Which songs will make the cut? This week we welcome Chris Fafalios from the band Punchline and the One Hit Thunder Podcast (among others!) to talk us through how a band chooses which of their songs to put on an album. Chris gets into the tough decisions and nuanced band dynamics that have been a part of Punchline’s ten-album run. How many songs is enough? When to rerecord an old favorite? Who gets to sing lead vocals? This and more in a fun conversation that would just barely fit on a CD. Check us out next week for more!
Music heard in this episode: Punchline - “I Don’t Wanna Live in This World Anymore”, Punchline - “Another One”, Punchline - “Focus on Yourself”, Maggie Rogers - “Alaska”, Punchline - “Green Hills”, Punchline - “Darkest Dark”
Send us your thoughts at NeverMusicPod@gmail.com
Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
00:00 --> 00:07 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if you've experienced this mark, but do you ever record a song and you listen back to what you think it sounds great, okay?
00:07 --> 00:08 [SPEAKER_06]: You're happy without sounds.
00:08 --> 00:16 [SPEAKER_06]: You play it for a friend who you know likes your band and you listen to it with them and there that you could tell their into it and you're like, yeah, this sounds great.
00:16 --> 00:43 [SPEAKER_06]: Then you play that same exact song for someone who maybe doesn't like scum music or maybe you don't know what kind of music they like or it's a family member a parent or something and you hear it through their ears and it's like a whole different experience where you're focusing on things and wondering if they're focusing on the have you experienced that dude I imagine that acceptance music majors who are like 18 and 19 and 20 oh my god.
00:54 --> 00:55 [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, I'm Nicole, and I'm Mark.
00:56 --> 00:57 [SPEAKER_03]: And this is Nevermind the Music.
00:58 --> 01:00 [SPEAKER_03]: Who are we talking to today, Mark?
01:00 --> 01:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Chris Forfallius, many things, welcome, Chris.
01:04 --> 01:10 [SPEAKER_02]: Chris Forfallius from the band punchline and another Cheetah based playing the vocals in those bands.
01:11 --> 01:12 [SPEAKER_02]: And am I right about that?
01:12 --> 01:13 [SPEAKER_02]: Are you also playing guitar?
01:13 --> 01:14 [SPEAKER_02]: It'll welcome back to it.
01:14 --> 01:23 [SPEAKER_02]: And the co-host of the one-hit Thunder podcast and the producer slash sort of co-host of Chris Demakes podcast.
01:23 --> 01:25 [SPEAKER_02]: And gosh, anything I'm forgetting, Chris?
01:25 --> 01:26 [SPEAKER_02]: So happy to have you here.
01:26 --> 01:26 [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome.
01:26 --> 01:27 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, thanks for having me.
01:27 --> 01:29 [SPEAKER_06]: Those are the right things.
01:29 --> 01:31 [SPEAKER_06]: You were right, basis and vocalist in those bands.
01:32 --> 01:34 [SPEAKER_06]: And I just love making pods.
01:34 --> 01:37 [SPEAKER_06]: I feel like I have non-stop making podcasts.
01:37 --> 01:40 [SPEAKER_06]: I hope I'm putting a little bit of good stuff into the world.
01:40 --> 01:41 [SPEAKER_06]: I know you guys are.
01:41 --> 01:44 [SPEAKER_06]: I listen to your podcast and I know you're putting something.
01:44 --> 01:46 [SPEAKER_06]: Something good, maybe a little distraction.
01:46 --> 01:50 [SPEAKER_06]: I love music more than anything, whether it's making it or talking about it.
01:51 --> 01:54 [SPEAKER_06]: So I think there's other people out there that feel the same as us.
01:54 --> 01:56 [SPEAKER_06]: It seems like there are anyway.
01:56 --> 01:56 [SPEAKER_06]: for sure.
01:56 --> 01:56 [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks.
01:56 --> 01:57 [SPEAKER_03]: You guys are great.
01:57 --> 01:58 [SPEAKER_03]: We love to have you here.
01:58 --> 02:01 [SPEAKER_03]: We can't wait to hear your perspective.
02:01 --> 02:03 [SPEAKER_03]: You need to tell us what are we going to talk about today?
02:04 --> 02:07 [SPEAKER_02]: What it was see, see, I was still going to banter about all this stuff.
02:07 --> 02:08 [SPEAKER_02]: What are we talking about?
02:08 --> 02:19 [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about among other things choosing songs for records and like how that happens and the conversations and the politics and the love and combat that goes into that.
02:19 --> 02:20 [SPEAKER_02]: But
02:20 --> 02:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Can I just ask you something before we even get to that in one of your podcasts, Matthew Kelly mentioned that you have a podcast about being like a 30 something dude and I thought I was doing and I look for it and I could not find it.
02:34 --> 02:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Are you willing to remind the listeners of that podcast or are we bearing it?
02:39 --> 02:40 [SPEAKER_06]: No, it's okay.
02:40 --> 02:42 [SPEAKER_06]: I'll tell you about it.
02:42 --> 02:49 [SPEAKER_06]: So, I've been podcasting since I found out what a podcast was in like 06.
02:49 --> 02:50 [SPEAKER_06]: We did one.
02:50 --> 03:00 [SPEAKER_06]: When our band was touring, when punchline was on the road, I'd open my laptop and just basically talk into the internal mic with my friends like in the van to kill time.
03:00 --> 03:01 [SPEAKER_06]: We put them out there.
03:01 --> 03:02 [SPEAKER_06]: So I kind of...
03:02 --> 03:07 [SPEAKER_06]: been in the podcast game since people didn't really even know what they were yet.
03:08 --> 03:17 [SPEAKER_06]: And then throughout my 30s, me and my friend Mike Sabazli, who is Steve Sabazli is in punchline with me and has been in punchline with me since the beginning.
03:18 --> 03:22 [SPEAKER_06]: His brother and I did a podcast called men in their 30s only.
03:22 --> 03:41 [SPEAKER_06]: And what was so funny about it is we called it men in their 30s only a pod cast for everyone We got the name because there was this like on Facebook like early days of Facebook maybe, you know before it turned into like a really bad place There were just groups and the groups would be called like
03:41 --> 03:43 [SPEAKER_06]: Teams only or something.
03:44 --> 03:49 [SPEAKER_06]: And I made at some point a Facebook group that was called men in their 30s only.
03:49 --> 03:57 [SPEAKER_06]: And I would post like inspirational memes and stuff like of a quote from Tom Hanks that he obviously never said.
03:57 --> 03:59 [SPEAKER_06]: But it was a quote.
03:59 --> 04:17 [SPEAKER_06]: uh specifically about being in your 30s and what it's like to be a man in your 30s and it was just basically to make my friends laugh and then my friend Mike wanted to do a podcast and we did it four years and you know what's funny about that podcast is we stopped doing it while we turned 40 then
04:19 --> 04:20 [SPEAKER_06]: But we can't put it in the face of a group.
04:21 --> 04:22 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, we stopped doing it.
04:22 --> 04:25 [SPEAKER_06]: We probably did close to 100 episodes of it.
04:25 --> 04:40 [SPEAKER_06]: And once we stopped and I like took maybe a few years before we started doing one hit thunder and custom aches off from the podcast game, I go back and I didn't realize that that podcast had such a following.
04:40 --> 04:49 [SPEAKER_06]: We would get thousands of plays per episode and I had no I had no basis of comparison And now when I look back at our numbers.
04:49 --> 05:07 [SPEAKER_06]: I'm like, oh my god, like lots of people listen to this podcast And we just let it just go away because we didn't really know what we were doing But I do think there was something to the fact that was called men in their 30s Only and we was basically just like a funny podcast, but I guess we did talk about being in our third
05:07 --> 05:08 [SPEAKER_06]: He's a lot.
05:08 --> 05:12 [SPEAKER_06]: We like to refer to it as our prime point being through all this is for a while there.
05:13 --> 05:13 [SPEAKER_06]: It was gone.
05:14 --> 05:26 [SPEAKER_06]: It was down and Matt Kelly helped me get it back onto the pod catchers onto the places you stream your podcast, but it wasn't working forever And just recently in the past couple weeks, Matt hit me up.
05:26 --> 05:28 [SPEAKER_06]: He's like, hey, I got it fixed.
05:28 --> 05:33 [SPEAKER_06]: So if you search, I'm pretty sure, if you search, I can't believe I'm promoting men in their 30s only.
05:33 --> 05:34 [SPEAKER_06]: I love it.
05:34 --> 05:36 [SPEAKER_06]: Right now, I'm seeing if it pops up.
05:36 --> 05:41 [SPEAKER_06]: Men on Apple Podcasts because it's a ridiculous podcast, believe me.
05:41 --> 05:43 [SPEAKER_03]: I love when you say being in your 30s was in your prime.
05:44 --> 05:45 [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like, I'm in my 40s now.
05:45 --> 05:47 [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like now I'm in my prime.
05:47 --> 05:49 [SPEAKER_03]: And Carl Young is a psychologist, philosopher.
05:50 --> 05:52 [SPEAKER_03]: Always said, like, life begins at 40.
05:52 --> 05:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Everything else is just research.
05:54 --> 05:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
05:55 --> 05:58 [SPEAKER_03]: But I like him to really attach to that quote recently.
05:58 --> 06:04 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm wondering what your observations are of men of 30s, such like a unique cultural cohort.
06:04 --> 06:06 [SPEAKER_03]: I want to go back and listen, could you find it?
06:07 --> 06:07 [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, it's on there.
06:08 --> 06:10 [SPEAKER_06]: If you search men in their 30s, only it pops right up.
06:10 --> 06:13 [SPEAKER_03]: Can our women allow, though, like, are you going to come at me?
06:13 --> 06:14 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
06:14 --> 06:29 [SPEAKER_06]: women are allowed and in fact like it's so funny that like you know my girlfriend and now Mike's I think she went back and like go back and listen to us like 10 years ago and the things we were talking about and saying and experiencing.
06:29 --> 06:30 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know.
06:30 --> 06:34 [SPEAKER_06]: There's probably a lot of things on there that like, you know, would make us cringe a little bit now.
06:34 --> 06:40 [SPEAKER_06]: But for the most part, we've always been pretty, I don't know what the right word is.
06:40 --> 06:42 [SPEAKER_06]: But there's nothing like terrible on it.
06:42 --> 06:46 [SPEAKER_06]: It's just stuff that maybe I would, I've changed since then.
06:46 --> 06:57 [SPEAKER_06]: But I will tell you this, Nicole, that even back then, we said we were in the prime of our lives, but also we refer to the 40s as your golden prime.
06:57 --> 07:01 [SPEAKER_06]: So if we need to return 40, we said, congratulations, you're entering your golden prime.
07:01 --> 07:02 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't think that.
07:02 --> 07:06 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to keep that going because I do think it's, I tell my college students all the time.
07:06 --> 07:12 [SPEAKER_03]: Like you think that, you know, being 20 is great, like being 30 is not the best, but being 40 is ultimate.
07:12 --> 07:13 [SPEAKER_03]: I think you're right.
07:13 --> 07:16 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, you are in your prime, your golden prime, as it were.
07:16 --> 07:41 [SPEAKER_06]: your golden prime for sure and I also think like man I think back when I was in my 20s and I was a pretty worldly person traveled a lot I mean I'm a not that I think this matters but you know college graduate traveled the world met lots of people learned lots of things and I look back on myself as a in my mid 20s I'm like oh my god I was such an idiot I was so stupid I had like dreadlocks
07:41 --> 08:02 [SPEAKER_03]: a wild girl from Boston like that's that's not what we want all right so problematic in hindsight I mean well you know like what appropriation was and now I do Chris is not our expert on appropriation that people have asked us to bring in we're going to have to talk about that another we do need some expert at the tricky subject because yeah I think
08:02 --> 08:03 [SPEAKER_06]: look.
08:03 --> 08:04 [SPEAKER_06]: I never had dreads.
08:04 --> 08:12 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't have hair at all, but I don't think that white people with dreads are doing it with any ill will or to offend anyone.
08:12 --> 08:18 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, but what if Nicole was doing it specifically to subjugate certain classes of people?
08:18 --> 08:19 [SPEAKER_02]: that would be a little different.
08:20 --> 08:21 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, she did grow up in Boston.
08:22 --> 08:23 [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm brand.
08:23 --> 08:23 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.
08:23 --> 08:24 [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
08:24 --> 08:32 [SPEAKER_02]: So we are talking mostly related to music stuff today, though it may relate to being in your 30s to a certain extent too.
08:33 --> 08:44 [SPEAKER_02]: And this idea of what goes into choosing songs in an album and Chris and I have been talking for a while about what's a good episode topic and it's kind of like anything sounds good, but I was struck by an idea.
08:44 --> 08:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Listening to you on your own podcast, talk to Chris Demakes.
08:48 --> 08:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Chris Demakes a podcast for folks that don't know.
08:50 --> 08:53 [SPEAKER_02]: Highly recommended as a podcast to listen.
08:53 --> 08:54 [SPEAKER_02]: The value is produces it.
08:54 --> 08:59 [SPEAKER_02]: Chris Demakes is a singer songwriter, guitarist of a Scott Punk band called Lesson Jake.
09:00 --> 09:10 [SPEAKER_02]: But what it is, if you think that I go over the top with like music, theory, ish kind of songwriting stuff, Chris will go literally bar by bar through like some hit song you note.
09:10 --> 09:16 [SPEAKER_02]: He's not a music professor, but what he is is somebody who has 10 hours on the road as a songwriter and playing.
09:16 --> 09:23 [SPEAKER_02]: So they're using like really detailed like memories of the songwriter, he's interviewing the songwriter and going really deep.
09:23 --> 09:28 [SPEAKER_02]: And I have to say like, I'm getting to my point eventually like how awesome that podcast is.
09:28 --> 09:33 [SPEAKER_02]: It's part of what gave me social permission to have this podcast go a little off the rails and detail too.
09:33 --> 09:34 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, love that.
09:34 --> 09:38 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not Chris to make, but my little like corner of the music universe.
09:38 --> 09:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe people actually want to listen.
09:40 --> 09:52 [SPEAKER_02]: But you were on your own show being interviewed by Chris about one of your new songs and you talked for just a couple minutes about what went into that track list.
09:52 --> 09:56 [SPEAKER_02]: And I was thinking like, you've been in this band since the late 90s, right?
09:56 --> 09:57 [SPEAKER_02]: That's correct.
09:57 --> 10:02 [SPEAKER_02]: The journey, what is the journey of being in a band with personnel changes and record label changes?
10:02 --> 10:26 [SPEAKER_02]: And to a certain extent, I would say style of changes like from a early 2000s pop punk to I would say maybe power pop is sort of what I would describe that we could we could vary that by song and like all the different dimensions and how that intersects with who's singing, which songs and all these things and happy to have you here to talk about it,
10:26 --> 10:27 [SPEAKER_06]: Thanks, man.
10:27 --> 10:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Somewhere at a land came out like five months ago, something like that, like September or something like that.
10:31 --> 10:32 [SPEAKER_02]: It's super good.
10:32 --> 10:34 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say best punchline record I've heard.
10:34 --> 10:38 [SPEAKER_02]: The first song is probably my favorite song by your band.
10:38 --> 10:39 [SPEAKER_02]: It's called, I don't want to live in the world anymore.
10:39 --> 10:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Is that the full title?
10:40 --> 10:41 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a long title.
10:41 --> 10:42 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't want to live in this world anymore.
10:42 --> 10:43 [SPEAKER_06]: This world anymore.
10:43 --> 10:44 [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
10:44 --> 10:49 [SPEAKER_02]: Such an awesome, I'll play in a clip, such an awesome song unless you're going to sue me for playing a clip.
10:49 --> 10:50 [SPEAKER_06]: No.
10:50 --> 10:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Please do.
10:50 --> 10:51 [SPEAKER_02]: Please do.
10:51 --> 10:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody last week heard the episode about fair use and all that.
10:58 --> 11:04 [SPEAKER_09]: Have you found out it's an expression, it's aggression, it burns out sometimes I don't know what it's like
11:37 --> 11:53 [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, another one is like cat nip for Mark Poppinning because it sounds like a new wave tune.
12:08 --> 12:09 [SPEAKER_02]: And you do not.
12:09 --> 12:18 [SPEAKER_02]: So anyways, but everybody go listen to open up your music app and queue up, not just the new punchline record, but definitely the new punchline record.
12:18 --> 12:23 [SPEAKER_03]: So more to say, don't just listen to it, but go out and see them because you're touring.
12:23 --> 12:25 [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I know you're coming to our area in a couple of weeks.
12:26 --> 12:27 [SPEAKER_06]: Yep, that's true.
12:27 --> 12:27 [SPEAKER_03]: And then this point.
12:28 --> 12:28 [UNKNOWN]: So.
12:29 --> 12:31 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, depending on when this episode comes out, we're playing.
12:31 --> 12:32 [SPEAKER_06]: So you're based in, right?
12:33 --> 12:35 [SPEAKER_02]: This episode is coming out in a few days.
12:35 --> 12:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Tuesday, the February, whatever, second, third.
12:40 --> 12:44 [SPEAKER_03]: I know you're playing a Thursday night, which we were talking about going, but because we're old now.
12:44 --> 12:45 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah.
12:45 --> 12:48 [SPEAKER_03]: Thursday nights, you know, it's like a school night.
12:48 --> 12:50 [SPEAKER_03]: So we hope to make it happen.
12:50 --> 12:51 [SPEAKER_03]: We really fun to see your band play.
12:51 --> 12:54 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we're playing at the Brighton Music Hall.
12:54 --> 12:54 [SPEAKER_06]: Is that what it's called?
12:54 --> 12:55 [SPEAKER_06]: See, yeah.
12:55 --> 12:57 [SPEAKER_03]: We're going to be Harper's Ferry.
12:57 --> 12:59 [SPEAKER_03]: I fear for us old timers.
12:59 --> 12:59 [SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
13:00 --> 13:03 [SPEAKER_02]: I saw the meat puppets there with Mike Wat opening.
13:03 --> 13:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
13:04 --> 13:07 [SPEAKER_03]: Where my husband first told me he loved me was in the pool room at Harper's Ferry.
13:07 --> 13:08 [SPEAKER_03]: Little trivia.
13:09 --> 13:09 [SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
13:10 --> 13:11 [SPEAKER_02]: Now you've got to come to the show.
13:12 --> 13:14 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and it can be the last time he says it.
13:14 --> 13:16 [SPEAKER_03]: because he and it might be if I leave on a school lane.
13:17 --> 13:19 [SPEAKER_02]: We are you do just domestic and then we'll get to the topic.
13:19 --> 13:21 [SPEAKER_02]: Are you doing it in East Coast tour?
13:21 --> 13:29 [SPEAKER_06]: Are you doing the whole country or were we're doing 17 shows of a tour with the band's The Early November and hello goodbye.
13:30 --> 13:32 [SPEAKER_06]: All nice rooms man.
13:32 --> 13:38 [SPEAKER_06]: It's all like thousand plus cap rooms and it's all like I know ticket sales are strong.
13:38 --> 13:40 [SPEAKER_06]: We're first of three on the bill.
13:40 --> 13:43 [SPEAKER_06]: So we get to go up there
13:43 --> 13:51 [SPEAKER_06]: which is kind of nice and not a lot of pressure on us as far as like I think the shows we're going to do a good regardless of punchline being on them.
13:52 --> 13:57 [SPEAKER_06]: So we are hoping to get out there and maybe make some new fans if we can.
13:57 --> 13:58 [SPEAKER_06]: That's the whole point, I guess, right?
13:58 --> 14:01 [SPEAKER_02]: We'll be there and then we'll hang out while it's in the other bands.
14:01 --> 14:02 [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do that.
14:02 --> 14:03 [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, what do you think?
14:03 --> 14:10 [SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to open us off with some thoughts on this idea of what goes in the like sociology almost the group dynamics?
14:10 --> 14:11 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, dude.
14:11 --> 14:14 [SPEAKER_02]: How do you pick the track list of an album who songs get in?
14:14 --> 14:15 [SPEAKER_02]: How do you manage all that?
14:15 --> 14:17 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, this was our tenth album.
14:17 --> 14:25 [SPEAKER_06]: So it's always been a different story because I think back to like, we had an album that came out in 2004 called Action.
14:25 --> 14:31 [SPEAKER_06]: And it was the first full-length album that was on a label that had like national distribution.
14:31 --> 14:39 [SPEAKER_06]: Back when there were, you know, three record stores per mall or whatever to go in to like record stores and see your album and stuff.
14:39 --> 14:45 [SPEAKER_06]: And when we wrote that album, it was always like the four of us in a room together.
14:45 --> 14:56 [SPEAKER_06]: writing and you know, maybe people would have more of a hand in a certain song, but it always felt like everyone had a little bit of a handed in the writing part of it.
14:56 --> 14:58 [SPEAKER_06]: Nowadays, it's, it's changed.
14:58 --> 15:00 [SPEAKER_06]: We all have our own home studios.
15:00 --> 15:03 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I know Mark, you got your own home studio.
15:03 --> 15:05 [SPEAKER_06]: We all, we all have these.
15:05 --> 15:09 [SPEAKER_06]: And so you can bring an idea to the table that's like pretty fleshed out.
15:10 --> 15:16 [SPEAKER_06]: I can open a logic session and I'm not a drummer, but I can open a logic session and have this virtual drummer.
15:16 --> 15:22 [SPEAKER_06]: And I can move a little dot around and have the style and the tempo and everything change right in there, even though I can't play drum.
15:23 --> 15:25 [SPEAKER_06]: So I
15:25 --> 15:30 [SPEAKER_06]: We've always found ways to like demo our ideas and get them out, but you can go a little further nowadays.
15:30 --> 15:34 [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, it is, it is more tricky than ever.
15:34 --> 15:53 [SPEAKER_06]: And there is a certain, I would be, you know, this is very much a psychology thing of being like confident, like, when you write a song, you're really putting yourself out there, not only like you're putting your emotions in your lyrics, if it's a personal song, I rarely write a song that doesn't mean something to me.
15:53 --> 15:59 [SPEAKER_06]: It is a very personal thing to put your feelings and your poetry, like think about that.
15:59 --> 16:03 [SPEAKER_06]: Your lyrics are kind of like your poetry that you're like sending to your friends.
16:03 --> 16:09 [SPEAKER_06]: Like, here's the feelings and emotions that I feel about life for love or anything.
16:09 --> 16:10 [SPEAKER_06]: That's one part of it.
16:11 --> 16:12 [SPEAKER_06]: On top of that, you're singing.
16:12 --> 16:16 [SPEAKER_06]: You're putting your singing voice out there.
16:16 --> 16:24 [SPEAKER_06]: It's just like a really, for me, it's a very personal and somewhat like anxiety-causing thing.
16:24 --> 16:31 [SPEAKER_06]: And especially if you really think you made something good, and then it's crickets, the crickets.
16:31 --> 16:33 [SPEAKER_06]: It could just be because everyone's busy.
16:33 --> 16:34 [SPEAKER_06]: They're not going to listen to your song right away.
16:34 --> 16:39 [SPEAKER_06]: But there is a sort of like, oh, God, they hate the song, sort of thing.
16:39 --> 16:41 [SPEAKER_06]: A lot of stuff like that that you're dealing with.
16:41 --> 16:49 [SPEAKER_06]: And then, you know, our band pretty much, yeah, everybody writes songs and everybody makes demos and everybody puts them into a Dropbox folder.
16:49 --> 16:56 [SPEAKER_06]: So by the time now, when we go, if we wanted to go record a new punchline album tomorrow, we could farm through.
16:56 --> 17:02 [SPEAKER_06]: hundreds of ideas on things we already have and go to a studio and record an album, but that's not how it usually works.
17:03 --> 17:09 [SPEAKER_06]: But when we're narrowing it down now, it basically comes to like, hey, here's our folder of song ideas.
17:09 --> 17:10 [SPEAKER_06]: Everyone pick your top five.
17:11 --> 17:14 [SPEAKER_06]: Then you hold your breath like, man, what are we going to agree on?
17:14 --> 17:15 [SPEAKER_06]: What are we going to differ on?
17:15 --> 17:19 [SPEAKER_06]: And am I going to pick a song I wrote that no one else picked?
17:19 --> 17:20 [SPEAKER_03]: It's really vulnerable.
17:20 --> 17:23 [SPEAKER_03]: It's like our making is a really vulnerable
17:23 --> 17:24 [SPEAKER_06]: That's the right word for it.
17:24 --> 17:25 [SPEAKER_06]: It is a fallner.
17:25 --> 17:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Does everybody sing on the demos, too?
17:27 --> 17:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Because it's different amount of vote vulnerable, right?
17:30 --> 17:36 [SPEAKER_06]: Everybody sings, including, you know, not saying that drummers can't sing, but a lot of times drummers might not be our drummer Corey.
17:36 --> 17:38 [SPEAKER_06]: He sings, makes full demos.
17:39 --> 17:43 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, everybody writes and sings in our band.
17:43 --> 18:04 [SPEAKER_06]: Here's the thing it's funny you brought up look we all put our fingerprints on every song so when we decide on a song everyone's contributing you know so it's not just one person's song but the songs that I was more like the main writer on on our new album I for both of them would have been totally fine with somebody else singing them.
18:04 --> 18:13 [SPEAKER_06]: In fact the song that I you referenced mark that we talked about on Christmas makes a podcast it's the final track on the album it's
18:50 --> 18:54 [SPEAKER_06]: We have a demo where I wanted Steve to sing it and Steve from our band sang it.
18:55 --> 19:02 [SPEAKER_06]: But then he insisted that I sang it because I wrote it in a place that was that worked best for my voice.
19:03 --> 19:08 [SPEAKER_06]: Like that's not the key he would erode it in and that's just, I don't know, everyone's their own type of singer.
19:08 --> 19:11 [SPEAKER_06]: He didn't feel confident, even though I thought he sounded good in it.
19:11 --> 19:13 [SPEAKER_06]: So now the ball's back in my core.
19:13 --> 19:17 [SPEAKER_06]: And I don't know if you've experienced this Mark, but do you ever,
19:17 --> 19:20 [SPEAKER_06]: record a song and you listen back to what you think it sounds great.
19:20 --> 19:22 [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, you're happy with out sounds.
19:22 --> 19:29 [SPEAKER_06]: You play it for a friend who you know likes your band and you listen to it with them and there that you could tell their into it and you're like, yeah, this sounds great.
19:30 --> 19:38 [SPEAKER_06]: Then you play that same exact song for someone who maybe maybe doesn't like scum music or maybe you don't know what kind of music they'd like or it's
19:38 --> 19:41 [SPEAKER_06]: a family member, a parent, or something.
19:41 --> 19:44 [SPEAKER_06]: And you hear it through their ears.
19:44 --> 19:50 [SPEAKER_06]: And it's like a whole different experience where you're focusing on things and wondering if they're focusing on the, have you experienced that?
19:51 --> 19:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, I imagine that, except it's music majors who are like 18 and 19 and 20.
19:56 --> 19:57 [SPEAKER_02]: Because, because what I do, I,
19:57 --> 20:25 [SPEAKER_02]: I teach every year I teach a songwriting class and I've mentioned this on our pod that I'm making them every week off for themselves up for the slaughter right and so I start the semester one of the first things we do is I will play them one of the recent thing that I've written or recorded and I asked them for feedback because I'm trying to get them used to like okay if I can get feedback to this dude I can get it to anybody and I can take it right gosh the the feeling of like winsing while they're what I'm watching these like music
20:25 --> 20:50 [SPEAKER_02]: They're about to go into their most music snobby period of their lives that they will one day regret like I did and I'm playing something that I'm really proud of and I'm instantly brought back to like being an insecure high school or going oh my god listen out stupid my I'm listening through the years of a yes person who consumes music of 2026 only right or whatever and go I sound that old I sound old
20:50 --> 20:54 [SPEAKER_02]: With the music majors, it's almost like my standard, oh my god, I'm not hitting the standard they want.
20:54 --> 21:03 [SPEAKER_02]: If I play it for a family member who's not a musician, then I'm just like, God, I'm so up my own ass with like, did I really just do a F over G chord there?
21:03 --> 21:04 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, God, why can't I just be normal?
21:04 --> 21:07 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I criticize myself for being too overly fancy.
21:07 --> 21:31 [SPEAKER_02]: and it is different than like you're playing it for your band and yes I'm worried what they're going to think but ultimately we have a sound I'm trying to fuel that sound I've written a song that I think Brian will make a really dope bass part and Billy will do an awesome trumpet solo and I know what they're good at and they know I know and so they're sort of a trust there that I don't have to brace myself quite as bad
21:31 --> 21:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Because, you know, if there's something that I don't like, they'll just give me very clear advice and we'll fix it, right, as opposed to a nebulous kind of wins from a college music major that makes my heart sink right and also when you're the professor, we do have to put ourselves on some sort of pedestal like your stuff should be better than theirs.
21:50 --> 21:51 [SPEAKER_03]: It should be right.
21:51 --> 21:52 [SPEAKER_03]: That's like the whole point.
21:53 --> 21:54 [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
21:54 --> 22:16 [SPEAKER_03]: But like sometimes it's not and sometimes they'll see something that you maybe didn't see in it and that can be really challenging because it throws off the power dynamic in the classroom and that doesn't exist in a band as much I think I've never been in a band so I don't know but by assumption it is it should feel more collaborative than a classroom setting it should feel more open and welcome to feedback.
22:32 --> 22:34 [SPEAKER_03]: But I want to hear about like the moments it's not.
22:35 --> 22:37 [SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear the gossip and like the QC details.
22:37 --> 22:41 [SPEAKER_03]: And I know neither one of you are interested in disclosing that on a podcast.
22:41 --> 22:50 [SPEAKER_03]: But it's really curious to me of like the power dynamic in bands because what makes things awkward when you're showing other people your art is the power dynamic.
22:50 --> 22:53 [SPEAKER_03]: If you're the professor and they're the student, it's different than if it's your mom.
22:53 --> 22:54 [SPEAKER_03]: All right, that's what you said.
22:54 --> 22:59 [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm wondering in a band like who has the most power?
22:59 --> 23:01 [SPEAKER_03]: Is that a question that you haven't answered to?
23:01 --> 23:03 [SPEAKER_03]: Or is it you know, is it spread out?
23:04 --> 23:06 [SPEAKER_03]: What's the governing structure?
23:06 --> 23:10 [SPEAKER_06]: I do think every band has their own sort of deal.
23:11 --> 23:15 [SPEAKER_06]: And I know that successful bands, less than Jake's a good example of this.
23:15 --> 23:18 [SPEAKER_06]: I've heard, I think Metallica is like this.
23:18 --> 23:21 [SPEAKER_06]: I think that everybody's an equal.
23:21 --> 23:31 [SPEAKER_06]: Everybody right across the board is be it publishing everything, every dollar that comes into the band is doled out equally.
23:31 --> 23:35 [SPEAKER_06]: And I think in that scenario,
23:35 --> 23:47 [SPEAKER_06]: you're taking the ego out of it a little bit a little bit and you're just all choosing what gets included or what gets pushed based on what we all believe is the best with no other factors.
23:47 --> 23:50 [SPEAKER_06]: I think that's the way our band operates.
23:50 --> 23:58 [SPEAKER_06]: We do everything evenly and you know, you'll see some bands where it's one person's getting all all the song I'm the songwriter of the band.
23:58 --> 24:06 [SPEAKER_06]: And that turns into more, that's just a whole different situation that I personally wouldn't be interested in being involved in.
24:06 --> 24:09 [SPEAKER_03]: I do like super healthy that kind of dynamic.
24:09 --> 24:13 [SPEAKER_02]: It creates a battle for, well, who's songs the single, right?
24:13 --> 24:18 [SPEAKER_02]: And I have to say I've been in two very different situations to that.
24:18 --> 24:23 [SPEAKER_02]: And I very notably have only ever released a first album with a band.
24:24 --> 24:26 [SPEAKER_02]: I have never made it to album number two.
24:26 --> 24:28 [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe we can talk about how this changes over the course.
24:28 --> 24:31 [SPEAKER_02]: But the first band didn't break up because of this.
24:31 --> 24:33 [SPEAKER_02]: It broke up because I moved to Boston.
24:33 --> 24:36 [SPEAKER_02]: And I was one of the primary forces being on it.
24:36 --> 24:37 [SPEAKER_02]: But that band
24:37 --> 24:39 [SPEAKER_02]: We very much tried to do the Lenin McCartney thing.
24:39 --> 24:40 [SPEAKER_02]: We're all the songwriters.
24:41 --> 24:45 [SPEAKER_02]: There are three of us that were sort of the core members, founding members, and we were going to split every song.
24:46 --> 24:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Two, at least a certain extent, it wasn't 50, 50, because some of us wrote like more than others, but we're going to include everybody, so that we're not fighting over who the single is, right?
24:54 --> 24:57 [SPEAKER_02]: And that included everybody, even people that didn't write it didn't co-write it all.
24:57 --> 25:10 [SPEAKER_02]: My current band, I don't know, maybe I'm over sharing, but like, people's way of, uh, just keep it simple was the writer is the writer and I was actually really surprised by that because I didn't propose that and I've wrote written most of our songs.
25:10 --> 25:12 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, are you sure about that?
25:12 --> 25:14 [SPEAKER_02]: But then it's a double-edged sword, right?
25:14 --> 25:16 [SPEAKER_02]: Because does everybody have, like, sure?
25:17 --> 25:21 [SPEAKER_02]: I have the copyright for our last single that came out last week.
25:22 --> 25:24 [SPEAKER_02]: But are the other guys going to market it?
25:24 --> 25:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Are they going to show up as hard?
25:27 --> 25:30 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, because they don't it can lead to problems eventually.
25:30 --> 25:32 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure, but I think a lot of bands do it that way.
25:32 --> 25:38 [SPEAKER_02]: We're like one guy who ever wrote the song gets the gets the authorship of it relating to our copyright episode, you know?
25:39 --> 26:06 [SPEAKER_06]: you'll see bands where it's one guy who's been there since the start and it's been a rotating you know in and out of band members in there basically just hired guns to a certain extent or maybe they played on one album but they didn't write anything on that album and it gets really complex when you start talking about if you want to divide things up that way what counts
26:06 --> 26:25 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, because the lyrics and melody are supposed to be what the song is, but then if you had a song, this is just one example that a guy plays like a guitar solo in it, and that guitar solo is like a highlight of the song, or, you know, the drummer comes up with a beat without that beat.
26:26 --> 26:29 [SPEAKER_06]: The song isn't the same song because it like sucks you in.
26:29 --> 26:30 [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, there's
26:30 --> 26:52 [SPEAKER_06]: a million different things you could say here but is that part of the song that I guess the definition of it if you go look it up on whatever the ass cap definition or whatever the technical definition it's the lyrics and the melody of the song so that's tricky too and I found that it's it's easier to
26:52 --> 27:07 [SPEAKER_06]: Do things evenly, but you know where it gets tricky is if you do have band members coming and out because someone, if you've spent 20 years at a band and someone comes in, you know, after those 20 years and they're instantly an equal partner, it gets pretty complex.
27:07 --> 27:19 [SPEAKER_06]: If you love the people you're playing with and they're your actual friends, and hey man, I'll tell you one more thing about it is, I'm sure this becomes more complex when lots of money becomes involved.
27:19 --> 27:19 [SPEAKER_06]: Right.
27:19 --> 27:21 [SPEAKER_06]: I've never had that situation.
27:22 --> 27:22 [SPEAKER_06]: I'm here.
27:23 --> 27:25 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm so lucky.
27:25 --> 27:33 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it's like in our situation, not that we've made a lot of money gigging, but the money we have received is through gigging and we just split that equally.
27:34 --> 27:45 [SPEAKER_02]: Like the theoretical songwriting royalties when our music gets placed in a major Hollywood movie, then that becomes a different thing, but that's not for any of us mostly.
27:45 --> 27:49 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the guys I play with are like jazz guys that come from just gig gig gig gig gig.
27:49 --> 27:55 [SPEAKER_02]: And so any money you're ever going to get, like the record is almost a, not a vending project, but like a cred thing.
27:55 --> 27:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, we relish.
27:56 --> 27:58 [SPEAKER_02]: We cut this jazz record last year.
27:58 --> 28:00 [SPEAKER_02]: But really, you just are playing a bunch of gigs, right?
28:00 --> 28:05 [SPEAKER_02]: And so that money we split evenly, it's this nebulous songwriting ownership.
28:05 --> 28:11 [SPEAKER_02]: But it sounds like with punchline, there isn't a financial aspect to the competition of who song is on the record.
28:11 --> 28:13 [SPEAKER_02]: It's all about
28:13 --> 28:17 [SPEAKER_02]: I haven't checked the credits of the new record, but is it just all songs by, and then the five of you?
28:18 --> 28:18 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
28:18 --> 28:24 [SPEAKER_02]: We wouldn't know that you wrote, focused on yourself, unless we listened to you talking about it in a podcast or whatever.
28:25 --> 28:25 [SPEAKER_06]: Sure.
28:25 --> 28:38 [SPEAKER_06]: And I wouldn't, you know, it was for a podcast, and it's kind of obvious, sometimes in our band, who was a primary writer, because that person will most of the time end up singing the song.
28:38 --> 28:39 [SPEAKER_06]: Like the Beatles, yeah.
28:38 --> 28:56 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, even the songs that came from my brain or whatever from this album like I just consider myself 20% of those, you know, of the songwriter on those and because that's never something I want to be wasting thoughts on.
28:56 --> 29:03 [SPEAKER_06]: I want to think about like making songs and all the
29:03 --> 29:10 [SPEAKER_06]: in a band and even the definition of that has changed so much over the years.
29:10 --> 29:21 [SPEAKER_06]: Now I think succeeding in a band is continuing being a band and seeing some sort of growth, but that growth becomes so much more abstract.
29:21 --> 29:47 [SPEAKER_06]: All right, you should be record sales record sales were, we're it, but that's not necessarily now there's so many other factors of how you're doing it's it's very confusing and and we laugh all the time about like we want to have specific goals if you want to get a song you know on a TV show that you should know which TV show that is and why you think it should be on there and then you should pursue that.
29:47 --> 29:56 [SPEAKER_06]: If you want to have your song in a video game, in an EA sports video game, you should say, yes, I want to get my song on the new NHL game.
29:56 --> 30:04 [SPEAKER_06]: So, therefore, I should find out who the person is or team of people that decide that and get our song to them to at least have a chance of that.
30:04 --> 30:10 [SPEAKER_06]: Just specific things that are like mile markers of success.
30:10 --> 30:12 [SPEAKER_03]: Like ambition, you should have ambition.
30:12 --> 30:17 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, I famously don't have a lot of ambition,
30:17 --> 30:25 [SPEAKER_03]: You can monitor it in record sales, or if your songs on TV show or a game, but if you're growing as an artist, isn't that a level of success?
30:26 --> 30:31 [SPEAKER_03]: If you're having a good time and you're connecting with your friends and you're connecting with other people, that success do.
30:31 --> 30:32 [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's all how you frame it.
30:32 --> 30:33 [SPEAKER_03]: And we get into traps.
30:34 --> 30:37 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we get into traps when we put success on the other side of goals.
30:38 --> 30:39 [SPEAKER_06]: Is it an ambition kind of gross?
30:40 --> 30:44 [SPEAKER_06]: If, like, when you see someone, I never want to come off,
30:44 --> 30:56 [SPEAKER_06]: as a tri-hard like I see people all the time related to their music posting things where I just I get second hand embarrassment for them in that
30:57 --> 31:00 [SPEAKER_06]: I always want to, this might just be me.
31:01 --> 31:27 [SPEAKER_06]: But when I put myself out there, my music out there, whatever, my band's music, I try to do it like with a grain of salt, like I know this is funny, that I get together with my friends and we sing in dance and go on the road, like we always laugh about the fact that how funny this is, what we do, which we cram in a van and we share beds and we get up on a stage and we sing in dance.
31:27 --> 31:45 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, for money and adoration, and I had too many years ago quit smoking weed because these are the kind of thoughts that I would have that would come to me before it performed and then I'd be playing music and being like, oh my god, what am I doing right now?
31:45 --> 31:48 [SPEAKER_06]: This is such a strange thing I'm doing.
31:48 --> 31:54 [SPEAKER_06]: I'm holding this like wooden instrument and I'm dancing around and I'm singing and people are paying to watch me do this.
31:55 --> 32:00 [SPEAKER_06]: What is this, you know, but I don't get that thought when I'm not stone.
32:00 --> 32:03 [SPEAKER_03]: That's the... All right, just a little bit too meta, you know?
32:03 --> 32:04 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
32:04 --> 32:06 [SPEAKER_06]: I think what I'm doing is cool and fun.
32:06 --> 32:08 [SPEAKER_06]: I think that's the most important thing.
32:08 --> 32:16 [SPEAKER_06]: And hey, I actually have to ask you to, if you ever saw this thing, this is going back to something we were talking about before.
32:17 --> 32:30 [SPEAKER_06]: Back to what you were talking about, Mark, did you ever see that clip where it was forel what came in to a music class and the students came up and played their songs.
32:30 --> 32:31 [SPEAKER_06]: Did you, you know what I'm talking about?
32:31 --> 32:32 [SPEAKER_06]: Like a master class?
32:32 --> 32:33 [SPEAKER_06]: No, I didn't see it.
32:34 --> 32:34 [SPEAKER_06]: Explain.
32:34 --> 32:35 [SPEAKER_02]: It's Maggie Rogers.
32:55 --> 33:10 [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, he like found this girl that played him this amazing song and like plucked her from nothing and really just promoted her and really rock skyrocketed her career just by popping into her music class and she's awesome.
33:11 --> 33:15 [SPEAKER_06]: Maggie Rogers, who's an enormous artist now, but she's still a student.
33:15 --> 33:16 [SPEAKER_06]: You should watch it.
33:16 --> 33:17 [SPEAKER_06]: It's so good.
33:17 --> 33:23 [SPEAKER_06]: I seriously get like choked up when I watch this video because she's like putting yourself out there.
33:23 --> 33:26 [SPEAKER_06]: This relates to what we're talking about, like when you put your song out there.
33:26 --> 33:27 [SPEAKER_06]: She's just a student.
33:27 --> 33:30 [SPEAKER_06]: She's young, probably 20, early 20s.
33:31 --> 33:32 [SPEAKER_06]: And for Elle.
33:32 --> 33:33 [SPEAKER_06]: It's for Elle sitting there.
33:34 --> 33:35 [SPEAKER_06]: He goes, okay, play your song.
33:35 --> 33:38 [SPEAKER_06]: And he sits there and he's kind of just like grooving to the music.
33:38 --> 33:39 [SPEAKER_06]: Doesn't say a thing.
33:39 --> 33:40 [SPEAKER_06]: They listen to the whole song.
33:41 --> 33:47 [SPEAKER_06]: And she could tell she's just so nervous.
33:47 --> 33:49 [SPEAKER_06]: I have no notes.
33:49 --> 33:52 [SPEAKER_06]: And you can see her like tearing up.
33:52 --> 33:53 [SPEAKER_06]: He's like, you are so unique.
33:54 --> 33:57 [SPEAKER_06]: I've never heard anything like this and you're amazing.
33:57 --> 33:59 [SPEAKER_06]: I wouldn't change a thing about this.
33:59 --> 34:02 [SPEAKER_06]: And it's just, it's such a cool video.
34:02 --> 34:06 [SPEAKER_01]: I was zero, zero, zero notes for that.
34:06 --> 34:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll tell you why, is because you're doing your own thing.
34:11 --> 34:11 [SPEAKER_01]: It's singular.
34:12 --> 34:15 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like when the Wu-Tang clan came out, like, no one could really judge it.
34:16 --> 34:19 [SPEAKER_01]: You either liked it or you didn't, but you couldn't compare it to anything else.
34:19 --> 34:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And that is such a special quality and all of us possess that ability.
34:25 --> 34:36 [SPEAKER_01]: But you have to be willing to...
34:37 --> 34:43 [SPEAKER_01]: to seek and you have to be willing to be like real Frank and your music.
34:43 --> 34:49 [SPEAKER_06]: And it just it also illustrates that that moment of whatever what you call it in a call.
34:49 --> 34:57 [SPEAKER_06]: It's it's very vulnerable that moment of vulnerability when you put when you put your emotions and your art out there.
34:57 --> 35:10 [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm sure everyone experiences that filmmakers and visual artists and anybody who makes any sort of art experiences that anxiety maybe some people don't.
35:10 --> 35:13 [SPEAKER_06]: Maybe some people are out there just like, hey, I'm putting this thing out there.
35:13 --> 35:14 [SPEAKER_06]: It's for me.
35:15 --> 35:16 [SPEAKER_06]: And if you like it, that's a bonus.
35:16 --> 35:18 [SPEAKER_06]: That's a great attitude to have.
35:18 --> 35:28 [SPEAKER_06]: Unfortunately, I, I personally, and, uh, pretty much everybody I know feels that sort of, um,
35:28 --> 35:29 [SPEAKER_06]: you want people to like it.
35:30 --> 35:47 [SPEAKER_03]: I taught a class last semester about creativity and the subconscious and it was like creativity and neuroscience all mixed up and like what's happening in our brains and moments of creativity and there's a lot of research about what you're talking about this idea of vulnerability and people that have
35:47 --> 35:48 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to get nerdy for a minute.
35:48 --> 35:51 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, people that have like a limited front-of-lobe development.
35:52 --> 35:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Front-of-lobe handles like our risk-taking.
35:54 --> 35:57 [SPEAKER_03]: It's the thing in our brain that stops us from doing dangerous things.
35:58 --> 36:05 [SPEAKER_03]: People that are really creative don't have a lot of activation in their front-of-lobe that they don't have that voice inside their head-sync stop don't do this.
36:05 --> 36:07 [SPEAKER_03]: They just kind of always push forward.
36:07 --> 36:16 [SPEAKER_03]: So we see a lot of creativity in people that are bipolar because they don't have that
36:16 --> 36:29 [SPEAKER_03]: It's weird to blow them together, but when you think of the way that a normative brain would like limit their exposure and limit their vulnerability, if people don't have that pause and that dialogue in their heads and like don't do this, don't push forward.
36:30 --> 36:34 [SPEAKER_03]: Instead, they're saying run the red light, take the risk, make more art, even if it's scary.
36:34 --> 36:38 [SPEAKER_03]: Those people we always deem is more creative because they just have more output.
36:38 --> 36:40 [SPEAKER_03]: They don't limit themselves as much.
36:40 --> 36:45 [SPEAKER_03]: which I think is really, really fascinating for what we're talking about this idea of vulnerability that like you're scared.
36:45 --> 36:48 [SPEAKER_03]: Imagine if you didn't have that and how far you could go.
36:48 --> 36:51 [SPEAKER_03]: And those are the people that we deem is like creative geniuses.
36:51 --> 36:54 [SPEAKER_03]: The people that don't have that like limiting factor in their brains.
36:54 --> 37:00 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that I've ever met musicians or artists, obviously I know more musicians than anything else.
37:00 --> 37:07 [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like everybody has a healthy slash unhealthy cocktail of like ego mania and crippling self-doubt.
37:07 --> 37:14 [SPEAKER_02]: Like and it just exists in this little balance and that balance is enough to get my ass on stage.
37:14 --> 37:23 [SPEAKER_02]: It's enough to have me riding songs that I'm sharing but you knock it a little out of balance and I'm not sharing anything with anybody or you're not getting too out of balance and I become a sociopath.
37:23 --> 37:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Are there people that don't have that self-doubt that's fear, a failure?
37:28 --> 37:35 [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like it goes with wanting to express these things and wanting, it's linked to the desire to create.
37:35 --> 37:41 [SPEAKER_03]: It's incredibly granduous sense of self or like a God complex, yes, there are for sure people that feel that way, absolutely.
37:42 --> 37:47 [SPEAKER_06]: I think about this all the time, and maybe I didn't think about this when I was in my 20s.
37:47 --> 37:51 [SPEAKER_06]: I was with my friends, and we were all on this mission together to be a big band.
37:52 --> 37:52 [SPEAKER_06]: That was the goal.
37:53 --> 37:57 [SPEAKER_06]: I think about this all the time, now though, we make music.
37:57 --> 38:09 [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm about to get in a van and play a show in 17 different cities because I and my friends think that we made something and make something.
38:09 --> 38:14 [SPEAKER_06]: And we are such a good band that people should listen to us.
38:14 --> 38:18 [SPEAKER_06]: We need something that they should pay you to listen.
38:18 --> 38:19 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the, the, the, the funny thing.
38:19 --> 38:24 [SPEAKER_02]: So like I, I played in bands and stuff like that, but it's always been, it's nowhere near on the level of punchline.
38:25 --> 38:27 [SPEAKER_02]: But what I am is a trained classical composer.
38:27 --> 38:34 [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a weird different version of what you're describing like the insanity of people are paying to watch me play base.
38:34 --> 38:34 [SPEAKER_02]: What is going on?
38:34 --> 38:41 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's weird sitting in an audience and watching an entire orchestra play something you wrote.
38:41 --> 38:43 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I'm not even the one on stage.
38:44 --> 38:54 [SPEAKER_02]: I am not able to play any of that music that I wrote, but they have wasted their time learning the song, not the song, but learning whatever piece I've written.
38:54 --> 38:56 [SPEAKER_02]: And the audience is watching that happen.
38:56 --> 38:59 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, how many levels of vanity is that?
38:59 --> 39:01 [SPEAKER_06]: That sounds cool, though.
39:01 --> 39:03 [SPEAKER_02]: That sounds like... Well, it's infectious.
39:03 --> 39:04 [SPEAKER_02]: Why do you think I fell in love with it?
39:04 --> 39:13 [SPEAKER_02]: The first time a group of people started playing my music, watching that was like this, oh my god, I have to learn how to do this better and I went to grad school for seven years.
39:13 --> 39:16 [SPEAKER_02]: It's cool, but there's also it's insane.
39:16 --> 39:26 [SPEAKER_06]: It seems less ego maniac because you created something, dude, if what you created sucked, these people aren't going to play it, or you know, people aren't going to want to hear it.
39:26 --> 39:31 [SPEAKER_06]: You're creating something that you yourself don't have to perform.
39:32 --> 39:34 [SPEAKER_06]: Someone else can perform it.
39:34 --> 39:48 [SPEAKER_06]: And you don't need to have the glory of someone coming up and asking for your autograph because they really liked those movements and then piece I'm doing something where it's like a big part of it is like somebody.
39:49 --> 40:00 [SPEAKER_06]: Hey, what's the way, you know, when you do this, too, playing in a band, but like, where you're t-shirt of your band or ask you to sign their record or something, as if you aren't just like a normal person.
40:01 --> 40:05 [SPEAKER_06]: You're just a normal person, like, this mess is with me, too.
40:05 --> 40:08 [SPEAKER_06]: And I gotta tell you guys, the thing I always tell myself.
40:08 --> 40:32 [SPEAKER_06]: is that I've been fortunate to surround myself in my band with people I believe are some of the best people, some best songwriters and musicians that I've had, that I've been lucky enough in my life to meet and to play music with and that everything I do is in service of I believe in my friends so much.
40:32 --> 40:42 [SPEAKER_06]: And yes, I'm part of it, but I think they're so good that like, that's how I convince myself, I'm not as much of an ego maniac as I think this profession requires.
40:42 --> 40:45 [SPEAKER_06]: It might be just something I'm making myself into.
40:45 --> 40:45 [SPEAKER_03]: We're in a dance.
40:45 --> 40:46 [SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
40:46 --> 40:52 [SPEAKER_03]: So like, yeah, so altruistic, like, you're, and like kind of, I think you have to be kind of a people, please, are.
40:52 --> 40:59 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, and just generally, I think I'm very much a people pleaser, but this idea that you're doing it for them.
40:59 --> 41:05 [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's really lovely because that gives you joy to help your friends out in this kind of way.
41:05 --> 41:08 [SPEAKER_03]: And be grateful that other people is really enriching too.
41:08 --> 41:09 [SPEAKER_02]: But I want it to.
41:09 --> 41:10 [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, thank you people.
41:10 --> 41:12 [SPEAKER_03]: It can be all the things for sure.
41:12 --> 41:15 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a co-dependent relationship for sure.
41:32 --> 41:43 [SPEAKER_02]: I have some more questions about this whole, the original question of like picking songs and who owns what kind of in terms of not the copyright ownership, but like people sense of propriety.
41:44 --> 41:52 [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe this is too recent and it's a source subject, but you talk about having like hundreds of songs, like you've got the well that you can go dip into.
41:52 --> 41:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Somewhere to land.
41:54 --> 41:59 [SPEAKER_02]: in my opinion, the best punchline album is 10 songs only 33 minutes long.
41:59 --> 42:00 [SPEAKER_02]: I just looked at it yesterday.
42:00 --> 42:01 [SPEAKER_03]: So, wow.
42:02 --> 42:06 [SPEAKER_02]: Why, now, okay, my band's like an MSB album is coming out in a couple of months.
42:07 --> 42:12 [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of, it's not the kitchen sink of everything we have, but it's kind of your first album is a lot of like, okay, it's kind of our songs.
42:13 --> 42:15 [SPEAKER_02]: What made you stop there?
42:15 --> 42:26 [SPEAKER_02]: Did it come down to, well, everybody put their top five, and it was just that was a set of 10, and why bother with 11, 12, 13, or look short and sweet, I think, is, and that's not a secret and carbative reference.
42:26 --> 42:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Short and sweet is like an amazing thing for me to experience in an album now and not have everything have to be super long, but what made you not go to 12?
42:34 --> 42:38 [SPEAKER_02]: You've got, I'm sure a few more hot songs on that list, right?
42:38 --> 42:41 [SPEAKER_02]: Cause it's been how many years since you Lyon is the last album, right?
42:41 --> 42:43 [SPEAKER_02]: So, that's a few years ago.
42:43 --> 42:46 [SPEAKER_06]: That's part of the answer is it had been too long.
42:46 --> 42:47 [SPEAKER_06]: Like, I was getting antsy.
42:48 --> 42:49 [SPEAKER_06]: It was way too long.
42:49 --> 42:54 [SPEAKER_06]: And we released singles, the world kind of turned into a singles world.
42:54 --> 42:57 [SPEAKER_06]: And people started believing less in the album.
42:57 --> 42:59 [SPEAKER_06]: I've never given up on the album.
42:59 --> 43:05 [SPEAKER_06]: I believe the album is a, if you are a recording artist, an album is a marker of an era of your life.
43:06 --> 43:06 [SPEAKER_06]: And
43:06 --> 43:08 [SPEAKER_06]: an album is important.
43:08 --> 43:17 [SPEAKER_06]: You probably know all about this, Mark, that songs were just never getting done because they were never finished.
43:17 --> 43:24 [SPEAKER_06]: If you know what I mean, like, it was a non-stop, just years-long process of like,
43:24 --> 43:26 [SPEAKER_06]: is the song finished?
43:26 --> 43:28 [SPEAKER_06]: Are we adding more to it?
43:28 --> 43:29 [SPEAKER_06]: Are we changing?
43:29 --> 43:32 [SPEAKER_06]: Are you going to record your vocals again on this one, Steve?
43:32 --> 43:35 [SPEAKER_06]: Sorry, you mean songwriting or the production Maxwell recording of it?
43:35 --> 43:36 [SPEAKER_06]: The production.
43:36 --> 43:47 [SPEAKER_06]: The perfectionism and what's funny about that is like I would push us more than ever to push the perfectionism aside the realness especially in a world.
43:47 --> 43:50 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't want to have this conversation, but I'm just going to say it one time.
43:50 --> 44:04 [SPEAKER_06]: where there's like AI, where there's like AI, music and stuff, having your fingerprints and the realness of you recording your band and not having it have to be such a pristine thing where everything's perfect.
44:05 --> 44:07 [SPEAKER_06]: I think that's more important than ever.
44:07 --> 44:08 [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's always been important.
44:08 --> 44:11 [SPEAKER_06]: But I think, and as far as the ten songs thing, man,
44:11 --> 44:19 [SPEAKER_06]: I like pop music a lot and I was looking at a lot of albums and recent years, they're like seven or eight song albums.
44:19 --> 44:20 [SPEAKER_06]: It was so many artists.
44:20 --> 44:27 [SPEAKER_06]: I was like, why album seems so short now, but I think 10 is solid because it's not, it's not overwhelming.
44:27 --> 44:29 [SPEAKER_06]: and it leaves people wanting more.
44:29 --> 44:36 [SPEAKER_06]: And I worry if you get into 15, 16, 17 songs that those songs towards the end get forgotten.
44:36 --> 44:37 [SPEAKER_06]: They're buried.
44:37 --> 44:46 [SPEAKER_06]: And especially with people's attention spans now, go look every punchline album now on the streaming services.
44:46 --> 44:50 [SPEAKER_06]: Whatever track one is is the one that
44:50 --> 45:05 [SPEAKER_06]: And that's a common story used to be track three and four where you're singles on the album in the 90s early 2000s now everyone front loads And it's just you know, I think it's a product of
45:06 --> 45:08 [SPEAKER_06]: We were very new for an album.
45:08 --> 45:12 [SPEAKER_06]: We thought that it was the right amount and we knew that people had short attention spans.
45:12 --> 45:15 [SPEAKER_06]: And you know, and also like, we are very picky in our band.
45:15 --> 45:20 [SPEAKER_06]: And yes, I say that we have hundreds, there are hundreds of not fully flesh songs.
45:20 --> 45:22 [SPEAKER_06]: A lot of those are a verse in a chorus.
45:22 --> 45:24 [SPEAKER_06]: A lot of those are 40 second ideas.
45:24 --> 45:29 [SPEAKER_06]: Some of them are seriously voice memos at a gas station or something like.
45:29 --> 45:34 [SPEAKER_06]: But a lot of more fleshed out ideas too, but yeah, it is when it comes down to it, it's just a democratic process.
45:35 --> 45:40 [SPEAKER_06]: It's a hard band I think is like, hey, three of the five guys put this song on their list.
45:40 --> 45:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Is this the situation where, you know, there's the tortured poet's surprise second disc, or, you know, less than Jake B is for B sides, where you actually have a bunch of songs that are ready to go as singles or a B sides, or did you basically record what you wanted on the record and then move on to the next project?
45:56 --> 46:12 [SPEAKER_06]: we recorded what we wanted on the record and there's a lot of there's a lot of like good demos out there right not good enough that I would release them on a streaming service but probably good enough that I would like put them on like a
46:12 --> 46:16 [SPEAKER_06]: We're thinking about doing the Patreon thing here soon for our band.
46:17 --> 46:17 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
46:17 --> 46:23 [SPEAKER_06]: Just because it's like the way of the world, if you want to exist as a band and pay your bills and stuff.
46:23 --> 46:26 [SPEAKER_06]: Or at least pay for your gas on the road and stuff.
46:26 --> 46:29 [SPEAKER_06]: So that would be the kind of like Patreon exclusive.
46:29 --> 46:33 [SPEAKER_06]: Or we'd include it on our band camp or something like that.
46:33 --> 46:36 [SPEAKER_06]: But not good enough to be like a proper release.
46:36 --> 46:37 [SPEAKER_06]: I think some of the songs.
46:37 --> 46:40 [SPEAKER_03]: Or maybe like play them live on your tour?
46:40 --> 46:40 [SPEAKER_06]: No.
46:40 --> 46:41 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't think we would do that.
46:41 --> 46:50 [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, that's a that's a whole other conversation because we've been a band for 27 years and we're about to go on a tour where we're the opening band out of three bands.
46:50 --> 46:51 [SPEAKER_06]: We have half an hour.
46:51 --> 46:57 [SPEAKER_06]: Oh my god, you can't play anything, but we literally have to go up there and play.
46:57 --> 46:59 [SPEAKER_06]: We have time for seven songs.
46:58 --> 47:04 [SPEAKER_06]: If it's a night where they go, like, hey, you get an extra five minutes tonight or something.
47:05 --> 47:10 [SPEAKER_06]: So we have to literally just like, what are the songs, what are our most well-known songs?
47:10 --> 47:17 [SPEAKER_06]: And we give ourselves like two of those seven that are for us and the other five are like, once we got to play.
47:17 --> 47:18 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, so you got to have a couple new.
47:19 --> 47:21 [SPEAKER_02]: You have to have a few fueled by ramen here, stuff, right?
47:21 --> 47:23 [SPEAKER_02]: Like not a freight or heart transplant.
47:23 --> 47:24 [SPEAKER_02]: You have to do those songs.
47:24 --> 47:26 [SPEAKER_02]: But you got to play the new stuff too.
47:27 --> 47:28 [SPEAKER_06]: It's funny too with our band.
47:28 --> 47:34 [SPEAKER_06]: You want a bang bang bang get all the songs in, but also part of our band is a little bit our personality, like talking between songs.
47:34 --> 47:37 [SPEAKER_06]: I never liked when a band has a script on stage.
47:37 --> 47:40 [SPEAKER_06]: Sometimes, sometimes we're like knocking them dead with what we're saying.
47:40 --> 47:44 [SPEAKER_06]: Sometimes we're just striking out with what we're saying, but I think that's half the flush.
47:44 --> 47:49 [SPEAKER_06]: But we really only have like two talking breaks for they have to be quick.
47:49 --> 47:52 [SPEAKER_03]: We love banter on this is love banter.
47:52 --> 47:54 [SPEAKER_03]: You want a original banter every night.
47:54 --> 47:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
47:55 --> 47:56 [SPEAKER_03]: Every night, original content.
47:57 --> 48:00 [SPEAKER_02]: Listeners heard about Colin Hay and he broke that rule.
48:00 --> 48:01 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, so mad.
48:01 --> 48:07 [SPEAKER_02]: Just a few weeks ago, we played a show with ourselves in the sense that we were on a bill.
48:08 --> 48:15 [SPEAKER_02]: And elsewhere on that bill was a band led by two of our members, more like Frogrock, Jamie kind of stuff.
48:16 --> 48:24 [SPEAKER_02]: And I was struck by their complete lack of banter, and it may be super self-conscious, because I'm like, shoot, am I imposing a vibe on these guys?
48:24 --> 48:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Because one of the guys are drummers, the keyboardist of this band, boy, poloid, by the way, isn't even the band.
48:29 --> 48:31 [SPEAKER_02]: like he's like the leader of that band.
48:31 --> 48:32 [SPEAKER_02]: I was like shoot.
48:32 --> 48:34 [SPEAKER_02]: He's set in the tone, but he's a willing participant.
48:34 --> 48:38 [SPEAKER_02]: I thought in our goofy banter jokes, and I'm like, oh my god, am I learning something?
48:39 --> 48:44 [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, the banter thing, apparently, the people don't all ask for it, Nicole.
48:44 --> 48:45 [SPEAKER_02]: Some people.
48:45 --> 48:46 [SPEAKER_03]: I want like bits.
48:47 --> 48:50 [SPEAKER_03]: I want fully formed comedic bits in between songs.
48:50 --> 49:00 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I'll give you a perfect example of somebody who's so good and sometimes you don't need to be like rightously funny up there or something, but just yourself.
49:00 --> 49:18 [SPEAKER_06]: be yourself up there and not you're putting on something we've played in sort of bands and have like a script and it's just like you roll your eyes like oh here's the part where they say this thing every night and it's like I really roll my eyes at that kind of stuff but a perfect example of someone who's so good Ben Folds.
49:19 --> 49:21 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if you guys have ever seen Ben Folds live.
49:21 --> 49:22 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah but
49:22 --> 49:31 [SPEAKER_06]: He just tells stories up there about the song or something and he's very funny, but he's not trying real hard to be funny.
49:31 --> 49:32 [SPEAKER_03]: He's just being him.
49:32 --> 49:32 [SPEAKER_03]: He's just funny.
49:32 --> 49:33 [SPEAKER_03]: He's the guy.
49:33 --> 49:33 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
49:33 --> 49:36 [SPEAKER_03]: He's like not pretentious and he is so talented.
49:36 --> 49:37 [SPEAKER_03]: He could be pretentious.
49:37 --> 49:38 [SPEAKER_03]: Sure, right.
49:38 --> 49:41 [SPEAKER_03]: Good pull it off, but he's just nice, very approachable and like that's.
49:41 --> 49:42 [SPEAKER_03]: That's nice.
49:42 --> 49:51 [SPEAKER_03]: It feels like you're part of an experience when you see live music and the bands like engaging with the audience and doesn't put themselves on that that pedestal comes and just chats with you.
49:51 --> 49:56 [SPEAKER_03]: Like that's why live music can never be replaced by AI because it can't have that witty banter.
49:58 --> 50:00 [SPEAKER_06]: I hope there's more reasons than just that.
50:00 --> 50:00 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh.
50:01 --> 50:01 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
50:01 --> 50:03 [SPEAKER_03]: No, it's just that part.
50:04 --> 50:09 [SPEAKER_02]: talking about like live shows and which songs are kind of your, you know, crowd pleasing or whatever.
50:10 --> 50:13 [SPEAKER_02]: You've also re-recorded on records, right?
50:13 --> 50:15 [SPEAKER_02]: So like, is it green hills?
50:15 --> 50:16 [SPEAKER_02]: That one's on a couple records.
50:17 --> 50:20 [SPEAKER_02]: The darkest dark on this record, which is a great song.
50:20 --> 50:21 [SPEAKER_02]: How does that play into it, too?
50:21 --> 50:22 [SPEAKER_02]: Like what makes you?
50:22 --> 50:24 [SPEAKER_02]: It's not like that's.
50:24 --> 50:29 [SPEAKER_02]: a song from your indie days that sounded like crap and you're like, we got new guys that's recorded with high production.
50:29 --> 50:31 [SPEAKER_02]: No, the original song sounds great.
50:31 --> 50:33 [SPEAKER_02]: The new version sounds great.
50:33 --> 50:34 [SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the 10.
50:34 --> 50:40 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, sometimes there's just a song that in our situation.
50:40 --> 50:41 [SPEAKER_06]: that you believe in.
50:41 --> 50:43 [SPEAKER_06]: And you're like, I'm not ready to give up on this song.
50:44 --> 50:46 [SPEAKER_06]: And for us, it happened a couple times.
50:46 --> 50:47 [SPEAKER_06]: I'll give you a good example.
50:47 --> 50:50 [SPEAKER_06]: This was from a Chris to make some podcast episode.
50:50 --> 50:55 [SPEAKER_06]: We did actually, but we had Tom from the Plain White T's on to talk about hey there, Delilah.
50:55 --> 51:01 [SPEAKER_06]: They had been putting that song on their first three albums in a row.
51:01 --> 51:02 [SPEAKER_06]: They put that song on.
51:02 --> 51:08 [SPEAKER_06]: They just believed in that song and they kept putting it on albums because they believed it.
51:08 --> 51:09 [SPEAKER_06]: And I always think about that.
51:09 --> 51:14 [SPEAKER_06]: Like, yeah, if they would have just put on their first album, they'd be like, okay, that's it.
51:14 --> 51:17 [SPEAKER_06]: They might not have had this massive hit, you know?
51:17 --> 51:25 [SPEAKER_06]: And I think the two that you just referenced, their mark, one of them, the song Green Hills, was a song we really liked.
51:25 --> 51:30 [SPEAKER_06]: The original version of it was very much a just a stripped down with the with the aluminum.
51:30 --> 51:52 [SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, a piano ballad at my old house where I had this like old shitty piano.
51:54 --> 52:08 [SPEAKER_09]: Nothing's ever gonna work out quite the way You think that it's gonna work out Then by the next album, we wanted to do like a full rock band version of it
52:29 --> 52:38 [SPEAKER_06]: So that was kind of like what they call reimagining, which 99% of the time when someone does a reimagination of a song, I'll be honest, I think it sucks.
52:38 --> 52:43 [SPEAKER_06]: Most of the time, I'm not really interested in hearing reimagines songs, but we did it.
52:44 --> 52:48 [SPEAKER_06]: So in it seemed like people liked the second version, maybe more than the first.
52:49 --> 52:53 [SPEAKER_06]: With the other song you referenced, darkest dark, we love playing it live.
52:53 --> 53:06 [SPEAKER_06]: Like it's the song that like, sometimes with that song, I believe the sentiment of that song and just like the melodies and just like, I just think it's like a really nice song.
53:06 --> 53:08 [SPEAKER_06]: It's got such a nice message.
53:08 --> 53:09 [SPEAKER_06]: I'll be there for you sort of message.
53:09 --> 53:13 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I love you, but it might not even be romantic love.
53:13 --> 53:15 [SPEAKER_06]: I just love you as a person.
53:15 --> 53:20 [SPEAKER_06]: It's just like the kind of song that I think and like are our troubled times.
53:20 --> 53:23 [SPEAKER_06]: feels good that we made that song.
53:23 --> 53:30 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I just makes me feel good and it feels good to play it like we always enjoy When we're playing it, I'm like, yeah, this feels good.
53:30 --> 53:34 [SPEAKER_06]: It just feels good to play on bass and it just feels good to sing
53:39 --> 54:01 [SPEAKER_08]: Even when it isn't that bad, my heart's well-plowed out off the bed Rock black, I know you'll kill me, God Let it be that I always have red eyes Like you're so pretty, scary One, two, three, and it gets hard Maybe I know where you are
54:12 --> 54:21 [SPEAKER_06]: So we kind of just believe in the song, and the second version of it, we after years of playing it live, the two versions are so similar.
54:21 --> 54:33 [SPEAKER_06]: But with there's just little nuances that have been played at live for five years, we added, and if you listen to it, at first you may be like, did they just put the same song on here again?
54:33 --> 54:36 [SPEAKER_06]: But we know these little things here and there in it.
54:36 --> 54:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and you have different people, right, too.
54:40 --> 54:47 [SPEAKER_02]: So like I recorded three songs that we have as on Slack at MXEPs on our upcoming album, but we have new horn players.
54:47 --> 54:48 [SPEAKER_02]: So the solo is all different.
54:48 --> 54:51 [SPEAKER_02]: All the parts were retracted like we added new everything.
54:51 --> 54:52 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, because you're five now, right?
54:53 --> 54:53 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
54:53 --> 55:16 [SPEAKER_02]: and well that's another thing because didn't one of your members come back mid album recording so like how do you Did he get a vote on what song and like are you shoehorning him in like that's a whole thing because I'm not saying I don't need to know like does he get his even split but like At a certain point your You're committed to the song it has an arrangement and then you're like oh my god we got another six strings to fit into every song
55:16 --> 55:20 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, with this album, Paul did come in partially through the recording of it.
55:20 --> 55:24 [SPEAKER_06]: He was an original member of the band, pretty close to original member of the band.
55:24 --> 55:28 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and I made sure, especially on that song focused on yourself, what you talked about.
55:28 --> 55:32 [SPEAKER_06]: I wanted Paul to sing the second verse, and I really, he has an awesome voice.
55:32 --> 55:36 [SPEAKER_06]: I really wanted to get his voice involved more on the album.
55:36 --> 55:45 [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I would say that Paul didn't really have a lot of votes on the song,
55:45 --> 55:55 [SPEAKER_06]: part way through the recording of it, but as a band who now as three guitarists, I will say we've gotten compliments on this that it's not like two guys are playing the same thing up there.
55:55 --> 56:13 [SPEAKER_06]: Everyone has it's like three guitars that are all doing different things and it does clear Steve who does a bulk of the singing, it lets him not saying he doesn't play, he does play some cool stuff or whatever, but if he needs to just focus on the singing and take his hands off
56:13 --> 56:15 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, it gives him a little bit of freedom there.
56:15 --> 56:24 [SPEAKER_06]: And as far as that song, darkest dark that we put on two albums that row, I do sometimes feel like, do we just like this song a lot?
56:24 --> 56:43 [SPEAKER_06]: Because if, if you look at the streams, it's like, maybe our 20th, most popular song, but as sometimes I say, like, is this like me and girls or we're trying to make Fetch app in here with this song that they've been catching on as much as some of the other ones, but you know, part of it as I'm sure you
56:43 --> 56:45 [SPEAKER_06]: You gotta give it, give people time.
56:45 --> 56:47 [SPEAKER_06]: You gotta let them work.
56:47 --> 57:17 [SPEAKER_06]: Live with the song and experience it and have it play it an important moment of their life like that's not going to happen right away If a song's been out for 20 years They've experienced that song and so many different moments of their life and have such an attachment to it So so many factors that go into this stuff, man That's I think that's why they reimagine the reimaginations of songs never worked because right now We could record a song from 20 years ago probably make it sound better than it did then
57:17 --> 57:18 [SPEAKER_06]: Right.
57:18 --> 57:21 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because it doesn't have the nostalgia for them that like the original might have.
57:22 --> 57:22 [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
57:22 --> 57:22 [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
57:23 --> 57:23 [SPEAKER_03]: It's too nice.
57:23 --> 57:30 [SPEAKER_03]: I think also I'm learning I think Mark might be your biggest fan punch lines good man like I mean I had
57:31 --> 57:36 [SPEAKER_02]: So I only deep dove through punchline after hearing you as a podcaster.
57:36 --> 57:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I came from originally the pop-up kind of world.
57:39 --> 57:44 [SPEAKER_02]: So I had heard some of the stuff, but it's like, hey everybody, listen to the music your podcasters create.
57:45 --> 57:46 [SPEAKER_06]: So that's right.
57:46 --> 57:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Go listen to the black dynamics, listen to punchline.
57:50 --> 57:51 [SPEAKER_02]: This is coming up soon.
57:51 --> 57:51 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm mulling it over.
57:52 --> 57:53 [SPEAKER_02]: Are you kid friendly?
57:53 --> 57:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Is your music kid friendly?
57:54 --> 57:55 [SPEAKER_02]: I think it is.
57:55 --> 57:55 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
57:55 --> 57:56 [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I'm thinking.
57:56 --> 57:59 [SPEAKER_02]: Because my son is having a little transition.
57:59 --> 58:00 [SPEAKER_02]: He's a middle schooler.
58:00 --> 58:02 [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's a transition happening between.
58:02 --> 58:09 [SPEAKER_02]: He hasn't been in kid in kid music since he was four, but like I mean from like pop pop to like go a little more.
58:09 --> 58:15 [SPEAKER_02]: Punchline can be a wonderful bridge from one of the other, but yeah, people should listen.
58:16 --> 58:20 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not, I shouldn't be hiding the fact that I'm a fan or you guys are good.
58:20 --> 58:21 [SPEAKER_02]: Be good.
58:21 --> 58:37 [SPEAKER_06]: I'm I'm very very flattered and Mark I can relate my girlfriends son Rylan he's 12 or just you know about well actually 13 now Wow, yeah, I forgot turn 13 the world's biggest Tyler the creator fan.
58:37 --> 58:41 [SPEAKER_06]: Oh wow And just obsessed
58:41 --> 59:03 [SPEAKER_06]: everything is Tyler the creator and I don't know how kid friendly Tyler the creator is honestly a little less kid friendly than we are but you know it's just interesting to see things through young people's eyes and what what resonates with them and I the one thing I'll say about Tyler is like just honesty like yeah it's so good, so good.
59:03 --> 59:09 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, my daughter jumped from Taylor Swift right to Melanie Martinez, like, really swung that pendulum.
59:09 --> 59:12 [SPEAKER_03]: So I think that any music can be kid music.
59:12 --> 59:13 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't like the label kid music.
59:13 --> 59:15 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think anything can be kid music.
59:15 --> 59:16 [SPEAKER_06]: Not vulgar, I guess.
59:16 --> 59:17 [SPEAKER_03]: Which didn't come.
59:17 --> 59:19 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, not vulgar, but use a quality.
59:19 --> 59:20 [SPEAKER_03]: I think it needs to be that.
59:20 --> 59:23 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm kind of, I guess I'm trying to.
59:22 --> 59:26 [SPEAKER_02]: What hasn't happened is what happened to me.
59:27 --> 59:38 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think a lot of people in our generational cohort in middle school, which was, my self identity became wrapped up in music and not just music in general, but what kind of music and who was cool?
59:38 --> 59:44 [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like because of the demise of the monoculture and just like YouTube everything.
59:44 --> 01:00:02 [SPEAKER_02]: There isn't really like, oh well the cool kids in the sixth grade class listen to this and everybody like there isn't I'm waiting I'm trying to like help my son find like Tyler creator whatever like I but I'm I don't want to feed him too much but like feed him enough that then he's gonna oh I like that and then he's gonna deep dive and come to me and be like
01:00:02 --> 01:00:04 [SPEAKER_02]: We're listening to this now, Dad, deal with it.
01:00:04 --> 01:00:05 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, that hasn't happened yet.
01:00:06 --> 01:00:07 [SPEAKER_02]: We're listening.
01:00:07 --> 01:00:15 [SPEAKER_02]: I was kind of like rolling my eyes at the stuff my parents, and my parents actually listened to pretty cool music, but I was like, can I stick my cassette in or whatever to play what I want to hear?
01:00:15 --> 01:00:17 [SPEAKER_02]: No, but like, middle school wasn't weird out, right?
01:00:17 --> 01:00:22 [SPEAKER_02]: It was like becoming like, I transitioned from boys to men then to like, growing, and stuff like that.
01:00:23 --> 01:00:24 [SPEAKER_02]: And then eventually, punk, too.
01:00:24 --> 01:00:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, documented stuff, boys to men episode coming up soon folks, by the way.
01:00:29 --> 01:00:32 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh, it's so good, spoiler, but like this.
01:00:32 --> 01:00:35 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, boys to men, so good, they're touring, we should go.
01:00:35 --> 01:00:37 [SPEAKER_03]: They don't have the base guy anymore, do they?
01:00:37 --> 01:00:38 [SPEAKER_02]: No.
01:00:38 --> 01:00:40 [SPEAKER_03]: They don't, we talk all about it.
01:00:40 --> 01:00:46 [SPEAKER_02]: We recorded that episode already, it's coming out soon, it's sad, but no, no base, they maybe this is just having a hair.
01:00:46 --> 01:00:47 [SPEAKER_03]: Become a man, what can you do?
01:00:47 --> 01:00:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Not a boy.
01:00:48 --> 01:00:50 [SPEAKER_03]: He always wasn't a man, actually, that was the problem.
01:00:50 --> 01:00:51 [SPEAKER_03]: They were like, we can't have this.
01:00:51 --> 01:00:55 [SPEAKER_03]: We're boys, we're getting to become men, that's the whole thing.
01:00:55 --> 01:00:57 [SPEAKER_05]: And so good.
01:00:57 --> 01:01:01 [SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, well, there's a lot like I literally have more questions that I wrote down.
01:01:01 --> 01:01:08 [SPEAKER_02]: We don't even need to get this conversation has been really insightful kind of it getting at what it's like, especially for a band you've been together.
01:01:08 --> 01:01:11 [SPEAKER_02]: You said 27, you were like a kid basically, right?
01:01:11 --> 01:01:13 [SPEAKER_06]: So what am I talking about?
01:01:13 --> 01:01:14 [SPEAKER_06]: It's 29.
01:01:14 --> 01:01:16 [SPEAKER_06]: I, we, what?
01:01:16 --> 01:01:18 [SPEAKER_06]: We formed a night, we formed a,
01:01:18 --> 01:01:21 [SPEAKER_06]: We started our band on July 11th, 1997.
01:01:21 --> 01:01:23 [SPEAKER_06]: That's when our first punchline practice was.
01:01:24 --> 01:01:26 [SPEAKER_06]: I have been in the same band, my entire...
01:01:27 --> 01:01:29 [SPEAKER_06]: The first band I was ever in is the band I'm still in.
01:01:29 --> 01:01:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
01:01:30 --> 01:01:33 [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a lot of people that started a band in July of 1997.
01:01:33 --> 01:01:41 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but those bands probably that's when I started my... My high school scob band or whatever, but that band ended after a year, right?
01:01:41 --> 01:01:46 [SPEAKER_02]: The fact that you're still in it is awesome, but like... Oh gosh, we're going along.
01:01:46 --> 01:01:47 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to keep you too long.
01:01:47 --> 01:01:55 [SPEAKER_02]: It's all good, but like, can you speak, I was thought of this because of like, you were a part of a movement that was more maybe kind of like record-labelly at the beginning.
01:01:55 --> 01:02:01 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, fueled by ramen, this kind of, your contemporaries with like, fall-a-boy, pair-a-more, that kind of thing, right?
01:02:02 --> 01:02:02 [SPEAKER_06]: All on our label.
01:02:03 --> 01:02:13 [SPEAKER_06]: Fuel by ramen was, Austin fall-a-boy signed the first, the same month we signed the same label, then it was, pair-a-more gym class heroes, panic at the disco,
01:02:13 --> 01:02:17 [SPEAKER_06]: who else, the Academy is Cobra Starship.
01:02:17 --> 01:02:19 [SPEAKER_06]: Fuel by ramen was fun.
01:02:19 --> 01:02:22 [SPEAKER_06]: Fuel by ramen was 21 pilots.
01:02:22 --> 01:02:27 [SPEAKER_06]: Like it became like, for our world of music, it became the biggest label.
01:02:27 --> 01:02:34 [SPEAKER_06]: And then to the point where people stopped even caring about record labels anymore, and then it became like an imprint of a major.
01:02:35 --> 01:02:35 [SPEAKER_06]: Right.
01:02:35 --> 01:02:36 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, right.
01:02:36 --> 01:02:39 [SPEAKER_02]: But on that note, you're not on fuel by ramen anymore, right?
01:02:39 --> 01:02:40 [SPEAKER_02]: So like no.
01:02:40 --> 01:02:58 [SPEAKER_02]: Has there been, and you have your own label that you all started, like, has there been a variety in the level of corporate meddling in your silence in your not your set list, but you're trackless on your problems back then and like, were you when you guys were.
01:02:58 --> 01:02:59 [SPEAKER_02]: We're running the label.
01:02:59 --> 01:03:02 [SPEAKER_02]: Were you meddling in your artists set list on their records?
01:03:02 --> 01:03:13 [SPEAKER_06]: Like I we never experienced that I'll be honest like they would the people from the record label might suggest like hey, we think this is the best song.
01:03:13 --> 01:03:20 [SPEAKER_06]: This is a strong single or whatever, but we never had that like label interfering go back to the studio.
01:03:20 --> 01:03:23 [SPEAKER_02]: Give us a single or the album's not coming out that kind of thing.
01:03:23 --> 01:03:39 [SPEAKER_06]: We never I hear that story a lot on Christmas podcast of like these major label artists, but we were low risk, you know, like right it wasn't like we got some like million dollar recording Contract or something we were on an indie label that you know was paying for the
01:03:39 --> 01:03:53 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, paying the $15 or $20 for the recording, but beyond that, it wasn't like some mega investment in us that they needed to have this iron fist say and what happens.
01:03:53 --> 01:03:58 [SPEAKER_06]: You did hear that when the bands did have the multi-million dollar record contracts.
01:03:58 --> 01:04:03 [SPEAKER_06]: And as far as like when we did some label stuff, it was on a very small scale.
01:04:03 --> 01:04:04 [SPEAKER_06]: It was just
01:04:04 --> 01:04:14 [SPEAKER_06]: you know, all small indie bands and did what we could and eventually realized that like, hey, record label isn't what we're in it for here.
01:04:15 --> 01:04:20 [SPEAKER_06]: Like, we think it's cool, but we also got into it like the decline of the.
01:04:20 --> 01:04:32 [SPEAKER_06]: If we would have got into that 10 years earlier or something, when people were really buying CDs and that, but then you saw a real decline of what I was growing up, but I'm sure that you may have both experienced this, too.
01:04:33 --> 01:04:35 [SPEAKER_06]: I cared what label a band was on.
01:04:35 --> 01:04:39 [SPEAKER_06]: Like I was that made me interested, like, oh, this band's on vagrant.
01:04:39 --> 01:04:40 [SPEAKER_06]: I got to check them out.
01:04:40 --> 01:04:40 [SPEAKER_06]: They're on that.
01:04:40 --> 01:04:41 [SPEAKER_06]: But Taffle, I'm going to check them out.
01:04:42 --> 01:04:44 [SPEAKER_06]: I don't think that's something that really exists anymore.
01:04:44 --> 01:04:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you would get the CDs that was like a mix of people on the label like I mean, if you'll buy ramen was one of those or like Asian man for the scost of Yep, I don't think that's a thing anymore.
01:04:54 --> 01:05:02 [SPEAKER_06]: I maybe it is, but Not the same gaming change that game a lot, which I you know, the compilation CDs were
01:05:02 --> 01:05:29 [SPEAKER_06]: the doorway into a world of music it worked on me and it worked for our band to a certain extent till it became a thing till CDs became obsolete and then I see the benefits and the negative side of streaming where everything is sort of on an equal playing field to a certain extent but you know I would I could see an argument against gatekeepers and then I could see an argument
01:05:29 --> 01:05:30 [SPEAKER_05]: four taste makers when you're good.
01:05:31 --> 01:05:32 [SPEAKER_06]: You kind of want a little gatekeeper in there.
01:05:33 --> 01:05:33 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
01:05:33 --> 01:05:33 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
01:05:33 --> 01:05:37 [SPEAKER_03]: I think all of this should be in your banter in your stage banter.
01:05:37 --> 01:05:39 [SPEAKER_03]: We want to hear that you're a 30-year-old band.
01:05:39 --> 01:05:43 [SPEAKER_03]: We want to hear about the 30-year-old man podcast.
01:05:43 --> 01:05:48 [SPEAKER_03]: We want to hear about the record label stuff and like it's an nostalgia tour.
01:05:48 --> 01:05:49 [SPEAKER_03]: That's what we want.
01:05:49 --> 01:05:49 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
01:05:49 --> 01:05:50 [SPEAKER_03]: We want them to sell four pieces.
01:05:50 --> 01:05:51 [SPEAKER_03]: I think.
01:05:51 --> 01:05:52 [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for coming on.
01:05:52 --> 01:05:58 [SPEAKER_02]: And so we've heard already, punchline tour in February through March or are you going loving that?
01:05:58 --> 01:05:58 [SPEAKER_06]: Yep.
01:05:58 --> 01:06:06 [SPEAKER_06]: February 24th to March 15th starting in Connecticut ending in North Carolina.
01:06:07 --> 01:06:19 [SPEAKER_06]: And I make our way all through like the you know from New York City to Chicago to Detroit to Toronto to you know we're on the first 17 dates of the tour with the early November and hello goodbye.
01:06:19 --> 01:06:19 [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
01:06:19 --> 01:06:20 [SPEAKER_02]: So look, come up.
01:06:20 --> 01:06:27 [SPEAKER_02]: I saw that the one hit Thunder 2026 album draft came out and those are really fun.
01:06:27 --> 01:06:30 [SPEAKER_02]: People you can basically, they're, what are you drafting?
01:06:30 --> 01:06:35 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like four five people eats drafting the five best albums that and you auction on it.
01:06:35 --> 01:06:37 [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's, yes, it's good.
01:06:37 --> 01:06:37 [SPEAKER_02]: He's fun.
01:06:37 --> 01:06:38 [SPEAKER_02]: It's really cool.
01:06:38 --> 01:06:39 [SPEAKER_06]: It's a lot of fun.
01:06:39 --> 01:06:42 [SPEAKER_06]: This, this latest one was the 1996 album.
01:06:42 --> 01:06:43 [SPEAKER_02]: What did I say?
01:06:43 --> 01:06:43 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
01:06:43 --> 01:06:45 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, you said 2026.
01:06:45 --> 01:06:46 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, Lord.
01:06:46 --> 01:06:47 [SPEAKER_02]: No, not over yet.
01:06:47 --> 01:06:50 [SPEAKER_06]: But you'd be real interested in the 96 one.
01:06:50 --> 01:06:52 [SPEAKER_06]: Mark, that is like prime time for scarpons.
01:06:52 --> 01:06:55 [SPEAKER_02]: That's gotta be losing streak in there, I think, right?
01:06:55 --> 01:06:56 [SPEAKER_06]: I got losing spoiler alert.
01:06:56 --> 01:06:58 [SPEAKER_02]: I got that one.
01:06:58 --> 01:07:12 [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, but basically, you have a theoretical, everybody who's in the draft has a theoretical $100 to spend to make the best five album collection and you try to outbite each other for the best albums.
01:07:12 --> 01:07:14 [SPEAKER_06]: 96 was like,
01:07:14 --> 01:07:24 [SPEAKER_06]: You know, we had Weez or Pinkerton, you had, uh, rage against the machine, evil empire, you had, like, every scop punk album you can imagine, real big fish, less than James, two side machines.
01:07:25 --> 01:07:27 [SPEAKER_02]: There's like there's like two puck, isn't that?
01:07:27 --> 01:07:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Two puck?
01:07:28 --> 01:07:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
01:07:28 --> 01:07:29 [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, check it out.
01:07:29 --> 01:07:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Anything else on that?
01:07:30 --> 01:07:32 [SPEAKER_02]: And what's going on with the makes?
01:07:32 --> 01:07:39 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, Chris Demakes, a podcast, we have a iconic songwriter each week, come in and talk about the writing and recording of their song.
01:07:40 --> 01:07:45 [SPEAKER_06]: Hosted by Chris Demakes from less than Jake, punchline, that's my band, punchlinemusic.com.
01:07:45 --> 01:07:47 [SPEAKER_06]: You could find out, you know.
01:07:47 --> 01:08:15 [SPEAKER_06]: how you can get a record or come out to a show or just listen to our music and anything you could possibly want to know about our band is on punchline music dot com and one more thing out plug punchline related ampodcast related is we have a punchline podcast called a band called punchline which is a documentary style podcast that I'm very proud of because it was a
01:08:15 --> 01:08:16 [SPEAKER_06]: a conversational podcast.
01:08:16 --> 01:08:20 [SPEAKER_06]: It's like a documentary style podcast and a pretty proud of that one.
01:08:21 --> 01:08:21 [SPEAKER_03]: That's cool.
01:08:21 --> 01:08:22 [SPEAKER_03]: Something a little bit different for you.
01:08:22 --> 01:08:26 [SPEAKER_03]: It sounds like and like a way to expand the genre a little bit.
01:08:26 --> 01:08:27 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's cool.
01:08:27 --> 01:08:32 [SPEAKER_06]: It's very, it was very fun to make and to not forget all the stuff that we did.
01:08:32 --> 01:08:37 [SPEAKER_06]: It was a nice way to like capture the journey and share it with everybody.
01:08:37 --> 01:08:38 [SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.
01:08:38 --> 01:08:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Chris Fafelius.
01:08:40 --> 01:08:41 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, thank you both for having me.
01:08:42 --> 01:08:43 [SPEAKER_03]: I think I can't wait to see
01:08:51 --> 01:08:55 [SPEAKER_03]: Never mind the music is hosted by Nicole Vatter and hosted and produced by Mark Poppinney.
01:08:58 --> 01:09:06 [SPEAKER_03]: You can email us at nevermusicquaditkmail.com and give us a follow on social media.
01:09:06 --> 01:09:08 [SPEAKER_03]: Never mind the music is also part of the lorehouse network.
01:09:09 --> 01:09:11 [SPEAKER_03]: Please join the conversation on their discord server.
01:09:13 --> 01:09:14 [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening.