Drew Holcomb (Live from NYC's Cherry Lane Theatre)

In July, Malcolm Gladwell taped a live episode of Broken Record at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City. It was a wonderful night of conversation and music. Drew Holcomb—a Memphis native who has spent the past 20 years performing with his band, The Neighbors—joined Malcolm onstage for the taping.

On today’s episode, you’ll hear how growing up with strict Christian parents shaped Drew's artistic sensibilities through the handful of secular artists he was allowed to listen to, and how the crisis of faith he faced after his brother’s death led him to leave seminary and pursue life as a singer-songwriter.

You’ll also hear stripped-down performances of Drew's songs live. And you’ll get a taste of his favorite Bruce Springsteen track, “Highway Patrolman,” with impromptu background vocals from Malcolm Gladwell.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
In July, Malcolm Gladwell taped a live episode of Broken
Record at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City.
It was a wonderful night of conversation and music. Drew Holcombe,
a Memphis native who has spent the past twenty years
performing with his band The Neighbors, joined Malcolm on stage
for the recording. On today's episode, you'll hear how growing
up with strict Christian parents shaped his artistic sensibilities through
the handful of secular artists who was allowed to listen to,

(00:42):
and how the crisis of faith he faced after his
brother's death led him to leave seminary and pursue a
life as a singer songwriter. You'll also hear stripped down
performances of his own songs, including a debut, and you'll
get a taste of his favorite Bruce Springsteen track, Highway Patrolman,
with impromptu background vocals from none other than Malcolm Gladwell himself.

(01:04):
This is Broken Record, real musicians, real conversations.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Back in the spring, I was part of a traveling
variety show called No Small Endeavor. It's put on by
a friend of mine, a theologian from Nashville, named Lee Camp.
A bunch of us got in a big tour bus
left Nashville for Louisville, then Indianapolis, then Grand Rapids. Lee
and I told a story about the famous showdown between
the Suffragettes and the anti slavery movement in the mid
eighteenth century, and then a bunch of musicians played music

(01:36):
to help us tell a story. It was one of
the most fun things I've ever done in my life. Anyway,
when you're traveling on a tour bus, you spend a
lot of time talking to everyone else on the tour bus.
And along the way, I got to know the musical
headliner on the show, the singer songwriter Drew Holcombe, and
I found him so thoughtful and fantastic and full of

(01:57):
life that I invited him to come to New York
and sit down with me at eight twenty fours newly
reopened Cherry Lane Theater. And to my delight, and I
hope your delight as well, he said, Yes, Drew is
in his early forties. Beard lives in Nashville, but he's
from Memphis. He's maybe a country artist, although he would
dispute that description. His band is called The Neighbors and

(02:18):
they've been together forever, and if you've never heard his music,
you're going to hear more than a little bit on
this episode. Because I gave him only one rule before
we had our conversation. You have to bring your guitar
and it can never leave your side.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Good evening, I'll get it started with a song.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
All right, I am fairly well now, I am strong,
I am goodbye, long way from home.

Speaker 5 (03:08):
I am orchard at the start of spring. I am
a mocking bird. I love to sing it.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Now.

Speaker 6 (03:18):
I'm gonna fly. I'm gonna fly.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
I am an old road walking on my feet. I
am laughing me weeping willow trees. I'm a dog barking
a honey bee steam.

Speaker 7 (03:55):
I ain't any angel, bud.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
I've got my wings. I'm gonna fly. I'm gonna fly.

(04:17):
I'm gonna fly. I'm gonna fly. I'm gonna fly.

Speaker 7 (04:36):
I'm going to fly.

Speaker 4 (04:49):
I am moving, I am flashing balls.

Speaker 7 (04:55):
I am a gunshot.

Speaker 6 (04:57):
With my micruve phone.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
I'm a boy at the window as the summer sun.

Speaker 7 (05:04):
Sets, an old man in winter. Then more, nothing less.

Speaker 6 (05:11):
I'm going to fly. I'm going to fly.

Speaker 7 (05:23):
I'm going to fly.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
Okay, tell me why you chose that song to start.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
With, Well, that's my favorite one I've ever written. I
was figure, when I get nervous, just play something you like.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
You know, when when did you write that song?

Speaker 1 (05:58):
I wrote that song probably January of twenty twenty two.
I always tend to write a lot of songs right around,
mainly after New Year's It's a good time to kind
of get in your feelings and introspection about your life,
about the world around you, and it tends to be

(06:19):
a creative season for me.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
How do you decide you say that's the favorite your
favorite song you've ever written?

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Probably?

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah, Why what is it about that song?

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Now? Well, it was it was something about the song
kind of came out of this. I just turned forty
around that time, and I actually enjoyed all the way
things that I felt after turning forty. Everybody told me
I should be afraid of them, but I actually really
enjoyed them. Also, was kind of born an old soul.
My mom said, I was born an old man. I

(06:50):
felt comfortable in that transition already, just because of sort
of how I am. I started writing that song with
the lyric started I'm a Boy at the Window as
a summer sunsets. I had this keen memory for my
childhood of being told to go to bed before the
sun went down in the summertime, you know, and staring
at the window and seeing my neighbor whose parents let

(07:11):
him stay up, and and being sort of full of
jealousy but also sort of full of wonder And and
then also I, even though I'm not old, I feel
certain I feel old in certain ways. And I sort
of this song is kind of in the tension. Is
me just sort of embracing the tension of that, And
that tension feels more and more what I see when

(07:34):
I look in the mirror, And so I'll play that
song I feel, I feel it's like a blanket for me,
you know. And I also finally let myself admit that
I like my own music. You're not supposed to do that,
But I do like my own music.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Why you're not supposed to do that?

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Oh, it's just so you know the cultural thing you
shouldn't you know, you get if you drive down the
street and see an artist listening to their own music,
you might think, man, what an arrogant guy. But which
that happens to me with my kids sometimes because they
want to hear my songs. I just look at people,
you know, hey, yep to me listen to my own song.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
How would you describe the genre that that song belongs to?

Speaker 1 (08:14):
You know, I growing up, was the music that I
listened to a lot sort of fit in either categories
of folk or rock and roll, some country, soul, folk
rock was sort of how I framed it before this
sort of ubiquitous word of Americana kind of came around,
and it felt like they created a sort of a

(08:37):
an institutional home for artists like myself who are definitely
not country in the sort of commercial sense, and we're
not rock in the sort of new radio sense, and
we were a bit homeless. There's a lot of us,
and so it kind of created this. So that's what
I say now is Americana. But one of the great

(09:00):
things about being in a you know, quote unquote Americana
artist is there's not really a lot of rules about
what you make, how you make whether the song has
five stanzas and no chorus or you know, horns or whatever.
You can kind of do whatever you want. It just
has to be sort of made by real people in
a you know, in a real sense.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
You're from Tennessee and you live in Nashville, but you
take great pains to distance yourself from country music.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Well, it all started. I'm from Memphis, which is, you know,
two hundred miles west and south of Nashville, and we
were raised Memphians are sort of it's baked into your
childhood and you're upbringing to Haye Nashville. Yeah, it's part
of how you're raised. For instance, my parents, every fall

(09:50):
we would drive to Knoxville, where they attended school, and
we'd go to a Tennessee football game. And that's a
three hundred and eighty seven mile drive. So in eighteen years,
let's say we did it. I don't know, maybe sixteen
times in my childhood that that I can recall. And
so thirty two times through Nashville stopped zero times and

(10:12):
I forty goes right through the middle of town and
my dad would just say, there's a state capital.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
Keep on moving.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
So we grew up admiring. You know, there was some
country that that sort of leaked into my childhood. I
think there's perceptions of folks outside the South that like
everybody in the South was listening to country music. We
listened to Motown and Bob Dylan and Amy Grant, you know,
like it was this interesting mix of like gospel music

(10:43):
and you know, black soul music and then all the
my dad loved all the sort of contemporary seventies songwriter stuff,
and so there was not a lot of country music
in it.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, in my childhood.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
I want to talk a little bit more about Memphis
in Nashville in your mind. What is the difference between
Memphis and Nashville.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Well, practically speaking, I mean, Memphis is a very it's
a hometown city, meaning that most of the people that
live there grew up there. I had family from there,
grew up in the surrounding, you know, one hundred mile radius,
Whereas Nashville attracts people from all over the country, especially
in the last fifteen to twenty years, and so it's
a much sort of more use. Those two realities create different,

(11:25):
very different cultures. In Memphis, everybody knows each other, and
you know, where'd you go to school and who do
you know. It's a bit of that small town, big
city experience, whereas in Nashville, so many young people move
there because of what the city can offer them, the
opportunities that may springboard out of living there, and then

(11:45):
it's a center for I mean the big employers in
Nashville or the music business and healthcare, which are both
sort of booming and transient jobs, whereas Memphis it's you know,
these big blue collar companies like FedEx and AutoZone, and
so just creates very different cultures. And then you know, racially,
Memphis is majority African American town. Nashville is very lily white,

(12:07):
you know, so they're just they're they're very different. My
favorite story to tell about about Nashville and I moved
there was Memphis is a great food town, especially cheap food,
you know Tomali's and barbecue and great unique pizza, and
it's just a very you know, being a river town
with a lot of transients over decades, so you get

(12:28):
a lot of unique food. And Nashville had basically nothing
that I that I wanted to eat, and I would
just complain to my wife. I was like, that's nice here.
I know you're from here, and that's why I moved here,
but there's nothing to eat here that I want to eat.
And then fast forward almost twenty years and it's one
of the greatest food towns, you know, in the country.

(12:48):
Everything's there now, so it's changing. It's it's a very
sort of evolving and fluid place.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Maybe you can explain my favorite joke. It's my favorite
joke because I feel it has many, many layers, many
of which I don't understand. Okay, it's a joke from
the Civil Rights Movement era. Black man in Detroit wakes
up in the middle of the night, it's one of
those people who come off from the South, you know,

(13:15):
and then turns to his wife and said, I had
a terrible dream, and she said, what happened? He said,
I dreamt that Jesus came to me and told me
to go to Birmingham. And she says, did Jesus say
go with you? He says, Jesus said it go as
far as Memphis.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
That's a great joke, is it.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yes, it's my favorite joke of all time. It is,
like I said, because it's a joke about Jesus who
said he would be with us always.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
But but not in Birmingham.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Not Birmingham. It's a joke about Birmingham.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Like it's definitely a joke at the express dark Birmingham.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Dark dark joke. But like, why did Jesus stop at Memphis.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Well, because I mean, Jesus would love Memphis. There's there's
great food, there's great hospitality, there's great music. Like Jesus
would thrive there. Yeah, that was my experience. Jesus thrived
in Memphis.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
You listened, well, I want to go back to that
mixture of things you were listening to as a kid, Motown,
Amy Grant, what.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Was the third one, Bob Dylan.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
That's a fantastic and unusual mix of things to be
exposed to. This is is this your father or your
mother's doing? Let's push both both.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah. So my dad grew up in the in the
you know, my parents met in the third grade, and
so they they grew up seven or eight like blocks
from each other. So there's this very sort of I'm
one of twenty eight grandkids. It's like a very yeah,
there's a lot going on there that's just on my
mom's side, that include my dad's side.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
So wait, there's twenty eight grand kids on your mom's side.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
That's right. Yeah, and I'm number fourteen or fifteen, I
can remember, but yeah, yeah, so very like it'd be
hard to overstate how sort of like central Christianity and
religion was to my upbringing. Part of that was that
when I was apparently when I was like, I don't

(15:15):
even know how old, three four five years old, someone
from the church came to my parents' house and they
were everybody in their church was doing like a record
clean out of things in their house that weren't honoring
to God, and so they would get rid of all
these records that when I heard about this in high school,
I wept. I was like, oh, Dad, you had all
of these great records and original copies that they made

(15:37):
there out because it was the Devil's music that was
really too bad. You know, a lot of led Zeppelin
got thrown out and things like that. You know, I mean,
come on, yeah, gotta get rid of it, which we could.
We'll come back to this. But my first record I
ever bought was Pearl Jams ten. I was eleven year
I actually got it for Christmas from Santa Claus and

(15:59):
my dad broke the record by five pm on Christmas
Day because we had to go through the liner notes
together and there's drug references and he's like, you're you're
too young for this and break. So this was you know,
an intense an intense scene, but that some of the
things that made it through the gauntlet was Bob Dylan's
evangelical records of course, you know, slow Train Coming Saved

(16:19):
and there's another one. And then because he still made
it in there somehow his old records also got a pass.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yeah, got grandfather in Yeah, and he was Jewish, so
there's like a thing.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
There too, you know, you're allowed to have records made
by Jewish artists. So and then Motown was like it
was all you could listen to Motown except for like,
what's the you know, the great the market record. I'm
just blanking on off course, well yeah, yeah, but the
name of the record, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (16:53):
What's going on?

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Oh, which sexual healing would have.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Been was on that record, wasn't it?

Speaker 3 (16:57):
You know, what's going on is earlier? Sex I was saying,
sexually is so far beyond.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, you can only hear that the only
the only way you could hear that in my childhood
was at a wedding by the by the cover band
you know, and and so, and it still felt awkward
for everybody, but so, yeah, there was so then any
Christian music was okay. Bob Dylan was okay, and motown
was okay because it was just a bunch of love
songs and clean oldies stuff, you know, before the music

(17:22):
business cut. You know, Amy messed up.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Can you explain to a heathen New York City audience
who Amy Grant is and why she's important?

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, Amy Grant was sort of I mean, the whole
genre of contemporary Christian music was there was Southern gospel,
which is a whole different thing. So it's basically take
the songwriter model, and people started applying it to their
faith stories, which this all predates the whole Now, the
big thing is all this big ensemble worship stuff, which
was basically like every all these church bands trying to

(17:56):
sound like coldplaying you two. So Amy Grant was like
this young songwriter and she was. They created an old
radio sort of format around artists like her, and she
became the most famous and successful. And then she had
a crossover pop hit called Baby Baby that sort of
sent her into regular superstardom. And yeah, she was just

(18:20):
a very beloved woman, and she's she's also as a human,
she's like, she's honestly one of the greatest ones I've
ever met. You know, her, I know her because my
wife knew her. But I moved to Nashville again sort
of like country and Christian music. This town sucks, you know,
And then I got to know these people. I was like, Wow,
these people are all really great. This is tough.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Wait what so wait? What what denomination were your parents?

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Yeah? They they were They went to like an independent
Bible church. Yeah, so it was non denominational. It's very
they're very proud of that.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah. I was asking you about other music that that
that made it in.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah. I think basically my parents were pretty okay with
all the class So we would go see you know,
you could go see Paul Simon. They built the Pyramid
in Memphis when I was a kid, which was a
new arena where the Memphis Tigers played, And so I

(19:20):
got a job there in high school as a part
of the event staff. And so I got to see
all these concerts for free by telling people to stop smoking,
you know, and had my little yellow shirt on, and
you know, anything from boys to men as easy Top
to whatever could sell fifteen thousand tickets. I was, you know,
exposed to at a certain point that sort of the

(19:43):
rules weren't really that well enforced. It was a sort
of a young when we were young, it was very
much that way. But our alarm clock every day growing
up was my mom played piano and she would play
hymns like that was get up and go to school.
It was like up from the Gravey Rolls. You know.
She was like a whole her like whole play on
get up and go to school. You know.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
But that's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, it was great. Yeah, daily sense of humor. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
I have a theory which I very grandiosely call Gladwell's
theory of asymmetrical parenting, which is that at any given moment,
when we account for our parental influence on our lives,
we only talk about one parent. It can change over time,

(20:32):
but you try to sound on somebody. You ask somebody, yeah,
so what are your parents? People will never talk about
their parents. They will the minute you dig into it.
They only talk about one for a while. So I
would like you to give me an asymmetrical parental theory
of the jew Holcomb childhood.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
I completely disagree with that theory.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
I'm not saying that you only get only one matter.
I'm saying that at any given moment, only one matters.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
In a particular story.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Toggling, right, So it may be from you know, in
high school, it's only your mom, and then in college
it's only a year.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, I my parents are going to listen to this probably,
you know.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's the whole point.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, yeah. I think we were actually talking earlier back
backstage about how as dads you sometimes get this free
pass that it's almost like, and I've seen this. I
have three children that, especially with my daughter, she sort
of defaults to dad, You're doing great, You're awesome, even

(21:45):
if my wife Ellie has done all of the hard
work that day in the parenting space. So with that said,
I think that that's probably true in a lot of
ways that my dad had sort of an outside influence.
What did your dad do well? He was a dentist
and then he hated it so he quit and became
a financial advisor. Seriously true story.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
This reminds me my one of my favorite stories about
a friend of mine whose dad was an investment banker
and he once had a long heart to heart with
his daughter and my friend about how he felt his
career had been misspent and he made a series of
terrible choices and he had squattered his life in a

(22:28):
profession with no meaning. And she was very moved by
this because she didn't realize her father had this other side.
And she said, Dad, so what do you think you
should have been? And he says, I think I should
have been a tax attorney. That's kind of like kind
of what you're hearing here is kind of like, but
your dad did.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, well, he said that he was just very he
was very sort of bored by the monotony of dentistry
and now he's he's very extrovert, and he was trying
to have conversations with people and they couldn't because you know.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
Oh, he was one of those annoying dennists who's like
asking you questions and you.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Well, and I think, honestly, I think it was a
It was a serious crossroads for him because he'd spent
he put himself through dental school selling jewelry out of
a tackle box. This is like he he worked his
way really hard to get himself this you know, job,
and and this career. But then a decade in he
realized how much he really did not enjoy it and

(23:34):
found a way out of it. Took him. It was
it wasn't like an immediate transition. He went to one
day a week to doing the other thing, to two
days a week doing the other thing, to half and half,
and then eventually, when I was in high school, sold
this practice and went the full time the other direction.
He loved music, and he had wanted to pursue music
in high school. He wanted to be in a like
in a in a garage band. And his dad, who

(23:54):
was even more strict, you know than my parents' generation,
you know, he has a story, he says. He tells
the story about my grandfather. They're driving in the car
and my grandfather smoked cigarettes non stop and Bill Withers
Lean on Me was on the radio and Dad was
like fourteen years old in the passenger seat, and it's
that part of the song where if you need a friend,

(24:15):
call me, you just call me. And my grandfa was
a jazz guy. He hated popular music. He said, finally
takes a dragon cigarette after about this the seventh or
eighth to call me, and he goes, well, just call him,
damn it. So he had this like weird relationship where
his father squashed his creative dreams. And so I think

(24:41):
when I sort of showed interest in this he he
sort of just launched fully in with me. Oh really, yeah,
you know, the first thing I told him I wanted
to pursue music. I had like an okay guitar, and
he's like, well, let's go to the guitar shop. Let's
get you let's get you something nice. You know, if
you're really going to work hard at it, I'm in

(25:01):
your corner.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
That was his two rules, where if you're going to
work hard at it, and then he said, and promise
me that if it's not working, you'll know when to
walk away move on with your life. And he could
say that from experience because he walked away from something.
You know, he didn't just stick with the career that
he chose as a nineteen year old, really because he
started dental school. Back then, you didn't have to get
a college degree to go to dental school. You just
had to get the prerecs, which he did in three

(25:24):
semesters and then started dental school as a nineteen year old.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
So did you play another song?

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah? Sure, all right, since this is sort of symmetrical. Asymmetrical,
I'm gonna go down the street to my grandparents' house.
I grew up five doors down the street from my grandfather,
who was this sort of lion of a man. He

(25:51):
was a bit of a big fish personality. He would
tell these stories. He didn't know how much of it
was true and how much of it was fiction. Lived
a very interesting life. Was a surgeon, was the chief
of surgery in Tokyo immediately following World War II. Operated
on Admiral Dagano two weeks before he was executed. Like

(26:16):
he just has these like wild stories in his life,
and one of them was that he told his story
about how he went to England with his friend who
raised Labrador retrievers, who got invited to this dog trial
at the Queen's of State, and so he went and
he was very old and couldn't walk around very well,
and he came back with this wild story about how
he got to ride around the Queen's of State in

(26:39):
the Queen's Land River with her driving it, and we
were all like, sure, you know, sure you did. And
he passed away about six years later, and we got
a letter from the queens Secretary sending her regrets of
his passing and sharing how much the queen enjoyed the
day she spent with him driving around her estate. In

(27:05):
her land Rover, So.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
I wrote this song about him many years after he died.
He just had a huge influence on me, and songs
called dragons.

Speaker 6 (27:23):
I was climbing the mountain.

Speaker 5 (27:26):
A sleep in the moonlight goes to my grandpa came
to me in a dream. As a star hung above us,
he started singing this chorus. He laughed loud as head
and said this to me. Take a few chances.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
A few early rommanss, go swimming in the ocean on
New Year's Day. Don't listen to the critics.

Speaker 6 (28:00):
Stand up bed.

Speaker 8 (28:02):
Witness, go slay all the dragons.

Speaker 6 (28:06):
That stand in your wing.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
You stayed up and talked until the sunrise.

Speaker 7 (28:16):
Of war and love and sorrow.

Speaker 5 (28:19):
He said, stop spending all your money on forgiveness of sins.
Today's all you've promised. Don't trouble with tomorrow. He faded
into the forest, proudly singing this hymn.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
Take a few chances, a few early rommances, go swimming
in the ocean all New Year's Day.

Speaker 6 (28:47):
Don't listen to the critics.

Speaker 7 (28:50):
Stand up bell winness.

Speaker 8 (28:53):
Go slay all the dragons that stand in your roy.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Woke up with a fever.

Speaker 5 (29:27):
Surrounded by lightning. All my windows were open. I let
the rain flooding. The past felt like the present, with
the future uncertain, a sing like a speral lost.

Speaker 6 (29:44):
In the wind.

Speaker 4 (29:48):
Take a few chances, you earthy romances, go swimming in
the ocean. All New Year's damon. Don't listen to the critics.
Stand up in bed, witness, go slay all the.

Speaker 8 (30:06):
Dragons that standing your way, go sway the drags that
stand in you.

Speaker 6 (30:17):
Wa mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
Incredibly beautiful tribute.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Thank you. Yeah, he's a beautiful man.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
We'll be right back. Let's talk a little bit about, uh,
the role of faith in your life and work. Okay, yeah,
you so you grew up in a very religious family.
You went to seminary in Scotland. Tell me about that.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yes, I I think I've always sort of grown up.
I think a lot of people that grew up in
a world that I grew up in sort of either
chose to just join into that space as adults, or
they sort of run the other direction and go through
a deconstruction phase where they, you know, on a spectrum

(31:24):
of sort of kindness to full vitriol. They depart from
that space and instead I tried to navigate sort of
a third way, which is I didn't have a personal
experience with faith that sort of mirrored what I was
told it was going to be like, and that it
would bring all this meaning and stuff to my life.

(31:45):
And when I was seventeen, my brother passed away. He
was born a spine of and had all sorts of
health issues, but still suddenly out of nowhere. I was
out of the country when happened on doing like a
summer of Spanish immersion in the American Republic, and it
passed away and got home. All the sacraments and words
and instruments and communities of faith were sort of bubbled

(32:06):
up in me, and it wasn't making sense for me.
So I had sort of a crisis of faith, and
instead of turning away from it, I was still sort
of trying to figure it out. But music was really
the thing that kind of helped me make sense of
my life. I'll never forget. There were two records in
particular in that era. One was Van Morrison's Moondance. The

(32:26):
other one was David Gray's White Ladder that I was
just drive in my car and just listen to these
records and sob and those records weren't even necessarily about grief,
but they were grief records for me and so but
I also didn't My experience with faith and the faith
community was that while I was struggling to believe what

(32:47):
they told me was the right thing to believe, I
also was experiencing a lot of love and affection from
them and had from a young age. And so a
lot of people's hurt and deconstruction is fed off of
abuse or mistreatment or you know, and that was not
my experience, and so I couldn't have that same sort
of departure because I was loved well. And so it's

(33:08):
created this really interesting tension in me because I was
also expanding the way my worldview is expanding in ways
that didn't line up with a lot of what I
grew up around. But also we're talking about it, you know,
it's easy to lump people into these categories, and really
the spectrum of people who helped raise me, they all
have different different sort of spectrum of beliefs about different things,
whether cultural, cosmic, theological, cultural, political, et cetera. So I

(33:33):
don't want to speak about that community as one monolith,
but at the same time where what I was finding
and who I was becoming was getting farther from that.
And part of the way I part of that was
going to seminary. I went to Scotland. They had a
program at Saint Andrew's University, or I could go for
two weeks a semester twice a year and then write

(33:55):
my papers. And so you know, I was just I
was searching, but I was enjoying the search. You know.
It was like it was less of a like frantic
looking for the lost keys when you're trying to get
out of the house, and more of a like I
just want to keep look at I'm finding a lot
of interesting things. I'm reading a lot of interesting people.
Just allowed myself to engage in reading and in music

(34:18):
and in ways that was sort of open to it
instead of looking for a fight. And that's sort of
the way I would say that I was raised is
that the church in that era, the school that I
went to, was a wall and is more of a
wall and less of a bridge. It's more about protecting
the flock instead of building a bridge to the world.
And I would say my faith now is much more

(34:40):
of like I just want to be a bridge Builder.
But I haven't necessarily, I haven't rejected some of the
sort of central teachings of Christian Orthodoxy. But I have
certainly rejected sort of American evangelical culture. And that's cost
me a lot of fans. But that's okay.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Memphis to Scotland is a long way.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah. My senior high school English teacher took a trip
every year to the UK and the first place we
went with Scotland, and that immediately, within three days on
that trip, I said, I'm going to study abroad here.
This place is Edinburgh's just this wonderland. And you know,
I loved English literature, I loved English history, you know,

(35:23):
and honestly, like the South was settled by Scott's, so
a lot of it, you know. So there was like
when Brave Feart came out, every Southerner in the world
was like, yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Was there any about the music of Scotland that appealed.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
To Yeah, yeah, there's a There was a there was
a pub down the street from my flat, Sandy Bell
was the name of it, and every night they had
traditional Scottish music, you know, people playing instruments. I didn't
even know what they were, but they buy these traditional
Scottish folk songs and they're always in with loch Lomand you.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
Take the high Rule and I'll take the little Ruin
and I'll be in Scotland before you For me and
my true lover. They're to meet again on the Bonnie
Bonnie banks of loch Loo.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
I was like, that's in the quarter, crying about me
and this mythical woman I'm going to meet at the
Bonnie Banks of Loch Loman.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Scottish accent's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
We got a lot of practice. My kids are always
asking for it. But there's something about the Scottish weather
in the story that sort of that's where I started
writing songs. I was still sort of in the throes
of my grief and I was trying to process that grief,

(36:44):
and so as a student, I decided my senior thesis
at in my program was going to be an oral
history about my brother's life and death from everybody that
knew him, and sort of the question was why does
a severely handicapped child have such like so, because when

(37:07):
he passed away, there were like two thousand people funeral
two thousand. Yeah, there were like one hundred nurses from
the hospital that had met him over the last fifteen
years came, and school, the entire elementary school he went to,
had a day out of school and they all came. Yeah.
It was this incredible celebration of a very short but
very sort of thorough life. And so my sort of

(37:30):
analytical side of my brain with the creative side of
my brain, was like, what if I just wrote an
oral history of his life and interviewed s, doctors, teachers,
his neighbors, his cousins, and why did Jay matter so
much to you? So I was working on that in
Scotland and that's when I started writing songs because I
didn't really know anybody. I always say that at that
time I was alone. I wasn't necessarily lonely, but I

(37:51):
was alone, and I had taken my guitar and I
just started writing. And when I got back home from
that semester, I started playing these songs for some friends,
and I think they were all expecting something completely different
from my life. I got laughed out a couple times
before the songs, like wait, you wrote songs, and I
know you play music, but like, aren't you going to

(38:13):
be like history lawyer guy or something? And I'm playing
these songs and they're like, oh, these.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Are what's the first song you wrote that You were proud.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Of a song called Nightingale that I don't remember, but
I do remember it being about my then friend and
much later became my wife, Ellie. But it was a
it was a heartbreak song because she she had she
had sort of ripped the heart from my chest in
that era of my life.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
So is that why you don't remember?

Speaker 1 (38:46):
It's just a yeah, I got to move on from
that song.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
Yeah, you can't have forgotten all of it.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
No, I mean that was something like, well, okay, this
is embarrassing. I do remember the first line.

Speaker 9 (39:09):
Cinderella was a fairy tale one, that's true.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
I don't remember where it went after that, but there
was something about she sang like a nightingale.

Speaker 9 (39:25):
Something something that rhymes with true.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Wait, did you play this for her after she broke
up with you?

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Well, you made an assumption there that we dated in
the first place.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
At what point in the trajectory of you and Ellie
did she hear that song?

Speaker 1 (39:44):
I mean pretty soon after I wrote it, but I
didn't tell her it was about her, you know, she.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Didn't figure it out. No, she did not Oh, come on.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Well that's according to her. That's you've talked to her
about that. But yeah, so that I mean, that was
that was the first song I sang and I was
playing it like for my buddies in college in college
and they're like, that's pretty good, you know. But that
that was before Scotland. That was the first song I wrote,
and Scotland's a We started writing songs that I I
don't know, just something started to click, but really I didn't.

(40:14):
It took me. I moved quickly into sort of what
I would call my twenty to twenty three year old
Steve ear Old Bruce Springsteen Ryan Adams imitation phase, where
I was really trying to write the rugged third person
minor chord songs and it wasn't me, but I needed

(40:36):
to do that to find to find my path. But
none of those songs are available on the internet.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
Which which Spruce Springsteen. There are many Bruce Springsteen's. Which
is your favorite Bruce Springsteen?

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Well, my favorite Bruce Springsteen is Greenings from Raspberry Park
Bruce Springsteen. But I like them all, but the one
I was imitating was like the Nebraska Tom Josey Nebraska.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah, I want to talk about Nebraska for a moment.
I because I was obsessed with that record.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
And you know it's funny because music like that doesn't
just influence musicians, it influences writers.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
And the song that I always came back to was
I don't know what it's called, but it's the one
about the guy who is a police officer.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
How patrolman, hire patrolman. I played that song one hundred times.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Man turns his back on his family.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
He just ain't no good, he just ain't no good.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
That was like as a as a kind of template
for writing an emotionally powerful story. It's just stuck in
my head.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
It was.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
It's so that song is so beautifully constructed. Well can
you do you?

Speaker 6 (41:44):
Can you?

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Can you remember any of it? Can you calay?

Speaker 1 (41:46):
I can play the chorus probably.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yeah, play the chorus for those who don't know the
song this is it's I think it's one of his
finest songs.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I can do a part of it.

Speaker 7 (41:57):
My name is Joe Roberts.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
I work for the State.

Speaker 5 (42:04):
Sergeant out of Burdenville, Bear snow Bury.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
I've always been an honest man, an.

Speaker 6 (42:16):
Honest man, honest as I could.

Speaker 9 (42:21):
My brother named Frankie, and Frankie ain't no good?

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Is it bad that I sing a lot?

Speaker 1 (42:28):
That's the audience. But then you know, goes on.

Speaker 6 (42:33):
Yeah, we're laughing and drinking.

Speaker 4 (42:36):
Nothing feels better than blood on, blood, taking turns, dancing
with Maria.

Speaker 9 (42:43):
The band plays nowt of the jostyle flood.

Speaker 6 (42:48):
Catch him when he straight again?

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yep, any brother.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Would do, teach you how to walk that line.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
It's two different courses.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
Oh right, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, because.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Because my favorite is like any like any brother would
uh man turns his back on his family. Well, he
just ain't no good. Uh. And then there's this, uh
that line to me that that song. I love it
song for a lot of different reasons. If you know,
I'll just the song has been out for forty years,
so I spoiler alert. Basically you know this this the

(43:26):
narrator is a state trooper higher patrolman and his brother's
a mess and he ends up injuring possibly killing somebody
in a bar fight. And he gets called into the
scene and realizes his own brother and his brother he's
chasing him out of the state in Michigan, and uh,
and he lets him go into Canada, you know, and

(43:47):
lets him escape, and then he ends with that course
and turns it back on his family. He just says,
no good and uh, my brother, who's now been eight
years sober. There was a lot of years where that
was like, that was our dynamic.

Speaker 5 (44:02):
You know.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
I was the good rule following successful big brother and
he was the you know, he didn't't mind me saying that.
We were very close, but he turned his life around.
But I thought that was going to be my life.
Was like, I'm going to losen to his vice. And
so I'd play that song all nights when I hadn't
heard from him, and ill of that song. There's a

(44:24):
lot of emotion in here, a lot of emotion in
here in no in you. Oh yeah, I think that
was a compliment.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
I did not. Just folks made I notice. But we
June I met a couple of months back then, and
the doing this thing which can't be described.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
And it's a form of a variety show, a variety show.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
We hung out together. It was on the bus with Drew,
among other things, and you said something. There are a
series of things I didn't know anything about you, and
you said something to me that just so surprised me,
and I would you said that. You just talked about
how you have a you have you get angry. Yeah,

(45:17):
and I didn't see that. I didn't see it in you.
And I was so surprised to hear that.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
I was sort of taught growing up that anger is bad,
you know that. What I've since learned is that anger
is not bad. It's rage that's bad, which is like
sort of the that's not going to get all counselate
on you guys, but it's been a big part of
my journey as a as a person and as a musician.
It's not the anger that's bad. Angers like the red light,
you know, it's what you do with it. And so
I've learned, instead of getting sort of physically upset, is

(45:46):
to go, I'm so angry, what is it? It's usually
some sort of injustice. Either it's me or the world,
or my neighbor or my family, or is it's your
yellow light that's flashing that you're lonely or sad or hurt.
And so I've learned that it's like my superpower, Like
when I'm angry, I know that I know that I
got to figure out what's going on instead of trying

(46:09):
to Tampa down.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
You know, have you ever written what is your what
is the angriest song? I have an idea that you've
ever written.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Oh that's great. It's a song called ring the Bells. Yes, okay,
you want to hear it? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (46:24):
Wait, you have to give the context.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah. I wrote this song with my I wrote the
song with my friends Avner and Amanda Ramirez. Abner is
a Cuban American. Amana is an African American. We wrote
the song together, I think three days after the Charlottesville

(46:48):
White supremacy rally, when some very famous sort of American
Christians were both sides in the situation, and we got
real pissed and wrote this song together.

Speaker 7 (47:09):
Ring the bells this time, I mean it bed hatred
very well.

Speaker 5 (47:14):
Give back the pieces of my Jesus to take your
counterfeit to hell.

Speaker 6 (47:19):
Thang the drums. This means war, not the cow and
you waiting for.

Speaker 7 (47:24):
We say mercy won't be rationed here.

Speaker 6 (47:27):
It's what we're fighting for.

Speaker 7 (47:29):
Their fall is fair and loving war, Then what the.

Speaker 6 (47:32):
Hell is loving for?

Speaker 4 (47:39):
If we can't sing it loud enough, we'll keep on
adding voice.

Speaker 5 (47:46):
Ring the bell, Ring the bells, Ring the bells, ring.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Just a little bit of it.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
That's that's what I that's the what I had in mind.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
I was very angry when I wrote that song. Felt good.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
Yeah, it's funny, it's it's you're you. You play it
like a man possessed.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Well, I was watching Daniel Tiger one time with my
daughter and there.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Was I just love to segue from yah possessed to
someone who there's a lot of It's very.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
It's very related to what we're talking about. So there's
this scene where Danel gets upset and the mom says, Okay, Dane,
we'll learn a song. If you feel so mad that
you want to roar, take a deep breath, then count
to four. And I was like, I'm sorry, Lemmy Lop,
she's four years old. I'm like, that's not always true.

(48:54):
Sometimes what you need to do when you feel so
mad that you want to roar take a deep breath, Yes,
get it out. You don't stuff that stuff inside of you.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
Will be right back with drews answers to the homework
assignment I gave him. I asked him to come up
with his five favorite country songs of all time so
he could compare his list to mine. Can we talk,
Let's talk about musical influences for a moment. Let's start
with Amy Lou Harris. I would love to when we

(49:29):
were thinking about this evening about our list of iconic
country songs, and one of my one on my list
is Boulder of Birmingham.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Do you know that?

Speaker 3 (49:43):
No, that's the that is uh. It is the one
of the few songwriting credits she has on her first
I think she only has one songwriting credit on her
first nine albums, and that's Boulder of Birmingham, which she
writes about Graham Parsons.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Oh yeah, and it is.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Actually we're going to play a little bit of it.
It is the most just play the first little like
it's so heart wrenchingly beautiful.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
And the.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
I mentioned only because we were talking about grief and
about emotion. It's a song. It's a song about grief,
and it's a The articulation of her uh sense of
loss and longing is just perfect. Anyway here it does.
I think our r.

Speaker 6 (50:39):
In the Bosom, I would hold any sa race away
from it about act act see.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
I would walk all the way from THEO to Birmingham
if I thought I could see I could see your face.
That's her. The way she articulates her sense of loss.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
She sings with so much agg too.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah did you do your homework?

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I did my own work. Yeah, your one assignment, I respect.
I Yeah. I had some arguments with my wife when
I picked this first one, because she's like, I don't
think of that as a country song, and I was like, well,
it was like a number three on the country charts,
and but I think my favorite country song, or what
I think is the best country song is Witch Tall

(51:45):
Lineman by Glenn Campbell. I need you more than want
you and I want you for all time. There's a
song about a Jimmy Web wrote the song, and he
talks about how I think it was his uncle was
a lineman. He always remembered see him up on the polls,
work on electrical lines, and so the song came easy

(52:05):
to him because he can imagine him, you know, being
a from home for a long time, wishing for to
be home with the one he loves. And it stood
the test of time too. It's a very simple song
about a workingman missing his love. But that's my number one.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
Your wife said that was not a country song.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
She said she doesn't think of it as a country song.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
What does she think of it as.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
That was not clear to me. We agreed on my
second one, though, is which is Crazy by Patsy Klein.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Oh yes, okay, I.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Mean it's such a standard, but it is so good
and I love that Willie Nelson wrote it. And then
a couple of years later he kind of quit the industry,
moves to Austin, Texas, and writes the most non commercial
country record ever, that's Redheaded Stranger as a forty three
year old, his career blows up. I just love the story.

(53:05):
And we've played a lot. We've gotten to play a
lot of shows with Willie over the years. I've sang
with him a doesn't times, you.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Know Willie Nelson, I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah, I mean we're not. We don't like to call
each other because he's you know, he's he's an older guy,
and but I have. Yeah, we've shared the stage and sung.
He does this really neat thing every night where he
doesn't medley of I saw the light, will the circle
being broken and one other blanket on and he invites,

(53:32):
you know, the opener to come out and sing it
with him. So I've got to do that twelve or
fifteen times. So he and Dolly to me are the
two living legends left, you know, in that space. And
then my third one would be Joe Lene as a Tennessee.
And if I didn't mention a Dolly Parton song, probably
couldn't go home. What's your other one or two?

Speaker 3 (53:55):
Uh? George Jones the Grand Tour, that's a sad song.
It's you know I have. I might be more attracted
to you, like are attracted to pure emotion, it seems like,
and I'm attracted in country music too, over the top
grandiosity and the Grand Tour. George Jones is like he's

(54:21):
like the He is in the best possible sense of
the word, a caricature of a country singer voice. We're
gonna be able to make her play just the beginning
of and play play the Grand Tour until the line
chills me.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
To the bone.

Speaker 10 (54:39):
Step Rider, Come on, elfid Lock to take the Grand Tour.

Speaker 6 (54:51):
Along.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
So fantastic Wonga was Home Sweet Home.

Speaker 6 (55:01):
I have nothing here to sell you to come saying
that I will tell you.

Speaker 7 (55:12):
Something things I know will chill you.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
To the bone. I mean the notion that you would
write a song that, with a straight face, has the
phrase chill you to the bone. And you know he's
got nothing. He doesn't name any of the chili get
to the bone. Some woman dumped him.

Speaker 6 (55:35):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
An empty house that this will chill you to the bone.
My empty house, my empty ass.

Speaker 3 (55:41):
He's so I just can't get over the bath. He's
so genius.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Yeah, you love the melodrama.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
I love them.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
I once back in the day of mixtapes, I used
to make these mixtapes constantly, and they were always named
after for reasons I forget now, they were always named
after popes, So on the front of the CD case,
i'd have an image of one of the popes, like
you know, Pope Pious of twelfth or Emanuel the sixteen,

(56:09):
and then the soul. Also, I made like ten of them,
because there were a lot of popes. And I was
once driving with some person who didn't know me very well,
and I was playing one of these mixtapes, The Long Drive,
one of these mixtapes after another, and after like the
third one, this guy, Mike turned to me and said,
what is the matter with you? Every single song was

(56:33):
some kind of melancholy, over the top weeper. I'm happy
if the tempo is never picked up.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Yeah, songwriting, you're always pulling from your library, you know,
and you hopefully your library just keeps growing and growing.
And the trick is when I when I was young,
you're imitating and then you get better at find you
when you find your own voice, and then you're just
sort of taking cues from your library or not copying anybody,

(57:01):
but you're you're going, oh, that's interesting. That kind of
reminds me of this. Let's you know, make it our own.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
And the people that you've mention do are important influences
for you. We just mentioned we talked before about oh
about Paul Simon. I'm curious what's the thread that links
and also Tom. I know that Tom Petty is someone
that has had an influencer. What what's the thread that
links these influences.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
I think all those songwriters, I don't know if there's
if there's actually a perfect common thread between them, but
something about all those songs or all those artists, they
made records that really connected with me and helped me
sort of see the world, if you will, and help
me feel the world. And that's the beauty of music

(57:49):
is there's a bit of magic to it. And I'm
sure there's scientific and sociological ways to explain them. I'm
not really interested necessarily in hearing them because I like
the magic of it. I like the myth that I
don't know why this record speaks to me so much.
But when I hear, you know, Tom Petty, these wildflowers,

(58:10):
and I hear all I have to hear.

Speaker 7 (58:12):
Is you belong among the wildflowers.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
You belong in a boat out at sea. At that
in and of itself is just a beautiful sentiment, you know,
executed with this, you know, the arrangement, the sonic sort
of landscape of it. None of the artists that I
love seemed to sort of play by a certain formula.
Maybe they do sometimes on certain songs or certain records,
But Tom Patty's a great example. If you look at

(58:36):
his sort of the arc of his career and listen
to the records, they don't all sound the same. There's
you know, the different producers have sort of different eras
and fingerprints on his work. Jeff Lynn stuff is different
than the Jimmy Ovine stuff, And I like that that
they're always looking for something else to say, something else

(58:57):
to sing, some new way to express human experience via music.
And instruments and electricity and all this stuff that makes
this makes it work.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
I asked you to sing one cover. Yeah, tell me
what you chose and why.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
I well, I did. I chose this song because you
and I connected over the song back when we met
in April. And I just saw this artist play at
the Rhymann, which is a my favorite venue in the
world and a serious underplay for him. The last time
I saw him in Nashville is the Bridgetone Arena. He

(59:36):
then he retired, and now he's come out of retirement
to do these intimate acoustic shows. I know that you
have interacted with him a ton, and I've heard nothing
but great things about him personally, and I think this
is one of the great songs. I also think it
has what I consider the best first line of a
song that I can that I've ever heard. So this

(59:56):
is this is Paul Simon's America.

Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
Let Us be loves, will marry our fortunes together. I've
got some real estate here in my bag. So I
bought a pack of cigarettes missus Wagners pies.

Speaker 7 (01:00:34):
And walkked off to look.

Speaker 11 (01:00:37):
Forerica, Kathy, I said, as we boarded a greyhound in Pittsburgh,
Michigan seems like a dream to me.

Speaker 8 (01:00:59):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
It took me four days to hitch hack from sagging off.

Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
I've gone to look for.

Speaker 12 (01:01:10):
A Manica, laughing on of us playing games with the faces.

Speaker 6 (01:01:28):
She says, the man in the gabardine.

Speaker 7 (01:01:32):
Suit is a spy, I said, be careful his bowtie.

Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
It's really a camera. Well, toss me a saga. I've
got one here in my raincoat.

Speaker 6 (01:01:59):
No, we smoked the last one. And how will a go?

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Well?

Speaker 7 (01:02:07):
I looked at the scene of read she read her magazine.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
As the moon rose over and open field.

Speaker 13 (01:02:27):
Okathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping.
I'm empty and a king, and I don't know why.

Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike day, all
gone to look for Maerica, All gone to look for Maerica.

Speaker 7 (01:03:04):
We've all gone to look form.

Speaker 6 (01:03:10):
Come let us be loves. We'll marry our fortunes together.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
That was very fun, Thank you, you said, his concert
at the Ryman that you saw earlier this year.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Yeah, and it was Actually this was really sweet for
me personally. But we played two nights at the Rymond
on May second and third, and then he played three
nights at the Rymond May like twelve, thirteenth and fourteenth,
and I got to sit and watch a show right

(01:04:00):
after I had played there, and to see one of
my heroes in the same spot that I was in
eight days earlier. And he had the same reverence for
the room that I always have, and it was it
was a bit of an emotional and joyous and overwhelming experience.
And he did two sets. He did the seven Hymns
record from front to back, and then he came out

(01:04:22):
and did sort of all the songs that you would
want expect to hear in the second set, and it
was just a yeah, it was wonderful.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
So you were in the middle, you you you were
in the middle of writing a song about Cormack MacCarthy.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Oh yeah, I was.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Tell me how that came about.

Speaker 6 (01:04:39):
Yeah, you are so.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Cormick McCarthy is one of my favorite authors. You know,
Southern Gothic, dark, violent, end of the world, apocalypse, human
sort of morality play author, right, very sparse and yeah,
no country, frilled men, all the pretty horses the road,
so many great books that turn into great films, et cetera.

(01:05:01):
So he actually grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is
where I went to school, but he had he left
there and lived all over It sort of landed in
the desert and Santa fel Passo somewhere in there. Unrelated
to that, seemingly was I love old cars, and so

(01:05:22):
I get this email from a company that auctions old
cars just because I love to look at them. And
I get this email in April, early April. It says,
Cormick McCarthy's Ferrari it's being auctioned off. And and so
it kind of like blew a fuse in me because
I'm like, Cormick McCarthy didn't drive as like sure he

(01:05:42):
actually did. He drove this black Ferrari in the last
years of his life. And so I had this idea
of like writing a song Cormi McCarthy's black Ferrari, but
I couldn't quite find my the end, you know, I
didn't find the ind I thought, no, I want to
I want to drive Cormi McCarthy's black Ferrari through the

(01:06:05):
desert and like and have a complete existential crisis. Yeah,
And I feel like everybody right now is sort of
we sort of live inside of existential crisis. That's that's
like going to be the era that we live in.
We look back on it, we're like, that's the that's
the air of the existential crisis. There's just so much
happening at such a speed that it's hard to keep up,

(01:06:28):
and it's hard to know how to where to put
your anger and where to put your your joy, and
how to how to live. And I thought one of
the ways it would help me is if I had
Corey McCarthy's black Ferrari for a day. So I wrote
this song and the first person I sent it to
was you because we had talked about that interview and

(01:06:49):
I love old cars too, yeah, and we also we
could yeah we connected our old cars, and I was like,
I I yeah. So I've never played this song before
except for during soundcheck. So this is this is a debut.
And I really liked this song. And if you don't
like it, I don't really care that much because I
like it a lot. So let's see if I remember

(01:07:13):
how to.

Speaker 5 (01:07:25):
Walking on the sidewalk through my neighborhood. My neighbor's black
cat is up to no good. There's something in the air,
something in the streets, like a red tail hawk wading
up in the trees. There's levees and tolls and roadblocks
and speed bumps. Hasn't been a day, a week, or
just a month. Unwanted packages by the front door screen

(01:07:46):
and em deep pages in my diary.

Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
Cormac McCarthy's got a black Ferrari that he drives.

Speaker 7 (01:07:56):
Across the desert on a.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
Sunday morning, and I'm dreaming about the wind in my face,
nothing but my worn out suitcase.

Speaker 10 (01:08:07):
Driving that for like Corn McCarthy in my mind, In
my mind.

Speaker 5 (01:08:25):
UF fiasco falls like rain on our faces, a Mickey
Mantle rookie card ruined in the basement, and nothing turns.

Speaker 6 (01:08:32):
Out like you thought it would.

Speaker 7 (01:08:34):
It's a little more barefoot than Hollywood.

Speaker 5 (01:08:37):
It's confusing, the losing the booze and excusing the stage
fright and all the troubles shooting.

Speaker 4 (01:08:43):
Where do I fit in amongst all the matter in
this party? He always feels like a lost soul's gathering.
Cormac McCarthy's got a black Ferrari that he drives across
the desert on a Sunday morning, and I'm dreaming about

(01:09:06):
the wind and my face, nothing but a worn out
suitcase driving that Ferrari like Cormac McCarthy in my mind,
in my mind, engine and fuel and pain and chrome,

(01:09:34):
muscle and blood and skin and bone, engine and fuel.

Speaker 7 (01:09:41):
And pain and chrome, muscle and blood.

Speaker 6 (01:09:46):
And skin and bones.

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Cormac McCarthy's gotten black Ferrari.

Speaker 9 (01:09:59):
Dady drives across the desert.

Speaker 4 (01:10:02):
An Sunday morning, and I'm dreaming about the wind in
my face, nothing but worn out suit case of driving
that Ferrari, like Cormac McCarthy in my mind, in my mind,

(01:10:23):
in my mind, I'm driving con mcmccarthy's black Ferrari my mine.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
I love that, hopefully. Why you said you couldn't figure
out how to couldn't figure out your way in? What
did you mean by that?

Speaker 6 (01:10:51):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
I had this this like obviously the phrase in the
rhyme Corey McCarthy's Black Ferrari. It was like, this song
gonna be like a funny song about how could this
modeling writer have such a you know, cultural toy like this.

(01:11:13):
This doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
It should be a piece of old Chevy pickup.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Right, Yeah, that's like that's the imagination, right, It not
that he had this car, so it's like a magnum
p I car, you know. So then I was like, no,
that's not the right frame, because what I felt when
I saw that that existed as a fan of his work,
and it's also someone who would like to have a
nineteen eighty nine Testerosa just for a day. Even was that? No,

(01:11:42):
even the saddest, most sort of Gothic, you know, the
chronicler of American violence needed an escape, and so he
had this black Ferrari and he would just go. I'd
imagine him smiling, driving one hundred and twenty miles an
hour across the desert in Santa Fe. And there's not
a picture in the world that exists of Corn McCarthy's smiling. No,

(01:12:07):
And so I relate to that. I relate. I relate
to feeling the weight of of you know, life and
all of it's like joys and tragedies, and that sometimes
the simple pleasure might make it go away for a minute.

Speaker 3 (01:12:28):
Has that that song as it stands? Now? Have you
worked on that with the band or is that all
you at this point?

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
Well, they've heard it, but we haven't. No, we wait
till we all get in the room together before we
sort of dive into it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
But yeah, what will happen to it when when you
all dive in.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
I don't know. I mean, we'll we'll go through several iterations.
First thing we'll do is we'll make sure we're in
the right key. We'll do some practical things, make sure
we're the right key, figure out the tempo, and then
we'll sort of jump into the approach. You know, like,
what are the drums going to be doing? Are we
are we? Is this acoustic sort of is that the
main engine driver of the song, or are we going
to do like a piano bassed drums thing? And then

(01:13:07):
you know, just kind of like try a bunch of
different things and then inevitably one of them, all five
of us will go that's it. That's the that's the
approach time.

Speaker 3 (01:13:15):
Yeah, it's a really beautiful song.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
Thank you, Thank you?

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
Do I think we're I think our time is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
I have no idea ho which time we've We've been
up for a while though.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
We've been up here a while. Yeah, I feel people
lurking how should we end this?

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
I'm like being sumptuous. So if I ask you to
play one more so, sure, sure.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
I'll play a song I wrote there's a wonderful band
in Nashville that has toured for many years called Old
Crow Medicine Show Good. My kids go to school with
some of Ketsch's kids, who's the lead singer and writer.
And this is a great Nashville story. We're dropping our
kids off at school and he's like, what are you
up to this week? And I said, I'm just gonna

(01:14:03):
be in my office doing some writing and you know, working,
And he said we should write a song this week.
We'd never written a song together before, and so I said, well,
how about tomorrow morning. So the next morning, we drop
our kids off, we get coffee, about eight thirty, we're
writing songs, and we wrote this song about ten thirty
that morning. We both had just gotten back into doing
normal shows again with a real with live audiences, and

(01:14:24):
we had really missed that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:26):
So this is such a fantastic only in Nashville story.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Yeah it is. And then it was a great It
was a great song for me. It ended up being
It's the song is called Dance with Everybody, and then
ended up getting picked up by the NCAA for two
years straight as a theme song for March Madness, which
a song is not about basketball, and b I am
like one of the world's worst basketball players. Yeah, and

(01:14:52):
a big family of athletes. And so it brought me
a lot of satisfaction that my song I was in
I got to participate it in March madness. None of
my athletics six three cousins did.

Speaker 7 (01:15:04):
So you walked into this room, you hardly knew anyone.

Speaker 4 (01:15:17):
See full of strangers, just crashing on the rooms when
the band strikes. By the end of the night, strangers
no more. I wanna dance with everybody. And you came
through that door, whether you came here to party or
you came here to cry wall that to meet somebody,
cheat somebody, get little, get high. So come on, all

(01:15:38):
you people with two feet on your floor. I wanna
dance with everybody.

Speaker 7 (01:15:43):
And came through that door.

Speaker 6 (01:15:46):
WHOA, let it all go, WHOA.

Speaker 4 (01:15:52):
Shake up your soul, throw your hands in the air,
throw your hat in the ring, grow your hips, in
your heart into everything, get lost.

Speaker 6 (01:16:02):
In the crowd, get down on the floor.

Speaker 7 (01:16:05):
I don't wanna dance with everybody.

Speaker 6 (01:16:07):
And you came in that door.

Speaker 4 (01:16:13):
Well, come all your saints and sinners, poets, prophets and fools.

Speaker 5 (01:16:18):
Are you cowboys, tricks and zipss trying so hard to
be cool? Are you dreamers and schemers thirsty for more?

Speaker 4 (01:16:25):
I want to dance with everybody came through that door.

Speaker 6 (01:16:30):
WHOA, let it all go? WHOA, shake up your soul.

Speaker 4 (01:16:38):
Royal hands in.

Speaker 8 (01:16:39):
The air, Royal hat in the ring, broyal hips in
your heart and everything.

Speaker 4 (01:16:46):
Get lost in the crowd, Get down on the floor.
I want to dance with everybody came through that door.
Ohhe oh, heey, oh.

Speaker 7 (01:17:04):
Hey, well, let's put us oude our differences.

Speaker 6 (01:17:12):
We'll lace up our shoes. Let's narrow the distance.

Speaker 5 (01:17:16):
Between me and meet me in the middle.

Speaker 7 (01:17:20):
Let's quit keeping score.

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
I want to dance with everybody came through that door. WHOA,
let it all go, WHOA.

Speaker 6 (01:17:32):
Shake up your soul, Throw our.

Speaker 4 (01:17:34):
Hands in the air, Try our hat in the reader,
throw our hips in your heart into everything. Turn the
world on a string, turn the winds on a dime, turn.

Speaker 6 (01:17:46):
The wheel to the west, and the water the wine.

Speaker 7 (01:17:49):
Get lost in the crowd, get down on the floor.

Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
I want to dance with everybody came through that door.
I want to dance with everybody came through that door.

Speaker 3 (01:18:10):
Thank you so much. Drew Thank you all. This episode
of Broken Record is produced by Leah Rose and Nina
Bird Lawrence, with Ben f Haffrey and Lucy Sullivan. Our
engineers are Nina Bird Lawrence, Clara Bregare, and Ben Holliday.
Marketing by Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our executive producers

(01:18:33):
are Jacob Smith and jessin Rich Miller. Special thanks to
Wait twenty four, to Wallowise Linton, and to the whole
crew over at the Cherry Lane Theater. My name is
Malcolm Glasma.