Speaker 1: That bad wolf. While maybe it doesn't need to be fed,
Speaker 1: it needs to be acknowledged at least I think when
Speaker 1: we ignore that dark side, that's kind of when trouble
Speaker 1: starts to bubble up. Welcome to the one you feed.
Speaker 1: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think ring true, and yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is John Worcester, an American musician and humorous best
Speaker 1: known as the drummer for indie rockers Superchunk, Bob Mould,
Speaker 1: and The Mountain Goats. He's also known for his comedic
Speaker 1: work with radio host Tom sharp Ling on The Best
Speaker 1: Show on WFMU. Let's check out the interview. Hi, John,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Hello, thank you for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a real pleasure. I have to tell
Speaker 1: you that I'm probably going to have a hard time
Speaker 1: at first taking you seriously because I've heard your voice
Speaker 1: for hours and hours, and in almost every case when
Speaker 1: I hear that voice, you are playing some jackass or
Speaker 1: the other on the radio on the Best Show. So
Speaker 1: it may take me a little while to get get
Speaker 1: used to you actually being you. That's okay, I actually
Speaker 1: get that a lot. I'm sure you do. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you do. So our podcast is called The One You Feed,
Speaker 1: and it's based on the parable of Two Wolves, where
Speaker 1: there's a grandfather and he's talking with his grandson and
Speaker 1: he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents kindness and love
Speaker 1: and bravery, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents hate and greed and fear and pick your poison.
Speaker 1: And the grandson stops and he thinks for a second.
Speaker 1: He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed? So what I'd like to start
Speaker 1: the interview off with is asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life. You know, obviously it
Speaker 1: means you you try to live your your life in
Speaker 1: a way where you are uh, you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: engaged in the good, the good side, the good part
Speaker 1: parts of yourself, and you treat others and interact with
Speaker 1: others from that good side. But I also think the
Speaker 1: more I kind of get into this, that that that
Speaker 1: bad wolf, while maybe it doesn't need to be fed,
Speaker 1: it needs to be acknowledged at least. I think we
Speaker 1: all have a uh a light and a dark side,
Speaker 1: and I think when we ignore that dark side, that's
Speaker 1: kind of when when trouble starts to bubble up. I
Speaker 1: like I said, I don't think you need to feed
Speaker 1: that that bad wolf, but I do think it needs
Speaker 1: to be acknowledged and even showing some compassion while not
Speaker 1: exactly feeding it. Yeah exactly. I actually think for some
Speaker 1: of us, that bad wolf is pretty good at feeding
Speaker 1: himself and um, and you're right, but that that complete
Speaker 1: suppression and trying to be someone we're not seems to
Speaker 1: get get a lot of people into trouble. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that's where a lot of um, dark and
Speaker 1: and bad behavior comes from. You you. Uh, people have
Speaker 1: that that dark side or the negative side, and they're
Speaker 1: so afraid of it that they push it down until
Speaker 1: eventually it does kind of show itself in in the
Speaker 1: form of bad and negative behavior. Yeah. Um, so I
Speaker 1: know that you are. I think in our emails we
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about how you are a reader
Speaker 1: of I'm never a fan of the of the term
Speaker 1: self help books, but for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna go with that one, and that
Speaker 1: you you tend to read some things in that in
Speaker 1: that area. Are there any books you could talk about
Speaker 1: that you've read lately that you really like or maybe
Speaker 1: just even all time favorites of yours that you've drawn
Speaker 1: a lot from. Yeah. It's funny when when I was
Speaker 1: preparing for today, I realized that I have tons of
Speaker 1: these books. I buy them all the time, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them I have just kind of sat on
Speaker 1: the shelf, but I have read a lot of them.
Speaker 1: And I pulled a handful of the ones that I've
Speaker 1: liked recently, and so uh. One is called The Untethered
Speaker 1: Soul by Michael Singer, and that's kind of, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of examining our connection to whatever you wanna call
Speaker 1: God is such a loaded word at this point. I
Speaker 1: think that I tend not to use that word, but
Speaker 1: you know, the connection to source or where we're from
Speaker 1: or where we originated. And that's a really good one.
Speaker 1: I love that. Um. I got this book somewhere on
Speaker 1: tour and it's it's crazy, but I loved it. It's
Speaker 1: called a Journey Towards Forgiveness the Afterlife Apologies of Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 1: Go ahead. That sounds like that if I didn't know better,
Speaker 1: I would actually think that that was something you just
Speaker 1: made up. I know it sounds insane, but it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, you you take some of these books with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt and you just kind of I
Speaker 1: just read them and see if there's anything in there
Speaker 1: that resonates with me, and this really did. And I
Speaker 1: it's obviously it's it's a guy kind of channeling Hitler
Speaker 1: on the other side, and but it's got it's got
Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff about self forgiveness and that
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And you know, whether or not
Speaker 1: you believe that this guy is actually in touch with Hitler.
Speaker 1: The kernels of information in there affected me and I
Speaker 1: thought they were really good. One of the first books
Speaker 1: that I really got into when I basically I got
Speaker 1: into this stuff in the in the late eighties, I
Speaker 1: um um, I was having a really dark time. I
Speaker 1: was living in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and I was
Speaker 1: playing in a band and basically we had gotten signed
Speaker 1: to Arista Records by Clie Davis. I joined the band
Speaker 1: and two months later we get signed and I was nineteen,
Speaker 1: and one of those things where you think, everything's wow,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what I want to do. The ball
Speaker 1: is rolling. I didn't really have to pay too many dues,
Speaker 1: and I've got I'm on a major label, and then
Speaker 1: of course things went to ship pretty pretty immediately, and
Speaker 1: I just kind of found myself in this depression and
Speaker 1: I realized a lot of it was kind of rooted
Speaker 1: in childhood. My dad had an alcohol problem when when
Speaker 1: he was when I was like fifteen, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff kind of started coming up, and along
Speaker 1: with a lot of kind of church damage that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people suffer when their kids. But
Speaker 1: the church I went to was not at all oppressive,
Speaker 1: but I just kind of developed this massive fear of
Speaker 1: religion and dying. And so I discovered this book called
Speaker 1: We Don't Die just in the mall that I worked
Speaker 1: that I worked at a record store, and by a
Speaker 1: guy named Joel Martin, and basically it's just sort of
Speaker 1: talking about near death experiences and and that, and that
Speaker 1: was kind of the first thing that really hooked me
Speaker 1: into this. And then I found a book by um
Speaker 1: a woman named pat pat Rhode, a guest r R
Speaker 1: O D E g A s T. And she was
Speaker 1: a she was kind of a a friend of Ram
Speaker 1: Doses and it's basically it's also a kind of channeled
Speaker 1: book too, uh, this energy called called Emmanuel. It's basically
Speaker 1: at our core, we are loved and we are love, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And so that that kind of really got me through
Speaker 1: that this dark time, and from there I just kind
Speaker 1: of got into more and more of these books like
Speaker 1: Papagi and uh Byron Katie and Wayne Wayne Dyer and
Speaker 1: Neil Donald Walls, so all all that stuff. So you've
Speaker 1: you've got into that in an original time when you
Speaker 1: were when you were struggling a little bit in a
Speaker 1: in a dark period which which could have probably been
Speaker 1: from the label thing, or maybe just working in a
Speaker 1: mall in the record store. That might have been the
Speaker 1: whole problem right there. It certainly was my darkest, my
Speaker 1: darkest days where we're at the record bar. They really
Speaker 1: were the only thing. It could be worse if you
Speaker 1: had to work in a guitar store. I think that
Speaker 1: might be the third level of how much later? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so so that was a period. Then you've you've you've
Speaker 1: clearly kept that interest. Has depressions been something that you
Speaker 1: have wrestled with on and off since then, and you've
Speaker 1: you've gone back to these sources as as things to
Speaker 1: sort of help keep you keep you out of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and that's why I keep all these books too,
Speaker 1: because I do actually go back to them. Even if
Speaker 1: I haven't read one of these for ten years, I'll
Speaker 1: often be compelled to go over to the bookshop and
Speaker 1: pick up the book that I read ten years ago
Speaker 1: that helped me, that I hadn't thought about in ten years. Um,
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're there, they they they help help me
Speaker 1: get get through a lot. I've I've been engaged in
Speaker 1: therapy for the last couple of years too. That that's
Speaker 1: been very helpful, and you know, um kind of where
Speaker 1: I am. So so you brought up church damage. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I've heard you talk about before
Speaker 1: is I think you keep a list of words that
Speaker 1: you hate, the most hated words or what's it called.
Speaker 1: It's it's called word hate trademark. Okay, And I think
Speaker 1: I heard you once saying that you when you when
Speaker 1: you analyze that, you realize that an awful lot of
Speaker 1: those words came from uh, they were from a church setting. Yes,
Speaker 1: And like I said, my church was not oppressive at all. Somehow,
Speaker 1: I just I just it never felt right to me.
Speaker 1: And uh, but a lot of these words that I
Speaker 1: don't like, and they're they're just like I just have
Speaker 1: an immediate discomfort when I hear them. And they're all
Speaker 1: kind of based in the church I went too. And
Speaker 1: they're all food related to I guess. I guess when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, they served food after the church service.
Speaker 1: So meal I don't like, uh, covered dish, I don't like. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a I always refer to this when when Obama
Speaker 1: was inaugurated the first time he had a a brunch.
Speaker 1: There's another word. Uh. After he was he was sworn
Speaker 1: in and it's online, it's on YouTube. The I think
Speaker 1: his name was, I think Barry black was was was
Speaker 1: the minister who did the the prayer another word at
Speaker 1: this brunch and he managed to hit like twenty of
Speaker 1: these words in his prayer. And so if you go
Speaker 1: online and you search this, you'll you'll hear twenty of
Speaker 1: the of my my least favorite words of all time,
Speaker 1: kind of just flying out there. Where's where's cold cuts? Cold?
Speaker 1: Cold cuts is in there too, which but that's that's
Speaker 1: a that's a term I rarely hear anymore. But that's
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Thank you for reminding me. That's
Speaker 1: definitely one of mine. I don't know what it is
Speaker 1: about that word cold cuts. So what are some of
Speaker 1: the most recent entries to to word hate and and
Speaker 1: how many words are in it? You know, I've never
Speaker 1: I've never kept a full uh list, which I probably
Speaker 1: should do, but I'm kind of into the fact that
Speaker 1: I don't have a written list. Um recent ones mouth field,
Speaker 1: you know, mouth field. Yeah, I think it's food. He's
Speaker 1: use it. Yeah, that's a tough one. Um, unless it's
Speaker 1: used in in a in a in an erotic sense,
Speaker 1: then maybe we can again, we could get you could
Speaker 1: get into mouth Field. I'm very into that then. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: my main problems right now are these these commercials that
Speaker 1: have Walt. Every commercial now has a ukulele in it. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is that is killing me. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: ukulele music on commercials, and there's a lot of ukulele
Speaker 1: music and new podcas casts. That's the other thing I've
Speaker 1: noticed it. It does seem to be does seem to
Speaker 1: be everywhere all of a sudden the last two years.
Speaker 1: And then when I hear it, I think of a
Speaker 1: Volkswagen commercial. I don't know why, but that's what it
Speaker 1: brings up in my mind. The whistling and apping and
Speaker 1: the stomping. That's the whole thing now too. Yeah, actually
Speaker 1: we've got I think there's a ukulele in this room.
Speaker 1: We could make we could make my co host here
Speaker 1: play a ukulele song with all of the word hate words.
Speaker 1: But but see, I'm glad you brought this up because
Speaker 1: all of this, all of these things are things I
Speaker 1: need to get over, like my my I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: bothered by this stuff. So that's that's something I'm trying
Speaker 1: to work out to why why does the ukulele bother
Speaker 1: like I take personal offense to it, like it's I
Speaker 1: take things way too personally, and and like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: take personally the fact that this ad agency approved this
Speaker 1: ukulele in this commercial. What does that? What does that
Speaker 1: say about me? I'm not sure Chris any ideas. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if there was maybe some childhood trauma involved
Speaker 1: with the ukulele. No, you know what you show me
Speaker 1: on the ukulele where Uncle Billy touched you exactly. I
Speaker 1: think what it is is, you know, I I have
Speaker 1: a distrust of anyone that has never been in the
Speaker 1: punk rock like that that bothers me. And so this
Speaker 1: whole sort of tensification of music and stuff bothers me.
Speaker 1: Like everything is tiny now, you know, like the like
Speaker 1: the whistling in the ukulele, so it's so far away
Speaker 1: from punk that that it bothers me. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense. Yeah, I think what I
Speaker 1: think is interesting is when you just said that I
Speaker 1: thought about Chris was sort of acknowledging to like that
Speaker 1: sort of distrust of people who weren't into punk music,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking I used to have that a lot,
Speaker 1: and I think I still have a little bit of it,
Speaker 1: but I've spent enough time at this point, I do.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of different consoling works. So I've
Speaker 1: been in the in the in the corporate world on
Speaker 1: and off enough that i've sort of just it's just
Speaker 1: been worn out of me all the time of just
Speaker 1: like and realizing like, oh, yeah, that guy didn't like
Speaker 1: the replacements, and he doesn't really know who Black Flag is,
Speaker 1: but he's still a pretty decent exactly like we can
Speaker 1: have lunch. There's you know, he hasn't he hasn't committed
Speaker 1: any crime against against humanity, but it but my initial
Speaker 1: reaction is to go there. But now that you mentioned
Speaker 1: I noticed that decreasing over time through forced exposure. One
Speaker 1: of my many problems. One of the one of the
Speaker 1: one of the bits you do as you call into
Speaker 1: Tom sharp Lain and you play a variety of of characters,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the things you go back
Speaker 1: to all the time is mispronouncing words. Is that is
Speaker 1: that tied to the to the to the word hate thing?
Speaker 1: And does he does sharp Laine have a similar aversion
Speaker 1: We we have words. Tom will have a word that
Speaker 1: really bothers him and he will, we'll write it into
Speaker 1: a bit and then he will just he will say,
Speaker 1: I want you to say that word seven times, like
Speaker 1: I want you to say over and over again until
Speaker 1: until I just tell you to stop. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of an example of one of those words, um
Speaker 1: buffet exactly. Yeah. Yeah, But the the malaprop isms, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where that started. But there's the funniest thing
Speaker 1: to to us is someone who is dead certain of
Speaker 1: either a fact or like we're talking about, a pronunciation,
Speaker 1: and then when they're called on it, they can't believe
Speaker 1: that that they're wrong, and and oh it is hilarious,
Speaker 1: like I'll mispronounced the word and then what do you
Speaker 1: think it is? And then he'll say it. Actually. A
Speaker 1: real life version example of that was do do you
Speaker 1: know Howard Stern show? Sure, Gary, the you know, the
Speaker 1: the assistant guy. His his nickname is Bobba Boy. And
Speaker 1: I guess the way that originated was he was he
Speaker 1: came in one day and he was talking about he
Speaker 1: had bought these these animation cells and uh, he's kind
Speaker 1: of rattling off the characters of the cells that he bought,
Speaker 1: and one of them was supposed to be Baba Louis
Speaker 1: and he pronounced he mispronounced it as Bobba Booie, and
Speaker 1: they just get on him so much for this, and
Speaker 1: and and he eventually goes, well, what is it. It's
Speaker 1: it's Bubba Billy, right, And of course for the next
Speaker 1: thirty years or whatever he has had to suffer with
Speaker 1: this this name. Yeah, that's a stick that works remarkably
Speaker 1: well at the you know. And the other one, one
Speaker 1: of the ones you've done on the on the Best
Speaker 1: show that my kids and I were cracking up over
Speaker 1: was when you were you were a basketball coach and
Speaker 1: you were talking about Bobby Knight and Sue Knight that
Speaker 1: they were in the same thing. Yeah, oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: you were so adamant that it absolutely was true. And
Speaker 1: it's yeah, good good stuff. Do you have a favorite uh,
Speaker 1: do you have a favorite character? Out of out of
Speaker 1: those that you play, the one that is closest to
Speaker 1: me and the one that's my natural default one to
Speaker 1: go into is is Philly Boy Roy and um, because
Speaker 1: I grew up just outside of Philadelphia, and people don't
Speaker 1: really believe believe that that's a real accent because it's
Speaker 1: obviously I do an extreme version of it. But um,
Speaker 1: it's a that's a real accent around there. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: it's almost English. It's it's very close to Baltimore, the
Speaker 1: Baltimore accent. And so it's it's based on on a
Speaker 1: few different people that I knew when I was younger,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just it's just an easy persona to
Speaker 1: throw on. So the best show recently ended, and um,
Speaker 1: it's it seems like it really picked up a lot
Speaker 1: of steam and popularity. It ended I think at the
Speaker 1: at the peak of its popularity. And and I saw
Speaker 1: the article today, I think it was today on the
Speaker 1: A V Club. That was a really good article about
Speaker 1: the ending. What are you guys up to now, because
Speaker 1: I think I've I've heard that you and you and
Speaker 1: Tom are onto other things in the comedy realm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are just just working on that right now. We've
Speaker 1: We've got a bunch of a bunch of irons in
Speaker 1: the fire, and um, we definitely want to keep the
Speaker 1: show alive in a venue that you know, that is
Speaker 1: that is a venue that we're able to actually make
Speaker 1: some money in. That was that was a thing that
Speaker 1: was that was tough. Over the years we did this
Speaker 1: thing for thirteen years and we loved doing it, but
Speaker 1: it was kind of tough after a while. We're we're
Speaker 1: not making any anything off this at all, and and
Speaker 1: and seeing other people doing that, you know, so so
Speaker 1: finally we just decided that, you know, let's let's see
Speaker 1: if we can try it somewhere else. And we love FMU.
Speaker 1: You know, we couldn't have asked for a better a
Speaker 1: better venue to do it in. You know, who who
Speaker 1: else is gonna let us do these thirty five five
Speaker 1: minute uninterrupted calls? You know, they're just is nowhere else
Speaker 1: that would where we could do that and reach that
Speaker 1: many people, But it just kind of reached its its end.
Speaker 1: You're you on the road pretty consistently. Yeah, Somewhere around um,
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, I just really started it. Was
Speaker 1: it was interesting. I moved to New York City, uh
Speaker 1: to Brooklyn with with my my then girlfriend, and we
Speaker 1: ended up splitting up. And it was right at the
Speaker 1: same time I started getting all these these gigs like
Speaker 1: Bob Moulden, the Mountain Goats and super Chunks started getting
Speaker 1: back into into business, and I was playing with Karl
Speaker 1: Newman from the New Pornographers and so since then it's
Speaker 1: been you know, five six years of touring with never
Speaker 1: more than three weeks of a break. And that's also
Speaker 1: when my my decision to stop drinking came about. Also
Speaker 1: was during those those first couple of years of I've
Speaker 1: the NonStop touring where you know, you find yourself between
Speaker 1: loading in your gear and loading out at the end
Speaker 1: of the night. Well, I had eight drinks, you know,
Speaker 1: and and every every day for two years, and that
Speaker 1: that kind of took its toll. So that that's another
Speaker 1: reason for what we're talking about tonight, you know, the
Speaker 1: self awareness and the self and provement and and that
Speaker 1: did you find that that drinking exacerbated? Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: realized it all. It always felt like like false happiness,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it almost felt like
Speaker 1: cheating to me to to be drunk, because you're just
Speaker 1: not dealing with your your actual problems. You're you're just
Speaker 1: kind of covering them up, and then you wake up
Speaker 1: the next day and you feel terrible, You feel terrible
Speaker 1: about yourself, and it just kind of repeats itself. And
Speaker 1: I completely understand why anybody in a rock band drinks,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's so boring too. You're you're doing
Speaker 1: nothing for basically twenty hours a day pretty much. And
Speaker 1: so I started to really drink on on a tour
Speaker 1: that Superchunk did of Europe in nineties six, where I
Speaker 1: was just drinking to get through the day at that point,
Speaker 1: and I thought this was terrible, and that didn't force
Speaker 1: me to stop at all. But you know, it all
Speaker 1: catches up with you at some point. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's that cycle that you talk about about over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. I know people in my
Speaker 1: life who who drink and they go out and they've
Speaker 1: had a shitty day and they go have some drinks
Speaker 1: and they feel better, and it's fine, right. They just
Speaker 1: do it once in a while and and there's and
Speaker 1: there's nothing to it, and I don't think it stops
Speaker 1: them from getting to the things that they need to
Speaker 1: address in their life, where some of us, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, it's that desire to cover up the problems
Speaker 1: and to feel different is so strong that that it
Speaker 1: just becomes a constant thing. Has it been a challenge
Speaker 1: for you because you are in a situation. You're in
Speaker 1: a rock and roll lifestyle, which to some degree is
Speaker 1: certainly surrounded by and and associated with yeah, you're it
Speaker 1: is like the worst possible scenario for someone who who
Speaker 1: was trying to to deal with that. You just you
Speaker 1: have free alcohol all all night long. And but I
Speaker 1: read this book by this guy named Alan Carr, who
Speaker 1: uh English guide. He wrote a book called The Easy
Speaker 1: Way to Stop Smoking, and he wrote an alcohol one also,
Speaker 1: The Easy Way to Stop Drinking, And that kind of
Speaker 1: worked for me. I read it, and you kind of
Speaker 1: you still drink as you read this book, and then
Speaker 1: at the end of the book you have what is
Speaker 1: in theory your last drink, and coming up in June
Speaker 1: that will be five years since I finished that book.
Speaker 1: And somehow, being around the alcohol at at clubs or whatever,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a big thing because it's more important to
Speaker 1: me to feel good, and um, I get when I
Speaker 1: started touring without it, I would get this weird high
Speaker 1: or thrill of going out in front of a couple
Speaker 1: of thousand people or whatever and playing sober I got.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of I don't know, pride, I
Speaker 1: guess coming off stage and think, wow, I did that
Speaker 1: completely sober. Yeah. I just never stopped relate, which is
Speaker 1: which is uh, it's been easy for me, thankfully, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. It's it sounds like you've got the positive
Speaker 1: reinforcement of it. My my partner here, Chris, read that
Speaker 1: book and used it to step smokes. Oh yeah. And
Speaker 1: also my dad, who I mentioned earlier. My my dad,
Speaker 1: as I said, struggled with alcoholism when I was in
Speaker 1: my teens, and he is a major success story in
Speaker 1: a major inspiration to me. He hasn't I don't think
Speaker 1: he's had a drink since maybe eighty seven or something,
Speaker 1: so you know, he's been a real source of help
Speaker 1: and guidance. Also one of the things that at least
Speaker 1: for for myself that I know, back to the theme
Speaker 1: of feeding your good wolf or of finding positive inspiration
Speaker 1: is certain is music in general and then maybe particularly
Speaker 1: certain types of music or certain artists. Is there is
Speaker 1: there any particular musicians or bands that that give you
Speaker 1: that same sort of feeling or that that positive inspiration. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think like a lot of people, you you take
Speaker 1: the most inspiration and the most um excitement from the
Speaker 1: music you you liked when you were first getting into
Speaker 1: music like and so for me that would be London
Speaker 1: cong by the Class was was was the record that
Speaker 1: really just made the hugest impression on me when that
Speaker 1: when that came out, I remember buying it. I was
Speaker 1: lucky to find a copy in New York City. I
Speaker 1: was I went there with my my mom and dad,
Speaker 1: my brother to see West Side Story and and I
Speaker 1: was able to find one copy of it that didn't
Speaker 1: have a parental sticker on it. That that album when
Speaker 1: it came out, had an offensive lyrics sticker on it,
Speaker 1: but this one didn't. So that was a record that
Speaker 1: made a huge impact on me. And and then you know,
Speaker 1: I loved um those you know when when R. A.
Speaker 1: M Started putting records, I love that stuff and who
Speaker 1: screw do? And I'm so lucky to play with Bob
Speaker 1: Mold and I get to play a lot of those
Speaker 1: songs replacements Paul Westerberg. Um, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I find myself going back to that
Speaker 1: and and those are the records that still still give
Speaker 1: me the chills. We must we must be similarly, because
Speaker 1: all those records and times pretty much pretty much ring true.
Speaker 1: How did you get started into playing music? Because you
Speaker 1: said by the time you were nineteen you had moved
Speaker 1: to a new town to join a band. That seems
Speaker 1: like they were on their way and had a major
Speaker 1: record label deal. When and how did you get started? Well,
Speaker 1: I I just always liked um seeing bands on on TV,
Speaker 1: like like American Bandstand and and those kind of TV shows,
Speaker 1: and I always focus on the drummer. And when your kid,
Speaker 1: drums are just sort of exotic, like they look they
Speaker 1: look cool, and you just you just want to touch
Speaker 1: them and beat on them. So I took lessons for
Speaker 1: like six months. And I didn't like the lessons because
Speaker 1: when you when you're a kid, you're just given this
Speaker 1: little drum pad and you you have to kind of
Speaker 1: do these rudiments and none of it is fun and
Speaker 1: you know, and so I stopped. But but then I
Speaker 1: still wanted to play the drums my parents. I was
Speaker 1: so lucky to have supportive parents. I come from a
Speaker 1: very non musical family. Nobody really played an instrument, and um,
Speaker 1: they gave me a drum kit when I was twelve,
Speaker 1: and I just started playing on that. And then I
Speaker 1: started taking lessons a couple of years later, and I
Speaker 1: like that. I learned a lot there from around fourteen
Speaker 1: fifteen and then I just started playing along with records.
Speaker 1: The first record I ever played, I remember was Graham Parsons,
Speaker 1: Graham Parker squeezing out sparks. And I found out if
Speaker 1: you had headphones that we're you know, that blocked enough
Speaker 1: sound you could play along with you could hear yourself.
Speaker 1: And that's where I learned a lot of my technique
Speaker 1: and all of that. And then just start playing in
Speaker 1: bands around Philly and then uh in eighty six, I
Speaker 1: joined this band called the Right Profile that was down
Speaker 1: in Winston Salem and quick side note, one of the
Speaker 1: founding members of that is a guy named Stephen Dubner
Speaker 1: and he co wrote the Freakonomics books, so um, he
Speaker 1: he was the guy out of all of this that
Speaker 1: did the best. That's pretty cool. Yeah, although you're not
Speaker 1: you're not doing too bad. You're you're making a making
Speaker 1: a living, do so well. I think we're kind of
Speaker 1: around the the end of the show. Is there anything
Speaker 1: else on the the theme of the show that you
Speaker 1: would want to cover or anything in general that we
Speaker 1: haven't talked about? What's the phrase? And I it's a
Speaker 1: phrase that I always come back to when I get
Speaker 1: judgmental about someone's behavior whatever. And that is where we're
Speaker 1: all works in progress. And I think that's true about everybody.
Speaker 1: I think the key is to have a level of
Speaker 1: self awareness. A lot of people don't seem to have that,
Speaker 1: and I think we could just be aware of how
Speaker 1: we interact with people and how we want to be
Speaker 1: treated that I think the world would be a better place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: remember remembering that the work in progress pieces really is
Speaker 1: really good. It is. Uh. It is easy to to
Speaker 1: fall into judgment, and as I've gotten older, I've realized
Speaker 1: how unpleasant that feels on the inside for me. It does, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. And uh. One thing I'm really working on is,
Speaker 1: like you said, how how that feels? How do things feel?
Speaker 1: If it doesn't feel good to judge someone, It doesn't
Speaker 1: feel good to judge or to be judged, or to
Speaker 1: treat someone poorly or to be treated so you you
Speaker 1: just have to be aware of also how that makes
Speaker 1: you feel, and that will I think, dictate how you
Speaker 1: behave also hopefully exactly. Well. Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: I will be looking for to whatever the next thing
Speaker 1: that the Worcester and Sharp Lind team do. Will have
Speaker 1: links to all your various projects and places to get
Speaker 1: your your comedy and music on our show notes. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me. It's a pleasure, all right,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bye bye. You can learn more about John
Speaker 1: Worcester and this podcast at one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Worcester. That's w U R s t e er
Speaker 1: in case you didn't know. Also, uh, we've loved getting
Speaker 1: emails and comments from everybody, So if you can get
Speaker 1: on one, you feed dot net and contact us, let
Speaker 1: us know what you think. Thanks. This is everything that
Speaker 1: John Worster hates right here. Come over today and we'll
Speaker 1: make some crafts, will have a fellowship luncheon while we
Speaker 1: eat some snacks. You can reap the rewards of an
Speaker 1: amazing meal a covered dish casserole with good mouth field.
Speaker 1: After the luncheon, will drink a loaf of tea. You'll
Speaker 1: be dancing in your panties with a full belly. By
Speaker 1: then you'll be nourished and feeling calm. And we'll go
Speaker 1: to the grocer and we'll buy some ball. God, I
Speaker 1: really had a shoehorn. Some of those words into their
Speaker 1: kind of made me hate myself even for doing that.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna go feed my bad walf just
Speaker 1: a cope. Actually, I'm gonna feed my good wolf to
Speaker 1: my bad wolf,