Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - EP 224: BJ Barham (American Aquarium)

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

In an effort to keep him on the straight and narrow, Nick hires a series of strangers to follow Andy from show to show. They may say that they're "fans" or that they "love" the "music." But we all know the truth. It's all Nick; it's always been just Nick. But now with a heaping dose of our best boy, Damn Skippy to help with co-host duties! And on the Interview Hour - straight outta Raleigh, North Carolina - we got singer for alt-country band, American Aquarium: BJ Barham! Wear some sunblock this summer and drink some water, lest you catch walking pneumonia and those boogie woogie blues. Don't forget to keep tabs on their whereabouts! americanaquarium.com Watch this episode streaming now!! Psyched to partner up with our buddies at Volume.com! Check out their roster of upcoming live events and on-demand shows to enrich that sweet life of yours. Call, leave a message, and tell us how you really feel: [phone]  Check out our new single, You Do You streaming on Spotify and Apple Music now! And while you're at it, give a big middle finger to the bigots in your life Follow us on Instagram @worldsavingpodcast For more information on Andy Frasco, the band and/or the blog, go to: AndyFrasco.com Check out our good friends that help us unwind and sleep easy while on the road and at home: dialedingummies.com Produced by Andy Frasco, Joe Angelhow, & Chris Lorentz Audio mix by Chris Lorentz Featuring: Nick Gerlach Alex Veazey (Damn Skippy)

Andy, it's Nick. Just calling you from Denver. Hope you're having a great time this weekend. My car got stolen. I noticed you're going on tour. Another fun little whirlwind tour for Andy and the boys. Here's the thing. I'm just kind of sick of your over-partying and then wondering why you're depressed.

So I've hired three people to follow you on the road. I'm not going to tell you who you are or what they're driving. If you're going to wonder how they got into the show, guess what? I bought their tickets. I didn't even have Bo get them passes or anything. I just straight up bought them GA, okay, because you can pretty much sell from the crowd if you're drunk or not. You don't have to be backstage.

Here's the other thing. I don't want to see any little, like, podcast opening for a little road friend, some drunk guy you met the night before telling you about his life, and then you tell him how great he is for half an hour. Meanwhile, I tell you about my greatest accomplishments, and you just move on to the next Andy's Depressed topic, okay? I'm the co-host, okay? I'm what makes this show work.

And without me, it falls apart. And you know that. And the three to four people who message me every time I'm not the-host, okay? I'm what makes this show work. And without me, it falls apart. And you know that. And the three to four people who message me every time I'm not the host know that. Also, guys, can we plug during the voicemail? I'm going to plug my book. All right. And we're live. Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast.

I'm Andy Frasco. Hot opneumonia. Jesus fucking Christ Looking hot Oh my god I got back from Charleston I thought it was an allergy attack I've been quarantining in this New Hampshire

Hotel room for at least Four days now And I got the walking pneumonia God damn it, why? I would say it was running pneumonia. Got my co-host Skippy. Skippy's on tour with us for the next two weeks on this tour. We're doing fucking 15 shows in 17 days.

Woo! God help me. God fucking help all of us. I was like, oh my God. Of course it happened right before. And we were shooting a music video. We're doing like Jackass style music video Where we were like

Throwing fucking cakes And shit pinatas I thought this was all An elaborate stunt To get out of it? No, like you were going to punk us all And just start shooting snot rockets at us Or some shit

Oh my god, It was crazy. We did go after a little hard in Charleston. Oh, well, I was only there for one day. I know. Because I had to run to Asheville. In the one day, that was enough for me. You did a fucking week. Well, we went surfing.

I went with Dolav. Dolav, first time in Charleston. Shout out to Vinny for taking us on the boat shout out to everyone just fucking taking us surfing and showing us like dinner spots and stuff I don't think we drank

we didn't really drink that much, it was just going and going and going and going and like staying in the sun and like the week before I was in I don't know where, was was in Denver. I was in Chicago with fucking Westby and we were going. I was just going, going. My body finally said, you know what?

This is the only way we're going to make you sit in bed. Boom. Pneumonia. I got asthma. I found out I have asthma. What the fuck? A recent development? I just found out the doctor yesterday. That's fucked up. Asthma shouldn't be able to just walk up on you like pneumonia.

No, it's like it walks up on you like the herp. Like, hey, bud, now you got asthma. Fucking Christ. So here I am. This is a 35-year-old Frasco with asthma and walking pneumonia. But it's not contagious, so I will be playing. I will be out there. I have one more day to chill, but I've been taking antibiotics,

and I feel way better today. I sat next to you on the plane. I've been with you four or five days now. You didn't get it. Yeah, see, everyone thinks I'm like, I know COVID too. It's not COVID, so don't worry about that. But yeah, I'm here. I'm back.

We're doing, what are we doing tomorrow? Northlands Festival And then we're in Cape Cod And then we're in Nantucket Fuck When you're doing almost three weeks in a row with two days off You kind of just don't think about what the next day is Right

You check the calendar When you get out of bed, you chug some coffee Right, that's what we're doing We're drinking shitty Holiday Inn coffee, my favorite. I do love Holiday Inn. Shout out to Holiday Inn for always hooking us up. For real. True. That's why I was like,

I don't want to do any of these fucking radio performances at 9 a.m. They're emailing me about radio performances. Shout out to the radio. I love the radio, but fuck, dude. I'm burning out.'re emailing me about radio performances. Shout out to the radio. I love the radio. But like, fuck, dude. I'm burning out. It's a lot.

It's a lot. Unless it's like, you know, New York City or like fucking LA. I'll fly out for them. No disrespect to all the AAA radios. We love you out there. But, you know, I'm like fucking tired. And I'm doing all these podcasts. I think I just got burnt out.

I've been working too hard. Working too hard. And drinking. And we wrote a great song. The best song. I listened to it in the shower this morning. I did too. I listened to it right before I went to bed. Little Stranger and I wrote another song. It's fucking hot.

We got Skippy as in it on the second verse. I'm really proud of that song. Ross Bogan helped me with the chords. Ross came in and just took them to church. Yeah, bad out of hell. Shout out to the Charleston musicians. We got Kniek on there. Let's fucking go. Everyone's rocking.

It was good, but fuck! We're doing a lot. We're doing a lot and I need to slow it down. If you don't slow it down, pneumonia will just walk up on you. It's kind of fucked up, like in a dark alleyway. Yeah, it's like, surprise, bitch, you got pneumonia. I'm like, fuck, I've never had pneumonia.

I've been like, I don't think I've ever had pneumonia. You called it, too. We got out of the van the other night. We got to Boston early and had to wait all day. So, of course, we went to the bar, did some research. We only drank beers, though. Yeah, yeah. And wine.

Shout out to Guinness. Yeah, shout out to Guinness. That was actually pretty good. I'm not really a Guinness fan. So it's maybe the most superior beer ever made. But, you know, just my opinion. Yeah. Guys were late because they had to drive the van from Denver to Boston.

So they were four hours late. And we're like, fuck it, let's just go to the bar. After 40 hours, being four hours late. We're like, fuck it, let's just go to the bar. After 40 hours, being four hours late, not too shabby. I'll clap out to Bo and Sean and Ernie. Way to go, boys. You killed it. Also, after 40 hours in the car, they pick us up.

We drive another two hours to get to Keene. Shout out to Keene. Yeah, New Hampshire. What the fuck's in New Hampshire? Well, cops. That's what. We got pulled over. Five minutes to go after 40 hours on the road. But the Keene police were pretty cool. They were Keene. They were Keene.

My buddy Gator lives in New Hampshire. He's in pigeons playing ping pong. He said, it's the biggest cop. It's like such a crazy cop state. Like people are, the cops are the worst in New Hampshire. Really? Yeah. So I saw,

I was like, when I woke up from my, you know, pre pneumonia, I looked out the window and there's a cop like, fuck, we're getting arrested. I don't even,

we didn't even do anything wrong by this. You know, they smelled Jew or something. They're like, no, we're getting, you guys are done. They had a Mexican and Asian and a Jew in the van.

They're like, yeah, everyone get out of the van. And a rapper. And a rapper. The triple death. And a white rapper. Yeah, it's bad.

But hey, he was pretty cool. Yeah, he was cool. He's like, get the fuck. He sent us on our way. Yeah, he's like, get to the hotel and fix that shit. Yeah. Have we fixed that shit? We fixed that shit.

Oh, actually, I got it halfway wired between shots yesterday. So, yeah, we'll wrap it up today. Bring it on. Speaking of our sponsors, Dialed In Gummies. Yes. The best. The best. Shout out to Dialed In Gummies and D. Betty Vodka for, they are sponsoring

our music video of us just being fucking crazy assholes in the streets of New Hampshire. And the little sleep we get, we couldn't do it without Dialed In Gummies. Yeah, so shout out to Dialed In Gummies. If you're in the Denver area, there's a lot of shows coming at Red Rock. Shout out to the Denver Nuggets winning the championship. Let's go.

It wasn't the Lakers, but I'm glad it was my hometown, Denver Nuggets. So congrats, buddy. And I love the Joker just being honest the whole time. I don't want to do a fucking parade. Then he saw all the people, millions of people outside. He's like, I love this parade. I mean, he is afloat. He's the best. That's why I want to move to Europe.

I think I got to move to Europe. Where are you thinking? Berlin. Or I was thinking like Greece I need a city though Switzerland's cool Switzerland's dope

I've been there like three times We did a residency at Zermatt Oh Zermatt's dope Yeah Well I have I'm always worried about Switzerland Because they pulled us over And I had to like get naked and they checked my asshole for drugs and shit. They went all the way in?

Yeah, because we had Dutch license plate. They buy you dinner? No, they didn't even fuck. I didn't even come. It's bullshit. But it's always, maybe the Netherlands or, I don't know, maybe just for part time. I need to take a hiatus. I need to go into the sale for a little bit.

You need a vacation, bro. Yeah, no. People think this life you live is a vacation. Nah, son. It's not. What you see on Instagram, that's like 3%. The other 97% is just hustle. Yeah.

Grind. Yeah, grind. Too much. 97% is just hustle. Yeah. Grind. Yeah. Grind. Yeah. Too much. So shout out to Doubting Gummies for giving my brain a mental vacation. Thank you. So shout out to Doubting Gummies and volume.com. Volume.com.

Thank you so much for, if you guys want to watch, if you want to see what pneumonia looks like in a person, go to volume.com slash Andy Frasco and watch this episode. Yeah, we love volume.com. They're the best live streaming partner in the business. And if you want to back stock and watch all the old Frasco podcasts, they're all up there. So go out to volume.com. And you're going to definitely want to watch this one with American Aquarium.

We have BJ Barham from American Aquarium on the show this week. And he's amazing. He fought. He fought the big boys. Live Nation, AEG. You're a merch man. You know all about this. Know all about it.

He said, not today, devil. We're not giving you 20% of our merch. And what happened? They said, okay, fine. We're not taking it. So, guys, if you're in a band, you're going to love this interview because this man is a freedom fighter for... Is freedom fighter the right word to say?

I think freedom fighter. I mean, it feels like to take a percentage like that feels like some sort of enslavement or I don't know, man. It's fucking terrible. Yeah, if they're going to take... I know there's a lot of venues who listen to this podcast too, but if you're going to take 20% of our merch, then you're going to give us at least 3% of the bar.

And that's a fair trade. I think they should carry in 20% of the fucking merchandise if you want to take 20% of the money because that'll break your back. Let's go. That's my boy. We got to start. Everyone's just take every, you know,. We got to start. Everyone's just taking...

We're going to start a musician. Everyone's just taking from our pockets. I love it. They should buy 20% of the gas. We're gladly to give you a cut. If you're willing to work, too. 20% of the hotels. They're throwing in from now on, right?

Yeah, you want to be a real business partner? Then, yeah. You get 20 be a real business partner? Yeah. Then, yeah. You're going to take 20%. You get 20% of this fucking pneumonia, too. Yeah. Y'all give me 20% of this pneumonia, too. Yeah. No problem.

So shout out to volume.com. What promos? Yeah. Volume.com. If you're a content, too, content creator, go to volume.com slash creator and get your stuff out there. I mean, this is, it's 2022. It's a good website, man.

Or 2023. What year is it? 2023. Okay. Yeah, Jordan. Jordan. Oh, you're the goat. You're the goat.

Woo! And the cough's better. Cough is better. It used to be bloody. There was tidal waves in that thing yesterday. Oh my God. Everyone was scared. I was like, just like a zombie.

Well, shout out to the goat himself, Andy Vrasko. We shot a music video yesterday, and you were on your deathbed. I was. Between sets, this man went to urgent care. Came back with antibiotics and steroids. What the hell did they give you? They gave me antibiotics and an inhaler. Antibiotics and an inhaler. And then we stripped him naked, and I won't tell you what the hell did they give you they gave me antibiotics and an inhaler antibiotics and an inhaler and then we stripped him naked and i won't tell you what else we did

but it was it was intense and you were i could tell you weren't happy but you're throwing eggs at my face four dozen eggs big fucking deal and then the band was like excited about it to take all their aggression out of me for all the years of abuse I've given them. So I think it was just for the, for the video, you know, everybody really got into character more than ever, you know? I love it. Um, all right guys, have a great week. Um, sorry, this is, this is a, this is a, uh, quick opening because, um, you got it. I, I didn't want to cut a lot of this interview with BJ because he speaks hot facts. It's about an hour and 15.

Listen to everything he says. If you're in a band, if you're in the music industry, listen to this man's words. This man's fought. Chris, play some American Aquarium while we're talking about him. Play it. The harder you work, the luckier you get. The more you get done, boy, the less you'll regret. This man has fought for the music industry.

This man has had 20 different bandmates. It feels like he's had 20 different bandmates. Still out there grinding his ass off. He's had a couple managers, and he still fights for the music industry. He still fights for his songs, and he still fights for just trying to get music out there in the world. And for that, we thank him. So American Aquarium is an amazing band. And I think you're going to love it.

And I think you're going to love BJ. So what are we going to do? We got a show today, huh, bud? We got a show today. We still got to shoot another music video or parts of the music video? Yeah, we got one more scene this morning. What is it? We're throwing Floyd out of the van or something?

We're going to kill Floyd. Good. Yeah, he's my biological father we found out recently. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? I heard Andy hid $1,000 and $100 bills inside this shit yada.

Yeah, I did. Good luck taking that to the bank. Yeah. All right, guys. Enjoy it. Enjoy BJ and Skip. You're with me for two weeks, buddy.

Here we are. The Freedom Fighter himself, making independent bands feel better about not giving 25 fucking percent to those fucking venues, baby. I love it. PJ. What's up, man? How are you? I'm good, man. I'm good.

Hanging in there. I'm a big fan of you. Harper Hollis. Does that name ring familiar to you? Harper Hollis, he was in Jackson Hole. He used to book you a bunch in Jackson Hole at the Town Square Tavern. I know exactly who you're talking about. Well, he introduced me to you really early on in my career. I just think you're one of the most... Your songwriting is pretty brilliant, man.

And I'm just so thankful that we finally get to meet each other. So thanks for being on the show, BJ. Heck yeah. Thanks for inviting me on. It's awesome. How's it been, man? How's touring been?

What's this last year been so far for you? It's been good. Just probably the last five years, ever since I became a dad, touring kind of scaled back quite a bit. We're still doing, it scaled back in my terms. We're only doing about 100 shows a year now.

Yeah. Oh, wow. So I know that that's still a lot for some bands, but we were doing upwards of like 250 for a very long time. So scaling back to 100 makes me feel like I'm being lazy, but scaling back a little bit,

prioritizing being home a little bit more, put out a new record last summer and just finished up kind of a full nationwide tour of that. And now it's on to writing the next record, man. Yeah. Do you ever have time to just like, you know,

now that you have like two jobs being a dad and stuff, and do you ever have time to just like you know now that you have like two jobs being a dad and stuff and do you ever have time for yourself anymore uh i gave that up a long time ago yeah uh it's i i but i i gave it up for something i enjoy giving it up for um work is not taking uh it away from like you know when i work with the kid it it's, it's not work. Um, it's, it's, that's how I would choose to spend my time. If I had free time was hanging out with her. Um, I literally just, I just came, we've been out in the pool all day. So I literally just came in doing a podcast. And as soon as I get done with this, I'm jumping back out in the pool. I fucking love it.

What have you learned from being a band leader that um you take from being a father now oh man being in a band taught me how to deal with uh uh children who don't have control yeah exactly it taught me how to deal with people that don't have control of their emotions yeah 24 hours a day um i was kind of ready for it you know as soon as the kid came i was like is this all that is this all there is? Like, I've been dealing with this for the last 20 fucking years. I know, bro. I know.

You know, my daughter has more control over some of her emotions than previous band members. So I'm ready for it. And that's how I was going to ask you. I mean, you've gone through a lot of band members. Is it hard to deal with you?, are you just a perfectionist? Like, what do you see that you want in your career that some of these band members didn't really have, or maybe there was just some not simpatico to your vision or something. What do you, what do you see in that?

I think it's a healthy dose of both. Um, I was a really shitty person for a long time. Up until 2014, I was an addict slash alcoholic. And that never makes friendships and relationships easy. So up until that point, I blame a lot of that on just being a shitty person. I was a bad boss. I was a bad friend. I was a bad person to be around, depending on me. there's a reason i've kept the same band together now for almost the last going on five years now is because sobriety really kind of changed how i looked at being a boss how i looked at being a band leader how i looked at being just a person right and so there's a reason i've had the same band now you know since 2018 is because I'm just a better human being. I'm still an asshole.

I'm just a self-aware asshole. I'm clapping for that, buddy. Self-improvement. Let's fucking go, BJ. We all grow up. I've been doing the same thing. I've been doing 250 shows a year. When I was deep in the coke and deep in the one-night stands for the first 10

years i wasn't the greatest boss what did what were what were you getting into in 2014 where you finally said i need to stop this was just booze or were you into coke or like what were you into coke was a big thing coke and booze and one night stands and all the all the pitfalls that come with being in a band, um, exactly being, being someone, you know, cause I think it's the, a story as old as time,

like you start the band and all of a sudden it's way easier to talk to people and especially pretty girls. And it's way easier because the drinks are free. And so you're not paying a bar tab at night and the drugs are free and it's easy to fall into that trap and just uh give in to kind of like i get the the age-old fight we've all seen vh1 behind the music we know the vices yeah um you fall into them and i fell into as many of them as i could you know i didn't pick just one and focus on it i was like let's try them all what were you suppressing

i don't know there was a lot of uh it's all internal you, let's try them all. What were you suppressing? I don't know. There was a lot of, uh, it's all internal. There's the, there's the insecurity. There's the, I'm not good enough. There's the, uh, the, the imposter syndrome. Uh, there is the insecurities that I've been carrying around since I was a kid that I focused all of that on. Um for the moment, in the moment, you feel better when it's 2 a.m. and you're going home with the pretty girl at the bar and you've got a bag of Coke in your pocket and you're hammered. Everything's great. But that morning you wake up and realize like, oh no, this is just a fleeting moment. This is only fun for a very short amount of time. And then I have 23 hours in the day where it's not fun,

where it's, I have to deal with myself. I have to deal with the repercussions of my actions. Um, I have to deal with these guys who I, you know, I, it was Jekyll and Hyde for a very long time.

And I kept a band together for quite a while, but even they in 2017, even that imploded and they were just like, man, we can't do this anymore. And so, uh, that can't do this anymore. And so that was a real eye-opening thing for me was, was a hard re because I had one or two guys quit every now and then, but I'd never had like an entire band quit. So in 2017, my whole band quit.

My manager quit. Everybody walked out. Hold on. What'd you do? What'd you do um i went on a solo tour for three months and uh came back and i had a full i had this version of the band in 2017 and i went right back at it uh i had a new management i still have the same manager same booking agent um it was a hard restart and i needed that i needed that wake- up call to be like, hey, the way you are dealing with things is not good. And it took losing everything for a few months and having that kind of what like, you know, holy shit, what am I going to do? Like, I don't have a band anymore right um and i kind of went out solo and and and kind of found myself

you know out on the road and not doing the dumb shit trying to focus on how do i how can i build something that people want to be a part of not just for a year or two years but want to be a part of full time and what i learned was i just had to stop being a selfish asshole yeah i had to start i had to start taking other putting prioritizing other people's needs and wants above my own right and once i started doing that ding ding ding big coincidence shit started working out for me hey i'm happy again weird it's like when i started prioritizing other people's needs and wants above my own i kept a band together my relationship got better i became a dad i became a husband i became

a better version of myself um were you with your girl what's that were you with your girl during this time yes okay oh shit um so uh my and my wife's the one that basically in 2017 after everybody quit she was like you can either bitch about it or you can do something to change it right and you know because about two weeks afterwards it was the woe is me nobody wants to be a part of this everybody leaves blah blah blah and she's like fucking buck up like yeah you can like you can either complain for the rest of your life and have people feel sorry for you or you can take this as a new chapter and be a better person moving forward my wife gets all the credit for every big decision i've ever

made in my life i mean um it's amazing bro and i think it's like what were you treating her like shit too or were you always never had that you always tried everyone else but like you she was like your best friend you're kind of your therapist in a way. My best friend, when I was using and stuff, I was still, I was still just a bad person. I was a bad person and she stuck around. And, um, when she shouldn't have have, you know, I was never like physically or verbally abusive, but like, I didn't value our relationship. I always took it for granted. Um, I always had the road and I had when I was home. Right.

always took it for granted. I always had the road and I had when I was home. And then 2017 was kind of like a hard reset of, I need to treat everybody that I truly love in my life that way. I can't hurt people anymore. I can't treat them with disrespect. And so, uh, and me and my wife have, have, have really kind of turned that, that, that corner. Um, especially, you know, parenthood forces you to do that. Parenthood is the ultimate litmus test of, is this relationship going to work? And, um, I'm very happy to say that I'm in a really great place, uh, not to bring anybody else who's struggling uh down but yeah think about sobriety sobriety mixed with actively focusing on other people's feelings um have made me just a better person i think think about if you had a kid like in 2015 instead of now no i don't want to think about that that i would be i wouldn't have been able to be a good dad.

I would have prioritized my needs, wants above everybody else's. And you can't do that if you want to be a good parent. You can't prioritize yourself over the thing that needs you to live and survive. What was your childhood growing up like in Raleigh? So I grew up about an hour and a half west of here, near Greensboro, Winston-Salem area. Grew up in a little place called Reidsville, North Carolina. It was good. It was lower middle class to middle class. I grew up in a farm community.

Nobody was rich. Nobody was super well off. Everybody worked really hard for what they had. My parents were together until my mom passed away a few years ago. My parents had been together for 40 plus years. I was loved. I had everything I needed. I never missed a meal. I had shelter over my head my whole life. And, uh, but it was never like an excessive life. Um, both of my parents were extremely blue collar. They taught me that everything you get in this world is earned. Every inch you take forward is something that you have to make for yourself. And, and I took a lot of pride in that.

And, uh, when I turned 18, I was the first kid in my family to go to college. Uh, I immediately dropped out of college to start a rock and roll band. And my parents didn't get it at first, but fast forward 20 years and they see that I applied that work ethic they instilled in me in a very non-traditional way. But I think there's an appreciation there that it still stuck. They're like, you may not be doing it the way we thought you would do it, or maybe we intended you to do it, but it's pretty special to be able to take something your parents taught you and apply it in something that brings you an immense amount of joy. Yeah, totally. I mean, where do you think, like looking back then, where do you think you like

started this imposter syndrome? If your parents, you didn't feel like you could be honest with your parents. Like how did, like, was it your friends you were worried about? Was it, were you insecure about with women? Like how'd you build this imposter syndrome that eventually made you become an addict for a couple of years? Well, it's all like everything I've done, it's always been questioning like, did I get and stumble into this, or am I just good at what I do? And that can be from, because I was a very good student in high school, which led to me getting a scholarship to go to college. Where'd you go? I went to NC State University here in Raleigh.

That's what brought me to Raleigh and ultimately introduced me to what independent music was. I grew up in such a rural area where you were either Tim McGraw playing the local Coliseum or you were some drunk uncle at a family reunion playing, you know, acoustic guitar. Yeah, yeah. Here's Wonderwall, kid. I never understood there was this kind of, there were small rock clubs. I never knew that existed until I moved to Raleigh. I never understood that you could play in front of a hundred people a night and make a pretty good living doing it.

Right. And so when I moved to Raleigh and got a taste for the independent music scene here, there was no look, there was no, I was on track to go to law school and that was that was that was completely derailed as soon as i saw people i was like wait a minute i can play in front of 100 people every night and get a bar tab and talk to people and talk to girls and

oh fuck i fuck fuck school i don't need school i can i can do this but then that insecurity kicks in because when you start making records and you start making songs and people tell you you're good you go home that night and you're alone um you don't have that thing that everybody has that security of going to school and following the straight path from a to b um so you go home and you start pushing did i make the right decision dropping out of school should i be a musician did i get lucky and book that first tour um am i ever going to be able to write another song is the next record going to be as good as this last record and that follows you the rest of your career it's like have i peaked had is this last record the best it gets and it's all downhill from here um there's always

that creeping in the back of your mind and the only way i could ever shut that up was drowning it and stuff right occupying other stuff occupying that time to where i didn't have to focus on failure right um but then you get to a point where the clarity kicks in and you're like fuck i've put out you know at this point i've been doing this for 17 years i've got 16 records every every record that's came out has done better than the record before it so like there's a version of me that has to look at that and say listen dude statistically speaking you're trending upward in the right direction stop fucking getting in your own way right you're good enough to be here you're good enough to have a place at the table you weren't the kid that accidentally the invite got mixed up in the mail and you accidentally got an invitation to the party. Like you're supposed to be at the fucking party. Yeah.

Yeah. Why? And what, what, once that realization kicks in, then you don't need the other stuff to make you feel better about yourself or make you forget the shit. How many years did it take you to get to that point in your head?

Up until probably, probably 2018. Yeah. Cause the band quit at 17. And then that insecurity kicks in. It's like, okay, was the band that I just had the reason for the success or was it because of the songs I was writing? Was it because of the amount of touring I wanted to do?

And then once everybody quit and I completely rebuilt it and it got even more successful, that was a very easy tale for me. It was, holy shit, you're the only common denominator here. And it's continuing to trend upward. Stop worrying about it. You're doing okay. Why are we harder on ourselves versus giving everyone else slack? I don't know.

I feel like there's some fucked up version of southern masculinity that always kicks in right where i feel like i i need to shoulder all of the stress and the pain and the sadness and whatever emotion there is so there everybody else can be happy right because if everybody else stays happy everybody stays together if everybody else stays happy we get to do another tour if everybody stays happy, we get to do another tour. If everybody still stays happy, we get to make another record. And it shouldn't be like that. You should be able to openly talk about like, hey, guys, this is really frustrating me right now. Can we please fix this altogether? Fantastic. And move on. Instead, I was just letting animosity and resentment build up inside of me. And then I'd go on a bender one weekend and then take it out on somebody

and tell a guitar player that had been playing with me for eight years that he was replaceable and I didn't give a fuck if he stuck around or not. Like, that's a good way to lose a fucking band. Yeah, I feel like I go through those things too. Yeah, it's like you're putting all your anger on someone else, even though you've been holding all this stuff in.

Maybe it is true at the moment, but you could have said it approached it a different way instead of through a bender. I've learned that if there's ever any kind of disagreement or problem that arises, nail it down there. As soon as you see it, don't let it get into a corner and fester. Pull that motherfucker into the middle of the room,

give it a name, drag it out into the light talk about it right there because the minute it goes in the corner and starts fester and it grows and it becomes scary yeah once that thing comes back out of the corner like you can't control it anymore yeah what was that what was the what happened in 2017 where everyone quit at once do you remember that moment i think it was uh like a a full circle moment um where everybody was turning you know everybody was 30 early 30s uh the band was kind of stalling like we we were putting out records but we weren't seeing a lot of growth we were kind of stuck at that two 250 person a night kind of threshold. And for like two or three years, it was there. From 2012 to like 2016, there wasn't a lot of growth.

It felt like we were running circles. And I think a lot of guys thought, okay, like this was a really fun thing to do in my 20s. I'm 30 now. Maybe I should go back to school. Maybe I should do this. Maybe I should go get a real job. Maybe I should do something that has a little bit more stability. And I think once they started talking about it, they all realized like, hey, we all kind of want

to quit for different reasons. Let's do it at the same time and just make it pretty final. That way nobody can be talked back in. Nobody be uh whatever and then when my when they all quit my manager at the time quit because i think his exact words were i don't see this being able to be rebuilt like too much damage is done that's fucked up and so i yeah so i took three months off i rebuilt a band and and came back you know arguably statistically better than before. And I got really lucky that I was able to find a group of guys that were willing to put that much trust in a new version of me, a new version of the band, because the fans always had that trust.

The fans, that was my biggest worry, was there was going to be fans that walked away from this thing because they didn't have faith in it anymore. what song are you most proud about that you wrote oh man that's there's so many different metrics that go into figuring that out um there's songs lyrically there's songs that i'm the most proud of uh songs like one day at a time when we were younger men uh uh When We Were Younger Men, Lamentations. Those kind of songs are career-defining songs, I would say. Songs that pay my bills every month. The Luckier You Get, Losing Side of 25. Those are the big streamers.

So I'm thankful for those because they give me the financial security to take the chances and write the better songs lyrically. I think crowd favorites, Burn, Flick or Die, Wolves, Hope He Breaks Your Heart. Those are some of the crowd favorites. There's so many different... You know how it is. They're all kids and everybody has their favorite kid. Obviously, you just can't say it out loud because then it becomes real yeah um but there's there's some kids that you know i'm proud to take out in public and there's some kids that we lock away in the attic and never touch them again yeah um you know it's it's they

get fed through a small hole um and then there's kids there's your honor roll kids that you're proud of and you put the bumper sticker on your car and you're you're you claim you claim them uh 20 years into your career what's like uh do you have any songs that uh you wish didn't get big i think everybody has those blessing and curse songs for us it was this song called i hope he breaks your heart uh one of the very first songs i wrote i you know wrote it as a pissed off 20 year old kid who's going through his first major breakup yeah um you know i wrote the song so basically i was in this my first real relationship as an adult it ended uh said girl came to a show with her new guy and i saw him like front front and center guy and i saw him like front front and center uh so i went backstage this song like it doesn't rhyme it's just cathartic it's just very visceral um and then

i came back out that night and played it at the encore acoustic and dedicated to both of them shut the fuck up are you serious not even kidding it's three chords and just it's it's just me the song's called i hope he breaks your heart like it's just a very like uh everybody's been there it's one of those situations where everybody's been the the person that got left and you don't understand why you got left and so the only reason you can come up with is their fault and so it's this giant blame game and i played it one night thinking i never have to play it again and then somebody posted the damn thing on youtube and then everywhere we went people started requesting it so yeah a couple records in we put it on a record and now it's like the massive you ever see a video of us online nine times out

of ten it's that song and like thousands of kids screaming it at the top of their lungs. It's, it's a very, it's a big moment of everyone. It's a song I've played every single night. Um, uh, and when, when there's, when there's a thousand kids singing it, it feels really special. Um, it feels like, cause there's, you can always look out in the crowd and you see that one kid that's like going through that shit at that exact moment and you're like that's why we play it every night because that one kid needed to sing that song as loud as he could tonight yeah what was it like what was it like at the rhyming when uh you pulled that shit out and you see oh it's it's massive you know it's it's it's one of those feelings where you know playing it in front of five people would be kind of silly, but playing it in front of a room full of people that know their job is to scream that at you as loud as possible.

It's what we strive for as musicians is that those moments every night where we're all operating on the same plane. We're all on that same wavelength vibing. And there's nothing that gets you there faster than the entire crowd screaming with every ounce of their being back at you. Something that you wrote when you were that kid screaming it at nobody. Yeah, exactly. And that's what I was thinking. I was talking about when you first played it at the encore and you saw the ex-girlfriend and the boyfriend. Did you see their eyes?

They immediately left. Because I dedicated it to her. I was like, I hope you're never happy. I hope this sadness follows you around the rest of your life. I hope happiness evades you. I hope nothing sadness follows you around the rest of your life. I hope happiness evades you. I hope nothing good ever happens to either one of you fucks. Like, how dare you come to this show? Here's a song I wrote backstage for you.

Go fuck yourself. And then I played it and it became this thing. And now people, you can listen, I guarantee, like if I ever post stories from a show the night before, like one of them is like the big cathartic sing-along. But that's also what led to, you know, halfway through my career asking myself, like, is this going to be what I'm known for? Am I going to be the pissed off breakup song guy? Or am I actually going to be like a real songwriter and luckily i've written enough songs that have knocked that out of like the spotify top 10 to where it's more of like a crowd favorite instead of uh showcased on my spotify for the rest of eternity yeah you know i actually i hear you on that you know it's like it's it's a pretty amazing that um that it blew up like that but you don't want to be

you don't want to be categorized as that. You're more than that, right, BJ? I liked it. I like to think that in the annals of time we'll tell that I was a better songwriter than the three and a half minute non-rhyming rant of a song that I wrote when I was 20. of a song that I wrote when I was 20. We all want to be remembered as real songwriters or real performers or whatever real is in our head.

And for a long time, I struggled with the fact that I thought that song was going to be what defined me. But the greatest healer of that kind of doubt is time because now I look back and there's plenty of songs that have tripled, quadrupled those streams and have pushed it back down. So now the heads know when they show up what song they're singing along to. But anybody who's just finding us, that's not going to be anybody's first introduction. Because I think it could either be welcoming or off-putting if that's the first thing you hear from our band right no i told you hear that i mean i mean look at now let's talk about 2022 record you're talking about some heavy shit

miscarriage i mean you had a death in your family yeah you what your mom died your mom passed away my mom passed my grandmother passed uh a miscarriage uh i lost three friends to fentanyl overdoses um during the pandemic it was it's a heavy fucking record there's like there's not a light there's not a lot of light on this record there's not a lot of like palate cleansing upbeat fun songs there's only one upbeat fun song and it's at the very fucking end of the record just so you don't you know i wanted to leave people with some sense of yeah because it's a very it's a very dark record yeah man but it's a record i had to make it's a record that that again it goes to i think 2015 version of me would have put would have suppressed those feelings and

it would have turned into a lot of negativity down the road. 2020 to me had to put that into a song and get it out so that I could continue to be happy and continue to be thankful and continue to be a positive person. And when you put that kind of record out, especially after arguably the biggest record of your career, you're worried how people are going to receive it. And so we were very lucky because 2020 was a hard year, not just for me or not just for you,

but it was a hard year for a lot of people. And so this record about loss really resonated with a lot of fans. And so I don't think it's anything they're going to start a party with. A Saturday night fun time jam isn't going to get started with, you know, here's a banger about losing your first child. Yeah. But I do think,

I do think that's the record as people get older, as people experience that loss, it's going to be the record. They go to a room by themselves with headphones on, listen to, and actually process those fucking feelings, which I think is just important to have in your cannon of a songwriter as the bops and the slappers that people are putting on,

man. I think it's important to have that, that record that helps people not just get you drunk on a Saturday night, but that record that helps you deal with losing your mom or helps you deal with your wife, losing a child or helps you deal with the countless suicide and, and, and,

and death that we're faced with on a daily basis. Right. I think those records just as integral to a band's catalog as, you know, your Spotify top five. Yeah. And it's, you're adding depth to your show.

I mean, you have those great, you know, party songs and you could go down and talk about fucking miscarriage. That is so heavy. I was thinking about this because like, you ever like just pat yourself on the back and see how much you've grown as a person after seven,

like think of, yeah, you said 2015 versus 2022. Now, like you were suppressing everything. Like this is a very big moment for you, BJ. Like you finally like being okay with not being okay.

Yeah. I think that again, I hate to hark on it, but like I always go back to recovery because what recovery has taught me, I used to look in the mirror and see a broken person. And instead of looking at the broken person, I would shy away from it. I would drown it. I would use any other vice I could

to not look in the mirror for a second. And I think what recovery teaches you is to look in the mirror and see that broken person, see that asshole, see the shithead, see the selfish human being in front of you. And instead of shying away from it, looking at it and embracing it and picking up those broken pieces of yourself and putting together a version of yourself that you can be proud of tomorrow. Today might not be that day that you're proud of yourself, but if you work at it, if you really put in the time and try to take care of the people around you and yourself, that version of you tomorrow in the mirror is going to be a lot easier to look at than today. And it's gradual growth. It's gradual fixing the problem. But

every day, if you can look in that mirror again and say, today I am better than I was yesterday. And my goal tomorrow is to be better than the guy looking back at me in the mirror. You're winning. You're succeeding. And that's something that every now and then I need that reminder that flip back through the mental yearbook and look at 2015 me and say, look at that asshole. Like, look at where you are now. Like think like if you, if you need proof that you've grown, if you can't see any growth the past couple of months, look where you came from, man. And that's a real, and that's what records kind of do for us. Records are these chronological snapshots of where we were as a person. I listened back to some of those old

records and I'm immediately back in those shoes. I'm immediately back as that guy. And I can listen back record to record and I can hear the growth record from record. I can see myself getting sober, becoming a good husband, becoming a dad, becoming somebody that I think my kid's

going to be proud of 20 years from now. Right. Instead of somebody that my kid avoids in public. Yeah. And that, you know, especially like you're a, you're a traveling salesman,

so you don't get to be home that much. So like, they're going to remember the times that you have with them and those little moments, you know, I'm glad you'd fucking taken a hundred shows less a year so you could be a dad. It's just,

it's just wild. Like that's a big, heavy year to deal with your I'm assuming your mom was super important to you, correct? My mom and my grandmother were these really maternal forces. My mother was me. Every good and bad quality I have came from that woman. Um, and my grandmother raised me while my mother worked. Like I said, my mother was one of those. She worked just as much as my dad, you know, 40, 50 hours a week to make sure that me and my brother never missed a field trip, never missed an opera, like a sporting event or

anything. And like looking back, knowing what they made a year, I don't know how the fuck they raised two kids that never wanted for anything did you ever resent her for working so much not really because both of them were always there when they needed to be they somehow found a way to where if i needed a chaperone for this or if i needed a ride to this there there was and what as an adult i realized like they just gave up the shit they wanted to do. They gave up the thing they needed to do. They gave up any sense of independence they were going to have to make sure their kids never felt left out.

My mom was this massive force. She encouraged me to be vocal about stuff. She taught me to love the arts. I grew up in a very small rural town. You were either an athlete or if you focused on show tunes and singing and learning how to play the guitar, you were lesser than. And my mother always pushed me toward, you can go play the sports, but you need to be open to this artistic side because that's that's where like real cultural growth can come from like you're not going to get very far focusing on sports you're probably either going to end up in the military or being a cop here in town but like if you focus on something else you might actually be able to to get out of this

fucking place yeah and so in that way i mean your mom saved your life because i don't think the person you would be you can't live in that fucking small town you, your mom saved your life because I don't think the person you would be. You can't live in that fucking small town. You're bigger than that. Yeah. My mom was massive. So losing her was massive, especially, you know, I lost my mom before she was 65. She was young. She was very young.

What happened to her, if you don't mind me asking? She had a bunch of really bad back surgeries um and then just you know failure body failure um whether it was the the abusing the pain pills they gave her to deal with said back or just living a hard life uh my mom was a smoker my mom uh you know didn't she put everybody else's needs above hers. And that shit takes its toll on you. Not just a mental toll. It takes a physical toll on you.

So the last couple of years of her life were really hard. She was in a lot of pain all the time. Kind of a shell of the woman that raised me. My mom was a absolute force of nature growing up. Children feared her. Adults feared her. When she walked into a room, she sucked every bit of air out of it. She didn't give you a chance.

Jesus. My mom was such an absolute firecracker of a human and taught me the value of words, taught me the value of language, taught me the value of confidence. She sent me out in the world extremely equipped. And for that, I will forever be thankful because my mom didn't send me out in the world not prepared for it. My mom taught me a lot of the hard lessons that life was going to teach a lot of my friends. But she told me straight up, this is what you have to do to not fall in those holes. And I still fell in half the holes, but at least I knew they were,

at least I knew they were coming. They weren't surprises. What she said. Yeah. Keep going. Sorry. You go ahead. I was thinking, I was thinking like, what was she, how was she dealing with your addictions? Cause if she was like giving you advice and stuff. It was, it came from my mom's side. My mom, most of her family was plagued with addiction, especially her brothers. Both of her brothers

died. They were both alcoholics. They both died very young in their 40s. But she knew she could see the signs. She saw that I was very quickly going down that path that a lot of her family had went down. And she warned me about it, but she knew that you don't change for anybody else. You don't change for your mom. You don't change for your wife. You change for you. You have to be the one that admits to yourself, fuck, I've got a problem. If you change for you, you have to be the one that admits to yourself, fuck, I've got a problem.

And if I want to find any shred of dignity and happiness in this life, I've got to make that choice to change for me. Changing for somebody else is short-lived because if that person leaves, you're back at it. If that person pushes you away, you're back at it. But if you change for yourself, it doesn't matter if anybody else leaves you. If you change for yourself, nobody can take that away from you that's that's of all the things that i've conquered in this world that's the biggest accomplishment for me is changing for yourself yeah i changed tracks man i was down i was literally going down such a cliche fucking road for musicians right i was gonna be it was it was it was you could see it and i had the the fucking foresight to reach out of the fucking train car that was running out of out of track pretty fucking peaceful and it was hard it was hard to do it

the first couple of years were the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But now I'll have nine years sober August 31st of this year. Nine years in, I feel a lot in life.

I feel really good about my situation. And not just a career. Career aside, the career is great. I love having success in the music business. I love being able to take care of my band, my crew, my family, all because of the shit I make up in my living room. Um, but the real happiness comes from looking at like, holy shit.

Like you're just a better dude, but you're a better person. Like I can stand up and I can speak pretty loudly knowing that I've backed it up. I've walked the walk. I've talked the talk, but I've also backed it up for the last damn near a decade, and I feel really good about it. I'm going to fucking clap for you all day, BJ.

Let's fucking go. Let's fucking go. Thanks, man. I really do. It's such a beautiful story because a lot of people can't control their addictions,, a lot of people can't control their addictions. And a lot of people can't control their anger or whatever it is that's driving them wild.

And for you, you know, to keep growing, now that you have a kid, now you see the different light of your mom, you know, because she just dedicated her side of her happiness so you could have a great life. And now you're learning those lessons right like in the moment it's pretty amazing that's what i'm thinking is like is it hard to sing these new songs i mean these songs are fucking heavy bro is it hard to sing these or it's heavy but it also is i find a lot of solace in the fact that

every night i play these songs, it might be helping somebody else get through the same shit that forced me to write the song in the first place. There's a song on the new record called The First Year, and it's about the first year of losing my mom and going through all of the holidays. Christmas, my birthday, my parents' anniversary, watching how everybody reacted that first year. And I play it every night.

And I tell this really kind of long story about my mom every night. And it allows me to talk about her for like 15 minutes every fucking night. And so we play the whole 90-minute set, rock and roll. I don't talk much. It's just straight ahead. We play for like two hours, just rock set. And then I come back out for the encore, the acoustic guitar, and I'll play this song for my mom.

And it's like it gives everybody such a breather because we're going to work here for like two hours. And then I'm really going to emotionally punch you in the throat for this like 15 minutes yeah we're going to talk about shit needs to be talked about every night I play two songs one of them's always the song about my mom and then I play a song about addiction I play the song about like losing all of the band um the two songs I mentioned earlier that are my favorite lyrical songs I play them every night and we have like this 30 minute block of the encore where it's

therapy it's like by the end of of the encore where it's therapy. By the end of it, the whole crowd is fucking crying. The whole crowd is in tears because they felt something. Not only do they have like this really great like rock show, they also left with like this emotional weight either lifted or at least help. And so at the merch, as soon as I get off stage, I jump off stage every night and I go to the front of the room and I stand there at the merch table and I shake everybody's hand on the way out. I stand there and I shake hands and I take pictures and I sign shit until the last person's there. And every single one of them comes up to me and it's like, holy shit. Like I came to like sing along to the hits and I felt something like you made me cry you made my husband cry you made you made me realize i have a lot of shit i still have to deal with and like as a songwriter there's no better

feeling than that as a songwriter somebody telling you this shit that you wrote to get through the hard stuff is in turn helping me get through the hard stuff like that's the that's that's that's the that's the sauce man that's the reason why we're doing it right we're sharing it's shared therapy that's exactly what it is and i think that's what shows should be i think shows you should leave a show feeling something an array of feelings you should have this whatever weight you walked into that show with should be somewhat lifted when you walk out of the show even for fucking 30 minutes until you get back home reality sets back in that weight comes back down you you should leave a show floating right you should float out of that fucking venue feeling better than you came into it right and if and if you haven't i haven't done my job as a front man

if you haven't left feeling a little bit better than when you walked in right and there's plenty of shows i go to these days where i see some of my favorite bands they just don't put it in there they don't put that work in they don't they they're mailing it in they're going to give you that 90 minute set it's the same fucking set they played last night in des moines it's the same fucking set play tomorrow night in minneapolis like you're getting the same fucking set it's the same 10 songs if you feel something, if you don't feel something, we'll see you next time through town. And that's just not, I wouldn't be able to justify

charging a ticket price if I didn't know that, like I affected every one of those motherfuckers in the crowd. Yeah. Or like staying away from your family and doing the other 15 hours of the day of driving in the van.

If you're not going to full on have intention with the fucking show. I'm like that too, bro. Man, if I don't walk off the stage just a sweaty, dripping mess. Right. I didn't do it. I didn't do it right.

I didn't give you... If I just stand up there and play my acoustic guitar like some boring fucking folk singer, I didn't do my fucking job right. I didn't do my fucking job right. I fucking love you fucking job i fucking love you bj exactly i'm like that to intention it's like i if you're gonna phone it in i just want i'll listen to you in my car bro yeah i like i want you to question whether or not it's sanitary to give me a hug at the end of the show

like i want you to truly grapple with you let's fucking go i want you to grapple with the fact like holy shit it's gonna feel like i jumped in a swimming pool if i hug this motherfucker and you know and i want you to do that in february yeah i don't want you summer summer shows don't fucking count we all sweat in february i want you to be like that motherfucker gave it everything he had for two and a half hours and i was a part of something bigger than me for two and a half hours yeah like that's the that's the goal yeah i agree if you're not willing to give that to the fans fucking stay at home and give somebody yeah yeah if you get so fucking jaded to where you can't show up and give every ounce of who you are as a human being to your fans that pay 25, 30, 40, 50, a hundred dollars, get the fuck out of our way.

Exactly. All day. Yeah. Fuck BJ. We got to hang out, dude. This is like, you are like, we are like, we are too sympathical on this shit, you know? And okay. This brings up, I love that.

This is a good segue for this. You give it all out. You give it all out to the fucking crowd. You give it all out to the city. Then you see your payment from the show, and you see these venues taking 20% of your fucking merch. How much does that piss you off? For a long time, I was silent about it.

I was complacent about it. It was something that me and you would talk about on a podcast. Me and you would talk about catching up at a festival. We're like, man, fuck that place for taking 20%. But then I realized something.

I realized that fans have zero fucking idea it's being taken. And the truest way to give a band you love money is go to the merch table, hand them $25 for a t-shirt, and watch them put it in their pocket, and they give you a t-shirt. That table, hand them $25 for a t-shirt and watch them put it in their pocket.

And they give you a t-shirt. That's the truth. I go, when I pay it for a G or the club or the venue, but I know for a fact, I used to know for a fact that when I gave you 20 bucks for a t-shirt, that was going in your pocket. It was going to help you pay gas.

It was going to buy you a meal. It was going to help you take care of the band that surround you. Yep. So what I started doing was a lot of these clubs put it in the contract, you take care of the band that surround you yep so what i started doing was a lot of these clubs put it in the contract you know and it's unarguable it's like well if you don't want to pay the merch cut you can find somewhere else to play well guess what guy in random city there's only 1 000 cap room in there that we can play our our hands behind our back here like we don't have an option we're going to play your room we're going to pay it but i'm going to tell those fans that you're taking it yeah so i started printing out a sign

every night that says this is what the club is doing this is how much they're taking we had to raise prices if you don't want to pay that you can go online and buy it directly from us where 100 of proceeds goes directly to the band or you can pay this merch tax at a club that is not only taking a percentage of the door, but they're also taking 100% of the bar that they have raised the prices on. And so what we realized very quickly was after the first couple of,

because the first couple of venues were like, oh, we don't want that sign up. Like we'll waive it. I know it's in the contract, but we'll waive it if you don't put a sign up. And we're like, cool, we won't put that sign up. We'll waive it. I know it's in the contract, but we'll waive it if you don't put a sign up. And we're like, cool, we won't put a sign up. And then we got to a couple clubs that are like, fuck it, what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is Rolling Stone, No Depression, write articles and call me about said sign.

And then we blast that motherfucker across the internet. And everybody starts realizing that clubs are taking merchandise cuts from independent bands playing in front of 100 to 1,000 people every night. Right. And they're also selling $10 beers to 1,000 people each night, not giving the band a cut of that,

of which no one would be there to drink those overpriced beers if it wasn't for the fucking band standing on stage playing the songs that sold the tickets. Right. If you want to be a true business partner, why can't we share all revenue shares if that's how it's going to be i tell you what i'll give you 20 of my fucking merch if you give me 10 of your fucking bar

exactly exactly if i'm putting if i'm putting a thousand kids in your room and they're going to drink two of your ten dollar beers that's twenty dollars a head that's twenty thousand dollars you're making at the fucking bar minimum. And I don't get to cover that, but you're going to take 120 fucking bucks of my merch cuts that I'm obviously lying to you about because I'm doing my fucking social obligation and lying to you about whatever fucking merch cuts because you didn't have the fucking fortitude to hire a fucking person

to count in the merch, to have accurate numbers, to actually fucking report. You're just sticking out your hand at the end of the fucking night because you gave me some dimly lit corner of your shitty venue to sell the stuff that i produced i designed i transported i set up i paid somebody to sell and i had to break down get the fuck out of here yeah like that shit is intolerable no god damn it Bar in 2024 We're running for office, baby We're running for office So, okay, so, yeah Tell them to suck it from the back

Because I feel that way, too Like, your hands are tied, bros In some of these markets And with the live nations of the world Like, did anyone, like, say to you Hey, you need to chill with this Or, like, tell them to fuck off, you know We had some people threaten our booking agent to you hey you need to chill with this or like tell them the fuck off you know we had so we had

some people threaten our uh booking agent with uh like a breach of contract but then the the sign clearly states that we're gonna pay the merch cut we just wanted to let the consumer know that there was a cut yeah because i think you know in our our smart ass way is every sign starts off in the spirit of transparency we want to let our fans know that that $25 you're giving us, 5 of that dollars is going to somebody and that's not just 20% of our total merchandise that's also probably about 35-40% of the actual profit of the merch, the profit margins of the merch and these people didn't do anything to deserve it.

And I tell people very quickly, if we're playing a festival and somebody is willing to come to my bus, collect the containers, take it back, count it in, set it up, sell it, break it down, pack it up, and give me a check at the end of the night with a spreadsheet of what sold,

they deserve to be paid. They deserve to take a cut because they did a day's worth of work. but these clubs i so finally we got around it we travel with our own tables our own grates our own lights we use our own 5g networks we don't use their internet we don't need anything from the club to sell our fucking merch now it's fucking awesome and so and a lot of clubs now i'd say 90 of the clubs we play we're contractually obligated to play to pay them a lot of clubs now, I'd say 90% of the clubs we play, we're contractually obligated to pay them a percentage of merch. But since December when we started doing this, I would say less than 5% of clubs take the merch cut because they don't want the fucking sign. Right.

They don't want their consumers to know that they are stealing from the bands in the name of contractual obligation. What about big promoters like Live Nation or AEG? How do you tell them to say, fuck off? Live Nation has waved it. Every Live Nation room we've played has fucking waved it. My fucking freedom fighter over here,

BJ, let's fucking go, dude. And I say it every time I come in. It's get in line or get the sign, you know, and it's, it's, it's, it's easy. Like, do you like, and, and, and I question the people, I'm like, what does it say about your business practice that you're okay doing it without people knowing about it, but when they know about it, you don't want to do it anymore. What does that say about the ethics of your business practice? Exactly.

And I don't want to answer that question, but we're very fortunate. I'm not changing a lot of stuff because the next night they're going to go back to taking it from the band that isn't willing to speak up about it, that isn't willing to call them out. Because for the longest time, I needed every fucking dollar of that merch table to get to the next town. So I was afraid to say anything. I was like, if they're going to take 20%, like, you know, 20% of nothing's nothing.

So like me being able to sell anything here is going to put gas in the tank. It's going to help me pay these guys for the week. But I'm finally at a point where like, if I don't sell zero fucking merch,

my nuts covered. Fuck you. Like, I'll sell it. I'll sell it to them on the internet and pack it up when I get back home. How many more people started buying from the internet

since you've been telling people about that? Oh, dude, man. We're not even going to get into that. The first night we did it, the first night we did put up the sign and told people. We had 87 online orders when we walked off stage.

Oh, my God. You listen to this, Mo? My tour managers are like production manager. I'm telling them, so listen to this i would say probably my tour managers are like production manager i'm telling him like you listen to this shit dude i put i put a sign up every night and and now i'll put a sign up because some clubs are getting mad that i was they felt singled out and call it so now i'll put up a sign that says in the spirit of transparency we want to let you know this club is not taking any percent of a merch and that 100% of the money you spend here tonight will be given to the band. So I'll put up a good sign and a bad sign.

And we give the club a two-week notice when we're coming into town during the advance. We're like, listen, we know that we're contractually obligated to do this. We are more than willing to pay this. We are asking you out of the kindness of your heart to waive said tax. And that way we can put up a good sign and tell everybody that you were kind to American aquarium when they came through. If not, this is the sign we'll be putting up.

We give them that. We give them a two, we give them a two week notice. We give them a day before notice. We give them a day of notice and we give them a five minutes before doors open notice. And then after doors open, I make the post online.

So we sell sign posters every night. I post a picture. the post online so we sell sign posters every night i post a picture i post a picture of the sign poster every night and i post a picture of whatever sign we have up that night good or bad and so if it's bad then people start tagging the venue it's like fuck you why are you stealing from bands i thought you really supported independent artists fuck everybody but if it's good then it's like thanks so and so theater you're fucking incredible thanks for putting your money where your mouth is and supporting independent musicians in this trying time after the pandemic yeah and so you know i'll look at it this way i'm letting people know what's happening because i would say

if you weren't in a band you had no fucking idea this tax was being taken right yeah like clubs did clubs didn't advertise like hey we take merch cuts here you know right yeah so we started just telling fans whether or not the club was taking merch and very quickly especially after the articles got written the rolling stone article this the no depression article. Once those started getting written, then clubs started seeing us. They saw us coming from a mile away. It got to the point where we would pull up to a club and as soon as the bus parked, we'd get off the bus and the owner of the venue would be there shaking my hand and be like,

we just want to let you know that we're not taking a merch cut tonight. I don't know how that got in the contract, but we're waving it tonight. Like, we're really sorry about that. Like, please don't put up the bad sign. You're my favorite person, bro. You might be my favorite fucking person. I'm passionate about certain things. Because you care, right?

I have made a career off of being an independent musician. And if I see something that is unfair for not just myself, but unfair for the band that might be smaller than us, that doesn't have the ability to say, you know what? Fuck you guys. Fuck you for taking this money. This isn't fair. Then I'm going to speak up about it.

I'm always going to speak up. I've lost a lot of fans over the years for speaking up about my convictions. I stand pretty fucking tall in my convictions. And if I see something wrong, I'm going to talk about it pretty loudly. And that has pushed some people away. But it's brought a lot more people to the table. Because, again, the more comfortable you get with yourself, the more people walking away doesn't bother you as much.

What about that? Keep going. Yeah, you're totally right. Oh, you got it, man. You got it. I was thinking about that song you have about the Trump supporter. Did that chew away a lot of people? Yeah.

I'd say I started writing pretty political in 2018. I don't think that's a coincidence. That's when my daughter was born is when I started making a lot bigger social observations. And one of the reasons I think subconsciously that I started writing about that, I never, ever want my daughter to grow up and say, hey, dad, you had a platform to say something about insert whatever thing happened in the country, and you didn't. I never want my daughter to think I was a coward in the name of a couple extra Instagram followers, a couple extra ticket sales, a couple extra fucking streams. I want her to know that no matter whether I lost fans or gained fans, dad, whatever he thought was right, he might not have always been right, but whatever he thought was right, he was loud about it, and he used his platform to push what he believed in. If my, if that's the one thing my daughter gets to give in my eulogy is my dad stood up for the shit that mattered to him and he didn't back down to anybody. I fucking parent of the year. I fucking won. Right. And I

never want my daughter to ever think her father was a coward because I needed a couple of extra Twitter followers. I never want her to think that that like and i'm pretty vocal on twitter and instagram if like somebody comes to me and tells me that i'm not entitled to my opinion or i should shut up and sing or fucking we pay for your songs not your opinion asshole i'm pretty vocal with those guys i'll drag them through the fucking town square and hang them up on the fucking fence post let's fuck go what songwriters are such pussies these days. Man, it's frustrating. And I get it.

People ask, my favorite insert, whatever, top 40 country artist doesn't talk about his politics, and that's what I like. It's because he's afraid of losing a couple dollars. He's afraid of losing a Bud Light sponsorship. He's afraid of a couple thousand people not showing up to the Enormo Dome this summer

to hear that one song about fucking trucks. Like, when you stay in the middle and you don't ever fucking take a stand for anything, you're not going to piss either side off. So many people stay in the middle of the pool where

that safety rope is, and they just float the rest of their fucking career delivering milquetoast shit the rest of their fucking life. The people that I tend to gravitate toward, the people that I tend to associate myself with, are the people that fucking no floaties on. Let's jump in the fucking deep end because that looks fucking fun. Take fucking chances and do the shit that makes you happy. or not it's going to appease everybody say the shit that you need to say whether or not it's going to appease everybody right and what i learned though is like that's the trash taking itself out man like for every fucking person we lost when i started getting pretty political about what i believed in and i don't even think it's political

the stuff i was talking about wasn't hyper-political. It was just about being a good human. It was about being a better person. Red team, blue team can associate it however they want to, but I was writing songs about just being a better father, being a better person, giving my daughter the rights as everybody else should have. And people took that politically. And if they walked away, then they walked away. Like, the trash takes itself out. The garden weeds itself. Like, I learned that more people came to the table

because of me being pretty outspoken than left the table. For every one person, like, unfollowed or, I'm never going to follow you again, there's two people that came to the table. Right. For every one person, like, unfollowed or, I'm never going to follow you again, there's two people that came to the table and said, finally, a fucking redneck that is willing to yell as loud as he can about the shit that matters. Right. Thank God, BJ.

Thank fucking God. It's important that people that sound like me break that fucking stereotype. They were all fucking dumb idiots that the support a certain thing it's like you can still sound like this you can still fucking slow down your fucking vowels and still be a good human being um you can still you can still deep fry everything and have fucking empathy and compassion um you're fucking right god damn clapping it I'm clapping. It's Daniel Vance's top 10 interview of all time. Top 10.

Top fucking 10. We got to do this again, dude. I really feel like we're simpatico on a lot of these things and we got to be friends, bro. I'm going to text you my number on Instagram.

Please do, man. Because, you know, we're fighting the same thing. You know, it's like I grew up in the punk scene and I grew up, you know, do it like, I grew up in the punk scene and I grew up, you know, do-it-yourself where I had to,

I Craigslist musicians in every fucking city for the first five years and I just lived in a van doing 250 shows a year. I, that's, this, I completely agree with all the values

of this do-it-yourself and not just chasing the rabbit's tail to get famous shit. This is our livelihood. This is what we do. We're trying to be authentic to ourselves and give out

not just cookie-cutter bullshit. I'm just thankful you're on this fight too, bro. Man, the people that sell out to get to the top of the mountain quicker don't realize that as soon as you get to the top of the mountain, the next step is going down the mountain. They're willing to sell every fucking shred of value and morals they have to get famous. But the next step after famous is playing the fucking Tuscaloosa chili cook-off for the next three years.

It's all downhill. Yeah. It's all, it's all like, once you realize that you sold everything you stood for, you're literally tumbling down a hill. And not only do you not have the respect of the people, but then you're never going to get back to that point. You sold it all to begin with. Right. So I'll look at it as long as you're true to yourself, as long as you're true to the shit you believe in, and every year you're still going uphill, you haven't started going downhill yet.

It's like I'm not going to be as famous as, insert, whatever top 40 country singer is, but I have a career. I get to go to any town in america and play in front of a couple hundred kids that fucking live and breathe the words that i write down on paper like right i've made it i'm if it never gets any more successful than this i'm able to not only give my wife and my kid a good life i'm able to give 10 of the people in my band and crew their wife and kids good lives i'm able to we able to like, if it never gets any bigger than this, like, fuck it. Yeah. Like I get to go to sleep every night knowing I didn't have to give up a single shred of myself to be where I am right now.

And if the only reason I'm at where I'm at right now is because I still have every shred of myself intact. I didn't sell it to anybody. I didn't give it up to take one more step on the fucking ladder. Because guess what? If you're willing to keep it and be true to who you are, that step, it might be five years down the road, but you're still going to take that step. And when you take that step, it's going to feel so much fucking better knowing that you did it on your own terms. You took that step on your own fucking bedrock of values like that's that's far more important than at the end of the day being like well how many steps do you have on the ladder

it's like well how many steps did you fucking take and not give up anything asshole yeah i mean dick you know suck let's get to that point kind of to be honest you know i'm i look and it's easy to say that now i'm 17 years into this thing. I own my own record label. I own 100% of every master and publishing right to every song I've ever fucking put into the world. Let's fucking go. It's easy to say that now it's easy to say that when you have this completely do it yourself thing you've built and it's, it's built up to the point.

Like it's hard to tell it to the kid one year in trying to crowdfund his first fucking record that like, you got to stay true to you, man. You got to take every step one at a time. It's easy for me up here on step six or seven. But what I want to tell that kid is there's still fucking 30 steps above me. How high is high enough? How high do you want to be? Like how high is high enough?

Yeah. Like how, like how high, how high do you want to be? Like if you're willing to put in the time and you're willing to put in the hard work, I am a firm believer that there is no way you can fail. If every day you wake up trying to write the best songs, you can have the best band you can and put on the best show you can.

There is zero fucking way you fail in this business. Because if you try that hard every fucking day to be the best version of your songwriting self, your performing self, your band leader self, you are going to get better every fucking day to be the best version of your songwriting self your performing self your band leader self you are going to get better every fucking day and eventually one person takes notice and guess what one person takes notice two people then four then eight then 16 then 100 then 200 then 400 and eventually you're 17 years into it playing being able to do it on your own fucking terms like that's that's that's i wish I could shake these kids signing fucking five record deals in

perpetuity when they're 19. Yeah. Signing these five album deals to a label. That's just going to drop you after the second label. And then the second record, like they don't understand that this isn't the music industry is different than this. Everyone has this idea.

Oh, I want to tell every single kid, believe in yourself and only surround yourself with the people that believe in you as much as you do right well that's going to keep your circle extremely small but that means that the purple people that are in your small circle are the fucking ride or die they're the people that are going to go to war with you and until there is nothing to to promote they're going to promote it yeah um exactly it's it's again it's easy you know as i'll i'm clearly viewing 20 years in the music

business coming up on me quickly it's easy to say that from where i am now but i've i've been that way since day one no but they heard clearly they They hear your story though, bro. It took seven years of addiction. It took five years of realization. It took 36 band members. I mean, that whole story in itself is the reason why we can authentically say after 17 years, you are just doing you and you're completely yourself. And to that, I salute you, Big Daddy. Thanks, brother. I appreciate that. You're the fucking man, B. that, I salute you, big daddy. Thanks brother. I appreciate that. You're the fucking man beat dude.

I've been waiting for this goddamn moment, bro. You, I knew you'd be like this and I fucking knew it. And I, I'm thankful that there's people in this industry who fight like our band fight. So thanks so much for being part of the show.

And, um, are you coming out to Denver anytime soon? Or I would love to catch your show. We were just there. We were at the blue bird, uh, like two weeks ago. I guarantee, show and um are you coming out to denver anytime soon or i would love to catch your show we're we're just there we're at the bluebird uh like two weeks ago i guarantee you're on i guarantee you're on the road yeah i was um fuck we're we're we're back uh we're in boulder at the fox theater in december all right perfect um i'll be there we'll hang out but i'll talk before that we're gonna

talk about i'll give you my number and uh let's just shoot the shit. I'll slide into your DMs. Send me your number. You know, and it might not be a hot girl, but at least it's a Jewish kid with an afro who's going to slide into your DMs. Fuck yes. Fuck yes.

BJ, thanks for being on the show, man. Go enjoy your kid and keep finding the good fight, bro. I'm here for you. Andy, I appreciate you having me brother cheers bro have a good night be good we'll see you later you tuned in to the world's 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. Presco'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 helped 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.

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