Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson & Olivia Allen - The Milk Carton Kids on Music Inspirations, Growing up in LA, and Chrismukkah

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale of the indie folk duo The Milk Carton Kids join Rachel and Olivia on today's episode to chat about their musical influences, the debate over saying "Merry Christmas" versus "Happy Holidays," and they perform a song from their upcoming, "Christmas in A Minor Key" album, set to release on Friday, November 29th. You can discover more about The Milk Carton Kids and download their Christmas album at themilkcartonkids.com or on their Instagram page,  @TheMilkCartonKids  Broad Ideas is sponsored by Jenni Kayne. From now through the end of November, our listeners get 25% off your first order when you use code ideas15 at jennikayne.com.Broad Ideas is sponsored by Article. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more, visit ARTICLE.COM/BROAD and the discount will be automatically applied at checkoutSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hax is back for its fifth and final season, and so is The Hacks podcast. Join the Hacks creators and showrunners, Lucia and Yellow, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky as they unpack the Emmy-winning comedy series. On each episode, hear stories from the set, what goes on in the writer's room, and how these beloved characters close out their final season. Watch Hax streaming exclusively on HBO Max and listen to The Hacks podcast on HBO Max or, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. Hey. To broad ideas.

I love when we get into our holiday episodes. Mm-hmm. Now, I'm just going to... And, you know, I may repeat this in the episode, but... A good holiday album brings my heart so much joy. So much. I love even cooking Thanksgiving dinner with a really good holiday album.

And that's what I did. Milk carton kids are here today, and they have an incredible holiday album. Let's bring them on. Sometimes when the one's sick inside of Rachel's little brain, all these thoughts are swirling, round and round inside, to join us on this journey.

as we take a little ride We'll talk about dogs and kids and things We'll talk about chicks and tampon strings We'll talk about boys and... Because people die I also want to like to know if my crocs are in the frame Are you wearing crocs? I notice.

I'm wearing crocs and I am such a crock person He was crocs shamed. I was crox shamed on Instagram this morning By our friend He's like by my mom Lift your feet. Can I see what crocs you have on? Yeah, show the crocs. I go crocs with like comfy wool. Absolutely. But do you not do the crocs that have the soft fuzz inside them?

Oh. I don't know. I'm ashamed to say. I don't even know about this. These are my first pair that I've ever had. It's still the only pair that I've ever had. And how do they feel? I love them. I wear them all the time. I had them on yesterday. They're furry built in. They're cozy. It's like a slipper. I think I know what Joey gets for Christmica. Yeah, no, they're cool. I am so, thank you for supporting my crock. So we're done here. And crock love. We just started. Thank you. This is why we're here.

Also, speaking of Christmica and like as a fellow halfer here, do you just go Merry Christmas? Yes. Yeah. Like not Merry Christmas. Not Christmica. Not Christmas. Not Christmas. When it's Hanukkah, sure, happy Hanukkah.

I hope so. I feel totally othered if people know I'm Jewish and they say happy Hanukkah to me when they've said, Merry Christmas to other people. Oh, I see. I see. But then don't you think there's other people that feel the opposite? Maybe. Nobody knows what to do.

Nobody does. But it is Christmas. This is a complete. When it's Christmas. Because you're a hafer, but what if you don't know what someone is? You're like, happy Thanksgiving. When that happens to you, do you think that it's somebody who's showing empathy but is actually racist? I think it

Do you know what I mean? And I could be wrong So I've gone to Christmas parties before And you walk in the door And people are going Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah.

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. Right. Huh. Right? And I understand that. You're cool. You're cool. Fuck you. Oh, I think it's like you're cooler

And I'm going to respect that. Right. It means out of respect But the way I take it and this could be totally wrong is like I think you're different. I think you think you're different

and this is me like trying to respect you but instead actually just making this weird divide. Wow. Cool. Like it's a Christmas party. And that host. I'm here for the Christmas party.

That host specifically, do you think they came by it honestly? Or is there just a little kernel of anti-Semitism down there? No, I don't. Totally came by it honestly, trying to do it out of respect. But inadvertently. Has it happened more than once? Uh-huh. How do you feel about a happy holidays?

Oh. That's fine. But I'd just rather commit. Okay. Commit one way or the other. Yeah. Like if it's a Hanukkah party, I say happy Hanukkah. I don't care if you're Jewish. If you've come to my Hanukkah party. Happy Hanukkah. I hope you have a happy Hanukkah. Yeah, I do too.

Regardless of if you're celebrating it or not. But what I never got is that Jesus was a Jew. How is it different? Like, isn't just all the big. Yeah, I know. I'm going to figure it out. We were talking about the light stuff before the cameras rolled, but now we're really figuring out. Yeah, no, we're really going to go. Well, because we made this Christmas album and he's an atheist. I'm a Jew.

And you made a Christmas album. So they're all about Jesus Christ. We did it for the songs. You know? Are you an atheist? Yeah. But that doesn't mean I can't sing about Jesus, no? No.

You can do whatever you want. Christmas songs are joyful. They're the best. They're so pretty. They put you in a good mood. Yeah. Right? To be honest, we did.

We did it for the melodies. Like we picked every song that we picked. Yeah. We just picked it for the melodies and we're a harmony duo. So the way that we felt that the melody would carry a two, like a intricate or elaborate two-part harmony that would be beautiful. Yeah. Was kind of what we leaned into.

So I don't know. Ironically, maybe we ended up doing like the most Jesusy, most religiousy ones. Yeah, yeah. Because those like, they're like Baroque, medieval, some of them, melodies that are so beautiful. If you didn't know that Christ was born before this album, you will definitely know that Christ was born. Yeah.

But I don't think anyone's arguing that, right? I don't think that's controversial. Maybe. I don't know. We can't touch Jesus, you guys. They did. They were like, well, you can. He touched them.

Yeah. Well, and also, you never know these days. You know, you can never tell. You can never, you bring it back. You can never tell. I will say all of the songs, they are bangers. on the Christmas, like they are the ones that you want to hear repeatedly. Do you think?

I do. Well, this is also the craziest thing about that is that we didn't, there wasn't like an overarching design. We kind of just felt our way through it. And then when we got to 10, we looked at the list. And at some point, we looked at a bigger list of like, oh, what did we miss? Yeah. And you could make five of those albums.

And each one would feel like the top 10. There's like 50 Christmas songs that just feel ubiquitous. We did the 10 songs that we most wanted to do and we didn't get to white Christmas, for example. Wow. What's your favorite, both of your favorite Christmas song? Off the album? It changed in the process of making the album. Oh, wow. Did it?

Yeah, because, yeah, you know, you spent a lot of time with each song and, like, really digging into the chords. And you can arrange them with different chords, you know, to carry whatever. melody, like whatever harmonies we wanted to write. So like going into it, I might have said that maybe like Carol of the Bells is one of my favorite. Which we didn't even do that one. How does it go? Are there words? Yeah. All I can think is the music.

It just sounds like a Harry Potter song to me. Yeah, or a commercial. Yeah. A Best Buy commercial. To me it sounds like Home Alone. And actually my favorite one that we did do, was Oh Holy Night, which is also in Home Alone. And basically were just going off.

We just did the soundtrack to Home Alone. That would be great. That would be great. That would be amazing. But we used my 10-year-old son to sing on it to do like a children's choir, like backing vocal sound. Free child labor. Yeah.

I like it. And well, when he heard it, he goes, it sounds like Home Alone. And then I was like, that's when I knew we hit the bullseye. Oh my gosh. That's so cool. Yeah. That was very sweet. That's very sweet.

It was his first time in the studio or anything. Can he sing? He could sing close enough. Yeah. Yeah, we all need a little help from the computer, but. Okay. And what's yours? Yeah, anybody can sing this day.

Yeah. I've tried. It doesn't work. No. Oh, anybody with the help of the computer. You got to check out the software we got. Okay. But then how do you, like, do that?

So you're saying that could be a singer? Mm-hmm. Yes. That's all she's ever wanted. That's all I've ever wanted in my life. Her husband gets her singing, lessons every occasion that requires a present. So sweet.

I know. She's never once used them. I did sing lessons once. I did. I did it for a minute. Did it feel like it did anything? He said I'm not tone deaf. Because everyone around me has always been like you're tone deaf.

Yeah. And he was like you're not. You just need a lot of help. You know? It's sad. We don't need to talk about that. Seeing is definitely a thing that you can, It's like any other skill, I think you can, everybody can improve a lot.

Like, I feel pretty confident as a singer after 15 years of, like, trying to do it professionally. And, like, I definitely don't feel like I'm a particularly natural singer. Like, when I was younger, if I just sang, nobody was like, wow, that kid's got a great voice. Like, could carry, could basically carry a kid. He's just like, yeah, yeah. He's like, yeah. He's like, yeah. Can attest.

It's so true. It is an interesting topic, and I'm conflicted about the, I'm always conflicted about singing lessons, actually. And I have some friends who are incredible voice teachers and have helped people that I know in tremendous ways. But there is this interesting distinction between, like, if you go take singing instruction, if you're really good at taking instruction,

and you get all the way there, the thing that you're going to sound like is not necessarily, necessarily the thing that I'd ever hope an artist I was working with sounded like. I don't think it's the thing that people are drawn to. I think people are drawn to vibes and identities and you want to be able to do something confidently and you want to be able to reach an audience without them thinking about your singing per se. But I don't think that that's necessarily a function of like good singing or lessons. But what about so I feel quite confident when I sing.

Yeah. Like I'll sing in front of anyone at any point. We were singing so loud and embarrassed her son the other night. I'll sing anywhere. Because I just love it. Yeah. But what do you do with someone like that? And when the truth is, it's pitchy or it does not sound good to other people.

Right. You know? When they say, that doesn't sound good to me. Right. That's when there's a problem. Right? What do you do with someone like that? I would do two things. First of all, I would take singing lessons.

Really? Yeah. This would be the first of many disagreements. The longer we talk, the two of us will have more. and more distance between us. But I would take singing lessons. And then painful as it may be, although maybe it wouldn't be, I would just try and record yourself a lot.

The way that I learned to sing, I feel, was by just doing a lot of little recording things. And so early in my career before I had a career, I would do just any project that came up and it ended up being like writing. music for commercials and stuff. So you have to sing little 30-second things. And so you've got like two hours to make it sound acceptable.

And so you sing a little thing and you hear it back and you're like, I make it a little different, a little better or whatever. And I feel like I really learned my own voice and the things that I could do and couldn't do and just got better gradually. I'm going to get so many voices from her now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the feedback of hearing. Yeah, great.

You're already there. And you've done it. You know, it's funny. is we have a funny serendipity about you guys. What is that? So Rachel came to me one day and she was like, you have to hear these guys. And I was like, okay.

And I listen to what she sends me sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. Really annoying. How much do you send? Honestly, not that much. So it's like, you have to listen. If I send something, it's going to be worth it.

Yeah, yeah, it counts. Right. So she goes, no, I think. I think we were actually talking. We were talking at your house and she said, have you heard the milk carton kids? And I was like, that's weird. Because I just got off of a plane. I spent an hour next to this older British man and we spent an hour talking.

And we got really close and we bonded over music. And by the end of the conversation, I said, just give me one. What is the one you think I have to listen to? And he said, the milk carton kids. That's our prime demographic The old British men The coolest thing is him and his son He was telling me that him and his son

Had bonded over it And it brought them closer together Because it was a band He was like it's a crossover for us He's like so if you take anything take them So I put it in a note in my phone And I held that note in my phone For a long time

So when she said it I pulled up the note And I was like it's right here It's been a single solitary Just by itself note for like six months before she... Wow. But let me tell you how I discovered you guys.

Yeah. Well, that's not really the story. But I was going to the dentist, and I hadn't been in a very long time. This is our other demographic. Dentists and old men riding airplanes. Exactly. This is what you want to hear.

And someone mentioned that I should listen to you guys while I was getting my filling. Oh, my God. Right? You didn't know that when you recorded, did you? Listen, I had anxiety about it. It had been a while. You're ling, it's uncomfortable.

You have like the rubber thing. It's a whole thing. And I had a lot of anxiety. And they were like, listen to the milk carton kids while you're, while it's going on. And you guys? And we soothed your tooth. You got me through my filling. Wow.

And that was it. From then on. That and a little nitrous oxide and you're ready to go. I mean, the laughing gas help. No. Yeah. It was really low. Like, and that was the first time I ever listened to you guys.

And I was like, holy shit. So you have them associated with trauma now. We've trauma bonded. Incredible. Yeah. My music is primarily for trauma. To experience trauma whilst listening. You do have to be careful, though.

I made the mistake one time. So you know Jason Isbel? Yeah. Yeah. So one of his albums came out, I forget which one, but a couple years ago. I don't know if this story will be gross or not. We hope so. Okay, so I had been on tour, we had been on tour for a couple weeks, came home, and there's like a side, we had two dogs, there was a side yard where they just shit.

And my wife works a lot and does not enjoy picking up the dog shit. So usually when I get, would get home from tour, there'd be. She's like, here's your shit. You come home, and like that's gone to the return from tour presence that I would have is just like a couple weeks worth. So I put in the headphones And I put on Jason's new album Whilst To pick up shit

To pick up all the dog shit Not like to pick up It wasn't like I wasn't doing it intentionally like the dentist Sure But I can't listen to the record anymore Totally ruined it It's like all I can think of is your dog shit

100% like association You know like songs from your childhood or whatever That's amazing Totally visceral Yeah I swear How many times have you gone back to test it? It's the reunions. That's one of his albums, right?

Yeah, that's the one. And if you put it on, do you like instantly start smelling shit? Yeah. You see it. I have a bad feeling and a bad sense memory. Wow. It didn't do that for me. It just made me listen to you more.

Yeah. Okay, good. Did it make you love the dentist? You know what? I had to go back and get a few more fillings and I was fine. Okay, good. That time I listened to like a murder podcast. Oh, sick.

That's fun. I always think about that. I'm like, you probably, like, did that ever cross your mind when you recorded your album of the places and ways in which people would be listening to you? Like, it doesn't cross your mind, does it? Honestly, no. Absolutely not. But it is wonderful. That's wonderfully humbling.

I think that we should all consider that. Don't take it so serious. Also, everyone should listen to you guys when they're at the dentist. And everywhere else. People don't usually tell you their dentist story. You get a lot of like, oh, your music got me through some hard time or whatever. And that stuff I think I do think about. Right.

Because that's obviously super meaningful. But shouldn't know me meaningful than having a feeling. Getting a feeling. Right? I think that's getting you through a hard time. That's a hard time. It is a hard time. But it was your 2023 album.

The most recent. Yeah. Well, your most recent is the holiday. Holiday album. Yeah. But. Our serious, not as a serious album. We're very excited.

Christmas album. By the way, we're not, we're not calling it a holiday album. What are you calling it? Oh, we are. Christmas. Oh, right. Right. No holiday.

We talked about it before we started recording, I think. Yeah, I think. Yeah. But it's called, it's called. Don't you dare call it holiday. It's called Christmas in a minor case. I did all the asset building, though, for the social media campaign, and it definitely says the new holiday album.

Really? Uh-oh. You didn't clear that. You know, technically it's not wrong. We did record Aldenang's sign. That is not a Christmas song. That is a New Year's Eve song. That's a New Year's Eve song. So it's more than one holiday.

It is. I really, what if you guys did cover Adam Sandler's on a Christmas song? Yeah. I feel like. I would do it. Just a serious version of it. Yeah, serious version. Sad, slow dentist version.

Yep. Yep. Everyone needs the dentist. That's on volume, too. We did. We finished this one. And like I said, we saw the like master list. He was like, well, we could make five of these.

And I think in that moment we thought that we would make a second one. Well, you never said what your favorite Christmas song is. Well, that's hard. I know. From this batch, I really like the first Noel. It feels like an innocent little child. It is. You know?

Sure. And Joey sings. It's the first. thing that you hear sung on this album is track one and Joey sings and he sounds

like an innocent little child like swaddled in a thing in a picturing in the manger yeah

that's really sweet that's the word manger it's one of the one of the what's the manger? What is the

manger again? Isn't it like the bassinet that he's in? Yeah but what makes like it's just a bassinet

away in the manger no crib for a bed? I thought the manger was the barn oh see it is? It is? Oh, maybe.

It's a word that sounds like horses have something to do with it. A manger? Because a mange? I don't even know. Guys who have really gone off the rails here. I know. We just recorded the songs. We are not experts in the rest of it.

I just want explanations. It's really. Yeah. Broad Ideas is supported by Jenny Kane. Yes. We love, love. I've been such a fan of Jenny's for, gosh, I want to sing like 20 years. It's been a really long time.

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Those are so good to get for people. Every scent is utter perfection and on sale. Gift yourself and your loved ones, the best gift of all, Jenny Kane. From now through the end of November, our listeners get 25% off your first order when you use code. Ideas 15 at Jenny Cane.com. That's 25% off your first order for the rest of November when you use code Ideas 15 at j-E-n-n-n-I-K-A-Y-N-E dot com. Let getting dressed be one less thing to worry about. Broad Ideas is supported by Article. We love Article. That's right. Olivia's house, my house, so many pieces, and I just keep collecting more. Me too. I want the big green

couch now. Oh, you should get the big green couch. You know what I'm getting? The leather dining chairs. Yes, I know. I'm so excited. You know, Article just really believes in delightful designs for every home. And thanks to their online-only model, they have some really delightful prices. Articles' team of designers are all about finding the perfect balance between style, quality, and price. They're dedicated to thoughtful craftsmanship that stands the test of time and looks good doing it. Articles knowledgeable customer care team is there when you need them to make sure that your experience is smooth and stress-free. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com slash broad and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout.

That's article.com slash broad for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. That's such a good deal The best So how did you guys come to be She's good at this From the beginning Oh our band From inception

Notley how did you get here The 134 It was off the 134 I grew up on the 134 In Eagle Rock Yeah You really? Yeah Wait are you both from Eagle Rock?

No Joey's from Brentwood Oh But he really I think that's I think that's different We're now a girl I think that's why he always wanted to downplay that. He was like,

can we identify with cool northeast Delight? Yeah, it's different. Eagle Rock. It just says Eagle Rock. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's where we came together. Kenneth was Kenneth Studio was there,

and by that we mean his parents' house where he was living at age 30. At age 30, and we had a studio there. But that's where we, you know, I would go there every day and we'd sit out on the patio. So we were both solo artists. and then we met and started

immediately just arranging all of our own songs for this like duo because the first time we sang together we kind of really clicked in the way our voices blended and the way that we played guitars together and really quickly kind of knew that we were just going to do this

instead of our solo thing. So I would go there every day and we would learn two more of his songs or my songs and arrange them like for this new band that we were starting. So that's where we felt that spiritually our origins were in Eagle Rock more so than Bratwin. By the way, I'm a valley person now, which was a big deal. That is a big deal for a Brentwood to convert.

To move over to the valley. What part? Proud of you. Okay. Very proud of you. And I have to say, I am, I totally, totally identify now and claim. The valley because... Yeah.

Does Sherman Oaks way up towards Moholland count is the valley? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know it does legally, but like as valley girls, you're like... Yes, 100%. If someone grew up in the hills... Well, he's saying... As long as they're not on the other side of Mulholland, they're valley.

All right. That's where you draw the line. I feel like Warhol and Moholland is a little more valley than like Sherman Oaks, Mulholland Hill. That's still a valley. Like, we're very... North Hollywood person? North Hollywood person.

Where I grew up. I see. Okay, yeah. That's different, too. I live in Studio City now, so it's close to you. Yeah. I love. A crazy thing has happened.

Do you live in Eagle Rock now? No, we live in Laurel Canyon. Okay. So you live in Studio City. Well, our studios in North Hollywood. Yeah, so you're on our side. So I shop at the Sportsman Lodge, Airwant. I'm there too much.

Now you guys are going to run into each other there. Okay, can I just say something? Please do. Everybody groaned when I said that I grew up in Browell. We did. We did. We did. And you guys only go to Arawan.

I didn't say only go to that. Well, he only goes. No, no, we go to Bristol Farms. We also go to Bristol. That's all just... Because we read Eagle Rock. So we're like, okay, Eagle Rock. Like, they are born into that.

You know my favorite part of that is to... We've professionally worked in music for 15 years, but we live in a world where just we said some stuff a while ago, and then it gets echoed around the thing. But I think that people don't realize, like, that's also what Al Pacino's Wikipedia pages. In Iraq. No, it's just some shit that Al Pacino's been saying about himself,

of other people, it's just not, it's not, none of it's real. Right. You know? Rachel, do you know anything? about that? Things that you've said that have stuck. Speaking of Jesus. You have some Jesus drama? She has had some Jesus drama.

Wow. Yeah. Jesus drama? Well, yeah. Like things that you said. No, yeah, for sure. I've said things. That have stuck and been like, wow, now that's what we're going to remember.

Yeah. That's what they're going to. Wow. Well, the one thing is like also we, I mean, we would have just put Los Angeles as being like where we're from. Yeah. Yeah. But we, like, our whole career also, there's been a disconnect between like what we sound like, like, we're just two guitars and two voices, like, around one microphone, which is the way it's been since the beginning.

And so there's, we also, there's always a disconnect for people between, like, being like an L.A. band, but also feeling like some sort of a throwback, foky, like, 60s thing, which to us actually feels very L.A. because like Laurel Canyon and like the folk scene in LA in the 60s is kind of a huge touchstone for folk. Yeah. But like when we were going around in the beginning, people would be like, you guys are from L.A. Like you don't sound like L.A. and L.A. band. Like you feel like L.A. Which is something. Which is something people who are originally from L.A., I think, get a lot.

Don't you think? Yeah. We're from L.A. We're from foreign and raised. And they're always like, what? You're still like norm or like whatever the words. I think it's people that moved here. That's what people think of

And they think of bad stuff. We talk about this all the time. We're cool. We're cool. And no shade on Brentwood. No shade on Brentwood. I'll shade Brentwood. I mean, Brentwood's beautiful.

It's just not the valley. I'm not judging. I'm not judging. I went to Brentwood School. Brentwood School. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but also you grew up in a different.

With Maroon 5. So you know Adam. Well, yeah. Well, he was a couple years older than me. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Some good bands came out of that Brentwood scene.

The Milk Carton Kids. Yeah, that's right. But I do feel like you grew up like one click on the right side of the Brentwood designation. What does that mean? Yeah, what does that mean? Well, just. It means that my parents live in a small house. Yeah, like your mom was an elementary school teacher.

And like your... Was a different vibe. It was a different vibe. You weren't like Richie Rich, Silver Spooning in your mouth. You just happened to live. that part of town. Area code. I mean,

zip code. Yeah. Yeah. And area code. And area code. 310. 310 versus 818? 310.

We grew up. Still got my 3. Oh, wow. That is legit. I hope you still have a 2-1-3. My cell phone is still 2-1-3, yeah. I'm still 8-18. Nice.

You guys, it's all about area codes. It is. But I feel like people need this stuff. The, like, this goes back to our conversation about singing. I wonder what you want out of singing because whoever said singing has to be good. Actually, singing and music is like a language that predates all languages

and it's the way that people emote with one another. And so like it doesn't have to be good. Like if you're trying to get in front of an audience and make a thing and like, but, you know, we try to sing pretty because we try to make pretty music or sometimes we try to make dark music but it's kind of hooked on to something pretty or fragile or truthful or something.

And so like that feels like that. But if you're like a punk rocker, you're not looking for pretty. You're looking for a specific attitude or a specific thing. So if you're trying to not like get criticism from the people around you for having, you know... It's true. Maybe it's one of the terrible things

that the singing shows have done to our society is make everybody think that when their friend sings, if they don't sound like they would win a singing show, that that means they're not going. good. Yeah, it's not a chair turn. It's not a chair turn. I love that show. I love that show so much. And I think they actually do a fine thing because the people that are participating are trying to do that. They are. There is a discourse that's all happening. Yeah. I hate it. For people who, I haven't watched it in so long. For people who can't sing, the interesting thing to me is we live in this time for people that can't sing like that if you want to,

rather than going to the voice teacher, you could do some bells and whistles in the computer and get close, which is an interesting, strange thing because it really like... It's cheating. Well, it's cheating, but also, like, you never know who has the goods or what connects, because in so many ways it really isn't about technical ability. It's about connecting to people. So there's a, you know, like post-malone. Can you imagine how magnetic post-malone is to other people? like whatever his ideas are and whatever he gives up, that people somehow feel connected to that.

And he sort of flies completely in the face of not technical ability because I think he's actually really talented, but the music that he produces, like, purposefully sounds artificial or like goes through that filter in a way that doesn't come at the cost of his ability to connect to anybody. No, not at all. That's such an interesting thing. That's art in itself.

But so post-Malone 30 years ago might be this really magnetic person who has a lot to offer as far as like connection and and representing something culturally, but maybe he wouldn't have had the goods to operate in that medium then. And so like these days we're getting people like that also at the same time, you're getting this flood of other people that don't have the goods and also aren't magnetic or like maybe shouldn't be making music at all. And so you have to contend with that too. But it's interesting because I don't think it's necessarily like a wholly positive or negative thing. It's just now.

It's very interesting and it brings up the question to me, what is the difference between that and what people are doing with like social media and face tuning and changing their images and like presenting something that has actually been modified? Yeah. Isn't that kind of similar? 100%. I find that my first reaction is. criticism and then sort of like the music thing, how could it be anything other than like

this is what people do so now it's our job to like, yeah, or understand it? Like I can't believe that just all of the main celebrities just every day start looking more and more like each other. Like there's just one person with the same. But not only AI, but it's like they're going and doing it incrementally with. cosmetic surgery or just style or what but that ever it's so the world is so small and everybody's looking ostensibly at the same thing that like the gravity is so big that it's doing that and it's like that's bonkers bonkers but i don't know like i don't know if it's necessarily something

that would serve us to criticize more than under like it's kind of just a reflection of human nature what humans do i don't know i mean it seems silly to me i have another question really quick. So when you talk about the singing and if you have a good voice or a bad voice, it's really about, right, shared connection, emoting, expressing yourself, all of those things. The other night we had a few friends. We'll sit by the fire and we'll sing and do that whole thing. Shut up. I wasn't invited. You weren't there? He must have been busy. Oh, she was invited. She was invited. Anyway, carry on. But that's our favorite thing to do. is my husband will play the guitar and we'll all just sing.

And it's not for anything but just pure enjoyment. But. And wait, wait, pause. What do you sing? You sing like. Oh, God, everything. Songs people write them set? No, like John Denver.

No, we sing all songs. You sing Come Over all the time. We do sing Come Over. Is that the name of the song? What's that? By Kenny Chesney. Yeah, it's a really good song. Amazing.

We have quite recently gotten very, very, in the country, like Zach Bryan and, uh, but that's not even like you were like real, really into country. Yeah, we like to sing it, you know. Yeah. So here's my question. Zach Brian, Zach Brown and Luke Brian? All of them.

We love them all. We like, but then. Do you consider Zach Ryan country? I don't know. Oh, you don't know where he is? I know. He's really good. I know that there's Zach Brian

Luke Bryan. Yeah. Totally different. Luke Holmes. And Zach Brown. You know Zach Ryan. Yeah. And this is classic Joey

because Joey doesn't know who Zach Brian is. I know. Zach Brian is maybe the most famous person in music and Zach Brian definitely knows who you are. Dope. Like he's a fan of our band. He's like the biggest.

I love Zach Brian. I bet you if you listen to his album, you probably would like it. It's really. I know what's interesting about Zach Bryan to me is I love that people are calling it country music because it actually just sounds like what Indy Americana was 15 years ago. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. I think, and I don't know if he would ever take issue with this, that like he came up loving the lumineers and mandolin orange and like all these things that don't whatever.

And the milk cart and kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that aren't the, it's not like the lineage of what American capital C country has been for a long time. But somehow he's tapped into that audience and go like, you know, he plays Nissan Stadium. I think maybe it's just his name. His name just sounds like all the other country artists. He's not going to be country.

It's different. But Tyler Childers. Yeah. You're familiar. Fantastic. That's considered country too. That is country, right? And like Sturgle.

I think Sturgle, it's all changed. Like that's the kind of stuff we sing. Right? But here's my question. Oh, that's how we got on it. Yeah. Yeah. There's a part that I think you guys might be able to help me understand.

The motivation to actually be witnessed in it. So you could make your music and keep it in a room. But for some reason, you put it out there. Right? So what is that piece as an artist? Is there a craving? to be witnessed? Is it, I need to share this? Explain that part to me. That thing is fluctuated for me over the years. It started with like, it started with the idea that or like the recognition

that like my most profound, powerful like human moments of transcendence had been at, at concerts as a like attendee of concerts. And that. And I loved music and I loved playing music in my room with, you know, people and my friends, like, in college, you know, jamming for no reason in the daytime. And, you know, I loved doing that. But then the idea of, like, would that be, like, something that I would just put everything in life on aside and, like, try and have a career at that? What? And there was a moment where it was between that and should, or should I go home and, you? strum the acoustic guitar.

That's true. Some people just always knew they wanted to be a musician and never thought about doing anything else. I was just doing school and sports, and when college was over, I was just going to keep doing school. But then got kind of pushed into doing music. And for me, it was a pretty conscious decision,

and it was like if I could give that experience to other people that I had as a person going to concerts or even just listening to records, and, you know, at your room or in headphones or whatever. Like, if I could do that, that would be a good thing to do with your life and, you know, meaningful and worthwhile. Wow. The thing that has gone through different phases because then for a long time I was unsuccessful as a solo artist. Then we met and sort of started to have a career and toured.

And then, for I'm honest, for a little while, it was like a game. Like, can I, can we like survive in this insane industry? When we started, it was 2010. So there was no recorded music industry. Like the recorded music industry had declined by 80, not 5% or something like that in the previous three years after Napster and everything. And there was no streaming yet. So like literally when we put out our first two albums, we just made zip files of them and put them on our website and blasted it out to the world to be like, download our album for free. That's it.

Because there just was nothing. And so we got in the car and went on tour. And so for a few years, it was like a game. Like, can we, you know, rub two sticks together and start a fire in this wilderness out of nothing? And then... It was metaphorical, too. You didn't try that. No, no, we didn't try to rub sticks.

You never tried that. We had credit cards to stay in motels and crashed at friends' houses and stuff. We weren't, like, camping. That would be amazing in your three. In your three. In your three. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We rub sticks in a sicker. We were, we were like... nomadic for many years, wandering in the desert before we arrived in the promised land of what was the historic Jews. Was it like Eagle Rock? Yeah. The promised land.

Yeah. That's where we had left from. Maybe we were just returning home. Brentwood's the promised land. But what were the musicians? Like, growing up and hearing concerts or whatever. Like who were the bands? Who were the musicians?

I want to know that. Oh, my God. Everything. You always had a different. You had a different. We had different experiences. Oh. I like that.

Yeah. Yeah. What were they? But, like, my first concert was 1988 Guns and Roses and Skid Row at Irvine Meadows' amphitheater. Amazing. I was six. That's incredible. You were six at a Guns and Roses.

Uh-huh. And Axel sang two songs and then spiked the microphone and stormed off stage. And the 10,000 people at Irvine Meadows got really angry. And my mom was like, oh, shit, we got to get out of here. Oh, man. But then it was that through all the, like, awesome early 90s radio rock. And then in high school, then I started listening to jazz, and then it was Tom Waits and Gillian Welch. Then I started going down the niche rabbit holes of people suggesting this.

You have to check this out. And so it went all over the map. But it started from, you know, like Green Day and counting crows. Right, right, right. And all that. Years? Yeah. When I was young, it was like my parents' records, which were the 60s and 70s, like, folk.

Folk Rock. It's like Crosby's Seals, Nash. Obviously, Beatles, a lot of Led Zeppelin, Simon and Garfunkel, all that stuff. Dylan? And then, yes, although not. We listen to, we blow it on the tracks every Sunday religiously. Really?

Every Sunday morning. That's interesting. That is. Oh, my dad put it on as like a weekend morning album. It's so cute. I know. Yeah. Did you ever ask him why?

Why? Yeah, that's how you do it. You responded like as if there couldn't possibly be a reason. I'm just imagining asking my dad, why on Sunday mornings did you put on that record? And I think his reaction would be very similar to the one I just had. He would be very confused and go, why? Is he still around? Do you want to call him?

Why? We could call him right now. I bet you would get a there. It would be interesting. I bet you I'm right. He would also be a real time commitment. Yeah. Oh, okay.

They talk like every day on the phone. They chat for hours on the phone every day. That's very cute. We're big overthinkers, over analyzers. So when someone asks you a why question, your brain starts to kind of like fritz out. Yeah. Because, you know. They just have to do it.

around the pond to get all the way back to the beginning. And they end on why. Exactly. There's an infinite regression to any why question. We're going to want the answer however you get it at some point. I would like the answer. Well, because I think it's significant. There must be a reason.

Maybe it'll have to have. It'll be different also coming from you. You're going to ask him. Yeah. Okay. I'll ask him. He's going to get us the answer. So I don't, yeah.

What was your first concert? My first concert was, uh, I'm trying to think if this is actually correct. I think that it was Rolling Stones. Wow. That's a big deal. Bridges of Babylon. But I was at that concert.

You hadn't been to a concert before then? Late Bloomer. Well, we were like 15 at that time. I was not at Guns and Roses when I was six. What was your first concert? My dad took me to the B-52s when I was like seven. Oh, that's fun. I might have gone to a concert when I was,

kid I don't remember. Yeah. Where was B-52? We'll ask your dad about that too. I don't know. I'd have to ask my dad who's also

long-winded so I will not be calling me. What about you? Mine was Led Zeppelin, but it was only Page and Plant? Yes.

That was my first concert. Was it? Yeah. That's fun. We got to. What's at the Hollywood Bowl? Was not at the Hollywood Bowl. It was,

I want to say it was in like Irvine or something. Probably the Remind Meadows amphithe here as well. You guys both had the same location. We lived on a tour bus with Robert Plant for two weeks.

What? Yeah, it was the most insane touring experience. Yeah, he slept the both Joey and his swim trunks. What? It was really interesting. Did you ever see that coming?

Why? I think I know why. Well, I think that he slept in the swim trunks. The like floral board shorts were like the lounge wear on the bus. Like for everybody as a uniform? No, just him. How did that happen? We were, and we were his, we were, it was a songwriters, like, in the round

format, so everybody was on stage together and we were all his band. So, like, we played going to California with him, like Kenneth played the mandolin and I played the banjo and everyone else was his band. It was unbelievable. How does that feel to get to that point? Because I don't know if you looked up to him growing up or not. 100%. Yeah. I listen to them lads up in probably almost more, maybe more than any other band. What was that like? Kind of crazy.

Totally surreal. Also, he's so different now. The style and the way he sings is so different. So I think the main thing for us was just like totally in awe of the way that he has evolved into himself and like still totally relevant. and passionate about the new music that he's doing. And, like, yeah, like, he didn't want to do Zeppelin songs because he felt it overshadowed what everyone else was doing, which was true.

But we all just wanted him to do. We all just wanted him to do them because we could play them with him. It reminds me of an interesting, an earlier part of the conversation, rather, that Joey said before we met that he was doing music unsuccessfully, and so was I. but you're like less unsuccessfully. You're like more successfully.

No, no, we were equally unsuccessful. I don't need to pull that at all. But it did feel like we were going somewhere. Like had our paths never met, there was some story that would play out or that there was some purpose that would play out. But it is really funny. Like for me, I had dedicated my entire life to music, really.

And it's a kind of humbling or strange thing to then reach 30. and a thing that took a lot of effort to connect with an audience and to do, then I met this other guy and we thought we were doing the same thing. And then instantly the connection was exponentially bigger. And that's a really funny thing to grapple with as an individual that's trying to express themselves and trying to connect. that like, never mind, does it bring up all the feelings like, am I good enough alone?

But more than that, like, skipping that part of it, it's like a new level in life to unlock. Like, here's this responsibility that you have with somebody else. Now all of a sudden you've got essentially all the things that you wanted, but it's not on explicitly your own terms. It's in this other, like, weird thing. And so by the time we were on a bus with plant, like we had done, so many cool things and not that we felt like we arrived

but I think one of the head changes for me when he and I got together is that all of a sudden we were this thing that I always wanted to be because your peers are telling you so

like we're not like the gold ticket winners on the state like that was a tour that was Steve Earl Emmylou Harris us buddy Miller Robert plant all sitting in a song circle and we were weren't there as the like golden ticket winners.

We were there as like, oh, those people were like, these are our equals. And every night they would sit there and like, look in all of us. And like, I understand for some people how that can go to their head. For me, more functionally, it always just meant that then when we were behind closed doors with Robert Plant, it wasn't like, oh, shit, there's Robert Plant. It's like, oh, there's that other guy that does music. You know, he's like talking to you about songs and doing the whole thing. And so, like, really, it felt strange how normal it felt. And that's kind of the, I mean, if I look back on the last 15 years, that was sort of this demarcation point that we're really lucky.

The universe delivered. And they were like, well, here you go. You're kind of set up. But you're going to have to answer the questions as you go. Right. It's a really beautiful explanation of that. And really, I actually learn a lot from hearing that because it's kind of. kind of letting the, letting go of the idea of like having to know what it looks like.

And sometimes we do find people that we unlock something with that you could never see coming. And then all of a sudden, you're in the room and you feel yourself present in the room versus, you know, a lot of times people have the fraud syndrome and they have all of those feelings. But it sounds to me like when you guys arrived in that room, it was just you in that room with other human beings. It's really cool.

I felt that a few years later with my wife, too, the same thing, where it's like after all this time, all it took to contextualize my weird quirk to my whatever is just to find somebody that, like, is tolerant of some of it, but also like... Might be into it a little bit. Yeah, and it's like has her own shit. Right.

It's like, oh, that's what this part of you is basically for is to help her deal with that or just to tolerate it or whatever. Yeah. But it was, yeah, it's like learning so much about yourself when somebody else is reflected off of you. And also specifically in the part of life where like, you know how life is getting up every day and doing the repetition? Mm-hmm. Or just doing the reps of everything, emotionally, physically, whatever. Like, to me, it's kind of like just if you can stomach it with another person.

And it so happens that like people think we're real. We sound real pretty. Yeah. But even like I called him last night because I needed a ride here today. And after 15 minutes, we were on speakerphone, like at the end of our days. And his wife goes, I can't believe you two are still talking. Because we were talking about like a technicality of one word for eight minutes. She's like, I can't believe that you people spend your time doing this.

Yes. Yeah. We get that. We do. We leave each other like today. If we drove separate, we would just call each other. for the drive for. I drive to her house to drive together.

Amazing. So that we could, yeah. Right. When you find that. Do you bicker and stuff or no? We don't bicker much. You don't have like a shared interest. No.

No. No. We've been friends for 25 plus years. Yeah. Or something. So, you know, that kind of stuff kind of left it in our early 20s. Yeah, we don't really. We just.

Which was like two years ago. It's almost like an extension of our own. at this point. Right. You know, you're like, it's like more of like. We finish each other's sandwiches. So it's more like we process this life together. You know, so.

Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask a big question, which I would then request that you don't ask of us afterwards? No, you can if you want. Yeah, we will. Have you ever had a falling out? Like, has it gotten bad ever? We never had like a falling out.

I'm like nodding my head yesterday. She's like, no. We didn't have a fall in now. We had space. We had space. There were things she's been, do you care if I, you don't care? We said it on a podcast a million times? 14 years or 13?

14 years. She has 14 years sober. So like right before that happened. Thank you. Awesome. You know, there were some moments where she. Might have flirted with inappropriate people or something. At inappropriate times, you know.

You know, like, yes. Well, that's also a much younger year. A lot of five. That's like a different person. It's a different person. I find I'm a different person than 15 years ago, right? Yeah. Yeah.

But we, there was like space, but there's never been like a falling out or anything happened like that. No. I just realized a big, it was really beautiful to hear the way that you talk about your wife and both of my two. Wives. Wives. So my wife, wife, and then my work part.

partner, which is our relationship is much more like a marriage than I think than any other analogous kind of relationship. But I met my wife when I was 21. Wow. And so we have been, I feel as though we've like built our lives together rather than like both had sort of fully formed or whatever lives and that like matched up together. And then same with us. I mean, even though we did kind of have stuff going on, like the life that we have now together and the career that we have now together, we built together from the beginning. And that is a very different feeling to me than what you're describing of meeting, you know,

since you met your wife a little bit, not later in life compared to me, which was super early in life. But that's such a different experience. The Beverly Hillbillies moving into her whole jam, you know. Pull on with a big truck and the ropes. Yeah. So I feel like the ways that we're compatible and the way that my wife and I are compatible are because we've like, you know,

it's like plants growing together toward the sun or whatever. You just kind of get all intertwined in the end and it's hard to remember where each person stops in the next one. Yeah. How many kids do you have? We have two kids.

You have a 10-year-old and... Seven. And a seven. Yeah. Boys? Two boys, yeah. She has two boys. Very sweet.

It's something. I have a 10-year-old girl, though. Just one. Yeah. It is something. It is something. Does the younger boy have like a little evil glint in his eyes? No.

He's got stuff, but not evil. He's, I want to say he's the swagiest person I've ever met. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. He's five and so swaggy. Wow. He's the swaggiest. Yeah.

Does he do sports? They're both in baseball and soccer. And I don't think it's like a natural thing for either of them, but we just keep trying it. You know? Yeah. So we're going to try music next. Is it like singing? Yeah, we're going to start Elliot and we just got a drum set.

So he's going to start the drums. That's great. I recommend what we did. We put the drum set in our bedroom. Oh. Oh, no. Ors it's in our garage, like civilized humans. What happened?

Oh, dear. There was literally no other place to put the drum kit in the house. Okay. So it's in our bedroom. Currently? Presently. Presently. Kids drum kit in the bedroom.

Hopefully it's not like me. I have a terrible memory. Well, I have actually a very strange memory. I have a really good memory for certain things, but then I can't remember, like, important things from nine months ago. Yeah. Or my childhood. But I do remember one time my dad came in on a weekday, really pissed that I was playing drums at 2 a.m. in the house.

How old were you? Probably like 14 or 15. Okay. Just. 30. So hopefully they don't do that. I mean, I was also doing it then. Oh, that's so sad.

Or actually, I always have pride about that. What was your parents' support like as far as the music goes? Oh yeah, well, 100, just all, it was all there. But they started it. Like, I played the cello from age four. I was like a little itty-bitty guy. With a big old cello. No, it was a tiny cello too.

I'll show you a picture. It's very cute. But it started then and never stopped. And then for my dad, my dad was this guy that like, got kicked out when he was 18 and put himself through medical school, like, you know, like as an American story as far as like a self-made person could be. And I think that I learned like too late to make this pleasant, but I finally got through my head that the only thing he took from all of that was it like set up a binary thing in his brain

that just my kids have to go to college, that's it. And like, I think part of him was like, I did all of that so that you had the opportunity to do that. That's your responsibility to me. So I took seven years to go through college and almost dropped out a few times and did it, whatever. But we just showed my kid's Tommy boy the other night. And he goes, lots of people take seven years to go to college.

And do you remember what David Spades? in response? No. He goes, yeah, they're called doctors. That is one of my all-time. I never seen my kid laugh so hard at a movie as at Tommy Boy.

I couldn't believe it. He was like in pain. It's because it's the best movie there is. It's the best. It's the best. It's so interesting because my husband is he went to medical school and he grew up like blue collar, you go to school,

you get a degree, you become a doctor. That's it. So now he, we went to the school where they're like, you spend a year, focus on one thing you've always wanted to do and never done, he picked up the guitar at like 40-something. He was like, I want to learn to play the guitar. So now on the other side of it, he doesn't care about school. He's like, all I want is for you guys to be expressed. And like, sure, go to school and all of that. And I'm the opposite. Like, I didn't go to school. So I'm like, do you go to school? You know? That's so funny. I know, it's interesting. So now he's the one that's like drums, piano, the talk.

Like, what is it? What do you want to express? And I'm like, and keep your grades up, you know? It's really funny. But it's interesting that yours was the opposite in a sense, right? Totally. Or the same. Or the same.

Yeah. Because I think your husband's doing with your kids what he essentially did. Like that was the main thing, but also like he was. rightfully pissed and I was banging on the drums at two in the morning when he had to go to the hospital the next day. But our entire lives were built around our extracurricular activities and interests and artistic expression and all of that. Not me. My life was built around going to school. Was it? Yes.

The Brentwood Way. That's it. The Brentwood Way. Not to eagle rock of them. Yeah. Yeah, and then so when I was finishing college and was just going to keep going to school, because that was the only thing I ever really knew was, like, the thing you were supposed to do. I was very, very surprised when I, like, my parents came up to visit me once during my senior year of college, and I said I was going to go to graduate school.

I had been a psychology major, so I was going to keep going to go to graduate school, neuroscience. And they were like, are you sure? Like, that's what you want to do? And I was like, yeah, what, you know? Right. And then by the next time they came up, my friends who I was in a band with had like convinced me to take a year and try and be a singer-songwriter because they thought the songs that I was writing were good. And so my parents were up the next time and I said, actually, I think I'm going to try and do music for a year. And they were like, yes.

Wow. That's awesome. That's exactly what we think you should do. And I was like, really not the graduate student? You're like not neurosecence? Yeah. Because just my whole life had been going toward that. Yeah.

And but so they were super supportive but not in, I guess not any, not any, not, they was waiting for me to figure it out. Come to it on your own. Yeah. So interesting. I love hearing the parenting aspect because you're like, how did it come to be? Right? Like some parents are really heavy.

be handed in their choices and some are free with it. I'm free with it. I'm free with it. What does your daughter get up to? Everything. Everything? Yes. She wants to do everything

and try everything and you know what? She does. And she does. Great. Very busy. So busy. Very busy household. So busy. There's so many things. So many things. Do you guys do the sports in Shimonauts? Mm-hmm. Are you at this little?

So are we? You are. Yes. I took some time off from our band to be in my wife's band. Oh, what's your wife's band? She's awesome. She's called Verasola and she makes awesome music. If people will listen, you'll love it.

But the point of the stories, I went to do that. And I was worried that Joey would be upset by the time commitment that it took away from our endeavor. But really, all it did was give him the time to become. Little League instructor, the Little League instructor, the All-Star Travel League, he's got like, he wears the cleats and the pants and he goes. Oh, you're full on. Oh, you're wrapping? Are you doing? No, no.

He's just a professional children's ball league coach. That's what they're called. Children's ball league. Yeah. Are you a coach? I am a coach. See? Wow.

He was trying to deny it. No, you don't have to wear a cleats. You have to wear all that. That's where he draws the line. Children's Ball League. You would wear the cleats if given the opportunity. One of the four of us doesn't have children and you can tell, by the way, he calls it Children's Ball League. Do you wear the cleats in the adult baseball league that you play now?

I also play baseball myself. After having the free time. For which you have to wear the cleats of it, yes. You know, I got very into. You're going to see each other at baseball and you're going to see each other at Airwant. That is it. That's right. Yeah.

Incredible. I got into coaching the kids because we were too late signing up one year. This is what I hear happen. Yeah, and then they said you can get in. Yeah, you can get in off the wait list if you coach. And then I totally fell in love with it. And I love being a coach. That's really so cute.

So it's been like four or five seasons now of doing the baseball coaching. Oh, you're deep in it. And do they both play? Now the younger one is just starting. I have a question, and I don't mean this the way that you think that I would ask this. I mean this in earnestness. So just don't be defensive. Okay.

Well, I won't be defensive. Would you be as into it if your son? Yeah. No, no, because from what I understand, his elder son is very good at baseball. Got it. Like, is the best one reliably on the teams that he plays on blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm asking, would you be as interested if he didn't, like, really excel at it? That's a good question.

One of the reasons I got so into it was because he got so into it, and it was so fun to do together with him in particular. But in the beginning, it was his first time playing, and he wasn't particularly excelling, and I still got really into it just for its own sake. But for sure, a huge part of it is, like, You know, doing it with your own kid and, you know, bond. And so if they're not, if he doesn't love it, I want to do it all the time, then I'm sure it wouldn't have gone.

Because we'll, like, be about to go on stage and he'll call up and have his wife and his son on the phone telling them about the, like, exercises that he has to do to make sure his arm doesn't get injured. Is he a pitcher? Yeah. And Joey's wife is going through it like. Like. Your delivery is Yes. Joey's wife is like very responsibly going through it but also there's a subtext to her voice that's like I can't believe that I'm having to spend my time to make sure that our young son is doing like graduate level exercises to make sure that is which is of course.

Shoulder stays in place. Yeah. Which is great parenting. Tendinitis is a thing. You know what I mean? No doubt. It's a thing. Yeah.

So we've been. become a total baseball family, including my wife, got totally sucked into it where, like, we'll come home from wherever we're at, which is probably a baseball practice, and she'll just be sitting on the couch with, like, a glass of wine watching the Dodger game by herself. Yeah, that's so cute. And I'm like, you're worse than we are at this point. It pulls you in. I love baseball's fun, especially this season. It's the best. Dodgers won, but it's the best. I took my daughter to her first Dodger game, which is weird, because we're a big sports family for my dad, and she loved it. It's fun.

It's so fun. It's the best. Dodger Stadium is definitely one of our happy places in L.A. It's so fun. Yeah. It's really cool. She was like, I had ice cream and a helmet. I guess you did.

Dodger Stadium is so much more expensive than heroin. Is it? Definitely. What? I don't think any more expensive than heroin. No, that's not true. Come on, the ballpark. What do you pay for at the ballpark?

You can't go to the ballpark unless you're independently wealthy, no? The ballpark? The ballpark? You obviously haven't been to the ballpark in a while. I was like, is this true? I mean, I don't know if that's true. I would not characterize most of the fans at Dodger Stadium as independently wealthy. True, but don't you think there's been a pretty penny?

It depends what section you sit in. Yeah. The pavilion seats. Oh, well, I mean, if you're talking, I mean, there's a lot of seats. There's a variation in. 52,000. We go at the last second. I don't buy the tickets until we're in the parking lot.

Are you serious? Yeah. Really? Yeah. What does that do for you? They're so cheap. He goes on Stubhub. You go on Seat Geek or whatever, like when you get there.

I don't know if you should give away your secrets. I'm here for the, everyone can. You're here for the people? Giving out the hot tips. That's definitely way too risky. Has it ever right into the camera? I know you did. You did like a deadpan and was like.

Has it backfired? Have you got there and then? And it's not worth? No. It's so expensive you have to go home or you just feel like your plan didn't work. You just have to edit a lot of this part out. But no, if you have to keep track of the game you're going to, like, in the days leading up to it. Oh, no.

This is a commitment. It was too much of a commitment for me. You can tell when the games are not, like, going to be that well attended. And then the prices will collapse right before the game. I see. So what are we talking, like, how much per ticket? Well, it depends on the game. Just give it an example.

Like, I've sat in the front row of the field level for, like, $40 before. What? Yeah. The last second. If it's a game, nobody wants to. to go to and it's 30 minutes before the game. Did you go to any of the World Series? That's like one meal at everyone.

Not the World Series. One lunch. That's a chicken combo, yeah. We went to, we were at Game 5 of the Padre series, which was the craziest sporting event I ever been to. Unbelievable. That's so fun. Did you go? Not during the playoffs.

No. We went this season. We'll be there again. Yeah. It's going to happen. But I will say one of the kids. I'm so excited. We all started talking about baseball.

One of the kids on Shepard, my son's team, dressed up. up as Freddie Freeman and got to run into him trick-or-treating. No way. Yeah. I think we know that person. Do you who dressed up as free? No, but my niece and nieces and nephew are in Studio City and they came home after Halloween and they said, our friend was dressed up as Freddie Freeman and they saw Freddie Freeman.

Yeah. It's the same person. It might have been more than one, but not that. No, it's probably them. It was, uh-uh. It was that. That's so funny. Yeah.

You guys are so much connecting. Studio City. Studio City. Wait, that person was your child. Not my child's friend. His friend from his league. I see. From your league.

That kid's so famous. In this moment. Yeah, he got real famous. And the mom, she brought little Dodger cupcakes the next day. It was like a whole movement. Wow. It was fun. It was exciting.

It was very exciting. It was so exciting. And then we were watching it and one of the other moms was like, wait, that video of him he posted is at my house. And it was like all really exciting for the team. They were like feeling it. Mm-hmm. That was very cute. Speaking of feeling it, will you guys sing us a song?

Play us a song. Of course. What a segue. She's good, right? That was fantastic. It's like you've done this before. Would you like to hear holiday songs? I would love to hear holiday songs.

Do you know what my favorite song is? Oh, North Country. Ride. Oh. That's my favorite. Great. But we want to hear the Christmas album.

No, let's play that. Yeah, that's a great reason to play that. Do you love that one? Do we have 15 minutes? Yeah. Yes. I'll have to remember it.

I love that song. You know, we've written hundreds of songs in our career and it's really hard. I've also reached a point in life that so much of music was a means to an end. And it was really confusing what I was supposed to do, I guess. And then especially after he and I had success,

but I think just as a function of aging, it's a lot easier to arrive at a point where you get there and then you go, oh, I have nothing important to say, I guess I won't do this today. Whereas that's not what would happen when I was 24. When I was 24, you'd have to do something just so that you had something to work with. And so that was actually one of the record that you listened to at The Dentist. That was kind of a return to form for me and Joey, which was like, yeah, well, it was like 12 years into our career.

We were trying to figure out, like, how do we do this again and make it feel good or feel like it felt that long ago when it was kind of second nature then. and not that we'd done a few that didn't achieve that, but just we'd, I think, both arrived at another point in life where it's like, okay, what rises to the occasion of write a song about it or try to emote something about it.

And so a lot of that record, we made an entire record that was trash and we threw away because I think it was absent a lot of that. And the real key in the end was just trying to find songs that we could connect with in a way that I think maybe it's changing every day what you connect with, especially as a writer or just as a person, how you want to spend your emotional energy or how you want to spend your time. And so I think when we finally cracked the code on that album, it was that we both were able to acknowledge the point at which songs meant something to us in that project.

And so that song I wrote for my wife's uncle who passed away, who we were really close to, and it's kind of a whole sad story. But like I wrote it for Uncle Peter and it was like the craziest one was, who did we open for it, Red Rocks? Oh, Watch House. We went and played during, right after kind of the pandemic, people started doing things together. Our friends that have a band called Watch House that were called Mandolin Orange

before that. They had had this show on sale in Colorado, like all through the pandemic. And when it got time to do the show, they were like, we expected to sell, like, so fewer tickets to this. But it was like, it kept getting delayed, and it was on sale for, like, two years. And so they sold all 10,000 tickets at Red Rocks. And then because of COVID, the tallest man on Earth was supposed to open for them. And he couldn't get a visa, like a week before.

And so they asked us to come fill in for him. What if people listening don't know that that's a band? It's just a super tall guy. Yeah, it's a super tall guy. That's why he couldn't get the visa to. You're too tall? He couldn't get on the plane. You're too tall for this plane.

In these uncertain times, we just can't take a chance on someone that tall. Yeah. Getting on the plane right after COVID. Yeah. All of this to say. say we had never played red rocks before and it was the most magical thing because it's 10,000 people there for this quiet acoustic man. If we were opening for Jason Isbell, nobody would care because they'd be, you know, waiting for something else. But it was all these sad people ready for sad,

slow music in the mountains. And we played this hour-long set to 10,000 people in the most majestic place. And no joke right as we hit the double chorus. in North Country Ride, I was looking at 10,000 people, and Joey was right here, and behind everybody. I was the only one that could see it. Uncle Peter showed up, the craziest shooting star I've ever seen, like a full, like, two seconds across the whole sky. Oh, my God.

And I remember in that moment, I was like, damn. That's why I wrote the song, like, because you can bring them back for a second, you know? That's beautiful. Or, like, you put a thing. I don't know, it's like a photograph or something. Yeah. Just with different medium, not light. Well, I guess in that case it was light too.

Did you, you didn't see it? Uncle Peter? Yeah, you missed Uncle Peter. Flying through the sky. I did not, I didn't catch that. Wow. Wow. That skeptical Brentwood.

Yeah, over there. I do have like three like favorites from the album, but that was the first one. But he told that story. What are the other ones? Because if there's another one. It's just in my background in iroscience. tells me that there could be some other explanations. I'm with you.

I don't know why that happened. 100%. It was Uncle Peter. Joey's no fun at a party. You could feel it. He just talks about. I'm with you. It was definitely Uncle Peter.

100%. Joey talks about baseball and physics. He's like physically the aspirates on the comments. The much higher likelihood that it was merely a coincidence. I don't buy it. I don't buy it. We don't know. No, I believe it was Uncle Peter to him.

There's no coincidence. Yeah, it's Uncle Peter. Running on Sweet Smile. North Country Ride and Star Shosh. Oh, you got one. That's good. I was like, please let me say one that you wrote. She's like, oh.

I better cover her. Well, that's why I was at. But those are like the three that I've listened to the most off that album. We don't keep track of that stuff anymore. Who wrote which one? Oh, I know. I know. I know.

This guy's waves more soft than he, you know, puts on. He wants to believe in the metaphysical as well. Yeah. Who doesn't? Well, just on a serious note, you, of all people, have had meaningful emotional experiences that cannot be explained by science. That's me. But he tries. That's code for Joey did lots of drugs in his earlier years.

Oh, okay, got it. What's non-scientific about that? That's scientific. I guess so. It was self-experimentation. Yeah. No, it's true. I'm constantly struggling against my own hyper.

irrational impulses. This is what he talks to his dad about at length. Oh, I love that. They just go around in circles. No, he's not struggling against him. No. He just lives with them. But I've in my life encountered people like dear Kenneth here who push me out of my comfort.

I got to give Matt a call. We've got to ask him about blood on tracks, blood on the tracks. And then I've got to ask. him why he's so comfortable with all of his. Yeah. No, he's a deeply spiritual guy as well. Yeah, and I don't think. But he craves order like I do.

I think both can exist at the same time as in that religion. Yeah. Yeah. Trying to make sense of the madness. You want both. You want the order and the expansion. Right? I think they go together.

I have a different. opinion specifically on this one. Uh-oh. Well, no, only because I share it, but I had... We just made a religious album. Yeah, you did. So now we're going to get asked about this a lot, I think. No, I had cancer seven years ago, thyroid cancer.

Oh, my goodness. And compared to other people's cancer, like, way less of a physical burden. Your can't... Yeah, I can. Cancer's not a competition. Cancer's not a competition. but I mean to point it out this way, which is that I downplayed the emotional impact

for so long because it was seemingly like less threatening or just not as extra inexperience. And then one day that came around and like fully leveled me. And yeah, it turned me into a different person. And your dad has had like very significant health experiences in that way that one of the things that it brought about in me is just, I think it answered a lot of those questions that people are struggling with. Like, in my experience, it was like a humbling thing,

like the most humbling thing, that you have to, or I've had to come to terms with the fact that, like, things are going to happen and you aren't in control of them, ever. And that has become a thing that has, in many ways, like given me peace in life that I never had and I'm really grateful for. But I have actually shared that kinship with your dad

a number of times through a number of conversations. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the things that set you apart. What? You're looking at me in a funny way. No, that'll change your life real quick. I mean, I can't speak from experience, but it has to, right? Well, it answers some of the questions that everybody seems to be really preoccupied with.

What is a book someone just recommended to me? I have not started reading. Is it the denial of death? I don't know. It's supposed to be incredible. But I think it speaks to those bigger questions and that we're all kind of, a lot of us are blind to until we're faced with those situations. I relate to what you're saying through the lens of first having kids and then COVID happening

in terms of like just being completely the shock to the system of that there are things that are literally outside of you and totally beyond your control that can all go completely wrong at any time. And so the clarifying thing of it of, of, you know, of what is important in your life and in life in general and the questions that maybe aren't so important that are more abstract or whatever. But yeah, just the idea of, it just made me much more present. those two things, having like the most important things in my life be outside of me and beyond my control kind of for the, not for the first time, but having that realization that's how the life is. It was very clarifying. It's actually a similar surrender. Yeah, totally a feeling of surrender. And then presentness and being in a moment. iterations or the one that delights me the most iterations of that in my life is that you know how some days like you got the whole day and then some days just end at 1245 and there was never a me that would

like be able to wrap my head around that or accept that and now I'm a person that when it comes up and the day's like the day's over I'm like okay I can go home can just cancel it all, go home. We'll play it again tomorrow. What do you mean the day ends at 1245? Well, I mean, sometimes it ends at 215. Clearly the day goes. Well, no, it's especially, like,

it's actually been especially helpful in the creative world because working on music, you know, it's different, I think in film or in group, like larger group creative enterprises, is music, you're like trying to bottle magic three minutes at a time. And like, sometimes that's all it takes. There's songs that we play every night for over a decade now that, like, the idea came in 45 minutes. It was recorded.

It's like the actual time spent putting this thing into existence is so minimal that, like, you can't really understand that to be anything other than magic or some kind of change. Or some kind of other thing that we don't know about. Well, creativity is pretty much just different areas of your brain communicating with each other in novel ways. Yeah, but why does it open up at some points more than others? I don't know. I was just saying. He's so dry.

I think it's magic, too. Yeah, it has to be. But the point being is that sometimes you go into work, which our work is a recording studio in North Hollywood, But sometimes you go in and do that. And I mean this also on non-musical days, sometimes you wind up the machine and you give it about 45 minutes and then you're cooked. You're like, emotionally, I have nothing left. I can't push through this thing. And lots of times in my life that would feel like not just failure, but something to push past.

Sometimes it is something to push past. But I don't think it was until the last few years that I understood. like sometimes that was the end. You're allowed to let it rest. Yeah. And like... And just like sometimes the day ends at 1245, Joey, and like there's lots of things on the to-do list,

but if you're going to be kind to yourself, you actually cut your losses and you go home and you say today wasn't meant to have anything else in it. Yeah, I feel you. That is the life we lead, but I also live with someone who's an attorney. And if she was sitting here, she'd be like, fuck you.

The day does not end just because I want it to or feel gassed or whatever. I know, I get it. These people just push through. Yeah. I know. I'm not built for it. My beloved wife. Everybody's built different.

I listen to Esther Hicks, who's a great spiritual teacher, and she constantly, people come to her with these questions of what do I do if I have writers luck? What do if I feel, you know, stuck? And she's like, take a nap. Rest. Take a nap. And they're like in the middle of the day. She's like, please, rest. Allow it to let it go and let yourself come back to.

And so I take that note. That's beautiful. I'm like, I'll take a nap. You know what my wife's motto is? Weekdays are for suffering. Oh, God. Really? Yeah.

We say it around the house as kind of a joke. But like if I suggest like, let's go for a walk around the neighborhood. middle of the day, you know, like, clear your head should be like, it's Wednesday. I love it. It's really funny. But you're right, it's like, you said there are different people. I mean, people are different. And it's so true because, like, what you're talking about, as far as everything I know about it,

like, there's actual behavior that's just off limits to you as an addict. Like, if you didn't recognize some of those things, like, you would fall into a pattern of just, like, self-harm behavior and addiction. that you wouldn't be able to see the forest from the trees and other people aren't wired that way. Some people don't have that disease. There's, I'm sure, a continuum, but like people are just different.

True. 100%. They really are. And we have to show up different. I say that to my daughter every day, just with anything, conflict, whatever. It's like, people are different. You know?

They sure are. This is a slogan. People are different. We just came up with something pretty, Weekdays are for suffering. And weekdays are for suffering. That's some shit right there. I love it.

I say it in my head to the rhythm and melody of every day I'm hustling. Yeah. Weekdays are for suffer. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And I'm going to make T-shirts. I like it.

Oh, my God. And you guys are going to now cover that song. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that we can. There's a whole other album here. Yeah.

Of like the sad, the sad version of all of these songs. Do you cover any Mariah? Carrie in the Christmas album? No, the only sort of like holiday-e ones that we ended up doing what?

Holiday. Yeah, I just yeah, you answered the questions earnestly, that's great. Yeah. Oh, was it a joke? No, no, no, it's logic. Sometimes I don't pick up on these. No, she really did it with Christmas, so I'm, you know. I have to admit, it crossed

my mind at some point in the beginning that we would do what is her mega one? All I want was Christmas. Yeah, that we would do that. And we just didn't. We got through all the like churchy, beautiful, baroque-sounding ones. And then we also did have yourself a Merry Little Christmas and I'll be home for Christmas.

And other than those two, they're all like super churchy, like hymnal-sounding ones. You came to break our hearts. Yes, Christmas in a minor key. We know what, like all of, I feel like all of art is about limitations. And one of our follies has always, as I think not, well, one of the successes of our band is that we've always been limited. We just have two guitars and we sing harmony and we think that we're like larger than that or something. And so there's something in that, like, in a. that I feel like we always felt identified part of our sound.

The Christmas album for me very intentionally, and we spoke about this, I don't know how much of it, he internalized, was that I really wanted to make something that was just fully in the holiday canon. And so I wanted to try to take away some of that inherent tension. Like, there's a part of our, like, fan base that really love that. my guitar playing because it's frankly a little weird. Like it gets dissonant often. It's not very like slick and clean,

but then sometimes it's fat. It's like the other things that grab people's attention. But it's kind of unique, but it's like you have to wrap your head around it. In fact, we learned that in the beginning of our band. We have to put my guitar up as loud as both of our voices because if it's any lower, it just sounds like somebody's making a bunch of mistakes.

Whereas if you put it up with the voices. More volume, more volume. Well, yeah. When you put it up there, it's like, oh, no, actually, this person's doing all this stuff in reaction to the voices, and that's the only place that makes sense. But so on this album, I really wanted it to be something that somebody could put on on December 18th and, like, bliss out to and not be like, what's that weird guitar note? Or like, what's that guy doing to this song? And so the limitation was to try to take a little bit of our stuff out of it and just honor these songs that are, like some of the greatest

like I don't know just on a musical level for anybody that's studied music you sit down like the writing of them they're like they're like Mozart level writing yeah they're just they really are and it was one of them are so short

we found out there's that too like they just have they just have one little arc of an idea and then it repeats again that's it that was it it's so much feeling that's all you need out of you. If only Paul Simon didn't write the third verse

to Bridge over Troubled Water, like had he taken the note from the Christmas song, we wouldn't have had this superfluous silver hair verse that makes no sense. Superfluous. It's like a perfect song. Bridge over Trouble Water? You're giving notes on Bridge Over Trouble Water? I don't know how

I feel about that. I don't think I can talk now. I'm not, I'm not a no. You guys can edit, right? Leave it in there. Who cares? You have a right to your opinion. I think we did it right. We had a song request 30 minutes ago. Yeah, yeah.

I just think that we earned the right because last year we lost our Grammy to Joni Mitchell, but we technically beat Paul Simon. Wait, what? Yeah. Wait, you what now? We were just quiet. The dentist album was nominated for Best Folk album at the Grammys last year. And we didn't have a chance because Joni Mitchell was in the category.

So Joni won. but we definitely beat Paul Simon. How do you know that, though? Well, they called and told us. Did they? Joey's shaking. I mean, that's a flex. Beat Paul Simon and fault?

Like, you came in second? Well, they don't say who gets second to six, but she got first and I'm pretty sure we got second. I would assume he got third. They didn't tell us we didn't get second. Do you hate Paul Simon? I love Paul Simon. Paul Simon also writes songs like that It's fucked up like the Christmas songs

Like they fell out of the ceiling of music But then there's the silver hair verse He's like let us play the song Yeah Yeah that's someone who you want to go after Paul Simon needs a little of humility Wow Yeah

Yeah really good I think I'm in tune now. Is that sound right? Mm-hmm. Are we recorded? Oh, yeah. Two, three. On the trail, let's take the north.

Where it stays lying. So, let's take the... Oh, it's so... Oh, my goodness. You know what's so beautiful is I'm like, it's so amazing that you guys can do that, and that's never been done. Mm.

You know, I'm like, How has that not been? Like how has someone else not figured that out? Yeah. What are you being? Like no one's made that song before. No one's made that song, that exact song. Like there's only so many chords and notes and words.

And that's never been done before. I feel that way every time I hear a new song. That's really great point. Yeah, I'm like how. People have been doing it for so long. It's so beautiful. Sometimes it feels that way when you're writing them, you're like, oh, Oh, shit, somebody wrote that sign.

I can't do it. Yeah. Well, and the flip side, for me, the dark side of that is literally, maybe you feel this way with creative things, but anytime I write a song, I don't know how it happened and I feel confident that it will never happen again. That's her talking. That's me talking.

She'll say, like, really profound things, and then it will never happen again. It'll never happen in quite the same way. It seems like it'll never happen. No, but in creative things, when you hit on something and then you're like, I don't know where that came from and I don't know how to get it back. Yep. Yep. That to me is my actual favorite part.

It was the part I dreaded the most early on because I thought that you had to know how to repeat that. Yeah. To be able to go do it for people and to charge money. But then actually it turns out that people aren't that discerning. If they're there paying money, they're there for a different thing. And if you're there just opening the channel, whatever it comes out is actually going to satisfy that if you can accept that part of yourself. Which can be hard to accept. So hard.

Yeah. Yeah, because you're just staring in the mirror. And I don't really know anybody who likes staring in the mirror. No. That's not a pleasant thing. I think that's a mental disorder, though, right? Well, definitely something happened in their childhood. They're just different.

They can unpack that. People are different. Yeah. That was incredible. I love beautiful scars. I know. You have the most beautiful scar that always gets me. He did.

He read QAnon pages and stuff. Oh. No. Okay. We're going in a different direction. No, Uncle Peter had some beautiful scars. Yeah. Some of those guards, I think, led him to be susceptible to conspiracy theories.

You know what's interesting? To this day, I know I've known that this song was about Uncle Peter for many years, but to this day, it means something different to me. Oh, yeah. Well, that's the other beautiful part about songs. Yeah. Yeah. Like it was just a little bit jarring for me to hear you talk about, specifically with

That line to remind me that it's about Uncle Peter. And also, like, I'm going to fight that one off. We're going to shake that one off and let it mean what it means to all of us individually. And you can fight that up because those weren't those weren't Unki's most beautiful scars. The ones that I've assumed. We don't want to know physical. We don't want to know anymore. We're done with that.

I can't redeem myself. Moving on. No, we're good. Let's go to the... Yeah, and that's something totally different to me. And I'm going to keep... Yeah. We're going to all keep it with me.

We go with what I thought originally. Yeah. This is why... I agree with me. When we started our band, there were a few band rules. Because we've, like, have you been to the hotel cafe in Hollywood? That's where both of us kind of came up and we're doing our solo shows and all that. And I went and saw one of his shows, and I loved it and then met him, and then we started our band, whatever.

but the when we started there were a few roles and the first one was Joey put on some shoes because he would wear flip-flops while performing which he's come along with

I appreciate socks socks and crocs he has the crocs but then the second rule was stop talking about what the song is about

right before you play the song because I sat in the audience and he had these beautiful songs and then he would tell a story contextualizing them, and he did to me exactly what I just did to you guys. Right. He told me, like, listen to this song about a pair of speakers I bought it Best Buy. And then he plays this really deep emotional sound.

I'm like, that's not what that song's about, and you're totally shooting yourself in the foot. Because we can take it however. We can take it however. People like to personalize songs. That's the beauty of it. Yeah. Well, what I've had to learn,

and now we do a songwriting camp every summer now, sad song summer camp. Seriously? Yeah, you should come, actually. You both should come. I'm there. Let's do it. I'm not even joking.

One of the master classes that we deign to teach is called How to Be Funny or at least not be boring between songs. And we talk about our various rules of stage banter and stuff. And I've learned through teaching other people or just like telling about our own process that it's both true and. and not true that that song is about Kenneth's wife's uncle. Like that, the feelings that he was having in that moment are the reason that he wrote that song directly. However, it literally is not about that. You know, it is in the world to mean different things to different people.

And it's the writer's intent is not. any more or less valid than anyone else's interpretation or what it means to them. I really believe that now as a writer myself, that like it's both true and equally not true, that whatever you wrote the song about is what it's about. Except the sale on silver. Because he can change it for you. Even when I found out like Paul Simon, there was like 50 ways to leave your lover, was about like him tapping that out for his child to learn a beat or something like that.

that's how it came. He started rhyming. And I was like, no, I wanted to be about a tortured lover. Yeah. Like, I want mine back. Right. Yeah. So basically, stop telling.

I want my beautiful scars back. So basically, we're teaching the next master's book. Yeah. See if you can tell what this one's about. Three, four, five, six. Jesus. That's about Jesus. Short.

That's half of that. That's it, right? That's it. And then on the record, play it again. Yeah. And keep playing it. Yeah. Then play it again.

Over and over. And then equally as impressive is how many times we've heard that song and it still delivers the feeling. Oh, yeah. No matter. Every time. Right? It just feels like that feeling that makes you want to sob a little bit. You guys are handing so many feelings.

It's our business. We're the handler of feelings. You're the feeling handler. What a good job. It's the best job ever. Feeling handler? Yeah. Yes.

That's good. I think you guys have the coolest job in the history of jobs. You really do. I would give anything to be a singer-songwriter. The fuck-up part of she can sing. Isn't that rude? Well. So, here we go.

We're coming to the songwriters. Yeah, you got a sad song-some. Are you guys going to be doing shows? We just had one here. Yeah, I know. That is true. She's greedy. We started the Los Angeles Folk Festival, which happened for the first time last year.

Yeah. And it's happening again in March. Yeah, at the bellwether Okay. Yeah. We're there? Come down. It's us and Maddie Diaz and Emmylou Harris And that's so cool. Amazing. A few others.

Can I just tell you guys something? I just want to say something. It takes a lot for me to actually go to a concert or a show. Oh my God. I actually kind of hate them. Same. I have to go Seriously. I have to like love the band, know all the music or whatever

to get me and I'm asking to go. Yeah. That's a big deal. Awesome. We take it very seriously. I'm being very serious. I know. We're honored.

And if you want to do it in the true style of a milk carton kids fan, you would find an older person to take with you. And heal your relationship with. The next old person I meet, I'm going to be like, you're coming with me. Or a younger. Or a younger. I'm bringing my kid. I like to say that we're the next generation.

I'm bringing my kid. I like to say that we're the next. new balance of bands. Dead. Explain. Please explain because it goes through each generation. Every generation, there is a new balance for them. All right.

Another way of saying it is if we were going to like Oprah gift a gift to every member of our audience, like you could give every member of new balance shoes that they would be totally into. I love that. I really respect that. I think you could do it with crocs too, though. I'm not a lie. There's an anti-Crock content. Which I don't respect. I think it's dead.

There is an anti-crock. And the irony is the person who introduced me to you was so against crocs and I was obsessed with them. I even got them a pair of crocs that they never wore. That's rude. Well, maybe they will wear them now. They're going to wear them now. That's what I'm saying. After seeing Jerry Ryan, you have just made up.

It's great again. Try. Sorry. Here, my, try new balances next time. Okay. New balances are the milk carton kids of shoes. but the crocs, you just saved me with that. And then you took it back and you flipped it and reversed.

No hard feeling. Joe, he's been trying to pitch this New Balance corporate sponsorship for decades now. Okay, New Balance. Everywhere I go. New Balance. He's been trying. I think because he thought that we had a shot, but then. We know the people that rep New Balance.

We do? What's the... Oh, does she have... Yes. Yeah, but except now... We will make that connection. We're going to make the connection happen for you. Joey thought it was like down the rung enough that they'd be interested in an indie folk band,

but now they have Shohei Otani. They don't need, they're not like flying down to folk music. Do you think that makes me want the endorsement more or less? Otani is new balance? Yeah, he's the new balance. He's the face of new balance. He's got his whole section of the web. That's only, you know, one small fraction of people.

Yeah. I like your attitude. I'm sure our deal structure would be a little different from showhays, But there's all types of people are different. Endorsement deals are different. What's going to happen if we bring you new balance? Yeah. Oh, man.

I think we're going to take us to the camp. Definitely. To the right? We're definitely in the camp. We're definitely in the camp. Absolutely that and Joey figure out how to sweet the deal. What does foothill fog? Okay.

Let me explain. Have you ever heard of a London fog? Yeah. But I guess I don't know what it is other than a. Coat. That's a, that is a brand. Right. No, it is a Earl Grey tea latte with vanilla in it.

Okay, that's what a London fog traditionally is. This particular coffee place. Pasadena variation. Makes their own vanilla and, like, they have a place in Altadena and an Eagle Rock. They're an Eagle Rock. What's the place? Unincorporated. Oh, yeah.

Okay. And so they call it a foothill fog because foothill the street is, yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's the story. Got it. I'm a coffee commissary. I was going to ask you where yours was from. We do love that place. Unincorporated, it's great.

They make their own vanilla. I mean, you can't ask for much more than that. Their foothill fog is... Do you ever do a mara kitchen in Egarok? Well, it's like Highland Park? Yeah. There's one in Eltona, too. That's a place over.

It is. Eastside. Have you tried coffee bean? And tea leaf? Old school. I love coffee bean. There's one in Brentwood. That's all there is in Brentwood

That's true There's no unincorporated in Brentwood I'll tell you that much right now There's coffee bean and chin chin chin For sure Oh I love the Chinese chicken salad Yeah I'm hungry We need food

We did it guys You guys are awesome It was incredible Let me just tell you Please tell me Hold on I'm going to It's a vibe

I just It just puts me in a good mood How do you feel about holiday music like way in advance? I think it sucks. What? I don't like when they get ahead of the holidays so that by the time the holiday comes, you're like, I don't want to hear any more Christmas music or holiday music, you know? When do you feel like it's an appropriate time?

After Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving. That's when I think the holidays should. start. I think it should be Halloween, Thanksgiving, Q, holiday music. I will say I have a hard time going into Target in September. And like there are remnants, like little Christmas things around before Halloween. And it's hot. Yeah. They're so up on it all. It's a little disarming. And then I feel like they're out of the things you need. before you even get to it, like when we went to get our Halloween decorations.

Already gone. Already gone. Done. And they already had Christmas up. And I was like, oh, we need to get our Christmas stuff now. I know. It's like once you need the things, they're all gone. And I do get that.

But I do love holiday music. Do you remember when Coast they start like November 1st with Christmas music? Yeah, November 1st. I guess November's appropriate. November feels appropriate. Yeah. Because like to me it's like already Christmas. It's November, right?

Like it's getting there. It's not Thanksgiving yet. I know. When do you think it's appropriate to decorate for Christmas? Right after Thanksgiving. Okay. You? I mean, I know a lot of people will go get their tree right after Thanksgiving.

My thing is, is a lot of the times the trees don't survive that long. They don't. I know. But I want it there. There's so many tips on keeping trees alive. Water. But like, yeah. Water.

And then. when you get it water water it um what type of tree and what we've done this before yeah but it's important white lights are colored so colored yeah it used to be white because the people when i grew up i felt like we were like what's the right word like more established if you had white lights White lights. And we didn't have white lights. Yeah. So I always wanted the white lights. So we did it. And I was like, I don't want the white lights. It's not cozy. It's not cozy. It doesn't feel kid. We've always been colored in growing up and in my household. Did you ever want the white, though? I think the white is very pretty. Beautiful. But I never wanted it. You never want it. Well, my friends had it. Like, their tree was so perfect. It was like the white lights with these, like, big. red bows all over. It was so beautiful. Yeah. And we were never bows. We were never beautiful.

My pop-pop would always take the silver tinsel. Yes. Perfectly place it on the tree. Yeah. That was a favorite memory. Do you still do tinsel? I don't see it often. Yeah, I don't do it. I don't do it. No, I haven't done it. I don't even know the last time. But now that I think about it, like, is it even available? I wonder. I wonder. I don't know. How do you feel, this is something we've been contemplating and really thinking about, is how do you feel not being home or at someone's home for Christmas?

So you're camping? What do you mean? No, no. You could be at an Airbnb or you could be at a hotel like to go out of town. Because you're like, what if you're not? How do you? feel about being in your car? I am a big creature of habit.

I would have a hard time not being in a home for Christmas. But like what if you're in an Airbnb, but it's like someone you're renting, but there's no Christmas tree? I think that's a deal breaker. I can't do it. Can't do it. I can't do it. I would literally pack a fake tree in my suitcase and decorate. Yeah, like I'm almost willing to forego the vacation of going anywhere just because I'm like, my kids are only going to be this young once.

Like how long are they going to believe? Does Elliot question it? He's questioned it. Yeah. But then I'm like, babe, people question everything. Like, you know? Yeah. I think his friends are more advanced than him in a lot of ways.

Like I feel like. Breyer, too. I think she wants to believe. you know, so she still holds on to it. Yeah. And the elf on the shelf. She's obsessed with elf on the shelf. Wow.

I save things on Instagram. I know. I save things on Instagram for ideas. Really, I had an ex-boyfriend who screwed me over by doing the most elaborate elf on the shelf. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah. And I'm like, I can't keep up with this. No, it was like set decorating.

It was like Oscar worthy. It was good. Yeah, it was really good. I know, it was so good. Maybe we hire him. He would still come do it. Did you come? Yeah, sneak down the chimney?

He literally, legit would. Yeah, he would. He was really, that was like a calling he probably never knew he had. Never knew he had. He should, people should hire him. They should. To just set up Elf on the shelf every night. He could make so much money.

Taskrabbit. But Elf on the shelf? Elf on the shelf. honestly, he could make a killing. I think we need to call him right now and tell him. You want to go to sleep, you know. I'm trying to think of a clever name for the business. He'll come up with one.

An elf with bells. Like has bells on. Yeah. See, we love this kind of shit. Speedy elf service. You sleep, I elf. I'd be like, where do I sign up? I sleep.

Help. Like self help? Help. Oh my God. That's so good. No, this is legit. Oh my God. This is legit.

But then people have to trust him to come into their homes. I know. To come into their home at night. At night when they're sleeping? Not at night when they're sleeping. No. Well, maybe you meet. You do a consultation because he's going to be working with you for a month.

We can vouch for him that he's not going to steal anything. He might make some offensive jokes. But he's not going to steal your shit. But you're going to be asleep so you won't hear them. But you work with them for a whole month, so you have a, what is it, consultation. Yes. You meet him. You give him a key.

You say, here are your hours. You come in. You do it. Genius. This is brilliant. Someone's going to steal our business idea. No, we got to give it to him. It's a little suss because you have to go into people's homes.

But people let people into their homes for a lot of things. But while they're sleeping. They're very vulnerable. It's just the sleeping part. Mm-hmm. People would pay for this service. I know it. I would.

We're going to call him after this. It's the worst because you're like, I can't fall asleep. Yeah. Because I got to make sure they're good in a sleep first. Yeah. And then I've got to come up with a freaking elaborate change of scenery. Yeah. And then if you forget and they're like the elf didn't move, you're an asshole.

The elf often does not move. Yeah. For a lot of people. Okay. We're on to something. What if it's really early in the morning? No. Too risky.

Too risky. Too risky. Yep. It's like Santa. Too risky. I'm very excited to tell him our idea. They just have to do a background check. They can't do a background check.

I'm just kidding. I'm sick. You just take our word for it, okay? I think I heard for it. Oh, help. Coming to you live. You look super friendly. Oh, my gosh.

Okay, so much fun. That's good stuff. Good stuff. I love coming up with holiday businesses. Yeah. Okay, we've accomplished so much. I feel like the holidays just inspire us to come up with big things. Yep.

Thank you for listening. Thank you. See ya. What about Rob? Fucking Rob. It's like what about Bob? Yeah, it's going to be like everybody's going to be looking for him. Rob needs to get it together.

Rob needs some elf help. Yeah. Rob. We don't know where we are. We've got a Santa tracker on him. We need a Santa tracker on him. I'm going to get an air tag and I'm just going to put it on Rob. Okay.

All right. Thanks, guys. That was a headgum podcast.