Tim and Jason from Dig Me Out Podcast are my guests, and this topic is deep - What caused the death of hair metal? The days of hard partying, groupies, and hairspray were wearing thin on many. We like to blame the grunge era, but were other factors at play? Record companies, power ballads, college rock, oversaturation, and more are discussed. Which rockers survived the blow? (maybe literally)...
Dope Nostalgia
Episode 209 - The Death of Hair Metal
[MUSIC] Welcome Tim and Jason of Dig Me Out podcast. Now, I've heard so many good things about your, your show. And like, it's doing very well. From who? Who are these people? Who are these nerds that you're talking to? Yeah, exactly. Well, we've been at it. You have a great presence. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You know, we've been at it for over, geez, Jay. How's it on 13, 14 years? Yeah. I think we agree that we don't know if we're going to be any good at this, but we are going to show up every week. And we've just done that for a long time. Right. Consistently every week. Yeah. Yeah, we have done it since every week, since January of 2011. Now, occasionally, we'll, we'll kind of like maybe double up an episode so one of us can take a vacation. But we've, we've not, we have, we have not failed to deliver an episode, 711 as of, as of the week we're in right now. So, yeah. And for some strange reason, we decided to sign up for doing even more. So, yeah. We started another podcast this year. Oh, what's that one about? So we are doing an 80s metal podcast, which seems like an appropriate thing to talk about. We're digging into the obscure and lesser known 80s metal albums to try to figure out that decade, the way we're trying to figure out the 90s and what exactly happened. You know, there's the, there's the stories that people tell with regards to there was grunge, and then there wasn't, and that kind of thing. And we're trying to do the same thing with the 80s. Like, what exactly was glam rock versus, you know, hard rock versus hair metal versus all these things and. Jay has been threatening to do this for years. And then our friend, our friend Chip was like, yeah, we should do it. And Chip is an old school metalhead. So it's, it's, it's a triumphant of, of metal talk between the three of us. And I'm the least knowledgeable. So it's fun because I don't know what I'm talking about. That's the fun twist is Chip and I are kind of coming from the, you know, we were 80s metalheads. Tim was listening to any of this music. So he's hearing it for the first time. So we're, we're bringing some nostalgia and trying, you know, having some fun with it. Remembering seeing these bands at the time, but Tim's like, I don't know any of this stuff, right? So it's a good, like, buffer against our enthusiasm sometimes and just to figure out, like, is this album actually any good or not? That's a good angle to have somebody who's like also kind of learning while you're educating them about what's going on. I only knew the radio. That was it. I just listened to the radio and these guys were hanging out in parking lots with hashers and, you know, they had long hair and they were cool guys. And I was, I was the nerdy private school kid who worked a tie to school every day. So I was not. I was when I saw the Van Halen 1984 album cover with the angel smoking. I was like, get that away from me. That's the devil's work. That was me in the 80s. Church girl. There you go. Yep. What made you want to create dig me out in the first place? Oh, Jay, what was it? We were bored. It was your idea, I think. Well, we had been in a band together for 10 years. So every Thursday, for 10 years, we went to band practice. And then when it was done, we were like, Jay, we don't have anything to get us together each week. What are we going to do? And I think we were hanging out at Jay's house and he had all these boxes of CDs and I started going through them like, Oh, I remember this, but this was at the college radio station we worked at like old promo CDs and stuff like that. And I was like, you know, it might be fun to go back through these will like have a beer, will sit down and we'll just spend like 10 or 15 minutes talking about a record. And that was the original format was literally we would talk about the beer we're drinking and the record that we pulled out. And you were just absurdies that we had listened to, you know, 20 years ago. Well, at that point, it was only 10 years ago, but, and it kind of expanded slowly where it went from a five to 10 minute episode to now like hour long episodes with interviews with artists and round tables and we did not plan this trajectory. It was all sort of decided along the way of what we were going to actually turn this into. So, yeah, we just show up and just, we keep tweaking it and adjusting it here and there, but the core concept has been the same and we've built a little community and they've become more involved in picking albums, which is fun, Tim and I rarely pick albums anymore. So it's more than bringing the records to us and then we have them on his guests and where we do like some voting where, you know, you can suggest a record and then our patrons will decide which one where we were view, which has brought a lot of stuff to Tim and I that we wouldn't have heard otherwise. So it's been a bit of like remembering albums and some, you know, fun nostalgia stuff, but also some legitimate like discovery of bands that we just, there was so much music that came out in the 90s. I mean, I think that's the other big premise was just so much music like we thought, I think going into it that, you know, we're experts, we were in a band and we worked in college radio in the 90s and like, we were, you know, super in the music. I think at this point, we're humbled, like we don't, at least I don't feel like I know very much or not nearly as much as I thought before I got into this. They're just so much music. Well, this way to your listeners help keep it fresh for you, you know, so that absolutely. It's always going to be an enjoyable thing to get together and podcast because you're going to be learning something new as well. I like that. It's impressive. Yeah, we've done. Thank you. Hey, it's impressive what you have done as well. Let's, let's not. I mean, you've topped, you know, how long you do this four years? Four years. Yeah. Sorry. January 2020. Mm hmm. Oh, wow. So you were set. You hit at like right before peak podcast moment. When everything went to lockdown, like that was, that was perfect timing. Coincidence. Because I had been planning the show in fall of 2019 had all the things I needed, the, you know, webcams, microphone, all of that. Setting up a base to do the show and then the pandemic hit and everybody was at home. So nobody was touring and I was able to reach out to people who normally wouldn't have the time. Mm hmm. So I guess that was a silver lining for me, you know. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, timing is everything. And when we first started the podcast, we got a message that said, you guys are doing okay. If you can make it past one year, you'll be fine. Because so many podcasts burn out within a year. People get bored. They can't, like the format runs out of ideas or they just, they're not into it. And people want to be immediately gratified with listeners. They want to immediately like know that all these people are tuning in, but it takes time to build. We knew that we made it. When in my mailbox, I received an envelope from Australia in the first year. With a USB drive full of like 50 Australian bands from the nineties that Jay and I had no idea existed. And that was from our friend, Gavin Reed, who has been a part of the podcast. It's basically year one. And he, he found us and was like, Oh, Americans are talking about nineties music. I'm going to form and let them know about all these American or Australian bands that they've probably never heard of. You know, we were like, Oh, we know silver chair in excess and ACDC. He's like, Oh, no, no, no. And we still pull bands from that USB drive. Like there are still bands we haven't gotten to yet. So it's been, it's been special that we get to make those sort of connections around the world, which is mind blowing to be honest. Makes it all worth it, you know. Yep. What's been a favorite episode for each of you? Jay, you need to go first because I need to think about that. Oh my God. There's so many. There's a band that pops to mind that we did an interview with and also reviewed the album. They were called scarce. Very obscure. This is many years ago for us. What season is this season seven? So episode three, 15. So this is like in the middle of the podcast series, but they're just a classic story of, you know, a local band that, you know, is. Stumbles on something cool. They get, you know, a small deal. They put a record out. Totally lost to time. They break up, you know, the band sort of stumbled around reforms, but it was just an album that. Really connected with me. It has a really cool raw sound. It's melodic and weird. So that's just always one that comes to mind of like, that's a record I just would have never found any other way. If we didn't do this podcast, I would not have known about that band. I think that we've done several on the band failure and had Kelly Scott, the drummer on a couple times for interviews that. I think really helped. We enjoyed him a lot. He's a great interview, but also just it's one of those moments that helped galvanize our community. So that those episodes stand out to me is like, that's a band that. That people who like our show, they also like that band. And it's sort of like one of those touchstones that we, you know, kind of brings us all together. All the folks that we have on our Patreon and Discord. So those come out. Stand out to me. How about for you, Tim? Well, the interviews always stand out. Like you mentioned, getting to talk to Matthew Sweet was pretty awesome. Just because he was so generous with his time, like we were going for like two and a half hours. And I was like, I got to end this. Like, I know I could talk to you for like another two and a half hours. And he was so talkative and chill. And just getting to talk about, you know, everything that he's been involved with, which I don't. People know him as this amazing singer songwriter is this power pop artist. But the fact that he worked on like music for Austin Powers and wrote songs with Mike Byers and stuff and has worked with like. A whole huge amount of artists, Suzanne Hoffs, Suzanne Hoffs from The Bangles. And he just has great stories and he's such an interesting guy. You know, he lives in like the Midwest. He doesn't live out in California. He collects the painting, the big guy paintings. I don't remember the name of the artist, but there's like a famous artist who paints with big eyes. I'm blanking on the name J. I don't know if you remember. But he was just such an interesting guy that I never would have encountered him in, you know, in real life. And the opportunity to do that was awesome. I also really liked our. When we had a round table talking about Lilith Fair. And we got to talk to Kay Hanley from Letters to Clio. And Jill Kniff from Luscious Jackson. And our friend, Shiv, who was a music director at the college radio station that we worked at and was also the music director to famous radio station here in Ohio called WXY, which is like one of those amazing indie stations that was around for like, you know, 15, 20 years. And it was just such a cool conversation to hear about what was happening at Lilith Fair. And I think we even had like Tracy Bonham, like for a part of that, like she, we only had to record. We had to record her. She couldn't actually join us, but we got some, some audio clips of her. And it was just really cool to hear them talk about that. Because I don't know that there's ever been really a, like a documentary about Lilith Fair or anything like that. I feel like there should be. There's so many interesting tours like that, like, you know, pored tour and Lola Palooza and all these tours are famous in the 90s. And that one was really special, because also my wife went to Lilith Fair and was like, I am going to be on that episode. I'm so she was on that as well. That's wonderful. What about you? Do you have a favorite episode of your podcast? Well, I do it when you're talking about discussion and the amazing chat you had with Matthew Sweet. It kind of made me think of talking to Eric Martin from Mr. Big. Oh, that one, him and Billy, I got to speak with, and they're Billy Sheehan and they're both, like, really fun to have a conversation with. You know, with. Yeah. And with Eric, are we, we talked for like two and a half hours. It was supposed to be 45 minutes. That's awesome. Yeah. Billy Sheehan's a Buffalo boy, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. He was in a band called Talis. That's a, that, that is a band we can cover on the 80s Metal podcast, Jay. Billy Sheehan's first band, Talis. Tim, we can finally talk about Talis. I have the cassette. We've done Google Dallas. Are they any other, any other Buffalo bands from the 80s or 90s that we haven't. No, that's it. And yet if we do, there were literally no other bands to talk about. That's it. We got both of them. Sorry about that. And Rick James. Those are all of our claim to fame is, is Rick James, Talis in the Google. Get into it. Rick James. 90s work. Yeah. I don't think he had any 90s work. I don't think so either. No, I think he was otherwise occupied. Now our topic today is very exciting because it's not. Well, it's going off format for me, but it's important. It's an important discussion to have. And it's pretty much the main topic of rock and roll in that whole decade. And that's the death of hair metal going into grunge. Mm hmm. Yes. Right. And there's all kinds of. The myth of it. Yeah. There's all kinds of explanations that I've come across for why hair metal died the way it did. And I was like really happy that you brought this idea up. Now do you have theories? Yes. Okay. Well, I hope we get to exchange them. I feel like this is an episode of like one of those conspiracy shows where like you think you know the truth, but we're here to tell you. It really happened. Well, I think what, you know, having lived it and now like looking back on it. It was such a strange thing that happened. And I don't know if it'll ever happen again. That's another, you know, aspect of the show is our show is as we go back and look at these records and look at the context of what was going on to have such a dramatic change in pop culture. Mm hmm. So quickly. I can't, I can't think of many other times in history when that's happened or at least modern American history. Mm hmm. And it certainly hasn't happened since then. And I'm not sure it will. Like things are sort of just like on cruise control now from a pop culture standpoint. Like they change here and there a little bit, but like it's hard to imagine the complete upending of an entire genre and like that having a mass impact on pop music in the way it did. It just over the course of what we can get into it, but seemingly overnight. I think when you actually look at things it took longer than that, but it's very, it was very dramatic and very strange. I think a lot of rock music fans felt at that time that a massive cleansing of the palette had to happen. I agree. That's part of it. Absolutely. Especially when you look at the charts at that time and realize how many of the and I part of the thing that we're trying to demystify is the concept of hair metal. Because when you're talking about that, you're really just talking about a subset of those bands, the the sunset strip sort of poison end of the spectrum, but we're not talking about really is like the Tesla and the more hard rock end of things. But when you look at what radio wanted and what the record labels wanted is power ballots by the time 1989, 90, 91 rolls around. They wanted the shore fire hit with a power ballad. And so all those bands that were, you know, coming out either with new records or were new bands forming had to have a power ballad on the record. And if they didn't, then they were kind of tossed to the to the side. And a good example is an episode we just did on a band called Badlands, which had all of the recipe for a big hard rock band, but did not have a power ballad. And that record just completely went under the radar. Even though it had a guys from Ozzie's band, it had, you know, major players in it, just didn't like Sabbath members and black Sabbath members. And it just didn't go anywhere because it wasn't it wasn't something you're going to play on radio. There's no there's no every rose has its thorn or that sort of thing. So I really think that you nailed it on the head because a lot of people do you know Mitch LaFon? Yeah, I had him on the show and we were talking about the whole adage that people think, Oh, grunge killed hair metal and always blaming grunge. But he took that approach differently. He said, no, hair metal killed hair metal because they were putting out ballads and endless amount of sappy ballads and just unplugging their own momentum. I would go even further and say that the record labels killed those bands because I think you'll hear a lot of stories. Well, one is keep in mind so many of those, the bands we're talking about and probably the songs we're thinking about were released in 1989. Yeah. It just did a an episode that Badlands episode and Tim started like in the moment going back and looking at how many of those bands released at albums in '89 and it was nearly all the bands you would associate with the genre. And I think they were getting a ton of pressure to write ballads because in '88, '87 you could start to see like that's how you get a song on MTV. So I think they were getting a lot of pressure. I mean, you can kind of see it. They were with rash bands trying to, everyone was trying to write a ballot because the record labels were saying, look, we got to sell records. We need a ballot on this and they would reject records and send it back unless they had one. But then that had the effect of watering down the entire genre. So you got bands like kind of stepping outside of themselves to write these ballads because that's what they're being told to do and they're kind of, you know, not being true to themselves in some cases, which then puts everything in a position of like, well, this is disingenuous and it's oversaturated and yeah, it was a very, I think as much driven by sort of fans and the bands, it was driven by the business side of it. And Mitch may have brought that up too with the record label. I can't quite remember if he also included them in that statement, but it's, I just saw an interview with Jamie Lane about Cherry Pie. And he didn't want to write that song, but the, the album was done. And the record label was like, no, you need, they're something missing. You got to do this. And so he writes it and he becomes the cherry pie guy. And then at the end of the interview, he said he could shoot himself in the head for writing that song. Yeah, he felt it destroyed him. Yeah. Because he didn't want to be that guy. So yeah, I agree with you, the record label, the record labels were looking for something that was destroying these bands integrity, you know, and those bands could have said, no, I'm not going to, you know, let's not pretend they can't do that. But that's, you know, a lot of pressure. You're taking advice, so it's not really your money. You're trying to do the right thing or what you think is the right thing. Yeah. Some held out and didn't, and their albums didn't sell either. Some didn't. And they probably made enough money to, you know, at least, you know, continue, you know, making some kind of income. But I think that you can't overstate like by 90, 91 is just, we're saturated with power belts at that point. Yeah. I also think the thing that people, when they think of this like major transition, it's not really true because alternative music was already ascendant at that point. You think about the rise of, you know, college rock from an underground sensation in like sort of the early to mid 80s to gathering a, gathering steam on MTV and radio, especially MTV, MTV adding alternative nation as a, as a special program. And you would start to see bands like Nine Inch Nails, which their first album comes out in 89. You've got James addiction, their first album comes out in 88, Faith No More, Living Color, all these bands are making inroads, Red Hot Chili Peppers. They're all making inroads before the 90s. They're getting on MTV, they're getting on certain radio stations beyond just college radio station. So it was almost like they were kind of like teeing up what was about to happen. Like, it was, it's more like a cross axis kind of thing where you've got the, you know, hair metal is this huge juggernaut, but you can see that it's burning out because they're throwing so many bands out there, like, like Jay said, in 1989, just in 1989 alone, there were 16 debut albums that were self titled that would be classified as hard rocker glam metal. Hmm. That's just debut albums. And then you're not even talking about your motley crews and your poisons, you just get rose and Cinderella's and all those other bands. Yeah. They are just throwing out bands as as quickly as they can sign them. Whereas alternative is you're getting like the cream of that because it hasn't turned into a feeding frenzy yet. You're just getting, oh, this is a really interesting band. They've got a good draw. Let's put them onto the major label and see what they can do with a, with a bigger budget, which is essentially what happens with, you know, like Nirvana, Nirvana makes a record in 1989 for a couple hundred dollars to make bleach. And then two years later, they're on Gefen putting out the biggest album of the decade arguably. And it was because they went, Oh, this college rock stuff that there's something going on there. And this band's got a good, you know, sound. They're got a good following. Let's see what we can do with them. Because there was no intention of them being what they were, they were just hoping they'd sell a half a million copies and, you know, get on MTV. And that took some time. I think we think of it as like, so 91 that fall, there is a lot of major records released, right? You've got marijuana smells like teen spirit. You've got Metallica. You've got Pearl Jam guns and roses, usual Asian one and two red chili peppers, blood sugar, sex mat. I mean, it's just like a murders row of major records that come out that in that, those couple of months, it took Nirvana until the, um, I think it was the winner of the following year. So 92 before they really started to get some heat with smells like teen spirit. So we're talking four or five months later. How many bands now get four or five months to break their first single? Like, they got a lot of, you know, I think they just points to like the label believed in them. They gave them time. You know, Gefen was, was, was letting them do their thing. They were working MTV and they finally started to get through in February. I think of 92 is when they really started to break. Pearl Jam took even longer. I mean, I think our memory is that they broke fast. They did not break fast. It took a good, solid year of them working a live Jeremy comes out the summer of 92. You know, it helped the temple, the dog stuff actually, I think peaked before Pearl Jam did. Yeah. That was like in the spring of 92. I didn't hear about until after the temple of the dog was something had to go back cataloged to find out about. Mm hmm. Yeah. So that, that, you know, those two bands that took a good year. Now, Allison, it was, it was interesting to me and I can't remember this at the time. Allison chains was actually before those bands. I don't know that a lot of people realize that, but man, in the box, you know, was, was a hit in spring of 91 before Nirvana's ever is even released, Pearl Jam's released. And Soundgarden was the one who built the first album of all four of them. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And it's those two bands, you know, are super important. We recently revisited 10. And I think one of the things we came away with is that lumping Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Allison chains and Soundgarden together is really a bad idea because when you actually listen to what those bands are doing, they don't sound like each other. All of them are so entirely different. Exactly. It's, it's just based on a label, like a label of grunge music and they, and those are the four that we always, they talk about as the ones, but yeah, no, like the building blocks were in place for the fall of hair metal. Before we get into the grunge part, I just wanted to touch on some of the other things that I think might have contributed to its fall. And that is that hard rockers were just, they've had enough of the glam. David Coverdale was quoted as saying that the glam alienated the hardcore rock audience and they're just, they were over it, aging into your thirties while still talking about sex, drugs and rock and roll and doesn't seem as cool anymore when you got a bit older as it was in their twenties. So I think people, that might have been wearing thin on people as well. Mm hmm. Yeah. Better matters. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think a lot of those bands were actually, you know, evolving themselves. If you look at like some of the output in that early nineties period, you know, before you can make the case that they were making a grunge album, I think a lot of those bands were simplifying visually and also trying new things. So that was, even when you look at pictures of bands, you know, from like, if you look at pictures from some of these bands from 87, you see a lot of spandex, you see a lot of bright colors, right? And it's huge and you start looking at pictures in like 90, 91. They're wearing like jeans, buttoned down shirts. Yes, they have long hair. Maybe they wear a bandana of some kind like the band we just talked about, Badlands that we reviewed. You know, they were just like, they look like they were from the seventies, you know, they just, yeah, jeans, buttoned on shirts, they weren't doing like the teas, the pair stuff anymore. I mean, even Cinderella, like their first record is ultimate glam, right? They look as hair metal as you can imagine, but by the second and third record, they're trying to just be a blues rock band, you know, maybe they wear leather pants or jeans or whatever, but they're playing slide guitar and like, they're trying to be like a more of a southern rock blues band than a glam band. So it's even like, I think we, we did burn out on that, but I think even the bands could kind of sense it and we're trying to push away from it on their own. Yeah, they were cutting their hair. They were wearing flannel, kid rose album, some human race. That was definitely a slight departure from what they were doing in the previous album and that song, My Enemy Was Kickass, by the way, I loved it. We did that album a long time ago. Yeah, we reviewed it. I did like that song and Poison Put Out Native Tongue, which was, I thought it was a great rock album. We just talked about Doggy Dog by Warren, which again, that's an album I had never listened to in my life and came away really liking it. It's hard rock, but it strips it down, it takes away the cherry pie, it takes away the power ballad and you get just more of a straightforward rock band and you also really understand like what an amazing songwriter Janie Lane was. Oh yeah. One that are so well written, his lyrics are really interesting, but by, what was that, '92, '93 when that came out? I mean, they were dead in water when that came out. It was too late and it was too late for him to prove himself that the bitter pill, that's a great tune, so. I think the only, you know, when we looked back at this and we did an episode, it was Episode 200, we did "Use Your Illusion 1" and "2" and that is really the only band that I can think of that maintained their presence because Guns N' Roses was putting out singles for three years after "Use Your Illusion" came out. They were from '91 and '94, they put out like seven singles from those two albums. They were constantly in the news, obviously because of Axel Rose's behavior because they were always late coming on stage and there were occasionally like fights and stuff like that and then there was drama within the band, but they stayed relevant even though they were quote unquote, you know, an '80s metal band. They were the one band I feel like that was able to not implode and not be dragged down by the changing of the guard and there were a few other ones like Bon Jovi stayed sort of relevant. You know, they cut their hair. They had a hit with "Keep the Faith" in '92, so they, Def Leppard the same. Def Leppard had hits through '92 with "The Journalized." I mean, they were doing fine, I don't know if that's our best work, but they were successful. Oh, I liked it, but it's so funny because like, those are the bands I had written down. How can we explain their success, their continued success when everybody else was drowning? I have this theory on Bon Jovi and that is when like, I think John Bon Jovi was always trying to tilt the band towards like a Bruce Springsteen-esque like classic rock sound. And I mean, you can hear that in some of their singles. "Wanted Dead or Alive," even though it's this big and themic ballad, it kind of stands out amongst all of its peers. It is a much different sounding song, much more classic rock in a lot of ways than anything that was happening at the time. And I feel like John Bon Jovi's always been a little bit more savvy in that sense. It's business minded and also I don't think he ever wanted the glam label ever applied to Bon Jovi. No, I don't think it's either. The bands that they were opening for in the beginning, some of them he didn't understand why like he should be playing with like 38 special is what he thought. Like, you know what I mean, like maybe not kiss, right? Right. Right. That's a good point. Yeah. And Def Leppard I feel like because they were like sort of grandfathered in, I mean, they were really a, you know, a much earlier band than those other ones. They kind of had that going for them. That record though is such an anomaly because I can make the argument that keep the faith is a fairly classic sounding, like a classic rock sounding album from Bon Jovi. It's not very 80 sounding, you know, it's a little gritty lyrics or a little, I have some. Yep. It's not a super, you know, we could argue it's a 90s production. Def Leppard to generalize sounds like Def Leppard to the max. Like it is full on modeling production like it is so weird for 1992. That has to be just pure. I know. I know. Is it just pure momentum? Like they were just so big that it didn't matter. And it wasn't just power ballads that were big off that album actually because have you ever needed someone so bad did fairly well, but not as big as like, let's get rocked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's one of those anomalies that slipped through that you can make some sort of, you know, guesses at why it happened, but really it's, it's luck. I mean, you know what I mean? Like some bands get through and some bands don't and some radio programmers are comfortable playing Def Leppard over and over and some aren't. And, you know, the new skid row is not going to get it. And subhuman race is going to get ignored, doggy dogs going to get ignored. But Def Leppard for some reason that gets to get through. And I feel like I've always been curious what would have happened with Motley Crew if John Karabi had not come in. Yeah. What were they trying to do there? What do you think they were trying to do? I think they were trying to evolve and yeah, that's Jay, you're more familiar with that record. Yeah. We reviewed that record. One of my favorite Motley Crew records. I don't think it sounds like Motley Crew, but I think it's a great album. They brought him in before any of this stuff. So Vince Neil is like kind of on the outs by the late 80s. Like by 89, 90, they're already having issues with him. They do that greatest hits, decade of decadence, then it has a new song on it. But he's pretty much on the headed out of the band. They find Karabi, who is more of like a Aerosmith style, you know, classic rock guy. And they worked on that record for a little while. I just felt like as we reviewed it in hindsight, to me, it just sounded like a band that was just having fun playing again. Like they maybe got rid of somebody who they weren't getting along with anymore. It's a very performance oriented record. I know Bob Rock produces it, but you can tell it's four guys in the studio just playing their asses off. Like it does not sound like a theater paint or something like that, where it's like super polished and it's tight, but it's rough to me. It just sounded like the record they wanted to make. And at that point, they had the sort of leeway with the label to do what they wanted. I don't think the rest of like commercial radio or MTV wanted that from them. So I think to Tim's point, it would have been interesting to see like, had they done a record with Vince, had it, would it have done better just because Vince was in the band regardless of the music? But from a music standpoint, I think that record is phenomenal. It's just not a monthly pre-record. They probably should have called it something else. Hey friends, I kind of miss getting those messages on my answering machine like me used to back in the day. What I'd really love is to hear from you, the listeners of dope nostalgia. This is your chance to be on the show, giving feedback, telling us what you love, what you hate, and who you'd like to see more of. Call us at our new toll free number, 1-888-741-9192. Leave us some feedback. Your message could be played on the show, so give us a call, 1-888-741-9192. Throw on your jinkas, baby teas and Doc Martins, grab your Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and join Jackie and Danielle on a journey to the late 90's as we reminisce about the movies of our youth on the No More Late Fes podcast. Don't forget your flannel and butterfly clips, and remember, be kind and rewind. Hey, everybody, I'm Rick Canva-Delly and you're listening to The Dope and the Stowzer podcast. Watch me get friends fruity-bibbles. Who are you? I'm the master repareth, I'm here to see. I love fruity-bibbles in a major way. Hey, you love fruity-bibbles in a major way. The Ben Rock Yellow Orange Purple Lyman Rift, but to get their fruity taste, I got a trick friend. Look at the fruit and fruity. To get their fruity taste, he's got a trick friend, Bonnie just lets her own most fruity-bibbles cereal. Part of this nutritious breakfast, yeah, but never delicious. There are some insecurities that were felt with some of the bands, I think, that were still, like, G&R. They took Soundgarden on tour, Soundgarden did not care for going on tour with G&R. And Van Halen was even feeling a bit insecure because Sammy said that they took Alice in chains-out on tour out of the feeling of intimidation and insecurity and trying to look cool. Oh, wow. And there's another band that kind of survived it. Yeah. I mean, foreign lawful current knowledge was a huge when it came out. Now, cake was constantly on MTV. Right now was the big thing. And right now. Yeah. Yeah. Right now was different than the other things that were going on. That's one thing I liked about it with the piano heaviness of it. Mm-hmm. Not just it being a commercial was kind of, yeah, but... Yeah. So I saw that tour with the Alice in Chains opening. So that would have been probably the summer of '91. And I was interested in Alice in Chains. It was a very different sound at the time. I remember thinking, like, I don't know that I know what this is. Like, this doesn't sound like any other band I've ever heard. I will tell you, they did not go over well live. Like, I mean, it sounded fine, but like, the crowd was just like, "What is going on?" Just didn't get it. No. So it's funny, right? I mean, this is the album with... This is facelift, right? The album with Man of the Box. I think Man of the Box was on the radio at the time. Mm-hmm. It was a pretty big single, but it was still, like, not connecting. I saw Alice in Chains many years later in the, I think it was in the 2010s at a big festival show with a lot of other very big bands. And they'd by far and away, like, were the biggest, you know, reception. So it was quite a contrast to see them 30 years later go from, like, fan healing fans just not getting it and not caring to being, like, you know, the main band that everybody was into at a big rock festival. Well, isn't that part of that? Because Alice in Chains, when they started out, were essentially a headbangers ball band. They were... And Van Halen wasn't at that point. Van Halen... They were beyond that, yeah. It was really more lumped in with, like, Aerosmith at that point. We got to mention Aerosmith was enormous at the beginning of the '90s when he had three power ballads off of one record. Did you see this Saturday night? They probably didn't get as much damage as anybody. Yeah. Did you see the Saturday Night Live Skit where they're crazy crying amazing, crazy, crazy crying, and check out the amazing Crying Crazy. Yeah. Oh, uh, launched the career of Alicia Silverstone. I mean, that's just... That was such a weird, um, period that the biggest bands in, like, 90-91 are these, you know, Aerosmith and Van Halen, which are essentially 70s hard rock bands. Queensborough was big in '91. Queensborough, like, was that listening? Remember that? That's as big as Queensborough ever was, but it was in '91. Yeah. Yeah. But you can make the case that that was a band. Uh, Silas City was the biggest hit, but I think, like... That's valid. Um... Jet City Woman did okay. Jet City Woman was pretty big, and even the album before that was, at least on MTV, it was huge operation line crime, but you can make the argument they were... They were one of those bands that were starting, like, Tim talked about some of the alternative bands in the late '80s that were starting to, you know, open things up and, you know, get some attention from labels and start to, you know, build fan bases. They were, at least at the time, like, they weren't considered a hair metal band. You know, they were a metal band, but they were... Yeah. I remember their label was The Thinking Man's metal band. Uh, that's what people would have for a tune at the time, because they did concept albums and, you know, had deep lyrics and played an odd time signatures, and... But they were very much from the outside or considered, like, almost alternative when it came to this, you know, this genre. Um, but yeah, they peaked in the early '90s, too. Mm-hmm. I feel like the nerdy kids, and I can say this because I wasn't a nerdy kid yet, uh, they listened to Rush and Queen's Reich, and, and, like, that kind of stuff, like, that kind of went together. All those highly respected bands. Right. You had, like, the one, yes, Dream Theater, you had the people who were, like, ACDC Judas Priest, they had the Gene Jackets, you're scared of them, and then you had, sort of, the nerdier music fans who were into, like, the progressive rock stuff and things with odd time signatures, and then I was listening to, like, soup dragons, and, and the EMF. Unbelievable. Exactly. And then the other thing we should probably mention in terms of this melding of, sort of, you mentioned it, Jay, like, there's a hard rock, but also an alternative sound, is Mother Lovebone. Yeah. Mother Lovebone is so key to the existence of a lot of the 90s alternative stuff, and they kind of completely get ignored in this whole thing, but they were really the bridge between 80s hard rock mixing in this weird stew with alternative music, and what would have happened if Andrew would have lived, we don't know, but it's a really fascinating thing to see, like, if he lives, and there's no Pearl Jam, do we ever get an Eddie Vetter, you know, being a rock star? Does Nirvana blow up the same way, or does Mother Lumbo become a big band? Like, that is such a weird, what if, that, if the record label had given up on Nirvana in the first three or four months, what would have happened? Right. Like you were saying earlier. And then, has that changed the trajectory of, like, Soundgarden, who sort of start the streamline their sound as they become much more popular, you know, they go from Bad Motor Finger, which is, again, has a lot of weird time signatures, and it's a much more, it's a much less straightforward album than you get with Super Unknown and Down on the Upside. There are still elements of what they did there, but they're clearly writing, you know, much more mainstream rock songs at that point. They're not a weird hard rock band with this amazing lead singer that can, you know, belt it out. They're doing something different. So it can completely change the whole spectrum of 90s music, depending on what happens with what universe you're in with regards to Andrew Wood living or passing away. So yeah, you know, a band that helped move all of this forward along with Pearl Jam. I think the one thing I was thinking about as I was driving home today was, is there a moment? Does grunge have its moment or its period where it dies? Like can you point to, I mean, people will point to Kurt Cobain committing suicide, but it was still happening at that point. There were still bands. I kind of like dent in it, but I don't like it. I mean, there were a lot of shots taken. They tried to throw electronica at people. They tried to throw swing revival at people's punk ska, you know, there was third wave ska or fourth wave or whatever it was. Really, it's not until new metal hits that you completely get grunge wiped off of pretty much alternative radio. It gets dominated by corn and Limp Biscuit and Marilyn Manson and Lincoln Park later and those kinds of bands. And all those grunge bands are just done by that point. There's, and Jane I've talked about this when we started the podcast, neither of us had listened to any of that stuff because we were so burnt out on 90s quote unquote grunge that we were listening to totally different stuff because it had been so overwhelming that we just couldn't bother with it anymore. The same pattern happened though, I think in terms of you get, maybe it's different. I think with the 80s metal, here metal stuff, I think we talked about it getting to the point where like, okay, it's all about power ballads. That's how you get it on the radio. That's how you make it work. With the 90s, we get like generations of grunge. There's like carbon copies. There's like a second generation of grunge bands and then there's a third-grunge. So by the end, when you finally get new metal, it's like, okay, we're finally done. I think the last version is like, maybe nickel back is like the fourth generation grunge band. But like creed. Everybody wants a party again. Yeah, it starts to turn back into like, yeah, they just become like, yeah, fun rock bands or whatever, like straightforward rock bands that have like sounds that are reminiscent of Pearl Jam, let's say, but for the most part, they're just commercial rock. And I guess some of those bands also keep the power ballad formula as well, right? I think by the time it gets distilled, you start to hear some of those bands doing big ballads and that's the songs that are getting on the radio. So it's like, in some ways, the pattern repeated itself. Those grunge bands were not immune from the same thing happening to them that happened to you. Unplugged. MTV's unplugged. So did that play in all of this? The MTV? Huge. Huge. Huge. Absolutely. And I mean, think about it, like arguably lives biggest single is a is a power ballad with throat with lightning crashes, Ben fold fives arguably their biggest single brick is a power ballad or in the power ballad mode. I mean, there were a lot of those things happening and Jay and I have talked about that either you had to have like that kind of song where you have something have really quirky and memorable that like, you know, Marcy playground, sex and candy or Chumba one, but tub thumping. It had to be some sort of like peaches, peaches. Exactly. It had to be quirky. You had to find that weird little hook that people, you know, with bands like cake or eels, all those alternative, they were still alternative bands, but they had, they were moving away from the grunge sound and I feel like back again, what is grunge we're getting into like, you know, if we really wanted to dig into grunge, we'd have to be talking about the melvins and and honey and that kind of stuff too and green river. But there there definitely was a pattern of okay, we've given you all a chance to make your albums now produce a singles that we can play on the radio and we're going to sign a billion bands. And, you know, that sort of thing, you know, imagine, you mentioned, I'd argue Tesla kind of pioneered that entire concept with five man, an acoustical jam, they end up having a big big hit with signs MTV starts doing it regularly. And it carries through the 90s and I think it, you see, you know, obviously Nirvana famously does it and you see bands from like even Kiss, you know, you see a mix of current bands and old bands doing it. It becomes this format where maybe it makes rock music more accessible in the same way a ballad does like it. It divistifies it. Yeah, and it strips out some of the distortion and the rough edges and breaks a song down to its roots. Yeah. Right. And you can also look at it as we're also learning more about bands. There's no, we're starting to lose mystique when it comes to bands. You don't have these stories of Led Zeppelin on the road and the crazy antics they're up to. And are these guys worshiping the devil and, you know, making deals with, you know, Satan worshipers. That's what my grandma told me, you know, and now they're like, they're playing acoustic guitars in a circle on MTV and it's they're telling stories and you're kind of losing that aspect of, you know, when I first saw Smells like Teen Spirit, I was like, the video I was like, what is this? These guys look crazy. I've never seen anybody with hair like that. And, and it starts to break down that wall. And now there's no wall. I mean, artists are just always in your face all the time on social media and TikTok and Instagram and they're just, it's ubiquitous that you just, you have no, there's no mystique with artists whatsoever, whereas I feel like that start, that decline started happening in the 90s in a, in a variety of different ways. And then you also had MTV covering people much differently, you know, in, in the 90s. They were, they started with including bands in various aspects of their programming. It wasn't just showing videos anymore. And I got like rock and jock softball and, you know, these people are like human beings. I forgot about that. Oh, yeah, that, that's crazy to me that they used to do that, like we saw some of this stuff by the, like we had much music. So it was a little bit different for us, but yeah, right, but they did the same kind of thing, you know, having, having the bands into the much environment and kind of stripping down things and having them be with the fans one on one. And that was, that was an important element at much music. Yeah, I just, there's, there's probably a book in there somewhere. Maybe I'll, I'll write it with Jay someday about what really happened, but it's such a big topic with regards to this, this shift that happened because yes, it was overnight in some respects for the individual bands, but for culture, it's, it's much more messy and it's much, you know, I saw, I, you know, you would see the video for amazing. And then you'd see been caught stealing at the same time. And then you'd see like the first black crows single playing and you're like, well, how the black crows fingity and all this, because they're essentially a hard rock band, but they're not getting dumped in. Like how are they different than Cinderella at that point? And our arms in there and just looking at like 91, like what the top songs were. Nirvana, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Guns N' Roses, Chili Peppers, REM, YouTube, Scorpions, Winds Of Change, like Guns N' Roses, Queens, right? Let's just take those 10. Other than Pearl Jam, I don't see any grunge or I guess you could argue Nirvana, right? So eight or two of the, the 10 you would call grunge, you go to the next year, it's basically the same list, you know, you go to 93, you go to 93, we've got meatloaf with a big kit. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. There's Smith crying, Aerosmith dominating, counting and crows is out at that point. So you know, there's all these like interesting bands that are very different, but not very few of them. I would call grunge. I mean, really Pearl Jam and they're not rocking in the face either, you know, like, yeah, it's, it's kind of sudden doctors, REM cranberries, you know, yeah, it's, it's more subtle, you know, indies, alternative stuff. I mean, some of these bands are running around along like solo asylum breaks that year. They were around. Oh, yeah. It's the same way before that. It's very, you know, right. Well, Ari, I'm the same way. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's going for a decade before they got on to, you know, the, on to a major label with a ton of money and big budgets for videos and that sort of thing. Mm hmm. Like really kind of crows and blind melon are the only new bands I'm seeing in 93, you know, you sort of just look at the mega sellers. Most of the other bands are, they've been around a long time or a decent amount of time. And that to me, the, the spin doctors counting crows thing is a whole other sub genre of, of stuff happening in the nineties, which is like this, this return to like 60s hippie-ish stuff. Yeah. You get that with like, you know, the grateful dead are still kind of a thing in college at that point. Like people have dead posters in college, even though they were not alive when the dead were touring and being a, you know, a stadium act. And you get the hoard tour, you get blues traveler, all these sort of like rusted root. I mean, there's all this like kind of hippious resurgence that happens. And again, I think that's just part of like they were labels were just looking for anything to sign. Like at that point, like any band that they think has a song by 93, 94, they are signing them and throwing the record out, however possible, they just didn't know what to do. Yeah. Blind melon had a weird connection to guns and roses. So that's kind of a oddball. But just to double down on your point there, Tim, if you, if you look at like, what is the difference between the biggest songs of 90, the biggest rock songs of 91 and the biggest strong from rock songs of 93, you're really swapping like Van Halen, extreme, Aussie, right? You're taking those out, Queens are like, and you're inserting spin doctors, the cranberries, solo asylum, the breeders, are those grunge bands? I don't think they're grunge bands. Those are alternative. You can say they're alternative bands. You could say they're rock bands. I don't know. But those are not like quintessential grunge bands. So if you just look at the numbers, like they were supplanted with different music, but I don't know that I could make the case that they gave up their success to grunge. No. Necessarily. It doesn't seem. Crunch was just the catalyst of the, the wiping of the, the knowledge of excess that, you know, was the hair metal. And then I think after that, everybody was kind of settling down and going, okay. Like you said, like you said, what do we sign? And now what, what's going to be the next future of rock? I feel like sometimes like they're just kind of like a, each era of rock acts as it's rebelling against the one before it in some way. Absolutely. I mean, punk was a reaction to the bloated 70s rock and the, you know, the big stadium rock. And then that got that burned out and then you get new wave after that, which is a much more sanitized version of, of punk rock. And I mean, that, that happens constantly with, well, I don't think it happens anymore. I think probably the end of the 90s into the early 2000s is the last gasp of that happening when you had sort of the, the new metal at the end of the 90s, but then you had like the garage rock revival with like the, you know, the strokes and the white stripes and those sorts of bands. So it's, do we, do we think that that's maybe I'm biased, but I don't feel like, I feel like that stopped happening around 2000 where that, that reaction of like, oh no, we're rebelling against this thing and it cleanses the palette and we rebuild. And then we get to the point where we reset it again, like, have we really done that? Did we? That's a whole other conversation because the end of the decade is when you introduce file sharing and it's sort of the obliteration of major label. I mean, you start consolidating the major labels and you only really got four or five. And then everyone's, everyone's hanging on to survive at this point. Exactly. And you, you know, radio stations are consolidating their playlists and shrinking those down. They're all getting bought by Clear Channel in the United States. So everything is getting shrunk. And I feel like there were some shots taken like, this is the next thing that's going to happen. And then maybe four bands got popular and then they're like, oh no, what we're going to do is like block party in France Ferdinand and this and then that didn't happen. Oh no, arcade fire is going to be the next big thing. And then that sort of burns out and then it really hasn't had a thing in any way. Like, you know, the Foo Fighters is still basically the biggest rock band there is right now. And they've been around since 1995. There's no real thing anymore is somebody who's going to be a classic rock band that someone's going to be a super huge band, like I can't think of anybody except Foo Fighters who really will will represent that in 20, 30 years from now. Yeah. Yeah. In some ways it's maybe it's okay in that like there's less division. Maybe that's just the old guy to me talking that doesn't want to fight about music anymore. But it's kind of nice just to be like in our community, right? It's all, you know, people, Gen X, yeah, we all went through the like liking, you know, hair metal and metal and popular stuff in the 80s. Maybe some of us like punk or alternative, but then we pretended not to like that anymore in the 90s, even though a lot of us were still listening to it with 90s music. And now we're like older and we're like, this is all good. Like like what you like, it's fine. We don't have to fight and argue about this anymore. And like if you put whatever it is you're into, like there's new music being released that kind of sounds like that, like there's stuff that sounds like it's from the 70s. There's stuff that sounds like it's from the 80s or stuff that sounds like 90s shoegaze, you know, there's stuff that sounds kind of new. Right, you know, it's all like unequal footing, I guess is my point, which maybe with streaming is okay. Yeah, because we consume music differently than we did, there's more room, I think, for everybody to come play ball, you know. Absolutely. And there's no there's no gatekeeper like with MTV or radio or anything like that anymore. So you just kind of have to wait into the waters and figure out what you want to listen to, whether it's through the algorithm, spitting things out or you just going out and talking to people on Discord, like we do. Yeah. That's the good and the bad, right? Yeah. It makes it hard for those bands for bands to be successful now because you don't have your curator that's going to say, go listen to this band or put money behind it or promote it. It's the money, the promo. Yeah. And lacking. Now, the fans have to go do the work. I mean, it's not easy to there's a lot of music that's released. We try to keep track of it ourselves and don't know where to begin. It's tough. It's tough. It is. Before we get to the end of this, I was another point I wanted to make about the whole grunge cleansing of the palette. I did draw more attention, I think, from party party party to things like mental health. I think we stopped glorifying drugs to the extent that they were being glorified. There's a little more realism in what they can do to people because the '80s are all about cocaine everywhere. Right. I think. Excess. I think people were still doing the drugs, but we were more aware of what the drugs were doing now, right? Yeah. And a big thing too, I think that that era was really good for women in music. Really good because we stopped being looked at as objects rolling around on a car and a bikini or as groupies and kind of being more looked at musicians, like as musicians, like Lil Affair, like what Sarah McLaughlin did and what Alanis Morissette ended up doing. I think it was a really healthy time to reset where women stood in rock and roll. Absolutely. And I think that also, the rise of hair metal couldn't happen with just a male audience, right? You have to have everybody. You got to have all the four quadrants. Oh, I loved it. That's girls loved it. Exactly. But that only takes you so far, like and you mentioned it like at some point, you know, they talk about like a band like Velvet Underground of 10,000 people saw them live maybe and half those people started bands. Like at some point, the fans have to get so excited that they want to start bands and it wasn't really a lot of female-fronted hair metal and hard rock, but with alternative- The first person I think of is like Lita Ford or- I think of like Lita Ford and Vixen and there's like a few. Yeah, there's a few, but hardly any, yeah. Hardly any, whereas alternative, you were already seeing that. You were already seeing the Indigo girls who were already seeing, you know, people in a variety of bands. Or even like Baruch- That were women. That were women. That were women. L7, you know. Exactly. And so it felt more democratized in that sense, and I know that there was still terrible behavior. You know, it was still the access of rock and roll. People were still having, you know, stuff happen backstage and whatnot, but it felt like the gates opened up. And obviously, Atlantis, having that massive record in '95, made a huge difference. Because then what you get is Atlantis clones. They're looking for the woman who can speak her soul onto a record. You get the Meredith Brooks. You get those sorts of people, which is good and bad. Like it's great that they got signed, but then also you're like, we're just chasing a trend now. We're just chasing the next Atlantis. It's the next going to be the record. But you know, maybe that's what needed to happen so that it could get leveled out a little bit more. Well, then when you had Britney Spears, you needed the anti-Britney Spears, so that Avril Lavigne came out and then they needed another Avril Lavigne to market. And then she died and we pretended she wasn't dead and here we are. Just kidding. That's another show. The conspiracy theory is continual. She's the Paul McCartney of the 2000s. That's true. But throughout all of this, all the whole decade, we've covered it so well, I think. But Metallica was just fine. Yeah. Well, they got more commercial. Yeah. All right. I mean, the Black album is a huge change for them to embrace straightforward songs and then they even go more commercial after that and cut their hair, but that sort of cemented them from like they at the hardcore fan base they build in the 80s that will never leave them regardless of what they do. But then they got this whole new fan base. They build in the 90s by going with the big Bob Rock sound. Mm hmm. Yeah. And that gets them on MTV consistently too. That's the important thing. Yeah. They were saying for a decade they would never make a video. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Oops. And they become essentially darlings because they're like not only on MTV, but they're like doing things for MTV and like showing up there and like, you know, they saw what was happening, I think, with regards to the music industry. And we're like, if we're going to make this happen with this is going to last, we have to evolve. I also think didn't James Hadfield really like want to change his singing style somewhat? Like, wasn't he having trouble at that point with the high vocals? And that's part of the reason why they went with essentially a hard rock boogie rock. I've heard people call the boogie rock. I mean, I wasn't aware of that. I'm not sure. Yeah. I think that there's a documentary from around that time and in James saying like he needed to like back down a little bit with the vocal. But that made me think of like the new wave of British heavy metal bands. Like they have just continued to chug along like the nineties might be like a little downturn for them. But like Judas Priest just put out a really good record. Iron Maiden put out a really great record a couple of years ago. I'm just now getting into bands like Saxon and you know, these like 80s and 70s hard rock bands from like, oh my gosh, these guys are awesome. Yeah, the pure metal bands were able to just kind of like, I guess in the same way as Alica, well, no, not like a talk because I didn't even change their sound. I mean, yeah. Iron Maiden went through a phase where they changed their singer for a year or two. But it pretty much just shot through. It's like, this is what we do like ACDC just like this is what we do. We're not changing it. We don't care. Like if a thousand people show up for a year or two, that's fine. We're just going to keep doing this thing and then they come up the other side and you have integrity. It's so funny how ACDC works. It's just, yeah, this is this is it. This is what we are. Didn't they have a huge record in like 90 or 91? Yeah. Thanks to Thunderstruck. Razor's Edge. Yeah. Razor's Edge was enormous and who would have predicted that that band would like come back that way. I mean, it's the same thing with like, would a predicted, you know, Aerosmith would come back so big and after essentially imploding bigger than ever. Yep. Yeah. It was weird time. It was a weird time. But we keep talking about it because it's so weird. Yes. I'm so I'm so glad we did this topic. I think we pretty much covered it all. I think we did. Yeah. Unless you really want to get into swing. I don't think you I don't think we want to do that right now, but those gap commercials. We got to talk about them. Oh, shit. Jump jive and whale. That was a thing. I just forgot about that, Tim. Now you brought it back. Sorry, I know you were you're close to purging it from your brain and I lodged it back in there. Sorry about that. Well, thank you both so much, Jason and Tim for being on the show today. I hope you had fun. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. We love to talk to other people who are obsessed with music like us. So this was a blast. This is what Jay and I do anyways, like whether we're recording or not, we're texting each other about music and stuff like that. So it's just nice to when you find fellow members of the music tribe that just want to like nerd out on music all the time. Yeah, we're going to go and record another podcast now and talk about some super chunk. Okay. Well, I hope you have a great time. Thank you again. Thanks, Naomi. This was awesome. You too. Bye. Bye, bye. Social media. Yeah, we've got it. Send us an email. This podcast is licensed by SoCan because we believe that artists should be paid for their work. Hi, if you enjoy dope nostalgia, thank you. Consider becoming a Patreon subscriber today for as little as a dollar a month. It helps keep the show on the air and rolling. So if you want to check out our Patreon, it's at patreon.com/dopenistalgia. One dollar a month and you'll be helping support one of your favorite podcasts.