I'm gonna try to sing it for you. I'm gonna cut this part out of the podcast. But I'm saying, okay, no, I can't sing it. This is for you.
Hello and welcome to WNC original music episode 126, the Stable Nucleus episode. Very happy to have him the podcast this week, Derek Fry. Derek is a singer songwriter from Tennessee and lives sometimes in Tennessee, sometimes in Nashville, and he plays both solo and sometimes fronts the band the Dirty Badgers. You can find his music at Derek Fry dot bandcamp dot com and also we'll have a link to that and his social media sites and the show notes.
He's putting out new music all the time, so make sure to check that bandcamp link. And right now here is Derek Fry. So this song is kind of a complete satire about different conspiracy theories, kind of some that really got popular with the whole like QAnon 2020 thing. So there's you know religious theories in there.
There's like reptilian alien conspiracies. And it's just kind of a play on people actually like choosing to believe one thing about their existence. So it's not really a like a personal song about myself, even though I'm singing it like a first person view, it's more of an entire dark comedic song. I think that's the first song I've heard of this written about QAnon, which is which is kind of weird because I mean it's all over everywhere.
But I don't think I've heard some general, you know, a lot of political songs and stuff, but specifically about that. Was there anything in particular that any part of QAnon that particularly I don't want to say appeal to you, but struck you maybe. Oh, well, yeah, some of the theories were just kind of fascinating to me, especially kind of like the human clone thing and the whole like everyone in Hollywood is like repped billion clones and all that crazy stuff. So there's some really fun lines you can walk between all those subjects, I guess.
And so I mean, obviously you just wrote it recently. Do you feel like it had a very witty go-through sound to it, which also kind of goes with the social political part, were you influenced by witty go-through at all? Yeah, definitely has a little bit of that. I almost would he go through perspective on things?
He had some some like satire lines in there. But never really whole song is just sort of lines here and there. They're kind of satirical a lot with and I just figured, well, let's make a whole song satire about this entire conspiracy, but not really involve key figures like presidents or former presidents, things like that. Just kind of keep it vague and, you know, on the surface of all these different conspiracies, there might be five or six different ones in there that I just pick something from.
Yeah, they kind of interesting that, you know, they really are the people who like conspiracy theories. They're like, they're same people. They're same people who like whatever conspiracy theories, regardless of whatever the subject matter of it is, you would think that like if any of them were true, like I might believe one and then you might believe another one and then somebody else because of their particular, you know, life situation. But I think one of the clues that they're a little bit off is that it's the same people that tend to always believe conspiracy theories.
So the whole goal of the song is kind of to expose the sort of hypocrisy and how some of those ideas kind of contradict the other ideas. Because the whole like religious thing that's a theme of it and then like the alien thing, those don't really go hand to hand, but they kind of might be the same thing at the same time, you know, that's kind of for the listener to decide, I guess. The road I live on is called C&H Lane. There's about three houses on this road.
We're at the very back and then down the mountain from us as, you know, some old good old country people, they have a bunch of hound dogs and cages that just bark constantly. So every now and then when they're just barking and just out of control, I'll just go out on the porch and play my fiddle. And this song just kind of came out of the riff I would play when I was like angry about those bugs barking and kind of angry that they're stuck in those cages at the same time. Like that's no way for a dog to live.
So I decided to dedicate a fiddle tune to the hounds of the C&H. It has kind of a feel of a bunch of hounds howling all at once. Is the recording of this? Is that all you?
Yeah, I actually had just a simple jimba in there that I overdubbed maybe like three or times. And then some hoots and haulers in there and chants kind of almost like a Celtic feel to it at the end a little bit. Are all these songs self-recorded? They are.
Yeah, I record them pretty much right here where I'm sitting. Well, I think and I do it myself a lot of times. Most people, when they record home recordings, they might lay down like the drum beat first or maybe the bass line or like a simple rhythm guitar. But when you like attack it and put fiddle is the first thing I recorded just by itself and then went in and added everything else.
So maybe just having that sort of lead instrument as like the bass of the track kind of gave it a different feel. That's a good idea. That's a good approach to try to record the most maybe prominent instrument first. Because yeah, I think like you say a lot of people either do like a scratch track with an acoustic guitar and vocal or program the drums or figure out the drums and then you're stuck with whatever energy the drums have.
That's what the rest of us is going to be. Yeah, and there's a lot of good singers out there that would record their vocals and then figure out the music to go with their vocals. So it's kind of similar approach to doing something like that. What instruments do you play?
Guitar, fiddle, banjo, and dulcemer, a little bit of piano. But you won't hear me play anything besides guitar, banjo, fiddle, like a live show. More from Derek and just a few moments. I want to remind you to check out his bandcamp site that's Derek Fry dot bandcamp dot com d-e-r-e-k-f-r-y-e dot bandcamp dot com.
Also, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast, wherever you got it, wherever you're listening to it right now, might be a good place. There might be a better place. You know, do your own do your own research is a fun thing to say these days. But the podcast is available at all the podcast streaming sites.
Also, you can go to wnc.reasomusic.com and find all the episodes there and some extras. And of course, you can find it on your smart speaker by saying Alexa play WNC original music. I hope that didn't start your Alexa play and I sort of hope it did, but only, you know, with your permission. Also follow the podcast on Instagram and Facebook for just extras from the podcast and from other local musicians and stuff like that.
Also, some corrections from the last episode featuring the deathbots. The BG's are a disco band from the 70s that also had a wide ranging career across several decades. The heebie GBS are like a made up disease that doesn't really mean anything. So we were both right.
Hi, this is Rachel Herwoods and you're listening to WNC original music. Who are some who are some bands or musicians that you maybe used to listen to a lot that you don't so much anymore? Oh, okay. That's that's that's an interesting question.
Well, when I was younger, maybe in high school, I was really into like the Jack Johnson. I thought he was a really good songwriter kind of a kitschy. I didn't really like that whole scene of the, you know, kind of surfer vibe or whatever. But I liked his stuff and not really somebody else to anymore.
Let's see. I would say the watch drops, but I still like to go back and listen to them every so often. Most classic rock, I would say, like, you know, the heavy hitters of classic rock like Zeppelin and things like that. I don't I don't really find myself listening to that stuff as much anymore.
And is there anybody that you know, when I was 15, ACDC was like the best band in the world? Is there anyone that especially an older band or a band that's got like a large catalog that you maybe didn't listen to most your life, but then all of a sudden you listen to them and you like got all their music all at once? That kind of happened to me in my mid 20s with the kinks about seven seven years ago or so. I kind of discovered the kinks.
I'd only heard like Lola and then got their very first album and it was a bunch of blues covers and I was like, this is pretty cool. So then I just got the rest of the catalog and now they're one of my all time favorite bands for sure. Yeah, they're really under underestimated, I think, their influence and yeah, I think kind of the way they didn't come to America during the whole British Invasion kind of held back their popularity a little bit with the whole US crowd. So they kind of flew under the radar, but still to me, I ride up there with the stones and beetles easily.
Sometimes I like to sing and play with some guitar. I get a lot of compliments from the drums at the bar. And by the time the night is over, I'm just singing to my set. Because everybody with a real life is already there.
When nothing makes sense, I try to fill in the blanks doing a lot of thinking on that muddy riverbank. Well, it keeps my soul heavy and it eases my loneliness. I should probably clean up around here, but my life's a bigger man. I feel so long on this world.
I get out on it still searching for rest. It ain't a thing against you, honey, I still love you the bad. It's just that everybody's not missing like my sweetest dreams. When you said he was leaving, what did you really mean?
I feel so long, I feel so long. That's when I wrote sort of while, I mean, quarantine still kind of winding down, but kind of when they first started easing restrictions a little bit and I was really eager to get back to live music. But it kind of makes fun of local live music a little bit, kind of poking fun at myself, playing crappy bars, but you take it as it comes and you love every second of it. So it's kind of all that intertwined in one and a lot of insomnia during 2020, during lockdown.
And just missing normality or kind of a different take on normality. Once you see it from a different perspective, kind of in retrospect and look back on it, you kind of realize not to take it so seriously all the time and kind of you can laugh at yourself a little bit about things you've been through and stuff like that. Speaking of normality, like you're talking about, do you think there's something that you're going to do musically, of course, or un-musically? Is there something that's going to be significantly different for you post-pandemic because of the pandemic that you might do differently?
I think so. It's kind of made me refocus and use a little more discretion in choosing live shows to play. Now venues are kind of wondering what to do next as well. It seems most places are at to want to pay more to musicians from everything we've all lost.
We went through the past couple of years. But I think for me personally, it'll change and I'll be playing more solo shows and kind of, I don't know, I really got kind of took a step back from the whole rock and roll thing through 2020 and just kind of try to get reattached to my roots. I kind of grew up around like the Carter fold in Virginia. My grandparents knew like that family and my grandpa was in a band called the Bayes Mountain Drifters that was around there.
So I just want to kind of go back to that and reestablish some roots in the Appalachian music and focus on that a little bit. When I saw you last live was that fresh-brought outfitters, yeah. And you're doing like a really, fairly heavy rock thing, electric guitar and drums. So were you already starting to kind of move away from that before the pandemic?
You feel like the pandemic kind of brought that on. Yeah, I'll play with the dirty badgers, which we're still thinking about, you know, getting some shows together here and there. But even with them before the pandemic hit, we were kind of scaling back and using more acoustic sounds and things like that. Just really kind of trying to hone in on melodies more than kind of in your face rock.
That's all about like that chest pounding kind of like anger letting out the rage, you know, because that's to me that's what distortion is like the distortion is the anger you're trying to get out. So if you take that back, you kind of have to change your approach a little bit and kind of get that anger across in different ways and just, you know, tons of distortion. One pet kind of has a lot of the satire too, but it's more about kind of maybe being in a relationship with someone that wants you to be someone different than you are. They don't love you for who you are.
They kind of treat you as a pet. So you kind of make that reference in there. Well, I kind of made the reference of I only want to bury one pet at a time. Like if I lose a pet, I don't want to be the pet that's being lost.
And there's some other themes in there about how she's got her own issues, even though she's judging my character for these things in the song. And then kind of, and you talk about her issues and kind of look at yourself before you judge kind of song. We're talking a little bit about politics with that first song. And I was wondering, do you feel like you are more political in your music than in real life or less or about the same?
Probably about the same. I could say maybe like one out of three songs or so are really involved like heavy political themes. And that's probably like Andrew Lapland out of three conversations. I have like on a day basis, maybe involves some politics.
Okay, one more time. I want to thank Derek for being on the podcast. Again, check out his music at DerekFry.bancamp.com and also following him on Instagram and Facebook. He's also been playing live quite a bit recently.
So look for his upcoming shows on his social media pages. One more time followed the podcast, wherever you get your podcast, just search WNC original music or just Google WNC original music, see what happens there. And of course, you can always go to wncagresionalmusic.com. The closing song this week comes from the band Big Fan of the Bison.
They are from Denton, Texas, My Home Town. Their debut album Songs of the Frontier is available now. And I highly suggest you get it. I really had a hard time choosing which song to play.
I love when people send me whole albums. It's easier for me if they send just one song. So I don't have to choose, but I'm glad they sent the whole album because it's really good. Here's Big Fan of the Bison.
Have a good week. Well, it depends. There's a couple different kinds of stuff. Well, you go later on.