Speaker 1: Whatever I decided to do, like watershed or my writing career.
Speaker 1: It's never like um the coolest hippist must read thing
Speaker 1: on the cover of Entertainment Weekly or whatever you know
Speaker 1: what can We'm not burdened with that. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Joe A Strike, author of the
Speaker 1: memoir Hitless Wonder a Life and Minor League rock and Roll,
Speaker 1: which documents the twenty five years he toured the country
Speaker 1: and a beat up a Cono line van as the
Speaker 1: bass player and co singer for Columbus, Ohio's Watershed. His
Speaker 1: writing has appeared in Esquire, Sports, Illustrated, and other magazines.
Speaker 1: He's been honored by Atlantic Monthly and shortlisted in the
Speaker 1: Best American Essays of two thousand eight and two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: and as if that added on the Push Card Prize
Speaker 1: Best of the Small Presses in two thousand fourteen. His band,
Speaker 1: Watershed retains a devoted cult following, and their latest record
Speaker 1: is called Brick and Mortar And Eric, do you want
Speaker 1: to tell everybody why this interviews a little different and
Speaker 1: special than some of the others we've done. This was
Speaker 1: actually the first interview recorded. Joe was kind enough to
Speaker 1: be our first guest. Uh. The other thing about it
Speaker 1: is that Joe is a great author. Is book Hitless
Speaker 1: Wonder is really one of the most enjoyable reads about
Speaker 1: being in the music world that I've ever read. And
Speaker 1: he's been a good friend for a long time. So
Speaker 1: we're really excited to have him on and let's check
Speaker 1: it out. Here's the interview. Hey, Joe, welcome to the show. Hey,
Speaker 1: how you guys doing. We're doing great. We're really glad
Speaker 1: to have you. Thanks for thanks for doing this. Our
Speaker 1: podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based
Speaker 1: on the old parable where there's an old man who's
Speaker 1: talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: hatred and greed and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks, and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start the podcast off by just asking you
Speaker 1: what that parable means to you in your life and
Speaker 1: in your work. Well, to my great shame, I've never
Speaker 1: heard that before, um, but I'm really glad you guys
Speaker 1: introduced it to me. And it really can apply to
Speaker 1: a lot of people in a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: of course, to me. To me, I think it's about
Speaker 1: getting the work done, especially something that might be considered like,
Speaker 1: you know, artwork, if I might be so pretentious as
Speaker 1: to use the word art to talk about anything that
Speaker 1: I've ever done. But the reason why I think that
Speaker 1: that that's got to be the good wolf is because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of forces in life. Um, not
Speaker 1: all evil forces either, good well meaning forces like your family,
Speaker 1: your wife, your kids, your job, um, the fact that
Speaker 1: you have to pay the rent. Things like that that
Speaker 1: kind of um nudge you away from any sort of
Speaker 1: art making process toward a money making process. And of
Speaker 1: course this is a problem because time is finite, and
Speaker 1: so with only limited time, you've got to make some
Speaker 1: pretty tough decisions about how you can get the work
Speaker 1: done and what it's going to cost you to get
Speaker 1: the work done. So for me, I think, um feeding
Speaker 1: the good wolf. And it's not like I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time thinking about this until I agreed to
Speaker 1: do this podcast. But I asked myself what does that
Speaker 1: mean to me? And the best thing that I can
Speaker 1: come up with is it means finding excuses and reasons
Speaker 1: to get the work done instead of the opposite, because
Speaker 1: it's always very easy to find reasons to not get
Speaker 1: the work done. If you're looking for reasons to not
Speaker 1: do it, you will never run out of them. So
Speaker 1: I think you just kind of have to take the
Speaker 1: opposite stance and say, wait a minute, how can I
Speaker 1: get this done? You know, what what can I do?
Speaker 1: Can I wake up a little earlier. Can I be
Speaker 1: a little selfish? Um today? Can I set aside two
Speaker 1: hours to do whatever it is I need to do? Um?
Speaker 1: But yeah, for me, it's about finding excuses and reasons
Speaker 1: to get the work done. That's great. I think we
Speaker 1: talked about that. Actually, when Eric and I first started
Speaker 1: talking about this podcast, productivity came up for me as
Speaker 1: a big part of it. I mean, people who do
Speaker 1: a lot in their lives are obviously feeding the good
Speaker 1: wolf somehow, because if you don't, you know, things just crumble,
Speaker 1: usually rather quickly. It's kind of like losing weight and
Speaker 1: gaining weight, and it's really very easy to gain it
Speaker 1: because it's fun and decadent, and we like to end
Speaker 1: it's a son of a bitch to lose it. Yeah, absolutely, so, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's just I guess sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: be selfish, and it doesn't seem like the selfish part
Speaker 1: of you would be the good wolf. It seems like
Speaker 1: that would be the bad wolf, because we've been taught
Speaker 1: that since we were little kids. Don't be so hellfish.
Speaker 1: But I think sometimes you have to be selfish in
Speaker 1: the name of personal fulfillment, in the name of the
Speaker 1: fact that there's just simply a limited time on earth,
Speaker 1: and so in order to get something done, sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to say, I'm going to hold this art making
Speaker 1: process or whatever as precious and I'm going to set
Speaker 1: it aside, and and if I have to be selfish
Speaker 1: order to get it done, that's what I'll do. Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, we all know stories about people artists, musicians, whatever,
Speaker 1: who take that to such an extreme that they lose
Speaker 1: so many things that are potentially positive in their life
Speaker 1: in the name of getting the work done, you know,
Speaker 1: whether whether it be they get divorced or they never
Speaker 1: see their kids or whatever. And I certainly don't want
Speaker 1: to be that level of still selfish. I want to
Speaker 1: find some sort of balance in my life. And I
Speaker 1: think I'm lucky enough that I found it. That was
Speaker 1: one of the things in the book that really fascinated me. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I kind of I read it when it
Speaker 1: came out. I loved it. Um is really interesting. A
Speaker 1: was you know, very well written and be it's interesting
Speaker 1: to read the book of someone that you've that grew
Speaker 1: up in the same place that you did and had
Speaker 1: a lot of the early experiences. But one of the
Speaker 1: things I was struck by is that, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of the theme running through that book was sort of, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you fighting for the band and trying to
Speaker 1: balance that with your wife's desire to do other things.
Speaker 1: And I do think that is you know, you talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, feeding the good Wolf to get your art done,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that's selfish. And and one of the things
Speaker 1: that's interesting though, is that for those of us that
Speaker 1: that feel that need to to make something when we don't,
Speaker 1: the real asshole and and and it's not any better.
Speaker 1: And so I think I'm arguing what the people around
Speaker 1: me want, it always backfires on me. Right, in the
Speaker 1: short term, you can sometimes make the people around you
Speaker 1: very happy by ignoring the art making process through the
Speaker 1: good Wolf and just kind of playing along with what's easy. Um.
Speaker 1: But in the long run, I think you're totally right.
Speaker 1: I think that ultimately you become so unfulfilled or frustrated
Speaker 1: because you've got this thing that you need to get
Speaker 1: out and it's kind of blocked that you become such
Speaker 1: a jerk that at some point the people around you say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, get out of here, go do that thing
Speaker 1: that you need to do. Absolutely always sort of amazed
Speaker 1: me about about Watershed and and reading your book. Really
Speaker 1: sort of you know, Drives at Home Again is a
Speaker 1: sort of how hard you guys really did work and
Speaker 1: sort of how you continued to do it even you know,
Speaker 1: over some pretty dramatic ups and downs, and so it
Speaker 1: kind of be interested in what do you think made
Speaker 1: that work for you guys that you were able to
Speaker 1: a you know, work so hard and be so focused
Speaker 1: and then sustain it over a period of time. I
Speaker 1: think the work part was it was something that we
Speaker 1: could do. You know, nobody in our band is ever
Speaker 1: gonna sing like Harold Chichester or Willie Phoenix or you know,
Speaker 1: pick your favorite singer. We're never gonna sing like that.
Speaker 1: We're never gonna be the best musicians in the world.
Speaker 1: We're never gonna be punk rock enough to be the
Speaker 1: Ramans in order to get away with being less than
Speaker 1: perfect musicians and singers or whatever. So we sort of
Speaker 1: recognized our limitations from an early age and said, well,
Speaker 1: one of the things we can do is work really hard,
Speaker 1: like book a bunch of gigs, practice all the time,
Speaker 1: try to get better, try to write better songs, go
Speaker 1: on the road, and then that's all well and good.
Speaker 1: I think we kind of got that down at an
Speaker 1: early age. But a lot of bands get that down
Speaker 1: and still they break up. So I think one of
Speaker 1: the real I guess lucky uh happenstances about our band
Speaker 1: was simply the way that we were formed, and that
Speaker 1: is Colin, our guitar player. You know, when we were kids,
Speaker 1: young kids like seventh and eighth grade. This kid, Colin
Speaker 1: had vision. Man. I mean he started putting this band
Speaker 1: together before any of us knew how to play instruments.
Speaker 1: And I mean that literally in every case except for him,
Speaker 1: he knew how to play guitar kind of, but other
Speaker 1: than that, he just started recruiting people, and he recruited
Speaker 1: his friends and his whole thing. I can't believe he
Speaker 1: was like wise enough to to to think of this
Speaker 1: or stumble upon this at such a young age. But
Speaker 1: his theory was, if we're friends first, we can carve
Speaker 1: a band. We can make a band out of friends.
Speaker 1: You know, we were gonna hang out together anyway, so
Speaker 1: it's like we might as well hang out together in
Speaker 1: a bar with our guitars, trying to play songs, write
Speaker 1: songs at center and center cent. So I think that's
Speaker 1: what kept us going, you know, to a reasonable, um,
Speaker 1: a length of time, you know, the ten or the
Speaker 1: fifteen years or whatever normal people consider to be a
Speaker 1: long period of time. But at this point, we're at
Speaker 1: like twenty five years, We're at We're at an exceedingly
Speaker 1: long period of time now, and so I don't think
Speaker 1: I can easily write it all off on knowing our limitations,
Speaker 1: so trying to work hard and friendship. At this point,
Speaker 1: I think it's something else stubbornness, um, the fact that
Speaker 1: it's just what we do and so we don't even
Speaker 1: really think about it. It's just what we do. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's the fact that, um, we honestly believe that our
Speaker 1: best song is still out there to be written. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting because actually today I was thinking about that
Speaker 1: as I was, you know, thinking about this interview, and
Speaker 1: I thought about, you know, when you guys got you know,
Speaker 1: when you guys got dropped back in the day, and
Speaker 1: then I thought about the songs that have been written
Speaker 1: since then, and you know, I would say, there are
Speaker 1: some of the best ones, you know, even the most
Speaker 1: recent record. And that's exactly you know, what I was
Speaker 1: thinking was if you had if anybody gives up and
Speaker 1: then that doesn't get done. And if if the belief
Speaker 1: is that it's about the work itself and the joy
Speaker 1: that you get from the work itself, not necessarily the
Speaker 1: extrinsic reward from that, which is another topic I want
Speaker 1: to cover a little bit later. Then obviously carrying on
Speaker 1: is is important. Yeah, that was one of the real
Speaker 1: lessons that we learned um when we were pretty young
Speaker 1: and we started going out on the road. At age twenty,
Speaker 1: we dropped out of school and body use van and
Speaker 1: started playing shows all over the country for you know,
Speaker 1: very few people and very little money. What we learned
Speaker 1: was that the show has to be its own reward,
Speaker 1: the act of playing the fun you have and and
Speaker 1: getting there and hanging out with your buddies and having
Speaker 1: a drink at the bar or whatever, because if you
Speaker 1: play for those extrinsic things like money, fame or whatever,
Speaker 1: you'll always be disappointed. It will never be enough. Even
Speaker 1: if you get a little bit of you know what
Speaker 1: normal people call success, financial success or whatever, critical success,
Speaker 1: it's never enough. So we learned the hard way because
Speaker 1: we didn't have any choice. We're you know, we're playing
Speaker 1: for you know, decent crowds in Columbus. But you know
Speaker 1: that ten percent of our shows are less The huge
Speaker 1: vast majority of our shows were played in front of
Speaker 1: people who didn't care, wanted to hate us um and
Speaker 1: very few of even those people. So we learned pretty
Speaker 1: quickly that we needed to find something within ourselves that
Speaker 1: would make it worth it and make it worth it
Speaker 1: to drive five miles to Milwaukee on a Tuesday night
Speaker 1: to play for fifteen bucks. That don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: we did want to sign a big record deal at
Speaker 1: that time. I guess it's just because we saw our
Speaker 1: heroes and they all had big deals and they were
Speaker 1: all playing arenas and stuff like that, so we wanted
Speaker 1: to be like Springsteen or whatever we just did. And
Speaker 1: it's not all that cool to admit, but that's just
Speaker 1: kind of the way UM we saw musical success. Then,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't see that anymore. You're talking about
Speaker 1: that the reward is in the creation, you know, learning
Speaker 1: the lesson that the reward is the reward. And yet
Speaker 1: I think the challenge for a lot of people is
Speaker 1: that even though we know that, maybe deep down in
Speaker 1: our better moments, it's really easy to get lost in
Speaker 1: the lure of external success again. Whether that be money,
Speaker 1: whether that be critical acclaim, whether that be And and
Speaker 1: the thing I liked about you know in the book
Speaker 1: as you sort of are, you're you're describing that battle,
Speaker 1: you're sort of describing that you know that you are,
Speaker 1: you are torn in that way. And and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, back to the theme of sort of feeding
Speaker 1: the good wolf is you know, how do you how
Speaker 1: do you sort of keep pulling yourself back to that
Speaker 1: when everything in our culture and a lot of default
Speaker 1: things sort of pull you away from Hey, it's the
Speaker 1: work that's important into Hey, it's the success that's important. Well,
Speaker 1: luckily for us, I guess luckily, um, life kicks you
Speaker 1: in the ass enough that even though it's a lesson
Speaker 1: that you need to to relearn over and over again,
Speaker 1: you get plenty of opportunities to relearn it because at
Speaker 1: least in our career, we we didn't rocket to instant success,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it's been it's always been
Speaker 1: a struggle. So we've learned that lesson over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. But I will confess that there were
Speaker 1: times when I was, you know, early thirties perhaps where
Speaker 1: I started to see our friends who played the straight
Speaker 1: route you know that went straight from college into a
Speaker 1: cubicle or whatever. I started to see them have think
Speaker 1: all of these kind of material things, and you know,
Speaker 1: the big mcmanchon, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And I knew I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be them exactly, and I didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: covet the material things that they had, But the crisis
Speaker 1: was coming from the fact that I wasn't that happy
Speaker 1: where I was. You know, it's one of those things where, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I don't have the mcmanchon and can't afford the vacation,
Speaker 1: don't have a nice car or whatever, that's fine. But
Speaker 1: shouldn't I at least be really really happy while I
Speaker 1: don't have the mcmanchion and all of that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And for a long time I wasn't. And I think
Speaker 1: it's just because man frustration. You've got You've got this material,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and you just want to get it
Speaker 1: into the world, you know, so badly, and and somehow
Speaker 1: the world didn't seem to want it. And then I
Speaker 1: eventually got to a place where I was like, Uh,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what the world wants. It's just gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've had more success in your
Speaker 1: writing career than you have in your music career or
Speaker 1: is it too early to know. It's probably too early
Speaker 1: to know, But I guess the one thing I've learned
Speaker 1: about myself is that, um, I'm never gonna be like
Speaker 1: in baseball they used to call it the bonus baby,
Speaker 1: like the hot commodity, the buzzworthy thing. Like I'm always
Speaker 1: gonna be a grinder, it seems to me. And whatever
Speaker 1: I decided to do, it's always the kind of like
Speaker 1: people stumble into whatever I do and then like that's
Speaker 1: pretty good. But watershed or my writing career, it's never
Speaker 1: like I'm the coolest hippist, must read thing on the
Speaker 1: cover of Entertainment Weekly or whatever, you know. So luckily
Speaker 1: I'm not burdened with that actually. See, it also seems
Speaker 1: in the writing world there's less all or nothing the
Speaker 1: music business. For I think it's changed a little bit
Speaker 1: as the internet's going on, but certainly in the days
Speaker 1: where you guys are coming up, it really was all
Speaker 1: or nothing. You either you either got in a major
Speaker 1: label and you made it big or you floundered. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, looking at at at a at
Speaker 1: a writing career, there's there's a lot of different avenues
Speaker 1: to sort of be in between. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: have to hit the home run to be successful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the same advances in technology
Speaker 1: that ate it so that you could kind of have
Speaker 1: a middle class in the music industry, uh, the leveling
Speaker 1: of the distribution channels and so forth, so that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of bands that have niche crowds. So
Speaker 1: they might only have fifteen thousand fans, and I say only,
Speaker 1: but they might have fifteen thousand fans, but they can
Speaker 1: find those fifteen thousand fans because of the Internet and
Speaker 1: social media Center Center Center. A lot of those same
Speaker 1: advances have made it so that the publishing industry can
Speaker 1: have something like a middle class too. You can find
Speaker 1: your audience if you need to, you can publish the
Speaker 1: book yourself. Everybody's pretty much got to promote their books themselves.
Speaker 1: Even the people on big giant publishing houses have to
Speaker 1: do that these days. So yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: in terms of um, the ability to get your art
Speaker 1: in whatever medium you're working in, in front of people,
Speaker 1: I think this is like a golden age, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, maybe not financially. But again, as we've said,
Speaker 1: that can't be the goal anyway. If if the goal
Speaker 1: is to get your work out to people, there's never
Speaker 1: been a better time on earth than right now. One
Speaker 1: of the other things in reading the book that hit
Speaker 1: me and sort of gets to I think the support
Speaker 1: that we need in order to sort of continue on
Speaker 1: was some of the stories about your father. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the lines was all the other parents and
Speaker 1: all the expectations they seem to have for their kids,
Speaker 1: and and you said that, you know, knowing your own
Speaker 1: happiness is the only expectation your father's ever had, and
Speaker 1: you've just got other stories about his sort of really,
Speaker 1: you know, seems legendary support. So I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you could talk a little bit about him and the
Speaker 1: role he's played. Yeah, I mean he was a huge
Speaker 1: supporter right from the beginning. When we were fourth my
Speaker 1: I guess eighth grade or whatever. He uh bought my
Speaker 1: first base and there's a hundred fifty dollar court base
Speaker 1: from Williams Music in Worthington, Ohio. And from that moment
Speaker 1: forward he really just fostered my interest in it. And
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't really need fostering, but during the
Speaker 1: low times, I needed somebody to say no, keep going,
Speaker 1: keep going, it's okay. His only fear was that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't take it seriously enough, and I always wondered maybe
Speaker 1: there were times thirty twenty five years into our career
Speaker 1: he's like, Okay, I didn't mean to take it that seriously. Um,
Speaker 1: But I have two kids now, and so I try
Speaker 1: to think about, like, what did I learn from my
Speaker 1: dad as a parent that I can maybe translate to
Speaker 1: my kids, And um, you know, there are a couple
Speaker 1: of things that don't necessarily apply to music, like giving
Speaker 1: a ship that helps. I think when your father giving
Speaker 1: a ship, showing up being there. But I think what
Speaker 1: my dad gave to me was, um, unconditional support, just
Speaker 1: really support. It's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay
Speaker 1: every now and then. That support was a little bit financial,
Speaker 1: never huge amounts, but uh, Like I remember my dad
Speaker 1: cut watersheded check for like a thousand bucks one time,
Speaker 1: which seemed like a huge amount to us, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, and we paid him back. It took us
Speaker 1: a year, but we paid him back, and I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking, this is so generous, This is so great,
Speaker 1: and he's just like a money problem is not a problem.
Speaker 1: And we we didn't come from rich families, but we
Speaker 1: were lucky that we had that kind of support, emotional support,
Speaker 1: financial support from the very beginning, and then the support
Speaker 1: of people like Biggie who you know, he's the road manager,
Speaker 1: been with us from the very beginning. And think about it,
Speaker 1: he doesn't even play on stage or write any of
Speaker 1: the songs. What the heck is he's still dealing with
Speaker 1: the band. I think I didn't know this before I
Speaker 1: wrote the book, but I think now he sees and
Speaker 1: it's undeniably true. He sees what he does as an art,
Speaker 1: and it is undeniably an art. The support, the flyer making,
Speaker 1: the getting us there in the van, the heroic driving.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is an artistic nous to what he does,
Speaker 1: and so that fulfills something that he needs. Back to
Speaker 1: your dad for a second, because there were several things
Speaker 1: that there. There was one line you said that really
Speaker 1: was you were describing being in a bar, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it sounds like there were some watershed people.
Speaker 1: They were not talking about a sold out stadium. And
Speaker 1: your dad sort of looks over it, and you know,
Speaker 1: smiling and says, you know, look at this thing you've built,
Speaker 1: and he clearly has that sense that it's not about
Speaker 1: the external success. And I just I found that really
Speaker 1: a touching line that you know, to see your father
Speaker 1: sort of seeing it in the beauty for what it
Speaker 1: really is. Yeah, he is an amazing guy. And I
Speaker 1: don't know where that that comes from. Um, I know
Speaker 1: where his amazingness comes from. But that sort of optimistic
Speaker 1: look at this thing you built, when other people would
Speaker 1: look at the very same scene and see fifteen people
Speaker 1: nursing beers and a bar and think this is a
Speaker 1: dismal show, My dad sees look at that thing you built,
Speaker 1: And in a lot of ways, I think Colin sees
Speaker 1: the world through that same filter. Um. It seems awfully
Speaker 1: simple to just say that it's optimism or seeing the
Speaker 1: silver lining or something like that. It goes deeper than that.
Speaker 1: I think it's more like a a faith that things
Speaker 1: are good and things will work out. I think the
Speaker 1: people and this has been me sometimes who see the
Speaker 1: scene and see the fifteen people and say this is
Speaker 1: dismal that I think comes from fear. Fear that like
Speaker 1: things are going bad and this is evidence that things
Speaker 1: are going bad, whereas my dad and I think Colin
Speaker 1: to a large degree see that same scene and see
Speaker 1: it's confirmation that things are fundamentally good in the world
Speaker 1: and in what you're doing, where that sort of inner
Speaker 1: strength comes from to see the world is fundamentally good
Speaker 1: and what you're doing is fundamentally right. I don't know
Speaker 1: your disappointments killing mad, but it's a possible ball to
Speaker 1: liver pert no matter what I do, he ain't enough
Speaker 1: of my little mistakes. Don't add them up. Don't add
Speaker 1: them up, no matter what I don't stakes not. Just
Speaker 1: One of the themes that we've talked about and really
Speaker 1: comes up again and again in your book is the
Speaker 1: idea of really sticking with it and grinding things out.
Speaker 1: One of the most poignant examples of that in the book,
Speaker 1: and one that the first time I heard it, I
Speaker 1: laughed and refused to believe it was true, which is
Speaker 1: I'm sure a reaction you get often is about your
Speaker 1: day's opening for the insane clown posse. And and there's
Speaker 1: a line in there where you know the the guys
Speaker 1: sitting there and his killer clown makeup saying, you know
Speaker 1: our fans hate you, and Colin laughs and and uh
Speaker 1: and Colin says, you know, hate hate never stopped us,
Speaker 1: But I just find the whole thing, uh A a
Speaker 1: funny story if you could talk about And but at
Speaker 1: the same time, this is right around the time that
Speaker 1: your first drummer, Herb, leaves the band, and you're you're
Speaker 1: sort of chronicling how he's reacting to the very same
Speaker 1: things that you and Colin are and and his reaction
Speaker 1: is not not the same. So this was about two
Speaker 1: years after we got dropped from Epic, and so we
Speaker 1: were scraping really hard, not only to keep the band together,
Speaker 1: but hopefully to get another record deal. And we this
Speaker 1: guy Frank Aversa, who was really was a great guy
Speaker 1: who came along at the right time. Uh. He produced
Speaker 1: the spin Doctor's song to Princes, so he had some money,
Speaker 1: he had a really nice studio, he liked the band,
Speaker 1: and just when needed him, when Epic said no, you
Speaker 1: guys are washed up at age or whatever, this guy
Speaker 1: Franka Versus said, come up and make a record in
Speaker 1: my barn. So we made this record Star Vehicle and
Speaker 1: we're like, wow, you know that the stars are aligned
Speaker 1: for us. You know, we're writing better songs than we
Speaker 1: ever have made our best record. We got to do
Speaker 1: it for free with this really good producer Waterships Back Baby,
Speaker 1: And then about six months after that album came out,
Speaker 1: a guy who would run sound for us when we
Speaker 1: were on Epic was running front of house for Insane
Speaker 1: Clown Posse, and a couple of their opening bands dropped
Speaker 1: off the bill because it's a thankless gig playing in
Speaker 1: front of five thousand juggalos who just you know, throw
Speaker 1: fago at you, give you the finger and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, then crawl into their mom's minivan. But
Speaker 1: he's like, dude, Insane Clown Posse needs an opener, and
Speaker 1: we jumped at the opportunity. Now, part of it is
Speaker 1: because we're like, this is gonna be hilarious us, right,
Speaker 1: Insane Clown Posse. We sound like cheap trick and they're white,
Speaker 1: serial killing clowns from Detroit. This is just gonna be hilarious.
Speaker 1: But the other part of it, and it seems so
Speaker 1: ridiculous now looking back on it, but at the time
Speaker 1: this was legit. We actually thought this was a break,
Speaker 1: Like we thought this was gonna lead to a record deal.
Speaker 1: We even kind of hoped that the Insane Clown Posse
Speaker 1: would sign us to their record company, Psychopathic Records. And
Speaker 1: so this is the downside of Colins optimism. I mean,
Speaker 1: he we're sitting in the van on the way to
Speaker 1: one of these gigs, and he's like, he's like, oh man,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be big. This is gonna be big.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be on Psychopathic Records. Violent j loves us,
Speaker 1: These juggalos are gonna love us. What a fantastic break
Speaker 1: this is. And we found out that show one, but
Speaker 1: it was not a fantastic break. And I talked about
Speaker 1: this in the book, but the very first show was
Speaker 1: in Scranton. We're in the dressing room getting ready to
Speaker 1: go out there and we're putting on like our little
Speaker 1: power pop skinny tie eyes in our suits and we
Speaker 1: hear the crowd and it's a big crowd, probably three
Speaker 1: or four thousand people. We hear the crowd like water ship,
Speaker 1: water Ship, water Ship, and we look at each other.
Speaker 1: We're like, dudes, this is awesome. They know us, right,
Speaker 1: Like I think they know I think we might have
Speaker 1: gotten some airplane Scranton right, like their actual Watership fans
Speaker 1: in the audience and then we opened the door and
Speaker 1: we can hear that they're really saying water ship sucks.
Speaker 1: Water ship sucked. We hadn't even played a note yet
Speaker 1: and these juggalos are booing us off the stage already.
Speaker 1: That was pretty much the high point of the tour.
Speaker 1: From there, it just got worse. I mean, we played okay,
Speaker 1: I guess, but it didn't matter, of course. I mean
Speaker 1: we were the one thing standing in between these kids
Speaker 1: and the insane clown Posse, and these kids weren't having it.
Speaker 1: They were just bad spot to be. They want to
Speaker 1: be between anybody and they're insane clown posse. They really
Speaker 1: should just have a detail before that playing insane clown posse,
Speaker 1: of course. And I remember when I was a kid
Speaker 1: and I saw whatever King Cobra opened up for Kiss,
Speaker 1: and it was the same thing, like you just you
Speaker 1: can't really open up for a band like that, a
Speaker 1: band that's going to commit to being kabuky monsters or
Speaker 1: serial killing clowns. You just yeah, they're very tender people.
Speaker 1: Video from from these days at all does any exist?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. I hope it does. That would
Speaker 1: be great. I hope it does. But the best show
Speaker 1: on that tour was it was in Louisville, and the
Speaker 1: day before the Louisville show, we were in Milwaukee and
Speaker 1: I broke one of colins guitars. I just knocked it
Speaker 1: off the guitar stand and the next snapped in half,
Speaker 1: so he was down to one guitar. And he's like,
Speaker 1: if I break a string tonight in Louisville, the concert
Speaker 1: is over. I'm not gonna sit there and change strings
Speaker 1: in front of five thousand juggles like ding ding ding dinging.
Speaker 1: And so we get out there and we play our
Speaker 1: song and it's really fast, this fast version of this
Speaker 1: song called Wallflower Child. And we play our second song
Speaker 1: called Star Vehicle, and these kids are just about to
Speaker 1: like start the middle fingers flying. I mean, the first
Speaker 1: song was confusion, the second song was more confusion, but
Speaker 1: now they're just turning into rage. And right then Colin
Speaker 1: breaks a string and says thank you good night, and
Speaker 1: the middle fingers were coming up, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they just to crowd those like they loved it. It
Speaker 1: was two songs, maybe two and a half songs, and
Speaker 1: we got a great response from the crowd that night. Huge.
Speaker 1: I probably thought that was pretty cool. They did. They
Speaker 1: did because these kids don't really understand live rock and roll.
Speaker 1: I think I wrote about this in the book, but
Speaker 1: there's a moment where some juggalo comes up to Colin.
Speaker 1: It was actually in Milwaukee, I remember, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I know you guys were lip syncing. I know you were,
Speaker 1: And Colins like, dude, if we were lip syncing, do
Speaker 1: you think it would sound that shitty? You know, kids
Speaker 1: just don't understand how the rock and rule works. I
Speaker 1: guess it's hysterical now that lip syncing is the norm.
Speaker 1: They probably wouldn't be saying that right. There was a
Speaker 1: moment in every show where you could tell, and in
Speaker 1: the moment is the first thirty seconds of the first
Speaker 1: song where you could tell that the kids were pretty
Speaker 1: impressed by Herb actually playing drums, like big muscular Herb
Speaker 1: beating the crap out of these drums. But that only
Speaker 1: lasted about thirty seconds and then they turned on us.
Speaker 1: So there any plans for Watershed currently? Yeah, we're talking
Speaker 1: about making another record in the spring. I know I've
Speaker 1: got a bunch of songs right now, and I think
Speaker 1: Colin those two and uh so, yeah, the plan I
Speaker 1: think is to get together, probably may too premature. Do
Speaker 1: you want to tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 1: book you're working on now? Yeah, and and that was
Speaker 1: actually a good time. Yeah. I'm writing a book about
Speaker 1: this incident that happened in the town where I live now, Conway,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, nine, where the high school football coach at
Speaker 1: Conway High School benched a senior returning starter, a quarterback
Speaker 1: who happened to be black, in favor of a junior
Speaker 1: who was the son of an assistant coach who was
Speaker 1: a white kid completely untested. The black kid the year
Speaker 1: before had led the team to an eight and four record,
Speaker 1: and talk around town was that Conway High School was
Speaker 1: finally going to win their first state championship in football,
Speaker 1: big football town, but finally the big championship was going
Speaker 1: to happen. But then when the coach bench the black
Speaker 1: guy in favor of the white guy, thirty one of
Speaker 1: the thirty seven black kids on the team walked away
Speaker 1: from the team in protest, and that started this big
Speaker 1: racial incident that divided the town along racial lines, and
Speaker 1: uh in a lot of ways, that hasn't really healed.
Speaker 1: Almost twenty five years later, people still talk about the
Speaker 1: boycott and everybody has still got a story. The team
Speaker 1: that year only one one game. It was the last
Speaker 1: game of the season, and they carried the coach off
Speaker 1: on their shoulders and chanted Chuck Jordan's coach of the year.
Speaker 1: That coach. That coach is still the coach of Conway
Speaker 1: High School right now, and the white quarterback that he
Speaker 1: elevated is now the coach of Myrtle Beach High School,
Speaker 1: and that's Conway's biggest rival anyway. In addition to being
Speaker 1: I think a really fantastic story, it's been really refreshing
Speaker 1: to write about something other than myself. Well, Joe, I
Speaker 1: think that's all I've got. Thanks so much for coming
Speaker 1: on the show. We appreciate it. I look forward to
Speaker 1: reading the new book and hearing the new watershed, and
Speaker 1: maybe we'll see you in the spring up here. Thanks guys,
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, See you guys. Bye. You can
Speaker 1: find out more about Joey Strike, including how to spell
Speaker 1: his last name properly, at one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash joe o