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Under the Scales is a proud member of the growing OSIRIS family of music and culture podcasts. Check out OSIRISPod.com for more and also check out our YouTube channel under OSIRIS Media. This episode contains part two of the Mike Gordon interview. Thanks for checking it out. Our sponsor CBD Vermont believes that healthy soils, strong local economies and plant-based wellness go hand in hand. That's why they work with organic farmers across Vermont to grow the highest quality hemp and produce full spectrum CBD extracts for wholesale and retail. There are so many CBD products available these days, it's important to know where and how the hemp was grown or what else might be in your product. CBD Vermont tests all its products to make sure you get the right amount of CBD and no unwanted toxins. 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Get this life-changing wallet at 10% off for Under the Scales listeners at RidgeWallet.com/scales and use the code Scales when you check out to get free shipping worldwide. Thank you, Ridge Wallet. This is part two of the Mike Gordon interview. Part one came out last week and Mike and I discussed so many topics and I learned a great deal about Mike, the artist and writer and movie maker and musician and collaborator extraordinaire. We pick up exactly where we left off last week with a conversation that begins by discussing his band's co-front man and also very long time friend and co-conspirator Scott Muraski. I see the common thread and you've said his name 600 times is Scott in your collaboration and it's kind of like he is the one that throughout all this although I'm not positive he was on the inside in maybe acoustic guitar. I don't remember. He played acoustic guitar in Green Sparrow when Trey was playing electric guitar. We've had many projects but you know a lot of things in my life come from these little epiphanies. I don't know if you have, I've had these turning points where I just sort of get a vision. The relationship with Leo Kocki was like that. The idea that I want to sort of tour with the fish guys forever. That was an epiphanie in my Goddard College experience that time and writing with Scott was one of those where I went up to St. Albans, Vermont. I think I was on what they call an artist date in the artist's way where you don't have your phone on and stuff or you take yourself somewhere for two hours and no friends with you. And I started really liking St. Albans, Vermont and not what it was but what it made me imagine. And what I imagined was a cabin in the woods where Scott and I were just doing some writing. And which has nothing to do with St. Albans. St. Albans is like war monuments. But one thing implies the opposite sometimes. - Yeah, you really wanted to get out of St. Albans. - Yeah, it was how the hell do I get out of St. Albans. That's my way out. Like, anyway, and it's kind of, I mean, just to talk for one more minute about Scott, we have some similar values, I think, which is, that's such a vague statement but in terms of when music is really kind of feeling good and rocking in a certain way or maybe having a certain sense of humor or we don't listen to the same music and our personalities are sort of opposite in that I guess I've probably said this before where he's kind of like the guy who goes with a flow and just sort of like hang out. Hang, he hangs out and, you know, hangs out at the party or whatever. I'm not really the hangout. I'm social but I'm not the guy who just hangs out all night. I have to be moving around and I'm like the guy who's all goal oriented and I've got my lists and we've got to accomplish this and that and probably to a fault. So we balance each other in that way while having some of the same interests. It's not a relationship where like one with a songwriting team where one person's doing more music and the other is doing more lyrics and I sometimes I wish that he and I could both get together with someone who does more lyrics. Like yourself, for example. I'm ready. I'm ready. But one thing we do have is we do these Wednesday night skipes is after a few hours and we're getting giddy we just start laughing our asses off and sometimes I get where I start crying and I can't breathe and that's the best. That's so great. Something important about that. Well, you not to analyze. But you seem like you automatically get to that mode where you just have, you can see the world from a funny perspective and maybe I can too but I'm pretty, I wish I wasn't always so serious. It takes me a few hours of sitting there with my lists and goals before we're just talking about the stupidest bathroom related stuff at midnight and we're dying and it ends up being like why life is worth living. I appreciate it. Thank you for saying that. I take that as a compliment. I think it's, you know, you choose your relationships that feed the right part of your soul, I guess. And so, yeah, there's people and definitely Trey is one of them where some of the things that in other relationships are emphasized are completely turned off. And whatever that is that I shut off when I'm with Trey allows sort of the child to come back and that's why I wanna be with him in writing music because it does come from a place of joy most often, you know? And it's great, it's awesome. When you find that person, you wanna be with that person. And that leads me to more questions, more questions but I can save them for a little. Yeah, you and I are gonna have a little bit of a, you're gonna interview me at the end of this, you said. I loved it. All right, well, let me just fast forward through. All right, so, Greensper, 2008. I wanna just say, Andelman's Yard, which we're gonna play right now. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - That pattern that we just heard kind of sounds a little bit like Leo, so he's still in your head. - Yeah, that's true. And not only that, but I played it. I think I sent it to Leo when it came out and he didn't listen to it. But 10 or so years later, or eight years later, he called me and he's like, "Oh my God, "Hindelman's Yard, what the hell is that?" I love that song. - It's great. - And yeah, it's funny because I've always tried to play some of Leo's stuff, and there are people online that do it much better than I do. But some of it, well, as with bass playing, the way that he makes spaces between the notes, the way the muting happens is so important. I think that's more than anything what ended up in that, in the guitar. But that was a song that I spent a month on, me for like seven hours a day in a room. And I go out at night and record myself with a cell phone banging on a mailbox downtown. And then the next day I would say, "Oh, that's gotta be added to the rhythm track." And then there's like 20 tracks of stuff like that. You wouldn't even know we're in there. - Poor lady inside her house watching you bang her mailbox was probably not great for her. - Exactly. Then I have to go in the house and record the people bickering and put that in. Not usually. No, I didn't actually have to break any enterings to create. - Okay, good. Good. - Good. Moss, 2010, great album, lots of collaboration. Again, well, nothing like Green Sparrow. I mean, your collaboration list on that was stunning. - That was intentionally, it would be fun to do another, to try to push the networking. That is one of my little pipe dream ideas. I have an idea for, it would be a different kind of album and I'm not gonna say how 'cause I could kill it by trying to define it, but it would be, it would be a way to get other people involved. Yeah, it was, and getting like, for example, Chuck Lavelle in there. - Yeah, Chuck Lavelle. - So great. - Nice. - He's the music director of the Rolling Stones. Yeah, people really like the Green Sparrow. They kind of, that's another one they talk about. And Moss is one that sort of flew under the radar and people don't talk about it so much. At the time, it was my favorite because it was not trying to be so rockin' necessarily. It was more about these sort of like little dreamscapes that sort of slithered a little bit more than bonking you over the head. - I don't know. - I do like, can't stand still on that album a lot. There's a couple. - Yeah. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - And then 2014, to me, is like another big step forward where you're kind of solidly in the, almost in this version of the band, you know? - Right. - And that's overstep. 2014, great album. - Yeah, thank you. - And of course, fish fans know Yarmouth Road and I think say something made the jump to fish as well. - That's true. Well, and fish played those songs first, actually, because of the way the timing worked. - Yes, Scott and I wanted to, well, you know, back in the day, I was like the country and bluegrass guy playing a lot of banjo. And one thing I wanted to do in creating and starting a band that would last longer than one gig or one tour is not to be the bluegrass guy anymore, or at least for a while, and to just, you know, I enjoy rockin' out when I get to. And we wanted to make overstep an album that would, I mean, it's not all rock. It's certainly mixed with the reggae stuff and funk and et cetera. But to be able to say we have some songs that are, you know, I always set out to make some songs that are just simple and rock. And because my brain is complicated, they always end up much more complicated. - Your songs are complicated. - And it's not by desire. I would much rather that they had zero complication. I'm not zero. I mean, I get bored when I hear albums that are very pared down sometimes. - Me too, me too. - But I definitely go in the other direction. Recently, Trey said, you know what? We were on tour. I don't know, it was the fall or the New Year's run. He's like, let's play, say something. It's one that fans have been requesting, and we'll just learn it at Soundcheck. And it's like, okay, but, you know, I just want to remind you that there's three bridges and some beats dropped and some little licks that happened before and then some back-apartmenties. And we're halfway in the middle of it. And he's like, okay, I see what you mean. Let's go on to another song. Easy songs. ♪ I get affected ♪ ♪ You make a sound and you mute me ♪ ♪ I get rejected ♪ ♪ When you move about and you lose me ♪ ♪ Time ♪ ♪ Time ♪ ♪ I can hardly get myself to ♪ ♪ Say something ♪ ♪ Got to say it in most color ♪ ♪ Got to say it on a radio ♪ It's, well, it's, I don't know why that happens. And Trey said, in front of Bada Bezrin one time, when we all were bringing our songs, he's like, Mike, stuff is so interesting because at first, it always seems so weird. And then by going in the back door, which is actually something that Bruce Hampton said and outside out, but by going in the back door, you actually discover this beautiful thing in there once you can get in. Once you're willing to take the step in and you won't realize it at first, but then this weird place anyway, I would rather just people could come in the front door and the hell with the back door. And I would rather that something be more accessible, and then there's sort of some weirdness and some sophistication. Who knows? We are who we are. Yeah, absolutely. Well, there's a front door song that we just mentioned on that album without any question, and that's Yarmouth Road. And you played me a version, and I'd like to play it for the fans if you don't mind, with some women with some beautiful singing parts in it. It's incredible. Yeah. It was really fun to get to do that. We did two gigs with those women. Let's hear that really quick. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Wow. That's a great, great version of that song. I wish I saw that tour. Thank you. Yeah. It was just an experiment that we did. And it's nice to have more people sometimes because I have one quartet. And actually five is a lot more than four the way that it all pans. Yep. And, you know, with my band, there's, of course, we have some of the same influences and fish is going to be, of course, an influence. And, you know, I've been listening to the Grey Boy All Stars for many years. And all the band members, other bands. Yeah. But there's an inclination to try to bring in some other influences and to try to be a little bit different at least some of the time. And people are listening to, you know, weird indie bands and strange experimental music and sharing it with each other and just trying to, you know, sometimes we have to take two steps forward and one step backwards. And it ends up sounding just like something from a long time ago again. But I really like it when I hear back some tapes and these, there are these sections that sound a lot, you know, the modern is not really the right word. Just trying to become its own thing, I think. Yep. Yep. I went and saw you in Philly, I think, in 2017. Oh, yeah. And there was a song that blew me away and I couldn't believe that it was on overstep somehow. I either overlooked it or Yarmouth and say something because they were fish songs were the ones that captivated my attention or whatever. But it's called Ether. Oh, yeah. I want to play a bit of that because it's just intense. Here we go. I was floating in the east, I fell in the sky, I found rocket components. So I hooked him up to try to make a new girlfriend. She blew a breaker floating up that high. So she dove down some rain in the fuse box. And when I thought I had landed, I was floating in the ether. Now we've fast forwarded all the way to the current album, which is "Ogogo". And you said that's produced by Sean Everett, who is the producer of a band that I just heard about through another Osiris podcast called "Beyond the Pond", which analyzes fish jams and refers you to cool music. If you like this jam, you'll like this album. Or yeah, it's a really cool concept that's called "Beyond the Pond". And they referred me to War on Drugs. A deeper understanding, and Sean Everett. And it's great, great album, great album. And he produced the album that won the Grammy for Best Rock Album last year. Amazing, he's great, great. So he must have been fun to work with. Sean, yeah, I mean we had already written a lot of material. We wanted to have a lot to choose between and piecing it together. So we had 34 songs, and fish was starting to play one or two of them. Actually, we wrote one batch over a year or two, and then I wasn't satisfied. I thought it sounded like the next step, but I had this feeling we could take two steps, whatever that would mean. We chose a whole different process for writing, and used it, and it was very fruitful. And we had another batch of 17 songs. And we had all this material, and we were trying to, well, like I was saying before, we were trying to stretch both ends, both limits at once. Where it would be, the songs would be a little simpler, and just sort of be the kind of about a little message, a little hook, or melody or something. And then the textures and the sounds that are going on along with that would be a little more interesting, a little more kind of experimental. So we were already trying to mix, trying to do that. I don't know, it's hard to try to do things. It was ending up that way anyway. And then Sean, it was just the perfect match. And I also had recorded Overstep not entirely with my band. We used a different -- Robert had come in and a different drummer, Matt Chamberlain. But this time, the band had really started to develop its own sound, and we wanted to use our own band. And everyone was sort of being experimental and funky at the same time, that sort of mix. And so Sean was just the perfect -- I kind of checked out a lot of different producers online. And the ones that were experimental and interesting sounding to me did it at the cost of a fat groove that you could dance to. And then I would hear his stuff and various whatever indie bands that he had been working on seem to have both. Like there's space between the notes and it makes you want to get up and dance, and yet it's really bizarre sounding. And I have never seen more -- I've never seen instruments or voices recorded the way that he recorded anything. And that's after years of being in studios. And actually Bob Ezra and himself had worked with Sean twice. And he said he is the most -- as an engineer, he's the most innovative person out there, sonically innovative. And so, you know, he stepped into the producer role, and he has before, and he is a lot now. But sonically, it's in the analog world where -- I love this little article in Sound On Sound on him making the Alabama Shakes album. Where Blake Mills is the producer, but this is all about Sean, and what he did. And Brittany is singing, and they put this anesthetic on the inside of her mouth, and her cheeks, and they fill her mouth with cotton balls, and she sings into a headphones cup. For this one song, because they want it to be kind of murky. Well, I think they got murky. But then in the digital world, he's just as crazy. And his fingers are going across the keyboard, the computer keyboard, you can't even see. It's just a blur. And he's pulling up, you know, weird plug-ins, and I'll just give you one example. So, there's this moment in whirlwind, the song whirlwind, where we're just hanging on the, I guess I don't know if you call it a pre-chorus, or the part before the chorus. It was just on the five chord. And in the background, he took this Gershwin piece. I think it's just "Rhapsody." And he takes all hundred instruments that are playing, and puts it in the program "Melodyne." And he takes each hit of each instrument, and puts it in tune and in time with what we're doing, just for four bars. And he does all this in like two and a half minutes, and it's done. So you get this whole orchestra from 1946, playing along with whirlwinds for four bars. [Music] All day long, it's like that with Sean. And Bob Essrin had said, "If you want to know whether to have a second chorus in the song, he's not your guy. But you're going to want to get a pencil out, because he's going to say stuff, and you're going to want to write it down and remember it." And so, ironically, one of the first songs we worked on, I don't know what it was, but I know that one of the first things he said in the studio was, "This song needs a second chorus." So it was wrong about that. But then there's this keyboard part being recorded, and Sean's like, "Oh, it sounds like the crystal blue light of 2 a.m. when you're sitting in the kitchen." Which it did not specifically sound like, but I got it, you know, anyway. So, yeah, Sean is great. That's cool. So now you've played a few of these live before, or maybe just after the album came out. We've been playing the whole album pretty much most of the album. Because here's from February 17th, you have a great version of victim that I want to play, and then ask you a question. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, there. That's got, actually, that one has the women singing as well. Yeah, and Trey's friend from Broadway, Carmel, ended up writing some arrangements for a few of those. It's good stuff. Yeah, and those women were playing in singing. Maddie Diaz and Emily Elgar. Oh, cool. It's been really fun to play all the songs. You like steps stealing Jamaica, you told me. I found stealing Jamaica experimental, like, trancey with chanting lyrics and background talking and really, really cool. I'd like to see how you did it live. I don't think I've heard that one live. It's almost a little bit more like the police doing reggae than reggae because it's a little backwards sounding. That one just kind of wrote itself. [MUSIC PLAYING] There was a song about Jamaica that was an outtake from a fish writing session. I think it was from Fuego with a similar kind of theme, and it had some really funny parts. I felt a little bit bad about that, but we never played that song. That song never got played again, and it wasn't directly copied. You just stole from it, and that's why it's stealing Jamaica? Exactly. Stole the whole thing. And then I just wanted the question that I had about victim is that you also have victim 3D. And I was wondering, is this like a victim reprise, and it's definitely not. It's like a whole different thing. This one's like raw in your face with Scott singing, I think, right? Yeah, it takes the themes from victim, but also the chorus is talking about stepping, like steps, so it's kind of reprising them both. Yeah, Scott has got this special thing going. He's so comfortable on stage, and his other band, one of his other bands, has been going for 45 years. He has the ability to go for it, whether it's by playing or by singing or both when he's on stage. So the idea of unleashing some of that for an album, he was just screaming for a long time when we were doing takes of that in the studio. He's like, "God, how many more do you have left in you?" His voice sounds great, and I really like that song too. That's amazing. ♪ You're not the victim, you're not the crime ♪ ♪ I can see it in your face, I can let you do the time ♪ ♪ Take one step home, steps you and breathe ♪ ♪ Now you breathe ♪ ♪ And then you guys do covers. Let's just talk two covers. I hope to see more covers on tour, and we'll talk about your tour in a second, but you strike my main nerve as a tower of power cover, right? Yeah, we had done a different one too, that's our second tower of power, but yeah, and then a few years back. And then I recognized Sleep to Dream, Fiona Apple, yep. ♪ I tell you how I feel, but you don't care ♪ ♪ I said tell 'em of the truth, but you don't care ♪ ♪ You say love is a hell that you cannot bear ♪ ♪ When I say give me my back and then go there for all I care ♪ ♪ I know how I feel, but I know how I'm gonna go ♪ ♪ Sleep to Dream, yeah ♪ ♪ You've got your head in the clouds, I'm allowed to see you ♪ ♪ This mind is right in this world, 'cause I'm beside my own ♪ ♪ Your TV being wet ♪ ♪ So don't forget what I told you, don't come around ♪ ♪ I'm allowed to dream ♪ It's fun to take obscure covers and try to bring them into the repertoire, and then people think they're original, but it's also good to bring out songs that people know sometimes. I'm guilty of not always doing that, especially if they don't know my material so much and not really playing a lot of fish songs, but I do like to, I don't know, familiar covers are fun too. We had 19 new songs, 12 new originals and 7 new covers for the next tour, which is far too many, because first of all we're still loving playing the agogo stuff. But you know, it's only two and a half weeks, and if we were to play all that material, it wouldn't be enough time for the band to really sink our teeth into each song and for the fans to get to know them, and it would be not doing a justice. So, you know, I don't know where to draw the line, but I really, you know, in some ways doing a tour is great because it gives us an excuse to get in the practice room and have fun and see what limits we can stretch there, all kinds of ideas brewing. And I like guilty pleasures too, which can go a lot of different ways, but it can mean like, "Well, we're trying to sound less like our influences, but this song sounds exactly like little feet. It's going to be really play it." And like, "Oh, well, let's just do it this once." Or, you know, we're trying to, you know, be a rock band, and this is really kind of acoustic-y, but, "Oh, let's just do it." And, you know, allowing the, I mean, it's kind of, I mean, this, I guess, goes without saying, but for me, it just comes down to passion. And if I feel passionate about sitting and singing a song, whether it's, you know, one of the, one of the originals or in these cover songs, it can be out of left field or it can be a little bit too out of center field. But if it just, you know, if it makes me want to cry a little and laugh a little and that's, I can't really go on anything else except that. And same with, you know, writing songs and figuring out what belongs and what doesn't. And these decisions have to come from a deep place, I think. And you have to learn how to, as artists, we learn how to, like, get in tune. That's why it's so, like, Trey talks about limiting your outside criticism and praise. And I think the best thing that limiting that does is it keeps you in tune with how you're feeling inside. One of your goals in choosing Sean was that you hear sort of a dance groove going through despite adding all kinds of creativity in the studio. And I definitely hear that. There's another with some challenging singing. I think it was steps. That's a great song, too. Maybe we should hear a bit of that one. Okay. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Wow. Well, we've played a lot of your music, your tour. It's all of March, basically. You start in Atlanta. Go to North Carolina, Nashville, Charleston, South Carolina, Rocky Mount, Virginia, and then D.C. Here's when I come on tour. I'm going to see you in D.C. Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Jersey City, New Jersey. Yeah, I'm excited to have you. And then Buffalo, and then you finish up near where you were born, right? In near Cambridge, Mass. For four shows. That's amazing. Yeah, 321 through 324. I think what I said about that venue is it's so nestled. I said this in where I said it. That Harvard Square is nestled in the middle of Cambridge, and that alleyway is nestled in the middle of Harvard Square. The venue is nestled in the middle of the alleyway, so it's a very nestly feeling. It's like nestled, nestled, nestled, nestled. [LAUGHTER] Quad, quad, nestled. And it's a small venue, but allows us to do a little intimate thing and get crazy for... I mean, we just stay in the neighborhood, and I get these invitations since I grew up near there to come out and do some stuff. And then it involves going over the Charles River to bust and proper or worse into the suburbs. And I'm like, "No, I think I got to stay in Harvard Square this whole entire time." And nestled. Nice. Well, if you feel the need to be in a cocoon of nestlement, go see Mike March 21st through 24th in Cambridge. There's one thing that you do, Mike, which I really like, and that is your communication with the fans. And one of those ways is that you've been sharing the journal of your favorite jams on the last tour. I'm really happy to listen to October 21st, the Hampton Night 3 Light, which is an amazing, amazing jam. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ It's an interesting process for me to listen back, because for many years I refused to. I would just get critical. And then I started really liking sometimes listening back to stuff, and I listened to what I read back through my journals, and it'll only be -- it's a pretty short list. It's a few songs here and there, and then a few sets, and a couple full gigs from a tour. And I did it for the summer, and I shared with fans my favorites, and I think it was only five songs, which was really long because they were long jams. And then I've done it again, and I shared it. So it's an interesting process to listen back, because I'm really -- when I'm driving in the car, I don't have to be all analytical about it, but I still don't like hearing stuff that sounds old to me. That sounds like, "Oh, we could have done the same thing a few years ago." It's cliche sounding in certain ways to me, the way we're playing the chord progressions. I mean, even without any analyzing, it just might not move me. It might sound like, "Okay, this is just old and tired sounding." I get to be a critic without even analyzing. I'm a critic, and I'm like, "Oh, God, we need to." And then -- or I thought in the journal, "I like this, but I don't really like this." And I don't know. I mean, the fans all talked about the simple from the same night, and I really was loving parts of that. But for me, it was sort of like, "Oh, now we're searching. Oh, now that's a really interesting thing. Oh, now we're searching again. Now that's an interesting thing." And I don't know. The song part didn't sound good enough to me. And as a way to lead off into the gym, and the overall experience for me was like, "Well, there's some really nice moments, but it doesn't overall move me in such a deep way." So then to listen back, and hear some stuff, or certain parts of the tour that I notated in my journal, and hear like, "Oh, my God. Not only is it moving me, but I had no idea. Now I get it. Now I see by people like fish." Or I do it for my band, too. And I'm going to have our last winter tour from last February soon, February and March from 2018, because we've released a bunch of those shows, and we have a couple more to go. But one example from that was Pendulum, where it had this jam, maybe, from Portland. And I was like, "Oh, my God. This is insane sounding. It's relentless." And when Scott and I did a songwriting session in a two-level treehouse this year, last year. And when we went to lunch, I said, "You have to hear this Pendulum." [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] But listening to both bands back has been really enjoyable, and I don't care if I hear something that doesn't move me. I'm not worried about it. There's enough that does move me. And I'm sure that there are moments in jams that I didn't put in my journals that I could have listened to, but I can't do a lot of listening. I can only do a little, or otherwise my time is to spread thin. It's just fascinating for me. The way something that can be really cliche can be just on the fine line of being really profound. And I saw that with a Grateful Dead, where when it's not working, it just seems so old and tired. But right on the other end of that line, it's like the most magical and chanting music ever. And it's tough to be that person. That's why the first line of stealing Jamaica is, "I'm cool, but I'm also a stupid fool." Because it's so like, "Oh, I'm walking down town in some town or not. Oh, I'm a rock star. This is great." And then I hear some of my own music, and I'm like, "Oh, well, wait a second. I'm not cool. I'm an idiot." Anyway, well, I intensely enjoyed. They were all incredible listens to me, and mind you, I was not nearly as analytical, but all of these seem special for some reason. So I really love the sneak and sally, too, from November 3rd. Oh, yeah. And then I added back the seventh one, which was No Men's from November 1st. Oh, and I love that one, too. And I would love to answer your questions, too. OK, cool. So to turn the tables. Well, these are going to be sort of, I think, what I might consider standard questions that songwriters probably get, but because both of our minds are utterly warped, I'm not worried about the standardness. OK, well, my first question for you. Well, you had told me at one point that a lot of your ideas come from emailing back and forth. And I wonder if you get your germs of ideas in all different ways. Like, for example, Leonard Cohen says that every day you get a gift, and it might be a waitress handing you your eggs and says something, and that's the perfect idea for a song or a road sign or something. That's interesting. So I don't think I get my ideas from emailing. I think the emailing is like the realization of them, you know, I've written them out, and then I need to send them to get some sort of affirmation. And it's OK. It's my friend Scott, Scott Herman, who's a co-writer of 18 or 19 or 20 fish songs. He will not judge at all and sometimes send back an amazing rejoinder or reply. And sometimes if he doesn't, it's for a reason. You know, it's like saying nothing says a lot sometimes. So yeah, but as far as where the ideas come from, right, it's a I can't really pinpoint it. And I do think it's from people's conversations. I'm thinking about something. You know, I was kind of obsessed with a super wolf blood moon that we had the other day. That's like something about that is in the back of my head. I love looking up at the sky and thinking what's out there and about planets as you know and stuff. I also I like science. I like I like stuff that makes me think. And if I can even if I reference it, I feel like I've paid tribute to it in some way. And I think that's kind of where my ideas come from. So if you're if there's a super wolf blood moon, I said that right. Are you able to use your mind to kind of remember what you started thinking about or do you do you make yourself notes or little recordings or or. Yeah, well, if it's necessary, like if it's something that I'm going to forget, which is like the bane of songwriters is like I had this great idea and then you get home and it's gone. So that's the cool thing about having, you know, phones with you nowadays. You kind of don't have to forget if you do, it's your fault that you didn't record it. So my voicemail, my voice recorder is just filled with crap, like incredible stuff. And sometimes that come I walk about four to five miles a day and sometimes just the rhythm of that walking shakes a song loose. Even if I'm listening to another podcast or music, all of a sudden I'll turn it off and just start recording because the rhythm has has shaken like the blood moon concept loose. Finally, even though I don't know what it is when I when I saw the super wolf blood moon, all I knew was I was freezing and the moon was red and it was so amazing that I couldn't go inside. So it starts from something that resonates in a deep place. So do you set out a time every once a week or month or something to go through your voice notes and see what's there? No, I wish I did. I wish I did. I've never been that sort of regimented. The closest to regimenting my process of gotten is that Scott and I, in the way long ago passed, worked at AT&T together and we emailed every day back and forth. And a lot of it was, "How did you like the chili that we just had at lunch?" But some of it was poems that became fish songs, squirming coil, lawnboy, and we eventually realized, "All right, we got to weed out all the shit and put all this into a book." And that became the salamander prince, which you and Paige and Fish and Trey have pulled from and written songs from as a band, but also Scott and I realized like, "Oh, this is now a method to the madness." And so we immediately started working on Book Two, which is called "Walls of the Cave," and that had 107 more formulated works to be possibly songs. And we are now in the midst, we're 58 songs into the next one, which is called "Sigma Oasis," which is a song already that Trey performed on his acoustic tour briefly, which might be a fish song. If I'm crossing my fingers. Yeah, well that's cool that it almost gives it a little end, not an end, but it makes it into a collection so that you can, even without the songs being used yet, it's like a little goal of a product that at least you have. So we talked about this before, is it ever the case that Trey will have a song and have hummed just on some random humming where, let's say you get that from Trey and you have this little bit of humming? And do you then look through your own books of stuff, or is it ever just out of the blue? What is this humming bringing to mind at that moment? Yeah, so like, everything's right is probably the most recent example where Trey, you know, he had this great groove and everything was cool, and, you know, I was like frantically thumbing through the 17 poems that I brought, and I was trying to sing them, and finally he's like, fuck that, put that down. Just saying, you know, what happened when you woke up this morning? And that's like the mirror's secret is I'm losing my hair and stuff like that. And we just sort of were laughing and putting stuff that kind of mattered, it turned out like the lyrics mattered, that we were just pulling from our almost daily experience. Yeah, and so yeah, you know, that's like the type of thing that, for me, collaboration is so crucial because, you know, had he not said that, it probably wound up more of a mediocre song instead of something that's a little bit more in the moment. Well, you have such a rapport that you can just kind of like riff off each other. Yeah, and never get offended, which is kind of the cool, cool thing, important in, you know, creation, I think. Do you ever say, do you ever give yourself a goal of, oh, I look back at this these few years and things are kind of silly, let's get more serious or, you know, or anything at all in terms of a goal? I wouldn't apply to one song, but like an era of creating where I wish I could tip the tides in this direction a little. You know what? Yeah, you know what I think that often is, is like I'll say, oh shit, there's a guitar I've been sitting next to me on a stand for a year. Look at that layer of dust. And, you know, I find a cool like YouTube lesson and decide, I got to start, you know, playing guitar again because I was okay and then I lost it all. And as that happens, and I do the same with the piano, I'll go back to it and try to learn some complicated thing that I used to be able to play. Music, lyrics, come on top of that, like the chord, just creating the chords and learning how to play again. So I've learned and unlearned and learned and unlearned piano and guitar about five times and it always yields new songs, which is amazing. Yeah, that's really cool. Or you know what they say is like tuning your instrument differently. Mike Burns, my bass tech works with Paul Simon in his band and has for many years and he did this thing with Paul that he tuned four of his guitars different ways and just left them in the studio and Paul picked up one of them. And really weird tunings that wouldn't be some of the standard ways to tweak it. And Paul picked up this one tuning and came up with this little lick that became the song "Fathers and Daughters" which is a nice song. And so I asked Mike to do it in my studio too. He took four guitars and he just had different parts of the house and ended up really weird tunings and now I can't remember if anything became of that. To get out of your comfort zone, that's something David Burns talks about getting out of your comfort zone is so important and so hard to do. Well I 100% know that the trade has done exactly that. He'll tune a guitar sort of in a weird way that just strummed openly plays a chord I think I assume. And then he forms other chords that he never would have created with fingerings that might be standard. But now it's creating a different chord and then he learns it. I guess like pebbles and marbles might be one of those. And then I think then he learns it, he challenges himself to relearn it with the correct tuning. Right, that's a really cool process. It also makes me think what about getting outside of your comfort zone in a really broad sense of... Well like Gillian Welch said in an interview that she was writing songs for an album and wanted to write stuff that Leave on Helm would find cool. Oh my god that was her goal. But to be like what if you had an assignment to write a song for like Justin Timberlake and be completely in a... What would that be? Would you be able to like that be too far out of the comfort zone? The two closest things to that that have happened and this is one's giving away a secret. One isn't. The first one is not. Was just Trey and I wrote I forget what it was like a piece of paper and I called it like a letter to Peter Gabriel. I just said it. And then you know before I knew it Trey called that really cool song that he had already finished recording in his dad's basement a letter to Jimmy Page. Oh right right. And I thought that was kind of that was really cool right. Just calling because the thing that I had worked on the letter to Peter Gabriel was actually like a piece of paper that you could fold into an envelope and Trey turned it into a song which is so fucking cool. But the other thing similar to that was Neil Young has a song called Pocahontas which is Marlon Brando Pocahontas and Me and that theme was going through my head when I was writing the words to the song The Wedge. And I was just singing take the highway to the great divide. But so I wrote the song on another song's pattern but then didn't tell Trey anything about that and just gave him the words. Right right right yeah so that's it's it's really common supposedly Bob Dylan does that too models from other songs and I've had a lot of I enjoy doing that I might like and there might be a guilty pleasure sort of pops on that comes on the radio with like a good groove and then I really don't like the song it's it's it's not resonating it's kind of you steal the groove you steal the groove and then take that groove into the studio actually fisted that with Steve Lilly White in the 90s we went into the studio and one time we did in Seattle and he just played various radio hit some Michael Jackson or whatever yeah. Yeah it's it's it's I don't think it's a bad idea I think it's like in fact I think the artist would unless it's a direct rip off of the of the job. Yeah well eventually I think the artist would be honored. And it's pretty easy for well of course sometimes it's it's it's it's been it's not I was gonna say it's pretty easy for the stuff to just morph and become your own as you as the chord progressions and the melodies and the lyrics and all the different factors and although I know of course sometimes it doesn't work out that way as with like George Harrison's song being copied from. Oh. What is it my is that something in the way you move from no no the one she's so fine and the the one he got sued for. Darn I don't know anyway but usually it just works itself out where these things are just in the fabric of music and we're in reusing them. Okay only two more questions left is it seems like I was saying this before to that that you come from a place of laughing and so seeing what's sort of funny and but maybe I just see you maybe I only see you in the hallways backstage. And so to get to I'm clearly you've written some songs with you know heartfelt with some some some some deeply resonating parts stuff and is it. Do you have to get to that stuff from the door of the funny or or can you just get right into serious mode or do you have to ask yourself is this song does this line not fit because it's funny and the song is otherwise serious or is that is that a consideration that you have to think about. No not not really I mean sometimes I'll laugh just because of how good a song is despite the seriousness of you know like the joy of music you know inspires laughter whether or not like the subject matter does you know what I'm saying. Yeah so so I think I'm always kind of there like I could be totally blown away by when pebbles and marbles was an example so like I wrote it about my daughter. And when Trey added it to the music and sent it to me I was just like I was probably like doing one of those you know tears laughing things where yeah yeah so I think I'm always like on the verge in a weird way when I'm around music or creating music because that's like my favorite thing you're just getting to do yeah I think so I think I'm getting by writing which is yeah I don't like performing though I'm on the opposite I'm scared shitless on on any kind of stage. Well it's interesting because I think Jerry Garcia said once that he thought a good dead show was unfolding if there was extra seriousness to it and not so much tongue in cheek you know quality in the air and with fish it seems like maybe more balanced where there's plenty of the you know if I look at Frank Zappa I would say maybe there was a little more on the other side where things are first at first and foremost kind of funny and or at least making some social comment that's you know twisted in some way. Yeah there's a hidden inside joke or something always pervading which is what I never I didn't relate to as much as some of my other friends maybe because of that but I mean do you think that the best songs regardless of whether they're by you or I or someone else that there's sort of an integration of both of comedy and tragedy living in there. Well I will say yeah I mean people have told me the same thing about like you know I thought there was this inside joke that everyone was in on you know going to see my first fish show and I didn't get it. And I did feel that that with Zappa a few times too so so maybe you know maybe that misfires and it sends people the opposite direction and that's never right that's never that's never the intent so if you can balance it. On the other hand if you do get the joke and you are inclusive enough if the music allows you to be you know feel like you're in a club. Then I think then that's great and I think the fish audience does have that camaraderie and and you know there's there's depth there's something you have to work a little bit to get it but if you have to work too much to get it then then then that's going to hinder you like like I'm so glad you guys didn't play the residence because I was trying to I was listening to that mall mark of the mall which everyone thought that was going to be Halloween. And I was just like holy shit what is this I was like really really worried that that's what you guys are going to play and that no one would get it because I didn't I still don't get it. Yeah I mean plenty of times I hear a band or an album that just for me is too straight up and too serious and then if it doesn't have something I don't know for me I like the world to be a little bit twisted. And if it doesn't have any of that then I feel like I can't open that door either. Right. Well my last question then is this isn't this is not a wrap up type of question it's just my last one. I keep quoting other people but Leonard Cohen is into taking a long time writing songs he was when he was alive maybe 10 years. He said in one interview I read this there's a 400 page book with all the interviews he ever did for TV and radio and magazines and anyway and these themes come up but that's one of them is is you know he'll he'll write 27 verses for one and then choose one of them. And he'll write a song and record it and three years later realize there's just a little inkling of a lie in part of one line and he has to throw the whole thing out because it makes him want to vomit like he's lied and he's trying to. And then he rewrites it again and then records it again and then again it has another lie in it and then you know after 10 years it becomes hallelujah or something. But I guess in terms of how much time you know and then he had lunch with Bob Dylan and was explaining to that that process and he asked you know they had mutual respect for each other and he said to Bob Dylan. Well how long did it take you to write this song one of his you know it was obscure one but but it was one of Leonard's favorites. And Bob was like oh just 15 minutes I was at a restaurant voted on a napkin it was pretty much done. So that's another thing that can go different ways and I'm sure if you're writing in your in one of your books and then Trey has it and then he's taking some of it and and mixing some parts of from one section with parts of another section and then he did the music and you know it beckons for a new bit and you write the new bit and the some back and forth and I mean do you find that. Do you find that the best things happen just right quickly or that they take a long time or some combination. Like you know waste I guess we wrote in a few hours and some count that among you know our best songs possibly. And is a few hours faster slow. That you mean fast. That was fast I think. There are some you know the part that I write are like in five minutes like crowd control literally I woke up and it was just in my head and I wrote it down like almost trying to recite what I was saying in the dream where the devil turned around. But no so sometimes you're given a gift and you can just write and and boom it comes out and it's amazing and and Trey immediately like might see it as amazing too and doesn't change anything. Whereas some and it's kind of become well there's also some that I wish weren't written so fast like Trey recoils and horror and I think in fake horror when I tell him that I wish we spend a little more time on the lyrics to chalk dust torture or stash for example which has parts in it that I just sort of I kind of cringe a little bit like did I really you know what is a garden dependent on whales or micro you know the rhino thrombic micro gaze and gula or you know I'm sure the fans love. I think I think they love exactly I think they love and I'm just thinking like you know what yeah but what if we had make what if we had made it even better like a tiny bit. You know so so so yeah there's there's a danger in coming out too fast with stuff. But I think the ones that I think you recognize when you get a gift and it's fast and and you put it down and you move on to the next one and sometimes those quick ones those one offs are the ones that become amazing. Lately Trey and I have been a little slower and I like it because you get a chance to get the you know the verses perfect and the chorus perfect and really get the story perfect. We have a trilogy going with steam thread and the new on epitaph and epitaph was like finally you know after being a poem for a long time finally put into music in last September in a writing session. We still know we both know that we have a reckoning ahead of us where we have to sit down and work really hard we have to like open the open the open the tomb and you know put on our gloves and our accountant green visors and. Well if you are on one of these writing sessions and you said that waste was a few hours and that's quick are you let's say you're on to a song that you're both loving. Are you able to take like two eight hour days in a row working on one song. Yeah we don't like that right now no so yeah exactly our our writing sessions are so precious and few these days like if we get one a year we feel really lucky. But you know we come away from two days two solid days and two nights of writing together with maybe seven or eight songs and yeah and you can't do that if you're just obsessed. I remember wasting one session two days two full days wasting on and not wasted because it turns out to be a great song but on bug and we did. Yeah really weird ways of recording where every syllable was in a different channel so I was like there have been times that I want and times that I don't each one came out of a different year. And when we finally like got done with it and it took literally by a different year. So you know I I would do the their times one. Yeah in in the right mic back and forth yeah yeah exactly right and then Trey was saying were that in the other one and I've gone down these holes myself exactly and so it was like an exercise that ultimately. It didn't matter to the message of the song like all this craziness and all this time we were spending. It's time that I want to end and times that I don't. Concepts are harder in concepts I won't ever see. God is one of the years for all the latter. And so to me that was like you know and Trey we're sort of depressed about it was like 12, 14, 16 hours on one song that could have probably been five songs. So you've got a barometer of oh we're obsessing and this isn't progressing we'll just go into something else normally. I think so and it's probably one of the reasons that we usually just utilize an eight track recorder because once you fill up the eight tracks you have to move on we don't allow bouncing. Yeah that's cool one little tidbit that you got reminded of from my world so when I was doing that month with Jared and we were doing the one song a day thing. I had watched the DVD collection of short videos by Michelle Gondry who I love and he's like incredible rock vid and music videos with big bands and weird bands and you know Bjork and Rolling Stones and everyone in between and back. And he's always making these visual plays that are not based on digital technology and you know arts and crafts and actors and whatever and analog trickery within his camera. And this one there's this one I don't know what the song was but there's this video where they're making fun of the old video effects when they first came out in the 80s so there's like a kaleidoscope effect. And it happens digitally but then suddenly there are eight actresses in a circle walking away from these mirrors so everything that happened digitally then happens in the real world over and over again. And I thought oh I can do that musically with tomorrow with Jared and for me what that meant we were recording radar blip and we put in I don't know was probably just eight bars or so somewhere in the middle of the song and we wanted to have it where the instruments would morph into each other. Oh my gosh. So whatever the bass line was after a couple notes of it now the piano is playing the notes that the bass was playing and then it passes it in a circle around and around and then you know and then the piano is playing what the guitar would have been playing and etc. And we spent we spent the whole day on it and at the end we played it back and it's like well that would have been cool except it just sounds like you could have played them on the regular instruments and a part and we ended up trying to find a way to resurrect it and make it sound worthwhile but the best thing to do was just to lob those eight bars out and have it be a song. So you took them out that's too bad. We didn't use the best part about it was the story of how we had gotten there and not what it sounded like. Anyway it's tough though I mean because I think as artists we do obsess and it's not always bad. Well it can be in life but if you can if you can say healthy and healthy minded then obsessing is part of what we do that's good and it allows us to kind of stick to what we're doing which in the case of you and me is often songwriting. Anyway thank you for thank you for answering all those questions I appreciate thank you and thank you Mike for turning the the mic around on me so to speak. I'm not turning myself around any time. I wouldn't twist around that way. Well thank you again for being on under the scales and we have to do it again. Let's do it again. Thank you so much Mike. All right talk to you soon. Okay. This podcast is in the loop. The Legion of Osiris podcasts. Osiris is creating a community that connects people like you with live experiences and podcasts about artists and topics you love. Get in the loop at OsirisPod.com. The number you have reached is 100.7 W M M S. It wasn't just a radio station it was a life. The Legion is a rock and roll city for sure. Thank you the Legion of Osiris. Get down! Not a rat, not a buzzer. M M S. The rise and fall of one of the most iconic radio stations in America profiles, The Wrath of the Buzzard, PROH files. Subscribe now wherever you get podcasts. This is the story of Whitney Houston. This is the story of Kurt Cobain. Of George Michael, of Otis Reading, of Amy Winehouse, of Michael Hutchins, Bob Marley. This is the story of Prince. It's a new podcast series about how they died, why they died, and why we're still talking about them so long after. It's like nothing you've ever heard before. It's storytelling. But it's more than that because rock stars... They tell us how we feel. They change our mood. They change the clothes we wear, the people we hang out with, the way we remember things. It's them who give us those ludicrous moments, the ones where you... Jumping around, singing your heart out, feeling understood. And it's those moments will help you remember the ones you're thinking about right now. That feeling... That feeling... Is coming soon from Crowd Network. Just search for "Death of a Rockstar" on your podcast app. And subscribe now. (music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
