Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet Presents Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: I'll get this straight out of the way. I've got
Speaker 2: a cold. Listeners, I've got a cold, but I'm not
Speaker 2: going to talk about that, because there's nothing more boring
Speaker 2: than hearing somebody talk about being ill or having a cold,
Speaker 2: especially on a podcast. Welcome to this evening's episode of
Speaker 2: Midnight Chats, number forty five. Thanks to those of you
Speaker 2: who checked out Stuart's chat with Graham Coxon from Blur
Speaker 2: last time out, it was great to have him on.
Speaker 2: We've also got a couple of really good episodes that
Speaker 2: we've already recorded coming up soon, so we're excited about
Speaker 2: sharing those with you. If you are joining us for
Speaker 2: the first time on Midnight Chats, do subscribe. If you
Speaker 2: like what you're here, do RTUs do comment wherever you're
Speaker 2: listening to this, hopefully you like it. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to waste any time in getting into tonight's episode. Back
Speaker 2: at the beginning of March, my guest was making a
Speaker 2: quick stop in London. Craig Finn, the leader of the
Speaker 2: Whole Steady, came by our office, the Brooklyn Bamber in town,
Speaker 2: playing three shows across three nights in the Capitol, two
Speaker 2: big ones and one tiny show. It was an approach
Speaker 2: They gave a go in New York at the end
Speaker 2: of twenty seventeen and that seemed to work well for them.
Speaker 2: They really enjoyed it, so they wanted to give it
Speaker 2: a go here. They are a group who've been coming
Speaker 2: to the UK regularly for well over a decade now.
Speaker 2: Craig talks a bit about their first experiences of being
Speaker 2: in Europe when their third album, Boys and Girls in America,
Speaker 2: They're real breakthrough was taking off in two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: and relatively speaking, the whole steady have slowed things down
Speaker 2: for them at least a little bit over the past
Speaker 2: few years. They released five albums in the first seven
Speaker 2: years that we're together, but it's been four years since
Speaker 2: their last one, though Teeth Dreams. Fans will know that
Speaker 2: Craig doesn't ever sit around twiddling his thumbs. He's always writing,
Speaker 2: and last year he released his third solo album We
Speaker 2: All Want the Same Things, that he took on tour
Speaker 2: and played a number of different types of shows that
Speaker 2: he'd never done before. Now we've got a knack for
Speaker 2: recording these conversations on occasions which seem to fit with
Speaker 2: a little bit of history. The final print edition of
Speaker 2: Enemy magazine came out on the same day that I
Speaker 2: sat down with Craig. He mentions that, and it was
Speaker 2: also the same day that Loud and Quiet, the magazine
Speaker 2: that we every month, was relaunched in a new format.
Speaker 2: So maybe that was just a little footnote in the
Speaker 2: history of UK music press. You never know, Craig fans
Speaker 2: won't be surprised to hear was a gentleman. We covered
Speaker 2: a bunch of different subjects during our chat. His attitudes
Speaker 2: to social media, memories of touring boys and Girls in
Speaker 2: America more than a decade ago, now, why it's important
Speaker 2: to look after the band's dedicated fan base that they have,
Speaker 2: and most importantly, I wanted to know about what he
Speaker 2: orders as part of a classic British roast dinner. So
Speaker 2: all of the important stuff covered. So here it is.
Speaker 2: Then I'm off to find some lemsip. This is Craig
Speaker 2: Finn from the Old Steady on Midnight Chats. Enjoy, Welcome
Speaker 2: to Midnight Chats, thanks for joining us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to London. Obviously you've been here many many
Speaker 2: times over the years, but you hate to play three
Speaker 2: small intimate shows with a hold Steady. Tell me about
Speaker 2: why you're attracted to doing a couple of small shows here.
Speaker 2: Is it kind of getting back into things after a
Speaker 2: little bit of time off.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, in some way, I mean we I mean,
Speaker 3: for one, London and the UK in general has been
Speaker 3: very important to the band for a long time. It's
Speaker 3: very supportive, and a couple of years ago, well, we
Speaker 3: kind of were didn't do much for a few years,
Speaker 3: and then we kind of came back a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago and we booked four shows in our hometown
Speaker 3: of Brooklyn to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Boys and
Speaker 3: Girls in America, And we did the weekend and we
Speaker 3: found it as a model that really it suited us.
Speaker 3: We liked it. It made sense for several reasons. One
Speaker 3: is just like not moving the equipment, you know, and
Speaker 3: having people come to you kind of convenience is kind
Speaker 3: of awesome. Well, I mean, and it's not just because
Speaker 3: it's easy. It also allows us to sort of focus
Speaker 3: on the things that I think really matter, which is
Speaker 3: the music. The set lists. You know, we could play
Speaker 3: a lot of different songs where if you're you know,
Speaker 3: driving to the next gig, tearing it down, setting it up.
Speaker 3: So much of your day it goes to that, so
Speaker 3: it kind of allowed us to kind of focus on
Speaker 3: the music more. And also there's been such a community
Speaker 3: around the whole study with the fans for since we
Speaker 3: started it. Really it allowed us to get people together
Speaker 3: and you know, do different shows each night and have
Speaker 3: you know, like people would go to you know, bar
Speaker 3: pub after and you know, there's certain these things with
Speaker 3: the fans that that took on its own life that
Speaker 3: you know, it's almost aside from us. So we really
Speaker 3: like those weekends and we repeated it this year and
Speaker 3: over the summer. We didn't want in Chicago and we
Speaker 3: sort of said, like this is really something that we like,
Speaker 3: this this model from the get go. We've won to
Speaker 3: bring it to London because that seemed obvious like maybe
Speaker 3: the next place, you know, So it took us a
Speaker 3: while to get there. It's not really on an innniversary
Speaker 3: of a record or anything, but we were able to
Speaker 3: find this time to do it and I'm excited to
Speaker 3: be here and the show's sold out and I think
Speaker 3: it'll be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: So doing three shows in London over the weekend, it
Speaker 2: finishes with a show at a venue called the Lexington
Speaker 2: on Sunday, and as part of that, in the afternoon
Speaker 2: you are going to have a traditional British roast with
Speaker 2: a bunch of fans. Where does that idea come from?
Speaker 3: Well, I think Dave, our manager, thought of it. It
Speaker 3: was sort of modeling the weekend we did last summer
Speaker 3: in Chicago where we did two shows in a club
Speaker 3: roughly the size of the Electric Ballroom, and then we
Speaker 3: did one at the Empty Bottle, which is more like
Speaker 3: the size of electings than a smaller one. So we thought,
Speaker 3: you know, let's maybe do one that's just sort of
Speaker 3: almost like too small, you know. But then we said,
Speaker 3: since it's a Sunday, you know, you can do a
Speaker 3: smaller Obviously the big shows on the weekends nights and
Speaker 3: Sundays for the diehards, right, so it's smaller, and we said, well,
Speaker 3: you know, let's how do we tie it in? And
Speaker 3: we thought the Sunday roast would be a cool thing
Speaker 3: that would make sense, and it might be a fun,
Speaker 3: you know, angle to it. I don't know how much,
Speaker 3: you know, there's always a tricky thing about eating and
Speaker 3: playing music, so I don't know how much eating any
Speaker 3: of us can do, but we can certainly hang out
Speaker 3: and I think, like you know, over the years, I
Speaker 3: think we have settled into some Sunday roasts on days
Speaker 3: off over here and things like that. And funny enough,
Speaker 3: up from the Lexington on Pittonville Road there there's a
Speaker 3: what used to be a Jury's in. I think it's
Speaker 3: a double tree now, but that was sort of headquarters
Speaker 3: for the whole steady for a long time. We'd always
Speaker 3: stay at that hotel and it saw some of our
Speaker 3: best and worst moments. So it's kind of funny. We've
Speaker 3: never played the Lexington before. It used to be something else.
Speaker 3: I think maybe it was always the Lexington. I don't know,
Speaker 3: we never played there before, but I've certainly been there
Speaker 3: a number of times.
Speaker 2: So it's me about the traditional push where used to
Speaker 2: you fan? Then if you have you you on the
Speaker 2: menu and Sunday you've got You've got classic pork, you
Speaker 2: have some chicken on there, there's a vegan nut raast.
Speaker 4: What what are you going to go for?
Speaker 3: I well, if I if I eat, I think I
Speaker 3: would go for chicken. It seems like the best pre show.
Speaker 3: Uh protein and uh do you have.
Speaker 4: To think strategically before shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, I'm forty six at this point,
Speaker 3: so yeah, more so than ever, you have to kind
Speaker 3: of think of strategically about your your your food. I mean,
Speaker 3: you don't want to get up there and feel I
Speaker 3: feel like my best shows are when I'm hungry, uh
Speaker 3: and and so like I feel like there's if you're
Speaker 3: too sated, you know, I feel like you've had enough
Speaker 3: to eat, or if you're comfortable, like your mind wanders,
Speaker 3: and your mind wandering is like the last thing you
Speaker 3: wanted on stage, because then you're forgetting lyrics. We have
Speaker 3: a lot of words. So I think like coming on
Speaker 3: stage a little bit hungry is best. So loading down
Speaker 3: with food I try. You know, I think most singers
Speaker 3: probably go for three hours before or something like that.
Speaker 3: You need to kind of give it a pretty good
Speaker 3: buffer and we'll see on that one it's but it'll
Speaker 3: be a lot of fun either way. I do every
Speaker 3: year I quit drinking for Lent, so but this kind
Speaker 3: of is right in the middle of Lent. So I
Speaker 3: saw the I saw up ahead. So this year I
Speaker 3: started Lent two weeks early so I could take what
Speaker 3: I'm calling a European exception.
Speaker 4: Taking a hiatus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I'm going, I'm going my girlfriend's coming out,
Speaker 3: or were going to Paris and Amsterdam. I'm after so
Speaker 3: I figured it needed to lent, needed a break.
Speaker 2: Talking about those early memories. End up coming over to
Speaker 2: London with the whole steady going, staying at what used
Speaker 2: to be the Jewelies in on Pennerville Road. For people
Speaker 2: listening to this, that's a hotel that a lot of
Speaker 2: bands often stay at when they come to London for
Speaker 2: the first time, international bands because it's right in the
Speaker 2: center of town. It's close to a lot of the
Speaker 2: venues that bands often come and play, and the hotel
Speaker 2: bar there. If wolves could speak, yeah, yeah, you're from
Speaker 2: staying there.
Speaker 3: I mean, my favorite memory of staying there was there
Speaker 3: one morning where I'm sure the hotel one want us
Speaker 3: to say this, but we were up we'd gone to
Speaker 3: like the off license, and we were up drinking in
Speaker 3: the lobby and you know, we were trying to be polite,
Speaker 3: but we were there until right as the sun was
Speaker 3: coming up. The manager came over and said, guys, you've
Speaker 3: actually been fantastically quiet through this, and you know, it
Speaker 3: really hasn't been a problem. But you are still drinking
Speaker 3: at six in the morning, and the breakfast people are
Speaker 3: gonna come down soon, and I don't want you to
Speaker 3: scare them, So if you could go back up two
Speaker 3: rooms now, we'd appreciate that.
Speaker 2: That was a.
Speaker 3: Reasonable rock and roll interaction. You know, we stayed up late,
Speaker 3: but we didn't cause too many problems, so that was
Speaker 3: pretty good. We had such like you know, seven is
Speaker 3: when Boys and Girls came out. We actually came over
Speaker 3: once before that. We played one show with les AaB
Speaker 3: fav at the Islington Academies. I think that's it's just
Speaker 3: literally around the cool Yeah, but we didn't really have
Speaker 3: a record out then over here, so we kind of
Speaker 3: came and never followed up. So there's this one isolated
Speaker 3: show that happened and then nothing. But then we came
Speaker 3: over on Boys and Girls in America and it did
Speaker 3: quite well and and and it was really a whirlwind
Speaker 3: playing shows and people showing up repeatedly. In that first
Speaker 3: year especially, we did like a lot of cool things.
Speaker 3: We played with kings Lean over at the Historia. Was
Speaker 3: that what's called legendary yeah venue in London. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: we got center Town, we got that one under our belt.
Speaker 3: You know, before I went down and UH and played
Speaker 3: a couple of shows at the Borderline that were kind
Speaker 3: of crazy really early on, and then UH, and then
Speaker 3: just kept coming back and made a lot of friends here.
Speaker 3: I think that's the biggest and most important thing. Made
Speaker 3: a lot of friends that always wanted us to keep
Speaker 3: coming back.
Speaker 2: You already mentioned it, the whole steady community of fans.
Speaker 2: In a way, it's an unusual thing now to have
Speaker 2: the type of fandom the whole stead He has, because
Speaker 2: you have a really dedicated fan base who like to
Speaker 2: talk about the band, like to share stories, like to
Speaker 2: come to see you. Like I imagine when you play
Speaker 2: this run of shows, they're probably fans are going to
Speaker 2: come in every night, and like you already said, they
Speaker 2: go meet up, they have a drink beforehand, they chat
Speaker 2: about memories, they chat about new records, things like that.
Speaker 2: How do you view that fandom of your band. Is
Speaker 2: it something that you really cherish and always want to nut,
Speaker 2: shows that you protective over it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a huge part of what we do. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's things, it's how we kind of arrange things, it's
Speaker 3: what we think about, it is what we talk about.
Speaker 3: It was from the get go something we wanted to foster.
Speaker 3: I was really into hardcore growing up, and I thought like,
Speaker 3: what if there was some of that community, the scene,
Speaker 3: so to speak, in a band that wasn't necessarily hardcore, like,
Speaker 3: you know, more a classic rock band, but had this
Speaker 3: kind of thing. And pretty early on when we started
Speaker 3: playing shows for whatever reason, people started to travel, you know,
Speaker 3: and you'd say like, wow, that guy's been in the
Speaker 3: front row of four nights in a row. Let's see
Speaker 3: if he's here tomorrow, and you could kind of pick
Speaker 3: them out. And then a really cool thing happened at
Speaker 3: some point where there was a message board where fans
Speaker 3: would talk to each other, but everyone's using handles, you know.
Speaker 3: So someone went to a show and said, I was there,
Speaker 3: but I didn't know what any of you guys looked like.
Speaker 3: And so someone else said, all right, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: put together T shirts. And it was called the Unified Scene,
Speaker 3: which is based on a lyric and if you give
Speaker 3: me your number, like you know, say you want number thirteen,
Speaker 3: and you give me your size, I'll send one to
Speaker 3: you free. And there were several runs of these where
Speaker 3: people sort of payd it forward. Someone said I'll do
Speaker 3: the next round, and you could make a roster and
Speaker 3: you'd say, like, I'm number twelve, so I'm gonna wear
Speaker 3: my shirt at the show. If you're looking for me,
Speaker 3: you can see on the master list. Oh you know
Speaker 3: Craig Finns number twelve, or you know dog Guy or
Speaker 3: whatever you know, and you say, hey, dog Guy and
Speaker 3: I'm like, yay, you know, I'm Catman or whatever. And
Speaker 3: so then they know each other. And then that really
Speaker 3: grew the community a lot, and people really felt a
Speaker 3: part of something. And you know, this weekend, well in Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: we had people from all over Europe, New Zealand, Australia,
Speaker 3: all over the US, Canada that flew in. They see
Speaker 3: each other, and you know, I know there's a lot
Speaker 3: of Americans in town tonight. There's people I know from Norway,
Speaker 3: from New Zealand, people from all over the world coming
Speaker 3: in this weekend. I think it's as much to be
Speaker 3: a part of that as to see the band, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, and that's something we've deliberately fostered. I think
Speaker 3: is very important.
Speaker 2: When something as organic happens like that, has ever been
Speaker 2: like an instance of like a whole steady wedding that
Speaker 2: you're aware of, or anything like people that have met
Speaker 2: via coming together over the band who are still coming
Speaker 2: to shows together or anything like that.
Speaker 3: All the time on social media people say send me
Speaker 3: photos of their wedding and say, like, you know, our
Speaker 3: first show was in Louisville, Kentucky four years ago, our
Speaker 3: first date. You know, it was a show we had
Speaker 3: an engagement of two fans in Chicago that we kind
Speaker 3: of facilitated from the stage, that kind of thing. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's old steady weddings, there's old steady.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Divorce yeah, well they probably will happen some well statistically, right.
Speaker 2: When I was reading about the shows that you played
Speaker 2: in Brooklyn at the end of last year, you made
Speaker 2: reference to a guy called mosh Pitch.
Speaker 4: Josh. Yeah, who's mush Pitch Josh.
Speaker 3: Josh is our merch guy and Josh Gourdon and Josh's
Speaker 3: has worked for us a long time. He's become a
Speaker 3: great friend. But he had done merch for kind of
Speaker 3: a lot of more like Hate Breed and kill Switch,
Speaker 3: engaged some kind of heavier bands. Yeah, yeah, heavier bands.
Speaker 3: I think he so much has said when he started
Speaker 3: working us that he was happy to be on tour
Speaker 3: selling tea shirts, but the music wasn't really his thing.
Speaker 3: But then cut to a few months later, he declared
Speaker 3: Hold Steady was his favorite band, and he got a
Speaker 3: Hold Steady tattoo, and now he occasionally, if the night's right,
Speaker 3: joins us on Stay Positive. He's able to kind of
Speaker 3: provide more of a hardcore feel. So this this song
Speaker 3: is kind of a homage to you know, eighties hardcore,
Speaker 3: and he's able to kind of bring it a little
Speaker 3: harder than I can. Rough voice, He's got a gruff voice,
Speaker 3: a gruff exterior. I would say we.
Speaker 2: Talked a bit about the Hold Steady community. What about
Speaker 2: the Hold Steady yourselves as a band obviously where what
Speaker 2: fourteen fifteen years into the bout?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Fifteen yeah, how does it still feel exciting?
Speaker 3: Way?
Speaker 4: He has to be in the Hold Steady every day.
Speaker 4: It does.
Speaker 3: It does, and you know, partially because of a lot
Speaker 3: of it's because of the community. But you know, I
Speaker 3: feel like, you know, it's changed a little bit over
Speaker 3: the years. Obviously everyone's changed as people if you have
Speaker 3: to in fifteen years. But I think one of the
Speaker 3: most exciting things right now is that Franz went away
Speaker 3: for a while and we got Steve Salvage on guitar,
Speaker 3: so we added you know, Franz left, we had another
Speaker 3: guitar player. Now Franz is back. We're a six piece
Speaker 3: lineup and it's really like, I'm not pandry. It is
Speaker 3: the best Hold Steady. So it's like we're in twenty
Speaker 3: eighteen and where we have the best lineup of the
Speaker 3: whole Steady we've ever had. So that's incredible. To have
Speaker 3: both Steve and Franz on stage is a blessing, and
Speaker 3: we were able to do some new songs, which is
Speaker 3: exciting too. So I mean, like it feels really good
Speaker 3: and we aren't doing two hundred and fifty dates anymore,
Speaker 3: but that's fine. You know, we've done that and I
Speaker 3: think that, like what we're doing now makes a lot
Speaker 3: of sense and it has been really rewarding.
Speaker 2: When you have a dedicated audience like you have with
Speaker 2: the Hold Steady, what fact does that have on your
Speaker 2: approach to writing new material. You've made six albums, so
Speaker 2: do you worry about the reaction that you might have
Speaker 2: from that that audience or do you think, you know what,
Speaker 2: I can only make music for myself or ourselves, right,
Speaker 2: the if we make a divisive record, if we do
Speaker 2: something a little bit different, if we split those people's
Speaker 2: opinions on new stuff, that's okay, that's pompossible.
Speaker 4: Being in a band.
Speaker 3: I think more of the latter, I think, and I
Speaker 3: guess I think that. There's my view on everything is
Speaker 3: there's some always more songs. When we started the whole study,
Speaker 3: one of the things I was kind of adamant about,
Speaker 3: or talked a lot about, was to keep music coming.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, not quite in the guided by
Speaker 3: voices pace, but something you know, an album a year
Speaker 3: was my and that's what we did for the first
Speaker 3: four years. Yeah, And my thought is like if you
Speaker 3: wait too long, then you kind of have to come
Speaker 3: up with a masterpiece, right, you know, you have to
Speaker 3: come up with Sergeant Pepper's or something. And instead you
Speaker 3: can just be like, hey, we got ten songs. You
Speaker 3: want to hear them. So what we've done the last
Speaker 3: two you know, we just we put out we recorded
Speaker 3: four songs in November, we put two out before the
Speaker 3: show's in Brooklyn. We just put two out this week.
Speaker 3: That's kind of connected to that logic. It's like, hey,
Speaker 3: here's two more songs, and you know, the way we've
Speaker 3: listened to music has changed a lot, with Spotify streaming
Speaker 3: all that that, it doesn't I think it's just kind
Speaker 3: of makes more sense at this point to not be
Speaker 3: going off for a month to record this album and
Speaker 3: then wait eight, you know, seven months to ramp up
Speaker 3: to put it out and then go on this tour.
Speaker 3: I think everything else has changed, so I sort of
Speaker 3: feel like our outlook has has to change too, about
Speaker 3: how we put things out. And I don't know, I
Speaker 3: feel like you can look at it both ways. But
Speaker 3: having six records out, you know, and that people seem
Speaker 3: to like, or our fans really like, I don't think
Speaker 3: there's much we could do that would like at least
Speaker 3: erase those six you know, like you could have a misstep,
Speaker 3: but it wouldn't be huge.
Speaker 2: Have you always been somebody who embraces change and see
Speaker 2: yourself as adaptable. You mentioned it there, the evolving ways
Speaker 2: that people consume music, they listen to their music. Even
Speaker 2: this week, there's been loads of chat about that in
Speaker 2: the UK because obviously in the music press, arena enemy
Speaker 2: the print magazine is that shoe comes out today.
Speaker 3: I just got it.
Speaker 2: You picked it up yeah, okay, probably looks different from
Speaker 2: the enemy that you first.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, quite a bit skinnier.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it comes in the same week when other magazines
Speaker 2: have relaunched. Kerrang for example, was relaunch this week Loud
Speaker 2: and Quiet. We've literally just about our relaunch issue today.
Speaker 2: So that's things are always changing. Do you find that
Speaker 2: do you concern yourself about change or do you just
Speaker 2: think move with the times and you've been and you're
Speaker 2: quite lucid about that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Ah, you know, I wish I could say. I was like,
Speaker 3: I certainly don't see myself as a maverick or someone
Speaker 3: on on the on the forefront, because I think personally
Speaker 3: I'm slow to change. But I think you know, you're
Speaker 3: just sort of if you're out there, you can see
Speaker 3: the reality of like wow, you know. I mean even
Speaker 3: like when you put out a record, people consume it
Speaker 3: so quickly, like you know, you work so hard, and
Speaker 3: then people are like, all right, one's the next one,
Speaker 3: And I was like, well that one is only ten
Speaker 3: days old, you know, Like so so maybe it makes
Speaker 3: more sense to give people. I mean, I always like
Speaker 3: love bands, especially from over here from the eight like
Speaker 3: the Smiths would be the perfect example where they kind
Speaker 3: of had these singles come out and they were they
Speaker 3: looked similar, and there was like you know, or the
Speaker 3: class you know, like where you're really the singles thing
Speaker 3: and maybe you'd heard half the album by the time
Speaker 3: it came out. But I like that. I think that's exciting,
Speaker 3: and there's B sides and there's that's an exciting model
Speaker 3: and maybe something that more bands might go towards rather
Speaker 3: than this album thing, because it feels like right now,
Speaker 3: it feels like on the on the business side of things,
Speaker 3: like a lot of bands get a lot of press
Speaker 3: the week their record comes out, and then someone else's
Speaker 3: record comes out, So to have a steady stream and
Speaker 3: I also think that maybe, like with the way that
Speaker 3: we listen to music, would Spotify or the streaming, having
Speaker 3: a body of work might become more and more important.
Speaker 2: You know, So somebody discovers the whole steady tomorrow and
Speaker 2: they go on Spotify, they there is an opportunity to
Speaker 2: listen to eighty songs if.
Speaker 3: We put it all on shuffle and you know, you're
Speaker 3: all afternoon.
Speaker 2: You know, is that even a small part of you
Speaker 2: that thinks, oh, but I meant I want people to
Speaker 2: listen to those ten songs in that order, because that's
Speaker 2: the narrative that runs through that record.
Speaker 3: You do, but you realize that you're not in control
Speaker 3: of that. I mean, I think like when you if
Speaker 3: you were to put out an album like you know,
Speaker 3: sequence it, put it, record it, sequence it, put the
Speaker 3: artwork together, all that. Of course, you want people to
Speaker 3: experienced it in the way that you've worked towards. But
Speaker 3: once it's you know, like you know, when I think
Speaker 3: about Almost killed Me, Boys and Girls of America, Well
Speaker 3: that those records are ten years old. Now they can listen,
Speaker 3: you know, if the song comes on the jukebox, I'm happy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: not when I'm there, you know.
Speaker 4: Isn't it.
Speaker 2: Most people feel like they want to just become invisible
Speaker 2: if they're in like a public space, in a shop
Speaker 2: or in a taxi, in their radio and it comes
Speaker 2: on the radio.
Speaker 4: Does that feel it sounds.
Speaker 3: Like I can't think. It sounds like I'm yelling in
Speaker 3: my own ear.
Speaker 2: In between releasing albums with the whole study, You've made
Speaker 2: three so records you it seems like you rarely come
Speaker 2: off tour. Is there a year in the last fifteen
Speaker 2: or so where you haven't been out and played shows.
Speaker 3: No, No, I mean some have been busier than others.
Speaker 3: But you know, I mean one of the reasons for
Speaker 3: the solo stuff is it allows me to work at
Speaker 3: the pace which I want to, which is a lot,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean there's the thing about getting a
Speaker 3: band together where the whole study is very much a band,
Speaker 3: so you know, like it doesn't happen unless we can organize, yeah,
Speaker 3: organize it. So you know, with the solo records, it's
Speaker 3: kind of like I can just sort of record, you know,
Speaker 3: and make it and go on tour, whether it's with
Speaker 3: a band or myself solo or and allows me to
Speaker 3: do that, and it allows me to do musically different
Speaker 3: things too.
Speaker 2: And going out on tour last year interesting turbulent times
Speaker 2: in not just American politics, international politics. What was your
Speaker 2: experience of getting out on the road last year. It
Speaker 2: was quite a unique year.
Speaker 4: So when you were out and.
Speaker 2: You were having conversations with fans or when you were
Speaker 2: traveling between states and big city He's what was the
Speaker 2: kind of feeding that left you with last year?
Speaker 3: I did sort of an interesting thing. We did three
Speaker 3: different tours that were living room tours where we went
Speaker 3: into people's living rooms, and we did two over in
Speaker 3: the States, one in kind of the US, mainly the northeast,
Speaker 3: and one in the West coast, and then some over
Speaker 3: here too. And when I say living rooms, I mean
Speaker 3: some living rooms. Especially over here, there were kind of
Speaker 3: more non traditional venues, some living rooms, but also like
Speaker 3: art galleries, record stores, there was some offices, you know,
Speaker 3: anywhere people out of space, and those were very interesting.
Speaker 3: And the first one happened during the inauguration of Donald
Speaker 3: Trump for the United States, and as well as the
Speaker 3: first Women's March. We're all on that same weekend, one weekend,
Speaker 3: and I remember those felt very interesting because to invite
Speaker 3: people into your living room to hear music is you know,
Speaker 3: strangers is sort of revolutionary act on its own, and
Speaker 3: it felt made me feel better, and there were nice moments.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the record I made last year,
Speaker 3: we all want the same things. It was recorded and
Speaker 3: titled before the election and all that, but or at
Speaker 3: least mainly, but it was certainly a reaction to the
Speaker 3: election cycle in part, and the idea that it was
Speaker 3: supposed to be an empathetic record that a lot of people,
Speaker 3: you know, were feeling like they weren't hurt and trying
Speaker 3: to understand about people who kind of might be throwing
Speaker 3: some sort of hail Mary. But you know it's scary.
Speaker 3: I mean, you see, you get to travel a lot,
Speaker 3: You get to see places that you wouldn't you know,
Speaker 3: you might not go on vacation and try to understand
Speaker 3: at least. But you know, I think we're all we're
Speaker 3: living in divided times, and I think it's seeping into
Speaker 3: everyone's art on some level or another.
Speaker 2: Did to get a feed that people feel isolated because
Speaker 2: it's very easy to kind of live your life online
Speaker 2: and expect you express or not express your kind of
Speaker 2: feelings on the subject. But then coming to a show
Speaker 2: and being amongst other people is something different, isn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think that's why I think as we go forward,
Speaker 3: these shows are more and more important. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: talking about either be the living room shows that I
Speaker 3: did last year, or the community that's around the whole
Speaker 3: study that getting in a room together with a bunch
Speaker 3: of people who like love rock and roll or I
Speaker 3: don't know, your football team or whatever it may be,
Speaker 3: is more and more important than it ever was because
Speaker 3: we can kind of fool ourselves into thinking or talking
Speaker 3: to you know people. I was talking with someone, Brian
Speaker 3: Koppleman on another podcast, but a friend of mine, and
Speaker 3: he was talking about a friend of his that had
Speaker 3: passed away, and he said, you know, we hadn't gotten
Speaker 3: together because I was under the impression we'd caught up.
Speaker 3: Because they saw his Instagram and he could see you know,
Speaker 3: face whatever it was. They're like, oh, he's in, he's on.
Speaker 3: You know, he went to the beach this weekend. But
Speaker 3: you know it's different than so I think like it's
Speaker 3: almost something that we have to work on now.
Speaker 2: I think we're all guilty of presenting like our Internet
Speaker 2: version of ourselves.
Speaker 3: It's almost it's social media is pr almost inherently right,
Speaker 3: Like no one's like clean the bathroom today, I want
Speaker 3: to see you know. It's like, no, I went to
Speaker 3: the beach, I climbed this mountain. Here I am at
Speaker 3: the top of this mountain, this amazing meal. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not just like you know, I ate what was
Speaker 3: left over in the fridge, want to see a picture
Speaker 3: of it. No one ever does that. So it's always
Speaker 3: this most heightened version of ourselves.
Speaker 4: So it's important to step outside the front door.
Speaker 3: And I think we're being in person is really really important.
Speaker 3: We all have those, Like, you know, I didn't know
Speaker 3: about that guy at first, but you know, it turns
Speaker 3: out he's really cool. I ended up talking to about
Speaker 3: this party.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I think that that the more the more of those
Speaker 3: we have, I think the world's probably better. But it's hard, Like, look,
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I'm above it. I'm I'm I struggle
Speaker 3: with it very much.
Speaker 2: So it's a weird thing when you will naturally avate person. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you exist in this space where you're almost expected
Speaker 2: to share certain things about you, and just by default,
Speaker 2: information is out there about you. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so it.
Speaker 2: Feels like it's kind of this awkward thing, isn't it,
Speaker 2: Where you're sort of forced into having to sort of
Speaker 2: present something, but maybe you don't want to present too
Speaker 2: much because ultimately you're just kind of like, wow, it's
Speaker 2: none of your business.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, And I also like that everything's kind of permanent.
Speaker 3: So if you say like I don't like this, well,
Speaker 3: you know, you could say like I don't like this
Speaker 3: baseball team, and then someone you know that's out there,
Speaker 3: so then like two years later, it's like I guess
Speaker 3: you don't like that baseball team, and it's like, oh no,
Speaker 3: like this is what we're talking about still, like you know,
Speaker 3: like so you become kind of guarded in that sense.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the whole study then, and your plans
Speaker 2: for this year. You're hearing London, you're going to play
Speaker 2: these three shows. What does the next six months or
Speaker 2: so old for you? You're going to head back to Brooklyn
Speaker 2: and continue recording you know, tracks together when you fit
Speaker 2: inclined or is their plans to get together and make
Speaker 2: the next body of.
Speaker 3: What it's all figured being figured out. I kind of
Speaker 3: like what we're doing now, it's just but we don't
Speaker 3: have any songs, so we have to write those first.
Speaker 3: But you know, I kind of like this approach we've
Speaker 3: been doing. I think I'd like to do more of
Speaker 3: these weekend kind of things. We don't have anything like
Speaker 3: to announce my ideas kind of like to proceed as
Speaker 3: we are, but with more of them, Like I'd like
Speaker 3: to go to more places, but it has to make sense.
Speaker 3: Like obviously the cities like New York, London, Chicago are
Speaker 3: probably the ones that kind of can support it.
Speaker 2: And with the numbers once you've done the traditional British roast,
Speaker 2: you're going to have to go to Rome and do
Speaker 2: the pizza party, to go to Australia and have the barbecue.
Speaker 4: You do realize what you've started for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that gives us something to shoot for. Maybe we
Speaker 3: could partner with the Sunday. Maybe this is maybe that's something.
Speaker 3: The Sunday could always be a culinary.
Speaker 4: Adventure, adventure in international cuisine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Just finally, I once to talk to you
Speaker 2: a little bit about lyrics, because over the years, and
Speaker 2: rightly so, people have focused very much on your lyrics.
Speaker 2: I'm interested to know where do the seeds of the
Speaker 2: ideas come from. The often you paint pictures of characters
Speaker 2: and so does that come from people watching, does it
Speaker 2: come from reading? Does it come from just observation? Where
Speaker 2: does the process begin?
Speaker 3: On the above, I've always been a big reader, especially
Speaker 3: of fiction, so I've always wanted to tell stories and
Speaker 3: I do. I'm a terrible eavesdropper. So you know which
Speaker 3: is New York is like the most amazing place to live.
Speaker 4: Just get a coffee in yeah, and sit on the sidewalk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I'll like, yeah, in the park or in
Speaker 3: the subway, especially like the Big Mover is you put
Speaker 3: on your headphones, but you don't put it on any music,
Speaker 3: you know. And so I've gotten a lot of stuff
Speaker 3: through that walking just walking around, motion travel, that kind
Speaker 3: of thing. Signs, like seeing signs on the thing, I like,
Speaker 3: really specific and you know, like things that suggests stories.
Speaker 3: I was funny. I was like, my parents didn't have
Speaker 3: a lot of records, but they had some when I
Speaker 3: was growing up, and one of the records they did
Speaker 3: have was Paul Simon's Greatest Hits, and I used to
Speaker 3: listen to that record a lot. I've never really thought
Speaker 3: of him as a big influence, but I was about
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago. I
Speaker 3: was walking somewhere and or I was in a store
Speaker 3: and they're playing that song Slip Sliding Away, you know,
Speaker 3: and there's a line he says, and it's in like
Speaker 3: the second verse. He says, Dolores, I live in fear.
Speaker 3: And I said, oh my god, that's like bringing up
Speaker 3: a woman's name in the middle of the second verse.
Speaker 3: That's like that's something I love, Like, you know, like
Speaker 3: like that put a name in the story that wasn't that,
Speaker 3: you know, it's not like that's the name of the song.
Speaker 3: That's like, it's just this detail, like we didn't know
Speaker 3: this woman's name until and I was like, that's that.
Speaker 3: I got that from that, you know, like and it was.
Speaker 3: But I really do like kind of manipulating the ideas
Speaker 3: of specifics in generals, you know, in general. So you know,
Speaker 3: I think a lot about that, like do I name
Speaker 3: the street you know? Or do you say you're on
Speaker 3: the street? And creating a balance. There is something that
Speaker 3: is always like kind of a big part of my work.
Speaker 2: Have you ever thought about taking yourself to another country
Speaker 2: to make an entire record to just for it to
Speaker 2: reflect that place? I guess I'm thinking of like a band.
Speaker 2: I mean, an example would be somebody like maybe even
Speaker 2: the Food Lights did this a few years ago, where
Speaker 2: Dave grow took himself around the country sonic highways, and
Speaker 2: he went to a city, didn't he any And the
Speaker 2: songs were productive the people that he'd met and the
Speaker 2: sounds of the city and the buildings and the place. Yea,
Speaker 2: So is that ever been like attempting?
Speaker 3: I've thought about that in uh, not so much other countries,
Speaker 3: but like sort of smaller US cities, you know, places
Speaker 3: that people don't always go. You know, I do get
Speaker 3: really inspired when I go to a new place, but
Speaker 3: I've never done that. But that might be I've always
Speaker 3: thought that might be a good thing if I get
Speaker 3: writer's block, But I've never gotten writers block so far.
Speaker 2: Touch weird that doesn't happen. You're a fan of lyricism
Speaker 2: in general, lyric writing, yeah, including you know. I've heard
Speaker 2: you speak in the past about your admiration for the
Speaker 2: lyrics and hip hop. For example, what are some of
Speaker 2: your favorite rappers some of your favorite hip hop records.
Speaker 3: Oh, I feel like I'm really out of touch with
Speaker 3: with hip hop now. I used to not be, like
Speaker 3: when I was really in touch with When I was
Speaker 3: in Litropoolar my old band in the nineties, there was
Speaker 3: a group rhyme sayers coming up in Minneapolis that that
Speaker 3: were kind of like parallel to us that we're friends
Speaker 3: of us, friends of ours. So I was like knew them,
Speaker 3: and that was an era of hip hop I knew,
Speaker 3: like felt like I was more inclined to the third
Speaker 3: the Wu Tang forever, I think is like to me,
Speaker 3: like like what lyrically one of the most insane and
Speaker 3: cool records. I tend to like very instructional drug wrap,
Speaker 3: like a ghost Face, Killer Fish Scale, other clips.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I like to find out how to break things down
Speaker 3: and make a profit, So anything that kind of details
Speaker 3: that for me.
Speaker 2: A business learning with your hip hop. Yeah yeah, Well listen, Greig.
Speaker 2: I hope you have a great weekend in London. Enjoy
Speaker 2: the three shows you're playing, Enjoy your Sunday roast. Thank you,
Speaker 2: and we look forward to catching up with you against THEE.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Midnight Chats is a Loud and Quiet podcast. Music courtesy
Speaker 1: of gold Panda. Search Midnight Chats on iTunes for more
Speaker 1: episodes and to subscribe. For more information, visit loud and
Speaker 1: Quiet dot com.