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[00:00:11] Yeah, I mean a footnote is a nice place to put something that doesn't quite merit a parenthetical, right? Or to put a little Easter egg of information for those interested.
[00:00:25] I mean, if it was up to me, I would have put those sorts of notes as end notes at the bottom of the page and put the citations in the back but the press style sheet insisted that they, not only that all the citations needed to be restated but that all those notes needed to be in the back and together.
[00:00:49] So, yeah, bonus for those interested in flipping back and forth.
[00:00:56] Is that format a product of working effectively with an academic press?
[00:01:02] Yeah. I mean, my role with University of Texas and the way particularly their American Music Series operates is that it's an academic press but it's also sort of public facing in terms of the subject material and the way that it's being played.
[00:01:19] Packaged.
[00:01:21] Um, but it does have to follow the certain certain style sheets and it didn't have to go through a kind of peer review.
[00:01:29] I noticed that just really early on into the reading that it does take a very academic approach to a lot of the subject matter in terms of citations.
[00:01:38] Um, and, and really the way it's written and I'm kind of curious if you were thinking of this at all.
[00:01:47] Obviously the blurbs, you know, you've got Kosterman but then you've got, um, Sadie from Speedy Ortiz.
[00:01:53] It seems like it's really firmly targeted at touring musicians.
[00:01:58] Is that a fair assumption?
[00:02:00] I think that that's the audience that I want to think that I did a good job.
[00:02:07] If that makes sense.
[00:02:09] Your peers.
[00:02:10] To my previous book, the novel, someone should pay for your pain, which is about a touring musician.
[00:02:16] Um, obviously you want to reach as broad an audience as possible, but you want the approval of the people who know the material the best.
[00:02:25] Uh, I want them to feel like, um, I want them to feel like I captured it accurately.
[00:02:34] Um, I like getting those, those text messages from them privately saying, Hey, I just finished your book and you nailed it.
[00:02:41] It's funny actually with some of the quotes, you know, I won't call any out specifically, but there's a few in there.
[00:02:46] It's like, Oh, you, I think you were able to, because of your approach in the subject matter, we're able to get some things out of these people.
[00:02:53] Like there's a lot of like, Oh, so-and-so wasn't great to work with and things like that, that maybe they wouldn't necessarily say in a standard interview.
[00:03:01] I think that's possible.
[00:03:03] Yeah.
[00:03:03] Um, probable, you know, there's a, there after you've, especially after you've been doing it for a while, there are, um, you, you, you approach talking to journalists in a slightly careful way.
[00:03:17] Uh, even a very sympathetic journalist, um, in a way that you might not to, to a fellow practitioner.
[00:03:24] And also I would say, and I think I say this in the, in the introduction that a lot of the people that I'm talking to for this book are not used to being interviewed.
[00:03:33] And so they may not have the, some of those defensive shields up and probably have a lot of stories that they've been waiting for someone to ask them about for many years.
[00:03:45] I was considering that, especially given all of these different roles that you've filled over the years, you know, obviously I, I would say primarily it's, you are one of the band people discussed in the book, but you've released solo records.
[00:04:02] You've, you've, you've, you've, you've written multiple books.
[00:04:05] Where do you kind of lie on that spectrum of giving interviews?
[00:04:12] Somewhere in between.
[00:04:14] Right.
[00:04:14] Uh, I'm not the primary interview for the whole study, for example, right?
[00:04:19] People by and large want to talk to Craig and secondarily to Ted.
[00:04:23] Um, uh, I am the primary interview for my books and solo records to the extent that anyone's interested in talking about them.
[00:04:33] I, you know, I'm the secondary interview for, for the whole study, right?
[00:04:38] In the, in the old days, if, if there was like a college paper or something that, that Craig didn't want to deal with.
[00:04:45] So I feel like I'm pretty well-practiced at talking.
[00:04:51] Um, I don't feel like I have, I'm not as good as, as some of the people who do it all the time.
[00:04:59] Uh, but I don't, I guess I don't, I don't have a slick answer to that.
[00:05:04] No.
[00:05:04] Well, which is good, but I'm not, I'm not, I've been on all sides of it.
[00:05:09] I partially ask, and I'm partially interested in this because obviously the vast majority of my role in this relationship is the interviewer and not the interviewee.
[00:05:18] And I'm kind of curious what, what will practice means in this context?
[00:05:24] Well, I should, I should add that I've also been on the other side of it, right?
[00:05:28] I've, I did the interviews for these books.
[00:05:30] I've hosted a couple, you know, I've done some podcast interviews, you know, I've, I, I've done some book events with people.
[00:05:36] So I'm also, and, and, you know, I've reviewed things over the, so I'm, I'm also used to what it feels like of being on the other side of the, of the thing and trying to maybe draw something out of someone that either that maybe they haven't thought about their own work or, um, aren't comfortable talking about their own work.
[00:05:58] What does well-practiced mean?
[00:06:00] I mean, I think when you're really good at it, you know, and I've seen some band leaders that I work with who are really good at it, um, you have a ready answer for just about every question you're going to be asked.
[00:06:13] Um, because you've been interviewed so many times, because people tend to have the same questions about you.
[00:06:19] Um, you have a pretty slick, and I don't mean that pejoratively, but you have a pretty ready answer for things.
[00:06:28] Um, and you're pretty, have a pretty good sense of what you should say and what you shouldn't say.
[00:06:32] Um, and I have that to some extent, but, um, I know that, uh, I've certainly got out of, out of many interviews thinking, I shouldn't have said that, or I should have said that differently.
[00:06:46] Maybe that's just a personality.
[00:06:48] I think to a certain extent it, it absolutely is.
[00:06:51] Uh, but I mean, I would say, and I don't know if you feel this way as well, but I think the middle ground is actually, that's, that's a spot.
[00:07:00] Like that's a good spot to interview somebody, somebody who knows enough not to just give yes or no questions, but there, there's a level of slickness and pre-rehearsedness that I think can be, uh, can actually like work against getting a information out.
[00:07:18] Sure.
[00:07:21] Sure.
[00:07:21] Well, getting information out of someone is not always the goal from, from that person's point of view, right?
[00:07:27] A lot of cases they just want to get through it.
[00:07:29] I actually said that to someone a few years ago, you know, at the end of the, at the end of the year, he was like, Oh, this is a really good conversation.
[00:07:34] You know, I don't often have good conversations.
[00:07:36] And I said, well, you know, I suspect that most of the people who do this for a living, like you're their fifth interview this week and they didn't have time to sit down and listen to everything.
[00:07:48] And it, you know, and, and, and, and, you know, to a certain degree, certain parts of this book are a testament that even the best jobs in the world at some point, they're jobs.
[00:08:27] Yeah.
[00:08:31] So, you know, they're members 40s, 50s and beyond.
[00:08:59] But also shield bands from, you know, having to deal with some of the more mundane aspects of their relationships with each other.
[00:09:08] Those are gone.
[00:09:10] And so, you know, there is an aspect of being in a mid-level band for a decade or more that is a little bit like The Office, the TV show, where, you know, you're, you're having meetings with various management figures and, you know, you're looking over, you're trying to meet various budgets and you're looking over various, you know, ticket sales figures and, and, and so on.
[00:09:36] While also trying to have these creative relationships and try to, you know, keep your songwriting and habits from falling into, you know, deep grooves and to sort of maintain your, your personal relationships in a, in a, in a non-destructive way.
[00:09:59] And I find all that really fascinating.
[00:10:02] And that's the sort of thing, you know, there is a romantic aspect of.
[00:10:08] Of course.
[00:10:09] The way people think about bands that I think prevents.
[00:10:15] And the incentives of music journalism to the extent that it, extent that it still exists, which are very tied around album releases.
[00:10:23] And so, the conversations that tend to get had about bands are between a journalist and the band leader slash front person about the new record, you know, and you have 20 to 30 minutes to talk about it.
[00:10:36] So, these conversations about the long-term trajectory of band relationships tend not to be had.
[00:10:41] And, um, because they're pretty down the, far down the list of priorities of why the conversation is happening in the first place.
[00:10:48] Do you feel that the pragmatic conversation and the romantic conversation are necessarily in conflict with one another?
[00:10:54] They're absolutely not.
[00:10:56] They're absolutely not.
[00:10:56] And I think band people from the, from the inside understand that.
[00:11:00] Um, and they, cause they, most people who get into this life are, get into it out of a kind of idealism.
[00:11:09] Um, they want to be part of this gang feeling, right?
[00:11:14] I think a couple people say that in the book.
[00:11:17] Like, if you wanted to be a hired gun session pro, um, that you wouldn't get involved with being a band member.
[00:11:24] You'd be very sort of, you'd, you'd, you'd, you'd always know what you charge and you'd go to the highest bidder and you'd sort of leapfrog around from these various gigs.
[00:11:35] But the people who become band people, even those of us who are trained musicians do that because we have this romantic idea of being a part of something of being a part of that, that gang feeling, that family feeling, but also that sort of, um, whatever magic that is about creative collaboration.
[00:11:53] Now, some of that romanticism gets burned off in the early years.
[00:11:57] Um, and sometimes bands don't survive that.
[00:12:00] Uh, but the ones that do have a deep understanding of the fact that that core idealism is still there, even as, um, you grow into a more mature understanding of the situation you find yourself in.
[00:12:15] You know, it's funny that I think that only time you and I have spoken in person was, I went to one of your solo shows.
[00:12:22] I want to say it was during CMJ.
[00:12:25] I'm not sure if those timelines, uh, line up.
[00:12:29] So obviously a number of years ago, cause CMJ has not been a thing in some time, but, um, I remember we spent the majority of our conversation talking about TV Smith.
[00:12:40] I love TV Smith.
[00:12:41] He was a real inspiration to me.
[00:12:43] Yeah.
[00:12:44] Yeah.
[00:12:45] And, and, and, and specifically, you know, and, and I didn't know any of this, um, but specifically around, uh, his touring and that devoted fan, like an extremely devoted fan base that he has.
[00:12:59] And it sounds like he's an example, obviously, you know, touring solo and touring in a band are very different things in a lot of ways, but he's maybe one of those people who has done a good job of maintaining some of that romanticism while being able to still have a lengthy career.
[00:13:16] I mean, I think so.
[00:13:18] Um, part of that is, I, I think there must be on some level, an aspect of feeding the expectations of his core fan base who tend, who are, you know, by and large people who are into, you know, 1977 UK punk.
[00:13:31] Um, and so he has this obligation to them on some level to be wearing, you know, ripped bondage pants and a, and a tank top as a 70 year old.
[00:13:42] Um, but what I was impressed with by him, um, and the context was in the early two thousands, I was in a group called world Inferno friendship society, which is sort of a Northeast regional cult, uh, punk band.
[00:13:59] Um, and we did a 10 day tour with TV Smith opening, opening for him.
[00:14:06] Um, and he was driving around with his manager doing an acoustic set.
[00:14:10] We were a nine piece band, but we would open for him and he would get up with his acoustic guitar and do, and do his thing.
[00:14:17] Um, and he was at that point, you know, probably what seemed to me quite, uh, quite a veteran at that point, I guess he was probably in his fifties, which doesn't seem quite so old to me anymore.
[00:14:28] Um, but to see a guy like that at that stage in his career, who's, you know, in, in his, in his world, you know, kind of a legend.
[00:14:36] Um, and that you could do a tour like that where you drove around in a compact car with your acoustic guitar and got up and played your songs.
[00:14:44] And that, that seemed to be a manageable kind of living.
[00:14:49] Um, even while watching him, you know, play to quite small crowds or, you know, in a basement show and, you know, Alston mass with a broken microphone on, on the floor, you know, for.
[00:15:02] You know, essentially a DIY punk crowd.
[00:15:06] Just to think about like, this must be difficult for him on some level, but he's doing it with a kind of dignity and this is the life, uh, you know, once you're 20 or 30 years into this thing.
[00:15:17] Um, uh, and I've thought I have had the opportunity since then to, to tour with other people in similar situations.
[00:15:25] Maybe I'm in a similar situation myself, uh, now, um, and to look at how these kinds of people carried themselves.
[00:15:35] Um, I mean, he's a slightly different kind of case than the, than who I'm talking about in, in band people, because he's the front person, the adverts.
[00:15:45] He was the primary songwriter.
[00:15:48] Um, he, um, um, but it is that sense of like a career in music, how it relates to the dignity.
[00:15:57] Of work.
[00:15:59] Because people do have a tendency.
[00:16:02] Some people do have a tendency to approach performers the same way they approach professional athletes.
[00:16:11] Uh, with the sense that these are careers that other people dream about having.
[00:16:19] And so for each, for any of those principles to express any sort of reservations about those careers or express some of the difficulties of those careers can be hard for people to hear or they resent hearing it.
[00:16:35] Um, but those questions of the dignity of that kind of work do exist.
[00:16:42] And of course, you know, professional athletes make a, make a lot of money, even if they don't.
[00:16:49] For those who only make it for a couple of years relative to musicians, um, especially these days, you know, a reasonably successful mid-level indie rock.
[00:17:00] Uh, financial situation is middle class at best.
[00:17:06] Um, and so I think those of us in that situation appreciate the opportunity to, to talk about what that's like.
[00:17:19] Independent of what people's ideas are of what that's like.
[00:17:23] I fully understand that.
[00:17:25] I'm able to do certain things for my job that obviously I have to take stock of and, and consider myself lucky that like, you know, for example, that I've been able to be a professional writer.
[00:17:34] Sure. And that the only people that you can really complain to are other writers. And it strikes me that in a very real way, this book could have only been written by a professional musician.
[00:17:50] Yeah. I think it has to have been for all the reasons that we're talking about, you know, uh, that you to talk about things like getting bored with your set on stage.
[00:18:03] Right. It's something that every musician has experienced. Um, very few fans want to hear about.
[00:18:09] It's heartbreaking if, you know, your favorite band says that, but the point, the point being that like, even if you love your job, not every day is, you know, you're exploding with 110% joy.
[00:18:20] Some days you're just not there mentally, but that you can, you, you, you much like, you know, a theater actor, right? Broadway theater actors have to do the same show eight times a week, right?
[00:18:32] Twice on Wednesdays and Saturdays, which is a lot of repetition. Um, I have a friend who's in a, in a Broadway pit band where the, and the, the pit band has, uh, is in a similar situation, but since they're usually out of sight, they can, you know, do the New York times crosswords when they're not playing.
[00:18:49] Unfortunately, this show that my friend is on the band is on stage. And that can be really difficult because they're not the center of attention, but they also have to not look bored because they're physically on stage. Um, you know, for a rock band, you are to some extent, the center of attention, although not necessarily. Usually people are watching the front person. Um, you know, and you, but you acquire some of those tricks that an actor has of acting, you know, as if, you know what you, you know, what it looks like.
[00:19:20] To express joy and connection physically. And you can do that even if you're not feeling it.
[00:19:27] I'm, I'm always curious what that breaking point is for people, because obviously at a certain point for some people, there's a whole financial conversation, which we can get into, but at a certain point for some people, I think the joy is just completely gone.
[00:19:43] And, um, perhaps a lot of people stay in it for as long as they do, because, you know, this is one of the few jobs in the world that you can not few, but, uh, this is a job that so many people who do it have been doing it since they were 17 and they just don't really know anything else.
[00:20:05] Mm-hmm. I mean, I don't think, I don't think you lose the joy of playing. I think, um, you know, I assume you, you get tired of certain, if you're fortunate slash unfortunate enough to have one or two big hits that you have to play every night, I suspect that those get a little tiresome.
[00:20:27] Um, and, you know, I appreciate the bands that are able to play with those, you know, people talk about going to see Bob Dylan and they can't recognize any of the songs like, well, it's probably more fun for him, you know, or like counting crows who will play Mr. Jones, but they'll play it in, they'll rearrange it all the time.
[00:20:47] You know,
[00:20:48] It's so funny to go to show and be like, well, at least the band had fun.
[00:20:52] I don't think those things are mutually exclusive.
[00:20:54] I know they're not, but I've, I've certainly had that experience before where you're like, ah.
[00:20:58] Well, I think here, here's the thing. So, so to, when I asked this question in the book, everyone acknowledged, yeah, absolutely. Sometimes, you know, especially if you're, uh, you know, a hired gun on a tour for someone else where the set list is relatively unchanging.
[00:21:13] You try to sort of play mental games with yourself and try to figure out, you know, what little feel can I add into this song or what can I do differently or how can I really perfect?
[00:21:22] You know, I, one of the things that we talked about in the book is this, is this dichotomy between the artist and the artisan, right?
[00:21:30] This, so the sense that sometimes if you're a support musician, it's helpful to think of yourself as a craftsperson, um, like as a carpenter who's in the job of making the same table over and over again.
[00:21:44] Um, and it's a sturdy table and it's not a flashy table, but, um, you, you improve the joinery every time you make the table, you know, and that table will please the people who receive the table and they can, you know, eat dinner at it for 20 years.
[00:22:01] Um, so there can be that aspect of it, uh, as sort of like a guild pride in the, um, in the, in the, in the worksmanship of, of reproducing the song.
[00:22:11] I couldn't tell you who you were interviewing off the top of my head.
[00:22:15] Um, but there is a quote from, uh, one of the drummers where he's talking about working with a front man who is like notoriously stringent in, uh, in, in what he wants out of the song.
[00:22:31] And, and yeah, and that, but that there is a way to give that person exactly what they want, but still find your place within that template.
[00:22:43] Yeah. I mean, that, that was one of the other questions is to what extent musicians who are primarily support musicians feel like it's their, they, do they want to, as the cliche goes, serve the song or do they want to put their stamp on it?
[00:23:00] Like how identifiable do they want their particular idiolect, their, their own sort of musical signature to be.
[00:23:10] And people have various answers.
[00:23:12] Some, you know, sometimes that goes down to what kind of music musician they perceive themselves to be.
[00:23:17] You know, there are certain musicians that you call because you want their particular flavor and they're not the kind of chameleon who can, you know, be a punk drummer on one song.
[00:23:29] And, uh, you know, a steely Dan drummer on another song, depending on what people are looking for it.
[00:23:34] You know, like Lori Barbaro from babes in toy land.
[00:23:36] She does the one thing that she does.
[00:23:38] She's the only person who can give you that thing.
[00:23:40] If you want that thing, you call Lori Barbaro.
[00:23:42] Right.
[00:23:43] Um, but I think the idea is for a lot in a lot of these cases, you know, if you're hired to come in and fulfill someone's vision, particularly a songwriter's vision, um, you want to give them what they want.
[00:23:58] You know, no one's, no one wants to, you know, try to like nudge someone, elbow someone violently out of the spotlight.
[00:24:09] Right.
[00:24:09] You know why you're there.
[00:24:10] Um, but you also want to be treated as a, an actor in your own right.
[00:24:18] Right.
[00:24:18] As someone who has this, a pride and a dignity in what they do.
[00:24:24] Um, and so when people in the book are talking about things they don't appreciate out of band leaders, a lot of it, a lot of it is about respect.
[00:24:33] It's a lot of it is about, you know, don't give me the look of death when I screw up or, you know, um, don't act like I'm interchangeable or that I'm a robot.
[00:24:45] You know, machine who can pump out exactly the part you're looking for.
[00:24:49] Uh, and, and if I haven't gotten it in two takes, then we need to get the next guy in, uh, um, because you're having trouble communicating what it is you're looking for.
[00:24:59] For example, I recently spoke with Mike Campbell and I wish that I had read this book prior to the, cause this, you know, although you weren't able to talk to him for the book, like there, there's a lot of interesting insights and he's, um.
[00:25:11] I actually met him after the book was already in print.
[00:25:15] I kind of wish the timing had worked out a little better because he and the petty band are one of those bands that other rock bands are super fascinated with about the hierarchy.
[00:25:26] Everyone's an archetype.
[00:25:27] Yeah.
[00:25:28] Basically.
[00:25:28] Right.
[00:25:30] And he, and he, he, he is a particularly interesting one and maybe, maybe, maybe the least archetypical in the sense that, um, you know, that he, he was, uh, he's a songwriter in his own right.
[00:25:47] He's a singer in his own right.
[00:25:48] He says, he sings and writes songs remarkably like Tom Petty, I should say.
[00:25:53] He sounds quite a bit like him, but, but, um, you know, they, they, they sort of started in,
[00:25:57] and I, I guess it must've been the mud crutch days of, of being, you know, kind of on equal footing.
[00:26:02] And then, you know, Tom comes in and it's clear that like, all right, well, you know, I'm not going to compete with Tom Petty, but he, he.
[00:26:11] Campbell occupies an interesting position in that he, he almost like willingly made that transition.
[00:26:21] He seemed like somebody who would have been totally comfortable being out front.
[00:26:25] And obviously he's doing that now, but was willing to, you know, become that guy.
[00:26:32] Yeah.
[00:26:32] The consigliere.
[00:26:33] It would be really interesting to have, to talk to him at length about, about that transition, because I think it must've been difficult on some level, although he has never once said that it was.
[00:26:45] And of course, some people, um, by their very personality are well suited to that kind of role.
[00:26:50] Um, and he did have all these other outlets as a songwriter, right.
[00:26:54] With, with Don Henley and, and others.
[00:26:58] And has been, you know, really taken it upon himself to sort of be the keeper of the Petty legacy, right?
[00:27:05] He, he has Steve Ferroni in his band and they keep a bunch of the Petty crew working, working for him.
[00:27:14] Um, um, but there are these people, yeah.
[00:27:16] Like James Bowman with Laura Jane Grace and against me.
[00:27:19] Um, you know, you can come up with other, uh, John D.
[00:27:23] Domenici with, with Jeff Rosenstock.
[00:27:25] Um, they have these long relationships of just, of being the loyal Lieutenant.
[00:27:30] Um, and that's a, that's also a very fascinating space to be.
[00:27:36] Um, I think it gets more fraught if you have your, if you have your own creative ambitions and maybe that's why Campbell is such an interesting case.
[00:27:44] Um, I think I mentioned somewhere in the book, this, this other book that's written by Stuart David, uh, the original bass player in Bell and Sebastian.
[00:27:54] This lovely little book called In the All Night Cafe, which is his memoir of the early years of, of Bell and Sebastian, which is so fascinating because it's the story of someone who's a pretty good songwriter.
[00:28:07] And thinks of himself as a pretty good songwriter and has ambitions to be a songwriter in his own right.
[00:28:13] Right.
[00:28:14] But discovers that he's in a band with a genius and, and has to come to some kind of accommodation with that.
[00:28:23] Um, and in the end he leaves the band.
[00:28:25] He can't come to accommodate, you know, he's the, he's the path not taken of the Mike Campbell, uh, of the, of the Mike Campbell path.
[00:28:32] Um, and reinvents himself, you know, he puts out a couple more records, but ultimately reinvents himself as a, as a prose writer.
[00:28:40] And I, I find that absolutely fascinating.
[00:28:42] If I remember the quote correctly, I think he also still manages to get a bit of a dig in on the other Stuart's songwriting.
[00:28:51] Not his, not his songwriting.
[00:28:52] I think he, he's, he's quite generous about it.
[00:28:55] Admitting that, that Murdoch is a, is a, is a more ambitious and more talented songwriter than him.
[00:29:02] It's about his prose style.
[00:29:03] You know, he's, he's sort of Stuart David has gone and, and, and remade himself as a writer and, and he feels like, I think he feels like that's his territory.
[00:29:13] And so he, he includes a very subtle dig on, on, on Murdoch's prose, prose writing.
[00:29:19] Which is funny because I think he actually has a book coming out next year.
[00:29:23] Murdoch.
[00:29:24] So that'll be.
[00:29:24] Yeah, I'm sure.
[00:29:25] Yeah.
[00:29:26] Yeah.
[00:29:26] I'm curious about your, how all of this applies to you when you're working in the hold steady, because you have co-writing credits on a lot of songs with Craig.
[00:29:38] And I assume that that changes your relationship to the songs that you're playing.
[00:29:44] Yeah.
[00:29:44] It's, it's less about the specific songs.
[00:29:47] You know, I don't go through the set being like, oh, this is a Tad song.
[00:29:50] This is a Fran song.
[00:29:51] This is a Steve song and numerate, nothing like that.
[00:29:56] But, but I did want, if I was going to, you know, in, especially in those, in the aughts, when I was playing in multiple bands, some of which I had more buy-in creatively than others.
[00:30:09] The hold steady was asking more of my time.
[00:30:13] And in fact, exclusivity over my time.
[00:30:17] And so the question for me was, am I willing to give that exclusivity and give up all these other creative outlets in exchange for an outlet in which it seemed like there was a primary songwriting pair that I wasn't going to be a part of.
[00:30:38] And that was, you know, there were many things that went into why I left the band the first time, but that was, that was part of it.
[00:30:45] That was part of it.
[00:30:46] You know, I didn't want to feel like the George Harrison character, you know, sort of like with my nose pressed up against the glass.
[00:30:55] And I returned to a band in which now there are four songwriters and there's a lot of creative buy-in for everybody.
[00:31:04] And I think that there's a variety of reasons for that, including, you know, a more relaxed added, you know, there's just not as much pressure on the hold steady at this point in terms of people's expectations.
[00:31:18] We sort of are where we are in the musical universe.
[00:31:25] And so we can play around a little more with different styles and, you know, bringing in all kinds of music and putting it through the hold steady filter and seeing what comes out.
[00:31:38] But it is a much more comfortable position for me to be in in a long-term relationship if I'm going to have some kind of creative buy-in.
[00:31:44] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:31:45] That's, that's just, that's just a part of my own personality.
[00:31:49] It separates me from some of these other people who have less, they don't, that's less of an issue for them.
[00:31:56] That's an interesting case of, obviously it's not, you know, you talk about like purely democratic bands and the hold steady isn't purely democratic in that sense.
[00:32:05] But, but that it's, that it's sort of transitioned into something more akin to, as you said, a situation where everyone has a stake in it.
[00:32:15] I, I don't think you mentioned this in the book, but I always think of, of Credence as the example of the band with the front guy songwriter.
[00:32:26] Where everyone in the band decides, oh, oh, you know, we all want to write songs too.
[00:32:31] Or I, or Fogarty may have even forced them to write songs in a democracy.
[00:32:35] And then just a terrible album came, came out of that.
[00:32:40] But so, so it's really a, it's a, it's a good position to be in, in the case of the whole city where it has become more democratic, but like everybody does a good job at it.
[00:32:53] Yeah.
[00:32:54] I don't think it would be like this if the songs that Steve and I were writing, for example, didn't become core parts of the set.
[00:33:00] Right.
[00:33:01] If they weren't working, the, the, the, the, that, that arrangement wouldn't work, but, but they do.
[00:33:10] And it does.
[00:33:12] You know, the extreme example is, which I wasn't aware of before I spoke to him, but Bill Stevenson talking about the descendants saying that they require each band member to come in with four songs for each record.
[00:33:24] I remember that quote specifically, he says, if you talk to the average descendants fan and ask them who writes all the songs, they'll say Milo.
[00:33:32] Yeah.
[00:33:33] Yeah.
[00:33:34] I mean, that's the, that's, that's the obvious sort of naive understanding of, of how bands work, you know, and in, in, in both of the bands that I've been in that a member of where there was a prominent front person.
[00:33:46] So world Inferno with Jack Terry cloth and old study with Craig Finn, you will meet people who believe that Jack and Craig wrote all the music and all the lyrics for both bands.
[00:33:55] Um, in which, well, in fact, what defined both bands and what differentiates the old study from Craig's solo records is that he doesn't write the music for the old study.
[00:34:05] Um, but you know, credit and that one to turn it back around though.
[00:34:09] One of the, one of the benefits of being a support person is that, well, you know, credit may accrue to a front person.
[00:34:17] Blame also accrues to the front, to a front person.
[00:34:20] Right.
[00:34:21] And if, um, it's much harder for a front person to separate themselves from, from a sound that they've become associated with than it is for a support musician.
[00:34:31] You know, I can go off and play accordion music or Balkan music or, you know, do dance soundtracks in a way that it's much more difficult, I think, for, for Craig to do.
[00:34:41] He's a case of somebody who his lyric writing is like so tied to the band's identity that it's, that it's hard to imagine that side of things.
[00:34:50] Uh, being more collaborative.
[00:34:53] It's not, it's not.
[00:34:54] The lyrics are all him.
[00:34:56] Absolutely.
[00:35:01] We all, I, you know, I've always maintained that that's a, that that's a freedom too, that what he does lyrically and vocally is so distinctive that that gives us a kind of freedom to do almost anything that we want to behind it, behind him, because it will still to the average ear sound like the whole study.
[00:35:17] You know, people's associations with a, with a, with a, with a, the sound of a singer are so strong.
[00:35:25] You know, I can, I'll occasionally read reviews of our records when they come out and, uh, you get, you get two kinds of people reacting to hold steady records.
[00:35:37] And sometimes I think we should get them in a room together because they can't both be right.
[00:35:41] The ones who are like, they make the same record over and over again.
[00:35:44] And the ones who, whose complaint is they've strayed too far from the sound that made them great.
[00:35:49] It's like you, you literally cannot both be correct.
[00:35:53] Um, but I think with the people who think that, you know, we're, we're writing the same song over and over again, are simply reacting to the fact that a man's voice sounds like a man's voice.
[00:36:03] And if you recognize that voice, then that's, it's literally, it's the same person singing.
[00:36:07] I don't know what to tell you.
[00:36:08] I think if you're interested in someone's artistic development, uh, as an artist, you should be interested in their artistic development and not ask of them to keep doing the same thing over and over again.
[00:36:19] Um, and sometimes, uh, when I read people talking about our band or another band saying like, you know, they're never going to do anything as good as whatever, whatever was the first record they heard as a young person.
[00:36:35] You know, what they're really saying is they will not be able to make me feel young again.
[00:36:39] And that is true.
[00:36:40] We cannot do that.
[00:36:41] I think the most interesting thing that came out of my, uh, as I said, recent reading of the footnotes.
[00:36:47] And it really, it really struck me because I'm sure that this is to a certain extent, a universal experience or at least a universal experience within the people you described in this book is that reading stories about you leaving a whole city was like reading your own obituary.
[00:37:06] Yeah.
[00:37:07] That was my experience on that day when the news became public is that people were putting up and you know, this was in the heyday of music blogs too.
[00:37:15] Um, it was if, it was as if I had announced my death.
[00:37:21] And from my point of view, it was like, well, yeah, I have all this other stuff I'm going to go do, you know, which is interesting to me and maybe to you as well.
[00:37:29] I know this is in the book, but, um, you know, for people who, who haven't read it or at least haven't read, read the footnotes.
[00:37:36] Um, what the lesson here is read the footnotes.
[00:37:40] Read the footnotes.
[00:37:41] Yeah.
[00:37:41] Gold in those hills.
[00:37:43] Have you never read infinite just before?
[00:37:46] Um, or pale fire.
[00:37:47] What did you mean when you wrote that?
[00:37:49] It felt like your, your own obituary.
[00:37:52] What was it about those pieces that was so kind of stark for you?
[00:37:56] Uh, that, um, that, that, uh, people writing them, uh, that the summary quality of them is like, well, now we, I guess we can look back on the, what this person brought to the music world and sum it up here.
[00:38:15] There was a finality to it.
[00:38:17] That's kind of what I'm getting at is, is the finality is, is both in a critical way and in a, in a, in a, you know, in a, in a sort of like there were compliments and there were criticisms.
[00:38:27] It's, you know, just sort of like attending your own funeral.
[00:38:30] What do people say in the eulogy?
[00:38:31] Some people, some people hated him.
[00:38:33] Some people liked him.
[00:38:35] Anyway, he's gone now.
[00:38:36] That's what I'm saying is it's the, he's gotten that part of like, all right, well, he's done with this band.
[00:38:41] We'll never hear from him.
[00:38:42] We'll never hear from him again.
[00:38:43] Yep.
[00:38:46] Wasn't that a wild ride?
[00:38:47] I'm always really curious.
[00:38:49] And, you know, obviously again, every case is different because you played with a number of bands and you, you know, re rejoined the hold steady.
[00:38:59] But I want to tie this back to TV Smith in a sense of when, when you did that, I know you've done multiple soul records, but when you sort of did that post hold steady solo record and obviously knowing going into it that you're not going to be drawing the crowds.
[00:39:16] That's that the hold steady draws there.
[00:39:19] There, the respect is you said that you had for TV Smith, even though some nights he was playing to like four, four or five people.
[00:39:25] What was that experience like for you?
[00:39:27] It was what I wanted.
[00:39:30] I had, I had, it was the sense of trying to, you know, I've said this before, but my, of thinking about myself as a performer and one and feeling like the next challenge was to go, was to see if I could command a room by myself.
[00:39:47] Um, and particularly a room full of strangers, right?
[00:39:51] Because there's something about traveling, um, with a rock band where you are protected by the, the, the group of people that you're with and also by volume.
[00:40:03] Right.
[00:40:04] You see what I mean?
[00:40:05] If you go into a skeptical room, uh, if it doesn't go well, well, at least you're there with your buddies and, um, and you're going to be loud enough that everyone's going to have to pay attention to you on some level.
[00:40:17] Or else leave.
[00:40:19] Um, whereas, you know, sort of like standup, if you're going into a room, if you're standing up or, or teaching, I found when I started teaching as a similar experience, you're walking into a room full of skeptical strangers and trying to make them feel like it's, you're worth their attention for 45 to 60 minutes.
[00:40:42] Uh, and to keep their attention.
[00:40:44] And that, that was the next challenge for me as a, as a performer.
[00:40:47] I've known the blade, the blossom and the fruit.
[00:40:50] Now I know they're withering.
[00:40:54] There are mountain hours that take all day to climb.
[00:40:58] Downhill days.
[00:41:00] You descend singing.
[00:41:02] Yeah, that's called aORT convention coming up.
[00:41:02] Over the moon with the commercially has a duty.
