Episode #56 - Todd Burge

Well, hello there, everybody. This is Justin, a.k.a. Demonic Sweaters, and this is the Demonic Sweaters Podcast, episode number 56. I can't believe I've done 56 episodes of this podcast. It's pretty crazy to me. I started a couple of years ago, and of course, I don't quite upload as much as I used to, but I still have them coming out fairly often, so thanks, all of you, for listening. And I just wanted to mention real quick before we get going here that this episode is sponsored by anthillrecordings.bandcamp.com. That's just A-N-T-H-I-L-L, recordings.bandcamp.com, all one word. Okay, so today I have a really, really great guest for you guys.

He is a musician from Parkersburg, West Virginia. I'm from West Virginia myself. I was born in Fairmont, West Virginia, but grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia. And the guest I'm going to have on is, well, he goes by the name Todd Burge. And he is somebody who I knew about at a very early age because he was in a band or is still in a band called 63 Eyes. And 63 Eyes were one of the first punk type or post-punk bands that I ever heard when I was a kid and one of the most legendary bands from that area. And in addition to that, Todd is a really, really amazing solo musician.

And his solo stuff kind of would fit more along the lines of Americana, kind of a post-country or classic country almost. But it's equally just as amazing. And Todd has performed solo on places like the Mountain Stage for NPR, the Kennedy Center, the Country Music Hall of Fame. He's released probably over a dozen albums. He has a really, really unique voice. And I think Todd has managed to kind of cut his own path more so than just about any musician.

I can think of from West Virginia because it's not an easy thing to do original music for a living, first off, anywhere, but then to do it from a really, really small state and town is even more impressive. And he really found his own niche and has accomplished so much. And I'm really glad to have him on the podcast because he's a really cool guy. And I really enjoyed our conversation. So before we get started with that, I want to play one of Todd's songs off of his newest album, which is called Your Reflection Will Kill You. And I'm going to go ahead and play the title track off of that album because I think that's a really, really great song. And it has some pretty amazing lyrics to it as well. So here we go. Your Reflection Will Kill You by Todd Burge. And then we'll be back for the interview with him. So stick around. Your reflection will kill you. Knock you right off your feet. You might see the light. But the light might bring disease.

to season your sunshine while you ease into dread uneasy does it don't reflect yourself so dead don't make that face as you look like your dad on his lesser days when he was nothing but angry your repeated story gets old and worn It's faded glory and it will never be born again. And it will never be born again. And it will never be born. Your reflection will kill you. Your reflection will kill you. Your reflection will kill you. Well, I'm here with Todd Burge from – are you living in Parkersburg still or where do you live these days?

Well, I'm sitting here in Parkersburg, West Virginia. I grew up nearby. I've lived in various places over the last few decades. But yeah, I'm here in Parkersburg. Very cool. Yeah, yeah. And this is one of the main reasons why – well, not because you're from Parkersburg, but because you're a West Virginian like me. One of the main reasons why I wanted to have you on this podcast because I think out of all the people –

that I know from West Virginia who are musicians. Nobody has really made the type of niche that you have made that I can think of. Like you've really cut your own path from being from such a small state and small town in West Virginia. It's really pretty amazing, you know, looking at what you've been able to do. Yeah, so that's really the main reason why I wanted to have you on here is I talked to a lot of musicians and I'm always interested in like what they did to kind of like, you know, cut their own path and how they're doing it, you know, like because today's world is kind of weird for musicians, you know.

We don't have, we don't have like, you know, it's not like it was in the eighties and nineties where you could sell CDs and records and stuff like that to like kind of make a living. And the formula is gone and nobody really knows what the new formula is. That's, that's, that's right. That's, that's the truth. Nobody really knows. So, uh, you know, for me, yeah, go ahead. No, I was just, I was just going to say you, I mean, you're still going and you, even back when you've came up with your formula, there really wasn't a formula for what you did either, you know? And like, I just think that that's really cool, you know? So anyway, go ahead. Yeah. I mean, I mean, we could touch, we could, we could create a whole podcast. You know, I've been around so long and I've tried so many different things to sustain my career.

uh most of them failed you know um but that's just i think that's the nature of success you know you have to be willing to fail and and i've i've been willing to do it many many times i've faced faced it and uh and then and then you figure something out you know it's kind of like life in a nutshell you you know the if you're what the pain brings on some you know you've you gain from it i think you you learn which you know to go away from whatever that is or go to something different but uh but i'll tell you uh very early on if we want to go back to um you know when it struck me i mean i remember where i was turning the corner of kingwood and wilson on um uh there in south park in morgantown um i was going to my apartment there second year and i'd just been to um see dashing the rip rocks at the underground railroad and um and uh i don't know who was playing first or second or whatever but gene pool was on the bill as well and i didn't know these i didn't know these people at all i didn't know the scene i was i was basically i knew three chords and and i i loved i loved music you know in a big big way but i wasn't in the scene at all i i went to the underground railroad to um

As part of an assignment in my creative writing class, I was going to write a paper on punk rock. And I didn't even know what the hell that meant, you know? So I went there, but I did know that I wasn't really seeing punk rock, even though Bob Cotter was in the one band. It wasn't a punk rock band, Dash and Rip Rocks, and Gene Poole certainly had some of that attitude, but it was not that. But they had this one song called Pilots Are Melting, and it was really, really catchy. I mean, it's an earworm even to this day. Every once in a while, it gets in my head, and I can't get it out. I mean, I don't want to, but I heard that song, and I was just kind of blown away by that one song mostly. And the next day, as I was turning the corner of Kingwood and Wilson, it came on the radio. It came on U92.

And that was a defining moment for me because, you know, coming from the Parkersburg area where I grew up, the original bands were not on the radio. You know, it's just so rarely did you hear anything original on the commercial radio. It's still like that, you know, local original music. And anyway, that blew my mind. And I just had to start a band, you know, and within a few months, you know, I took the three chords that I knew and, you know, started a band. And basically ever since I've been trying to find a way to, you know, I was so...

I didn't have a choice, and I think that's helpful. A lot of people want to be in music, and I don't know what gives you that desire, that drive. I don't know what gives a person that, you know. It doesn't seem to make sense, but I would guess that it's not different. I would guess it's not different for even somebody who is, you know, coming up with ideas for new apps or somebody who starts a restaurant that has a passion for whatever it is. Really, at the beginning of whatever you're doing, whatever business you might be in, it really might not make any sense at all. But I was eaten up by it, and I had to do it. And, you know, there have been various things that I've done throughout the years that have, like I said, that have failed.

There's been a few things that worked really well, and I've been able to take advantage of those things and have a decent career from those things. When you say that you've tried a lot of things that have failed, well, for one, I'd be interested in hearing an example of that, as well as after you encounter one of those failures, what do you tell yourself to move past that, and how do you keep going past those failures, those roadblocks? I'm not real sure. That's just some deep psychology there. So, I mean, I guess, you know, I could sit here and say that typically, you know.

the knee-jerk response would be, you know, stick in there and hang in there and follow your dream and all that. But for me, I just thought it was do or die. I just didn't see any other way. I had to be in music, you know, and I had to be creating music, you know. It couldn't be – I resisted, although I played a lot of covers in a band called Triple Shot through the years. But that was one way we were sustaining. I'll back up, though. Things that failed. I mean, we could talk about the failures ad nauseum. Not too much. Just one example. Yeah, but I don't want to get too much into it. Well, I'll tell you one thing that I –

Wish I'd learned sooner. Well, two things, two quick things. One thing I wish I'd learned sooner would be to, you know, just move forward when somebody says no and realize that it's a numbers game. It's a numbers game, meaning I had the advantage of struggling through a couple sales jobs right out of college. And one I was selling.

you know vacuum cleaners cold calling it was the pits but man i tell you what i wish they taught sales in school because it was really valuable because i went from there to san francisco working for this i was signed to a label and i was looking for a band and i was just they asked me if i'd help they said they'd pay me if i helped book bands and and i learned a lot about you know sales you know just it's very helpful when you're looking for gigs but but that being said take you know the the i used to think that Why aren't these venues hiring me? And I had this attitude. And you need to believe in what you're doing, obviously, and think that you're good. And it's poisonous if you don't. If you don't, you should get out. But I thought, I remember the first band I was ever in. I couldn't imagine anybody not digging the Larrys. I just couldn't imagine it. Now I could imagine it. That was deep-seated. And that took me places, but it also would get me stuck in places where you would get frustrated and waste your time going after things that weren't available. And I remember calling a club and the club owner saying,

We were never going to hire you guys. It's just not my thing. And that pissed me off and it really hurt. And then I sat and thought about it for a while and I realized, wait a minute, nobody owes me. Actually, Eugene Chaborn said this in a fanzine years ago, one of the Psychabilly guys, Eugene Chaborn, said that nobody owes me a career. And I just put those two things together and it was very, very helpful. It taught me to just not pound at things.

that we're dead already, you know, so I remove my ego from those things. And another thing, one other quick thing that, um, I would play, and maybe this is good when you're starting out, especially as a solo artist, I'd play open mics and then, and then you go to play everything that came along, you know, anything that somebody asked you to do, you'd play it. And that's probably good up to a point, but after you start, you got your chops down in a show or whatever, a real show together, you know, uh, that there's a point where that's not helping you at all. But, uh, Ron soul, the, uh, music director of mountain stage said to me all these 15 years ago or more, he said, Todd, you ever think about playing less and making more? and uh and that just hit me it's like holy cow and uh yes you he said make your shows more of an event you know and when i started thinking about that you know in certain markets i can play rarely and it becomes a special thing it's not like old todd or whatever band i'd be playing in or whatever he's gonna be here next month or you know that kind of thing you make it you turn it into something special and you find that uh well especially near home here i just uh over the last few years if i play a show it sells out you know we're talking you know my next show's next week it's 300 seats it's not like i'm filling a

it's not like I'm filling a 900 seat theater or something like that, but, um, but that, but that attitude is, um, has, and the same with 63 eyes, which I'm sure we'll talk about some, um, you know, when we play at one, two, three pleasant street, it, in the last few times it sells out and it's just because it's a rare, it's a rare event. That's totally an event. It's been an event for years now when 63 eyes. Oh yeah. Yeah. But that, that kind of, you know, if you've done it, but this is, this is stuff you can do after you've.

After you've built up something and been at it for a few years, you can start to think in this way. And you still have to travel, and you have to spread it around to make a living. But those were very helpful things, getting away from the mistakes of just playing every damn show that came about. So there was a lot of experimentation, it sounds like, for you. But the one thing I always felt like you did well was you seemed to really identify your niche.

And was that something you did consciously or did they come to you or how did you even know your niche existed? I didn't know, you know, I don't even know what that, I'm confused, musically confused. And my daughter, she's 13 and she, you know, listens to, well, just music I'm unaware of really. She's turning me on to stuff. You know, yesterday, I can't remember the name of the band. They're great. You know, some really, really great stuff. Some of it's abrasive rock sounding pop. Some of it's Japanese rock and things of that sort. But, and we had this discussion where,

I'll play something for her. Oh, we had a Bob Dylan discussion where Tangled Up in Blue came on, you know, just randomly came on the other day. And Bob Dylan, you know, and I said, do you know this singer? And she says, Bob Dylan. And I was really impressed. You know, I feel good about that. I'm a fan. And I said, you like Bob Dylan? And she said, I tried to avoid him.

and anyway so and I was and we got this conversation about what she said what music of mine do you not like and I said you know I just like so much I'm kind of like even you know I can listen to afternoon delight and find things I dig about it you know and and I think I don't know if it's confusion I've just always been kind of really really open to to almost I can't think of a genre I don't dig something a bit of you know so and when I'm when I'm writing it mostly on acoustic guitar or most more recently piano when I'm writing But always, even the rock and roll stuff that I've done over the years, I'm almost always writing on an acoustic guitar. And then the song becomes whatever the people that I'm playing with, whether it's Ryan Kennedy, these jazz guys that I made this last record with, although nobody would call it a jazz record. It just becomes whatever other people make it. It still sounds like you, though. I mean, you definitely have a sound, I think. And a lot of that centers around your voice, because you have a very distinct voice. And that's something that you've seen really early on.

Yeah, well, I agree that everybody's got a unique voice, and I don't know why it is that most everybody says that about my voice. I haven't really thought a bunch about that. I'll tell you what I have done with my voice, and I do it every day. I exercise my voice, and when I'm writing, and I've consciously done this, especially over the last 10 years, I try to see where my voice will go where it's never been. I'm not talking just crazy screams or anything like that. I'm just trying to...

bend it manipulate it and uh it's uh you know it's not it's not anything anybody would want to sit and witness you know and just try to just try to see what i can do with my voice that uh interest me you know and and i and i sometimes i i'll stumble into to quirky little weird things that don't really remind me of anything else that i've that i that i listen to and that's kind of where i get supercharged over music you know i think it doesn't really remind me of anything you know um so so i do i do kind of like think about those things if i think too much about it while i'm writing though i gotta tell you it becomes pretentious yeah crap you know you know do you ever when you're writing music have you ever thought like uh well okay let me try to how can I phrase this um like have you ever tried to write something through like this thought well like people will like this or this will gain me so much you know listens or popularity or whatever versus I just writing this because I want to express this feeling or is there like somewhere in the middle that you work you know like I know that I'm not saying one's good or bad you know like but like some people do think about you know like what could I write that's going to connect you know

I have done some of that, yeah. I have definitely done some of that. Well, I can tell you a different type. I'm currently writing some stuff for a documentary, and that's a different piece. That's instrumental type things mostly. But that aside, I've gone 15 years ago. I have this friend, Arlo Smith. I went to junior high and high school with him. I was in choir with him. I wasn't close to him back in school, but he's a songwriter in Nashville. Wrote a hit song called Mayberry, and Rascal Flatts recorded a number one hit. It's had some other.

top 10 hits with other artists you know and he's he just sent me a message here years ago and said if you're ever in Nashville let's get together and pin a song you know and and I said to my wife at the time I guess I'm going to Nashville you know I'm going to be in Nashville I'm going to set this up because I and so I went to Nashville I'm in the RCA building where you know these hits Nashville songwriters and I'm trying to make art with them and it's a it's a totally different beast but the goal was to do something people would dig but but there's this also this element um if you would happen to listen to mayberry by uh rascal flats there's this the songs real as can be coming from the writer you know right um he was it was a real thought that he had it was in and that's the way these guys at least would write uh so it was coming from a real place it wasn't my it wasn't my thing i i and and we we wrote some stuff but nothing ever became of it it seemed awkward for me and then i spent some time after that trying to listen a little bit to radio and send some things and it didn't it lasted five minutes but so but for the most part i'm just doing

whatever hits and pleases me. And I write almost every day. Bulk is the answer. And really the songs that end up, I think I'm going to play this for somebody and fine tune it and make it a thing. Those songs are really the ones that are kind of like those accidental shots that you make. If you're taking pictures with your camera or accidentally you'll take this really great shot, it's like, jeez, I could never do that again if I tried.

the good songwriting for me that comes out of me, it feels like that. It's kind of like, gosh, where'd that come from? I didn't really work on that. You know, so many people say that, but all the other, yeah, all the other muscular stuff that I do, I think it's important kind of like putting in the craft, the hour, you know, the hours of the time and all that. I think that's all important. It kind of takes me to that place where, um, do you think discipline has something to do with it? Do you force yourself to write sometimes? Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll write when I don't feel like it or I'll try. Yes. I mean, I just, uh,

And I always say this. Most of the stuff that I've written is just total crap. I've written a lot of junk. And when I decided to... when I just, when I say total crap, I mean, I consider it total crap, but, but I have an artist friend that would argue that it's all, it's all worthwhile. And I think she's right. It's a, it's all a matter of getting to that place where, Oh, this is, this is cool. I think I'll go with this or, or, or, you know, that, that, that thing that you decide that you want to play in front of people, you know? Yeah. I mean, I do a lot of recording and I, I kind of, I don't really view myself as a songwriter cause I'm not really like I, but I do a lot of recording experimentation and come up with music that way. And sometimes I'll have one where I, you know, while I'm doing it, I just hate it.

You know, I'm like, this is horrible. And then like, I just kind of put it aside and then sometimes I'll come back to it, you know, a year or two later and be like, this is actually pretty good. What was I thinking? You know, or the opposite. I'll be like, yeah, this was horrible. Like, you know. Yeah. Or, you know, yeah, right. New song syndrome, I call it, where sometimes you'll have something that blows you away and you think it's brilliant. And then a week later you think, what was I thinking? It's crap. You know, and sometimes just what other people think can turn your mind, you know. So if you have somebody you trust that you can play it for, that can turn you around and realize, you know, oh, this is cool. Oh, one other thing that I do. I've done some.

Well, a couple things that I've done. Sometimes I'll write with somebody in mind, one person. You know, I have various mentors. I'll have Tim O'Brien is a friend of mine, a West Virginia artist and a great songwriter performer. And he's produced some of my records, but it really started when he agreed to produce a record of mine in 2008.

and we would discuss discuss the recordings i started putting you know what would tim think of this as i was writing and i found it was really helpful you know it was it was stressful and it was helpful and it took me it took me somewhere that i wouldn't have gone otherwise and i and i thought that about larry gross as well and different people i look up to what would larry think of larry gross of mountain stage fame you know uh and then um i've also uh done a lot of trying to write from the perspective of somebody that you know a fictional character somebody i've made up maybe a criminal i've made up or a famous person and that that's taken me a few places a biblical character maybe and twist that or twist a biblical story around um i've done that uh a couple times but but the most useful was uh writing from the point of view of uh animals and uh and um and even you know just critters and animals and stuff like that and sometimes you and sometimes i'll have to tell people that that's that's

from from that point of view it's because it's not human but uh right you know so uh you know my latest actually latest and i kind of gotten away from this but uh the latest thing i was just working on finishing up really is uh called it's a squirrel's world and and it's and it's um I don't know, maybe I'll send you lyrics to this, but it kind of, it almost, after I read it, it kind of, it seems to relate to the divide in our country. And basically it's a conversation the squirrel's having with humans about what right do you have to put this house on this land where my people or my kind have lived for, you know, long before you were here and all that kind of thing. And it really wasn't anything I was thinking of. I was just looking at squirrels out back and thinking, geez, we really, we're in their way, aren't we? You know what I mean? It's just. They're everywhere too. They're in like every single state.

Yeah, it was just kind of that silly thought, and it came out kind of, oh, this is kind of cool. It's deeper than my initial thought was. Yeah, I did one. I actually did one a long time. Well, it was probably 10, 15 years ago where I recorded a song, and then I did some kind of robotic vocoder vocals to it, and I wrote them from the perspective of my goldfish at the time. Right. That was the only time I ever did that, yeah. Yeah, you take yourself out of it. One thing it does, it just removes you from it, gets your brain going just somewhere else. You tend to...

play the same chords, same order of chords. I think it's good to pick up an instrument that you don't really know all that well and stumble through it. And sometimes you might be playing GCD, but maybe you don't even realize it. You're just kind of fumbling through things. I should also mention the 63 Eyes, especially in the really early days, I always considered the vocalist, the voice as being somebody totally ill. I had this imaginary person that was singing those songs. Oh, really?

Yeah, I didn't really think. And maybe it was just me and my insecurity hiding behind things. You know what I mean? And I didn't say it. I didn't say it in interviews or anything like that. I just thought it. And when I was on stage, even still, we'll do a show, especially if we're doing these really old songs, which we will be here next month doing some really old stuff. I still on stage kind of have that character in my head that's singing those words that's not really me. It's like an actor on stage as opposed to just me singing out these. It sounds kind of silly when I say it out loud, but it helps me.

It helps me kind of vision. It's like a visual thing almost for me. It's kind of like... I think like that probably is something that's hard to explain. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that a lot of, you know, like front, you know, front man, front woman, whatever they, I think that probably happens more than they realize, you know, like, whereas like a lot of people, like you think of these people, like these iconic, you know, like Glenn Danzig or like somebody like, you know, these iconic front men who like have, they're like this character, you know, like maybe they don't even realize it, that they're doing it, you know, but then, or maybe some of them do, or look at David Bowie, you know, he was a perfect example of that. He, he became this.

iconic character in like the 70s, you know, late 60s, early 70s, Ziggy Stardust. And like, but then he like, you know, you read interviews with him where he started to feel like he was literally becoming that person and like kind of lost himself, you know, like, but I'm sure a lot of the drugs had probably had a lot to do with that too. But yeah, I don't think that I was ever in that kind of danger, but I think really, I think I relate more to, I love, by the way, I love David Bowie, you know, big, big time. I also really love Randy Newman. And, you know, and Randy Newman is not like, the type of artist that gets up there and totally changes the look and you know he's sitting at the piano looking like randy newman but he's singing you know he's singing rednecks and he's singing from these voices of care you know various characters and it's and it's there's something there's something more i don't know almost more it's like shocking uh and and i think it's people some people don't get it you know it's like like like he's actually singing it you know it's like

It's like his world or whatever. He's expressing his own thoughts, and he's pissed off a lot of people. Or Bowie, you kind of get that this is a character and all that, Randy Newman. But I think I tend to lean more towards it as a writer, kind of leaning more towards Randy Newman. It's like a confused mess of personal things with things that are just there for the sake of rhyme. Or the story will take a weird turn just simply because a couple lines didn't work. What was in my head doesn't work, so I've got to get real fictional here.

my kids call some of my songs songs that bother grandma you know because i think my mom will listen to a lot of this stuff and wonder you know worry you have to tell oh no this is just and she's gotten she's more used to it now than she you know this used to be she used to like that you know i want to talk to you about that song about joseph you know i wrote a song about joseph from you know things like that that's pretty funny Actually, I'd like to put out an album called Songs That Bother Grandma, but that would really bother my mom. It's a great title, too. It's an awesome title. It is. I'm a huge Paul McCartney fan, and I've listened to tons of interviews and album commentary and stuff like that. What's really interesting is how many songs he came up with in Dreams, like the music part. He would hear in Dreams and then wake up the next morning and kind of figure out what he was hearing in his head. And then he would put placeholder lyrics in a lot of them.

I don't know if you've ever heard like yesterday was, what was the word? It was like really funny. It's like this really, it sounds like scrambled eggs. Yeah. It's like this really, really profound, deep song. And like, it was originally called scrambled eggs, you know, and he like didn't come up with that until like later, you know, like, yeah, I guess, I guess Sting's done a lot of that too. And I've done very little. I mean, I've had some melodies come to mind and, and some, some lyrics usually remember that Seinfeld where he's tortured by the thing he thought of in the middle of the night, wrote down, couldn't read it. Most of my, most of my dream ideas are just like, Oh, that's crap. Yeah. But,

Have you done much of that? I mean, do you dream melodies? I do often, actually, but I've rarely put them down. I tried not that long ago. I had one really strong in my head when I woke up, and I recorded the bass line to it, and I was like, this sucks. Like, this is just not good. But I don't know. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe I'll come back to it. Maybe it'll be one of those. But lyrics, I've gotten a lot from dreams. When I used to do more vocals, I don't do that many. It's weird. I reached a certain point where it's like, I have a really hard time with vocals now, like harder than I ever did, maybe because I'm more critical.

myself you know you mean physically singing you're talking just singing performing yeah both like i love to sing but it's like when i get down to like try to write lyrics i'm like i don't know what kind of melody to put to anything like it's weird it's just gone like i don't know where it went but i just can't do it anymore like i don't know maybe i just i feel like it's better left up to those who really are good at it you know what i mean like so now i'm just like i try to find those people i'm like i can add drums and cool synth parts and you know i'm really really good at accompaniment you know and like for my own stuff i'm really good at like instrumental and experimenting and things like that but from the songwriter thing it's just not really my forte you know and like maybe i just finally admitted that to myself you know Well, you've got to be all in, or at least you've got to create a window where you say, this six-month period of time, I'm going to buckle down. You've got to be back to the beginning of the conversation. You've got to really commit yourself to finding your way through if you're not comfortable with it. I tried that not that long ago, but then I think my problem is the results I was getting, I was like, why am I spending this much energy on something that I'm not liking? Right, well, yeah. I don't know. Anyway, I mean, I'm not that bent out of shape about it. I know my strengths and weaknesses at this point.

That's important. Yeah. What else was I going to ask you? I have a lot of notes here, actually. Well, since you brought up 63 Eyes a little bit, we might as well talk about that some. Well, 63 Eyes, I think, were probably one of the first local...

I don't know if we'd call you guys punk, but punk-ish bands that I heard from Morgantown, or not from Morgantown, but from West Virginia. I mean, it seemed like you guys were from Morgantown when I lived there, just because everybody knew who you were. It was just, I don't know. It's funny because it was never really a Morgantown band in that I did not live in Morgantown when that band started and never went back. I was in Morgantown for the four years before it started. And I spent a lot of time up there because Mark Poole moved to Morgantown. Yeah. When did you guys actually start playing? 86. Okay.

Yeah, and that was my final year at WVU. It was 86. I went to San Francisco, got signed to a label. Actually, if somebody gets the CD, Your Reflection Will Kill You, which is my latest full album release, acoustic album. On the flip side of that is an album called 1986. I saw that. The first album. Yeah, the first album. And that was actually my first rock album that was, you know, first full proper release, I guess you would say. And if you listen to that, you can kind of hear the transition from the Larrys to 63 Eyes in there.

But that was 86. It's amazing kind of like the amount of music that I did in 1986. Of course, I didn't have, I was living at home, you know. But I moved back to West Virginia when that record deal fell through. How long were you in San Francisco?

uh it wasn't a year you know yeah it wasn't too long then later i mean yeah i've lived in austin texas and pittsburgh and but you know the bulk of my life i've been here i was kind of like i tell people i spent my 20s trying to get out west virginia and spent my uh late 30s early 40s you know trying to get back yeah right um but uh but yeah i mean we so it was 86 87 we put out a cassette in 86 and um and it was really a bunch of Mark was, when 63 Eyes started, Mark was still in the Larrys. I left the Larrys and Mark, Jim, and Wes. It was the best thing that happened, really. They started, I wrote most of the songs. They wrote a lot more and put out an album that was really great. And then I did my solo thing and it was good for all of us. And then when my deal fell through, I came back and thought, oh, I'll start another band. And that was 63 Eyes. And geez, we went at it hard for quite a while. Did you? So when you first started, were there other bands like you in Parkersburg?

No. So what was that like? I mean, how did people even react? um well we had started the larry's which was a which was more like a garage uh kind of standells goofy standells uh um type thing uh garage punk band it was more melodic more melodic it wasn't actually the guitars were pretty clean sounding crunchy clean but uh we were playing that in parkersburg and it's it's and in morgantown and and uh this is while i was in school you know at w and and the frat boys and you know fraternities sororities dug that but also kind of leaned into the underground railroad scene too some we weren't taking off too awfully too seriously really but 63 eyes was kind of a different beast uh weightier lyrics still still sense of humor but but in parkersburg it wasn't like people were freaking out over 63 eyes in parkersburg you know and it was there was there wasn't anything quite like there were metal bands you know mostly cover bands um you know like i was saying about gene pool and all that it was mostly it was mostly cover bands and um

And so what we did, so we wouldn't have to get a day job, we started another band called Triple Shot. You guys started up Triple Shot that long ago? Yeah. Wow, I didn't realize that. We did that so we wouldn't have to get day jobs. We realized there's not really any place for 63 Eyes to play in Fargesburg. There was like one place eventually.

And, you know, Mark had played in some cover bands. Mark had never had a job. I mean, that was, you know, music's a real job, as you know. Yeah, but not a lame job. A real job. Yeah, he was in cover bands like when he was a teenager and, you know, when he wasn't supposed to be in those bars and stuff. I remember the Larry's playing before Mark was in the band, and we'd go over and catch him on our break and watch him play in Marvel over at Mark's Pool's guitar playing. We're talking this is 1984, you know, 85. And he was already a seasoned cover, you know, rock.

rock cover band guy and um and really uh um but that was the scene was so we early 63 eyes years um we thought we're not going to get real jobs and we wanted we wanted to make some money around here you know and so we actually had an agent that booked us in all the animal lodges you know moose and elks and all those places but we we also every honky tonk that was anywhere within you know an hour and we're talking a lot of places to play we thought we went around and kind of studied what was going on out there what the band's doing old time rock and roll and zz top and and um and new country we thought we're gonna do rockabilly we're gonna do classic country um and that sort of thing because nobody was dwight yokum and things like that stuff that we dug and johnny cash and hank senior and throwing some original stuff that sounds kind of like that too it's really the it's really where i learned how to play bass uh was learning those cover songs yeah that um it really just learned my chops and vocals you know you're emulating all these really great artists you know it really teaches you how to lay a song out and how how great writers write and yeah and um it was really kind of it was

You know, we'd go to the Pub 47 in Parkersburg that used to be on Route 47, and we'd play Wednesday to Sunday, five sets a night. Wow. And I sang all the lead. I can't believe it. That's crazy. That was a different time. And sometimes you'd add an extra set on the weekends because people would stay late and all that. But it was a killer music education. I bet. So during the day, during the week, one day we'd go at 10 a.m. like we're punching a clock. We'd go in at 10 a.m. and we'd be triple shot that day. We'd put seven, eight hours in.

And then the next day we'd go in. Depending on what was coming up, shows or whatever, we would do 63 hours of write or fine-tune things throughout the week and play on the weekends. And we did that for quite some time. We were lucky enough to have a place to go practice to. A friend of my mom's had a chicken coop that was sitting there, wind blowing through it. That is so West Virginia. It's true. It's true. Nell's Chicken Coop. That's hilarious. The first Larry's recording was recorded at Nell's Chicken Coop. But Wes, a pretty handy guy.

He insulated it and put heat in it. We would go up there. If we just had a thought, hey, let's go up to Nell's and work some idea out. If it was like one in the morning, you know, we'd just go on up there and it's just kind of like out. Yeah. Just far enough out of town that you weren't bugging anybody. Wow. And Nell was cool with it even. She just liked having people come and going out. You know, she was like in her 80s. Yeah. Was into it. That's like when I was really young and first started playing, I was 10. And actually, I was like 1985, 86, right around there.

And me and Jay Demko from Lincoln and John Harrod, also from Lincoln, we all lived right by each other. And I lived in this apartment complex called Timberline Apartments. And the manager of the apartment complex, she just thought it was the cutest thing ever. There's these three little boys playing music. So she gave us the party room at the apartment complex to rehearse in. Nobody ever used it, so basically we had this huge party room.

to ourselves and it was really cool you know like i don't know yeah we were lucky as far as that goes too and then later on that is a great thing yeah it's really cool it's you know being in new york it's like it's so hard to find play like even as an adult you know like to find somewhere to play right because everything's so expensive and you can you have to rent places and everybody's sharing gear everywhere and it's just it's just not the same you know yeah well you know the morgantown scene was great um where You know, I remember working out, you know, when Perry Kirk was in the band and we rehearsed right there on the Dry House stage. Yeah. Or right there on the club stage. It was, I mean, they made it a thing where you could schedule practices with various bands. You could schedule a practice. Yeah, I think I practiced there every time. And Backstreet Records. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Backstreet would have down in the basement, you know, people would practice down in there. It was just like a very supportive scene. Yeah. I mean, we could go on and on about that too, you know. Yeah, well, I mean, it's... It's still like that, you know. Is it? I didn't know if it was still the same. Yeah, it really is. I mean, you're still...

I mean, well, I'm not knee-deep in it, you know, but it seems like there's still that feel. Of course, Mark, when I go rehearse 63 Eyes, I go to his studio. It's there in Granville still. And he doesn't live there anymore, but he still has that house there where the studio is. And, I mean, it seems like at the core, the scene is still very supportive. And it's funny, you see these, what we would call, would be kind of like you guys, we would call the dry house kids. Some of the dry house kids are now almost 50 or something.

But in their 40s, certainly. But, you know, they have kids. Yeah, they have kids. The Dry House grandkids, I guess. Yeah, it's crazy. You would call them. I mean, some of them are in bands and they're, you know, some of them are in bands with their parents, you know, but some of these grand, you know, the Dry House kids have started bands. And just from what I gather, it just seems like the same cool supportive scene there. That's great. Well, for those listening that aren't familiar, the Dry House was an all-ages venue in Morgantown, West Virginia, where basically I...

I don't think I played my first show there, but my first show was actually at the Mac, which was like, what was the Mac exactly? Who was it run by? Do you remember? The theater? Yeah.

I don't remember who ran the band. I didn't spend much time in the old days. I mean, it's been redone. Now it's renovated. So yeah, that was where I played my first one. But the Dry House was this really, really great place. I mean, it's kind of crazy to think how many legendary punk bands played there in the 80s. It's pretty crazy being in West Virginia. Yeah, Black Flag and Dead Kennedys. And people like Timothy Leary spoke there. John Sebastian was there.

Yeah, Bo Diddley played there. That's crazy. I didn't know that. It is. That's really cool. Yeah, I went to see Bo Diddley. I'll never forget it. Jim Clinton and I just walked into the green room like we were supposed to be there just so we could meet him. But yeah, that was pretty cool, Bo Diddley. Yeah, totally. Well, I saw, and this was past the Dry House days. This was when LJ was running it, and it was Dick Dale played with Agent Orange as his backing band. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, that was an awesome show. That was really good.

But yeah, it's, it's really cool. I mean, I feel really fortunate to have grown up in like a place where that kind of scene was around. Like, I mean, now, like I said, I live in New York city and I think New York city back then might've been, of course, a lot more dangerous, but also a lot of creativity going on. Whereas today it's kind of like, not that there's not creativity, but it's more of a tech business type of creativity here than artistic, I think in 2020. I mean, yeah, this stuff's still around. I know a lot of very artistic creative people, but I don't feel this like thriving.

music scene really or artistic scene. I just don't really see it. I don't really feel it. It's, I mean, there's, I'm looking at it obviously from the outside. So I, I mean, I've had some, we, you know, years ago, all I have to go on is, you know, we played CBGBs a couple of times back in the day. Um, and, and that was really cool. Just being able to say you did that, you know, with school in itself, but, and we, you know, we played with some New York and I played, uh, the sidewalk cafe a few times through the years and, uh, the rock, uh, Rockwood, uh, most more recently. And, and, um, Joe's pub I played a couple of years ago. Um,

It's always kind of exhausting to play New York City when you're used to, for a guy, a West Virginia guy that's used to space and just getting from one point with your gear. Yeah, the loadout is like the most stressful thing in the world. Yeah, and I'm just a folk guy. I've got merch and an instrument and a gig bag, but still, it can be a chore. Oh, yeah. There's lots of cool things going. It's kind of like anything, isn't it? It goes in cycles.

Well, I just think, too, today, technology is kind of the number one thing everywhere. You have to be marketing yourself on the internet. That's where it is. It's what people do. Yeah, I do. I've succumbed to it and actually embraced it now. I kind of look at it almost, and I lose this attitude from time to time. I go back and forth, but sometimes I look at it as another extension of my art and try to look at it that way. Oh, I totally look at it.

Yeah. How can I, but how can I make this an art form? You know, how can I tell a story somehow here? How can I make this to where it's actually, you know, it's, it's more of an artistic thing than just a blatant in your face, uh, come to my gig or buy my stuff thing, you know? Um, that's a challenge. It's kind of a fun challenge. Sometimes I do, I do stuff. I'm really, really happy with as far as social media goes. And other times it's just kind of a necessary evil, you know, something you have to do for me. It's like, I mean, it's been.

kind of a blessing you know because I actually do well with this you know like with I mean even though I don't really use a lot of social media I mean I focus mostly on just YouTube and like I have this podcast and that's mostly it like I used to do other things but what I found is like when I really just started focusing on like one you know and just like getting that like it seems to have really worked in my favor and like so much like I was in this kind of I would say like middle period after you know the early success of like bands like Lincoln and Ku Kim and you know like hardcore stuff that i was in and touring we did pretty well you know for a bunch of kids and at the time but then after that i was like kind of in this you know i would say late 90s early 2000s it was kind of like i didn't really know i didn't really have anywhere you know any scene that i kind of fit into you know And like now I think it's actually improved because of the internet. And I kind of have this, you know, I have my niche, you know, now, which is like basically YouTube. And so like, that's kind of like where I've been focusing all my energy. And like now it's like, I don't even do, well, I mean, not never, but rarely play like live solo shows, like rarely, unless it's like a really, really great opportunity. I just don't do it. You know, I just turn them down. I just don't really like, because like you said, New York is like, it's a lot of work to play these gigs, especially if you're taking drums and electronics and all that. Like, it's a lot of work. I have to rent a car. You know, usually nobody helps me. I have to do it all myself. And like, so it's just very difficult.

But I can do a show on YouTube. You know, I can do a show on YouTube and get like, you know, a thousand times the response that I would ever get from playing live. You know, then like it turns into some actual sales and stuff, you know, so it's just way better. Man, you got me thinking now. Yeah. Oh, hold on a second. While that landline's ringing, I'm going to save what I've got here. That's a good idea. I'm going to do that too. I'm going to pause mine and save it. Something I wanted to ask you about, the title of the 63 Eyes debut album, Look In For Mothman. Is there a story behind that? Well,

That's funny. That was actually our second album. Oh, that's the second album? Well, if you consider cassette an album, an album length recording. We had a release that was cassette only called I'm Not Me But I Play Me On TV. And it was just kind of a joke title, obviously. There was a commercial where I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV. But anyway, and some of those songs were on looking for Mothman. I guess first off, the name 63 Eyes came from a lyric that Mark Poole had in the song. We were just looking for a band name. And we wanted something that...

The only thing we were looking for was something that you would just think of the band when you heard the name. This was before the 69 Eyes came out or whatever, that goth metal band came out. But anyway, we didn't want Alabama or something like that. West Virginia. So that's all we were looking for. There was nothing really, there was no thought beyond that. It was just a lyric. And we never even played the song that Mark had written. It's funny, I always kind of figured, to me that name always sounded like it came from the title of an Ed Wood movie or something like that.

that's cool that sounds cool sometimes people have their different ideas of what it means you know and uh and well that sounds better than what it really you know it's really nothing it's just uh and i can't i don't even know if mark would know what the lyric was you know or what he was thinking when he came up with uh anyway but uh look in for mothman was originally called rain dance and i even have a mock-up yeah i have a mock-up cover where it's the same it's the same artwork it just says rain dance and um and and we really kind of bob hall he's a friend of mine i just spoke to him recently because we just did the artwork for the cd and i talked i spoke to bob who's graphic designer here in town and songwriter great songwriter bob hall but uh he was he was pissed off when we decided looking for mothman was uh and it was looking for mothman i can't remember where it came that it was looking you know for mothman was the phrase i can't remember really why uh or or where it came from but we just thought it was kind of like look inside you know look inside for and you know thinking of the mothman you know this is it was kind of it sounded west virginia to us and and um and it really you and i probably you know i probably thought more about it in this conversation than we did at the time you know we just thought it and and but most importantly we we were certain that it never been used you know yeah where uh where rain dance was most certainly used at some point for an album title you know now how do you ever had any mothman and or paranormal experiences um

No Mothman experiences, and I can't say. I've had some dreams that have kind of creeped me out, but never in my waking hours have I had anything that's happened where I thought it was outrageously spooky. I can tell you this. Today, these are little things that tweak me out, and nobody gives a damn about them, so I'm going to lay it on you. But today, I've been thinking lately, I haven't really listened to that much Jackson Brown. That's funny. I've listened to a lot of him lately. I have too. I have too. See, this is the kind of stuff that...

This is the kind of stuff that I think is odd. So right there you go. But this morning, so I go most every morning, I drop the kids off at school or, you know, or first thing, if I'm not doing it, my wife does it, whatever. I'll go to the Y and I'll get on a treadmill and, you know, just do some cardio and stuff and listen to an album, you know. And I've been lately listening to, from the beginning of his career, I've gone through the first three records, you know, of Jackson Brown. But I skipped one and went to...

running on empty i think it's called maybe it's a 77 release um has some live stuff on there and and and i make this decision to do that and i walk over into near the weight room where they're usually listening to metal you know and they're lifting and grunting and doing all that stuff yeah i don't partake in i don't partake in that but uh but sometimes i walk over to do one thing or another and the last track of the album was playing as i walked in there and the first track was playing on in my so on the sound system with the y the last track of running on empty was playing while i was listening to running on empty well go ahead go ahead But this is getting weird by the second that you're even talking about this. But that was just – that kind of stuff, I just think something weird is going on in the universe if that's happening, if that type of thing is happening because I most certainly wasn't hearing it when I made the decision to select – to skip an album and go to that album. Okay. Well, and not only is that weird, but it's even weirder now because you're telling me this story, and I've had – Kind of a similar thing happening with Jackson Brown, which is really weird because I never listened to Jackson Brown in my life until like probably about, I would say maybe a week and a half, two weeks ago.

Oh, man. That's crazy. I use Apple Music on my phone. And I was listening to, I think, Joe Jackson, because I love Joe Jackson. And for some reason, that clicked in my head, Jackson Brown. And I was like, huh, maybe I should check out Jackson Brown just because the name Jackson, basically. And so I did. And I was like, actually, I really like a lot of this. And so I went through a lot of his music, too. So much so that the other last Sunday, I was with my friend Caitlin recording with her. And I even turned her on to Jackson Brown and started playing the album Lawyers in Love. Have you listened to that one yet?

I haven't got there yet. I know parts of it though. That's a good one. Yeah. And so I started turning her on to that. And now here you are bringing up Jackson Brown on this podcast, which is really strange. Well, here's a, I never really cared for him. And then I read, I read Warren Zevon's biography. Not, well, it was authorized. His ex-wife wrote it. I'll sleep when I'm dead.

It's brutal, by the way. And really went on this Warren Zevon kick after I read that book or while I was reading it. And really, it's a story for another time. But the short of it is we might not know who Warren Zevon was had it not been for Jackson Brown. He produced the first album or two and really sought him out to produce him when Warren had pretty much given up on the music business and left the country.

But that made me think, I just thought Jackson Brown was kind of this watered down rock that I didn't want to listen to. And it never really interested me that much. But that, Warren Zevon, this gritty, very literate kind of dude and kind of scary. And I thought, I need to look into Jackson Brown. And I had. But really what got me listening most recently was he's coming to Charleston. He's playing with James Taylor, who I've loved for years. I've never seen him. And I thought, he's so close. These two are going to play together. And really, I don't think I would have gone to see just James Taylor.

But I thought Jackson Brown's going to be on that show. I want to see that. And so I started going through the catalog. But here's what I'm worried about. I think this occurred to me when I was listening to the second album. And I know some of the Eagles are singing on there. You can just know it. It's a gateway. It's a gateway drug to the Eagles. So watch out. Be careful. Yeah, you could be right about that. It's got some eagleness to it. I never thought about that, but I can hear it. Well, they're on those records. And it's kind of like that, you know, all those, what do you call it?

uh what do you call those artists they all kind of there's that clique of artists there rock california artists um yeah but there's this there's this uh oh i can't remember uh the area even neil young was part of it too and crosby stills and nash and and um uh linda ron's that and they and a lot of you know use the same musicians a lot of the same musicians on there's warren zeevon records on the you know that play with james taylor that play with linda ron sat and the eagles were part of that group and um i can't remember the name of the the the that region that they live in there anyway Very interesting. What does Jackson Brown have to do with the paranormal and synchronicity? Well, yeah. Well, the paranormal may be nothing. He's like a member of the OTO and like does all this weird shit. That'd be pretty funny. I don't know. But the answer is no, I guess. No. Weird things like that kind of make me think there's more to it. I'm not like a religious, you know, really religious person or, you know, so it's like when things like that happen, it makes me wonder about.

what connects us, what's connecting us all. It's beyond our understanding. Well, have you ever looked into simulation theory? You ever heard of that? No. Okay, well, basically simulation theory is the idea that we live in a matrix, basically, like a simulation of reality. And nothing really exists until you are experiencing it. Not in the sense that it doesn't exist like there's nothing there, but it's more like computer code. Whereas if you have, say you're playing a video game, the level two of that video game isn't there until you get to it. Because the code is there, but you have to be looking at the screen and interacting with the level for it to actually manifest itself. And so there's a lot of people.

Even some pretty hard-nosed science types like Neil deGrasse Tyson, who's looking into this pretty heavily and kind of starting to get into it. Elon Musk is another one. Elon Musk says that he's 100% sure we're living in a simulation. He just thinks that it's absolutely that way. It's pretty crazy. It sounds possible. If you dig not even too deep into what it's all about, I mean...

you know, things start disconnecting, you know? Yeah. And you realize, gosh, there's nobody really. This is all, it's all very strange. Existence is very strange. I'll tweet that out today. I had some, probably in like 2006, somewhere around there, I had some really, really bizarre experiences with reality. And I think this was, I mean, it probably has to do with the, you know, this was the period where I was like stopping doing drugs and like getting my life back in order and everything like that. But I got heavily into like reading all of this stuff about like magic and, you know, like.

different secret societies and Masonic things and OTO, Aleister Crowley, all this different stuff. I was reading all this stuff. And so I was reading a lot about Aleister Crowley at one point and starting to get kind of freaked out for a number of reasons. One is I had this, it was like an Aleister Crowley uh, tarot deck. And every time, like, and I'm not shitting, like every single time I got that thing out and started messing with it, like kind of weird and not so great things would happen around me. Like for one, one time I was, I pulled it out and like was playing with it. And like that, that didn't sound good, but I was playing with that deck of cards in the middle of the night or not the middle of the night. It was probably like 11 PM or so.

in my apartment at the time it was a house actually it was a small house in florida clearwater florida and i was alone and then as i'm you know turning through the cards suddenly i started hearing this sound coming from this room in my house and i was like what the hell is that you know and like and then i noticed that it was talking like it was a voice and i was like that's really scary and so like i called the landlord and like hey man like because where i lived it was kind of a strange house it was like on this guy's property who had like a dump truck business like dirt moving business and so he had this one room that was not it was attached to the house but had an entrance from the outside it was like part of his stuff and so it was coming out of that room and it was basically somebody had broken in there. I was like arguing on the phone or something like that. And like, but I mean, they, I don't think they were trying to get to me, but they were just like hiding somewhere. Like, I don't know what was going on. It was somebody he knew that owed him money or some kind of weird story like that. So that was one of them. Another one was like, I was messing with it again. And then one of the neighbors came over and like, started like threatening me. And like, like it was just every time I was like, okay, I'm getting rid of this thing. Like, I just don't like it, you know? And so stop messing with it. And then I was reading this other story, you know, about him. And I was trying to disprove it to myself that there was anything weird. You know, I'm like,

I'm like, all this stuff, I'm just making it happen because I'm looking extra hard at everything. So I was writing down my journal. Sorry, it's a long story. I'm writing down my journal. I'm like, okay, I can just pick any random number, write it down, and then I'll start to see that number everywhere. So I wrote down a number. And a couple days later, I go to the bookstore. And sure enough, right there in the New Age occult book section, there is a book by Alistair Crowley called Libre 418, which is the number that I wrote down in that journal.

the book is titled that number. Like, I was like, Oh my God. Like, I was like, what, like, what is going on? Like, and that's just like, it, I was like, that's fucked up. Like, I don't know. So I was like, I got to stop messing with this shit. You know, it was very strange. Very strange. Cause I was trying to disprove it to myself. And I basically proved it to myself by trying to prove it, disprove it. Like it was pretty, pretty nuts.

I had other similar things. There was another one. One thing that I found, and this is very interesting about writing things down, like taking the action and actually putting pen to paper. And I'm not talking about typing. It doesn't seem to have the same magic that actually writing does. And I don't know if you've ever seen that movie, The Butterfly Effect.

Did you ever see that? No. You should check that out. I don't know why I missed that. I know what you mean. Yeah. You should check it out. Write it down. Because it's all about him when he writes the things down. Like, they tend to happen. But, like, it's strange. Like, it's very strange. Like, I don't know if you ever saw, too. I'm kind of shooting a lot of movies at you right now. But, like, I think it was Kurt and Courtney. The one that was, like, it was a horrible movie, really. A, you know, conspiracy movie about her killing Kurt Cobain, supposedly. Yeah, I did watch that. But the one thing that I found interesting, though, was her journal. You know, because everything she wrote in the journal became true.

Like she like wrote down all this stuff. Like I'm going to be faint. Like she just had this, like basically she would write what she wanted over and over, like just repeating. And like everything she did, that is exactly what happened. Like Taylor Swift must've seen that movie because she did the same thing. Really? Yeah. It's interesting. I just, yeah. She write, you know, things like, actually there's something to be said about that. You know, just like you said, I mean, just writing down things that are, my wife will write, you know, in her work. Well, everybody has it anymore. Lots of, lots of different passwords and, and logins and all that. And she'll, and she will, you know,

set goals and little notes to herself with those she has to for her work she has to change them you know every quarter and it'll just she'll change it it'll be something because she's you know you're you're punching it in constantly on different devices and whatnot yeah and it's kind of like things that goals that she wants to set for herself little personal things she'll she'll you know there's something to be said about like physical mantra you have to actually type it out and think that thing over and over again throughout the day or whatever So, okay, we've been talking for a while, but if you don't mind, I have a couple more topics here we could get into. Yeah, go for it. All right. Well, one thing I noticed on your latest album is there's, you know, lyrically some...

a lot of stuff on there or not a lot, but I would say some about, you know, aging and just getting older. And so, well, this is a, you know, I mean, I'm getting older too. We all are. Yeah. Yeah. That's the plan. Yeah. But you, you seem like you're doing like, you look good. You know, I just want to say like, you have like, whatever you're doing, you seem to be doing it pretty well. So I was wondering if you have like a exercise, diet, routine, anything like that, that you, you know, like, how do you, how have you approached aging from a, you know, a health standpoint? Well,

Fear has been a big motivator. Well, you know, I was kind of joking, kind of. But anxiety and fear. I do take it very seriously. I mean, I kind of touched on it there earlier. Every day, as part of what I consider my work day, it involves exercising. Every day? Every single day. Well, sometimes I'll take a day off when I feel like I need it. But now, especially, I've got...

I know when I'm a little off as a performer and I need to do more cardio and stuff, it keeps my voice strong. It's a profound thing, really, doing cardio. If anybody wants any advice from a person who has been a singer for 30-plus years, I can definitely tell the difference when I'm doing 40 minutes cardio a day versus going a few days without. That's a big part of it. I don't want to be thinking about the physical. I don't want to be thinking about my physical limitations when I'm on stage.

you know and and so that's a big big part of it but but other you know other things i just i i um i agree and i trust and respect the science of uh of taking care of of my body so i also i you know i also um oh here's an example my wife i sent a link uh that i saw on facebook or something yesterday to 11 restaurants in west virginia 11 top restaurants in west virginia and um my wife is a Her career is all about food. She is a trained chef, but she's an account executive for U.S. Foods. Right now, she's down in Virginia at a food conference. That's her world. I sent her that link.

i said i've not been to one of these you know it's like really surprised me you know because we we are interested in this and uh and she said we'll have to go and then she said uh you can have 11 different salads and uh which was kind of like a joke because that's that's really all i ever all i ever eat you know it's just like uh so i'm very i'm very uh i'm very um aware of that and have been for years and and i really think it's uh it's important for anybody i just i just want to i just want to feel good because really for me i just want to I started having kids when I was 40, and I want to be around to see as much of their lives as I possibly can. That's really important. That's the most important thing. But the second most important thing would be I'm still every bit as passionate about music. It hasn't waned in one bit, and I love performing, and I love recording equally as much, and I just want to make art. I just love doing it so much, and I don't want to worry about some physical thing, so I'm really aware of that.

i do other things too like meditation and things like that i really find it important i find that um when i say meditation i just i just it's not it's not deep transcendental you know uh it's your own thing or you just i've done a lot of different kind well i've i listen sometimes to to you know follow and listen to certain things uh uh different different experts and and and we'll go you know i have a book i really like uh what is it called um i'm looking right at it effortless all effortless mastery and it's a it's a it's really it's a jazz guy he talks a lot about meditation and music and and really i'm most interested in and staying focused because kind of stuff jumping around in my head everybody does but i found that i found that if i if i focus on the moment and take carve out a part of my day where i'm just thinking about that one particular moment maybe just thinking about my breathing for 10 minutes or um and going back to that over and over again it helps me stay focused on tasks that i do throughout the day and and helps me

Helps me as a writer and just pretty much staying calm around stressful situations and things like that. Yeah, for sure. I don't do it as much these days, but I actually took the Transcendental Meditation course and actually worked for them for a little while. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I've talked about it a bit on this podcast. I'm still friendly with my instructor and everything, but the organization I kind of started to not be too crazy about.

After I was working there, I started to feel like it was a bit cultish. But it doesn't take anything away from the actual method. I think the method is solid. I think it's good. But I don't know. Anyway, that was a little off topic. Yeah, I've never done it formally. But it's been an important part of my life, though.

really learning how to it kind of led me to rehearsing and learning how to rehearse which I never really thought much about it even though I did it in choirs and stuff like that and bands rehearse and all that but really putting thought and thought behind rehearsing and patience behind something you were weak points of a song you know that you wanted to record or perform it really helped me put you know albums together songs together and then albums and led to a discipline that I didn't have before it was all just kind of in my 20s it was all just kind of white hot, intense passion that was driving, forcing things through. But after a few years of that, you're burning up. You're burning up from the inside out and kind of learning how to, you know.

Dedication, discipline. I mean, I always feel like I need more, you know, like, but it definitely makes a difference when you do something, whether it's meditation or, like you said, exercising. I don't do it quite as much as you. I should. But, like, now it's like I'll do, like, three or four days a week of, you know, like, whatever, like, either cardio or HIIT or something like that. Yeah.

in the meditation i used to do that daily but i kind of stopped nothing really caused me to stop it was just well mostly just time and i know that's kind of one of those things where like everybody that makes excuses for not meditation always says like but i don't know i for me it's like I feel like I can like almost when I'm like laying in bed and like I just sort of like right before going to sleep, I just like have a little thought session, you know, almost like prayer or whatever, you know, that's like, yeah, that almost serves the same purpose. And it doesn't take me 40 minutes a day. Yeah, I've never been the type. Well, yeah, I started out doing like half an hour, 40 minutes because it's I think it was I started by.

Uh, just going to the library and, and getting some tapes years ago and, you know, Jon Kabat-Zinn real kind of pop meditation. And, uh, and I still, I still find, you know, his way pretty, pretty great, but, but it was, it was, it was 30, 40 minutes a day. I, I, that stressed me out, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Cause you're trying to find the time to do it. Like, yeah. Yeah. So I would, uh, I would find, you know, 10 minutes sometimes while I'm exercising, I'll combine the two things and, you know, that, and I've, I found that taking the time to do that exercise and taking the time to meditate really, it creates.

more focused, which I feel like I have more time. Yeah, I agree with that. I'm still, though. It's just like life. Things crash and try to sort things out. It's not like, oh, that's lined me up perfectly and everything's great. It's just going to help me navigate the rough spots. I do things in phases, too. I may go back to doing meditation every day. I've kind of gone back and forth several times where I would do it every day and then a couple times a week and then not at all and then go back to doing it every day. It's just sort of...

however I'm feeling it's working for me at the time, then I just do it. Yeah. You ever listen to 10% Happier, the podcast? No. It's all about meditation. 10% happier. And I thought, you know, meditation has made me maybe 2% happier, but that's good. Yeah, any percent. Yeah, it's really, it's kind of, it's cool. It's all over, he interviews a lot of people and basically it's all about meditation. It's a cool podcast. That's cool. Exercise for sure. I mean, for me, it's like it really makes a big difference. Like I have to do at least three or four days a week because if not, then I just don't feel good. It's big. It's big for me for sure. Getting the heart rate going, it makes a huge difference.

Diet too. Now my diet basically is just trying not to eat anything processed. That's pretty much it. Basically, I'm okay with just about everything, except for once you get into stuff that you have to read the ingredients, and if it's longer than one or two things, then it's usually not going to be very good. Yeah, that stuff's poison. My wife used to buy the food for a hospital here in town, and she kind of ran the food into the hospital years ago, and we got into that early on. She'd worked with dieticians, and it was all about the food thing coming from my wife. We were label readers way back, and then when we started having kids,

Uh, two, when my daughter was turned two, we found out she had a severe nut allergy. And so you're looking, you're looking for all that and everything. And you become hyper aware of, of what you're ingesting, uh, even more so when you've got somebody with a severe allergy like that. It's, so now it's just kind of like a, it's really our normal. It's, um, all that stuff's been, you know, almost completely purged from, from our systems. And it's just kind of the way we live. But, uh, there is a lot of poison out there in the food system. Yeah, there are. I mean, even if you like, I mean, there's a lot of poison and there's a lot of like, uh, misleading.

marketing for food. Yes. You know, especially with like processed food and stuff, you know, they'll just like blatantly put things on there like healthy or whole grain or, you know, like all these like buzz phrases, gluten-free and like, and it's still like chock full of sugar or like, you know, like whatever, just 8 billion different preservatives and chemicals and stuff. It's crazy. You really have to be careful. I think it's really bad in the US too, like possibly worse here than most places.

Yeah, I go on runs. I go on long runs. I'm in the middle of one now, usually, where I don't eat sugar at all. I mean, it's in so much, you know. But it's kind of liberating after you.

I mean, even if it's added to something, I'll, I'll, I'll totally skip it out of my diet for a while. And, uh, that is probably like, I mean, I'm sure that does a lot. Do you count carbs too? Is like, you know, do you avoid carbs? I don't count them. I avoid them. I always do that. I don't, I don't eat bread. I don't eat, you know, so pizza's out. I cauliflower pizza, but, uh, I, um, I don't eat, uh, I, I haven't had bread or anything for, I don't know, two or three years, uh, things like that. I, uh, eat a little bit, uh, you know, I eat a little bit of rice. Not much though. I eat, uh, quinoa in place of that.

so yeah i mean we could uh you know my friends think i'm i'm kind of wacky you know i'm a challenge uh as a dinner guest you know people stress out over me coming over as a dinner guest but uh sometimes i'm packing food you know don dixon um uh he's uh he's from the carolinas but he he co-produced um First couple REM records, Don Dixon, he's a great songwriter, lives in Canton, Ohio now, and he actually recorded that latest album of mine, Your Reflection Will Kill You. And here, we've gone in a circle here. But his diet, he's always packing food. He's got food packed, and he doesn't eat oil, or he's kind of a grain-free dude. And he was doing it long before I was, but he's kind of like he's camping everywhere he goes. He's set. You know, my sister's been vegan since 1990-something, and she's like...

And she barely eats carbs, no sugar. So she barely eats it. Like her diet's like, you know, basically plants, like fresh plants and seeds. And that's pretty much it. You know, like she really doesn't eat. That's a big part of, yeah, that sounds like a big part of mine. And Don's certainly, he's vegan. Yeah, he'd be vegan too. But yeah, I haven't totally gone vegan. But my wife, every time I bring it up, my wife kind of wilts, you know. Yeah. I still eat, I eat some fish. I tried it a couple of years ago, but it did not. Well, part of the reason for me it didn't work is because I have a type of anemia. And so.

the lack of iron was really not good. Like, and it caused some kind of cascading health effects that weren't good. So I had to get back to eating, you know, I mean, I'm sure there's probably ways where I could take like iron supplements and stuff like that, but it's just, you get much better and easier ways to absorb it by eating meat, you know? Yeah. Right. That's, that sounds like what Lisa says in my life. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it was, um, I don't think everybody, there's no like one diet fits all, you know, like everybody's a little different. Everybody has different bodies.

That's why it kind of drives me crazy when I hear these people trying to advocate for one type of... way to eat you know like right now in a lot of podcasts there's a carnivore diet that everybody keeps talking about you know where people are eating nothing but meat like nothing else and like i'm like i don't know about that you know i kind of like i don't know to me i feel i can tell you know i feel like different if i have a day where i'll have nothing but like spinach kale you know some protein maybe a little bit of you know like whole grain carbs or something like that versus a day when i just don't pay attention and just eat out and eat whatever greasy chinese food you know then i'll feel pretty bad yeah yeah But I don't know if you thought you would go down this topic when you come on here today. That's cool. I'm into it. Cool. Yeah, I try. I mean, nobody usually wants them. Yeah, nobody wants to know about my diet. You know, I mean, once they know about it, they want to. Well, here, you're not that weird, actually. Yeah, I know. You're pretty average in New York City for that. Yeah, that's true. That is so true. It's when I'm on the road. It's more normal. It's kind of like at home. It's a weird diet. Yeah. You're right about that. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. You know, it's hard to.

Well, it depends on where you are in New York too. Like my neighborhood is a little tougher because there's a lot of Chinese restaurants, a lot of Spanish, you know, restaurants, stuff like that. We're like, you know, Chinese kids can seem to eat like endless carbs and oil and still weigh 110 pounds. Like, like, whereas like if I eat like a, like a spoonful of rice, I gain like 50 pounds, you know? So I don't know. But if you go into like Bushwick or Williamsburg or Manhattan, you'll get a lot more.

you know, restaurants with options of like, uh, low carb or gluten free or, you know, all these different things, you know, more, more options basically. Right on. But all right. So I think we've been going at it for a while here. Maybe we should call it an hour and 40 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. I'll, uh, yeah, I'll, um, send you the file here after I process a little bit and see what you got.

Cool. But yeah, man. You know what? One thing I didn't talk to you about. Oh, feel free. If you have more to say, let's keep going. The five minutes that you were in 63 Eyes. Oh, right. Yeah. Well, I was like, I filled in on a show. We didn't bring that up. Where was that show? Where was that show? It was in Parkersburg. Was it in Parkersburg? Yeah. I just don't remember. Probably Brassworks, I'm guessing. I don't remember where. I can't remember the situation. I remember we had a show lined up and it was real close and you came in one practice and we went and played. I learned like 20 songs in a practice or 25 songs. It was crazy.

It was a lot of fun, though. I remember it going really well. I remember the rehearsal. I just remember the rehearsal and thinking, oh, this is cool. I remember digging it, you know. I mean, it was different and it was cool. Probably much louder than you guys ever were. Yeah, it was very, yeah, it was very, you know, we had, we played one run with Scott Fetty who was, I don't know if you remember Velez Manifesto or. I remember the name. I don't remember the band so well. Well, their drummer played with us on one tour and he was pretty heavy handed, but I would say.

You would definitely be the hardest drummer we played with, the heaviest drummer, which is cool. Yeah, I mean, it's weird. I don't know why I'm so loud. I don't really hit that hard. If you really watch me play, I don't know what it is, but I know that I'm a good bit louder than a lot of drummers, but even if I'm just hitting soft, I'm louder. I don't know what it is. It's how I tune and the way I attack the drum, how I hit it, but something. Something about it. Well, it's good stuff, man. Well, hey, it's great talking to you, and I appreciate you.

I appreciate what you do here, and maybe I'll see you sometime. Yeah, definitely. I would love to come down to see you guys in March, but I just don't know if I'll be able to. What is the date on that again? 28th, Saturday. Yeah, if there's any chance you're able to, let me know. I'll put you on a guest list there. All right, that'd be awesome. Very cool. Well, I'm sure it'll go well, and I'm sure you guys will have a sold-out crowd. It's probably sold out already.

It's real close. I think there were like 20 tickets a couple days ago. Maybe it is, but yeah. That's awesome. Pretty good. Who's going to be playing with you guys on drums, Billy or Perry? Billy. Okay, cool. Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. Well, thanks, Justin. Good talking to you, man. You too, Todd. All right. Well, thanks for coming on, and yeah, come back sometime too.

It's a really good conversation. Yeah, right on. Yeah, cool. I dig that. So I'll just send you a Dropbox link to this. Is that cool? Yeah, however you want to do it. I'm internet literate. I can get it anyway. Right on. I'll do that. Cool. Okay, man. All right. Take it easy. Bye. You too.

All right, everybody. That is my interview with Mr. Todd Burge. Hopefully you enjoyed that as much as I did. That was a really, really great conversation. And it was a pleasure to have Todd on the show. And I'm going to go ahead and close out today's episode by playing one of 63i's classic tracks called Trucker's Misery. And this is off the album Look In For Mothman. And you can get this as well as all of Todd's work at his website, which is just toddburge.com. So be sure to go there and check it out. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, all the social media, YouTube as well. He's on there. He's got a YouTube channel with a lot of really great performances on it. So definitely check out his work. And I'm going to close out the show. This song is a really, really cool one. Todd.

It kind of shows his versatility with the stuff that he can do with his voice here. So it's just really, really cool. Anyway, this is Trucker's Misery by 63 Eyes off of 1986. Release. Look in for Mothman.