February 2, 2026 • 57 mins
In this episode of B-Side Breakdown, Brett Johnson sits down with David Jarnstrom of Minneapolis post-hardcore stalwarts Dead History to talk about “Through the Shadows,” a standout track from the band’s 2025 album Departures.
Built around an initial guitar idea from Matt Rezac, the song took a long and winding path to completion—nearly left behind before emerging as one of the record’s most spacious, groove-driven moments. David walks through the tension between restraint and power in the song’s arrangement, the intentional use of space and feel, and why it occupies such a unique place on the album.
The conversation also touches on the song’s impressionistic lyrics, personal interpretations shaped by life in post-George Floyd Minneapolis, and the sense of endurance and rebuilding that runs quietly beneath the surface.
With Departures likely marking a closing chapter for Dead History, this episode reflects on creative maturity, community, and seeing something through—even when it’s hard.
Follow Dead History:
https://deadhistorymn.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/deadhistoryband
Thanks for supporting B-Side Breakdown — where the song is just the start of the story.
Brett Johnson
Host, B-Side Breakdown
https://www.patreon.com/c/bsidebreakdown
https://www.instagram.com/bsidebreakdown
https://linktr.ee/bsidebreakdown
#DavidJarnstrom #DeadHistory #ThroughTheShadows #Departures #MinneapolisMusic #PostHardcore #Shoegaze #CreativeProcess #BSideBreakdown #BrettJamesJohnson #MusicPodcast
Built around an initial guitar idea from Matt Rezac, the song took a long and winding path to completion—nearly left behind before emerging as one of the record’s most spacious, groove-driven moments. David walks through the tension between restraint and power in the song’s arrangement, the intentional use of space and feel, and why it occupies such a unique place on the album.
The conversation also touches on the song’s impressionistic lyrics, personal interpretations shaped by life in post-George Floyd Minneapolis, and the sense of endurance and rebuilding that runs quietly beneath the surface.
With Departures likely marking a closing chapter for Dead History, this episode reflects on creative maturity, community, and seeing something through—even when it’s hard.
Follow Dead History:
https://deadhistorymn.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/deadhistoryband
Thanks for supporting B-Side Breakdown — where the song is just the start of the story.
Brett Johnson
Host, B-Side Breakdown
https://www.patreon.com/c/bsidebreakdown
https://www.instagram.com/bsidebreakdown
https://linktr.ee/bsidebreakdown
#DavidJarnstrom #DeadHistory #ThroughTheShadows #Departures #MinneapolisMusic #PostHardcore #Shoegaze #CreativeProcess #BSideBreakdown #BrettJamesJohnson #MusicPodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Free Crows says B Side Breakdown.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey everyone, welcome to the B Side Breakdown. My name
is Brett Johnson and I'm your host. This is episode
forty seven of a podcast where I talk with other artists,
musicians and songwriters about a song they've written that is
meaningful to them and then we get deep into the
why behind it. Today, I'm gonna be talking with David
Jarnstrom from the band Dead History about their song Through
the Shadows.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Here is Through the Shadows by Dead History.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
The shadows from the.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Too, from the gout from the shower.
Speaker 6 (01:22):
Bad get enough be.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Side spread brown.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Whool?
Speaker 6 (01:31):
What the tool that can be? Bad get be said
spread no.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Wool? What the too.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
About six.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Sun God got to watch your bird? Got me what
you say?
Speaker 6 (02:20):
Got your seven?
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Said step bat ball.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Shut up, captain about be sad scrib whol.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
The t down.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Woo, the sounds fron.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Your who the to.
Speaker 7 (03:16):
Be wha.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
Shape the shame shame shap.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
All right, And that was Through the Shadows by Dead History.
We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back
with David Jarnstrom from the band to talk about the
song and everything that's going on in his world, stay
with us. Hey everyone, it's Bread again with the B
Side Breakdown. Just wanted to let you know that we've
started a Patreon for the podcast. If you go to
patreon dot com slash B Side Breakdown, you'll see the
down for the caust here.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's five bucks a month and.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
It gives you all the episodes ad free and in
advance before they are available on streaming services.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Please go there and show your support for what we do.
And we thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
All right, we'll be right back. All right, and we
are back. Let's bring in David Jarnstrom to talk about
the song Through the Shadows by Dead History.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
David, thank you so much for coming back on to
talk about this song by Dead History. It's great to
have you back.
Speaker 8 (05:43):
Thank you. Brett as always a blast to talk to you,
and yeah, it's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah. Man.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
So the way that this normally works everybody who's listening
is usually the band picks the song, but sometimes I
let them say, let me pick, and today I got
to pick the song. So today we're talking about Through
the Shadows.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
On the record. It's so.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Such a grand, awesome, damn song. So it's on the
record Departures, right that came out when, Yeah, it came
out in.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
Early June of this year, so June twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Five, okay, right, And it's the last track on the record,
and I just remember it just hit me like a
ton of bricks, just with the There's these different awesome
movements that are in it. Some of the timing hit
me odd at first, but then I could feel like
just a lot of the space rock, you know, emo
(06:41):
shoegaz stuff that was happening. But then it just kind
of had like these hardcore feeling breakdowns in it that
I loved. And the lyrics I also wanted to talk
about just because I'm interested, you know, being a Minneapolis
dude and you guys are from Minneapolis kind of what
we're talking about there. But I love the song and
(07:01):
and I and I love the record, and I love
the band. So tell me how did Through the Shadows start?
Like who brought the idea to the table initially?
Speaker 8 (07:11):
So just just to be clear, so so so so,
Through the Shadows is the third to last song. It's
not the last song.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Oh my bad.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I'm sorry, you know.
Speaker 8 (07:22):
I just want to make sure we're thinking of the
right one.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
No, we're talking about the right song. I just I
have it pulled up and uh, I was looking at
it wrong.
Speaker 8 (07:28):
So okay, cool, because I say, I'll talk about I'll
talk about any of these songs I love and and
uh and and and frankly, I'm I'm just actually quite
tickled that you picked this one, because I frankly I
I I've been banging the table for it within the
(07:50):
band for for but what feels like years now, and
it was kind of in a constant danger of being
left on the cunning room floor. And so I'm really
out that that it It did make you know, we
did record it, and it did come out, and and
I take no small degree of pleasure in the fact
(08:12):
that people like yourself and several other people have since
like cited it as a kind of a standout track
on the record, because yeah, like everyone else in the
band at some point or another wanted to kill this song.
I should you not, Like it was a very uh,
to me kind of a bewildering thing, but you know,
(08:34):
a very kind of like a difficult one to bring
to you to the finish line, Like, like most of
these other songs were very just kind of fell out
and were very easy to write. And you know some
as you know, having having done this kind of thing
many times yourself, it's like those are really great and
(08:56):
and you love it when that happens, of course, and
sometimes those are the best songs, you know. And this
song is probably not my favorite song on the record,
but there's a certain degree of satisfaction to kind of
like seeing something through and getting through some tough patches
when it comes to like arranging and writing and all
that kind of stuff. And I just thought that it
(09:17):
was a great album song, it was going to play
an important role on the record in terms of just
kind of like a vibe shift. And uh, yeah, it's
just it's just I don't know, it's it's low key
one of one of my favorites. So I'm really really
glad you you you picked it as well. And so yeah,
(09:38):
I'm trying to think how did it start?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I mean.
Speaker 8 (09:41):
This, I'm sure it came from the main riff that
you hear right off the top of the song, which
was written by Matt Rezak guitar player, has kind of
like a slide to it, kind of a unique sounding riff.
Some people hear like a southern rock thing when they
hear it. We were kind of going for like kind
(10:03):
of like a shoegazy kind of a kind of a thing.
And as as so often happens when John and I
are playing and writing stuff, like we just kind of
instinctively just started uh uh, I guess, you know, throwing
stuff against the wall and kind of quickly came up
with the drum and bass part, which is, you know,
(10:26):
I mean, the drum and based stuff on all this record.
I absolutely love. I mean, I think you know, there's
there's no there's just there's just no substitute for what
you get when you when you play, you know, with
the same rhythm section partner for like twenty years like
John and I have. It's it just kind of kind
(10:47):
of like stuff kind of falls into place really easily
and feels kind of natural and organic, and yeah, I
just love I love I love John's kind of he's
kind of doing a slide thing in his part, and
I have this kind of like high hat break in
the in the verse that that is kind of like
an interesting choice. I don't think the guys really knew
what I was doing at first, but just kind of
(11:09):
what I instinctively heard when when when when Map presented
that riff, and uh yeah, we just kind of like
went from there. And and this one, like I said,
this one was a slog I mean, there's so many
iterations of this song and and and originally was very long,
and I was really kind of intent on keeping it
(11:29):
kind of long. I thought everything kind of made sense
as it is. And I have to admit, I I
I'll take the loss on a few of the few
of these that the guys did insist on editing some
of the stuff down, and I do think it was
for the best. But I just like that it's kind
of like this, Yeah, this is kind of like this
longer track. It's moody. It just kind of it kind
of has a lot of space, kind of moves kind
(11:52):
of kind of very intentionally, and and like there's not
a lot of like I don't know, it's just kind
of it's just kind of like it's a very different
vibe than the rest of the record. You know. The
drum part is very very very like it just it
just feels good for me to play. It's very groovy,
(12:14):
very spacious. It's it's you know, kind of the ANTICI
antithesis of the stuff that I play in rat Out,
my other band, which where I'm trying to fit like
almost as many notes in as possible. Sometimes it's just
complete opposite of that, which is kind of a fun
dichotomy for me, you know, to just be like, hey,
I'm just gonna I'm just here to frame this thing
(12:34):
and stay out of the way for the most part
and just make it feel feel good. So it's like
it's really not you know, the rest of the record
you could draw through lines to maybe, like you know,
the obvious things that we draw from, like Quicksand or
Fugazi and stuff like that. This this feels kind of
like its own animal. It's not very like it's not
like post hardcore, uh kind of derivative at all. I
(12:57):
feel like it's you know, the drumming parts actually remind
me of like a lot of other things that I
love that would be almost even more like the way
like Phil Collins drumming in sort of later era Genesis,
or like like Sting or Peter Gabriel used like like
a man in Catchay or can You Call You to
like just just kind of cool like like space stuff,
(13:19):
you know, the offbeat bell ride bell pattern in the chorus,
and it's just it's about being smooth and and just yeah,
so I could that was that was it was. It
was something I worked at pretty hard to make it
just sound that that's smooth. So hopefully, hopefully it comes across.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
That way, and I think it does.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I mean, I think the like you said, it's to
me the it's the one song on the record that,
like you said earlier, that other people were saying, it's
it's just kind of a standout song to me, it is,
and it's it's it had its own feel, its own vibe,
and it it felt like.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Oh, I'm gonna just forget the name of the song.
Hold on a second. There was a.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Back to the center from your first record. Oh sure,
like it rang of that in ways that for me
feels so specifically dead history, like that's what I loved
about it. And also how sure I could pull out
nods to feelings of yeah, like no, I can totally
(14:31):
feel like this connects with like the twenty two year
old in me in some way of how I used
to feel some of the bands that I used to
love at the time. And it but it doesn't sound
like Snapcase it doesn't sound like quicksand it doesn't sound.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Like you know, it sounds like you guys, And I
love it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
And it's like this really mature version of all of
that that's just been through the refinement process of a
bench of men that are are likely in their forties
or older and kind of been doing this their whole lives,
you know, and it's but it just sounds so rich,
and that's what I really loved about it, And just
the different movements as well as the the vocals. I
(15:09):
are always just it's so cool. And the phrasing of
the lyrics I thought was great. But I'm interested. Is
there any specific Like I don't know how you guys
roll when it comes to you know, how you do
your lyrics as a band, like if the singer writes
them exclusively, or if the band kind of all chips in,
But is there any do you align behind a common
(15:32):
understanding of what the lyrics are or And I say that,
and I mean it seriously because I've been in so
many bands where nobody but the singer has any idea
even what the lyrics are because they just don't. They
just know the music and they play it and they
love the songs and they get behind the feeling, but
they don't necessarily there's no cohesive, necessary literary vision behind
what it is that's being written. So I didn't know
(15:53):
what that's like. For Dead History, do you all know
what the song is about?
Speaker 5 (15:57):
Like?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Is it all like a common thing or is it
this is just Nope, it's the lyrics that the singer wrote.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
Yeah, I that's it's it's a great question. And as
someone who has to write, uh, I in all in well,
in in this band and and rad Owl, I do
the I kind of head up the pr efforts and
I try to like do press releases and things that
get us you know, placements in in websites and and
(16:26):
and other things, and and you know, I know that
a lot of people are very interested in lyrical content
and like what do you what are you guys singing about?
And stuff? And in both the both cases in my bands,
like both Brad Senni for Dead History and and Jeremy
Justin for rad Owl, it's like pulling teeth to get
them to talk about what a song means, like they
(16:49):
don't really like to talk about that. And part of
me really appreciates that because it's funny, I have like
a writing background, and but I don't really I've never
been the biggest lyrics. I mean sometimes i am, but
like some of my favorite bands, I don't even really
know what some of the lyrics are. Like, it's just
more of like a feeling and more like I kind
(17:10):
of feel like this is what this is about or like.
And so Brad is kind of that kind of a writer.
And I should say I'm not one hundred percent sure
that John McEwan, the bass player who also sings backup
vocals and had a huge hand in kind of helping
do some of the vocal like like I wasn't around
(17:31):
when they did vocals. There was always John, Brad and
Chris Johnson, the engineer recorded the vocals, and those three
kind of really works closely to make the vocals happen.
And sometimes John will suggest things I think I think
in Dead History it's more just maybe like a backing
part or something like that. So I'm pretty sure it's
(17:52):
all Brad. And he's just like great in my estimation.
I'm just because I was a fan of his before
he was in this band, so I can I can
say this. I mean, he's he's always been great at
kind of just yeah, writing stuff that's like relatable, but
like you don't really know what it is. It's it's
it's sort of like it's open to interpretation, which which
(18:15):
I appreciate. I think, you know, not to sound super pompous,
but that's kind of like what I think great art does,
is it It It makes you think, and and it
means different things to different people for sure, different times
in their lives and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
And so.
Speaker 8 (18:31):
I probably should have asked him.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
That it's all good.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
But like you said, though, that's the thing that I
like about this is that to your point, right, it's
like I read it and I draw my own conclusions
of what it's about, just being from Minneapolis and right,
and I have my sense of that. But I think
the way he's done this, and that I've always perceived
his lyrics as they fit into dead history with his vocals,
(18:55):
it's like it's sure, it gives a nod to what
you might know what it's about, but it it's more
like visual art to me. It more like paints a landscape,
like I get like this kind of feeling of what
this all looks like. It sort of creates visuals in
my head more than like I'm looking for specific meaning
out of it, you know, and so and to that end,
like you were saying some of the artists you love,
(19:17):
same thing with me in my past, Like I have
no idea to this day what some of these lyrics
are and some of these songs I've been listening to
you for forty years and I'm like, I sing it
this way and i have no idea what they're actually saying,
and it doesn't really matter because I know what the
feeling it elicits, and it gets like I feel like
I get the meaning regardless if I understood the lyrics
or not, or if it was sung in a language
I didn't know, it wouldn't matter, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
And I think that's kind of how this felt to me.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
But just given the history of Minneapolis over the past
five years, ten years, I just didn't know if there
was something more specific on it, right, I think.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
You're probably on the right track. I mean, like, you know,
when I kind of looked at it again and you know, uh,
it's it's you know, all the stuff on this record,
it's pretty impressionistic, you know. But what I take away
from it, just as someone yeah who who has lived
(20:13):
here for the last twenty some years, and and what
we went through, you know, post George Floyd, Like it
feels very much like like kind of like when I
when I read these words, I imagine what it was
like when I rode my bike uh through like the
East Lakes East Lake Street district after you know, the
(20:36):
the unrest, and there was like like literally buildings that
have burned to the ground and like, uh, you know,
just everything was was was in ruin over there, and
and it just felt like like you know, and and
and and there was there was there was like a
National Guard and like in like all these armored you know,
(21:00):
like tanks like you know, downtown Minneapolis and stuff. It
was it was such a surreal time, uh, in everyone's
life who lived in the city. You know, all five
of us live in the city too. I mean we're
all like city people, and and a lot of that
stuff was close to where Brad lives, and like, you know,
(21:24):
it's that that's that's kind of what I take away
from it is is you know, now that we're a
handful of yours since moved on from it, it's like,
you know, there there has been rebuilding and like you
know as much as you're just like, oh my god,
this this situation is just so fucked like there there's
something uh you know, just the title and and and
(21:48):
and and some of the some of the hints here,
it's like, you know, it's like, hey, we're not going
to be this isn't going to tear us apart, and
we're gonna we're gonna kind of get through this and
you know, you you dig deep and you get through
these really dark times and you rebuild and you you know,
you will outlast these these moments, you know, and and
(22:08):
uh that that's kind of what I take away from it,
you know. Yeah, you know he says stuck, you know,
you know what they tore down can ever be erased?
And things like that. That's exactly where my brain went,
you know, when I was first hearing these and proof
reading the lyrics and stuff like, oh, okay, you know,
so I think I think you're on the right track.
I don't know if he would admit to that, but
(22:31):
all good. That's my impression of it.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, yeah, no, I hear that. I hear that.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I mean, yeah, and I was living in I was
just outside of Minneapolis, like i'd lived in Minneapolis for forever,
and then I just had just moved outside of Minneapolis
when all that happened, and so it was it was
still so surreal being where I was, and then just.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Going down to just I don't know how many times
I have driven done thirty eighth to you know.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And roll past cup food and then I'm like, fuck, man,
like what you know, just all that, and and just
seeing just everything that happened, you know, even on the
North side with just all of it.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
So it's it's crazy, but anyway.
Speaker 8 (23:14):
You know, and it very much speaks to the I think,
like the this this the sort of sensibility and and
and identity of this region in this state and this
city too, is like you kind of you know, I'm
I'm I'm of like Nordic kind of descent, you know.
And in Finland, in my Finnish relatives, they had this
(23:36):
concept of c su at si s u, which means,
you know, kind of grit or the ability to like
just kind of put your head down and get through
some some ship and like just just get to work,
you know, like yeah, life, life handed you something, yeah,
something terrible, like deal with it, you know, And there
there is that kind of attitude here, you know, just
(23:58):
I think that's maybe more than in other parts of
the country just because of like the weather that we
got to deal with and agree whatever else, you know.
And so there's a little bit of that in this song.
I think there's there's there's the song that follows this,
the kind of like pretty acoustic song, the City Sidewalks.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
You know.
Speaker 8 (24:15):
He's got a line in there too that I just
absolutely love. And now that it's winter here and I
look out the window, you know, I was just listening
to this to refresh my memory and that came on,
and there's a line races uh, winter comes creeping in.
Find the strength deep within, And it's just sort of
like I'm almost like every year, I'm always just like,
oh my god, you know, another four months of this bullshit,
(24:39):
you know, and like you just have to kind of
like dig deep and like get through it somehow. And
I'm not trying to equate like weather to what happened
in the George Bloyd situation, but I just mean, like
that's just kind of like a Midwestern Minnesota Minneapolitan kind
of like like, hey, you know, here's here's something else
(25:01):
like that we gotta you know, kind of kind of
get through and then we gotta we gotta stick together.
You know, you can't, you can't, you know, as you sure,
I'm sure you remember. I mean, people are much more
prone to kind of like help each other out here
because you kind of have to to get along. You know,
your car dies, like someone's gonna jump you, someone's gonna
(25:21):
dig you out of a snow bank. You know, someone's
kinda like, you know, we kind of have a tendency
to help people out.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
And for all those that don't know the reference jump
you means jump start, not not not attack you and
beat you up.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It means car died and they're helping you.
Speaker 8 (25:39):
Yes, yeah, and you might die because it's cold. Yeah,
So yeah, I don't know. That's that's just like a
very like that's my impression of a lot of stuff.
And uh, which which is you know, I think it is.
You know, hopefully someone who doesn't live here, maybe they
have a totally different personal interpretation of it. You know,
(26:02):
I'm sure, I'm not sure, but I'm I'm glad that
you picked up on the same kind of vibe.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yep, yep. So catch me up on where dead history
is and what's going on with it?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Because I thought I read and saw a post about
final show, someone's moving out of the country or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
What's what's what's going on with you guys?
Speaker 8 (26:28):
Yeah, it's I mean, this whole thing has been kind
of kind of bittersweet, and and like, I had so
much other stuff going on this year that I didn't
really I mean, it still probably hasn't really hit me.
But yeah, essentially we kind of scrambled to get this
(26:49):
record put out into the world because Matt Rezak, the
guitar player, who kind of had the initial idea for
the band, so kind of his baby, even though all
five of us contribute equally, I would say to to
to all the music that you hear. I mean, Matt
(27:09):
comes up a lot of the initial ideas, but you know,
John came up with some of the original ideas, our
initial ideas. Brock did as well, but it's kind of
his baby, and he was kind of the one that
really made sure that we would get together to practice
and write and like. And we've known for a couple
of years now. He and his partner have been trying
(27:32):
to I've been trying to get citizenship to live over
in the EU basically since the first Trump administration. I
think they were kind of like fuck this, let's let's
get out of here. And for other reasons too, they
just wanted to live in Europe and just to be
able to travel around Europe and Matt. Matt does graphic
(27:52):
design as a freelancer, so he's kind of able to
just do that from anywhere, and so they've been working
on that. They worked on that for a long time
and it was really kind of like touch and go
for a while. They thought it was gonna happen, but
then you know, Trump gets reelected and like who knows
what's happening with all these visas and things that are
(28:13):
in progress and whatnot. But so they they found out
I think about you know, maybe a year ago or
a little less than a year ago, that it was
it was going to be a go for this summer
that they were going to get, you know, the green
light to go and move to to Portugal, to Porto,
and which you know, we're super happy for them because
knew that's what they wanted and stuff, and but of course,
(28:36):
you know, part of me was just kind of like, ah, man,
like I mean, that's that's probably gonna be it for
the band, you know, and like you know, on on
on the plus side, we all love each other. We
we we you know, we recorded everything that we had.
It was one of those it's not one of those
projects where we our best stuff never got recorded or documented.
(29:00):
So that was a relief, and but you know, it
kind of sucks. We really only did a couple We
did like three shows basically like in May, June, July,
before Matt moved, and they were kind of like hastily
put together because we weren't sure when we're going to
(29:20):
get the records, and we weren't sure when Matt was
going to move, and then like you know, you have
to like book things like six months in advance now
and stuff. So everything was kind of everything was very
last minute. But we were able to get a record
release show in there and like a farewell show in there,
and you know, play a few things. But I mean
it was really bittersweet to like just put out this
(29:42):
record and then not be able to kind of go
out and and and and play it. And because I
just I'm just I'm so I mean, forgive me for
for you know, tooting our horns here, but like I
just I was so proud of how it turned out,
like kind of like same as the last rat Owl record.
(30:06):
Like I love both rat Owl records and both Dead
History records, but like the second one for each band,
I just feel like we really elevated what we were
all about and became more of a maybe you know,
less derivative of the bands that we were obviously like
fans of when we were kids, and hopefully turned into
something more of like our own unique sound. And just
(30:29):
you know, you just play with people for a handful
of years and you just get better, hopefully you get better.
And I just think each record was like a was
a sizeable leap forward, and so you know this there's
just not a there's nothing I don't like about this record.
I think it was the way it was recorded. It
just sounds great. The songs themselves.
Speaker 9 (30:53):
We really.
Speaker 8 (30:56):
Kind of set out to explore more of the extremes
and and and do some stuff that was really kind
of like ambient and kind of just you know, spacey
and viby and and and uh and then some stuff
that was like super brutal uh and and then there
was like an acoustic song and like it's just it's
(31:18):
got a lot it's just a lot more variety in
the way the songs are, uh, just just just what
we recorded.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
And then.
Speaker 8 (31:29):
Uh, and then once again Dan Black who put out
the record on Landland, who did all the kind of
the design and layout and stuff. I mean, he just
again knocked it out of the park with with how
the packaging looks and everything. So just like one stoked
with how the record came out. But then we didn't
really get to do much to kind of back it
(31:51):
up and stuff. And and and you know, when we
put out our first record, we kind of had a
lot of really good uh press and stuff like that.
I think it's because we used like a specific PR person.
And it was also during COVID, so there was like
kind of like you know, there wasn't much going on,
and I think we got kind of kind of break there,
(32:12):
or it was slow in the news cycle and stuff
and and oh here's this band and we were a
new band and stuff, and and now we're not a
new band anymore. And it was pretty clear we weren't
ever going to like tour or like be like a
quote unquote real band. So it kind of bummed me
out that we didn't get the same response at least
that I noticed to this record that we did the
(32:34):
first one, Like the first one, I actually got like
a like a lot of good publicity and stuff, and
you know in this one too, I mean people said
really nice things about it. I know that it did
mean a lot to some people. People have written written me,
I've met people while I'm out while I'm out playing
with rat Owl or John Snodgrass and the Greg Norton
(32:55):
thing that I was doing this year, that that that
took me aside to tell me how much they like
the Dead History Record and stuff, and which you know,
end of the day, that that means the most to me.
And just just knowing that, you know, we did our
best and I think it's it's it's something we're all
so proud of and that it did reach some people
(33:16):
at least, you know. And but yeah, it's just kind
of a bummer we won't get to play more shows.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
You know.
Speaker 8 (33:21):
We did put out a couple of videos and but yeah,
then it just kind of you know, Matt moved and
that was kind of it, you know. So you know
it's not like you know, if if if he comes
back to town at some point in in in the
coming years, you know, we'll probably try to put put
a show together. And we still have a text thread
(33:43):
where we're sending stuff to each other all the time.
And you know, it wasn't it wasn't like I'd rather
have it and this way rather than like someone got
pissed at someone else and can't be in the same
room with the other person or something. It's like, we're
all we also love each other and and and so
(34:04):
you know, and Matt did give us his blessing. Like
if we ever got a chance to, like say, open
for quicksand again at Zora Darling or some similar kind
of uh you know, hero band asks us to play,
we could get you know, a feeling guitar player and
do that, like and he wouldn't be mad, or maybe
he'd fly back and do it. You know, you don't know.
(34:25):
So so you know it's probably not the end end,
but for all intents and purposes, you know, it's it's yeah,
it's just kind of like the you know, the dreaded
and definite hiatus kind of status.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
You know, John, John and.
Speaker 8 (34:42):
Brock and I have been getting together very sporadically here.
Now that's gotten colder out and just because we kind
of missed playing with each other, I think, and hanging
out and stuff, and so like on Wednesdays, like once
a month or so, we've been getting together and just
(35:02):
like literally just jamming. Like no one comes in with anything.
We just start jamming and it's it's not really it
doesn't really sound like Dead History at all, but we're
just kind of trying to see if anything maybe shakes
from that.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
You know.
Speaker 8 (35:19):
It's a little more like we got like a synthesizer
in the middle of the room and those guys switch
off between bass and guitar and synth and we're just
kind of making weird little jams like you know, psych
drone jams and stuff like that. And sure, so you know,
there's there's there's there's that, I guess, but yeah, so
(35:41):
and we do it. There's one more song that is
yet to be released we're hoping to put out like
on a split seven inch at some point. That was
from the session for this record that you know, we
just couldn't fit the whole thing on on on vinyl.
So there is one last song that's that's still waiting
to be uh you know, heard by folks, but not
(36:02):
sure when that's going to happen, hopefully twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
We'll see, right on, Well, let's do this, Let's take
a quick break, and then let's come back and find
out then kind of post Dead History, what you're working
on next and what else you got going on. Cool, cool,
all right, all right, everybody hang out. We will be
right back more with Dave darnsrim.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
We are back. All right, We are back with David
Jarnstrom from Dead History. We were talking about the.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Song through the Shadows and now, David, so tell me
about all the other kind of crazy stuff you've been
doing this year, man, Like I know you've been playing
with John Snodgrass, you were doing something with Greg Norton
from Husker Do, and I know you played Fest this
past fall. Again, Like, tell me what's going on with
that with Radowl and anything else you're working on.
Speaker 8 (36:50):
Yeah, this was like kind of a banner year for
me in terms of the amount of like travel shows
that I had to play, Like since I've been older
and have a full time job and all that kind
of stuff. You know, I used to tour a lot
more when I was younger, but for for where I'm
(37:11):
at now, it was a pretty pretty busy year. I
just talied all up the other day because it's kind
of going through my calendar and stuff, and it was
it was like fifty shows with six different bands and
something like one hundred and thirty some songs probably, which again,
(37:35):
you know, for someone with a full time job, and
that's a lot, you know, I know, I know, I
know the professional drummers do this kind of stuff in
their sleep. But like, I felt pretty pretty proud of
what I was able to accomplish this year. So yeah,
and that's uh, yeah, you nailed it. It was a
lot of stuff with John Snodgrass and Greg Norton. So
(37:58):
Greg Norton's the bass player from Husker Do, and they
kind of had this idea they they they ended up
kind of doing this one off thing after a Descendant
show in Portland, Oregon with a couple of dudes out there,
where they did like I don't know six or seven
(38:19):
or maybe more, but a handful of Husker Do songs
and they did it kind of karaoke style as like
an after party for this Descendant show, and I guess
it was just like a big hit with everyone. Where
so John plays guitar, he does a really good Bob
Mold impression, you know, can really sound like Bob Mold,
especially vocally.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
And uh.
Speaker 8 (38:43):
I think Greg kind of picked up on that, you know,
and was like, hey, we should, we should we should
do more of that or whatever. And so John, being
that John and I had played together for seven eight
years now doing his own music and Drag the River
stuf uff and Armchair Martian stuff his old bands, he
(39:04):
kind of floated the idea to me. He's like, what
if we did this, uh uh, this kind of you know,
celebration of whoscard style show where you know, I'm on drums, uh,
John's playing guitar and bass and or john'slay guitar and
Greg's on bass, and you know, each of us would
(39:27):
sing songs every so often, John more than me and Greg,
but with the general idea of being like, hey, let's
whatever city we're in, we're going to invite people to
come up and sing with us. And you know, some
of it is just just fans that want to come
up and you know, being who Scardo for three minutes
(39:47):
or whatever? Uh and and and some of it's like
people that that are you know, musician friends of ours
that that we know, are you know, serious players and stuff,
and so that was my main concerns, Like I just
didn't want to be like come off as like a
joke or something, or or be awful you know. Uh.
And to my surprise, it really never did. I mean,
(40:08):
because we did, like we did a lot of shows,
like thirty some shows pretty much played everywhere in America.
We didn't get to Georgia or Texas or you know
kind of southeast ish, but we did get to Florida
and East coast, uh, Midwest Colorado, we did the entire
West coast. We did like a two week West coast tour,
(40:30):
you know, Vancouver, Toronto played at the festival in Ontario
this summer. So that was like the thing I did
the most in terms of travel gigs, and it was
super duper fun. None of the gigs were ever a drag.
They were all different, and you got to play with
some heroes of mine. Uh and yeah, vibes were just
(40:52):
really really good and it was it was fun to
just kind of after after a few like pretty intensive
years of like writing and recording and playing my own
music that me and my friends had labored over to
just play Whosker Dow songs which were in my DNA
that I you know, I've listened to for for decades
(41:14):
and just I can do that style of drumming, uh
pretty well. And you know, and then there's an added
challenge if I had to. I actually had to like
sing lead every once in a while on some songs,
depending on how many people we had in the audience
that night that wanted to sing.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
You know.
Speaker 8 (41:29):
Occasionally we would play a show like in Bend, Oregon
on a Wednesday at a brewery and like, no one
wants to get up and sing, and so we're we're
carrying the load as as vocalists, and you know, I
really had to get over any kind of reservations I
had about singing and drumming and and.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Just kind of do it, and uh, that's awesome.
Speaker 8 (41:50):
And so that was kind of like a new a
new thing for me. I'm not sure how how great
it turned out, but some people said it was fine.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
So that's sure. It was, man, that's really cool.
Speaker 8 (42:00):
Yeah, So that there was a bunch of that which
was awesome. And we have one more gig on New
Year's Eve here in Minneapolis. The Gravy from Undercurrent Minneapolis
actually pitched the idea that we get added to the
bill for his annual Best New Bands of twenty twenty
five year end show at Memory Lanes because technically we
(42:25):
played our first show in whatever April twenty twenty five.
Technically a new band, I guess, but yeah, and the
idea was we were only going to do this for
this calendar year. It's like a fortieth anniversary of nineteen
eighty five, which was Greg Norton. We talked about how
that was like the best year for whoscre Do. They
put out New Day Rising, Loop Your Wig, and they
(42:47):
just put out this box set called The Miracle Year,
which is about nineteen eighty five, had a live set
from First Avenue with all those songs and talking about
how they were just really on fire at that point
and things hadn't gotten bad had yet and like that
was just kind of like the peak of the band.
And yeah, so it was kind of like a celebration
of that year and fortieth anniversary of that and you know,
(43:08):
not to say that if the right opportunity came along,
we might do some more at some point, because we're
all having a lot of fun with it. But yeah,
so did that, you know, rat Owl played a handful
of shows. We got to bring up our really good
buddies and Heroes of Ours. This band quit from Miami, Florida.
We flew them up to Minnesota and played a couple
(43:30):
of shows, and that was a big deal for us.
We got to go to Canada and play this festival
that John Snagress arranged that all played at We who
are Heroes of Ours. Of course they played two nights,
you know, and that was just out of body experience
type stuff for us, and and really had to play
to our audience and just just super dreaming awesome stuff
(43:52):
there and played a bunch of good local shows as well.
We didn't we didn't tour too much this year in
rat Al, but we we played a lot of good
Every show we played was awesome. And then a line
played a handful of shows. Dead History played, as I mentioned,
a handful of shows, and then I even I filled
in as just a hired gun for this band called
(44:14):
Skinny Lister from the UK, who I'd met on a
cruise ship tour I did with John Snodgrass a couple
of years ago. They needed to fill in drummer for
like a week's worth of East Coast show.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 8 (44:27):
And so I did that last winter, which I almost
forgot about when I was kind of thinking about, you know,
taking stock of everything, was like, oh my gosh, that
was That was in twenty twenty five too, So yeah,
lots lots and lots of stuff survived, all of it.
So very very stoked about that. And now it's kind
of like, yeah, it's a little bit of an unknown
(44:49):
rat owl. We're trying to get back on the horse
in terms of writing some new music because we've been
playing that last record, you know, pretty pretty much NonStop
for a few years now, and so we're kind of
ready to see what else we can cook up there.
And so you know, we we we were actually supposed
(45:10):
to meet tonight, but there's a blizzard here, so we're
not not doing that. And uh but hopefully before too
long we'll have some new tunes in that band. Like
I mentioned, Dead History is probably not going to be
doing stuff, but you know, hopefully John and and Brock
and I'll be able to cook something up there. A
line is kind of like halfway through a recording has
(45:31):
just been kind of fits and starts. Uh, you know,
John has another band, called Short Timer that's been really busy.
They just put out a record and did a bunch
of shows, and so he's been kind of in that world.
And then Jeremy Jesson has another band called Forbidden Seas
that just played a bunch of you know, played their
first shows and is working on finishing a recording. We're
(45:54):
all in too many friggin' bands, man, you know, It's
just it's sort of like when when when some person
I's free, then another person gets busy, and so, you know,
at our age is like you just have to the stars.
Have you got to be patient stars of the line,
and then hopefully you know, you can you can make
some stuff happen. But I do know there's there's a
bunch of stuff that's kind of been floated out there
for twenty twenty six in terms of like trips and
(46:17):
travel dates and and and also local shows bringing people
to Minneapolis that we want to bring and and build
some shows around and it's just kind of plotting it
all out and making it happen at this point. But yeah,
it's you know, it's it's just kind of catching my
breath at this point and recovering a little bit and
(46:37):
hopefully gearing up for another another busy year. I don't
take it for granted that you know that I still
have opportunities to get out and do the thing I
love with with people that I love, and and see
people that I love all over the country and the
continent really and continue to make new friends. And it's
(47:02):
just like, none of it was a drag this year.
I gotta say it was. It was. It was really
kind of like a blessed kind of a kind of
a rollout for for me twenty twenty five. So I'm
not sure if we build to top it, but hopefully
it will be some kind of continuation of that that
energy and spirit for the new year.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
That's awesome, man, No, that's that's an epic, epic year.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Hell, I just played seventy shows doing bon.
Speaker 8 (47:29):
Jovi trivia, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (47:32):
However, Yeah, but it's just I played the same twenty
three songs every single night, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
But no, that's just super dope that you got to
do all that.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
There's so many things that you just talked about that
I'm like, man, just to play have played two shows,
you know, with all.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
In Canada would have been so awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
It's just, yeah, all those things are great, and all
the success that you had this year I think is incredible,
and it's awesome that, like you said that, you got
to be able to go play all the shows you
did with all the people that you did, and see
all your friends all around the continent and make new
friends and do this in multiple bands and I mean
filling Yeah, you know, I just filled them with this
(48:10):
band from the UK last year kind of forgot about it, like, yeah,
that's amazing, Like it's it's just awesome that you got
to do all that stuff. And I'm just super grateful
to to be able to kind of chat with you
through all of that, especially kind of the you know,
just the last the tail end of what happened with
Dead History and and talking about the song and talking
(48:31):
about the recording and looking forward to the fact that
you got another song coming out on some sort of
split seven at some point maybe and we'll see, but
I mean, there's so many cool things happening there.
Speaker 8 (48:41):
Yeah, And I just I'm remembering, you know, the last
time I talked to you with this for this podcast
about it was about a rat Owl song from our
first record. So it was some time ago, and you know,
that was at a time it was like a really
uh kind of like a bit of a pivotal time
(49:04):
in my life. It was like it was like it
was like a difficult time. You know, there was all
the crap that we already kind of talked about that
it happened in Minneapolis. Like it was just the vibes
were not good here. Work stuff was rough, Relationship stuff
was rough, and I was kind of like in the
process of trying to kind of like, uh, just make
(49:25):
some lifestyle changes and and and reprioritize how I was
spending my time and my energy and my efforts and
you know, coming out of COVID and all that really
was like, man, the thing that means the most to
me is music and playing music, particularly with my friends,
but just playing music for people, recording it, just playing
(49:47):
in a practice bass with buddies, whatever. Like, I just
wanted to put myself in position to do as much
of that as I could while I could, because you know,
rock and drumming is is is there is a bit
of a mortality to it. I think if you don't
if you don't keep your your your ship together, you know,
(50:09):
and like and so these last couple of years, you know,
with with rat al and debt history, like putting out
records that I'm just so proud of, and and and
the touring opportunities have had and all those kinds of things.
I just feel like it's it's been a bit of
an affirmation that, like, you know, if if you kind
of prioritize the right things, you you know, sometimes the
(50:35):
universe will you know, open up for you a little
bit and and and reward you. Maybe, you know, if
you're if you, if you, if you if you struggle through,
if you work through the struggles and and and stay
true to yourself and the things that you really want
to get out of this life, you.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Know, an I know that it's you know, it's.
Speaker 8 (50:56):
It's not it's not the same scenarios for everyone. But
I just hope that anyone out there who might be
listening to this, you know, if you think it's too
late for you to do something impactful creatively or or
just or just anything that you've been putting off that
you want to do, I mean, you know, it's there's
there's really no nothing stopping you other than yourself, especially
(51:19):
if you put out that energy into the universe and
hopefully other people kind of respond to it, and then
all of a sudden, it's just like things kind of
open up for you, you know. So, like I said,
not sure that I'll continue into the next year, but
I feel like this twenty twenty five is kind of
like a culmination of all that, you know, just just
you know, there was a lot of hard work, but
(51:42):
it was all very joyous and and therapeutic and and
you know, I really hear it in the Dead History stuff,
and you know this particularly this Dead History record departures
and rat owl rage gracefully those records, Like I just
I'm so proud of everyone's work on them. You hear
(52:07):
everyone's personalities shining through who played on those and who
worked on them, from engineering and mixing and the artwork
and everything. But a just personally on a personal level,
like the drumming, I'm just like I feel like I
was able to achieve like a like a bit of
a higher standard than I had done before, which is
(52:29):
which is pretty awesome when you when you when you
you're in squarely in middle age, you know, and when
most people would say you probably should have peaked by
now in the kind of thing that we do.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
You know, absolutely no, I hear it, man, And it's again,
I don't disagree with anything you said. If you if
you feed the things that you love and that you
want to do, it's just it's amazing what those things.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
Kind of come back to you and in other forms
of opportunities and things. I mean, got to like going
in my life that feels this.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
But David, thank you so much for taking the time
tonight man to talk with me about all this and
catching us up on everything that you've done in twenty
five and what a year it's been, and just all
the just great musical achievements and things that you've accomplished.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
It's just really cool to hear. And yeah, it's inspiring
to hear that.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Right, you work a full time day job and you
do all these things that you do, and you're able
to contribute and be creative and help other people realize
their visions creatively.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
As well, and just all that is just so impactful.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
But I just think it's always so much fun to
hear what you've been working on and all the various
different things you do creatively and musically.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
So I mean, obviously, if when.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
The next dead History single comes out, or if the
new Basement Monthly Foray turns into something that gets recorded,
I'd love to hear all about it, and we'll have
you back on again to talk about the next thing.
Speaker 8 (53:59):
So yeah, hopefully there'll be some new Aligned stuff soon too.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
I mean, that'd be great.
Speaker 8 (54:03):
I think it's really good. I think I think people
will like it. It's just kind of getting into the
finish line. And I'm sure you guys will maybe that'll
be the next thing.
Speaker 3 (54:12):
Who knows, make it happen. Yeah, I hope you do.
Speaker 8 (54:15):
But yeah, but yeah, I hope to see you in
real life again, you know, either either in Atlanta or
if you ever make it back up here, you know,
hopefully hopefully, hopefully in twenty twenty six, will make that happen.
I was really bummed to miss you at Fest this year.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, me too, man, I really wanted to be there.
I totally wanted to get up and sing New Day
Rising with you guys, I know. But no, that's yeah,
that'd be awesome. So yeah, keep keep me posted on
when and if you're coming back down this way. I'll
certainly do the same. I know I'm heading up there
at some point this spring or summer, so I'd love
to see you when I get up there.
Speaker 8 (54:48):
Awesome cool Man. Always a pleasure, Brett, and have a
good good holidays and good rest of your year.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Yeah you too, Man, Cross.
Speaker 9 (55:00):
Breakdown come to.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
All right, And that wraps up another episode of the
B Side Breakdown. I want to thank David Jarnstrom from
the band Dead History for coming on to talk about
the song through the Shadows and the background you're hearing
the song Teenager, which is a Deftones cover by the
put together band Killing Stares. If you'd like to here,
please go back and listen to the previous episode because
it was all about that and Brad Gunnerson, who is
(55:56):
a legendary advocate of all things music and the Midwest
and Minneapolis Saint Paul area of Minnesota. Up next, I
have the song Upside Down by the band Battery Eyes,
which features Andrew from Unstable Shapes on vocals. So I'm
gonna have Johnny and Andrew on that and I'll give
you a taste of that at the end of this episode.
(56:16):
I want to thank Adam cool Long and carry Boseol
for helping me put together the jingle you hear at
the beginning and the end of this episode. Please subscribe
to this podcast wherever you get your podcast. I can't
thank you enough for your continued and ongoing support. Please
stay safe in saying out there as best you can
with everything that's going on, particularly in Minneapolis. And Amen,
(56:37):
let's keep our heads together and we'll catch up on
the next one.
Speaker 4 (57:00):
Wanted to my chest, My God, the gay.
Speaker 1 (57:05):
Display now the page side of my guests slip around
Speaker 4 (57:12):
Tie upside down,
Free Crows says B Side Breakdown.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey everyone, welcome to the B Side Breakdown. My name
is Brett Johnson and I'm your host. This is episode
forty seven of a podcast where I talk with other artists,
musicians and songwriters about a song they've written that is
meaningful to them and then we get deep into the
why behind it. Today, I'm gonna be talking with David
Jarnstrom from the band Dead History about their song Through
the Shadows.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Here is Through the Shadows by Dead History.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
The shadows from the.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Too, from the gout from the shower.
Speaker 6 (01:22):
Bad get enough be.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Side spread brown.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Whool?
Speaker 6 (01:31):
What the tool that can be? Bad get be said
spread no.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Wool? What the too.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
About six.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Sun God got to watch your bird? Got me what
you say?
Speaker 6 (02:20):
Got your seven?
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Said step bat ball.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Shut up, captain about be sad scrib whol.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
The t down.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Woo, the sounds fron.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Your who the to.
Speaker 7 (03:16):
Be wha.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
Shape the shame shame shap.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
All right, And that was Through the Shadows by Dead History.
We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back
with David Jarnstrom from the band to talk about the
song and everything that's going on in his world, stay
with us. Hey everyone, it's Bread again with the B
Side Breakdown. Just wanted to let you know that we've
started a Patreon for the podcast. If you go to
patreon dot com slash B Side Breakdown, you'll see the
down for the caust here.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's five bucks a month and.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
It gives you all the episodes ad free and in
advance before they are available on streaming services.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Please go there and show your support for what we do.
And we thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
All right, we'll be right back. All right, and we
are back. Let's bring in David Jarnstrom to talk about
the song Through the Shadows by Dead History.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
David, thank you so much for coming back on to
talk about this song by Dead History. It's great to
have you back.
Speaker 8 (05:43):
Thank you. Brett as always a blast to talk to you,
and yeah, it's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah. Man.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
So the way that this normally works everybody who's listening
is usually the band picks the song, but sometimes I
let them say, let me pick, and today I got
to pick the song. So today we're talking about Through
the Shadows.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
On the record. It's so.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Such a grand, awesome, damn song. So it's on the
record Departures, right that came out when, Yeah, it came
out in.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
Early June of this year, so June twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Five, okay, right, And it's the last track on the record,
and I just remember it just hit me like a
ton of bricks, just with the There's these different awesome
movements that are in it. Some of the timing hit
me odd at first, but then I could feel like
just a lot of the space rock, you know, emo
(06:41):
shoegaz stuff that was happening. But then it just kind
of had like these hardcore feeling breakdowns in it that
I loved. And the lyrics I also wanted to talk
about just because I'm interested, you know, being a Minneapolis
dude and you guys are from Minneapolis kind of what
we're talking about there. But I love the song and
(07:01):
and I and I love the record, and I love
the band. So tell me how did Through the Shadows start?
Like who brought the idea to the table initially?
Speaker 8 (07:11):
So just just to be clear, so so so so,
Through the Shadows is the third to last song. It's
not the last song.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Oh my bad.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I'm sorry, you know.
Speaker 8 (07:22):
I just want to make sure we're thinking of the
right one.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
No, we're talking about the right song. I just I
have it pulled up and uh, I was looking at
it wrong.
Speaker 8 (07:28):
So okay, cool, because I say, I'll talk about I'll
talk about any of these songs I love and and
uh and and and frankly, I'm I'm just actually quite
tickled that you picked this one, because I frankly I
I I've been banging the table for it within the
(07:50):
band for for but what feels like years now, and
it was kind of in a constant danger of being
left on the cunning room floor. And so I'm really
out that that it It did make you know, we
did record it, and it did come out, and and
I take no small degree of pleasure in the fact
(08:12):
that people like yourself and several other people have since
like cited it as a kind of a standout track
on the record, because yeah, like everyone else in the
band at some point or another wanted to kill this song.
I should you not, Like it was a very uh,
to me kind of a bewildering thing, but you know,
(08:34):
a very kind of like a difficult one to bring
to you to the finish line, Like, like most of
these other songs were very just kind of fell out
and were very easy to write. And you know some
as you know, having having done this kind of thing
many times yourself, it's like those are really great and
(08:56):
and you love it when that happens, of course, and
sometimes those are the best songs, you know. And this
song is probably not my favorite song on the record,
but there's a certain degree of satisfaction to kind of
like seeing something through and getting through some tough patches
when it comes to like arranging and writing and all
that kind of stuff. And I just thought that it
(09:17):
was a great album song, it was going to play
an important role on the record in terms of just
kind of like a vibe shift. And uh, yeah, it's
just it's just I don't know, it's it's low key
one of one of my favorites. So I'm really really
glad you you you picked it as well. And so yeah,
(09:38):
I'm trying to think how did it start?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I mean.
Speaker 8 (09:41):
This, I'm sure it came from the main riff that
you hear right off the top of the song, which
was written by Matt Rezak guitar player, has kind of
like a slide to it, kind of a unique sounding riff.
Some people hear like a southern rock thing when they
hear it. We were kind of going for like kind
(10:03):
of like a shoegazy kind of a kind of a thing.
And as as so often happens when John and I
are playing and writing stuff, like we just kind of
instinctively just started uh uh, I guess, you know, throwing
stuff against the wall and kind of quickly came up
with the drum and bass part, which is, you know,
(10:26):
I mean, the drum and based stuff on all this record.
I absolutely love. I mean, I think you know, there's
there's no there's just there's just no substitute for what
you get when you when you play, you know, with
the same rhythm section partner for like twenty years like
John and I have. It's it just kind of kind
(10:47):
of like stuff kind of falls into place really easily
and feels kind of natural and organic, and yeah, I
just love I love I love John's kind of he's
kind of doing a slide thing in his part, and
I have this kind of like high hat break in
the in the verse that that is kind of like
an interesting choice. I don't think the guys really knew
what I was doing at first, but just kind of
(11:09):
what I instinctively heard when when when when Map presented
that riff, and uh yeah, we just kind of like
went from there. And and this one, like I said,
this one was a slog I mean, there's so many
iterations of this song and and and originally was very long,
and I was really kind of intent on keeping it
(11:29):
kind of long. I thought everything kind of made sense
as it is. And I have to admit, I I
I'll take the loss on a few of the few
of these that the guys did insist on editing some
of the stuff down, and I do think it was
for the best. But I just like that it's kind
of like this, Yeah, this is kind of like this
longer track. It's moody. It just kind of it kind
of has a lot of space, kind of moves kind
(11:52):
of kind of very intentionally, and and like there's not
a lot of like I don't know, it's just kind
of it's just kind of like it's a very different
vibe than the rest of the record. You know. The
drum part is very very very like it just it
just feels good for me to play. It's very groovy,
(12:14):
very spacious. It's it's you know, kind of the ANTICI
antithesis of the stuff that I play in rat Out,
my other band, which where I'm trying to fit like
almost as many notes in as possible. Sometimes it's just
complete opposite of that, which is kind of a fun
dichotomy for me, you know, to just be like, hey,
I'm just gonna I'm just here to frame this thing
(12:34):
and stay out of the way for the most part
and just make it feel feel good. So it's like
it's really not you know, the rest of the record
you could draw through lines to maybe, like you know,
the obvious things that we draw from, like Quicksand or
Fugazi and stuff like that. This this feels kind of
like its own animal. It's not very like it's not
like post hardcore, uh kind of derivative at all. I
(12:57):
feel like it's you know, the drumming parts actually remind
me of like a lot of other things that I
love that would be almost even more like the way
like Phil Collins drumming in sort of later era Genesis,
or like like Sting or Peter Gabriel used like like
a man in Catchay or can You Call You to
like just just kind of cool like like space stuff,
(13:19):
you know, the offbeat bell ride bell pattern in the chorus,
and it's just it's about being smooth and and just yeah,
so I could that was that was it was. It
was something I worked at pretty hard to make it
just sound that that's smooth. So hopefully, hopefully it comes across.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
That way, and I think it does.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I mean, I think the like you said, it's to
me the it's the one song on the record that,
like you said earlier, that other people were saying, it's
it's just kind of a standout song to me, it is,
and it's it's it had its own feel, its own vibe,
and it it felt like.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Oh, I'm gonna just forget the name of the song.
Hold on a second. There was a.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Back to the center from your first record. Oh sure,
like it rang of that in ways that for me
feels so specifically dead history, like that's what I loved
about it. And also how sure I could pull out
nods to feelings of yeah, like no, I can totally
(14:31):
feel like this connects with like the twenty two year
old in me in some way of how I used
to feel some of the bands that I used to
love at the time. And it but it doesn't sound
like Snapcase it doesn't sound like quicksand it doesn't sound.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Like you know, it sounds like you guys, And I
love it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
And it's like this really mature version of all of
that that's just been through the refinement process of a
bench of men that are are likely in their forties
or older and kind of been doing this their whole lives,
you know, and it's but it just sounds so rich,
and that's what I really loved about it, And just
the different movements as well as the the vocals. I
(15:09):
are always just it's so cool. And the phrasing of
the lyrics I thought was great. But I'm interested. Is
there any specific Like I don't know how you guys
roll when it comes to you know, how you do
your lyrics as a band, like if the singer writes
them exclusively, or if the band kind of all chips in,
But is there any do you align behind a common
(15:32):
understanding of what the lyrics are or And I say that,
and I mean it seriously because I've been in so
many bands where nobody but the singer has any idea
even what the lyrics are because they just don't. They
just know the music and they play it and they
love the songs and they get behind the feeling, but
they don't necessarily there's no cohesive, necessary literary vision behind
what it is that's being written. So I didn't know
(15:53):
what that's like. For Dead History, do you all know
what the song is about?
Speaker 5 (15:57):
Like?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Is it all like a common thing or is it
this is just Nope, it's the lyrics that the singer wrote.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
Yeah, I that's it's it's a great question. And as
someone who has to write, uh, I in all in well,
in in this band and and rad Owl, I do
the I kind of head up the pr efforts and
I try to like do press releases and things that
get us you know, placements in in websites and and
(16:26):
and other things, and and you know, I know that
a lot of people are very interested in lyrical content
and like what do you what are you guys singing about?
And stuff? And in both the both cases in my bands,
like both Brad Senni for Dead History and and Jeremy
Justin for rad Owl, it's like pulling teeth to get
them to talk about what a song means, like they
(16:49):
don't really like to talk about that. And part of
me really appreciates that because it's funny, I have like
a writing background, and but I don't really I've never
been the biggest lyrics. I mean sometimes i am, but
like some of my favorite bands, I don't even really
know what some of the lyrics are. Like, it's just
more of like a feeling and more like I kind
(17:10):
of feel like this is what this is about or like.
And so Brad is kind of that kind of a writer.
And I should say I'm not one hundred percent sure
that John McEwan, the bass player who also sings backup
vocals and had a huge hand in kind of helping
do some of the vocal like like I wasn't around
(17:31):
when they did vocals. There was always John, Brad and
Chris Johnson, the engineer recorded the vocals, and those three
kind of really works closely to make the vocals happen.
And sometimes John will suggest things I think I think
in Dead History it's more just maybe like a backing
part or something like that. So I'm pretty sure it's
(17:52):
all Brad. And he's just like great in my estimation.
I'm just because I was a fan of his before
he was in this band, so I can I can
say this. I mean, he's he's always been great at
kind of just yeah, writing stuff that's like relatable, but
like you don't really know what it is. It's it's
it's sort of like it's open to interpretation, which which
(18:15):
I appreciate. I think, you know, not to sound super pompous,
but that's kind of like what I think great art does,
is it It It makes you think, and and it
means different things to different people for sure, different times
in their lives and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
And so.
Speaker 8 (18:31):
I probably should have asked him.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
That it's all good.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
But like you said, though, that's the thing that I
like about this is that to your point, right, it's
like I read it and I draw my own conclusions
of what it's about, just being from Minneapolis and right,
and I have my sense of that. But I think
the way he's done this, and that I've always perceived
his lyrics as they fit into dead history with his vocals,
(18:55):
it's like it's sure, it gives a nod to what
you might know what it's about, but it it's more
like visual art to me. It more like paints a landscape,
like I get like this kind of feeling of what
this all looks like. It sort of creates visuals in
my head more than like I'm looking for specific meaning
out of it, you know, and so and to that end,
like you were saying some of the artists you love,
(19:17):
same thing with me in my past, Like I have
no idea to this day what some of these lyrics
are and some of these songs I've been listening to
you for forty years and I'm like, I sing it
this way and i have no idea what they're actually saying,
and it doesn't really matter because I know what the
feeling it elicits, and it gets like I feel like
I get the meaning regardless if I understood the lyrics
or not, or if it was sung in a language
I didn't know, it wouldn't matter, you know.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
And I think that's kind of how this felt to me.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
But just given the history of Minneapolis over the past
five years, ten years, I just didn't know if there
was something more specific on it, right, I think.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
You're probably on the right track. I mean, like, you know,
when I kind of looked at it again and you know, uh,
it's it's you know, all the stuff on this record,
it's pretty impressionistic, you know. But what I take away
from it, just as someone yeah who who has lived
(20:13):
here for the last twenty some years, and and what
we went through, you know, post George Floyd, Like it
feels very much like like kind of like when I
when I read these words, I imagine what it was
like when I rode my bike uh through like the
East Lakes East Lake Street district after you know, the
(20:36):
the unrest, and there was like like literally buildings that
have burned to the ground and like, uh, you know,
just everything was was was in ruin over there, and
and it just felt like like you know, and and
and and there was there was there was like a
National Guard and like in like all these armored you know,
(21:00):
like tanks like you know, downtown Minneapolis and stuff. It
was it was such a surreal time, uh, in everyone's
life who lived in the city. You know, all five
of us live in the city too. I mean we're
all like city people, and and a lot of that
stuff was close to where Brad lives, and like, you know,
(21:24):
it's that that's that's kind of what I take away
from it is is you know, now that we're a
handful of yours since moved on from it, it's like,
you know, there there has been rebuilding and like you
know as much as you're just like, oh my god,
this this situation is just so fucked like there there's
something uh you know, just the title and and and
(21:48):
and and some of the some of the hints here,
it's like, you know, it's like, hey, we're not going
to be this isn't going to tear us apart, and
we're gonna we're gonna kind of get through this and
you know, you you dig deep and you get through
these really dark times and you rebuild and you you know,
you will outlast these these moments, you know, and and
(22:08):
uh that that's kind of what I take away from it,
you know. Yeah, you know he says stuck, you know,
you know what they tore down can ever be erased?
And things like that. That's exactly where my brain went,
you know, when I was first hearing these and proof
reading the lyrics and stuff like, oh, okay, you know,
so I think I think you're on the right track.
I don't know if he would admit to that, but
(22:31):
all good. That's my impression of it.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, yeah, no, I hear that. I hear that.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I mean, yeah, and I was living in I was
just outside of Minneapolis, like i'd lived in Minneapolis for forever,
and then I just had just moved outside of Minneapolis
when all that happened, and so it was it was
still so surreal being where I was, and then just.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Going down to just I don't know how many times
I have driven done thirty eighth to you know.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And roll past cup food and then I'm like, fuck, man,
like what you know, just all that, and and just
seeing just everything that happened, you know, even on the
North side with just all of it.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
So it's it's crazy, but anyway.
Speaker 8 (23:14):
You know, and it very much speaks to the I think,
like the this this the sort of sensibility and and
and identity of this region in this state and this
city too, is like you kind of you know, I'm
I'm I'm of like Nordic kind of descent, you know.
And in Finland, in my Finnish relatives, they had this
(23:36):
concept of c su at si s u, which means,
you know, kind of grit or the ability to like
just kind of put your head down and get through
some some ship and like just just get to work,
you know, like yeah, life, life handed you something, yeah,
something terrible, like deal with it, you know, And there
there is that kind of attitude here, you know, just
(23:58):
I think that's maybe more than in other parts of
the country just because of like the weather that we
got to deal with and agree whatever else, you know.
And so there's a little bit of that in this song.
I think there's there's there's the song that follows this,
the kind of like pretty acoustic song, the City Sidewalks.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
You know.
Speaker 8 (24:15):
He's got a line in there too that I just
absolutely love. And now that it's winter here and I
look out the window, you know, I was just listening
to this to refresh my memory and that came on,
and there's a line races uh, winter comes creeping in.
Find the strength deep within, And it's just sort of
like I'm almost like every year, I'm always just like,
oh my god, you know, another four months of this bullshit,
(24:39):
you know, and like you just have to kind of
like dig deep and like get through it somehow. And
I'm not trying to equate like weather to what happened
in the George Bloyd situation, but I just mean, like
that's just kind of like a Midwestern Minnesota Minneapolitan kind
of like like, hey, you know, here's here's something else
(25:01):
like that we gotta you know, kind of kind of
get through and then we gotta we gotta stick together.
You know, you can't, you can't, you know, as you sure,
I'm sure you remember. I mean, people are much more
prone to kind of like help each other out here
because you kind of have to to get along. You know,
your car dies, like someone's gonna jump you, someone's gonna
(25:21):
dig you out of a snow bank. You know, someone's
kinda like, you know, we kind of have a tendency
to help people out.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
And for all those that don't know the reference jump
you means jump start, not not not attack you and
beat you up.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It means car died and they're helping you.
Speaker 8 (25:39):
Yes, yeah, and you might die because it's cold. Yeah,
So yeah, I don't know. That's that's just like a
very like that's my impression of a lot of stuff.
And uh, which which is you know, I think it is.
You know, hopefully someone who doesn't live here, maybe they
have a totally different personal interpretation of it. You know,
(26:02):
I'm sure, I'm not sure, but I'm I'm glad that
you picked up on the same kind of vibe.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yep, yep. So catch me up on where dead history
is and what's going on with it?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Because I thought I read and saw a post about
final show, someone's moving out of the country or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
What's what's what's going on with you guys?
Speaker 8 (26:28):
Yeah, it's I mean, this whole thing has been kind
of kind of bittersweet, and and like, I had so
much other stuff going on this year that I didn't
really I mean, it still probably hasn't really hit me.
But yeah, essentially we kind of scrambled to get this
(26:49):
record put out into the world because Matt Rezak, the
guitar player, who kind of had the initial idea for
the band, so kind of his baby, even though all
five of us contribute equally, I would say to to
to all the music that you hear. I mean, Matt
(27:09):
comes up a lot of the initial ideas, but you know,
John came up with some of the original ideas, our
initial ideas. Brock did as well, but it's kind of
his baby, and he was kind of the one that
really made sure that we would get together to practice
and write and like. And we've known for a couple
of years now. He and his partner have been trying
(27:32):
to I've been trying to get citizenship to live over
in the EU basically since the first Trump administration. I
think they were kind of like fuck this, let's let's
get out of here. And for other reasons too, they
just wanted to live in Europe and just to be
able to travel around Europe and Matt. Matt does graphic
(27:52):
design as a freelancer, so he's kind of able to
just do that from anywhere, and so they've been working
on that. They worked on that for a long time
and it was really kind of like touch and go
for a while. They thought it was gonna happen, but
then you know, Trump gets reelected and like who knows
what's happening with all these visas and things that are
(28:13):
in progress and whatnot. But so they they found out
I think about you know, maybe a year ago or
a little less than a year ago, that it was
it was going to be a go for this summer
that they were going to get, you know, the green
light to go and move to to Portugal, to Porto,
and which you know, we're super happy for them because
knew that's what they wanted and stuff, and but of course,
(28:36):
you know, part of me was just kind of like, ah, man,
like I mean, that's that's probably gonna be it for
the band, you know, and like you know, on on
on the plus side, we all love each other. We
we we you know, we recorded everything that we had.
It was one of those it's not one of those
projects where we our best stuff never got recorded or documented.
(29:00):
So that was a relief, and but you know, it
kind of sucks. We really only did a couple We
did like three shows basically like in May, June, July,
before Matt moved, and they were kind of like hastily
put together because we weren't sure when we're going to
(29:20):
get the records, and we weren't sure when Matt was
going to move, and then like you know, you have
to like book things like six months in advance now
and stuff. So everything was kind of everything was very
last minute. But we were able to get a record
release show in there and like a farewell show in there,
and you know, play a few things. But I mean
it was really bittersweet to like just put out this
(29:42):
record and then not be able to kind of go
out and and and and play it. And because I
just I'm just I'm so I mean, forgive me for
for you know, tooting our horns here, but like I
just I was so proud of how it turned out,
like kind of like same as the last rat Owl record.
(30:06):
Like I love both rat Owl records and both Dead
History records, but like the second one for each band,
I just feel like we really elevated what we were
all about and became more of a maybe you know,
less derivative of the bands that we were obviously like
fans of when we were kids, and hopefully turned into
something more of like our own unique sound. And just
(30:29):
you know, you just play with people for a handful
of years and you just get better, hopefully you get better.
And I just think each record was like a was
a sizeable leap forward, and so you know this there's
just not a there's nothing I don't like about this record.
I think it was the way it was recorded. It
just sounds great. The songs themselves.
Speaker 9 (30:53):
We really.
Speaker 8 (30:56):
Kind of set out to explore more of the extremes
and and and do some stuff that was really kind
of like ambient and kind of just you know, spacey
and viby and and and uh and then some stuff
that was like super brutal uh and and then there
was like an acoustic song and like it's just it's
(31:18):
got a lot it's just a lot more variety in
the way the songs are, uh, just just just what
we recorded.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
And then.
Speaker 8 (31:29):
Uh, and then once again Dan Black who put out
the record on Landland, who did all the kind of
the design and layout and stuff. I mean, he just
again knocked it out of the park with with how
the packaging looks and everything. So just like one stoked
with how the record came out. But then we didn't
really get to do much to kind of back it
(31:51):
up and stuff. And and and you know, when we
put out our first record, we kind of had a
lot of really good uh press and stuff like that.
I think it's because we used like a specific PR person.
And it was also during COVID, so there was like
kind of like you know, there wasn't much going on,
and I think we got kind of kind of break there,
(32:12):
or it was slow in the news cycle and stuff
and and oh here's this band and we were a
new band and stuff, and and now we're not a
new band anymore. And it was pretty clear we weren't
ever going to like tour or like be like a
quote unquote real band. So it kind of bummed me
out that we didn't get the same response at least
that I noticed to this record that we did the
(32:34):
first one, Like the first one, I actually got like
a like a lot of good publicity and stuff, and
you know in this one too, I mean people said
really nice things about it. I know that it did
mean a lot to some people. People have written written me,
I've met people while I'm out while I'm out playing
with rat Owl or John Snodgrass and the Greg Norton
(32:55):
thing that I was doing this year, that that that
took me aside to tell me how much they like
the Dead History Record and stuff, and which you know,
end of the day, that that means the most to me.
And just just knowing that, you know, we did our
best and I think it's it's it's something we're all
so proud of and that it did reach some people
(33:16):
at least, you know. And but yeah, it's just kind
of a bummer we won't get to play more shows.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
You know.
Speaker 8 (33:21):
We did put out a couple of videos and but yeah,
then it just kind of you know, Matt moved and
that was kind of it, you know. So you know
it's not like you know, if if if he comes
back to town at some point in in in the
coming years, you know, we'll probably try to put put
a show together. And we still have a text thread
(33:43):
where we're sending stuff to each other all the time.
And you know, it wasn't it wasn't like I'd rather
have it and this way rather than like someone got
pissed at someone else and can't be in the same
room with the other person or something. It's like, we're
all we also love each other and and and so
(34:04):
you know, and Matt did give us his blessing. Like
if we ever got a chance to, like say, open
for quicksand again at Zora Darling or some similar kind
of uh you know, hero band asks us to play,
we could get you know, a feeling guitar player and
do that, like and he wouldn't be mad, or maybe
he'd fly back and do it. You know, you don't know.
(34:25):
So so you know it's probably not the end end,
but for all intents and purposes, you know, it's it's yeah,
it's just kind of like the you know, the dreaded
and definite hiatus kind of status.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
You know, John, John and.
Speaker 8 (34:42):
Brock and I have been getting together very sporadically here.
Now that's gotten colder out and just because we kind
of missed playing with each other, I think, and hanging
out and stuff, and so like on Wednesdays, like once
a month or so, we've been getting together and just
(35:02):
like literally just jamming. Like no one comes in with anything.
We just start jamming and it's it's not really it
doesn't really sound like Dead History at all, but we're
just kind of trying to see if anything maybe shakes
from that.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
You know.
Speaker 8 (35:19):
It's a little more like we got like a synthesizer
in the middle of the room and those guys switch
off between bass and guitar and synth and we're just
kind of making weird little jams like you know, psych
drone jams and stuff like that. And sure, so you know,
there's there's there's there's that, I guess, but yeah, so
(35:41):
and we do it. There's one more song that is
yet to be released we're hoping to put out like
on a split seven inch at some point. That was
from the session for this record that you know, we
just couldn't fit the whole thing on on on vinyl.
So there is one last song that's that's still waiting
to be uh you know, heard by folks, but not
(36:02):
sure when that's going to happen, hopefully twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
We'll see, right on, Well, let's do this, Let's take
a quick break, and then let's come back and find
out then kind of post Dead History, what you're working
on next and what else you got going on. Cool, cool,
all right, all right, everybody hang out. We will be
right back more with Dave darnsrim.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
We are back. All right, We are back with David
Jarnstrom from Dead History. We were talking about the.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Song through the Shadows and now, David, so tell me
about all the other kind of crazy stuff you've been
doing this year, man, Like I know you've been playing
with John Snodgrass, you were doing something with Greg Norton
from Husker Do, and I know you played Fest this
past fall. Again, Like, tell me what's going on with
that with Radowl and anything else you're working on.
Speaker 8 (36:50):
Yeah, this was like kind of a banner year for
me in terms of the amount of like travel shows
that I had to play, Like since I've been older
and have a full time job and all that kind
of stuff. You know, I used to tour a lot
more when I was younger, but for for where I'm
(37:11):
at now, it was a pretty pretty busy year. I
just talied all up the other day because it's kind
of going through my calendar and stuff, and it was
it was like fifty shows with six different bands and
something like one hundred and thirty some songs probably, which again,
(37:35):
you know, for someone with a full time job, and
that's a lot, you know, I know, I know, I
know the professional drummers do this kind of stuff in
their sleep. But like, I felt pretty pretty proud of
what I was able to accomplish this year. So yeah,
and that's uh, yeah, you nailed it. It was a
lot of stuff with John Snodgrass and Greg Norton. So
(37:58):
Greg Norton's the bass player from Husker Do, and they
kind of had this idea they they they ended up
kind of doing this one off thing after a Descendant
show in Portland, Oregon with a couple of dudes out there,
where they did like I don't know six or seven
(38:19):
or maybe more, but a handful of Husker Do songs
and they did it kind of karaoke style as like
an after party for this Descendant show, and I guess
it was just like a big hit with everyone. Where
so John plays guitar, he does a really good Bob
Mold impression, you know, can really sound like Bob Mold,
especially vocally.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
And uh.
Speaker 8 (38:43):
I think Greg kind of picked up on that, you know,
and was like, hey, we should, we should we should
do more of that or whatever. And so John, being
that John and I had played together for seven eight
years now doing his own music and Drag the River
stuf uff and Armchair Martian stuff his old bands, he
(39:04):
kind of floated the idea to me. He's like, what
if we did this, uh uh, this kind of you know,
celebration of whoscard style show where you know, I'm on drums, uh,
John's playing guitar and bass and or john'slay guitar and
Greg's on bass, and you know, each of us would
(39:27):
sing songs every so often, John more than me and Greg,
but with the general idea of being like, hey, let's
whatever city we're in, we're going to invite people to
come up and sing with us. And you know, some
of it is just just fans that want to come
up and you know, being who Scardo for three minutes
(39:47):
or whatever? Uh and and and some of it's like
people that that are you know, musician friends of ours
that that we know, are you know, serious players and stuff,
and so that was my main concerns, Like I just
didn't want to be like come off as like a
joke or something, or or be awful you know. Uh.
And to my surprise, it really never did. I mean,
(40:08):
because we did, like we did a lot of shows,
like thirty some shows pretty much played everywhere in America.
We didn't get to Georgia or Texas or you know
kind of southeast ish, but we did get to Florida
and East coast, uh, Midwest Colorado, we did the entire
West coast. We did like a two week West coast tour,
(40:30):
you know, Vancouver, Toronto played at the festival in Ontario
this summer. So that was like the thing I did
the most in terms of travel gigs, and it was
super duper fun. None of the gigs were ever a drag.
They were all different, and you got to play with
some heroes of mine. Uh and yeah, vibes were just
(40:52):
really really good and it was it was fun to
just kind of after after a few like pretty intensive
years of like writing and recording and playing my own
music that me and my friends had labored over to
just play Whosker Dow songs which were in my DNA
that I you know, I've listened to for for decades
(41:14):
and just I can do that style of drumming, uh
pretty well. And you know, and then there's an added
challenge if I had to. I actually had to like
sing lead every once in a while on some songs,
depending on how many people we had in the audience
that night that wanted to sing.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
You know.
Speaker 8 (41:29):
Occasionally we would play a show like in Bend, Oregon
on a Wednesday at a brewery and like, no one
wants to get up and sing, and so we're we're
carrying the load as as vocalists, and you know, I
really had to get over any kind of reservations I
had about singing and drumming and and.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Just kind of do it, and uh, that's awesome.
Speaker 8 (41:50):
And so that was kind of like a new a
new thing for me. I'm not sure how how great
it turned out, but some people said it was fine.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
So that's sure. It was, man, that's really cool.
Speaker 8 (42:00):
Yeah, So that there was a bunch of that which
was awesome. And we have one more gig on New
Year's Eve here in Minneapolis. The Gravy from Undercurrent Minneapolis
actually pitched the idea that we get added to the
bill for his annual Best New Bands of twenty twenty
five year end show at Memory Lanes because technically we
(42:25):
played our first show in whatever April twenty twenty five.
Technically a new band, I guess, but yeah, and the
idea was we were only going to do this for
this calendar year. It's like a fortieth anniversary of nineteen
eighty five, which was Greg Norton. We talked about how
that was like the best year for whoscre Do. They
put out New Day Rising, Loop Your Wig, and they
(42:47):
just put out this box set called The Miracle Year,
which is about nineteen eighty five, had a live set
from First Avenue with all those songs and talking about
how they were just really on fire at that point
and things hadn't gotten bad had yet and like that
was just kind of like the peak of the band.
And yeah, so it was kind of like a celebration
of that year and fortieth anniversary of that and you know,
(43:08):
not to say that if the right opportunity came along,
we might do some more at some point, because we're
all having a lot of fun with it. But yeah,
so did that, you know, rat Owl played a handful
of shows. We got to bring up our really good
buddies and Heroes of Ours. This band quit from Miami, Florida.
We flew them up to Minnesota and played a couple
(43:30):
of shows, and that was a big deal for us.
We got to go to Canada and play this festival
that John Snagress arranged that all played at We who
are Heroes of Ours. Of course they played two nights,
you know, and that was just out of body experience
type stuff for us, and and really had to play
to our audience and just just super dreaming awesome stuff
(43:52):
there and played a bunch of good local shows as well.
We didn't we didn't tour too much this year in
rat Al, but we we played a lot of good
Every show we played was awesome. And then a line
played a handful of shows. Dead History played, as I mentioned,
a handful of shows, and then I even I filled
in as just a hired gun for this band called
(44:14):
Skinny Lister from the UK, who I'd met on a
cruise ship tour I did with John Snodgrass a couple
of years ago. They needed to fill in drummer for
like a week's worth of East Coast show.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 8 (44:27):
And so I did that last winter, which I almost
forgot about when I was kind of thinking about, you know,
taking stock of everything, was like, oh my gosh, that
was That was in twenty twenty five too, So yeah,
lots lots and lots of stuff survived, all of it.
So very very stoked about that. And now it's kind
of like, yeah, it's a little bit of an unknown
(44:49):
rat owl. We're trying to get back on the horse
in terms of writing some new music because we've been
playing that last record, you know, pretty pretty much NonStop
for a few years now, and so we're kind of
ready to see what else we can cook up there.
And so you know, we we we were actually supposed
(45:10):
to meet tonight, but there's a blizzard here, so we're
not not doing that. And uh but hopefully before too
long we'll have some new tunes in that band. Like
I mentioned, Dead History is probably not going to be
doing stuff, but you know, hopefully John and and Brock
and I'll be able to cook something up there. A
line is kind of like halfway through a recording has
(45:31):
just been kind of fits and starts. Uh, you know,
John has another band, called Short Timer that's been really busy.
They just put out a record and did a bunch
of shows, and so he's been kind of in that world.
And then Jeremy Jesson has another band called Forbidden Seas
that just played a bunch of you know, played their
first shows and is working on finishing a recording. We're
(45:54):
all in too many friggin' bands, man, you know, It's
just it's sort of like when when when some person
I's free, then another person gets busy, and so, you know,
at our age is like you just have to the stars.
Have you got to be patient stars of the line,
and then hopefully you know, you can you can make
some stuff happen. But I do know there's there's a
bunch of stuff that's kind of been floated out there
for twenty twenty six in terms of like trips and
(46:17):
travel dates and and and also local shows bringing people
to Minneapolis that we want to bring and and build
some shows around and it's just kind of plotting it
all out and making it happen at this point. But yeah,
it's you know, it's it's just kind of catching my
breath at this point and recovering a little bit and
(46:37):
hopefully gearing up for another another busy year. I don't
take it for granted that you know that I still
have opportunities to get out and do the thing I
love with with people that I love, and and see
people that I love all over the country and the
continent really and continue to make new friends. And it's
(47:02):
just like, none of it was a drag this year.
I gotta say it was. It was. It was really
kind of like a blessed kind of a kind of
a rollout for for me twenty twenty five. So I'm
not sure if we build to top it, but hopefully
it will be some kind of continuation of that that
energy and spirit for the new year.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
That's awesome, man, No, that's that's an epic, epic year.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Hell, I just played seventy shows doing bon.
Speaker 8 (47:29):
Jovi trivia, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (47:32):
However, Yeah, but it's just I played the same twenty
three songs every single night, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
But no, that's just super dope that you got to
do all that.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
There's so many things that you just talked about that
I'm like, man, just to play have played two shows,
you know, with all.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
In Canada would have been so awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
It's just, yeah, all those things are great, and all
the success that you had this year I think is incredible,
and it's awesome that, like you said that, you got
to be able to go play all the shows you
did with all the people that you did, and see
all your friends all around the continent and make new
friends and do this in multiple bands and I mean
filling Yeah, you know, I just filled them with this
(48:10):
band from the UK last year kind of forgot about it, like, yeah,
that's amazing, Like it's it's just awesome that you got
to do all that stuff. And I'm just super grateful
to to be able to kind of chat with you
through all of that, especially kind of the you know,
just the last the tail end of what happened with
Dead History and and talking about the song and talking
(48:31):
about the recording and looking forward to the fact that
you got another song coming out on some sort of
split seven at some point maybe and we'll see, but
I mean, there's so many cool things happening there.
Speaker 8 (48:41):
Yeah, And I just I'm remembering, you know, the last
time I talked to you with this for this podcast
about it was about a rat Owl song from our
first record. So it was some time ago, and you know,
that was at a time it was like a really
uh kind of like a bit of a pivotal time
(49:04):
in my life. It was like it was like it
was like a difficult time. You know, there was all
the crap that we already kind of talked about that
it happened in Minneapolis. Like it was just the vibes
were not good here. Work stuff was rough, Relationship stuff
was rough, and I was kind of like in the
process of trying to kind of like, uh, just make
(49:25):
some lifestyle changes and and and reprioritize how I was
spending my time and my energy and my efforts and
you know, coming out of COVID and all that really
was like, man, the thing that means the most to
me is music and playing music, particularly with my friends,
but just playing music for people, recording it, just playing
(49:47):
in a practice bass with buddies, whatever. Like, I just
wanted to put myself in position to do as much
of that as I could while I could, because you know,
rock and drumming is is is there is a bit
of a mortality to it. I think if you don't
if you don't keep your your your ship together, you know,
(50:09):
and like and so these last couple of years, you know,
with with rat al and debt history, like putting out
records that I'm just so proud of, and and and
the touring opportunities have had and all those kinds of things.
I just feel like it's it's been a bit of
an affirmation that, like, you know, if if you kind
of prioritize the right things, you you know, sometimes the
(50:35):
universe will you know, open up for you a little
bit and and and reward you. Maybe, you know, if
you're if you, if you, if you if you struggle through,
if you work through the struggles and and and stay
true to yourself and the things that you really want
to get out of this life, you.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Know, an I know that it's you know, it's.
Speaker 8 (50:56):
It's not it's not the same scenarios for everyone. But
I just hope that anyone out there who might be
listening to this, you know, if you think it's too
late for you to do something impactful creatively or or
just or just anything that you've been putting off that
you want to do, I mean, you know, it's there's
there's really no nothing stopping you other than yourself, especially
(51:19):
if you put out that energy into the universe and
hopefully other people kind of respond to it, and then
all of a sudden, it's just like things kind of
open up for you, you know. So, like I said,
not sure that I'll continue into the next year, but
I feel like this twenty twenty five is kind of
like a culmination of all that, you know, just just
you know, there was a lot of hard work, but
(51:42):
it was all very joyous and and therapeutic and and
you know, I really hear it in the Dead History stuff,
and you know this particularly this Dead History record departures
and rat owl rage gracefully those records, Like I just
I'm so proud of everyone's work on them. You hear
(52:07):
everyone's personalities shining through who played on those and who
worked on them, from engineering and mixing and the artwork
and everything. But a just personally on a personal level,
like the drumming, I'm just like I feel like I
was able to achieve like a like a bit of
a higher standard than I had done before, which is
(52:29):
which is pretty awesome when you when you when you
you're in squarely in middle age, you know, and when
most people would say you probably should have peaked by
now in the kind of thing that we do.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
You know, absolutely no, I hear it, man, And it's again,
I don't disagree with anything you said. If you if
you feed the things that you love and that you
want to do, it's just it's amazing what those things.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
Kind of come back to you and in other forms
of opportunities and things. I mean, got to like going
in my life that feels this.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
But David, thank you so much for taking the time
tonight man to talk with me about all this and
catching us up on everything that you've done in twenty
five and what a year it's been, and just all
the just great musical achievements and things that you've accomplished.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
It's just really cool to hear. And yeah, it's inspiring
to hear that.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
Right, you work a full time day job and you
do all these things that you do, and you're able
to contribute and be creative and help other people realize
their visions creatively.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
As well, and just all that is just so impactful.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
But I just think it's always so much fun to
hear what you've been working on and all the various
different things you do creatively and musically.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
So I mean, obviously, if when.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
The next dead History single comes out, or if the
new Basement Monthly Foray turns into something that gets recorded,
I'd love to hear all about it, and we'll have
you back on again to talk about the next thing.
Speaker 8 (53:59):
So yeah, hopefully there'll be some new Aligned stuff soon too.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
I mean, that'd be great.
Speaker 8 (54:03):
I think it's really good. I think I think people
will like it. It's just kind of getting into the
finish line. And I'm sure you guys will maybe that'll
be the next thing.
Speaker 3 (54:12):
Who knows, make it happen. Yeah, I hope you do.
Speaker 8 (54:15):
But yeah, but yeah, I hope to see you in
real life again, you know, either either in Atlanta or
if you ever make it back up here, you know,
hopefully hopefully, hopefully in twenty twenty six, will make that happen.
I was really bummed to miss you at Fest this year.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, me too, man, I really wanted to be there.
I totally wanted to get up and sing New Day
Rising with you guys, I know. But no, that's yeah,
that'd be awesome. So yeah, keep keep me posted on
when and if you're coming back down this way. I'll
certainly do the same. I know I'm heading up there
at some point this spring or summer, so I'd love
to see you when I get up there.
Speaker 8 (54:48):
Awesome cool Man. Always a pleasure, Brett, and have a
good good holidays and good rest of your year.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Yeah you too, Man, Cross.
Speaker 9 (55:00):
Breakdown come to.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
All right, And that wraps up another episode of the
B Side Breakdown. I want to thank David Jarnstrom from
the band Dead History for coming on to talk about
the song through the Shadows and the background you're hearing
the song Teenager, which is a Deftones cover by the
put together band Killing Stares. If you'd like to here,
please go back and listen to the previous episode because
it was all about that and Brad Gunnerson, who is
(55:56):
a legendary advocate of all things music and the Midwest
and Minneapolis Saint Paul area of Minnesota. Up next, I
have the song Upside Down by the band Battery Eyes,
which features Andrew from Unstable Shapes on vocals. So I'm
gonna have Johnny and Andrew on that and I'll give
you a taste of that at the end of this episode.
(56:16):
I want to thank Adam cool Long and carry Boseol
for helping me put together the jingle you hear at
the beginning and the end of this episode. Please subscribe
to this podcast wherever you get your podcast. I can't
thank you enough for your continued and ongoing support. Please
stay safe in saying out there as best you can
with everything that's going on, particularly in Minneapolis. And Amen,
(56:37):
let's keep our heads together and we'll catch up on
the next one.
Speaker 4 (57:00):
Wanted to my chest, My God, the gay.
Speaker 1 (57:05):
Display now the page side of my guests slip around
Speaker 4 (57:12):
Tie upside down,
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