WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1360 - S.G. Goodman

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

Singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman creates songs about complex people and conflicting ideas. She sings about complications that are close to her heart because she has lived them. Raised on a farm in rural Western Kentucky, growing up with a strong Christian background, reconciling the basis of her faith with her emerging understanding of philosophy, S.G. has plenty of stories she can tell through song. Marc talks with S.G. about farm life, being traumatized by corn, her OCD diagnosis, and her pandemic pen pal, Paul Schrader. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Lock the gate! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it thanks for uh hanging out if you're new here, welcome. Just hang out and listen.

You know, some of us have been here a long time. Some of us will be talking during this. But if you're new, it's best to just listen, unless you have to. Unless you really have to interject, go ahead. I know that I do at times, but I won't hear you. Yeah. Today on the show, I talked to S.G. Goodman, who I love. Love her. She's a singer songwriter from Kentucky who just released her second album, Teeth Marks.

Her first album, Old Time Feeling, came out in 2020 and I got it from somewhere. It was sent to me with some other stuff, I think, from her management company, the woman who also, I think, manages Jason Isbell and a few other people. But nonetheless, I've had a relationship with that company a bit in terms of them sending me stuff. And they sent me S.G. Goodman's first record. And I just listened to records and it just struck me her voice her songwriting the feel of the music it just uh kind of leveled me and I've been a fan ever since so when the second album came out I was like holy shit and it's great but I got to talk to her and uh it was a real uh treat for me.

Because, you know, there's people that do that kind of stuff, that music stuff. And she's sort of an interesting character, it seemed to me, living in rural Kentucky as a gay woman who writes these profoundly deep songs. I was curious as to what she was like. No idea. So when I got the opportunity to talk to her, I was like, yes, please. So you'll be hearing that. This,

I want to tell you, I will be taping my HBO special on December 8th at the Town Hall in New York City. You hear me? Pre-sale tickets are on sale now. You can get the link at WTFpod.com or at Ticketmaster. The pre-sale is running until 10 p.m. Eastern tonight. The access code is the word TIME, T-I-M-E. I believe all caps. Why not do it that way? That's how it's written. Tickets are on sale to the general public starting tomorrow, Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern. Bucket on board. It's going

to be fun. It's going to be exciting. It's a great venue. I played there for the New York Comedy Festival. And I'm going back. I got to oil this. I'm going to oil it. Sorry. I'm going back i gotta oil this i gotta i'm gonna oil it sorry i'm gonna oil it so yeah since i got back from the run in uh lincoln des moines iowa city i did receive for those of you who are concerned and in the loop about the budget tail, I did receive a receipt from budget. But I don't believe it was for the correct car. But I don't seem to. I've not been charged anymore. But it says that your Nissan Rogue AWD has been checked in successfully.

I didn't have a Nissan Rogue. I had a Kia. rogue awd has been checked in successfully i didn't have a nissan rogue at kia nissan rogue was something i took and then gave back within hours because the oil light came on but i'm glad you got it back that same day maybe these things just take a while to process between here and lincoln nebraska i don't know but i'm glad that the Rogue that I drove for an hour and parked in the exact same place that I took it from made it back. That was on Thursday, last Thursday. Oh, another thing I want to talk about real quick is that I'm very happy about Mr. Snake in the way that I'm getting a lot of emails and some DMs on Instagram. By the way, I joined TikTok, doesn't matter. My heart's not in it. I posted one video. I'm not going to chase it, but I'm there.

Maybe if you follow me, I'll be incentivized. Not looking for... It doesn't matter, but I did it. But I get a lot of messages one way or the other from parents who are able to bond around my voice with their kid. Like I have fans who are grownups who now go to the bad guys movies and my voice is Mr. Snake and their kids like Mr. Snake. So there's sort of this weird bonding going on between two different versions of me talking. And apparently some guy, I couldn't find the DM. Things get away from me. But some guy wrote me and said that he was playing my podcast

in his office or something in the house. And his kid came in and said, do you know Mr. Snake? That's Mr. Snake. Do you know Mr. Snake? That the kid was able to identify my voice here on this podcast as being the same one as Mr. Snake, which is more like this. But it's interesting that the kid knew. Maybe it's not that different. I thought it was different. I was in character, man. But I love that. I love the weird bonding of kids and their parents around these two different versions of my voice. Okay, look, S.G. Goodman is great. And you should really just pick up her records and take it in. She's the real deal. And I was happy to get to talk to her because I've been a fan since I got that first record. Her new album is called Teeth Marks, and you can get it wherever you get music. And this is me talking to S.G. Goodman. Are you self-employed? Don't think you need business insurance? Think again.

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One thing about me is I'm terrible with song titles, album titles, and musician names, even band names. Yeah. So it's kind of like I'm not the best person always to talk to. I have my thing that I like. And that's it. That's the parameters. Kind of. And it's funny because everybody's like, have you ever heard this song? I'll say, I don't think so.

And then they'll play it and I'll be like, yeah, I've heard that. Well, I mean, if you grew up in America, there's a handful of songs that you couldn't avoid. Exactly. So you know what they are. Yeah, exactly. But then if you get, yeah, I mean, you just like what you like. I mean, I kind of, I'm trying to spread it out. I am too.

I mean, you just like what you like. I mean, I kind of, I'm trying to spread it out. I am too. And I, that's this, you know, I'm out on tour by myself. It's the first time I've had alone time since January. No band? No band. Just you and the guitar?

Just me and a guitar. Huh. Yep. How's that going? It's, I mean, there's elements of it, you know, if you're used to at least having an extra guitar player with you, you took away your security blanket and it's just you. So it's a good character building exercise. But really, I did this because I needed to be alone for a minute. Well, I tour as a comic alone and I love it.

Yeah. as a comic alone and i i love it yeah i mean because even if you're just with one other person like if i have an opener or something we're in the car together you're you're sort of being in relationship 100 yeah and and so you make decisions that you may not even really realize in relation to that dynamic even if you're not on stage with the person. Exactly. And I struggle with codependency. Oh, jeez. I had no idea.

I know I'm an addict. Yeah. But the codependency thing is a fucking nightmare. Yeah. And honestly, until this last year, I had the definition of it wrong yeah like would you think i thought it was like we depend on each other to get something done not that oh this makes sense that i'm so worried to say my truth around you that it's going to hurt your feelings or that you compromise yourself exactly and i do i do that a lot. Yeah. You

create like I noticed this a lot lately. You're creating a narrative. You're inventing a person that you're reacting to. They might not be thinking about that at all. It's speculation. It's a weird natural thing where

you erase yourself to honor this idea that they might take offense or think this or think that. Yeah. Yeah, it's really conflicting with, you know, kind of like I'm a very mothery person. Yeah. And so, but with the way things have developed for me. Yeah. but with the way things have developed for me yeah in the last few years just with time and energy i have learned that i have to learn to set boundaries even like within myself you know

oh you mean with you with me as far as drawing a line drawing a line with myself and with others and sitting with a lot of uncomfortable feelings of thinking that they're not having a good time or something. So if I don't have my bandmates with me, I'm not worried about leaving a hotel and someone leaving something or just a lot of different things. Exactly. And it's a relief. It's so nice. It's so nice just to be like, where do I want to eat? Exactly. What am I going to do today?

Exactly. I don't have to call anybody. Yeah. But you do things, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Did you grow up in a boo right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Did you grow up in a boozy world? Boozy? Yeah. As in like booze to drink? Yeah. No. So the codependency didn't come from growing up like that? It wasn't anything like that.

I think it maybe came more from just probably the family business kind of thing wait where what was that farming and you were where um hickman kentucky do you have people in floods right now no actually um where i'm at it's more of a drought situation or it has been but eastern kentucky you're still there you're thinking i'm in western kentucky i'm in murray kentucky which is about an hour from where i was raised i was born in union city tennessee i was just in louisville oh yeah yeah how did you what do you think of that city i thought it was good i i don't know that i had i had a great sense of it but i definitely had um were you downtown or out? Okay, yeah. I played at that Kentucky Performance Arts Center there in the Baumhard Theater, about 500-seater.

Nice little tiered theater. Never been there. Oh, it was great. It was great. But I can't say I know exactly what was going on there. I had a good view of the river, and there was a lot of Muhammad Ali around. Yeah, that's not a bad thing. No.

Louisville is a really cool city. It's an old city, and as far as architecture goes, it's more – if you get out of the downtown, it's more reminiscent. Some of the houses and stuff of an older city like St. Louis or even a little bit philadelphia something like that but i think personally that louisville aesthetically is way like better than nashville or something it just doesn't have the same i don't know what's going on i don't know what's going on in nashville anymore i mean i i haven't been there in a while but the last time i was there i'm like what are they building why is there a line at every restaurant it's yeah it's it's terrible like it wasn't exactly quaint but it was certainly its own thing it is i i lived there for about six and a half months in 2018 to 19 yeah and and that amount of time i mean it's just become

i don't even like driving through there the drivers are so crazy and yeah my rent for that one room is more than my mortgage in kentucky so it's just it's pricing everybody out yeah they're closing down like notable venues yeah it's really not uh as they can close down that meet-in three next to Carter's Guitar Place? I don't know. What was that place called? Is it Arnold's? Arnold's, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went into... It's Carter's Guitars, right? Almost bought a gold top, like a real one. Oh, yeah. I think it was one of Ed King's. Oh, wow. I got reissued.

I don't know where it's in the case. I try to get all my guitars for free if possible. Yeah, I hear you. I like to get a lot of stuff for free as much free stuff as i can so farming you grew up in a farm i know you probably talk about this a lot but it's like i don't uh i don't know what that's like or what that means to grow up on a farm yeah people in the family i am one of three kids i'm the middle yeah two brothers wow yeah and um you know it's kind of hickman is a small place and probably less than definitely less than 3 000 maybe 2 500 people you know and um when i was born yeah uh my dad and his brothers and his and their father

still all farmed together huh and what was the crop so it was primarily like corn wheat soybeans and at one time that area was known for cotton and then the markets kind of changed at one time they quit growing cotton there and um actually when i was a teenager they started growing cotton back in fulton county and um yeah so that brings some ghosts with it yeah i imagine yeah i mean it's uh it's uh it's just kind of a, what do you mean by that? Well, I just mean that, you know, you associate cotton fields with slavery generally. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a reality, especially along the Mississippi River, which is where my home county is. It's the most western southern tip of Kentucky on the Mississippi River.

Yeah. So, yeah. So, but soybeans and corn, those are all kind of multi-use, big business crops. Yeah, they're mono. It's monocrops. So, you know, my family, it's not, they're not small farmers. Right, right. And, well, they are technically, but as, you know, when you tell somebody like, you know, my grandfather, he took his GI Bill and he worked with the TVA and saving money.

But he was a farmhand for a man named Mr. Thomas in Fulton County. And when Mr. Thomas retired, my grandfather, Bill, bought Mr. Thomas's farming equipment. And that's when he became a sharecropper. And so that would have been... Did you know that guy? Yeah, I did. He died when I was pretty small, but I do have memories. I was about four years old, almost five when he passed. But yeah, he was uh i think my grandfather was six four big guy giant guy yeah yeah so did you grow up driving tractors and stuff i did and uh you know it's this is really big equipment and i didn't i mean believe, that that work is is really hard.

Yeah, there was a lot of equipment that I didn't drive. My dad always wanted me to drive the combine. He thought that would be a great job for me. But there's a lot going on there and kind of scary. But you got in there with him. Oh, yeah. I loved going to the farm with him when I was little. And, you know, at one point, you know, it's funny, my dad and his brothers, they would have seen agriculture change from cabless equipment to where they have cabs.

And now, you know, my dad can. Oh, things you have to pull on the tractor as opposed to drive? Well, as in, like, there was no cab covering you. Right. Okay. So you were in open air, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just breathing all the chemical or whatever. Sure.

So now, when I was a child, yeah, so we were all in cabbed vehicles. So that must have been very exciting on the farm when the cabs came. Well, I don't remember that, but my dad would. Sure, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, and also power steering. Oh, yeah. That's a thing.

Right, yeah. So your grandfather probably had made the transition out of some livestock pulling things, maybe, or not quite. Yeah, he worked mules. Yeah, right. And then into tractors and then into, wow, the evolution of farm equipment. lifetime and and in my lifetime something came along where it's uh with when gps kind of you know made its way into farm equipment um now you kind of grid your fields and the tractor will know the layout of the field and it'll line itself up so you have really straight rows oh that's good.

It's good. I mean, it's, you know, they do all that stuff to try to make things more efficient and bring more yields. Sure. Now, is your family still on the farm? They are. My oldest brother still farms with my dad. And, you know, like I was saying earlier my my dad and his brothers used to farm together but it was a a lovely southern uh drama of the brothers not getting along and splitting everything

up so and they did that oh yeah definitely so you don't talk to your uncle oh i do yeah it's kind of strange now none of them talk to each other and it's a i mean it really is like a flannery o'connor story because we you know they all live in the same county so they definitely see each other probably every day do you know what it was over i mean you know a lot of people it's strange as a kid you know you might think one thing but as an adult you realize that you got one of three stories yeah right yeah so like you you kind of have to and they're two sides at least right yeah i mean i would say so and and complicated and maybe they were you know at times too immature and where they were when it was happening to yeah to figure each other out. I don't know.

I just watched The Straight Story. Did you ever watch that David Lynch movie? It's so good. You've got to watch it. It's that guy Richard Farnsworth. He plays an old dude who's got a beef with his brother, and he's like 80. And you don't ever know what the beef is about, but he just gets on a driving

lawnmower and drives across like you know a state and a half wow to to to go see his brother who had just had a stroke it's one of the most beautiful movies it's a david lynch movie oddly but it's so uh specific yeah and moving yeah like it's almost like he's driving that to pay penance. Huh. It's really something. Yeah, I'll check it out. Or you'll actually have to write it down. Yeah, it's hard to find.

I'll take a picture of it for you. You can't even stream it. But maybe I'll give you the DVD because you're on the road. I don't know if you can watch it. Does your computer got got DVD on it? No. But maybe I can. We'll see.

Yeah, I'll try to figure out a way to watch it. But the funny thing, I don't really watch movies or TV at all. Yeah. What do you do? That's a great question. I work outside. I play music. But on the road?

Don't watch a little TV in the hotel room? Sometime in the hotel room, I'll turn on. I like to cook. I'll turn on the Food Network, even though you don't really learn a lot about cooking on there anymore. But it's fun to watch people cook. It is. You do pick up some technique and understand. What do you like to cook soups really i love to cook so you make your own stock i make everything

if i can what do you got for how do you make a like a beef bone stock a beef you ever do it i really don't i'm not a huge red meat eater okay and also chicken no chicken yeah chicken yeah i'm not vegetarian it's just you know we used to always have like a cow killed or something like for between family or split it with another family but you can't you know murray we don't have a butcher right you know i'm saying and i don't i'm not home someone's gonna do it someone yeah well uncle or brother's gotta yeah if if they do that but i don't eat enough yeah like red i don't like burgers oh so you're not in the loop when they're like do you want a half a cow do you have a freezer exactly i'm not gonna eat any of that probably but uh do you did you have cows on the property my mother's father had cows.

And he was nearby? Yeah. Okay. My whole family lived in one county. Okay. Still do. So someone had livestock, someone had vegetables. Oh, yeah.

And we always grew a garden growing up. I would still grow a garden, but it would just die. So you didn't have to go to the store for much? I mean, we did, but yeah, for sure. Did you sell your own produce and whatnot? Yeah, so my dad would plant an acre of sweet corn for each of his kids, and you pick that by hand. Sure. Sure. And so in the summertime, since I was a very, very small child, we would do that for, you know, extracurricular money and also school clothes and supplies and stuff. Yeah. It's terrible work. I don't even eat corn. I don't eat it at all.

No, you don't like it. I hate it. It's hard to digest, I think. It is. And when I was a little girl. You hate it because of your past? Are you traumatized by corn? I'm totally traumatized by corn. I mean, sometimes you're out in the south and it's like, get out there about 1030 in the morning and just walk out in the middle of a corn field and just imagine. You know, it's terrible. I hated it um but we would why because it's scary or is there a smell to it or what no it's just very uncomfortable hot work it's really

hard i mean just picking the corn yeah it's hard it you know tears up your hands and your face and you have to wear long sleeves and you have to we would get up before the sunrise and be at the field when the sun was coming up because by the time uh noon came around it would be too hot to be in the field right so you had to get the corn in in the morning get it in the morning while it's cool yeah and so it doesn't spoil yeah and then we would either we sold some like on the side of the road but we would try to get people that wanted like a thousand ears or something and sell it go quick yeah i always have that nasty worm at the top sometimes sometimes yeah or there sometimes it'll have a fungus on it that kind of looks like a mushroom and if you touch it it'll

poof into oh yeah yeah a little smoke yeah it's really gross and weird so okay no corn for you no corn for me what do you go what what do you go by in terms of is your name sg no my name is sg it is yeah as far as my initials for my name that's what people call you yeah well music with music. I mean, at home, no. What do they call you? At home? Uh-huh. Well, my name is Shana Gale Goodman. Shana Gale. He's Shana Gale. That's pretty good.

Mm-hmm. But yeah, I don't- You would have to have been a straight-up country singer to be Shana Gale publicly. I know. Isn't it funny? I know, and it's also kind of funny. I get asked a lot if I'm Jewish. Yeah?

Wow. For Shana and Goodman. Interesting. And that's a no, I imagine. That's a no. We're covering Southern Baptist. I can tell by the cover of the first record. I'm like, what's going on there?

Who's the snake guy? That's my dad. That's my dad, and that's a cotton mouth. Okay. But he's not a preacher? wasn't he's not a preacher no he's not a preacher did you grow up in pentecostal baptist no okay well that's good southern baptist yeah yeah that's good no snake handling no snake handling he he brought that home to show us so we wouldn't pick one up lesson learned yeah so when does because like i noticed you know certainly on the new record or on the well this record they are different i think in sound right don't you yeah definitely

and like there's some more rockers on the new record there's the production is different and there's almost like a kind of a heavy poppy punk song on this one. But for me, that You Were Someone I Loved song is kind of mind-blowing. And there's something about the the singing thing that you do that seems to go back to some sort of appalachian gaelic vocal tradition and you know i'm talking about that yeah definitely where does that come from in you you know um a lot of people ask me do i remember my first concert and i i don't but i went to three a week at church and um right when you hear like the old timers saying yeah you you learn music that way you learn the parts of music not because they tell you this is

the alto part you know that by the person who sings it at in your congregation right so you start you know hearing it that way and also i think you know i've just been around a lot of older people all my life through church that that sang in that tradition it was the music i was raised on and it was and so it feels very much I can't I can never get away with it right or get away from it yeah never get away from it well it's sort of like that but that's oddly like my education around that is only because of the roots of country music really yeah like the Carter family's all about that stuff right yep it's the same kind of history exactly and there's a consistency to it it's definitely a a a way of of singing

yep and it was all mostly church music those hymns and some of the church music and you know like my grandmother and and her siblings most older people I grew up around had a piano in the house. And, you know, that was a form of entertainment. And so having family sing-alongs or whatever was something they were used to. That didn't happen in my family, like when I was a child, necessarily. Now I have an aunt who would play piano and me and her daughters would sing in their house. My family has a piano in the house.

It just seemed like everybody had a piano in the house. Does anyone play in your family? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah? Yeah, both of my brothers. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Good?

Pretty good, yeah. They're both way better musicians than I am, for sure. But they didn't pursue it. Mm-mm. So that's, well, that's kind of, it's interesting. So in church, but there was, was there more instruments than piano? Was there any guitars or banjos or anything? No, because, you know, in my particular church, Southern Baptist, and even for that denomination my particular church was very very

conservative so they didn't want any type of instrument that would evoke too much emotion don't want anyone going crazy no we don't with a banjo you know yeah they just wanted to tell you you know they just wanted to preach fire and brimstone that was the only emotion they wanted you to feel you know that kind of stuff. Did that dig into your brain? Did it get a hold on you? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, I, you know, believed that I had like a salvation experience around 14.

Yeah? Got baptized for the second time after that. In the water? Mm-hmm, in the water. Yeah. And I really took it seriously for several years. And now I understand what that was all about. You know, I'm a pretty curious person, and I really dug deep into doctrine i loved reading commentaries and

you know like i liked using a concordance and all the stuff what is that it's it is a i am a jew you're gonna have to explain it so it would be like let's say you wanted to read everywhere in the bible that uh mentioned like using tongues or something so you could find that easily and look at it. And it might give you a little helpful notes. Okay. Just kind of a study tool. Yeah, got it.

So I was really big into church history and all this stuff. And even at one time, probably around 16, considered myself a Calvinist. So, you know, I believed in like predetermination. Oh, yeah. Stuff like that. Well, that's sort of exciting uh thing to do with your mind yeah i mean it kept me out of trouble you know did it yeah for sure so when you say you understand more about it now what do you look back and think well so i think that I just really love to understand things,

and that's actually what kind of led me out of it. I was a philosophy major in college. Were you playing music then? Yeah, so I started playing guitar around age 15, trying to teach myself a little bit. But church music? Yep. Oh, yeah.

Like praise and worship songs at the youth group and stuff, for sure. That was where it started? I mean, not really. It would have started earlier. I took piano lessons early on in my childhood and just hated it. But guitar, you kind of dug it? Guitar, I wanted to, you know, do that. And sit around with people and sing church songs? Absolutely not.

No, I didn't. I didn't want to. I would practice in the back bathroom of my house, away from everyone when everyone was asleep. I didn't want really anyone to know like what were you singing a secret yeah and that's why for the first several years especially as a teenager i had a problem singing with my mouth too closed and i think it's just because that's the only way i ever practiced oh right singing really really low. Were you embarrassed about it? I just didn't want anyone to ask me to do it.

Oh, oh. She's here with the guitar. Well, I was asked my entire childhood to sing at church. As soon as they know you can carry a slight tune, you're going to be asked to do what they call a special, which is just where you sing a song that's not a hymn at church and you do that kind of allowed well that i mean you got an amazing voice thank you so you knew that early on um i knew it wasn't bad no yeah but you could do

it yeah did you enjoy it no you didn't enjoy it? I mean, I understand being asked is nerve wracking, but once you were doing it, you didn't like it? No, it took me so long to enjoy performing. Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't confident in it. So it was very nerve wracking for me. So you're playing guitar, you're learning these church songs or praise songs. When did you start not playing those? When did it shift for you? What shifted you out of that kind of committed belief or engagement? Yeah, I could say that maybe a little of it had to do with music. But, you know, I started hearing people in my area recording and I started writing maybe different songs, like a local guy and it was like a year process basically and nothing ever became of it yeah just it was just an interesting situation what were you

recording uh some originals yeah but not god songs um maybe they had you you know, God undertone some of that. But then when I was 18 and trying to figure out if I wanted to go to college because I didn't. I signed up for college two weeks before it started and it messed me up. But I did that because there was a local guy near that college that he was actually recording stuff that sounded really good. And so I wanted to work with him. And I loved pop music, so I started writing pop songs. Oh, yeah? And so I was 18. I made a pop record.

Like pop pop or country pop? Like pop pop. Uh-huh. Definitely. Yeah? It was under my great-grandfather's name, Otto Sharp. Uh-huh. It was under my great-grandfather's name, Otto Sharp.

Uh-huh. And anyway, I started playing. I gathered a band and had my first show at this little pizza joint in St. Louis, which is about four hours from where that was. It was my first show in the world. Okay. At a club. Yeah. world okay yeah at a at a like a club yeah you know yeah and um that's when i started you know learning some hard lessons about live performances yeah i didn't play something right and i stopped

the band and asked them to start all over and that cute and i had a girl who was on that bill come up to me after the show you know i was just a kid in fact my dad came with me yeah he didn't want me to go up there with the with the boys by myself sure even though i was 18. yeah but um this this girl came up to me and said like honey no matter what you do up there don't ever stop a song and start all over you keep going wow did you feel it i was embarrassed i mean you know sure i couldn't hear myself i've never played in a venue before and i mean newsflash i still can't hear myself most venues are playing you just learn how to deal with that right but you know yeah i did that and then i got accepted to play this festival in Dewey Beach, Delaware, a really big indie.

With that band? With that band. Went up there with them. Yeah. And, you know, at that time I was now in college. Yeah. And that's when- Which college?

Murray State University. Okay. Yeah. And so it was there that I think some of my love for for church doctrine and all this stuff for Jesus. Well, at that point, there were just some real conflicting things in regards to like my sexuality. Yeah. Yeah. That were conflicting with my beliefs of predetermination. OK. You can see that. You know what I mean?

Sure. Yeah, yeah. And so that was a very big question for me. And I would go, my first year of college, I was pretty active in some of the churchy youth stuff on campus, like the Baptist Student Union and a few others. And I would go and try to have meetings with the leaders and ask them these questions about pre you know predestination yeah um and especially in regards to homosexuality and i mean if you want to watch somebody squirm you know just just go and Ask them that? Yeah. And then.

How did they answer? What did they respond? Because if you're coming up to them with a question like that, they know that you must be speaking for yourself. Right. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't really remember how exactly they answered me.

how exactly they answered me, but I remember the first piece of doctrine that was kind of a belief of my church that made me start doubting some things. I really wanted to understand why certain denominations used the idea that you could speak in tongues and why my church didn't believe that. And I found some inconsistencies, I thought.

Right. And my preacher at the time told me, he was like, you know, I really appreciate your questions, but at some point, like, your faith is going to have to take over. Okay. And I was like, all right, well, that's a little bit of a red flag situation. Sure, sure. And so, you know. Don't ask any questions. Yeah, it's like little bit of a red flag situation. And so, you know. Don't ask any questions.

Yeah. It's like, you know. Uh-huh. And, but in college when I got into philosophy and started, you know, studying like epistemology and why we believe things that we do or all this stuff. You know. Yeah. I found some peace around those things. Well, when you're able to break it down to the human need to believe.

100%. What any specific belief was became sort of neutral in a way. Absolutely. In fact, you know, in one class in particular, it was epistemology class, I kind of tell people when they ask how I feel about, you know, religion, I say, you know, there are a lot of valid arguments. But, you know, it's hard to prove when something is sound. Yeah. There's few sound arguments. Yeah.

And I imagine that dealing with sexuality, that it's relatively irreconcilable to those doctrines. Like there's no wiggle room in a lot of them. No. And there's, you know, there's definitely denominations that would say that's not true when it comes to the bible they would say that um you know my church wouldn't would say yeah absolutely no there's no wiggle room there yeah where my drummer whose parents are presbyterian ministers yeah you know they're not literalist right when it comes to reading scripture sure so there's like different camps within those worlds. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Oh, for sure. There's lots of gay Christians that believe the Bible includes them. It's just the reality is there's a lot of denominations that believe the Bible does not include them. That's just a fact. Yeah.

So. Yeah. And that happened to be the camp that I rolled out of. Right. You know? That you left. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And that happened to be the camp that I rolled out of. Right. You know, that you left. Yeah. Yeah. So in doing like once you took the philosophy class and once you started to question the predestination business and, you know, you're playing pop songs. So and you're starting to deal with your sexuality that must have been a pretty exciting few years yeah that's one way to put it mark you know yeah that's one way to put it i would say it yeah it was a time also because i'd taken you know my interpretation of how to act like a Christian so seriously to the point where I quit listening to most all secular music for a time where I limited like what I watched or read or anything in there so when I started working with this producer his name is Dustin

Burnett and a lot of people may know him as he's an artist by the name of Zade Wolf now. And that would come many years after we started working together. But he started giving me mixtapes of different CDs, different artists on there. Where'd you meet him? I met him by word of mouth. There were actually Kelsey Walden, who's a Kentucky artist, had made a record with him and some other local bands. And it just sounded the best out of the area. So I wanted to work with him. Yeah. Was that the guy that was near the college? And, you know, through him, he shared a lot of, I mean, that's the first time. At this time, you know, he had heard, he had a buddy who, I don't know, worked for some company that showed him like Arcade Fire before Funeral came out or whatever, you know, in a way for like the first time, really. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, I did a little bit in high school, but not much.

And it was like Arcade Fire? No. I mean, no. It was like, let's see, the White Stripes had like Tokyo Police Club. There were a lot of Canadian like bands. It was the first time I ever heard like Tegan and Sarah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Back then. So a lot of Popmetric, who's another Canadian artist. Let's see, The Kills. Yeah. Oh, wow. So that must have been mind-blowing. Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of mind-blown stuff.

Architecture in Helsinki, it's been so long, obviously, since I listened or thought about that. But when you were coming up, when you were growing up, you didn't have any secular country music? Oh, yeah. No, that period of my life where I told myself that I was going to, you know, like stop certain stuff from entering in my heart. No, I was raised on old country. I was raised on top 40 pop country and also old country blues. And my dad's like an old rock guy.

Oh, he is? And so, yeah. Classic rock or before? Classic rock, both. I mean, he really is a music appreciator. Oh, good thing. Yeah. So you were kind of in terms of your family, a little weird with your sort of immersion in the scripture.

Yeah, actually, I was. I mean, my my parents and brothers all went to church. But as far as that time being that strict, yeah. Do you think it was a reaction to you realizing your sexuality? I would say there's definitely room for that interpretation. Sure. And, I mean, it definitely took a lot of pressure away for, like, having a serious boyfriend because I was just waiting on the one God was going to send me, you know, Mark. Yeah, I know.

Yeah. Yeah. The predetermined one. Yeah. True love waits, Mark. But, yeah, no, there's definitely elements of that and also something that i didn't actually realize until i was older um i'm diagnosed obsessive compulsive with obsessive compulsive disorder oh and so a lot of times that's a really nice uh partnering with codependency it really works really well with code oh believe me i know

and there's not enough medicine in the world to really deal with that. But a lot of my obsessions, which religion was one of them, doctrine was one of them, make a lot of sense the more I understood myself through the lens of obsessive compulsive disorder. Oh, yeah? Mm-hmm. And where are you at with that now? What's your thing? Are you trying not to have things? Well, yeah, you're always trying not to have things.

I mean, I've been in therapy for many, many years. I just had therapy today before I showed up on the road. On the phone. Oh, yeah? Mm-hmm. Yeah, COVID kind of opened up a lot of laws around that kind of thing. Sure. But, yeah, I pretty much have to do it always remote now. Yeah.

And was that a therapist you used to see in person? Mm-hmm. So it's someone near your hometown? Actually in Nashville. Okay. When I lived there, I started seeing her. I've been with her for almost, I guess it's going on four years now. That's great.

Oh, yeah. It's awesome. Oh. Best thing. Best thing. Good for you taking care of yourself oh my goodness well i've seen i saw a lot of of therapists before that but as far as the ocd thing goes you know i would say depending people have a lot of misconceptions around obsessive compulsive disorder one um you don't necessarily like to clean or keep things tidy or whatever it's a compulsion yeah there's anxiety behind that that makes you have to do that yeah um also a lot of it is just in your head with like um obsessive thoughts.

Sure. Images. That's why I was going to say when you were recommending that movie earlier, I don't watch films and it's to protect myself from things like that. From repeating them in your mind over and over again. Yeah. So I have to really, really protect myself from certain images. I don't like to watch things that evoke anxiety much right right and um

it's always kind of an awkward conversation to be around people who are like in you know film or whatever to say never probably watch your show i i became i became pen pals with Paul Schrader. What? In the pandemic. What the fuck is that? How is that? Out of all the people, Paul Schrader, the great explorer of toxic masculinity, is your pal? Well, so listen to this so a friend from back home i was on facebook or something and shared that paul had uh had been sharing space and time i saw a song of mine from my album old time feeling yeah and i don't know who paul schrader is i sure didn't right then and but this guy posted he was like

great to see one of my favorite screenwriters post one of my favorite artists or something like that. And so I looked him up and I sent it to my manager. I was like, do y'all know who this person is or whatever? And of course, all my friends knew who Paul Schroeder is, the taxi driver and all this stuff. But I had never heard of it. I'd never seen any of his movies. So, you know, I reached out and thanked him for sharing my stuff or whatever and uh he gave me his email or whatever and we started you know he's he's an interesting story

and conversation but um heavy stuff yeah at one point i um you know he asked me if I'd seen his movie I think it's The Light Sleeper and of course I called my manager I'm like oh god here it is this is the moment that I tell apparently this important uh screenwriter guy yeah I don't watch movies and I don't plan to yeah so I did yeah you know I had the choice I was either gonna lie and say yeah I've watched it. And just like, what is it, IMBD? Isn't that the thing you look at in movies? Yeah. But no, I told him. I was just like, listen, I don't watch movies.

I'll watch it if you tell me where the scary part is or whatever. But whatever. And I ended up doing that and was. It's not a scary movie, really. Well, that part where the guy pulls out his tooth. I saw that coming and i was just like i can't handle that stuff you know and i you know some of paul's scores are kind of scary and heavy i think he wrote one of the exorcists uh he might have written and directed like the second

or third one i've watched i just watched one of his movies night before last actually uh blue collar the one with richard pryor and harvey kytel and yafe koto but like it's just yeah i know i didn't expect you to but you know well so how does this relationship then evolve from me telling you i've never watched and i never will watch your movies really well you watched light sleeper i watched that and um you know, we just kind of talked about, we shared playlists back and forth together. Oh, that's nice. And, you know, he's got a, I mean, he's been around a while. He knows a lot of people.

Oh, yeah. And it was just a good story. Oh, good. And, but he asked me to sing on his newest film. He's got one coming out, The Card Counter. Yeah, I saw that. I sang on that. You did?

I did. I went up to New York and I sang on that. I'm trying to remember the song. An original, a different one, or one of yours? No, it's not one of mine. Okay. Robert Bean did the score for that, and I went to Manhattan and sang on that. Oh, and I'm going to have to go watch that.

Did you watch that movie? That gets a little violent. Yeah. When you're doing that, you kind of get to see before the final cut and stuff. But yeah, it's pretty violent. It's hard for me. I mean, people love his movies, and I did learn things about- He's very specific.

He's very specific and um well good yeah so i learned about that but anyway and you were able to do some soundtrack work a little bit yeah and so that's cool but yeah all to say uh yeah sometimes trying to explain to people how i have to protect myself with the mental illness thing can get a little awkward and people don't really get what that means for me in any particular moment. Well, I think that's the same with even codependency sometimes. If people don't have these things, they don't have the capacity for empathy with it. You're just talking like, wow, that sounds terrible.

Yeah, but OCD, even in a mild way, for me, I don't have it in any pathological way, but I've got enough addiction in me to know that weird kind of need for closure and perfectionism. That's how it happens with me like i need answers and i also need you to make this right yeah i i totally understand that i think it's really difficult navigating that in a you know touring yeah it's it's really difficult it's a very uncomfortable well if you get locked in on something that you you can't get

uh satisfaction around uh yeah well i'll have depending on my anxiety level i can really sink into some germ issues oh really on a good day and through therapy you know cbt therapy and different forms um i've learned to be able to sit with certain things but if i'm in a really stressful situation or i've had a long period of time where I've had stress build up things shift I might get right now

at my level in my career I mean I need to be crashing on people's floors not spending money on one hotel room for five people. That's the reality of the finances. But when that happens, I know that all those other people's feet have been in that shower or outside of the shower or are leaving the toilet seat up when they're pissing. Or leaving the toilet seat up when they're pissing.

Yeah. That kind of stuff. Or, you know, looking back in the pillow I brought in the van, a bandmate is laying his head on it. Like these kind of things can make my skin crawl sometimes if I'm in a state of real anxiety. You know, so there's a lot that is conflicting with that because sometimes when i'm i would say healthy yeah i can deal with that yeah right sure yeah yeah but sometimes when i'm not it's terrible well i think it's like sadly it's the way your brain finds uh is grounds itself yeah right like if if things seem out of control you know lock into the pillow you know a hundred percent and and i i mean that actually just happened recently and and that's where also the codependency thing collides because because you

know my sweet little bandmate mikey didn't know that know that my skin was crawling when I saw that. And it's hard to say something like, get your head off my pillow. It's like, he doesn't have a nasty head. It's not going to really do anything. But that's not what was signaled to my brain. Right, right, right. So did you get a cop of resentment? No.

Oh, good. I mean, yeah, I threw something at him, Mark. Resentment? No. Oh, good. I mean, yeah, I threw something at him, Mark. No, I just, you know, I think sometimes, like, I think I did a joke or something at one point when we got out and got back in. I, like, maybe put it in the middle of the two front seats, and I was like, Mikey, this is mine. You know?

But there's, and a lot of people, like, when I was first diagnosed OCD or they were suspecting there was some stuff going on. You know, one of the things they ask you when you're like getting diagnosed with something or going through like a psych evaluation. Yeah. How many hours a day do you spend on this? Yeah. And when you add in codependency to something like this. Yeah. You know, now I'm thinking, all right, here's the way to solve this.

Bring a garbage bag. Put the pillow in the garbage bag. And it'll be a signal to everyone, don't take the pillow out of the garbage bag. So you're always having to think of ways to avoid conflict and anxiety in yourself and everything. So the codependency is trying to avoid conflict and the obsessive compulsive is the anxiety. Mm-hmm. It's a full-time job. It is a full-time job.

And that's the point. And that's why, like, you know, certain people like myself need medication. And we got to get you into a better hotel situation. I mean, I need to sell some records for that to happen. But yes, I uh love that i mean it's it's yeah it's uh in this world we live in it's funny you know with the streaming and stuff um you know i might get obsessed on a song and listen to it 150 times to give an artist a sale but i'm guessing a lot of people's brains don't work that way i don't't know. Like, I, you know, I get a lot of records,

and your first record just, you know, cut right through me. I don't know. Thank you. I, you know, I love it, and I love the second record. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I don't, you know, I don't know why, but I felt very connected to the emotions of it.

And because it's weird, I, you know, like, I had to sit down with it today both of them because i'm not like fully a lyric guy you know like i just i just hear feelings and i hear it's not even melody it's tone and feelings coming through and i it's not that i don't like voice i like voice but i have a hard time focusing on lyrics you know so i had to sit with them today you know when i was going to talk to you and so i i at least was informed of the poetry and could take what i could from it that's cool you know yeah no but i i mean i remember when i first got the record and i don't know what makes people

buy records or what makes people you know moved by records but but there was something I can't it feels to me that whatever you're doing when you write your songs or when you sing them, that's a totally open zone for you somehow. Because now just talking to you and seeing how your brain works it must be a real sort of portal to some sort of freedom for you. Definitely. But at the same time, it may be the one area where I think maybe the obsessive compulsive disorder really pays off you know the song you mentioned earlier um if you were someone i love yeah that song was written over the course of probably uh five or six years i'm not like a factory when it

comes to writing my one belief and about songs in general yeah like you know i can't lean on a incredibly interesting chord progression that's out of my wheelhouse, and I won't claim to. But if I remember something, then I think it's meant to, and it sticks around, then I think there's something to that, and I chase it for a long time until I get it right. Yeah, I do the same with material, because I don't, you'm not i'm not making things to sell it's not my intent yeah i'm moving through things uh emotionally and mentally yeah exactly and like i'll i'll do i'll have an idea and i'll have enough of it to get a laugh or to land it but then sometimes they take years to resolve themselves and to kind of of, I just keep putting them together. Yep.

Yeah, that sounds a lot like my progress. Oh, yeah. My process. I mean, there are songs that took years and years to write. And maybe there's one little part that it started with. But especially when it comes to lyrics, if you have the idea for the music and the lyrics aren't matching the feeling of that then you didn't say everything you needed to say and with with that song in particular just the overall theme of it it was really hard to believe that

I said everything I needed to say with that and that's when the acapella part came I was driving home from the studio that wasn't written over the course of many years that was after a night at the studio like a coda like it's like a part where because it almost like the thing it reminds me of is like something like like oh death you know like something that comes down from that play stuff yeah i i don't i don't know who did that i don't know who did that i don't know what version of that i know it's probably something from the t-bone burnett record or you know i think camper van beethoven covered it even but it's an old thing that speaks of you know a direct kind of conversation with the idea of it and there's there's that darkness in that song yeah it is and i and the funny thing

probably about three years before that came up i had written a little note to myself that i really wanted to write a song about the kildee bird and it's spelled kill deer yeah but we say kill d where i'm from yeah yeah it's a bird it's a bird? It's a bird. Well, that other song with the Kildee bird in there is like a great song on that first, is that on the first record? If It Ain't With Me, Babe. Yeah.

That's on the second record? On the first record. Right. If It Ain't With Me, Babe. That's the one that sort of, yeah, it's sort of like a Lil Townsie, a Lil Towns Van Dant feeling to it.

I love Towns. Yeah, man, that's like some heavy shit. I can barely listen to him sometimes because it's too heavy for me. It is really heavy. I just hear it in his voice. It's not even what he's saying. Well, it's definitely not the music because some of the music is kind of like... It's his tone.

Like I can't... Like it's just the weight of his spirit. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. But I felt that you must like him. Yeah, I do. Yeah.

On the drive out here, you know, it's like 17 hours, 17 and a half hours of Santa Fe. That was where my first show was on this run. I grew up in New Mexico. Which part? Albuquerque. I grew up in New Mexico. Which part? Albuquerque. I drove through it. Yeah. But we didn't play there this time.

17 hours? From Kentucky. From Santa Fe or out here? Oh. What were you listening to? I think you're about to say something. Yeah, yeah. I went through.

I'd never done it before. Of course, I've listened to Lucinda Williams. Oh, yeah. She's another one. But I went back and tried to listen to albums that I hadn't before. But I have an obsession with the year 1971 in music, and I listened to a lot of – there was just a million great albums put out in that year. Interesting.

Link Wray. Yeah. You ever listen to his self-titled album from 1971? Yeah. of uh that there was just a million great albums put out in that year interesting link ray yeah you ever listened to his self-titled album from 1971 yeah yeah you know with the big side of his head on it that with the it with the headband stones you bought his mama oh yeah those those like those records almost sound like stones records those two he did the one the barn record and then that one great yeah i mean but the way he delivers lines and stuff is amazing too. And, you know,

there was just something really special to me about that year. Yeah. Some of the amazing records came out. Is that when Karen's album came out?

Mm-hmm. That one. Did you watch that, you gotta watch that doc. Did you watch that doc? Yeah, I haven't watched the doc. It's okay.

Yeah. It's okay. Yeah. But it gives, it tells you about her. Like, I didn't know anything about her. Mm-'t know anything about her

you know and that whole scene up there in the hills you know down the street from Tim Harden and those other cats I just don't know

how those at that year at that era everyone was just sitting around shooting dope like people smoke cigarettes I mean

have you ever seen anyone shoot dope it's heavy I mean you can't just be in a room like I guess there's just gonna be some dope shooting over there but that's the way it was man it's heavy yeah i mean you can't just be in a room like i guess there's just gonna be some dope shooting over there yeah but it just but that's the way it was man wow it's crazy

yeah i can't imagine i'm just on the road i'm just searching for a salad sometimes to get you know it's like be thankful be grateful every day yeah it's like having a um yeah where could i get something healthy in this town laura bars on the rider doesn't cut it you know believe me like sometimes like i just had to give in you know louisville i didn't eat well in louisville yeah i can't imagine mark yeah but uh so so what would you say in like just in in in a lot of these songs like like, okay, so the new one, Keeper of the Time, because I can have an experience with words, but these words are very deliberate, and they're not a story necessarily, but they're evocative. But I don't know necessarily where they come from. Yeah. What is that?

What is the Keeper of the time that song seems like a heavy song yeah that i mean that's just about how trauma gets stored in the body that one yeah that that one yeah that so that one's like but do you like are you somebody that have do you have that trauma yes in your body from way back yeah Yeah. I've done EMDR and different things. And I think through that experience is kind of how I came to that song, for sure. Just understanding more about it and understanding maybe, I guess, a person's capacity for burying stuff within themselves too. When did it happen? When?

The trauma? Yeah. I would probably say, you know, there was just a lot of trauma around the time like I was coming out. Oh, okay. Like came out in the world and stuff like that. Okay. So there was a lot of... So it's new.

So it's not like some weird kind of like... 20s. I was six years old in my... No. Oh. Yeah. Oh, so it's like it's tangible. Yeah, tangible of like, I was six years old in my, you know. Oh, so it's like, it's tangible. You can track it. 100%. Yeah.

I think EMDR works better when you can really track it. For sure. Where you're like, this is what happened. Let's do that one. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I mean, like, you know, when people are talking about like their inner child and how you were taught to love or whatever, that might be a little hard to separate because, you know, that was so long ago. Sure. Understanding that part of yourself, I feel like takes a lot of work. But yeah, if trauma is more close to you, I think you can more easily identify it. And help yourself yeah because the stuff that happens in childhood you know sometimes it comes i think comes back in flashes and and and some of that kind of stuff really kind of rewires who you are and who you could have been yeah and so you you know to unpack that stuff is yeah and for survival you dissociate and you purposefully forget, you know. So memory is a weird thing like that.

But yours is like relatively fresh. Yeah, it would be relatively fresh for sure. But all in all, in terms of the experience now post coming out, do you feel comfortable and good? Yeah, I would say that, yeah. I mean, I'm totally comfortable with who I am. It's strange talking to people about it because, you know, in my current situation and for many years,

I don't have like a huge queer community around me. I live in a rural place. Most of all of my friends are straight. So, you know, now all of a sudden that a lot of journalists and things want to talk about my sexuality, I'm finding it a little hard because I don't have a lot of practice in that. And I don't really I don't really find it super relevant. And of course, I will always advocate for my existence and others like me. Sure. And thank God for people. And I don't want to, you know, dishonor people who've come before me.

Make it safe for me to sit here yeah saying this sure um but at the same time you know i think a lot of it as far as being a musician and talking and having my sexuality front and center with like certain things yeah of course there's certain songs that might have to deal do with that you know with that. But it's not who I am as an entire person or something. So sometimes when it comes to press and it's just all about, they want to know certain things about sexuality, it feels like I am involved in trauma porn.

Yeah. And that's hard for me. And also, like, it is, you know, once it's like that old, who was it? It was a Descartes or Kierkegaard. I don't know who said it. But, you know, once you label me, you diminish me. So, like, you know, and it kind of compartmentalizes.

Yeah, well, it's kind of like you're always through a lot of questions about your sexuality. Like, they might say, well, we're wanting to give representation. Well, at the same time, you're also othering me. That's right. And that's like a thing that I don't feel like people really think about that much when it comes to the focus of a piece, especially when it comes to someone who's an artist i don't really think

the people you know in the 60s were like we're gonna stick our necks out so that you know future generations can continuously other themselves that's not the point no and also I think like, you know, even in both records, these are not anthems of gay life, you know. No. They're all, some of them are very kind of, you know, longing songs. They're kind of like, you know, painful love songs, some of them. Yeah, and we can't relate to that. Of course, yeah. some of them yeah and we can't relate to that of course yeah and once you start talking too much maybe about it or being othered then the identification becomes uh that's going to be

the identification with the records before anyone even listens to them yeah it's just like oh she's a rural queer southerner and uh by the way she makes music and you can find it here on this platform but you know i'll say this as much as it might be for me a personal decision to you know or rather say it might be out of my comfort zone to focus on that yeah um i don't find it relevant to me i understand as a person who had no queer people in positions of authority or in respectable roles around them as a kid, representation does matter. It's just, you know, sometimes I'm not really sure if the world's ready for my type. wrong with uh with uh you know relatively uh um uh decisive and somewhat quiet queer representation and just being able to go like this is in the records you know i mean it's just it's a it's a part of who i am that i'm not ashamed of anyway and it's like but there are things about, I don't think sometimes the queer community understands that the, like, what people, I don't know, sometimes think of as the queer experience is not mine. I'm not, there's no metro normativity here.

I don't live in a city. Yeah. Never had a large group of gay people i don't go to gay i've been to one gay club in my life uh-huh you know i mean and i don't like parades i'll never go to a pride parade like how dangerous is that like i would freak out like i've been to one big parade in my life crew to voo in new or. And I had a terrible time. I was scared the whole time. Anxiety. Like I know, yeah, I know I play in front of a lot of people sometimes, but I'm on stage

and I know where the back door is. Sure. I'm not going out there. You know? So it's like, there's a lot of stuff about how people think you should be out. Yes. That is not me. Right.

It doesn't mean I give a shit about what you do. I don't. That's your right. But I just, it's not me. Yeah. Yeah. Let me do my thing. Yeah.

Yeah. It's just me. And you do, I just, the songs, you know, about love, about loss, and about, you know, moments that reveal things that are surprising. And also, you know, social activism is definitely on both records. I mean, about rich and poor, about exploitation. Yeah, and that's, you know, I think that's something about myself and something I deeply care about with more than talking about my sexuality.

Sure. It's about, you know, how, you know, exploitation. A hundred percent. Corporate farming, even. That, that's in there. You know, a lot of these things are, they're really complicated. And I think a lot of times, you know, listen, the South is our best friend and our own worst enemy at times. You know, certain stereotypes are true, but there's a lot of misrepresentation for rural places and rural people. Yeah. And I'm not trying to be a poster child for, you know, rural areas or something like that. But I do find it important to let people know who, you know, want to want to you know basically exile people from the south

or whatever there's a lot of good work being done there sure and we should pay attention to what's happening in the south because it's a good idea of really what's it's the soul of the country you know yeah the soul sick so is the body and that's been that's what i believe and so i always like to talk about as an insider yeah to that life yeah you know what i see well i every time it's like i'm always you know having you know been kind of you know uh i wouldn't say i grew up in new mexico but i i'm i i a you know progressive person who does comedy, who has certainly heard and maybe at some point in my life, you know, stereotypes Southerners. But every time I go down there, I am like deeply enchanted with people, with the place, with being there. I mean, every time as I've gotten older, I've let go of all of that.

There's no way to generalize about the South. It's very complex. Very complex. It's just the same thing. You know, we were talking earlier about my upbringing in the church. Every negative thing I could say about institutional religion or whatever, is it institutional or institutionalized what would that be uh i think it's institutional whatever everything negative yeah that i could say about the church i could say something positive especially in relation to rural communities

they're the local welfare sure they help people survive they They provide a sense of community, a social thing. And they help people. They help people. Yeah. And that's something, it's like, I don't really like for people to just slam the church in front of me. Because it's like, actually, as a person who can speak some truth around some bad parts, I can also do that about some good parts and that's that's a part of that complexity there yeah if if if service is righteous and a part of it you know and it's not exclusionary it it's very important to community

yeah well and even you know unfortunately it's like even if it is exclusive, you know. Yeah. If it's feeding people that are hungry, like you can still say when something is good. Yeah. To sure. No. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. No, no. I get it. I get it. No, I get it. You know. Yeah. Even if they're just feeding their own. Yeah. People need to eat. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. It's very complicated. And you love it living down there. I do. I'm struggling over here.

It's dryness. Good Lord. Terrible. Y'all are just walking around suffering. Yeah, I know. Believe me. I'm trying to plan my escape. Yeah. Maybe i'll come to

kentucky hey you know what yeah anytime you want to be shown around i'll show you some pretty places it's it's a gorgeous state but yeah i do love the south i love you know i love the pace yeah i love the humidity yeah i i think you know i mean i know I'm biased, but I've been a lot of places at this point. And I think it's, you know, Kentucky and Tennessee to me are their own special kind of beauty. And the amazing thing is that, you know, given that pace and how your creativity works and the time you put in, I mean, you can hear it in all of the music, the place where you come from. And it's a beautiful thing. Thank you. It was good talking to you.

Thanks for having me. Does it feel whole? Do you feel complete? Do we do it? I think so. If you feel like that, I think we did. Yeah, it was a good talk. I'm going to take you up on the Kentucky thing.

Hey, honestly, my house is empty. You can stay there. Okay, I'll let you know. Go for it. Thanks. There you go. Go get that record. I liked it.

I liked that. That was an interesting story. Christianity, OCD, gayness. So it's powerful. It's a powerful trinity i uh i i put i beg you i don't beg you but i i implore you or i i recommend highly that you go get that record teeth marks which is available wherever uh you get your music you can also go to sggoodman.net for her tour dates, music, and videos. All right, so let's all just stay here for a second. Just hang out. Relax.

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Because that's alcohol and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. We'll be right back. life. Reconfigure them anytime for a fresh look or a new space. Experience the Cozy difference with furniture that grows with you, delivered to your door quickly and for free. Assembly is a breeze, setting you up for years of comfort and style. Don't break the bank. Cozy's Direct2 model ensures that quality and value go hand in hand. Transform your living space today with Cozy. Visit cozy.ca, that's C-O-Z-E-Y, and start customizing your furniture.

Visit Cozy.ca, that's C-O-Z-E-Y, and start customizing your furniture. Hey, look, listen. For full Marin subscribers, we posted the latest Ask Mark Anything this week. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. And if you're a subscriber, you can hear if I answered yours. If you're not subscribed, go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF Plus or go to the link in the episode description right there in your podcast player. All right. On Monday's show, I talked to Simu Liu.

I just gave that a little old school radio. And Simu Liu. Yes. That's a good conversation, actually. I'm in Tucson, Arizona at the Rialto Theater on September 16th. Phoenix, Arizona at Stand Up Live on September 17th. Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on September 22nd. Fort Collins, Colorado at the Lincoln Center on September 23rd. And Toronto, Ontario at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on September 30th and October 1st. I'll be in London, England at the Bloomsbury Theatre Saturday and Sunday, October 22nd and 23rd. I'll be back in Dublin, Ireland at Vicar Street Wednesday, October 26th. I have dates in November and December

in Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Eugene, Oregon, Bend, Oregon, Asheville, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee. Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all the dates and ticket info. Again, those tickets for my HBO special taping on December 8th at the Town Hall in New York City are available there as well. Pre-sale tickets today through 10 o'clock tonight. The code is TIME, T-I-M-E.

I would go with all caps on that. And tickets are on sale to the general public starting tomorrow, Friday, at 10 a.m. Eastern. Here's some guitar. Did this in one take. You can probably tell. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo boomer lives monkey and Lafonda. Cat angels everywhere.