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[00:00:01] I had gone, a friend of mine had like texted me, kind of at the last minute being like,
[00:00:21] he's a Fulham supporter and he was like, I'm watching the Carabao Cup second leg and
[00:00:27] I need emotional support.
[00:00:28] And I was like, alright, I'll go by and I just thought it would be done before it
[00:00:32] was done.
[00:00:33] And then I was like, oh man, I'm not going to be able to get home in time for this.
[00:00:36] So yeah, I was watching a soccer match and just didn't calculate my distances correctly.
[00:00:43] I'm sorry.
[00:00:44] The thing about soccer that you should know is that it lasts forever, that it's literally
[00:00:49] unending.
[00:00:50] I had done the math though.
[00:00:53] Like I knew theoretically when it would be done but then I was just like, I hadn't
[00:00:58] adequately understood how far away the place I had met him was from my house.
[00:01:03] It sounded like you were there for moral support.
[00:01:04] Are you a soccer fan?
[00:01:05] Yeah, I am.
[00:01:06] Yeah, like I don't, at various times of my life I've watched it with more persistence
[00:01:13] and intention than I really do at the moment.
[00:01:16] But I like it.
[00:01:18] I'm interested in it.
[00:01:19] I watch all the international tournaments, normally watch the Champions League knockout
[00:01:22] stages.
[00:01:23] That's about as far as I go these days.
[00:01:24] I tend to ebb and flow with sports for all sorts of reasons.
[00:01:28] And a lot of times it's the ebbing part of it is the realization that I get way too emotionally
[00:01:36] invested in this thing.
[00:01:37] Yeah, that I shouldn't like, you know what I mean?
[00:01:41] That whether or not I am, the mood that I'm in on a given day shouldn't be dependent
[00:01:47] on what a bunch of millionaires did on a field somewhere.
[00:01:51] That's totally fair.
[00:01:52] I feel like that used to be more true for me.
[00:01:55] I feel like I've gotten better at like compartmentalizing my emotional reaction to it.
[00:02:00] But at the same time, like that's not universally true, certainly.
[00:02:05] I'm a 49ers fan and there's a decent chance they're gonna be in the Super Bowl.
[00:02:08] So I'm probably going to be going through the cycle once again in a few weeks.
[00:02:12] Yeah, you got a good football team over there.
[00:02:15] That's a confusing football team, but a good football team nonetheless.
[00:02:19] I have a terrible baseball team and I had a recently very good but now not great
[00:02:24] basketball team.
[00:02:25] So it's like a nice thing about being originally being from the Bay Area is that
[00:02:29] like there's usually usually one that's doing pretty okay at any time.
[00:02:34] Yeah, I feel like it's been a good like 10 or 15 years for the region.
[00:02:39] I mean, like basketball had a good run, notably accepting
[00:02:44] you an athletics fan or a Giants fan?
[00:02:46] Oh, I'm an ace fan.
[00:02:47] So everything hurts.
[00:02:50] I'm assuming that you've got a degree of loyalty to some
[00:02:54] US sports having, I guess, not been from here originally, but having spent
[00:02:59] a lot of your life here growing up here.
[00:03:02] Yeah, not like honestly, I kind of like I have lived in Toronto long enough
[00:03:07] that I've sort of shifted my loyalties.
[00:03:09] Like I also like I like all of the teams
[00:03:12] like grew up like in the area where I was a fan of all the DC area teams.
[00:03:17] And like with the exception of the Orioles, who I have a certain love for.
[00:03:24] All those teams were like pretty easy to to abandon for one reason or another.
[00:03:30] Like, obviously, like the football team is like objectionable on a number of levels.
[00:03:34] Like the Wizards have been essentially bad forever,
[00:03:38] even when they were good, they were bad.
[00:03:40] So it's like there it's easy to sort of to step away from them.
[00:03:44] I I'm a I'm I'm a very dedicated Bill's fan, Buffalo Bill's fan.
[00:03:50] But that's kind of the local team for Toronto.
[00:03:52] And I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I feel like increasingly committed
[00:03:57] to the Toronto Blue Jays and the Raptors
[00:03:59] like a little bit more every year almost like like I
[00:04:02] that I build more as I build more memories of fandom, the real or it become
[00:04:06] the Raptors have had a pretty decent run.
[00:04:09] The Orioles are that's.
[00:04:11] Not dissimilar from my situation with the A's.
[00:04:15] I was going to say you were where we are now a couple of years ago,
[00:04:19] but things have been looking up, it seems like.
[00:04:21] Yeah, what I feel like the the sort of like
[00:04:24] like it's like a similar but different like noctuous ownership situation.
[00:04:28] And like this is like some things that tie together for sure.
[00:04:32] It's the guy who does diamond distribution,
[00:04:33] the comics distribution is the guy who owns the.
[00:04:36] Oh, yeah, I knew he had like involvement in various print media.
[00:04:40] I didn't realize that was part of it.
[00:04:41] The Angel is is but yeah, that makes sense.
[00:04:48] He's he's an absolute ghoul and his sons are even worse.
[00:04:52] To to Buffalo now, you know, given what's
[00:04:55] started, it was a good it was a good run.
[00:04:57] It was better than anybody anybody thought.
[00:04:59] And the this isn't a sports podcast, but you know, we're
[00:05:02] we have to wait for that.
[00:05:04] I'm sorry.
[00:05:04] I feel like I I pulled us in this direction.
[00:05:07] I mean, that was an interesting period during
[00:05:10] who was was that I guess twenty twenty one.
[00:05:13] Well, twenty twenty, it must have been when the the Blue Jays were playing in Buffalo.
[00:05:18] Yeah, that was happening.
[00:05:20] I feel like that was weird.
[00:05:21] I feel like he kept switching around like it was like they some of it
[00:05:24] they were playing in Florida, some of it they were playing in Buffalo.
[00:05:26] If I remember incorrectly, like it kind of shifted a couple of times.
[00:05:31] But yeah, they went a lot across the border.
[00:05:32] I mean, there was a brief moment that was kind of interesting
[00:05:35] where like the Blue Jays were a World Series
[00:05:38] favorite specifically because of like the border crossing stuff where it was
[00:05:43] like there were a bunch like there were significant numbers of players
[00:05:47] on like their rivals who refused to get vaccinated and therefore
[00:05:51] weren't allowed to play in Canada.
[00:05:53] And that was viewed as being like such a meaningful advantage
[00:05:55] that it like might actually win them like an extra five games in the division.
[00:05:59] It didn't, but it would have been really funny if it did.
[00:06:02] It's the thing that you that we learn now that like social media
[00:06:06] is so prevalent.
[00:06:07] How many of our sports heroes are just complete fucking assholes?
[00:06:11] Yeah. Yeah, I guess that is.
[00:06:15] Yeah, you do find out a little bit more about them.
[00:06:17] Like I wonder I wonder if we'd like in a slightly different era,
[00:06:21] if we'd like think that Aaron Rodgers was a totally different kind of asshole.
[00:06:26] Probably we had Ty Cobb and, you know, it's not it's not that we
[00:06:30] were at a derp of like really bad
[00:06:33] dudes playing professional sports at any point.
[00:06:36] But now it's now it's the thing of
[00:06:40] you know, and I'm conflicted about this to a certain degree is that the like,
[00:06:44] oh, when you were a stupid 15 year old, you use the N word on Twitter.
[00:06:50] Like that that thing of like tweets tweets very, very bad and stupid
[00:06:56] tweets resurfacing from when people were in like middle school.
[00:06:59] I feel like that's like a kind of an interesting thing in general, though,
[00:07:01] of like, of like the.
[00:07:04] Like I feel like it's like actually indicative of a meaningful shift
[00:07:07] of like what social media is and like how it works in that like there was
[00:07:11] a brief period of time, like maybe two or three years where like every time
[00:07:14] like a relatively unheralded major league baseball prospect got his first start
[00:07:19] like by the by the third inning, they would have like found him using
[00:07:23] a racial slur on Twitter when he was 14.
[00:07:25] And now that like just doesn't happen anymore.
[00:07:27] And I think it's like it's not that they've gotten better at scrubbing
[00:07:29] their Twitter's. It's that like, like 21 year old guys never had social media.
[00:07:34] Like, like maybe like maybe like maybe had Instagram maybe, but like they're
[00:07:39] not just not using it in the same way.
[00:07:40] And it's like that is kind of what makes the difference.
[00:07:42] I also assume that that the sort of the handlers that they have are
[00:07:46] watching that stuff much more closely than they would have several years ago.
[00:07:51] I wonder because it like it felt like there was a several year period
[00:07:54] where like that just lesson did not get learned.
[00:07:57] But yeah, I think it's probably a few factors weighing into it.
[00:08:01] I always saying conflicted just because it's like
[00:08:05] it's obviously terrible.
[00:08:07] It's obviously terrible in any situation.
[00:08:09] And I've certainly never used like the F slur in any context at all.
[00:08:14] But but also like I certainly did a lot of really stupid things
[00:08:20] on the Internet when I was a certain age and the idea of those
[00:08:24] like being held over me as a young adult is is is horrifying.
[00:08:30] That there would have been, you know, and you know, I'm of an age
[00:08:34] that I that I also don't have the same paper trail that they have now
[00:08:37] because it didn't really exist in that form when I was a teenager.
[00:08:40] And the idea of it exists, the things that I thought existing online
[00:08:44] forever is horrific.
[00:08:48] Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's kind of what I mean.
[00:08:49] I feel like it's like it felt permanent
[00:08:52] because we were living through it or something.
[00:08:53] But it's like actually that was a relatively short period of time
[00:08:56] where like like unfettered access to social media was being like granted
[00:09:00] to 12 year olds to like do dumb shit with them, then get in trouble for
[00:09:04] like when they became professional athletes and it's like that window has shifted.
[00:09:09] But yeah, yeah, no, this is not a particularly important observation.
[00:09:15] Just one that I had made at one point.
[00:09:18] Pre personally, I mean, you know, we're talking a little bit
[00:09:21] about the border crossing situation with the blue shades.
[00:09:25] What role did social media or just I guess the internet generally play
[00:09:32] and your ability to make music over the last three or four years?
[00:09:37] I mean, I don't know that it really factored too much.
[00:09:41] I mean, like it inevitably does because it's like, you know,
[00:09:44] that's a big part of where everything exists now.
[00:09:49] But like, I mean, like we were mostly making our music in person
[00:09:52] for most of that time.
[00:09:54] Even like it was mostly just me and Evan.
[00:09:56] So like that kind of like created some.
[00:09:59] Yeah, like we're in a situation you had a pod.
[00:10:03] Yeah, basically.
[00:10:04] And it's like, like I think like, you know, there were some things
[00:10:06] that we were able to do because of that that were
[00:10:11] that we would have been able to do otherwise.
[00:10:14] But like they were mostly the kind of like
[00:10:18] the kind of like normal things that you do that it wasn't, you know,
[00:10:21] like pandemic related.
[00:10:22] It was just sort of like, oh, like, yeah, like we're
[00:10:24] it's we're mixing the record in a different place than like one of us is.
[00:10:27] So we're like sending mixes back and forth or whatever.
[00:10:30] But it's like, you know, we did that on this record too.
[00:10:32] And we made it in a summer in which there were no restrictions.
[00:10:37] Yeah, I mean, there were a few like little things.
[00:10:40] But again, I think it's like stuff that it would have just been the same
[00:10:42] like where it's like we wanted a certain person to sing on something
[00:10:45] and we couldn't get in a room with them.
[00:10:47] And so we just had him do it.
[00:10:51] But I mean, like the thing that we weren't able to do on the first record
[00:10:55] was like really getting a space and collaborate with people
[00:10:57] that wasn't just the two of us.
[00:10:59] And we were able to do that on this record, which was cool.
[00:11:02] It was like it was I think it added an extra dimension to sort of like
[00:11:05] be able to go and and and do this thing
[00:11:07] we'd never really gotten to do and just sort of like bounce ideas
[00:11:09] to other people and get there and put in stuff like that, which was
[00:11:13] I don't know, but definitely it's it's it's kind of more fun to do it that way.
[00:11:17] And I think the results are also more interesting.
[00:11:19] How important to your process and the way the two of you do things
[00:11:23] is it that you do a big chunk of this in person?
[00:11:29] I don't think we could do it differently
[00:11:33] just because of the way we write.
[00:11:34] Like it's like it kind of is this like
[00:11:37] like we we tend to just like
[00:11:39] like pass an instrument back and forth and like add layers to something
[00:11:43] and like a lot of it a lot of the process just sort of like you take a section
[00:11:47] you loop a section, then you try and play something over it.
[00:11:50] And then the other person is like decides whether or not that works
[00:11:53] or how it should change and we kind of edit from there.
[00:11:56] I mean, I guess we probably could do it.
[00:11:57] It would just take a lot longer.
[00:12:00] But yeah, I mean, it's a pretty like it's while we kind of like
[00:12:05] is not quite intentionally is not like a band playing in a room kind of thing.
[00:12:10] It is like, yeah, there's a lot of just direct communication
[00:12:13] and talking about sort of all the elements.
[00:12:17] Yeah, which I think would just be it would be very slow to do it in another way.
[00:12:19] It seems to me that like a big thing that you were looking for in your
[00:12:24] many other years being in previous bands was
[00:12:28] effectively was a songwriting partner that that that was the thing
[00:12:31] that kind of liberated this part of you.
[00:12:35] Yeah, I mean, that's kind of how I've always I mean, like to some extent
[00:12:38] I think it's like that it was like a lot of it with this band was sort of Evan.
[00:12:46] Like like Evan, Evan, me and Evan like having kind of like complimentary
[00:12:49] schools and I think he's a person who has a lot of sort of like follow
[00:12:54] through and believes in hard work and in like
[00:12:59] finishing the thing once you started it, which is the thing that I kind of struggle with.
[00:13:03] So I think that's like definitely is a big part of it where it's like I'm
[00:13:08] quick to like lose faith
[00:13:11] in an idea and therefore like just sort of leave it.
[00:13:17] Whereas yeah, he is not like that at all, which is is like a very
[00:13:21] very positive trait and a very helpful thing, I think in us getting stuff done for us.
[00:13:27] In us getting stuff done.
[00:13:30] When you say lose faith in an idea, like how does that play out generally?
[00:13:34] Oh, I'll just like start working on something and then as soon as it becomes
[00:13:38] hard, I'll decide that that's because it's bad and then I won't want to do it anymore.
[00:13:42] Like like that's that's kind of yeah, that's a consistent pattern with songwriting for me.
[00:13:49] That's interesting to me because this is something that I like to specifically talk to
[00:13:54] people who write songs about is there is this idea in pop songwriting that the thing the ones that come
[00:14:03] the fastest are the best, you know, the ones that like
[00:14:07] that, you know, you're like channeling the muse or whatever the ones where you
[00:14:12] wake up in the morning and you've hummed something into your tape recorder
[00:14:15] and you know, it ends up being the riff for satisfaction.
[00:14:18] And to a certain extent, that does seem to fit in you're reading you talk about 18
[00:14:25] cigarettes, which both you and like pretty much everybody agreed was the best song
[00:14:31] on that record.
[00:14:32] That's one that came together extremely quickly.
[00:14:36] Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes that's true.
[00:14:39] Yeah, that one was like pretty quick.
[00:14:41] And I think like I knew yeah, I felt good about it pretty quickly.
[00:14:45] It's I don't know.
[00:14:46] It's simply a mixed bag, though.
[00:14:47] Like I think like there's like like the one on this record that so far seems to be
[00:14:51] the one that people are the most excited about was like it was not easy to write
[00:14:54] and took forever.
[00:14:56] Trameful like Aseline like like the parts I guess when I wrote them kind of came
[00:15:00] quickly, but it was like figuring out how to make them work and fit them
[00:15:03] together was not.
[00:15:05] Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's a mix.
[00:15:06] I think it's like it's like sometimes that is the case where it just it
[00:15:09] does like kind of come in a rush and you can figure it out.
[00:15:12] But I also think that like.
[00:15:15] Like even in those songs, there's normally like a detail or two that is
[00:15:18] really hard to finalize and like that becomes a whole separate part of the
[00:15:22] process that can take a lot longer.
[00:15:23] I remember like seeing I think it was like Stefan from from from public
[00:15:27] tweeted this at one point of just like that like like every song has like
[00:15:31] one line that you couldn't get right and you work on forever.
[00:15:36] And like most of the time you just put it out and no one ever notices.
[00:15:40] But I feel like that's true of pretty like almost all of them where
[00:15:43] there's always something that I'm like deeply dissatisfied with and then
[00:15:46] like try and fix and then it's like time to record the vocals and I still
[00:15:50] haven't fixed it.
[00:15:51] And it's just like, okay, I guess that's going to be there and then
[00:15:52] no one ever says anything about it.
[00:15:54] Like it's it's a weird that it's a weird psychological game.
[00:15:57] I think like writing this stuff and trying to make it good.
[00:16:01] You know what the next logical question on my end is is what is
[00:16:04] that line in the song?
[00:16:06] Ah, I you know, like I think that's also part of it.
[00:16:10] It's like you like you used to you stop remembering.
[00:16:14] I forget I forget like what like like eventually you just like
[00:16:17] so get enough times and it works that it goes away.
[00:16:19] I'm trying to remember there was something that bothered me about
[00:16:22] it.
[00:16:22] I think it was it's the something in the chorus that just
[00:16:25] didn't quite scan right to me and I kept trying to write
[00:16:27] like re-write it or write around it and eventually I just gave up.
[00:16:30] It's kind of hard to like think about it abstractly now
[00:16:33] because it's sort of like especially because we tore that
[00:16:35] record and stuff in the way that we did and we played it so
[00:16:37] many times that now it's like like I can't I can't like remember
[00:16:42] the lyrics but I just like if I started sick like if I we started
[00:16:45] playing it, I would absolutely know them but I don't have them
[00:16:48] in like a conscious part of my brain right now.
[00:16:51] Well, that strikes me as a good sign then that like
[00:16:53] whatever that glaring thing to you was at the time has
[00:16:57] since faded away.
[00:16:58] That means that at least to a certain extent that it works.
[00:17:01] Yeah, I mean it was probably fine.
[00:17:02] I think it's just like the thing itself is always hard when
[00:17:05] you're when you're trying to do it.
[00:17:07] It was the thing that if Evan wasn't around that that would
[00:17:09] have hung the song up for you and you might not have finished
[00:17:12] it.
[00:17:13] Yeah, probably.
[00:17:14] That's I think that's probably right.
[00:17:15] Yeah.
[00:17:16] When you talk about it not scanning correctly are you
[00:17:18] talking about like meter about the way the words fit
[00:17:22] in the song?
[00:17:23] Let me look it up.
[00:17:28] Are you just reading the lyrics now or do you have
[00:17:30] this like yeah, I am somewhere.
[00:17:31] Okay.
[00:17:32] No, I'm just looking it up.
[00:17:33] I just I just Google the lyrics to the file on your
[00:17:36] desktop that just says like problems.
[00:17:39] No, I just Google the lyrics to our own song.
[00:17:42] Sorry.
[00:17:49] Oh yeah, it was the last line of the chorus.
[00:17:53] I thought it was I just didn't like it and in like the
[00:17:55] way I wish that I could say where it got me but
[00:17:57] that's not me.
[00:17:58] I just I didn't I didn't think it sounded like
[00:18:01] natural phrasing, but I think it's okay.
[00:18:04] Like it's not meter.
[00:18:05] It's just yeah, it's just the language that makes
[00:18:08] sense.
[00:18:08] See, it's different things.
[00:18:10] There's other ones that annoy me in different ways.
[00:18:13] You know, there's a central metaphor to the song.
[00:18:15] Was that there from the beginning?
[00:18:18] Yeah, I think so.
[00:18:19] I mean, I think it was like I think that one like
[00:18:24] yeah, if I'm remembering correctly that one.
[00:18:26] Yeah, it was like it was kind of it came the first
[00:18:29] verse was like something I came pretty naturally and
[00:18:31] then I sort of like what I got to the end of it.
[00:18:32] I realized like oh, that's like it like that's
[00:18:34] the thing that I can kind of work off of.
[00:18:39] Yeah, but I like yeah, I think that was that was like
[00:18:41] how it went.
[00:18:42] Honestly, I'm sorry.
[00:18:43] It is like a thing that I like it was long enough
[00:18:45] ago that it's like actually hard to totally recall.
[00:18:50] You know, it strikes me as the kind of song that
[00:18:52] like its existence hangs on that metaphor.
[00:18:55] Be just given like the source material and how
[00:18:58] it relates to the subject matter.
[00:19:01] Oh yeah.
[00:19:02] Yeah, I mean it like it was something that I just
[00:19:04] I have friend had told me about it like kind of the
[00:19:08] day before I wrote that song.
[00:19:10] I think so I was just kind of thinking about it
[00:19:14] as a thing that happened and like had been had
[00:19:17] read about it and yeah, like I mean it like that
[00:19:20] as I read about it, I think that was the thing
[00:19:21] that kind of like struck me about it.
[00:19:22] The thing that I thought was interesting was
[00:19:25] that like there are certainly like parties responsible
[00:19:33] for like the thing that occurred.
[00:19:37] But it was like there was no like single act that
[00:19:41] like directly resulted in the outcome like that
[00:19:44] it was just sort of like a series of
[00:19:49] of like little negligences, little like failures
[00:19:54] to address something that needed to be addressed
[00:19:56] that just sort of like silently compounded each other.
[00:20:00] And then you know, sort of resulted in an outcome
[00:20:05] that no one could have predicted from any of this single
[00:20:08] the individual events that precipitated it.
[00:20:10] And I thought that was sort of an interesting.
[00:20:14] I thought that was something that I think had
[00:20:15] sort of residents in other contexts.
[00:20:18] I think that's a very sort of a familiar pattern
[00:20:23] of human folly if you will.
[00:20:27] That's the case with most of these things,
[00:20:29] you know, to a certain extent, I think is that like very
[00:20:32] few things are just one specific instance and it all
[00:20:37] ties back to infrastructure basically in this case.
[00:20:41] Yeah, I don't know.
[00:20:43] I mean, of it like, you know, that that thing
[00:20:49] happened because the like, you know, the rail company
[00:20:55] had cut staff and individuals were inadequately trained
[00:21:00] and like certain people like just like, you know,
[00:21:05] like I forget all the details of it now, but it was like
[00:21:07] it was a bunch of like in not like like there were
[00:21:10] some like larger structural issues, but also like the
[00:21:13] things on the day were like a lot of just like relatively
[00:21:17] innocuous like forgetting to put the hitch on the
[00:21:20] handbrake things.
[00:21:22] That just sort of like no one of them alone would have
[00:21:26] created this result.
[00:21:27] It was just sort of like, you know, all of them together.
[00:21:33] Yeah, I don't know.
[00:21:34] It's like I say, like it seems like a it's a it's a
[00:21:37] not uncommon pattern.
[00:21:38] These are the things that like I assume.
[00:21:43] You know, know that I'm thinking about it.
[00:21:45] These are perhaps the mistakes that are often
[00:21:48] the most difficult to learn from if you can't sing
[00:21:51] a lot that one thing, you know, if if if laying off
[00:21:55] a bunch of people of cutting staff was like part
[00:21:57] of the problem, but not the only problem then
[00:22:02] certainly that's not going to stop the company from
[00:22:04] doing that in the future.
[00:22:06] Yeah, no, I mean, I think yeah, I think that's
[00:22:08] the thing it's like it's like it's why these things
[00:22:10] are hard to address.
[00:22:11] I think it's why they like, you know, not
[00:22:12] specifically this this catastrophe, but I think
[00:22:14] like, like, like the also the the like metaphorical
[00:22:23] errors, errors that I am kind of driving at there.
[00:22:26] I think it's like it's a similar thing, you know,
[00:22:28] it's like if it was easy to not do that stuff,
[00:22:31] then people wouldn't do it.
[00:22:32] There's a parallel to a, you know, slightly older song
[00:22:36] and use the phrase a inertia of depression, which
[00:22:41] I liked, which jumped out at me, which strikes me
[00:22:44] as a similar in that they're both it's both this idea
[00:22:49] of something that for whatever reason that you
[00:22:51] can't break out of.
[00:22:53] Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's like it's hard
[00:22:55] to sort of like, like, yeah, it's it's hard to
[00:23:01] to sort of like view one psychological state from
[00:23:05] outside of it.
[00:23:06] I think like most the like fundamentally you cannot
[00:23:10] do that, like, which is is like I think the crux
[00:23:15] of the issue and I think yeah, like you it tends to
[00:23:18] be that things start moving in one direction and
[00:23:19] they'll they'll they'll keep going in that direction.
[00:23:25] You know absent an effort being made to to to stop
[00:23:30] to stop that momentum, I guess.
[00:23:34] Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's that's like,
[00:23:37] yeah, that's that's a that's probably a thing that
[00:23:40] comes up in more than one of our songs.
[00:23:43] Is there a way in which though that creating things,
[00:23:46] you know, that that writing songs are like putting
[00:23:48] things out in the world is an attempt to reflect
[00:23:54] on these things that are difficult to see about yourself?
[00:23:59] Yeah, I think so.
[00:23:59] I mean, I think it's like honestly the way that I
[00:24:01] tend to write them it like creates a a scenario like
[00:24:07] what's sorry like that I don't I'm not always aware
[00:24:12] when I'm writing them of like what I'm doing until
[00:24:16] maybe halfway through the process.
[00:24:18] So I think it's like it does become yeah, in some ways
[00:24:21] like a reflective thing where you kind of realize
[00:24:24] in what direction you're going without having
[00:24:27] without having like an initially sort of like decided
[00:24:32] upon at least for me.
[00:24:34] And I think like that that that is a is a way to sort of
[00:24:38] in some ways like tease those things out.
[00:24:39] Halfway through the process is actually like pretty good
[00:24:42] in my from what I understand I've I I am constantly
[00:24:47] camera who I last spoke to about this but I'm
[00:24:49] constantly hearing about these stories these stories
[00:24:51] about somebody figuring out what a song that they
[00:24:54] wrote was about like decades after it was written.
[00:24:57] Yeah, I think that's the thing and I think yes sometimes
[00:25:00] it's like I kind of will see something in it even later
[00:25:03] on where I'll be kind of like become more aware
[00:25:07] of something I was doing that I didn't maybe even
[00:25:08] realize I was doing but I think it's normally
[00:25:10] like it'll just be kind of like almost like pure
[00:25:14] like not stream of consciousness but it's just
[00:25:16] sort of like I'm like letting the words fit together
[00:25:19] or something when I first start something out
[00:25:21] and then it's like I'll kind of be like oh like
[00:25:23] that's kind of where I'm going and I'll be able
[00:25:25] to sort of like build direction around that.
[00:25:27] I mean it also strikes me that there's an attempt
[00:25:30] to in all this to to deal with the things in
[00:25:35] life that aren't so black and white like this idea
[00:25:39] of addressing people growing people growing apart
[00:25:45] versus like just specifically a breakup.
[00:25:48] It's a more it's a subtler concept and it's
[00:25:53] and for that reason I assume that it's a harder one
[00:25:56] perhaps to I guess really just address.
[00:26:01] Yeah, I don't know.
[00:26:03] Like I think like yeah, I like I feel like that
[00:26:12] maybe gives me more credit for like my initial
[00:26:17] intention than I deserve like like I think it's
[00:26:20] it's more a thing where it's just sort of like
[00:26:23] you know like that that's the thing that's on my mind
[00:26:25] and so I try and like you know I start working on
[00:26:30] something and then I try and kind of elucidated
[00:26:33] in a way that makes sense rather than maybe being
[00:26:36] something where I'm yeah like I'm like this is
[00:26:38] the thing that I want to write about like I've
[00:26:41] occasionally like done that and it's kind of gone
[00:26:43] okay but more often than not I feel like if
[00:26:48] I start with an intention I'll like either like fly
[00:26:53] off the rails and end up doing something else or it
[00:26:56] will be like a bit of a trap and I'll just sort of
[00:26:58] get stuck in there.
[00:26:59] I think it's why like I really admire people who
[00:27:02] who like are good at political songwriting because
[00:27:05] I think that like in order to do that you
[00:27:07] have to start you have to sit down and try
[00:27:09] and do it and like that that part of it
[00:27:12] there are many parts of it that are hard but
[00:27:13] I think that part of it is in and of itself
[00:27:16] like kind of a pretty challenging thing to do
[00:27:19] without kind of writing something that's sort of
[00:27:21] stilted.
[00:27:22] What does it mean though to write a song without
[00:27:25] intention though like what are the initial steps
[00:27:28] in that process?
[00:27:29] I mean like it's like I don't know I feel like almost
[00:27:32] like like subconscious it's just sort of like I'll
[00:27:36] like figure out some chords that go together
[00:27:38] that I like and like figure out a melody
[00:27:42] that goes over it and then like kind of gradually
[00:27:46] like a sort of like like an idea for meteor will
[00:27:51] turn into words or I'll realize that there are
[00:27:52] sort of like some words in the idea and then
[00:27:56] like kind of just start making them fit together
[00:27:58] just start kind of being like oh like that's
[00:28:01] like a compelling image that's how this could
[00:28:02] fit to that like and then like you kind of
[00:28:04] realize that there's something there that like
[00:28:06] suggests something.
[00:28:09] And like I think that's like when I kind of
[00:28:10] will engage with it but it's normally like the
[00:28:13] thing is sort of like half formed.
[00:28:17] It's sort of like a part of an idea and then
[00:28:20] like I'll like then that sort of happens without
[00:28:23] me really thinking about it or like at least
[00:28:25] not thinking about it in a kind of like top
[00:28:26] down way and then once you've kind of got
[00:28:28] those pieces in play and then it's like okay
[00:28:30] like this actually does suggest something
[00:28:34] or this could fit into this thing that I have
[00:28:36] separately been thinking about or whatever.
[00:28:38] And like sometimes it's like an like you know
[00:28:41] it'll just be like I will start I'll start
[00:28:44] I'll start out with like an idea for imagery
[00:28:46] that I like like it'll just be like something
[00:28:47] that I'm like oh that's like interest like
[00:28:49] like that's an interesting idea to try
[00:28:51] and sing about that and then like that's
[00:28:54] maybe the starting point and then I kind of
[00:28:55] like see where it can fit and then like
[00:28:58] we'll find find the way from there.
[00:29:00] And like often with these songs too
[00:29:01] it's like I'll kind of write the first
[00:29:02] verse in the chorus and then leave them
[00:29:05] and then like we'll just be turning over
[00:29:07] a second idea for a while and then find
[00:29:09] a way to put it together like like the main
[00:29:10] thing was a good example of that where it's
[00:29:11] like I had like the first verse in the
[00:29:15] idea the like the kind of like baseball analogy
[00:29:19] like I had that for a long time and I like
[00:29:21] thought it worked but I didn't really know
[00:29:24] where it went.
[00:29:25] We were talking about baseball earlier
[00:29:27] and it is an interesting one and it's
[00:29:29] not something because it's not relief
[00:29:32] pictures it's a little relief pictures
[00:29:34] which you know maybe people who don't
[00:29:35] follow baseball that closely understand
[00:29:37] the distinction and for that reason
[00:29:41] I think it's a really interesting metaphor.
[00:29:45] Thanks.
[00:29:46] Yeah.
[00:29:46] No, I mean like I kind of liked it.
[00:29:48] I think you know that it's like a like
[00:29:51] almost like uniquely unglamorous position
[00:29:54] like it's a like which I think was
[00:29:56] sort of the idea that I liked about it.
[00:29:58] You're not getting the win probably
[00:30:00] you're just feel you're almost like
[00:30:02] filling up space in between.
[00:30:03] Yeah, like you're not yeah you're not like
[00:30:06] necessarily like all that important.
[00:30:07] There's not a lot of glory in in like I mean
[00:30:11] I guess I guess like the they're trying to
[00:30:13] phase them out of the game too but like
[00:30:16] there's not a lot of yeah not a lot of glory
[00:30:19] in that particular role
[00:30:22] which I thought kind of worked in context
[00:30:24] but yeah like that was one where it's like
[00:30:25] I had that I thought that was kind of a cool
[00:30:26] idea I was playing around with it for a while.
[00:30:29] I got it to fit into like a thing and
[00:30:31] it fit into a chorus and then like I was
[00:30:34] stuck on like where the song went from there
[00:30:36] for a really long time and then had like
[00:30:38] this separate thing that I was playing with.
[00:30:40] I got really really interested in
[00:30:45] like like Black Magic and it's like history
[00:30:48] in LA and like that sort of like like
[00:30:51] telematic like cults there and like all
[00:30:54] of these like these things that were
[00:30:55] involved in it and I got like really
[00:30:56] interested in that and I was like
[00:30:57] that's like a thing that I think could like
[00:30:58] like like at some point like I think it
[00:31:02] would be cool to try and use like
[00:31:04] summoning the age of Horus as a metaphor
[00:31:07] and then I like managed to find a place
[00:31:09] where it fit and like kind of realized
[00:31:11] like over time just after like playing
[00:31:12] with that that I was like oh this actually
[00:31:13] kind of works but it was one of those
[00:31:16] ones that like you know that song sat around
[00:31:18] in a half finished date for like
[00:31:20] six months or something before I realized
[00:31:22] that I had some things that would work
[00:31:23] and fit together.
[00:31:24] Yeah I mean obviously there's a big
[00:31:25] difference between finding a good metaphor
[00:31:28] that works in a song and like writing
[00:31:31] a song about the occult in Los Angeles.
[00:31:37] Yeah but I mean it's like like I think
[00:31:39] in like somebody else's hands like
[00:31:41] that could probably also be cool.
[00:31:43] I like you know like there's a great
[00:31:45] mountain goat song in there probably.
[00:31:48] Yeah yeah no for sure like yeah like just
[00:31:50] like a like a wreck of the Edmund
[00:31:52] Fitzgerald song about like Jack Parsons
[00:31:54] would be like I would listen to that for
[00:31:56] sure Gordon foot but yeah totally another
[00:32:00] great Canadian but yeah yeah just like I
[00:32:05] don't know that's like I it's not a thing
[00:32:09] that I've ever been able to sort of like
[00:32:11] due to my satisfaction I guess.
[00:32:12] It's an interesting topic for me because
[00:32:15] in a lot of ways I feel the opposite.
[00:32:21] Now granted I'm not a songwriter but I
[00:32:23] for me it's a lot easier to enter into
[00:32:27] a piece of writing with a sense of
[00:32:29] intentionality of like at least beginning
[00:32:32] from a place that I feel like it and it
[00:32:34] doesn't necessarily need to go in that
[00:32:36] direction but but having some goal from
[00:32:38] the outset can be very helpful in the
[00:32:40] process of writing.
[00:32:41] Yeah I think so I mean yeah I think
[00:32:42] it's just like different kinds of
[00:32:44] writing really yeah like I think like
[00:32:46] you know it's it's I think that's
[00:32:49] like kind of a thing that I maybe
[00:32:50] like about songwriting or that I am
[00:32:53] maybe something that I feel like I've
[00:32:54] hopefully gotten like a little bit
[00:32:55] better at that it's like that it's
[00:32:57] allowed to be kind of nebulous that
[00:32:59] you can let it be that way and it
[00:33:02] still works like it's sort of more
[00:33:05] like you don't need to sort of
[00:33:09] concretely define your intention
[00:33:13] for it to be legible which I think
[00:33:15] is is is is not true of prose
[00:33:19] normally and like yes is a thing
[00:33:22] about it that I have sort of like
[00:33:25] tried to relax into a little bit.
[00:33:27] You said half jokingly I assume that
[00:33:30] that I was giving you too much credit
[00:33:32] on as far as intentionality goes but
[00:33:34] I like at the end of the day I wonder
[00:33:36] ultimately whether intention really
[00:33:39] matters.
[00:33:41] I don't know yeah I mean I feel like
[00:33:42] it's like like yeah I think it's
[00:33:45] maybe like it's maybe semantic but
[00:33:46] it's like a difference between like
[00:33:49] like like like being like coming
[00:33:54] at it with a specific intention and
[00:33:55] a goal versus like being deliberate
[00:33:58] in its execution and I feel like
[00:34:00] it's like like the stuff like I
[00:34:04] definitely the way that I write
[00:34:06] these things it's like I try and
[00:34:07] be as I try and like waste as few
[00:34:11] words as possible I try and make
[00:34:11] sure like I think about all of it
[00:34:14] a lot and I don't normally let
[00:34:16] something lie like it's like like the
[00:34:18] way that I tend to like work on
[00:34:20] lyrics it's really like they'll be
[00:34:21] a first draft and then I'll just I
[00:34:23] like will email them to myself and
[00:34:25] then I'll just like it'll be like an
[00:34:28] email thread with like you know 10 to
[00:34:31] 20 replies in it of just like editing
[00:34:34] it back and editing it back and
[00:34:35] editing it back and like often like
[00:34:36] changing it I like to do it like
[00:34:37] that because it's then you can kind
[00:34:39] of see the record of the previous
[00:34:40] iteration and like really easily and
[00:34:43] be like okay well like that was
[00:34:44] actually maybe better before but
[00:34:46] it's like there's a lot of like you
[00:34:48] know I'm trying not to like I'd like
[00:34:50] for better or worse I guess I'm
[00:34:52] trying not to leave anything loose
[00:34:53] it's just like when I start I know
[00:34:56] don't normally know where I'm going
[00:34:57] I think I know the answer to this
[00:34:58] question but do you have a problem
[00:35:00] with overthinking like in general
[00:35:02] yeah I like I think so yes in general
[00:35:06] I'm curious just in your life
[00:35:08] generally but also how that manifests
[00:35:10] itself in your songwriting
[00:35:12] yeah I think so I think like
[00:35:14] it's kind of what I'm talking about
[00:35:15] when I say that like I feel like I've
[00:35:16] gotten a little bit better at
[00:35:19] letting stuff hang sometimes that
[00:35:20] it's like I'm trying to learn to not
[00:35:24] do that but I'm sure like you know
[00:35:25] like Dave who produced our record
[00:35:27] he would definitely say that yes
[00:35:29] I have a problem with overthinking
[00:35:31] like it's very easy to do
[00:35:36] I think that's kind of also just
[00:35:38] the state of I think it's the way
[00:35:39] that most things are in the
[00:35:41] context of like making a record in
[00:35:42] general I think it like there are
[00:35:44] some bands you know like I feel like
[00:35:45] like I'm sure like the big thief guys
[00:35:47] or like the king gizzard guys or
[00:35:49] whatever don't suffer from that
[00:35:51] and they're kind of doing a different
[00:35:52] thing and their thing is cool
[00:35:53] but I feel like for the most part
[00:35:54] it's like you know you get wrapped
[00:35:57] up in this thing that you're put
[00:35:59] a lot of time and energy into and
[00:36:00] and and it's sort of like permanence
[00:36:05] and it's very easy to kind of get
[00:36:06] tied up in psychological knots over
[00:36:08] trying to make it as good as you can
[00:36:09] make it this gets back to that idea
[00:36:11] of the best songs coming quickly
[00:36:13] it's hard not to feel as listen
[00:36:16] as somebody who suffers from deep
[00:36:18] anxiety and absolutely deals with
[00:36:23] overthinking in every aspect of my
[00:36:25] life it's hard not to be jealous of
[00:36:27] those people for whom it seems to
[00:36:29] just come effortlessly.
[00:36:31] Yeah, I mean it's it's I'm sure
[00:36:34] it like I'm sure it's
[00:36:35] on products and does but I like
[00:36:36] like I feel like it's just like with
[00:36:38] music stuff it's like that's
[00:36:39] sometimes part of the
[00:36:41] it's just a different different
[00:36:42] appeal like I like you know like
[00:36:44] King Gizzard is an example of me
[00:36:45] and Evan are both like fans of those
[00:36:46] guys like and like yeah like part
[00:36:48] of the like appeal of it is that
[00:36:51] some of it is kind of under thought
[00:36:53] that it's like a little half baked
[00:36:55] in a little goofy and it's like
[00:36:57] like it like that's like it's
[00:36:58] it's like the Ramones it's just
[00:37:00] dumb and fun it's enjoyable
[00:37:02] for that reason
[00:37:04] Yeah, I just I think like the thing
[00:37:06] that maybe comes naturally to me
[00:37:08] and Evan is not that I don't think
[00:37:10] I don't think we're very good at
[00:37:11] that like which is fair enough.
[00:37:14] Do you feel that like that going
[00:37:16] forward that you'll attempt to be
[00:37:19] maybe a little bit looser or more
[00:37:22] abstract in your approach?
[00:37:24] No, I don't.
[00:37:27] I mean like you know obviously
[00:37:29] this is working for you so you
[00:37:31] know it's not a problem on that
[00:37:33] front.
[00:37:34] We've tried we've tried to do
[00:37:35] that to see if it would be
[00:37:36] interesting and the answer has
[00:37:38] always been that it was not
[00:37:39] particularly like yeah I think
[00:37:43] I think that's the thing that
[00:37:44] like that we've kind of learned
[00:37:46] is that it's like we actually
[00:37:49] we like going over the details
[00:37:50] like it's it's actually a part
[00:37:51] of the process that we have fun
[00:37:52] doing for the most part and it
[00:37:54] is sort of like the key to making
[00:37:56] the thing that we do work
[00:37:59] in in so far as it works like
[00:38:01] I think that's like it's pretty
[00:38:04] the kind of like the detail or
[00:38:07] into the iterative thing is a big
[00:38:09] part of our approach and I think
[00:38:11] I don't think we would give it
[00:38:13] up easily without a fight.
[00:38:15] Are there times that that makes
[00:38:16] it difficult for it to get out
[00:38:18] the door?
[00:38:20] When it used to be more of an
[00:38:22] issue I think but I think
[00:38:24] we've gotten kind of we've the
[00:38:25] process of the more streamlined.
[00:38:28] I mean the joke used to be that
[00:38:29] like like that Evans mental
[00:38:34] health suffering was what made it
[00:38:35] good but we've we've kind of
[00:38:39] gotten outside of that.
[00:38:40] I think now it used to be like
[00:38:42] what we made the first DP
[00:38:43] especially it was like you know
[00:38:45] Evans Evans like kind of perfection
[00:38:47] is streak and like both like
[00:38:50] desire and willingness to just
[00:38:54] like pour over it forever and
[00:38:56] ever and like keep trying to fix
[00:38:58] it and keep trying to make it better.
[00:39:01] Like you know it would result in
[00:39:04] in like cool results in some ways
[00:39:06] but it would also result in a lot
[00:39:07] of like churn and a lot of stuff
[00:39:09] that didn't need to happen.
[00:39:11] But I think we've kind of like
[00:39:12] through that we've like figured
[00:39:14] out the techniques a little bit
[00:39:16] we figured out how to how to get
[00:39:18] the results that we're looking
[00:39:20] for on which parts of the
[00:39:21] process or waste a little bit more.
[00:39:24] Which I think is like kind of
[00:39:25] calmed it down and I think
[00:39:27] like I mean that was a nice thing
[00:39:28] about working with Dave on this
[00:39:30] record having like an outside
[00:39:31] voice was I think it just kind of
[00:39:32] like it it helps a lot to have
[00:39:37] just sort of just like be able
[00:39:39] to ask someone else outside of
[00:39:40] our process that like who we
[00:39:42] trust to be like like is this
[00:39:44] done is this fine.
[00:39:46] And like I think that kind of
[00:39:47] like took takes a lot of like
[00:39:49] allows the allows things to
[00:39:53] like kind of yeah run a bit
[00:39:54] smoother in some ways I guess.
[00:39:55] I wonder if part of sort of the
[00:39:57] overthinking or the difficulty
[00:39:59] or I guess like you know and
[00:40:01] again tongue in chief but talking
[00:40:03] about mental health it in you
[00:40:06] know compulsion is maybe a word
[00:40:08] that comes up.
[00:40:08] But I wonder how much of that
[00:40:10] this has to do with like when
[00:40:11] you're writing songs that are
[00:40:15] in some cases based around this
[00:40:17] parallel between societal collapse
[00:40:21] and interpersonal issues then
[00:40:24] it's like it can be difficult
[00:40:26] not to be a little bit miserable
[00:40:28] in that process.
[00:40:30] Yeah I mean I like I say like
[00:40:32] it's like that I think the like
[00:40:37] I think the ways in which like
[00:40:38] the process is fraught for us
[00:40:40] are like the very common ones
[00:40:44] that I think just affect try to
[00:40:46] make records like like for the
[00:40:48] most part like I don't like
[00:40:51] like I think like
[00:40:53] I think like you know we're both
[00:40:56] very invested in it and like I'm
[00:41:00] part of my investment is maybe that
[00:41:01] like these songs mean something
[00:41:04] to me but I think it's you know
[00:41:06] like for the most part it's like
[00:41:08] we have fun doing it.
[00:41:10] It's just like I think was normally
[00:41:11] a part near the end where it just
[00:41:12] makes us both kind of anxious
[00:41:14] and we get wound up.
[00:41:16] But I think that's also like you
[00:41:18] know that's just that's just doing
[00:41:19] something you care about.
[00:41:20] There's definitely a sense of
[00:41:21] fascination for you.
[00:41:23] You know I can't remember what
[00:41:25] interview or piece on you that
[00:41:27] I was reading that mentioned like
[00:41:31] part of your your covid recovery
[00:41:33] process was reading about the bronze
[00:41:35] age collapse so like obviously there's
[00:41:37] that there's a big there's a big
[00:41:39] fascination for you in
[00:41:42] in societal collapse.
[00:41:43] I forgot that faded into into
[00:41:45] print somewhere into pixels.
[00:41:48] Yeah yeah that was I was I was very
[00:41:50] sick and I did read about the bronze
[00:41:52] age collapse for many days in a row.
[00:41:54] That was like I think that was more
[00:41:57] of fascination with I like like the
[00:41:59] collapse part was less
[00:42:01] because I mean that's the thing that
[00:42:02] was kind of interesting about it is
[00:42:03] that the collapse like it might
[00:42:05] actually be that there was no
[00:42:06] collapse that the collapse is like
[00:42:08] is in fact like an artifact of a
[00:42:10] sort of like an era of like
[00:42:12] significantly less peer reviewed
[00:42:15] archaeological publishing.
[00:42:18] But what was interesting to me about
[00:42:19] that was it was basically that it
[00:42:21] was just sort of an era of European
[00:42:24] history or not European history
[00:42:25] strictly like but like like history
[00:42:28] in sort of like the Mediterranean
[00:42:30] and into Northern Europe and like
[00:42:33] in like sort of that general region
[00:42:34] of the world about which I knew
[00:42:36] almost nothing and we was very
[00:42:38] fascinating to get into it.
[00:42:39] I love those kinds of those kinds
[00:42:40] of history things like I've got
[00:42:42] like like that that David
[00:42:44] Granbook about the Amazon.
[00:42:45] I was really into 1492.
[00:42:47] I really liked like you know
[00:42:49] that's stuff that I find super interesting
[00:42:52] and I think that's that's kind of
[00:42:52] what I found interesting about it
[00:42:54] was it was like reading about like
[00:42:55] Bronze Age Europe.
[00:42:57] There are like a surprise there
[00:42:58] there are parallels to
[00:43:00] reading about sort of like indigenous
[00:43:02] cultures of the Americas in sort of
[00:43:03] the ways that like both in the
[00:43:06] ways that like what evidence we
[00:43:07] have from the archaeological record
[00:43:09] and also in some ways and in like
[00:43:11] in some like sort of cultural elements
[00:43:14] in sort of social organization
[00:43:15] and I found that really interesting.
[00:43:17] That's I went on about that for way
[00:43:18] too long but I did read a lot
[00:43:19] about the Bronze Age.
[00:43:21] I completely I completely get it.
[00:43:23] I as I'm as I get older
[00:43:26] I understand more and more
[00:43:28] why there's this middle-aged man
[00:43:30] fascination with reading history
[00:43:32] like I don't know what it is
[00:43:35] but at a certain point in my life
[00:43:36] like that that I was reading
[00:43:38] all fiction and then like a switch
[00:43:40] flipped in my head and then all
[00:43:42] I wanted to read about was you
[00:43:43] know World War Two or the Civil War.
[00:43:49] Like I completely get that fascination.
[00:43:51] It's interesting.
[00:43:51] I'm a big civilization six player.
[00:43:53] You know, I think that like ties in
[00:43:55] on both sides.
[00:43:56] So yeah, because you're talking
[00:43:57] about like real far back not prehistory
[00:44:00] but you know the development of societies.
[00:44:04] Well, I mean in a sense
[00:44:05] prehistory because it's like the thing
[00:44:06] that is one of the things that like
[00:44:10] is interesting about both of these
[00:44:13] things is like so certainly sort of like
[00:44:14] a lot of Europe in this sort of like
[00:44:16] Bronze Age, pre Bronze Age period
[00:44:18] is is like pre the written word
[00:44:21] which is like also a similar thing
[00:44:23] in a lot of a lot of them
[00:44:26] not all of like the sort of
[00:44:28] indigenous cultures of the Americas
[00:44:30] that we just don't have a written record.
[00:44:32] So it's like it becomes a
[00:44:35] it yeah like the sort of some
[00:44:37] similarities that you find just because
[00:44:38] it's like in reading about them
[00:44:40] and because it's just like
[00:44:41] it's sort of like physical
[00:44:43] evidence being interpreted
[00:44:45] and extrapolated upon without
[00:44:47] you know, sort of contemporary sources.
[00:44:49] So I think what you were you were
[00:44:51] getting at earlier is the
[00:44:54] the idea that that this specific collapse
[00:44:57] was a collapse is something that was
[00:44:58] perhaps introduced like well
[00:45:01] after the events actually happened
[00:45:04] because there were shortcomings
[00:45:06] as far as historical record.
[00:45:09] Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:10] That's the idea that it's sort of like
[00:45:12] that there's like one set of thinking
[00:45:14] that it was basically like the term
[00:45:16] Bronze Age collapse was like coined by
[00:45:17] one guy in like the 60s I think
[00:45:19] and like that basically like he had
[00:45:22] like willfully
[00:45:24] misinterpreted some evidence
[00:45:27] in order to kind of like
[00:45:28] tie all these ideas together into one
[00:45:31] sort of like broad historical concept.
[00:45:33] He had a good title for a book
[00:45:35] and then he built his theory around
[00:45:37] like he maybe kind of worked backwards.
[00:45:39] Yeah, from like the exciting idea
[00:45:41] where like yeah, like it was actually
[00:45:42] like that you know these were
[00:45:44] sort of like a few sort of cities
[00:45:46] city-states that like went down
[00:45:48] around the same time but like
[00:45:49] not really in a related way.
[00:45:52] And then like you know
[00:45:53] there's other things that are like
[00:45:54] aren't there where it's like
[00:45:56] there isn't even evidence of a sudden
[00:45:57] collapse but he interpreted
[00:45:59] interpreted as such
[00:46:00] and it's now been sort of reassessed
[00:46:01] and they think like no probably not.
[00:46:04] But
[00:46:05] yeah there's a bunch of fun ideas in that
[00:46:08] because also a lot of it's kind of speculative
[00:46:09] which is also sort of fun
[00:46:12] of like yeah like sort of things that
[00:46:15] were there reasons that it happened
[00:46:17] or like what the sort of social situation
[00:46:19] was at the time.
[00:46:20] There's one that I thought was particularly
[00:46:22] fanciful
[00:46:24] that essentially like this like
[00:46:27] that like
[00:46:28] there had been this sort of like
[00:46:30] growth
[00:46:31] of a
[00:46:32] like multi-national
[00:46:35] warrior cast
[00:46:37] that was like like basically like a large group of
[00:46:40] mercenaries like traveling around like Europe
[00:46:42] and the Mediterranean
[00:46:44] at like serving various like barons and kings.
[00:46:47] You're describing Assassin's Creed.
[00:46:49] Yeah basically basically yeah yeah yeah
[00:46:51] no that had like that had become too powerful
[00:46:54] and like this is like like this is like the
[00:46:56] like like like what precipitated this collapse
[00:46:59] is like these guys essentially like turning on
[00:47:01] their masters there's like this very little evidence
[00:47:03] for that but it's like it's a thing that like people
[00:47:06] yeah have written about I don't know it's it was
[00:47:08] it was like a fun fun couple of days on Wikipedia
[00:47:10] for me.
[00:47:10] I think that's an underrated thing about
[00:47:14] studying history is when you
[00:47:17] stumble on something that causes you to just
[00:47:20] completely rethink all of these like fundamental
[00:47:23] ideas that you have about a specific topic.
[00:47:27] Yeah I mean that's like 1492 is a really cool
[00:47:29] one for that reason.
[00:47:30] I feel like a lot of people read that one but it's
[00:47:33] yeah like it's really like kind of changes your
[00:47:35] perspective on on both
[00:47:38] on sort of like the history that like
[00:47:41] that most people were taught in school about
[00:47:44] like you know people in the Americas and then
[00:47:47] also sort of like the scale of the tragedy of
[00:47:51] like what colonization was contextually is like
[00:47:54] just it's just different
[00:47:57] with that in the other with yeah in the context
[00:47:59] of the ambition in that book in like in raw numbers
[00:48:03] and in other ways.
[00:48:03] I do feel like specifically
[00:48:07] that subject is one that like and this is you know
[00:48:11] I think this is a testament to why it's important
[00:48:14] to have
[00:48:16] more
[00:48:17] kinds of people for more different walks of life
[00:48:21] involved in
[00:48:23] writing and and the entertainment industry is
[00:48:27] that
[00:48:29] you know there is a big push to tell some of the stories
[00:48:31] right now I think I was think I don't know if you read
[00:48:33] you know speaking of Canada.
[00:48:34] I don't know if you read Kate Beaton's last book
[00:48:37] Ducks fittingly it's called Ducks
[00:48:41] but but it's about the oil sands in in Canada and
[00:48:44] working there and you know there's a lot about
[00:48:48] because I because I think something that I didn't
[00:48:49] appreciate not appreciate I didn't recognize until
[00:48:52] fairly recently as an American is that like
[00:48:56] with residential schools and everything
[00:48:58] Canada wasn't much better than we were as far as treating
[00:49:02] indigenous people.
[00:49:04] Oh yeah.
[00:49:05] That absolutely I mean like that's yeah that's a funny
[00:49:08] thing about Canada I feel like it like
[00:49:11] it it often
[00:49:13] it's like feel like its own perception of itself is
[00:49:15] often sort of based on like
[00:49:20] this sort of like reflex if like at least we're not
[00:49:22] American work like at least we're not as bad as the
[00:49:23] Americans thing which is like both like
[00:49:26] a an odd way to define yourself and also often
[00:49:29] not true historically.
[00:49:31] But it's it is a very Canadian thing and
[00:49:33] understandably so from the standpoint that like
[00:49:35] you know obviously
[00:49:37] America has a very outsized influence on the world
[00:49:41] and the population is much larger and the two
[00:49:44] countries are
[00:49:46] so close
[00:49:48] you know like language wise obviously and
[00:49:52] but but just in terms of culture that it's
[00:49:54] probably
[00:49:56] it's impossible to not
[00:49:58] as a Canadian I assume to a certain extent compare
[00:50:00] yourself to the US.
[00:50:03] Yeah, I honestly feel like it in some ways I think
[00:50:06] it like is an impetus behind some of the better
[00:50:10] like parts of like the politics here
[00:50:14] which I think is not unique to Canada like I think
[00:50:16] it's like I feel like you often have kind of like
[00:50:19] situations where
[00:50:22] like that kind of like
[00:50:24] oppositional like definition does result in those things
[00:50:27] I mean it even happens within Canada I think there's like a lot
[00:50:28] there's a you know there's a really
[00:50:31] like the sort of like
[00:50:33] the movement
[00:50:35] this sort of like green movement in Quebec
[00:50:37] I think like at least some element of that
[00:50:40] of the politics behind that is is
[00:50:43] is in opposition to you know the rest of the country
[00:50:46] here and the way that it's
[00:50:49] the way that they're sort of like they're like
[00:50:53] yeah that I think like in some ways like that does like
[00:50:55] sometimes spur positive things like it you know I think like
[00:50:58] part of the reason like
[00:51:00] the people in here are so proud of our nationalized health
[00:51:02] carries because America doesn't have it
[00:51:05] like and like I think there's like a lot of examples of
[00:51:07] things like that where it's like it actually is kind of
[00:51:09] it like it ends up being a positive thing
[00:51:12] in the way that like you kind of get there but
[00:51:16] yeah, I don't know it's like I feel like it's you see it
[00:51:18] in other places too like it like you know in the way
[00:51:20] that like
[00:51:21] Scotland is is is progressive and pro-European
[00:51:25] versus like England
[00:51:28] I think it's like some of that is coming in in in opposition
[00:51:30] as well to as well as just like you know people
[00:51:33] liking those things you were born in the UK
[00:51:36] you were raised in the US
[00:51:38] how did you end up there?
[00:51:41] Just like my dad's work stuff you you moved
[00:51:45] your family moved there and then you stuck around
[00:51:48] yeah, I went I went to the University of Toronto
[00:51:49] what's kept you there?
[00:51:51] I like it.
[00:51:52] I don't know.
[00:51:53] Fair enough.
[00:51:54] It's a it seems like a good place and I don't know
[00:51:56] like I think you're you're a citizen now and I don't
[00:51:59] know how
[00:52:01] I don't know how something like Cancon applies to
[00:52:06] bands whose members are from outside the country
[00:52:09] but it's a it Canada does seem like a much better
[00:52:12] place to try to be in a band at the level that
[00:52:16] your band is at.
[00:52:18] There's definitely some cool things.
[00:52:19] Yeah, I mean I think like you know that the funding stuff
[00:52:21] is definitely
[00:52:23] not perfect
[00:52:26] but it is like a cool thing and I like I you know
[00:52:29] I'm like grateful for
[00:52:31] the stuff that we do got obviously and I think it's
[00:52:33] like I like that
[00:52:35] that is a thing that happens in this country and you
[00:52:37] know some stuff that happens in especially in some
[00:52:39] other provinces like I mean like the some of the
[00:52:40] stuff that Quebec does is really really cool
[00:52:44] and it's kind of just like changes the entire like
[00:52:46] structure of how how like
[00:52:49] arts industries can function in a way that I feel like
[00:52:53] could and should be sort of a model for how other parts
[00:52:55] of the world do it.
[00:52:57] But
[00:52:58] you know it's it's really a cool thing like I mean it
[00:53:00] has like I think some some pitfalls as well. I think
[00:53:02] we don't
[00:53:03] in some ways fit into
[00:53:05] it's like mainline maybe but I don't think that's
[00:53:08] like necessarily because we're
[00:53:11] not from here originally we've been as soon as
[00:53:13] your permanent resident you qualify
[00:53:16] as part of the whole thing so we've been permanent
[00:53:18] resident pretty much the whole time this band existed.
[00:53:20] One of the big downfalls seems to be touring across
[00:53:23] the country seems extremely difficult.
[00:53:26] Yeah, I mean that's that is like I think the biggest
[00:53:29] structural
[00:53:30] kind of thing and a thing that like you know that
[00:53:33] like it would be cool to see some of that kind of
[00:53:35] like that grant stuff and the sort of the people
[00:53:38] who organize and just like that like maybe address
[00:53:41] that kind of stuff more directly because that it
[00:53:42] isn't really done isn't really built into how it
[00:53:45] works that it's like yeah like the
[00:53:48] touring within the country is one thing.
[00:53:51] But the big thing is is that like crossing the border
[00:53:53] is is far harder than it should be not at all like
[00:53:56] reciprocal like us bands coming here don't have to
[00:54:00] go through nearly the same hoops and it's like
[00:54:02] it's incredibly expensive. It's incredibly complicated.
[00:54:05] It's a thing that it's like that we've been kind
[00:54:07] of finding which I think is
[00:54:09] is wild when you think about it is that in a lot
[00:54:11] of ways because of the expense and complication
[00:54:13] of the visas
[00:54:14] it's it all it's like it almost works out the same to
[00:54:18] go to Europe.
[00:54:20] It almost makes more sense to fly across an ocean that
[00:54:23] it does to like drive to New York. Part of the reason
[00:54:25] why I say Canada is hard to tour and it's just
[00:54:27] because of how spread out everything is obviously
[00:54:30] the US is
[00:54:32] spread out in a different way. One of the one of
[00:54:33] the benefits of going to Europe is that everything
[00:54:36] is like relatively tightly packed over there.
[00:54:41] Yeah, I mean yeah relative to North America for sure.
[00:54:44] Yeah, and like that is that is a nice thing. It's like
[00:54:45] it is funny going over there and sort of like finding
[00:54:47] out what qualifies as a long drive.
[00:54:50] Like after you've like after you've done the like Denver
[00:54:53] to Kansas City like
[00:54:55] one trying to make a four o'clock soundtrack.
[00:54:57] It's like it all seems pretty pretty goofy.
[00:55:00] But yeah, I don't know. I mean like it's like
[00:55:03] we're grateful to get to do any of it for sure.
[00:55:05] It's just like the visa thing with the US is definitely
[00:55:08] it just seems like a problem that could be addressed.
[00:55:13] So it kind of gets to me. It's one of those things that I yeah.
[00:55:16] Does that affect you personally though?
[00:55:18] Because I assume you saw US citizenship.
[00:55:20] I don't know. I wasn't in the US long enough
[00:55:24] to become a citizen. I used to have a green card.
[00:55:25] Oh, you weren't born here. Yeah, of course.
[00:55:27] Yeah, our drummer is American which is helpful.
[00:55:32] But the rest of us are on the visas.
[00:55:38] Oh, but you're right.