WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 902 - They Might Be Giants

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

John Flansburgh and John Linnell tell Marc the unlikely story of how a couple high school friends became a two-man band at the height of the New Wave performance art era in crime-ridden New York City and somehow carved out four decades of mainstream success as They Might Be Giants. The Johns also talk with Marc about children’s music, selling out, the early days of MTV, Malcolm in the Middle, and more. 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.

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. Product availability may vary 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. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers,ers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf as it goes and keeps going how's it go how

wait what's happening what is happening how are you these words on this mic at this point in time right now and what follows here in in the intro not not the interview i'm going to be talking to they might be giants in just a second john flansburg and john linnell are both here the johns are here or we're here but in the present that would be after i talk to the Johns. These might be the last words I say in this structure. I put it off. You know, they're going to show the house one more time right after I'm done talking here. And then I set out to purge the shelves and move the shit, folks. the shit folks the plan is to move the shit uh at the very least to move the recording apparatuses apparati to the new space the new garage on friday and if i'm ambitious if i'm enjoying

the pickup truck i'm going to load it up and take and take the rest on Saturday. And we'll start broadcasting there from the clutter. Like the old days. Back when this garage was just a garage. It's got to start somewhere. Yeah, before I get all this stuff on the shelves, it's going to be the mics at a table. Just like we're starting over. But this is it. This is it.

I'm making some decisions about the books. I'm thinking about releasing Gravity's Rainbow back into the used book ecosystem so someone else can put it on their shelf for a couple of decades with plans of embarking. But this is it. I'm looking around and I'm ready to take it down. I'm ready to take the pictures off the wall.

I'm ready. And I want to thank all you people for being here through this process. Thank you for mediating the separation. A lot of people are interested in buying the house. I think that's going to happen pretty quickly too. And I'm going to be moving not far. Six miles away into a new, slightly more spacious garage with a bathroom. I'm going to bring the foam from the ceilings.

Bring all the pictures and the books. Going to absorb some sound in there, too. I'm going to refine the book collection. I'm going to miss this place. I'm going to miss it. Yep. But this is it. these are the words all right i did i mentioned to you i think i mentioned briefly at the end of the last show that i watched all of the stranger things in two days in preparation to talk to uh david harbour i wanted to watch a few, but then I ended up watching all of them.

And, you know, for the first five or six, it hit some triggers. You know, I make the mistake of thinking that, you know, that I'm not a fantasy guy, that I'm not, you know, a sci-fi guy. But if there are kids involved and, you know, they're at an age where the emotions are raw and also they're socially awkward, it gets me right in the guts. And I'm emotionally attached.

And I just thought the performances were amazing. But I locked in because of the kids. And also because of this kind of stuff, this is another reason why I learned about myself. I don't like watching sci-fi or reading sci-fi because it hits my shadow government button. It hits my conspiracy button. It reopens my portal into the, what is it called, the upside down, which is the dark part of my brain. Because for about the first five or six episodes of stranger things i was like yep this uh this adds up makes sense adds up a little i'm a little vague on how she manifested the whole but uh yeah mk ultra and so i could see how this could lead to uh you know the

psychic phenomenon then the symbiotic relationship of the psychic phenomenon with the actual parallel universe that it's not just in your mind but you think it is but we all know and i talked to david harbour about it in a in an upcoming episode about the elves on the parameter the elves on the periphery the uh the the weird uh faceless tooth-filled monkey dogs that are just you know kind of uh just there if you just look out the side of your eye there's a little little flickering going on i know it's there so it triggered that but thankfully they didn't explore it thoroughly enough for me to get truly freaked out by my own

thoughts about yeah what is reality but uh i was able just to enjoy it so there you go not that it needs a a great review from me but uh i just wanted you to know that I am apparently a latent sci-fi fantasy fan. And I'm not ashamed of it. Because I don't want to say that I am a real fantasy or sci-fi fan, because then I'd to embark on that and uh go to comic-con and decide which characters i'm going to dress up as do cosplay uh you know there's a lot of it's um it's not it's not going to happen i just wanted to say that i i can't open my heart to it um if the journey is you know kids who are awkward rising above and uh saving the world like i i can get into that i my heart feels that i mean i'm not dead inside folks this is it the last the last of me talking in here

oh god nope i'm not gonna cry again enough with the crying so So, listen, folks. They might be giants. They're here, the Johns. Their most recent album is I Like Fun. It came out earlier this year, and you can get it wherever you get music. And I enjoy talking to the Johns. They might be giants. A great deal.

One of them, the larger John, is quite the chatterbox. Was that condescending? I had a good time. This is me and Me and They Might Be Giants, John Flansburg and John Lindner. 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. 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.

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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+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Now. John and John.

Sir. Yes. They might be giants. Here we are. You're in my garage. I know. This is exciting. I'm glad we got to be in your historic garage before it's turned over to the Smithsonian

Institution. Well, the people really... Right next to Julia julia child's kitchen is it in there julia child's yeah they have a reproduction of it and and by the way if you do go take a photograph of the wall because it has a a fine wine list of the it has like a of the day it has a chalkboard of all the of all the wines that she needs to buy oh my god and so it's just it was just there guide yeah. Well, some people thought they should do something with this place, but I don't know that. I guess it was culturally relevant.

I don't know if it's historical in the big scheme of things. Well, I mean, I've been- I'm not fishing for compliments either. I'm just throwing it out there. Sure, sure. Hold on a minute. Listen, listen. I want to get my tea.

Okay, okay. You guys got stuff. Where's mine? Yes, we need our stuff. We're talking like we're doing this already, but I can't tell. I don't know. Is this a thing that he does? Mark has left the room.

So what? So have we started already? Of course. Okay, all right. It's hard to tell. We just jumped right in. Mark, I had to tell you. I gave you more of an intro than I can give anybody.

I said John and John. You did do that. Those were extremely pro. Yeah. What were you more of an intro than I can give anybody. I said John and John. You did do that. That's true. Those were extremely pro. Yeah. What were you going to say? I just want to say, I've been listening to this show really from almost day one. Really? Yeah.

And nothing, I mean, I thought it was a very interesting show. Yeah. I remember actually recommending it to a bunch of people because I thought they could handle it. You can handle it handle he's a very needy but i was i mean i had to say i thought the first at first i thought like the wtf title yeah it's a huge governor on how how popular it could ever be yeah you know you thought it was a mistake or you're not you're not getting it on npr but then you got it on npr with a different

title i know hey you're fooling everybody well then the title initially was a was a broad title for uh an unclear idea uh that that you know in the first uh dozen or so shows we were kind of all over the place i remember the comedy bits yeah we had comedy bits we had comedy bits that guy matthew my friend matthew uh was in the room they were oblique yes comedy bits like they did not they did not land There was no place to land. Oh, you mean the fake characters? The fake characters, yeah. Oh, that was here.

The third act. The third act was here, yeah. Yeah. So what do you guys, the last time I saw you was at Fred's house. Fred Tomaselli, the artist. Yes. And I'd never met you before. And Fred's a dear friend of my girlfriend, Sarah, the painter.

And they're painters. She's fantastic. Yeah. You like her? Yeah. Oh, thank painter. And they're painters. She's fantastic. Yeah. You like her? Yeah. Oh, thank you. I do, too. She's painting now.

But Fred is a hell of a guy, hell of a painter. He's terrific. Yeah. He's a very good friend of mine. How long did you know him? We've been sort of goofing around together since the early, late 80s, early 90s, I guess. We actually all lived in Williamsburg at a time when if you met someone under 40 on the Bedford Avenue stop, you would stop them and say, hey, we should be friends.

Because there just weren't that many people around. It was not, I mean, to say it was bohemian in the true sense of the word, which is that nobody would want to be that way. Yeah. But when, I mean, where did you, so you guys both still live in Brooklyn? I live in Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah. I moved east.

Plans to move to a secret location. I spend most of my time in the Cats in Sullivan County in the Catskills, near where the Woodstock event actually happened. That's where you spend your time now? Most of my time. Yeah, yeah. And, but you would, but in other, if you're not there, you're at his house? No, I have an apartment in East Harlem

that is nice East Harlem it can be revealed it can be revealed I've actually I have not talked about it in public until right now Who are you concerned

is going to take that information and be bad with it? Well we're such a Brooklyn identified band that it's like it's a very weird thing to have it's like me wearing glasses

right it's like you don't want it to be a big thing. Right. As you evolve. Yeah. Because people who are in, who are committed to you, who have been with you the whole ride, are like, well, now what? Yeah.

Exactly. I mean, we were in Williamsburg. I don't know what to believe. We weren't ready for the change. Right. Yeah. I moved to Williamsburg in, I guess, 82. Yeah.

I moved there in, like, 83. And so, like, we were there for a very long run. And, of course, you know, nothing in New York stays the same. And it just turned into this kind of Eurodisco extension of St. Mark's Place. It was never my dream to live in St. Mark's, on St. Mark's Place. Did it? It is kind of, it is extraordinarily new. They've torn down everything and put up.

Oh, in terms of the way it looks. They don't literally have, they haven't built a tunnel from St. Mark's to- But like Eurodisco, when I lived in Astoria, like behind, in the courtyard behind my building, there was a bar there called Boomerang. I think it was, I want to say Baltic. I don't know. It wasn't Euro, but it was- Oh, no, no.

I mean like, you know, like that Mark, that character on SNL, sort of like real high-end German- I get it. Yeah, yeah. We're buying New York. Not the original Polish- Unka, Unka, Unka. That stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, and then there was the Unkas with the strange Middle Eastern beat. You know that Middle Eastern beat? I would be fascinated to live near that. I can't even do it. It's like it's not 4-4. It's something else. It's another thing that's kind of engaging. The 16th, like 32nd.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It cannot be. A beat that cannot be sung. It's like Egyptian-y. Yeah, yeah. Is that possible? You guys are the scientists.

It's not the music. It's not the music that's the problem. No, I get it. I get it. It's the people that own New York now. It's the lifestyle choices. Well, let's go back because I want to go back to the day, back in the day, because I'm not getting nostalgic with my own life, but I think we must be around the same age.

Probably, yeah. We're a little bit older than you, I think. Are you really? Oh, yeah, yeah. Really? Is that true? When did you show up in Astoria? when when were you i think i was in astoria how's that going to determine my age i don't know i'm triangulating i'm starting by

triangulating i i think we ended up in a story in like 94 95 okay all right so you were here before that and i was here in the in the late 80s for a couple years then i went back to la okay back to new york in like 92 you've lived couple years, then I went back to LA, I ran back to New York in like 92. You've lived almost everywhere. Yeah, and then I went to San Francisco for a couple years, but then I was back in New York like 92, 93, and then I dug back in 94, got married, 95, got that place in Astoria, held on to it for a while. We were old guys by that time.

Is that the Jody Lennon place? Yeah. I held on to that for a while. I think she's still in it. She is. Yeah. I ran into, who did I run into? With her asthmatic cat.

Wait, how's Stoli doing? I think he's doing good. They're both okay? Yeah, yeah. Good, good. I mean, my wife is friends. I'm not like close with them. I just know them.

See, like we do run in similar circles. Then I ran into you in a circle that I'm new to. Right. But I didn't know you, but I feel like we have similar friends. But I was sort of in a dirtier world than you, I feel like. It's possible. Although, so we had more time to clean up because we got to New York in 81, I think. Yes.

Right? And we were probably 21, 22. Oh, you are older than me. We're definitely older than you. Yeah, yeah. I'm 54. I'm 58. I'm 57.

But it's still generation generationally how many minutes before we're talking about the beatles how many minutes before we're talking about the beatles now you're not gonna get that from me i mean i could see all right all right then the rolling stones that's fine i can talk about the rolling stones you know that uh you got two boxes to check off but you guys didn't grow up in new york no i did i did partly yeah i'm gonna yell that at you you didn't grow up there um i. No, I did. I did partly. I'm going to yell that at you. You didn't grow up there. I didn't. I still haven't grown up, but I lived in New York until I was eight, moved to the suburbs

of Boston where John and I met. Suburbs of Boston. Suburbs of Boston. Now, that was- Metro West, as it's called now. Oh, really? Yeah, because it's all the dot-com millionaires. Is that true?

Yeah, it's all techie now. What part are we talking about? The Tom Schultz-y part. Oh, wow. Wee, wee. I got the Walkman right back there. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Tom Schultz, he's Walkman. He lived in the town of Lincoln. We grew up in this beautiful town called Lincoln. What's that near? It's near Concord and Lexington. It's basically between, for a long time, it was unincorporated lands between all these Revolutionary War towns. Right. And then, I guess, maybe, I don't know when it was actually, it didn't have a school for

a long time. There weren't that many people there. Lincoln. It's like 20 minutes west out of Boston, and it's a beautiful, beautiful, it's where the Audubon Society is. I mean, it's that beautiful. I miss it. I miss it.

It's a very pretty place. You know, I did a lot of time in New England, but... It can feel like doing time. It can, but, like, when I was there, I was in college, so I was sort of oblivious to the nature of the city itself, and it wasn't until I started doing comedy where I realized, wow, it's pretty intense out here in some of these suburbs. Yeah. But, well, there's a lot of ideas going around.

But the thing that we were just talking yesterday or two days ago about the strange thing about Boston now, and I guess this is true of all cities everywhere, but I was recently back in Central Square, which is a place I hung out a lot in the 70s. Sure. And Central Square, I mean, it wasn't't time square filthy but it was like taxi driver cigarette butt it was a dirtier one it was an extremely dirty like it was definitely like you know there would be like a trash can and in the trash can there would be a porn magazine right you know right that kind of place like it was a very kind of raunchy but it was weird wasn't it

more it was a morbidly obese kind of neighborhood right but people used to say to say, like, you know, can you believe it's that close to Cambridge? Like, it's that close to Harvard Square. Right, right, right. But it was really only a few blocks. I mean, Central Square was dicey. Oh, it was a five-minute walk. Five-minute walk. But it's very interesting about Boston and San Francisco to some degree, though it's

a little more spread out, is that, you know, like the zone, the combat zone, was like four blocks. Right. It was like nothing. Oh, it's a tiny town for sure. But the thing is, it's also, that's all gone. Like when you go to Central Square now, it's just like a gigantic old navy. Is that true?

Yeah. It's been erased. Is the Middle East still there? It is like the, you know. Oh, the club? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's still there.

That's still there. TT the Bears? I'm not sure about TT the Bears. Is Ocalcutta the Indian restaurant there? We did a New Year's show or around New Year's show at TT the Bears and our audience bought so few drinks that the managers of TT the Bears asked that we never return. Did you pack it, though? It was sold out.

They sold like one beer. That was Boston. But our audience- You attract good people. Our audience is a very sober crowd. But it was like one- It was a night that like heavily relied on beer, on like drinks. Sure.

Like a bar, you mean? Like a club where you play music? Well, but that's the thing. It's like, you know, like when you go from clubs to theaters, everything changes. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Like the dynamic changes because the promoters aren't looking to sell. You're not in the business of selling drinks.

Right. You're in the business of selling tickets. You can be a different kind of act. Of course. Yeah, you can be an act that plays at a place where you're proud to have your fans come. There's not going to be an element. Yeah.

I don't know if you guys ever had to deal with that. We've had elements. Yeah? Yeah. I'm trying to think if we had elements in our Boston show. Well, I'm thinking it seemed like there was a stretch there. I'm almost positive my mother is going to hear this podcast, which is one of the disturbing things about the internet is that-

She can just do it? Your mom can catch it. She can just figure it out? Your mom can catch up with you. We just got an interview request from High Times. Yeah. They were like, they would just like you to discuss your drug, your life with drugs, like even in the past tense.

And I'm like, my mom's going to, I don't really, I don't know if I want to go to a How much of a life with drugs did you guys have? I don't want to talk about it here. I don't want to talk about it here either. But you're a grown ass man. Yeah, but it's like, and so and and what are you hiding from your mother john maybe it's time to let it out uh you know let me just speak to polly flansbury yeah if i could it's just there's nothing there's nothing to talk about yeah it's yeah

it's okay i'll admit it pretty much i've done i've done no drugs so that's what you're hiding is that's what i'm hiding there is no part we don't want to get out it's what you're hiding. That's what I'm hiding. There is no drugs. That's the part we don't want to get out. And it's not John's mom that doesn't need to know. Right, right. But anyway, I was just thinking back on the shows. We did a show at, what was the place in Jamaica Plain that we played a bunch of times?

Oh. It was in the mid, early 90s. It was like proto very it was in mid early 90s it was like what was that place proto grunge moment and the Pixies opened up for us which was before they were famous

and it was an amazing show yeah that was I thought that was Green Street Station Green Street Station is that what it was called I believe

we played with the Pixies before their album came out sure they were a virtually unknown band and it was like one of those things where I mean it was kind of like being in a club, and, you know, I've had this experience

a couple times. I saw Elvis Costello before his record came out, and it was, like, it was a very similar thing. Where? In London. Oh, yeah? I saw his, basically, his first record. Yeah, before his first public show.

And it was a very similar experience, where you're just like, oh. Like, because, you know, you see a lot of good bands. Yeah. You know, you certainly, you know, we've had a lot of great, we've had amazing openers and, you know, very talented people. But, like, when you see something that's just like, oh, this is, like, something bigger than we ever did. Completely, you know, this is some musical unobtainium.

Yeah. You know? But the thing is, I think my mom came to that show. Oh, and she said, those boys look like druggies. No, no, no. Look at that girl. I'm not sure if it was a triple bill or if this was a show that happened to you. I think you're right.

No, it was the same show, and there was a third act. There was a third act. And it was a man doing performance art, and he was dressed in a full body length vagina outfit. Which, you know, was completely... Was it Jonathan Hayes? As far as we were our performances in new york this would be like completely ordinary like was this in new york yeah bring this in boss bring the vagina guy out yeah he's on next they might right they might be giants around we need a

we need a vagina was it was it the man gina is that what it was it was a boston act we don't know what but i don't remember what he was i don't think't think it particularly went over. I mean, it was a very... How could that go over? How's it going to go over? What do you do for the second minute? Right, right. I think it was about his... He had raps.

I forget what he talked about. He was saying stuff about himself. That was his outfit. Ladies and gentlemen, Get It Off Me Productions introduces the man in the full size... But basically, every time John's mom came out to see us,

there'd be some appallingly transgressive thing. And it happened in New York. It happened in Boston. Yeah, the same thing happened in New York. With the guy who... Guy dressed as a giant cock. That was actually just too weird to talk about. But the point is... The one in New York's too weird to talk about?

The point is, I think she probably got used to it. Your mother already went through it. She became inured to the idea. What happened in New York? You can't just make

you say it. It's also sort of... I don't know. It was a guy with no arms wearing a dress who was doing, again, performance art and it was mostly in German,

I think. He was like saying stuff in German and... And that He was saying stuff in German. And that was the... And then his friend did a striptease while he was reciting stuff. Was he the closer? Or they opened for you? It was on one of these bills where...

You know PS122 in New York, they would have like a hundred different acts. It was a variety show. Yeah. But this is important because this is New York in 19 what? 82? No, no. 89, 90. Because this is like, it's sort of the end of that performance art thing.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We basically started, like when we arrived in New York, New York was like the new wave fad was like, which was in some ways kind of a hoax. The resurrection of new wave? No wave. No wave. No wave. Right.

No wave. Sure, sure. Like like 1981-82 there was like uh suicide uh suicide i don't suicide musically fits in but i don't even know if they ever even had any audience at all the the hot acts were like dna yeah lydia lunch right the contortions which is a fantastic act swan swans were part of their uh i think like live skull maybe sort of like proto uhSonic Youth kind of stuff. Right, right. Glenn Bronca stuff.

That stuff was all kind of getting a lot of notice. But the thing that was weird, the thing that they all had in common is that audiences hated it. Yeah. So there was like this weird void. And because of that, clubs were, all these clubs that, you know, we were arriving in New York thinking like, you know, we're just going to slide into. Like, we, I think we sort of thought like, you know, we were new wave guys. We were punk in New York thinking we're just going to slide into... I think we sort of thought we were new wave guys. We were punk rock guys. You put it together.

So you grew up in Lincoln. You met in Lincoln? Yeah. You grew up together. Yeah, correct. He's a year older than me, so we didn't really become friends until high school. But do you remember... Oh, okay.

So you don't remember him moving with his family when he was eight? I remember him when he was eight, yeah. Yeah? It was a small school. I wasn't aware of John at that time. The awkward kid who showed up. He remembers you because he did something terrible. This is new information.

Oh, no. Really? I mean, I didn't have like a strong... Trust me, you did not make a strong impression on me. Don't flatter yourself. Hey. But you remember when the new kid showed up. No, no.

When I showed up, everything changed. Yeah, yeah. My whole life changed. No, no. It was fine. Yeah? It was fine. But in high school, you became friends? changed. Yeah, yeah. My whole life changed. No, it was fine. Yeah? It was fine. But in high school, you became friends?

Yeah, we both worked on the newspaper together. Oh, newspaper nerds. Correct. So you were doing layout, you were doing what you... Yeah. He was the editor of the paper. We were writing articles, which were basically like one of the teacher advisors was like, you should just call this Vanity Fair.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. And he was right. Why? Because we were writing for ourselves. Well, because the problem was like, you know, the function of most high school papers is to like write stories about like the football team. Right.

But there was nobody on the paper who even could fit. Well, I mean, we did actually. Didn't go to games? We would get submissions of articles about what happened at the football game. And it was a good expository writing lesson to try to figure out how to write an interesting article about a football game that you hadn't seen. So that was a good...

That's a whole school of journalism in and of itself. Yeah, it's like, this was a fantastic game. And so I wrote some of those articles, I'll admit it. And all right, so you're hanging out. And what's going on musically at that time? This is 76, 77? Yeah, in there. I had started playing piano, just teaching myself.

And John owned a tape recorder. Oh, very important. But was not a musician. I'm sort of obsessed with sound. Yeah, I get that. So like a regular tape recorder or a four-track? I saved up like summer job money to buy a Tascam 3340. Oh, yeah? Four-track simul-sync tape recorder or four track i saved up i saved up like summer job money to buy a tascam 3340 oh yeah four track simul sync tape recorder most importantly there were no drum machines

which is really the key element to so you had to record a yeah if you did anything with a pulse if you had a one song with a pulse you'd have to find a pulse making thing or make your own right you could concoct and also a lot of times you would do stuff with like tape loops yeah and then and because it's a loop you can kind of create like a pulse a pulsing thing out of the loop yeah i knew a guy that was very into layering things and doing i remember we did a recording at his house on something similar to that and we he he did a drum loop on uh playing with the sticks on a guitar case and just like layered that in absolutely right god it's so good but it comes up it comes up against this idea that

i think is sort of like there's a lot of i mean this this idea happens comes up on your show a lot which is the thing that's more fun to do than it is to experience as an audience yeah i think the problem with that kind of music, like the bedroom rock in general, is it's really fun to make, but it's not particularly fun to listen to. But now when you say bedroom rock, you're talking about, you know, like Brian Eno. That's anybody.

I mean, anyone's working in their studio right now. Well, it felt like, it didn't feel that different than probably Brian Eno in some ways. I mean, I think Brian Eno's probably better at it. He's got a nicer bedroom and probably nicer equipment. Well, I don't know how much it matters how good the equipment is. No, I think you're right. I think the excitement

of discovery that you can do when you get a handle on that technology has got to be just mind-blowing. If you have that kind of focus... Oh, it's completely magical. You're in all day. You're in. It's super fun. Exactly. There's nothing more fun. so you met him and he had the task cam he had the tape recorder i had the and i and a little a few years into our friendship i um well two things i

i started playing with a um a new wave band and you picked up you picked up a guitar that your friend had given you with which had only three strings yeah and started to teach yourself just the first three strings this is one of those uh this altered guitar sort of discovery invention well not not intentionally it was more like you only had three strings yeah so you started with that well it was also i had you didn't know it needed more well i could make chords with it and that was all i felt like i really needed that's not even a full ukulele no it was like no but it was sort of like punk rock amnesty day like it was 1977 like uh there was you know i remember i saw you don't need all the strings no punk rock i saw the

you know like our friend jimmy who was like a big cream magazine kind of uh i mean he's i feel like lester bangs is kind of like if you just think of Lester Bangs, he's like the Lester Bangs of our personal life. Right. Like, he introduced us to a million things. You had to have one at that time. He played us like Patti Smith's Piss Factory, and he played us like the Ramones. The first time I heard the Ramones was in his attic room, and he had a copy of the Ramones. How great was that?

And he's like, you've got to listen to this. We fell out. And he had a copy of the Ramones. How great was that? You've got to listen to this. We fell out. It was just like, this is the most insane. Because part of it that was so great was that it was incredibly powerful music.

It'll never happen again. It was incredibly powerful music. And also, there's this part of it that's like, is this a joke? Yeah. And the combination of like, is this a joke? And it being so good. Right. You know, it's like what they're talking about is so fucked up. Yeah.

I mean, it's like there's like. Sniffing glue. Yeah. I mean, it's just like all. And it's like without no apologies. They're not bragging. Yet because of the type of music it is, it almost sounds like novelty music. Well, it's like.

But it rocks so hard. It rocks so hard. I mean, it's not. And yeah, I mean, it asks a lot more questions than it answers. Yeah. But I like that. That's the interesting sort of reaction to the Ramones. Like, is this a joke?

But like, then you realize how hard it's rocking. It's like undeniably not a joke. There's a great cassette tape that Danny Fields made of Lou Reed that was recorded in a recording studio right after Danny Fields played him the Ramones. Yeah. And it's a very similar thing. Yeah. And like Lou Reed is just like, that's it, that's it, I'm done, we're done.

It's over, forget it. They nailed it. They did it, they did it. And it's like this, it's like, what? You know? Yeah. And like, you know, you think about Lou Reed, like Lou Reed is the guy who does like the press conference

in Japan with like 800 people there. Yeah. And he's like, I don't want to talk about it. Yeah. What are you people doing? But Lou Reed had an advantage over us, which is he kind of came from that same world. He invented something. But he also came from the working class New York thing. Oh, that's right.

And so part of the mystery for us was we're these suburban kids who are like, what are these guys doing? were these suburban kids who were like, what are these guys doing? You know? But on some level, like, you know, you got to, there has to be this timeline where Lou Reed knows that without him, that whole thing down there doesn't happen. I'd be curious to know how much he credited himself. I don't think sound wise, but certainly in terms of pushing the envelope and pushing it in New York.

Yeah. And making room. But also, I think New York also just grows stuff like that. I think that's true. I think that's true. It just grows Ramones. Right, right, right. There are a lot of Ramones.

But also, I mean, I think musicians often, nobody wants to admit it, but they will feel competitive with their contemporaries. Sure. And nothing is as much like when you play a rock festival. It's like, you know, behind the scenes, it's like, well, who won?

I'm sure it's the same. Well, I don't do it with comedy much because it's not fair in the sense that Because you're lying to yourself? No, because after a certain point, you realize that certain comics with certain audiences are going to do certain things.

Right, they've got a thing. Right, right. Of course. I think that's the same with music. Last night, I went out, and I rarely play publicly. And I took my Les Paul Deluxe. Oh, you played music publicly? Yeah, Jimmy Vivino.

Oh, well, he's a very generous guy. Jimmy? Yeah. He's great. He's a nice guy. Well, he does a night out in burbank at this joint so and he said come down and play a couple and i was like oh my god wow and uh you know and there's all these old dudes these old guitar players and they're just around hanging out and i definitely

felt that like god i hope i can get it up for this like i hope i can land this yeah just so i don't feel like i'm uh you know like impotent there's a there's a right an almost biological challenge to it that you don't you want at least show up for yourself right right and you know it's not losing i knew i was gonna lose but if i could honor what it is that i do you know as rough as i do it and it's mine then i did all right that's interesting well i think we take more of more of like an auteur approach. We can not necessarily, you know, do the thing you're talking about. We can suck pretty hard. We can suck, but we're hiding behind our ideas.

No, but the thing is that no matter what you guys do, I think it's very similar. You've created this world for yourself. It's sound, a tone, a voice, a structure. You're undeniably you. We've got a brand, yeah. Wait, why call it a brand? Why not call it a... Universe. Yeah, or just like a voice.

We've got a voice. I want a universe. You do have a voice. I'll take it. I'll take it. Because after two seconds of one of your songs, you're like, ah, they might be John. There's no denying it. But I think the thing that-

Isn't that what you're trying to do, though? I think we're trying to do a lot of different things. No, I mean at the beginning. At the beginning. Well, even at the beginning, I think we're pretty ambitious about it. So the thing about it is, though, is that we're doing this for ourselves, primarily. We're trying to impress ourselves. And I think part of it is, like,

you know how you don't necessarily recognize yourself in the mirror? Yeah. Like, you're so used to your... It's getting harder. Yeah, yeah. It's like, Dad? But you know what I mean? Like, you're so used to your own thing that what you're really trying to do

is try and expand on it as much as possible. So I don't think – in other words, I think that we – for example, we'd been doing this for – what was it, like 20 years before we started doing – we made our first children's record. And the reason we – one of the reasons we waited so long was we didn't think people would, we didn't want to confuse anybody, you know? What do you mean? That they'd think, oh, this is what they are. Yeah, yeah. We didn't want people to think that we had fundamentally changed our act.

Well, but let me ask you something, though. I mean, the interesting thing about the timing of that, though, looking at it, is that given that your fans are generally decent people who don't drink, I'm sure that most of them have families. A lot of them do. Yeah, sure. That generation of yours, I think. Do you have kids?

Yes. You both have kids. I do not have kids. I have two cats. Yeah, I have cats. Three cats, no kids. I'm with you. But you must have known these kids need things, and it'd be nice to entertain them.

Well, John and I did discuss this from the position of kids deserve not just that kind of classic condescending like, blah, blah, blah, this is good enough. Right. When you do a kid's album, people come out of the woodwork telling you how you should do it. It's like the part in The Graduate where the guy says plastics. Yeah.

It's like they're like, dinosaurs. I'm telling you, kids love dinosaurs. And it's true. Kids do love dinosaurs. And one of our most popular songs is about dinosaurs written by our bass player. But the truth is, I think what we want to do, and John sort of nailed this in one conversation we were having about it, which is like the way people like this, adults like the soprano.

We want to write kids' music that appeals to kids the way the soprano appeals to adults. Like they're just waiting for the next song? It's just like, yeah, it's surprising. Something that's surprising, something that captures their imagination, that takes them to somewhere else, that isn't just like about like fortifying them with like vitamin enriched information or like a morality tale about a dinosaur yeah yeah

yeah you know just a dinosaur that broke its foot not everything that kids experience has to be good for them and i think that was that was sort of our our little breakthrough i think oh you're like we're gonna do the we're gonna do the kids album for the dark stuff you know for the the stuff that they're gonna be a little uncomfortable it doesn't uncomfortable with. It doesn't have to be nutritional. It doesn't have to make them better at being kids. Oh, I see. Or they don't have to learn? Yeah, it doesn't have to be about being kids.

They don't have to learn. And even the records we've done that are, in air quotes, like educational, they're still, I mean, they're just interesting records. And we dedicate a lot of production value and a lot of time, and we take on those projects very seriously, which is the other thing is that the more you do educational, the more you do kid stuff, you realize what a world of hacks.

The rest of, I mean, a lot of people doing kid stuff. It's a racket. Sure. It's just like, well, I couldn't do the real stuff, so I did some kid stuff. Oh, really? And a lot of them find success in that oh you can certainly you can find tons of success that's the cliche anyway like that's you know but i mean once you get a break with a kid thing like what it's not it's not like uh the wild west not like anybody can just make a fortune doing kid stuff uh i don't know about fortunes but you can certainly i mean there's a whole regional kids music yeah i. Yeah, I had Zane's in here from the Del Fuegos.

And he's like the world music kids guy. Right. He makes great kids albums, though. I mean, he uses great musicians. Yeah, yeah. But let's go back before we get to exploiting children for money. We'll come back to the exploiting kids. That'll be hour two.

No, because I think that, like i said at the beginning the time that you guys sort of surfaced was a very exciting and changing time and music so you guys so you're in a band now in uh lincoln a new wave band well yeah it's moved out to boston and what year is this 77 this was 79 so you you moved to boston and what year is this 77 this was 79 so you're you moved to boston moved to boston yeah where were you living um everywhere you know like when you're a certain age you just move every month basically yeah yeah where'd you sort of land it though like because you're talking about central square you remember kenmore square dude sure yeah yeah i mean that place is just nothing he played in kenmore square many times at the in Square Men's Bar. In Square Men's Bar? Yeah, the Mundanes. The Mundanes were a huge...

He was in a band called the Mundanes. The Mundanes. New Wave Band, yeah. And they were based out of Providence, Rhode Island. They were a big, like, brown, Rizzi kind of band. And this is right after, like, the Talking Heads had blown up. So there was, like, this whole sort of, like... So we got to be the opening act for every New Wave thing that came through Providence.

Through Providence. Yeah, so we got to be the opening act for every New Wave thing that came through Providence. Through Providence. Yeah, so we opened for the Ramones and the Tongue Heads because there was nobody else that was appropriate. And this was in the late 70s. Late 70s. But the post-New Wave thing, like the late, late 70s, early 80s stuff, spawned some of the weirdest, most mutant kind of ideas. Because everyone was like, all right, we've done this short song thing. mutant kind of ideas because everyone was like all right we've done this short song thing that and this um weird hardcore like post slam dancey post skinhead post oi thing there was like sort of like what i guess like uh the guy who just died from uh the fall like that that kind of music kind

of what's his name mark mark e smith but, I remember New Wave really set out to kill disco because I was in junior high. I mean, you guys were out already, but, like, we had a real problem with disco. Yep. You know, in 76, 75. Oh, see, we kind of loved disco. You were out.

We kind of loved it. Well, I like it now. I mean, I can listen to it and I can respect it and I have Bee Gees Records and Donna Summer. But you always liked it? No, no, I would say for me, it was treacly horrible stuff until somewhere around I Feel Love by

I Feel Love was a real game changer. That was on a summer. Yeah. That was something else. But Giorgio Morata did the production. So it had this very German kind of craft work. The bass one. Yeah.

See, I didn't get into craft work until like a year ago. Jimmy Mack also played us craft work for the first time. That's true. He played us craft work and the Ramones. Yeah. So he laid out your life for you. He did. He was the source played us Kraftwerk for the first time. That's true. Kraftwerk and the Ramones. Yeah. So he laid out your life for you. He did. He was the source.

Yeah, yeah. It's a shame he's passed away, but he was sort of the holy ghost of the Monkey King. Did you send him Christmas cards every year? Like thank you notes? Hey, dude, thanks. Oh, we did. We dedicated our first album to him, actually. Yeah.

Jimmy what? Jimmy Mack. James McIntyre. He was like an incredible guy. Like he just had really, really wide open. Craftwork in the remote. He was like, you guys ready? Yeah.

He wrote all the music reviews in the newspaper. School paper? Yeah. School paper. So he was notorious. But he was writing music reviews about music I would think that was very not popular. No, no. I mean, he would write about the popular stuff as well he

was very lester bangsy yeah exactly i think i think like you know the whole thing of growing up in the 70s in the time that we did there were a lot of cultural things that barely even scan now that that were so influential like just the idea of freeform radio oh yeah you know we make we make these records that have a lot of different musical styles yeah and we you know we started without a drummer right but um and so we were like very free to do any kind of rhythms we wanted to do or any like make arrangements big or small but i think also just growing up with bcn oh yeah where they would have the you know the playlist would be this wide open thing where you'd be listening to stuff from the you know the 40s and the 50s and the 60s it didn't matter what era it was.

It was militant. I mean, they play like the Rite of Spring and stuff. Yeah, yeah. They played very, very wide. They were all over the late night too. Who's the late night guy? They were out, but it was like late night all the time there. I know.

I mean, it was like they were out to blow your mind. They really wanted to change your expectation of what was happening on the radio. How great was that? I think it's almost impossible to describe. It's like saying, like, there was a time when, you know. I mean, I'm not saying it was. Children gather around. I'm not saying it was necessarily the best radio ever made, but it was so different than.

It's almost inconceivable to me now that somebody would do that. Well, the mainstream was so defined and so market-driven. Yeah. So, you know, to get out from under, you know, Bob Seger, you know, at any given point in time was sort of a chore. Which, I mean, they played Bob Seger. It would be hard, you know, I imagine, like, it maybe wouldn't be that impressive to hear it or to see the playlist now.

It's like we talk to the younger members of our band about watching Laugh-In when we were kids. Oh, yeah. And they're like, what the hell is wrong with you? Like, why do you- It's like, it was never funny. It was never funny.

I was like, no, it was funny. Actually, at a moment, it was, I mean- It was mind-blowing. Yeah. It's hard to get your mind blown so much now. Yeah. And like, the cars were a huge shift. I saw the car's second show because Jimmy Mack took me to it.

Right. So that was a big shift. Much better when's second show because jimmy mack took me to it right so that was a big much better when you couldn't understand the lyrics oh yeah well amazing when you also they didn't have like the big three-part harmonies it was a very the live show was very different before their first album but they were very well rehearsed and a lot of the new wave a lot of the bands at the rat i would go to all every weekend i would go to the rat in 77 with my big you remember mitch i had yeah i had Yeah. I had a fake WBCN ID. And so I could just get in. Actually, I was 15 years old.

Yeah. But I could get into every show with my fake. Jimmy worked at WBCN as a promo guy. Yeah. And I would get into the show and we'd get really good seats. We'd be like the first people there. You'd go downstairs. Yeah, go downstairs.

Yeah. I had my cassette tape recorder. I'd record everything. Really? yeah and i saw the i saw the cars and they were shockingly good well yeah this and going into the basement of the rat was pretty exciting oh it was super would you got where did you got to play the rat i played well in the mundanes we played the rat yeah i can't remember if we that horrible back dressing room we never played i guess we never i guess we the giants never played there. I guess the Giants never played there. Why? Because you were around then.

I think we actually got, because we were out of New York, our real club days were in New York City. I mean, we played every club in New York constantly from like 85. Okay, so he's in the Mondains. When does the thing start? The Mondains moved to New York to make it big. From Providence. From Providence. From Providence. I moved from Ohio where I'm going to Antioch College to Pratt Institute to get a degree in fine arts.

Yeah. What fine art? Painting, printmaking. And then so we move into the same building which is filled with our friends from Lincoln and Sudbury. By coincidence? No, no. Well, it's just like- That's how we- The people that we knew in New York.

You know one person. You say, like, is there an apartment opening up? It's like, yes, there is. It's in the worst building in Brooklyn. Right. But we're all there. There's plenty of- Which, by the way, is now entirely unaffordable by any of us.

Of course. It's in Park Slope. Yeah. Wow. It's in Park Slope. But at the time, it was on a block with like one third. Where you sit there going like,

we're not even really in New York. I think we kind of like Brooklyn, actually. Even though it was scary, it was super high crime and scary. Yeah. And as John was about to say, a third of the buildings on the row

had actually been torched by the landlords to collect the insurance. It was that post-Fort Apache moment where a lot of the buildings on the row had actually been torched by the landlords to collect the insurance. It was that post-Fort Apache moment where a lot of landlords' buildings were up. Late, like 1980, 81. Oh, really? There was a huge amount of flight out of Brooklyn, and so the buildings became

too expensive to make. They didn't want to pay for the, like, just paying for the insurance or the mortgage was killing landlords, so they would just burn the building down, and it was a little bit of, you know, lightning would strike these buildings. And so next, the block over from us was like the heroin. Thank you for not saying Jewish lightning. Well, people use all sorts.

There's also Italian lightning. Yeah. Insert your racial, your racist epithet here. But yeah, so. It was ethnic lightning. Ethnic lightning. insert your racial your racist epithet here but yeah so it was ethnic lightning ethnic lightning was everywhere and so like the heroin district was right next door to us and like I would look out the back

I was in a railroad apartment looking out my window and there would just be garbage can fires like every single night I'm like why do those people want to light those garbage cans on fire like what's going on out there the dopines beans, they were there? That was the district. They were all like, I lived in Alphabet City. It's just like they were very defined heroin neighborhoods.

Yeah. Well, you want to know where you are. It's a big business. It was a big business. So that- Brought you guys together. That put us back in the same place. And then we started sharing equipment.

I still had my tape recorder with me. I think we actually started doing recordings even when I was still in this other band. And John was in school. And then gradually that just started to seem like, well, this is more interesting. On the TASCAM? On the TAC. On the TAC, yeah, yeah. On the TAC?

It was a TAC. Oh, a TAC, sorry. So what were you playing? Who was playing what? Well, John had a Moog synthesizer, which we could then create a pulse with. And we'd sort of construct these rhythm tracks on the three tracks, bounce them down to one. Yeah.

And then we'd play along and then maybe add a couple of overdubs. I think you had a bunch of tambourines and stuff. Yeah. We just had sort of possum pans. And so we'd just kind of create these tracks that we would then play. We would rehearse to these tracks. Rehearse what? Songs. Like we would write songs to these rhythm tracks i get it yeah so we were a two we were like a two-man band yeah and then you were playing guitar i was playing the guitar i sort

of learned how to play the car although when we right when we started i couldn't sing and play at the same time which is an idea that really blows my mind like yeah it It was that raw. It's hard. It's like juggling. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But now, you know, then the drum machines started coming in very soon after that,

like just emerging. Yeah. Chris Butler from The Waitresses actually lent us his DMX drum machine, which is the sound of, like, I guess, King of Rock by Run DMC.

Uh-huh. It's like all the drum sounds, you know, the snare sound is, and the kick drum sound is, so everything you do on it, like, you know, it's like, you want to do a ballad? How about, but it was very synthy, right?

In other words, it was not samples. It was like the tom-tom was like, doo. You know, it wasn't a recording of a tom-tom. Yeah, it wasn't a recording. So it was a drum machine, you know, emphasis on machine. Right, right. They hadn't done the sampling yet. Yeah, because I remember when that happened,

everyone was like, oh, my God. Exactly. It meant everything to us. We saw it was like a truck coming towards us because that was developing while we were doing this thing. And it was kind of exciting. So you were excited. We were very excited.

And we were very excited to be in a two-man band because the truth is, like, you know, John had been in bands. I was in other bands in college with people. And, you know, it's hard to be in a band. It's hard to, you know, everybody has this sort of like it's a democracy sort of maybe. Maybe you're with, like, a visionary person who's got a very clear idea of how to do something great. But the push-pull of a band can make you feel like you're doing something sort of mediocre. Like, it becomes those. You learn, like, the problem of things made by committee very quickly being in a band.

And I think for both me and John, we wanted to do something that had no compromises. Even if it's the most fragile, indefensible idea, let's just do something that is just for ourselves, that satisfies us. Well, it was fortunate that you guys thought the same way, I guess. Yeah. You're saying you didn't fight each other. I think we also convinced each other. I think there was sort of like-

I think we made each other braver. Yeah, individually and certainly in my earlier events, I was like, I got to figure out what people want and do that do that what is it what do they want and then eventually john and i like discussing we're like fuck that you know we're gonna we're gonna really need to do a thing about what people want yeah you don't people come to us well and then the weird thing is so we kind of like you know but did you think but did you think at that time we're sort of like we're doing things that we cannot perform live there was yes yes. That was a part of it. That was something we wanted to make sure we didn't do too much of.

We didn't want the tape. We restricted the tape to just be rhythms and a bass line. And we didn't really have too many things that were like sound effects driven or like we, even though it was years before Milli Vanilli, I think we had an awareness that we didn't want the track to like overwhelm what we were doing on stage. So we kind of had a little bit of a governor on what was on the track. But to be perfectly honest,

and I think I realized in the fullness of time, our impression was completely, for a lot of people, was not the same. What do you mean? We thought we were a real band. I mean, we thought there was no shortcoming to what we were doing. I think, Jay, because I remember discussing this, at some point I said something about how quaint the drums were, and you, like, we thought there was no shortcoming to what we were doing. I think, Jay, because I remember discussing this with you.

At some point, I said something about how, like, quaint the drums were, and you were like, what are you talking about? Right, right. I mean, personally, as the guitar player in the band, I felt like we were, like, we were ACDC, man. Like, you know, we were, like, rocking. Like, when we were really rocking out, we were rocking out as hard as anybody rocks out.

Yeah, yeah. And it was, like, totally visceral and physical and real. Yeah. And the fact that there was like a drum machine behind us, like, yeah, there's a drum machine behind us because drum machines are the coolest thing in the world. Like you wish you had a drum machine. You just got a drummer. We've got a drum machine.

Yeah, exactly. It doesn't make mistakes. It doesn't get high before the show. Deal with that. I remember John saying this thing about like somebody who'd seen Van Halen playing in one of the earliest gigs at a tiny club, and they were playing as if they were playing in a gigantic stadium. Yeah, sure.

Like right from the beginning. Right. And how crazy, like how deluded you have to be to convince yourself that that's, you know. Yeah. But then that carries you, you know, then people get, the three guys watching are like, I just saw the most awesome show. And then the truth is. Is it like your Pixies moment?

Where you're like, oh my God, this is bigger than life. But they were doing something no one had ever done. They were doing something. They were doing something else. But you know, the truth is like, our lucky, our luckiest break is that, you know, even though we had made the decision that we weren't going to sort of try to calculate what audiences want. I mean, I think there are a lot of performers and a lot of songwriters who do a really good job of figuring out what satisfies people.

Even though we had kind of put that on the shelf, audiences took to what we were doing almost right away. I think maybe they saw a lot of themselves reflected in what we were doing almost right away. I think they saw it. Maybe they saw a lot of themselves reflected in what we were doing, like that we might not have reminded them of Mick Jagger, but we probably reminded them of their crazy creative brother. It's hard to reconstruct what people made of it. But it went over, I guess. Yeah, it definitely went over.

Well, you found your audience pretty quickly. Yeah. Immediately. It began with friends. We had friends come definitely went over. You found your audience pretty quickly. Yeah. Immediately. It began with friends. We had friends come to see us. And this before the first record. Yes. And there was a long interval before. And there was a little, as you know, there was a little scene in the East Village. so it

turned out it wasn't CBGB. It was these performance spaces. The Pyramid Club, HBC, Dorico. Those places. The Pyramid where? Pyramid turned out it wasn't cbgb it was um these performance spaces the pyramid club agency those places the pyramid where pyramid pyramid club avenue avenue yeah i know that was wildly successful at the time i mean the mid-80s scene was like when performance art hat was really happening and we fell we folded into that perfectly like the second generation of the performance artists right yeah not not soho, like loft performance artists. This was much more gonzo.

There was a lot of drag. There was a lot of really transgressive stuff that I would invite my mother to. And then there were these campy musicians and things. Who were some of the other ones? I mean, we did shows with the bands that made it out. Well, the bands that made it out of there were Live Skull, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth. You're very different from them.

Yeah, yeah. You're almost like musically the opposite. We would be like at the top of the bill, and they would be at the end of the bill. And they'd have performance art in the middle. The performance art was the big draw. Right, right. So it'd be like Karen Finley was the headliner. Karen Finley or Popo or something.

I get it. Yeah. It's just a different scene. I'm just trying to frame. It was not a rock scene. Right, but what you were doing were sort of finely kind of crafted pop songs with it. See, we had a lot of transgressive stuff in the beginning when we started.

These screamy songs that really went over great, but on record sound unlistenable. Wait, you guys telling me that you did like noise rock, like no wave? Not quite. Well, I mean, it was musical, but also it involved, like, John had a gigantic, and we've still done this recently, he had a tree trunk that he would bash on the stage, which was mic'd. Which had a mic on it. Sounded great. And we did, you know, like, we did little, we did, I think we were, like, trying to fit in to some extent. We did, like, little, we did a thing where we had an egg.

Kind of art rock. We had an egg that spoke to the audience, and then we did a magic trick where we crushed the rock we had an egg yeah that spoke to the audience and then we did a magic trick where we crushed the egg right so you had a comedy bit it's kind of i don't know if it was funny but we smashed the egg it was not it started singing and we smashed it and then it continued singing that was the oh that's what i remember of that so you had an act it was an act it was all very much an act yeah it was an act I mean you know in those in those clubs props didn't mean

what they mean in like a comedy venue no no I'm just trying no no I know I'm not I mean that's the weird thing is that it recontextualized like really reshuffled

but there was always a comic element to a lot of performance art whether they wanted to be there or not and that's not not in a mocking way is that you know

that you know when you go over the top whether it's with drag or with cans of yams or nudity whatever you're going to do that you're elevating something oh you're right a lot of people thought the karen finley yam thing was was funny it was transgressive and it was funny well yeah she was deadly serious and actually acting out a lot of serious issues. Yams is a funny word. Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the thing is that environment was sort of allowed anything. It was completely permissive.

Right. And it was permissive to the degree where if you didn't take chances that were somewhat extraordinary, you were a bore. Exactly. It was very sensationalist. Yeah. chances that were somewhat extraordinary you were a bore exactly it was very sensationalist yeah and the thing that was interesting about coming up as an act at that time and we played every weekend like 84 85 86 i've got a calendar of like all the shows we did we played virtually every weekend at least one show sometimes two right which was an insane thing in new york city like there were so many venues to do this stuff and such a huge audience. There were so many

venues of 100 people, 150 people and they just wanted something new. They wanted something different and it was not a rehearsal. It was not a showcase club. There was no notion that anyone was careering. There was no end destination. There was no final

place that you would go. It's not like what do you call your act like it was just like it was just the thing that was happening in that moment yeah you weren't auditioning and also you were like it's an odd uh you know you did you have the uh accordion yeah so you had the accordion then so you you had a physicality you had a you know a strange lack of instruments you had an old instrument yeah you had the you know clever uh uh lyrics and a and a look so you know you were kind of you were part of uh uh of the freak show yeah a little bit so not we weren't a bad way we didn't feel no yeah i think

we didn't feel like as big freaks as probably some people thought we were right you know what i mean we felt like our side was winning yeah well it did yeah i mean i think that you were sort of ahead of the curve and you know like that that an audience whatever audience you built around you initially and whatever audience came from the the first hit records that you had that you know whatever culture has become now in this sort of nerd, the broader nerd branding world, you were ahead of the curve on that. I guess, although in some ways I feel like a lot of that stuff, like the stuff we've been talking about, about that scene,

is like so gone now. No, I know, but like once you guys started making sweet songs and the sweet people started coming to see you and not drinking that that was sort of a precursor to what became a dominant force in culture yeah yeah it's it's definitely no longer a ufo i mean it's sure right go on we can play a song and it's something that yeah it's something that can be described i feel like when we talk to younger bands we realize like a lot of young people are not worried about this any of these issues about like selling out and stuff like that we were obsessed with at that selling out in terms of like you know maintaining your integrity yeah or yeah yeah right oh yeah the idea of integrity

seems to have gone away that's gone now right no that now they they call it authenticity and it's a little more flexible yeah you can actually hold on to your authenticity and compromise your integrity. Exactly. How do we do that? We've got to learn how to do that. I remember seeing an ad. I remember seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers very early on in their career. We had gotten, actually, the very first record offer we got was from the label that they were on.

Which label? I think it was EMI, which was, I think, one of the most Coke-fueled labels of that era. And they were not a particularly successful act, but they obviously had an incredible look. Who, the Peppers? The Chili Peppers. Yeah. And they did an ad for, I think, Nike or some sort of on-trend swatch, some hipster-ish

kind of big 80s thing. They did a television ad ad and it was like watching tv you know i'm watching like the phil donahue show and all of a sudden the red hot chili peppers were on television and and you know the the uh you know ringo sexual in me just was like you can't you're not allowed to do that yeah you just you're not away your your cool card right you know you you now i was thinking like well now the red hot chili peppers will like never be able to work again and and you know and it was you know it sort of climbing down from that preset to like where we are now

where people just think like that's the best thing that could ever happen to you right would be to be in a nike commercial it's. It's such a hard... I mean, I don't feel old. I feel like I am from another world. Do you remember when the Del Fuegos did that Miller commercial? Well, that was a contentious thing. That was a big deal, actually. That was a contentious thing because they chose them to represent Boston.

Well, we had a weird... You see, part of that was weird is that... I mean, I think the... What is the word? Frison? Was that they... It was about authenticity. Uh-huh.

Right. So it was like you can't... You don't want the topic to be authenticity in the thing that scans as a commercial. Yeah. Right. So it's a little bit of... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A little bit difficult. But that sort of ended that, didn't it? A heavy lift. Well, right. It's a little bit of... Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit difficult. But that sort of ended that, didn't it? A heavy lift. Well, I don't know, but we perceived it as a bad move at the time. Yeah, because you were around?

Because we had those concerns, you know, like we were... But everything was... There were so many... Everything was gatekeepers. Everything was like, who approves you? But over...

We couldn't even play it. We couldn't play it all these places. We couldn't get reviews. When we started, the New York Times would not review any show south of 14th Street. Really? The New Yorker would not review any... Yeah, because we promoted our own shows, and we would solicit that...

Just to get a listing, we knew we would sell tickets. Right. And you call up the person who does just the preview section and say, like, we're playing at the Cat Club. We're playing at Shitniks, which you've never heard of. Right, we're playing at PJ Shitniks, and we're wondering if you'd list our show. Like, we're doing really well. We're selling out, blah, blah, blah.

Like, you know, sincere. Like, you know, I'm just like a 25-year-old talking to another 25-year-old, and they're like, I'd love to help you, Schmo, but we do not list shows below 14th Street. When you're north of 14th Street, we will. What the fuck is north of 14th Street? That was the dividing line between because.

No, but I don't even know what's north of 14th Street. What would they be reviewing? Everything. Rock clubs that adults go to. The Beacon. The Beacon, yeah. Places that hold a thousand people. So when did it change for you guys?

Well, that didn't change until after we had we were playing we were playing in the beacon before that changed yeah yeah i mean that all changed in the 90s but how did you get the first record deal uh glenn morrow uh who just put out a really great record of the replacements recently the live one yeah yeah i think we might have opened the night that that we might have been the opening act on that bill. The 86 at Maxwell's? Yeah. That's a great fucking record.

Yeah. Wow. Glenn Morrow ran a record label called Barnon, which is, I think, put out that record in question. And he made the tape. Yeah. And his partner came to us and said would you like to make a record and uh we had had a cassette that was for sale at our shows for like a year that

we were selling many many copies of which had which had been reviewed in people magazine how'd that happen that is a really good question we don't know yeah there are a lot of people who there are a lot of people did you didn't you get some notoriety at that time for your performances and then for the answering machine stuff? Yeah, we had the style song service that was kind of its own phenomenon. And that was an interesting way for people to find out about us because they weren't... Speaking of performance art, it sort of fell into that category of...

How did it work? It just played a song. There was a number available? It was a phone machine in my kitchen and we just had we just changed it every day and uh it was very hard to reach john at that time because you had to sit through the whole yeah i'm listening to like me singing going like pick up the phone god damn it yeah it was very easy i started my sort of like michael siip aloofness at that moment. But, you know, a lot of people would call it up, and it was sort of its own thing.

Like people didn't necessarily even think of us as a band. They just thought of us as this phone line for a long time. And, but a lot of, I don't know, like it's probably not that different than being a comedian who gets like celebrated by other comedians. A lot of other people, you know, like Chris Butler from The Waitresses and Jewel Shear, who's a big songwriter, they would get us gigs at clubs.

Our first show at Dance at Cherry was a gig that was arranged by somebody we didn't know. Right. It was just like, how can you be that nice? Right. Who gets gigs for other people they don't know right it was just like how can you be that nice right like who gets gigs for other people they don't know yeah yeah but it's a very it was a we we kind of had this people people went out of their way to help us in this way and maybe they felt sorry i'm not

i'm not sure exactly but it was just like it was like a very unusual you should help the two nerdy kids yeah yeah with the accordion right lord knows they need help but like you know like Marshall Crenshaw same with like Marshall Crenshaw these are people that you know really helped us

at very specific times Crenshaw did yeah and like but we didn't we didn't know them so it was like we had fans

yeah I guess they were fans and they were sort of expressing that but it was so they would bring you into open for them or you do

not even open well that was the other thing is we decided very early on we didn't want to open for people yeah and that was a big mistake oh yeah

well I mean kept you out of the live gig it's a morale killer I think doing a lot touring opening

for another band can really crush your spirit so you knew well enough that you were sensitive and that you didn't want to necessarily watch people walking in. We just wanted to keep it fun. I think

early on we decided we wanted as long as it was fun, it seemed like it would be worthwhile. And it's very hard to keep it fun. Yeah. You know. So you do the deal with Bar None. Bar None. And they put out this album. Your first album. Yeah. And the first video on it

we made with this guy adam bernstein who's now a very very successful and he's a very gifted director yeah but he does he did he basically created 30 rock he's like the he would did the pilot for 30 rock and does lots of yeah adam is a big wheel in comedy stuff yeah uh and i guess he did he worked on he did he did your video he did yeah we did the first videos were pretty much zero money like but that was when mtv was relevant right it was extremely it was brand new yeah and it was um extremely important at like sort of breaking new acts and we did the we shot our videos very he was very smart of adam uh we shot them on film yeah so

they looked really different and and distinctly unsweaty compared to a lot of the other, like the Rolling Stones would be like shooting a video in like some hot, weird TV studio looking very uncomfortable. Yeah.

And then our video would come on and it would look sort of like this sort of beautiful, even though it was made for two cents. Yeah. I think it also had the quality, I mean, it looks nice now,

but it looked sort of archaic, too. It kind of looked like Cardi's night. Like, yeah. Oh, really? So, like, we were these clearly kind of, like, operating with less money and scrappy guys. And they really stood out because when we did get played on MTV, it would be between, like, the Whitney Houston and the White Bank videos. Yeah, yeah. And so it was, like, it really stuck.

And so for the people who would be inclined to like us, they were like, that was like, oh, here's something. I can relate to. Yeah, yeah. And so it was like, it really stuck. And so for the people who would be inclined to like us, they were like, that was like, oh, here's something. I can relate to. Yeah. Right. These two guys. Yeah, yeah. Who are the weirdos with the cord in?

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. But the second one we did with Adam, which, you know, it was unclear whether it would even get played at all, but ended up being like the real breakthrough was the Don't Let Start video, which we did in Queens at the World's Fairgrounds, which was sort of semi-abandoned, and now sadly is super demolished. Is it?

Yeah, it's really gone. Oh, man. I think they sort of took down the gates and people just come in and probably- Don't Let Start was on the first record? It was on the first record. It was one of those records that some DJ in Pittsburgh started playing it just on his own volition.

That's a huge song, right? Yeah, it came out pretty good. No, but I mean, it did well on the charts. Well, we've never had a number one hit in the US. You know, like we have yet to have an actual hit. But at that time, the alternative. In the alternative scene, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was just, the alternative was just.

College radio. It was called college radio. It was the college charts or college rock was what it was called. And it didn't, so it didn't even have the name that it would ultimately have. But I remember hearing that song everywhere. Is it just that stickiest song? It was played in a lot of bars in the East Village, I can tell you that. Well, maybe that would have been it.

What year was that? 86? 87. No, I'm still out here. I mean, was it used on a... Oh, it was on K-Rock. It was on K-Rock. That's right.

And in fact, the first time we came to California, that was the very first time we'd ever been anywhere where people had heard of us before we even arrived. Everywhere else, we built up an audience. And then by the time we were touring enough, we got all the way here. And it was really different because there was a crowd of people waiting for us, which felt completely new.

And then you had, i mean the second record was like that was if like what do i know but i think anna ang was huge right and it was a college chart kind of thing like in my mind it's like you couldn't escape that song yeah it's it was like it was everywhere in my head yeah well i mean you but you were also like in the places where it was going to you know i mean i guess i'm sure there's a song right now if you lived in bushwick there's a song right now by you know schmuh and the schmuhs that's yeah that's doing that to people yeah i mean but i just remember i guess so but i i i'm surprised that it didn't chart on the regular charts it

it didn't but it felt to us like we were superstars you know i mean that that definitely but speaking but speaking of gatekeepers like there was like like the major labels were really concerned about more concerned about holding on to the things that were had already worked for them like you know this is when like rod stewart was still on the charts yeah you know like we were you know the people the people on the chart on the real charts when we were coming up were formidable rock stadium acts. Sure. So they had a huge amount of money behind them.

And I think the labels just, they were very reluctant to, I mean, that's what opened the door for all the indies was because they just didn't see any money there. But still, you guys were part of that wave, though, that was pushing up against it that maybe didn't break until the early 90s. Well, we sold a lot of records on an indie label. I mean, Tom and Glenn at Bar None. Yeah. They sold a lot of records.

They sold hundreds and hundreds of thousands of records. I think we did. At some point, we topped the CMJ chart. Yeah. I don't remember when. And you were cut in for the appropriate amount of money? Oh, yeah. We did.

It was great. But when did you switch labels? We got signed to Elektra. Why wouldn't you make that choice? why wouldn't you stay with bar none well there's this thing about i mean there's a thing about success on uh success can uh bankrupt an indie label right they don't have the ability to ride the crazy up and down wave i think like glenn was happy to uh you know get a huge like cash buyout from Elektra for whatever it was. It's an easier way to make money. Well, because also, what if the third album comes out, and they paid us a huge advance,

and they print up a million copies, and it doesn't sell? If you're an indie, that puts you straight out of business. Whereas if you're a major label, it's just like, oh right that's one of 10 records that didn't work right but as far as for for our purposes like as far as we were concerned yeah it was also an opportunity to go you know we this thing that we thought we had we had this notion i think that this is what bands do is they go to europe and you can be a much bigger deal over there and then you ride the wave back to and that seems like we there were a lot of bands that had been doing that. I mean, we played, in 88, 89, we played multiple tours of Germany playing in tiny towns.

Beer halls? Yeah. And a lot of times it would be- With an accordion. Yeah. And it would be like American GI kids would come out to our shows. But they were super fun shows,

but they were very, very strange. So our third album flood we we had you know international marketing and everything it was a that was a completely new thing and how do you do and we did actually chart and we got on the top 10 in the uk so that yeah that was that did work you know they had they had enough machinery sold a lot of records it was platinum yeah wow so that was that was that was good yeah and uh but you know i mean i think the thing is also like we had a very unneurotic relationship with a lot of times like when you hear people talk about like dealing with their record label it's like you know the person

who's talking is like clearly ambitious like they want to do good stuff they want to be successful they're not crazy yeah you know and the record companies you know they want it to be successful but it's like um you know it's like uh trying to get like pandas to mate in captivity like like you know you have you have these two entities that like just for what unless the circumstance is exactly right yeah like they just can't get it going yeah and and uh like i think we were just very lucky that like we were old enough that we weren't afraid that the thing we were doing was going to get ruined. I think bands aren't wrong. When bands are nervous about the thing they're doing being ruined by a label, they're not wrong. That happens all the time. I think we felt like we had done enough that like, and we were so self-defined that even though there might be people,

you know, having all sorts of big ideas about what we should do or how we should do it. It's like, we were going to be the art, you know, we were going to, we were going to steer our own ship and it didn't really matter.

You know what Mr. Guy in the executive suite says. It's like, you know, he's not, he doesn't run this band. And did you stay with a lecture for a while? We were on there for almost a decade.

How many records? I think we made four. Four albums, yep. And then what happened? Like, basically, like, they offered us a, like, a lesser advance, which is what they do when they sort of, like, they sort of ask you to leave. One thing that happened with Electra was that the people that had, the team that had signed

us had all sort of moved on. So there was almost nobody left. The president had left like it was it was a very different company by the end of that and also like you know grunge had come and gone yeah hip-hop and hip-hop had arrived so the like ever the whole cultural anyone sample they might be Giants yeah they I mean I think they I think that they thought we were easy enough to deal with and we were I mean did anyone use your songs I'm trying to remember to um there are some I mean, I think they thought we were easy enough to deal with. I mean, did anyone use your songs in hip hop songs? I'm trying to remember.

There are some, I mean, Girl Talk samples, they might be giants a bunch, but I don't know who else. But those aren't legal samples. Oh, okay. We're waiting for the one to be cleared. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, really? It's still in the future is what it is.

DJs, listen to the sound of my voice. Sample, they might be trying. There's so much stuff that you can sample. Easy terms. We got some hot beats. The fact that you steered your own ship and you maintained the integrity of your sound and all that stuff,

and you eventually added musicians and became a real band, was that a big day for you, to have a drummer? That was kind of a heart attack for us, actually. Well, the thing is, the actual, the weird thing the weird thing is oh you know there was a tour with a band now right yeah yeah for years there's guys in our bed we have guys in our band who've been with us for 20 years yeah and they're still the new guys you're that band now yeah it's like when you're in this band for 35 years you could talk about what we're gonna do you're like daryl jones

the second season of laughing really is the one you have to check out. Admit it. It's like Daryl Jones. Joanne Worley, a genius. The bass player in the Rolling Stones. Oh, right, Daryl Jones. Right, right. 25 years.

Because I said that to Keith. I said, I'm this Bill. He's like, ah, Bill, Daryl's been with us for 25 years. He's the bass player. Right, right. Well, yeah, we had a documentary film made about us. It was a very interesting thing to see. But one thing that's weird about it is that there's this whole sort of kerfuffle created in the movie about how our core audience didn't like the band.

movie about how like our core audience didn't like the band and i just want to say for the record just as a sort of a correct corrective or if that's the term like the as soon as we got a live band like the shows became like a complete celebration it was like there's nothing nothing missing right but it did change what we like when we were doing it's like me moving from the garage it's like we you know like we said earlier what were we talking about? Oh, when you moved. Yeah. Like you're no longer in Brooklyn. Right, right. You know, like people are weird about change because then they have this conflict within them.

It's like, well, I knew them when they. Right. And it's always going to be like we're better because I'm me and we were younger and they were different. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, when we were a duo, we talked a lot between songs. Yeah. And a lot of that talking would sort of probably fall under the category of, like, comedy.

I mean, like, there's a lot of, like, just, like. When it was just the two of us? Yeah. We're just shooting the shit on stage. Right. And saying things that, you know, thank God. Trying to be funny. Yeah. We were trying to be funny.

And it was funny. And it was, like, you know, sort of, like, a nervous kind of funny. But it was also, like, a lot of times it was stuff and it was like you know sort of like a nervous kind of funny but it was also like a lot of times it was stuff that like i'm very grateful there is no youtube there was no youtube um i'd like to thank youtube for not existing at that time yeah but you know our phones that you could record on and then and then we got you know then we got the band and when we got the band suddenly like when you're on stage with like five other guys you kind of want to keep the music going like you're not just going to sit there and like filibuster yeah like what you think of uh while they're waiting three yeah three signs oh some guys will do that though they i don't know

if they do it as much anymore but we still do plenty we got back into it we got back into it and that's that's the that's the best part do you try to crack up the band oh we we yeah absolutely that's the goal right yeah that's that's the you, it's just, it's, it's good. And how did the stuff like, you know, having the theme song for Malcolm, that must have been a nice paycheck for a long time. Yeah, that was a kind of a, kind of a page turned around the turn of the century, I guess, for us. Because we, because we'd had a band for a while.

Yeah. But we had still not done, as I said, we were holding off on doing other projects, like not just the kids' music, but commercial stuff of any kind. You mean the actual product support? Yeah. Well, that, but also doing movie music. I mean, I think we would have liked to have done movie music earlier than we did. One thing we noticed the moment we left Elektra was that our phone, we actually got the phone calls that came in for us.

Oh, oh, right. So all of a sudden- That they've been keeping from you. Right. It's like, well, maybe that would be a better project for Bjork. Yeah. Right. But part of it, I mean, earlier we had been just saying no to everything.

Well, yeah. Because of the sellout issue? Because of the sellout issue, yeah. Which was, you know, just like a youngster kind of thing. Sure. But we ended up doing a ton of TV stuff. thing well yeah because of the sellout issue because of the sellout issue yeah which was you know yeah just like a youngster kind of sure but we ended up doing a ton of tv stuff we did like the daily show the we recorded the bob mold's song for the daily show uh-huh and we uh so like the that's that's you guys that's us yeah and um and we did still use that they do yeah they used a remix version of our recording now instead

of the original yeah instead of the original but it's uh but it's still you still us uh-huh and uh but it's really bob i mean he wrote the theme sure although we wrote the second part of the yeah but uh but uh uh and then we did like you know the the malcolm thing which like was huge i mean it was was that a pre-existing song or you asked to write that it was it was like a half-written song and it only had to be 30 seconds long so it was- Was that a pre-existing song or you asked to write that? It was like a half-written song and it only had to be 30 seconds long. So it was like, I got it right here.

You know, and it kind of fit the energy of the show because we just- But that's a nice payout, right? I mean- Well, they didn't pay us a ton of money at first, but it's, you know,

over time it's, you know, because it's in syndication and the residuals and stuff like that, we get it. You still get it. Oh, sure. Yeah. The long envelopes arrive. But that was, I mean, that's the main thing syndication and the residuals and stuff like that we get it you still get it oh sure yeah the long

envelopes arrive yeah but that was i mean that's the main thing because we entered this whole time which is of doing things where nobody even knows it's us yeah people don't know it's us like what the daily show i didn't know that yeah i don't know a lot of things well almost no even our fans a lot of them don't know yeah we're doing that like what other things uh what are the malcolm theme sure amazing vacation homes oh yeah what is that that's a it's it's on the travel channel oh you did the theme yeah we did we did a lot we did a lot of themes for like these sort of cabley shows you know i mean because you just can knock them out or what yeah yeah yeah we did you know your go-to guys for that stuff we tried we tried we were more in that in the beginning of the century i guess yeah yeah well we got a

grammy for the malcolm thing then all of a sudden like then the phone's ringing off the hook yeah because it's like you're actually la you know like you're in the mix in hollywood you win a grammy it's like you're yeah and at that time you're token la people and yet that how did you reconcile selling out with what you were about to be doing? Well, the thing that was nice about the TV stuff is that it was faceless. Like it was, it wasn't really,

you know, it was the reputation by and large. But I think we also just got over the notion of like, we, you know, we also did a whole string of Dunkin' Donuts ads and they, we were hired to basically do us, you know,

it's like, we want you guys. Yeah. We weren't identified in the ads, but people, but my wife instantly when she saw it but as a project that was a blast like we're doing original i like dunkin donuts well part of the thing that's fun about doing stuff like tv themes is if you're

actually doing some it's one thing to like license yeah your band's established hit and kind of like have somebody take your vibe and brand it on their thing. Right. It's something else like to actually collaborate with people and make something new. It's fun to make something new. Yeah, and also like if you can, you know, confidently be okay with the product, it's just part of the work on some level. It's like this is another revenue stream

and someone's got to compose this stuff and there is challenges to it that I think ultimately inform other things. Well, but also like just to be, you know, stream and it's in someone's got to compose this stuff and there and there is challenges to it that i think ultimately inform other things well but also like just to be you know just get right down to it like you know if there was ever a band that was like part of television yeah you know i mean they might be giants is clearly a band that has watched television yeah you know and like you know growing up that's how you're gonna reconcile it we are television but i mean like just like growing up growing up with like we can't sell out because going to reconcile it we are television no but I mean just like growing up

growing up with like we can't sell out because we're in we're in we're inside the television you know what I mean just like you know growing up with like

the Twilight Zone theme growing up with like TV music it's like such a part of your consciousness so I think it's you know it's a very personal thing to decide

what your threshold for being compromised artistically is well what's the like you know there's a ton of things we definitely don't do. It's something you feel and you know it when you feel it,

but it's hard to define it. Yeah, I think so. Well, even, there's a concept that comes up on this show a lot, which is like being liked the wrong way, which I think is a really interesting idea because I think it's especially true of, I mean, I know that comedians, like, they'll feel like, it's like,

they were laughing, but they were laughing the wrong way. I think musicians, I think musicians are even more tuned into that idea. Like, you really want to be liked. Just, it's got to be right. It's got to be the right way. But yeah, but if you're like, you know, Bruce Springsteen, you know, and you've got some Yahoo meathead fans. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. You know, you're going to have to, to have to make peace with that a little bit.

Because I went to a Hold Steady show years ago. I would never think about that. I just met him. He's such a nice man. Oh, he's great. But there is an element. There's a broad sort of poetic element to the Bruce oeuvre. So the working class, you know, what

he means to people. And it transcends politics. But, you know, I went to a Hold Steady show at South by Southwest early on, before I even knew who they were. And I'm like looking at some of these people and I'm like this, you know, Craig is such a sensitive, thoughtful kind of embrace. And like, these guys are

frat guys. And, you know, there's got to be an element like, no, there they are again. but is that true is that really true the whole city i would think the whole city audience would be like the highest percentage of like lit majors yeah dude i mean like you know you that album that got big for them we you know was a big record yeah it's a big college record and yeah i mean cobain talked about it too he wrote fucking song about it right that you know that these people aren't going to understand the poetry or the sensitivity or even the tone of what you're doing. I feel like I shield myself.

I mean, if there is an element of people in the audience. I don't know that you guys have them. I don't know who you do. Although we do have a thing online where if we ever say like, you know, I'm really interested in like evolution and somebody, there's somebody who writes in on the Twitter feed who's like I thought you guys were cool right

the YouTube comments on like anything related to science on anything forget it on anything so we talked a little bit about like

about the children stuff but wait what is the do you have a relationship with Disney not now we did we put out

we did three projects we did a bunch of kids projects for DVDs for Disney. And they were themed. They asked you? Yeah. After the first album, the first kids' album took off,

they were very, very interested in working with us. And what happened to that? It was good. It was great. It was a fun thing. Was it fun to be part of that legacy in a way? Well, the president of Disney was this nutty, rogue dude named David Agnew who was just basically sticking his neck out for us

because he allowed us to do it our own way. So it really didn't feel like the mouse's three fingers were pushing down on our heads. We had total control over everything, and David made sure that that was what it was. So we were in a very unique spot. I mean, previously, we had done... It's a big difference to work for Disney and then work with Disney.

There's a big distinction to be made. Sure. And we had actually did some job that I think technically we were fired from for some Disney animated movie, and they just were like, we don't like this at all. Really? Please revise this. God, that would seem like,

whether it's Disney or not, it would seem like you guys could do almost all the music for, you could be like the new Randy Newmans for Pixar and stuff. Please say that one more time. You guys could be the next Randy Newman's. We just did this song for the SpongeBob musical,

and they did a very great bunch of staging for it. He really turns it into a big number in the show. And it's very gratifying. We're in this amazing company of, like, David Bowie did a song for it. And there's an Aerosmith song. And so there's all these big deal show business people in it. But it was nice that we actually got a chance to be part of it. I mean, we're essentially still an indie act.

Yeah. And you're open to doing that kind of stuff. Well, we'd love to do more stuff where we just send them the demo and then we get to just sit around the house. We're especially into the big money stuff. So you'd like to do big money stuff where you don't have to travel. Yeah. And also that's easy.

Easy. Easy's good. I don't know. How do you get those things? How do we get that job? I don't know. Maybe someone will hear this and say, like, we have just the kind of thing where you can sit down and make a lot of money.

I also wanted to mention Netflix. Okay. You need some Netflix money? Yeah. I mean, it's funny how, like, these, if you're around long enough, you see these cycles of crazy money happening. Yeah. I feel like right now it's, like, especially crazy money time for all these things.

For Netflix. Yeah. I mean, I'm just happy to be making a living right right ultimately i think we're all you know everybody's in it for the long haul yeah but uh you know like um i remember when like all the the dot com first generation stuff came around yeah and we would get like you know flown out to la and like get some tour of some weird or san francisco i mean like some place that's every single thing is white yeah and like there's a guy. Sure.

There's a non-disclosure agreement. Yeah. Just to go in the house. Yeah. And you know, who did that? Mr. Show did such a great riff on that with Dave Cross

playing the guy who invented the delete button. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the goats and the Tofutti breaks. Like, that was genius. Yeah. The amount of venom

that he has for the house is very satisfying. Yeah. Well, hopefully, there'll be more good times like that ahead. Sure, more free money. You're hoping for. More delete buttons. It'll be some Bitcoin-y thing probably.

I don't even know where you buy those or how you get your money back. You've got to get on the dark web. I'm not. Okay, that's it. That's where I get my drugs. Oh, see? Mom, you waited until the end. Yeah, she's got bored.

She stopped listening. Now we can talk. So, okay, so what's going on? You guys, you got a new record or it just came out in January? Yes. Yeah, yeah. What's that one called? It's called I Like Fun.

And it's your 39th record? 39th. Yep, yep. 49th. But what's weird, and speaking of things going in cycles, is it's getting really good reviews. Like four records ago, we had a record that got really good reviews. Yeah.

And this one's getting really good reviews, too. So we're just riding the good vibes of the good reviews. Well, good. It is a lot of records. Are you doing another kid's record? No. Okay. Wow.

You said that very quickly. Final. Who knows? It's over. No more. We've done it. Right, right. Who could say, Mark?

Who could say? If the money was right. We've done it. Right, right. Who could say, Mark? Who could say? If the money was right and it didn't take a lot of work. See, the problem is that we have a commitment to quality. Oh, see? See, that's what's going to be the- That's what's slowing us down. That's the rub, man. Right.

For the simple, easy, huge money on the couch. Well, I mean, the SpongeBob was a great nexus of the quality was good, and it was an easy game. Look, I have complete confidence in you guys to continue on. You seem well. Well, congratulations to you on all your stuff. Well, thank you. It was a long time coming.

It was. And I'm almost enjoying it. I like the happy mark. Oh, boy. Yeah. Are you coming out to New York anytime? I was going to come out in a couple weeks. Let's have an overpriced meal together.

Yeah, we'll do it. Let's get the artists together. Art treat. Okay. Okay. Excellent. Deal. Thanks, Johns.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. That was that. That was them. That was they might be giants that was fun though right and they feel like old friends to me you know they've been around their music has been around they were just they developed with me in their thing and i developed over here in my thing

and occasionally i'd listen to their music and then i got to talk to them uh all right well before i go for the last time talking in this garage, we're about two weeks away from my A Few Parts of the World Tour in Europe. Go to WTFpod.com slash tour to get venue and ticket information for London, Stockholm, Oslo, Amsterdam, and Dublin. Dublin. And I guess I'll try to play a little guitar. I don't have much equipment here, but I might as well play guitar for the last time in here. Oh, no. Okay. Thank you. guitar solo Boomer lives! 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. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton.

The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City at