Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - EP 135: Dave Macklovitch (Chromeo)

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Andy invites members of the band to grade our thick skinned bass player, Floyd Kellogg! Listen in as they air their grievances publicly, and ask the question: is Floyd a man, or a trash can for the band (as in, a literal trash can... for trash)? And on the Interview Hour we welcome the FUNKY Dave Macklovitch from Chromeo! Helluva interview. Don't skip this one. A song from Shawn. And to close us out: a word from our friends of Floydfest! This is EP 135 and it's about FLOYD Follow us on Instagram @worldsavingpodcast For more information on Andy Frasco, the band and/or the blog, go to: AndyFrasco.com Check out Andy's new song, "Love Hard" on iTunes, Spotify  get FUNKY: chromeo.bandcamp.com Produced by Andy Frasco Joe Angelhow Chris Lorentz Audio mix by Chris Lorentz Featuring: Floyd Kellogg Ahri Findling Shawn Eckels FLOYDFEST Andee "Beats" Avila Arno Bakker FLOYD

Hi Andy, this is Mike Evans. I'm the executive producer of Sesame Street. I wanted to see if you had any interest in coming on our show. We've been following your career for a long time. We're huge fans and we want you to join the Sesame Street Family. We'd love you to come on the show, maybe play a song, and stick around for a whole episode. So if you have any interest, please call me back on this number. We're huge fans again, and we'd love to bring you on. Okay? Thank you so much. Talk soon. Bye. Hi, Andy. This is Mike Evans again. This is pretty embarrassing. I apologize. This is pretty embarrassing. I apologize. I'm not sure how to say this. I think some lines got crossed. That message but to make up for it, if you want a T-shirt or stuffed animal or something, or maybe you want to come see the show when Andy Grimmer comes on, I think that would be okay. I can check with somebody. But again, super sorry.

Egg on my face. Okay. Bye. And we're here, Andy Frasco's World's Favorite Podcast. Finally. I'm Andy Frasco. Fucking big setup. It was like watching a monkey fix a computer with a sledgehammer. You know how shows work?

You're not supposed to talk until I introduce you into the show because no one's going to know who this is. You can edit this however the fuck you want, dude. And you probably will and everything's going to be taken out of context and fucked up. So let's just... Well, we have a special episode

for the Floyd Fest installment. I thought it'd be smart to get a guy named Floyd to open the show for the Floyd Fest installment. Our bass player, Floyd Kellogg. What's up, Floyd? Thanks, Floyd.

All right, let's cut the bullshit. You're trying to find a guy named Floyd. You're like, where am I going to find one? Floyd Fest sponsor. I don't want to use him. The only guy named Floyd is actually in my fucking band.yd cut the bullshit what's going on right now well a couple minutes ago i was working and then um we're on tour and then i

was watching you set this thing up paint the picture paint the pic but what you want oh we're on tour we're on we're we're linked arm and arm as we travel across the great states together. Linked arm in arm, making out. We're on tour. We brought Floyd because his wife is sick of him. So he shows up every other tour. Floyd lives on Nantucket she's not my wife was your girlfriend or what yeah didn't you just propose to her fiance well how do you how does a dude like floyd propose to his girlfriend i was like uh so you want to like get married it was literally like that no way god you're the most unromantic fucking guy

on the planet what the hold on foot do you believe in romance yeah man we get we got it every day you and me what are you talking about you don't see it you don't you don't feel it wow all right well i guess this is kind of a lopsided relationship. I'm talking about like romance. Like you spend your time with your girlfriend. I mean, she dedicates her life to you. She puts up with your ass. She got you all set up in Nantucket.

I come home and she's like, oh, hey, can you go to the grocery store? Really? The first day from the tour? Well, Floyd, it's good to see you. Thanks for being on the show. I got a lot of questions. Yeah, I've been waiting for this. I haven't been waiting for it.

Do you pretend like you don't care, but you actually think everything through? What does that mean? Do you play like oblivious, but you know exactly what you're doing no i people leave you alone you just want to be left alone no i'm definitely oblivious on what on things like always your whole life been like that yeah i mean like i had this my friends used to call me sleepy floyd why just because i was just asleep at the wheel you know

like you know like checked out or something. And you're driving people? No, not like figuratively. Oh. Jesus Christ. You've interviewed a couple people before? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool.

I've interviewed people one time and only met them once, and I've hung out with you for three years and don't know who the fuck you are. Let's be real. Every now and then you have a guest. I'm like, let me just check this out. Yeah. Yeah, you don't really like anything I do.

I don't know why you're in my band. Fast forward through it. Is this just money for you, Floyd? Money? Is this gig just a job? Yeah, that's why I'm over here working on my computer on their face it's like a paper my rock band habit

no but we've we love you in this band everyone knows that um we know that yeah but this is the floyd fest so we got to talk about floyd fest how was your festival floyd? Honestly, it was like I spent like $200 on shit at a store there to get people things with my name on it. You spent $200? Yeah, so that kind of sucked. And then I get to the fest, and then every time we're playing, and you yell Floyd at the festival in the microphone, I have like a mini panic attack.

Why? Because I'm like, what? Like, turn it around. And then people are chanting Floyd, but it's not really like for me or anything. So I have like this like – it wasn't all in all. It was a little confusing the whole time and you know and i had to it wasn't like yeah it was it was it was a great festival i just you know hold on going back to this oblivious thing do you know you have a girlfriend yeah or just you feel like she's just

like your friend that what are you talking about i'm thinking about like how oblivious are you like are you oblivious that we love you no I love you guys back kind of and I'm just trying to see how far this oblivious is I don't understand what do you mean like are you like like are you just like always in your own head just like thinking about just music and being punk rock. Do you ever think about like the outside world? No, that's not. I don't understand the punk rock thing, to be honest with you.

This is just you, Floyd? Well, it's like when I got in the band, everyone was like, oh, you're like punk rock dude or something. I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Damn. Well, I mean, I guess isn't, I don't know. Then who made you so hip? You had to learn that from something. What, you think like I wake up in the morning

and like have to like construct this thing? The person I am and have to, all right, come on. Wear this shitty t-shirt. I think about. Come on, you can this shitty t-shirt i do i think about come on you can do it man just do it i think about when you're always late to the van like he's just looking himself in the mirror and putting on different shitty t-shirts wow i look pretty tight now no let me put on this other one Let me put on this other one.

What a great podcast. I'm not late to the band. I'm always there right when the wheel's up. Okay. This isn't an intervention. I just want to say we love you. Thanks. Love you too, man. And you know that.

Thank you. And I hope you are happy to be in this band. I am. Because we're happy to be in it. Super excited. We're happy to have you. Where you where's sean sean get over here you wanted me to like shit back get over here like yeah i'm fucking excited i don't even know how this guy even got into the fucking band all of a sudden one day i woke up and floyd's in the band i really did

we're bringing in Sean Eccles. Sean. I remember the first day I got on tour and you turned around and you're like, who's that guy? It's a new guy. Yelmer got deported. Yeah, that's what it was. Yelmer got deported. Chris got brought in and then Chris couldn't do everything.

And we were in Nantucket and there was my old pal Floyd. There he was. How did y'all meet? Sean and I? and we were in Nantucket and there was my old pal Floyd. There he was. Yep. How did you... How'd y'all meet? Who, Sean and I? My old band, Speakeasy, would do tours with his old band, Spooky Daily Pride from Boston. That's right.

And I knew he was a knucklehead, and so when I knew we needed a bass player, I figured Floyd would be a perfect knucklehead for our band. He's like, this guy will wear a duct tape bathing suit. Yeah, yeah, he has no fucking problem. He used to hide in barrels during the swag set while Spooky would throw trash in there

and things that were on fire. You're right, after I took a handful of mushrooms and then they were like, we're going to put you into this garbage can. And I sat in the garbage can during the whole set waiting for the reveal at the end waiting for the reveal during space jam drum meanwhile he's coming over there and kicking

the shit out of the hand throwing a bunch of shit in it turned into a thing to start throwing shit into the pail nobody knew floyd was into the uh garbage can yeah and then and then i rose up with all this garbage all over me and started drumming on the piano. So things like that led me to believe that Floyd could probably fill the shoes that we needed in the band. And we played in the Chicken Box in Nantucket. That's right. And Floyd, he actually rehearsed songs.

And he was like, hey, man, particularly this part before the bridge. And I was like, hey, this guy's even musically awesome. And then we played. People don't do that? Listen. Is that something people don't? Some people don't. something people don't?

Some people don't. Some people don't. Some people were like looking around the room. But I remember Floyd, during the first three songs, he just looked over me with his mouth open. He's like, I know how to do this. I know this gig. I was like, I know you know how to do this gig.

I know how to play bass. And yes, it was comfortable. And here he is. Oh, God. Well, so if you gave Floyd a report card, how long have you been in the band now? I don't know. Three years?

My first gig was 2017. And then I didn't go on a tour until 2018 somewhere. All right. We're going to give a report card for Floyd. Everyone in this band gives a grade. What was the grade you're giving, Sean? Last year, I got A+. This tour, I got about a B+.

Last year, when we didn't play at all, you gave me an A+. You killed it. You killed it. Okay, so 2019. No, Floyd's the best, A+. Thanks, dude. You too. We got Andy Avila here, too.

Andy, give me your best memory of Floyd. We're going to give your AIDS to us, the proletives for Andy. Floyd has this problem where if we have a lot of time before the show, he'll just start drinking IPAs. Jesus Christ. So prior to that whole thing, A+, but the last couple gigs, man.

Oh, come on. What are you talking about? Well, it doesn't help when the show's delayed by like two hours. It doesn't mean you have to drink five, six IPAs. I get on the runway ramp, and I'm like, okay. And then they're like, oh, we're not going on for another hour. I'm like, uh. Like, what am I going to do?

Like, take a nap? You know, my favorite memory was when we were in china and after our gig we all went out and he got really really drunk and we were back in our room we had like 8 a.m flights and he's sitting on the on the bed like falling asleep his eyes are going cross-eyed and he's just letting us mess with him and he's laughing the whole time and i think he's got thick skin. He's made for the band. After that moment, I was like, yeah, this guy's all right.

Yeah. Great. So without them being nice, now two people said you've been fucking up for the last week. So let's see what Bo, let's see what Bo, our tour manager, says. We have Bo, our tour manager here.

Our new tour manager. Shout out to Bo. Welcome. Careful, Bo. Man, I don't even know what to say. This is my first run with Floyd, so I'm just getting the hang of all of it. But I don't know, man. I'll back what Beats said, just from my experience on Sunday at the show.

And Sean, dude, not eating anything all day. That didn't help. But I'll give the benefit of the doubt because we were recovering from the night before still. So I don't know. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how you do, Floyd. And then I'll make a judgment call.

Well, you know, if I'm going to get shit thrown at me and tackled and shit on stage, then I got to be a judgment call. Well, you know, if I'm going to get shit thrown at me and tackled and shit on stage, then I got to be a little loose. Okay. So has he been fucking up this week? What we're trying to say, Bo? I don't think so. Nothing too bad, anyways.

I don't know. That thing about being on time to the van was a little bullshit. We were sitting there waiting the other day in the parking lot for about 10 minutes. No, you didn't. I showed up two minutes before the time, and everyone's in the van. You're like, oh, you're late. What is there?

Some sort of code that I need to be 10 minutes early? This is what I'm trying to say. You guys got your little code. You think we're after you, but you've been fucking up. I've been fucking up. This is over. Okay.

This is over. All right. So this is an intervention. I just triggered you into going into a Floyd Fest interview. But I wanted the whole fan base to know we're not. It's just the IPAs. You're not doing anything else that's crazy. You're doing a really good job, Floyd're not. It's just the IPAs. You're not doing anything else that's crazy.

You're doing a really good job, Floyd. And I want the world to know that you are our bass player. Thanks, man. Does the world listen to this? No. No one listens to this. It's me who talks. All right.

Give me one good memory of Floyd Fest. Sean Eccles, did you have fun at the Floyd Fest? I did. I had a great time at Floyd have fun at the Floyd Fest? I did. I had a great time at Floyd Fest. Thanks, Floyd Fest. Thanks, everybody. But my favorite thing was when we were backstage for fucking like nine hours before I said it. Hold on.

Yeah, this shit. And we were all being good. Except Floyd might have dove into the eyepiece. But this guy comes back. And this is and we were all being good we were i mean all except i mean floyd might have dove into the ips but um this guy comes back and this is probably hour five and floyd's like this guy hey man how you guys doing and floyd goes i'm floyd you know floyd and he's like yeah this is and he just dove into this yep this is my festival yeah yeah he's like oh yeah man and what about you and he asked the guy the guy's like well i'm in this band you know and he goes well you and you must have booked me he goes oh sure did and like the guy totally fucking bought it and thought you were you were the floyd that floyd fest was named after

and we called you mr festival and then i got distracted and forgot to say i'm kidding yeah yeah not he did not say i'm kidding and i'm pretty sure the guy was like trying to make sure his band had a slot next year and all this shit yeah yeah yeah it was fucking hilarious he's like can I email you yeah why not

sure it's floydfest.com so that was great and thanks for the entertainment Floyd yeah that poor fucking guy probably broke his heart

like he's like the only time they played a festival and like yeah you just didn't give a shit like yeah I guess someone

booked you or something. Like, you were being such a dick. He claimed that he had booked you. Floyd claimed that he, well, yeah, I probably booked you. You know what I'm saying? He just didn't know oblivious Floyd. Oh, shit. Oops.

That's what I'm talking about. Your actions on life reflect everyone around you. Oh, my God. So just be better, okay? Okay, thanks. All right. Wow, it's a whole new day. Oh, my God. So just be better, okay? Okay, thanks. All right. Wow, it's a whole new day. Thanks, bud.

So we got Chromio on the show tonight. Do you know anything about Chromio? Yeah. What do you know about Chromio? I don't know. I listened to him back in the day. They're smart. Okay.

What are you implying? I'm just asking if you know. I'm potentially not. It's like, what the fuck is it? No. Well, they're smart there's a couple things we need to do before we close out

this show well here we go Repsy you know anything about Repsy Pepsi yes Repsy no what

Repsy's the online book agency where your band like you have like 20 bands in Nantucket how many bands are in Nantucket that How many bands are in Nantucket? That I've played in?

That you're in, technically. Like across, you know, like we'll fill in for and play. Yeah, when you don't play with us

and you go back to your island when you're done surfing and stuff. 8 or 10. 8 or 10? Yeah. Okay, so if you put all your bands

onto Repsy.com, then maybe you get some gigs outside of Nantucket. All you got to do is you get to pick the shows too, and they don't take a commission. What? It's a good deal. You like Repsy? Wait, so you just put the band name?

No, you put a profile. Oh, okay, gotcha. You put all 10 bands. Floyd's punk rock band. Floyd's fucking acoustic trio. Floyd's fucking acoustic trio. Floyd's duo fucking sounds like Black Keys band. Yeah. Whatever it is.

Floyd's Margaritaville. Floyd's Jimmy Buffett cover band. Floyd's Jimmy Buffett cover band. And you could put all those bands on there, and you could pick the shows you want, and you could pick shows you don't want. And it's not a commission if you're on a booking agency and it is they take a little cut so would you sign up to repsy.com yeah let's fucking go another person on the on the on the repsy.com train thank you thank you

that um that pays your uh your album expense or whatever the flight expenses oh really oh right on that what we just did right there that little bit yeah yeah wow all right cool yeah so all right reps yeah yeah fuck yeah all right floyd um one last thing we love you over here um okay same bud um i hope you stay with us hope we just let us know when we're just being too I know you have tough skin I'll have you on my podcast and I'll give you guys ratings I know we pick on you but we pick on you because we love you

right boys? we love Floyd I'm into it expose the if we didn't care we wouldn't be mean. So interesting. We like picking on you because

you have tough skin. So if someone's not getting picked on in the band, then there's potentially a problem. If we're hiding and talking behind your back, then there's a problem. God, I'd love to see the text thread that doesn't have me on it.

Yeah, Floyd. Well, before we start the show, we need a little bit of a motivational speech from you. Whatever you want to tell the people to have a better week or whatever you want. Are you ready, Floyd? Okay. Here we go. True blue. Scooby-Doo will be due. Scenarios

radio race more than fourths. Scores for the snores. That's love of dance floors. Now I go for my shades of G-Shore. Ship great 8K game to play tapes. I don't know that part.

You know, sometimes you don't know that part. That's what I want to tell you guys. We're done. We're done. Sometimes you don't know that part. Thank you so much for listening. That's life. Enjoy Chromio.

My rap was a metaphor for life. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to my TED Talk. Fuck you, Floyd. All right. Next up on the interview hour, we have Dave Maklovich from Chromio. Ladies and gentlemen. Hey, Chris, play some Chromio.

These guys are badass. Funky. Masters of that groove. Great, actually, interview. I did this a couple weeks ago the homies got a phd in french literature at columbia dave smart we talked talked about it all um and they're a great band and they're like they take like a long time to make records so they're perfectionists so i like that about them do you like them about them floyd or what oh they like actually care

about their records nice oh shut the fuck up okay enjoy chromia fucking dave what's up dude nice to meet you I figured I would switch it up and rearrange my house. Sir. Fucking Dave. What's up, dude? Nice to meet you. Likewise, man.

Man, I've been a big fan of your music for a long time. How's it been? Well, that means a lot. Thank you so much. You know, it's like I'm diving into, you know, this interview and stuff. And one thing that really sparked my mind was, you have a PhD in French literature? Actually, technically, I don't have a PhD. I'm one chapter and a half away from having finished my dissertation. So I was studying.

I was close to getting my PhD, but then um i haven't finished my thesis and it's been kind of dormant for the last oh i don't know um eight years or something yeah eight years so i don't quite have a phd are you interested in i almost have a PhD. I'm sorry? Are you interested in finishing it up? Man, it depends when you ask me. Yeah, it really depends when you ask me. I used to love teaching and teaching literature and teaching French

and I did that for quite a number of years. I don't know if I still love my dissertation topic the same so I don't know if I still love my dissertation topic the same. So I don't know. Imagine you're working on an album and you're almost done with the album. You don't finish the album. And then 10 years later, you have to go back to that same album. It's like, I mean, I've got a lot of different things that happened to me in the meantime. So it's kind of that sentiment. Yeah. So tell me about that what

have you been what else is in your mind that makes you feel like that's out outdated dave i mean that was like literally that was before our album white women that came out in 2014 so i guess i i sort of stopped working on my dissertation in 2012 and then we took like a year and a half to work on the white women album it's the first time i was doing chromium music full-time without being an academic on the side yeah and you know it was that album really changed a lot of things for us we had you know we had really cool success with that album and so ever since it's been like this really you know this kind of like path that we've been on with the head over heels album and then setting up our studio in la and you know kind of um starting our own label and

working with other artists and i mean it's just been non-stop so there's been so much happening and the sort of quote-unquote chromio journey is evolving all the time even like almost i want to say like even more so during the pandemic because we weren't touring so we had even more time to focus on different projects so you know this is really um it's really kind of morphing into all these really stimulating avenues for me i guess well yeah tell me about that like core you made a quarantine record it's basically a uh a history a history book for what happened during quarantine which is kind of nice i mean it was it was you know we it was kind of a joke almost like i mean i guess it's the closest thing we'll ever do to a comedy album um we're just saying a lot because most of our

albums have some comedic aspects to them but this was literally like I was freestyling lyrics for P in the studio. And if he was laughing hard enough, then we would make a song out of him. But out of those lyrics and out of those concepts, but you know, we wanted to cheer people up and we wanted to raise money. And we raised altogether after Clorox came on board, we raised almost like close to a hundred thousand dollars. Let's fucking go, dude. Really? Yeah. For pandemic. Yeah. For pandemic relief in, um, in black and POC communities, basically in the communities that are the the communities that were the most affected

by the pandemic. So we did that. And then basically that kind of opened up a whole world for us in terms of involvement because we've been in music for over 15 years and it's just this perspective change when you've been in the game for so long and you have, you know, five idolizes from Pearl Jam to Radiohead. There's always like a moment where there's some form of advocacy and there's, there's sort of all the other dimensions that get added on top of just putting out records and touring. And for us doing these fundraising campaigns, you know, we've done two and we're in the middle of the third one now. It's really a cool way to kind of mobilize our fan base and to add a layer of depth to like what this band is about because we don't you know the stuff that we sing about is pretty funny and light-hearted but at the same time we're grown adults we've got you know we've got views we've

got a social consciousness and what better way to activate that than with projects that involve our music it's beautiful man i mean that was what i was going to ask you about about this um you know studying french literature is like what we could we could talk about that too no it's basically the same thing it's like what do you want your legacy to be what do you want people to read about you in the books? Is it just your music or is it the ideas that come in the man's voice? You know, I think our music and the lyrics that we sing about are one thing. But obviously, as a person you're always

you you can be more than what your band is and i think you know p and i i mean we're we're both you know we're both kind of multi-dimensional people and even with chromio like we do all the art direction and all the stage design and all you know know, there's a whole aesthetic dimension to our band. That's almost just as important as the music and that's all helmed by us. And then if you look at all the work I do with a track and with fool's gold, you know, that that's a whole other thing. I just don't, I just don't like talking about it that much in terms of the legacy. You know, I don't like bragging about it because right now, you know,

nowadays everybody's like, you know, a quote unquote creative content creator on social media. And I'm, I don't like bragging about it because right now you know nowadays everybody's like you know a quote-unquote creative content creator on social media and i'm i don't know i i just i mean it's all good i can't knock the hustle but for me i just i don't like putting that to the forefront i'd rather let the results speak or the project speak or i don't need to tie it into some form of self-promotion and even in terms of like you're asking like the band's legacy you know far from us to have the ego and the arrogance to even think that Chromio needs you know what a chapter in any kind of musical history books I'd be happy with a footnote but in the foot but in the footnote i definitely would love

it to say that when it was not trendy to do to make 80s funk and to pay homage to black music from the 80s we did it and then when it became a ubiquitous pop sound we still did it and there's other people did do it but we were doing it when all anybody wanted to hear was the yayayas and fisher's puner and lcd sound system and we were giving you that jerry curl funk back then when it was not trendy and we were going to bat we were going to bat for artists that had not been part of the musical cannon yet. Like we were going to bat for Daryl Hall and John Oates when people were just making fun of their mullets before they got their flowers.

We were going to bat. We were going to bat for Rick James when, when people were just laughing at him about him on the Chappelle's skit, we were going to bat for talk box way before TalkBox became a TikTok viral thing. You know what I mean? And we're thrilled to see that so many of the things that we fought to rehabilitate and to give respect to, we're so happy to see that those things finally got their due. And if that can be our footnote, I'd be thrilled with that. I'm cool with that.

I'm going to clap to that. Let's fucking go. That's what I'm talking about, Dave. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Grazie.

Grazie. You know, but that's the difference between Americans and Europeans or Americans and Canadians. You know, everyone, you know, why are Americans so selfish? I don't know, man. I don't know. Look, I've, I've lived, I've lived in Europe a lot and I'm born and raised in Canada. And by the way, there's some crazy stuff that came out about Canada, uh, in the last couple of weeks in the media.

I'm sure you know what we're talking about but like i don't tell me um well there there was a um there were it's kind of dark i don't know if you really want to go there but like they found you love dark on this podcast okay well they found they found bodies of native american schoolchildren that were buried. Canada conducted genocides against its Native American or Native Canadian, or First Nations is the proper term. They conducted genocidal actions against that community and that population since the founding of the country. So let's not idealize Canadians as like the perfect, there's a reason why I live in New York city.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't know all, all the music that I talk about, all the heroes that I talk about, they're American. So I'm not trying to pivot this into like a, a chauvinistic nationalistic pro America conversation,

but I just want to put the whole like America versus Canada thing with a grain of salt because at the end of the day, you know, American music changed the universe. And if it weren't for Black American music, there would be no Chromia. We would have nothing to pay homage to, nothing to be inspired by, you know, there would be no rock and roll, there'd be no blues, there'd be nothing. So, you know, I think there's a lot of American musicians, um, who, who kind of pay homage to a kind of deeply American musical tradition and who do their own thing with it. And, and I think that was Romeo were part of that lineage.

You know, we always felt like we grew up listening to Steely Dan and like their admiration for jazz and for, for like jazz funk was like, cool. We've got a similar admiration for eighties, eights 80s funk you know and that's what we're going to get inspired by so yeah i mean i appreciate what i'm saying yeah no i appreciate you explaining that but my question wasn't about the music side i was talking about your comment about social media where americans always have to feel like they need a stamp on something and it felt like europeans and canadians or really don't put that on the on the forefront yeah i don't know dude you'd be surprised it's like i i think it's unfortunately that has to do

more with human nature i wish you were right and we could just be like oh my god american dispatch man human nature is messed up everywhere yeah let's talk about human nature what what what don't you like about human nature um you know i think i think uh i don't know i that's like that's sort of like these are are metaphysical these are medical physical themes, but you know, I think, I think I, these ideas, Oh, look, okay. So look, let's look at like, let's look at what happened over the last year and how we all had time to think and, and get involved with certain things and re-examine our privileges and our

belief systems and all that, right? Like, I think it's safe to say that, like, 2020 was a moment where a lot of people could do this. And I think, you know, narcissism, greed, selfishness, anything that involves the ego, you know, those are inherent aspects of human nature that can really rear their ugly heads. And like, you know, you have to kind of fight against that and really push for solidarity and push for compassion and push for, for causes of things that don't necessarily directly affect you and put yourself in the other person. And, you know, it's always that, that sort of fight. We probably have this deeply entrenched survival instinct that basically concentrates everything on us and on ourselves

and on our survival and on our, and then we have this, we, we, we have to fight that and counterbalance that with this sort of humanist tendency of looking out for each other and caring for one another and thinking about others before we think of ourselves, you know, and that kind of like, you know, this sort of more solid, this kind of vector of solidarity, I guess. And, um, and I think 2020 in many ways was an exercise in that. And then, yeah, there's a lot. Keep going, man.

There's a lot and it's a lot. It's like, I don't know if, I don't know if any of this is interesting or if all the listeners are like, all right, all right, I'm done. I'm going to listen to Matty Matheson's episode now. I don't know. No, man. I mean, with him, we talked about him trying to kill himself.

So, I mean, do you have any suicide? Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean. This is what the conversation needs to have. Do you blame social media for that? Or do you think this is happening way before? Social media, I think think exacerbates things because because every you know because it's just like a constant onslaught of stimuli and of information

and we have been we are sensitive and vulnerable to that stuff ever since the dawn of the quote unquote information age and you, you know, if you think of how triggered our dads used to be, or our parents used to be, I think about my dad, because he was really the one watching the news every night at six. But like, if you think of how riled up, you know, our parents would be every hearing the news every morning, and then watching it again at 6pm. Imagine how it is when you look at your feed every three minutes and then add that to images of people who look better than you are more fit than you are more rich than you are more successful than you. And then when you're a musician, add that to musical platforms that put

everybody's streams to the stream numbers to the forefront. I mean, imagine that's literally like, as if like everybody could walk around with their bank account balance tattooed on their heads and evolving in real time. And you're like, dude, I don't want to go to the coffee shop. I don't want everybody to see how much I have in the bank right now. Like what? No. Or imagine if Polestar numbers were literally on everybody's like social media pages all the time. Like, oh man, you guys just sold this this week. What the hell? Like, it's crazy.

The anxiety that that provokes and the climate of, of, of competition of insecurity of, of questioning yourself worse. I mean, it's, it's, it's dangerous, but, and, and I, I admire artists like, you know, Mac DeMarco who just like, who, who who who are just like i i'm not on social media see you guys later i'm out i'm just gonna be a hermit like i admire those people i wish i had that strength but unfortunately with us we also have to use social media to promote stuff and to do these like do these charity initiatives that we've been doing for the last year and we're

in the middle of one right now with this live album. So like I need this stuff. But it's definitely a double-edged sword and it cuts deep. Yeah. It must be hard because you're in an industry that relies on all that stuff to be successful enough to do. It's brutal. It's brutal.

It's brutal. And like, yeah, like even with podcasts, podcasts right like i don't have like it what i like about podcasts is that for instance right when my manager and my publicist hit me up about your podcast i literally it's not like i could go and see how many streams you get per week and and base you get per week and take a decision based on that. How corny would that be? I didn't have any data. I didn't decide based on data or based on an algorithm.

I looked at your podcast. I looked at your guests, and I read the summary of each and every one of your episodes on your podcast. And I was like, this is bomb. I love the guests. I love the topics. I love the I was like, this is bomb. I love the guests. I love the topics. I love the humor. I love the slant. I love the font.

Let me do this. Cool, man. And for a long time, music discovery worked in a similar way. And unfortunately, with the big corporate takeover that, you know, naturally happened with streaming, algorithms and data have kind of replaced this very, very word of mouth organic discovery that we've had around music for about 15 years, you know, during the piracy era yeah and um and it's tough i mean there's still there's still subcultures and pockets that are relatively more pure i think of i admire the jam band scene a lot i don't know a lot about it but i love it as an ecosystem and um you know i worked on the last vampire we i was one of the executive producers on the last Vampire Weekend album. And I worked on that album quite a bit.

Yeah, he's really into the jam scene. He's really into the jam scene. The lead guy, I forgot his name. Yeah, Ezra. Ezra, yeah. I mean, the jam scene was a big influence on his last record in many ways. Aesthetically, not just musically aesthetically ideologically and so on so like the jam scene i think is a is a is a really cool little ecosystem

where grassroots promotion and and uh and live music drives are way more important drivers than algorithms and data but that doesn't work in other ecosystems and in other subcultures and it's hard i mean like i said it's really really hard imagine if that happened with the podcast world imagine if from one day to the next you would everybody would be discussing like you know how many how many streams publicly like all your your streams for each and every one of your episodes and i mean it would change the way you approach your your craft even and it's dangerous you know is that how is that how you felt towards uh when you're doing your web streams uh what do you mean like are you worried about the numbers of how many people because you could see all that more than you can see a live show you mean yeah um i didn't look i don't want to look

but but even like you know even i mean we've been it's interesting because with chromio you know i feel like we've been through so many different iterations of the music business and we sort of like we've seen so many kind of business models around making music and we've always done this odd music that doesn't really fit in you know what i'm saying because like it's not pop it's not it's not uh muso super advanced technical jacob collier stuff it's not full-on electronic club music either it's not you know it's not gravitas serious indie it's kind of in between everything and you know it's funny but it's also really serious and it's also really heartfelt i mean that's what i that's what stimulates me is that there's so many fine lines to ride but at the same time being in this weird liminal position and and and we we've kind of had to ride out all the different changes in the music biz when we

started making music it was still physical product was still a thing and then from i would say like 2005 a year after our first album came out up until 2017 music recorded music was making was losing money i mean it was there was no sales yeah so like there and it was amazing it was an era of piracy it was like it was amazing. It was an era of piracy. It was like, it was total freedom. It was incredible. You'd be making music and it's like, who cares if it sells or not? People bootleg this shit. People download it from, people pirate it. It's amazing, you know? And so you could really, it was an era of tremendous freedom.

And I think it's no coincidence that that was the sort of the last great indie era as well during that time. Because, you know, you could, there were monumental records that came out that were not evaluated just by their commercial success, you know. And those records were evaluated just because of how game changing they were and musically. And I think that that was really, really healthy. Then, of course, naturally, the whole like streaming thing comes along and then it's like a big corporate takeover. And now we're in another paradigm, which is also interesting because there's a renewed interest in physical product and, you know, vinyl sales. interest in physical product and you know vinyl cells and also even in the streaming world things are changing constantly like from when we put out our last album in 2018 until now so it's so crazy i remember when people were talking about 360 deals like this is very tooth you know like all

the we've we've kind of have you ever had one? No. Nope. Was this a different change of mind state during the piracy era? Were you always chasing the rabbit's tail to try to get famous, or that was never part of the plan? We never tried to get famous. We never cared. Because our early days with Chromio, dude, it was literally like a flight of the Concorde skit. I mean, it was crazy. We would play for six people tell me about it man i really don't know too much of the early years of chromie i just

know when you got okay so tell me okay so i'll give you some context all right our first songs came out and our first album came out in 2004 our first songs came out in 2003 2002 and we were making this kind of like 80s flavored funk electronic music and no one was going near that at the time it was considered the most uncool thing in the world daft punk had kind of nodded to it a little bit but Daft Punk were so big already that they could do whatever they wanted but for two goofballs from Montreal you know a tall lanky Jew face and then and and like a shorter chubby Arab dude who looks Puerto Rican who's got like gold teeth and everything like for us to come out and make music that references Eddie Murphy party all the time.

And with quirky songs like needy girl titles, like needy girl and, you know, tenderoni people thought we were out of our minds. And, and, you know, the only kind of acceptable dance music in the indie world was kind of

like Fisher's pooner, LCD sound system, the rapture, that kind of like fisher's pooner lcd sound system the rapture that kind of stuff sidebar all incredible and amazing but we were coming out with something real different we were coming out with like referencing black 80s funk you know we were coming out and referencing jimmy jam and terry lewis and and people thought we were people thought we were joking you know i remember i was doing an interview in like 2004 around my first album with like a british journalist very opinionated and when when i told them that like you know my influences were rick james and phil collins they hung up on me they were like all

right you're taking the piss you No, no, no. Really? Oh, yeah. Why? Why are people taking music so seriously back then? It's bullshit. Yeah, I think, you know, the musical canon, I think the musical canon was deeply racist. It still is.

And because P&I are these like people really think that Brian Eno is more and that Brian Eno Roxy music is more musically serious and worthy than cameo and cool in the game. Holy shit. I didn't even think like that. Wow. You are fucking right. When you speak to, when you speak to like a musical connoisseur, the way they talk about Brian Eno is way more like, and I love Brian Eno, but when they talk about joy division and Brian Eno,

they talk about him in one way, but when they talk about, um, Rick James or, or or you know i mean even to a degree prince a long time ago prince didn't even prince's genius wasn't even fully credited until like a few years ago but like they wouldn't for years people would not have put prince on the same level as paul mccarthy you know when you think about it. See, I'm too young. I'm 33. I'm 33, so I didn't really get to see the evolution of that. Fuck, you're right, bro. I mean, but still, though. You're right.

Think about when you were in high school. Think about when you were in high school. You had told your friends, like, oh, man, Prince is, like, just as brilliant as the Beatles. They would have been like, hell no, dude. Prince is the guy with the purple suits and the crazy hair. And it's, you know what I'm saying? And so, P and have been like, hell no, dude. Prince is the guy with the purple suits and the crazy hair. You know what I'm saying? Holy shit, bro.

Keep going. This is crazy. So P and I, we're two second generation immigrants. Actually, P's a first generation immigrant. But we're basically our families immigrate to Canada. We're born in the late, late 70s we grow up in the early 80s 90s and we discover all this music at the same time as we discover hip-hop so it's not

like it's not like our family was listening to funkadelic and then we heard you know dr dre our family's not listening to any of this stuff. So we're listening, we're literally in high school, listening to Dr. Dre and Snoop and discovering Funkadelic at the same time and discovering all the samples and the origin, the origins of hip hop at the same time, because hip hop was the music of our generation. But, you know, we were collecting records and learning. And so we're learning about all this stuff so all the associations that people in america had around cameo cool in the gang shalamar you know uh zap and roger holland notes you name it all this like 80s music we didn't have any of those associations

you know p's a lebanese dude me i'm like my parents are baby boomer intellectuals you think we knew you think i didn't know they didn't play those records when i was a kid i didn't have any associations i just discovered it at the same time as i discovered warren g and i was like you know what this is this is crazy george clinton it didn't seem old to me it seemed futuristic so we had this we had this really fresh-faced very canadian french immigrant outlook on this music that that didn't have any negative connotations or any prejudice because we had no associations with it other than we discovered it and it was it just changed our worlds you know what mean? Like me, you know what I'm saying? Like I grew up, I'm from the generation where I grew up playing guitar. I grew up,

I grew up playing guitar. I was learning grunge songs. I was learning classic rock songs. And then I discovered James Brown, but I just, I didn't discover James Brown because I had an uncle played me James Brown. I discovered James Brown because I heard public enemy. and then somebody was like oh check this out this is where it comes from and played me james brown and i had never heard a song where the guitar part is the same for three and a half minutes and i was like this is insane this is like techno it's i've never heard this before like how do you make a song where it's the same thing repeating all over again like you know what i'm saying like i used to i was used to playing

a led zeppelin song where you have a riff and then a chorus and then a solo and then you hear like for three minutes and it's like it puts you in a trance and i was like i forget shredding i'm never touching my distortion pedal again yeah i don't you know forget steve joe satriani these guys are corny i'm just gonna learn pocket i'm gonna learn pocket i'm gonna learn groove and then on top of that you know p and i we were we were we were quirky dudes we were funny dudes so like all the crazy themes in funk music, they kind of connected with us. I was like, this is dope. This is so fun and funny and crazy. And then on top of that, I was like, by the way, how come like all these songs, all these 80s funk songs, they play at

every wedding and every bar mitzvah that I've ever been to. But like somehow people still think Brian Eno has more musical value than cameo word up. I don't understand. I hear cameo word up every day at the lunchtime mix on the radio and at every bar mitzvah, every sweet 16, every wedding. And yet people trying to tell me that Brian Eno is better. I don't get it. It makes no sense to me. I like cameo better. What am i missing here racism no why what racism why are people trying to push like this roxy music avalon i love roxy music avalon i love it but like you can't tell me that that is more serious than you know more's day in the time you guys are just so so in my head in my head i

was like this is a problem and so p and i you know we were part of this hip-hop generation and we loved hip-hop music but at one point we were like you know what man we should like and p was like dude i like west coast i want to make dr dre record i'm like dude we're not doing like dude we're not doing this dude we're from canada we're french kids from canada what are you doing and then at one point we were just like what if we made our own version of these funk records that we love and then i was like man i could be like this robert palmer guy you know like kind of a nerdy guy in a suit and stuff and then you could be this like we just

invented characters for ourselves the same way the same way george clinton and bootsy collins were characters we were like yo what's or the same way wu-tang were characters too i was like all right i'm gonna be ghost face and you're gonna be karate chop guy you know what i mean like you're just thinking like that yeah and so that's how we started that's how we started chromio and and i think i think with that in mind because again we came from a different culture and we came from a different country and we didn't have associations it allowed us to to look at these musical influences in such a candid way and it's such a pure way but of course then we come out in the early 2000s and it's like peak indie rock era yeah and you know people were not having it i'll remember musicians loved us so you would have bands that were like yo we love chromeo can you

open for us you're like i will i'll open for block party on their like, you know, huge UK tour. Damn right. I love block party. I know the exact years you're talking about. Yeah. But those fans, bro, at first, those fans, I swear to God, we would finish a song. They, I heard cricket. If we played in Manchester, I heard the crickets all the way to Leeds. I heard, I heard crickets from Sheffield when when we were playing in brighton you know what i'm saying holy shit and then yeah it was it was brutal it was

brutal but people but musicians fuck with us people in the industry fuck with us like there was people that gave us support but like it was very it was a hard sell did that fuck you up emotionally huh did that fuck you up emotionally during those years like damn no one cares about this shit or did you never care well you know what was funny you know what was funny actually i was like i was working on my phd so i was like man i don't give a shit i'm doing whatever i want i'm with my best friend we're having fun we're doing what we believe in and anyways i gotta go to love i gotta finish the chapter by tuesday so like i'm not gonna trip over you know that was like my and then and then at some point miraculously something changed and indie started wanting to dance and and somehow magically with daft punk touring in North America in 2007,

you know, all this kind of like indie dancing music coming out from like justice to the klaxons, um, to cut copy and all these kinds of like, even MGMT, we kind of got sucked into that vortex, even though we had started making music, you know, three years prior, we got, we kind of got sucked into that vortex and then mix had started making music you know three years prior we got we kind of got sucked into that vortex and then mix that in with like early social media myspace blogs and all that stuff and all of a sudden our band connected and we were doing the same exact thing we didn't change a thing and that was the beginning of our band touring a lot and and

you know, building an audience. And of course, at that time, nobody was selling records. Nobody knew how many records were sold. There was no algorithms. There was no nothing. We were literally counting the plays on our MySpace players. Did you have a label or are you doing this all by yourself? Yeah, we were on Atlantic actually. We were, yeah, we were in the, in North America, we were on Atlantic, but they had inherited

us from another record deal and then like they never really signed us and then on other territories were on different labels it was a whole mess and then so we were like okay no one's really selling cds this is crazy people are downloading shit off of limewire and whatever it was so you got a tour if you really want to build a fan base, you've got to tour. So we started really kind of building our model as a touring band. And then we toured and toured and toured and toured. And that's how we laid a foundation, you know, and it was this kind of like from the ground up approach.

And luckily, you know people started wanting to dance more and more and we kind of i don't know we just started you know it just things things started looking up for us and then we kind of haven't looked back i mean we looked in different ways and in the meantime we had like you know a couple of songs on pop radio and a couple of weird, like, you know, we got nominated for a Grammy and stuff. But like none of this, none of this was expected. And it's still, it's still kind of a weird, it's still basically as challenging now as when we were hearing crickets in Manchester. It's just different challenges. Yeah, totally.

We can sell out shows, but surviving more than 10 years in the music biz comes with challenges no matter what. No matter what. Yeah, and I want to talk about those new challenges. But first, I want to talk about looking back, who do you think was the first band that opened the doors, indie bands that opened the doors to make indie into dance music? Was it you guys?

It's a mix. I mean, we, we weren't even indie, but like, um, Block Party, Scissor sisters, the rapture, LCD sound system, the klaxons, uh, MGMT, um, you know,

that, that whole sort of era kind of bridged the gap between dance music and, and indie music. And we didn't, we were like, yo, we're not making indie or dance. We're a funk band.

But we were like, don't say anything. or dance we're a funk band but we were like don't say anything don't say anything let's just let's just keep it chill don't tell we're fooling everyone right now and and you know in in those were really those were like really fun kind of party days and and we were very well aware that we were very very well aware that our influences and our musical lineage weren't necessarily explicitly communicated to our audience, but we didn't care. Hall and Oates or to know Hall and Oates or to know, you know, you name it, you know, to know Robert Palmer and know Morris Day in the Time to enjoy Chromio. I don't care. You can love Chromio for Chromio. It doesn't matter. So, you know, it's not like we were pushing an agenda.

We just wanted people to have a good time and we wanted to hone our craft. time and we wanted to hone our craft and and and we wanted to create an identity that was our own you know and to create a world that was our own because we were always again you have to understand like we're two kids from immigrant kids from canada we didn't english is in our first language so like when we're looking at these people from these american bands whether it's ghostface or whether it's ghostface or prince or even axl rose they're looking like superheroes to us so we were like man we just gotta be we gotta be characters we gotta create a world you know and um do you think it's kind of fucked up that we have to build these characters and we can't just be ourselves or is that but you are the character you are the character is yourself

well that's a good point like you are the character you're not faking that's who you are mean like i'm we are that i'm that dude on a wednesday on a thursday on a friday sick and i mean i mean look at bill like our our greatest one of our greatest non-musical influences but i would say like aesthetic influence is zz top right like they're some of my idols and talk about a band who's had a long career and reinvented themselves and talk about a band who like is like steeped in a really beautiful um uh salt of the earth musical heritage but we're able to to blow up and to to you know kind of create a whole universe i mean zz top are like my heroes well bill gibbons he's in you're not seeing bill gibbons at starbucks on

a wednesday wearing sweatpants with no beard like Bill Gibbons is Bill Gibbons every fucking day. That's him. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Dave, you're right. And that's how, and that's how me and P are like P, if we go to P's house right now, he's got a mouthful of gold teeth. He's got a do rag. He's driving a vintage hoop tee. And, and he's going to go play synthesis at the studio. If you, you know, that's just who we are. You become the character and,'s and it's you're an artist you know what i'm saying is authenticity important to you say what is authenticity important to you

yeah of course but to me absolutely and i love that question but i think that authenticity is also a bit of a myth because yeah let's talk at the end of the day well we're performers you know what i'm saying you're a performer so like your authenticity yeah you can be authentic if what you do comes from the heart and it's and it's and it's sort of it's unmitigated by weird commercial cynical aspirations. That's how I judge somebody's authenticity. But the myth of someone pouring their heart out, you know, and living in a dark cabin in the woods and their music. Oh, my God, that's just as bullshit as somebody who's wearing a red leather codpiece and coming out of a spaceship on stage that's you know you're not

you're not more authentic if you're a singer songwriter in birkenstocks pretending not to care about fonts than if you are a glitzy artist who literally, you know, if you're Bill Gibbons, like, in fact, Bill Gibbons is the most authentic. So let's be real. We're all performing. We're all creating characters. We're all inviting listeners into an audio visual world. So you're not more authentic if you pretend not to care about that. You're actually a phony if you don't pretend to care about that

because everybody cares about that. You know what I'm saying? Everybody, everybody, every single person. Otherwise, you're not a musician. Otherwise, you can make music in your bedroom. But if you're putting something out into the world, you are conscious about what persona you are putting out into the world and it's great and it's amazing there's nothing wrong with that you know what i'm saying like i totally hear you like

and and and same goes same goes also by the way parentheses but like same goes for people like the myth of like you know musicians who write their own music versus musicians who don't write their own music. Like there's not one that's more authentic than the other. It doesn't matter. It's like, I'm not going to name names, but you've got these like singer songwriters who masquerade as like writers of these deeply personal autobiographical songs. I'm like, yo yo those songs are written by five writers stop you know stop i know who wrote your song stop so so so my whole thing is like again this this myth that like bill gibbons coming out of his trans am with his beard to the floor and a fluffy white guitar somehow is less less authentic than adele that's not true no they're both characters we all we're all characters the biggest character bob dylan with cohen these guys

are characters too yeah dude look at the fucking look at you're gonna my dad my dad raised me on bob dylan you're gonna tell me bob dylan's not a character with the eyeliner and the white hat coming out in the last waltz looking like Jesus Christ? You think this guy didn't spend six hours on his outfit? Yes, he did. You know what I mean? Yes, he did. Sold it to everybody else on that stage that night, by the way. What about your childhood were you like this during like you seem like you're pretty

um not i'm not gonna say authentic but confident in yourself were you like this when you were a kid oh of course not i fucking of course i'm not confident i fucking i'm like every other neurotic jew i hate myself and that's why you know i'm literally like every other neurotic i'm like every other neurotic on the planet i hate myself i've got 20 000 inferiority complexes stacked one top on of the other and and childhood traumas and you just whatever it is and i'm trying to overcompensating by wearing tight pants and playing a chrome guitar on stage if i didn't have that if i didn't have those problems i would i wouldn't want to be a musician i'd be a personal trainer yeah what was your what was your relationship

like with your parents growing up um you know uh my parents are i, I was very fortunate to grow up. Uh, we were, we grew up in a fairly modest household and, you know, with modest means, but tremendous cultural wealth. And my parents are both intellectual. So, you know, I was exposed to a lot of art and a lot of, a lot of, um, a lot of politics at a young age. And so that, that kind of was really, that's a form of wealth and definitely a form of politics at a young age. And so that kind of was really, that's a form of wealth and definitely a form of privilege.

And my parents were really open-minded. So when my brother, A-Track, and myself started bringing hip hop culture into the household, and all of a sudden my brother was like, dad, I'm going to scratch your turntable instead of learning piano. My parents were like, okay, I'm going to scratch your turntable instead of learning piano. My parents were like, okay, all right.

That's what you want to do. They're accepting you guys. Yeah, it was cool. They accepted it. And in fact, so that was amazing. And in fact, both my parents are academics. But when I had to make the difficult choice of like, am I going to do Chromio full time or am I going to try to keep working on this PhD and keep trying to be a university professor? My parents were the ones who were like, dude, work on your music, man.

We're so proud of you. Like, we want to Google you. My dad was like, yo, if I can't Google you on my lunch break, what am I going to do? They were really cool about it. And I'm really lucky for that. Was there pressure about getting successful with them? No, I didn't care. They don't even know. They don't. First of all, you know, when we, when, no, we, my brother and I, and even P,

we exceeded our expectations by the time we did, there was an article about us in the local paper you know and i told p like i told p like after we sold out barry ballroom in new york city in 2008 everything else is just the cherry on top but but i should actually write that as a mantra to remind myself every day because it is hard in this climate to be reminded of this because there's so much competition, as you were saying before, and so much pressure and so much data, you know, that it's very easy to get lost and to take for granted all the small little accomplishments and the little milestones that we were fortunate to have. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, it's so fascinating because it seems like your parents supported whatever you did. and the little milestones that we were fortunate to have. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, it's so fascinating because it seems like your parents supported whatever you did.

Where did you get this neuroses from? I don't know, man. Intergenerational trauma. Do you think it's genetic? Do you think being neurotic is genetic? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, of course.

Let's talk about that a little bit because I'm always fascinated because I really had a great upbringing too, but I'm so neurotic and I'm so worried about everything. It's got to be. I'm Sephardic Jew and – I'm half and half. I'm half and half. Where's your family from? Half my family – well, Italy.

My dad's side. Okay, cool. My mom is like Russian but they're we're Los Angelinos like fourth generation so I grew up in yeah my mom's from

my mom is born and raised in Morocco so she's Sephardic and my dad is he's born and raised in Montreal but his family is from Eastern Europe

so like Poland Ukraine probably yeah I don't know dude neuroses i think it is intergenerational i think it is some form of cultural intergenerational thing and you know i mean it is what it is like you know i it's interesting because i went through this thing of like at first being really self-conscious for being a certain way and not even

being aware that I had like these neurotic tendencies to then embracing it. And you're like, man, you know, curb your enthusiasm, you know, Seinfeld. I can be neurotic. I'm just like George. It's amazing. And you get 10 years of that. And then honestly, I'll be, I'll be real with you. Then after a while, you're like, man, I might be driving everybody around me crazy, you know? Like, and so then, cause, and then it gets to another point of like, okay, I got to do some therapy to accept myself as I am, but also not drive everyone nuts. Yeah.

Is pee like that you know for that nah he's chill man p is the opposite of me on every aspect like he's you know i think that's one of the secrets to our our partnership is that we really complement each other so like like p is way more a vibe guy and i i tend to intellectualize and overanalyze everything. And he's just like the vibe guy, you know? And I, and you need that. He's the vibes guy. Like, you know, I write songs in my head and I come to the studio and I worked them out with P, but I can hear in my head how they, how they should sound already.

And I come to the studio with a plan p literally he puts on a cape he turns the lights down probably smokes a joint without telling me and just noodles on the synthesizers comes out with like six demos i usually would be like yo there's one that's kind of cool he does not care does not have any ego nothing he's like all right cool let's work on that one and that's just what it is with him do you it's amazing yeah do you kind of get pissed off for a guy who's just like so talented and so just chill and just lets a vessel open up where you have to like really think and focus on the vessel you know does that make sense i mean yeah but like it's like jealousy kind of but i don't know nah because like i know

like i know what my strengths are and i know that we need both you just need both i'm just grateful that we have both but i'm talking about in the beginning years when you didn't go through therapy and you're still self-conscious about yourself. Oh, it was miserable. I mean, I'm sure you came through, you had similar experience. Yeah, it's miserable. You're just like, yeah, you grow up and you're like, why can't I just land an Ollie? Literally, like, why can't I just land an Ollie, be good at basketball, and have a girlfriend.

Like, how is this? Like, why? Why? Why am I having straight A's in everything, but I can't land an Ollie? Why? Just tell me why, God, please. Are you a perfectionist? Yeah.

Yeah. To a fault. Yeah. Who did you learn that from? I don't know, because my parents. maybe my mom, but I don't know. Just the pressure I put on myself, just the pressure I put on myself to try to, um, yeah, just not having it easy, you know, and, and growing up and, you know, there's a lot of stuff that, that, that, yeah, you just,

you just kind of want things done right. Actually, you know what it is? I'll tell you. No, I just thought about it because my therapist told me. When you're a deeply anxious person, and I definitely suffer from anxiety, and I have my whole life. Truly, truly, true anxiety. And I talk about mental health a lot, too. And I talk about mental health a lot too.

When you're an anxious person, being a perfectionist gives you the illusion of control because you're like, I can make this exactly how I want it to be. And that sense of control quells your anxiety. You feel me? Explain that again so I could hear. Think about it. Okay.

You're an anxious person right yeah you're like you're like you think you're a perfectionist because you've got seven preamps on my vocal right now on the talk on the podcast you've got you got preamps you've got filters you've got a mastering chain and you're going to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that there's no glitches if there's a glitch you're going to edit it out you're going to go over everything with a fine tooth comb to make sure that there's no glitches. If there's a glitch, you're going to edit it out. You're going to re-listen to it five, six times. You know that there's people around you that don't care as much, but you care.

And you think about it when you're on the toilet in the morning, right? So you think that and you're like, yeah, well, I'm a perfectionist. But what that really means is that you're anxious and you want control you want to you don't want a wild card you don't want god forbid my voice sounds like crap and you didn't see it coming heaven forbid because that's like something that escapes your control yeah so your perfectionism is also you know it's a desire i have the same exact thing it's a desire to control potential anxiety triggers and to kind of like nip them in the bud as they happen you feel me yeah i totally hear you

on that so we should stop thinking as being anxious as something that's fucking up our lives because it is essentially helping us in a way it helps us and it fucks us up me i'll be honest with you dude and p will be the first one to tell you this because i've got a guy with me every day p and i have been best friends since we were 15 okay i'm 43 and i've been making with music with this guy every single day since i was 15 16 i'm 43 years old. And my anxiety, this dude's had to deal with it in many different forms. And so like,

I know he knows me more than anyone. He knows that my anxiety is what's going to drive us to have an album that's going to sound so good that we'll get a Grammy nomination for how good our album sounds. You know,

he knows that it's going to drive us to survive through the ebbs and flows of the music industry for years and different managements and different labels and all that. He knows. Cause he's like, Dave's Dave's losing sleep over this. So we'll be all right. But he's also had to deal with me having meltdowns and losing my temper and being stressed and being impatient and i can't imagine what it is to be on the receiving end of that so i also owe it to him to do therapy and take medications and and do all this work and i and looking back i wish i had

started earlier in my life you know but i owe it to him we owe it to the people around us too to work on our anxiety because yes it drives us to perfection in certain cases because it's like a battery pack but also it makes us fucking it can make us crazy it can make us drive people crazy yeah let's be honest dude like i don't know if you have a partner yeah but i don't have a girlfriend but i have a manager who's tried to quit three times same thing there you go why and and and you know what i'm saying so come on and it's like at one like i told you like for me the arc in my life has been at first like why can't i land an ollie i'm i'm you know the teenager the teen the teenage angst of why can't i just land an ollie and have a good haircut basically and that's like tremendous trauma and then

you know what i'm going to embrace the fact that i'm a creative neurotic nut job and no one can stop me and let's go full steam ahead this is going to be my battery pack and then it's also like well okay that's great but i might be driving everybody around me crazy so i also need to do some work on myself to make sure that this is in check and i can still excel or at least push myself but i don't want to drive all these people insane either you talk about having a meltdown what was what was the biggest meltdown you felt you had in your career can we talk about that you know i mean i don't know if i had is that p and i used to just get into arguments you know petty arguments at soundcheck but it's like if i could if i could do it over i i would just like i would have i there's never been like a career meltdown we

never had like a show anything we on stage we're always laughing whatever happens yeah there's never been a meltdown at a show but you know you're on tour you're not sleeping you're not eating you're everybody annoys everybody you know we've been we've been at each other's throats or in the studio you're you're you're you know you're programming hi-hats for six hours on a wednesday at 7 42 p.m like you might get on each other's nerves and and we've had you know we've had crazy we've had crazy shit happen in our career too like we changed record labels we had one manager go MIA like we changed management companies we changed you know so it's just been a lot of stuff and and good with bad you know so it's just like kind of rolling with the punches how does an anxious person deal with those

those big you know like you said like if it if it fucks up zoloft does that make you numb though being an anxious person or did it help you? Zoloft helped you. I love Zoloft, bro. Yeah. I love Zoloft. Yeah, I love it. I know what you're talking about, about the numbness, but you know, you also, first of

all, first of all, I don't want to, you can't just go and take Zoloft. Like you need a, you need a shrink that you can really trust and figure out your dose. I mean, this is, you need to do this under supervision you're not going and popping you know but i think for me honestly um a mix of medication talk therapy and some other stuff you know what i'm saying like i do yoga i meditation i'm not very good but like that helps all that breathing exercises all that stuff helps but you know for me personally personally and this is just for me i just i i think it's very beneficial personally to destigmatize medication because growing up it was so it was so frowned upon and and at. And it was so humiliating that, you know, I didn't want to take anything until I was much older.

And looking back, I should have started younger. You know what I mean? But I was too embarrassed. So I think if you suffer, somebody suffers from anxiety and depression and both of them are related. feel like taking meds and treating it with the help of a very very very very uh competent psychiatrist and psychologist i think that can really help and and and not only do you suffer less but you make your people around you suffer less yeah you know what i'm saying and i think i think yeah i wish somebody had i wish somebody had convinced me of that when i was 25 you know what i mean?

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. Do you regret not finding help at 25? Do you think your relationship with P would be stronger? No, it's not my fault. It wasn't my fault. Dude, even P, P was making fun of this one kid in our high school who was taking meds. So you think I'm going to take meds if my best friend thinks it's corny. And I was embarrassed.

It's not my fault. The stigma was there. That's what I'm trying to get at. Why is there a stigma with mental health in the early years, man? There was. Up until recently, really. I mean, up until it became trendy. And actually, to circle back to what you

were first talking about maybe that's one of the pluses of social media is that we can destigmatize certain things yeah um you know maybe but there really was one and there was a stigma around medication that are taking medications and you have no idea how many people i talked to about mental health and i'm like would you consider medication and they're like no i'm i do organic acupuncture and crystals and all that and i'm like oh okay but like you could do both you could do crystals and zoloft how's that it might be i don't know you know there's no maybe both work you? Not one or the other. Oh, my God.

Dave, this is great, bro. Thanks for talking to me. Was there competition between you and your brother? Never. Never? Never. You guys are the same? We're doing story time, all right? I'll tell you how it started with A-Track, okay?

So, again, let's rewind back. The year is 1993. I just cut my hair. I'm wearing a poncho and all I care about is playing Pearl jam and Led Zeppelin on the guitar and, and, and red hot chili peppers, you know, that kind of shit. And then P my best buddy from high school gives me this vhs tape of the movie wild style and he's like dude check this out the outfits in there are crazy this is amazing and again like this was new to us you know this dude is he's from lebanon he's these fresh off the boat you know what i mean and me like my parents speak french and and debate russian cinema around the dinner table like we don't know much about wild style.

Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I look at this wild style thing. I knew hip hop. I knew public enemy. I knew the culture. I knew because I was skating. I knew graffiti.

I knew a little bit. But to see it come to life in that movie, I never touched my guitar again for two years. Holy shit. And my brother was playing the piano and i was like i had this vision and i was like yo what if the biggest greatest dj in the world was a little 12 14 year old french kid from canada you know a little friend i mean it was unheard of, dude. This was before Eminem. Like that vision within hip hop culture was unheard of. I told my brother,

I was like, imagine if that was you. Cause in wild style, you see all these kids rapping, these little kids in the streets rapping and break dancing and DJing and stuff. You know, you see it from the old school to like all these youngsters in that movie. And I was like, dude, what if it was you? And my brother, he was 12. And he looked at me and he was like, I'd be down.

And so he never touched his piano again. He took my dad's turntable. He took an old little like record and he started noodling around it and scratching. And I was like, dude, this already sounds kind of good. Like, why don't you, why don't you actually do this? And then he took his bar mitzvah money, bought a techniques turntable, just one, and then like saved up, saved up. And then, you know, became world champion by the time he was 15.

What the fuck? Competition. I was like competition. Hell no, bro. This is my idea. And, and I was like, hell no bro this is my idea and and i was like hell yeah dude and i and i was like i was like you know like i told you i think with with the admiration that we had for hip-hop culture and also just for you know sort of the black music and black culture of america coming from where we came from, it was such admiration and reverence that we were like, we just want to pay tribute to this, this, you know, this monument. It's probably like, you know, in the Renaissance, when all

these Italian people were discovering, like, the classics classics and they were like, Oh my God, Plato, Aristotle, this is crazy. You know, like you just discover, you just discover this, this heritage. And you're like, yo, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and heard in my life. And it changes your life. And, and that's really what happened so earnestly that we were just like, man, And that's really what happened so earnestly that we were just like, man, if we can just be accepted as students of the game and make our mark and be a part of this in any way, then we won. Fuck, yeah.

And I got to say. Fuck, that gave me chills, Dave. That's dope, dude. That's dope. And, you know, when I see my brother, best friends with like DJ Premier and, you know, tight with all those guys that we used to worship, like literally DJ Premier to me was like God. And when I see him like wish my mom a happy birthday on Instagram, I get a shiver. I'm like, man, who cares about how my last song streamed? Who gives a shit about my monthly listeners?

Truly. Who cares? Like I'm DMing with Jimmy Jam and Jimmy Jam loves Chromio. Who gives a fuck? And I tell myself like, this is what I set out to do when I was 14, 15 with P. This is what we set out to do.

You know? And so let's just focus on that let's focus on that fuck dude i'm gonna clap to that i'm gonna clap to that thank you let's go dave i was waiting for this let's go dave thank you man that's beautiful but yo but but but it's hard to remember i'm not saying i remember this every day because i because i just i i just feel like you know it's about like for us it was really just about paying homage and showing respect to something that transformed us like you know because like because like classic rock and all that it was amazing and i loved i still listen

to classic rock all day but like that was my parents music that was my parents music you know so it wasn't it didn't change my life because like my dad had those records i was listening to fleetwood mac when i was like three months old like i love those records and i love fleetwood mac and i love everything about it but it didn't it wasn't a revolution yeah but then when i heard the but when i heard the beastie boys check your head it that was a revolution yeah i was like i want to dress like them i want to look like them i want to sound like them i want to collect records like them these guys i want to be them you know fuck in an amazing like oh take a step back and realize that everything you wanted in life you had? Well, yes and no. I think it's a wholesome attitude, what you're saying,

to be like, man, we're so lucky. Because people who are neurotic, like you said, we're very often focused on the mishaps and the challenges. But you know is it is a constant challenge especially in the music industry and entertainment where longevity is is the is the hardest thing you know longevity is really really challenging and it is and it's you know everything it's like your podcast could be popping for the next two or three years, but how are you going to, what's your tenure plan? What's your 12 year plan?

You're not even taking, I know you, you don't want to take a corporate job in 12 years. You want to do exactly what you're doing now. What's the road, what's the roadmap, you know? So those questions legitimately keep us up at night and they require a lot of work. Yeah. I mean, i'm playing with you i'm in a band and i've been doing i mean i've been in a band for about 15 years doing 250 shows a year and uh wow what's what's the name of the band i'm actually playing with you guys on at holidays the unfreeze show sick oh yeah so we'll actually get to hang out for like three or four days yeah and this is my name but you know what but you're but you're lucky because like you're in that world that i said

before like in the jam world it's like the jam world is almost like the last really pure universe and music yeah we're like we're like it's just wholesome and based on playing live and about playing many many shows and like none of it matter none of the rest of the fluff and the industry stuff matters that's why i admire the jam scene so much yeah um i also have my gripes with some of the music because like yeah it's so focused on live that sometimes the recorded music is less less interesting than the live music yeah yeah the live right i think that's is that a that's a fair comment yeah because yeah i think that's a fair criticism because you know

it didn't like how long does it take you to make to perfect a record where you're off the road and you're making a record and until it's done how long do you normally take to make a record a song or an album an album let's say an album yeah three years three years yeah dude you are a psychopath i love it you're a perfectionist and and and guess what guess what you've heard my music right yeah when you've heard my you hear a chromium song you hear like i get jealous or bonafide loving. You're like, man, these guys are having so much fun. They probably freestyle this in 10 minutes. Like, bro,

it took me two and a half years to get this right. Or it took me at least, you know, not constantly. We've been working on this song for a year. I think that's fair. Or for multiple months, because it's like, it's like, it's like bedhead, you you know like the bedhead haircut yeah like you need you need like 17 italian stylists to get that bedhead really just right it's like in a way it's easier to have like just like a virtuosic performance on a record to have something that sounds and feels effortless and fun yeah but for it to sit just right when you're thinking about something for three years straight and then you have to go tour it for two years do you get sick of those songs before you even tour them

no because they i mean this is one thing i'm sure you can relate to as soon as you as soon as you play the song live it changes it's like another song yeah and it takes on another life and you know if anything i'm like man after playing a song live for like two years i'm like i wish i could re-record it because i'm singing it so much better now yeah and i'm playing the part so much better now and then you you you listen to the the record that came out two years prior i'm like oh i sound so stiff and cause you know, you haven't practiced it really. So I don't know. It's just that dichotomy, I guess. Man, Dave, thanks for being on the show, man. You're, you're a great mind and I'm looking forward to hanging out with you.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I know I rambled this morning, but I, you know, I'm still, I'm still coming out of like a year and a half of isolation. So I miss talking to people, generally speaking. I agree. You know, I always end with what do you want to be remembered by? You already said that. I got one last question for you.

You know, you talk about racism and, you know, black music and African-American music. And did you ever have any racism, you know, being a Jew and having an arrow? How was that? Growing up, it sucks because we're going to finish on a weird thing. That's okay. I'll put it in the middle somewhere. I'm old enough to remember what it felt like in grade six, seven, eight, what it felt like in grade six seven eight to like be running from skinheads and to see like you know swastikas and stuff or like jewish cemeteries being defaced or like even people

you know hailing slurs and stuff and me and of course you know being being white passing and and and even jewish and and from like a sort of a lower middle class family it's nothing compared to what communities of color experience on a daily basis i never had police harass me or systemic stuff you know against me so i don't want to harp upon like what i dealt with because it's it's truly a drop in the bucket compared to what, what communities of color and visible minorities in America go through every single day. But I did, I did experience racism.

Yes. And honestly, I didn't think about it. And I thought it was, I thought that I started in 1995, 96. I never really experienced it again much and i thought that i would never see those things pop up in my life ever again until the last presidency yeah and

and i swear to god dude i literally i know these things still existed, of course, but I'm saying like, just like out in the open, I knew everything existed and, and, and, and I knew everything is still there and the system is messed up. But for me personally, personally, personally, and I guess that speaks to my privilege too. I was like, man, this is just in the shadows now, at least, at least it's in the shadows. Maybe I don't know if it's better or worse, but it just in the shadows now at least at least it's in the shadows maybe i don't know if it's better or worse but it's in the shadows and then with the last presidency that that ugly

monster came back out in the open and i had feelings and emotional reactions that i hadn't had since i was 12 years old 13 years old trying to not get my doc martin stolen you know what i was saying yeah yeah and and try and try not to get beat up by somebody so um did you ever have it during the band because you you guys what did you say did you ever felt racism touring during like while you're on the road or no just this is just a new thing never but i'll tell you i still have like i still have like uh a clipping of an NME review that, you know, in sort of the peak of their British irreverent political incorrectness, there's a review in NME magazine on our third album. And the language that they used to describe P is absolutely racist. Fuck. And, yeah, I mean, it's so weird because like again this is like 2010

we're like wow shocking you know yeah they were probably trying to sound like vice magazine or something but but then now you look back and you're like oh that was not okay that was not okay you know so yeah i mean here's the thing though like honestly i think you know what you were talking about earlier with human nature you know as lofty as that sounds it's like i've been through my fair share i'm sure you have too but i think i think the thing to keep in mind is like there's a lot of people out there who who have it a lot worse than us every single day yeah and so it's like how can we use our experiences to provide, to give us the compassion to be of service to the people who've got a lot, who experience what we experience, but a hundred times. hurt and you feel someone's really like when you feel like someone's really targeting you how can you make that turn that into compassion for another person for another community for another group you know yeah and um and i think i mean this is an we'll save this for

another podcast but i think as jewish people you know we we need to learn to apply that to the palestinian people yeah and that's i think for a lot of jewish people it's a challenge but that's but if if if our experience as a people has taught us anything it should be just that it should be that it should be to have compassion and sympathy and empathy for people that on the outside seem to be pitted against other Jewish people. But those are the people we need to show love to. I mean, that's a whole other thing. But anyways. But it's true.

Compassion. Compassion. Compassion. Yeah, man. Fucking compassion. And that's how we end a fucking podcast be better people be more you know you said it all dave and i can't wait we should do this again man we should do this again i love it bro and then so what festival are we hanging out we're in mexico

for um holidays um freeze mcgee it's in december oh yes of course we got four days there but but but we're gonna be we're just djing that day but we're there bro we're gonna hang out and like again i i can't wait maybe we'll do like another episode over there yeah that's what i'm saying let's do a let's do like a person-to-person one and we'll get deeper into what you're talking about yeah bring yo don't forget don't forget all your plugins and your preamps. You know what I'm saying? Don't forget to bring the right mic. You might want to bring an extra mic just in case the mic breaks. I got you.

I love it. Dave, nice to meet you, buddy. Thanks for being on the show. Have a good one, dude. All right. Later. Later. There you go.

Dave won. Well, that was great. I got nervous because he's way smarter than I am. And he killed it. Shout out to Dave. Shout out to Chromio. Dope. Love it.

Love it. All right, I'll catch you on the tail end. Now, a message from the UN. We're sharing a free room with the opening bell The motor said he'd bring as many beers as he can Up on stage and we were rocking it out We finished our show, my mouth was dry like a drought We walked backstage and looked around Saw everyone was wasted I dipped my hand down in the cooler Came up empty handed

Yeah No more fears. No more fears. No more fears. No more fears Dave, what an insightful conversation with the man who's way too fucking smart for me. Let's go. Shout out, Dave. Thanks for putting up with me and my dumbass questions.

But, ladies and gentlemen, we have Mr. Floydfest here with us. Sam, how you doing? Doing well, Andy. Thanks for having me on, man. I'm fully, kind of fully recovered. Yeah. How many days does it take you to recover from, like, I mean, you basically run operations for the Floyd Fest, right? Yeah, I'm chief operating officer for Floyd Fest.

I feel very blessed to be in that position, but I got a hell of a team. And it takes me about a month, man. We're already planning Floyd Fest 22 right now, so we're hot at it. Oh, my God. But like, it takes you a month to recover. It's got to, because I see you, and I know you now, Sam. We're getting closer in our friendship from GoFest where I got to hang out with you and slept at your house and kind of get to know who your vibe is. And then now seeing you at Floyd where this is your baby and how much work is a festival, especially during a time where it's such a weird time right now.

It is. And what was weird is we're always on this annual cycle of Floyd Fest. So we have the one year and then we do it. One year and we do it. Having this break of two years, it was incredible. An exceptional period of trying to rally the troops, keep the energy up, believe in the unbelievable, which is really what we did to launch in June 2020 and then get to July 2021 and throw a successful festival. So we feel very blessed, especially with the climate we're seeing right now, the Delta variant, what's happening across the country. I know, man. It's crazy because I felt like your festival right before everything started really getting crazy again on the hot sauce. Yeah, but man, I think we brought healing to people. That's what people needed, part of humanity, to get back together, to have that communal atmosphere, to have the family,

which you talked about in that last podcast. We really are like family. That's what I want to talk about. How important is this family to you? I mean, this thing has been like a staple in the community that I'm in and the community that a lot of my musician friends are in for what, 20 years? Like how important is this? 20 years. And you know, what's wild is we've all been in the music industry for a long time. We've seen all sorts. There's something different about Floyd Fest.

There's something different. I think, I know it has to do with the patrons. There's like a self-policing of the patrons. There's a very just positive attitude that permeates it. There's no parking lot scene. There's no parking lot scene. There's no stuff that I'm used to back on fish tour. I mean, this is something that's very exceptional. It's true. It goes off that mountain. And it's kind of unnameable.

You can't really pin it down. Yeah. And, you know, the mountain makes it so intimate and so beautiful. Like I didn't realize, you know, when I fly into Roanoke, you fly over the campsite. And it's just so beautiful how on top of a mountain it is and whatnot. And I'm like, there's got to be some magic in it. I wonder if you put Floyd Fest somewhere else in the country,

if it would be that magical. Because Virginia has this special power that not a lot of people realize you know it's like a place of music in many ways in our country you know and that's how we kind of we melded that originally with world music and kind of brought all together into one whole package but yes the but Blue Ridge Parkway we're the only major festival in the Blue Ridge Parkway 4,000 feet, beautiful gorge that we overlook. It's just so different. It's so different and beautiful.

What's the hardest part about being a festival owner? The uncertainty. I always remember people saying that we're kind of like farmers. We're very dependent on the weather. But I think it's about keeping positive throughout all things. I used to be a journalist. I used to deal with everyone coming at me for a negative reason. In festivals, everyone's there for the right reasons.

Everyone's there for a positive reason. And I think that you just need to always keep the positivity to keep that dream alive and to make sure people remind themselves they're coming there for the right reasons. They're coming there to relax and be a part of humanity and be part of something larger than themselves. Yeah, you know, it's so true. relax and be a part of humanity and be part of something larger than themselves yeah you know it's so true it's like you don't realize how much music heals like until you took like you said you took that two years off and like i didn't realize how important music was to a community until i went back on the road after two years of isolation with everyone and seeing people cry

when they haven't cried before you know do you get those vibes like was it very emotional at this festival i was trying to like you know extrapolate all these different random conspiracy theories about why america was going unhinged and what we had to do to heal them and someone just said to me very simply on our staff they're like america's missed art america's missed music that's the simplest thing we go there to heal and when we didn't have that communal healing for two years it affects the psyche you know mental health is a real thing coming out of this pandemic yeah and i think it's part of our job um to bring people out of the darkness and back into the light if you will a little cliche there let's fucking go sam

healer a motherfucking healer baby that's what's what I'm talking about. What about like, I want to know, do you make the lineups for festivals? Are you one of them? We are lucky to have some say in that, but Chris Hodges has done that for us for a long, long time. Yeah, Chris kills it. And you know about the On The Rise series

at Floyd Fest has been key to our success, which is when people come to our festival, they walk away with a band, a new favorite band they've never heard of before. And that's County Calling Card. Excuse me. What's, like, that,

I heard some musicians talking about, like, you could vote for us. Like, what's that whole thing? Yeah, so the On the Rise competition has been with us since day one. And it's basically, we get a batch of, like, let's say 14 to 20 On the Rise bands. We put them in front of the audiences, and then the audience gets to vote it's not really about the band's kind of situation but it kind of is and we've moved that to our app now so we have a foy fest app of course because it's 2021 and we had to and you get to vote on this app uh what

your favorite band is and then they move on to the next year and what we do is we pair them with one of the headlining headliners put them on the main stage they get that exposure they get a microphone package they get a merchandise package and they get a good amount of money uh from us to do that so we try to catapult and like some great examples of what we had in the past avid brothers they were on our on the rise they won in 2005 an unknown band oh now shit. Back in 2006 and 2009. And then look what they did for us this year, man. The faith that we built up for them with the On The Rise competition, they would not have said yes to be our headliner in June 2020 for 2021

if we didn't have that relationship with them going back all those years. So Dolph and the boys were amazing to come on board and say, we believe in Floyd Fest. We believe you guys can throw a safe event. And look, we did it. Just keep bringing the music because we need it out there. And shout out to Virginia

because to see the love they have for music and to see that you're one of the ambassadors for that is just fucking awesome. I'm thankful to call you my friend. I never thought I'd be back in Virginia doing this. And Virginia has gone leaps and bounds over the last 20 years, and so it's become a huge player in this mix,

and I feel very blessed for that. Well, invite us back anytime you want, Big Daddy. You know I'm around. Yeah, we love it, and Flippas 22 is coming in hot. We're going to announce that November 1st. Wow. Looks like it's July 27th to the 31st of 2022.

Oh, yeah. Straight up hot. Well, keep an eye out, Virginia and Sam. Thanks for being on the show. So we like to end the show with a little motivational speech. Are you ready? Can you give these people something to be motivated to for the next couple months through these scary times? Yes.

I mean, be good to your neighbor. We got to realize that people are at different comfort levels coming out of this pandemic. And, man, it's the theory of you got to feel that people are at different comfort levels coming out of this pandemic. And man, it's the theory of you got to feel good. How you treat these people during the days. Don't let social media get you down. Love your brother. Love your sister.

Be good to your family. Call your mother. Thank you, Sam. We love you, buddy. Love you, buddy.

Later, bro. Later. And there you have it. Thank you, Sam. Thank you so much for, um,

being one of the Floyd Fest installment. There you go. Floyd Fest installment. Another festival in the wraps. Hope you had a great time with us in Floyd. And I hope you had a great time on this podcast. The podcast, I really appreciate it. We're getting more and more downloads every week, and it's because of y'all.

Next week, we have F because of y'all. Next week, we have Faye Webster. I'm really excited for you to hear this one. Faye is, like, blowing the fuck up in this indie rock world. Faye Webster is the shit, and I'm excited for you to hear that one. All right, guys. I love you. Stay safe, and we're in this together.

Stay safe. Stay safe. Stay safe. Love you. You tuned in to the World Saving Podcast with Andy Fresco, now in its fourth season. Thank you for listening to this episode, produced by Andy Fresco, Joe Angelo and Chris Lawrence. We need you to help us save the world and spread the word. Please subscribe, rate the show, give us those crazy stars, iTunes, Spotify wherever you're picking this shit up

follow us on Instagram at world saving podcast for more info and updates Fresco's blogs and tour dates you'll find at andyfresco.com and check our socials to see what's up next might be a video dance party a showcase concert, that crazy shit show or whatever springs to Andy's wicked brain

and after a year of keeping clean and playing safe, the band is back on tour. We thank our brand new talent booker, Mara Davis. We thank this week's guest, our co-host, and all the fringy frenzies that help make this show great. Thank you all. And thank you for listening.

Be your best, be safe, and we will be back next week. No animals were harmed in the making of this podcast. As far as we know, any similarities, interactions, be safe, and we will be back next week.