Portugal. The Man (John Gourley & Zachary Carothers)

[0] Hello, everybody.

[1] My name is Dak Shepard.

[2] Welcome to Armchair Expert.

[3] I just wanted to say that we had our first live show last week.

[4] And it was so fun, wasn't it, Monica?

[5] It was so fun.

[6] It was a highlight of my trip through planet Earth.

[7] Yeah.

[8] People flew from Seattle in Portland.

[9] City's not our city.

[10] Yeah.

[11] And we saw you and we love you.

[12] And people made signs.

[13] And it was by my own biased estimation, it was a, fucking two -hour party.

[14] Is that accurate?

[15] Yeah.

[16] And of course, we were so encouraged by it.

[17] We're going to be doing some more live shows.

[18] We're going to have a couple coming up in the Texas area.

[19] That's a large area.

[20] But we will give more details as that approaches.

[21] But more importantly, today's episode has a couple turkeys named John and Zach that have this little startup band called Portugal the man. Hmm.

[22] Da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -un -da -boon -ha.

[23] They were so fun, as you will hear.

[24] And, of course, they wrote this amazing song as they are Portugal, the man. Please enjoy.

[25] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

[26] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[27] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[28] I am joined right now by Zach and John, who are, you know, hyper talents.

[29] I'm sure you guys know them.

[30] I'm sure you're humming their songs in your head as you go about your merry way.

[31] And we were just on the topic of caffeine because this is, we're recording this later.

[32] Spoiler alert, this is usually we're in like 10 a .m. or something, right?

[33] And I love to pound coffee during these.

[34] And I was just saying I'm scared because I can't drink coffee during this, so I'll never sleep.

[35] Now, please, Zach, take it away when you can drink coffee.

[36] Coffee has no effect on me anymore.

[37] God, I wish it did.

[38] I love it.

[39] I mean, it gets me normal.

[40] Right, right.

[41] Get you well as a junkie would say.

[42] Yes, exactly.

[43] I just start out sick and then it makes me better.

[44] You feel some grumbling in your lower intestines.

[45] Pretty much.

[46] Yeah, I don't even know if it works.

[47] It's just something I do.

[48] I don't even.

[49] But how late can you drink it?

[50] I mean, I drink it.

[51] Right up till bedtime?

[52] Yeah, I think so.

[53] Really?

[54] And will you just go right to sleep?

[55] No, I probably don't do that either, but I'll still don't sleep very well, which could have something to do with the caffeine.

[56] She's never really thought about this.

[57] Do you take anything to go to sleep?

[58] No, not really.

[59] You don't?

[60] Yeah, just.

[61] That's weird.

[62] You're a rock star.

[63] Why aren't you taking drugs to go to bed?

[64] I know, because I take them to party, man. There we go.

[65] I only take them to go up.

[66] I know you have to come down.

[67] And John, what's your take?

[68] Can you drink it right up till bedtime?

[69] as well?

[70] Yeah, I'm pretty much any anytime.

[71] Really?

[72] Easy.

[73] Wow.

[74] Uppers don't really do much to me. I just never felt it.

[75] Oh, really?

[76] It doesn't really do anything.

[77] Really?

[78] And have you, have you dabbled in drugs?

[79] I've been around them.

[80] You've been around it.

[81] You've seen people do drugs.

[82] Yeah, I've seen people do drugs around me. Well, I've done all the drugs, just so you know.

[83] Just sex and rock and roll.

[84] We really just not into drugs.

[85] Yeah.

[86] Yeah, but I've done everything shy of shooting dope.

[87] So I just, you know, you just, you know, just, you know, just.

[88] You're in a friendly place if you did want to say that, you know, you ripped a couple lines in your day.

[89] It would be okay.

[90] No one I don't think would bail out of the interview.

[91] We've done it.

[92] We've done a drug before.

[93] Okay.

[94] And not for you.

[95] Uppers is not your thing.

[96] Yeah.

[97] I mean, it's just never affected me. It's never like, I just feel normal.

[98] I think maybe you haven't done enough.

[99] I'm inclined to get like a real big chunky rock of something and just see if we can get you up there.

[100] All right.

[101] Anything yet?

[102] Take this mission on the road.

[103] Anything yet.

[104] Now, you guys, how long have you known one another?

[105] Oh, man. Too long?

[106] Yeah, yeah.

[107] Okay, right.

[108] Over 20 years, I think.

[109] Oh, really?

[110] Yeah.

[111] And how old are you all?

[112] I'm 36.

[113] Okay, so kids, 16, like high school?

[114] Yeah, yeah, about that.

[115] But you're not from Alaska, are you?

[116] Yeah, I am.

[117] You are.

[118] You're both from Alaska.

[119] Totally.

[120] Do you watch that cop show set in Alaska?

[121] Alaska State Troopers.

[122] There you go.

[123] Yeah, yeah.

[124] Do you watch it?

[125] No, I never watched it.

[126] Oh.

[127] I'm pretty sure we've had friends on it.

[128] I mean, I've seen it.

[129] I really wish you had watched it because I need to know if that's an accurate representation of what's happening on the rural roads out there in Alaska.

[130] I don't believe anything reality on TV is very real.

[131] But it's also, it's probably, probably not far off.

[132] A lot of the men that they interact with are armed.

[133] That is true.

[134] And many of them are very intoxicated.

[135] And midday is a lot of these.

[136] interactions are like 11 a .m. and they're heavily armed in swim trunks and hammered and they're on a quad that has somehow gotten ensnared in like a brawry bush or something.

[137] So far, this is pretty spot.

[138] It's holding.

[139] That was us.

[140] Okay, great.

[141] That's how we met, actually.

[142] That was also West in Michigan.

[143] So I went find out of heartily.

[144] I've been to Alaska a couple times and I'm going to tiptoe around this because I don't want to offend anyone.

[145] But certainly a. there is a specific state character type that would have left the lower 48 in search of adventure or something, right?

[146] Sabardose.

[147] Or they want to be alone.

[148] Yeah.

[149] Which is a specific personality type.

[150] And then folks, I think, are pretty generally proud that they live there.

[151] Like it's an accomplishment.

[152] Like they're bearing the elements and they're surviving.

[153] Is that, have I gone off?

[154] I think that's accurate.

[155] Totally.

[156] Okay.

[157] Okay.

[158] So explain your, you're all's high school experience.

[159] Captains of the football team?

[160] Homecoming King, right?

[161] Yeah.

[162] Yeah.

[163] I got along with everybody.

[164] You did.

[165] Homecoming King.

[166] I mean, that's quite an honor that was bestowed upon you.

[167] Were you a great dancer or?

[168] No. Fort Wasilla Alaska.

[169] We grade on a curve there.

[170] Oh, okay.

[171] So I got you.

[172] Yeah, a Wasilla 8 is probably, you know, a three.

[173] But where I'm from, you pretty much had to be like on the football team or a basketball stud or dating the hottest girl in school to end up Homecoming King.

[174] Do you check any of those boxes?

[175] He was pretty modest, right?

[176] I mean, he was just the guy that everybody got along with.

[177] And I think, I mean, how we met anyway was seeing him play, like he would play in our commons area.

[178] and his band would they'd cover cannibal corpse and rage against the machine and slayer and just Oh no. Oh they let you bring amps and stuff Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get left.

[179] Yeah, they just pretty much let you do whatever you want.

[180] Oh, wow.

[181] I don't know how I didn't, I don't even how we did that.

[182] I wasn't like, hey, I want to play.

[183] Somebody asked us to.

[184] And I'm like, who would have, who would have done that?

[185] They knew what kind of T -shirts I was wearing.

[186] Yeah, knowing you after all that.

[187] Yeah, how did you even get into that?

[188] I don't remember that at all.

[189] And John, is it safe to say that you thought he was a fucking stud like did you look up to him where you're like this dude's crushing he's jamming in front of the student body and and holding his own he's like this guy can't sing for shit i better learn how to sing i could help this guy out yeah pretty much no it it was just for me it was it was really like eye -opening i i kind of grew up with dog sled mushers for parents i mean for real yeah like parents ran the iditarod together really did you have a ton of dogs at your house yeah we had 100 huskies Oh my gosh.

[190] And let people know just because I've seen a couple documentaries about that, but for any animal lovers out there that might think that it's in any way cruel, those fucking dogs love that run, right?

[191] Oh, yeah.

[192] They live for it.

[193] I mean, it's really interesting when you're out there with them because it was my dad's dog sled team.

[194] But it's something we talk about all the time.

[195] Like, just us getting them ready to go, how excited they are.

[196] And we were just talking about it yesterday.

[197] Like, I've been pulled off the sled so many times because they're ready to go.

[198] And you get dragged for hundreds of yards just through this chunky ice and snow.

[199] Uh -huh.

[200] And I mean, it takes a while to calm them down.

[201] Yeah.

[202] If you can imagine you, if you have a dog, you know, hey, you want to go outside and how much it freaks out?

[203] Yeah.

[204] A dog's team has like, what, 15 to 20?

[205] Yeah, you have 20 dogs doing that.

[206] Yeah, they take off.

[207] And how are you determining which one is the alpha?

[208] Like, are you putting the alpha in the very front harness?

[209] Yeah, you have a lead dog that kind of directs the two.

[210] team.

[211] And yeah, I mean, you can kind of see which, which dog that is.

[212] I mean, there's a dog that leads the rest of them.

[213] Yeah.

[214] And you can see it in the dog lot as well, like just around the other, the other dogs.

[215] Yeah.

[216] And how did your folks get into that?

[217] What did they do for a living?

[218] Can you make a living racing dogs?

[219] Yes.

[220] So, uh, you can.

[221] My, my parents weren't in that category.

[222] Did well.

[223] They did well for sure.

[224] But the way my dad got into it was, We lived out to Nick Road, which was just outside of Wasola.

[225] And my dad had built a shed for Joe Reddington Senior.

[226] He's one of the founders of the Iditarod.

[227] Oh, okay.

[228] He's a famous in Alaska, he's like Michael Jordan.

[229] Yeah, yeah.

[230] Him and Herbie Nyakbuk.

[231] That's like our heroes.

[232] I'm embarrassed to say it.

[233] I've never heard either of those names.

[234] Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't outside of Alaska.

[235] But he built a shed for Joe Redington.

[236] And instead of taking payment, he asked if he could have.

[237] some dogs because he wanted to get into it and I mean I was four years old he took us straight out to Trapper Creek and we went out to this place called icy lake that literally icy lake yeah says it all yeah we lived out there for for two years and oh my goodness got into it are the dogs pricey yeah yeah they can be like what are we looking at if I wanted to assemble a team next year and try this in the thousands in the thousands per dog yeah for yeah for good dogs and did did he then get into breeding these dogs?

[238] Yeah.

[239] We actually just talked about it.

[240] The Iditarod just started a couple weeks ago.

[241] And he said this is probably the last year he's going to have one of his dogs in the.

[242] Oh, really?

[243] And how long does that race last?

[244] Um, we, I guess we were, when did they break 10 days?

[245] Oh, Martin, Martin Luther broke 10 days.

[246] And it's, I mean, it's a thousand, thousand miles sled dog race.

[247] Oh, my goodness.

[248] So I'm obsessed with off road racing to me that, you know, the zenith is the Baha 1 ,000.

[249] Yeah.

[250] And just knowing that, you know, if you're the fastest guy out there, you're still racing over five foot jumps for 18 hours.

[251] And that, to me, is the height of it.

[252] I can't imagine racing for 10 days with dogs as my.

[253] It's pretty great engine.

[254] I couldn't imagine.

[255] And they're sleeping out there.

[256] Like, so what do they do?

[257] They mush the dogs for how many hours a day?

[258] I'm not sure how long they go a day, but it's, I mean, it's.

[259] And it's dark as fuck.

[260] right now, right?

[261] It's just dark up there.

[262] Yeah, it's dark.

[263] You're sleep deprived.

[264] These people hate themselves.

[265] Is it safe to say that there's a lot of self -loathing in the dog racing world?

[266] Alaskan, generally.

[267] We're really proud and that, man, it's a real mix of both.

[268] It's confusing.

[269] Yeah.

[270] And I don't know why I feel compelled to say this, but also saw a really cool Discovery Channel episode about which animal had the best endurance of any animal in the world.

[271] And they're comparing all these.

[272] And it was those dogs.

[273] That's the number one.

[274] They can run it 75 % for like 21 hours straight or something crazy like that.

[275] Like, right?

[276] If they bite a musk ox or something, they can just track it for life.

[277] They don't give a fuck.

[278] Right?

[279] They'll just wear it down.

[280] That's crazy.

[281] So how do you get into music if you're, you know, you're growing up in a dog kennel?

[282] How does that happen?

[283] It wasn't a lot to do, I guess.

[284] Besides that, you could kind of sit around and when it's really cold outside and the sun goes down, you have 2 .30 in the afternoon.

[285] Yeah.

[286] You can, one of the things you can do is pick up a guitar and figure it out.

[287] Right.

[288] And you started at what age?

[289] I started about 12.

[290] I played, I played music before that.

[291] I played saxophone for a long time before that.

[292] I played a lot of, you know, jazz and classical, but I'd never listened to that stuff or that.

[293] I was listening to rock and roll.

[294] Yeah.

[295] but I'd never, and my dad had a guitar in the closet and stuff, but I didn't, I was always listened to Zeppelin and the Beatles and people that are, that are that is really mad.

[296] So I never thought I could do that.

[297] And then I heard Nirvana.

[298] Yeah.

[299] I heard Nirvana.

[300] Sure.

[301] We can play.

[302] It smells like teen spirit.

[303] Yeah.

[304] I was like, this sounds, I just loved it.

[305] And I fell in love with it.

[306] And I connected with it so heavily.

[307] And then I thought, I was like, you know, that solo, I think I could play that.

[308] I think I could figure that out.

[309] Yeah.

[310] And so I broke out the guitar and it's pretty much learned.

[311] I think that's been a part of the large appeal of punk forever.

[312] Absolutely.

[313] Yeah.

[314] So similarly, I was 16.

[315] I think I went saw mud honey.

[316] Someone had the very first press of that album.

[317] Never mind.

[318] They played that song.

[319] We were all like, what the fuck?

[320] And then, yes, later that week, we were able to play that song.

[321] And it seemed like, well, fuck, my favorite thing I can do.

[322] Yeah, it's got a good, a learner's curve punk rock music.

[323] Totally.

[324] Totally.

[325] And that's what made you think we're like, well, if I could play that, maybe I could come up with my own song.

[326] And then you just keep trying that.

[327] And so I haven't done anything that's going to smell like teen spirit.

[328] But...

[329] Well, no, who can.

[330] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[331] But you're right.

[332] Zeppelin, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're listening to Jimmy Page play the guitar at his height.

[333] Yeah, you just don't, or John Bonham play the drums.

[334] Yeah.

[335] Kind of like, yeah, maybe I should skip this whole thing.

[336] Yeah, totally.

[337] Yeah.

[338] That's the problem with comparing yourself to people.

[339] You'll never start anything, right?

[340] Because why would you?

[341] Exactly.

[342] Yeah, I never wanted to play music because we grew up, I mean, away from town.

[343] So it'd be two hour trips to go get groceries.

[344] Uh -huh.

[345] And we would listen to all these radio.

[346] And it was just the Beatles and Motown and Sam Cook and all that.

[347] And it's all so untouchable.

[348] And it seems like so long ago as well.

[349] Yeah.

[350] Like I just really didn't know much it happened since.

[351] I mean, I knew of Michael Jackson, but Michael Jackson is also untouchable.

[352] Yes.

[353] It's, for me, it was seeing Zach.

[354] Someone could have made a great Michael Jackson joke right there, but I just couldn't construct it quickly enough.

[355] But you said untouchable.

[356] There's something really there.

[357] So I'm afraid this, this is a long.

[358] Only childhood, no. Who are you playing with?

[359] I don't mean musically.

[360] I mean just, who are you playing with?

[361] Dogs.

[362] Oh, I had a younger brother and sister, yeah.

[363] Okay, so you had family.

[364] Yeah, we did weird, really, really weird stuff looking back on it.

[365] I mean, I used to walk around the winter just listening for mice or rabbits or like whatever was hopping around.

[366] And we would, I mean, we would follow porcupines around.

[367] You're almost knell.

[368] Do you remember this movie with Jody Foss?

[369] She was like abandoned in the woods.

[370] I mean, this is like a, did you have your own language or anything?

[371] So when you, how do you then end up at this?

[372] Were you homeschooled up until high school or?

[373] No, we went to school.

[374] I mean, we lived up Kinnick.

[375] We were just outside of town.

[376] I got you.

[377] Outside of what town?

[378] Was Silla.

[379] Okay, Wossila.

[380] And I went to Snowshoe Elementary, which was kind of down Kinnick as well.

[381] They were all small places.

[382] Yeah, like how many kids are in your grades in these schools?

[383] When I was in Cooper Landing, there were two.

[384] kids in my grade.

[385] Oh my God.

[386] You must have gotten the best education in the world.

[387] Well.

[388] You might prove this.

[389] One of those kids would grow up to be the other teacher, though.

[390] It's like, you know, you never know.

[391] Right.

[392] So when you go to the high school that Zach's going to and you see him, is that, is that when you first saw him?

[393] Or do you have classes together?

[394] Yeah, that was kind of my first real time, like in, in like a bigger school.

[395] Yeah.

[396] And it was seeing.

[397] A lot of girls now, right?

[398] Yeah, they're girls around.

[399] Are you?

[400] Is your mind blown?

[401] It's like getting out of prison, basically.

[402] I was extremely shy growing up.

[403] Oh, you are?

[404] I didn't talk to anybody.

[405] I mean, even seeing his band play, I was in the background.

[406] I was just kind of taking it all in and thinking, like, wow, these kids can play these songs.

[407] Why couldn't somebody write it?

[408] Like, why couldn't we write new music?

[409] How soon after seeing him, do you work up the courage to start chatting with Zach?

[410] Is that how it happened?

[411] No, no, no. We were, yeah, we became friends through a mutual friend that, and we just kind of, everybody hung out together when we're older and started going to parties and stuff like that.

[412] It was like, all right, where's the bonfire at?

[413] That's what we did bonfires.

[414] Yeah, totally.

[415] Yeah, yeah.

[416] We had a big bonfire and we had, there were several different spots.

[417] We had the overpass.

[418] We had the, you know, the.

[419] Any of them by swim holes?

[420] Like, are you also incorporating a little aquatics with these parties?

[421] Not normally.

[422] There is pretty cold.

[423] Swimming wasn't a huge deal.

[424] Yeah, there was like, kind of.

[425] kind of, there's a couple spots to swim, but we never did it.

[426] It was never like party swims.

[427] Okay.

[428] We just kind of go in the middle of the day.

[429] I'm just going to tell you, party swimming lends itself to skinny dipping.

[430] That's really the only reason, yeah.

[431] Yeah, we totally never did that.

[432] Yeah, it was a bummer.

[433] The lakes of Michigan, very warm in the summer.

[434] And I think, thank God for that, yeah.

[435] A couple good ones.

[436] But, yeah, we kind of met at, we met at parties.

[437] And it was just, we would, you know, we'd have bonfires and drink a bunch of beer.

[438] And we'd all have our, you know, our truck doors open, blasting metal or whatever.

[439] And there wasn't a whole lot of people who really.

[440] underneath the surface for music.

[441] And so we found, we started hanging out pretty quick.

[442] It was like, oh, you've heard of this band that's just slightly below the surface.

[443] Right.

[444] And it becomes, that becomes the cool thing, right?

[445] The more esoteric of a, yeah, absolutely.

[446] So when do you guys, you graduate high school?

[447] Do you go to college?

[448] I went.

[449] Okay.

[450] Well, first off, we didn't graduate high school.

[451] Perfect.

[452] Congratulations.

[453] That was the other thing.

[454] So by the time, John and I would have become friends.

[455] You left high school first.

[456] and then I met him later before I left high school.

[457] What's the age difference?

[458] We're the same age.

[459] Oh, but he just departed quickly.

[460] Yeah, he left halfway through high school.

[461] I waited till like right before.

[462] I was listening to way too much like Dead Kennedys and Asian Orange.

[463] And I actually had like a, I had like a 3 .6.

[464] So I had, I could agree as I dropped out like three weeks before.

[465] Oh, my.

[466] Just to be like, I don't need this.

[467] It was pretty stupid.

[468] Homecoming King on the honor roll who drops out.

[469] You know, that's a rare story.

[470] It was pretty dumb, and I totally had a great time at school.

[471] What did your parents think about that?

[472] I was pretty pissed.

[473] My dad was just like, my dad never thought.

[474] And it was like, I'd never even thought.

[475] Like, I thought you could go to jail.

[476] You could become a, you know, a teen dad.

[477] I thought everything.

[478] Uh -huh.

[479] I thought you could die.

[480] He never thought that I would ever drop out of high school.

[481] Just demon crossed his mind.

[482] And it's pretty dumb.

[483] But I kind of figured that out pretty quick.

[484] I'm like, that might have not been super smart.

[485] So I snuck into college.

[486] and kind of pretended I got my GED pretty quick and then I went to a college that didn't even accept the GED you had to give them your diploma and I gave them transcripts for everything except the last quarter and I just pretended like I forgot them and so I was like oh let me just can I just enroll and pay you and get my classes because it's getting late they're like yeah just don't forget to give us that and they just kind of forgot about it Oh that's great I was in college That's great I hope that's a lesson everyone learns But then I, uh, yeah, don't do what I do.

[487] But oftentimes I found out that if I just don't fill out something, if I just leave something blank on a piece of paper.

[488] Yeah, leave it to their imagination.

[489] Yeah, it kind of, yeah, it kind of works out.

[490] Maybe you were the valet Victorian.

[491] I know, you never know.

[492] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[493] We've all been there.

[494] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[495] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[496] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[497] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[498] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[499] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[500] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[501] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[502] What's up, guys?

[503] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[504] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[505] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

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[509] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[510] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[511] John, did you go to, you didn't go to college?

[512] No. So what are you doing after you drop out?

[513] I was pretty much snowboarding and writing music.

[514] Yeah, working.

[515] I worked construction.

[516] I was carpenter, painter.

[517] Yeah, okay.

[518] And so you were also into skateboarding when you were a kid?

[519] We didn't have pavement.

[520] Elrodden.

[521] So skateboarding was out for me. You have a Thrasher magazine hat on, which is, obviously.

[522] Yeah.

[523] That was our circle of friends.

[524] I was into skateboarding, but I lived a little bit closer.

[525] I was in Wasilla.

[526] Yeah.

[527] He was ways out.

[528] You're such an enigma, Zach, because the fact that, again, you were homecoming king and you were into skateboarding and all this stuff, it just really, it's, it's, it's fracturing my known paradigm about what happens in high school.

[529] And that's great.

[530] We like it when people do that.

[531] Are the exception to the rule.

[532] Yeah.

[533] Wossila's just a little smaller.

[534] So it's not like, when there's like say there's Tom Brady's not going to be in that town.

[535] There's just the population won't support a Tom Brady right.

[536] Yeah.

[537] And there's just like everybody's kind of stuck there together.

[538] And so that's great.

[539] Yeah.

[540] I would imagine the again I'm basing this on nothing other than it gets dark a lot and there's not a ton to do.

[541] I'd have to imagine the imbibing and getting high and drunk is pretty rampant.

[542] Yeah.

[543] Pretty rampant.

[544] Yeah.

[545] Yeah.

[546] And culturally it's fine.

[547] Right.

[548] If you're fucked up all the time.

[549] That's great.

[550] No one cares, right?

[551] Yeah, it gets pretty dark, pretty dark in, in, in, in every way.

[552] There's a, there's a, there's a lot of drug problems and stuff.

[553] Uh -huh.

[554] That happened pretty quick, really high suicide rate.

[555] Uh -huh.

[556] It gets pretty, but it just depends on what you're into.

[557] Yeah.

[558] We never needed the sun, man. We're like, uh, we're those people that.

[559] Yeah.

[560] I like metal and four movies and I fantasize about moving to Alaska.

[561] Yeah.

[562] It's great.

[563] The sun will never come up.

[564] Oh, it's perfect.

[565] You know, I don't have put towels over the windows.

[566] But then in the summer, it's rough.

[567] It's just up the whole time.

[568] That's when I was there and I could not stand it.

[569] I already am an insomniac and then it was just torture.

[570] Like, you know, looking out the window at 4 a .m. And it's just bright as hell.

[571] I was so weird.

[572] Yeah, it's very weird.

[573] We grew up with it so doesn't really bother us.

[574] But a lot of people would bring up trouble sleeping.

[575] In a most pronounced way, it is like a physical embodiment of bipolarism and humans.

[576] You know what I'm saying?

[577] It's like it's one gigantic extreme or the other.

[578] Pretty much.

[579] And I can't imagine that, yeah, that wouldn't like trickle down.

[580] somehow into folks.

[581] When do you leave there?

[582] When do you leave Alaska?

[583] I left when I was about 19 or 20 and John came down about, uh, I was 21.

[584] 21.

[585] Oh, yeah, okay.

[586] After Zach had already left.

[587] Yeah.

[588] And where did you go, Zach?

[589] I went to Oregon.

[590] Oh, okay.

[591] So I went to Western Oregon.

[592] That's a good starter state if you're from Alaska.

[593] Yeah, totally.

[594] It's still has trees.

[595] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[596] A lot of rain.

[597] There's a mountain I can see.

[598] Uh -huh.

[599] Yeah, a lot of rain.

[600] A lot of people are very, um, yeah, they liked outdoors and it was cool.

[601] Yeah, we moved down.

[602] I moved down.

[603] I tried college and I ended up starting a band with a bunch of other Alaskans.

[604] We started doing shows and people started liking us.

[605] In Portland.

[606] Yeah, yeah.

[607] But we had a, we had no singer.

[608] And it was, we were all kind of singing, splitting up the duties.

[609] We're doing okay, but nobody could really sing.

[610] Yeah.

[611] We found out I was playing music with John for a while and stuff, but once again, he was very shy.

[612] I had no idea this dude could sing at all.

[613] How did you discover this?

[614] We found out just, we got his CD.

[615] He had started a band up in Alaska.

[616] Uh -huh.

[617] And I think Joe told me, he was like, did you know that Gorley is singing for a, singing for a band?

[618] I was like, no way.

[619] Are you sitting now?

[620] John sounds like a goddamn bird.

[621] I know, yeah.

[622] This motherfuckers got pipes.

[623] I know, we put it in.

[624] And everybody, we just look around, did you know he could sing?

[625] Did you, we all knew.

[626] We're all friends.

[627] And we played music together.

[628] Yeah.

[629] And, uh, but we usually just yell or something like that.

[630] I knew he could yell.

[631] And John, what was your confidence level when you were singing on that CD, that first CD?

[632] Are you nervous about it or do you know that this, you can do this?

[633] No, no, I felt really weird about it.

[634] Honestly, like I always just liked writing music.

[635] I like the idea of putting together songs and structuring things out.

[636] It was something I always did growing up.

[637] Like, I would take cassette tapes and I would edit songs.

[638] Like, this is the way I would have arranged it.

[639] Okay.

[640] So your confidence singing was not out of the gates high.

[641] Yeah, the only reason I made this music anyway was because I just, I really wanted to write my own music and I wanted to find somebody to sing for us.

[642] Oh, that was the goal.

[643] Yeah, even the first bands.

[644] I looked for a singer for this band for the first few records.

[645] Really?

[646] I mean, I didn't want to do it.

[647] I still don't really like doing it.

[648] I'd rather have somebody else step in.

[649] Is that true for both the studio?

[650] And stage or just stage?

[651] How are you in a studio?

[652] Still nervous and...

[653] Yeah, I mean, pretty much everything we do, we have to shuffle everything to the right a little bit just to put it in the pocket.

[654] Uh -huh.

[655] I'm always a little bit antsy, like, I never really...

[656] I'm not the most confident singer.

[657] Uh -huh.

[658] But I just really like...

[659] It makes you incredibly lovable, though.

[660] Who won a Grammy?

[661] Yeah.

[662] Yeah.

[663] Come on.

[664] It's not what you're expecting from there.

[665] Yeah.

[666] But I think there's a, that's certainly common in acting.

[667] I'll be on set with people who are, from my point of view, terrified of acting.

[668] It's so interesting.

[669] And then they have a lot of different tricks they have to do to get in the zone where they'll do it.

[670] So do you have any, do you have like a routine you do?

[671] For the longest time, I didn't face the crowd.

[672] I would just kind of play it backwards.

[673] Yeah.

[674] Face our drummer and I'd play with him.

[675] Because I really like, I genuinely just like playing music.

[676] Jamming.

[677] Yeah, like seeing what he's going to do and kind of riffing off of each other.

[678] And just over time, I've kind of turned to the audience.

[679] It's about 20 degrees a year.

[680] Uh -huh.

[681] And he started off straight up back to the crowd.

[682] And then, yeah, a couple years later, he's sideways.

[683] And then eventually, like, all right, look at that.

[684] Maybe he'll just keep rotating as you age.

[685] Yeah, correct.

[686] That is not.

[687] I could absolutely.

[688] So you don't have any...

[689] So one of your tricks was to just fucking ignore that there are people behind you.

[690] Yeah.

[691] And then any other techniques that have evolved over time?

[692] Yeah.

[693] Have you ever taken a beta blocker?

[694] No, I've never done that.

[695] You haven't.

[696] Okay, so this is, there's a great documentary called Bigger, Strong, or Faster, and it's really asking the question whether steroids are implicitly bad or not.

[697] There's not a lot of long -term studies, whether they are or they're not.

[698] And then it kind of goes into all these other ways that we accept cheating, one being, you know, you could get Laszac to change your eyesight if you're a pilot.

[699] There's all these things we can do to augment, you know, whatever our profession is.

[700] And they went in this long part about most symphony orchestra musicians take beta blockers before they audition because, you know, it just helps them profoundly.

[701] And it doesn't alter anything.

[702] It just really keeps your blood pressure from rising.

[703] to a point where now your brain gets really busy.

[704] And I'm wondering if that would be relief for you.

[705] Yeah, that's really interesting.

[706] I mean, I'm down to trying.

[707] I have some in my pocket.

[708] Do you want to try that?

[709] Cool.

[710] What would be great is if I gave him, son, and he just started singing and then we just couldn't shut him up.

[711] And we could just try this right now.

[712] I wish.

[713] But really, I would really be curious if you did that and then you let me know.

[714] Again, it's not mood altering.

[715] And I think they'll prescribe them to people who are really afraid to fly as well.

[716] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[717] Some of the guys in the crew and, like, our keyboard play takes it every now.

[718] It's like when you have to talk to people or you have to be, same with, same with the, anytime we have to say something to an audience.

[719] Yeah.

[720] Fucking terrifying.

[721] The journey that you guys are on is spectacular, right?

[722] It doesn't happen to many, many people.

[723] And it's certainly not many people from Alaska.

[724] But it is interesting that because you've gotten to this point, the people around you start assuming that you have all these other skills, which are unique skills, right?

[725] So how has that been for you guys, that part of it where it's like, okay, guys, time to be public personalities.

[726] And we're kind of having fun with it.

[727] It is fun because of the recent pop success that we've gotten.

[728] And like we've been talking about, I'm 36.

[729] I'm from fucking Wasilla Alaska.

[730] And we are literally on pop charts right now with a bunch of young, tan people with six packs.

[731] And places we don't belong.

[732] So it's super funny.

[733] So we don't have to worry about, a lot of people have an image to worry about and things.

[734] And we can just kind of, we get to have fun with it and we get a joke.

[735] Yeah.

[736] I think it lightens the mood enough to where we don't really give a shit.

[737] We're super happy where we are.

[738] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[739] We're grateful, but we also don't have to worry about, uh, yeah.

[740] You weren't aiming for this place so you don't feel super compelled to protect it, maybe.

[741] Yeah, it's a weird thing, like having a little bit of indifference along with this.

[742] Like when we walk in.

[743] I mean, any interview, we do Radio Disney or Nick, Nick Radio, we do things like that.

[744] It's awesome and it's super fun.

[745] Like the host on those shows are so good at what they do.

[746] Yeah.

[747] And they rarely get to do that because you have to come in with what questions you're going to ask.

[748] All right, take these off the list.

[749] Right.

[750] You know, they'll ask us what they can and can't talk about.

[751] Yes.

[752] And there's nothing.

[753] I mean, you just answer the questions.

[754] Yes.

[755] But is there a trap?

[756] because there is a there's a punk rock persona and that's where you guys come from and I remember when we were a kid like the the many different bands we were accusing of being sellouts without any real understanding of what we even meant by that right?

[757] I think on a deeper, deeper level if you look at what that really was saying it wasn't about selling out.

[758] It was about we're already a group of misfits.

[759] That's what binds us together is that we feel excluded by the football team.

[760] and so here's our little group of people and if you get success wait now you're leaving our little group of people and you're now you're now on the football team and so some of it is like self -preservation self -defensiveness to act kind of too cool or so let's just say like the Grammys must be a complicated experience for you guys right like you get nominated for a Grammy and if I'm you I guess my knee jerk is like well we don't give a shit about the Grammys for self -preservation because the Grammys aren't going to always call and on that day you're going to want to go oh, I didn't give a fuck about that.

[761] Well, here's the thing is the difference is we totally give a fuck about the Grammys.

[762] Oh, good.

[763] Yeah, but it's different.

[764] It's a we care about the nod from the Academy and our peers as the song that we wrote we are super proud to be nominated.

[765] We're super proud to win the award.

[766] But when it comes to like, you know, getting dressed up and the party, I think that's, that's a little more of the thing.

[767] The, uh, the ceremony, yeah, is not so much the pageantry.

[768] Yeah, yeah.

[769] I've been informed.

[770] I didn't see it, but I've been informed.

[771] Someone wiped their ass with the, the Grammy.

[772] Who did that?

[773] Um, that was me. But it's not exactly what you think.

[774] Okay.

[775] It's kind of what you think, but it's not exactly what you think.

[776] I can only visualize so many ways of fake wiping your ass with a trophy.

[777] So please enlighten me on what happened.

[778] You don't actually see.

[779] So most people would.

[780] have gone back to front, but if I went front to back was genius.

[781] So basically, all I was doing, there's this really funny, like, Liam Gallagher moment where he gets like, I don't know if it's a Moon Man or a Mercury Award, and he, he minds like he's shoving it up his ass.

[782] Okay.

[783] And our keyboard player, Kyle, had looked at me when I got handed the Grammy.

[784] Uh -huh.

[785] And I just, like, fucking with him because we think shit's funny and we're idiots.

[786] It's, I motioned like I was going to shove it up my ass.

[787] Uh -huh.

[788] And Kyle thought it was funny.

[789] But the camera cut away as soon as I brought it to my ass, which, I mean, I was shoving it up my ass.

[790] I love that you're defensive.

[791] I didn't wipe my ass with it.

[792] No, I was actually shoving it up my ass.

[793] That's a great defense.

[794] It wasn't a disrespect with it.

[795] No, no, no, I did not wipe my ass with it.

[796] I was 69ing the trophy.

[797] And then I went to ATM.

[798] Yeah.

[799] Straight back.

[800] So, okay, so I get that.

[801] So you were just making your friend laugh.

[802] And I would imagine in a situation like that where it's, it's very easy to be self -conscious.

[803] Like, you're on a stage in front of all these people.

[804] You're like, there's cameras.

[805] You know what you want to look at, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[806] A little bit of comfort is anchoring yourself into the person you know, right, who's right next to you.

[807] Like, is that what's happening?

[808] Yeah, exactly.

[809] We're just being ourselves.

[810] Like, we're idiots.

[811] Like, if we were out there thinking about the fact that we just, won a Grammy and pop not I mean we're not even in an alternative category we didn't even get nominated nominated in alternative despisito yeah oh wow that's like the song you're up against yeah oh wow that's crazy that's impressive um and then now did you say um god bless Satan or something what yeah what did you god bless Satan that's good that's a man I'm gonna buy that's oxy moronic I just said I just said uh hail sat hell Satan you said hell Satan yeah but that's pretty good And I'm assuming you're not actually a sainess.

[812] Yeah, yeah, I don't even, isn't it funny when we were kids that was like a real thing people were concerned about like this, the Memphis for whatever, these poor kids who got sentenced to prison because they thought they worshipped the devil.

[813] Yeah.

[814] That was a real thing when I was a kid.

[815] Like people were very, and my, um, my buddy Trevor, his older brother had a Rodney James Dio poster in the basement.

[816] And I went down there and I was just, I was pretty terrified of it because I was eight and it was like upside down crosses and.

[817] I wasn't even religious, but I was like, oh, this is some dark stuff.

[818] Yeah.

[819] That was all the music we listened to growing up.

[820] And so that was the shout out to that.

[821] And then also was there a blowback or a reaction to that?

[822] It kind of was.

[823] But I got to be honest.

[824] Your sweet voice, like you need to be in comedies.

[825] Because just the pause and then, yeah, they're kind of was.

[826] Yeah.

[827] It's almost an Owen Wilson.

[828] Okay.

[829] Yeah, tell me what it was.

[830] Yeah.

[831] It was just, it was stupid.

[832] I mean, the reaction was actually like really positive.

[833] Okay, I'm sure your fans loved it, right?

[834] Yeah, it's, I mean, they just, they know us.

[835] We've, we've been a band for 14 years.

[836] Everybody that's been around us knows we're idiots.

[837] That's the shit that we do.

[838] Yeah.

[839] We entertain ourselves, man. We're not, some people that enter, Justin Timberlake, he's an entertainer.

[840] That motherfucker can entertainer.

[841] That dude can entertain.

[842] Yes.

[843] We can, we're just figuring out how to entertain something.

[844] Yeah, you can do everything.

[845] But we just, we entertain ourselves.

[846] We're really good at that.

[847] Yeah, good.

[848] That's what we're truly shine.

[849] You know how to stay in your lane.

[850] Where does the Grammy reside?

[851] We haven't gotten them yet.

[852] Oh, you haven't?

[853] Apparently, you have to fill out some paperwork.

[854] Okay.

[855] I wonder if they're like 1099 you, they'll go like, oh, this thing has a value of $8 ,000.

[856] I'm pretty sure somebody has to buy it.

[857] Oh, really?

[858] But I'm pretty sure I have record label cover that for us.

[859] I'm excited to get it and give it to my mom.

[860] So you won for Feel It Still?

[861] Yeah.

[862] Yeah, which is a phenomenal song.

[863] Thank you.

[864] Yeah.

[865] That's how I came to know of you guys because I've long since become a dad and I don't know any new music and I'm boring.

[866] But that song is gigantic, right?

[867] It's a fucking juggernaut.

[868] Yeah.

[869] And what are the metrics of that these days?

[870] Is it views and download, single downloads and all this?

[871] Yeah, they have, I don't know who came up with the.

[872] the system to kind of make the equivalence of what a sale used to mean.

[873] But now it's a whole lot more math now.

[874] They consider streams and from YouTube, Spotify and all those things.

[875] So, yeah, I think it's about, is it 1 ,500, I think 1 ,500 streams equals one sale.

[876] Okay, because that you're making whatever, you're making 4 cents on a stream or something?

[877] Yeah, yeah, that's like that.

[878] Oh, that would be insane.

[879] No, it's fraction of a penny.

[880] But whatever it is, it adds up to a $1 .29 purchase on iTunes or something.

[881] Okay.

[882] So how many downloads are you guys at with that song, or roughly?

[883] Last time I checked, it was, there was 250 million streams or something like that.

[884] Jesus, Jonathan.

[885] I think that was before the Grammy, too.

[886] Actually, I don't, I have not even.

[887] And you got a Grammy bump?

[888] Do they call it a Grammy bump?

[889] Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

[890] And it's, yeah, it's crazy.

[891] Numbers that we didn't know really existed.

[892] But as far as it being monetized, do you guys see that money or no?

[893] Are you guys fucking loaded or what?

[894] No, not yet.

[895] Our business manager to keep saying next quarter.

[896] Oh, yeah.

[897] That's their famous quarter.

[898] Yeah, yeah.

[899] I hear, we have nothing to compare it to.

[900] Yeah.

[901] Because we've never really made money from music.

[902] We do, you know, we play shows and stuff like that.

[903] And, you know, you can sync to movies and.

[904] Right, yeah, yeah, you're licensing.

[905] And that's kind of how you do it now.

[906] we've never had a hit song.

[907] And apparently it's wildly different, but we don't really know yet, but I think we're going to do okay.

[908] Yeah.

[909] And I would imagine your expectation, because with the music business is what it is, that that's not even, that's not, you're not expecting that to be your big revenue stream, right?

[910] You're going, oh, wow, that's great.

[911] Now our tour will be much bigger.

[912] Every, everything, you know, slots get better at festivals, more people hear about it.

[913] It's more people buy tickets.

[914] Yeah.

[915] It's all.

[916] That's the business you're in, right?

[917] Yeah, exactly.

[918] But apparently, apparently the song could.

[919] make us some money but that's great that's awesome but i mean we were fine before we don't really you don't care about money no not really how i i don't know man we've always just lived within your means no we've always lived above her you didn't like sit around and fantasize about like having a ski boat and shit that you're not interested that kind of stuff i like uh i mean for for a minute and then i realize i'm like i don't i don't need a house i'm literally never home really a car i'm literally red cars i don't uh so you don't have a home No, I have a home.

[920] Like I live with my girlfriend.

[921] Like Kyle and I shared our keyboardist and I shared an apartment before.

[922] In what?

[923] Yeah, I pay rent for a place.

[924] I literally haven't walked in the doors in my apartment in probably five months.

[925] Oh, wow.

[926] And we're just always, we're always gone.

[927] We're always touring and stuff.

[928] And so.

[929] But this is in Portland.

[930] Yeah, it's in Portland.

[931] Okay, great.

[932] You want to give out your address in case you want fans to stop by?

[933] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[934] Can somebody pick up my Amazon packages and make sure they're just getting stolen off the porch.

[935] Sure.

[936] That's a certain.

[937] service one of your fans would love to be like.

[938] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[939] And how about you, John?

[940] Do you have a home?

[941] Yeah, I have a house with my wife and daughter.

[942] Wait a minute.

[943] You have a wife and a daughter?

[944] Yeah.

[945] That's great.

[946] How old your daughter?

[947] She's six.

[948] Oh, wonderful.

[949] Is it not the greatest thing of all time?

[950] It's pretty fun.

[951] Yeah.

[952] Do you, do you, Zach, watch John and go like, I got to probably get this.

[953] I got to get one of these.

[954] Oh, for sure, for sure.

[955] But I've also, I got.

[956] We lived together for a long time, all the band and crew in one house.

[957] I lived with his daughter for, with him and his daughter for four years.

[958] Oh, my goodness.

[959] So it's pretty, it's, I feel very, very close.

[960] She's my best friend in the world.

[961] That's great.

[962] I'm glad you have that.

[963] Yeah, I definitely, I definitely want to be a dad for sure.

[964] Yeah.

[965] It's tough now, even gone even more because of, because of this stuff.

[966] But yeah.

[967] But you're good, you're 36.

[968] Yeah.

[969] Yeah, I had one at 38.

[970] Okay, cool.

[971] Good, good.

[972] Most mostly bend over to get their stuff.

[973] Cool, yeah.

[974] My back's going to go out any day.

[975] But, you know, I'll pick out of that before then.

[976] And, John, how do you juggle the wife and kid while touring so much?

[977] They join you?

[978] Yeah, yeah.

[979] I mean, Francis toured with us.

[980] Our daughter toured with us for the first two years.

[981] Okay.

[982] And my wife sings with us.

[983] Oh, she does?

[984] Yeah.

[985] Oh, that's great.

[986] And you like working together?

[987] Yeah.

[988] Yeah, that's great.

[989] You've got a half smile on your face.

[990] She's really good.

[991] Yeah, she's amazing.

[992] It's funny.

[993] We met as artists.

[994] I do a lot of our visual art. And she was an illustrator in England, and we got connected through another artist.

[995] So she is English?

[996] Yeah, she's British.

[997] Okay, I want to hit you with something right now.

[998] We often veer into the world of anthropology, and we're going to do it right now.

[999] All right.

[1000] And you'll have to bear with me. I'm going to tell a personal story.

[1001] Some of our listeners hate that I get derailed with this.

[1002] But when I was young, I went on a ski trip to Vermont.

[1003] I met a young lady who that was from England.

[1004] She was from Manchester.

[1005] And we went snowboarding together.

[1006] And then that night, we all drank some beer together.

[1007] Then we started hooking up in the walking closet of my buddy's dad's hotel room.

[1008] Things were escalating, escalating, escalating.

[1009] I'm thinking, this is moving very, very quickly, much quicker than I'm used to as a 16 -year -old kid.

[1010] Lo and behold, we have sex.

[1011] That was always a huge mystery to me. I didn't understand why that went like that.

[1012] Years later, in college, I'm reading the study about why such a huge number of English women, became pregnant by American GIs during World War II.

[1013] And yet almost no English women became pregnant.

[1014] I'm sorry, no American women became pregnant by the English GIs.

[1015] And it's because culturally in England, the woman is the pursuer and the man puts on the brakes.

[1016] But here, of course, the women put on the brakes and the men are pursuing.

[1017] And so when Jenny and I got together, neither of us had a break pedal.

[1018] We were just like, go, go, go, go.

[1019] go.

[1020] And I was finally like, that's the explanation.

[1021] I needed that explanation because it felt way too good to be true.

[1022] Did this happen to you and your wife?

[1023] That makes sense.

[1024] Oh.

[1025] No, I wouldn't say it was, it was like that.

[1026] And I'm not trying to say that your wife we got with you too early.

[1027] I'm just saying was at any point did you go, this gal's down to party more than normal.

[1028] No, I mean, now you're saying all this, it definitely makes sense.

[1029] Just the way, the way we met and everything.

[1030] Oh, wow.

[1031] Okay.

[1032] Monica's got a real cross look on our...

[1033] I'm really skeptical.

[1034] Not of you.

[1035] That really was a paper I read in college.

[1036] I didn't make any of that up.

[1037] But could it be, the pregnancy -wise, could that be like, you know, condoms and stuff?

[1038] Well, no, the point was...

[1039] Well, but that was going to be universal between both, all four parties, right?

[1040] The question is why were so many American guys knocking up...

[1041] It's just proof that they had sex.

[1042] So there's way more sex happening between the American men and the English women than the English men and the American women.

[1043] Or American men just wanted to prove it.

[1044] And British are gentlemen.

[1045] Yeah, you're right.

[1046] Yeah.

[1047] The British dudes are the ones that go, no, we should wait.

[1048] It's just cultural.

[1049] No one's to blame.

[1050] That's just how they grow up.

[1051] They just don't talk about it.

[1052] Yeah, they just don't talk about it.

[1053] Yeah, yeah.

[1054] Americans just want to have the kids to prove that they had sex.

[1055] Yeah.

[1056] Oh, okay.

[1057] The British should just say, yeah, I had sex ones.

[1058] Okay.

[1059] But did you feel it all.

[1060] that your wife was like, oh, she's, she's pursuing me as much as I'm pursuing her.

[1061] No, I didn't, I didn't know she was a girl at first.

[1062] Okay.

[1063] When we first met, uh, this story just took a super interesting turn.

[1064] Online, you should probably say online.

[1065] Oh, oh.

[1066] Just got a boner.

[1067] I was so excited to hear where this story was going to be.

[1068] She definitely looks like a girl.

[1069] She definitely looks female.

[1070] That was, I didn't know if he was a girl or not.

[1071] Okay, so basically, uh, this artist connected a, us over email and said, you two have a similar art style.

[1072] You should meet and collaborate on something.

[1073] Yeah, like a child.

[1074] So she was a part of an art collective and she had an art name.

[1075] It was ambiguous.

[1076] Yeah, I didn't know who I was talking to.

[1077] Unicorn 85 or something.

[1078] Do you remember her art name?

[1079] Schoolboy error.

[1080] Yeah, that's very confusing.

[1081] Yeah.

[1082] I would be certain I was talking to a schoolboy.

[1083] Yeah, I was confused by it.

[1084] but yeah we were friends for a long time over email yeah this is really cute before you found out her gender you were friends for one time wow interesting and is there flirting that starts happening in the emails no I mean it was it was like literally it was just art art art art that's all we talked about you're you're both painters yeah okay and when do you meet face to face um 2006 five yeah was on her first record.

[1085] She happened, her dad had moved to Falls Church, Virginia.

[1086] And yeah, we happened to be passing through playing a show.

[1087] And I invited her out to a show because we were playing close to there.

[1088] And it's a gangster move.

[1089] Yeah, yeah.

[1090] Beets dinner.

[1091] When she showed up.

[1092] I'm playing a show.

[1093] Yeah, yeah.

[1094] When she showed up, she thought she was coming to an art show.

[1095] Oh, that makes sense.

[1096] And you thought she was a boy, so there was just a lot of confusion.

[1097] There was a lot of confusion.

[1098] Wow, I like that.

[1099] And how big were you guys at that time?

[1100] How big is this show?

[1101] Hundreds of people or a thousand people?

[1102] I took her at the church's chicken.

[1103] Hell yeah, you did.

[1104] And that was my predium for the week.

[1105] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1106] You blew it all there.

[1107] You wind and dine the shit out of her at churches.

[1108] The show is very small.

[1109] We're we're probably playing for like 40 people maybe.

[1110] Yeah, I think we were the second of five bands.

[1111] So isn't that, that's kind of encouraging, right?

[1112] Because You can trust, certainly, her reaction a lot better than if you, if you were single today and invited someone to your show, who knows, right?

[1113] Yeah.

[1114] That could be intoxicating for someone to show up at a show with thousands of people wanting to be close to you and they might have a chance.

[1115] I suppose so.

[1116] I don't know.

[1117] Oh, you never think about that, I'm sure.

[1118] I don't really.

[1119] We're old, dude.

[1120] That was a young man's game.

[1121] Yeah.

[1122] Okay, right.

[1123] So you're both in monogamous relationship.

[1124] chips.

[1125] Yeah.

[1126] Okay.

[1127] That would be hard.

[1128] I find that to be challenging.

[1129] I have a similar job where I have to go make out with people and pretend I'm in love with them, you know, and then not have sex with them in our trailer.

[1130] I think it's like if, I don't know, yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people say that, ask if that's hard.

[1131] I've never had a problem with it really.

[1132] But I mean, I've been single in the band.

[1133] I'm like, you know, it's a, it's, you never.

[1134] But it's a nice to say We have a pretty good rule with that.

[1135] Like, we don't, we don't try to do that kind of thing.

[1136] It's, man, that's just not, like, it's easy.

[1137] You're a guy in a band.

[1138] Like, I was, anytime I see we tour the band that kind of gets real skeezy with, particularly with fans.

[1139] Right.

[1140] I'm like, come on, man. You're already dude in a band.

[1141] You're already up on stage.

[1142] Yeah.

[1143] Like, I see a guy that's already, you know, handsome and in a band and pop.

[1144] And so I'm like, you're already shooting fish in a barrel.

[1145] You don't need to use a machine gun, man. Come on.

[1146] Okay.

[1147] So you feel like the power dynamic is just not.

[1148] We don't use that.

[1149] It's a, I mean, it's a, you know, okay, so great.

[1150] So, this is fertile ground for us.

[1151] Abuse that.

[1152] Okay.

[1153] Well, first of all, that's really admirable.

[1154] And I'm sincere about that.

[1155] It's really, really hard.

[1156] I was so horny when I was young and I just can't imagine not, if someone was willing to have sex with me, I just can't imagine not doing that.

[1157] We also, we give each other so much shit.

[1158] Sex.

[1159] We give each other so many handouts.

[1160] We never let ourselves get horny.

[1161] That's ban rule number one.

[1162] Oh, totally.

[1163] It's clouds your judgment.

[1164] Sure.

[1165] It's something to do what you got to do, man. But we would agree, though, that historically right, quite often what compels men to do anything, whether it's build a bridge or a skyscraper or a super highway, is to get notoriety, glory, and then hopefully a woman.

[1166] Yeah, yeah.

[1167] It's a part of the recipe, right?

[1168] Yeah, I suppose it is.

[1169] It's a weird thing, though.

[1170] I didn't like the stones growing up, mainly because of, like, Mick Jagger on stage and the rock and roll thing.

[1171] Oh, really?

[1172] Because how sexual he was?

[1173] Yeah, I was never a rock and roll kid.

[1174] As much as I like rock and roll.

[1175] Do you still not like the Rolling Stones?

[1176] No, I like the Rolling Stones.

[1177] Okay, because I think we got to agree they're the best rock band of all time, no?

[1178] Well, we can talk about that.

[1179] Who is it?

[1180] I mean, I'm a Beatles, kids.

[1181] You're a Beatles.

[1182] Okay.

[1183] So let's just say the Beatles are number one.

[1184] Who's number two?

[1185] I don't know.

[1186] I'm Beatles, Floyd.

[1187] Oh, Floyd?

[1188] Yeah, like...

[1189] Big Floyd.

[1190] Because you like the sophistication of their music, the arrangements and everything?

[1191] I don't know what it is.

[1192] I was super into the Rolling Stones.

[1193] I was mostly into Led Zeppelin.

[1194] Then I was into Rolling Stones.

[1195] But when I did hear the song, you know, I wake up, I get out of bed, Oranico, my girl's my da -da -da -de -de -de -de -de -de -de -de -de.

[1196] The places that song goes in five minutes.

[1197] So many key changes and so we're just like crazy.

[1198] It's like a movie.

[1199] I was like driving in my car.

[1200] I heard it.

[1201] And for the first time ever, I was like, this is the most complicated, seamless, wonderful, somehow in its totality, perfectly all of the same tone.

[1202] Yet it's nuts.

[1203] I felt the exact same way happiness is a warm gun was a song that by the Beatles.

[1204] How's that I want to go?

[1205] That's the, She's not a girl who miss. is much and then but it ends up with the mother superior like um and it's it's like three different songs in one and it's incredibly short and their and the recording equipment back then did not lend itself to stitching things together so it's like they had to play pretty big hunks of that seamlessly right yeah they did a lot of i mean they the Beatles really were innovators um they really paved the way for modern music production uh -huh and uh and they did they were the first to do a lot of things.

[1206] Stones always had rad production, too, though.

[1207] Their production was like...

[1208] I just think like rock and roll, the actual word rock and roll, what that elicits emotionally to me is so perfectly encapsulated by the Rolling Stones.

[1209] Just the guitar licks and the fuck you of it all.

[1210] Yeah, yeah.

[1211] And if you watch, there's that great, have you guys seen that documentary about them called Hellfire Hurricane or something?

[1212] I haven't seen that.

[1213] No, it's just talking about that.

[1214] You guys got to see that.

[1215] Yeah.

[1216] There's a couple great things about it.

[1217] One being, um, They were, I mean, you mentioned Liam Gallagher or whatever earlier, right?

[1218] And his routine was kind of that he hated being interviewed and he was a misanthrope, whatever.

[1219] But they were the original of that.

[1220] They were just touring the world.

[1221] They were the biggest thing in the world.

[1222] And they didn't give a flying fuck.

[1223] And it's crazy people would continue interviewing them because they were really just bailed out during it.

[1224] But and then the fact that they would go away to an island, just do drugs for like two and a half months and come out with sticky fingers or whatever album it was.

[1225] Yeah.

[1226] It's pretty incredible.

[1227] pretty amazing yeah who are you guys emulating who are you aiming towards and did you ever have that conversation um yeah kind of it was um for me it was it was hearing wu tang for the first time and i mean just to bring this around because wu tangs obviously hip hop and we're not hip hop right um growing up on on the beetles the reason i was into the beatles and the reason i was into floyd was probably more the lyrics and just the i live in the middle of nowhere i have my imagination.

[1228] And you can create these characters and everything with their music was so visual.

[1229] It was like they're telling stories.

[1230] Yeah.

[1231] I think growing up on Motown and the Beatles and these things, hearing Wu -Tang was like, that was the biggest eye -opener for me because it was hearing, I mean, talking about that era, there were a handful of mics and there's a handful of guitars there's a handful of amps.

[1232] Uh -huh.

[1233] The stuff that Rizzo was sampling was, it was just, like, so perfectly that era.

[1234] Even if you don't know the song, you know the sound of a mic on a piano from that era.

[1235] And that's what made me want to play music, was like, could I just write a, you know, a four -bar lick and loop it?

[1236] Can we figure out how to use drum machines?

[1237] It was really getting into using that stuff, like using more software.

[1238] and things like that.

[1239] And there's a neat thing to point out here about art in general, which is it's okay to be copying people because in a weird way, when you copy someone, it goes through your filter.

[1240] You can't actually copy someone.

[1241] You know, like you'll hear so many, I don't know you guys listen to Stern, but he'll have legends on.

[1242] Almost all these legends were trying to be somebody.

[1243] Oh, for sure.

[1244] There was the who or whatever.

[1245] And just, you know, it can't help but pass through your filter and become the thing that you could make, right?

[1246] So do you think it's important for people to kind of lighten up on themselves and just go ahead and aspire to something and then and let it pass through you and become something different?

[1247] Yeah, totally.

[1248] Man, it's funny when you think about Oasis.

[1249] I mean, just Oasis talking about the Beatles and straight up using Beatles lyrics and Beatles melodies and stones and everything they did is everything everybody's done is built on something else.

[1250] I mean, just the thought that somebody would think that they're fully original.

[1251] Tom York is not fully original.

[1252] Like radio head is not out of nowhere.

[1253] They're referencing things.

[1254] And that's what music should be.

[1255] And that's where it started.

[1256] It's Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan traveling from town to town telling stories with a guitar.

[1257] Just this is my experience.

[1258] And then you give it to somebody in that town, they create their own thing with that progression and talk about their experience within this structure and this melody.

[1259] Yeah.

[1260] So what's obvious to me about you.

[1261] John, is that you, you know the history of all this, right?

[1262] And I have to imagine you have a pretty romantic vision of what all that was, like Bob Dylan traveling around and doing these things.

[1263] Did you have just a general romantic view about all this stuff?

[1264] I don't think so, actually.

[1265] No. Yeah, I didn't even listen to Dylan a whole lot growing up.

[1266] Oh, okay.

[1267] To be perfectly honest.

[1268] Yeah.

[1269] All kinds of things we've learned.

[1270] Yeah, it's things that you pick up along the way.

[1271] I mean, we listen to it.

[1272] We listen to Roy Orbison.

[1273] But when you grow up listening to all these radio and everything that my dad had given me, like, AM radio, you get 50s and the earlier stuff.

[1274] You get early blues and bluegrass, you start to connect, well, that's clearly this song.

[1275] And that was clearly borrowed from this person.

[1276] And then you hear Smokey Robinson wrote this song for this artist.

[1277] And I think that's, it's something that's kind of lost today.

[1278] And I see it in publishing splits when you go into the studio.

[1279] with people.

[1280] There's the guy on the couch who wants 20 % because he's one of the five people that were in the room, whether he played on it or not.

[1281] Right.

[1282] And I think the whole idea of thinking about who's in this room and like what is the percentage of the people in the room.

[1283] Like, do I give the cut to the person on the bus that was telling that story and I picked up that lyric?

[1284] Right.

[1285] How do you divide that up?

[1286] How do you measure that?

[1287] How do you guys divide shit up?

[1288] Do you all split?

[1289] I take it.

[1290] I take it.

[1291] You take it.

[1292] He doles it out to us weekly.

[1293] He'll throw some chains on the floor every now and then he's...

[1294] He cuts a very small hole in his pocket and he kind of wanders it around and...

[1295] He just follows around all the time and that.

[1296] Okay, so you...

[1297] It depends on every song, you know.

[1298] Depending on who actually wrote it.

[1299] But it's not just like some bands go into it right and it's just an even split no matter what happens.

[1300] Yeah.

[1301] We don't take not all of us go into the studio.

[1302] Right.

[1303] not all of us.

[1304] And when we're there, we don't do the roles.

[1305] And a lot of people think we do.

[1306] I play bass in the band.

[1307] I hardly ever play bass in the studio.

[1308] I like helping with lyrics.

[1309] Oh, okay.

[1310] Like, that's my thing.

[1311] And we all kind of, we do a bunch of different things.

[1312] And everybody has their strengths in certain spots.

[1313] And some people, certain people come in a lot at the beginning and then leave for the end because it's just like, we all just kind of figured out, we're all wildly different people.

[1314] Right.

[1315] And we figured out where everybody, does the best and sometimes I know sometimes the situation was like I'm not going to help the situation so I'm just going to I'm to leave yeah so how do you guys navigate to me that the hardest part of being in a band would be well the first the greatest thing would be the camarader you guys are in an army you have a shared goal and objective and you're doing it together and that's awesome but how do you guys navigate egos as did you ditch it yeah there's not really a we keep There's never any friction.

[1316] Oh, there's fighting all the time.

[1317] There is.

[1318] Okay, good.

[1319] But it's not really ego fighting as much.

[1320] Everybody, we shed that of all.

[1321] We constantly just talk shit to each other.

[1322] Okay, so I'm just going to recap a bit because you didn't get into this to get ass, which is interesting and very evolved of you.

[1323] And I'm proud of both of you.

[1324] I mean, I've not been, I'm not an angel.

[1325] Okay, okay, okay.

[1326] But clearly you guys are.

[1327] We didn't, we don't, we don't get after it.

[1328] We're pretty nice boys.

[1329] Okay.

[1330] And then so, but even John was put off by Mick Jagger's gyrating hips and volumptuous lips to some degree.

[1331] So that's interesting.

[1332] And then you guys aren't egomaniacs, which is suspicious to say the least.

[1333] And you're not fighting each other a lot.

[1334] So I guess my question is, what's the engine?

[1335] You know, what drives the creativity?

[1336] None of us are very like technic, except, yeah, Kyle and Kyle is the guy.

[1337] that our keyboard player he'll go and he'll play um he'll stay up all night playing playing playing classical piano so that he works on getting technically better and our guitarist does too we don't really work on chops or anything like that it's more about like we we were never the guys that just stayed in our rooms all day and yeah like practice to get better we practice all we want to do is we keep wanting to outdo ourselves and we want to write a better song than the last one yeah and but even if you're not in there doing scales and whatnot it's We're always writing songs.

[1338] Yeah, it takes a lot of time.

[1339] It's a time commitment, right, to be massaging all these songs and everything.

[1340] And so, John, is there anything about that process when you started doing it that gave you relief at all or just felt nice?

[1341] I think for me when it came to, I mean, what drives me is, I mean, I'm a competitive person.

[1342] Okay.

[1343] It's not ego.

[1344] I mean, if there's got to be a little bit of ego too.

[1345] that but it's it's probably a lot of like wanting that era like I love the 60s I loved hearing oldies radio and saying every single song is amazing how did they write songs in under three minutes and all of them are so great it's it's wanting that competitive era of music back and really trying to just out yeah it's out to ourselves but push our our contemporaries to write better songs like I want to have some competition in music and see better music happening.

[1346] The Beatles famously had the Beach Boys, right?

[1347] Yeah.

[1348] And Pet Sounds, there's some big, you guys would know it better than me, but there was some rivalry.

[1349] And then the result was Sergeant Peppers, yeah?

[1350] Yeah.

[1351] They theorize that that sent Brian Wilson into a dark place.

[1352] Yeah.

[1353] Who's your Beach Boys?

[1354] Or you can be the Beach Boys in this scenario.

[1355] Is there a band that you guys feel like, fuck, man, that song's pretty goddamn good.

[1356] I wish that song was just a little less good.

[1357] Oh, man, I don't really listen to him, but actually, you know what?

[1358] I won't even shout them out.

[1359] Oh, really?

[1360] Oh, you're that dark of a competitor.

[1361] That's how competitive it is.

[1362] Wow.

[1363] You don't want them to know you're coming from.

[1364] Oh, shit.

[1365] How about you, Zach?

[1366] Is there a band out there that you think is doing what you would want to do?

[1367] I'm not as.

[1368] I mean, there's a bunch of people.

[1369] Yeah, there's a bunch of people that I'm.

[1370] Who are some of them?

[1371] Kanye, Kendrick.

[1372] Those guys are doing rad shit.

[1373] But it's not really in competition with us.

[1374] I'm not as competitive.

[1375] But, but I, I mean, there are people like in our wheelhouse.

[1376] I mean, we're always, we're always fans.

[1377] Because there is that kind of thing, even if there's a competing band who we may fight for on, you know.

[1378] In the charts.

[1379] In the charts, you know, chart positions, I still, I'm pumped that if we're high up, if we're battling for number one and number two, I'm like, all right, the world's getting fucking cooler.

[1380] Yeah.

[1381] So I'm all for that.

[1382] I totally want to be number one.

[1383] Sure.

[1384] But I want the top 10 to be filled with amazing acts and amazing artists.

[1385] But as you said, there is, there is some fruit that comes out of competition, right?

[1386] And if you're being driven.

[1387] Makes everybody better.

[1388] Yeah.

[1389] Their acts that I wish would try harder.

[1390] Uh -huh.

[1391] And, I mean, it was, I really hate saying this one because I really like their music.

[1392] I think MGMT, when they put out that first record, it was super, super impressive.

[1393] And it broke through to the mainstream.

[1394] it did this thing that is so unbelievably rare.

[1395] And one thing that I didn't like about that was they thought they acted like it was a joke.

[1396] Uh -huh.

[1397] You know, they broke through this record and they said, oh, well, it was just a joke record.

[1398] We made, like, lyrics, we were just fucking around, made this great, really amazing record that, I mean, it's made a huge impact on so many kids and so many experiences that were, I mean, had by so many people with this record and they think it's a joke.

[1399] And this goes back to them.

[1400] I'm going to confuse.

[1401] Who's the guys that are on every single song now they're with Halsey and?

[1402] You're thinking of chain smoker?

[1403] I am.

[1404] I am.

[1405] Because they did a similar thing.

[1406] I just heard them interviewed and I think they put out a joke album that got really popular, but it really was a joke album.

[1407] Yeah, I could believe that.

[1408] And then they were kind of embarrassed that it got popular and then they just had to learn to embrace it.

[1409] There's a really great chain smoker's tutorial, how to write a chain smoker's song.

[1410] Oh, yeah.

[1411] Everybody should look at it on YouTube.

[1412] That's pretty funny.

[1413] Do you think I could learn to write a chainsmonger's song?

[1414] It's just pretty funny to watch.

[1415] It's pretty good.

[1416] Okay, so this video, I watched a, you know, I did a little research on you guys and I ended up watching this video.

[1417] Is it live in the moment?

[1418] Yeah.

[1419] Yeah.

[1420] Now, there's this inexplicable car chase in this video.

[1421] and it's it's in a 90s front wheel drive Cadillac Eldorado which is in my driveway now you have that yeah well we have one of them one got wrecked right I got so much to say about just that because I worked for General Motors at that time as the 4 .4 liter V8 I think so we don't know they gave us the wrong keys I think they threw away the keys to the one they crashed and our keyboard's Kyle's trying to use that to get around town the back seat too.

[1422] Who thought of this idea?

[1423] Who pitched this and first of all I loved it.

[1424] So I'm asking these questions as a fan of the video.

[1425] But it's preposterous.

[1426] How did this idea come about and why did you guys embrace it?

[1427] There's kind of a lot of people talking around a table for this one.

[1428] We had joined forces with our buddies at widening Kennedy, who is a really, they're really amazing ad agency.

[1429] And we ended up working together on this album.

[1430] They got They got time and funding to do just fun projects.

[1431] They do a lot of commercials and their creatives, but they have to, they're always having to make people happy and be very specific about their things, which they're very good at.

[1432] And so to keep them creative, they decided they just wanted to do a project just for fun, not to, we didn't have to worry about making any money.

[1433] You were like the pro bono law case.

[1434] Exactly.

[1435] Yeah, yeah.

[1436] It's like one of those movies.

[1437] Keep themselves feeling good about themselves.

[1438] Yeah, and we have been friends with these guys for a long time.

[1439] We'd often just go out drinking or sit around dinner and come up with crazy ideas.

[1440] And now we just decided to actually use them and turn them into videos.

[1441] So it was originated from just stuff that we grew up with, skate movies.

[1442] Yeah, totally.

[1443] Yeah, there's a total sabotage influence.

[1444] Definitely.

[1445] There's a sabotage feel for that.

[1446] That's Spike Jones, right?

[1447] Yeah, totally.

[1448] Videos.

[1449] It's the best.

[1450] It's the best video ever made.

[1451] Yeah, seriously.

[1452] Yeah, welcome to hell.

[1453] Yeah, totally.

[1454] Welcome to Hell.

[1455] Like 90s skate movies.

[1456] and then obviously like, you know, puppets.

[1457] And we grew up on Muppets and Peeves Playhouse.

[1458] And so we wanted to kind of just have a ridiculous 90s video that we thought would be funny.

[1459] We wanted to have giant puppets.

[1460] And boy, it was really, really fun to do.

[1461] Yeah.

[1462] And who jumped the Cadillac?

[1463] That was a stunt, man. They wouldn't let me do it.

[1464] I tried.

[1465] Yeah, I've been in similar situations.

[1466] Yeah.

[1467] Do you guys have any interest in cars?

[1468] Uh, not a ton.

[1469] Yeah.

[1470] Well, you said you don't own one.

[1471] Yeah, well, kind of.

[1472] Like, I have the, the van that we toured in forever.

[1473] Uh -huh.

[1474] And we have that, but we're home so little.

[1475] I usually just, uh, do you guys, two -arm buses now?

[1476] Um, can tell you one, two second funny story.

[1477] Oh, yeah.

[1478] So, um, my wife's friend is this actress, Jennifer Carpenter.

[1479] She was on Dexter.

[1480] She comes over to visit the house.

[1481] She brings her boyfriend.

[1482] His name is Seth.

[1483] I, all I know is, I've been told he's in a band.

[1484] And I'm slowly.

[1485] trying to evaluate like what kind of band he's in, you know?

[1486] And I go, ah, so you, you two are a lot?

[1487] And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we two are, you know, whatever, 150 days a year.

[1488] I'm like, oh, wow, wow.

[1489] And you're in a, you're in a van?

[1490] Yeah, yeah.

[1491] He goes, no, no, we're in buses.

[1492] We got, we got a few buses.

[1493] And I'm like, you're in prebos.

[1494] Yeah.

[1495] He's like, yeah.

[1496] Well, it's Seth Abbott from the Avert brothers.

[1497] I then come to like, they become my favorite band and I've seen them a bunch of times.

[1498] But just the moment where I'm asking if he's in a fucking 81 Dodge Beachcombe And he's being very polite.

[1499] Well, you have to know, because a lot of people, you know, if I'm just meeting the guy, I'm talking to a guy in Uber or something, is like, yeah, what do you do?

[1500] And I'm like, ah, I play, I play music.

[1501] I'm in a band.

[1502] He's like, cool, what restaurant you work at.

[1503] And, you know, and you don't really want to say.

[1504] I'm like, no, I'm actually like a word we do well.

[1505] I don't want to brag.

[1506] You can't brag.

[1507] You can't really say anything.

[1508] There is, if you do want to get to know, that's, we kind of have to do that.

[1509] That's pretty much the line, right?

[1510] Yeah.

[1511] Totally.

[1512] And so we know when we meet somebody and they say they're in a band I've never heard of you.

[1513] I can ask like, oh, you got any shows come up?

[1514] What show are you?

[1515] What venue are you doing?

[1516] Then they give me a few of those.

[1517] I'm like, okay.

[1518] And I'm like, you're in a van or you're either just about to get in a van to a bus.

[1519] Or you're in a couple buses.

[1520] Like, I can kind of.

[1521] And you're smart enough because you have the experience to know the venues.

[1522] Like I wouldn't have really known.

[1523] Like I wouldn't have said, do you play Red Rock or whatever?

[1524] We played with the other brothers at Red Rocks.

[1525] Oh, you did?

[1526] Yeah.

[1527] I was supposed to go to the show a year ago at the Red Rock.

[1528] It's an amazing place.

[1529] I've heard it's like the coolest place you could ever see.

[1530] There's a lot of places named Red Rock, though.

[1531] But this is the Red Rock in Morrison, Colorado, yeah.

[1532] Yeah, Colorado.

[1533] Yeah, it's fantastic.

[1534] I really regret not going out.

[1535] I'll make a point to go back.

[1536] They'll do it again.

[1537] But when did you switch from the van to the bus?

[1538] What year was that?

[1539] It was 2011.

[1540] Yeah, so we did, and we were in a band before this.

[1541] We basically did, we did eight years.

[1542] doing 300 days a year in a van.

[1543] Like, we lived in the van.

[1544] We didn't have houses or anything like that.

[1545] You so deserve to be here.

[1546] Not in my attic, but at the grammy.

[1547] It's really great.

[1548] But tell me, the first time you guys walk on to a Prevo tour bus, do you look at each other and go like, oh, my God, what the fuck?

[1549] Basically, we, yeah, it was a ridiculous day.

[1550] The venue that was like the biggest venue in town that we could, we could ever play, we had already done to where we could sell that thing.

[1551] out now.

[1552] We actually used it for rehearsal.

[1553] We rented out for ourselves for two days because we actually had, we had a light package and we rented audio gear for the first time.

[1554] It was the first time we were going out on a big tour and we had to figure out how to use it.

[1555] So we rented out the venue that was always kind of untouchable to us.

[1556] And we was like, man, this is just ours to practice in and kind of figure out how to do lights or everything.

[1557] And we were still like, we were still our own crew.

[1558] We still had to load in and load out every night and pack the trailer.

[1559] And And, but we got on the bus and it was really funny.

[1560] We tried to figure out the audio and we just turned it on.

[1561] And our song, it did not get big on the radio, but it was kind of, it was doing well in Portland.

[1562] Yeah.

[1563] We turned on the radio and it was right at the beginning.

[1564] Hard bit.

[1565] We started playing that song.

[1566] We had brought champagne.

[1567] Oh, I love it.

[1568] And it was amazing, though, because I was one of the night drivers.

[1569] John could drive all day.

[1570] And in the van.

[1571] In the van.

[1572] And so I would, we didn't sleep very much.

[1573] And so I would drive half the night.

[1574] And so we started off in Portland.

[1575] And our first show was down in the Bay Area.

[1576] And that drive always fucking killed me. So I'd drive all night and then do a show the next day.

[1577] And then usually do you press.

[1578] And so I just start off the tour, I'm like, day one, I'm already just tired as fuck.

[1579] Yeah.

[1580] And he just never really recover.

[1581] And so I remember, I had a few glasses of champagne, some shots.

[1582] And I remember going to sleep is waking up in San Francisco.

[1583] I was like, oh, it was the best.

[1584] Yeah.

[1585] Did you think, oh, fuck, I can never go back?

[1586] What I learned was I do, we do miss a lot of things.

[1587] We had a lot of freedom, but it was also before we had to do, we had press.

[1588] It was before people cared about us at all.

[1589] Right.

[1590] So it was really fun driving through the desert on a day off.

[1591] And we'd see what looked like a cave at the top of them out.

[1592] Like, hey, let's pull off and just go check that out.

[1593] Yeah.

[1594] And we'd see world's biggest blank.

[1595] Twatwant.

[1596] We saw all of that shit, all the gas stations.

[1597] And we had a lot of fun doing that kind of stuff.

[1598] Being broke and on the road you find very interesting ways to entertain yourselves.

[1599] Yeah.

[1600] And we had a lot.

[1601] I do miss that.

[1602] And it probably generates a little more material.

[1603] Yeah.

[1604] As life gets softer, less and less material starts flowing from.

[1605] Right?

[1606] Because adversity creates most art in some way, right?

[1607] You got to buy your own groceries.

[1608] It's so necessary.

[1609] I don't sell people like Tom Cruise.

[1610] do what he does I mean that's ridiculous like how does it he can't go on buy groceries how does he know what normal people look like yeah how does he do that that's why it's actually that much more impressive when a guy like that does stay relevant doing great work all that stuff because it gets increasing it's it's particularly hard on comedians because if you look at most comedians their early early part of their career most of what they're portraying is the people that shit on them their whole lives right like it's either their fucking high school principal or this guy that you know some boss they had right but as that gets further and further in the rearview mirror and you're the boss and you're the one shitting on people you run a you know you run out of material and relate you watch you watch comedians just traditionally don't age that well because they get you know their life gets good and they like themselves and there's no reason to it and he can't really like don't you just hate it when you're private jet you know like they run out of your fits.

[1611] You have to drink your second.

[1612] Oh, we had a refuel in Iceland.

[1613] Oh, my God.

[1614] Bullshit.

[1615] Don't, you know what I'm talking about, right?

[1616] It's got to be tough.

[1617] Yeah, but to that point, do you guys have any, you know, do you think about that kind of stuff?

[1618] Like, God, if we get, even, even self -fulfillment, self -actualization, those things are dangerous for an artist, right?

[1619] Yeah.

[1620] Self -esteem is dangerous for an artist.

[1621] Totally.

[1622] I mean, I'm coming to the, I'm trying to redefine my point you where I'm now separating that where I don't have to I don't have to be so afraid of being penniless to motivate me to write a script like I got to unplug that right I'd like to write from a place of happiness and figure that out but do you guys have those thoughts yeah I mean we worked on this record for three years four years and there was a point where we were recording we're out in Malibu and we're recording with with Mike D who is our fucking hero sure and And we're at Shangri -La.

[1623] We're at Rick Rubin's studio.

[1624] And drinking smoothies every single morning.

[1625] And everything we did was great.

[1626] I mean, it was all so good.

[1627] And there's just something about that that it just got to this point where every single day, like, this is rad.

[1628] This is rad.

[1629] We got another song.

[1630] Like, everything was flowing, but it didn't, it just wasn't feeling like.

[1631] You had earned it?

[1632] Yeah, we didn't have that struggle.

[1633] Like, it's got to be there.

[1634] You got to be working for something.

[1635] Do you feel that the work?

[1636] was not as good as previous work where you had struggled?

[1637] I thought it was random.

[1638] Oh, okay, good.

[1639] So you do believe you could work from a place of peace and happiness and fulfillment.

[1640] It just wasn't.

[1641] It wasn't for us.

[1642] Oh, you weren't ready for it.

[1643] Oh, you weren't ready for it.

[1644] We're not ready for that yet.

[1645] Yeah, I've had the unique pleasure of visiting, in fact, Seth out there at the Shangri -Rlaw thing.

[1646] That's amazing, right?

[1647] I mean, yes.

[1648] My first thought was how does one ever go inside this studio to record?

[1649] Because you're in Malibu, and it's amazing.

[1650] Yeah, it was, well, because in there, I mean, And especially if you're a musician, all the things that they have in there.

[1651] It's like, dude, it's.

[1652] It's like a Smithsonian of cool recording stuff.

[1653] And everything, everything you want.

[1654] And that house is just perfect.

[1655] And did you interact with Rick a lot?

[1656] No, he was gone most of the time.

[1657] We only, we didn't hang out with him at all.

[1658] It was really funny, though.

[1659] We had, uh, you tried on his clothes when he wasn't there.

[1660] We, we, I rummaged through his unmentionables.

[1661] In fact, we recorded.

[1662] And most people don't know this, but the song, Rick's Unmentionables is literally Rick's unmentionable.

[1663] Yeah, yeah, totally.

[1664] Crazy for this one, Rick.

[1665] No, it was, it was really fun and really amazing.

[1666] But yeah, we had to kind of go.

[1667] We had to kind of take a step back.

[1668] And yeah, we totally, you're right.

[1669] We weren't ready for that for sure.

[1670] Yeah.

[1671] So the last question I want to ask you is, I have to imagine when you guys are in Alaska and you're imagining what it's like to be.

[1672] any number of these bands that you look up to, right?

[1673] You have a fantasy of what that life's going to be like and what you're going to feel about yourself if you attain that stuff.

[1674] And then it starts happening.

[1675] And do you feel like it has lived up to that?

[1676] Or do you feel like, oh, wow, I thought I was like not going to have to brush my teeth anymore.

[1677] But fuck, I still got to do that or I'm going to get cavities.

[1678] I don't think we ever had our, we never really thought we were going to accomplish anything.

[1679] For some reason, I think watching Nirvana unplugged, he talks, he makes a joke about breaking a string and he just says something like, I thought we were a big, rich rock band.

[1680] I thought we were supposed to have a bunch of extra guitars.

[1681] And then he talks about specifically asking David Geffen to buy that guitar for him.

[1682] And I was just like, oh, maybe for some reason I always kind of thought, I always thought that, but then I just figured that I was an idiot and that I was wrong.

[1683] So I guess I don't really think it was that crazy.

[1684] And now, obviously, like, you know, meeting, meeting my heroes that, uh, that just do that are pretty normal guys.

[1685] Yeah.

[1686] Some are disappointing, right?

[1687] Some are.

[1688] Yeah.

[1689] I like the disappointing ones.

[1690] You do.

[1691] Yeah.

[1692] Because you get to chat afterwards about.

[1693] Yeah.

[1694] It's different.

[1695] There's only been.

[1696] There's only been a few that I've been starstruck for.

[1697] Uh -huh.

[1698] Weird Al Yankovic.

[1699] Sure.

[1700] Um, naturally.

[1701] Yeah.

[1702] Big fan.

[1703] And that was a, that was a, he's a super friendly guy too.

[1704] So nice.

[1705] He lives up.

[1706] He's exactly what you want him to be.

[1707] He's not the bad version of this.

[1708] No, yeah.

[1709] He's amazing.

[1710] He's like, he's like too nice and too cool.

[1711] But I mean, I expected that.

[1712] But that was one where I was like, goop.

[1713] And I didn't expect that.

[1714] And I was, we were in L .A. a couple years ago.

[1715] And we were at the line hotel.

[1716] We were eating and, Jay Z and Beyonce came in with their entire family on Martin Luther King Jr. like straight from church.

[1717] So they had, they were in, they were just.

[1718] completely dressed up.

[1719] The kids, the entire family, they were fucking glowing.

[1720] And it, I couldn't talk the rest.

[1721] It was like, I was the only other table in there.

[1722] And that was them, their security team and their family.

[1723] And man, they just, Beyonce smiled at me and Jake.

[1724] I just gave me one of these.

[1725] And I was like, I was like, fuck.

[1726] I don't even know.

[1727] I don't even know what to do.

[1728] It was like, it was crazy.

[1729] He's my number one.

[1730] Just so you guys know.

[1731] I just, unbelievable.

[1732] Have you seen that documentary according his retirement album, which is the black album?

[1733] Yeah.

[1734] And I had no awareness of how he made those songs.

[1735] I was just a fan of them.

[1736] And to see that he goes into a studio.

[1737] He says to Kanye, what do you got?

[1738] And Kanye says, I got seven tracks.

[1739] He's like, let me hear him.

[1740] And he's like, all right, I'll take three.

[1741] I'll take five and I'll take seven.

[1742] And then he fucking sits there and bobs his head.

[1743] And then he goes, all right.

[1744] And he goes into the booth and says those rhymes.

[1745] I was like, this is not possible.

[1746] Dude.

[1747] It's so rare.

[1748] It is my favorite thing.

[1749] in the world.

[1750] It is every bit as amazing as Picasso making those paintings in five minutes at the end of his career.

[1751] It's just mind -blowing.

[1752] Even if you don't like hip -hop, you have to watch a documentary and just watch a fucking unicorn that lives on planet Earth today that we all get to see.

[1753] Yeah, it's unbelievable.

[1754] He's as good as it gets.

[1755] Yeah, he is badass.

[1756] So just to finish up on that thought, though, you maybe are now, you know, financially you could maybe not have to worry.

[1757] Like, you don't ever have to worry about getting that job you didn't want to get.

[1758] Is there, do you, can you absorb the safety of that?

[1759] Or do you still have fear about the future?

[1760] You have to keep writing.

[1761] I mean, that's the reason we play music is like, I just want to hear good, good music out there.

[1762] The goal was never make money.

[1763] It was actually the opposite at the beginning.

[1764] Yeah, when we started.

[1765] And it wasn't to get girls.

[1766] Again, guys, I don't know what you're doing up there.

[1767] I don't know why we do this either, man. You're just making music for the love of music.

[1768] Who are you?

[1769] Well, when I first came to Portland, we went to shows.

[1770] And seeing shows outside of Alaska, like you're seeing a show for three bucks.

[1771] You're seeing a band that you know.

[1772] T -shirts are $10.

[1773] Sometimes they're $5.

[1774] And we're watching these bands with 20 other people in the room.

[1775] And it was just like seeing him, seeing Zach cover these songs in school.

[1776] It was this moment of, well, if they're doing this for gas money, we could do this for gas money.

[1777] if we can make it to the next town we can we can play music yeah and we bought a minivan rice cooker and a five pound bag of rice boom and that's like all we wanted like we're just like yeah let's just go play music and have fun but once you win a grammy do you feel like oh i i want to keep winning grammies like i like this feeling and i like the acclant you know what you said the recognition yeah it's not so much that i think we just always want to I just want to make myself happy and I don't want to go back down I want to write a better song next time yeah I mean I yeah I totally want to win another Grammy that would be amazing hopefully they ask us back yeah they'll give it to you an abstentia somehow they'll figure out a way to change the date they'll give you the wrong date but they'll still let you win because you had no expectations you weren't aiming for something you just ended up there and maybe your songwriting process was easy before.

[1778] Do you have that fear of like, oh, fuck, our next thing has to be good now?

[1779] I don't, that's the thing.

[1780] It's like, to feel it still got so big.

[1781] There was like, well, shit, we can't try to write another song that big because it probably won't happen.

[1782] You're just resigning to the fact there won't be that song again.

[1783] We didn't try to write that song.

[1784] Yeah.

[1785] That song was just, I mean, it was out of your ass.

[1786] It was out of nowhere.

[1787] And it's the marvellettes, too.

[1788] It's Mr. Postman.

[1789] I mean, that's the melody in the chorus.

[1790] I mean, we're pretty transparent about this.

[1791] That is the way you write music.

[1792] You get these melodies and you say, like, oh, this works.

[1793] I can use this.

[1794] The way I thought about it when we wrote it, it was just so out of nowhere.

[1795] Like, we were mixing live in the moment in one room.

[1796] I stepped into a side room and I just started playing that baseline.

[1797] And we laid it all down.

[1798] Like pretty much everything on that track was recorded in 45 minutes.

[1799] It was just super quick.

[1800] And just like Jay -Z.

[1801] Just like fucking Jay -Z.

[1802] I wish you guys had made a documentary about it so that I could be so nervous around you right now that you hate me. That was the only time we've ever done anything like that.

[1803] Normally it takes a really long time.

[1804] Yeah, we couldn't try to write a song like that.

[1805] And I don't think anybody really can.

[1806] Anybody who thinks they can just write hit songs, you can have a big name.

[1807] And your name will get you ever.

[1808] everything in the world.

[1809] Jay -Z can put out a record, and it, I mean, no offense, it doesn't matter how good the song is.

[1810] If he wants it to go to radio, it'll go to radio.

[1811] Yes.

[1812] And that's just the way the music world works.

[1813] You cannot plan on writing crazy or, hey, yeah, you can't write those things.

[1814] Like, that's just, it happens, and it all, it all comes down to who else you're competing with at the time, who else is on the radio, you know, it's.

[1815] What's going around the world?

[1816] What's going on?

[1817] It's like, it's so many, so many things you can't plan for it.

[1818] So we're just going to try to write a better song, which I do think we can do.

[1819] Well, one of my heroes is Howard Stern.

[1820] And if I have a singular complaint about him in his interviews is that he can't comprehend that people don't think the way he does.

[1821] Like he'll go, well, you had to be jealous of this person.

[1822] No, you had to be dancing on their graves when you won.

[1823] I'm going to accept that you guys are just better people than me. You weren't trying to get laid.

[1824] You don't seem to care about money.

[1825] And you're going to just write from a good place.

[1826] And I applaud it.

[1827] and I recognize I'm you're aspirational in a lot of ways I feel like somehow you twisted us like like yeah yeah we're not we're like we're like fucking we do good things so we get sleep at night we do a bunch of terrible shit too I don't know how it's just like we you know good I'm I'm I'm a I'm a scumbag who's still scumbag yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm yeah I'm I'm scumbagish okay but but but because if someone tries to be you they're going to fall very short and then they're going to hate themselves and it's your fault because you did not let them see the skeletons, but that's a, that's for a follow -up.

[1828] We're angels, whatever.

[1829] When you end up in that, that DUI pitcher like Tiger Woods, I might have you back on.

[1830] I'm going to go, oh, really, Zach.

[1831] Oh, for sure.

[1832] Explain this photo.

[1833] I get fucked up often.

[1834] Okay, great.

[1835] Do you think you have a healthy relationship with booze or an unhealthy one?

[1836] It's pretty healthy.

[1837] I'm a pretty highly functioning alcoholic.

[1838] And it's, uh, it's.

[1839] In the way Bukowski was?

[1840] Yeah, totally.

[1841] Okay, great, great.

[1842] I drink too much, but, uh, but, uh, eat terribly.

[1843] I got, like, yeah, yeah.

[1844] Those are hard hurdles, aren't they?

[1845] That's the shit I'm talking about.

[1846] Like, and that's what I was getting to is I had this fantasy that if I, if I achieve certain things or got a certain amount of money that everything in life would be easy now.

[1847] It would be downhill.

[1848] But no, the fucking big battle all day long is you got to eat three times and eight.

[1849] And that's a, that is so hard.

[1850] It is almost impossible to make the right choice three times a day, seven days a week.

[1851] Sure.

[1852] Yeah, yeah.

[1853] That's way too many options.

[1854] Yeah, like one thing a day.

[1855] I can do one good thing a day.

[1856] Yeah, and you're saying at a nice hotel, you're going to go downstairs.

[1857] They're going to have a fucking ton of great options.

[1858] Totally.

[1859] And I know they're going to have something healthy, but they're going to have something like a burger.

[1860] Yeah, I want that.

[1861] You never, I guess my point is no one ever comes in and then they take the shackles of being a human off of you.

[1862] Unfortunately, it would be awesome if they did, wouldn't that?

[1863] Which maybe people like Tom Cruise, if you can buy an island and just live on.

[1864] No, he don't allow cheeseburgers on my island.

[1865] He has to make three good decisions a day, too.

[1866] Oh, man. And he's making clearly very good ones because he's ripped at 50 whatever years old.

[1867] Yeah.

[1868] He's still doing all right.

[1869] All right, dudes.

[1870] We love Tom Cruise.

[1871] We love Jay -Z.

[1872] Thanks for coming in and talking to us.

[1873] I know you guys are busy.

[1874] We'll come back and talk to me after you wipe your ass with another Grammy.

[1875] Deal.

[1876] Thanks, man. And now begins my favorite part of the show, Fact Check with Monica Patman.

[1877] Dearest Armcherry, I just want to post a listener advisory for the fact check today.

[1878] It has some very raunchy sexual talk.

[1879] So if that's not for you, keep it moving.

[1880] Love you.

[1881] Monica, Monica, Monica.

[1882] Bad man. Whoa.

[1883] Bad man. Wow.

[1884] Let's set the scene for people because this is a listening experience.

[1885] Yeah.

[1886] It is not a visual experience.

[1887] But I do think it's occasionally informative.

[1888] to point out what's happening.

[1889] How sweaty are we right now?

[1890] I mean, dripping.

[1891] It's confusing because I just got a facial, so I was glowing.

[1892] And I guess I still am, but I think it's because of the sweat.

[1893] It's a sheen now.

[1894] Yes, so the attic is blazing hot, or on a heat wave here.

[1895] We got a triple digits.

[1896] Yeah, triple digits.

[1897] Yes, there was like a 110, 115, something nuts.

[1898] And today it's in the high hundreds.

[1899] And high high hundreds.

[1900] There's a high pressure system blowing through the attic.

[1901] But yeah, it's about 10 trillion degrees in the attic and whatever, whatever.

[1902] I don't know, but just put that.

[1903] So you know.

[1904] Yeah, that's the context.

[1905] It's a little background info.

[1906] So if we get cranky at one another, let's blame it on that.

[1907] Yeah.

[1908] Okay.

[1909] So Portugal, the man, they were so nice.

[1910] Mm -hmm.

[1911] I liked them so much.

[1912] It made me a little disappointed in my own self when I heard how, how responsibly they were handling their rock star status.

[1913] I think they were getting annoyed, or not annoyed, but.

[1914] I think they were like, no, you're making too big of a deal about how nice we are because we're not that nice.

[1915] Right, right.

[1916] Which means they are nice.

[1917] I don't know.

[1918] Yeah, it means you're extra nice with you.

[1919] I think they're humans.

[1920] My hunch is they do have skeletons.

[1921] Of course.

[1922] Everyone does.

[1923] The Alaska State Trooper Show, you bring that up.

[1924] That's an American documentary.

[1925] What if you just said that's an American classic?

[1926] And you left it at that.

[1927] Sorry, it's an American?

[1928] American documentary television series aired on National Geographic.

[1929] Channel came out in 2009, went seven seasons.

[1930] Show, follow the daily beats of various bureaus within the Alaska State Troopers.

[1931] That's more seasons.

[1932] And you loved it.

[1933] I did.

[1934] I did.

[1935] It's more seasons than parenthood.

[1936] Yeah, one more.

[1937] We could deduce that it was a better show.

[1938] So if you liked parenthood.

[1939] Then you'll like this.

[1940] Because it's clearly a better show.

[1941] You can quantify it.

[1942] Yeah.

[1943] That's what we're saying.

[1944] That's what we said.

[1945] Okay, the Iditarod came up many, many, many times.

[1946] And you said there's a bunch of documentaries about it and that there are.

[1947] One is called The Great Alone.

[1948] It's on Netflix.

[1949] Another one's called I did a rod, toughest race on Earth.

[1950] The reason you said this is because you were like, people kind of think, some people may think.

[1951] That it's, yeah, cruel to the dogs.

[1952] Exactly.

[1953] But then you were saying, but it's actually not.

[1954] But in 2017, there was a documentary, a documentary that came out called Sled Dogs that definitely says.

[1955] The Boyle movie, the Danny Boyle movie, Sled Dog Millionaire.

[1956] Is that the same documentary?

[1957] Sled Dog Millionaire.

[1958] That was a documentary about my life.

[1959] What could have been your life?

[1960] Yeah.

[1961] Sled Dogs was not favorable towards these races.

[1962] Having not seen the documentary, and I'm sure it's heartfelt and wonderful, I guess I don't know that I can get behind this title because sled dogs sounds like a bunch of bros. Like it's about my sled dogs who I go sledding with.

[1963] You know what I'm saying?

[1964] I guess.

[1965] But you know that they're called sled dogs.

[1966] I do, but sled dogs.

[1967] It sounds like cool.

[1968] Well, it's not cool according to this documentary.

[1969] They're saying that they're just saying there's.

[1970] some shocking stuff that happens with these dogs, including a 2010 incident in Whistler, Rich Columbia.

[1971] Oh, that's for BC, yeah.

[1972] Blackcomb.

[1973] No, is that there?

[1974] Yeah, yeah.

[1975] Sorry.

[1976] What's that mean?

[1977] There's a ski resort in Whistler call.

[1978] I think Whistler Blackcombe and it's in B .C. Oh, cool.

[1979] Great, it's no warning.

[1980] They have a glacier and they're open all summer.

[1981] Mm -hmm.

[1982] Let's go.

[1983] Okay.

[1984] I wish so bad we were on a glacier right now.

[1985] Yeah, me too.

[1986] Me too.

[1987] Okay.

[1988] So 2010 incident in ways.

[1989] which are reported 100, quote, unprofitable, unquote, sled dogs were killed and buried in a mass grave.

[1990] That's terrible.

[1991] All right.

[1992] Were any of the documentaries entitled, why the fuck is anyone doing this?

[1993] I don't know.

[1994] Oh.

[1995] Because when I see it, my first thought is, why the fuck would anybody be that cold?

[1996] Oh.

[1997] And be out on a toboggan for that long.

[1998] at the mercy of 12 yapping dogs, high -strung canines.

[1999] That's true.

[2000] God bless those folks that enjoy that.

[2001] I can't really relate.

[2002] It's all relative, right?

[2003] Or it's all personal because I watch wrestling.

[2004] I watch UFC.

[2005] And I think that.

[2006] Like who, who, why, what?

[2007] I don't understand.

[2008] I do not understand the draw other than male ego.

[2009] Well, then, yeah.

[2010] But cheerily.

[2011] required a ton of training, and then it was ultimately put to the test.

[2012] So the dedication and then the trial and then the reward is euphoric.

[2013] And just to reduce it to female ego is a little.

[2014] That's any sport.

[2015] Yeah.

[2016] That's right.

[2017] This sport specifically.

[2018] So you have seen those guys train like eight hours a day.

[2019] It's very technical.

[2020] A guy who's not even an alpha bully.

[2021] type guy could become amazing at that sport because he's so athletic and so dedicated and trained so hard and I just because there's blood involved I understand why it's repellent to you but but it is just you guys are both doing something physical and then testing your skill same with the dog sledding exact same you just see that and you think why but it's the exact same situation I see watch you at C and I think it's a silly use of um of people's strength.

[2022] Uh -huh.

[2023] You had to hurt each other.

[2024] Yeah.

[2025] I get it.

[2026] Okay.

[2027] How many dogs are on a traditional dog sled team?

[2028] They had said 15 to 20.

[2029] The 16 dogs is the answer.

[2030] 16.

[2031] Mm -hmm.

[2032] Joe Reddington, Sr., who's one of the fathers of the I did a rod, he, you know, worked with John's dad.

[2033] And then he said, he said, yeah, he's like a hero in Alaska.

[2034] and Herbie Nyack book, I think, is what he said.

[2035] I kept listening back and I'm not hearing it right.

[2036] Okay.

[2037] And I can't find who he's talking about.

[2038] So listeners can help me out here.

[2039] Okay.

[2040] Yeah, tweet if you know Herbie Hancock.

[2041] Herbie Nyackbook.

[2042] Herbie the love dog.

[2043] So you mentioned the film Nell.

[2044] Oh, uh -huh.

[2045] Which is a movie with Jody Foster, 1994 drama.

[2046] And it's about a young woman who has to face other people for the first time after being raised by her mother in an isolated cabin.

[2047] Sounds so scary.

[2048] You've never seen it?

[2049] It's not a horror picture.

[2050] It's more of a Tarzan movie where they find this this rabid creature out in the jungle who is now.

[2051] And they, of course, think she's slow and dumb.

[2052] But it turns out she has her own language and she says, chippet in the wind.

[2053] And it's, yeah, it's very rough as a fellow actor to watch.

[2054] it and imagine having to say chippetay in the wind but maybe as a non -actor you could enjoy it more yeah but i think you'd have a lot of secondhand embarrassment viewing the motion picture which is not to take anything away from the many accomplishments of now sure sure um uh Zach mentioned the high rate of suicide in Alaska it is quite high it's it bounces in and out of the number one in the country who's it who's it neck and neck with so according to one of these studies Wyoming mm -hmm which was surprising to me I didn't I don't know I don't get it but yeah well they they're the northern they're very northern they're they're just below Montana right and uh a lot of snow lot of isolation a lot of cold a lot of what about Montana Well, here's the thing about Montana.

[2055] Here's the thing that people don't realize about Montana.

[2056] They've got Yellowstone National Park.

[2057] So when they're feeling blue, they go over the old faithful.

[2058] They see that old trusty gal erupt.

[2059] And they go, if this fucking spout of water can keep humming along, so can I. This is a good theory.

[2060] That's basically what's happening.

[2061] Okay.

[2062] I believe you.

[2063] So if we could get some geothermal activity.

[2064] in Wyoming and or Alaska, you're going to see that rate plummet.

[2065] That's good.

[2066] Now we have a solution.

[2067] Yep.

[2068] But they have a rate in 2015, a rate of 27 .1 per 100 ,000 residents.

[2069] And the U .S. national rate is 13 per 100 ,000.

[2070] Oh, so it's double.

[2071] It's a little more than double.

[2072] So, yeah, let's get on those.

[2073] At our index.

[2074] Oh, let's get some geothermal activity.

[2075] Let's get some parks in there.

[2076] You bring up the documentary, better, stronger, faster.

[2077] Oh, uh -huh.

[2078] And you said that there's no proof whether steroids are actually bad for you.

[2079] And I just want people, I don't want it to seem like we're cavalier with steroid use.

[2080] Right.

[2081] Because many studies do say that it enlarges your heart.

[2082] That's not good.

[2083] And causes impotence and infertility.

[2084] Mm -hmm.

[2085] And other lots of bad stuff.

[2086] those were the worst ones I saw.

[2087] But, yeah, I'm not, I'm certainly not pro steroids.

[2088] But I was trying to relay what the documentary said, which is there's just never been a long -term study of it, so it's hard to.

[2089] But yes, your heart is a muscle.

[2090] Yeah.

[2091] And steroids are making all of your muscles bigger.

[2092] So, of course, you're going to get some.

[2093] Yeah.

[2094] Yeah.

[2095] And also, and also, you don't really need, I don't think you need a super long -term study.

[2096] if they have been able to measure that people's hearts grow.

[2097] But that's the thing.

[2098] They haven't measured.

[2099] There's never been a study where they go, all right, let me measure your heart pre -steroids.

[2100] And then let's check in every five years and we'll measure your heart.

[2101] That hasn't happened.

[2102] There hasn't been any volunteers who decided to do steroids to accommodate a scientific study.

[2103] There are men who go use steroids to be bodybuilders.

[2104] But they might have done like animal testing and stuff.

[2105] Oh, maybe some animal, some light animal testing.

[2106] I don't know.

[2107] Because I don't think they would be able to say it if they had no proof of that.

[2108] I think what they can do is they can observe men's size of their hearts, steroid users, and then compare it to the mean average of heart sizes.

[2109] I think they can do.

[2110] I don't think they have identical twins that have one did steroids and one didn't or.

[2111] Yeah, I don't know.

[2112] I don't know.

[2113] Don't do steroids.

[2114] How about that?

[2115] You feel better if I just say, don't, I don't, I'm just saying.

[2116] I kind of believe in steroids for athletics.

[2117] Oh, boy.

[2118] I do.

[2119] I think we're just chasing our tail trying to, uh, to, to, to, uh, to crack down on it.

[2120] And then it just becomes a, um, a contest of whose technology is better.

[2121] So like Russia in, and, um, uh, not Spartacus, Atticus, uh, Icarus, uh, in the Icarus documentary.

[2122] you're just seeing the full force of a government help cheat.

[2123] And how is how is Guam going to compete with that?

[2124] So really all you're doing, you're not cracking down on steroids.

[2125] You're cracking down on people that don't have enough money to have a program that's successful.

[2126] But it's saying one group is doing a bad thing so everyone should just do bad.

[2127] Everyone can just do bad things.

[2128] I know it's tricky.

[2129] It is tricky.

[2130] Yeah.

[2131] It's very tricky.

[2132] It's a utilitarian content argument.

[2133] Yeah.

[2134] Yeah.

[2135] You also said beta blockers don't.

[2136] do anything but prevent your blood pressure from rising to a certain point, which that is the purpose of them.

[2137] But you can pass out if you're on them and you don't need them.

[2138] So you're saying if people who want to pass out should take beer blockers.

[2139] That is exactly what I'm saying.

[2140] Her message received loud and clear.

[2141] I'm not.

[2142] I'm just trying to be careful.

[2143] Yeah, yeah.

[2144] I appreciate it.

[2145] Okay.

[2146] And you're, you care about people.

[2147] And it's one of your nice qualities.

[2148] In high school, did you guys ever pass each other out?

[2149] Oh, I never did it because I was too scared and not able to be peer pressured in.

[2150] Right.

[2151] But people did it, yeah.

[2152] Yeah.

[2153] And, yeah, we did it in our junior high.

[2154] Of course, I don't advise anyone do it because you're going to bonk your head eventually.

[2155] That's what happens.

[2156] You shouldn't be passing out.

[2157] But would you prefer that the teens were, because what we would do, well, maybe I shouldn't even say the strategy because then some of my kind of repeat it.

[2158] Yeah, actually no. But I'm just going to say it.

[2159] we would we would breathe in and out excessively like bent over and then you would sit up really quick and yeah someone would put their hands over your neck yeah and then you would pass out and I guess if you were given the choice let's just say that they're going to do it would you rather have them take a handful of beta blockers or go mechanical with their technique what would be your preference I guess beta blockers yeah okay oh.

[2160] Okay, in explaining, oh, when John wiped his ass with his Grammy, kind of, which we now know is not really what happened.

[2161] He was, he was like recreating.

[2162] He said a Liam Gallagher moment, and I didn't know who that was.

[2163] And that is the lead singer of Oasis.

[2164] I'm sorry, you know the song Wonderwall.

[2165] Yes, I love a, duh, of course I know Wonderwall.

[2166] That was such a huge part of your high school.

[2167] No, probably middle.

[2168] Junior school.

[2169] Yeah.

[2170] I think middle school.

[2171] Yeah, my wonder.

[2172] Is that how it?

[2173] Yeah.

[2174] I love that song.

[2175] Yeah, it's a goodie.

[2176] Yeah, I really like it.

[2177] There's a very kick -ass documentary called Hellfire Hurricane about the Rolling Stones.

[2178] You said it in our thing.

[2179] Oh.

[2180] And it's actually called Crossfire Hurricane.

[2181] Crossfire Hurricane.

[2182] That makes more sense because that's a lyric for one of their songs.

[2183] Crossfire.

[2184] that documentary you because obviously i was not alive when they were going around doing press and whatnot but they were so uh oh well fuck it i talked about it in with them right they were so despondent in every interview yeah they were such shit but it was punk rock like young people loved it and before i saw that oasis and blur is that who they had a they had a kind of a rivalry Oasis and Blur.

[2185] And they were both shitheads in interviews.

[2186] And I just was like, oh, these guys, fuck, get over yourself.

[2187] But then after seeing Crossfire Hurricane, I was like, oh, this is kind of a tradition.

[2188] And they're kind of, they're kind of doing what the stones did.

[2189] And then it was easier for me to handle.

[2190] Oh, that's interesting.

[2191] Yeah.

[2192] I didn't know that he was the lead singer of Oasis.

[2193] Okay.

[2194] Now I know.

[2195] You said, you were making a joke.

[2196] And you said, quote, I was I was 69ing a trophy.

[2197] and then I went to ATM.

[2198] Oh, sure.

[2199] What does that mean?

[2200] Well, I don't know.

[2201] I mean, I know what it is, but I just don't know that we should include it in the telecast.

[2202] Yeah.

[2203] ATM stands for something to mouth.

[2204] Oh.

[2205] Mm -hmm.

[2206] That's what you're not going to say on this podcast.

[2207] Ask to mouth.

[2208] Yeah, that's kind of rough.

[2209] You said so.

[2210] My mother listens to this podcast.

[2211] Oh, my God.

[2212] I can't believe that's the thing you decided to censor.

[2213] You don't think it deserves censoring?

[2214] I mean, it's a very advanced.

[2215] 609ing is earlier in that sentence.

[2216] But 69ing is like holding hands.

[2217] It's almost cute.

[2218] It's almost exclusively done in your late teens and early 20s.

[2219] It's not like you're never going to walk in on grandma and grandpa 609.

[2220] It just gets retired.

[2221] It's like you want to.

[2222] You're probably not going to walk in on them.

[2223] Well, speaking.

[2224] Well, I know, I can't speak to that.

[2225] I'm just shocked to my core that you had some reservation.

[2226] I'm starting to think you don't know what I'm saying.

[2227] No, I know what you're saying.

[2228] Well, walk me through it.

[2229] No. Oh, so.

[2230] Oh, it's so innocent, but you can't actually walk me through it?

[2231] I did not say it was so innocent.

[2232] I said of all the things that you say, not me. I don't say very much gross stuff on here.

[2233] Okay.

[2234] Or controversial stuff.

[2235] Well, whatever.

[2236] But you do all the time.

[2237] You love to do it.

[2238] I think sex is a party.

[2239] So then why wouldn't you say it?

[2240] That's my whole point.

[2241] Because I am sympathetic to the fact that many of our beautiful arm cherries, God bless them.

[2242] Maybe I don't know what you mean.

[2243] It means butt fucking and pulling your dick out of the ass and sticking it right in the girl's mouth and getting head while you were butt fucking.

[2244] I did not know that.

[2245] I knew it.

[2246] No, I didn't.

[2247] I knew it because.

[2248] But I don't think any of, I don't think most of the people would think that if they heard that.

[2249] To me, that was, what could ask to mouth mean?

[2250] Eating someone's ass.

[2251] Oh, yeah, that does make a lot of sense.

[2252] Yeah.

[2253] That makes the most sense.

[2254] Not incorporating all this other stuff.

[2255] Okay.

[2256] So, right.

[2257] So you're right.

[2258] With your interpretation of ATM, I would have easily said that because I said it in a movie.

[2259] wrote.

[2260] Correct.

[2261] But I would not have put anything in chips that said ass to mouth, the dick moving from ass to mouth.

[2262] Well, yeah.

[2263] Okay.

[2264] That would have been too far.

[2265] Okay.

[2266] I will say when this goes sideways and people are mad about it, I did warn you.

[2267] It was hot in here.

[2268] It is very, very hot.

[2269] Okay.

[2270] So, Zach had said for the Grammy that they won, they were up against Despacito, which was like, And I wanted to know what else they were up against.

[2271] Something just like this by Coldplay and the Chain Smokers.

[2272] Great.

[2273] But maybe you were going to sing it.

[2274] Thunder by Imagine Dragons.

[2275] Okay.

[2276] And Stay by Zed and Alessiakara.

[2277] All right.

[2278] Yeah.

[2279] Well done, boys.

[2280] They beat out a lot of good songs.

[2281] Yes, they did.

[2282] You mentioned and referred to it as the Memphis 4 and it's the West Memphis 3.

[2283] Oh, geez.

[2284] Okay.

[2285] And the documentary, the documentary that is so good about it is called Paradise Lost.

[2286] It's three separate documentaries following the trial of these boys who were, yeah, they were accused.

[2287] Of murdering two young kids.

[2288] Two?

[2289] It was.

[2290] I don't want to get this part wrong.

[2291] Three.

[2292] Three.

[2293] Three pre -pubescent boys.

[2294] Yeah, it's a very sad story.

[2295] I know.

[2296] But it's equally sad that they convict these young boys because they basically had rock posters in their room.

[2297] I don't like that that happened to those boys.

[2298] No, me neither.

[2299] All six of those boys.

[2300] Oh, he.

[2301] Every time you say you said, in my head I hear, you say, I only hear what I want to.

[2302] I don't listen to how.

[2303] I'll turn the radio up, I turn the radio out.

[2304] Lovers in love and the others run away.

[2305] Love is in.

[2306] Do you know that song?

[2307] Lisa Lowe?

[2308] Yeah, yeah.

[2309] Because I miss you.

[2310] Miss you.

[2311] You say.

[2312] From now one, could you just embrace it and really go, You said.

[2313] I mean, no, because that would require me to sing a little bit on here.

[2314] You're a dramatically better singer than me. And I'm doing quite a bit of singing.

[2315] You love it.

[2316] You like it.

[2317] Zach mentioned that he thought somebody would have to buy his Grammy.

[2318] And I actually told somebody else this.

[2319] Okay.

[2320] And I found no proof.

[2321] I found no evidence that you have to buy a Grammy.

[2322] And I looked pretty hard, but it still may be true.

[2323] It probably is.

[2324] It sounds crazy.

[2325] I feel like they could.

[2326] Do you have to buy an Academy Award?

[2327] No. Then yeah.

[2328] But you do have to buy your gold medal.

[2329] That's true.

[2330] That's true.

[2331] And there are countries that are underfunded, whatever.

[2332] That is true.

[2333] So then maybe this is true.

[2334] You know.

[2335] It all goes back to steroids.

[2336] Fund the gold medals and the steroids.

[2337] You reference a song.

[2338] I wake up.

[2339] I get out of bed.

[2340] And you're talking about a day in the life.

[2341] By the Beatles.

[2342] By the Beatles.

[2343] Yeah.

[2344] We are talking about Crossfire Hurricane, 2012, Netflix, iTunes.

[2345] You can watch that.

[2346] So good.

[2347] You can watch it if you want to.

[2348] Okay.

[2349] I was born in a Crossfire hurricane.

[2350] Oh, that's it?

[2351] I don't know.

[2352] I think so.

[2353] Oh.

[2354] You said that the Chain Smokers released a joke album.

[2355] Yeah.

[2356] That is not.

[2357] True.

[2358] I think you're getting mixed up because what they said is they released.

[2359] So their first out, or maybe not their first, their album hashtag selfie.

[2360] Yeah.

[2361] In one of the singles, which was a song about social media and suggested that women are somehow more vain and annoying than men.

[2362] And they were making a joke.

[2363] Like the whole album, I guess, was making fun of people who do that.

[2364] Uh -huh.

[2365] And so he was saying, uh, we.

[2366] made a novelty record that was, in my opinion, one of the most clever records ever made.

[2367] Obviously, not everyone got the joke.

[2368] So they weren't making like, oh, we'll just like put this weird, when you were sort of...

[2369] There might be two different.

[2370] They might have done two different things.

[2371] They might have done something lyrically that is exactly what you're saying.

[2372] But the thing that I believe they were describing on Howard Stern was that they had recognized that all the hit songs of the last two years had the exact same predictable beat.

[2373] And they purposely just put out an album of this predictable beat thing.

[2374] Like they had cracked the code and then they just did it to prove that it would work, but they don't like it.

[2375] But it did work.

[2376] Right.

[2377] I feel like the story they were telling you.

[2378] Yeah.

[2379] It's kind of in keeping with this a little bit.

[2380] I think they're like, because I guess they also got a lot of backlash of like, these guys are just bros. And they were like that were literally making fun of people who, yeah.

[2381] So it's kind of the same, I guess.

[2382] But that was interesting.

[2383] Yeah, both things could be true.

[2384] Those could have been the lyrics on the album they were being...

[2385] Right.

[2386] Yeah.

[2387] He mentioned Wyden Kennedy ad agency who helped with that car video that you were talking about.

[2388] And I know Wyden Kennedy.

[2389] Oh, you do?

[2390] Because you've shot a commercial for them?

[2391] Yeah.

[2392] My first commercial here I did was with them.

[2393] And it was definitely the most creative herbal essence.

[2394] That's a hair, hair washing.

[2395] shampoo, shampoo conditioner line.

[2396] That's a chutney, like a...

[2397] It's a sal.

[2398] It's a kind of like an ointment.

[2399] Air ointment.

[2400] We had to, we were mermaids in that commercial.

[2401] You were.

[2402] Mm -hmm.

[2403] Did you swim?

[2404] No, we couldn't swim.

[2405] The tail was so heavy.

[2406] You would have saying.

[2407] Yeah.

[2408] Oh, we do that.

[2409] We'd have to swim a tiny bit in the commercial at the end.

[2410] Yeah, I did not want to.

[2411] I mean, I'm not good, I'm not a good swimmer.

[2412] What was the top?

[2413] The situation?

[2414] It was shells.

[2415] It was shells.

[2416] Sizable ones.

[2417] Yeah.

[2418] Really quick.

[2419] They were glued on to us.

[2420] Whoa.

[2421] Who got that job?

[2422] Yeah.

[2423] A lot of people got to see a lot of stuff during that commercial.

[2424] And did you at any point because it was your first commercial where you're like, oh, Jesus, I'm already basically doing nudity.

[2425] Did you have any kind of like, oh, wow, I feel a little bit objectified?

[2426] Well, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this because I don't think, I think it's allowed, but it was a two -day shoot.

[2427] It was a seven.

[2428] 17 hour day and a 19 hour day.

[2429] Holy shit.

[2430] It was the crazy.

[2431] Was shells taped or glued to your breasts?

[2432] And so by the end, once we got in our tail, we could not get out of the tail.

[2433] To pee or poop.

[2434] Well, yeah, definitely not that.

[2435] But even to pee.

[2436] And once we got in the tails, we also couldn't move.

[2437] So they had to care.

[2438] They moved us onto gurneys and they were moving us around on gurneys.

[2439] Oh, my gosh.

[2440] It was.

[2441] Sounds like a crazy.

[2442] Sociology experience.

[2443] It was really crazy.

[2444] But by the end of the 17 -hour day and the 19 -hour day, I could just could care less who is seeing anything.

[2445] Just get everything off.

[2446] Okay.

[2447] Yeah.

[2448] So now you know how to get people in the position to just wear them down.

[2449] I must see this commercial.

[2450] I'm sure you've seen it.

[2451] I show the girls all the time.

[2452] Oh, really?

[2453] Yeah.

[2454] Oh, no, I would remember what you're saying.

[2455] It's quick.

[2456] It's a very, and that's also the thing.

[2457] I have a pause feature on my phone and it'll be longer for me. Let's say this commercial, the spot we call them in the biz.

[2458] We do.

[2459] This is a 30 second spot.

[2460] Might be 15.

[2461] Even a 15 second spot is going to become about a four and a half minute spot for me. Okay.

[2462] All right.

[2463] Am I allowed to talk about?

[2464] Yeah, of course.

[2465] That?

[2466] Yeah.

[2467] You didn't sign an NDA.

[2468] I probably did.

[2469] I don't think you did.

[2470] I sign them all the time.

[2471] For the audition.

[2472] Yeah.

[2473] Not for the shoot.

[2474] I don't think.

[2475] It was so many years ago.

[2476] What are they going to sue you about that I said that we weren't?

[2477] In fucking what you were in.

[2478] Yeah.

[2479] And then it was hard to.

[2480] Yeah.

[2481] It was so fun though.

[2482] It was.

[2483] I mean, yes.

[2484] Like I've never, I don't think I've ever felt like exhaustion like that.

[2485] But it was so exciting and so fun because it was my first commercial here.

[2486] And it was like the craziest commercial I've ever done still.

[2487] Still, yeah, it was really fun.

[2488] You mentioned sabotage, sabotage.

[2489] Oh, sabotage in regards to this, this, like, video.

[2490] Yeah.

[2491] And that's a Beastie Boys song, and it was directed by Spike Jones.

[2492] Who's a Beast?

[2493] Yeah.

[2494] John said they recorded with Mike D. At Rick Rubin's studio.

[2495] And Mike D is Beastie Boys.

[2496] Of the Beastie Boys as well.

[2497] Yep.

[2498] And you can see Shangri -La on.

[2499] on the Ava Brothers documentary on HBO.

[2500] Yes.

[2501] The Rick Rubin studio.

[2502] They do a little, they record there, so then you can see it.

[2503] It's interesting.

[2504] It's really cool.

[2505] Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[2506] You mentioned Picasso making art in five minutes at the end of his career.

[2507] And you might be referring to him, maybe not.

[2508] There's like a famous story about a woman who goes up to Picasso in a restaurant and asks him to scribble something on a napkin for her and that she would pay whatever it was worth.

[2509] than he did.

[2510] And then he said it's going to be $10 ,000.

[2511] And she said, but you did that in 30 seconds.

[2512] And he said, yeah, but it's taking me 40 years to learn how to do it in 30 seconds.

[2513] Maybe that's what you were talking about.

[2514] Tom Cruise is 56 years old.

[2515] Doesn't look a day over 36.

[2516] Yeah.

[2517] He looks good.

[2518] Looks real good.

[2519] That's it.

[2520] Did you ever have a crush on him?

[2521] No. Oh, wow.

[2522] Okay.

[2523] So we found one.

[2524] Never.

[2525] Good.

[2526] There is one.

[2527] Even before his like, you know, crazy outward craziness, he doesn't do it for me. He doesn't not do it for you.

[2528] Mm -mm.

[2529] Mm -hmm.

[2530] I understand that and I respect it.

[2531] And, um, again, what a fun time at our live show.

[2532] Yeah, so fun.

[2533] Those folks, they were the nicest.

[2534] They gave us the nicest evening imaginable.

[2535] Yeah.

[2536] They really did.

[2537] Yes.

[2538] We were on a cloud, pink cloud afterwards.

[2539] Yeah, it was lovely to meet people in person.

[2540] Yeah.

[2541] So I want to thank them and say I love them.

[2542] And I want to thank you and Rob for making all that happen.

[2543] I love both of you.

[2544] Thank you.

[2545] All right.

[2546] Let's get that mermaid video going.

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