We'll be right back. That's like a science thing, right? Indeed, indeed, indeed. Tis a science thing. Tis a science place. Tis a scientific fact that we are all up in your face at this time for the one, the only... Protonic Reversal. Welcome to it. Another stay-at-home edition of Protonic Reversal coming at you. This is a Tuesday, he said with quiet authority. We are talking today to Rob Montage of the Louisville band Wax Eater. Looking forward to speaking to him. Clever fella. Very smart. Very informed. Very talkative.
Should be a good one. They have a new record out called Extra Medium that came out, well, either at the very tail end of last year or the beginning of this year, I guess depending on how you're counting it. But any which way you slice it, it's a quarker. It's a good one. It's good. So we're going to be talking to him. That should be killer. He's always entertaining, as I mentioned. What else? Let's see. Well, just the normal stuff. I guess it's becoming the normal stuff. I'm kind of falling into a bit of a routine even with all this stay-at-home business.
Thanks for listening to the show. Thanks for telling folks about it. Thanks for being cool. Thanks for spreading the episodes around. The free queue is catching back up shortly, slowly and shortly. Otherwise, patreon.com slash Bertank Reversal to get the episode sooner. That's it. That's all it really is. Dollar Month will get you there. You can give more if you like. It's certainly not required. It's something where, you know, that helps me. Let me know that you're out there. And if this is something that provides some value for you.
Well, the advantage is you get the episodes a lot sooner. At this point, I think we're about 14 episodes ahead on that. I don't know. This is going to be the second to last episode for this week. It's going to be a slow week, only three episodes. Tony Visconti is going to be next. So the free feed should be truing up a little more with the Patreon feed, which I know is a topic of concern for some folks. Okay, so that is that. Thanks for listening to it.
What else? Oh, great feedback from the Reptoid episode. We are spamming around with video. We are not doing it on this episode. Frankly, I don't want to be a dick. I just don't feel like it. But there's going to be greater usage of some of the video formats going forward, even though ultimately this is a live radio show that is podcasted. That is not going to change, but if you're into Instagram Live or Instagram TV or YouTube, things along those lines, you just pay attention, I suppose. If not, don't worry. You don't have to care. You don't have to care about literally any of that. None of it. Okay, so that's it. Let's listen to...
One of the songs off of Extra Medium. And then we'll be back with Rob Montage of the wonderful band Wax Eater. Cool? Cool. Here we go. I love your body, Larry, off of Wax Eater, off of Extra Medium. And with us now, we have none of the man himself. Rob Montage. Rob, hello? Hello.
I accidentally misspelled you guys' name in the chat box. I wasn't looking at what I was doing. So apparently your name is now Waxwater. So I'm sorry that you're the last to know on that. It's all right. Every time I try to Google us to see if there's any record reviews or anything I need to see on the internet, it's just like, did you want a wax heater to wax your legs, like a little pot to heat up leg wax in? Well, I do now, but that's not what I was asking. It wasn't the stated purpose of the query. But hey, they know me better than I know myself. They know what to suggest for me to buy. That's good. That's the internet for you. It's widely like that.
Indeed. So Extra Medium, first record in quite some time. Yeah, a little over six years, depending on what you want to count as the release date for this thing that got released three times in the last five months. Also true. I think Baltimore came out in October 2013, so it's been that long. Civilizations have risen, fell, rose again. I mean, there's a lot that's happened since then. I mean, I'm just talking about the last two months. Yeah, I mean, think of how many.
mediocre bands and put out like four records in that amount of time. And then broken up. That's like that shirt I got from those if I had a high five guys from Milwaukee D. This t-shirt will last longer than your band. But not ours. We might be glacial, but we're still here.
So it's a strong record. Are these songs kind of called over a longer period of time, or were they effectively put together in a shorter period of time for this as being the record? I think it was a little both. I mean, the reason it took us so long, I mean, as some listeners may or may not know, I used to live in Bloomington, Indiana, and Aaron and Elliot have always lived here in Louisville. And so a large part of what kind of took so long was all three of us just kind of having life get in the way in that interim, you know. Sure. Elliot.
you know, got married and had a kid. Aaron got married and then had a kid. You know, I moved down here. You know, I got married myself. We just had a bunch of stuff going on. And so from like 2013 to 2016, we weren't really producing a lot of new stuff. We were, I was moving. We were still playing a bunch before Aaron's kid came around and after Elliot was old enough to kind of just, you know, him to be comfortable leaving town a little bit. We were still touring on stuff, doing some road shows. And we probably had, I'd say maybe four of the songs that ended up here on Extra Medium. We had...
sort of in the wake of Baltimore, but then, you know, we probably didn't write a song for two years. And then once I was here, I moved down in 2014, and, you know, I bought a house and all that stuff, you know, just stuff happens. And once we actually started saying, like, okay, wait a minute, has it been four years since we put a guy's record out? Like, we should get in the studio. And we've never been a group that has any money ever. Like, we've never operated at a profit in any particular way. So, because this has always been, like, none of us have ever thought, like, we're gonna make it, we're gonna do it, you know? Like, we've known that this is hobbyist shit for us, and, you know, we're lucky enough to have supportive.
families and friends and the ability to go out and do that kind of stuff when it works. I'm a school teacher and I can't just drop down and tour for a month and a half. Neither can the dudes with kids and stuff. So we were like, yeah, it's been a long time. It doesn't really matter, but we had to actually have money to pay somebody to record the album. Yeah, I think it usually works better when you're able to pay them, yes. Yeah, it really did a better product. I mean, we did as much of it as we could. Elliot's a sound engineer. That's what he does for a living. He engineers. He's a radio producer. He understands that.
I suppose it should be, and if this was a, you know, if there was a corporate ombudsman, they'd probably be mentioning that there would be a potential conflict of interest alert, because, of course, the Great None of the Above podcast also hosted on Radio Note some years back. Well, I don't think he was, he wasn't working, when we were doing that show, he wasn't working for the people he works for now. Right. So, I think, you know, it's okay. We didn't, there was no conflict. I was joking about the conflict of interest. I was joking about the fact that, whatever. It doesn't matter. It was already a narrow-casted joke, and it's only going to get better the more I explain it. Oh, yeah, no, I think we should spend the next 15 to 20. For sure. Yeah. But we tried to do as much of it, like Elliot was in there, you know, he...
helped out with all the mixing and we listed him as a producer on the record because he is the one largely responsible for how it sounds because he understands how to put what I'm trying to do. He knows sounds, yeah. He knows the words for them. I'm like, I don't know, it's kind of ugh. And he's like, yeah, I got you. We got to adjust these 80 knobs. I got a 10 ear for that stuff. So we tried to do it. We did a lot of after hours in that studio rather than going in at prime times over the course of a while. We did.
probably five or six sessions on this record over the course of four or five months just popping in getting like the primary tracks and then i blew my voice out when we were supposed to do vocals i got like one song done and then had to do all the vocals in a separate session like once i healed and just you know dumb shit like that yeah so When you're talking about the mechanics of making a record, this lineup has been together for quite some time. Obviously, you're not, as you mentioned, not in it for fame, fortune, and things along those lines. But you have that affinity with each other, and you know how each other operates. So do you feel like that gives you tools in the tool belt to work at a slower pace and feel more comfortable, maybe?
Yeah, I think we all understand that we do not have any pressure. I mean, we were on Latest Flame, and then Dan kind of shut the doors on Latest Flame. More than Laugh Your Homies. Indeed. I mean, every band he put out for the last five years, that label was just like, it was just, it was hit after hit after hit. And so once that label folded, and we didn't have a record ready, and we didn't have a label on anyway, we just kind of accepted, like, look, we're under no pressure here to...
We don't have to do this right now. We don't have to rush it. Let's take care of our personal lives. Let's get together when we want to. Let's play shows when we want to. And just kind of not being beholden to anybody was really great. And I think the record was in the can, mixed, mastered, finished sometime late in 2018. But, you know, the process was trying. Then we were like, okay, it's done. We like it. We shared it with some people. They were like, this is good. Yeah, I want to say I actually heard it after a show at Elliot's house, if I remember correctly. And, like, it was great, but it was one of those things that was like, hey, was that real or was that just, was that the fog of partying? Oh, yeah. I heard that at Elliot's house at 3 a.m. And that could.
be anything. He could have battle-wrapped it at me, for all I know. I don't really remember what all happened. Yeah, and then it took almost a year to, A, convince Jerry to do it, and then, you know, Jerry from Praetree Records. We're talking about Jerry Deer. He's of Night Symphony, and it's Praetree, right? Praetree, yeah. He's also in the band A of Nice, which is a nice, like, pop-punk thing. Yeah, and once he kind of heard it and agreed to do it, you know, we also had to then look at his timeline. So, you know, he had another release or two ahead on the schedule, and then we had to wait for...
You know how it is putting a record out. You decide to do it, and then it comes out eight months later because of the process. Yeah, it takes a while for the widgets to combobulate and for all the normal things to do. Epochs of time between those things. Yeah. We got our lacquers done like two weeks before that plant caught on fire, so it was almost a lady longer. Wow. And the vinyl pre-orders and things would have shipped a month and a half ago if we didn't all go into lockdown. So it's like a couple of things stacked against us, but we've started seeing people posting that they're getting their...
records, and then people have nice mail days when they're stuck in their household. Yeah, I mean, Radio Note World Headquarters got its official copy earlier this week, and that was a pleasant mail day for sure. And what color was your poster? Oh, Christ, it's upstairs. I mean, it's in the normal part of the compound. I'll fetch one of the interns and go get it. We were waiting patiently for a purple sighting for the first couple of weeks. It's not purple, I'll tell you that much. That I'm aware of, unless I'm colorblind. Jerry printed those himself and slipped them in, so we don't know the distribution of colors. It may be even, it may be not, but little surprises.
But we took comfort in knowing that, in reality, it only took us four and a half years to write this record. It just took six years to come out. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, you want split hairs, but yeah, for sure. I was going to circle back on your question about just working together. So the idea that there wasn't pressure, and obviously Jerry would prefer that we play some shows on it, promote it, get it out there, which we had shows planned that got canceled like everybody else's. But the nice thing is that we've never really been, well, since Aaron and Elliot joined 10 years ago.
You know, there was distance involved, so we never were like a frequent practicing band. We didn't get together twice a week. You know, when I was living in Bloomington, we'd get together once every two months, maybe, and practice for like five hours, and I would drive right back. But there's a, you know, kind of synchronicity there where we, you know, if we're just getting ready for a show, we need one practice to make sure we don't suck, and then we're fine. But writing happens really fast. When we sit down and say, okay, we are writing some songs, like the songs come together very, very fast. It's just, there's a long span of time between it, you know, where we might not write a song for six months, and then we might write five in three weeks, you know, so.
And do you, as far as coming back to that stuff, I mean, do you find that it's, is it like speaking right back up where you left off, or is it something where, you know, maybe something that you thought of, like, oh, that was great, and you're like, hmm, but was it? Maybe it wasn't. Like new stuff we're working on? Yeah, yeah, when you're writing new things. Yeah, it kind of depends on how long it takes us to get back to it. Sometimes we'll have, like, you know, right now we've got five in the works. Like, since we finished Medium, we've started to work on five, maybe six-ish. And some, like, there's this one bass thing that Elliot's been, it's had on his background for, like, two years. And we just haven't gotten to it yet because, like, we'll get excited about another new thing or this.
But we usually don't take that long to come back to like, oh, there's one that's been all parts have been written. They just haven't been, you know, transitions and timings and things haven't been perfected. We've been bouncing around on this one for like a year. And it ends up that the longer we kind of sit on it and don't do anything, we'll come back and like Aaron will have a new cool idea or, you know, Elle will or I'll, you know, have thought of something dumb while I'm noodling around. And, you know, I think it improves them. So those are some that end up having 10 parts rather than the ones that have like... Well, we all know that the more parts the song has, the better the song is. Yeah, absolutely. But we try to branch it. We try to not have.
Like every part, you know, like you just played Larry, which is an A, B, A, B, C. That's the song, you know, three parts, you know, very simple. But then we'll have longer, weirder ones. And we try to have a balance. Like Aaron's always honest about like, guys, we've already done one recently that had this kind of part and this kind of part. So now we need to do something that doesn't have that. Let's try a slower one or do this. So he's really good about making sure I don't keep writing the same thing over and over again. So like mixing up the types of songs, if you will, versus the ones that, you know, there's certain songs that serve certain purposes. You don't want to stack too many together or you have a, you know, at best a...
Well done, but unevenly stacked record a la Audit in Progress by Hot Snakes, where it's like, well, this is all great, but all four of these songs are sort of like the same sort of song. They're all in a row, and that's kind of weird. I mean, that's Hot Snakes, baby. I've always felt with them that there's just exceptions. Songs that kind of don't sound like Hot Snakes. What's the one with all the keyboards on Audit in Progress that's... Yeah, I do know what you're talking about. I would be very bad at naming that tune right now, because I cannot think of any of these song games in the life of me. But I do know what you're talking about, yes. The So Lucky You'd Love one, where it's like, oh, it's Lovebirds, is what it's called. Yeah, yeah, right. It's just like, okay, so this one sounds a little different.
Like, I think all their songs sound exactly the same, but I like that song a lot, so I listen to it a bunch. Yeah, I mean, I guess, like, for me specifically about that criticism is that they're all kind of the same tempo and the same style of song for the first, like, four or five. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, Mario's a great freaking drummer, and it's well showcased, but it almost would be better to have, personally, from my standpoint, from sequencing to, like, maybe have a song in there, like, kind of break it up that would actually give a little more oomph to the other ones. From my personal taste, you know, whatever, it's a fine record. I think I understand that. And we tried to do that. We always try to do that with sequence in our records, where it's like, okay, maybe let's not put the two 45-second...
Well, totally. And that's something where... That's live versus recorded, right? So when you're thinking about making the record, what kind of stuff are you taking into account? Like, for song selection? Sequencing, yeah. What goes on? Where do things go on the record? And the reason I mention it is because...
When there's that long of a break between albums, it's certainly easy for things to get bloated. But I feel like it's a very top 12-song record. That's what it's supposed to do. Gets in, gets out, leaves you wanting more. That's lovely. I've always kind of taken that Steve Obini, 30 minutes is all you need thing to heart. That's 30, 35 minutes. I'm not trying to avoid it. There are records I love that are 50 minutes. I'm like, come on. We think of openers and closers like anyone else. The same thing with our live sets. We never play...
Something like Yeah Well Off Sleeper first. If we play it, we play it last kind of thing. So we kind of went into the record knowing, like, all right, these things are, this is the opening. We wrote this as the opening track. We wrote this as the closing track. Like, the last song is the song I wrote to perform at the PR BBQ where I proposed, you know? Okay, sure, yeah. So that one was written with the idea of, well, A, it was written to be like that proposal thing. It's about me and my wife's relationship. But then also we knew, like, if we're putting this on the record, it's not going to be, like, the third song or whatever. Because it's longer. And it's got that weird long hand part. Right. It was written to close shit out. Yeah, yeah. The listeners will already.
kind of be along a journey at that point, and that's where sequencing comes into play, sure. And something that we get is the kind of thing that we like doing as an opener, whether on, like, a record or a set, where it's one of my favorite, like, song constructions that we do, where it's, like, noisy and aggressive, and then for the entire second half turns into some bass-ridden, like, lockstep groove. You know what I mean? Like, that's one of my favorite things, types of songs to write. We've done several like that, where, you know, it starts off, you know, you have kind of a verse-course, verse-course thing, and then it's just, like, you let Elliot...
You stop telling Elliot what to do, and then he just kind of goes nuts, and then he's in charge, and I'm just kind of laying flavor on top of it, you know what I mean? Right, right. Which is, it was a ton of fun, because he'll just show up, like, some, like, I never tell, that's one of the best things about having him in the group, is that, like, I never have to tell him anything. Like, I'll just come to something, and he will always come up with the correct part without any guidance from me whatsoever. And that was not always the case before they joined for that few years that I had a different lineup. It's like, I had to give a lot more direction, and Elliot's just like, no, I get you, I get it. And it might take him, like, six or seven practices, and one day he'll start playing it different, and it's way better. I'm like, oh, you figured it out? Yeah, figured it out.
And that's a nice thing. And that's always a nice thing, of course, to have everybody on the same page, especially for a band that, you know, you don't get to be the band as much as maybe other bands get to. And, you know, of course, no one's getting to be a band right now because of lockdown. But in the larger sense of there being adult commitments, whatnot, and things along those lines, it's good to have that lock in. I wanted to talk to you about the song with one of my very favorite...
Singers. Lindsay Charles with cell phones. Oh, yes. She's on the, I believe it's a Girl Fight cover, and there's an original song as well, right? If I remember correctly. She is not on the Girl Fight cover, no. Oh, okay, gotcha. All right, so. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm done taking a sip. Never mind. Never mind. She might have been, she was there for a couple of days. She came down to Louisville to do that. Former guest and friend, of course, do. Yes. Yeah, no, for sure. And she came down for basically like 36 hours on the Megabus to record vocals with us and just, you know, kind of party. I think there was some of that.
Our friends do a Pogues cover band every St. Patrick's Day. And so she came down and came to that and recorded. We had written nothing lyrics-wise until she got here. And we wrote on the studio in about 25 minutes. Just like the lyrics. I mean, we have the song structure written already. But I was like, no, just come and be on the record and we will figure it out on the day. She's like, you want to write it? You don't have it written? I was like, nope.
You are going to help me write it. And then we just came up with the idea for it to be like the concept of visual pleasure being not like things that you look at, like online, that give you pleasure that is not sexual. You know, like puppy videos, you know, cat memes and things like that. And just like a celebration of the fact that even though the internet is a dark, evil, terrible place, that like there are things like you get to see your friends that live across the country, you know, have kids or enjoy their lives or go on vacation. It's like, it's just nice. Stuff that's just nice. But then at the end of the day, once you're out of nice stuff to look at, then...
Then you look at sexuals. Right, right. Or the supercut of Canadian geese attacking people or something, because that's hilarious. Yeah. You look at the nice stuff, and then it always ends up sexual anyway. That's just the sad reality you live in. But yeah, most of those lyrics were all just kind of Lindsay being like, all right, here's a vocal melody. Let's just bullshit it. Which was just a fun thing we wanted to do. We wanted to have her on the record. We wanted to just write a quick, we wrote that one, all the music in one practice. It was something that I had started to write for a band. I played it for a little while right before I left Bloomington, and that's how it never happened with them. I was like, well, I wrote the damn thing, so fuck them.
We never wrote, we never finished or recorded that song. Fair game, it's fine. Yeah, my part. And we just kind of banged that one out to be just a stupid, silly thing, you know, because people come to expect a little bit of tongue-in-cheek bullshit on our records anyway, so. Yeah, so on that, where would you say the humor line is with Wax Eater? Because it's very clear that you guys are...
you know, for lack of a better term, like, you know, a good-timey noise rock band, not a bummer noise rock band, but, like, you're... Yeah, yeah. Nick Cave-ing it up. It seems... Yeah. Boy, I'd say so. It really did, yeah. Enough said about that. I will move on. I like the records. I like the record, but it is very Nick Cave-y. You know, it's like, sometimes bands wear that influence right on their sleeve. I'm not saying we're not guilty of that, too, but it's like, oof, oof. You're fooling anybody here. Whatever. Nick Cave makes piano...
sad record. I guess Nick Cave isn't using it, so why not, right? Exactly. Just pick the ball up and run with it. Good on him. Honestly, I listened to that Vampire record and was like, wait, I should listen to some Nick Cave. Let me put on that new one everyone said was good. And then it was like four notes every eight minutes on a piano and him being like, I can't do this. I can't do it. So here's what's funny and why this is timely is because Chris Williams' show is airing after this. It's a show called The Operative. And it's airing after this episode. And I'm the guest and I talk about Nick Cave.
but one of the things I talk about with Nick Cave is how much I just don't like any of the recent records but I still kind of like whatever I'm like fan for life and I like that he does like the big swings isn't afraid to try new stuff and like kind of go crazy with it and I almost like when the stuff that doesn't connect as much as the stuff that does. Because for every stuff that doesn't, for me, there's like a Dig Leiser's Dig or something where it's like, oh man, that's awesome. Or like Reinder Man or something like that. He knows that he could just do this. He could just crank out Johnny Ramone style, like a Murder Ballads part 17 and just trade on that for life. But he's doing different stuff. And you know what? It's not always for me and I'm still on board with it and that's fine. I have a lot of respect for somebody or a group or a person like that that's put out so much music that there's some of it I don't like. I think that's fine. Oh, absolutely.
I mean, I like Ween, who I like a lot, but man, they got a lot of unlistenable crap. They got a lot of really good stuff, too. And there's, I mean, there's so many bands like that. Queens of the Stone Age have put out a bunch of records, and some of them are great. You know, and if you're doing it for 35 years or 40 years or whatever, it's like, yeah, if you're old and you're like, hey, guys, Plinky Piano Ballads, hour and a half long, let's do it. What are they going to do? Throw away our birthday party records because they didn't like our little Plinky Piano Ballad and stuff? But people do like it, so it's like, whatever, let them like it. Yeah, and that's totally okay. And that's also coming from the perspective of it's okay to do things and not have...
an audience in mind at all or, you know, not have the same audience or whatever. And that's fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that in any way, shape, or form. But I do think it's fascinating that you brought that up because that's, you know, a perfect example. Well, first of all, just programming singularity for what's going on afterwards. But, you know, like I said, the cave ain't using it right now. I guess, like, you know, I might be a cranky dick about it. Like, sure, let them do their birthday party jams. Sounds great. You know, I kind of figured that out a long time ago. I'm really great what I did was, like, arguing about music is the most pointless thing in the universe. And that, like...
Not everything is for me. You know what I mean? Like, I used to kind of, like, make fun of my students when they would be all excited about their five-finger death punch shirt. And then I was like, I'm like, well, first of all, like, that would have been me in high school if that band was around then with all my Deftones and Tool t-shirts. But eventually, that led me to people who also cared about music. And they were like, hey, I know you like some of this heavy stuff. Have you listened to, like, and then they would give me, like, Fugazi albums. I'm like, I did not know this existed. And, you know, it's just a gateway to it. And it's like, if I don't like the piano knit cave, like. No one's fortunate to listen to it. Yeah, other people, other people liking. Well, yeah, and I listened to it for 20 minutes. It was like, uh, not for me. And, like
You know, them liking it doesn't take anything away from me. You know what I mean? I have to impart that on teenagers who will still, like, that I see every day or used to, who will, like, shit on their peers for liking things. I'm like, them, their happiness or their enjoyment takes nothing away from you. Right. And it's a lesson they don't learn, but, you know. You got to try, though. I mean, it's something where you want to hope.
You want to hope that there'll be some growth and depth. But, I mean, kids are going to be kids, and this also involves being fucking dumb about stuff sometimes, too. But, you know, one out of every hundred kids just hasn't ever had anybody say something like that to them. And so, occasionally, you would get that kid that's like, huh, I actually never thought about that. I literally never thought of this, exactly. It doesn't hurt me at all. No one's putting a gun to your head. It's kind of one of my more famous Bloomington dickhead moments. I had a party when I was still in grad school before I started teaching, so this would have been like 05 or so. Whenever that first Wolf Parade record came out, do you remember this band?
I do remember, yeah. It's all everyone was talking about. Everyone wanted to talk about this stupid Wolf Raid record, and I'd heard it, and I didn't care about it. All those bands were being called Wolf at the time, too. Every band was like a Wolf This. Some animal in there. Mike Cotton's favorite band, Wolf Mother. You've seen that clip, I assume. He's like, what the fuck is this? And I was like, there was this younger kid at this party we were all at, and he was just being nice, and I was talking to him, and he was being friendly, and I was being friendly. He's like, hey, you ever...
Have you heard this Wolf Parade album? I was looking back in the face and said, I don't want to talk about Wolf Parade and turned on my heels and walked away from him. And in retrospect, I was like, that was a shitty thing to do. That kid was just excited about a record. You're being a total bummer about it. What if I went up to somebody at that party and was like, guys, I just heard this thing. It's called McCluskey Do Dallas. And they were like, fuck you. It's stupid. And left. I would have felt pretty bad. And that's kind of when I had that like, oh, you know, I should maybe not give a shit what people like. Maybe just find people who like what I like and enjoy that together. Isn't that way more fun? And it was, as it turns out. Yeah, absolutely. And that's something that's...
Part of that's finding your tribe. Part of that's like, you know, getting older, having some degree of awareness of others. It's shocking how different I was at 23 than I'm at 36. Yeah, yeah. Can you believe it? Hard to believe, I know. It really is, I know. But yeah, the humor line... Yeah, the actual question was about where the humor line was that we went off into a fascinating, like, 15-minute digression there. But yeah, that was good on you for remembering it, because I was about to bring it back on.
I've listened to enough episodes of this to know that the digression is what you're here for. Yeah, absolutely. I was listening to the Legatist Falco one earlier today, and you asked him how his shopping trip was 25 minutes later. I was like, when that dude gets going. Yeah, I know. He gave me a brief history of time, and I was actually there for it. So I would say somewhere below that future McCluskey level of humor, where there are times where I feel like we're singing about serious things, but I'm just not – I don't have an inmate to be that like –
sincere in a song because like the idea of like dudes pushing 40 like playing aggressive rock music is just kind of silly and like Aaron and Elliot and I like you've spent time with us anybody that's spent any time with us we're not real serious dudes like we care about important things we care about serious like I'm a public educator they're they have families like we care about real things we care about political stuff but it's like we're not well read enough or smart enough to go out there and try to like jello be opera everything and make it you know because he has a sense of humor too but he's also probably smarter than me But it's like, we don't want to be super self-serious about it either. Like, not to harp on that Van Vara record again, but like, I know he's telling stories in there, but it's so earnest. And it's like, I like the record and I can listen to that, but I would feel so disingenuous going up there and being that serious. And, you know, it's kind of like a common thread with teaching where it's like, kids, you got the dumbest kid in the United States of America in your classroom. They're dumb, but they're not stupid and they're intuitive and they can smell a phony from a mile away. And so if I'm disingenuous in my class or if I'm disingenuous on stage, people are going to spit out. If I'm like putting on an affectation of like, all right, we're here, we're talking about this. There are some...
that do that, that put that affectation on, and it feels so stupid to me. That's like, no, we're kind of goofy dudes. And like, while we can be serious when we need to, and there are a couple songs on Medium that are about real things. Like, Give Earn is about the struggles of teaching and seeing, like, what kids go through and how rough, like, my job is and how bleak the future can look when you're dealing with, like, 20 kids that are just like, make you want to pull your hair out. But it's like, there's some, I'm not trying to, like, preach at you. Like, it's my reality, and it's, there's some seriousness in that aspect, but like, we're not going to cram it down your throat. We're never going to put it out like a fucking...
Propaganda album. I don't think it's our place. There's a fine line that you wouldn't necessarily want certain bands to cross into that world because it would seem disingenuous. That super serious NoFX record about George W. Bush. I was like, I want to hear it from these fucking guys. The guy that pisses in tequila dressed like a clown has something to say about the state of the world? I don't care. If I want to listen to NoFX, you better be making me laugh, idiot. Isn't that the whole purpose of your band? At least Wink-182 isn't making political records.
No, exactly. Because everybody, yeah, all of those bands probably have their dark night of the soul moment where they're thinking, oh, I've got to make that record. I've got to make the important, you know, great American record that solves all the problems. Dude, you're not going to make What's Going On, all right? You're just not. Like, you make pop-up.
Yeah, and, you know, even when bands really do set to make that, like, America, America, that sets the world on Violet Green, it's like, yeah, but it sucks. Also, it's not good, dude. There's also that, yeah. It's like, oh, the unwashed masses loved it. What does that tell you, dude? Like, I don't know what that. I mean, it's not for me. It's not for me. I was just going to say, it all comes back to, is it for you, is it for not? And in those cases, it's like, oh, that's a not-for-me situation, and I'm totally okay with that, for the most part, unless it's truly odious, in which case I'm not. Oh, yeah. Yeah, in June or something. Yeah. Like, I'm not going to hear, yeah, Screwdriver's just not for me. It's like, no, those people are garbage. No, that just sucks.
That's why that sucks, yeah. Or something like Brand New, which I've always thought sucked. It's like, oh, and that guy's also a monster, so it's like, fuck them. But, you know, like Foo Fighters, like, I just don't like it, but that's cool. He seems nice. Yeah, they got some tunes, and it's, you know, some of it sounds like freaking Boston or something, and I mean that as an insult in this case. And, you know, a large majority of the catalog isn't for me, but they got some tunes, and I don't hate that it exists. I'm just kind of surprised that, you know, it's like a McDonald's hamburger or something, where it's seemingly ridiculous. People seem to like it, but it's not for me.
Yeah, I'll eat it once in a while. I have no problem. Exactly. If that's all there is to eat, fine, fine. I'll have some Foo Fighters. Thank you. Yeah, I think those first two records are fine. Yeah. You know, there's so many overplay songs. It's like, I don't need to hear Everlong again. You know, it's 2020. Like, we're listening to this song still? Too much of this song. So talk to me about some of your songs.
So we, of course, I was a big fan of, I'm a big fan of the clever song title to a point, for sure. And when I say to a point, I mean, I don't want to be the overtly clever, where it's like trying so hard, it just becomes stupid again. But I loved We Aren't 138. I thought that was pretty amazing. I was very happy at seeing that.
Yeah, I thought that was a stroke of genius on my part, I thought. I'm shocked no one had done that before, and I was like, wow, kudos, that's awesome. The song is about how we're getting older. We wrote it right after Aaron had it, or before Aaron had his gift, but after Elliot had his, and we had been making jokes on stage a lot about how we kind of look the part. If we're playing a punk show or whatever, it's like, we're tattooed dudes, we're screaming in your face, and we're high energy, but it's like, we do not lead to punk rock lives.
At the time, Aaron was working at a bakery. Right, yeah, you're teaching kids. Elliot was literally a stay-at-home dad at the time, and I'm a schoolteacher, and not one of the cool subjects. It's like, all right, we're not really leading punk rock lives. We're getting a little older. The kids won't give us the address to the basement show anymore. Do you know what I mean? Because they're like, no, no. I don't think so. I don't think it's for you. And I wrote it right at the tail end of living in Bloomington, where it's like, if you're over 30 in Bloomington, man, you are either a professor or a cop to these kids. And you can only get asked what your major was nine years after you graduated so many times. So it's like...
uh by 22 year olds at the bar and so it's like you know that song is just about you know just getting a little older and still being like you know an aggressive musician and that's another one where like that's all it's all just jokes you know that's that's one of the on the humor end of the spectrum songs but we had been doing that stupid um fake misfits cover where we just which i know it's not we are we are 138 but the uh the i got nothing to say don't i'm down and that's just it you know i'm joking uh and for some reason that stuck in my head it's like yeah well we aren't 138 because we are you know we're just not we're not really punk rock people we just kind of look like it Totally, and that's joking on it, but also with the self-awareness of the situation, leaning into it as well. Yeah, I mean, like I said, we're just trying to be sincere. Not sentimental or maudlin, but we're not trying to be disingenuous. We are trying to present an accurate picture of what we are actually like as people while we're playing. I played I Love Your Body, Larry, right before he came on. What's that one all about?
Some real events after I first moved to Louisville. It was a person I was seeing that did not end up working out for various reasons. Before, I was in a relationship with the woman that I'm not married to. It's just, you know, cool stuff. Stuff like that. Fair enough. The title, of course, being a Fletch reference. Yes, yes. So, the one after that. The chickens were fucking teep. Yep. What, what, what? Hmm.
Well, that was a, I forget what that's called, where you accidentally switch the letters, the first letters in something. There's a term for that kind of like mental slip. Like, you know, when you, like saying the tickets were cheap instead of the tickets were cheap. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like a certain style and type of temporary dyslexia, but I can't remember what it's called. Is it a spoonerism? That's ringing the bell. We'll get our time research on that and get back to you.
Well, either way. Basically... Oh, yeah, it is. That is a spoon. A verbal error in which a speaker accidentally transposes the initial sounds of letters of two or more words. So basically, what happened... That song is a... Yeah, rainbow. That song is about my good friend and old roommate Kyle's trip with his then-girlfriend to Colorado. It's all of the lyrics are based on things that actually happened. And I decided to write about that because I thought the tickets were fucking cheap. It was a funny title after...
uh i was trying to describe the trip to a friend of mine i was like oh yeah kyle went to colorado his girlfriend and uh you know they and i was just i don't know if i'd have like a couple beers i just accidentally said it i said you know they hadn't been on vacation in like 10 years and and i accidentally said that the chickens were cheap instead of the tickets so it was an actual honest to god error and then i thought just that that inversion was super funny and honestly what it reminded me that title of was uh was of a jabber josh song title if you remember jabber josh they were a band from lawrence kansas uh the two brothers a bass player and a drummer who just were the sweetest people on planet earth super like midwestern polite funny and dry, and all their song titles are like eight or more words, silly long phrases and sentences and things, and I thought that sounded a lot like a Japanese song title. I was like, I want to use that. Then we were dicking around and it ended up being like a short, quick, stupid banger, so I was like, all right, well, let's talk about Kyle's dumb trip to, you know, Colorado, where he got legal weed, and all they did was sit in a hot tub and play video games, and then I had to pick him up from the airport after that trip, because then neither of them had a car, and I picked him up from the airport, and there was traffic, and I was a little bit late, and Kyle's girlfriend got impatient and made them eat.
at a restaurant in indianapolis airport called the indy 500 grill which is like It's like indie racing Applebee's. I get it. They both got very sick from it. They had just come back, and they both got horrible food poisoning for this airport meal at the airport they arrived at. That's why the courses just don't eat at the airport. I've been to the airport many times. Right by the Indy 500 Grill, there's a Qdoba. There's regular fast food, not overpriced racing Applebee's. Why did you eat there?
That was a true story. No, it didn't happen to me. Doesn't make it any less true. So the one after that is, of course, an FCC favorite. Fucking burn fucking every fucking couch. Yeah. That was about sports. It is...
Kind of based on our friend here in Louisville, who is a drummer, one of the gnarliest drummers in town. His name is Eric McManus. He was the drummer for Lords. I think he's still playing in a group called Savage Master. That's a weird metal band. He is a total spaz and also hilarious. He is always on like a thousand milligrams of caffeine all day, every day. Dude's nuts. And he used to work at this like Louisville, UK sports store, where it's basically like an apparel and memorabilia store that just sold stuff like UK and UofL.
And, like, if you're not familiar with the Kentucky sports, and we don't have pro sports, so people care real bad about college sports. Yeah, they get really invested in it. They are very invested, especially in Kentucky, especially in the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville. And so he worked at this store that sold, like, stuff for... teams and he like his manager was never there and didn't give a shit about anything so eric would type up these signs and put them everywhere uh like on the racks instead of like oh 10 off it would be like um hey like he would put a sign like the first verse is kind of based on one of these signs that i've got pictures of somewhere uh that he put up on like a rack of like uk baby onesies and shit and it's like it's like hey mouth-breathing uk morons wouldn't you be thrilled to see your adultish child dolled up in the in the wildcat blue that you hope they bleed in their blood just like Absurd shit. Just, like, ripping. But all very vicious. Like, mean-spirited shit about, like, anyone who would possibly deign to come into the store and spend money on it. And then, right around that same time, the U.K. either won a national championship or got born in the term or something. And as college towns will do, they were burning the whole town down because they were celebrating. And there was a lot of that particular. I used to live in East Oakland when Raiders were in the Super Bowl. And it was like, win or lose, the McDonald's will get a garbage can thrown through the window. Guaranteed. Oh, yeah.
You've got to do the right thing on that McDonald's when they win. The poor beleaguered McDonald's, no matter what. But that happened a couple times in Bloomington, too, when I was first there. IU basketball was still pretty good. And they had to grease all the light poles downtown because, like, people would try to climb them. It didn't stop them. Naked guys still shimmied up those poles, greased or not greased. It was incredible, actually. American engineering. But there was a, you know, the big problem that year in Lexington when UK won was, like, frat boys and being bros. And they were putting these old shitty couches in their front lawns and just set them all on fire. And while this was happening, there is a local misanthrope here.
Louisville, who used to be playing bands, and he's kind of retired from music, but he's in a band called Pride Swallower, probably the one he's best known for, and several others, his name's Adam Raines, and he just posted on Facebook the morning after they won, just all caps, fucking burn, fucking every fucking couch, and I remember, that has stuck in my head for like six years. It's so good, yeah. And just like, I love it, I lived in a college town for 13 years, and like, Louisville isn't like a college town per se, but we have a college sports program that people care about too much, and so just the idea of like, yes, we did it, our beloved team won, now let's destroy our stuff. To celebrate. Like, shouldn't you go to the other town and burn it down? Like, why are we burning our own shit? To celebrate. Like, yes, finally, I won the championship. Now give me a fucking sledgehammer. I'm going to go fuck my own car up. Right. It does seem to cross the line from a celebratory to absolutely, you know, dumb. Yeah. It's just another thing where I was like, you know what? It's too funny. Too funny not to use. I did get permission from both of them. Like, hey, can I use some of the words you wrote on those signs and also use this as a title? And they're like, we don't care. Perfect.
And just as a caveat to all these, there's a lot of fucks in these song titles, which I didn't kind of realize until I looked at them all on one piece of paper. And we wanted to put the parental advisory thing on the cover, like, as a coot. Because, like, me and Elliot and Aaron, we're all 90s kids. Yeah, it's like a mark of pride when they started in with that. And that was like, oh, you know, it's a good record if it's got that sticker on it. Well, I remember two specific things. The Adam Sandler, What the Hell Happened to You, with the goat and the car song or whatever on it. The guy at Blockbuster Music, remember them?
uh wouldn't let my mom buy that for me because she's like look at the parental advisory this is good for him and she like didn't buy it bullshit and there was a rap group in the 90s called the bush babies and i remember they had an album where the parental advisory was like three inches by two inches big on the cd cover it was huge and i remember thinking about like grade school mind i was like yo that record must be fucked up because the parental advisory was like so big the size of the parental advisory does not equate the danger contained within i think maybe they did that as a joke yeah I'm trying to even... This, first of all, might be the first Bushbabies reference on ProtonConversal. I'm fairly safe in saying that, but... I still never heard a Bushbabies song in my life. I just think I remember how big that Perlin LeBlanc sticker was. It was very big. They had a record... They did have a record that came out around when I worked at Tower Records, which must have been like 90... 95, 94, 95, something along those lines. Yeah. That's a... I think that timeline tracks. Because it was after I was already into the Beastie Boys, so I would sometimes look at the rap section, pretending I would buy anything that wasn't a Beastie Boys, like tape.
But we just thought it would be funny to put it on the front. Because, like, you know, 90s jokes, you know, that's Elliot's stock and trade. And Jerry from Preacher was like, you know, guys, do you really want to put that on there? Because, like, some distributors might, like, not let it stream, like, if it's behind the front of advisory and shit. It turns out it just meant that on Spotify every single song is listed as explicit, even though they don't all have customers. That E next to it. Yeah, which means nothing. Like, oh, they're not making you enter your birthday on Spotify. But he was like, well, you know, maybe radio play. And I was like, Jerry, radio play.
We're concerned with the radio play. Are we going to hop in the machine and go back to 1992 for that? I'm going to roll those dice. That's very optimistic of him to feel that way. And then we went ahead and submitted the back cover to him with just like no stars, nothing, just like they're all on there. Who cares? Anybody that's buying this physical vinyl from us is not going to have their life ruined by saying the word fuck four times on the back of it.
Yeah, it seems like even the religious right has moved on from that. I don't think they even care about that anymore. Yeah, they are constantly getting calls from Jerry Falwell Jr. asking to answer for my behavior. So recent regrets is what we're up to. Recent regrets is...
It's literally about what it sounds like. Things you wish you had done in your life. Looking back on your youth. Those kind of things you wish you had done. There's a couple serious ones in there. Or there's one serious one. There's one goofy one about how I was at a liquor store in Louisville before I moved here and knew the lay of the land. And saw a hat that I thought from far away. A lot of liquor stores around here. I don't know if it's like that. It's some of the cheapo liquor stores up there. You get some novelty hats with some afros. Yeah. They just say weed or something. I saw from afar that there was a hat. It was a black hat. I thought from afar it just said shit real big on it. I was like, that's amazing.
And I got closer, and I realized that above the shit, there was some littler, smaller letters that don't talk, that don't talk shit. And I was like, that's not as good. And like three or four days later, I was like, it's better. I should have bought that damn hat. And I had no idea where that liquor store was in the geography of Louisville because I didn't live there at the time, and this town is not laid out on anything resembling a grid, so I don't know where we were or where it wasn't. It was an artisanal run of like five hats, I'm sure. Yeah, and I didn't buy that. And then in that same verse, I talk about a lighter that when I was in high school, I was in a drum corps, and we were on a drum corps trip to San Francisco, and we were like, you know, some Fisherman's Wharf bullshit.
like a souvenir store, and they had all these little cheap fake Zippos that had like little plastic things on the front with like tie-dye coloring and a little like That 70s Show font sayings. You know that font I'm talking about? Yeah. And they had one that was so tie-dyed, That 70s Show font, and it just said, shut up, bitch. I remember thinking it was the most incongruous thing I'd ever seen in my life. I'm like, this is really tonally inappropriate. Like, I don't understand why it's like a hippy-dippy Peace Man font, but it's so aggressive at me. And at the time, I was like, I don't smoke. Why would I buy a lighter? And that was, I think, in 1999, and I still think about it like every other day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the one verse is about not buying that dumb thing, and there was another, the other verse is a more personal one, and then the...
The chorus is all about this. There's a wall on one of these main drags in Louisville here that is in one of their gentrifying neighborhoods. They're trying to make this one street real cool. And they give it some made-up name, and then they put it in on the listing. It's like, where's that? Exactly. Well, Phoenix Hill has a bad name. This other name people are afraid of, but if we call it this other dumb thing. And then you tell anybody local, they'll be like, what is that? I don't know what that is. Because it's something they're trying to make happen. Well, this one ended up, they made it happen. It worked. But there's this wall that is a...
there's a wall that is, like, got a bunch of lines on it, and it says, before I die, dot, dot, dot. And it's like, you can write something like you want to do before you die, right? Okay, sure. It's like a Mad Lib or something. Yeah. And I drove by it with, but there's like, yeah. But there's like 500 lines you can write on. And I drove by with my wife one day, and we were like, so we're like, all right, I'm going to write on this. It's going to be hilarious. And I did the Mr. Show with Bob and David. It was like, before I die, and I wrote, I'm going to fuck me a fish. From that one where the cruise ship sinks with a talk show. I remember. And we were looking at, we were looking at the other ones, and there was one that said,
before I die, I want to meet Jim Carrey. And I was like, oh, that's cute. And there was another one, like, a few down, that was like, before I die, I want to consume human flesh. And I was like, that's weird. And then we drew, I wrote, I'm gonna fuck me a fish, and we drove away, and we got, like, five minutes away, and I was like, oh, fuck. And Kelly was all concerned that, like, something was wrong. She was like, oh, what's wrong? I was like, I should have written, eat Jim Carrey.
We're going to thematically tie it together. Yes. Meet Jim Carrey, consume human flesh, eat Jim Carrey. And that was, at the time, my most recent regret. And so that ended up being the song where there's a little touch of an actual personal regret in there, but then also like, wish I bought that shut up bitch lighter, wish I bought that don't talk shit hat. And I really, really wish I had written eat Jim Carrey on that wall. There's actually a name for that where it's recontextualizing existing art pieces. Not normally for something exactly along those lines, but taking something that already was a pre-existing...
piece and adding something to it to change the context and meaning. Like a good example would be like that Wall Street, the bull, like when they put that little girl up, right? Oh, yeah. That's like a super serious, you know, version of that. But the idea of being, the most vulgar and common example is bathroom stalls, of course. Right. Which is a glorified, bougie version of that, of just, you know, somebody writes something, somebody else writes something else, so on, so on, so on. But I just, I really, it still bumps me out. You're still thinking about it. So that song sounds more serious than it does because of the tone of the music. It sounds like a serious, slow one, but it's like, hey, it's not.
So, okay, so the next one after that is God Loves the Trier. Yeah, that one actually kind of is a serious one. It's just about, like, the chorus lyrics are kind of saying all words. Like what we were talking about, about... Something just not being for you. Like, those chorus lyrics are, you know, no bad bands, no bad songs, no bad books, no bad films, no bad sex, no bad love, and no bad times, no new friends. We're just like, no, just not everything has to be for you. Like, there's nothing that's bad. You just don't like, you know, and that's fine. You know, you try. People are out there, like, putting their heart and soul into art, and just because you don't like it would mean, like, it sucks. Right, exactly. Kind of what we were talking about earlier. I was going to say, that kind of harkens back to what we were talking about earlier. So, Bob Chapman in the chat box.
He actually brought up that it's a detournement. Actually, I took German, so I don't know. It's got the accent over the E. Detournement? Detournement? I don't know. Well, whatever. Anyway, it means rerouting or hijacking in French. It's a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letters International later adapted by the Situations International. The point of fact is it's exactly what we're talking about. It's like that culture jamming thing where you change the meaning of something by addition or subtraction. Oh, right. That's cool. Right on. That's a rapid response team there. I wish I had done that.
Then you have the title track. So that's extra medium. Extra medium is a term that I play Magic the Gathering, a fun card game for dorks. It's a term that kind of evolved to mean that something being medium is just being average or mediocre. And extra medium is just a little bit better than that. So you draw your card for the turn and it'd be like, okay, it's pretty medium. If it's extra medium, it's almost good. That's another one that's kind of thematically on the line of just getting a little older and thinking about, well, you know. Because extra medium is also the size between medium and large when you're wearing T-shirts.
And I think every single person listening to this can trace the point where they went from wearing a medium to eating maybe not quite a large, but maybe a little bit of an extra medium. That's like every T-shirt you should have with anyone, whether I'm buying it or whether I'm selling them. Yeah. Like, really, what do you think? You know, I always have to ask, like, is that like a regular Gildan style or something like some American Apparel style shit that's going to make me feel bad about myself? You have to take the manufacturer into account. Yeah, absolutely. And I do, and I know I annoy merch people. I'm like, look, unroll it. Let me see that back. Yeah. That's another one that's kind of a bad light page. I mean, it's 30 seconds long. And I wrote that while Dan Hankey from Latest Lame Records, upon finding out I did not own a vinyl copy of Zen Arcade, bought me one for my birthday and had it sent to my house several years back.
And before we had a dishwasher in our kitchen, that was one of my go-to records to put on and see if I could finish the dishes at the end of Side A. Oh, okay. By the end of Side A. So I listened to Side A. Like a personal challenge. Oh, I got there. But I listened to that a lot and was like, man, I want to write a 30-second Poops Could Do S major chord punk song like this. And so I did. So the only, yeah, anytime I see an album that has a good song that also is the name of the album, I think about the fact that there was a...
It's Doug Walker who plays a band called Call the Wild, and they have an album called Call the Wild that has a song called Call the Wild on it. The Black Sabbath thing. Yeah, it's Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath on Black Sabbath. There's several bands that have done that, right? There's not as many as you think. And some of them are more fun to say than others, like Focus Focus by Focus. That's not the same thing, but it's still very fun to say. But it rhymes real good. Yeah, it rhymes great.
Extra medium on extra medium. Yeah. Just try to do things. If you want things to be good for you, just put some effort into it. Give earn. Oh, that's the one about teaching. That's the one you mentioned earlier. Oh, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that. We talked about that one already. Visual pleasure we talked about. That was the one that Lindsay from Cellphones is on. Great ripper. Practically an epic by cell phone considerations. I think it's like too unchanged, right? Something like that, yeah. Cell phones aren't very long, right?
So where did that one end up landing? It was mostly kind of a... Oh, yeah, yeah. Sam Shulton mentions R-A-M-O-N-E-S by Ramones, although that was a Motorhead song they wrote about the Ramones. But, yeah. Right. Which I think has actually made it better, frankly. How are you going to be like, oh, let me wrote this song about us. Of course we're going to play it. You have to. But, yeah, that could be a whole game as far as that goes. But, yeah, Visual Pleasure. We talked about that a little earlier. Fatalist.
Fatalist is a Girl Flight song. Girl Flight were a kind of like noisy, they started as a real every time I die worshipping band that kind of like finally like broke themselves down to like the core of of what they really sounded like on an EP. It was their last thing they put out. It was a seven-inch EP called Real Spite. It's six songs long, and it's fucking phenomenal. It's like the best nine minutes ever. And we did, I mean, we are just like, the Waxinger dudes have been tight bros with those guys for like eight years. We did a couple of tours with them. One was three weeks long. We just love those guys. And that riff is, the guys from Police Teeth there in Seattle taught us the term taco riff many years back. And I'm sure you've talked about taco riffs on the show at all. It has been discussed. We always thought that that was just a...
The main riff to that song is just like a great taco riff where it's just like holding out one chord forever and then just the dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. I just love that riff. And you would play it. And for those that are not, because there are not a lot of new listeners to the show, it's just a showcased and almost needlessly ostentatious riff that is memorable by being able to sing it aloud is my memory of the definition. And then it comes out of nowhere, too, was what I remember James Burns always told me. It doesn't necessarily, you don't think there's any reason for it to be there, but it jumps out at you. And ideally it should be one that, yeah, you could...
do the Beavis and Butthead thing, you can sing it out, and people know what it is you're talking about. Oh, yeah, that part. And they graciously bestowed taco riff status on a song of ours from Sleeper, which I remember feeling, you know, very proud of. And we learned, well, we would always play that stupid riff just like in practice. You know, it's like a warm-up thing. It's an easy, you know, fun thing to play. You know, I watched them play it a hundred times when we were going on tour with them, so it's like, you know, we didn't have to play it. I think we were playing a show that a couple of the girlfriend guys were going to be at, like maybe one of the PRS Louisville or something, and we played it.
like, because they were there. And then it was like, you know, we're in the studio. We ended up just recording it just because it's, you know, a minute and a half long and it's easy and fun. And we asked the guys, we're like, you know, honestly, we could use one more on this 11th song record. Can we just put this on? Because it ends on the same chord that doubt begins on. And so it was like, hey, we could just... And so we asked if we could use it and they were like, we did not give a shit. And so we did. And Dave, all of our art for the last, basically like since Baltimore came out and has been done by...
Dave Watt, the singer for Girl Fight out of Pittsburgh, he does all of our visual art, like our t-shirts, our stickers, our album stuff. Like he's done, outside of like taking pictures of us, he's done all of our visual art stuff for the last like six years. And so, you know, we've got connections with the dudes and we asked if we could use it and they said yes. So we threw it on there. And there you go. So then that brings us to the last song, which I think we did talk about that somewhat briefly. Yeah, that is the one. With all the parentheses. Well, you know, that was a very clear reference, the way I structured that song. That is the fly on the wall trick. Yeah, I wrote that one with the intention of proposing live at the end of it the first time we played it live, which we did, and now we still play it all the time.
I don't think we actually talked about the first song, did we? I don't believe we skipped into it. Skip and we get it. Which to me, that always is like the, it used to be like, oh yeah, we get it, we get it, you vape. Like it was something along those lines. I don't know if that's a corollary with the song, but I was pleased to see it nonetheless because for me that's very indicative of a certain time and a certain schick, which is the fake impatience towards something that maybe doesn't necessitate impatience.
It's sort of that, and also it was meant to be a layered joke about people also saying that they get it, as in they have sex frequently, or that person can get it. That was part of the joke, too. The actual lyric on it is, you're offended, we get it, and we're all assholes. It's just about us. The public perception, not so much of Aaron Elliott, but me, of people thinking I'm just a big jerk, because I can be kind of aloof, loudmouth sometimes. I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about, what that's like. No idea.
I've battled that perception for a long time, and that's just kind of what that one is about. It's about people just deciding this guy sucks. And it's like, but you've had no conversations with me. How do you know that? Yeah, just some really arbitrary criteria that may or may not match reality that fits a supposed and pre-existing frame in some cases. That is correct. People thinking you're a jerk, so deciding if that's what you think. If I've already done the time, I shall now do the crime.
So that's Extra Medium. And if folks want to get it, they should go to Bandcamp. They should go to the label site. You can go to either. If you go to waxeater.bandcamp.com or go to SprayTree. I can't remember if it's SprayTree Records or just SprayTree.bandcamp. It links. They both link.
When you buy it on Bandcamp, you buy it straight from Freytree, even through our Bandcamp. So all the digital orders go through them. So it's easy enough to just go on. Waxer.bandcamp.com or FreytreeRecords.com. Right, and it is FreytreeRecords.com as a site, which makes sense. I think that was the first thing that I would think of, for sure. I just couldn't remember if their Bandcamp said just Freytree or Freytree Records. Yeah, yeah. So your quarantine style, like everyone else that is making music and doing everything that is creative, what are you doing to stay sane?
Well, I have been working from home for the last six weeks. They're doing, like, digital education, like, you know, learn from home, distance learning stuff, which is rough because, you know, the kids are pretty unengaged in it. We have struggled with some kids who don't have access to the technology and things. So that's been kind of crappy, but I've been doing that. I've been, you know, reading, been playing. I've been listening to, like, just music all day, which is not normally what I do because, you know, I'm not done at work. I'm just listening to music. You've got to listen to these kids right along.
Yeah. Well, you know, and my wife's been working from home this whole time, too, so rather than, like, blast, you know, loud stuff, I just kind of put my headphones in and I'll listen to podcasts in the morning and then, like, music all afternoon. You know, doing my school duties and doing... I've been working on some new parts for songs that I've been making. Like, I set up my amp in my garage and go out there and made a couple of, like, video demos to send to Aaron and Elliot to, you know, start working on some new stuff. Like I said, we have, like...
we have two that are done we have two that are almost done and we have two that are in like that are rips that need to be expounded upon so we're trying to not take six years this time our goal is to like is to finish like six songs and then maybe do like two splits like give a song out to a split with a couple of bands and then do maybe like a like a four song ep just like have some stuff come out over the next 18 months rather than, like, here's a record, we'll see your ass in 2029. Yeah, it does kind of seem like the model now is just making things and putting them out always, and that seems to be, like, what people are into. Kind of wish that was the case when I split out singles every month, but, you know, whatever. Right? It's like, we don't really have the means to do that. Like, we have to collect enough stuff to go into the studio once for, like, 48 hours and get it all at least recorded and mastered, and then we can start ditching it out to people. But we're definitely going to have new music released much sooner, on a much sooner timetable.
And plus, like, everything has started to stabilize for us, like, outside of, you know, the entire world falling apart. The complete instability of almost everything, yeah. Our personal lives have, our personal lives have stabilized. You know, Elliot's kid is in, like, second grade now, and, you know, Aaron's daughter's two, and so, like, we're getting to the point where it's, like, we have a little more freedom to be playing more and playing out of it more so it's, like, we can, you know, leave town. We finally got to the point, we hadn't played a show outside of Louisville since, I want to say, December 2016 was the last one we played outside of Jefferson County, Kentucky. So we were all stoked to, like, go play some goddamn shows somewhere else. And, you know, that...
That had to be a big drag. But yeah, I've been reading. I have a Nintendo Switch I've been playing a lot of. Or at least I was until I bought Animal Crossing for Kelly and now I haven't seen a thing. Now it's gone. Forget it. Forget it. And like everyone else on the planet, man, I'm watching a bunch of TV and movies and stuff. But I don't really mind that much. I was kind of joking this week on the internet that my wife is going on Thursday. Her sister and her family are moving to Seattle. And she is going to drive with her out there. And so she's going to be gone for like five days. Wait a minute.
Yeah. And I've been keeping it together mostly because I do have someone in the house to talk to, you know, have human interaction with, and she's going to be gone for five days. She's going to come back, and I'm just going to be fucking feral. Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just going to be loose. The dogs are going to be wearing little hats and shit. It's going to be sweet. She's going to come home to a weird scene. We formed a comedy troupe. It's improv. And it's terrible, like most improv. Well, I think that's why it doesn't need to be announced, but yeah. She's just going to be like, she's going to be texting me from across the country looking at our bank. I'm like, do you go to Wicker Store again today? I'm like, shut up. Yeah.
They didn't have what I wanted. No, they did. I just drank it. I didn't have enough of what I wanted. That's an entirely separate problem. And I'm, you know, as much of a social butterfly as I can be, I'm also, like, wildly content to just sit around the house. Like, I haven't been feeling like I'm going nuts or anything. I know I'm in a kind of privileged position there. But, you know, we walk the dogs around the block, too. And it's been actually kind of cute. Like, our neighborhood has a lot of families like ours that are, like, middle or early 30s. And there are, I think in our small neighborhood, something like 40,000 dogs. And so.
Everyone is just sitting on their porch all day every day, walking their dogs around the block. So we've been seeing more people, honestly, than we normally do in our neighborhood. So keeping it together, we're buying a lot of weird shit on the internet. Just like, you know what, fuck it. Who cares? I bought a bunch of hats. We both bought short-sleeved dickies, coverall jumpsuits. Just like, yeah.
Let's walk around the house, you know, Steve Albini-style in a jumpsuit, and not have to worry about dressing ourselves. Let's just wear this stupid thing. Finally. That's the solution for a problem we didn't know existed. Yeah. You know, just giving herself bad haircuts and letting Kelly practice her nail dip kit stuff on me so hers look better when she tries to do her own. Weirdo shit. The things you can get up to when you don't have to worry as much about being out in the world. Anybody actually seeing me, yeah. All right, so last thing, Rob. Yeah. It's the canned question. Why do you do what you do? Which thing that I do?
You can interpret that question however you like. It's meant in the spirit of creativity, but you can... Well, I'll tell you why I teach, since that's a thing that now I've met a bunch of parents who are like, man, I really value my kids' teachers more. Is that because... They know it's not like virtual babysitting, yeah. Yeah, it's not. It sucks, doesn't it? Oh, yeah, did you not know you hated your kids? Yeah, well, I've been trying to tell you this. No, I think it's important, and I'm not really going to get into it. It's boring why I do it. I'm not built for an office, and it's a performative job that suits me, and I think I do good things for the kids. I'm not like one of those.
you know maternal paternal style uh teachers like oh they're my they're my kids and i love them it's like i don't uh and i'm honest with them it's like i do not love you i respect you and i want the best for you but like you are not my actual family. I just, I feel it's strong. You know, I think it's, I think it's important work that's way more satisfying to me than like punching a clock somewhere else. So I just, you know, shout out to anybody that is either A, struggling with their kids at home or B, A, teacher struggling with figuring out how to deal with other people's kids at home. Music stuff, I don't know. It's just, performing is really fun. It's my favorite part of the whole thing, which is why this sucks is that we can't do the part of it that I like doing the best. You know, I hate recording more than anything. It's my least favorite part about being in a band. Like I would rather feel booking emails all day than have to enter a studio. It's just.
I get the yips, and it sucks, and it never sounds exactly like I thought it was going to. I hate that part of it, but I love just getting up there with my dudes and just kind of letting off some steam and joking around with people in the crowd, whether it's 400 people or five. It's just fun to go up there and perform. Right on. Thanks so much for coming on the show, and it's been great having you. I'm glad there's new Waxeater stuff to listen to. I'm glad you got it out before all this happened. I can't wait to hear you play some of these tunes someday, eventually.
Yep, it'll, I mean, gotta stop sometime, right? One would imagine. You look at the news sometimes and you gotta wonder, but one would imagine, yeah. I don't, you know, I can't bring it in me to be like, yeah, these people are like, it won't be until fall 2021. I can't bring myself to believe that, but I also want to strangle every dipshit in a Ford F-150 driving around with like a top-down, a Confederate flag, hanging off the back with no mask on.
Cool. Pretty cool. Yeah. It's almost like, not to sound cruel or terrible, but it's almost like you want to hope for natural selection with some of these people. But they're not the ones dying. They're not going to be the ones that die. Exactly. Nurse who was trying her best. Or like, 18-year-old with asthma. Or like, grandma that tried to stay inside. Never. Tried feeling right. Yeah. Anyway. You're like that drunk armor. You know how drunk people never get hurt? Yeah, exactly. The luck of the fool, as they say, right. Yeah. So. Rob, thanks so much for coming on the show, man. It's been great having you. Thanks for having me. All right, brother. Take care. All right. Take care.
Oh, there he goes. Rob Montage. Let's hear a Wax Eater tune off of Extra Medium. This is the aforementioned We Aren't 138. We Aren't 138 Wax Eater. That is off of the record Extra Medium. You can get that at Free Tree Records or the Wax Eater Bandcamp. Either of those work. Rob's off of the internet on the normal things that you would think that people would be on as of the band Wax Eater. That's been another episode of Stay at Home Edition of Coda Neutron's Protonic Reversal. Thank you so much for listening to it. This show airs on Radio Note. RadioNote.com. Say yes to Note. Live listeners, stay tuned for The Operative.
Where Nick Cave is discussed. With me. So that's not a conflict of interest or anything. It's a good episode though. Double episode. Archives for this show are RadioNeutron.com. Always free. No ads. No sponsors. No kidding. Patreon.com slash Retronic Reversal to get the episodes sooner. One dollar a month. We'll get you there. Thanks to everybody. Sharing the episodes around. Letting people know. It's a thing worth listening to. It's always appreciated.
The growth has been incredible, and thanks. I'm glad everyone's getting something out of it, including me. Tony Visconti is coming up next on Thursday. David Bowie's producer, so yeah, stay tuned. And stay safe out there.