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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Steps podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guests today are John Doe and the que Jervenka

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Speaker 1: of the B and X, which just put out its

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Speaker 1: final album and is on its final tour. How did

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Speaker 1: the two of you meet?

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Speaker 2: We met at a writing workshop in Venice, California called

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Speaker 2: Beyond Baroque, and Beyond Brokes still has writing workshops. It

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Speaker 2: has the largest small press library and is a great

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Speaker 2: community service in Venice, California.

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Speaker 1: So why did you go to the writing workshop?

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Speaker 2: Because we're writers. I had a writing workshop in Baltimore.

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Speaker 2: It was part of a poetry series. I went to

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Speaker 2: school at Antioch College and Ecceine worked there, and I

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Speaker 2: thought this would be a place that I could meet

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Speaker 2: like minded people in LA. When I moved.

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Speaker 3: Were both living in Venice in nineteen seventy six, and

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Speaker 3: I got a job there, and so I lived upstairs

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Speaker 3: from the workshop and the library. I worked in the

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Speaker 3: library and stuff, and so I just I just ventured

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Speaker 3: down there one night to see if I could qualify

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Speaker 3: as a writer.

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Speaker 1: John, let's go back to Baltimore. What was it like

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Speaker 1: growing up in Baltimore?

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Speaker 2: It was great as a young adult, I mean it

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Speaker 2: was the same I moved there, and when was it?

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Speaker 2: Early mid sixties? But as a young adult I first

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Speaker 2: experienced a bohemian lifestyle in Fell's Point and was hanging

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Speaker 2: around with John Waters' crew because they would just going

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Speaker 2: to the same bars that I went into, and it

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Speaker 2: pointed the way to realize my dreams, except not in Baltimore.

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Speaker 1: Let's go back. So before you lived in Baltimore, you live.

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Speaker 2: Where Wisconsin, and before that in Tennessee and before that

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Speaker 2: in Illinois. Because my dad moved around.

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Speaker 1: And why did your dad move around?

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Speaker 2: Because he was a librarian and he wanted better jobs.

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Speaker 1: He was a librarian. What did your mother do?

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Speaker 2: She was school teacher? Well, she was a mom until

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Speaker 2: my brother and I were in school, and then she

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Speaker 2: became a school teacher and she became a school librarian.

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Speaker 2: So they were smart folks.

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Speaker 1: So who's older? You were? Your brother?

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Speaker 2: My brother?

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Speaker 1: And so what's he up to?

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Speaker 2: He's a builder, he's retired.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So your father was a librarian. Were you a

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Speaker 1: big weader growing up?

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Speaker 2: Not really, No, I wanted to be outside and do things.

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Speaker 2: They would bring home a stack of books for summer reading,

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Speaker 2: and they would sit on my dresser. I did read

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Speaker 2: Edgar Allan Poe sometime around the sixth or seventh grade.

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Speaker 1: And were you a good student? Bad student?

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Speaker 2: Pretty good? It was just about the same as what

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Speaker 2: I am now solid B.

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Speaker 1: You went to Antioch? Did you graduate?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I quit school. I went to school for one

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Speaker 2: year in DC, and then I quit for a couple

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Speaker 2: of years, did construction, and then in Baltimore there was

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Speaker 2: a experimental theater that was called the Theater Project, and

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Speaker 2: I saw some performances there and thought they were pretty

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Speaker 2: outside and interesting, and then found out that Antioch had

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Speaker 2: a branch above a insurance company downtown Baltimore, and they

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Speaker 2: had a writing program, and I thought I'd been writing

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Speaker 2: and I wanted to be a better writer. So I

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Speaker 2: went back and yeah, I graduated.

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Speaker 1: And how'd you meet John Waters?

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Speaker 2: He was just hanging around and he was the biggest

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Speaker 2: celebrity in Baltimore at the time.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, Pink Flamingos came out in seventy four, so

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Speaker 1: he had some movies before them, really like No Traction,

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Speaker 1: But in Baltimore everybody knew who he was.

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Speaker 2: Those two, those two others Mondo Trashow and Multiple Maniacs.

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Speaker 2: They had plenty of traction in Baltimore. There was a

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Speaker 2: there was a really heavy duty and not heavy duty.

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Speaker 2: There was a small but powerful bohemian underground art scene

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Speaker 2: in Baltimore. So everybody knew John Waters and New Divine

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Speaker 2: and knew although he didn't really hang out much, but

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Speaker 2: Edie did, and so did David Lockery and so did

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Speaker 2: Mary Vivian Pierce and Mixtole and all them.

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Speaker 1: And how did you decide he wanted to be a writer?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know. I was playing music and people

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Speaker 2: wrote music along with just learning how to play.

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Speaker 1: And well, well, let's go back. When did you start

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Speaker 1: to play music?

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Speaker 2: Oh God, are we going to go back to my childhood?

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Speaker 2: And when I started working?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely no, I don't want to do that.

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Speaker 2: I might rather talk about the President of the future.

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Speaker 2: But I don't know. I played music because it seemed

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Speaker 2: like a cool thing. I mean, I'm at that age

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Speaker 2: when people saw the animals and the Beatles on ed

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Speaker 2: Sullivan and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: And how'd you end up coming to California?

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Speaker 2: Because I didn't like the East Coast. I was tired

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Speaker 2: of the negative negativity and the weather. And I had

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Speaker 2: been to New York a few times saw the Talking

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Speaker 2: Heads and the Heartbreakers at Max's and CBGB's, and it

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Speaker 2: seems like that whole scene was great. But it was

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Speaker 2: pretty far down the road.

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Speaker 1: And you came to La. Where did you stay? How

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Speaker 1: much money did you bring? Hot? Would you get a job?

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Speaker 1: What'd you do?

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Speaker 2: I had a car, I brought some stuff, and I

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Speaker 2: lived in Venice with a friend, and I got a

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Speaker 2: job at Brentano's bookstore in Beverly Hills.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Excene, where are you from?

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Speaker 3: Well? I was born in Chicago, but when I was

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Speaker 3: a little, tiny infant, my family moved to rural Illinois,

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Speaker 3: so I grew up there.

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Speaker 1: And what did your parents do for a living?

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Speaker 3: My father had a very interesting life, but when I

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Speaker 3: was born, he was a carpenter and my mom stayed

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Speaker 3: home and lived in a very, very very small town.

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Speaker 3: And so my dad would go to work and I

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Speaker 3: would play in my Irish fama. I lived with us

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Speaker 3: until I was in about third grade.

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Speaker 1: And then when did you get influenced by music?

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Speaker 3: Listening to the car radio when I was very very little.

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Speaker 3: My favorite song growing up was Hello Mary Lou by

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Speaker 3: Ricky Nelson on the radio. I really loved that song.

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Speaker 3: But my big influence was well, of course, like John said,

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Speaker 3: you know, I was born in nineteen fifty six, so

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Speaker 3: I kind of missed the Halves Presley and the rockabilly stuff,

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Speaker 3: but I was there for like the Beatles, and then

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Speaker 3: of course the British invasion and the Doors and all

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Speaker 3: that stuff. So I was pretty mind blowing.

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Speaker 1: And then how did you end up coming to California?

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Speaker 3: Well, I was living in Florida, and I was kind

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Speaker 3: of at the end of the road as far as options,

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Speaker 3: and I was living in Tallahassee and nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 3: which pretty dead end there for a freaky person like me.

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Speaker 3: And so somebody called me out of the blue and

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Speaker 3: said they were moving to California up San Francisco, and

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Speaker 3: did I want to go with him and give them

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Speaker 3: because they needed gas money. So I had two friends

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Speaker 3: out in southern California. I called one of them and

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Speaker 3: she said, sure, and you can come live with me.

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Speaker 3: And then she's the one that helped me find that

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Speaker 3: job at the ontt Earl where I met John. I

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Speaker 3: was only in Santa Monica there when I arrived for

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Speaker 3: a couple of weeks before I got that job, and

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Speaker 3: That was only a couple of weeks before I met

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Speaker 3: John right after that. It was really quick.

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Speaker 1: How did you end up in Tallahassee.

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Speaker 3: Well, I was living in Saint Pete and I had

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Speaker 3: a boyfriend and a job, and I was sixteen seventeen.

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Speaker 3: I was very, very happy. My parents had moved to

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Speaker 3: Central Florida. My other sister was living in Saint Pete,

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Speaker 3: my older sister, and then my mom got sick and

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Speaker 3: I had to move home because she died suddenly. And

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Speaker 3: I had to move into this small town of three

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Speaker 3: into people in central Florida and raised my little sisters

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Speaker 3: with my dad, which was not which was a faithless job.

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Speaker 3: And I did that for about a year and a half.

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Speaker 3: And then by the time then I moved back to

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Speaker 3: Saint pet But then everybody moved to New York and stuff,

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Speaker 3: so I just kind of went stayed with the friend

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Speaker 3: of Tallahassee. You know, when you're in your teens, you've

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Speaker 3: got this whole network of great people and artists like

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Speaker 3: job I was talking about, and everything's great, and then

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Speaker 3: everyone starts to move to different places and drift away,

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Speaker 3: and then you're just left behind. So Tallahassee was not

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Speaker 3: a good place for me, So I took the option

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Speaker 3: and I went to I rode in the car to

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Speaker 3: California with one hundred and fifty dollars. I sold my

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Speaker 3: nineteen fifty five zero Cadillac FI thre hundred dollars, paid

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Speaker 3: my back rent, got to California with about one hundred

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Speaker 3: and fifty dollars, got that job and immediately an apartment

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Speaker 3: at the same place I was working, met John and

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Speaker 3: started going to shows, and I was doing poetry and stuff.

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Speaker 1: So what was your school experience? Were you a good student,

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Speaker 1: bad student? Did you?

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Speaker 3: I went to a very small town Catholic school, and

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Speaker 3: I loved it because it was all there was in

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Speaker 3: my town, gravel Road, you know, there was to go

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Speaker 3: outside and play and go to school and go to church.

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Speaker 3: That was it. But then my family would Saint Pete

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Speaker 3: area when I was young, like fourteen.

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Speaker 4: I loved that.

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Speaker 3: But I quit high school on my sixteenth birthday. I

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Speaker 3: did not like Florida schools. I hadn't learned anything since

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Speaker 3: I moved down there. I didn't like the social thing.

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Speaker 3: You know, it was the sixties, early seventies. I didn't

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Speaker 3: need it.

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Speaker 1: I just quit, and you quit and then what'd you

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Speaker 1: do for money and where'd you live?

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Speaker 2: Well?

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Speaker 3: I just got a job back then, you know, you

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Speaker 3: just get a job in an apartment tomorrow and nobody

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Speaker 3: had any problems with police. So I like, now, yeah,

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Speaker 3: a minimum waste job in an apartment, just like that,

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Speaker 3: sixteen years old.

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Speaker 1: And was there any dream or were you just kind

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Speaker 1: of drifting taking it as it was.

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Speaker 3: I had a great boyfriend, a wonderful boyfriend, and I

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Speaker 3: wasn't sure what we were going to end up doing,

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Speaker 3: but it was really smart and creative, and I thought

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Speaker 3: we were going to get married and I was going

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Speaker 3: to do some art stuff and he was going to

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Speaker 3: work hard because he was that kind of great guy.

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Speaker 3: But then after my mom died, I realized maybe raising

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Speaker 3: kids wasn't for me, and maybe being married wasn't for me,

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Speaker 3: and I just wanted to escape my life. It's really bad,

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Speaker 3: and threw him over for no reason. And he's a

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Speaker 3: great guy and I totally regret that, and he knows that.

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Speaker 3: But I decided, you know, on a whim, to go

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Speaker 3: to California. If somebody called me and said they needed

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Speaker 3: guess money to Chicago, I had to go to Chicago.

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Speaker 1: Where's that guy today, I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I hate that question because you know, almost everybody's dad

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Speaker 3: that we know he might still be around. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: So you didn't look up, you know, when everybody appeared

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Speaker 1: on the internet.

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Speaker 3: I don't do Facebook or any that at the Internet

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Speaker 3: is very is very scary to me. I just try

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Speaker 3: to stay away from it as much as possible.

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Speaker 1: Do you have a smartphone?

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Speaker 3: I do have a smartphone, but I don't have any

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Speaker 3: social media or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so when you get this job, do you have

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Speaker 1: any dreams of being a writer or that's just what

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Speaker 1: you're doing right then?

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Speaker 3: I'm a writer. But you know, see that's the thing.

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Speaker 3: It was so fun back then because you know, it

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Speaker 3: was after it was before AIDS, and it was the

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Speaker 3: gay time where everybody's like everyone was in self discovery.

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Speaker 3: Everybody in the underclasses or the weirdos were all together.

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Speaker 3: So whether it was music or being gay or being straight,

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Speaker 3: you know, whatever it was, we all kind of saw

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Speaker 3: each other as these really cool counterculture people were all

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Speaker 3: hanging out together and you know, smarter than the average

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Speaker 3: bear because we knew what was real and what was it.

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Speaker 3: And I was happy with that. I would have been

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Speaker 3: fine just being a writer and a poet. I never

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Speaker 3: had any dreams of being in a band. I love

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Speaker 3: the doors growing up, but I in Illinois. I never

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Speaker 3: would have thought i'd meet Raymond Zrek and get in

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Speaker 3: the band and all that. It just happened. It was

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Speaker 3: just an accident. And I had a song that I

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Speaker 3: wrote because I just decided to write a song one

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Speaker 3: day and I sang it to John. He wanted to

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Speaker 3: play it with Billy and I said, no, you can't

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Speaker 3: just take my song. It's all I have in this world.

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Speaker 3: He said, fine, then you sing it, and I said, okay,

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Speaker 3: then I will, which was kind of crazy since I'd

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Speaker 3: never sung a song besides that one in my life,

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Speaker 3: but I figured why not.

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Speaker 1: Hey, John, you talked about going to New York seeing

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Speaker 1: the Talking Heads. Were you aware of the Ramones and

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Speaker 1: the hard Ridge bands at that point?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, of course I was. Just my parents lived

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Speaker 2: in Brooklyn and the Talking Heads happened to play the

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Speaker 2: weekend that I went up there to visit them.

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Speaker 1: I see, so you came to LA. Did you plan

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Speaker 1: to form a band and try to make it? Was

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Speaker 1: that the plan? Oh?

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Speaker 2: I suppose I had a vision.

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Speaker 1: That I might.

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Speaker 2: I thought I could write songs. I had been out

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Speaker 2: there with a friend and he and I were kind

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Speaker 2: of a songwriting team. We wrote I don't know a

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Speaker 2: dozen or so songs back in Baltimore, and there was

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Speaker 2: some guy who we contacted and met with, and he

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Speaker 2: liked our demos and said he would he would buy

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Speaker 2: them for five hundred dollars apiece. And we thought, well,

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Speaker 2: if we could do that a couple of times in more,

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Speaker 2: if we could do that a few times a month,

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Speaker 2: then we'd we'd be okay. But I just knew I

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Speaker 2: had to get out of Baltimore and didn't want to

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Speaker 2: go to New York. And as soon as I walked

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Speaker 2: off the plane, walked out of the airport the first

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Speaker 2: time we went to LA, I just felt like it

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Speaker 2: was home or it was it was a place that

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Speaker 2: was exciting and intriguing. I think probably because of writers

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Speaker 2: like Charles Bukowski and Jim Thompson, you know, Raymond Chandler

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Speaker 2: movies and such.

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Speaker 1: How do you feel about LA fifty years later?

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Speaker 2: Oh, I haven't lived there in forever, so it's a

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Speaker 2: it's there's still a little bit of something there. It's

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Speaker 2: it's very very different. I like it. I wouldn't live there.

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Speaker 2: It's really hard to get around, it's hard to stay

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Speaker 2: connected to people that you know because people live on

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Speaker 2: different sides of town. But there's still something, there's still

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Speaker 2: some magic there. I suppose. I'm happy to be living

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Speaker 2: in Austin right now.

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Speaker 1: So how did you decide to leave LA? And when

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Speaker 1: did you leave La?

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Speaker 2: Left to LA when my wife at the time and

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Speaker 2: mother of my children and I had enough money to

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Speaker 2: buy a house, but not enough money to buy a

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Speaker 2: house in LA and we're kind of tired of it

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Speaker 2: and didn't want to raise kids in LA. So we

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Speaker 2: moved up into the mountains about seventy five miles north

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Speaker 2: of Los Angeles so I could commute pretty easily. Raised

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Speaker 2: three daughters for twenty years up there, and it was

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Speaker 2: pretty idyllic mountain, very physically challenging at times, a lot

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Speaker 2: of weather, snow and such, and that's exciting.

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Speaker 1: And what are your three daughters up to today?

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Speaker 2: They're all they all do things that they love. Ones

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Speaker 2: a choreographer and dancer. They all live in the Bay Area.

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Speaker 2: The other is a kind of high level producer, works

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Speaker 2: on big events like outside lands and things like that,

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Speaker 2: and the middle daughter is works in film. She's a

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Speaker 2: set designer and a production designer, so they none of

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Speaker 2: them have I'm very happy that none of them work

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Speaker 2: at a soulless job in a cubicle, so I feel

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Speaker 2: like that's a real success. Plus, we we love each

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Speaker 2: other and we're in contact, which sometimes doesn't happen.

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Speaker 1: So how'd you get from the Mountains to Austin?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I moved to Bakersfield when their mom and I

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Speaker 2: split up, and I moved to the Bay Area when

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Speaker 2: I met my beloved wife now and lived in We

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Speaker 2: lived in the Bay for about eight or nine years,

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Speaker 2: and she's originally from Texas. They have a lot of

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Speaker 2: friends here in Austin. I could buy a house in Austin,

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Speaker 2: and I thought I might be renting for forever. I

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Speaker 2: rented houses for about ten years or so, and then

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Speaker 2: talked to a friend and said I could I'm a realtor.

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Speaker 2: I could find a house for you to buy, and

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Speaker 2: we did.

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Speaker 1: So you have a whole career in Hollywood. Just being

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Speaker 1: in Austin hurt or affect acting opportunities and other opportunities.

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Speaker 2: Not really, I mean, I don't act unless someone offers

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Speaker 2: me a job or or sends me. I do an

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Speaker 2: audition now and then, but they're all they're all self tape. Nowadays,

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Speaker 2: you don't actually go into auditions. And there was a

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Speaker 2: point at which I don't know, twenty years ago, I

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Speaker 2: just stopped auditioning. I just said you, I've got a

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Speaker 2: huge catalog of film. If you want to see what

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Speaker 2: I can do, just take a look at that. If

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Speaker 2: it's something really serious, maybe I'll come in an audition.

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Speaker 2: But no, it doesn't hurt it, especially now all the

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Speaker 2: auditions are self tape. You just do it on your

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Speaker 2: iPhone and send it to somebody.

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Speaker 1: Why'd you move to Bakersfield And what was that like?

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Speaker 2: Because it was close to where my kids lived, and

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Speaker 2: Bakersfield was awesome. I mean it's apart from apart from

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Speaker 2: the racism, it's great. I should have written short stories there,

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Speaker 2: but I just soaked it up. I only lived there

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Speaker 2: for about two or three years.

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Speaker 1: And could you feel the Merle Haggard influence, you know?

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Speaker 1: Is that something you definitely?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I lived in Oildale, which is where he lived.

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Speaker 2: And Oildale's a kind of mixed white and Latino, really

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Speaker 2: working class that still had a lot of hockey tonks

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Speaker 2: there when I lived there, so it was pretty fun.

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Speaker 1: Now in the time since you've lived in Austin, Boston

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Speaker 1: itself has changed. One of the changes you've noticed in Austin.

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Speaker 1: And how do you feel about those?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think every every middle sized city has changed

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Speaker 2: markedly in the last five to ten years. Austin had

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Speaker 2: a huge influx of people during the pandemic, mostly through tech.

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Speaker 2: And I mean Austin has always had a venture capitalist startup.

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Speaker 1: Element.

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Speaker 2: There were friends of ours that moved here in the

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Speaker 2: early two thousands from San Francisco. So there's still plenty

357
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Speaker 2: of weird, cool stuff in Austin. But everything's changed. I

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00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:19,919
Speaker 2: mean in Nashville and Portland, in Tulsa, I mean, you

359
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Speaker 2: name it.

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Speaker 1: So excene. Where do you live now?

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Speaker 3: I live in this cute little town called Orange. It's

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Speaker 3: in California. It's an old fashioned, little historic town.

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Speaker 1: This is in Orange County, right.

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Speaker 3: Correct, Inland, not by the beach.

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Speaker 1: And how did you end up there? Oh?

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Speaker 3: I did end up here. That's exactly what happened. I

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Speaker 3: ended up here, and that's very weird how that happened.

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Speaker 3: I just was living somewhere else when I came here

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Speaker 3: and I wasn't sure where to move, but Billy lives here,

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Speaker 3: so that was kind of a draw. It's just a

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Speaker 3: great place. I didn't even know what was here. I

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Speaker 3: would have moved here a long time ago. I've been

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Speaker 3: here fifteen years. It's kind of the town looking for

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00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:02,359
Speaker 3: it to kind of got a Midwestern vibe a little

375
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Speaker 3: bit that I like it.

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Speaker 1: And John, how did you meet Billy Zoom?

377
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Speaker 2: Well, this is ancient history reported so many times. It

378
00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:18,639
Speaker 2: was in a paper, a newspaper called The Recycler, and

379
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Speaker 2: it came out every Thursday, and it was seventy five

380
00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:25,560
Speaker 2: cents and you could get you could rescue a kitten,

381
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:29,240
Speaker 2: or you could buy a used refrigerator, or you could

382
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Speaker 2: find an apartment, or you could find a lead singer.

383
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Speaker 2: And Billy and I put ads in that paper. They

384
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:40,760
Speaker 2: were free. The ads were free, and we put ads

385
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Speaker 2: that were similarly worded. The same week and I called

386
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Speaker 2: him and someone answered the I guess his girlfriend maybe

387
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:51,480
Speaker 2: answered the phone and took down a message, and he

388
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 2: called me back. But we were kind of calling each

389
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Speaker 2: other at the same time.

390
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Speaker 1: And what did your ad say?

391
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Speaker 2: I have no idea, but I think I think the

392
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:04,320
Speaker 2: fact that Ecsceine and I moved to LA around the

393
00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:08,480
Speaker 2: same time that DJ and Billy had been there playing,

394
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 2: and that we all got together wasn't just by chance.

395
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:17,360
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what fate is, but I think that

396
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:22,560
Speaker 2: there was a niche that needed to be filled or

397
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:25,320
Speaker 2: wanted to be filled, and we were all there and

398
00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 2: we filled it. And Billy brought rockabilly guitar playing into

399
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:32,639
Speaker 2: punk rock and exscene, and I developed a style of

400
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 2: singing that nobody else did, and so and we had

401
00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 2: a desire to write songs that chronicled what this punk

402
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 2: rock bohemian life was all about. And it wasn't just

403
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:50,920
Speaker 2: I hate Ronald Reagan, and there was melodic and we're

404
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 2: very traditional. We write verses and choruses and sometimes there's

405
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:59,760
Speaker 2: a bridge and and you can sing along. But we're

406
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:03,680
Speaker 2: still old, not really ready for prime time because we're

407
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:06,640
Speaker 2: just a little that much too weird, and we don't

408
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:08,919
Speaker 2: sound like a disco song or we don't sound like

409
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:15,159
Speaker 2: the Beatles or somebody that's more accessible or palatable for

410
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 2: like regular radio, unlike someone like the like Sonic Youth.

411
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:23,880
Speaker 2: We're not just iconoclasts and just like this is our

412
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 2: thing and we're not going to budge. And you know,

413
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 2: from the very beginning we wrote very accessible songs.

414
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 1: And when you came to California you put the ad

415
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: in the recycler. Was that the dream to make it

416
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:37,879
Speaker 1: as a band?

417
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. I had a vision after seeing

418
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:49,920
Speaker 2: the Heartbreakers and the and the Talking Heads, and having

419
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 2: seen a bunch of other local bands in Baltimore, and

420
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:57,360
Speaker 2: then seeing people playing on the stage at the Whiskey

421
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:00,679
Speaker 2: and the Star Would I had a vision that I

422
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 2: could do that. I saw myself, and once Billy and

423
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:10,120
Speaker 2: Naccine and I were together, I saw ourselves on stage

424
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:15,399
Speaker 2: doing that, and so I knew that could happen. I

425
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 2: knew that would happen, and it did. So everything beyond

426
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 2: that has been just good fortune and hard work and

427
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 2: really digging deep for creative variety and juices and always

428
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 2: looking for something to excite ourselves and be curious about

429
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:45,240
Speaker 2: what's what's what's around the corner, that kind of thing.

430
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:51,120
Speaker 1: And there was a huge punk scene in the lead

431
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: seventies in Los Angeles, the Mask and everything else. Did

432
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,439
Speaker 1: you feel part of that or did you feel to

433
00:24:57,520 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: the side of that.

434
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:01,119
Speaker 2: Oh, we're right in the middle of a bit, but

435
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:05,119
Speaker 2: it was far from huge. It was about one hundred

436
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 2: and fifty or two hundred people from seventy six until

437
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 2: maybe the middle of seventy nine, and then maybe from

438
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: then to eighty three it got a lot bigger because

439
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 2: we had a lot of support from Slash Magazine and

440
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 2: some from the LA Times and the LA Reader and

441
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 2: the LA Weekly and things like that. So it became

442
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 2: a thing maybe in the in seventy nine, where everybody

443
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 2: was writing about it and talking about it, saying, there's

444
00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 2: a lot of bands out there, and you're going to

445
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 2: find one that really agrees, just hits that spot for you,

446
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 2: hits that that sound, So just go find one. I

447
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 2: don't care what it is, go find it. If it's hardcore,

448
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 2: I mean, if it's harder, then you'll love fear, and

449
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 2: if it's more melodic, then you'll gravitate to the go

450
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 2: go of the alley Kats or whatever.

451
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: And was your goal to get a record deal?

452
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 2: Ex Do you want to answer that one?

453
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 3: Because I didn't have any goals.

454
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: Uh.

455
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 3: I think that we still had some contempt for the establishment.

456
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,719
Speaker 4: You think, so, I know I had contempt for everything.

457
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 3: I was prat, but yeah, I don't know that there

458
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 3: was very much goals because there was just too much

459
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 3: going on in the moment. It was an excitement from

460
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 3: the time you woke up. We worked really hard though,

461
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:39,479
Speaker 3: that's for sure. I don't know. I didn't take anything

462
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 3: seriously till much later.

463
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 2: I would say, I would say that, yes we did.

464
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 2: We we submitted professionally made demos with ray men Xeric's

465
00:26:53,200 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 2: influence and his validation to all the record companies, and

466
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:07,440
Speaker 2: they turned us down. And so Slash Records. Bob Biggs,

467
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 2: bless his heart, just wanted to make music that he

468
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 2: thought was cool because he's an artist. It had nothing

469
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 2: to do with nothing to do with being part of

470
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 2: the establishment. And yeah, we had a lot of resentment

471
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 2: towards them because they were stuck in the past. And

472
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 2: I mean the go gos had to be signed by irs.

473
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 2: This is clearly like a capitalistic financial like Low Hanging Fruit.

474
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 2: They're cute girls that write their own songs and play

475
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 2: their own instruments and write really poppy songs. And oh,

476
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 2: I don't know about that. That's a little too weird

477
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 2: for me. They have dyed hair. Are you in the

478
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 2: business of finance or business of art?

479
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:02,360
Speaker 1: So what were you surviving on?

480
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 3: Well, we had jobs. Yeah, and also like again, it

481
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 3: was what we had, three people living in a one

482
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 3: bedroom duplex. I don't know, maybe it was two hundred

483
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 3: to three hundred dollars a month. I don't know how

484
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:18,919
Speaker 3: much money we made, but it wasn't much and it

485
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 3: didn't take much. You know, if you had a if again,

486
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 3: if you had a minimum wage job, two people could

487
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 3: live just fine. Yeah, we didn't have any expenses. I

488
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 3: didn't have a car. John had a car, but I

489
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:31,719
Speaker 3: didn't have a car. None of us had insurance. We

490
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 3: might have had a wall phone, or we might have

491
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 3: shared a phone in the house we were living in.

492
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 3: But there was no computers or cell phones or cameras

493
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 3: or any I mean, we didn't even have seat belts.

494
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 3: There was nothing to buy. There was nothing to do.

495
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 3: You could get your tire at the at the pawn

496
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 3: shot for fifty dollars.

497
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 4: You know.

498
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 3: Gas was cheap, beer was cheap. Life was cheap and fun.

499
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 3: We were young. We didn't care. Everything was provided, you know,

500
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 3: it was landed, milk and honey.

501
00:28:56,160 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 2: We had. We had jobs up until probably nineteen seventy nine.

502
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 3: I was still working when Los Angeles came out, I

503
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 3: was working for a record collector, and I've had jobs

504
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 3: off and on up until the pandemic because I just

505
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 3: like to work. And I've always had to like supplement

506
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 3: my income because I'm very you know, I'm just very

507
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 3: hard working. But yeah, jobs, jobs are just jobs, you know,

508
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 3: And I respect people to have any kind of job,

509
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 3: because it's hard.

510
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: Well, if you're ex scene and someone encounters you working

511
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: a job that is not playing music, do they say like, hey,

512
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: what are you doing here?

513
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 3: Well, they say that all the time to people when

514
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 3: you're at the laundromat or something, right like, oh my gosh, John,

515
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 3: I've seen what are you doing at the launder mat?

516
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 3: It's like, well, we got these clothes that we have

517
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 3: to wash, you know. It's just people have these people

518
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 3: have odd ideas about when you're in a band, that

519
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 3: you're like super super like rich and you have a

520
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 3: private jet and stuff, and or that you're really like

521
00:29:58,440 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 3: down and dirty and you all live in this house

522
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 3: do drugs. But there's somewhere in the middle is just

523
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 3: this regular person getting by and making a living. And

524
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 3: I don't know, I never thought of myself as a

525
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 3: rock star. I don't even I just think of myself

526
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 3: as a person, so I find it humorous.

527
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: What degree when you're out and about are you recognized?

528
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 3: I wouldn't know. I don't pay attention. Sometimes people come

529
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 3: up to me and say hey, scene. I go hey,

530
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 3: they go, hey, I saw you guys play recently. It

531
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 3: was amazing. Thank you my wife and Arabic fans, Well,

532
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 3: that's great. What's your wife's name? But how nice to

533
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 3: meet you. What do you guys do? Oh blah blah blah.

534
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 3: I'm just a teacher, Just a teacher.

535
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 4: What are you talking about.

536
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 3: That's the hardest job in the world. I used to

537
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 3: do that job, you know what I mean? Like, people

538
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 3: are just people and they like what you do. And yes,

539
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 3: people do kind of project things onto you because you're

540
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 3: in a band, but really it's just another thing to

541
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 3: do in life, like anything else. But I don't pay

542
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 3: much attention to that. I'm just always been the same

543
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 3: way since the early days, which is I assume everybody's

544
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 3: good and they are. Ninety five percent of the people

545
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 3: I've met in my life have just been wonderful. And

546
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 3: I've met a lot of ex fans and a lot

547
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 3: of people at shows, and stuff, and they're almost always

548
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 3: just great people.

549
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: Well, you keep reinforcing the point that in the old

550
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: days you could get a minimum wage job and pay

551
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: all your bills, which was true. Yeah, today's totally different.

552
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 1: What do you think about today?

553
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 3: I think I think that it's it's by degrees that

554
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 3: people have gotten to where we are where they just

555
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 3: kind of accept more and more and more and more

556
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 3: of things being hard, And I think that's very unfortunate.

557
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 3: I kind of live for the day when things get

558
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 3: somewhat saying again or saying at all. But you know,

559
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 3: I think also people look back at different times and

560
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 3: they see it more idyllically and more romanticized. But it

561
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 3: really was a little bit easier and more well, definitely

562
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 3: there was more freedom. That's that's unbelievably true.

563
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 2: But I think I'm sorry to interrupt, but go ahead.

564
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 3: Well, I was just going to say, like, the one

565
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 3: thing about technology is it's exposed. It's it's it's a

566
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 3: great way for people to be exposed to historical movements

567
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 3: and cultures and music and writing that they never would

568
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 3: have found out about because somebody that by seventy eights

569
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 3: and just plays them for their friends can now put

570
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 3: them online and play them for everybody kind of doing

571
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 3: what you're doing. And we didn't have that. We just

572
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 3: had to have word of mouth. You had to get

573
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 3: in the car and go somewhere, and you had to

574
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 3: hope you met somebody, and you didn't even have a phone.

575
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 3: You just had to show up at somebody's house and say, hey,

576
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 3: do you have that new record? I really want to

577
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 3: hear it. I heard you have it, so you know,

578
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 3: I mean, there's always a trade off. I don't know

579
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 3: what people what it's like for young people now, but

580
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 3: they'll be okay. I think, I hope.

581
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 2: I think that people survive. I'm not the That's the mysterious,

582
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 2: mysterious and wonderful part of the human experiment is that

583
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 2: somehow people survived. Whether it's now we live in the

584
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: most fortunate of circumstances because there's not a war and

585
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 2: that we're part of you know, that that is on

586
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 2: our land and all that kind of thing.

587
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 3: So yeah, well, people had it harder at certain times.

588
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 3: I mean, I think during World War two and euro

589
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 3: upe to was a little harder. Yeah, but you know,

590
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, hard times make you know, week

591
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 3: and week makes hard and all.

592
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: That well, John, you know, Austin had a reputation for

593
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: being very weird, but Texas is sort of the flag

594
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: bearer for the right wing movement at this point in time.

595
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: Companies are moving there from California, Tesla Chevron just recently.

596
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: Can is that palpable living in Texas?

597
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 2: Well? I just I mean I live in Austin, which

598
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 2: is the blue bear and the tomato soup. If I

599
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 2: lived in Bakersfield, if people don't live in a if

600
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 2: you go outside of a major city fifty miles, you're

601
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 2: going to find a very different landscape. But I think

602
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:20,399
Speaker 2: it's important for people to have respect for and talk

603
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 2: to people with different opinions. I don't know, I mean,

604
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:32,479
Speaker 2: Tesla is a is a very thorny issue here because

605
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 2: they've built their plant ignoring all of the EPA, all

606
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 2: of the building standards and just pay fines for it.

607
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's jobs, but it's a you know that

608
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 2: that guy is just flaunts everything and says, well, I'll

609
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 2: just buy my way out of it, and people do

610
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 2: that everywhere, which is unfortunate. They know that they're taking water,

611
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 2: they're know that they're polluting things, and they're just willing

612
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 2: to pay the fine because they don't give a shit,

613
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 2: which is really unfortunate. But we'll see if Texas becomes

614
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:12,719
Speaker 2: a purple state or not. But like I said, go

615
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 2: to Stockton, Go go out into New Jersey, go you know,

616
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 2: anywhere seventy five miles outside of a city, and you're

617
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 2: going to have a lot more provincial attitudes.

618
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: Well, we really have today and US versus them philosophy.

619
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: On both sides. We have the rural people demonizing the cities,

620
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: and then you have the so called elites believing they

621
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 1: know you know. It seems that there's a constant divergence.

622
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,360
Speaker 2: Well I don't want to I don't really want to

623
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:46,399
Speaker 2: get into politics. I don't think that's our job.

624
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: Well, let me say, as opposed to politics, like taking

625
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: one side or another, what do you think the future

626
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: of America is?

627
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 2: I I don't know. We'll find out in November.

628
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:04,760
Speaker 1: How about you exceed.

629
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 3: I think the future has been planned out by those

630
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 3: who engineer it for quite some time now, and it's

631
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 3: whether or not. It's like the look of the draw,

632
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 3: like with COVID, how it got dumbed down to this

633
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 3: respiratory disease that suddenly didn't kill people anymore when it mutated.

634
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 3: We just don't know what happens in the future. Little

635
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 3: things can change the world, you know, and little tiny

636
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 3: things that people don't even people that have all the power,

637
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 3: like the global kind of people, they make mistakes too,

638
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 3: and and weird things happen that throw things off base.

639
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 3: I mean, there could be you know, there's there's definitely

640
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 3: a magnetic change going on in the universe. You know,

641
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 3: there's definitely like some weird ships going on that are

642
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 3: cyclical with you know, where we are where Earth is

643
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 3: right now, and people don't seem to be aware of that,

644
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 3: so you know, things can happen. There could be a

645
00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:00,360
Speaker 3: major volcanic eruption the cauld blot out the sun, you know,

646
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 3: and make put us into this deep winter, and people

647
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 3: could starve. Who knows what's going to happen. I hope

648
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 3: it's all positive things that happened. But I do know

649
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:10,879
Speaker 3: that I'm only in charge of what I do every day,

650
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 3: and the only thing I'm I have control over my

651
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 3: thoughts and my actions, and I try to keep those

652
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 3: as simple and as and as good for all as

653
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 3: possible and live live life is like that way. Like

654
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 3: today I'm going to do this and this is what's

655
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 3: going to happen. I'm gonna do these things for other people.

656
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 3: I'm going to do this for myself, and I'm going

657
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 3: to be as positive as possible. It's very hard sometimes,

658
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 3: but if you do that, everything else is fine.

659
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 4: I agree, because only have control.

660
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 3: Over I don't have control over what all these people

661
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 3: are going to do to humanity. I hope they don't

662
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 3: destroy it, but you know, I can't control it.

663
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, But we grew up in an era where the

664
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: musicians were revered as rich as anybody else in America,

665
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 1: and what they said had meaning, whereas needless to say,

666
00:37:56,920 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 1: mainstream musicians that is not the case today.

667
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 3: Well you can't say what you think anymore. We had

668
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:06,080
Speaker 3: freedom of speech and critical thinking. I used to say

669
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 3: the worst, stupidest stuff. Not that it was like, you know,

670
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 3: bad necessarily, but it was just I was very young

671
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 3: and opinionated. I didn't have the world of view I

672
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,279
Speaker 3: had now, but I knew a lot of stuff. And

673
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 3: if I said something, or anybody else said something in

674
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 3: a group of like punk or artists, because it was

675
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 3: all kinds of people in the punk'sying old young European

676
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 3: American Mexican everybody was there. You would just hear your

677
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 3: words to get thrown right back in your face, like

678
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 3: that's stupid. Why do you think that you could get

679
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 3: in arguments with people and then go have a beer

680
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 3: Because it wasn't about you know, like we understood context,

681
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 3: and we also knew that if you can if you

682
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 3: can throw your ideas out there and have somebody shoot

683
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 3: them down, you've just learned something. You don't know if

684
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 3: you're right, if you can't admit you're wrong. And I

685
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 3: had to admit I was wrong so many times, and

686
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 3: I also made other people say look at things the

687
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 3: different way. But my job isn't to change people's minds.

688
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 3: My job is just to try to figure it out.

689
00:38:58,160 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 3: And I think I do have a really great understand

690
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,240
Speaker 3: ending of life in general and the systems that control

691
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 3: things and whatnot. But have that I also realized that,

692
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:10,439
Speaker 3: you know, we were just people, just like anyone else

693
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 3: with opinions. Just because we were in a bandit and

694
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 3: make us smarter necessarily, I'm not.

695
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: Sure that is true. Usually the people with the bands

696
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:23,439
Speaker 1: were more thinkers. They lived in an alternative lifestyle. They were

697
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 1: not part of the mind hive of the day. Meanwhile, Exeene,

698
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: you only have you have one son? Do you have

699
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 1: any other children?

700
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 4: They have one son, and what is he up to?

701
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 3: He's a great guy. I love my son so much.

702
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 3: He did a documentary on the spand skating polyeu This

703
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 3: Oklahoma sisters started to spand million years ago and they're

704
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 3: still kids, and he did a documentary on that. He's

705
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,359
Speaker 3: a big martial arts guy. And he does a lot

706
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 3: of other creative things. He works with his dad doing

707
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 3: a publishing company called Percival Press that does books and

708
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 3: music and movies. He does some acting. He's a good

709
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 3: human being. That is what he is.

710
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: Okay. And what do the two of you think about

711
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: our generation, which stopped the war was greedy when Reagan

712
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: dropped the tax rate. Do you believe, because we're accused

713
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 1: a lot by younger generations, we fucked up the world?

714
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: Do you believe that I mentions of that.

715
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:24,240
Speaker 3: Here and there. I think that's the job of young people,

716
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 3: isn't it. That was my job when I was young.

717
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 3: I got to yell at everybody and point fingers and

718
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 3: everybody and tell them how wrong they were about things,

719
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 3: and how like all their wars and taxes and everything had,

720
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 3: you know, ruined the world. I think there's validity in

721
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 3: doing that, But I also think that that that's a

722
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:44,280
Speaker 3: real good tactic by the people that are in power

723
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:45,919
Speaker 3: to make us hate each other and blame each other

724
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 3: for things that we didn't do. I think we're squarely

725
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 3: in the middle of that, with the left right paradigm

726
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 3: and all that other stuff. It's like, you, guys, you

727
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 3: have to realize that everyone's going to be a victim

728
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 3: here pretty darn soon unless we all stopped doing this.

729
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 3: Let's try to act intelligent. But I think the dumbing

730
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 3: down has has reached a certain level, so it might

731
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 3: not be possible to fix it. But I don't know

732
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 3: the future.

733
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:16,760
Speaker 1: What do you say to people that, hey, this reunion

734
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 1: and previous reunion, that this is really just about cash.

735
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 3: No, we said, we've been playing together since nineteen ninety eight,

736
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 3: touring constantly, so it's not any kind of reunion. But

737
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 3: I don't know where that comes from. We did a

738
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 3: record right for COVID and that came out. I mean,

739
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 3: we're a band. That's what bands play. Bands play music,

740
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 3: They go on tour and they make records. They hang out.

741
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 3: It's very hard to hang out with people for forty five,

742
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 3: forty eight years. I guess we like what we do.

743
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 3: But yeah, everybody makes I think that everybody makes a

744
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 3: living unless they're living on the streets and they're homeless,

745
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 3: which is unfortunate.

746
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:59,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, the point of X was was to have adventures,

747
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 2: to report about it, to be artistic, to show, to

748
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 2: encourage people to think for themselves, to because punk rock

749
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 2: or music, you can say in general, is about freedom.

750
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 2: And I would disagree that that musicians don't have the

751
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 2: kind of clout that they did thirty forty years ago.

752
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 2: I would totally disagree with it. I think I think

753
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,880
Speaker 2: Megan the Stallion showing up with Kamala Harris has a

754
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 2: has a great impact on a community that may not

755
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 2: be I don't know that they wouldn't they wouldn't be

756
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 2: there that that people. I don't know that Pearl Jam

757
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 2: has has a lot of impact. They can. Pearl Jam

758
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 2: doesn't have a lot of stage show and they just

759
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 2: play rock and roll music to stadiums.

760
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: Pearl Jim's a thirty five year old man making the Stallion.

761
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: You know in some videos and other thing push she

762
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:17,800
Speaker 1: testing limits having to do with sexuality, etc. And it's great,

763
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: she has some power. But if you want to know,

764
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: you know, it used to be in our era, if

765
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:23,919
Speaker 1: you want to know what was going on in the world,

766
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 1: you put on a record. Do you still think that's

767
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: the same.

768
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 2: Sure, I think I think it's a different You're you're

769
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 2: just talking about different people. There's not the there's not

770
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 2: the hour glass of creativity and then the bottleneck in

771
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 2: the middle of it where it's all the gatekeepers of

772
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 2: publicists and magazines and things like that, and then at

773
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:49,880
Speaker 2: the top of it is the audience. It's just a

774
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 2: it's just a straight line now goes directly from the

775
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 2: people to the audience, so it's not as directed like

776
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 2: there's no one person who's uh is going to be

777
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 2: speaking for a generation. But I think that, yes, I

778
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 2: think that people do put on records. Like Exsain was saying,

779
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 2: you can rediscover there's nothing new, it's just when when

780
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 2: did you hear about it?

781
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 1: Okay? So, certainly in our network television was a vapid

782
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: wasteland movie. Certainly late sixties to the end of the

783
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: seventies really a driving force. But today music is competing

784
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: against streaming television, which is whether we say it's a

785
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:47,120
Speaker 1: danu Mall has certainly been you know, at a heyday,

786
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:51,720
Speaker 1: it's never been previously, And we do have social media

787
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,799
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of creativity. So from my perspective,

788
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: the power of not the power of music, the execution

789
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: of music is not a dominant as it used to be.

790
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the two of you represent this point.

791
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: You grew up in an era where before the Army

792
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: ripped off our slogan be all you can be, you

793
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: could live on minimum wage, whereas today when a kid

794
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: graduates from high school or college, it's a completely different

795
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: environment and it's much harder. And when you're talking about

796
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:22,720
Speaker 1: middle class bohemians, I'm not even sure that's a major

797
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:24,800
Speaker 1: group at this point in time. You have the people

798
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: who'll do anything for recognition and the other people are

799
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: afraid of being broke going into corporate jobs.

800
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 3: Yes, that's all true.

801
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:37,720
Speaker 2: I totally disagree later on me. There are bands there,

802
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 2: all right, Because there are bands that are in their

803
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 2: twenties and thirties that tour their asses off and go

804
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,760
Speaker 2: all around the country and go to Europe like Skating

805
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 2: Polly our friends. They may have to have a straight

806
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 2: job when they're not on the road. But there are

807
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:59,959
Speaker 2: other bands that make really good money that are about

808
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 2: out art. They're not just about showing their ass on TikTok.

809
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,919
Speaker 2: So it's it's just like whether whether we're aware of it.

810
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 2: I'm not, I'm not twenty five years old, but I

811
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:16,800
Speaker 2: see other bands that are that are new and they're

812
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 2: they live simply and they they interact with each other.

813
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 2: Sonny War is another folk artists that that I know.

814
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 2: She I don't think she has a straight job, but

815
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 2: she has to play her ass off, and she has

816
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:35,879
Speaker 2: to find gigs, she has to beat the bushes, and

817
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 2: and it's just a there's more of an alternate lifestyle

818
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 2: that goes on. It's part of the indie music world.

819
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 2: Whether they're they're they're making money on live performance. So

820
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:56,280
Speaker 2: any records or any band camp that they're they're putting

821
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:59,720
Speaker 2: out there, that's just a promotional tool. Like in the

822
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 2: old old days when you made records, it's a promotional Two.

823
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:08,880
Speaker 3: Maybe we're talking about the difference between a cohesive social

824
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 3: cultural movement and people just individually learning how to fend

825
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 3: for themselves, and maybe they're both the same thing. I

826
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:15,399
Speaker 3: don't know.

827
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 2: People still go out to see music all the time, though.

828
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 3: No, No, nobody's arguing that they don't.

829
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, you know, going a little bit deeper, Yes,

830
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:30,400
Speaker 1: it used to be. Distribution was very difficult, so therefore

831
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: you needed essentially a major label to get your record

832
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:37,320
Speaker 1: in the store. So most acts could not participate, whereas

833
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:41,440
Speaker 1: everybody can participate. Having said that, if you start with

834
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 1: the Beatles, they could write songs with changes. They were

835
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:48,879
Speaker 1: good looking, they had incredible voices. You know, people will

836
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: email me and go, you know, well, the music's not

837
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: that good, what about the lyrics, And they say, you know,

838
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: look at Bob Dylan, and they say, yeah, but he

839
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 1: was the best lyricist of all time. I can't say that,

840
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,840
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's great that all these artists

841
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 1: are earning a living, but I can't say that there's

842
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 1: a plethora of them that if the light was shined

843
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 1: upon them, they would be much larger an impact.

844
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole point of punk rock is to democratize

845
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 2: and not to rely on major record companies. We got

846
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 2: turned down and we were happy to be on Slash,

847
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:32,279
Speaker 2: and then we had the opportunity to record for Electra. Okay, good,

848
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 2: that's just a way of getting our music out there.

849
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 2: Little did we know that Electra was signing us as

850
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:41,320
Speaker 2: a window dressing to say, yeah, we're part of the

851
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 2: new new music. But we we began the network with

852
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 2: college radio, which became indie Music, which which begat all

853
00:48:56,719 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 2: the indie record company, These like Twin Tone or Bloodshot

854
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:07,080
Speaker 2: or Merge or all these ones that you may not

855
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 2: get rich rich, and you may not be speaking for

856
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 2: an entire generation, but you're gonna. I mean, look at

857
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 2: look at what happened in uh South central l A.

858
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 2: With with rap music that was speaking directly to their audience,

859
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 2: and they made a shipload of money.

860
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:34,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, but now Snoop Dogg is on the Olympics.

861
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:39,759
Speaker 2: An iced tea is an actor on a very you know,

862
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:44,319
Speaker 2: long running procedural. That's not the point. The point is

863
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:48,040
Speaker 2: is that that that old model, because they fucked it

864
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:50,240
Speaker 2: up so much and put their head in the sand.

865
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 2: When Napster came along and all that sort of stuff,

866
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 2: they got what they deserve. And I don't I don't.

867
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:01,240
Speaker 2: I'm not sad about that. I don't mourn that because

868
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 2: that was a were they were a kind of They

869
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 2: gave the musicians scraps and the musicians had to make

870
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,879
Speaker 2: so much money that mostly the record company. I don't

871
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 2: bemoan their demise. So there's other ways of people like

872
00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 2: us working with with Fat Possum. Fat Passum is a

873
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:23,239
Speaker 2: great label and they're gonna get. They're gonna get.

874
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:26,680
Speaker 1: I agree. I agree with everything you say. My point

875
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:29,760
Speaker 1: about Snoop Dogg being at the Olympics, it's not about

876
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 1: the issue of selling out. It's about the issue of ubiquity,

877
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:38,839
Speaker 1: and amongst the alternative acts, we're thinking different in the

878
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:42,879
Speaker 1: present era. I can't think of two who have anywhere

879
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: near the level of ubiquity that X had forty years ago,

880
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 1: or even you know the bands, the Seattle Sound of

881
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 1: the nineties. There are more people making a living making

882
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:59,200
Speaker 1: music despite all the negativity about streaming services and payouts.

883
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: But I find it it's not in a situation like

884
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 1: it was in our heyday, where Filmo says, you got

885
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: to hear this record and while it just blows your mind.

886
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: I respect the fact that these people are earning a living,

887
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: but I can't say that these are the records are

888
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 1: changing my life.

889
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:18,920
Speaker 3: You probably listen to a lot more music than I do,

890
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:22,359
Speaker 3: new music, especially I still listen mostly to really old

891
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 3: country and blue dress and stuff like that and old music.

892
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 3: But I would just say, if that's what you're seeing

893
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:31,879
Speaker 3: and that's your experience, I would say interesting. I don't know.

894
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 3: I don't pay attention too much to what's going on now.

895
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 3: I don't know who's great, who isn't great, how great

896
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:39,320
Speaker 3: things are, and how it compares to the past or

897
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 3: the future. Who's the best lyricist out there right now,

898
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,399
Speaker 3: I don't know who that is. Is there another Dyllan

899
00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 3: out there? I don't know.

900
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 2: I don't think it's much different between us and the

901
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,360
Speaker 2: number of people that we reached and the number of

902
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 2: people that some band is reaching nowadays, whether it's Phoebe

903
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:05,719
Speaker 2: Bridge or or or. I meant when she began, she

904
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 2: reached a hundred times more people. And to those people

905
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 2: that listened to her or Elliott Smith, which she's very

906
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:22,879
Speaker 2: much like, it had this it has the same kind

907
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:26,880
Speaker 2: of impact. They're speaking to them at their age, and

908
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 2: we just spoke to some people at the age that

909
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 2: we were, and they were I mean, the most records

910
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 2: that we sold for Wild Gift or Los Angeles or

911
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 2: even under the Big Black Son was maybe fifty thousand records.

912
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 2: But everybody told their friends about him. So maybe some

913
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 2: you know, Elliott Smith sold one hundred and fifty thousand records,

914
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 2: but everybody was really that he really spoke to them

915
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 2: on a personal level. So I just think I don't

916
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 2: have the experience. I don't have the connection with those

917
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 2: younger bands now to be able to speak to it.

918
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 2: But I know that it's it's very similar. It's like

919
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 2: you're talking to me because I'm that age, and there's

920
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 2: a lot of young bands that have girls that have

921
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 2: gone to Girls Rock Camp that are now fronting bands

922
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 2: that have a real punk rock kind of ethos. So yeah,

923
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 2: it may not have the same kind of media coverage

924
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:34,840
Speaker 2: or media impact, but I think there's an underground and

925
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 2: that's to me the most important thing. That's that's why

926
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:41,319
Speaker 2: I like you were talking about how much do I

927
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 2: get wrecked or do we get recognized? And it's like

928
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:48,520
Speaker 2: once in a while, but we are in the sweetest

929
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:51,760
Speaker 2: of sweet spots where we make a really good living,

930
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 2: We get to do artistic things and people will say

931
00:53:56,320 --> 00:54:00,799
Speaker 2: you changed my life or I don't know who you are.

932
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:03,120
Speaker 2: So that's a good place to be. That's a great

933
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 2: place to be. And like Exceine said, if you just

934
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:12,080
Speaker 2: diffuse the the interaction like hey aren't you John Diales,

935
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:14,879
Speaker 2: like yeah, what's up? And you don't get weird about it.

936
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 2: You don't have a bodyguard because you don't need one.

937
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:19,920
Speaker 2: That's just fine.

938
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 1: So so, having made all these records, do you have

939
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:29,480
Speaker 1: a royalty stream, whether it be on record or publishing?

940
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 1: Is there any or is it essentially insignificant?

941
00:54:32,160 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 4: Oh?

942
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:35,719
Speaker 3: No, it's not insignificant because everybody got their records back

943
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 3: after thirty five years, you know that, right, right? Yeah,

944
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 3: and that was fantastic, eucepter thirty five years if not

945
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 3: making the money from our records, we suddenly own them again.

946
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 3: I mean we own them for the first time. And

947
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 3: that's true for all the bands, and everybody's so happy

948
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 3: they got their records back and they can finally make

949
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:54,560
Speaker 3: a living now. It's just wonderful.

950
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 2: No, but even even prior to that, I mean we're

951
00:54:58,600 --> 00:55:02,360
Speaker 2: with ASKAP and am I and yeah, we have publishing

952
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 2: companies and we get quarterly checks that are they're great.

953
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 2: And there's also a sound exchange, which deals with live

954
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 2: performance or radio performance. And I mean musicians are still

955
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:26,120
Speaker 2: getting the scraps. Let's not let's not overlook that with Spotify,

956
00:55:26,440 --> 00:55:30,360
Speaker 2: with Pandora, with all that stuff, you're getting a hundredth

957
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:36,200
Speaker 2: of a cent per play. So you can have thousands

958
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:42,359
Speaker 2: of plays and you'll get fifteen dollars and somebody's making

959
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:46,000
Speaker 2: money and they're they're they're using your content. But that's

960
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 2: just the way it is. That's the way it's always

961
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 2: going to be. They're trying to increase that a little bit.

962
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 2: But I mean, even like the the heyday of like

963
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:59,399
Speaker 2: record companies they were getting they were giving the musicians

964
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 2: ten or fifteen percent of every record sale, so they're

965
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 2: kidding the scraps, Oh we have we have a lot

966
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 2: of expenses, and it's like you don't have shit. They

967
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:16,680
Speaker 2: were charging musicians breakage fee on CDs, and the breakage

968
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 2: fee was for seventy eights because a certain number on

969
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 2: shipping would be broken, and not as many CDs broke

970
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:28,479
Speaker 2: like seventy eights, so it's like part of the deal.

971
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:33,359
Speaker 1: I talked to some musicians who've gotten their assets back,

972
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 1: whether they be songs or records, and then they relicnsed

973
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: them for the check. What have you done with the

974
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:41,240
Speaker 1: assets that you've gotten back?

975
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:46,839
Speaker 2: We have, We've we don't want to have a record company.

976
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 2: You're having an earthquake.

977
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a little Well, there's been swarms and

978
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 3: swarms and swarms up mostly their.

979
00:56:54,880 --> 00:57:04,799
Speaker 2: Central Oh that's exciting. I'm glad nothing that happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

980
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 2: We license them to Fat Possible because we don't want

981
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 2: to be in the business of being a record company.

982
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:13,239
Speaker 2: But we get a great return on that, and so

983
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 2: we make ninety percent and they make ten percent and

984
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:17,000
Speaker 2: they're happy with that.

985
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 3: Or something like that. I wouldn't quote that figure, John, however,

986
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 3: I would say that they're in the business of being

987
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 3: a record label. We're in the business of making records

988
00:57:24,720 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 3: and it works out really good. But if we try

989
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:28,520
Speaker 3: to do their job, we would screw it up terribly,

990
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:30,680
Speaker 3: and they can't do what we do, and we don't

991
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:32,479
Speaker 3: want each other to do that. I love the fact

992
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 3: that we have this great label that works with us.

993
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 3: It's the first time, really. I mean, a lot of

994
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:40,680
Speaker 3: things have gotten better over the years in the music world,

995
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 3: and that's one of them, is that there are things

996
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 3: like that. But I don't know. I don't go into

997
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:46,439
Speaker 3: the business too much.

998
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:46,919
Speaker 4: Yeah.

999
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:49,760
Speaker 2: You also have the option to have a five year

1000
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:53,240
Speaker 2: license or a seven year license. And then when that

1001
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 2: comes around again, then you say, well, yes I want

1002
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:58,480
Speaker 2: to keep doing business with you, or no, I'm going

1003
00:57:58,560 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 2: to move with someplace else.

1004
00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:00,840
Speaker 4: You know.

1005
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:02,840
Speaker 3: A funny thing about money, too, though, is if you

1006
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 3: think we started in seventy six, but let's say let's

1007
00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:08,400
Speaker 3: take from nineteen eighty till now, and you average out

1008
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 3: like our income per a year, it would probably be

1009
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 3: about fifty thousand dollars a year. I mean, we're not

1010
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:18,640
Speaker 3: rich at all. But the thing is, it's funny when

1011
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 3: you think about that. It's like, if you have a

1012
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:22,040
Speaker 3: few good years, that's great, but like, what about those

1013
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 3: years when you can make twelve thousand?

1014
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, you have these assets that are generating revenue,

1015
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:32,919
Speaker 1: has anyone approached you about buying them? That's a big

1016
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: thing now.

1017
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a big thing now. That started during

1018
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:37,080
Speaker 3: COVID as far as I can remember, and a lot

1019
00:58:37,080 --> 00:58:38,600
Speaker 3: of people said, you know what, I'm never going to

1020
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 3: tour again. I might probably die. You know, there's never

1021
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:43,280
Speaker 3: been a better chance to sell my stuff for a

1022
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:46,560
Speaker 3: billion dollars. Didn't clean the queen legacy went for a

1023
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 3: billion or something. Supposedly, you know, if somebody said to us, yeah,

1024
00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 3: you know, blah blah blah, we want to buy all

1025
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 3: your stuff, and here's how much money we're going to

1026
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 3: give you. I think we would have to weigh that is,

1027
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 3: like how old we are and what we want to

1028
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:03,560
Speaker 3: give to our kids. Like I'm fine dying the where

1029
00:59:03,600 --> 00:59:05,960
Speaker 3: I'm at and having my son own all my stuff.

1030
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:07,680
Speaker 3: And I know he'll do the right stuff with it.

1031
00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:10,000
Speaker 3: He'll give it to like dog rescues and stuff. But

1032
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 3: I don't really care if we have plenty enough to

1033
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:17,240
Speaker 3: eat and pay bills and have fun and travel a

1034
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:21,880
Speaker 3: little bit. And who knows. I mean, you'd have to say,

1035
00:59:21,960 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's just who it's a. It's a.

1036
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 1: I have.

1037
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:30,680
Speaker 2: I have a hard time with with people that I

1038
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 2: respected selling their catalogs for millions and millions of dollars.

1039
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:40,600
Speaker 2: I don't think that. I mean, do you really need that?

1040
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:44,040
Speaker 4: Well, that seems it seems like.

1041
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 2: No, I'm not. I just have a hard time with it.

1042
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:48,200
Speaker 2: And I don't think I would I would want to

1043
00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:50,920
Speaker 2: do that. I would rather keep it, like I've seens

1044
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:54,280
Speaker 2: that would rather keep it in the family. I would rather.

1045
00:59:55,240 --> 00:59:57,720
Speaker 2: But somebody wives a lot of money at you. You

1046
00:59:57,760 --> 00:59:59,800
Speaker 2: never know what you're going to do until that.

1047
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:10,400
Speaker 1: So how did this leaders record come together?

1048
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:14,240
Speaker 3: As far as what songwriting.

1049
01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 1: Everything, the decision to make it, how you wrote the songs,

1050
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:18,400
Speaker 1: how you recorded?

1051
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:21,720
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, how's every record come together the same exact way?

1052
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 3: Somebody says, I wrote these songs and then pretty soon

1053
01:00:24,240 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 3: you think maybe it could be a good record, and

1054
01:00:26,440 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 3: you work really hard and then you have an outlet.

1055
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 3: We had we had Rob the producer from the last record.

1056
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 3: I think what happened was the last record came out

1057
01:00:35,360 --> 01:00:37,200
Speaker 3: and then COVID happened, so we never really got We

1058
01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 3: didn't get to tour and do anything. So it made

1059
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:42,080
Speaker 3: us go, let's make another one, and this time hopefully

1060
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 3: we'll get the tour unless there's another pandemic. So I

1061
01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:47,000
Speaker 3: think that if we had made the last record and

1062
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:48,600
Speaker 3: COVID didn't happen, I don't know that we would have

1063
01:00:48,600 --> 01:00:50,440
Speaker 3: made another record. I think we just wanted to do

1064
01:00:50,480 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 3: it and see what happens. But I think that we

1065
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:56,480
Speaker 3: learned we can do more stuff, and I hope we

1066
01:00:56,560 --> 01:00:59,760
Speaker 3: record a song here and there maybe someday. But I

1067
01:00:59,760 --> 01:01:02,400
Speaker 3: don't no, I don't like the finality of last record,

1068
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 3: last tour. But I think you have to sometimes come

1069
01:01:04,720 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 3: to terms with that. I don't want people to miss

1070
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:10,760
Speaker 3: seeing us because we didn't tell them it's our last tour.

1071
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:12,919
Speaker 3: We want people to know where we're at.

1072
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much like that. Ecceene and I began talking

1073
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 2: about writing a new record, and she sent me lyrics

1074
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:25,600
Speaker 2: and I worked on music and then sent it back

1075
01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:27,720
Speaker 2: to her and she would say, yeah, I love this

1076
01:01:27,880 --> 01:01:32,320
Speaker 2: and that's great and I don't know how you do that,

1077
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:35,640
Speaker 2: but I'm glad you did. And then we take it

1078
01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:37,960
Speaker 2: to the rehearsal room and then it starts changing, and

1079
01:01:38,000 --> 01:01:40,600
Speaker 2: then we have to rewrite it because another one that

1080
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:42,640
Speaker 2: I would work on, Excene would say, no, I don't

1081
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:44,520
Speaker 2: like that story. What if we had a different story.

1082
01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:50,919
Speaker 2: So we wrote, rewrote, re rehearsed, touring all through from

1083
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:56,440
Speaker 2: the end of twenty twenty two to twenty to now.

1084
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:59,560
Speaker 2: I mean we were playing the luxury we had as

1085
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 2: we played about five four or five of these songs

1086
01:02:03,720 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 2: most of twenty twenty three. We do the live and

1087
01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:10,000
Speaker 2: you don't get a chance to do that when you

1088
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 2: after you've made a few records, you usually write songs,

1089
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:15,360
Speaker 2: work them up, and then put them on a record,

1090
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 2: and you just have to hope that your first choice

1091
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:25,080
Speaker 2: is the best choice, like Alan Ginsberg said, and we

1092
01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:29,080
Speaker 2: had a lot of opportunity to work through different different

1093
01:02:29,120 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 2: ways of playing them.

1094
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:35,280
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of bands break up over the

1095
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:38,920
Speaker 1: songwriting royalties. The money tends to be in the publishing.

1096
01:02:39,440 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 1: So the two of you conventionally write the songs, the

1097
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:46,080
Speaker 1: other two don't share in that income. Ever been any

1098
01:02:46,120 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 1: discussions about that?

1099
01:02:47,720 --> 01:02:50,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, actually we did work on that for the last record.

1100
01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:57,000
Speaker 3: In this one, there is more owning, ownership and publishing stuff. Yeah,

1101
01:02:57,280 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 3: you know, we've all worked it out. That's just an

1102
01:02:59,320 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 3: internal stuff. You know, everybody has their stuff to work out.

1103
01:03:01,920 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 3: Bands are hard.

1104
01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 2: We we make such a so much more of our living,

1105
01:03:08,880 --> 01:03:12,240
Speaker 2: of our income comes from live performance than it does

1106
01:03:12,320 --> 01:03:15,840
Speaker 2: from I think it's when you get the gold records

1107
01:03:15,880 --> 01:03:19,720
Speaker 2: and you sell hundreds of thousands or millions of records.

1108
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:22,919
Speaker 2: That's when people say, hey, what the hell you have

1109
01:03:23,040 --> 01:03:26,960
Speaker 2: a boat and I don't. I don't like you anymore.

1110
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 2: That's and that's just sad. It's sad that we're in

1111
01:03:30,720 --> 01:03:36,320
Speaker 2: such a greedy, capitalist society that your measure people measure

1112
01:03:36,360 --> 01:03:40,920
Speaker 2: their worth by the toys that you have, the stuff

1113
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:44,440
Speaker 2: that you have and that's that's pathetic, I think. I mean,

1114
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:46,880
Speaker 2: it's no, I'm not just. I shouldn't just. I shouldn't

1115
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:50,360
Speaker 2: say that it's sad. It's it makes me sad when

1116
01:03:50,400 --> 01:03:54,200
Speaker 2: people get all consumed by that.

1117
01:03:56,400 --> 01:03:58,400
Speaker 1: So you like going on the road.

1118
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:02,880
Speaker 3: I still do. But it's really really physically hard and

1119
01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:06,360
Speaker 3: mentally hard. And you know, van life is done not

1120
01:04:06,440 --> 01:04:09,240
Speaker 3: an easy life, and motels are not easy. And the

1121
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:13,200
Speaker 3: suitcase dragging and unpacking, packing every day every night, and

1122
01:04:13,240 --> 01:04:15,400
Speaker 3: then playing. You get up at seven o'clock in the

1123
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:17,440
Speaker 3: morning and you don't play till nine o'clock at night,

1124
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 3: so you're kind of worn out by the time you

1125
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 3: get there. So by the time you do soundcheck and

1126
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:23,720
Speaker 3: try to eat, and then you know it's just been

1127
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:27,640
Speaker 3: a long day already, ya. But then the live stuff's great.

1128
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:30,680
Speaker 3: And I hope that we do it for a while longer,

1129
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:34,680
Speaker 3: at least into next year a little bit. And we're

1130
01:04:34,720 --> 01:04:35,520
Speaker 3: just going miss that.

1131
01:04:35,560 --> 01:04:40,840
Speaker 2: We're going to tour a little smarter and maybe in

1132
01:04:41,200 --> 01:04:45,640
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six or twenty twenty seven, I'm knocking on wood,

1133
01:04:47,480 --> 01:04:51,440
Speaker 2: we'll play or next year we'll play twenty shows instead

1134
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:54,520
Speaker 2: of eighty shows, and we'll give people a good reason

1135
01:04:54,560 --> 01:04:57,800
Speaker 2: to take a road trip to come to Atlanta where

1136
01:04:57,800 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 2: we're going to play two or three nights, or to

1137
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:03,040
Speaker 2: Chicago or New York and like major cities and things

1138
01:05:03,120 --> 01:05:04,680
Speaker 2: like that.

1139
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:07,320
Speaker 3: There's not a chance in hell we'll ever play Atlanta

1140
01:05:07,360 --> 01:05:08,200
Speaker 3: for three nights.

1141
01:05:07,960 --> 01:05:12,320
Speaker 2: But well, you don't know at any rate where there's

1142
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:14,400
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of scarcity when it comes to

1143
01:05:15,160 --> 01:05:17,880
Speaker 2: what X has done because we tour all the time,

1144
01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:27,120
Speaker 2: and Eccine's right, physically it's difficult. Luckily for us, the

1145
01:05:27,360 --> 01:05:31,400
Speaker 2: hour and a half that we're actually creating is worth

1146
01:05:31,440 --> 01:05:35,960
Speaker 2: the other twenty two and a half hours. So that's

1147
01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:37,960
Speaker 2: why we do it, and it's what we do. It's

1148
01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:40,480
Speaker 2: our living. It's like, oh, I don't I don't like

1149
01:05:40,560 --> 01:05:42,800
Speaker 2: being a plumber anymore. I think I'm gonna quit. And

1150
01:05:42,840 --> 01:05:45,680
Speaker 2: it's not that it's just can you bend down and

1151
01:05:45,720 --> 01:05:50,480
Speaker 2: get under the sink and how are your knees? It's

1152
01:05:51,000 --> 01:05:53,800
Speaker 2: and not wanting to be part of an organization that's

1153
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:58,080
Speaker 2: falling apart, wanting to say, okay, let's getting to the point.

1154
01:05:58,280 --> 01:06:01,200
Speaker 2: If you want to see this, well it's still good,

1155
01:06:01,400 --> 01:06:02,080
Speaker 2: come on out.

1156
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:06,280
Speaker 1: And at what level do you tour? I mean there's

1157
01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:08,320
Speaker 1: from station wagons to private jets.

1158
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:11,440
Speaker 4: How does that fans?

1159
01:06:10,880 --> 01:06:12,640
Speaker 2: We have two sprinters.

1160
01:06:13,720 --> 01:06:16,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, the equipment, the merchandise, the people,

1161
01:06:16,920 --> 01:06:20,440
Speaker 3: the suitcases, two two vans, and then we get you know,

1162
01:06:20,520 --> 01:06:23,880
Speaker 3: we get hotel motels usually, but you know, nothing fancy,

1163
01:06:24,160 --> 01:06:26,480
Speaker 3: just you know, because if you do fancy stuff, you

1164
01:06:26,480 --> 01:06:31,360
Speaker 3: don't make any money, and we can't do that. So yeah,

1165
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:35,560
Speaker 3: pretty bare bones. We're very frugal and very practical when.

1166
01:06:35,440 --> 01:06:39,160
Speaker 1: You're on the road. Does everybody get their own hotel room?

1167
01:06:39,240 --> 01:06:40,120
Speaker 3: Most of us?

1168
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:44,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, the band does. The crew shares.

1169
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:48,919
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of bands have fights and break

1170
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:51,600
Speaker 1: up because they've been traveling with the same people in

1171
01:06:51,680 --> 01:06:56,440
Speaker 1: close quarters for all those years. To what degree is

1172
01:06:56,480 --> 01:06:59,840
Speaker 1: their friction in acts? And to what degree did being

1173
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:03,720
Speaker 1: on the road contribute to the breakup of your marriage?

1174
01:07:04,560 --> 01:07:06,400
Speaker 3: I think back then it was just you know, Channa

1175
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:09,120
Speaker 3: and I met when I was twenty and we were together.

1176
01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:11,880
Speaker 3: I think we were a little young to be making

1177
01:07:11,920 --> 01:07:15,200
Speaker 3: a lifetime commitment. Uh, And there was so much other

1178
01:07:15,240 --> 01:07:17,680
Speaker 3: stuff all we wanted to do in our lives, and

1179
01:07:17,720 --> 01:07:20,560
Speaker 3: people kept interfering, and it was just a crazy time.

1180
01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:22,320
Speaker 3: And I don't think I was ready to settle down.

1181
01:07:22,960 --> 01:07:24,320
Speaker 3: I don't think that had as much to see with

1182
01:07:24,320 --> 01:07:26,320
Speaker 3: the band, though. I think Billy quick because he just

1183
01:07:26,320 --> 01:07:28,440
Speaker 3: got burned out on it. It was just going nowhere

1184
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:33,360
Speaker 3: at that point. It's hard. It's forty five years plus

1185
01:07:33,400 --> 01:07:35,160
Speaker 3: forty eight years. It's a long time to be with

1186
01:07:35,200 --> 01:07:37,520
Speaker 3: the same people over and over. That's why we're on

1187
01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:39,479
Speaker 3: the only US and Los Lobos are the only bands

1188
01:07:39,560 --> 01:07:42,800
Speaker 3: left right it's still tour because for one thing, it's

1189
01:07:42,840 --> 01:07:45,560
Speaker 3: really really hard, for another thing where most people still

1190
01:07:45,640 --> 01:07:49,800
Speaker 3: aren't alive. I think we're very grateful because you know,

1191
01:07:49,840 --> 01:07:51,520
Speaker 3: what is the alternative? Would it be one of us

1192
01:07:51,520 --> 01:07:53,280
Speaker 3: would be dead, We'd all be dead, we would have

1193
01:07:53,320 --> 01:07:55,640
Speaker 3: broken up, we'd be you know, God only knows what

1194
01:07:55,640 --> 01:07:58,120
Speaker 3: would have happened to us. So we're really lucky. I

1195
01:07:58,160 --> 01:07:59,960
Speaker 3: don't look, I don't take it for granted. Even when

1196
01:08:00,080 --> 01:08:01,960
Speaker 3: people get out of my nerves. I just people are

1197
01:08:01,960 --> 01:08:03,520
Speaker 3: gonna get on your nerves no matter who they are,

1198
01:08:03,520 --> 01:08:05,760
Speaker 3: what you're doing, whether it's the band or not.

1199
01:08:07,720 --> 01:08:10,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a family and family dynamics can

1200
01:08:10,960 --> 01:08:14,920
Speaker 2: be tricky. But but we've decided that we don't sweat

1201
01:08:14,960 --> 01:08:23,400
Speaker 2: the small stuff and we are gracious with each other, intolerant.

1202
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:27,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, to what degree do you care about legacy?

1203
01:08:29,640 --> 01:08:31,799
Speaker 3: Oh? I care about it, but it's not in my control.

1204
01:08:33,160 --> 01:08:34,680
Speaker 3: And I don't want to get into I don't want

1205
01:08:34,680 --> 01:08:36,439
Speaker 3: to get into like, oh I should have done this different,

1206
01:08:36,479 --> 01:08:37,800
Speaker 3: or I should have done that different. You know, I

1207
01:08:37,800 --> 01:08:39,640
Speaker 3: did what I did because I did it. That's what

1208
01:08:39,720 --> 01:08:41,479
Speaker 3: I did. Take it or leave it. I don't know

1209
01:08:41,560 --> 01:08:43,759
Speaker 3: if you If you like it, great, If not, I can't.

1210
01:08:43,800 --> 01:08:44,400
Speaker 3: I don't care.

1211
01:08:45,280 --> 01:08:47,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I know that that we have a

1212
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:54,000
Speaker 2: small spot in the in the world of music, and

1213
01:08:54,040 --> 01:08:56,760
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit bigger impact on the world of

1214
01:08:56,760 --> 01:09:00,520
Speaker 2: punk rock. But it's there. We're in all the books

1215
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:03,160
Speaker 2: for a lot of them, and if we're not, then

1216
01:09:03,160 --> 01:09:07,360
Speaker 2: it's just somebody being having an axe to grind.

1217
01:09:10,040 --> 01:09:13,439
Speaker 1: So what was the difference between working with Raymond Zeric

1218
01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:15,200
Speaker 1: and other producers and Rob Schnow.

1219
01:09:18,000 --> 01:09:20,040
Speaker 3: Rob and rare kind of similar in a lot of ways,

1220
01:09:20,280 --> 01:09:23,519
Speaker 3: and that they're both geniuses and creative, wonderful, funny people

1221
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:25,840
Speaker 3: who just want us to be the best X we

1222
01:09:25,880 --> 01:09:28,200
Speaker 3: can be and not really trying to change everything. But

1223
01:09:28,240 --> 01:09:30,200
Speaker 3: they do come up with good ideas and we go, yeah,

1224
01:09:30,200 --> 01:09:31,360
Speaker 3: that's a great idea, we'll do that.

1225
01:09:32,280 --> 01:09:34,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that. Ray was a lot

1226
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:38,840
Speaker 2: more spiritual than Rob is. Rob doesn't get into that

1227
01:09:38,920 --> 01:09:47,400
Speaker 2: as much, but it's validating and just looking for good

1228
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:53,559
Speaker 2: performances and to try to translate whatever enthusiasm and joy

1229
01:09:53,760 --> 01:09:58,600
Speaker 2: that's going on or whatever's happening in the studio to

1230
01:09:58,640 --> 01:09:59,960
Speaker 2: transfer that onto the tape.

1231
01:10:02,240 --> 01:10:05,360
Speaker 1: Does it ever feel like an adolescent endeavor, like you're

1232
01:10:05,400 --> 01:10:07,960
Speaker 1: stuck in time, that you're doing the same thing you

1233
01:10:08,040 --> 01:10:09,320
Speaker 1: were doing in your twenties.

1234
01:10:09,920 --> 01:10:13,759
Speaker 3: No, because we're not. Thank god, i'd be dead.

1235
01:10:14,600 --> 01:10:17,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think so.

1236
01:10:18,880 --> 01:10:21,360
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of acts who die

1237
01:10:21,439 --> 01:10:25,839
Speaker 1: there here get plastic surgery. The audience goes to relive

1238
01:10:25,880 --> 01:10:29,800
Speaker 1: a period in their youth. What are your audiences like?

1239
01:10:31,040 --> 01:10:35,760
Speaker 2: They're multi generational and there's a lot of people who

1240
01:10:35,760 --> 01:10:39,599
Speaker 2: are twenty years old and younger, and there's people who

1241
01:10:39,640 --> 01:10:44,800
Speaker 2: are our age. So you don't realize how difficult it

1242
01:10:44,880 --> 01:10:48,280
Speaker 2: is to get this streak of gray along with the

1243
01:10:48,320 --> 01:10:51,920
Speaker 2: other It's very difficult to get that died in there.

1244
01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:56,560
Speaker 2: I'm joking. Never mind, I guess it wasn't a funny.

1245
01:10:56,320 --> 01:11:02,800
Speaker 5: Joke, but well you and Bonnie Raid Yes, Well I'm

1246
01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:05,200
Speaker 5: proud to be compared to Bonnie Rait in any way,

1247
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:09,599
Speaker 5: if just through hair, they're multi.

1248
01:11:09,720 --> 01:11:11,360
Speaker 2: There's a lot of different kinds of people, and there

1249
01:11:11,360 --> 01:11:14,559
Speaker 2: always were. We didn't just have a young audience at

1250
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:20,559
Speaker 2: the beginning. They were younger, but there was some old

1251
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:26,200
Speaker 2: people way into their forties back in nineteen seventy nine.

1252
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:32,280
Speaker 2: So no plastic surgery here, not yet.

1253
01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:37,320
Speaker 1: Do you have any contact with the people from the

1254
01:11:37,680 --> 01:11:42,240
Speaker 1: La so called punk scene of the lead seventies, assuming

1255
01:11:42,240 --> 01:11:43,040
Speaker 1: they're still alive.

1256
01:11:45,880 --> 01:11:48,160
Speaker 3: I don't really because I'm not doing the online thing,

1257
01:11:48,160 --> 01:11:52,680
Speaker 3: but Billy certainly does state. A lot of people just

1258
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:55,720
Speaker 3: stay in touch. I see people occasionally. We did this

1259
01:11:55,840 --> 01:11:57,360
Speaker 3: TV thing and I got to see a bunch of

1260
01:11:57,360 --> 01:12:01,200
Speaker 3: people at that and that was really fun. But you know,

1261
01:12:01,520 --> 01:12:03,360
Speaker 3: a lot of people were part of that scene for

1262
01:12:03,439 --> 01:12:05,240
Speaker 3: just a minute, and they were there because they were

1263
01:12:05,280 --> 01:12:07,640
Speaker 3: important to it and it was important to them. But

1264
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:10,639
Speaker 3: they quickly moved on to other things and we kind

1265
01:12:10,640 --> 01:12:13,000
Speaker 3: of stuck with the band things, so you know, everybody

1266
01:12:13,000 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 3: went in different directions. A lot of people are gone. Also.

1267
01:12:15,600 --> 01:12:23,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I stay in touch with Robert Lopez from the Zeros. Yeah,

1268
01:12:23,160 --> 01:12:28,360
Speaker 2: there's different people guilty from from uh Top Jimmy and

1269
01:12:28,400 --> 01:12:31,120
Speaker 2: the Rhythm Pigs came a little bit later, but yeah,

1270
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:34,240
Speaker 2: here and there. I mean, there's there's no club that

1271
01:12:34,360 --> 01:12:37,160
Speaker 2: gets together every every month.

1272
01:12:39,800 --> 01:12:43,519
Speaker 1: So you've had an acting career, John, Do you watch

1273
01:12:43,640 --> 01:12:46,280
Speaker 1: streaming television or movies or nothing?

1274
01:12:46,600 --> 01:12:49,679
Speaker 2: Sure, I watch all kinds of stuff. I watch good

1275
01:12:49,680 --> 01:12:53,840
Speaker 2: stuff and crap and all kinds of things.

1276
01:12:54,400 --> 01:12:55,719
Speaker 1: Well, what's some of the good stuff.

1277
01:12:57,320 --> 01:13:02,240
Speaker 2: Oh that I'm and it's kind of this is kind

1278
01:13:02,240 --> 01:13:07,439
Speaker 2: of boring. But that television show Hacks was really smart

1279
01:13:07,479 --> 01:13:11,400
Speaker 2: and well written. I loved watching that. I'm watching this

1280
01:13:11,800 --> 01:13:16,400
Speaker 2: kind of goofy show called Outer Range with Josh Brolin

1281
01:13:16,520 --> 01:13:23,200
Speaker 2: and Lily Taylor. You know, just a variety of things.

1282
01:13:23,920 --> 01:13:30,920
Speaker 2: I saw the oh, the movie about the making of Fitzceraldo,

1283
01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:34,120
Speaker 2: Burden of something or other, I can't remember the title

1284
01:13:34,120 --> 01:13:37,960
Speaker 2: of it. And there was also a great indie movie

1285
01:13:38,080 --> 01:13:44,200
Speaker 2: called La Camaro that was really beautiful, all in Italian.

1286
01:13:44,320 --> 01:13:45,400
Speaker 2: So yeah, I keep up.

1287
01:13:47,320 --> 01:13:50,920
Speaker 1: So for those of us who were in Los Angeles

1288
01:13:50,960 --> 01:13:54,040
Speaker 1: in the lead seventies early eighties certainly aware of X.

1289
01:13:54,560 --> 01:13:58,800
Speaker 1: I certainly saw X. But for people who were listening

1290
01:13:58,880 --> 01:14:02,360
Speaker 1: to this who are not familiar with the music, what

1291
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:06,759
Speaker 1: can you tell them about X that they don't understand.

1292
01:14:06,840 --> 01:14:09,479
Speaker 2: All they would have to do. And this isn't a

1293
01:14:09,520 --> 01:14:15,040
Speaker 2: shameless plug. This just so happened to become real. All

1294
01:14:15,120 --> 01:14:17,120
Speaker 2: they have to do is they have to listen to

1295
01:14:17,160 --> 01:14:20,760
Speaker 2: the song Big Black X, and they can hear what

1296
01:14:20,800 --> 01:14:25,360
Speaker 2: we sound like now reflecting on a lot of the

1297
01:14:25,479 --> 01:14:32,080
Speaker 2: images and the experiences that we had in the late seventies.

1298
01:14:33,400 --> 01:14:35,960
Speaker 2: And that song came together kind of in the studio,

1299
01:14:36,000 --> 01:14:40,240
Speaker 2: which is very unlike us. And Excene had written a

1300
01:14:40,720 --> 01:14:45,280
Speaker 2: couple of pages of just prose, and I thought it

1301
01:14:45,800 --> 01:14:48,240
Speaker 2: was really beautiful and wanted to put it into a

1302
01:14:48,560 --> 01:14:52,760
Speaker 2: lyrical form, and DJ and I developed a kind of

1303
01:14:53,120 --> 01:14:55,360
Speaker 2: we're going to go through the changes this many times

1304
01:14:55,760 --> 01:14:57,400
Speaker 2: for the verse, We're going to go through the change

1305
01:14:57,479 --> 01:15:00,240
Speaker 2: this many times for the chorus, and then all of

1306
01:15:00,240 --> 01:15:03,320
Speaker 2: the music changed and all of the lyrics changed. But

1307
01:15:03,479 --> 01:15:07,679
Speaker 2: I think it's a great representation of what we have done.

1308
01:15:08,160 --> 01:15:14,640
Speaker 2: It's like Past President Future because it talks about we

1309
01:15:14,720 --> 01:15:17,559
Speaker 2: knew the gutter and also the future. We didn't actually

1310
01:15:17,600 --> 01:15:21,120
Speaker 2: know the future in nineteen seventy eight, but we had

1311
01:15:21,160 --> 01:15:25,679
Speaker 2: a clue as to what influence our kind of music

1312
01:15:25,840 --> 01:15:33,560
Speaker 2: might have on music in general, so we had we

1313
01:15:33,640 --> 01:15:38,880
Speaker 2: had a tiny hint and it is the present, so

1314
01:15:38,960 --> 01:15:41,479
Speaker 2: it's past, present and future on one three and a

1315
01:15:41,560 --> 01:15:43,360
Speaker 2: half minutes ish.

1316
01:15:45,000 --> 01:15:47,479
Speaker 1: Okay. For those of you who've been listening and listening

1317
01:15:47,479 --> 01:15:51,240
Speaker 1: to John Doe and Exene Cervenka from X, they have

1318
01:15:51,360 --> 01:15:55,599
Speaker 1: a new album, Smoking Fiction. They're on their So Cold

1319
01:15:55,720 --> 01:15:58,639
Speaker 1: Final tour. Check them out if you're interested. I want

1320
01:15:58,680 --> 01:16:00,479
Speaker 1: to thank both of you for spending the time with

1321
01:16:00,560 --> 01:16:01,200
Speaker 1: my audience.

1322
01:16:01,840 --> 01:16:05,040
Speaker 3: Well, thanks for letting us do this, and hello to everybody,

1323
01:16:05,040 --> 01:16:07,200
Speaker 3: and thank you for listening light On.

1324
01:16:07,600 --> 01:16:10,880
Speaker 1: I'll see you around until next time. This is Bob

1325
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:11,599
Speaker 1: left Stets