The Music of Now, with Tanlines

On today's episode, Josh is joined by his brother, Eric Emm, and their good friend Jesse Cohen. Eric and Jesse are better known collectively as the band Tanlines, and they've just released a fantastic new record called 'The Big Mess' after a multi-year hiatus. What has become of the music industry? Do the songs we listen to still drive culture? Is the artist you love shaping your identity, or are you simply a product of The Machine? All this and more will be explored... if you... listen.

Discussed: Portnoy's Complaint, battle of the bands, Michael Mann's 'Heat.'

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hey, and welcome to What Future.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm your host, Joshua Tapolski, and today we have a
very special episode. I have to say, I want to
bring it just bring it down a notch. I want
to bring it down several notches. Very special episode. You
may or may not know this, but my brother I
have a brother. First off, he may or may not
know that. His name is Eric, and he's my older brother.
Though many people say that they think I'm the older

(00:43):
brother because I'm so sophisticated and mature. Eric is a musician.
We've made music together, but also he's made a lot
of music separately, and he has a band. You've probably
heard me talk about before.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Maybe you haven't. I don't know. I don't know what
you've heard.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I don't even know who I'm talking to when I
say you, I'm not sure who I'm envisioning. But at
any rate, he's got a man called Tan Lines with
his friend Jesse, our friend Jesse. They've made a lot
of music and then they took a break, and they've
just recently released a new record called The Big Mess
on Merge Records, which is a great label. You know,

(01:17):
I say this understanding that I can't give a fair
and balanced review like a Fox News host. I can't
just go straight down the line and tell you know
the truth, but I will say my truth is I
think it's a great record and it's got really really good, smart, interesting,
sometimes funny songs on it. Again, I say this as

(01:39):
a as a man with a lot of personal investment
in the record, because my brother made it, you know,
and I like to support stuff he does. But I
will say forgetting that I can be a very cruel
and mean spirited brother, and I think if the record sucked,
I would definitely say it.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
And it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I really enjoy it, and so I thought it'd be
fun to have him and Jesse on the.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Podcast to talk about making.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
The record and probably you know, some other things, because
they're both very interesting guys with a lot to say.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
So that's what I've done.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
We've got Eric and Jesse here and we're going to
talk about music and more so, let's get into it.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
We're here to talk about a new record. Is that correct?
Is that?

Speaker 3 (02:38):
What I'm is that what I'm to understand.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
They're telling me that you guys have put out a
hot new LP. Now I haven't listened to, but everybody
on the team has listened to it and they say
it's just fantastic, just terrific stuff. So tell me a
little bit first off, tell me a little bit about
yourselves and tell me about this new album.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
So this is Josh's Morning Zoo.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Right, So the tan Line has just put out this
new album and Tony, have you heard this here?

Speaker 1 (03:01):
It's crazy music. I don't even know what the of
these songs are they are they? Are they singing? Are
they rapping? No one knows anyhow.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, so tan Lines, you went on hiatus, you both
had several children.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Is this how you do the pod?

Speaker 1 (03:16):
I just go in.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
I don't do this intro shit. I'm here with Jess,
you neric from tan Lines. I don't do that shit.
That's fucking dumb. But you do it like you record
like an intro. Later later I'll do an intro, like
a little bit of me talking about like why we're
doing this podcast.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
And I like that.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
You've listened to the show, you know now? You know
so obviously you've listened to many I've been off podcasts
on it. Fair enough, listen, like I said, I've said,
yet to listen. I sit down and put the album on.
You know, but I heard there's some great tunes on it.
I've told there's some great music on that thing. You
heard the test Press. I've heard all of it. I've
heard the album many times. We have it down at
the store. We put it on, you know, and it's

(03:52):
like that scene in High Fidelity when Jack Black puts
on with some whatever records. I'm obscure. It's like, I
don't know, it's Jesus Lizard or something. Everybody's like, you know,
what is this is great? And he sells six copies
of it.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
But what do people buy when our album's playing?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Actually, the other day a guy bought Sounds to the
Lambs Bastick River and he passed on a Heat too
because he hadn't seen the movie yet, which is strange
to me because he was like a forty year old man, so.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
I've never seen Heat.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
I mean that we should just do a whole show
on that.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
We should just I don't want to talk about anything else,
actually except that you're I don't want to. We don't
have to get into your exact age, but let's just
say you're you're forty three, You're okay if you want
to put it out there.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
That's fine. If you want your Wikipedia page.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
To be updated, have had it, but please should be
so lucky. But you're a forty three year old man
in America. Yeah, and you've never seen Michael Mann's nineteen
ninety five crime drama Heat.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:59):
That's weird, is there? And you've admitted that from the
films you've watched it something? Do you have something against
Michael Mann or do you hate great films?

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Or what is it?

Speaker 4 (05:07):
I think it's really long. It's like two and a
half hours. It's average nowadays.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know, it's like, it's not eighty eight minutes like
a movie from nineteen eighty six. But you know, you
could do it. I think two sittings. Maybe I heard it.
It looks like slow and has gun violence. And I'm
not a big with Pacino and de Niro.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
I'm not.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
I don't really care about either of them.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
You know.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Actually, I guess say something. There are some scenes of
gun violence in it. That's correct, though. I will say
the film is punctuated by gun violence, but I would
not say that's the center of the film's drama, if
that makes any sense.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
I mean, I guess the allure of those two actors
doing a movie together just didn't speak to me.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
That's unusual. But beyond that, I forget about the actors.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Forget about Pacino and Danira, who are of course both
Oscar winning actors, and I would say at the time
they did heat at really the top of their game.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Eric, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
But the Oscars famously have never been wrong.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Too. Well.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Wow, Actually, I think we're getting a little bit of
a look into what drives you know, at least some
of tan lines, at least one half of tan lines.
So we're getting a picture, a little peak behind the
curtain of a man who's it's against against nature, against
the against good things. As the wave comes crashing, you
stand unmoved.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
By the motion of the sea. And I think that
says something about.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
You could say that I danced to my own drum machine.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
You could say that, and you have. And now it's
going to go on the promo clip for this episode.
So so you know, it's your you made, it's your
it's your show, it's your bed to make, and you've
certainly done it.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
It's my epitaph.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
All right, Okay, now we got now that we shook
our sillies out, as they say, I think we can
delve in to the real reason we're here. First off,
I should say up front, I guess I don't know.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Who's listening to this podcast that doesn't know this, but
I'm gonna just I want to put it out there
for the for the sake of transparency, I want to
fully disclose the relationship here.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Eric and I are brothers.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
We grew up together in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and we shared
a home for at least a few years, and we
do share parents.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
True or false, all.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
True, and and Jesse's just a buddy. But I think
if we told people he was related to us, they
wouldn't They would not bat an eye. They would go, yeah,
three Jews just hanging.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Out tall, one tall, three tall Jews?

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Which was it? I'd understand one of the alternate names
for tan lines before you went with that. Okay, you'll
get back into it.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Here we go. Jesse was just telling me the Jews
are typically short, and I didn't really think that's that's
a thing.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
I think, like a Portnoy's Complaint era, Jew is considered
to be kind of a you know, and that there's
a corridor let's you know, where there's the Jews and
popular literature are depicted like a Woody Allen.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
This would be a kind of prototype exactly the example
he used. Yeah, well, Woody Allen.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
But but I want to say that that the main
character of port Nooy's complaint, whose name I believe is,
I want to say Portnoy, Yes, oh port Noise complaint.
You for Rebby, He wants a heat interested. I want
to say he's described as being short, but I'm not
actually sure if that's true or not. He's he has
a short personality, that's for sure. Certainly gives short, Yes,

(08:30):
he's giving, he's giving short. Anyhow, Eric and I are brothers.
Jesse and I are not, and but we have worked
on music together in the past. We have worked on
Professor Murder music, a former band of yours, which you
know the other day I was listening to and I
have to say, pretty good, holds up, pretty good stuff,
pretty enjoyable.

Speaker 4 (08:50):
Love that all right.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
So look, we're gonna get deep inside the guts of
the music industry in your place within it. But I
want to start at the very beginning. Do you know
the official year that tan Lines became a thing. What
was it? We printed it on the shirts? Two thousand
and eight. All right, two thousand and eight.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
You guys are making what I would describe as a
kind of I mean, to be honest with you, when
I first heard tan lines. Now the listener may know,
hopefully the listener knows.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
You know, I used to make music. I used to
make technive music. Actually, I just released to electronic dance
songs recently in the last month or two, just for
shits and giggles, just for the hell of it, you know,
for sport.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
But I used to make music.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
And when you guys started making music together, I was like, oh,
they're making You guys are sort of making like dance music,
which I thought was surprising.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, Professor Murder had a dance vibe to it. But
I mean, Eric, you never expressed an interest in techno
music when we were working on music together.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Do you think that was do you think that was personal?
I mean, I'm thinking back to the dance group that
we had before Dan one dance track, that's true, Yeah,
going globus, that's true.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
So we didn't make a lot of dance music though, you.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Know those records come up sometimes on eBay. They do?
Are they valuable?

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Hey?

Speaker 4 (10:07):
You know?

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Also I'm trying to remember how I saw this. They're
signed photos of tan lines, you know, on eBay of me,
Like I did. I googled myself and it came up
in an eBay search, And I'm like, I have one
specific memory of like an autograph shark, Like this is
a guy that just gets everyone's autograph so he could

(10:29):
sell later. And this was outside the Jimmy Fallon show. Okay,
And like this guy was not a fan. I could
tell this guy goes to every show. There was a
music artist with a right, if ever I should become famous. Right,
it's like a little investment. Right, that's smart.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Actually not a lot of effort, low investment on his part,
but high reward.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Possibly.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
Oh, it takes a whole day. He has to spend
the day waiting outside the Jimmy Fallon.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Sure, well he probably makes it today event you can go.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
You could start at the Today show in the morning
and work all the way into doing.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
The guests on the show, so he probably gets everyone's stay.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Cup.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
I could think of lower effort gambles you could make.
But we also saw this in Sweden. It was every
time we played in Sweden, there were always people just
like waiting outside of the club who were asking for autographs.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
It's interesting. I can think of the one time in
my life.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
I think the one two times in my life I've
asked for autograph, and so I guess I kind of
understand what it feels like.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
I know there are people who like to collect autographs
or get autographs. Mine was a Shagirimamoto, the creator of
Super Mario Huge at CS when I was thirteen years
old in Chicago. And the other one was John Carpenter,
who I paid for a VIP backstage meet and greet
with him because he's awesome, And I thought, when am

(11:53):
I going to get a chance to hang out with
John Carpenter for five seconds in a completely artificial manner,
And you know, it was where it anyhow, kise Wait
and Sweden, people were coming and asking photographs that you
didn't think we're fans.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
I know they weren't.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Oh, how did you know you can't judge a book
plays They didn't come to the show. Maybe they couldn't
get in the tickets were sold out. They wanted to,
they were such huge fans, but it was too.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Late to believe me.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
They weren't sold out. Actually, that was one of those
shifs in Sweden. I also remember where we got the
excuse from the promoter. They were like, oh, don't worry
about it. Everyone gets paid once a month and it's
next Monday. So that's probably why no one came.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
You guys missed the doll the dole window had not
yet opened or whatever, so otherwise it would have been
a sold out show the.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
Twenty ninth day. Really bad timing.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
I have to say, as far as excuses go for things,
that's like a pretty pretty good one, pretty impressive. It's
not like it's not like, sorry, we didn't you know,
our promoter was out sick or something, and it's like,
because of the social politicals nature of this country, you
were unable to fill the venue.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
But it's not.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
It has nothing to do with you.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
And completely to do with our political system and our
social care networks that we have here.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
It's very interesting stuff.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
I mean, I do think that the selfie has like
replaced the autograph like probably ten years ago.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
I think that chained that shift happened. Yeah, and yet
there's Eric's autograph on eBay. Just waiting for someone to buy. Well,
somebody's trying to get rid of it. You know, they'd
rather have a selfie.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
I find.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
I find as as a former musician, one of the
most we're talking about finding an autograph on eBay. But
one thing that I've always dreaded as being in a
record store in like their dollar bin and finding my record.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
That, to me is feels like a.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Very bad It's not that bad. Oh, it's happened to me.
It happened to Jerry's actually in Pittsburgh. I my one
of my records is in the dollar bin, and I
was like, you know, I deserve this, This is this
is how I feel.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
I'll be happy to be any bin.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
You know, that's just an opportunity to reach a new audience.
You know how hard that is in music?

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Right, It's like a jack when Jack Black puts on
that record in high fidelity. Okay, anyhow, so you guys
started making music in two thousand and eight, and you
made music until what was the year where you kind
of took a break?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Twenty thirteen? Is that the right is am I saying that? Right?
Is that the right? Year?

Speaker 4 (14:21):
No? Fifteen sixteen, twenty fifteen sixteen.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
We played it south By Southwest twenty sixteen.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
And then Trump was elected and you went on Twitter
and you said, I can't make art in a fascist dictatorship.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
That didn't happen, but there was definitely a period where
I felt like we were an Obama era band.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Mmmm, so you guys stopped making music for a while.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
I want to talk about this during the Trump era,
not to say there was anything political about it.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
Coincided with the birth of my first born, so right,
really the band was starting to slow down a little bit.
My son was born, and I took some time back
to like be a stay at home dad basically, And
just like a lot of people, when you leave your
job to raise a family, sometimes it ends up taking

(15:19):
longer than you plan to get back to work.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Well, families are fairly complex, but a lot of people
don't realize how much work having a family is.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
I think anybody thinking about having a family listening to
this episode should know how much we know and how
much we've seen. You mean from a family as far
as famili as our parents, as being you know on
the other side, and it's you know, something you have
to be ready for.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
You know, I would have liked to have had kids
when I was a little younger. I had a child
at a I wasn't old, but older, And I don't know,
I feel like my energy levels are not what they
used to be. I was it was nine years years ago.
So whatever the math, how are the math works out
on that? Like thirty something thirty was thirty six?

Speaker 4 (16:06):
Thirty six? Yeah, I mean, which is like New York,
you know, kind of right median age for a lot
of people having kids.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
In New York. Yeah, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
My brother and sister had their kids earlier than me.
And the way my brother, whose oldest kid is twenty
one now, god, you know, he was like, yeah, you either,
you know, have your kids first and then you do
your living, you know, once they're moved out of the house,
or you do your living first and then you have
your kids. Yeah, And it seems like that's kind of

(16:39):
a way to think about it.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
I think that's a very very practical way to think
about it. Yeah, And that I think brings us back
to the music.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
So you guys were making a lot of music and
then you stopped, you had families to deal with, Like
you said, Jesse.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
Not that your life stops when you have. I get it,
but it does reorient you.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
You have different priorities. I mean, that's understandable. And you
did do a little You did do some kid music
in the interim, which was cute. Just I feel like
it was a little bit of a lark. But you
guys released some children's songs at one point. Yeah, true
or false? Eric, I see you, but we did. Yeah,
you've make it a face. Not really sure why, but.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
No, I do. I was a you know, document of
where we were at the time in our lives. It
was like, we wanted to make some music and this
was as much as we could really do. And we
were both doing, you know, the same kind of thing.
But can I ask something, can I deposit something? Maybe
get your response to it? Sure?

Speaker 4 (17:33):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
The music industry also went through like a dramatic upheaval
in the time that you began making music to even
I mean obviously till now, but there was a that's
a really interesting era where the internet, and I frankly
like that has a lot to do with mobile devices
and phones and things like Spotify appearing, the rethinking of

(17:54):
the way people even engage with music. The music industry
that you we're at in twenty sixteen is pretty different
than the one that you began in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
I would agree. I would say that the difference between
two thousand and eight and two thousand and sixteen, when
we kind of stopped for a while, was way bigger
changes than what's happened from twenty sixteen to now.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Right, No, I think that's right.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
I mean, like many things in culture, actually, I think
twenty sixteen is a pretty good place to put a
pin in a bunch of cultural things that just sort
of continued to grow and become more all encompassing.

Speaker 4 (18:35):
Two thousand and eight, we started in the talent started
in the MySpace era CDs big. The big thing in
that we printed our MySpace address on our first record
for regreta Blake is but no, that's cool, but when
we signed it is actually grown to be cool. But
when we first signed our first record deal, you know,

(18:57):
the big thing was selling MP three on the iTunes store,
Like that was the benchmark of how you you know,
just sold music basically right right right, yeah, iTunes sales.
I looked at my tune core recently and they're like,
there's iTunes sales on it. I'm always like, you know,
it's not very much, but I like, who's who bought

(19:19):
who bought the single?

Speaker 1 (19:20):
They bought a song. This is a strange you could see.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
It was like that period where like the record labels
had like sort of reluctantly accepted that, like selling digital
was what they had to do because they were built
to sell physical, right, And then they had adjusted to
selling digital in the eight years since since then, obviously
streaming became the thing that they learned to accept. And

(19:49):
in the eight years from twenty sixteen till now or
seven years, it's not it doesn't feel that different. I mean,
TikTok is I guess a big huge difference, and social
media is I guess a big huge difference. But that's
a little bit more on the marketing side of things.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
But isn't everything marketing to some degree?

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Now?

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Is it more than ever? I mean, maybe I don't
want to go down a rabbit hole here, but I
might for a moment. I mean you should, you know,
when you think about the progression of how we even
listen to music. Yes, there are all these technological changes, right,
it's streaming now versus buying an album or whatever.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
But Also.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
What music is to people has changed in the sense
that if you go back to like pre internet and
pre music music being readily available on the Internet, or
things that are like music for instance, video or streaming
like content. You know, music is in many ways like
the cultural carrier. Like there's not a lot of things

(20:47):
that permeate culture in the way that music does it.
And it permeates through like radio and MTV, yes, of course,
but much more gate kept channels of distribution, but also
much more universal channels of distribution. Right, So in the
nineteen eighties, like your culture was music, Like people identified

(21:09):
culturally through music, right, I mean when you think about
the subgenres of music, right and you think about like
punk rock or you know whatever, it wasn't just like
people listened to music. They were identifying who they were
through music. And I feel maybe this is just me
randomly plucking signals out of thin air, But doesn't it

(21:32):
feel like what music is to people now doesn't carry
the same cultural weight in a way, Like I feel
like people listen to music to be seen listening to
music or to talk about listening to music. But I
don't know how much there's like people who define who
they are through music the way they used to. And
maybe this is just an old person talking.

Speaker 4 (21:49):
I think you're wrong, really yeah, I mean I think
it's changed. But like the Internet has accelerated fandom like
in an unbelievable way across the board, and music is
probably the place where you see it most. I mean,
people identify.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
But is fandom the same thing. I'm not sure it is.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
So I agree with you that it's less like I'm
a punk rocker and it's.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
More like I'm a Swift d Yeah, but that's a
that's a pretty big difference, of course it is, you know.
I mean, yeah, I see what you're saying. But like
I feel like Taylor Swift fandom is not the same
thing as as discovering like this world of music and
then having it at, you know, sort of shape who
you are as a person, which happened to a lot

(22:34):
of people.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
I think it is for them. I think it's I
do think it is not that different, Like it's an identity,
you know, it's Taylor made no unintended in that case
for like, you know, a certain type of consumption that's
different than it was back in back in the day.

(22:55):
Like we're viewing the lens through like one particular brand
or ill right. I mean, first of all, there are
definitely people who identify as like I'm into country, I'm
into no.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Of course people still there's still people who find there,
you know, find themselves through music. But I'm saying that,
like there was a period where what was on the
radio was, Oh, just lost my video for some reason.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
It's too hot. Your takes are No.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think my camera overheated, which is unfortunate. They put
the air on in here. Maybe it's too warm in
this room.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
This happened to us on stage once at Governor's Ball.
Oh really yeah, like you're what what wait?

Speaker 1 (23:32):
What what?

Speaker 4 (23:33):
Fan? Our computer overheated?

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Overheated.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
It was just like no, sorry overheated.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
Yeah, no, it did an it was, but I think
the people out there thought we were doing like a
remix because it sounded all crazy.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
What did you do?

Speaker 4 (23:48):
We stopped the show and they brought out a fan.
They literally brought out a fan and put it on
our computer. I was like, this will never work. Yeah,
and I reset the computer and it worked and we
finished the set and like I actually learned a really
important lesson that day because I was like this is

(24:09):
the most mortifying and humiliating thing that can happen. The
worst has happened. We're on a big festival stage, there
are thousands of people watching us. We are completely exposed
and vulnerable because we rely on the technology. We don't
have a backup plan. That literally the worst happened. And
then everyone I talked to afterwards was like, great show,

(24:30):
And I was like, didn't you I was like, oh,
that was really hard. They're like, what are you talking about.
I was like, well, we had these technical problems. They're like, oh, okay, Yeah.
I was like, no one thinks about you as much
as you think about you.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
And also at a.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
Festival especially, it's like people paid four hundred dollars for
those weekend passes or whatever, Like they want to have
a good time, and they're going to have a good time.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
So they're going to shape their own reality to just
to kind of smooth over the rough patches.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yes, yeah, I mean that's interesting. They were very understanding
of what was happening, and I think you know, there
was a roaring applause when the computer booted up and
we went back right.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, let's sort of I get that. It's sort of
in a way you overcame you all together overcame a
difficulty to party.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Odd.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
There were like ten awkward minutes.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
I don't think most people really knew or understood.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
What'd you do?

Speaker 3 (25:24):
It was ten minutes. It was ten minutes. I don't know.
It felt like an eternity, but it was probably.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah, it was certainly like too long.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, Now you can just plug in an iPhone. You'd
be fine. You have something, you have something else with
songs on it.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Right, we always had that and we never used it once.
I don't know why we didn't. We always had like
an iPod or we had a backup for a while
that we ever did come back. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
So getting back to the music thing, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
To me, when I think about the industry of music,
I think it's like one of the hardest, ugliest, you know,
most difficult places to create art. It's a real industry
of haves and have not. I mean, everybody everything is
to some extent, but music is especially like brutal in
the sense that you're kind of putting your A lot
of people are putting their like heart and soul into
this piece of work, and often like it's really performance art, right,

(26:14):
like you have to perform it, like in many ways
you have to literally perform it, and a lot a
lot happening in this question.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
It it's just the way music had changed.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Have any impact on your decision to step back to
focus on other things? Was there any bit of that
those in that decision? Was there any bit of like,
you know, it's hard to juggle both things, But does
it feel like the landscape went and moved in a
different you know, in a way that you guys, I
don't know, didn't like.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
No, I'll give my answer, then Eric can give his,
which is I don't think the landscape shifted in the
sense for the decision. I think it's always been hard
for people to make music their living and their job,
whether it's two thousand and eight or nineteen eighty five
or twenty twenty three. So I do think that it

(27:03):
factored into my decision about wanted to take a step back.
It factored into my day to day decision making. It's like,
do I want to hire a babysitter for eight hours
to go over to the studio with Eric and like
maybe write a.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Song right kind of a luxury?

Speaker 4 (27:19):
That seemed like a hard thing to do, But in
terms of what you're saying, like in the ways that
it changed. I don't remember feeling like, hey, man, if
it was two thousand and five, then we could sell
these CDs, I'd be right back out there. But nowadays,
with the Spotify and the no I don't remember thinking that.
I mean it was hard in two thousand and five too.

(27:41):
I mean it was never an easy thing. So I
don't remember feeling like, you know, there's other artists that
might disagree with me, people who made a living off
of CDs, which like I never did, so right.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
You didn sell a lot of CDs that we're saying.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
I never like lived through the era of like, oh
I sold my record enough time? Is that like that's
where my income comes from. So I don't remember feeling like, oh,
things have changed in the way I don't really want
to do this anymore. I was more just like, oh,
I have these other responsibilities. This is a hard way
to make a living. I want to find a way
to make music, but I don't know if I want
to organize my whole life around it or not.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Right, I mean, Eric, do you have a response to
this question. Yeah, I mean, it's not the kind of
business you can expect to have a paternity leave package
from so right, I don't know pretty much. I agree
with everything Jessie said.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
We're not talking about the like do I want to
keep making music in some form or another? Like do
I want to keep writing songs? Like that's a constant
I think, I mean, I think we know the answer
because you just released a new record. Yeah, but even
without doing a new record. It's like the discussion we're
having is about like the job of it, I think,
more than the art of it.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Right, Yeah, there are plenty of people who make records
you know, at home for themselves after eight and they
enjoy it very much.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah, like it and that's good enough.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
That's what I do.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
That's what I do.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, yeah, and you don't need other parts of it.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Well, what I what I discovered is is what if
I was making music just like for fun?

Speaker 3 (29:20):
If it was just for fun? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Anyhow, Sorry, I didn't mean to get into this like thing.
And maybe it's my thing honestly because I think about
it a lot about like doing jobs that are the
things that you're passionate about, and what it's like to
turn something that you feel really strongly about, like creatively
into something that becomes you know, work, which maybe this
is well trod territory, but I think it's yeah, you know,

(29:44):
I just think it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
It's a bad business, and I wouldn't encourage anybody to
do it unless they felt like it was their calling
and they were passionate about it and wanted to do
it no matter what. And that's what you kind of
have to think, like, you know, like you're like, this
is what I do right, right, You kind of have
to have that attitude, especially if you're going as long
as like, you know, I personally feel like I am right.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Well, I mean, you've been in bands since how old
were you when you were in your first act?

Speaker 4 (30:09):
I've done in my whole life.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
It's all I know how to do. It's all that
I do well.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
I mean, you and I used to play music together
in our basement when we were teenagers, like like young
teenager when I got old.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Were you in your first band? Like, first real band
was it Don Cab? I was Storm and Stress. Storm
and Stress was pre right pre Don Cabin And that's
the first real band.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
Yeah, there was no brother's band. You guys never did
show together.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
We jammed and played.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
We played a block party.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
Right played the block party. We did Battle of the
Bands in Mount Leban.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
Tell me about them. What it was your set?

Speaker 3 (30:39):
We just talked. I just saw Scott. Did I tell you?
Did I tell old friends Scott? The first thing he
mentioned to me was, honestly, even right now, I can't
remember the name of the band is something vulgar.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
But remember when we did the thing at the Battle
of the Band.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, it was like the name of the band was
something like a lot of Dysentery or something.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Of the band was lot of dissentery.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
I don't even have to I can't believe I fucking
remembered it because I remember almost nothing.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
He remembered all the songs. He's like, I remember bagels
and cream cheese. You know we do the do we
do six sixty six? The beast inside of me who
was singing. Scott was our singer. He was a wild man,
still is a wild.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Did he do any of our songs that we You
and I did that we we can't. We Eric and
I had did like fake No, we had our own songs. Yeah,
we had on like thrash songs. This is Eric on
guitar and you on drums. Yeah, and I think me
singing in different for different songs. When we were first
playing in our basement, the songs were like I would say,

(31:38):
we were sort of joking. The songs were all funny,
like kind of like sludgy metal, like demonic metal, sort
of related things.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Wanting to be serious, but with like enough self awareness
that you're not really that thing, right.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Like one of the songs six six and then in
parentheses the beast inside of me that was the and
I wasn't serious.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
I mean I was thirteen or something. It was I
thought fun funny.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
It seemed funny like some like some forty one like
it was kind of but not some forty one style music.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
It was very different than that. But they obviously weren't
taking themselves too seriously. Yeah, but I don't know if
we performed any of those anyhow. Yeah, we played Battle
of the Bands. Eric and I didn't make music together
till we were till we were much older, till he
had had a music career and I'd had a music
career separately, aside from Flood of dysentery. Flood of dysentery,
which was just for fun. It was for I think

(32:29):
It started with me and Eric playing and then there
was some battle of the bands in a suburb where
our friends went to high school, and we were like
we should do it, and it was like the It
was like three of Eric's friends and me playing drums
and Eric and it was nobody was taking it seriously.
It was a complete joke. It was like it was
something to do. It was the culture that that that

(32:49):
begat jackass, that was that we also we were doing.
We were like skating And there was a famous story
about one of Eric's friends that he went into uh
he went into like Weddy's in order to frauds and
then when he got the frosty, he smashed it into
his face and you know, every thought it was like
amazing because it was just so stupid. And I think,

(33:09):
like that's kind of like the vibe. It was like
amazing because it was so stupid. As how my memory, Eric,
does this sound wrong? My misremembering sounds hazy, hazy, hazy.
It was a pretty specific memory for me, honestly.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
But I have a vague memory, a vague memory.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Jess, you kind of have a skeptical look on your face.
I'm trying to figure out, Oh.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
Oh, you guys sound like really cool, dumb teenagers and
doing those things. That sounds great, And you were not sarcasm.
Now you're sarcastic right now. No, I'm saying. You were
saying how you missed doing it for fun, and then
you immediately told this story about when you did it
for fun. Yeah, totally for fun.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
But I think like even at a professional level, you
kind of have to approach it as like a thing
you enjoy, and the reward of it is like you
get to do a thing that's fun for your job, right. Yeah,
So for me that's like I'm not I'm not. I
don't feel guilty when I'm having fun making a song, right.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
But the inverse of that is the thing you do
for fun becomes a job, right, And like when things
become a job, they often become less fun.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
It is weird, like with music that it's one of
the few things where it's like success is determined by
just being able to make any living off of it, right.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Not being too stupid rich, but like, yeah, oh, I
don't have a I don't have a day job.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
I just do this, right. There's a lot of careers,
creative careers that are like that, and you know, I
tell people, well, I was most was my job for
almost ten years, and people are like, oh my god.
And it does actually put I would say, yes, in
the top percentage of for sure musicians in the world.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
That's correct.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
There's a vassie of people who would love to make
a living, any kind of living ever, on music and
will never do it.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
And I felt it very, very, very fortunate to be
able to live that life for the time that I
was able to do that. But what does that say
about the how we value music? You know, it's you know,
I can't help but feel like music is sort of
returned in some ways to this pre commercial era when

(35:11):
it was just like music existed in your life because
there were people playing it. And I think as an industry,
we've it's just sort of coalesced on so few, so
few people, right that now the majority of music is
just something that exists around us.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Oh that's interesting, actually.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
I mean I had this singer and songwriter Penelope Scott
on the show, and I became like obsessed with her music.
I just think it's super fucking interesting. It's extremely weird,
and it's like a mixture of like folk music and
chiptune stuff, and you know, she got popular on TikTok,
But like I think, to ninety nine out of one

(35:50):
hundred people that I mentioned her too, nobody knows who
she is, and yet she has a following where she
does shows. And I mean, you know, maybe I'm like
countering the point that I made earlier about you know,
how we identify ourselves to music or whatever. Maybe it's
more possible than ever because there's more music than ever, right,
I mean, we're we're a wash in new music, in
different music, and you can reach more people like than

(36:14):
ever before. When you were making music, Eric, at the beginning,
it's like, to find Eric's music, you had to be
somebody who read a weird newspapers or magazines or listened
to lived in a place that had a record store.
Like the barrier to finding that music was so high.
Right now it's insanely low. But we have this inverse

(36:37):
situation where it's just like, you know, there might be
millions and millions and millions of people who know that
song of that artist you were talking about, who have
no idea who sang it.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
That's correct, and that is actually that is the case.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
And we talked a bit about the kind of way
that music spreads on TikTok and how people remix it
and use it in all these different contexts. And it's
like the that's I mean, I don't know, that's the
same thing as like finding your fan base. That's like,
you know, your music can find a home, but not
necessarily one where you know you're you're connected to it.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
That's the difference between listeners and fans, right, And so
like people now and all the marketing you're talking about
is like how do we connect listeners to fans? How
do we turned listeners into fans?

Speaker 3 (37:17):
Right? That's really interesting.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Actually you're making me rethink my I feel like I
came into the.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Conversation with a very dour attitude about music, thinking like
and in fact, Laura and I were talking about this
last night about this the way that people used to
kind of like define their personality because they had to
be your thing about like if you wanted to find
Eric's music, you had to you know, have a record
store in your town or read like the city paper
or whatever it is. But also like it was your network, right,

(37:46):
your network was your network, you know, like but you
know the people you knew if they were into it
would like lead you into it, and then you could
go further into this thing and you'd feel like it
was yours. Like like I don't think Swifties, it's not
quite the same thing as Swifties because it's because it's
a very productized version of that thing. You know, they

(38:06):
didn't know what to do with One Hit Wonders at
some point, like they didn't know what to do with
people who had to hit. But then like you know,
maybe they knew somebody like something about them, but they
couldn't fgure out how to like extract anything more from them.
And then I think in the nineties we figured out
how to like turn like One Hit Wonder Disney teens
into like lifetime sort of like artists like Britney Spears.
And I think a lot of it has to do

(38:27):
with like figuring out how to productize, how to productize fandom,
how to productize like this feeling that you are part
of this club that is special to you. But that's
not the same thing as finding it on your own,
you know, that's anyhow, But to your point, there are
things you can find on your own, perhaps more than ever,
and maybe.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
That's I think the like fundamental essential part of music,
which is like that it is accessible, it delivers emotional
depth really easily and really quickly, and visceral impact like
it physically moves you. And the fact that like you
can acquire it passively, so like there's an ambientness to

(39:07):
music that doesn't exist with like movies or TV doesn't
work that way anymore. You're not just like flipping and
you stumble upon something.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Right, No, that's right. TikTok is the closest thing we
have to flip in at this point. Actually, sure, they're right,
that's true. Yeah, but music has always had it.

Speaker 4 (39:22):
You could passively acquire it, so like you could hear
the song ten times without trying, and then you'd be like, oh,
I like that song, right, you know. It's one of
the reasons that music infiltrates us so deeply and people
connect with it so deeply. None of that's changed.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
That's interesting. You're giving me a it's a weirdly positive
view on the whole thing.

Speaker 4 (39:43):
That's me for me, Like aging gracefully is like always
trying to find a way to sort of be open
to how music and the world has changed and the
experiences that people are having with music are mean just
as much to them as they did to me.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Hmm.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
I think it's really important to remain focused on that.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
But I want to talk about the record because we've
sort of circled around the fact that you guys put
out So I was getting to as we got into
this whole conversation about like the nature of music and
how it affects people and how people come to it,
it was the fact that you kind of went away
from it and then came back to it, and you know, listen,
I have Look, I'm biased because you know, I know

(40:25):
you guys obviously, Eric, Eric is my brother, and Jesse.
I know you very well, and I know a lot
about you as people, as humans outside of the music.
And I don't want to have a conversation where people
to have conversations about music. They're like, what's I actually
I was joking about at the beginning, like tell me
about this new album, what's it all about?

Speaker 3 (40:40):
And I don't want to do that.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
I don't think we need to, but I am curious
to know, like why it felt like there was a
moment here, or why I felt like these songs needed
to exist. Was there something that spurred you to like
make this thing real after all the time, or was
it just like you had the time to do it.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Yeah. I think after the pandemic started and when I
came back to New York after being away from New
York for a while and I had not been working
on music, I opened up the computer just to see
what I had last been doing. And I can't say
what happened in that moment. I heard it and I
was like, this was actually good. Was what was I

(41:22):
doing with this? And that happened more and more as
the pandemic was happening. We were inside our apartment, you know,
and I kept going back to music, sort of like
how I've always done when I'm in a time of crisis,
which is like go to the guitar, go to the room.
You know. When I was a teenager, I would go
up to my room and blast a record when I

(41:42):
was mad or angry or sad or whatever. And I
think that that happened in the pandemic, and I had
the opportunity to return to it in like more of
a way than most people probably do, Like, oh, I
actually had a band, and I have things under my
belt that I can continue on with. Should should I
choose to do so, And then you know, as I

(42:03):
started making more and more songs, I was like, well,
I got to talk to Jesse about it and see what,
you know, what's what's next, what to do with it,
you know, and deciding to call it tan Lines at
a time where it didn't necessarily feel like it was
developed in a way that Tan Lines typically developed an album. Uh,

(42:24):
you know, I wasn't sure if I should even call
it that.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
So, I mean that's interesting though, like in this period
where people were really and I'm not trying to say
this is like a pandemic record. I know you've kind
of shy away from the concept of it. I think
everything after the pandemic is a pandemic something. So yeah, right, well, yes,
of course these I don't think these songs speak to
my experience in the pandemic. But what you're describing of this,

(42:47):
like you're doing this thing on your own and then
coming back to this partnership with Jesse, has a real
like reflection of a pandemic sort of state of mind
in the sense that everybody was, you know, separate. I'm
not trying to read into this, I swear, but everybody
was separated and doing their own thing, and now we're
like kind of pulling back together. And I feel like,
to some extent, the way the record developed, knowing that

(43:09):
you had worked on a lot of these songs on
your own and then you and Jesse sort of came
back together to put the record, to build the record,
I mean, I think it's I don't know, maybe it's
reflective of that era of our lives.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
I think that it has evolved in such a way
that like there's a there's a full returning to work
story built into this.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
Definitely.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Your first video was a Zoom presentation.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
Yeah, basically yeah for the rec met Yeah, well it
was it was like I was joking, like, you know,
we're in our remote work era now, so like.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
That was the right and that's essentially, yeah, this is
return this is your return to office.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Though really.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
I think that you know, Eric and I as experiences
are pretty different in that like I went and found
other jobs and like before doing music, I was had
I was an archivist for ten years and like once
we took a break, I like went out and took
a job at YouTube and ed Nike and I have
had this like brand career also, right, I think, you know,

(44:14):
that difference between us has always been part of the
creative magic between us. I would say, yeah, and you know,
Eric is a songwriter and has been writing songs. I
also think that like, yeah, COVID twenty twenty shutdown, that's
certainly was a factor. But also like, I feel like

(44:35):
I'm at a place now with like my kids are
a bit older where I'm looking ahead and I'm just
kind of being like, all right, you know who am I?
You know, I'm midlife right, midlife crisis shit right. So
it's like I'm like, do I do I really want
to say goodbye to the part of myself that like
did music for ten years or can I find a
way to incorporate that part of myself into my life now?

(44:58):
So when Eric came to me and being like I
wrote all these songs, I want to do it and
I think it could be a talance record, but you
would have to be involved, I was like, all right,
let's talk about what that means and let me see
how how I can get involved in a way that
makes sense. And I'm now at this place where I'm like,
I think Tannlines is this like evolving project. I keep
kind of describing it as like those documentaries, those films

(45:20):
like seven up, fourteen up, Yeah, which I've seen none
of them.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
You understand the conception.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
I understand them conceptually, where it's just like, oh, yeah,
like we did a kids record when we were on
quote unquote paternity leave, and now it's like we're in
this remote era where like Eric's in the country and
he's writing songs and I'm coming up there to help
him finish them. I'm like, I would love it if
we just found a way to keep doing this in
the forms that our lives have taken on.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
The idea that you could go away from it and
come back to it is interesting to me. It's not easy.
I mean, it's it's you don't just come back to
where you left off, you know, right, and so so
one of the things that's been really interesting about this
is coming back after being away for so long and
not you know, not seeing how much the business has changed,

(46:19):
which is like a thing people say or whatever, but
you know how hard it is to reconnect with people
you once were easy to reach, Right, you know their
lives have changed too, Right, They've had families, and they've
they don't go to shows anymore, and so so re
just rediscovering that or discovering that it's been really interesting and.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Also presented challenges too, just to piggyback on the stuff
that you guys are saying right now, like there is
a and I feel like, Eric, well you played me
demos of some of this music, and I feel like
I don't know if I ever you ever really answered
my question, but like I felt like there was a
component and maybe this brings us full circle in some
way of some of these songs where like I feel

(47:05):
like you're winking at things, You're you're not joking, not joking,
but having fun with things with like foreign like song
forms in a way that feels like liberated from not
not that earlier tan Line stuff felt like bottled up.
But to me, there's songs on the record where I'm

(47:27):
like Eric's like there's like like Burns effect.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
You should hear a song, you should hear some of
the ones that didn't make the help with.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Right, but like that is a song like I take
it very I take it seriously as a song, but
there's also an element of it and this is maybe
this is maybe this is flood dystantery, but this is
the undercurrent of of no pun intended to flood Distaria
or whatever we did in our basement, where it's like
taking something very seriously that has an element of I

(47:55):
think play.

Speaker 4 (47:56):
I think it is. Yes, I think it's a way
to describe what you're getting at I think there. I
think on that song in particular, and in some other
parts of this album, Eric, and I'm sorry to speak
for you, but like it is like playing a little
bit more than we had in the past, than talents
had in the past. And I think that's an interesting

(48:17):
and I think a little like inspiring shift to see
like at a we think of like play as being
a childhood, childhood thing, right and you know you stop playing,
you know. But I also think that there's a version
of aging growing, getting a certain kind of confidence and
security to be able to play around in that I

(48:37):
saw on this album that I hadn't really seen from
Eric in the past.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
I would agree, Yeah, I don't want to and I
don't want to get too personal, but I will say this, like,
you know, I'm in therapy, like any good you know,
a person of my age is and should be.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
But I talked to I've been.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Talking a lot about about play this play thing, and Eric,
I don't want to, you know, talk too much about
although I did talk about our childhood on one of
these episodes like a while ago, where I went through
my entire history of how I ended up doing what
I'm doing. And I think that like we actually didn't
have in many ways, like when we were kids, we
did not have like as much opportunity to play as
like we probably should have, because there was a lot

(49:13):
of really weird shit going on, like a lot of
really hard stuff like not going to school and and
dealing with that like as as a thing in our lives.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
I thought you just stayed home and played. No no, no.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
No, But I think, but I think at a time
when there is like natural play, there was a lot
of stuff going on that is like actually very really
stressful and really like kind of like a lot of
mental overhead that I don't I haven't thought that much
about ever. And then you know, now I'm like, well,
why do I do certain things that I do or
why do I feel certain ways that I feel? And
it's like, oh, maybe there's like a chunk of me
that needed to get that out somewhere else. And I

(49:46):
think music is one of those places I think, like
the stuff I make is for me personally. I mean,
it is one of those places where it's like there's
some element of like create creativeness that feels like unbridled,
like untethered, and I think, like, yeah, I think like
this record it's interesting to me because I hear that
in the music. And again I might be projecting or

(50:10):
reading too much into it about our like you know, history,
but I will say this idea of play and of
like doing something loose and like not taking it too
seriously and that leading to like really interesting art is
just generally interesting to me, but also like an exciting
but like I think it's like you guys have found

(50:30):
something on this record that and again I say this
with a totally biased opinion, it's quite exciting, and uh,
thank you anyhow, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
That's just I don't want to end on just like compliment, but.

Speaker 4 (50:43):
I'd love to.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
I think what it returns to, very briefly, though, is
is your idea of what's fun and what isn't right playing?
Why do we play? This is fun? Right? So you
should play and you should have fun all the way
till you can't anymore, right, right, and find ways always too,

(51:06):
and if you're lucky enough, maybe you can make it
your job.

Speaker 4 (51:09):
But then that's when it stops traditionally being correct. Yeah,
that's the that's the challenge.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
And maybe having that period of where your job was
something totally different allows you to go back to it
as play. I mean, that's the thing that's interesting to me,
and that is what I hear on the record. In
a lot of places, I'm.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
Really inspired by, like the later albums of some like
legacy artists when they were like in middle age. I
know it's something Eric has talked talks a lot about,
but like that sort of freedom that happens when it's
like the Rolling Stones working on like Black and Blue
or whatever it was. They're like, yeah, they're forte I

(51:47):
know that, Like those aren't considered like stealing steel wheels,
like steel wheels, Yeah, yes, yeah, And I'm actually not.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
That's there are a lot of people who are steel
In fact, Laura and I talk about her dad is
a steel Wheels era Rolling Stones fan, like that's when
he came to the Royd Stones, and there's a lot
of people like this fun is some good shit in there.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
I just think it's like an interesting perspective, like looking
back having done a whole career and then like still
doing it and looking back, it's a pretty like privileged
position because a lot most people don't get those chances
right right. So I think that like there like are
little indie, you know, small version of that is like

(52:31):
an interesting thread in this album and something i'd love
to like keep keep pulling at.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
Well. I hope that you too listen.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
I know that we gotta we get a wrap of
That's a very NPR like closing for me.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
I do want to say one thing though, before we go.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
I want to say one thing.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
I turn the air conditioning on in here, and I
turned my camera back on, and I do believe that
the air blowing on it has cooled it down enough
to allow me to continue doing a video here. So
turns out out that just put a fan on it,
no matter what it is, if it over, he's just
get a fan on it, you'll be fine. I think
that's my big takeaway from this conversation. Give it a

(53:09):
chance to cool down, Give it a little chance to
cool down.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Yeah, they brought out was it a I can't remember
it was a box fan or an oscillating fan.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
No, it was like it was like a felt like
construction equipment. Oh maybe it was one of those steel
like floor fans or something. Propped it up on a morn.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
I'm trying to bring this to a more philosophical place, Kyles,
Can you stop talking about the fan. I'm saying, like
a lot of great things, like your computer that shut
down from overheating, you give it a little time, give
a little space, put a fan on it, let it
cool down, and people say, you know what, people say,
that was a great show. All right, let's wrap it up. Okay, great, listen.
I know we could talk for many hours, and in

(53:49):
fact we have and we will. I know this for
a fact, because we'll never be able to escape each other.
I mean there's definitely some stuff you know we didn't
touch on. Wow, really, but no, I just think.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
That, like, I don't know how much you prepare for
these conversations, almost not at all. I think you should
spike your interviews with like like one or two Nard
War type zingers that just are far out of left
field because.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
You because you're my fucking brother. I mean, there's all
kinds of ship I could us. I think the flood
of dysentery was pretty nardy one.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
I think we got I think we got into some
pretty deep cuts on this one.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Actually.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
Like the fact that scott Iella was mentioned at all,
I think is a big I got.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Is he related to the Iyello's pizza family.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
No, No, I don't think so. I think it's a
common Italian last name.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
I think. And yeah, but in Pittsburgh there's the the
Neighborhood pizza shop.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
No, scott Iella was famous for, but getting the getting
going into Dary Creator where it was and ordering a
cone and then smashed into his face immediately. I think
it was actually Dairy Queen. I think I couldn't remember
if that was Scott or not, right, but I think
Scott was always Scott was a guy who was like
always like he put something down his pants or whatever.
He'd be like, you know, put the like it pour
this entire punch bowl down my pants or something.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
It's very jackass.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
My recollection of that era of your Friends was there
are like a lot of jackass style shenanigans going on,
and that's really like the era that that turned into
the Jackass era.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
That era was kind of like that.

Speaker 4 (55:14):
Yeah, they were like, how do I be terrible at
skateboarding but still make content?

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Well?

Speaker 1 (55:21):
I think they.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
I think they paid the road for a lot of YouTubers,
you know, and you know this, they set the stage
for a lot of mister beasts.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
That's future president, mister Beast to you, President Beast.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
All right, well, hey listen, guys, this is great.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
We gotta do it again sometime. Thanks Josh, I love
being here, Thanks for having us, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Well, that is our show for this week. I have
to say, you know, a flood of dysentery. I haven't
thought about it. For such a stupid name, so like
teen boy, just such a teen boy name, trying to
shock people with something stupid and gross, very garbage pale kids,

(56:12):
real garbage pale kids situation going on with that naming.
That conversation really took me back, boy. I mean, I'd
love to get my hands on some recordings of flood
of dysenteria. I mean, that has got to be some
pretty heinous stuff. Anyhow, all right, we should wrap up.
We've gone on far too long, or maybe not long enough.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
No, probably too long Anyhow, that is our show for
this week.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
We'll be back next week with more what future, and
as always, I wish you and your family the very best.