Off the Clock w/Jon Eks
My name is Jon Eks and I spent more than a decade talking to people about work on the award-winning Jon of All Trades Podcast. I’m sick of talking about work. I want to talk about everything else in our lives. Men are traditionally not good at this. So, I’m talking to people I love, respect, and admire. I’m trying to embody the axiom “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Expect candor, vulnerability, profanity, and a wide range of topics.
Off the Clock w/Jon Eks
Family Dinner with Bad Year
On this episode of Off the Clock, I’m joined by my friends Adam, Mike, Austin and Aaron, who comprise the band Bad Year out of Milwaukee. In May, they were on tour and swung through Denver. I invited them to my house for tacos before the show. Here’s some of what we talk about:
First question (admittedly, a gimme): What was your favorite dinner while on tour?
- the origin of our connection and the incredibly thoughtful messages over Instagram that led to this new friendship
- what does their self-selected descriptor “accessible punk rock” mean?
- what other bands do they get compared to?
- how do you create the music scene you want to be a part of?
- how to tour the country as four dudes in an SUV and not kill each other
- how often do they get invited by randos out on the road to come have dinner in someone’s home?
- why being on tour is actually easier in some ways than “real life.”
- Mike got engaged on the tour to a stranger in Santa Monica (note: I could not tell which elements of this story were real, or if the entire thing is made up)\
- why it’s important for your band to pick a lane in terms of style and aesthetic
- I annoy the band by asking them the prosaic ass question of “what is the process of writing a song like for you?”
Find Bad Year at their website. Stream their new song “Black Skies.”
Theme song by Sorry Sweetheart.
Logo by Nebulus Visions.
Produced by Deft Communications.
Engage with the show on Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky.
Recorded over Google Meet. Dinner was at my house a month and a half or so prior.