Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - EP 198: Dave Simonett (Trampled by Turtles)

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Andy & Nick are reunited once again, and it feels so good. Oh, how it feels sooo good. What exactly happened to Nick in the interim and why does he hate November? Don't worry, he's fffffffine (but honestly, how are you doing?) Happy to announce we have a true gentleman on the Interview Hour as we welcome Dave Simonett from Trampled by Turtles! Andy talks about band break ups and reunions. Heavy stuff, man. Also, Shawn Eckels is in a band called Tongue Hammer? AND they have a new single out NOW?! Our new album is done AND we're out on the road with our buddies, Little Stranger??? Don't forget to catch the band in a town near you: andyfrasco.com/tour Follow us on Instagram @worldsavingpodcast For more information on Andy Frasco, the band and/or the blog, go to: AndyFrasco.com Check out Andy Frasco & The U.N. (Feat Little Stranger)'s new song, "Oh, What A Life" on iTunes, Spotify  Catch Trampled by Turtles in a town near you  Produced by Andy Frasco Joe Angelhow Chris Lorentz Audio mix by Chris Lorentz Featuring: Audrey Shawn Eckels Andee "Beats" Avila Grover Arno Bakker

Hey, it's Audrey again, Floyd's wife. Andy, I thought I told you I asked you to cut the shit out. It is so weird. You just keep posting pictures of you guys kissing. It's fucking weird. Like, please just stop. I mean, you know, next time you're in town, like, don't make it weird. Like, I mean, if you want to do something,

the three of us, like, we can talk about that, but when you just post pictures of my husband and you're kissing him on stage, it's weird. Please stop. I've been around a lot of women before And I know what I need When I make love I need it to be Like it was in the 70s

Whoa, big old hairy vagina Pubic hair in my teeth Oh, big old hairy vagina Well, I lost some veggies with my meat Want to clap? Hold on. Like old times sake. Hell yeah, we're back, baby.

Like an old tricycle, like riding a bike. This feels like the old days where we were just sitting in some room on last fall, you know? We were just in some hotel gazing in some random city. Although it's not a random city today, is it? Nope, it's your hometown. Hell yeah. Andy frasca is world saving podcast. I'm Andy frasco. How's our heads? How's our minds? How's my best friend? Okay. Things have been rough lately. What body's falling apart. My horns broken. You broke your November. My least favorite month of the year. Why? Oh, it's the worst month for gigs. If you're

a side man, you didn't know. It's a thing. Yeah. But I'm pre I was prepared for that. It's just boring. You know, damn, you had to buy new sacks too before this November, no gig, November, Uber better give you money for this neck injury. Yeah. I got a, I lawyered up for that. Yeah. I don't want to discuss it. You know, it's an ongoing case. I get it. But I want you, you don't get gold gold chains, I want you blinged out after this lawsuit. I just have another sex neck. Make that money, Nick. I have to get an injection in my lower back. Why steroid injection? I have a couple of bulging discs and some stenosis. How did it all of a sudden get worse? It didn't.

They just didn't realize. What my PT told me is that I was being too humble about my pain and they thought I wasn't in bad as pain as I was. And it wasn't getting better, so they sent me in for an MRI finally. And then so it had been like this the whole time. I was just being a badass. She literally said like, you think you're humble about your pain.

We know you're in more pain than you're letting on. I was like, that's a pretty good metaphor for my entire life. I just like, when I think about that, I just think about the dollar signs. I know. So many jokes, but it's just not good timing for those. Why did you fly out here, Nick?

I wanted to hang out with my buddy in my hometown i got a couple gigs hanging out with my i'm hanging out with my jewish friend and then the other days i'm hanging out with my black friends actually i'm not kidding let's go uh but yeah i'm trying to get stinky to come out tonight but my friend ladey's coming out you remember her she's coming through you didn't miss me? We haven't talked that much this tour. We do that. Well, we just did the whole Europe thing. Yeah, we did. And that was like a lot. It was.

And then, you know, then you get back here and everything's fun and awesome. And you guys are selling tons of tickets and Ernie's back. Sell out. I love that you showed up when the shows were kind of shit. Sell out. Sell out. Sell out. Sell out. A lot of shows. A lot of sold, a lot of sold out for you though. Thanks buddy. I was thinking, what if I started dressing like Hillary Clinton? Like what? Like a blazer suit, all that. Like, here's the thing with that. I was thinking, how can I shake things

up a little bit? And I just want to get offism for a little bit and um here's the thing no one can with you first of all we kind of have the same body second of all yeah what you and hillary clinton no one can really with you if you're wearing a hillary clinton pantsuit because those things are too grand i looked it up really she's flossing bro hold on she hold on you could she has her own like she has like a designer that makes her shit dude. She's like, you know, she's swagged out. Damn. So you'd rock the whole blue blazer. The whole nine. You'd be surprised how much devastating the Island of Haiti pays. Would you get the Bob it or like the haircut she has to maybe a wig of that would be hilarious. That should be Hillary Clinton for Halloween next year. Oh, I love it. That's fun. This is a fun thought I had

in the plane over. I want to get on the podcast. Well, I've thought lately I've been thinking a lot later. Yeah. Yeah. You've been eating the dialed in gummies. Oh yeah, baby. I'm actually out right now. Cause I ate them all. I talked to Keith. We're doing a world saving batch. We're doing dialed in gummies. Drum roll please. Andy Frasca's world saving podcast and dialed in gummies are going to be doing a collab. We're calling it the world saving batch. It's going to be, I think it's going to be done in December around Christmas time. Not in time for your Ogden show.

We tried to get in time for the Ogden show, but I'll be home for like three months. So I'll hold for three months, bro. Holy shit. We're going to get a lot done. Oh yeah. Hell yeah. We're changing the format too. We're not doing as many interviews. We're going to do like, I don't want to talk about now. We're going to be cooking me and you a lot, buddy. Yeah. That's what people really want to hear anyway. It's good. Unless we can get like, you know, a major guest, you know what I mean? But that's enough bluegrass people, right? We're going to show today, by the way, trampled by turtles, Dave and trampled by turtles. You're such a fucking ass. Someone gave you shit about, I just only did that because somebody,

I got a few messages to speak like, what's your problem with bluegrass? I'm like, eh, they don't hire sax players. Tramp by turtles on the show. Dave, he's a great guy. I had a great conversation with them. He, they actually showed it to my show in Burlington. They were in Burlington. Yeah. And so chat, thanks for coming out boys. Did they sit in? No, Mike Gordon came out to the show. I saw that. He didn't sit in. No, he didn't. I don't think he fucked with us. I thought I, you know, it's like, that's not his, like, yeah, he's a, like a cervix sort of nerdy kind of guy. Yeah. He's pretty nerdy. Um, quirky, but he has been texting little stranger a lot, which is making me a little gel gel.

Why? Well, jealous. He likes white guy rapping reggae guys or something, but he doesn't like, you know what I mean? They wrap. Are they white? Is it reggae influenced? They don't like to say that. Influenced. I didn't say it's reggae, but there's reggae in there. What do you, what's it? So Mike Gordon, I didn't say it's bad. I'm just describing what it is. But why does he like rap? No place base. And what's his side project sound like? I've never seen it actually It's probably like a rock band or something He did have really fancy shoes on and I got jealous Dude, Phish guys are fucking rich

Oh yeah, they're loaded Check their network, it's gotta be I bet they're pushing 100 mil at this point Every time they leave the house it's fucking 2 million dollars in ticket sales They always say He's always just watching bands at higher ground Yeah, I think he might be invested in that venue in some level or something. I don't know. They asked me to get them on the guest list. Oh, maybe not then. Mike Gordon

needs to be on the guest list. He probably could, but that's nice of him to say, Hey, that is cool. Yeah. And no one was nice to him. And he's like, Hey, do you mind if Mike comes like an hour early so he could get to know everybody? That's actually cool. I thought he'd be way different. I thought it'd be more like rock starry, but like we had, we had a stare down in the, in the stairway and we stared down. I'm like, no, Mike, what's up? I'm Frasco. Oh, you're like, Oh, what's up, man? What's up? And then, um, just didn't talk to me. He's a super, I think he's really quiet guy in general. Yeah. Honestly, don't know that much about him. I know he's quiet. I said, we learned loving cup. If you

want to cover loving cup, he's like, he's like, I'll watch the show and see if how we do. And there's no way he doesn't like your band because of the gimmicks. Cause fish does all kinds of like, no, he loved it. He was like, he was smiling. I saw that, but I would love for him to sit in and get the, you know, the fish bump, but Hey, the fish bump, you're gonna have to settle for the girl lock. Speaker 2, I wonder if he's like jealous of Trey being in goose. Now you think, do you think there's vibe? Do you think there's like jealous vibes of that? I don't think so at

all. I think he's like, hell yeah. I get the weekend off and I still have $90 million. I don't have to do anything. Do you think Mike gets a little jelly that Trey sells out these huge fucking big arenas solo and he's... Does he tour with his band? He tours, but they'll play

1,000 cap rooms. The thing with that is I don't think so because that's part of the reason Phish is so successful too It's because of trade being like that. I was thinking about that. Cause Sean's about to release. He's in a new band, Sean hammer, tongue hammer. I like that name. Jeff Frank is in it. I saw they got a single out. It came out Friday. So go, go check it out. I was thinking about that. I'm like, am I jealous that Sean is in a different band? Well, this one's, you know, it's new. There's always something with the, you know, new pussy, you know what I mean? So that's true. Yeah, that's true.

So shout out, go listen to tongue hammer. You get jealous. You got jealous. I did a bar stool pod last week. I did. I was like, you know what? This is good for our podcast. You know, it's like kind of a fucking point, right? To me, go on there and be the funniest guy and the most interesting and then everybody, all their fans come over here. You know what I mean? I talk shit immediately when I went on. Oh, falls over, dude. We're almost done with this tour. It's been amazing. I'm just so tired. It seems like from my point of view online, you guys were crushing it.

Oh, it's destroying. Money wise is good. We're selling the most. Okay. That helps me determine my invoice for sitting in the night. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, December 2nd, December 2nd. Um, and he wanted to try to win tickets. We have this thing where I have a flat, you know, like those athletes have those life-size posters. Oh, the, uh, what are those called again? They go right. Yeah. Fat heads, fat heads. Well, um, take a picture, there's a, yeah, it does. Andy Frasco smokes mids with me in native roots. The one downtown, the one near my house. Okay. On six. Damn. That's funny. Take a picture with it. Go to native roots, take a picture of

it and you will get in the auction or the, what is it? Auction. They're just going to draw a drawing raffle to get you free tickets backstage and you could smoke some mid stage. Yeah. The smoke one joint. You're not hanging out there all day. Okay. I'll stand there and I'll walk. Listen, you're not going to hang out there all day. We're not, we can't have that happen, but I'll stay in there. Watch you guys smoke it as soon as it's out. I'll escort them upstairs. Thanks for your time. Enjoy the show, man. I mean, we're already, we're almost, we're at like 1,000, 1,100 tickets. Oh, that's pretty much the sell out there.

1,500, so we need to, we have 400 to go. Yeah, but 1,500 in that room is a shit show. Also, Ogden walks up harder than any venue in Denver. Sick. So get your things pre-sale or you will probably not be able to get in. Yeah, the tour's been crushing. But speaking of that, you could buy your dialed-in gummies at Native Roots.

You could buy your dialed-in gummies if they're not sold out because they are that good. They are that good. And they have homologized the other homogenized. What else? Homogenized. What does that mean again? And it means that there's a perfect amount in every little queue. Even amount. I told you about this evenly. I told you about the Russian roulette. We did. I can't believe you guys did that. Oh my God.. I told you about the Russian roulette we did. I can't believe you guys did that. Oh my God. We did. We did this Russian roulette on our day off with little stranger where they're, they had five gummies and they all look the

same, but one of them is a 50. These weren't dialed ins, right? They weren't. No, but shout out to edibles. This cause I don't want people to think they can buy a 50 milligram. Right. So there's four tens and one 60. It sounds like a car audio system. So we all took it. And of course I got the 60 and I, I know. Oh my God. I felt like my soul was lifting out of my body.

Bro. It's amazing. Right. Do you have any panic attacks? I did it, but I was like really close. And the guy's like, bro, you guys, you look green any panic attacks? I did it, but I was like really close and the guy's like, bro, you look green.

Green? I was looking green, like I was like scared that I was gonna like... Did you sleep like a baby? Slept for 15 hours. So shout out to that. Oh my God. I hate that feeling,

because the next day in Cincinnati, I was fucking high the whole day and I was just like sleepy and I felt like I gave them like a really like, you know, limp dick show. You did? Just felt like I was not there. Cincinnati. But we took them in Pittsburgh. Okay. On your day off. Yeah. So that was tight. Wow. I saw you sold out Pittsburgh.

I sold out Pittsburgh. Spirit Hall. Same place we played last year. We got to find a bigger event. A lot of these I saw you sold out Pittsburgh. I sold out Pittsburgh. Spirit Hall, same place we played last year. Spirit Hall. We got to find a bigger event. A lot of these venues, like we sold out Rochester. That was a thousand cap. That's not where we played last time, is it? No, we played a different room, Rochester, but this was bigger. Did you do Buffalo? I know, but we're doing a New Year's Eve. That's already announced. You know who I met in Buffalo and Rochester? You know the famous guy who had the perfect, he, he jumped through the table, but it was just like perfectly clean. I put that on our podcast. I met Pat.

That's his name. He showed up to our show. How'd you find out it was him? Like little strangers of their homies. What? Yeah. Remember he got perfectly. Remember I brought that video and he got perfectly horizontal. Speaking of Buffalo, did you see that they're playing the Browns on Sunday? Did you see the weather report? Three inches of snow, three feet to six feet maybe in Buffalo. And they're going to play. If that happens, I'm so excited. We're done with this East coast. I hope they get six feet of snow. Cause Nick Chubb, the Browns running back is five 11. Really? Like keynote back in the day, going through a snow plow. Oh, fucking amazing. Deep Eddie.

You've been drinking out here. I like to drink. I've been drinking some deep Eddie lately. Actually. What? Tell me about it. That's so funny. You told me that they're, they're coming to want, they're jumping on board, huh? Yeah. And you know, cause I'm a whiskey guy. I know. But what's weird is I already, it already is my favorite vodka to drink on her. Really? So tell me about it. What's so good about Deep? Why should you drink vodka? Now you should never drink flavored vodka outside of Deep Eddy in my opinion.

And this is all stuff I barely looked at that. Okay. This is all an opinion I've held since jazz night on Tuesdays and Indy because the flavoring in Deep Eddy, it's more like, you know, when you get infused water from somewhere, there's like a couple of cucumbers in the bottom of it or some strawberries. It's like, that's how they do it. So they don't put this sugary mix. That's why I don't get hangovers when I drink that stuff.

That's exactly what I was going to say next. Because what you really get a hangover, not completely, a big reason you get hungover is because of the sugar and alcohol. That's also why you wake up three hours after you've been asleep when you've been drinking because the sugar gets processed finally and it wakes you up.

Whiskey has a lot of sugar in it, actually. When I really have a really big whiskey night, I wake up hella early. Yeah, like in the middle of your sleep and you sometimes can't go back to sleep, right? Yeah, it's sugary. That's the sugar coming back. It's finally been your body finally processed it. Why do I know this? I don't know.

Second of all... Do you have diabetes? No. It tastes better than what other flavored vodkas. Cause it's like, it's not so aggressive. It's like, it's like cane sugar, not all natural stuff. You know what I mean? Well, this is exciting. Maybe here's the, here's the deep Eddie drink. I recommend get the deep Eddie lemon flavor. They also have unflavored vodka too. If you want that, get the, get the lemon flavor, get yourself a little glass with some ice in it. Just pour some lemon deep Eddie and some water. That's it. Not sparkling water,

just a little water just to, you know, spread it out a little more. And it's dilute the lemon, dilute the vodka a little. You don't want to just drink straight vodka. You know what I mean? But that's my favorite deep Eddie drink right there. They call it the Nick at the mousetrap. How about next week when I get home, we'll have a little tasting test. Hopefully there's still are, are they wanting their, their, their putting their feet in wet. They're based in Austin. Rasko business. They want to know what's up. There are people want on board this money train, baby. Let's go. Let's go. No, I just, I'm so happy that they're getting involved because I actually genuinely like the product. Well, you got to kind of convert me because Jamison hasn't done shit for us.

I think that you should just take Jamison off the stage and put Deep Eddie up there. What other reason do you need? Jamison's played out. I think vodka is probably better for you. Probably has less carbs and sugar and you know, plus the Russians. I just got to get through this tour. You have a couple more days. I got two more days and then we got two more weeks.

Are you going home for Thanksgiving? I'm going home for a week. And see mama? I'm seeing mama. And then I'm taking Jill wants to go to Universal Studios because she likes Harry Potter. What's the fascination with fucking Harry Potter? I don't know. I'm 40. I didn't. I mean. To be fair, they're less weird than Disney adults. At least you didn't want

to go to Disneyland and get the Mickey mouse ears and fucking Andy Alva loves Disney. Really? Dream chase your dream. Are you going to do middle-class mogul? Um, for the album name? That's a pretty good. I like it. You are a middle-class mogul. Yeah. I gotta, we're going to see who, uh, who, who signs us Oh, yeah, you're still doing that, huh? I fucking hate that dance, dude. I hate the record label dance, like just waiting for them. Especially when they just know what they used to be. Maybe we'll come to watch you play live.

I'm like, maybe you should just fucking sign us already. Stop fucking dancing around it. Shut up. I know you're cool. I know you're acting cool, but fucking sign us. Who's selling records, you know? But I got a fan base. You do have a fan base. One record label declined us. Who's selling records, you know? But I got a fan base. You do have a fan base.

One record label declined us. They're like, um... Why? They came to our show. You're like, yeah, your music, I love your music, but your show is a little too crazy. I mean, at least they were honest and came. Yeah.

You know? So shout out for saying no and being honest. The other record labels... You know who you are. Put your money where your mouth is i'm a worker i'm a hard worker yeah all right we're done yeah um you got any um motivation for the people this week no it's thanksgiving i don't think you need to be motivated go get something turkey and just eat some stuffing and you know try not to get in a fight with your uncle oh yeah so next week we'll just do me and you here's my my motivation. Here's my motivation. What do you got? I want you to pick the person

at Thanksgiving dinner that you disagree with most politically and then just rile them up until they leave. I want you to get in on your great, get those boomers out of there. You know what I mean? Rile up your boomer relatives. Yeah. Thanksgiving. Rile them up. If you need some talking points, DM me on Instagram. I'll give you some stuff to bring up. Let them know about that big old red wave that happened. Yeah. More like the red stream. Yeah. All right. Have a great day. Enjoy Dave. I'll, I'll introduce him after this tail end, but thanks for being here, buddy. I'm a little tired.

Am I sitting in the night? Yeah, please. You got that kind of money or All right. We're done. Goodbye. Goodbye. Am I sitting in tonight? Yeah, please. You got that kind of money? All right, we're done. Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye.

All right. Next up on the interview hour, we have Dave Simonet. I think that's how you say his last name. From Trampled by Turtles. Yes, I had a great conversation with him. I really do love his band because it really reminds me of... He's got metal and emo and pop punk influences in his music,

but they're like a folk bluegrass band. They got a new album called Red Tail. It was produced by Jeff Tweedy from Wilco, which is exciting. We talked a little bit about him recording with Tweedy and stuff. Hey, Chris, play a little Tramp by Turtles new record while I'm talking about him. I really enjoyed talking to him. We talked about his, you know, they broke up.

They had a hiatus. We got down to the nitty gritty about that and how it feels to be back on the road and getting it going. So, ladies and gentlemen, next up on the interview hour, please welcome Dave from Trampled by Turtles. Burn it to the ground Make the beds up Go to work

Fall to pieces Have you doing? Don't let go, don't let go out a new record which i'm pretty excited about so lots of fun stuff happening after 20 years of being in the band do you still like those guys uh yes let's get to the nitty-gritty yeah yeah it's it's i i think about how amazing that is often but we all do we all uh do still very much love each other and i don't think we'd still be doing it with each other if we didn't and i couldn't imagine being in that kind of situation really yeah how important is like being in a being a band for that long you gotta like each other like it's just too hard of a life to not like each other right and you know it's a lot it's it's six distinct personalities

and it's it's like any kind of family situation. There's going to be disagreements and you kind of have to learn people's boundaries and what kind of space they need and all that stuff that you need in any relationship, really. But deep down underneath it all, I feel like there's a love and respect that hasn't changed in, like you said, 20 years. Yeah. Any years where you thought like, oh, this thing's going to break up? Oh, yeah. I quit the band once in 2015, I think it was, so seven years ago. It just burnt out, super burnt out on touring too much.

I'm sure you've probably been there. Yeah. Yeah. And thankfully, everybody, you know, we took a little break, burnt out on touring too much, I'm sure you've probably been there. Yeah. Yeah. And thankfully, everybody, we took a little break and then we all reconvened and patched that up. But other than that, I don't really think so. I think we learned then, or at least I learned how to manage that balance a little bit better

between touring and home and all of that. Let's talk about 2015. What was going on through your head? Let's talk about that. What made you burnt out from the road? Sure. Well, it was a lot going on for me then. I was going through a divorce and the band was touring. I mean, we were on the road half of the round we did those years but a lot you know like more than more than I was really

comfortable with anyway but it was what we did and we've done it for a long time and so all of that kind of collided for me at the same time when musically I was burnt out with the band and mentally I was already burnt out at home. And then just on the road nonstop. So it kind of came to a head and I learned a lot, like I said, about that balance, but also about how to deal with that kind of stuff when that comes up. And my tendency, which these guys know about me, is to just kind of explode. Instead of, hey guys, how about we take a little break? I'm like that too.

Let's pull back a little bit and see if we like each other. So it's like, no, I'm quitting everything. I'm inspired. But honestly, after that break, we came back and it's been more fun since then than it ever was before. So how long did it take? How long was the break? About a year and came back and it was it's been more fun since then than it ever was before so what how long did it take how long was the break about a year and a half and then who's the one who called you that said hey we should get this bet together or did you call them what was that like i did yeah i came crawling back yeah i made another record on my own and had a great time with that and i really

missed like all those things I took for granted you know with the playing music with those guys like I mean you play with the same crew of dudes for a while yeah 15 years yeah uh yeah so you know how it is like you play with those guys and it's great to play music with other people I feel like it's really important to do that sometimes but there's a connection that you have that just cannot be replicated I I don't think. At least I couldn't. It was a connection that I really missed. Being able to be in a room making a record with those guys or being on stage with them. It ended up being a pretty big hole in my creative life and just my personal life, too.

Yeah. And we realize, we forget what makes us happy we when we're in our head and we're in our emotions we're like it up i'm blowing this whole thing up and then you're like oh what did i blow up that's the thing that was the only thing yeah it's like so tell me about like how you're like you know we're all we all got this ego inside of us. How hard was it to crawl back to the band after making this huge, big blow up? Yeah, I mean, they took it pretty easy on me. I think everybody... It turned out... I don't think everybody felt the same, but I'd say a lot of us ended up kind of treasuring

that break and getting some space. We got some more time at home with families and all of that stuff. Even though maybe it was not the way that they would have chosen it, I think it was healthy for us to do. I was like, hey, what do you guys think about trying to make a record or something? I didn't want to go back on the road. I wanted to make an album and see if we still loved it you know yeah uh so we could kind of start privately a little bit and um everybody was into it right away i don't know the conversations that went on between them the side text

to me it was like yeah we're still here you know and i i'm eternally thankful to those guys for their understanding you know um but that's part of being in a relationship, dude. Yeah. And I'm realizing that having my own one. And what was the studio like or the songwriting process like in those first couple weeks getting back into it, like you walking into the room with each other? What was that that like did it take a second it was no it really didn't you know it's pleasant not surprised but happy about that we actually I had a few songs written and we were we went up to our banjo player Dave his family has a cabin in northern Minnesota on a lake and so we were all went out there just to hang out.

We haven't really hung out in the whole time either. Just to hang out for a few days and play a few of the new songs through. During that time, actually, it was great. It was like a team building retreat and it was really fun to hang out. We had a blast and it was really fun to hang out we had a blast and it's just us and um I think the second day we were there Tom Petty passed away and uh you know we were all kind of following that he's I mean one of my songwriting heroes yeah rock and roll heroes all these things and it was it was a little bit emotional because all of us had really grown up listening to that

music right and we started playing around some of his songs and those are just the things i remember from that that weekend but when we came out of there we were we decided uh we wanted to do it and we booked the book studio and made our record uh life is good on the open road came out in 2018. what was the song that got everyone together on that record you think i think it's the title track, Life Is Good On The Open Road. I was talking to the guys about it and I felt like it was maybe a little ironic because I had just gotten so sick of touring.

Yeah. But the impetus of a lot of that album was to try, me trying to think about that lifestyle in a a positive light and realize all of the good things that come from it for me like the you know all the fun stuff we get to do because we don't have to have normal jobs you know what i mean and and all the traveling which i love and um and just being out there playing music for a living it's kind of like winning the lottery you know right and to try to remember that and not be such a spoiled little brat and want everything to go my way all the time.

So it was a lot like self reflection and trying to celebrate what we're doing and the lifestyle which we live that so many people wish they had the opportunity to do, etc. Why is it so easy for us to think about the one or two bad things in something versus all the 98% of good things that we fucking... I know, man. Have you been like that since you were a kid? Have you been like that your whole life?

Think about bad shit before the good shit? Yeah, I think so, but I think I'm generally pretty good at rolling with it. And I don't need to be pleased all the time or anything like that. But when it comes to music, I feel like it's always been in a different category for me. Creation, songwriting, music,

that I feel like I've always had unrealistic maybe expectations about. I just want a lot of freedom with it and that's great. I think all of us should have that. We are our own record label. We tour where we want, when we want. We put records out whenever we want. As far as being in a band, I probably have as much freedom as possible and so um you know any i don't know i don't know why though to answer

your question i have no idea why that stuff sticks out so much because so if you know but it sometimes it just takes a little bit of chaos to remind you that and you know to appreciate what you got how important is freedom to you How important is freedom to you? It's paramount to me, man. Especially in creating music, art, whatever. I feel like that's the main ingredient.

And I feel like it's maybe more of like even... I need limitations too, I will say that. I work the best with some creative limitations. But ironically, maybe I will fight them to the death. But I'm writing, I want to make an album. When I finally get the recording studio on the calendar,

that's when I really start to work really well. For me, I need something. An unobstructed landscape is a hard place for me to create, even though in my mind, it's my favorite place to be, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's so funny. We need this idea of freedom, but we also need a car that we drive to the freedom. You know? Yeah, you got that right what's the kind of

walls in there what's your process like when you make records with the band is it do you guys go in there having the songs written already or do you like going in there kind of with half ideas uh i usually come with meet the guys there with uh most of it written cool but uh you know chord basic chord structure, melody, lyrics. Then we all arrange it together. Cool. There's been a couple of records where I've written some in the studio, but generally try to get most of it done before I get there.

I do like to write there, but I don't like to count on it. Yeah. But this last record, Jeff Tweedy produced our new record, it down before i get there i do like to write there but i don't like to count on it yeah but this last record uh you know jeff tweedy produced our new record and so that that process varied a little bit in which in that i had most of the songs but i thought we're done but when we got there jeff really helped us kind of dissect all of them and uh rearrange a lot of stuff and move parts around and change chords and change lyrics and and uh that was kind of the first experience i've had doing it that way which i

really love yeah i mean tweety is my guy i i with tweety heavy and how he you know from one how the song is when he writes it to how it ends up being, it's got to take your brain into a whole mind fuck. Because you think the song is going to sound one way, then Tweetie's like, actually, we're going to change this up and do this. What was the process like with Tweety? Give me some insight. Actually, you nailed it. A lot of it was like that. It was like, here, we got this song that we've,

there were a couple of songs on this batch that we've actually rehearsed and played live a couple of we started there and like this things you know we're pretty much happy with where this is at uh and uh it was a lot of that like actually you know i'm hearing this um you know he's got a good point of view as a listener he's like um instead of the second half of a verse following the same chord progression, let's just turn it backwards and see how that sounds. And so a lot of trying little bits of stuff like that, that I think made each song to me anyway, so much more interesting than when I had him at the start. It was really cool to see that process, his process like that.

Because I feel like, and I talked to him about it, but he does that with his own stuff, too. I really inspired me to take longer looks at the arrangement that I do on my own. You know what I mean? Because it's like he's like, the song is way out here. You know, you've kind of got this little box of it, but we could go all of these different places and check it out and we got the time to check it out. I mean, I like that. I really like that method that method yeah how many weeks were you in there with him

just one i think we actually we tracked for five days was it i think it was we did it we did all all live though yeah uh we say like sat in a circle i sang everything live uh we overdid a couple harmony vocals and and a couple string parts and other than that it was just like just pretty straight up did you do you normally do it like that do you normally do that like most most of the time yeah we have done it other ways in different records we've tried all sorts of different methods but this keeps coming back to be our favorite just sitting next to each other and playing and trying to let the arrangement for this record. I feel like that's what makes it feel different for me than, say, our last album where we did a similar method of recording.

We sat and did most of it live, but this one we had Jeff in there making the songs a bit more musically interesting. That's so crazy that it was that quick. He's like, alright, we're dissecting this song, but we have two hours. You guys were probably blowing through songs. It didn't feel rushed

either. It just felt like... We actually had seven days booked there and I got home early. We got done at five and they started mixing and I took off. It felt it was it just it felt right it felt really casual and easy we didn't you know we didn't feel like we had left anything on the table we kind of went through all the songs and it works it's one of those times where recording live really worked and the parts that people came up with

sounded really cool and they got them you There wasn't a lot of takes on any song or anything like that. So it made things go really fast. I didn't have to do vocals for two days or whatever. I just played the songs like we're sitting in the living room. So dope, dude. So give me some inside scoop on Tweedy. Like, uh, he's got any ticks, got any weird ticks that, um, like that you saw or like, the guy's a genius, man. No, I was, yeah, I was, uh, I was, I was looking for him. Yeah. He is. I, the dude, uh, I mean, I've, I've loved his work for a long time and he's been one of my songwriting,

you know, people I really look up to in songwriting since I was a teenager, really. Right. I got to see firsthand that guy's work ethic and how he goes about his day. When he's home off the road, he's like a nine-to-five in the studio every day. If he's producing somebody or if he's writing or he's just but he's he keeps us that day. He's like he goes to the office every day at work, you know, but he's going to the loft and writing music or helping other people write music or whatever. But he's always making music.

And and I'm not like that. Generally. And to me, it was really it was like, I want to do that more. I want to go to the clubhouse and write every day. It was so cool to see that work and to see his life's work make that happen for him. Also, the dude's got the coolest guitar collection I've ever seen in my life. What do you think stopping you from doing that every day? And also, the dude's got the coolest guitar collection I've ever seen in my life. It was really fun too.

What do you think's stopping you from doing that every day? It's just my own brain. I think I have... Right now, for instance, it's fall, right? And I go bird hunting and catfishing. And I have other stuff like that I really love to do, which is important for myself. And that's great. I wouldn't give that stuff up um

you know my kids are still pretty young kids are like out of the house it's a different time of life you know what i mean yeah totally it's okay and it just i i just for me i where i can do the kind of thing realistically is fit it in where i can and not skip it you know that's where sometimes i get guilty of it's like oh it's been a week since I've sat down with a guitar. You know, time flies. I felt like for writing, the more I do it, the better I am at it. And that sounds dumb to say or simple, but if you know, if I don't write for a while, it feels like it's really hard to start back up again.

Well, it's like, it's muscle memory, you know, we gotta, we gotta like, you know, it's like, it's like any basketball. I'm into basketball. Watching these guys shoot bad. I want, I'll watch a dude shoot three throws for three hours just like yeah it's just focus and it's like just it is fine tuning and cutting and cutting and cutting and sharpening your tools like what do you like better um like figuring out a live show or figuring out a record a record yeah for me yeah i love i love playing live man but i sometimes i don't and uh yeah sometimes it's uh i don't think the stage is i mean i i love i have a real love-hate relationship with all of that right i i like

when when we're going i love it um i don it. The stage has never been like my natural environment. Yeah. And I think that if it's the music business or our music business, where maybe in a different place and I have the choice, I would probably spend much more time in the studio than on stage. But we might go live and tour. And so that's, you know, that's the way it is. And that's great.

I really love the studio. Do you ever get envious of bands who just do album circuits touring and not just tour all year long yeah sure i do yeah i do get envious of that and and that's a it's all right you know it's one of those things where what we were talking about you know, I just the fact that I that I can do this at all for, you know, for a living, that it's incredible. And then when you get to a certain level, you're like, but I'd also rather, you know, that looks good. Yeah. Yeah, we always want what we don't have in the moment. Yes. Yeah. It's fucked up. This is what the only thing about being human I don't like is having that thought in my head. Yeah.

Everything else is cool. Yeah. Yeah. If we could just get rid of that one, man, we'd all be happier. Where'd you grow up? What's your story? Tell me you as a kid. I grew up, I grew up here in Minnesota, like a smaller town in southern Minnesota called

Mankato. And kind of like a musical family. My mother's family is I grew up. I remember a lot of piano playing, singing. I mean, they were singing harmony together. My mom and her sisters, my grandma and stuff like that. So I had a lot of that around the house when I was a kid. And then I got out of high school and attempted to go to college

in Duluth, Minnesota, up on Lake Superior, which lasted about a year, and then dropped out and started playing in bands. And that's all I ever wanted to do since really I can remember. You got a lot of hard rock vibes in your older tunes, for some weird reason. I don't know. Were you into punk music or something? Absolutely. That's where I came from as a teenager. I mean, none of us in our band played acoustic music before our band. We were all in rock bands and stuff.

Ryan, our fiddle player, was the drummer in a metal band. Eric, our mandolin player, played in a Black Sabbath cover band in college. I was in high school in mid 90s, man. So that was like old, like NoFX and that stuff was what I kind of came from in a guitar world. And so when we started playing, it was just a side project. We were like, nobody in town town in the town we were in was doing anything with banjos or anything like that none of us really knew how to do it so we just kind of learned a few old songs and just just to play we thought we'd do it once a month or

something that's a way to learn new music and just expand a little bit something kind of fun uh and so it was it was interesting i think we came out from maybe a little bit of a different perspective than maybe a lot of other string bands start you know yeah i mean i'm the same way i was listening to heavy heavy metal punk rock just bands who had crazy crowd experiences you know at shows so like i rolled into this jam scene with this like, I'm here to kill everyone. Just get out there and fucking go. Then it just like, what was the way that you made this,

what your music is now like a full-time thing? What happened? If you wanted to be in punk bands and heavy bands and all of a sudden bam, this is what you do with your life. All of our other bands just broke up, man. It was kind of timing. It was like my band at the time had this last show, Eric's band, same thing. And we played maybe two or three shows with this band. Timmy, our bass bass player was playing another band um at the time that was like you know they were playing still but not as much as they had

been before and so we were all kind of and this band was in in duluth our little our little town was doing you know we were bringing in more people already than any of our other bands were anyway right and people were enjoying it because i think it it was really unique thing in that time in town. We're like, well, we could all start new projects on our own or else we could. My thinking was like, why don't we take the music we would write for other bands and just write it with this band now. Instead of trying to be like a bluegrass band, like you're half-ass doing this stuff.

We could maybe say, trying to be like a bluegrass band, like we were kind of half-assed doing this stuff. We could maybe say, you know, like I got some songs that I was thinking about with electric guitar and drums or whatever, but let's just put them into this instrumentation and see how it works. And we've just kind of been doing that ever since, you know? Was it hard to trick your brain to, with the original ideas of these songs being heavier into like when you're first approaching them with this new band?

Was it just like a mind fuck? Like, oh fuck, now Bandra's playing this fucking ripping line. You know, like, what was that like? Was it easy and came natural? It felt natural, yeah, it really did. So cool. The more I kind of thought about it,

because I just started listening to like old traditional music and string band music and stuff, and I found a lot of really heavy stuff back there, man. Like the original guys, these are the rough dudes, you know, came from some really rural areas. And the music was very, to me anyway, it was very, you know, it's basic kind of basic, like in its core structure. And in its core structure. In its songwriting, it's simple but really poetic and honest. There's a lot of heartbreak and anger and really also shredding instrumentation. All that stuff was there.

I found it. I can relate to that stuff. That's cool. I found a much less polished version of it. Then I feel like a lot of the stuff maybe today leans a little bit more towards, which I'm a little bit more attracted to less polished in music in general. I feel like, I don't know why. Yeah. Well, yeah. It just shows the underbelly of who you are. All that fucking lo-fi punk you're listening to, the fucking lag wagons. Did you ever do the Warped Tour?

You ever go to the Warped Tour? No. I remember it came through Minnesota, probably Minneapolis. I was probably just too young to go. That was a couple-hour drive away from where I lived. If I would have been a couple years older, I'm sure I would have been there. There's so many parallels to metal music and bluegrass music.

It is pretty wild. You should do a study on that. Yeah. The lyrics are dark and heavy and the fucking progressions are heavy. I feel like the fans of both really get off on like a crazy guitar solo you know what i mean right like uh you know i watched like billy strings yeah play the guitar solo and it's like i mean if that wasn't you know that was a fine view with sustain on it it would be a metal So it's like the same thing. It's pretty wild.

Yeah. Did you ever make any records? What was the hardest record you guys made? Not like metal wise, but like just the hardest, where you felt like philosophically it wasn't who you are. Sure. I don't know. I mean, I feel like I can think of maybe two. Our record Palomino ironically came out and it has probably our most well-known song on it.

But that record, it felt like it was pulling teeth when we started making it. We tried different studios and nothing was working. We recut songs at different places, which we've never really done outside of that. It ended up being being but we finally landed at our friend eric's studio uh after all these other things it ended up being fine and and you're happy with it but it was a process like a real pain in the ass to to record that record in the beginning uh and then the other one i could think of as wild animals which was a few couple

records ago um thank a good record um thank you yeah we went with like we're trying a lot of different like sonic exploration with our producer al sparhawk from the band lowe yeah and then his engineer bj burton which is like bonavere kanye stuff it's like we're really outside of our traditional world yeah so that part was really fun all of that was great. I enjoyed that. But the part that made it hard was like this death flu went to the studio. There was I don't think there was a single day where everybody could make it to work. Oh, that H1N1 that that swine flu thing. Dude, we had that shit too dude.

It was like that. And maybe it was that because it was like the worst vomiting yeah fever somebody was in bed all day and then when they couldn't i i think i somehow skipped it i didn't get it but when the other guys they come here man it was like they looked like hell do you listen back to those songs and like oh everyone's really everybody's so sick and uh i had a great time making the record, but it was dark in there. Yeah. So there's that part that I'll always remember as kids. Now it's kind of a funny story for us to think about like, well, that was intense. But yeah, so those two were pretty hard to do

in that way. With you being the own boss, how hard is it to make decisions about finishing a record? Because you guys run the label, you't have really outside sources right so there's one way of thinking like it's freedom but like what if you're like in a pickle where like you re-record the songs three times like you did on that last record like you start yeah you start judging who you are and you gotta like how do you get out of that that circle with your head? Yeah. That is a trap for sure. And I think for me, though,

at that point, I think the only thing you can do is give it to somebody you trust and get a second opinion. I think I've been... I've made the mistake of not doing that before and really regretted it. And so I think that when you get stuck, like for me, I have some solo EPs and stuff where I've recorded and mixed,

and I've done everything and it's like a nightmare sometimes. Finally, I was like, I need you to tell me if this is horrible. Yeah. I can't tell anymore. Yeah. So I think that's the ace in the hole it's like we all got we all have somebody you know if you're in music you probably there's a bass player somewhere or

your good buddy or somebody who um if they if they will tell you you know if honestly if they're if they like what you're doing that's kind of the person you need yeah like who's your guy you don't have to listen to them yeah um who's your guy i've got a couple my my main resource right now is my partner chloe and i because i know she'll be honest with me yeah uh but my i have a good friend his name is eric costco and his musician up here and he's actually then recorded most of uh palomino um i've worked with him for forever different bands, recording, playing music together, and he will never pull a punch. So that's the guy that I go to as well. What's the difference you see in your band's genes when you first weren't married and just

living on the road versus now that you all are married? What do you see the difference in how you guys are running your business? Well, we go to bed earlier. Generally, not all the time. Less likely to wake up on some stranger's floor. Looking back at that, it's fun to think about those times. That was a really that's uh you know that was a really adventurous time in my life anyway probably yours too yeah you know yeah if you get if you're lucky enough to start your touring journey when you have nothing else to pay for really right um it can be it's just just traveling around playing music and it was just a gas you know losing money man yeah so much

fun um i wouldn't do it again now but i'm so happy so happy that i did it you know those are still some of my favorite times in my life yeah um and they just happened at the right time you know what was the worst situation you've ever been in yeah well uh you know, we didn't really have too many terrible. I mean, we definitely like anybody else been stuck on the side of the road when it's in a blizzard and all that like logistically shitty things that happen if you travel long enough. We've all played shows with blue boys. Yeah, you know, we've all had our we had a we had a year stolen.

All that stuff is on. And that's just like part of the catalog um yeah and you know everybody's had everybody kind of works through their because i mean here's the thing when you're in your early 20s and you go on tour the van you have to have some kind of self-control or else you're just going to die you know I mean everything is there everything is free yeah you know I mean this is the in real small you know this is playing like shitty little bars and no it's not fancy life it's just like everybody wants to party all the time though right and we've all known people that haven't made it back from

that you know yeah and so I think that to be where we are now it's a lot that's a lot more conscious you know we're a lot healthier people we uh we are much more organized you know we have we got to a point where we we're smart enough to you know hire other people to run the parts of this that we're not good at like business and booking and all those things and so uh it's a whole different... It feels like a little bit more of a machine now, but it runs a lot smoother than it did back in the day too. Hold on. You used a book and managed yourself too? I did. Yeah. I booked a van to start. I was just talking about this to somebody else a

couple of days ago, where our first West Coast tour, it was me. I mean, this was 2005, so there's no, barely any internet. It's not like you could find a venue's website and find their contact information. I was just calling bars. You got bands there? Cole Collin. We ended up in some really shitty spots because of me. So I would recommend me as a booking agent. Oh my God, that's amazing. It was a great learning experience, but I hated doing that stuff. Yeah, I think the hardest... I did that too.

I booked my band for the first seven years too. Seven years? Yeah. You must have been better at it than me. I got fired real fast. I grew up in LA where I was working at punk labels. I worked at Drive Thru Records. I worked for Warped Tour. And it taught me a couple things about bullshitting. Growing up in LA, I learned that a bullshit, but being in the music industry back then where people were getting million dollar contracts, it definitely comes in handy for sure. That's crazy. Do you have a control

problem? Yeah. I mean, it sounds like it, right? I think it's... Yes. Yeah, I'll say yes. I think if you ask any of the guys in the band, I don't know if they'd say problem, but they'd definitely say issue. It's something that I've worked on with them and in other parts of my life as well. I think all that control issues to me all come from this illusion of being able to actually control anything, which I don't really believe in anyway. But as far as my songs go, or my artistic life, my career goes, I definitely like to be in charge of that.

And I put this plenty of parts, plenty of aspects of it that I have no vision in whatsoever and I'm happy to delegate, you know? So it's been a bit of a learning process for me to really realize that I'm not good at everything, I do. And I mean, I know that anyway. But to work with people and be like,

okay, here's your strength here. Here's my strength over here. And then, so I'm not going to try to do your strength. Okay, you do that. And so, yeah, I think I was probably much worse at it when I was younger. How long did it take you to learn that trait? I'm still working on it.

I'll clap to that. Let's go. I've settled into it. I think the first step is acceptance. I don't consider it really a problem for me. It's just something that I need to be conscious of. To be like, oh, yeah, you can't control this part of it. So let it go. Let this other person handle that. And then just be able to let things pass that's that's become a real good lesson to have that's great man yeah i agree man i'm i'm always self micromanaging everyone and it drives everyone crazy i'm like you know i gotta figure out where else to put my energy because

like no one likes yeah you being behind them watching them work you know no they really don't man no and uh especially someone who knows what they're doing way better than I do. You talk about control and stuff, or I talk about asking you about control. Do you ever get into substance abuse? Yeah, I've dabbled thankfully never to a very what i consider anyway a very dangerous degree um you know i one thing another thing i know about myself is i have a pretty addictive personality yes um so i i was you know i i definitely messed around when i was younger a lot more and it but i ended up maybe lucky in a way like i ended up getting some warnings to myself right so i got very unhealthy i had an ulcer i had like i just got sick pretty

sick and so i had to clean kind of clean up my act um a few years ago and and it's been, you know, that like maintaining my health now has become pretty, pretty, pretty like central focus to me. And so I feel like I was a little bit lucky in that way. But a lot of people don't maybe get that heads up or they don't listen to it, you know. Were you on the road when you had an ulcer? Yeah, and I didn't know it for about a year. What? It was like a year of vomiting and just feeling awful all the time. What?

Figured out what was going on. Hold on, hold on. Backtrack, backtrack. You were vomiting. So that means you were drinking a lot and you just didn't know. Oh, yeah. You didn't know that you were vomiting because of an ulcer. Yeah, just...

Yeah, I mean, I was a pretty unhealthy guy, man. And I think that... Yeah, I don't know. It's amazing how I learned because I never really had anybody telling me to shape up. So it's amazing how I learned that feeling good feels really good. When I'm not feeling good, I can't really make anything. It was a time

when I wasn't writing, when I was down and feeling like shit. Writing and creativity seems to be the first thing to go. I feel like sometimes that like, you know, fucked up songwriter, it's kind of romanticized or something. Right.

Somebody that's drinking a lot or, you know, doing a lot of drugs or whatever and depressed and that, you know, it's a myth, man. I mean, nobody's productive in that way. At least I don't think so. Nobody I know has been. You know, we've lost people to that. And so it was kind of a long journey through that stuff. And then, you know, it's great to figure it out and find out what works for you.

It's pretty simple when I break it down, you know, like, this makes me feel good, this makes me feel bad. Don't do the bad stuff. Yeah, and when, you know, it's like, we don't know any better, because we've been on the road since we were fucking 18 years old. Yeah.

It's like, how do you know what healthy feels like? No, yeah, you never had a good night's sleep. No, like, what the fuck? I finally quit smoking cigarettes like a year, a little over a year ago. Congrats. Thank you. Yeah. And now, I mean, I love to smoke cigarettes. Yeah, still do. I love them. Yeah. But what I'm saying is like, where we are in music is the only

the only industry I know of in the United States where everybody still smokes. Yeah. I know in the United States where everybody still smokes. So I think about like, you can go to the office, quit smoking and you don't see it ever. And you go with us and you quit, it's like you get off the bus or you show up at a festival and everybody's smoking all over. It's like, what a weird world.

Yeah, so I'd ever judge, What a weird world. Welcome, brother! I'd ever judge if other people have a hard time. Who told you you had an ulcer? A lot of people haven't. Well, about the fifth doctor I went to. What? No one knew what was wrong with you? Yeah, I mean,

no, it was finally I finally decided to go in there and take a look. And so that's, no, it was finally, finally just had to go in there and take a look, you know. And so that's, that's, yeah, it was, it was really frustrating. That's why it took so long for me to figure it out. I was trying. By the time I finally went to the doctor, I was like, I was really sick. And I just couldn't figure nothing was making it better.

But of course, I wouldn't try like, maybe just don't drink whiskey. Yeah. Yeah. Try not smoking for a week. Maybe stop smoking cigarettes at 7am when you wake up. Yeah, exactly. So it was a good wake up call. I had to kind of like kick everything off the boat for a while to get that fixed up.

And then it gave me a little bit of a fresh start. Did you thought you were dying? You thought you had cancer or anything? no i didn't think that i guess it had you know that kind of stuff that crossed my mind but i don't usually go there no right away that's good no yeah i thought that uh you know i mean i didn't know but um i know now it feels like... What about in 2015? Were you drinking heavily when you broke up with the band? Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

That's it. Pretty heavily. Were you pretty sad then? Yeah, it was a lot of... I mean, that's like the first time I ever sought out mental health help in my life was that period of time. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, my personal life was kind of all torn to pieces and then I just felt like nothing was working. And yes, a lot of people go through it, man. Yeah. And we all, you know, I met a manager, Christian. I like to kind of him with a a lot like kind of keeping us together in a lot of ways but he's a real proponent of the like kind of the sage wisdom of we were in a really weird place like our lives are weird right and they're like you're gonna need a little

tune up once in a while and it's totally like, if you start feeling this stuff, let me know. We'll figure out someone to talk to. And it's always been a very open, encouraging relationship like that. And I mean, a lot of our guys, several of our members have gone into therapy here and there throughout our career. And sometimes we need it, man. Yeah, it's like we got to fight the stigma that if we check our bodies for fucking cancers and getting sick, why can't we check our brain? People are more afraid to take therapy than they are to go to the doctor. I know. Yeah. And I think that that's thankfully getting a lot better. There's some great... Our booking agent, Josh Knight, was one of the people that created the Backline program.

Shout out to Josh Knight. Yeah, our boy. I fucking love Josh. He's a good dude. Is he your agent too? No, but I was with Paradigm. I'm with Jon Bonjorna. Josh is the man. He's my buddy. Wonderful, wonderful man and dear friend. What they started with Backline is this great resource for people on the road to get help. Because I'm sick of hearing about... I'm sick of losing people that are creating music and they're on tour and they just get lost and leave us. So all of that's very important.

I think that's what can give you a long life, but also a long creative life, which is what we all want. We all want to do this for the rest of our lives. And just keeping those lines of communication open, I feel like it's really important. Your brain's a muscle. We forget that our brain's a muscle. Yeah. We have a lot of the things that

a lot of things that scientifically are proven to help people like steady routines, good night's sleep, nutritious food. We have done that. Yeah. In our line of work, that's these things are just not always there.

And part of being successful at it is learning how to get by without that stuff. And you do that for long enough, and you're gonna need some help, you know, and it's okay, and that's, you know, you just gotta like, it's hard to recognize it, I think, because it gets a little blurry in there sometimes. How well did you know Jeff Austin?

I mean, I played music with Next Deck Up for a long time, but personally, not that well. No. But definitely, we were in the same scene for a lot of years. It's like a hang at a festival. We run into each other and hang out. somebody i was always very happy to see and uh whose music i watched before i was playing music you know i saw the yonder mountain stream brand i think in 2000 first time i saw him was like 2000 2001 something like that before trample was around. And yeah, I was one of those dudes, man.

A lot of my friendships are like that. Festival friends. You show up in these bands that we've been on bills with for 15 years or something. It's always great. We hang out. It's great to see them see you in a couple weeks or see you next summer or whatever. That's one of those guys for sure. Does that make you more or less lonely when you're on the road? I don't think it makes me lonely. No.

But that's my personality. Maybe it means a little bit geared for that. I think I have my family at home and a couple of real close friends and the band. And then a lot of friends kind of like that and i love i love that i mean it's like uh it's a beautiful that's a beautiful friendship it's always it's uh you know and then um it's something to look forward to for me like i love looking at lineups of festivals that we're playing in the summertime or something. And finding friends on there. Yes, you get to see those guys again. I think that's a great part of our job.

It's beautiful. And it's also what fights the stigmas about this whole mental health thing is stories like you talking openly about how you broke up with your band and came back. And what are the things you learned from your divorce that you've taken how you you broke up with your band and came back yeah and you know and you know what did what are the things you learned from your divorce that you take in with your new relationship yeah

i mean oh man so much you know i think that uh um well i think i don't know. That's kind of a tough question to think about in a short form. Yeah. But I will say that the space in between the two was pretty transformational for me. And I feel know through that experience um and then through the band going off the road at the same time right um i figured out a lot about almost i got a landline here all right you got a landline still hell yeah You got a landline still? Hell yeah.

Okay, sorry about that. Anyway, I think I figured out just a little bit more about what I enjoy in my life and where I'm willing to compromise and what I really want, you know, and taking that kind of more firm knowledge into a new relationship, I feel like. It's been like a much more responsible place to start a relationship, if that makes sense. I'm gonna clap to that, let's go. Maturing, buddy. Let's go. Yeah.

Our guy's maturing. Oh man, well thanks for being on the show, man. I really appreciate you being honest with me and thank you thank you so much for having me yeah it's uh i appreciate the uh you know the questions that go to those places some people don't yeah that's not for everybody but yeah and i know it i'm happy i appreciate it man and uh well i have a feeling we've seen each other more and um let's just stay in touch and i'll get your email and i'll give you my number let's just let's be friends man i know you uh have a lot going on but you know i'm here

to talk whenever you want to so gotcha i love it man good good to meet you good to talk to you yeah so you're excited for the new record it's gonna be tight and um tweeting coming soon let's go yeah we got a new record uh you guys on a fall tour or what yeah Yeah, yeah. We started at the beginning of November on the East Coast. Well, perfect. I'll put this out right in November then so we can get some promo in there. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, buddy.

All right, bud. Well, have a great day. Thanks for being on the show. Cheers, man. You tuned in to the World's Health Podcast with Andy Fresco. 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.