Bandsplain - INTERVIEW: J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.

Episode Date: October 29, 2026

This week Yasi is joined by the man, the myth, the legend: J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. They get into their shared love for Gilmore Girls, biking around the neighborhood listening to Howard Stern, ideas for a debut feature film (Hollywood, listen up!), and of course, Dino’s beautiful new record, ‘There Near'.Listen to Dinosaur Jr.’s ‘There Near’Subscribe on YouTubeCREDITS:Host: Yasi SalekGuests: J Mascis @jmascisProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany CosentinoLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For 50 years, Canadians have wondered what the names of IKEA furniture mean. Like Natopa, the guardrail for children's beds. Natopa means giving your favorite person room to grow. It means their safety and your piece of... No. In Swedish, Natapa means night monkey. Mark! IKEA, 50 years of Swedishness at home.

Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So cute. What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplain? Hello and welcome to Bandsplane. I am your host, Yossi Salick. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist,

but today's episode is a little different. Today I am talking to an iconic artist himself. Jay Maskus of the band Dinosaur Jr. Welcome to the show, Jay. We could discuss a cult band We can Do you want to just Really pivot

I'm happy to do it What would you want to talk about? I don't know where it's going Anyway so you tell me I don't want to freak you out But we did do a dinosaur junior episode And my document of research is 77 pages long Okay

Today I texted Our mutual friend Patty Shemwell And I was like I'm interviewing James Casca-Mil nervous Do you have any guidance And then she was like Why don't you ask about this And I was like

Wow I did our know all of this stuff because I did so much research and I guess I didn't need to ask you. But she says hello. Yeah, we just had a pitchfork article came out that was kind of like that. I think it was 77 pages. I read it. 80 hours of interviews. Grayson Haver-Kurren has been on this podcast and I asked him.

He's very thorough. He's very thorough. You guys rode bikes together. That sounded fun. I don't think Lou is happy with it, but that's fun. Lou has also been on this podcast. a while ago. He told me a story about writing a song after hanging out with Evan Dando

that was quite interesting. I'm going to offer you the option of three topics for us to open up the conversation. And you can choose. Skateboarding videos. The new dinosaur junior album, which is the 13th one, and it's called There Near, came out in August.

or cinema. I know, it's tough. Some boring topics. Boring! Boring! Okay, conspiracy theories? Geez, I guess the album? Your manager's outside being like, good job.

Well, I love the album. I don't know, honestly, if I have a lot to ask about it, because I don't know tons about guitars or pedals, and I know you don't like to talk about lyrics. But I guess I can ask, the album to me, like, I love it. And it has, I hate to say the word because it's so corny and cheesy, so please forgive me, but, like, return to form.

Like, it sounds like the best possible expression of a 2026 dinosaur junior album. And I did read that you guys, you like, went back to the amp that you. used on the first album. Was there like anything in your mind that you were like, oh, like, kind of want to like go back to our roots? Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, I've been, you know, buying gear and listening to stuff for so long and get the perfect guitar sound. I was just kind of like, I think I'm sick of the perfect guitar sound. Maybe I'll go back to kind of like the guitar sound we used to have and see what that's like. Yeah. You played drugs. famously first and in deep wound do you still have that sweater by the way that your mom

made you from I hope so unless you know I'm really obsessed with that I hope I hope it should be in a museum somewhere and you started writing songs for deep wound yeah is that was that kind of the impetus to play guitar like more formally like in a more of like a I'm gonna take this over because you write songs more on guitar than on drums Yeah, I definitely wanted to write songs. And, you know, from a small town, the pool isn't that big of people who play guitar. I didn't like any of the guitar players in town. Yeah.

And I figured, since, yeah, I was writing songs. And I felt like I'd had so many drum lessons. I feel like I could teach somebody how to play drums. Right. I couldn't teach somebody how to play guitar like I wanted to hear. So I just thought, you know, hardcore's over. Let's just do something else. And just pivoted to guitar.

And, you know, my friend was a great guitar player, you know, and he's like, you wanted me to join his band on drums. He's like, why should we have two mediocre bands? We could have one good band if we'd get together. And I'm just like, I couldn't really. Ants room, I guess, was like, well, I just, I don't know. It sounds like there wasn't too mediocre bands. There was one really good one and one other one.

Not in his mind. Never is in their mind. Okay, what happened between Mogo's Flute and Dinosaur? Like, was that not the first name of the band? Mogo. Oh, just Mogo. But oddly enough, someone brought that book Mogo's flute to the show last night. And gave it to us.

It was pretty weird. That's someone, perhaps they listened to this podcast where I talked about Mogo and Mogo's flute in the book. Yeah, I was looking at the book and it looked creepy sometimes. I was like, here, do you want this song? No. Okay, do people give you a lot of weird gifts? No. Do people bring you streetwear since they know you like it?

No. Never? Not really. Wow. Do you have, are you like an online shopper or do you are even more, oh yeah, full? fully online, not really in person. Yeah, there's nowhere to go where I am. We have a home goods now, you told me in the hallway.

Yeah, the home goods. I mean, like if I go some other town, I'll go to the Adidas original store or something. Do you like vintage stuff? Like, is this shirt that you're wearing vintage? No, it's new. Oh, it's so nice. It looks like it could totally be vintage. Yeah.

Do you know the brand? No, my wife gave it to me. You'll have to ask her. Okay. Well, to ask Louise after. It's very nice. We did an episode about music of skateboarding videos with Jerry Sue, and I did like, I grew up on skate videos, so like that was a way for me to find music. But I was just really, there's a database.

I can remember the name of right now that kind of documents all the songs used in skate videos. And Dinosaur Jr. had the most out of any other artist. Oh, wow. Which I thought was really interesting. I guess, like, do you have any sense or do you remember, like, how that first kind of came about? You like friends? Okay. Yeah, we met Neil Blender on the bug tour.

Yeah. And I became friends with him. And he's the one that kind of got all the dino songs and skate videos because he started using it and he's cool. So other guys want to use it. Yeah. They're trying to emulate him. So it was all from Neil Blender. And he was just like, oh, well, Jay's my homie.

I can ask him and he'll say yes for us to use it. Well, I don't know that anyone. I never asked anything. I mean, maybe they asked Greg and maybe they didn't. Right. But I had no. When people are like, oh, your song's an escape video. I was like, no one ever told me.

I don't know. Our engineer, Jamie, informed me before this that he first heard Dinosaur Jr. In the Sinbad film, was it house sitter? Oh. Yeah. And I was like, that's... What happened to Sinbad? I don't know.

That's such a great question. He was pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't remember being asked about the Sinbad film. House party? No, house sitter. I think it was house sitter.

They use freak scene. No idea. House guest. House guest. Thank you, Jamie. Do you watch a lot of movies? Yeah. Yeah.

We live right near a movie theater we can walk to, which is good. It's like an artsy one so we can see all the artsy movies. It's fun to be able to walk. to a movie theater. So great. Being able to walk anywhere is so great. Anything you saw lately that you were like really into? What was that one?

Sarat. Oh, yeah, I didn't see it. I heard it was really good. That was good. I love that movie. But that was a little while ago. Devastating, right? Just up my alley.

You know, it's the kind of movie. Some of the scenes are I've thought of for movies that I want to make, just random, kind of random violence that doesn't have any mean, you know, that just comes out of nowhere. Yeah. I like that kind of thing. You, you want to make films? No, I just thought of one movie I was going to make, yeah.

Oh. Do you, like, write, did you write a script, or it's just sort of, like, floating in your mind? Oh, no. It's all of people. Yeah. No. I feel like I would love to see the J. Mascus movie, whatever is floating in your mind. Yeah, I think it would be good.

It's mostly just like this, people sitting in a diner talking. The best kind of movie. And then, you know, that maybe the waitress comes up and her arm falls off and nobody says anything about it. It's like a little surreal. And they keep talking. And they keep talking. And so it's like, it's just a conversational film with random bits of body horror and violence. Yeah, that's part of it.

I like the, I like the idea of just random body parts falling off. Yeah. Especially when it's not scary. It's just, like, ban off. Yeah. Do you, are you a horror movie guy? Do you like them? It is the season.

Certain ones I love. I don't, I wouldn't say as a genre, but I guess some of my favorite movies are, you know, basket case. Yeah. Yeah, but I haven't followed all the new. Sure. My kid has watched all these crazy new horror movies. I don't know much about it. Is he really into horror movies?

Just the normal amount of kids. Just the normal. Does he like music? Yeah. I'm like really obsessed with what young people like because I feel now kind of disconnected from it, no matter what I do. like I'm not, I'm 44.

So does he ever, does he bring you music to, like, show you to be like, check this out, I like this? Yeah. Do you find that you tend to like it or do you tend to be like, I don't know about this? It just really depends on the song, yeah. He's always interested in why I don't like this or why I do like that. I'll go, yeah, this is pretty good. Is there anything that he brought you recently that you were like, oh, this is so good I wouldn't

have known about it if you hadn't brought it to me. Yeah, but I never remember what it is. I just go, yeah, that's cool. It's all rap kind of based up. Yeah, oh, he likes rap music. Yeah, but now he's also throws in some indie rock is mixed in as he's gotten older with his friends and everything just kind of mixed up. And I don't know how it works with TikTok, but just songs kind of, yeah, I don't know how

they get into anything, but they are into stuff. some stuff. It's really interesting because I like, again, I feel like I'm only old man yelling at the clouds because I'm not 18, but like I see it that like these songs get really big on TikTok and often they're really old songs, you know, like old shoegaze or whatever. Yeah. But from what I can tell, most of the kids don't, like they don't find this song and then be like, I've got to find out everything. Like I'm sure you were like that too. Like when I was a kid, like you hear one black flag song, for example, and you're like, I don't know more about this band. Like, I'm going to go, like, find whatever I can't. But they seem to not do that. They're just fine with

the one song. Yeah, that's interesting. I haven't thought about that. Yeah. I don't, I don't know why. Or if it's, maybe it's too easy to get the information now. So it's like just not as satisfying. I really don't know. Yeah, it's hard to know how anything works. It's totally hard to. At the Dinosaur Junior shows that you've been playing recently, what's the like age range in the audience? I think there's all the ages. Yeah, like young people, like pretty young people too. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've noticed a lot of young people, which is cool.

Yeah. So, I mean, I remember when I was like 15 and saw John Lee Hooker or something, he was like 80 or whatever. And I was into that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I do find like, Dinosaur Jr.

is like kind of timeless in a way. Like, did you ever think that that would be the case when you were making it? No, but I can understand like, I get kind of the sense, you know, with all the, every, you know, when you watch a band, sometimes at festivals, I'll watch a band, I can't hear anything. There's no sound coming out. coming out of the stage. It's all like in-ear monitors and no amps. And it's so weird, like, where's the music? It's like some sound man is creating it, I think.

Just because we have amps and we don't have click tracks and we don't have in-ear monitors, there's some more reality to it that kids are craving or something. It feels different than what's going on. It's a really visceral experience, and I feel like I always love that going to shows growing up that you can feel in your body, the music, as well as like see the people and hear it. Yeah, I can see kids craving that. I'm sure it's like it's a longer conversation, but I'm sort of tied to like that they're so detached from reality because of so much technology. Yeah. Whatever it is.

Yeah. Good for them, I guess. Were you allowed to get candy when you were a child? Sure. Really, even with your dentist, dad, he wasn't like, we are going to limit the candy in the house. No, if you heard the saying, like, you know, the cobbler son has no shoes. It's more of that scenario. Right.

My mom had to make appointments under fake names because he didn't want, you know, the work was more his happy place. He didn't want to think about his, I don't know, his family here. A little bit. You know, at home he didn't talk or anything. He's just quiet and at work. He's like the life of the party and... The party that is going to the dentist. For him, it was, yeah.

I was like, he's always singing. He was the singing dentist. He'd hum along to Musac, but... So you can't go to another dentist, but he doesn't, you can't go to him either, so your teeth just rot, so that's... It's rough. rough. That's a problem. It's not really not ideal.

And your mom was an avid golfer. Did you pick that up from her? Yeah. Yeah. And my grandma, too, her mom. That's so cool. It's such like an elegant sport, I feel like, for a woman to play. Are you neighbors with Frank Black from the Pixies, and do you guys see each other? Yeah, he used to live on my street, but he moved to the next town, but his ex-wife still lives on my street.

a different house. They had two houses on my street. The ex-wife bought one, and then they had their old one. And they had their old one. For a certain type of man, I feel like that street is like Mecca. Do you know what I mean? Like, imagine like you accidentally ended up living on the same block as Jay Maskus and Franklin Beck from the Fixies. Well, it was kind of like the fancy street in town. When I was growing up, I remember my country. Cousins new wife's mom lived on Lincoln Avenue. We'd never met her. And we know it's before I lived on Lincoln Avenue. Yeah. And she was like going to us, well, I live on Lincoln Avenue.

Like it was like some big... Excuse me. It's like, whoa. Yeah. It's pretty strange. And now you live there and you can be like, yeah, it's pretty cool. nothing to write home about to brag that way but it's pretty cool yeah it's good you can walk to the movie theater and you guys bike a lot well i know you're you're like a big biker you use strava and

yeah i'm really good into what do you listen to music when you bike around no i listen to howard stern oh great and now that he doesn't do much i have to venture into some podcasts what podcast do you listen to if you don't mind sharing what do i listen to uh Or like, what's the topic that you're, you go towards? Just celebrities, I guess. Or like interviews. Yeah, interviews. Like Mark Marin or, I guess he doesn't really make podcasts anymore.

He doesn't do that anymore. He doesn't do that anymore. He went to some pay thing that I didn't follow. I don't know where he is. Oh, like a behind a paywall. Yeah, so I lost touch with, but, uh, Bob lefts it sometimes. Oh, sure. Yeah, legend.

Yeah. I don't know. I have a few in my, I just look at who's the guests. Yeah. If you're interested, then you check it out. Yeah. And that's because now Howard's only one day a week, so it's not much content. Yeah.

Especially if you're biking every day. Yeah. I like, I really like music when I bike because I think it's probably quite dangerous, actually, because I like to, not here anyways, nobody really bikes here, but if I'm in, like, London or New York, I like to bike. And I like to put my headphones in and listen to music, and I feel like it's probably dangerous. But it just feels so good because you're, like, in motion,

and then you have, like, this beautiful music in your ears. It feels like I'm going to feel. Yeah, now I just use a speaker and put it on my bike because the earphones can really make my tinnitus worse. Right. I feel like the speaker, it's mixing it. into the world. The ambience.

Yeah. So if you're in Amherst, Massachusetts, you might catch J. Mascus on his bike booming some Howard Stern. Yeah, and somehow there's some, sometimes there's some offensive language coming out of Howard Stern. You're driving by some people.

You're not sure how it's going to go over. Like an elementary school or something. No, I don't worry about the more like older people. Right. Yeah. Oh my God, I was in, I go to a weightlifting class. So it's like weightlifting, but it's a class.

It's very nice for... I need that. It's really great. I know, again, I don't know what goes on in that scene in Amherst, Massachusetts, but we have a couple here. Yeah. And they have, they play music, right? All, actually very loud. And one day, they were playing closer by 9-inch Nails, unedited version.

And I remember just kind of being like, I don't, I don't care. I'm not approved. However, the class is very... mixed ages and types of people and I was like surely someone's going to say something and then like two weeks later it happened again and some woman like flagged over the teacher and was like I think that's not appropriate really I mean it's it's a pretty hardcore song lyrically and it's like it's eight in the morning you know yeah I guess I'm offended by other things more musically than lyrically sure like music being corny and cheesy is more

more offensive to you. I'm not offended. It's just more that I don't want, it's like watching porn with like a random man I don't know who's like 65 lifting weights next to me. It's just like lightly uncomfortable, you know? That sounds very uncomfortable. Yeah. Well, we weren't doing that, but I guess that could happen too. Did you ever think like when, when Mogo started, were you not going to be the singer? I was not going to be. Charlie with Donogima was. going to sing right did you sing before that like just even to yourself or in the shower or anything no just back up vocal sometimes right like recording was it was it like a hard leap to go from not singing to like kind of be so front and center yeah yeah still it seems like a chore to

sing yeah you have such a beautiful voice and it's so distinctive like i can't think of dinosaur without hearing your exact voice. Well, to each is out. Do you feel like it's nice to have a place to like put, I don't know, like thoughts and feelings that like maybe like don't have another place to go, you know, like it's like not like you would broadcast them somewhere or like share them past maybe like a friend. And, like, it ever feel nice just to have a place to put all that stuff? Yeah, I love music, so...

Right. Good lyrics are a part of that. Are you a lyrics person when you listen to other people's music? Like, do you clock really good lyrics? Yes, and no. I mean, I don't need the lyrics at all. Yeah. Yeah, or, you know, you make up your own lyrics if you can't understand them,

which is usually better. Yeah. I thought that's always why R.E.M. did well at first because everyone made up their own lyrics that related to them about what they were singing. Yeah, murmur is a little indecipherable in the lyrics, but really beautiful music. Yeah. A lot has been made about how loud you play. Is this correct? I read a quote from you that you said part of the reason, or maybe the whole reason, that you played guitar so loud was because that's, the feeling you got from playing drums,

that it was that it was so powerful. Right. Is that part of the reasoning behind me? Yeah, it's just to recreate that feeling of playing drums, which I've never really gotten there either. It's still not the same. But I also seeing shows, I like that, like seeing Motorhead feel like you could lean back

and the sound would hold you up. You know, it's this all-encompassing. Yeah, it's a cool feeling that. Does it feel the same? This is kind of a dumb question, but I'm not, I don't understand a lot about music. Does it feel the same from on stage as it does in the audience? It can. Yeah, that's why I think it's weird these days when there is no sound on stage.

Yeah, because the sound is like hitting you in the back, kind of the amps and stuff. And it's definitely part of the experience. Yeah. The loudest show I think I've ever seen was a dinosaur, Junior shows. It was not that long ago, but maybe 12 years ago that it was like a Marshall Amp show. Do you remember this at all? It was like a house here in L.A. And there was, it was very small. There's so many amps because it was it was sponsored by Marshall Amps. They handed out earplugs at the door. And it was amazing. I think Dale Crover was drumming. Yeah. Yeah. Great show.

But yeah, it was like really, felt like being in an ocean of sound. It was so cool. Okay. Question for you around Ambush. I also read that you said that you always took music seriously. It was never like, oh, I want to be in a band for fun because obviously there's many reasons to start a band. One of the most common ones being to have fun and get girls. But that was not the vibe for you.

You just wanted to make good music. But it wasn't, but you weren't ambitious, right? It wasn't like, I want to like conquer the world or like make a bunch of money or be famous. well yeah with dino the ambition was to get on sST records and tour you know be one of these because that's the bands we liked and so that's what we wanted to be so that's the only goal i remember having and music and then we achieved that and then that was strange because then you're like i never really came up with another goal so i'm just kind of floating from there

Yeah. Well, floating's kind of your vibe, right? Like, whenever I read interviews with you or listen to interviews with you, I like think of Taoism. Like, if you ever read about Taoism, just like that, like, I used to read the Tao of Pooh, who's one of my favorite books for like, it would calm my anxiety. And I'm like, oh, Jay Mask is just like the living embodiment of like going on the river, you know, like not. I know if I find it, I know that, you know, people are sometimes like, oh, it's hard to talk to. or whatever, but I find it's so inspiring. Like, it's, people try to, like, force things or, like, fill space. Like, I do it all the time and make a career out of it. But, like, what a nice, I don't know, I'm just, like, very, like, into the idea of, like, just doing the next thing that comes in front of you and not having to have such a, like, grip on things. But, yeah, I don't know if that's how I'm experiencing myself.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like people are saying that I don't talk, but I'm just like, as far as I know, I'm talking all day, every day, I don't know what you're talking about. Very chatty in the century. Just because you're, someone asked me a one, a question that is a one word answer and I answer it. Yeah. Then I realize, oh, they just want you to talk. Right. Not necessarily about anything.

Just fill the space. Fill the space, exactly. Like, keep talking about it. It's like if I answered the question and you're, I don't know. What else do you want? me to say. Yeah. It's such an unnatural form of communication, I guess. It's just I realize they, now I realize after all these years, they just

want you to talk about it doesn't matter what you say. Just if they ask a question, they're just saying, okay, you talk now and it's not like, they don't want you to answer the question or anything. They just want you to keep talking so they don't feel weird. Yeah. Yeah. But I think being able to sit and a bit of stillness is a good skill to have a good strength to have because what's so bad about it, you know?

Or, you know, people have said I talk slow, which I never experienced myself doing, but then you understand that's how you're coming across. I have noticed before in my life when someone said something to me and I didn't respond fast enough for their liking. Like this one person I remember in that instant, she hated me and wrote me off and never, that's it, that was my chance right there, I blew and I can't. She just hates me now.

Because I just didn't respond fast enough to her initial, like I don't know what, but I could feel it in that instant. I was written off and it never changed. That's such a like, that's like the purpose. projecting, you know, a thing onto you. Yeah, but still the result is the same. Yeah. But like that, I mean, when that happens, I'm always like, okay, well, that's not the kind

of person I want to like me anyways, because we're like clearly not on the same wavelength of, like, how we operate in the world, you know? No, but the problem is, yeah, then she married a friend of mine and then... Then you had to be around her. No, then I wasn't friends with the guy anymore. That's dumb. Yeah. That's dumb.

Is that one of the downsides of being a public figure, for lack of a better word? You know, I don't know, like Brad Pitt or whatever, but like, you know, is it, like, having to deal so much with how, what people think you're like? I'm not sure, yeah, because I just don't deal. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't like register for you. That's nice. It stresses me out all the time. Or like I can't read any review or any kind of anything that's written about me because I'll find something I hate about it.

So you don't read any reviews? No, I can't. Absolutely not. Sometimes something else slip through and weird things will haunt me then for years. Totally. I totally got it. It's not, it's weird because it's not natural to like know what other people think. about you through a distance?

Because it's not like your friend coming to say, hey, that hurt my feelings or whatever. It's like, I mean, for me, it's people on the internet being like, her voice is so annoying. And I'm like, oh, oh, I didn't, okay, well, I didn't know that. And I'm so sorry. I hope that you don't have to listen to the podcast. Oh, yeah, like jam with someone that I, you know,

wouldn't necessarily jam with and I was interested just oh I wonder what someone thought about jamming with this guy and I read one comment and it was something like this guy does not deserve to have the amps that he has because he's not good enough to play with anyone because this guy's a real musician and you're and I was just like I mean that hit home too because I've had that feeling as a you know when I'm starting out like I want to buy a martial amp but I'm like I don't deserve that that yet I don't think I should buy that because I'm not at the level where I put this yeah this one comment I read and that's haunts me for you know years I'll think about it forever I try not to I try to like practice my spiritual life it's not like I don't agree it's like you're right I don't deserve this but I have it where does that leave me yeah what should I do burn it should I give it away I'm all like yeah my voice is kind of annoying but like I don't I can't change that I simply I have I have two

options like there's no solution offered no like would you like me to anyways um so you don't you're not really too online I'm guessing I am I just don't read the comments do you like to like surf YouTube I know men really love YouTube yeah yeah but yeah the algorithm does fry my brain it really it really it really it's I can't, I don't want, it's like, yeah, I wish there's an easier way to control the algorithm for your own liking or something. Yeah. I think what, in my experience, what's so scary about the algorithm is like, I'll go to my like for you or whatever. And I'm like, oh my God, is this who I am? Yeah.

Like, this is so dark. Is it really mirroring back to me what I actually like am interested in? And then I'm like, oh, I've got to get my mind read. I go read some philosophy or something, rinse this out. I know. Do you read a lot of books? Not lately. I felt like I read all the books that I could think of. And then I was like, I didn't know what else to read.

Yeah. Because I would read just like rock biographies and then like religious kind of spiritual books. And then. Oh, those are my favorite. After a while, I felt like I read everything, and it's kind of like, so it slowed down quite a bit. Yeah. There's a new book that I'm interested in reading, maybe I've heard of it, by Chuck Klosterman. It's called Rock with an asterisk, and it's fiction, but it's about an imaginary world where the velvet underground was the size of the Beatles, and the Beatles were small, and basically, like what the world looks like. It's like my mind is like...

You're like, I already live in that world, babe, so I don't need that book. That's how I lived my life. Yeah, I'm interested in treat it because I was like, I'm just curious what he imagines would have changed or like... Yeah, that sounds good except I don't read fiction. At all. Ever. Never. You know, I've read interview with a vampire.

Sure, great book. Love Anne Rice. That was all right. I would consider reading that book, The Velvet Underground. It feels like it's like almost a halfway between fiction and nonfiction. Yeah. It's like, what's your favorite? Well, maybe not favorite, but what are some really great spiritual books that you read?

I love books on spirituality. I read them all the time. This Amachi, Awakened Children, Volume 2. I like that one. Amma is the... guru is the right word I don't want to miss me or they call her hugging saint hugging saint yeah she's

yeah like a spiritual figure in India but yeah there's you know many volumes and the first one is is good too but it's maybe too hard to start with it's more way more intense or something so the second one it's maybe the sweet spot for me. Better place to start.

Do you consider yourself a spiritual person? Yeah. Yeah. Do you like meditate? Do you journal? A bit. It really fell off once I had a kid. Sure.

Takes up a bit of your time. Yeah. But now you're empty nestor. You could go back to your journaling. Except you just move home. Oh, never much. Yeah. Well, that's kind of nice, right?

Yeah, we'll see. You guys, tiny violin alert. You already know what I'm going to talk about. Yeah, it's a tiny violin. It has a bow and everything. That's cool. My house burned down a year and a half ago. Which neighborhood were you in?

Altadina. Oh, yeah. And I lived with my parents for four months afterwards, and it was the best four months of my life. Really? Yeah. I think people were like, oh, weren't you like, it's going to be, you're an adult. And I was like, but actually like, maybe because I'm 44, now, it's, you don't have the same angst with your parents.

And my parents are in their 70s. And I was just like, this is awesome. Like, I'm never, what a gift. Like, I'll never, no one gets to do this. Like, you don't get to have that, like, day in, day out with your parents that you did as a kid. And when you're a kid, you don't appreciate it. because that's just what life is, you know? But I was just like, it was just awesome.

We would laugh. We would watch TV shows. Like, it was so great. Yeah, my friend had the exact same experience. After the fire. I don't think she's talked about it. It's such glowing. Well, you know, every, as Tolstoy said, all, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but all families are different.

But yeah, I loved it. And then I wanted to bring up because your wife, Louisa, who is an amazing angel. So this was my favorite. not this exact one, but my favorite shirt I owned was a green mind dinosaur junior t-shirt. And it was really perfect. My friend Albertina had gotten it for me at some like random shop in Brooklyn, like a lady that has like a curiosity as an antique shop. Yeah. And I was so sad about it.

I was so sad about all my t-shirts because I love t-shirts. Yeah. People sent me so many. And your wife helped spread the word and now I have five. Oh, wow. Green Mind T-shirts are. Sorry to be the guy that wore the Dinosaur Junior shirt to the interview, but it was part of the conversation that I wanted to share.

That's cool, yeah. Yeah. We used to just make fun of our friend Kevin Spanky Long and say this was him on the... I think he made a T-shirt because he has long hair as a school reporter that was him as this. Do you keep band T-shirts? Are you a band T-shirt person? Yeah, but no, just have a couple. I have a negative approach one I bought when I was 15.

Check it out. That's maybe the one that, yeah, I kept. Wow, you still have it. Is it still like hanging together, like in good shape? Yeah, it's not bad. Hell yeah. And because it's white and I don't wear white shirts much. I never wore it really.

But I have my bloody Valentine loveless one that I saw my wife wearing the other day. And I was like, isn't that worth like $5,000? I was going to say it's literally worth. Louisa, if you're listening, you should sell that and buy those tabbies. You buy two pairs of tabbies. Exactly. I know. Did you ever think that one, I mean, this is not, none of the ones I have are like an original one.

But I'm sure an original green mind t-shirt is probably like $3,000 or something insane like that. Yeah, I don't know. When I interviewed Mark Arm, he said he like sold like big lots of, because he had kept all. the t-shirts from like his whole life and I was like you're so smart that you kept them until now because just one day they became this insane coveted the price is great it's like stocks it's like investing in stocks somehow the shirt's making me sad it's making me think of you know the Gilmore girls which I love I love there was an episode where you know the boyfriend wore that shirt but it didn't have the band name on it it just had the girl bigger I felt so ripped off. That sucks. And you guys, you should have been on that.

Kim and Thurston were on it. Of course, I was mad about that. I love that you guys are fellow Gilmore Girls' heads. I feel really seen. It's one of my happiest places. Like, if I'm feeling sad, I just put on any episode, like, Gilmore Girls Roulette. And I'm like, this is where, this is the vibe.

I live, not to docks exactly where I live, but I live close to the Warner Brothers Studios, where they filmed it. And so when I look out my window, I basically see the back of Stars Hollow, but it's not Stars Hollow, it's just the same hills because that's where it is

and it makes me. That's pretty cool. Quite happy. There was never a dinosaur junior song on Gilmore Girls. I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah, why wouldn't they have used the name?

Maybe they thought that you guys would sue. Little did they know, you would have sent a fruit basket. You would have been like, this is the best day of my life. Yeah. I remember getting these Gilmore girls sweatpants that

they gave away to everyone on the last episode and they gave some to me. How did you get a pair? Just they knew you were a huge fan. It's so cool. Is there anything you're watching now that you're really into on TV? Oh, there's this show

Youth, which was weird. Oh my God, it's so good. Because the kid is named Rory and he just dropped out of college. I know. I thought of that. His girlfriend extra promotes Mia, and that's the name of Rory's girlfriend. No way. So that was a bit psycho.

I was like, what is this? Is they stocking my life or something? When you said that earlier, because me and my producer, Bree, are watching the show right now, and we were like, this is the best. And then you just said that, and I was like also named Roy. Although his spelling is very strange because I think it's an Irish spelling. It's like, R you a R. But maybe that was just. They were trying to hide that they were copying Jamask.

It is like, it is about a middle-aged woman trying to date again, so that part's not quite your life. Or is it? Do you speak German? A tiny bit. I had some in college. I get embarrassed when they don't understand what you're saying. Is Berlin a place that you can kind of get around without having to speak the language? Yeah. Easy.

Okay, that's nice. And it's not like they're going to let you try. They'll just start speaking English if you try to speak German. Like, let me stop you right there. They don't even, they just answer in English. Yeah. It's kind of embarrassing that every other place can speak like two to three languages. And we're just out here being like, we got English.

You don't even have a language. I know. It's pretty degraded at this point. So you bike, but you don't lift weights. yet. No, but, you know, everyone's telling me, too, and I'm thinking about it. It's good for bone density. That's what I've heard.

That's what we're thinking about these days. Everyone said, bone density, protein, grams. I can do the protein, the bone density. Yeah, I suppose I'll have to get into it. What are you going to do? It's just like there's so many things that they say you should do. I know.

And I like stay up at night. Like, I'm not doing all the right things. And then my dad is like, your stress is much worse for your health than any of these things that you think that you need to do. What about the supplements you're supposed to take? I have a bag full of supplements. Do you take them? I try. But I don't even know, is this doing more harm than good?

Is it doing anything at all? Is it just like placebo? Only one I've ever taken, I've noticed anything about. Do you have, like, pain from shredding? For lack of a better word, like, is it hard on the joints? Or just maybe just standing a lot for? I mean, I had tennis elbow, yeah, from maybe guitar playing or possibly alien abduction. It's hard to say.

Why would they give you tennis elbow? We don't know. Ask them, you know. They were like, we're going to take one of Earth's leading indie rock guitar players, and we didn't even do some experiments on his elbow. And, oops, sorry, we gave him tennis elbow. Our bad. Obviously, they don't care that much.

Maybe they're huge fans. I doubt that. What do you think they like cold play? I really have no idea. You've never thought about what aliens. I don't know. Aliens you can even hear. That's true. They might experience the world in a different way.

We didn't get too much into streetwear, but I feel like you've talked about that a lot. You just like it. I used to work in streetwear. Oh, yeah. What is street wear? I mean, I don't even understand that term. If I'm thinking correctly, it's something that was kind of coined of what the kids on the street were wearing, and then they kind of took that and commodified it. We sold it back to them. Yeah. Right. So that's, but when I was first kind of in the work world, I worked in street where I lived in my early 20s and it was kind of the booming time of it.

Like what company did you work? I worked with the hundreds. I did an advice column for them, but I was friends with Greg and the Mishka guys. And I worked for an online store called Digital Gravel that used to sell like all the, as a multi-brand store. I worked for Altamont, the skate company Just, you know, all the This is my friend's brand sci-fi fantasy Which I really like

Yeah, I like to do a collaboration with this artist named Sonia who is by Comtees It has studs on the back Yeah I was really excited to wear it today I think it's pretty That's cool Why do you think studs only on the back

And not on the front? That's a really good question. You would think actually the front would make more sense because probably when you lean, I haven't, I've only had this for like a day and a half. But I assume when you lean back on studs, it's quite painful. Or maybe it's more like an acupressure thing. If you hit the right spots. You hit the right spots. When I was still like a written journalist, now I'm illiterate and just talk, but I did a piece on a place called kink.com.

It was, well, it was a website, but it was a porn website, but they had the armory in San Francisco. Was there, like, they owned it, and that's, like, where they filmed all their content. So I had to go there to, like, do, you know, the interview. And they took us in the basement with all, like, the supplies. They had a real Iron Maiden, like, an actual one. I'd never seen one. And then they just had these, like, bins of rice. And I was like, I'm sorry, I don't want to sound like, I don't know.

anything but like what's the rice for and they were like oh the dominatrixes make people kneel in it like on on like a concrete floor and then you think that's probably so painful like put your full body pressure on like little kernels of rice they were good i don't know how i got here i'm sorry jmascus we've now we've we've strayed so far from god's light talking about kneeling in rice oh you never know you never know our conversation's gonna go they're aliens will like it though because I think they're surely listening because I know you don't believe it but I think they're huge dinosaur junior fans I hope we find out someday okay one last question since we didn't talk much about the album even though I love it and if you

guys don't believe me that I love it we can talk more about it but do you have a favorite song on there well usually I put my favorite song first my favorite song is the first one too is that your favorite song it's so good you have me made me really happy. Several got away. Yeah. I just know the songs by the number of their appearance on the album that's kind of driving the tour manager crazy. He's trying to write the song titles. I was like, I don't know what that is. Do you not name them yourself? I do. It's the last thing and I don't think about it much. And I relate to it more as the number in the album the song is, you know. Yeah. That's an interesting.

That's an interesting way to organize information in your mind. Yeah, because I see all these titles. I'm like, what is that? But now certain guitars I'm using for certain songs, so I still don't know the title, but I'll look at the guitar and I'll be like, oh, that song. But several gotaways in the lyrics. Yeah, that one's not as hard, I guess,

because it's number one also. Yeah. They're all in the lyric. That's where I get the titles from the lyrics. Yeah. We had a, I can't remember what I think it was about Billy Corgan. But there's like certain artists that like kind of go out of their way to title songs with words that have nothing, that have no relationship to any of the lyrics. Oh, I always take them lyrics.

Yeah, that song title's always a lyric. Yeah. I think it makes sense. Makes it easy to. It's just easier just to pick something in there and get on with it. Yeah. It's part of your life philosophy. Except, yeah, like start chopping.

Where did that come from? Because this was in the days of tape and then... Mm. They had a lot of edits. Like, you know, the chorus is from one take. And then the outro is another take. So he kept, you know, it was big tape and he kept like, slicing it up with a razor bit played and you're just finally yeah you're like can you change your

mind again and you got to start chopping again and put in a different part there one of the greatest songs of my lifetime to be honest start chopping just my favorite though is I'll be grazing by your window please come pat me on the head just want to find out what you're nice to me That sounds familiar. Yeah. Do you know that one? Yeah. Why is it so... I'm not...

Just maybe because I sang it last night. Otherwise, I might not remember. You would be like, blank. I love memes and I don't... Maybe it was when we did the Dinosaur Junior episode. I found just this picture of a cow at someone's window, like, literally just staring into someone's window. And I was like, I already know. And I just put all the crazy by your window.

And I don't know if anyone else laughed, but I laughed and laughed. What does this mean? Probably a lot of people were like, I'll be grazing. Why is there a cow at the window? But I know my heads, my dinosaur junior heads. But why would it could be anything grazing? Why would you think it's a cow? From later the picture of the cow from the t-shirt.

Oh, I see what you're asking. That's a great question. I guess it could have been a, I mean, this could be anything, but. Maybe like the logical conclusion would be some sort of farm animal. Could be some S&M thing. Back to the kink.com. I assumed cow, deer, perhaps a goat. Deer, I never would have thought of a deer.

Rabbit. Rabbit is so short. A lot of people thought also on that album, they thought it was rabbit runs away. Yeah, yeah. Rabbit. That's not the lyric. People like to imagine animals. They like anthro.

Yeah. So it wasn't a cow? Well, you can tell us you wrote it. Who was, what was it? I guess. Like it was me, Jay Mask. Yeah, I think it was me. I could have been a cow, but, you know, I'm just looking through my eyes.

I don't know what I am. Okay, you were like, it's like a vision quest almost. You were in the body of some sort of something, but you didn't know what it was. Yeah, like I did a past life regression one. and you're supposed to look at your feet first. To see what you are. And I had hooves. Oh, okay.

So I was on the right track. I don't know. I'm just making this up after the fact. I mean, I don't really know. I've told this to many people on the podcast, but I'll have to tell you because my ex-boyfriend is a musician, many such cases. And I can't play music, right?

Those who can't do a podcast about it, like I think I took guitar lessons when I was 12 and I sucked so about it. I never went back. I was too embarrassed. And so I don't, I just love it. But to me, it's like, it's like witchcraft. It's spellwork, you know? Right. But he would write music at home, right? And then I would see him being like, he would play me demos. He'd be like, yeah, I just got to like, I just got to find some word that works here, just put it, whatever, like this word. And I was like, what? That's how you do it? It's not some like thought through like beautiful poetry. You're just shoving in words wherever it works. I wanted to die.

Yeah, you shouldn't have told you that. I know, he wiped. It's like telling a kid Santa Claus isn't real. I was like, you've ruined life for me here. Yeah, sorry about that. I'll be grazing by your window. You know what? You can never take it away from me.

That is a special lyric and even if... Yeah, I haven't thought about it until you said and I'm thinking about it. I have no idea. Maybe that's why it's always stuck with me because it's so unusual and like, it really like I picture the cow at the window. Or maybe it's a dog grazing and you're like, don't eat grass. You're going to throw a while. It could be because pat me on the head, you know?

Animals get patted on the head. I don't know. It's okay. We don't have to, we don't have to forensically investigate this lyric anymore. I'm just happy we got to talk about it at all. It's been so long, but I just, it's interesting to think about because I have no idea what it was about. Do you have any, like, I know, I'm sorry, I've said this is the last question, like, eight times, like a full liar.

Howard Stern does the same thing. Hell yeah. See, I'm in the lineage of the grades. Do you, when you, I think of this about all artists who have had a long, an enduring career. Yeah. When you play songs that you wrote like 30 years ago, do you, like, is that, does that experience bring up anything?

Do you feel, are you, like, transported to that moment, or is it just, like, kind of, I don't want to say wrote because that's a negative word, but is it just kind of like, no, I just like, this is part of the set and we play it and it's, I'm here now playing it. Yeah, I don't even know if there's that much thought. You're like, I'm just like someone who pours concrete. Instead of pouring concrete, I play the song that changed your life when you were 12. I mean, sometimes I would get choked up on songs, but that would always be a new song. Yeah, by the time you do it a lot, I've, yeah, the choking up of it kind of dissipates.

Yeah, I can't hit you. I mean, there's, I guess I can't for 30 years choke you up. That would be, you wouldn't survive. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mind, but it just doesn't happen. Yeah, it's dulled by repetition. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have songs that you have, like, a, not your own songs, but other people's songs that,

you like no matter what if you hear it now it transports you to like a certain time or place in your life i'm sure it sounds like something that would happen like i can't give you any specifics but i promise you it does happen it's usually alive like if you see some song you know you never maybe thought you'd see somebody play that you was you know yeah like if i remember a few times like negative approach one day when they got back together yeah yeah it heard you know one song I felt a tear or this other band magazine I saw or great man I'd never seen and then a certain song yeah that's so cool I felt that way when I first saw pavement because it was after I thought I'd never I saw them in like maybe 95 on the lullapalooza and then they never played you know for

whatever and then I was like ah and And then every time I see the cure, I just went in Edinburgh, and I was like, this is insane. Just like 28 songs and all 28. There was not one song that I was like, eh. I watched a YouTube video on how to say that city. Edinburgh? No, that's wrong. Am I wrong?

What do you say, Edinburgh? Well, according to the video, the girl said it's three syllables. Edinbra. Edinburgh. Brough, yeah. Brough. Yeah, I guess I made it from. That's what I learned from YouTube.

Edinburgh. Apologies to my Scottish listeners. I just think three syllables, not four. Edinburgh. We learned something from J. Mascus today. That I learned from YouTube. That you learned from YouTube, from your algorithm bringing you. Yeah, it was fab.

The Cure in Scotland. many, many Goths of all ages. We we saw a man walking through the crowd and he was looked so normal, Jay, like he was just like from the back, he was wearing like a polar fleece

and like jeans and just like normal Nike's or something. And he turned around and he just had red lipstick. It was so cool. It made me so happy. That's a, you know, Me and my wife saw the cure and she was very happy because we were after party and this woman comes up to me with a cure t-shirt and she's like, hey, Jay, remember me? I'm Robert's sister. And that's exactly what my sisters would do, would walk around backstage with dino shirts. So she, Louise, was like, it's the same everywhere.

Their families are... They're so proud to be your sister. I think that's so cool. It was heartwarming, yeah. Did Robert ever give you feedback on your cover of Just Like Heaven? Yeah, he likes it. Hell yeah. And he said that he had to stop.

Like, I don't know, they would try to play it that way. And he had to stop playing. It was kind of distorting his view of the song for a while, because so I don't think he listens to it anymore so he can remember how to play his version. It is one of the greatest covers of all time because it's like such a, I always feel like covers are supposed to like transform a song, you know, a little bit. It doesn't, it's not like a one to one. Yeah, and it was more like someone was saying to me back then.

It was more like the 60s when bands would cover current songs rather than cover some old song. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. I used to have a seven inch of it. Not the three inch CD. No, I guess it must have been a later thing. Like there was like a box set of Dinosaur Junior 7 inches. And I like truly like begged my way into getting one.

Because when I used to DJ, I liked to DJ with 7 inches because it's easier, you know. Me and my wife have been DJing recently with 7 inches only. It's so great, right? A, it's lighter. Yeah, one box. You don't have to think too much. This is all you go. And like it's good to have limitations because then you don't like rack your brain when you're like, I have these.

I curate them all beforehand and see what fits in the box. And that's it. What in Berlin, not in Amherst or also in Amherst? You're DJing. Yeah, both. Oh. Okay. We've done Berlin.

Yeah, in Amherst. Like late night sets? Well, it was dark out. I would love to DJ again, but I'm. tired. I need the set to be at like seven to nine. Do you think people come for that kind of thing? How famous are you? No, not really. I'm not sure. I don't even need people to come. I would just do it by myself. I just like to hear the music. But I just the night like 11 p.m. That's crazy. I guess it's different because you're still a touring musician so you're kind of used to

like a different. I'm not used to it. It's just what's happening. Yeah. At home. do you sleep earlier? I try to go to bed earlier. I don't wake up earlier because I find my best sleep is from like 8 a.m. to 10.30, just from maybe being on a bus and it stops then so then you can sleep. So I'll be awake from 3 to 5.30 and then sleep from 5.30 to 7 and then about 8.30 to like 10.30 seems to be my best sleeping time. That's the sweet spot. I read a theory that they said that actually humans did use to sleep in two shifts.

Yeah, they go stoke the fire. Yeah, or like, yeah, had to do something in the middle of the night for like a couple of hours and then went back to sleep. But now it's changed and that's maybe part of the reason that sleep habits are bad or something. And all the, we're doomed, I guess is the main problem. I think people have been saying we're doomed since like the bubonic plague or whatever. I try not to take too much. I mean, like, you know, it's like that meme of the guy looking out the bus window and the other guy looking out the bus window and one's sad and one's happy. And it's like, it's all the same.

Just pick the one that you want to be. Yeah. I just want to be the happy one looking out the bus window. It's not going to change anything. I would like to be the happy one. You seem, listen, I'm sorry, but I feel like you've tricked people because you're a fun talker. We had a great time. You laughed a bunch. We made jokes. This was lovely.

I try. I just, I think the jig is up, Jay Mascus. You're actually like a super fun and good time talker. So I don't know what these people are talking about. All right. Well, tell everyone else. I just did. Well, Jay, thank you so much for coming on. Sorry, this was a little all over the place. I don't like to like... I had no agenda, so it was good for me. Me neither. And I didn't want to...

ask you a bunch of questions you've already been asked, so I tried to kind of spread it out. You guys, please go listen to the new dinosaur junior album. It is the best. And then listen to all the other dinosaur junior albums, because guess what? They're also the best. And come back next week for a new episode of Bansplain. Yeah, I think some, I saw some video and some guy was using this mic for something, and I wanted to try it for recording. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I have that.

And I open it up, and I'm just like.