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March 31, 2025 64 mins
Rob Derhak, founding member and bassist of moe., joins Graham to discuss the band's 1996 album "No Doy". They talk about how the tape trading community not only facilitated fan connection but expanded their reach, and how the band pushed back against their record label's attempts to alter their artistic vision. Also strawberry shortcake.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Major Label Debut, the podcast about major label debuts.
I'm your host, Graham Wright. Let's start today with a
philosophical question. When is a song finished? Is it finished
when the band puts the finishing touches on the arrangement
on the whiteboard in the rehearsal space. Is it finished
when the producer says, Okay, stop tinkering with the song.

(00:29):
I have to mix it now. Is it finished when
the final mastered version is delivered to the record label
and then to shelves. Or is it even possible to
finish the song? A wise person once told me, an
album is never finished, It's only released. The reason I
bring this up is because my guest today is Rob Drhak,
the founding bassist and singer of the band MO. Now

(01:19):
MO is what they call a jam band, and what
that means and what that signifies and what that label
does to a band's reputation is stuff that we talk
about in the conversation. One thing that is definitely true
of MO is that their songs are always changing. Right
every MO show, the songs are a little different. Even
on No Doy, their nineteen ninety six major label debut.

(01:40):
The album we're talking about today. There's two songs that
they had previously released, and here they are in a
whole new version. I was so curious about that, because
even though Rob and I nominally kind of do the
same work. We play in a band. We write songs,
we make records, we play shows. I wondered if, like
the way that his mind worked and the way that
the band's collective mind work worked about making music was

(02:02):
fundamentally different somehow because of the fact that their music
is never done, never complete, never definitive, it's never any
one thing. And they're putting their own bootlegs of shows
on their own website, They're eagerly releasing all these alternate
versions of their songs into the world, and that's just
such a different way of doing things than Tokyo Police

(02:23):
Club or any of the bands that I know personally
have ever done things. And so I was just really
excited to talk to Rob about how all that works,
and about how a band like MOE enters the major
label world and is sort of able to negotiate it
successfully exactly because of the different way that they approach music.
So it was a lot of really cool stuff to

(02:44):
talk about, and I had a great time chatting with Rob,
and now you can have a great time hearing us chat.
So here's Rob Drhak from MO. Rob let me first
congratulate you on thirty five years of MO.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Thirty five years, thirty five glorious years.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Thank you man, same guys pretty much the entire time, right,
pretty much.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
I mean since the late nineties, mid mid to late nineties,
we've been the same band, except we just hired a
well added a keyboardist like two years ago.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah for the new record as a keyboardist myself. I
thank you for keeping the keyboardists out there employed and viable.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, it's crazy that we made it that far without
having one, with it being a band like we are.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
How do you feel longevity has changed MO? How has
MO grown? Like from your perspective as a person in
the band, how has that stability affected the creativity and
the way the music flows out of you?

Speaker 2 (03:41):
You know? Did they say that you become wiser with age?
I guess so, you know, it's like it has to
do with a lot of like the writing is different
and we behave like adults together a little bit more,
even though we are still like twelve year old boys.
Half the time with our humor and stuff. But we
can have like conversations that were harder to have when

(04:02):
we were in our twenties, you know about well anything
really about it, but you know, specifically about music and
our touring life and stuff.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, to keep going for that amount of time, I
guess it kind of self selects for bands who are
able to grow and are able to have those conversations
and accommodate how life changes and how people change and
how that becomes part of the band, and how the
band's role in your life changes throughout the years. I
think for some people that's that's more than enough to say, Okay,
time to retire or time to make a big change.

(04:33):
But if you can hack it, then you get to
hack it. Well.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
You know, we're very good friends and we like what
we do, so you know, I don't know if they'll
We're lucky enough to be able to go through all
the changes we had together and still be together. You know,
it's a not a lot of people can do that.
You know, how many people had a job for thirty
five years, the same job, no matter what it is.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
I've been thinking a lot about the longevity or lack
thereof of bands as my band and wrapped up and
we made it just shy of two decades, which felt
like a pretty decent run. But it's so amazing to
me how what a band is, you know, the sort
of the intangible entity that it becomes with those relationships
and then the art you make and everything. And well,

(05:16):
I guess before I go too much further, how do
you feel about the designation jam band? Do you answer
to that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:24):
I mean I don't have a choice, do I?

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Here you do at major label debut, I will describe
your music however you so choose.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, Well, I mean, you know it's I don't mind
the designation jam band, but you know, honestly, it's such
a it's such a weird term, you know when you
look at all the different music that it sort of encompasses,
and actually are a lot of the guys in the
band are sort of We started out like with like

(05:52):
a whole indie rock sort of mindset, and you know,
we were fans of bands like Fishbone and and Primus
and listening to stuff like The Replacements and you know,
bands like that, and that's was kind of the vibe
in Buffalo where we started, and we just sort of
evolved as we went, but the term jam ban was

(06:14):
coined like when we were playing at this place, the
Wetlands in New York City and we were like one
of the top acts that were all that we're playing there,
and we just sort of got hit with.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
That right off the bat.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
And I remember when it happening, people are like, whoa,
what do you think about being called a jam ban?
And I'm like, well, I never heard it before, so
I don't really care. And then it became a whole thing,
like but you know, there is there's there's jam band,
and then there's shitty jam band, you know, like, which
is like the word shitty gets like put in front
of jam band quite a bit. And I don't feel
like we're a shitty jam band. I feel like, you know,

(06:48):
we're like a rock band that also improvises, you know,
and we have like a lot of we have some
Americana elements, and we have some some psych rock elements
and psychedelic rock elements, and I say we're probably leaning
more in that direction presently, and especially with this upcoming album.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
The reason I bring it up now is because I
wonder if there's speaking of longevity there's something I think
about the music staying alive. Like for my band, it
was like, Okay, we're going to write the song. We
have an idea for the song, we work on the arrangement,
we put it all together. We've got our whiteboard out,
we write down how the structure is going to go,
and then we finish it. And when it's finished, it's

(07:29):
ready to be recorded. And then we go out and
we tour it and it's a performance of that piece
of music every night the same, and it's pinned to
a board in a certain way. And I wonder, you know,
we're going to talk about No Doi and how there's
two songs on that record that are songs that previously
came out on other records and now appear in a
different way. Obviously you've played many of these songs night in,

(07:51):
night out. They're changing, they're growing, they're becoming something new,
and they're alive. Every time you play them. You're exploring
them rather than just performing them or completing them. Does
that do you think that plays a part in the band,
you know, staying excited, stating engaged.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, I mean, well, you know, first of all, you know,
we also I mean I think The whiteboard is pretty
much essential for any successful band. I mean everyone's embraced
the giant whiteboard and they they map everything out. What
happens for us a lot of times is, you know,
the whiteboard shows up after we've been wood shedding the
song live. You know, like we'll have our rehearsal session,

(08:29):
whether it be a special session for it or if
we just work on stuff during soundtracks on the road
and come into the band with like, well, you know,
back in the day, we didn't have like the ability
to we had four tracks, right, you have like a
little task and four track and you could try to
play the parts yourself bringing in. Now it's like you
have a little more technology, a lot more technology available

(08:51):
in which gives you a lot more creativity, and you
can come into the band with like this not great sounding,
but pretty good sounding finished product and be like list
this and the only thing left for the you know.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
The whiteboard is like kind.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Of when you go and you pre pro it for
the studio, so we sort of put that stamp on
it once it's recorded as well, but a lot of
times it's not before it's been tested for a good
six months to a year in front of a live
audience until we get real comfortable and see where we

(09:24):
want to land with the song. So a lot of
it has to do with like just stuff making a
natural evolution. Yeah, so we do put that stamp on it,
but even the stuff like you've mentioned on No No
Doi has completely changed, Yeah, as we played it live,
because we don't stick to one one thing. You know,

(09:45):
it's every once in a while it's like, well, we've
been playing this song now for fifteen years, you know,
let's let's put a different intro on it, or let's
add something else to it. Like we just did that
with a song that was I believe on No Doi
because we had a keyboard as we had them doing
new intro for the tune, and it's taken on a different,
different feel. It's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, And just the notion that like, because the idea
that there's a definitive version of a song, a recorded
definitive version of a song, suggests possibly that there's a
perfect version of a song, which in turn suggests that
you should be perhaps working towards that perfection, which, as
we both in anyone who's made music knows, is not
the recipe for success. You want it, You want it,

(10:27):
you want to have it. When you're working on a
new tune live especially, are you well, actually, are you
guys recording that every night? Are you confident that tapers
in the crowd are recording that every night? If you
do some great jam on a new tune that you think,
oh my god, we got to get something like that.
When we record it, do you have access to a
version of it to reference? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, we record everything. I mean, it's so easy to
do now, and it just goes to nugs dot net
and they you know, it goes up on that. We
have our monitor engineer, Frank Hopkins will down towards the
end of the week as we're on tour and he'll
just sort of tweak the levels and do the edits,

(11:08):
not the you know, just like the track at it
so you know what track is what, and separate everything
and send it to nougs. So we have like every
single thing that we do on stage is recorded by us.
It's not multi tracks, but it's you know, it's a
decent stereo mix.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
And it's it's versions of these songs that every one
of which is now a record. Yeah, and that's so
exciting to me. That's something that my band always was,
you know, would actively resist almost Oh geez, if we
put the demo on the B side of the single,
people are gonna get confused about what's the right version
of the song. We're going to hear from people, how
the demos better, blah blah blah better, Like get the
perfect version, pop it on there and then we can

(11:47):
all look at it with reverence. I like your approach.
It's as I say, it's a live.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
I mean, there's something to be said too for you know,
for just having a limited you know, not limited, but
a a snapshot, you know, snapshot of what the thing is,
what the song is in time.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
And that's what it is.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
And that kind of frees you up to be creative
and keep on making new material a little bit instead
of being tied to the past a little bit. So
it's kind of nice too to do something like that.
I've never tried it, but I'm always you know, kind
of envied, right bands that can do that in a way,
and always kind of envied the bands where they go
out and play the same you know, I want to try,

(12:27):
you know, play the same set list every night. Mm hmmm,
And just like flawlessly kill this, you know this, but
then at the same time, I might lose my mind
after a week of doing the same songs.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
It's what I imagine being in like a play must
be like or something. We just did, you know, our
big farewell tour that we did. We played the same
set list more or less every night, and it does
give you that ability, which is not necessarily a good thing,
where you get that highway hypnosis, you know, where you'll
sort of re look down at the set list and
realize you've played four songs without really being present for them.

(12:58):
Her brain takes a little vacation. Did I really just
drive one hundred miles? Yeah, exactly, Well no one, no
one's looking at me, no one's pulling me over, So
I guess I didn't do anything right. So let's go
back in time, all the way to when you first
picked up the bass. What attracted you to that instrument?

Speaker 2 (13:14):
God, I was I was nineteen. I believe I had
just picked up the guitar. I think it was, you know,
sort of my the fact that, like, I'm kind of
like a large guy and just you know, always kind
of barreling through things, and the bass just seemed more
my speed than these tiny guitar strings and being delicate,

(13:35):
and you know, I felt like it was something that
I could just grab and you know, like get my
giant pause on and just like beat on and make
it something. And then I heard like Flea playing flat bass,
and I'm.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Like, oh, what's that? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
You know, you could really just it just seemed to
have this aggression to it, and at the time, it
was just seemed really appealing to me.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
What kind of music were you listening to at the time.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Uh, well, wide range of stuff. I grew up listening
like from my my brothers, my older brothers. I grew
up listening to like classic rock.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Stuff, and.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
They were big on Steely Dan and Little Feet and
Allman Brothers, those kinds of things. Didn't really hear too
much Grateful Dead, but like and then like where I
grew up, you know, it was still the classic rock stuff,
listening to the Who. But then all the hair metal
bands started coming out, and I discovered with Motley Crue

(14:35):
when I was in tenth grade, and and then you know,
led Zeppelin and Ozzy Osbourne. But then when I finally
picked up Base, where you know, I was picking up
on those that nineties scene that was you know, like
Fishbone and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, Primus,
all these bass heavy bands that you know, did all

(14:57):
this cool stuff. So but like I also you know,
like like Joe Jackson and stuff like that, which also
you know, had a different sort of bass five just so
that that was really what sort of made me that
drew me into that instrument.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, I'm just envisioning the like imagining you know, learning guitar,
practicing scales, putting moving your fingers painstakingly to each chord.
But the process was required to learn slap bass the
sort of the first time you sit down and go bounce.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, yeah, and then you're like ooh this is and
it's it's easier than it seems, you know. So it
was like this immediate reward as opposed to like sitting
down and learning all the all the scales and all
that stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
So like it it's you.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Know, it's a it's a it's a thing with bass
players where it's just like do I learn how to
play the bass correctly or do I go and do
slap bass and just kind of go straight for the fireworks,
you know, and you know, I went that direction. I
went straight for that, and then you know, I had
to come around and repeach myself how to you know,

(15:59):
actually play the base words?

Speaker 1 (16:01):
And were you playing in bands all this time? Or
was MO your first band?

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Oh? No, no, MO was the first band. I started MO,
and I had never been in a band before, so
I've been doing this and now like every in a
while I'll jam with other people or do other bands,
but MO was my first band and my only real band.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
What did being in a band mean to you? Or
what did you think it was going to mean when
you when you were putting MO together? It just seems
so glamorous.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
You know. It was like, I don't I don't even
know what it meant except for it just somehow gave
my existence validity in some way. And you know, even
though you're you know, like I'm in a band now,
like oh yeah, what's the name of the band? Yeah?
I never heard of you? Uh well, you know you
will one day, but right now we're playing in the attic.

(16:46):
So yeah, but somehow I was still just like it
was something I achieved and it gave gave my my
plan and my hard work that was going on mostly
in my mind, like a valid endpoint.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Well it is, it's so interesting what how much of
it is a state of mind? I remember I wanted
to be in a band so much for the same reasons.
It just seemed glamorous and fun and cool and like
an identity I wanted to put on. And as soon
as I started a band, even though no, it wasn't
a band yet, we hadn't written a song yet, but
we agreed that we were in a band. And then
I was in a band. We got a name, and

(17:23):
we've been and then I got to be in a
band for two decades after that. It worked.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Did you start with a logo?

Speaker 1 (17:28):
First? We came up with a lot of names for songs,
and we I think we really started with a lot
of critical reviews of our own greatness. You know music TBD,
that's great. There's like a bono quote where he says,
you know, before you two was even good, we knew
we were great, which is obviously such a bono thing
to say. But I think there is a bit of

(17:48):
that greatness complex in any young band. You have to
believe and in some way that you are gonna conquer
the world.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, yeah, I was just gonna say. You know, it's
like you're going out there to conquer the world. Your
you're warriors. You know, you're you're like I felt like
a Viking going on on raids when we go on
tour and stuff. It was great.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Absolutely, And how did the musical style of MO come together?
Was it just a natural outgrowth of like what you
and and Chuck were interested in playing.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's sort of, well, it's weird because you know, with
the stuff that we were listening to, we had We
also had a bunch of friends who were in bands,
and when we're at the University of Buffalo, there was
like a cool little music scene that was happening. And
one band was called Scary Chicken and they had sort
of a more of a rock and ram feel, like

(18:35):
with a little more rock, but they had that pops down.
And then Monkey Wrench was another band of our friends,
and they loved the Replacements and their Googo Dolls were
like their sort of mentors, and they got they got somewhere,
and uh we we would play with those guys and
we had a different like more of a we had,
you know, a little bit of a funk feel, and

(18:58):
Chuck had more of a jazz upbringing and had slightly
different sounds, so we'd all play together and it just
turned out that we started extending our songs a little
bit more instead of writing more material, you know, we
kept like kind of like, let's add this to the song,
where the other bands were like, you know, we're done,
let's write another song. And then it was sort of

(19:19):
a natural thing where next thing, you know, our song
isn't four minutes long, it's eight minutes long. Because we
kept adding these parts that were interesting to us. And
it also helped when like we started to get a crowd,
Like we've got like opening sots for like the Grateful
Dead cover band or something, and like some of those

(19:41):
bands are like, oh, these guys, you know, they kind
of they're kind of good. So like we started bringing
in fans from the indie world and from the hippie world,
and they were sort of mixing with each other and
it was kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, it seems like there is such a community around
quote unquote jam music. Yeah, did it feel welcoming to
Did you find pretty quickly you were able to sort
of to walk into that room and feel at home there?

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Not originally No, at first it was. It was very
like back in the day there really weren't many original
jam hippie bands. It was like grateful Dead cover bands.
And then like Fish came along and sort of pioneered
that thing. But at first it was sort of like,

(20:26):
you know, our lyrics really didn't hit with like the
peace and Love crowd because it was, you know, thinging
about some twisted, weird stuff sometimes and using the word
fucking a song like thirty two times wasn't quite what
they were used to. But after they listened and we
got in front of the right people, we started to

(20:48):
get welcomed more and more. So it wasn't an immediate thing.
It was sort of an acquired taste, I think. And
how long were people acquiring the taste? And were you
guys acquiring your own taste I suppose before you made
fat Boy. Here's a perfect example of why we weren't
completely embraced is because the first album cover for Fat
Boy was hand illustrated drawing that Chuck did of Jerry

(21:11):
Garcia wearing a bra, and that was our you know,
sort of why it wasn't really a complete easy fit.
But I think after we maybe changed the cover, no,
I would say the we got in front of the
right crowd, and then they just started telling the friends
and trading tapes. It was when people started trading the recordings,

(21:34):
when the first tapes were done, and then all of
a sudden, like people were like, WHOA, who's this band?
I don't you know, cause you don't know what they
look like, you don't know what the show looks like
or any of that. You just hear the tape and
then you're like, that's when the people start coming out
and they start telling their friends. And that was the real,
the real change for us, and that was probably maybe

(21:55):
nineteen ninety one or ninety two, I think when people
started doing that.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
It's so interesting to me because obviously now the Internet
is the material in which music gets spread around, and
when my band started, it was MySpace this and Facebook that.
But it strikes me that that having access to that
community of tapers and traders is sort of like this
early interconnected network of music fans and music lovers and

(22:22):
you guys were plugged into something like social media that was,
you know, more organic and a little ahead of the time. Yeah,
we were.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
I remember we got a website, big deal. It was
like a lot of bands did not have websites at all,
and our shirt it said mo and then it's like
dot mo, dot org, but it was it was before
dot org, and it was like this long long things
like dot dijes, dot you know, flash backslash something, and

(22:52):
it was like this really long website and we embraced
that right off the back because we had the tape
traders soon became computs. You know, a lot of those
guys that were doing that were in the early early
stages of that field, and we had friends and some
fans who were really on top of it and got

(23:13):
us going with that immediately, and honestly, like it wasn't
so much us, like I didn't even really know what
the web was. And then it immediately became a great
tool for us because there were message boards and stuff
that just developed for our band, and we went from
just training tapes and putting up flyers and having a

(23:35):
mailer to having this other great tool that other bands
didn't really use at all.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
This direct connection with fans back before that was sort
of you know, I can get my phone out right
now and go live on Instagram and it's one second
and this is way ahead of that. Often what a
major label can represent, or any label can represent, is
their gatekeepers. And they say, okay, well, if you just
come with us through these doors, we will show you
to the audience, to the people. We will be the connector.

(24:03):
And you guys had this pre existing connection. You had
these communities around you that you were already talking to.
And I wonder if those communities had like punk rock
style opinions about whether it's credibility or you know, to
use the old cliche selling out.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Well, I think definitely had to fight against like the
you know, the cred you know, street cred thing versus like,
in my mind, I've always had that sort of I've
always been like, no, that's cheesy, that's you know, you
can't do that. That's that's sort of punk rock attitude.
But the reason, I mean, the funny thing is the

(24:39):
reason that we got a major label, the reason they
started looking at us was because of the Internet. Like
they weren't using it like we were using it. So
they were just like, holy shit, you know this is
like this one A and R guy was kind of
in tune to it, and they were, you know, everybody's
looking for the next Dave Matthews or next Blues Traveler
or spin doctors, even maybe like a hoodie the blowfish

(25:00):
kind of thing who had that sort of demographic, I guess,
And I think we had a message board and he
like somehow got on that message board and started asking,
and immediately he got like shit on by the people
on the message board, you know, like for one reason
or another, and then he was like he couldn't like
get in touch with us. And it was like one
of those things where it was like he was getting

(25:21):
more and more like wanted to have us on the
label more because he couldn't actually even make it happen
right off the bat.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Well, there's that notion of you know, I remember when
I was you know, when I was in high school,
wanted to start bands. I was researching how do you
get signed? How do you become a real band? The
number one thing was always if you can have an
audience and you can have fans without a label, labels
are going to want a piece of you, because that's
you know, that's the one thing.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah. I mean, on the downside of that too for
us was you know, they wanted to do as little
as possible, right, and we're expecting us to bring more
than they had seen from us already to the table,
which is, you know, like we were very transparent, this
is what we have to bring to the table, and
they just weren't hearing it, you know.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
And so you did eventually sign to five to fifty Music,
which was Sony affiliated, as I yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, I mean it was originally five poin fifty was
part of Epic, which was owned by Sony, and then
they split off I guess to five point fifty to
have like some for lack of a better term, some
more indie stuff for their Epic record label.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Was it a hard decision internally within MO whether or
not to sign on the.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Line, No, no, Like I said, they're throwing a lot
of money and we had not seen a level of
success yet at that point that would rival anything like that.
So there was no question about us wanting a record deal.
We were also we were very naive and we thought

(26:51):
we could continue just doing what we're doing and grow
without having anybody else's opinions involved in this situation. And
it was, you know, it was it was literally like
dollar signs in our eyes and like ching ching, like
let's do this. And there were a couple other record
labels that you know, we were lucky to get that

(27:12):
bidding war thing going and like double the price and
all that kind of crap.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Did five fifty just simply make the biggest offer or
were there other Not to accuse you of pure mercenary motives,
but no, no.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
I mean I think we had similar a similar offer.
But I think they they had the Almond Brothers on
their label at that time. They had moved over to
Epic or whatever when they did their return, and they
had keV Mo and some other bands that seemed like
they got a handle on and were able to It
seemed like a good fit for us. There was some

(27:50):
other money offers where it's like a bunch of money
and then just like why would we sign with you?
It's like because it's me, you know, because you know
I was letna say like, well, okay, well I don't
I want to like throw anyone under the bus. But
they were what we thought was a good fit, and
they definitely wined and nined us.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
And it is a great feeling getting wined and dined,
and it's easy to be to be dazzled by it,
you know, Yeah, did you buy anything special with your
big advance?

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Oh my god. I was like a drunken sailor, like
when bought a stereo and like a leather coat and
a bunch of crap. I did invest money in the
stock market, and I was able to put a down
payment on a house.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
So well, that's not nothing. I don't know how many
down payment advances are getting handed out in twenty twenty five,
even from major labels.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
No, no, I mean, you know, I was able to
basically my wife and I were able to get a house.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
I me.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
You know, back in the day, it was you know,
mind you that the house was like one hundred thousand dollars,
but I guess in nineteen ninety eight money wise, that's
probably close to like three hundred and fifty grand now.
And you know, the funny thing about the label was like,
we know, well, you know, you might get to this
later in the interview, so I'm not gonna push it

(29:05):
right now.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
All right, But if I don't, I got to remember
to ask you whatever it was. You're gonna say, no,
I don't want to miss any good anecdotes. But I
was going to ask how far along the music that
would become No Doy was when you signed up with
five point fifty and like what the process was going
towards the studio, linking up with John Porter who produced it.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, there was quite a bit of stuff already wood shedded,
and like some of the songs were already on a
self released album that they wanted to use on head Seed,
which is just you know, we put our money together
and from playing gigs and selling merch and made head Seed,
and you know, there was I can't honestly, I can't remember.

(29:47):
I think maybe Saint Augustine and maybe something else. Maybe
you probably have a better idea than I had.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Spine of a Dog, Spine of a Dog. Okay, it
was on Fatway.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah. So a lot of the stuff we've been playing live,
and I think we had maybe two songs that weren't
played live before and one of them was supposed to
be the single and it turned into this point of
contention with the record company and with us, and al

(30:18):
was just not it was one of his songs, and
he really this is like that from the beginning, It
is like, we want this song guitar to be the
the single on the album. And we just went through
this whole thing and fought hard with like the producer
about how the song should sound, and he kept just
like making it so vanilla that it was like taking

(30:43):
all the soul out of the song whatsoever. And it
was like, you know, it was an Americana kind of song,
but he was like trying to turn it into something else.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Like something more radio friendly, something more goo goo dolls asking.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, more radio friendly. But I mean it was already
radio friendly. It's just they weren't seeing it. You know,
it was like something that could have been and the
you know, the producer was hired by our A and
R guy to basically you know, he was like supposed
to tame young bands and you know, deal with this
because he's an older guy, and we got along with him, okay,

(31:16):
but you know, in the end, al was just like
I'm pulling this song off the project, and that became
like a whole thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
I bet the label loved that.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, they didn't like it very much, but Alo refused
to put it on the album, and that was sort
of the downfall of They ended up using a different
song I think as a thing. I think it might
have been she Sends Me or something like that, or
but it was supposed to be something else. That the
A and R guy had in his mind, and they
had a whole marketing plan with how you know it

(31:45):
was going to go and how it was going to
make everybody money. Yeah, and then we basically pulled the
song off of the album, didn't record it.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Did you guys have a manager back then? We did?

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Sort of? We did? Is Yeah, John Topper he was
our manager. He was like managed us like he was
a college friend and became our manager back in those
days and stayed with us for a long time.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
So now all of a sudden, his phone's ringing and
it's the vice president of Sony Records calling to chew
you guys out for not putting the single on the record.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Probably yeah, I mean, what was her name, Polly Anthony
was the vice president. She was the president of Epic
or five point fifty, and they weren't happy it was.
It was really more THEAN an R guy, Michael Kaplan
probably would have called him like what the fucking you know,
like he would like go off the handle, smoking cigars

(32:41):
and screaming and shit like like you ever see Tropic Thunder. Yeah,
Tom Cruise's character, Yeah, that was basically him.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Like a central casting music executive. Yeah, we could all
be rich. You gotta put guitar on the record.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, really, it really was something like that.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
How quickly did it go into that sort of uneasy world?

Speaker 2 (33:02):
You know?

Speaker 1 (33:03):
One day you sign the contract, you get the check,
the promises I'm sure are beautiful and sparkling, and you know,
you head out to this gorgeous looking studio to make
this record. Is that is that where you started to go.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Hmm, well, yeah, pretty much. It wasn't just them, It
was like stuff happening internally in the band too. So
we had a drummer who like couldn't keep time, and
we were recording those pre digital so everything was being
recorded to tape. So it just turned into this epically

(33:35):
long recording session and like tensions were growing, and then
they ended up having to just like edit together drum tracks.
It was just like tape all over the floor just
to keep the stuff founding decent. Yeah, so we were
dealing with that. The producer was losing his mind. We
were in this idyllic location where like the Rolling Stones

(33:55):
is recorded and all this other stuff, and you know,
we could go horseback riding when we into but at
the same time we're like growing more and more at
odds with just like we're finishing everything up and it's
sounding good, but like guitar is just taking longer and longer,
and it's just like that's not the right guitar. That's

(34:16):
not right, and it's just like doing it over and over,
the simplest shit, and it was just like it was
just like really starting to fall apart at that point.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
And these beautiful remote you know, residential they call them
studios where you stay there and you get meals there
and everything are they look so nice and the concept
of being you know, I'm just it's a retreat with
us and the music, and yeah, it goes well. I
mean there's nothing finer, but as soon as the worm
starts to turn, you're just in the shining. You're just
trapped pretty much. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah, I mean there was like no days off. You know,
it's just like it's you and the music and everyone
else there and you just like wake up and wander
into the you. But you know they're also fattening you
up like it's some weird like horror movie because the
food is unbelievable and they have like a chef there

(35:06):
that's like cooking three meals a day and putting out
like all this stuff, and so you know it's keeping
you completely like bread and circus. You know, you don't
know what we're you don't you don't know what's real
and what's not anymore.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
How was it for you from a base perspective? I mean,
if the drums were getting chopped to shit and edit
it and everything, that kind of puts you next in
line for tying the rhythm together.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
It taught me how to play bass better, it must have,
you know, like I was relied on a lot for
songwriting before that, and I had to like kind of
readjust and start to get back into being the timekeeper
and also doing these melodies and stuff. So it I

(35:55):
got to multitask a lot. But it definitely like you know,
talking about how I kind of skipped a little bit
ahead when I first started playing and started flapping. Yeah,
this was like when I really had to like kind
of like readjust what I was doing and get away
from that. So the band didn't implode, I guess until
we got you know, Vinnie as our next drummer, and

(36:18):
he took a lot of that. You know, he's like
a human metronome and he took a lot of that
pressure off me, which is kind of nice.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
But that didn't happen until after the No Doy session.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
It didn't happen until after the recording.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Now, taking guitar that would be single out of contention
for the record is obviously an impressive example of not compromising.
And you know, I've been in versions of that situation myself,
and you know, whether it's the carrot or the stick,
they have ways of kind of getting you to go
along with them.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yeah, not compromising potentially fucking ourselves in the long run.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
And that's usually how they do it. They say like, Okay,
if you guys really want to shoot yourselves in the
foot this hard, I guess you can go ahead and
do it. But maybe and we're like, okay, cool. Were
there any opposite moments, moments where you did listen things
that you know that are on no Joy that maybe
you're there. I feel like I'm asking you to should
talk your own record. I don't mean it like that,
but I'm just you know, every once in a while

(37:11):
they have a good idea or an interesting idea or
an idea that, once taken becomes part of the record,
and then with time you know, can age into uh
something approaching coolness, something approaching something you can be proud of.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, I mean there was a lot of stuff like that,
like I couldn't I can't pin down like all the
different things. But the producer was very good at making
us take a look at ourselves. And you know, he
he I got like two different things. One wasn't that funny.
One was, you know, he gave me some It was
like an idea for like how to do a turnaround

(37:46):
on a bass thing when I was playing when we
were doing Bring You Down. And I still do it
to this day, and it was it was a great idea,
and I just it's just habit now. And it was
like I was very I was very linear in the
way I did things and before then and you know,
it was a little more simplistic. But the one of
the greatest bits of advice was like this backhanded sort

(38:09):
of insult was like, you know, he said something to
the effect of like, you know, you don't have to
stick with the first version of the lyrics. You know,
there's a lot of good stuff in here, and you
know you should, like, you know, just keep working at it,
like you're working at writing the song and changing the chords,
you know, and like it was you know, it was

(38:31):
like at the time, it was just like if I
came up with the lyrics, like, well, that's it. I
came up with it. The lyrics are done, like cause
that's the first thing that came out of my head.
And if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work, and
I just move on and do a different thing. And
you know, it's pretty passive aggressive, but it was great.
It was a great thing to hear, and it has
definitely served me well over time.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
There's a great deal of music in mo you know
that all the everyone's doing melody and everyone's you know, contributing.
It seems like like and I wonder if the lyrics
at first you just kind of felt that they were
you know, I just need words to fit the syllables
that fit the music of the singing.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Sometimes yeah, but there were certain songs that I wrote
the words first, too. But I mean that's sort of
a thing that a lot of jam bands, I think, do,
Like they come up with this you know, cool groove
and jam and then they just start singing about you know,
fruits and monsters and god knows what else and like

(39:31):
making ridiculous songs. I mean there's a lot of punk
music where you could say the same thing too, where
they're just like saying that most inane, stupid shit that
you've ever heard. But yeah, I mean it's like there's
definitely points where you're like when I was younger, for sure,
where I was just like trying to fit this rhythm
with something and just like whatever weird noise, I could

(39:54):
make that rhymed and kind of work, like, oh my god,
that's the thing. I was able to kind of look
at that, you know, after a while, and be like,
that's that's not appropriate. You know, that's not like what
you want to do. Sometimes you're making these things and
you want to have something that counters and have something
that flows over it and figure out how to do it.
And a lot of stuff was me trying to write

(40:15):
a bassline that I could sing over, you know, because
it's not really the easiest thing to sing while you're
playing bass.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
No especially bass such as as you're playing in mo Yeah,
I was just thinking about the spine of a dog,
lyrics the pool table and you know, belly button and navel,
and I just that's so striking to me. Because I
don't know if it's free associative or deeply meaningful or
both at once. But you don't hear people singing about
those subjects. You don't hear lyrics like that, and it
makes it so grabby, it's so hooky. I'm up in moshing.

(40:48):
I can't tell the different spot between mine button, unable
bing bong pool. Do you are a foosball table?

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yeah, I mean it was sort of like I don't know,
like non sequitor a humor that like we had at
the time, and you know, like we also had a
fondness with the bare naked ladies, you.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Know Canada's finance suns.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well they were you know, they they started making a
trip over to Buffalo from Toronto back when we were
starting out as a band, and you know, they had
kind of ridiculous lyrics like that too and some stuff.
And I think that just sort of that kind of
thing struck me, like so like Chuck wrote, well most
of that song, and I wrote those stupid lyrics, the

(41:36):
dumb part of it, and then he made like he
tied it all together with you know why am I
You know, why am I saying these stupid things?

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Why is it you ask me why. I don't know
the answer. I think it's really amazing and characteristic of
this specific moment in the music industry at large, how
much room there was full or humor in lyrics. You
mentioned Primus earlier too, who I think of you know,

(42:04):
a band that can be pretty funny but not a
joke band, and Moe is not a joke band. Oh
and the Bernicet Ladies are not a joke band, but
they can be pretty damn funny.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Right right. It's not like you're weird al or something,
and exactly, but there is room for humor in music,
or there was room for humor in music without being
a joke, I guess, without being the butt of the joke.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, without undercutting the inherent earnestness or sincerity of the
music that's the thing that gets people in their hearts.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Well, there's not really a lot of room for humor
in conversation anymore, either, you know, Like it's almost seems
like it's kind of gone away unless you're very comfortable
with the people you're with.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yes, you know, so you're out at a Longview Farm
studios making no doy, you're pretty isolated out there were
any of the label in our folks coming around sitting
in the couch or did they mostly participate via telephone?

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Oh? No, they would come. I mean, uh, Mike Kaplan
was like he really liked the band and he was
really you know, ensconced in the project. So he was
there checking on our progress a couple times. And then
you know, he was always on the phone with Porter
wanting I guess back then he would have to send

(43:15):
him dats, you know, like overnight and dats to listen
to stuff or DA eighty eight whatever it was. I
I don't remember what the media was. But so he was,
you know, constantly back and forth on the project, and like,
why is it taking so long? What the hell's going on?

Speaker 1 (43:31):
How long did it end up taking?

Speaker 2 (43:33):
I feel like we were there for two months.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
That's an awfully long time to be at it with
the horses.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, I feel like it was at least I think
it was about six weeks. Actually, I mean, I'm fifty seven, man,
and this is like thirty years This is thirty years ago.
So and we were you know, consistently drinking Jack Daniels
or whatever every day.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
So all right, I'll scrap the next few questions. I
have about which socks you were on which day. It's fine,
I still him when it was finished, when you got
to the end of it. How did the band feel about.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
It, I mean we were psyched. We were very psyched
about it because one it was just like, you know,
it was our major label debut, and everything sounded so
like high tech and fresh to our ears anyway, And
we had to be part of every single part of
the process, you know, like we sat through every mixing session,

(44:30):
we sat through all of the mastering. We had to
be part of everything. In a million years, you couldn't
fucking pay me enough to sit down through that shit anymore.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
I knew exactly how you felt. It was like we.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Thought we had to be part of everything and critical
of every every little part. And I can imagine it
must be like hell for someone like like Porter was
probably he's probably as old as I am now, maybe
a little older even, and with a bunch of young kids. Yeah, hell,
Like I must have been just like sitting like doing
mix thing and being like, I don't know if I

(45:02):
can hear my bass quite enough in this sect. You
know that I can't imagine going through that. But at
the time, you know, it was just like all of
the photo shoots and Rolling Stone and all this other
everything we got we were getting from it, and the
accolades and all that craft. It was we're super psyched
about the album.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Did you feel like a rock star?

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I thought I was great.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Everyone should get to feel that. Everyone should get to
experience that feeling for a minute. Maybe not for too long.
I don't know if it's healthy. It was disposure. I
got to ask about the artwork. It's an incredible album cover.
And I really feel, you know, when I go back
to a record from pre streaming and the artwork still
looks good, shrunk down to the size of my pinky

(45:49):
fingernail and like the Spotify main page and you could
still spot it right away. Yeah, I think that's a
good album artwork. And then No Doy cover is a
true success in that regard.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Glad you like it. My wife will be glad. My
wife was our artistic director and our merchant manager, and
she that was all her. She came up with that
idea and hired a photographer and there was a little
literal photo shoot with a guy. They hired a model,
and then they used all of that and the photographer
did the all of the photoshop stuff, but like with

(46:22):
all his own you know, there wasn't any resource to
like grab that stuff and do it. Yeah, and that
was another argument with the record company. They were just like, that.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Was my next question. They did not like the album
cover at all. What did they want?

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Oh God, I don't I don't remember what they wanted,
but it was not that. And they just kept like
they kept trying to like zoom in on the guy's
face so you couldn't see the nail on his head,
and like like, no, what's the point of that. And
it really came down to like just just picking out
stupid minutia about it towards the end where it was

(46:57):
just like how they're going to frame the guy's head
in the album cover just so they had some sort
of say over it. And it was a fight, but
they did not like it whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
So as they caved with guitar, they caved with the
album cover. How are you feeling about like the business
end of things as you went into release time promotion time,
did the label still seem engaged or were they starting
to seem a little pissed.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
No, it seemed like they were starting to starting to
check out. They did get us on Further Tour, which
was opening and I really like the very first or
second opening slot where second opening slot on Further Tour,
which was the headliners were the Black Crows that summer.

(47:42):
But you could you could tell, like we went after
the album was done, and we went and we met
with the president of our label, and she just says
something to the effect where like, well, you know, I
don't really get it what you guys are doing, but
you know, I'm leaving. I'm letting Michael take this one.
And it was just like, obviously she didn't give a

(48:04):
shit about us whatsoever. We're in New York. How come
no one's taken us out to dinner anymore? And where's
our where's our interview for this show or whatever? You know,
you could tell, but we still had our own thing
going on, So it wasn't like a lack of the
record company wasn't affecting our draw It was just all

(48:25):
of a sudden, you know, we were doing a million
record store dates and radio programs and like they just
started to disappear. Yeah, and they weren't happening anymore eventually,
and then you realize that they had no money behind
us anymore, and it was just a matter of them
cutting their losses.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
They never really just call you and say, hey, the
we're cutting up the credit card kids, good luck out there.
You just start to sense like, did that that seem
smaller to you that you know that radio station thing?
Or did we not get a call for something that
we got a call for six months ago? Or is
something going on we should know about it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Yeah, you know, in like the conversations we would have
with our manager about it, he was not really forthcoming
about what his conversations with the record company were like,
or he just wasn't having those conversations and was just
like not focusing on the record at all.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Was the touring bigger? We're like, were the gigs?

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Yeah? Our touring was great. You know, we were like
headlining Radio City Music Hall for New Year's Eve and
doing our own festival, and it was great. The touring
was fantastic, But that was really we got a bump
from the album, but it was really just based on
still our live touring act and it was still about

(49:39):
people trading tapes and getting word and the internet.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
I've always wondered how the labels feel about the thriving
tape trading culture, and I always wonder if they look
at that, like, how do I get a taste of that?
That seems like something you could commodify, and here it
is being traded in good faith among people. That's it's
not what labels are designed for.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
They saw they looked at the model of like the
Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dad, and they were like,
this is going to serve us at least with our
particular brand of music and the way we did stuff.
They could see how it was going to how we
had already built the following and people were paying for
our music as well. So they realized that it was

(50:19):
going to be an issue if we stopped doing that.
It would be kind of hard to just not allow
that to happen. Like if we had never allowed that
to happen and had a fan base, they might have
had a different story.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
And maybe if it was a little later and Napster
was on the scene and the concept of music being
free was more in the news, they would have had
a different tune.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
I forgot about Napster.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, what a moment it was on the I remember
it was always on the News Metallica and Napster, and
I was sitting on the computer downloading music on Napster.
So you made one more record with five point fifty
and then parted ways. Was there a proverbial straw that
broke the camel's back on either side?

Speaker 2 (50:59):
No, I mean, honestly, it was like we didn't really
want to be with them anymore and they really didn't
want to have us, And it was just like we
had contractually, you know, another album to do and they
were contractually obliged to give us money to do it.
So we got that money and they sort of acted
like they gave us shit. But it was sort of

(51:21):
going downhill at the same time. But we still put
a lot of effort into the next album and it
was it's one of our fans favorites.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Was it easier to make than No Doay? Then? A
little bit?

Speaker 2 (51:32):
A little bit. We found a different voice with it,
and they gave us a little more freedom to choose
the producer we wanted to use and to do it
the way we wanted to do, so it was a
little more fun to do that record. We brought along,
you know, elements of our crew and people from our
crew to kind of keep the vibe going and make

(51:54):
it a little bit more fun for us. And I
mean I and our guy was still you know, he
was still behind us and still withint of the band
and liked it. But you could tell that he was
also getting back room conversations that this was going to
be it. And that's like, really what this album was
when the push just didn't wasn't there and you could

(52:16):
see it, Yeah, was it?

Speaker 1 (52:19):
I mean it. You know, you guys were turning out
records every couple of years, and then it was only
three years between that Tin Cans, Car Tires and your
next record. Did there did you was there any picking
up in dustin off after parting ways with five point
fifty or did it feel like you guys could just
keep on doing what you were doing.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
We immediately went and recorded our own album, okay, like
almost as soon as we could, and we're like, you know,
it was sort of like, fuck you man, we have
these songs, stuff that you didn't want to put on
the other album, stuff as a result of the experience
we had with them making a record, and we went
in and just financed it and did our own record
right after that.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
And just kind of kept cruising ever since. From what
I can tell, you've had a few hiatuses here and
there over time, but MO is a remarkably consistently working
band from everything I can say.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we've fit. We've hit a few
road bumps and health issues and stuff like that, but
like literally we just put out, you know, our thirteenth
or fourteenth album.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Yeah, congratulations on that. And also, well, it's really interesting
to me because as we as we approach the conclusion,
and you've been very generous with your time, Thank you
so much for answering all of my my one oh
one questions about life and well.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
The stuff is like struggling to remember too, you know,
like it's fun to actually rethink about this stuff and
force myself to remember.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
I'm glad to hear you say so that's the idea. Yeah,
you guys have gone in many ways in the opposite direction,
where not only have you put out music independently, but
you're running your own festivals. You're sort of the MO
mothership seems to be almost stay more than a label.
It's like a whole This is there's no good way

(54:04):
to say like a whole entertainment enterprise without sounding like
it's the opposite of what I'm trying to describe. But
it's like, well, it seems like you talked about having
your crew guys come in and help, you know, be
around for the record, and there's such a familial aspect
to it. And it's again, I keep coming back to
this idea that it's like people connecting directly with each

(54:24):
other rather than being connected by some kind of artificial entity,
whether that's a record label or a radio station or
MTV or whatever. How important has it been for mo
to I guess curate the water that you're swimming in.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Well, I don't know like how much we had, like
any type of foresight into making it like that, but
it's just as we sort of have grown, you know,
I want to say organization, because it's not just about
the music and the band. It's about all these other
people that are with us, you know, that are doing

(55:02):
things for us, or just you know, just happen to
be with us and our friends or fans or family
or people that are actually working for us. It's just
sort of becomes the thing where, you know, real connection
is the only way to keep something like that alive,
and like an artificial sort of reality that like a

(55:25):
record label can create. I would say ninety nine times
out of one hundred is going to fail eventually. It's
not going it's not a long term business plan. So
you got to kind of like, if you're going to
be part of something like that, you need to make
money quick, cash out, and then find something that you
really love to do.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Instead, you just keep on celebrating Mo and the universe
around Mo and the music and the records and the people.
And it kind of gets back to what I was
saying earlier about just you know, how the songs are
still alive and there's that real connection between you guys
as musicians on stage in the studio continuing to like

(56:05):
spark new energy and even if you know, if you're
playing a song from nineteen ninety six or nineteen ninety two,
there's something new in it every time you play it,
and everyone there must be you know, they're experiencing that
in some obviously meaningful way. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Yeah, I mean it's important to us to have fun
doing it, and the way we do that is like,
you know, well, first of all, you you have to
be a creative person. You have to be like have
that part of your brain. If you have a whole
band where everyone is sort of poking that part of
each other's brains. We call it like when we're jamming,

(56:41):
we call it as a joke, like we're basically loosening
the pickle jar for somebody else. You know, you're like,
so you're you're jamming something, and it's just like everybody's
instead of somebody just like trying to impose their will
on what's happening, everyone's sort of constantly on you know,
loosening this the pickle jar or the jam dar and
just giving it a little tug until it just like

(57:03):
sort of opens up. And that's the kind of thing
that makes it fun. And we have the guts of
the song, we have the chorus, we have the verses,
but sometimes it's going to be slightly different, but we
know how to get back to the parts that everybody knows.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Which is like it's not just trust based, it's like
faith based almost. You just know you have that understanding.
You can take for granted that you're up there with
guys who will get back there with you and can
follow you, and you can follow them.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yeah, I mean, it's true faith if you have to
keep telling yourself that you have faith in it, then
you don't really have complete faith in it. You know,
it's just a matter of like being automatic. You know,
if you're automatically in that position with somebody or something
and you don't have to think about it, that's real faith.
And that's sort of what where we are with the band.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Yeah, I mean, that's what I feel so privileged to
even kind of know what you're talking about, to have
been in a band, to have had that shared language
with other people and reveled in it and also despaired
in it sometimes of course, but jamming, whatever the genre is,
seems to be a way of speaking that language actively.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
Yeah, it truly is. You're speaking a different language. And
it's not it's not the it's not just the words,
it's the it's the communication on all those different levels
when you're when you're playing with the band, and you know,
the audience sometimes takes part The audience is part of it,
you know.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Well, yeah, having an audience that is taping and trading
and is aware of not just you know, you will
go out there and we'll play our most popular song
and people know how to sing along with it, and
they know if there's a spot to clap, they know
and to clap. But you guys also have that where
when you do something different, there are people out there
who are going to be aware. You know, however consciously,

(58:53):
however musically trained they are or aren't they know that, Oh,
now we're out on a different we're in uncharted way,
or where I'm hearing a sound being made, I'm hearing
music being made for the first time, and the only
time it just lives there and then you know, maybe
it's taped, but for the most part, it happens that night,
and then the next night it happens differently and they

(59:13):
get to be there for it.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Right right, you know, like the there's like a whole
thing now sort of in our scene and probably others too,
where like people are doing what they want to call
couch tour and you go out and you play, and
then you also people can pay money to watch it
and stream it live and they can watch it from
their living room, and we let that happen sometimes, but

(59:37):
we don't always do it because sometimes it's just like
you should be at the experience. You should not be
at home. You're missing a lot of it. And you know,
if you weren't there. You cannot be there. There's there's
It's okay to not to miss out on something.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Yes, it's okay to not be there. And if you're
sitting on your couch watching it on TV, you're not there. Yeah,
and I listen, I've watched. I've enjoyed some Coachella live
streams in my time. I won't deny it. Yeah, yeah,
that idea that, well, everyone must have access to it,
But if they're not there, then you're not really giving
them access to it. You're just giving them sort of
a real time facsimile that in a way seems to

(01:00:15):
like cheapen the experience for everyone. But maybe that's a
little too a little too nasty to say via podcasting medium.
I guess we are embracing new technology here after all.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Right, right, you could be shooting yourself on the foot.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Well it wouldn't be the first time, Rob, Thank you
so much for this beautiful conversation. I feel like I
could go on getting increasingly esoteric about like the spirituality
of making music with people all day long, but I
will restrain myself and I will instead ask the traditional,
final and most important major label debut question you alluded

(01:00:49):
earlier to the chefs fattening you up at the studio.
We always ask what did you eat while you were recording?
No doy and I would love to hear about some
of the more memorable feasts that you indulged in.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
My favorite thing. Oh god, uh, I don't remember all
the meals. I mean there was like some some you know,
high end, high end meals and like sometimes. But the
one thing that I remember was like the homemade well,
first of all, Sunday brunch they would make like this
huge spread. But the biggest thing, my favorite thing was

(01:01:23):
strawberries were in season and making strawberry shortcake, like homemade
strawberry shortcake, and I was just like, I didn't even
know I liked it until then. I was like homemade
whipped cream strawberry shortcake. And the woman was so nice
and just made was such a good cook.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
I would have had to record the entire thing lying
on the floor, yeah, groaning with whipped cream all.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Over my ead. Yeah yeah, oh my god, I still
I can still taste it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
It sounds delicious. Boy, you don't. I've never been to
a catered recording session, I'll tell you that much. That's
another another piece of major label history. That yeah, you
see so much anymore tragic. Yeah, but you do realize
they make you pay all that back. So they're like, oh,
that's that's where.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
We just got the money.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Well, this is the great rock and roll swindle. This
is the dream. Really, you want to spend all of
it and then recoup a little of it and then leave.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Right, They just recouped what they could and we just
kept playing and still having a career. So another victory
for artistry. Thank god, thank god. We need all the
wins we can back.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Rob, thank you so much, and again, congratulations on not
just thirty five years of MO, but what sounded like
thirty five really meaningful years of making music with people
for people who love it. It's about as good as
it gets in my books. So I hope you're having
a great time and I hope you keep having a
great time with it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
I am thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Yeah, man, Rob Derhack MO No douy. How about that?
Just a great band who are having a great time
making great music on their own terms, and it's being
well resent. You know, a whole universe of people who
love it, and there's a whole MO extended universe for
you to check out, you know, check out No Joy
their major label debut. But they've got tons of records,

(01:03:10):
and they have spinoff bands, and they have a festival
and they have a cruise, and the songs are different
every night, right like it's all alive and living and
vibrating with that artistic, creative energy that you know you
could hear it in Rob's conversation and you can certainly
hear it in Moe's music. And as always, I just
feel so grateful and lucky to get to talk to

(01:03:31):
Rob and folks like them about how they do what
they do. Every time. I feel like I get a
whole masterclass. So lucky me. Thank you so much to Rob,
and thank you so much to you for listening. I
hope you like it half as much as I do,
And if you do, we sure would appreciate it. If you,
you know, subscribe to the podcast that helps us with
the with the algorithm and the metrics, and tell your friends.

(01:03:54):
If you have any friends that like music or like
hearing about how the sausage gets made, make sure to
let them about major label debut. Our show is produced
by John Paul Bullock and by Josh Hook. Our wonderful
theme music is by mister Greg Allsop. We're on all
the socials media. Get at us if you have suggestions
for records to talk about, or just questions or anything

(01:04:15):
you know, like how rock and roll magazines have letters
from people in the front, like in an old rolling Stone.
Send us your letters and we'll find a way to
put them on the show if they're any good. I
guess I'm making this up right now. This is an
initiative that none of the other producers have heard about.
Josh is listening to this editing it rolling his eyes.
Thank you to you the listener for listening. We really
appreciate it. That's the end of this one but major

(01:04:37):
label debut. We'll return with more tales from the intersection
of art and commerce.
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