June 12, 2018 • 30 mins
KB sits down with Sugarland's background singer Amie Miriello to discuss her obsession with CRIME. In Chapter 2, Amie tries selling "Yoga Nidra" to Kristian in order to resolve his sleeping challenges. Finally, KB dives into songwriting and writing his first "murder ballad."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, This is Christian Bush and welcome to episode eleven
of my podcast Geeking Out. Every episode, I invite a
new person to talk about one thing that they're obsessed
with that has nothing to do with their job. The
only requirement is that they're totally geeking out on it
and they want to talk about it. From eyelid glitter
(00:22):
stickers to homemade camp stools, from collecting classic Hula girl lamps,
to do it yourself car painting, from made at home
soda flavors to Alaskan bear track in tell me about
what you love, why you love it, how you got
into it, and what makes it awesome. Each episode is
presented in three chapters. In chapter one, my guest and
(00:42):
I will have a conversation about their passion. In chapter two,
we play a game I called Trajan, where my guest
and I turn each other onto something cool we've recently discovered.
And in chapter three, I closed the show by talking
about music that I am currently geeked out on and
why I believe that cure curiosity is contagious and that
life is better with the soundtrack. So let the geeking
(01:05):
begin Chapter one. Today's guest is Amy Miriello. Amy is
a singer songwriter who recently relocated to Nashville and is
currently touring with my band's sugar Land as a background singer.
(01:26):
In addition to working as a touring singer with acts
like In Excess, Gavin DeGraw, and Nicholas Sha, she's also
an accomplished solo artist and songwriter for television and movies.
With the Sugarland tour underway, I took the opportunity to
sit down and get to know Amy and her dark curiosities.
(01:48):
It's just too as does Amy Miriello. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much, so happy to be here, Christian,
I am. I'm excited that you're here. And would you
explain to everybody first of all where we are and
and and who you are, like like your your name
and your job. Okay, um, we are in Anaheim, California,
(02:13):
and we are on the sugar Land still the same tour.
We're on your tour of us and I am your
backup singer. Yes, slash Tambourine slash Triangle slash shake Master
are do you plan to try? But no? I threw
that in like that's just a dream of mine. Dreams
(02:33):
come true here inam well, I shouldn't have said it
because now I feel like there's going to be a
triangle in my station. So what do you do for
a living? Like? What? What? What is your I'm a
singer songwriter, so I write songs UM for TV and
film mostly, which is called sync writing. UM. And sometimes
I'm successful at it and sometimes I make boogie drinks
(02:55):
for rich people. How long have you been doing that? Um?
I've been singing since I could talk, and I've been
professionally in the industry since I was a body teen.
So the this podcast has nothing to do with that.
Good This podcast is about essentially one. It has one rule,
and the rule is I want you to talk about
(03:16):
something that you are totally obsessed with, totally geeking out on,
that has nothing to do with your job, all right,
So what is it that you're obsessed with whether you're
geeking out on right now? I'm obsessed with crime. I'm
obsessed with serial killers, crime TV, more real real stuff.
So not not as much the scripted, although I do
(03:37):
love it a good SV you, UM, but I love
true crime, the i D Channel, um, you know, Forensic Files,
four D eight hours, Dateline, Like I'm just when I'm
not singing for you, man, I am solving crimes. This
is amazing. I'm collecting evidence on stage. And just do
(03:59):
you think that you've all more on the um the
side of solving the crime or committing the crime, Like
what's more fascinating to you? That's interesting? I think that
the psychology behind what it would take to commit a crime. So,
for instance, like we're all deep down like a little
(04:20):
bit psychotic. Everybody has that, especially musicians. I'm looking in
your eyes and like your a psycho, don't know, but
but we all have that part of us where like
something happens and you're like, what would it be like,
like like I hate this person so much, but think
about the person that maybe maybe it's not even because
(04:40):
of hate or but it's just because they enjoy it.
But is willing to take that next step and actually
kill someone. That's a whole another game. So I just
feel like I'm obsessed with that, like the psychology behind
what what makes you snap? Um? And then I'm also
really intrigued by forensics and like the ability to make
(05:04):
you know, there's really almost no crime that's untraceable at
this point, so we're really like we're smart people. Now
we can, you know. I mean, I feel like there's
a couple of ways I can think of hide to body,
but other than oh my gosh, I have so many questions.
When when did this start for you? When did this
start come coming on as an obsession? Definitely? I was
(05:27):
always a really morbid child, so I remember, like it
probably was like my early teens, this angsty morbid phase
and even before that, where I would I would come
down with my guitar and they'd be like, oh, she's
gonna sing us a really cute, little pretty song and
I'd be like, I want to kill everyone, and they'd
be like wow. I remember my aunt saying, wow, you're
(05:51):
so expressive. Because it was just I was obsessed and
I would ask, you know, lots of questions about death
and um, I would always want to watch scary movies,
and my brothers and my family, my parents weren't really
into it, so I was kind of just the only
one that was really into it. My mother will watch
crime with me, but she'll mostly fall asleep. So do
(06:15):
you watch these things alone? Christian? You don't understand, like
this is a real sick thing. Like I listened to
death podcast, like serial killer stories as I'm going to
sleep in my bunk on the bus, scaring the out
of myself. I once woke up to an exorcism being
performed and I had my in ears on, so it
(06:35):
was like inside my ears and a woman was screaming
bloody murder because they were doing an exorcism, and that's
what woke me up. So yeah, and I'm like, why
can't I sleep. I don't understand this like a Tim
Burton movie. This is like this, yeah, like I need help.
This is I'm actually asking you for help. Um, well,
(06:57):
then let's dive in. I assume that you have never
killed a person. Never have you known anyone who's killed
a person. No, I know someone who has killed That
was pretty brutal. Um. But like I think I've like
pulled someone's hair once. Like that's like that was like
when I was a drunk in Hollywood. I think I
like pulled the girls. I got in a bar fight
(07:19):
and pulled the chick's hair and then I got my
hair pulled. That's that's the extent of my violence. But
um but I'm just really intrigued. And what I found
is that just like any other obsession, like it keeps
getting more screwed up. So like, at this point, if
it's just someone getting shot up in a CVS, I'm
(07:40):
not interested. I need someone like someone's severed head, you know,
like like I can't I can't even be bothered with
normal crimes anymore. So at what point do you start
to become interested? Okay, premeditated I'm only interested in premeditated crime,
So lots of forethought, a lot the planning. Um, I'm
(08:01):
interested in crimes of passion. Um interested in u serial crime,
so someone doing the same thing over and over and
not getting caught. Like right now, my obsession is truck
stop crime. So um, okay, So the truck driving bus
driving industry, which is calming because we're you know, we're
(08:25):
we're on a bus right now, we're among we're among
tons of drivers. But there's there's just this whole thing
about truck stops and um and working women prostitutes, and
lots of working women are being killed on truck and
(08:46):
bus routes. So because they are constantly on the move,
it's insanely hard to really trace when someone was where,
And a lot of these prostitutes are, um, you know,
unfortunately overlooked by society. They're not in the books. They're not.
They're not you know, they haven't paid their taxes, they're not.
(09:09):
So they're they're kind of like they just disappear and
nobody ever looks into it until some every once in
a while a family gives a ship and it's like,
where's my daughter? And then we find out she's been
gone for like ten years and she's in like a
river somewhere. So there's lots of these truck stop truck
route killings, and I'm really interested in where do you
(09:31):
find out about this? I saw I started watching some
kind of documentary on Netflix, and then I started looking
into it myself on the internet and looking on um
on all these sites and finding out all these like
unsolved crimes. Women just disappear. This is amazing. Okay, UM,
help listeners with this? How do you get started into
(09:55):
this obsession? If you had to give someone, um a
quick primer on maybe a couple of shows to watch,
for a couple of documentaries or books to read? What what what?
How would you point someone who was listening to this thing?
Goes man like, what's what's level one? I think level
(10:15):
one is you know dateline NBC UM and like I
really love certain journalists slash hosts like Keith Morrison. I
love like people's voices. If if a voice intrigues me,
so I would go. I would go to the I
D channel and watch some of the less kind of
camp shows, but there's a few that are really good.
(10:39):
I would go on UM on a podcast, and I
would listen to Cereal, which is everyone's favorite, but it's
a really good starting point because the way they do
it really involves you in in, you know, solving the crime,
and they actually don't solve it completely, um, but it
kind of gets you into that, you know. And then
(11:01):
I would go to maybe s Town and then start
on some you know, just forty eight hours, which is constant.
They're like forty minutes and you can listen to them,
and a lot of them are unsolved. Okay, what's leveled two?
Level two? Maybe I would go into forensics and I
would go to like forensic files and start looking at
like what traces people do leave, and like, right here,
(11:24):
there's evidence everywhere, But tell me about what evidence is
right here? All right? So you know, our fingerprints are everywhere, Um,
your jeans are ripped, so there's probably fibers that would
come off. Say, if you attack to me right now,
there's probably be fibers from your jeans, so we'd come off.
You know, I'd scratch you, there'd be skin under my nail.
(11:44):
There was a bus driver I talked to that I asked,
you know where which one your bus was? You would
know what time I came here around that I would
be the perpetrator. It's not you would be killing me,
which might be a little more possible in this imagining.
Totally totally no, and we just you'd look at the
timeline and just it's it's simple stuff, but there's just
(12:08):
everything you do leaves a trace, unless you're crazy and
you intentionally wear gloves are cut off the tops of
your fingers. When do you feel like you're across the line? Like,
do you have a line magically in your mind that
if you go across it that is too far into
true crime obsession? Yeah, I think maybe if I was
(12:28):
to like actively go and find I think that the
people I don't want to look down on anyone, but
I think the women that are like desperately in touch
with these serial killers in jail and like have formed
these obsessions with them because because a lot of murderers
get married while they're in jail, because women become obsessed
with the crimes, become obsessed with the man connected to
(12:49):
the crime, and they write these letters. And these guys
are in jail and they're bored and horny and lonely,
and they end up having these relationships. And I think
that's a little bit silly and desperate. This is the
whole thing I've never even heard. Okay, So lots of
um people in jail, you know, have fans. They're like
(13:10):
tons of fans like Charlie Manson, a tons of fans
Ted Bundy, tons of fans Green River Killer. Like they
were just these people that like women, that are like,
he's a bad boy, but I'm going to change him.
So yeah, I assume that. So what you're saying is
the line is you would never write one of those.
(13:30):
The line is I would never actually come into I mean,
I'm totally lying. If someone said, like you you could
interview a serial killer, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
But I wouldn't be there because I wanted to, Like Bond,
I'd be there because I wanted to like get the
inner workings of their of their brain. Would you enroll
in some sort of like like school school. I've just
(13:52):
never been a fan of school, but I think as
I get older, I'm more interested in in learning. Like
I never cared about learning. I was like, I'm a
sting and I'm going to be a star um. But
now you know, I probably would just because it's it's
cool to have other stuff going on, and obviously I'm interested,
(14:13):
as you can see, would you it seems like, because
you're a creative person, I'm I'm just making a suggestion,
but would you consider writing a story about like all
of the like you now know how these killers work?
You know, like you think you would be good at
at guiding a listener or or a reader. Well, I
(14:34):
actually thought a lot about and maybe you could help
me with this, about writing a serial killer record where
the songs were all based on different different um crimes.
I already wrote a song called Land and Sea. That's
that I put out a while ago. That's a based
on a murder and it's one of my favorite songs
I've ever written. But I thought about doing a whole
(14:55):
record of that murder ballots Okay, Okay, I accept, Okay,
let's do it. Let's do it. You know you said it,
and you said it on record. That's a great place
to stop. Chapter two. In every episode of Geeking Out,
(15:16):
I see if I can trade one thing I've discovered
recently with one thing that my guest has discovered. Anything
is admissible in this friendly exchange. I call trade you,
all right, This is uh the part of the podcast
that I call trade you. Um. It's just very simply
something I'm into, or something I've discovered or something i'm
around that I trade you one thing and you trade
(15:40):
me in exchange something else. And I'll go first so
that you will kind of get the idea and you'll
probably thinking about whatever it is you want to try.
I'm thinking right now. Um, I would say this, I
don't know anything about um uh women's uh makeup or
like I never had a sister. My mom was that
kind of person. Like I have a My daughter turns
(16:03):
their teen like in a week, and I still don't
know even what to feed her, you know. But there's
just a complete blink in there. And I love makeup
so well. Here's something that I have learned by osmosis
that there is a product that seems to kick the
butt of all other products for one particular thing. And um,
(16:24):
I guess, and I'm making a lot of this up
in my mind as I observed my daughter and I
observed the other people around me. But um, there's a
thing about eyelashes. Apparently they're very important. Um My brother
and I, Brandon and I both have like extremely weird,
like alienly long eyelashes and blond hair, so you don't
(16:44):
really see it. But there's an occasional moment where at
some drunk time some girls put mascara eyelashes and I
look like a princess, and um, and then they then
they then they started going, I would kill if your eyelashes, right,
And I had no idea this was such a big
deal until I started seeing people like stick on like
paste on eyelashes and the show I have fake And
(17:07):
then I saw their like magnetic like you can get
magnets that go on your eyes. Right. I don't even
know if they work, But there is a natural way,
well we sell call it natural is what I've heard.
But I've heard of a product that absolutely works, hands down,
no matter what. And it's it's called lash Boost, right.
(17:29):
It's rod dan in Fields, which is one of these
like the schemes, right, And I think you would love
this because I have I've seen some people do it,
and um, it literally does. I think you apply it
Rodan in Fields and it's called lash boost, and I
think you know, I'm buying it and buying it right now.
(17:53):
I think that, Um, the stories that I've heard and
this is just me being like creepy over here ring
other people, much like maybe in true crime. You know,
I'm just aware of things that are going on in
the room. And and and then I even asked the
other day, I was like, what exactly are you talking
about again? And somebody explained it to me and I
was like, okay, and they were just they were just
(18:14):
hitty chatting away at how important this is and how
long their eyelashes have gotten and in a very short time,
like within three weeks or something, a huge difference. So
that's my that's my trade for you is Roe danon
Field's lash Oh my god, this is amazing. It was
does that? Wait? Oh okay, I got one. Okay, do
(18:37):
you have any problems with sleepy? So I've done like
I'm a part of being a crazy person is that
I don't sleep naturally at all so um, I've been
listening to this weird yogi kind of podcast Yogi thing
(19:02):
yoga nigra or yoga nidra or yoga, and right, you
already know that basically takes you down your whole body
and he's like focus on your left to focus on
your middle two focus and you're like, oh, he's going
to like skip things. He's like, no, ankle, focus on
(19:29):
your inner thought, and he goes through everything until you're
so goddamn bored you fall asleep. Is that how it works?
I think so, because I got so pissed after a
couple of minutes of it. I was like, ah, we
haven't even gotten to the left side of my body
and I'm brutally bored. So then I just decided to
sleep during it, and it worked. I need you to
send this to me because I am sleep challenged. I'm
(19:53):
one of those people who as a kid stayed up
later and later and later just to see if I could,
and and it flips me over and I'm like, I'm
so immune to anything substance wise, because at this point,
my liver is a distillery and I've taken every single
thing to knock myself out, so I could take the
equivalent of what like a horse would take to go
(20:15):
to sleep, and my body's like sorry, So I need
to do all these weird, all this weird to just
try to rest and this kind of work just purely
out of boredom. I found my inner yogi out of
pure boredom. Okay, now it's it's say it again. What
was the name of it? Yoga? Nied dry, I think?
(20:37):
And is this a podcast? I just I googled it
and then I found the podcast and I just it's
I don't even know if it's a podcast or it's
just like a two hour YouTube thing and you just
put it on and then it's it works, it bores
you to sleep. That's awesome. Will you send it to me.
I'll send you the link right now. Well, Amy, thank
you for being here. Hey, thanks for having me. You're
(20:59):
a fantastic guest. And please don't premeditate killing me. I won't.
I won't as long as you give me something to do.
During Little Miss Chapter three, me geeking out on music,
(21:21):
songmaking the process of how we make the donuts. Taking
inspiration from this week's guest, I thought it might take
a stab at writing a murder ballot. It's more common
than you think for a songwriter to be asked to
write a song about a specific event or situation. It's
an ask that's made from movie directors, TV producers, advertising agencies,
(21:44):
and in my world, occasionally from a playwright. Even in
the writing rooms when we're making music for the radio,
many times we start with a story and write the
emotions surrounding it. If you can see the scene and
the relationship between the characters, the song and melody are
easier to imagine. I thought I might give you a
(22:05):
glimpse into what it takes to write a song on demand.
My most recent experience with this is writing the music
to the musical Troubadour. My partner Jennie Schaeffer, created a
world where the characters that she imagined had written their
own country hits, and these songs had to be created
between the years of five and one, and I had
(22:28):
no idea what those songs needed to sound like, or
even what kind of words or rhymes were popular at
the time. So I went to the Internet to go
exploring and followed some pretty specific steps to bring those
songs to life. That process that I use is the
one that I'll use here to attempt my first murder ballot.
(22:49):
Hang on, here we go. Step one, do your homework.
So I went in search of the definition and history
of the murder ballot it and here's what I found.
So it's a function of art to render unspeakable truths
into metaphors. Murder ballots were intended to tell the news
(23:10):
before there were newspapers. They typically recount the details of
a mythic or true crime. Who the victim is, why
the murderer decides to kill him or her, how the
victim is lured to the murder site, and then the
act itself, followed by the escape and or captured the murderer.
Often the ballot ends with the murderer and jail are
(23:33):
on their way to execution. It seems intense, right, Okay,
Step two? Get inspired? So I went looking for some examples.
The one that comes to mind immediately for me is
an old Appalachian folk song they called Knoxville Girl. I
grew up near Knoxville, so I was always fascinated by
(23:55):
the title. Here's the band b R five for nine
singing this dark story. I'm littker feeling wheel well and
every soon need out oh my twell, yeah, I love
(24:20):
the haunting sounds and dead pan delivery. See what I
did there? Okay, Uh, here's Johnny Cash singing, Delia's gone, Delia,
Oh dear you, dear youa my life. If I hadn't
a shot, oh Delia, I'd had her for my wife.
(24:43):
Delia is gone. One more round, Delia is gone. It
seems that his simple explanation gives the narrator some sort
of numb removed vantage point to tell the story. Now
a little twist, here's Dolly Parton telling the story of
a frustrated marriage proposal that ended in death. I started
(25:06):
on I started on Twins twelve and watch tw I cry,
my god? What have I talk the tonight? Because she
(25:28):
cau would not be fun by well lonely. Okay, I'm
gonna try one more, maybe something more traditional in case
I'm missing something, just listening to American artists, wondering there's
some other piece to the songwriting puzzle that comes from
(25:49):
maybe the European tradition. She walks these long black thing
she visits when the night winds ways. Nobody nobody, see nobody,
(26:20):
no but me. Step three, build a picture. Okay, so
I dove into the strangest part of the Ted Bundy story.
(26:41):
Some of this is Internet speculation, some seems true, but
in either case, it all seems like great soil for
a song to be plant. It turns out Ted Bundy
had a daughter. Here are the facts that seem crazy
but true. Apparently, Carol Anne met Ted Bundy in the
(27:02):
audience of one of his trials. Rumor is she believed
that he didn't do it. He later proposed to her
while he was in the courtroom representing himself, and she
was his witness, even though it was banned. There are
speculations that they had a conjugal visit and that carol
Anne got pregnant. The only other thing I noticed in
(27:24):
some weird corner of the web was the fact that
the mother never brought the daughter to meet her father. Now,
if this isn't a ripe story for a haunting, I
don't know what is Step four find a voice. I'm
now kind of convinced that the most fun thing to
imagine would be what if the daughter was writing a
(27:46):
song about her mother and father. I wonder if she
thinks about who made her, and wonders if she herself
is predisposed to killing. I started to imagine what kind
of life must it be to grow up knowing that
part of your DNA has serial Step five? Make it
structured and also make it fit the research. So here goes.
(28:12):
I sat and wrote some lyrics, and I looked at
where it led me. Try not to overthink it, make
sure to leave some room for a mystery. I also
kind of hid the Ted Bundy reference by using what
was probably his given name rather than his nickname Ted.
But I used the wife's real name, all right, enjoy.
(28:48):
Daddy's name was Edwards. NAMA's name Caroline. While he was
on trial for killing, he asked for hands if he
ever thought of hurting her. I guess I'll never know.
I was conceived in real road prison while he was
(29:10):
on deaf. If Daddy was a killer, maybe I'm a
killer to his blood runs red inside my head. I
don't know what I knew if I ever had to
lay you down and take your life from you from
(29:31):
the bird, Daddy was a killer. Maybe I'm a killer
to Daddy was a killer. Maybe I'm a killer to
(30:08):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of geeking out, and
we are all hard at work here on the next one.
Are you obsessed with something amazing I want to tell
us about it? Right to us at Geeking Out with
KB at gmail dot com and you might be a
guest on an upcoming episode. Come find out more about
me and this podcast at Christian Bush dot com, Christian
(30:29):
with a K, follow me at Christian Bush on Twitter,
Christian Bush on Instagram, Christian Bush on Facebook, and Christian M.
Bush on Snapchat. Thanks to Bobby Bones for the opportunity
to build this podcast, Brandon Bush for the editing and
the soundtrack, Tom Tapley for the audio wizardry, and Whitney
Pastrick for being a great producer and making this whole
(30:50):
thing possible. This is Christian Bush gigging out. Thank you
for listening.
Hello, This is Christian Bush and welcome to episode eleven
of my podcast Geeking Out. Every episode, I invite a
new person to talk about one thing that they're obsessed
with that has nothing to do with their job. The
only requirement is that they're totally geeking out on it
and they want to talk about it. From eyelid glitter
(00:22):
stickers to homemade camp stools, from collecting classic Hula girl lamps,
to do it yourself car painting, from made at home
soda flavors to Alaskan bear track in tell me about
what you love, why you love it, how you got
into it, and what makes it awesome. Each episode is
presented in three chapters. In chapter one, my guest and
(00:42):
I will have a conversation about their passion. In chapter two,
we play a game I called Trajan, where my guest
and I turn each other onto something cool we've recently discovered.
And in chapter three, I closed the show by talking
about music that I am currently geeked out on and
why I believe that cure curiosity is contagious and that
life is better with the soundtrack. So let the geeking
(01:05):
begin Chapter one. Today's guest is Amy Miriello. Amy is
a singer songwriter who recently relocated to Nashville and is
currently touring with my band's sugar Land as a background singer.
(01:26):
In addition to working as a touring singer with acts
like In Excess, Gavin DeGraw, and Nicholas Sha, she's also
an accomplished solo artist and songwriter for television and movies.
With the Sugarland tour underway, I took the opportunity to
sit down and get to know Amy and her dark curiosities.
(01:48):
It's just too as does Amy Miriello. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much, so happy to be here, Christian,
I am. I'm excited that you're here. And would you
explain to everybody first of all where we are and
and and who you are, like like your your name
and your job. Okay, um, we are in Anaheim, California,
(02:13):
and we are on the sugar Land still the same tour.
We're on your tour of us and I am your
backup singer. Yes, slash Tambourine slash Triangle slash shake Master
are do you plan to try? But no? I threw
that in like that's just a dream of mine. Dreams
(02:33):
come true here inam well, I shouldn't have said it
because now I feel like there's going to be a
triangle in my station. So what do you do for
a living? Like? What? What? What is your I'm a
singer songwriter, so I write songs UM for TV and
film mostly, which is called sync writing. UM. And sometimes
I'm successful at it and sometimes I make boogie drinks
(02:55):
for rich people. How long have you been doing that? Um?
I've been singing since I could talk, and I've been
professionally in the industry since I was a body teen.
So the this podcast has nothing to do with that.
Good This podcast is about essentially one. It has one rule,
and the rule is I want you to talk about
(03:16):
something that you are totally obsessed with, totally geeking out on,
that has nothing to do with your job, all right,
So what is it that you're obsessed with whether you're
geeking out on right now? I'm obsessed with crime. I'm
obsessed with serial killers, crime TV, more real real stuff.
So not not as much the scripted, although I do
(03:37):
love it a good SV you, UM, but I love
true crime, the i D Channel, um, you know, Forensic Files,
four D eight hours, Dateline, Like I'm just when I'm
not singing for you, man, I am solving crimes. This
is amazing. I'm collecting evidence on stage. And just do
(03:59):
you think that you've all more on the um the
side of solving the crime or committing the crime, Like
what's more fascinating to you? That's interesting? I think that
the psychology behind what it would take to commit a crime. So,
for instance, like we're all deep down like a little
(04:20):
bit psychotic. Everybody has that, especially musicians. I'm looking in
your eyes and like your a psycho, don't know, but
but we all have that part of us where like
something happens and you're like, what would it be like,
like like I hate this person so much, but think
about the person that maybe maybe it's not even because
(04:40):
of hate or but it's just because they enjoy it.
But is willing to take that next step and actually
kill someone. That's a whole another game. So I just
feel like I'm obsessed with that, like the psychology behind
what what makes you snap? Um? And then I'm also
really intrigued by forensics and like the ability to make
(05:04):
you know, there's really almost no crime that's untraceable at
this point, so we're really like we're smart people. Now
we can, you know. I mean, I feel like there's
a couple of ways I can think of hide to body,
but other than oh my gosh, I have so many questions.
When when did this start for you? When did this
start come coming on as an obsession? Definitely? I was
(05:27):
always a really morbid child, so I remember, like it
probably was like my early teens, this angsty morbid phase
and even before that, where I would I would come
down with my guitar and they'd be like, oh, she's
gonna sing us a really cute, little pretty song and
I'd be like, I want to kill everyone, and they'd
be like wow. I remember my aunt saying, wow, you're
(05:51):
so expressive. Because it was just I was obsessed and
I would ask, you know, lots of questions about death
and um, I would always want to watch scary movies,
and my brothers and my family, my parents weren't really
into it, so I was kind of just the only
one that was really into it. My mother will watch
crime with me, but she'll mostly fall asleep. So do
(06:15):
you watch these things alone? Christian? You don't understand, like
this is a real sick thing. Like I listened to
death podcast, like serial killer stories as I'm going to
sleep in my bunk on the bus, scaring the out
of myself. I once woke up to an exorcism being
performed and I had my in ears on, so it
(06:35):
was like inside my ears and a woman was screaming
bloody murder because they were doing an exorcism, and that's
what woke me up. So yeah, and I'm like, why
can't I sleep. I don't understand this like a Tim
Burton movie. This is like this, yeah, like I need help.
This is I'm actually asking you for help. Um, well,
(06:57):
then let's dive in. I assume that you have never
killed a person. Never have you known anyone who's killed
a person. No, I know someone who has killed That
was pretty brutal. Um. But like I think I've like
pulled someone's hair once. Like that's like that was like
when I was a drunk in Hollywood. I think I
like pulled the girls. I got in a bar fight
(07:19):
and pulled the chick's hair and then I got my
hair pulled. That's that's the extent of my violence. But
um but I'm just really intrigued. And what I found
is that just like any other obsession, like it keeps
getting more screwed up. So like, at this point, if
it's just someone getting shot up in a CVS, I'm
(07:40):
not interested. I need someone like someone's severed head, you know,
like like I can't I can't even be bothered with
normal crimes anymore. So at what point do you start
to become interested? Okay, premeditated I'm only interested in premeditated crime,
So lots of forethought, a lot the planning. Um, I'm
(08:01):
interested in crimes of passion. Um interested in u serial crime,
so someone doing the same thing over and over and
not getting caught. Like right now, my obsession is truck
stop crime. So um, okay, So the truck driving bus
driving industry, which is calming because we're you know, we're
(08:25):
we're on a bus right now, we're among we're among
tons of drivers. But there's there's just this whole thing
about truck stops and um and working women prostitutes, and
lots of working women are being killed on truck and
(08:46):
bus routes. So because they are constantly on the move,
it's insanely hard to really trace when someone was where,
And a lot of these prostitutes are, um, you know,
unfortunately overlooked by society. They're not in the books. They're not.
They're not you know, they haven't paid their taxes, they're not.
(09:09):
So they're they're kind of like they just disappear and
nobody ever looks into it until some every once in
a while a family gives a ship and it's like,
where's my daughter? And then we find out she's been
gone for like ten years and she's in like a
river somewhere. So there's lots of these truck stop truck
route killings, and I'm really interested in where do you
(09:31):
find out about this? I saw I started watching some
kind of documentary on Netflix, and then I started looking
into it myself on the internet and looking on um
on all these sites and finding out all these like
unsolved crimes. Women just disappear. This is amazing. Okay, UM,
help listeners with this? How do you get started into
(09:55):
this obsession? If you had to give someone, um a
quick primer on maybe a couple of shows to watch,
for a couple of documentaries or books to read? What what what?
How would you point someone who was listening to this thing?
Goes man like, what's what's level one? I think level
(10:15):
one is you know dateline NBC UM and like I
really love certain journalists slash hosts like Keith Morrison. I
love like people's voices. If if a voice intrigues me,
so I would go. I would go to the I
D channel and watch some of the less kind of
camp shows, but there's a few that are really good.
(10:39):
I would go on UM on a podcast, and I
would listen to Cereal, which is everyone's favorite, but it's
a really good starting point because the way they do
it really involves you in in, you know, solving the crime,
and they actually don't solve it completely, um, but it
kind of gets you into that, you know. And then
(11:01):
I would go to maybe s Town and then start
on some you know, just forty eight hours, which is constant.
They're like forty minutes and you can listen to them,
and a lot of them are unsolved. Okay, what's leveled two?
Level two? Maybe I would go into forensics and I
would go to like forensic files and start looking at
like what traces people do leave, and like, right here,
(11:24):
there's evidence everywhere, But tell me about what evidence is
right here? All right? So you know, our fingerprints are everywhere, Um,
your jeans are ripped, so there's probably fibers that would
come off. Say, if you attack to me right now,
there's probably be fibers from your jeans, so we'd come off.
You know, I'd scratch you, there'd be skin under my nail.
(11:44):
There was a bus driver I talked to that I asked,
you know where which one your bus was? You would
know what time I came here around that I would
be the perpetrator. It's not you would be killing me,
which might be a little more possible in this imagining.
Totally totally no, and we just you'd look at the
timeline and just it's it's simple stuff, but there's just
(12:08):
everything you do leaves a trace, unless you're crazy and
you intentionally wear gloves are cut off the tops of
your fingers. When do you feel like you're across the line? Like,
do you have a line magically in your mind that
if you go across it that is too far into
true crime obsession? Yeah, I think maybe if I was
(12:28):
to like actively go and find I think that the
people I don't want to look down on anyone, but
I think the women that are like desperately in touch
with these serial killers in jail and like have formed
these obsessions with them because because a lot of murderers
get married while they're in jail, because women become obsessed
with the crimes, become obsessed with the man connected to
(12:49):
the crime, and they write these letters. And these guys
are in jail and they're bored and horny and lonely,
and they end up having these relationships. And I think
that's a little bit silly and desperate. This is the
whole thing I've never even heard. Okay, So lots of
um people in jail, you know, have fans. They're like
(13:10):
tons of fans like Charlie Manson, a tons of fans
Ted Bundy, tons of fans Green River Killer. Like they
were just these people that like women, that are like,
he's a bad boy, but I'm going to change him.
So yeah, I assume that. So what you're saying is
the line is you would never write one of those.
(13:30):
The line is I would never actually come into I mean,
I'm totally lying. If someone said, like you you could
interview a serial killer, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
But I wouldn't be there because I wanted to, Like Bond,
I'd be there because I wanted to like get the
inner workings of their of their brain. Would you enroll
in some sort of like like school school. I've just
(13:52):
never been a fan of school, but I think as
I get older, I'm more interested in in learning. Like
I never cared about learning. I was like, I'm a
sting and I'm going to be a star um. But
now you know, I probably would just because it's it's
cool to have other stuff going on, and obviously I'm interested,
(14:13):
as you can see, would you it seems like, because
you're a creative person, I'm I'm just making a suggestion,
but would you consider writing a story about like all
of the like you now know how these killers work?
You know, like you think you would be good at
at guiding a listener or or a reader. Well, I
(14:34):
actually thought a lot about and maybe you could help
me with this, about writing a serial killer record where
the songs were all based on different different um crimes.
I already wrote a song called Land and Sea. That's
that I put out a while ago. That's a based
on a murder and it's one of my favorite songs
I've ever written. But I thought about doing a whole
(14:55):
record of that murder ballots Okay, Okay, I accept, Okay,
let's do it. Let's do it. You know you said it,
and you said it on record. That's a great place
to stop. Chapter two. In every episode of Geeking Out,
(15:16):
I see if I can trade one thing I've discovered
recently with one thing that my guest has discovered. Anything
is admissible in this friendly exchange. I call trade you,
all right, This is uh the part of the podcast
that I call trade you. Um. It's just very simply
something I'm into, or something I've discovered or something i'm
around that I trade you one thing and you trade
(15:40):
me in exchange something else. And I'll go first so
that you will kind of get the idea and you'll
probably thinking about whatever it is you want to try.
I'm thinking right now. Um, I would say this, I
don't know anything about um uh women's uh makeup or
like I never had a sister. My mom was that
kind of person. Like I have a My daughter turns
(16:03):
their teen like in a week, and I still don't
know even what to feed her, you know. But there's
just a complete blink in there. And I love makeup
so well. Here's something that I have learned by osmosis
that there is a product that seems to kick the
butt of all other products for one particular thing. And um,
(16:24):
I guess, and I'm making a lot of this up
in my mind as I observed my daughter and I
observed the other people around me. But um, there's a
thing about eyelashes. Apparently they're very important. Um My brother
and I, Brandon and I both have like extremely weird,
like alienly long eyelashes and blond hair, so you don't
(16:44):
really see it. But there's an occasional moment where at
some drunk time some girls put mascara eyelashes and I
look like a princess, and um, and then they then
they then they started going, I would kill if your eyelashes, right,
And I had no idea this was such a big
deal until I started seeing people like stick on like
paste on eyelashes and the show I have fake And
(17:07):
then I saw their like magnetic like you can get
magnets that go on your eyes. Right. I don't even
know if they work, But there is a natural way,
well we sell call it natural is what I've heard.
But I've heard of a product that absolutely works, hands down,
no matter what. And it's it's called lash Boost, right.
(17:29):
It's rod dan in Fields, which is one of these
like the schemes, right, And I think you would love
this because I have I've seen some people do it,
and um, it literally does. I think you apply it
Rodan in Fields and it's called lash boost, and I
think you know, I'm buying it and buying it right now.
(17:53):
I think that, Um, the stories that I've heard and
this is just me being like creepy over here ring
other people, much like maybe in true crime. You know,
I'm just aware of things that are going on in
the room. And and and then I even asked the
other day, I was like, what exactly are you talking
about again? And somebody explained it to me and I
was like, okay, and they were just they were just
(18:14):
hitty chatting away at how important this is and how
long their eyelashes have gotten and in a very short time,
like within three weeks or something, a huge difference. So
that's my that's my trade for you is Roe danon
Field's lash Oh my god, this is amazing. It was
does that? Wait? Oh okay, I got one. Okay, do
(18:37):
you have any problems with sleepy? So I've done like
I'm a part of being a crazy person is that
I don't sleep naturally at all so um, I've been
listening to this weird yogi kind of podcast Yogi thing
(19:02):
yoga nigra or yoga nidra or yoga, and right, you
already know that basically takes you down your whole body
and he's like focus on your left to focus on
your middle two focus and you're like, oh, he's going
to like skip things. He's like, no, ankle, focus on
(19:29):
your inner thought, and he goes through everything until you're
so goddamn bored you fall asleep. Is that how it works?
I think so, because I got so pissed after a
couple of minutes of it. I was like, ah, we
haven't even gotten to the left side of my body
and I'm brutally bored. So then I just decided to
sleep during it, and it worked. I need you to
send this to me because I am sleep challenged. I'm
(19:53):
one of those people who as a kid stayed up
later and later and later just to see if I could,
and and it flips me over and I'm like, I'm
so immune to anything substance wise, because at this point,
my liver is a distillery and I've taken every single
thing to knock myself out, so I could take the
equivalent of what like a horse would take to go
(20:15):
to sleep, and my body's like sorry, So I need
to do all these weird, all this weird to just
try to rest and this kind of work just purely
out of boredom. I found my inner yogi out of
pure boredom. Okay, now it's it's say it again. What
was the name of it? Yoga? Nied dry, I think?
(20:37):
And is this a podcast? I just I googled it
and then I found the podcast and I just it's
I don't even know if it's a podcast or it's
just like a two hour YouTube thing and you just
put it on and then it's it works, it bores
you to sleep. That's awesome. Will you send it to me.
I'll send you the link right now. Well, Amy, thank
you for being here. Hey, thanks for having me. You're
(20:59):
a fantastic guest. And please don't premeditate killing me. I won't.
I won't as long as you give me something to do.
During Little Miss Chapter three, me geeking out on music,
(21:21):
songmaking the process of how we make the donuts. Taking
inspiration from this week's guest, I thought it might take
a stab at writing a murder ballot. It's more common
than you think for a songwriter to be asked to
write a song about a specific event or situation. It's
an ask that's made from movie directors, TV producers, advertising agencies,
(21:44):
and in my world, occasionally from a playwright. Even in
the writing rooms when we're making music for the radio,
many times we start with a story and write the
emotions surrounding it. If you can see the scene and
the relationship between the characters, the song and melody are
easier to imagine. I thought I might give you a
(22:05):
glimpse into what it takes to write a song on demand.
My most recent experience with this is writing the music
to the musical Troubadour. My partner Jennie Schaeffer, created a
world where the characters that she imagined had written their
own country hits, and these songs had to be created
between the years of five and one, and I had
(22:28):
no idea what those songs needed to sound like, or
even what kind of words or rhymes were popular at
the time. So I went to the Internet to go
exploring and followed some pretty specific steps to bring those
songs to life. That process that I use is the
one that I'll use here to attempt my first murder ballot.
(22:49):
Hang on, here we go. Step one, do your homework.
So I went in search of the definition and history
of the murder ballot it and here's what I found.
So it's a function of art to render unspeakable truths
into metaphors. Murder ballots were intended to tell the news
(23:10):
before there were newspapers. They typically recount the details of
a mythic or true crime. Who the victim is, why
the murderer decides to kill him or her, how the
victim is lured to the murder site, and then the
act itself, followed by the escape and or captured the murderer.
Often the ballot ends with the murderer and jail are
(23:33):
on their way to execution. It seems intense, right, Okay,
Step two? Get inspired? So I went looking for some examples.
The one that comes to mind immediately for me is
an old Appalachian folk song they called Knoxville Girl. I
grew up near Knoxville, so I was always fascinated by
(23:55):
the title. Here's the band b R five for nine
singing this dark story. I'm littker feeling wheel well and
every soon need out oh my twell, yeah, I love
(24:20):
the haunting sounds and dead pan delivery. See what I
did there? Okay, Uh, here's Johnny Cash singing, Delia's gone, Delia,
Oh dear you, dear youa my life. If I hadn't
a shot, oh Delia, I'd had her for my wife.
(24:43):
Delia is gone. One more round, Delia is gone. It
seems that his simple explanation gives the narrator some sort
of numb removed vantage point to tell the story. Now
a little twist, here's Dolly Parton telling the story of
a frustrated marriage proposal that ended in death. I started
(25:06):
on I started on Twins twelve and watch tw I cry,
my god? What have I talk the tonight? Because she
(25:28):
cau would not be fun by well lonely. Okay, I'm
gonna try one more, maybe something more traditional in case
I'm missing something, just listening to American artists, wondering there's
some other piece to the songwriting puzzle that comes from
(25:49):
maybe the European tradition. She walks these long black thing
she visits when the night winds ways. Nobody nobody, see nobody,
(26:20):
no but me. Step three, build a picture. Okay, so
I dove into the strangest part of the Ted Bundy story.
(26:41):
Some of this is Internet speculation, some seems true, but
in either case, it all seems like great soil for
a song to be plant. It turns out Ted Bundy
had a daughter. Here are the facts that seem crazy
but true. Apparently, Carol Anne met Ted Bundy in the
(27:02):
audience of one of his trials. Rumor is she believed
that he didn't do it. He later proposed to her
while he was in the courtroom representing himself, and she
was his witness, even though it was banned. There are
speculations that they had a conjugal visit and that carol
Anne got pregnant. The only other thing I noticed in
(27:24):
some weird corner of the web was the fact that
the mother never brought the daughter to meet her father. Now,
if this isn't a ripe story for a haunting, I
don't know what is Step four find a voice. I'm
now kind of convinced that the most fun thing to
imagine would be what if the daughter was writing a
(27:46):
song about her mother and father. I wonder if she
thinks about who made her, and wonders if she herself
is predisposed to killing. I started to imagine what kind
of life must it be to grow up knowing that
part of your DNA has serial Step five? Make it
structured and also make it fit the research. So here goes.
(28:12):
I sat and wrote some lyrics, and I looked at
where it led me. Try not to overthink it, make
sure to leave some room for a mystery. I also
kind of hid the Ted Bundy reference by using what
was probably his given name rather than his nickname Ted.
But I used the wife's real name, all right, enjoy.
(28:48):
Daddy's name was Edwards. NAMA's name Caroline. While he was
on trial for killing, he asked for hands if he
ever thought of hurting her. I guess I'll never know.
I was conceived in real road prison while he was
(29:10):
on deaf. If Daddy was a killer, maybe I'm a
killer to his blood runs red inside my head. I
don't know what I knew if I ever had to
lay you down and take your life from you from
(29:31):
the bird, Daddy was a killer. Maybe I'm a killer
to Daddy was a killer. Maybe I'm a killer to
(30:08):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of geeking out, and
we are all hard at work here on the next one.
Are you obsessed with something amazing I want to tell
us about it? Right to us at Geeking Out with
KB at gmail dot com and you might be a
guest on an upcoming episode. Come find out more about
me and this podcast at Christian Bush dot com, Christian
(30:29):
with a K, follow me at Christian Bush on Twitter,
Christian Bush on Instagram, Christian Bush on Facebook, and Christian M.
Bush on Snapchat. Thanks to Bobby Bones for the opportunity
to build this podcast, Brandon Bush for the editing and
the soundtrack, Tom Tapley for the audio wizardry, and Whitney
Pastrick for being a great producer and making this whole
(30:50):
thing possible. This is Christian Bush gigging out. Thank you
for listening.
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