Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - EP 173: Magic CIty Hippies

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

Andy and Nick are back in the saddle and ready to take you to FLAVORTOWN (shoutout to the legend, Guy Fieri). Summer Camp is coming up soon, so get the low down here. Such as the fact that Magic City Hippies are on the bill this year AND this episode's Interview Hour! These guys are great. And that's not just the drugs from my surgery talking. Get to know the boys and see just how magical these hippies can be; all whilst I try real hard to not pass out on this keyboard. Excuse my typos. This is epu2390f9j and I am dr^gs 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, "Puff Break (Believe That)" on iTunes, Spotify  Magical tunes for a magical band: magiccityhippies.com Produced by Andy Frasco Joe Angelhow Chris Lorentz Audio mix by Chris Lorentz Featuring: Andy's Doctor Arno Bakker Dr Yang (on the septal reconstruction this morning)

Hi Andy, this is Dr. Cohen and I was calling you back about some results from our last appointment. So that rash that was on your genitals, you don't have to worry about it. It is not an STD like you were worried. I think it was some chafing. So I would definitely recommend, you know, just keep putting creams on it and then maybe start wearing underwear, you know, with all of that pubic hair that you have there. It can definitely cause some irritation or maybe, you know, maybe trim down a little. And then I wanted to kind of touch base on what we talked about. There are different forms of male birth control that are available, such as creams and stuff.

But Andy, unlike women, men don't have days where their sperm is not viable, right? not viable right so if you have sexual intercourse with your girlfriend and you come inside of her your sperm can still get women pregnant any day of the month okay so just keep that in mind please continue to use protection and if you have any more questions just please call, and we will talk soon. Bye-bye. And we're back. Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast. I'm Andy Frasco. And this is my fearless sidekick, Nick Gerlach,

going to Rockies Games by himself. I went to the Rockies Games by myself yesterday, and I had a blast. Did you eat a hot dog? I didn't. I had some popcorn, though. It was so weird. We went to the game, what, last week? Two weeks ago? I'm like, I'm going to get a sausage.

You're like, I'm going to get a coffee. They don't serve coffee at the... Do they do? No. Yeah. It's just only hot coffee. You should have more coffee options rockies you need to have some nice lattes it's perfect on a sunday afternoon i don't know if i could with

like like arena food nah it's kind of state fairish shouldn't it yeah that's why i didn't that's why i just got popcorn i didn't really feel like having a meal at the ballpark i'm not really into fair food no i don't like you know what stunt food is no stunt foods like when you go to the state fair and they're like deep fry a snickers bar or like some crazy steak with other stuff inside of it you know what i mean it's like overdone i hate that i i i do too but i was at jazz fest and the food was fire jazz fest doesn't count that's like a different new orleans new orleans doesn't like whenever you say something about society new orleans doesn't count yeah they're just vegas i think like why because that's what they're for they're like the

sodom and gomorrah you know what i mean that's where you go to you have to express the duality of man you know what i mean i feel that so like they don't that that doesn't apply to them but you know i just don't the stunt food it's also sort of kind of why i hate cooking i hate cooking shows why because there's like starving people in the world and then like there's also people doing little art projects with their food for points i don't know it's like i guess i'm being a about it too but like i think i have a point like there's like people that like would love to just eat out of the trash if they can do you like promoters what do you mean just band promoters and music promoters how good are they it's the same thing it's the same thing yeah you're right guy fieri kind of

like a music promoter you think so no because he can actually make food most promoters can't play music for that's why they got on that side of the business that's true speaking of being music promoters summer camp music festival killing it it's gonna be fun yeah the lineup's insane i looked at the uh schedule you're playing the last the last set on sunday they're like who who can handle the perfect you guys are perfect for that role your 2am set's different though it's the last thing in the whole festival. So it's more of like the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. You know what I mean?

I think that you need to appreciate. Maybe even like, maybe you should like, as your gimmick for that, come up with some closing. I'm not going to help you because I'm not going to be there and you're not going to pay me. But think of some ideas where you could make it like a closing ceremony. Oh, like we should do a torch should do something to Ian or something. That's actually a fun. It's a pretty good idea. And then like, maybe, I don't know, what do they do with the presenting dude?

I just got to stay up all day. All the bands are still there. Line them up like the countries at the Olympic parade. And during one of your songs, have them all hold up a sign for what their band is and then they all walk through with their signs like whoever it is i don't know disco i'm clapping to that that's brilliant just a little bit like the opening ceremonies but you can make it work and then maybe something hold on what is it the summer camp tour there needs to be a summer camp torch it or is it the summer camp tour there needs to be a summer camp torch wow where the is it

oh my god oh where's our oscar music oh yeah i think you just replaced it but i think that'd be great and then maybe i don't know what else do they do at the closing ceremony that is so funny do you ever do that they're all gonna be drunk off their asses have them all make a little stupid sign or a flag that they put over their overs something and then they're each led by one person i love it yeah i like that too or you can have fans do it with what state they're from too just have the whole crowd do it just put whatever you are now you're getting me pumped up for the two years what now you're getting me pumped up for the two am set dude that's the fun set now 2am on friday no i don't want to be in like the 2am in the middle of everybody's because here's the fun set now 2 a.m on friday no i don't want to be in like the 2 a.m in the

middle of everybody's because here's the problem with playing those late nights on paper when you're coming up i used to play a lot because when you're kind of a come up band they stick you there yeah because they think and they're right people will stay up to see like the cool up and coming electronic things for drugs you know right but then you start to realize that the people that come to see you at 3 in the morning are fucking, no offense, but they're wasted. They're supposed to be wasted. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what's going on here.

It's a New Orleans, Las Vegas situation. But Sunday, this is like the... But that's different. You're the last thing. It's more of a thing. But when you're doing it on Friday, you're like yeah sweet we're playing the late night it's almost better to play at 4 p.m i think so i love the daytime set at a festival people remember you more it's just fun you can get the whole night

some party you feel good your adrenaline's jack just play a show you're like i'm gonna go party with the fans yeah i love that i like to have those at 2 AM. I got to like hide like a Loch Ness monster because like, I don't want to get drunk. Yeah. And I don't like, and that's the worst thing I hate staying backstage at those fucking music dangerous. They're all just, it's just kind of stiff and everyone's like waiting to gig. So like, you can't really have like great conversations.

They're all like, they're all on like 12 hours of travel. No one's ever coming in fresh to a festival. No. Except for bands that are regional. The regional 1 p.m. band that's just happy that they got meal tickets. Every other band is flying in. Don't you miss those days, kind of? Oh, yeah.

One time, my girlfriend, she only worked a festival one time ever, and it was Artist Relations. And she was like, she hated it, actually. She did it one time. She's like, I'm never doing this again. This band came up, and they were like, I don it actually she did it one time she's like never doing this again uh this band came up and they were like i don't even know who it was they were like some local band that like barely got in the festival and they like got meal tickets and the guy's like oh my god he was like so excited about getting meal tickets she's like you're a dick because i'm always like

where's catering yeah it was catering and this guy's like oh my god they're gonna give us some potatoes and yeah like the worst meal it was you know i mean like yeah catering. And this guy's like, oh my God, they're going to give us some potatoes. Yeah, like the worst meal. It was, you know what I mean? Yeah, catering is the fucking worst at festivals. Remember that phase of your life? Don't you remember that phase of your life? Why can't we have that same energy going into our life 15 years later? You would think you'd be more excited now.

You're playing Red Rocks. Yeah. But you're not. No, it's more stressful. You're more excited to drive four hours and get like 250 bucks between eight people, including crew, because you got a goddamn free lunch, which was like a sandwich and chips. I used to be excited to go to towns. I'm like, oh yeah, they had great bar food. So what do you think it is? Do you think it's because it's like, you're feeling you're finally

included in this like world you sort of mystify or mystified by is that part of it could be because by now like the curtain has been lifted for us yeah we've seen we've all we've seen the dark side of the industry we've seen the good we've seen the wizard he's a dickhead he sucks he's not that cool and he wants 15 you know or 40 or 40 or 60. i was looking at some of my uh some of my deals and i used to get frustrated when i'd think like the venue's gonna take 40 of the door that's like and i'm like booze yeah you should negotiate lower ticket sales because they know they're gonna do an extra 20 in booze sales at your show i know but it's also now that you're at a point where now promoters are renting out the room so it's not like i get it it's the venue's fault're at a point where now promoters are renting out the room so

it's not like i get it the venue's fault it's like everyone's got to get their piece yeah yeah so much i know of venues where like bands go and they sell out and they break even maybe and there's 10 000 people there yeah you know yeah it's crazy or they lose money that's why i told brian put me out of bodegas i want to do a bodega tour that would be fun that's too small though the boat you need something bigger but i like where you're going like like how uh like who's that uh burt kreischer he's doing like a tour on my baseball stadium that's so cool right minor base so what you need to do something like that but smaller and more on your brand like we're going to local roller rinks see that'd be cool it says you guys playing roller rink and everybody could roller skate. That sounds like a liability. It does sound like a liability,

but since when have you cared about that? We're going to crowd surf while you roller blade me to the back of the room. Just like, well, since when have you given a shit about a liability? You have a 12 feet off the grant. I blew out my back deadlift and fucking Floyd at summer jazz fest. at jazz fest he weighs more than you do i'm getting old i had to go to a chiropractor pyro man it was cool because he's in the scene this guy nate shout out to nate talking to me up you need chiropractor go to this dude he's dope is he good yeah i'm a little sports medicine okay so he's like a real one he's real you know like some of them you can't yeah I don't want to say anything about it. And I like it cause we could like, you know, where he understands my heart.

He's hot. A lot of chiropractors are pretty hot Asian dude. I've never seen a non buff. Every chiropractor is ripped. Yeah. You have to be, they're all hot and ripped. I got a shout out to all these doctors and chiropractors. We're really taking care of musicians without insurance and like giving them the homie deals. Shout out to not the federal government of the United States. What's going on? I'm just saying because the healthcare thing.

Well, it's more of an issue where people don't think musicians is a career. Right. And you know, on some level they're correct. Here's the problem with it. I'm not, it's like anybody can just say they're a musician. True. So like, you can't just be like, I'm like, if I just walked around, call myself an accountant, no one would be like, yeah, he's an accountant. You'd have to like have a degree, you know what I mean? So like, that's the thing is like, yeah, you're a musician, but all these people, most of the musicians they know, like play like one show a month and like are living this weird life where they tell everyone they're a musician, but actually they

work at a store, you know what I mean? And they're not actually, actually trying that hard to be a musician either. It's just like a phase in their life. So that's what they think of when they think of musician, you know, that a quarter life, everybody's like, if you were the main musician, everybody knew that the opinion of the career would probably be different. Right. Right. Yeah. That's what i'm saying well it is a ridiculous thing to do you know there's people out there like putting out fires and working in hospitals so it's like i think those are i think music's just as important but uh okay i get it like on a like a emotional level but they're not as like it's not as much of a service but it can be a service we're better than hedge fund managers nick

you are i'm saying we're somewhere between like you dedicated your life to this craft of music and you're belittling it i'm not belittling i'm saying we're somewhere between like uh children's hospital nurse and hedge fund manager we're probably like in there somewhere our tour manager beau is with the people he does merch for us when we don't have a merch is music important i'm not saying it's not important my point is good here i think okay oh so we we're not saving anybody's life like physically so we're narcissists no we're not well everyone's a narcissist about something probably so we think we're more important than we really are. Some people like get a little dramatic about what a musician's role. That's all I'm saying is like, it's cool that you're doing this. And like, yes, you do help people.

Everyone like it's good for the world to have music, but there's also like a shit ton of people that just want to play musician and like pretend they're musicians, they kind of water down the industry, you know, the career a little bit also, you know, like not, you know, the career a little bit. Also, you know, like, you know, there's a lot of musicians that if they didn't exist, the world would not be any different. You know what? Fuck that. Musicians, don't let fucking Nick.

I say they're like a seven. Don't let Nick ruin your dream. I'm sorry. I think people that like... You fucking be that person. You want to be fucking... You want to be... I'm just saying, like, someone who saves a kid's life in a hospital

is more important than a jazz saxophonist, but I'm still better than a hedge fund manager or like a, you know, or like some sort of slum Lord. Wow. Good morning. Nicholas musicians are like a six or a seven. Well, for, um, for the people who, um, I think I'm being pretty fair here, Bo, don't you? Okay. You agree?

No, no. Fuck that. It's everything. I think you think I'm being a little here bo don't you okay you agree no no that it's everything i think you think i'm being a little harder on musicians than i am we're not monsters or anything but we're not angels either speaking of being an angel repsy.com is a great angel for uh musicians great angel and a great angle and a great angle so if you can't read they work either way sign up to repsy.com if you're in a band if you're't read, they work either way. Sign up to Repsy.com. If you're in a band, if you're a comedian or magician or a shit talker like Nick Gerlach. I'm not fucking shit.

If you're some weird musician guy that doesn't have any gigs because you're not actually a musician and you're just calling yourself a musician to hit on girls at bars or whatever, perfect. Sign up for Repsy.com. They'll book you a gig at a college bar. Collegio. Collegio. Or a fret party. A fret party.

Or a wedding. Oh yeah, they do weddings? They do, they book bands for weddings. Damn. I fuck with that. That's crazy. All my band mates are getting married this week. Really?

Oh, Floyd and Ernie. Floyd's getting married in Nantucket you're not going right i'm going to that wait when's the floyd wedding floyd weighs in two weeks hey thanks for that invite floyd so that wedding's in nantucket we're going to be there for three days we're going to go to an island that we can't afford because we're broke make sure you show up and then ernie is getting a loaded is it a loaded oh man that's not even the word. There's no D elopement. He's a loping. He's him and Amy shout out to them as well. They're getting married in Hawaii this weekend.

And Sean's already married. Sean's already ran. That means I am the last of the Mohegan's. I mean, everyone knew that was going to sign up for reps.com. So sign up for upt.com and then, um, but yeah, you know, some of these bandwagon, I hear these nightmares of these wives just not enjoying being a traveling musician. It could be that they have a terrible band boyfriend. Well, true.

Or a husband. It could be a girl in a band. People are just kind of crazy with their significant. And I know the other side of it where I have a home girl who's in a band, she's extremely hot and like super talented and her boyfriend is jealous as and gets all nervous and really and like hits her up all the time and it's just like makes her feel threatened yeah so it's just like more of a human thing it's a human thing it's it's it's a thing where you're being away all the time it's not just men or women

it's not everyone's built for that and it's actually okay if you're not built for that it's actually normal just get out of the relationship if you don't feel like i know it's like it's be weird to be in a new thing but if it's not clicking and you know you're going to be a musician forever get the fuck out right i'll clap to that yeah relax with some dialed in gummies some dialed in gummies let's talk about them a little bit too um our other sponsor dialed in gummies I'll be thinking about relaxing yeah sleepy you know I was I was on a weed hiatus really yeah like not smoking during the day I started smoking during the day again but because I've been taking these dialed in gummies and I love them. They do be hitting. I take half you.

I mean, you pounded through your fucking case of these in like a couple days. Well, yeah, but one of the one of the cases they gave me was already half eaten. So I took half. I like them. Yeah, they get me pretty high. I like 30 or 40 milligrams. Yeah, they're fucking good. Meet you in the mic a little louder for me. I love that sound. I think you do or 40 milligrams. Yeah. They're fucking good. Can you chew in the mic a little louder for me?

I love that sound. You do? Mm-hmm. So weird. Mike's sister would murder you. He's one of those people that like. I had a fan who's like a big, is it ASMR? Yeah.

She's like. AMSR. Yeah. I don't know. One of those things. She's like, she does really well make a ton of money doing it. I'm like, she's like, I'm like kind of, we were kind of talking, flirting a little make a ton of money doing it I'm like she's like I'm like kind of we were kind of talking flirting a little bit a couple

years ago I'm like will you send me one of those ASMR videos of you just like chewing food and like clicking your nails and shit I was like just to see if I could like be turned on by it and I was fucking turned on by yeah but what doesn't you don't like this sound i just feel like it's not that hard to get you horny like it these days it is oh my libido is gone really maybe you need to like start doing cardio yeah and i think i'm i haven't exercised somewhere and i don't drink enough water and and you have a girlfriend now yeah nothing sucks a life out of you like being in a relationship we're actually good dialed in We're actually good. Dialed in gummies.

Eat some dialed in gummies if you'd like. They're out of Colorado and they're always sold out. So if you see them, if you're in Colorado and you see them at the medicinal shops. Buy as many as you can. Buy as many as you can because they're fucking good. And I'm not just blowing smoke up their ass because they pay us. No, but we are doing that too.

A little bit. But no, seriously, get some dialed in gummies they're great solventless and if no they clean yeah and the cool thing about this is they do they all they their business is to collab with growers so if you like a certain strand of weed out of colorado or wherever they are i guarantee you they probably have a gummy that has that weed in it so shout out to dial it in gummies that's a smart business smart business it tastes so good like candy qr code do the qr code and then there's a qr code um the hard way we're gonna have a good week i'm gonna go to powell yeah baby i'm going are you going with the group um yeah i'm going with a couple of the umphreys dudes which ones um you know ben yeah he lives in indiana

well not anymore but he used to live there for him and his uh girlfriend ray ray i call him hot ben yeah going out with rick alden on his boat oh this is like your yearly yeah my yearly trip i thought you usually do this in like January. Yeah, we're doing, no, we do it later in August normally, but we wanted to do it in May while Arizona is just so fucking hot. And also Lake Powell like is really dry right now. Julie's in Arizona right now. We got to like go deep into the lake, which is tight. You sleep on the boat?

Yeah. Like a yacht or like a houseboat. It's like a yacht. Yeah houseboat it's like a yacht yeah 10 person 10 bedroom houseboat this is the best trip is it serene there's like four jet skis what do you do all day we i i we wake surf we got like a power hours yeah and it's just so pretty we'll take acid you just fall asleep at like 7 00 pm every night from you know sometimes i mean yeah there's sometimes nothing to do but also there's times where you stay up all night but i'll take acid and like look at some mountains and shit um no but i'm bringing i'm bringing the kakuzas fyi

they're coming hell yeah they're like you're bringing jill they're like your carry-on when you go on vacation i do whenever i want to have like a carrier i do whenever i want to have a real great vacation i always ask did you know when andy books a frontier flight there's like a little checkbox for 65 bucks per kakuza oh man you're killing me today buddy all right we gotta go we're just talking now and they told us not to do this tighten it up guys they said tighten it up stop just talking about everything it was good i thought it was good we were them yeah also them okay enjoy magic city hippies or i'm gonna be me you know what i mean i'm gonna be me you want to give them a little motivation not really

next up on the interview hour we we have Magic City Hippies. Yes, Florida boys. Hey, Chris, play some Magic City Hippies. We got to play with these guys maybe a couple years ago in North Carolina, and seeing the crowd response was fucking awesome. People were singing all the songs, crying with them. It was fucking tight. So I wanted to interview these guys, and I did a little more research on them,

and they got a great story. And I think you're going to really love this interview, actually. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the interview hour for the summer camp installment, Magic City Hippies. What's up, buddy? What's up, man? How you doing? So what's going on?

Where are you? I'm in the Mall of the Americas right now. In Minnesota? In Minnesota. They canceled three of my flights. I can't get to Miami right now. Did you play a festival out there? What was going on?

You did a couple of runs or what? No, no. I've just been hanging out in Montana, just like hiking, writing songs and shit. It's just been gorgeous, you know? And like, so anytime that we go on tour, you know, we're playing summer camp. So, you know, fly down to Miami and rehearse and then hike up to, you know we're playing summer camp so you know fly down to miami and rehearse and then hike up to you know illinois but uh yeah it's just been crazy i heard this story bro like you would your band used to be a busker in miami that how it started yeah yeah that's how it started yeah in the streets of coconut grove give me give me the deets were you making money give me everything i don't

i mean i don barely know you. We probably told this story a couple times. No one ever pointed out like, hey man, you probably weren't making a lot of money doing that, right? Right. A couple times people would drop like $100 bills down, which was pretty sick back in the day. But I'd say I'd average like $60 a night.

You know, not too bad. Let's fucking go. I like it. It's more than we made at our first gig. So, you know, I can't wait to tell me about the busking and then tell me how you met the boys and we'll get the brothers in here. So like, you know, I was just, I was just like, fuck it. I just want to play music on the street. So I would, I noticed that there was like a power outlet above a bank and And then I would just kind of like climb the awning and stick an extension cord in there and just power my like speakers. And nobody gave a shit.

Like they just let me play for like a year and it was like fun. I had a good following. A lot of like college 20 somethings would come and hang out and dance. And eventually like five cops came and like, look, we're going to arrest you if you don't like shut this shit down get a real gig you know so then i started playing at this bar called the barracuda bar they took pity on me i guess and um that's where the boys came in i started like playing with these local kind of um musicians i met pat at first who is soon to come and join us, I think.

He introduced me to John, and we started playing these trio gigs for free beer. Right. We were all- $60. Yeah. We were very impressed with Robbie's stories of $60 in the past. So, John, what did you see in Robbie that made you want to just like quit everything and part of it? Well, I mean, so me, me and Pat, we're going to UM, uh, studying music and I

think we were about to graduate like the next year or it was around the time we were finishing. And, uh, so Pat and Robbie were actually playing duo gigs. A lot of times the first time I met Robbie was, uh, Robbie just got back from Argentina and it was him and Pat at Jada Coles. gigs a lot of times the first time i met robbie was uh robbie just got back from argentina and it was him and pat jada cole's and uh i remember being like man they could really use a bass player and uh i just i mean i play guitar let me turn it down a little bit i think i'm peaking i um not that not not this type of peaking uh and uh i you know play guitar in the band now and on the

records i play guitar and everything but you know we, I could tell they need a bass player. I mean, they sounded great. Don't get me wrong. And I was living with Pat. And I remember you were playing some, I don't remember most of the gigs. We've played, you know, thousands it feels like. But you were playing in a place called The Joint, which I don't think exists anymore. It was a Thursday.

Yeah. And I remember I was like packing up to go play. And I was like, we're all like broke, you know, 21 year olds, you know, like eating fried egg sandwiches like three days, three times a day to survive. And I was like, Pat, like, I'll come. I got nothing to do, man. I would love to come play this gig, you know?

And I remember, you know, there is Pat your homie. Is that like your best friend? Yeah, I mean, Pat's like my musical like, you know, he lives in LA and I'm still in Miami. So we don't see each other that much. But it comes to music. There's no one that I just feel like I don't this is not the best metaphor, but it's like we have an umbilical cord attaching both of our belly buttons. You know, there's like a laser between our brains that it just

makes sense. There's no one whose music ideas just click with mine more. Yeah, how did um, how did you meet pat like was it through the dorm were you guys fucking the same chicks like give me the scoop uh we're we're both in music school uh but it was another friend of ours uh jack uh who is a good friend lives in new york now and he moved into the hippie castle jack with what's the hippie castle? All right. So we'll go backwards. So I moved into this house that had been in music school for years. So like every year, a new group of music school students moved in. And I moved in kind of with the outgoing people.

And then so I had to kind of fill the house with my own friends. So I brought in a friend, Stephanie. I brought in Jack. And Jack was friends with Pat. He brought in Pat. I was like, this guy is so nice. He's very cool, very laid back, more responsible than the rest of us. If anyone's missing, hey, Pat, we're talking about you.

I'm walking right in with some compliments. Welcome to the show, Pat! What's up, dog? Let's go! LA Livin'. Look at you guys, just fucking bi-coastal like pimps. I love it. This is great. And then poor Robbie, the lead dude's in fucking Minnesota right now. It's a full circle event tonight. So John was telling me about how you guys met. So you guys met

at this, the mansion, the hippie mansion. What is it? Sounds like a porn den or like a, what's the hippie you know what that might have that might have i don't know if we asked enough questions to our our landlord and our neighbor about that i might have that might have gone down at some point honestly it had that vibe to it very 70s uh miami bungalow was it sticky oh at times so you guys met at the mansion, you two, you, um, had John, and then you guys are 20 years old, living the dream, going to U of M going to Miami. You see fucking Robbie play in some fucking little bar and you're like, we need to make this happen. Like, what'd you see? And what'd you see in Robbie, Pat?

I met Robbie, I want to say like 15 minutes before we played our first show together. So there was literally, it was kind of like a friend of a friend, like revolving door situation with, um, people like starting to accompany him with his one man band thing at the Cuda. And yeah, I had a friend named Sean who was a killing bass player and had started to play with Robbie. Robbie would be looping beat boxing. Um um i had never seen it before this is all like told to me it's like oh this guy playing you know playing at barracuda bar in the grove like kind of one of the i'd say at that point the diviest spot in the grove at this point you know it's doing some it's it's not it hasn't changed at all but it's it's like an institution and it's doing this thing but uh but yeah i i remember showing up i was like yeah i'm

done like i kind of had no way to i don't know i wasn't really going out you know with my you know people had like you know ids and we're like going to like uh you know club live on a wednesday night with like there are kids there you know like you know in school from like europe with like black american express card and i don't know it's just like yeah i'll do that i'd love to just start playing on friday night so i said yes there was no discussion of pay or anything like that and then yeah like i remember i'd pull up my 97 honda accord and i got my kick drums like taken off the lining of my door or whatever i try to get it out of it and like dude's like hey robbie nice to meet you

helps me carry my kick drum in and then we played for like totally unrehearsed for like kind of three hours something like that you know just kind of reacting to certain like sublime covers hip-hop covers um you know some original tunes he had and i think it was the first time uh i ever ever was really grooving with a guitar player. You know when you find it, you kind of have the same pocket, or just the tacit musical chemistry. You know what I mean?

We were just on the grid. I could tell we were both pretty satisfied. We were having, you know, there was smiles. It was all smiles. And yeah, I just proceeded to do that for the subsequent, I don't know, however many Fridays in a row. It was just like. And yeah, I just proceeded to do that for the subsequent, I don't know, however many Fridays in a row. It was just like, all right, yeah, I'm here.

Okay. That's what's important is like the beginning of the band is like, like Pat said, like you just get on stage and Robbie would start a loop and shut the fuck up. It's like, good luck. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they were very simple loops, Robbie. I love you. And they were very straightforward, simple loops.

But you know, with our musical training or whatever we would just you know listen it was and it was really nice because of that you had to kind of listen before you played it'd be like let me listen he's doing this what would be the best thing to compliment this instead of like man i want to play this sick ass line and so it kind of created almost like a produced version of it live wherever we're kind of more thinking like what serves the song a little more didn't really have a lot of licks to whip out and because of that we without ever having talking about what the songs are we developed like a 20 30 three sets worth of music that would ever even talking about what the chords are you

know what we're gonna play how we're gonna play it sick so organic every every moment was compelling and was musical genius. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. We were never at Barracuda's titty bar. Hey Robbie, I got a question for you, buddy. What? So you have these guys come in, they're music school guys and I'm assuming you'd, you don't have that type of training, right? No. Okay. Yeah. You're a busker me too this is how i what it was it intimidating to get these music school guys joining your band at first like did you feel like you were good enough did you feel like you needed to do more did you feel like oh

these guys these guys are too smart for me it's funny um i don't know i don't think i ever felt that way. I mean, at times later on where they're busting out a lot of their knowledge when we're writing songs and stuff together, it's not that it's intimidating. It's useful. It's very nice to have that. was something that i just knew that i had that was kind of like real and raw and it was like i don't know how other how many other people had it so i kind of felt good about it i felt secure about it and i was just doing my thing i was just like it it's not a big deal you know because i remember we played with each other in raleigh north carolina yes and i saw these i saw these women going nuts over you guys singing every song i'm like dude these guys are hot i'm like how long did it take between you i heard you guys were the robbie hunter band and then you guys turned into magic city hippies

how long did it take for you to feel like all right instead of being a solo act i want to make this a full band project and give me like the process of when that happened and like were you guys starting to do bigger gigs were you trying to get out of miami like what was the thought process of changing it from your name into a band name yeah i, we named our first album Magic City Hippies. Yeah, yeah, I heard that. And that, it kind of like dawned on us, you know, that this Robbie Hunter band is a stupid name and we need to kind of... Yo, fuck that name. We gotta upgrade, you know. we gotta upgrade yeah no to robbie to robbie's credit and humility and everything like me and john so we were already you know playing the three of us and robbie hunter band like nothing

changed lineup wise between robbie hunter band and magic city hippies is just like us you know shedding that skin and like something that felt a little more like the project but uh i remember we were like well robbie like you know these are your songs like me and john are kind of we're playing on this like we're producing this but like it's fine like you can just be Robbie Hunter and we'll just be like you know your band like your guys and he's like no and then we did we just

you know how you go through like I don't know if we went through the I can't remember the specific process I don't think we ever had any other alternative band names we never drew shit out of a hat or anything like that but he was just like no like fine we'll be Robbie Hunter band and we're like fuck okay and then well then we were and we're just like well that's fine you know that's that's what it is like until further notice and then we had um that first album that we ended up calling magic city hippies at first it was like

three singles we had out in this like summer of 2013 something like that no exactly that and uh just a couple of things back when the blogs were important and and stuff like some things kind of caught on online you know in a way it was beyond like our calculation and so you just feel really lucky when like people who you don't know personally who aren't even part of the local scene are responding to the music and right stuff with like you know hype machine and whatever like stuff was kind of starting to move with it and we're like well now we're screwed now we're robbie hunter band like we didn't know we don't know how we did this we were not architects of any of this like little like beginning indie success at all and so we're like okay we can't like you know change like the breadcrumbs that

would like lead anybody to all this music. We'd be starting over. It took a few years. That was 2013 and 2015. That was when that record came out. Hippie Castle, right? Yeah, Hippie Castle EP. That's when we were like, alright. This shit's about to pop. It was actually Crickets too. When we released

what we thought was going to be the biggest song on that EP. And I remember under magic city hippies first release under magic city hippies. And there was actually the number one before that was, there was another song that's kind of released under both, but that was like a little under the radar.

But I remember we released it and it was like nothing like the stuff that had been happening, you know, with our older music and we're like, shit. Okay. We did. We're like,

we're starting over. Like, I don't know if anyone knows we're the same band band i don't know if any of our fans are following us from that to this like how do we do that you know what pr wise like what do we do and then you know it was just kind of like that and we released the ep you know all at once and it wasn't even a single fanfare was like the the intro track you know um and that and that just you know like some crazy you know early spotify days like stuff some perfect storm of like i don't know thank thank god for the the internet you know the local scene was like definitely like

you know birthed us out of that but like i don't know it was just crazy how people got a hold of something that we they just you know knew more than we did about which music of ours like mattered and it just kind of you know grew legs and ran around the internet well shout out to millennial marketing baby let's go Spotify give my boys some money let's fucking go okay so that's pretty wild and i i want to talk about the 2015 and on but i first want to talk about 2013 2014 what the fuck were you guys up to why did you name it the hippie castle because there must have been some crazy shit going on in this hippie castle did you all move into this hippie castle give me some stories were there hookers blow i want the whole thing give it to me i mean it was it was some place that you know me and pat were in and robbie was like in and out you know we stayed there for five years like i said it was supposed to be something that kind of rotated

through the music school and then we kind of just was it cheap to live in like what i paid my first year i lived in like a florida room so i didn't live in a real room i had like sliding glass doors for two of the walls and then it was also the route to the pool. Yeah, he lived in the pool room. Oh my God. I paid $350 a month though. So it was definitely worth it. How many people lived in the hippie castle?

Four with one bathroom. Four men, one bathroom. The whole band moved in? We usually had a semi, it was kind of like the feeder program for living in the castle after someone moved out was you lived on our couch for like as long as maybe like six months or so this sounds like a frat house boys

it was kind of more of a you know musician like uh bohemian version of it as you could call it but basically we played this gig every friday night and then whoever wanted to come over would come over you know and say we'd stay up till the sunrise like 10 in the morning, you know, in the pool, you know, we, you know, jump off. We, I mean, I probably pretty unsafe, but we'd be drinking, doing drugs, jumping off the roof naked into the pool, you know, and it was just like this, but our, you know, our social group was like musicians. So also like any given day, you'd walk in without having to knock and there'd be like

10 people hanging out, someone playing guitar, you know? So so it was very it wasn't like all the time just like go go go it was a lot of like you know art was being made and stuff like totally so 2015 you make this record that this ep um hippie castle at first when you first like in the beginning like oh this thing's gonna pop and then it doesn't pop for a little bit. Were you discouraged? It was definitely like we said, you know, we probably were a little ahead of ourselves thinking like we'll never be bigger than the Robbie Hunter band. Or it's like that name was so important. You know, all we have is some hype machine hype.

You know, there's no money. So we were like, man, we really, you know, like we blew blew it in some ways. But, you know, we I remember that single burnt came out, which is probably my favorite song on VP came out in like, June, I think right at the beginning this summer. And then the EP came out the end of summer. And then we had it we had a pretty big like album release thing for Miami. We had like a couple 100 people like 500 maybe it was free though. Free. So it's like, you don't need to know that you sold that out to me doc

there's trauma there was a lot of worry about them we're like but there were people there and it was great but then I think it was like almost two months later where fanfare what was what exactly it got on a Spotify playlist yeah it was it was it was like, I mean, these were the early early, the early days of gold rush is Spotify. Yeah, yeah. And it was like, you know, and fresh finds is still important. I think that breaks or starts, it's like the first domino for a lot of people with the, you know, being put in the favor, the good favor of the algorithm, you know, but uh, yeah, I think we always had some people on the algorithm you know but uh uh yeah i think

we always had some people on reddit you know there's always be subreddits like people just kind of tossing a song of ours up there even like from the robbie hunter band stuff and uh i don't know where the i don't know who the fresh finds people were or are like you know what their process is for like finding stuff that they don't think anyone's heard but they put fanfare on there and you know i think it just i don't know it went i don't know viral within the spotify you know universe and so it ended up the number one global viral top 50 and we just saw we were seeing like streams like we've never had before and before this we were all soundcloud too we're like excuse me we were like um like oh there's

gonna be like like i guess some like money like here you know because before it was all it was all just social currency it was just just for our handshakes and high fives yeah yeah and you know thank god i don't know like that's what's evolved into you know what obviously gets reabsorbed by by the band just to keep this sort of thing going and and put on a bigger show and and keep making music but that yeah as we can have it just got kicked around um on spotify and you know i don't know that it'll be it's crazy you know it's like that's the one it's always the one you have like this gut feeling about and then if you try to be your own a r man or something

you just get in the way of it you're like oh no but this is what this is the song of summer you know or this is whatever you know we never take winners we we have we have no idea how to pick winners we're just they're just going to keep making music yeah i'm gonna clap to that it we don't need to we don't need to decide destinies we just make good music yeah okay so i got a question so 20 million you get 20 million views you wake up and like holy there's like all these millions of views on our song when did the vultures start coming when did the managers start coming when did the agents all these sharks give me give me those details now like were they i want to hear the worst i want to hear like the porn star managers who wanted to manage you and all that shit give me all the dirt they have that i mean a shit ton of people started flooding into our emails and stuff and you know or you know i don't think we had we

didn't have like a real man we had a we had a manager at that time spencer baitman we love you spencer shout out but we didn't you know we didn't have like an industry guy at that time spencer kind of funded um well he's someone we met at you know at barracud't you know we didn't have like an industry guy at that time spencer kind of funded um well here's someone we met at you know at barracudas you know who had other well he had other like ventures and stuff you know what i mean and had some money to play around with him was just interested in music and he actually like he helped buy us some of the the gear that we made like the both of those records with honestly and then i think it got to a point we were all kind of out of our elements wild west with spotify and this is happening we're

like what's next and then we realized we all kind of know the same amount you know we didn't have a manager that's like okay guys awesome here's what we do now it was like we're all just like kind of on the the same level um and so yeah i think a little bit of time went by and then we were kind of self managing for the most part we were just playing a lot locally we were like didn't we had just figured out how to start playing our records live you know because it wasn't the records were kind of far from what we sounded like when we were like just jamming at kudas when we started you know what i mean yeah and you're making a record with all these tracks on it. And, you know, you just got to make it sound great.

Yeah. So it's like we were maybe not prepared. What was that? Irony is like the original trio is like I'm playing bass and Pat's playing drums. Robby's playing guitar and singing. But in the studio, it was all flipped on its head. Pat was playing bass and Keys a bit of guitar. I was playing mostly lead guitar. So like literally the version in the studio was like a different band almost than live yeah it was translating it was a whole it's a translation process really yeah so we

weren't even yeah we weren't even ready to like tour all this stuff but there was a certain point where we were we were like what's okay what do we what do we do and then that's when we eventually got an agent first right someone came came out to to represent us to try to get us out on the road to get us some more money for playing live and just you know help us in that way and he was like okay so y'all yeah i'd like don't really have a manager right now we're like no and so then that's when the speed dating there was kind of like a speed dating phase of like well how about this guy oh how about this guy and people flying into miami and we do like a little you know schmooze and like you know like a first date vibe with like several managers and like some of them had

like a binder thick like contract already like ready to go like oh no no yeah it's like pass thanks for lunch later and then uh i don't know what's some other ones i don't know yeah that was what was the worst one what was the what was the greasiest one give me the grease don't know, what's some other ones? I don't know. Yeah, that was... What was the worst one? What was the what was the greasiest one? Give me the grease. Don't tell me his name, but give me a grease. We had a guy fly in.

And I remember he was like a 65 year old man. We picked him up at the airport. He was me and Rob picked him up from the airport after work. He was like in Robby's car. He was like a sick old man. He was like sniffling. And he drove into his hotel and he gave me robbie like 60 bucks to go buy a bottle of vodka and we went back to this hotel and drank uh uh buckets

brights or vodka sodas we went out i spent a lot of money and pat joined us later we were like hammered and he like immediately wanted like a cut a 360 deal on everything and like yo here's the deal now you're a vodka bottle down yeah yo okay here's the deal i take 40 you guys shut the fuck up we'll get you famous okay here we go i talked like that too and i'm gonna be your label i'm gonna be your publishing and i'm gonna be your manager and he's like i know it sounds like there's a conflict of interest there but i promise you there's not and he couldn't really explain why there's not you know uh and you know we always just had and he sent down his assistant like a month later to do the same thing his i.t guy he said that's right it's his it's his son who lives in the house i don't like it but we always have the wherewithal to be like

you know i i think you know it's a classic history that you find someone in the industry that shows up and can kind of, you know, to do the smoke and mirrors and impress you and you sign away some big chunk of money. And I don't know, we were just, we kind of knew we had something and we'd already kind of gotten where we were without having all that, that we were, I don't know, we just maybe had a good sense of like, nah. How close was he to signing you or do you always knew you're never going to sign them i think miles away damn you almost got britney spears dog after we were like nope not 10 years later we're like free magic hippies dude

he was really sick too and wouldn't drink any of the alcohol that oh he's trying to manipulate dude he was trying to drug y'all yeah i think so i think so wow yeah billion guy come up and he met with i think me and pat or me and robbie in like the parking lot of like a mexican restaurant the brazilian guy that's that's yeah i wasn't there i think you guys went oh and he had like a slideshow on his laptop yeah we all gathered oh my god i forgot about that did he drive a minivan what's going on what a translator kind of guy that kind of helped explain it but like and like his whole thing was like look at my slides and it was like stock photos of like a band like you know are you for is this real dudes yeah it was kind of the opposite because it's like well the

last guy at least wine and dined us we're like outside of like a like a local chipotle that's closed we have the laptop on like the table and they're like sweeping and like hair drop on the table you know and he's like i don't know how to say this in english we're like okay i don't know so we kind of passed on that we had we had some local people that like had worked with some people you know people but they were just like no like i can tell this you you're also trying to like use us to kind of boost your career we're looking for someone who'd come in and be like i am a manager you know i mean like literally hitting that ceiling of like oh we need like we need help like we need new insight you know into like kind of where to go from here and everyone else knew at most as much as we need like we need help like we need new insight you know into like kind of

where to go from here and everyone else knew at most as much as we did and we felt like especially the old like the first you know dude we mentioned i think the that was just more old school like someone kind of uh maybe arrogantly approaching management artist management nowadays like not really knowing how much has changed about it like there's so much more autonomy you know with releasing your own music and owning your masters and all stuff where we're like well we don't need you know we don't need to like break off a piece like we had this is all self-contained right now and as we can got to kind of protect it you know from yeah you used to used to be able to like almost gaslight an artist into thinking like oh

no yeah actually no that's actually how it is like you actually don't make that much money and they're just like oh i guess not and then everyone would just talk to each other and be like yep same thing with me i signed this contract i'm like apparently though it's not recouped yet or what you know what i mean it's just like well yeah i mean you look at the horror stories like bootsy collins george porter these guys who sign these contracts not knowing what it is and lose all their publishing and like just to make it just to get you know i don't know about georgia but like a lot of these guys like to get famous quicker you know or not know what the knowledge is so and i like what you said about keeping it simpatico you know you got to know your worth right people are they don't know their worth in this industry because there's so many

people trying to take a little piece and a little piece and everyone's taking their little piece what's left for the band so like how long did it take you to find your team yeah can we talk about how we wind and dine brad yeah so brad's been our manager for uh six years now well let's go back to phil for a sec so that okay Phil we love Phil real legend Phil is based out of Colorado uh and so we what agency was he with Madison House that's enough so that he's not yeah he's with a new yeah but we kind of we we kind of ended up being jam band adjacent through Phil yeah so like with that that kind of shifted the people coming to us right because he kind of introduced us to that world and that's where Brad comes in

right yeah it's you know what Art Basel is in Miami no it's like this really booze now it's even more just like for the rich people but it's like this art thing that's all about like the best parties and all these extravagant things like socialite shit yeah yeah yeah and it's but it's like almost like it's at the same time it's almost like um south by or something like that but it might because like there's stuff that's not official basel yeah our basel stuff that's happening throughout the city you know for that entire time like a banana duct tape to the wall and they're like 250 000 but we'll pay it oh yeah sold that's not even

that's not yeah that that was literally a piece that was yeah not right didn't make that up but uh but it's cool it's it can be cool you know there's like all these amazing artists you know from overseas and and just famous artists from the states and stuff play and and uh everyone's down there and so it's like the city's crazy you know for this is in december every year um and so it's just the perfect timing for someone who's like very unfamiliar with so this is brad our current manager who's been a manager for years um this was the final speed date and it just seemed like the stars aligned for he was like okay well i'll come down you know we talked to him i think on the phone a couple times whatever he's like yeah well come down you come down. You know, we had talked to him, I think, on the phone a couple times or whatever. He's like, yeah, well, come down, you know, check out a thing.

And we were playing like a Lululemon. Wait, before the night before, there's two shows. He came to, on Saturday, we played at the Yard. When we Yard was this old place where you could pack like a couple hundred people. It was always a free show. Like a thousand people. It was a huge place. Yeah, it was a big beer garden.

Oh, you know, and i remember that night i was like super hammered i remember i met him like barely very barely coherent we had a great show you got to kind of show out for him like look at all these people that came then the next day pat we played the lululemon thing you talk about that the lululemon yeah it's like fancy yoga apparel so it's just like a bunch of beautiful yoga people you know in miami around and they rented out a mansion on the venetian like off of the venetian causeways like just you know in miami around and they rented out a mansion on the venetian like off of the venetian causeways like just you know water on like both sides of this oh my god like just the most amazing miami shit and yeah we played and we invited him to

that so we're hanging out you know and after we played and drinking and everything and there was like a tp there and like we we were all like faded and we like sat in the tp and talked about music and like you know you know it was just like this we were so drunk yeah i was so drunk i can't even tell you i i we drank so much and this is the time where we're like inking the deal you know uh not literally though but that's that was the other thing is like really like management is such a close like tight-knit relationship with an artist that if it's not working out, you would never want to be stuck in it. You know what I mean?

So it's like that good management stuff, I think tends to begin with like no formal contract. You can just start, you know, working together on a basis of good faith and everything. That's how it began. Obviously, you know, we have like a contract and everything working for a while, but that's yeah kind of how it was like let's hey let's start let's get to work on this like let's start working together and it just felt right you know how it is when you when you meet somebody you know yeah it's the same thing except it's we're three dudes like literally like palm frond hut you know we're all cross-legged on the floor holding you know like i love it i mean you know intoxicated or not i mean you know when a good person comes into your life i've been with

my manager for seven years and we fight all the time i want to kill that sometimes but i love him you know and he's it's all we're all stubborn you know because i'd rather be passionate you know and fight for something that's worth it than just like shoot away you know it's a partnership well this is crazy okay so 2015 i know we talked a lot about 2015. now let's get it okay band starting to pop doing festivals you got women singing your songs cougars i see a lot of Cougars at your shows. I love it. I love it. Now, let's flash forward to now, where you put out a new record, and I heard that you quarantined the whole record

in Montana, Los Angeles, and Miami. Yep. It was the first time, obviously, for many bands, I imagine. Hold on. So you guys didn't meet at for many bands, I imagine. But yeah, the first time we were- Hold on, so you guys didn't meet at all? No, we- No, no we didn't. We didn't.

We didn't have studio to- I mean that's where the magic from the band has to come from is, you know, us together in a room. Because when we're recording together, which our process before the quarantine was like four nights a week till three in the morning together. So we had a very like real like lunch pair, like work our ass off in the studio thing. But the quarantine was like four nights a week till 3 in the morning together so we had a very like yeah real like lunch pay like work our ass off in the studio thing but the process was whoever played the best guitar part it got on the record we ever thought of the best lyric that's what it became so it's very kind of democratic so we still always need that to really put the magic on the songs we need to meet there but that was how many sessions like before the LA

four times and these was like a week so in person it still only comes something like that yeah the first one was the most it was like we had in the middle of 20 so i'm i drank a coffee and i'm drinking a perrier so i'm like it's eight in the morning here but i took a full pot dude i'm like yeah no seriously yeah um so so we we were fully yeah obviously fully like locked down, right? Because we finished our tour. We did a national tour. We were out for like two months and we finished.

We got back like February. Was it the leap year? I think like 29th or something. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like March 1st. We celebrated because it was like the first time we ever like made any money on the road. And then I remember like three days after that, the world ended, right? did because it was like the first time we ever like made any money on the road and then um i remember like three days after that the world ended right so it's like we got we were so lucky

we got to like finish our tour there's so many people who canceled tours right then who were interrupted in the middle of it and uh and then yeah it was like okay there was so there was that little lull of like we had just toured this record and so there wasn't a pressing you know thing to start making music but it's like, what else is there to do? And obviously we're going to start making music together anyway, just it's what we do. And so, yeah, that's like full, like through that summer, you know, the rest of that year, that's like kind of full lockdown.

And demos were just getting passed around. Like John and Robbie, they both had their own production setups going. And, you know, they'd send me and let me kind of like you know uh unapologetically like mangled certain things and see like what we're down with uh and it was just so different like before that in miami um live you know when we lived at the castle and then even after that when we had other spots we're working out of it was still like a four nights a week from like 10 p.m to like 3 a.m being like a constant you know seeing each other almost almost every day and being in the room together and and you know not having a certain amount of preciousness with the time and the

experimentation and everything and this was more kind of uh like a game of battleship or something it was you have like this fully formed idea or something you're already self-conscious about it you're like kind of clean it up and then you push like send them like yeah you wait to send it to the band like should i send this like fuck fuck fuck fuck that process seems like when you guys are such collaborators together and have to be in the room that different process would kind of up a band's mojo did it up your guys's mojo did you fight a lot during the quarantine like give me all those deets it was it was so nice i mean for me personally before i used to be robbie would just do voice notes on his phone so really what was getting sent in was just

like a very lo-fi like acoustic guitar and vocal thing right at the beginning of quarantine i finally bought a laptop i hadn't had one for years and i got a production set up robbie was actually producing his demos. And Pat, you know, has always been the producer and kind of the real, you know, everything has to pass through him, his mind and his fingers

to get to the other end. My fingers. Let's go, Pat. Okay. I see what's going on now. I'm getting this. I'm getting the... Okay, keep going.

He's the producer and the engine. Little Tom Brady over here. Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah. Only in looks. Hot in the brains. So, you know, me and Robbie are actually sending in things where it's like, I programmed some drums.

You know, I did a little bit of, you know, arranging. There's guitars, bass, and stuff like that. And I think, Pat, you can speak for for this but i think receiving something that had that wasn't just like a vocal line and a guitar kind of made your job different but i don't say easier but you could do your job differently because you were receiving something that had a bit of a built-out body to it instead of just a kernel of idea and i i remember sending in stuff and you being like i really like this and i'm being like yes you're like oh fuck thank god yeah i remember the first time you're i sent in something i was like oh it's cool and pat didn't respond and the next day and

pat was like i woke up thinking about your song and i was like okay all right and i think there's something about that i think we were all in a very like, because it was new to all of us, we were more open-minded than we'd ever been. I remember being like, this feels really good. Like getting just the response back and forth. Like it was very encouraging. You know, like I felt because it was new to all of us that we had to go into it with this very like optimistic outlook, you know?

And I think that worked out really well. So I got a question about, okay, so Pat, you basically got to play psychiatrist here a little bit when someone brings some trash to you, right? Well, I think maybe I have some, I think maybe my habits, like working with other artists who I don't know as well, or maybe I have some work to do with that

compared to how I'm able to, I will know it's like, we're like brother, you know how it is with things? Like there's a veneer of politeness or of, there's like, there's no reason not to be just like totally honest. You know, I think- Like when you're with your brothers, it's blunt.

Yeah, exactly. Like this is shit, this is shit, we're not doing that. See, I gotta wait to, you know, even talk to anyone if I'm hung over, because I'll just start talking shit even if I don't even listen to it. So give me an example of when a song, maybe Robbie or Tom gave you a song and it was just totally crap and you're just like, I don't want to fucking ruin it. Give me a demo.

Give me some of that. Well, I've gotten i mean i guess it's all the the dynamic has been like i'm like the funnel or like the bottleneck of ideas or something like that but at the end of the day i mean we're nothing i don't ever get my way or robbie doesn't get his way john doesn't get his way at the expense of someone else being really like not down with something i think we're lucky that we're we triangulate you know in a way where like usually we have some pretty good faith in the fact that the thing that makes all three of us like react is better than crazy you know divergent thing there's no like i don't know lennon mccartney thing or i don't know um but i think i think uh i mean one time sometimes i will i need to play around with stuff right so it's like you need you know you need to like play like as an adult even even if your job is to maybe

take what you're given and mix it or whatever i don't sometimes it's just like oh if i'm not getting i realize like if i'm not getting what i want or something i need to like be able to throw you know the whole fucking thing out the window and like really just deal with like no no boundaries no rules and sometimes that can be insulting or i can go in a direction where it's like you really kind of disregarded someone's idea um without telling them like uh oh great dude okay i'm going back to this but there's i don't know this is i mean this is from this isn't from this past album process but we have like an inside joke about uh there's one song we have called four of a kind that turned out really pretty like this pre-chorus in it these guitar parts that we ended up with are really nice but in the process of figuring that out i definitely like tried some things out like

sent some emails you know with like some ideas i had that i just remember everyone was so the pressure was on we needed to get this we already had our like ep release party like scheduled and like all this stuff is we need to get this done and it's like pat what are you doing i like made this pre-course that had this like kind of like robbie called robbie came back and he's like pat no i don't like your fucking like roadhouse guitars something like that like real like like a rock riff oh my god this is amazing dude i have one so i remember for this record uh i recorded this like a little loop and i arranged some parts on it and i put like a guitar melody over it right and i and then so the guy's like oh that's cool and then i made a song with that melody and i kind of made this whole thing and i sent it in pat was like it's cool uh i think the

melody is still best served as a guitar part i remember that was like it's cool uh i think the melody is still best served as a guitar part i remember that was like pat's very nice way of being like i think the best version of this is the original thing which is a guitar thing and not this whole song you made so that was a very like nice way to say like nah not not not this one not going on the record you know yeah take this cute away i could see pat just being a boss up in here in this like you could be sweet pat but i could see you just slapping boss up in here in this like you could be sweet pat but i could see you just slapping away left and right just like a like a fly swapper he's right when he says although pat is the funnel the hardest thing is the hardest thing

is impressing all three of us i bet man that is the hardest thing we're pressing the other two like no matter what like there isn't you know i like, there isn't, you know, I don't know. There isn't really ever a time where me and Robbie love something and Pat hates it or whatever. It's like, it's this thing is like, it only gets to the end of the funnel if all three of us are super excited, you know? But that does happen. And I think that's like the beauty of like the three of us. So two of us can try and convince the third person that we think this is the right idea right and like so but if if somebody if the third person like vehemently does not like this idea we won't do it you know it

just won't happen but you know there are times where we can kind of like come together and be like hey like really we really think this is the right move and i think that's kind of like the beauty it's very flexible but it's like very democratic. And it works really well, I think. Robbie, I got a question for you, Robbie. So, your whole life has been a solo band, busking, yada yada. How long did it take you to work as a team? A lot of beer and a lot of barracudas uh you know we had a lot of great times um we were boys we were just boys the whole time you know and it kind of just came from just like

being friends you know it was just we're just hanging out no i'm talking about it's more of like you know the idea of like all right i'm a solo band you know and now i have to work in a collaborative working space so when you put out like the first song you show the boys and pat's like nah this how long did the very first song robbie i was like hey i was like hey will you let me like produce some of your songs and he's like yeah sure how about this one I was like that but there's I mean like that's like prison you got to beat up the biggest person you know yeah that's how you get respect yeah it's been the master plan the whole time these boys want to change the band name surprisingly egoless since like day one I can tell man and it definitely it also started

because you're right it did start as a solo thing but the way it started was robbie wrote the you know all the songs that are on the robbie hunter band record but it was even before i was playing with them they were they already started working on that record separate from the live thing so it's very much like it was robbie but was like taking Robbie's songs and exploding them into something new you know and then I kind of came in and helped that such that like I think Robbie you covered me if I'm wrong I feel like you were always kind of handing off your stuff in some way like you you you you bring this thing in and then we come in like Pat said and we just fucking play with it and fuck it up and make it completely different so you've always kind of surrendered surrendered always been something you've been doing the moment that it gets emailed over the voice note gets sent and

you're already kind of like well like my my ego here is already as well as we're playing my song you know like they are my songs they're happening and i never saw you go like you know what when i wrote this song this was not my fucking that was not the point of this song what are you doing with this you know you never came from the perspective like they came from me therefore it has to be what i want you know yeah you're your team player that's the precedent of the whole thing he had never met me and i had never heard me play drums and he just told my friend sean yeah let's have yeah let's have a drummer you know that's why he's stuck in montana right now doc Team players are stuck in Minnesota because he's seen his chick, dog. Okay, I like this.

Oh, man, I think it's so refreshing to see a front man be a team player, you know, because that's how I am, too. And a lot of front men, you don't see that in bands. They think it's them even when it's a partnership. So I'm going to say kudos to your fucking friendship, boys.

Let's go. I like it. I fucking like it. I fucked with you guys. I like it. I knew I'd like you motherfuckers the minute I saw you on that stage in Raleigh. Okay, question. I know we're running out of time.

Robbie, when's your flight? You got a little bit? Like, yeah, I got to leave in like half an hour. Okay, cool. Let's do two more questions. Okay. Are you proud of the process of this new record? Yes. I think it's some of the process of this new record? Yes.

I think it's some of the best shit we've ever done easily. Why do you think that? You know, it's that shit that we're talking about. When we're in a room together, there is literal magic. You can actually feel it. And maybe it's just us in the beginning of like the birthing process of the music but it's just if you feel it right there you know it's going to translate on the other end yeah and awesome I don't know there's just some really beautiful moments on this record or just I think really proud of it there is proof there's proof in that

it's like this is because we started all these things totally separately with like, like we said, you know, the, the kind of self critical battleship of like containing, wrapping up your, your idea and sending it. But then we realized we're like, oh, we would, we met up the first time like that summer or like the end of that summer of 2020. And then after that, like the new versions, you know, we had of everything we're like oh shit okay yeah this matters a lot you know like getting together in person matters a ton it's suddenly those songs are you know we already had chords and cool sounds and and everything you know i mean a lot of the lyrics were already fleshed out but like the thing that kind of gave it just you know the intangible thing that we had you know unknowingly just developed over the past you know several years um got injected into it and so we got to see that firsthand because but before we're like

well maybe maybe it would be the same whatever and then we got to try it yeah it's very real and it's extra magic because you guys haven't you guys have been with each other for fucking 10 years and then you guys haven't like every day you know you know how you how your smell everything that like took a year to get away from each other to wake up and come back and say oh this matt this this magic is important you know yeah yeah i got one last question i'm gonna clap up to you let's go magic city hippies i like you guys i think we should tour together i think it'd be a good combo the i'm gonna talk to brad what are i ben baruch i'm like yo ben give me on tour with the hippies and then yeah you know they're real big frasco i'm like you ben

hello man your show is pretty wild i i would hate i would hate to to have to every night i'll tone it down i'll tell you on that stage absolutely not absolutely not how am i gonna do you know uh i got one last question it's almost your 10-year anniversary report it's report card season baby what 10 years in a band you know ups and downs doesn't seem like there are a lot of down moments um but like it's 10 years so it's like you've been together 10 years what have you learned from the experience what have you feel like you could grow on in the next 10 years of your band give me um give me your analysis of this 10 and going into the next 10. Well, so the

title of the last record was Water Your Garden, right? Which is a song John wrote for his partner. But it also, like, for it to become about a lot of things. I think John can speak to that, but like, I think for it to become the album title, the process

was that was kind of something we realized putting this record together and everything we've been kind of all the decisions we've been making together for the past like year and a half in particular was the pandemic kind of allowed us to we were shelving a lot of a lot of personal life stuff, you know, to like go balls to the wall with the band, to be spending so much time uh on tour um it's kind of like a little bit of tunnel vision and there was you know i think that's like

inevitably part of every artist or band story there's a point where you're just like you're going for it and like nothing else matters and it's just it can kind of get to that threshold where it could burn out because you realize you're ignoring other things or you're ignoring taking care of yourself. So I think, you know, we kind of learned, you know, the fact that Robbie, you know, we were able to make this record and Robbie was with his partner in Montana, you know, and I, at the time, you know, I've been long distance for a long time and I was with my partner at the time out in LA and it's like okay we can kind of strike some sort of balance it might always be lopsided toward you know rock and roll or whatever but you just you just you

have to kind of yeah you have to it has to come from the same same way as like music that's you know mean meaningful and compelling comes kind of from the inside out and everything you know we have to prioritize that prioritize like how we're feeling as individuals you know how our personal lives are put together and what our priorities are um and just to be open and you know communicate about it and figure out how to not uh how to keep steering this ship but not at the at some grand expense of of that you know well now you guys have lives you know we're old how old are you guys now you guys what 20s guys have lives, you know, we're old. How old are you guys now? Are you guys what? Twenties thirties are you in thirties? Wrong. I'm 30, 34. It's that time of our life where it's like,

all right, you, we used to live off of fucking, you know, red bull and cocaine and, and, you know, and being single and doing that stuff. And now we're getting that point in our life where like, Oh, this is going to be our life so we need to manage both sides of our life because we are also human we're not just these machines who just play music and you know like oh drink beer and live in castle you know like it's just it's so weird you know the negative of art coming from struggle like that it does have to kind of come from i think in conflict in your life people don't It's just weird. The negative of art coming from struggle,

it does have to come from, I think, in conflict in your life. People don't really want to hear a song about how great things are all the time. But at the same time, we were up until 3 in the morning every night working full time. So I'd wake up at 7 and go to work. So you're just exhausted all the time.

And the tour life. But there's something that's said that even if you're writing from a place of like painting stuff like that, if you is our best music, I think is this record because it did come from a place where like we were at least in better we were trying to be in better places ourselves, you know, the road that you guys up a little bit. Yeah. Or just it's just something about even like a previous record, which I love love but like that was such an arduous process Like it was like we kind of had more fun making this record again You know the last record took us like five four years and like in the studio every night and you're really like tearing at I mean

We always like work our ass off. We take it to make making the shows are really fun We take the record incredibly seriously. We'll lose our minds over a record. That's how much you know, it matters to us but something about, I think the music was better because we were coming at it from a place of kind of like, you know, caring about how you felt a little more, you know, like something about being a little more whole meant made the music better. And I don't really know why, you know, you see those memes where it's like, yeah, my best record was made in this basement. And you see like, like, it's just like a dungeon, you know, or even Pat, you came in poly. Didn't he talk about like making a record at like a beautiful like beach or whatever? It takes the pressure off you making beautiful sounds. If you have like a beautiful view, you'll kind of convince yourself that what you're working on is. Look at you just fucking giving us producer notes like that. Look at that, Pat.

God, living in LA, just sunshine, smiling. Probably got like a model girlfriend. Pat, we see you. Magic City Hippies, thanks for being on the show, guys. Cheers. Yeah, let's get a hang in. Have fun in Miami. Pour a 40 down next to the hippie castle for me, will you? Definitely. Definitely will. Have a good one. Fly safely, Robbie. Boys, thanks for being part of the show. Really

appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks, man. Thank you so much cheers buddy later guys hell yeah magic city i don't hear everything about the strand wow yeah i'm going to lake powell lake powell everybody i am i am i have Let's get out of town. I know. It's your birthday. I'm going to miss it. I don't really care about my birthday.

It's fine. I mean, once, yeah. I'm not nine. You know what I mean? I know, but I still would like to be there for you. But I did get you a gift. I did. Oh, you did?

Mm-hmm. Oh, weird. I never get birthday presents. Well, I love you. I wanted to get you a gift. Ugh. I do feel like I've been on a few too many vacations. I was going to rip into you. We're kind of low on time i know the problem is i book all these vacations when i'm overworked

have you ever heard of a staycation yeah yeah i can but i can't afford this house i got an airbnb i can't just stay here that's more expensive than a vacation can't just stay here. That's more expensive than a fucking vacation. Oh, you're so overextended in your life. I am way overextended, but everything's working out. The Airbnb is killing it. The van companies is starting to fucking, it's going to kill. Really? Oh my God. I'm already getting fucking. You need a salesman. Yes. Let me get, let me get that rip though. I'll give you the rip. What's the rip on the rental thing.

I kind of see real numbers, but it's, it's, it's, I mean, I'll sell some vans for you. The problem is I'm just, I started a business, so I have investors, so I got to pay them back first before you even see any money. Oh, well, investors, right? Never pay them. What are they going to do? Sue you for 20 grand. Don't don't know. It's not your costs. It's the ethics. Nick nick if you are going to start a business you're running vans for yes but it's the ethics of starting something yeah i'm just joking anybody i'm just joking be a good person if someone gave me a bunch of money i'd be a great person will you yep but i'm not going to be a good person until i have a lot of money will you yep but I'm not gonna be a good person until I have a lot of money you heard it from the source oh yeah oh fuck I gotta do my I can do

mine if I pitch my shows oh no why would I it's like the whole point of a podcast okay I have all these festivals and and I am I promised them that i'd give them all love oh okay so um may 28th i'm at rooster walk axton virginia i love that festival never see big something again little feet it's gonna be blast oh sick then the 29th i am in chile coffee at summer camp this is the summer camp show about that i'm only there for a night okay and then june 3rd i am in atlanta georgia for chandler music festival with um yonder mound and grace potter i'm excited to see yonder and grace last time i saw grace she was peeing in a can okay it was awesome she peed on the side of the stage i'm like this is rock and roll so i can't wait to let her know that then we're at lafayette louisiana the next night june 5th with the cold war kids um and then

on june 5th we're in st augustine for fool's paradise hey our boy kunji my kunji bear that'll be a fun one we're with um freeze again and lettuce and it's really i know it's like all my favorite bands yeah it's gonna be a fun one is that again that's june 5th oh that's right around the corner fourth and fifth so get your tickets to fool's paradise. So Florida people, it's going to be a blast. And then it's Floyd's wedding. Um,

June 10th and 11th. We're the house band. I had to hire Chris cause he didn't want to play his own fucking wedding. I love it. I get it. And then, um, June 16th,

we are in Bonnaroo late night set. Hell yeah. And then June 18th. Oh, you're doing late night at Bonnaroo? Yeah. Late night set. Hell yeah. And then June 18th. Oh, you're doing late night at Bonnaroo? Yeah, late night, big stage. How late? Like 11. Oh, that's not that late.

No, but that's like prime time. That's what I'm saying. That's like... We're 1 a.m.? That's pretty good. On Thursday? Day one? Oh, there's going to be like 15,000, 20,000 people there.

Day one's a good... That's going to be huge. Yeah, don't drop the ball, man. I'm not. Don't have too many people sit in. Then we're back with Bay Bay. Bay Bay. We We're at red rocks on. Yep. I'm doing an after party for that. Do come to the, my after party. I need them. I need the money back. Nick has taken advantage of a situation where he is now the after party of the red

rocks show. So it's perfect. You get to see I'm freeze you and your favorite unfree side character, Nick Gerlach. Yes. And you also took my band for the night, right? Yeah. One day a drummer, Mr. Drummer. So come on, buy tickets to that. It's not sold out yet, but it will. That's June 18th. And then, um, after this, then we're doing the Bonnaroo and then in July, we're at peach fest, July 1st. And then then July 3rd we fly across the country to High Sierra Music Festival ooh that Sierra Mist

in California and then that's all I'll do for now yeah I think that's plenty that's plenty and then there's another 10 festivals in July and August

okay that's so fun I love it you tuned in to the World Cipher Podcast with Andy Fresco and 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. Prescott's blogs and tour dates you'll find at andyfrescott.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 book on 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, doctrinal knowledge, facts or fake is purely coincidental.