Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: What is Up?
Speaker 3: But this is Unpaid Bill from Quest Love Supreme. In
Speaker 3: celebration of Women's History Month, we are highlighting conversations new
Speaker 3: and alal with some legendary women. Back in July twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, we interviewed one of the most important rock
Speaker 3: bands in the last thirty years, also being credited as
Speaker 3: pioneers in the riot girl movement. I asked Kerry and
Speaker 3: Karen about having a band without a base player, which
Speaker 3: always blew me away. Listen back as sleeper Kenny talk
Speaker 3: about health, creativity and art.
Speaker 4: Enjoy this episode, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: I don't have the name of my show. Okay, guys,
Speaker 1: Free Style Supree Right, matter of fact, let's just let
Speaker 1: this be the intro summer of Summer Summer. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: this is Questlove and you're listening to another episode of
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme featuring Unpaid Bill, Tony winner of Freestyle
Speaker 1: Love Supreme. By the way, yes, we have also Fontigoelo
Speaker 1: with us what's up? Brother? What Up? What Up? What up?
Speaker 1: What's that? And Sugar Steve Hi. Everybody, Yeah, how you doing?
Speaker 1: This is gonna be a very quiet episode because Lai
Speaker 1: is not with us right now, but she's with us.
Speaker 1: A very quiet episode. We're very honored to have our
Speaker 1: guest today. Our guest first emerged from Olympia, Washington via
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. Well, I would like to say that Northwest,
Speaker 1: because I don't know if it's Portland or Olympia, Washington.
Speaker 1: But I will say that I became aware of them
Speaker 1: because of everyone knows that, of my fan worship of
Speaker 1: music critics, and it's like my my, my music hero.
Speaker 1: Robert Christigau, formerly of the of the Village Voice, he
Speaker 1: called them one of the most important rock band in
Speaker 1: the last thirty years, and they've been rightfully credited as
Speaker 1: the pioneers and the riot girl movement. Between their self
Speaker 1: titled debut and ninety four and their seventh album, The
Speaker 1: Wood in two thousand and five, they took a nine
Speaker 1: year hiatus, which I'd never heard of hiatus that long
Speaker 1: unless you're from Richmond, Virginia. Returning say sorry, no shame right,
Speaker 1: that's a real hiatus, returning with twenty fourteen No Cities
Speaker 1: to Love following another five year break with these, Saint
Speaker 1: Vincent produced The Center Won't Hold by the way, shout
Speaker 1: out to any band that uses any Chinwana Chevy or
Speaker 1: William Yeats references in their album titles. If the Roots
Speaker 1: were to make Things Fall Apart Part two, I would
Speaker 1: have actually called it The Center Won't Hold. Thankfully, the
Speaker 1: gap between their latest album, which is called The Path Wellness,
Speaker 1: was only two years. And gentlemen, please welcome to Questlove
Speaker 1: Supreme leader Kenny, Thank you ladies for joining us.
Speaker 5: Yes for having us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 5: We're good? We're good, Yeah, We're we yeah.
Speaker 2: We would Just to answer your question from the intro,
Speaker 2: I think it was I think the Northwest is a
Speaker 2: good enough thing to say because Olympia Portland. Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: far apart, but we were kind of living in both
Speaker 2: places at once, so that counts.
Speaker 1: You know. What is weird In doing research, I've realized
Speaker 1: I didn't realize how much of the actions of the
Speaker 1: Northwest and the creative epicenter of the Northwest really informed
Speaker 1: the blueprint of my career, because you know, in choosing
Speaker 1: Geffen as a label, of course, Nirvana was like part
Speaker 1: of that decision making even us having to move to Europe.
Speaker 1: Inavertent Kirk is sort of responsible for that. But you know,
Speaker 1: we spent a lot of time, like Portland's my all
Speaker 1: time favorite city on Earth, and just the time period
Speaker 1: that we spent performing and gigging between the two states
Speaker 1: between like ninety four to ninety nine, well really on,
Speaker 1: but there was a period between like ninety four and
Speaker 1: ninety nine in which like we did a lot of
Speaker 1: concentrated touring between the two areas and sort of having
Speaker 1: gotten to know like a lot of people that were
Speaker 1: sort of legends on the scene, Like I didn't get
Speaker 1: to know YouTube, but like when I first got there,
Speaker 1: sort of like Kathleen was kind of our guide, like
Speaker 1: and you know, we really didn't know about the riot
Speaker 1: Girl movement and anything like that, but she was like
Speaker 1: really an interesting character that sort of like took a
Speaker 1: liking to us and kind of shows us a rope.
Speaker 1: And so I didn't realize like how much the north
Speaker 1: the Northwest sort of played in our decision. I actually
Speaker 1: wanted to start by asking. So during that period it
Speaker 1: in which like the entire music press was like salivating
Speaker 1: almost fetishizing like what's coming, Like what's what's the magic
Speaker 1: in the Northwest or whatnot? Like how did how does
Speaker 1: that play into how you can even find a space
Speaker 1: to be creative and in forming a band and getting
Speaker 1: space when like every critic is looking for the next
Speaker 1: like who's coming out in sub pop or these labels?
Speaker 1: Like what was it like then?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, no, I think it was.
Speaker 7: I think it was pretty overwhelming, like at the time,
Speaker 7: because there was such high level journalists who would like
Speaker 7: come to a Riot Girl meeting or show up at
Speaker 7: a Riot Girl show. And you know, we were we
Speaker 7: were kids at the time, Like we were writing this
Speaker 7: like confessional poetry and this, you know, this work that
Speaker 7: was like very personal and I don't think we realized
Speaker 7: how intense that spotlight was, but when we did, I
Speaker 7: think it was, you know, it felt like it was
Speaker 7: almost radioactive at times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we actually left, like when Slater Kinney formed,
Speaker 2: which was yeah, like nineteen ninety four. We were still
Speaker 2: in other bands, but we wanted we started playing music together,
Speaker 2: and you know, Olympia and that scene was so insular,
Speaker 2: and I mean, you know, when you're coming out of
Speaker 2: a small scene, there's it's like a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 2: You have all this support, there's community, but then there's
Speaker 2: also this way where you feel like everyone already knows you,
Speaker 2: everyone already kind of has these expectations of you, and
Speaker 2: you can't necessarily step out of that or redefine who
Speaker 2: you want to be. And so we actually went all
Speaker 2: the way to Australia, like we actually created space and
Speaker 2: distance in order to be able to imagine ourselves as
Speaker 2: something else, imagine ourselves outside.
Speaker 5: The glare of some of that, you know, journalistic scrutiny.
Speaker 5: And I think you have to do that.
Speaker 2: You either, if you don't have the ability to physically leave,
Speaker 2: you have to create an imagined space for yourself.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if that was a typo because I
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, Melbourne, Australia to create your
Speaker 1: first record, Like how does that happen? But I also
Speaker 1: I also wanted to know because it's weird because I
Speaker 1: fell into you guys. Kind of ask backwards and I'll
Speaker 1: be fully transparent. It's like I know everything about you guys,
Speaker 1: and I know nothing about you guys, only because it's
Speaker 1: kind of weird to say that fell and ask backwards
Speaker 1: because usually when a guest comes on the show, like
Speaker 1: I know everything about them but their DNA. And so
Speaker 1: in my particular case, like if people come up to
Speaker 1: me in the airport, they you know, refer to me
Speaker 1: as like, oh, that's Jimmy Fallon's drummer, or like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're the guy on your Gaba gabba, And you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes my ego, like it doesn't hurt now, but like
Speaker 1: in the beginning, like my ego would get like really
Speaker 1: deflated and I would just you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: that was sort of like asking Michael Jordan if he's
Speaker 1: the guy Haines commercial. So I would say that you
Speaker 1: were always a name that was I was fully aware
Speaker 1: of up until the creation of Portlandia. Like I only
Speaker 1: knew and studied this s leader model simply because like
Speaker 1: your names were always constantly on the top of every
Speaker 1: like of critics I worship, and like your metacritic numbers
Speaker 1: were super high, you know, Krista Galas putting you on
Speaker 1: the top of the pass and job stuff, and like
Speaker 1: again like I'm gonna critic obsessive, like putting these shits
Speaker 1: on my wall, studying these things, figuring out the metrics
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and you know, but it took
Speaker 1: reading your Hunger book Carrier for me to really like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna dive into this and actually like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna immerse myself and understand their art. And the
Speaker 1: thing was because I fell into you first with humor,
Speaker 1: and then I went back to the self title I
Speaker 1: was in ninety five, I was like, oh wait a minute, huh.
Speaker 1: I was like YO said, I wasn't ready. But then
Speaker 1: I really that you guys have have really like I
Speaker 1: feel like we almost took a similar journey in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, where you started the internet meme, how
Speaker 1: it started, where it's and where where you are now.
Speaker 1: It's it's been quite a journey. How are you? How
Speaker 1: are you as far as the position of where you're
Speaker 1: perceived as like this really influential group that is influential
Speaker 1: to other musicians but like not mainstream. Like how does
Speaker 1: that feel?
Speaker 7: You know? I think like you're saying you've like been
Speaker 7: through a journey, and I feel like I feel like
Speaker 7: with you know, with getting older and with kind of
Speaker 7: having that realization the music is a journey, you know,
Speaker 7: and that art is a journey, and humor and all
Speaker 7: of it can be part of it. I think that
Speaker 7: I feel really grateful of where we're at in a
Speaker 7: way because it's true we might have like less commercial
Speaker 7: success and a lot of other like bands that we've
Speaker 7: sort of come up with, but we have a lot
Speaker 7: of like artistic freedom, you know that I feel like
Speaker 7: we are still on this journey that is like we're
Speaker 7: building on it, like with producing our last, our most
Speaker 7: recent record ourselves and trying out different things and hiring
Speaker 7: this whole new band of musicians. Like I'm I feel
Speaker 7: really lucky in that way of like I feel very
Speaker 7: much like we are on this journey of like learning
Speaker 7: and becoming more you know, able to make art and
Speaker 7: make music.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask why it took so long
Speaker 1: for you guys to finally produce your records and what
Speaker 1: took so long to come to this place where you
Speaker 1: know what is in your head and what you want
Speaker 1: to execute Or is it just important sometimes to have
Speaker 1: a fresh set of ears that can sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: is not afraid to challenge you or make you find,
Speaker 1: you know, an alternative way to get your ideas out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's been nice to have an arbiter
Speaker 2: and you know, I mean, you know, from being in
Speaker 2: a band, it's different than being a solo artist, so
Speaker 2: you're already contending with multiple personalities and sometimes you need
Speaker 2: that peacekeeper and so that you're not sort of turning
Speaker 2: on each other with ideas. You know, someone that can
Speaker 2: just step in and be like how about this, and
Speaker 2: you know, and then it almost gives you as a
Speaker 2: group something to like cohere around you're like, well, actually
Speaker 2: we think you know it just it forms these like
Speaker 2: in group dynamics. So I think we've always relied on
Speaker 2: I mean, I would say our early records were for
Speaker 2: all intents and purposes co produced by us, you know,
Speaker 2: as you know, aside from like Dave Fridman on The
Speaker 2: Woods or The Sky, Roger Mutino on the Hot Rock.
Speaker 2: It was very hands off approach from our producers. You know,
Speaker 2: they often wanted to just kind of capture the essence,
Speaker 2: but it was just nice to have another voice there,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that's why since.
Speaker 1: The constant presence on you know, a majority of your
Speaker 1: records was so John Goodmanson, who you know I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with well, with his Wu Tang credit. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: worked with The Risk a few times. Yep, done a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other albums. I always wanted to know, like,
Speaker 1: was it a thing where if you felt that you
Speaker 1: could express an idea to your bandmates that you'd sort
Speaker 1: of expressed it to him and then he could sort
Speaker 1: of translate it better so that feelings weren't rattled or whatnot.
Speaker 2: Or I don't feel like we ever circumvented each other.
Speaker 2: I think it was just having a sounding board and
Speaker 2: we trusted him. Like you said, like he's worked with
Speaker 2: really a broad range of artists.
Speaker 5: He's great.
Speaker 2: You know, we never traditionally had a bass player, so
Speaker 2: he's great with drums, he's great with low end like
Speaker 2: he's Yeah, it was I think it was almost like
Speaker 2: he was part cheerleader, part kind of deciding vote. But
Speaker 2: we never like said, hey, John, can you tell Korin
Speaker 2: that I'd rather do this?
Speaker 1: So you're not the roots? Okay, I get it, I
Speaker 1: get it. Okay. Usually I start the show off. I'm
Speaker 1: very interested in the journey that gets you there. This's
Speaker 1: the first time I'm really talking to Corinth, so I'll
Speaker 1: ask you what I mainly ask our guest on the show.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me your first musical memory? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: did I say it like Nard War? I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know these guys are like you never talk like this, Meir,
Speaker 1: what are you doing okay?
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I So my dad is like a hobby musician and
Speaker 7: he did like folk music in the sixties. He actually
Speaker 7: opened a gig for like Pete Seeger once was like
Speaker 7: his claimed to fame and he went on and you know,
Speaker 7: and and and eventually became like a college professor. But
Speaker 7: he would when I was born, he would like play music.
Speaker 7: And my first memory is like singing with him. So
Speaker 7: he would, you know, teach me what he guthrie folks
Speaker 7: songs and you know, all kind of like seventies stuff.
Speaker 7: So that's my first memory.
Speaker 1: Where were you born?
Speaker 5: I was actually born.
Speaker 6: In Pennsylvania at State College when my dad was getting
Speaker 6: his PhD. There.
Speaker 1: Oh you're from Pa. Yeah, okay, so am I okay? Cool? Uh?
Speaker 1: Can you tell me the first album that you purchased,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, which is different from like an album
Speaker 1: in your house that's already there, Like the first album
Speaker 1: that you purchased with your own money put your moment on, yeah,
Speaker 1: or stole in this group, you could have stolen it.
Speaker 7: There was like this, uh, this album with Pat Benattar
Speaker 7: where she's wearing a straight jacket.
Speaker 1: The second album not that you did in the night.
Speaker 1: The second the one within Me with your best shotow
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the big album. Yeah, I was like
Speaker 7: I this for whatever reason, I was like I need this, Okay,
Speaker 7: I put down hard money for that album, We'll See.
Speaker 1: Your north Star. When you were growing up, like what
Speaker 1: what voices did you gravitate towards?
Speaker 7: Definitely Pat Benatar, you know, like this is a big,
Speaker 7: very muscular, you know, intense voice. Great singer for sure.
Speaker 7: And yeah, I mean I love Dolly Parton. I loved
Speaker 7: Aretha Franklin, you know, like the big voice with a
Speaker 7: big like range was always like so influential.
Speaker 1: I think, all right, carry I'll go to you. Could
Speaker 1: you tell us what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think mine is probably a little less cool
Speaker 2: than Coorn. Sorry, I have this young dog. It's like
Speaker 2: suddenly decided this was this is his witching hour. And
Speaker 2: my parents did not have great taste in music. They
Speaker 2: always liked the albums like there's the Eagles, who I'm
Speaker 2: not a big fan of. But my dad also had
Speaker 2: all their solo albums too. Okay, all right, definitely it
Speaker 2: was my parents had a party, like not a party,
Speaker 2: but like a hangout, and they were they had the
Speaker 2: Long Run by the Eagles on and I needed to
Speaker 2: go No, no, I like the Eagles, I like this,
Speaker 2: I like that album. But I'm just saying like, so
Speaker 2: I was I needed to go to bed. My parents
Speaker 2: were like, time for you to go to bed, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I would first like to perform Life
Speaker 2: in the Fast Lane for you all, and which is
Speaker 2: a song about like driving on the highway, like coke
Speaker 2: down of your head, and.
Speaker 5: So it does.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know it was about that. I just
Speaker 2: thought it was about it was a cool song about driving.
Speaker 2: So I just sang along to the song and my
Speaker 2: parents and their friends just humored me, and then I
Speaker 2: went to bed. That's the first thing I remember musically.
Speaker 1: That's your first musical memory. Can you tell me the
Speaker 1: first album that you purchased with your own money?
Speaker 5: Yes, it was Thriller Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, you know, it was the biggest album
Speaker 2: in the world and everyone had to have it, and
Speaker 2: I listened to it a million times.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 8: That was the first album I ever owned, too. That
Speaker 8: was the first my own personal album that I own myself.
Speaker 1: See to make you feel better, Carrie, Although I would
Speaker 1: love to say something really cool I've already been outed
Speaker 1: in the press. The world knows that, Like Neil Sadako
Speaker 1: was the first forty five.
Speaker 8: So I got you within the rain of jam though, yeah,
Speaker 8: but mine was more bad blood, like it's.
Speaker 1: Sorry, yeah, you know, so you know, I'm not that cool.
Speaker 1: We need either, Carrie, so you're cool. At what point
Speaker 1: for the both of you, are you realizing that you
Speaker 1: have a voice or that a music is something that
Speaker 1: you're interested in pursuing, not just something that casually that
Speaker 1: just happens, you know, in your household.
Speaker 7: I think for me, I I moved to Olympia to
Speaker 7: go to college.
Speaker 6: I went to like, you know, the Evergreen State College
Speaker 6: when all of.
Speaker 7: The stuff was happening, and I have to credit Bikini
Speaker 7: Kill and Brat Mobile playing a show, and I was
Speaker 7: just I just got to be like right up close,
Speaker 7: like right there when they were doing their thing, and
Speaker 7: I was like, I want to do that. I'm going
Speaker 7: to start a band, and I in my head I
Speaker 7: started a band Like that night. I was just like
Speaker 7: I'm in I'm doing it too, okay, you know, because
Speaker 7: I saw.
Speaker 6: Them do it.
Speaker 7: They were my age and they were they were just
Speaker 7: starting out, and so it just like opened the door.
Speaker 1: He explained to me the whole idea of what Rygirl represents.
Speaker 1: And is that a title that was invented by the
Speaker 1: proprietors or again, was it some guy from Spin magazine
Speaker 1: sort of searching for the next big thing and then said, okay,
Speaker 1: this is right girl with a bunch of rs in it.
Speaker 5: No, it was.
Speaker 7: It was actually like a genuine movement, you know. It
Speaker 7: was the title was you know, started by a young
Speaker 7: woman in DC who was like, we need to start
Speaker 7: an actual movement for women in the independent music scene
Speaker 7: that that highlights women's roles and supports women and talks
Speaker 7: about safe spaces for women. And there were meetings. You
Speaker 7: could go to a meeting you could talk about all
Speaker 7: these things. You could talk about, you know, being in
Speaker 7: a bad relationship, sexual assault, like all of the kind
Speaker 7: of like.
Speaker 5: Taboo stuff at the time.
Speaker 7: At that time, at the time, there just wasn't another
Speaker 7: space for that stuff to come out and happen.
Speaker 6: So it was it was very real.
Speaker 5: It was very.
Speaker 6: Taboo at the time.
Speaker 7: And you know, Kathleen Hannah was she was, you know,
Speaker 7: very much like a cultural leader, right, she was. She
Speaker 7: was like our poet because she was writing and the
Speaker 7: stuff that she was incredible poet, incredible.
Speaker 6: Writer and performer, you know, and very confrontational.
Speaker 7: But she was saying all the stuff that we were
Speaker 7: all like so afraid to say ourselves.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the first time I met Kathleen Hannah, I
Speaker 1: didn't know I was mean, Like I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about rygir whatever. Like the Roots are just doing a
Speaker 1: show somewhere up in Seattle. I forget the spot in
Speaker 1: Seattle that we were playing. I know it was across
Speaker 1: the sheet from the spot where they throw a fish.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, the showbox.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were at the showbox. Yeah, I'll say that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I met. Matter of fact, the first three times I've
Speaker 1: met or seeing Kathleen, she was like cursing someone out,
Speaker 1: Like it was always like, yeah, and my manager, Rich
Speaker 1: was they those two were like really good friends. So
Speaker 1: he's sort of my manager who passed away. Him and
Speaker 1: her really became good friends. And you know, he just liked,
Speaker 1: that makes all the sense.
Speaker 8: Oh my god, you see it down here and you describe,
Speaker 8: Oh my god, that makes yeah, Oh that's how I
Speaker 8: know this.
Speaker 1: Shit, Like my shit is all trickle down economics from
Speaker 1: Rich and him, him and Kathleen were like talking whatever,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, but she was just I've never seen
Speaker 1: that person, so just wild and unhinged and just told
Speaker 1: what the fuck she felt and all that. Like I
Speaker 1: was just like, yoh, this is unheard of whatever. So
Speaker 1: that that was like my introduction to her. She was
Speaker 1: cool and very nice to us, but like in a second,
Speaker 1: she will she'll bring the ruckus and I've just never
Speaker 1: seen that shit, so you know, and I don't really
Speaker 1: be like, oh intense or whatever, but that's what it
Speaker 1: was like for me meeting her. So could you tell
Speaker 1: me what the environment was, at least at the time
Speaker 1: in the Northwest that really prompted this movement to really
Speaker 1: find its legs.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, the you know, the Northwest was this
Speaker 7: hotbed of like independent music. So there was all of
Speaker 7: this like criticism of mainstream music that was you know,
Speaker 7: that wasn't genuine, It wasn't you know, real art and everything.
Speaker 7: And this music scene was about you know, like real
Speaker 7: people telling their stories and making music available to everyone.
Speaker 6: So you know, five dollars shows and all that.
Speaker 7: But it was also this kind of like slam dancing,
Speaker 7: rather violent culture at every show, and so there was
Speaker 7: just not a lot of space for women to feel like,
Speaker 7: am I going to be safe going to this show?
Speaker 7: Am I going to feel like I you know, my
Speaker 7: voice is heard? And the roles for women were still
Speaker 7: like oh, yeah, you know, my boyfriend's in that band
Speaker 7: and right, and and I just like went for yeah,
Speaker 7: a foil. And so when you had a personality like
Speaker 7: Kathleen who was like protagonist, right, so she was like
Speaker 7: center stage at all times, it was like an arrow
Speaker 7: like shot through our hearts. It was like, I I
Speaker 7: want to be like that. Like I'm I was a shy, awkward,
Speaker 7: kind of academic type kid. But I saw someone just
Speaker 7: like take control of the stage be like I have
Speaker 7: a story to tell and everyone in this room is
Speaker 7: going to listen, And that just opened the door.
Speaker 2: It kind of took feminism and you know, even though
Speaker 2: they're definitely you know, very fair critiques of Riot Girl,
Speaker 2: like just like other early iterations of feminism, it lacked intersectionality,
Speaker 2: and you know, it was largely white women, although there
Speaker 2: was tons of women of color there as well, But
Speaker 2: it definitely took feminism out of an academic context and
Speaker 2: gave it a very like punk, very colloquial vernacular. It
Speaker 2: was like here was you know, like a world of
Speaker 2: punk had just come out of like a hard core phase,
Speaker 2: especially on the West Coast, which was super violent. So
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it was like, what if we
Speaker 2: took this movement, these ideas that are largely like in
Speaker 2: you know, college textbooks, and just put it over three
Speaker 2: courts and screamed it?
Speaker 5: And that was very liberating.
Speaker 2: I think to think that if you had a message,
Speaker 2: it didn't necessarily need to be couched in a book,
Speaker 2: you know, that it could be couched in a scream
Speaker 2: or a yelp. And I think that just freed up
Speaker 2: a lot of people to express themselves. I mean the
Speaker 2: same way so much music just becomes like a source
Speaker 2: of liberation for people, where it's like I have something
Speaker 2: to say, and now I can say it over this
Speaker 2: song instead.
Speaker 5: Of you know, writing out to say it my way exactly.
Speaker 1: So what's the point where you two meet each other
Speaker 1: and sort of talk in terms of starting a group
Speaker 1: in and starting the beginning of leader.
Speaker 2: Kidney, that was yeah, I was ninety four. I was
Speaker 2: already living in Olympia to go to college as as well.
Speaker 2: Koran was I think you were in your senior year,
Speaker 2: and we were both in other bands. Koran was in
Speaker 2: a much.
Speaker 5: More like.
Speaker 2: Prototypical or archetypal, right girl band called Heavens to Betsy,
Speaker 2: and I was in a band called Excuse seventeen.
Speaker 5: You know that was that like day those days.
Speaker 1: We were in that group too, correct.
Speaker 5: Kathleen, No, she was in neither.
Speaker 1: She was in but she was in other bands. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if.
Speaker 2: Everyone was in so many bands, right, Okay, yeah, And
Speaker 2: so we just saw this kindred spirit and each other,
Speaker 2: like you know, Koran was the only her band was
Speaker 2: two people, Koran on guitar and a drummer. And then
Speaker 2: I was in a band with a similar setup to
Speaker 2: Slater Kinney what Slater Keny would be two guitars and drums,
Speaker 2: and we just we thought, I know, I heard Korn
Speaker 2: sing and I was like, I would love to be
Speaker 2: writing songs with this person. And she heard me play
Speaker 2: guitar and had the same feeling, and so we started
Speaker 2: playing kind of as a side project, and then pretty
Speaker 2: quickly that became what we wanted to do. It was
Speaker 2: just a very innate chemistry.
Speaker 3: Why was there always no bass players? I'm just just
Speaker 3: because he didn't want them.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 7: It was definitely like a thing in the northwest of like,
Speaker 7: you know, how can we be different and not not like,
Speaker 7: you know, sort of the archetype rock band.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and neither of us played I think it just
Speaker 2: was played bass and we just wanted to be this
Speaker 2: like kind of tight unit. I think there's sometimes when
Speaker 2: you're when something is perceived as a lack, it actually
Speaker 2: can be a strength through like how can we find
Speaker 2: a way into these songs without the traditional instrumentation, you know,
Speaker 2: it kind of forces you to write differently. We detuned
Speaker 2: to see sharp, so Korin was singing in this really
Speaker 2: high register and you know, trying to get low end
Speaker 2: sound out of for a guitar. And yeah, I think
Speaker 2: we used it to our advantage. Although now in the
Speaker 2: past couple of years. You know, obviously we like bass.
Speaker 2: Early on though people always ask us like, do you
Speaker 2: guys not like bass? I'm like, no, ninety nine point
Speaker 2: nine percent of all music we listened to has bass.
Speaker 1: Okay, how long have you been playing guitar? Carrie?
Speaker 2: I started when I was fifteen, so it has been
Speaker 2: what is that thirty years?
Speaker 1: Ok?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Korin, how long have you been playing guitar.
Speaker 6: It is, it's like thirty years because I started when
Speaker 6: I was like eighteen, So.
Speaker 1: Okay, well resisting the temptation and making a spinal tap
Speaker 1: joke and I know that. And Janet joined the band
Speaker 1: three albums later. But was it always the plan to
Speaker 1: sort of have various musicians because I noticed that what
Speaker 1: determines what your sound is probably also depends on the
Speaker 1: musicians that are playing with you as well. So your
Speaker 1: first drummer, Laura McFarlane, how do musicians come in the
Speaker 1: group and how do they leave? Like is it just
Speaker 1: a one and done thing or you guys are just
Speaker 1: taking this a little more serious than the other.
Speaker 2: Or no, I mean definitely just to say about Janet,
Speaker 2: and she's an integral part of the band. I mean
Speaker 2: I wrote about it in my book. When she joined,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: We were like, yeah, that's when you jelled.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were like, this is this is great?
Speaker 2: I would I'm I am sure as people assess us,
Speaker 2: you know, ten fifteen years from now or you know,
Speaker 2: they're like that will be the classic period of the band,
Speaker 2: So you know they were never throw away.
Speaker 1: Being the rock and Hall of Fame, I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a great drummer so that Korn can talk
Speaker 2: about Laura because yeah, she had brought her own avant
Speaker 2: guarde style for sure.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean I think a lot of it is
Speaker 7: like a little bit happenstance on our part, Like you know,
Speaker 7: we went we did go to Australia thinking like, hey,
Speaker 7: let's play music, you know, and there was there was
Speaker 7: like this international underground music community for real, And we
Speaker 7: wrote her a letter, We wrote, like the record label
Speaker 7: a letter and she wrote back like yeah.
Speaker 6: Let's play music.
Speaker 7: And that's just how it happened, and you know, and
Speaker 7: then eventually it was like, well she did come over
Speaker 7: and we played music here, and then she was like
Speaker 7: I kind of need to go back to Australia.
Speaker 1: We're like, yeah, oh, okay, now that you're in the
Speaker 1: game of being on an indie label, can you just
Speaker 1: walk us through the process of how do you manage
Speaker 1: to survive and be creative at the same time, Like
Speaker 1: for those first few albums, did you still have to
Speaker 1: have day jobs or was it like okay, a, you know,
Speaker 1: we can sort of survive off of our club gigs
Speaker 1: and what units that we're selling.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think there's there was definitely some back
Speaker 7: and forth, you know, like there were still temp jobs.
Speaker 6: I think even after dig Me Out, I think that
Speaker 6: we kind of put this.
Speaker 7: Like idea about being creative and being control of the
Speaker 7: creative part of things as something that was really important
Speaker 7: to us. So we were always willing to like do
Speaker 7: whatever other jobs needed to be done, I think, just
Speaker 7: to like make money or whatever.
Speaker 6: I mean, we weren't.
Speaker 7: We weren't not making money from touring, and we were
Speaker 7: always wanting to figure that out and make it better.
Speaker 7: We were always like ambitious about that. It just it
Speaker 7: took us a while to get there.
Speaker 1: But what at what point are you absolutely full time
Speaker 1: where ban I can pay my bills, I could put
Speaker 1: cheese or my whopper and not break the bank, like.
Speaker 2: Probably dig me Out, I would say, So that's ninety seven.
Speaker 5: I mean, let's also be clear. I was living in Olympia.
Speaker 2: I think my rent was three ninety five a month,
Speaker 2: so that doesn't take that much. You know, you can
Speaker 2: you can play a couple of shows even as a
Speaker 2: tiny band and make you know. So we were living
Speaker 2: in small towns in like you know, sharehouses and stuff.
Speaker 2: But dig Me Out, I mean one thing at the
Speaker 2: time on indie labels was these profit profit shares, which
Speaker 2: you know, you just it was a split, and people
Speaker 2: actually bought records. So even though these these records weren't
Speaker 2: going gold or platinum, you know, when dig me out
Speaker 2: sells you know, seventy five thousand copies or one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand copies and you have, you know, getting fifty percent
Speaker 2: of profit share, like at the time when you're in
Speaker 2: your early twenties, that's that's definitely enough to live off of,
Speaker 2: even if you're splitting it three ways.
Speaker 1: So by the time that you guys are out, I
Speaker 1: also know that every major label was looking up and
Speaker 1: down the aisles for the next big thing or whatever
Speaker 1: I mean. So at no point, like you know, I
Speaker 1: know you guys started off from Chainsaw and then the
Speaker 1: lovely titled Kill All rock Stars. First of all, with
Speaker 1: those labels, is that are there actual are these actual labels?
Speaker 1: Are just like okay, well, what are we going to
Speaker 1: call the label this time? Or like is that your
Speaker 1: label and you guys have a distribution system or is
Speaker 1: Kill All rock Stars like an actual label like sub
Speaker 1: Pop is, And you know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, Kill rock Stars is definitely an actual label,
Speaker 7: And and that point I think was pretty critical for
Speaker 7: us because after the first record came out on Chainsaw,
Speaker 7: which was a label run by fellow musicians, but they
Speaker 7: were like still touring that it was Jody and Donna
Speaker 7: from Team Drash, So that was, you know, problematic. We
Speaker 7: did have a time when we were corded by major
Speaker 7: labels before Digging Me Out, and we considered it. You know,
Speaker 7: we considered, we argued about it, we thought about it
Speaker 7: like crazy.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask you a question, okay, because
Speaker 1: I knew this was a parallel story with hip hop
Speaker 1: and with with with this movement, how at what point
Speaker 1: are you able to really relax and really not live
Speaker 1: in fear of the the idea of quote unquote selling out,
Speaker 1: you know, that that shadow following you, like the perception
Speaker 1: of how we're Because the thing is is that knowing
Speaker 1: what I know now and again because I worked backwards,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, like you know, and you can even
Speaker 1: tell them that like with the videos that you're doing
Speaker 1: now and all that stuff, like the humor element and
Speaker 1: all those things, that you're really showing your personalities. Whereas
Speaker 1: once I went back to the beginning and realized, like oh, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: it started off here and then you guys slowly blossomed
Speaker 1: into this thing. I can imagine that the perception of
Speaker 1: who you guys were as a group or trying to
Speaker 1: present also probably played, you know, decisions made by the band.
Speaker 1: And I always wanted to know, like how the perception
Speaker 1: of being seen as sellouts or being too successful? Should
Speaker 1: we do this commercial or should we signed to this label,
Speaker 1: this major label, like will we be the same? Like
Speaker 1: how important is that perception playing in the band at
Speaker 1: that period? And you're at least for the first three
Speaker 1: or four.
Speaker 5: Records, it was huge.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean you were around during that time too.
Speaker 2: I mean that it just was such a different beast.
Speaker 2: You know, this idea that somehow, you know, a major
Speaker 2: was going to you know, rob you of your artistic credibility,
Speaker 2: that by aligning yourself with anything that was corporated or commercial,
Speaker 2: you know, signified you know, something that was anti art uh,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 5: And there were a lot of arguments.
Speaker 2: Treaties, you know, books, zines, you know, and very lively
Speaker 2: polemic and a lot of real anger, I think from
Speaker 2: people that never really took into consideration how anyone grew
Speaker 2: up in terms of you know, if they had money
Speaker 2: and that, you know, like it just never. It was
Speaker 2: not a very nuanced conversation, but it was very real
Speaker 2: because you cared about your friends and to sort of admit,
Speaker 2: you know, I want something more than I can get.
Speaker 2: This route was really tricky, so we just we really
Speaker 2: didn't consider it. And I was probably the most hard
Speaker 2: line at the time. I was like the youngest, I
Speaker 2: was the baby in the band, and I think Korn
Speaker 2: was probably you probably were the most interesting, am I right?
Speaker 6: No, Steel Magnolia is the termine years.
Speaker 5: I was always my eyes were always on the.
Speaker 6: Business route more than anyone else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's good about that. But you know, there were
Speaker 5: also these horror stories.
Speaker 2: You know, you would for every band that had a
Speaker 2: decent relationship with their A and R person, there was
Speaker 2: someone that had signed to a major and been dropped,
Speaker 2: you know, like a band like Spoon or like or
Speaker 2: even coming from the Northwest, you see Nirvana, you see
Speaker 2: this this guy that was tort supposedly, you know, tortured
Speaker 2: by the fact that you know, he no longer felt
Speaker 2: connected to who he was and his fans.
Speaker 5: So there were all these cautionary tales.
Speaker 1: So can I ask and you know, maybe you can
Speaker 1: give me better insight because I never knew what happened
Speaker 1: at the end of it is do you think this
Speaker 1: is precisely the reason why Helmet didn't blow up, like
Speaker 1: the perception of because the thing is from an outsider.
Speaker 1: And again, my outsider status was more studied the stats,
Speaker 1: learn the names, but I never got I never got
Speaker 1: into the music. So as far as I knew, I
Speaker 1: knew there was a band that every label was salivating
Speaker 1: over and they gave them a seventh figure deal and
Speaker 1: it was Helmet, and they were going to be the
Speaker 1: next big thing, and then I didn't hear shit from them.
Speaker 1: And what's really weird was that when my band got
Speaker 1: approached by Geff and we were going to go to
Speaker 1: a whole nother label, we were ready to sign, and
Speaker 1: when Geffen came along, we were like, Okay, let's let's
Speaker 1: pull a Helmet and see what happens. And we called
Speaker 1: their bluff and called this big ass Argantua number and
Speaker 1: they took it, and then it's like, oh shit. But
Speaker 1: the difference is is like we never felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're selling out because we're taking a seven figure deal.
Speaker 1: It was like more like we made it out of
Speaker 1: poverty like that sort of thing. So you know, people
Speaker 1: were like, ah, y'all made it. That was the perception
Speaker 1: of it. But I always wanted to know, with Helmet making,
Speaker 1: you know, this this seventh figure deal and they're going
Speaker 1: to be the next Nirvana, Like, did that effect their
Speaker 1: fan base and the support from the Northwest from doing
Speaker 1: such a lofty move as in grabbing the money.
Speaker 5: In your opinion, I think it could be.
Speaker 6: I think you could make an argument that people were turned.
Speaker 1: Off by it, Okay, I see, I.
Speaker 6: Don't know. I don't know I could I just at
Speaker 6: the time, I think people.
Speaker 7: Talked about it, and you know, and and there was
Speaker 7: like an element of people kind of turning up their noses,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, yeah, But I also think there was
Speaker 2: such a it was such a time of anti pop,
Speaker 2: you know, anti sheen, and things were so compartmentalized genre wise,
Speaker 2: so it was like, you know, a band like Helmet
Speaker 2: or jaw Box, who also you know, was a DC
Speaker 2: band that went signed to a major. You know, these
Speaker 2: were these bands that were sort of admired for like
Speaker 2: their roughness, you know, Helmet, with their cool like corrosive
Speaker 2: sounding guitars, and like this grit and.
Speaker 5: Then they get a bun to money. And at the time,
Speaker 5: of course.
Speaker 2: They're gonna go they're gonna work with a better producer,
Speaker 2: they're going to work in a better studio, they're probably
Speaker 2: gonna have nicer like equipment. And that's like, at the time,
Speaker 2: was anathema to what people wanted to hear. Now people
Speaker 2: might be like, oh, that's that's cool, like you know,
Speaker 2: they're borrowing, you know, from other styles of music, or
Speaker 2: you know, it has a little bit more of a
Speaker 2: sparkle to it. But at the time that was like, oh,
Speaker 2: there we go. We have evidence that that and and
Speaker 2: that just went't happen today.
Speaker 1: Well, I do have a theory about it's less about that.
Speaker 1: I get worried when people start upgrading, you know, probably
Speaker 1: in the hip hop sense of that, you know, the Riza.
Speaker 1: The reason why like hip hop fans hang on so
Speaker 1: tightly to those very first six Wu Tang records is
Speaker 1: because you know they were made the lower the folklore
Speaker 1: of Wu Tang, the fact that he created this in
Speaker 1: his projects in Stapleton projects in Staten Island, and it
Speaker 1: was a very dirty, dusty sound, and you know that
Speaker 1: it got flooded out, and then of course you know,
Speaker 1: the Wu Tang blew up, and then he upgraded, and
Speaker 1: then they made their second album like in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: living in Beverly Hills, and the sound changed. It's too clean.
Speaker 1: Same thing for Prince Prince making his stuff in his bedroom.
Speaker 1: It's like the most perfect stuff in the world. Like,
Speaker 1: I love that sound. But the second he upgraded and
Speaker 1: got Paisley Park or whatever, and then the sound just,
Speaker 1: you know, it sounded more vagacy to me and not
Speaker 1: like raw, and so I get worried when people upgrade,
Speaker 1: so which I guess that's probably the same perception that
Speaker 1: the sound changes or whatnot. So by the time you
Speaker 1: guys get past Me Out and like get to like
Speaker 1: the hot rock or whatever. I mean, at what point
Speaker 1: are you guys even thinking of like changing your sound
Speaker 1: or trying new ideas. And how comfortable were you into
Speaker 1: making that pivot from where you were when you first
Speaker 1: started the band.
Speaker 5: I feel like.
Speaker 2: We always I think I think that was the moment
Speaker 2: that was exactly the moment that we made our first pivot,
Speaker 2: that it just there was no way to repeat dig
Speaker 2: Me Out like it had just come from such a
Speaker 2: place of forcefulness that there's just no way to relax
Speaker 2: to that record, Like it just starts on ten and
Speaker 2: ends on ten and it just has this you know,
Speaker 2: this catharsis and it's just like, yeah, it's a long
Speaker 2: kind of scream with some you know, different iterations. And
Speaker 2: with the Hot Rock, we just knew we couldn't repeat
Speaker 2: dig Me Out. We just knew like this, we can't
Speaker 2: be part two. So I think we just created like
Speaker 2: this much more introspective of landscape. And I think that
Speaker 2: set us up correctly because people could not you know,
Speaker 2: at the time, like you're saying, like critics were much
Speaker 2: more there was. It was more centralized in terms of
Speaker 2: like the power of like a critic, so that we
Speaker 2: just didn't want them to say, like it's dig Me Out,
Speaker 2: but not as good or not as intense, and so
Speaker 2: we made the Hot Rock.
Speaker 1: I will also say that I have an envy for
Speaker 1: artists that have the ability to really get their point
Speaker 1: out and under like two minutes. Like again, if I'm
Speaker 1: given the space to create like a gargantuan, you know,
Speaker 1: twelve minute art song, like I'm that guy, But if
Speaker 1: you only give me two minutes to do something, and
Speaker 1: I can't and the fact that, especially like your debut album,
Speaker 1: like half the songs are like under you know, it's
Speaker 1: like average length is like two minutes and ten seconds
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean. Is anyone teaching you about song structure?
Speaker 1: Are you guys like purposely taken from like the Ramones
Speaker 1: handbook or it's just like, Okay, the average punk song
Speaker 1: has to be under this length to get so much
Speaker 1: information out like lyrically and all that content wise, and
Speaker 1: under such a short period of time, Like that's that's
Speaker 1: almost a gift. But did it come from a place
Speaker 1: where you guys purposely wanted to structure it like that
Speaker 1: or you know, or is it that as you got
Speaker 1: further along in the recording process, then you guys are
Speaker 1: realizing that like, oh well, there's space for a bridge here,
Speaker 1: or maybe a guitar solo there, or like stretch out
Speaker 1: the songs make them longer. But you know, like for
Speaker 1: your first two albums, like the length of both of
Speaker 1: them were definitely under a half hour. I think your
Speaker 1: first album is at least twenty minutes. So just talk
Speaker 1: about like the at least the songwriting process of how
Speaker 1: you guys in the beginning were writing songs as opposed
Speaker 1: to really getting in the rhythm of presenting these songs's
Speaker 1: the what's your work mode when you're creating songs.
Speaker 6: I think that so much of it was.
Speaker 7: Instinctual and jamming and and honestly, at the beginning, there
Speaker 7: wasn't a lot of even dialogue about like how can
Speaker 7: we make this song better? It was just like, you know,
Speaker 7: Carrie would start playing something. She'd play a riff and
Speaker 7: I'd be like, keep playing that, you know, and and
Speaker 7: start singing a vocal over it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: She's so much more of like a like a like
Speaker 7: a melody writer with guitar, and I was like, I like,
Speaker 7: go off of my vocal when I'm writing, Like, that's
Speaker 7: where the music comes from for me for the most part,
Speaker 7: and I'm just trying to get I'm trying to start
Speaker 7: a story and get a melody that is.
Speaker 6: Compelling and follow it down.
Speaker 7: And so there wasn't a lot of That's why I
Speaker 7: think the songs are so short is because they're they
Speaker 7: are almost like poems.
Speaker 6: When they worked well, I thought.
Speaker 1: Do you start with the lyrics or or music first?
Speaker 1: Like what's your comfort zone? When when a song comes
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 7: It's it's the it's the vocals, it's the melody, just
Speaker 7: gibberish usually at the.
Speaker 5: Beginning, yeah, of course, and then it's always.
Speaker 7: Just going back and back and making them try and
Speaker 7: make the lyrics better and better, you know.
Speaker 6: Usually.
Speaker 1: I do want to know what was the decision on
Speaker 1: the Hot Rock Also, that's the one album that that
Speaker 1: John didn't produce with you guys, what was the decision
Speaker 1: to not work with him? I forget who produced the
Speaker 1: Hot Rock record, But.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was this guy, Roger Mutino, who had worked
Speaker 2: with a band from Hoboken, Yola Tango. Okay, yeah, and
Speaker 2: and Yola Tango. We're definitely having a moment at the
Speaker 2: time that they were people who we really admired, and
Speaker 2: you know, we were like, who produced the last Yelatango record?
Speaker 2: And for us, you know, again it was were trying
Speaker 2: to get outside of our comfort zone. And John had
Speaker 2: gone to the same college as all of us, and
Speaker 2: you know, he had worked with Bikini Kill and he
Speaker 2: you know, it was just like, what if we brought
Speaker 2: in someone from a slightly different world and he he
Speaker 2: was he lived in Nashville, and you know, Yola Tanga
Speaker 2: was kind of an anomaly for him, he worked with
Speaker 2: a lot more singer songwriters, and he definitely approached our
Speaker 2: band a lot differently. There's not a lot of it's
Speaker 2: not a very distorted record in terms of guitars. He
Speaker 2: really you know, was I just remember you know, he yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a lot cleaner, and he was just like he
Speaker 2: just loved Korn. Janet and I were just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like he just was like, oh, Korn, Korn krant and
Speaker 2: it was yeah, and which is fine, but we had
Speaker 2: just never been treated like that. And but you know,
Speaker 2: it's it wasn't the first or it was the first time.
Speaker 2: It definitely wasn't the last time where someone like singles
Speaker 2: someone out. But it was just funny because you know,
Speaker 2: usually you're like, no, we're a band, and he was like,
Speaker 2: now Korn.
Speaker 5: I loved that. I loved that.
Speaker 2: But we really liked working with Roger. But it was
Speaker 2: just it was different, and I'm glad we did something different.
Speaker 1: I'm also you know, curious about the group dynamic, especially
Speaker 1: with a group with a legacy is yours. How important
Speaker 1: is it to maintain a personal friendship in lieu the
Speaker 1: fact that you guys are also having a business, Like
Speaker 1: I went through a period where like we started out
Speaker 1: as best friends and then somewhere by the third record,
Speaker 1: then it's like we're just business partners, and then all right,
Speaker 1: two tour buses and then I'll see you at the
Speaker 1: gig and then you know, like we're I'll say, in
Speaker 1: the last three years, like Treak and I really like
Speaker 1: getting back to us really being friends again and not
Speaker 1: just about business. But how can you how do you
Speaker 1: balance that when you're also businessiness partners and friends? Like
Speaker 1: how do you how's that balanced? Or is it just
Speaker 1: like on the off season or was it why that
Speaker 1: nine year hiatus happened?
Speaker 7: I mean I think that, you know, like we were
Speaker 7: saying at the beginning, it feels like we've been on
Speaker 7: a journey, right, and I feel like sometimes we've balanced things,
Speaker 7: you know, like dig me out. We were all so young,
Speaker 7: but we were figuring all that kind of stuff out.
Speaker 7: How do we how are we in a band? How
Speaker 7: are we friends? How are we running our own business?
Speaker 7: How's it like worked really well? And sometimes it didn't?
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think similar to what you're saying, Amra's like,
Speaker 2: it's it's shifted, you know, And I think there was
Speaker 2: a time I think where we didn't intentionally you know,
Speaker 2: care for it, like you know, nurture it, because you
Speaker 2: just kind of assume, well, we can, we can do
Speaker 2: all this. We can we'll be friends and we'll run
Speaker 2: this business. But I think the business party you start
Speaker 2: to realize, well, that has its own like politics to it,
Speaker 2: and sometimes those do not overlap really well, and you
Speaker 2: have to kind of protect both. And as friends you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: why are we favoring the business? You know, You're like,
Speaker 2: which one are we favoring in that moment, and that
Speaker 2: can get really volatile. I think when we came back
Speaker 2: after the hiatus, and we did we all kept in
Speaker 2: touch during that time, was it an.
Speaker 1: Actual conversation like we should take a break and an
Speaker 1: indefinite break, like do we take off for five years
Speaker 1: or let's take off for a decade or well?
Speaker 2: I think Ian Mackay from Ugazia he claims he invented
Speaker 2: the term hiatus or indefinite hiatus, and I wilso I'll
Speaker 2: just give him credit for that. But I think we
Speaker 2: just use that term because we weren't sure. I think
Speaker 2: we thought we were done right korin didn't. It felt
Speaker 2: kind of like we were done. I didn't think so,
Speaker 2: oh we'll see here we go.
Speaker 1: So after the last gig, like was it like okay,
Speaker 1: we'll talk or you know when we went on how
Speaker 1: you do? I think the Woods. The Woods was the
Speaker 1: last album of that period. So after the end of
Speaker 1: The Woods and I'm assuming that you tore it behind
Speaker 1: it or not, I think, yeah, it was it was
Speaker 1: the Woods. Yeah, then what like what happened a month
Speaker 1: later or just a year or two go by and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh shit, we haven't wrote a written a
Speaker 1: song in a second or I'm gonna do no, it.
Speaker 6: Was like right, or I got pregnant.
Speaker 1: That's also okay, I totally forgot that motherhood also play Yeah.
Speaker 5: Korin was going to have another baby and I was.
Speaker 2: I anxiety like ruled my life back then, like it
Speaker 2: just and I just had a ton of Yeah. I
Speaker 2: mean we all know people who have anxiety. Like now
Speaker 2: that I feel like that part of my life is
Speaker 2: in check, I can see the amount of energy it
Speaker 2: takes to be around someone that has totally like unmitigated
Speaker 2: anxiety because you're just always you have to like suppress
Speaker 2: all your own shit. Yeah, so that they can like
Speaker 2: figure shit out, And I think that was kind of
Speaker 2: me in the band. You know, everyone was like, oh gosh,
Speaker 2: you know, Carrie's dealing with all this stuff, and so
Speaker 2: I think everyone was like, this is not worth it.
Speaker 5: You know. Korn's like, if I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to leave one kid and be on tour, have
Speaker 2: to bring a kid on tour, this better be worth it,
Speaker 2: you know. And it just it was a natural breaking point,
Speaker 2: I think. So we were not like sitting around like
Speaker 2: waiting to write other songs. It was like, we're done.
Speaker 8: How did you you talk about your anxiety and kind
Speaker 8: of working through that?
Speaker 1: How did you work through those struggles?
Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, I went to therapy. I just I
Speaker 5: just did it.
Speaker 2: I just went and I was like I need help
Speaker 2: with this, you know, and I just worked some stuff
Speaker 2: out that felt like it was kind of you know,
Speaker 2: anxiety I think is just such a classic flip side
Speaker 2: to depression. And when you start realizing that really you're
Speaker 2: just expressing like fear and sadness in a way that's
Speaker 2: like much more outward, you know, you start kind of
Speaker 2: getting through it. And now, I mean, Corn, you can testify,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm way more chill.
Speaker 6: Way more chill.
Speaker 7: And that's part of like how we work through being
Speaker 7: friends and business partners is because we both worked on
Speaker 7: stuff on our own before we said like, let's play
Speaker 7: music together again.
Speaker 6: It's like we actually did some stuff, did some growing up.
Speaker 1: Wait, I have a theory. I know we're going to
Speaker 1: have to let you go soon, and I want to
Speaker 1: get to the end. I'm trying to like rush through
Speaker 1: each record. But I have a theory, all right. So
Speaker 1: when I started doing my the deep dive you carry
Speaker 1: your book came out when twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, say it was a year after year books. I
Speaker 2: remember we did those co interviews.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those things together. Okay, So I always had a
Speaker 1: theory that whenever I gravitate towards a particular album and
Speaker 1: someone's cannon, it's always the wrong album I gravitate towards
Speaker 1: like I love Hot Rocks by the Stones, I love
Speaker 1: rat On hum By YouTube, Like I'm always picking the
Speaker 1: wrong damn album and their thing. And I'm afraid what
Speaker 1: is Because again, all of your albums are critically acclaimed,
Speaker 1: but for you personally, what is your feeling behind one?
Speaker 1: Because I really loved of all your records, one Beat
Speaker 1: was my favorite, but what is the like I want
Speaker 1: to know if I chose the wrong album or not.
Speaker 1: Like in terms of like when people come to me
Speaker 1: and say, yo, man, I love the Tipping Point, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I fucking hate the Tipping Point.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 1: I feel uncomfortable. But like with one beat in your
Speaker 1: or at least in your canon, what do you feel
Speaker 1: that your your best work that represents you?
Speaker 3: Is you think like an artist is just gonna cop
Speaker 3: to the record they don't like the most? Do you
Speaker 3: think like YouTube wrote YouTube like rattled Home sucks like
Speaker 3: or whatever it is like talk.
Speaker 1: About about rattling hum Okay in hindsight, no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: still stand by it. But I usually when I talk
Speaker 1: to fellow music snobs when it comes to my rock shit,
Speaker 1: like I like Presents by Zeppelin when I should be
Speaker 1: liking Physical Graffiti, but for some reason, I always liked that.
Speaker 1: I like three minus three, that's my favorite. But that's
Speaker 1: classic right because that was also a departure record, So
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the departure record. But in your canon,
Speaker 1: what do you feel is your favorite? No, what is
Speaker 1: your favorite and what do you feel your departure record?
Speaker 7: I mean one is one of my favorites because it's it's.
Speaker 1: Like I'm growing up then.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's because it's like such a record of it's
Speaker 7: so emotional.
Speaker 6: It was when I was right after I had my son.
Speaker 7: So a lot of the songs are about like that experience,
Speaker 7: about joy and about like the fear of you know,
Speaker 7: having this thing that you love more than anything in
Speaker 7: this kind of dangerous world.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I think when we definitely stand by one
Speaker 2: Beat for years, it was the album before that, All
Speaker 2: Hands on the Bad One that I think we would.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to assess because it was definitely
Speaker 2: the first album where there was I think Rolling Stone
Speaker 2: called it the dog Biscuit of our of our catalog. Wow,
Speaker 2: And I remember just looking at those words dog biscuit.
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, that's harsh.
Speaker 1: How important is the critical claim to you? Not, you know,
Speaker 1: like having a like a perfect report card, Like are
Speaker 1: you obsessed with keeping it on that level?
Speaker 2: No? Because we we we blew it up on the
Speaker 2: on the last two records, people were like, oh this now,
Speaker 2: that's I mean, you know the Saint Vincent record that
Speaker 2: she produced for uh, that's our definite departure record. I
Speaker 2: like it too, and I think it's funny because now
Speaker 2: people like it.
Speaker 5: It took it, you know, it took the year and
Speaker 5: a half or two years.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think people liked it at the time,
Speaker 2: but it might not have been the same people that
Speaker 2: liked dig Me out of One Beat. Like, we got
Speaker 2: a lot of new fans on the last record, and
Speaker 2: we have got a lot of new fans on this
Speaker 2: record too, but the people that it was a.
Speaker 1: Very experimental record. Yeah, well you guys came on the
Speaker 1: show to promote, Like, yeah, I was, I was into it.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask what was it like working
Speaker 1: with Saint Vincent.
Speaker 6: She was great. We learned so much from her.
Speaker 7: I mean, she's so, she's so she approaches a song
Speaker 7: and songwriting with such a like a larger vision.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: She she'll go in and and just you know, take
Speaker 7: a vocal part that I was doing and like a.
Speaker 6: Certain register and be like, well what if you bump
Speaker 6: it up to octaves?
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, push yourself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's such a maximalist.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, like you were talking about
Speaker 2: our early material, like there was there's a lot of
Speaker 2: minimal there. There was a lot of just this kind
Speaker 2: of like raw stripped back, you know, essence to the band,
Speaker 2: and I think she just she created this density in
Speaker 2: there that I thought was interesting. You know for us,
Speaker 2: that's a new thing to explore. It's a different way
Speaker 2: to get out some of the emotionality.
Speaker 1: Okay, so with the Path of Wellness. Of course, this
Speaker 1: is your first album without Janet and the band. So
Speaker 1: first of all, what was the process like creating an album,
Speaker 1: you know, in the face of the apocalypse. I'm curious
Speaker 1: about anybody that's in a creative space like that starts
Speaker 1: their process like around June July or whatever like. So
Speaker 1: he explained that the process of creating this record, especially
Speaker 1: the fact that I would assume that you guys started
Speaker 1: in you know, somewhere in twenty twenty, where's your headspace?
Speaker 1: And how are you not or were you using the
Speaker 1: energy of the panic of the world to create this album?
Speaker 2: I mean a little of both. And we actually started
Speaker 2: it so it we were supposed to go on tour
Speaker 2: with Wilco last summer and you know, it was like
Speaker 2: the end of the touring cycle for the Center Hold.
Speaker 2: So it's you know, those like secondary tertiary markets were
Speaker 2: just like amphitheaters, in the summer. Yeah, yeah, the Shed tour,
Speaker 2: and so we were imagining we started writing some songs,
Speaker 2: thinking like, oh well, maybe like road test some new material,
Speaker 2: and it had this like very sort of like outdoors
Speaker 2: feel like it was like we're making music to connect
Speaker 2: with people in this in this like collective spaces, sunny days,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden it was like the pandemic.
Speaker 2: But we still had I think musically something left over
Speaker 2: from that feeling. So I think we started in a
Speaker 2: place where the music felt like it was trying to
Speaker 2: imagine like togetherness, but then we were in this like
Speaker 2: claw strophobic, fearful, insular space, you know, with so much
Speaker 2: strife up front of different kinds going on around us,
Speaker 2: you know, from protests to force you know, wildfires to
Speaker 2: the pandemic itself, and so you get this kind of
Speaker 2: like narrow, like very I don't know, just kind of
Speaker 2: these lyrics that are like trying to wrestle with all
Speaker 2: these things over music that has I think some lyft
Speaker 2: to it. So it's a little bit of like a
Speaker 2: I don't know, two things kind of meeting in the center.
Speaker 5: What do you think you.
Speaker 1: Guys currently are in Portland right now or yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what exactly is going on in Portland right now? Where
Speaker 1: it's like it's a side of Portland I never knew existed,
Speaker 1: like politically, Like just what's been going on the last
Speaker 1: year and a half? Is it still happening? Like can
Speaker 1: you just basically explain like what the environment is like
Speaker 1: there now?
Speaker 7: I think unfortunately, it's still pretty tense, you know, like
Speaker 7: in terms of protesting and the different groups that are
Speaker 7: drawn to Portland. I mean we have this we have
Speaker 7: a police force that is out of date and I'll
Speaker 7: put it wildly, they're very out of date and how
Speaker 7: they're doing things right. We have these very radical left
Speaker 7: wing protesters, and we also have this very rural white
Speaker 7: conservative group that loves to come into Portland and just
Speaker 7: cause trouble. So we still have a lot of these
Speaker 7: different factions going on. So it's it's we still have
Speaker 7: a lot of work to do here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's I mean there was definitely a
Speaker 2: reckoning like there there was in many cities, and you
Speaker 2: know there are groups here like don't shoot PDX and
Speaker 2: care not cops that have been working for you know,
Speaker 2: racial justice and you know, to get rid of like
Speaker 2: dismantle like the police the way policing is now for years,
Speaker 2: you know. And then of course that coalesced with the
Speaker 2: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor protests and the BLM movement, and
Speaker 2: that was what was happening last summer. But then you
Speaker 2: also had a faction that we're not really aligned with
Speaker 2: that that were just there to like function up. And
Speaker 2: so there's the people that are still kind of protesting,
Speaker 2: tend to be not in the BLM movement, tend to
Speaker 2: just be a little more in the Antifa thing. And
Speaker 2: it's not that I disagree with everything Antifa stands for,
Speaker 2: but it is it's the city is has a long
Speaker 2: way to go, I think, for like figuring out how
Speaker 2: to coalesce some of these ideas and actually make progress.
Speaker 2: But luckily there are people who have been working at
Speaker 2: us for a while that hopefully will kind of have
Speaker 2: their voice heard now that I think are hopefully having
Speaker 2: a platform to make changes. But yeah, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: sure people have been calling anyone I know that lives
Speaker 2: in Portland, had everyone like texting them like what is
Speaker 2: going on?
Speaker 5: It just seemed so crazy for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was shocked. I was like, well, I had
Speaker 1: to readjust my list all right, before I let you go, Carrie,
Speaker 1: I got to ask you have you met her yet?
Speaker 2: No? Okay, let's retall. Let's recall when we were on
Speaker 2: the Tonight Show.
Speaker 1: How could you waste such an opportunity?
Speaker 2: I know, but that was so stressful because remember she
Speaker 2: was running late, Yeah, she was running late, and then.
Speaker 1: And who Okay, so you know there's there's a special
Speaker 1: place in Carrie's art for Madonna the twelve years old
Speaker 1: and Carrie is you know, and you know at the
Speaker 1: time when we signed and changed, well not changed to
Speaker 1: our management when Rich passed and we sort of merged
Speaker 1: to Maverick management. Of course, you know, guys was running
Speaker 1: it and kind of you're down with guy, then you
Speaker 1: might be down with Madge as well. So, knowing how
Speaker 1: much of a fan that carry was, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta make this shit happen, because you know, the
Speaker 1: group was on the show when Madonna was the couch guest,
Speaker 1: and so even in touring, like you guys were touring
Speaker 1: in Australia whatever, and I found out she was there too,
Speaker 1: and I no.
Speaker 5: You hooked us up. It was That was a great night.
Speaker 2: We went and saw her in a tiny club that
Speaker 2: was the best, and so I that's all I want you.
Speaker 5: I'm already delivered. I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1: So you are you one of those people that like
Speaker 1: you don't want to meet your idols.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm fine with that proximity going to You're
Speaker 2: satisfied with this.
Speaker 5: You have more than delivered. I am. I'm grateful. I
Speaker 5: don't know what else we could do at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be anti club acted. I get it.
Speaker 1: I get it. I was reading Carrie.
Speaker 8: A good buddy of mine, buddy, Craig Jenkins, he interviewed
Speaker 8: you guys last it was last year. It was for
Speaker 8: the for the for the new record, and you were
Speaker 8: at the interview. You're talking about a Heart documentary or
Speaker 8: not a documentary. I guess the Anne Wilson.
Speaker 5: Oh, the biopick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, biopick. Yeah, where's that at? What's the status
Speaker 1: on it?
Speaker 5: We're casting right now.
Speaker 2: And as I was telling, as I was telling Greg,
Speaker 2: it is so hard because I mean, you say the
Speaker 2: word biopick and everyone, like any music fan, just like
Speaker 2: braces themselves because they're like, oh god, you.
Speaker 5: Know there's there's a line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some great examples, and there's some ones where
Speaker 2: you're just like, how did they cast this person?
Speaker 5: This is not about music, but I.
Speaker 2: Wrote it, and you know, I hopefully it's a different
Speaker 2: perspective because I've come up in the Northwest, Like I
Speaker 2: love writing about music. I'm trying to make it for
Speaker 2: music fans as much as for movie fans. But we're
Speaker 2: casting and we've got to get it right. So that's
Speaker 2: where it's at.
Speaker 1: That's so dope. Good luck. Wait, I got one more
Speaker 1: last one before we go. Did I not hear a
Speaker 1: rumor that you were considering of turning your uh your
Speaker 1: book into a series, a TV series.
Speaker 2: Or I tried, I made You've got so far as
Speaker 2: to make the pilot and then and then the network
Speaker 2: didn't pick it up.
Speaker 1: Wait, there's a pilot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll send it to you. It was cool. But
Speaker 5: I'm anyway, I'm.
Speaker 2: Excited for you because you've got this amazing movie coming out.
Speaker 2: It's coming coming right, Okay, fine, but anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it comes out, it comes out July second, and
Speaker 1: I'm excited.
Speaker 5: So we're excited.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not trying to deflect. Wow, how could
Speaker 1: you pitch your own movie on I mean what the heck,
Speaker 1: cool man, Trust me, That's why I got Disney for.
Speaker 1: I like to thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, and you know I'm I'm an admirer
Speaker 1: of of of of you guys and and and your band,
Speaker 1: and thank you for blessing on this on the show,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Sleeper, Kidney or Quest Left Supreme U. Bill, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: congratulations on your success as well. And we're all successful.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic, Tony Well, it's been an honor to be
Speaker 2: on this show with you, you know, and with all
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Yeah, thank you for hanging out with us.
Speaker 1: This is fun, all right, Sugar, Steve, Bill, and La.
Speaker 1: This is Quest Love and we'll see you in the
Speaker 1: next go round.
Speaker 9: Hey, this is Sugar Steed. Make sure you keep up
Speaker 9: with us on Instagram at q l S and let
Speaker 9: us know what you think and who should be next
Speaker 9: to sit down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to
Speaker 9: our podcast.
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of Ihearted Radio. For
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