WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1364 - Sharon Van Etten

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten creates personal, deeply felt songs that also provide her with relief. Sharon talks with Marc about her stream of consciousness writing style and how it helps her process the difficult parts of her life. They also get into how Sharon’s new album emerged from pandemic isolation, how hard it was to tour in the Era of Covid, how her friendship with collaborator Angel Olsen got started, and why she continues to study psychology in the pursuit of a degree.  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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T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck nicks? I have a lovely guest today. Sharon Van Etten is here.

She's a singer-songwriter. Many of you know her. She released her breakthrough album, Epic, over a decade ago. She's got six studio albums total, including Tramp, Are We There?, Remind Me Tomorrow, and her latest, We've Been Going this all wrong great album she's also been acting a bit uh including roles in david lynch's twin peaks the return which i talked to her about and not at all no acting talk on this one just the way it went but it was great meeting her we've been trying to get this to happen for a while. She doesn't live that far from me. She's a lovely guest for many reasons outside of her talents and how pleasant it was to hang out.

But she brought me gifts. She brought me a nice bag of fresh coffee from a roaster near her over in her neighborhood. from a roaster near her over in her neighborhood and a nice to-go cup thing for my car or wherever I want to take it that keeps it hot. That's not nothing. That is not nothing showing up with presents. So it was great to talk to her and you'll hear that shortly. So I'm on reservation dogs. It dropped yesterday. You can watch that. I just watched it. I So I'm on reservation, dogs. It dropped yesterday. You can watch that. I just watched it. I think I did a pretty good job.

I think I was pretty funny. I think I was pretty me. I was hairy. I had a little bit of crankiness to me. I think I had a couple of funny moments. The show is, as you know, I love the show. But I'm on there. And it was one of the great, great fun acting experiences. It was probably the most great great fun acting experiences it was

probably the most fun i had acting um ever just riffing it out making some funnies being this guy i didn't think i could be the guy but it turns out i was the guy it was good go watch it what else can i tell you a lot of you are hearing me complain about not complain but my fear of uh fascism and uh drought neither seems that they can be solved or stopped but i i don't think i'm crazy about either but the drought thing because I talk to people here I mean I look we all cherry pick the news we see or we all compartmentalize or contextualize the stories we read but I don't think I'm freaking out unnecessarily about the water situation like I'm literally in a panic almost every day about when when do I need to get out of here I mean it's not even so much about getting my money back on my house it's just about getting out before the fucking water panic

and look not for nothing liquid death has been sending me like two cases every two weeks i don't know why they're i they don't sponsor anymore but they just keep sending them and i'm not going to stop it because i got a stockpile now. I've got plenty of water for almost everything I need for at least a week. And I've got carbonated water if I want to try bathing in that or showering or whatever. Brushing my teeth with carbonated water. I can do that because of liquid death. This isn't a plug.

This is a reality. But my thing is really is that they're not going to tell us that's that's my fear it's like i told brendan my producer that we're going to be out of water by you know the middle of summer and he's like really you think that the the biggest the largest economy in the united states is just going to run out of water in two months i'm like yeah kinda and, kind of. And okay, maybe I'm off by a month or two, but it's happening. But I just don't think they're going to tell us when it's actually happened.

I mean, you think the state of California is just going to be like, yeah, everybody, you might want to think about packing up. You got about two months. You got about six months. I'd get out of the state. All of you, stores, everything. The only people that should live here are people that don't need water.

Whoever those people are. Only reptiles can remain. But that's my concern is that who's going to tell us that the jig is up? Can I say that? Is that slang in a bad way? Who's going to tell us that game over? We're just going to get like an alert like i just got on my phone like you get those amber alerts you get weather alerts you get

missing elders alerts missing senior citizens those alerts on your phone you're like what's happening what's that sound coming out of my phone it's just gonna be one day it's just gonna say water gone good Good luck. Gavin. In New Zealand. Having great time. Gavin. Hashtag winning.

Get out now. Traffic terrible. Can see it from my helicopter. Gavin. That's what that day is gonna be like that's the day before everything really goes to fucking hell one other thing in personal news here um charlie beans roscoe the cat that i found under my stairwell out back when he was about two weeks old and abandoned by his mother

or in the process of being moved or whatever. I grabbed him and the rest of that family is gone. Could not find them. She took, I don't know what happened to them. Can't be good. But Charlie moved in a couple of days ago and sure enough, within two days of living here, he had diarrhea know diarrhea and

he threw up and i took him to the vet and i spent like 600 hours for x-rays and medicines and parasite medicines and this and that and i got him home and he's acting pretty chipper that's sort of the baptism for me i'll just but if obviously also there's like we're not sure about this x-ray he's young it's hard to get definition maybe there's it's like, we're not sure about this x-ray. He's young. It's hard to get definition. Maybe there's, it's like never, like why? I just, he's okay. I just got to ride this out though. It's almost like, you know, welcome the new cat.

Here you go. Veterinary panic. I'll keep you abreast of this situation. We don't know if there's blockage, but I freaked out entirely because that's what I do. It's amazing the zone you get into, that sort of cortisol groove of just getting a cat to the vet. This cat's a kitten, so there's no problem driving him there, but just all the fear and panic and why my cat and what the hell is happening.

And then it's relatively inconclusive. You just have to wait. I guess it's the same with people. But he's a cute guy. And I assume that if he lives, Buster and Sammy will take turns beating the shit out of him until he understands who's boss. And that's also not unlike taking a cat to the vet office, seeing that kitten get beat up, and all his joy and kitten-ness just get pushed around by a couple of old guys so he knows his place and behaves properly relating to them.

Heartbreaking. And then they just turn them. Heartbreaking. And then they just turn into fat old cats. So look, Sharon Van Etten is great. I love her music. And I like this new album a lot. And the new record is called We've Been Going About This All Wrong. And it's available now wherever you get music. And this is me talking to her.

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but i have the records i just i don't always lock in yeah i mean i'm learning i'm still learning i feel like coming you know being new to la so I feel like we moved here in September of 19. From where? From New York. Yeah. And so it's like a whole new scene out here. Oh, really? I kind of still feel like the new kid, even though I'm in my 40s.

It's kind of a funny place to be. Yeah. And who was in the scene in New York? Like who was hanging around? Well, when I first started, it was like TV on the radio had just gotten their big deal. Yeah, yeah. And so that was who I got introduced to at first. Yeah.

But then it was Grizzly Bear was around. This was back in the day? Yeah. Like 2000 what? Like four. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Grizzly Bear. I kind of remember them. i don't know i think i miss them too yeah i think they're tv on the radio they got through yeah yeah and dave siddiq's out here now doing a lot of cool production stuff the guy from tv on the radio yeah oh yeah one of them one of them ten day has a like he's in he's done some acting now yeah and um he has a solo record i think either about to come out or just came out. Huh. But then I'm looking at your records and I see that woman, Meg Baird.

Oh, yes. I know her. She's beautiful. I have her records. Great voice. She's like old school Philly circle for me. Like my first couple of records were. Is that her on Sing on Harmony, a lot of them?

She did on on um on epic she's saying like a lot of psychedelic stuff through um one of those uh space echoes oh really yeah she went to town yeah we stayed up late the night before listening to lush and oh that'll do it i guess yeah epic second that second record yeah all right so let's see. You come from where? Jersey. You're a Jersey person. Yeah. Full Jersey.

You were born there, right? Yeah. I'm genetically Jersey. And I think I'm close to you. Yeah. Like my mother's from Pompton Lakes. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pompton Plakes, Pompton Plains. Pompton Plains, yeah. I worked at a, in my early 20s when I went back home with my parents, I worked at an animal shelter near, where was it? In Orange? Uh-huh. In like East Orange or something? Well, Pompton Lakes, I just remember Willowbrook Mall. Oh, sure.

The big mall. Yeah. Yeah. And then Paramus Park Mall. Where was I? Morris County? I don't know what county. Okay. Yeah, that was Essex. Oh, Wayne. Sure. You know And then Paramus Park Mall. Where was I? Morris County? I don't know what county. Okay.

Yeah, that was Essex. Oh, Wayne. Sure. You know where Wayne is? Yeah, Wayne. I heard the shore. I heard the Jersey and the shore. Shore.

The shore. You're sure. The word. I heard Jersey. Yeah. Well, you know, and I always said the beach. But like my dad, he was born and raised Jersey, still Jersey. Never will leave.

Yeah. Never will leave. Yeah. Never will leave. Yeah. But I didn't know the shore that everyone talks about. The Jersey Shore? There's so many shores. We used to go, I have family down the shore, but by Deal Beach. Deal?

Yeah, Deal. And it was like, back in the day, a lot of Persian Jews now, but now it used to be like where the big mobsters used to have big houses on the beach. There's a lot of weird big beaches down there, a lot of big houses. Okay. I was just down there actually to visit. It's in Monmouth County. Oh, sure.

Yeah, I have family in like Asbury, Brielle. Right. It's right near there. My grandparents lived in Asbury. Okay. Yeah. Cool. I love that area. It's got, like I My grandparents lived in Asbury. Okay. Yeah. Cool. I love that area.

It's got, like, I drove through it for the first time. My grandparents, towards the end of it, lived in that one high-rise building there for old people. It's sort of at the end of the boardwalk. Okay. But now they redid the whole place. Have you performed at Count Basie before? Yeah. I was just there. Oh, cool. You? Yeah, no, I've been there. I remember in the 90s,

there was this show called The Christmas Charity Love Bash. And it was like the Whirling Dervishes, Evan Dando, the Murmurs and Frente. Evan Dando. Yeah.

He was my first crush. With the Lemonheads? The Lemonheads, oh yeah. What happened to Evan Dando? I don't think that's a great story for some reason. He's not doing well, it doesn't seem. Do you see him around? I mean, just, you know, I Twitter and messages that people write when they're spiraling.

Oh, really? It bums me out, you know. It's a business. Yeah. It's the business. Yeah. You got to document everything, apparently. Well, I mean, no, I mean, the nature of our business is there's going to be spirals.

Right. And there's going to be like, there's a whole generation of people. You're like, what happened to that guy? And it wasn't that long ago. And it's never a great story, but they keep pushing along somehow. Yeah. I don't know what's going to happen to that guy, but I get messages from people. I'm like, oh, I was just thinking about a guy yesterday i'm like i better text that guy

because i haven't heard from him yeah i'm rooting for you you know what i mean you can do it i want you to do well well i think that when you come up in a scene like i think that time of the lemon heads in that whole world like i was was in Boston back in the 80s. And I think when you have a scene and then whoever comes out of that scene and becomes a big star, they kind of get established. And then everyone else is kind of fighting it out.

And then when you really kind of like really are no longer part of anything anymore, I think it's kind of hard on the ego and you don't really know where to go. And if you have substance and alcohol abuse issues, it's compounded. Yes.

And I think about, you know, I kind of came into music at a time where I kind of missed the height, you know, getting in at a good point. Of alt-rock

or of the original kind of post-punk scene? Well, even just like the days of like getting signed and what that means. Right, right, right. And like, you know, the support behind it in this other way. Pre-internet. Yeah.

Right, right. When A&R guys would find you and make you. Yeah, and you'd fly all over the world. Right, right. And you'd get millions of dollars to do a record for a year. Yeah, that doesn't really exist anymore but i'm glad in a way that that's i didn't start up here because now i think a lot of kids that are being found through tiktok and other ways and they yeah they set the bar so high but it's like how do you sustain something if it starts all the way up here, I feel for them. I don't know. But I don't even know how many people of a generation

kind of dig in in the same way that we did. Like, you know, like even give a shit necessarily about the history or what we come from, you know, musically. I think a lot of younger people learn a trick and they do it and they nail it and all their talent goes into this moment. And then they just sort of ride that for as long as possible. Whereas I think it seems like like you, I think that there was a time where people really paid their dues and figured out who they were.

And I don't know if that happens anymore, does it? Am I am I being old man again? I mean, I think I think there are still kids that their main thing is they want to tour. Yeah. Which. Play the rock music. It makes me blush. That's the sweetest thing in the world. Because that's all.

I never thought I would have a career at all. I just liked playing and I always had a job. Right. And I used to book my own shows through Book Your Own Fucking Life. I don't know if you ever heard of that. What was that? It was called BYOFL.org. Yeah.

Like MapQuest era. Uh-huh. Where like people would post about their houses or DIY spaces. And you'd write them directly. But they would say like which genres they preferred. Oh, wow. To stay at your house? Like I would drive across country by myself in my car and just like throw a guitar in the back and maybe have a buddy so I wasn't alone.

But like just driving across country. And that would set up the gig too? Yeah. So it was sort of like what used to happen in punk rock with zines and with that network of people who were, when punk rock was barely known. So they'd come over here and they'd just be the fans who would take care of everything. Exactly. Right. So I didn't realize here and they'd just be the fans who would take care of everything. Exactly. Right. So I didn't realize they had a website at some point in time.

Yeah, I think it's defunct now, but I remember very clearly being a solo folk artist opening up for like this metal show in like Worcester, you know? Worcester! I remember Worcester. There used to be a comedy show at a place called Margaritaville in Worcester. Worcester was heavy, man. Yeah.

But okay, so when you were growing up in New Jersey, huge family? I'm one of five. Middle? Middle. Middle of the middle. Really? So there's two on either side of you? Yeah.

So there's an older brother, older sister, me. Yeah. Little sister, little brother. Holy shit. All two years apart. And what did your folks do? My mom, well, she stayed at home until I was in sixth grade and going to night school. And by the time I was in sixth grade, she got her master's in teaching at Montclair State.

Montclair. Teaching what? History. So she went from being a history teacher to the head of the department. Really? Yeah. After five kids? Yeah. Wow. She's a badass. And your dad, they're not married or they are? They still are. Wow. It's shocking. I don't know how they made it through. Did you not think they would make it? Do they still like each other? They do, I think. But you know, like I'll call them to check in and they'll be in, like they still like each other? They do, I think. But, you know, like, I'll call them

to check in and they'll be in, like, they have a house in Maine where my sister lives and has a farm. Oh, yeah. And she has three kids

so they like to help out. They're newly retired. Is that the, how many, do all your sibs have kids? No, one does not, but he has a beautiful St. Bernice Mountain Dog.

Oh, okay. Because I think the grandparents gravitate to the kids. Yes. And they chose, they chose their Dog. Oh, okay. Because I think the grandparents gravitate to the kids. Yes. And they chose their child. Oh, they did? Well, you have one.

Yes, exactly. I don't know. Could you see your parents moving out to like Highland Park? That would be a good show. But my parents like to travel, so I think, you know. They come out? They have, yeah. Yeah?

Yeah. How old's your kid? He's five. Five. Yeah, just started kindergarten. Wow. Yeah, big time. How's that going?

Are you enjoying the parenting process? It's, I don't feel qualified yet. Does anybody? I mean, yet? I mean, you're doing it. All the wiring has been laid. He's five. Yeah. I mean, we're totally screwed. He's a really great kid. He's a skater, a drummer. He can play every sport already.

Really? And he's traveled with me a little bit and he loves the bus. Oh, yeah. He's in love with my drummer, Jorge. And Jorge even gave him lessons during the pandemic oh really yeah and he just he loves traveling and he and school now he's kind of bummed out because he's realizing that it's going to be all the time oh yeah this is what it is yeah it's not just for the week it's not camp anymore you know this is your life for a long time now so when you started playing you were referred to you you do see yourself as a folk musician at the beginning in a way i mean i you

know the the cliche of the girl and a guitar you know that was you that was me yeah but i hit it pretty hard you know like i was a banger, but I could, I had a range. So I feel like people didn't understand what I. Who made you think you could do that? Like, what were you listening to that you said, like, I'm going to be that. I mean, my musical taste was like all over the place, but I, you know. But you chose just to be a guitar person. Well, I mean, I gravitated towards guitar after piano because it was easier to travel with

travel you know um but i don't know i liked a lot of music i was my dad had all his rock records growing up and like uh old man rock like well some of it um but he liked neil young and the beatles and the kings jethro tull oh yeah sure sure jethro tull. Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. Jethro Tull. Sitting on a park bench. Bump. Don't even get me started. The Sunday drives to the hiking trail on Sundays. Yeah. My mom still asks him to turn the music down.

Jethro Tull, I've tried to kind of go back. It's all before me. I grew up in a weird zone where I was in high school in the late 70s so it was just still the crashing wave of whatever happened earlier on and then there was disco and new wave and punk sort of filtered in but i got all that crap you know what i mean i was in high school when the i think went into the outdoor and zeppelin's like last record came out we were all pretty excited but jeff o'to i've tried to go back to recently it's not not easy yeah it's not easy it's not easy listening um there are a couple pretty songs there's like skating on the ice of a

new day yeah you know it's like the but the the standing on one foot flute thing is for real and it is the furious flute playing i've seen him in him in concert. Ian Anderson is one of my dad's favorite performers. So you've gone with your dad. I've gone with my dad. To see Jethro Tull. There's a beautiful theater in Jersey City, actually, that we went to. I can't remember the name of it, but we saw Martin Bari, the guitar player. Oh, really?

His solo show there. The guitar player of Jeth solo show there the guitar player of Jethro Tull he was kind of like a guy like he could do he was an odd player yeah

and he could really play you'd really have to hang with Ian Anderson if you're gonna be on board for the full JT you know oh my god so that was really

how I got my start was um being a Jethro Tull fan there's some folkiness in there. There's definitely some weird renaissance-y kind of something. Yeah. But my mom liked, she liked Lucinda Williams, which was a cool part of what she listened to. Those early records?

And Carole King. Oh, yeah. Yeah, my parents had tapestry. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Forever. Yeah. It was like the record. It was just always present. I have it. It's my parents had tapestry. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Forever. Yeah. It was like the record.

It was just always present. I have it. It's so good. Of course. It's so good. So when do you light out on the road with your guitar? How old were you? Did you go to college and stuff?

I was a late bloomer to pushing myself as a musician. Yeah. After high school, I moved to Tennessee. I was a late bloomer to pushing myself as a musician. After high school, I moved to Tennessee. But in high school, were you like the sad girl with the guitar? I was actually really, I was quiet but goofy. And I was more in like, I was in musicals. Oh, that's good. I was sporty.

I did track. Oh, yeah? And I wrote songs, but they were, my friend Dana and I would sit on the main street in Clinton and write silly songs about the gangster on the corner with their pants blowing in the wind. Right, sure. Like, Ween was really big when I was in high school, and they were from the area, like from the Pennsylvania side. Did you know Ween?

I didn't know them personally, but I was a fan. You were? Yeah. You liked the Ween universe? The Ween, wait, which one's one's that no it's just all of it i mean is a universe oh ween is universe it's like you can't i don't know that record they were they were on you can't categorize ween they are in and of themselves absolutely but the the country record oh yeah that's great was big yeah you know yeah up a rope and was Baby Bitch on that one? I don't know.

That is classic. I didn't go deep into the ween. I just touched the surface. It's mood oriented for sure. I interviewed one of them. Gene, I think. Gene Wayne. He's out here.

Oh, no way. I think so. Which one's the, not the guitar player, the other one. Dean, I think, which one did I? Oh, there's a Dean and a Gene.

Which one did I interview? I can't. I felt, I had to take the opportunity hold on I think it was I think let's see I used to go to New Hope Pennsylvania which was the next like the jurors the I interviewed Gene okay Gene wean Dean weans a guitar player okay Gene weans he plays guitar too but he's the other one. He's out here. He was. He does work in showbiz. Okay. Yeah.

New Hope was where they were from, and there was a coffee shop I used to go to there. It's in Pennsylvania? In Pennsylvania, but just the next town over. If you're going straight down 78 through Jersey, it's the next town on the Pennsylvania side. I like Pennsylvania. Yeah. I was just in Pittsburgh. I actually was one of those moments where I'm like, I could live here. Yeah. It's like the next town. Okay. On the Pennsylvania side. I like Pennsylvania. Yeah. I was just in Pittsburgh. I actually was one of those moments where I'm like, I could live here.

Yeah. There's some cool spots. Pittsburgh's cool. Yeah. All right. So after high school, you just go to Nashville? It was Murfreesboro. Murfreesboro.

Murfreesboro. The borough, as they call it. Borough. Yeah. But what was the plan? They had a recording program there. And my parents were always like, the backup plan. You can't pursue music.

I thought at the time I wanted to be on Broadway. From all the musicals? You were ready? I knew I could sing, but my writing wasn't good. Right. So I felt like, if I'm into into music why not go to school for music and figure out a way to learn how to record myself or other people yeah um but i i had this illusion that going to college for something specifically i would get past all the general requirement stuff

and then i started school and then i had to take math and English all over again. And I was not very. You thought you were done with that? Yeah, I wasn't very inspired by it. You know, I'm like, I finally got through this. I did well in school. I was A, B student. Right.

You know. Yeah. And I have to do it all over again. I stopped after a year. Yeah. And then what happened? Well, I fell in love with some guy who was in an emo band an emo guy yeah like a big emo band no like a known guy uh like locally i guess in murfreesboro yeah and uh how's that go

it was not good um but you know you fall in love you in love. And I know he was my everything. And I wrote all the time and I would play open mics. And he told me that I wasn't good enough to play out and that I should keep practicing and keep writing. The guy who no one knows? The guy who no one knows. But it made me write a lot more at home. And whenever he would go on tour, I would sneak out and play shows locally. You had to sneak around? I had to sneak around because because he was a scary guy or just because he was judgmental he was well both um you know he was you know won't go too dark but he was a manipulative guy and i was easily

like yeah you know i get embarrassed talking about it sometimes just because different life yeah yeah well i mean that's the you know you got it that's the the training relationship yeah exactly that's where in retrospect you go like i know now that yeah i don't need to change for somebody else there's that right yeah things that i realized that i fought for were things that I really cared about. Well, yeah. I mean, if you had to sneak away into the night, you believed in yourself. Yeah.

Right? And so I ran away from that whole life. When you look back on it, I mean, I know it's embarrassing, but you're a thoughtful person and you write these songs. embarrassing but you're a thoughtful person and you write these songs i mean what did you learn about relationships did you do you still believe that it was love i i think you can you can i think i fell for sure this idea of what i thought this person was i saw him perform and i thought wow he has charisma he has something you know right i want to be doing what he's doing oh there's a and then yeah you know and then for someone to reciprocate

a feeling you know helps sure um but i looking back i when i see that i would close off myself from other people in order to right you know make him happy you know because he didn't like my friends, he didn't like my music. I look back, I'm like, well, he didn't really like me. He was trying to change me into something that he would be in love with. Or just keep you in a place

where he had control. Yes, absolutely. And control is still a thing in my life that I have issues with that I know I need to work on because of giving up control giving up control yeah you got that codependent thing um or you don't call it that well i i think it's more about independence and being control my own life oh i see um when i think

when things feel out of control it's because i i feel like I'm not a part of my own life. Right, right. But you've gotten over giving up yourself for someone else to the point where it's detrimental. Yes. Oh, good. Yes. Whenever you feel like you're not being yourself around someone, I think that's a good red flag. Well, I mean, it sparks. I've been not nostalgic, but I think a lot about my my past and I've been through a lot of relationships and stuff.

And like, you know, I think about the times where I was an asshole and why I was an asshole. So I can usually picture the other side of most women saying like that guy was an asshole. I'm like, yeah, I know that guy. I know that asshole. Because, like, you know, we all change in a certain way. But that that weird jealousy of someone else's life of like not liking someone's friends, not liking what they like. It's such a – because it's not even thought through. It's not even about not liking it.

It's just not wanting that person to have a life outside of you. Right. Yeah. But it's like, I guess it's their control and then thinking they also know better than you. Yeah. And why – see, I still do that. I still like an idiot can write me an email about something that I did, and I'll be like, oh my God, do I do that? No one even know.

I'm willing to sit and think the whole day. Over what? I don't know that person. And they just dump something into my head. And I'm like, maybe I am wrong. Oh, Jesus. Do you? Okay.

People must write you all the time. So how do you like, because I try not to read a lot of things, but people don't know when they, I mean, they must know when you at somebody that you get the message, right? Sure. If you're one of those people that reads them. Yeah. If you're spending your day looking at your ads. Do you have a fielder?

No. No. I read them. Yeah. a fielder? No. No. I read them. Yeah. Yeah. These are usually emails. Well, that's not true. I don't know why I'm still so porous, you know, in the sense that like, you know, I have a fundamental insecurity around everything.

But I just have to put a shield up. I have to have self-talk around it and be like, don't let that. You don't know that person. That guy's got four followers. Justin Vernon from Bon Iver used to retweet every bad tweet that someone sent to him. That's not a good policy. I mean, I can understand that you feel like that's empowering, but it's only going to. Fuel it.

Oh, yeah. And it's just going to exponentially. That must have ended in a disaster. Yeah. I don't think he tweets anymore. He retweeted himself right out of the game. So does a lot of this stuff that you were working on in Murfreesboro from that relationship show up in the first record? When was the Murfreesboro time?

That was 99 until 2002. That's not too bad. That's not too big a time investment to be in a horrible, abusive relationship. It's like three or four years. And then my sister, the saint, she flew me out of there and let me stay with her for a while in Vermont. Air lifted you out to Vermont? Yeah, she got me the hell out of there and let me stay with her for a while in Vermont. Air-lifted you out? Yeah. To Vermont. She got me the hell out of there. And she let me crash on her couch while I figured out my life because I was a mess.

Yeah. And she encouraged me to play an open mic at the Radio Bean in Burlington, Vermont. Yeah. And I made my first couple friends moving back. And then she gave me the confidence to reach back out to my parents because i hadn't i didn't talk to them for those few years i was in submerged i cut them out you did because of the guy because of the guy was it because of him or because of your own shame a little bit of both yeah that's rough because then they know something's wrong and they didn't

approve of the guy and Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they didn't like me dropping out of school. Oh, right, right, right. And then I ended up getting a job at a coffee shop. And then now I'm just like a dropout teenager working at a coffee shop. You blew it. But, I mean, you know, they were formative years and the coffee shop was great. I, you know, I made a lot.

Like that was my family. So it was like my little apartment and my family at this coffee shop that I'm still friends with a lot of those people that now live in East Nashville. But, yeah, I cut them out for a while. It's pretty, again, another embarrassing like they don't know me. They're just just we're just blood doesn't mean we should. You know, they're my real family. They don't know me they're just just we're just blood doesn't mean we should you know they're my real family they don't understand me and i'm like why are you running away from that there your parents are you you know you are them they are you and they took me in like no questions asked they just said if you're gonna if you need to get back on your feet go to therapy

um get a job and go back to school for a year and try to get back on your feet. And that's what I did. That's what you did after Vermont, after you emotionally rehabbed in Vermont, your sisters. You got the low down, got regrounded and kind of drooped home. Yep, tail between my legs. You know, such a failure.

Oh, yeah. But that ended up giving me the confidence to start playing again and writing. Did you go to therapy? I did go to therapy. It changed my life. Yeah? For sure. I didn't realize, like, you know, I had panic attacks.

How did they manifest? Breathing? Well, yeah, a lot of breathing, which I disguised with smoking. So I smoked a lot. Did you give it up? I still sneak. You do? I sneak, yeah.

So good. Yeah. It's been so long. Yeah, I'm trying to cut out a lot of things, but I still like, I would, you know, coffee and cigarettes. Like, they're kind of my, but they're bad. I would like to cut out food entirely, but apparently that's the one thing you can't cut out entirely. Food is, that's the one I want out.

I haven't smoked a cigarette in a long time. Yeah. Okay, so do you go back to school or you didn't? I did. I went to Raritan Valley Community College. How was that I mean I resisted

at first but then I I took a psychology class and a photography class and that's good

like you're you're shooting pictures yeah I got to you know develop my own film doing the darkroom thing black and white

yeah just put on headphones and and just learn how to develop i don't know yeah yeah so i took i ended up taking two semesters of photography watching the thing come to in the in the uh in the tray yeah and you just gotta time every every little tray yeah it was really nice actually and the psychology psychology i had because i liked the psychology class i took in

high school and my mom was actually still friends friends with the psychology teacher there who found me the therapist. And they're still friends to this day. And I knew it was an interest of mine. Yeah. Just learning how to understand behaviors. Yeah. Things like that. How's that going?

I'm still learning. Yeah. How's that going? I'm still learning. Yeah. You know, I've been studying psychology in pieces over the years. Really? To eventually get a degree to maybe be some kind of counselor, but I'm far, far from that. You're doing these amazing, beautiful records, but your plan B is going to be a therapist? Well, I don't know if you've been on tour lately, Mark, but it's not exactly easy.

Yeah, it's a hard life. So you figure you'll record the records, you put them out, sell a little merch online, and have a few patients on the side? Yeah, why not? I like it. I'll have to change. Maybe I'll just, I mean,

I obviously realize there's holes in this plan. Not really. Anybody, like, I think it's one of those things that if you get your hours in, you can do it. Yeah. You can be a therapist. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a better listener than a talker. Yeah?

Well, when you say you're studying psychology piecemeal, how does that kind of work? How do you do it well i'm starting like i'm still getting an undergrad yeah it's something that you know just chipping away yeah chipping away but i you know when i lived in new york i went to brooklyn college for a couple semesters broken up by a kid and then um by getting like an acting job and so i've taken a couple semesters there when I live there. Yeah. And then when I came here, I took a couple classes at the Pasadena City College. Oh, yeah. And if I hit a certain, I have to fill these general requirements in order to apply to the

psychology program at UCLA. So you're still dealing with those initial requirements? Yes. Required classes that you're avoiding? I need a science class. You need a language? And a statistics. I got my Spanish out of the way early. You're just taking your time. That's good. Hobby girl. Hobby girl. But I like that

there's all this stuff happening and you're doing all this. But you made a bunch of great records. But it doesn't seem to be the thing that you're focused on. I just think it's just getting harder to do. To tour. Touring is a huge part of being able to live as an artist. And I just don't want

to be gone that much anymore yeah especially with a kid and a dog and just i want after the last couple years yeah i just i want to be there with my partner i right well i guess like during covid you really got to sort of lock in and realize hey this is all. We can't go out of the house, but it's nice to what? Be home? Just figuring out what home is, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't, I've moved so much as an adult even that I just, I haven't lived anywhere long enough

to feel like I have roots. So you lived in Murfreesboro. Lived in Murfreesboro. And then you went back to Jersey. Back to Jersey. And then to New York City. And to New York. And that's when you started,

you recorded Because I Was in Love in New York? I recorded that in Philadelphia. Did you live in Philly? No, but I have like a big contingent there. And Meg Baird, who played in Espers,

introduced me to greg weeks yeah and like i met otto hauser who eventually played drums yeah with me for a little bit philly crew yeah do you know kurt vile i know kurt i know um adam grandusiel or granowski whatever he goes by now yeah um so like the war on drugs guys and Kurt Vile and that whole circle. So that was your crew? I met Kurt later, but Dave Hartley, who played bass in War on Drugs,

played bass on Epic. Would they just release their third record, War on Drugs? They have, is it their fourth? Yeah, I remember I got it. I don't, maybe? Yeah, I remember. I got it. I don't know. I had the first two.

I don't know if this one landed as hard with me as the other ones, but they're good. Yeah, they're massive. He's such a perfectionist. They do have a massive sound, yeah. Well, I think it seemed like they'd been a long time since that last record. Yeah. Because someone was working on it. Yes, yes.

Adam was going hard. Yeah. He likes to go over and over. I don't know if you've met Adam before. I don was working on it. Yes, yes. Adam was going hard. Yeah. He likes to go over and over. I don't know if you've met Adam before. I don't know those guys. But Heart of Gold, he's funny. But he's played guitar on a couple of my records. And one solo, he would work on it for hours.

Really? Over and over and over again. Which records, though? Because it didn't get big until, I guess, Tramp becomes big, right? The sound, anyways, changes. Yeah, he played on Are We There? Okay, yeah. And Dave played bass on Are We There?

And did he play bass on Tramp? No, he played bass on Epic. Because it seems like the first two records are kind of pretty intimate. Yes. Right? The first one was kind of pretty intimate. Yes. Right? The first one was kind of an accident. Really? You didn't know you did it?

Well, I didn't own a tuner, and I tuned the guitar to itself, and we went to add stuff. And I knew that I wanted it to be minimal because I was touring solo, and I didn't want people- You didn't have a tuner? I played an acoustic guitar. But you recorded a whole record without a tuner? I never played with other people, but that was a very good lesson because we tried to add stuff to it.

Nobody in the fucking booth was like, hey, lady, why don't you tune your guitar? It was pretty chill. It was a pretty relaxed vibe. Yeah, all right. Yeah, but Greg Weeks, who recorded it, he wanted me to feel comfortable because I was excruciatingly shy. Like, I used to get my hair cut where my bangs were in front of my face, and I was still learning how to have conversations with people and be able to look people in the eye. And I always felt like i

didn't belong there but my friend uh ben goldberg at bada bing records he introduced me to greg weeks um who's that guy uh producer yeah greg weeks produced the first record and he played in a band with meg baird okay and then um but Ben Goldberg, who has, was my, he worked at Bada Bing, he owns Bada Bing Records, and I was an intern there when I moved to New York, and he introduced me to a lot of people to help me get my start. So, like, why were you so shy? Was this a lifetime thing, or did something change? I mean, you used to do musicals. Yeah. Now you can't look anybody in the eye? What happened? Well, I think, yeah. Was this a lifetime thing or did something change? I mean,

you used to do musicals. Now you can't look anybody in the eye. What happened? Well, I think it was at Murfreesboro. I was always kind of shy, like quiet. I mean,

I was a goofball with my friends, of course. Um, but then Murfreesboro added to it for sure. That guy. Um, and I just, I,

I kind of felt unworthy because I, I didn't really know chords or time signatures, key signatures. I knew how to play for me. Sure. But then as soon as someone would want to jam with me or something, I was like, I don't know how to jam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still a thing with me. I'm trying to learn how to do it better.

I just want to learn how to play with other people. I don't know how to do it. Really? Me neither, actually. I'm trying to learn. Did you grow up playing with other people? No. Just for fun? I'm trying to learn. Did you grow up playing with other people? No. Like, just for fun?

No, I played all, I always played by myself. Like, I never could play with other people, because I never wanted to learn other people's songs. I never wanted to learn songs. Okay. Like, I learned, at some point, a guy, I had a good guitar teacher, he taught me pentatonic scales. And I can, yeah, make my way around, you know, country leads

and blues leads and stuff, and I can play chords and things, but I never wanted to play anything exactly like anybody. I never wanted to learn anyone's licks. I didn't want to learn how to play Led Zeppelin perfectly. It just took too much energy. So I can play like myself. And I know a bunch of stinky blues licks. But I have a sense now.

I've been playing with real musicians a bit, and I like it. I appreciate it. It's very scary, though, to me. But what you knew... So you're saying that your guitar was out of tune, so you couldn't overdub, and that's why that album's so sparse?

Yeah, it's pretty minimal. We had to, you know, we had a bass that we put through an octave pedal that ended up being the bass because you could tune it a little bit to a string instrument. Right. But when people ask,

like, what tuning is this in? I'm like, I have no fucking idea. It's like D and a half or D and a third. I don't know what it is. Almost E. Yeah. It's like I know how to, I mastered tuning to itself.

Like they have these things you can just clip on the guitar. Yeah, now they do. But yeah, it's embarrassing, but it's true. I'm owning it. It's not embarrassing. You say embarrassing a lot. It's a good record.

It was a happy mistake, and I'm proud of it. So like, okay, so then you do Epic, which is not as sparse, but still pretty. I mean, it seems like you're crafting a tone. Learning how to play with other people. Like letting the sound expand while still being me, you know? Well, that's interesting. So let the sound expand. But also like there's definitely like you have a very kind of consistent and evolving

though vibe and tone to to the songs it's very uh i i don't know what the word is not heavy but there's a a sort of it's not there's a lot of space in there that there's a lot of emotion in there that is not i don't know how to explain it but i like it you know goodness oh my gosh but no but it's like you know, I understand. I don't know where you met Angel Olsen or why, but it seems like, you know, she must have been inspired by you in a sense of like there's it's not ethereal that I want. It's a heavier than that. But but there is sort of a space that both of you kind of create that is that is a nice place to be for a while. That is a nice place to be for a while. Yeah. I mean, which is funny because I actually, I saw you at an Angel Olsen's show.

You did, yeah. In LA. Yeah. You're sitting behind me and I was too shy to say hello. Again. Again. Always, forever. Yeah.

But yeah, I first heard Angel in 2011, which a quick side note, because my partner thinks that you may have been. We did a show at Maxwell's with Ted Leo on New Year's. Oh, really? And he thinks that maybe you were the emcee that night. I don't know that I ever emceed a New Year's show at Maxwell's. I don't know that I ever emceed a New Year's show at Maxwell's. I mean, comics are, I used to do Yolo Tango's Hanukkah shows sometimes. And I was there once with The National as the guest band, but it was not New Year's. Okay.

But I know Ted Leo. Yeah. So your partner plays? He played drums with me at the time. Oh, okay. And. It wasn't me. It was some other Jew.

Some other Jew. I didn't, I didn't remember and I felt bad. Some other funny Jewish guy. I didn't want to not say something. But, um, but in 2011, I was on my way to shoot a video, um, for my song Magic Chords and Darius Van Arman, who's Jag Jaguar, was driving and he played me some demos of Angel. From the first record? Yeah.

They sound like your first record. But I remember hearing it and being so moved. And he said, I think we're about to sign her. What do you think? And I just remember thinking her melodies are so moving. Like her, just there's a timbre of a voice. There's something in,

if someone can really sing, like Richard and Linda Thompson, like Linda Thompson does it for me. You know, there's certain things when they hit me, I can't always explain it, but it's so emotional.

And I think what Angel and I were able to bond over during this tour we just finished. Has she got a friend for me? That Linda Thompson song. Has she got a friend for me? Oh, my God. Well, I mean, Walking on the Line.

I mean, Pour Down Like Silver is a record you can't really find anywhere. But I really love. Is that the both of them or just her? It's both of them. I don't know if I have that one. Dimming of the Day. Yeah. I have I Want to Dimming of the Day. Yeah. I have

I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight and I have the one with Calvary Cross on it. Okay. I feel like I have three or four. Oh. Her range is incredible. When I had

I did voice lessons in Brooklyn with this woman Joy Askew who used to sing with Fairport? She was she sang with Peter Gabriel

and she sang with Laurie Anderson. But she's a vocal coach and one of our exercises was the dimming of the day. And they've been Bonnie Raitt's version though. Huh. Like those

vocal skills are good warmups. They're very hard though. So you took the lessons? Yes, I took lessons. I still do my exercises when I can. Someone gave me one voice lesson. Oh, really? Yeah.

How did you like it? It was good. It made me cry. Touching sound or what? You're like, ah. Like, you know, finding that thing in the breath it makes me sad it's meditative i guess so once you get past the emotions i'm very weird about singing yeah where do you hold it i can open it up you know and it's not but like when i hear my pure voice or when i

sing in front of people there's a vulnerability to it that i can't quite manage and i don't voice or when I sing in front of people, there's a vulnerability to it that I can't quite manage. And I don't, and I've always find it, there's something horrifying to me about singing badly in front of people. Like it's just so devastating. The idea of, and then having to finish the song, like you're just singing shitty the whole song. No. So I've gotten a little better. And I've made some mistakes singing out with people. I tried to do Jealous Guy and I just fucked it. But because I'm doing a comedy show as well and they know I'm a comedian, I'll stop the song and go, I have to start this over.

Because I'm not going to go down like this. Yes, it's a good way to be. Fuck it. I don't have go down like this. Yes. It's a good way to be. Fuck it. Yeah. I don't have anything on the line. Yeah. It's not even my real gig. Anyways.

So, but Linda Thompson, those records kill me. Yeah. So, Angel, you heard that quality when you first heard it. Yes. When I heard her voice, I just, I was moved immediately. when you first heard it yes when i heard her voice i just i was moved immediately yeah and i could just tell like she some writers start with a guitar and they have chords yeah and then they write melodies within chords and i think she is a writer and i tend to do this where it's a melody that is the center of the song and you play around the melody so right if you try to learn a

song and then nothing really repeats it's because it's really about the melody. If you try to learn a song and nothing really repeats, it's because it's really about the melody. I'm a melody guy. I have a hard time with lyrics. Me too. You do? Yeah. I listen to them, but I can't always make them out and I'm not going to sit and read them too often

unless I really have to. That's why it's always been weird. If a singer-songwriter's not speaking clearly, I can't, it's not going to happen. You know? And it takes a lot of listens. Yes. I'm still learning how to enunciate.

Even going over the last record, there was a song where my partner was like, it sounds like you're just doing, like it just sounds like you're singing oohs and ahs on this part, but I like you're just doing, like it just sounds like you're singing oohs and ahs on this part, but I know you're saying something, but there's certain notes that I won't hit if I'm speaking.

Born. That's the best song. It's a hard one. It's a hard one for sure. But it's got that turnaround in it that I like, those three chords. I don't remember what they are, but I know there's a certain magic three chords

where I'm always like, oh, yeah. That's what I listen to. Every time I listen to the new record, when I get to that song, I'm like, this is the one. But I don't know what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly. I kind of know.

I'd rather hit the note than say the words over articulate. If I over articulate, sometimes that distracts from the moment, but you know, that's why I do printly. I put lyrics in all the records. If people want to read them, I did. I read them,

but still even sometimes with, with lyrics. Like I, I always, uh, I know I just, I just talked to that woman, SG Goodman.

Do you know her? You should listen to those two records. Like, you know, your records kind of, you know, took me and, uh,

and her records, she's got two records out. She's from Kentucky. Okay. And it's pretty great stuff. And like, I don't know where, you know, some people just send me the records.

You know, I think that was, I don't know who her people are. Same people as Isabel's people. She said they have the same manager, but like, I don't know what it is. And I don't, it's not a matter of what she's saying. It's just a matter of how she's singing it.

But you know that about yourself. Well, you can feel that in people. Right. What do you need words for? Just make the noises. Yes. Also, it helps people connect to it in their own way, too. I've just always been a riff or melody person.

And then if I can, I'll lock in. But also, if there's too many words, I get exhausted and I don't want to have to keep going back. Yes, I forget words all the time. You do? Yeah. To your own songs? Yeah, there's too many words. Yeah. For sure. That's why Connor Oberst, who I talk to, there's a lot of words there. That guy's

writing songs all the time. He seems to have a knack for it, but I can't. It's too much. I need to start repeating phrases more often. Right. Yes. So, all right so when do you start like because like like i was saying you have a tone in the first few two records are pretty pretty minimal but then tramp gets bigger and now where we're at now with we've been going about this all wrong it's very big it's very big sound you know there are moments there where like i'm reminded of people of uh you know like radiohead a little bit sometimes um sometimes uh pj harvey sometimes these are good people i'm not saying you're lifting anything. I admire them for sure.

You feel that in you? You have them in you somewhere? Yeah, I definitely grew up listening to them and their influences. And I know it all seeps in. I don't deny any of that stuff. No, but the weird thing is it's still uniquely your own. But I'm just saying. Well, PJ did it too.

Eventually the production gets bigger once you have more confidence, I guess, in what you're trying to do. Right. And it seems like you folded in. There's like, you know, synthesizers now. Yeah. All kinds of layers. Yeah. Was that the War on Drugs guys idea?

Well, that was, I think that was kind of from my last record, Remind Me Tomorrow, I was learning how to do more marriage of like, I got bored of like straight up band stuff. Yeah. And I felt like I was going to write the same song over and over again if I had my guitar because I kind of got stuck in like, this is where you go here. Right. How do you get out of that? Well, I. By bringing synthesizers. I got a couple of synthesizers because I, you know, my first instrument was piano.

Yeah. But now, like, I have these pads and these gnarly sounds, and it's making me sing in a different way. Yeah. Also, after having a kid and my stomach was kind of ripped apart from, like, an emergency C-section, and so my voice kind of changed and how I sustain notes changed, like i kind of just sat like lower in my voice and well yeah i'm born it's like really low right uncomfortably so yeah but it's like it's interesting oh cool well yeah i love that song and i don't know it's sort of like you know what you doing with your voice well it was a conversation because i remember someone saying like is that are you

sure that's not too low for you and i'm like well i think that's kind of like cool like it is it makes you kind of sit for a second it does in that like yeah that's sort of like okay this is yeah she means business yeah i mean i knew that this one this record i i wanted to embrace the you know piece of the the pandemic and all of the intensely and intensity and apocalyptic yeah feelings you know i didn't want to stray away from it and like a fun record yeah yeah yeah um so i probably leaned into it i'm sorry is there a fun record that I missed? Well, you know, I'm like one day I will maybe make something that's a little bit more lighthearted, but

the timing didn't seem appropriate. You know, everyone's like, are you going to make a kid's record? I'm like, hell no, I'm not making a kid's record. But I don't know, I've had conversations with other artists about how they, you know, how do you not make a pandemic record if you wrote it in the last couple of years?

Yeah, time is time. When you wrote it, you wrote it, right? Yeah. And the themes are going to come through if you're just sitting there. Yeah, I'm not going to avoid it. I kind of go there. Do you feel like, do you have songs about it? What's the songwriting process?

How does that happen? I mean. Does it just come to you? Do you just wake up and like, oh, yeah, here's the songwriting process how does that happen i mean does it just come to you do you just wake up and like oh yeah here's the thing some words it was the first time i had a space to work out of from the home and your studio at the house yeah there's a studio in the garage yeah and was it there when you got there yes i still we fixed it up to make it a little bit like more light filled because it was covered in black foam and i was like i'm not moving from a basement in dumbo to like a cave in la and like i need some

light you know yeah yeah but it was a great it was a great space okay um and so i was able to go to work oh so like in in it makes the writing process different because you can hear sounds right away? Yeah. And I just had to be able to click and record and to be able to track without knowing what I was going to do. And I don't tend to sit down and say, this is what I'm going to write about. Me neither. They start as kind of therapy sessions of emotive singing. Streaming consciousness and singing?

Mm-hmm. Really? You'll just come up with words i mean it's starts as nonsense really it starts like with feelings and emote like just like vibe and i find a key and you do that by yourself and i do it by myself i hate writing around other people why they would i how could you be comfortable if that's your process if you're just sort of you know jabbering away, it's a weird position to be in. And you just start rhyming or what?

When do you know that something moves from nonsense to lyric? Well, I'll record, if I have, if I figured out something melodic with a chord progression, I'll record it for about 20, 30 minutes and I'll just keep going. And sometimes words and phrases just pop out.

Okay. And I'll leave it for a while. And I'll kind of, if I feel good in that, you know, whatever I caught in that, whatever that thing is, then I'll keep going with other ideas like that. And I'll just bank them and bank them and bank them while I'm in this feeling zone. And then I won't listen to them for maybe weeks or months sometimes years because

i just keep this folder of ideas and on days where i go to work and i'm not feeling anything i'll put on headphones and i'll listen and that's when i'll start writing huh years sometimes what song has been sitting around for years it hasn't seen the light of day yet um well actually uh darkish on this record was one i had for a few years um the really minimal one uh with just the birds in the background um because i felt like it was at the time too apocalyptic to um release when you first did it when i first did it but now that the apocalypse is here. Yes. And happening. It's time. This is actually in the context of this record. It's actually the lightest part of the record. Wow. But there's some things that just are sometimes just too personal or like too intense where I'm like, I'm glad I wrote that for me and I needed that

for whatever headspace. Too raw. Some of it's too raw. Yeah. Just like I'm maybe too literal because I'm working out my own feelings of something that happened or, you know, I'm just like maybe I'll, you know, sometimes songs take different forms where like a piece of it will come up subconsciously in another idea. Too literal? Like you don't want to be a storyteller? Kind of.

But also it's not always a story that people want to hear. How do you know? I mean, it's hard to write songs about being a survivor. And it's hard to write songs about... A survivor? A survivor. I'm a rape victim. Oh.

And I still haven't really gone there in my music and when did that happen in tennessee in uh the early 2000s which is another reason that helped me leave yeah like made me want to leave so that was part of the reason why you were so shattered for so long yeah and had a hard time getting your confidence back. Yeah. That's terrible. Terrible. Sorry that happened to you. Yeah, but see, that wouldn't be a funny, like it wouldn't be a song that I don't know how to write yet.

I feel like. You don't think it's made its way in at all? I'm sure it has. And, you know, over the years, I think I avoided talking about it early because I was like, that's just, you know, that's going to be something that will be part of the story forever and I don't want that to be the story was it someone you knew no oh um so

yeah oh I get it so some things are just too heavy for you to process yeah and and until you get a handle on how you want to sort of contextualize it, it's still kind of emotionally dangerous to unpack. Yes. Yeah. I can totally understand that. as an artist too because a lot of times you know people will throw stuff out there because they just need to but you seem to know enough about the therapeutic nature of your process to know what to share and what not to share like sometimes like as a comic i'll just go out there with stuff that is clearly not funny and clearly raw and fucked up and i'll just lay it out. And it re-traumatizes you. I'm sure. And I would imagine that's the risk of not having control of your personal feelings and whatever the narrative is around your trauma

to put it out in the world. Because if it goes out in the world and you weren't ready to put it out in the world, whatever comes back, especially if it's negative, it's just going to reopen all the wounds. Right. Well, I think as, well, for me, learning how to be an artist or learning how to control your narrative is so huge, right? I mean, I'm sure you've had to deal with being interviewed and steering conversations.

I'm not good at it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because I'll talk too much. And I don't know what my, fortunately for me, my narrative is controlled because I never shut up. I talk twice a week and I'm very open. So there's not a lot missing from the public narrative.

You're very good at it. Oh, well, thank you. But yeah, I understand that some people are controlled like what is your fear like what do you have to control now in terms of like when you're conscious of it right well things that i i mean i try to control now are like mostly for safety measures for family stuff and um uh that i'm learning like what i should and should not say just for protecting people. In terms of your personal life. Yes.

Right. My whole entire career has only been writing about my personal life. Yeah. But now when other people become involved and people reaching out to my family members and stuff, I'm just like, okay, I need to do things a little differently. Yeah, you always be wary of the guy who's writing the big profile and needs to talk to all your brothers and sisters and parents. Yes.

Because you're not going to win on that one. No, there's a lot of sides. Yeah, yeah. For sure. So do you feel like with this record uh because like for me if and i've listened to all the records in a row like this one seems to be the most uh it's the biggest sounding and there's you know there's a lot of things going on musically in a lot of the songs that creates layers of heavy feeling and uh it seems i i can see it as the one, it's a natural evolution

and it sort of seems to be what you're working towards. Do you feel like I did it? I do, especially after the last few years that we've all gone through to be able to make anything. I think I'm proud of all my artists' community that they're still making things and they keep going. Sure. I'm so lucky that I have an outlet to be able to feel like something came over the last couple of years.

But it took so many people to to help me make the sound because it started in my little garage. Yeah. to help me make the sound because it started in my little garage and then I knew that I wanted to salvage those tracks so that it was still represented this time and I didn't want a big producer to come in and try to polish it. I wanted to pull in those tracks for my studio.

And I had another session with my friend Zach Dawes who played bass on Remind Me Tomorrow. He brought me into the village recorders with a few session players. Where's that? I think it's not quite Santa Monica, but it's like Fleetwood Studio

where they did Tusk. Oh, really? Yeah. It's pretty amazing. And got to go like after hours he had a friend that was an engineer there that's like took me in like off session yeah um god you could have probably got lindsey to play on it if you wanted to dream dream um but so we had like a few sessions in there when i was figuring like testing the waters of what I wanted the record to sound like and I I felt like that was going to be a beautiful record but I I wasn't ready to make that record and so we brought in some of those tracks from that session to honor

the players that were a huge part of it um and I mixed the garage sessions and the village sessions with my engineer, Dan Knowles, who has done our live sound for the last few years. And he helped me do these rough mixes. And we brought him into a studio in Glasselle called Balboa. And I brought in my band for the first time. And we were all in like a room together pretty much. For the first time since the pandemic? Uh-huh. And so they were able to

well everyone but my bass player devin who's in jersey city um but they came in and helped me build upon these tracks and so it's kind of we call it piss mill but piecemeal yes um but i i wanted to honor the garage and i wanted to honor my friends that were part of that studio and then I wanted to bring in my band so we could feel like we were making something again and I think that's it kept growing and growing because of that yeah and when you talk about like therapy or because I was thinking about the idea of you know art as you know expression and then as creating a therapeutic space and when you talk about you know your process is being therapeutic almost in a meditational way right through repetition and opening it up and taking that private space like you know even though the songs have a sort of they serve to create relief, right, in you.

Absolutely. I mean, I don't know. I still don't understand it. I mean, I think this is something, and if there's some part of psychology that I can study to understand what it is, it's not necessarily a music therapy, but there's something that is like

ineffable you know that i feel like i get it out and it's this feeling yes it's not like it's closure or anything but this thing that i don't know what it is and i get it out and it's draining in a in a great way most of the time but um i don't know what that thing is but i know when i've i know when i've gotten it out and i can take a deep breath after i i've written something and i i don't know what it is yet but it's this idea an emotional frequency like it like it seems like a pretty full idea because it's not just a, it's not a lyric. It's not a lyric. You know, it's some sort of like, you know, it comes from this secret place, a melody or just, you know, a groove of some kind, right?

Right. But even when you were saying earlier that, you know, when you sit by yourself and you try to sing and it can make you tear up. Oh, yeah. I mean. I get teared up when other people sing sometimes. I think that's, I think that's like a really important connection. I don't, I don't, I don't know what it is, but I can sit at a piano and I remember even this feeling from the kid when we moved into our house in Nutley when I was maybe in kindergarten

and I was sitting at the piano, and I just remember feeling the vibrations and feeling something that I didn't understand, but it felt beautiful. And when you find that note, like everyone has a note in their body, that if you find this one note, you can feel it vibrate more than other notes.

Yeah. I think when people chant, they find that note. And there's something in that that resonates with me. Sure. It's universal. And it transcends language. There's a magic to it that is essentially human. And there is a combination of vulnerability and transcendence in it.

Yeah. Have you ever met someone that said they don't listen to music? Not that I know of. I just had an airport ride recently and the driver said, yeah, I don't really listen to music because every time I listen to it,

I get angry. I'm like, what kind of music? Yeah, really. ever said yeah i doesn't i don't really listen to music because every time i listen to it it just i get angry oh yeah what kind of music what are you listening to can i can i put can i make you a mixtape or something the wrong music i feel i felt bad for that person because i was thinking like when i dated a painter you know she was was kind of a heavy being, heavy soul. But she would paint these amazingly almost, you know, colorful, kind of simple but powerful paintings that were kind of, you know, uplifting in some weird way. And I realized at some point, or she may have told me, that that's almost a treatment for her own anxiety and depression, is to manifest this light on these canvases somehow. And I

guess manifesting anything when it's coming from a place of fear, depression, trauma, whatever, it's better almost to put it out in the world without an explanation and without it necessarily making sense in the way that people try to make sense of things. Because then you don't have to answer for it and it's pure. Does that make sense? Absolutely. have to answer for it and it and it's pure does that make sense absolutely i mean i when i watch my kid just draw yeah no it's i wish i didn't have a filter you know because i feel like if i didn't have the filter then i feel like i wouldn't hold so much inside you know that's what these these things that don't have words yet for me that that there are, like I wish I could paint,

and I wish I could use my hands in a way to see it. How do I organize this internal chaos? Well, I mean, you do your thing. You do you. But I mean, it's like, what, you want to learn to paint now? No. That's the problem, you know, what, you want to learn to paint now? No. That's the problem when you're an artist and you have your thing,

and then you see other things, and you're like, well, maybe I could do it better that way. But then you've got to learn that. Then you've got to judge yourself all over again. I don't know. It seems rough. Yeah. We've worked so hard to be where we are today and doing what we do. Yeah.

You know, I have so many interests, but I, you know, there's not enough time. Some things you got to keep as a hobby. Yeah. I'm fine with that. Sure. Yeah. I mean, that's the way I look at guitar. Like, I used to do a joke about it.

Like, because I never set out to be a professional musician, none of these guitars are broken dream vessels. They don't represent any sort of failure to me. They look pretty happy. But speaking of, I think that like when you talk about trauma

and about whether or not you can deal with it in music, I think it comes out. Like if you're doing it the way you're doing it, it's all there. It has to inform it. Yeah. I mean, I think it comes out, like, if you're doing it the way you're doing it, it's all there. It has to inform it. Yeah.

I mean, I hope so. I'm trying to be honest about my life while also telling us, having a narrative that is still general enough for people to be able to relate to if they're listening to the words. And I feel a lot better having made this i feel like i let something go yeah you know it's like honoring this time yeah hopefully moving past it so you're not going to tour on this record um well we did i did um a three-week tour in europe for a month-long tour in europe how was it oh my god... I mean, my band is amazing, but it was a fucking nightmare. Really?

Because... Okay, so with everything with COVID, there's just a lot of supply-demand issues. Yeah. We had reserved this bus about a year ago. Yeah. And it was, like, the last bus standing. And I'm not... Like, I'm not even used to touring on buses. Um, the last tour we did was in 2019 and that was my first bus. Um,

I'm, it was always a van person. Then it went van to a trailer. Then it went to like the bandwagon thing, you know, band to go bandwagon, bandwagon both of them and and then living on a bus is just hard anyway i still don't know how to do it but i feel very lucky to be at a bus level quote unquote but we arrived in spain oh sorry we started in port. Yeah. And my tour manager let me know that, you know, there are some really long drives happening. So you have to have a relief driver. Yeah. And the relief driver shows up to meet this bus. Apparently, Parliament was on the bus for six weeks.

On this bus. Yeah. And the driver goes to relieve this other driver to pick up the bus and bring it to us but the driver took one look at the bus and said fuck this i'm out and ditched the tour and the driver that was on tour for six weeks with parliament felt the need to stay on so that we could have this tour because otherwise we would have been totally fucked and so he drove the tour bus to portugal to meet us and when we drove from portugal to spain for primavera we felt him swerving and it took us five hours longer than we were supposed to get to the place because he had to pull over every 30 minutes or so to take a nap because he was exhausted oh my god he's like we're like it's

already scary to like have you know you're like 10 bodies flying through the night yeah with a stranger driving you around i know yeah i hate it yeah and um and he was so tired he had to pull over to nap the whole entire way and after talking to my tour manager, he said, okay, how about this? Why don't we give him an extra day? Because there was a bus and a truck and the truck had all our gear. So we let the bus driver sleep an extra day and we just met the truck at the festival hoping that he would catch up on some sleep

for an extra day and wait to meet us until the end of the festival right to drive on to the next place and um he was still just very tired yeah and it was like a battle of like him being tired the bus smelling like asshole yeah and the sheets weren't changed and like the bus was falling apart and he was like crashing into cars like the whole entire like scraping the sides like a window was had to be taped and like oh my god the headlights was one up so no one could sleep because you're too worried yeah we're gonna die and i would text zeke my partner and just be like i just want you to know that i love you i just i don't i just

whatever happens i'm not like i'm not high maintenance at all and and thank goodness for the nature of my band like it brought us closer together but like we woke up at one point and like the toilet was leaking so now like every time you pee you have to throw towels on the floor to like soak up your own pee yeah and then the last straw was when we had like a 6 a.m ferry wasn't the the hitting cars and but it's like but we hadn't we didn't really have like a plant like there's no other yeah it wasn't like oh let's just get another thing yeah at this point it's like you booked a bus tour so what's the last straw last straw was we woke up in the belly of a ferry because he decided to take the earlier one without telling us which is illegal and also super dangerous because you're underwater and if you flood and

you're asleep you can die yeah but also if we got out of the bus while and we got caught it's like thousands of dollars in fines for being under there he just parked you on the ferry and didn't tell us and my son was supposed to be joining us like the following week. Uh-huh. So we ended up having to ditch the bus in France. We let the driver go. He was,

he didn't really like it anyway. He was so exhausted and he was really bad at his job. And I feel for him. Oh, okay. But we ended up training it for the rest of the tour. And then the truck just met you there?

And the truck just, and Rod, the truck driver, like, saved the fucking tour. Because if he had not, if he had not been on board, like, he was just laughing at the whole thing. His spirit was great. Oh, my God. So that was our first tour back. And it was pretty rough. So this is why you're rethinking your future? Yes.

Don't get the star sleeper bus. That parliament had for six months? But then. I guess the first indication would be the relief driver going like, fuck that. Fuck that. Yeah. Wow. You know, and I'm shielded from a lot more than that because, you know, everyone's just trying to help me be in the zone, you know, but I'm like. So, but I mean, what about I mean, what about you didn't do an American tour at all?

We just finished this last one about a week ago. We did like a month-long tour in the States. How'd that go? It was great. Did you have a better bus driver? You know, you set the bar low, then you're set up to succeed. Well, you can't be waking up on a ferry. I think anything above that.

Wow. I don't have to throw towels down every time I use the bathroom. Awesome. That's rough. Yeah. But did you have a bus here? We did. We had.

So it was Angel Olson. Oh, that's right. I remember. I knew you did that. Yeah, I knew you. And then Quinn Christofferson. And, that's right. I remember. I knew you did that. Yeah, I knew you two were there. And then Quinn Christofferson. And so it was three buses. Yeah.

And we had a semi truck. Wow, that's big. Yeah, it was like over 40 people with crew. And you guys did all right? It was incredible. Yeah? Like, they ran it. Like, it was a lot of planning on, like, management.

Yeah. And, you know, production side. So when you had heard angels music that that's a relatively new friendship or i mean we've we've gotten closer over the years and then covid brought us closer together but you know i bumped into her on tour in amsterdam and probably 2014 yeah and that was the first time we like hung okay and we were just we ended up at the same bar after a show we had we had like we both had like a show the same night and we ended up at the same bar and she pushed the tables together and was like that was that come hang yeah and now you

guys are recording music together yeah touring yes and everybody's happy yes yeah as happy as you know you can be yeah all right but yeah she's an amazing person and um her whole crew is great okay and julian's whole team is wonderful and she's a sweetheart too with her where's she from i don't know her stuff she's uh based out in nashville now i think she's from memphis originally um is she of the christophersons she's she is not uh well there's a queen christopherson who is the first of four and he is from alaska and julian baker um she's in she's the one living in nashville and she started playing in like hardcore bands and stuff. Huh.

And broke out doing a solo record in 2000, I want to say 14 or 15. Yeah. And it's just really beautiful. Like a great guitar player. Cool. Really emotive. You know, talks a lot about addiction and mental health and um you know they're just and her voice is just like crystalline oh yeah yeah so are you

just taking it easy right now yeah i have a few months off now um settling back here we we like moved into a new spot and um you know we're And I think we only have it for six months at the moment. You're not going to buy a house? Yeah, now's a really great time. Is it? No. We've got to get out of here. There's not going to be any water left. One thing I read, there's an article about,

there's a new sect in psychology about environmental dread. And that's a real sect in psychology about environmental dread and that's like a real thing happening with people right now and like finding where people's anxiety is coming from and it's about just about the environment yeah where is it coming from right but reality yeah you know but it's like this like it's because that's one thing when you talk about like anxieties that are actually founded yeah so then how do you have someone that has anxieties that are actually founded yeah so then how do you have someone that has anxieties that are actually valid yeah how do you treat that yeah just tell them to honor their fear and do whatever their fear is telling them to do get out of town yeah get the fuck out i mean so i mean

it's like oh yeah you know what i understand you're anxious and you're right you're right about everything it's it's probably not going to well. So maybe try to get out ahead of it somehow. Yeah. You know, and I guess a therapist, I feel like it'd be great for the short term clients. You know what I mean? Just like, yeah, you should definitely just go. Well, yeah, but like I did it for myself. You got to put a plan in place that that is real enough to not feel like a fantasy to, you know, save your sanity and possibly save yourself.

For me, it was just applying for permanent residence in Canada to get that application underway. And it unburdened me in a big way. It could take two or three years for me to be approved. And it just means that I would be able to live there and work and get health care without foregoing citizenship. But it's incentive. And it feels like I've taken some sort of action.

So you've fallen in love with Canada. Well, I've fallen in love with a pace of existence that doesn't have the psychic cancer that lives here. Right. You know, I think getting out ahead of environmental disaster is anyone's challenge. Right. Because that seems to be a real thing. environmental disaster is anyone's challenge, because that seems to be a real thing. But,

you know, being in a cultural climate that is not that much different, but a lot less horrendous and dangerous seeming, it's really just an age thing. I mean, I used to think Canada was boring, but now I'm like, I'm ready to be bored right yeah fuck it yeah i've done the work and i've done you know i'm i'm i'm in this you know i've i've peaked in a way and i've saved some bread so what do i need to you know sit here and wait for weirdos and you know like land pirates and freaks to come you don't want to bust your ass anymore. It's not even a matter of busting my ass. It's just like I would like to live without the constant fear of our cultural and political climate. But that was just something I did for myself. And it created a lot of space around those kind of fears, whether it's climate or political anxiety. What do you do with the space now that you...

I fill it with other depression. With other fears. I have other fears that I can just feel. Ultimately, it does not placate the omnipresent dying thing. Right. I mean that like during the last couple of years, like learning how to filter myself in front of my kid with what's actually happening in the world. I can't even imagine that.

Yeah. And it's been really hard and he's like, you know, had to meet a whole bunch of new friends and like in the midst of pandemic stuff. And, um, it's,

yeah. But there, you know, they, they, oddly, it seems to me not being a parent, but, you know, if you're fair and, you know, protective, ultimately, whatever, you know, the trauma of adjustment is different than, you know, real trauma in a way. Right. Yeah.

And they kind of, they, they're their own people and they'll process it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's like, for us, it's like, we're honest to a point, but we also want everything as an adventure,

you know? Sure, sure. So as long as it's like, we're a happy unit and we stay optimistic, then like, he's, you know,

he has no idea. Right. You got to gaslight a kid. Yeah. Sometimes. All right. It's good idea. Right. You got to gaslight a kid. Yeah, sometimes. All right. It's good talking to you. Good talking to you.

That was nice. I was happy to meet her, happy to talk to her. Got a little heavy there, but that happens here. And the coffee she got me was really good. I would plug it, but i don't remember what it was there's some there there is a coffee shop somewhere who has sharon as a regular customer saying fuck why didn't the new album is called we've been going about this all wrong if you're in australia or new zealand she'll be on tour there in december go to sharonvanetten.com for

tour dates and info. And hang out for a second, will you? on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. 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. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.

And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Look, people, if you have a full Marin subscription, this week we posted a

real blast from the past. Those of you who have been with us from the very beginning might remember a segment we used to do on the very first episodes of WTF called A Few with Matthew. Matthew Weiss is a filmmaker, a film editor, a teacher of sorts. I knew him back in the day. I met him through Sam Seder when we did Break Room Live, a video streaming show before anyone could stream it on the last incarnation, is that what you call it, of Air America. And he used to shoot bits with me, little directed bits, fake commercials and also just riffing on the street. And we had kind of a strange, slightly competitive relationship.

And he was here in LA and came over to visit. So we recorded our first A Few With Matthew segment in over 12 years. Wasn't there a point in our friendship where it was over? In Queens? I remember walking down the street and it was like, you know,

fuck you with your Alexander technique and your arrogance. I mean, who the fuck do you think I am? If it wasn't for the Alexander technique, I'd be crippled today. You don't know how badly my spine and neck are fucked up from being an editor and sitting in the chair for 12 hours a day. Oh, sorry. I was just trying to- No, it was over like, you thought, I remember what it was. What was it?

It was like, who the fuck do you think you are? You think you know everything about movies? Right. That was because I believe on the heels of the aforementioned dust up over- About Wild Things? Wild Things. That was really what did it, huh? I think so. It's hard to believe. You pompous ass.

I know. Who the fuck are you? And I've never heard anyone say that to me, so it really came as a shock. No. All right. It may have been said to be once or twice. But I also recall the makeup, well, it wasn't makeup sex, but it was the makeup time where you said, and this was all very pre this show taking off.

It was happening, but it wasn't like what it is today. Right. And you said, I'm playing at the beer garden near your house. Oh, yeah. Remember that show yes and it was like terrible five people i thought it was a funny show i enjoyed myself yeah but it was i was there to see you right and that was after that we went and ate at the diner and then at neptune yeah and that was it and then we were back i mean a little it wasn't

irreparable but i mean i don't know the fact that I'm sitting here talking to you right now should be evidence to the contrary of that. I always felt that there was, it wasn't tension, but there was, you know, some kind of strange

ego thing, struggle we had. That was my belief. Yeah. I don't know what it was about. Well, you would think that. Yeah, see that. It's up now and you can listen to it with the full Marin subscription,

and anyone with a WTF Plus subscription can go back and listen to those early segments at the very start of the archives. Just scroll all the way back to episode two. Yeah. That's a long time ago. Next week, folks, next week, 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 Theater on September 30th and October 1st. Then I'm in Livermore, California at the Bankhead Theater on October 6th and Carmel by the Sea, California at the Sunset Center on October 7th. I need someone to go to that. That one's on the

edge of being canceled. I'll be in London, England at the Bloomsbury Theater Saturday and Sunday, October 22nd and 23rd. I'll be 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, all leading up to my HBO special taping at Town Hall in New York City on Thursday, December 8th. There are some tickets still around for that second show. Go to WTFpod.com slash tour for all dates and ticket info, and I'll play us out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. BOOMER LIVES BOOMER LIVES Monkey and La Fonda Boomer lives Monkey and Lafonda

Cat angels everywhere