Welcome, welcome, welcome. You have a very special episode today of Ron Prescience. Yes. Joined by, joined with Bobby Baird Jr.
Bobby Baird Jr. is going to be on the pod. We got to chat with Bobby. I have been averse to doing interviews because I'm a terrible interviewer.
I feel like I pollute any conversation and interview style. I think I'm a terrible interview or however you are really good at it. Thank you. We could have such good interviews on Ron Prescience if I wasn't involved.
Well maybe you just sit there and you look good. Then occasionally chime in. I have to really think about keeping my fucking mouth shut. I was afraid to edit this interview because I'm in it.
I'm so good without me. Hi. Bobby Baird Jr. and I spent four days together in a car.
Five days in a car and we talked a lot. We exchanged a lot of information. I love that. That sounds really nice.
Some of which he shares with you. Yeah. It was great. But before we get rolling with this, I think it's people should know you worked for a guitar maker named James Trussart.
Okay. He made guitars for the Black Crows. Oh gosh, so many people. Yeah.
So that's there's a reference to that in here. Okay, right. We weren't entirely clear about it. Oh, I didn't say who I worked for.
You did, but it might, who knows if it's going to come out. We have this. Yeah. Because I probably talked over it at that point.
I flabbed over it. Well, I don't know if it'll also come out in this depending on how it's edited, but I was having a ton of technical difficulties. I was having lots of internet issues that day. So my computer kept dropping and whatever.
It's another reason that I'm afraid to do interviews with people online. Well, it was really nice talking to him and I enjoyed it. I would love to do a real proper one where we get his voice behind a really good mic. He has a yummy, yummy voice.
His voice is fucking delicious. Talking and singing both. Yeah. I love a good voice.
You have a delicious voice too. Very good. Thank you. Yeah.
It's um, interviews are not yet yet. Nice. Look at you. I'm not framing yet.
A good thing for me to be involved in. You know what it is? I don't think about it too much. I just, I actually really, with him, with the situation, I kind of don't think about it too much ahead of time at all.
Or at all, I just start asking him questions based on things that pop into my head while I was speaking to him. And that's what sort of directed my questioning. Well, without further ado, I do. Here's the Bobby Barrett Junior interview with Ron Kraschins.
Enjoy Bobby Barrett Junior. I'm so happy to meet you. I'm sorry. I couldn't meet you before.
We met. We met in Salt City. We did. Yeah.
You remember Salt Lake City? Lou was walking over to me. Oh yeah. Ready.
Briefly, honey. For one brief second pass. Walking through a parking lot. Walking through a parking lot.
We walked across a parking lot to go have drinks with guided by voices. And I was leaving already. And we were right. Yes.
Yep. You're right. Okay. So let's just hello again.
We hugged every the whole. We did. I mean, it's great. So I got a base.
I got a base question. Yes. This Tom Peterson playing, is that a Phil Lesh base? It's an eight stream base.
But is that what those Phil Lesh bases? Either guy from the Grateful Dead. Yeah. But this is Tom Peterson from Deep Trick.
And my drummer friend just sent me this wondering why Tom Peterson is playing a Phil Lesh. It kind of does look like the Grateful Dead kind of guitar. It does kind of look like it doesn't. It does.
It looks like one of those things. I don't know the name of them. With a different color with the middle. Yeah.
Totes. But Tom Peterson makes it look cool. Yeah. He's got it by Voices Fan, right?
Uh, uh, what is it? Yeah. He he he he Bob said on the tour, they were hanging out with Tom and said, Tom, hey, Bob said, Tom, can I can I tell people that you and I are friends? And Tom, like, uh, not yet.
Not yet. Oh my gosh. But yeah, I'm sure I guess Tom is. I just know that Rick Nielsen said, uh, I told him I think I had my voices because guided by voices.
You mean guided by years? I have a Rick Nielsen story, but I hold it tight. Do you remember, Lou? I do like it.
Yeah. I'm talking about that a little bit. Okay. Do you like?
I love it. Yeah. Do you know who I worked for? Oh, yeah.
Yes. I've heard. Are you familiar with that? Speaker?
Uh, yes, because of the Black Rose because we did a month with the Black Rose and Rich had at least two of them. But I know he played it. Also, Lucy, I'm a lot. And she does too.
Listen, it doesn't play on live. But I haven't seen her guitar. Yeah. She did like a photo shoot with his guitars and everything for some met.
I think it was her guitar magazine. Um, and their friends and, um, you know what, yeah. But I haven't seen her guitar. Okay.
You got to do that then. I guess. Yeah. I don't check out the stuff.
I was just saying to Lou this morning that I wanted to go. I saw an advertisement for a concert in New Hampshire in August that I want to see it's Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, Wilko and someone else. I thought there was like one more. I know.
She really knows. And I thought, yeah, that sounds like a fun day. And really. That's amazing.
Yes. Uh, let me know. Go on and go and I'll see if I can do anything. But she's going out with Father John Misty for a while.
Okay. Yeah. Totally. And she's okay.
I think now she's in Europe right before I go over. So she's over there right now. I think, but she did a wonderful, amazing version of I want to go home. I want to go home for my dad's 90th birthday.
It was special. Oh my gosh. Your dad is 90. I happy birthday to him.
That's amazing. That's incredible. How old is your mom? She's 84, 85.
I love that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I saw your dad was born in Ohio.
He's from Ironton, but then he then they moved to just basically Kalmaner's daughter, a part of Kentucky. Okay. He went back and forth between Kentucky and Ironton. But it was a long honor starter.
Wow. Were you raised in Kentucky then too? No. No.
My parents met while they were in California. Dad moved, he checked California in 54 and they fell in love in 62 and decided to move to Nashville and have babies. They decided to not have children in California, which I think was good. Yeah.
You go to Nashville and you're sitting there. I grew up like a. Yeah. Wow.
Are your folks there then too? Still in Nashville? Yeah. There is 20 minutes away in Hendersonville, like up near the lake.
Yeah. Are they in like your old family home? Can I think so? Well, no, the old family home on the lake that was the most beautiful lot I've ever seen.
These old trees, such an old lot, these huge trees kept falling on top of the house on top of my mother. Like a during the big tornado.storm is housed in to landed directly on top of my mom, broke a couple of vertebra and it's not just the tree. It's all the attic and all the two by fours and all the insulation on top of her and she got out. She called the emergency people and they rebuilt the house and the same thing happened to you.
Stop. Oh my God. She was in a closet. Mom, get out of that house.
Right. And that's when we got her. Yeah. That feels like a sign.
I don't know. I mean, that's witchy. Wow. Okay.
I'm so glad she survived that. What the fuck? But I wrote an album called a stormetry. My mother's head because I wrote a song called a stormetry.
My mother's head at the end of the song. She screams. You can hear her screaming. She did it.
Oh my gosh. She's a survivor, Bobby. Damn. That's and she's the best.
She's the best singer in the family. She's a she had a I think she was on Capitol Records. She did she went on tour with text Ritter. She was like the musical and there's this thing called the it was like the opera in Compton and lost near long she's from Oh, wow.
And it was called Town Hall. She was like part of the cast of people who sang who would back up, you know, Johnny Cash or all the rock ability people did it and Johnny can't I mean, uh, but yeah, I was like and you can see videos of town hall party on her name was Jeannie Sterling and she's a she was like the Doris Day singer. That's incredible. On that.
I guess she's hearing about her. All right. I want to bring a little guy out here to take us down for you. She's a favorite a lot of you with the good.
By the way, folks request numbers from her and books that send in letters and postcards and things on so. Yeah, she's she's she's a bad ass. What a woman. Man.
Happy mother's name is her too. Huh? Yeah. Oh, I forgot.
Yeah. The Sunday, Bobby. This Sunday. Come yeah.
You got you got time go out, you know, get the flowers or whatever you need to do. Write a nice little card. Sing a song for mom. She said no more flowers.
So I got to figure something else out. Yeah, puzzles. I don't know. Uh, so only like puzzles.
My mom's doing a lot of puzzles now. So, you know, yeah. Oh, well, don't be sorry. I'll work on that.
You're you're you're just this is raw impression. So you'll be you. Okay. Yes.
I'm sitting here about to rehearse with my for free tour. Yeah, I'm doing a acoustic and my oldest son is gonna I usually just take I take this little keyboard synth and I duct tape the root note down and I control it with a volume pedal, turn it off and on. So now I'm gonna get him to do the actual key instead of duct tape. It'll just be him pushing the synth movements.
But if he's annoying or doing something distracting, I'll just like those big hooks I have on the vodka. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.
Well, he wants to do cool stuff. He's 18 years old. He's gonna want to right. I'm gonna have to rain him in literally.
Oh my gosh. Well, you just arrived home after going out with my husband, Lou Barlow, who now by the way came home and he's just like talking like you. It's so cute. He's just like, Oh, he just took you on.
I was like adorable, adorable. My uncle, one of my uncles who lives in like Utah or somewhere. I don't know where he lives in, but he would he used to live in the South and he would bring his kids to Tennessee and we were all hanging out around a campfire and stuff and he would drink a couple beers and start talking like us and his kids would stop him and say, Dad, you're talking like a hillbilly. Stop it.
Please, I love a hillbilly. God bless. All right. So I want to say I love the song swap idea.
I just that's I just I love it so much and I want to know with that sort of song swap idea, I want you guys to swap some favorite little moments from your four day tour. So who wants to go first? Oh, we would come on. That was fun.
And we kept getting better. We did. Oh my gosh. We had the whole house singing with us in Connecticut, which was the last night that the whole house was dudes.
Our age. They were so turned on. They were like, this is so great. This is just the best night for them.
Can you guys think together right now? A little bit of that? Did you harmonize? What'd you do?
Play the chords first, Bobby. I got to hear the chords. We're experiencing latency here. We are.
We are. That's what this we're not 100% but that's what you say. I got a dirty mind. I'm a mean go get her.
I didn't know that line until this trip. And I don't know why. Speaking of Bobby, did you know that Lou has a song called Dirty Mind? No.
Didn't come up. Didn't come up. We'll send you a link to that one. You can listen to it on your own time.
It's an early one. No, no, no, no. Do you try and perfect that one? Yeah.
I listen to your last solo album on the flight home and it was very inspiring. I really want to go home and really pull out my garage band and really, or I'm going to be we're going to have some downtime on this next. I'm going to have I'm going to be in a rental car with an iPad and garage band and we could probably create some recordings, but it's really good. Isn't that a beautiful album?
Oh, yeah. I did the thing. We download the album before you take off. So I got to, you know, I get to really listen to it for the two hours.
Well, Lou, tell me one of your favorite memories now from The Road with Bobby, your first song swap tour with Bobby Baird Jr. Well, there were many. It was really fun. I mean, I mean, we because we've actually hooked up a couple of times now, so, you know, I was feeling safe.
I was feeling safe with Bobby Baird. We talked about some personal stuff that I generally don't talk about with other male friends. And I really appreciated that because it's we have some children this same age and gender. Yeah, we had it's, but I don't for some reason the first thing that pops into my head is that he played like we both had hits in the night, like radio, alternative radio hits.
Rock radio. Rock and Bobby had a rock radio hit, and I don't think I'd ever heard it. It's called like she blew me off at Turn Me On and his vocals in it are so fucking great. And it's such an energetic track.
It's a real good track. I love that title. The real good track is when everybody had comuckers through dual rectifier amplifiers. Corin, you get some somebody to remix your song for like $10,000.
I think Sabato had a song remixed by someone named Tom Ward, Alge for $10,000. Yeah, then that's just what those guys did. That's what they did. And Bobby was remixed by Andy Wallace, who was the kind of like the Nirvana guy, right?
Wasn't he the, and Jeff Buckley, he produced the Jeff Buckley album also. He paid $10,000 for the mix, but then he didn't even use the mix. That was not the radio mix. Yeah.
Anyway, that's, well, I can't wait to hear it. So really it's, but they had a wall as it closed your eyes. It sounds like you're in a room with Alan Alda. And I thought that was really cool.
Oh, you mean his his his his accent? It sounded to me. It sounded like Alan Alda. I always see was on mash, right?
Yeah, great. Yeah. But the strange mix room that he uses, because the wall was like two yards behind you. And it was at an angle, like it made no sense why it would be a great sounding room.
But he knew how to work in that room as a mixing room. They're all really idiosyncratic. Those guys, the mastering mixing guys, they all have just real weird way with their own crazy way of doing what they do that totally some kind of magic thing. Yeah.
They did a great job. It's just our our guys knew the track better. So did you sing it then during the shows, Bobby? This time your hit?
Like, no, okay. It doesn't work. Okay. Basically, I start I ripped off the beginning of Gary glitter rock and roll.
And then I went right into tobacco road. I was born. That's actually really that's what I really love about it is it has it's like a garage rock song. Yeah.
It's like one of those one off one hit wonders from like 1965 or something. But it's blown out in this total. But the hooks are like, oh, it's like a real classic hooks. It's not it's not it does a Colin response.
I got that you blew me off. You're moving off. I'm sorry. I missed it back then because I think at the time there was such a heavy metal.
It was like not that I disliked metal. It's not that I disliked new metal. I did definitely I had sweet tooth for it for sure. But hearing something that was so influenced by a garage rock at that time, but really blown out and not self consciously garage.
It was just it's just a real love garage. Thank you. Big and dumb. I love it.
I can't wait to spend some time with it. And I will. You can't stop me now. It was on the movie varsity blues and cool intentions.
But on varsity who's they just used to meet. They never even heard my voice. Wait, which is fine. Are you talking about varsity blues the football?
Yeah, I know I know someone involved in that movie. That's all I'm going to say. The Foo Fighters had a writer that too because it was that big. Yeah.
The Foos Oh, me. Cash. Well, yeah. And cring tensions was the remake of it was I forget who was what movie that was a remake.
What year was that then, Bobby? That the song came out? Ninety nine. Okay.
It came out in 98. But I think those movies were 99. That makes sense. Yeah.
Okay. Oh, speaking of hits. I think my favorite moment was I mean, Bobby, I don't you're still in this book world of world records. But at some point you were the youngest person to have a hit song.
That's what I've been told. Yeah. I can hear him. And he said, so when you said 74, right?
So yeah. So you were eight. Yeah. Seven or eight.
And yeah. That's incredible. Had a hit with his dad called Daddy What If. The song.
What happened? The sun stops shining. You'd be so surprised. So we started we started to have this little portion of the program where we play our hits.
So he played his hit with his dad. And then I would play my hit as folk of the person. But the the song is him talking to his father in the course of the song. And the sentimental.
Yeah. And the third show, Bobby turned to me and let me play Little Bobby. Oh, well, I didn't even I didn't know that I didn't know that I didn't know that I didn't know that I was gonna play the part. Now, there's gonna call me Daddy.
Here we go. Yeah. It's about time. And the funny thing is we didn't actually talk about it.
But the first time that you did play it, I was like, Oh, I want to be a little just in my mind. I didn't tell you that I want to be Little Bobby. But then you know, third show, you asked me to be and I was like, Oh, hell yeah. He was so ready.
It was right. And by the last show is really great. I love this so much. Come to Greenfield, Massachusetts and do this for our town.
And what were you saying, Bobby? Go ahead. You stop loving me. Oh my gosh.
It was adorable guys. I on the first night, we randomly went into love hurts and did a whole verse with perfect harmonies. We did really good harm. It was really good.
It was a moment. Really good. Oh my gosh. It was a great moment.
I think I saw somebody put it on the internet. But we locked in pretty good for. Yeah. I rarely do.
I'm so out of practice with harmonies because I have no one I really harmonize with regularly. I do harmonize with myself on albums, but then that's not really do albums like every four or five years at this point, right? Just because it takes a while. And but I pretty out of practice with it.
But when we did love hurts, I'm like, Oh, maybe I can actually do this because I was starting to think I couldn't do harmonies at all. But then you did the lead start back. Yeah, I did. You know the harmony.
I'd say 80% of the studio stuff I do now is harmony singing in the studio. All right. I've learned how to I did a Calgary folk festival. And they've got like me, Robbie folks and this acoustic do I had never heard of to all do our songs and collaborate with each other on stage.
Oh, cool. And when I did my song, these these Canadian guys saying my songs, perfect harmony. And then Robbie did his and a perfect harmony. And me and Robbie both when we walked off Robbie folks walked off stage were like, man, those guys know our stuff.
They really dig us, man. But what they those guys had never heard our songs before. They were just so good at staring at our vowels and being able to second behind us. And yeah, they just they just watched our mouths and everything to know what to look for and to to to when to join in and they've done it with each other so much or with other people.
And ever since they always it freaks my heart out because I stare so intently during the harmonies. But it's because he's gonna change his phrasing sometimes. Yeah, but it freaks about. He's like, look at that.
But yeah, but I'm shadowing. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Huh, I've actually never seen guided by voices play. Yeah, I know we're breaking up.
I was just saying I've never seen guided by voices play. I haven't been to those shows. You never will. Oh, it's done.
Oh, shit. You never will. They're done. It's over.
Never made. We're never. Making records. When you were first coming on our meeting today, you mentioned Tammy, you know, Tammy.
And the way you said her last name is different than Lou and Lou don't speak yet. Tammy when you said I think you said I think you said I think you said why not? That was the funny one. Tammy.
Why not? Tammy. Why not? When that why not?
Tammy. Why not? Yeah. I guess that's the hillbilly version of her name.
Why not? Bobby, I thought I heard you say Tammy. Why not? Oh, God, for the love.
Now she's gone. Now you're gone. Now you're totally gone. What if she just leans in with you?
Y'all are like, y'all are used to sitting close to you. Adele, come in here. What the fuck? Oh, she's back.
You could come in here and just we could we could we could double team the mic if you want to stupid. All right. Where the fuck is my thing? I need to know how do you pronounce her last name?
I think it's Tammy. I love that answer. I love that answer. Can you hear me?
Because when I first met well, not when I first met Lou, we had a moment where Lou likes to tell me that it's Wannette and he corrected me. Did I correct you? I'm going to correct you. Why would I do that?
I'm sure I do. I'm sure I do. I'm sure I do. I feel the way to say it.
Why not? It's Wannette, right? I mean, it's Georgia. You have family connection, right?
You would know. Have you heard her name, you know, in conversation to people say Tammy, why not? Did you know she was my next door neighbor? Yes, Lou told me.
This is why I feel like you are the person that I'm asking the right person. I think I heard why not Tammy, why not? But I think that's just that's a hillbilly. Well, then that'd be right.
When it's it. I think so. Yeah. If you came into my face and you and because I was talking about how much I loved her and you were like, Oh, I love her tune.
You said and by the way, it's Wannette. Okay. I don't. Okay.
I'm sorry. I did that. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm sorry. I did that. I should have there was no authority that would make me give me that's properly pronounced. Musicians smug shit.
Like, especially I love there's nothing that I love more than being a fake hillbilly. I was like, that was wrong. I should have known that. You know what?
Now that I'm thinking about it, we should actually go back and watch our Queens of Country because we have like a time life DVD series, like we have the videos, you know, those like time life series where it's like, um, Queens of Country, all these performances from like He-ha and everything. And we have just like tons of Tammy. We should see how they say it on there. Now I can't even remember.
The best thing is the cocaine and rhin sounds. You see, if by far, if you want to know everything, yeah. I was just listening to her on Tuesday because of her birthday. So Tammy, why not?
I'm going to go back to that. Tammy. Why not? Why the hell not?
Why not? I say I love her. I love her. See, I want to have a set of X and two.
I love her. She's good. Holy shit. Do you have it all?
Yeah. Well, Bobby, I don't know if I came and went during this and I think I disappeared for a while, didn't I? During. Yeah.
And lose frozen for me right now. But now you're back. Okay. Who knows what this is going to look like.
I don't even know, but it's a puzzle. It's a puzzle. It's a new puzzle for Mother's Day. Figure out what the hell happened.
Put it together, guys. Oh, it's so nice having you on the wrong pressure, though. Oh, that's lady. Let me see.
That's my Greyhound lady. I can't see Bobby's frozen. His face is just a nice smile. It's just frozen in a nice smile.
Oh, there he is. He's moving again. Oh, my God. Where's your dog?
Let me see. Is this a, is this a, I hope this isn't a controversial question, but is it a rescue Greyhound? I heard like almost. I did not run into a burning building.
Rescue that dog, but I did buy him from the Nashville. Okay, right? Because isn't that like, like, see, like the most Greyhounds are from, they were like former racing, all of them, right? All of them.
Yeah. Okay. But I've never seen a Greyhound that didn't have a tattoo numbered in this beer. Oh, wow.
I've never seen a Greyhound. Right. Yeah. Is your Greyhound super sweet?
I heard their couch potatoes. Unbelievable sweet. They just sleep 20 hours a day and then they go 35 miles per hour for two minutes and then they want to go and they only care about love and kindness and being sweet. They really wanted to adopt a racing Greyhound when I lived in LA.
I don't know. I just was like, this would be a dog I really wanted to do, but then it said that you can't like, I think you have to be kind of careful with them, right? Because you know, you want to make sure they are not re-traumatized or something like that. So you want to make sure that you just, you see, he's not traumatized and the only thing is bad about them is their breath.
Okay. That's the only thing that I've ever can figure out. And they just want to love and love. Yeah.
And can you take, is your dog a boy or girl or? He's a boy. Do you take him for walks on a leash or no? Like do you just, yeah.
Not really. I walk in some, but he doesn't even care about walking that much. Yeah. Do you have a fenced in yard?
Yes. I have a fenced in yard. And so that's just where he goes out and he'll run for about one minute. Yeah.
But they suggest if you live in an apartment in a downtown area that they're a good dog for that. Because I don't need a lot of that. That's what I heard too. They just want to like snuggle and be on the couch.
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, Lou. I just, I didn't know he had a Greyhound, so I'm so fascinated.
You want to talk to your, what do you got to say? You're frozen on my own, so I can't, I can't tell. Come, come sit next to me. Oh, God.
Sorry. Oh, there we go. Hi. Okay.
Oh, no, you can't hear him. Can you hear me? Oh, oh, oh, oh. There we go.
Oh, it's like, oh, there you go. Yeah. That's how you do it. Oh, gosh.
Thank you so much for being on the wrong impressions. Thanks for having me. Can I see your dog now that I'm not frozen? Yes.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Did you mean? Oh, buddy. His name is his racing name was Blaney Park and it just stuck.
Yeah. My last Greyhound was named a boy named Sue. He lived before. He's your Greyhound.
You're a Greyhound guy then. Oh, yeah. I hope you have a wonderful tour coming up and I hope it goes well for you. Well, if me and Luke get to do this again, the song thing, you should come along.
I'd love to. It would be great. Oh my gosh, I can introduce you guys. I don't know.
I'll sell your merch. It'll be so fun. Well, and we can have a part where we do some wrestling and you could like be the referee for the wrestling part. I love that.
Yeah. Actually, yes. You can also do this for you. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. I'd love to. But Luke, again, thanks for doing that. Those four dates, that was really fun.
I was the best. I loved it. It was really fun. Yeah.
Well, hopefully it comes up again. I know. You guys are his best friend now. So I hope my whole friend is best.
I'm his only friend. I spent most of the time telling him in the car, those people don't like you. I'm all you got. You don't need them.
Yeah. You don't need those guys. That's what I said. Yeah, I recommend that.
That's a good way to really hook him. Isolate. Yeah. I learned.
Yeah. I'm gonna do like isolate. Yeah. All that.
Sorry. I love it. Yeah. We're gonna start our own band, man.
That's right. Dinesort, man. I know. You don't need those guys.
They're holding you back. Okay. Well, that wasn't too bad. I was not too bad of an interview.
I think it was great. I mean, who's next? Who's coming on next? Yeah.
If you is Bobby going to give us the thumbs up, I can't wait to hear what Bobby says to. Oh, if you listen to it. Yeah. I think you will.
He might be like me and not want to fucking listen to himself being interviewed. I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe he might really delight in it and then relive and go, that was a fun day.
Well, sure was a fun tour that Bobby and I had. That's so sweet. So that's it. Thanks for joining us.