The Daily Beast Podcast - Why the Tucker Carlson Biography Sales Are So Pathetic

Episode Date: August 20, 2023

In this episode of The New Abnormal, Daily Beast editor Andrew Kirell gives an inside look at one of the right’s biggest grifts: inflating conservatives’ crappy book sales, specifically to get on the New York Times’ bestseller lists, and breaks down why the biography of expelled Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s biography didn’t get it (plus other reasons the book’s sales are so bad.) Also on the show: hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie react to Republican clips, and this week that includes the Republican reaction to Hillary Clinton going on MSNBC to talk Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that Georgia’s Fani Willis should go after rapists instead of Trump (Anyone want to tell her?), and Matt Gaetz getting his ass handed to him by MSNBC’s Ari Melber. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of The New Abnormal.

We thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Daily Beast senior editor Andrew Corel. And he's here to talk to us about, well, Tucker Carlson's biography that's not doing so hot. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips! Yeah, bring it. Yeah, yeah.

That's the enthusiasm I like. Where's the clips? Stop stalling. Stop stalling. Play the damn clips. Yeah, you're going to regret that enthusiasm. Now, this week, we had a lot of stupid takes to say the least. The pundit class on the right was handed up bad hand to have to defend their Cheeto Jesus after that indictment.

But over on Foxes the Five is a place where thinking goes to die. And one Greg Gutfeld has possibly a take that exceeds the thinking for people that don't think levels of thoughts. that show usually has. Permission to pretend that I'm Jesse Waters. Absolutely. All right. You're going to have to shake my hand during this one because then he gets the blame. What would happen if all the women took a ladies week off

and they went to Venus? Four billion women just went to Venus for a ladies week, right? Okay. All right? And they came back after a week. How many of these problems would still exist? There'd be new problems. Lots of new bad problems. But I sense what I hear, like Harold go, you know, I'm changing my mind about this. You would change your mind in an

instant if you were at a bar alone and there were no women around. You'd be going, you've got to go in there. It'll be over in an hour. It's like what Trump said, you know, it'll be done in it. The war will be over an hour. Just let me handle it. The smash and grabs, the no cash bail, the rampant recidivism that we're putting up with would disappear. I know this is

offensive to the judge because she thinks like a dude. But what I'm saying is, but what I'm saying is we have gotten so soft, and it's because we have decided that somehow discipline and punishment is wrong. We've decided that carrot is better than the stick when all I want is a carrot shaped like a stick to beat looters with. That's not too much to ask, right? Okay. I'm not familiar with this guy.

Is this... I do have a question, though. Was he doing... I'm a little confused, honestly, because of how that opened. Was that him doing a Jesse Waters impression? That part of the syntax was a little confusing to me, but the fact that he was... basically saying crime would disappear if women were gone, you got to wonder if something weird's going on. Oh, well, I don't know kind of that. I don't understand, and I guess that that's the point, because they don't make any fucking sense.

So what I would love is a carrot shape like a stick for other reasons, and it certainly wouldn't be to beat looters with, but maybe beat lunatics with like the people that are employed over at Fox who are allowed to be on air saying a whole bunch of nonsensical shit and get paid up the wazoo for it. Wow. Just wow.

That's it. That's all I have. One of the hidden better parts of that, though, is what he basically calls out Harold Ford for being a womanizer. I really enjoyed that part personally. Oh, is that who he was talking about? Yeah, yeah, it's Harold Ford. You can see it when you watch a video.

Ah, okay. I was wondering about that. And then he said, Genean Piro thinks like a dude. One might say that most of her thoughts are fueled by the box of wine she's consuming each night. Okay. Good stuff, Greg. So one Lara Trump, who you may remember for being married to the Trump child, who you could mistake for having an inbred level of intelligence, has about that level of anger towards Hillary Clinton going on the Rachel Maddo show

and laughing at Trump's fourth indictment. He played of Hillary Clinton. Wow. Let us never forget all of those. And she led into that interview with Rachel Maddow, by the way, laughing. She was laughing about this last night. Let me tell you something. There is nothing funny about this.

There's nothing funny about the erosion of our American values, about the erosion of our constitution, about the weaponization of our systems, like third world countries do against political opponents. Nothing funny, Sean. Fucker, shut up. Shut up. You just cut to a super clip of her clapping along at rallies of that. The only thing wrong with that interview is that Hillary Clinton was not given a bottle of Vove-Cliko

so that she could sip on it while she was being fucking interviewed. Give me a break. Hate them so fucking much. Like, this is not a laughing matter. You created T-shirts, chance, bumper stickers about locking people up. And now, because it's happening under actual laws and in reality to your criminal-ass messiah, somehow now we've become a third world country? Miss me with it.

Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, the third world country part is all the stuff that Trump and his coronies did. That's the third world country comparison if you're going to make it. And even that's probably not fair to, you know, 90% of third world countries. But she's also wrong. because, yes, these are all serious charges, and Trump is accused of absolutely heinous crimes, there's also something a little funny about it.

And it is funny, mainly for the reason you brought up, that these are the same people that were Channing Lock Her Up for all those years, and the same people that are now trying to convince us that Hunter Biden's shenanigans are a threat to the Republic. So there's a little something funny in that. The call is coming from inside the house kind of way. Mm-hmm. So speaking of Maga World embarrassing itself this week, here we have Matt Gates being absolutely embarrassed by R.E. Mel Barron, MSNBC's The Beat.

Just to be clear, you're denying that you sought a pardon for yourself? Yes, that's correct. Here's some of the under oath testimony from Trump Insiders, and I know you've maintained a strong relationship with Donald Trump, but basically we've got multiple people, the director of White House presidential personnel, who's a Trump loyalist, a lawyer, Eric Hirschman, Cassie Hutchinson famously.

We could put this up. They all testified under oath that you specifically requested a pardon. And I'll play a little bit of the sound on this. Here was the lawyer out of these three discussing it in testimony. Take a listen. The general tone was we may get prosecuted because we were defensive of the president's positions on these things. As broad as you could describe from beginning. I remember he's from the beginning of time up until today for any of our.

all things. I mentioned Nixon, and I said Nixon's pardon was never nearly that broad. That's some of the testimony to give you the benefit of responding since I have you here tonight. Here's what some others said in the hearing, MTG discussing just generally that meeting, and then others describing that. Take a listen. Said, we've got to have a meeting. There's many of us that feel like this election has been stolen. On December 21st, some Republican members of Congress met with President Trump in the White House. House to talk about overturning the 2020 election. Mr. Gaines was personally pushing for a pardon, and he was doing so since early December.

Advocated for there to be a blanket pardon for members involved in that meeting. I want to give you the benefit to respond to it, but I also want to take this process seriously. So respectfully, you have individuals who are not known to be coordinating in any way. They all have their own counsel. They have an incredible legal liability if they lied about this. and multiple individuals, all of whom, by the way, Republican appointees, are testifying that in that period, after that December meeting, you, sir, requested a pardon for yourself and other attendees at the meeting. And so the question is, can you really say that all of them are committing perjury lying on you, A, and B, if a pardon was requested,

why not just tell us what were you worried about? What was it that you thought you or others might be indicted for? Well, I mean, Cassidy Hutchinson is a known liar. There's testimony she's given that directly results in perjury. So I would certainly take exception with her testimony. I do not remember it the same way Eric Kirshman does. I did have conversations with Eric Kirshman about different groups of people that could potentially receive pardons, even including some of the people who may have committed a technical violation of federal law,

but that weren't engaged in violence on January 6th. I guess under, hold on, now. I'm going to let you finish, but is Mr. McIntyreste, as well? And yes, you may finish. I had a lot of conversations with Mr. McAtee about pardons for other folks and different groups of people, whether or not some lawmakers would have fallen within those groups, I think, you know, could be debated and discussed. But when it comes to, you know, was I asking something specifically for me and only me under those circumstances? The answer would be down.

Pretty rich. So everybody's lying, right? Everybody's a liar. And everybody's a fucking fraud except for Donald Trump. Like no one in the world can be trusted except for. Donald Trump, like you cannot use the same bullshit defense on everybody. You, it just, it just doesn't work. Like, where does he get these lawyers from?

Oh, that's right. Trump Law University or whatever. It's just, they're obscene. They're obscene with their ability to be like, well, this person's a liar and that person has a issue with Trump because, you know, he's just a good guy who does everything right. 91 charges says otherwise. 91. Yeah, but I mean, in this instance, Matt Gates is saying everyone's a liar except him, Matt Gates,

that all these people who, again, testified under oath, as Ari Melburgh helpfully pointed out, that he did request a pardon, that every single one of them perjured themselves, and he, Matt Gates, is sitting there not under oath telling you the truth. And it's just, it's just, it's too ridiculous to even, you know, I don't know where you go with it. Like, you're so obviously lying, dude. And there's such an easy way out of this for you is just to say, you know, yes, I did ask for a pardon because I was worried that the Biden administration would politicize all of this and try to turn us into criminals. There's like such an easy way to get out of this for him.

And he's not even smart enough to realize it. My favorite though, is he just smiles. Like, you know, he's been compared to Beavis many times, but really in that video footage. The shoe just fits. Well, speaking of Maga World and this rough week for them, we now have Marjorie Taylor Green almost getting it. Never mind. Strike that.

She fully fucking missed it as usual. I need to make a caveat, though, before we listen to this, since we work at a news organization that will shock listeners. These facts, she's going to say, are totally made up and sound like they came from the guy who sits outside a liquor store all day on an improvised beach chair talking at the wind. So take them with a great assault. Something that the DAs all seem to share an ideology here politically. I mean, you've got Willis's family was made up of Marxist Black Panthers.

You've got Alvin Bragg, obviously, buys into the same kind of ideology. The way that he's destroying this city, he doesn't want to throw anybody in prison for committing crime. They all share this really just devastating ideology that is so devastating for this country. They unite around that, and then they try and take down somebody. it's somebody like this, somebody like former President Trump. It kind of makes sense. That's right, Rob. And people everywhere are terrified of this government. This is something that we expect in third world countries, that we expect in communist regimes. But this is what we're seen in America today. You know, Rob, I live in a rural district. This is where people really want

a $1.75 gas back. They do not like the Biden policies. A lot of people on fixed incomes like senior citizens, single moms, just good working people are going month to month with their paychecks and maxing out their credit cards with high inflation, high grocer bills, high electricity bills and high gas bills. But they're watching the Biden regime actually try to arrest President Trump, lock him up in jail for the rest of its life, which is a death sentence, and then go after his supporters across the state. It's something that it's still shocking. I can't even believe it happened yesterday, but I want to tell you something about Atlanta, Rob,

and it's really important for people to know. Atlanta has some of the highest crime in the country, murder, rape, carjacking, and the state of Georgia is one of the worst states in the country for child sex trafficking. GMA last week with Homeland actually told me that every single month in the state of Georgia, every month, men will buy a child for sex,

on average 7,200 times. Fawney Willis should be going after child sex predators and traffickers. Fonnie Willis should be going after murderers, rapists, car theft. But that's not. Fony Willis, no, she's not. That's not politically beneficial. There's no political. Just note, show note, Donald Trump is an accused and can, you know, he was found guilty

of rape. So if you just want to say what funny, what funny. Willis should be going after. I mean, that is part of his, what do they call it? His resume. So, just. Atlanta is not even in the top 20 for cities with violent crime rates in America. So she's wrong about that. To me, it was just like the whole ballgame is given away. The very first thing that I don't know who Rob is, I assume he's someone on Newsmax or something like that or whatever. That would be her anchor boyfriend, if I'm correct.

Oh, whoa, that makes sense. Yes, yes. Let's remember he's a broadcaster. So, okay, going after Fawney Willis, because your dad was into Black Panthers, and then he brings up Alvin Bragg and says, you know, they share the same idea. It's like, yeah, just say black.

Yeah, I just, you know, it's easy. It's shorter. It's just so obvious what you're doing. And it's just, like, I'm even embarrassed for you that, you know, that you can't just say it. Just say how you feel at this point. Like, it's, it's, it's, obvious to everyone. It's not a dog whistle.

You know, it's a bullhorn right up against our ears. And it's just like, stop it. It's just so fucking obvious what you're doing. Racist going racist. So there you go. A new biography of Tucker Carlson doesn't exactly set the sales charts on fire, while another conservative hero seems to have forgotten a book he wrote just 10 years ago. He did to talk about that and more, maybe even about how he has a new album that just dropped, is Daily Beast's senior editor and editor of the Beast's media newsletter Confider, which seems to drop scoop after scoop, Andrew Corral.

Andrew, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. So let's talk about the Tucker bio written by Chadwick Moore. Not quite what they were looking for, sales-wise, I'm guessing. Yeah, it only sold 3,000 copies in its first week, which is actually really pathetic. So what do we attribute this to? Did they not do a good job? Astro-Turfing this?

Is it simply that they lacked the ability to push the book to Fox News's Deptford viewers? What is it? Yeah, that's definitely part of it, is that there's no, you know, part of the grift of the conservative book industry is that you can, you know, have endless amount of hours on Fox News pushing yourself as a subject matter expert with your new book out. And it definitely sells to that niche audience, but also like conservative media in general is very keen on the conservative book drift. And I guess in this case, the apparatus that helps boost conservative book sales wasn't behind it because Tucker's not on Fox anymore. Topic Moore is not like a known conservative entity and he's not an on-air celebrity and he's not somebody who does sort of the speaking circuit of all the conservative organizations. He's not showing up to random like conservative faith and freedom anti-LGB coalition speeches or whatever. He's not doing that kind of stuff. So there's just a lot working against it.

And also, you know, it's just a friendly biography of Tucker Carlson. I think people are more interested in his sort of pugnacious worldview as opposed to like Tucker's prep school background. Like we already kind of know everything. We need to know about the guy. We don't need a friendly version of it. No, that's a really good point because most of these books, when they appear to sell well, whether they actually do or not is another question, which we can talk about in a minute. But they are, like you described, they're, you know, they have titles like, stop canceling me, you know, whatever.

And they're about quote unquote issues, whereas this was, as you said, this is a bio of Tucker Carson where we, I guess, you know, get to learn what his favorite breakfast cereal was growing up and people just don't care, I guess. Yeah, the appetite's not there for that, especially, I think there's a little bit of fatigue about his story now. And also, you know, he's in the hinterlands of Twitter now posting like two-hour videos of just him talking to camera and it's like, all right. I honestly feel like a lot of the anti-Fox sentiment, you know, a lot of the anger towards Fox News for having fired Tucker on the right is kind of cooling off a little bit. Like, you notice Senator Tuberville

after Fox Fire Tucker was like telling people I'm never going on Fox again. They're basically dead to me. He went on Newsmax and said, like, everybody should tune into Newsmax, not Fox News. And, you know, the jig is already up. He's been on Fox News a bunch of times since then promoting whatever he's working on in very friendly interviews. So I think that's sort of cooling off, too. Yeah, I think what he's working on is not filling military positions. That's my understanding. Yes, yes, yeah. And now I read that the publisher of Carlson's book, All Seasons Press, they are now out there claiming that sales are better than we think, and they're saying that there have been shenanigans on Amazon's part? Yeah, and this happens every time a conservative book doesn't

sell very well. It's, you know, because it's unfalsifiable and because this is sort of the slop that, you know, the general right-wing media audience eats up is just like there's a conspiracy against it. And you can never falsify it. You can never prove it wrong because if you do prove evidence to the contrary, they'll just say, well, you know, that's part of the conspiracy. You know, just you keep going down the rabbit hole. No matter what it is, it'll always be some bias against a conservative book. And the same thing happens when a book does actually sell well in conservative spheres. It'll get on the New York Times bestseller list, but it'll have a dagger symbol next to it because the New York Times detects bulk buys or institutional or special interest buys.

This is the key part of the right-wing book grift is getting on the New York Times bestseller list by having these massive bulk purchases, not very organic. It's not people going bookstore and picking it up. It's a conservative organization buying it. The best example if I could just rant about this is Donald Trump Jr.'s book in 2019 triggered. It made the bestseller list, but it had the dagger symbol. And of course, you know, he whined about that in the entirety of conservative media, including Fox News, just like played dumb and rallied the troops against, you know, the bias New York Times and their hatred of patriotic Americans or whatever, whatever gets the people frothed up. So you're basically saying, you know, they're dinging me.

They're there, they have this bias against me. They, you know, they won't say that this is like, this is what the people wanted. The people are. buying this book. And it was really easy to just check FEC filings. And, you know, reporters found there were nine separate groups, I think it was, that made bulk purchases, literally stockpiling the books, like a single R&C payment, I think was like $95,000 to bulk purchase his book and probably just keep it in a storage locker somewhere. And I think Nick Confessori at the times, ironically, it also at the Times, had a picture he posted of this like, like a spare office at TPUSA's headquarters that was just stacked with boxes and boxes of Donald Trump Jr.'s book.

And this happens with pretty much, I would say, nine out of ten conservative media books, it gets the dagger symbol. And it'll be like Janine Piro, Mark Levine, Glenn Beck, all those people have gotten the dagger symbol. And every single time, and this is also part of the Gryft, if you keep going into it further, it's like being on the best seller list, even with the dagger symbol is good for sales. Like, it does increase sales. Sure. It's win-win for these people to say, like, in other words, bias against me because it's another way of gaming the system where now you're on the list.

You have the dagger symbol denoting that clearly this wasn't very organic. It doesn't matter because you can say the Times is biased against me. And you can do the media circuit on Fox News and Newsmax and the daily wire and get like an aggregated post written up about you and whine about it. And then that helps you get more attention for the book too. And you're also getting attention by being on the New York Times bestseller list and the bookstores. You know, when they have a display case that has the best seller list, they put your book there. It's like it's just this never-ending like Oroboros grift. I should note though, it's not only just concerned.

like the bulk buys do happen. You know, they're not always just conservative political books. I think like a famous example was like Gary, the actor Gary Sidney. And that probably, you know, oftentimes with that,

it's just like B-list stars or people who do the speaker circuit and their books get bought by like charities that they do a lot of speeches at or auctions or something. That, that does happen. But almost always. And nine out of ten times it's conservative books.

And nine out of ten conservative books get the dagger symbol. I think like historically it was like Tucker Carlson and Bill O'Reilly who wouldn't get the dagger. That's because those guys like, are watched by three million people a night when they were at their peak. You know, like they have an audience. They have actual people buying it. But like the Fox News meteorologist being number five on like the best sell list or whatever.

It's like, come on. Yeah, no, it's incredible. And I've heard that some other conservatives have been complaining about their sales ranks in the last few weeks. Anyone I know? Yeah. I don't know if you know this guy Greg Gutfeld, but he's a, he's been hopping up and down that about being. I forget what number he was. I think it was number six, his book, The King of Lates.

night, even though he's no longer in late night now that he's moved to an earlier hour, but he's still going to claim to be the king of late night. He was number six on the Times list. He was mad about it because he believed he sold more than the copies above him. And then he and Kat Timp and Tyrus, other Fox news stars that are on his shows, a lot were saying, you know, they were punished for being conservative when they put out their books. And it's like, maybe there's not an anti-Fox bias or an anti-conservative bias. There's just like a bias about pointing out bulk book sales. It's much easier to whine about conspiracies afoot and get people a frothed up because like I said, it's unfalsifiable. Like Mark Levin had this whole thing earlier

list here where it was book was like, he got to go around claiming his book was yanked from Target shelves before it even came out. And it turned out that it was like, it was still widely available for pre-order on their website and all the, but they were just, I think at the corporate level, it got flagged because he had like a, I forget if it was like an insult word or something incendiary in the title. It's like, yeah, Target is, you know, like if you have a book that's like, you know, I want to fucking murder everyone, you know, or something like that. Like, They're going to flag that and do the corporate chain of like a bunch of normies who are working there. They're not sitting there being like, how can we screw mark them?

Like it's just, yeah, they got flagged in the system. I'm like, oh, this is interesting. This seems a little incendiary for our brand. And then his book is for sale. You can buy it at their website. Like it didn't disappear. But by being able to complain about it, that's part of like the never-ending sort of. I don't know the grift.

The word grift is overused, but that's the key to it. It's basically devolved into a symbiolved. relationship, it feels like. Yeah, which is the, you know, we call it, um, getting confide or we have a section of the newsletter dedicated to what we call the, uh, the right wing outrage industrial complex because the entire industry feeds off being outraged and ginning up outrage. And the only way to gin up that outrage is to create scenarios where people are outraged,

you know, so it's just like a never ending cycle of being like, well, I've been harmed, even though I haven't been harmed. And this is the way to get people to care is by telling them that I've been harmed. And they're just like you. Exactly. Patriotic Joe who was being harmed by some nefarious Normie elite working in a Target book sales office. Yeah. So in the intro, I mentioned a conservative hero who seems to have forgotten a book that he wrote just 10 years ago. Who am I talking about here, Andrew? Ben Shapiro. And what did he do? What did he write 10 years ago?

I guess the context here is on Tuesday he tweeted after the indictment in Georgia, he tweeted, whatever you think of the Trump indictments, one thing is for certain. The glass has now been broken over and over again. Political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. Running for office now carries the legal risk of going to jail on all sides. So he's like kind of saying, you know, Democrats be warned. Of course, and everyone has pointed out that, you know, committing crimes always carry the risk of going to jail. Right. But more importantly, he wrote a book in 2014, titled The People v. Barack Obama, the criminal case against the Obama administration. And it's hundreds and hundreds of pages of Ben Shapiro using RICO statutes. to suggest we should, you know, try and convict Obama on conspiracy charges. And now all these,

you know, Simon & Schuster published it. Like, he can't pretend that never happened. But this is like a lot of that sort of sphere of conservative media where there, he's not like overtly pro-Trump, but he does whatever he can't. He's very anti-anty. Right. And it's always very like, well, you know, I don't think we should prosecute a president. And this is, you know, deplorable. We're using the state against a political enemy. And it's like, you wrote that book 10 years ago, literally doing the exact case without any, without the evidence, mind you that, you know, preponderance of evidence is presented in four indictments. It would be more political not to charge Trump at this point. And that's like, you know, regardless of what you think of any of the cases, at this point,

there's, if you actually read the indictments as reponderance of evidence presented, and it would be more political to decide not to prosecute when you have potential evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Like, it's mind-blowing. Absolutely insane. I feel like you could fill a book with nothing but examples of conservative hypocrisy on just this one. issue. Oh, yeah, and this week it's just been not, it's like, it's sort of a real-time expoze of people just sort of going back on their own words. Like, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green at once saying about probably Hunter Biden. I think she said it was, you know, when evidence and proof of a crime is presented, no prosecution, it should be denied no matter who the person is. And James Comer is

another Republican lawmaker who's, you know, big on the Hunter Biden and Biden family investigations, even though he kind of wheedled out of them, said this is an important joyed effort that shows the American people that accountability matters, regardless of your last name. This was about the Biden investigation. And it's like these people are the same exact one saying it's in a travesty that we are, that the government is potentially prosecuting a president. It just happens to be a president that they dearly love. Yes. All right. Enough about books. Let's talk about records, Andrew. Is that okay? Yeah. All right. I want to talk specifically. There's an album called Torch songs that just came out on Friday. What's the deal here? Is this some kind of vanity project from a rich, pretty boy

journalist? I guess he could say that, yeah, a career depressive, yeah. It came out on Friday. It's something that I recorded four years ago in Nashville, so I've sat on a little bit, like a classic journalist, kind of dragging my feet. Right. Mostly thanks to depression. And, you know, also just it's hard to put yourself out there in that way. But I've been playing music for a long time now, and that's sort of my side hustle. So this isn't just like, you know, I'm not astro-turfing my music. in other words. This is something I've been doing for a long time, and it's just this is eight songs.

I've recorded in Nashville with a bunch of sessions players. I'm going to brag a little, including guys who've played on Casey Musgraves' records and people who played with Prince. It's incredible what a lot of these real pros who sound incredible on record, they want to get involved in DIY projects because they're tired of just sort of only being called in

for big corporate, big projects. And you give them the opportunity to have a little say in your music because I'm just some schmuck. I know music really well. I know how I write. I believe in my song, but these guys can make them better, and they did. So, yeah, it was an adventure, and I would describe it as very Springsteenian, I guess. I don't know how when people listen to my music, they generally, knowing me and knowing how obsessed I am with Bruce Springsteen, that tends to be the response.

But yeah, release three singles before the album came out, they all got a good response. I'm very, very proud of it. It was difficult for me to self-promote because I'm a little bit of an introvert. But yeah, and I got a, we're doing a big release show with an eight-piece band on Sunday, August 27th at Mercury Lounge. In New York City, it'll be a 5.30 show just so we can get everybody to bed so they can have their Sunday scaring. I'm going to go to sleep. Looking out for me, too. I'm getting tired at this point. You know, I don't want to play a 10 o'clock show anymore on a Tuesday. Like, it used to be. Yeah, no. Things change when you hit a certain age.

Talk more about the musicians you wrangled for this, because it's a hell of a list. Yeah. There's a horn section. that's led by Roy A.G., whose credits include playing with Prince. I think he was actually with a final horn, like a final horns guy for Prince. And Justin Shipper is this incredible pedal steel guitarist who played on Casey Musgraves Golden Hour record. Billy Noble plays Hammond B3 organ, which was incredible, you know, bringing in a Hammond B3 into a studio, this gigantic freaking organ, you know, that hard to come by. I'm so jealous. Yeah, and he did an incredible job, and he's just this, you know, music student who now tour.

for Tim McGraw. Not exactly the same style of music as me, but, you know, these guys are all pros, and they can literally, you know, do anything. And I will say the songwriting is great. You know, I don't mind me. And full disclosure, I texted you the other day asking who was playing keys because he was really, really good. And you were like, I know, no big deal. It's Billy Noble. Tim McGrath's touring pianists. You know, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of these musicians are eager to do these sort of DIY projects for a lower rate just because it allows them a little more creative freedom. So it was definitely just, you know, cool to get those kinds of people in the studio. Oh, absolutely. I'm curious that, so the album title, Torch songs, taught Torch songs are generally

songs about love, unrequited love, stuff like that. How does your wife feel about that? In this case, it's a lot of my songwriting has always been very leaning towards the melodramatic, sort of melancholic and, you know, a lot of inspiration from the classic Torch songs, Torch ballads, you know, Roy Orbison, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of, you know, Elvis ballads. Springsteen, obviously, was influenced by a lot of that stuff. And so there's not literal in the sense, I guess it's more metaphorical here where a lot of these songs are really, really about pining for meaning, but also like these were all written in a very, very, very dark period of my life, a lot of depression, suicidal aviation, and just yearning for a connection and yearning

to like climb out of that pit of despair and wanting something more and wanting to find a light in the darkness. And that's really what that, a little on the nose now that I'm saying, allow, you know, something to find some light in the darkness. But that was, you know, that's what I'm pining for. So she knows what I thought about. I am a happily married man who is writing extremely sad music set to actually very uplifting and themic instrumentation, I would argue. The juxtaposition is very Springsteenian. Oh, it absolutely is. And I can vouch for that, having listened to the three tracks that have come out pre-release, I can vouch for the springsteenian aspect and feeling to them. Andrew, thanks so much for being here. The album's

called Torch Songs. It's out now. Check it out on Apple, Spotify. Everywhere. Buy the damn CD. There's probably vinyl knowing you kids. No, not yet. I want. No vinyl yet. But come to the show, August 27th, Mercury Lounge. Andrew, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder.

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