Live From LA - Part 3

Jordan speaks with producer Adam Lasus and actors Charlie Saxton and Tim Jo about some of their most rewarding work.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
From Hollywood, California. It's thedirt Back Culture Hour on ninety seven one
the Free Hey Now, I'm yourhost, George along with me, as
always is TC Fleming, but thisis not always so TC is not here.
We've got Adam Lazis in the house, my bro, my pro do,

(00:21):
sir. We've got Charlie Saxton starof every size screen you could imagine,
including the one that's speaker sized,the speaker size screen. We've got
Tim Joe star of every size screenyou can imagine as well, including the
ones that are speaker sized, thespeaker size screen. We are the dirt

(00:42):
Bag Culture Hour with you today,coming to you from Hollywood, California.
A very special limited series of theDCH limited to this one episode in which
we're getting to the heart of thematter of what's the matter with every issue
could imagine in Hollywood, including what'sthe deal with these gas prices? And

(01:07):
why aren't there protected left hand turnsat the stoplights? What's your biggest pet
peeve about Los Angeles County, Charlieoh Man, Well, I would definitely
say the traffic. Georg's It's it'scrazy that how about that traffic? How

(01:29):
about that traffic. Don't get mestarted on the traffic. Can we talk
about the traffic? Georg's yeah,I mean it takes it takes five miles
anywhere else, it takes you twelveminutes, five miles in Los Angeles,
it's it's upwards of an hour.It's a crazy thing to see that something
is only four point one miles awayand it's gonna take you forty five minutes.

(01:52):
Listen, though it's bad everywhere else. The people of Dallas Fort Worth
who are tuning in right now,who are setting on six thirty five,
are like, what are they talkingabout? It's the same here, except
out there the streets are paved withsparkles there. In fact, there's some
sparkle. Yeah, there's some sparklesstreets, Hollywood Boulevard out here. Tim,

(02:14):
Where did you grow up? Idon't recall what part of the world
you're from. You know, Iwas born in Dallas, Texas you were,
and then I grew up in Texasyou did? Yeah, oh man,
I got you were a local boywhen you were part of that movie
about slamming bands. What part ofTexas did you grow up in? I

(02:39):
was in Houston, like the Katieside yeah, okay, and then I
went to school in San Antonio.Okay, awesome, awesome, awesome stuff.
Well, I sincerely apologize it hasbeen a few years since we hung
out that I'm talking to a fellowTexan. But you know, the traffic's
crazy there, Adam, would youmind telling us a little bit about what

(03:00):
it's like going to the same highschool as Will Smith? Oh Man,
Well, it was funny. Iwent to West Philly Highs lower school,
born and raised, yea, andplayground. I didn't He was in my
year and in my grade, butI had no classes with them. I
never knew him, Okay, butI was always, you know, always
pointed out like, hey, youknow the beginning of the show where they

(03:21):
have the playground, and I believethat that actual playground is the playground that
I was, that I played on, and that was in front of my
school. That's incredible Philly. Sothat was interesting and West Philly was was
wild. So from what you knewabout Will Smith, did he strike you
as a guy who would slap someoneat the oscars? Even back then,
even though I didn't know him andnever saw him, I knew that he

(03:45):
someday would do that. Outrageous,Charlie, if you don't mind me asking,
I know we're we have to dancearound the subject again. Segment three.
We want to let you know westand in solidarity the Writers Guild of
America and SAG and every other union. Shout out to iotsy, shout out
to the teamsters. I myself ama member of Local forty seven of the
AFM right here in Hollywood, California. I'm in the Musicians Union. So

(04:11):
we probably shouldn't even be talking aboutmusic for two hours, but here we
are. We do stand in solidarity, nonetheless. But can I ask you
a little bit about a role,a couple roles that I knew you were
in at one point or the other. And if if we can't, just
say we can't, Okay, ButI know one in fact had to do
with a series and it was ona premium. Uh can we say cable

(04:34):
cable network? Perhaps? Can wesay network? Anyways, you're in one
of my favorite memes, So Ijust wanted to know what it feels like
to be mimified. Being memified waswas was pretty awesome. Yeah, are
you're saying crushing it? Killing it? Being it felt like Yeah, to

(04:55):
be memified. I did feel likeI was crushing it cool in that aspect.
Yeah, it was like most peoplewho are memified, you don't expect
that you are going to be memified. You're kind of just doing the thing.
And it was an awesome work experiencefor myself. And then next thing

(05:16):
I know, there's gifts of mejust being memified and posted all over comments
sections and still see it to thisday. Oh that makes me feel nice.
Yeah, that was and it was. It was. It was sincerely
unsuspected. It was just like areally funny scene that I was very fortunate
to be able to do. Andthen you know, it's just one of

(05:38):
those things where people just related toit, right, and I think it
kind of just it had a lifeof its own, which you know,
it could have been bad, Iguess, but thankfully it was. It
was memified for good. If youguys are wondering what memofian we're talking about,

(06:01):
Charlie is the illustrated dog standing ina room and the room is on
fire and I'm saying this is fine, and he's saying this is fine.
That is me, or he's thestuffed sock monkey doing this. You guys
ever seen the bad taxidermy of like, it's not a sock monkey, it's
like a spider monkey. Maybe it'sa cat like I don't know, but

(06:24):
that's cool. We got a meme. We got a meme. Lord in
the House Royalty of Mimification. Well, so if I wanted to define it,
like if I was texting somebody,can I go to like that image
jiff Finder and type in what youtype in? I could probably type in
crushing it? Maybe find out areinteractive up there right now? Think of

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that special someone you haven't talked toin a while, maybe that you pissed
him off a little too much,yeah last Christmas, and uh, go
him there and just let them knowthat they're they've been crushing it. Use
your gift and you'll you'll see Charlie'sbeautiful face. But yeah, yeah,
yeah, h Adam, if youdon't mind, I don't want to embarrass

(07:09):
you, but i'd love to talkabout some of some of your favorite records
and maybe some of not your sofavorite records that you've been a part of.
I don't know which or which,but I just know that you've worked
with some a menagerie of illustrious artistsin the music in the music business.
Uh. One of my favorites ina fellow Texan is the legendary Daniel Johnston.

(07:33):
Would you mind shining and shedding alittle light? We we got to
do a sick Daniel Johnston cover withyou that Charlie was at the helm of
Us right with his band. Butyou shared with us a little bit that
you worked. You got to worka little bit with Daniel. Would you
mind you know, saying a littlebit about what that was like. Sure.

(07:55):
Very early two thousands, his UHmanager and a friend of mine,
Don Goadi, approached me who hadrecorded with me, and said, you
know, I've got a couple oftunes I want to do. That are
Daniel's tunes. Would you be intodoing it? I said, of course,
you know a big fan. Sohe came in and we recorded some
songs with him, starting on acousticguitar, UH, and then he played

(08:16):
some cool keyboards and he played trumpet, and he was a really great trumpet
player, really good trumpet. Iactually it was really fun. Uh and
did these tunes and it was avery unique thing. I mean, you
know, he rest in peace bythe time I was working in the two
thousands, you know, not themost mentally stable person. He has a

(08:37):
history of some kind of various mentalproblems, being in hospitals and various breakdowns
and things, and then crazy stuff, you know, trying to kill his
dad, flying a plane with that, you know, pretty intense, so
in the history. So uh,there was a little drama involved. But
I was a big fan and itwas a test of you know, hey,

(09:00):
working with someone very special who's unique. And he loved it. So
we did well. He wanted tocome back. Uh. Then an interesting
thing occurred where then Don called andsaid, Hey, funnily enough, Fox
is doing a show called Greg theBunny, right and right money right,
this money ud he can talk aboutit. Yeah, we can talk this

(09:24):
side Titanic, Avatar, Avatar two, Way of Water, I can talk
about it. Terminator one, Terminatortwo. Uh. So he was the
terminator asked to compose a theme song. So we did the theme song together
and turned it in and they hatedit. They did glass gloss right over

(09:46):
that right. Well, the directorloved it. The director loved it.
Yeah. The part of the storyI know is that it was an absolute
genius theme song. Oh it's great, it's great. So the go Greg
the Bunny, Greg Greg, Greg, Greg the Bunny. So the director
loved it. They hired some classicyou know, clout your classic Hollywood type
of jingle. Lame thing. Theygot Jingleheimer Schmidt. Right. If I'm

(10:13):
not mistaken, we might have beenasked to do it too. Yeah,
I can take something cheesy now,pun intended with Ween made the pizza.
Hi, there we go a pizza, the classic one where the cheese at
I don't know, I don't know. So so cool. Then Greg the
Bunny comes out and I was abig fan of it. I was psyched

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and we watched it together. Yeah, it was really cool. It's a
good show. It's a good pushingsome boundaries and some edges, very very
good. Way later the DVD comesout, and because the director loved it,
as a bonus track on the DVD, my song that I did with
Daniel was on the on the DVD. Here's the alternate theme song. Incredible.
That was really cool and a funmoment and and just uh just very

(10:58):
cool, you know, especially towork with with with someone that, uh
he's he's an icon, he's alegend. So you know, I loved
that I got to do that.I had that opportunity. I have an
incomplete Jeremiah the Frog tattoo. DidI ever show you that? No?
So I went to like a DanielJohnston. He was like performing in like

(11:18):
an empty Barnes and Noble, andI had his like art book and I
went with my girlfriend at the time, and he just looked at her and
he was just instantly enamored with her. And I handed him my art book
to sign and he signed Daniel Johnson. But he's just staring at her and
he's like, back off, Daniel, Relax. I yeah, but so

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he's just like he's just like hisstarry eyed looking at her. And you
know, he always drew Jeremiah theFrog with every signature that he did,
and he draws the frog and thenhe just hands the book back to me
and I opened it and it waslike three fourths of the way finished.
He's just like missing like a completehalf of his leg. And I was
just like, this is the mostDaniel Johnson yeah thing. It's perfect,

(12:07):
and so yeah, I had alwayswanted to get a tattooed, but then
when he passed away, I waslike I have to get this, yeah
my body, and I'm very gladthat I did. That's awesome, that
is incredible. Yeah, Adam.Also a very important record to me and
to my former bandmates was to clapyour hands to say yeah. Record easy
for me to say, clap yourhands, say yeah. Their first record

(12:30):
that you produced in two thousand andfour, two thousand and five, Right,
he came out of two thousand andfive, recorded in two thousand and
four. Yeah, And we werelistening to that all the time. And
then when we moved to Los Angelesand kind of a kind of a classic
Los Angeles story. The day wemoved in to Los Angeles, we were

(12:52):
like on the ten Freeway kind ofjust when you begin to see downtown,
when you're emerging out of the endlessInland Empire and you see the skyline of
Los Angeles. Who we were listeningto Jonesy's jukebox on Rip Now one oh
three point one Indie right exactly wasthe name of that station, And Steve
Jones from the Sex Pistols had hada had a daily mid day sort of

(13:18):
talk shows sort of any play tunesand stuff like that, and like we
had heard they were spinning some ofour music, and the day we moved
in, we heard our tune onthere and it was a really really magical
thing. And then we were gettinginto all sorts of records that were like,
like you mentioned earlier that it startedbombarding from Brooklyn and some of the

(13:41):
great stuff that was happening at thetime in Los Angeles and like early Cold
War kids and stuff like that.And we knew we were moving out here.
We had a management deal and aclassic thing where that fell apart and
guys didn't know what they were doingat all, and we just we felt
a little lost in a sense.And it was Tricia hallerin right, sort

(14:01):
of the mutual friend of another greatradio station here in Los Angeles, Casey
r W. And she had heardsome of our music when I was a
fan of it and was also afriend of you and your wife, Yes,
right, and so she sort ofdid she send you to an Oliver
Future was the band we were playing, Yeah, yeah, she did.
I was out here fresh right whenI got here in two thousand and five,

(14:24):
similar to you, Uh, ClappingHands had just been released, so
I'd moved here and it was afunny situation where I'd moved and decided to
move and the record second I gothere also setting one oh one Indie one
oh three. I guess it wasjust playing you know skin, I'm like
yellow country tea, right, andso it was kids here w So I
would hear, you know, acouple of times a day on the radio.

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I was like, Oh, that'scrazy. And all these bands from
from Brooklyn or calling me like hey, we want to come record. I
was like, well, I movedto La Yeah. Yeah. And it
was exciting to watch that that buzzbecause they had only put it out on
their own And then was that aclassic ground swell? Like was that like
that perfect sweet spot of like twothousand and five to two ten of like

(15:11):
a Pitchfork review really making a bandkind of it was? It was,
man, they had some buzz.Spin It talked about them. Pitchfork had
not talked about them. Okay,we're making the record, and there was
definitely some buzz in in New York, but they weren't playing to a lot
of people. And we made thisrecord, and I've had a great time
with it. Was psyched. Itwas quirky and fun and got to do

(15:31):
my thing and got had a reallygood time. And I'm proud of the
fact they wanted to do an EP, and I said, you know,
EPs kind of come and go,like make a full length. When they
came back, we'd be missing somehalf of that incredible When they came back
for the couple extra songs to makeit a full length, one of them
was the Skin of My Yellow CountryTeeth, and I was like, that's
the song. That's going to bethe song. Even though it was five

(15:52):
minutes long and super wild and crazy, I knew that was gonna be the
song. So I've had that nicefeeling of hey man, something pretty tools
going on here. Yeah, solong story short, Pitchfork gave it the
review of nine point three. I'mgonna say nine point two, and that
was the end boom. It justflew took off unbelievably hot from that,
so, you know, not tosay the Pitchfork band thing, but yeah,

(16:15):
they were a great band, butPitchfork elevated them and put them on
a national thing and the radio stationsare playing them without any radio promo.
They didn't even have PR or anybody. They just had people calling when people
freaking out. So it's really coolto see d I y type of thing.
And it was a low budget recordand my history as an indie producer,
most of my big records were alwayskind of them small or low budget,

(16:38):
medium budget records, and I stillalways look at that as a thing
of like, I don't need aband to come to me with this giant
budget. I'm happier to work withfriends and smaller bands that are doing something
cool that I can see where itcan go. And if you take a
chance on that stuff, in mycase, it's it's paid off because I
people come to me for, Hey, you're the guy that did that record

(17:00):
that was the cool d I Yrecord of the two thousands or this,
and I'm excited about that. I'mmuch happier to work on something that's uh,
I don't know. I feel likethere's there's more art to be made
with the less money, the betterit is. And yeah, yeah,
definitely potentially, and it's it's reallycool. It's it's part of There's a
pretty famous recording magazine called Tape Out, which focuses on uh mega producers but

(17:26):
also gives as much a lot oftimes as much uh you know, page
space to the d I Y thingand and such and love tape op.
Yeah, and that's such a coolthing. They they love you too,
And that's a great way that Iknow a lot of people learn about you,
you know, through that through thatsort of like you can do it
yourself and you can do it wellon a budget and stuff like that.

(17:49):
And so I think that's a veryvery cool thing. And and I know
for me personally, the projects thatwe've you know, that we've had a
chance to to work together on,they you know, sometimes thank you in
advance, have no budget at allor minimal ones. But like the expression
in the in the creativity that getsto flow inside of that is really cool.

(18:12):
And there's there seems to be Idon't know if less pressure is the
word, but a lot of timesit's it's just it's it isn't It's not
less pressure because that's what you wantto put on yourself and you're going to
do it whether or not you do. But it's I think it's just the
the avenue for the ability to havemore fun. Yeah, absolutely, and

(18:33):
fun is a key thing. Ithink people forget that the spirit of the
record, of the excitement of makingthe record and the feeling that's happening while
I'm making that record comes through asmuch as the snare sound or the reverb
or the songs. It's people getexcited about the invisible stuff, you know,
the feeling of it, the excitementof it, the spark of it.

(18:53):
So as a producer and engineer,your job is to capture that spark
and capture the human element of recordingand songs. And and I've it's taken
me some time, but I've focusedon that where it's like, yeah,
man, people want to hear peoplehaving a good time, or you know
the other side of it, peoplewant to hear people being really sad and
and and and and emoting in away and in a like the cure or

(19:17):
uh, darker stuff, but makingit so that whatever feeling that you're trying
to have come across, whether it'sexciting or uplifting or sad like a Sparklehorse
song, it's intense and it's realand it's emotional, right, and that's
powerful. And that's why people lovemusic so much, whether they're fans or
their musicians or their engineers or producers. It's it's that thing if you hear

(19:38):
a beautiful song and a great songand it hits you and it goes right
through you. Yeah, absolutely,Tim, would you say that it was.
Was it punk rock that led youinto music? Yeah? Because yeah,
absolutely, mainly because I think Iwas only allowed to listen to classical
music. You know, my dad'svery open minded now, and I think

(20:04):
me playing a bunch of like likepower violence in the car, like in
them stomaching it, it also openedup there, you know, their palette.
But I was only allowed to listento classical music. And then my
dad eventually got a CD players andI was like, what am I going
to listen to? He took usthe best buy. We we all chose

(20:29):
our things, and knowing what mydad would allow, I chose. I
went to the Christian rock section.Sure, took this one. Got this
one album from this band called DCTalk. Oh yeah, I was listening
to it and then one day hewalked by and he's like, what is
that? And then the title ofthat album was Jesus Freak? Right,
and so what people think it's?My dad said like, Jesus not a

(20:51):
freak and then through the album away, but like you do that album away,
but you know, the where youdo that, the more I'm attracted
to it. So yeah, thatled to like I think my fourth grade
quote unquote girlfriend got me doo Ki. My friend got me like Presidents of
the United States, and then whata great record? You know. Like

(21:14):
sixth grade, I had to joinorchestra, but I knew like the school's
coolest punk was an orchestra and hewas actually a musical savant. But he
played the bass, and I waslike, I'm just gonna do what he
does, right, So I learnedhow to play the bass. He was
an incredible, like beautiful bassist.But he was playing in like ex Power

(21:37):
butt X, which was like ourlike high school like big like like hardcore
band that was like killing it forsure, and so like he was my
idol. Yeah, and he taughtme. He showed me all the like
the cool stuff that I really gotinto after that. Yeah, it's amazing.
Well, we're going to keep theconversation going here on the Dirt Back
Culture Hour on ninety seven one theFreak. After these messages,