Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to What Future.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Joshua Tapolski, and today we have a
Speaker 2: very special episode. I have to say, I want to
Speaker 2: bring it just bring it down a notch. I want
Speaker 2: to bring it down several notches. Very special episode. You
Speaker 2: may or may not know this, but my brother I
Speaker 2: have a brother. First off, he may or may not
Speaker 2: know that. His name is Eric, and he's my older brother.
Speaker 2: Though many people say that they think I'm the older
Speaker 2: brother because I'm so sophisticated and mature. Eric is a musician.
Speaker 2: We've made music together, but also he's made a lot
Speaker 2: of music separately, and he has a band. You've probably
Speaker 2: heard me talk about before.
Speaker 1: Maybe you haven't. I don't know. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you've heard.
Speaker 2: I don't even know who I'm talking to when I
Speaker 2: say you, I'm not sure who I'm envisioning. But at
Speaker 2: any rate, he's got a man called Tan Lines with
Speaker 2: his friend Jesse, our friend Jesse. They've made a lot
Speaker 2: of music and then they took a break, and they've
Speaker 2: just recently released a new record called The Big Mess
Speaker 2: on Merge Records, which is a great label. You know,
Speaker 2: I say this understanding that I can't give a fair
Speaker 2: and balanced review like a Fox News host. I can't
Speaker 2: just go straight down the line and tell you know
Speaker 2: the truth, but I will say my truth is I
Speaker 2: think it's a great record and it's got really really good, smart, interesting,
Speaker 2: sometimes funny songs on it. Again, I say this as
Speaker 2: a as a man with a lot of personal investment
Speaker 2: in the record, because my brother made it, you know,
Speaker 2: and I like to support stuff he does. But I
Speaker 2: will say forgetting that I can be a very cruel
Speaker 2: and mean spirited brother, and I think if the record sucked,
Speaker 2: I would definitely say it.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't.
Speaker 2: I really enjoy it, and so I thought it'd be
Speaker 2: fun to have him and Jesse on the.
Speaker 1: Podcast to talk about making.
Speaker 2: The record and probably you know, some other things, because
Speaker 2: they're both very interesting guys with a lot to say.
Speaker 1: So that's what I've done.
Speaker 2: We've got Eric and Jesse here and we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about music and more so, let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: We're here to talk about a new record. Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 3: What I'm is that what I'm to understand.
Speaker 2: They're telling me that you guys have put out a
Speaker 2: hot new LP. Now I haven't listened to, but everybody
Speaker 2: on the team has listened to it and they say
Speaker 2: it's just fantastic, just terrific stuff. So tell me a
Speaker 2: little bit first off, tell me a little bit about
Speaker 2: yourselves and tell me about this new album.
Speaker 4: So this is Josh's Morning Zoo.
Speaker 2: Right, So the tan Line has just put out this
Speaker 2: new album and Tony, have you heard this here?
Speaker 1: It's crazy music. I don't even know what the of
Speaker 1: these songs are they are they? Are they singing? Are
Speaker 1: they rapping? No one knows anyhow.
Speaker 2: Okay, so tan Lines, you went on hiatus, you both
Speaker 2: had several children.
Speaker 3: Is this how you do the pod?
Speaker 1: I just go in.
Speaker 2: I don't do this intro shit. I'm here with Jess,
Speaker 2: you neric from tan Lines. I don't do that shit.
Speaker 2: That's fucking dumb. But you do it like you record
Speaker 2: like an intro. Later later I'll do an intro, like
Speaker 2: a little bit of me talking about like why we're
Speaker 2: doing this podcast.
Speaker 1: And I like that.
Speaker 2: You've listened to the show, you know now? You know
Speaker 2: so obviously you've listened to many I've been off podcasts
Speaker 2: on it. Fair enough, listen, like I said, I've said,
Speaker 2: yet to listen. I sit down and put the album on.
Speaker 2: You know, but I heard there's some great tunes on it.
Speaker 2: I've told there's some great music on that thing. You
Speaker 2: heard the test Press. I've heard all of it. I've
Speaker 2: heard the album many times. We have it down at
Speaker 2: the store. We put it on, you know, and it's
Speaker 2: like that scene in High Fidelity when Jack Black puts
Speaker 2: on with some whatever records. I'm obscure. It's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's Jesus Lizard or something. Everybody's like, you know,
Speaker 2: what is this is great? And he sells six copies
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 4: But what do people buy when our album's playing?
Speaker 2: Actually, the other day a guy bought Sounds to the
Speaker 2: Lambs Bastick River and he passed on a Heat too
Speaker 2: because he hadn't seen the movie yet, which is strange
Speaker 2: to me because he was like a forty year old man, so.
Speaker 4: I've never seen Heat.
Speaker 1: I mean that we should just do a whole show
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 2: We should just I don't want to talk about anything else,
Speaker 2: actually except that you're I don't want to. We don't
Speaker 2: have to get into your exact age, but let's just
Speaker 2: say you're you're forty three, You're okay if you want
Speaker 2: to put it out there.
Speaker 1: That's fine. If you want your Wikipedia page.
Speaker 2: To be updated, have had it, but please should be
Speaker 2: so lucky. But you're a forty three year old man
Speaker 2: in America. Yeah, and you've never seen Michael Mann's nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five crime drama Heat.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That's weird, is there? And you've admitted that from the
Speaker 2: films you've watched it something? Do you have something against
Speaker 2: Michael Mann or do you hate great films?
Speaker 3: Or what is it?
Speaker 4: I think it's really long. It's like two and a
Speaker 4: half hours. It's average nowadays.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like, it's not eighty eight minutes like
Speaker 2: a movie from nineteen eighty six. But you know, you
Speaker 2: could do it. I think two sittings. Maybe I heard it.
Speaker 2: It looks like slow and has gun violence. And I'm
Speaker 2: not a big with Pacino and de Niro.
Speaker 3: I'm not.
Speaker 4: I don't really care about either of them.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Actually, I guess say something. There are some scenes of
Speaker 2: gun violence in it. That's correct, though. I will say
Speaker 2: the film is punctuated by gun violence, but I would
Speaker 2: not say that's the center of the film's drama, if
Speaker 2: that makes any sense.
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess the allure of those two actors
Speaker 4: doing a movie together just didn't speak to me.
Speaker 1: That's unusual. But beyond that, I forget about the actors.
Speaker 2: Forget about Pacino and Danira, who are of course both
Speaker 2: Oscar winning actors, and I would say at the time
Speaker 2: they did heat at really the top of their game.
Speaker 1: Eric, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 4: But the Oscars famously have never been wrong.
Speaker 3: Too. Well.
Speaker 2: Wow, Actually, I think we're getting a little bit of
Speaker 2: a look into what drives you know, at least some
Speaker 2: of tan lines, at least one half of tan lines.
Speaker 2: So we're getting a picture, a little peak behind the
Speaker 2: curtain of a man who's it's against against nature, against
Speaker 2: the against good things. As the wave comes crashing, you
Speaker 2: stand unmoved.
Speaker 1: By the motion of the sea. And I think that
Speaker 1: says something about.
Speaker 4: You could say that I danced to my own drum machine.
Speaker 2: You could say that, and you have. And now it's
Speaker 2: going to go on the promo clip for this episode.
Speaker 2: So so you know, it's your you made, it's your
Speaker 2: it's your show, it's your bed to make, and you've
Speaker 2: certainly done it.
Speaker 4: It's my epitaph.
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, now we got now that we shook
Speaker 2: our sillies out, as they say, I think we can
Speaker 2: delve in to the real reason we're here. First off,
Speaker 2: I should say up front, I guess I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Who's listening to this podcast that doesn't know this, but
Speaker 2: I'm gonna just I want to put it out there
Speaker 2: for the for the sake of transparency, I want to
Speaker 2: fully disclose the relationship here.
Speaker 1: Eric and I are brothers.
Speaker 2: We grew up together in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and we shared
Speaker 2: a home for at least a few years, and we
Speaker 2: do share parents.
Speaker 1: True or false, all.
Speaker 2: True, and and Jesse's just a buddy. But I think
Speaker 2: if we told people he was related to us, they
Speaker 2: wouldn't They would not bat an eye. They would go, yeah,
Speaker 2: three Jews just hanging.
Speaker 3: Out tall, one tall, three tall Jews?
Speaker 2: Which was it? I'd understand one of the alternate names
Speaker 2: for tan lines before you went with that. Okay, you'll
Speaker 2: get back into it.
Speaker 3: Here we go. Jesse was just telling me the Jews
Speaker 3: are typically short, and I didn't really think that's that's
Speaker 3: a thing.
Speaker 2: I think, like a Portnoy's Complaint era, Jew is considered
Speaker 2: to be kind of a you know, and that there's
Speaker 2: a corridor let's you know, where there's the Jews and
Speaker 2: popular literature are depicted like a Woody Allen.
Speaker 3: This would be a kind of prototype exactly the example
Speaker 3: he used. Yeah, well, Woody Allen.
Speaker 2: But but I want to say that that the main
Speaker 2: character of port Nooy's complaint, whose name I believe is,
Speaker 2: I want to say Portnoy, Yes, oh port Noise complaint.
Speaker 2: You for Rebby, He wants a heat interested. I want
Speaker 2: to say he's described as being short, but I'm not
Speaker 2: actually sure if that's true or not. He's he has
Speaker 2: a short personality, that's for sure. Certainly gives short, Yes,
Speaker 2: he's giving, he's giving short. Anyhow, Eric and I are brothers.
Speaker 2: Jesse and I are not, and but we have worked
Speaker 2: on music together in the past. We have worked on
Speaker 2: Professor Murder music, a former band of yours, which you
Speaker 2: know the other day I was listening to and I
Speaker 2: have to say, pretty good, holds up, pretty good stuff,
Speaker 2: pretty enjoyable.
Speaker 4: Love that all right.
Speaker 2: So look, we're gonna get deep inside the guts of
Speaker 2: the music industry in your place within it. But I
Speaker 2: want to start at the very beginning. Do you know
Speaker 2: the official year that tan Lines became a thing. What
Speaker 2: was it? We printed it on the shirts? Two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight. All right, two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: You guys are making what I would describe as a
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, to be honest with you, when
Speaker 1: I first heard tan lines. Now the listener may know,
Speaker 1: hopefully the listener knows.
Speaker 2: You know, I used to make music. I used to
Speaker 2: make technive music. Actually, I just released to electronic dance
Speaker 2: songs recently in the last month or two, just for
Speaker 2: shits and giggles, just for the hell of it, you know,
Speaker 2: for sport.
Speaker 1: But I used to make music.
Speaker 2: And when you guys started making music together, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: they're making You guys are sort of making like dance music,
Speaker 2: which I thought was surprising.
Speaker 1: Well, Professor Murder had a dance vibe to it. But
Speaker 1: I mean, Eric, you never expressed an interest in techno
Speaker 1: music when we were working on music together.
Speaker 3: Do you think that was do you think that was personal?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm thinking back to the dance group that
Speaker 3: we had before Dan one dance track, that's true, Yeah,
Speaker 3: going globus, that's true.
Speaker 1: So we didn't make a lot of dance music though, you.
Speaker 3: Know those records come up sometimes on eBay. They do?
Speaker 3: Are they valuable?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Also I'm trying to remember how I saw this. They're
Speaker 3: signed photos of tan lines, you know, on eBay of me,
Speaker 3: Like I did. I googled myself and it came up
Speaker 3: in an eBay search, And I'm like, I have one
Speaker 3: specific memory of like an autograph shark, Like this is
Speaker 3: a guy that just gets everyone's autograph so he could
Speaker 3: sell later. And this was outside the Jimmy Fallon show. Okay,
Speaker 3: And like this guy was not a fan. I could
Speaker 3: tell this guy goes to every show. There was a
Speaker 3: music artist with a right, if ever I should become famous. Right,
Speaker 3: it's like a little investment. Right, that's smart.
Speaker 2: Actually not a lot of effort, low investment on his part,
Speaker 2: but high reward.
Speaker 3: Possibly.
Speaker 4: Oh, it takes a whole day. He has to spend
Speaker 4: the day waiting outside the Jimmy Fallon.
Speaker 1: Sure, well he probably makes it today event you can go.
Speaker 3: You could start at the Today show in the morning
Speaker 3: and work all the way into doing.
Speaker 1: The guests on the show, so he probably gets everyone's stay.
Speaker 3: Cup.
Speaker 4: I could think of lower effort gambles you could make.
Speaker 4: But we also saw this in Sweden. It was every
Speaker 4: time we played in Sweden, there were always people just
Speaker 4: like waiting outside of the club who were asking for autographs.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I can think of the one time in
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 2: I think the one two times in my life I've
Speaker 2: asked for autograph, and so I guess I kind of
Speaker 2: understand what it feels like.
Speaker 1: I know there are people who like to collect autographs
Speaker 1: or get autographs. Mine was a Shagirimamoto, the creator of
Speaker 1: Super Mario Huge at CS when I was thirteen years
Speaker 1: old in Chicago. And the other one was John Carpenter,
Speaker 1: who I paid for a VIP backstage meet and greet
Speaker 1: with him because he's awesome, And I thought, when am
Speaker 1: I going to get a chance to hang out with
Speaker 1: John Carpenter for five seconds in a completely artificial manner,
Speaker 1: And you know, it was where it anyhow, kise Wait
Speaker 1: and Sweden, people were coming and asking photographs that you
Speaker 1: didn't think we're fans.
Speaker 4: I know they weren't.
Speaker 2: Oh, how did you know you can't judge a book
Speaker 2: plays They didn't come to the show. Maybe they couldn't
Speaker 2: get in the tickets were sold out. They wanted to,
Speaker 2: they were such huge fans, but it was too.
Speaker 1: Late to believe me.
Speaker 4: They weren't sold out. Actually, that was one of those
Speaker 4: shifs in Sweden. I also remember where we got the
Speaker 4: excuse from the promoter. They were like, oh, don't worry
Speaker 4: about it. Everyone gets paid once a month and it's
Speaker 4: next Monday. So that's probably why no one came.
Speaker 2: You guys missed the doll the dole window had not
Speaker 2: yet opened or whatever, so otherwise it would have been
Speaker 2: a sold out show the.
Speaker 4: Twenty ninth day. Really bad timing.
Speaker 2: I have to say, as far as excuses go for things,
Speaker 2: that's like a pretty pretty good one, pretty impressive. It's
Speaker 2: not like it's not like, sorry, we didn't you know,
Speaker 2: our promoter was out sick or something, and it's like,
Speaker 2: because of the social politicals nature of this country, you
Speaker 2: were unable to fill the venue.
Speaker 3: But it's not.
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with you.
Speaker 2: And completely to do with our political system and our
Speaker 2: social care networks that we have here.
Speaker 3: It's very interesting stuff.
Speaker 4: I mean, I do think that the selfie has like
Speaker 4: replaced the autograph like probably ten years ago.
Speaker 2: I think that chained that shift happened. Yeah, and yet
Speaker 2: there's Eric's autograph on eBay. Just waiting for someone to buy. Well,
Speaker 2: somebody's trying to get rid of it. You know, they'd
Speaker 2: rather have a selfie.
Speaker 1: I find.
Speaker 2: I find as as a former musician, one of the
Speaker 2: most we're talking about finding an autograph on eBay. But
Speaker 2: one thing that I've always dreaded as being in a
Speaker 2: record store in like their dollar bin and finding my record.
Speaker 1: That, to me is feels like a.
Speaker 2: Very bad It's not that bad. Oh, it's happened to me.
Speaker 2: It happened to Jerry's actually in Pittsburgh. I my one
Speaker 2: of my records is in the dollar bin, and I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, I deserve this, This is this
Speaker 2: is how I feel.
Speaker 3: I'll be happy to be any bin.
Speaker 4: You know, that's just an opportunity to reach a new audience.
Speaker 4: You know how hard that is in music?
Speaker 2: Right, It's like a jack when Jack Black puts on
Speaker 2: that record in high fidelity. Okay, anyhow, so you guys
Speaker 2: started making music in two thousand and eight, and you
Speaker 2: made music until what was the year where you kind
Speaker 2: of took a break?
Speaker 3: Twenty thirteen? Is that the right is am I saying that? Right?
Speaker 3: Is that the right? Year?
Speaker 4: No? Fifteen sixteen, twenty fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 3: We played it south By Southwest twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: And then Trump was elected and you went on Twitter
Speaker 2: and you said, I can't make art in a fascist dictatorship.
Speaker 3: That didn't happen, but there was definitely a period where
Speaker 3: I felt like we were an Obama era band.
Speaker 1: Mmmm, so you guys stopped making music for a while.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about this during the Trump era,
Speaker 2: not to say there was anything political about it.
Speaker 4: Coincided with the birth of my first born, so right,
Speaker 4: really the band was starting to slow down a little bit.
Speaker 4: My son was born, and I took some time back
Speaker 4: to like be a stay at home dad basically, And
Speaker 4: just like a lot of people, when you leave your
Speaker 4: job to raise a family, sometimes it ends up taking
Speaker 4: longer than you plan to get back to work.
Speaker 2: Well, families are fairly complex, but a lot of people
Speaker 2: don't realize how much work having a family is.
Speaker 3: I think anybody thinking about having a family listening to
Speaker 3: this episode should know how much we know and how
Speaker 3: much we've seen. You mean from a family as far
Speaker 3: as famili as our parents, as being you know on
Speaker 3: the other side, and it's you know, something you have
Speaker 3: to be ready for.
Speaker 2: You know, I would have liked to have had kids
Speaker 2: when I was a little younger. I had a child
Speaker 2: at a I wasn't old, but older, And I don't know,
Speaker 2: I feel like my energy levels are not what they
Speaker 2: used to be. I was it was nine years years ago.
Speaker 2: So whatever the math, how are the math works out
Speaker 2: on that? Like thirty something thirty was thirty six?
Speaker 4: Thirty six? Yeah, I mean, which is like New York,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of right median age for a lot
Speaker 4: of people having kids.
Speaker 3: In New York. Yeah, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: My brother and sister had their kids earlier than me.
Speaker 4: And the way my brother, whose oldest kid is twenty
Speaker 4: one now, god, you know, he was like, yeah, you either,
Speaker 4: you know, have your kids first and then you do
Speaker 4: your living, you know, once they're moved out of the house,
Speaker 4: or you do your living first and then you have
Speaker 4: your kids. Yeah, And it seems like that's kind of
Speaker 4: a way to think about it.
Speaker 3: I think that's a very very practical way to think
Speaker 3: about it. Yeah, And that I think brings us back
Speaker 3: to the music.
Speaker 2: So you guys were making a lot of music and
Speaker 2: then you stopped, you had families to deal with, Like
Speaker 2: you said, Jesse.
Speaker 4: Not that your life stops when you have. I get it,
Speaker 4: but it does reorient you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: You have different priorities. I mean, that's understandable. And you
Speaker 2: did do a little You did do some kid music
Speaker 2: in the interim, which was cute. Just I feel like
Speaker 2: it was a little bit of a lark. But you
Speaker 2: guys released some children's songs at one point. Yeah, true
Speaker 2: or false? Eric, I see you, but we did. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you've make it a face. Not really sure why, but.
Speaker 3: No, I do. I was a you know, document of
Speaker 3: where we were at the time in our lives. It
Speaker 3: was like, we wanted to make some music and this
Speaker 3: was as much as we could really do. And we
Speaker 3: were both doing, you know, the same kind of thing.
Speaker 3: But can I ask something, can I deposit something? Maybe
Speaker 3: get your response to it? Sure?
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 2: The music industry also went through like a dramatic upheaval
Speaker 2: in the time that you began making music to even
Speaker 2: I mean obviously till now, but there was a that's
Speaker 2: a really interesting era where the internet, and I frankly
Speaker 2: like that has a lot to do with mobile devices
Speaker 2: and phones and things like Spotify appearing, the rethinking of
Speaker 2: the way people even engage with music. The music industry
Speaker 2: that you we're at in twenty sixteen is pretty different
Speaker 2: than the one that you began in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 4: I would agree. I would say that the difference between
Speaker 4: two thousand and eight and two thousand and sixteen, when
Speaker 4: we kind of stopped for a while, was way bigger
Speaker 4: changes than what's happened from twenty sixteen to now.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I think that's right.
Speaker 2: I mean, like many things in culture, actually, I think
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen is a pretty good place to put a
Speaker 2: pin in a bunch of cultural things that just sort
Speaker 2: of continued to grow and become more all encompassing.
Speaker 4: Two thousand and eight, we started in the talent started
Speaker 4: in the MySpace era CDs big. The big thing in
Speaker 4: that we printed our MySpace address on our first record
Speaker 4: for regreta Blake is but no, that's cool, but when
Speaker 4: we signed it is actually grown to be cool. But
Speaker 4: when we first signed our first record deal, you know,
Speaker 4: the big thing was selling MP three on the iTunes store,
Speaker 4: Like that was the benchmark of how you you know,
Speaker 4: just sold music basically right right right, yeah, iTunes sales.
Speaker 4: I looked at my tune core recently and they're like,
Speaker 4: there's iTunes sales on it. I'm always like, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not very much, but I like, who's who bought
Speaker 4: who bought the single?
Speaker 1: They bought a song. This is a strange you could see.
Speaker 4: It was like that period where like the record labels
Speaker 4: had like sort of reluctantly accepted that, like selling digital
Speaker 4: was what they had to do because they were built
Speaker 4: to sell physical, right, And then they had adjusted to
Speaker 4: selling digital in the eight years since since then, obviously
Speaker 4: streaming became the thing that they learned to accept. And
Speaker 4: in the eight years from twenty sixteen till now or
Speaker 4: seven years, it's not it doesn't feel that different. I mean,
Speaker 4: TikTok is I guess a big huge difference, and social
Speaker 4: media is I guess a big huge difference. But that's
Speaker 4: a little bit more on the marketing side of things.
Speaker 1: But isn't everything marketing to some degree?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Is it more than ever? I mean, maybe I don't
Speaker 2: want to go down a rabbit hole here, but I
Speaker 2: might for a moment. I mean you should, you know,
Speaker 2: when you think about the progression of how we even
Speaker 2: listen to music. Yes, there are all these technological changes, right,
Speaker 2: it's streaming now versus buying an album or whatever.
Speaker 1: But Also.
Speaker 2: What music is to people has changed in the sense
Speaker 2: that if you go back to like pre internet and
Speaker 2: pre music music being readily available on the Internet, or
Speaker 2: things that are like music for instance, video or streaming
Speaker 2: like content. You know, music is in many ways like
Speaker 2: the cultural carrier. Like there's not a lot of things
Speaker 2: that permeate culture in the way that music does it.
Speaker 2: And it permeates through like radio and MTV, yes, of course,
Speaker 2: but much more gate kept channels of distribution, but also
Speaker 2: much more universal channels of distribution. Right, So in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, like your culture was music, Like people identified
Speaker 2: culturally through music, right, I mean when you think about
Speaker 2: the subgenres of music, right and you think about like
Speaker 2: punk rock or you know whatever, it wasn't just like
Speaker 2: people listened to music. They were identifying who they were
Speaker 2: through music. And I feel maybe this is just me
Speaker 2: randomly plucking signals out of thin air, But doesn't it
Speaker 2: feel like what music is to people now doesn't carry
Speaker 2: the same cultural weight in a way, Like I feel
Speaker 2: like people listen to music to be seen listening to
Speaker 2: music or to talk about listening to music. But I
Speaker 2: don't know how much there's like people who define who
Speaker 2: they are through music the way they used to. And
Speaker 2: maybe this is just an old person talking.
Speaker 4: I think you're wrong, really yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 4: it's changed. But like the Internet has accelerated fandom like
Speaker 4: in an unbelievable way across the board, and music is
Speaker 4: probably the place where you see it most. I mean,
Speaker 4: people identify.
Speaker 1: But is fandom the same thing. I'm not sure it is.
Speaker 4: So I agree with you that it's less like I'm
Speaker 4: a punk rocker and it's.
Speaker 2: More like I'm a Swift d Yeah, but that's a
Speaker 2: that's a pretty big difference, of course it is, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I see what you're saying. But like
Speaker 2: I feel like Taylor Swift fandom is not the same
Speaker 2: thing as as discovering like this world of music and
Speaker 2: then having it at, you know, sort of shape who
Speaker 2: you are as a person, which happened to a lot
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 4: I think it is for them. I think it's I
Speaker 4: do think it is not that different, Like it's an identity,
Speaker 4: you know, it's Taylor made no unintended in that case
Speaker 4: for like, you know, a certain type of consumption that's
Speaker 4: different than it was back in back in the day.
Speaker 4: Like we're viewing the lens through like one particular brand
Speaker 4: or ill right. I mean, first of all, there are
Speaker 4: definitely people who identify as like I'm into country, I'm
Speaker 4: into no.
Speaker 2: Of course people still there's still people who find there,
Speaker 2: you know, find themselves through music. But I'm saying that,
Speaker 2: like there was a period where what was on the
Speaker 2: radio was, Oh, just lost my video for some reason.
Speaker 4: It's too hot. Your takes are No.
Speaker 2: I think my camera overheated, which is unfortunate. They put
Speaker 2: the air on in here. Maybe it's too warm in
Speaker 2: this room.
Speaker 4: This happened to us on stage once at Governor's Ball.
Speaker 4: Oh really yeah, like you're what what wait?
Speaker 1: What what?
Speaker 4: Fan? Our computer overheated?
Speaker 3: Overheated.
Speaker 1: It was just like no, sorry overheated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it did an it was, but I think
Speaker 4: the people out there thought we were doing like a
Speaker 4: remix because it sounded all crazy.
Speaker 1: What did you do?
Speaker 4: We stopped the show and they brought out a fan.
Speaker 4: They literally brought out a fan and put it on
Speaker 4: our computer. I was like, this will never work. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I reset the computer and it worked and we
Speaker 4: finished the set and like I actually learned a really
Speaker 4: important lesson that day because I was like this is
Speaker 4: the most mortifying and humiliating thing that can happen. The
Speaker 4: worst has happened. We're on a big festival stage, there
Speaker 4: are thousands of people watching us. We are completely exposed
Speaker 4: and vulnerable because we rely on the technology. We don't
Speaker 4: have a backup plan. That literally the worst happened. And
Speaker 4: then everyone I talked to afterwards was like, great show,
Speaker 4: And I was like, didn't you I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: that was really hard. They're like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 4: I was like, well, we had these technical problems. They're like, oh, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was like, no one thinks about you as much
Speaker 4: as you think about you.
Speaker 3: And also at a.
Speaker 4: Festival especially, it's like people paid four hundred dollars for
Speaker 4: those weekend passes or whatever, Like they want to have
Speaker 4: a good time, and they're going to have a good time.
Speaker 2: So they're going to shape their own reality to just
Speaker 2: to kind of smooth over the rough patches.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I mean that's interesting. They were very understanding
Speaker 3: of what was happening, and I think you know, there
Speaker 3: was a roaring applause when the computer booted up and
Speaker 3: we went back right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's sort of I get that. It's sort of
Speaker 2: in a way you overcame you all together overcame a
Speaker 2: difficulty to party.
Speaker 3: Odd.
Speaker 1: There were like ten awkward minutes.
Speaker 4: I don't think most people really knew or understood.
Speaker 1: What'd you do?
Speaker 3: It was ten minutes. It was ten minutes. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It felt like an eternity, but it was probably.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was certainly like too long.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now you can just plug in an iPhone. You'd
Speaker 2: be fine. You have something, you have something else with
Speaker 2: songs on it.
Speaker 3: Right, we always had that and we never used it once.
Speaker 3: I don't know why we didn't. We always had like
Speaker 3: an iPod or we had a backup for a while
Speaker 3: that we ever did come back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So getting back to the music thing, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: To me, when I think about the industry of music,
Speaker 2: I think it's like one of the hardest, ugliest, you know,
Speaker 2: most difficult places to create art. It's a real industry
Speaker 2: of haves and have not. I mean, everybody everything is
Speaker 2: to some extent, but music is especially like brutal in
Speaker 2: the sense that you're kind of putting your A lot
Speaker 2: of people are putting their like heart and soul into
Speaker 2: this piece of work, and often like it's really performance art, right,
Speaker 2: like you have to perform it, like in many ways
Speaker 2: you have to literally perform it, and a lot a
Speaker 2: lot happening in this question.
Speaker 1: It it's just the way music had changed.
Speaker 2: Have any impact on your decision to step back to
Speaker 2: focus on other things? Was there any bit of that
Speaker 2: those in that decision? Was there any bit of like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's hard to juggle both things, But does
Speaker 2: it feel like the landscape went and moved in a
Speaker 2: different you know, in a way that you guys, I
Speaker 2: don't know, didn't like.
Speaker 4: No, I'll give my answer, then Eric can give his,
Speaker 4: which is I don't think the landscape shifted in the
Speaker 4: sense for the decision. I think it's always been hard
Speaker 4: for people to make music their living and their job,
Speaker 4: whether it's two thousand and eight or nineteen eighty five
Speaker 4: or twenty twenty three. So I do think that it
Speaker 4: factored into my decision about wanted to take a step back.
Speaker 4: It factored into my day to day decision making. It's like,
Speaker 4: do I want to hire a babysitter for eight hours
Speaker 4: to go over to the studio with Eric and like
Speaker 4: maybe write a.
Speaker 1: Song right kind of a luxury?
Speaker 4: That seemed like a hard thing to do, But in
Speaker 4: terms of what you're saying, like in the ways that
Speaker 4: it changed. I don't remember feeling like, hey, man, if
Speaker 4: it was two thousand and five, then we could sell
Speaker 4: these CDs, I'd be right back out there. But nowadays,
Speaker 4: with the Spotify and the no I don't remember thinking that.
Speaker 4: I mean it was hard in two thousand and five too.
Speaker 4: I mean it was never an easy thing. So I
Speaker 4: don't remember feeling like, you know, there's other artists that
Speaker 4: might disagree with me, people who made a living off
Speaker 4: of CDs, which like I never did, so right.
Speaker 1: You didn sell a lot of CDs that we're saying.
Speaker 4: I never like lived through the era of like, oh
Speaker 4: I sold my record enough time? Is that like that's
Speaker 4: where my income comes from. So I don't remember feeling like, oh,
Speaker 4: things have changed in the way I don't really want
Speaker 4: to do this anymore. I was more just like, oh,
Speaker 4: I have these other responsibilities. This is a hard way
Speaker 4: to make a living. I want to find a way
Speaker 4: to make music, but I don't know if I want
Speaker 4: to organize my whole life around it or not.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, Eric, do you have a response to
Speaker 3: this question. Yeah, I mean, it's not the kind of
Speaker 3: business you can expect to have a paternity leave package
Speaker 3: from so right, I don't know pretty much. I agree
Speaker 3: with everything Jessie said.
Speaker 4: We're not talking about the like do I want to
Speaker 4: keep making music in some form or another? Like do
Speaker 4: I want to keep writing songs? Like that's a constant
Speaker 4: I think, I mean, I think we know the answer
Speaker 4: because you just released a new record. Yeah, but even
Speaker 4: without doing a new record. It's like the discussion we're
Speaker 4: having is about like the job of it, I think,
Speaker 4: more than the art of it.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, there are plenty of people who make records
Speaker 3: you know, at home for themselves after eight and they
Speaker 3: enjoy it very much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it and that's good enough.
Speaker 3: That's what I do.
Speaker 1: That's what I do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and you don't need other parts of it.
Speaker 2: Well, what I what I discovered is is what if
Speaker 2: I was making music just like for fun?
Speaker 3: If it was just for fun? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Anyhow, Sorry, I didn't mean to get into this like thing.
Speaker 2: And maybe it's my thing honestly because I think about
Speaker 2: it a lot about like doing jobs that are the
Speaker 2: things that you're passionate about, and what it's like to
Speaker 2: turn something that you feel really strongly about, like creatively
Speaker 2: into something that becomes you know, work, which maybe this
Speaker 2: is well trod territory, but I think it's yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I just think it's interesting.
Speaker 3: It's a bad business, and I wouldn't encourage anybody to
Speaker 3: do it unless they felt like it was their calling
Speaker 3: and they were passionate about it and wanted to do
Speaker 3: it no matter what. And that's what you kind of
Speaker 3: have to think, like, you know, like you're like, this
Speaker 3: is what I do right, right, You kind of have
Speaker 3: to have that attitude, especially if you're going as long
Speaker 3: as like, you know, I personally feel like I am right.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you've been in bands since how old
Speaker 1: were you when you were in your first act?
Speaker 4: I've done in my whole life.
Speaker 3: It's all I know how to do. It's all that
Speaker 3: I do well.
Speaker 2: I mean, you and I used to play music together
Speaker 2: in our basement when we were teenagers, like like young
Speaker 2: teenager when I got old.
Speaker 3: Were you in your first band? Like, first real band
Speaker 3: was it Don Cab? I was Storm and Stress. Storm
Speaker 3: and Stress was pre right pre Don Cabin And that's
Speaker 3: the first real band.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was no brother's band. You guys never did
Speaker 4: show together.
Speaker 1: We jammed and played.
Speaker 3: We played a block party.
Speaker 1: Right played the block party. We did Battle of the
Speaker 1: Bands in Mount Leban.
Speaker 4: Tell me about them. What it was your set?
Speaker 3: We just talked. I just saw Scott. Did I tell you?
Speaker 3: Did I tell old friends Scott? The first thing he
Speaker 3: mentioned to me was, honestly, even right now, I can't
Speaker 3: remember the name of the band is something vulgar.
Speaker 1: But remember when we did the thing at the Battle
Speaker 1: of the Band.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like the name of the band was
Speaker 2: something like a lot of Dysentery or something.
Speaker 1: Of the band was lot of dissentery.
Speaker 2: I don't even have to I can't believe I fucking
Speaker 2: remembered it because I remember almost nothing.
Speaker 3: He remembered all the songs. He's like, I remember bagels
Speaker 3: and cream cheese. You know we do the do we
Speaker 3: do six sixty six? The beast inside of me who
Speaker 3: was singing. Scott was our singer. He was a wild man,
Speaker 3: still is a wild.
Speaker 2: Did he do any of our songs that we You
Speaker 2: and I did that we we can't. We Eric and
Speaker 2: I had did like fake No, we had our own songs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we had on like thrash songs. This is Eric on
Speaker 2: guitar and you on drums. Yeah, and I think me
Speaker 2: singing in different for different songs. When we were first
Speaker 2: playing in our basement, the songs were like I would say,
Speaker 2: we were sort of joking. The songs were all funny,
Speaker 2: like kind of like sludgy metal, like demonic metal, sort
Speaker 2: of related things.
Speaker 3: Wanting to be serious, but with like enough self awareness
Speaker 3: that you're not really that thing, right.
Speaker 2: Like one of the songs six six and then in
Speaker 2: parentheses the beast inside of me that was the and
Speaker 2: I wasn't serious.
Speaker 1: I mean I was thirteen or something. It was I
Speaker 1: thought fun funny.
Speaker 3: It seemed funny like some like some forty one like
Speaker 3: it was kind of but not some forty one style music.
Speaker 2: It was very different than that. But they obviously weren't
Speaker 2: taking themselves too seriously. Yeah, but I don't know if
Speaker 2: we performed any of those anyhow. Yeah, we played Battle
Speaker 2: of the Bands. Eric and I didn't make music together
Speaker 2: till we were till we were much older, till he
Speaker 2: had had a music career and I'd had a music
Speaker 2: career separately, aside from Flood of dysentery. Flood of dysentery,
Speaker 2: which was just for fun. It was for I think
Speaker 2: It started with me and Eric playing and then there
Speaker 2: was some battle of the bands in a suburb where
Speaker 2: our friends went to high school, and we were like
Speaker 2: we should do it, and it was like the It
Speaker 2: was like three of Eric's friends and me playing drums
Speaker 2: and Eric and it was nobody was taking it seriously.
Speaker 2: It was a complete joke. It was like it was
Speaker 2: something to do. It was the culture that that that
Speaker 2: begat jackass, that was that we also we were doing.
Speaker 2: We were like skating And there was a famous story
Speaker 2: about one of Eric's friends that he went into uh
Speaker 2: he went into like Weddy's in order to frauds and
Speaker 2: then when he got the frosty, he smashed it into
Speaker 2: his face and you know, every thought it was like
Speaker 2: amazing because it was just so stupid. And I think,
Speaker 2: like that's kind of like the vibe. It was like
Speaker 2: amazing because it was so stupid. As how my memory, Eric,
Speaker 2: does this sound wrong? My misremembering sounds hazy, hazy, hazy.
Speaker 2: It was a pretty specific memory for me, honestly.
Speaker 1: But I have a vague memory, a vague memory.
Speaker 3: Jess, you kind of have a skeptical look on your face.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out, Oh.
Speaker 4: Oh, you guys sound like really cool, dumb teenagers and
Speaker 4: doing those things. That sounds great, And you were not sarcasm.
Speaker 4: Now you're sarcastic right now. No, I'm saying. You were
Speaker 4: saying how you missed doing it for fun, and then
Speaker 4: you immediately told this story about when you did it
Speaker 4: for fun. Yeah, totally for fun.
Speaker 3: But I think like even at a professional level, you
Speaker 3: kind of have to approach it as like a thing
Speaker 3: you enjoy, and the reward of it is like you
Speaker 3: get to do a thing that's fun for your job, right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So for me that's like I'm not I'm not. I
Speaker 3: don't feel guilty when I'm having fun making a song, right.
Speaker 2: But the inverse of that is the thing you do
Speaker 2: for fun becomes a job, right, And like when things
Speaker 2: become a job, they often become less fun.
Speaker 4: It is weird, like with music that it's one of
Speaker 4: the few things where it's like success is determined by
Speaker 4: just being able to make any living off of it, right.
Speaker 3: Not being too stupid rich, but like, yeah, oh, I
Speaker 3: don't have a I don't have a day job.
Speaker 4: I just do this, right. There's a lot of careers,
Speaker 4: creative careers that are like that, and you know, I
Speaker 4: tell people, well, I was most was my job for
Speaker 4: almost ten years, and people are like, oh my god.
Speaker 4: And it does actually put I would say, yes, in
Speaker 4: the top percentage of for sure musicians in the world.
Speaker 1: That's correct.
Speaker 2: There's a vassie of people who would love to make
Speaker 2: a living, any kind of living ever, on music and
Speaker 2: will never do it.
Speaker 4: And I felt it very, very, very fortunate to be
Speaker 4: able to live that life for the time that I
Speaker 4: was able to do that. But what does that say
Speaker 4: about the how we value music? You know, it's you know,
Speaker 4: I can't help but feel like music is sort of
Speaker 4: returned in some ways to this pre commercial era when
Speaker 4: it was just like music existed in your life because
Speaker 4: there were people playing it. And I think as an industry,
Speaker 4: we've it's just sort of coalesced on so few, so
Speaker 4: few people, right that now the majority of music is
Speaker 4: just something that exists around us.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting, actually.
Speaker 2: I mean I had this singer and songwriter Penelope Scott
Speaker 2: on the show, and I became like obsessed with her music.
Speaker 2: I just think it's super fucking interesting. It's extremely weird,
Speaker 2: and it's like a mixture of like folk music and
Speaker 2: chiptune stuff, and you know, she got popular on TikTok,
Speaker 2: But like I think, to ninety nine out of one
Speaker 2: hundred people that I mentioned her too, nobody knows who
Speaker 2: she is, and yet she has a following where she
Speaker 2: does shows. And I mean, you know, maybe I'm like
Speaker 2: countering the point that I made earlier about you know,
Speaker 2: how we identify ourselves to music or whatever. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: more possible than ever because there's more music than ever, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, we're we're a wash in new music, in
Speaker 2: different music, and you can reach more people like than
Speaker 2: ever before. When you were making music, Eric, at the beginning,
Speaker 2: it's like, to find Eric's music, you had to be
Speaker 2: somebody who read a weird newspapers or magazines or listened
Speaker 2: to lived in a place that had a record store.
Speaker 2: Like the barrier to finding that music was so high.
Speaker 2: Right now it's insanely low. But we have this inverse
Speaker 2: situation where it's just like, you know, there might be
Speaker 2: millions and millions and millions of people who know that
Speaker 2: song of that artist you were talking about, who have
Speaker 2: no idea who sang it.
Speaker 1: That's correct, and that is actually that is the case.
Speaker 2: And we talked a bit about the kind of way
Speaker 2: that music spreads on TikTok and how people remix it
Speaker 2: and use it in all these different contexts. And it's
Speaker 2: like the that's I mean, I don't know, that's the
Speaker 2: same thing as like finding your fan base. That's like,
Speaker 2: you know, your music can find a home, but not
Speaker 2: necessarily one where you know you're you're connected to it.
Speaker 4: That's the difference between listeners and fans, right, And so
Speaker 4: like people now and all the marketing you're talking about
Speaker 4: is like how do we connect listeners to fans? How
Speaker 4: do we turned listeners into fans?
Speaker 3: Right? That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Actually you're making me rethink my I feel like I
Speaker 1: came into the.
Speaker 2: Conversation with a very dour attitude about music, thinking like
Speaker 2: and in fact, Laura and I were talking about this
Speaker 2: last night about this the way that people used to
Speaker 2: kind of like define their personality because they had to
Speaker 2: be your thing about like if you wanted to find
Speaker 2: Eric's music, you had to you know, have a record
Speaker 2: store in your town or read like the city paper
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. But also like it was your network, right,
Speaker 2: your network was your network, you know, like but you
Speaker 2: know the people you knew if they were into it
Speaker 2: would like lead you into it, and then you could
Speaker 2: go further into this thing and you'd feel like it
Speaker 2: was yours. Like like I don't think Swifties, it's not
Speaker 2: quite the same thing as Swifties because it's because it's
Speaker 2: a very productized version of that thing. You know, they
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do with One Hit Wonders at
Speaker 2: some point, like they didn't know what to do with
Speaker 2: people who had to hit. But then like you know,
Speaker 2: maybe they knew somebody like something about them, but they
Speaker 2: couldn't fgure out how to like extract anything more from them.
Speaker 2: And then I think in the nineties we figured out
Speaker 2: how to like turn like One Hit Wonder Disney teens
Speaker 2: into like lifetime sort of like artists like Britney Spears.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of it has to do
Speaker 2: with like figuring out how to productize, how to productize fandom,
Speaker 2: how to productize like this feeling that you are part
Speaker 2: of this club that is special to you. But that's
Speaker 2: not the same thing as finding it on your own,
Speaker 2: you know, that's anyhow, But to your point, there are
Speaker 2: things you can find on your own, perhaps more than ever,
Speaker 2: and maybe.
Speaker 4: That's I think the like fundamental essential part of music,
Speaker 4: which is like that it is accessible, it delivers emotional
Speaker 4: depth really easily and really quickly, and visceral impact like
Speaker 4: it physically moves you. And the fact that like you
Speaker 4: can acquire it passively, so like there's an ambientness to
Speaker 4: music that doesn't exist with like movies or TV doesn't
Speaker 4: work that way anymore. You're not just like flipping and
Speaker 4: you stumble upon something.
Speaker 2: Right, No, that's right. TikTok is the closest thing we
Speaker 2: have to flip in at this point. Actually, sure, they're right,
Speaker 2: that's true. Yeah, but music has always had it.
Speaker 4: You could passively acquire it, so like you could hear
Speaker 4: the song ten times without trying, and then you'd be like, oh,
Speaker 4: I like that song, right, you know. It's one of
Speaker 4: the reasons that music infiltrates us so deeply and people
Speaker 4: connect with it so deeply. None of that's changed.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. You're giving me a it's a weirdly positive
Speaker 2: view on the whole thing.
Speaker 4: That's me for me, Like aging gracefully is like always
Speaker 4: trying to find a way to sort of be open
Speaker 4: to how music and the world has changed and the
Speaker 4: experiences that people are having with music are mean just
Speaker 4: as much to them as they did to me.
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Speaker 4: I think it's really important to remain focused on that.
Speaker 2: But I want to talk about the record because we've
Speaker 2: sort of circled around the fact that you guys put
Speaker 2: out So I was getting to as we got into
Speaker 2: this whole conversation about like the nature of music and
Speaker 2: how it affects people and how people come to it,
Speaker 2: it was the fact that you kind of went away
Speaker 2: from it and then came back to it, and you know, listen,
Speaker 2: I have Look, I'm biased because you know, I know
Speaker 2: you guys obviously, Eric, Eric is my brother, and Jesse.
Speaker 2: I know you very well, and I know a lot
Speaker 2: about you as people, as humans outside of the music.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to have a conversation where people
Speaker 2: to have conversations about music. They're like, what's I actually
Speaker 2: I was joking about at the beginning, like tell me
Speaker 2: about this new album, what's it all about?
Speaker 3: And I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to, but I am curious
Speaker 1: to know, like why it felt like there was a
Speaker 1: moment here, or why I felt like these songs needed
Speaker 1: to exist. Was there something that spurred you to like
Speaker 1: make this thing real after all the time, or was
Speaker 1: it just like you had the time to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think after the pandemic started and when I
Speaker 3: came back to New York after being away from New
Speaker 3: York for a while and I had not been working
Speaker 3: on music, I opened up the computer just to see
Speaker 3: what I had last been doing. And I can't say
Speaker 3: what happened in that moment. I heard it and I
Speaker 3: was like, this was actually good. Was what was I
Speaker 3: doing with this? And that happened more and more as
Speaker 3: the pandemic was happening. We were inside our apartment, you know,
Speaker 3: and I kept going back to music, sort of like
Speaker 3: how I've always done when I'm in a time of crisis,
Speaker 3: which is like go to the guitar, go to the room.
Speaker 3: You know. When I was a teenager, I would go
Speaker 3: up to my room and blast a record when I
Speaker 3: was mad or angry or sad or whatever. And I
Speaker 3: think that that happened in the pandemic, and I had
Speaker 3: the opportunity to return to it in like more of
Speaker 3: a way than most people probably do, Like, oh, I
Speaker 3: actually had a band, and I have things under my
Speaker 3: belt that I can continue on with. Should should I
Speaker 3: choose to do so, And then you know, as I
Speaker 3: started making more and more songs, I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I got to talk to Jesse about it and see what,
Speaker 3: you know, what's what's next, what to do with it,
Speaker 3: you know, and deciding to call it tan Lines at
Speaker 3: a time where it didn't necessarily feel like it was
Speaker 3: developed in a way that Tan Lines typically developed an album. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I wasn't sure if I should even call
Speaker 3: it that.
Speaker 2: So, I mean that's interesting though, like in this period
Speaker 2: where people were really and I'm not trying to say
Speaker 2: this is like a pandemic record. I know you've kind
Speaker 2: of shy away from the concept of it. I think
Speaker 2: everything after the pandemic is a pandemic something. So yeah, right, well, yes,
Speaker 2: of course these I don't think these songs speak to
Speaker 2: my experience in the pandemic. But what you're describing of this,
Speaker 2: like you're doing this thing on your own and then
Speaker 2: coming back to this partnership with Jesse, has a real
Speaker 2: like reflection of a pandemic sort of state of mind
Speaker 2: in the sense that everybody was, you know, separate. I'm
Speaker 2: not trying to read into this, I swear, but everybody
Speaker 2: was separated and doing their own thing, and now we're
Speaker 2: like kind of pulling back together. And I feel like,
Speaker 2: to some extent, the way the record developed, knowing that
Speaker 2: you had worked on a lot of these songs on
Speaker 2: your own and then you and Jesse sort of came
Speaker 2: back together to put the record, to build the record,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's I don't know, maybe it's
Speaker 2: reflective of that era of our lives.
Speaker 3: I think that it has evolved in such a way
Speaker 3: that like there's a there's a full returning to work
Speaker 3: story built into this.
Speaker 4: Definitely.
Speaker 1: Your first video was a Zoom presentation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, basically yeah for the rec met Yeah, well it
Speaker 4: was it was like I was joking, like, you know,
Speaker 4: we're in our remote work era now, so like.
Speaker 1: That was the right and that's essentially, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: return this is your return to office.
Speaker 3: Though really.
Speaker 4: I think that you know, Eric and I as experiences
Speaker 4: are pretty different in that like I went and found
Speaker 4: other jobs and like before doing music, I was had
Speaker 4: I was an archivist for ten years and like once
Speaker 4: we took a break, I like went out and took
Speaker 4: a job at YouTube and ed Nike and I have
Speaker 4: had this like brand career also, right, I think, you know,
Speaker 4: that difference between us has always been part of the
Speaker 4: creative magic between us. I would say, yeah, and you know,
Speaker 4: Eric is a songwriter and has been writing songs. I
Speaker 4: also think that like, yeah, COVID twenty twenty shutdown, that's
Speaker 4: certainly was a factor. But also like, I feel like
Speaker 4: I'm at a place now with like my kids are
Speaker 4: a bit older where I'm looking ahead and I'm just
Speaker 4: kind of being like, all right, you know who am I?
Speaker 4: You know, I'm midlife right, midlife crisis shit right. So
Speaker 4: it's like I'm like, do I do I really want
Speaker 4: to say goodbye to the part of myself that like
Speaker 4: did music for ten years or can I find a
Speaker 4: way to incorporate that part of myself into my life now?
Speaker 4: So when Eric came to me and being like I
Speaker 4: wrote all these songs, I want to do it and
Speaker 4: I think it could be a talance record, but you
Speaker 4: would have to be involved, I was like, all right,
Speaker 4: let's talk about what that means and let me see
Speaker 4: how how I can get involved in a way that
Speaker 4: makes sense. And I'm now at this place where I'm like,
Speaker 4: I think Tannlines is this like evolving project. I keep
Speaker 4: kind of describing it as like those documentaries, those films
Speaker 4: like seven up, fourteen up, Yeah, which I've seen none
Speaker 4: of them.
Speaker 1: You understand the conception.
Speaker 4: I understand them conceptually, where it's just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: like we did a kids record when we were on
Speaker 4: quote unquote paternity leave, and now it's like we're in
Speaker 4: this remote era where like Eric's in the country and
Speaker 4: he's writing songs and I'm coming up there to help
Speaker 4: him finish them. I'm like, I would love it if
Speaker 4: we just found a way to keep doing this in
Speaker 4: the forms that our lives have taken on.
Speaker 3: The idea that you could go away from it and
Speaker 3: come back to it is interesting to me. It's not easy.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's you don't just come back to
Speaker 3: where you left off, you know, right, and so so
Speaker 3: one of the things that's been really interesting about this
Speaker 3: is coming back after being away for so long and
Speaker 3: not you know, not seeing how much the business has changed,
Speaker 3: which is like a thing people say or whatever, but
Speaker 3: you know how hard it is to reconnect with people
Speaker 3: you once were easy to reach, Right, you know their
Speaker 3: lives have changed too, Right, They've had families, and they've
Speaker 3: they don't go to shows anymore, and so so re
Speaker 3: just rediscovering that or discovering that it's been really interesting and.
Speaker 2: Also presented challenges too, just to piggyback on the stuff
Speaker 2: that you guys are saying right now, like there is
Speaker 2: a and I feel like, Eric, well you played me
Speaker 2: demos of some of this music, and I feel like
Speaker 2: I don't know if I ever you ever really answered
Speaker 2: my question, but like I felt like there was a
Speaker 2: component and maybe this brings us full circle in some
Speaker 2: way of some of these songs where like I feel
Speaker 2: like you're winking at things, You're you're not joking, not joking,
Speaker 2: but having fun with things with like foreign like song
Speaker 2: forms in a way that feels like liberated from not
Speaker 2: not that earlier tan Line stuff felt like bottled up.
Speaker 2: But to me, there's songs on the record where I'm
Speaker 2: like Eric's like there's like like Burns effect.
Speaker 1: You should hear a song, you should hear some of
Speaker 1: the ones that didn't make the help with.
Speaker 2: Right, but like that is a song like I take
Speaker 2: it very I take it seriously as a song, but
Speaker 2: there's also an element of it and this is maybe
Speaker 2: this is maybe this is flood dystantery, but this is
Speaker 2: the undercurrent of of no pun intended to flood Distaria
Speaker 2: or whatever we did in our basement, where it's like
Speaker 2: taking something very seriously that has an element of I
Speaker 2: think play.
Speaker 4: I think it is. Yes, I think it's a way
Speaker 4: to describe what you're getting at I think there. I
Speaker 4: think on that song in particular, and in some other
Speaker 4: parts of this album, Eric, and I'm sorry to speak
Speaker 4: for you, but like it is like playing a little
Speaker 4: bit more than we had in the past, than talents
Speaker 4: had in the past. And I think that's an interesting
Speaker 4: and I think a little like inspiring shift to see
Speaker 4: like at a we think of like play as being
Speaker 4: a childhood, childhood thing, right and you know you stop playing,
Speaker 4: you know. But I also think that there's a version
Speaker 4: of aging growing, getting a certain kind of confidence and
Speaker 4: security to be able to play around in that I
Speaker 4: saw on this album that I hadn't really seen from
Speaker 4: Eric in the past.
Speaker 2: I would agree, Yeah, I don't want to and I
Speaker 2: don't want to get too personal, but I will say this, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm in therapy, like any good you know,
Speaker 2: a person of my age is and should be.
Speaker 1: But I talked to I've been.
Speaker 2: Talking a lot about about play this play thing, and Eric,
Speaker 2: I don't want to, you know, talk too much about
Speaker 2: although I did talk about our childhood on one of
Speaker 2: these episodes like a while ago, where I went through
Speaker 2: my entire history of how I ended up doing what
Speaker 2: I'm doing. And I think that like we actually didn't
Speaker 2: have in many ways, like when we were kids, we
Speaker 2: did not have like as much opportunity to play as
Speaker 2: like we probably should have, because there was a lot
Speaker 2: of really weird shit going on, like a lot of
Speaker 2: really hard stuff like not going to school and and
Speaker 2: dealing with that like as as a thing in our lives.
Speaker 3: I thought you just stayed home and played. No no, no.
Speaker 2: No, But I think, but I think at a time
Speaker 2: when there is like natural play, there was a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff going on that is like actually very really
Speaker 2: stressful and really like kind of like a lot of
Speaker 2: mental overhead that I don't I haven't thought that much
Speaker 2: about ever. And then you know, now I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: why do I do certain things that I do or
Speaker 2: why do I feel certain ways that I feel? And
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, maybe there's like a chunk of me
Speaker 2: that needed to get that out somewhere else. And I
Speaker 2: think music is one of those places I think, like
Speaker 2: the stuff I make is for me personally. I mean,
Speaker 2: it is one of those places where it's like there's
Speaker 2: some element of like create creativeness that feels like unbridled,
Speaker 2: like untethered, and I think, like, yeah, I think like
Speaker 2: this record it's interesting to me because I hear that
Speaker 2: in the music. And again I might be projecting or
Speaker 2: reading too much into it about our like you know, history,
Speaker 2: but I will say this idea of play and of
Speaker 2: like doing something loose and like not taking it too
Speaker 2: seriously and that leading to like really interesting art is
Speaker 2: just generally interesting to me, but also like an exciting
Speaker 2: but like I think it's like you guys have found
Speaker 2: something on this record that and again I say this
Speaker 2: with a totally biased opinion, it's quite exciting, and uh,
Speaker 2: thank you anyhow, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's just I don't want to end on just like compliment, but.
Speaker 4: I'd love to.
Speaker 3: I think what it returns to, very briefly, though, is
Speaker 3: is your idea of what's fun and what isn't right playing?
Speaker 3: Why do we play? This is fun? Right? So you
Speaker 3: should play and you should have fun all the way
Speaker 3: till you can't anymore, right, right, and find ways always too,
Speaker 3: and if you're lucky enough, maybe you can make it
Speaker 3: your job.
Speaker 4: But then that's when it stops traditionally being correct. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's the that's the challenge.
Speaker 2: And maybe having that period of where your job was
Speaker 2: something totally different allows you to go back to it
Speaker 2: as play. I mean, that's the thing that's interesting to me,
Speaker 2: and that is what I hear on the record. In
Speaker 2: a lot of places, I'm.
Speaker 4: Really inspired by, like the later albums of some like
Speaker 4: legacy artists when they were like in middle age. I
Speaker 4: know it's something Eric has talked talks a lot about,
Speaker 4: but like that sort of freedom that happens when it's
Speaker 4: like the Rolling Stones working on like Black and Blue
Speaker 4: or whatever it was. They're like, yeah, they're forte I
Speaker 4: know that, Like those aren't considered like stealing steel wheels,
Speaker 4: like steel wheels, Yeah, yes, yeah, And I'm actually not.
Speaker 2: That's there are a lot of people who are steel
Speaker 2: In fact, Laura and I talk about her dad is
Speaker 2: a steel Wheels era Rolling Stones fan, like that's when
Speaker 2: he came to the Royd Stones, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people like this fun is some good shit in there.
Speaker 4: I just think it's like an interesting perspective, like looking
Speaker 4: back having done a whole career and then like still
Speaker 4: doing it and looking back, it's a pretty like privileged
Speaker 4: position because a lot most people don't get those chances
Speaker 4: right right. So I think that like there like are
Speaker 4: little indie, you know, small version of that is like
Speaker 4: an interesting thread in this album and something i'd love
Speaker 4: to like keep keep pulling at.
Speaker 3: Well. I hope that you too listen.
Speaker 2: I know that we gotta we get a wrap of
Speaker 2: That's a very NPR like closing for me.
Speaker 1: I do want to say one thing though, before we go.
Speaker 3: I want to say one thing.
Speaker 2: I turn the air conditioning on in here, and I
Speaker 2: turned my camera back on, and I do believe that
Speaker 2: the air blowing on it has cooled it down enough
Speaker 2: to allow me to continue doing a video here. So
Speaker 2: turns out out that just put a fan on it,
Speaker 2: no matter what it is, if it over, he's just
Speaker 2: get a fan on it, you'll be fine. I think
Speaker 2: that's my big takeaway from this conversation. Give it a
Speaker 2: chance to cool down, Give it a little chance to
Speaker 2: cool down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they brought out was it a I can't remember
Speaker 3: it was a box fan or an oscillating fan.
Speaker 4: No, it was like it was like a felt like
Speaker 4: construction equipment. Oh maybe it was one of those steel
Speaker 4: like floor fans or something. Propped it up on a morn.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to bring this to a more philosophical place, Kyles,
Speaker 2: Can you stop talking about the fan. I'm saying, like
Speaker 2: a lot of great things, like your computer that shut
Speaker 2: down from overheating, you give it a little time, give
Speaker 2: a little space, put a fan on it, let it
Speaker 2: cool down, and people say, you know what, people say,
Speaker 2: that was a great show. All right, let's wrap it up. Okay, great, listen.
Speaker 2: I know we could talk for many hours, and in
Speaker 2: fact we have and we will. I know this for
Speaker 2: a fact, because we'll never be able to escape each other.
Speaker 2: I mean there's definitely some stuff you know we didn't
Speaker 2: touch on. Wow, really, but no, I just think.
Speaker 3: That, like, I don't know how much you prepare for
Speaker 3: these conversations, almost not at all. I think you should
Speaker 3: spike your interviews with like like one or two Nard
Speaker 3: War type zingers that just are far out of left
Speaker 3: field because.
Speaker 2: You because you're my fucking brother. I mean, there's all
Speaker 2: kinds of ship I could us. I think the flood
Speaker 2: of dysentery was pretty nardy one.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: I think we got I think we got into some
Speaker 1: pretty deep cuts on this one.
Speaker 3: Actually.
Speaker 2: Like the fact that scott Iella was mentioned at all,
Speaker 2: I think is a big I got.
Speaker 4: Is he related to the Iyello's pizza family.
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: No, No, I don't think so. I think it's a
Speaker 1: common Italian last name.
Speaker 4: I think. And yeah, but in Pittsburgh there's the the
Speaker 4: Neighborhood pizza shop.
Speaker 2: No, scott Iella was famous for, but getting the getting
Speaker 2: going into Dary Creator where it was and ordering a
Speaker 2: cone and then smashed into his face immediately. I think
Speaker 2: it was actually Dairy Queen. I think I couldn't remember
Speaker 2: if that was Scott or not, right, but I think
Speaker 2: Scott was always Scott was a guy who was like
Speaker 2: always like he put something down his pants or whatever.
Speaker 2: He'd be like, you know, put the like it pour
Speaker 2: this entire punch bowl down my pants or something.
Speaker 1: It's very jackass.
Speaker 2: My recollection of that era of your Friends was there
Speaker 2: are like a lot of jackass style shenanigans going on,
Speaker 2: and that's really like the era that that turned into
Speaker 2: the Jackass era.
Speaker 3: That era was kind of like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were like, how do I be terrible at
Speaker 4: skateboarding but still make content?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I think they.
Speaker 2: I think they paid the road for a lot of YouTubers,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know this, they set the stage
Speaker 2: for a lot of mister beasts.
Speaker 4: That's future president, mister Beast to you, President Beast.
Speaker 1: All right, well, hey listen, guys, this is great.
Speaker 3: We gotta do it again sometime. Thanks Josh, I love
Speaker 3: being here, Thanks for having us, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Well, that is our show for this week. I have
Speaker 2: to say, you know, a flood of dysentery. I haven't
Speaker 2: thought about it. For such a stupid name, so like
Speaker 2: teen boy, just such a teen boy name, trying to
Speaker 2: shock people with something stupid and gross, very garbage pale kids,
Speaker 2: real garbage pale kids situation going on with that naming.
Speaker 2: That conversation really took me back, boy. I mean, I'd
Speaker 2: love to get my hands on some recordings of flood
Speaker 2: of dysenteria. I mean, that has got to be some
Speaker 2: pretty heinous stuff. Anyhow, all right, we should wrap up.
Speaker 2: We've gone on far too long, or maybe not long enough.
Speaker 1: No, probably too long Anyhow, that is our show for
Speaker 1: this week.
Speaker 2: We'll be back next week with more what future, and
Speaker 2: as always, I wish you and your family the very best.