WEBVTT - Gang of Youths 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:04.640 Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:07.840 Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan run Tug, 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.160 but enough about me. My guest today are members of 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:15.040 one of Australia's biggest bands. They've slowly but surely mounted 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.680 their musical assault on this hemisphere with the help of 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:23.520 two stellar records, The Positions and Go Farther in Lightness. 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.160 Their latest album, Angel in Real Time, is the result 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.600 of nearly five years of intense workshopping, numerous false starts, 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.200 serious case of writer's block, and one immense personal loss. 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.960 It's a monument of frontman Dave Leo Pepe's late father, 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:43.479 who died of cancer, and the song cycle finds him 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.760 coming to terms with the life milestone and contemplating the 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.280 loneliness of his passing juxtaposed with the comfort and peace 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.560 that often comes. And I Loved One transcends this reality 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.880 and into another. To paraphrase the group's own description, Angel 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:00.400 in Real Time is a meditation on the meaning of death, 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.840 grief and God, and also a nod to the London 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.360 neighborhood of Angel that served as the band's home base. 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.679 It's also a celebration of Dave's own Samoan heritage. The 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.039 record is packed with refluences and recordings of indigenous music 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.560 of the South Pacific, in addition to sounds of modern classical, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.839 English drummond bass, and American folk. Angel in Real Time 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.959 is a highly ambitious work of creative and personal growth, 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.000 and it was well worth the way. I'm so happy 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.720 to welcome Dave, Leo Pepe and Max Dunn of Gang 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:40.680 of Youths. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Just to 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:42.720 kick it off, I mean, I I just want to 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.600 offer you, guys, oh well deserved congratulations and thank you 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:48.400 for Angel and Real Time. I mean, I know you've 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.680 been working on it for for several years now, and 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.600 I think I'm right and saying you recorded it three 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:55.640 different versions of it. I mean, how did you know 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:57.360 it was done? How did you know you had it 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.880 where you wanted it? Finally, it was when the labels said, 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:06.920 all right, the major label dead. That's the honest. So 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.959 your first for warners, right, Yeah, so yeah, it's it's um, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.240 it's weird lot our experiences labels is kind of more 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.799 synonymous of how they experienced it, probably in the nineties 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:18.600 when they had Googles and money and credit cards and 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:24.680 credit cards, but like Cartel wrought cocaine, um, that kind 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.240 of But they've been really permissive with us and really 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.960 really even temp and cool with us, you know, which 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.040 is you know, not the stereotype of most major labels. 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.600 And honestly, we stay in the business, they stay out out. 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:39.919 The Warned team here in the UK are unbelievable. The 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.920 American team are really really really great, super supported, unbelieving 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.520 as well. So it's been kind of like that. But 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.000 they were like, listen, it's been two fucking years, stop 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.680 passing around and get it done. Um. So that's kind 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:51.800 of what we had to know. And I think there 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:56.240 was as well, Yeah, because Max had a kid and 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.440 you know, it's the whole thing. But I think it 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.120 was a lot understanding that we had said everything that 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:07.400 we wanted to say in the best way, ah possible, 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.320 and it was and it was beautiful. We all found 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.200 it beautiful. And we keep sucking using this word today 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:15.760 that it's this idea of something that felt beautiful. And 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.320 I was saying before and I'll say now, this is 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.320 the first time in my career I felt um, but 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.480 I don't absolutely hate something, just hate it a little 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.360 bit this is a fucking miracle for me. But Mars 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.959 like it. But I think it's I think it's stunning. Man. 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.200 Like I think, you know, because we made so much 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:38.840 bad ship, well not even bad but just non right ship, 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:43.840 that it really does feel like, um, really cool. And 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:48.160 it was like so free and um, it was fucking hard, 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.160 Like obviously we were going insane. It's at seven points 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.680 of like two years during lockdown and a room. Um, 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.000 but I just mean it was like it was, yeah, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.480 everything that you know Dave's probably wanted in terms of 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.040 influences in the past that had been too weird or 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.680 too like whatever, and you know, we were able to 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.960 throw ourselves into that and all our different backgrounds and 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.279 kind of just come up with something really beautiful and 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:18.880 weird and like that, I felt like it was the 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.800 right thing for who we are now, which is really cool. 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:26.800 I feel like you only know you only you know 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.920 when you've arrived, when you arrived, like it was sort 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.400 of you just got there and it got to the 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.760 last track being done, kind of the scaffolding of it, 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.000 and I think we just kind of paused and said, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.120 I think we're about nearly really there or winners, Um, 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:46.880 some lares. Yeah, And it was interesting because like at 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:51.039 the at the outset of the of the whole fucking album, 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.920 right when we first started working, when I first started working, 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.480 I knew it would be a title pain to get done. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.880 It would be a lot of late though. It's a 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.920 lot of travel, a lot of money spent to get 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.159 the sound that we wanted, the size of the of 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.560 the string ensemble that we wanted, um, you know, to 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:18.080 pay the musicians correctly, um, to to appropriately distribute admiralties 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.400 to the rights holders of not only the recordings of 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.839 the samples that we've used by David Fanshaw, but also 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.039 the people who performed that trying to find ways so 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.640 we understood there would be a lot that went into it. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.760 So I think once that stuff was kind of ironed out, um, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.960 and we've got we've got a sense of, um, what 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.240 the album was going to sound like mixed wise, because 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.640 we actually started mixing some of these songs before vocals 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:46.960 moveing on it. Because I hadn't finished the lyrics for 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.280 some things. Something has had lyrics for anyone the decades, 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.080 and other things just took a really long time. So 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.719 it was basically when the lyrics were done. Okay, the 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:59.520 album's done, gentlemen, our mate counts it. And also Peter 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:01.880 Cater who we can't forget, who was just sucking amazing. 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:07.040 He mixed Return Unison. But but people really really worked 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.440 against the clock on it. So the way I then, 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:15.320 especially count did so much work, massive, massive, massive gratitude, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.560 the huge de on the tracks where you had the 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.560 the instrumental arrangements done but working on the lyrics. Did 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:23.599 you know what you wanted to say in those songs? 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:25.320 Was it a case of sitting down and working on 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.320 how to articulate it? Or did you sit with the 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.800 instrumental tracks and just think, where does this take me? 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:31.440 Right now? Where? What is you know? What is it 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.400 that uh this we feel? That's a good good question. 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.240 It was column I, column by I always have a 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.400 title of the song before I have lyrics UM, and 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:47.840 the title was just a placeholder that sparks some emotion 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.520 related to the song for me, or or a concept 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:55.120 with feeling UM. For the most part, man um. It 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.560 kind of works in different ways depending on the song. 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.760 If I'm if, if I have a it always starts 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.920 with the melody for me, weirdly UM. On this one, 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.440 it was it was all melodic and finding phrasing and 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:11.760 words that fit that, and then a mood to fit 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:17.040 the phrasing and words, and then trying to trying to 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.880 carve out shape of a contour of the themes or whatever. 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.280 I'm not someone who just kind of could just put 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.920 put out words. There's always a central nervous system, like 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.120 a like a some tripical motion that exists at the 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.040 nucleus of every song or whatever that propels it, that 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.480 gives it meaning and value to me, that make me 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.920 not want to fucking die every time we have to 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.920 perform the motherfucker, do you know what I mean? So 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.680 finding that meaning was the hard It was the hard basket, 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.000 you know what I mean. And for some songs like 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.280 The Kingdom Is Within You or You and Everything, the 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.440 meaning approach many of the lyrics they're kind of already 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:00.240 there um or or I had a tacit understanding of 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.320 where that song was going to go, Whereas like with 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.840 Full Bearance, I had an inkling of what I wanted 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:07.640 the sort of sound live, but kind of changed and 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.840 shifted and then it went back around to being what 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.040 it was about. Does that make sense? So it just 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:14.880 kind of depends on what song And I think for 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.120 bearans always had a strong malondic component that tied me 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:22.800 to emotions around that that were kind of like, you know, 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:26.560 synonymous with those melodies. Um, they kind of just fed itself. 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.520 I think you know, but that was a completed instrumental 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:34.200 sucking or list a year ago, which is wild. Mm hmm. 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:36.520 I think I read and I don't. I don't know. 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.920 Maybe a miss understood this that the project began with 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.880 the album's title. Did that more? I guess question one? 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.400 Is that true? And question too? How did that kind 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.840 of serve as sort of the uh, you know your 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.560 your your load, star, your your your you know your 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.720 guide throughout this? Um, I mean, Max do remember this, 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.360 but I just started working on this albumen where we 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:04.640 was living. It would just moved to London, m Jordan 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:09.720 loved and and there's Plankton day on Pettonville, Pettonville and Caledonian. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.440 So that makes you answer looking for give you for that? Um, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:20.160 um Haven'tville Caledonian. So that was rightly where we were made. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:22.920 I can't even express to you how meaningful that neighborhood 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.800 is because we used to live in Holloway um On, Caledonia, Road. 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:33.240 What was that street Corporated station. So that was actually 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.320 where I wrote The Angel of my Dead Years, where 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.719 I started working on UM. When I started working on UM, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.960 what what turned into Unison Tender Garden, A little bit, 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.520 A little bits are in there. UM. There's just a 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.120 lot of stuff I started working on there, and I 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.520 kind of I kind of had this vision of look 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.280 because I knew my dad wasn't well and he was sick. 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.160 I knew that one day I'd have to confront the 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.200 realities of my my heritage in his upbring and I 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.319 was like thinking about integrating some of that stuff. But 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:07.400 I knew I wanted to use samples gentlemen, and so 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.520 I feel like that was the genesis of where it started. 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:16.240 Angel brill Time, however, tied everything into a cohesive hole 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:18.559 for me that I came up with that album name 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.000 in two eighteen May. I was walking around Angel the 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:23.640 day that we found the house and we all lived in, 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.319 and I was always been with you, like like every 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.040 album with a there's a name a name. Before I 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.760 remember being told like we're gonna we should make a 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.319 father and lighting us now and been like okay, okay, 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.040 like whatever the funk that means, you know at the time, 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.640 which is a cool trade. Man. It's like it's cool 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:46.400 to have like a north Star. It's like a dude 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.480 in a band, Like yeah, it's it's weird because I 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.440 always think of I always think of like it's gonna 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.920 sound like the best pluck and pretensus bullshitever. But Thomas 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.640 Pensioned grabbed his rainbow. There's that thing about, um, you 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.400 never did the cannotion kid, And there's like six thousand 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:04.559 different And I used to follow Twitter account years ago. 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:10.920 That auto, that auto produces different grammatical variations that you 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.280 never did the cannotion kid. Now for people who grab 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.199 his rainbo, I don't want to sucking ruin it, but 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:25.160 it's just like it's, um, it's for me. The the 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:28.400 fluidity of that sentence is explored a lot, and not 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.320 in the in the in the book, but in the 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:34.920 fandom surrounding that. Hence why there's an order generated Twitter 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:40.040 that generates like new grammatical variations. Just a simple nonsensical 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.200 statement can have a lot of thematic weight depending on 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.960 its interpretation. And I like that there's like almost like 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:52.280 almost like plos use the term post structuralist. One of 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:56.920 my fucking professor in Boston at Harvard, right, one of 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:01.000 my sucking white collar professional Um, there's a sense of 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.640 like each word donating denating something else, And so I thought, 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.000 angel in real time, we'll live in Angel. My dad's 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.160 an angel real time. You know. I just all these 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.640 kind of images of contra up of this, this kind 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:20.120 of relatively banal, benign sort of phrase, And I love 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.000 how it's open interpretation to me but to others, but 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.439 it meant something to me. Someone go farther in lightness? 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.360 What the fuck is go farther? Why that word? Why 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.560 up further? Why lightness? What is likeness? You know? I like. 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.760 I like the idea of the English language being poised 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.319 for interpretation always any given time, and a collection of 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.760 you like the positions I mean I was using as 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.319 a reference in Lennon Cohen's Various Positions, but it could 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.280 also mean the positions on a football pictures that I 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.679 think there's I think there's so much fluidity. So if 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.280 I just come up with words that sound beautiful and 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.040 they suggest something, they imply meaning that it perhaps fucking 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.440 potentially something will come from it, Like if there will 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:03.920 be blood? Do you know what I mean? Chunking express 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.240 Do you know what I'm saying? Like? I like the 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:13.719 ideas that so much, almost like Louis Carroll. Yeah, it's 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.040 all whimsy and bullshit, but to me, it makes them 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:20.760 fucking conceptual. But but that's how I started everything. I 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.800 feel like a title cinematic and it helps me derive 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.560 meeting and shape and ark without having to do too 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.920 much groundwork. You know, it's all about the big picture 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:34.000 type stuff in the initial stages and planning record. How 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:35.439 do you feel about I feel like there's sort of 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.120 two schools of thought with with artists being asked about 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.280 their lyrics. There are some who who will dive right 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.040 in and almost treat it like a diary and tell 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.040 you, you you know, what they were feeling where these came from. 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.160 And then there are others who are you know, prefer 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.440 to be a little more vague and really want to 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.920 leave it open to interpretation and open to, you know, 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.200 people to bring their own twist to it. How do 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.079 you feel about that? How do you feel about discussing 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.839 your your words? I trust people that not treat my 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.319 fucking words as gospel, because that would be stupid to 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.360 be true. It's anything that anybody in the public. Guy said, 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.360 is titled with sucking Gospel. That would be absurd, right, Um, 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:11.959 So I asked it. It's my ship. I'll say that 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.959 A want about it. I respect people. I don't. Um, 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:16.640 just straight up you know. I wasn't the thing with 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.400 Trent Resident, who I like a lot. Um. He doesn't 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.680 like to talk about meeting and songs. He even said 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:23.960 that it ruins that. I'm sorry, I like ruining stuff. 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:25.720 I was saying, I know Swift. He doesn't like beause 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.040 I know Swift. He doesn't like to mention stuff, and 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.520 she's obviously very talented, good at her job. Um, but 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.000 I like to I enjoy ruining it for people. I 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:37.320 think it's important to understand context. I'm I'm I'm a 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.000 fucking layman student of history, and I have a very 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:46.200 intense desire to keep reliving my connection to place and time. 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:48.320 And so in order for me to do that, I 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:52.520 do that through the meeting of very mediocre indie rock music. Um. 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:54.960 And so the way did you want to stay? What 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.040 I mean? So, these are the ways I like to 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.160 approach the world and how I want to approach art. 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:00.560 And I think people who want to leave it up 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:05.480 to interpretation, that's cool. I think I think there's pretentiousness 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.840 on my side because I feel like it's so what 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.960 I have to say is so important and so meticulous 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:12.000 that I have to share it with it. And I 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.400 do understand it's probably criticism, but I would say, naturally 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:16.160 people who want to keep it themselves. I don't. I 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.920 want a big believed in this mystic in this mystical 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:26.120 spiritualized great band, but spiritualized fucking um? What's the word? 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.120 Focus focused around lyrics? So I mean, they're not going 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:31.760 to say the world it's poetry and it can be 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.520 like anything is up until to interpretation, even if I 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:36.120 tell you the truth of what it means. So I think, 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.720 I think that debate doesn't really rage in my head 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:40.600 because I just don't care. It's not really part of 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:45.960 what consumes my thought. I'm more concerned with wherever I'm 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.880 communicating what I want to say effectively enough, not whether 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:50.640 or not does that make sense to it or I 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:52.640 feel like I'm I feel like it might be a 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.720 pretty harsh answer to a really reasonable question. But no, 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.000 not at all. I mean I in a lot of ways, 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.840 I feel like you're being you're taking self deprecation to 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.040 the level of a martial art. I should say, I 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.920 was just we were just talking about this another interview. Man, 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:10.280 I've just I've just been drawn. It's becoming my attention 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.680 so often now I'm starting to think that if I 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.480 ever do another interview again, I'm gonna have to be this. 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.120 I'm gonna have to do this cocky cock shure, fucking 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.920 self assured kind of blow. You know, So next time 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.200 I spake to you, you'll be like, have you been 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:38.160 have you been smoking some really good ship? Because I 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.000 hadn't planned on sharing this, but I guess in the 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:43.800 interest of what you just said. I when I was 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:46.680 a young boy, I lost a parent and this was 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.240 more than twenty years ago, and just recently over Chris, 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:54.760 Oh no no, I'm no, no, no, no, no, I am. 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.680 Just recently over Christmas, a distant family member that I 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:00.840 hadn't known got in touch with me and sent me 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.520 a tremendous gift, the box of all sorts of teenage 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.800 uh letters and diaries my mom and written in photos 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.560 and stuff, and I it kind of made me think 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.680 of of what you were writing on this album too, 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.560 because I do we were you when I'm sorry to 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.119 hear that. Not Oh no, no, I was. I was 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.119 favorite people in the world, lost lost home on one 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.080 of my favorite people ever lost a mom. She's little girl, 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:29.080 so totally strongly, um, you know, totally strongly point oh no, 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.320 thank you. I mean I I was twelve and I'm 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.640 I'm thirty four now. I just I listening to your 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.760 songs and the words that that you were saying, and 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.439 even just you know this sounds corny, but even between 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.760 the lines of the lyrics too, I it hit me 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.560 in a personal way because I I sort of know 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.280 on a certain level what you were singing about, sort 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.960 of getting to know your parents after the fact. And 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.200 you know, I mean, what's that ancient Egyptian expression, something 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.600 like to speak a man's name is restore is to 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:03.639 restore or him to eternal life, which to any that 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:07.320 that is beautiful, I think I fucking eyed degicians. I 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.240 think I stole that from a from a from a 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.600 Doors interview. By the way, So for anybody thinks I'm 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.359 actually well read, I'm not. That's I definitely took that 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.000 from Jim Morrison. But the journey that you went through 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.959 on this record, um, it connected with me even uh 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.240 you know in ways that maybe you don't realize. And 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.439 I'm sure with so many people too. I mean, at 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.720 what point there's questions to both of you do you 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.600 start thinking of the audience when you're putting songs together? 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.760 I mean, all these songs of fragments of a grief eternal, 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.160 but it doesn't never leave you. And I think there's 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.119 a sense of this. I think there's a sense of 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.639 disconnected this I'll always have with an audience, purely because 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:51.040 my my my job, our job is too craft things 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:55.200 that people consume. I say this in every fucking interview, 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.600 but it's it's being a musician as a trade. You 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.000 play a trade, were overpaid assholes most of where who 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.640 do who do something? Rather Um it's but it's it's 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.159 a profession that otherwise would have inspired, um, you know 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:12.240 the kind of fandom that we see in they maybe 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.000 the seventeenth there might have been the nineteenth might have 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:19.080 been thinking from correct composers. But um, we're fortunate, We're 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:23.200 fortunately that our craft is is is because you know, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:28.639 it is market speaking, um, considered to be worth more 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:33.440 than it actually is. Um. So I think I think, 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:35.800 I think what I'm trying, like Max you're gonna interrupt 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:37.560 me with something self effacing before I go in for 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.560 the kill. Was something like pejorative, So maybe you go, 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:43.960 uh No, I was just gonna say, like, the entire 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.560 thing is like I mean for me, that like music 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:52.920 is just about making people like feel you know, like 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.800 you know, like I don't know, like the you momi 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:02.240 like the sucking, Like that's the job, man. Like the 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.480 whole thing is like do I listen to this when 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.320 I'm listening to the mix, and am I like massively 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.800 affected by it? Um as a beautiful as it as 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.480 it bringing out the beauty or like the meaning in 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.720 the lyrics by accident or good ways is their contrast whatever? 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:21.200 I think. I think that's what I'm trying to I 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:22.920 think that's what I'm I think that's what I'm trying 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.760 to gesture. Act. Look, it's just the job, and you 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.080 can't help but think about where your table goes. If 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.080 you've made a table, you can't help but think about 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:35.520 like that's a great No, that's an incredible yeah. But 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.920 I wonder what this thing that I've spent six and 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.640 a half hours or six and a half weeks, sick 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:43.479 and half years making I wonder where this is going 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:45.720 to go. How the fund are you supposed to Not 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.399 so for me, it's like if I'm making ergonomic chairs 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.040 in my basement, you know, you want to make sure 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.560 that people are fucking enjoying sitting there ass on them, 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:59.840 you know, um, even if aesthetically they're not as pleasing 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:01.840 as the ship you might get down at the fucking 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:08.080 you know, the kyaka self deprecation is killing. No, but 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.240 it's not. It's not, but it's I think there's something 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.280 more reminiscent of the way that I grew up in 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:14.880 the way they look at music, that it's the job, 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.400 it's profession, and you want to think about where it goes. 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.119 And any bit of handy work you do is a 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:22.359 small mark on the planet Earth, you know, even the 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.160 smallest piece of literature or and that's nice to think about. 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.720 It's meaningless and it's bullshit, but it's still in some 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:34.600 way lovely, you know. And I would like anything that, 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:38.119 anything that I have to be reminiscent and reflective of 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.280 the talent that surrounds me and the four other guys 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:45.159 in the band, and also to reach people if they 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.000 if they choose to be reached. You know that's an 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.520 important thing, but it's hard. It's hard to balance because 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.080 I'm the kind of I'm such a fucking people pleaser. 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.760 Right if I think about what what the peanut gallery wants, 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.359 then they're getting nothing the peanuts, you know, and then 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.320 and they'll never change, They'll never change or something more 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:09.200 more nutritious like pears gentlemen. So that is said to 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.240 be I just don't have to be realistic about about 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.600