Bandsplain - Sunny Day Real Estate with Ian Cohen

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Emerging from Seattle’s early 90s grunge landscape, Sunny Day Real Estate became legends of an emerging midwestern emo sound that began to redefine the boundaries of the genre. Meeting us there in the blue where the words are not is writer and podcaster Ian Cohen. Follow Ian Cohen on Twitter @en_cohen and listen to his podcast Indiecast @Indiecast1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplain? Oh, and welcome to Bandsplain. I am your host, Yossi Sallick. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to explain a cult band or iconic artist to me and to you. Today's episode is about Sunny Day Real Estate. If you've never heard Sunny Day Real Estate, meet me there in the blue where words are not.

this is what sunny day real estate sounds like you guys my guest today is registered dietitian primarily first and foremost but also feared and revered music writer Ian Cohen hey emo expert if you will emotional expert on emotions is that correct I would say that it applies in like both of my fields. Like, you know, I don't have, you know, a degree in psychology or anything like that. But, you know, to quote Brad Goodman from The Simpsons, I do have a PhD in pain. So that makes me qualified on both ends. Well, yes, Ian, that makes sense. I mean, isn't all music emo? I did have like 13 drinks the other night, roughly here and there. Don't say anything registered to dietitian. It wasn't 13. It was more like seven. That's a sunny day of real estate.

song also, but it was also the number of drinks I had at a birthday party. They also have songs called 47, so and eight, nine. Alcohol, alcohol poisoning. But I was definitely, it's two in the morning and I was absolutely screaming at somebody that all music is emo and third eye blind is emo and the phrase emo and how dare you. So that's how I feel about it. I think most people feel about the same way. I mean, like, if you look at Ian Mackay, like, back in, you know, the 80s, he would say,

like, why isn't bad brains emo if it's all, you know, hardcore is emotional? And, you know, I know that's like kind of the escape hatch for, you know, emo bands to just kind of opt out of the genre, which, you know, pretty much all emo bands. That's, like, the truest sign of being an emo band. If, like, you have to, like, pull some sort of, like, quasi-press conference to say, hey, we're not emo. That's a pretty good sign. Before we get into that, actually, let me ask you about that.

Why do you think it is perhaps the singularly most dodged genre? Like, why does no, band, or are there bands that are like proudly like, no, I'm emo? I set out to be emo. I think it goes in waves. You know, no pun intended, because, like, emo is always, you know, broken down to waves. But, you know, particularly at the beginning, like, as many times as I've said the word aloud, I always feel somewhat silly. Just maybe the phonetics of it feel sillier than, say, like, goth or grunge. Maybe it's just the fact that it's, like, bookended by vows.

I mean, we're getting into, like, real, like, you know, 40 chest type things going on. But I would say that, like, it's the idea of just putting yourself out and expressing your emotions is in some way. like embarrassing on its face. Right. Like, you know, even the most legendary emo bands, like the one we're discussing today, they're not cool. Like, even the ones that got super duper popular, you know, like My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy, the ones who I would say have done more to, I don't know, make emo something worth

kind of cowering away from, they weren't cool. I mean, I think that you could be a cool, like, you know, the popular kids listen to that music, but I would say that it's indie rock, but like without the credibility. It is time for me to deliver my most controversial opinion on emo, and I don't care. I stand by it. Emo can only be made by men because it is a particularly male form of debasement. And women are just actually not capable of debasing themselves in that way. And that is a compliment to women.

And that's it. I don't care. Fine. Yell at me on the internet. I don't give a shit. That's my take and I'll stand by it. producer Justin Sales, because his soul has left his body.

I don't care. Okay. Now that we've gotten that housekeeping, emo housekeeping out of the way, let's dive into Sunny Day real estate. I didn't even ask you, besides the fact that you were the internet's

foremost expert on emo, I'll do respect to the Washington emo man. Why are you like sort of uniquely skilled to speak on Sunny Day real estate in particular? Well, I think it's the fact that like, you know,

Tom Bowen, you know, shout to our guy washed up emo. I think there are very few people of my age who have, like, written about emo consistently over the past 15-some-odd years. And what is that age for their listeners? I am 42 years old. Gorgeous.

Yes. Elder millennial. Exactly. Gen X. Nah, Gen X. I identify. I identify as that. I would say that, you know, one of the reasons that there's just been such a dearth for

lack of a better term of emo writing. And this is true even of Sunday Day real estate is that, isn't it, babe? I know it well in my Google Doc. Oh, yeah. Like, whenever I've done research for Sunday Day real estate, things I've written in the past, it is like very scant as far as like the way they were written about in the 90s and forward. And, you know, I just think that it's just really difficult to find emo fans who can get a degree of critical separation from the music. and talk about it in that way. I mean, you know, there have been some good books written on the subject. I think nothing feels good by Andy Greenwald is kind of the first of its kind.

You know, Dan Ozzy with sellout. I think, you know, those are particularly good examples. And I know that there are more on the way. I think that there's been a change with that. But, you know, when you say, like, the foremost expert on emo, like, yes, like, I've dedicated a good chunk of my life to dissecting and advocating for this music. But, like, is this something I really? really want to claim.

Like, as a 42-year-old man, like the expert in emo, like, come on. I mean... You don't get to choose who you are, babe. It's just a surrender to it. Accept it. Radical self-acceptance. In the same way that distancing yourself from the term emo is a right of passage for the bands, for listeners, it's the same deal.

Like... Grow up. Yeah, exactly. You grow up, you discover alt country. You discover, like, electronic music. If you happen to be, like, one of those... humbler kids who are really into like balance and composure. And title fight.

Odds are right now you're like super into Earl sweatshirt or something like that. Get up off the pavement, burst the dirt up off my psyche. So totally. You're so right. I should have gone to the Zach Bryan show last night and just like taking my little mini microphone and interview people would be like, did you like email before? I need to know. Okay, well, you've proven your worth here.

I feel that you can stay. I'm just kidding. Let's dive in, babe. Okay, me personally, I don't have any particular, like, fealty to emo one way or the other. I was a big fan of, obviously, Rites of Spring, first wave, if you will. And same extending sort of into Midwestern emo. And then after that, I sort of lose, I lost the plot. I almost think it's.

just an age thing. I don't no disrespect to those bands. I don't dislike them or anything. I just never got into them because they were a little bit later. Like, is bright eyes emo? Says death will give us back to God. How much time do you got? Okay, well, let's short

answer. TLDR. Exactly. I think that Connor Overse is more or less said, you know, it's like kind of feeling stuff music. I think that was the word that when he did an interview with Phoebe Bridger, they just described it as feeling stuff music, which I think is like the way that Emo has been kind of absorbed into the greater discussion nowadays.

Like most indie rock is feeling stuff music. All music. All music. Okay, anyways, all music. Whatever. My point being, I've long time been a Sunny Day real estate fan, even before I knew that that's what you would have called them because,

and we'll get into it, because there's some magic trick of the, bizarre landscape of the early to mid-90s, this band ended up on MTV, which like would never happen in any other time space continuum than that brief period on the afterglow of Grunge where we got just a lot of interesting things delivered to young 12-year-old Yossi via the television set. And also like I grew up in Torrance, which is like a very, had a very vibrant skateboarding community and I learned about a lot of music through skateboarding media thrasher trans world skate videos and the early supporters of Sunday Day real estate were skateboarding outlets.

Yeah. Anyway, all that to say, I was exposed to Sunday Day real estate at a young age, was truly mesmerized by the music, really also by Jeremy Enoch because he was so hot. which was a big motivating factor for me as a 12-year-old to like music. Let's just dive in. Are you ready for like, I know we talked about a little bit earlier in this episode that there's not a ton written about early sunny day. But don't worry, there's been a lot since, and I found all of it. And this is going to get a little granular.

And just please allow me because if only to hear every single former band name because they're fucking hilarious. and just it's like a parade of incredibly, I don't want to say bad, but like, if they had stuck with one of those, I don't think we'd be having this episode today. That's all I'm going to say. Yeah, I'm like very used to, especially nowadays, like, emo bands, having just like names that make me reflexively cringe just to save them aloud when I have to save them aloud as opposed to on the internet. But, I mean, there's the one Sunday Day real estate, a previous name that everyone knows. And I'm not going to spoil it. but I can't wait to hear the others.

So many guns. Side note, my emo band name is Corner of Salas. Corner of Solis. That's, honestly, that's like more, that to me sounds like more prog rock or at the very least like metal core. I imagine that on like a house of blues and you got like that kind of metal core font going on. No, no.

This is a warped tour band that plays with Blackville Brides. Okay. I need you to understand. That's quasi house of blues metal core. Okay. All right, all right. Well, I'll take it. Okay. So I'm going to start. We always pick a member to start with. I'm going to start with William Goldsmith for several reasons. One, I think he's the heart and soul of the band, but also because he did the most interviews. So I have the most information about him. Yeah, he does the most interviews. And he's, you know, with all due respect, he's the most mad online for reasons I'm going to get into. You know what we love on this show? Goss and Mess, babe. We love Goss and Mess. And there's some. Goss and Mess in this episode. Absolutely. William Goldsmith was born July 4th, 1972,

born on the 4th of July, a cancer. Not a surprise to anyone who understands astrology. Who loves Goss and Mess? Cancers. He was raised Catholic and says he was terrified by it. That's important. That'll come into play later. Here's what he says. I was the youngest of nine kids and I grew up in a house where my siblings constantly played records. My brother also played the drums a little bit. Still, ultimately, it was a series of traumatic events that resulted in a driving motivation, not just to play drums, but to really express a part of my humanity that has been exceedingly difficult to put into words. So from jump, traumatic events to express humanity.

That was the motivating factor. A fun thing about William Goldsmith is besides the fact that his brother was a drummer, he also had an imaginary friend named Joey Martino, who was also a drummer. so his imaginary friend was a drummer and that was also very inspiring for him to play drums. That's real. So I'm not saying it was real.

I'm just saying I was five. And his name was Joey Martineau. He also got really into the Beatles. Like he had like a, in his words, his own personal beetle mania at the age of five. So he had a big ringo thing as well. Yeah, setting up the young William Goldsmith's musical inputs. First record he ever bought was,

talking heads. You may find yourself. In the eighth grade, his brother rushed in and played him rush. Yes, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. So, I know a little of that stuff going on. So he starts a band in high school called The 13. This is where he first comes into contact with Jeremy Enick, who I couldn't tell if they went to the same high school or they just knew each other from like the scene of people who

played music around high school. Jeremy was a couple years younger, and he had asked him to come try out. I think Jeremy might have had a crush on his friend or something. Anyways, asked him to come try out for the 13 to play bass. Jeremy and Nick, also a cancer, to no one's surprise, born July 16, 1974. So he comes to try out, except he shows up with his guitar and wants to play guitar and sing, not play bass.

And they were like, no, see, we needed a bassist. We don't need this. So he does not end up joining the band. Jeremy, for his part, said that he realized he wanted to be a singer when my mom made me go to church every Sunday, and singing was a big part of the experience. As I got older, my parents always supported my desire to be a musician. He was very influenced by U-2, an R-E-M. And when he was 13, he traded his cousin, a skateboard for an acoustic guitar.

I think about Jeremy Nick, which you know, but I'm a lot. telling the audience, is that I think at his core, first and foremost, this is a singer-songwriter, left to his own devices, perhaps not intersected by hardcore and punk happening, thriving in his little social circle in Seattle. He might have just made a straight line to folk-y sort of singer-songwriter. But thank God for us. That's not what happened. So now Jeremy and William know each other. Jeremy is like 16 joins a hardcore band William is 18

and he's like we need a drummer can you come join William was like yeah okay Jeremy had dropped out of high school and apparently according to William

was homeless for a while and would sleep in the woods behind William's parents' house so this is all happening William joins another band called positive greed naughty naughty I think I better take that pig sticker away

they go on to born against. Jeremy and his band was called Reason for Hate. Gorgeous, perfect band name. That's almost as good as a corner of solace. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty good. I think there was a quote,

some right it right down, but William was like, it was the reason to hate sexism and racism and, you know, classic reasons of things to hate. William then joins another band called the Igloo Sect. Perhaps unsurprisingly, William graduates high school with a 0.83. G-GPA. A lot of drumming, maybe not a lot of studying. He says that he got really in, like, kind of

tail end of high school, he got really into the cure bow house. And an album called bleach by a little band called Nirvana. That album, I think, came out in 1989. So William, this is very interesting. I wanted to talk about it because Seattle, obviously, I mean, if anyone's watched hype, what's the first quote in the beginning of hype? It's like it's a quote from Spin Magazine that's like Seattle is to rock music what Bethlehem was to Christianity right now. It's like so fucking dramatic.

William said I was really into Nirvana when I was in high school but then I got into the punk rock scene and all of a sudden it was kind of not cool to like Nirvana and bands like this. Now for me that was kind of surprising and I think probably because I was a little too young to understand And like that by that point, that music was sort of mainstream bro music in a way.

Like that's kind of what it had become. Especially if you think about like the genealogy of not Nirvana, but like Allison Chain's sound card and being sort of like metal butt rock heshire bands that sort of just sort of like put on a flannel and some like, what are those called? That you go skiing and those laundry pants. Leggings? Thermals. Thermals. Yeah, babe.

you know, that's a fucking sick look, a thermal legging with like a shorts over it. Gorgeous. That's a bit of Jeff Hammett. Yeah, sick enduring 90s look. Anyways, makes sense to me. I did, I placed a phone call to a trusted Gen X Seattle musician source

whose name I will not reveal. Who told me that, yeah, like, we were all into like discord bands and Fugazi and, you know, we thought this other shit was corny, basically. And thus, just to point out that while Sunday Day real estate is from Seattle and did come out on subpop, they have very little to do with the grunge movement or the coming from Nirvana at all,

Tad, whatever you want to talk about. Okay, Dan Horner, born May 13th, 1969, a torus like myself, and Nathan Greger Mendel, born December 2nd, 1968. I think that makes him a Sagittarius. They met when they became housemates while attending the University of Washington. I believe they're both from the Washington area. Nate Mendel was born in Richland,

which is a company town, a small place out in the desert that was basically built to create plutonium for the first atomic bombs. His first instrument was violin. Love that, gorgeous. Started playing bass at 13. His first real band was called Didley Squat.

Didley Squat ends in 88. Mendel moves to Seattle to play with a straight-edge band called Brotherhood. He was not straight-edged, but he was like, I'm going to do this. Four months later, he leaves that band and joins Christ on a Crutch. What do you know about Christ on a Crutch? I know very little about Christ on a Crutch. I want to learn more about Christ on a Crutch. We're going to pivot to straight up Christ on a Crutch dog.

Yeah, that's what we're doing. What if this band actually turned out? I'd be like actually like fucking amazing. They are. They're really good. They have two albums on Spotify. They're actually quite good. They were kind of popular, heavy air quotes, but they did a bunch of national tours.

They were sort of like a known quantity. I like them. I don't know how you'll feel about it, but I think they were good. So that band ended up putting, like I said, two albums, but just a couple of seven inches. Now, let's go back to Positive Greed. Positive Gride is the band that William is in, one of the three bands that William is in. Dan and Nate are buddies. They, I think, this is where I'm doing a little fanfic,

but from what I picked up from the multiple interviews and stuff, they caught wind of William Goldsmith, who by all accounts is an incredible drummer and I think was back then, right? They needed a drummer for this project that they were forming. So they basically kept sort of showing up at this bandhouse to woo William Goldsmith into joining their band also. William Goldsmith knew of them, knew of Christ on a crutch, thought they were cool, and was like, yeah, okay, I'm down. I guess they had heard the positive greed demo tape, whatever.

And they had heard the demo tape Positive Greed did, and they said, we should get that drummer. Dan was in the bands called Resolution and Paines Gray. He sounds like live songs. Gray. These are real band names. So William, instead of leaving his positive greed, he joins a fourth. he joins a fourth band. He's 18.

He has a lot of life in him. He's, let's do this. Now, Jeremy had moved to Spokane, but he moves back from Spokane and starts hanging out with William again and Dan and Nate, because they're all in a band. And he shows them these, like,

songs that he's, like, secretly been writing in his room since he was, like, 13 years old and recording on a four-track, singer-songwriter songs. And they're like, wow, this is fucking good. Meanwhile, Dan and Nate and William, had written a whole bunch of songs that were all instrumental. They couldn't find a singer, right?

Now, they're in the hardcore punk scene, hardcore slash punk. Singing is not particularly an important part of it in their estimation. So they're like, whatever. Like, Dan can just sing. We'll just have Dan sing. Everybody hated this, apparently, except for Nate. William called it demonic trumpet noise. from what I'm gathering from everything that's happening with this early iteration is that Dan was a very important driving force.

We always talk about this on the show. Like there has to be one guy who really wants the band to happen, right? Because it's kind of like when you're like married and you want to have kids, right? One person has to like want kids more than just neutral for kids to happen. Or one person has to really not want kids more than just neutral for kids. It's not happen. But that's kind of the balance, right? So Dan was the one who was like, I'm, I'm again fan ficking, but come on, let's practice.

Let's do this. Let's do the band. Let's whatever. He had a lot of creative vision. This might have led to a flip side of this, which is being a little controlling, but we'll get ahead. And so they're doing this. Now, strap in.

Here are the band names. The first name they landed on, everything was beautiful. nothing hurt. Shout out my dog, Kurt Vonnegut. Forever inspiring. Okay, so then they were like, not that one. Then they were called One Day I Stopped Breathing. Gorgeous.

Then they were called Chewbacca Kaboom. Chubaca Kaboom. Bit of a left term, I thought, from the other kinds of names. Then they were called MD Set. They released a demo tape under the name MD Set. It does exist somewhere, but I could not find it. then they eventually settle on the name Sunny Day real estate. Jeremy is not in the band yet.

This band is the trio of William, Nate, and Dan Horner. Mendel took this name. It was a random thought that popped into his head when he was listening to the talking head song, nothing but flowers, because there's the line that's, this used to be real estate. Now it's only fields and trees. He felt that since the band's outlook on the world saw that every possible thing was becoming a commodity to be bought and sold.

It was possible that one day people would even start selling sunny days. The lyric made him ponder about what could be sold as property and come up with the commercialization of sunny days. I believe I took that from genius. Okay, so Sunny Day Real Estate with Dan singing, releases a two-song seven-inch called Flatland Spider. We'll clip it here so you can sort of hear how different it was. William says it.

Instrumentally, it's a lot more chaotic. and eventually we wanted to create more space with the vocals. Now, William is in their ear trying to be like, Jeremy could sing for us. Jeremy's a good singer. It's not super going over well. So Sunny Day Real Estate, the trio, plays a New Year's Eve house party where Jeremy opens for them playing an acoustic set. Then, they do a show in Spokane with Lungfish. Fucking goddamn gorgeous, beautiful band Lungfish.

Not enough people listen to Lungfish in my humble estimation. So they play the show with Lungfish, and Jeremy also opens that with his acoustic set. And both Jeremy and William were extremely blown away by Lungfish. And they've both said that it had a lot to do with inspiring what does become Sunny Day real estate. I think in particular, them and Shudder to Think. You know, it was just like this true expression and also Shutter to Think in particular gave Jeremy the courage to sing for like what was ostensibly a hardcore band. because Ian, how many at that time hardcore bands had falsetto singers? Something like zero.

It just depends on how you think of shutter to think. If they don't count, then the answer is probably zero. Yeah, totally. So that was like very inspiring. Okay. Once again, Jeremy is not in Sunny Day Real Estate. Now, Nate Mendel takes a break from the trio of Sunny Day Real Estate to tour with Christ on a crutch.

Price on a Crutch, very important band. Dan is like, okay, William, why don't we start another band and I'll play bass and Jeremy will sing and play guitar and you play drums? It's something for us to do while Nate's gone for a couple of months. Dan said, here's what we're going to do. Let's start another new band and I'll play bass being Dan and Jeremy will sing and play guitar and you play drums. So we were like, okay, that's what we'll do while Nate is gone. So this is the band that is called Thief, Steal Me a Peach. Thief cover steal me a peach.

It is after a William Blake poem called I Asked a Thief to Steal Me a Peach. He turned up his eyes. I asked a live lady to lie her down. Holy and meek, she cries. There's another stanza, but I won't, I won't torment you with that. Not enough literary referential band names these days, in my opinion. Okay, thief steal me a peach, right? six songs, including, according to the book Post by Eric Grubbs, which is a great book,

by the way, if you're interested in a look at the influence of post-hardcore 1985 to 2007. He says that song for an angel was one of those songs. Let's take a brief detour into the Seattle Teen Dance Ordinance. Are you familiar with the Seattle Teen Dance Ordinance? Is that one of their old band names? Literally, I almost say it could be. No, it's this actually insane thing that lasted kind of a long time in which there was, there was like some situation with this like cultish Christian church that would have these all ages events at,

that's a monastery run by George Freeman, a non-profit church of the Universal Life Church. and they had these dances. And perhaps they allegedly used this for like sex abuse, child prostitution. So basically what happened in Seattle was like actually no more all ages shows because that's bad. And so they make it very difficult. You have to have like a million dollar liability insurance policy to do it. You have to have two off-duty police officers on the premises. Basically it becomes impossible.

for anyone to have these all-ages shows, which really negatively impacts the ability of bands like Thief Steal Me a Beach and Sunny Day Real Estate to play shows, right? Especially that coinciding with Seattle is Bethlehem to Christianity or whatever, and every, I mean, grunge has sort of exploded. There's so many fucking bands. It's impossible to get on a bill. People are just flocking to Seattle to try to get signed.

So it's like a rough time to try to play shows. I think Sunny Day played an 8 a.m. show at like a continuation school. Incredible stuff, right? So this is just, I just want to say it because of another band name, but also because I think you might find it interesting. Thief Steal Me a Peach, Nate's Still Gone, plays a show with a band called Rain like the Sound of Trains. And who was in that band? Dougie Bird from Beef Eater and Pete Kramiak from verbal assault. So even they started a full sentence.

that's awesome like yeah i those get those bands have been lost to the the best been of history it's unfortunate the sound of trains gorgeous okay Nate finally comes back from tour and they're like hey we wrote these songs with Jeremy thief stealing me a peach and Nate was like well shit this is fucking good basically i'm paraphrasing i don't know what he actually said but that was the vibe so The Nate said in Post, I just think this is hilarious to this day because I was completely opposed to it because I thought as a three piece we were the best thing in the world. Like there was no band better. We played faster. We played more technically. We had cooler lyrics. There was no equal. And this kid was going to be the fly in the ointment. Totally ignoring the possibilities. I think that's really funny that he was just like, no, Jeremy will ruin this where the actual exact opposite is what happened. So, fun fact for not Ian, who already knows this, they were like, Sunny Day real estate now, was like, let's dump the 46 songs we already wrote before Jeremy joined the band and start fresh. Hence, Sunny Day having songs called number 47 and number 48.

They were the first two songs written with Jeremy after he joined the band. I love it. I love that little, all about old Ted. Okay. Nate Mendel said that everyone in the band listened to different music, and we never said this is what we want to sound like. How we wrote songs, there really wasn't a main songwriter. So anyone might come in with a riff or a couple of riffs that linked up. We wrote songs as a band in the basement by just jamming them. And we would just play for hours and hours and hours. Do you hear that in the music? It's a group projectness of it. I do hear that in diary. You know, it does sound like kind of more raw. like more instrumental. It does sound at times

like Jeremy's singing over instrumentals as opposed to like them getting tighter later on. I also think there's like a looseness to them early on that

suggests that like they went from being a band who was just jamming in the basement, being on subpop. So there is that kind of magic there. And I also think it's fascinating how the bands that you've like

mentioned already with like Jeremy being more of like a singer songwriter type. But there's also this element of, you know, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, which is, like, pretty much the raw elements of, like, if you were, like, to ask, like, what they sounded like, you know, without any previous knowledge, you would say, like, oh, yeah, there's some prod going on, but it's also from a same songwriter perspective. And I think both of those components would flourish more

as, you know, Saudi real estate became more comfortable with each other. But even from the beginning, you're starting to get, like, the sense of, like, how they differentiated themselves from, the many hardcore bands, whether they were named after like a line of poetry or just like, you know, antagonism or like brotherhood. It's like how has there not been, you probably have to like name yourself like brotherhood torrents or like brotherhood Spokane. There's got to be like a brotherhood franchise of like straight edge bands in every single city.

Totally. Well, I'm glad you mentioned subpop. Here's what's happening. Here's how we end up on subpop. It's 1993, right? The band Engine Kid is supposed to play a show at The Crockadale. The Crockadel was essentially the subpop fucking hangout. Like that was the Subpop Clubhouse.

It's where all the subpop bands played. Important venue. Now, Engine Kid, they were playing with a band called Skirt. Fucking, by the way, perfect band name. They couldn't play. Either Skirt couldn't play or Edent Kid couldn't play. I couldn't totally understand from the way it was worded. So Engine Kid tells the booker.

Eric Soderstrom of the crocodile, hey, why don't you have Sunny Day Real Estate Play? They're really good. And he's like, okay. So they play this show with skirt. And after that, this is according to William Goldsmith from one of the podcast interviews, he came up to them and was like,

I'm going to add you to the sub pop party showcase coming up as the first band because I just want to see what happens. And so he apparently told Jonathan Pohnman, who would have been there on you as a subpop showcase, Look, check out this band. So he sees them, and that's co-founder of Sopopop, Jonathan Bumpman, and he signs them immediately. He basically said, the whole thing sounded so cockamamie to me, an 18-year-old kid singing falsetto, but I went to the show, and I hate to say this, Jeremy immediately reminded me of Kurt Cobain. Just his presence and the way he lurched over his guitar.

And the song struck me. In Seattle at the time, we had all these bad, aggressive bands that had a lot of groove, but not much goal. on melodically. Here was a band that was every bit as propulsive, but with real melodic sophistication. A lot of information in that quote. I totally see what he's saying, though, because if you watch like early sunny day performance videos, like in particular the 120 minutes, I can see that Kurt Cobainness in literally what he said, the hunching. Also, it was very beautiful in that sort of delicate way that Kirk Cobain was beautiful, you know, like real open wound energy. much like Kurt Cobain, you know, like I totally get.

Obviously, the music is nothing alike, but it's that vibe. And, you know, if you just saw what happened with Nirvana and you saw a man that perhaps was reminiscent of Kirk Cobain, I would sign him to. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that was the deal, right? And I appreciate the fact they mentioned that there was that kind of element, that charisma going on as opposed to, you know, oh, they look like them or they sound like them for that matter.

And it's interesting to mention the 120 minutes episode because, you know, when I watch it now, a lot of what comes up is like look at how they're dressed. You know, this is like the most, you know, iconic emo band or... Shout out to Jeremy's thrasher long sleeve. Like Dan Horn's got like... $400. Dan Horner's dreadlocks. Is that way you're going to imagine?

I think he's like wearing like a khaki suit or something like that. Like it's just... And like, of course, Nate, he's... What he still does to this day, he's got his guitar. up to his neck, which is like, you know, the opposite of like what Ben does in Soundgarten, which looks cool as shit when it's down to your feet. So, you know, they still look like kids. And I think that carries over to even the best emo bands of the current day where it's like,

Dan, someone get these guys a fucking stylist to just tell them to like do it like trail of dead and wear all black. Like just. No, I think they look so cool. You're so wrong. Absolutely pushing back. You're so wrong. They look so cool.

I think their actions are cool. But the dress is just like. Jeremy's nose ring, it's so 90s. It's so like peak that era. I'm obsessed. Well, I think this is where like the diversion is wearing shorts though. Oh yeah. They're like like a khaki shorts, which is interesting.

Yeah. I think this kind of like points out like the differences in our upbringing because you're talking about like growing up in torrents. There's more of a skate culture. I'm in suburban Philadelphia, which, you know, no one's, there's like one or two skate kids tops in my entire class. You have to wear a North Face to be cool. I don't know what... You wore the gap. This was 1990, three or four.

Like, I was having this conversation the other day. It's like, nope. No one was wearing like Abercrombie and Fitch at that time. It was just like the gap. No one was trying to be preppy. This is just like, you buy that. That was what was available. Yeah.

It was that or structure. Shout out structure in the Jalamam while I did visit it multiple times. You know, we just popped on to something that I just want to briefly talk about that I think was really important. not really important. I think it was something that was sort of brought to the surface in the 90s in a way that was really interesting is this thing of negative charisma. I don't know what I don't know what a better way to say it is. Like Kurt Cobain and Jeremy Enoch have what I would like maybe term as negative charisma. Like they're there you're so drawn to them.

But it's not because they're like drawing, they're they're luring you in. It's something that's just so compelling about their insularness. I don't know how to describe it. Does that kind of make sense? I think it's such a 90s thing that like that reaction to this sort of like very performative showy 80s rock thing, right? You know, like where it's like I'm here to entertain you, you know, like the whole thing. Whereas like suddenly, I mean, they're literally like living embodying.

of angst, which shouldn't be inviting, you know, but I think it just struck such a chord with so many people that they're just so drawn to it. Yeah, because I mean, even within Seattle, there, we can think about like negative charisma, which in a way is like outward charisma. It's not anti-charisma. It's, yeah, exactly. But you have, you know, people like Kirkobane or Jeremy you look at me, don't look at me, like that sort of thing. Whereas, you know, you have like Chris Cornell or Eddie Vedder, who are more, like, I would say positive charisma, who were just, like, straight up, like, sex symbol, like embrace it. And I would say that there's that sort of thing as well.

But, like, the interesting thing about, like, the negative charisma of Jeremy Enix is the band itself is, like, it reminds me almost more of the second half of 10 than anything Nirvana did, if that makes any sense. It's, like, very, like, echoey, billowy. Like, the production's a bit tinny. Not the back half of 10. No, but I hear you.

Absolutely has nothing sonically in common with anything Nirvana did in my estimation. Yeah, not at all. Anyways, back to Sunny Day real estate. So they're signed within like five minutes, right? They're basically like, Jonathan Pullman walks up, hey, you guys want to make a record. Apparently they started laughing because they didn't know who he was. They were like, who's this fucking guy, basically. And he was like, I'm a sub-exam.

pop and they were like, oh, yeah, okay. Let's fucking do it. So they record a seven inch called thief steal me a peach. They're not able to let go of this. They must have really loved that poem. With Kurt Block of the fastbacks and the young fresh fellows, legend, subpop paid to put the seven inch out, but it's not put out under subpop. It is out under their own label called One Day I Stopped Breathing, because again, they're

not able to let go of these band names. This 7-inch had two songs on it. Eight. And nine. So eight and nine are early songs. They tour a bunch and then they basically tour out to Chicago to record diary, where they were set up presuming that had to do with subpop. But I think also I read that they were listening to a lot of Lizzie.

fair. So they think they also wanted to work with Bradwood. Fantastic fucking producer. I'm going to read a little thing that Bruce Pavett said in Dazen confused just to set up a little bit of what's happening with subpop at this time. They ask him something like, what's on the roster now? What are you excited about? What are people going to find at subpop? And he's like, Sunny Day Real Estate, who are a young group, guys who have played at a lot of regional hardcore pants. This is their debut album. And I haven't seen this kind of excitement since the first days of mud honey and Nirvana. They're real sincere. I think some critics might say, because their music is very emotional.

It's hard to perform music like that when you bear your soul, but you're not distancing yourself with the use of irony. And they succeed at it. They're really incredible. I thought that was a really astute and profound off-the-cuff description. I'm sure he had practiced it or whatever, but I was like, damn. Continuing, he says, on the other end of the spectrum in Seattle Rock are the super suckers, who I did see tour with the Reverend Horton Heat and Butthole Surfer's, and it was a gorgeous tour.

And maybe the Toadies. Probably. Anyways. They like to party all night. That's their shtick. Velocity girl or our attempt at a big pop radio band. Spoiler alert, babe. They did not become a big pop radio band.

Good band, though. So this is what subpop's kind of working with in 1994. Real grab bag there. It's like very 90s. It's like a little something for everyone. A little something for everyone, but like a little not a lot of success. And we'll get into that. Sunny D real estate ends up being really important for subpop in a way that maybe they

couldn't have predicted or known that they would be either party, you know? So, okay, let's talk about 1994. That's. May 10th, 19994 is the day that diary comes out. Another thing happens on May 10, 1994. What is that? Weezer the Blue Album. Weezer the Blue Album.

What happened one month prior to May 10th, 19994? That was when Kirk Cobain died. That's right. So we talked about on the Weezer episode, but it's just the incredible heavy-handedness of the timing of this, like, grunge literally died. the month before, you know, and it's, Weezer was maybe a better example of what swept it to sort of lift the spirits of people tired of the slog through grunge. But Sunny Day just sort of slips in there because they're on subpop and, you know,

subpop has a lot of cachet because of Nirvana. and this album, it gets quite a bit of MTV action. They're not really on the radio, but MTV was important, you know? Okay. Let's dive in. Produced by Radwood. Okay. Do you hear any similarities between Exile and Guyville and Diary in terms of maybe

like what you could align with the production? So I think that Bradwood's production on Exile and Godville is very sympathetic to the kind of songwriting that Liz Faire is doing there, just the kind of dry, raw sound. One of my controversial opinions about diary is that the production sounds

not great. It sounds... Are you talking about the first iteration or the remastered? Both. Both. Okay. I'm talking about both. Yeah, it's interesting because, like, I think about Brad Wood is a guy doing, like, also like, you know, smashing pumpkins at doors,

a touche and L'ORE albums. But there's something about the way Diary is produced that really makes the difference between indie rock and like mainstream rock stand out in a way that doesn't really exist right now. Like the drum sound on Diary. It just sounds like William Goldsmith, you know, just a top tier drummer is like playing a kit made of Tupperware. There's like a lot of like you can hear like the distortion pedal clicking off. And I guess some might argue that that.

aids the album in terms of giving a certain kind of immediacy that would not really happen all that much on their later albums, particularly like the Rising Tide. But I almost hear it as like the Bradwood connection more of just like a spiritual connection as opposed to... Same.

Yes, as opposed to like them listening to like fuck or run and be fucking run and being like, hey, I want that. You know what I mean? It's just like, it's kind of just state of the art 1994 indie rock and it sounds a little thin, it sounds a little muddy, but nonetheless, it just sounds so much more grand than any other Evo album that existed up to that point, you know,

somewhat after as well. But I think that has more to do with the yes slash Emerson, Lake and Palmer influence coursing through them. Totally. I think it has more. Here's the thing. In my humble opinion, it's one of those albums where everything intersected perfectly to make it. Like, I like that it sounds cheap. for lack of a better word because I think there's a thing about the production of this album that lends itself to the emotion of the album

also that like goes so hand in hand with that. Yeah, I also, if I remember correctly, like after that tour, they did like Jeremy's vocals were kind of shot. So. Because he stopped smoking.

He quit smoking. Isn't that, isn't that nuts? That's what made his vocals get fucked up. It was like the combination of the tour, but also he quit smoking and that always fucks up your respiratory system because all the shit's coming out. Right.

And so you don't quite, like, even on the second record, which, you know, it's nowhere near as iconic as, like, the one surrounding it, but, like, the difference between the vocals on that record is just so profound. And that really kind of sets the stage for, you know, Jeremy Enoch to become, you know, the guy, like, really doing the falsetto

on how it feels and moving forward. But, look, I don't hate the production on it. But, yeah, it sounds like in the context of hardcore slash emo. It is like grandiose. But like I remember we're talking with Rob on 60, on, you know, 60 songs that explained in the 90s. And it's like, my best friend Robert Parvilla.

Yes. You know, compare it to say, he was asking like how this compares to a lot of the bands you mentioned because, you know, it's not too far afterwards that I think super unknown comes out. And, you know, you compare it to that. Yeah. It's like, oh yeah, this is like an indie rock band on a subpop. definitely not a band you would expect to hear on MTV, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. Let's stop talking about how it sounds and demonstrate for the people how it sounds. I hope you'll agree with me. I just think the first song we should play is just seven. Like, I think we should just hit him. Yeah. Hit him with the first song because the first song is a fucking banger. Okay.

This is seven. That was seven goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song. Here's the thing. I'm going to read you the first. first stanza because this isn't actually an album we know the lyrics for because they were printed in the like I'm not saying we know you don't know them I know them but I know them from genius.com which I know that genius.com was actually correct because it is referring to the album booklet that actually printed the lyrics in it. So these are the real lyrics.

So it on face the fool. But the thing is you can't hear that because he's saying so Like that's how Jeremy sings. So it on, face the full, December's tragic drive, when time is poetry and stolen the world outside. The waiting could crush my heart. That's real talk. Fucking inject it right into my goddamn veins. Okay?

Open up a vein and fucking put it right in. I mean, God damn it. These lyrics, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what he's singing because you really really can't make it out. and it's not the lyrics that are doing the emotional heavy lifting, I understand. But after feeling the feeling and then going and having it backed up

by December's tragic drive when time is poetry, yes, Queen. The first five songs on this album, my notes just say, first five song we're on, bro, bro, bro. Yes. That's what I wrote. For our British, for our British, nurse, brov.

Yeah, for those listening across the pond, brough, literally fucking seven into in circles, into song about an angel, into round, into fucking 47, goodbye. Yes, and that, you know, this is kind of foreshadowing one of, again, maybe a less popular opinion is that,

like, in the, I think Diary is a pretty top-heavy album, which is not to say side B is by any means, like unsatisfying. Rendell Hive is coming for you, though. Yeah. So, you know, the reason I, you know, foreshadowing, I think that how it feels to be something on is their best album, largely because its highlights are more judiciously put forth. But yeah, this is like the first five songs, and even you could probably boil it down to the first three songs are like, this is like the template. Like we were joking that

like Diary's kind of like the emo-illomatic in that. It's just like, so perfect that it's like almost difficult to be influenced by it in a way. Like those first three songs, I know, right? The loathing I feel just having said that aloud can only be cured by more Sunday a real estate. It's a vicious cycle. Even just like you can boil it down to like seven and in circles, like those two songs. Like it's the more uptempo one and like the more power ballad.

You can start emo from like those two songs. Put them in a petri dish and like it's a textbook. I mean, the album is called Fucking Diary. You know what I mean? Like, it is just showing you, like, if you want to start emo music, at least emo music that transcends what it had been to that point, which was more of a, like, straight up emotional hardcore. It didn't have the same big picture vision.

Also, it didn't have as opaque of lyrics. Oh, yeah. Emotional hardcore was extremely like, hello, I'm sad. I'd love to kill myself. You're but a memory. When will you come back into my life? I'm sad. Exactly.

You know, I think that this gets into your concept of negative charisma because I would imagine if you were to like go up to when they tour this later this year. I think they might be touring now. You can just ask people in the crowd, hey, what is Jeremy saying during seven? They might not know. I mean, I wouldn't be able to know for the most part. But it's just the way that it gets conveyed that that's how the emotion gets across, which is really ironic for a band that is considered like the tonic ideal for an emo band. it's almost like the lyrics. I mean, they matter.

Believe me. Like when you read it, it's like, yeah, that's poetic as fuck. But they also don't matter. That's why they're the platonic ideal, right? They even transcended lyrics. They're like, this is what the, this is emo music. This music and the way I'm delivering whatever the words that you don't understand are will grip your heart and soul. I mean, I've said it multiple times.

It doesn't matter what lyrics are saying because it's all very. like interpretive through the, you know, lens of the emotions of the listener. And like we talked about it on the pavement episode, right? Like, who, who writes more opaque lyrics than Stephen Malthus? Even these ones make more sense. Yeah. But it doesn't matter.

Who cares? Who cares what you mean? It's about what I'm thinking and feeling while I'm listening to it. Let me ask you a quick question before we play another song. Right. Do you feel like this album would have been the album that, launched a thousand emo bands, if the singer was not Jeremy Enoch, if it was a guy who sounded more traditionally hardcore or normal range of singing.

Not saying a bad singer, but just not a falsetto. So, yeah, I would say that, like, a big reason that this, as you say, like, launched a thousand emo bands is because it had this sort of. of a platform that emo bands hadn't had. If you don't have Jeremy Enoch, if you don't have the Kurt Cobain like negative charisma, if you don't have that vocal, they don't get the attention of subpop,

and then they get on MTV. And so I think the answer to that is probably not. I mean, it's set this ideal where it wasn't like, oh, this, it's great. How cool is that? Like an emo band from our scene got picked up by subpop. it kind of completely reconsidered the idea of like what an emo man is really capable of doing. And so like even if we like talk butterfly effect, like would this, you know, hypothetical man get signed to subpop?

Like probably not. But even if they did, it might just be more on the lines of like, Reverend Horton Heat let's remember some guys as opposed to like, you know, straight legend status. Sure. Again, no disrespect to the Reverend Horton. No disrespect. made great music. This whole album only took two weeks to complete.

Might surprise you. Jeremy said something interesting to spin in 2009. They asked him, what did you discover about the older records when you were going back to them for the reissues? Because they were reissued in 2009. That surprised you. He said, well, for one,

we had all of the tracks isolated so we could learn our parts individually. It was really hard to discern our guitar lines with the others in the mix. When isolated, it surprised me that my playing was utterly terrible and my guitar sounds were atrocious. I consistently made major mistakes that I would never allow these days. But in the mix with the band, they sounded beautiful and complete. Bradwood did an amazing job.

It's a testament to the fact that SDRE was all about the individual parts making the whole as opposed to one separate thing, creating the vibe. How diplomatic of him? But he's not wrong. No, he's totally correct. He's totally correct. And like he says, the last thing he says is, I relearn that playing sloppy with soul is better than playing perfect without it. I think that's a really astute statement because that's what you hear here. Exactly.

I think. And when you hear the remaster where like some of the levels are opt on, you know, certain guitar parts that they weren't on the previous one. I'm like, yeah, this guitar tone is not good or it sounds a little sloppy. It's like, you know, William comes in a beat late when the drum. drums come in on In Circles. And again, it's like, these are things that, like, pop up on a remaster when, you know, you hear the same album, but like, you've heard a hundred times, but like one percent difference makes all, like, it's just, you can't unhear that.

Totally. Oh, In Circles, you say gorgeous. We will hear it. This is In Circles. Throw myself into your door. You're going to have to ask Jeremy about that one. I am unwell. Oh, it's, no, I don't have to ask.

How can you not know? That's like, I know what you mean, Jeremy. I know, throw myself into your door. Do you think Rob Thomas, like, took the unwell lyric from that? Like, maybe there's, like, this unspoken Sunday Day real estate influence on MacDox 20, CVS core classic on well? I think so, but Jeremy and I didn't say on well, I did. But I do think, in general, yes. I think Backbox 20 is emo if that's what you're asking.

Okay, gotcha. If that's your question, then yes. By the way, like, you're just establishing the level of gullibility for me. It's like I, I really don't know the lyrics. I really don't know the lyrics. And like I did, like, I was thinking, like, do I do research and see what? No. It's going to make for more compelling listening.

If, like, you know, I get, like, that's going to be like what we do for the second half. She's going to be, is this a real Sunday day real estate? Right. Sunday day real estate or I made it up. Yes. In circles is a goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. It won't surprise anyone to know that this was actually initially written by Jeremy as an acoustic

song. I find that very interesting. I mean, I could hear it, but it's like the part where like the middle where like the symbols come in, you get that really tinny, like, symbol hit during the bridge. It's like, what does he do during that part? I've not heard it do an acoustic. Yeah. I mean, well, they transformed it, right?

That's what he said. He was like, I brought it to them. And William got a hold of it, and it became this very powerful rock song. At first, I was like, no, no, this isn't what it is. But everything that I write, no matter what it is, it seems like that band with William, Dan, and Nate. They just make it better. I dream to heal your wounds, but I bleed myself. I know that lyric, because I've quoted it.

Run me over with a fucking car, bitch. literally what the hell the amount of weed I have smoked and laid on the floor and listened to this album immense I think I put this in our kind of essentials is shadows I think that's the song that like

more than seven more than in circles more than song about an angel like you can still hear kind of the roots of emotional hardcore and those songs just like blown up to you know much like subpop proportions but Shadows is the one song at least that I hear as being

the indicator of like where things we're going to go from that point forward. Grendel is a nice one-off experiment. I think that's like really cool what he does with the vocals in the beginning. And like sometimes is, you know, obviously a big closing ballad. But when I look back on this album, like forensically thinking like what's going to take them to how it feels and, you know, the rising time? I think shadows is where it begins. This is where they start to become less of a punk band and more of, and, you know, like to say, light and shadow.

Like, I mean, that's like the Led Zeppelin cliche, but I think when you consider that the Rising Tide has a song called like One and the Ocean and Rain song, like these very Led Zeppelin song titles, Shadows is where it begins. So that's kind of why on the second half, that's the song I've returned to and dissect the most, you know. I've heard the first half like so many goddamn times that Shadows is really the one

that, you know, that's like my kind of like a personal, you know, like underdog favorite. Okay, well, let's hear it. You really set it up beautifully. So this is Shadows. That was Shadows. Also a goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. That's where when we talked about like what this, that sounds like one that like kind of evolved from like a jam session, you know, like Dan, I'm sure like playing that like guitar

figure over and over again until Jeremy could come up with a melody. lo and behold. So that's where I hear the kind of jam origins of their early days coming through. Have you interviewed Sunday Day Real Estate? I have not interviewed Sunday Day Real Estate. I don't even know if I've even really tried. I mean, not that I wouldn't want to. But yeah, I have not.

That's of the legendary emo bands. That's the one I have yet to cross off. Try to for this new. Try to. try to for this new, but we just could not get it together. Okay. I hear that. Well, instead you got to come talk about them for five hours on this podcast.

I want to read a little quote, speaking of people who have interviewed Jeremy Enoch, Stereo Gum in 2018. He talked about the dynamic kind of of the band. And he said, but the darkness and the heaviness, yeah, that's William, man. And the really creative innovation, I would say, is Nate. And the power and the right to the jugular aspect is Dan with his heavy guitars. He'll play these big barred chords that just bring it into this space. And I am, whatever I am, you be the judge.

Oh, I will be the judge, Jeremy. Nick, I know what you are. You are, we already said it, the negative charisma, the open wound. And also, we're getting a little ahead. But when I didn't know any of this shit when I was listening at 12, right, or whatever, but, or even until much later, but knowing that Jeremy Enoch pretty five minutes, maybe before the album was even released, I think, became a born again Christian. Yes. Man, it all, it really almost hits harder for me because I'm like, oh yeah, God-sized hole, babe.

Huge God-sized hole throughout this. Like there is like a otherworldliness to this yearning that you hear. in Jeremy Nick's voice. And man, that little piece of biographical information just really, really hits for me. You find out that like song about an angel is like actually about an angel. Like it is meant to be taken literal. All love songs. All love songs are about God.

Yeah, but these ones like really are like it is quite literal, you know? Bono Corp, babe. Exactly. Like when, you know, you brought up like mutual milk. when like, you know, Jeff Mangum is singing, I love you, Jesus Christ. I love you, Jesus Christ. I love you, Jesus Christ. There's still somehow ways to interpret that, but like with, you know, it's all about an angel.

It's like, no, it's about an angel. No, and also that one is about Jesus Christ. Yeah, an angel named Jesus. No, no, I mean the usual milk hotel one. That's definitely also about Jesus Christ. Oh, it's definitely about Jesus Christ, yes. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think there's a, this is a sidebar and we don't have to get super into it.

But what is falling in love, if not an attempt to glimpse the divine, right? Like, that's really what it is. Like, that's what Jung would say that you're projecting your anima or animus, which is really your soul, which is the thing that is closest to the divine within you upon someone else. And that's what falling in love is. That's right. You can explain. Yeah. I hear Anna, but I just think we're talking about tool.

Tool? Yeah. They spelled it weird, though. Anyways, that was just a little meander over to the other corner of Yossi's brain that you guys are lucky to not have to experience. I just slightly, I slightly prefer 47 to song from an angel, a song about an angel. Is that insane? Not at all.

I think 47 is, you know, it's the sequencing of this album makes it a natural thing to say, these three songs, like these are the best. And, you know, I wouldn't look askance at anyone who says that. But 47 is, you know, that's my number three as well. I just, the pacing of it, I think, really works, because I don't always love a Senate of Real Estate in mid-tempo form, but, like, the way the guitar lead works on that song just makes it compelling, even though if the song itself is a little slower in tempo.

I dissociated when you said tempo, but I'm back and let's hear the song. Yes. This is 47. That was 47. More discernible lyrics, no? That's a situation where the guitar lead is doing a lot of the heavy lifting as far as the emotional status of the song. Yeah, it's very effective. It's very effective.

This was a song that I was really disappointed to learn that the lyrics that I had heard were not the lyrics because I found them to be very profound. I have a playlist of songs that have lyrics about breath. I'm fine. I'm normal. And this one does, but I didn't hear it the way that it is. So he says, take a breath, take a breath. You hear that. And I thought the next line was same time.

which I really loved. But it's same sign, which I don't know what that means. That's all. Me talking about the lyrics is like you talking about tempo. You're like, yeah, I'm playing Minecraft. So. Okay.

So it's important to know that Sunny Day Real Estate Diary quickly became Sub Pop's second bestselling record. This is what I quickly wanted to talk about. Two things. Sunny Day real estate, I believe as spearheaded by one Daniel Horner, refused to do interviews or press around this album. Cell Pop was very frustrated, though,

because we refused to do any interviews and press was a big part of promotion, but we didn't do interviews. I don't like it, me personally. Yeah. A, because I have nothing to read, but also B, because I think it's a little contrived. If it was like Ian Mackay, I'd be like, fine.

But, like, it doesn't feel like super, like that was necessary. if you will. Yeah. I mean, maybe they're just like kind of preventing Jeremy from going like so hey,

what does this lyric mean? Like, again. Yeah, Jeremy from prostolitizing to spin magazine or whatever. Yeah, maybe it was for their own good. That would have been cool.

That actually would have been super cool. I mean, hey, you know what? You're opening up that market. Sub pop would probably look, their money spends the same. Yeah,

but one's a less cool time to be religious than 90s. The 90s were the most godless like knee-chie. ass fucking time in recent history. It's not like now where everyone's like, cool, I'm based, I love God, memes about God. That was not

the vibe in the 90s. Yeah, I do think that you know, when looking back on it, the refusal to do press or like that weird sort of thing they had about California seemed like that's like so fucking cool. But I'm sure... That was 100%

Dan, the not playing in California. Yeah, Dan's... Arbitrary. Yeah, Dan seems to be the guy who comes up these arbitrary rules. And, you know, I think it adds to what makes, you know, something to real estate interesting to talk about, especially when I'm sure, like, a lot of bands of their ilk would just die to be doing the press. And also, it's like, it's not like nowadays where you can interact with your fans directly. It's like, I'm sure that subpop were not thrilled by that approach. The fact that this album sold as well as it did with them doing

no press is kind of remarkable. Yeah, I wonder what number two was before that, you know, because, you know, number one was obviously bleach, but I, like. Mud honey, maybe. That sounds about right. I'm thinking, yeah. I think, like, it was something like number six before, you know, stop hop turned the corner and, like, you know, post shins or whatever.

But I wonder where it stands right now as far as like so. Yeah. Postal service, I think, is like number two now. Yeah, definitely post service three probably has. to be a inverted world. Or maybe like a beach house or Father John missed the album or something like that. Sure. But at this time it was number two.

And very important because I think subop was like sort of on the verge of collapse. Or like I don't want to overstate. They were in trouble. Like they were the label was shaky. And Sunday Day Real Estate's diary injected. injected back into it the funds and life that it needed to continue. Like, I think they basically saved Sub Pop, which is so interesting. Yeah, especially since Sub Pop has not touched any emo band in the time since.

Well, they didn't have an exactly like healthy and friendly relationship with Sunny Day Real Estate, which we'll get into going forward. One really funny thing, sidebar from the press thing, is that very early on, like they were just in the Subpop office. And Subpop got a call where they Nordstrom. You know this. So Nordstrom gets on the horn with Sub Pop and they're like, we need a grunge-looking band, babe, because we need to sell some fucking flannels and some cargo shorts. So can you send us over someone?

It pays whatever, $1,500. I'm making that up every idea. Sunny Day real estate is a broke. I think Nate Mendel is sleeping in a closet. They all live together. They have no money. And they're like, fine, we'll do it. Can we just say, because it's not like they wanted them because they were

Sunny Day Real Estate. There was no such thing as anyone knowing the Sunny Day Real Estate was at time. So like, can we just go under a fake name? They're like, yeah, fuck, be free, go with God. So they go, they rope in Eric Sunderson, who's also randomly in the ad, they pose, they wear the flannels, the cargo shorts, the whole fucking nine yards. And then somehow they are found out. Someone lets the name slip. Something happens and it fully backfires. And they are Absolutely. In an ad, you can see it online and it was easily findable as Sunny Day real estate, full-on Nordstrom ad, gorgeous. Because Nordstrom famously a Seattle company.

Anyways, that's the press that they do. Dan, like we said, refuses to play in California. However, they do play the K-Rock almost acoustic Christmas that year, which I think is hilarious. And Dan just doesn't come. They play as a trio. And there's like a really funny Getty images photo of them. I want to talk about how this album was absorbed into the culture at the time because there probably were reviews and write-ups of it.

I can't find them, but they're not. But it doesn't mean they didn't exist, right? It just means that, like, they're not archived properly. Like, yeah, Rolling Stone and like Spin, I don't think, wrote about them. Maybe Spin did. Spin is kind of hard to navigate the archives. But I imagine there's plenty of zines. probably big zines that wrote about it.

But yeah, I'm curious. I mean, you're only a couple of years older than me, but did you experience this album in real time? I do recall seeing the video for seven on 120 minutes once or twice. I probably got them confused with Green Apple Quick Step. But like I would say that this band was not at all really on my radar. And I don't know, the first time of real estate out of my bought with my own money. Now, granted, I had heard a little bits and pieces of diary and how it feels to be something on was The Rising Tide.

I bought that Plan 9 music in Charlottesville, Virginia. I came into that record store intending to buy White Pony by Deftones, and I heard like, well, what's this thing I'm hearing, right? This sounds interesting. Oh, it's not any real estate. Cool. I'll check that out. So I have very little concept of how they were received in real time, aside from like,

oh, cool, those are the guys in food fighters now? That's pretty neat. Yeah, it's tough to say. It's all revisionist history as far as I'm concerned. If I was 12 in any other town, I might not have known about Sunny Day real estate. And if I was 12 and hadn't have been, like I said, radicalized by Gina Arnold and her book, Route 666, The Roach and Nirvana, which led me to be like, so pop it at all? Let's fucking get this shit popping, babe, and watching 100 minutes. I don't know about it either.

So anyways, I don't know. know how it was received in real time. I know that it did reach the ears of one Jeffrey Rickley and his future bandmates who went on to form Thursday. I think we can know that there were many 12, 13, 14, 15 year olds in New Jersey and Long Island and Florida or whatever who also watched 120 minutes and got this album and later went on to form the backbone of the when we were young festival or whatever. In Poway, California, a young Tom the Long.

I don't know. No, I don't. That would really surprise me, but maybe there's been a lot of Blinquent E2 slander on the internet these days, which I will not abide. And I also, I'll stand by it. There's a couple of bands that if you're not from California,

your opinion simply does not matter. Sublime. Loving is what I got. Red hot chili peppers. Blinkwinnati 2. Where are you? Absolutely. I don't care what you think.

It's not yours. It's ours. You have the privilege and pleasure of listening to it, but that's ours. Anyways, circling back to Sunday Day Real Estate, there's a lot of good writing about diary in hindsight, obviously, much of it done by you, Ian Cohen. I would say no. I wrote about them in 2009, and I'm just like praying you don't read that shit.

It's terrible. Oh, whether it's lifelong softies like Jimmy World, and strident scream machines such as Thursday or over their heads, windbags in the vein of angels and airwaves. Crit speak about bands with roots and emo usually dictates the following career path. Hang with fat mic all you want.

Call us when you're ready to sound like you two. It's an easy narrative to set up maybe because it requires fewer keystrokes and the more correct comparison. Sunny Day real estate. I want to die right now. Like I want to die of like not even secondhand embarrassment, like first-hand embarrassment.

I don't think that's so bad. That's not so bad. It's not so bad. It's bad. It's not so. It could be a lot worse. How about that? Every day, I think the good lord above that I am a failed journalist, which means it's very difficult to find anything I wrote unless you had a subscription to vapors, the graffiti lifestyle magazine out of Sacramento. And you have those buried in your basement. We're going to do like a Nard war type episode where we do get those and you throw it back in your face. If you're going to like bring up stuff I wrote in 2000. Oh, please do. It's so criss. My early writing is so cringe. First of all, it's mostly about underground backpack rappers. It's a whole situation.

They let me interview the streets. Like, what? Anyways, streets are cool. That blue top, sharp top you've got on is nice. Bit too much fake and no, but yeah, you score high. I think we've covered it importantly, but in the AV club, Kyle Ryan, also in 2009. Everyone

wrote about this album in 2009, because that's the year of subhop reissued it. He said, although the second wave of emo was underway when the band debuted with 1994's diary, the album popularized the dreamy post-hardcore sound that would define that decade to reappropriate Brian Eno's famous quote about the Velvet Underground, more than 200,000 people bought diary and seemingly all of them started bands. There was already something afoot though, right? Like we talked about this. Like you're saying like other emo bands saw like, oh, they made it, we can make it. Who were those other email bands?

I think you have to point out, like, Apple Seed Cast. I think they were named after a Sunday Day real estate song before they renamed themselves Apple Seed Cast. Mineral was since, you know, kind of viewed as a Sunday Day real estate ripoff in the beginning, if not, like, you know, a band influenced by them, like, maybe even an outright rip off. You know, you can look at maybe, like, Christie Front Drive. I'm just like early Jimmy Eweil, like a static prevails.

has a diary-esque sound to it. Do you think the Promise Ring heard diary before they started? I mean, they probably heard it, but I don't think I hear it. I think the Midwest stuff like that, you know, the post cap and jazz is just coming from a completely different perspective. It's kind of hard to believe that cap and jazz and, like, diary exist in the same continuum because, like, they just... It makes it's insane. saying it makes no sense. Yeah, it just branches off into completely different sort of sound. Totally. Okay. I do, I'm curious about your opinion on this, but it doesn't add to our conversation,

but there's a funny quote from Andy Greenwald in his book where he says that the term is in a genre. It's a particular relationship between a fan and a band. It's a desire to turn a monologue into a dialogue. You don't think that applies to Sunny Day Real estate. I don't think they were interested in having a dialogue. Not as much. I get what he's saying, but he could also just be describing people's relationship with like, you know, Taylor Swift or what have you. 100. I thought million percent. Okay.

Moving on. I liked this, but obviously I'm a Jessica Hopper Stan. She said, once sunny day became popular, two things happened. One is that punk bands all over got this gleam in their eye and felt like they could start shredding like that and singing about whatever mattered to them. The other is the word emo went from being vague and undefined to this specifically emotionally over. overbearing music. Music that was romantic, but denatured of its political, traditionally punk rock content. It was polemic.

Everything switched. I would say that there's definitely truth to that. Sunny Day Real Estate aside from like just kind of general environmentalist, you know, Walden-esque ideals didn't have really politics. And, you know, I think that... Did you say Waldenesque? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay.

I think that's fair. Dan Hoard is like living out in a farm, you know, and, you know, and now. albums. So I think that's kind of fair. I have difficulty kind of grasping, even if it was the second best selling album on subpop, you know, and 200,000 records sold is by no means something to sniff at. No, it was not, it was a blip on the fucking. Weezer sold like whatever, you know, 20 million. I'm making it. I'm not yet. Yeah. Bands could go gold in that era and not even really have to try. So, I mean, I think maybe if we're thinking about it on a ground level, which, you know, just Jessica Hopper was at that time and I was not.

So I so I trust where she's coming from on that. I think that, you know, the depoliticization, that's a mouthful, was probably going on at that point as well. But I mean, yeah, I think that, you know, in the beginning, the idea of like emo being necessarily a political sort of thing. I mean, like what happens when bands, you know, aren't from D.C. anymore or, you know, that's a kind of, it's a kind of limitation on what it means to, you know, express oneself because, I mean, I think, as, you know, we've known, like, political outrage can exhaust itself pretty quickly. Sure. And so there's certainly, like, merit to where, you know, she's coming from on that.

But I do think that from 1994 going forward, whether that was due to Sunnyty Real Estate or whether that was due to a post-grunge sort of disillusion with political, uh, music making. I think maybe there was more of that going on in general when you look at like alt rock after you know, Kirk Cobain died. People were starting to kind of maybe see music as a political vector or agent or whatever is kind of a dead end. So I don't know if Sunday Day real estate is responsible for all of that. I think maybe they're just a blip in a greater cultural shift. Yeah, I mean like you could argue that rights of spring wasn't an overtly political band. I mean, they were adjacent

to political bands. And maybe their existence was political. Maybe a man singing about feelings at that time was political. I don't know, but like it's not that different, you know, to whatever.

Yeah, personal is political, etc. That's the 90s, right? It's like what we might now call navel gazing a bit is just like that was, that was in its own way, a political stands. Yeah.

I'll say it. Sure. It would have been way cooler if Jeremy was like, this is God core, because that would have been really political, but they would not allow him. Andy Greenwald in his book, we've talked about nothing feels good. He makes a correlation between Sunny Day real estate and Jawbreaker. I think that's fair. Where do you see that?

Well, I think I see them as like kind of the two definitive emo crossover acts at that time. Because, you know, Jawbreaker was popular. Like, I mean, Jawbreaker is just, like, super lyrical. And, like, people get those lyrics, like, tattooed and memorized and probably quoted in high school yearbooks. And they had this more of a cult of personality around them. Jawbreaker seemed like the sort of band of, like, people you might know,

like, you know, in the scene, they just happened to be a great band, whereas Sunny Real Estate was, like, kind of more magical in a way. I don't want to, like, frame it as, like, a Pearl Jam versus Nirvana thing. but like I think that Jawbreaker was more kind of gritty, more down to earth, that more real life, less grandiose in the way they approached music. And Sunny Real Estate presented this other sort of path where it's a lot more kind of quasi-spiritual, maybe a little more based in classic rock than actual punk music. So I don't see them as like correlated so much as just like two bands coexisting with very different ideas.

And I don't think jawbreaker would consider themselves emo by any stress of the imagination. Boy, when you see those. Yeah. When you see those reunion shows, you're probably going to hear Blake going off about emo bands. So, yeah, I mean, I think that they correlate insofar as them being a, these are the two bands that people would probably identify as the most popular of the bunch. Yeah, like, seminal and also like sort of like didn't last. You know, I think that's the other thing. It's like really sort of tragic trajectories of, but also that's how you embalm.

Exactly. No, these are perfect. Like we, I mean, yeah, jawbreaker. I mean, because they both continue to produce music, fairly high quality music. But the fact that they made a certain amount of records and they stopped just kind of, I think Sunday real estate really benefited from not existing in Emo's third wave. I mean, granted, Jeremy Enoch was making, you know, so. albums and the fire theft and all that.

But I think that them breaking up for real and for good after the rising tide, you know, before even the middle came out, it sort of allowed you to see them as like kind of a good old day sort of band before things got to commercial.

Okay. So signing a real estate, even though they're, we said, averse to press, they go on the John Stewart Show, September 19th, 19th, 1994. This is the John a show that was on MTV, not the daily show that you all know and love. Please welcome performing seven from their debut album, Diary, Sunny Day Real Estate.

This is a great appearance. You can watch it on YouTube. Then there's 120 minutes, kind of a week apart. Now, before they go on this big tour near the end of the year. And before that, Jeremy, Nate, and William track almost all the music for what we'll be. referred to as LP2 here. The pink album. Yes. The self-titled pink album. They break up. It's kind of unclear when

exactly, but it might have even been before they recorded those tracks. It might have been while they were recording those tracks. It was almost certainly before they went on this long tour that they go on. I don't know why they still go on. It's very interesting. They break up, but they're like, we'll still do the things we're supposed to do, but we're broken up.

And we need the money. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, totally. It's like when you break up with your significant other, but you can't afford to move out. So you're like, no, we're broken up, but I live here still with you for like the next six months or whatever. I think of the quintessential emo story about that.

Like Taking Back Sundays, a decade under the influence is about the singer breaking up with his girlfriend, but they still had cold play tickets and they ended up going to the Coldplay show. Stop. And that's what the song is about. Right.

Now, amazing. Now I'm going to go listen to Take It Back Sunday. Here's what's happened. Jeremy has become a warning and Christian, we said. Dan, by all accounts, has grown, to put it lightly, difficult to get along with, allegedly. I'm just going off of the things that I've read. Nate Mendel said, Dan had a really strong personality, which really helped the band in a lot of ways. He's really creative, had a lot of ideas, and was good about getting other people to rise to the occasion.

Jeremy said he's a man with incredible vision and he knows how to get there. But then Mendel also said, Dan definitely was not an easy person. He created more enemies in more people that were prone to avoid him than he created friends. That was in post there, Grubbsb. Dan Horner told the Dallas Observer in 1998, When we broke up, it was absolutely the most necessary thing in the world. We just needed that time and some distance. We had just developed really dysfunctional communication.

You know, like when you get some shit started and you, you just don't deal with it or you deal with it in the wrong way and keep putting it back. I don't know. We didn't know how to talk to each other. We fought about stupid, stupid shit. It definitely got to the point where just about the only thing that could help us get over it was the distance. I think a lot has been sort of put on Jeremy's shoulders about the breakup because like a very easy interpretation of the narrative is like he became a born again Christian.

They didn't want to be in a band with a born again Christian essentially. but I think a lot more was going on behind the scenes than just that. However, they're on this big tour with Shudder to think. And soul coughing. Gone savage or teenagers with automatic weapons and boundless love. Really? Yeah, that was the tour. I know.

I asked Mike Doty about it and he was like, it was great. Everyone was so nice. And I remember them being really good. And I was like, okay, no memories of a band broken up falling apart. Jeremy did start praying on stage during this tour that I don't think it went over while with the other band members. William Goldsmith told Eric Grubbson Post, he was singing religious hymns and I was smashing symbols to drown him out.

It was something I often did, which was like just a really, for me, cool image. Like Jeremy's trying to sing Christian hymns and Williams like, no, no, no. Like loud crashing symbols. so that no one would hear him. I think of all the people in the band, it seems William had the hardest time

with this sort of newborn-again Christianity. He told the Miami New Times in 1998, I don't think Jeremy and I ever hated each other. But my bitterness towards his new spirituality was a highly personal thing that went back to me being raised Catholic. I'd always been made to feel a tremendous amount of guilt because of that when I was growing up,

but I'd managed to get away from it. And all of a sudden, Jeremy was into what felt like the same thing. Because of the things from my past, I became extremely frustrated with him. The band needed to break up anyway. I mean, we were definitely on our way to breaking up. But what was happening with Jeremy pushed it over the edge. They break up after every album. I know.

They just, they can't quit each other. Here's a letter that Jeremy wrote to the fans. I have no idea where this was originally printed. It is now on a website called testicle.com. I don't know. Shout to the guy. Shout to the guy who cybersquotted on that. you are. Literally. And then here I am mining the bowels of the internet, finding testicle.com,

to read about Jeremy's response to a fan named Seth Littlefield saying, I heard a disturbing rumor that you might break up because Jeremy is a born again Christian. To Seth and other readers, I'm sorry you are disturbed about the rumor of us breaking up. It's amazing how fast these things travel. Yes, sir, I have given my life to Christ. For a long time, I dwelt on a lot of pain in my life, pain that I had tried to get rid of in many different ways. I watched myself slowly shrivel up into a hopeless, bitter, and lonely person. Well, one thing led to another, and I could not take it anymore. So I took a shot on calling upon God. He answered me. My pain was gone. I was full of joy. I had hope again. All the hope that was squeezed out of me was replaced ten times. I had tried this in many

different ways. None of them succeeded in saving me from hurt. Sorry, Strappa ends a bit long. well, I was so full of joy that I wanted all of my friends to feel the way I did. So I told all of them. And of course, they couldn't understand since it was something that I had been going through myself. Also, it is such a far thing to grasp that is easier to just blow it off. To give your life to Christ means to deny yourself, to completely live for him. Doing this will change your comfort zone that you had been trying to get since you can remember. You then are a new person desiring a whole new different way than before. Most people definitely don't want their comfort change.

So they stay away from the idea of Jesus. The funny thing is, when you sincerely call upon him, though you let yourself go, he fills you with joy and peace that far surpasses any joy, peace, and comfort that you could possibly feel from earthly pleasures. I read all this to say, like, this was Jeremy's vibe then. It's not like he was just like, yeah, I'm doing this thing. Here's a thing. It's like, I need you to all know, which is, that's a common hallmark, I think, of certain

sex of Christianity. They want to save you. And like, it's kind of pure and sweet, honestly, to me. But I could see how it might be triggering and annoying to other people. Yeah. My wife comes from the evangelical, charismatic evangelical. She grew up in that sort of scene. And, you know, obviously people like Jeremy and, you know, David Bazan were extremely important.

But like, yeah, this is kind of part for the course in that realm. Yeah. So it's like six more paragraphs. Yeah, totally. It was like the first like open letter on the internet, like pre-internet. Like it was a little ahead of its time. Totally. But it's honestly reading it now.

It's very sweet. It's very sincere. You can just see like he was a pained and troubled person and this thing that he found helped him. And he wanted to, he wanted other people to feel better too. Okay. So it's funny because it's like halfway through that tour is when people started showing up. for Sunny Day Real Estate, right? Because, like, it takes a little while for, like, the album to hit and spread.

And they're like, well, fuck, well, that's cool. I guess we're not a bandit anymore. You know, like they have this fan base now. However, they've basically recorded the album. They get back from tour, Dan tracks his parts. Jeremy comes in and finishes up the vocals. They're broken out, but they're like, well, whatever. We wrote the album.

We should put it out. 1995. Before the album comes out, May 23rd is when a very important album comes out, called the Batman Forever soundtrack. Batman. Forever. Yes, I was really hoping. I don't know the date of it, but I was really hoping we'd take it here.

We have to talk about it because soundtracks were so powerful at this time, right? I mean, this was one of the top selling soundtracks also, I think, of the 90s. This soundtrack was produced by the Rizza. I'm dying to know, did the Rizza choose the Sunny Day Real Estate song? I want it to be yes, but I think it's no. What do you think? It sounds to me based on the fact that it showed up on LP2 and it's also a bonus track on the remastered

that they just had this song lying around. And it's like, yeah, here, take it. This is such a phenomenal soundtrack because, yes, it starts out with like U2, PJ Harvey, Brandy Seal, Nick Cave Method Man. Mm-hmm. The offspring covering smash it up. Massive attack, like the flaming lips

and Sunny Day Real Estate, like, I had no idea that Rizzo executive produced this, like, until recently. This was a weird time where they started doing a thing where they were like, it's a soundtrack, except that only five of these songs are in the movie. Yeah, music inspired by... Exactly. Which is like, no, Sunny Day Real Estate song 8, which they wrote nine years prior to this or whatever, was not inspired by the feature film Batman Forever. But let's just say it was.

So anyways, this like raises their profiles, what I want to say. Now, I need to play you a song. I don't know if you're familiar with it. You probably are by a band called 30 aught 6. Do you know this band? I do not know this band. Okay. Shout out to my deep Seattle Gen X man friend who put me on to this.

30 aught 6 was another Seattle band who was close friends with Sunny Day Real Estate. This whole fucking album is actually really good. really blows my mind because I'll find these things every once in a while where I'm like, damn, in another universe, this could have been as big as any of these other bands that we lionized today. There's just the 90s. I mean, I'm biased, but there's so many fucking good bands. Anyways, 30 out six, besties with Sunny Day, I think. They put on an album called Hagseed. Oh, that's a very 90s name.

That's a very 90s. I'm looking at it right now. This album cover, the fonts. Oh, so 90s. Oh, wow. Yes. There's a song called Tourmal. on it featuring Jeremy Enoch.

And in my estimation, this is one of the best Sunny Day Real Estate songs. Let's play it. It's not a Sunny Day Real Estate song, but you get what I'm saying. Yes. This is Tourmaline by 30 Ot Six. Okay. So as much as I'd love to talk about 30 Ot Six and their great album Hagseed for the remaining four hours of this podcast, we do have to move on to the other three Sunny Day

Real Estate albums. I've been really marinating them about this one. four album run and how I'm getting ahead. But just like, it's interesting. It's interesting what changes. It's interesting how people, what your favorite says about you. Like, I feel like producer Nico should write one of her like horoscope things.

That's like, this is what your favorite Sunny Day album says about you, you know? Anyways, do you know anyone whose favorite is the pink album? Absolutely. So there is. Yeah, it's a fucking banker. Yeah, it's great.

but like there's this kind of subgenre of like emo albums that are like clearly not the classic, but like the one that you latch onto if you're a contrarian. Oh, there's contrarians in the emo community? You don't say. Yeah, especially as it. I don't believe you. Yeah, there's certain kinds of contrarians. There's like the contrarians who think the first album, even if it's like produced like absolute dog shit is the best record.

Like those are the, you know, 30 degrees everywhere fans. Clearly you don't agree with that. As much, like, I'm a poser. I think we've established that. And I also think that for the most part, these bands get better when they actually have, like, production values and, you know, success. And, you know, they're the people who think the get-up kid's four-minute mile

is better than something the right home about. That's a crazy opinion. And, you know what, like, like even... That's like padded cell level opinion. Even the get-up kids were like, yeah, that all sounds like complete dog shit. I mean, they just played that, like, anniversary shows for it. But, yeah, LP2 is the sort of person.

I hate to do type of guy typecasting, but whatever, let's do it anyway. We love doing type of guy typecasting in this program, so please feel free. Yeah, it is totally the person who, like, I don't even know what the argument is for them. It's more just that, like, it hasn't been as overexposed as the other three records. And therefore, there's, like, the most you can, you can. could still like get something out of it like diary's been overanalyzed to death you know how it feels to be something on is like the in like if you're into indie rock but like you kind of have a uh not particularly positive relationship with email you can probably still get behind how it feels

me something on and like the rising tide i don't know maybe i think there are some people who i actually looked on all music guide and that's the highest rated one the rising tide base all music guide thinks the rising tide is their uh is their masterwork okay all music guide all due all respect to all music guide which I use quite frequently for this program okay well here's what I'm gonna say

in my mind Diary and LP2 are a bit of a melancholy and it's sadness and I sort of take them as like one master work because I kind of do feel like in the comparison

to the other albums they're really sonically similar you know like they're tonally similar. It's really just a continuation, except then it was like, oh, I didn't have time to finish my homework. Which is fine. I mean, if only I could rush through anything and make it as good as the pink album by a sunny day real estate. You know, like, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's awesome. I don't particularly hear any additional tension that I don't hear in the first. Like, this is a band of tension. So it's not like you can hear them breaking up.

I don't think, I mean, do you hear it? I don't think so. I mean, like, all this stuff is after the fact, you know, like, given how I've been very upfront about, you know, my lack of knowledge about the actual lyrics of Sunday Day real estate, the fact that, like, Jeremy Enick was singing gibberish for the most part of this one. This is real speaking in tongues hours over here. Like, Jesus take literally took the wheel and the microphone. And so I don't even know if this is like Melchalling of the Infinite Sadness so much is more. like maybe a kid A slash amnesiac where this is sort of seen as perhaps the leftovers. And this is played out by the fact that like eight appears on this record,

but it's also included as a B-side for a bonus track in the remaster of Diary. So. So weird. And yeah, I guess it's just like kind of extra or maybe like an I don't know a lot of the lore behind this record. Maybe it was just like, uh, subpop was like, hey, you know, we're kind of in a dead zone right now for our legendary record label maybe if you could just give us something anything i think they already had this like from what i was reading it's like they already had the album pretty much like written yeah basically before they broke up so they were just like well might as well just fucking fit in that it's a very funny

vibe of like it's not like i hate you and i wish you were dead it's like yeah we're breaking up this is not working but we should go on that cool tour and we should finish this album which is like kind of interesting you know like you don't When you're behind the music of other bands that break up, it's never like, well, we should go to tour, you know, with Shutter to think. We love Shutter to think. Why would we not take that opportunity?

Yeah. This reminds me a bit of, you know, we've talked a little bit so far about like mineral being seen as like a Sunday day real estate, not rip off, but a band that was like, you know, highly influenced by them. And that was kind of how and serenading work. We were like, okay, we broke up, but let's just like kind of finish the record anyway.

And, you know, Chris came in and just finished the lyrics like that. So, you know, I think the sort of people who like and serenating more than the power of failing tend to like LP2 more as well. That's the package deal. Yeah. I like every song on this album. That's right. I said it. But I don't know why when I listen, I always get extra, like, caught on waffle.

I just really love it. Like every time it comes on. And because I don't know, there's something so opaque about this album that like, I almost don't remember the song names or whatever because it's like not really how you listen to it. And then I'm always like, damn, this song is so good. And I'm like, oh, yeah, it's Waffle. Yeah. Every time.

Years. It's been decades. Oh, yeah. It's Waffle. Yeah. The ones that like, and I have the same problem with, you know, with the song titles. Like eight I remember because it's been on, you know, the Batman Forever soundtrack. And I remember five.

four because that's the time signature that it's in. So, but, you know, Red, I, when you're, you could be talking about Waffle and I might think it's Red Elephant. I also know the first song is Friday and it's the shortest one. So, yeah, I mean, but like, otherwise, like, is Rodeo Jones the song in the record or is that bucket of chicken? I think of it more. That's the last one.

Yes. And so, yeah. And you're the one who said this band doesn't have a sense of humor. No, I mean, I think maybe more. in the, yeah, you're right. They're laughing all the way to the, wherever they went. Wherever it is they went.

Starbucks. Starbucks are like wherever, you know, Dan buys his like farm equipment. But yeah, this one I think of more as a piece, you know, like, and maybe that's why it stands out as an album. Like, you could say it's like the best end-to-end album experience because it's really difficult to separate any of the singles from it the same way that we could do with Diary

by mentioning like in circles and seven, for example. Like, or how it feels. In fairness, with in circles, he says in circles so many times that it's very easy to remember that that song is in circles. Whereas there's no mention of waffles and the lyrics of waffling.

Or Jena, like nothing. Or JN.R.G.O.B. or 8 for that matter. So, yeah, there's just like a lot of mystery towards this record. and I think that's what makes it so easy to re-explore in a way that the more song-oriented albums doing. Also, here's just a funny fact.

When you look at the Sunday Day Real Estate, you know, the LP2 Pink Album Wikipedia page, it says like LP2 redirects here for the American football album. Literally. Yeah. Also sparse, the Wikipedia page. Yeah, very sparse. Well, let's hear Waffle.

Just to get us started, because we should hear some music off of this gorgeous album. This is Waffle. That was Waffle. God damn, gorgeous, beautiful song. This song is pretty much absolutely about God. It's funny because I think of the Simpsons episode where, you know, Homer's praying to God. And, like, it just turns out it's a waffle stuck to the ceiling. Oh, my, that's not God.

That's just a Waffle that bark toss. stop there. I haven't had this thought until just now, so maybe... Maybe a Simpsons writer is a Sunday day fan. I mean, you know, there's the Washington connection. We're going to have to look into this. I was going to have to interview Jeremy Enoch just to ask that one question. It's like, you know, let's just put all this stuff aside.

We got to talk about Waffle and he'll say like, yes, let's talk about Waffle. Is it like the one... Is it a Simpson's joke? And then we'd like, okay, finally, you got it. And then we completely reorient. like our opinion about Sunday real estate as a band that has like a wild humor is just so subtle.

I mean, look, I don't know. They might be really funny. I've never met them. Perhaps they're full of jokes. Yeah. I just wonder like what they would listen to in the van or whatever. Headphones probably.

Everyone. Yeah, that seems like the type. I don't stare out the window. Yeah. Jeremy listened to the Bible book on tape and the rest of them were listening to whatever they were interested in. I imagine like Jeremy.

was very 90s, you know, and this plays out with, like, the prophet. He was probably listening to, like, Nusrafatel, like Khan. Like a lot of Seattle bands, they got into that. It was like that kind of Middle Eastern tonalities going on.

Yeah, it was like, you either did Jeff Buckley or you did Newsterafatel icon. Those are your two choices if you wanted to, like, breakthrough in the 90s, it becomes spiritual. Totally. Yeah.

So the artwork of this album we haven't talked about, and I say that. extremely lightly. Yeah. Artwork. They were broken up, right? So basically subpop just like keeps calling and they're like, babe, where's the

what's the, hello, we need the artwork. And no one would respond. And finally, William answered. And they were like, William, no one's responding. We need the artwork to put the fucking album out. And he was like, eh, just make it pink. And that's it. That's why it's the pink album.

It's pink. Neither one of the first two albums say Sunny Day Real Estate on them, which I thought was interesting. there's no lyric book because the lyrics were largely made up real words or made up yeah

it's just for a quote unquote throwaway album which I don't know if that's how they would describe it it's so good like it's crazy to me how good it is I put it on again this morning and I was just like all the way through like

the first four or five songs six songs Honestly, all of it. There's really not a part that I'm like, oh, this is a lull. Iscaria abide? Goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song, Jinnah, Red Elephant. Yeah, I think that you can also make the argument that this is the best example of, like, how powerful they were as a band, because, like, their throwaways or, like, the songs

where they were just kind of making shit up on the fly are still this good as opposed to diary, which sounds like the songs that they have been working on for however many years. It's in some ways like a more, the most compelling story of any Sunday Day real estate album. And it allows you to just like see that telepathic connection they had as a band where they could barely be on speaking terms, but like still churn out this music, which is so profoundly emotional, even if it doesn't say anything that could be viewed on its face as like, quote, like emo lyrics, whether then or an. That's so true, babe. I have some thoughts on that as we get into the other albums. To no one's surprise, I am often the irritating I like their earlier stuff album guy. That's my thing.

That's where I live. But I think there's something that really works for Sunny Day real estate that was out of their control, which is as what you call the bad production. But what I hear as this sort of like beautiful sludge, right? It's like it's almost this like weaving together of the sounds that they're all individually making. And it softens some of the things that in later albums are really pronounced that you really have to like that. Particularly I think with Jeremy's vocals. Like, when you get into how it feels to be something on, like, it's a different ballgame sonically in so many ways.

Absolutely. Let's play one more song off LP2 before we move on. And in between, you know we have to get into the Goss Bib because it's Goss Town. It's Goss Central USA. All right. I'm dying to hear it because, like, this Gossom is probably new to me. The song I particularly singled out was, you know, of course, Bucket of Chicken. Bucket of Chicken kind of shows like them as like human beings.

Like, oh, let's just call this song Bucket of Chicken. Eight's the one that I do think that they, that one gets stressed a lot more like because it is just the way the dynamics are just stand out to me. Like I always get to confuse with Friday as far as the song time. But that's the one. It was originally for the Crow soundtrack. Yes, big difference. I believe it was rejected, right?

It was rejected. It was too depressing. thing for the crow. They were like, this is a downer, man. I think it was the crow too. I think it might have been the crow too. Yeah. And again, I'm not as familiar with the crow two soundtrack. The first one is like

an end-to-end classic, which Sunny Real estate probably would not have fit on. It's the Crow City of Angels. That's the one. The Crow City of Angels. Okay, let's hear eight. Yes. This is eight. That was

eight. Just like a really uplifting. It's like a PMA type anthem. It really gets you ready to hit the day. I'll to work out to that song. I thought you said P.T. like Paul Thomas Anderson. I'm like, I don't know if I hear that. More PTA than PMA, I will say. It's a gorgeous song. Also, much foreshadowing as the lyrics are Rain song and there is eventually an actual Rain song on the ill-fated last Sunny Day album. Well, well, well, look who has written about LP2. It is our very own Ian Cohen.

Oh, God. Okay, so here's what this man, Ian Cohen said about LP2. LP2 certainly has more than its share of moments, but in the context of Sunny Day real estate's artistic arc, a time when they wanted to to be shuttered to think instead of arena fillers can feel like a bridge to nowhere. I just wanted you to expand on this. So what you're saying is that

because they were not aspiring to be a bigger band, this album is not that good. I think what we look at it from 2000, again, you have to, I have to put my mind in, like what the fuck I was thinking in 2009 in the audience I was writing for. Like if I were running, if I was doing this nowadays, like, I mean, you have to consider like pitchwork in 2009. Like, you got to talk to people as if, like, they know were flexibly emo fucking sucks ass and sunny real estate is maybe the only worthwhile band of the 90s.

But when I hear LP3 and LP4 and also like certain parts of diary that like they really did want to be kind of, if not like, arena rock popular, but arena rock sound. And so this part of their discography, it isn't expanded or elaborated upon. Yeah. It does seem like a kind of outlier in a way. Because like if you took this out of the picture and they just made diary to how it feels to be something on to The Rising Tide, that's a very smooth arc. This is like more kind of a side step. And you know what?

Like there is, I guess like a history of like bands when their second album is kind of there. we're just figuring shit out. We're just going to knock it out. By the third, Albae, get, like, onto a different sort of track. So I'm actually glad you read that part because, like, I don't totally disagree with that part. I'm sure if you read anything else from there, I'm just going to be so embarrassed. But, you know, I'll stand by that one thing. I didn't find it embarrassing.

When we get to embarrassing is the original pitchfork review of how it feels to be something on, which, oh, yeah, I have the way back machine, babe, I did find. not yours. Yours is there too, which weirdly does echo the original one. We'll get into it. Okay, before we get to how it feels to be something on, an absolutely unwieldy album name,

we have to talk about David Grohl. Okay, so here's what I've gathered. There's multiple tales of how this happened. In post, Adam Wade, who is the drummer, of Shutter to Think says that Dave Grohl asked him originally to come be the drummer of the foo fighters. And he was like, I'm not, I can't, babe. I'm not going to leave Shudder to think. But why don't you ask William Goldsmith? He's an incredible drummer. And that band is about to break up. So he's going to be free. And according to William Goldsmith, he just says that at one of

the last shows of that tour, someone came up to him with a cocktail napkin that had Dave Grohl's phone number on it, slid it across the table and said Dave Grohl would like you to call him, which is absolutely fucking bananas. It's insane. Like, what are you the fucking godfather? I was screaming. I was like, this is so fucking cringe. Anyways, I don't know if that's what happened, but if it did, it's hilarious and I hope there's a biopic where that scene is reenacted. So William Goldsmith gets on the horn with Dave Grohl. And Dave Grohl's like, yeah, I, you know, I have this new band The Food Fighters. I need a drummer. And basically a rhythm section.

Right. So William Goldsmith and Nate Mendel are like, well, Sunday Day is not a band. So we're free. Let's fine. This seems cool. Dave Grohl seems cool. So they, all of a sudden are on tour. This was like this club tour that Food Fighters did with Mike Watt also.

And I think Nate and William also had to play every night with Mike Watt. So they played twice every night. So it was like quite punishing. And then they. they were sort of like taken on this almost two years of touring like pretty breakneck

punishing touring. Here's what Goldsmith said. He said that Dave Grohl misled him about the foo fighters' mission. It was my understanding that Dave just wanted to do music to be happy and he didn't want a tour that much. He wanted to keep it mellow.

But then it turned into a world domination thing that became really creatively stifling. Then they went to go make the color and the shape, which is the first Foo Fighters album to feature a full band. Because the other Foo Fathers album, Dave Grohl, played everything, I think, almost. Except for one Greg Dule.

Except for Greg Duley. Yes. Greg Julie, weirdly a big fan of the Foo Fighters. He, like, recommended them in a Rolling Stone or Spin Piece, like, early on. Yeah, he plays guitar on, I can't remember what it is. Do you remember? Ecstatic, yeah. Afghan Wigs High have stand-up, babe.

We love Greg Duly on this program. Oh, we do. So I wasn't there. Okay, I'm simply reporting the news. This is all, you know, hearsay, if you will. It is not admissible in a court of law. But here's what William said. Dave had me do 96 takes of one song,

and I had to do 13 hours worth of takes on another one. It just seemed that everything I did wasn't good enough for him or anyone else. I think that everyone at the label wanted Dave to play drums on the record. The producer, Gil Norton, who had done stuff with the, Pixies, wanted him to play drums on the record. And it felt like everyone was trying to get me to quit. But I didn't quit. I played drums on pretty much the whole record. But then behind my back, Dave re-recorded the whole record without telling me. I found out through Nate who, well, I won't get into that. But I thought this is bullshit. So William is pissed. Understandably so.

If this is what happened, I too would be pissed. Also, I'm pretty sure that if he doesn't play drums on the actual album tracks, he doesn't get any money from the album, right? I'm not a scholar of how publishing and album payments work, but I have to presume. Yeah, I don't know what that looks like because, I mean, you know, Dave Rolls writing all the songs and I'm sure he got paid somehow, just not. For his time, the labor, for sure. I'm sure he didn't get not paid. Yeah, I don't know.

This, I'm just, okay. So William is like, I quit him. He leaves. This from what I'm gathering caused. sort of a rift between Nate and William. Because I think I read that they had made sort of a little pact that if one of them leaves, they'll both leave. And then William was like, well, I'm leaving.

And Nate was like, oh, no. Yeah. Because Dave Grohl can't play bass as good as Nate Mendell, you know? Yeah. Also, I mean, listen, I don't know what happened. I wasn't there. I'm not taking sides. But, like, people got to fucking pay rent.

And it's a job. Yeah. It was a job. Sunday Day Real Estate didn't exist. I don't know what Christ on a crutch was currently doing at that time. I do not think they were any longer active. I know Nate Mendel was also, is it Mendel or Mendel? Sorry, apologies to Nate.

I think he was also playing in some other bands. I know he played in Juno. Oh, wow. Yeah. A great fucking gorgeous band, which unfortunately, as of now is not on Spotify. I bet you've got some albums on YouTube. They're great. Shout out Arlie John Carstons of Juneau.

We love you. Okay. So subpop comes to Sunny Day, I think, and is kind of like, hey, can you put out an EP? Or like, can you do some tracks for, like, some CD they wanted to do with, like, unreleased and live tracks to just, I'm presuming it was subpop being like, I know you broke up, but like we really need to make a little more money off of you guys. So can we please put out one? more thing. And they were like, oh, whatever, we'll, like, gather these things for you, which kind of turned into a catalyst for writing new music. Before they knew it, here's from the Miami New Times in 1998. Before they knew it, the musicians had a handful of dynamic new songs,

and Enoch Horner and Goldsmith were eager to hang the real estate shingle once more. Damn, incredible, incredible writing. The rub was Mendel. Nate worked on the stuff with us, he told us he wanted to be involved, Goldsmith says, but he needed to quit the foo fighters for it to work. We waited about a year for him to do it, and finally he did, but then Grohl Sweet talked to him into staying, telling him that he could make the

foo fighters a side project, which was one thing I knew would never work, the way Grohl is. And since Nate has a mortgage to pay, he didn't, excuse me, my apologies, I said rent, but mortgage you had a mortgage to pay. He didn't want to take a chance on us without doing the foo fighters, too. He was kind of wishy-washy about the whole thing,

and in the end, he just chickened out. It was a real disappointment. Nate still wanted to do the record, but I didn't want him to. If he wasn't committed to us, there was no way in hell he could do that. Not a media trained person, William Goldsman. No, bad online. Absolutely

being mad online. There's another thing where in this podcast called This Was Not the Scene where William Goldsmith did an interview where this story is told again where Nate kept them waiting for months and months and he called them after months and was like, so are we going to do this? And William was like,

Not with you and hung up. We were like, dude, what's the deal? And then just out of the blue, he just calls one day. And I was pissed. And he goes, hey, we're going to make a record? And I said, not with you. And I hung up. I was really pissed.

As told by what? Here's what, don't worry. Dan Horner, also mad online. Here's what Dan Horner had to say to Rolling Stone in 1998. We got together and the spark was much more intense than either of us thought it would be. And we were pretty confident. We thought that Willie would quit the foo fighters to do it. it. And then miraculously, Willie got screwed over by Dave Grohl and had to quit.

Weirdly gleeful seems about this. Okay. But Nate couldn't walk away. We waited for him forever. It became the theme of our lives waiting for Nate. It came down to the wire and we were like, you've got to quit by this date. And he did. Then the next day he called and said, the anxiety is too great. I got to stay where I know that I'm going to get paid. I don't think he understood that sunny day, musically and financially, was going to be something big. Okay, I mean... I love Sunny Day real estate. I love you.

I love you so much. And not bigger ever than the Food Fighters. I mean, look, can William Goldsmith rest in his heart and mind knowing that probably Food Fighters will never write an album as good as Diary? Yes. Are the Fu Fighters massively wealthy and own homes in probably multiple countries at this point, that is also correct. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that, but what I always wonder about this scenario is, like,

what was William Golds, like, was there a possibility of like William Goldsmith getting screwed out of playing on the color in the shape, but playing it live? So, like, it's like, oh. He quit, though. Okay. They would have kept, yeah, they would have kept, I mean, he could have stayed in the band. That's what I was wondering. Yeah.

I'm saying this with, like, so much. authority. I don't know. From what it sounds like, from the reporting, I don't think Dave Groll's ever gone on record to talk about this. And he has nothing to gain by. Namaste to you and whatever you're doing. But yeah, it sounded like he quit. He was like, fuck you basically, because you did this and they were like, okay. And then rest in peace, Taylor Hopkins. But they went and got a new drummer and everything worked out fine for the food fighters. And it continues to work out fine to this day. Okay. So they have an album's worth of music and they need to record.

and they don't have a bassist. So they add this guy, Jeff Palmer, who is in this band Mommy Heads. He plays bass on the album. Not taking sides. None of this. But I'm just saying, I don't, I think Nate Mendel gets painted as this like money hungry, you know, like whatever. And it's like, I don't think that was like 100% of the story.

This band broke up fucking twice already because everyone's fucking can't stand each other. I have to think that. that had also a lot to do with it. If I had a pile of money over here and then a bunch of annoying people over here who I don't get along with, it's possible that I might go towards the pile of money also. Yeah, and also by this point,

you know, the two Food Fighters albums that existed were like the first self-titled and the color of the shape, which are good records. It's not like they had become like this. This is a call to all my, yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah.

So I think that you have to be like a real fucking emo diehard or just like an idiot. to like see Nate as like the yoko ono of sunny to real estate. Well, yeah, it's just like, dude, you. That's a bad man, Al Jameen. Yeah, exactly. I mean, wait, are we talking about like Dave Grohl being the yoko oner?

Are we talking about Dave? Oh, yeah, maybe Dave Grohl is the yoko. Oh, no. Oh, my God, Dave is the yokel is the yokel. No, it's not. You said it. You just said it. They didn't need any help breaking up.

So, I mean. No, they did it twice on their own without anyone helping at all, babe. Yeah. And like, you know, again, I don't know these people personally. Jesus Christ also one of the Yoko Onos of Sunny Day. Yes. And then you have like Dan and, you know, William who seem like, you know, not the easiest people to get along with. I mean, hoops amongst us would not make the same decision to play bait.

It's like the cushiest gig in all of rock music. Not in the Food Fighters, but I don't know. I mean, that's a punishing. The way that that band tours is hell, it seems. I mean, what do I know? I don't play an instrumental or go on tour, but that seems, I know it's cushy and accommodating or whatever,

but, like, that's, like, 300 days a year of, like, you're not home and you're an adult with a family. I don't know. Anyways, we've meandered a little far away from the Sunday Day story, but all that to say is, I witness you, Nate Mendel.

I brought that up to say, Jeff Palmer also was like, actually, sorry, I know I played on the fucking album, but I'm not touring with you guys. I don't know why. all I know is he was like, no. Or they were like no or whatever it was.

It did not match well. So then they get Joe Bass. That's his nickname. Yes. Skyward. Incredible. Incredible nickname for a man that plays bass. Just bass.

Sub bass. From the posies. And he had to learn 19 songs in like six days. And then they go on tour. How it feels to be something on comes out September 8th, 1998 on subpop. Can we talk a little bit about how quickly the landscape and sound of particularly rock music changed from the first half of the 90s to the back half of the 90s? Yes. We're now in the back half of the 90s, right?

Like, it's really a whole new world. Yeah, this came out my first semester of college. And the distinction between like even mid-90s alternative rock and late 90s alternative rock feels as like distinct to be. as like the difference for being in high school and college, you know, because the mid-90s, it was a little bit more,

it was still like kind of like post-grunge, you know, new metal was still kind of bubbling, but like it had really boiled over yet. There was still a lot of Beck clones at that time, if I'm not mistaken. And so by the late 90s, what I recall was just a lot of electronica

influenced rock albums in that space between like proper indie rock and like mainstream. Rock, which I think, like, Sunday a real estate may have existed in. Yeah, the difference between 1995 and 1998 is just so vast. Even when you take into account, you know, the internet was still in its infancy. You know, I know nowadays we experience a lot of turnover in a short amount of time, but like when people talk about like, oh, let's have a 90s party. You can't have a 90s party. You got to have like an early 90s party or mid 90s party or wait. Yeah, like what are you talking about?

Are we talking about life is a highway or are we talking about corn follow the leader? because that all happens in the same decade. So Jeremy Enoch had in the downtime of these two years while William and Nate were touring with the foo fighters, he had more art to give the world. And he got together with Greg Williamson, who I think also became his manager, and made this honestly fucking absolutely slept on,

fantastic album. Yeah. Should we hear Abigail Ann just so people understand. It's called Richard and the Frog Queen and it is, it's amazing. Okay, anyways, this is Abigail Ann. That was Abigail Ann. God damn Gordon's beautiful song. The whole fucking album.

I listen to it all the time. Yeah, one embarrassing side note. Back a few years, you know, before I met my wife, there was like someone I had met on like a dating app and her like screen name was like Abigail Ann. I don't think it was spelled the same. And I'm like, oh, wow, are you like into like Jeremy Enoch? She's like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That's just like my actual name. Yeah, that's embarrassing for her, not for you.

Yeah, I think we saw a Taman Paula concert. She wasn't particularly into Sunday A Real Estate. But yeah, did you go to the Jeremy? A few years ago, he... Oh, I missed it the one where he did like living room shows. Well, I saw him play soda bar in San Diego. He did, but he did a tour for this album. And he brought like some strings with them.

And it was like at this, you know, bar that I actually saw Thursday play at San Diego called the soda bar. And it was, it was like, A, I was surprised how well attended it was. B, I was surprised how great it sounded. It really worked in a live setting. I'm so curious about who paid for the 12 piece of the strategy. I don't know who was 12 piece, but it was enough. That's what it sounds. No, I mean, not on the tour.

I don't know what was on the tour, but on the album, there's a 12 piece. orchestra, which is, it's, that's such a beautiful, lush, just, it's just, like, you really, I think it's so nice for, if you're, like, a die-hard Sunny Day fan, especially if you're like a, like, a me die-hard of the first two albums. Like, now you have this, like, little piece of the puzzle of, like, oh, this is what Jeremy Enoch was always sort of, like, making and doing and working on. Because they haven't said which songs, but, like, William Goldsmith has said in many interviews that, like, some of these songs he wrote when he was like 13. Wow.

They were on those four track tapes that he played for the rest of the band that he was like, oh, these are my bedroom, whatever. Like they eventually came out to be on this album. When people talk about this album, they're like, sometimes there's like an alternate history where like this gets his biggest neutral milk hotel because it's not like the same, you know, they're different albums, but like kind of in a similar sort of orchestral like acoustic guitar, high pitch vocalist sort of thing.

You know, it proceeded in the air. airplane over the sea by two years. I love where you're like as big as, as big as neutral milk hotel. I mean, at the time, yeah, sure, okay, at the time. But like, yeah, well, I mean, I've read all the elephant's six books. Like, you know, I know neutral milk hotel wasn't like a huge band, but, you know, even still. Yeah, but they were big enough that when they reunited, they could headline the Hollywood Bowl. And I'm not sure Jeremy Enoch Solo would headline the Hollywood Bowl, you know.

I don't think Sunday Day real estate like playing. with Nate Vendell again. Well, were they playing in L.A. when the tour comes up? The Will Turn. Okay, that sounds about right. That's where Jawbreaker played. It's a good size.

Yeah, yeah. One little tid, besides the Who Paid for the Twelve Piece Orchestra, which I'm going to just say it was subpop. There's like one really cute little anecdote in the Wikipedia page that says that according to the 1997 subpop mail order catalog, Lou Barlow, a fellow subpop pansebado. Didn't make it any sense to me. One of my faves. Cited Frog Queen as his favorite album of 1996, which I can totally see that, you know? Like, there's like a kinship for me between Jeremy Enix Solo and what Lou Barlow has done with Sabado.

Yeah, I think so. I don't know. I just like that little tin because I think it's like, I've heard a lot of musicians talk about how good and important this album is, which, you know, it is sort of like. like a lost classic, but go home and listen to Return to the Frog Queen.

Yeah, it's not a long record. Beautiful orchestral Christian pop. Don't let that pick you off. Okay, so that's happened. And Greg Williamson, like we said, produced that album. He sort of had a lot to do with

reuniting sunny day, right? Like he was sort of like in Jeremy's year like, you guys should, you know, this and whatever. And he produces how it feels to be something on. You like this album the most. I think it's, you know, the one that I put...

You and Jeff Rickley. Jeff Rickley is... This is also... Two pieces in a pot, him and I. Yeah, this... I would say for this is the best end-to-end experience, I think it's got like the most unique sound to it. And the thing I find interesting about Greg Williamson,

I was looking up on all-music guide. Sure, as we do. Yeah, great tool. You know, I think of how much I like the production on this album compared to Diary and LP2. And it's like, oh, what else did Greg Williamson go on to do? Like the fire theft album and like not much else. Yeah.

But he also engineered diary. Oh, yeah. But I'm saying like after the fact, you know what I mean? Right. It's not like people were like trying to get him on the phone like the same way they would like, I don't know, Bradwood or Steve Albini or, you know, whatever other late 90s. indie rock producer you can think of. Yeah, I mean, I think absolutely no shade to how it feels to be something on. But while iconic for a certain community of people, it wasn't ever like an exile in Guyville or,

you know, like these other producers that you're mentioning. Oh, yeah. These like culture ripping albums that like people would pursue forever regardless of what, you know, like this album kind of, it did really well. I think it did almost better than Diary. It peaked at number 132 on the Billboard 200. The fact that it even made it out to the Billboard 200 is actually insane, considering it's 1998.

And we have all that, you know, sort of alterna jangle pop rock that's very popular and played on like, you know, adult contemporary stations, basically like Goo Goo Dolls and stuff. And then also actual pop music is starting to come back and happen, you know, boy bands and stuff. Yeah, it's like the peak of, it's like the peak of CD buying, like, like, like people just spending $18 for no reason whatsoever, just to get like one timbulance. I mean, maybe I'm just speaking for myself. But, yeah, to be at 132 is like, it's not like when nowadays we're a band at this level can get on there because of like, you know, accumulated screen.

Bundled ticket sales or whatever. So 132, like that is, I'm sure, a enormous deal for sub-hop at that time. Yeah, they sold 11,000 copies in the first week, which is actually kind of a lot. Let's talk briefly about the cover. cover art. I don't love it. Okay, interesting. Jeremy Enoch loved it so much he tattooed it on his arm.

This cover art was drawn by Dan Horner a long time ago, back in the thief Steal Me a Peach era of the band. And does anything look more like something that was drawn by a white man with dreadlock of this particular piece of art? It seems like the sort of tattoo. It's giving head shop. It's giving head shop. It's like the sort of tattoo you would have on your calf. The fact that like Jeremy has it on his arm seems a little out of character.

because it's like this is the sort of tattoo you see someone either have on the small of their back or their calf. I've already gotten on record to speak about how I feel about calf tattoos, so we won't get further into that. But yeah, I hear you. But it's kind of pure in its like sunny day real estate. You know, like once again, this, I don't think the band's name is on the cover. No. So Jeremy said that subpop asked if we want to do something called the odds in the ends, like an EP or something. but we realized that we really didn't have that much material.

So Dan and I decided to get together and just write a couple of songs. We ended up writing pretty much all of how it feels in just a couple of weeks. I had a bunch of stuff planned for my next solo record, and he had a bunch of material that he had been working on. And we brought it together, and the next thing you know, we said, let's just get together and make this a full record. It was probably the most fluid process of writing a record that we ever had. I mean, diary was pretty fluid too, but this was just really easygoing.

Dan and I just got together on acoustics and wrote it just like face to face. And then we brought in William, which was just easy because he can sink into anything. The easygoing artistic process we know and loved regarding Sunday Day real estate. I want to talk a lot about this album because it puts into sharp relief for me the first two albums in a really interesting way. Let's hear Pillars because it's a goddamn gorgeous fucking beautiful banger. I'm sorry, I don't. What do you want me to say? I'm fucking only human.

I have two ears and a heart and this song fucking slaps. This is Pillars. That was Pillars. Yeah, I love the reference. I walk in circles, you know, like. Myself Aware, King. Yeah, it's like you remember Diary? You like that album?

Guess what? We're back. Here's what I wrote, which I maybe was like also speaking in tongues channeling God because it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm just going to read it. Of this album, I wrote, almost sounds like what Jeremy always wanted to make, like full-throated Baroque Jesus drama instead of beautiful, opaque, spiritual love sludge. I mean, spot the lie.

But you get what I'm saying. No, absolutely. Like, I really like this album, but to me it's like in a different universe than Diary and LB2. Like, this is giving, it's giving, it's giving Christian rock.

And I love, I love Christian rock on record, babe, on God. Fucking the fray, who I don't actually know if they are, are legitimately a Christian. They can pass. Yeah.

Lifehouse, bitch. You think I won't blast that shit in the car every day? Absolutely. So I'm here. I'm not saying this is like a go-go-go-go-joseph type situation. But it is definitely... Cornerstone festival type music. Yes.

Yes. I think it has to do for me with... I want to know what you think. There's something tentative about Jeremy's singing. in the first two albums. Like it's almost this like, again, that negative charisma, a little inward, a little shy.

How to say? I don't know. That's kind of gone here, right? Like now there's a confidence and a clarity and literally a clarity because it's produced much clear. And that just reads to me more theatrical.

Yeah. I didn't realize that his singing was so theatrical until this album. Yeah, I think that like you can compare the third. songs on each record, like song about an angel. That's still very much in like,

as you say, like sludge or like post grudge or whatever. It's a Seattle song, whereas every shining time you arrive is like, you know, that's, I just think of with this album, the ovation, acoustic guitar, that kind of like egg-shaped one

is that, you know, I've told is so closely associated with Christian youth groups. Youth pastors, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So the ovation guitar, which again, like, you see, people talk about like how, oh, yeah, this is like 90s revivalism happening and like indie rocks. Like, I haven't heard any ovation guitars.

I haven't seen them. Like, you were just not doing it authentically. Go to reverb.com. Literally. Order yourself up one bit. Exactly. So, but yeah, I think that with this, the vocals are indeed much more confident. I think the message is much more confident on this record.

And the production really captured that. It's like basically glowing. It's very crisp. It's very crisp. You know, there isn't like that one second delay on, or the millisecond delay on like, you know, William Goldsmith's drums. It just sounds like a band that is, you know, the message is clear, the production is clear.

There's much brighter tonalities going on. And so, you know, you think about just like being bathed in the light of the Lord, which is, may or may not be a lyric on this record, but it could be. So probably. Yeah. I'm not going to check, but I'm going to go ahead and say it. Yeah. By the way, I want to be clear, this is not to say I don't like it.

It's just, it's almost to me a different band. Oh, absolutely. I almost hear a different band. I'm like that band that made Diary and LP2 and this band are not the same band. Yeah, this is like, I can barely even call it like an emo record. Like, you know, Diary, that is like quintessential evo. This is like more indie rock, like kind of verging on mainstream rock. And so, you know, it's hard for me to say like once better the other.

It's like, you know, these are playing two very different ball games. Okay. This sort of theatrical delivery of singing does seem to have a sort of like throughline and email because that's what I heard famously. And I know you guys are mad. And I promise one day we'll go back and do another My Chemical Romance episode because I know you don't like how short the first one was. It was a different time. We're working on it. but I famously did not have much familiarity with my chemical romance.

Same. I know. I think it's our age. I don't know. It is. Whatever. People get mad when I say that. But I don't know what to tell you.

I'm sorry. I just please believe women. I never heard my chemical romance except for the one or two songs that were on the radio. But when we really deep dive with Hanif, I was like, oh, this is like punk for theater kids. You know? Like, and that theatricality is sort of here, too. And what, where like, where do you think that? that came from within this sort of space?

Because it's not really there on Frog Queen, as far as I'm concerned. You know what I mean? But here it's really front and center. So maybe like Frog Queen was theater kid in the sense like the people who do set design. Like maybe not the people who are like out on stage. But there is showmanship, which I think is happening here in like maybe a Christian youth group sort of way. which has a lot of crossover, I think, with, like, theater kid stuff, which was happening perhaps more towards third wave, like, you know, My Chemical Romance, taking back Sunday. We're like, it's almost like you act out the song to somebody.

I think that still Sunday Real Estate was still so much a product of, like, you know, indie rock in the 90s that it wasn't going to pull off the full on, you know, cape and dry ice sort of Prague theater. that happened somewhat with the fire theft. So there is that component to it, but not quite the, like not theater kids, we understand it now. It's more like theater in the 90s when it was like not quite as wielded with as much pride. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Listen, there's a lot of different directions we can keep going with this album,

but I have to hear guitar and video games, which I think that you'll go ahead and agree with me on. That's the one. By the way, like, again, a band who has seen is like just deadly fucking serious. Right. This is a song after another one called like the Sharks on Private Fuck, you know? Yeah, William titled that one. Before we hear guitar and video games, I'd love to quote one Ian D. Cohen in 2016.

As counterculture mission statements go, guitar and video games isn't exactly out of step. In fact, drinking, dancing, making out, and video games were the exact opposite of what minor threat stood for. But isn't that how emotional, hardcore, got started to begin with? In that sense, how it feels to be something on is proof that Sunny Day real estate is emo after all. Total transcendence is a never-ending quest. But as in guitars and video games and your relationship to that certain someone, you can fence in your own plot of heaven on earth. Damn! You tell him, Ian Cohen.

You know, poetry. I guess. You know, the funny thing is I don't think I've ever seen the original Pitchfork review, but like it actually, mine actually got like a lower score than the original. And here's a fun fact about this album. Apparently it like pitchforks like 21st birthday party. They had like this gallery where they posted all their number one records as long as the website's been in existence. Apparently this was the number one album in 1998.

I can't find it anywhere on the internet, but I swear this is true. The number one to who? To pitchfork.com. This was in 1998 when they made their year end list. You can't find it anywhere in the internet. I'm just going from what the pictures I saw at the 21st anniversary where they had like animal collective play sung tongs.

Yeah, this is apparently the number one album of 1998. That's really interesting. We'll get into it because I'll read it later, but the original pitchfork review is so glowing. It is absolutely like this album was the literal second coming of Christ. So I believe you, it is, again, let's hear guitar and video games. Let's hear guitar and video games. That was guitar and video games.

God damn gorgeous, fucking beautiful song. Mondery Fields, right? They made that word up. That's right. We have to bring it up because I love it so much. that. Jeremy was like, fuck it. Mondery Fields, bitch. Why not?

What are you going to do? Yeah. Come from here. Come at me. Yeah. What video games was Jeremy Enick playing in like not? Like, I'm just thinking of him like playing like twisted metal or something like that. Zelda. Yeah. Was there a Christian video game? Probably.

Probably. Yeah. Anyways, this is a gorgeous song. And you know what? You're right. You can't fence in your own plot of. have an honor with a guitar and some video games, as I've recently learned with my Switch and my Zelda Breath of the Wild. The end result of this is that this is going to be the last,

you know, the last thing I ever. You go on. No, not the last podcast. It's like the end of my music writing career. Like, to hear my words reflected back to me, it's just so fucking mortifying that, like, I just don't know if I could, like, withstand the embarrassment and put words to paper ever again. It's like, oh, fuck. We did it, Joe.

Yeah. We ended Ian Cohen's criticism career. Yeah, it was all part of the long game. It's true. It's me. I'm in a union with all the bands that you gave bad pitchwork scores to. We've planned this for a long time to somehow shame you into not writing anymore. Just kidding.

Okay. Speaking of things that might embarrass somebody, I want to read you the original pitchwork. Okay. As long as it's not me. No, we're going to still read yours after a little bit. Oh, fuck. Don't worry. Strap it,

The original is by a writer name Kevin Ruggieri, I believe. I don't know how to pronounce anyone's names. Here it is. It's the crispness in the air, the surreal touch of sunshine draped upon a cooling earth, the transformation of foliage from the height of vitality to colorful decay, and the chilled nose recognition that breath is entering the body. of. Yeah, this motherfucker's spitting, man.

This man was like, oh, you think I can't make an album review emo? Watch me, bitch. Hold my beer. That blissful time spent outdoors is fading. That dust is tiptoeing closer and closer toward afternoon. It's the pivotal fulcrum between that which is sublime, parentheses, beauty. And that which is most sorrowful in this world, parentheses loss. It's what makes the first intimations of autumn.

so extraordinary. And it's what makes Sunny Day Real Estate's newest release, how it feels to be something on the most profound musical creation to appear in years. For like four sentences, you're like, where are you going with this? What are we going to talk about?

I'm just like, I'm thinking, like, because I've never read this review. I'm like waiting for the time you say, and that's why the sharks own private fuck fucking slaps. Nine point is. The most profound musical creation to appear in years. The results are shimmering, to say the least.

I don't know. I'm thinking of like big punisher, capital punishment came out that year. So can you really say that like Sinai real estate is the most profound thing? Is that the one that had, I'm not a player, but I fuck a lot. Gorgeous song.

Yeah. Okay. How it feels to be something on is also remarkable in the wide variety of influences it contains. Two promises and a hundred million bear at least a slight resemblance to the Beatles later works. An Aboriginal, Aborigin, Chant lulls us into the profit. That is directly influenced by what you brought up earlier, Nistro. Oh, my God.

Yeah, you got to, you got to belt it out. Like, I mean, I don't know if I was saying it correctly, but, you know, you just got to do it with confidence. I'm literally Middle Eastern. Yeah, what's your excuse? Nusrat Fate Ali Khan. That's how you say it. Nusrat Fata Ali Khan. Anyways, there you go. There you go, parents. I made you proud.

Okay, so the Aboriginal chant lulles into the prophet. And after the trance-like atmosphere gradually expands, the song charges into a driving groove reminiscent of U-2's long-gone epic creations. And even days were golden, the album's closer, picks up the softer moments of the smashing pumpkin, Siamese dream, and catapults them straight to heaven. I mean, you two, the Beatles, smashing pumpkins, just a real, like, astonishing. You spoke to you two in your own, your very own review just in the last album.

Yeah, but I just think that it's funny to say, like, this person is talking about, like, the range of influences. And it's like, Beatles, you two, smashing pumpkins. Like, man, they're pulling just from everywhere, you know. Right. You're like all the exact same place. Yeah. That's in one. Literally dying to know.

Sorry, I just did a quick side, Google, to see what Kevin Ruggieri is up to now, and I can't find him. Unless this is him who's a division manager at Matrix Service fabrication. He could very well be. I mean... It could very well be. Yeah. I think it's very interesting that he invoked Siamese dream because another thing I was thinking of, and this is possibly because I did do several weeks of immersive research on the smashing pumpkins recently.

But also the smashing pumpkins have sort of this dividing line between these, like, thick, lush, albums, Siamese Dream, gish, even a bit melancholy and kind of adore. until they get into like all of a sudden this very crisp, cold production that changes. And it's so night and day for me. It's also where they kind of lose me. You know, where I'm like, I like how it feels to be something on. Actually quite a bit better than I like Machina, for example. But I do see like a bit of a parallel.

Well, you know, I'm just, just production wise. production-wise. Machina is like one of the worst produced major label rock albums of its time. Like to me that's like the definition of like overproduced highly digital like just sonic dudes. No, I love Machina, but it sounds like complete shit. Why? Why?

Okay. This is the line I really wanted to read you. This is the last line of this, the ode to, uh, is how it feels to be something on. in this season of fall, we sadly recognize that nothing gold can stay. Incredible. Incredible Robert Frost. But listening to how it feels to be something on reminds us that even our deepest losses are capable of bearing gold as well. Now, I mean, please remind yourself of the first four lines, which are about something of autumn.

Yeah. It's fall. Yeah. Yeah, but what did you say? what did you say at the end of yours? Oh, totally, no. Right here, I'm going to read it for you. Oh, for fuck's sake.

Didn't we all, like, are you reading it again? No, this is the part that I have to read for you because it's so funny that you had never read the other one. Okay, how it feels to be something on still sounds like a reinvigorated band entering a tentative detente. Detonte. Enix voice had developed into a much more confident and voluminous instrument, one that didn't need to rely on basic grunge dynamics. When hitting the high notes of two promises are 100 million, the throaty heft of the title track or the weightless joyous chanting of every shining time you arrive. Enick communes with Jeff Buckley and Robert Platt.

The band predicted their future entries into straight-up Prog Rock with the nine-eight verses of roses and water. Here's the line. And ditching Bradwood's deadening thought on diary for a production best described by closer days were golden. It's a honeyed, ambered record with a timeless, autumnal, glow. You didn't even read the other one and you kind of said a similar thing. I mean, great minds, you know, like mine and Kevin Ruggieri think alike. I mean, like... Does this album just sound like fall to everybody? Did I miss that? I mean, it came out on September, in September of 1998. It's the album cover is orange and red and yellow. It's got those

sort of fall colors going on. You know, it's a little more like there's acoustic guitar that seems to be be quite fall. I mean, I would say it's definitely autumnal. Autumnal. Which is a word I never say aloud. But God, you know. But you wrote it, babe. You wrote it right here.

Nothing gold can stay, bitch. That's what we're saying. At least I didn't say that. Okay. Give me some fucking credit. You probably thought it. I like a lot of songs on here. Every shining time you arrive is a fucking jam.

That one was originally intended for Jeremy's solo album. you can, I think you can hear. Yeah, absolutely. As the kids would say, and you can tell. A hundred million is an interesting song because I think that's like the song they've been trying to write for their entire career, at least from a lyrical standpoint,

where it's just like all the things you pay for in life, like all the things that can be monetized. You know, that's where Dan's influence, if he was writing lyrics comes through. And of course, the profit. Dan wrote 100 million, so you're correct on that one. So, yeah, I think that like the profits kind of the dividing line of like,

okay, like where are they going to take things from here? Are they going to continue to explore like Eastern sort of mythology or religion or like tones? And, you know, there was some part of that going on with the Rising Tide as we'll soon see. Also, it's the late 90s, babe. Yeah, it's totally the late 90s. Exploring Eastern situations. We're doing yoga.

Yeah. We're fully. We're in it. We're seeing the shallow bunks at like Lollapalooza. Oh, oh my God. Totally. We are hanging prayer flags in our fucking dorm room. I wasn't in a dormant.

They were in my high school bedroom. But you know what I mean. Yeah, absolutely. There was the concert with a vet going on. Absolutely. Yeah. It was a time. It was a time.

Yeah. Days were golden as well. Like as far as a closing song. Like, I mean, if Sunday Day real estate were to have ended on that song, it would have just been a perfect. That's like a perfect way to go out, especially on now like this. Let's hear The Days Were Golden. I think you really, you gave that a glowing review for lack of a better, a better word.

And I'd want to leave this album with the song that you seem to, if I'm reading between the lines, say, if only what this was the last Sunny Day Real Estate album. I got some opinions on The Rising Tide. I love that record, even though it's kind of whack. Okay. This is The Days We're Golden. Okay. So how it feels to be something on did pretty well financially and chart wise.

You're still not real-time signing-day real estate. It's not until the fourth album that you're a real-time signing-to-real-estate. I'm aware of this fan at the time to it. I mean, I don't know if this album was going to break the rotation of like placebo without you up nothing. And like, you know, juvenile 400 degrees what I was listening to at the time. But yeah, I would say that the Rising Tide is the first one I bought, you know, and had the CD. I think I might have had like a version of this burned, you know, or like downloaded through NAPS or a scow or whatever. But I would say this is not like real time.

Sure. Okay. So after this album, Subpop approaches them about filming the band for a live release. They really, Subpop really was going to get every dollar that they could. out of Sunny Day Real Estate. So they document two shows, one on video and one on audio, and they release this live album. The band hates this album, from what I can tell.

Wikipedia sort of kindly says the band noted their displeasure. I'm pretty sure there was an interview, and I want to say it was Dan Horner, who just flat out in the interview was like, don't go buy this album. Do not spend money on this. It's trash. Do not do it.

I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially what he said. I don't really know why, but they really hated it. I mean, it does have a whiff of contractual obligation to it. And, you know, Dan Horner, if you're out there listening, you know, I haven't heard this live album. Just as they want it. Yeah, I know. It's like, it's just never really dawned on me.

Oh, yes. I would like to hear the live versions of these songs from, like, a band with, like, three albums. Also a band who famously, like, wrote some songs that are impossible to replicate live, so they just like don't play them. Yeah. I mean, yeah, would I have loved to see them,

like perform diary? Like, you know, I mean, we thought, we talked about the John Stewart performances and the 120 minutes performance.

So I do imagine that it could be a life-altering experience. But like, this is back when I think live albums were like kind of coming back into Vogue at that time. And even at the peak of like my Sunday day real estate evangelism, a live album just did not interest me. Right. Right, totally. Okay, well, they do this, and you're right, they do fulfill their contractual obligation. Subpop really wanted them to stay from what I can tell, but they were like, no.

And they were like, I just love where this story's going because, like, yeah, I can't wait to talk about Time Bomb Recording. They were like, no heart. And then they went, majors wanted to sign them, but they didn't want to, I think. This is citation needed on Wikipedia, who can say. they end up siding with time bomb recordings, which was one of those sort of like indie labels that is backed and distributed by at first, I think it was ERISA and then it became BMG. So they had major label influence involvement, whatever. But I mistakenly thought this was like a label run by Mike Ness of social distortion, but that's wrong. but there was a social distortion component to it. Yeah, it was the manager, right?

Yes, yes, exactly. Jim Giorino. I don't know how to say his last name. I think that's like that. Some of the artists that were on this label include the Vandals. The Reverend Horton Heat, apparently he also jumped ship. Well, I got a sweet baby who sings for a tall. Screamfeeder.

You're making that name up. No, that's real. Lion Rock. Litany. And a little band called the Aquabats. Formerly home of the Baron Vontito, who now goes by the name Travis Barker. I don't recall seeing any of those albums actually released on Time, Bob. I'm just going off the way.

The only ones I saw were like... Looking it up, who knows. Yeah, when I looked at discogs, I believe, like, The Rising Time was obviously, like, you know, their quote-unquote big one. And then after that, they released this record by a band called Khorashi with a Q. I think they're like Icelandic rap rock. It's on here, Khorashi. That's right.

Rap rock band from Rakevick. I think people tended to get them confused with lost profits at that time. And, you know, I think, yeah, lost profits. We all know how that's. story ended. So, um, shout out Hose Oloffson. Yeah. Uh, is, is that Karashi? The lead rapper of Karashi. By that point, by 2000, 2001, I was working at the, um, WNRN 9-9 in Charlottesville. And like, Khorashi, we'd play like a Karachi song. We'd play a lost profit song. So this is like when I'm, like, actually like, you know, paying attention to the alt rock and adjacent scene. So,

well, I'll tell you. what happens. You know what happens. I'll tell you all that happens. They signed with Time Bomb, feeling that they would probably have the freedom of an indie label, you know, but then all the money and distribution of a major. According to William Goldsmith, he said he had an icky feeling about this. Again, I'm paraphrasing. That was not exactly what he said, but that was the gist of what he said. He didn't want to sign to Time Bomb, but he was outvoted and they signed. And he was like, I don't know if I could have predicted or maybe my achy feeling was just intuitive. But basically what happens is just moments. I don't know when it happens. Maybe right as the album's coming out, maybe right

before the album comes out, Time Bomb is dropped by Eresta. So Arista was the one that backed them from 1990, 95 to 2000. So they're dropped by that. And then Time Bomb looks at Sunny Day Real Estate and is like, oh my God, cool new album. Sorry, we have no. money to promote or market or tour support it. So Godspeed to you. Yeah. The only reason I'm aware of this is because some records to our clerk at

Plan 9 is playing it just as I happened to come in to buy a copy of White Pony. Like I saw no videos for it. No, I saw it had a few reviews at the time. So anytime you get like a bunch of like industry big weeks like hey we're going to start a label.

It's like oh it's the best of both worlds. Yeah. This is It's just so wild to think of like, especially now a band thinking, oh, we're going to move on from subpop to this like upstart indie label. Like this is the move for us in terms of like platform. Yeah. I just thought in the 90s, there was a lot of imprint labels that were backed by majors that did great stuff. It's just that it sounds to me like time bomb just suffered the curse of the year 2000. That's the year Napster came out, I think.

99 or 2000. And this is truly, well, it was, Napster was definitely out in 2000 because I sat my ass in my fucking dorm room with that dial up internet and downloaded every fucking song that came into my mind. Yeah. No, I was telling like weird shit, like the lady and red and like the get up kids and like whatever stuff I just didn't have. I was like, I'm going to get everything in the whole world. Anyways, I think it's just, you know, probably lined up with like this, it's stuff started to falter around this time. you know, like, I'm spitballing. I'm not a music industry, you know, money person.

But whatever the reason was, that happened and it sucked. It's 2000. It's a weird landscape. Again, we always say it every time. It's just a weird time for rock music. As you pointed out, White Pony comes out. Fucking goddamn gorgeous, beautiful album. Radiohead puts out Kid A in 2000, like you said.

That's a pretty. hallmark rock moment. And then you have like, you know, the hives. And Modest Mouse putting out the moon in Antarctica, my personal favorite. The third planet is sure when they're being washed. I mean, it was like a really cool time for hard rock music. And I think that there was a lane for Sunny Day real estate to like kind of pivot out. It's also that like kind of in between time between like the end of the 90s when it seemed like emo wasn't going to break after all. And it was just being totally overshadowed by pop punk.

And like before Jimmy Eat World did bleed American. So it's just a strange time for Sunday Day real estate. But I can visualize them getting swept up in like year 2000 radio rock. It totally could have happened. It could have happened. Like I do see an alternate history where this, where time bomb just becomes like this, you know, powerful imprint and like Sunday Day real estate makes the right move or or more likely they'd break up after this album too, you know, regardless of that because it's so successful,

you know? If you heard this album, it came out. You had never heard Sunny Day Real Estate before. You did not know who Sunny Day Real Estate was. Would you think they were cool based upon this album alone? Cool. It really depends because, like, if, like, say you're listening to rock radio and, like, your purview is, like, red hot chili peppers.

And I guess I don't know if Stain was popular back then, but like, or maybe three doors down, let's say. If that was your perspective, that's what you were basing it on. And you hear Sunday Day real estate, you would think like, whoa, these guys are like different. They sound like vaguely British. And, you know, at that time, I'm thinking any band that's British is like just significantly cool than any band from the U.S. I would think of them as like almost an alternative to like really down the middle rock. Like if, I mean, how old are we talking here? You know, are we talking about someone who's like 25 years old?

There's someone who's like 16 years old with like no real concept of like indie rock first major label rock or what happens. 16 year olds know what's cool though. They know what's cool, but like, okay, maybe I'm just projecting my own experience where I'm 1996. Except for you and your gap chinos and your structure buttoned out. Exactly. I got to represent for those people. But if not cool, I think that they'd be different. they'd be interesting, they'd be a little weird.

Because, you know, the vocals still, you know, in the same way that in the beginning, they contrasted with, you know, the grunge kind of yardling as it was once put. Who said yarling? Yarling was a phrase coined by Jack Endino, the guy who produced bleach. He came up with that word to describe, like, post-Turl Jam singing. And that stuff came back around in 2000 with, you know, your nickel back, stained, Green Ors that, et cetera. And so you hear a voice like Jeremy Enix.

It just stands out as being more alien. It's like, oh, maybe this band's like kind of sort of like Sigler Ross, maybe? With the strings. Totally. I can't unhear it now. There's like some cold play here at play to me. Oh, absolutely. Which is this is the year Parachutes comes out.

too, which is like why I can kind of, I kind of get behind what you're saying, like, in an alternate universe where they were maybe like on capital or like whatever, this could have lived, like, we would maybe be having such a different conversation right now. We would be like, oh, remember Sunday Day Real Estate that put out those like two really cool grungy albums in the early 90s and now they're like a full adult oriented rock band who like fills stadiums and like your dad knows who they are? You know what I mean? Like that could have very much happened.

but it didn't. And I was all on board with all of those sort of UK, like the new radio heads. I think Sunday Day Real Estate could have very easily been seen as like an American-ish sort of version of that. So, I mean, I loved all that stuff and I loved The Rising Tide for that reason. So very well within the slightly left of center, but like still very much radio-oriented rock at the time. Did you realize when you were listening to it that killed by an angel, is about heroin use? I saw it as like kind of a youth pastor sort of talk about like the dangers of drugs.

I thought it was, you know, just more generalized thing about like alcohol or drugs in general. It's a very pedantic record in that regard. It's about like loving God and like being against drugs and being against television and so forth. But heroin didn't necessarily stand out to like, like, some of real estate, like even though they are from Seattle, they operated outside the scope of heroin to me. Yeah, no, I think that's true. I mean, I think them personally for sure, but I don't think you can have come up in Seattle at that time and not known like five people who died of ODs, you know? Like, I just, I guess I didn't listen to that closely.

I put this album on again this morning too because I like, I kind of remember hearing it and being like, I'm all set. You know what I mean? At that time. Right. Because at that time, I was like on some, the year 2000, I was on some other shit entirely. I was listening to like, I don't know, the white stripes probably. And like a lot of modest mouse, so much modest mouse. Just a crippling amount of modest mouse.

And this didn't really fit in to that with me. I don't know. It was just like, it didn't hit then. But now revisiting it, I'm like, oh, it's really good. I go back and forth at this record a lot. Like I was also listening to a lot of the moon in Antarctica in 2000. A lot of radio head, a lot of coal plate, dubs, et cetera. and this seemed to fit in with it.

And, you know, just having this be the first Sunday day real estate out, I'm I really engaged with in real time. Yeah, that's weird. I didn't have, yeah, I know, right? I didn't have those sort of hangups about what they had become that, you know, looking at the reviews, it seems that at the time people heard this record as being like total arena rock overblown. What are these strings?

All the songs are in waltz time. It is giving waltz. It's giving waltz. boom. Yeah. That's what that's a I'm so, see, I have no fluency in music at all, but I was trying to put towards what I was hearing. And it was literally me going like this, bum, bum, bum, but with my arms. And I was like, how do I say this in a work? Yeah. Yeah. Four four and three four. It's like so yeah, I didn't have hangups about indie rock cred or any of that sort of thing. And so, but once I did start to discover, you know, get more in depth with not just like Sunday. real estate's discography, but, like, you know, emo in general, like, going back and, like, discovering the promise ring and discovering brain and all those bands, it's like, oh, yeah, then I realize, and again, I'm 20, 21 years old. My brain is still very plastic. I started to, like, turn on the rising tide and, like, just kind of parrot everything that I had

heard. It's like, look at these strings. This is produced by Lou Geordano. It's like, oh, this is, like, the overproduced, slick, major label, Senate of Real Estate. no, you got to listen to Diary, that's the real shit. And, you know, eventually after I got over that phase, I've come back around to having more of like, I guess, like a middle path approach to the rising time where it's like, yeah, this is what they were trying to do. This is what they were headed towards.

They have that capability to sound prog rock. Do they always pull it off? Not really. Like a song like one. You could hear Creed doing that. Like they had a song called one. And you too. It's not.

Other god-fearing. bands like you too. I don't know. I wrote in my notes. I really like this song because it's like drama. You know? It's very drama, but it's also like very straightforward in a way that like, you know, like

as we said that in talking about diary and particularly LP2, you know, Jeremy Enoch's lyrics or even lack thereof leave a lot to interpretation whereas, you know, a song like one, that's about the thing it says it's about. No, no, we're not mincing words here. Yeah.

And, you know, the song titles themselves. It's like one rain song, The Ocean, Killing an Angel. Right. What you see is what you get with The Rising Tide. Even the album itself, it makes you think of, like, you know, all those like critical terms that get used to describe, you know, like Cole player, Sigra Ross. It's very title.

It's oceanic. The album cover is blue, so it makes you think of like being in this fast ocean. And so it was very on the nose in a way. that, you know, I think you could maybe hold Sunday Day real estate to account for thinking maybe they were trying to make this sort of mainstream rock album that it wasn't, they weren't just like caught up in some, you know, circa 2000 industry funny money, but like that they maybe got their just dessert for trying to be a cold play, be a YouTube, be a band of that ilk and just kind of, it just wasn't in the cards, nor should it have been in the cards. But I don't agree

with that. You know what's interesting. Let's play the rain song and I want to talk about something sort of interesting. That's another like another, I think, misconception that is specifically about this album that Justice for Jeremy in some ways. Okay, this is Rain song. That was Rain song. And I want you to understand that I'm saying this with absolute reverence for what I'm talking about.

There's no reason that this shouldn't be a song that's played in CVS and Rite Aid's across America. I could not agree more. Do you know what I mean? which is famously one of my favorite genres is drugstore core playlist. Put this in between Matchbox 20 unwell. Literally. And a counting crow's song.

Exactly. A booed all song. Whatever you want. It's all there, babe. Yeah, it's beautiful. Okay, here, the rain song, he says, he calls it the rain song, so sorry for the misnomer. The rain song is a beautiful love song. That's probably one of my favorites on the record.

And just to clarify, that's mainly Dan's writing lyrically on that record. When we were recording it, as usual, I would have main themes and concepts for the lyrics, like killed by an angel and things for him to write around. But I was just so busy because I was playing bass on that record. And I had my hands sort of in everything musically that I was just like, Dan, can you please just write the lyrics? I can't even sit down with you. So most of the lyrics on this album are written by Dan Horner and not by Jeremy.

So it's like, again, we want to blame it on the youth pasteurization of Jeremy Enick, but Dan Horner wrote these lyrics. You know, I did not know that. And I think that makes sense when you think about the way Dan came up with the band name. And, you know, he's the one who tends to have the most, like, he's the most idealistic or at least the most pedantic as far as their politics. Like, that makes sense. That's what I'm saying. It almost makes sense over. I'm like, my beautiful tender, Jeremy, would maybe.

not have written such heavy-handed lyrics. You know what I mean? Like, it's almost as if Dan was like, oh, Jesus. Okay, hold on. Here you go. It says drugs are bad and God will save you. Can you write a song about like the ocean or something like that? Right.

But yeah, I do a little bit think justice for this record. But I also, I'm just absolutely fucking gobsmatched by the fact that this is the same band that made diary. It's like I'm thinking of like, again, smashing pumpkins where it's like, oh, later, our albums are like, you want smashing pumpkins? No, we have smashing pumpkins at home. There's still a bit of a smashing pumpkins at home vibe here. This is not we have Sunday Day real estate at home. This is not even that.

They're not related. That's like, oh, you want a rotisserie chicken? At home, we have Dunkeroo. I don't know. It's nothing, you know? Like, there's such a little through line for me between this album and the first album that it's like kind of shocking. I would say that there's still the, and again,

and maybe I'm projecting us on a Jeremy, but this like kind of spiritual, like this questing spiritual nature to song, you know, a song about an angel and the rain song. Granted they didn't have strings back then. They played in 4-4.

The production was much different. But I think, you know, and even as different as Jeremy's voice sounds, there is still that just search for deliverance that makes emo such, you know, good pairing with,

you know, Christian rock or like, you know, Christian youth group. It's just people searching for bigger ideas. And I think the rising tide is just the culmination of ideas that they may have, or Jeremy maybe may have had as far as like the sound of this band. You know, also the yes, the ELP. Now it's like, okay, we have the money to do this.

We can bring in an actual string section. Well, that was Williams influence. I mean, Jeremy loved you too. There's a reason that you two keeps coming up in all these reviews, you know. Yeah. feel like, okay, I once was lost and now I'm found. I just feel the best music lives in the first part of that. It just, for whatever reason, the best music comes out of, I once was lost, right? Once you're found, congratulations and gorgeous. And no one's permanently found. It's a, it's a,

it's a ongoing practice. But like the art that comes out of that is just not, like you said, right? The questing, yearning of diary and LP2 are just like, oh, whereas here it's a little bit more like, I know now and here I'll tell you about it. Which is, it's a very different vibe, which I still like it, you know, like, it's just, the immediacy is gone. There's such a distance now between this music and me,

whereas I fucking put on in circles and punches me in the fucking throat. I'll tell you this much, though. The riff for kill by an angel, like that is a fucking, that's like the best riff they've ever written. That's like one when I go to guitar center and just plug in with like a guitar that like, you know, like an SG that I'll never be able to afford. I'm sorry, when you go to guitar center and you just plug in an SG and you treat the patrons of guitar center to the riff from killed by an angel. Yeah, because that's like the sort of thing where you got to like just turn that shit up loud.

Literally je telephone police, if this happens, when I'm there. Yeah, it's like, okay, well, Dan, I think they played like SGs and Les Pauls, these like big gifts and guitars, which I can not afford. Because I have not sold 11,000 copies in my first week. It's even worse, and we've outed you as a poser, but even worse, we've outed you as one of those men who goes to Guitar Center to plug in an SG and play the riff of a Sunny Day real estate song. You know, yeah, there's dozens of us, right? Holy smokes. Why don't we hear killed by an angel? Because it is a fucking banger.

This is killed by an angel. That was killed by an angel. Welcome to the lonesome world of Abel, you know, as much as we've, you know. Welcome to the lonesome world of able. That's a good opening lyric for an album. Shout to Dan on that one. You know, we've given them some shit. That's a good fucking opening lyric.

He was like Bible, you say? That's right. I do know a couple of those stories. Allow me to mind my psyche to find them. But if there's one thing Sunday Day Real Estate's going to do is they're going to put a fucking banger as the first song. Pretty much all four albums. They're like, whatever is going on in this album, the banger is going right here up top. The one thing, even though I've really come around on the rising tide, that kept striking me, is it's not a cohesive album to me.

Like, it really feels like there's so many things going on, right? Like, you have a song like this. And then you have a bunch of songs that are like very pretty, tinkly, sweet, fairy music. And I don't mean that. No, no, no, like literal fairies, like in the forest. Yes. Sprites, if you will. Sprites, yes. Come on, come on.

And then, I don't know. Then there's like a song like Faces in Disguise. Again, a banger. Is this an 80s post-punk song? Is this a goth song? Paramore covered this song a bunch early on. Do you know this live? I personally, maybe an unpopular opinion,

would love to hear this song redone in the style of diary. Faces in disguise? Yeah. I think it would work. I'm thinking of this one, this album, just like that song and tearing in my heart. I remember my wife was telling me like she comes from, the evangelical Christian charismatic community back in the day.

And like her brother would put those two songs. I think it was one of those two songs. I think it was faces in disguise on like mixes. Like no, let me put you on to something. So I could hear this not only getting big in the CVS sort of rock way, but also perhaps in the kind of slow build switch foot kind of way. This song could legitimately come out right now. and you could tell me it's like

a cool Chicago like gothy post punk band and I would be like yeah that song or television for that matter that's like and television totally and television all I wrote for television is this song is so weird

yeah it's like that if we're talking about like on the nose songwriting she's in my head like television okay yeah we're not we're not and that just reminds me of like the LP2 style it's like yeah this is the lyrics fine but literally by the And Dan was, like, phoning it in the way.

He was like, yeah, yeah, this is TV is bad. Drugs are bad. Yeah. God is good. Right. Let's hear Faces in Disguise. And then I'm going to talk about, this album did have many real-time reviews. This one fades in.

This one takes a while to fade in, though. Okay, good point. Well, stay with us. This is Faces in Disguise. That was Faces in Disguise by The Cure. Just kidding. Okay. Let's start with the spin.

review by one Christopher Ryan, former guest of this show. Really? The pod. That's right. Really? Wow, for Chauncey Billups. Nice. I uncovered this via the weight back machine with the help of producer Nico.

Okay. He says, but for as much a departure as how it feels was, it prepared no one for the rising tide. Anyone familiar enough with Sunny Day Real Estate's back catalog will spend the first moments of this album dragging their jaw around the room as the lead off track killed by an angel is launched on the stern back of a type A cock rock riff

straight out of the 1970s. That's what I said about your beloved riff, babe. I'm not going to deny it. Those are all true. It's just so happens to this riff rocks. It's like Mississippi Queen or something. Full guitar hero core. Is this the song that they have a song that's in guitar hero

or whatever? Is it the song. I feel, I want to say it's seven probably. Yeah, maybe it's seven. Um, okay, where was I? Oh, not that the music is so far removed from diary, but it's like the guitars have had their teeth fixed and bleached like an extremely loud Colgate commercial. The extent to which alt rock architect Lou Jordano influenced the new sound is debatable. What's not debatable is the amount of compression used. You might want to hide your house pets and shut your windows because guitarist Dan Horner's got a Gibson set for kill, and he has no problem using it over and over. Okay, there's a bit about the spirituality of the lyrics and kind of comparing it to Bono.

Basically, the rising tide is stunning in the sense that sunny day real estate got under my skin when I was 19, and I cannot believe this is what they sound like now. But I guess it's just another ballsy leap into the unknown or previously known for a band with some of the most devoted fans in the country. Seven out of ten. I couldn't there was actually not a not a rating there probably was at the time but it's not on the way of the machine just the the rising tide is studying in the sense that sunny day

real estate got under my scam when I was 19 and I cannot believe this is what they sound like now like legit exactly what I thought like who whomst who are you who is this yeah I mean if if and this is like an alternate universe where you know I have followed them for as long as Chris Ryan had. And sometimes I do feel that way. Like, you know, when I started to get more familiar with Diary and, you know, also the legend and the aura behind early Sunday Day real estate, it's like this did sound exactly like

Chris Ryan would describe it. You know, the interesting thing about reading these reviews and, like, you know, I don't recall seeing too many of them or knowing too many of them at the time is that even the negative ones, I kind of agree with them. Like, they have a point. It's just like from which angle are you going to approach this? Are you going to approach this as the band that made diary? Or are you going to approach it as like a band trying to,

I don't know what they were trying to do, whether it's like to become a mainstream act, but like are you viewing this in the context of like radio rock in the same way that like, you know, if you hear Soundgarden back in 1994, are you thinking of them as the same band that made louder than love? Or are you thinking them as like a band who's competing with, say, candlebox, you know?

How can you ever remove context? It's not possible, right? Like, I'm a firm believer that bands should make any kind of album they ever want to make for the live long day, which is why we have 13 bad Weaser albums. But you can't become iconic on the back of one album and then have people pretend it never happened when they hear your later albums. That's never going to happen. No, but you might find an audience.

that is not familiar with that old word. Oh, I mean, definitely six years a lifetime. Because, like, it sounds like we paid attention to very different music, but like I have like a weird, blind spot is not even the right word. Like a blackout period in the 2000s that like I've never heard some of these bands. I've heard maybe some of the names. It'll be like basically like, I'm with you until like the yeah, yeah, yeah, as the strokes, block party, whatever.

And then I just disappear off into the ether until like maybe the later end of the 2000. I sort of like pop back in in like 2010 or something or 12. I just somehow missed this whole chunk of music that happened. I don't know what I was doing. Probably just listening to old music and doing drugs. I have no idea. But like 2000, I wasn't checking for Sunny Day real estate in the same way that I would have been in the mid-90s. Yeah, I have very similar experiences where it's like, I'll just go blank on certain years, particularly when it comes to like, you know, mainstream rock music.

Like the time you're talking about like, let's say from 2006 to 2009ish or whatever, you know, that's like blog goes. That's like blog. Yeah, I was like heavy into whatever the fuck like pitchfork was putting out. Like I just did not pay attention to other shit. And so this is why I find it so interesting when people younger than myself, they talk about Power More albums from that era or, you know, Fallout Boy Alms from that era. It's just like there's an age gap.

And also it's like I just wasn't checking for shit at that time. So this is why, you know, I would rather not, I would like almost always would rather hear someone else's opinion on like 20th anniversary or 10 anniversaries. This is why I don't do them too much anymore. It's like I know what I think. But you were there. Tell me about it, you know?

Right. Totally. Speaking of what happened in real time. Yeah. Entertainment Weekly reviewed it. Which, by the way, like, it's so funny. Like, when you go back to Entertainment Weekly, they are like so, they are so catty in their reviews back then. First of all, they were so on it.

They reviewed all of the coolest shit. It's crazy. Again, I'm still dying to find the music editors for Entertainment Weekly for the 90s because whoever they were, they were truly like fucking finger on the pulse. Like, of all the public. You're like entertainment weekly, but they reviewed all sorts of like arcane cool shit. And they were cutting. Yeah.

They gave this a C-plus. It's passing grade. Yeah. You know, they don't like the bloated riffs, is what they said. Time to unload this real estate, L. well. Robert Crisgow, and I'm sure this wasn't in real time, but on his website has only one sunny day real estate entry. It's this album and he gave it a bomb.

That's bad, right? That means a dud, you don't listen. Okay. God only knows what he was listening to at that time. But the AV Club really liked it. Stephen Thompson, I think, reviewed it and gave it a pretty positive and glowing review. Regardless, it wouldn't have mattered because they break up again. Wait a minute. You're not going to read the original pitchfork review of this one. Oh, I don't have it. I've definitely read it.

Producer Nico, can we find the original pitchwork review of this? They are not positive. Okay. The pitchfork review in the year 2000. Brett de Cresenzo. The emo Grim Reaper. Known for cutting down. 5.9. Not a good score by any metric.

Better than I expected, though. Are you ready to admit the Peter Gabriel factor? Or even more frightening the yes and rush factor? In fairness, this was a time where Prog Rock was not considered cool. We hadn't gone through like the steely de annescence that we unfortunately are still suffering through. currently. So just to put it in time. Not only does the rising tide

dip its toes into sucking whirlpools of late 70s arena Prague, but it stands as one of those albums that forces listeners to ponder the inevitable third act of even their most fond bands, wherein our hero finds his fate in a bloody climax of vocal effects, drum solos, eco-conscious,

last flash valiance, and fatal flubs. And while this specific hamlet hasn't got expired from the poison tip. His muse, Ophelia, is long gone. How can you call an album like overwrought when you're writing like that? And the audience knows all about the Venomed chalice. So what course brought Sunny Day real estate to this misfortune? The largest finger-pointing targets are producer Lou Giordano and the pairing of the band into a trio. That's kind of a weird indictment given the fact that Nate Mendel

wasn't involved with the last album either. I mean, they weren't a trio, but they just had some guy play base on it. It's not like he wrote the parts. You got word count. What can I say? Sure, sure. Word count is fine to say incorrect things. But as you could tell, the editing was not what it is today. But look, I mean, we talk about people like Brett D. Creschenzo and Chris Ryan, you know, with all due respect, like they are people who seem to have come from a perspective where

they are basing this on diary. And, yeah, like you were saying, Prog Rock's not cool. Even when this album is being compared to you two at that time, like this is prior to... It's an uncool time to be compared to you too. Yeah, this is like before all that you can't leave behind and you two saving us, like, you know, helping our nation heal after 9-11.

So like, you're just thinking of like, you know, Bono, like, you know, play me some blues edge, like that kind of YouTube. Like, it's just like Prague rock YouTube, wildly uncool record. This is like even prior to Unos just Trisca Torse even. The redemption of Buenos Aires Cotrace. Yes.

I won't read the whole review, but he doesn't like it. He didn't like it. He thinks it's bad. Did he find any songs that he liked? The Ocean. He says, occasionally the drama and props pay off. The Ocean slowly drops rippling pearls into molten quartz with sweeping effect. It's the loveliest the band have ever sound.

It is a really lovely song. We didn't play it, but I love that song. Sam. I'm of two minds of this album. It doesn't really. really matter what the critic said to, no offense to you a critic. What really matters is that it didn't get any marketing and tour support and money to be put on the radio and things that would have actually meaningfully impacted its immersion

into culture, right? Like, again, no offense to the year 2000 pitchfork. And it was very important. But like, what sunny day real estate needed at that time wasn't a good pitchfork review. They needed to be put on the fucking radio. You know, like, and that's. It's not what happened. So, and that sucks, you know, that's all there is to it.

And also, they broke up because of it because they were like, well, shit. You know, fuck. This is, maybe it's a sign. Yeah, they were supposed to go to Europe for the first time. And then it's like, oh, by the way. They were like, we can't pay for it. Yeah. Okay.

So in 2001, Jeremy and William reunite with Nate Mendel, no Dan Horner, to form a new band called the fire theft. My wife put one of their songs on the mix that we use for like kind of the pre-wedding ceremony. Wow. Yeah. And for whatever reason, that album was not on my radar when it came out in 2003. At this point, I've like tipped over to this album, you know, kind of parody pitchfork type ideas about this album. And so the fire theft to me, when I, the brief glimpses I heard, it's like, oh, wait, this is like the rising tide except like even more like, you know, cape and dry ice.

type shit. Like, this doesn't even have like killed by an angel type riff. So, you know, I didn't give it that much time. I was, as you put it on some other shit in 2003. And yeah, that was part of, I guess, like, you know, my pivot away from emo, you know, like that was, that was happening. Fans like brand new and taking back Sunday were coming up. So I was like, yep, nope, I'm just going to listen to Alcass and the Rends. This is what I'm on now. Sorry. Have you re-visited or reconsidered it? Yeah, I've come back to it and, you know, it's nice. It's just all, it's just not very great.

It doesn't, not a lot grabs me. I do feel like it's the sort of album similar to the Rising Tide where if I had heard it at a different space. Like if I heard that in college, you know, alongside, if you could flip-flop the Rising Tide and that, if the fire theft came out in 2000, I probably would be one of those like weird defenders of it. but you know, it's just wrong time, wrong place. Yeah. I never really connected to this album. I think I listened again, obviously, in preparation for this episode. And I was like, it's good.

Like, I get that it's good. I just don't connect with it. I couldn't stop thinking while listening to like the fire theft and the second two Sunny Day albums. But I was like, man, it's totally possible that like they didn't even mean to make those first two albums the way they are, you know? And how much of enduring classic iconic, like, game-changing music is a result of just limiting parameters and accidents. Absolutely.

It's just so interesting. Like, the album that launched a thousand emo bands kind of by accident. Because maybe, maybe, and I don't want to put words into their mouth, but like maybe given free reign and money and time, they might have made how it feels to be something on as their first album. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, also, of course, they probably say, oh, yeah, we didn't mean to make an emo album at all. It's just like, this is what they, you know, this is what they had at the time.

And they were, you know, super young. And just, oh, cool, we get to be in something. Let's just make what. We get to do multi-track recording. Yeah. You know, there was an argument popping off on, like, Twitter the other day about, like, you know, which bands, you know, the guy actually got better if they got money in studio time and, and, like, all this.

Like most... Nine times out of ten, none. Well, I would say for the most part, bands do get better. I don't agree. Okay. I would say this is like... And again, I want to reiterate that how it feels to be something on is my favorite Sunday Real Estate album.

It also hasn't been anywhere near as influential as Diary because I feel like bands don't hear that album and think, oh yeah, I'm going to... I can do that. But like, Diary has this rawness to it where you could be a band. who sees them almost as like peers where it's like, okay, we can try to do something like that. God knows how many bands try to make a version of diary.

That's the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, starting with Fugazi into diary. Just because everybody can doesn't mean everybody should, babe. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, but how are you going to know if you're Fugazi or, you know, it's just you got to try. No, everyone should try. But like, then no, it's only if you're good that you should continue.

Like, go ahead and try. But like, that's how Fugazi tricked people, right? They were like, anyone can do this. And it's like, actually, no, bitch, anyone can't do this. You guys are uniquely talented. There should be lower barrier to entry for talented people. Not for everybody. That's what I say.

But, you know, maybe my closing thoughts and feelings are perhaps what really invented email. was Rites of Spring plus Grunge. Whoa. Yeah, you don't even need me to like be honest. Like that is the expert emo take. But yeah, I do think that you're correct in that if it was just like, I can't believe it's taken us like three and a half hours, say real emo only consists of the DC hardcore scene, you know, that like whole copy pasta.

I would never say that. I think, I don't know if you've noticed that I said the fray was emo. So I absolutely will expand the term to include anyone. No, exactly. But yeah, the real emo copy pasta. We have to bring this in at some point. But like if it was really just based on a DC hardcore scene, it would have,

it did fizzle out after a couple of years because this is not like the kind of music that leads to sustained careers. You know, this is so exhausting to make and perform that it, there's just a limited lifespan. And what I guess Diary did was if they were from Nebraska, would it, you know,

would have seen impact? Probably not. But like, you know, aligning it with grunge or, aligning it with All Rock gave people a better sense of what this potentially could accomplish. Even if Saudi real estate was nowhere near as popular as, you know, some of the bands that would come later on, that the reason that we're able to have a conversation about Emo in 2022 is in large part because of what this record started, not necessarily finished, but what the diary started.

Okay, well, Ian, it's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure as well. It has. We have sort of reached the end of the Sunny Day story. I mean, besides those musical outputs, Jeremy Enick put out several more solo albums that are also pretty good. The end sessions, World Wades, The Missing Link, and OK Bear. Sunny Day reunited to tour when the re-release has happened, when you guys all wrote about them in 2009, right? And then that touring was with Nate Mendel? Yeah, I remember seeing them play at Coachella in 2010 to basically know. Nobody. Cannot believe they played a Coachella. Yeah, they were playing against Florence in the Machine.

I think Matt and Kim, like, it was Coachella back when, like, you would play against, like, three. Is it 2012? I want to say 2000. It feels like 2010. Okay. Yeah. And it was just like nobody was there. And, yeah, I don't remember seeing them on, on that tour.

But, yeah, I'm surprised to hear that Nate Mendel played with them. So they tour with everybody. Then they go away again. And then in 2014, they randomly put out a song, one song, Lipped in Witch, as a split seven-inch with the band Circa Survive. Tell me about this song. I remember hearing it and just feeling like pretty underwhelmed by it and also hearing rumors that they were planning to make another record. But like they realized they don't like each other and they kind of fell apart. I like how every like couple of years they're like, oh, fuck, yeah, no.

I still, I still don't like you. But of course you also get like the rumors that William Goldsmith was saying that like Dave Grohl had the Sunday Day real estate album in his sock drawer or something like this buried secret Sunday day real estate record LP 5. You have to admit having the nefarious villain of your story be Dave Grohl is just so fucking funny. It's truly amazing. Yeah, Lipton, which is not on streaming. We'll clip it here. They do not put out an album. Perhaps it is in Dave Grohl's sock drawer.

Who can say who? who can know. And they reunited to tour again this year. So we're very lucky. Without Nate. Without Nate Mendel, who refused to come back for whatever reason that we can't know. And I think by the time this episode comes out, they'll still be on tour. So check them out. Ian, thank you for spending this time with me and Sunny Day real estate. Let's just quickly hear from the diehard sunny day fans that will forever carry the mantle of all. four of these albums individually. I first heard Sunny Day Real Estate as a very confused and lonely 14-year-old in 1995. Sunny Day Real Estate and the effect that this band has had on my life.

So many Sunny Day Real Estate fans are obsessed with the band's debut album Diary. And while I do consider it a classic, an emo cornerstone super influential with lots of killer songs. I wouldn't consider Sunny Day a great band if they never came back after that break up in the mid-90s. The first time I heard the band was when I was 12 or 13 at a record store called Tunes on the Dunes on the Ocean City boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey. Someone had died and donated their entire CD collection to my local library and diary was included in that collection. I borrowed it just based on the cover art. I took it home and sat in my parents' basement but reaped of mold and cigarettes next to an electric heater,

and I put it on. I think I played in circles 10 times in a row. Hearing LP2 on the stereo of this record store, I immediately went up to the counter and this little kid, little tiny kid that I was and asked them what it was. And they told me and I wrote it down, I scribbled it down on a piece of paper

and went back home to the town where I grew up in Cherry Hills right outside of Philadelphia and insisted that my dad take me to the local record store there so I could go and look for this band. They didn't have LP2 at my local record store, but they did have a diary and how it feels to be something on, and I bought both of those records,

and I just really couldn't believe what I was hearing. The band's last two albums, to me, are the real masterpieces. The point where Jeremy Enoch really embraced the grandiosity of his songwriting. You know, it really began my pursuit into educating myself about emo and hardcore and punk rock in general, They were the gateway band for me, where I feel like, you know, a lot of people have, you know, Operation I,

or Black Flag is their gateway band. Sunday real estate was the gateway band for me. How it feels to be something on and the rising tide provide me with the elements I most consistently crave for music. Elite musicianship, intense emotion, a sense of escapism. When I listen to songs like One and Pillars and Days are Golden, I feel tapped into some kind of majesty, what I imagine religious people feel when they're at church. And I felt that when I saw the band on the reunion tour just recently in Asheville, North Carolina,

incredible show. I was able to go and discover CDs and other bands that I thought fit the aesthetic of what Sunday Day Real Estate was doing and how that allowed me to discover bands like the Promise Ring and Cap and Jazz and Get Up Kids, and they were the band that set that all up. I love Sunday Day Real Estate because they're still the perfect. music to listen to when I'm confused and need a little warmth beyond the electric heater. Life is better now than it was then, but in the moments where I don't have the words to describe how I'm feeling and don't know where to turn, I recite these words to myself.

Where words are not, feeling remains, sincerity, trust in me. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to Sunday Day real estate and that band for what they've done for me, both creatively as an artist and also just discovering some of my favorite music in the world. Yes, I guess they're an emo band, as slippery a term as that may be, but they're also much, much more than that. Thanks, Sunny Day. Appreciate it. Yes, gorgeous. We agree. Okay. Ian, thank you again. Before you go, can you choose one last Sunny Day song that we have not yet played to sail us into the night? I'm going to choose every Shining Time, you arrive.

I feel like that's, gorgeous song. Yeah, that's, I think just the early Jeremy kind of spirituality with the late Sunday Day real estate production. It's just like, this is what they do. Okay. Thank you, Ian. Come back next week for a new episode of Bansplaine. And this is Every Shining Time You Arrived.

If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandsplain, only on Spotify. Our guest today was Ian Cohen. Follow him on Twitter at E.N. underscore Cohen. Huge, huge thanks to the Sunny Day Real Estate megathans you heard on this episode. Ryan Reed, Kevin O'Brien, and Evan Weiss. This episode is produced by My Bucket of Chicken, Nico Stratis, and edited by Michael Hardman with help from Casey Simonson and Justin Sales. Executive producers for bands plan are Gina Delvac and meet Yossi Sala.

Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cozantino and Jennifer Claimon and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDenna, Dana Mearson, Jessica Hopper, and celery juice. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bansling, only on Spotify. Every day my internet goes out like four times. Why?