June 24, 2025 • 63 mins
Have you ever wondered what happens when a successful artist faces their own mortality just as their career is taking off? In this deeply moving episode, acclaimed songwriter Will Stratton takes us through his unexpected journey with testicular cancer in his early twenties—a diagnosis that arrived precisely when professional opportunities were blossoming.
Will shares the crushing moment when he had to decline an invitation to perform alongside Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon because he was starting chemotherapy. But rather than dwelling on missed opportunities, Will reveals how this life-altering experience fundamentally transformed his approach to music, creativity, and purpose. He describes what he calls an "explosion of gratitude" that emerges after survival—a profound appreciation that can't be manufactured through any other means.
The conversation explores how Will's post-recovery album "Gray Lodge Wisdom" directly processed his cancer experience, allowing him to move beyond it artistically while maintaining its valuable perspective. Now with eight albums to his credit and a thriving music career, Will offers wisdom on balancing creative pursuits with practical necessities as someone with a serious medical history.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is Will's nuanced take on suffering and art. He challenges the notion that trauma automatically deepens artistic expression, instead suggesting that how we integrate difficult experiences matters more than the experiences themselves. His pragmatic yet profoundly grateful approach to life after cancer provides a roadmap for anyone facing life-altering challenges.
Whether you're an artist seeking inspiration, someone facing health challenges, or simply a person wondering how to find meaning in difficult circumstances, Will's story offers both comfort and motivation. Listen now and discover how sometimes our most devastating setbacks can lead to our most authentic creative expressions.
Will Stratton:
Music: https://willstratton.bandcamp.com/music
Website: https://willstratton.com/
Out Of The Blue:
For more: outoftheblue-thepodcast.org
For exclusive content: patreon.com/podcastOOTB
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to Out of the Blue, the podcast, a space
where we celebrate powerful,real-life stories of people who
face life-changing challengesand found the strength to move
forward.
I'm your host, vernon West, andjoining me today is my co-host,
my son Vernon West III.
In addition to being a talentedmusician, he's also the
(00:44):
creative force behind ourpodcast's logo and theme song.
Most importantly, thank you,our listeners, for tuning in and
spending your valuable timewith us.
We truly appreciate yoursupport.
And hey, don't forget to smashthat like button and hit
subscribe.
It really helps us to sharethese stories with more people
who need to hear them.
(01:05):
Today, we're honored to welcomeWill Stratton.
Originally from Woodland,california, will now calls New
York's Hudson Valley his home.
He's an acclaimed Americansongwriter, currently on tour in
the US and the UK in support ofhis eighth album, points of
Origin, just released byRuination Records.
(01:25):
Will is here to share a deeplypersonal and inspirational story
, one that began with anunexpected medical crisis and a
fight for survival.
He'll walk us through hisjourney of recovery and how he
turned trauma into triumph, andhow he continues to thrive as a
musician and artist.
And to triumph, and how hecontinues to thrive as a
musician and artist Will welcometo Out of the Blue.
(01:47):
We're so happy to have you.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thanks so much, Vernon.
I'm really pleased to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
We're so happy to have you so well.
I know a lot of things aboutyou because I did some research,
but I do want to know reallywhat's the event we were talking
about there.
That was that deeply personal,inspirational story the
unexpected medical crisis thatwas out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So for a little context, you and I met in person
a few weeks ago.
I happened to be on tour with aclose person in both of our
lives and you were telling usabout a story from your life and
it just happened to spark thismemory of a specific moment in
(02:34):
my life.
And when I was in my early tomid 20s I was kind of I was
trying to be kind of a go-getterin music in New York City.
I was playing lots of shows, Iwas working full-time and then I
would play a few shows a weekand I was trying to make things
happen in the business, so tospeak.
(02:55):
And I got very sick withtesticular cancer.
By the time I had gone to thedoctor it had spread to my lung
it's my liver.
And when I was receiving myfirst round of chemotherapy I
got an email from a professionalacquaintance of mine named
(03:16):
David Garland really great guy.
He had a wonderful radio showon WNYC called Spinning On Air
and I had been a guest on thatshow a year or two prior to my
getting sick.
David at the time didn't knowthat I was sick when he reached
(03:36):
out on this particular occasion,but he was emailing me to ask
if I would be a part of his.
I think it was the 20thanniversary of Spinning On Air
being on the radio, and so theguests were going to be me, yoko
Ono and Sean Lennon.
That was how he pitched it tome.
And so I had to say you know,david, I would love to be a part
(04:00):
of this, but I'm really ill,I'm in the hospital right now,
so I can't take part.
And and he followed up a littlebit.
I think you know, at the time Iwas maybe a little bit
underplaying the situation, butultimately, you know, he
understood what was going on.
(04:21):
And that, to me, is a momentfrom my past where I'm like, wow
, if I had been healthy or I hadgone to the doctor sooner or
something, if I had gottenthrough that crisis a little bit
earlier, maybe that would havehappened.
And then, you know, maybe thatchain of events in my life would
have resulted in a differenttrajectory for me.
(04:41):
And it's not so much a momentof regret as it is just kind of
an inflection point.
You know, I'm still alive, I'min relatively good health now.
I'm still, thankfully, you know, I'm very grateful to be able
to continue making music andpursuing things that are
meaningful to me.
But you know, I think at thetime when we were talking, we
(05:04):
were talking about big breaks or, you know, near near big breaks
, and that was one moment in mylife where I was like, ah, I
kind of it's interesting toexamine that moment from
multiple angles.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
You know you feel like, wow, this happened.
What a time for this to happen.
I know exactly what that is.
I mean, I had a couple ofprojects in the fire when, when
I got diagnosed, I mean I had a,a book I was writing that was
getting a feedback from houghtonmifflin.
They, they loved it.
And all of a sudden I get sickand now fast forward that those
(05:43):
people haven't been workingthere anymore, so it's too late
for that.
But, um, but the thing is it'slike when that stuff happens,
it's like you have to wonderlike what?
What is the like?
I feel we're looking for thebenevolence that's behind these
acts that come out of the blue,so like, so typically they might
.
You know, it seems really arough turn of events, maybe took
(06:07):
you off of a trajectory, right,but maybe it had a reason for
that, you know, because, firstof all, I wanted to ask you when
you were saying, what were thethis is probably not just for me
but for people listening what?
How did you know you were sick?
Did you just have startedgetting sick?
Fever or pain?
What was it that made you getin there?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, I mean with with testicular cancer, the
tumor is first, so I noticed alump and then I, being this, you
know, young, uh, early twentiesguy, uh, not having a lot of
experience with illness ordoctors, I put off going to the
doctor until I really did feelsick, Um, which you know, at the
(06:48):
time there there are differentlevels of denial.
I was in denial about it, but Ialso, you know, a part, an
aspect of denial is just notwanting to think about something
, you know putting it out of,out of your head, Um, and so I
was just kicking the can downthe road until it was something
that I couldn't turn away from.
And so I was just kicking thecan down the road until it was
something that I couldn't turnaway from.
And you hear about this all thetime with testicular cancer and
(07:10):
other forms of cancer.
I mean, it's a huge part ofLance Armstrong's kind of origin
story, and I happened to havethe same oncologist as Lance
Armstrong because I was in avery similar predicament to him.
Same oncologist as LanceArmstrong because I was in a
very similar predicament to him.
And you hear this a lot withwith young men, you know, people
(07:34):
who haven't encounteredsignificant challenges in their
lives, perhaps, and feel likethey can just keep on coasting
or participating in the samebehavior that's led them to that
point, when really that's athey're.
They're in a crisis and theydon't know it yet yeah, yeah,
it's.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
It's very much the case for most young men, myself
included.
You think you're superman youknow, you don't.
You don't feel like there'sanything that you can't beat the
heck out of.
You know so when you went inand tell us what happened, I
mean, what was that journey?
How did that go?
How?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
long.
Well, I was in.
I was in treatment for about ayear.
Um, I, you know I went to, wentto a doctor, they sent me to an
emergency room.
I got admitted to the hospitalum, got uh transferred to
another hospital, got through myfirst round of chemotherapy.
(08:28):
Then I flew with my parents toSeattle Washington, where they
were living, and I got the restof my treatment done at a
hospital in Seattle.
So it was another two rounds ofchemotherapy and a couple
(08:48):
pretty serious surgeries as well, as you know, physical therapy
and stuff like that afterward.
It was a very extensive andharrowing journey.
I mean, my own experience ofthat in some ways is kind of the
least of it.
It's it's very hard for thepeople around you.
(09:09):
I think there are so manyinternal resources that you
don't even know that you have uh, when you're going through
something like this I'm surethis was the case for you too Uh
, I would imagine where you're.
You're in the thick of it, andI would imagine where you're in
the thick of it.
And you know, in my case acouple of the harder passages of
(09:32):
my journey were getting asepsis infection living through
that and it's very tough.
Later, one of the surgeries was,like you know, 28 hours and
involved a lot of recovery time.
You know you go throughsomething like that, and your
(10:00):
body.
I think it's just remarkable tome how resilient the body and
the mind can be, especially ifyou're lucky enough to go
through something like this whenyou're fairly young.
Especially if you're luckyenough to go through something
like this when you're fairlyyoung and if you're lucky enough
to go through a type of thedisease where the survival rate
is fairly high, which in my caseit was.
So I got so lucky in a coupleof really crucial ways my age,
(10:24):
the type of cancer I had and thetype of support system I had.
You know I had the option ofgetting treated in New York or
on the West Coast and I decidedto move back in with my parents
for a year.
As you can imagine, it was areally tough journey.
But being on the other side ofthat is more interesting to me,
(10:46):
like the time immediately afterI went through all of this, the
sort of insane amount ofgratitude that you have to have
for surviving something likethat, and then what that does to
your life, in my case, feelinglike I had this second lease on
(11:12):
life.
It was, like you know, gettingcut a blank check from a higher
power.
I felt so good, oh, that'sincredible.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I'd love to hear this .
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Oh, that's incredible .
I'd love to hear this.
And soon after that Ireconnected with my then partner
, now wife, and we've beentogether for 13 years at this
point.
We got married last year.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Congratulations Wonderful and I think that thank
you.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I think that connecting with her was only
really possible because of this,uh, multi-layered, tumultuous,
traumatic journey that I wentthrough.
You know I wouldn't havereached out to her had I not
been on the other side of thecountry recovering from this, uh
(12:02):
, cataclysmic event in my life.
And you never if you do havethe good fortune to make it
through something like thisalive, you never know what is
going to come out of that,completely unexpectedly.
That wouldn't have happened ifyou didn't go through that kind
of traumatic experience.
(12:23):
I try not to.
I mean, it's it's been so longnow.
I try not to dwell too much onthe previous versions of myself
and those kind of thosedifferent, diverging paths that
result from different, differentdecisions that I've made in my
life.
But that's one element of myjourney that I'm really grateful
(12:48):
for.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Wow, I'll tell you I could.
I could hear some of thehighlights that were going to be
taken out of this already, but,but explosion of gratitude,
that's a phrase and a half,because that's what I feel like
I'm getting.
You reminded me of theexplosion of gratitude.
That's something that'sincomparable to anything in your
(13:13):
life, and I think that even thepeople around you get to
experience that.
It's like when you reach out toyour now wife, it's almost like
you were sharing that.
I feel like that beautiful, uh,gratitude.
It's something about it likethe second lease on life, is it?
It's like something so special.
(13:33):
You feel like you're touched bysomething outside of yourself.
That's even though it probablyisn't, because I'm not sure our
higher power is outside ofourselves probably you know what
I mean, yeah, but but somehowit touches us with such a
powerful way that the gratitudeis.
(13:54):
I mean, I felt gratitude, andI'm sure you did too, before
that happened, but can youcompare it?
It's almost incomparable yeah,people's.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I think people's experiences of suffering are so
subjective, but people'sexperiences of gratitude are
also really subjective.
To look back on their own traumaor suffering, or maybe a family
members, and then say, well,they've gone through something
(14:31):
really extreme.
You have no idea in your, inyour own life, what, what that
must feel like, I just I don't.
I don't think that is true.
I think if you're somebody whohas thankfully not experienced
something really extreme andtraumatic in their life and you
(14:53):
encounter some difficulty, thatsuffering in experiencing that
is no less than the suffering ofsomebody else, because you have
no frame of reference for whatthat other person is going
through.
And if you flip that around, Ithink the same thing is true for
gratitude.
In a way, you know, being alittle kid, being grateful for a
(15:17):
particularly good Christmaspresent or something like that
or something like that thatfeeling is honestly very similar
to the feeling that I hadcoming through this year-long
journey with my life and myhealth relatively intact and
feeling like I was given thisgift by no one in particular,
(15:41):
but by the world.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Life itself really.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, gratitude is a very relative thing and I want
to echo what you said about notbeing sure about the existence
of a higher power, because I hadsome very close brushes with
death in my experience and Ididn't I'm more of a materialist
, not in, I mean, in thephilosophical sense, you know I
(16:08):
didn't feel the presence of asingular higher intelligence on
the other side of the veilbetween life and death, but I
kind of feel like when peopledie they return to a kind of
huge subsuming, universalintelligence that we as single
(16:31):
human beings don't have a lot ofum cognition of.
If that right right right,that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, I like that a lot.
Um, it's tough to figure thatstuff out.
Obviously, we could talk that'sa whole year worth of podcast
about that, but certainly whenyou went on from this though,
the explosion of gratitude ithad to have.
Definitely.
Well, one thing I did I readthis a long time ago, really in
(16:58):
my 20s, because I was trying tofigure out happiness and I was
very sad going through thatperiod of time in my 20s where I
wasn't too happy.
And I found a book written by aJesuit about happiness and he
interviewed like 50 people fromall walks of life, but he did
like a rich person who was happy, a rich person who was
(17:21):
miserable, a poor person who washappy, a poor person who was
miserable and everything in whowas happy, a poor person who was
miserable and everything inbetween, every other kind of
thing you can think of.
And what he ended up at the endof the book saying was that the
only thing he found that wasconsistent among all the people
who were happy, rich, poor, sickwell, was that they were
(17:43):
grateful.
First, he said there was theonly thing he said he could say,
fixedly, determinedly, thathappiness derived from gratitude
.
It came from gratitude.
So what does it mean?
I mean, what is happiness?
Anyway, I think of it as joy.
I mean, when you talked, whenyou said that explosion of
(18:03):
gratitude, I just felt anexplosion of joy come in my
heart, like because because Irelate to that, I relate to that
extremely because when you'rein that near-death situation
it's, you know, it's terrifying.
That's before.
I'm honest about that I wasscared out of my pants and um,
when I finally thought, oh, I'mnot going to be history tomorrow
(18:26):
and not be part of the bigoneness and stuff.
I'm back and I have anotherchance, and it was extremely
joyous in that sense.
I didn't have an expectation ofwhat I was going to do with my
life at that point, but I didfeel the fact that I had a
second chance was unbelievable.
(18:48):
It was just so wonderful, and sowhat did you do after this?
With all that do, foundgratitude.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I went through a few different phases.
I moved back to New York City,I resumed my old job.
I moved in with my girlfriend.
I kept making music.
I in a lot of ways I resumedthe old life that I had had
(19:15):
before I got sick, but I did itwith a different perspective and
that informed the work that Imade.
Um, the music that I made, um,the.
The album that I madeimmediately after that was
called gray lodge wisdom andit's, uh, definitely a an album
(19:35):
emotionally about the cancerexperience of getting weaker and
then getting stronger, and um,and once I had made that, it was
, it was a.
It was an enormous reliefbecause I felt like I could
write music from a bunch ofdifferent perspectives and I had
kind of said what I had to sayon that topic and I could move
(19:59):
on from there.
And a record I made after thatwell, a couple records that I
made after that were more kindof heterogeneous, the types of
songs that I was making.
I was trying new things out,both informed by that particular
experience but also just tryingto experiment.
(20:19):
And when that approach stoppedworking.
With this last record, forexample, it's very much it's a
concept record and it's aboutCalifornia, mostly California in
the 1970s, and it's based on alot of conversations that I've
had with people in my family,especially my parents, and their
(20:41):
memories of California, as wellas a lot of additional research
I did about wildfires.
There's kind of this current ofwildfires that runs through the
album.
But you know, as life goes on,from an experience like that I
think you do kind of have to inmy case at least like I found
(21:02):
that I couldn't fire on allthose cylinders all the time for
an extended period of time likethere's, there's a line between
gratitude, which I think youyou have to try to carry with
you for the rest of your life,and mania, and I think that it's
(21:22):
possible to go through anexperience like that and get a
little bit manic if you don'ttry to get back to a little bit
of a regular baseline.
It's such an extreme experienceand such a life-altering thing.
But there's also so much elseout there in terms of life to
(21:49):
experience and I found that once, once the cancer experience had
colored my life in thatparticular way because I could
move on substantially from that,you know, with the exception of
checkups, and you know all ofthe medical experience that will
(22:13):
follow me for the rest of mylife.
Just because I have been acancer patient, I feel a need to
try to just live a life onterms that are separate from
that experience, but informed byit, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
It does, it does.
I can feel that would informeverything.
I mean it informs.
It's not like you want to.
You can't break from it.
It's part of you, but you domove on.
You do move on.
It's almost essential, a partof the process.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, and as life goes on and as I've gotten older
because this happened to me 13years ago I've lived a lot more
of my life and you know, I'vehad I've had other injuries and
other illnesses and other likereally transcendent experiences.
(23:13):
And so, even though it's it'skind of like to use a really
clumsy metaphor it's like mylife is a rock garden and
there's that's one pretty bigboulder in the rock garden.
Is that year of my life?
Because it's really dense withsensory experiences and memories
that don't pertain to anythingelse in my life.
(23:36):
It exists a little bit outsideof it, but there are other big
boulders in the rock garden too.
And so, yeah, as time goes on,I'm there's an additional layer
of gratitude for me, which isthat I can, which is that those
memories become more ordinaryand they become more assimilated
(23:59):
into the rest of my life andthey become one more factor that
kind of informs my perspective,rather than the factor right,
right.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So does that when you sit down to write a song now?
Um, you don't have, you don'tthink of that.
You know what I mean.
You're thinking of theinspiration for the song itself.
How would you say it?
Uh, affected your ability towrite music that's a really good
question.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I I, I think I was really when I was a younger
person, I was very fixated onseamlessness and perfection and
competency and proficiency and,you know, showing off my guitar
(24:48):
playing skills and all of thesethings.
I had a lot of vanity as ayoung artist and I think one
thing that my experience withcancer took away from me was
that kind of vanity.
Maybe not completely, but itdefinitely took a lot of it away
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I can actually hear it.
I mean I've listened to some ofthe music I can actually hear
it.
I mean I've listened to some ofyour music.
I mean it's so, it's gettingmore, it evolves.
Your music is evolving, justlike you are, which is about as
good as it gets really.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
The older I get.
I mean, I'm in my late 30s now,so I'm not a young man, I'm not
an old man necessarily,necessarily, depending on who
you talk to.
Age is a matter of perspectiveobviously I would say you're a
young man talking to me well, inany case, I mean the, the music
I connect with the most rightnow has to do with living an
(25:50):
entire life.
It's like, you know, you look atthe discography of John Prine
or Van Morrison or Joni Mitchellor one of these kind of
monumental songwriters.
You can pick up an album fromdifferent sections of their life
and feel some of the kind offabric of what a life is when
(26:12):
you compare it to an album fromanother period of their life.
And that's something that Istrive for.
You know, I want to make musicas I get older that carries some
of those feelings of thatparticular time of my life,
rather than just trying to beone version of, uh, of a
(26:35):
musician and I this is kind oftried to say I think it's what a
lot of musicians strive for,especially if they keep making
music after their 20s or 30s orafter you know what, what the
industry determines to be their,their sell by date because
that's something we've talkedabout too is there's like a very
narrow box, that uh, so narrowyeah that the industry wants to
(27:00):
put you in, as much as there isan industry I think it's the age
between 19 and a half and 20and a half yeah, that's when
you're.
that's when you're you're most,uh, visually marketable, because
people want to be you at thatage, but it's also when you're
the most naive and the most easyto manipulate.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh my gosh.
Oh yeah, it's funny they saythat they can manipulate you,
you.
But it's also because you know,um, back in those days, the
early music industry selling 45sto of who wears shot shots and
things like that.
They were looking at theyoungsters with the disposable
(27:43):
income.
They will go down the streetand buy a single for a dollar
and a half.
But now it's not the case.
The industry is totally flippedflipped.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, the way people consume music it seems like it's
changing all the time now and Idon't have the energy or the
inclination to keep up withconsumption trends.
I really just want to make themusic that I can make and
(28:15):
everything else.
The thoughts that have to beexpanded about how the music is
perceived I think that thosetend to negatively affect my
creative process.
Speaking personally, itactually gets in the way of
writing music.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It does.
It does, trying to write for,you know, for an intentional
thing.
That's just plain oldcommercial writing.
I mean, if you're writing forlike a toothpaste or something,
but if you're really writingmusic, it's art, and art is
something very much numinous.
It's how would you feel aboutit, vern?
(28:53):
How do you reflect on thatstuff too?
Speaker 3 (28:55):
you write songs um, I just came from a band practice
last night where we like shotcontent because we're trying to
like work for the algorithm yeahand yeah it is.
It does feel like, uh, it doesfeel like a necessary evil
because you're marketing andit's part of like being in the
(29:16):
music industry, I guess.
But it is definitely adistraction from the point which
is to create the thing thatgenuinely comes out of you and
then like hopefully, yeah,hopefully, people like that.
But yeah, it is very stiflingto like concern yourself with
like all right, well, what willmake money?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
bands are such a beautiful thing, you know it's.
It's almost like they reallyare being on a pirate ship or
something.
You know everybody has adifferent role.
You can.
You can have a member of yourband who has to make sure that
the band is putting out contentfor social media and you can
have somebody who's in charge ofsomething else, and that's that
(30:02):
type of collaboration.
I do miss that.
I stopped being in bands aftercollege and looking back on it
I'm like, oh, maybe I should tryto start another band.
It's just really niceMotivating.
Yeah, and it's the camaraderieof it and the act of playing
(30:23):
music with other people, whereit's not like one person is
writing the songs and being incharge of the arrangement and
stuff.
The communal aspect of it isreally nice too.
I will say it is.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
It is that it is one person like writing the songs
and being in charge of thearrangement and stuff.
The the communal aspect of itis really nice too.
I will say it is.
It is that it is one personlike writing the songs and like
bringing them.
But, yeah, like I, I'm thedrummer, so I get to, I get to
offer my interpretation of asong and, and it is, it is super
collaborative, um, and it isvery rewarding.
And I will say this, though itdistracts me from my own stuff,
(30:57):
so keep going with your ownstuff.
If that is where you're like,true, like where you really feel
the most like rewarded forcreating, I'd say, stick to that
, because I'm in a bit of asituation where it's like I hear
you and talking about your,your like journey and you've got
a discography and beautifulmusic, by the way, I like, and
(31:18):
it's also very clear there's anetherealness to the music which
I know.
I don't know if it camenecessarily from that experience
, but it does have a sort oflike heavenly, kind of like
droney quality, like the song onyour website from Grey.
What was the name of that album?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Grey Lodge, wisdom.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Grey Lodge Wisdom.
Yeah, it has, like this dronethat comes in, you know, and it
does feel very like.
This experience of like I don'tknow meditative has has like
permeated your life and then,like all of the, all the other
songs I've listened to afterthat had a similar quality, so
(32:04):
it is cool to hear how it's.
You're really likecrystallizing this taste or this
like style it's coming.
It sounds like it's coming fromyour dedication to like your the
craft, so that's something thatI admire.
I'm I'm over here like I gottabe in less bands.
I'm in four four bands.
(32:25):
Okay, that is that is a lot ofbands.
Everyone needs a drummer yeah,that's.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I mean that speaks to your abilities as a as a
drummer, because if you're indemand, that means that you got
something going on.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, willingness to not be the front man.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, that's that selflessness is really important
too.
That can translate into a veryfruitful career in music.
That involves some solo worktoo.
I mean, you look at a lot ofprominent sidemen of the past.
They put out amazing, amazingsolo work.
I think of somebody likeJackson Brown, who started out
(33:07):
like just being a bit player inother people's music and then
really I may be getting thiswrong- no, I think you're right,
though yeah what I.
When I first thought aboutjackson brown, it was because of
um his work on um.
Well, he wrote a song when he Ithink he was 19 that ended up
(33:29):
on a nico album.
These days that's one of myfavorite songs and it just blows
me away that he was that young.
But you know, he wasn't knownas a songwriter until many years
after that came out.
I think like five or six yearsafter that he was putting out
solo records and in between, youknow, I think he was doing a
(33:54):
lot of uh work as a side man inla and all of that stuff.
I have no doubt and informedhis his work later on.
There are just so many storiesof people like that.
Glenn campbell is another onewhere, like you, know, right,
right, right, he was a debt.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
And jimmy hendrix, yeah, he was adept.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
And.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Jimi Hendrix.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
He was a side guitar player for the Platters or
something right.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, he played in a bunch of soul groups and you can
kind of hear that in his guitarplaying too.
It's like he's thinking of theguitar as a horn section almost.
It's like the kind of stabbingstuff that he's doing with the
guitar reminds me of like thehorn horn section and james
brown or something like thatthat's.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
That's so true.
I never even saw an interestinginsight.
Um, that's really right on.
He definitely did.
They think of our foxy ladyyeah, exactly, that's like.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Exactly it's like, it's like saxophones.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
And playing in three-piece.
You probably missed thatbecause he had been in bands
with horn sections.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
My first band was a ska band.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Oh, that sounds like fun.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
It was fun.
Oh yeah yeah, and we had a hornsection and aside from that,
I've recorded with horns, but Ihaven't played with a horn
section since I was in highschool and I do kind of I miss
it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Oh, I bet, I bet I had.
One of my earliest experienceswas like playing at my cousin's
wedding.
We got up to play and they hada whole horn section and we did
Boney Maroney, which is a Lennon, did that song.
It's an old rocker, written byFats Domino I believe.
And when they came in with thathorn section after we sang a
(35:36):
verse and then bam bam and theydid this off-setting horn line,
it blew me away.
I was so excited.
I wanted give me horns, I wantmore horns.
And it's funny because when Ifirst started out trying to get
into clubs, I can't tell you howmany times we would audition
(36:00):
for a club and they would say,well, get a horn, you need horns
, Get some horns in the band.
We never did, but I think wemight've got a sax player for a
little while.
But really insightful comment,Will.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
I'm going to remember that forever.
I'm sure I've heard thatsomewhere else.
I don't think that's a WillStratton original.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
It's not a Will Stratton.
I don't think so.
For all intents and purposes,we're going to attribute it to
you.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Back to your point, Will.
I'm kind of hoping that throughthis process I'm meeting people
and I'm making connections andI'm hanging out with people, and
that's a big part of it.
And, like you know, one ofthese days the path will take me
somewhere.
Then you know, maybe money willbe there, Maybe a living will
(36:43):
be there.
It's kind of just like yeah,right, and it's always a maybe
the music industry right now.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I, I really I want there to be some kind of mass
organization around streamingroyalties or you know something.
Something's got to give so thatpeople who are particularly
talented and in demand, likeyourself, can find their way to
a living, um, and yeah, way to aliving, um, and yeah, people's,
(37:18):
people's consumption habitsjust keep changing, though, and
I think people's uh, attentionspans are diminishing somewhat
too.
It's like content is startingto overtake music in a way as a
as a focus of people's attention, and to the extent that that's
lucrative, I guess that's okay.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
But yeah, it's also part of life like that.
That will happen.
The the media will change theway.
The the way we consume themedia will change the media.
So now it's like like we werefilming videos vertical and with
the camera sideways, and it waslike what this is like now.
We, now we're trying to do thatright.
(38:00):
It's in and the same for this.
In the same like, uh, same vein, music is becoming shorter and
more intense and like like um,over super stimulating because
of that form and it's likethat's not bad inherently, but
(38:20):
it's like different from oursensibilities, cause I'm, I'm,
like I'm early thirties, I grewup without much electronic
influence, like I think Lincolnpark was like the closest to I,
I'm getting, I'm, I'm digressing, but um, it's like not bad
necessarily, but it's justdifferent.
And it sucks for people like uswho, like, appreciate a
(38:43):
specific style or approach thatis now niche and there's no way
to break through to people thatunderstand it or it's or it's's
a lot harder.
Yeah, this is the.
This is the eternal struggle,and I am curious about like, did
your experience like sort ofmake you feel more confident
(39:05):
about just consistently pursuingmusic?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I have tried to be very pragmatic about the way
that I approach all of this,because once I came out of this
experience, I could no longerand this is going to get really
very specific about stuffunrelated to music for a second.
(39:30):
I could no longer really gethealth insurance as an
individual on a marketplace,even though this was
post-Obamacare, because I hadbeen on Medicare when I was sick
, when I was on Social Security,disability, et cetera, et
cetera.
There are all of these littleloopholes that make it hard to
(39:51):
get healthcare for somebody withmy medical history, or at least
did at the time, rightimmediately after my illness.
And so I have tried to alwaysat least have a full-time gig
that will give me healthinsurance through um, through my
job, and I have tried to pursuemusic to the best and fullest
(40:20):
of my abilities alongside that,in parallel with it.
So I have needed the stabilityof full-time employment, just, I
mean, for the sake of myimmediate family, so that they
don't worry about me in casesomething were to happen.
Uh, I've, I've kind of had totake a particular approach and,
(40:43):
you know, has that stopped mefrom pursuing music all of the
time like I would otherwise wantto?
Yes, I haven't toured as muchas I would have, I think, but
the grass is always greener if Ididn't have to have a full-time
job.
That being said, I also wonderif you know if the shoe had been
(41:07):
on the other foot and I hadreally tried to make a go of it
as a touring musician for acouple years, you know if I had
like tried to do the thing,where I live out of my car and I
tour all over the United Stateslike some friends of mine did
in the 2010s.
More power to them.
I really admire people like thatfor going out and doing that,
(41:29):
but that can be a really hardthing to do for your physical
and mental health and I think itcan lead to you kind of burning
out if you're not careful, ifyou really go hard at it.
So I think that there's thisquestion of like longevity it's,
it's a really, it's a really.
(41:52):
It's what is the phrase fromthe last waltz.
It's anyway.
It's an impossible way of life,the life of a professional
musician, and it gets more andmore impossible.
And there are people who makeit work.
A lot of those people have vasthidden reserves of familial
(42:14):
wealth to draw on.
Not all of them.
There are also very talentedpeople who do make it through
this crazy gauntlet of theindustry with their
self-sufficiency intact, justbecause they are that talented
and that dedicated and thatlucky.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
But all together right.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah, you got to have all three and I think that, in
my case at least, having theability to not worry too much
about the health side of things,having the ability to have
insurance because of the countryand political system that we
live in, has allowed me to alsomake a lot of music that I
(43:01):
wouldn't have made otherwise.
So I've made four albums.
I've put out four albums sincethis all happened.
That is a slower rate than whenI was in my 20s, but I'm still
making music and I really do.
I still have goals related totouring.
(43:22):
I want to do a tour all over theUnited States, which I haven't
done yet.
I've toured a lot in the UK.
I've toured a little bit inEurope.
I'm going out for a couple ofweeks in the UK in July and each
time it's like it's kind of ashot in the dark.
I don't know exactly what'swaiting for me.
(43:45):
Sometimes it's amazing,sometimes you know there's only
two people at the show.
But the act of writing songsand of playing the music for
people who find meaning in ithas not gotten any less
fulfilling as time has gone on,and I'm very grateful for that
at least well, I think that's.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
That would be probably um.
We're talking about the um, thethread.
One of the things I like tolook for with Art of the Blue
Things is the thread.
There's a thread coming throughit that kind of, to me, informs
me personally of where I'mgoing, if I'm going the right
thing, everything.
I can't you have to do that foryourself, obviously, but I hear
(44:29):
you and I think yeah, you mighthave said you did say less
hectic pace of album release,but I think, of terms of quality
is over Trump's quantity andany time in the morning for me,
you give me 10 songs that areokay.
(44:50):
Give me one song that'sunbelievable.
I'm listening to that song thewhole time.
Forget the other 10.
It's quality.
I think that's what this Out ofthe Blue event has turned your
implosion of gratitude into apretty sharp focus on staying in
(45:12):
tune with your truth.
It seems that way, I mean onthe outside, looking in.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, you use the word thread.
There's a poem by WilliamStafford it's maybe my favorite
poem called the Way it Is, andit is all about that following a
thread through your life thatgives the rest of your life
meaning, and I think that's kindof what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
That's exactly what I said and I think that when we
get in tune with our thread thenyou recognize it when things
happen.
You don't maybe instantlyrecognize it, but eventually it
starts to manifest and you go,yeah, okay, and it informs your
feeling going forward.
So we can't predict tomorrow,much less the next hour, but we
(46:10):
know that when it comes topoints where you've got to make
decisions that can change yourlife, you don't even realize it.
It might be the smallestdecision, but it's going to set
you on a whole other path.
The more people like we weretalking about this the other day
, I think about some peopledon't understand why bad things
have to happen for people to getgrateful, because it's just the
(46:35):
way it is.
I mean, lots of times people gothrough life and they coast and
they God bless them.
They never have anything reallycritically earth-shaking happen
to them, but they're gratefuland they think they're grateful
and they probably are.
But is that the kind ofexplosion of gratitude that
we're talking about here?
Because when you have theearth-shaking thing happen from
out of the blue, I feel that's awe are.
But is that the kind ofexplosion of gratitude that
we're talking about here?
Because when you have the earthshaking thing happen from out
(46:55):
of the blue.
I feel that's a, that's a.
I have to say it.
I hope God isn't listening tome on my higher power.
Please don't listen to this.
All right, I am saying it wasalmost.
It was like what I needed.
What happened to me.
I needed it to happen.
I needed to have my head shakenup because I was so
complacently thought I had itfigured out and I just thought
(47:19):
it was.
I just can't believe how muchI've changed from that as a
result of that event.
And I look at my old self.
I don't I'm not mad at me.
I mean I had, you know, raiseda family.
I had to bring money in.
I was always focused on makingmoney.
No, but I look at it now, it'sso much different.
I think maybe it's because Idid save, I put a lot of time in
(47:42):
.
Now I have the ability to saydo what I really feel and love
first and foremost.
I feel like that's what I'velearned about my life now.
And when I hear you talk, Ithink that that's exactly what
you're learning and you'reevolving in that way that the
things that are important inyour life.
I mean, yeah, you have to havea job for the medical and that
stuff.
But it doesn't preclude writingthese great songs you're
(48:05):
putting out and then going onthe tours when you can do it and
I think something will unfoldand you'll know when it's time
to do that national tour.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, the stability is important in my case.
Some people need some chaos intheir lives to be creatively
productive.
I've always tried to.
When I was really young, my dadwas an English professor.
(48:36):
He's now retired and had abunch of other careers as well,
but he has a love of poetry thathe passed on to me, and when I
would write poems as a youngperson it was from a perspective
(48:57):
of trying to transcend earthlythings, trying to, you know,
transcend day-to-day experiences.
And for better or for worse,that's been kind of my approach
as a songwriter too.
I'm not I'm not a super earthysongwriter, I think because of
(49:27):
that kind of poetic backgroundand for me at least, I can only
get to that kind of slightlydisinterested, above ground
perspective from a fairly stableplace.
And that stability, that's whatI get from not having to worry
(49:49):
so much about the day to day andputting in time at a job.
I really admire people likeCharles Ives, you know, this
great American composer whoworked, as you know, was one of
the founders of the Americaninsurance industry, for better
or worse.
(50:09):
Or William Carlos Williams, youknow, who was a medical doctor
and was also writing thesebeautiful poems.
I think there's.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Brian May.
Isn't he like an astrophysicist?
Yeah, yeah rocket scientist orsomething like that yeah,
incredible yeah, this art is notmutually exclusive, but
intelligence being a form of art, yeah but continue.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, because I agree those inspired the hell out of
me yeah, I mean, I mean I, youknow, I really admire people
whose central, core part oftheir identity is they are an
artist and that is how theyinteract with the world.
But for me, because that hasn'tbeen the only part of my my
(50:57):
journey, that that balancing actand the kind of stability I get
from the other parts of my lifehave have informed the way that
I make music and in terms oflike all of musical history, I
think there have been these verybrief periods in society where
(51:19):
people are allowed to make aliving as a musician and we're
kind of looking back.
We've had a very fertile,commercially fertile period of
music making and there was, youknow, the period of when sheet
music was selling like hotcakesand there's all of the stories
(51:39):
of composers.
It's being taken under the wingof various monarchs and
aristocrats in Europe and beingpart of a patronage system, kind
of like the great visualartists of the Renaissance and
the Enlightenment era and all ofthat.
And these examples stick in ourmind because they are such a
(52:02):
pivotal part of that society,even if it wasn't being
(52:31):
remunerated, being compensatedwith the value that we would
ascribe to it.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
Yeah, it probably was , and people were still,
probably sort of against theirwill, creating stuff that was
really heart-wrenching.
You know just of the times, oftheir experience.
It doesn't matter at the end ofthe day, and it's a shame that
maybe these periods of time themusic is a mystery.
(53:02):
But there's also somethingreally beautiful about that too,
like how it is ethereal.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Music is the most.
It's one of those arts thatcomes directly out of the blue.
I mean, when you're performingit and the audience is listening
, you don't know exactly howthey're hearing it, because
they're interfacing with yourmusic and their frame of
reference with reality, so itsimpressions are totally out of
(53:28):
your control.
It's like anytime you writeanything you have to realize.
Now it's in the hands of thelistener or the reader and
they're going to create fromyour creation the experience,
and I've seen it all my life.
You know we may not have had ahit record that was global, but
(53:49):
for the people we played it forit was a part of the fabric of
their lives and for that I getmuch joy from that.
So it doesn't matter if I, ifmy band didn't, I don't get to
go on a nostalgia tour right now.
You know, and play for a bunchof people that said, yeah,
that's a great song, but if Idid, to the people that heard me
(54:12):
, they are that way.
There was a time, I think, thatthere were musicians all over
the country doing the same thing, because, while the industry
may have been ignoring us andmaking us subsist and gradually
taking away the livelihood ofmusicians, which is, I don't
think they meant to do it, it'sjust what unfolded after the
pandemic and whatnot.
Yeah, I think, whatever it is,it's going to force us musicians
(54:35):
, artists, to come up with evenbetter stuff, to break through
that wall of noise, andultimately, music is needed for
that connection to the ethereal.
You know what I think?
One said it's the bridgebetween the physical world and
the non-physical world, thespiritual world, for lack of a
(54:59):
better term.
And music, or art is the bridgeto that.
And I think music is the mostvibrant form of any art on the
planet that does that.
It stirs the emotions up.
I mean, think about what itdoes.
I mean they use music to marchand get people ready to start a
war.
It's that powerful.
(55:21):
So I mean we are in our hands,in your hands, will taking that
out of the blue state, andVernon too, and myself, but I'm
a little bit old now, but thething, it doesn't stop me from
making music, but still, withthe same token, it's like our
duty, duty as artists, to keepthe fire, fire, keep the golden
(55:44):
chalice from spilling as webring the offering to the, to
the minds and hearts of thosepeople who are hungry for it
what a great story you have.
Well, I mean, it's just awonderful story of how that
event happened in your I like tocall them the terrible 20s.
When we all go through them, aswe're a little cuckoo and we're
(56:04):
a little wildly driven, I meangosh, the amount of drive you
have when you're in your 20s isoff the charts.
And if you're channeling it,maybe that was your out of the
blue force saying all right, wewant to help you channel it
better, we want to get you somereal perspective here, and maybe
that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
I did.
I did get perspective and, yeah, coming out of that event, the
thing I kept on telling peopleand I could tell they didn't
completely believe me was that Iwasn't regretful about what
happened because of what it gaveme.
(56:44):
Those experiences are reallyimportant to to the person I
became.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
And I will say that speaks to you and my dad your
resilience, like your personalresilience Because I think a lot
of times people like me thathaven't really I mean, I've
experienced family members goingthrough things, but I haven't
been through physical, intensethings there's a feeling like,
oh, it was meant to happen toyou, so you learn this lesson,
(57:13):
and I haven't needed to learn alesson, so it hasn't happened to
me.
But I think that's a load of BSbecause that's like really
hindsight bias.
It is really and it's sellingyourself short.
It's a testament to howfreaking strong you guys are
that you would go through thisand be like you know what, after
(57:34):
all, that this is the good Icould take from it, like that's
a choice.
Not everyone I don, I don'tthink reverts to that, but that
is like a testament truly toyour guys' spirit and maybe
there's something to being anartist, having that connection,
being willing to findinspiration from this experience
(57:55):
.
I mean, I commend both of youguys.
I think you guys are clearly,you have a humility and
appreciation for life that I'minspired by, just sitting here
in my laptop.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
Vernon, I'm gonna say one thing don't underestimate
what it's like to have yourfather or a loved one go through
this thing, because my fatheryeah, it sucks well, my father
went through it and he diedeventually.
That did it for me.
That was my first out of theblue event that made me
appreciate and find somethingvery special about my life, the
(58:29):
second chance of my own life,though that's a heavy one, but
when you've experienced it youand your sisters and my family
have all experienced it goingthrough this with me, my family
have all experienced it goingthrough this with me.
Not to mention, I'm going togive you guys also the, the
kudos for having gone throughthe pandemic, which is no small
thing for individuals to endure,and that goes to you and
(58:51):
everybody out there listening.
You've all been throughsomething just as heavy as
anything, so you can make itturn your life into a one big
explosion of gratitude if youtry yeah absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
It's like we said this it's these things are
subjective, so how they affectyou and your perspective is what
is most important.
If you stub your toe on a rockand then it just you decide to,
you know, work for a charitybecause there's too much
suffering in the world, like youknow, like all the power to you
, if that's, if that's whattriggers it.
(59:25):
Amazing, you know, and Idefinitely appreciated the
growth that we went throughafter that as a family.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
You know, yeah, and I think it benefited everybody.
Unfortunately, I had sorry tosay that god, I know you don't
want to do another one to us,right, higher power?
But it was really helpful.
It did help us a lot and I hopethat you know.
Anyone listening here today toour wonderful story from Will
Stratton can see that, that youcan go through these things.
(59:56):
You can still come out theother end with an explosion of
gratitude and a new way to lookat life.
That is a new paradigm, a newshift, that you can move your
life forward.
And boy oh boy.
Thank you so much, will, forsharing your story with us today
.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
It's been an incredible podcast.
Vernon, you want to saysomething.
Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
One last thing I had an old high school friend
recently died because oftesticular cancer.
Uh, he was like he's my age,he's like 32, he's brian bell
dad.
Um, he was, you know, a youngman and he was too proud to
admit something was wrong and itbecame too late and it took his
(01:00:39):
life.
Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
So I will say I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm sorry to interrupt you too,but I'm the.
The reason I still talk aboutthis in settings like this is
with the hope that it will findpeople who might be in similar
situations, and having toldthese stories over and over
(01:01:03):
again, you know it.
I know that they have made adifference, but I'm so sorry for
your loss.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Well, thanks.
Well, of course you know it's ait's life, that's one of the
things that's going to happen.
But, yeah, if, if, if we canmake that, you know, make one
person who's a little insecureor scared get over that just to
get it checked and give them alittle more time, then hell yeah
(01:01:31):
.
Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Yeah, that's it Appreciate you doing that?
Thank you so much.
And before I say bye, onelittle act of shameless
promotion here with my cup folks.
Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
And the sweater.
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
And the sweater.
But also, don't forget, we'regoing to post some links for
Will Stratton.
You've got to get his music.
Go on, go get a hold of it onSpotify or go to Bandcamp and
just click, go to his websiteand you can find it all.
So thank you so much forjoining us, will.
It's really been an amazingpleasure.
Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Thank, you so much.
Thank you to both Vernons.
Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
This has been great, both Vernons, it's a double
Vernon.
You got the two barrel Vernonat you.
Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Vernon 1 and Vernon 2.0.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
The new version and improved.
All right, but thank you somuch for everything.
Vernon, thank you forco-hosting with me.
I can say it I know, I can.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Those of you who's, pleasesmash the like buttons and click
the follow, because everylittle bit helps, and thank you
from here of us, all of us hereat Out of the Blue.
(01:02:38):
Have a wonderful day and don'tquestion it.
Get some, get an explosion ofgratitude from it.
All right, thank you so muchfor joining us.
Bye, everybody.
Out of the Blue, the podcastHosted by me, vernon West,
(01:03:04):
co-hosted by Vernon West III,edited by Joe Gallo.
Logo and theme song by VernonWest III.
Have an Out of the Blue storyof your own you'd like to share?
Reach us at info atoutoftheblue-thepodcastorg.
Subscribe to Out of the Blue onApple Podcasts, spotify or
(01:03:25):
wherever you get your podcasts,and on our website,
outoftheblue-thepodcastorg.
Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
You can also check us out on Patreon for exclusive
content.
Welcome to Out of the Blue, the podcast, a space
where we celebrate powerful,real-life stories of people who
face life-changing challengesand found the strength to move
forward.
I'm your host, vernon West, andjoining me today is my co-host,
my son Vernon West III.
In addition to being a talentedmusician, he's also the
(00:44):
creative force behind ourpodcast's logo and theme song.
Most importantly, thank you,our listeners, for tuning in and
spending your valuable timewith us.
We truly appreciate yoursupport.
And hey, don't forget to smashthat like button and hit
subscribe.
It really helps us to sharethese stories with more people
who need to hear them.
(01:05):
Today, we're honored to welcomeWill Stratton.
Originally from Woodland,california, will now calls New
York's Hudson Valley his home.
He's an acclaimed Americansongwriter, currently on tour in
the US and the UK in support ofhis eighth album, points of
Origin, just released byRuination Records.
(01:25):
Will is here to share a deeplypersonal and inspirational story
, one that began with anunexpected medical crisis and a
fight for survival.
He'll walk us through hisjourney of recovery and how he
turned trauma into triumph, andhow he continues to thrive as a
musician and artist.
And to triumph, and how hecontinues to thrive as a
musician and artist Will welcometo Out of the Blue.
(01:47):
We're so happy to have you.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thanks so much, Vernon.
I'm really pleased to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
We're so happy to have you so well.
I know a lot of things aboutyou because I did some research,
but I do want to know reallywhat's the event we were talking
about there.
That was that deeply personal,inspirational story the
unexpected medical crisis thatwas out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So for a little context, you and I met in person
a few weeks ago.
I happened to be on tour with aclose person in both of our
lives and you were telling usabout a story from your life and
it just happened to spark thismemory of a specific moment in
(02:34):
my life.
And when I was in my early tomid 20s I was kind of I was
trying to be kind of a go-getterin music in New York City.
I was playing lots of shows, Iwas working full-time and then I
would play a few shows a weekand I was trying to make things
happen in the business, so tospeak.
(02:55):
And I got very sick withtesticular cancer.
By the time I had gone to thedoctor it had spread to my lung
it's my liver.
And when I was receiving myfirst round of chemotherapy I
got an email from a professionalacquaintance of mine named
(03:16):
David Garland really great guy.
He had a wonderful radio showon WNYC called Spinning On Air
and I had been a guest on thatshow a year or two prior to my
getting sick.
David at the time didn't knowthat I was sick when he reached
(03:36):
out on this particular occasion,but he was emailing me to ask
if I would be a part of his.
I think it was the 20thanniversary of Spinning On Air
being on the radio, and so theguests were going to be me, yoko
Ono and Sean Lennon.
That was how he pitched it tome.
And so I had to say you know,david, I would love to be a part
(04:00):
of this, but I'm really ill,I'm in the hospital right now,
so I can't take part.
And and he followed up a littlebit.
I think you know, at the time Iwas maybe a little bit
underplaying the situation, butultimately, you know, he
understood what was going on.
(04:21):
And that, to me, is a momentfrom my past where I'm like, wow
, if I had been healthy or I hadgone to the doctor sooner or
something, if I had gottenthrough that crisis a little bit
earlier, maybe that would havehappened.
And then, you know, maybe thatchain of events in my life would
have resulted in a differenttrajectory for me.
(04:41):
And it's not so much a momentof regret as it is just kind of
an inflection point.
You know, I'm still alive, I'min relatively good health now.
I'm still, thankfully, you know, I'm very grateful to be able
to continue making music andpursuing things that are
meaningful to me.
But you know, I think at thetime when we were talking, we
(05:04):
were talking about big breaks or, you know, near near big breaks
, and that was one moment in mylife where I was like, ah, I
kind of it's interesting toexamine that moment from
multiple angles.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
You know you feel like, wow, this happened.
What a time for this to happen.
I know exactly what that is.
I mean, I had a couple ofprojects in the fire when, when
I got diagnosed, I mean I had a,a book I was writing that was
getting a feedback from houghtonmifflin.
They, they loved it.
And all of a sudden I get sickand now fast forward that those
(05:43):
people haven't been workingthere anymore, so it's too late
for that.
But, um, but the thing is it'slike when that stuff happens,
it's like you have to wonderlike what?
What is the like?
I feel we're looking for thebenevolence that's behind these
acts that come out of the blue,so like, so typically they might
.
You know, it seems really arough turn of events, maybe took
(06:07):
you off of a trajectory, right,but maybe it had a reason for
that, you know, because, firstof all, I wanted to ask you when
you were saying, what were thethis is probably not just for me
but for people listening what?
How did you know you were sick?
Did you just have startedgetting sick?
Fever or pain?
What was it that made you getin there?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, I mean with with testicular cancer, the
tumor is first, so I noticed alump and then I, being this, you
know, young, uh, early twentiesguy, uh, not having a lot of
experience with illness ordoctors, I put off going to the
doctor until I really did feelsick, Um, which you know, at the
(06:48):
time there there are differentlevels of denial.
I was in denial about it, but Ialso, you know, a part, an
aspect of denial is just notwanting to think about something
, you know putting it out of,out of your head, Um, and so I
was just kicking the can downthe road until it was something
that I couldn't turn away from.
And so I was just kicking thecan down the road until it was
something that I couldn't turnaway from.
And you hear about this all thetime with testicular cancer and
(07:10):
other forms of cancer.
I mean, it's a huge part ofLance Armstrong's kind of origin
story, and I happened to havethe same oncologist as Lance
Armstrong because I was in avery similar predicament to him.
Same oncologist as LanceArmstrong because I was in a
very similar predicament to him.
And you hear this a lot withwith young men, you know, people
(07:34):
who haven't encounteredsignificant challenges in their
lives, perhaps, and feel likethey can just keep on coasting
or participating in the samebehavior that's led them to that
point, when really that's athey're.
They're in a crisis and theydon't know it yet yeah, yeah,
it's.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
It's very much the case for most young men, myself
included.
You think you're superman youknow, you don't.
You don't feel like there'sanything that you can't beat the
heck out of.
You know so when you went inand tell us what happened, I
mean, what was that journey?
How did that go?
How?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
long.
Well, I was in.
I was in treatment for about ayear.
Um, I, you know I went to, wentto a doctor, they sent me to an
emergency room.
I got admitted to the hospitalum, got uh transferred to
another hospital, got through myfirst round of chemotherapy.
(08:28):
Then I flew with my parents toSeattle Washington, where they
were living, and I got the restof my treatment done at a
hospital in Seattle.
So it was another two rounds ofchemotherapy and a couple
(08:48):
pretty serious surgeries as well, as you know, physical therapy
and stuff like that afterward.
It was a very extensive andharrowing journey.
I mean, my own experience ofthat in some ways is kind of the
least of it.
It's it's very hard for thepeople around you.
(09:09):
I think there are so manyinternal resources that you
don't even know that you have uh, when you're going through
something like this I'm surethis was the case for you too Uh
, I would imagine where you're.
You're in the thick of it, andI would imagine where you're in
the thick of it.
And you know, in my case acouple of the harder passages of
(09:32):
my journey were getting asepsis infection living through
that and it's very tough.
Later, one of the surgeries was,like you know, 28 hours and
involved a lot of recovery time.
You know you go throughsomething like that, and your
(10:00):
body.
I think it's just remarkable tome how resilient the body and
the mind can be, especially ifyou're lucky enough to go
through something like this whenyou're fairly young.
Especially if you're luckyenough to go through something
like this when you're fairlyyoung and if you're lucky enough
to go through a type of thedisease where the survival rate
is fairly high, which in my caseit was.
So I got so lucky in a coupleof really crucial ways my age,
(10:24):
the type of cancer I had and thetype of support system I had.
You know I had the option ofgetting treated in New York or
on the West Coast and I decidedto move back in with my parents
for a year.
As you can imagine, it was areally tough journey.
But being on the other side ofthat is more interesting to me,
(10:46):
like the time immediately afterI went through all of this, the
sort of insane amount ofgratitude that you have to have
for surviving something likethat, and then what that does to
your life, in my case, feelinglike I had this second lease on
(11:12):
life.
It was, like you know, gettingcut a blank check from a higher
power.
I felt so good, oh, that'sincredible.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I'd love to hear this .
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Oh, that's incredible .
I'd love to hear this.
And soon after that Ireconnected with my then partner
, now wife, and we've beentogether for 13 years at this
point.
We got married last year.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Congratulations Wonderful and I think that thank
you.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I think that connecting with her was only
really possible because of this,uh, multi-layered, tumultuous,
traumatic journey that I wentthrough.
You know I wouldn't havereached out to her had I not
been on the other side of thecountry recovering from this, uh
(12:02):
, cataclysmic event in my life.
And you never if you do havethe good fortune to make it
through something like thisalive, you never know what is
going to come out of that,completely unexpectedly.
That wouldn't have happened ifyou didn't go through that kind
of traumatic experience.
(12:23):
I try not to.
I mean, it's it's been so longnow.
I try not to dwell too much onthe previous versions of myself
and those kind of thosedifferent, diverging paths that
result from different, differentdecisions that I've made in my
life.
But that's one element of myjourney that I'm really grateful
(12:48):
for.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Wow, I'll tell you I could.
I could hear some of thehighlights that were going to be
taken out of this already, but,but explosion of gratitude,
that's a phrase and a half,because that's what I feel like
I'm getting.
You reminded me of theexplosion of gratitude.
That's something that'sincomparable to anything in your
(13:13):
life, and I think that even thepeople around you get to
experience that.
It's like when you reach out toyour now wife, it's almost like
you were sharing that.
I feel like that beautiful, uh,gratitude.
It's something about it likethe second lease on life, is it?
It's like something so special.
(13:33):
You feel like you're touched bysomething outside of yourself.
That's even though it probablyisn't, because I'm not sure our
higher power is outside ofourselves probably you know what
I mean, yeah, but but somehowit touches us with such a
powerful way that the gratitudeis.
(13:54):
I mean, I felt gratitude, andI'm sure you did too, before
that happened, but can youcompare it?
It's almost incomparable yeah,people's.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I think people's experiences of suffering are so
subjective, but people'sexperiences of gratitude are
also really subjective.
To look back on their own traumaor suffering, or maybe a family
members, and then say, well,they've gone through something
(14:31):
really extreme.
You have no idea in your, inyour own life, what, what that
must feel like, I just I don't.
I don't think that is true.
I think if you're somebody whohas thankfully not experienced
something really extreme andtraumatic in their life and you
(14:53):
encounter some difficulty, thatsuffering in experiencing that
is no less than the suffering ofsomebody else, because you have
no frame of reference for whatthat other person is going
through.
And if you flip that around, Ithink the same thing is true for
gratitude.
In a way, you know, being alittle kid, being grateful for a
(15:17):
particularly good Christmaspresent or something like that
or something like that thatfeeling is honestly very similar
to the feeling that I hadcoming through this year-long
journey with my life and myhealth relatively intact and
feeling like I was given thisgift by no one in particular,
(15:41):
but by the world.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Life itself really.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, gratitude is a very relative thing and I want
to echo what you said about notbeing sure about the existence
of a higher power, because I hadsome very close brushes with
death in my experience and Ididn't I'm more of a materialist
, not in, I mean, in thephilosophical sense, you know I
(16:08):
didn't feel the presence of asingular higher intelligence on
the other side of the veilbetween life and death, but I
kind of feel like when peopledie they return to a kind of
huge subsuming, universalintelligence that we as single
(16:31):
human beings don't have a lot ofum cognition of.
If that right right right,that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, I like that a lot.
Um, it's tough to figure thatstuff out.
Obviously, we could talk that'sa whole year worth of podcast
about that, but certainly whenyou went on from this though,
the explosion of gratitude ithad to have.
Definitely.
Well, one thing I did I readthis a long time ago, really in
(16:58):
my 20s, because I was trying tofigure out happiness and I was
very sad going through thatperiod of time in my 20s where I
wasn't too happy.
And I found a book written by aJesuit about happiness and he
interviewed like 50 people fromall walks of life, but he did
like a rich person who was happy, a rich person who was
(17:21):
miserable, a poor person who washappy, a poor person who was
miserable and everything in whowas happy, a poor person who was
miserable and everything inbetween, every other kind of
thing you can think of.
And what he ended up at the endof the book saying was that the
only thing he found that wasconsistent among all the people
who were happy, rich, poor, sickwell, was that they were
(17:43):
grateful.
First, he said there was theonly thing he said he could say,
fixedly, determinedly, thathappiness derived from gratitude
.
It came from gratitude.
So what does it mean?
I mean, what is happiness?
Anyway, I think of it as joy.
I mean, when you talked, whenyou said that explosion of
(18:03):
gratitude, I just felt anexplosion of joy come in my
heart, like because because Irelate to that, I relate to that
extremely because when you'rein that near-death situation
it's, you know, it's terrifying.
That's before.
I'm honest about that I wasscared out of my pants and um,
when I finally thought, oh, I'mnot going to be history tomorrow
(18:26):
and not be part of the bigoneness and stuff.
I'm back and I have anotherchance, and it was extremely
joyous in that sense.
I didn't have an expectation ofwhat I was going to do with my
life at that point, but I didfeel the fact that I had a
second chance was unbelievable.
(18:48):
It was just so wonderful, and sowhat did you do after this?
With all that do, foundgratitude.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I went through a few different phases.
I moved back to New York City,I resumed my old job.
I moved in with my girlfriend.
I kept making music.
I in a lot of ways I resumedthe old life that I had had
(19:15):
before I got sick, but I did itwith a different perspective and
that informed the work that Imade.
Um, the music that I made, um,the.
The album that I madeimmediately after that was
called gray lodge wisdom andit's, uh, definitely a an album
(19:35):
emotionally about the cancerexperience of getting weaker and
then getting stronger, and um,and once I had made that, it was
, it was a.
It was an enormous reliefbecause I felt like I could
write music from a bunch ofdifferent perspectives and I had
kind of said what I had to sayon that topic and I could move
(19:59):
on from there.
And a record I made after thatwell, a couple records that I
made after that were more kindof heterogeneous, the types of
songs that I was making.
I was trying new things out,both informed by that particular
experience but also just tryingto experiment.
(20:19):
And when that approach stoppedworking.
With this last record, forexample, it's very much it's a
concept record and it's aboutCalifornia, mostly California in
the 1970s, and it's based on alot of conversations that I've
had with people in my family,especially my parents, and their
(20:41):
memories of California, as wellas a lot of additional research
I did about wildfires.
There's kind of this current ofwildfires that runs through the
album.
But you know, as life goes on,from an experience like that I
think you do kind of have to inmy case at least like I found
(21:02):
that I couldn't fire on allthose cylinders all the time for
an extended period of time likethere's, there's a line between
gratitude, which I think youyou have to try to carry with
you for the rest of your life,and mania, and I think that it's
(21:22):
possible to go through anexperience like that and get a
little bit manic if you don'ttry to get back to a little bit
of a regular baseline.
It's such an extreme experienceand such a life-altering thing.
But there's also so much elseout there in terms of life to
(21:49):
experience and I found that once, once the cancer experience had
colored my life in thatparticular way because I could
move on substantially from that,you know, with the exception of
checkups, and you know all ofthe medical experience that will
(22:13):
follow me for the rest of mylife.
Just because I have been acancer patient, I feel a need to
try to just live a life onterms that are separate from
that experience, but informed byit, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
It does, it does.
I can feel that would informeverything.
I mean it informs.
It's not like you want to.
You can't break from it.
It's part of you, but you domove on.
You do move on.
It's almost essential, a partof the process.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, and as life goes on and as I've gotten older
because this happened to me 13years ago I've lived a lot more
of my life and you know, I'vehad I've had other injuries and
other illnesses and other likereally transcendent experiences.
(23:13):
And so, even though it's it'skind of like to use a really
clumsy metaphor it's like mylife is a rock garden and
there's that's one pretty bigboulder in the rock garden.
Is that year of my life?
Because it's really dense withsensory experiences and memories
that don't pertain to anythingelse in my life.
(23:36):
It exists a little bit outsideof it, but there are other big
boulders in the rock garden too.
And so, yeah, as time goes on,I'm there's an additional layer
of gratitude for me, which isthat I can, which is that those
memories become more ordinaryand they become more assimilated
(23:59):
into the rest of my life andthey become one more factor that
kind of informs my perspective,rather than the factor right,
right.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So does that when you sit down to write a song now?
Um, you don't have, you don'tthink of that.
You know what I mean.
You're thinking of theinspiration for the song itself.
How would you say it?
Uh, affected your ability towrite music that's a really good
question.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I I, I think I was really when I was a younger
person, I was very fixated onseamlessness and perfection and
competency and proficiency and,you know, showing off my guitar
(24:48):
playing skills and all of thesethings.
I had a lot of vanity as ayoung artist and I think one
thing that my experience withcancer took away from me was
that kind of vanity.
Maybe not completely, but itdefinitely took a lot of it away
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I can actually hear it.
I mean I've listened to some ofthe music I can actually hear
it.
I mean I've listened to some ofyour music.
I mean it's so, it's gettingmore, it evolves.
Your music is evolving, justlike you are, which is about as
good as it gets really.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
The older I get.
I mean, I'm in my late 30s now,so I'm not a young man, I'm not
an old man necessarily,necessarily, depending on who
you talk to.
Age is a matter of perspectiveobviously I would say you're a
young man talking to me well, inany case, I mean the, the music
I connect with the most rightnow has to do with living an
(25:50):
entire life.
It's like, you know, you look atthe discography of John Prine
or Van Morrison or Joni Mitchellor one of these kind of
monumental songwriters.
You can pick up an album fromdifferent sections of their life
and feel some of the kind offabric of what a life is when
(26:12):
you compare it to an album fromanother period of their life.
And that's something that Istrive for.
You know, I want to make musicas I get older that carries some
of those feelings of thatparticular time of my life,
rather than just trying to beone version of, uh, of a
(26:35):
musician and I this is kind oftried to say I think it's what a
lot of musicians strive for,especially if they keep making
music after their 20s or 30s orafter you know what, what the
industry determines to be their,their sell by date because
that's something we've talkedabout too is there's like a very
narrow box, that uh, so narrowyeah that the industry wants to
(27:00):
put you in, as much as there isan industry I think it's the age
between 19 and a half and 20and a half yeah, that's when
you're.
that's when you're you're most,uh, visually marketable, because
people want to be you at thatage, but it's also when you're
the most naive and the most easyto manipulate.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh my gosh.
Oh yeah, it's funny they saythat they can manipulate you,
you.
But it's also because you know,um, back in those days, the
early music industry selling 45sto of who wears shot shots and
things like that.
They were looking at theyoungsters with the disposable
(27:43):
income.
They will go down the streetand buy a single for a dollar
and a half.
But now it's not the case.
The industry is totally flippedflipped.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, the way people consume music it seems like it's
changing all the time now and Idon't have the energy or the
inclination to keep up withconsumption trends.
I really just want to make themusic that I can make and
(28:15):
everything else.
The thoughts that have to beexpanded about how the music is
perceived I think that thosetend to negatively affect my
creative process.
Speaking personally, itactually gets in the way of
writing music.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It does.
It does, trying to write for,you know, for an intentional
thing.
That's just plain oldcommercial writing.
I mean, if you're writing forlike a toothpaste or something,
but if you're really writingmusic, it's art, and art is
something very much numinous.
It's how would you feel aboutit, vern?
(28:53):
How do you reflect on thatstuff too?
Speaker 3 (28:55):
you write songs um, I just came from a band practice
last night where we like shotcontent because we're trying to
like work for the algorithm yeahand yeah it is.
It does feel like, uh, it doesfeel like a necessary evil
because you're marketing andit's part of like being in the
(29:16):
music industry, I guess.
But it is definitely adistraction from the point which
is to create the thing thatgenuinely comes out of you and
then like hopefully, yeah,hopefully, people like that.
But yeah, it is very stiflingto like concern yourself with
like all right, well, what willmake money?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
bands are such a beautiful thing, you know it's.
It's almost like they reallyare being on a pirate ship or
something.
You know everybody has adifferent role.
You can.
You can have a member of yourband who has to make sure that
the band is putting out contentfor social media and you can
have somebody who's in charge ofsomething else, and that's that
(30:02):
type of collaboration.
I do miss that.
I stopped being in bands aftercollege and looking back on it
I'm like, oh, maybe I should tryto start another band.
It's just really niceMotivating.
Yeah, and it's the camaraderieof it and the act of playing
(30:23):
music with other people, whereit's not like one person is
writing the songs and being incharge of the arrangement and
stuff.
The communal aspect of it isreally nice too.
I will say it is.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
It is that it is one person like writing the songs
and being in charge of thearrangement and stuff.
The the communal aspect of itis really nice too.
I will say it is.
It is that it is one personlike writing the songs and like
bringing them.
But, yeah, like I, I'm thedrummer, so I get to, I get to
offer my interpretation of asong and, and it is, it is super
collaborative, um, and it isvery rewarding.
And I will say this, though itdistracts me from my own stuff,
(30:57):
so keep going with your ownstuff.
If that is where you're like,true, like where you really feel
the most like rewarded forcreating, I'd say, stick to that
, because I'm in a bit of asituation where it's like I hear
you and talking about your,your like journey and you've got
a discography and beautifulmusic, by the way, I like, and
(31:18):
it's also very clear there's anetherealness to the music which
I know.
I don't know if it camenecessarily from that experience
, but it does have a sort oflike heavenly, kind of like
droney quality, like the song onyour website from Grey.
What was the name of that album?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Grey Lodge, wisdom.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Grey Lodge Wisdom.
Yeah, it has, like this dronethat comes in, you know, and it
does feel very like.
This experience of like I don'tknow meditative has has like
permeated your life and then,like all of the, all the other
songs I've listened to afterthat had a similar quality, so
(32:04):
it is cool to hear how it's.
You're really likecrystallizing this taste or this
like style it's coming.
It sounds like it's coming fromyour dedication to like your the
craft, so that's something thatI admire.
I'm I'm over here like I gottabe in less bands.
I'm in four four bands.
(32:25):
Okay, that is that is a lot ofbands.
Everyone needs a drummer yeah,that's.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I mean that speaks to your abilities as a as a
drummer, because if you're indemand, that means that you got
something going on.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, willingness to not be the front man.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, that's that selflessness is really important
too.
That can translate into a veryfruitful career in music.
That involves some solo worktoo.
I mean, you look at a lot ofprominent sidemen of the past.
They put out amazing, amazingsolo work.
I think of somebody likeJackson Brown, who started out
(33:07):
like just being a bit player inother people's music and then
really I may be getting thiswrong- no, I think you're right,
though yeah what I.
When I first thought aboutjackson brown, it was because of
um his work on um.
Well, he wrote a song when he Ithink he was 19 that ended up
(33:29):
on a nico album.
These days that's one of myfavorite songs and it just blows
me away that he was that young.
But you know, he wasn't knownas a songwriter until many years
after that came out.
I think like five or six yearsafter that he was putting out
solo records and in between, youknow, I think he was doing a
(33:54):
lot of uh work as a side man inla and all of that stuff.
I have no doubt and informedhis his work later on.
There are just so many storiesof people like that.
Glenn campbell is another onewhere, like you, know, right,
right, right, he was a debt.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
And jimmy hendrix, yeah, he was adept.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
And.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Jimi Hendrix.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
He was a side guitar player for the Platters or
something right.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, he played in a bunch of soul groups and you can
kind of hear that in his guitarplaying too.
It's like he's thinking of theguitar as a horn section almost.
It's like the kind of stabbingstuff that he's doing with the
guitar reminds me of like thehorn horn section and james
brown or something like thatthat's.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
That's so true.
I never even saw an interestinginsight.
Um, that's really right on.
He definitely did.
They think of our foxy ladyyeah, exactly, that's like.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Exactly it's like, it's like saxophones.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
And playing in three-piece.
You probably missed thatbecause he had been in bands
with horn sections.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
My first band was a ska band.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Oh, that sounds like fun.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
It was fun.
Oh yeah yeah, and we had a hornsection and aside from that,
I've recorded with horns, but Ihaven't played with a horn
section since I was in highschool and I do kind of I miss
it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Oh, I bet, I bet I had.
One of my earliest experienceswas like playing at my cousin's
wedding.
We got up to play and they hada whole horn section and we did
Boney Maroney, which is a Lennon, did that song.
It's an old rocker, written byFats Domino I believe.
And when they came in with thathorn section after we sang a
(35:36):
verse and then bam bam and theydid this off-setting horn line,
it blew me away.
I was so excited.
I wanted give me horns, I wantmore horns.
And it's funny because when Ifirst started out trying to get
into clubs, I can't tell you howmany times we would audition
(36:00):
for a club and they would say,well, get a horn, you need horns
, Get some horns in the band.
We never did, but I think wemight've got a sax player for a
little while.
But really insightful comment,Will.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
I'm going to remember that forever.
I'm sure I've heard thatsomewhere else.
I don't think that's a WillStratton original.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
It's not a Will Stratton.
I don't think so.
For all intents and purposes,we're going to attribute it to
you.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Back to your point, Will.
I'm kind of hoping that throughthis process I'm meeting people
and I'm making connections andI'm hanging out with people, and
that's a big part of it.
And, like you know, one ofthese days the path will take me
somewhere.
Then you know, maybe money willbe there, Maybe a living will
(36:43):
be there.
It's kind of just like yeah,right, and it's always a maybe
the music industry right now.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I, I really I want there to be some kind of mass
organization around streamingroyalties or you know something.
Something's got to give so thatpeople who are particularly
talented and in demand, likeyourself, can find their way to
a living, um, and yeah, way to aliving, um, and yeah, people's,
(37:18):
people's consumption habitsjust keep changing, though, and
I think people's uh, attentionspans are diminishing somewhat
too.
It's like content is startingto overtake music in a way as a
as a focus of people's attention, and to the extent that that's
lucrative, I guess that's okay.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
But yeah, it's also part of life like that.
That will happen.
The the media will change theway.
The the way we consume themedia will change the media.
So now it's like like we werefilming videos vertical and with
the camera sideways, and it waslike what this is like now.
We, now we're trying to do thatright.
(38:00):
It's in and the same for this.
In the same like, uh, same vein, music is becoming shorter and
more intense and like like um,over super stimulating because
of that form and it's likethat's not bad inherently, but
(38:20):
it's like different from oursensibilities, cause I'm, I'm,
like I'm early thirties, I grewup without much electronic
influence, like I think Lincolnpark was like the closest to I,
I'm getting, I'm, I'm digressing, but um, it's like not bad
necessarily, but it's justdifferent.
And it sucks for people like uswho, like, appreciate a
(38:43):
specific style or approach thatis now niche and there's no way
to break through to people thatunderstand it or it's or it's's
a lot harder.
Yeah, this is the.
This is the eternal struggle,and I am curious about like, did
your experience like sort ofmake you feel more confident
(39:05):
about just consistently pursuingmusic?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I have tried to be very pragmatic about the way
that I approach all of this,because once I came out of this
experience, I could no longerand this is going to get really
very specific about stuffunrelated to music for a second.
(39:30):
I could no longer really gethealth insurance as an
individual on a marketplace,even though this was
post-Obamacare, because I hadbeen on Medicare when I was sick
, when I was on Social Security,disability, et cetera, et
cetera.
There are all of these littleloopholes that make it hard to
(39:51):
get healthcare for somebody withmy medical history, or at least
did at the time, rightimmediately after my illness.
And so I have tried to alwaysat least have a full-time gig
that will give me healthinsurance through um, through my
job, and I have tried to pursuemusic to the best and fullest
(40:20):
of my abilities alongside that,in parallel with it.
So I have needed the stabilityof full-time employment, just, I
mean, for the sake of myimmediate family, so that they
don't worry about me in casesomething were to happen.
Uh, I've, I've kind of had totake a particular approach and,
(40:43):
you know, has that stopped mefrom pursuing music all of the
time like I would otherwise wantto?
Yes, I haven't toured as muchas I would have, I think, but
the grass is always greener if Ididn't have to have a full-time
job.
That being said, I also wonderif you know if the shoe had been
(41:07):
on the other foot and I hadreally tried to make a go of it
as a touring musician for acouple years, you know if I had
like tried to do the thing,where I live out of my car and I
tour all over the United Stateslike some friends of mine did
in the 2010s.
More power to them.
I really admire people like thatfor going out and doing that,
(41:29):
but that can be a really hardthing to do for your physical
and mental health and I think itcan lead to you kind of burning
out if you're not careful, ifyou really go hard at it.
So I think that there's thisquestion of like longevity it's,
it's a really, it's a really.
(41:52):
It's what is the phrase fromthe last waltz.
It's anyway.
It's an impossible way of life,the life of a professional
musician, and it gets more andmore impossible.
And there are people who makeit work.
A lot of those people have vasthidden reserves of familial
(42:14):
wealth to draw on.
Not all of them.
There are also very talentedpeople who do make it through
this crazy gauntlet of theindustry with their
self-sufficiency intact, justbecause they are that talented
and that dedicated and thatlucky.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
But all together right.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah, you got to have all three and I think that, in
my case at least, having theability to not worry too much
about the health side of things,having the ability to have
insurance because of the countryand political system that we
live in, has allowed me to alsomake a lot of music that I
(43:01):
wouldn't have made otherwise.
So I've made four albums.
I've put out four albums sincethis all happened.
That is a slower rate than whenI was in my 20s, but I'm still
making music and I really do.
I still have goals related totouring.
(43:22):
I want to do a tour all over theUnited States, which I haven't
done yet.
I've toured a lot in the UK.
I've toured a little bit inEurope.
I'm going out for a couple ofweeks in the UK in July and each
time it's like it's kind of ashot in the dark.
I don't know exactly what'swaiting for me.
(43:45):
Sometimes it's amazing,sometimes you know there's only
two people at the show.
But the act of writing songsand of playing the music for
people who find meaning in ithas not gotten any less
fulfilling as time has gone on,and I'm very grateful for that
at least well, I think that's.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
That would be probably um.
We're talking about the um, thethread.
One of the things I like tolook for with Art of the Blue
Things is the thread.
There's a thread coming throughit that kind of, to me, informs
me personally of where I'mgoing, if I'm going the right
thing, everything.
I can't you have to do that foryourself, obviously, but I hear
(44:29):
you and I think yeah, you mighthave said you did say less
hectic pace of album release,but I think, of terms of quality
is over Trump's quantity andany time in the morning for me,
you give me 10 songs that areokay.
(44:50):
Give me one song that'sunbelievable.
I'm listening to that song thewhole time.
Forget the other 10.
It's quality.
I think that's what this Out ofthe Blue event has turned your
implosion of gratitude into apretty sharp focus on staying in
(45:12):
tune with your truth.
It seems that way, I mean onthe outside, looking in.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, you use the word thread.
There's a poem by WilliamStafford it's maybe my favorite
poem called the Way it Is, andit is all about that following a
thread through your life thatgives the rest of your life
meaning, and I think that's kindof what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
That's exactly what I said and I think that when we
get in tune with our thread thenyou recognize it when things
happen.
You don't maybe instantlyrecognize it, but eventually it
starts to manifest and you go,yeah, okay, and it informs your
feeling going forward.
So we can't predict tomorrow,much less the next hour, but we
(46:10):
know that when it comes topoints where you've got to make
decisions that can change yourlife, you don't even realize it.
It might be the smallestdecision, but it's going to set
you on a whole other path.
The more people like we weretalking about this the other day
, I think about some peopledon't understand why bad things
have to happen for people to getgrateful, because it's just the
(46:35):
way it is.
I mean, lots of times people gothrough life and they coast and
they God bless them.
They never have anything reallycritically earth-shaking happen
to them, but they're gratefuland they think they're grateful
and they probably are.
But is that the kind ofexplosion of gratitude that
we're talking about here?
Because when you have theearth-shaking thing happen from
out of the blue, I feel that's awe are.
But is that the kind ofexplosion of gratitude that
we're talking about here?
Because when you have the earthshaking thing happen from out
(46:55):
of the blue.
I feel that's a, that's a.
I have to say it.
I hope God isn't listening tome on my higher power.
Please don't listen to this.
All right, I am saying it wasalmost.
It was like what I needed.
What happened to me.
I needed it to happen.
I needed to have my head shakenup because I was so
complacently thought I had itfigured out and I just thought
(47:19):
it was.
I just can't believe how muchI've changed from that as a
result of that event.
And I look at my old self.
I don't I'm not mad at me.
I mean I had, you know, raiseda family.
I had to bring money in.
I was always focused on makingmoney.
No, but I look at it now, it'sso much different.
I think maybe it's because Idid save, I put a lot of time in
(47:42):
.
Now I have the ability to saydo what I really feel and love
first and foremost.
I feel like that's what I'velearned about my life now.
And when I hear you talk, Ithink that that's exactly what
you're learning and you'reevolving in that way that the
things that are important inyour life.
I mean, yeah, you have to havea job for the medical and that
stuff.
But it doesn't preclude writingthese great songs you're
(48:05):
putting out and then going onthe tours when you can do it and
I think something will unfoldand you'll know when it's time
to do that national tour.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, the stability is important in my case.
Some people need some chaos intheir lives to be creatively
productive.
I've always tried to.
When I was really young, my dadwas an English professor.
(48:36):
He's now retired and had abunch of other careers as well,
but he has a love of poetry thathe passed on to me, and when I
would write poems as a youngperson it was from a perspective
(48:57):
of trying to transcend earthlythings, trying to, you know,
transcend day-to-day experiences.
And for better or for worse,that's been kind of my approach
as a songwriter too.
I'm not I'm not a super earthysongwriter, I think because of
(49:27):
that kind of poetic backgroundand for me at least, I can only
get to that kind of slightlydisinterested, above ground
perspective from a fairly stableplace.
And that stability, that's whatI get from not having to worry
(49:49):
so much about the day to day andputting in time at a job.
I really admire people likeCharles Ives, you know, this
great American composer whoworked, as you know, was one of
the founders of the Americaninsurance industry, for better
or worse.
(50:09):
Or William Carlos Williams, youknow, who was a medical doctor
and was also writing thesebeautiful poems.
I think there's.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Brian May.
Isn't he like an astrophysicist?
Yeah, yeah rocket scientist orsomething like that yeah,
incredible yeah, this art is notmutually exclusive, but
intelligence being a form of art, yeah but continue.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, because I agree those inspired the hell out of
me yeah, I mean, I mean I, youknow, I really admire people
whose central, core part oftheir identity is they are an
artist and that is how theyinteract with the world.
But for me, because that hasn'tbeen the only part of my my
(50:57):
journey, that that balancing actand the kind of stability I get
from the other parts of my lifehave have informed the way that
I make music and in terms oflike all of musical history, I
think there have been these verybrief periods in society where
(51:19):
people are allowed to make aliving as a musician and we're
kind of looking back.
We've had a very fertile,commercially fertile period of
music making and there was, youknow, the period of when sheet
music was selling like hotcakesand there's all of the stories
(51:39):
of composers.
It's being taken under the wingof various monarchs and
aristocrats in Europe and beingpart of a patronage system, kind
of like the great visualartists of the Renaissance and
the Enlightenment era and all ofthat.
And these examples stick in ourmind because they are such a
(52:02):
pivotal part of that society,even if it wasn't being
(52:31):
remunerated, being compensatedwith the value that we would
ascribe to it.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
Yeah, it probably was , and people were still,
probably sort of against theirwill, creating stuff that was
really heart-wrenching.
You know just of the times, oftheir experience.
It doesn't matter at the end ofthe day, and it's a shame that
maybe these periods of time themusic is a mystery.
(53:02):
But there's also somethingreally beautiful about that too,
like how it is ethereal.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Music is the most.
It's one of those arts thatcomes directly out of the blue.
I mean, when you're performingit and the audience is listening
, you don't know exactly howthey're hearing it, because
they're interfacing with yourmusic and their frame of
reference with reality, so itsimpressions are totally out of
(53:28):
your control.
It's like anytime you writeanything you have to realize.
Now it's in the hands of thelistener or the reader and
they're going to create fromyour creation the experience,
and I've seen it all my life.
You know we may not have had ahit record that was global, but
(53:49):
for the people we played it forit was a part of the fabric of
their lives and for that I getmuch joy from that.
So it doesn't matter if I, ifmy band didn't, I don't get to
go on a nostalgia tour right now.
You know, and play for a bunchof people that said, yeah,
that's a great song, but if Idid, to the people that heard me
(54:12):
, they are that way.
There was a time, I think, thatthere were musicians all over
the country doing the same thing, because, while the industry
may have been ignoring us andmaking us subsist and gradually
taking away the livelihood ofmusicians, which is, I don't
think they meant to do it, it'sjust what unfolded after the
pandemic and whatnot.
Yeah, I think, whatever it is,it's going to force us musicians
(54:35):
, artists, to come up with evenbetter stuff, to break through
that wall of noise, andultimately, music is needed for
that connection to the ethereal.
You know what I think?
One said it's the bridgebetween the physical world and
the non-physical world, thespiritual world, for lack of a
(54:59):
better term.
And music, or art is the bridgeto that.
And I think music is the mostvibrant form of any art on the
planet that does that.
It stirs the emotions up.
I mean, think about what itdoes.
I mean they use music to marchand get people ready to start a
war.
It's that powerful.
(55:21):
So I mean we are in our hands,in your hands, will taking that
out of the blue state, andVernon too, and myself, but I'm
a little bit old now, but thething, it doesn't stop me from
making music, but still, withthe same token, it's like our
duty, duty as artists, to keepthe fire, fire, keep the golden
(55:44):
chalice from spilling as webring the offering to the, to
the minds and hearts of thosepeople who are hungry for it
what a great story you have.
Well, I mean, it's just awonderful story of how that
event happened in your I like tocall them the terrible 20s.
When we all go through them, aswe're a little cuckoo and we're
(56:04):
a little wildly driven, I meangosh, the amount of drive you
have when you're in your 20s isoff the charts.
And if you're channeling it,maybe that was your out of the
blue force saying all right, wewant to help you channel it
better, we want to get you somereal perspective here, and maybe
that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
I did.
I did get perspective and, yeah, coming out of that event, the
thing I kept on telling peopleand I could tell they didn't
completely believe me was that Iwasn't regretful about what
happened because of what it gaveme.
(56:44):
Those experiences are reallyimportant to to the person I
became.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
And I will say that speaks to you and my dad your
resilience, like your personalresilience Because I think a lot
of times people like me thathaven't really I mean, I've
experienced family members goingthrough things, but I haven't
been through physical, intensethings there's a feeling like,
oh, it was meant to happen toyou, so you learn this lesson,
(57:13):
and I haven't needed to learn alesson, so it hasn't happened to
me.
But I think that's a load of BSbecause that's like really
hindsight bias.
It is really and it's sellingyourself short.
It's a testament to howfreaking strong you guys are
that you would go through thisand be like you know what, after
(57:34):
all, that this is the good Icould take from it, like that's
a choice.
Not everyone I don, I don'tthink reverts to that, but that
is like a testament truly toyour guys' spirit and maybe
there's something to being anartist, having that connection,
being willing to findinspiration from this experience
(57:55):
.
I mean, I commend both of youguys.
I think you guys are clearly,you have a humility and
appreciation for life that I'minspired by, just sitting here
in my laptop.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
Vernon, I'm gonna say one thing don't underestimate
what it's like to have yourfather or a loved one go through
this thing, because my fatheryeah, it sucks well, my father
went through it and he diedeventually.
That did it for me.
That was my first out of theblue event that made me
appreciate and find somethingvery special about my life, the
(58:29):
second chance of my own life,though that's a heavy one, but
when you've experienced it youand your sisters and my family
have all experienced it goingthrough this with me, my family
have all experienced it goingthrough this with me.
Not to mention, I'm going togive you guys also the, the
kudos for having gone throughthe pandemic, which is no small
thing for individuals to endure,and that goes to you and
(58:51):
everybody out there listening.
You've all been throughsomething just as heavy as
anything, so you can make itturn your life into a one big
explosion of gratitude if youtry yeah absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
It's like we said this it's these things are
subjective, so how they affectyou and your perspective is what
is most important.
If you stub your toe on a rockand then it just you decide to,
you know, work for a charitybecause there's too much
suffering in the world, like youknow, like all the power to you
, if that's, if that's whattriggers it.
(59:25):
Amazing, you know, and Idefinitely appreciated the
growth that we went throughafter that as a family.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
You know, yeah, and I think it benefited everybody.
Unfortunately, I had sorry tosay that god, I know you don't
want to do another one to us,right, higher power?
But it was really helpful.
It did help us a lot and I hopethat you know.
Anyone listening here today toour wonderful story from Will
Stratton can see that, that youcan go through these things.
(59:56):
You can still come out theother end with an explosion of
gratitude and a new way to lookat life.
That is a new paradigm, a newshift, that you can move your
life forward.
And boy oh boy.
Thank you so much, will, forsharing your story with us today
.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
It's been an incredible podcast.
Vernon, you want to saysomething.
Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
One last thing I had an old high school friend
recently died because oftesticular cancer.
Uh, he was like he's my age,he's like 32, he's brian bell
dad.
Um, he was, you know, a youngman and he was too proud to
admit something was wrong and itbecame too late and it took his
(01:00:39):
life.
Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
So I will say I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm sorry to interrupt you too,but I'm the.
The reason I still talk aboutthis in settings like this is
with the hope that it will findpeople who might be in similar
situations, and having toldthese stories over and over
(01:01:03):
again, you know it.
I know that they have made adifference, but I'm so sorry for
your loss.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Well, thanks.
Well, of course you know it's ait's life, that's one of the
things that's going to happen.
But, yeah, if, if, if we canmake that, you know, make one
person who's a little insecureor scared get over that just to
get it checked and give them alittle more time, then hell yeah
(01:01:31):
.
Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Yeah, that's it Appreciate you doing that?
Thank you so much.
And before I say bye, onelittle act of shameless
promotion here with my cup folks.
Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
And the sweater.
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
And the sweater.
But also, don't forget, we'regoing to post some links for
Will Stratton.
You've got to get his music.
Go on, go get a hold of it onSpotify or go to Bandcamp and
just click, go to his websiteand you can find it all.
So thank you so much forjoining us, will.
It's really been an amazingpleasure.
Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Thank, you so much.
Thank you to both Vernons.
Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
This has been great, both Vernons, it's a double
Vernon.
You got the two barrel Vernonat you.
Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Vernon 1 and Vernon 2.0.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
The new version and improved.
All right, but thank you somuch for everything.
Vernon, thank you forco-hosting with me.
I can say it I know, I can.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Those of you who's, pleasesmash the like buttons and click
the follow, because everylittle bit helps, and thank you
from here of us, all of us hereat Out of the Blue.
(01:02:38):
Have a wonderful day and don'tquestion it.
Get some, get an explosion ofgratitude from it.
All right, thank you so muchfor joining us.
Bye, everybody.
Out of the Blue, the podcastHosted by me, vernon West,
(01:03:04):
co-hosted by Vernon West III,edited by Joe Gallo.
Logo and theme song by VernonWest III.
Have an Out of the Blue storyof your own you'd like to share?
Reach us at info atoutoftheblue-thepodcastorg.
Subscribe to Out of the Blue onApple Podcasts, spotify or
(01:03:25):
wherever you get your podcasts,and on our website,
outoftheblue-thepodcastorg.
Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
You can also check us out on Patreon for exclusive
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