WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 583 - Dan Zanes / Christopher Mansfield

Episode Date: March 8, 2015

Dan Zanes is one of the most popular musical acts in the country for young children. Marc is a huge fan, too, but that's because of Dan's old band The Del Fuegos. Dan and Marc talk about how he went from rock and roll almost-stardom to being a family favorite. Also, Marc talks with singer-songwriter and WTF fan Chris Mansfield about the breakout album for his band Fences. 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.

It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs 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.

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FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply Lock the gates! psychedelics i am mark maron this is wtf thank you for joining me thank you for listening today on the show uh dan zanes is here dan zanes was in one of my favorite bands back in the day

called the del fuego's out of boston when i was in college they just made their break their first album was fucking awesome their second album was. Then something happened, as happens with bands, but there was a big controversy around them. But now he's like the guy. He's like the world music, family music dude. He's the world family music dude. I don't know how to explain it. He'll explain it, but I had no idea that he was so popular. A couple of years ago, I realized it was him, that he had really transitioned into sort of a kind of global-oriented folk music geared at children and even wider geared to families with children. But it's a pretty beautiful story, considering he was a major rock man that never quite cut it, but they were good, man.

I mean, I've still got most of the Del Fuego's albums and I still listen to them. So it was a real thrill to me to talk to Dan and to hear his story about how he got to where he is, which is a preeminent family children music guy. But it didn't start that way. It started out with rock and roll and started out in Boston, Massachusetts. And it was back in, I guess it would be the 80s, Early, what, early 80s, early to mid 80s. But I remember them, and they were a great band, and it was a great conversation. Also on the show, I'm going to talk to Chris Mansfield of Fences. Their album, Lesser Oceans, comes out tomorrow.

Mansfield is the guy who wore a handmade, homemade Boomer Lives t-shirt on the tonight show uh he's been a huge fan of my show and i got into his shit and then we talked for a bit and i'll share that some of that conversation with you uh you know heading into his new record but what about it what about people who listen to this show and why they listen to this show. Look, I'm having a bit of a battle, an ongoing battle with nostalgia. I think as you get older, one of the bigger wars is the battle against being consumed by nostalgia. And I know I talk a lot about getting older and sort of handling both success and disappointment, both personal and professional. And look, I am no perfect grown-up, that's for sure. I'm far from it.

Like, I got into it yesterday on Twitter. I just blew up at a guy who was supposed to play a part on my show, Marin. He had already done the part in two other episodes. And then out of nowhere, even though we booked him, he bailed on it because of things that he said were out of his control. And I got mad and I posted it on Twitter. But then we worked it out on Twitter. And that's the way it goes.

We kind of worked it out. He still bailed. But it is what it is. It's show business, right? And maybe I shouldn't use Twitter as my personal dumping ground. Pow! Look out! Shit my pants.

Justcoffee.coop. That's classic ad format from me, Mark Maron. One of my oldest and most, and an advertiser that I'm still inconsistently, but always loyal to, JustCoffee.coop. They have the WTF blend there you can get. I get a little on the back end of that, but good stuff. You can get that at WTF blend there you can get. I get a little on the back end of that, but good stuff. You can get that at WTFpod.com. But I felt bad. And I tell you, man, it's very rare that I get on Twitter for an hour and I don't feel filthy for a few minutes for some reason.

But that's just the nature of it. Everything's public. It's amazing how with technology, how efficiently and quickly and thoroughly we can put our mistakes out into the world. So the bottom line is I'm trying to keep you in the loop of what's happening with me. There's been some fear expressed that I'm going to become successful and complacent or perhaps pleasant. But again, do not know who or why or how this show comes across to people, who listens to what. But I did that thing before Rob McElhaney, and I just talked. And I get very insecure about these talks because I don't know if they're funny. I don't know if they're relevant.

I don't know if they mean anything to anybody. And I, a lot of times, leave the garage thinking, like, what the fuck? that what was that but after uh last thursday's intro i there was this posted on the comment board today's intro but this is by richard today's intro conversation to rob mecklehaney's interview about growing up was one of your best i find myself emotionally engaged with you about the heartbreak of being a grown-up at 42 years old six years into a corporate job as an oil industry analyst i've been coming to terms with the reality that things have not turned out as I'd hoped or expected. Before joining the corporate workforce, I lived about 12 to 15 years as a visual artist creating undecipherable oil paintings in Houston, Texas. I have a large body of work and have had many art exhibitions locally and internationally.

I've sold several hundred paintings, but I never made enough selling paintings to make a living. I never quite got enough traction with the galleries. I haven't given up, but I've had to set aside my artist lifestyle for an eight to five gig doing research and writing industry news and reports. In order to maintain the business facade, I've convinced myself that I'm an undercover liberal environmentalist investigating the offshore oil industry. In truth, I'm very good at my corporate job and I keep getting promotions and more money. I question whether or not I still have that idealistic artist inside me. My family is thrilled that I've quote unquote grown up and have a real job. Your podcast is a beacon of hope to the frustrated artist in me. I love your interviews with creative people who continue to live the dream. I struggle with the heartbreak of growing

up on a daily basis. Thank you, Richard. Now, it's not nothing. I know some people out there. I know some people are like, that guy is a whiner. You know, I know you guys who think that. I know you women who think that. That, you know, just shut up and man up or shut up and buck up and shut up and, you know, quit whining.

This is life. You know, but life doesn't have to, you don't have to put that wall up. You don't have to be like, you know, fuck you, quit it. Part of life is, you know, fully experiencing the pain and not just shutting it out and dumping the anger of shutting it out onto everyone around you and claiming that is a philosophically righteous position. I also got this email that was very touching, along the same lines of how this show resonates with people. Mark, first off, I love the show and your brand of comedy.

This is from Casey. In general, and in a way, I suppose, due to your extreme openness, I love you. Let's not let that sentence hang there too long so it doesn't get weird. The reason I'm writing you is to say that besides the fact that it takes a little over two hours of time a week out of my shit job, I'm thankful for the show because of the effect it's having on me and my stepfather. He's been in my life since I was two, so I don't really see him as a quote-unquote stepfather, but rather just my dad. However, the fact that we share no genes means for us that we've never seen eye-to-eye on shit, which is the norm by this time. I'm 27 now.

Our brains simply don't work the same. Recently, though, my dad discovered WTF, independent of me. And it has been something that he and I have bonded over in a way we've never bonded over anything. Our conversations almost exclusively begin with, quote, did you hear that new Marin yet, unquote. It's been really nice to laugh with my dad. I sincerely believe that there is nothing that can bring two people together like sharing a laugh, and you're giving that to us. Real quick, in my life, I have dropped out of high school, got my girlfriend pregnant at 17, and generally been a fuck-up, but also got a good job regardless of my education, married that

girlfriend, 10 years, still in love, had three more kids, that's four, I know, holy shit, bought a house, and generally made good. I put my dad through the ringer, but earned his respect by being a man. Now through you, I'm making friends with him. So much so that I'm traveling with him from Daytona Beach to our former home state of Louisiana to see you in New Orleans. And I'm actually excited to be alone, spending time with my dad. That's a gift from you to us. And I can't tell you how much i appreciate it i know you've had dad problems and i've identified with a lot of them which makes it sort of ironic that you are kind of the bow on the package of reconciliation that i'm having with my dad thanks again can't wait to see you don't fuck it up man casey there you go he also wrote ps i've always dreamed of

trying my hand at comedy i've been consistently hitting two to three open mics per week for the last three months. But because of you, I refuse to call myself or be called a comedian. I'll earn that title just like you'd want. Well, Casey, that's fucking touching, man. And be sure when you're in New Orleans to say hi to me. You and your dad, come up, say hi to me. So those are the kind of emails that make me more grateful than earning a living,

So those are the kind of emails that make me more grateful than earning a living, more grateful than anything else is the fact that this show seems to provide something soothing to those of us who are troubled in a certain way. Men and women alike, children as well. I have some very sensitive and very intelligent 13 to 14 year old fans. Okay, about the tour. Let me get into this quickly because there's been shows added. The Trocadero in Philadelphia. That's a two show night. That's Friday, April 10th. There's been a show added at the Wilbur in Boston on April 11th.

I don't know how that second show. That second show might be close to selling out on April 19th in Toronto at Bluma Appel. There's been that second show that second show might be close to uh selling out on April 19th in Toronto at Bluma Appel there's been a second show added so those tickets are available there's been a second show added in Seattle at the Neptune on May 8th and there's been a second show added at the Orange Peel in Asheville North Carolina on May 14th so those of you who got shut out of tickets um you can get them now all right so let me share with you now uh some time with that i spent with chris mansfield of the band fences uh he was a guy that pursued me pretty heavily on twitter and otherwise he's a huge fan of the show so we

finally got him in here he does very sort of heartfelt um music he works with macklemore sometimes and uh the uh the new record, the new Fences album, Lesser Oceans, comes out tomorrow, March 10th. So you can get that wherever you get music. So here's me and Chris Mansfield. So let's talk about our history. You've been trying to get on this show for about, what, three years? Yes. Three years.

You first started coming at me. I didn't know who you were. And then we had a problem. We had some tension. We had a fight. We had a fight on DM, right? Yeah. Which I wasn't sure I felt.

I was like, I guess it's better than nothing. And then there was a period where you were only following me on Twitter. Yeah. I was trying to make a point. Yeah. Yeah. And then you wore the homemade Boomer Live shirt. Yeah.

On the Tonight Show. I did. Were you with Macklemore that night? I was. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. It worked. But it took a long time. Yeah. made me it was all making me feel uncomfortable I wasn't sure what you're why you were so compelled

what what was it that you wanted to talk to me about what did you feel that you needed to do this show so badly for um it's funny um I had no idea who you were for you know my entire life yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's not like i was that's the common story right where the hell have you been i don't know who you are yeah i don't know where's this guy where i was yeah where i was either but i think um there was a really poignant time living in brooklyn with a girlfriend like a a relationship that was like deteriorating. Yeah. And, you know, making a record. And every night my way to kind of isolate

was to put your podcast on. Oh. And to sort of decompress from writing and all the stress of that. So it was like... So I was like a friend in the night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it was like so i was like a friend in the night yeah yeah yeah totally and it was it you know i kind of felt like what is the uh the sort of blanket over that entire period

now that i've i fucking made it to television like who can i give a hat tip to and it happened it happened to you it's a it was a very clever hat tip because it was like only only members of the club know that one oh yeah oh you know what's funny is my dad called me really excited and he's like yeah a bunch of people are hitting me up and they're so excited you're you're paying respects to boomer and apparently boomer is like a guy that my dad's friend knew who died of cancer. Oh my God. And my dad didn't have the heart to say, no, it's just a cat.

So let the people think what they will. Yeah, so he didn't say nothing. You got a lot of tattoos. Those must have taken some time. Right. You don't care about the tattoos. I mean, I do. I like them, but I view them in a different way than probably most people.

How do you view the tattoos on your face? I see them as just sort of maybe like a beautiful thing, like things that I like, you know? Just like, I think they're pretty. What was the choice? Why'd you get the ones you got? Well, the thing is that, you know, I mean, the one above the left eye is Pizzola, which is an Elliot Smith song, which means like a precious thing in Yiddish,

which is my favorite song. Coyote under here. My mother has tons of coyotes on her property, and they're just like these kind of like sad beautiful animals that i like uh-huh you know um you relate i do when i see them i'm like i get it we got some around here that was a dog i thought it was her that was pretty perfect yeah i hope it was a coyote. What's above your right eye? This.

No. This is lesser. That was for the record. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's a new one. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So how long did it take you to write this record? This record? Six years? No. Well, let me ask you something, though. What happened with the first record? Was it supposed to be, did you feel okay with it? I did, I did.

The first record was, to really just break it down, to fit it into the time frame, is I dropped out of Berklee. I was playing basement shows, doing acoustic guitar, singing, and I'm starting to write kind of all these songs and stuff. And I was recording songs just on GarageBand and whatever. Right. And just sort of had about 30 songs or something,

had them up on MySpace, and then Sarah found them and was like, you should make a record. But to me at the time, it was like after Berklee, I met Jenna, my girlfriend, and moved to New York. I worked at CBGB's for a while, which was cool. Towards the end, I guess, huh? Yeah. Kind of.

You know, just kind of, I didn't have any illusions of being like a, you know, a famous musician. I was just like, okay, I'm just, you know, dating this girl, living in Boston,

moved to New York, and just working and doing whatever. And, you know, and I had these songs and I would play a couple shows sometimes, but it wasn't a big deal. Like, yeah, I'll play in this coffee shop, or I'll play in this basement, and whatever. But I just put them out, and then Sarah found them.

But to me, it's like from being a kid uh trying to you know i want to be a uh you know a jazz musician or i want to be a a folk singer or whatever it's like i was just trying to find i think when i really look at it i was trying to find a way to just like deal with everything and then just kind of finding it like simple being like okay a two minute song with me just you know finger picking an A minor to a C to a G and then here we go and it feels good

and maybe other people want to listen to it you know that's really it it was pretty simple I mean my entire it seems like kind of like it was an accident not that I didn't want to be a musician. But did it do well, the record? I think it sold like 15,000 copies.

Not real well, but we played Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo and some things like that. We didn't do any television or anything, but it was a modest indie modest like indie album yeah and macklemore helps you out on this new one a little bit yeah he how do you know that guy after berkeley i moved to new york yeah with my girlfriend moved to seattle went back because in my head i'm like let's go to seattle let's uh try to settle and do something. And at that point, I'd been singing songs and writing songs. And just, you know, I mean, people move when they're young.

Yeah. Let's try to find our place. Fuck yeah, man. I moved around all the time. I went to LA, New York, San Francisco. I went all over to Chase in it. Yeah. Boston.

Who knows what you're even looking for? Who the fuck knows? It's just not where you were. I'm like, got to go. Yeah. Yeah. So we went there and um and then yeah he he was there and he was certainly not who he is now and he's still

just a guy but he was not he's a sober guy though now right yeah yeah he is you sober uh i go back and forth it's sort of it's sort of a thing yeah i mean, yeah, I do. What's your thing? Boos? Yeah. Yeah. I do the meetings, and I've been to rehab, and it's tough. But I do my best. But my goal is to be sober.

Okay. I'll tell you that. So you met him when he was just a guy? Just a guy, yeah. Was he singing though? Was he rapping? Yeah, he was rapping.

He was doing it and he was like, yeah, come see me on play at this place. 350 people sold out and now he's far different than that. He's a pop...

Phenomenon. Yeah, he's a... Self-made man. Yeah. Helped you out. Yeah, he yeah he did um but you know i don't i have no trouble with that because um i think the song other side 2010 that came out um that was about that song was basically about not drinking or using drugs. You know, that was a thing that we did. And I did that for him first. That was when my record had already come out. And he didn't have a huge push.

He was just sort of doing his thing. So we did that. And I went out and did my thing, came back, and he'd send me stuff from The Heist, that record that blew up and changed the world. He sent me Thrift Shop, and I'm like, this is cool. This is funny. It's a funny song.

It could do well. So you guys were buds. Just buds, yeah. It's not even a thing. But getting my band onto a major label, where I started talking with a producer who his manager became the president of Elektra, and he knew that I had a relationship with Macklemore.

And just sort of... So Lesser Oceans is the first Elektra record, or was the first record on Elektra? First record was independent release. Yeah. Yeah, so this was the first time that we've... So this is a big deal for you, man. Yeah, no, it is. It's crazy.

Yeah, it's like... You did that first record 2008, 2009, it comes out, seven or eight, whenever. Right. And you've waited around and did some work and played some shows. But this is really the break here. Yeah. This record.

Right. This is the one. Yeah. You ready? Four TV shows and it's a major label. Four TV shows, but that was, were you doing Macklemore's song or yours? Ours. Both of yours?

Yeah. Whose album is that on? Mine. Arrows is on Lesser Oceans, and he's on it. So we did Good Morning America. How'd that do? Did you get a bump from that? Yeah, we sold a lot.

It's great. We sold way more than the fences yeah fuck fuck yeah it's really cool well congratulations on your journey thank you man it's good talking to you you're not sad are you no i'm fine i just need to go home and unpack my boxes you just moved i just moved out i was there for one day and i go home tonight and this you got a new girlfriend yeah she's uh abby she's the girl in the arrows video okay falling in love is good buddy you can still pull it off how old are you too old how old are you 31 good for you man i hope that i wish you the most success with this thing.

Thank you, man. All right. All right. Again, Fences, new record, Lesser Oceans, comes out tomorrow, May 10th. And now, back to Boston, folks. Dan Zanes, man. Dan Zanes is on tour this spring. You can go to danzanes.com to find out more.

This is one of the only times on WTF that I can say you should bring your whole family to these shows. Now let's talk to Dan Zanes. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now.

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as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look out at calEconomicDevelopment.com. Dan Zanes. Dan Zanes. The funny thing is that I know you from the Del Fuegos. Yeah, man, another lifetime, though, really. I know, but it was.

I mean, I just had you in the house, and you're listening to that music, and you haven't heard that in how long? Probably, really? A long, long time. You know, a decade, couple. Couple decades? I mean, but you did do some other del fuego's records right like you did one in in the 2000s no well we you know i did something with yeah we did something

we got together we had a reunion tour for a couple of weeks yeah we made a an ep yeah along the way which is you know it was nice for it was nice for all of us on a social interpersonal level. Right. We're friends. Are you? Yeah. Everyone's cool? Everyone's very cool these days. You know, everybody, there's life after rock and roll for everybody.

And it was nice for my brother and I because, you know, he didn't write any of the songs when we were, I wouldn't let him, you know, basically. When you were kids? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't, you know, what if he turned out to be better than me? You just cornered the whole band it's all you yeah so you know it's nice he wrote some songs on the ep you know we played

in in the good you know the best part about it was the world wasn't waiting for us you know people hadn't been standing around i was well where were you man sorry? Sorry, buddy. We could have used you in Minneapolis. Sorry, man. Really? No one showed up? Yeah, a couple of people. I guess that's why it's hard to go back. Yeah. And you know what? As it should be. Because if it had been a big success, we would have been tempted to keep doing it.

And life after the Del Fuegos has been better for every one of us. All four of us have gone on to better things. Well, I mean, I was in Boston. I was there through most of the 80s. Yeah, right. And when I was in college, you guys were playing block parties. I mean, when did you guys start playing? Beginning of the 80s.

Right. We moved to town. So where'd you come from? How did it all transpire? Because, I mean, that band was a good band. There was a lot of things going on in Boston. But where'd you grow up? I grew in new hampshire really yeah and i couldn't find anybody to play music with so i went to college to try and meet some people that i could

start a band where'd you go to college oberlin that's a good school yeah i was lucky to go there man where is that place it's in ohio right yeah it was it was a nice place it was a half conservatory half liberal arts. And I went there, you know, I really, I didn't go to get an education, although I would have been a nice place for it. But I went to start a band and the first day in the breakfast line, I saw a guy that I kind of remembered from high school and I went up and I talked to him. You knew him from high school? Yeah. I was, you know, lucky enough to go away to school for a couple of years. Where's that? Where'd you go then?

Andover, Phillips Academy. Oh, Phillips Academy? That's fancy. Yeah, that's where George W. Bush went. Did you go there all through high school? No, two years. That's fancy, man. Yeah, hey, I've been blessed, man. Where do you come from? What part of the aristocracy?

No part. That's the crazy thing. Is it just you and your brother? We have a sister in between us. Yeah. And your folks were from New Hampshire? Yeah. Yeah, New England Wasps. Yeah, man.

So what was the old man doing? What'd he do? My old man was, you know, he always wrote. He always wrote. He's been married five times. So that was a lot of what he was doing. Dealing with the ladies. Yeah, what he was doing but you know dealing with the ladies yeah but he always wrote you know they split up when i was when i was around six your

parents yeah and then he went on there how which wife was that two that was the second wife yeah uh-huh now you and your brother from the same mom yeah are all the kids from the same mom um we have some half brothers and sisters on either side. Yeah. Big family. So he was a writer? Yeah. He would teach. He would write. He would do.

He never did. It never worked out for him the way he would have liked it to. Right. Sure. I think there's kind of a family history of that. Of it not working out the way they would have liked it to? Yeah. I think a lot of us...

Being diplomatic. The lifestyle. Let's just say the lifestyle. It's tough being a poet or whatever. Was he a poet? Poet, yeah, whatever. But here's the thing. He's still alive.

So I try and... And I admire something about him very much, which I didn't realize until much later on as an adult. Yeah. I admire that, you know, no matter what his fortunes were, you know, and no matter what kind of troubles he was having, you know, on the personal side in his life, he always wrote. He wrote every day.

You know, he did his thing every day. Whether people wanted to read it or publish it or anything, he always wrote. He wrote every day. You know, he did his thing every day. Whether people wanted to read it or publish it or anything, he always wrote. Yeah. So it's, you know, I really, that's a heavy thing. It is heavy, man. It's heavy when, you know, whatever your relationship is with your dad, but you go in and out with these guys. And then, you know, you get to a certain age where you got to just, you know, look at the good things. Yeah.

And then say like, all right, well, there's this one part of his personality that seems to be a good thing, and I have a little of that, so that's good. Yeah. I mean, you guys get along now? Yeah, we do. We went years and years with no relationship. Angrily? I think it was anger.

I had the opt-out feature, and so I chose to exercise the opt-out, which I did. And, you know, and he, and I was, you know, and I had my own lifestyle challenges. I was in a rock and roll band. That seemed to me the perfect job because I thought the lifestyle was attractive. Did he have a job job? Did anyone work in the family? Did he just, was he a teacher he did yeah he did some teaching yeah that was mostly what he did and i you know and i can admire that just didn't you know i can admire anybody yeah sure it's a

big well it seems like you're kind of ended up there in a way i'm coming around to it that's right man i feel like i'm i'm a more of a teacher now doing this early childhood stuff um and especially in the last couple years you know to me it's a fascinating transition and it couldn't have been necessarily easy to to to sort of figure out let's see if we can get there by talking about it so you go to oberlin when you're studying what i i think i would have been a religion a religion major really i didn't know you know. So you don't remember, but you got an idea

that might have been what you were interested in? That looked like a good thing to me at the time. It seemed mysterious and it seemed like it was maybe multicultural or something. You know, I came from

the white monoculture. Right. So all of a sudden, I didn't know anything about the world. Anything I knew about the world, I learned from listening to records. So it was kind of a limited

worldview that I had. Well, when did you start sort of focusing on music long before like in your childhood yeah i started playing when i was eight i mean i knew that was gonna be it i had no plan b yeah i i'm very familiar with that with that disposition some people call it stupid but we call it creative. It was from the get-go. So you had a guitar with a little nylon stringer? No, it was an airline, electric strings. That was your first guitar?

An airline. An airline. Yeah. What are you listening to when you're eight? How old are you? My age? A little older? I'm 52. I'm 51.

Oh, all right. So we're in the same game. We missed the 60s for most practical purposes right we had to sort of play catch up for our entire life like did you ever think about what the which music came down at you and why yeah i mean i i um i think being up in new hampshire you know and tuning in in the you know very late 60s we We'd been in Canada for a little while. So the music up in Canada was tremendous. Ian and Sylvia, when I was about, they got divorced when I was up in Canada.

Were they a folk unit? Ian and Sylvia? Yeah. Yeah, great, great Canadian male-female duo. People said in the early 60s, when Ian Tyson, who was the male voice in the group, would walk through the crowd at a festival bob dylan would step aside you know it was a heavyweight thing oh yeah ian tyson was they were big gordon lightfoot gordon lightfoot was up there so you know it was good in the band the band they were still up there no but they were you know they were ronnie hawkins and that

and it was uh he was they were playing with ronnie hawkins weren't they yeah but this was you know this is the point where they were starting their thing, you know. So the late 60s, early 70s. So the band was, I mean, that was really my group, you know. The band? The band. That was, I just, I heard everything in their music. And I still do.

It is, it's all in there. Yeah. And that was sort of their thing. Yeah. No one quite understood how they did it, but they did it. Yep. It seems like, you know, that sound could only come from a certain collection of individuals. It's like a snowflake.

There's only one. It's bizarre, right? Yep. And so many people tried to do it, and they just couldn't do it. You can't make it happen. It's going to happen or it's not. They weren't all Canadian, though, were they? Everybody but Levon.

Levon, right. Yeah. All right. going to happen or it's not you know they weren't all canadian though right were they everybody but leave on right yeah all right so you're uh you're at oberlin vaguely studying religion because you don't know anything about the world were you inherently interested in religion did you have a spiritual side or you just i think we all do well i know but i know dan let's try to break it down were you like a were you a godless wanderer, or you just were like, I don't got to choose something? I think it just seemed so mysterious. It just seemed mysterious, and it was the window into the world because it seemed like, and I can dig it now. I wanted to write.

I wanted to read. So I went to this fancy high school, and I came out. I never read a book by a black writer. You know what I mean? Did you do well at Andover? I mean, were you? I did okay. My uncle ran the art gallery.

That was how. I had some access. He ran the art gallery at the school? Yeah. They had an art gallery? It's like a college. Oh, right. This is crazy.

Okay, so they had a collection because it's like that old waspy infrastructure yeah people giving gifts and whatnot yeah yeah yeah i get it so um but you know i came out of there and i'd never read a book by a black writer so you know even going to that school um you know my worldview is is so limited right so you must have got something from the from the music i mean it must have been listening to blues or something. I was listening to music, yeah. You know, I mean, I did, I liked oldies rock and roll. I mean, that was really my thing.

Like oldies, like Buddy Holly, Richie Valance. Love Buddy Holly. Love Doo-Wop. Doo-Wop. Oh, that goes to the Doo-Wop groups. So you were familiar with some expressions of at least black culture from rock and roll. Oh, yeah, definitely. with some expressions of of at least black culture from rock and roll oh yeah definitely but i didn't you know but i didn't but that's not enough to you know yeah that's not enough to get you in a

conversation with another person yeah no no no it's like yeah what do you know about black culture chuck berry's good howlin wolf could lay it down right yeah that's it then what can anybody say to that yeah that guy was good. So I don't know, man. So religion seemed like a portal. Seemed like it, yeah. But I didn't even think about it that hard. What I was really thinking about was starting a band.

And I did on the first day we started. And that was with Tom Lloyd. And he and I played together for the next 10 years. Was the band always the Del Fuegos when you were at Oberlin? Yeah. Where'd you get that name? We thought it made us sound like an R&B group, which we thought we were, funny enough. And then we thought Tierra Del Fuego was a vacation land, which it's not.

So that was the idea. Yeah. And it was a nice thing because i think because i had been fortunate enough to go away to school a little bit i wasn't as interested in hanging out with freshmen and partying right and so a lot of the older cats would turn us on to music you know we're just hungry we're hungry to hear whatever anybody could could play for us and so a lot of these older guys would would play things for us you, just to see us flip out, which we did. Well, that's the best thing. I mean, I talk to musicians a lot about that,

that there's got to be somebody ahead of you that says, hey, have you heard the Velvet Underground? You're like, no. And then the next day, you're a different person. Yeah. Yeah, it really works that way. It fucking does, man. So you're coming at music with this guy with uh with lloyd

what's his first name tom tom lloyd and you guys are playing covers a lot of covers like what uh sam and dave tons of chuck so you are doing r&b yeah we're trying you know but we don't even know how to tune our instruments so really yes what's he play bass Okay. We had a drummer, a guy from England named Nick. And so we were trying to play some Scott tunes. We were trying to play Guns of Navarone and Phoenix City and some of these older Scott tunes. But this is like, what year are you? So this is like 82?

80. 80. Okay. That's the first year of college. Right. And there's already shit going on. So you're already outside of the box. Yeah, well.

Well, Scott, not so much. I mean, Scott was kind of happening. Yeah, that was coming back around. But, you know, we did a lot of Elvis Presley tunes. And so when we moved to Boston, we dropped out after a year at Oberlin. We knew we weren't long for that environment it wasn't going to help us and um and so we went to boston yeah and we showed up in boston and um you know it seemed like guys from lynn and medford everybody had a band but they're all singing in english accents i mean that was my impression at the time

it was punk rock yeah who would that have been you know the guy that i think was really the you know the the greatest of of them all was jonathan richmond yeah he was great see i missed i missed that i missed i mean that the first modern lovers record is like i still listen to it it's it's so sweet yeah like and like and he seemed i don't know that guy do you know him i met him a bunch of times and times. And the first time I met him was at a show somewhere. I mean, he was already out. I think he had moved out of town. He was touring around.

He had made several records by the time we showed up. But I said, man, you know, you changed my life. And he said, oh, well, how's your life doing now? And he seemed like he really cared. Made me feel so good. Well, it's interesting because later, after that Modern Lovers record, a couple of records later, he sort of was doing what you're kind of doing now. Yep.

He went back to an innocence in the music. And he seemed very genuine. I mean, even the modern lovers, you know, you had this kid who's being produced by John Cale. There's darkness all around him. And he somehow was able to find this very sweet and sensitive sound that influenced everybody. But he was not like one of these dark forces. No, man. And he was not, you know, I never never and i think this is why i liked him too because i you know it's something i try and myself you know i like the idea he he was he never was

doing anything to be ironic right not sarcastic earnest very earnest but but but funny but he seemed like but in control of it too and um no i mean he was doing he was doing children's music or all ages music and never called it that right and coming out of punk rock you know it just it just seemed to me i and i didn't think it was children's music i just thought well here's this guy and he's singing wheels on the bus i mean he's singing wheels on the bus yeah and and he made it cool and why not yeah why wouldn't it be cool? You know, like, so all the barriers, he had none of the barriers at all. He was just doing whatever was in his heart.

It's really kind of interesting, because that's, like, you're talking after the first Modern Lovers record. Yep, yep. Because if you, like, if you really think about that Modern Lovers record, you know, he was dealing with, like, he was very sweetly and in a very sensitive almost childlike way dealing with some pretty gnarly shit on that record like she cracked i'm sad but you know like that and uh like um what's the other one of the hospital where he visits it when i uh you remember that song like all those songs are like this kid who's like in that scene where you got all these crazy girls around and like people were having problems and he's just maintaining yeah and it sounds like you know people around him were just falling off the edge of the earth with drugs

yeah he just was holding on to something that didn't really exist anymore except in his heart it existed in that for me that meant it existed and it gave me a you know a feeling like ah you know i'm listening to all these radio i'm thinking back to some other time and then this but this guy actually knows that feeling but yeah but it took you a while to come around to it right in the purest sense yeah all right so you get there so when you start playing like it was a different lineup were you a trio for a. So when you start playing, it was a different lineup. Were you a trio for a while? Yeah.

When you were playing in block parties? I remember I had a 45. Yeah, yeah. What was that? It was I Can't Sleep. Oh, that's right. And I Always Call Her Back. Yeah.

That was great. 45. That was what made me like you guys was that 45 what was that lineup that was um steve morrell was playing drums and then tom and i were you know playing guitar and bass before you broke yeah my brother was still in high school he joined the band the day he graduated from high school we want my mother said you have to finish you gotta graduate high school did you grow up playing guitars with him no he started you know after he moved out went to high school he started playing and what's the

age difference four years okay but you know it just seemed like and this was i guess the gift of punk rock it was so much less about technical ability and just more about he's the right guy he'll grow into it and i still feel like that's a valid way to do it. Didn't he have a nickname? Ork Boy. Ork Boy. That was it. I remember.

Yeah. No, it was, but that 45 was good for us, you know, and I think it captured something about us. And Robert Plant did an interview for MTV and they asked him who he liked. And he said, oh, the Del Fuegos are my favorite US band. Really? After the 45?

That's a great moment. I heard about this after we had made our first record and I don't know how I did it, but I tracked him down and someone set it up so that I could call him in his hotel room and talk to him

and I thought he was thinking about our record our lp yeah no man i never heard it you know he didn't even care but he heard the 45 he had it on his jukebox at home the 45 yeah just drop your name it was so nice i did that with buffalo tom once like buffalo tom i remember when i like i oh i remember what i was i turned john stewart on to buffalo tom like i think on their second album or whatever and then i saw in uh he never heard before and then i saw him interviewed in a in rolling stone it was your favorite new band like buffalo tom like i did that i did that i gave him that record nice did you know janowitz you know those guys no they're after you yeah it was after my time. I moved out in 84, 85.

I got married and moved to New York. So I was still playing with the guys, but I was disconnected from the scene. Let's go through it because, you know, there was a, you guys were, it was sort of a big deal, the Del Fuegos. I mean, you know, there was a lot of push. I mean, there was a lot of heat and whatnot. Yeah. So you guys are making the rounds and how does it unfold who are the who are your contemporaries when when you guys are playing and where you're putting your catalog together like before that first record is it's is it scruffy and those guys wasn't that your time yeah those guys those guys

were going by then and um man until tuesday already broke it didn't they yeah I remember running into Amy man because she had a group called young snakes really good it was like sharp kind of angular pop music it was like wire or something like that oh yeah and we used to open for them and she had a guitar player and he would tune our instruments for us because you know he he just knew that it would be a much better evening if he helped us out. A guy named Doug, I think. Yeah.

And I remember running into Amy. And she said, yeah, I'm starting a new group. We're making pop music. She was very cool about it. And I just thought, wow, that's amazing that you would not only decide to do that, but then you're so free about admitting it. Because to me, I would never say that. Yeah, like we're gunning for the big time yeah and she did it and i just i so admired that you know she was so clear yeah yeah and you guys are just you're doing your your rock and roll music

but you were fortunate in that like your sound i know that against sort of like post-punk and all that stuff but there was a movement because you guys are definitely roots music i mean even the thing we just listened to that first record uh nervous and shaking i mean that's that harkens back to that oldie sing too i mean it's just straight up it's not it's there's a little of a of a rockabilly thing in there but you were doing something else man but it was definitely sourced in that yeah that's i mean and it we weren't we weren't interested in breaking new ground we were just you know we were happy to be an American band. And the label that we liked was out here, Slash Records. Yeah.

And so all we did was make tapes and send them to Slash. We didn't even send them to other labels. We had no idea what we were doing. You know, we just thought, you keep writing, you make tapes, and you send them out. And you don't sit around and think, is this a good kick drum sound? You just make your music and you send them out. And you don't sit around and think, is this a good kick drum sound? You just make your music and you send it out. And they kept saying no, and then we'd send them another one,

and they'd say no. How many songs on there? Just one or two or? I don't know, three or four, whatever we could afford to record. Where were you recording? You'd go into a studio and do it, though? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And so I think what happened was one day, so A&R were opening up for their band. So Dave Alvin would go back to Slash and we'd open for the Blasters and Dave Alvin would go back and he'd say, you know, these guys in Boston are good. You might want to think about them. We opened a lot for X. Oh, did you?

Yeah. Los Lobos, Screen on Red. That was the scene, right? That was the root scene, right? Yeah. Slash was great. You know, it was a great label. X was great. The Dream Syndicate, man, those first couple albums are great, right? Yeah. Slash was great. It was a great label. X was great.

The Dream Syndicate, man, those first couple albums are great. Yeah. Yeah. You open for those guys? Yep, all of them. We'd open for every... The Blasters. They're playing the rat.

We'd open for them. It was just a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we just thought, well, these are our people. These are our contemporaries. We should be on that label. Yeah. And they kept saying no.

And then I think what happened was T-Bone Burnett was up in the office one day this is the story i heard yeah t-bone burnett was up there and he picked up one of our tapes and put it in the tape player and he said oh these guys are good why don't you sign them and they said oh yeah really he said yeah so they said okay we'll sign them you never did you ever get to confirm it with T-Bone? I never met him. He's like the cataloger. He's like the curator of American roots music at this point. Yeah. Right?

He does a nice job. Yeah, man. Well, what's that? What was it? Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? That soundtrack? That was good. That was mind-blowing, man. Yeah.

For whatever we know in our mind mind that catalog of music that everyone knows there's thousands of other things out there in this in america that just never made the cut yeah so you know you gotta go track that shit down man oh man you know and the thing that the thing too i mean i spend i spend a lot of time every day now just trying to think about what it means to be white in america you know it seemed to be a thing you're thinking it's a big thing i'm thinking i'm trying to figure it out and it's almost like thinking about it talking about it reading about it in conversation you know with white people and people of color you know it's like i feel freedom for the first time because i feel like i can see the world as it is for the first time and um and so when i look back and i and which is essentially

it's a country built for dudes like us it's built for white people white men in particular but you know really made for the white person and i think about you know i had a record by the uh the crew cuts yeah uh shaboom yeah and they had earth angel on there i mean this was black music yeah it was redone by these white guys you know. I didn't know any different. Right. And so a lot of the music that I was listening to was black music, but it had been appropriated and was being sold to the world. And this stuff, it really made it...

When I look back now, there was a subtle message underneath all that that i was absorbing and didn't even know you know so i it's almost like i'm re-examining my whole my whole relationship with rock music because of that you know so when you say the music that we don't we don't hear yeah get down to what a lot of that really is yeah you know even i love elvis and i'll always love elvis but really you know yeah sure man elvis was you know on the on the back there's a different hound dog yeah there sure is yeah man yeah well i mean they were very aware of that shit too i mean the record companies were very aware of it i mean you know that you know documented it kind of interestingly well was in that john waters movie where you know there was

just definitely there were just two cultures there was you know there was the the real black music and then the filter that they fed to white people through white people on the tv like you know i mean i think that pat boone covered tutti frutti i mean there was a time where i i've heard i've heard uh i think it might be in that documentary that Chuck Berry won, that Keith Richards thing, where they all, that Keith was working with Chuck to do that concert. And they were talking to all of them. And they were like, there were these other acts that would do their music because they were too, you know, it was too much. Too much flack, too much energy, too much freedom in a weird way.

Yeah, yeah. There's some crazy gatekeeping that goes on. Always. Cultural gatekeeping is intense. Yeah, I just got a box set from a label in Cleveland that I never knew about. Bodie Recording Company, Cleveland, Ohio. So they put out this six-record set. I never heard any of it, and it's amazing because it was all, like a lot of it was in-house,

and they were initially a gospel label. But everything that was happening out in the world was coming through there. And they just record after record. I'm like, how did I never know about this? Why would I? Yeah. How the fuck was I going to know about that? Wow.

That's the you know what? I mean, that's these things. Every day, you know, it's clear to me in some other way just how because I feel like, you know, if white people don't talk about how we're affected by racism, we're not, we're never going to get fully motivated to do anything to change it. But when you, you know, when I think about the price that we pay, you know, the price that I pay, you know, when there's that, you know, when the gatekeeping is so intense and the isolation, you know, the isolation that we're living in. So we're not going to hear about we're not going to be exposed to so much stuff.

And I know like, you know, for example, coming down from New Hampshire and being in Boston, I remember somebody played me Grandmaster Flash and the Wheels of Steel. And I'm listening to this 12 inch and I'm going, man, I never heard anything like this. This is crazy. And we're living on the edge of Roxbury. We're living in the South End at the time where the gentrification is just starting up i have no idea what gentrification is but you know we're we're a part of that you know we're in the brownstone the band but meanwhile so there's all this incredible hip-hop being made down the street down the street but you know i've internalized so much fear of black men, black people, that the idea of going and finding it and making a connection in the black community

and getting inside this music, it couldn't have been further from my mind. It was just, you know. Couldn't do it. And Boston really is one of the most segregated cities in the world. Yeah, Boston is a rough town. It's crazy. Crazy, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, it's like. Yeah, Boston is a rough town for that. Crazy, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, you know, it's like, look, I spent a lot of time there. I got some love for the city. But, man, I've never seen a city hide their black people like Boston. Yeah, no, it's really. Pushed out, man. You know, what is it? Like, it's Roxbury, and then, you know, the Mattapan. Dorchester.

Dorchester Projects. And then there's that other place where there was way out. It was crazy, man. Crazy. Just didn't see it. Yeah. So I feel like when I look back. So now you're educating yourself.

You're integrating. You're doing some records now that are very carefully orchestrated in a world music almost way. I think it's a natural outgrowth of having a you know a wide group of friends you know a wide group of people that i have now to know in new york yeah now well okay so going back so okay so you get signed to slash and they put out the first record yeah and you got a hit we had press we had good press but we didn't we didn't have anything quite like a hit yet. But the second record we did.

Yeah. But the first record was, you know what happened was the first record came out and we started getting good press and touring and all that stuff. The first record. Yeah. And then we were approached by Miller Beer. Well, this is like a good story. So the first record comes out and the second record hadn't come out when you were approached

by Miller? No. No. We were working on it. Okay. And they approached us. Because I remember this, this was controversial. Yes. At the time.

Yeah, and part of it, I mean. Well, tell the story. Okay, so we were approached by Miller Beer. Yeah. We needed money for amps. This seemed good. And in our minds, we thought, you know, we've been advertising beer for several years now. And we've been paid for it. so it seemed like a win-win and uh they wanted you to do a tv commercial tv commercial with

tim newman the guy who had done those great zz top videos yeah just all seemed like they're doing it the right way we knew that elvis had done donut commercials we knew about the you know the coca-cola commercials that otis redding had done i mean we just thought this is part of rock history eventually so you're rationalizing it of course but it was it was a struggle you're like there was a sort of like should we or shouldn't we or no not so much needed money for amps we needed money we didn't we had no idea what was about to happen and what happened was we made a commercial and it debuted during Live Aid. So everybody is gathering together to raise money for those in need in Africa, except for this one band from Boston.

They're just selling beer in between acts. So that was what did it? That's what kicked it off. And it turned into, you know, so the climate at the time was really about, you know, goodwill and altruistic movement. Right. And we're not doing any of that. We're just selling beer because we needed our amp money, you know. And so, you know, it wasn't that, I mean, it hurt that critics started bas for us could crit because critics had always been really good to us so that that felt that felt bad but what really hurt was that other bands would start

saying i'll never do a miller beer commercial you know you were sellout it was total sellouts at that point meanwhile you know fast forward 20 25 years now if you can get your music in a commercial you're doing great they're literally like saw the miller beer commercial man nice but back then it's amazing what 20 years could do back then it's like fucking del fuego's or sellouts man they shoot it at the rat too oh man the paradise oh the paradise yeah so you know i mean i gotta say i don't I don't look back and regret any of it because I feel like for me, if we had sold any more records, sold any more concert tickets, made any more money, I don't know if I'd be alive because I wasn't built to handle the lifestyle of it. But the second record came out after this Miller Beard fiasco and you had, what, a minor hit? Miller beard fiasco and you had what a minor hit oh well what happened was the the the commercial we're finishing up the record the commercial comes out during live aid we're sitting in the studio we're watching it for the very first time and it says the Del Fuego's Boston Mass and then the

commercial rolls and we said hey let's call the record Boston Mass it'll be a tie-in that's the big idea huh yeah and then the second thought was oh and that'll be cool tie-in that's the big idea huh yeah and then the second thought was oh and that'll be cool for Boston yeah you guys have

big plans before the hammer dropped oh man so you know what the record sold really well people

I mean in the Midwest it wasn't a big deal for people yeah what was the hit I Still Want You and Don't Run big deal for people yeah they yeah yeah people was the hit um i still want you and don't run wild yeah yeah and we you know we tried to make a bigger sounding record and all

that stuff and and who produced that mitchell from who was he from he had done um he had just finished doing crowded house and he had done our first record with us and um his first record was our first record and he you know so he was he had done a soundtrack for a movie called cafe flesh that came out on slash yeah and it was an art film that i think the financers um sort of turned into a soft core porn movie right to try and get the money back somehow yeah yeah all right so you do the second record and you do all right but okay so you don't got any respect in town right but you know so what is that where are you at at that point um so we start going to europe more often um we start hanging out out here we start hanging out with tom petty more often which is really fun because the best we love tom petty best just love tom petty if there's anybody that like not not like the band

but in terms of being grounded in american music that's the guy yeah yeah nice guy huh really nice guy and we um you know i think my brother was one the more um you know more able to make that connection easy. I don't know how it was, but I just remember one night my brother calls me up in the hotel room. We're staying out here and he said,

we had invited Tom Petty to the show. Yeah. Just like through Maria McKee. Okay. I love her. That's another one.

Yeah, man. You talk to her still? I haven't seen her for a long time. I wonder how she's doing, man. She's doing well. Last time I saw her but it was another one. Yeah, man. You talk to her still? I haven't seen her for a long time. I wonder how she's doing, man. She's doing well. Last time I saw her, but it was maybe eight or nine years ago. Good voice.

Oh, she's great. So we met her. She had done something with Tom Petty. We said, hey, will you invite him to our show? And I can't remember the club out here. So he didn't show up. But then my brother calls me up in the middle of the night. He said, guess who just called me? Tom Petty tom petty tom petty called him in his hotel room and said sorry i couldn't make it to

the show but if you guys want to come out to the house sometime that'd be cool yeah you know just what a you know it was an amazing gentlemanly thing to do so you went out there we did you know we and we went out several times and one time you know and know, I mean, for me, I just, I had so much love for Tom Petty that I would basically just sit there and watch the other guys talk to him. I couldn't do a thing. So, now, what is wearing you down? When you say you couldn't handle the lifestyle, were you getting out of control, or?

Yeah, alcohol. You know, for sure, alcohol was a big part of it and all the other stuff yeah yeah and people were you seeing people drop um not at that point not that it still feels like everything's cool you know we toured we opened for in excess for a couple of months just as listen like thieves came out we toured the country as their opening act and And so they, I mean, they're Australian guys living the life, making it all look like it's working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the four hours you saw them.

Right. You're not waking up with them. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but, you know, when it started taking its toll was going into the third record. We showed up and, you know, I hadn't written any songs. Yeah.

And I just started thinking, you know, the arrogance of whatever we do is going to be fine man you know people love us come on yeah yeah yeah yeah what was the third record it was called stand up okay yeah it couldn't have been further from the truth you know but that's what it was called and and this is the other hip thing we thought if we made it so it had a die cut on the back so you fold it out and you could actually stand the record up on the table that'd be clever yeah but it was right when cds hits no one is really buying it rough timing you've had a couple yeah between right a and cds hitting so that record didn't sell no and it wasn't it wasn't a good record it wasn't a good record to play live.

Who was the band then? Was it before everything got shitty? No, it was the same band. But there was a lot of tension. What was the tension about? Tension was about my brother was starting to want to write songs. And I think the tension that's the natural result of things not going the way you want them to go. Everybody's got it.

Youthful upswing. And then all of a sudden, no matter how hard you try, I think you're starting to just dip down. I think the critics turning on us, it affected us. We were sensitive. We're all sensitive, yeah. Who the fuck is that guy? You know, and then you can't put it

into perspective. It's just, at that time, it was important because there was a limited music press. So, you know, but, you know,

when it comes down to it, usually it's just one asshole sitting at a typewriter. I mean, who the fuck, you know, that's going to dictate the future of your, you know, year.

And the crazy thing was a lot of them were guys we knew and liked right it's worse and they're they act like because they think they're doing it right because they can never just blow smoke up your ass they gotta be like oh here's some good things but not the same it's not the same as it used to be and there's the bad things yeah and i i mean i can dig it on now you know it's it's kind of, you know, now there's been enough distance that it's all kind of funny. And like I said, I'm grateful. You know, I don't wish anything had gone differently because I learned some huge lessons.

And I got to learn them while I was in my 20s. But you plowed ahead. I mean, the band broke up or it didn't? It did, yeah. But then we made one more record with Adam Roth and Joe Donnelly taking the place of my brother and Woody Giesemann. And that was Smoking in the Fields? Yeah. Yeah.

And Woody Giesemann went on to start an organization called Right Turn up in New England to help people in the entertainment community who needed help with drugs and alcohol. Oh, yeah? It was like, hey, Woody, man, where were you when we needed you, right? A little late. And everybody landed on their feet soberly and okay? Yeah, man, it's unbelievable.

What's your brother doing? My brother got a PhD and went to work at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Landed a huge job there. And he works for Little Steven now. He runs Little Steven's organization called, it's like Rock and Roll Forever or something like that. And it's to bring rock and roll education um into the classroom so developing curriculum and it's it's incredible

because there's so much you can fold into the history of rock and roll so what about uh what about springsteen were you springsteen fan oh yeah of course and he he came and um sang with us one time which is also i mean we've got a lot of amazing amazing stories about you know connecting with people that really meant a lot to us you know but but uh the boss is you know he's great coolest right but him and petty that's fucking massive cool yeah no those guys said solid they set a good example and and you know whenever we would see the way they operated off stage it was always just as you would want to believe you know yeah yeah gentlemen and very very um uh uh encouraging and you know encouraging to people

coming up you know we always just felt like these guys they kind of cared you know they cared that we loved music the way we did and they wanted to see the best for us and it was i mean that meant a lot yeah it meant a lot so so when everything like how bad off were you when everything fell away like at that time like after like 1989 when you moved like you moved to new york earlier than that right yeah mid 80s i was married right so you were you were living the life but you were okay right i mean i was you know i thought i was okay yeah i thought i was okay but i was um i was you know a lot a lot of the men on my side of the family have always had you know have had the boozy thing the boozy thing that sounds nice that's a nice way to put it the

boozy thing yeah yeah yeah it's like this goes back a ways it's a tradition yeah yeah yeah so i was living the tradition you know and um and you know and i think in that feeling like man this this isn't me yeah you know i'm not i'm not that much of an idiot you know why am i always acting like one right and um and you know so i i started to feel like, you know, there's a lot of pain. There's a lot, a lot of pain. But I couldn't, you know, and this is a funny thing, too, man. I couldn't see life without it. And that's, you know, I couldn't imagine life without it. So I'm holding on tight to the thing that's killing me.

Right. You know, I don't want to let go of the one thing that's just doing me in, you know, spiritually, physically, mentally, everything. I don't want to let go the one thing that's just doing me in you know spiritually physically mentally everything um i don't want to let it go and um but uh but i did you know and uh and that's where adam helped you out that's where adam helped me out you know and then you know and a lot of hundreds and hundreds since then you know but um so you know i thought that's you know i thought letting go of that would be when my life would end but it was actually you know when my life began in any meaningful sense yeah you know so when i say i'm grateful to be alive i'm you know you know yeah i'm serious man yeah yeah i definitely

know yeah like yeah and and so then when did you start the um the new career in playing music for families and for younger people? So you're sobered up, and I know that first year is not easy. You're a little nutty. A lot of things, like adjusting to who you really are. But when did that sort of evolve?

Well, I just thought, I'm going to change the lifestyle here and put on my solo record what'll it take six months you know yeah but um but it didn't god had a different plan dan's plan and god's plan didn't didn't line up on that one a lot of ego in dan's plan dan's plan was all about dan yeah i wrote it though and i liked it yeah yeah i authored what i considered to be a very good plan for myself yeah and then what what what did god's plan dictate god's plan was for me to lay low for a while and figure out you know how to how to say hello when i'm when i'm buying a quart of milk in the store how to say thank you and hello and

please and thank you all this stuff you know how to be you know just a person on the street and not be you know without you know without anything attached to it just to be part of the human race basically and turn the eyeballs out you know because I'd always you know I didn't realize how selfish I was right how much my relationship with rock music was just about getting some applause for myself. I mean, I love music and I love music making, but it was a very ego-feeding proposition for me. So I started, my wife wanted to get pregnant,

so that was a science project in itself. And I started listening to music. I stopped listening to rock music. And I started listening to bluegrass music and 40s and 50s black gospel music and Jamaican music. And the thing that I was seeing and hearing was that these musics were all connected to some kind of community. They weren't just isolated groups doing their thing. They were connected to communities and I just thought

that's what it used to be like in Boston in the beginning and then slowly the wall went up between us and the audience. Right. And if I have to do that again, make music, I'm not going to do it.

If it's disconnected from the people in the room, I'm not going to do it. Right. What's the point? Right. You know, I want to get back to that to that you know to the social piece yeah and um and uh and so that's on my mind you know and then my daughter was born and um and i started thinking about the music that i

grew up with you know the the folk music because i wanted to make music i wanted to well here's the thing man she's coming back from the hospital and i'm thinking your wife or your daughter my daughter and my wife were in the car and i'm thinking we're gonna get home what's the first song anna's gonna hear and i'm and i'm thinking of what record am i gonna play for her it never crossed my mind i'm a musician i could play the song myself right and I didn't you know I played a record for her that was it it was the Jamaican I know it was um the Melodians singing little nut tree that's a Jamaican rock steady song a really

good choice I hit that out of the park. She's still thanking me. Oh, yeah? 20 years later. She's 20? Yeah, she turns 20 next week. Yeah. Is she a musician? She can play. She's a film photographer, though. Oh, cool.

Yeah. So you played her that. I played her that, and I started thinking about, you know, I went to the store. I thought, this is going to be a shared experience, that we're going to listen to music together, and we're both going to connect to it emotionally. be a shared experience that we're going to listen to music together and we're both going to connect to it emotionally so it'll be the updated version of the lead belly records i listened to and the pete seger and the wood you listen those two with by yourself um when i was a kid you know when i was when i was i could go to the library and take records out yeah you know and so i got into folk

music you know i mean and to me doo-wop was folk music right it was like the extension of pete seger right they were all connected in some way but but lead belly was really you know my guy when i was learning to play the guitar yeah he was um he was he was the inspiration for just you know when i thought back to it and i thought what it you know what was the music what what what was the sound from my early years that I really carry with me up till right now when I'm thinking about my daughter? And it was really Lead Belly,

more than the band, more than anything else because it was one man playing in a unique style. Heavy. A mix of old and new songs from a variety of traditions, playing his own way, different every time. It's Lead Belly. He's the cat. He really did a template for what I've been trying to do

ever since with this all ages music. Oh, yeah. And it sounds like it was recorded in the kitchen. Yeah. So I'd picture myself standing there with Lead Belly. He played 12 string? Yeah, he's the king of the 12 string guitar. Yeah, incredible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah um so i i just thought oh man there's going to be all this you know like the updated version of the folkways record so i went into tower records and it seemed like everything was connected to a movie or tv show yeah it seemed very commercial and um and then i found children's music that was good but i didn't i wasn't thinking about children's music because i wanted to connect to it emotionally too you know and so what i was noticing was that that my neighbors would all you know they would go to tower they would they would pick out some stuff they wouldn't dig it and they'd just start playing beatles records right which is fine beatles are great but you know what a lot of their songs are songs of romantic love, and they're not going to resonate that way for a three-year-old.

So I thought, well, maybe you can't have all ages music anymore. But let me try and make it. And I made a cassette tape to give out to my neighbors. Yeah. And this is where? In Brooklyn? I hadn't quite moved to Brooklyn. I was in the West Village of Manhattan.

OK. And I made this cassette tape, and Cheryl Crow lived around the corner, so she sang on a song. And Suzanne Vega just had a baby, and she was married to Mitchell Froome. Your producer from the old days. Yeah. So we're all hanging out. So Suzanne sang on a song, and I was meeting West Indian women in the park.

They were there as babysitters. They were teaching me songs. Really? Yeah. So everybody's coming in and doing different stuff, and I want to make it sound like the neighborhood. Right. So it's like my first slate foray into a kind of a multicultural presentation where I don't have to be the front and center piece, but I can pull everybody together

and let's see what kind of sound we can come up with. Right. And I want it to sound like it's made in a house. Yeah. And so I made this cassette tape and I had finally made a solo record at that time. Yeah. No one cared about the solo record,

but everyone wanted more copies of this cassette tape so again you know dan's plan was the solo record does really well and i just go and i tour for the rest of my life and you can bankroll your little project if you want to if i want to but it was just a one-off you know but i think you know god's plan was you know why don't you do why don't you do this keep so the right so the keep up with the family. So the cassette tape was popular in the neighborhood. No one cared about the solo record. Which was the solo record?

The Cool Down Time. Yeah. But everybody wanted more copies of this cassette tape. So that's a lo-fi experience, the cassette tape. Yeah. What did you record on, a four track? Eight track, half inch eight track. In the house?

I had a little room. I had a little room i had a little room and you were bringing people in to the room yep yes cheryl crowe would come in and she came in and sang polly wally doodle and uh-huh um suzanne vegas sang eerie canal and you know so it was that that kind of thing a lot of songs on that record yeah i mean so that became a record yeah i said you know i realized what was happening and I, and you know what? And the thing for me was that I felt like, so now I'm playing music again, you know, I'm playing music again that people are excited about, but it's not just grownups. Kids are excited too. So my, you know, that's expanded. So, and it's not just kids, it's everybody. So I'm thinking this feels like I could actually be a useful member of society if I do this. And I'd never really felt that before. And I wanted that because my mind was clearing up a little bit, and I'm just thinking in that way.

So the idea of being part of maybe a better life for anybody. You know, providing a soundtrack for a new family. Yeah. What a great thing. Right. And so I said, I'm going to stop everything else. I'm going to start a label for family music. I'm going to start performing for families.

And this is my thing. This is my new job. I'm doing this. And the rest of it, I don't need anymore. And it was a very conscious decision. and i've been doing it ever since it's amazing it's unbelievable man to have a second act like this and to have it be so much better and that it you know that there's the collaborations i've been able to have and and and it's opened my eyes to a much bigger world than I ever imagined. And also it's organic and some of this stuff sounds like,

actually kind of, not raw in a bad way, but I mean I can hear strings rattling and things buzzing. You know what I mean? It's like you're sitting in the room. Yeah. And it's got that very intimate feeling. Yeah, and that's exciting to me. I mean, I hope to never lose

that because why would you it seems like that's what you know we always recorded it in the house you know we always except for that first one was a little room then we moved to brooklyn and i just set up the basement and that's where we made all the records so it's a lot of records dude yeah what is it like 12 i think it might be might be even more. And you don't mind doing traditional songs? I love doing traditional songs. I realize that the last thing the world needs is a record of all Dan Zane's originals. Who cares?

I'll write some. I like the songs I write, but there's so many good old songs, and so many of them have been around because they're good for people to sing along with or they have some kind of emotional core that still works in these times or they just they have an element of mystery. And a lot of times like it's almost like a type like music is sort of magical in that, you know, the kid could be identifying with just the the lyrical rhyming of words or sounds. the lyrical rhyming of words or sounds, but the meaning for the parents in that moment could be completely different,

could bring them back to a different place, or the poetry of the song is deeper than the kid will understand at this time, but they're registering the sounds as something they can dance to or sing along with, and you have that family element, that communal element. Yeah, and I think, I mean, I love and greatly appreciate children's music.

And I think what we're trying to do is to make songs that you can take with you, take with you through your life that'll work for you on some level at any time. And you're huge. You're incredibly popular. And you're huge. You're incredibly popular. It turned out being in the Del Fuegos was a really good thing for the children's music because at that time when I started doing this, it was kind of a weird story. And it helped.

I got a story of like, right, because you were this rock and roll guy. Yeah. Now, like you're born again, children's music. There was an article in the new york times magazine uh-huh and that that after the first cd came out and that that put me on the map good story changed my life and then you won a grammy i won a grammy yeah that wasn't gonna happen with the del fregos no it sure wasn't and a grammy is a good prize to win, man.

It's as a musician. Yeah, sure it is. As an independent, as an independent musician, it helps. That was on your own label. Yeah. It's all been on my label. That's astounding. And that was a fairly, that album was a very kind of music of the world type of album.

Yeah. I mean, it's because I live in Brooklyn. I live in the most diverse zip code in the entire country, 1-1-2-1-8. It's incredible. But, you know, so what happened was as I started to, you know, as I started to meet people from different backgrounds and I started to understand and listen and, you know

i got more clear on my own background and so i could tell my story and i could listen to somebody else's story and just you know the bridges started building that way and i started consciously trying to break out of my own isolation you know and and um and and and music is music is a beautiful way to do that and so so as I'm looking to learn other songs from other people and bring, and because we're not, it's not a band that's going to make the record so they can tour.

It's just me making a record with everybody that's around that's got something to bring to the party and to capture that party. And that's the whole goal. So if you have a song that you can teach me and an instrument that you want to play on it and you want to be in my record i'll pay you man this will be great and we'll do

shows together you know it's whatever i want to do and that's and that's and and and and then i started to get conscious about it and think you know about the about me as a kid yeah and i wanted so you know if you're a kid in nebraska and you're you know fox news is on in the background and you're hearing about uh people climbing through the desert you know and they're coming up and they're going to take jobs and they're in they're going to you know all this great this scary stuff's going to happen well you know maybe i can make a record that has another story yeah and it's a story of people getting together singing in english and spanish and collaborating and celebrating and doing their thing you know so let's tell another story and have that one be um an option for somebody you know because the world isn't a scary place it's

there's so many possibilities here oh it's a sweet story man i'm so so blessed you know the whole thing is incredible yeah man you turned it all around and you found this thing that's much bigger than you that, you know, connects people and your side of the street's clean. I'm trying, man. Well, it was great talking to you. You want to play a song or something? Yeah, that'd be great. I could play with you if it's not too complicated. Oh, please.

Let's do it. That'd be fun. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let and guitars and all the food we can take. I'll meet you on the corner when the sun decides to break. Come on, catch that train. Come on, catch it. Catch that train. Well, I don't mind the station. I don't mind the station. I don't mind going underground.

I kind of like the symphony of a thousand different sounds. In another 20 minutes, we'll all be country bound. So catch that train. Come on, catch it. Catch that train. All right, take it away. All right. It's a topsy-turvy world we're all living in today.

Let's take a trip before the summer sun has gone astray. When we ride, we ride together. And so I say, catch that train. Come on, catch it, catch that train. Look out of the window, watch the world go flying past. Every river, town, and village village as they come and go so fast we'll fill the day with memories and i know they're gonna last come on come on catch it catch that dream That tree And we'll all be country bound Come on, catch it

Catch that tree All right, take us home Come on, catch that train All right Nice! Okay, buddy, thanks for doing it. Oh, man, that was great fun. What a great guy. What a great guy. What a nice sound.

That song was Catch That Train from Dan's 2006 album of the same name. I enjoyed that conversation very much. If you've got a family, Dan makes the family music for your family. Enjoy. What else, people? Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod needs. Get some JustCoffee.coop. Get the app.

Get the free app. Upgrade to the premium app. Enjoy yourself. Check the calendar about the tour dates. I'm tired, man. I'm fucking tired. Making posters. Going to be a lot of new posters after the tour available in the merch still need a poster for charleston

yeah all right no guitar you got damn playing he's a pro uh enjoy your monday have a good week i'll talk to you Thursday. Boomer lives! It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs 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.

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