The Watch - Ep. 82: 'Westworld' Premiere and Music Mythology With Will Sheff

Episode Date: October 3, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the premiere of HBO's 'Westworld' (6:00) and the ingredients needed to have a hit in today's TV landscape. Then, Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff joins (22:30) to discuss his new album, ‘Away,' the trend of surprise releases (29:00), the difficulty of controlling one's art (39:00), sculpting band mythology (48:00), and battling for relevance in the music industry (54:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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only on USA Network. I need sports to have to clear the room. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am Netter at theringer.com and joining me in the studio with milk pouring out of him. It's Andy Greenwald. Am I real or am I illusion? Happy New Year.

Happy half new year to you, my friend. Nice of us to be working on a very holy day. Yeah, thanks for coming by. Of course. Andy, we're here to talk a little bit about Westworld, which premiered last night the HBO network. We also have a very special guest today a little bit later in the pod. Will Chef from Ockerville River and from any given Wednesday theme music fame will be joining us. But first, let's talk about Westworld. It's been a lot of hype, a lot of buildup to this.

It's sort of the... We talked a little bit about this Thursday on the RIA, but I kind of wanted to just start the conversation with you again, if that's okay, for you and for listeners. Just reboot me with a different robot. What makes one of these big shows stick right now? I think that is a question that every network executive is wondering. And I'm sure the people over and the lovely offices of Santa Monica, HBO Santa Monica offices are wondering at the same thing. I'm going to start with the negative and move into the positive for Westworld.

Okay. In terms of like how I think, because you don't make something this expensive and this ambitious without it hoping to stick the way that say Game of Thrones is stuck. Yeah, there is no question that the genesis of this project comes from a network saying internally, we need to take another big, big sweat. And I'm saying that is a value-neutral comment, but when you have something as game-changing, as ratings dominant, as conversation all-consuming as Game of Thrones, you don't want that to go away without at least offering another chance to fill it.

And in terms of the vision of the show, in terms of the look of the show and in terms of the sets and the production design and the cinematography, I found myself, for the first time maybe since watching Game of Thrones saying this is too big for my television. I wish I was watching this in a theater. I wish I had an IMAX version of this pilot. It's so cool to look at.

I want to look at every different part of the frame. I watched it in a theater. Did you? And it was, it's gorgeous. I went to HBO back in my old life when I lived in the Wild Wild East. Yeah, I went to HBO in Midtown. I watched it in their screening room,

and it is just, deserving of that. Yeah. It's gorgeous. So here's the issue that I'll start with this issue and then we can kind of move out in a ripple and talk more specifically about the episode itself. The issue is that I don't know that it has a John Snow or a Tyrion in so much as just because you make something huge and big and it has a great Bible for the show and it has all these

different parts of the world that you want to explore. And I mean, God bless them because they just made a compelling Western. a compelling sci-fi and put them together. Yeah. You're actually in, you know, you're really invested in what's going on. But when you talk about what is it that makes Game of Thrones so successful, aside from the fact that it had a built-in fan base and it has the kind of Lord of the Rings-y and epic feel to it, there are still character types.

Regardless of whether you think Harrington's amazing or John Snow is a corndog or a hero or whatever, character types that people have become accustomed to being like, that's who I need to watch. And even if you thought it was Ned and it wasn't or whatever, you're like, John's arc, Dineris's arcs, these people's arcs are identifiable and interesting. And now it's only been one episode of Westworld, but there aren't any of those types of characters right now. Let me say this to anyone listening who like genre entertainment, who is in any way employed making genre entertainment, here's the question that you need to ask yourself as you're making it.

What about Han Solo Doe? That's what I'm saying. What about solo, though? You need a Han solo, because someone needs to puncture the air to make it a little bit lighter to let the audience in, to let them know it's okay to laugh.

This show is crying out for Walt and Gaggins to be walking around being like, what the shit is going on here? Yeah, this is fun, you know, for him. I am, let me start by saying, I'm on the fence about the show. I think there are things about it that are beautiful and remarkable,

and there are things about it that I like less and we'll get into it. to go macro, to go as big as possible, which is also what the goal of the show was, I would say if you look through the development process and the names attached and the talent being attached, it is a no-brainer that this made it to air. It is a no-brainer that it was greenlit,

even with the amount of money that it demanded, right? Because J.J. Abrams is involved. The Nolan brothers, Jonah Nolan, and his wife, Lisa Joy, created and ran the show, but Christopher Nolan, his brother was very engaged in the idea and very into the idea. Look at the cast. I mean, it looks like these are movie stars, or at least very respected movie actors.

Yeah, James Marsden, like, throwing middle relief. Exactly. James Marsden's a star. James Marsden was the star of Anchorman 2. And a Toyota commercial that I liked very much. And he wasn't he the star? Didn't you like a Cameron Diaz? No, James Marsden being on television would be the James Marsden show nine times out of ten.

Well, he's 30 Rock. He was pretty good. But your point stands. Evan Rachel Wood is a tremendous actor. Jeffrey Wright, Anthony Hopkins. You can go down the list, and at some point we will. The ideas in play, the concept, the big swings that it allows you to take both as a network and a storyteller. Sure, of course.

And throwing the fact that it's pre-existing IP, which in this case might not really help it, but for some reason that does get things made. All my old brinner heads. Right. I mean, it's not exactly. Keeping a fire stoked for these years. This is not exactly the spirit of the original. But you know the character, you know, you do a lot of character work on the show, and I really appreciate that.

But my favorite character that you do is, you know, is the Hollywood Fixer. Right. Where you just sit back and you just ask a question. And for as much as we joke about that character, and we joke, we like to laugh. I wonder what would have happened if that Hollywood fixer had just wandered in through Valet and Santa Monica and HBO, walked up to the executive suite and said, but why do we care about this? Just remind me, why do we care about this?

And part of me thinks, this is not true. But, you know, this shut down, they shut down production for a while, which is never a good sign. You know, they said it was to fix the scripts. There was a lot of, a lot of, you know, bad buzz around the project. I think almost none of it bears out in the final product. It does not seem trouble.

It does not seem, like, massively flawed. No. Someone told me anecdotally that one of the reasons they shut it down was because they took this show so seriously, Joan and Olen and Lisa Joy, that they needed to take some time to really nail down what human existence meant in their universe. Like, they think about it on that level. But there's an element of this show that I am bumping up against, which is, I don't really care about if robots can feel. Like, I just don't know if that's interesting to me. It has a big question. It has a big concept. It has a big cast. but it is not connecting with me on the level

that would allow me to pass the Turing test and be a human and not a robot. I'm much more enthusiastic about the show that I think than you are. I think it's, I thought it was really cool. I think it gets better in the second episode, which we won't go into that at all, but I do think that, you know, it's hard to judge one, to criticize myself,

it's hard to judge one episode of Westworld against what we know now about Game of Thrones. Yes, and I haven't gone back and watched the first Game of Thrones episode in a while. But also fundamentally, well, But with Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones was unique in a billion ways, but one of which was, that was the first chapter. And we knew that there were five other books out there and there's going someplace. Westworld, for all the things about it that are unique and new and representative of where TV is going, it is profoundly a TV moment that we're in with a show where, boy, that's a pilot.

It's beautiful. It has a nice symmetry. It has some poetry to it. It begins, beginning, middle, and end. And now it has to be a series. Right. And the second episode does do a lot of interesting things in establishing what the series will be. Yeah.

And I think that there's a lot of different ways it can go. There are obviously people, visitors who are going to come in from outside the park to be guests. And they can do all sorts of things with the idea of what these hosts, quote unquote, the robots do and don't remember and what kind of personalities they have. It's funny that like our conception of like robotic life is always like they're kind of like robots though. You know what I mean? as soon as you know that Danny Newton or Evan Rachel Wood are robots, you're kind of like,

yeah, they're kind of like acting like a robot. And I don't think they're tremendously helped by the onslaught of sexual violence visited upon them or the fact that, like, you know, it wasn't a time of like introspective, self-deprecating humor and like, you mean in the Wild West or in the Nolan Brothers, like, executive suites? Well, just in the, no, in the Wild West, you know what I mean? And the Saloon Town vibe that it. it has. But, you know, the levels of quote-unquote humanity you're going to get from a lot of the

characters is going to be pretty limited. And I don't want, I hope that that doesn't necessarily limit people's engagement or investment in the show's characters themselves. Yeah. And you brought up, some people are reacting very strongly to the sexual violence that is baked into the show. Of all the things that I needed more of on my television, that's not high on the list. Yeah. I do think that, um, certainly Lisa Joy in interviews that she's given and in conversations that they've made of the people who are making the show have, uh, have had publicly,

the idea of the morality of something like Grand Theft Auto weighs very heavily on the show. And that informs it. And that's very interesting. I mean, the idea being like what, if you just say like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a decent guy. I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, and I pay my taxes and I go to work. Um, and then just to unwind, I go into a virtual. world on my Xbox and I murder prostitutes.

Yeah, right, right. Where did that energy come from? Where does it go? And this is like the natural iteration of that. That's an interesting idea that is relevant to our world. So is the idea that this is like the worst possible version of Vegas. This idea of like what happens in Westworld stays in Westworld and, you know, the idea that you go off and you can be the true version of yourself that is also like this

the darkest, why is it, you know, when you go to do something like this, is the true version of yourself always the darkest version of yourself? And, you know, I think a lot of the, those are very heady things, and those are very, and you can't solve them or even prove your ability to question them in one episode or two episodes. Yeah. What covers a lot of sins, and I don't even mean the sins, covers a lot of these question marks, papers over them in the short term, is the production value, is the set, is the actors. I mean, when you have a mysterious man in a black hat running around, gunning down people, and it's Ed Harris. I'm like, dope, Jets and Pollock has a six shooter. Yeah. I mean, I'm into it because it's him.

And I think that what... But how long... That doesn't go on forever. That doesn't... You have to have a show at some point. So basically there's... Shows are... We also talk...

Shows exist inside of these balloons, right? And almost every show is... You could pop it if you worked hard enough at it. Some shows are easier to pop than others. Lost, you know, Mad Men. Meaning like you can buy... You could just be like... Yeah, but dragons, though.

You know what I mean? Like, you could... At any given point, you could just be like, isn't this kind of stupid? You know, and I think that different shows are good, are good at defending themselves against that, and some are so good that it doesn't matter. And Westworld needs to choose which one.

Yeah. And then do it. And I think one way that they can do that, and one way it can protect itself from getting popped, is this idea of sort of what the Ed Harris character wants versus what the Anthony Hopkins character, what Robert Ford wants. And it's very, it's interesting,

Robert Ford, the person who killed Jesse James, That's what Anthony Hopkins' character is named. I don't know who Jesse James necessarily is in this world. But they're sort of how, if you want to keep doing Russian nesting dolls and talk about different layers and different levels of experience within this theme park, essentially, I think that's the place to go. The more it becomes about like AI and when are we human and when are we not human, the less I'm interested in it.

I completely, completely agree with that. And also, I just, the Nolanverse is punishing for two hours, for two and a half hours. For five years, I mean, you've got to let some light in. You have to have some different tones. But first of all, the episodes are going to be 59 minutes. I mean, this is HBO. But it's not so bad, but it's exhausting. It's exhausting if I'm not sure why I care and they can't.

You know, I mean, I thought of when you mentioned the thing about bubbles and popping the show, I mean, the reason stranger things, which is kind of silly on 100 levels, never popped from me because it was so enjoyable. It was pleasurable. Now, the very different shows, very different ambition. Yeah. I do have a question about the god Tony Hopkins, like the legend. Yeah. The master.

Oh, yeah. Of course. Do you think, like, the way that he approaches this role suggests to me that he has been kept, like, in captivity for a number of years, much like the bear in that movie he made with Alec Baldwin. He was in the bear cage. So he's done some talking about... I just want to say, they were... He was in the bear cage, and I don't think they fed him.

Like, they didn't feed him enough. Yeah. To the point that when they let him on set, he devours the set. Like, Hansel and Gretel devour the candy house in the famous fable. Like, there are no scraps left. And then just in case there were scraps, they put Jeffrey Wright in every scene with him. No, no, no, no. See, here's the thing, is that I don't even think he's the biggest bear on the set there.

Oh, yeah? Your man, Simon Quarterman, British narrative weaver, who's like, did not get the note that no one else is shouting in the entire series? No. And he's just like, are you fucking came, eh? He's just like this like cockney bard. He's on that one owner rider. I don't, like, the woman from Borgon is cool. Jeffrey Wright is always good.

You know, I'm into everybody. But sometimes when you're like, what this guy really? be given this much responsibility is this asshole walking around being like, you having to laugh get the fuck out of here. You're like, what's the... Your man the Dreamweaver

in the V-neck sweater. West Ham fan with like a... It's always interesting the way writers portray writers. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, everyone else is pretty like, they're kind of put together, they're like hold it together, they're doing something

and it is pretty insane. Yeah. He didn't get the memo. You're right. But like those are the choices. is that I'm like, you spend three years plus making the show and developing it. And then there are some decisions of this where I'm like, I guess they just let that one fly. Yeah, and you know what? That's pilotitis. Like that can be totally leveled out.

You surround that guy with three other people who are equally amped or some just have one scene where someone's like, you need to chill out. And he can then chill out and then you can course correct. I mean, we forget. I can't believe how much intensity and scrutiny. television shows are under now because you just forget like, oh yeah, there was that second season of Friday Night Lights.

That's crazy. You know what I mean? Like it takes shows like a couple episodes to get going sometimes. It's not just that. We should move on to and bring Will into our conversation here. But the other day, we were watching,

my wife has some like old family videos that her family, like it was a VHS tape for birthdays and they put on a DVD. I don't know how this is going to connect to Westworld, but I'm terrified. She'll show it? That's a good question. And so they took this VHS tape that had been sitting in the family forever, and they put it on a DVD.

And she realized these were not her memories? And you look on the back. Well, partly you look on the back, you know, and like you go to a video store and they, like, took stills from every 15 minutes. You could see what the chappers were. And the first picture, it's like her and her sister are like three and six, and then they're older and they're older. And then there's Harry Hamlin because her family taped Law & Order over their birthday videos. So they turn 11 at a bowling line. rink and then all of a sudden there's like that dude benny who is like the differently abled person in

the l-a law office and he's just like i'm nervous to testify leeland are you serious two episodes of law and order i can bury it was on there i mean i'm not lord l-a-l-a law yeah that's i'm saying i can bury is up in okay hamlin day corbin a martinez all the gods of our youth the reason i bring this up is to say that when we have these conversations about tv we are definitely doing a lot of l-a law episode soon i feel like ever since i moved here i get it you know i get it When we talk about the way things used to be or we should remember, like you reached for Friday Night Lights Season 2 because our conversation is really bounded by what TV has become.

Sure. Take a minute to watch LA Law from 1989. It is the calmest experience you will ever have. These are handsome men and beautiful women and Michael Tucker in suits. And they're just talking about stuff. And their performances are lovely. But they're just talking about the case. And he's like, I, that, the, that medical company is making me their dummy.

Yeah. And to be fair, you know what? They knew what they were doing and they knew they had to make 22 of them and nobody ever went off, too far off menu and was like, Anthony Hopkins and Jeffrey Wright are going to be doing like Brecht. And then some guy is going to kick in the door with three pints of log. I was like, anybody order a British writer? Mate.

Knees up. That's what I'm saying. I just think that we have. a narrative that we've constructed where we are bounding these things with like this is the way TV is now and these advances it's making. But much like Robert Ford in his imaginarium, this is new enough that the amount of power and responsibility and money that are at the disposal to make TV is insane. The one thing I will say. So of course things are going to be sloppy and crazy. I will say this though to use your own praise of Game of Thrones back at you about praise of Westworld.

Do you listen to me? No, you were saying that, like, the thing about Game of Thrones that people really identify or really latch on to is the fact that every morsel of bread has been placed in on the pan and thrown in the oven in the right way. Like, when you're like, I'm... What are you cooking? No, like, when you're, like, looking at a pub scene in Game of Thrones, the guy in the background has a backstory.

Oh. The baker's son has a back. I think that you're giving me a really weird cooking metaphor. I think that there is that level of thought put into Westworld. And I think that you will see, like, I think that that has that kind of depth. and we'll keep talking about it. This is just our first round. I'm just curious if people got what they thought they were getting

because we didn't even mention this in the re-up, but our man Tate on the boards right now was in on Westworld when he thought it was about space, not just robots because he thought people were in suspended animation. Tate just needs to look at like one trailer of the show to know it's not about space. Don't you? First of all, Tate is a beautiful mind. Tate does not have to do anything.

But the fact that it's like an amusement park, it's Vegas, It's like there wasn't some extra matrixy level to it. I'm curious people. Maybe people just like space more than robots. Maybe. Also, who knows what's going to happen with this show? Maybe there is a matrixe level to it. We don't understand yet.

What if Eikenberry is just on level 71? What if this is just a dream Eichenberry is having in the Culver City's like skyscraper? I assume that about everything. I assume that about this podcast. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll be talking with Will Chef. I want to tell you a little bit about our sponsor ZipRecruiter. Are you hiring?

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Andy, now we are joined by Akerville Rivers, Will Chef, a long-time friend of yours. I've always been a long-time fan of his. You guys aren't friends? Yeah, I think we met like once or twice before. We hung out once or twice. It eads. Maybe.

Maybe so. I feel like we might have hung out at a spoon concert one time. I feel like it's an interesting power dynamic. Like, here's your guest. He's your friend. Yeah. That's all I was on. I can't vouch for him.

We're all friends in this podcast. For some reason, you brought him on. Hey, buddy. I always like bringing friends on podcasts. Will, welcome. Oh, cool. Thank you. We're happy to have you here.

You are in the midst, the middle of a... Precisely the middle of a big tour. Your new record away is out now. Yep. And garnering well-deserved, excellent reviews. We were talking just briefly before you came on, and we're going to talk about the record. I think we have some conversations to have about the music business in general that sounded really, really good after our fifth beer at the Bowery Ballroom, and we're going to try them out on Chris here and see how they go.

I have actually, I have a quick question. because, you know, a way just came out. Uh-huh. And Friday, like, I noticed I just, like, turned on Spotify, and I was like, oh, yeah, like, the Boney Bear record came out, like, overnight. Like, how are you, how are you feeling about, like, surprise records, stuff coming out of nowhere, secret, secret releases that, like, go into one streaming service or another? Like, did you get tempted by any of that stuff?

Did anybody try to be, like, hey, maybe if you pretend to, like, fake your own death, but then, like, release a record. He did film a video in a video in a video. Yeah, that's kind of like why I was asking. I guess it's a, I think of it as sort of a continuation of this just general desperation on the part of the music business to like do something to chin up sales or to get some attention and get some eyes. Like, it's not going to work forever.

Like, they're not going to be doing surprise releases in like 20 years still like, ooh, surprise, ta-da. And also it's kind of funny because it's the kind of thing where like, you know, if a band like proto-martre or something did a surprise. record shop. It would be like, oh wait, what happened now? You know what I mean? For most bands, every release is a surprise to America. I'm always surprised I get to make another record, so I get a surprise release every few years. That's right. Let's think about the scale of these things, I guess.

But yeah, I mean, it's cool, it's exciting. I think, but I think that it's really just a way to get everybody to be. The other thing I find really funny, and I saw it especially with the Frank Ocean record, is that like, when something, you know, it's really a way that you know, drops out of nowhere. Suddenly everybody's like falling all over themselves to have the first opinion about it. And your first opinion is like almost never your best opinion.

I mean like everybody listening, I'm sure has experienced the thing of like you hear a record for the first time and you're like, this kind of sucks. I hate it. And then you listen three more times and you're like, oh my God, how did I live my life without this?

Sometimes those are the best record. Well, it's especially with like, there's like a little bit of magic going on there, right? Because like Frank Ocean dropped out of nowhere after everybody waiting for it for two years. So I think in people's heads, they had a lot of preconceived notions

about what they were expecting. That led to a lot of, like... I mean, there was, like, generally pretty positive reaction. Or it can happen the opposite way, though, where you're like, oh, my God, this is brilliant, genius, stunning, a stunning masterwork. That I stopped listening to on Tuesday. Yeah, you listen to it a couple more times,

and you're like, ah, it's just like a... Once I know the tricks that it's doing, I'm like a little over it, you know? Or if it sounds... I mean, this has been my reaction to the Frank Ocean record, which is all I heard in it was the potential of what it could be and just almost bumping up against what I wanted it to be. I had dreams of this being this masterpiece because we all wanted it to be a masterpiece

and there are many nice things on it, many nice moments on it. See, I'm the flip of that because I found it emptier the longer time. I was like, while very much appreciative of his talent, like was not the biggest Channel Orange fan, but I think Blonde is like absolutely. What's weird is a Channel Orange I loved when it came out and for me it's aged very poorly. Okay. There's certain like lyrics that I hear now. and I'm like, like Forrest Gump especially,

and then the, like, the Indian girl sleeps in the shade of the temple, whatever that song is. Those songs, like, really bum me out now, like, from a lyrical standpoint. But I can't speak on Bond because I've actually only heard one song off there. I want it to be awesome. Did we surprise you? Did you know the album came out? Did you just blow your mind?

I mean, yeah, my reaction time must be really slow. It's a little slow. Check the reflexes. Let's do, okay, so, but the thing, your way coming out was not a surprise, but the nature, I'm going to do a segue, Chris usually does, the nature of the record in many ways was a surprise.

So we can take you back a little bit. The last Ocquiville River record, Silver Gymnasium, it's a beautiful record, and one that was very personal, I mean, they're all personal to you, but this one in many ways was inspired by your childhood and your town where you grew up and you spent an enormous amount of time

making a beautiful film that went along with it, down, down the deep river. What was interesting to me most, is that, you know, your career arc up to that point, there are certain beats that are familiar to people who are fans of careers and that you were building at a certain level and getting a national fan base. Fans of careers.

I love careers. I love careers. I love careers. I love careers. I think it's fascinating to watch, and especially, and I'm curious. I'm big on career message boards. That's right.

Look, I never heard it put that way, but that's really cool. I like that. Thank you. See, that's why he's my friend. Yeah. He liked what I said. I'm not, busting your balls. But, you know, you put all this time and a lot of effort into Silver Gymnasium and the film.

And then after that experience, I remember when we would talk, you seemed a little bit disillusioned about the band, about making music and about what a music career even meant at this point. Is that fair to say? I was going through a lot of questioning everything. It was personal. It had to do with professional. There was professional aspects to it. There were things about the way I was living my life that weren't really helpful anymore. There were things about the way I was conducting my career that weren't really helpful anymore.

There were things about the world changing around me that were frightening to me. And I was sort of like in desperate need of a reset around, you know, and I look back on it now. And I think the Silver Gymnasium was kind of like, it was sort of like me stepping in one. It was kind of like me stepping in the right direction, but it was also kind of like me looking back on parts of my life and getting ready to sort of say goodbye. You know, like it was, I don't know. It was like I was ready to live in the present,

and I think that's why the Silver Gymnasium is so fixated on the past. I was like, let's just get really gorge ourselves on the past and on nostalgia so, like, I can get past it and live in the present. You know, Andy mentioned something about, like, you know, with like the national fan base and like the traditional arc of what you were doing. And I think that like for a lot of people

probably are age that you get to a point when you're doing, when your livelihood is tied up with the thing that you're ostensibly most passionate about in your life. Like there's that weird fork in the road where you're like, do I continue to like just make a living off of this?

And how does that change my relationship to like my traditional ideas of what this art means to my persona or my life or like what it will me back, was there stuff like that going on with that turning point for you? Like was there just, like, was it hurting too much almost? Like, well, you know, this is, this brings up something that I've been thinking about a lot recently because I've been trying to understand there's this thing about the marketplace for, for art

that is like, I am kind of like a kid in this way, like there's certain lessons about the world that I just refuse to understand, just don't get. But one of the things is that there's this sort of, of a record comes out, you know, whether it's our record or blonde or like whatever record it is. And everybody kind of like weighs in. And they, what they're really trying to do is describe it somewhere along a continuum of good and bad. Sure. But like there's something more to a record than good and bad.

I mean, it's just like how you can enjoy we built this city like way more than Stockhausen. Like Stockhausen is obviously better. Sure. Built the City is obviously worse, and yet there's more at play than, like, good and bad. And one of the things that I find really fascinating about, especially me because I've been the only constant with my band, is that on some level, albums have a soul, like they're halfway between a thing that is inanimate and dead and a thing that is alive and conscious. It's not like they really are, but they have some of the qualities of that because you pour your soul into them.

And it's a really, really exposing thing and a real leap of faith to, like, like pour your soul into this thing and try to make it a semi-living entity. And then it goes out into the world and everybody either buys it or doesn't buy it or steals it or ranks it or gives like a number value to your soul on some level. And you're sort of encouraged to sell it and you have to make up a story about it and then you have to kind of stick to that narrative in order to sell this your soul kind of. And the whole process, I know it might sound like a little naive or spoil. But it's something that I never get over how bruising that experience can be.

I can't even imagine. You know, this sort of thing of like, here's my soul, like, give it a number value. I guess that's probably why, like, you know, I was just, I was re, because his new record came out last month, and I'm such a big fan of Nick Cave. So I was watching the sort of documentary that he made a couple years ago when, because the Skyway came out, or pushed the Skyway. And he's so adamant about it being a craft. He's so adamant about, like, everything you think, you.

think about like it's so mournful and the cave and it's you know like this like deep gospel goth music he's like I get up every day and I write a song and I only get better if I keep doing that and that's the only way I stay sane yeah it's like it's like it's like it's like in my and he just chops wood every day and you know that must be like almost like a coping mechanism for the for the exactly the kind of judgment you have to run through things you can control and things you can't control Yeah. But art is very difficult to control. My whole thing now is just this understanding that it's an understanding,

but I don't know what it means or how to explain it better than this. But art exists somehow, like, good or bad, those are not, like, useful ways to think about art because art operates on you in a different way. We've got to rethink this whole podcast now. Yeah. Seriously. We all know. We apologize to Christopher Nolan.

Anthony Hopkins. I mean, it is helpful to think about and talk about, and you need some kind of objective, or at least maybe not objective, but like agreed upon by a large percentage of a certain group of people measuring system. But everybody knows the experience of, like, feeling pleasure from something that is, strictly speaking, bad,

being bored by something that is strictly speaking good, even enjoying the bad qualities of something. It's, it acts, art acts on like our, emotions and our serotonin and oxytocin and dopamine and all of these things that like exist and there's something about art like I remember when I was growing up my favorite artists seemed like parent figures to me you know they were dead but I knew what they looked like and I knew what they were they read their letters and I'd read their books and I felt like painfully so much like they were guiding me like there's a path who are you thinking of when you say that uh well like Henry

Miller was a real big one for me. His early records are great. Dylan Thomas was a big one for me. Groucho Marx, for some reason, the Marks Brothers. You know when you're a kid and you don't know, you're not snobby in a way when you're a kid. Like, you don't go, oh, this is black and white. I'm not going to watch it.

We only had two TV channels. So, like, I remember PBS was one of them, and I remember Mark's Brothers movies coming on and being like, it's like, you know, mainlining, everything like from Alonaldon and mash to like Bugs Bunny. Like Groucho Marx is like the pure uncut version of that. Do you think you really only had two channels? Or if your parents like fix the TV and they're like, sorry, well, it's really only PBS. Yeah, yeah.

No, I really, or static. Yeah. Well, we did. We had ABC, which kind of came in and out. It was like every now and then we'd have it a little bit more than others. But yeah, I mean, that exists far beyond the sense of like whether or not something is good or bad. Well, the other thing that's difficult is that, and we feel this way, I think Chris and I both feel this way, and one of the reasons why we're grateful to have mostly moved past music writing or being part of that narrative, is that it's really narrative driven. I mean, with a TV show, it's less intimate and subjective and personal, first of all.

People don't take episode six of Game of Thrones home with them, and they're like, I don't want anyone else to watch this episode because this episode speaks to me. People are excited. That's fascinating. That's very interesting. That's very true. Why do you think that is? Well, I mean, in general, my different, and I want to come back to the question, but, like, in general, one of the reasons why I was so much happier when I switched from writing about music to writing that TV was because TV was much more enthusiastic and communal and just excited, you know, and I really think it comes from the way that we interact with it, because music is so deeply personal. The things, you know, I think I've said this before, but when I was at Spin and Chris was writing for Spin 2, the, the, the, the, I would get terrible comments when I would not write about someone's favorite band.

You know, but the comments would be 10 times worse when I did write about someone's favorite band because how dare I share it or publicize it or get it wrong or whatever. There was a desire to take the ball and go home and enjoy the ball. Yeah. Whereas the TV, it's just people are psyched and they want to talk about it and share with it together. And I think that the intimate relationship, though, between the two mediums is very different. I mean, the kind of joy and sustenance that you can get from music, I don't know if you can get from TV. but it's a very different, certainly it's a very different thing

to be covering it. That's fascinating. I never thought about that. And so for us for TV, I think, you know, you get a lot of chances. Like we just started, we started the show talking about Westworld and the one episode has aired.

There may be 90 episodes before it done, so we get another chance to think about it and contextualize it. A record is the mark in the career where people get to weigh in and say something about it, which is sort of a long-winded way to come all the way back to the fact

that it does seem like with O.A. Your personal muse weirdly lined up with a digestible narrative. Because, which it wasn't canny. You know, it wasn't like something you done on purpose. But it was, but, you know, you have a whole new band. You're basically starting over. Yeah. The first track that you released is Ocarville River RIP.

Yeah. And you were in a casket. Yes. And what's funny is that as soon as I heard the record, and the record might be your best record. I mean, it's a beautiful, personal, very exciting, very different record. I knew regardless. I don't even need to cast aspersions at the fine people who worked there,

but I knew pitchfork would be like, okay, this is getting a good review because I can wrap my arms around it. I can explain what this is immediately. And really, you know, breakup albums, reformation albums, going up on drugs or down off drugs. Like, other than those four things, how do you grab hold of the narrative again? And that's kind of how it worked. So, understanding that I don't think you did this with any like Machiavellian plan,

what is it like to have basically steered into those waters with this record? Well, I don't know. It's personal to me, you know what I mean? Because I really was feeling like I was trying really hard. Like I was trying really hard to like keep afloat and like make enough money to, keep my apartment and like, you know what I mean? Like, um, just like keep having a career and, and somehow seem relevant and all of these things, right? And then I just, uh, and, and keep going in the same pattern. And I just started to realize that I, I just wanted to make a new kind of art,

like a, like, something that was like better, something that was like deeper and, um, that, um, that I, could, like, feel very proud of. And I also, a big part of that was realizing that it wasn't about outside affirmation. Like, it really was, this record is, like, the first record that I ever made, ever made, that I wasn't thinking about what people would think about it. You know, like, I was just really trying to make the most beautiful thing that I would want to listen to, you know? And...

How hard was that? Like, did you... It was easy. It was easy. Yeah. It was easy. Yeah, it was easy. I mean, I can't explain it.

I guess because I was, I had, I gave up. Like, I gave up, like, worrying about what, the popularity contest aspect of things. And once I gave up on that, I was, like, very, like, sad and freaked out, but, like, I was free. And so, like, I also, you know, not to act like I was a super brave guy. I also wasn't necessarily thinking of it as something I was going to release. That's what I was going to ask. Yeah. So that was like part of what gave me maybe that bravery or something.

But once I had gone along down the path far enough and I was like, this is beautiful and I like it and I'm going to release it, then the record started protecting me somehow. You know, like it was like, no, like I believe in you, Will. You know, I'm your record here. Here's your record speaking. Like we're going to keep going in this path. So, but now, of course, it is out in the world, right? And so I do need a good review from such and such a person. And I do need to do a podcast and have people know about me and all of this stuff.

That's a drag, by the way. Yeah, no, I know. But I'm saying, like, in this weird way, praise is, like, scarier than criticism. Because I'm always expecting to get criticized. And I just think, oh, well, screw them. Like, I know that I'm right. You know what I mean? Or I know that, maybe not that I'm right, but that I'm right about how I feel.

But when I, if I get praised, I think, well, I want to give them more of the thing that they praised me for, because I'm a people-pleasing person. You know what I mean? In early years of a band, like, it really does feel more, it's collective. The audience is there with you. You're on the same page. You have the 10 songs that you love and they love them too. You're experiencing this together. You're on the way up together.

But the longer a band goes on, the more it becomes a negotiation with what we want from each other. Yeah. And what brought us here to this room today with this weird Misan where we're up on Sondon. and the lights are here and you're there. Yeah, yeah. And everyone has to have their own, you know, has to... It's like, we'll listen to call yourself Renee if you play us unless it's kicks.

Right, well, right. It's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But it's also, everyone there is in a life. We laugh, but we're like five years away from, like, on-demand concerts like that. You know what I mean? Like, we're five years away from somebody, be like, if the Rolling Stones are still alive

and you pay X amount of dollars, like, you can design the set list or something. Oh, my God. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised, you know? I would pay for that as a consumer. That sounds pretty good to me. But that fan service aspect is a fascinating.

That's this thing that's like completely permeated the world. And in a way, there's something really beautiful about it, like in the way that when you're watching a cover band or a wedding band play, it's not about the cult of personality with like the star. You're not like, I wonder if the star is going to give a confrontational interview next. It's just a celebration of something that everyone loves. Yeah. But then the other side of it is that you end up with this.

like completely fan-pleasing, airless, like, here's just something to play air guitar to art. You know what I mean? This brings us to something that I know we wanted to bring up, which was in New York a month or so ago back when I still live there. We went to see Belli, the band from the 90s that we both love. And all three of us actually are big, big, big fans of Belly's not enough appreciated second album, King. And one of the things that was most interesting.

thing about that night was to see this band who had had an out-of-the-blue hit, the first record, which was now 20-plus years ago, put out the second record with all this hype and, like, they were going to make a rock album and they went to the Bahamas to make it. It was a phenomenon that was happening, right? So there was, like, a bunch of alternative rock bands who had gotten signed to major labels or had already been on a major label, but it had, like, kind of like a smallish hit, and then it was like this idea of going for it. I was actually thinking about Soundgarten because Soundgarden's featured in Black Hole Sun,

the piano version of it, is played during West. world and I remember still when Super Unknown came out and they were on the cover of spin the cover line was Hammer of the Gods and it was just like Soundgarden's fucking going for it like Soundgarden It's the idea of going for it

Yeah Soundgarden like cleaned up their sound and there's hooks and the drums are like and there's a ballad Volcanoes going on and there's a ballad yeah and like this idea that you could go for it back then and it actually maybe become superstars And the thing that was really freeing about seeing

this concert a month or two ago is that all All that context had melted away. This album that had been a failure, commercially, that had broken up the band. Much far superior record. I mean, I like Star a lot, but King is like a classic record. I completely agree. And when we got, when we were all back together, all of us in the Bowery ballroom, the band seemed to be enjoying it.

And it was stripped free. And the fans were enjoying it. And it was finally in this, this sounds ridiculous because it shouldn't take 20 years to do this, but it felt very pure. And maybe it was pure because all those stakes were gone. Yes, maybe so. It was kind of interesting to experience having stepped out of the narrative and how much that narrative defined it. Is that a fair encapsulation of what we talked about after our seventh stella?

Yeah, well, I was also talking about how, and I'm really curious about this with Belli in particular. They made this record star, which was like basically demos. Tanya had told me this, that it was basically demos. And if you listen to it, it's like really, really long and it's kind of inconsistent. It's really good. but it sounds like a whole ton of demos. And then they made this record King, which is like wall-to-wall hooks and hits

and like beautiful songwriting and catchy melodies and really emotional. You know, it's all very present and everything. And it just sank without a trace. And I don't know what happened. I mean, it was like the same people who like gobbled up Star took a pass on King for no pretty. particular reason. And that's the funniest thing to me is like how tides shift in really subtle

ways. You know, you see it like happen with, you know, a good example for me right now is like not that he's not popular, but like when you think about how every single word out of Louis C.K.'s mouth was a whole think piece like three years ago. And now he's just returned to the realm of like just another person doing work. You can tune in or tune out. There's like people who, who become like the total zeitgeist and everybody wants to talk about it. You know, nobody can say enough things about like stranger things or whatever,

or whatever the thing is that's the thing. And then we move on and we're like, oh, we decided we don't like that now. And I got to feel like on the side of belly, you know, I think the thing I'd mentioned to you was like hollow notes or like bands from the 80s like hollow notes or like guns and roses who are sort of like the kings of the world.

literally, like really the kings of the world. And then like overnight grunge happens and suddenly they seem like dinosaurs. And there's no way that they can get in. There's no way that Holland Oates are like allowed into the 90s. But the experience of being like John Oates was probably just the same as ever. It was like, yeah, I don't know, I take my kid to school. Daryl Hall lives in Buffalo. Yeah, exactly.

Plays probably like 150 shows a year and gets really well compensated for it. But that's his life now. I just feel like in like 1989. I can't imagine what that must be. It's like being at a party and everybody's so happy to see you and then you like go into the kitchen and get a beer. You come back and nobody's talking to you anymore. Then you just are like not welcome at the party. And it's kind of hard to understate what Nirvana must have been like for those guys.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that just must have been like I don't like what are you talking about? We're all speaking a completely different language now today. Like everything I knew is now useless. Like there's only been one or two or three moments like that in my. my life where I think there's been a cultural shift like that. It's interesting to think about the one that I think was pretty manufactured,

although it seemed to work a little bit, which was coming out of the 90s when the rap rock thing was ascended, and everyone was like, I guess this is a thing. And we were at spin and people were like holding their noses and putting limb biscuit on the cover. And then as soon as the strokes formed, literally, people talk about the mainstream media. Yeah, that's true. The entire media, cultural, whatever it was at that time before the web, completely demolished.

They were like, we got to do this. I know that they really aren't that popular, and they only have one album, like, we're being honest here. But we need to kill this thing and make this thing the other thing. And we need to enact a cultural shift that makes the other thing look like clowns. And to be fair, like, those, I still do think that the strokes and the white stripes in the, yeah, yeah, so we're like warranted that kind of attention. And it was great.

And it was great that there was a storyline that they were all together. And it was a narrative that you could get behind. It wasn't in a vacuum. But in the same way that, like, the dudes in, I feel like, the dudes in Warrant, they were like, Cinderella. Like, we're just having fun, man. Like, this is rock and roll. It's fun.

We like kiss and we like dancing around and we got to marry models and we're doing drugs. Wait, what? Like, then we can't do this anymore. But you must have felt like there's something, we always kind of, the pendulum always seems to swing back and forth in music between, like, actually trying to offer substance and speak to people and strip away the bullshit, which is something people crave. And then it becomes a little bit too puritan.

cynical finger waving, this music is good for you, eat your vegetables. And so fun comes in. And then fun becomes the rule of the day and everybody else seems boring. And then fun starts to get decadent and empty. And everyone's getting a hangover from fun. So then the good for you stuff comes back. So this is the one major difference that I think is happening. And I think it actually has a lot to do with sometimes like the icky feeling we have about

like how is it that we're like ranking and rating and like ordering even like these small basically like bands in their infancy were already over contextualizing them is because like the error that we're talking about there was literally like two or three avenues to any kind of mainstream press exposure or like that you basically had to be on MTV and spin like there was like only a couple of different roads

to exposure or radio just you don't even need it like EDM does not need our our like acknowledgement it's like a thriving business there's a thriving subculture it has its own media, it has its own live venues. But isn't that a continuation of something that's been happening even since the 60s? Absolutely, but it's sort of like the dead or something.

Far more popular than like we would, if you just looked at like what say, like music was written about on five or six sites like Volture and Rolling Stone or like pitchfork or whatever, you wouldn't think that Zed was like really popular. Yeah. But he's probably way more popular

than any man we have ever talked about on this podcast. Do you know what I mean? Like, in terms of just like sheer number of people, who are engaging with the stuff. So I just think it's like it's weird. It's like there used to be such a weird cheap thrill of like, oh, I just discovered Superchunk. Yeah.

Like no one else knows about this. Not that I'm not sharing it, but that it was literally just like this small group of people who would talk about like these bands. And now it's like, no, like by the time Supertunk would have gotten to their third record, they already would have had like a long form feature written about them somewhere.

There's tons of lists about where you should start. what are their five best records? Have they fallen off? Have they gotten, you know, like, I think. I mean, that's, it's not like an overarching theory of everything, but I do think it's why that happens now. I'm thinking about Zed. I'm thinking about doing a hierarchy of Zed.

Well, what's so funny to me in the music business is that when I was coming up in the early 2000s, the indie world hadn't really crumbled very much because of illegal downloading, it was still, the hierarchy of the way that indie labels worked in the late 80s was still working pretty well. And if you had a 50-50 handshake split deal

like punk rock style with your label, and you didn't sell that much, and you piled in the van, you could make like a living income. You know, it was like a really good thing. And then it started to hit the Indies, and the Indies were like all the impacts of illegal downloads and then streaming. And the Indies were like, had well,

less cushion and way less preparation for it. And now, every time I put out a record, the landscape is different. They'd be like, oh, it's all about the week of release. And then two years later, they're like, well, the week of release doesn't really matter that much. It's all about this. You know, it's like every, the industry looks different, like completely different every two years.

And we don't know, like, where any of it's going. And that aspect of it is. And then I, you know, I'm also really fascinated with, um, this concept of like relevancy too, because it seems like that is the single driver of everything. And once we decide that something is relevant, like you know what I'm talking about when you see like a feature on somebody

who just had an album that came out or a show or a movie or whatever it is. And you can't really tell from the tone of the piece whether they actually think it's good or not. There's this sort of a grudging, like, I guess I have to write about this. And I'm sort of like writing about what it means. me what it means as opposed to like...

I've written those pieces. Yeah, discussing whether it's actually good or not. Yeah, right. And that aspect of it, you know, when you're talking about the strokes, that's an interesting, like the strokes taking over from Slipknot. That's such a fascinating thing because it was like, probably nobody at spin liked Slipknot. So like, why are they writing about it? You know?

The late, I mean, the weird thing that's been in particular, although I think it's emblematic of the industry as a whole, was that it's... greatest success came from something completely unsustainable and fluky, which was there was this magic five, six year period where the artists they really wanted to write about and really liked could be put on the cover of magazines and sell. I mean, PJ Harvey was on the cover of spin. I mean, the 90s were super weird before that. And then coming out of that, the circulation levels were such, and the subscriber base was

such that you needed to maintain those numbers, and no one had any idea what was going on. They knew that they couldn't put Backstreet Boys on the cover, 97 or 98. So there was this period where, you know, and to his credit, Alan Light was the editor-in-chief then. He tried, you know, because he wasn't sure. So he put pink on the cover. Yeah. Had that do? Okay, we'll put Papa Roach on the cover.

Like, who is a cover artist? Yeah. Put outcast on the cover. You know, there were some interesting things that slipped through. But the hunger for the strokes to exist and to be good looking to the point where, like, did they need to have a issue of spin where there were five different covers, one for each stroke? Yeah. Probably didn't. But internally in that office, that was, like, blowing off some serious psychological steam.

to be able to do that. But two years later, it's like, you know, I love Death Cap for Cutie. Like, should they be on the cover? What does that even mean anymore? Because the mainstream was so broken up, but who knows what it was anymore? That moment was gone. You know, it's funny because you're talking about how that's such a crazy thing. But in the 60s and 70s, I would say probably the majority of the time, the artists on

the cover of Rolling Stone were people that we still look back fondly on their work. They're considered classic artists. probably most of the people at the publication really thought they were good. I agree. And something about the way that radio tightened up and the way that the record business tightened up in the early 80s into the late, early 90s, suddenly there was all this crap. You know, there was sort of like, not that it was all crap, but there was like a lot, much higher crap quotient. And we live in this weird time. I feel like the Kelofasane raucist piece is what broke all this open.

Yeah, where he suddenly was like, you know, there's something you can be intelligent like pop music and optimism and all that. And now we live in this weird time where that's the justification for writing about, like, big popular music that's not even really that good and spending, you know, 99% of writing is writing about that. And then some really worthy artist like His Gold and Messenger or something gets like to feast on the like percentage for percentage. But then there's also, there are really great.

There is like Frank Ocean or Beyonce or like Rihanna or Bonavere, like people doing like really chewy, heady, you know, meaningful work that everybody's looking at too. So it's a weird like hybrid time all of a sudden, I feel like. To flip it,

well, two things. One, I think that, you know, you were talking about the like the no fun police. Yeah. Like spin sort of box itself into that corner oppositionally.

Because like in the 80s, Rolling Stone could put Janet Jackson on the cover and it's part of a continuum of the larger scheme of pop music and this is why we do what we do. Spinn's whole thing was like, we don't put Janet Jackson on the cover. So when you don't have rock anymore, like, who do you put on the cover?

Right. But to your other point, you know, I think that music is generally just very precious because in TV, like we cover TV. We've never said the words Big Bang Theory on this show. You know, it's the most popular show on TV. It's fine. It services what it is.

It is a, you know, in many ways, the multi-camp sitcom is like the pop song of television. It hits its beats. It hits its pleasure zones. But we can have this. thriving conversation about stuff that is essentially pretty niche. Andy and I have spent most of the last five years on one or two coasts. I mean, you just, you're in the middle of a tour when you're out and like other parts of

America, people are like, what's your relevance, bro? Like, I mean, like, actually you're right. That's, that is really a kind of a coastal conversation. Well, I just, I mean, I think it's an internet. Like if we cruise into Salt Lake City, the audience is like liking the show and they're not really thinking about like what are, how relevant. What do you mean in 2016? Yeah, right.

But I do feel like that's what, but there is, like, this secret narrative that's underneath Twitter and that's underneath websites that write about music or that write about TV is like it's all this kind of like Kelly Blue Book value thing. Yes. It's like relevance. And it's not really about like goodness, you know, and that's fascinating to me. But it's also, I'm wondering what you think about this. I think that one of the problems in music, for me, and maybe for Chris too, this is one of the advantages, is that to write about music, especially in the 90s coming out of college, we didn't need to know anything about music, like how it was made or even like what producers did.

We just had to have strong opinions and a lot of adjectives. You know, that's really fun about it. TV, one of the reasons why I enjoy writing about it, and I think the conversation is in some ways healthier is because there isn't this third rail. Like we can talk about production and the business behind it and the decisions. And for some reason,

maybe because TV has always been compromised and dirty with ads every few minutes, it doesn't feel so unholy to do that. Whereas in music, There's always this thing where it's magic and pure. And, you know, for example, Billboard ran a cover story a few weeks ago on chain smokers, who are the most popular artists in the country at the moment. I think this article is fascinating.

I think the chain smokers are fucking fascinating. Yeah. Like they are basically like frat boy chemists who know exactly how to dose you with exactly what you want to hear in that moment and what they should be playing in these large moments when the beat drops. They're scientists. And I think that's a kind of genius to it. Whether it's good genius or evil genius, unclear. But to have that conversation involves a certain acceptance of commerce and forethought

and clinical planning, which has generally been anathema from a musical conversation. Yeah, that's why when I bring up the thing where I was like, you know, a record has a soul and I'm putting my soul into this and then people are judging my soul. And I prefaced all that by saying, I'm like this little kid who doesn't get it. That's exactly what it is. Because it's like, I bring my soul to the soul market and I put it on. my table with a little sign. And then I look over and I'm like, the chain smokers are selling a sports car, not a soul.

And everyone's like, well, obviously, like, that's a really flashy sports car. I'm going to drive away in one of those, you know? Like, forget that, like, bespoke little, like, single soul that that dude's got in the jar, you know what I mean? But I can never get it through my head. I'm like, I have this, like, really weird, like, idealist. And, yeah, it's, but I guess TV, because everybody, um, understand. is that TV is like a giant clanking mechanism.

You know what I mean? It's collaborative and it's, you know, trying to make the least worst mistake and they're just getting it on the air. It's not, it's not soul harvesting in the same way, even though it certainly can be. Yeah. But the dominant, like, I think we do all think of this idea

that, like, the best records are the perfectly pure, you know, shout of the soul, basically, kind of pure. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's what people want from music. Like you're, you really come to it when you need it, you know, like, and when I say that, like, for example, I was on a plane that was like super, super, super turbulent recently. And I don't get scared on planes, but this point was so scary. I do. I just jump in there to be your avatar. Yeah.

This was very scary. And I put this song on it. I actually remember what it was, but I felt it really helped me. and I felt so grateful that this song was there. Was it by the chain smokers? Yes. But then, you know, I also could be like, oh, I'm going out to meet some friends at a bar. I'm really excited.

I'm going to drink some cocktails. Like, I might just put on like a Phil Collins song or something and be like, yeah, I love this song. It's great. I'm really having a good time. I'm kind of like laughing with the song a little bit. But you're always like coming to music when you need it. You know what I mean? So it's like there is this kind of relationship.

with a soul somehow. Whereas TV, you know, you can just put it on to zone out. You know, like last night I literally was just like. I haven't watched TV this whole tour. So I like, you know, smoked some weed out of a Coke can and went up to the bedroom of the Airbnb that we're staying in and watched all of the Atlanta episodes that are out. And it was like, great.

I just was like able to simultaneously shut off most of my brain and body. and plug in like another part of my brain and then go to sleep. And it was really great, you know. So we should let you go in a second. And we should also say we're recording this on Monday. Here in Los Angeles, you're playing the Teragram Ballroom here in Los Angeles tomorrow, Tuesday.

Yes. Any other shows that you want to hype this week for the cities, let him know you're coming? Well, yeah, we're going to be the next day. We're going to be in San Francisco. And, God, I wish I had a brain that would, like, tell me in my mind the dates. You keep going north from there? Yeah. There you go.

North of San Francisco, look out for him. Salt Lake City, Chicago. Finally, for all this, we had a heavy talk about, like, how hard music is and the naive soul-reaving that you are committed to doing. I'm so precious. But you've made this beautiful record, and you're out there playing for fans. Do you feel, let's just do it, like, a quick temperature check. How do you feel about your place in this artistic business landscape right now?

Are you optimistic? Are you feeling good about your career at the moment? Two complete minds. there's the when I try to think about my place it changes every single day and sometimes I'm like I've got it made and other times I'm like

I'm fucked you know like it really changes from five minutes spans but I'm also trying to recognize that it's not my job to think about that shit it actually literally is my job but it doesn't it doesn't help me necessarily you know what I mean like I'm not like doing myself or the fans or anybody any favors by like stressing about my Kelly Blue Book rating.

So like I, most of the time I try to forget about that. As far as the standpoint of like how I feel artistically, I feel like my like life got saved. You know, like I haven't stood on stage and not wanted to get off stage and felt like I'm in a warm bubble of friendship and music and, you know, warmth. Like, I haven't felt that since 2003 or something like that. And I feel like I'm making art that has the best chance of lasting. And I actually think it's not even about whether it's good art or bad art. It's just like something about it feels really like alive to me. So that aspect is just what I try to focus on.

And when I try to think too much about like what is it going to fetch at the market, then I start to get like, I start to actually get super removed from the attitude that made the art good or made the art alive in the first place. You know what I mean? So I'm trying to like not do that. Thank you for bringing the bubble. Oh, we're here to us.

Thanks for joining the Kelly Bluebook pod. It's a little awkward, but. Greenwald and I will be back on Thursday. We'll talk a little bit more about Atlanta and Luke Cage. Yep. And whatever else comes to mind. Until then, thanks for listening. Great job, Bransky.

Thanks again to Falling Water for sponsoring us today. We think that we each dream our own dreams, right? But what if someone could walk out of their dream and into yours? What if they could use your dreams against you without you ever knowing? On October 13th, the producers of Walking Dead and Homeland present Falling Water, a new original drama on USA Network, where the battle for your dreams is real and happens while you sleep, because those who can control dreams can control the world. Falling Water, a new series Thursday, October 13th, 10, 9 Central only on USA Network.