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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to The Bob left Set's podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Damian Kulash. Okay, go Damien, how

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Speaker 1: do you feel about your BM being more famous for

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Speaker 1: its videos than its music.

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Speaker 2: I think it's just a it's crazy, Like I my

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Speaker 2: feeling is, it's what it is. Like, I'm just I

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Speaker 2: feel very lucky that I get to keep making art.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but you know you look on Spotify and some

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Speaker 1: of your early material has been streamed more. What do

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Speaker 1: you think it can do to get people to listen

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Speaker 1: and pay attention more to the music than the videos.

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Speaker 2: Let's keep making it. I mean, there's there We get

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Speaker 2: this question all the time, and that as if the

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Speaker 2: videos are somehow cannibalizing the music, like it's the other

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Speaker 2: way around, Like I you know, we make great songs.

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Speaker 2: We make really great songs. Lots of bands make really

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Speaker 2: great songs. We also make really great videos. Not lots

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Speaker 2: of bands make really great video you know, So we'll

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Speaker 2: sort of like in a category of one with respective

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Speaker 2: the videos, whereas we're in a category of lots when

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Speaker 2: it comes to the songs. And I'm glad that that

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Speaker 2: the videos bring more listeners I'm glad that we keep

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Speaker 2: get to keep making the stuff we get to keep making.

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Speaker 2: I mean, do I understand the difference between my eyes

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Speaker 2: and my ears. Absolutely, But from my perspective, like what

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Speaker 2: I want to spend my days doing is chasing art ideas,

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Speaker 2: you know, chasing chasing the muse, and I get to

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Speaker 2: keep doing it. That's what matters to me.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the upcoming year, twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 1: I look at your website and I see one gig

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Speaker 1: listed in February. So what are the plans for twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty six?

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Speaker 2: We have We have some during plans that have yet

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Speaker 2: to we haven't announced them yet where we have a uh,

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Speaker 2: we're looking at some summer festivals right now and possibly

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Speaker 2: a tour of the summer. We're starting up some work

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Speaker 2: on new videos right now. You know, we had our

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Speaker 2: first album in years come out last you know, last April.

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Speaker 2: So this has been a big year of shows and

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Speaker 2: promo and videos and we're happy to be back at it.

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Speaker 1: Other than video, how do you promote the new album?

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Speaker 2: I mean, we do all those standards stuff like there,

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Speaker 2: you know, we've we have indie radio promoters and we

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Speaker 2: do we you know, we we are active on social media,

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Speaker 2: and you know, we have we're we're we're published through

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Speaker 2: Warner Chapel, and we are We're distributed through Symphonics, so

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Speaker 2: we have like and both of those have their own

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Speaker 2: promotional arms as well. So like, I think we do

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Speaker 2: all the standard stuff, but to be honest, I don't.

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Speaker 2: I don't really know what the music industry standards are anymore,

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Speaker 2: and and I'm not you know, a big part of

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Speaker 2: it for us just keeping it keeping in direct contact

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Speaker 2: with our existing fan base, you know, Like since the

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Speaker 2: earliest days of our band, we would go out after

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Speaker 2: shows with a with a spiral notebook and just get

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Speaker 2: people to you know, give us their email addresses because

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Speaker 2: we didn't want to be you know, we didn't we

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Speaker 2: didn't want the label to be stuck in between us

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Speaker 2: and our fans. We would, of course loved the label

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Speaker 2: to help us find more fans and connecting more people

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Speaker 2: out there in the world. But the the you know what,

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Speaker 2: the real sort of transaction for us is make the

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Speaker 2: stuff find the people. You know, Like, we make the

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Speaker 2: stuff and we want to give it right to the people.

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Speaker 2: That's sort of the whole game.

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Speaker 1: To what degree are you personally active on social media

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Speaker 1: promoting both yourself and the band?

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Speaker 2: It kind of comes and goes. I I personally hate

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Speaker 2: social media, like just because I'm a father. I see

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Speaker 2: what it can do to young kids. I'm a human.

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Speaker 2: I see what it does to my own brain, like

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Speaker 2: that sort of like that suck of that attention suck

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Speaker 2: where you go down the rabbit hole and you can't

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Speaker 2: get out. It's just a gross feeling. But I also

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Speaker 2: know it's how culture moves these days. So especially with

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Speaker 2: a record coming out, I'd made an effort to be present,

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Speaker 2: to to like pay attention to my own social media

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Speaker 2: and to the band social media it is a hard

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Speaker 2: thing for me to do without losing myself in it.

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Speaker 2: So I am kind of always walking a balance, you know.

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Speaker 1: So if one were to subscribe to your feeds, what

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Speaker 1: would they see?

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Speaker 2: My personal feed is mostly like stuff I'm interested in personally,

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Speaker 2: and I try I try to I when I do podcasts,

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Speaker 2: I try to, like, you know, I try to put

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Speaker 2: a link on there. The band's feed is the band's feed.

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Speaker 2: We try to be more regular with the band's feed,

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Speaker 2: make sure that we have something every couple of days,

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Speaker 2: and make sure you know, we have things specif the

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Speaker 2: shows we've just done, specific to the awards that were

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Speaker 2: up for, specific to the the things we think the

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Speaker 2: fans would care about. We do our best to try

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Speaker 2: to make material that fits the the format, which is

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Speaker 2: an ever evolving thing. You know, It's like it. I

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Speaker 2: think there are people who grew up more native to it,

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Speaker 2: who actually want to take out a phone and film

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Speaker 2: themselves doing their daily routines. That just doesn't interest me.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure if that were native to me, we would

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Speaker 2: be better at it.

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Speaker 1: But you know, okay, so there's a line between your

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Speaker 1: art and your personal life. You don't have a need

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Speaker 1: or don't want to get your personal life out to

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Speaker 1: many people.

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Speaker 2: Oh god, no, I mean I remember early on in

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Speaker 2: our career a person at a major label telling me, like,

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Speaker 2: you really should just like, you know, live stream your life.

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Speaker 2: You know, you should have a blog going all the time,

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Speaker 2: you should have all this stuff. And I remember thinking,

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Speaker 2: because I remember that the example in my head was

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Speaker 2: the Pixies, that I grew up a massive Pixies fan,

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Speaker 2: and if I had actually like part of what I

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Speaker 2: loved was that they were godlike to me, and and

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Speaker 2: imagining who and what that person was, and that if

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Speaker 2: I actually had to watch, you know, Frank Black eat

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Speaker 2: breakfast cereal in the morning, I probably would feel pretty

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Speaker 2: differently about him. And I was just wrong, you know,

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Speaker 2: like I was wrong in terms of the way culture moved.

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Speaker 2: I'm I'm not wrong for me, like I just that's

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Speaker 2: not I want my private life. I want my time

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Speaker 2: with my kids to be my time with my kids.

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Speaker 2: I don't want them online, you know. I want my

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Speaker 2: time with my family to be my time with my family.

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Speaker 2: I want my time sitting alone in a studio trying

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Speaker 2: to figure out what cords should come next. That's like

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Speaker 2: a nearly religious experience for me that I don't The

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Speaker 2: last thing I want to be thinking about at that

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Speaker 2: time is like the camera angle, you know, or or

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Speaker 2: letting somebody into the process. I know, it's I know,

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Speaker 2: that's how marketing has done. I know that's like that

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Speaker 2: people half my age feel differently about that than I do.

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Speaker 2: But I it's just that's me. You know.

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Speaker 1: Have you met Frank Black Black Francis, Yeah, yeah, I have.

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Speaker 2: Actually, our mutual friend Jamie Kitman introduced me to him

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Speaker 2: early on, and he gave me some very great advice

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Speaker 2: about my career. I'm still I'm still a mega fan,

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Speaker 2: but you know, still at a distance.

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Speaker 1: Well, I guess what I'm asking is, you had an

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Speaker 1: illusion of the man after meeting him. How did you feel?

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Speaker 2: I have a different illusion to the man. It's still

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Speaker 2: a good one. I it's you know, we're not We're

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Speaker 2: not like best friends. But I I, I was already

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Speaker 2: an adult with enough with and what I was asking was,

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Speaker 2: you know, I mean, the big question I had for

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Speaker 2: him when I was a twenty two year old with

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Speaker 2: just getting my first major label deal, was I want

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Speaker 2: to learn to sing better. And he gave me. He

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Speaker 2: gave me his vocal coach, you know, like and I

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Speaker 2: still do that. I still do the warm up his

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Speaker 2: vocal coach gave me every day, you know, And I remember,

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Speaker 2: I remember his His publishing advice was very very draconian,

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Speaker 2: don't don't give a cent to anyone kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: And I mean, I just he it was already an

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Speaker 2: adult getting an advice from getting advice from another adult,

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Speaker 2: Very different from a fourteen year old getting get you know,

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Speaker 2: getting your way in the world by hearing raw rage

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Speaker 2: on vinyl.

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Speaker 1: You know, Okay, but the privilege of stardom, if we

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Speaker 1: want to call it a privilege, is that you get

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Speaker 1: to meet a lot of household names, and needless to say,

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Speaker 1: they're very different from one's impression in most cases not all.

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Speaker 1: So what has been your experience meeting the famous people?

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Speaker 2: They're humans, They're all humans, you know, like it. It

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Speaker 2: is remarkable how how pedestrian and human every human is,

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Speaker 2: and and there there are. I mean, I've gotten the

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Speaker 2: chance to meet some extraordinarily talented famous and and uh

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Speaker 2: well healed ones and it doesn't you know that it's

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Speaker 2: it's always the same human stuff. I mean, I find

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Speaker 2: that very reassuring in some way that it's not there

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Speaker 2: isn't an us and in them there isn't a way

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Speaker 2: that the other half lived that's different. You know, they

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Speaker 2: might have a lot more money or more access, but

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Speaker 2: there's the.

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Speaker 3: The people I know who are really really big celebrity

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Speaker 3: have a really big celebrity face are are unfailingly nothing

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Speaker 3: like it.

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Speaker 2: On the other side, it's just there's no we as

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Speaker 2: as consumers of the world around us. I think we

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Speaker 2: just need things to be more black and white, broad

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Speaker 2: stroke stories than is real. So we so we decide

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Speaker 2: that a certain celebrity is vapid or another one is

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Speaker 2: incredibly you know, dark and mysterious or whatever it is.

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Speaker 2: We write the stories about these people and they sort

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Speaker 2: of snowball, but the people themselves just aren't. Like there

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Speaker 2: are always multidimensional humans with everything going on, They're not

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Speaker 2: anything like that, you know.

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Speaker 1: Okay, to what degree do you personally know your hardcore.

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Speaker 2: Fans depends which ones. There's a few of them I

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Speaker 2: know really well. I mean like, we literally have a

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Speaker 2: fan who we just played some shows last week and

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Speaker 2: she went to her seventy third show. I think this

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Speaker 2: on this last run. She's seen every show we played

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Speaker 2: this year, including ones that weren't announced. You know, like,

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Speaker 2: I know her really well, and she's great, She's awesome.

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Speaker 2: And there's a handful of fans who come to so

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Speaker 2: many shows that I do know them really well. I

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Speaker 2: suspect they actually distort my opinion, my perspect on what

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Speaker 2: the rest of the sort of megafandom is like. Because

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Speaker 2: no matter how insanely into a band you are, what

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Speaker 2: are the chances you're going to travel to see you know,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five shows in a year Like that's puts

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Speaker 2: you in a very very very small category, and the

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Speaker 2: people who really keep our career alive are much broader

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Speaker 2: set than that and yet still really really engage. So

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Speaker 2: and I think I know I know them by again

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Speaker 2: in broad strokes, you know, like I can promise you

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Speaker 2: like I do a lot of questions and answer at

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Speaker 2: our shows. I asked that the audience just I'm like,

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Speaker 2: who's got a question? And we just do. We just

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Speaker 2: have discussions at the shows, and you get a pretty

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Speaker 2: good sense of how engaged and nerdy and arty our

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Speaker 2: fans are, you know, and that I just that I

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Speaker 2: love that, Like, couldn't be more thank Back to your

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Speaker 2: question about the videos, it's sort of like they they

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Speaker 2: filter for a self selecting group of very curious and

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Speaker 2: very sort of prone to wonder nerds, and those are

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Speaker 2: people I like hanging out like it's a it's a

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Speaker 2: good feeling.

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Speaker 1: Well, have you had any bad experiences with fans? I

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Speaker 1: was talking trying to get too close.

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Speaker 2: Uh, that has happened. It's been a while, but there

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Speaker 2: was there was a there was a time in Florida

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Speaker 2: when there was a there was some sort of scary

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Speaker 2: moments with it with somebody who had who had not

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Speaker 2: taken her meds and was out of the institution she

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Speaker 2: was supposed to be in and so forth.

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Speaker 1: So how did you handle that?

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Speaker 2: Uh? Distance, Like you just be really when you're in

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Speaker 2: that city, you're just really careful to watch keep your

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Speaker 2: wits about you. I don't know that there's much you

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Speaker 2: can do without without letting it affect your entire life,

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Speaker 2: you know. And I don't know, maybe I'm maybe maybe

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Speaker 2: this is naive, but it feels to me like we're

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Speaker 2: a pretty small like we're a big deal to a

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Speaker 2: few people, but it's a it's a small category, you know,

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Speaker 2: Like I would, I think there are much bigger, bigger

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Speaker 2: fish out there for the craziest to go for.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but just talking about this woman in Florida, did

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Speaker 1: you have to get the authorities involved?

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Speaker 2: Came close? It didn't. I think this one did not.

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Speaker 2: I think we had. I can't remember. It was like

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Speaker 2: fifteen years ago now, but I do remember having to

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Speaker 2: like alert everybody at the at the show, and you know,

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Speaker 2: our tour manager had to be the hotel had to

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Speaker 2: be notified and all that kind of stuff. Because there

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Speaker 2: was there were some close calls and some threatening emails.

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Speaker 2: I guess it was at that point as opposed to

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Speaker 2: Dam's or whatever. But I honestly don't remember the specifics

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Speaker 2: I remember it being. I remember what I needed to

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Speaker 2: do was like, stay calm.

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Speaker 1: Are you recognized out in public?

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Speaker 2: Generally not much, or at least not You know, it

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Speaker 2: happens every every once in a while, but it's not

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Speaker 2: like a certainly not a constant thing. Sometimes my kids

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Speaker 2: will be wearing okay go T shirts and and and

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Speaker 2: like somebody will be like, oh you like that dand

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Speaker 2: and not realize that I'm standing right there with them.

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Speaker 1: Okay, how old are your kids?

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Speaker 2: I have seven year old twins.

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Speaker 1: Okay, usually maybe they're a little young. The kids have

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Speaker 1: contempt for the father's work or the mother.

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Speaker 2: It could it may I'm sure we're headed there eventually.

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Speaker 2: We'll get there. Right now. My daughter says her plan

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Speaker 2: is to join my men and and perhaps replace me,

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Speaker 2: which I'm excited about.

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Speaker 1: So what have you learned having kids?

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Speaker 2: Everything?

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Speaker 1: I mean?

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Speaker 2: I I I love being the father, and I love

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Speaker 2: the the way that it has opened up my heart,

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Speaker 2: and I think I think a lot of people. The

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Speaker 2: thing I had always heard is that like you see

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Speaker 2: the world anew through the eyes of your kids, and

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Speaker 2: I had some of that experience, but it's more that

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Speaker 2: I like parts of myself that had ossified or I

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Speaker 2: hadn't that I thought I understood already, even my relationship

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Speaker 2: to love, like I'm a romantic who has chased love

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Speaker 2: my whole life long and thought I knew all my

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Speaker 2: relationships to it, And all of a sudden, you have

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Speaker 2: a kid, and it's just like God, there's a whole

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Speaker 2: new wing. There's a whole new wing to this castle,

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Speaker 2: and it's it's bigger and more amazing than anything I've

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Speaker 2: been in before. I love it.

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Speaker 1: To what degree you talked about not being enamored of

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Speaker 1: social media? To what degree do you direct and restrict

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Speaker 1: your children.

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Speaker 2: I'm very our kids. I mean, at this age they

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Speaker 2: have they don't have devices, will keep that that way

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Speaker 2: for a long time, and they have very limited screen

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Speaker 2: time on any you know, for anything. And I I mean,

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Speaker 2: I hope social media is a different universe by the

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Speaker 2: time that they're you know, I don't know, but thirteen

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Speaker 2: fourteen years old, it's changed so much in the last

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Speaker 2: five years that I hope, I hope, I hope it

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Speaker 2: can change again. I just think about what I was

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Speaker 2: like as a teenager, and whether or not social media

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Speaker 2: would have like it would have ruined. It would have

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Speaker 2: been terrible for me. I would have been got out

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Speaker 2: and awful. And from everything I understand, it is basically

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Speaker 2: really horrible for teens now, so I will keep my

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Speaker 2: kids as far from it as I can.

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Speaker 1: Why would it have been awful for you?

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Speaker 2: Because I was experimenting with personalities? You know, because I

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Speaker 2: was like, because I think at that age, you're trying

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Speaker 2: to figure out who you are and taking you know,

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Speaker 2: big swings, and it's and I'm just glad that's not

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Speaker 2: that's not all on record somewhere, know, But also because

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Speaker 2: like the number when when I got home from high

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Speaker 2: school to what I thought about all night was that

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Speaker 2: girl right like if I if? And and what she

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Speaker 2: thought of me? And vice versa and what and that

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Speaker 2: other guy who liked that? And what are all the

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Speaker 2: stuff that you that goes through your head as a kid.

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Speaker 1: Uh?

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Speaker 2: If that if I could still be gaming that all

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Speaker 2: night long? I mean, you know, like I already spent

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Speaker 2: hours on the on the phone as a teenager. I

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Speaker 2: think if if that could have been a sort of

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Speaker 2: gamified and broadcast system of social hierarchy. Got it was

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Speaker 2: been off for me.

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Speaker 1: So what kind of kid were you?

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Speaker 2: I was a nerdy art kid. I I went, you know, like,

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Speaker 2: I spent all my time painting and with my headphones

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Speaker 2: on listening to rock and roll like it. I I

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Speaker 2: went to a school where there was like really heavy

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Speaker 2: on jocks, and and I got along well with him.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't like, I wasn't in the sort of classic

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Speaker 2: battle of the arty kids against the jocks. I just

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Speaker 2: like they liked different things than I did. We didn't.

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Speaker 2: We didn't even like the same girl. So it was fine.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's start from the beginning. Where did you grow up?

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Speaker 2: I grew up in Washington, DC.

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Speaker 1: And were your parents involved with the government.

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Speaker 2: They were not. My dad is a well so sort

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Speaker 2: of tangentiy, I should say. My dad is a civil

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Speaker 2: engineer whose work was not funded by the government but

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Speaker 2: was used by the government law and my uh my

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Speaker 2: mom is a was in uh basically worked for a

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Speaker 2: consulting firm interpreting what the government's rules were at any

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Speaker 2: given time for pensions and benefits. So they both they

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Speaker 2: both had a lot of government overlap, but were not

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Speaker 2: employed by the government.

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Speaker 1: Okay, it would sound like to do her job, your

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Speaker 1: mother would be somewhat of a news junkie. Are you

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Speaker 1: a news junkie?

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Speaker 2: Not currently, I am susceptible to it, but I a

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Speaker 2: special I found during the first Trump administration that I

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Speaker 2: I there's a certain chadenfreuda I was looking for in

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Speaker 2: the news every night, and and I just would go

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Speaker 2: diving deep down these holes looking for that, you know,

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Speaker 2: trying to find the moment that this that this would

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Speaker 2: all crack and and and sanity would would come bubbling

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Speaker 2: up through the the truth somewhere, and seeing one piece

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Speaker 2: of news after another, going God, this is ridiculous, Oh

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Speaker 2: my god, oh God, And like that that I realized

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Speaker 2: after a while it was I was not staying informed.

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Speaker 2: I was just I was. It was just rage scrolling,

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Speaker 2: you know.

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Speaker 1: Well, needless to say, we're in the second Trump administration.

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Speaker 1: What's your outlook today?

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Speaker 2: Not good? I you know, I'm I'm I'm obviously left

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Speaker 2: of center politically, and and and I I I can

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Speaker 2: say just the same. I don't. I don't. I think

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Speaker 2: it's very hard to look at what's happening right now

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Speaker 2: and think there's any sanity to it. And I am

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Speaker 2: worried that that I'm just another one of the sort

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Speaker 2: of head in the sand, Like it's so that the

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Speaker 2: flood the zone offense of of the of the Trump

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Speaker 2: administration and MAGA in general. The sort of like let's

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Speaker 2: just pour, you know, just just sort of set everything

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Speaker 2: on fire, and and if it's all burning at the

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Speaker 2: same time, nobody will know what to do has been

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Speaker 2: relatively effective with me because I'm just I'm overwhelmed. I'm

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Speaker 2: sort of like God, I don't know what to do

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Speaker 2: about any of it. It doesn't leave a great doesn't

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Speaker 2: leave me with a very positive outlook. So how do

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Speaker 2: you think it's going to play out? Well, I'm a

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Speaker 2: I'm I I am a cynic and also like this

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00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:08,840
Speaker 2: sort of a sort of hopeful, optimistic, romantic on the

380
00:21:09,359 --> 00:21:12,840
Speaker 2: to sort of counterbalance that I I guess my rational

381
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:16,840
Speaker 2: side thinks it's only going to get worse. My the

382
00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:19,679
Speaker 2: other side of me is sort of like it just can't.

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Speaker 2: There has to be a breaking point. And I'm and

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Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, like I I I wish

385
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Speaker 2: I could give. I wish I had anything other than

386
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Speaker 2: than songs to give, you know what I mean, Like

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00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:36,720
Speaker 2: we have a song on her most recent album called

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Speaker 2: A Stone Only Rolls Downhill and the whole it's I

389
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Speaker 2: wish I could say this that I'll be all right,

390
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:44,240
Speaker 2: Like if that's the song written specifically to my kids,

391
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Speaker 2: like I don't have any you can't lie to them,

392
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Speaker 2: But you also can't raise your kids going like, well,

393
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:53,840
Speaker 2: the world is going to hell in a hand basket

394
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Speaker 2: and you're going with it, you know, I don't know,

395
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Speaker 2: what do you think?

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, Well, let me ask your question first. In

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Speaker 1: the sixties they fought or said both actually that music

398
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Speaker 1: could change the world. What power does music have in

399
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Speaker 1: today's world?

400
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Speaker 2: I think you would be able to answer that way

401
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:17,720
Speaker 2: better than I, because I think you look at music

402
00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:21,879
Speaker 2: across like in its in its aggregate form. I look

403
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 2: at music one song at a time, you know. But

404
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,719
Speaker 2: like I will say that my life has been changed

405
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:32,879
Speaker 2: by songs, and my relationship to the world changes dramatically

406
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:35,760
Speaker 2: when those songs are on, when something changes my soul.

407
00:22:36,119 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 2: And I know that our fan like I get letters

408
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 2: all the time from you know. The most recent one

409
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:47,000
Speaker 2: that really moved me was a a an activist, an

410
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:51,280
Speaker 2: Israeli activist in Palestine trying to bring the war to

411
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 2: an end, saying that she just needed like that that

412
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Speaker 2: after a day of hell all around her, she needed

413
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 2: something to escape too, and our songs we're doing that

414
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:05,600
Speaker 2: for her, and like that that those are the types

415
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 2: of things that booy my soul. Because I'm I. I

416
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:15,520
Speaker 2: can feel very navel gazing and and sort of self

417
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 2: serving to sit in my in my safe bubble writing songs.

418
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 2: But you know when we hear from people all the

419
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:26,439
Speaker 2: time for whom our songs are getting them through the

420
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Speaker 2: death of a parent or the death of a child,

421
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:32,000
Speaker 2: or uh, you know, the realization that the world around

422
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 2: them is going to ship like them. I know these

423
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:41,120
Speaker 2: individual stories are I don't know if they're if they

424
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 2: have any if they move any globe, you know, huge

425
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:48,199
Speaker 2: cosmic needle. All I can do is do do do

426
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,320
Speaker 2: my part in my little world, and and I I

427
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:53,439
Speaker 2: know it has been done for me. I know it.

428
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 2: You know I know that that music keeps me alive,

429
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Speaker 2: and I hope, I hope it's doing that for us.

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Speaker 1: Let's say that I said financial considerations were taken off

431
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Speaker 1: the table, but no one would ever hear your music.

432
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:11,919
Speaker 1: You could make it, but no one could hear it.

433
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: Would you still make.

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00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:20,360
Speaker 2: It, probably not. I don't know. I mean I would,

435
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Speaker 2: what I would make would change a lot like I

436
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 2: think I would be. I would I'd spend a lot

437
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 2: more time practicing piano just to play it, and a

438
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:31,399
Speaker 2: lot less time trying to figure out but how does

439
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 2: this become a song? And I don't know, And my

440
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 2: answer to that would have changed dramatically over the years,

441
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:42,959
Speaker 2: because I like as a as a kid. When I

442
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 2: first started making music, it was a compulsion to be

443
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 2: able to like the thing. When I heard Rocket by

444
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 2: Herbie Hancott, a certain scratch itch in my brain was

445
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 2: scratched deep inside my skull in a place that nothing

446
00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 2: else had ever gotten to it. And I don't know.

447
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 2: Ten years later than that, the first time I had

448
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:04,119
Speaker 2: a four track sitting in front of me and I

449
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 2: could start layering things up and go, oh my god,

450
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 2: I think I just wrote a song that did something

451
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,400
Speaker 2: in my brain in a whole different way too. They're

452
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 2: related but not the same, you know. And I spent

453
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 2: I spent years just trying to find that thing, either

454
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,880
Speaker 2: with other musicians in the room or multi tracking something

455
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 2: in a studio, whatever, trying to it. It's this other

456
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 2: itch in my brain. I think I would have done

457
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 2: that regardless of who was listening at this point in

458
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 2: my life. I I make the songs for like I

459
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,239
Speaker 2: am the audio. I'm the only test audience. Like, if

460
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:41,880
Speaker 2: it's not moving me, there's no point in making it.

461
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 2: But if there were, if there were no if there

462
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 2: were no audience outside of that. Ever, again, I'm not

463
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 2: sure it ever finished them. I'd probably be playing with

464
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:53,959
Speaker 2: them all the time, but I would I don't think

465
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 2: it would ever goes to the part of where I

466
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 2: go like, no, these lyrics aren't good enough. Try again.

467
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: Okay, you have a band, long tenure, you have an audience.

468
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:08,119
Speaker 1: How important is it for you to have more people

469
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: hear your music?

470
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 2: It's a it's a it's a totally like what is it?

471
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 2: What's the name of the thing? Or OBErs, it's a

472
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 2: it's a snake eating its tail question? You know, like

473
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:27,399
Speaker 2: I it. I watch my kids, for instance, want to

474
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 2: get stuff for uh the holidays, right, They're like, I

475
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 2: want to get this, and I want to get that.

476
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 2: I know, I know the things that will be fun

477
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 2: for them to open versus the things that will be

478
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 2: fun for them to have. I know how little each

479
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 2: individual toil will matter in the course of a year

480
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 2: or in the course of their lives. And it's I

481
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 2: think that people look at when I look at my

482
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: own career and when I look around the musicians I

483
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 2: know an artist that I know in their careers, it's

484
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 2: the same basic thing. There's this sort of compulsion towards

485
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 2: towards UH can act with more people, you know, towards

486
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,880
Speaker 2: feedback from those people out there that it's like, oh, yes,

487
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 2: this thing landed. You know that the thing I made

488
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 2: mattered to somebody. But it's all relative, like ten more

489
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 2: tomorrow is better than ten less tomorrow. But I don't

490
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 2: But does it really matter? Like I don't actually know.

491
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 2: I'm not there for these interactions. When somebody puts our

492
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:27,479
Speaker 2: song on somewhere, I'm not there to feel it. And

493
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 2: I wouldn't know if ten more people did it tomorrow

494
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 2: or less? Is this too abstract? Like I don't. I

495
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 2: like the idea of continuing to do this. I like

496
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 2: the feeling of continuing to do this, and and I

497
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 2: need people to keep showing up at shows and keep

498
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 2: streaming our songs and keep watching our videos and stuff

499
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 2: for me for that to be an operational career. But

500
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:51,880
Speaker 2: it's not the abstraction of more and more and more

501
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 2: is I'm aware of that as an abstraction. Does that

502
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 2: answer the question absolutely? How are the economics fine? I mean,

503
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 2: it's we entered the music industry right at the end,

504
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 2: like just as CDs were dying, and we never had

505
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 2: a time where where we got you know, got fat

506
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 2: off of off of master side sales. You know, we

507
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 2: we we didn't live in there of of of big,

508
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 2: big hits. You know. There there was there was a

509
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 2: lot more licensing. Like I I think that it was

510
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 2: a lot easier to to to get from album to

511
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:44,479
Speaker 2: album without worrying about people paying their rent or their

512
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 2: mortgage or whatever. When when licenses from TV shows and

513
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 2: movies and stuff were significantly bigger than they are now

514
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 2: and more frequent than they are now. And I gather

515
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 2: that's not just our band aging, that's that's the industry

516
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 2: as a whole. I mean, we we have this weird

517
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 2: thing where we get to make these expensive videos because

518
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 2: we find sponsors for them generally, and those that is

519
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 2: this is such a weird little cul de sac off

520
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 2: of the rest of the music industry and affects our

521
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 2: finances so much that it's a little bit hard to

522
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 2: know what are what are what our bottom line would

523
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 2: look like without that. But you know, we tour profitably,

524
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 2: We make a lot on merch Things are pretty good

525
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 2: in general.

526
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: So how was it financially during COVID during the shutdown?

527
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 2: Uh, it we happened to be between albums. Then it

528
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 2: was like a pretty good time for it to happen.

529
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 2: My kids were eighteen months old when it started. I

530
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 2: was not going to go touring with toddlers at home anyways.

531
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 2: And uh, and my wife and I directed a film together.

532
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 2: We directed a movie for Apple, and so I had

533
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 2: sort of briefly pivoted out of out of the music industry.

534
00:29:57,600 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: Right then, how did you get a deal to make

535
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 1: it movie for Apple?

536
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 2: Well, my band makes these videos. You might have heard

537
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 2: it where so yeah, so for your for any listeners

538
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 2: who don't already know this about our band, we're the

539
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 2: band with the ridiculous videos and they were they are

540
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 2: well respected in the film and ad communities. And so

541
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 2: when we pitched a movie to Apple to co direct,

542
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 2: my wife is a screenwriter and she's written some very wait.

543
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, let's start

544
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: at a base level. You're at home, your wife says,

545
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 1: I have an idea. There's a long process between creation

546
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: and actually having a deal in making the movie was

547
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: like a big plan. I mean, how did you get

548
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: did you get an age? And how did this all

549
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: come to be?

550
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 2: When when my wife and I knew each other in

551
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 2: high school years and years and years ago, and we

552
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 2: didn't see each other for twenty years after that we

553
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 2: both had totally separate lives and then ran into each

554
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 2: other on Staten Island of all one of the places,

555
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 2: and uh, and we're friends again. And when when it

556
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 2: when it first got romantic? We I remember us, I

557
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 2: mean we It was sort of a specific thing. It

558
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 2: was like, you're in film and I'm in music. The

559
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 2: more successful I am, especially these days, that the more

560
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 2: the more that means being away from home. The more

561
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 2: successful you are means being off on sets being away

562
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 2: from home too. So it doesn't really seem like the

563
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 2: type of relationship we want to build. Why don't we

564
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 2: make stuff together? And we so we, Yeah, we decided

565
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 2: we would we would try directing directing stuff together. Because

566
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 2: I'm we that was sort of an obvious next stept

567
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 2: for both of us, she as a as a narrative

568
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 2: film writer and me as a video director, and so yeah,

569
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 2: we we knew it would be a long game type

570
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 2: of thing, because you don't get that that opportunity very often.

571
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 2: And we started to develop some ideas just you know,

572
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 2: when we'd be out on a hike or something like that.

573
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 2: We just passed back and forth ideas. This one came

574
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 2: up because of a she got the opportunity to to

575
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 2: write a book about I'm sorry to write the script

576
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 2: based on a book about the economics of the beanie

577
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 2: baby bubble. And we were both teenagers when that happened

578
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 2: and completely immune to its charms, Like we had that

579
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 2: it was the type of thing that we were both like,

580
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 2: who fucking want a small stuffed animal and think it

581
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 2: was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, And so we

582
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 2: had like exactly the right distance from it to sort

583
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 2: of look as scans at it and it and it

584
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 2: turns out to be such a weird story of sort

585
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 2: of what America is about that we just both kind

586
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 2: of fell in love with it. She had written she

587
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 2: had written one draft of the script already, and we

588
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 2: just sort of we thought, okay, if this were an

589
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 2: okay Go video. If this narrative were a video, how

590
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 2: would we how would we do it wrong? And the

591
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 2: way that okay Go always gets the music industry wrong,

592
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 2: how would we do this movie wrong? And we pitched

593
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 2: it to Zach Gallifacus, who is who would make the

594
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 2: perfect tie Warner?

595
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: Oh wait wait wait wait wait how did you know?

596
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: How did you connect with Zach galifanaka?

597
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 2: He was our he was our landlord. We were he

598
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 2: we he We were renting an apartment that he owns

599
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 2: in in uh in Venice, California.

600
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: Just for the record, sideways, where do you live now?

601
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 2: I live in Santa Barbara? Now?

602
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: Okay, So you pitch it to Zach?

603
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 2: He was into it and uh and so we took

604
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 2: it to we we uh, we took it to various

605
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 2: different I mean, Imagine Entertainment signed on pretty early to

606
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 2: produce it. And and at that point.

607
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait who connected you with Imagine?

608
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 2: My wife she'd written several scripts for Imagine at that point. Okay,

609
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 2: she already know and uh And it was at Amazon

610
00:33:54,320 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 2: for almost two years and eventually they were just on

611
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:03,719
Speaker 2: the fence about it for too long. And actually, I

612
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 2: hope it's legal to say. At this point, Zach Zach

613
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 2: got so upset about the business practices of Amazon that

614
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 2: he was like, I'm not making this if it's an

615
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 2: Amazon anymore. And that pushed them off the fence and

616
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 2: we get it. And Apple was just starting their film

617
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 2: division and we got to be one of the things

618
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 2: they made.

619
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: So are you happy with the result?

620
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, the film is great. Film is great.

621
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 2: The process of making the film is less fun than

622
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 2: I had hoped. It is deeply creative, but also more

623
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 2: more management than it is. Uh muse chasing that makes sense.

624
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 2: I longed to get back to, like the the chasing

625
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 2: of the of the emotional part of it, that sitting

626
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 2: down in a piano or a guitar. Uh and and

627
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 2: and finding that moment where one plus one equals five hundred.

628
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 1: You know, film is a collaborative art, which music is

629
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: more about the individual. Was that where you notice a difference.

630
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 2: Yes, But you know our videos are incredibly collaborative. We

631
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:21,960
Speaker 2: obviously the Okay Go videos are very you know, they

632
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 2: can have giant crews sometimes that there's I think the

633
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 2: love video, the one that is Grammy nominated right now

634
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,240
Speaker 2: is up. It was one hundred and thirty six people

635
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 2: on the crew, and you know that's that's almost narrative

636
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:40,320
Speaker 2: film size, but it is a very different You're basically

637
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 2: it's a sprint up to one three minute shot. A

638
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 2: film is a you know, a forty day shoot, fifty

639
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 2: day shoot. It's a you're it's your all your pre

640
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 2: production sits in an office for several months, and and

641
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 2: yes it is. It is a collaboration on a grant

642
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 2: much bigger scale. I think more of it. I mean,

643
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:04,439
Speaker 2: it was a steep learning curve for me. I really

644
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 2: enjoyed it, but there was a lot of it that

645
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 2: it was that you're what you're doing is you're describing

646
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 2: a vision, and people with even more experience than you

647
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:15,879
Speaker 2: will go make that vision. You know, like your your

648
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 2: art department will now go produce the thing you have described.

649
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 2: I'm used to actually describing the vision and then going

650
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:24,280
Speaker 2: and producing it myself.

651
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the music side of it. Okay,

652
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: go as a band. To what the degree is the

653
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: creation collaborative. I'm not talking about the recording, I'm talking

654
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: about the writing. To what degree is it really just you?

655
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 1: Or to what degree is it collaborative.

656
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:43,879
Speaker 2: It's very collaborative. Tim the Basis and I have known

657
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 2: each other since we were eleven years old, and I

658
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 2: would say, I mean we both sort of write demos

659
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 2: ourselves and then bring them to the other, but they

660
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 2: invariably change a lot after that. I tend to be

661
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,359
Speaker 2: the pretty soul lyricist. The other guys will definitely weigh

662
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 2: in on the lyrics, and I value their feedback a lot.

663
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've dealt with this with other musicians before,

664
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 2: but it's a very like It's unlike any other business

665
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 2: or or art form that I know of in terms

666
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 2: of it's the balance of of sort of democratic decision

667
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 2: making and and you know, autocratic decision making. Because there's

668
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 2: this there's an illusion and sometimes it's the truth that

669
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 2: it that it's more a family than it is a business. You're, you're, you're,

670
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 2: you've got one foot in each camp, and so having

671
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 2: everybody's blessing on something is not just a matter of

672
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 2: decision making, it's also a matter of your own self

673
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 2: feeling okay, Like it's it's steamrolling the people you've been

674
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:58,320
Speaker 2: in a band with for thirty years because you feel

675
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,320
Speaker 2: like you're right about something. Doesn't feel good. You would

676
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 2: eat like it's not operable to be like I won

677
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 2: this one good, you know what I mean? Like you

678
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 2: eat it. So we've you we've sort of spent decades

679
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 2: doing this in a way where we need each other's

680
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 2: approval on things, but we also need to have you

681
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 2: also need someone who's where, you know, like I'm where

682
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 2: the buck stops generally, and so there are lots of

683
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 2: times when I just have to make a decision and

684
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 2: I don't feel like making it, but I just have to,

685
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 2: you know.

686
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:31,320
Speaker 1: And how do you split up the publishing we have?

687
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:36,280
Speaker 2: We split up the publishing half goes to the people

688
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 2: who wrote the song, and we try to break that

689
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 2: down fairly, and the other half goes to the band,

690
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 2: anyone who has participated in the entire promotion cycle for

691
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 2: the album, because we figured that there's no value to

692
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 2: those songs if they are if they haven't gotten a

693
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 2: good lift off into the world.

694
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: Okay, so what is your process? Are you writing when

695
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: you know you have to record or want to record

696
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 1: an album? Are you coming up with songs all the time?

697
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 1: Are you waiting for inspiration? How does it work for you?

698
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 2: Closest to the first one You've said, like, mostly I

699
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 2: go into long periods of writing when it's like I,

700
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 2: when I've checked off all the other stuff that has

701
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 2: to be done. I like. The thing I love doing

702
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 2: the most is sitting here, playing with sounds and trying

703
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 2: to discover moments where you put two sounds together and

704
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 2: out the other side comes in emotion, and that's that

705
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 2: has never stopped being magical to me. I'm also so

706
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 2: thrilled by the opportunity to go make this ridiculous film,

707
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 2: right like, can we make this art project? Do I

708
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 2: get to go play with robots in a train station

709
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 2: in Budapest? That is like, I'll never say no to that,

710
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 2: and I want that opportunity, So I will face that

711
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,879
Speaker 2: video until we get it made. And as long as

712
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 2: we have things we sort of need to be doing,

713
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 2: that's generally what I'm doing. And when we run out

714
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 2: of those things, I'm like, good, now I get to

715
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 2: write another album. And by then I'm generally so exhausted

716
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 2: of working in large groups of people and and and

717
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 2: chasing down these big logistics that I'm really excited to

718
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 2: just sit home and write for months straight. When I

719
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 2: was younger, I remember feeling a lot of pressure to

720
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 2: write while we were on the road, to get to

721
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 2: write faster than I do, or to always be writing.

722
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 2: And I honestly I'm jealous of the of the musicians

723
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:35,800
Speaker 2: I know who keep themselves to a really militaristic schedule,

724
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,359
Speaker 2: who just like every day put in five or six

725
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 2: hours or whatever it is. And every every year, I

726
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 2: promise myself, I'm gonna I'm gonna develop that kind of

727
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 2: habit that I have yet too, so we'll see.

728
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: Okay, do you know when you write an eleven now,

729
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: so you working, you know you've been doing it so

730
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: long you're not going to write something that's complete shit.

731
00:41:03,239 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: But every once in a while and you can't do

732
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: it that off, you go, wait a second, this is great.

733
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 2: Well to me, they all start with a hint of that,

734
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 2: and it's more about not losing it right, Like, this

735
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 2: is the model that operates in my brain, and I

736
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 2: think it's true.

737
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: Ish.

738
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 2: I'm just like playing around with sounds, and for the

739
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 2: most part, when you put two sounds together, you get

740
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 2: another sound on the other side. Every once in a

741
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 2: while you get an emotion like something happens, and that's

742
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 2: unbelievable to get that to flow into another set of

743
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 2: sounds that also have an emotion that and those two

744
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:48,919
Speaker 2: emotions counterbalance each other in such a way that there's

745
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 2: some actual arc and feeling and spread and journey to

746
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 2: it all that's even more rare. So you can get

747
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:02,919
Speaker 2: a wildly hooky or a wildly punchy or wildly evocative

748
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 2: single chord progression or groove or whatever, and it just

749
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 2: doesn't go anywhere. Like you can get thousands of those

750
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 2: and they still don't turn into a song. And even

751
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 2: once you have that arc of a song, how not

752
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 2: to kill it by describing it lyrically? Like what are

753
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:25,879
Speaker 2: the actual things you're saying now? Now you're crossing over

754
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 2: from the sort of murky space of magical emotions into

755
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 2: the specific space of things you've actually said a poem,

756
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 2: you're actually singing along with this, How not to get

757
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 2: that to flatten it into just a description of the

758
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 2: sad song you've just written, or of the enthusiastic song written,

759
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 2: whatever it is. And so it's more like it's whittling

760
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 2: down the whole time. You're going from this thing that

761
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 2: is full of promise, and at every stage it has

762
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 2: the opportunity to just turn back into a bunch of sounds,

763
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:00,320
Speaker 2: and it's so rare that everyone's every once in a

764
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 2: while you get all the way to the end of

765
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 2: it and it's stayed full of promise.

766
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: Okay, there are some people have a bolt of inspiration

767
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: write a song in fifteen minutes. It sounds like you

768
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: build a song over a long period of time.

769
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 2: Usually, Yeah, every once in a while, something will start

770
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:21,919
Speaker 2: lyrics first, and then maybe that'll like sort of drag

771
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 2: along the song behind it, and that does happen faster

772
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 2: and they're more succinct, and sometimes they're really good, But

773
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:31,240
Speaker 2: there's not usually how they write.

774
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the videos. You have a concept,

775
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:39,919
Speaker 1: you nail it down as much as possible, You get sponsors,

776
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: You have a shoot those who are uninitiated. There's a

777
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: lot of money involved. There's a lot of people and

778
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 1: equipment involved. You have a set period of time to

779
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 1: film the video. The nature of making a film is

780
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: even with the best intentions, the best script, the best actors,

781
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: the best directors, it can go sideways. It doesn't necessarily

782
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: end up what you wanted to be. So have you

783
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: had that experience with these videos where you're looking at

784
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: the footage you have and say it's just not there,

785
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: and what do you do when you have that feeling?

786
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 2: Well, because our videos, like the reason we wound up

787
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 2: making videos like this is because ages ago we set

788
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 2: up a camera on a tripod in my backyard and

789
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 2: filmed us doing a rehearsal of a ridiculous dance. It

790
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 2: was sort of a thing we would do on stage

791
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 2: to fuck with the hipsters. You know. It's like it

792
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 2: was the era of the Strokes and everybody was shuffling

793
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 2: their feet and smoking and it was and we just

794
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 2: we wanted to we wanted we wanted to feel like

795
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 2: cheap trick. We wanted to feel like Jon Jet. We

796
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 2: wanted we wanted like, we wanted a smile in the room.

797
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:03,399
Speaker 2: So we would do this ridiculous boy band dance, taking

798
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 2: the piss out of ourselves just to kind of to

799
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 2: because it was the punkest thing we could do at

800
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:16,879
Speaker 2: the time. And a we taped us a rehearsal tape

801
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:18,319
Speaker 2: of that in my backyard and it went sort of

802
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 2: proto viral before YouTube was ever a thing, right, And

803
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 2: that taught us something about just being like, wait, there

804
00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 2: is this type of if we our instincts as a band.

805
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 2: We're not like, how do we make a film? It

806
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 2: was what do we do in front of a crowd

807
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 2: of people to get them to smile, to get them

808
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 2: to feel, to get them to emote, to get them

809
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:44,760
Speaker 2: to connect with us? And so our filmmaking has always

810
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 2: been sort of a just a reflection of that, is

811
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 2: sort of like, what what thing can we do that

812
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 2: we can put a camera in front of and and

813
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 2: bring people to And more and more over the years,

814
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:03,280
Speaker 2: I have found that it's basically that is the closest

815
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 2: facsimile I can digitally make to what a concert feels like.

816
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 2: Like when you're at a good show, there's just, you know,

817
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 2: as I'm sure you know, people's you know, physically align

818
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 2: with the singer, like you're actually your heartbeats actually line

819
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:20,720
Speaker 2: up with other people in the audience with the singer,

820
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 2: and your saline levels all adjusted, and it's all this

821
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 2: like crazy stuff that's happening sort of under the surface,

822
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 2: and you feel it right like it's such It's why

823
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 2: we're all drawn to those experiences. And that's not something

824
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 2: that happens when you're looking at TikTok, you know what

825
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 2: I mean, That's not something that happens when you're looking

826
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 2: at this little screen, no matter how good the musical

827
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 2: performance is. But the videos that we make do have

828
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 2: this sort of sense of wonder to them, this kind

829
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 2: of like this discovery, this magical feeling that is about

830
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 2: the closest thing I can come to that that feeling

831
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 2: on stage. And we've gotten there not through the standard

832
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 2: process of filmmaking where you script something out and you

833
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 2: plan it all in advance and then try to put

834
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 2: together in the edit, but rather by coming up with

835
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:10,279
Speaker 2: these performances that we the band actually do that we

836
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,879
Speaker 2: can then film in basically one take usually like it's

837
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:15,880
Speaker 2: usually one take thing. Sometimes we're doing multiple takes, but

838
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,440
Speaker 2: it's still a single event or whatever it is. But

839
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,799
Speaker 2: it means that at the end of the shoot, we

840
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 2: know we have it for the for the Love video

841
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 2: that the Grammy nominated one right now. It that I

842
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:29,799
Speaker 2: didn't even I knew when we'd done the last take

843
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:31,759
Speaker 2: that we had it, And I didn't even watch it

844
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 2: for several days after that because we didn't. We were

845
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:35,800
Speaker 2: at we're out of money, there's we couldn't do another

846
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 2: take anyways. But I knew we'd gotten to the end,

847
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:40,799
Speaker 2: and I knew what it felt like to perform it,

848
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 2: and so if the camera sees if like if it

849
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,280
Speaker 2: didn't look quite the same through the camera, it wouldn't

850
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 2: really matter. The spirit was there.

851
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: You know, how many takes were there and how many

852
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: days was the shoot?

853
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 2: Thirty nine takes? The official shoot like the you know

854
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 2: in film world, the shoot starts when you when the lights,

855
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 2: when when the expensive lighting package gets turned on. Basically

856
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 2: that it was officially a three day shoot, but we

857
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 2: were on the ground in Budapest for three weeks prepping that,

858
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 2: and many months of prep you know, stateside before that.

859
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 2: So and that was and there was a Sunday off,

860
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 2: like I think our last day was a Monday or Tuesday,

861
00:48:17,239 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 2: and there was a Sunday off right before that that

862
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 2: we had to wasn't off anymore. We were running too

863
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 2: far behind schedule and we had to buy an extra

864
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,280
Speaker 2: day on the ground. You know, like we we often

865
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 2: have sponsors. We usually have sponsors, but we also pay

866
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 2: for them. So like we're the clients so to speak.

867
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 2: So when when things aren't going well enough and we

868
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 2: know we need, like, well, just put in the extra

869
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 2: money if we have to. It's it's much more important,

870
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:42,359
Speaker 2: Like a B plus video does nothing for us. You know,

871
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 2: if we if we spent this much money on something

872
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 2: that people didn't think was spectacular, it would be a

873
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 2: real waste of money. So you know, it also puts uh,

874
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 2: you did this is not quite the question you asked.

875
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 2: But when I'm working with film people in the film world,

876
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,799
Speaker 2: it's a it's a real blessing to be doing such

877
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:06,839
Speaker 2: an absurd art project as one of our videos is

878
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 2: because nobody gets into film because because they thought it

879
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 2: was like, eh, an okay way to make a living,

880
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 2: and they just wanted to put in the hours. Like

881
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 2: everybody is is in love with the art, but the

882
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:23,319
Speaker 2: way you make a living is to make toothpaste commercials

883
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:30,320
Speaker 2: and you know, bitcoin exchange commercials or whatever. Like you know, people,

884
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 2: most of the time, people are working on things they

885
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 2: don't love, and most of the time they're working on

886
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:38,879
Speaker 2: a very strict schedule and never get to do never

887
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:41,600
Speaker 2: get to be very creative. And like in our videos,

888
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:44,399
Speaker 2: we don't usually have the same budgets as everyone else.

889
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 2: We don't usually like you're not gonna get paid quite

890
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 2: as much as you did on the Crest commercial, but

891
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:54,319
Speaker 2: you're gonna be really proud of the thing you made, Andre,

892
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 2: and we really need you to be creative. And people

893
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 2: usually usually really for the fences on them and and

894
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 2: really want like it's the rare time on set when

895
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 2: you're getting to make something where like h ah, where

896
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 2: where the client so to speak, will go to the

897
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:18,760
Speaker 2: mat to make it perfect, you know, and so and

898
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:21,279
Speaker 2: and that is a that is an addictive feeling. It's

899
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 2: something that like every filmmaker I've worked with, whether it

900
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 2: is a grip or the guy cleaning off the dance

901
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 2: floor that we are dancing on, it's super infectious. Like

902
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:35,400
Speaker 2: that feeling that this matters and you and then and

903
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 2: and that you're going to be proud of it. It

904
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 2: goes a long long way.

905
00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 1: So what was the budget for this clip.

906
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 2: For the for the Love video? Yes, I am contractually

907
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 2: not allowed to say, but it is high six.

908
00:50:55,920 --> 00:51:02,839
Speaker 1: Figures okay, So as originally planned? Was the amount of

909
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:07,760
Speaker 1: money covered by sponsors? No? What percentage of the money

910
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: was sponsors in the end in the beginning.

911
00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:16,799
Speaker 2: Zero in the end ninety.

912
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:19,320
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you get the sponsors?

913
00:51:20,920 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 2: Uh? We we make it. We have a lot of

914
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 2: friends in the ad world. At the point we've been

915
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 2: doing it for years and years. You know, they used

916
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 2: to come to us all the time, right right, like

917
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:38,359
Speaker 2: when when when being viral on YouTube was the thing

918
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:44,600
Speaker 2: that was threatening terrestrial TV, we were a first call,

919
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 2: you know. And and it's still the case people in

920
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 2: the ad world when they when they have to pitch

921
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:55,279
Speaker 2: their deck to the client the mood board, there's an

922
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 2: okay go video still on that mood board, you know,

923
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:01,839
Speaker 2: twenty percent of the time, fifty percent of the time,

924
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 2: Like we're we are a touchstone for for those people

925
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:08,280
Speaker 2: in terms of like we wanted to have this feeling.

926
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 2: We wanted to feel genuine we wanted to feel homemade,

927
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:16,759
Speaker 2: we wanted to feel inventive, we wanted to feel resourceful.

928
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 2: And you know, I think what I to me, the

929
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 2: thing is like when you're watching something that that feeling

930
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 2: of a as a viewer, feeling the filmmakers on the

931
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 2: other side of it, going like, oh I get what

932
00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 2: they put into this, and knowing having that relationshipstem It's

933
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:37,680
Speaker 2: very very similar to me as it is to listen

934
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:40,280
Speaker 2: to a singer, right Like, it's like that connection between

935
00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 2: you and them. That's not the case generally and narrative film,

936
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 2: like when you're watching you know, the best of Scorsese's films.

937
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 2: Hopefully you are in the you're in the scene, you're

938
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 2: watching the Gangsters. You're not watching the filmmaker, right, but

939
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:58,880
Speaker 2: in an okay go video. The whole point is we

940
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:04,399
Speaker 2: never you're where there's no suspension of disbelief. You're never

941
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 2: asked to leave, like we want you to see how

942
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:08,400
Speaker 2: it was made, and we want you to have that

943
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:11,160
Speaker 2: connection to us as we made it. And I think

944
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 2: that's that is something that that brands in particular are

945
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:18,600
Speaker 2: really they want that they want you when you watch

946
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 2: this to go like, I love this. I love that

947
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 2: this was made for me by these people, and who

948
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 2: are these people? And I want to know about this

949
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:28,360
Speaker 2: right like that that connection again to me, it feels

950
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:30,560
Speaker 2: just like music. It's sort of like when I hear ROBERTA.

951
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 2: Flack singing do what you Gotta do, I'm like, I

952
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 2: want to have dinner, Like I need to know the

953
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:36,840
Speaker 2: rest of the story. I want to I want to

954
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:38,759
Speaker 2: know how her heart was broken like this, I need

955
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:40,800
Speaker 2: to sing it to me again, like it's a personal

956
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 2: connection between me and her all of a sudden, And

957
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 2: that's how it feels with our videos, I hope, and

958
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 2: and so getting sponsors on board is generally a matter

959
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:54,760
Speaker 2: of them. They're just looking for ways to connect with people,

960
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 2: and all we have to do is sort of prove

961
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 2: to them we're not here. We're not here to steal

962
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 2: your money. We're like, we're here because we want to

963
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 2: make this thing that connects with people. Do you want

964
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:06,480
Speaker 2: to connect with people? And generally if they believe that

965
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 2: we will, they want to.

966
00:54:08,760 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: Okay, you have the idea, you know what cost X?

967
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:16,319
Speaker 1: How do you find the sponsors?

968
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 2: Literally, it has been different with every video we've done.

969
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:24,840
Speaker 2: I mean we we we do a lot of outreach.

970
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:29,839
Speaker 2: It almost never works like going going out to ad

971
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 2: agencies or you know, the chief marketing officer of some brand.

972
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:39,879
Speaker 2: We have an almost zero percent hit rate of going

973
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:42,239
Speaker 2: I've got this great idea and you make the thing right.

974
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:46,319
Speaker 2: But they frequently come to me asking for me to

975
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,040
Speaker 2: direct a direct a TV commercial for them, and then

976
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:50,799
Speaker 2: I could go, well, I'd love to do that, or

977
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 2: you could make the next Okay go video and that

978
00:54:53,160 --> 00:55:00,040
Speaker 2: has often worked. There's there if if the if the

979
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 2: production company we're working with already has lots of clients

980
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 2: that they're making commercials. For as long as it comes

981
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 2: from somebody they trust in the marketing world that this

982
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 2: is a good marketing maneuver, then they might consider it.

983
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:15,799
Speaker 2: And so for this last one, it was it was

984
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:18,800
Speaker 2: the it was a combination of both of those Meta

985
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 2: was working with. Are the producers who are making the

986
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:24,880
Speaker 2: video with us already worked with Meta on other projects

987
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 2: and they were like, would you consider working on this?

988
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:30,399
Speaker 2: And that was a multi month process and they paid

989
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 2: for about half of it, and uh and the the

990
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 2: project Management Institute was had already worked with us on

991
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:42,880
Speaker 2: a different video and we were let and we were like,

992
00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:45,280
Speaker 2: the next one's going to be bigger. We be interested

993
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 2: in working. So it was like two existing relationships.

994
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:52,680
Speaker 1: Okay, what does a sponsor want for their money?

995
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:57,160
Speaker 2: Engagement attention? I mean they're like, and that's measured differently

996
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:00,959
Speaker 2: every time, and there's I think think that it used

997
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 2: to be at least I remember it being much more

998
00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 2: metrics driven five ten years ago, when it was sort

999
00:56:09,680 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 2: of like how many hits or how many shares or

1000
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 2: how many of this? And I think people have started

1001
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:24,400
Speaker 2: to realize that it's so much more about a continuing

1002
00:56:24,480 --> 00:56:27,880
Speaker 2: relationship that like the sort of zeitgeisty feeling of something

1003
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 2: has more to do with being popping up on three

1004
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 2: different platforms than it does with you know this many

1005
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 2: YouTube hits that generally it is when we've gotten the

1006
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:45,440
Speaker 2: feedback from the brand partners at the end, it's all

1007
00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:48,480
Speaker 2: about overall feeling they're getting and not look.

1008
00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:50,080
Speaker 1: At this number, look at this number, look at this number,

1009
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: and you've made a number of these. What satisfies a

1010
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:58,360
Speaker 1: client a sponsor. They want to be able to be

1011
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:03,359
Speaker 1: seen in the video, they want to presents by credit what.

1012
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:06,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, ours generally have there's usually a thanks at the end,

1013
00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:09,400
Speaker 2: like there's just like this, you know thanks at the end.

1014
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:12,120
Speaker 2: Sometimes there's something right at the beginning. A lot of

1015
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 2: times there's behind the scenes pieces that are very focused

1016
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 2: on on their relationship to it because it's all it's

1017
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:24,480
Speaker 2: like if when you click on one of our videos, we

1018
00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:27,080
Speaker 2: hope you go down the rabbit hole, right like it's

1019
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 2: like how do they do this? And then you're and

1020
00:57:29,120 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 2: then you're in the universe of how it was all

1021
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 2: made and that stuff is you know a lot of

1022
00:57:33,480 --> 00:57:37,200
Speaker 2: ways more meaningful to the clients because they're like what

1023
00:57:37,240 --> 00:57:41,200
Speaker 2: they want is a a a a value connection with

1024
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:43,400
Speaker 2: the people who are watching. It's not just a sort

1025
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 2: of impression, you know.

1026
00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:49,880
Speaker 1: So what's your view on directing commercials?

1027
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 2: I you know, I have done it before, it and

1028
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 2: it's a it can be a fun way to sort

1029
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:00,440
Speaker 2: of practice a technique or learn a filmmaking thing. I'm

1030
00:58:00,520 --> 00:58:04,280
Speaker 2: less into it. I'd rather be writing in songs, you know.

1031
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 2: And right now, like commercial directing is a horrible isn't it.

1032
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 2: I mean it's just like, you know, the music industry,

1033
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:16,760
Speaker 2: as you know, turned into something like a service industry

1034
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:20,440
Speaker 2: in the last ten years, fifteen twenty years, and that

1035
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:23,600
Speaker 2: is that has happened much more to directors in the

1036
00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 2: last five ten years than they had thought was going

1037
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 2: to happen. I think, you know, like I think a

1038
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 2: lot was learned from the from the digital makeover of

1039
00:58:36,320 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 2: music from the films. I'd learned a lot from watching

1040
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:40,960
Speaker 2: that happen, but there's a lot that was still a

1041
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 2: big shock. And watching my friends who are commercial directors

1042
00:58:45,760 --> 00:58:49,320
Speaker 2: struggle for work, it's like, I don't, you know, I

1043
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:52,360
Speaker 2: don't have any great desire to be fighting tooth and

1044
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 2: nail to get to get a film job that I

1045
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 2: don't really want to do. In the first place, you know.

1046
00:58:55,880 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 1: But it is lucrative if you do the work.

1047
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 2: It has been it was in the past, it is

1048
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 2: getting less and less. So from what I understand, I mean,

1049
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:09,840
Speaker 2: I'm not Look, I'm not a a a student of

1050
00:59:09,880 --> 00:59:12,280
Speaker 2: any of these industries like you are, so I don't

1051
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:14,440
Speaker 2: want to stick my foot in my mouth. But it

1052
00:59:15,040 --> 00:59:18,840
Speaker 2: used to be that that, you know, multiple day shoots

1053
00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:21,960
Speaker 2: with big budgets were pretty common for commercial shoots. That's

1054
00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:25,280
Speaker 2: that is the margins have come way down and there's

1055
00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:28,520
Speaker 2: and they know now that a lot of what they

1056
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:32,040
Speaker 2: have to produce is all this ancillary stuff for social media.

1057
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:34,800
Speaker 2: So so what you have to make is, you know,

1058
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 2: there's ten times more stuff you have to make, and

1059
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 2: the budgets have come out.

1060
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 1: So to what degree do you feel pressure to top

1061
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 1: yourself with the next video?

1062
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:53,320
Speaker 2: The The true answer to that is very complicated because

1063
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 2: I'm aware that they're the like that it's an attention economy,

1064
00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:03,640
Speaker 2: you know. But you would never write a song to

1065
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:06,520
Speaker 2: try to top the last song, you know, And it's

1066
01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:08,000
Speaker 2: sort of the same with the videos. It's like, what

1067
01:00:08,040 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 2: I want to do is make is make the thing

1068
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 2: that best serves this idea. I want to make the

1069
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 2: thing that's most evocative, that's most emotional, that is most

1070
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 2: connected to me, and that I will be proudest of

1071
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 2: for the longest, And those aren't always It's not a

1072
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:26,640
Speaker 2: I mean sort of back to your earlier question about

1073
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:32,840
Speaker 2: like always finding new fans, like you're not You're not

1074
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:35,880
Speaker 2: always trying to grow things. You just want to make

1075
01:00:35,920 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 2: it the best you can, you know. So I don't know,

1076
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:43,360
Speaker 2: I feel like I've sort of dodged your question, but

1077
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:45,600
Speaker 2: that well, let me you know, I no, no.

1078
01:00:45,560 --> 01:00:47,640
Speaker 1: I don't think you are. But let me ask you this,

1079
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 1: are you thinking of video ideas all the time or

1080
01:00:52,200 --> 01:00:53,840
Speaker 1: after you write music?

1081
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 2: I have a have a sort of running list of

1082
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 2: things that I think would be fun to try, and

1083
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 2: they line up with songs I have written generally. Sometimes

1084
01:01:07,920 --> 01:01:11,800
Speaker 2: every once in a while, a song something lyrically will

1085
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:16,320
Speaker 2: actually inspire the video idea itself, but usually it's it

1086
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:20,200
Speaker 2: is a Venn diagram where it's sort of like I

1087
01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 2: remain surprised that these two things really line up so well,

1088
01:01:24,840 --> 01:01:27,280
Speaker 2: but I shouldn't be. They just they both came from this,

1089
01:01:27,520 --> 01:01:30,160
Speaker 2: like it's the same part of me. It's the same

1090
01:01:30,200 --> 01:01:34,360
Speaker 2: reflection of what I think is exciting and full of

1091
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:36,480
Speaker 2: wonder in the world. Like of course they line up.

1092
01:01:36,560 --> 01:01:38,960
Speaker 2: You know, let's go back to the beginning. You say

1093
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:41,959
Speaker 2: you grew up in Washington and DC. Most people don't

1094
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:44,240
Speaker 2: grow up in the district. They grew up in suburbs,

1095
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:47,760
Speaker 2: but some do. Where did you literally live the district

1096
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:50,280
Speaker 2: in the northwest side of the district. I grew up

1097
01:01:51,040 --> 01:01:54,360
Speaker 2: just south of Chevy Chase Circle off of Connecticut Avenue,

1098
01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 2: and it was I really lucked out in terms of

1099
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 2: the timing I was. I was born in seventy five

1100
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:05,560
Speaker 2: and so nineteen ninety I went into high school and

1101
01:02:05,600 --> 01:02:07,840
Speaker 2: it was like Fugazi was just coming out with their

1102
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 2: second album, and I was treated to the like one

1103
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:19,800
Speaker 2: of the greatest DIY indie punk scenes that has ever existed.

1104
01:02:19,840 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 2: Like that the discord that heyday at the Discord of

1105
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:25,720
Speaker 2: Discord Records or what was did a lot for me.

1106
01:02:25,760 --> 01:02:28,520
Speaker 2: Fugazi and Shudder to Think and Jawbox and all these

1107
01:02:28,560 --> 01:02:33,120
Speaker 2: incredible bands and most of all the feeling that anybody

1108
01:02:33,120 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 2: could just do this right. There was a record label

1109
01:02:36,040 --> 01:02:39,760
Speaker 2: there called called Simple Machines, and they put out a

1110
01:02:43,120 --> 01:02:46,200
Speaker 2: pamphlet I think it was a dollar fifty and it

1111
01:02:46,240 --> 01:02:47,720
Speaker 2: was how to make your own seven inch and it

1112
01:02:47,800 --> 01:02:49,840
Speaker 2: was like, here are the three pressing plants that still

1113
01:02:49,880 --> 01:02:51,840
Speaker 2: exist in the United States. Here are their phone numbers.

1114
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:54,520
Speaker 2: Here's you asked for when you call, you know, here's

1115
01:02:54,560 --> 01:02:57,680
Speaker 2: what here's here's what your budget will actually look like.

1116
01:02:57,760 --> 01:02:59,680
Speaker 2: So you like, don't think you can do this for

1117
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:01,439
Speaker 2: a less And I think it was seven hundred fifty

1118
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:03,480
Speaker 2: bucks or something like that. It's like, for seven hundred

1119
01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:06,720
Speaker 2: and fifty bucks, you can make a pressing of five

1120
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:10,280
Speaker 2: hundred records. And and that was and I and I

1121
01:03:10,400 --> 01:03:12,680
Speaker 2: ordered that pamphlet for a dollar fifty and I started

1122
01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 2: a quote unquote record label for my you know, my

1123
01:03:15,720 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 2: friend's bands. And that was normal. That was like, that's

1124
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:24,200
Speaker 2: what That's what the scene in d C said. Was

1125
01:03:24,240 --> 01:03:28,040
Speaker 2: normal to a fifteen year you know. And honestly it's why, like,

1126
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:30,200
Speaker 2: you know, our other the other thing we're up for

1127
01:03:30,240 --> 01:03:32,480
Speaker 2: a Grammy for this year is our the album cover.

1128
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:35,439
Speaker 2: The packaging for our album, which is this like it's

1129
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:38,440
Speaker 2: a three D sculpture that pops out of the album

1130
01:03:38,440 --> 01:03:40,680
Speaker 2: when you open it up. And my love of that,

1131
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 2: of the packaging and of the sort of the opportunities

1132
01:03:45,440 --> 01:03:48,439
Speaker 2: around the art that you make all come from that era,

1133
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:52,080
Speaker 2: that DC era. That it was sort of like the

1134
01:03:52,440 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 2: that making music was a community activity, right, like that

1135
01:03:58,320 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 2: the shows were a community activity. That were pasting your

1136
01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:04,640
Speaker 2: posters on the mailbox was a community activity. It was

1137
01:04:04,640 --> 01:04:08,200
Speaker 2: sort of like joining this community to make the because

1138
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:10,120
Speaker 2: you get to make the stuff, you know. It was

1139
01:04:10,160 --> 01:04:13,640
Speaker 2: like just it was like there were endless opportunities for

1140
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:17,960
Speaker 2: making things. And I love that that chase of the

1141
01:04:18,280 --> 01:04:19,720
Speaker 2: of the muse.

1142
01:04:20,400 --> 01:04:22,400
Speaker 1: Did you go to public school or private school?

1143
01:04:22,800 --> 01:04:23,560
Speaker 2: Private school?

1144
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:27,120
Speaker 1: Was it one of the famous DC private schools?

1145
01:04:27,560 --> 01:04:30,560
Speaker 2: Which one was Saint Albans is pretty famous. I mean

1146
01:04:30,560 --> 01:04:32,440
Speaker 2: it's not I think these days did well as the

1147
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:37,080
Speaker 2: one everyone knows about pop. Yeah, it was a it

1148
01:04:37,120 --> 01:04:41,200
Speaker 2: was a I had an incredible education, and it was

1149
01:04:41,280 --> 01:04:47,440
Speaker 2: that I raged against the conservative culture of that school.

1150
01:04:48,320 --> 01:04:50,520
Speaker 2: But but I but it was a great education.

1151
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:52,200
Speaker 1: How many kids in the family.

1152
01:04:53,200 --> 01:04:53,480
Speaker 2: Two?

1153
01:04:54,280 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 1: Who's the other one?

1154
01:04:55,640 --> 01:04:58,200
Speaker 2: My older sister and she h four years older than me.

1155
01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:00,400
Speaker 2: She and she made several of our videos. She was

1156
01:05:00,400 --> 01:05:04,800
Speaker 2: a professional ballroom dancer. Her name is Tricia and and

1157
01:05:04,880 --> 01:05:07,920
Speaker 2: she after the Treadmill video which we filmed at her house,

1158
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:12,120
Speaker 2: she she switched into filmmaking herself, and she's now a

1159
01:05:12,200 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 2: successful film director.

1160
01:05:14,560 --> 01:05:16,960
Speaker 1: How did she get into ballroom dancing?

1161
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:20,600
Speaker 2: She I think she's a lot like me. She just

1162
01:05:20,680 --> 01:05:25,320
Speaker 2: it was the thing that made her, that made the

1163
01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 2: world around her more magical. She she was she was

1164
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:31,600
Speaker 2: studying it for fun in college and there was a

1165
01:05:31,680 --> 01:05:35,280
Speaker 2: job open at the local teaching studio and she started

1166
01:05:35,280 --> 01:05:36,920
Speaker 2: as a sort of intern there and the next thing,

1167
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:39,160
Speaker 2: you know, she was she was competing on the circuit

1168
01:05:39,240 --> 01:05:44,240
Speaker 2: and she was. She she built. She managed to get

1169
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:46,640
Speaker 2: enough students that she could build a small ballroom in

1170
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:49,200
Speaker 2: her backyard in Florida, where she had moved. And it

1171
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:52,720
Speaker 2: was a that's some hell of a way to keep

1172
01:05:52,800 --> 01:05:53,640
Speaker 2: your art alive, you know.

1173
01:05:54,320 --> 01:05:57,320
Speaker 1: Okay, So you go to school. Do you play sports

1174
01:05:57,320 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: at all?

1175
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:02,160
Speaker 2: I did a little bit. I wasn't. I wasn't very

1176
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 2: good at any of them. And I'm and but it

1177
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 2: was a requirement, so I did.

1178
01:06:08,120 --> 01:06:12,000
Speaker 1: And what about friends? You have a lot of friends?

1179
01:06:12,040 --> 01:06:13,680
Speaker 1: You're alone or what? What were you like?

1180
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:15,560
Speaker 2: I was a pretty social kid. I had a lot

1181
01:06:15,560 --> 01:06:18,040
Speaker 2: of I mean, there was a small group of kids

1182
01:06:18,040 --> 01:06:20,880
Speaker 2: at my school who were who were sort of the

1183
01:06:22,520 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 2: punky outsiders. I mean, you know, you know, the band

1184
01:06:24,440 --> 01:06:28,200
Speaker 2: of the Walkman. They were all the great ahead of

1185
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:30,200
Speaker 2: me and the singers a couple of guys behind me,

1186
01:06:30,240 --> 01:06:33,960
Speaker 2: and I mean, and there were up there was a

1187
01:06:34,160 --> 01:06:37,880
Speaker 2: there's a you know, five percent of each year was

1188
01:06:37,520 --> 01:06:40,520
Speaker 2: what was kids like me and there but there was

1189
01:06:40,560 --> 01:06:45,040
Speaker 2: that was enough kids to for it to be a scene.

1190
01:06:45,080 --> 01:06:47,640
Speaker 2: And no, it was weird. It's like we didn't we

1191
01:06:47,640 --> 01:06:49,440
Speaker 2: weren't at odds with the rest of the school. It

1192
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:56,920
Speaker 2: wasn't like the the combative cliche I see in movies

1193
01:06:56,960 --> 01:07:00,440
Speaker 2: about about, you know, high school experiences. We were just

1194
01:07:00,560 --> 01:07:07,320
Speaker 2: we had our own thing. We didn't care about those kids.

1195
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:13,240
Speaker 1: Okay, what degree did you have pressure from your parents

1196
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:14,400
Speaker 1: to do well in school?

1197
01:07:15,560 --> 01:07:21,240
Speaker 2: I self pressured. They my parents, I think we're smart

1198
01:07:21,280 --> 01:07:24,120
Speaker 2: to let me rage against school when I wanted to

1199
01:07:24,120 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 2: have blue hair. They're like not going to try to

1200
01:07:26,480 --> 01:07:29,080
Speaker 2: stop me. You know, they let me. They let me

1201
01:07:29,120 --> 01:07:34,240
Speaker 2: try to shock enrage my my conservative teachers instead of them.

1202
01:07:34,680 --> 01:07:37,200
Speaker 2: So I was pretty much a straight a student. And

1203
01:07:37,440 --> 01:07:39,000
Speaker 2: you know, I went to school at Brown after like

1204
01:07:39,000 --> 01:07:40,520
Speaker 2: I went to you know, an ivy League school, and

1205
01:07:40,560 --> 01:07:44,600
Speaker 2: I was always I was fairly pragmatic about this, Like

1206
01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:47,160
Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to be that all I cared

1207
01:07:47,160 --> 01:07:50,840
Speaker 2: about was art, but I also knew that that you don't.

1208
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:54,919
Speaker 2: Really it's not very very few people get to live

1209
01:07:54,960 --> 01:07:56,760
Speaker 2: their life making art. And so when I got out

1210
01:07:56,800 --> 01:07:59,120
Speaker 2: of school, like during high school, I thought of myself

1211
01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:01,320
Speaker 2: more as a visual artist. During college it switched to

1212
01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:04,360
Speaker 2: music more. You know, in high school, I was putting out,

1213
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:06,400
Speaker 2: like I said, records for my friend's bands, but that

1214
01:08:06,480 --> 01:08:08,560
Speaker 2: was much more of a kind of like social hobby

1215
01:08:08,560 --> 01:08:12,160
Speaker 2: than it was my my calling. And I went to

1216
01:08:12,240 --> 01:08:15,720
Speaker 2: I got to college and the the academic art program

1217
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:19,400
Speaker 2: was going over stuff that I had already learned about.

1218
01:08:19,479 --> 01:08:21,840
Speaker 2: It was it was sort of like abstract art and

1219
01:08:22,320 --> 01:08:24,600
Speaker 2: was blowing the minds of my my peers. And I

1220
01:08:24,600 --> 01:08:27,559
Speaker 2: felt like I didn't know this ship and and there

1221
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:30,160
Speaker 2: was a sort of pretense of I didn't like that

1222
01:08:30,240 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 2: it was all about the the it was about the

1223
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:38,519
Speaker 2: essay that you write to go along with your piece,

1224
01:08:38,640 --> 01:08:40,960
Speaker 2: not the piece itself, and what and and I fell

1225
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:44,880
Speaker 2: in whereas music that there, uh, there was an electronic

1226
01:08:44,960 --> 01:08:47,920
Speaker 2: music studio there with incredible equipment, and I didn't know

1227
01:08:47,960 --> 01:08:50,600
Speaker 2: how to use it. And I could go into this

1228
01:08:50,720 --> 01:08:57,439
Speaker 2: place and the actual experiential uplift I got from like

1229
01:08:57,479 --> 01:08:59,759
Speaker 2: I go in there and find magic, and that was incredible,

1230
01:08:59,760 --> 01:09:01,439
Speaker 2: Like that was just addictive to me to go into.

1231
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:04,920
Speaker 2: I would spend hours and hours and hours, and by

1232
01:09:05,040 --> 01:09:08,120
Speaker 2: by my sophomore year, I was the I had gotten

1233
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:10,120
Speaker 2: the role. I had gotten the position of the ta

1234
01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:12,559
Speaker 2: who got to schedule the hours in the music studio.

1235
01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 2: So then any any all the two am to eight

1236
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:18,559
Speaker 2: am hours that weren't being used, I would block off

1237
01:09:18,560 --> 01:09:20,240
Speaker 2: for myself and I would just go in there every

1238
01:09:20,320 --> 01:09:22,640
Speaker 2: night and learn how to record music, learn how to

1239
01:09:22,640 --> 01:09:25,200
Speaker 2: write music, learn how to make music. And by the

1240
01:09:25,200 --> 01:09:27,080
Speaker 2: time I came out of college, that's what I cared.

1241
01:09:27,200 --> 01:09:30,599
Speaker 2: I mean, that was my calling. And so my years

1242
01:09:30,680 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 2: right after college I worked as a radio engineer at

1243
01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:37,559
Speaker 2: NPR one day a week and the other four days

1244
01:09:37,640 --> 01:09:42,560
Speaker 2: I was a photoshop retoucher for a for an ad agency.

1245
01:09:43,080 --> 01:09:45,320
Speaker 2: All of this in Chicago, where I had moved to

1246
01:09:45,360 --> 01:09:48,920
Speaker 2: rejoin my old friend Tim Basis of Okay Goo, who

1247
01:09:49,240 --> 01:09:52,120
Speaker 2: I had met at summer camp ten years prior.

1248
01:09:53,080 --> 01:09:57,879
Speaker 1: Okay You talk about buying the pamphlip making the records,

1249
01:09:58,120 --> 01:10:00,479
Speaker 1: When did you start playing an instr of it.

1250
01:10:01,720 --> 01:10:03,559
Speaker 2: In high school. I mean I played violin as a kid.

1251
01:10:03,560 --> 01:10:05,479
Speaker 2: I was terrible at it, and in high school I

1252
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:07,400
Speaker 2: played guitar a little bit. I was bad at it

1253
01:10:07,439 --> 01:10:12,080
Speaker 2: then too. I didn't even when Okko started, I was

1254
01:10:12,120 --> 01:10:14,680
Speaker 2: it was it was, man, I was. It took me

1255
01:10:14,720 --> 01:10:16,559
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of practice to be able

1256
01:10:16,560 --> 01:10:18,000
Speaker 2: to sing any of our songs and play them at

1257
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:23,400
Speaker 2: the same time, you know. The I fell in love

1258
01:10:23,439 --> 01:10:26,840
Speaker 2: with playing instruments in college, but I of course was

1259
01:10:26,880 --> 01:10:31,240
Speaker 2: too impatient to spend the time really necessary for them.

1260
01:10:32,400 --> 01:10:38,160
Speaker 2: And it was the years of touring that actually taught

1261
01:10:38,160 --> 01:10:39,200
Speaker 2: me on a plan, you know.

1262
01:10:39,880 --> 01:10:43,200
Speaker 1: Okay, so when you were in high school, you were

1263
01:10:43,760 --> 01:10:47,080
Speaker 1: coordinating making records for other groups or did you have

1264
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:48,120
Speaker 1: a group yourself.

1265
01:10:48,840 --> 01:10:50,680
Speaker 2: I had a group myself, but we were terrible and

1266
01:10:50,720 --> 01:10:52,599
Speaker 2: we were I only put one song on one thing.

1267
01:10:52,640 --> 01:10:54,040
Speaker 2: Mostly it was other groups.

1268
01:10:54,520 --> 01:10:58,439
Speaker 1: And did that band ever play outside the basement once?

1269
01:10:58,960 --> 01:11:01,880
Speaker 2: Maybe twice, you know, in our own school gym, like

1270
01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:05,080
Speaker 2: not not, But you know, the other the other band

1271
01:11:05,080 --> 01:11:07,000
Speaker 2: that night was the band it with the same kids

1272
01:11:07,000 --> 01:11:09,559
Speaker 2: that wound up being first Jonathan fire Eater and then

1273
01:11:09,560 --> 01:11:10,920
Speaker 2: eventually the Walkman.

1274
01:11:11,080 --> 01:11:13,639
Speaker 1: You know, So why do you end up going to Brown.

1275
01:11:17,479 --> 01:11:23,840
Speaker 2: I it was the I knew I wanted to. I

1276
01:11:23,880 --> 01:11:26,240
Speaker 2: knew I valued my good education. I knew I liked

1277
01:11:26,280 --> 01:11:30,280
Speaker 2: the feeling of my brain being pushed by by my

1278
01:11:30,400 --> 01:11:33,880
Speaker 2: superiors in a good way. But I also knew that

1279
01:11:34,080 --> 01:11:36,720
Speaker 2: school was for me. Was not going to be a

1280
01:11:36,880 --> 01:11:38,680
Speaker 2: trade school. I was not going there to learn to

1281
01:11:38,720 --> 01:11:40,759
Speaker 2: be a computer scientist or to learn to be a doctor.

1282
01:11:40,800 --> 01:11:42,439
Speaker 2: I was going there to learn to grow up, you know.

1283
01:11:43,080 --> 01:11:47,200
Speaker 2: And this was the one that the good school, where

1284
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:49,479
Speaker 2: the other kids that were there seemed like they were

1285
01:11:49,520 --> 01:11:53,640
Speaker 2: comfortable in their own skin and making and and and

1286
01:11:53,760 --> 01:11:56,840
Speaker 2: learning to make decisions as opposed to learning to game

1287
01:11:56,880 --> 01:11:57,840
Speaker 2: the system. You know.

1288
01:11:58,280 --> 01:12:02,519
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're at Brown. Do you form a band

1289
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:03,120
Speaker 1: at Brown?

1290
01:12:03,760 --> 01:12:09,800
Speaker 2: And did? Yeah? Several? But yeah I had. I had

1291
01:12:09,800 --> 01:12:12,080
Speaker 2: a sort of punky band my first two years, and

1292
01:12:12,120 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 2: a sort of electronic band my second to you, two

1293
01:12:14,320 --> 01:12:15,960
Speaker 2: different electronic bands my second to you.

1294
01:12:16,760 --> 01:12:19,720
Speaker 1: And did they play out of the practice room? Yeah?

1295
01:12:19,760 --> 01:12:21,640
Speaker 2: We played a lot. We had jos.

1296
01:12:21,680 --> 01:12:23,920
Speaker 1: Really, so you had gigs? Where were these gigs?

1297
01:12:25,240 --> 01:12:27,320
Speaker 2: There were? Providence was pretty good at the time for

1298
01:12:27,360 --> 01:12:30,639
Speaker 2: that stuff, because you know it Risdy's right there. So

1299
01:12:30,640 --> 01:12:32,599
Speaker 2: so we played a lot of club Babyhead, and there's

1300
01:12:32,600 --> 01:12:37,400
Speaker 2: a there's a club on the Brown campus called UH

1301
01:12:37,600 --> 01:12:40,080
Speaker 2: called the Underground to believe it's called there was you know,

1302
01:12:40,160 --> 01:12:42,519
Speaker 2: loop Os. And in Providence we used to get get

1303
01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:46,080
Speaker 2: gigs opening for people. I remember opening for like Karen

1304
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:50,240
Speaker 2: Black and and UH. I remember opening for Blonde Redhead,

1305
01:12:50,600 --> 01:12:53,000
Speaker 2: you know at Brown like we we did we did

1306
01:12:53,000 --> 01:12:57,000
Speaker 2: pretty well and and that and man, they're like the

1307
01:12:57,080 --> 01:13:02,200
Speaker 2: that talk about getting into the sort of the art

1308
01:13:02,240 --> 01:13:06,479
Speaker 2: project side of it. I remember learning about screen screen

1309
01:13:06,479 --> 01:13:10,080
Speaker 2: printing while I was there from from Risdy students and

1310
01:13:10,080 --> 01:13:13,360
Speaker 2: and just like that started my love affair with with

1311
01:13:13,760 --> 01:13:17,360
Speaker 2: design for the band. Like that that you could actually

1312
01:13:19,720 --> 01:13:23,840
Speaker 2: screenprint your own posters, like and make them a thing

1313
01:13:23,880 --> 01:13:27,559
Speaker 2: of beauty was what And it was like so thrilling

1314
01:13:27,600 --> 01:13:29,679
Speaker 2: to me. It was not, you know, it didn't feel

1315
01:13:29,680 --> 01:13:36,160
Speaker 2: like the necessary marketing. It felt like the life value

1316
01:13:36,240 --> 01:13:39,320
Speaker 2: add that now I get to I get like that

1317
01:13:39,439 --> 01:13:42,000
Speaker 2: part of the part of going to do this show

1318
01:13:42,080 --> 01:13:46,000
Speaker 2: next week is going to make posters this week, you know.

1319
01:13:47,280 --> 01:13:50,400
Speaker 2: And that that carried on into our Chicago days. We

1320
01:13:50,400 --> 01:13:53,160
Speaker 2: did a lot of screen printing into Chicago and urged

1321
01:13:53,880 --> 01:13:58,080
Speaker 2: okay Go's earliest UH fan base in Chicago is definitely

1322
01:13:58,080 --> 01:14:03,840
Speaker 2: because of our absurdly overprinted for color you know, screen

1323
01:14:03,840 --> 01:14:06,080
Speaker 2: prints that were all over Chicago in the late nineties.

1324
01:14:07,320 --> 01:14:11,400
Speaker 1: Okay, you graduate from Brown, you moved to Chicago. What's

1325
01:14:11,479 --> 01:14:14,160
Speaker 1: the dream?

1326
01:14:17,720 --> 01:14:23,960
Speaker 2: The dream was to continue to be surprised and thrilled

1327
01:14:24,040 --> 01:14:31,200
Speaker 2: by make an art. Like I was rational enough to

1328
01:14:31,320 --> 01:14:37,360
Speaker 2: know how unlikely a job as a rock star is, right,

1329
01:14:37,760 --> 01:14:45,080
Speaker 2: but irrational and hope and delusion driven enough to see

1330
01:14:45,160 --> 01:14:48,720
Speaker 2: all these converging things in the world around me and

1331
01:14:48,720 --> 01:14:50,639
Speaker 2: and think there's a way to make a living out

1332
01:14:50,640 --> 01:14:55,680
Speaker 2: of that. Right that that technology was making recording a

1333
01:14:55,760 --> 01:14:59,400
Speaker 2: different thing, you know that that like during college, I

1334
01:14:59,439 --> 01:15:06,200
Speaker 2: remember my love of of hip hop. You know, DC

1335
01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:08,559
Speaker 2: growing up in high school had been all about punk

1336
01:15:08,920 --> 01:15:11,559
Speaker 2: and hip hop, right Go Go is from DC, and

1337
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:15,080
Speaker 2: the nineties were like, you know, it was the era

1338
01:15:15,240 --> 01:15:18,920
Speaker 2: of Tribe called Quests and Black Sheep. You know, it

1339
01:15:18,960 --> 01:15:20,840
Speaker 2: was like it was an incredible time for all that stuff.

1340
01:15:20,880 --> 01:15:24,800
Speaker 2: And I remember being in college and going how come

1341
01:15:24,840 --> 01:15:27,400
Speaker 2: punk rock doesn't have hip hop beats? And being like

1342
01:15:27,600 --> 01:15:31,320
Speaker 2: how someone's going to make this album? And then the

1343
01:15:31,360 --> 01:15:33,559
Speaker 2: next thing, you know, there's like I remember Odelay by

1344
01:15:33,560 --> 01:15:36,160
Speaker 2: Beck coming out and being like, there is a person

1345
01:15:36,200 --> 01:15:38,920
Speaker 2: who just made rock and roll with a sampler, Like, actual,

1346
01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:41,759
Speaker 2: it's not it's not just like trying to write songs

1347
01:15:41,800 --> 01:15:43,839
Speaker 2: over a sampler. It's rock and roll with a sampler.

1348
01:15:43,880 --> 01:15:46,280
Speaker 2: And I was like so so in love with that

1349
01:15:46,320 --> 01:15:48,600
Speaker 2: record and also so jealous of it, you know, but

1350
01:15:48,600 --> 01:15:51,160
Speaker 2: but that was I remember feeling that convergence in the

1351
01:15:51,200 --> 01:15:53,120
Speaker 2: late nineties, in the early offs that it was like

1352
01:15:54,520 --> 01:16:03,799
Speaker 2: every that you could fluency with the with the world

1353
01:16:03,840 --> 01:16:08,120
Speaker 2: around you. What technologically was it was a huge boon

1354
01:16:08,200 --> 01:16:11,920
Speaker 2: to creativity, like you could make things differently than than

1355
01:16:12,160 --> 01:16:15,720
Speaker 2: than our parents generation had to like it that you

1356
01:16:15,760 --> 01:16:18,000
Speaker 2: could get a sampler and make rock and roll with it.

1357
01:16:18,040 --> 01:16:21,200
Speaker 2: That was a whole that was really really inspiring to me.

1358
01:16:21,680 --> 01:16:24,160
Speaker 2: And it's hard to say exactly how that crosses over

1359
01:16:24,160 --> 01:16:27,519
Speaker 2: individual but like, the reason I know how to use

1360
01:16:27,560 --> 01:16:30,920
Speaker 2: photoshop was because a couple of punks in DC had

1361
01:16:31,240 --> 01:16:35,599
Speaker 2: hired me to work for their software publishing company, where

1362
01:16:35,600 --> 01:16:39,320
Speaker 2: they they got a job putting out the CD ROMs

1363
01:16:39,520 --> 01:16:43,120
Speaker 2: of Time Magazine in the early nineties when when Time

1364
01:16:43,120 --> 01:16:46,479
Speaker 2: Magazine didn't want to didn't digitize anything themselves, they would

1365
01:16:46,479 --> 01:16:49,679
Speaker 2: send all their issues to these two punks in DC

1366
01:16:50,080 --> 01:16:53,200
Speaker 2: would get them all digitized, and I literally my job

1367
01:16:53,280 --> 01:16:56,439
Speaker 2: was put them on a scanner, scan the thing and

1368
01:16:56,439 --> 01:17:00,919
Speaker 2: and digitize from the physical copy of time magine goats,

1369
01:17:01,360 --> 01:17:05,599
Speaker 2: take off the barcode, and and fill in Hillary Clinton's hair,

1370
01:17:05,800 --> 01:17:10,040
Speaker 2: you know, like and and the idea that that visual

1371
01:17:10,160 --> 01:17:13,040
Speaker 2: art like this was that it was all malleable, that

1372
01:17:13,080 --> 01:17:15,360
Speaker 2: you could get into your computer and start playing around

1373
01:17:15,439 --> 01:17:17,960
Speaker 2: with the way this image looks. That to me, it's

1374
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:20,400
Speaker 2: hard to explain about how that connects, but that and

1375
01:17:20,439 --> 01:17:22,120
Speaker 2: the sampler at the same time, you could see they

1376
01:17:22,120 --> 01:17:25,360
Speaker 2: were heading the same place, you know. And so that

1377
01:17:25,520 --> 01:17:26,960
Speaker 2: was the dream to do that.

1378
01:17:27,400 --> 01:17:31,400
Speaker 1: Okay, you moved to Chicago, your old friend is there.

1379
01:17:31,960 --> 01:17:34,639
Speaker 1: Do you immediately form a group? Yeah.

1380
01:17:34,760 --> 01:17:38,519
Speaker 2: They were gonna they were gonna be my backing band

1381
01:17:38,560 --> 01:17:41,720
Speaker 2: for a bunch of shows of sorry, a bunch of

1382
01:17:41,760 --> 01:17:46,479
Speaker 2: songs I had written in college. That was the first practice.

1383
01:17:46,520 --> 01:17:48,400
Speaker 2: But after the first practice, we're like, now we're just

1384
01:17:48,439 --> 01:17:50,800
Speaker 2: a new band. Because it was all the guys in

1385
01:17:50,840 --> 01:17:53,920
Speaker 2: the band had They had all been in a band

1386
01:17:53,920 --> 01:17:57,880
Speaker 2: called Stanley's Joyful Noise prior to this, and they were

1387
01:17:58,040 --> 01:18:00,519
Speaker 2: they were not quite on hiatus yet. But they were

1388
01:18:00,560 --> 01:18:04,200
Speaker 2: just going to be this other they were going to

1389
01:18:04,280 --> 01:18:05,800
Speaker 2: be my backing band for this thing, and then we

1390
01:18:05,880 --> 01:18:07,240
Speaker 2: just decided it was an evand.

1391
01:18:07,320 --> 01:18:12,680
Speaker 1: Okay, you have this incredible marketing with the posters. What

1392
01:18:12,920 --> 01:18:15,559
Speaker 1: happens Usually it's a slow grind. Did you play a

1393
01:18:15,560 --> 01:18:18,519
Speaker 1: lot of gigs? When did the light go on? What happened?

1394
01:18:18,920 --> 01:18:20,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, we played a lot of We played. We played

1395
01:18:20,880 --> 01:18:23,320
Speaker 2: as many gigs as we could, I would say it

1396
01:18:23,400 --> 01:18:27,000
Speaker 2: was I mean we were playing at least once a

1397
01:18:27,000 --> 01:18:30,960
Speaker 2: month in Chicago, and and and as many times as

1398
01:18:30,960 --> 01:18:32,840
Speaker 2: we could in this surround, you know, anywhere within a

1399
01:18:32,960 --> 01:18:36,760
Speaker 2: six or eight hour drive of Chicago, and that I

1400
01:18:37,080 --> 01:18:38,960
Speaker 2: We did that for a couple of years, I guess,

1401
01:18:39,880 --> 01:18:43,559
Speaker 2: and it it we started to get I think we

1402
01:18:43,800 --> 01:18:47,360
Speaker 2: like Chicago at that time was a scene not too

1403
01:18:47,400 --> 01:18:52,280
Speaker 2: different from DC ten years earlier than that in terms

1404
01:18:52,280 --> 01:18:54,400
Speaker 2: of like the small scene of kids that were there.

1405
01:18:54,479 --> 01:18:56,599
Speaker 2: Everybody was in a band, like all my friends were

1406
01:18:56,600 --> 01:18:59,120
Speaker 2: in bands. Everybody went out to shows pretty much every

1407
01:18:59,120 --> 01:19:02,479
Speaker 2: the night of the week. And what I think the

1408
01:19:02,520 --> 01:19:04,880
Speaker 2: way the reason we stood out in some way was

1409
01:19:04,920 --> 01:19:10,680
Speaker 2: because we were just all kind of pop focused like

1410
01:19:11,160 --> 01:19:15,599
Speaker 2: the other bands we were living in with as roommates

1411
01:19:15,600 --> 01:19:19,679
Speaker 2: and playing with were all these sort of aggressively post

1412
01:19:19,720 --> 01:19:22,800
Speaker 2: punk sort of art bands, and that was like it

1413
01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:25,120
Speaker 2: was an awesome scene. But like it was like all

1414
01:19:25,160 --> 01:19:29,720
Speaker 2: these mostly dudes playing, you know, playing math rock and

1415
01:19:29,720 --> 01:19:32,599
Speaker 2: and trying to push the boundaries of a of a

1416
01:19:32,600 --> 01:19:36,479
Speaker 2: particular scene. And we wanted, like I said, we wanted

1417
01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:41,080
Speaker 2: cheap trick and Elvis Costello and a certain type of Catharsis.

1418
01:19:41,120 --> 01:19:44,760
Speaker 2: And so I like to joke at the time that

1419
01:19:44,840 --> 01:19:47,519
Speaker 2: basically like they'd all come and their girlfriends would all

1420
01:19:47,520 --> 01:19:51,519
Speaker 2: like us, you know, and it was Our shows were

1421
01:19:51,560 --> 01:19:55,400
Speaker 2: just really really fun. It was like a really really joyous,

1422
01:19:55,439 --> 01:19:59,000
Speaker 2: playful event. And they got to be really popular in

1423
01:19:59,080 --> 01:20:03,599
Speaker 2: Chicago and that sort of growing regionally, and and uh

1424
01:20:04,680 --> 01:20:08,240
Speaker 2: we we found a manager. We went on tour opening

1425
01:20:08,240 --> 01:20:10,800
Speaker 2: for they might be giants at some point, and and

1426
01:20:10,840 --> 01:20:13,759
Speaker 2: they might be giants themselves, Like you said, they wanted

1427
01:20:13,760 --> 01:20:18,760
Speaker 2: to start managing us, and uh it in in the

1428
01:20:18,840 --> 01:20:20,479
Speaker 2: end we wound up being sort of co managed by

1429
01:20:20,479 --> 01:20:24,519
Speaker 2: the by there man. It was an awkward deal in

1430
01:20:24,560 --> 01:20:27,800
Speaker 2: the beginning, but you know, Jamie, our first manager, and

1431
01:20:28,280 --> 01:20:31,240
Speaker 2: he who I loved dearly and who I think was

1432
01:20:31,479 --> 01:20:38,000
Speaker 2: did wonders for us and uh, and then we got signed.

1433
01:20:38,120 --> 01:20:40,400
Speaker 2: Eventually got signed. We thought we'd be an Indian. We

1434
01:20:40,760 --> 01:20:44,000
Speaker 2: sent our demos to all the the indies you would

1435
01:20:44,000 --> 01:20:48,320
Speaker 2: have imagined, you know, like we figured we belonged in

1436
01:20:48,400 --> 01:20:52,720
Speaker 2: the sort of you know, sub pop lane. But we

1437
01:20:52,760 --> 01:20:57,240
Speaker 2: wound up there. There was a big It was the

1438
01:20:57,240 --> 01:20:59,240
Speaker 2: majors who were interested. It turned out like we had

1439
01:20:59,240 --> 01:21:01,439
Speaker 2: a demo for a the song get Over It that

1440
01:21:02,160 --> 01:21:04,360
Speaker 2: caught fire and it you know, it's a big bidding

1441
01:21:04,360 --> 01:21:07,040
Speaker 2: war between I think it was Universal and Capital at

1442
01:21:07,080 --> 01:21:08,360
Speaker 2: the time and who are now the same?

1443
01:21:08,439 --> 01:21:13,240
Speaker 1: Right? But so you signed with Capital with the Andy Sleader,

1444
01:21:13,760 --> 01:21:16,879
Speaker 1: you know, there's a deep line of demarcation of between

1445
01:21:16,920 --> 01:21:21,120
Speaker 1: the wooing and then the making. So now you had

1446
01:21:21,160 --> 01:21:23,240
Speaker 1: a deal. What was the making like.

1447
01:21:24,080 --> 01:21:27,960
Speaker 2: Well, Andy is famously very involved in the making of

1448
01:21:27,960 --> 01:21:32,200
Speaker 2: the album center Man, and he was I he was.

1449
01:21:33,400 --> 01:21:36,799
Speaker 2: We like we were an easy sell on over production

1450
01:21:37,080 --> 01:21:40,720
Speaker 2: because it was it was this moment of of when

1451
01:21:40,760 --> 01:21:44,800
Speaker 2: most of the industry was so was chasing garage rock

1452
01:21:44,840 --> 01:21:46,559
Speaker 2: and we just didn't want. We were we were like

1453
01:21:46,640 --> 01:21:51,080
Speaker 2: we wanted we wanted Roy Thomas Baker and glam you know,

1454
01:21:52,240 --> 01:21:56,760
Speaker 2: and so we were happy to go along with the

1455
01:21:56,960 --> 01:22:01,200
Speaker 2: with with like with with just you know, no do

1456
01:22:01,240 --> 01:22:03,680
Speaker 2: it again, try and make a bigger version, make it,

1457
01:22:03,760 --> 01:22:07,519
Speaker 2: you know. And I I have a hard time listening

1458
01:22:07,560 --> 01:22:10,040
Speaker 2: to our first record because of that. But also I

1459
01:22:10,120 --> 01:22:12,000
Speaker 2: think it's I think it has more to do with

1460
01:22:13,240 --> 01:22:15,080
Speaker 2: the fact that, like, who wants to hear their them

1461
01:22:15,160 --> 01:22:17,880
Speaker 2: their own voice twenty years hence, you know, like I

1462
01:22:18,240 --> 01:22:20,120
Speaker 2: hate the little guy who's singing in those albums, but

1463
01:22:20,320 --> 01:22:26,840
Speaker 2: other people don't, you know. And there's some things I'd

1464
01:22:26,880 --> 01:22:31,000
Speaker 2: do differently, but I don't. But I'm also like, I

1465
01:22:31,040 --> 01:22:33,640
Speaker 2: can't be mad at whatever brought us here, you know.

1466
01:22:33,840 --> 01:22:35,559
Speaker 2: I like that how it's gone.

1467
01:22:35,960 --> 01:22:40,200
Speaker 1: Okay, So the record comes out, and what was the experience.

1468
01:22:42,080 --> 01:22:44,519
Speaker 2: Well, it was whirlwind. It was just like we just

1469
01:22:44,640 --> 01:22:48,160
Speaker 2: we toured for two straight years or something. And I

1470
01:22:48,479 --> 01:22:51,400
Speaker 2: think it was young and naive enough to think that

1471
01:22:51,560 --> 01:22:55,760
Speaker 2: everything was just the next step, you know, that every

1472
01:22:55,800 --> 01:22:59,880
Speaker 2: that that every opportunity was just another door open. You

1473
01:23:00,040 --> 01:23:03,360
Speaker 2: don't get that, like I didn't have the sense that

1474
01:23:05,800 --> 01:23:07,200
Speaker 2: I didn't really have a sense of whether it was

1475
01:23:07,240 --> 01:23:10,599
Speaker 2: going well or poorly. You know. It's like we had

1476
01:23:10,600 --> 01:23:12,600
Speaker 2: a we had a we had a single that I

1477
01:23:12,680 --> 01:23:15,040
Speaker 2: think broke the top twenty, but not the top ten.

1478
01:23:15,160 --> 01:23:17,320
Speaker 2: So it was like it was the kind of it

1479
01:23:17,360 --> 01:23:19,280
Speaker 2: was exact. It was big enough to get you a

1480
01:23:19,320 --> 01:23:21,640
Speaker 2: second album, but not big enough to make you a

1481
01:23:21,720 --> 01:23:28,200
Speaker 2: household name, you know, and it I don't know. I

1482
01:23:28,240 --> 01:23:30,000
Speaker 2: as you can tell from all these answers, it's like

1483
01:23:30,040 --> 01:23:35,680
Speaker 2: there's a part of me that like is willfully delusional,

1484
01:23:35,760 --> 01:23:38,559
Speaker 2: right like, because I I if you only listen to

1485
01:23:38,560 --> 01:23:41,880
Speaker 2: the rationalist part of yourself, you you don't get to

1486
01:23:42,240 --> 01:23:45,160
Speaker 2: chase art. If you only listen to the arty side

1487
01:23:45,160 --> 01:23:48,280
Speaker 2: of yourself, you'll you'll you're going to do it, you know,

1488
01:23:48,360 --> 01:23:51,680
Speaker 2: alone in your basement. So you've got to keep these

1489
01:23:51,720 --> 01:23:56,240
Speaker 2: two things in balance. And especially in my twenties, you know,

1490
01:23:56,320 --> 01:23:59,880
Speaker 2: fueled by a lot of caffeine and alcohol, I was

1491
01:24:00,040 --> 01:24:03,280
Speaker 2: it was easy for me to stay delusional when I

1492
01:24:03,320 --> 01:24:04,240
Speaker 2: needed to, you know.

1493
01:24:12,400 --> 01:24:14,839
Speaker 1: Okay, did you make any videos for the first album?

1494
01:24:15,880 --> 01:24:18,479
Speaker 2: We did. We made two videos for the first album,

1495
01:24:18,560 --> 01:24:24,920
Speaker 2: one with with Francis Lawrence. Uh, you know, Mega Mega

1496
01:24:25,000 --> 01:24:28,719
Speaker 2: director who I think we were. We were stuck between

1497
01:24:29,160 --> 01:24:32,000
Speaker 2: Will Smith and Pink in his schedule. He had one day,

1498
01:24:32,080 --> 01:24:36,120
Speaker 2: you know, and uh, and it was for the song

1499
01:24:36,160 --> 01:24:38,479
Speaker 2: get over it, and it was. It got some rotation

1500
01:24:38,560 --> 01:24:41,720
Speaker 2: on MTV, but not I think no one yet knew

1501
01:24:41,800 --> 01:24:46,479
Speaker 2: how how how dying MTV was right, like YouTube had

1502
01:24:46,520 --> 01:24:50,360
Speaker 2: not yet eaten it. But but it was rapidly moving

1503
01:24:50,360 --> 01:24:55,439
Speaker 2: towards reality TV and away from music videos. Some people

1504
01:24:55,479 --> 01:24:58,160
Speaker 2: saw it. It it It did its job. But it

1505
01:24:58,200 --> 01:25:01,519
Speaker 2: was the biggest budget video we would make for the

1506
01:25:01,560 --> 01:25:02,840
Speaker 2: next twenty years.

1507
01:25:03,240 --> 01:25:04,320
Speaker 1: How big was the budget.

1508
01:25:05,560 --> 01:25:07,280
Speaker 2: I think it was something like five hundred K or something.

1509
01:25:07,280 --> 01:25:10,920
Speaker 2: You know, it was whatever it was was thatt you know,

1510
01:25:10,960 --> 01:25:15,040
Speaker 2: It's like it was something we that could only be

1511
01:25:15,120 --> 01:25:17,439
Speaker 2: approved by a Slater like Slater had to pick the

1512
01:25:17,920 --> 01:25:24,360
Speaker 2: I had to pick the the director cool right, like

1513
01:25:24,400 --> 01:25:26,439
Speaker 2: you could say, pick between these three kind of thing.

1514
01:25:26,520 --> 01:25:31,360
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, you make the second record, tell me

1515
01:25:31,439 --> 01:25:36,040
Speaker 1: from the beginning, not the mechanics, but the inspiration and

1516
01:25:36,080 --> 01:25:38,840
Speaker 1: how you gain control to make the treadmill video.

1517
01:25:40,040 --> 01:25:45,439
Speaker 2: The treadmill video was it was the follow up to

1518
01:25:45,840 --> 01:25:49,280
Speaker 2: the backyard dance that I described earlier, right that that's

1519
01:25:49,280 --> 01:25:51,759
Speaker 2: for the video that the song was a million ways

1520
01:25:52,160 --> 01:25:55,400
Speaker 2: and on the on the first album. Prior to this,

1521
01:25:55,720 --> 01:25:58,840
Speaker 2: we had been ending our show with this ridiculous dance

1522
01:25:58,920 --> 01:26:02,160
Speaker 2: routine that for a song from the first album, and

1523
01:26:02,240 --> 01:26:05,160
Speaker 2: again it was a way to be in that that

1524
01:26:05,160 --> 01:26:08,120
Speaker 2: that indie rock club in Chicago where all of the

1525
01:26:08,200 --> 01:26:11,400
Speaker 2: hipsters are shuffling their feet and to be like like

1526
01:26:11,520 --> 01:26:13,479
Speaker 2: fucking smile or get out, you know what I mean.

1527
01:26:13,600 --> 01:26:16,280
Speaker 2: And because you can't watch a bunch of nerds like

1528
01:26:16,400 --> 01:26:19,599
Speaker 2: us try to do a dance and uh and and

1529
01:26:19,640 --> 01:26:23,360
Speaker 2: not laugh at it in some way. And and so

1530
01:26:23,400 --> 01:26:26,240
Speaker 2: we knew that it was like we wanted with our

1531
01:26:26,360 --> 01:26:29,559
Speaker 2: our second record. We didn't want to keep on ending

1532
01:26:29,600 --> 01:26:31,880
Speaker 2: our show with that, but it was so fun, right,

1533
01:26:31,920 --> 01:26:33,880
Speaker 2: So we came up with a new dance routine for

1534
01:26:33,960 --> 01:26:37,920
Speaker 2: a new song on our second album, and that clip

1535
01:26:39,080 --> 01:26:43,960
Speaker 2: got we we we made a video of us. In fact,

1536
01:26:44,000 --> 01:26:46,680
Speaker 2: i'll give you the full story. We heard from a

1537
01:26:46,720 --> 01:26:50,400
Speaker 2: friend a cap that Michelle Gondree, best video director of

1538
01:26:50,439 --> 01:26:53,680
Speaker 2: all time, had a dance video he was gonna make

1539
01:26:53,720 --> 01:26:57,599
Speaker 2: with some unheard of from Chicago named Kanye something. And

1540
01:26:58,160 --> 01:27:00,800
Speaker 2: we were like, wait, he's gonna make a dance video

1541
01:27:00,800 --> 01:27:03,040
Speaker 2: with someone other than us. We're the dance band. So

1542
01:27:03,080 --> 01:27:07,639
Speaker 2: we we videotape ourselves doing this and you know, again,

1543
01:27:08,320 --> 01:27:10,240
Speaker 2: we have a delusional side here. Thinking like, we're going

1544
01:27:10,280 --> 01:27:12,760
Speaker 2: to convince Michelle Gandrie he has to work with us,

1545
01:27:12,800 --> 01:27:15,240
Speaker 2: But that video has made. The clip in my Backyard

1546
01:27:15,320 --> 01:27:18,200
Speaker 2: was made for the of an audience of one. It

1547
01:27:18,240 --> 01:27:20,160
Speaker 2: was just to convince Michelle Gandri that he should make

1548
01:27:20,160 --> 01:27:21,920
Speaker 2: a video with us. I don't know if he ever

1549
01:27:21,920 --> 01:27:26,280
Speaker 2: even saw it, but it wound up so ludicrous and

1550
01:27:26,320 --> 01:27:28,519
Speaker 2: sort of like, you know, there was just something so

1551
01:27:28,760 --> 01:27:33,960
Speaker 2: ridiculous about it and popped the bubble of self seriousness

1552
01:27:34,000 --> 01:27:37,840
Speaker 2: in rock and roll enough that we when we showed

1553
01:27:37,840 --> 01:27:40,439
Speaker 2: it to our friends, somebody put it on a site

1554
01:27:40,479 --> 01:27:45,759
Speaker 2: called I film that was before YouTube is a download site,

1555
01:27:45,840 --> 01:27:47,880
Speaker 2: and a few months later we saw that it had

1556
01:27:47,880 --> 01:27:50,679
Speaker 2: been downloaded three hundred thousand times. I think our first

1557
01:27:50,720 --> 01:27:54,280
Speaker 2: album had sold three hundred thousand copies, which, you know, great,

1558
01:27:54,439 --> 01:27:58,800
Speaker 2: but we just reached the same number of people accidentally,

1559
01:27:59,520 --> 01:28:02,679
Speaker 2: Ya this nerd website, right, And like at that time,

1560
01:28:03,160 --> 01:28:05,400
Speaker 2: you can assume the people watching that are all working

1561
01:28:05,439 --> 01:28:07,400
Speaker 2: in the IT department, right, Like it's not like normal

1562
01:28:07,479 --> 01:28:11,519
Speaker 2: people don't do a lot of video downloading circa two

1563
01:28:11,560 --> 01:28:14,439
Speaker 2: thousand and two, two thousand and four, whatever it was.

1564
01:28:15,720 --> 01:28:18,960
Speaker 2: But and so, like I said about the sort of

1565
01:28:19,000 --> 01:28:22,799
Speaker 2: like us going out into to the fans with spiral notebooks.

1566
01:28:22,800 --> 01:28:25,360
Speaker 2: It was like this was we suddenly had a direct,

1567
01:28:26,160 --> 01:28:30,920
Speaker 2: a direct connection to a fan base almost as big

1568
01:28:30,960 --> 01:28:35,800
Speaker 2: as the one Capital had had helped develop for us.

1569
01:28:36,320 --> 01:28:38,479
Speaker 2: And there were one click away and it was sort

1570
01:28:38,479 --> 01:28:41,880
Speaker 2: of like, well, if they if they like that, let's

1571
01:28:41,880 --> 01:28:43,599
Speaker 2: make them another one of those things. We didn't really

1572
01:28:43,600 --> 01:28:45,120
Speaker 2: think of it as a music video. It was just

1573
01:28:45,160 --> 01:28:48,080
Speaker 2: like we now have a bunch of people who get

1574
01:28:48,080 --> 01:28:51,120
Speaker 2: our sense of humor, who think that because there's something

1575
01:28:51,120 --> 01:28:54,680
Speaker 2: about that that's not quite like you know, we've been

1576
01:28:54,760 --> 01:28:57,679
Speaker 2: very careful never to make joke music, right, And there's

1577
01:28:57,680 --> 01:29:01,000
Speaker 2: bands that sort of like think of themselves as funny

1578
01:29:01,600 --> 01:29:04,040
Speaker 2: in a way that I that never appealed to me,

1579
01:29:04,439 --> 01:29:07,000
Speaker 2: but I did it. But I did like bands who

1580
01:29:07,000 --> 01:29:10,479
Speaker 2: don't take themselves too seriously, you know, And and it

1581
01:29:10,520 --> 01:29:12,799
Speaker 2: was sort of a way of connecting with those people.

1582
01:29:13,439 --> 01:29:17,160
Speaker 2: So we my sister is a professional barum dancer. We said, like,

1583
01:29:17,400 --> 01:29:20,320
Speaker 2: we want to make another dance like that, but we

1584
01:29:20,360 --> 01:29:24,800
Speaker 2: don't want to dance. We can't just be a dance band, right,

1585
01:29:24,800 --> 01:29:26,200
Speaker 2: so like, what are we going to do? So I

1586
01:29:26,240 --> 01:29:29,240
Speaker 2: remember brainstorming with my sister, what could we do to

1587
01:29:29,280 --> 01:29:33,320
Speaker 2: make dancing different and that, and we came up with

1588
01:29:33,360 --> 01:29:35,880
Speaker 2: this idea of the treadmills. But that was it. Like

1589
01:29:35,920 --> 01:29:37,720
Speaker 2: we didn't tell the label we were going to do it.

1590
01:29:37,720 --> 01:29:39,760
Speaker 2: We didn't tell our manager we were going to do it,

1591
01:29:39,760 --> 01:29:42,600
Speaker 2: because they would taking ten days off from tour to

1592
01:29:42,680 --> 01:29:46,400
Speaker 2: go make this thing. Was a terrible idea, you know,

1593
01:29:46,640 --> 01:29:48,240
Speaker 2: like what were you going to do with that? So

1594
01:29:48,280 --> 01:29:52,679
Speaker 2: we made it and and and it was. We figured

1595
01:29:52,720 --> 01:29:54,920
Speaker 2: we'd use it as a sort of like love letter

1596
01:29:55,040 --> 01:29:57,680
Speaker 2: to those nerdy fans when we were done with the

1597
01:29:57,720 --> 01:30:00,479
Speaker 2: album cycle, right like when everything else is, when we've

1598
01:30:00,520 --> 01:30:02,439
Speaker 2: done the big rock videos, when we've done all the touring,

1599
01:30:02,840 --> 01:30:05,080
Speaker 2: we'll have one more thing to give those people to

1600
01:30:05,160 --> 01:30:07,880
Speaker 2: kind of keep the connection alive until the next record

1601
01:30:07,960 --> 01:30:12,320
Speaker 2: comes out. So after eighteen months of touring, several rock videos,

1602
01:30:12,880 --> 01:30:18,679
Speaker 2: you know, and won by Michelle Gondry's brother, Olivia Gundry,

1603
01:30:19,080 --> 01:30:23,040
Speaker 2: and you know, decently successful. You know, our shows are

1604
01:30:23,040 --> 01:30:24,920
Speaker 2: bigger than they were on the first album, where our

1605
01:30:24,960 --> 01:30:26,640
Speaker 2: audience is a little bit bigger, but like we're not,

1606
01:30:27,000 --> 01:30:28,559
Speaker 2: we're by no means a household name.

1607
01:30:28,600 --> 01:30:28,800
Speaker 1: You know.

1608
01:30:29,280 --> 01:30:33,160
Speaker 2: We put that video out, well, no I'm sorry. The

1609
01:30:33,280 --> 01:30:36,600
Speaker 2: label who had never okay the making of it, but

1610
01:30:36,720 --> 01:30:38,680
Speaker 2: did say okay, all right, well that's kind of cool

1611
01:30:38,720 --> 01:30:42,280
Speaker 2: what you made. They're the head of their internet department,

1612
01:30:42,680 --> 01:30:46,320
Speaker 2: without our permission, put it up on stupid videos dot Com.

1613
01:30:47,640 --> 01:30:51,879
Speaker 2: And we were in we were in we were in Moscow,

1614
01:30:51,960 --> 01:30:54,960
Speaker 2: playing at the i think second to annual rock festival

1615
01:30:55,000 --> 01:30:57,840
Speaker 2: in Moscow, when our roadie goes, hey, I saw your

1616
01:30:57,880 --> 01:30:59,800
Speaker 2: videos up on stupid videos dot Com. And of course

1617
01:30:59,800 --> 01:31:02,519
Speaker 2: we freak out, you know, we'd go ballistic on the

1618
01:31:02,600 --> 01:31:06,519
Speaker 2: label and they're like, what what what I mean? It's

1619
01:31:07,160 --> 01:31:09,160
Speaker 2: got tons of traffic, and you're like, you don't think

1620
01:31:09,160 --> 01:31:11,400
Speaker 2: there's some there's maybe a little bit of an optics

1621
01:31:11,439 --> 01:31:15,639
Speaker 2: problem releasing the video with as Stupid videos dot Com.

1622
01:31:15,920 --> 01:31:18,840
Speaker 2: We got them to take it down before the US

1623
01:31:18,920 --> 01:31:21,240
Speaker 2: was awake, and we put it up ourselves without the

1624
01:31:21,280 --> 01:31:25,280
Speaker 2: permission on YouTube. This this new site which just the

1625
01:31:25,320 --> 01:31:27,680
Speaker 2: guy who ran our you know, our email list at

1626
01:31:27,680 --> 01:31:29,160
Speaker 2: the time was like, you should check out this one.

1627
01:31:29,400 --> 01:31:33,280
Speaker 2: And we'd had an we'd had a a request from

1628
01:31:33,400 --> 01:31:36,240
Speaker 2: Chad at YouTube dot com. You know, the founders in

1629
01:31:36,280 --> 01:31:38,640
Speaker 2: that first year were sending out anytime they thought they

1630
01:31:38,640 --> 01:31:40,320
Speaker 2: saw something cool. They just write to them. So we

1631
01:31:40,360 --> 01:31:42,200
Speaker 2: had some emails from them saying you should put your

1632
01:31:42,200 --> 01:31:45,559
Speaker 2: stuff up on our platform. So we did, and within

1633
01:31:45,600 --> 01:31:47,640
Speaker 2: a week it was you know, like we thought, we

1634
01:31:47,680 --> 01:31:50,120
Speaker 2: thought maybe we'd reach those same three hundred thousand people

1635
01:31:50,120 --> 01:31:52,719
Speaker 2: after a few months, but it was a few million

1636
01:31:52,760 --> 01:31:55,400
Speaker 2: in the first few days, which back then was you know,

1637
01:31:55,479 --> 01:31:59,679
Speaker 2: that was breaking the entire internet. And vh one added

1638
01:31:59,720 --> 01:32:02,880
Speaker 2: it with in a week, and and and we had

1639
01:32:02,880 --> 01:32:05,760
Speaker 2: been asked to perform on the VMAs, and and you know,

1640
01:32:05,960 --> 01:32:09,960
Speaker 2: a few months later we got a Grammy, and and

1641
01:32:10,280 --> 01:32:14,000
Speaker 2: we toured for another We toured for another full year.

1642
01:32:14,080 --> 01:32:17,280
Speaker 2: I mean like our record, which had debuted at the

1643
01:32:17,280 --> 01:32:20,639
Speaker 2: top of the heat Stickers chart, went back to number

1644
01:32:20,640 --> 01:32:23,439
Speaker 2: one in the fifty third week. So it was like

1645
01:32:23,479 --> 01:32:25,800
Speaker 2: literally a full year after the record was out, we

1646
01:32:25,840 --> 01:32:27,800
Speaker 2: started a whole other record cycle, and we toured for

1647
01:32:27,840 --> 01:32:32,760
Speaker 2: another year, and and it was awesome. I was very

1648
01:32:32,880 --> 01:32:34,360
Speaker 2: very spent by the end of that.

1649
01:32:34,720 --> 01:32:37,920
Speaker 1: Okay, where was the label on all this?

1650
01:32:40,560 --> 01:32:47,800
Speaker 2: They were very cautious about us because they they they

1651
01:32:49,000 --> 01:32:55,320
Speaker 2: they wanted look that record. They they they were very

1652
01:32:55,360 --> 01:33:00,880
Speaker 2: anti sort of you know, the youth and sharing, right,

1653
01:33:00,920 --> 01:33:02,599
Speaker 2: Like there was this there was. There was a worry

1654
01:33:02,760 --> 01:33:05,960
Speaker 2: with that album. When that album came out, they wanted

1655
01:33:06,000 --> 01:33:09,200
Speaker 2: to put DRM on it. You remember the whole DRM thing, right,

1656
01:33:09,400 --> 01:33:11,240
Speaker 2: they wanted to put DRM on it. We looked at it.

1657
01:33:11,360 --> 01:33:13,880
Speaker 2: We were like, look iPods in the in the in

1658
01:33:13,920 --> 01:33:15,760
Speaker 2: the three years since our first record had come out,

1659
01:33:15,800 --> 01:33:18,320
Speaker 2: iPods had taken over. And if you're telling our fans

1660
01:33:18,360 --> 01:33:20,680
Speaker 2: they that they can't they can if they buy our

1661
01:33:20,720 --> 01:33:23,920
Speaker 2: CD legally they can't put it on their iPod. That's

1662
01:33:23,960 --> 01:33:27,320
Speaker 2: the same things as shooting the band in the face, right,

1663
01:33:27,400 --> 01:33:30,559
Speaker 2: like it like, no one is going to listen to

1664
01:33:30,640 --> 01:33:33,719
Speaker 2: something that they can't have on their iPod, So please

1665
01:33:33,760 --> 01:33:37,320
Speaker 2: don't do that to it. They we had a long

1666
01:33:37,680 --> 01:33:41,439
Speaker 2: argument with them about that. They in the end decided, okay, no,

1667
01:33:41,520 --> 01:33:46,479
Speaker 2: we're doing DRM. So we added as a a the

1668
01:33:46,560 --> 01:33:48,759
Speaker 2: secret track. You know, the final track to our album

1669
01:33:49,320 --> 01:33:51,680
Speaker 2: was exactly as long as there were bites left on

1670
01:33:51,720 --> 01:33:54,080
Speaker 2: the CD. We made it thirty two minutes and whatever

1671
01:33:54,160 --> 01:34:00,200
Speaker 2: seconds long, which filled up every last remaining data bought

1672
01:34:00,240 --> 01:34:02,800
Speaker 2: on the CD. So they couldn't fit the DRM on it,

1673
01:34:02,920 --> 01:34:06,240
Speaker 2: you know, which they didn't realize until QC sent it

1674
01:34:06,280 --> 01:34:08,040
Speaker 2: back and sudden they couldn't put a DRM on it,

1675
01:34:08,040 --> 01:34:10,200
Speaker 2: and it was too late to deal with it. But

1676
01:34:10,680 --> 01:34:14,439
Speaker 2: that obviously set off that was the relationship. Right, They

1677
01:34:14,439 --> 01:34:16,639
Speaker 2: were like we were the band that that was that

1678
01:34:17,280 --> 01:34:20,160
Speaker 2: wanted our video to be embeddable back when that was

1679
01:34:20,200 --> 01:34:24,559
Speaker 2: an issue, right, and I had written op eds for

1680
01:34:24,560 --> 01:34:26,840
Speaker 2: The New York Times saying like, yeah, our label won't

1681
01:34:26,880 --> 01:34:30,120
Speaker 2: let us embed our video and here's our problems with it.

1682
01:34:30,479 --> 01:34:33,120
Speaker 2: That was the sort of thing that that put us,

1683
01:34:33,200 --> 01:34:37,120
Speaker 2: you know, not on great footing with the label. We

1684
01:34:37,120 --> 01:34:39,599
Speaker 2: were all, you know, sort of aligned in terms of

1685
01:34:39,640 --> 01:34:44,320
Speaker 2: like all, all of the attention this is getting is good.

1686
01:34:44,960 --> 01:34:50,519
Speaker 2: But the same person who had when I when I

1687
01:34:50,600 --> 01:34:57,759
Speaker 2: first showed the label our backyard dance video, the first

1688
01:34:57,800 --> 01:35:03,080
Speaker 2: response was is if this gets out your because it

1689
01:35:03,120 --> 01:35:05,439
Speaker 2: was because they thought it made they thought it made

1690
01:35:05,479 --> 01:35:07,880
Speaker 2: us look gay, if they thought it made us look nerdy,

1691
01:35:07,920 --> 01:35:10,120
Speaker 2: they thought it made us And it was like We're like, yeah,

1692
01:35:10,160 --> 01:35:13,080
Speaker 2: like it makes us look different than everyone else. Like

1693
01:35:13,120 --> 01:35:15,320
Speaker 2: that's the that's the point, you know, Like that's that's

1694
01:35:15,320 --> 01:35:18,360
Speaker 2: we are different than everybody else. And and the same

1695
01:35:18,400 --> 01:35:23,559
Speaker 2: person who had said that then had made very sure

1696
01:35:23,600 --> 01:35:26,360
Speaker 2: that when you know, like a USA today wanted to

1697
01:35:26,400 --> 01:35:29,240
Speaker 2: do a piece on the on the on the Treadmill video,

1698
01:35:29,680 --> 01:35:34,599
Speaker 2: and it's grammy, you know. Eighteen months later they that

1699
01:35:34,640 --> 01:35:36,200
Speaker 2: person had to be sitting in the room to make

1700
01:35:36,240 --> 01:35:39,040
Speaker 2: sure they didn't. I didn't repeat the story I just

1701
01:35:39,040 --> 01:35:43,840
Speaker 2: did to you, you know, And so they I don't,

1702
01:35:44,080 --> 01:35:49,439
Speaker 2: And honestly, like I think everybody, I don't. I never

1703
01:35:49,560 --> 01:35:53,719
Speaker 2: had a like an a super combative relationship with the label.

1704
01:35:54,320 --> 01:35:59,280
Speaker 2: It just became pretty clear that like what success looked

1705
01:35:59,320 --> 01:36:01,120
Speaker 2: like to us and to them were very different. Like

1706
01:36:01,439 --> 01:36:05,320
Speaker 2: they needed success that was replicable and scalable across all

1707
01:36:05,360 --> 01:36:09,280
Speaker 2: of their investments. Right, we needed to be able to

1708
01:36:09,320 --> 01:36:15,160
Speaker 2: make art the next day and to have to chase

1709
01:36:15,240 --> 01:36:17,920
Speaker 2: the things that are working and optimize them, right, Like

1710
01:36:18,200 --> 01:36:21,479
Speaker 2: that thing's happening and people love it, and that's an

1711
01:36:21,479 --> 01:36:23,320
Speaker 2: opportunity for us to make more things like that in

1712
01:36:23,360 --> 01:36:25,320
Speaker 2: the future. And that's like, that's what I care about

1713
01:36:25,320 --> 01:36:28,760
Speaker 2: for my life, you know, And being able to do

1714
01:36:28,800 --> 01:36:31,639
Speaker 2: that wasn't was not a good business model for the label.

1715
01:36:31,680 --> 01:36:33,559
Speaker 2: I get that, like, but it's a good business model

1716
01:36:33,600 --> 01:36:37,120
Speaker 2: for our band. So it got to a point where

1717
01:36:37,120 --> 01:36:40,400
Speaker 2: it was obvious that we just needed to go different directions.

1718
01:36:40,600 --> 01:36:43,240
Speaker 1: Okay, but in the interroim, you made a third record.

1719
01:36:43,280 --> 01:36:46,680
Speaker 1: What was the story with that, Well, I.

1720
01:36:46,600 --> 01:36:50,040
Speaker 2: Mean they were so look, the same video that they

1721
01:36:50,040 --> 01:36:52,960
Speaker 2: thought would was going to sink us. They then, you know,

1722
01:36:53,479 --> 01:37:00,719
Speaker 2: we're once we were getting Grammys for for breaking MTV.

1723
01:37:01,439 --> 01:37:04,120
Speaker 2: They loved that right, like there it was. They loved

1724
01:37:04,120 --> 01:37:06,200
Speaker 2: taking credit for it once it was successful. And so

1725
01:37:06,800 --> 01:37:08,960
Speaker 2: we were off onto the idea of a third record

1726
01:37:09,240 --> 01:37:13,000
Speaker 2: where we would we would really lean into the video thing. Awesome,

1727
01:37:13,240 --> 01:37:15,360
Speaker 2: We're gonna make a video for every song, and they

1728
01:37:15,360 --> 01:37:19,120
Speaker 2: gave us a budget for that. And then when we

1729
01:37:19,160 --> 01:37:21,400
Speaker 2: started making the videos and asking for the budget payoffs,

1730
01:37:21,439 --> 01:37:24,599
Speaker 2: they didn't pay the checks. You know, they were like, yeah,

1731
01:37:24,600 --> 01:37:25,840
Speaker 2: but we didn't say yes to that one, and we

1732
01:37:25,880 --> 01:37:29,840
Speaker 2: didn't say yes to this certain like and so our

1733
01:37:30,080 --> 01:37:32,200
Speaker 2: manager at the time, good friend of yours end mine,

1734
01:37:32,479 --> 01:37:35,160
Speaker 2: basically just went to them. It was like, if you're

1735
01:37:35,160 --> 01:37:37,120
Speaker 2: not gonna pay, look, if you don't want, if you

1736
01:37:37,120 --> 01:37:38,760
Speaker 2: don't want a band like this, just let us off

1737
01:37:38,760 --> 01:37:42,439
Speaker 2: the fucking deal. And they did. It was pretty shocking.

1738
01:37:42,880 --> 01:37:49,479
Speaker 1: Okay, you described it with the emotions of you know,

1739
01:37:49,960 --> 01:37:54,240
Speaker 1: from the side of creativity and the differences with the label,

1740
01:37:54,960 --> 01:37:59,799
Speaker 1: but at the time, not today. Leaving a major label

1741
01:37:59,880 --> 01:38:01,120
Speaker 1: was not what people did.

1742
01:38:02,479 --> 01:38:05,240
Speaker 2: No, it was scary. It was scary. But again remember

1743
01:38:05,280 --> 01:38:09,400
Speaker 2: the DC background in the sort of like anti establishment

1744
01:38:09,600 --> 01:38:14,240
Speaker 2: roots of of of the things I love. Uh, you know,

1745
01:38:14,600 --> 01:38:17,920
Speaker 2: obviously too cocky about it because I was also you know,

1746
01:38:18,120 --> 01:38:22,600
Speaker 2: twenty something or whatever. I we knew we had a

1747
01:38:22,600 --> 01:38:25,920
Speaker 2: connection to our fans and that that was valuable, you know,

1748
01:38:26,360 --> 01:38:31,519
Speaker 2: Like I think what we now recognize as like the

1749
01:38:31,560 --> 01:38:37,120
Speaker 2: attention economy, it was back then. What it felt like

1750
01:38:38,680 --> 01:38:44,240
Speaker 2: was we're able to make things that that these that

1751
01:38:44,240 --> 01:38:46,320
Speaker 2: that our fans love, and they know how to get

1752
01:38:46,360 --> 01:38:47,800
Speaker 2: to us, and we know how to get to them,

1753
01:38:48,120 --> 01:38:50,680
Speaker 2: and what we used to need a label for. We

1754
01:38:51,240 --> 01:38:57,439
Speaker 2: it like that that that pipeline is shrinking, right, There's

1755
01:38:57,439 --> 01:39:01,200
Speaker 2: still lots that we need, but it's it we're less

1756
01:39:01,240 --> 01:39:04,000
Speaker 2: dependent on them than ever and they don't want to

1757
01:39:04,000 --> 01:39:07,200
Speaker 2: do the things that we know will work. So it

1758
01:39:07,280 --> 01:39:07,720
Speaker 2: was kind of gold.

1759
01:39:07,960 --> 01:39:10,840
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've been independent for an excess of a decade.

1760
01:39:11,479 --> 01:39:14,200
Speaker 1: How does that feel great?

1761
01:39:14,960 --> 01:39:18,840
Speaker 2: I mean, I look, I don't like the business part.

1762
01:39:19,120 --> 01:39:21,320
Speaker 2: I don't like as you can tell from from all

1763
01:39:21,320 --> 01:39:25,960
Speaker 2: my squirrely artsy answers. I don't like thinking about budgets.

1764
01:39:26,000 --> 01:39:27,960
Speaker 2: I don't like thinking about money. I don't like thinking

1765
01:39:27,960 --> 01:39:33,720
Speaker 2: about you know, return on investment. But I but I

1766
01:39:33,760 --> 01:39:38,800
Speaker 2: really don't like not being able to make the things

1767
01:39:38,800 --> 01:39:42,080
Speaker 2: we want, you know, and so we make some So

1768
01:39:42,120 --> 01:39:44,680
Speaker 2: we make we we you know, have to. We have

1769
01:39:44,760 --> 01:39:47,280
Speaker 2: to assume a lot of risk that in terms of

1770
01:39:47,400 --> 01:39:50,080
Speaker 2: investing in things like, you know, a six figure of

1771
01:39:50,160 --> 01:39:52,400
Speaker 2: video which we don't know if we'll find a sponsor

1772
01:39:52,479 --> 01:39:57,080
Speaker 2: for and that's scary as hell. But no label except

1773
01:39:57,080 --> 01:39:57,599
Speaker 2: my own.

1774
01:40:05,520 --> 01:40:08,640
Speaker 1: Okay, So at this point, you know, things have been

1775
01:40:08,680 --> 01:40:11,080
Speaker 1: sort of weird because of COVID et cetera. But how

1776
01:40:11,120 --> 01:40:13,760
Speaker 1: many gigs a year is? Okay, go playing.

1777
01:40:15,000 --> 01:40:19,800
Speaker 2: It right now? I mean where we have it down

1778
01:40:20,640 --> 01:40:23,880
Speaker 2: fairly low number because we all have young kids. But

1779
01:40:24,200 --> 01:40:26,080
Speaker 2: so like, if we wanted to make a lot more money,

1780
01:40:26,080 --> 01:40:28,080
Speaker 2: we'd play a lot more. But we but like this

1781
01:40:28,240 --> 01:40:33,280
Speaker 2: album and this year, I think we did thirty five shows,

1782
01:40:33,280 --> 01:40:34,559
Speaker 2: maybe forty.

1783
01:40:34,920 --> 01:40:39,880
Speaker 1: Okay, you know you are the record company, you have costs.

1784
01:40:41,120 --> 01:40:46,040
Speaker 1: Streaming is a winner take all proposition. You could work

1785
01:40:46,080 --> 01:40:49,680
Speaker 1: thirty five days a year and everybody could pay all

1786
01:40:49,720 --> 01:40:51,040
Speaker 1: their bills.

1787
01:40:51,600 --> 01:40:53,240
Speaker 2: I didn't say we worked thirty five days a year.

1788
01:40:53,240 --> 01:40:55,000
Speaker 2: I say, we tour thirty five days a year.

1789
01:40:55,040 --> 01:40:58,439
Speaker 1: Okay, then what are the other revenue streams? Oh?

1790
01:40:58,520 --> 01:41:00,559
Speaker 2: I mean first of all, those even those shows take

1791
01:41:00,600 --> 01:41:02,880
Speaker 2: a lot more work than the days are on. But

1792
01:41:02,880 --> 01:41:06,479
Speaker 2: but the the I mean, our videos take months. So

1793
01:41:06,520 --> 01:41:07,360
Speaker 2: I'm not to worry about.

1794
01:41:07,360 --> 01:41:10,679
Speaker 1: No, I'm not saying you're not working. I'm saying where

1795
01:41:10,680 --> 01:41:11,880
Speaker 1: does the money come from?

1796
01:41:11,920 --> 01:41:12,760
Speaker 2: Oh?

1797
01:41:12,439 --> 01:41:12,559
Speaker 1: Uh?

1798
01:41:12,840 --> 01:41:20,320
Speaker 2: The the I mean the our our shows are profitable, right,

1799
01:41:20,400 --> 01:41:23,439
Speaker 2: like so our shows are merger profitable. Sometimes our videos

1800
01:41:23,439 --> 01:41:27,000
Speaker 2: are profitable, like this album, We've only gotten to break

1801
01:41:27,040 --> 01:41:29,920
Speaker 2: even on them. But there are like we made on

1802
01:41:29,920 --> 01:41:34,360
Speaker 2: our third out I'm sorry, third album, third and fourth album,

1803
01:41:34,400 --> 01:41:38,000
Speaker 2: we made videos that were sponsored to the degree where

1804
01:41:38,040 --> 01:41:39,760
Speaker 2: we could get feed like one of one of them

1805
01:41:39,800 --> 01:41:41,880
Speaker 2: was a super Bowl commercial. Like we you know, that's

1806
01:41:41,880 --> 01:41:45,880
Speaker 2: a that's a hefty, hefty check. It used to be

1807
01:41:46,280 --> 01:41:47,880
Speaker 2: that a lot of that that we would also make

1808
01:41:47,920 --> 01:41:50,479
Speaker 2: a lot in licensing. We do okay in licensing, but

1809
01:41:50,920 --> 01:41:56,640
Speaker 2: you know, our our sort of ongoing streaming and licensing

1810
01:41:56,720 --> 01:41:59,880
Speaker 2: revenue is enough to pay for our infrastructure.

1811
01:42:01,320 --> 01:42:03,840
Speaker 1: Okay, what does it look like going forward? Because if

1812
01:42:03,880 --> 01:42:07,559
Speaker 1: you look at the business at large, Okay, the barrier

1813
01:42:07,600 --> 01:42:11,760
Speaker 1: to entry is very low. You have name recognition in

1814
01:42:11,800 --> 01:42:14,720
Speaker 1: the history from the twenty first century. The lot of

1815
01:42:14,720 --> 01:42:18,360
Speaker 1: people have name recognition from the twentieth century who still

1816
01:42:18,360 --> 01:42:21,760
Speaker 1: can't get over the fact that A labels not supporting them.

1817
01:42:22,479 --> 01:42:26,040
Speaker 1: So as you look forward, what does it look like?

1818
01:42:27,400 --> 01:42:32,640
Speaker 2: I am terrified, But I also have always been terrified,

1819
01:42:33,080 --> 01:42:38,400
Speaker 2: like we've are. Our financial model has basically been the

1820
01:42:38,439 --> 01:42:42,439
Speaker 2: roadrunner off the cliff forever, right, Like, just keep on going,

1821
01:42:42,560 --> 01:42:44,720
Speaker 2: keep on making the thing you want to make, and

1822
01:42:45,520 --> 01:42:47,479
Speaker 2: if there's money in the bank to do it and

1823
01:42:47,520 --> 01:42:50,880
Speaker 2: you can stomach the risk, it usually pays off, you know,

1824
01:42:51,000 --> 01:42:53,559
Speaker 2: or rather the one out of ten times it pays off,

1825
01:42:53,600 --> 01:42:58,880
Speaker 2: it pays off tenfold. And so that has sustained us

1826
01:42:58,880 --> 01:43:02,479
Speaker 2: this long, and that's all. I just have to hope

1827
01:43:02,520 --> 01:43:06,519
Speaker 2: it keeps doing that. I look, what I know of

1828
01:43:06,560 --> 01:43:09,200
Speaker 2: the industry at large is not a good bet. But

1829
01:43:09,320 --> 01:43:10,840
Speaker 2: it's the only one I can make because I want to,

1830
01:43:10,880 --> 01:43:13,240
Speaker 2: because I this is this is what I love doing.

1831
01:43:13,840 --> 01:43:16,880
Speaker 1: Okay, If I spoke with the other band members, are

1832
01:43:16,920 --> 01:43:18,080
Speaker 1: they on the same page.

1833
01:43:21,280 --> 01:43:23,160
Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, we would all love to

1834
01:43:23,240 --> 01:43:27,599
Speaker 2: have bigger paychecks. But but certainly no one, No one

1835
01:43:27,640 --> 01:43:30,839
Speaker 2: wants to tour more during this phase of our lives.

1836
01:43:30,920 --> 01:43:33,280
Speaker 2: I could see us touring more when our kids get

1837
01:43:33,280 --> 01:43:37,320
Speaker 2: a little older. But it's do you have kids, No,

1838
01:43:38,080 --> 01:43:41,320
Speaker 2: it's it is the period during which they really want

1839
01:43:41,320 --> 01:43:42,640
Speaker 2: to be with you and you really want to be

1840
01:43:42,720 --> 01:43:46,640
Speaker 2: with them is short and different, and and I I

1841
01:43:46,680 --> 01:43:49,040
Speaker 2: would have a really hard time being gone more than

1842
01:43:49,040 --> 01:43:52,320
Speaker 2: I am right now. That right now, that as you know,

1843
01:43:52,360 --> 01:43:55,479
Speaker 2: that sort of service industry model of music, of music

1844
01:43:55,520 --> 01:43:57,240
Speaker 2: industry where you can get paid as long as you're

1845
01:43:57,280 --> 01:44:01,000
Speaker 2: out there pounding the pavement is the only way to

1846
01:44:01,080 --> 01:44:05,040
Speaker 2: really make it profitable. We're we are happy to live

1847
01:44:05,040 --> 01:44:08,840
Speaker 2: fairly frugally right now and keep on making, keep on

1848
01:44:09,160 --> 01:44:12,040
Speaker 2: making this weird art that we get to make, and

1849
01:44:12,040 --> 01:44:15,280
Speaker 2: and look at where that leads us. I mean, here's

1850
01:44:15,320 --> 01:44:17,479
Speaker 2: one thing that we do that no other band can.

1851
01:44:18,960 --> 01:44:22,400
Speaker 2: We have a performing Arts center show where we live,

1852
01:44:22,479 --> 01:44:25,519
Speaker 2: score our videos, and we do the circuit. You know,

1853
01:44:25,680 --> 01:44:27,439
Speaker 2: we we'll do some of this again, like you're asking

1854
01:44:27,439 --> 01:44:28,960
Speaker 2: about next year, We'll do some of this next year.

1855
01:44:29,000 --> 01:44:32,960
Speaker 2: This is like we're playing in you know, like Disney

1856
01:44:33,000 --> 01:44:36,800
Speaker 2: Hall style things, right Like we're sit down show where

1857
01:44:36,840 --> 01:44:40,240
Speaker 2: there's a you're you're invited to bring your kids. The

1858
01:44:40,320 --> 01:44:42,240
Speaker 2: volumes are a little lower. There's a lot of Q

1859
01:44:42,320 --> 01:44:46,519
Speaker 2: and A with us, and and and instead of trying,

1860
01:44:46,600 --> 01:44:49,360
Speaker 2: instead of trying to put on the most energetic and

1861
01:44:49,479 --> 01:44:59,360
Speaker 2: most uh moving, sweaty rock show where we're inviting you

1862
01:44:59,439 --> 01:45:01,200
Speaker 2: to watch the film and we're gonna live score it

1863
01:45:01,240 --> 01:45:05,959
Speaker 2: for you, right and those that that tour is pretty evergreen,

1864
01:45:06,040 --> 01:45:08,639
Speaker 2: like we've never had trouble, Like we can do that anywhere,

1865
01:45:09,080 --> 01:45:11,120
Speaker 2: And we can only do that if our videos are

1866
01:45:11,160 --> 01:45:13,360
Speaker 2: as great as they are and every and every album

1867
01:45:13,400 --> 01:45:16,080
Speaker 2: we're gonna add to, you know, and that that show

1868
01:45:16,280 --> 01:45:22,160
Speaker 2: is a real, a real pleasure. I would I think

1869
01:45:22,200 --> 01:45:25,040
Speaker 2: that there's a real opportunity for us to do similar

1870
01:45:25,160 --> 01:45:28,000
Speaker 2: theater type things with with the videos that we have

1871
01:45:28,520 --> 01:45:31,120
Speaker 2: in the future. That may or may not happen, but

1872
01:45:31,160 --> 01:45:34,360
Speaker 2: we have a lot of offers from science institutions and

1873
01:45:34,520 --> 01:45:39,240
Speaker 2: from from theaters you know, Broadway and Broadway adjacent stuff

1874
01:45:39,360 --> 01:45:41,600
Speaker 2: Like I don't know if we'll do it or not,

1875
01:45:41,800 --> 01:45:45,960
Speaker 2: but like I'm not sitting here trying to figure out

1876
01:45:46,040 --> 01:45:48,759
Speaker 2: how we're going to make ends meet by the number

1877
01:45:48,760 --> 01:45:50,639
Speaker 2: of shows we're playing next year. I'm trying to figure

1878
01:45:50,680 --> 01:45:55,400
Speaker 2: out what art projects are going to remain exciting and

1879
01:45:55,400 --> 01:45:58,880
Speaker 2: and worthwhile and riveting and worth putting our lives into.

1880
01:45:59,320 --> 01:46:02,920
Speaker 2: Because so far, if we're able to make great stuff,

1881
01:46:02,920 --> 01:46:05,519
Speaker 2: there will be a revenue stream that attached to it.

1882
01:46:05,880 --> 01:46:07,559
Speaker 2: We're not always sure where it's going to come from,

1883
01:46:07,600 --> 01:46:08,599
Speaker 2: but it happens.

1884
01:46:08,760 --> 01:46:12,880
Speaker 1: Okay, you've gotten older, the band is evolved, but there's

1885
01:46:12,880 --> 01:46:17,160
Speaker 1: been rapid change in the world. You had this moment

1886
01:46:17,320 --> 01:46:22,040
Speaker 1: with the Treadmill video the VMAs. One can ask whether

1887
01:46:22,080 --> 01:46:26,280
Speaker 1: anybody can have a moment like that anymore, But are

1888
01:46:26,320 --> 01:46:30,719
Speaker 1: you searching to equal that? How do you metabolize having

1889
01:46:30,800 --> 01:46:32,479
Speaker 1: that peak yet keep going on.

1890
01:46:33,680 --> 01:46:37,400
Speaker 2: Well, that's why the Grammy nominations this year are such

1891
01:46:37,400 --> 01:46:39,519
Speaker 2: a big deal to us, because like we've been look,

1892
01:46:39,560 --> 01:46:42,240
Speaker 2: I went away and made a film after COVID, which

1893
01:46:42,280 --> 01:46:45,599
Speaker 2: shut down things for it, like it was ten full

1894
01:46:45,680 --> 01:46:47,519
Speaker 2: years between it. In fact, a little more than ten

1895
01:46:47,600 --> 01:46:50,599
Speaker 2: years between our last two albums. That's the kind of

1896
01:46:51,320 --> 01:46:53,720
Speaker 2: you know, we didn't intentionally go on hiatus. We were

1897
01:46:53,760 --> 01:46:59,360
Speaker 2: just busy, but that's the type of thing that when

1898
01:46:59,360 --> 01:47:01,200
Speaker 2: we were putting out the record, we were like, look,

1899
01:47:01,280 --> 01:47:06,320
Speaker 2: this could easily come off, as you knows, as the

1900
01:47:06,400 --> 01:47:08,720
Speaker 2: has beens trying to make a comeback or whatever, but

1901
01:47:08,760 --> 01:47:11,400
Speaker 2: the fact that we're nominated for multiple Grammys is like,

1902
01:47:13,160 --> 01:47:19,120
Speaker 2: it is I'm very gratified by this nod from our

1903
01:47:19,160 --> 01:47:21,479
Speaker 2: peers that like it still matters, you know, and our

1904
01:47:21,520 --> 01:47:24,760
Speaker 2: shows have been selling out. We have you know, we

1905
01:47:24,800 --> 01:47:28,000
Speaker 2: have our fan base is as big as it ever was,

1906
01:47:28,080 --> 01:47:31,200
Speaker 2: and so I'm I feel very gratified that it's still here.

1907
01:47:31,280 --> 01:47:37,880
Speaker 2: It's something we can be doing, and it's you know,

1908
01:47:37,920 --> 01:47:40,200
Speaker 2: it's this is sort of related to the like how

1909
01:47:40,240 --> 01:47:42,040
Speaker 2: do you deal with the videos being more famous than

1910
01:47:42,040 --> 01:47:44,840
Speaker 2: the music question. It's like that's only the case to

1911
01:47:45,520 --> 01:47:51,800
Speaker 2: the broad shallow audience. The narrow, deep audience go like

1912
01:47:52,400 --> 01:47:55,240
Speaker 2: those who go down the rabbit hole with us. Man,

1913
01:47:55,280 --> 01:47:58,200
Speaker 2: it's a deep rabbit hole, and I that's the one

1914
01:47:58,200 --> 01:47:59,800
Speaker 2: I get to live in, right because they're my songs

1915
01:47:59,840 --> 01:48:02,720
Speaker 2: and my videos and they're my art projects, and so

1916
01:48:03,080 --> 01:48:06,800
Speaker 2: where I live that the shallow thing is just like

1917
01:48:06,960 --> 01:48:09,040
Speaker 2: that's just a catchment for more people who want to

1918
01:48:09,040 --> 01:48:11,760
Speaker 2: come in, you know, and I love it.

1919
01:48:12,520 --> 01:48:19,879
Speaker 1: Okay. Simultaneous with this career, you're married a number of times.

1920
01:48:19,920 --> 01:48:21,880
Speaker 1: When were you first married.

1921
01:48:23,840 --> 01:48:26,760
Speaker 2: My late twenties to my early thirties.

1922
01:48:26,320 --> 01:48:28,519
Speaker 1: And how did you meet that woman? And where were

1923
01:48:28,520 --> 01:48:29,920
Speaker 1: you in your career at that point?

1924
01:48:30,000 --> 01:48:33,920
Speaker 2: That was my just after she and I met in college,

1925
01:48:33,960 --> 01:48:38,080
Speaker 2: but we weren't romantically. After college, I followed her. That's

1926
01:48:38,080 --> 01:48:40,160
Speaker 2: how I moved to La She went to grad school

1927
01:48:40,280 --> 01:48:42,960
Speaker 2: at UCLA, and I followed her out there. I was

1928
01:48:42,960 --> 01:48:45,360
Speaker 2: already spending more time in la than Chicago because we

1929
01:48:45,439 --> 01:48:52,720
Speaker 2: were recording our record there, and and and we we

1930
01:48:52,760 --> 01:48:55,439
Speaker 2: got married during the middle of that law that that

1931
01:48:55,439 --> 01:48:59,240
Speaker 2: that thirty two month tour for our second album. I

1932
01:48:59,280 --> 01:49:01,080
Speaker 2: think the law guest we ever took off of that

1933
01:49:01,120 --> 01:49:03,479
Speaker 2: tour was so that I could get married. We took

1934
01:49:03,479 --> 01:49:08,080
Speaker 2: ten days off and and uh it we were just

1935
01:49:08,160 --> 01:49:10,360
Speaker 2: too young and too in our own worlds for it

1936
01:49:10,400 --> 01:49:14,240
Speaker 2: to last. I mean, she's a wonderful woman, and we

1937
01:49:14,240 --> 01:49:16,400
Speaker 2: we maybe in a different life, but it was by

1938
01:49:16,439 --> 01:49:18,320
Speaker 2: the end of it, it was we were just we

1939
01:49:18,360 --> 01:49:23,679
Speaker 2: had different lines like being in a relationship like like that.

1940
01:49:24,080 --> 01:49:26,639
Speaker 2: Trying to have that close relationship when you're on tour

1941
01:49:27,280 --> 01:49:29,880
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty days a year is crazy, you know.

1942
01:49:30,840 --> 01:49:32,719
Speaker 1: But how long until you get married again?

1943
01:49:35,040 --> 01:49:37,920
Speaker 2: It was then, I guess three or four years. So

1944
01:49:37,960 --> 01:49:43,840
Speaker 2: I got married again in a I fell head over

1945
01:49:43,880 --> 01:49:49,760
Speaker 2: heels for someone too quickly, and and we we had

1946
01:49:50,040 --> 01:49:53,800
Speaker 2: we had like a fantasy relationship where I think we

1947
01:49:53,800 --> 01:49:56,800
Speaker 2: were both in love with an idealized version of the other.

1948
01:49:58,120 --> 01:50:02,800
Speaker 2: Slightly slightly, I mean, at least the touring was less

1949
01:50:02,840 --> 01:50:08,599
Speaker 2: of the of the downfall of that relationship. But we

1950
01:50:08,600 --> 01:50:09,759
Speaker 2: weren't grown ups yet.

1951
01:50:10,000 --> 01:50:12,840
Speaker 1: So how long did that last?

1952
01:50:13,840 --> 01:50:17,160
Speaker 2: The full relationship was less than four years, including a

1953
01:50:17,160 --> 01:50:19,280
Speaker 2: marriage of two.

1954
01:50:20,320 --> 01:50:23,720
Speaker 1: So how long after that do you meet your present wife?

1955
01:50:24,120 --> 01:50:26,439
Speaker 2: I met my present wife at the very end of

1956
01:50:26,720 --> 01:50:28,519
Speaker 2: re met my present wife at the very end of that.

1957
01:50:28,600 --> 01:50:31,720
Speaker 2: But we were just friends for a full year and

1958
01:50:31,760 --> 01:50:36,320
Speaker 2: then we were romantic for two before he got married.

1959
01:50:36,400 --> 01:50:38,880
Speaker 2: And then we've been married.

1960
01:50:38,920 --> 01:50:41,240
Speaker 1: Ten Had she been married before?

1961
01:50:42,160 --> 01:50:43,280
Speaker 2: She had been married once before.

1962
01:50:43,320 --> 01:50:45,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, And did she have any reluctance to marry you

1963
01:50:46,040 --> 01:50:51,280
Speaker 1: because you were a two time loser? Yeah?

1964
01:50:51,320 --> 01:50:53,439
Speaker 2: I think she probably did. I think she probably did.

1965
01:50:54,000 --> 01:50:55,479
Speaker 2: Luckily she gave me the benefit of that.

1966
01:50:55,800 --> 01:51:01,240
Speaker 1: Okay. Her father is al Gore's like being the sudden

1967
01:51:01,360 --> 01:51:02,280
Speaker 1: law of al Gore.

1968
01:51:04,000 --> 01:51:08,520
Speaker 2: It is very humbling. It's it's really good at reminding

1969
01:51:08,520 --> 01:51:10,960
Speaker 2: you of what's important in life, because if you think

1970
01:51:11,000 --> 01:51:14,439
Speaker 2: what you're doing matters. Look at what he does, you

1971
01:51:14,439 --> 01:51:17,920
Speaker 2: know what I mean, it's it is ah it. He's

1972
01:51:17,960 --> 01:51:24,640
Speaker 2: a he's a spectacularly smart and soulful man who I

1973
01:51:24,680 --> 01:51:29,800
Speaker 2: really looked up to great deal. But he's also he's

1974
01:51:29,840 --> 01:51:31,479
Speaker 2: also a grand granddad, you know what I mean, Like

1975
01:51:31,520 --> 01:51:34,080
Speaker 2: he's my My kids didn't know, didn't know he had

1976
01:51:34,120 --> 01:51:37,639
Speaker 2: a famous history until just this last year. Like because

1977
01:51:37,680 --> 01:51:40,799
Speaker 2: he's just to him, he's to them, he's his granddad,

1978
01:51:40,880 --> 01:51:44,519
Speaker 2: you know. And my wife grew up you know, my

1979
01:51:44,520 --> 01:51:47,600
Speaker 2: my wife, I knew her in high school. We we

1980
01:51:47,600 --> 01:51:49,360
Speaker 2: we knew each other in high school. She and at

1981
01:51:49,400 --> 01:51:51,599
Speaker 2: the time she was the daughter of the vice president,

1982
01:51:51,720 --> 01:51:54,559
Speaker 2: and we didn't know each other well. But you know,

1983
01:51:54,680 --> 01:51:59,840
Speaker 2: that was a brutal, awful thing to go through as

1984
01:51:59,840 --> 01:52:03,679
Speaker 2: a teenage girl. Uh. And so like it's not a

1985
01:52:04,040 --> 01:52:05,880
Speaker 2: The last thing I'd ever want from my kids is

1986
01:52:05,880 --> 01:52:12,960
Speaker 2: for them to feel to really have any relationship to

1987
01:52:13,640 --> 01:52:16,160
Speaker 2: my public life. Like I want them their lives to

1988
01:52:16,200 --> 01:52:19,679
Speaker 2: be their own, you know, or their grandfather.

1989
01:52:20,200 --> 01:52:23,559
Speaker 1: And so how much contact does your family have with

1990
01:52:23,720 --> 01:52:25,240
Speaker 1: al Go or how often you see.

1991
01:52:25,120 --> 01:52:28,640
Speaker 2: Him several times a year? I mean we we overall,

1992
01:52:28,479 --> 01:52:31,880
Speaker 2: we he's a very he's a he's a very busy man,

1993
01:52:31,960 --> 01:52:34,479
Speaker 2: but but he's also a very active grand so we

1994
01:52:34,520 --> 01:52:35,480
Speaker 2: see him a lot.

1995
01:52:35,800 --> 01:52:40,960
Speaker 1: And how about his significant other? Tiper Gore, of course,

1996
01:52:41,160 --> 01:52:45,599
Speaker 1: was involved in the whole Lyrics controversy. Is that something

1997
01:52:45,640 --> 01:52:46,880
Speaker 1: you've ever discussed with her?

1998
01:52:49,439 --> 01:52:53,759
Speaker 2: Only only superficially. She is an incredibly playful and incredibly

1999
01:52:53,800 --> 01:52:58,559
Speaker 2: wonderful and incredibly artistic woman. You know, she like has

2000
01:52:58,600 --> 01:53:00,960
Speaker 2: played drums with that with the Grateful Dead, like she

2001
01:53:01,120 --> 01:53:02,920
Speaker 2: and you know she and Frank Zapp were like really

2002
01:53:02,920 --> 01:53:07,360
Speaker 2: good friends after all of that, Like the I think

2003
01:53:07,360 --> 01:53:16,200
Speaker 2: that was a that whole episode was I have realized

2004
01:53:16,400 --> 01:53:22,840
Speaker 2: with distance is was greatly greatly I'm amplified by the Right,

2005
01:53:22,920 --> 01:53:25,360
Speaker 2: Like the whole point is to sew division and and

2006
01:53:25,400 --> 01:53:27,160
Speaker 2: in fact, all she was was a young mother who

2007
01:53:27,200 --> 01:53:31,720
Speaker 2: was like, didn't didn't want her wanted to know if

2008
01:53:31,840 --> 01:53:33,920
Speaker 2: if an album she was buying for a kid was

2009
01:53:33,920 --> 01:53:36,200
Speaker 2: filled with the word fuck, like I would want that

2010
01:53:36,240 --> 01:53:39,320
Speaker 2: for my kids, you know. And it turned into this

2011
01:53:39,360 --> 01:53:42,680
Speaker 2: whole like it got the Right used it as a

2012
01:53:42,680 --> 01:53:45,200
Speaker 2: wedge between lefties to be like, look they're trying to

2013
01:53:45,240 --> 01:53:48,320
Speaker 2: center you, you know it, and it worked like the

2014
01:53:49,680 --> 01:53:53,040
Speaker 2: it's easy to convince us that we're being that, that

2015
01:53:53,200 --> 01:53:56,160
Speaker 2: the powers that be are trying to to shit on us,

2016
01:53:56,200 --> 01:53:56,479
Speaker 2: you know.

2017
01:53:57,000 --> 01:53:59,440
Speaker 1: And how did you end up living in Santa Barbara.

2018
01:54:00,040 --> 01:54:05,040
Speaker 2: Because of her? We went she during the fires last year,

2019
01:54:05,439 --> 01:54:11,280
Speaker 2: we escaped, We escaped La. My kids school, sorry, our

2020
01:54:11,280 --> 01:54:13,720
Speaker 2: house was fine. My kids school was too close for

2021
01:54:13,760 --> 01:54:16,160
Speaker 2: comfort to the eat and fire in East La. I

2022
01:54:16,160 --> 01:54:22,720
Speaker 2: mean in Pasadena, sorry, Alaina and uh and we came.

2023
01:54:22,880 --> 01:54:26,040
Speaker 2: We came up to stay with with Tipper, and we

2024
01:54:26,080 --> 01:54:28,599
Speaker 2: loved the community up here so much that we stayed.

2025
01:54:36,480 --> 01:54:40,360
Speaker 1: Okay, you have a very full life, Okay, go and

2026
01:54:40,480 --> 01:54:44,200
Speaker 1: all its permutations. You're married, you have a couple of kids.

2027
01:54:45,000 --> 01:54:47,960
Speaker 1: Is there any time left over for other things? Whether

2028
01:54:47,960 --> 01:54:50,800
Speaker 1: it be streaming television, movies, books, whatever.

2029
01:54:51,960 --> 01:54:53,680
Speaker 2: I read a lot. I read a lot of books

2030
01:54:53,720 --> 01:54:56,360
Speaker 2: just because that's how that's my like nighttime routine. But

2031
01:54:56,960 --> 01:55:00,000
Speaker 2: I know, I mean I I have even before kids,

2032
01:55:00,040 --> 01:55:03,480
Speaker 2: I had a problem where anything I find interesting gets

2033
01:55:03,520 --> 01:55:05,360
Speaker 2: sucked into the art. Right Like if I if I

2034
01:55:05,400 --> 01:55:08,520
Speaker 2: get fascinated with something, let's make a video out of it.

2035
01:55:08,560 --> 01:55:11,360
Speaker 2: If I get fascinated with, you know, some instrument, let's

2036
01:55:11,360 --> 01:55:13,960
Speaker 2: make a record out of it like it. It's hard

2037
01:55:13,960 --> 01:55:17,080
Speaker 2: for me not to take everything I love and make

2038
01:55:17,120 --> 01:55:19,880
Speaker 2: a job out of it, which is a blessing and

2039
01:55:19,960 --> 01:55:22,720
Speaker 2: the curse obviously it means I don't have a lot

2040
01:55:22,760 --> 01:55:25,960
Speaker 2: of of of hobbies. Well, I'm trying to play tennis.

2041
01:55:26,000 --> 01:55:29,000
Speaker 2: I'm trying to play tennis. But then once you add

2042
01:55:29,080 --> 01:55:31,960
Speaker 2: kids to that, there's really there's zero time left for

2043
01:55:31,960 --> 01:55:32,320
Speaker 2: ant of it.

2044
01:55:32,480 --> 01:55:34,120
Speaker 1: Just so I understand why is it a curse?

2045
01:55:34,960 --> 01:55:37,760
Speaker 2: Well, because you'd like to be able to shut off sometimes,

2046
01:55:37,840 --> 01:55:46,680
Speaker 2: you know, like every when you professionalize your passion, there's

2047
01:55:46,960 --> 01:55:49,800
Speaker 2: it also means, you know, like you sap it of

2048
01:55:49,840 --> 01:55:54,800
Speaker 2: some of its purity. You know that that I want

2049
01:55:54,840 --> 01:55:57,000
Speaker 2: to learn to be a better piano player. So I'm

2050
01:55:57,080 --> 01:55:59,880
Speaker 2: so I'm taking piano lessons right now, and I love

2051
01:56:00,080 --> 01:56:04,280
Speaker 2: practicing and I feel it. I feel it coming in

2052
01:56:04,360 --> 01:56:06,160
Speaker 2: when I start playing something and go, oh, what's that

2053
01:56:06,200 --> 01:56:08,200
Speaker 2: I got to I should make a song out of that? Right,

2054
01:56:08,520 --> 01:56:11,080
Speaker 2: And that's a beautiful thing. That's that's my that's what

2055
01:56:11,120 --> 01:56:14,560
Speaker 2: I want to feel. But it's also almost impossible for

2056
01:56:14,600 --> 01:56:16,800
Speaker 2: me not to be kind of like looking for the opportunity,

2057
01:56:17,200 --> 01:56:21,680
Speaker 2: you know, just to be and there, you know, and

2058
01:56:21,720 --> 01:56:25,560
Speaker 2: there's a, there's a there's a I I just don't

2059
01:56:25,560 --> 01:56:28,120
Speaker 2: really understand the idea of hobbies the way other people do,

2060
01:56:28,200 --> 01:56:30,240
Speaker 2: because everything I've ever had as a as a demi

2061
01:56:30,280 --> 01:56:31,400
Speaker 2: hobby has turned into a.

2062
01:56:32,000 --> 01:56:34,840
Speaker 1: Job of something you know and what books do you read?

2063
01:56:36,080 --> 01:56:39,960
Speaker 2: Well? I kind of vacillate between different things right now.

2064
01:56:39,960 --> 01:56:44,320
Speaker 2: I just I've just gone through a big Ted Chang phase.

2065
01:56:44,440 --> 01:56:49,120
Speaker 2: You know, the sci fi writer. He's absolutely fantastic. And

2066
01:56:49,520 --> 01:56:53,240
Speaker 2: I let's say, I just read James the you know,

2067
01:56:53,320 --> 01:57:00,640
Speaker 2: the Personal Ever book, and I'm I'm just finished now

2068
01:57:01,160 --> 01:57:04,240
Speaker 2: one called Same Bed, Different Dreams, which which is sort

2069
01:57:04,240 --> 01:57:07,840
Speaker 2: of a broadened my understanding of the Korean War and

2070
01:57:07,920 --> 01:57:10,640
Speaker 2: Korean history quite a lot. Every once in a while,

2071
01:57:10,680 --> 01:57:15,200
Speaker 2: I go through a uh a non fiction phase like

2072
01:57:15,640 --> 01:57:18,200
Speaker 2: have you have you been? Have you read? If anyone

2073
01:57:18,200 --> 01:57:19,560
Speaker 2: builds it, everyone dies.

2074
01:57:20,040 --> 01:57:20,200
Speaker 1: No.

2075
01:57:21,120 --> 01:57:25,080
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's about AI, obviously, and I find it

2076
01:57:25,200 --> 01:57:28,879
Speaker 2: very I find it shockingly convincing. It's very well written.

2077
01:57:29,320 --> 01:57:32,040
Speaker 2: I there are many there there are many arguments to

2078
01:57:32,120 --> 01:57:35,840
Speaker 2: the contrary, but it's it's it's but I recommend it

2079
01:57:35,840 --> 01:57:40,440
Speaker 2: as a good read. And uh, I don't know. I

2080
01:57:40,640 --> 01:57:43,720
Speaker 2: I I've been doing a lot of audiobooks recently too,

2081
01:57:43,720 --> 01:57:45,400
Speaker 2: because if there's a lot of driving back and forth

2082
01:57:45,440 --> 01:57:49,080
Speaker 2: between La and Santa Barbara and I, when I'm not

2083
01:57:49,200 --> 01:57:50,880
Speaker 2: in love with a new band or a new a

2084
01:57:50,880 --> 01:57:54,040
Speaker 2: new uh new piece of music, an audiobook is a

2085
01:57:54,040 --> 01:57:55,080
Speaker 2: good way to pass that time.

2086
01:57:55,720 --> 01:57:57,000
Speaker 1: And what's your take on AI?

2087
01:58:00,520 --> 01:58:04,440
Speaker 2: It's very complicated. I mostly like, I think it's inevitable.

2088
01:58:04,520 --> 01:58:07,000
Speaker 2: So it's it's sort of like it's it's like what's

2089
01:58:07,040 --> 01:58:09,640
Speaker 2: your take on streaming circa ten years ago? You know,

2090
01:58:09,640 --> 01:58:11,440
Speaker 2: it's sort of like, what are you gonna stop it? Like,

2091
01:58:11,480 --> 01:58:14,480
Speaker 2: it's not like the major labels thinking they can sue

2092
01:58:14,480 --> 01:58:17,240
Speaker 2: it out of existence is crazy. Like it's coming. It's coming,

2093
01:58:17,280 --> 01:58:19,120
Speaker 2: and it can do all the things you're worried it

2094
01:58:19,160 --> 01:58:22,840
Speaker 2: can do. And so how quickly will we adapt? And

2095
01:58:23,080 --> 01:58:26,720
Speaker 2: what will it mean for creativity? You know, it's already

2096
01:58:26,720 --> 01:58:30,760
Speaker 2: the case. I think that like people are just even

2097
01:58:31,080 --> 01:58:36,600
Speaker 2: bands like in our echelon, are re recording things that

2098
01:58:36,640 --> 01:58:39,120
Speaker 2: they demoed using AI. They just demo in an AI

2099
01:58:39,280 --> 01:58:42,280
Speaker 2: and then and then record like and I to me,

2100
01:58:43,040 --> 01:58:49,920
Speaker 2: it just it SAPs all of the joy out of

2101
01:58:49,960 --> 01:58:53,200
Speaker 2: it for me. Uh, Like the idea that you that

2102
01:58:53,280 --> 01:58:58,840
Speaker 2: you could create something more efficiently and also without any

2103
01:58:58,880 --> 01:59:02,600
Speaker 2: of the joy of creation, sort of like, well, then

2104
01:59:02,600 --> 01:59:06,480
Speaker 2: what's the point, you know now, I but I do understand,

2105
01:59:06,560 --> 01:59:09,400
Speaker 2: like as a as a as a person, you know,

2106
01:59:09,800 --> 01:59:13,160
Speaker 2: as the director of a of a you know, relatively

2107
01:59:14,520 --> 01:59:19,160
Speaker 2: high budget feature film. If if if my choice were

2108
01:59:19,200 --> 01:59:22,520
Speaker 2: to make this really difficult shot out in the middle

2109
01:59:22,520 --> 01:59:25,640
Speaker 2: of the wilderness, in this incredibly beautiful place that's going

2110
01:59:25,720 --> 01:59:28,160
Speaker 2: to be really expensive and really hard to do, or

2111
01:59:28,280 --> 01:59:31,840
Speaker 2: do it all in ai I I would want to

2112
01:59:31,880 --> 01:59:34,240
Speaker 2: do the former, and my film would require that I

2113
01:59:34,240 --> 01:59:36,920
Speaker 2: do the latter. You just can't waste you can't waste

2114
01:59:36,920 --> 01:59:39,160
Speaker 2: all the money to do the thing and not pay

2115
01:59:39,200 --> 01:59:42,120
Speaker 2: every you know, like you you have to make everything

2116
01:59:42,160 --> 01:59:45,480
Speaker 2: in the most efficient way possible and under circumstances like that.

2117
01:59:45,880 --> 01:59:51,040
Speaker 2: And it's hard to know where that how to flip

2118
01:59:51,080 --> 01:59:53,560
Speaker 2: that switch when you get back down to sitting in

2119
01:59:53,600 --> 01:59:56,280
Speaker 2: a room with the three your three lifelong friends trying

2120
01:59:56,320 --> 01:59:59,160
Speaker 2: to make music, you know, and it's hard to know

2121
01:59:59,480 --> 02:00:01,200
Speaker 2: what to do when you flip yourself onto the other

2122
02:00:01,240 --> 02:00:03,800
Speaker 2: side and just say, now I'm not caring about what

2123
02:00:03,840 --> 02:00:07,240
Speaker 2: I make. I'm caring about what I consume. Like you know,

2124
02:00:07,800 --> 02:00:10,360
Speaker 2: if you don't know it was made by AI. Does

2125
02:00:10,400 --> 02:00:12,920
Speaker 2: it matter to you, like if it still moves your soul?

2126
02:00:13,840 --> 02:00:14,440
Speaker 2: Who cares?

2127
02:00:14,560 --> 02:00:14,760
Speaker 1: Right?

2128
02:00:15,360 --> 02:00:18,040
Speaker 2: Like that scares the living shit out of it. But

2129
02:00:18,120 --> 02:00:22,320
Speaker 2: I also believe it's it's possible, you know, like there's

2130
02:00:22,360 --> 02:00:26,960
Speaker 2: no I'm not enough of I am enough for romantic

2131
02:00:27,000 --> 02:00:28,840
Speaker 2: to want to spend my life doing this and enough

2132
02:00:28,880 --> 02:00:31,480
Speaker 2: for rationalists to be like, yeah, I'm sure that the

2133
02:00:31,560 --> 02:00:35,360
Speaker 2: AI can mimic the types of things we're doing well

2134
02:00:35,480 --> 02:00:38,760
Speaker 2: enough to be good at it. Like there's no I know,

2135
02:00:38,920 --> 02:00:42,080
Speaker 2: no guitarists who learn guitar by reading right, you learn

2136
02:00:42,160 --> 02:00:46,280
Speaker 2: like everybody heard a guitar and mimicked it. That's all

2137
02:00:46,320 --> 02:00:47,520
Speaker 2: AI is doing, you know.

2138
02:00:48,960 --> 02:00:52,160
Speaker 1: Yes, but AI cannot come up with the idea for

2139
02:00:52,200 --> 02:00:55,760
Speaker 1: the treadmill video yet. Well, according to you know the

2140
02:00:55,800 --> 02:00:58,400
Speaker 1: experts I read in the paper, not that diamond expert,

2141
02:00:58,960 --> 02:01:02,520
Speaker 1: they say any level of being a sentient being is

2142
02:01:02,520 --> 02:01:03,880
Speaker 1: at least thirty years off.

2143
02:01:05,160 --> 02:01:08,879
Speaker 2: You should you should read the other books too, Okay, Okay,

2144
02:01:10,080 --> 02:01:12,040
Speaker 2: I hope, I hope you're right. I hope you're right.

2145
02:01:12,680 --> 02:01:17,800
Speaker 2: My concern like I worry for the creative industries, but

2146
02:01:17,840 --> 02:01:20,440
Speaker 2: I worry about them actually less than every everything else

2147
02:01:20,800 --> 02:01:24,800
Speaker 2: because like, why would you hire a paralegal right now,

2148
02:01:25,000 --> 02:01:29,800
Speaker 2: right like why would you like when even like wouldn't you,

2149
02:01:30,280 --> 02:01:36,280
Speaker 2: to be honest, trust an AI cancer diagnosis if if

2150
02:01:36,280 --> 02:01:39,800
Speaker 2: it's suitably well trained and as really good data inputs,

2151
02:01:40,200 --> 02:01:43,760
Speaker 2: Like all it's doing is really high level pattern recognition,

2152
02:01:43,880 --> 02:01:47,120
Speaker 2: and almost every job that humans do is really high

2153
02:01:47,200 --> 02:01:50,400
Speaker 2: level pattern recognition. Yes, so is creativity, right.

2154
02:01:50,360 --> 02:01:53,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, but just staying since we're talking about the

2155
02:01:53,520 --> 02:01:58,440
Speaker 1: hallucination rate is extremely high in terms of lawyers. They're

2156
02:01:58,440 --> 02:02:01,200
Speaker 1: getting busted on a regular basis where they have AI

2157
02:02:01,440 --> 02:02:05,280
Speaker 1: right there briefs, then the judge reads it. No such

2158
02:02:05,360 --> 02:02:06,280
Speaker 1: case exists.

2159
02:02:07,920 --> 02:02:10,960
Speaker 2: Oh I'm not look, I'm not a booster. I'm scared

2160
02:02:11,000 --> 02:02:11,280
Speaker 2: of shit.

2161
02:02:11,440 --> 02:02:15,200
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I'm looking at it. I think it's inevitable. Okay,

2162
02:02:15,400 --> 02:02:21,440
Speaker 1: but I think the paranoia is not warranted. If it

2163
02:02:21,560 --> 02:02:26,440
Speaker 1: is something simply zero's in one's digits programming, it is

2164
02:02:26,600 --> 02:02:30,920
Speaker 1: proven that it works extremely well as soon as you

2165
02:02:31,040 --> 02:02:35,879
Speaker 1: get to conceptual things and thinking. You know, the previous

2166
02:02:35,960 --> 02:02:40,360
Speaker 1: version of chatch EPT was chatch you know three that

2167
02:02:40,480 --> 02:02:43,320
Speaker 1: hallucinated more than two. I might have the numbers wrong.

2168
02:02:43,680 --> 02:02:46,240
Speaker 1: And the latest version that got some of the hallucination down.

2169
02:02:46,680 --> 02:02:50,480
Speaker 1: You have uh elon musks, which he tweaks one way

2170
02:02:50,560 --> 02:02:53,960
Speaker 1: or another. You know the way this stuff works. I

2171
02:02:54,000 --> 02:02:57,560
Speaker 1: don't want to be a louttite and say it can't

2172
02:02:57,600 --> 02:03:03,880
Speaker 1: be right, but I believe it's a tool. As I say,

2173
02:03:03,920 --> 02:03:06,200
Speaker 1: at this point in time and the way it works,

2174
02:03:06,800 --> 02:03:09,040
Speaker 1: there is no way it can take a great leap

2175
02:03:09,120 --> 02:03:13,200
Speaker 1: forward conceptually and artistically. That is still with the artists.

2176
02:03:13,200 --> 02:03:16,520
Speaker 1: You're talk about learning how to play the guitar. Yes,

2177
02:03:17,200 --> 02:03:19,839
Speaker 1: this is something from my generation. A lot of people

2178
02:03:20,440 --> 02:03:23,200
Speaker 1: spend time in bedrooms learning how to play, and you

2179
02:03:23,240 --> 02:03:26,000
Speaker 1: have people today who can barely play, who promote themselves

2180
02:03:26,400 --> 02:03:30,080
Speaker 1: saying listen to me all over the internet. Okay, but

2181
02:03:30,200 --> 02:03:32,760
Speaker 1: I am savvy enough to know that the new tools

2182
02:03:32,800 --> 02:03:36,760
Speaker 1: can be used in a new way, not really as

2183
02:03:36,880 --> 02:03:40,000
Speaker 1: replacement of what we have, but as a stepping stone

2184
02:03:40,080 --> 02:03:40,920
Speaker 1: to the next place.

2185
02:03:43,200 --> 02:03:48,480
Speaker 2: Yes, I I think I agree with everything you've just said.

2186
02:03:49,320 --> 02:03:52,000
Speaker 2: I don't have any way of predicting how fast it

2187
02:03:52,040 --> 02:03:55,240
Speaker 2: moves or what it can do eventually. I hope you're right.

2188
02:03:56,240 --> 02:03:58,840
Speaker 2: I'm because I'm old enough to be scared of change, right,

2189
02:03:59,200 --> 02:04:03,120
Speaker 2: Because I like I I like making the things I

2190
02:04:03,280 --> 02:04:05,960
Speaker 2: make and I like. I like the constraints i'm up against.

2191
02:04:06,040 --> 02:04:07,760
Speaker 2: I like the tools I've gotten good at and I

2192
02:04:07,760 --> 02:04:12,880
Speaker 2: don't and I'm not I'm not looking for you know, like,

2193
02:04:13,320 --> 02:04:20,240
Speaker 2: even if the street the attention industry isn't it's a lottery,

2194
02:04:20,360 --> 02:04:22,640
Speaker 2: you know, like it feels it feels like, well.

2195
02:04:22,440 --> 02:04:24,800
Speaker 1: Well, I wouldn't say it's a lottery. I'd say it's

2196
02:04:24,800 --> 02:04:27,240
Speaker 1: a tower of Babbel, but not a lottery.

2197
02:04:27,640 --> 02:04:30,160
Speaker 2: Okay, I guess I mean in terms of in terms

2198
02:04:30,200 --> 02:04:34,480
Speaker 2: of how music works with it, it's sort of like

2199
02:04:34,840 --> 02:04:40,240
Speaker 2: it hits our our our memes, you know it. Hits

2200
02:04:40,240 --> 02:04:42,840
Speaker 2: are are like a thing that spins up out of

2201
02:04:42,880 --> 02:04:48,800
Speaker 2: a out of the mailstrom of attention on on social

2202
02:04:48,840 --> 02:04:51,880
Speaker 2: media in a way that it's much hard like it

2203
02:04:51,960 --> 02:04:55,640
Speaker 2: doesn't Not that I haven't understood how culture works entirely,

2204
02:04:55,680 --> 02:05:01,160
Speaker 2: but it's very hard to understand how how art interfaces

2205
02:05:01,200 --> 02:05:05,200
Speaker 2: with that anymore. For me, that's already hard enough without

2206
02:05:05,240 --> 02:05:06,480
Speaker 2: it without putting in.

2207
02:05:06,480 --> 02:05:09,640
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, what do we know? Prior to maybe twenty

2208
02:05:09,840 --> 02:05:14,080
Speaker 1: twelve or so, you could be pretty sure that if

2209
02:05:14,080 --> 02:05:17,840
Speaker 1: something was great, it would surface. I'm not sure that's

2210
02:05:17,880 --> 02:05:18,879
Speaker 1: the case anymore.

2211
02:05:19,400 --> 02:05:21,200
Speaker 2: Okay, I agree with that I'm not even sure I

2212
02:05:21,200 --> 02:05:22,800
Speaker 2: agree with that prior to twenty twelve, but.

2213
02:05:23,320 --> 02:05:25,560
Speaker 1: There's some period along the time. But let's I don't

2214
02:05:25,560 --> 02:05:30,240
Speaker 1: want to argue, you know whatever. However, there are very

2215
02:05:30,320 --> 02:05:35,280
Speaker 1: few great things out there, and if you find something great,

2216
02:05:35,880 --> 02:05:39,960
Speaker 1: you want to tell everybody about it. Okay. It can

2217
02:05:40,040 --> 02:05:44,720
Speaker 1: be as simple as a one off Gangnam Style, or

2218
02:05:44,760 --> 02:05:48,160
Speaker 1: it can be a whole ovuh whatever you however you

2219
02:05:48,200 --> 02:05:53,160
Speaker 1: pronounce oeuvre okay, And they're different things. And I think

2220
02:05:53,640 --> 02:05:58,839
Speaker 1: because of the focus on money as opposed to art,

2221
02:05:59,080 --> 02:06:02,520
Speaker 1: people are constantly bitching I'm not making enough money. I mean,

2222
02:06:02,560 --> 02:06:04,840
Speaker 1: I can go on about this. You know, if you

2223
02:06:04,960 --> 02:06:08,360
Speaker 1: were trying to get a record deal in the sixties

2224
02:06:09,200 --> 02:06:13,280
Speaker 1: and you didn't sing, well, everybody say, well, what's up

2225
02:06:13,280 --> 02:06:16,360
Speaker 1: with this? Or or like you'd have to be Bob,

2226
02:06:16,440 --> 02:06:18,240
Speaker 1: don't you have to be like the best writer of

2227
02:06:18,320 --> 02:06:21,600
Speaker 1: all time? Whereas today we have bands they're not great

2228
02:06:21,600 --> 02:06:24,120
Speaker 1: writers and they're not great singers, and they're wondering why

2229
02:06:24,160 --> 02:06:26,800
Speaker 1: they're not getting noticed by the said, did you watch

2230
02:06:26,840 --> 02:06:29,120
Speaker 1: the TV show Adolescens?

2231
02:06:29,760 --> 02:06:31,600
Speaker 2: No, but I've heard great things about it.

2232
02:06:32,920 --> 02:06:35,920
Speaker 1: Well, it's a type of thing. If you see it,

2233
02:06:36,600 --> 02:06:39,880
Speaker 1: you want to talk to other people about it. Now.

2234
02:06:39,960 --> 02:06:45,160
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me because it being on Netflix, where

2235
02:06:45,160 --> 02:06:48,280
Speaker 1: they drop it all at once, is supposed to go

2236
02:06:48,360 --> 02:06:53,320
Speaker 1: over time. It didn't get the mind share of White Lotus,

2237
02:06:53,360 --> 02:06:58,240
Speaker 1: even though when White Lotus finished more people had seen Adolescens.

2238
02:06:58,920 --> 02:07:02,880
Speaker 1: So I mean, listen, there's so many issues there, publicity,

2239
02:07:03,320 --> 02:07:06,880
Speaker 1: mind share, how you measure it. All I know is

2240
02:07:07,440 --> 02:07:10,480
Speaker 1: if you say the word adolescence, someone's going to have

2241
02:07:10,520 --> 02:07:13,520
Speaker 1: a reaction, whether they saw it, liked it, didn't like it,

2242
02:07:13,920 --> 02:07:17,120
Speaker 1: like the way it was made, or you know, are

2243
02:07:17,160 --> 02:07:20,360
Speaker 1: not interested. Whereas I can name twenty things off the

2244
02:07:20,360 --> 02:07:22,240
Speaker 1: top of my head that even you were going to say,

2245
02:07:22,240 --> 02:07:24,760
Speaker 1: I had no idea what you're talking about, and I

2246
02:07:24,800 --> 02:07:27,240
Speaker 1: can't say, you know, well, if you check it out,

2247
02:07:27,400 --> 02:07:29,640
Speaker 1: it's gonna be phenomenal. I mean, I can talk about

2248
02:07:29,640 --> 02:07:32,000
Speaker 1: adolescents and say that's phenomenal. You may or may not

2249
02:07:32,200 --> 02:07:36,800
Speaker 1: like it, but we're all looking for those things and

2250
02:07:36,880 --> 02:07:39,920
Speaker 1: those things that you're gonna get me going here, those

2251
02:07:40,000 --> 02:07:45,760
Speaker 1: things have been buried under a tsunami of hype and reaction. Okay,

2252
02:07:46,360 --> 02:07:49,040
Speaker 1: I have a different feeling about social media. Let me

2253
02:07:49,120 --> 02:07:53,400
Speaker 1: just make it the Internet, which then blends into social media. Man,

2254
02:07:53,480 --> 02:07:56,360
Speaker 1: if I could connect with all these like minded people

2255
02:07:56,360 --> 02:07:59,360
Speaker 1: in high school, what would have been better? Sure there

2256
02:07:59,400 --> 02:08:02,240
Speaker 1: would be etcetera. But there's always bullying and parents can't

2257
02:08:02,280 --> 02:08:06,280
Speaker 1: protect bullying whatever, et cetera, et cetera. But I can

2258
02:08:06,400 --> 02:08:10,160
Speaker 1: talk to you virtually, I can reach people all around

2259
02:08:10,200 --> 02:08:12,760
Speaker 1: the world. Does it come at a cost? The example

2260
02:08:12,800 --> 02:08:16,880
Speaker 1: I always use, you're a little young. Prior to air

2261
02:08:16,960 --> 02:08:21,360
Speaker 1: conditioning in every car, cars came with vent windows. Once

2262
02:08:21,400 --> 02:08:24,360
Speaker 1: every car had air conditioning, they got rid of the

2263
02:08:24,440 --> 02:08:28,960
Speaker 1: vent windows for cost control. Then windows were great, but

2264
02:08:29,040 --> 02:08:32,400
Speaker 1: air conditioning is a lot better. So with every step

2265
02:08:32,480 --> 02:08:36,720
Speaker 1: forward there is somewhat of a loss. The other thing

2266
02:08:36,800 --> 02:08:39,800
Speaker 1: is you say, listen, I you know, just living through

2267
02:08:39,800 --> 02:08:44,440
Speaker 1: this whole napster thing. Change is tough, and I'm someone

2268
02:08:44,480 --> 02:08:48,760
Speaker 1: who doesn't like change in many ways, but it's happening.

2269
02:08:49,440 --> 02:08:51,920
Speaker 1: And it's same thing with AI. I mean, the best

2270
02:08:51,920 --> 02:08:55,160
Speaker 1: thing I've heard about AI is we can decide whatever

2271
02:08:55,160 --> 02:08:58,160
Speaker 1: we want to do with restrictions in America. That doesn't

2272
02:08:58,160 --> 02:09:00,720
Speaker 1: apply to China. They're gonna do whatever they want on anyway.

2273
02:09:01,040 --> 02:09:03,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I'm not before I get into

2274
02:09:03,320 --> 02:09:09,360
Speaker 2: AI restrictions like when, but but suicide ras and teens

2275
02:09:09,360 --> 02:09:11,400
Speaker 2: go up as soon as they get social media.

2276
02:09:12,560 --> 02:09:14,760
Speaker 1: You know, this is just like I don't want to

2277
02:09:14,800 --> 02:09:19,000
Speaker 1: sound like a right winger here, but the data can

2278
02:09:19,080 --> 02:09:22,680
Speaker 1: be interpreted multiple ways. They had the guy I said,

2279
02:09:22,800 --> 02:09:25,760
Speaker 1: I forget his name, he's the anti social media guy.

2280
02:09:26,120 --> 02:09:29,480
Speaker 1: A lot of this right, A lot of this stuff

2281
02:09:30,040 --> 02:09:33,240
Speaker 1: is the way the data is parsed. You know, they've

2282
02:09:33,280 --> 02:09:35,720
Speaker 1: been studies saying no, they're really social media doesn't have

2283
02:09:35,840 --> 02:09:40,000
Speaker 1: a negative effect. Really, Okay, yes, absolutely, but I wish

2284
02:09:40,080 --> 02:09:43,080
Speaker 1: I had it at my fingertips. Okay, but I'm not

2285
02:09:43,120 --> 02:09:44,480
Speaker 1: pulling it out of my ass.

2286
02:09:44,680 --> 02:09:47,120
Speaker 2: Okay, but now I get that. But do you do?

2287
02:09:47,360 --> 02:09:50,400
Speaker 2: Do you personally when you're on social media? You don't

2288
02:09:50,440 --> 02:09:54,160
Speaker 2: feel that poll of just like that dopamine another thing

2289
02:09:54,160 --> 02:09:55,920
Speaker 2: to look at, another thing to look You don't you don't.

2290
02:09:55,920 --> 02:09:59,880
Speaker 1: Wait a second, Wait a second. You went on a

2291
02:10:00,040 --> 02:10:05,920
Speaker 1: about emotion connection. If you get a sponsor you want

2292
02:10:06,520 --> 02:10:11,480
Speaker 1: to have in the production, you make a connection where

2293
02:10:11,560 --> 02:10:14,200
Speaker 1: the audience can connect with the maker and see all

2294
02:10:14,200 --> 02:10:17,240
Speaker 1: the stuff is. Suppose something that's fast and flat, they

2295
02:10:17,280 --> 02:10:21,000
Speaker 1: saw it. Whatever, let's just talk TikTok because it's a

2296
02:10:21,080 --> 02:10:28,120
Speaker 1: dominant platform. Okay, are there influencers on TikTok who are

2297
02:10:28,480 --> 02:10:33,960
Speaker 1: hawking stuff, who are sold out to the max. Absolutely, Okay,

2298
02:10:34,520 --> 02:10:38,960
Speaker 1: there is raw humanity there when I see people across

2299
02:10:39,000 --> 02:10:43,440
Speaker 1: the country testifying about their stories and here that I

2300
02:10:43,640 --> 02:10:47,959
Speaker 1: love that. In addition, there's a lot of informational stuff. Okay,

2301
02:10:48,760 --> 02:10:54,440
Speaker 1: but the raw humanity on TikTok is not evidenced in

2302
02:10:54,560 --> 02:11:00,480
Speaker 1: the superhero movies and the Spotify top fifty. Okay, so

2303
02:11:02,320 --> 02:11:04,880
Speaker 1: that for me, you know, this is like the New

2304
02:11:04,960 --> 02:11:09,880
Speaker 1: York Times. Okay, they are constantly listen, it's the best

2305
02:11:09,960 --> 02:11:12,400
Speaker 1: we have. I'm a subscriber or whatever. But they're constantly

2306
02:11:12,440 --> 02:11:17,200
Speaker 1: anti technology. All they're saying an infinitum is put the

2307
02:11:17,240 --> 02:11:20,160
Speaker 1: phone down. Are you fucking kidding me? The phone is

2308
02:11:20,200 --> 02:11:23,240
Speaker 1: the best thing that ever happened. I can connect with

2309
02:11:23,280 --> 02:11:27,960
Speaker 1: anybody anytime I have all this information. Do I like

2310
02:11:28,040 --> 02:11:31,800
Speaker 1: it when I go to dinner and somebody's on the phone. No, Okay,

2311
02:11:32,080 --> 02:11:36,400
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's perfect. But these are people, these

2312
02:11:36,400 --> 02:11:41,160
Speaker 1: are baby boomers and gen xers representing the largest percentage

2313
02:11:41,160 --> 02:11:45,800
Speaker 1: of the population. We're very self satisfied saying they know better.

2314
02:11:46,200 --> 02:11:48,000
Speaker 1: And the other thing is I grew up in the

2315
02:11:48,000 --> 02:11:50,640
Speaker 1: era of television. It was called the idiot Box and

2316
02:11:50,760 --> 02:11:55,480
Speaker 1: a lot of it was junkie. Okay, but didn't stop

2317
02:11:55,520 --> 02:12:00,560
Speaker 1: the kids from watching. Yeah.

2318
02:12:01,000 --> 02:12:05,600
Speaker 2: I my experience of kids with social media is not

2319
02:12:06,440 --> 02:12:08,320
Speaker 2: It is not that that it makes them feel connected

2320
02:12:08,320 --> 02:12:11,320
Speaker 2: instead of make them feel disconnected, because they're not. They're not.

2321
02:12:11,640 --> 02:12:14,280
Speaker 2: They're not. It's not one to one and it's not

2322
02:12:14,440 --> 02:12:16,760
Speaker 2: in person and it's not human. It's one to many

2323
02:12:17,200 --> 02:12:21,080
Speaker 2: and it is it's judge yourself against this because the

2324
02:12:21,120 --> 02:12:23,720
Speaker 2: algorithm is sending it to you. I agree when when

2325
02:12:23,720 --> 02:12:24,640
Speaker 2: social media.

2326
02:12:24,920 --> 02:12:28,880
Speaker 1: A lot of what you're saying is true and Instagram

2327
02:12:29,000 --> 02:12:34,000
Speaker 1: is more fomo look at me, et cetera. But I

2328
02:12:34,080 --> 02:12:37,640
Speaker 1: went to public high school, not gigantic, but not small,

2329
02:12:37,760 --> 02:12:42,720
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred people. There was a stratification. There were the jocks,

2330
02:12:42,880 --> 02:12:45,800
Speaker 1: there were the popular people. On the other hand, there

2331
02:12:45,840 --> 02:12:48,200
Speaker 1: were real nerds, people who had no friends, not what

2332
02:12:48,240 --> 02:12:52,200
Speaker 1: they call nerds today. Okay, yeah, finding your like minded

2333
02:12:52,280 --> 02:12:56,080
Speaker 1: people was difficult to be able to go online and

2334
02:12:56,160 --> 02:12:58,680
Speaker 1: find all these like minded people.

2335
02:12:59,240 --> 02:13:04,040
Speaker 2: Is the dages, Well, but I just playing Devil's advocate here.

2336
02:13:04,120 --> 02:13:06,560
Speaker 2: Finding the like minded people was difficult, and then they

2337
02:13:06,560 --> 02:13:09,320
Speaker 2: meant some like in the same way that finding the

2338
02:13:09,360 --> 02:13:11,600
Speaker 2: song that you loved was difficult back in the day,

2339
02:13:11,720 --> 02:13:14,240
Speaker 2: but but boy, your relationship tool there was a lot

2340
02:13:14,280 --> 02:13:16,120
Speaker 2: more when you went to Tower Records and you bought it.

2341
02:13:16,520 --> 02:13:21,360
Speaker 2: And I I'm not I'm I just I think the community.

2342
02:13:21,440 --> 02:13:24,200
Speaker 2: I think physical communities are very different than digital ones.

2343
02:13:24,520 --> 02:13:28,120
Speaker 2: And I think echo chambers are a dangerous thing sometimes,

2344
02:13:28,400 --> 02:13:34,320
Speaker 2: so like it, especially if the echo chamber is set

2345
02:13:34,320 --> 02:13:37,720
Speaker 2: in motion at the same time that your brain is

2346
02:13:37,760 --> 02:13:41,440
Speaker 2: still developing. Like, I think it's pretty hard to argue

2347
02:13:41,480 --> 02:13:46,640
Speaker 2: that that, you know, adolescent female brain should be fed

2348
02:13:46,720 --> 02:13:50,160
Speaker 2: lots and lots of pictures of of you know, the

2349
02:13:50,200 --> 02:13:51,760
Speaker 2: swimsuit issue.

2350
02:13:53,240 --> 02:13:55,600
Speaker 1: Well, needless to say, you can just google that stuff.

2351
02:13:56,120 --> 02:13:58,840
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, but that's but that's different than that than

2352
02:13:58,960 --> 02:14:02,880
Speaker 2: not having an algorithm that specifically picks it for you.

2353
02:14:02,960 --> 02:14:09,839
Speaker 2: That is, like, these algorithms are designed for our attention,

2354
02:14:10,080 --> 02:14:12,200
Speaker 2: and they were.

2355
02:14:12,560 --> 02:14:15,400
Speaker 1: What you're talking about is a very serious issue, and

2356
02:14:15,440 --> 02:14:22,800
Speaker 1: it is problematic. This may sound too adjacent, but when

2357
02:14:22,840 --> 02:14:26,960
Speaker 1: I grew up, my parents were not about restrictions. When

2358
02:14:26,960 --> 02:14:30,400
Speaker 1: I grew up, that's when the movie reading started. Okay,

2359
02:14:30,920 --> 02:14:35,240
Speaker 1: it's like my parents were not protective, and that's the

2360
02:14:35,280 --> 02:14:39,440
Speaker 1: background that I come from, and social media is it's

2361
02:14:39,480 --> 02:14:44,520
Speaker 1: beyond that. But the protection of children to this level,

2362
02:14:44,520 --> 02:14:49,080
Speaker 1: it's like a friend of mine, his nephew okay, even

2363
02:14:49,120 --> 02:14:52,480
Speaker 1: went to private school and was complaining to the mother

2364
02:14:52,480 --> 02:14:55,640
Speaker 1: about bullying, and the mother went to the principal. I

2365
02:14:55,800 --> 02:14:59,400
Speaker 1: guarantee you that had no effect, if anything, that the

2366
02:14:59,480 --> 02:15:03,560
Speaker 1: kid ended up of course, because this is the nature

2367
02:15:03,800 --> 02:15:09,520
Speaker 1: of life. You cannot protect people from the nature of life. Okay,

2368
02:15:10,080 --> 02:15:13,920
Speaker 1: And let's let's let's use the example John. I don't

2369
02:15:13,960 --> 02:15:16,360
Speaker 1: want to get too many crazy things. Some people are

2370
02:15:16,400 --> 02:15:19,680
Speaker 1: just crazy. Some people are just prone. Some of the

2371
02:15:19,680 --> 02:15:24,240
Speaker 1: best raised kids become drug addicts. Okay. And I don't

2372
02:15:24,280 --> 02:15:26,120
Speaker 1: want to throw the baby out with the bathroom and

2373
02:15:26,160 --> 02:15:30,160
Speaker 1: the ongoing paranoia with you know, it's amongst the classes

2374
02:15:30,200 --> 02:15:34,839
Speaker 1: in power, whether it be AI, the smartphone, social media,

2375
02:15:35,320 --> 02:15:39,560
Speaker 1: it's all negative when we see, you know, in foreign

2376
02:15:39,680 --> 02:15:43,880
Speaker 1: countries that gen z is bringing down the government using

2377
02:15:43,960 --> 02:15:46,800
Speaker 1: these platforms. I don't want to oversimplify it and make

2378
02:15:46,840 --> 02:15:51,880
Speaker 1: it twenty ten in the Arab spring. But I guess

2379
02:15:53,560 --> 02:15:57,320
Speaker 1: the narrative is the one you were uttering. The question

2380
02:15:57,600 --> 02:16:03,680
Speaker 1: becomes does the narrative reflect what is really happening? I

2381
02:16:03,720 --> 02:16:07,280
Speaker 1: mean all these anti technology, all this other stuff. If

2382
02:16:07,280 --> 02:16:12,000
Speaker 1: we were to the classic case here is they wanted

2383
02:16:12,040 --> 02:16:15,640
Speaker 1: to get rid of poornography. This is a true story

2384
02:16:16,200 --> 02:16:21,640
Speaker 1: on the cable systems in Utah, and the law was

2385
02:16:21,720 --> 02:16:26,560
Speaker 1: community standards. Well, they did the research. More people in

2386
02:16:26,680 --> 02:16:30,400
Speaker 1: Utah were watching porn on television than in other states,

2387
02:16:30,920 --> 02:16:35,840
Speaker 1: so they couldn't ban it. So the question becomes other

2388
02:16:35,920 --> 02:16:39,720
Speaker 1: than the people screaming loudest, what are people really doing?

2389
02:16:42,600 --> 02:16:45,120
Speaker 2: You would know better than I for sure, and I

2390
02:16:45,959 --> 02:16:53,439
Speaker 2: definitely don't like I am not a big crusader on technology,

2391
02:16:53,440 --> 02:16:56,600
Speaker 2: and frankly, like you know, it would be an incredibly

2392
02:16:56,680 --> 02:17:01,240
Speaker 2: strange and hypocritical position for me, like the the YouTube

2393
02:17:01,280 --> 02:17:09,840
Speaker 2: guy to to to to get angry at new platforms

2394
02:17:09,920 --> 02:17:15,560
Speaker 2: just for existing. I what my like to bring it

2395
02:17:15,760 --> 02:17:17,760
Speaker 2: to bring it back off of the precipice of sort

2396
02:17:17,800 --> 02:17:19,760
Speaker 2: of like where is culture going? And what is what

2397
02:17:19,920 --> 02:17:22,520
Speaker 2: is the whole world doing? Just back to like my

2398
02:17:22,600 --> 02:17:26,840
Speaker 2: own life. I I like investing lots and lots of

2399
02:17:26,920 --> 02:17:33,279
Speaker 2: time in one piece of art that I think is transcended. Okay, yeah,

2400
02:17:33,400 --> 02:17:36,280
Speaker 2: that's pretty much the opposite of what works on social

2401
02:17:36,320 --> 02:17:41,880
Speaker 2: media these days.

2402
02:17:45,760 --> 02:17:48,720
Speaker 1: One thing I don't believe in is the short attention span.

2403
02:17:49,840 --> 02:17:52,720
Speaker 1: I believe people have incredible shit directors with they used

2404
02:17:52,760 --> 02:17:55,280
Speaker 1: detectors even what they used to watch, it wouldn't people

2405
02:17:55,360 --> 02:17:58,879
Speaker 1: are binging, streaming television, they're watching All the Friends twenty four.

2406
02:17:59,120 --> 02:18:01,400
Speaker 1: How short of it is henshon spin can you have?

2407
02:18:02,160 --> 02:18:06,560
Speaker 1: If people find something is great there, they have unlimited

2408
02:18:06,600 --> 02:18:09,680
Speaker 1: amount of time to dedicate it to it. That's what

2409
02:18:09,800 --> 02:18:13,160
Speaker 1: your fans are doing. You're saying, they are tapped into

2410
02:18:13,240 --> 02:18:17,160
Speaker 1: your mind. They go deep. This is not someone who

2411
02:18:17,280 --> 02:18:19,680
Speaker 1: heard something in the Spotify top fifty has to go

2412
02:18:19,760 --> 02:18:22,280
Speaker 1: to so far and you know, go to the show

2413
02:18:22,320 --> 02:18:25,120
Speaker 1: and buy merch and then think about something else. They're

2414
02:18:25,240 --> 02:18:30,160
Speaker 1: living for this. In addition, you're not in the Spotify

2415
02:18:30,160 --> 02:18:33,680
Speaker 1: top fifty, and that that means we have the luxury

2416
02:18:33,959 --> 02:18:37,879
Speaker 1: of all these other things that can surface. Now. We

2417
02:18:38,040 --> 02:18:41,160
Speaker 1: used to have gatekeepers and we used to be able.

2418
02:18:41,240 --> 02:18:44,080
Speaker 1: It used to be more comprehensive. It's so incomprehensible how

2419
02:18:44,120 --> 02:18:47,280
Speaker 1: you find stuff, et cetera, et cetera. But people get

2420
02:18:47,320 --> 02:18:49,600
Speaker 1: to play and there will be a few steps. It

2421
02:18:49,640 --> 02:18:52,960
Speaker 1: will become more comprehensible. This is the flip side. As

2422
02:18:53,080 --> 02:18:55,760
Speaker 1: much as the older people who are anti technology. You

2423
02:18:55,840 --> 02:18:58,840
Speaker 1: have all the people who have who can complain. Now

2424
02:18:59,440 --> 02:19:03,680
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not getting paid. That becomes the narrative.

2425
02:19:03,840 --> 02:19:08,560
Speaker 1: Daniel Leck is the devil. It's like it's too detached.

2426
02:19:09,480 --> 02:19:13,320
Speaker 1: As I say, if you create something that resonates with

2427
02:19:13,400 --> 02:19:15,880
Speaker 1: the public, you know there are plenty of things when

2428
02:19:15,879 --> 02:19:18,920
Speaker 1: they say many people consider it to be astral Weeks

2429
02:19:18,920 --> 02:19:20,920
Speaker 1: to be one of the best albums of all time.

2430
02:19:21,280 --> 02:19:24,879
Speaker 1: I own it. I've seen Van Morrison performing live. I

2431
02:19:24,920 --> 02:19:29,840
Speaker 1: don't agree. Okay, public didn't resonate with it. Some things

2432
02:19:29,840 --> 02:19:32,440
Speaker 1: of public resonates, some don't. And the em and sent

2433
02:19:32,520 --> 02:19:35,600
Speaker 1: stuff is such oh yeah, yeah, that was something I

2434
02:19:35,640 --> 02:19:37,560
Speaker 1: listened to. It's like it's the beanie babies.

2435
02:19:39,240 --> 02:19:40,360
Speaker 2: I think I agree with that.

2436
02:19:41,200 --> 02:19:44,039
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a much longer discussion. I'm gonna leave

2437
02:19:44,040 --> 02:19:44,360
Speaker 1: it here.

2438
02:19:44,920 --> 02:19:46,640
Speaker 2: A great deal. I'm enjoying it, A great deal.

2439
02:19:46,680 --> 02:19:47,240
Speaker 1: I am.

2440
02:19:47,879 --> 02:19:50,200
Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm glad to hear like. It makes me

2441
02:19:50,440 --> 02:19:52,960
Speaker 2: excited to hear someone so pro I'm not because I

2442
02:19:53,000 --> 02:19:56,960
Speaker 2: don't feel like i'm particularly anti like I like, I

2443
02:19:57,040 --> 02:20:00,720
Speaker 2: feel I'm happy in my little community, Like I'm really

2444
02:20:00,720 --> 02:20:03,000
Speaker 2: happy that we've developed this relationship to our fans. It

2445
02:20:03,040 --> 02:20:06,200
Speaker 2: does not seem to be dependent on the ebbs and

2446
02:20:06,240 --> 02:20:09,360
Speaker 2: flows right like the and the and the and the

2447
02:20:09,360 --> 02:20:13,440
Speaker 2: the the platforms service serve it pretty well, I guess.

2448
02:20:14,600 --> 02:20:16,400
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't mean to keep dragging you through this,

2449
02:20:16,480 --> 02:20:20,160
Speaker 2: but like when we've put up a video as a

2450
02:20:20,240 --> 02:20:24,280
Speaker 2: music video and we put up the same video with

2451
02:20:25,040 --> 02:20:27,879
Speaker 2: factoids that you can read at the same time, the

2452
02:20:27,959 --> 02:20:30,200
Speaker 2: ones with the one with the factoids is what goes viral,

2453
02:20:31,240 --> 02:20:34,200
Speaker 2: I think, because that's what works on social media. Now,

2454
02:20:34,200 --> 02:20:37,080
Speaker 2: I'm not saying I'm just making the point that the

2455
02:20:37,240 --> 02:20:44,400
Speaker 2: platforms do that a different type of of thing resonates there. Right,

2456
02:20:44,720 --> 02:20:49,160
Speaker 2: I'm taking taking all value judgments out of it because

2457
02:20:49,160 --> 02:20:52,039
Speaker 2: it's not about like is it good or bad? But

2458
02:20:52,120 --> 02:20:56,040
Speaker 2: what I mean is that like that, if you want

2459
02:20:56,120 --> 02:21:02,280
Speaker 2: to develop a career on social media, what you're making

2460
02:21:02,640 --> 02:21:08,840
Speaker 2: is a lot of material that's very that's very repeatable,

2461
02:21:09,240 --> 02:21:14,200
Speaker 2: very quickly. It's all about I think you have multiple

2462
02:21:14,240 --> 02:21:18,160
Speaker 2: things there in order to survive with social media. It's

2463
02:21:18,160 --> 02:21:22,440
Speaker 2: a full time job and that's fucked up. Okay, but

2464
02:21:23,000 --> 02:21:26,840
Speaker 2: there's a lot of stuff that's lengthy whatever reason.

2465
02:21:27,200 --> 02:21:32,360
Speaker 1: Okay. The algorithm on TikTok found that I'm interested in

2466
02:21:32,400 --> 02:21:38,080
Speaker 1: car repair. Have I ever repaired one thing on my car? No? Okay,

2467
02:21:39,360 --> 02:21:41,680
Speaker 1: there are certain people I can tell you. There's Royalty

2468
02:21:41,760 --> 02:21:47,560
Speaker 1: Auto in Georgia, there's the Car Wizard. They have multiple things.

2469
02:21:47,920 --> 02:21:50,480
Speaker 1: It ends up being like fifteen or twenty minutes. I

2470
02:21:50,600 --> 02:21:55,120
Speaker 1: will watch or even Jay Leno's garage whatever. It's not

2471
02:21:55,360 --> 02:21:59,920
Speaker 1: hid and run. Are there people trying for hit and run? Yes,

2472
02:22:00,480 --> 02:22:05,440
Speaker 1: but you know as an artist, that's a different business,

2473
02:22:05,440 --> 02:22:07,360
Speaker 1: and you don't want to be in that business. You

2474
02:22:07,400 --> 02:22:09,080
Speaker 1: want to be in the blue sky business.

2475
02:22:09,840 --> 02:22:13,840
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But I also know that they at least Instagram stopped.

2476
02:22:14,600 --> 02:22:17,760
Speaker 2: You cannot put something over three minutes and have it

2477
02:22:17,800 --> 02:22:22,560
Speaker 2: shared algorithmic TikTok you can. But you know what they

2478
02:22:22,600 --> 02:22:24,440
Speaker 2: do to our videos. They put do not try this

2479
02:22:24,520 --> 02:22:28,240
Speaker 2: at home, which also keeps it off like their algorithm

2480
02:22:28,280 --> 02:22:31,600
Speaker 2: puts do not try the zero gravity video at home.

2481
02:22:32,280 --> 02:22:33,960
Speaker 2: What are you going to try? Who's going to try

2482
02:22:33,959 --> 02:22:35,440
Speaker 2: a zero gravity video at home?

2483
02:22:37,240 --> 02:22:41,080
Speaker 1: Well, I mean you made a video with meta, so

2484
02:22:41,120 --> 02:22:46,440
Speaker 1: there are limits to what you can say. And this

2485
02:22:46,520 --> 02:22:51,280
Speaker 1: is the thing right now. Is Apple winning by losing

2486
02:22:51,320 --> 02:22:54,520
Speaker 1: the AI war? Are they losing? If you look at

2487
02:22:54,560 --> 02:22:57,000
Speaker 1: the history of Apple and it was all Steve Jobs.

2488
02:22:57,240 --> 02:23:02,640
Speaker 1: They were late to every everything. Yeah, and then they won. Okay,

2489
02:23:03,320 --> 02:23:06,520
Speaker 1: So Mark Zucker has not invented anything in his life.

2490
02:23:06,560 --> 02:23:10,000
Speaker 1: Did invent Facebook, didn't invent Instagram, et cetera, et cetera,

2491
02:23:10,360 --> 02:23:13,280
Speaker 1: which is why they could come along with TikTok. Okay.

2492
02:23:13,879 --> 02:23:17,640
Speaker 1: So the only good thing about Instagram reels, which is

2493
02:23:17,680 --> 02:23:21,040
Speaker 1: not great but not terrible, is that you can play

2494
02:23:21,120 --> 02:23:24,080
Speaker 1: music at the same time. You can't do that with TikTok.

2495
02:23:25,040 --> 02:23:28,920
Speaker 1: But as I say, the other thing is we talk

2496
02:23:29,000 --> 02:23:33,480
Speaker 1: about this, the world is so broad and so amorphous.

2497
02:23:35,520 --> 02:23:39,039
Speaker 1: I mean, you're obviously in listen. I could talk about

2498
02:23:39,080 --> 02:23:43,440
Speaker 1: this for hours. I'm gonna stop because it's about you,

2499
02:23:43,640 --> 02:23:49,039
Speaker 1: not me. So when you when you do a podcast,

2500
02:23:49,160 --> 02:23:51,760
Speaker 1: you can you can have me and I'll I'll go

2501
02:23:51,840 --> 02:23:52,360
Speaker 1: on and on.

2502
02:23:53,320 --> 02:23:55,760
Speaker 2: It'll be a terrible podcast if I'm if I'm hosting, well,

2503
02:23:55,760 --> 02:23:57,560
Speaker 2: thank you. I really enjoyed it, appreciate it.

2504
02:23:57,600 --> 02:23:59,920
Speaker 1: No, I really you know, you're obviously a thinker in

2505
02:24:00,080 --> 02:24:07,599
Speaker 1: you're an artist in the intersection of what people don't understand.

2506
02:24:07,640 --> 02:24:13,439
Speaker 1: As I continue to go on, it's about conception. Execution

2507
02:24:13,640 --> 02:24:18,600
Speaker 1: is secondary to conception. So you can get twenty people

2508
02:24:18,640 --> 02:24:22,000
Speaker 1: together to write a song and make it perfect. It

2509
02:24:22,000 --> 02:24:24,080
Speaker 1: could be trump by something that someone came up with,

2510
02:24:24,120 --> 02:24:28,760
Speaker 1: an instant that touches people, and we live in a

2511
02:24:28,800 --> 02:24:32,800
Speaker 1: mercenary society where that people don't even recognize that. But

2512
02:24:32,840 --> 02:24:35,680
Speaker 1: that's the business you're in. How can I push it

2513
02:24:35,800 --> 02:24:38,640
Speaker 1: far enough that I get to a space You've said

2514
02:24:38,640 --> 02:24:42,720
Speaker 1: it very early. It's about the emotion and lenk iguan emotion.

2515
02:24:43,240 --> 02:24:45,360
Speaker 1: You can listen to people talk about hit music all

2516
02:24:45,400 --> 02:24:48,080
Speaker 1: day long. They're not going to even use the word emotion.

2517
02:24:48,840 --> 02:24:52,040
Speaker 2: It's true, it's true. I'm not going to say anything

2518
02:24:52,040 --> 02:24:54,920
Speaker 2: about AI before about whether or not it can ever

2519
02:24:55,160 --> 02:24:56,959
Speaker 2: get real emotions out of us. I think it's going

2520
02:24:57,040 --> 02:24:58,600
Speaker 2: to get real emotions out of us, and then we're

2521
02:24:58,600 --> 02:25:00,880
Speaker 2: going to be really confused. I mean, there are there

2522
02:25:00,879 --> 02:25:03,440
Speaker 2: are does, right, aren't there already? AI hits?

2523
02:25:03,959 --> 02:25:06,400
Speaker 1: Wait? Wait, hold on a second. First of all, they're

2524
02:25:06,400 --> 02:25:09,400
Speaker 1: not hits. If you look at the statistics, you know

2525
02:25:09,480 --> 02:25:13,160
Speaker 1: this is typical. I usually get more magazines than anybody

2526
02:25:13,320 --> 02:25:16,560
Speaker 1: I've ever known. I subscribe to the Apple News. There's

2527
02:25:16,600 --> 02:25:21,760
Speaker 1: so much clickbait there. Okay, it's like the record went

2528
02:25:21,840 --> 02:25:26,440
Speaker 1: to number one. Yeah, in Bulgarian Chance and Zanzibar. There's

2529
02:25:26,480 --> 02:25:29,119
Speaker 1: a chart for everything. You look at, how many people

2530
02:25:29,680 --> 02:25:32,480
Speaker 1: you know? There's a country one which also wasn't successful.

2531
02:25:32,680 --> 02:25:35,560
Speaker 1: But the woman wrote, has you know wrote the lyrics?

2532
02:25:35,600 --> 02:25:41,039
Speaker 1: Et cetera. Okay, so far they have songs. Okay, this

2533
02:25:41,120 --> 02:25:47,000
Speaker 1: is really going back. I was a big Beach Boys fan. However,

2534
02:25:47,200 --> 02:25:50,280
Speaker 1: big a Beach Boys fan you were, you could not

2535
02:25:50,680 --> 02:25:55,240
Speaker 1: predict California girls forget good vibrations. Okay, when you're a

2536
02:25:55,320 --> 02:25:58,680
Speaker 1: California girls, she said, this does not sound like what

2537
02:25:58,879 --> 02:26:03,600
Speaker 1: came before, with a lengthy intro. The way AI works

2538
02:26:03,680 --> 02:26:08,480
Speaker 1: is there's a query, it is sent out in a

2539
02:26:08,560 --> 02:26:14,080
Speaker 1: million different places, Everything comes back with data, and it

2540
02:26:14,120 --> 02:26:17,720
Speaker 1: assembles an answer. This is the whole thing about training

2541
02:26:17,720 --> 02:26:21,039
Speaker 1: in the model that shit that already exists. No.

2542
02:26:21,160 --> 02:26:26,800
Speaker 2: I get that it's definitionally at current it's definitionally copying. Yes,

2543
02:26:28,080 --> 02:26:32,480
Speaker 2: my What scares me about it long term is that

2544
02:26:32,800 --> 02:26:37,200
Speaker 2: what it's good at is pattern recognition, right, Okay, and

2545
02:26:37,280 --> 02:26:42,240
Speaker 2: so what it's currently doing is figuring out what patterns

2546
02:26:42,240 --> 02:26:47,120
Speaker 2: fit fit your query? Right. But if you are to extrapolate,

2547
02:26:47,240 --> 02:26:50,000
Speaker 2: like I don't think we're that many steps away. I

2548
02:26:50,040 --> 02:26:52,560
Speaker 2: hope you're right. I really really hope you're right, because

2549
02:26:52,840 --> 02:26:55,280
Speaker 2: that that's what that's the world I want to live in.

2550
02:26:55,560 --> 02:26:58,600
Speaker 2: But it seems to me that you can actually look

2551
02:26:58,600 --> 02:27:02,440
Speaker 2: at the at the twentieth century and and find a

2552
02:27:02,520 --> 02:27:05,959
Speaker 2: pattern in what broke the music industry, right what like

2553
02:27:06,200 --> 02:27:09,320
Speaker 2: you can go of course punk was doesn't come because

2554
02:27:09,360 --> 02:27:10,959
Speaker 2: as soon as as soon as you get this far

2555
02:27:11,000 --> 02:27:15,440
Speaker 2: into disco, you're gonna have something counter that, right, or

2556
02:27:15,600 --> 02:27:17,760
Speaker 2: you know, as soon as you've got this far into

2557
02:27:18,520 --> 02:27:24,560
Speaker 2: a racism, you're going to you're you're going to add

2558
02:27:25,200 --> 02:27:28,240
Speaker 2: actual pleasure to soul and hip hop too, right, Like

2559
02:27:28,520 --> 02:27:32,039
Speaker 2: you you can you can look at the the cultural

2560
02:27:32,080 --> 02:27:35,119
Speaker 2: dynamics and see the patterns playing out, and I would

2561
02:27:36,200 --> 02:27:38,680
Speaker 2: and if we can make if we can see that pattern,

2562
02:27:39,120 --> 02:27:40,080
Speaker 2: it can see that pattern.

2563
02:27:40,680 --> 02:27:43,280
Speaker 1: Right. Let me ask you this. Though we used to

2564
02:27:43,320 --> 02:27:46,840
Speaker 1: have a new sound every three to five years, since

2565
02:27:46,920 --> 02:27:51,800
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, we haven't had a new sound. Yeah,

2566
02:27:52,040 --> 02:27:59,200
Speaker 1: so the pattern doesn't exist. It's like uh, skew lines

2567
02:27:59,720 --> 02:28:01,760
Speaker 1: or if you really look at how you know, I'm

2568
02:28:01,800 --> 02:28:04,280
Speaker 1: not good on science. You know, the protons of the

2569
02:28:04,320 --> 02:28:06,440
Speaker 1: new time, they don't get around in circles. They bounce

2570
02:28:06,480 --> 02:28:12,199
Speaker 1: all around. Okay, I'm not saying that I have the answer.

2571
02:28:12,760 --> 02:28:16,120
Speaker 2: We have no homogeneity period, So there's no way to

2572
02:28:16,160 --> 02:28:17,760
Speaker 2: have a sound because they have everything.

2573
02:28:18,160 --> 02:28:20,720
Speaker 1: It's so what we have now is akin to religion.

2574
02:28:21,240 --> 02:28:24,920
Speaker 1: The religion is answers for the unknown. It's a little

2575
02:28:24,920 --> 02:28:27,879
Speaker 1: bit more than that, but that's the genesis. So we

2576
02:28:28,040 --> 02:28:31,800
Speaker 1: have a lot of people acting like they know in

2577
02:28:31,959 --> 02:28:34,600
Speaker 1: order to feel good about themselves. I don't want to

2578
02:28:34,640 --> 02:28:37,280
Speaker 1: make it about social media, but I'll use exactly. I

2579
02:28:37,320 --> 02:28:40,840
Speaker 1: hear negative stuff about TikTok all day long. My first

2580
02:28:40,959 --> 02:28:46,600
Speaker 1: question is have you been on the service? No, they've

2581
02:28:46,600 --> 02:28:48,800
Speaker 1: all not been on the service. You may hate it

2582
02:28:48,840 --> 02:28:50,520
Speaker 1: if you're on the service, but you you don't have

2583
02:28:50,520 --> 02:28:52,720
Speaker 1: any self, you don't have any knowledge, no experience.

2584
02:28:53,879 --> 02:28:56,920
Speaker 2: Well on that one, I mean, I'm much more Instagram

2585
02:28:56,920 --> 02:29:00,320
Speaker 2: than I am TikTok, but I find it incredibly it

2586
02:29:00,360 --> 02:29:01,400
Speaker 2: but it's not a good feeling.

2587
02:29:01,600 --> 02:29:05,640
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, it is addictive. I'm not saying it's not.

2588
02:29:06,360 --> 02:29:10,920
Speaker 1: Is that a good thing? No, but that's not the

2589
02:29:10,959 --> 02:29:11,920
Speaker 1: only thing that's there.

2590
02:29:13,840 --> 02:29:15,959
Speaker 2: I will then, then we have arrived at our point

2591
02:29:16,000 --> 02:29:18,560
Speaker 2: in perfect agreement. Because I do think like as a

2592
02:29:18,600 --> 02:29:23,280
Speaker 2: connector fantastic I have no problem with that with with

2593
02:29:23,520 --> 02:29:26,840
Speaker 2: with technology connecting us. I it's it's that I feel

2594
02:29:26,840 --> 02:29:29,879
Speaker 2: like it's disconnecting and I feel like it's it is

2595
02:29:30,120 --> 02:29:33,360
Speaker 2: it puts us into the into sort of you know,

2596
02:29:33,440 --> 02:29:35,160
Speaker 2: the classic thing you've heard over and over again, that

2597
02:29:35,240 --> 02:29:38,280
Speaker 2: you are, that you are the product. You know that

2598
02:29:38,400 --> 02:29:41,280
Speaker 2: your attention is what's being sold. And and I and

2599
02:29:41,320 --> 02:29:43,680
Speaker 2: I feel that because I can feel I got like

2600
02:29:43,800 --> 02:29:47,040
Speaker 2: I can feel the urge to pull my phone out

2601
02:29:47,080 --> 02:29:50,440
Speaker 2: because I need another hit of of I haven't gotten

2602
02:29:50,440 --> 02:29:52,000
Speaker 2: any emails that I want to read today. I got

2603
02:29:52,000 --> 02:29:53,480
Speaker 2: thirty that I don't want to deal with, but I

2604
02:29:53,480 --> 02:29:55,120
Speaker 2: haven't gotten any more that I want to read. But

2605
02:29:55,200 --> 02:29:59,200
Speaker 2: I but there's another platform where there's probably more, and

2606
02:29:59,200 --> 02:30:01,640
Speaker 2: and I can feel, I feel that pull to it,

2607
02:30:01,680 --> 02:30:07,720
Speaker 2: and it is addictive and and not devoid of inspiration.

2608
02:30:07,760 --> 02:30:10,560
Speaker 2: And I've also found tons and tons of inspiration and

2609
02:30:10,560 --> 02:30:13,200
Speaker 2: and and made real connections there. So it's not like

2610
02:30:13,280 --> 02:30:16,000
Speaker 2: it's definitely it's definitely not one or the other, but

2611
02:30:16,320 --> 02:30:20,960
Speaker 2: it is. But the dangers are real and and I

2612
02:30:21,120 --> 02:30:22,800
Speaker 2: and I and I what I want to do is

2613
02:30:22,840 --> 02:30:25,200
Speaker 2: believe like if we could cherry pick all the good

2614
02:30:25,240 --> 02:30:29,240
Speaker 2: stuff from what's there and and your version of what

2615
02:30:29,360 --> 02:30:33,400
Speaker 2: could be like that's that's wonderful. If if AI only

2616
02:30:33,600 --> 02:30:37,920
Speaker 2: it only acts as a more efficient tool that I

2617
02:30:38,240 --> 02:30:41,080
Speaker 2: than then that it's going to be a wonderful, wonderful thing.

2618
02:30:41,440 --> 02:30:47,320
Speaker 2: I I you know, like I've worked you know again,

2619
02:30:47,680 --> 02:30:50,119
Speaker 2: put put yourself in the position of a film director

2620
02:30:50,280 --> 02:30:53,720
Speaker 2: who who's on a tight budget and needs background music?

2621
02:30:55,000 --> 02:30:57,600
Speaker 2: How are you not going to use AI for them? Right?

2622
02:30:58,320 --> 02:31:04,080
Speaker 1: And you know we live we live through this with

2623
02:31:04,320 --> 02:31:09,000
Speaker 1: the drum machine? What did it reyield yield programmers? Yeah,

2624
02:31:09,040 --> 02:31:10,360
Speaker 1: you can use drum machine.

2625
02:31:10,520 --> 02:31:14,040
Speaker 4: But these guys who make a fortune programming the drum machine, well,

2626
02:31:14,040 --> 02:31:16,760
Speaker 4: it's not gonna it's not gonna be the If it's

2627
02:31:16,760 --> 02:31:20,000
Speaker 4: not gonna be the director, they're gonna hire somebody who

2628
02:31:20,040 --> 02:31:22,920
Speaker 4: puts in the right prompts to get the right.

2629
02:31:23,160 --> 02:31:26,760
Speaker 2: Oh well they're gonna hi there. But that's a much

2630
02:31:26,800 --> 02:31:30,480
Speaker 2: smaller industry that like there are those are the only

2631
02:31:30,879 --> 02:31:35,080
Speaker 2: the orchestral composition jobs left in the world, right is

2632
02:31:35,120 --> 02:31:38,800
Speaker 2: film film score? And and and I just came through that, right,

2633
02:31:38,879 --> 02:31:40,959
Speaker 2: And it's and they make a lot more money than

2634
02:31:41,000 --> 02:31:42,360
Speaker 2: I do. I'll tell you that it's like it's a

2635
02:31:42,440 --> 02:31:47,280
Speaker 2: it's a it for for for to hire a set

2636
02:31:47,280 --> 02:31:50,480
Speaker 2: of union violinists, and you know, to hire a union

2637
02:31:50,560 --> 02:31:54,680
Speaker 2: orchestra to play for six hours. Is you know that's

2638
02:31:54,760 --> 02:31:57,640
Speaker 2: that's several rock and roll albums worth of money right there,

2639
02:31:57,920 --> 02:32:00,720
Speaker 2: and that and that job will go.

2640
02:32:00,840 --> 02:32:06,119
Speaker 1: In without going down the rabbit hole of that. I'll

2641
02:32:06,160 --> 02:32:11,640
Speaker 1: just say one thing leading out all of what we

2642
02:32:11,920 --> 02:32:16,040
Speaker 1: just said. Pretty much, you have a device in your

2643
02:32:16,200 --> 02:32:22,199
Speaker 1: hand where everything is playing to you. How many times

2644
02:32:22,240 --> 02:32:25,199
Speaker 1: have I been in environments where I say I can't

2645
02:32:25,200 --> 02:32:28,560
Speaker 1: relate to these people. I can't talk to these people.

2646
02:32:29,000 --> 02:32:34,520
Speaker 1: But here on my device is stuff specially curated just

2647
02:32:34,680 --> 02:32:39,400
Speaker 1: for my interests? Is I say you have to you

2648
02:32:39,480 --> 02:32:40,119
Speaker 1: have to see it.

2649
02:32:40,080 --> 02:32:42,080
Speaker 2: Down And I do love that, but that also just

2650
02:32:42,080 --> 02:32:44,600
Speaker 2: stopped you from connecting with those people. Now you don't

2651
02:32:44,640 --> 02:32:45,679
Speaker 2: have to understand.

2652
02:32:45,400 --> 02:32:50,040
Speaker 1: Yes, but there's a fiction that everyone. Let's use it.

2653
02:32:50,240 --> 02:32:54,440
Speaker 1: Musicians as example. You know, I've met a lot of

2654
02:32:54,480 --> 02:32:58,200
Speaker 1: classic musicians. A lot of them can't talk to anybody.

2655
02:32:58,600 --> 02:32:59,720
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're the worst.

2656
02:33:00,320 --> 02:33:02,920
Speaker 1: They can play their instrument and that's how they connect

2657
02:33:02,959 --> 02:33:06,360
Speaker 1: with people, but they can't have a conversation. They can't

2658
02:33:06,360 --> 02:33:09,480
Speaker 1: do it. Okay, So all these people say, well, you

2659
02:33:09,520 --> 02:33:11,160
Speaker 1: got to meet face to face. There are a lot

2660
02:33:11,160 --> 02:33:12,280
Speaker 1: of people can't do that.

2661
02:33:14,280 --> 02:33:14,800
Speaker 2: Fair enough.

2662
02:33:16,000 --> 02:33:18,039
Speaker 1: Let's leave it at that, because it'll go out forever.

2663
02:33:18,480 --> 02:33:20,879
Speaker 2: David, I really enjoyed this thing.

2664
02:33:20,959 --> 02:33:23,720
Speaker 1: Okay, it's been great talk you do, great hearing about you.

2665
02:33:23,720 --> 02:33:27,160
Speaker 1: You're being in your insights and creativity. In any event,

2666
02:33:27,320 --> 02:33:28,879
Speaker 1: Thank you. Till next time.

2667
02:33:29,440 --> 02:33:31,000
Speaker 2: This is Bob Left sets