a little more
Speaker 8: proud of it, and kind of felt like, oh, I'm
Speaker 8: going to put up like something that feels more like
Speaker 8: an EP or something rather than just throwing things up
Speaker 8: really quick, because I would turn it around. I'd record something,
Speaker 8: you know, put it into the computer and just throw
Speaker 8: it on the internet, just because I was like excited
Speaker 8: about it, I guess. But yeah, once people were listening,
Speaker 8: I was like, let's get that old stuff hid in
Speaker 8: a way.
Speaker 1: The early years you only have early years. Of course
Speaker 1: you're twenty six, so twenty seven.
Speaker 8: Well getting up there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're early. You're over it now.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the great things about listening to all your music,
Speaker 1: but this record particularly, is you know, there are those
Speaker 1: writers who the guitar is a vehicle for their songs.
Speaker 1: Like I need to say something, guitar or a piano
Speaker 1: is the way to do it. And then there are
Speaker 1: people who just like guitar sounds and who the sound
Speaker 1: of it kind of drives them. And a lot of
Speaker 1: the bands I grew up listening to, like, particularly Well
Speaker 1: Ram the Smiths particularly, fall into that category. They just
Speaker 1: they clearly just love the sound of a guitar and
Speaker 1: that's what drives the sort of songs. When did you
Speaker 1: get your first electric I think I.
Speaker 8: Was even or eight. I got one of those baby
Speaker 8: strats you may have seen. I had a baby strat,
Speaker 8: And yeah, honestly, I prefer electric in the long run.
Speaker 8: I write with acoustic though usually just because you know,
Speaker 8: I'm just sitting there playing guitar. It's easier to hear
Speaker 8: things with an acoustic but I do, just I do
Speaker 8: love the sounds. I think that if you're going to
Speaker 8: go in the studio and record something. Why not be
Speaker 8: particular about everything, every sound you're making, everything that you're recording,
Speaker 8: and you can make something simple and also put a
Speaker 8: lot of thought and effort into the sounds of everything.
Speaker 8: And that's like you only get to do that every
Speaker 8: couple of years, go in and record, Like you got
Speaker 8: to make the most of it.
Speaker 1: Now, are you? Are you the kind that that fiddles
Speaker 1: with you have to have absolutely the right pedal and
Speaker 1: this isn't quite right you know that has all the
Speaker 1: kind of paraphernalia that goes with it.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, definitely. I think that you've got to get
Speaker 8: into that kind of stuff really, Like, you know, there
Speaker 8: there are some sounds that, like even on this album,
Speaker 8: for example, like electric guitar sounds. A lot of my
Speaker 8: rhythm tracks are very simple. It's just like through a
Speaker 8: old like twin amp and it's got some reverb on it.
Speaker 8: But when you're getting down to you know, more out
Speaker 8: front like riffs and lines and you know, textures and
Speaker 8: all this kind of stuff, you've got to take your
Speaker 8: time on it because you're never just gonna pop on
Speaker 8: your pedal and get something that's the most inspiring thing
Speaker 8: in the world. You have to keep changing things and
Speaker 8: messing with things and make sure you're throughout an album
Speaker 8: that you have an idea for how you want everything
Speaker 8: to sound. But you also have to change things song
Speaker 8: to song. You can't just you know, set up all
Speaker 8: the settings and record something. Otherwise it's every song is
Speaker 8: gonna have the same sound to it.
Speaker 1: Is there anything new you used on this album that
Speaker 1: you found particularly.
Speaker 8: Exciting, Yeah, there was a lot of There's a lot
Speaker 8: of news. It was a new studio, so all of
Speaker 8: the like outboard gear is basically new. We did a
Speaker 8: lot of stuff with the Aged three thousand. I'm pretty
Speaker 8: sure we used a lot of stuff off of that.
Speaker 8: I was using a von Gone pedal called Ultra Shear
Speaker 8: a lot just for really simple like REAVERB you know,
Speaker 8: vibrato type sounds. That's really nice. It sounds very spring
Speaker 8: like and it's really pretty. So was that there was
Speaker 8: a lot of H nine's in the studio that were happening.
Speaker 8: So there's a lot of that, a lot of H
Speaker 8: nine chorus going on between everybody, but mostly Julian I
Speaker 8: would say.
Speaker 1: Hello, you didn't you play all? You played all the
Speaker 1: guitars on this record, not all of them.
Speaker 8: There's there's the guys around that too. Julian and Rodrigo
Speaker 8: has a little bit of he's he's doing some guitar
Speaker 8: and twelve string is usually Rodrigo because I hate twelve string.
Speaker 8: It's like the most frustrating instrument in the entire world.
Speaker 8: So he did a lot of the twelve string.
Speaker 1: Do you play a twelve string electric?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 8: I just think it's it's so annoying, it's so unbelievably annoyed.
Speaker 8: They sound really cool, but I would rather have somebody
Speaker 8: else have to deal with it than me. Just so
Speaker 8: much tuning and my I feel like my ear gets
Speaker 8: really sensitive at a certain point if I'm trying to
Speaker 8: mess around with something that much. So, yeah, he's playing
Speaker 8: some twelve string. Julian's playing a lot of like chorus
Speaker 8: y guitar lines because we do some some live taking.
Speaker 8: You know, there's a mixture of live takes and getting
Speaker 8: kind of drums and bass down and building on top
Speaker 8: of that, and a lot of pre production too. That
Speaker 8: was kind of meshing in by the end and coming
Speaker 8: in and saying this is here, We're gonna get rid
Speaker 8: of this. We're going to get rid of that, you know,
Speaker 8: kind of moving stuff around.
Speaker 1: Do you like that process?
Speaker 9: I do.
Speaker 8: I love it. I love being able to make something
Speaker 8: really exciting. I never do it at home. I never
Speaker 8: do it on my own, but it's like so much
Speaker 8: fun to be able to make something sound just like
Speaker 8: exactly how you would want it to sound, and build
Speaker 8: dynamics and all that kind of stuff. I think it's
Speaker 8: really important.
Speaker 2: After this last break, we'll be back with the rest
Speaker 2: of Bruce Helm's conversation with Soccer Mommy. We're back with
Speaker 2: Soccer Mommy.
Speaker 1: This is terrible to admit, but sometimes, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: go on YouTube and I'll watch guys talking about this
Speaker 1: pedal or that pedal and the sounds they get out
Speaker 1: of this, and honestly, everything sounds the same to me.
Speaker 1: That's a terrible thing to admit. I appreciate on records
Speaker 1: it's going to sound different, but often the sounds just
Speaker 1: seem the difference to seem minuscule to me, And I
Speaker 1: think if that were me, i'd be like, I don't
Speaker 1: have time for this.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that does similar things,
Speaker 8: I think for sure, but you can for you. I
Speaker 8: think it's I just think with any pedal, especially if
Speaker 8: you're gonna like watch a video or watch someone else
Speaker 8: use it, you have to use it yourself and see
Speaker 8: how you like it, because I think there's a lot
Speaker 8: of you know, there's always a lot of editing you
Speaker 8: can do on the pedal to find different ideas. And
Speaker 8: I think something that's fun in the studio too is
Speaker 8: being able to mess with a lot of pedals that
Speaker 8: you would never or at least I would never be
Speaker 8: using live. If you're playing like rhythm guitar chords and stuff,
Speaker 8: you're not going to be using certain things that you
Speaker 8: can then get really get weird with when you're in
Speaker 8: the studio. I think, like my favorite weird pedal is
Speaker 8: the microcosm by what are they called Hologram. Hologram has
Speaker 8: some great stuff.
Speaker 1: Did you use that on this album?
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 8: I didn't use it on guitar, I don't think from
Speaker 8: my memory. I used it with a vocal mic, putting
Speaker 8: it into the pedal, and it's like it kind of
Speaker 8: makes loops, but they're like weird, very affected loops that
Speaker 8: have you know, there's different options and different you know,
Speaker 8: things that you can parameters, you can mess with, but
Speaker 8: it's really great for making weird vocal loops, like you
Speaker 8: can sing into it and you can turn the like
Speaker 8: you know, the thing all the way up wet and
Speaker 8: just have no none of the dry signal really still
Speaker 8: in there and get these weird like echoed like vocal
Speaker 8: like humming sounds that kind of make ambient textures.
Speaker 1: Where did you use that on the on this record?
Speaker 8: It's un lost. It's just like a ambiance in the
Speaker 8: entire background where I like, I'm doing some humming that
Speaker 8: kind of, you know, makes these like ghostly kind of sounds,
Speaker 8: and then adding like whistling for sounds like birds a
Speaker 8: little bit on the loops and stuff like that. And
Speaker 8: I think on changes too, there's a there's a lot
Speaker 8: of that that kind of makes this like dreamy, atmospheric
Speaker 8: type of sound. I think that's the only two where
Speaker 8: it's really coming out.
Speaker 1: So I do want to talk about a couple of
Speaker 1: the songs Driver, which starts with the great line I'm
Speaker 1: a five foot four engine waiting to move. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that song. It's got a great, very interesting melody,
Speaker 1: big jumps in that for just like a major seventh,
Speaker 1: I think, or something big vocal jumps, So tell me
Speaker 1: about that song.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that one is That's one of the ones that
Speaker 8: is not kind of in the context of I guess
Speaker 8: the entire album, but it's just like kind of a
Speaker 8: fun one for me. I think I'm very spacey and
Speaker 8: very all over the place a lot of the time.
Speaker 8: And my partner is very grounding and you know, not
Speaker 8: really as much like that, but really puts up with
Speaker 8: it and tries to keep me on track with certain things.
Speaker 8: And I think that's a really beautiful thing, and I
Speaker 8: wanted to make it, you know, take one of these examples,
Speaker 8: like driving. I can't count how many times I've been
Speaker 8: driving and completely started going towards something that is not
Speaker 8: where I'm going and realize literally, yeah, literally when I'm
Speaker 8: driving driving down the road and pass my turn way
Speaker 8: back and I don't even know where my brain has
Speaker 8: decided we're going now, and kind of having someone in
Speaker 8: the car to say, hey, which what root are you
Speaker 8: taking right now? You know, which where are we going?
Speaker 8: And being able to be brought back a little bit.
Speaker 8: It's it's like, you know, such a goofy little little piece,
Speaker 8: but it's I think it really pulls that that feeling
Speaker 8: of like having someone with you to ground you and
Speaker 8: you know, be that other half a little bit.
Speaker 1: Hello. Arguably you're doing in the car just what you
Speaker 1: do with the with the guitar, which is your messinger.
Speaker 1: You're just just just wandering in a close state. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: isn't that true?
Speaker 8: Pretty much? I do think so. I think it's like
Speaker 8: you're just looking for just going in whatever direction it
Speaker 8: takes you and looking for something exciting.
Speaker 1: And some sunny day talk about that one.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Actually, I wasn't sure if I was going to
Speaker 8: bring that one into the studio, which seems crazy to
Speaker 8: me now because I love how it turned out. But
Speaker 8: that was one of the first songs we worked on
Speaker 8: in the studio when we did like pre production, and
Speaker 8: it really just kind of quickly took off and it
Speaker 8: was so obvious where it was going to go, and
Speaker 8: you know where it was going to lead In response
Speaker 8: to the rest of the album. I think it's really
Speaker 8: important to find those sonic ideas early on and then
Speaker 8: be able to spread them across the album and kind
Speaker 8: of figure out what you're wanting to do and do it.
Speaker 8: And that was really instrumental I think for me personally,
Speaker 8: it really has that lightness and that airiness, and it's
Speaker 8: a little bit dreamy and it's soft, but it's also
Speaker 8: kind of like it's like dreamy and when you look
Speaker 8: at like a dream filter and there's a lot of
Speaker 8: light and it's kind of like hazy but like blinding
Speaker 8: a little bit. And Yeah, it was really exciting for
Speaker 8: me with that song because I think that I was
Speaker 8: unsure of how it would work with how many parts
Speaker 8: there are. There's a lot of chords going on, and
Speaker 8: there's a lot of sections that are different from each other. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and I think sometimes blending those together can be difficult
Speaker 8: in a studio setting, even if you can sit and
Speaker 8: play it, going from part to part and making each
Speaker 8: one feel special and interesting can be hard. But it
Speaker 8: was seamless, was there.
Speaker 1: Every temptation will take out this one, idea, will take
Speaker 1: out the middle eight will.
Speaker 8: No, no, I never will compromise.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 8: There are certain things I would you know, in a
Speaker 8: studio setting with a song edits that can be made, like,
Speaker 8: you know, let's shorten this part. It's half this part
Speaker 8: blah blah blah. But I think with a song like that,
Speaker 8: every section it's so important and you can't cut it
Speaker 8: in half really they're just like the weight that they're
Speaker 8: laid out. It just wouldn't make sense, I think in
Speaker 8: my brain at least to chop anything down. It like
Speaker 8: all goes into the flow of everything.
Speaker 1: Was that a song you wrote in bits and pieces
Speaker 1: as well and then joined or did you write it
Speaker 1: as a coherent whole.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 8: I wrote it as a whole, And I remember thinking
Speaker 8: this is like I could hear it in my head
Speaker 8: kind of what I was going to want out of it.
Speaker 8: But I was trying to imagine if it was going
Speaker 8: to be something that would feel really clunky. But I
Speaker 8: ended up taking it in because I really liked it
Speaker 8: and found it exciting. I'm always excited by a song.
Speaker 8: And it has lots of different chord changes and turnarounds
Speaker 8: that kind of bring everything from one place to another
Speaker 8: and blend it in that kind of way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got a very nice descending figure in the
Speaker 1: in the chorus.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that song.
Speaker 1: But really, and you're right, it stretched out so when
Speaker 1: it comes it's very very satisfying.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then what's the song about.
Speaker 8: It's just kind of about feeling, you know, all of
Speaker 8: this darkness surrounding the sadness and feeling kind of like
Speaker 8: you're drowning in it a little bit and looking around
Speaker 8: and not seeing I guess, the hope in the way out,
Speaker 8: but clinging to the idea of positivity. I guess, like
Speaker 8: having this shred of positivity and being like, you know,
Speaker 8: this is not all there is, this is not all
Speaker 8: there will ever be, and I know that it just
Speaker 8: doesn't feel like it in the moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to you keep saying how you want
Speaker 1: to lightness in this record, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: references to light in your lyrics, and that one is
Speaker 1: the trick of the Light Won't Keep Me Down. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a very nice light keep me warm.
Speaker 1: Pardon me, I can't read my own writing. Trick of
Speaker 1: the Light won't keep Me warm? What image did that?
Speaker 1: How did that come.
Speaker 8: For me? It was like the image of laying in bed,
Speaker 8: you know, tired, worn down, no motivation to do anything,
Speaker 8: and seeing like shadows and tricks tricks of the light,
Speaker 8: like shapes kind of just stretched out on the ceiling
Speaker 8: from lamps and the light outside and all this kind
Speaker 8: of stuff, and kind of letting your imagination run free
Speaker 8: a little bit, or like even just a feeling of
Speaker 8: I think a lot of us have experienced, you know,
Speaker 8: being at night and thinking you see a shadow in
Speaker 8: the corner and it's scaring you. But that kind of
Speaker 8: feeling but almost like in a you know, you can
Speaker 8: convince yourself that something is something else even if you
Speaker 8: know it's not. It's like a bit of a trick
Speaker 8: on your brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know if you did, if you grew
Speaker 1: up in a house with a lot of trees around,
Speaker 1: but that's always when I was growing up, we had
Speaker 1: a lot of window, we had a lot of trees,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, having the trees always sway in the breeze,
Speaker 1: it just creates this effect inside you just think there's
Speaker 1: always something there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it just creates a feeling of you're not alone.
Speaker 8: And I feel that a lot of the time. Like
Speaker 8: I'm not a religious person, but I do sometimes you
Speaker 8: can just feel like energy sometimes around you, I think,
Speaker 8: and especially if you lose someone, I think it can
Speaker 8: be comforting to feel their energy still in places or
Speaker 8: in actions things you do. Feeling that the kind of
Speaker 8: ghost of that it's not haunting in a bad way.
Speaker 8: It's like a positive feeling of you know, even if
Speaker 8: somebody is gone, there's always parts of people left around
Speaker 8: the world that just kind of remind you of a
Speaker 8: certain person. You can feel that again.
Speaker 1: Very different song is Dreaming of Falling, which seems a
Speaker 1: little more suicidal.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a little it's a little more off the edge.
Speaker 8: I think I actually had COVID when I wrote that song,
Speaker 8: and I was very sick, and I think that added
Speaker 8: a sense of impending doom to the situation. But yeah,
Speaker 8: it really was a moment of like, I don't care,
Speaker 8: there is no looking forward, and there is, you know,
Speaker 8: being stuck in this place of being needing to move forward,
Speaker 8: needing to move on with your life, and not even
Speaker 8: just needing to you are because there's no other possibility,
Speaker 8: and also clinging to the past, which you can never
Speaker 8: go back to you and even if you could, it
Speaker 8: would it wouldn't be, you know, there anymore waiting for you.
Speaker 8: So it's yeah, that kind of stuck, purgatory feeling of
Speaker 8: being stuck in between two things and hating change. But
Speaker 8: also there's no choice in taking the change or not
Speaker 8: taking it. It's no option.
Speaker 1: It also feels a little bit like wanting to end.
Speaker 8: It all though no, definitely it's got this horrible feeling
Speaker 8: of the rest of life is less in a sense,
Speaker 8: which I think is something that I've always struggled with.
Speaker 8: I think with losing things or losing bits from the past,
Speaker 8: and even simple stuff like growing up and moving on
Speaker 8: from people in a not you know, not difficult way,
Speaker 8: but just naturally and looking back and seeing that you
Speaker 8: don't have these things anymore and that your life is
Speaker 8: kind of ever changing, and it's like, I think, with
Speaker 8: a situation like that, it can feel very much like
Speaker 8: you're just on a new path now in life and
Speaker 8: you have to do it and there's no choices, and
Speaker 8: you know, it's depressing. It's a depressing idea to not
Speaker 8: have the uh, I guess control over over your life
Speaker 8: a little bit and over changes and over making decisions
Speaker 8: and letting those things happen slowly and naturally. I think
Speaker 8: when there's usually change in your life, it fades and
Speaker 8: it moves and you don't even realize when it's happened.
Speaker 8: And in as such a situation like that, it's like
Speaker 8: sudden and you're just cut off from where you were
Speaker 8: and you're changed as a person, but you can't there's
Speaker 8: no going back to the old person you were, and
Speaker 8: there's also you know, you don't really want to let
Speaker 8: go of.
Speaker 1: It either, but you see someone who you know. You've
Speaker 1: put out a lot of demos, live records, You've put
Speaker 1: out a new album every two years, which these days
Speaker 1: is a healthy pace. You went to school in New York.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about that. You went to NYU for
Speaker 1: a couple of years and studied music business, and you
Speaker 1: seem to make a lot of like did your parents
Speaker 1: help you with contracts and lawyers or because you you know,
Speaker 1: you were signed very early, someone else would look at
Speaker 1: you and say, here's a person who really, you know,
Speaker 1: took control of the situation at a very young age.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 8: I think honestly, I wasn't very I didn't realize what
Speaker 8: I was getting into. I think when I started, when
Speaker 8: I first did a record deal with Fat Bossom, I
Speaker 8: didn't really realize that it was going to be a career.
Speaker 8: I was still thinking I took time off from school,
Speaker 8: I didn't even drop out. I was thinking, I'm going
Speaker 8: to go back, I'm just going to go do a
Speaker 8: fun tour. It's going to be great. I was thinking
Speaker 8: it was gonna be very different than what it ended
Speaker 8: up being. I'm glad it ended up being what it was,
Speaker 8: but I was not. I was not expecting it and
Speaker 8: I was not prepared for it. I did. When I
Speaker 8: first signed my deal with contract, it was a very
Speaker 8: simple deal. I didn't have a lot of pages and
Speaker 8: legal language for you yeah, basically train over your soul.
Speaker 8: I had my dad found like a friend of a friend,
Speaker 8: a friend who's a lawyer, who like looked over it
Speaker 8: for like fifteen minutes. I was like, yeah, this is all,
Speaker 8: you know, normal, Like it's this is all what it means.
Speaker 8: It's pretty pretty normal for something like this, and I
Speaker 8: signed it and went for it. It was a short deal.
Speaker 4: It was only.
Speaker 8: One record really. It was like a collection thing that
Speaker 8: I did called Collection of band Camp Songs. We recorded
Speaker 8: with a little, very very little money into it, and
Speaker 8: then my first album Clean. So it was very short
Speaker 8: deal and I was out of it really quick, free
Speaker 8: to go, you know, do whatever I wanted. At that point,
Speaker 8: I had my own lawyer when I signed my next deal,
Speaker 8: so I didn't have to I didn't have to sign much.
Speaker 8: I didn't I didn't need a lot of help in
Speaker 8: that department. I think what made me be kind of
Speaker 8: level headed about things. Is that I was always like
Speaker 8: this is I was still in the headspace of this
Speaker 8: is not like your dream is not coming true a
Speaker 8: little bit. You know, it's like you're gonna get to tour.
Speaker 8: That's great. Like only only focus on things that are definites,
Speaker 8: I guess, and rather than getting lost in what could
Speaker 8: be or what someone could offer you. I think because
Speaker 8: a lot of people signed to labels that tell them
Speaker 8: all these things they can do for them and give
Speaker 8: them these huge dreams and ideas of what they could
Speaker 8: be that are like far beyond their reach at the
Speaker 8: current moment. You know, it's like we could turn you
Speaker 8: into this a little bit. And I think getting in
Speaker 8: over your head is always a bad idea. I think
Speaker 8: because you just you are the one who's going to
Speaker 8: do everything for yourself at the end of the day.
Speaker 8: Like if you get big, it's because you worked really
Speaker 8: hard at writing music and you wrote a song that
Speaker 8: was great and then there was all the help of
Speaker 8: the press and all of that. But you have to
Speaker 8: be driving it, I think, and if you're not, no
Speaker 8: label can take you and just like poof turn you
Speaker 8: into like a star or something. It's not like a
Speaker 8: fairy tale. You still have to work at things and
Speaker 8: you have to grind, and that's really how you get somewhere.
Speaker 1: Did you hear promises like that from labels?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I definitely definitely talk labels before where it was
Speaker 8: like a lot of big ideas. I think at the
Speaker 8: time with fat Posum, it was not big ideas. It
Speaker 8: was like, we want to do this in this and
Speaker 8: it was like great small team, you know. They they
Speaker 8: were dedicated to trying to like make my stuff take off.
Speaker 8: But there weren't any crazy promises and I didn't have
Speaker 8: crazy ideas in my head. I was just like, I'll
Speaker 8: give one hundred and ten percent of anything I have
Speaker 8: to doing this and if it takes me somewhere, great.
Speaker 8: If it doesn't, I'm never gonna regret it. I'm just gonna,
Speaker 8: you know, see things for how they are a little
Speaker 8: bit that not everybody makes it.
Speaker 1: Are you more accepting of the idea now?
Speaker 8: Now? I accept it's my career. I do not have
Speaker 8: to do another job currently.
Speaker 1: Do you think you'll ever have to do another job
Speaker 1: or you think you'll be able to make music?
Speaker 8: I think about that all the time. I wouldn't be
Speaker 8: surprised if I did I just don't. I don't think
Speaker 8: I have what it takes to be like someone who's
Speaker 8: shooting for like the very very very top. I used
Speaker 8: to think that. I just don't think I actually want that. Now,
Speaker 8: you know, you can want to be as successful as
Speaker 8: possible with your music and be ambitious about music and
Speaker 8: not care about the industry and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 8: and it can be very damaging to people. I think, so,
Speaker 8: I don't think I would necessarily ever be in a
Speaker 8: place where I'm like getting number ones top of the charts,
Speaker 8: like doing all this kind of stuff. I wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 8: say no to it, but I wouldn't want to fight
Speaker 8: for it anymore. And I do think about when I'm fifty,
Speaker 8: what will I be doing. So I save my money
Speaker 8: and release some of it and just try to, I
Speaker 8: don't know, keep getting to do what I want to do,
Speaker 8: but not pushing myself into a place where it's not
Speaker 8: fun anymore, and not you know what I want to
Speaker 8: be doing. I'm making compromises. I don't think you should
Speaker 8: ever compromise what you want to make in art. I
Speaker 8: think if you do your like starting the Fall, you're
Speaker 8: like gonna lose if you start changing yourself for what
Speaker 8: other people want or for what the world thinks they want.
Speaker 8: I think you're just going to be losing.
Speaker 1: You know, you toured with Liz Fair, and I don't
Speaker 1: know how much time you spent with her.
Speaker 8: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 1: But she is a person who kind of, like you,
Speaker 1: had these little tapes that kind of just exploded, and
Speaker 1: she became this very powerful symbol for people. And then
Speaker 1: a couple albums in her record label said write with
Speaker 1: these other people, and she, like you didn't write with
Speaker 1: other people. She wrote by herself, and she got eviscerated
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My old employer of The New York Times wrote a
Speaker 1: piece that was just made it seem like she, I
Speaker 1: don't know, betrayed the nation or something, Yeah, betrayed her fans.
Speaker 1: Did you ever talk to her about like her career
Speaker 1: trajectory and what people expected of her.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't.
Speaker 8: I didn't really, but I obviously know a bit about
Speaker 8: her career, and I think there there is a beauty
Speaker 8: to like kind of where she's at in life too.
Speaker 8: You know, she's still making records, and I feel like
Speaker 8: she's just making them for herself. She's doing what she
Speaker 8: wants to do, and that's where I want to be
Speaker 8: when i'm you know, when I'm fifty, I want to
Speaker 8: be making what I want to make and being able
Speaker 8: to literally live off of it. I don't want to,
Speaker 8: you know, I don't need to be like this huge
Speaker 8: star for my life. I don't think that's not something
Speaker 8: that I think is worth giving up your happiness. And
Speaker 8: you do lose that. I think if you try too
Speaker 8: hard to please other people, and you try too hard
Speaker 8: to do things that are not true to yourself, you
Speaker 8: lose like you're happy meaness and you end up in
Speaker 8: a place where you just aren't happy.
Speaker 1: So you don't want to buy Michael Jackson's old ranch
Speaker 1: or no anything like that.
Speaker 8: I mean, hey, if I get there, i'd I'd love
Speaker 8: to buy myself a big ranch or buy myself you know,
Speaker 8: like something. I have no problem with it. I just
Speaker 8: think you have to be very true to what you
Speaker 8: want to do, and it's okay to not be comfortable
Speaker 8: with all of the parts of the the industry. I
Speaker 8: think we really love as a like society. Everybody loves
Speaker 8: to look at people like even like Chapel Roone. I
Speaker 8: feel like it's been talking about it a lot. But
Speaker 8: and you look at these people talking about it and
Speaker 8: you're like, that's so great that they're saying something that's
Speaker 8: so great. But people still want the same things from you,
Speaker 8: and they're still going to ask for the same things.
Speaker 8: And if you say no to doing certain things or
Speaker 8: to you know, being involved in certain parts of the world,
Speaker 8: if you pass on things, it does hurt your career,
Speaker 8: it doesn't help it. But it's a balance of like,
Speaker 8: just because this is how the world is and the
Speaker 8: industry is, it doesn't mean you have to decide you're
Speaker 8: willing to do it. You still have choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know it occurs to me. If you
Speaker 1: grew up in Detroit in the sixties and we're talking
Speaker 1: this way, I would say, well, did you listen to
Speaker 1: Marvin Gaye in Motown and you grew up in Nashville
Speaker 1: in early two thousands, Taylor Swift must have been everywhere.
Speaker 8: Yeah, she was.
Speaker 1: Were you a fan growing up?
Speaker 9: I was?
Speaker 8: I was a fan growing up. I was a fan
Speaker 8: when her first album came out. I remember my dad
Speaker 8: gave me that on his iPod video that's the time period,
Speaker 8: just to set the same for everybody. And I loved
Speaker 8: that album and then I loved like when Fearless was
Speaker 8: coming out, I loved some of that, but I was
Speaker 8: also like kind of a I was a tomboy and
Speaker 8: I kind of I think for a lot of what
Speaker 8: was middle school for me, I was a bit like
Speaker 8: I don't like music like that, like like I'm cooler
Speaker 8: than that a little bit, and which was stupid because
Speaker 8: I love it. And by the times in high school
Speaker 8: I was like, no, I love this, this is great.
Speaker 8: So I am a Taylor Scheff fan.
Speaker 1: Have you ever met her?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 8: Actually I met her one time at it was not
Speaker 8: through this, It was not through music world. It was
Speaker 8: I was in high school. I went to a performing
Speaker 8: arts high school and they got some of the guitar
Speaker 8: students to come take a photo off at the opening
Speaker 8: of her like learning center at the Country Music Hall
Speaker 8: of Fame, And so we took a photo me and
Speaker 8: a couple other students with her.
Speaker 1: Were you holding your guitars or no, We're just.
Speaker 8: It's just like students music students.
Speaker 1: Standing there local. Yeah, Okay. Is she the kind of
Speaker 1: star and not every start is? Is she the kind
Speaker 1: of star that makes people want to pick up a
Speaker 1: guitar and do it themselves.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think so when I was young, I think definitely.
Speaker 8: I can't speak to it now always much because I'm
Speaker 8: in a different place in my life and I don't
Speaker 8: know if I can speak to that kind of inspiration.
Speaker 8: But when I was younger, I think definitely seeing someone
Speaker 8: like her, like when her first album came out, even
Speaker 8: who's writing her songs and is sitting there playing guitar
Speaker 8: and singing and it's just a normal girl. Really, it
Speaker 8: was very inspirational and the songs really spoke to I
Speaker 8: think a lot of young girls like my age. I
Speaker 8: think it was speaking to everybody. And they're just also
Speaker 8: super catchy, super poppy, like kind of immaculate songs they have.
Speaker 8: They have a lot of thought behind them, you know,
Speaker 8: they're not just something that someone wrote really quickly and
Speaker 8: popped out. So yeah, I think it was definitely really important.
Speaker 8: I don't think that there was a lot of that
Speaker 8: going on where it was an artist that felt like
Speaker 8: they were writing their music and not like they were
Speaker 8: just a pop star that was getting thrown songs a
Speaker 8: little bit and kind of doing that, which there's nothing
Speaker 8: with that either, But I think it was very inspirational
Speaker 8: at the time.
Speaker 1: Now, you've never written with anyone else, Is that right?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I haven't because that's.
Speaker 1: A big part of sort of the Nashville culture. You
Speaker 1: phone someone and at ten o'clock you meet and you
Speaker 1: write for two hours. Have you have you ever been
Speaker 1: asked to do that by label or.
Speaker 8: I haven't been asked by label. I've been asked by
Speaker 8: people if I want to write with them, and it's
Speaker 8: I don't. I just can't imagine who could make me
Speaker 8: want to write with them, Like, I can't imagine what
Speaker 8: level of like idle it would have to be for
Speaker 8: me to want to do that. I just I think
Speaker 8: writing for me is very personal and it's very like private,
Speaker 8: and I would feel really uncomfortable. I've like had friends
Speaker 8: when I was in high school They're like, let's write
Speaker 8: a song together, and would like try to do it,
Speaker 8: and I would just be like checked out. I just can't.
Speaker 8: I can't work like that. I don't know. It feels
Speaker 8: very awkward, and you know, just I don't want to
Speaker 8: compromise with anyone. If I'm working on a song, I'm
Speaker 8: working on making something I want to make. I don't
Speaker 8: want to compromise. I don't want to work with somebody else.
Speaker 8: I don't want their idea in there if I don't
Speaker 8: like it. So yeah, I don't know. I get why
Speaker 8: some people do it. It makes a lot of good music,
Speaker 8: but I just I can't.
Speaker 1: No, you say it's so private what you do? Is
Speaker 1: it hard then presenting your stuff to your band?
Speaker 8: No, Honestly, by the time that the band hears the songs,
Speaker 8: they've been done for a while, like they've been demoed
Speaker 8: for like a minute, I think, and it gives you
Speaker 8: time to decide whether you're asshirt on it. I think
Speaker 8: when you're writing, it's such a private process because you're
Speaker 8: making mistakes. You're thinking of an idea and saying, oh,
Speaker 8: I hate that. I think that's embarrassing that I even
Speaker 8: thought of that. You know, I don't. I don't like
Speaker 8: that idea, scrap it. And I think if you're writing
Speaker 8: with someone else, it'd feel very vulnerable to make those
Speaker 8: kind of mistakes and have things to say that aren't good,
Speaker 8: because that's what you know in writing. You're not going
Speaker 8: to just write everything beautifully and great on the first try.
Speaker 8: And it's weird to share someone with someone like the
Speaker 8: draft process.
Speaker 1: I think, although you know for a lot of people
Speaker 1: that feeling of vulnerability stops them from writing altogether. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you ever had trouble writing?
Speaker 8: No? I think I've just been doing it so long.
Speaker 8: It's thoughtless. Honestly. You know, when I sit down to
Speaker 8: write a song, I'm not even thinking necessarily that I'm
Speaker 8: going to write a song. It's just going to come,
Speaker 8: or it's not going to come. But I do think
Speaker 8: that it's stopped me from sharing my songwriting for a
Speaker 8: long time, and it stopped me from pursuing that kind
Speaker 8: of you know, you see people, even when I was
Speaker 8: in high schoo people recording their songs and like making
Speaker 8: a CD and printing it out and selling it and
Speaker 8: like publicizing it. And I never wanted to do that
Speaker 8: because it was embarrassing to write a song. You know,
Speaker 8: you say a bunch of stuff, and if you're gonna
Speaker 8: be honest, it's like really a peek into your mind
Speaker 8: a bit, and if somebody doesn't like it, it can
Speaker 8: be so embarrassing. Making art is like one of the
Speaker 8: most embarrassing things that you could ever do, I think.
Speaker 8: But that's why it can be so you know, satisfying
Speaker 8: and can really break down a lot of walls.
Speaker 1: Well, at the risk of embarrassing you. The line and
Speaker 1: dreaming of falling that really stuck out for me was
Speaker 1: seeing the light is an awful trick when I've been
Speaker 1: going when I keep going down. So what was what
Speaker 1: prompted that?
Speaker 8: I think it's kind of a flip from a lot
Speaker 8: of other moments on the record where there's like this
Speaker 8: idea of trying to be positive and be not even hopeful,
Speaker 8: but just cling to these beautiful things, you know, when
Speaker 8: you're feeling all this sadness, realizing that it's a balance
Speaker 8: and it's not one thing, it's all of these things,
Speaker 8: and kind of remembering that memories and painful moments don't
Speaker 8: have to be just awful. They can be reminders too
Speaker 8: in a nice way. And I think in this moment
Speaker 8: it was like that, you know, seeing the lights, seeing
Speaker 8: this like warmth, and trying to have this reminder of
Speaker 8: like the beauty of things is just like a knife
Speaker 8: a little bit. It's not you know, it doesn't feel helpful.
Speaker 8: It feels just like a reminder of what's not there anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a very powerful line. It reminded me a little
Speaker 1: of do you ever see the documentary The Bridge? It's
Speaker 1: about the Golden Gate Bridge, and they set up cameras
Speaker 1: before they put up the protections. It makes it harder
Speaker 1: for people to jump off the bridge. I think about
Speaker 1: fifty people used to jump every year. So you'll actually
Speaker 1: see a little splash of water on one of these
Speaker 1: distant cameras, and then they'll try and find the person's
Speaker 1: family and talk to them about it. But there's and famously,
Speaker 1: one guy jumped off the Golden gate Bridge who survived.
Speaker 1: And when you talk to him and he gives speeches
Speaker 1: and stuff about this, it's really you know, he was
Speaker 1: a drug addict, he was having a tough life and
Speaker 1: he jumped and he said the middle the minute he
Speaker 1: jumped out in his foot left all he could think.
Speaker 1: It was like I don't want to do this, like
Speaker 1: I want to live. But he now he ended up living.
Speaker 1: But you just wonder how many people sort of go
Speaker 1: through that when they jump. I don't know, that's even
Speaker 1: more morbid than your song, I think, so. I don't
Speaker 1: know why it reminded me of that, but it just
Speaker 1: brought that image fact to me. I do want to
Speaker 1: ask you about a couple more songs of Salt and
Speaker 1: Wound and Anchor are both. They've both got these great
Speaker 1: guitars parts. I think, like you know, you mentioned Nirvana,
Speaker 1: Alison Chains, I think those guys would have been proud
Speaker 1: of those guitar riffs. Where did they come from?
Speaker 8: The Salt and Wound one is me I that was
Speaker 8: like part of the demo and everything, and I just
Speaker 8: I just could wanted it to have this kind of
Speaker 8: moving around the chords and you know a little bit
Speaker 8: strange because there's some within the chords, there's like some
Speaker 8: notes that have you know, a very particular feeling. I
Speaker 8: guess that it that it gives you and it kind
Speaker 8: of I love slighty half step note things all the time.
Speaker 8: I love writing that. It's just fun to play. Honestly,
Speaker 8: if you sit down with the guitar and you play
Speaker 8: that riff, it's just like moving in half step increments
Speaker 8: all over the place. It's really fun. So yeah, that
Speaker 8: was a really important part to me. I feel like
Speaker 8: that really brought it from being just this song to
Speaker 8: like bringing it to life a little bit and you know,
Speaker 8: being a little bit more yeah, rocking anchor. That's actually
Speaker 8: Julian playing that part that like arpeggio on the acoustic guitar.
Speaker 8: I think that's Julian and Rodrigo doubling each other. Perhaps,
Speaker 8: I'm pretty sure with like a twelve string and an
Speaker 8: acoustic and electric or something.
Speaker 1: Damn twelve string again, Yeah.
Speaker 8: Twelve string. I don't want to play it. Somebody else
Speaker 8: can do it. An acoustic twelve string too, is awful
Speaker 8: to play. I mean, my hands are just not used
Speaker 8: to that. But yeah, it's that song was so difficult
Speaker 8: to get right. I wrote it and I knew what
Speaker 8: I wanted it to feel like. I guess after we
Speaker 8: tried to like mess around in the studio, I was like,
Speaker 8: I wanted to have this like drunken like sailor type
Speaker 8: of like woodenness to it. But it was very very
Speaker 8: hard to get that correct without it turning into something else,
Speaker 8: you know, turning into something that's like a little corny
Speaker 8: or like swung a little bit or too head with
Speaker 8: how the chords are really a little bit dissonant at
Speaker 8: the beginning. So it took a lot of a lot
Speaker 8: of crafting on our parts to figure that out and
Speaker 8: kind of piece it all together. But yeah, like that
Speaker 8: guitar riff was like a perfect little transitional piece to
Speaker 8: slot in that we just kind of overdubbed onto it,
Speaker 8: and a lot of the stuff was very slotted in
Speaker 8: there and kind of arranged after we had a lot
Speaker 8: of ideas because it was just such a weird song
Speaker 8: to try to get right.
Speaker 1: I liked the heaviness of it, though.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I do too, It's just originally it was like
Speaker 8: much it was like getting too heavy to like rock
Speaker 8: kind of vibes, and I think it needs to be
Speaker 8: a little bit, a little bit creepy kind of heaviness.
Speaker 1: Didn't you complain once? I thought I read this about
Speaker 1: too many male dominated punk bands.
Speaker 8: I mean, I can't disagree.
Speaker 1: There's a particular time in your life. You were part
Speaker 1: of a scene. I guess.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was in Nashville. There was a big music scene,
Speaker 8: and I mean I loved a lot of the bands there,
Speaker 8: and a lot of loved Slash, still love a lot
Speaker 8: of the people there. But yeah, I think I think
Speaker 8: growing up it was very just like the same dudes
Speaker 8: playing in all the same bands. And yeah, there's nothing
Speaker 8: wrong with having having fun like that, but I think
Speaker 8: it it felt a lot of times, you know, not
Speaker 8: just for me, but I think for a lot of
Speaker 8: other people it felt a little bit stifling.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, Well that's why there's Taylor Swift Yeah, and
Speaker 1: Evergreen beautiful sort of conclusion to the record.
Speaker 8: Tell me about it, Yeah, that one is kind of
Speaker 8: one of my secret faves on the record. It was
Speaker 8: a song I wrote really quickly and just instantly felt
Speaker 8: this kind of you know, like haunting kind of beauty
Speaker 8: that I wanted it to have because it's it's got
Speaker 8: some you know, kind of majorie lifts and some kind
Speaker 8: of haunting chords in there that make it with the melodies,
Speaker 8: make it feel a little bit like ghostly and it
Speaker 8: feels sad, but it feels like there's this those kind
Speaker 8: of lifts at the chorus I guess, so to speak,
Speaker 8: like major kind of lifts that give it that note
Speaker 8: of like that light and that lightness and airiness that
Speaker 8: I wanted it to have. And kind of to me,
Speaker 8: it's like when it's winter and it's like snowy or something,
Speaker 8: there's a lot of dead trees and it's like really sunny.
Speaker 8: It's like that same kind of feeling of you know,
Speaker 8: this haunting kind of warmth, I guess.
Speaker 1: And what prompted the song, what was.
Speaker 8: You know, just just the same thing that a lot
Speaker 8: of the record's about. It's just about kind of I
Speaker 8: guess that song in particular, feeling like there's all of
Speaker 8: these remnants everywhere around and for me, I think, particularly
Speaker 8: like in nature, I can see a lot of that
Speaker 8: stuff and looking around and seeing it and having these
Speaker 8: constant reminders and at times shying away from it and
Speaker 8: being like, I don't want to do this anymore, I
Speaker 8: don't want to think about this anymore. I don't want
Speaker 8: to be reminded of these things, and at other times
Speaker 8: feeling so connected to it and feeling like there's this
Speaker 8: like promise that these things are going to be there
Speaker 8: all the time still and never go away. And you know,
Speaker 8: even if something's someone's gone, things are different. There's all
Speaker 8: these changes, these like memories and these like we're just
Speaker 8: feelings you know, that are connected to certain places and
Speaker 8: certain things that you can do in times, and looking
Speaker 8: around and seeing beauty in the world and being connected
Speaker 8: to that feels lifting and feels like a good promise
Speaker 8: I guess to have.
Speaker 1: Mm hm, well that's the trick of the light.
Speaker 8: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you feel like playing in the song, But.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can do that.
Speaker 8: I can do another one. I'm gonna do not one
Speaker 8: off of this record because of the tuning, but I
Speaker 8: can play another one. I'll play an old song, all right,
Speaker 8: and then we'll feel well. I'll feel very uh taken
Speaker 8: back to my college days. This song I actually did
Speaker 8: record for a college project, funny enough at n y
Speaker 8: U songs called Alison, yeh.
Speaker 3: Oh the Sun good song, you sir, give a foot
Speaker 3: ship food for because he's been laid and at the
Speaker 3: short speeding.
Speaker 4: He said in for sir, if you bolted the who.
Speaker 10: Should not don't see all the same side is something
Speaker 10: you just broke.
Speaker 3: This shackles hard because he won't never see those street
Speaker 3: jeeves waiting.
Speaker 11: At the soup wait waiting for the night train. We
Speaker 11: should not not the nex train.
Speaker 7: Waiting for you. You found waiting for you, you found
Speaker 7: waiting for you, you found in for you, you found
Speaker 7: waiting for you.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Soccer Mammy for coming on the show. You
Speaker 2: can hear a new album, Evergreen, along with some of
Speaker 2: our other favorite tracks of hers, on a playlist in
Speaker 2: the episode description or on our website at Broken Record
Speaker 2: podcast dot com, and be sure to follow us on
Speaker 2: Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and
Speaker 2: edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler
Speaker 2: and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record
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Speaker 2: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.