ifitbeyourwill S06E22 • Rubber Band Gun

What if the quickest way to sound like yourself is to stop chasing your heroes? That question sits at the centre of our conversation with Kevin Basko, the mind behind Rubber Band Gun—a project that slides easily between indie rock, psych, and playful concept albums, all shaped by a hands-on, hybrid analog setup where limits become part of the sound.

Basko traces his path from backyard lyric notebooks to a sudden elevator text that landed him in Foxygen’s touring band, sharpening his instincts without dulling his DIY core. We dig into RBG25, the self-imposed challenge to release dozens of records in a year, and how working fast reshaped his sense of tempo, arrangement, and when a song is actually done. Along the way, he talks borrowing without imitating, turning tradition into raw material, and why momentum—and not perfection—is the real engine of creative work.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet The One-Man Band
• 3:10 Building A Hybrid Analog Workflow
• 9:55 Origins Of A DIY Songwriter
• 14:35 From College To Foxygen’s Stage
• 21:20 The RBG25 Challenge Explained
• 28:40 Concept Albums And Playful Themes
• 34:50 Stealing, Borrowing, And Finding Voice

Transcript

colleyc: 0:46

Welcome everyone back to another episode of ifitbeyourwill Podcast. We are probably halfway through, maybe even more than halfway through season six. We'll see how uh the holiday season goes, and uh but regardless, today, um great, great uh well, a one a one-man band, I guess we'd say, uh, rubber band gun uh coming out of um Philadelphia. Is that true, Kevin? Kevin Kevin, Kevin, Basco.

Rubber Band Gun: 1:18

Yes, yes, yeah. One one man, I guess, is a good a good way to say it. Uh out of Philadelphia.

colleyc: 1:24

Influenced probably by many, but I mean, you're a one-man churning music machine. Um and I'll tell you why I say that in a minute, but I'm gonna leave the suspense there for a minute. But Kevin has just a a new record that came out to um called the record deal with God. This is from uh this year, September 18th, when it came out. And lo and behold, go to his bandcamp page because um there's a new thing on there almost every week, which is lucky for all of us out there. Um, Kevin is a prolific songwriter, and he like dabbles this line of indie rock, psych. I mean, it's very do-it-yourselfy, um, lo-fi, bedroom-y, you name it. Uh and he's been doing this for a hell of a long time and's produced a ton of stuff. He also um runs the historic New Jersey Records. Kevin, is that correct in saying that? It is correct. Yep. That is your studio and where you help other musicians uh build their um sound.

Rubber Band Gun: 2:29

Yeah, it's it's it's it's like a recording studio, also. Um and some of the artists on here that um that are very close uh in proximity and just into my heart are ones that I put out on the historic Jersey label.

colleyc: 2:43

Nice.

Rubber Band Gun: 2:44

And it's it's hard to say label nowadays, but it's it's like a music group in the same way that modeled after some of the great label studio types like your Stacks or your Motown kind of thing, where there's there's a little bit of um involvement in both sides of it. Um it's been it's been only about a few years of that, and it's not too too many have come out on that, but it's it's a it's certainly a growing kind of thing we're doing here. Awesome.

colleyc: 3:08

And is that all analog too, Kevin? I read that that most of what you do, you love to just go analog.

Rubber Band Gun: 3:15

Well, yeah, like analog's such a funny word now. It's like I like I for a long time with this project, um, it was mostly um tape. Uh uh actually, this machine here and and a few of the ones back there. Those were the kind of main creative uh hubs that the songs would be built on, uh figured out on, and kind of mixed on, even. Uh in the last like four or five years, I've started to slowly uh try to get a little more of a what they call like a hybrid setup where um it might start out on tape and then might end up a little bit more work on the computer. Right. Um and then some of the records I've done recently have been uh a little bit more computer world, but uh it's always it's weird, it's always like analog in the sense of there's quite a lot of things outside of the computer that are affecting the sound before. Uh you can't really see there's quite a lot of old things here that really make things sound the way that I would like them to sound. My computer's very old, so it kind of keeps me from digging too deep into the computer world. Um and I kind of like it that way. I like the I think what I liked about tape and what I love about tape still is the limitations of the frame, so to speak, where you could fill things uh with with there being a sort of sort of a wall that you hit uh in terms of your ability, which I think is that's where a lot of um great art in a lot of ways, you know, the limitations are what define it. I think that's and that's something I've uh learned after a long time. So analog is tough word, though. It's like it it it it is it is analog. It's certainly we we we do things a lot of different ways here though, but it's it's mostly the older methods.

colleyc: 4:57

Nice, nice. And um I guess my first question, Kevin, is I want to go back a little bit just because I know that I mean your your your um catalog is massive. And I know you've been doing this for you know a nice chunk of time, but the amount that you put out is in one year is about what an artist would put out in their whole career. Um when did this bug for music start for you? When did when did music really start to like kick into your heart and be like, yeah, this is my direction in life?

Rubber Band Gun: 5:34

Yeah, so I kind of I have this memory that I've been holding on to, especially the last like five years in pandemic when we all started to kind of look reflect and look inward. And this memory of like being on the trampoline as a little kid, a little trampoline out back. And I had this memory of uh sitting on laying on my trampoline and like writing out lyrics and rewriting lyrics to songs that had already been written, almost like weird alifying them, but not funny. Just like how would I want to sing to like pop punk songs or like like weird other hits of the time. Um, and I remember going back somewhat recently. Actually, I gotta my dog is crying, so I gotta like tuck him into his bed. Sorry, not good for your podcasters, but yeah, there you go.

colleyc: 6:22

Make them look happy, happy dog, happy hot dog.

Rubber Band Gun: 6:25

Yeah, yeah, I gotta have him, uh gotta have him chilling. Um, but uh yeah, that's that's a strong memory of you know early uh like writing before anything else, you know, before even meeting other people, you know, no sense of collaboration. But I think that's also why like I've had this strong connection to always, you know, the the do-it-yourself kind of mindset. And I think that, you know, I kind of started out like I didn't I didn't really have like a childhood music collaborator friend or you know, I was in a lot of bands, I've had great music relationships with people over the years, but it's always kind of been a very solid solitary effort. And I really like it that way, to be honest, and I find ways to collaborate with people, but um, you know, I really, you know, the the solo work of the Beatles, especially almost hits me hard much harder than their. I'm a big Beatles fan, but like the early McCartney stuff where he's playing it all. Um, work of Richard Swift on his own, um, obviously Todd Rundgren. These are people that when I um again, I played in a lot of bands throughout my years, but it was when I was at music college playing in Boston with a lot of different bands of a lot of different genres, that I got a little bit frustrated at times trying to um, you know, constantly, what do they say? Like it's kind of like uh the platypus is like a uh animal built by committee, you know, the idea that how many people get involved in the process. I think that's important for music. And I've learned that especially the last years producing, that the collaborative process is is uh can be obviously a lot richer than a solo effort. But I found that having the ability to do it on my own, there's nothing stopping it. Uh the only one to get in your own way or in the way is yourself in that situation. And that's kind of how I've been able to make so much music. And yeah, this project started in 2013, and I think it was the first effort to think hearing a lot of bands. Well, to be honest, uh uh, you know, groups that were proving it in the at the time, proving the proof the proof of concept rather, uh, were bands like uh Tame Impala and MacDamarco, you know, these were these were this was you know early 2010s, and and realizing that you could do a lot of the things on your own, and that there's its own sort of world that has that that that contains. So it's totally it's bands like that that really kind of proved that what I've always wanted to do, which is kind of just be able to express things in my own way, versus again having to be in a band where you're really compromising. There's not one obviously right or wrong answer, but uh, I think that that chunk of time was really important for me uh to kind of figure out that, oh, you know, it's okay to just do your own thing, and and especially if you uh and you did.

colleyc: 9:19

I mean and you did. Um I'm still get into that. So I have this story that I read. So you finished school, you went to a job fair, you left joining Foxygen as a touring guitarist. Like walk us through that story because I find it really fascinating.

Rubber Band Gun: 9:39

Yeah, well, I I had become friends with um uh Jonathan Redo of Oxygen uh at the time just through meeting him at a at a at a show. I was actually in Boston going to school, and I took the bus down to see one of uh the drummer of Oxygen, Diane Coffey's name, Sean Fleming, great drummer, great musician, great singer, see their debut show at a club called Pianos in New York. And I saw uh Redo at the bar and I spoke to him very briefly, and we had a we had a pretty quick connection about um influences, about just music, music in general. And we became friends over the next year, and then yeah, and then I'm it was my last year of college, and I uh when I was, yeah, I was on the way to the the you know office of Berkeley that kind of helps you find a job. I was planning on being a teacher in New York, uh and moving possibly with my girlfriend at the time in New York and do more of that kind of stuff. And um, yeah, I'm in the elevator and I get the text do you want to play uh in the in the in the star power band? And I was uh I was very excited about that. And I remember being next to this girl, random girl in the elevator, and I like kind of like screamed, and I think I scared her. I was just very excited. Yeah, that really that really set off a big long kind of uh you know, because again, I I had been around some of the best musicians in the country and the and on the planet at Berkeley. I mean, you you could say some of those musicians uh as far as talent uh were some of the best. And so to to find a way to go from that school to uh yes, like joining one of my idol bands at the time, but also just like experiencing what the industry was like at that time, the touring industry, uh, as well as I mean, we we visited a lot of other groups and studios and things like that, just kind of getting a door into seeing what the industry was like was um was really uh was really important. And that, you know, I had already had my my band, uh rather my early demos for rubber band gun were kind of what got me into Foxygen in terms of just the the the proof of my musicality, I guess.

colleyc: 11:46

Right.

Rubber Band Gun: 11:46

Um but yeah, that was that was a really uh crazy time. It's crazy, I think it's been over a decade now. That was like that was probably like 2013.

colleyc: 11:54

Yeah, yeah. And then you started this journey of your own in in crafting and and building your your catalog that I mean is just I mean in continuous evolution. Um there are two occasions that I want to talk about because it seemed like these two occasions got your the engine going inside you to just write. And one of them was called the RBG 25, which was yeah, yeah. Can you 20 2019 this came out in or this idea, right? During the pandemic, yeah, yeah. Walk us through this, what what this challenge was for yourself.

Rubber Band Gun: 12:34

Yeah, so that it kind of goes back again to uh Jonathan Redo again, you know, at the time we were touring. And um, you know, by that time I had making quite made made quite a few records. I think up until then I maybe made like eight or nine records in probably uh what it was probably in the group like a seven-year span, which honestly in hindsight, yeah. I was at the time I was probably averaging like a record a year, which is pretty typical for a lot of groups. Um, and I uh was working at my parents' house. And um we in 2019, it was like early of the year, and we were kind of he was joking about how we uh I should, you know, I should just make like a crazy amount of albums that year. Uh and it kind of like through some playful, you know, uh banter kind of became a sort of like uh challenge of sorts to think that if I could do that many. Um and then we had like a rule that you know it had to have like three or more songs because I'm I'm in this weird camp where like I don't I kind of don't believe in like the concept of like not the concept, but like of like an EP versus an album. Like I kind of think that things can be it feels weird to like the way that we think. I know it's obviously like long play, extended play, but like I think that there's something about um you know length of an album that uh it can feel complete in its right way with maybe four songs. I think I've heard things that like things like uh like Richard Swift has done that's like a couple songs and it can it could have its own life. So conceptually we thought you know that would be a fun uh thing to do. And up until then, I made a lot of records that were like it's funny. Uh you know, a lot of people try to retain a sort of mystique, right? Like I saw this video recently about like I think it was like geese were talking about how um you know the beauty in in like not telling people what things are about, uh songs are about. Um and that led me down another rabbit hole that a great quote by Paul Simon that was like um the listener completes the song, which which kind of means that the listener, if you don't tell them what it's about, the listener will put their own uh interpretation on it, right? Um my records up until then were about like hamburgers and baseball and cars and and murder mystery parties. And I had records, I I made a uh a hospital-themed musical, right? So it's like these are a little bit more ham-fisted things. They were a little bit more conceptually uh like uh a little bit more thick themed, if you could say that. Um, there wasn't quite as much linchy and gray gray area where you could interpret. I mean, you could interpret maybe some of the lyrics and meanings, but at the end of the day, I mean, if the album, if the album is called hamburger, you can kind of put put together what, you know, like up there, that's the cover. Um, you could put the two and two together. So, you know, I I I do a fair amount of both, but I think that that year, you know, I started to there there were a lot of conceptual ones. Like there was like on that year, there was like music for back rows, which was like music that was like supposed to be, you know, uh whatever part of the body you were on, there was the song that you would listen to, right? Like it was like there's the knees song or the the back song, right? Um, and then there was like the like uh in the halls of the presidents, which was like ambient music for each president, you know. Um what what maybe what that president would sound like as a you know noise, noisy song. Um, but then there's ones that were a little bit more uh classic rock, uh that were a little more typical. So I did a we did a lot of that was a really important year, obviously, and just like what rubber bang would become in terms of just that was almost that was the beginning of the like prolific nature of rubber bang is I feel like I'd made a lot of records, and I think even a record a year could be a lot of music for some bands. A lot of them, it's like every other year, maybe every three years. Totally, totally sometimes there was like one or two a year. Yeah, now the last since pandemic, well, I think the first year of pandemic, it was like I think I put out maybe one record in a bunch of singles. The last three years, I've been kind of keeping to around three or four albums a year, and I think I found a bit of a sweet spot because I mean, in addition to that, I'm producing like seven or eight albums of other people's during the year. So it's there's a lot, it's almost it's almost the same amount of music being made with the 25. It's just kind of spread out over different groups. Um, but um, yeah, I think that that year was 2019, was was a big year for for me, for just being able to uh learn how to produce. Um, because I went to music school for songwriting and arranging. I didn't learn a single thing about how to run a recording studio, how to record, how to produce, how to put a microphone. Like all of that was based off of me watching people I liked, looking at the inside of records, uh, looking where you know Muscle Shoals would put their mics, like people at records that I loved, I would look at. Um, and 2019 was a lot of me trying things out and figuring out how to record myself a little bit better uh and sometimes worse for the purpose of it. Right. Um But yeah, that was certainly the start of it, and that was an important, important year for the for the for the group for sure.

colleyc: 18:04

I love it. And Kevin, what's your how do you go about this? Like how do you like how do you get like is your do you have like um because your background in studying songwriting and do you have a formula that you tend to follow? And I hate saying formula, but do you have a way that you pen songs that allows you to churn them um so quickly? I mean, I read that your writing process is you like doing quick, quick, quick songs, quick recordings. What is it about your process that allows you to be so prolific?

Rubber Band Gun: 18:40

Well, I think that music, um, you know, I'm I'm in that kind of camp of music being, you know, tradition in the way that um you don't I think a lot of the problems people have that stop them from writing or stop them from being creative is the idea of um being too close to something that exists or fear of not being original, all these things. And you know, it's but it's really your failure to sound like your heroes that makes you sound like yourself. And that could date back all the way to the classical period. I mean, it's like that's something that's always been true. There's only so many notes. So I I found that um like obviously people I I hear people all the time that that do sound wholly original. I bet those people too could point me at what they are going for. I mean, you could say the same thing for comics, you know, you watch a rest of development and you can see, and I've heard bit videos of Mitch Hurowitz who created and right, wrote the show, saying, Oh, that's just an Albert Brooks joke, or that's just a John Cleese joke. And you see Tarantino, same thing, saying, Oh, that's just a Robert Altman thing, or that's just a, you know, that's just a Scorsese thing, right? So I hate to say the word stealing because I don't, I don't think I think that, you know, bad songwriters steal, good songwriters borrow, you know, or know how to speak the language. I think that what I learned at music school. School is I kind of learned a bit of I well the big thing that I think for music school was my my ear was really beginning to develop in a way that I could then if I hear a song I like I could pretty quickly now figure out what I like about it and then I could figure out how I can apply that to what I might want to do.

colleyc: 20:22

Right. So uh Kevin, what what would be an example of that of something that you like in a song? Like is it is it a line, is it a lyric, a phrase, uh the chord structure? Like what's everything? Like it could be.

Rubber Band Gun: 20:36

Everything, but it's about it's about finding like what what you could do best. Like I think the big thing that I think is impossible to be in trouble for stealing is tempo. I think tempo is where things start. It's also from a production standpoint where I look most about when I'm looking at someone's song. Um and that's something that is a huge blind spot for a songwriter. And and right rightfully so. I mean, it's hard to think about everything as the writer. It's my job as the producer to hear maybe where the song, how it can be restructured, how it can be changed to maybe fit um the optimal feeling and where where you would be moving your head if you were at a show, where how if you heard that song live, how would you be moving around in the audience? Or if you're listening on your couch, how would it impact you? So I think tempo is one of the big things that I've learned. When I hear like the right tempo with the right feelings behind it, I can kind of do a bad impression of that in my own way. And um, you know, it's it's almost like a bad form of mimicry or something when you when you do it right. I mean, there it's really one of those things though, it's such a slippery, slippery slope. I think you know, bad writers are are have a hard time with this because uh they don't I don't want to be mean, but I think there's sometimes it's like you you can hear when something well, like an example, obviously, like like you know, not saying because I think Pharrell is a great producer, but you like that whole thing with like the blurred lines plagiarism thing, you know, they really went so close to the sun there that it's like uh it's it's it's kind of um you know they they could have found a way to to to take what they liked about that Marvin Gaye song and made it a little bit more original and they wouldn't have had that whole problem. And I think that it's your ability to like take what's been like Bob Dylan says it a lot about tradition, like music is tradition and it doesn't really belong to anyone, but at the same time um there is obviously a a limit to that, and I think when you're just like if you're incapable of putting your own spin on it, it shows and that's a problem. Um it's also just uninspiring to listen to something like that. Yeah.

colleyc: 22:50

Um when do you know, Kevin, like when you're on to when you've tapped into something that you would like to see on tape? Like I'm sure that you have tons of throwaway songs as well. Like when is it do you feel like this this idea is worth kind of flushing out a little bit more? Yeah. What is it about that when you know, like, okay, uh this is gonna be a good one?

Rubber Band Gun: 23:16

Well, I I kind of like I I I make the joke, I kind of subscribe to like the Mari Kondo, I think her name is Mari Kondo, that um the spark joy method. I don't know if you've seen those videos of like she has this book where like to like clean your house, right? You like pick up an object you have, and if it sparks joy, you keep it. If it if you hold that object, it does not spark joy. It's a word she uses spark joy. If it doesn't, it it you can you can throw it out. Um and I think aiming, like when you figure out what that feeling is, the same way you might like know when something has enough salt in it, like you when you have that kind of like go alarm go off that there's something here, um you kind of just know, and and what I've what I've learned enough about like I've I did this record that the record that just came out after Record Deal with God called En Passant, which is about it's a chess album. That album I made um a quick story about that. I had there's a a guy who came up, a documentary filmmaker guy, came up from Texas. His idea was he had this documentary that he's still editing, it's called Spitfire. And the idea of it is that he wanted to just put the cameras on, and uh without anything pre-written, without anything, I I had no pre-written material, we would just hit record on the machine, and I would, I would kind of just go. And that's that whole record. It was made in three days. Um, and halfway through making of it, when I started to write the lyrics, that I realized that there was a sort of concept, uh a thread of of chess allegory kind of stuff I was doing, and it kind of I started to lean into that more. But um, that was a good example of like if you kind of just trust yourself and you do it enough, you can't really make a bad song. Now, some people might listen to my music and say, well, that's a bad song. And I think that's that's valid to say. I think opinions are are great, but I think that the amount of times that people have been in disagreement about my music is like I I that's one of my favorite things about my music is that someone might say, Oh, that's his worst album, and then someone else said, actually, that's my favorite album. I've had so many people that have told me and gotten into arguments about it. It's like uh, you know, it makes me feel like, I don't know, it makes me feel great, honestly. It makes me feel like a filmmaker or something when people can be so opinionated about things that I do. Um and I don't, I think the big thing is getting out of your own way and leaving the doubt. Um they also say that, you know, and this is something I've tried to do, well not maybe tried, but you know, uh it's getting away from the blank page, even if that means trying to make a bad song. Um because you'll quickly realize that making a bad song is almost harder than making the good song. If you hear it this might sound mean, but like if you hear the music, like if you hear music in your head the way that I I do, it's not saying everything in my head is a good song, but the the concept of like making a bad song feels almost tougher. Again, not saying they're all good, but it it feels like so. Often I'll tell people like when you're writing and they're having trouble getting started, try to make a bad song. Prove you can make a bad song. Because if you can prove you can make a bad song, you can make a bad song better. You can't make nothing better, you know. So that's that's a big tip I have for people when it comes to writing, is and it it goes the same for anything like a painting, uh script, make a bad version of that and then make that better. But half the people, the problem they have is just the blank page is like the biggest vertigo void in the world, and I get that. So I I've learned ways that again, that I maybe it's my ADD or something, but I I can I can I can keep jumping around enough that I I I completely avoid like too much thought coming into the process. Very it's a lot of feeling, right?

colleyc: 27:08

Right. Well, and I I love what you said before about just the practice too. Like you've done it so many times that like you understand yourself, you understand your tendencies, yeah. And I'm sure you even understand, like, okay, I want to go away, deviate from what I you know, I'm gonna write it write a record about hamburgers, you know. Like I think that you embody yourself so well and you understand your process so well that for you writing is just it's something that that you do, like yeah, yeah, you just do it.

Rubber Band Gun: 27:42

And I've I've I've been in this like songwriting world for for before I even I think knew that I was. Yeah. Because again, I've been writing songs uh honestly since I was like maybe 12 in in some capacity. And in high school I was making little home recorded albums that were like crappy, like John Mayer music, you know, like like knockoff, you know, uh, you know, early 2000s pop. Um I also think that like being able to like you know, I'm a big fan of uh Paul Thomas Anderson's movies, and I I recently heard uh that you know, when he's finishing one record or record, one movie, and he's doing the press cycle for the movie, he's already kind of figuring out what's his next thing. Uh and a lot of people in that industry try to do that to keep themselves moving. And I I have always I have never really had a record that was done where I didn't know the next one that I wanted to do. And that one still might be like there's one like last year last year, I knew I wanted to do record deal with God, and uh finish it rather, because I had started just started it last year, ended last year, and then I knew I wanted to do another one called Infinite Arrows that was going to be like 30 plus tracks of um kind of a a sequel to this other album I did called Street Memories, which is very um a lot of like Peter Gabriel stuff, some um King Crimson, uh just like a big mix of of a little bit more hyperized things, um, with with some very strange, you know, if if record deal with God is classic rock, I felt like Infinite Arrows was gonna be much more futuristic um with a lot of weirder things into it. And I'm gonna do so since then though, I've finished Record Deal with God. I've done three, I've done Cell Hell, which is another album I did that I didn't know at the time. I did Haters and Lovers, which is another, which is more of an acoustic-y, songwriter-y kind of rooting right type thing. Yep. That's one of my favorites of the year, I think. And then I've done this chess album. So Infinite Eros, I have a lot. I have like 20 of them kind of mapped out uh without without being finished. And then I have to do probably a bunch more next early next year. But um, it's so fun to just to like blueprint out what you might want to do conceptually and think about what what you would want to hear next. And that the ability for me to kind of bob and weave a little bit like that really makes um makes this not a slog. And I feel like bands that I know that, especially bands that are on a record label where there's a very long grueling press cycle and promotional thing, and they're they finish a record one year and it comes out two years later. That to me, and I mean, I'm that's like one of the real benefits of what I what I do and how I do it, is I'm not on that timetable. And I'm not I'm not huge, somewhat because I don't say because of that, but that the the inability for me to get truly behind that horse is partly why I'm a little bit in the obscure world. But I do think that um when people find me and they start digging into it, it's a different type of fandom than your usual. It's a little bit more of a you know, it's like finding a comic book that you can just keep going back and finding, you know, all the all the worlds.

colleyc: 31:04

It's a treasure trove, really. I mean, I was just so happy I was telling you before we hopped on here when I hit your band and can't page, and I was like amazing. Haters and lovers, I love that record too. But record deal with God, I mean, it's such a banger of a record. Um I didn't listen yet to en passant, your chess one, and uh people won't see you because this is only audio, but um Kevin has a jersey on called chess is life. So probably inspired this record on chess. Um where do you see um rubber band gun going, Kevin? Like what what is the rest of this year going into 2026? What are you hoping for? And and and what can we expect from from your production level?

Rubber Band Gun: 31:55

Um, so I have I have um I have some albums. I have one album that I thought of the other day that I want to do. Um and it's called like I don't know what it's called yet, but it's like a birthday album. And the idea is that um, you know, I I just have these silly ideas. I mean, music to me is just like it could be it could be anything, you know, music's just everything and anything, and I feel like I I find joy in these little stupid things. I had this idea to make like a birthday album where each track is an age going from one to a hundred and be like a hundred songs. And each each song is like the idea is that you would listen to that song when you turn that year. So like if you're turning like 36, you would amongst other things, you would listen to that song on that day. And uh that song ideally from my my point of view would be maybe what it would feel like to be that age, or what it you know, I I've a lot of people since I've told this this story, like pitch me, oh yeah, when you're like 10, it should sound like this, and when you're 70, so a lot of people have their own idea about what it would sound like, and it'll never be right, but um the idea is is pretty funny, and I think there's a funny bit of like marketing the idea that I mean in any given day, there's millions of birthdays of different ages. So like theoretically, you could be like uh the stream numbers would be would be like astronomical if it actually took off. But um the day that one track, yeah, it would be through the yeah, we're like, yeah, and like age 22 is like a banner or something. Everyone who turns age 22 is like, you know, that's the that's the day you listen, you know. That's it.

colleyc: 33:29

And then as you get into your 40s, 50s, it's more like old head rock and like yeah, exactly.

Rubber Band Gun: 33:34

Yeah, yeah. Like like slow jazz. Like when you're in your like 40s. I don't know, you know. But that's an idea I wanted to mess with that was kind of fun. Um, you know, I've I have a lot of people that you know that another uh band uh artist that I work with is uh Star Moles, um Emily, and she is one of the best songwriters I've worked with. I've worked her for a long time now. Uh we have a record that we finished uh that is uh coming out probably early next year that is one of the best records I think I've made. Um very exciting about that. Also, Sam and Louise Sullivan, who are who are a brother-sister Philly duo, who I love, who you might want to have on here. They are they are amazing artists. Um also Emily, I mean they're these people are just they're they're and actually Sam and Louise Sullivan just got a great shout out from Jeff Tweety from Wilco saying that he it's one of his uh favorites and and that he really, really loves it. And I was really heartwarm to hear that because we put a lot of time and love into that record. Um but yeah, I just you know, I'm I feel really blessed that I just get to make music every day. And you know, even though, you know, uh I'm I mean my streaming numbers are decent, but like I I feel like the ability for me, especially compared to other artists that I know that that um you know that are are able to do a lot of things, my ability just to be able to make music every day in some capacity is is it's all that's the journey is about it, you know, and and so I'm not really looking at too many any like goals like Grammy wins or anything. I'm not like trying to chase any of that really. I'm just to me it's uh life's about just you know, the doing. Um and you know, it's nice to get a couple pats on the back every now and then, but um, I just love being down where I am right now in this studio just cooking stuff up. And um, yeah, I'm hoping I could do a bunch a bunch more next year. I mean, it's I just you know, every year I just want to keep keep getting better. And I really do think we've been getting better and better uh every year, especially because my whole discography is me learning how to operate the machinery and learning how to make it a little bit better in a way. Um, and so that's that's that's kind of the whole the whole discography is is really you can that's why I also keep it chronological because you can kind of map out it's starting from the cassette demos now to some of the ones that are like slightly more high-fi than mid maybe than mid-fi. I'm not like breaking into the like you know top 40 quality of things just because I'm working with what I have, but I think it's uh it's certainly a ride to like jump on, you know.

colleyc: 36:08

Amazing. Well, I'm really excited to hear the the I'm gonna look through and see some of the um the artists that you've helped create records with. Um, I'm really interested to see the transfer from your music to how you apply it to theirs. Um and definitely, I mean, I want to I'll I'll I'll reach out to those artists because I want to know their perspective of how you run your studio and stuff. I think that would be a cool perspective as well.

Rubber Band Gun: 36:35

Yeah, for sure. They're great, they're phenomenal musicians and they're they're they're gonna really uh they'll probably take off before I do, just because they have such a they I they have this have they have their heads on right, and I'm I'm stuck in the the this like the I'm a little bit stuck in my ways of just like I keep cranking them out, you know, and I'm not really whereas again some people they put it out and then they have they they stand behind it and they hold the sign up for a year. This is what I got, you know. I'm I kind of put it and I put it out and I'm lucky people listen, but um, yeah, they're they're fantastic.

colleyc: 37:06

You have good numbers on Bandcamp too. Like, I mean I do good, I do okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Kevin, this has been fascinating. I thank you so much for kind of opening your studio and your process and your music up to us. Um, I love your stories. Um, I love your process and how you think about records. And um, I'm gonna definitely listen to hamburger. I mean 9020, never frozen burger girl. Yeah, yeah, it's like motion.

Rubber Band Gun: 37:35

I'm loving it.

colleyc: 37:37

It's needed.

Rubber Band Gun: 37:38

Yeah, yeah. I mean, some of them are ambiguous, some of a lot of them are ambiguous, but some of them are just like good fun, you know. Love it.

colleyc: 37:46

I love it. Well, you take care of yourself, and um, I'd love to have you back on and continue this conversation. It's been a real pleasure.

Rubber Band Gun: 37:52

Great. Thanks so much, Chris. I appreciate it. Cheers, man.