Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Speaker 1: Studio on I Heart Radio. My name is Jordan runs Ug,
Speaker 1: but enough about me, my guests today. Recently released Face
Speaker 1: the River or remarkable new record that follows in the
Speaker 1: tradition of great musical storytellers like Bruce Springsteen, Billie Joel,
Speaker 1: and Bob Seeger. And like the best storytellers, he draws
Speaker 1: on moments from his own life both as a way
Speaker 1: to heal and is a way to connect. Face the
Speaker 1: River marks the recent passing of his parents, the figures
Speaker 1: who nurtured him emotionally and musically, whom he refers to
Speaker 1: as his heroes. The double loss changed him forever, and
Speaker 1: this new record finds him coming to terms with the
Speaker 1: grief and the resulting growth. Though born out of this sadness,
Speaker 1: it's a record that lifts and inspires, a triumphant reminder
Speaker 1: that we get stronger in all the broken places. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy to welcome Gavin to grow This album Good Lord,
Speaker 1: I is just so powerful. I I love it so
Speaker 1: much as somebody who's lost a parent at a young
Speaker 1: age myself. I it hits me in all sorts of
Speaker 1: other ways. I mean, obviously, these songs. We'll touch everybody,
Speaker 1: but I think for people who who have gone through
Speaker 1: that particular loss, I think it's there's a little something
Speaker 1: extra in there, and I want to thank you for that.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for for for going to
Speaker 1: that place and giving us that. Wow. Man, wow man,
Speaker 1: thank thank you. Man. I'm sorry, You're sorry. You're part
Speaker 1: of this club we never wanted to join. Right, so
Speaker 1: uh the uh the the uh the lost the lost club. Right,
Speaker 1: but man, I I appreciate you a you um allowing
Speaker 1: the music to speak to you. And I'm like annulences.
Speaker 1: I know I know exactly where you're at, man, um,
Speaker 1: but uh but I think that uh, in general, we
Speaker 1: just have to uh, we just gotta keep going, right
Speaker 1: So this this, this is the this is just this
Speaker 1: is just life cycle stuff. And um, we're all we're
Speaker 1: all going to have our have our number called one day,
Speaker 1: um and uh, you just gotta keep going till then
Speaker 1: that's it. I just think it's so inspiring that at
Speaker 1: these moments, when you know your hardest moments, you can
Speaker 1: make something as beautiful as this album. I just think
Speaker 1: it's absolutely stunning. The songs are beautiful, the stories are beautiful.
Speaker 1: I mean just congratulations. It's it's such an incredible piece
Speaker 1: of work that it means a lot. Thank you for
Speaker 1: a compliment, thank you. I know this is obviously a
Speaker 1: very different kind of record for you in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, as well as being a really personal one.
Speaker 1: And I mean I think it shows off just the
Speaker 1: full extent of your talents as a singer and as
Speaker 1: a songwriter. Uh. Full circle is the phrase that keeps
Speaker 1: coming up when you're talking about this record. He was
Speaker 1: the name of your tour for it, and it comes
Speaker 1: up a lot when you're talking about Face the River.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about full circle? What that
Speaker 1: what that means to you? Well, Um, when I first
Speaker 1: paid my father the first couple of songs of the album, uh,
Speaker 1: he said to full circle. And I, uh so, what
Speaker 1: do you mean? He said? He said was he was
Speaker 1: saying that it was the way he remembered me, you know,
Speaker 1: before I ever got signed, before I started you know,
Speaker 1: making albums, you know, making these produced, produced records, and
Speaker 1: that he remembers the music sounding more like more like
Speaker 1: this when you know, when I was out playing live
Speaker 1: and playing with pickup bands, and you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting there with people and and and going
Speaker 1: through that phase of my my life and and and career,
Speaker 1: trying to just get your name out there. Just the
Speaker 1: live sound and UH, I think Dave Coperty captured this
Speaker 1: UM live sound and enhanced it and just just made
Speaker 1: it so much better and kept it off then they can.
Speaker 1: In fact, I feel like he reached deeper and forced
Speaker 1: me to reach deeper. UM. Then I would have arrived
Speaker 1: at UM without his his influence and his input, UM,
Speaker 1: his taste UM. And so the full circle thing was
Speaker 1: was yet initially the comment my father made and then
Speaker 1: UM and that in my opinion, is because Dave Cobb
Speaker 1: had had really great taste and really authentic taste in
Speaker 1: music and loose those almost those those seventies singer songwriter
Speaker 1: type records. Uh, you know, those singer songwriter records, those
Speaker 1: those rock records, but that nineteen seventies approach to sound
Speaker 1: and UH and performance and UH. Also when we went
Speaker 1: out and did our our little UH tour run that
Speaker 1: we did for playing the music live, we decided we're gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, go back and play a bunch of small
Speaker 1: club and that that was really about getting back to
Speaker 1: again that initial feeling of of performing live and small
Speaker 1: venues that weren't necessarily the places that just had developed
Speaker 1: acts playing at them. So it was important to me
Speaker 1: to go back, in particular to play a place called
Speaker 1: a Bit of Rent here in New York City. Um,
Speaker 1: because the Bit of Rent was the first place that
Speaker 1: ever gave me a gig in New York City, you know,
Speaker 1: before I ever got signed. And they were always good
Speaker 1: to me, you know, And and UM, I wanted to
Speaker 1: go back there and particularly reward those those smaller venues
Speaker 1: that got really badly hurt during COVID that really could
Speaker 1: use the business, you know, um, and and have keep
Speaker 1: those relationships going because you know, loyalty is a big deal.
Speaker 1: And you know, you never forget who your friends are.
Speaker 1: Those are people who had your back when nobody you know,
Speaker 1: gave a damn a value. And uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: Bitter End is just one of those great places, the
Speaker 1: Bitter End, the Red Lion. Um, there's places on Bleaker
Speaker 1: and I want to keep those and yeah, and just
Speaker 1: keep those places in Greenwich Village alive that have always
Speaker 1: been a staple for live musicians like myself. There's there's
Speaker 1: thousands of thousands of us and and those places are
Speaker 1: home for for people like like me. There's there's great
Speaker 1: talent out there that I always admired them. Maybe some
Speaker 1: of them, you know, don't have a record deal, or
Speaker 1: didn't get a record deal, or didn't didn't get lucky
Speaker 1: here and there. Um, but there's still great talent. And
Speaker 1: those are the houses that embraced that town, and I
Speaker 1: want to keep those a lot. God bless you. They've
Speaker 1: spent a lot of happy nights in both those places.
Speaker 1: You mentioned The Red Lion, the Bitters. Man, Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: think I mean you mentioned the sounds on this record.
Speaker 1: I mean it just it sounds. It's so unique and classic.
Speaker 1: I mean one of my favorite tracks is Chasing Way,
Speaker 1: in which to me, it's got a little bit about
Speaker 1: like the band doing their muscle shoals, sound like going
Speaker 1: down the Fame studios. It's so great, man, I love
Speaker 1: just the classic sounds on this record. Wow. Man, that's
Speaker 1: a huge compliment. Actually, uh, I had the bulk of
Speaker 1: Chasing went finished and I wasn't sure how to start it.
Speaker 1: And although it might be a cool deviation from the
Speaker 1: the kind of the way the way the song sits,
Speaker 1: you know that brink D D D right, the way
Speaker 1: the verse comes in. I thought a nice kind of
Speaker 1: push against that would be that little into ding ding
Speaker 1: ding ding ding ding ding ding. And I it's funny
Speaker 1: you mentioned the band I was thinking about UH. I
Speaker 1: was channeling Cripple Creek when I when they exactly, I
Speaker 1: was exactly channeling Cripple Creek, thinking something along the lines
Speaker 1: of Cryptical Creek would be a good lead into UH.
Speaker 1: To Chason Winn and it's it's funny you mentioned it
Speaker 1: because it's exactly what I was thinking about. Killer. You
Speaker 1: get it. You totally get it. You're recorded this most
Speaker 1: of it, or if not all of it in our
Speaker 1: c A studio A, which is I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: the house the chet Atkins built. It's got everybody, Leon Russell, Lynn,
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings. What was it like working in there?
Speaker 1: I mean's just the energy in that space must have
Speaker 1: been off the charts with Dave legendary, Oh yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I mean legendary room. And I felt like I feel
Speaker 1: like Dave knew every nook and cranny of that room,
Speaker 1: like you knew every sonic characteristic of that room, you know,
Speaker 1: and had all of the gear to suit each space
Speaker 1: when required, and um, yeah, you couldn't feel the ghosts,
Speaker 1: you know, the presence of of the many years of
Speaker 1: acquired mojo that occurred in the room of live bands
Speaker 1: playing together and and recording together. And it just felt right.
Speaker 1: And you know that place was built back when like
Speaker 1: the labels were dumping money into creating spaces like that,
Speaker 1: into creating great sounding room you could record in orchestra
Speaker 1: in that place, you know, so you know, being able
Speaker 1: to go into a comfortable place like that that sounded
Speaker 1: good everywhere and had enough space in it that we
Speaker 1: could separate but be together and play together and make
Speaker 1: eye contact, you know, and and read read each other
Speaker 1: and be like, you know, like I got I got
Speaker 1: this part right here, and you know you heard some
Speaker 1: of my God, and you're like, I'm going, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: me right here, you know, and um, you had those
Speaker 1: great um communicative moments because you were you're able to
Speaker 1: have sight lines and be within the acoustic parameter of
Speaker 1: what's coming out of the instrument. You know, that's that
Speaker 1: that's there too, you know, it's not just headset. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's right there. I hear it, I feel it, I
Speaker 1: feel it in the I feel it coming through my heel,
Speaker 1: you know. And there's a great sensation when when you
Speaker 1: get to uh, when you get to play like that,
Speaker 1: and then you just keep the best takes. And Dave
Speaker 1: had a really great sensibility of you know, casting the
Speaker 1: right players and and and just a great sensitivity to
Speaker 1: which takes for the best, and you know about like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: this is cool, that's cool. But those two other songs
Speaker 1: you played me, they're too close to these two other songs. Here,
Speaker 1: what else do you have? Let's go through your catalog
Speaker 1: and stuff and see what else you have that is
Speaker 1: different than what we already cut, so that the album
Speaker 1: has real variety sonically. And by him doing that, it
Speaker 1: also forced me to finish up songs I hadn't finished that,
Speaker 1: and by finishing them during that time frame made the
Speaker 1: lyrics more present to my life in that moment as well,
Speaker 1: you know, by him saying, hey, has that done? Is
Speaker 1: that that idea? I like? Is it finished? No? It's
Speaker 1: not finished. When can you have it done? I could
Speaker 1: have it done in an hour from now. I could
Speaker 1: have it done tomorrow. Cool, finish it up, man, Let's
Speaker 1: hear where you're you're at. Come in and play it
Speaker 1: and uh and then we cut and I just feel
Speaker 1: like it created a really um present approach to the album,
Speaker 1: feeling cohesive in some ways and at the same time
Speaker 1: allowed the album to be varied stylistically because his taste
Speaker 1: is excellent and and and he's got colectic taste. But
Speaker 1: he was also looking for helping me find uh, a
Speaker 1: sound that that that would allow it to feel like
Speaker 1: a complete work, a complete album, you know, in a
Speaker 1: in a you know, in a culture that isn't really
Speaker 1: necessarily embracing for albums anymore, right, But I think that's
Speaker 1: part of one of that's part of Dave's strong suit
Speaker 1: is he's such a music purist. He has such good taste,
Speaker 1: and he also knows that, you know, we're making music
Speaker 1: for an audience that's also grown up with me. They're
Speaker 1: not just kids anymore right now. They're you know, now
Speaker 1: their parents, now they have kids, and there were were
Speaker 1: in these different stages of our lives now than when
Speaker 1: they first may emerge a song of mine, you know,
Speaker 1: like on your first hit back in maybe two thousand
Speaker 1: three or four. You know, life, life change, the world change,
Speaker 1: and your music can change to reflect where you're at
Speaker 1: in your life now, right, Um. And and he really
Speaker 1: allowed me to He allowed me and helped me get
Speaker 1: to a place where I could embrace those changes and
Speaker 1: um and speak my my mind and my my my
Speaker 1: current mindset. And it was really really really uh thoughtful
Speaker 1: and and and he was sensitive about it, which was cool.
Speaker 1: And he wasn't afraid to challenge me, which is good.
Speaker 1: You know, it's always good to be around people who
Speaker 1: who who can challenge you, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: and it's better for your ego to be people who
Speaker 1: can challenge you and you know, and tell you that
Speaker 1: you're wrong and for you to go you got me,
Speaker 1: you know, they know you're Yeah, that's exactly right, man.
Speaker 1: And uh, it was all really a good, strong process
Speaker 1: that you know. And at this point in my life,
Speaker 1: I don't want to make children's music or music that's
Speaker 1: necessarily market to kids. You know, the kids can grow
Speaker 1: up and you know and become adults and listen to
Speaker 1: music that speaks to someone who's actually you know, lived. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always music out there for children that's great,
Speaker 1: but you know, this is this is music for people
Speaker 1: who have lived. Mm hmm. That's a beautiful way to
Speaker 1: put it. I mean some of these songs, I they
Speaker 1: sound like they could be fifty years old, and I
Speaker 1: mean that is the highest compliment. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Destiny sounds like something that could have been on Talking Book,
Speaker 1: or you know, it's a descendant of I Shall Be
Speaker 1: Released or something. It's I mean, it's incredible just the
Speaker 1: quality of these songs, and thank you for that. Thinks
Speaker 1: that the blow me away. I mean, obviously these songs
Speaker 1: are so personal and there's so much bravery in that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the things that blows me away about these songs,
Speaker 1: like the best story songs like the Billy Joels and
Speaker 1: the Springsteens and the Bob Seekers, is that they're so
Speaker 1: specific and so uniquely personal to you. Yet they hit
Speaker 1: me and so many others in such a personal way.
Speaker 1: I think that's such a delicate line to hit. How
Speaker 1: was there ever a fear of being this this open
Speaker 1: and this vulnerable when you were working on this? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's funny you say it for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: One is there's a great irony in it, and that
Speaker 1: I was telling a buddy mine the other day I said,
Speaker 1: the irony all this is that I wrote the songs
Speaker 1: so so I wouldn't have to talk about it because
Speaker 1: I couldn't talk about it, you know. And I feel
Speaker 1: like the songwriting was a way too say the things
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to say, uh in conversation. And so
Speaker 1: the therapy for me was writing songs UM, which is
Speaker 1: often therapy for me and just in life. So I
Speaker 1: always been therapy for me UM. And so that's one
Speaker 1: of the great ironies of it is is that the
Speaker 1: songwriting took place because I wasn't having an easy time
Speaker 1: talking about how I felt. I still don't have an
Speaker 1: easy time talking about how I feel UM, because part
Speaker 1: of it is because your emotions are such a crazy
Speaker 1: range of emotions, seemingly by the you know, by the moment.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just so much stuff that life is,
Speaker 1: so you know, some of it's just man, it said,
Speaker 1: oh man, this hurts me right now. I missed them,
Speaker 1: you know, I miss these people. I missed my parents.
Speaker 1: And then there's very my dad did this. You know,
Speaker 1: you're laughing about it, and nobody gets the joke, but
Speaker 1: you do. You know that you know, someone says something
Speaker 1: at dinner and you make a face and you think
Speaker 1: to yourself, Wow, that's weird. I just made the face
Speaker 1: my dad used to make. I've never made that or
Speaker 1: you know, it happened to me yesterday. I made a
Speaker 1: face at dinner and I thought, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: just made the face my dad used to make. I've
Speaker 1: never felt the desire to do that. Always thought it
Speaker 1: was weird when he did that, particular based on just
Speaker 1: I know, I just made that face. You know. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, don't you. I'm I'm looking back
Speaker 1: at my face and zoom right now actually and having
Speaker 1: a similar moment somebody else's face coming back at me.
Speaker 1: So I totally hear you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and um.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things. And some of those
Speaker 1: things are it's just they make their way into your songs.
Speaker 1: One of the other things that happened with the making
Speaker 1: of the album was, you know, the my initial meeting
Speaker 1: with Dave Um. You know, he took a lunch meeting
Speaker 1: with me. He's like, I really like what he did
Speaker 1: um with that Paul McCartney cover. Maybe I'm a base
Speaker 1: because I love the cover that song thinks a perfect song,
Speaker 1: and and I think maybe that that could have been
Speaker 1: why he took the project. You know, maybe he saw
Speaker 1: the live thing and and thought, okay, cool, this guy's
Speaker 1: all right, you know. Um. And we talked about that
Speaker 1: and that kind of music, that kind of song, that
Speaker 1: kind of records. And then we talked about are the
Speaker 1: records that we loved, and you know old you know,
Speaker 1: the stack stuff, you know, the classic R and B stuff,
Speaker 1: the great old soul stuff, you know, Duck Dunne and
Speaker 1: Steve Cropper, but um, so that kind of stuff, and
Speaker 1: then classic country records and great old songwriter records. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a big odist reading Sam Cook fan.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a big you know, George Jones fan. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I like those kinds of singers, imperfect singers,
Speaker 1: because that's where the feeling, the feeling is there, you know,
Speaker 1: um and imperfect records. And he asked me, what do
Speaker 1: you want to do? I say, well, it's the world
Speaker 1: is you know, I said, the world's all fucked up. Man.
Speaker 1: It was right at the hide of COVID. I said,
Speaker 1: the world's fucked up. My life is fucked up. I'm
Speaker 1: sucked up. Things are all sucked up everywhere around me.
Speaker 1: And I have a lot to say. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've written a bunch of songs, and I want to
Speaker 1: write this record alone. I wrote my first few record
Speaker 1: it along, but I really have a lot to say.
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to write this one along.
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to get this out of me.
Speaker 1: And I just feel like it's also personal. I have
Speaker 1: to do it that way. But I feel like you're
Speaker 1: the greatest producer in the world, specifically for this kind
Speaker 1: of record. And he was like, fuck, yeah, man, let's
Speaker 1: do it. And and we went in the room and
Speaker 1: he really he really permitted me to stretch beyond what
Speaker 1: I would have, you know, like like the greatest production experience,
Speaker 1: so sensitive, so sensitive to what I was doing, and um,
Speaker 1: but not at all yes man about it. He really
Speaker 1: wanted me to reach man. And it was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: It was a beautiful thing. Um. And he you know, man,
Speaker 1: I remember it. I was writing the song um Face
Speaker 1: the River, and um, I wasn't finished yet. So he said, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: let me know when you're done. I said okay, and
Speaker 1: I finally finished it. I walked into into the room
Speaker 1: by saying, man, um, I'm done. He's like finished. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I'm done. Now it's done, alright. That cool,
Speaker 1: come on, let's go played first man played for us,
Speaker 1: I said, okay. We walked out to the PM and
Speaker 1: I played him. You know, I am tired of the waiting.
Speaker 1: Got to the end of the song and goes, why man,
Speaker 1: you go let it's like a masterpiece. I said what.
Speaker 1: He goes, you were a masterpiece, You're a masterpiece. I
Speaker 1: was like, I did. He was like, yeah, man, mastarpiece,
Speaker 1: let's cut it. Let's cut it, you know. And it
Speaker 1: was just like immediately, you know, he wanted to cut
Speaker 1: it immediately, which is one of the things I loved,
Speaker 1: Like as soon as he heard it, as soon as
Speaker 1: he felt it, and it was in the moment he
Speaker 1: wanted to cut it. It wasn't let's make a plan,
Speaker 1: let's uh blah blah blah, let's set a click, let's
Speaker 1: find it. There was none of that bullshit. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the first things that happened in the studio,
Speaker 1: I think it was on Johnny Song Johnny Songs, the
Speaker 1: first on Freedom, first song that we cut. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: at the piano and I want it goes like this,
Speaker 1: goes like this, And before he said did anything, I said, so,
Speaker 1: do you want to set a click. He was like, no, no,
Speaker 1: let's play and I said, my man, I said, my man, exactly.
Speaker 1: I knew it was the right of guys, especially when
Speaker 1: he said no click, because I don't want to play
Speaker 1: to a click. Music is supposed to move, man, it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be varied. All those great records we love,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't know in on the exact same
Speaker 1: bpm they move. You know, that's stuff, all that bpm
Speaker 1: stuff being shared right there. That's not for the music
Speaker 1: to be better, that's for the editing to be easier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's got nothing to do with music. And so we
Speaker 1: got to really we got to play music at and
Speaker 1: I felt like I had been freed because musically we
Speaker 1: got to go outside the fence. And that's what made
Speaker 1: it cool. Is there a supernatural element that goes into
Speaker 1: making music? That's why is you're concerned. I honestly think
Speaker 1: that there's uh things that we can't control. And you
Speaker 1: may have your craft and that's very special, right. We
Speaker 1: all know that there's a there's a almost like a
Speaker 1: thing that has nothing to do with you that you channel.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get lucky you have a piece of an idea,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't do that it just kind of came
Speaker 1: to me. And then there's a craft element of it,
Speaker 1: which is the carpenter part of it, which is creating
Speaker 1: the right structure around the song, working through a line
Speaker 1: here and there and whatnot. But then there's the other thing,
Speaker 1: and the other really special thing is you go and
Speaker 1: you get in the room and you play it. And
Speaker 1: once you play it, particularly when you play it together.
Speaker 1: It was it was I think it was Joe Walsh
Speaker 1: talking about where the mojo is, saying, it's not one
Speaker 1: guy playing that makes the mojo, you know, the way
Speaker 1: a lot of albums are made now, A lot of
Speaker 1: songs are cut now, it's one guy with his laptop
Speaker 1: programming his drumps, and then he's programming the baseline and
Speaker 1: then the guitar parts, and the he's singing, and then
Speaker 1: he's doing the synth section, and then he's auto tuning everything.
Speaker 1: It's on that bpm metronome gridd and you're looking at
Speaker 1: the music instead of hearing it. Right, it's going to click.
Speaker 1: Are staring at music, that's it, and the people are
Speaker 1: lining things up to hit the line with the beats
Speaker 1: that go on there. It is the sine of the
Speaker 1: drums exactly on this line, like, that's not when the
Speaker 1: beat is. That's where the bpm click is. That's not
Speaker 1: the groove, that's not the beat, and the mojo is
Speaker 1: sort of like when you got all the guys playing
Speaker 1: actually together, a guitar player, a bass player, a drummer,
Speaker 1: a piano player, of us singer, everybody's playing together a song. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's say that the beat, the what you think is
Speaker 1: about the about the bpm in that moment is here, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit it a little bit here, and the
Speaker 1: other guy is gonna hit oh, I here. Another guys
Speaker 1: said that a little bit right here, and someone else
Speaker 1: is sitting there a little bit right here, and the
Speaker 1: other guys seeing that a little bit over here, and
Speaker 1: somewhere in there is the mojo, the part that none
Speaker 1: of us are playing, the part that only exists all
Speaker 1: all of us are playing, but none of us played
Speaker 1: it in right. So it's the thing that none of
Speaker 1: us can create along that can only be created as
Speaker 1: a whole. That's where the mojo lives, right, and it
Speaker 1: strucks you play until you get that moment where you
Speaker 1: go there, it was there, It was, it was right
Speaker 1: there back and you'll play all night hoping to feel
Speaker 1: that again, and you might not get it back all night,
Speaker 1: but you go back tomorrow because you know that there
Speaker 1: was one special moment, one high while you were playing
Speaker 1: that you went oh damn, and it could only lasted
Speaker 1: for a few seconds or best second, but you lack
Speaker 1: and it's just like right, and you you could play
Speaker 1: all week and I have a moment like that again,
Speaker 1: but you know that there's mojo, but there was that
Speaker 1: one moment within it where you or right. It's there's
Speaker 1: nothing like it. There's nothing like it. That's maybe the
Speaker 1: best description of the joy of playing together in mojo
Speaker 1: that I think I've I've ever heard. That's beautiful. When
Speaker 1: did you first experience the mojo? Was it? I know
Speaker 1: that you played a lot of hooting Nanny's upstate growing
Speaker 1: up with with family and friends. Was that something that
Speaker 1: was kind of party your upbringing all playing together like that?
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is that I knew the joy
Speaker 1: of it from watching people just playing. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: because they were hitting it. It wasn't just like you know,
Speaker 1: my granddad could plug a little bit, or playing the
Speaker 1: accordion a little bit, or the harmonica a little bit,
Speaker 1: or my dad played some it's saying real great. Everybody
Speaker 1: played a little bit. It wasn't like they were hitting
Speaker 1: it like we were experiencing the whoa moments At that
Speaker 1: time in my life, we were just experiencing the joy
Speaker 1: of music. And then in my teen years, playing more,
Speaker 1: hanging out and playing with my brother, playing with my dad,
Speaker 1: going out, playing ball rooms on school nights, you know,
Speaker 1: as as a teenager, you know, all the other kids are,
Speaker 1: you know, studying for tests and you're on a Tuesday
Speaker 1: night you're out, you know, at the bar across from
Speaker 1: the police station with dad, you know, and your brother playing,
Speaker 1: you know, playing Tom Petty songs. Uh. You know, though,
Speaker 1: you're having moments right there once in a while like
Speaker 1: oh that feels good. We're finally getting the song together.
Speaker 1: You're in that developmental stage of being a musician and
Speaker 1: then once in a while you lock. But having a
Speaker 1: brother and having a dad, there's music in the house.
Speaker 1: You could lock more off, right, You're playing more often,
Speaker 1: so you may have more of those moments, you know,
Speaker 1: where you where you just listen to each other play
Speaker 1: and like, oh, that was really really good. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to feel like that when I play or
Speaker 1: I want to be able to make him sound that good,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh man, it's just there's really nothing
Speaker 1: like the joy. There's nothing like the joy of playing
Speaker 1: music is he is the ultimate therapy in my opinion,
Speaker 1: And it's a real display of what somebody's got right
Speaker 1: in here. And you know, I talked about talk about
Speaker 1: it a lot like it's something more than it is.
Speaker 1: But but but as much as I can describe it
Speaker 1: to you, it's much more than that. Music is the
Speaker 1: thing that you cannot see or touch, but you could
Speaker 1: feel it. It's magic. I mean, think about the memories
Speaker 1: associated with the song. If you hear some songs, you're
Speaker 1: it's some songs that will transport you to the day
Speaker 1: you heard it. It's time trap, you know. Do you
Speaker 1: hear the song and you go wow, I remember the
Speaker 1: first time I've ever heard that song. Wow, I just
Speaker 1: went there bang in my head, you know. When I
Speaker 1: hear the song Hey good Looking, I'm three years old
Speaker 1: at my dad's parents house, because I remember it being
Speaker 1: played right there, right there. I remember the room I
Speaker 1: remember being in when I heard it. Abou thought it
Speaker 1: was the greatest song in the world. Because it was right.
Speaker 1: So it's just so we's spoke to me in that
Speaker 1: in that way, And I think if you were to
Speaker 1: take away music, you realize what a tremendously culturally deficient
Speaker 1: society would be without a song, without those sounds. We
Speaker 1: hear music so often that we forget that our society
Speaker 1: and most of the cultures, they're surrounded by music all
Speaker 1: of the time, surrounded by it so much so that
Speaker 1: they think it's just part of the air. Almost every
Speaker 1: restaurant you walk into has music playing in it, every store,
Speaker 1: you know, and you can change the way that place
Speaker 1: feels to you completely by changing the station, right, So
Speaker 1: it's a different restaurant with Frank Sinatra plane in it
Speaker 1: than it is with you know, metallic. Yeah, it changes
Speaker 1: the whole thing. It's very potent. We even base our friendships,
Speaker 1: so many of us based on the music that our
Speaker 1: friends listens to. We find friends through it, you know,
Speaker 1: we think, you know what you listen to that you
Speaker 1: we probably have a beer together. Sorry I'm talking about
Speaker 1: it so excitedly, but it's really how I view it. Oh,
Speaker 1: a thousand percent agree. I mean, you look at these
Speaker 1: you know, they find remnants of early early early cultures,
Speaker 1: the earliest civilizations we know, and they still find remnants
Speaker 1: of early instruments at a time when we're still struggling
Speaker 1: to learn how to survive and to eat, you have this,
Speaker 1: you know, traces of music. So clearly this was something
Speaker 1: that was an important priority at a base, primal level.
Speaker 1: I completely agree. And and that's the mystery of music
Speaker 1: to me, is that we can't fully articulate or know why.
Speaker 1: It just is it just is. It just gets us
Speaker 1: absolutely correct. Man. It's it's a it's deep, it's therapy,
Speaker 1: and it's it's necessary. Necessary. And that said, that's what's
Speaker 1: so crazy to think that is that necessary? Yeah, But
Speaker 1: you know, once we put into context like that, we realized, wow,
Speaker 1: this is this is this crazy. You know people used
Speaker 1: to top their little good hours off tour. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they needed it, and they knew their friends need a bit. Well, Gavin,
Speaker 1: I gotta say I I started this call feeling a
Speaker 1: little little low energy. I'm coming out of COVID right
Speaker 1: now talking to you about music and your excitement, and
Speaker 1: you're I I I feel transformed, and I I really
Speaker 1: want to hopefully people that hear this conversation and most importantly,
Speaker 1: people who hear your record feel the same way. It
Speaker 1: has been such a joy talking he Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: so much for your time today, and most importantly, thank
Speaker 1: you for your music. It's been such an honor. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Jordan honors by Man, Thank thank you, brother. I can
Speaker 1: tell man you just you're just like me. We hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the
Speaker 1: Studio or other fantastic shows, check out the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite podcasts.