Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - Mark Wystrach on Midland's Wild Early Years, Near-Death Experiences and More

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

From the archives: Midland frontman Mark Wystrach joins Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about the reality behind life in a successful band. This episode is brought to you by JamCut.IO (https://jamcut.io/). If you're a musician and you're tired of making clips all the time, check these guys out! Mark talks about Midland nearly falling apart during its early years, the fights and conflict that came with three strong personalities trying to build a career together, and why the music ultimately kept them together. He also gets into the brutal touring schedule, balancing life on the road with being a husband and father, and why the fantasy of the "rock star lifestyle" is a lot different from actually living it. The conversation gets even deeper as Mark opens up about his history with drugs and alcohol, growing up around addiction, and the lessons he took from seeing the darker side of it firsthand. He also shares two terrifying stories that changed the way he looks at life: being stranded in extreme desert heat after blowing a tire on his Harley, and suffering a massive heart-related medical emergency in his early 20s that left his heart functioning at roughly 25% for a period of time. Those experiences helped push him toward pursuing music and living life on his own terms.

Mark, how you doing, buddy? I'm good, dude. Look at these antlers about me. Let's get that in the brain. Rick, yeah. You wouldn't think that you're actually in San Francisco. I know. I could have swore you were in Amarillo, Texas.

Check this place out. Holy shit. Holy shit. So it's this old inn and I'm just sitting out here. And then we're just, uh, we're basically at the, the mere beach. So the beach is just like a three minute walk from here. Whoa. Very cool.

You want a little vacation? I'm on a mini vacation. My wife has an office in San Francisco. So I've been gone for three and a half months straight. I've barely seen my kids. Oh, my God. I figured we'd all just fly to San Francisco together. We run it an Airbnb in Mill Valley.

Oh, yeah. The super cool old mid-century house that's up in the Muir Woods. And, yeah, it's amazing. This place is built out of stone with these gigantic windows overlooking the redwood trees. And, yeah, we're just out of here kind of the tree. exploring San Francisco. That's cool.

I might have to move here for my wife's work. Oh, no. Yeah, how hard is it to make your wife happy when you're on the road three to half months a year? That's why I'm doing this interview. Can you go do an interview? I'm like, go, go, get out of here. I needed, I needed to add another trip to my schedule. Like, I needed another asshole.

But it is really beautiful. and I don't really know this part. I used to live in Southern California for a long time, and I've traveled around California quite extensively, both touring and before that. But I don't really know the San Francisco Coast Rail, and it is gorgeous. Once you're out of the city, it's unbelievable.

Yeah, man, I grew up in Los Angeles, the Calabasas area. I went to college in SF State. And I left, like, when I was 19, so when I came back, I'm like, oh, shit, I forgot how pretty. California is. Sort of the most beautiful place in the countries.

It's fucking crazy. I'm from northern Indiana. Yeah, I'm in the California. Not quite the same. Indiana's cool, too. You know, one of the surprises of my summer was how much I enjoyed going to Iowa. I haven't been to Iowa in like four years.

And yeah, it was pretty exceptional. What part? Oh, man. We started with a hard-hitting question. I don't remember. I just know it was in Iowa. It was, I could look at my tourist schedule, but it was quite nice.

My first question is, what, what has more drama, being in a soap opera or keeping a band together? Oh, keeping a band together, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. How long, how, how, soap opera is scripted. Soap opera was scripted that lasted for about it was the months and then I quit. It was, you know, it was tough being a struggling artist and making it. money but then yeah basically despising what you did but you know it was a better paycheck than

bartending uh till three in the morning at night and uh but it was a great learning experience you know how to try to make art out of rather uh rudimentary you know writing on a daily basis so it was it was a fun training going for me but that experience really galvanized my decision to kind of really pursue music. For me, it's always been, you know, I've always been interesting in the arts, but, you know, acting is something I'm still very passionate about. I'm actually doing a TV show right now. Oh, cool.

And music. So they've always been, hand in hand, always been fascinated with film. And I'm a big, I guess I'm a big film buff. I think all of my bandmates are. Yeah. But they've always gone and kind of gone hand in hand. But that experience in the soap opera is what really, it really, it really, really split the switch that you don't really have very much control when it comes to acting,

taking direction. There's not a ton of collaboration. And you feel like you're just kind of, you know, you're literally living somebody else's words and their action. So with music, the beautiful thing about it is you can take something that's stuck in your, in your heart, in your mind, and you can spend some time working it out. And then all of a sudden it becomes this living, breathing, breathing thing that you can't touch but you can feel and has probably one of the biggest impacts out of anything and of any art form in the world.

You know, music is universal. It's a part of every ancient culture, you know, singing music, rhythm, all that stuff is in there. So there's something really powerful about music. But yeah, being in a band, especially in the earlier days, you know, it's not easy when you have essentially three, you know, three singers. and three strong-willed, strong-minded, strong opinion, artists in a group together. And then you add commerce and all of that. And, yeah, it can be complicated at times.

But it's the most successful relationship I've had. You know, the band's been together now for 10 years. I've known these guys for shit over 16 hours. I'm assuming I can curse on this. Oh, yeah. You can say whatever you want. Yeah, because I want to start getting into the times running you guys want to beat each other's ass.

Yeah, well, I'm not going to gratuitously just start throwing the word fuck around, but yeah, there was a lot of, there was a lot of, you know, motherfucking back in the day. Yeah. And I feel like everybody's throwing a punch at one another, you know, in all the different

sequences that are possible. Just punching Cameron, Cameron punching Jess. Me punching Cameron and me punching Jeff. Me punching both Cameron and Jess at the same time. It's like a Marvel movie. But you know, through that, yeah, what's powerful about it is

the music has always been the most important thing. And that is what really forged a brotherhood because we really cared about the music. So it forced us to learn how to navigate conflict, which is part of any relationship, as you guys know. And I think we've gotten really good. good. And, you know, there's that old saying you should never go to have been angry. Well, with us,

like, we won't let anger persist for like more than hours. So if you want to, you know, everybody's going to lose their shit sometime. Yeah. Now we just kind of, you know, we just get right to it. Hey, man, what's going on with it? You know, you want to sit down and talk about it. It ends up being really therapeutic. And it's actually, we're at the healthiest place. We as as collaborators and those bandmates, I think that

we're, we've been, you know, into 10 years that we've been group. So you ever good times right now? Any years where you thought it was going to be, because I've been with my band for 15 years and we fight all the time. But any years where you remember distinctly that this thing might be over? Oh, man.

Every other year. At the very beginning, 2014, 2015, a good part of 2016, most of 2017. Yeah, of course. Like, you know, I think in the early days especially, you know, we were, we were running pretty wild, I feel like, especially I was, you know, before I got married and had kids. And, you know, and I think when you had drugs and alcohol in the situation, I think that it was exacerbates, you know, little things into big things. So, yeah, of course. I mean, I think there's been those moments.

But again, I think knowing that what we have is pretty special is you guys now. I mean, most bands and most artists, their chances of survival and succeeding are even less than, you know, your local coffee shop that opens, your local boutique. Most of these businesses end up failing. And most groups and collaborations and musical projects end up, you know, going extinct rather quickly. So if you can make music that you really care about, I always say this, and I think

I coined it. I might have borrowed it from somebody. We'll give it to you. But I always say that, you know, we make the music. Yeah, I'm going to just take it. We make the music that moves us that helps people move through their life, the good times and the bad. So I think the music is really

the thing that is the therapeutic aspect of it that ends up kind of keeping us together. You know, I just, we just have that, there's that kizmet, there's that magic with the three of us and the music that we write, produce, and perform live together. I just, I like it, you know. And if I didn't like it, I want to beat it. And I think that Jess and Cam feel the same way. Is it harder?

There's that, there's that, you know, there's that rock solid belief in the music that we're making. It keeps it going. Yeah. Well, you talk about control. As the band gets more successful, is it harder? to stay in control. Do you want to be on the road three and a half months a year?

That's something you need to do. Or 10 months a year. I'm on tour 250 shows a year. So I don't feel like I have control. We're right there with you. In the early days, we were doing, you know, including radio performances and going on a radio promo tour. I think there was a year that we actually did like 400 performances.

in a year or something like that. I mean, it was crazy. So, you know, yeah, and I started getting like vocal nodules and stuff like that. And, you know, the lifestyle didn't probably help things. And then we went on COVID and that was like the break that we needed. So, no, you know, I think the idea for us is as success that we don't feel that we've achieved yet is having a luxury. of not having a tour all the time. But as you guys know, you know, the streaming services sure and hell aren't paying

any record. No. Yeah. So the only way you're making money is through ticket sales and through merch. So you've got to go and you've got to hit the highway. That's the only way you can do it. You know, we travel a lot. So, yeah, we're still not there.

I mean, the dream would be to tour for three and a half months out of the year. You just tour like the summer. Stirkitt. Part-time jazz. Yeah, just like just three months. We're nowhere near that. As, yeah,

three months. I know. I love, I see that too. I, we interviewed Van Zant. He's like, the key to a successful band

to play every other day. I'm like, you're in Bruce Springsteen's man. Brinstein, bro. Like, we can't just play every fucking ever. We're not selling out the giant stadium. Yeah.

Want a healthy lifestyle. Yeah. Just be super famous. It's all you have to do. I mean, His nickname is Miami Steve. I mean, for somebody named Miami, Steve,

he's going to say that. By the way, I'm the biggest fan of Van Zan and Bruce Springsteen and the East Street band. I was so blown away by his documentary. I don't know if you guys have seen it. I haven't seen it. A few months ago, we watched her in the bus a couple of times.

It is filled with absolute gems and little nuggets and things that you learn about that whole music. scene that was going on in the late 60s and 70s. And how much of art that, you know, that he was in almost even creating Bruce Springsteen sound in the East Street Sound Show. He's a, he's a fascinating artist. And he's a guy that's also balanced, you know, the different, yeah, the disciplines of art, you know, whether it be writing, producing, performing, you know, acting, painting,

you name it. I think that for me, that's, I know my bandmates are both the same way. Cameron's become quite the artist and quite the painter. And Jess is actually quite talented at sketching and painting. Cameron's a writer and a director. Jess designs clothes. And I think everybody has there,

the outlets that end up complimenting the music and inspiring. Because, you know, you've got to tap into a well and that well has got to be fed by something. And it can't just be, you know, music, music all the time. You've got to go and live life. You've got to do other things that trigger inspiration. Yeah. So for me, I think the variety is the key.

The variety is the spice of life. You got to go drinking a pub in San Francisco sometime. Yeah, sometimes. Put me down to them. How do you, you know, it seems like you just, you live your life making everyone else happy. What do you do to make yourself happy? Exercise. Exercise. Exercise is crucial.

Yeah, I exercise and actually eat really well. I do all that so I can, number one, I can stay young for my kids. And number two, so I can drink because I love drinking. I love, hell yeah. So I'm like a, I'm a very healthy drinker I would sell.