Tyson Motsenbocker

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Archback between the rains to the blades and the tall
grassberries and I'm still surprised wherever you go. Beat like
the dust from a breezeway man a way.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
For today, We've got Tyson Mattzenbacher with us for the
second time on this podcast. It's been a few years
I think since the last time we chatted. I think
it was with that last album, and here you are
now got a new album out, super excited to chat
about it. I was listening to it today. Huge fan.
I will say, Tyson, I don't say and I don't

(00:51):
say this lightly because I don't say this to a
lot of people. You are criminally underrated. Like you really
truly are criminally underrated. There are there were so many
times where I listened to your music, not just this
this current album, but especially because of this current album,
but even some of your older music. I listened to
it sometimes and I'm like, how is this guy not
one of the biggest singer songwriters in the world, Like

(01:12):
how are you not at like Soufion Stevens level, How
are you not at like boniy Vere level?

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Like it doesn't make sense.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
To me because you were so freaking talented, but and
I don't know if I don't know if you take
that as a compliment or if you feel like that's
more of a dig. Like, I don't know how you
feel about that, but I will just say I think
you're criminally underrated, and I think it's a compliment. But
you can take it however you want.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
No, I deeply appreciate that. That's very kind. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
This this record is is a lot of fun in
a completely different way than some of your other records.
I would say, would you agree with that? Yeh?

Speaker 1 (01:48):
I think actually maybe this record was the least fun
for me because I did it well, because I did
it one hundred percent myself. Yeah, so it was it
was fun. But also by the end of it, it
was and it's like, however many songs, fourteen songs or whatever,
and it was like pretty much all just me in
here all day long, like toiling over it. But I

(02:08):
think after I was done and I zoomed out, especially
like some of the spoken words stuff and the like
the you know, just the kind of internet stuff was
was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
So yeah, when you work so hard on something, I
don't know how you feel like it compares to other
albums that you've done. But when you work so hard
on an album, especially something like this, where you're like
clearly you're doing it all entirely by yourself, do you
feel like it's one of those things where you have
to like it has to hit the audience or it

(02:40):
feels like it was just not worthwhile or is there
something truly like for you in the artistic creative process
where you're like, regardless of how hard I work at this,
because I'm working so hard at it, it like is
intrinsically rewarding or does it feel like for you still
where it's like, Okay, if I'm going to work this
hard at something, it's got a hit, Like in some way.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
That's an interesting question. I mean, like I feel like
you never you just I mean, you guys know this too,
but like you never know what is gonna do well,
like you just you really don't like I mean, you know,
you know, you like pick singles and stuff like maybe
they'll like this one or maybe this one like and I,
and there are some things that you do kind of
like you know, people look tend to like love songs

(03:23):
and they like stuff like that like that people tend
to gravitate in mass more to things that are like
heartier than things that are headier, you know, stuff like that.
But I mean I had this moment like on the
last record that I made, which which is called Milk Teeth,
and it was like it was it was kind of
a departure from what I was used usually doing. It

(03:44):
was a little bit more. It was like a little
bit more rock and roll and stuff like that, right,
and there was I had this moment where I was
like because the whole time, I was like kind of
like this is my this is like my big this
will be my big takeoff record type thing, because up
until that point, like everything that I had done was
kind of like it would you know double or triple
the one before it, and you know, listeners and stuff
like that. And I remember we like we finished the record.

(04:07):
We were up in like LA and I was standing
out on the porch and I was like, I was
just so proud of it, and I mean it with
some people that I really love, and I was like,
oh man, this is like this is this thing's going
to do so good. And I was out on the porch,
I was like, if it never does anything like this
has to be the moment, like this has to be
the whole reward is that I'm just sitting here and
I just finished it, and I think it's great. And

(04:29):
ironically that record like at least numerically did very poorly,
Like it didn't really yeah, it just like it did
a lot worse than everything else that I've ever done,
which which was and so going into this one, it
was like this interesting thing of being like, man, I
thought that was going to be kind of the thing
that was like the going to be the big commercial
success in it, and it wasn't. And that's fine. Like

(04:51):
I think like if you make enough things, you know,
you just somethings too well, something's to us well. And
so from going to this one, I was just like, man,
I just I kind of just don't care. I Like
on this one, I was just like I don't really
care what it does later. It's just like the goal
for this record was to make the most me thing
I could make. I think like part of getting a

(05:12):
little bit older too, is that you just realized that, like,
at least for me, like like I just never like
super specialized in anything, you know, I'm not like I'm
not a surgeon. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not like
a really great guitar player. The only thing that I've
really been working at for the past ten years is
trying to figure out how to be the most it
is trying how to be figure out how to be me.

(05:33):
And so I was like, that's if anything, if I'm
an expert at anything, it's being me. It's like writing
these songs the way that I write them, into sing
the way that I sing, to play guitar like I
play guitar. And so this record was way more about
like it was like if other records that I've had
have been about kind of posturing, not not really like
I've always done this, but to a certain degree of

(05:54):
trying to like play a game, which is like if
I make this and I do this tour and then
I go over here and do this social media thing,
then that'll build this world that I can just kind
of live in for the rest of my life. And
kind of having the bottom of that fall out on
the last record where I very much didn't have something
to stand on like I had had before, and like

(06:16):
maybe I had hoped that I would later, it was
way more just like, well then I guess the answer
is just to make the most me thing that I can,
which meant like really trusting my gut, really leaning into
the way that I write, especially lyrically, and then doing
some of the like you know, doing the spoken words
stuff and they really visual like soundtracked things and kind

(06:37):
of dancing around these themes of the way that I
do think. So, yeah, I don't know. I think that
like this record, when I made it, I was like,
who cares, I don't Like, I'm just going to completely
retreat within myself, which in some ways was a pretty painful,
difficult process, and then also allow it to be exactly
what it is without any concept of like what might

(06:58):
happen to it out in the world.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Can you take us a little bit more into like
what you mean by like retreat within yourself?

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah, I mean, like one of the things that I
do when I write songs that I think, Like what
I've learned is that I like, even even when I
try to write songs with other people, I'm not very
good at it. And I couldn't really figure out why,
and I realized it's because when I'm writing songs, I'm

(07:29):
I'm living like in my I'm I'm I'm I'm living
like within my own imaginations so vividly that it's difficult
because no one else is in there with me. It's
just like I can't I can't invite anyone else into
this place that I'm in, especially when it's doing, Like
when it's working. It's like a very visual, vivid imagination

(07:50):
that I'm living in, and it becomes really simple, like
because like I'm trying to give a good example, but
like every song on the record, I can tell you
like visibly and physically where they take place. And I
would kind of just like like, for instance, the first
song on the record, or the first thing that we
weally is called Minor Love, and it's about this person
that's not getting what they want. And I just was

(08:13):
like sitting here one day in this little studio, and
I was like thinking about when I was in second grade,
I used to walk home from school and there was
this cemetery where like I grew up in the wheat
fields in eastern Washington, and there was a cemetery that
like someone had built and like a really long time ago,
in eighteen hundreds, and that all the sand from the
wheatfields had just like totally erased all the names on

(08:34):
these headstones, and I was thinking about I just had
this visual feeling of like these headstones that had been
like totally erased there, just like had been erased by
the sand, and thinking like, oh man, this is so
much of what all of us are trying to do
is to like leave our mark on the world. At
the end of the day, it's talk going to be
erased anyway, so so it really doesn't matter. So and

(08:56):
then and then kind of like adding that to this
feeling of being a lonely young person and like kind
of the balance between greatness and like personal fulfillment or
relationships and things like that. And so that was for me,
was was was doing, was retreating into that world like
more and more and more and more and more, and

(09:17):
even doing things where I was like obsessing over I
was obsessing over details that like are just like our
mutual friend Dan Coke is a great example. We were
just talking about him before we started recording, but Dan
is very, very good. A lot of the commercial music
that I've done that's been successful has been with Dan,
and it's because Dan can look at something and he
can know what he wants it to do later and

(09:38):
he only follows the road that will lead him to
that destination. He does that in all of his work,
and for me, it's like the more that I do that,
the more lost I get. It's like I can't actually
do that, so like I'm thinking, like there's an example
on I have one song on this record that like
I literally found a VHS player and a bunch of

(09:59):
old cassettes like VHS tapes, and like it was a
TV VHS combo, and I built this loop out of
these VHS sounds, like the like the way the tape
sounds and you put it in and the way that
it pops when it turns on. That was like the
kick drum, and then the static was the snare drums
and the high ass off and then I ran that
all of that into this other tape machine and made
a loop out of it. And that took me like
four days to like do this thing that in the

(10:22):
mix is like almost lost, Like you can't unless I
show Like unless I show you it, it's like you
would never know that it was even really there, and
it was. But for me, it was the process of
being like this is a waste of time, Like I
know what I'm doing is a waste of time. But
in order for me to live vividly in the place
that this song is, I have to do these things
like I have to I have to do these things

(10:43):
that are not very efficient and they're not leading me
to it being a commercial success or whatever, like or
like if I was trying to reverse engineer it or whatever.
I just had to do it because that was like,
the thing that was that felt alive to me in
that moment was this thing, and I had to follow
that no matter or what it was, you know.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
I think what that is, though, what that leads to
in the in the songs is such a genuine and
authentic feeling that I've not heard this in a record recently.
I mean, it feels like you're in the room with me,
and it has so much I don't know how else

(11:25):
to explain. It feels very tangible, like the whole record does,
every single tune, And I almost kind of wonder if
you know, maybe like that loop, for example, the elements
that you're placing in here really do shine through, even
though they might be subconscious or maybe you know, resting

(11:46):
in the background a little bit. It definitely adds an
atmosphere that is extremely unique to this record.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
That's like, that's like the coolest thing you could say.
I love that. Yeah, I think that's that's like even
going back to what I was saying about being like
an expert, that I'm not really an expert on very
many things. And a lot of this is like I
think in an era of efficiency, like you know, kind
of us chasing these efficient avenues to the to the
greater end goal or whatever. I just I wanted this

(12:18):
album to feel like I was like I was kind
of like like really struggling on certain things. Like there's
like I played I have a whole cello arrangement that
I play at the end of the very last song.
That's like I can't play the cello at all, like
I have one. But it was like these things that
are very tactile, very difficult to use, like like I

(12:39):
have this tape machine that's stits in over here that's
like an old tape machine, and it's like it's hard
to use, and I would I didn't really know how
to use it. I would just like run stuff into it.
It was basically me trying to or like I have
all these analog synthesizers on this record, and I can barely.
I can play the keys in like four, I can
play like G, D, E and C, and that's that's
like on the keys. But like so I would have

(13:01):
to figure out how to use various speed to slow
things down and change pitch or like things that I
don't really know how to do, and I'm the only
one in here, so like no one is going to
come show me how to do it better or whatever.
It's just gonna have to be me, So it is.
I think this record is a lot of me, of
me struggling with things that I don't know how to do,
with machines that are very tactile and real that are
kind of unforgiving and inefficient, and that I think when

(13:26):
it's working, it leads to this place of like it
feeling very tactile and very out of time. It feels
like it doesn't feel it doesn't feel like unmodern, like
it doesn't feel old, but it also definitely doesn't feel
like it's something that was made in twenty twenty five either. Yeah,
it feels like it's kind of outside of that in
a way. So yeah, I really appreciate you saying that.

(13:47):
That's like probably the coolest thing that you say.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
So, you know, you were talking about this like story
of like recording in a way where you're like, it's
obviously very intentional, but you just sort of know that
this is inefficient and it's actually not going to be
from from like a listener standpoint.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
You know that this is not going to be something
that's going to be all that noticed.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
And I wonder, like, for you, especially as a singer songwriter,
like how do you balance that with obviously wanting to
be very genuine and very authentic to the music that
you're creating and balance that with Okay, I also like
need some sort of pop sensibility, because like I am
trying to write this for a number of people, Like like,

(14:31):
clearly this is not like avant garde where it's just
like you're creating like some really weird, interesting thing that
might actually be truly authentic, but like nobody's ever going
to actually care about it. Like there must be some
level of like wanting some people to care about it.
And I guess like when I'm like asking this question,

(14:51):
I'm like thinking of it through the context of like
I know, last time we chatted, like you're good friends
with John Foreman, and he like he's kind of tapped
in this really interesting kind of balance of that, it
seems like where he's able to write music that clearly
seems to be authentic to who he is, and he
just has this talent or this capacity to write not

(15:15):
just authentic songs, but songs that, like he knows that
clearly are gonna be catchy or at the very least
could end up could.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
End up being catchy.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
And you know, clearly like switch Foot has gotten lucky
in some ways, and you know, they've gotten big and
you know in certain circles, and yeah, I'm just curious,
like how do you balance that as an artist? Like
how do you try to like create things that are
gonna be authentic, but also balancing that in a way
where you know, at the end of the day, you're
trying to create music for other people, not just yourself.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
This is so good. John is a very unique creature
in so many ways. But actually we both have a
mutual friend who passed away from brain cancer last year,
and he was a guy that wrote. He was in
that band of oc super Tones, if you remember them,
Oh yeah, and he was in a bunch of other bands.

(16:09):
He was in a bunch of kind of like that
world of Christian ska. And then he wrote some like
Jonas Brothers songs and some Miley Cyrus he wrote like
that little guitar part at the Beginning party in the USA.
No way really yeah, that's why. And he's a dear
friend of mine and he uh. I remember like when

(16:30):
I was first started playing music. He he like kind
of took me aside and he was like he's a
pop guy, like really good at pop music, and I
was like Northwest, like yeah, like Soufian Stevens was like
a little too poppy, like growing up, you know. And
he took me aside and he was like he's like, man,
you're building. He's like, you're building these rooms and they're beautiful.

(16:53):
They're like so ornate. And he's like he's like, it's
they're so ornate and they're so beautiful and there's thought
out and and he's like he's like, but they're fucking
impossible to access? Is that? Can I swear? I could
swear on this course, That's what he said to me.
He's like, he's like, you gotta build some doors and
you got to build some windows. He's like, or else

(17:15):
you have this beauty of this box that no one
can access. And he uh, I don't know. He was
very formative to me in that, which is this thing
of being like to make music that is unaccessible on
purpose is actually just like kind of insane. It's like
kind of like I mean, kind of being narcissistic or

(17:36):
at least Aaron at the least.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, yeah, the idea that like like that people should
I mean, especially in this day and age, it's actually
easier to do to do it because there's so much
stuff in the world that it is so that like
in the we have an attention economy and all this,
and like if you don't have some sort of a hook,
like people just want it'll just go down the river.
Whereas like when I was growing up, I think there

(17:59):
was a certain amount of like if it was inaccessible,
you had to kind of try, and that made you
smarter something. But now people just don't care. It's like
if I don't get it, I don't get it, I'm
gonna let it. There's a five hundred thousand more things
come down the pike and her right now. So yeah,
like I think like like in like creating places that

(18:19):
that are accessible to people, that people can trying to
invite them into it because you know, at the end
of the day, like making artists supposed to it's if
when it's done right, it's supposed to give people context
for their own lives, like it's supposed to allow it's
supposed to give people, you know, context, Like that's really
what I think it is. It's like, oh my gosh,

(18:41):
like this this thing is this song. I mean, you know,
like people come up to me and they don't at
shows and they don't say, oh my goodness, your guitar
tone on this thing is so cool. I mean sometimes
they do, but then if they do, they don't actually care.
They're like that's impressive or whatever. But and if they
use it that it's because they're trying to have cool
guitar tone on their records. It's way more. It's way

(19:03):
more about people coming out to me and being like,
you know, my wife and I we were on a
road trip through Nebraska and we were listening to this
song and it became our thing, and now we listen
to it, you know, every Sunday night when we make dinner,
and it's like part of our lives. That's like, actually
the coolest thing ever is like, if I can make
something that goes into the world, then that's way cooler

(19:23):
to me than like having some genius thing that no
one cares about. It's like, right, so so, and also
at the same time, uh, something that I know about
myself and maybe this is like maybe this is self
fulfilling prophecy or whatever, but like I just know that
I'm not for everybody like I'm I'm, I'm a very

(19:44):
specific thing. It's like I That's another funny example about
like the room's analogy is like when you're in these
in this in this room that you're building, it's like
I remember like thinking about the same It's like I'm
looking at this one little window into the world, and
out of my little window, everyone likes the same stuff.
They all know who David Bizon is, and they all

(20:06):
have read, you know, the Word of the Rings, and
they all think that, uh, Severance is a great TV show.
It's like we all like the same stuff. We all
think that these kinds of pants are good and these
kinds of these kind of pants are bad. Like it's
like everyone I know that we're all looking out of
the same window. And then you look to your left

(20:26):
and there's there's a half a million people at a
Pitbull concert and you're just like, oh, yeah, I just
I am operating in a very small piece of the world.
You're like, me and the people that I know like
something that in the broad scheme of the world, almost
no one else likes. Like, we're in this very small
and you're probably even like, who are this half million

(20:49):
people that are at this pit Bull show? Because you
don't know any of those people, and you're like, who
the fuck shows up to this exactly? Or like you know,
you go to the airport and you're like, oh, people
wear those shoes? Who would wear these shoes? Everyone? Apparently
they all are wearing the same shoes. It's like, oh,
they're like there's a lot of people that like a
lot of things that I don't like. So it's like

(21:12):
that thing of leaning into being who I am is
also like with the knowledge of sacrificing that most people
won't like it, Like if I do it really well,
most people won't like it. But if I do, but
if I do it even better than really well, the
people that could like it will love it. And yeah,

(21:34):
and that like I guess like that that's sort of
always in the back of my mind is that like
I need it to be accessible to the people who
could love it, and I need it to be unaccessible
to everyone else, because otherwise it won't be very good.
It's just like, that's just the nature of what I do.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
You know, I'm reminded of a I don't remember which
comedian this was that said this, but they had sold
out Madison Square Garden three nights in a row. They're
absolutely killing it. And I guess here's like this old
joke that he basically recycled, and he said something along
the lines of like, look at this, Look how many

(22:09):
people are here. This is amazing, This is this is incredible,
isn't it. He's like the eternal pessimist in me can
only think about all the people who walked right on
by outside right totally, you touch so many people, but
there's there's endlessly more people that are are not paying

(22:30):
attention or are not interested or like, like you're saying, like,
you're operating such a very small part of the world,
and it doesn't matter how big you are, you're still
only going to operate a very small part of the world.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well, that's such an interesting insight because I think about
that at some of the shows that you and I
you know call them that we go to where it's like,
you know, even like we would go to Furnace Fest,
like you know, there's gonna be ten thousand people there
or whatever it is, right, and I still think to myself,
who are the people that just like are totally unaware
which clearly is happening in Birbunion, Like there there are hundreds,
if not thousands of people that are totally unaware that

(23:04):
this festival is even going on. And in our little
niche world that for those ten thousand people, this is
maybe the most important weekend of our lives. And there
are so many other people that have no idea any
of this is going on, and yet for our little
world it's the most important thing. That to me is
like a fascinating dynamic that happens in our world.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
It's very very interesting. I mean, there's that is that
it's it's I think like success is something in fact,
like when you brought John up. John is someone that
I talked about this without a like at large, like
at length, which is the idea of success because like
I remember very vividly I called John for I was
in New York one time and I called him and

(23:46):
I was like, what, like what makes you successful? You know,
it's like, what's the metric? And he was basically like,
that's that is the thing that you have to define
like for yourself, and you have to figure that out
soon because if you don't find it, nothing will matter,
like nothing will hit that or whatever. And even like
there's that great quote from David Foster Wallace where you know,

(24:09):
he wrote Infinite just and it was like a gigantic
commercial success, but he and you know, everyone was saying
this is the greatest book ever written or whatever, and
it was a New York Times number one, and and
he had he said that his whole life, he felt
like no one liked his books because they were because
they were smart books and people were stupid. Basically, he
was like, I write smart books and people are too

(24:29):
stupid to understand them, so like I'll never be successful.
And then Infinite just explodes. And he basically said, like
I had to come to this. I had to ask
myself this question, like were my old books bad or
is Infinite just bad? And I was right before? Or
is it like completely all disconnected? And who even knows

(24:51):
like it's it's like that thing of being like you
just can't you can't chase. Here's another example, like like
my band Telephone Friends that I'm in with John Induson
and stuff. We we went to we played it the
last week, we played the Nashville soccer game. We played that.
We were the halftime show at the Nashville soccer game
with with Messi, which was cool. Did you see soccer Jesus?

(25:16):
I did? I did? And I am a big fan
of his band. Yeah, he's got an okay band.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
I love his band, dude, it's our It's just all right, yes,
and you know about this right, yes?

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Okay, Okay. Should we tell people what you're talking about?
I mean we can.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Okay, So if if you all are listening and you
have no idea that there's a famous person at these
Nashville soccer games, I forget what their Their soccer team
is called the Nashville and everything. Yeah, so they have
a super fan who comes in every single game as Moses.

(25:56):
I think they call him soccer Moses or football Moses
or whatever his name is. But it's actually and you
would know his first name, but but it's the guitarist
I think is what he does.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, he's the guitarist for Charts of Clay. Yeah, yeah,
which is another one of my first concerts. I actually
think I think Jars of Clay is such a cool band.
Oh they stand up so well huge time. Yeah. So
what I was I always thought of like jarsa Clay.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Like when I look back now, I'm like, they were
the like CCM version of the National Dude.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
They're so good, so good all the way. Yeah. So
when we were playing that game, you know, there were
like thirty they were like thirty some there was like
forty thousand people there or something like that, and I
was looking out and I was like, also, like after
my last record, I got dropped off every Spotify playlist,
Like they dropped me off with everything. I think partly

(26:48):
because I was I don't know if that was on
purpose or not, but I started talking crab about Spotify
and then all of a sudden, I got dropped off
of all the playlists. So anyway, so I was my
month listeners went down from more to around forty forty
ish thousand monthly listeners. And I was sitting there looking

(27:08):
at the and like that's embarrassing, Like it's in the
world that I'm living in. It's like if you're you know,
there's people that have one song that just gets on
a TikTok thing, now they've got six million monthly listeners
or whatever. I've been doing this for ten years, so
this is like I have a low amount of listeners
for like, if you were to ask people that are
doing this professionally at the level that I'm trying to
do this out, it's like a low number. And so

(27:30):
I was sitting there, I was looking at the soccer
stadium and I was like, this many people listen to
my songs every single month, Like that is That's crazy,
That's that's insane. And I sit here and I'm like depressed,
and I like don't want to tell people my Spotify
numbers because they're like low or whatever, because they're all
artificially inflated by this algorithmic system that we have that

(27:51):
like actually puts no emphasis on value or like why
people are listening to music or any of this stuff.
It's just like it's a giant, massive numbers that you're
trying to make go up however you can. It doesn't
matter what those numbers mean. You just wanted to go up,
and I think I being like, if you like my
high school self, or my even my call self, or
even the self of me that started doing this ten
years ago, I'm hitting the success metrics at every mark.

(28:15):
Like I have a whole soccer stadium of people that
listen to me every month without any Spotify playlists, and
I you know, I can still tour, and I can
still you know, I have friends that and people generally like,
you know, they like what I make, and people that
email me and tell me they're walking down the isle
at their wedding to my song or whatever. But it is,

(28:35):
it's just a very strange time in the world when
it comes to this idea of success, especially in the
arts or in podcasting or in you know, any of
this stuff. It's just like it's it's it's like the
complete absence of anything localized or real or tangible or
low or you know, close. It's all about you. You
flush this thing that you pour your hard into down
the toilet, into the black abyss of the internet, and

(28:57):
then you just want these numbers to go up that
are completely disconnected from people. And it's just like it's strange.
It's a strange time, and I think that like really
doing a little bit of accounting into like what success
means to you is important. That's for me at least, that's.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Been especially now, right. I mean, I don't think that
this system can last forever. I don't think it can
even last to the end of the decade, to be honest.
It's just it's people are going to start craving something
different than what the Spotify's of the world are are

(29:35):
making people chase, you know, right, It's clear that you've
you've really like contemplated and reflected on the idea of success,
and I think that's a very important thing because just
like you were talking about with with modern worries here,
like you had to kind of discover what does everything

(29:56):
mean for you? What does what does music mean for you?
What does putting this out to the world mean for you?
And and who are you as an artist? That's I
wonder how many people are going on that journey right now.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
I think a lot are and a lot of people
are are I mean, yeah, Like I like I just
listened to this to that podcast The Dan Dude with
John Mark McMillan about how John Mark's he's he's like
quitting touring forever and he's a guy that I toured
with before and I like John Mark very much, and

(30:34):
listening to him talk, it was this, it was this
and and that's something that's been across the board. Like
I have a lot of friends that are like, we're done,
like this is we're not We're not touring and maybe
we're kind of just done, and it's this. I think
it's a yeah, it's it's like kind of the carving

(30:54):
out of the middle of the middle class a little bit.
And at the end of the day, I think that's
why this record for me, it was like I had
to like that sort of underlying feeling of success is
very present for me. It's like because every every record
I've made ever until now was you know, it was

(31:15):
like it was on fire with this this young man's
drive to like conquer the world, and it was and
I think this was the first one that was just like, Okay,
I've been I've done this for ten years and I
made a bunch of stuff and I really don't have
any control over what happens to it after I make it.

(31:40):
And in sort of every way, this is the thing
that I loved. The mouse is the actual process of
making it and having had made it, the the you know,
the personal journey that I have to go on to
get it across the finish line. And I was just
a little bit of like, you know what, I I
don't even really care what happens to it after this,
but I wonder what will happen if I if I

(32:02):
make it where the discipline is to not think about that.
The discipline is to make it completely in any way
that I can how I want to for me. And
I think that's why it sounds like it sounds. I mean,
it's funny like when people like when I'm doing these
types of things now, people like, oh, we love it
so much, like it's so great, and I'm like, I

(32:23):
don't know what I think about it anyway, Like if
I'm being totally honest with you, I'm like, I have
listened to those songs. I mean, some of those songs
have had twenty versions of them. It's like, you know,
like h like Mine Love probably has had four different
drum tracks on it that have been pulled in and out,
so like I don't even really I've completely lost context,

(32:46):
but I but I made it in a way that
felt very close and very real and very divorced from
the idea of success, just kind of to seek this
thing in its purest form to the very end that
I could go. And now it's just like it is
very much not mine anymore, like which which has not
happened in the past. You know, it's like, yeah, it's gone,

(33:08):
it's it's out. I did, I like poured everything that
I had into this from the perspective of just it
being just making it as good and as me as
I could. Yeah, so for better or for worse, it's
like it's that's it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
So yeah, not to like equivocate at all, because I
definitely don't think it's equal in really any shape or form.
But you know, obviously there is a I think there's
a difference between creating music versus creating something like a
podcast like this, And at the same time, uh, like

(33:44):
I often think about, like, yeah, this this could be
a way bigger podcast like that there's podcasts out there
that maybe do similar kind of thing or whatever where
they're interviewing similar kind of artists or whatever, and they're
way bigger, And I could look at those and have
that sort of jealousy or kind of wonder like why
why is this not as big or whatever? And at
the same time, I just like, I think I've gotten

(34:06):
to at least with him myself. I don't I'm not
gonna speak for you, Culin, but like, for at least
for me, I at the end of the day think, Okay,
the creation of this podcast means that once a week
I get to hang out with my best friend, and
that in and of itself is worthwhile. And because Colin
and I live like four hours away, four and a
half hours away from each other, so we don't get
to see each other in person very often. So it's

(34:27):
just like for me, it's like I get to hang
out with my best friend, and this gives an excuse
to create something with my best friend where I get
to hang out with him once a week and we
get to interview really cool people that we think are
just really incredible musicians, and so it just it creates
that sort of an excuse and then we obviously we
pour the effort into like trying to make this the
best that can be, uh, And I don't know, like

(34:49):
there's something to me intrinsically rewarding about that. And then
when we go to like different shows, like you know,
something like Furnace Fest, and that's when we get to
see like people where like even at this last furness Fest,
there was a like from Canada that like came all
the way from Canada all the way to Birmingham, Alabama, Alabama,
and was like, dude, like I listen to your podcast
and you're the reason why I decided to come to
this festival. Like to me, like that's like a cool

(35:12):
experience for us to like even though you know, obviously
we don't have huge numbers whatever in our downloads and listenership,
but at the same at the same time, for me,
like intrinsically, it's like worthwhile. And then you get these
like little moments where somebody speaks into why this is
important for them, and it's like, well, that's why I
do this, Like I do it because I get to
hang out with my best friend and because like clearly

(35:34):
this matters to some people, which is cool.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, well and too, I mean like there is a
certain piece of it. I mean that's like that's why
we started Telephone Friends, was that, like, yeah, we love
these people. We live all over the place and it's
really good musicians and it was like it was an
excuse to do this thing together. But yeah, I just
I think there is this this thing that happens when

(35:57):
you get a little when you get a little too slick.
I've seen this with a lot of with a lot
of people where they you know, they don't they sort
of they get a little bit too. I mean the
classic like Nashville thing, which is that you like, you
start at the end, you like, who who's going to
listen to this? And then you create that person and

(36:18):
you follow that rope back to the you know, to
the very beginning, and to me, it's like it is
so I don't know, it's just it it's that question
of like what like like I heard this quote one
time that said, like what you do every day is
what you do. It's like it doesn't matter what your

(36:38):
what your job title is or whatever. It's like, it
matters what you do. Do you like doing what you do,
not like what you what it says that you do
like actually what you do. And I was thinking about it.
I was like, that was a conversation I've had with
a few people, which is that I think I think
that you know, I'm like, I'm a pretty smart guy.
And I think I could, like, if the whole goal,

(37:00):
well was to make this thing succeed commercially at a
certain level or whatever, I think I think I could
probably figure out how to do that. I could definitely
figure out how to make it more successful than it is.
And I think there's a chance that I could make
it like really successful. But I think in doing that,
and I know that in doing that, I would lose

(37:20):
everything about what I like about it. You know, I
wouldn't be I wouldn't be sitting here for three days
making tape loops with VHS machines, which is like what
I like to do. So it's this thing of being like, Okay,
well then what what's the goal? And in some ways
I'm like, well, I think I'd rather go work at
a bank or something and make tape loops with VHS machines.

(37:42):
Then then you know, reverse engineer a thing that that
that that is successful, or like go all in on
social media or something like this. It's like, there's there's
certain things that I could do, and it's like those
are all the things that I don't I just don't
want that job. So you know, there's all these different
questions that we have to answer in our lives like

(38:03):
how to make enough money and how to live and
how to provide for the people that you care about
and all this stuff very very important questions. And then
there's also the question of like what do you want
to do? And Yeah, for me, it's like I've been
quite comfortable with this idea that I really like what

(38:27):
I do and as long as I can kind of
figure out how to keep paying for it, I'll keep
keep doing it, I think. So yeah, yeah, does that
question like ever like cause like identity crisis for you,
Cause like with you bringing that up, like you know,
what what you do is what you do? M hm.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Like immediately, like my mind goes into like people, there
are things that I do that maybe people know me for,
Like a lot of people might know me for. Yeah,
like they might say, like, you know, you're a podcast
or youtubeer or social media influence or whatever it is, right,
But like what's interesting is like, yeah, those are some
things that I do. But like the things that like

(39:09):
in late like in terms of like how I identify
or the things that when I think about myself, the
things that come to mind way before anything like social
media or podcasting is like I like to cook at home,
so I'm like a home cook. That like comes to
mind first, it's I'm a YouTube watcher. Watch I love

(39:32):
watching YouTube, a Jersey shore watcher that's in there, a
runner three days a week, that's in there now. Like
so there's like all these other things that come to
mind before, like all these other things that people know
me for, and like I'm even like thinking about that
with like you right now, right, like we know you
for Tyson Mattzenbacher, the singer songwriter, right, and that's why

(39:52):
you're on this podcast. But like I would imagine for yourself,
you think about yourself in a different way, or at
least you add like a bunch of other things beyond
and maybe even in front of singer songwriter. And so
I don't know like how you think about that in
terms of this identity thing, but like that that comes
to mind for at least me of like there's so
many other things that even though I might be known

(40:14):
for certain things, I like know myself that there are
other things ahead of that that I know myself for.
And so I'm curious, like for you, like does that
come to does that feel similar? Does it feel different?
I'm just curious.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yeah, I actually I actually think that that is one
of the mistakes that I made early on was or
not mistake necessarily, but it was it was a conception
that I it was a misconception that I had about
the nature of attention, which is that like, I don't
think anyone, including me, is very good at like nuanced

(40:52):
when it comes to public people. I think that like
like when like you you think that, like for example,
like if the National if all of a sudden, you know,
the guy from the National is like, also, I'm doing
stand up comedy, I'd be like I'd be like, no,
You're you're the National guy, Like like I know that's

(41:13):
your thing. You're you're the National guy, and he's like yeah,
or I mean like you know, Bryce from the Nationals
Record is doing production now, but I'm still it's still
like similar world or something. But I'm like, I just
when I look out at these people that are trying
to be two things, it's difficult for me and that
and that's what I always sort of thought that I
could do, was that like I'm going to get enough

(41:33):
people's attention, I'm going to get enough people to not
notice me, and then I'm to do all sorts of things.
I'm you know, I'm gonna do like spoken word stuff,
I'm gonna write books, I'm gonna create these universes that
we can live in and all this. And it was like,
I'm going to be like like writing about some Christian
things and also like in the major market, I'm gonna
it's I'm not going to kind of go either way.

(41:54):
I'm going to be Indian. I'm also going to have
a little bit of this commercial thing like Christian dolland Glover. Yeah, yeah, no, no, honestly,
I mean that's a great example. He's one of the
only people I know like that somehow, or like PD,
like the Instagram guy PD. Yeah, he likes he's somehow
crossed over. But now, like at first it was like,
you make funny videos on the internet. Why are you

(42:15):
making Earnest Indie rock? Now it doesn't make any sense
to me. It was like it was a struggle for
me as someone that likes liked him on the internet.
So it's it's the teacher conundrum, right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
You think about your teacher and you only think about
them as like living and breathing and existing in the and.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Then you see him at the grocery store.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah, you're exactly What in the world is this right? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (42:38):
No, I think, I think and and to go back
to there is a certain level of like of I mean,
it's definitely ego and I I mean, I think about it.
I've talked to this before. But like I mean, dude,
I did, like you know, I've done in my life.
I've done like a handful, like more than five h
like big theater bus tours where I was opening acoustic

(43:01):
for rock bands at two thousand plus cap theaters and
sometimes they were like on radio like bands that had
you know, big radio singles and stuff. And that is
an insane thing to do. Like the idea that like
I'm gonna go and in front of two thousand people
that all I got babysitters and paid one hundred and

(43:23):
fifty dollars to be there, and I'm going to do
the thing that no one wants anyone to do at
a house party.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
That's a great point.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
It's like, what in what world did I think that
was a good ide a, good idea and actually like
it did work, but it's crazy that it did. It's
like it's I think that like now I'm just I'm
a little bit older, and I'm like, there the I
think that some of that ego is just really apparent
to me. That's like, man, I thought I could like

(43:54):
I thought I was so interesting that I was going
to build this world that this guy gets up here
to play Wonderwall exactly like anyway, here's wonder Wall, and
there was like, no, we came here to see a
different like another band that plays rock music and not.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
You time to go get a drink.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah, totally. So like, I don't know, I think that
there's a there's something a little bit about like recognizing
sort of some of the some of like the youth,
the hubris in my youth of being thinking that I
was this interesting and expecting people to really go out
of their way to love me.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Yeah, but you wouldn't be an artist if you didn't
have a little bit of, like, especially when you're young,
a little bit of like a sense of uh self
grandiosity to a certain extent right totally otherwise otherwise you
never would have done it in the first place.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
And I think that's something that people wouldn't really know
about about me, especially people that don't know me personally.
Is like I like, I mean I used to, like
I used to and there's still some of this in me,
which is that like I'm an ambitious person, Like like
when I'm when I'm about to walk out on stage
at like you know, the Rhymen or something thing and
no one knows who I am, and I'm like, I'm

(45:03):
gonna I Am going to be the best thing tonight,
Like people are going people just don't know that they're
about to see something that's really great and and I
don't know. I guess it's like kind of moving into
this next stage of my life is like I do
think that I am a great songwriter. I think that
the work that I've made stands up and I think
that I do think it's underappreciated, like you said, and

(45:23):
I appreciate you saying that, and like I like moving
into this next part of my life being like if
that isn't something that people recognize in me ever, like
at the scale that maybe I wanted them or still
want them to, where is you know, not to like

(45:46):
go fully youth camp on it, but like where does
my identity lie? Who am I am? I still do
I still believe these things about myself? Can I still
show up and be a good friend and a good
son and a good brother and a good husband and
one day if a good father. Maybe, like these are
things that can I do that if I never got
this validation that I think I deserve, that I thought

(46:07):
I deserve, and I think that that's the sort of
like part of this this record that I'm like getting
to this place of being like I think that's okay,
Like it's it's okay. There's a chance that that won't happen,
and and maybe maybe it already did happen, like maybe,
like it just sort of depends on how you look
at it. It's just like I don't know, but.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, it's it's a string played for two thousand people
that were just trying to get their beer.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
That's right, dude, I did and a few of them
really liked it, that's right. There, they were drunk enough
to like it. That's right. I just needed to give
them a couple more whiskeys and maybe I you know, m.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
Hm, I do want to. I do wanna really though,
like keep a lot of praise on modern worries here.
This this record really is like something that like I
maybe buy three to five. I've knew vinyl records the year, Uh,
this is one of them. Wow, And that's because it

(47:07):
it the first time I heard it, it really did
like reach down into me in a completely different way
than your previous work. And I loved Milk Teeth and
I loved I loved everything you've done so far, but
this one really has hit me a in a completely
different way. And I think it it really lends itself
to vulnerability to the listener because you're clearly being vulnerable.

(47:30):
You're being you're you're you're painting such a clear picture,
and you're you're using language within within the lyrics that
is very It's not like it's not overwhelming, it's not bombastic,
it's not like trying to say too much, but it's

(47:51):
saying exactly the right amount. And I don't know why,
but the song that I can't stop listening to it.
And I don't know if was like a joke song
or or or not for you, but I don't want
to be on the internet anymore. That song, in particular,
I've listened to it at least one hundred times. I'm

(48:12):
not joking. I even showed it some of a teacher
by day. I showed it to my class today and
we had a little like five minute discussion at the
end of class about our internet cells, our digital cells
and and and what life was like before we were
constantly connected. And it opened up a brand new discussion

(48:36):
that you know, when you're talking about you know, gen
Z kids and some some you know, the youngest generation,
is it, jenn Alfa, whatever it is. Yeah, it's it's
a question that they have not had to wrestle with yet,
but they have all felt it, right, they've all felt
that same kind of.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah, what what age she teach neither twelve? Yeah, Okay,
I mean so I've I teach songwriting to kids in
the summers. And this one kid who's now out of college,
but he's still you know, deep gen Z territory, and
I showed him that song and he was he was
like really interested in it. And then he said to me,

(49:19):
he was like, well, why is the Internet like different
than the real like than the physical world? And I
was like, what do you what are you talking about?
Like yeah, and and and also like because we were
there when we watched it develop, and it was clearly
like you know, we I watched it be a shadow.
It's like showing you. It's a shadow of the real world.

(49:39):
It's like, you know, uh and and and I was like,
I was I was trying to figure out how to
like argue with him. And I was like, well, it's
the Internet, like you could just turn it off. And
he was like he was like what, well, he said,
you could turn me off. And I was like, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
That's weird, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Whoa? Yeah, And and we we talked at length about it,
and uh, I think, like, you know, there's that like
Marsall McLuhan, like the mean, the median is the message
or whatever. There's that which I've been thinking about a lot,
which is that like you know, the way or the messenger,
like the of the thing you're saying is much more
important than the actual thing you're saying. And you know,

(50:22):
there's like that there's like this like kind of techno
feudalism thing that's happening where like we've kind of reverted
to these like five people that are actually in charge
of the whole universe. It's you know, it's and they
are they because they are dictating the medium. They're the
ones that are telling you how you can say what
you can say. And I realized, like one of the

(50:43):
things that brought to that song on was we've like
really reverted as a society, I think to this binary
thinking of like it's an honor off thing. It's like
am I going left or am I going right? It's like,
you know, it's a one or it's a zero. Like
all computers are just like on off such just to
doing this all day long, and it's like that's how
we're thinking about it. It's like, oh, so of course,

(51:03):
if your brain is thinking like a computer, then a
tree is the same as like a Spotify algorithm. It's
just like it picked brown and then it picked this
type of tree, and then it picked this big and
this many years old or whatever. It's just like and
it's I think it's like a poisonous way to think.

(51:24):
Like I think that we're like spiritual and emotional. And
that's why the end of that song is like it
just as I'm a piece of a star stuff in
an algorithm. You know, computers only thinking ones and zeros.
There's more numbers two. It's like the thing like if
there's if if you if we as a society started
thinking everything is a one and a zero, and in reality,

(51:45):
there are infinite numbers not to mention, there's like three
four and five, not to mention eight four and fifty six.
It's like, there are there are so much more than
what a computer can think. And if you, if you
subscribe to this idea that we are infinite, spiritual, emotional,

(52:08):
intelligent beings, It's like it's a place that no computer,
no matter how smart it is, could ever go. It
just couldn't, right, and and it's it's just really interesting
to me to see, especially people that grew up with it,
have a difficult time differentiating between these two things that
are so clearly not only different, but that one is

(52:29):
like a bastardized shadow version that's actually affecting and ruining
the real version. My favorite thing in that song is
that all these tech companies versus all these tech companies
make solve one small problem and make like a hundred
brand new way bigger problems. It's like, okay, so now
I can rent somebody's house on Airbnb, but everything is

(52:53):
eight times more expensive. It's like, okay, so I would
rather just not be able to sleep on I would
rather just not be able to wrap this person's house, right,
I had to pick, like I would just pick not
for everything to be eight times more expensive.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
But uh yeah, I've gotten to the point now where
I'm like, if it means that I have to like
sleep in a hotel for five dollars more but then
don't have to do chores at the end of my stay,
then I'm done with that.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
I will stay in a hotel ten times out of
ten if I can. I also have to be careful sometimes,
like it's so funny because the way that I make
money is that I make commercial music and I make
I score films and stuff. And sometimes I'll be like
just talking shit about some company, I'll realize that I
totally like scored their last three commercials.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Well, I don't. I don't want to take it back
too much, but I love that idea of binary thinking.
And you've actually opened up something completely new in my
thought process that I haven't thought about before, and that
is everything in our lives kind of is binary thinking. Now,

(53:57):
if you're talking politics or your belief in God or
believe in God, you can't be someone who who is
just okay with not knowing or not knowing all the
evidence or not knowing all the information or not knowing
if God is real or not like that that whole
thing is like just not acceptable anymore. Society says. Society

(54:18):
is so encamped in one direction or the other that
you have to pick. And I even see this students,
and I talked to my students about this, where I'm like,
history is not black and white, just like your life
is not black and white. Just because I think somebody
else is wrong does not mean that they're wrong, and
it also doesn't mean that you're right.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
It's it's a weird world. It's because like that's the
that's the that binary system is that like it's slotting
us into categories. It's like it's like boom, you're here,
Boom you're there. It's like in every way like there
is no And part of that, I think is just
the scope, like the scope of the world. It's like
like right now, I could open a tab and I

(55:00):
could message my third grade teacher, like I could if
I could think of her name, I could find her
and I could figure out where she lives and I
could send her a message. It's just like that should
not happen like that. We should We are not living
at a human scale in any way it's like like
this album or release that we just did, it's I
at a bar, that is, I just picked the closest

(55:23):
bar to my studio and I rented it out and
all the old it's an American legions, so like all
the old veterans had to still be able to come.
So they were just there and they were all super
drunk and then all my i'd like fans like flew
in from all over the country and stuff to go
to this little show, and it was just like this
is a this is at human scale. Yeah, like even

(55:43):
though people had did have to fly across the country
for it and stuff, it's like they're still sitting at
the bar with this guy, this alcoholic from down the
street who drinks like six rum and cokes every night
at this same stool. And I think that like the
bigger we get, like the less localized to get, the
bigger and the more reach that we have, the more
that it is impossible to live in the middle lane

(56:05):
because it's like we're going at a thousand miles an hours,
like which one are you? Baby? Like go left right,
I'm moving off. I'm like putting baggage off the baggage carousel.
At the airport. It's like, you can't, you can't make
me think about this because I'm picking.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
And it's so much more important that you do go
to that show at the American Legion, right, because that
is a more human experience, that is, that is that
is interacting with the gray of the world, not the black.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
And white right totally, and even like to take it
a step farther, there's like that there's like the d
shittification of the Internet, saying that I don't know if
you guys have heard about that at all, but basically
the models for all this stuff is that they give
you something that's way too good to be true, and
they get you hooked on it, and then they slowly
make it worse worse, worse worse and could get their
margins better. So like if you go all the way
back like when it started with uber, Uber is the

(56:56):
kind of prime example which it was like WHOA, I
can cab across town for five dollars, Like yeah, this
is amazing, and then you realize, no, it's all fake.
And now I now I have a good were on
my phone getting a cab and the cabs are all
out of business, so now I have to pay eighty
five dollars instead, and it smells like piss in here,
and this guy's smoking cigarettes and blasting like reggaetron music.

(57:24):
But yeah, it's like like like this idea that like
I don't think that think like I mean, there are
for sure exceptions to this, but like for me, the
things that I love the most and the things that
I do well don't scale very well. Like I was
never gonna play stadiums. I wasn't. I knew that from
when I was a teenager, like I'm not gonna do that.

(57:46):
I did play the Zaga Stadium. It's right, you did one.
You did one, But like I just knew. It wasn't
like I was like, man and my best thing I
could do like a big soft seat theater thing where
people are paying attention in they're here, and I can
turn it into a small room like I could do that.
But like, you know, like one of the things John
Mark talked about with Dan was that like when you
go to Japan and you get a I don't know
if you guys have been there, but my wife and

(58:07):
I just went and like you go to like a
you know, like a Ramen restaurant that has six seats,
and this guy's been doing this for it's like fourth generation.
And his whole purpose in life is to make the
best thing that he can't and he can't do it
for more than six people at a time. And there's
something like so a lot of it too. It's kind
of like late stage capitalism stuff that I think that

(58:29):
we don't really recognize how how embedded it is and
everything that we do. That you either have a you
either have a mom and pop chicken restaurant that's barely
making it, or you have eight hundred Chick fil as.
There's no middle ground. It's like you can't you can't
exist in the small neighborhood human scale because the whole

(58:51):
system is designed to either blow up. It's like your
post is either going viral or what's going to eight
hundred people. There's no middle ground. And and for me,
it's just like I that's one of the big struggles
that I'm having right now is that like I never
wanted to go big. I never want I really didn't,
Like I never wanted to be the biggest thing in
the world. I wanted to find the people that could

(59:15):
and would love it and do like serve those people
the best that I could and the most honestly to
that to infinity and beyond, you know, And so to
go into this world now, which is like it's either
going right or it's going left, succeeding or it's failing.
I'm like, I didn't want to fail, and I didn't
want to succeed at the level that I have to

(59:35):
to succeed. So I don't really even know what to
do next. It's just like and I and and to
your point earlier, it does feel very much like a
specific moment in time. It's like this is one moment
in time that will pass because none of this is
what any of us want, but it is just a
very interesting moment in time. Watching kids say that the

(59:57):
digital world is the same as the stathysical world, and
you know, watching all of these things algorithmically push us
to infinity or to zero, it's like it is it's
a strange time, and it's it feels like a time
that is particularly unhuman at scale. But like I think,
like with between individuals, it's actually like never been for me,
it's like never been richer, Like I have my relationships

(01:00:18):
are thriving, the ones that are outside of the Internet. Yeah,
absolutely so, yeah, sorry, I know, you guys like we
should talk about this new record, and I'm like, let's
talk about failure for an hour. That's that's the record though,
that's the record, totally.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
I'm not gonna lie though to This has been one
of the most enjoyable conversations we had this year on
the on the podcast, it's it's it feels like we're
getting to the heart of things.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
I mean, like the cool thing is like there's a
million other things that I like wanted to bring up
or they would have brought up, and I just like,
I want to be respectful everyone's time. But like there's
what I do know is this conversation could have gone
on another like two hours.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Yeah, for sure, easily. I Yeah, I mean, I really
appreciate you guys having me on and I love I
do love this record. I'm really proud of it, and
it's definitely the most me thing I've ever made, and
in some ways, I think that's maybe why I have
such a tumultuous relationship with it, because I have that
relationship with myself. But I'm really proud of it and
it has a spirit to it that I don't think

(01:01:26):
any of my other records do for better for worse.
Like it has a very specific feeling and a very
strong spirit, like almost like a soul to it that
I think you feel when you listen.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
To it, So I think listeners can feel it as well. Yeah,
should we talk about your guilty pleasures quick?

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Yeah? Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
All right, let's do it all right, So no particular order? Yeah,
five guilty pleasure artists? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Five? Okay, okay, okay, yeaheah, that's tough. Yeah, so the
artists that you know it?

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
You know, you just talk talked about your friends, like
maybe that your friends would make fun of you for
listening to right, So I don't. I'm sure Colin maybe
give you an example. But Culin loves Creed, huge fan
of Creed. For me, I'm a huge fan of Train,
just like anything really dropped the Jupiter.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Yeah, oh I love the Jupiter comes on. I'm I'm
going all out and I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
Going all worship every time. I'll make fun of him
every time.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
That's fantastic. I think that's great. Well, I told I
told him before you came on that my first concert
was Creed.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Hell yeah, opened Nickelback.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
First of three Nickelback. Why who is the middle or
was middle? Was bangled? Seven Dust? Do you remember them? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
Yeah, I remember Seven Dust? Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
Yeah, that's the hell of a show. That's a good show.
That is a great show.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Like if you if you were, like if you're currently
forty five and you're a white dude who just got divorced,
like that is that is your like like.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
That would that would get you through?

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
If like if all three of those bands played together
right now, like that would get you through another year?

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Your shirt is not your shirt is not staying on
for that show?

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
Definitely not for sure. What year was that? Do you remember? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Man, I was in like I was in middle early
middle school. I think my mom had to take us there.
Did you my mom stay? Oh yeah, she stayed in
the we were on the floor. She was on the
floor with us, but she walked away. But one thing
I remember. The thing I remember is that I was
there with my two friends and it was like the
turnover between Seven Dusts and Creed, and I hadn't seen

(01:03:36):
my mom all night, so I thought she was just gone.
And then these these like three chicks up in the
top start flashing everybody, and I was probably like, yeah,
I bet you was in the fifth or sixth grade
and I was like, oh my gosh, this is that's
what they look like. I was like, this is this
is a groundbreaking moment. And I turned around. My mom
was there. She was, dude. She because she knew what

(01:03:58):
was happening. She came over to police dude, and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
I was, so, did your mom say anything about it later?

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
No, No, she is. My mom's thing was like kind
of a uh like, uh, what's piece by strength?

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
She's rolled Reagan?

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
She was robbed Reagan, dude. She was piece by strength, Dude,
she was she was parked the aircraft carrier off the coast,
and don't say anything. That was her. That was her motif.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Do do you ever think about the fact that, like
the first time you probably ever saw boobs, your mom
saw that with you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Uh huh. Yeah, it's a very strange moment. I think
she was kind of like, I think she was kind
of like, this is my guess if I was to
talk to her about it, she's not with us anymore.
But if I was to talk to her about it,
she'd probably say like she'd probably say like I figured
this is a good of the time of a place
for you to learn about.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
This makes sense. Yeah, wellment you realize you want her
to be an artist when you grew up totally.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
I mean I want to do that Scott's dat foot
on the monitor with fire they had fire?

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Oh nice, you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
Can't beat it, And so I'll start with Creed. I also,
I mean I covered Nickelback on my last covers EP.
Yeah that was a great cover too, Yes, thank you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Yeah, I mean, can we just Also I always forget
their guitarist name, but like, that dude is just legitimately,
I don't care if it's Creed or not. That dude
just has some of the best guitar licks ever, and
he's so ridiculously talented.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
Yeah, I mean I think, like, I like you, Mason.
Where do you live again? I live in Minneapolis. Yeah,
so you guys are mid good mid Midwest boys for sure.
But yeah, I like I grew up in Like, if
you live anywhere rural, like that stuff is in your book,
you could you could not escape.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
You in South Dakota, you could not escape. Yeah, it's
in your bood. It's gonna be in your book.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
Yeah, like eastern Eastern Eastern Washington. It's the same way, right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
Oh yeah. In fact, like yeah, when I've I've been
to both Dakota's only once, but I was there and
I was like, this is the same place I grew up.
This feels the same Yeah, yeah, you know. So that's one.
The other one, I'm trying to think of some others here. Uh.
When I was a kid, my dad would take me
to the Gorge to see the Dave Matthews band, oh man,

(01:06:12):
and I would sleep in the back of the of
the car on the way home because it was like
two hour drive. Yeah, and I think, like now that
I'm a little bit older, there's some songs that are
that are kind of unf like when he's scatting and
stuff that are pretty unforgivable. But dude, you listen at
you here crashing. To me, I still think that song
stands up.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
I don't care what anyone says. Dave Matthews band has
one of the greatest drummers ever, Carter Beauford. Baby, Yeah
that's his name. He's incredible. Said Okay, quick, quick little
side tangent story if I can so. My wife and
I were on a Chicago River cruise, right, So we
were going through Chicago and if.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
You get here, did you get a bunch of shit
dumped on you or what?

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
That's where I'm going with this, you know what. Uh So,
if you know anything about the Dave Matthews band, they're
famous for a story where their tour bus was going
over a bridge in Chicago and one of these tour
cruises was going underneath the bridge and they released their
porta Potti refuse into the river and it ended up

(01:07:18):
landing all over the people on one of these boats.
And I was telling my wife as we were, you know,
traveling down the river, and I was like, hey, one
of these bridges, like Dave Matthews Band released a bunch
of shit on people. And as soon as I was
like looking it up to like remember which bridge it was,
we were literally going over that see under that same bridge,

(01:07:41):
And it was exactly twenty years to the day that
it had happened. Whoa, yeah, pretty wild. My wife thought
I was like a soothsayer at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
I think that is amazing. Yeah, that was that was
a big deal.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
It was like whoa, yeah, it was like headlines all
over the country.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
That is so funny.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
I mean, to this day, it's probably one of the
only reasons why some people know who Dave.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
Yeah, totally, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
So that's when I still I mean, Alan's in my
blood for sure. I really like these are I do.
I like pop music, and I like, like I really
like Justine or like, yeah, I really like I think
of a good example.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
You're gonna say justin Timberlake.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
I do like justin Timberlake. There's some other ones like
like I like I like the Beebes, I like justin
Bieber Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know. That's those are
those are some honestly. One guilty pleasure that I have
is that I was just with I was just in
New York with a friend who is like my kind
of most find the music friend, Like he's the hippiest

(01:08:48):
music guy. And he he said to me, he was like,
he's like, no, everyone knows that you famously don't listen
to music. And I was laughing about that because in
some ways he's kind of true, because like, especially like
when I was making this record, for instance, like I
was not I was sitting in here like all day long,

(01:09:09):
I wasn't gonna go home and like put a record on.
I was like I wasn't, really I was like just
give me peace and quiet. So I would say though, like,
especially in the past couple of years, I've especially new music.
That's one guilty pleasure that I've had, or like a
guilty admission is that I don't I haven't been listening
to a ton of music, but especially while I've been

(01:09:30):
making this record. But okay, the last one I would say, though,
is I really like I do like country music, h
new new country music. I think, very very rarely like
a song. Okay, here's one, a song called Springsteen by

(01:09:53):
some guy that wears a trucker hat. I think that
sounds great, But I'm a sucker for like turn, like
the country turn of phrase, so like like a clever
country song, that'll that's it, That'll get me for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
Springsteen is by Eric Church.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
I think that song's great.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
Interesting, Okay, if.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
You can get if you can get around. One of
my friends says that all styles of music are just
rock and roll with an annoying addition totally, so like,
like you know, like country is just rock and roll
with an annoying twang. And he would say that punk
music is rock and roll with an annoying yell.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Play too fast, So yeah, anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
I like that. Yeah, I would not have taken you
as a country fan at all, but I don't I
don't know if i'd say a fan.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
But like every once in a while it'll come on
and I'll be like, this is doing it for me
in the same way like if you're if you're at
a bar and like a Nickelback song or a Creed
song comes on, It's like the right country song comes
on at a you know honky like not hockky top,
but like you know bar with like a dollar bills
stable to the wall. Yeah, it's gonna it's just like
this is proper, this is proper.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
I just did that last weekend and it felt right,
It felt natural.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
You know, Yeah, everything in its right place. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
That's a rat radio ahead exactly were exact way of
like nice.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
It's like we've been best friends for a while. Well, Tyson,
thank you so much for well. Actually, before we before
I close this out, what do you want to plug?
Obviously new albums out. I don't know if you got
any shows going on or not, but yeah, what do
you want to plug?

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
Definitely love for me? To check out the record after
I gave us such a glowing endorsement on this podcast
with you guys, I do. I do love that. I
love the record, and I hope people people will do
love it. And also I wrote a book a couple
of years ago that I'm really proud of is called
Where the Waves Turn Back. I love people to check
that out. But the thing that I'm the most proud
of right now is that I'm currently in the process

(01:12:00):
of trying to collect as many copies of the movie
Hook on VHS as possible, and I'd actually like to
collect if I can. I'd like to collect every single
copy that exists.

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Just wait, that's is that the That's not the one
that like was like the last Oh okay, that one
that I for some reason in my mind, I was
thinking Hook was like one of those last movies that
came out originally on VHS. But that that's not correct, right,
that they camp I came out way before VHS ended up.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
Okay, yeah, yeah, this would have been this would have
been like uh ninety like ninety five or something. Yeah.
Dustin Hoffman plays Captain Hook in it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
Oh, that's right, plays a horse great Captain Hook I
mean maybe the best. He literally just became Captain Hook.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
It's so good. Ru Rufo is in it. You know,
he's a great character, Rufio, Rufio, Rufio.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
What's your what's your fascination with Hook?

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Like?

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
What what drew you to that movie in particular?

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Well, them, I should say, Well, for one thing, I
would say it's criminally underrated. You know, it's it is
a great performance by Robin Williams. The set design is
ten out of ten. And you know it's just a
lost It's just the lost piece of my childhood. So
I'm just going to see how many copies I can get.

(01:13:19):
So how many?

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
How many would you say you have?

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Do you do you have them counted?

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
I'm sort of new in the in the in the
in the this expedition that I'm on, but I bet
you've got about four hundred copies of it for four.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
Hundred, Yeah, But I'm trying to get like, do you
have like a room do you just have a room
of Hook?

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, there's a line. They're in a line.

Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
Yeah, Okay, So here's okay, is it a thing where
like you're just collecting them to collect them or have you?

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
Do you try when you collect it?

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Do you actually try to watch hook on that particular
VHS tape?

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
No, I don't watch them all I will, but all
occasion put it on, you know, in the background, just
you're just like hoarding it to hold it. Yeah, exactly, Okay,
that's fair.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):
You're trying to corner the market. Yeah, so you know,
sooner or later, these are going to get extremely expensive,
especially if you start to you know, dwindle down to
like the last rewriting copies. What would be your top dollar?
Do you think before just before you would just be like,
all right, that's that's too much. I can't. I can't

(01:14:27):
add to my collection.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Anyway right now. I mean, you know, it's like it's
probably like you can, like if you go to the
thrift store, there's usually going to be like two or
three copies there, and it's usually like, you know, you
can you can get them all for you know, a
dollar or so. You probably get five copies for a dollars.
So down the line, I mean, if if I was
on this is the last copy in existence, there's a

(01:14:49):
chance that I would pay top dollar. You know, I'd yeah,
you know, I'd say, at least one hundred dollars. Is
this is this like an investment strategy? Like?

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
Is this your retirement fun like as a as a musician,
I can't imagine there's much better retirement fund than I
guess hoarding every copy of Hook in the in the universe.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
Yeah you know, I mean eventually I'd like to put
them in a building in charge of the mission, just
to see all the copies.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
You're basically gonna be like the Martin Screlly of.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Hook exactly exactly. I'm gonna pretend that I know that reference.

Speaker 3 (01:15:26):
Martin Screlley was a guy who who uh he made it.
He like bought the patent for Ah, what's the drug
that I can't Oh? It was it was you stick
it in your leg so that you can it was
an allergic reaction.

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
I thought it was it a was it that or
was it a Well, that guy I know what you're
talking about. He's the guy that bought that. He's the
guy ye and he's the guy that had he bought
the Wu Tang record. Yeah he bought Yeah, that's right, Yeah,
that's right. Yeah. That's a good poll man, good good
poll there, Thank you, thank you. I don't know why,
but for some reason, his name sounds like a director.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
He sounds like he does.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
He sounds like somebody that would be like in a
crypto Ponzi scheme to me, which I guess that's true,
that's he is. I guess for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:16:15):
If we were to take a bet right now, and
we all betted that, yes, he is in a in
as a safe ass batou all make money.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
Yeah, yeah, we're totally We're definitely hitting on that one
for sure, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
Well, I'm I'm excited for your your retirement strategy.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
You know, who needs four to one case? You know
when you got hooked right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):
When you got four hundred hooks.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
That's right, exactly, Actually I have. It's incredible. You guys
can cut this out if you want to, but uh,
this is an actual thing that happened to a kid
that I went to high school with who was doing
this with the movie Speed, and he's by every copy
of Speed too. Wow, this was like years and years

(01:17:03):
and years ago. This would have been like early early aughts,
early twenty tens. And it became like national and international
news and like he was all over the news. It
was like one of the first kind of early viral.
It was like big Twitter thing, and people would send
him like twenty five copies a day, and at one

(01:17:23):
point he was up to like I think he had
like six or seven thousand copies of Speed and it
was in this room and then he anyway, it was
ald thing. So I stole that idea from my friend Ryan,
who I went to high school with, who I still
think Ryan. Yeah, I think he's got about six thousand
copies of Speed.

Speaker 2 (01:17:48):
Gosh, just out of curiosity, does Ryan is he single?

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
I don't know, because ever since he was famous for
collecting Speed, I haven't heard much.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
I'm just I'm just trying to imagine a Ryan having
a significant other and him trying to justify this, uh,
this endeavor of his.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Who even knows, who even knows what he's up to.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
There's society for everybody out there. Yeah. I actually was
watching a Speed on TV while I got my haircut today.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
It's a great movie. I don't know if it's six
thousand copies great.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
But it's it is definitely not copies.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
Guys, my friend is waiting for me at the bar
down the street, so I gotta go, all right, man,
heym really, we're the best.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
Thank you so much for hanging out, enjoy your time
with your friend at the bar, and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
Thanks for I love talking to you guys. Dude, this
is always a pleasure.

Speaker 3 (01:18:43):
So yeah, let's do it more often.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
Yeah, anytime, just send me, send me a message. I'll
come talk to you guys any day.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
The mind

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