Hey guys, thanks for listening to The Watch. Today Andy and I were joined by Katie Crutchfield from Waxahatchee. It was awesome to hang out with her for a while. Before that, we talked about last night's episode of Game of Thrones, episode three.
And then after Katie took off, we talked about Twin Peaks. There's also ample discussion of the beef between the strokes and rhinodems because Andy and I are nothing if not on brand. Enjoy the episode. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Hotel Tonight.
If you're like me and you're not so great at planning ahead, you have to try Hotel Tonight. Hotel Tonight is an app that helps you find amazing hotel deals at the last minute, up to seven days in advance. It's perfect for a spontaneous getaway or indulging in a little staycation. All it takes is 10 seconds, just three taps and a swipe.
So what are you waiting for? Get in on these killer last minute deals and download the Hotel Tonight app now. I need support staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.
Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am editor at TheRigger.com and joining me in the studio strung out on lasagna. It's Andy Greatwell!
How can we even record our podcast right now? News is coming fast and furious. We have to keep the headlines at the top of the show. Scaramucci, the fire festival, communications directors.
Out. Great joke. Thank you. You just summarized so many good stories.
Let's go out like heroes. Two, we got friend of the pod, hashtag not really. Ryan Adams. Yeah.
Just throwing darts. So here's Amanda brought this up to me, Amanda Dobbins. Yeah. A lot of GM session.
Yeah, I was getting into it today. I brought this up to me where she was like, did Adams not see vultures? Let's break it down. Ryan Adams has been on a tweet storm today about members of the strokes.
He began the day. He has that shit that makes your soul burn slow for Albert Hamman Jr. Not just that. He said, dude, Julian Casablanca.
Who caught you strung out on lasagna though? Because he had been accused of getting Albert Hamman strung out on heroin. Sure. So that's our buddy, Lizzie Goodman's book.
Yeah. Me and the math. Ryan Adams on that Garfield tip. Me and the bathroom.
I'm serving lasagna. Look, real folk rock jeez moving silence like lasagna. Chris, whatever you fucking makes a record. It's just like him dressed up like Chef Poyardee.
Just serving the Italian-American special. It's a plate. It's yeah. I love it.
I love it. Italian beef. This is the stories that matter. It's Andy and Chris in the morning.
We even talk about how we started the day by Insta, Insta, in a photo of him and his ex wife, Mandy Moore. I can tell Zach Mack is like, guys. Look, let's just get there. Chris Ryan and I agree while it's the watch.
We're part of the Ringer podcast. The morning's you. We're here to talk to you about Game of Thrones, because that's what we talk about. We're also going to talk about Twin Peaks.
And then later in the show. I'm excited about this. We are joined by one of our favorite current songwriters. Songwriters.
No caveats. Katie Crutchfield from Waxahatchi is going to be joining us. Very excited about this. I want to ask her, because she's a madman fan.
Madman. Yeah, she likes television. But we were just so enamored by this beef between the jokes about Adams. I feel like I'm like, fun plex back in 2002 or something.
Listen, people don't realize this. They know that we're friends. And while we're just saying people know a while ago. We can cut this off.
There's a lot of you. I want to hear about our friendship, but just so you can understand. Basically, Lizzie Gimmett has this book me in the bathroom in it. These members of the Strokes are pretty candid about what a herb that right Adams is.
Apparently. And now he was just kind of like a weirdo. And then got Albert Hammond allegedly addicted to drugs. And then today, finally.
No, he had some stuff to say before. But it was more like, ah, that's fucked up. I don't know what you're talking about. And now the darts are out.
And now he's got bars for them. By the way, we have an open mic here in the studio. He's welcome to come drop bars here. Anytime in.
But didn't quite make it all the way onto the studio last time. He came to get our buckets. That's fun. Anything else you got on your mind?
I just want to say, people know that we're friends and we work together. We record a podcast. But during throne season, we are in each other's lives. Like last night, last night, not even 24 hours ago, we were here recording television show for Twitter Talk to Thrones.
You can watch the replay now. Yeah. You can watch every Sunday after the East Coast Air. You gave me a ride home.
I did. It's very nice. I fed out the Chris doesn't just talk the talk. He walks it.
Chris was listening to old G unit mixtapes. I was trying to fire it up for thrones. And I was listening to DJ Screw. Yeah.
And you were just like, this is weird. Well, then you got it in my car. I bought Milk and Beer. But we are spending a lot of time together.
So maybe the familiarity is getting, is it too intimate for people? It's a little punchy. We'll have to let the listeners decide. They're the great barometer.
What do they like? Which, like, how do they like it? Do they like us being friendly or that's just all business? All business, nothing but Westeros takes.
Let's get into it. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. Game of Thrones last night, episode three, probably the most action packed, I guess, episode so far in terms of narrative stuff going forward.
The Queen's Justice. Yeah. And we lost a queen. Was she ever queen?
Elena? She ever kept that high? It's interesting. You call yourself a queen of like your hood?
It's a great point. She was a queen of thorns. Yeah, that's not really. That's what I'm talking about.
But she wasn't actually a queen because as we were reminded last night, you can't really have seven kingdoms with seven kings. It's seven kingdoms. It's like a catch-all. There's only one king.
Yeah, a lot of knee bending. A lot of bending of any, including Cersei. Last night. We talked a lot about this last night.
I talked to Thrones. We got into a lot of, because there was obviously a lot of mythology service going on with the dragons. Yeah. John, where are we with the prophecy that Cersei could eventually die by the hand of her brother, which was alluded to or expressed explicitly late out a couple of seasons ago.
We channed. And which hand? Andy really did make me break last night with a very funny Jamie joke. But I want to talk a little bit about, like sort of more broadly, some of the themes of last night's episode, because I think we talked a little bit about it last night.
But this idea that we are essentially watching children, it's been a funny thing with the press run up to the season, where you see all these pictures of these people. And they were quite young when the show started. Even people like Nikolai and Lena, they were younger then. And it's sort of wild to see where these people are arriving.
And also to have the characters on the show sort of be explicitly aware of where they are coming from in terms of who their parents were or may have been. Branched up was playing Pop Warner football in season one. Now he's starting full back to New York Jets. Is there a guy in the field that got play safety?
Yeah. What did you think of thematically? What did you think of last night's episode? Well, this actually ties into a larger point ahead about the season so far, which is it's always tricky to play, to start diving for themes on the show.
Sometimes they want us to do that. Sometimes they try to make it explicit and try to work within the confines of an episode, as in the episode is quote unquote about something. Other times, just the sheer magnitude of the plot and the work that needs to be done to get people to the places they're going in order to be where they need to be is just overwhelming. And all the unifying themes just fall apart.
And I say this often, I'll say it again, because mostly because they won't talk to me anymore. But many other ways said, to my face, that the themes are for book reports. They do not really have much faith in that in terms of lacing their episodes with that. Sure.
All of that said, there were a couple heavy underlines last night. One is a constant. This idea of who do you put faith in? Do you put faith in?
I got it in many headed gods. Or as Daenerys says, I put faith in myself. But the other one, I think the most interesting one, that you're setting up, which is this idea of, are we responsible for our parents since? What obligation do we have to them?
What, how do we break the cycle or break the wheel, as Daenerys said? One thing that I really liked, I think it's getting a little bit underserved from the episode, because in the context in which it was delivered, was Daenerys and Jon was no meeting for the first time. That happened. That is insane, if you think about it.
It was seven years or seven seasons, and six years into a show. Two of arguably the four major characters had never shared the screen. When Jon said, I don't know about those oaths. That's not me.
That's not my life. I didn't make those. That's those were somebody else. That's not even my family.
Yeah, right. Is that, as you referenced smartly last night on our show, does that make him a revolutionary or monarch? It's just more valuable to be in this world. And so I like that.
I like that. I like that. And the guy from the Iron Bank of Bravo is talking about this idea of, like, who you can invest in. Somebody who's going to keep the status quo, even if the status quo is brutal, but is profitable.
Or you're going to invest in someone who essentially wants to erase or wipe the board clean. There is something that the show achieves sometimes. And I would imagine that it is a goal of the people who make the show to achieve this, which is really making us feel for the brutality of the world and the stakes of the game that these people are all playing, just to be alive. Which is, if you are in the game, then you could lose and you know what that means.
So the look on, and your varmo's really good last night, in a role that I think is pretty thankless. Like, Elaria Sands face when she's being walked through the city streets with her daughter having already seen two of her daughters murdered. On some level, she has to be processing the horror of this moment. Because as anyone who's walked those kings landing streets knows, it's not fun.
Not a warm welcome. It is not fun. I felt the Canyon of Heroes. I felt the only thing that I can actually, I can empathize because I did attend a number of games at Shaysadium.
Where are you feeling sad? Where are you feeling sad? Like, circa 09 and 10. But the world's smallest violin is playing for Philadelphia fans.
But her face, in those scenes, has to register that on some level she knew that this was possible. Yeah, I think that's why she was like, kill me immediately. I was, they showed that scene from last week or previously in the thrones. I was like, oh yeah, that was really like a Hail Mary.
Like, they were definitely not going to just kill you. Like, gotcha. It was a nice request there. But for her and also for Olena, I mean, that seemed, for me, and I got into it on Twitter, which is never a good thing to do, probably.
But the Elaria Sand, Ta-in scene did not work for me because those characters were essentially props. They were never given enough runway to become anything. So for them to be brutalized on screen felt very odd and disjointed. And the show it is worse to me because it was not invested in what it was showing.
We didn't feel anything felt exploitative. The flip side of that is the Elena Tyrell scene, not only because Diana Riggs is magnificent, but because for however many seasons she's been on the show, she has been playing eight-dimensional chess or trying to, always with a quip, always with, always trying to be one or two moves ahead, operating from position of wealth but not necessarily. Military might, dealing with a hand she was dealt with, was probably problems. Her son was kind of a dumb, dumb.
Her grandson was the greatest knight in the realm, but was secretly gay, which is a problem in this world that we've seen it. So she was in there playing it. And then over the last two years, we've seen everything that she cared about taken from her. And then she had one last thing to play as we learned in the season finale, which was revenge and backfired.
And so the look on her face is one of acceptance, basically. And that is to me that was almost more horrifying and it landed more than the Elaria Sand scene because it was the face of someone who played every play as hard as she could and lost in the most excruciating way possible and knew it. Still got right Adam's bars at the end, by the way. She was like, by the way, I fed your son poison lasagna.
But that's the show it's best to me. And also the show it's worse. I always been asked a couple of times about how the season has also seen a couple of former villains of the show become essentially heroes. I mean, I don't know that a lot of people consider Jamie a hero.
Other than you? I think that there's a lot to be, I think a lot of it comes down to the performance. And I think that right now, my two favorite performers on the show are Nikolai and Dinglage, in the sense that whatever scenes that they seem therein have both a degree of frailty and charm that sometimes is lacking in other scenes, not in a fatal way. But just there's a few scenes that are people who are really into their own, like, I'm like, I'm a throneshit.
And it's like a little bit uptight, which is fine. But they have a very natural way of delivering pretty ridiculous dialogue at times. But also selling us on the humanity of the characters. And the depth of the characters.
And the fact that you can be someone who shoves a kid out a window and friend to catapult a baby over a castle wall, but also be in this sort of doomed love, like a sexual relationship with your own sister and have that be kind of tragic, but be capable of the kind of generosity sort of in his relationship with Brianne and kind of trying to find places where he can be a little less inhumane, if not exactly humane. And it's wild how Lynna makes and pay for that. She's like, oh, you're gonna kill me right now? And he's like, no, no, I negotiated down to just poison you.
And she was like, cool, for your trouble, FYI, I killed your son, let your sister know about that. Yeah, I think we drew a lot of attention last year that senior referring to it, the baby catapultsing with Edmear last year. And Jamie was just like, I will burn down this entire world for the first time I care about it. I think it's fair to say that a majority of the characters on the show have a similar worldview.
And that's what makes, for the thing that the one thing that care about nothing else matters, everyone else is chattled basically. That's what makes Daenerys so much of a revolutionary because she's saying, I'm better than this world. I'm not gonna burn everyone in the city. I'm gonna go about this, you know, the more subtle way.
And so far that's kind of esrophically not working. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Is it my imagination or earlier scenes of the show, was there more scenes of a major character interacting with the physical world of the show, but in a non-battle sense?
Because I feel like there has been a slight adjustment in the way that they've either been forced to tell it for a variety of reasons or telling the story where it's like three to five characters in a room or a major set piece, but not like Rob Stark walking through a field and you see kind of like the scope of what's happening. I struck last night when you were on parading Aria through Kings Landing. I was like, oh yeah, the people, there are people. And I do think that that has changed, I'm sure for a variety of reasons.
I mentioned scheduling, and there weren't that many battles in the beginning. Blackwater was a huge turning point. And then, you know, every so often there would be more. I missed the middle ground.
But yeah, we would see Rob in the field with his soldiers or we would see Aria and Robos or whatever. I think that's purely budgetary. Like even when Tywin, like do you think about how we met Tywin and he's getting the hog and the tent or whatever. What was the line about, you know, Tyrion, like the world is the story of the world is people in rooms talking.
And I think that I still love that about the show. I noticed that there was like, it's really like, it's threes or layups right now. And that's good. I mean, I think that that works.
But I do miss sometimes Aria bumping into that troop of soldiers on the road and tavern scenes. And just see where there's like random people kind of in the mix. I love the common man in this world. But it's like the shot, like in the Citadel.
It's all Jorah, Sam and Broadbent. And we're not getting a ton of like, oh, and then, you know. You don't see many corners cut, but I think you found one example of how they are doing it. Something else you said I wanted to go back to about the performances.
I think it was just so good last night. Like I said, I was going to say, Tyrion won the week, even though everything the choice you made was the wrong one. It's interesting to see, and this is both of, this is partly because of the character, but I also wonder if it's because of the performer. Where you said, you referred to performers on the show who are really locked into being that character.
They don't play well as well with others. I mean, to my mind, you're talking about Kid Harrington and Amelia Clark. That the scene, it was interesting, the scene between the two of them was so less vibrant than the scene where Davos and Tyrion were being their height men and speaking for them. And I think that's two things.
I do wonder if it's the performance thing. Because Kid Harrington is so dialed in to being this brooding warrior leader that it's hard to suddenly be in the south and find a different vibe. But it's also the Han Solo problem. Like Luke and Leia aren't that interesting without Han Solo, they're just cracking loles.
You need those other characters around them. And so going into a world of the show where Daenerys and Johnson-John's no matter more for who they are in their interaction with each other is a little bit less compelling, sorry to say, than when their secondary people around them are the ones actually fancy to plot and they're more the figureheads for the bigger plot. I mean, they're not CGI. I feel like I'm really shooting on them as performers.
No, I think so. But they are totemic on the show now, like the Night King is. They're iconic, yeah. But I'm still more interested in those around them.
The Onionites. The Onionites. Okay, get them onions. Let's take a quick break here from our sponsors and then we'll be back with Katie Crutchfield from Wax and Hatchee.
Did you think you watched this one, Pete? Are we gonna do it at the end? We could ask her. We're gonna find out, guys.
Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by HBO's Room 104 from creators and executive producers, Mark and J.D. Plus comes a new anthology series called Room 104 airing Fridays at 11.30pm on HBO, set in a single room of an average American motel, each of the 12 episodes in the season of Room 104 tells the story of the different assorted characters who pass through it, all of them being everyday people striving for connection and meaning, with performances by James Vanderbeek, J2 Plus, Orlando Jones. Each episode plays like a mini movie ranging from comedy to drama to horror and offers a new discovery from one week to the next. Hence, the tone, the characters, and the era change as well.
One room infinite possibilities see what's going on in Mark and J2 Plus's upcoming anthology series, Room 104 Fridays at 11.30pm on HBO. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Simply Safe. As you scramble around this summer, don't forget, it's especially important to ensure that your home is protected because summertime is the biggest season for burglaries. The FBI and the Department of Justice see this trend every year, more empty homes, no ones around, and the burglars take advantage.
That's why Simply Safe Home Security is having a massive summer sale going on right now. They do this every year, but this is their biggest one ever. It's $100 off the Special Summer Package. Simply Safe is a fully equipped home security system.
It's won tons of awards and provides full home protection with 24-7 alarm monitoring and police dispatch. Better yet, there's no online, which means a burglar can't disarm your system by snipping a wire. Here's the best part. You get all this protection about having a long-term contract or no lock-ins, no hidden fees, no nothing.
This sale is for a limited time. Go and get $100 off the Special Summer Package. Visit simplysafe.com, S-I-M-P-L-I.com, slash watch. That's $100 off Simply Safe.com, slash watch.
OK, we're back. Chris, this is exciting. We are about to be joined by one of our favorite musicians, Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee, who made an album this year 2017 called Out in the Storm that I think is a monster. Yeah, it's like I was getting killed for it because I got in advance and I kept, I couldn't not talk about it.
I'm just going to hear it. I'm a populist and I want to wait for the people. I want to listen to music with the people, not in your elite ivory tower. But it's like a consensus out in the year contender.
And this was really fun for us because Katie is originally from Birmingham, Alabama. But moved a number of years ago to a fine city on the East Coast known as Philadelphia and is part of this vanguard of incredible bands that has taken up root basically a lot of them who chosen to live there aren't from there originally in our city. And we wish that the scene was happening when we were there. Yeah, we talked to her about Philly, about Birmingham, about her new album, and about her relationship with her sister, Allison.
Which one is Noel? And which one is Liam? Yeah, who's an awesome band called Sweren. And she plays on Waxahatchee.
And she also told us that she's been on tour since March and will be on tour until October. So you still have a chance to see Waxahatchee in your town. We are so happy to Katie join us. Let's get into our interview.
OK, we are so excited because we are joined now by our exclusive podcast, Katie Grudge, the Waxahatchee. Welcome. Thank you for having me. We're so happy you could be here.
I guess we're still negotiating your exclusivity. Yeah, we'll talk about it off the mic. Can we revisit at the end? Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. My manager's going to kill me when he hears this. I talked about your manager. We just had Maron.
Did you know this? I did you know this? He told me to talk to you about it. Yeah.
Of course I didn't even know this. I went to high school with Katie's manager. No way. That's not the hottest way to begin an interview.
So we could circle back. Yeah, totally. He, Philly private school mafia. That's a very quick example of you.
When we were talking about doing this podcast, I was like, I am little known back. I went to high school with Andy. Little known back. Well known back over here.
One of my fondest memories from high school was the day that my friend and I brought in our copy, I think maybe shared copy of Snoop Dogg's doggy style, which was where we said that. I feel like I don't know if we both could afford it or something. We'd take turns. We'd take turns.
I feel like we went to wall-to-wall sound and music together and somehow bought one copy. Never. And Renny made a comment that was so perfectly pitched. He had a very distinctive voice.
I hope he still does. Where he basically said doggy style, huh? And I just don't know if he was like a pro or a time. I love this story.
Was he pro? We still know. Yeah, that's the thing about Renny. He's really amazing.
He's very stoic. So I think that I'm going to say pro. OK, I think so too. I don't want to speak for him.
I'm going to say pro. What was great about him is that he never showed his cards. I didn't know he liked music until he discovered his name in the credits of all these incredible bands coming out of our hometown. That's what we actually want to talk to him.
So how long have you lived in Philly? I lived in Philly for about five years. Yeah. I'm actually sort of thinking about making my grand exit pretty soon.
Yeah, I really want to go back south. I'm from south. So I kind of want to go back there. But yeah, I love it there.
I mean, there's so much good music. And it's just really conducive to that. This is so exciting, slash fascinating for us, because we were not Philly by choice. We were Philly by Earth.
We were proud of that fact. But I do think that it's OK if I speak for you. Sure, man. That the city that we came from, and we left in the mid 90s, was not this bastion of exciting rock and roll and culture and art making that it is today.
So give the pitch for those of us. Because we are always defending Philly from our memory up and going back is fantastic. But as someone who was not from there, why feel this is the tourism point? Why Philly?
Why Philly? Why Philly? I'm going to do a quick sidebar and then I'll go right back to your question. She's a podcast before.
I'm from Birmingham, Alabama. And I'm having that experience now where it has now become kind of like, not nearly like Philly, but just sort of a cool place to be. And people are moving there. And people are making music there and aren't there.
And it's like, it was not that for me going up. So I kind of want to go back. But I'm fascinated with people who go there by choice, because I was born there. For me with Philly, I moved to New York from South.
And I really just wanted to play as much music and make as much music as possible. But in New York, you have to work all the time. It's expensive. And so weirdly, just exhausting competitive with music stuff anyway.
So a lot of people were sort of traveling and going to Philly because it's cheaper. And your quality of life is just a little bit better. You have bigger houses in West Philly. Everyone has basement.
Everyone's like practicing and stuff in the basement. As far as from the music standpoint, it just makes more sense. You can work a little less. You can make music more.
It's uncanny, though. I feel like every band that I discover these days is living there, or not even from there anymore, because growing up, I mean, no disrespect to the Hooders. But that was pretty much. That was like, I remember when I was a little bit lost.
I was in like, I would go to first, like, you know, Terry and Church shows when I would come back. And I was like, is this here when I was at high school? But like, it's the thing about your same about Birmingham. And I was like, when you're in that young, you don't really see it, right?
You just see like as far as your parents out. Like your school experience or whatever. So I don't know. But like, it definitely blows my mind every time I'm like that.
I mean, Philly is like, it has like, it's popping off there. I mean, it's crazy. Everyone's moving there. Like, it's a whole thing.
I mean, I remember I live there for like a year or two. And then all of a sudden, it was like, especially when like coming from like a DIY sort of touring circuit. So like, I would always get in touch with, you know, this person in San Francisco and this person in Columbia, Ohio and this person in Texas. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, they're all just like, it just really felt like that.
Like, so I feel like that it's it really has just been a thing lately. I can't really tell you why I think the main thing is that it's like a snowball effect. Like all the people were coming from New York and Boston and DC, even like just like, expensive East Coast cities were all kind of going to Philly. And then now everybody wants to be.
That's like when my parents moved downtown in 2010. That's right. They were like, you know, that's the cutting edge of culture. What they got down there.
Oh, how do you feel about the West Coast? You've been out here. You played on Saturday in LA. Are you a LA fan?
I'm a huge fan of LA. Yeah, it's great. I don't think I've ever lived here. This feels like a place that people are really flocking to.
I don't think I would ever live here, but I really love visiting. It's great. And yeah, of all the major cities in the US right now, it's probably one of my favorite ones to visit. How much of an effect on your geographic location decision making is Wawa and Hogi Fest?
That's a really good question. Because I struggle out here without her potato chips. I mean, there's certain things. I wish I had thought to do that.
That could give me some for my birthday. That's true friendship. That is true friendship. Yes, that is.
I love Wawa. I live right on the corner from one. I go like almost every day. I feel like regionally, this is going to go very well this podcast.
But we should probably talk a little music. OK. Despite living in one of our favorite cities, you also made one of our favorite records of the year. Out in the Storm is Out.
Now it is truly an amazing album. I wanted to go a little bit macro about it, because I think about this often. We get these records as finite documents. When I got this record, I considered it as of a piece.
It felt of a piece. It felt all the songs fit into each other. It works so spectacularly as an album, which is something that I feel like I miss a lot. The world has maybe gone more streaming, more singles oriented.
Playlist. Playlist story. This is an album that I love to listen to start to finish. But that's how we got it.
I was wondering what your path towards it was. Is this the sort of thing where you had a sense of a vibe or tone for a record? Or was there one song that opened a door where you found the other song is waiting for you? That's a good question.
I feel like, well, first I want to say that I really, the way that I approach making records is the album as a concept. I'm always at some sort of phase with the album, and I always see the album as its own thing, and I don't really see it as individual songs that much. But I feel like it's hard to say. The way that it all came about, it really felt so fluid.
It was like I wrote it all really fast, and it's kind of hard to remember a moment in which, because also when I was demoing, the songs did sound really different. I think the reason that it sounds like, sonically, it's so cohesive is because I play with my live band, and we just have a thing that we do. That's what made the record have that sort of cohesiveness. But I think that, yeah, in the past, I've made records with other musicians, and it sounds a little bit choppier.
But yeah, I don't have a good answer for that, because I feel like it really just all felt so fluid, and then the end result just made it. But it's interesting to me, because I think, obviously, musicians differ, and albums differ. But it's always a question to me whether the artist is thinking of it as a cohesive statement, wanting to write a novel or just a collection of short stories, basically. The feeling of this album is very much of an album.
I don't want to say characters, but the emotions that can run straight from one song to another and feel like there's a dialogue between them. That's interesting. Yeah, well, I will say that usually when I make records, like in the past, especially before this one, I feel like it was really important to me to have every single song be sort of about different things and to kind of cut that up in a way that the subject matter, but then also make every single song sound super different. I really like a guy by voice record or something.
That really was like, I always wanted to do that, because I really liked the challenge of getting the sequence right and all of that stuff. And with this album, I noticed that there was a similarity, even just like half of the songs and the same key, things like that, where it's just like, wow, these really are clicking with each other. And I just leaned into that more, whereas in the past, I've really tried to lean away from that. That's the cool thing about the clip you're working at, where you've been putting out records pretty consistently, once every 15, 15 months.
And so it's like, you can do B,000 and Alien Lanes, and they can feel kind of, I mean, this feels like super cohesive. This record does to me, but I love that idea of what you're saying, of that all GBV feeling of like, these are the songs that we recorded over two weeks. And that's an album, and now we'll just go to work on another one pretty soon. Totally, yeah.
I mean, having that polarization, just all those different songs that are just like, whoa, just listening to it, not knowing what you're going to get next, that sort of unpredictability about it, like that really just excited me creatively. I always wanted to do that, but I also feel like I did that a lot, and now I kind of want to do something else. In the same vein of that, I just wanted to do something a little bit different. There's like a music nerd thing that I really appreciate here, where it feels like the track listing was considered.
I'm always a fan of track two, always a fan of track two, but there, but particularly when track two is a changeup pitch, like we get the fastball, and then you come in with eight ball, and it's a completely different vibe. And there's such a confidence in that saying, yeah, I did this, and now we're going to take it here. And it's like settling in for the longer drive. I'm so particular about track listing, and I really struggled with this one.
And I tried it a million different ways. I couldn't find the right order. And John and Yell and the producer was like, try it in the story. I have an order for you.
But I was like, insistent on A-ball being the second song. That was the only thing, because I was like, that needs to be right, because I think never been wrong. I always knew he wanted that to be first. And I was like, that was actually me.
I was like credit for it. There's an immediacy to the whole thing that is echoed in the title of the album, because when I first started listening to it, I realized I was watching over the name of the album, and I kept thinking it was back back. I almost thought the idea was that you were no longer in the storm. But no, you're actually out in it.
These are songs almost of the moment songs. They are not being processed later. They're not recovery songs. Well, it's still ongoing.
Absolutely. Yeah. And just that concept of this thing is happening, but it will end. It's the thing that I like about it is hopeful.
It's like, OK, there's chaos happening, but the chaos has an expiration date. It will end. I think there's a couple of, I don't know if in your mind, you're like, there are different narrators for these songs and that they shift it all. But there is like, it's pretty sardonic in places.
It's very funny. And I found, actually, which is like, it makes any of the subject matter feel different, because you have these great jokes in there. Or like, board play or puns or whatever that make it kind of lighten it up a little bit. I always really enjoyed that part of it.
People keep saying that to me. And it was not intentional. I mean, it's great. I love that people can see the humor in it, because there is something just sort of messy and off the rails about some of the songs.
So it's almost like it was Costello, right? Right. Yeah, exactly. Like, well, that's really funny.
It's also just awful that somebody's feeling that way. Yeah, totally. And I combat some of the off on this with humor just typically. So if that seeped into the lyrics then.
Yeah. I think I speak for many recovering former, hopefully former, passive aggressive indie boys. Very happy that they're on blast. I feel like it's about time.
That's not something that's like into my mind. I'm like, oh, wow, if the password has some any voice, do hear this. And I'm like, hmm, I've done my job. There's something that my wife always make fun of.
We would go, let me rephrase this. When I would often drag her to indie rock shows in the 90s. And she would notice that everyone in the crowd that was a male was standing there drumming soulfully on their sternum. Oh, yeah.
And I was like, how dare you if I did it myself? And I'd be like, I picture that and look back with shame. Every time I hear you me. And I appreciate that.
That's good. Great. I wanted to ask, I know that asking what was an influence on this record is pretty straightforward. But I love the way this album sounds.
So I was kind of curious about what you were listening to. And being like, that's how I want the guitars or the drums to sound. Or this is like the feel I want this record. Was there any records that you were going back to a lot?
And being like, I'm really, because there's a lot of like, you mentioned my voices. And there's parts of like, snotty dirty that I kind of feel like it's just a really cool. That I don't mean group. No, it's not retro.
It's just like sonically kind of reminds me of it. When we got this record, and we both said the same thing, before we even processed individual songs, this is the kind of record that I love. I love the way this sounds. Yeah.
Thank you. Yeah, I would say yes and no. The thing people we've asked me this question, and typically when I make records, I know I keep going back. Because making this record really was sort of a different process for me.
So I sort of keep holding it up next to the past. But I usually have obsessive notes of like, oh, I want like, I think there's a song on my record, Ivy Triple. Like literally I took a Nicki Minaj beat. And I was like, that's the drums.
And then I was like, and this like, tall dwarfs like Cassio tones down. I want that. And like things like that. I would just like write all these things out.
Like just song by song and have all of these notes when I go and record it. And with this record, I really didn't do that. I really tried to let my melodies be my melodies, let my instincts be my instincts. And of course, there's all these, like, I'm a well of just influences.
They're always I'm always thinking about. But I really tried not to do that. And I really tried to lean in with my band and just sort of take their strengths and apply that and have us make a new sort of thing. And I also really wanted to do that because I was thinking about playing them live.
And I knew they were going to be rock songs. And I was like, I just want to be able to do exactly this life. And I guess like John's made some pretty great records. Yeah.
Yeah. There's that. When you talk about the desire to move back to the South, is that for personal reasons or musical reasons or artistic reasons, do you think that there is some unfinished business that you have with your songwriting that you'd like to explore there? I don't know if I feel like I have unfinished business.
I feel like I have always, I mean, it's just sort of like quiet. I've always sort of thrived in the quiet. I think that that is something I really want to scale back the next record. I kind of want to do something sort of more solo and like sort of more like folky or something.
And I think that like that is like the place to go do that. I think like being in the chaos of like the city and kind of around all of my friends, there's so much stuff happening all the time. I think like I wanted to make this big loud record. And I think now I kind of want to scale it back a little.
I love the way you're talking about it because it suggests a well-earned confidence in your career that you will have more songs to write and more styles to try out. You know that you want to do this next and it's an adventure in a way. We've been talking a lot about how particularly in the world of rock music at a certain level, it does feel like bands are a little bit trapped. They have to go all out each time.
This might be my last shot. I'm going to put everything into this time in the studio. And I don't know if that always works. Obviously some of the greatest records of all time came out of people being like, vibing on a thousand different frequencies.
This is my moment. But I like that you have been an ongoing conversation with your muse, with your audience, with the world around you. It's a different way to approach it. Yeah, I've always been a fan of the slow burn.
I've been writing and go back to the concept of the album. I'm always at some phase of the concept of the album. I was working on one or just finished one or something like that. I feel like I've been doing that since I was a teenager.
So I feel like it's just something I'm just going to keep doing it. I can't imagine not doing it, even if I don't ever get my shot. You know what I mean? Even if tomorrow nobody cares anymore, I feel like I made music for nobody for so long.
But I'll just probably keep doing that. And I also really, yeah, I like to challenge myself. I like to try different things. And I feel like I have a lot of different influences and a lot of different songs.
They're so simple that they've been. I think they've always sort of really hinged on the melody. So I think that there's a lot that you can do with that. You talk about moving back south.
And you also talked briefly about your experience on the TIY circuit, playing house shows and stuff like that. I was wondering if that, does that make you a little less enamored or make the need a little less to feel like I have to be in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago? Or one of these major metropolitan areas where there's some infrastructure of record. Does that even exist?
And any more for you? In terms of like, oh yeah, I should probably go to New York so I can play Bowery once every three months or something like that. Or has that changed so much because of the internet that you can kind of be anywhere? I totally think it's changed so much because of the internet.
I think that I was sort of like a super struggling musician or was still trying to figure some stuff out with my career. Not that I'm not. But you know what I mean? Sort of more like starting out.
I do think that that's kind of important to be where everything's happening. But I think at this point, I will be in LA or New York or whatever for some reason just from the band, either no matter what. So I don't really feel the need to be in the middle of everything because I'm always traveling and always in the middle of everything. So I really like the idea of, I mean to give you an idea, I've been basically with the exception of like a week and a half.
I've been on tour since March. I will be on tour till October. What? Yeah, I've barely been in Philadelphia.
So that's kind of how I'm thinking. I'm like, when I get home, I kind of just want home to be like a quiet, calm place and I'm close to my family and everything is just sort of like chill. I kind of just like, that's really my thinking. That's kind of why I want to do it.
None of those things are how I would describe Philadelphia. Close to my family. Close to your family. So during all that time on tour, you have, I know this from being a many bands tour, there's a lot of downtime.
There's a lot of travel and downtime. How are you spending this downtime? Are you binge watching things? Do you?
I haven't watched TV in so long. It's kind of sad. Yeah, I really miss it. We were really hoping you could give us some insight into Twin Peaks, the return.
I have not seen a second of it. I don't. Actually, you might have the same amount of insight as many people who have watched for hours. It's a little inscrutable.
Oh yeah, I'm good to know. Maybe I won't even try. No, just strong recommend. Okay.
Okay. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, I read, we've been listening to audiobooks. We just finished the one on Jonstown, the Jim Jones book, the Just Game on Batch of Wind. So, Pepe, Pepe, Mary, and John on the road.
Yeah, we got to the end. Everyone, we were all in the end of our scenes. It's like, it's common. The congressman has landed.
You know what I mean? And then it started, like, all of the stuff. So we were like, we stopped at a gas station and like, I'm so excited the congressman's there. Just, I ran a cool way for it.
And then like, did you guys have one on a regular? No, no, I wish we had, sorry, it's not funny. It's like so dark. But once that stuff started happening, we were like, you guys, we got thrown this off.
This is too dark. We've been like driving for like two days through Montana and just like, oh, it sounds really dark. It was so dark. It was like, thrones would be uplifting.
Yeah, so my game has been watching Game of Thrones and I don't watch it, so I haven't been watching that. But yeah, it's a lot of like, you know, talking to each other, joking around. The many inside jokes have happened. Do you feel like as you're traveling around, like, since you're not located at anyone, please, are you like, as obsessed with the news or like, are you like really super connected to like, the news cycle the way like people, I think who are like sitting in front of their computers all day are, do you, will you go like a couple of days and be like, what happened?
Yeah, I'm kind of more like disconnected. I'd say, I think I tried, what do you say? Yeah, maybe. I think that it's so easy on the road to just be, to like live inside of your phone, because you're just on, you're just in the car all day, just like, it's so easy to do that.
And so I try really hard to not, I still do, but I try really hard to put it down as much as I can. So just live in the experience. Sure. You know, it's a show.
Yeah. Yeah. Do you find that being on the road is conducive to being in touch with yourself and your interactions with people in the world that can feel songwriting or is that quiet time you're talking about is that a recharge for your creative self as well? And so I think that's what I mean to remember who you are and how you fit into the world and your relationships with people.
I think both. I mean, I think that it's interesting. Really all, everything with Tor, in my experience, it all depends on the personalities that are in the van. It really depends on who you're with and where everybody's at.
Do you like a stern cult like presence in the van? Oh, yeah. We, yeah, we, it's pretty much like, definitely cult. We all wear a lot of linen.