August 15, 2023 • 58 mins
Today we feature Brooklyn-based singer songwriter, Max Clarke of Cut Worms. He’s an explorative musician, and an eloquent lyricist. Norah and Max discuss his musical beginnings, the art of the ’long song’, and his latest work. They perform together on some of his new music, a melancholic Carole King duet, and one of Norah’s favorite songs that grounded her through the pandemic. Recorded 5/10/23.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with Max
Clark of Cutworms.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
I'm just playing lo wey, I'm just playing lone with you.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, I'm Nora. Thanks for joining us with me, as
always is Sarah Oda.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Hi there.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
Our guest today is the incredibly talented singer, songwriter, guitar player,
and illustrator. Oh yeah, Max Clark of cut Worms. That's
the band name, Cutworms. What does it conjure? I like
saying that I'm a huge fan of his. His music
is amazing. You should check it out. He also has
a new album out. Yeah. Not only do you get
(00:44):
to hear his beautiful new music, but there's also a
very special duet in this episode that I think you
will love. If you like harms, I'm like, what is it?
Speaker 6 (00:53):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (00:53):
Yeah, I did it Arms.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
This is a harm harm heavy, harm heavy episode. Harmony heavy. Yes,
we hope you enjoyed this episode with Max Clark.
Speaker 7 (01:03):
I've got worm.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I don't know if you know this at all, but
I'm obsessed with one of your songs.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
Oh and it happened.
Speaker 8 (01:18):
A couple of years ago that you had covered it,
and that was like a shock to me. I really
just like woke up one morning and yeah, it was
like I don't know who.
Speaker 9 (01:27):
Somebody pointed it out to me.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I did it on this live stream I was doing
during the pandemic, Like every week I would do four songs,
so this song was on. It was on like a
bunch of playlists that my husband had going, and it
kept showing up and every single time. I don't know
if you listened to a streaming.
Speaker 9 (01:45):
Platform, yeah, I listened to a few.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, So, like they make these playlists for you, there's
often so many songs that I like, And I asked
him every time who it was.
Speaker 10 (01:55):
Oh, it's cutworm, So I was like, I love it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And then you know, the song keeps coming back and
you always forget who it is because or I do,
because there's just so many different people on these playlists, right,
and then finally I like stole it and I put
it on this morning playlist that I made, and we
listened to it every morning during that time when we
were home every day. Oh wow, And not only is
(02:20):
it an amazing song, but my kids, who are seven
and nine, every time it comes on now and it
still comes up all the time. We still listen to
it all the time, and they always say how much
they love the song, and they say, oh my god,
this song is so nostalgic for me. They use that
word because it brings them back to that time when
we were just all together every day and we were
(02:40):
listening to this song.
Speaker 9 (02:41):
Oh' that's really nice.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, so this song will stay with my kids for
their whole lives. So I covered it, and I was wondering.
Speaker 9 (02:50):
I thought it was great if we could do it.
Speaker 6 (02:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (02:53):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Where did this song is on an album from.
Speaker 9 (02:56):
It was among a bunch of demos I did home
demo before I was signed to a label, and it
ended up going on the first EP that they put
out on jag Jaguar, and I recorded it. I started
recording it in Chicago and then we moved to New
York and like finished it here. I mean, it's kind
(03:18):
of sort of thing that I had done before I
started writing it. I remember, like the day that lou
Reid died. It was tentatively titled Sunday's Morning, like like
m O you are and I.
Speaker 8 (03:33):
Don't know, it's kind of dumb, but the lyrics I
took from I had the tune for a while and
didn't wasn't really sure where it was going, and then
I was I had been reading a Season in Hell
that Arthur Rimbo. It's like the rock and roll poet
you know, Patty Smith and Bob Dylan are all like
(03:54):
I heard about him through them, like reading them. And
so yeah, there's actually a poem in that book called
Song of the Highest Tower, which I partially just took
a couple like stanzas from and then and like the
choruses basically are like weirdly just fit right into the
(04:14):
tune that had I had so and then I just
added some some other verses of my own and just
kind of I don't know, I didn't really think about
that much. I just like did it or that's the
best way. Yeah, I mean afterwards I was like, am
I allowed to?
Speaker 6 (04:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (04:30):
What you do with all that? I mean, no one's
come to sue me yet, but I mean it's it's
like eighteenth century French poetry.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I don't know, Yeah, I during the pandemic. The words,
I mean, the words are just so. I mean when
I think back to that time, I remember driving the
car once and just getting some fresh air and listening
to this song and just with a friend of mine
who we were quarantined with, and it was just like
(05:01):
we were just both kind of sobbing but also like laughing.
It just felt so good, and it's like the perfect
encapsulation of that melancholy feeling where you feel good and
sad to me. Sorry to talk about stuff before you
play it.
Speaker 10 (05:20):
I mean we should just play it, stop talking about it,
and be about it.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I've impatient to know.
Speaker 11 (05:55):
Momories, all fears and all run.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
To the heavens a fly.
Speaker 12 (06:10):
With the feace.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Bursting rime, while my veins burns.
Speaker 11 (06:21):
Uncome filthy flies and the sickly.
Speaker 13 (06:27):
First may come the time of love, the time we
(06:48):
would be bena.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Have with it for two long.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Logan, I've done nothing wrong, clean, don't feel bad, but
be free.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
Many days I've.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Spent many times I've tried.
Speaker 11 (07:39):
You give a name to the thing that is you,
though no I haven't the right looking all the reasons
I've been on adviser argy drifted on like so many floats,
(08:04):
and so Sensusporade.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Made come the time.
Speaker 13 (08:20):
Flow, the time would be in amerder.
Speaker 14 (08:33):
Have waited for tu loved in that do nothing wrong,
don't be a.
Speaker 12 (08:49):
Bad but diffree.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Know this misplaced fat. It's like a charm or a spell.
Speaker 11 (09:20):
Let.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
You know, it makes you feel so fun while it
pleas ways to your head. Everyone else see everywhere that
I'll go. But I know it's just how you feel.
Speaker 7 (09:43):
It's not.
Speaker 9 (09:45):
What you know.
Speaker 15 (09:57):
Man, Come the time love time, we would be in name.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
But I.
Speaker 11 (10:15):
Fortune lord and love done nothing wrong.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Flee Just don't feel bad.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
Be free.
Speaker 16 (10:49):
All the feeling that is gone. Oh sense it has loved, take.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Leave and gone.
Speaker 11 (11:02):
Abroad to other worlds while he slept. It wouldn't be
much dam friends, it would be quite the same. Only
believe you can possibly dream of.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
No one to blame.
Speaker 15 (11:36):
Man. Come the time of love time, we would be nam.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I have played it for two long nothing wrong. Don't
move that.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
Beefly.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's funny because when I recorded this song, I mean
when I played it for that live stream, I think
I felt more exposed than I've ever felt.
Speaker 17 (13:02):
Well.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
First of all, I was covering a song by someone
that you always feel a little bit like you don't
own it, you know, And I think you have to
own it to cover it. Yeah, and I did it
on piano. I don't think I did it on guitar
and it's such a strummy song. And then I got
to like the fourth or fifth verse, and I was like, wow,
this is a long song for me to carry so
(13:23):
but I mean it was great because the lyrics are
so great, but it is a long song.
Speaker 8 (13:27):
Yeah, thanks, I mean it goes on and on. It's
like I kind of ran into the thing on my
last record. I was just writing too many, like really
long songs. So for on this most recent one and
try to go the other way with it, write some back,
get back to the shorter, short and sweet ones.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I think it's great to have a long song. I
think it's hard. It's hard to write a long song
for me. Yeah, I'm really bad with lyrics. You must
just write a lot of lyrics. There are a lot
of story songs.
Speaker 8 (13:56):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess I once I
get into to the writing thing, I'll sometimes it takes
a really long time to write words for me. But
if I get on a roll or whatever, then I'm
then I'd start getting precious and don't want to cut
things out when maybe sometimes I should, but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I kind of think it's your world that you're painting,
so people love it. Sometimes I think songs are too
short like this.
Speaker 11 (14:26):
One.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Part of what was so satisfying for me about the
song during that time was that it was long. You
could wallow in it, you know, yeah, which felt really good,
and usually when it was done, I played it again.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So when it's really short it, you know, it's less satisfying.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
See.
Speaker 8 (14:44):
Yeah, I mean that's like the right around that same time,
Bob Dylan came out with that Murder Muse Foul, that
like sixteen minute one. I remember that, Yeah, And I
kind of feel the same way about that one, where
it's like it is so long that you just kind
of like live in it. But even even though it
is so long, like when it's done, I want to
(15:05):
play it again.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, well you're used to it by the right. Yeah,
I like a long run.
Speaker 8 (15:11):
It's really nice here in the I mean, you're such
a really great piano player getting those like accents and
things in there.
Speaker 9 (15:20):
It's really nice.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I liked it how the guitar just sort of plays
over the whole thing on the recording, So it's fun
to do that.
Speaker 9 (15:27):
Yeah, good chords. Where are you from? Originally from Cleveland,
Ohio or really suburbs?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
How long have you been in New York.
Speaker 8 (15:36):
Eight and a half years. It'll be I think it'll
be nine years. We moved here on Halloween, so on Halloween,
it'll be nine years, I think, which is crazy.
Speaker 10 (15:47):
That's a fun day to move to the city.
Speaker 8 (15:49):
Yeah, but yeah, it's I mean, time flies here. It's
like I know that that whole thing of like the
New York minute or whatever is true.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I think it is. It's yeah, it goes by fast.
But do you love it?
Speaker 6 (16:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (16:05):
It's great.
Speaker 8 (16:05):
I mean it's kind of one of those things where
it's like we've talked about maybe moving up state, my
partner and I at some point, but once you're here
for so long, it's like kind of hard to like
nothing else really compares to like the energy level.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, you know, and you'll feel like you're missing out.
I feel like if you move out of the city. Yeah,
did you guys live anywhere between Cleveland and here?
Speaker 9 (16:30):
Lived in Chicago for eight years.
Speaker 7 (16:32):
Ok.
Speaker 8 (16:32):
I went to art school there, and that's where my
partner and I met Caroline Goldkey.
Speaker 9 (16:36):
Is her name?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Okay, cool art school like visual art school.
Speaker 10 (16:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (16:41):
I went to school for illustration technically cartooning really yeah,
which is not the most lucrative field either.
Speaker 10 (16:50):
School though, yeah, yeah, do you still do it?
Speaker 8 (16:53):
Yeah, I still do it. I have done like artwork
and stuff for myself, and I mean I've often done
most of my own artwork. For the last record, I
did like like a comic panel kind of thing for
like each song, which was like ended up being like
a full poster of like seventeen things that I was
(17:13):
pretty happy with. Recently did a cover for a Bob
Dylan book by this guy, Grail Marcus.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Oh yeah, that guy.
Speaker 10 (17:23):
He's a classic music criticis he's one of the.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
Top guys of the rock biographers of the twentieth century.
Speaker 9 (17:30):
I would say, yeah, music that nice, So that was cool.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Always do both things.
Speaker 8 (17:37):
Yeah, I think it helps to like for me anyways.
I feel fortunate that I can if I'm like burnt
out on one thing, like switch gears to the other
thing for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, I think that's important, really important. I don't really
have another hobby that's big for me, but I have
little hobbies that helps.
Speaker 9 (17:56):
What are your little hobbies right now?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Nothing, which means I need to find I used to
have more. I need to get my life back back
in order. I think so you have a new record
that's exciting. What's it called.
Speaker 9 (18:11):
It's self titled, so just Cutworms.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Band name by the way, great band name.
Speaker 9 (18:16):
Thanks. Some people don't think so. I mean, I think
it's uh well.
Speaker 10 (18:19):
I think it brings up imagery of an actual cutworm.
Speaker 9 (18:22):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 8 (18:24):
I kind of liked the the idea of like a
band name that doesn't sound like what the music like
the zombies like. You know, you wouldn't think that the
zombies sound like they do. Yeah, they like soft, but
it's like sort of scary sounding.
Speaker 12 (18:40):
I like that.
Speaker 10 (18:42):
We should do one of the tunes from the new record.
Speaker 9 (18:45):
Yeah, which one I like?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I mean, I love the whole new record. It's so great.
But thank you, let's try Can we try too bad?
This one's really good. It makes me feel so good.
Speaker 9 (18:58):
We thank you.
Speaker 8 (18:58):
This one sort of felt somewhat in the same realm
as Song of the Highest Tower when I was writing it.
Speaker 10 (19:05):
I think I think I kind of felt that can
I take a verse? Was that bold?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Too bolden?
Speaker 9 (19:11):
Please?
Speaker 7 (19:11):
Really?
Speaker 8 (19:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (19:19):
M hm, walk in amaze a brivate dress, acting like
(19:51):
a Noma way.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Something neat and that Mama that I'm doing my best,
not to.
Speaker 18 (20:06):
Say, just would always stand to lose when at last
we do depart.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
All the dreams you never had collection in the dme.
Speaker 11 (20:39):
Too bad that we never see him at all too bad,
that we never see him at all.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Too bad. We never see him at all the rock.
Speaker 17 (20:57):
Time hearts mountains cold and slow.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
I wanted out.
Speaker 19 (21:34):
Touch and my comes face is black.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
And the Mappa have.
Speaker 19 (21:47):
Shows too, like divings in the rain, like waiting to
be fast love the courses to revay likely.
Speaker 11 (22:22):
Too bad.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
We never see it at all too bad. We never
see it at all.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
Too bad.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
We never see it at all the wrong time.
Speaker 11 (23:08):
Deed inside the chin room, Wave pun froze to be
I retired control has drifted himself far out re.
Speaker 10 (23:34):
Gent.
Speaker 11 (23:37):
I look out from the wood and watched the ship
spurned on the show.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Never not list to.
Speaker 20 (23:54):
Lay just the kind INDI too bad. We never see
it all.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Too bad. We never see.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
It all too bad.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
We never seen it a road.
Speaker 9 (24:39):
That was great, that felt good, that sounded.
Speaker 10 (24:41):
Great, that was fun to play.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
Thanks.
Speaker 6 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (24:44):
Rhythmically it gets a little weird from like the choruses
to the verses, the verses to the choruses.
Speaker 9 (24:50):
But I feel like that that sounded good.
Speaker 10 (24:52):
When did you start playing?
Speaker 8 (24:53):
Probably when I was like eleven ish. Uh yeah, my mom, Hi,
mom brought me bought me like a garage sale guitar
for like five bucks, and I learned how to play
iron Man on it. It had like had like one
low east string. That was all all I had.
Speaker 10 (25:14):
You just taught yourself iron Man?
Speaker 12 (25:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (25:18):
When did you finally get some strength?
Speaker 9 (25:20):
Well shortly thereafter.
Speaker 8 (25:22):
And then my my uncle's on my dad's side both
played music and played guitars, and they would sometimes have
them around, like when we.
Speaker 9 (25:32):
Would go visit down there down in Oklahoma, oaky country.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah. Did they teach you stuff then? Yeah?
Speaker 8 (25:40):
Yeah, so they kind of like wrote me out basic
like chord charts and stuff. And I took guitar lessons
for a few months when I when I was back
in Ohio. But then I was too impatient to like
learn how to read music, which I kind of regret now.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
But I don't know. I mean, reading music is great,
but it doesn't matter as long as you can feel it.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
Right, Yeah, I mean I mainly now it's like I've
been listening to a lot more like jazz and stuff.
I really wish that I could play like jazz piano,
but like you just can't. You can't like fake that. Really,
you can't like do it unless you know like theory
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I mean, you can always learn, yeah, but do Do
you write on piano a lot? I don't.
Speaker 8 (26:23):
I usually don't have access to a piano, but I
have like a little keyboard that I play on sometimes.
Speaker 12 (26:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (26:29):
Unfortunately, it's just really hard to get access to, like
a real piano in the city.
Speaker 10 (26:34):
Yeah, it's true, it's hard. It's hard to have a.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Piano in the city.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I feel like switching instruments to write is a really
good way to get out of your lane.
Speaker 9 (26:44):
Definitely.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (26:46):
I'm definitely not as good on piano as I am
on guitar, which I'm not even that good on guitar either,
But it is like a different like seeing the notes
all laid out, it can if I get stuck, you know,
you can kind of sometimes get out of it that way.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It's such a different way to look at well, you
can actually look at it, right, I guess with the
guitar you really can't. You're just making shapes and hearing chords. Yeah,
and it's all laid in front of you and it's
a really big like only recently have I started really
like trying to use the bottom and the top. I
have a friend Thomas Bartlett, who's an amazing piano player,
(27:25):
and he plays the piano like he's in like a
whole orchestra. Oh yeah, and so I feel like watching
him play, I got kind of inspired to use more
of it.
Speaker 9 (27:33):
That's cool. Yeah, yeah, well you do you come from
a jazz background? You do? I mean, are all your
records on Blue Note?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
They are?
Speaker 9 (27:42):
I mean that's like really cool to me.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, I mean Blue Note is such a cool jazz
it has such good history and there's so many classic albums.
Speaker 8 (27:51):
From you back in the day, I mean, your labelmates
with like Coltrane and Miles Davis.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
But you know, I don't feel like there's a lot
of jazz in what I do. But I wouldn't call
any of my albums straight jazz albums.
Speaker 6 (28:06):
Right yeah.
Speaker 8 (28:06):
I mean, yeah, you can definitely hear the jazz, and
I think, but yeah, there's like a pop sensibility that's
not always there in jazz, which I like.
Speaker 9 (28:16):
I like that me too.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I mean I think I come from listening to country
music and stuff like that. I like three chord songs
just as much as I like a complicated chord.
Speaker 9 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Sure, you actually have a song on your new record
that does have kind of some more poor man's jazz. Well,
I mean there's such a relation between jazz and just
old timey pop. What am I saying? You know what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 10 (28:45):
Yeah, there's like a relation between jazz and old It all.
Speaker 9 (28:49):
Kind of came from the same place, you know.
Speaker 8 (28:51):
I see pop, the current modern pop song as like
having its roots way back and like show tunes and
the Twin and stuff, which was all intermingled with jazz
and exactly.
Speaker 9 (29:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, there are some chords in this song, isn't magic
that I was like, oh, what is that? There's a
lot of vocals on it, But I think we can
do it.
Speaker 9 (29:16):
It might take me a minute, yeah, once.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I hear what you're doing, because I'm not sure exactly
which one you're doing on some of them.
Speaker 8 (29:22):
Right, Yeah, I mean I kind of had to like
go back to my session files and like stripped down
some of it to see what my root thing was.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
But what doesn't matter. I'll follow you. You recorded this
upstate New York.
Speaker 8 (29:37):
This one I actually did all on my own home recorded, Yeah,
or like a little studio thing I have in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Do you do a lot of that home sort of
have you for a long time?
Speaker 11 (29:47):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (29:48):
Yeah, I mean that's kind of I feel like doing
home demos. And you know, I've had like a little
digital eight track thing that I've had for years. That's
part of the songwriting process for me, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
But that's so fun. Yeah, when you do a bunch
of harmonies.
Speaker 8 (30:05):
Yeah, it's like instant gratification being able to just layer
up harmonies.
Speaker 10 (30:10):
But I wish I didn't wear that.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I've never been very techy, I know that, Like at
eight track, it's pretty simple.
Speaker 8 (30:16):
Yeah, I mean I'm not at all either. That's why
I like it. It's because it's kind of like hard
to mess up like I've wanted to. Like, I mean,
I love like old tape machines and stuff, but I'm
just like not technically minded at Also, if it breaks,
I'll just get really frustrated and.
Speaker 10 (30:32):
Like always break right, I'll tell you, that's what I hear.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, I own a tape an old tape machine and
it's in storage. Yeah, but they're great if you have
someone to fix them on the spot. All right, this
is isn't magic. I almost wanted to do like a.
Speaker 9 (30:52):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I hear that on it.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
I love him to.
Speaker 7 (31:34):
He been all calls.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
I have to all that we've been through. Now nothing
is lost.
Speaker 21 (31:52):
Doesn't anybody have the time?
Speaker 4 (32:00):
I lostn't it?
Speaker 7 (32:04):
But if you don't know any.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Man, could I make you billy.
Speaker 15 (32:33):
Miss magent fee Len, I'm head.
Speaker 6 (32:46):
Through?
Speaker 22 (32:49):
Oh love for you?
Speaker 7 (33:13):
I had love.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
It's gone be true without it?
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Now the changes about me all over again?
Speaker 21 (33:35):
Doesn't any body at the time? Oh doesn't any body say?
Speaker 4 (33:56):
If you don't know.
Speaker 21 (33:58):
Now, then.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I could I make you busy.
Speaker 15 (34:15):
In this mass chick fee? Then I'm heaving.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
Not through?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Oh Loo for you?
Speaker 9 (35:01):
That's not great?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
That was fine?
Speaker 6 (35:04):
You're right.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Jazz, that's jazz. Yeah, straight up, that's a great one.
Speaker 10 (35:11):
Those harmonies are they got me.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
They're great.
Speaker 8 (35:17):
I was trying to do like Brian Wilson meets late
era Bob Dylan doing the Frank Sinatra tunes.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Totally that makes sense. Do you love Brian Wilson?
Speaker 12 (35:28):
I do.
Speaker 7 (35:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (35:29):
It's one of my one of my very favorites.
Speaker 10 (35:32):
It's pretty deep. All that stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, and thick with the harmonies are so complex that
you think, whoa, this is really heady, but then it's
really hearty. It's the best of combinations. Where does your
love of harmonies come in? Because I can hear it
in everything you write, I mean everything recorded.
Speaker 9 (35:52):
Anyway, I've always liked that stuff.
Speaker 8 (35:54):
The Everly Brothers were like a revelation to me when
I when I first heard that, because I was already
so into the Beatles, and then I realized that, like
that's where they got that from. Ye, that that aspect
of the close harmonies and stuff. I mean, they did
more on top of it, some of the early stuff
like they were They've said that they just were trying
(36:15):
to be the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
At the point.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
Yeah. Yeah, at some point, just like in doing the
home recording stuff and overdubbing vocals, I realized that I
could kind of do that. Another person who I really
love is a Skeeter Davis, which shell they started off.
It was her and her sister similar to Everly Brothers,
(36:40):
like doing close harmonies, and then I think her sister
very early on died in a car accident or something.
But then Skeeter Davis went on to have like a
career in pop music in the in the sixties and
seventies and stuff. But then but she just.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
She had all that like knowledge of harmony, so she
harmonized with her self with overdubs, which I felt like,
I don't know somehow it can to what I like.
I mean, she she's like incredible like her, I always
i'm jealous of, like the female voice. They can go
so high, like like on that Carol King demo. I
(37:17):
sent you something about those close harmonies when it's like
in that higher register as like next level to me.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
When it's close and high, it's pretty special. Yeah, but
the Everly Brothers had that too good. They had such.
Speaker 9 (37:28):
High voices, right, Yeah, they could pull it off too.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah. I definitely hear that in your music. You know,
it's it's got the flavor of all that. I mean,
can tell you love those those close harmonies.
Speaker 12 (37:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
The best that it gets, I feel like, is when
you can't like tell them apart sort of, or you
can't pull them apart in your mind. It's like you
can't listen to one or the other because you don't know.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Which one's dominant, right, Yeah, that's what I like about that.
Are you in a Gillian Walsh and David Rawlings at all?
Speaker 12 (37:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Yeah, they do a lot of that close harmony stuff.
I used to tour with them and I would always
sing along backstage like the third harmony, but it doesn't work.
Speaker 10 (38:07):
It's so not needed the third harmony because it's so
much cooler without it. Basically, it's the thing.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's like got the disonance and it's just on the
cooler side without it.
Speaker 8 (38:18):
Yeah, I mean it's weird to I mean, especially with
doing overdubs and stuff, the third harmonies there or the
fourth or the whatever. But then it's better to not
put it in sometimes.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, it's way better and people I feel like people
still hear it in their brains. But yeah, it's the
space is the place sometimes you want to do that.
Toune Carol King too.
Speaker 9 (38:41):
I guess we can kind of do like the Everly's version.
Speaker 8 (38:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that was the first version I
heard of it, but the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Version, but that's I've never heard that version of the
Carol King version. It's from a demos sort of. Yeah,
we're probably released later.
Speaker 9 (38:57):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 8 (38:58):
I mean, I'm such a huge fan of hers. She's
like the best of the best in my book mine too.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And I don't even think I realized certain songs that
she wrote, Like I didn't know she wrote this song.
Speaker 10 (39:09):
Oh no, yeah, I didn't even know.
Speaker 9 (39:12):
Yeah, I mean, there's there's so many, so many that.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
My first song book was a Carol King song book,
and it was the first time I learned how to
record changes instead of just reading the notated notes.
Speaker 10 (39:30):
Give that chat, yeah, I can get our chat on.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Will you take this the middle bit? Please?
Speaker 10 (39:39):
Sure?
Speaker 9 (39:40):
Please? Yeah? Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
All right. Let you see my brok heart is hurting me.
Speaker 15 (40:03):
I've got my pride and I knowed I had all
my sorrow and pain.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
I'll do my crying.
Speaker 7 (40:13):
In the rain.
Speaker 22 (40:19):
You fall away for cloudys, Guys, you'll know the rain
from the tears in my eyes. You never know that
I still know your soul though the heartts remained. I'll
do my crying in the rain, rain drops fallen from
(40:48):
even I.
Speaker 11 (40:50):
Could never shoe in my misery.
Speaker 23 (40:55):
Since we're not together, I'll look for stormy where the univers.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Sunday and my cry and done. I'm going to wear
smile and walk in the sun.
Speaker 22 (41:16):
Maybe a fool buntil then you never see complain.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
I'll do my crying in the rain. I'll do my cry.
Speaker 7 (41:31):
In the rain.
Speaker 8 (41:40):
Cool, that's fine, Yeah, Leon, Yeah, I saw. I mean,
I know that you've done. You must be a fan
because he did that whole thing with Billy Joe Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I did, and I was a fan, but that was
totally spearheaded by him. He really Yeah, he really wanted
to do the whole album, like could do a version
of that album, and I'm not sure. I'm still not
really sure exactly where it came from. I remember I
was like, let's just try a song and see how
it goes. He's like, okay, but that's.
Speaker 10 (42:10):
Not really what I want to do. I want to
do the whole album.
Speaker 9 (42:13):
And I was like, that's really imbicious and a lot
on there.
Speaker 7 (42:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
I mean, I knew him from meeting him, and I
really liked him. He was super nice. But we'd never
sung together. And I didn't know how we were going
to blend, because that that's ambitious to do because it's a.
Speaker 10 (42:29):
Blend for sure, their blend is so special.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
But we ended up doing it. Was it was blast
and I love how it came out. It's very different
from their original records, so it's it was fun, but
that was all him. But I do love them. I
mean I grew up on them completely. Like most people did,
you just always sing like grown up? Did you go
to church or anything?
Speaker 6 (42:53):
We didn't.
Speaker 9 (42:54):
I mean we went to church on like holidays sometimes,
you know.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
We weren't in church choir or anything.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
Nah.
Speaker 8 (43:01):
I maybe sang just from by myself in secret, but no,
I was always pretty like shy about that in most things.
And I mean I'm still pretty like I was never
like a natural performer. Really, I kind of like forced
(43:21):
myself like I wanted to be, but then I just
wasn't really So like in high school when I first
started playing open mics and stuff in Cleveland, I had
a good friend of mine who would come with me
and we'd drive forty five minutes away to like another town,
so I would have no chance of running into anyone
(43:42):
that I knew.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Were you able to put on a different persona could
sometimes people hide behind that as a way to be
more comfortable.
Speaker 9 (43:50):
On stage, right, Yeah, I mean maybe to some extent.
I don't know, if it's nothing like it's not like
Bowie or anything. It's not like that. Obvious.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
I always wanted to do that, and I feel like
my time, you know, it's too late now to start
it in my my career, people who would think it
was weird, but I wish I had had something like
that because I was also not a natural performer in
that way. I feel like the music was always good,
but as far as, like, you know, being charismatic on
(44:19):
the stage, it's hard.
Speaker 6 (44:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, yeah, I wish I had a wig from the beginning,
you know, like a pink wig or something. Yeah, let's
take us out on another favorite song of mine. I
love that sold my soul song. Oh yeah, sure, yeah,
that's a good one. When did you start playing? I mean,
obviously your your dad was like pretty massive. He was,
(44:43):
but I didn't grow up with him. Oh no, no,
I mean we saw each other on and off, but
I never lived with him, and then when I was nine,
we were kind of a strange for another maybe nine
years after that, so we didn't even talk or see
each other. But I started playing piano when I was seven. Yeah,
(45:04):
I took piano lessons and I always sang in church choir. Okay, yeah,
but I didn't really see my dad play even until
I was eighteen, Oh wow, and I was like, oh wow.
I knew he was like really good, but this is
a whole other level. It's also coming from jazz, and
it was just so different from anything. His music was
so complex in some ways but also super simple. But yeah,
(45:29):
church choir was big for me. So that's what I'm
always curious about if people grew up in the church
playing music, because I feel like that's a huge thing
for a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (45:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (45:37):
I mean I know a lot of R and B
and soul artists that I loved, like you know, Sam
Cook or Marvin Gaye, like they all came out of
like gospel, and yeah, a lot of what I like
about it is stuff that comes from that. I never
really like knew that until later on. The church that
I went to wasn't really like the church that they
went to.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, I don't think the same here. It wasn't a
gospel church. What I still sang in it, and that
that was helpful.
Speaker 9 (46:06):
I did always like the like the organ music and stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Though, yeah, it's special.
Speaker 10 (46:11):
I feel like growing up with music in that way
it makes it.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
It takes all the thinking out of.
Speaker 10 (46:16):
It because it's focused on worshiping God.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
You know, it's focused on this one other thing that's
pretty big, Like there's no like songwriting analysis, so it
goes to those songs, but they come from the heart,
which is also much nicer sometimes or not. I told Sarah,
I gotta check out the new album, but tell them
I want to do the anti croad Show song. I
(46:40):
don't think I realized that it wasn't called that.
Speaker 9 (46:42):
Oh yeah, I mean I could have called it that,
but no.
Speaker 10 (46:44):
I'm glad you didn't want to solve my.
Speaker 9 (46:46):
Soul full on the commercial.
Speaker 10 (46:49):
So my soul is much deeper.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
For somebody had found it somewhere.
Speaker 11 (47:30):
I had an old free market fair with no old
number on the tail. Let it go for half a dollar. Now,
that didn't even bother had it of been side that.
(47:55):
I was drink and gasoline in a half ride fmousine,
watching TV.
Speaker 7 (48:04):
And the band.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
When much too much surprise, I didn't chill fire. They
had a hard time.
Speaker 11 (48:24):
I saw mysel somewhere so long ago. Oh, I didn't
think too much at the time.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
I was young, and I didn't.
Speaker 11 (48:35):
Know until Outside played one night on the eighteenth road
Show Expert Collectors to praise with the trip that I
(49:03):
was on, like a rewrite math of blue Days and
bland Nights where the Marbro lane just plays for the
Menli bird to pray.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
Me the last head burning bright.
Speaker 11 (49:30):
I saw on display like imitation fabrigae able by the
mid life. Then the signal came on through like a
bad dream come true.
Speaker 6 (49:52):
Leaves.
Speaker 11 (49:53):
You had a loss for word so much, so somewhere
so long ago.
Speaker 4 (50:05):
Oh, I didn't think too much chat the time.
Speaker 23 (50:09):
I was young, and I didn't know until I side
late one night on.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
The Ante Road Show, just to see what I could raise.
Speaker 11 (50:36):
Hello, commercial gray fit for the wall Stream train, swimming
with the price a goal commemoration baseball come courtesy of Scottland.
Speaker 24 (50:57):
You you dug up from the days of old ring
model cathedral class and written leaves the grass in certified
and guarantee.
Speaker 11 (51:21):
Well they're throwing it all away, they get it back
some day. Ages could never see.
Speaker 4 (51:33):
What it could mean to me.
Speaker 11 (51:39):
I saw mysel somewhere so long ago.
Speaker 23 (51:44):
I had anything too much chapter time. I was young
and I didn't know. Hi side laid one night on
the eighteen Roll Show looking into my old grave. Ye,
(52:16):
So what's it gonna be? You're on a pace, Tom,
could it help the pain?
Speaker 4 (52:31):
Can you tell me so? Because I like to know.
Speaker 7 (52:38):
If you have been in.
Speaker 4 (52:46):
Five Nis.
Speaker 11 (52:50):
For even half his love, if your intention spell love?
Speaker 4 (53:01):
Can you tell me so because a look, if you
have been in.
Speaker 9 (53:37):
Yay, you got it?
Speaker 17 (53:40):
Awesome, it's great.
Speaker 8 (53:43):
Yeah, thank you. I love the piano you were doing
on the is It Magic song? I wish I wish
I could have had you play on the record.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
Maybe we can catch up at a show sometimes. Of
course it'll have to be a piano there. That's always
the trick, right right now? What kind of band do
you tour with? Is it always changing or no?
Speaker 8 (54:02):
It's been the same guys for a number of years.
Now it's like a four piece. It was a four
piece and now it's kind of become a five piece.
It's like drums, bass, I play guitar, keys, pedal steel.
Speaker 9 (54:17):
That's a big recent edition.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, does everybody Pedal steel is an addiction. I have
a pedal steel player with me this summer. I had
him last summer, Dan and I need. He's a local guy.
Speaker 9 (54:28):
Okay, I know that name.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, he's around, he's in Brooklyn. Yeah, it is an addiction, Like,
can you play pedal steel on every song. He said,
let me just space it out because he plays great
regular guitar. So yeah, we space it out, but I
could have it on every song.
Speaker 10 (54:42):
That's a big band, though. Does everybody sing harmonies?
Speaker 9 (54:44):
I sometimes get them all to sing. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (54:47):
I mean the keyboard player John Andrews, he's he's got
his own whole solo thing that's really great called the Yawns.
Speaker 9 (54:54):
And so we toured together.
Speaker 8 (54:56):
It's like his band in my band, and there's just
the same band, the different front person.
Speaker 7 (55:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (55:03):
Yeah, I've seen that before, so it's the best way
to do it.
Speaker 12 (55:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (55:07):
Definitely makes the changeover between sets very easy.
Speaker 10 (55:11):
Yeah, financially it's easier.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Are you going to be on tour all summer? Pretty much?
Speaker 6 (55:16):
Sure?
Speaker 8 (55:17):
I'm in the fall is when I'll I'll go out.
I do have a residency thing planned for July, like
when the it'll end in like the record release party.
So I'm doing like three fridays at this place, Union Pool.
Speaker 9 (55:32):
Oh great, So that should be fun.
Speaker 8 (55:34):
I'm trying to get some like special guests and make
it fun.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
It's a party.
Speaker 9 (55:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Last time I was at Union Pool, I danced in
the front to a DJ.
Speaker 10 (55:46):
There were only four of us there.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
I danced like I've never danced before.
Speaker 9 (55:52):
That's great. Yeah, those are good nights.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Yeah, those are good nights. I've had some good nights there.
Thank you so much for doing this. I love song that,
I like you likewise, and I love meeting you finally
after listening.
Speaker 10 (56:04):
For so long.
Speaker 8 (56:05):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I've You've your songs and everything
have been pretty big in the my consciousness for it
since I was a lot younger, so it was really
real honor to do it.
Speaker 9 (56:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
Well, I'll see you around and I'll come to a gig.
Speaker 9 (56:21):
Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
Awesome, thank you for listening.
Speaker 5 (56:28):
What a sweet, down to earth guy. I love him.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
He's so great. I love his songs. I love his voice. Yeah,
he's special.
Speaker 5 (56:37):
He's a deep lyricist too. His songs are very earnest
and kind of take you on a journey.
Speaker 7 (56:42):
Well, I like that.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
We talked about the long song thing because I really
do feel like if it's that kind of a song
and it holds the mood, you just want to be
in that mood for a long time, right, and it.
Speaker 5 (56:53):
Doesn't feel long, no at all.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
It was. It was really special to finally get to
meet him and play that song with him that I've
been It's been in my brain for four years.
Speaker 5 (57:02):
It's been your favorite song for a long time.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
It's really one of my favorites. Check it out.
Speaker 5 (57:07):
Check out his new album it's called Cutworms It is.
Speaker 2 (57:10):
That's right. It's self titled titled Yeah, and check him
out on tour. Thanks for listening. The first song we
did was My favorite song of the Highest Tower from
Alien Sunset twenty seventeen, Too Bad, from his new self
titled album We did Is It Magic. Also from that album,
we did Crying in the Rain, which is a Carol
(57:31):
King song with lyrics by Howard Greenfield and was also
recorded by The Everly Brothers. We did Sold My Soul
from Nobody Lives Here Anymore twenty twenty. Today's episode was
recorded by Steven Sacho, assisted by Jasper Leech, Maximilian Trophy,
Tanner Wallace, Andrew Kohinka, and mixed by Jamie Landry. Edited
(57:54):
by Sarah Oda, Additional editing and mixing by Matthew Vasquez,
Additional engineering by Pete rem artwork by Eliza Fry, Photography
by Sheridan Linez. Produced by Me and Sarah hoda
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with Max
Clark of Cutworms.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
I'm just playing lo wey, I'm just playing lone with you.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, I'm Nora. Thanks for joining us with me, as
always is Sarah Oda.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Hi there.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
Our guest today is the incredibly talented singer, songwriter, guitar player,
and illustrator. Oh yeah, Max Clark of cut Worms. That's
the band name, Cutworms. What does it conjure? I like
saying that I'm a huge fan of his. His music
is amazing. You should check it out. He also has
a new album out. Yeah. Not only do you get
(00:44):
to hear his beautiful new music, but there's also a
very special duet in this episode that I think you
will love. If you like harms, I'm like, what is it?
Speaker 6 (00:53):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (00:53):
Yeah, I did it Arms.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
This is a harm harm heavy, harm heavy episode. Harmony heavy. Yes,
we hope you enjoyed this episode with Max Clark.
Speaker 7 (01:03):
I've got worm.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I don't know if you know this at all, but
I'm obsessed with one of your songs.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
Oh and it happened.
Speaker 8 (01:18):
A couple of years ago that you had covered it,
and that was like a shock to me. I really
just like woke up one morning and yeah, it was
like I don't know who.
Speaker 9 (01:27):
Somebody pointed it out to me.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I did it on this live stream I was doing
during the pandemic, Like every week I would do four songs,
so this song was on. It was on like a
bunch of playlists that my husband had going, and it
kept showing up and every single time. I don't know
if you listened to a streaming.
Speaker 9 (01:45):
Platform, yeah, I listened to a few.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, So, like they make these playlists for you, there's
often so many songs that I like, And I asked
him every time who it was.
Speaker 10 (01:55):
Oh, it's cutworm, So I was like, I love it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And then you know, the song keeps coming back and
you always forget who it is because or I do,
because there's just so many different people on these playlists, right,
and then finally I like stole it and I put
it on this morning playlist that I made, and we
listened to it every morning during that time when we
were home every day. Oh wow, And not only is
(02:20):
it an amazing song, but my kids, who are seven
and nine, every time it comes on now and it
still comes up all the time. We still listen to
it all the time, and they always say how much
they love the song, and they say, oh my god,
this song is so nostalgic for me. They use that
word because it brings them back to that time when
we were just all together every day and we were
(02:40):
listening to this song.
Speaker 9 (02:41):
Oh' that's really nice.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, so this song will stay with my kids for
their whole lives. So I covered it, and I was wondering.
Speaker 9 (02:50):
I thought it was great if we could do it.
Speaker 6 (02:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (02:53):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Where did this song is on an album from.
Speaker 9 (02:56):
It was among a bunch of demos I did home
demo before I was signed to a label, and it
ended up going on the first EP that they put
out on jag Jaguar, and I recorded it. I started
recording it in Chicago and then we moved to New
York and like finished it here. I mean, it's kind
(03:18):
of sort of thing that I had done before I
started writing it. I remember, like the day that lou
Reid died. It was tentatively titled Sunday's Morning, like like
m O you are and I.
Speaker 8 (03:33):
Don't know, it's kind of dumb, but the lyrics I
took from I had the tune for a while and
didn't wasn't really sure where it was going, and then
I was I had been reading a Season in Hell
that Arthur Rimbo. It's like the rock and roll poet
you know, Patty Smith and Bob Dylan are all like
(03:54):
I heard about him through them, like reading them. And
so yeah, there's actually a poem in that book called
Song of the Highest Tower, which I partially just took
a couple like stanzas from and then and like the
choruses basically are like weirdly just fit right into the
(04:14):
tune that had I had so and then I just
added some some other verses of my own and just
kind of I don't know, I didn't really think about
that much. I just like did it or that's the
best way. Yeah, I mean afterwards I was like, am
I allowed to?
Speaker 6 (04:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (04:30):
What you do with all that? I mean, no one's
come to sue me yet, but I mean it's it's
like eighteenth century French poetry.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I don't know, Yeah, I during the pandemic. The words,
I mean, the words are just so. I mean when
I think back to that time, I remember driving the
car once and just getting some fresh air and listening
to this song and just with a friend of mine
who we were quarantined with, and it was just like
(05:01):
we were just both kind of sobbing but also like laughing.
It just felt so good, and it's like the perfect
encapsulation of that melancholy feeling where you feel good and
sad to me. Sorry to talk about stuff before you
play it.
Speaker 10 (05:20):
I mean we should just play it, stop talking about it,
and be about it.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I've impatient to know.
Speaker 11 (05:55):
Momories, all fears and all run.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
To the heavens a fly.
Speaker 12 (06:10):
With the feace.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Bursting rime, while my veins burns.
Speaker 11 (06:21):
Uncome filthy flies and the sickly.
Speaker 13 (06:27):
First may come the time of love, the time we
(06:48):
would be bena.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Have with it for two long.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Logan, I've done nothing wrong, clean, don't feel bad, but
be free.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
Many days I've.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Spent many times I've tried.
Speaker 11 (07:39):
You give a name to the thing that is you,
though no I haven't the right looking all the reasons
I've been on adviser argy drifted on like so many floats,
(08:04):
and so Sensusporade.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Made come the time.
Speaker 13 (08:20):
Flow, the time would be in amerder.
Speaker 14 (08:33):
Have waited for tu loved in that do nothing wrong,
don't be a.
Speaker 12 (08:49):
Bad but diffree.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Know this misplaced fat. It's like a charm or a spell.
Speaker 11 (09:20):
Let.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
You know, it makes you feel so fun while it
pleas ways to your head. Everyone else see everywhere that
I'll go. But I know it's just how you feel.
Speaker 7 (09:43):
It's not.
Speaker 9 (09:45):
What you know.
Speaker 15 (09:57):
Man, Come the time love time, we would be in name.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
But I.
Speaker 11 (10:15):
Fortune lord and love done nothing wrong.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Flee Just don't feel bad.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
Be free.
Speaker 16 (10:49):
All the feeling that is gone. Oh sense it has loved, take.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Leave and gone.
Speaker 11 (11:02):
Abroad to other worlds while he slept. It wouldn't be
much dam friends, it would be quite the same. Only
believe you can possibly dream of.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
No one to blame.
Speaker 15 (11:36):
Man. Come the time of love time, we would be nam.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I have played it for two long nothing wrong. Don't
move that.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
Beefly.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's funny because when I recorded this song, I mean
when I played it for that live stream, I think
I felt more exposed than I've ever felt.
Speaker 17 (13:02):
Well.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
First of all, I was covering a song by someone
that you always feel a little bit like you don't
own it, you know, And I think you have to
own it to cover it. Yeah, and I did it
on piano. I don't think I did it on guitar
and it's such a strummy song. And then I got
to like the fourth or fifth verse, and I was like, wow,
this is a long song for me to carry so
(13:23):
but I mean it was great because the lyrics are
so great, but it is a long song.
Speaker 8 (13:27):
Yeah, thanks, I mean it goes on and on. It's
like I kind of ran into the thing on my
last record. I was just writing too many, like really
long songs. So for on this most recent one and
try to go the other way with it, write some back,
get back to the shorter, short and sweet ones.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I think it's great to have a long song. I
think it's hard. It's hard to write a long song
for me. Yeah, I'm really bad with lyrics. You must
just write a lot of lyrics. There are a lot
of story songs.
Speaker 8 (13:56):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess I once I
get into to the writing thing, I'll sometimes it takes
a really long time to write words for me. But
if I get on a roll or whatever, then I'm
then I'd start getting precious and don't want to cut
things out when maybe sometimes I should, but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I kind of think it's your world that you're painting,
so people love it. Sometimes I think songs are too
short like this.
Speaker 11 (14:26):
One.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Part of what was so satisfying for me about the
song during that time was that it was long. You
could wallow in it, you know, yeah, which felt really good,
and usually when it was done, I played it again.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So when it's really short it, you know, it's less satisfying.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
See.
Speaker 8 (14:44):
Yeah, I mean that's like the right around that same time,
Bob Dylan came out with that Murder Muse Foul, that
like sixteen minute one. I remember that, Yeah, And I
kind of feel the same way about that one, where
it's like it is so long that you just kind
of like live in it. But even even though it
is so long, like when it's done, I want to
(15:05):
play it again.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, well you're used to it by the right. Yeah,
I like a long run.
Speaker 8 (15:11):
It's really nice here in the I mean, you're such
a really great piano player getting those like accents and
things in there.
Speaker 9 (15:20):
It's really nice.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I liked it how the guitar just sort of plays
over the whole thing on the recording, So it's fun
to do that.
Speaker 9 (15:27):
Yeah, good chords. Where are you from? Originally from Cleveland,
Ohio or really suburbs?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
How long have you been in New York.
Speaker 8 (15:36):
Eight and a half years. It'll be I think it'll
be nine years. We moved here on Halloween, so on Halloween,
it'll be nine years, I think, which is crazy.
Speaker 10 (15:47):
That's a fun day to move to the city.
Speaker 8 (15:49):
Yeah, but yeah, it's I mean, time flies here. It's
like I know that that whole thing of like the
New York minute or whatever is true.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I think it is. It's yeah, it goes by fast.
But do you love it?
Speaker 6 (16:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (16:05):
It's great.
Speaker 8 (16:05):
I mean it's kind of one of those things where
it's like we've talked about maybe moving up state, my
partner and I at some point, but once you're here
for so long, it's like kind of hard to like
nothing else really compares to like the energy level.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, you know, and you'll feel like you're missing out.
I feel like if you move out of the city. Yeah,
did you guys live anywhere between Cleveland and here?
Speaker 9 (16:30):
Lived in Chicago for eight years.
Speaker 7 (16:32):
Ok.
Speaker 8 (16:32):
I went to art school there, and that's where my
partner and I met Caroline Goldkey.
Speaker 9 (16:36):
Is her name?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Okay, cool art school like visual art school.
Speaker 10 (16:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (16:41):
I went to school for illustration technically cartooning really yeah,
which is not the most lucrative field either.
Speaker 10 (16:50):
School though, yeah, yeah, do you still do it?
Speaker 8 (16:53):
Yeah, I still do it. I have done like artwork
and stuff for myself, and I mean I've often done
most of my own artwork. For the last record, I
did like like a comic panel kind of thing for
like each song, which was like ended up being like
a full poster of like seventeen things that I was
(17:13):
pretty happy with. Recently did a cover for a Bob
Dylan book by this guy, Grail Marcus.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Oh yeah, that guy.
Speaker 10 (17:23):
He's a classic music criticis he's one of the.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
Top guys of the rock biographers of the twentieth century.
Speaker 9 (17:30):
I would say, yeah, music that nice, So that was cool.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Always do both things.
Speaker 8 (17:37):
Yeah, I think it helps to like for me anyways.
I feel fortunate that I can if I'm like burnt
out on one thing, like switch gears to the other
thing for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, I think that's important, really important. I don't really
have another hobby that's big for me, but I have
little hobbies that helps.
Speaker 9 (17:56):
What are your little hobbies right now?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Nothing, which means I need to find I used to
have more. I need to get my life back back
in order. I think so you have a new record
that's exciting. What's it called.
Speaker 9 (18:11):
It's self titled, so just Cutworms.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Band name by the way, great band name.
Speaker 9 (18:16):
Thanks. Some people don't think so. I mean, I think
it's uh well.
Speaker 10 (18:19):
I think it brings up imagery of an actual cutworm.
Speaker 9 (18:22):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 8 (18:24):
I kind of liked the the idea of like a
band name that doesn't sound like what the music like
the zombies like. You know, you wouldn't think that the
zombies sound like they do. Yeah, they like soft, but
it's like sort of scary sounding.
Speaker 12 (18:40):
I like that.
Speaker 10 (18:42):
We should do one of the tunes from the new record.
Speaker 9 (18:45):
Yeah, which one I like?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I mean, I love the whole new record. It's so great.
But thank you, let's try Can we try too bad?
This one's really good. It makes me feel so good.
Speaker 9 (18:58):
We thank you.
Speaker 8 (18:58):
This one sort of felt somewhat in the same realm
as Song of the Highest Tower when I was writing it.
Speaker 10 (19:05):
I think I think I kind of felt that can
I take a verse? Was that bold?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Too bolden?
Speaker 9 (19:11):
Please?
Speaker 7 (19:11):
Really?
Speaker 8 (19:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (19:19):
M hm, walk in amaze a brivate dress, acting like
(19:51):
a Noma way.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Something neat and that Mama that I'm doing my best,
not to.
Speaker 18 (20:06):
Say, just would always stand to lose when at last
we do depart.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
All the dreams you never had collection in the dme.
Speaker 11 (20:39):
Too bad that we never see him at all too bad,
that we never see him at all.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Too bad. We never see him at all the rock.
Speaker 17 (20:57):
Time hearts mountains cold and slow.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
I wanted out.
Speaker 19 (21:34):
Touch and my comes face is black.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
And the Mappa have.
Speaker 19 (21:47):
Shows too, like divings in the rain, like waiting to
be fast love the courses to revay likely.
Speaker 11 (22:22):
Too bad.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
We never see it at all too bad. We never
see it at all.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
Too bad.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
We never see it at all the wrong time.
Speaker 11 (23:08):
Deed inside the chin room, Wave pun froze to be
I retired control has drifted himself far out re.
Speaker 10 (23:34):
Gent.
Speaker 11 (23:37):
I look out from the wood and watched the ship
spurned on the show.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Never not list to.
Speaker 20 (23:54):
Lay just the kind INDI too bad. We never see
it all.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Too bad. We never see.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
It all too bad.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
We never seen it a road.
Speaker 9 (24:39):
That was great, that felt good, that sounded.
Speaker 10 (24:41):
Great, that was fun to play.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
Thanks.
Speaker 6 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (24:44):
Rhythmically it gets a little weird from like the choruses
to the verses, the verses to the choruses.
Speaker 9 (24:50):
But I feel like that that sounded good.
Speaker 10 (24:52):
When did you start playing?
Speaker 8 (24:53):
Probably when I was like eleven ish. Uh yeah, my mom, Hi,
mom brought me bought me like a garage sale guitar
for like five bucks, and I learned how to play
iron Man on it. It had like had like one
low east string. That was all all I had.
Speaker 10 (25:14):
You just taught yourself iron Man?
Speaker 12 (25:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (25:18):
When did you finally get some strength?
Speaker 9 (25:20):
Well shortly thereafter.
Speaker 8 (25:22):
And then my my uncle's on my dad's side both
played music and played guitars, and they would sometimes have
them around, like when we.
Speaker 9 (25:32):
Would go visit down there down in Oklahoma, oaky country.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah. Did they teach you stuff then? Yeah?
Speaker 8 (25:40):
Yeah, so they kind of like wrote me out basic
like chord charts and stuff. And I took guitar lessons
for a few months when I when I was back
in Ohio. But then I was too impatient to like
learn how to read music, which I kind of regret now.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
But I don't know. I mean, reading music is great,
but it doesn't matter as long as you can feel it.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
Right, Yeah, I mean I mainly now it's like I've
been listening to a lot more like jazz and stuff.
I really wish that I could play like jazz piano,
but like you just can't. You can't like fake that. Really,
you can't like do it unless you know like theory
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I mean, you can always learn, yeah, but do Do
you write on piano a lot? I don't.
Speaker 8 (26:23):
I usually don't have access to a piano, but I
have like a little keyboard that I play on sometimes.
Speaker 12 (26:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (26:29):
Unfortunately, it's just really hard to get access to, like
a real piano in the city.
Speaker 10 (26:34):
Yeah, it's true, it's hard. It's hard to have a.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Piano in the city.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I feel like switching instruments to write is a really
good way to get out of your lane.
Speaker 9 (26:44):
Definitely.
Speaker 6 (26:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (26:46):
I'm definitely not as good on piano as I am
on guitar, which I'm not even that good on guitar either,
But it is like a different like seeing the notes
all laid out, it can if I get stuck, you know,
you can kind of sometimes get out of it that way.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It's such a different way to look at well, you
can actually look at it, right, I guess with the
guitar you really can't. You're just making shapes and hearing chords. Yeah,
and it's all laid in front of you and it's
a really big like only recently have I started really
like trying to use the bottom and the top. I
have a friend Thomas Bartlett, who's an amazing piano player,
(27:25):
and he plays the piano like he's in like a
whole orchestra. Oh yeah, and so I feel like watching
him play, I got kind of inspired to use more
of it.
Speaker 9 (27:33):
That's cool. Yeah, yeah, well you do you come from
a jazz background? You do? I mean, are all your
records on Blue Note?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
They are?
Speaker 9 (27:42):
I mean that's like really cool to me.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, I mean Blue Note is such a cool jazz
it has such good history and there's so many classic albums.
Speaker 8 (27:51):
From you back in the day, I mean, your labelmates
with like Coltrane and Miles Davis.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
But you know, I don't feel like there's a lot
of jazz in what I do. But I wouldn't call
any of my albums straight jazz albums.
Speaker 6 (28:06):
Right yeah.
Speaker 8 (28:06):
I mean, yeah, you can definitely hear the jazz, and
I think, but yeah, there's like a pop sensibility that's
not always there in jazz, which I like.
Speaker 9 (28:16):
I like that me too.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I mean I think I come from listening to country
music and stuff like that. I like three chord songs
just as much as I like a complicated chord.
Speaker 9 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Sure, you actually have a song on your new record
that does have kind of some more poor man's jazz. Well,
I mean there's such a relation between jazz and just
old timey pop. What am I saying? You know what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 10 (28:45):
Yeah, there's like a relation between jazz and old It all.
Speaker 9 (28:49):
Kind of came from the same place, you know.
Speaker 8 (28:51):
I see pop, the current modern pop song as like
having its roots way back and like show tunes and
the Twin and stuff, which was all intermingled with jazz
and exactly.
Speaker 9 (29:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, there are some chords in this song, isn't magic
that I was like, oh, what is that? There's a
lot of vocals on it, But I think we can
do it.
Speaker 9 (29:16):
It might take me a minute, yeah, once.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I hear what you're doing, because I'm not sure exactly
which one you're doing on some of them.
Speaker 8 (29:22):
Right, Yeah, I mean I kind of had to like
go back to my session files and like stripped down
some of it to see what my root thing was.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
But what doesn't matter. I'll follow you. You recorded this
upstate New York.
Speaker 8 (29:37):
This one I actually did all on my own home recorded, Yeah,
or like a little studio thing I have in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Do you do a lot of that home sort of
have you for a long time?
Speaker 11 (29:47):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (29:48):
Yeah, I mean that's kind of I feel like doing
home demos. And you know, I've had like a little
digital eight track thing that I've had for years. That's
part of the songwriting process for me, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
But that's so fun. Yeah, when you do a bunch
of harmonies.
Speaker 8 (30:05):
Yeah, it's like instant gratification being able to just layer
up harmonies.
Speaker 10 (30:10):
But I wish I didn't wear that.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I've never been very techy, I know that, Like at
eight track, it's pretty simple.
Speaker 8 (30:16):
Yeah, I mean I'm not at all either. That's why
I like it. It's because it's kind of like hard
to mess up like I've wanted to. Like, I mean,
I love like old tape machines and stuff, but I'm
just like not technically minded at Also, if it breaks,
I'll just get really frustrated and.
Speaker 10 (30:32):
Like always break right, I'll tell you, that's what I hear.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, I own a tape an old tape machine and
it's in storage. Yeah, but they're great if you have
someone to fix them on the spot. All right, this
is isn't magic. I almost wanted to do like a.
Speaker 9 (30:52):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I hear that on it.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
I love him to.
Speaker 7 (31:34):
He been all calls.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
I have to all that we've been through. Now nothing
is lost.
Speaker 21 (31:52):
Doesn't anybody have the time?
Speaker 4 (32:00):
I lostn't it?
Speaker 7 (32:04):
But if you don't know any.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
Man, could I make you billy.
Speaker 15 (32:33):
Miss magent fee Len, I'm head.
Speaker 6 (32:46):
Through?
Speaker 22 (32:49):
Oh love for you?
Speaker 7 (33:13):
I had love.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
It's gone be true without it?
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Now the changes about me all over again?
Speaker 21 (33:35):
Doesn't any body at the time? Oh doesn't any body say?
Speaker 4 (33:56):
If you don't know.
Speaker 21 (33:58):
Now, then.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I could I make you busy.
Speaker 15 (34:15):
In this mass chick fee? Then I'm heaving.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
Not through?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Oh Loo for you?
Speaker 9 (35:01):
That's not great?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
That was fine?
Speaker 6 (35:04):
You're right.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Jazz, that's jazz. Yeah, straight up, that's a great one.
Speaker 10 (35:11):
Those harmonies are they got me.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
They're great.
Speaker 8 (35:17):
I was trying to do like Brian Wilson meets late
era Bob Dylan doing the Frank Sinatra tunes.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Totally that makes sense. Do you love Brian Wilson?
Speaker 12 (35:28):
I do.
Speaker 7 (35:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (35:29):
It's one of my one of my very favorites.
Speaker 10 (35:32):
It's pretty deep. All that stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, and thick with the harmonies are so complex that
you think, whoa, this is really heady, but then it's
really hearty. It's the best of combinations. Where does your
love of harmonies come in? Because I can hear it
in everything you write, I mean everything recorded.
Speaker 9 (35:52):
Anyway, I've always liked that stuff.
Speaker 8 (35:54):
The Everly Brothers were like a revelation to me when
I when I first heard that, because I was already
so into the Beatles, and then I realized that, like
that's where they got that from. Ye, that that aspect
of the close harmonies and stuff. I mean, they did
more on top of it, some of the early stuff
like they were They've said that they just were trying
(36:15):
to be the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
At the point.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
Yeah. Yeah, at some point, just like in doing the
home recording stuff and overdubbing vocals, I realized that I
could kind of do that. Another person who I really
love is a Skeeter Davis, which shell they started off.
It was her and her sister similar to Everly Brothers,
(36:40):
like doing close harmonies, and then I think her sister
very early on died in a car accident or something.
But then Skeeter Davis went on to have like a
career in pop music in the in the sixties and
seventies and stuff. But then but she just.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
She had all that like knowledge of harmony, so she
harmonized with her self with overdubs, which I felt like,
I don't know somehow it can to what I like.
I mean, she she's like incredible like her, I always
i'm jealous of, like the female voice. They can go
so high, like like on that Carol King demo. I
(37:17):
sent you something about those close harmonies when it's like
in that higher register as like next level to me.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
When it's close and high, it's pretty special. Yeah, but
the Everly Brothers had that too good. They had such.
Speaker 9 (37:28):
High voices, right, Yeah, they could pull it off too.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah. I definitely hear that in your music. You know,
it's it's got the flavor of all that. I mean,
can tell you love those those close harmonies.
Speaker 12 (37:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
The best that it gets, I feel like, is when
you can't like tell them apart sort of, or you
can't pull them apart in your mind. It's like you
can't listen to one or the other because you don't know.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Which one's dominant, right, Yeah, that's what I like about that.
Are you in a Gillian Walsh and David Rawlings at all?
Speaker 12 (37:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Yeah, they do a lot of that close harmony stuff.
I used to tour with them and I would always
sing along backstage like the third harmony, but it doesn't work.
Speaker 10 (38:07):
It's so not needed the third harmony because it's so
much cooler without it. Basically, it's the thing.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's like got the disonance and it's just on the
cooler side without it.
Speaker 8 (38:18):
Yeah, I mean it's weird to I mean, especially with
doing overdubs and stuff, the third harmonies there or the
fourth or the whatever. But then it's better to not
put it in sometimes.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, it's way better and people I feel like people
still hear it in their brains. But yeah, it's the
space is the place sometimes you want to do that.
Toune Carol King too.
Speaker 9 (38:41):
I guess we can kind of do like the Everly's version.
Speaker 8 (38:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that was the first version I
heard of it, but the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Version, but that's I've never heard that version of the
Carol King version. It's from a demos sort of. Yeah,
we're probably released later.
Speaker 9 (38:57):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 8 (38:58):
I mean, I'm such a huge fan of hers. She's
like the best of the best in my book mine too.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And I don't even think I realized certain songs that
she wrote, Like I didn't know she wrote this song.
Speaker 10 (39:09):
Oh no, yeah, I didn't even know.
Speaker 9 (39:12):
Yeah, I mean, there's there's so many, so many that.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
My first song book was a Carol King song book,
and it was the first time I learned how to
record changes instead of just reading the notated notes.
Speaker 10 (39:30):
Give that chat, yeah, I can get our chat on.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Will you take this the middle bit? Please?
Speaker 10 (39:39):
Sure?
Speaker 9 (39:40):
Please? Yeah? Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
All right. Let you see my brok heart is hurting me.
Speaker 15 (40:03):
I've got my pride and I knowed I had all
my sorrow and pain.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
I'll do my crying.
Speaker 7 (40:13):
In the rain.
Speaker 22 (40:19):
You fall away for cloudys, Guys, you'll know the rain
from the tears in my eyes. You never know that
I still know your soul though the heartts remained. I'll
do my crying in the rain, rain drops fallen from
(40:48):
even I.
Speaker 11 (40:50):
Could never shoe in my misery.
Speaker 23 (40:55):
Since we're not together, I'll look for stormy where the univers.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Sunday and my cry and done. I'm going to wear
smile and walk in the sun.
Speaker 22 (41:16):
Maybe a fool buntil then you never see complain.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
I'll do my crying in the rain. I'll do my cry.
Speaker 7 (41:31):
In the rain.
Speaker 8 (41:40):
Cool, that's fine, Yeah, Leon, Yeah, I saw. I mean,
I know that you've done. You must be a fan
because he did that whole thing with Billy Joe Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I did, and I was a fan, but that was
totally spearheaded by him. He really Yeah, he really wanted
to do the whole album, like could do a version
of that album, and I'm not sure. I'm still not
really sure exactly where it came from. I remember I
was like, let's just try a song and see how
it goes. He's like, okay, but that's.
Speaker 10 (42:10):
Not really what I want to do. I want to
do the whole album.
Speaker 9 (42:13):
And I was like, that's really imbicious and a lot
on there.
Speaker 7 (42:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
I mean, I knew him from meeting him, and I
really liked him. He was super nice. But we'd never
sung together. And I didn't know how we were going
to blend, because that that's ambitious to do because it's a.
Speaker 10 (42:29):
Blend for sure, their blend is so special.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
But we ended up doing it. Was it was blast
and I love how it came out. It's very different
from their original records, so it's it was fun, but
that was all him. But I do love them. I
mean I grew up on them completely. Like most people did,
you just always sing like grown up? Did you go
to church or anything?
Speaker 6 (42:53):
We didn't.
Speaker 9 (42:54):
I mean we went to church on like holidays sometimes,
you know.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
We weren't in church choir or anything.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
Nah.
Speaker 8 (43:01):
I maybe sang just from by myself in secret, but no,
I was always pretty like shy about that in most things.
And I mean I'm still pretty like I was never
like a natural performer. Really, I kind of like forced
(43:21):
myself like I wanted to be, but then I just
wasn't really So like in high school when I first
started playing open mics and stuff in Cleveland, I had
a good friend of mine who would come with me
and we'd drive forty five minutes away to like another town,
so I would have no chance of running into anyone
(43:42):
that I knew.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Were you able to put on a different persona could
sometimes people hide behind that as a way to be
more comfortable.
Speaker 9 (43:50):
On stage, right, Yeah, I mean maybe to some extent.
I don't know, if it's nothing like it's not like
Bowie or anything. It's not like that. Obvious.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
I always wanted to do that, and I feel like
my time, you know, it's too late now to start
it in my my career, people who would think it
was weird, but I wish I had had something like
that because I was also not a natural performer in
that way. I feel like the music was always good,
but as far as, like, you know, being charismatic on
(44:19):
the stage, it's hard.
Speaker 6 (44:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, yeah, I wish I had a wig from the beginning,
you know, like a pink wig or something. Yeah, let's
take us out on another favorite song of mine. I
love that sold my soul song. Oh yeah, sure, yeah,
that's a good one. When did you start playing? I mean,
obviously your your dad was like pretty massive. He was,
(44:43):
but I didn't grow up with him. Oh no, no,
I mean we saw each other on and off, but
I never lived with him, and then when I was nine,
we were kind of a strange for another maybe nine
years after that, so we didn't even talk or see
each other. But I started playing piano when I was seven. Yeah,
(45:04):
I took piano lessons and I always sang in church choir. Okay, yeah,
but I didn't really see my dad play even until
I was eighteen, Oh wow, and I was like, oh wow.
I knew he was like really good, but this is
a whole other level. It's also coming from jazz, and
it was just so different from anything. His music was
so complex in some ways but also super simple. But yeah,
(45:29):
church choir was big for me. So that's what I'm
always curious about if people grew up in the church
playing music, because I feel like that's a huge thing
for a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (45:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (45:37):
I mean I know a lot of R and B
and soul artists that I loved, like you know, Sam
Cook or Marvin Gaye, like they all came out of
like gospel, and yeah, a lot of what I like
about it is stuff that comes from that. I never
really like knew that until later on. The church that
I went to wasn't really like the church that they
went to.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, I don't think the same here. It wasn't a
gospel church. What I still sang in it, and that
that was helpful.
Speaker 9 (46:06):
I did always like the like the organ music and stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Though, yeah, it's special.
Speaker 10 (46:11):
I feel like growing up with music in that way
it makes it.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
It takes all the thinking out of.
Speaker 10 (46:16):
It because it's focused on worshiping God.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
You know, it's focused on this one other thing that's
pretty big, Like there's no like songwriting analysis, so it
goes to those songs, but they come from the heart,
which is also much nicer sometimes or not. I told Sarah,
I gotta check out the new album, but tell them
I want to do the anti croad Show song. I
(46:40):
don't think I realized that it wasn't called that.
Speaker 9 (46:42):
Oh yeah, I mean I could have called it that,
but no.
Speaker 10 (46:44):
I'm glad you didn't want to solve my.
Speaker 9 (46:46):
Soul full on the commercial.
Speaker 10 (46:49):
So my soul is much deeper.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
For somebody had found it somewhere.
Speaker 11 (47:30):
I had an old free market fair with no old
number on the tail. Let it go for half a dollar. Now,
that didn't even bother had it of been side that.
(47:55):
I was drink and gasoline in a half ride fmousine,
watching TV.
Speaker 7 (48:04):
And the band.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
When much too much surprise, I didn't chill fire. They
had a hard time.
Speaker 11 (48:24):
I saw mysel somewhere so long ago. Oh, I didn't
think too much at the time.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
I was young, and I didn't.
Speaker 11 (48:35):
Know until Outside played one night on the eighteenth road
Show Expert Collectors to praise with the trip that I
(49:03):
was on, like a rewrite math of blue Days and
bland Nights where the Marbro lane just plays for the
Menli bird to pray.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
Me the last head burning bright.
Speaker 11 (49:30):
I saw on display like imitation fabrigae able by the
mid life. Then the signal came on through like a
bad dream come true.
Speaker 6 (49:52):
Leaves.
Speaker 11 (49:53):
You had a loss for word so much, so somewhere
so long ago.
Speaker 4 (50:05):
Oh, I didn't think too much chat the time.
Speaker 23 (50:09):
I was young, and I didn't know until I side
late one night on.
Speaker 4 (50:16):
The Ante Road Show, just to see what I could raise.
Speaker 11 (50:36):
Hello, commercial gray fit for the wall Stream train, swimming
with the price a goal commemoration baseball come courtesy of Scottland.
Speaker 24 (50:57):
You you dug up from the days of old ring
model cathedral class and written leaves the grass in certified
and guarantee.
Speaker 11 (51:21):
Well they're throwing it all away, they get it back
some day. Ages could never see.
Speaker 4 (51:33):
What it could mean to me.
Speaker 11 (51:39):
I saw mysel somewhere so long ago.
Speaker 23 (51:44):
I had anything too much chapter time. I was young
and I didn't know. Hi side laid one night on
the eighteen Roll Show looking into my old grave. Ye,
(52:16):
So what's it gonna be? You're on a pace, Tom,
could it help the pain?
Speaker 4 (52:31):
Can you tell me so? Because I like to know.
Speaker 7 (52:38):
If you have been in.
Speaker 4 (52:46):
Five Nis.
Speaker 11 (52:50):
For even half his love, if your intention spell love?
Speaker 4 (53:01):
Can you tell me so because a look, if you
have been in.
Speaker 9 (53:37):
Yay, you got it?
Speaker 17 (53:40):
Awesome, it's great.
Speaker 8 (53:43):
Yeah, thank you. I love the piano you were doing
on the is It Magic song? I wish I wish
I could have had you play on the record.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
Maybe we can catch up at a show sometimes. Of
course it'll have to be a piano there. That's always
the trick, right right now? What kind of band do
you tour with? Is it always changing or no?
Speaker 8 (54:02):
It's been the same guys for a number of years.
Now it's like a four piece. It was a four
piece and now it's kind of become a five piece.
It's like drums, bass, I play guitar, keys, pedal steel.
Speaker 9 (54:17):
That's a big recent edition.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, does everybody Pedal steel is an addiction. I have
a pedal steel player with me this summer. I had
him last summer, Dan and I need. He's a local guy.
Speaker 9 (54:28):
Okay, I know that name.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, he's around, he's in Brooklyn. Yeah, it is an addiction, Like,
can you play pedal steel on every song. He said,
let me just space it out because he plays great
regular guitar. So yeah, we space it out, but I
could have it on every song.
Speaker 10 (54:42):
That's a big band, though. Does everybody sing harmonies?
Speaker 9 (54:44):
I sometimes get them all to sing. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (54:47):
I mean the keyboard player John Andrews, he's he's got
his own whole solo thing that's really great called the Yawns.
Speaker 9 (54:54):
And so we toured together.
Speaker 8 (54:56):
It's like his band in my band, and there's just
the same band, the different front person.
Speaker 7 (55:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (55:03):
Yeah, I've seen that before, so it's the best way
to do it.
Speaker 12 (55:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (55:07):
Definitely makes the changeover between sets very easy.
Speaker 10 (55:11):
Yeah, financially it's easier.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Are you going to be on tour all summer? Pretty much?
Speaker 6 (55:16):
Sure?
Speaker 8 (55:17):
I'm in the fall is when I'll I'll go out.
I do have a residency thing planned for July, like
when the it'll end in like the record release party.
So I'm doing like three fridays at this place, Union Pool.
Speaker 9 (55:32):
Oh great, So that should be fun.
Speaker 8 (55:34):
I'm trying to get some like special guests and make
it fun.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
It's a party.
Speaker 9 (55:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Last time I was at Union Pool, I danced in
the front to a DJ.
Speaker 10 (55:46):
There were only four of us there.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
I danced like I've never danced before.
Speaker 9 (55:52):
That's great. Yeah, those are good nights.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Yeah, those are good nights. I've had some good nights there.
Thank you so much for doing this. I love song that,
I like you likewise, and I love meeting you finally
after listening.
Speaker 10 (56:04):
For so long.
Speaker 8 (56:05):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I've You've your songs and everything
have been pretty big in the my consciousness for it
since I was a lot younger, so it was really
real honor to do it.
Speaker 9 (56:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
Well, I'll see you around and I'll come to a gig.
Speaker 9 (56:21):
Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
Awesome, thank you for listening.
Speaker 5 (56:28):
What a sweet, down to earth guy. I love him.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
He's so great. I love his songs. I love his voice. Yeah,
he's special.
Speaker 5 (56:37):
He's a deep lyricist too. His songs are very earnest
and kind of take you on a journey.
Speaker 7 (56:42):
Well, I like that.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
We talked about the long song thing because I really
do feel like if it's that kind of a song
and it holds the mood, you just want to be
in that mood for a long time, right, and it.
Speaker 5 (56:53):
Doesn't feel long, no at all.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
It was. It was really special to finally get to
meet him and play that song with him that I've
been It's been in my brain for four years.
Speaker 5 (57:02):
It's been your favorite song for a long time.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
It's really one of my favorites. Check it out.
Speaker 5 (57:07):
Check out his new album it's called Cutworms It is.
Speaker 2 (57:10):
That's right. It's self titled titled Yeah, and check him
out on tour. Thanks for listening. The first song we
did was My favorite song of the Highest Tower from
Alien Sunset twenty seventeen, Too Bad, from his new self
titled album We did Is It Magic. Also from that album,
we did Crying in the Rain, which is a Carol
(57:31):
King song with lyrics by Howard Greenfield and was also
recorded by The Everly Brothers. We did Sold My Soul
from Nobody Lives Here Anymore twenty twenty. Today's episode was
recorded by Steven Sacho, assisted by Jasper Leech, Maximilian Trophy,
Tanner Wallace, Andrew Kohinka, and mixed by Jamie Landry. Edited
(57:54):
by Sarah Oda, Additional editing and mixing by Matthew Vasquez,
Additional engineering by Pete rem artwork by Eliza Fry, Photography
by Sheridan Linez. Produced by Me and Sarah hoda
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