Episode 50 - Abner Ramirez - Johnnyswim - Moonlight

EPISODE 50! A special episode celebrating a major milestone! In this episode, we talk to Abner Ramirez of the band Johnnyswim. How can songs save your life? Are they merely an art form, or do they carry something more spiritual, mystical, or universal? Can a song bring two people destined for each other closer together? Abner has the answers. For this special 50th episode, we get an exclusive listen to Abner and Amanda as they write the title track for their 2019 album, Moonlight.

Find Johnnyswim
Listen to "Moonlight"
Watch The Johnnyswim Show on MAX

This episode is sponsored by Duke Timeless Spirits and Stories & Sounds Podcast
Writing assistance by Daniel Shepard 
Episode intro music written by Brandon Carswell & produced by Micah Tawlks - "Back To Us" Worktapes show cover art designed by Harrison Hudson **All songs used by permission**

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This episode of work Tapes is sponsored by Duke Timeless Spirits.
Duke Spirits is blending modern technology and old school technique
by aging their Bourbons and Rise in the finest French
oak wine barrels from nineteen thirty two. And listen, I
have some first hand experience drinking their whiskey. It's sweet
on the nose in the palate, there's no burn going

(00:25):
down the spice, the cherry notes, the subtle citrus tones
lingers really nice. Duke Spirits offers high end, well crafted bourbons,
Rise and tequilas, my favorite being the Extra and Yeo
Tequila Founders Reserve. Go to Duke Spirits dot com to
learn more and remember, kids, you gotta be twenty one

(00:47):
to drink alcohol. Never compromise, drink responsibly. Duke Spirits dot.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Com Welcome to work Tapes.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
This is a podcast where we tear our songs. Why
was the song written? What's it about? What's the context
and emotion behind it? Where were you at the time,
what were you going through? How did certain minds come
to you? What's the inspiration? How long did it take
to write? I'm Brandon Carswell and I'm fascinated with songwriting

(01:28):
and how songs are built from the ground up. It's
easy to hear a full production song on the radio
and dismiss its origin story. I want to hear the
rough draft of the song for the work tapes. I
want to explore the very beginning with how songs that
move us and make us move are born.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
How many moons did he again?

Speaker 4 (02:03):
Loves and love?

Speaker 5 (02:04):
I must learn the regress always mo it be wonderful,
And it was.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
Wonderful, says raise. Won't you tell you be here.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
Long after the lights longer saves fud flows since you
let me long after the life.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Welcome to work Tapes everyone, I'm Brandon. As usual. Today
is episode fifty, which is pretty crazy, and so I
did my best to make episode fifty a special one
for me and for you the listener, and hopefully for
our guests. I am super excited about this one. This

(03:27):
is my longtime friend, songwriter EXTRAORDINAI.

Speaker 7 (03:34):
Man.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Welcome Abner Ramirez.

Speaker 7 (03:44):
Brandon fifty Episode fifty fifty. That's huge, dude, congratulations, Thank you.
That takes a lot of patience, a lot of perseverance.
I'm trying to think another p word. It takes a
pup of Pepperonis.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Pepperonis. There's a lot of pizza that go into this.

Speaker 7 (04:01):
I agree. It's pizza night here at my house, so
I do have pizza on the mind.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Good episode fifty. I didn't think I would. I didn't
think i'd make it this far.

Speaker 7 (04:11):
Oh, bro, you're here, congret. You should be so proud
of yourself.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
It's fun. I just, you know, I just I enjoy
doing it. I enjoys you know, my song geek, much
like everyone I interview, and so it's fun.

Speaker 7 (04:26):
Heck, yeah, man, I always it's funny. I've always wanted
to be well. To answer your question, I'm just kidding.
I've thought a lot about songwriting. Obviously, it's become my life.
It's often I think about the three lives of a song.
The writing of a song is a whole life. Especially
my wife and I, Amanda. We write most of we

(04:48):
write all our songs, but most of the time it's
just us. So it's like all the reading between the lines,
like or your film's hurt, my film's hurt. I really
love this line. You don't seem to care about it.
How do I take that away just for second? Make
it better? So then pitch it to you again, maybe
you'll like it again, like all the battles that happen
just in the writing of the song, and even when
you're writing a song by yourself, like the trying to

(05:09):
take yourself, trying to see the song in the third person,
or if you're just super in it, making sure you're
connecting to the soul of what you're trying to say,
and are you really capturing that feeling that caused you
to want to sit down and write anyway, which is
what happens most of the time. Often we oh, I'm
delayed like crazy video wise, but I'm sure it'll be okay.
I'm sure it'll be okay. All right, all right, I'm

(05:30):
gonna keepalking. I'm gonna stop looking at myself. That's what
I should do anyway. And the second life is the
recording of the song. The third life the performing of
the song. And a man and I disagree on our
favorite part of the life of a song. Her favorite,
My favorite, actually, I'll start with that is the third
life of a song, the performance of the song. That

(05:50):
is by far my favorite part of writing a song
is getting to play it for people, see their responses,
all that stuff, and the feeling it creates, did it win?
Did you do what you set out to do? Because
often when I write the song, when I write a song,
it's for a communal experience that I'm writing it for.
I'm already have in mind what it's gonna feel like
when we play together. And Amanda is much the opposite.

(06:13):
Amanda's favorite part of songwriting is writing the song. Favorite
part of favorite life of a song is the writing
of it. That intimate moment, the beginning, which we'll hear
much of today, those conversations that those secret battles, those
internal struggles, enjoys, disappointments that happen in writing a song.

(06:35):
So I'm very excited the song you chose for us
to go through today. I'm really I was listening a
little bit to some of that the birth of this song,
and it was like, honestly, it's like meeting a really
good friend you only ever get to meet once, Like
you have a great one hang, but that's the only
hang you ever get because that life of the song
never happens again. That creation only happens that day or

(06:58):
in those days that it takes.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, that's the whole that's the whole thing. Yeah, the
whole thing on this show is I'm I've always been
kind of a nerd about demos, especially bands I love
or writers I love or that have influenced me. When
you get to hear like the demo of whatever your
favorite song is in life, it's it's captivating to me. Yeah,

(07:22):
the moment it came out, like, what were you doing?
How did that form? How did it pop off? And
sometimes there's not a there's really not an explanation, it
just happens. So yes, I'm stoked about that. To talk
about that with you, Let's give listeners a little bit
of context. Uh, And I'm going to do my best

(07:46):
not to mess this show up like I messed up
the Shermahorn Show. Do you remember that?

Speaker 7 (07:53):
I don't what happened?

Speaker 1 (07:55):
I TechEd for so Adair and I. First of all,
for those of you listening, we known each other a
pretty long time.

Speaker 7 (08:02):
Well I think hold on, I'm going to say twenty
one years, twenty years at least twenty years.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Well the first time that I saw you, Well, that's
not true. I was going to say the first time
I saw you was at twelfth and Porter, But I
didn't meet you through your music but the first time
that we yeah, well we met through Will.

Speaker 7 (08:21):
Oh yeah, oh yeah graphic design.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
To my old band in North Carolina needed graphic design,
and so my buddy Jeff Capps shout out, Jeff.

Speaker 7 (08:32):
KapS, shout out Jeff Capps experience too.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Jeff said, oh go, you need to hire Will, and
Will Hill designed the EP. And then I moved to
Nashville and Will was your roommate, and so you and
Will the first week I was here, and that's it.

Speaker 7 (08:49):
That's insane.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
The first time I saw you play was at twelfth
and Porter and you were solo.

Speaker 8 (08:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (08:58):
Wow, So that was pre We just celebrated our nineteen
years of performing and being together. Met Amanda October first.
We officially started the band when we made out during
Harry when Harry Mitt Sally That's Great, which is on
TV for those of you that are young enough to
think that that what a.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Great band story. How many bands can really say we
started a band while we were making out.

Speaker 7 (09:20):
With I think Oasis, Pray, the Beatles.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
All of them. But yes, I muss. So that just
gives you context. So Abner called me and said, hey,
we need a tech for this Christmas show. We're doing,
and I came and I had never guitar TechEd And
for those of you that don't know what that means,
that means you changed strings and I hand off guitars

(09:44):
and switched guitars for Abner and make sure things like
batteries are changed, which I didn't do.

Speaker 7 (09:50):
And I really don't remember.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
You don't remember that, uh uh, it's vague.

Speaker 7 (09:56):
I mean I remember you teching. I have a vague
recollection of something, but it certainly is not stuck with
me if you did.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
The one thing that I didn't do was change battery
packs for wireless guitars. And of course they went out
at show because we'd been rehearsing the day before, and
so you guys had to kind of revert to telling
jokes at the Sherman Art instead of playing songs while
we changed batteries.

Speaker 7 (10:21):
That's every show.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
So I changed all the batteries for this episode and
we're good.

Speaker 7 (10:27):
Yes, I'm sorry for the delay on my video, bro.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Don't worry about it. I do think it'll sync up.

Speaker 7 (10:35):
I know this formatic records it separately.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
And so just to fast forward a notch we played
in those early days of Johnny Swim, we played a
lot of shows together. We wrote some songs together. Do
you remember playing Christopher Pizza? Do you remember that place?

Speaker 7 (10:52):
Yeah? Demumbrian? Right, yeah, heck yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
So we go back lots of history, a lot of
stories we could unpack and laugh at one. But I
think it's I think I was thinking this morning how
fun it is to be an old friend and watch
somebody go from the beginning of something that they're dreaming

(11:22):
into where you are now with the band, going to
some of those shows along the way, watching you guys
play the rhyman and selling all these places out, and
you're just like, hell, yeah, man, that's my dude up there,
Like I you know, I've slept in cars with them.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Literally, literally, that's wild. It's really fun. It's really fun
to watch, and it's it's really fun on the songwriting
geek side of me to kind of know a little
bit of your y'all's writing style of how you do

(12:01):
things and to formulate things into records that people really
connect with. And the one thing I'll say about you
specifically is your connection with people is like it's like
no one I know you. You walk into the room
and I've for example, I've gone too many. We've gone

(12:26):
out together many times, and every time I always take notes.
Whether there's a server, bartender, somebody walking around the room
passing out drinks, whatever, Abner stops and notices them and
talks to them like they're a person because they are.

(12:47):
And I just love that about you. Abner will make
you feel like you're the only person in the in
a room of five hundred people.

Speaker 7 (12:54):
Come on, man, I didn't sign up to cry today.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Brother, Well then don't.

Speaker 7 (12:58):
Okay, thank you for seeing. It's very sweet of you.
What was what's your nameian.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
So?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
And he's also a professional comedian your Netflix special comes out.

Speaker 7 (13:11):
I literally was choked on my tee. You and me
laugh and I almost we almost just had a coughing fit.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
But and then I also say that just to say
when you go see the band live, that's exactly the
feeling you get audience.

Speaker 7 (13:28):
How he's the world man, Because that's really the goal.
That's really the Sorry to cut you off, but that's
definitely if we had, if we had a written out
thesis statement for what our hopes are as Johnny Swim
to accomplish. We actually did for this album, this new
album that's coming out in February. On the inside of
the vinyl, we just wrote kind of stream of consciousness,
we hope what we hope this album does, and we

(13:50):
hope and it's really the truth for all the songs
right now the performances we do is we hope you
feel seen. We hope you feel a little less alone.
We hope. This world's a crazy place. Man, there's so
many narratives, there's so much to be a there's so
much to be excited about. There's so many sources of dopamine,
and almost all of them take you away from yourself.
Almost all of them take you away from your own story.
Even though for all of us were the stars of
our own story, it's oftentimes it removes us from ourselves.

(14:13):
And we hope a little bit in our songs and
a little bit and the time you spend with us
in a show that you feel like we see you,
that your story matters, that you feel a little less alone,
because gosh darn it, tho do I get The more
I realize we feel how easy it is to feel isolated,
even when surrounded by people, and sometimes especially when you're
surrounded by people.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yes, and surrounded by a lot of people, I love that,
and I again, I think you guys do an excellent job.

Speaker 7 (14:44):
Thanks man.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Making people feel sane, making your audience feel involved. That's
always that's always been a something that's impressed me to
watch you guys lived. You guys do that, and then
I'll stop. I'll stop doing this in the second.

Speaker 7 (15:02):
You have to.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
You guys do that anyone I can be able to
go out the door.

Speaker 7 (15:05):
It's huge.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
You do that anyway. You if you're if if you're
invited over for dinner at the Ramirez household, you are
seen and heard and included. Yeah, and so what you're
getting on stage is the real You're getting the real version.
And if you're not, you're doing a great job lying.

(15:27):
Either way, you're doing really good.

Speaker 7 (15:28):
Oh man, that just made my day. Can we do
this every morning? Every morning?

Speaker 1 (15:35):
Every morning? All right, let's get into not talking about
me or you. I'm just kidding. Let's get into Oh wait,
I was gonna mention this. You and I wrote one
song together. Yes, it's called all My Life. I'm going
to try to release it this year. I haven't decided

(15:56):
if I'm going to rerecord it or not, because I
already recorded it with my brother years ago, but I
may just redo it.

Speaker 7 (16:03):
Bro so amazing.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
I'm not out there, Brandon Carswell, Abner Ramirez, heck yeah,
coming out. I have to be ready for it. Do
you remember writing that song?

Speaker 2 (16:16):
No?

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Do you remember yesterday?

Speaker 7 (16:19):
I do? Yesterday is vague, but it's there somewhere. I
could pick it out of hand.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
We were we were in an apartment and we were
drinking ram and orange juice.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Yes.

Speaker 7 (16:32):
That may have helped assisted in the not remembering.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yes, but we recorded it.

Speaker 7 (16:39):
So whatever. Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
I love that song. It turned out really great. It
I can't remember it. I just played fiftieth wedding anniversary.

Speaker 7 (17:01):
WHOA, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
That's my that's my mom's favorite. So I plaited for it.
Doesn't really match up lyrically with fifty years of marriage though,
so I had to change a few lines for that.
But anyway, for our listeners, sorry, I feel a little
scattered because because we're catching Hong time, I know, and

(17:25):
we don't have time to catch all right, sorry catching.
So for our listeners that don't know Johnny Swim or
Abner Ramirez, what give us like a short kind of
summary of where how did you start in music. Why
do you do this? And I was seven years you

(17:46):
want to say about that?

Speaker 7 (17:47):
Yeah, I was seven years old at church and I
went to a good old Southern Baptist church, Hill Chris
Baptist Church in the west side of Jacksonville, Florida. And
we would often maybe once a quarter maybe once every
couple months, have a special group come in, as happened
like especially in the South, like Southern Baptist churches. Right,
And I remember, I don't remember the guy's name, but
I remember this tenor came in and he was doing
he sang, specially singing a few times, kind of led

(18:08):
worship a little bit Sunday morning, sang the offering song
for those of you familiar with like OG and for
many folks still happens like this. I remember OG. Southern
church man. You know, you got worship with the choir
and the band. Sometimes the band was in the pit.
We were one of those fancy churches that had a
pit for the band. And then you know, if you
had a special guest, he'd lead worship. Then during the

(18:29):
offering their prayer time, he would sing a special and
then he'd have like a concert that night. Maybe there's
a little word, and you know, they come and go
and you see them all and you liked I liked
most of them. I remember most of them being really good.
But I remember being seven years old watching this guy sing.
He sang a special and it was amazing. I have
no idea what the song was, don't remember his name.
I just remember being amazed. And I always had this
feeling on Sundays, especially Sunday nights. Sunday nights were the

(18:54):
most bummer day of the week for me because I
hated school growing up. Like many of us, I absolutely
hated it. And my junior year where I went to
Douglas Sanderson School the Arts and it changed my life truly,
but most of my life always hated school. So Sunday
night was like this weird sad like, yeah, there's some
fun stuff on TV. Sometimes you or to pizza after church,
but I got to go to school tomorrow. We go
to the concert. I ask Mom if she can buy

(19:15):
me his cassette single for his new song that he
just sung on Sunday night. We go to the table
and we're waiting in line to buy the thing. And
as I'm waiting with Mom for our turn to you know,
get to the merchant table, I say it, or I
just can't believe this guy has to go back to
work tomorrow, that he probably feels like I feel like
Sunday night was cool, but tomorrow's like real life. I'm

(19:35):
almost like, son, No, he doesn't have to go to
work tomorrow. This is his job. In that moment when
Mom said this was his job, radically reformed the chemistry
in my brain because at that point I realized what
I wanted to do for the rest of my life
was what I saw this guy doing. And I never
before then. You know, I probably wanted to be an
astronaut or like a fireman or you know, whatever you

(19:57):
want to be as a little kid. But from when
I was seven years old, the only thing I've ever
wanted to be. He's a songwriter and a performer.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah you start, Yeah, I'll.

Speaker 7 (20:07):
Start writing right around then we have a little Mom
was a piano player before I was born. My dad
was a pastor and Mom was the choir director at
the churches in Cuba that dad was pastor at. And
you know, there it's kind of like being on mission.
Like Dad would be responsible for three churches and he'd
go and make kind of the circuit of the churches
on a bicycle with my sisters. They were born in Cuba.
I was born in the US, but my sisters in there.

(20:28):
Little they'd ride in the basket. One would be in
the basket, a little two rider bicycle. One to be
in the basket and one Mom would carry, and they'd
ride the church church. Dad would preach and Mom would
lead worship at the piano. So Mom had a little
We've always had a piano at the house. I have
one behind me here that I really can't play. But
I remember writing a song probably within months of that
guy's concert, that I still remember this day. It's all
the white keys and the keycuh, you wash me wider

(20:51):
than snow. You pick me up when I am low. Lord,
I thank you for saving my soul because you wash
me why. It's the first song I ever wrote. I
was seven or eight. Still remember it nice because I
think that worked with the magic too, like it's like
seeing uh, I don't know, I don't know what it's like.

(21:12):
You see the magic happen, you're like and then Mom
saying no, that's his job, and immediately connecting to that feeling.
I want to do that forever, like, all right, how
did you make the How do I experience that magic?
You just sit at an instrument and you play and
you sing and hopefully something that you remember comes out.
Yeah that uh, it's funny. You never That was a radical,
a radical time in my life because it really set

(21:35):
the stage for everything. I wonder what would have happened
if I didn't have that conversation, if that guy didn't
come to church or whatever.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's super interesting. And then so you would
have started writing those songs as a kid. And of
course these kids, we don't know what we're gonna do, yeah,
with those kinds of things. But I assume probably in
your teenage years did you start bands or what was they?

Speaker 7 (21:57):
Man? I grew up playing violin in orchestra. So from
the time I was nine, I started playing violin. So
I did to play at church, playing the youth band
when I was a teenager. My junior year of high school,
I transferred to an art school where I was My
main focus was instrumental music, was violin, and when I
was there in between classes and at lunch, there was
guitar majors. I was a violin major. It was guitar
majors and vocal majors, and painting majors, and pottery and

(22:20):
literally pottery majors, and photographer majors. The school still exists,
and anytime we're in Florida, we go and we sing
do a concert for the students, and I try to
talk to them and get them hype about their school
because the school's amazing. Anyways, I remember a friend of mine,
Luke Peacock. I was starting to learn to play guitar
because it was back in the day of like Cadman's
Call and what was the band. There's that old Christian

(22:41):
band that always had the kpo really high. Maybe it
was Caden's Call, all of them, they all, but I
remember just that almost to make it sound like a
piccolo guitar, and uh so violin was really conducive to that.
But then we're gonna start playing are you drunone songs
in worship and Da da dah, and so I was
getting I was literally getting kicked out of the band.
I didn't realize I was getting kicked out of the
band because they didn't need a violinist anymore. And they're like,
you know what, we really need a guitar player's like

(23:02):
I can play guitar. I can figure it out. I
learned how play guitar, and so I learned three power chords,
like the two shapes really like the main major shape
on the bottom me string and then the main major
shape there. And so I could play one four five,
and they got me through almost all the songs. Anyways,
fast forward to high school. Buddy mind Luke Peacock was
playing guitar in the hallway between classes and at lunch,
and I sit with him, and he's a guitar player

(23:23):
and a poet. He was there for creative writing at
this art school, and he would play He would play
me songs that he wrote, and I would go home
and play guitar and learn how to play a little
better at acoustic. And I started bringing my guitar to
school and in between classes, and it turned into skipping classes,
and it turned into spending our entire lunch time in
the hallway just me and Luke Peacock playing guitar and
like singing each other. Almost what happens in Nashville. What

(23:45):
I took for granted, I think in Nashville is everybody
is so talented. Songwriters are absolutely everywhere, and you'd sit
at a house and you pass a guitar around like
the movie Once, and everybody's got a song, and everybody's
song is actually amazing and really good, and only like young, prideful,
super driven people that want to be better than anybody
kind of lose that, which I think I was at

(24:06):
some point. But looking back, you see how beautiful, thank
you it was, and how talented, really, how much talent
you surrounded by. But yeah, that was that was when
it really connected for me in a practical sense. Was
my junior year of high school.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, so let's fast forward real quick too. How Amanda
changed things musically for you obviously in every way for
you big time? But I think I remember you. Y'all
met because of songs.

Speaker 7 (24:37):
Yeah, well we so a man as my wife, my
writing partner. She's the where Johnny Suim is a duo.
It's just me and her and I saw her at
church one day. This I know this isn't a romantic podcast,
but I saw her at church one day. I was
sitting next to girl I was dating. Amanda stood up
and I said out loud, that's the girl I'm gonna marry.
I got broken up with in that moment, and I
never dated anybody ever again until.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
It's not what you're supposed to say, we're supposed to sit.

Speaker 7 (25:03):
I mean even just disrespectful. That was just terrible. I
don't know what's happening. It was clearly connected to the
eternal per second. And uh, I had never I was
always a pessimist about love at first sight, the one
all that stuff until I saw Amanda. And I literally
didn't date anybody. I got broken up with at church
because I said, a man is the girl going to marry?

(25:23):
And I went the next four years never dated anybody.
That's probably around the time we met until I met
Amanda at a coffee shop in Nashville. She was living
in New York as a model. She was, her family
was in Nashville, she was visiting for Easter. I invited her.
I saw her a coffee shop. A mutual friend of ours,
Matt Carney, knew Amanda introduced me to her. Matt was
my roommate at the time. I talked to a man

(25:46):
a little bit invited to a show. It taught the porter,
and I was so nervous that she was there that
taught them porter Back in the day used to have
I don't know what it's like. I think it's closed now,
but he used to have a pizza spot next, like
in the middle. There's a little venue, the pizza spot
in the middle, and then the big venue. So I
was opening for somebody played the big venue, just sitting
on a stool playing guitar. Will Hill actually just sent

(26:07):
me a video of this performance, which is crazy, so
I could get it to you if you want it.
But I played a song. It might even been in
the holidays, I don't even remember. I think it was
around Easter though. And then instead of just walking off
the stage like you do after perform at twelfth and
Porter and like saying hi to everybody and talking hanging out,
I was so nervous I went backstage, which didn't really exist,
but I cut through the kitchen to the pizza place
and just sat at the bar at the pizza place,

(26:29):
just overwhelmed with nerves. That Amanda Sudano was watching me sing,
And next thing I knew, she came and sat next
to me like she was looking for me and came
and sat next to me, and she's like, so, what
are you doing with this music thing? And at the time,
I was probably like twenty. I think I don't really
know what his age. What is time? I was probably
twenty one. And at eighteen I had had a really

(26:50):
bad experience in Nashville where I'd signed a record deal
and it went south. I signed a publishing deal like
all of the same people like OG three sixty. They
owned my life. They gave me my first guitar that
I owned. I'd always borrowed guitars, and then later they
were suing me and we were in litigation and.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
It was just kind of a wild, just normal business press.

Speaker 7 (27:08):
Yeah, it was horrible. Unfortunately, it is not a unique story.
And so I had officially and in my heart, had
decided I was never going to pursue music as a career.
I'd find something else to do. But I would always
write songs because I loved them, and she was like,
and I'd committed to it, and I'd argue with people
about it. No, I'm just no, I'm done. I'm done.
And I had a bad experience blah blah blah. And
a man had said to me, so, what are you

(27:28):
doing with this music thing? I was like nothing, and
she said, that's stupid. We should write and her being
the most beautiful person I'd ever seen in my entire life,
and still the most beautiful person I've ever seen in
my entire life. If she said we should go watch
old paint Chip off of Wall, I would say absolutely yes.

(27:48):
She happened to say, let's go write songs, which is
the thing I enjoyed most in life and at the time,
and we did, and the rest kind of became history.
We became songwriting partners. We started writing songs together first,
even performing together first, and then we made out and
that was when we said, Okay, this band thing's for real.
October first, two thousand and five, we were watching when

(28:09):
Harry met Sally. Sorry, I remember all of it. I
we have eighteen tattooed arm from the eighteen yeared anniversary
of when that October first was. And what's interesting And
I'm giving you way too much, bro, Please cut all
of this out and my heart out. It's gonna move
because this is all my fault. One thing that changed
in the way I write songs. One thing that thinks unique.
Everybody brings kind of their unique perspective to life, to

(28:32):
your work, to whatever it is you do it. I
find that an artistic endeavors who you are and what
you've experienced in your life comes out, whether you want
it to or not. It's like being a therapy when
our parents died, When my dad died and a man
his mom died, we wrote songs that revealed to us
more about how we felt about their passing than we
even had ever said out loud or admitted to ourselves.

(28:53):
In the most quiet part of our minds, we didn't
know it was there. But the magic of songwriting is
that you reach into what seems like an abyss and
you reach into this thing like a magic hat, I guess,
and you reach and you reach into nothing and you
pull out something. But ultimately what you're reaching into I
think is a mix of Honestly, I believe there's part

(29:14):
of heaven, part of the eternal, part of I mean,
heaven's kind of a ridiculous word. But I think we
reach beyond the physical realm when you create artistically. I
think you speak with the universe, whether you know it
or not. You're commune with the universe, and you pull
from this place of which all things were created to
create this little nugget, this little song. But often with
that eternal as you pull back from the universe and

(29:37):
draw back from it what you can, you also pull
from the depths of your soul. If you're doing it right,
and it doesn't take work, it just takes availability, and
you end up being more honest than you ever intended
to be. You end up discovering things about yourself. You
end up discovering things about the way you think, how
you feel about stuff, what your hurt looks like, what
that hurt's actually doing to you, what you think about yourself.

(29:59):
You see all those things right for me, I write,
and I tend to enjoy writing most when you write
like a hurricane. Let's feel as much as possible, and
let's just freaking go wow, just words, songs. I hope
everybody's getting this. Let's write down as many things you
can ever think it. Oh, just fly, yeah, go go
go on a feel feel feel, feel, feel, feel, feel,
feel feel And then if the words make sense good,

(30:20):
If not, I don't care. I felt it and I
know it's true in its own way because I felt
so much in that moment. And Amanda writes like a tactician.
Amanda writes like a poet. Amanda writes quietly, and then
the opposite of a storm. She finds the piece and
she writes, you know, uh, maybe lyrics first, like this
is an easy way to say it, And I write

(30:40):
kind of sounds first, like I'll strum some chords and
I will almost shout syllables. Ah wait, yeah, how about
and some words come out cool, and I'll find those
words and maybe write lyrics around the words that felt
cool to say. Right where Amanda will just decisively, like
an arrow hitting a bull's eye, exactly where this is going.

(31:01):
And the work then becomes slowly, meticulously, patiently whittling that arrow,
the direction the wind, which way is the wind coming from? Okay,
I'm gonna have to change a little bit of how
I'm shooting this, and I'm producing lots of wind all
the time. If we're gonna stick with that metaphor, so she'll,
as a tectician, maybe move or she'll ask me to
change my perspective not perspective, but all right, calm down,

(31:22):
stop for a second, you know, and it's it's.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Uh yeah, and you guys are I assume you're good
at that at this point man being able to go.

Speaker 7 (31:30):
We're practiced.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
I mean, was it ever a fight? I mean, it
was like, hey you need to settle down, and hey
you need to speed up.

Speaker 7 (31:37):
Uh yeah, it actually still happens. It's like because it
hurts my feelings, right, Like I feel like I'm I'm
doing i might be forty one, but I'm still freaking twelve.
Sometimes I think can be said of every man.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Well, actually, to your point, because what you said about
songs earlier, you're pulling from the depths of your soul here. Yeah,
And if somebody in the writing is like that, it's
like you can feel very exposed in a co write, Yeah,
because you're going let me pull these lines from somewhere

(32:11):
deep within me to get a song with you, whether
I know where you're my wife or you're just somebody
i'm co writing and I just met. I've got to
figure out how to be honest enough to give you
these lines and hope you're not going to say are
you okay?

Speaker 8 (32:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (32:26):
And she's my wife, right and even when she was
my girlfriend, there's a freedom to be like, I don't know,
or I'll say, you know, I'll say something random. I'm
literally just making up words here. But Michigan ice cream cones, Oh,
Michigan ice cream cones, babe, right like you think about
it like the colons of Michigan. It doesn't make sense.
It's cold, that type of raving ice cream cones anyway, Oh,
isn't it just beautiful? Like that's got to be the
hook right here in this first she's like, I mean, no,

(32:47):
I don't like it, and that kind of or she
won't be as or it's not even that, she won't
even have to say I don't like it. She just
has to be not as excited about it as I am,
and I'll be bummed out. And so I think what's
the real work hasn't been figuring out how to work together,
but it's been feeling how to keep how to be
a grown up for me, Yeah, not to protect my feelings,

(33:08):
but to allow my feelings to get hurt, but to
move forward anyway. And there's a few things to do.
Right one, it's like, okay, not now. It's kind of
like what people say about prayer. The answer could be yes,
no or maybe or whatever. Not now, Like sometimes she
is stoked with me. We have songs that we've both
been like fired up about and just happened all at once.
There's been songs where I've just had to walk away

(33:28):
at that time. I've had to pivot my perspective to
accomplish the goal of writing this song together. Like that
line doesn't work for both of us. Is there something
close to it? Is there something that makes me feel
a similar way that we can pivot to to get
to where we're going. And then sometimes it's like, Okay,
that doesn't work for this song, and let me just
save that and I can use it later for something else.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Totally, which is a good segue into this song. I
have a billion other things that I want to talk about.
But for the second time, Bro, I talk too much.
I'm sorry, No, no, no, we just we're you know,
we have so many things we could.

Speaker 7 (33:59):
Talk about episode fifty through fifty three.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, it is all that Actually, that would be That's
what I should have done. Like we schedule ten episodes,
you get a full season of work tapes. We could
go over the whole record.

Speaker 7 (34:15):
I bet I could talk as much as anybody on
the planet. That sucks.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
Oh, I can listen. So we're that's where we're good. Bounce.
But yeah, that's a good segue into the song we're
going to talk about, which is called moonlight, because this
song definitely has some dichotomy. Is that the right word?
I want to say? Like it's it kind of goes

(34:39):
back and forth. It feels like a conversation between whoever
it's about or whatever the story is. And so I
do have some questions on this song, But why don't
you start off with just telling me? We're telling us

(35:01):
where it initially came from.

Speaker 7 (35:03):
Yes, what was the first spark? This is one of
my favorite songwriting stories of any song we've ever written.
A lot of times we write like we have a
song called Home that bought us' house. That song kind
of came out of a frustrated day of bad songwriting.
We writing with our friend Brittain. We'd started a million
ideas but never committed to any of them, had no
finished songs. After like seven hours of writing and as

(35:24):
we're all just about to go our own ways go
get dinner, I was like, screw it, let's just write something.
And we wrote something as a joke, and it became
the biggest song in our life. Right, there's songs that
happened like that, and then the songs that happened like
this one. This song was a very specific scenario that
we wanted to that had nothing to do with us,
and we wanted to affect the outcome of this scenario

(35:47):
by writing a song about it and in the song
giving it a very decisive outcome. So here's the scenario.
Two friends of ours. Our house is always kind of
the hangouse. Tonight, today's Friday, it's pet tonight. I will
literally finish this podcast and start making dough for pizza tonight. Literally,
I'll spend not money dough like pizza do. I'll spend

(36:07):
the next nine hours of the day literally making pizza.
After this, that's amazing, and people come over. It's packed.
People are always here, YadA, YadA. Two of our very
dear friends. They're at the house all the time. I
won't say their names, but they're here. They're still here
all the time, used to be here almost every day.
They're friends too. They're both single and they're good friends.

(36:30):
They end up at a wedding as friends together. Nothing
romantic happening whatsoever, But they're at the wedding. Wedding vibes
are happening, Things are romantic and sweet. They end up
kissing after the wedding. After that day, the female regretted
it the male did not regret. It was like I've

(36:50):
always wanted to do ive always wanted that happen. She's like, oh,
I was just kind of in the moment that was
a mistake. And we really wanted them to get together
because it would just be perfect, Like we got this
great little friend group. Don't bring in the stranger, Like
why don't y'all just like find each other in the
friend group? Wouldn't that be perfect? And so we wrote
this song on their behalf so that they would get together,

(37:11):
so they would connect, like we want what if we
wrote this crazy romantic song about this accidental hook up
that maybe went too far, or maybe it was too
early in the timeline, maybe it wasn't supposed to happen yet,
but it happened. And what if we just wrote that
it was a beautiful thing. What if you know, in
the turmoil of the song, yes, you say the things,
maybe it shouldn't happened, maybe it was the wrong time,
But finally in the song, it's like, oh no, that

(37:31):
was the thing. It was precious, it was beautiful, and
we should make this thing last. So we wrote it.
We recorded it with our dear friend Malayhoe, Grammy award
winning songwriter, producer, mix engineer, literally all those things, and
the first people that ever heard it was those two
people that we wrote it about. We invited them to
the studio one night at like eleven o'clock at night
at Mlay's studio, malaised to have this place at Laird

(37:53):
be in LA. That was like it felt like this.
Actually this room's modeled after his studio in a way,
a living room, but everything was accessible, everything room, everything
was already pre miked. You could sit down anywhere and
just start tracking. So they came, sat on the couch
and we played the song for him, and halfway through,
the female looks at us and goes, no, no, is

(38:13):
this song about us?

Speaker 3 (38:15):
I was like, just listen.

Speaker 7 (38:18):
And so the dude's trying to like scoot in a
little closer because like he's getting it, like okay, okay,
yeah yeah. And they did not end up together. It
did not work. I think it had the opposite effect
for her. I think she was like, screw this, No,
you're not making us get together. I know what you're
trying to do.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Worst story I've ever heard. It's supposed to end.

Speaker 7 (38:38):
Oh they're supposed to get together. Forever. We're supposed to
be celebrating their anniversary, they're supposed to be their first
dances to this song.

Speaker 9 (38:46):
No, but it is.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
It's a relatable story though all of us probably at
some point or another.

Speaker 7 (38:53):
Yeah, you kiss a friend and you're like, oops, sorry bro.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, well, I mean that really tears apart most of
the questions I had about the song, because you know,
I'm going to get too existential about it, but I
think I do think it's I mean, as you do
as a listener, songs are magical in the way of
they can mean whatever you want them to mean for you.

(39:24):
And so sometimes, and I'm not saying this is the
case with this one, but sometimes the actual story is
like deflating what you have built up in your mind
about this song.

Speaker 7 (39:35):
It's like meet and your heroes.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, like oh you're oh.

Speaker 7 (39:40):
You're in cool, don't come in and doing a podcast.
Actually need to look up the lyrics to this song.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
It man, it's a great song. Though. So there's one
thing you can tell me this or not. The very
end of the song has a voice memo of your day.
Oh is that is that for that song or is
it for the next song on.

Speaker 7 (40:07):
That I don't remember what's next.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
I think it was just ada.

Speaker 7 (40:10):
Oh yeah, it's for the next song, it's for the
next Yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
Uh still it comes on right when Moonlight ends. And
I was fortunate enough to have met your father. Yeah,
what a what a dude. That's a great guy. So
to hear his voice was really nice.

Speaker 7 (40:31):
Same. It took me by surprise. I listened to this song.
I knew we were doing this today, and I hadn't
heard the song in a while. So I listened to
the record and his voice started playing, and it took
my breath away, literally, like I gasped. Yeah, and uh yeah, man,
that was really I'm glad we did that because you know, yeah,
I'm just glad we did that. Yeah, but honestly at
the end of a love song, right before, because ultimately

(40:53):
that's what Moonlight is. Moonlight's love song with a very
specific trajectory, you know, hopeful. And then to hear my
dad talking to my wife back when I don't think
we weren't married yet, we were just she was coming
to visit. It's kind of like bringing her home to
meet the parents. Yeah, and hear him interacting with her directly. Yeah,

(41:13):
it took me somewhere.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
It was Well, it's funny because the way that I
took that part is I attached it to Moonlight, but
I also thought it might be an intro to a
man the song Amanda, and so the way that the
way that I took it was it kind of lands

(41:34):
in this like emotional plane, like back to your mundane
like your family's in town, you're in the house and
your dad. It starts to camp in a in a
way compliment you on how you've changed. Yeah, like you've
grown up a notch. And he's going, how did you

(41:56):
get him to do this? I've been trying this for
twenty five years? And Amanda goes, why drive him crazy?
So he want us to get out? And it feels
like this is the married couple answering like the tortured lovers. Yeah,
and the song oh yeah, sure, that's how it went
for Moonlight.

Speaker 7 (42:12):
Why not that makes perfect sense to me. It's perfect
sense to me.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
But you know, I get too heavy about that.

Speaker 7 (42:19):
I think that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Why not do you ever consciously write with theater and mind?
Yes you do, so you like see because this song
has that kind of vibe.

Speaker 7 (42:33):
What's funny is all right, here's a here's a And.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
I don't mean it sounds like a theater music with you,
That's not what I'm saying.

Speaker 10 (42:40):
No with you.

Speaker 7 (42:40):
But for sure, it's two characters and it's absolutely and
that's what it came from. It's two characters and it's
both two perspectives come together in one song. I mean,
that's as much of a theater song as any. That's
ultimately what we're doing. You're telling a story and you
want the listener to be able to hear both perspectives
go with you on this journey and take them somewhere.
So for sure, uh, this was the first time we
ever wrote like that that I can remember, where it

(43:01):
was two people telling the same story, not just like
very specifically telling one story, but from two perspectives. And uh,
now it's something we enjoy doing very much now. It's
something that we lean into consciously, and I think it's
really experience with this song.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yes, story songs I feel like are almost the last
art depending on well in like a mass appeal kind
of way. They're not very many artists are doing those
like they used to, which so I love that. But you, guys,
I mean you do have a history of writing, like
you have songs that are literal names of people. Yeah,

(43:41):
Annie Adelina, mm hmm, there's several of them.

Speaker 7 (43:47):
Yeah, Hey, we need an a coming out, two more albums.
We'll get an aber song. It'll be a sad.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
I'll write it. Yeah, it's gonna be it's going to
be all the same lyrics as Amanda, but I'm gonna.

Speaker 7 (44:06):
I didn't. I don't think we knew how much of
a resource it was writing in that way for us,
or how much it inspired us until later in the years,
years closer where we are now right in that way.
For instance, And here's an exclusive just for Work Tapes podcast.
We just did a deal with Universal Pictures, Universal Theatrical,

(44:29):
the same you know, like Universal Universal to write musical,
like an actual musical that's gonna open in London on
the West End. We've been traveling to Scotland because our
co writer, our book writer, the guy that writes like
the lyrical, not the lyrics, the spoken parts, lives in Scotland,
and the first theater will put it up in is
in Scotland. And so it's funny. When I was listening
to this song today, I was like, man, this was

(44:51):
practice for what we're actually doing now, which is writing
a full blown musical, yeah, which is not just like
a musical. And it's funnycause it's not like I'll write
a musical. We'll see even get some funding. Not. Man,
this is like a big piece of property that universe
OANs that we've been really lucky to be attached to
the director, the producer, our scriptwriter, everybody that's attached to

(45:14):
it already. Is like major major League where the only rookies,
which is kind of nice. I wouldn't want a whole
bunch of rookies in a Yeah, we're writing a major
freaking musical.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Congratulations, thank you, that's amazing.

Speaker 7 (45:27):
Yeah, super stoked.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
I can't wait for that.

Speaker 7 (45:29):
Sooer stoked.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
So let's let'sten. Okay, So for the work tapes, here's
what we've done for this episode. It's different for two reasons. One,
Abner Amanda amazing. Two this is episode fifty. So what
you've let me do You sent me the recordings of
the literal process of writing this song. And so what

(45:54):
I'm gonna do is I'm going to put it all
together in one go and it's going to go all
the way way through you hear you hear Abner and
Amanda talking about writing as they're writing. Kids in the background,
baby crying, Yeah, kids in the background going crazy, whatever
is happening. And and then you're gonna hear different moments

(46:18):
of the songwriting process all the way into a little
bit of the full production song on the record. That's
gonna be I don't We don't usually do that. It
will be a longer segment of the podcast, but we'll
go ahead and do that. Now. We'll listen down to
that right now, and then we'll wrap things up. Does
that sound good?

Speaker 7 (46:39):
Sounds wonderful?

Speaker 3 (46:46):
What do wed you say for these.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
In passionate moment?

Speaker 7 (46:53):
Where's your moment in passion that makes more sense?

Speaker 3 (46:56):
A moment of passion is last friend? And now I
don't think we can read that a guy still like
a guys. It was one of them maybe to one.
And then you go, youfter the molas that.

Speaker 7 (47:30):
I like that because they're both like nervous about.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
It ruins the rule and below since you mean you're.

Speaker 11 (47:41):
There's a blood on this, why can't you go pick
some clothes that we'll go through the frisbee outside.

Speaker 8 (48:00):
Regret like he doesn't regret it, but he has to
like figure out a way to like.

Speaker 7 (48:04):
I love that. Did you look down and regret that
that's recorded? That you're gonna to hear your speaking voice?
You tell me you look down. That's the way I
feel about I talked more passionately about lyric and look
down and started recording, like crap.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
I never learn about that.

Speaker 4 (48:20):
How many moons must wade toget lost and love? I
must learned to forget to regret anyway?

Speaker 3 (48:33):
Always wonderful, that's better?

Speaker 7 (48:38):
And it was oh live, Oh I think I think, uh,
I think they did. It was worth it, like even
if we ruined everything.

Speaker 10 (48:53):
Like works, take it back, take him back? Oh, I'll
never take it back.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
You know it was perfect. I wouldn't take it was perfect.

Speaker 4 (49:07):
Don't take it back.

Speaker 10 (49:09):
I can go back in the alliance sperm Oh, take
it back?

Speaker 4 (49:14):
Take it back? What what ship? Take it back? Nie
was perf.

Speaker 7 (49:26):
Now let's make it last, make a loss?

Speaker 4 (49:32):
What it what? Should take it back?

Speaker 3 (49:36):
It could do that?

Speaker 2 (49:39):
This was.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
Maga lives.

Speaker 7 (49:44):
Say stream.

Speaker 8 (49:49):
Tells.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
How many moons must I wait here again?

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Lost and love?

Speaker 4 (50:19):
I must learn new grass.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
Always knew it'd be wonderful.

Speaker 7 (50:28):
It was wonderful.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Just say it's really, won't get said.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
You'll be.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
Long after the moon light's gone, bag.

Speaker 10 (50:52):
And flow.

Speaker 7 (50:55):
That means long after the nights go.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Go.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
A moment, a moment of passion just cost me a friend.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
And I don't think we can be that again.

Speaker 4 (51:29):
We'll never be that again. Moment of passion just lost
me a friend.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
That again.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
No, I don't think we can be that again.

Speaker 7 (51:44):
Do that again?

Speaker 9 (51:46):
Almost, I must almost. Maybe it was wonderful, it was wonderful.
I must confess it was wonderful, wonderful.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
Say, won't you tell.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Ny here?

Speaker 4 (52:12):
Don't after the blas gone?

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Anything you is below since you may be let.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
Don't after the.

Speaker 8 (53:11):
Laughing last nothing.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
Happen by god Stoy.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Let me say lost in love.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
In my dreams one with regret?

Speaker 7 (53:53):
Must do you hear a single? No good singing? Joaquine?
You sing it? Yeah? Mm?

Speaker 4 (54:13):
How many rooms did I wait here? Again? Lost and love?

Speaker 3 (54:21):
I must learn to regress.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
Always.

Speaker 5 (54:27):
N it be wonderful.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
And it was.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
Wonderful, says really, won't you say.

Speaker 7 (54:45):
You'll be here.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Long after the lights? Warner says it flows passion and

(55:23):
this cost me friend.

Speaker 9 (55:28):
No, I don't think we don't again.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
That's an amazing process to here. I do want to
know each one of those snippets you sent me are
those different days.

Speaker 7 (55:48):
And this one it's the same day, So I use Uh,
there's you know Joela Houston Old Tilson, United, dude, he
used to live. I don't know where he lives now,
but I remember the story where he lived in New
York and he was getting robbed at gunpoint, and you know,
it took all his money, took his wallet, and then
they were taking his phone, and he's like, can you
please just not take my phone. I've got like a
hundred song ideas on there that I need. I just need.

(56:10):
I need my phone, please, And he like risked his
life to try to keep his phone. I don't. I
don't ultimately don't know if he got to keep his
phone or not. But I remember that feeling as a songwriter,
like you got voice memos, you got all this stuff,
And because of that, I started using This is not
a pitch for Evernote, but because of that, I started
using Evernote because it saves everything with the cloud and
even now voice notes, voice memos all saved to the cloud,
but at the time that was the only service that

(56:30):
that I knew of that could do that, and so
ever note it looks like a word document essentially, but
you can add audio and whatever you want for us.
For our purposes we use, we'll just inter interject audio
so I can just hit record, type out lyrics as
we have them, maybe a concept or you know, a
picture of my notebook with a bunch of ideas, and
then sing a bit. And so in this one, that's
a I sent you all the audio files from our

(56:51):
ever note for this song, where we had written down
the idea above it, and then as we got inspired,
we would just hit record as melodies came or lyrics
or whatever. And so there's these four or five like
segments and then ultimately the last one is just a full,
full demo of the song before going to the studio.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Man, it's so cool to hear it down. It's so
I'm proud of you guys for being able to write
songs with your kids around, because I know how nuts
that can be, trying to think creatively while your kids
need something. I'm not good at that. I've done it
when they were really little, I could do it, but

(57:32):
nowadays it's like, no, I can't do that. I have
to be alone. Yeah, I love that. I love hearing that,
and I think I think the listener, like your fans,
will love hearing that. It just goes to it proves
what I mentioned before. Adnir and Amanda are the real deal.
They're never there's never like Okay, I need to turn

(57:55):
I need to turn show version of me on now, right.
You know you might change your clothes. Hopefully you get
the real deal with them. And that's what that's what's
so special about these work tapes. Your son is literally
singing with you in the background. That's one we always say.

Speaker 7 (58:16):
Uh. You know, there's difference between cooking French food and
cooking Italian food. Like French food is meticulous to the tea.
Everything needs to be separated the oven. I mean they
even have like steam ovens in France, right, Like, everything
is very meticulous that you measure everything to the gram.
Everything is exactly separated, exactly measured, and then put together
at the exact right time, at the exact right temperature.

(58:37):
When you're cooking Italian food, you just you ultimately, this
is brushing with broad strokes. You trust the ingredients more
than the process. I make sure I got ripe really
good ripe tomatoes that are perfect from the garden, great basil,
I got the best cheese. I'm gonna make these noodles
from double O or I'm gonna make you know, I'm
gonna hey make. And then the process is less important

(58:58):
then the important than what you're putting in it, the ingredients,
and so you can kind of just put in the
pot and then you'll figure out at some point you
need more salt. So it's had some salt. Oh, maybe
needs a little more basil. Whatever you're doing the thing.
And we always say that our whole life is Italian cooking,
not French cooking. Yeah, and that's true for our songwriting
process as well.

Speaker 9 (59:18):
Well.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
It makes for a good life and a good good
song and good songs, good records than this. The song
for our listeners is called Moonlight Again, and that's on
the record also called Moonlight that was put on twenty nineteen. Yeah,
that's one of my favorite records that you guys have done.

(59:38):
I love them all. This one. That record hit me
just because it was a little on the nose emotionally
for that time of my life. And so that's also
a part of the reason I hate it. But that's
why I love it also because it gets you, get
you anybody going through anything. It doesn't just have to

(59:59):
be you know, breakup songs. It's it's suffering in general.
And yeah, you guys are so good at being living
in that reality and voicing those things and saying, y'all
you're not alone, like you entered this whole episode. Thanks
so thank you for being here, Thanks for doing this

(01:00:22):
and setting it up. Like we've mentioned twelve times, we
could just keep going.

Speaker 7 (01:00:29):
Literally could we could literally never stop.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
So you mentioned you mentioned the theater or the writing
you're doing with the Universal. What are you doing next?
You've got a rector coming out?

Speaker 7 (01:00:39):
Yeah, man, we're putting out songs every month right now.
I don't know when this episode show. Yeah, we got HBO. Yeah,
it's actually really cool. We've got a book out. A
man is working on a cookbook now, which is really cool,
and that'll just be her thing, which is better for
everyone because she's the master chef in the house. Really,
I just pretend you can see a cooking show on HBO.
We get a new album coming out that I'm really

(01:01:00):
excited about. It's been a significant kind of season for
us when we've written this new album, I've never dealt
with depression. Depression always kind of seemed like motion sickness
to me, like it's something I never experienced, so I
didn't really understand that it was even real. It was
easy for me to say things to people with motion sickness,
like just get over it, man, And so in my
mind I would think about people struggling with depression in

(01:01:23):
any level and being like, oh, man, come on, just
be happier, because if that's helpful. And in the season
we started writing the songs for this current album that's
coming out in February, I was struggling with depression for
the first time ever, and it was radical. It was
radical because it's something I didn't think. I didn't understand
its existence, and then to be experiencing it was It

(01:01:46):
felt insurmountable. It felt like drowning every day. It felt
like being paralyzed. It felt it was more than sad.
It was it was it's been. It was horrific when
I first who's dealing with it? And since you know,
I started getting healthy physically, started going to therapy, started

(01:02:07):
going to counseling, like all these you know, inside out
kind of things, I lost fifty pounds, not that the
weight was doing it, but there was certainly something going
on on the inside that has been reflected. The change
has been reflected on the outside as well in my
life and so many of these songs, the first half
of the album that's coming out, the album's called When
the War's Over, deals a lot with my struggle with

(01:02:28):
and through depression. In the second half of the album,
not even half because they're intermixed, but the second set
of songs we wrote for the album dealt with Amanda's
lingering long COVID sicknesses, chronic fatigue, chronic illness, not fatigue,
ch chronic illness, and kind of becoming in our own ways,

(01:02:50):
dealing with becoming people that we didn't think we ever
would be, and fighting struggles we never thought we'd have
to fight. And so I think this new album, When
the War's Over, more than any album we've written, is
written specifically for a purpose. One for specific purposes, one
was there are journal entries through our struggle, for sure,
and two the hope is for people struggling with things

(01:03:14):
that seem insurmountable to know that they're not the only
ones being squashed by the mountain they're not the only
ones feeling crushed, and hopefully not just feel less alone,
but hopefully see a glimmer of hope in all those feelings,
to see light where we have seen light, To see

(01:03:38):
fresh air, fresh breath, where we have found fresh air
in the most unlikely of times, unlikely of circumstances, And uh, yeah, man,
it's a I think songwriting has saved my life. I
think literally it's saved my life. I think songwriting has
literally changed my life. I believe it's one of the

(01:03:58):
ways in which I commune with God the best, maybe
the most effectively. And I'm not saying everything I write
comes from God, because I don't think that. I just
feel like the process of songwriting, when you go there
is a form of meditation. It's a form of stillness
and mindfulness where you can look at things that often
would bludgeon you with curiosity and not add weight to

(01:04:20):
them initially. You can look at every thought and every
feeling with curiosity, which is ultimately the practice of mindfulness.
And I believe that that practice of mindfulness is communion
with the higher powers, communion with the universe, the greater
power of existence. And yeah, man, so I think all
that todays, I think what you're doing is really important,

(01:04:41):
even just going through work tape songs, the songwriting to
the production to the fully produced situation. I think that
process could it seems cool, and it could seem like
a niche like cool, kitschy thing to do, but I
think ultimately what you are navigating is people's intimacy with
God himself as they practiced the mindfulness of songwriting. So

(01:05:04):
big ups to what you're doing, Brandon, and I think
it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Thank you, And I want to speak to real fast
the what you just mentioned about depression. And this isn't
a prop question. I really mean this question. Will you
come back and talk about that? Yeah, because that's something
that I've dealt with a lot in my life, pretty
much all my life. And I did I notice this

(01:05:31):
about some of the new songs you've released for the
new record. Obviously haven't heard all of it, but there's
a line in there that caught me because I listened
to enough Johnny Swim this week preparing for this that
I probably earned you guys about fifty cents, so you
can thank me for that later. But there's a line

(01:05:51):
in here that really struck me because and it's it
struck me because I've dealt with so much, so many
low points and depression, sometimes to the point where I
have no idea why it's even happened, doesn't make any sense.
And the line is all my demons, they're all sleeping
because I get I keep getting in the way. And

(01:06:15):
that's just like such a huge line. And that's going
to be a setup for what I hope we can
get into the next time. It'll be heavier content. But
I think it's important if you're willing to do.

Speaker 7 (01:06:27):
It, absolutely, bro, which is absolutely you know that feeling
man like, why would even why would you know? We
grew up? The devil's after you. The devil's trying to
It's like a roaring line, like stalking you whatever. I
don't think he has to. I think I'm fucking my
life enough up for all of us. I don't think.
I don't think demons are working real hard to mess
my life up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
It can be something as simple as control daughter, Yeah,
of course, it can be something as Yeah, it can
be something as simple as like I didn't I'm not exercising.
Yeah that that changes that, That changes a ton.

Speaker 7 (01:07:04):
Big time, bro, big time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Okay, very last question, if you could listen to one
album again for the very first time, as if you've
never heard it.

Speaker 7 (01:07:13):
What is it? That's a great question.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Can't be your own?

Speaker 7 (01:07:20):
Give me a seconds again for the first time for
the first time. I remember in high school, everybody had
a favorite band, and I think my I think some
people mature at different ages differently, right, I think we

(01:07:41):
all know that as far as like physical maturity, mental maturity.
I think my I was behind with music for some reason.
I was playing classical music a lot or whatever, but
I never had a favorite band. And I remember I
grabbed Back in the day, you'd have the big almost
like a photo album, just full of like three hundred CDs.
My sisters had one just full of like everything, mostly

(01:08:03):
all Christian music, but they had a lot of CDs.
I don't remember them buying a bunch of albums, but
I'm really grateful my sisters did because I remember one day,
I think it was my junior year, it might have
been sophomore, but I was really frustrated. I was really
bothered that I didn't have a band. Because people wear
their band t shirts. People would know tickets for sale
for their band that's in town. It could be big,
it could be whatever. I just didn't have a band,

(01:08:24):
and I was bothered by it. So I remember I
spent an entire afternoon and evening on the couch in
my house, my mom's house, with a discman, just going
through CDs, and sometimes I would listen to half a songs.
Sometimes I listen to four songs. But I'd listened to
every album in my sister's big disc collection, and I
remember I got to Dave Matthew's band Under the Table

(01:08:47):
and Dreaming, Yes, and feeling like it, like my brain
woke up and just feeling like, oh man, yes, And
in that moment they became my band. That's yeah band.
I if I could go back to any album, listen
to it for the first time as I had never
heard again, probably Dave Matthews Under the Table and Dreaming.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
That's a great record, It's fantastic. Heck, yeah, that's a
great answer.

Speaker 7 (01:09:14):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:09:14):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
So we're here for an.

Speaker 7 (01:09:18):
Thank you, Brandon, thank you man. Let's talk for another hour.
I want to I want too bad.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
We can, but you got to go make pizza sud
I do, and I gotta go to them.

Speaker 7 (01:09:29):
I gotta go to the deli and pick up the salamis, theamis,
the salamis lunas. My six year old has six girls
coming over today to spend the day doing arts and
crafts and swimming. So I'm gonna be hosting a legion
of little girls. Oh, starting in thirty minutes. That's that's
stressful to think about.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
That's so fun. When does your tour start starting?

Speaker 7 (01:09:51):
We're doing spot dates right now. We're doing a Christmas
tour in December, and then tickets run sale for our
spring tour of March twenty twenty five. Then we're doing
a European tour summer, and then we're doing another American
tour in the fall of twenty twenty five. So we'll
be on the road a bunch twenty twenty five. Come
see us. Also, we're releasing a version of fairy Tale

(01:10:12):
in New York in November, which I'm really excited about.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
Also, episode fifty work Tapes.

Speaker 7 (01:10:17):
You see what I'm saying, Episode fifty work Tapes. Brandon Carswell,
this is the best part of my day unless I
make out with my wife later.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
I love yes, obviously, I love you guys. Tell it, Manda,
I said, Hi, and she said, so I'm serious. For sure,
I'm serious about doing another one.

Speaker 7 (01:10:36):
Done done, I'm in love you, bro.

Speaker 4 (01:10:52):
Psh This cost me.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
Work Tapes is produced by Me Brandon Carswa and Nashville, Tennessee.
This episode was sponsored by Duke Timeless Spirits special mention
to Stories and Sounds podcast by Jonas Slitton. Thanks to
Mica Talks for production assistants and Daniel Sheppard for writing assistance.

(01:11:20):
All cover art designed by Harrison Hudson. All songs featured
on Work Tapes were used by permission. A special thanks
to Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano of Johnny Swim for
episode fifty. Listen and subscribe to Work Tapes on your
favorite streaming platforms everywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:11:47):
What should we take it back?

Speaker 7 (01:11:50):
Should we take it back? Was pleasing?

Speaker 4 (01:11:56):
Mean?

Speaker 8 (01:12:00):
Oh hear the word that should we take abade? Should
we take a back? Knowing its perfect? Now, let's make
a last just make it life.

Speaker 7 (01:12:17):
Won't you tell me you be