Wheatus Bassist & Host of Weird Al-gorithm Podcast Matthew Milligan Is The Very Special Guest On The Full Circle!

An absolute honour to have Wheatus bassist Matthew Milligan on The Full Circle! He speaks about his time with Wheatus, being called a "one-hit wonder" band, answering the most pressing Would You Rather questions such as whether he'd rather his bass made a fart noise or he tripped over for every wrong note Matthew plays live, why he loves talking about Weird Al so much and he plays a tough quiz called "Which Wheatus Said This?" where he had to guess which Wheatus member said a particular quote!

Matthew's Full Circle was epic! A lot of the songs were based bassists that have been influential to him, ranging from Blink-182 to Primus! 

Playlist for the songs: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/72wN7agFvhMNHKwl0ybX9n

Head over to https://wheatus.com/shows to get tickets for upcoming shows; they are epic live, and Matthew explains on the show why two shows are never the same!

Check out Weird Al-gorithm anywhere you hear your podcasts! Spotify & Apple Podcasts links below:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2AGCFPCPaPG2qpR715kCo8

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/weird-al-gorithm/id1615822615

Follow Wheatus on Social Media!

Instagram: http://instagram.com/wheatusofficial

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wheatusofficial

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wheatus 

Follow the Full Circle on social media!

https://www.instagram.com/DCFullCircle

https://www.facebook.com/DCFullCircle

https://www.tiktok.com/@FullCircleDC

https://www.youtube.com/@FullCircleDC

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

The Full Circle. With D C I have a very special guest on the Full Circle today. He is the incredible bassist of the band Weatas and has worked with various musicians on multiple instruments, including Bowling for Soup, Living Colour, and Will Iankovic also hosting a podcast about the other called Weird Algorithm. But he works through his way through Weird Ayankevich's entire dysography, actually completing that earlier this year. An absolute honour to have on the full circle. His name is Matthew Milligan. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Hey Matthew.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Hi, nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Thank you for having me on. Oh, pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on. How are you doing at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Oh, I'm great. I'm great. It's a beautiful uh morning in uh New York City. I'm I'm uh happy to be here, happy to be talking to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Thank you. No, my pleasure. Are you all rested up following finishing your recent tour?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Oh, uh, we're getting there. Uh, you know, that last tour was one of it. I mean, it in all of my time in the band, it was the most like kind of grueling and non-stop we have ever had. Uh, we were pretty much, I mean, we came home for holidays and stuff, like a little bit of a break, but we were basically touring non-stop for over a year and a half, which and the shows were incredible. I mean, we went all over the world, you know, like Australia, New Zealand, Europe, all over US and Canada, sometimes multiple times. And it was so incredibly wonderful. Like the response for this anniversary run was just amazing. But boy, by the end of it, we were like, we are definitely, you can tell that it's been 25 years because we are we are tired.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Wow. Yeah. Like 25 years. Fair play. I mean, was there a particular place where you were like, this was just amazing. This particular place was just incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I mean, you know, we hit certain spots in the UK that have always been incredible for us. You know, over over the years, you know, when you're a band for this long, or at least a band like us, like, you know, there's it's not always up. There's moments where people are more into you than others. And we had some periods where like interest was pretty low and we were doing very scrappy, small touring. Uh, but the UK has always been like one of our most stable places. Like, we've never not been gone there and felt like it was a welcome home. So, like Glasgow, London, Manchester, like those cities are so incredible to us. But I will say, on this last tour, I think the biggest surprise we had was in New Zealand. Uh, we played in Wellington, New Zealand. I mean, all the New Zealand shows were great, but Wellington especially, we had never played New Zealand before. And now, you know, 25 years as a band, we're starting to get to get to the point where we say to the booking agent, like, hey, we'd love to go to this place we've never been. Like, if there's ever a time, it's now, can we can we go? And they kind of tried to dissuade us from New Zealand a little bit. They were like, oh, it's hard to tour there. Not a lot of bands go, it's expensive, blah, blah, blah. And we were like, well, you know, we really would love to give it a shot. And we're all the way in Australia already, and this is as good an opportunity as we're gonna get. We do it, despite them being cautious about it. All of those shows instantly sold out, which was really exciting for us. And then the Wellington show was so unbelievably great. Like every fan knew every deep, we were getting insane requests, people were yelling amazing stuff. It was just one of those shows where it's like, we are truly on the other side of the world in a place we've never been, and the love was so profound. That was a real memorable one for me. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm not gonna forget that one anytime soon.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Oh wow. Yeah, I've I've always heard that. I think toiling Australia and New Zealand's always a bit on the trickier side, but I guess it sounds like the payoff was absolutely absolutely worth it.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Oh, this time it really was. I mean, we've actually had, we've joked about it. Like, we've also never had a place, Australia more than any other place, where we had something planned that then fell through for various reasons. Like, and that's the most heartbreaking thing when you have something booked and yet like the flights are booked and you're like it's on the calendar, and then something happens where you just can't do it. One of those times was COVID, which is of course out of anyone's control, but we've had others where it's just the financial realities of touring in Australia are really hard. Uh, and of course, unfortunately, only getting harder nowadays. So we're really crazy grateful that um we can go over there and have it be a success, you know. It's definitely don't take that for granted.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Oh, for sure. I mean, I've I've always heard that touring is just getting more and more expensive. I guess what sort of things will help you? What sort of thing helps you sort of make it a successful tour, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 4:29

For us, really, the whole thing, again, because it is getting more we have tried really, really hard to keep our ticket prices affordable, um, which sometimes means putting ourselves in smaller rooms, just being like, well, we're gonna like a little bit putting a ceiling on what we can do, and just being like, we want our tickets to be like $35. Like that's really kind of what we would love for it to keep it in that range, which again nowadays is really not a lot of money. I'm still I I still want shows to be $20, but that's I'm I've been doing this too long, I guess. But yeah, no, I mean, so keeping the ticket prices affordable enough that people don't feel like they need to save for a month to go see a concert. I you know, I know that's kind of the norm nowadays, but I'm I'm not cool with that. And then also making sure that when people show up, like we just give them the best possible night that we can, and we make sure that everyone has a really good time and uh hears what they want to hear, and hopefully leaves the show feeling like that was totally worth it, and I want to see this band the next time they come around. And I can because the tickets aren't crazy expensive. And that kind of combination has really, I think, served us very well for the last 25 years. Like we've kept obviously we have a song that people really know that has that brings people in in the first place, but that won't, you know, having one song people know is not gonna get people to come see you multiple times. We are very aware of that, so we really want everyone who comes to see us to leave, even if they've only come to hear Teenage Dirtbag, we want them to leave going, like, wow, they have a bunch of songs that are really, really good, and I want to go home and listen and then like keep up. And I think that has been our trick to surviving as a touring band through some otherwise very kind of quiet times, you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Very nice. Because I am just seeing more and more bands having to cancel shows, and they're being very honest about it, saying it's just not financially doable. And I do wonder, as you say, are bands just charging maybe more money than they should, or go for like bigger arenas or bigger venues, which maybe just isn't possible.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

I do think that there is a problem with um really there are actually not that many bands big enough to justify playing arenas and stadiums. Like they probab should probably shouldn't be that many, but we have all these arenas and stadiums, and bookers want to put people in them because you know it's a good place to host these shows, like they just want events. And I do think some smaller acts or some newer acts, maybe is the better word, are being put there a little bit prematurely. And as a result, yeah, they're underselling. But it's happening at clubs too, you know. It's and I I also want to say, like, there are plenty of bands who need to charge more for uh a ticket for various reasons, whether it's salary or production. We are also a pretty DIY low cost band. We try to make it as affordable as we can to tour so that we can keep our prices low. But for us, that usually means we are not the showyest band. We don't have like a massive light show, we don't have video screens, we don't have a lot of bells and whistles that so many bands do. There's nothing against that. This is just how we have found to uh make it work at a low budget because that's just I don't know, it's just our style and it's just our comfort level, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Nice. Well, I'm glad that I mean at the end of the day, it's it sounds like it's working for you. I'm glad that it is and looking forward to to your next return back to the UK. Oh, thank you. Yeah, us too, always. Always, Matthew. So you've created uh a full circle. So do you want to give uh give the viewers or listeners a bit of a preview as to is there like a theme or or have you gone for like a specific thing for for the full for your full circle?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yeah, no, I went with a theme and I went with just uh a set of songs here that I just thought of as my part of sort of my journey as from like a new starting out on the bass. I play a few different instruments, but bass is definitely my primary instrument. It's obviously what I play in Wednesda and what I play with most acts I work with. But yeah, the story of like how I got into that and what leading me through like learning how to play, learning how to be a musician, and then taking me through to kind of I guess sort of where I am now. Yeah. An express track to where I am now. Very, very nice.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

So, what is the first song that you've chosen for the full circle?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

The first song I picked is What's My Age Again by Blink 182, which was a song that I heard as a 13-year-old. I think I must have been 13, maybe even no, maybe 13, 14, something like that. You know, I had been developing an interest in music, but that was a huge that was such a moment. I I have such a memory of hearing that song, seeing the music video for the first time with them running naked down the street, and just having this thought of like, I think I can do that. Like, not run naked down the street, but play play an instrument in a fun band, like be in a fun band and do something fun like that. It just felt like it felt doable. And and honestly, that's the the best thing about like punk music and pop punk music and all that kind of stuff is I really think that it had showed, especially now in hindsight, you know, I I um I graduated high school in 2004. So my like school years were like from you know 1999 to 2004 basically was high school. And now in hindsight, that was such an amazing time for guitar-driven pop rock music, including Teenage Stripbag, which falls right in that window as well. But I was just I I devoured it all and I got so into it. But that was really the first one where I mean I heard that song and I bought the record and loved the whole thing. And really, when I decided I wanted to play bass, I bought one and that was the album I sat at home and I just like learned how to play along to all of those songs. And that was like my my very, very first intro and like what is it to play this instrument? Like, what does it mean to play the bass? It's a very simple song. So, what's my age again? I was actually able to play pretty quickly, but doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that it's simple, it's still so effective, it's just so well written.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

It's a yeah, really, really good song. Really good.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Oh, so good. So good.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

So good, yeah. Big one it too, what's my age again? The first song on the full circle. Have you met the have you met them?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Uh no, I have not actually met them yet. We have a few friends in common. We have some some sort of like connective tissue, but I haven't. It's one of those I have heard specifically about Mark, that he is like the nicest guy in the world. So I probably would be fine to meet him. I'm it's a little bit, I'm not I really don't get like starstruck very often. I've met a few people who are like really kind of a big deal, and I'm not really that bothered by it, but Mark Hopp, I think I would be, I would be very, very starstruck. I would love to shake his hand and just tell him how much uh his playing has has meant to me. I'm sure he hears it all the time because truly, like he is uh just such a legend in that world now. So yeah, no, still hasn't happened. Maybe one day, fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Maybe we can manifest it. Maybe I'll put this out on as a little clip and we'll see. Hey, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah, see if we can get that to catch on. Yeah, absolutely. I'm available, Mark, if you're listening.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Has there been you you mentioned that you don't really get starstruck. Have you have you met someone where you just like actually got starstruck by seeing them or I mean there's a few weird we did a a round talking about Australia?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

We did a round of festivals in Australia a couple years ago, and we did shows incredibly the lineup was ridiculous, and on after us each night was Alice Cooper and Blondie. And I'll tell you, when I saw Debbie Harry from Blondie just hanging out at the catering area with everyone else, I that was a crazy, I was like, whoa, that's really that's really, really weird to see. And I but I still I I went up and said hi. We didn't have a huge conversation, but I said hello and introduced myself. And she was very pleasant, very nice. Um, but that was that was a crazy, just very surreal. Everyone, you sometimes you see someone like that and you're like, oh my god, like how is this possible that my eyes are seeing this person not through a screen right now? Uh Debbie Harry ranked pretty high. Yeah, it's all music people for me. Like, those are just my my heroes. Yeah. And actually on that tour, I had a very bass-specific hero moment because for that run, I think he's been doing it for a while now, but their bass player in Blondie is this guy named Glenn Matlock, who was the original bass player of the Sex Pistols. Holy, like crazy. Um, I apologize for swearing. You can believe that if you need to. Uh, it just blew my mind that he would be um there and I was talking to my bandmates about him. Like we were watching Blondie on night one, and I'm doing the thing, like yelling over the sound of the band, being like, Do you see who that is? That's Glenn Matlock from the Sex Pistols. I how is he playing bass? The show ends, and we go back outside to the catering. And of all things, like I immediately run into Glenn, and Glenn looked at me, and he was like, Hey, you're the bass player from Wednesdays. You are awesome.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

How crazy is that? That was a real like, I was so glad my bandmates were with me because then they all looked at me, they're like, That was pretty cool. Like, that was pretty cool, right? I couldn't believe that he complimented me before I even got to introduce myself. That was a that was a very exciting moment. Truly starstruck there. Although he he made it cool so fast that I didn't even get a chance to be uh too nervous. Incredible. Yeah, what a nice guy.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Uh I just yeah, I just love, yeah. I mean, like you mentioned, you mentioned like you know, all these musicians that you that you're a musician in yourself, but all these musicians you look up to and just to be able to sort of speak to them and they know you. I mean, what that is that is truly incredible.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

It is uh one of the greatest perks of this line of work is when you get to a point where you realize that not all, I think it's good to have heroes that are bigger than this, but some of your heroes truly just become your peers. And that is a strain, you have to really wrap your head around that and be like, oh my god, this is like we now do the same thing. Like, especially from musician to musician, you realize that you're like, even like again, Glenn Matlock to me is a legendary bass player. People don't know who Glenn Matlock is. Like the average person does not recognize him on the street or want to walk up to him and talk to him about his career. So as players, you really actually do have a lot more common ground and more um, I don't know, you're on more even footing than it feels sometimes when you're talking to someone who in your mind is a a legend. Yeah. But they're just players. Like musicians are it's I I actually think that just being a musician is like such a pure, like musicians just want to play music. That's that's it's such a simple thing. It's like all, it's just you devote your life to like, how can I play music? I just want to play.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

You know, you mentioned about meeting your heroes. Some people do say you don't have to give names, but some people do say, you know, you never some people say, you know, you should never meet your heroes. Has that ever been the case where you have met someone you were a bit disappointed? You'd have to give any names, but I wonder if that has happened to you.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Uh I wouldn't say a hero. I have met people who were not particularly friendly. Uh, I've met people who weren't necessarily rude, but clearly were not interested in like socializing, which is fine. You know, you don't want to like you're like, okay, this person's, you know, some people aren't it's a it's another classic misconception because being a performer, we all kind of know this intellectually, right? But being a performer, you feel like you're just out in the world so much. But any performer will also tell you that for the most part, your on-stage self and your off-stage self are two very different things, you know. And just because you are on stage and you uh, you know, go nuts up there and bang your head and do whatever does not mean that offstage you are the most social person in the world. And some people are just not comfortable in those situations. And, you know, it's not because they're rude. You know, some people are rude, but sometimes it's just people who are not really adjusted or not not of able to communicate in that way. And I try to be like, that's fine. You give them grace and you don't want to like you don't want to push too hard on any of those people or judge people too quickly, because I've also seen that happen, you know, too many times. Someone who gets like, oh, you're like not nice to uh someone who a rude interaction that was actually just someone being kind of very respectfully trying to put up a boundary, it's it's a tough, it's a tough thing. You know, there people do expect a lot from uh performers. So I try not to do that myself, you know, in terms of the you know, don't meet your heroes, but also don't judge them too harshly. How about that?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

That sounds reasonable. Yeah, I do like that as well. I don't know if this happened, I don't know if it does happen in the music world. I I know about it's happening in the wrestling world where people will like like fans will go at the airport and like wait for for you know wrestlers to to come there. And apparently that's a massive no-no. I don't know if that stuff happens in in you know in in in the music world as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Oh, it definitely does. I mean, not to us so much. We again we're fortunate that we are a pretty in the grand scheme, we're a pretty like middle class band, you know, like so we're not we get uh we get recognized, it happens. Uh I actually, funny enough, I was at a concert last night in New York City and I got recognized in the crowd, uh, which is not very common, but it does happen from time to time. But usually it's just people who are like, oh my god, are you do you play in Wednesdays? Are you the bass player in Wednesdays? I saw you guys at Irving Plaza last year. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's me. Nice to meet you, shake hands, that's it. Like it's it's nothing really ever worse than that. But I've known we know we have friends in way more successful bands, and yeah, it's a problem. It can definitely be a problem. I think it's always been an issue, but nowadays as well, with social media, it's so much easier. Like fans can actually talk amongst themselves and figure out where an artist is staying, like which hotel they're at, uh, where their tour bus is going, what's going on now. I've I've seen uh at the time we were recording this, um, you know, Phoebe Bridgers is doing this tour in America right now, and it's really cool. She is doing very, very small towns, tiny pop-up shows, and they're only announcing the show the morning of. Um, so it's like today or tonight, she's going to be in Greenville, South Carolina at this tiny little place, and you have to line up in the morning. It's first come, first serve, and it's it makes it impossible to flip the tickets, right? It's just you're gonna get a ticket, you get a wristband, and then you get to go into the show. Uh, it's a great idea. Uh, and apparently, I just saw this online, but apparently they have had problems with fans after the shows have just started to drive to follow the tour bus to the next city so that they don't the surprise is ruined. And by the time the the management has actually announced when the next show is, people are already lined up. And the locals who there's she's the whole point of this is to try to play for smaller local communities who don't get shows. And now people who have driven from Chicago or whatever are already there taking up the spots, and it's like there's it's one of those things, like there's no rule against this really, but there's some basic sort of etiquette and privacy that is like if someone knows that their tour bus is being followed, that's alarming. You know, you don't want to feel like that's the case, but also you know these people are like your most dedicated fans, so it's a very difficult thing to kind of manage. You don't want to alienate your fans, but you also want to make it clear that, like, hey, you know, we are human beings here who want to feel like we can go to sleep without knowing that people are trying to look through the our window blinds at the hotel like it's crazy, you know?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Yeah, some people just I don't think like boundaries, I just don't think they realize those sort of boundaries and those sort of maybe human etiquette as well. I mean, do you think that's gotten worse because of social media, or do you think, or even the pandemic? I don't know if some something changed after that. I don't, I don't know if what what what what's what makes yeah people do this, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

I don't know. It could be, I mean, those two things could definitely be a factor. I mean, there's certainly like quite a thing now with like you know, clout chasing on TikTok or whatever it is of like who's getting the shot of the crazy thing. So someone driving alongside Phoebe's tour bus is probably good clout for for a video if that's what you're going for. But yeah, I mean, I I don't I don't really know what to blame it on. And I do, you know, these problems have existed for forever. Like big artists have always had the problems. I mean, again, you can go back and watch video clips of the Beatles and Michael Jackson. Like, truly, like it's dangerous situations that these people are in when you're that famous. So it's always existed to some degree, but I think it's maybe just become easier for people to participate now. Like you can get that information online a little bit more easily and convince yourself, like, oh, well, these people are like it's I can do it because I see I have it. I don't know. I think it's maybe the entry point has gotten a little bit lower. And the other unfortunate thing is people don't respond well to this either. But sometimes the artist then has to come out with a statement that's basically like, hey, this is not cool. And then fans then they're upset, and it's like a little bit like, well, maybe maybe you need to be a little bit upset and understand that like it's you know, if you have hurt the feelings of this artist you supposedly admire, I think that warrants some real reflection. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

I completely agree. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

What's the second song that you've chosen for the full circle?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, so the second song I chose is a song by Weezer, uh, and it is Tired of Sex, which is track one on their album Pinkerton, their second album. I picked this because as I started to get into bass and I started to play with other people, like my first high school band, the uh front person, who funny enough was she was a bass player and she stopped playing bass because we were like, Oh, we should play in a band together. And she was like, Well, I also play bass. I was like, All right, well, why don't you play guitar? Because I'm definitely playing bass. And I fully bullied her out of that position right away, which was fine. She was totally fine with it. But she loved Weezer, it was like her favorite band of all time, and I wasn't really super familiar yet. I knew uh at the time the green album had come out, so I knew like Hash Pipe and Island in the Sun, but I didn't really know the older ones. And she told me to listen to that record, and that album, that song, especially for that entire album, the sound of the bass on that record is so enormous. It's huge and it's like dirty, and it's got this fuzz on it. Uh and I just I'm like, I have I didn't know that it could sound that cool. A bass instrument. It blew my mind, and it made me appreciate like how how important to the song a bass line could be and how how big it could sit in the track. And I just that was a huge moment for me. I just obsessed over the sounds on that record, and I tried really hard. I to this day I feel like I don't I couldn't really make my bass sound as good as it does on that album, and that's uh testament to the how it was recorded, and then Matt Sharp, who was the bass player on it. It's just amazing, amazing playing. But um, but yeah, that was a real like foundational moment for me was discovering those Weezer records and like how much you could do. With a bass.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Very nice. Weezer Tired of Sex, the second song on the full circle. And obviously, this is it six years ago, five, six years ago, you did the uh live stream of uh of playing all the Weezer songs.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah, it was just the six-year anniversary, actually, because it was in 2020. It was early, well, I think it was April. Um, I don't remember the exact day, but April of 2020. Yeah, I mean, it was just a funny thing where I um well, you know, it was locked down and I was going stir crazy as we all were. And I I remember, you know, again, I make my living playing music live, basically. I do studio stuff as well, but it's most of it is is live shows. And there was just suddenly this realization of like, oh man, I might not get to do that for a long time. Uh as the reality set in, of like, yeah, I'm probably gonna be the last person to go back to work, you know, in that in that industry. And so I just started to think about like what could I do to, I don't know, to keep that muscle active and also not go crazy. Like, I I want to do something. And I came, yeah, I just thought it was a silly idea. I was like, this will be fun. Like, what if like the weedest bass player plays the weed the weezer, uh, the weedest bass player plays the Weezer catalog straight through. I just decided to do it and I learned all the material. It took me a few weeks, and then I posted about it. I didn't really make a big deal of it, I just posted about it on my social media for like my friends. I'm like, oh hey, I'm gonna go live on online and do this Weezer marathon, uh, which again it took me like nine hours or something like that. It was a it was a whole day, and it it kind of caught on. Like a bunch of like news publications wrote about it, it got picked up, and a lot of people watched. Um, it was really, really a crazy thing, and it turned into like uh such an incredibly heartwarming moment in the pandemic. All these people came together. I had friends all over the world who were watching, and then just total strangers. Rivers Cuomo was aware of it and he made a mention of it. He was doing live streams himself, and then the day after he um did a live stream where he played Teenage Dirtbag and gave a shout out, and that was a real treat for me again as a huge fan. Like another band I admire, and we actually have we've done like festivals and stuff with Weezer. I've still never like fully met them completely, but yeah, that was a real that was a real fun surprise for me.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Fair play. Right, Matthew, I want to ask you some would you rather questions if that's okay? Sure, absolutely. Okay, sorry about the first one. I don't know how easy it's gonna be. Okay, would you rather never talk about Weird Owl Yankovic again or never play Fulitas again? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Oh boy, that's tough. Well, you know, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say Weird Owl, and that is a very tough decision. I I'm glad this is only a hypothetical game. But I'm only gonna say weird owl because we actually in the podcast just, just, just finished talking about his pretty much entire discography. We have other things to talk about, some live shows and some deep cuts and stuff, but uh, if there's anything where I feel like I'm approaching a completion point, it's the Weird Owl thing. So I I can I guess I can let my many, many, many hours of podcast recording speak for themselves at this point if I'm not allowed to anymore.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

That's fair. I mean, is Weird Owl like your number one? Is that why you went for Weird Owl?

SPEAKER_00 25:12

No, well, he was a very, and it's funny because I actually considered getting one of his songs into my my pool here, and I didn't. I mean, as a young kid, it was a it was life-changing. When I when I first heard uh Weird Owl, this would have been in the in like 1996, he put out an album called Baird Hair Day, which had Amish Paradise on it. That was like the biggest track on that record. And, you know, we I've said it on the podcast before, is like I feel like there is something about Weird Owl that is just like scientifically engineered to blow the mind of 10-year-old boys. It is just like at that time in your life, you just could I there's no understanding that something could be this funny and clever and fun at the same time, like it just feels like he's breaking every rule that you've ever known about how the world works. And yeah, I mean, it was a completely foundational thing for me that that Weird Owl record. I played it to my poor parents. I must have played that record in the a thousand times in the car. Uh, and they they tolerated it to the best of their ability. Yeah, no, I I I I probably would not be a musician today if I had not gotten the education that Weird Owl Records gave me. Because that's the other thing, is that he is uh like a master of genre. Like if you listen to his catalog, he plays every type of music and does it with such equal um, you know, another thing I love to talk about on the podcast is that he while he makes silly music or writes silly lyrics about the music, the music part he you can tell he takes so seriously, like being great musicians and do and doing justice to music itself and the parodies that he does musically like have to be perfect. And that amount of respect for all these different kinds of genres was is huge in in wanting to explore music and just dive in and learn as much as you possibly can about as many types of music as you can. So yeah, no, I think uh Weird Al's uh influence on me is is enormous. I went through a phase when I was in my like late teens, early 20s, where he wasn't cool anymore, which is also a very normal thing for people to do, where it's like you love him as a kid, and then you get a little bit older, you become a teenager, and you're like, no, it's dumb. And then you get older again and you hit like mid-20s or even early 30s, and you look back, you're like, oh, you know what? Actually, I learned so much from those records, and they are so fun and so well made, and it's just like it's this amazing little like full circle a full a full circle moment. How about that for your podcast? Came right back around. Yeah. Um, so so yeah, no, I I have the most respect for Al in the world.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah, fair. I yeah, I'd say a similar story for me. I think I really enjoyed his work when I was younger, and then when I got a bit older, I wasn't at first, and then yeah, really. I mean, do is he gonna be making any new music at some point? Do we know?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Or we hope so. I mean, you know, he his last full-length album was a long time ago, 2014. And uh he had he was very open about when that album was done, that it was the end of his contract with the record label, and that he was struggling to continue to make parodies in a world where things move way faster, right? Like, by the time he gets something made and recorded at the quality level he wants, the song, the song he's parodying is either totally forgotten, or he's competing with 10,000 like dumb YouTube or TikTok parodies of the same song that has been made faster by all these other kids online. Yeah, I think I he he just said he's like, I'm not really sure how to do what I do in a world that moves this fast and that is so scattered, you know. Like there's not, we don't have hits like we used to in the music world. It used to be a thing where it was just like, oh, this is this one song is everyone's favorite song at the same time, right now. And that hasn't been the case for, you know, a couple decades, honestly. You know, it makes it harder for him to do what he does. I would love it if he made some more music. Again, as a huge fan of his, I think some of his most underrated stuff are his actual just original songs, which I think are great and super well written. And if he wanted to make an album just original material, uh yeah, sign me up. I would I would be so incredibly excited to get some some new music from Al, whether it's parody or not.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Well, I was recently listening to the one you guys spoke about, which I was a bit like, oh no, like there was a bit of I don't know, lukewarmness about it, but I think it's one of my favourite ones. I think it was my own eyes. I really like that one, which is like like I genuinely just it just make it s like even even if it's yeah, even if like there was some debate about whether whether it does sound like Three Fighters or not, and if for you you said it it did, and I think it's yeah, I thought it was Free Fighters instantly, but but I thought as a song itself, it's actually quite good.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Like I it's funny, that's like a rare song where we were generally, and I had we had a guest on that episode too, and we all were like a little bit lukewarm about it. Like it's not bad. Yeah, I don't really I mean he doesn't really have too many songs that I think are not good. It's not bad, but it's just it it felt a little bit less I don't what was I saying about it? Like I think musically it's actually really fun, but lyrically it just didn't quite hit for me the way I wanted it to. Um, and I actually do think, again, my co-host did not fully agree with me on it. I think as a Foo Fighter sound-alike, I think he actually nailed it. I think it really does have all of the hallmarks of a Foo Fighter song, and as I said, they are a harder band to kind of pin down. For some bands where he wants to sound like them, he does, for people listening who don't know, Hal does with some of his originals what he calls style parodies, which is where he will write a song in the style of another band without it actually being a specific singular song. So when he does that with like the B52s or um Frank Zappa, some of them are extremely clear. And it's like, oh, you know who this is because no one else in the world really sounds like that band. But Foo Fighters are not as simple in that way. So the fact that he was able to kind of bottle some of their energy, I I do think was very, very impressive. I just I just wish that I liked the the lyric and the overall like finished product a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Not fair.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Sorry, but you know what? On the podcast, every time we've ever had a problem with any of Al's songs, immediately we never get more comments than when that happens and people message us like, what are you talking about? You're totally wrong. And I love that. People are very, very, you know, I it there's nothing he has ever made that someone out there does not think is great. And that says something. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yeah, he he he is he is really one of the kind, actually.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Oh, truly. Yeah, he's yeah, no one, no one has even come close to doing what Al has done as a career. It's crazy. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Okay, this is a weird would you rather? I just want to know what what uh what you'd prefer. Well, not prefer, which one you'd least prefer. Uh would you rather your bass make a fart sound for every wrong note you hit when playing live, or you trip over on stage every time you play a wrong note?

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Oh boy. You know, I I I feel like the fart sound thing is something that I would just immediately turn into like a weapon that I would do on purpose just to mess with my bandmates and the other like I I I have to pick that one because that is that is a tool that I could use. I I feel like I might even be able to make that enhance the show in some ways. Something to consider. And frankly, I am a clumsy enough person and I move around like an idiot on stage that I am already stumbling way too much. I can't add more stumbles to my to my stage for a vibe.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Yeah. Oh goodness. I hope you haven't injured yourself doing that.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Never on stage, no. I I've I mean I've gotten a couple like tour injuries over the years, but never I have full I have fully fallen down on stage. That has happened, but I've never hurt myself. Uh I just get right back up and and uh and get back to it. That hasn't happened in a while. I hope I'm not jinxing myself right now, but I I haven't uh I there's uh somewhere online there's a video someone got of me doing an amazing the kind of fall where you feel like you're falling for like five minutes and you just keep stumbling and trying to catch yourself, but you can't quite do it, and it is it is it looks so bad. It's it I stumble across the whole length of the stage and then finally just fall into the drum set. Uh yeah, it was it was you know not my best day. Or maybe it was my best day. I don't know. Never happened that bad since.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Oh my goodness, I'm gonna have to watch that.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

It's some it's definitely somewhere on YouTube because I know like I saw it when it happened, and then someone resurrected it like a little while ago. I'm like, oh yeah, like it's still there. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Uh okay, okay, yeah. Everyone check that one out um after listening to this or watching this. Uh dear. Okay, would you rather play a show with no sleep the night before or play a show with no food during the day?

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Oh, that's just sleep and food are two things I really like. Um, I'm gonna say sleep, just because that is I've done that more. Um with the travel, sometimes sleep can be tough. So I have done many a show with no sleep. So you always find the way to power through. I feel like the hunger thing might mess me up more. And that's honestly a scenario that happens way less frequently because usually there's something I can, you know, shove in my face in the green room, even if it's just like a snack bar or something. But yeah, no sleep. I mean, it's it's hard. I we had even, oh my gosh, I mean, just really quick, in Australia, this last tour that we did. Australia is so big, like when you tour there, you have to fly most of the time. You fly from city to city because nothing's close. And we wanted to do a show in Tasmania, like New Zealand, uh Tasmania, uh, you know, a small island off the coast of Australia, and um, we had never been there before and we heard it was beautiful and we really wanted to go. In order to pull that off, we had to fly from Melbourne at eight o'clock in the morning. The plane took off at eight o'clock in the morning, which meant we had to be at the airport at you know, six o'clock in the morning to fly to Tasmania, to go straight to the venue, to set up for the show, to play the show, pack everything up, and then the next day we had to be on another flight out of Tasmania at six in the morning to get to Perth for a show the next day. There was no day off in between. This was just show show. And we were sitting in the green room in Perth after that like double travel day, those crazy early mornings, and all of us just sitting around going, like, how are we gonna do this? Like, how are we going to find the energy to do this show? And you know what happens is you go out on the stage and the crowd immediately just they you know, they they cheer and they get excited, and it's they just power you through. You you need like that the adrenaline and the energy that comes off of a crowd in that moment somehow just cancels. It's amazing how it works, honestly. Even if you get on there, sometimes you get on stage with like you're not feeling great, you have a cold, you got a stomach bug, something, and it's like, you know, the show must go on is a very real thing. And you you get on stage and the the audience gives you the health that you need for the 90 minutes or whatever it is that you're gonna be up there, and then you walk off and you immediately feel bad again. But the show carries you through, and it's it's really amazing how that works.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Yeah, it sounds like they just give you that adrenaline you need to get going. And you're right, as soon as it finishes, it all just goes.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Oh, yeah. We got through that show, we walked off stage, we're like, wow, I can't believe how well that went. And then we like sat back down, and then suddenly you have the realization, like, oh, we gotta pack everything up now. You know, we have some crew, we have some help, but we are again very DIY. Like, we really do, like, we we pack our own stuff, we roll our own cases, we we still do all of that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's it's a lot, a lot of work. But luckily, again, the audience usually carries you through. So I'm gonna say no sleep and and trust the audience to get us through it.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

I agree. I think no sleep. I think I think I'm I get very hangry. I think if I if I had no food all during the whole day, I think I I I genuinely don't think I'd be able to do it. I mean, I work night shifts as well, and I can get through them like you know, the next day I don't sleep as well, so it's doable. But yeah, I think no food, I think no food is just is like almost like impossible.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

It's almost impossible. Yeah, no, I I hit a point with no food where I truly like shut down and I'm just like, I can't, I I'm I can't talk to you. I can't do anything. I am just it's over. Like I'm I'm I got blinders on, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Done. Okay, last one. Would you rather listen to one song forever or any song but one time only? Ooh, that's a really good one.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

I've never heard that one before. I mean, I feel like it has to be, I feel like it has to be any song but one time only. I mean, there would be some very painful moments in that where you realize you're listening to something great and you won't be able to hear it again, but uh I am never, I am still, after all these years, so struck by the musical universe is so vast. It's so unbelievably huge that I think you could actually do that for your entire life and still you you'll never hear everything. You'll never be able to hear it all. So uh if that's the compromise for getting to experience it as much as possible, I guess I'll take that over the limited only one thing forever, like comfort blanket. As appealing as that does sound in its own way, I just I wouldn't even know how to pick what song that would be, you know. That would be that would be if I picked that and it was like, oh, what song? That would be a nightmare. I don't even know how I could possibly pick one.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Fair. Because I was gonna ask you, hypothetically speaking, what song would it be?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

But it sounds like it sounds like you can't. I I I wouldn't even even just for me to narrow it down to a top 50 would be so painful. Like I I don't know how I could possibly get down to it just one. Um no, I I won't do it.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Fair enough, fair enough. I mean if you if if you somehow think of one later, then you know we can call it, but that's side sure. I think um I think that is I I I'd be the same though. I think one song only, sorry, any song but one time only, I think is is is the right answer. I don't think there's many many would you rather suppose the right answer, quote unquote, but I think that is that is the right answer because you're just gonna if you listen to one song forever, eventually you're gonna get sick of that.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's just you know, again, the music world, it's one of the most amazing things about it is it's just it's endless. It's truly endless, and there's so much to discover. So I'm all about that.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Oh, for sure. Thanks so much for answering this with your rather questions. Oh, yeah, thank you. That was good. What's the third song then that you've chosen for the full circle?

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Yeah, third song. Um, so now uh getting into more like insane parts of uh bass playing, and this was a big one for me as I was like learning and taking lessons, and the guy showed me the band Primus. A bit of a more like deep cut band, but I think I mean they're they're pretty famous at this point. But anyway, they have an uh a song called Is It Luck? uh on their album Sailing the Seas of Cheese. Uh very not notable Primus song, but uh a really important one for me because this song starts. Uh I'm sure almost no one listening to this is gonna know this song, so I'm going to encourage people to check it out because it starts with this really kind of insane like bass. It starts with just a bass line that is makes no sense. It's this very, very strange combination of notes. It feels like it's not even music, and then the drums come in and it makes even less sense, and then the guitar comes in and it makes even less sense, and then all of a sudden there's this little moment where they transition and suddenly all of them are kind of playing the exact same parts that they were at the beginning, but it's now they're now connected and they lock in and it it's a groove. I still to this day, when I hear this song, I have such a memory of like the first time I heard it and this realization of like, oh my god, there are no any rules that you think exist with how this all works don't actually exist. You can do anything you want, and somehow, as long as you can make it make some sense even in your brain, like it will it will work. Just like a real songwriting as a bass player moment for me that was so huge. I was like, I can't believe that you can play something like this and actually have it work in a pop song, essentially. Wild. And of Les Claypool from Primus is like a strong contender for the best bass player alive uh right now. He is um an absolute virtuoso music musician. Um, he plays the bass like no other person on the planet. A huge, huge inspiration for me as a kid. I mean, I don't play anything like him, but nobody does. That's kind of his thing. He has just invented this other style of playing. But uh really what I took from him as a player is that like don't be afraid to do something wild because you can. There's no, you know, there's no no one telling you you can't strum the strings of your bass with your hand like this, like it's a flamenco guitar, which he does all the time, which is like just not you never learn that in school. But it's like, hey, why not?

SPEAKER_01 40:55

Go ahead, do it. It's cool. Nice. Primus, is it like the third song on the full circle? And interesting, as I mean, who else would you put on that, you know, for discussion as to like the top living bassists of all time at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Um, I would say uh, in terms of overall like influence, I mean, well, Paul McCartney still I think he's been getting a little bit more attention for it in recent years, but historically, I felt like he never got the respect he deserved as a bass player. Obviously, as a songwriter, he is beloved. The bass lines that he wrote for the Beatles records are incredible, absolutely incredible, melodic walking bass lines that you know to this day, every once in a while I'll sit down and try to learn how to play one, and they are mystifying because he does not doing anything that a traditional bass part would do. He is absolutely a genius. He's definitely ranks very high. Uh, I also would say I'm pretty Carol Kay is still with us, right? Carol Kay is um, I think uh yeah, she is. I'm just making sure I wasn't saying the wrong thing. Yes. Uh she she uh is from Los Angeles and she played in the Wrecking Crew, and she basically was the bass player on an unbelievable number of huge tracks from like the 60s and 70s. She is a genius bass player. Uh, I think in terms of overall like impact, as having played on so many big songs, you probably couldn't come up with someone better than Carol K. They are definitely in strong contention as well. But in terms of like a unique take on the instrument of the bass, that's why I say claypool. I don't think anyone has ever done anything more unique with a bass than Les Claypool.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Fair. No, it's good, good to hear your perspective, especially as a bassist. I mean, for me as as a as a listener, I think the first name that brings to my mind is um Flea from Red Lot Chili Peppers.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Flea is amazing, he is absolutely incredible. And you know, again, someone who's not on my list, but uh, or not uh there's no chili pepper song on my list coming up, spoilers for my full circle, but yeah, no, again, when I was a young bass player, the Californication record came out. Oh my god. I that was I was obsessed with that. That was a mind-blowing thing to hear as well. Like those lines, as much as he is also like a figurehead of bass in the community, and he is hugely important. Like Mark Hoppas, actually, I would say someone who really got a whole generation into playing the bass. Huge amount of credit for that, and yeah, a lot of respect for Flea. He is also like easily one of the best in the game, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Right. I've got a quiz. It's called which Wheatus said this. Ooh. So I've got four situationslash quotes. Okay, and you've got to tell me which band member of Wheatus said this. Now I would say, I would say, uh I've probably given you the hardest quiz out of given all the like, you know, but I I wanted to make it a bit different. But uh, this is great, this is great. So we'll do so I've got four. So we'll do the first two, then we'll do the fourth song, and then we'll then we'll finish with the last one and then your last song. Right. This is the first one. When asked, if you were to write teenage derbacks today, who would be Iron Maiden? And this member said one direction would fail. Who do you think said that that that line one direction would fail?

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Uh I That has to be Brendan. I think it has to be. Yeah, because he was so involved. I mean, I I would be I'm gonna say Brendan. Uh falling out the first hurdle. It was Gabriel. Gabrielle said that. Wow. Wow. Okay, there you go. I I I would have because I know like Brendan is so uh, you know, uh he's so in in love and involved with the One Direction fan base from back then. Like I when they started to cover Dirtbag, he got so um it was also a really wonderful time. It was like One Direction started to do dirtbag, and it was this really kind of golden age for Twitter. And Brendan on Twitter started like all these kids started to come to him, and he was just chatting with everybody, and it was like, man, he was he was over the moon. That was a real like great injection of kind of like life and energy into the band at that time where all of these kids kind of wanted to know what we were about because One Direction were doing the song. It was awesome. Uh so yeah, fair enough, Gabrielle. That's that's a good good call for Gabrielle, but um, but yeah, no, I'm I'm uh I'm I'm surprised and ashamed. I'm sorry, Gabriel.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Brend brendon. This is this is this the reason the reason for this part is quite funny. Brendan said Fugazi, and you said it wouldn't fit the rhyme or syllable count.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

That's that sounds like something I would say. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh he said Fugazi. Oh, that's funny. I don't remember talking about that in an interview, but I love that. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Okay. Who said this line? Just to add, it can be anyone, including yourself. Okay. We couldn't be more grateful that dirtbag has made such an impact on so many people.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Oh my god. Oh boy. Uh, that's tough because I feel like that could probably be anybody in in its own in its own way. We couldn't be more grateful. I mean, that could be me. That does sound like something I would say. Um gosh. Oh, this is hard. This is a tough one. I like this. Um was it me? Yeah, it was you. I was like that that that that phrase we couldn't be more grateful, does feel like something I would say. That's great. And I mean it. I mean, it's truly, yeah, absolutely. Um, no, it's it's uh it is a really wild and huge thing to have that sense of like that you've made such an impact uh on so many people just with a piece of music that you that you made. We get, I mean, the I the number of emails and messages that we get still all the time, especially from younger people saying how much the song means to them, and it makes them feel like they are um, you know, in some way understood as kids. Uh it's I'm you know, you could never, you know, again, Brendan wrote the song. I can't take any songwriting credit, but I know and feel the same way is like you can't imagine when you're writing something, even when you want it to be relatable, that not only will it be relatable, but that it will stay relatable for three decades. That's just that's you know, you that's a lot of luck goes into that to feel like it still resonates with with people after that amount of time. It's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

I think it's a timeless song. Like I think it's one of those things where any generation can sort of, you know, relate to it. I think that's why it's sort of stood in the in the test of time, maybe compared to some other songs that are released back then, which maybe just aren't as popular anymore.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Yeah, no, it it definitely it's clear that, you know, for better or worse, I guess, that every new generation that comes up does still really identify with this track. And of course you do. I mean, really at the end of the day, it's about being a kid and feeling like people don't understand you, which I don't I don't know if anybody does not have that experience growing up and and just desperately wanting to be understood by somebody. So yeah, I think it probably will always continue to to connect with some people, but yeah, just the idea that that just happens on its own, and then you're you just kind of experience it. Like we've had the weird experience lately of feeling like the song has seen this new life and been embraced by this new generation completely out of our control. You know, it's not like we did anything. We didn't like it seems like we might have done some big new marketing push or something like and it's just the world now. Like, no, the people kids just people discovered it. I think now it's also the perfect time where like parents are also being like, I remember that song, and now parents and kids are coming to the shows together, and it's it's just amazing that it has um that it again that it still resonates so deeply with um with like the older fans and the new ones.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Oh, for sure. I did, I mean, I hope I hope I'm not talking out of line a little bit because I just want to just ask you something here about this because I saw on one of the when I was doing a bit of research about the articles and the quotes, yeah. I thought I saw a headline, and the headline said, one hit wonder band, we just and I was just like, I don't know, like how do you feel about that? Because I just I don't know, like it's a bit. I mean, it it historically, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Historically, it's not a nice thing to say to a band, but I I'll tell you right now, we as a band are absolutely fine with it. We loved, I mean, Brendan likes to point it out, and it is true, it depends on where you go. In the UK, we are technically a two-hit wonder because a little respect hit number three. Teenage Dirtback peaked at number two, and a little respect peaked at number three. So that is truly back-to-back, like big songs. And in America, we never had a hit. Teenage Dirtbag did not chart at all in America ever. Uh, I think it might have hit the alternative charts back in 2000 for a moment, but it didn't. I we say this to people now, and they think we're being modest or like not being honest, but it is true. Like when Teenage Derpag came out in the States, it was crickets. Nobody was interested. We had a couple radio stations who played it a little bit, but for the most part, it was immediately forgotten. Um the UK, Germany, certain parts of Europe, and Australia were the places where it really took off and people really embraced it, which is why, like I was saying earlier, we've done so much touring in the UK because it's the closest place where people really latched onto the song. But yeah, now it is just it's it's taken on a life of its own and it has nothing to do with radio play or uh a label spending money to get it in front of people. Like it has just done all of its own work. And as I mentioned earlier as well, I think part of it is us touring relentlessly and continuing to put ourselves out there and trying to spread the word in a, you know, ostensibly a grassroots way as best we possibly can. But yeah, no, so it's like depending on where you are, like we're a two-hit wonder or a zero hit wonder. But honestly, if you want to call us a one-hit wonder, I think at this point we are really just and any band we've ever met who is in a similar situation, which we've met a few, the general sentiment is just like, can you believe that we still get to do this? Like, isn't it amazing that we still get to play this music and go perform for people? Like, I don't know how anyone could really turn their nose up too strongly at being able to go and perform original music for audiences all these years later. Like, call it whatever you want, but we we consider it a huge, huge victory.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

Yeah, no, that's that's completely fair. I mean, Teenage dirt bag a billion streams on Spotify. It is an incredible, you know, just even if it is just one song, it's an incredible song and an incredible means so much to so many people. I just yeah, I I I yeah, I just felt like yeah, the wording was a little bit. I don't know if it was a bit harsh, but I was just curious to hear your perspective of it.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah, no, uh, people say it to us all the time, like, are you okay with it or do you have a problem with it? Because again, it feels like it's a diss. And uh some people I definitely use it as a diss, and that's fine. Again, I don't we've boy at this point with our career, I you'd really have to try very hard to hurt our feelings because we've heard a lot said about us over the years. Uh, so that's fine. But yeah, no, I mean it really at the end of the day, like it's a big song. It the song is way bigger than we are, which is an interesting thing to have as a band where it's like people know the the name of the band, Weedus, is generally known, but teenage dirt as a phrase is so universally known that it it goes beyond anything we can do ourselves. Like, like I was saying, like it's out of our control. We can't even move the needle on it ourselves. Like, it is just this thing that is happening, and we are lucky that we are at the top of the we're we're at the very front of the train that it is that's taking us wherever it's going. Yeah, and if if teenage dirt bag is what puts people in a room to hear us play live, and that person leaves that show with even one other song, then being like, Oh, that was really good. I've never heard that before, and that was great. We feel like we've done our jobs, and that I I swear that is how we have survived as a touring band for 25 years, is by making sure the show is quality enough that people leave feeling like they didn't feeling like they didn't know we had other good songs, and now they know, and now they want to check out more, and that's that's how we have survived, you know, up until this point.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Very nice. Right. There are two more quotes, but before that, what's the fourth song that you've chosen for the full circle?

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Fourth song that I chose is now like a back to basics kind of thing, because this was another huge moment for me. I picked the Supremes, You Can't Hurry Love, an old Motown track um from uh Detroit. Uh, this is the bass player on this, talking about like amazing bass players, like maybe my favorite bass player to have ever lived is James Jamerson, who is the Motown session bass player who played on uh Marvin Gaye. You go through everything from the Motown era and he played on almost everything. It is astonishing. That was another great uh so coming off of Primus, where it is like, how many notes can you possibly like too many notes? Like you are just like slamming the instrument. It's virtuosic playing. And by comparison, in a song like You Can't Hurry Love, James Jamerson, it is about simplicity and groove and feel and and and funk. And the lesson there being like, because this is a real thing as a bass player, is like you get you learn how to play, or really on any instrument, I should say. You learn how to play it, and then you want to learn fancy tricks. It's just in everyone's nature. You want to learn how to do, like, if you're drumming drumming, you want to learn how to do a crazy drum fill and do stick flips and all that kind of stuff, and then you learn how to do all that, and then you discover that 99% of the time nobody wants that. What they want is for you to play a simple thing that is supporting a song, right? Because that's what it's about. It's not about some bands are about virtuoso musicianship, but if you're playing pop rock music, it's mostly about supporting a song. And as a member of the rhythm section, as a bass player, drummer, rhythm guitar, your job is just to do whatever needs to be done to make the song as good as it can possibly be. And it's up to you to decide what that is. Sometimes that's a lot of notes, and sometimes it's something very, very simple. And in that song, it is this perfect, simple, but the most like fluid, flowing, just perfect, perfect groove to back up that track. And yeah, the realization that like less is more is almost always true. I mean, if you want to make a living playing music for people, like you have to learn that very early on, or you will not be invited back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Fair fair, no, very nice. The Supremes, you can't hurry, love the fourth song on the full circle. One more song to go, but before that, we've got two more quotes. Can you identify which Wheatus band member said these? Okay. Here's the next one. I'm not gonna give you any context. Okay. The skeleton thing.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

The skeleton thing. Um was that was that Joey? Was that Joey Slater? Yes, yes. Nice. I knew that she would reference that, the skeleton thing. And of course, I um thank you for no context because that that actually was better. I'm gonna go into that with no context. Yes, we played a show uh um at a university. Oh, I wish I could remember which one. It was a university in the UK. This is many, many years ago. And Swansea. Was it Swansea? That that actually does sound familiar. They were trying to set a world record, a Guinness world record for the most people at an event, all wearing skeleton costumes. So it was these like full-body skeleton jumpsuits that every single it was like a freshers event, you know, and every single kid was wearing these. And of course, we got up there and wore them as well, and we played the whole show with these crazy skeleton costumes on, and it was just the most surreal, like from the stage looking out at the crowd, it just looked so I just remember laughing the whole show because it looked so insane. It was like a it was like a true waking nightmare, but in the best possible way. I don't know if we actually broke the record. I felt like they said that we did, but I didn't, I I never saw any paperwork, so I don't actually know. Maybe it's been beaten since that was a while ago. Uh, but yeah, that was a very, very memorable show.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

So I am on the Guinness World Records website right now, and it says right there that the record's been broken. That was in 2011.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

And it's been broken. Who who has it now?

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Oh no, no, no, no, no. As in like, as in like it, we won it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. That's great news.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

No, no, no, that's good. I'm I that's that's a wonderful twist. All right, great. So there you go. So so we are we are part of a Guinness World Record. I wasn't sure if I could say that with confidence, but now I feel good about it. So fun. So fun.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

Last one. Yeah. We don't do set lists at headline shows and haven't for decades. Okay. Okay, that has to be Brandon. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Yes. All right, three for four. That's pretty good. I'll take that. I'll take that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

Very good. And I mean, obviously, the most recent shows where you did have a sort of set list playing playing the album in full.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

We were doing the album in full, but we were still letting the audience dictate the show and call the sequence and stuff. And like we played the entire first record, but we didn't, we didn't actually do it in order. As a a couple nights, the audience kind of pressured us into doing it mostly in order. Although, again, the real problem for us is it's like, because we talked about it. Like, do we want to play the album in in order? And it's like, Teenage Dorpeg is song three. That's pretty anticlimactic in the grand scheme of our show. And then the out end of the album is this song Wanna Be Gangster, which we really like a lot, but it's a very it's a mellow closer. Like it would just, it didn't feel like, you know, when you sequence an album versus a set list, they just feel really different. Like you're clearly shooting for two different targets there. So uh so for us to try to honor our spontaneous on stage vibes while also doing the album in full, we let the crowd pick the sequence of songs, including pulling random ones from other records and stuff. Uh, but we committed and we played the entire first record at every one of those shows, just in the audience, you know, sequence that they picked.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

That's fair. And I like I like that fact that there's uh yeah, that that you allow the audience to dictate it. And I guess that again will always mean that any Wii to show like no two Wii to shows will be the same.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

They no two Wii to shows, at least for headline again, unless we're doing like a festival or an opening slot where we have a very strict amount of time we have. Yeah, no, no two shows are ever the same. I usually like to equate it for people like there are jam bands, right? Who like improv through their music and do a lot of like the songs change from night to night. We rarely are like that. There's a couple songs with little moments like that, but for the most part, the songs are set. So that is our improv. Rather than jamming the material, our improv is that we walk on, we truly walk on stage. I am up there, I have my in-ears in, I'm holding my bass, and I do not know what the first song is until Brendan says it on the microphone. Or he'll sometimes he'll walk around and talk to us. You'll see him and he'll be like, It's like, so I heard a request for truffles, but someone else said hump 'em and dump 'em. Someone else said people. And then we'll we're like, oh, okay, well, that one sounds good. And then we'll decide what we're gonna start with in front of the crowd. And then we never know how the show's gonna go. Um, sometimes, depending on the venue, we don't even know how long we're gonna play because if we have an open-ended show, some audiences push us and we play for two hours, and then sometimes it's we hit like 75 minutes, and it's clear that like everyone's gotten what they're like, okay, well, then that's fine, we'll we'll end it there. So we really just don't know uh what the show is gonna be until it's happening and then over, which yeah, keeps us from getting stuck in a rut on it, and then audiences seem really good at it too. It's like anytime we feel like we're getting close to like a boredom point, someone calls something that's like, wow, that's an insane choice. Okay, sure. Let's give that a try. And it's it's great, it served us very, very well. We love it. Yeah, it keeps you on your toes at the very least.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh well, thank you so much for uh for taking part in that. Three out of four, as you said. Not bad, very good, actually. Not bad. Let's yeah, let's finish the full circle. What's the last song you've chosen and how does that link to the first song?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

Yeah, so the last song I have chosen is I actually picked a Wedus song. And it is an earlier Wii Dis song that I don't play on. This was from the bass player before me who did this one, but it is a song from Too Soon Monsoon that's called I Am What I Is. This is a very special one. This is like it's a great, great bass line. It's one of my favorite Wednesda bass lines in the catalog, but I feel like it applies a lot of the lessons that I learned from those previous tracks. Like I was talking about with Motown and with Weezer and like tone and and and tasteful playing. But the real story is that when I was meeting Brendan and we were talking about me taking this gig, at the time he was mixing this record that this song was on. And I knew I liked Turtbag, and I was familiar with some of the material. I knew I liked the material uh that I had heard, but this I had not heard yet. And I sat in at a mixing session to talk with him, and he was working on this song. And I remember sitting there and listening to this track in the room and just being like, Oh, I really want this job. Like I re I I love, love, love this song. It is still probably like top five. I have to, you know, for me mentally, I have to sort of separate like the Wii songs from before I joined and the ones from after because I just I feel differently about them. But um, that was the song where I was like, Yeah, this is this is the band for me. I want to do this. So that's a it was a very, very important track for me. And I uh still to this day, anytime we play and what I is, it's very like it's a very special song for me to do. And the the connection back, uh funny enough, you sort of mentioned it earlier, but it was the fact that joining Weedus, I have yet to actually meet Blinkwin82. But a couple summers ago, we did share a festival lineup with Blinkwin82. We played in New Jersey at uh something called a Jason Festival, and Blink was the headliner on our festival. And I, even though I didn't get to meet them, they kind of came and went very, very quickly. But that for me, having started out playing Blink to see Wednes on a poster with Blinkwin82 on it, I was like, this is so so crazy. Like in my wildest dreams as a kid, picking up an instrument, I would have never thought that I would be on a lineup with that band. You know, yeah, it's it's just just amazing, amazing to think about still.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

Incredible, incredible. Weetus, I am what I is the last song on the full circle, hence completing the full circle, yay! Yay, we did it! Yes, oh Matthew, thank you so so much. I've really enjoyed this. It was been super fun chatting to you and just thanks for being such a great sport.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

Oh, it's it's been my pleasure. Thank you for having me on. I said it to you actually at the top before we recorded, but you know, uh, everybody wants to talk to Brendan, which is very understandable. But I I don't always get asked to do an interview like this, and it's it was a blast. So seriously, thank you for having me on. Uh and uh yeah, it was a joy. Great way to spend a morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

Oh, thank you so much. Likewise. Have you got any parting words for the full circle of nation before we wrap things up?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:10

Oh boy. Um no, I mean, thank you for listening. And uh yeah, I mean, I guess if I have anything to tell people, it's uh as I might have indicated here, is it's like, you know, if there's something you're passionate about in the arts or music or the creative world, or just anything in the world, like go for it. Um you have to go for it because if you don't try, it's such it's the most cliche advice in the world, but it's also the only correct thing to say, which is that if you don't give it a sincere shot, it definitely won't happen. It might not work out either way, but you have to really try. And don't, you know, don't don't regret not trying. Do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:44

Oh, 100%. Oh, excellent words. Thank you so much, Mafie. I wish you all the best, yeah? Likewise, thank you. How incredible was the incredible Matthew from Witus. What a top, top guy. Now, I completely forgot to record the outro, and I'm actually in my hometown of Coventry with my family because tomorrow, because it's coming out on Monday, so tomorrow, Tuesday, the 28th of July, is my sister Debolina's birthday, who's been on the show before, and she's making a cheek little cameo. Hello, Debolina. Hello. Oh, you sound a bit timid. Didn't expect it to me to actually have to speak so much. Yeah, what do you mean? You're just speaking a little bit. Obviously, you haven't heard Matthew, but I'm gonna tell you, he was great, he was excellent, and I know you're really looking forward to it. Do you want to tell the full circle listeners what uh what we're doing on your birthday? Hopefully, fingers crossed. Yeah, fingers crossed, we're going to Drayton Manor. Yeah, so if anyone is there and uh wants to say hello to either myself, Debolina, or my family, actually don't do that. Well, you can if you want. Yeah, they won't mind, will they? No, I don't think they will. No, no, no. So if you want to, just let them know. Now, I normally end the show for catchphrase. I normally end the show for catchphrase, but you are also because we're from the same family, you also do what I do. I don't uh but I wanted to to let you say the catchphrase. You know, I want you to say the stay safe, don't eat beef catchphrase. I'm just saying it in case you forgot what the catchphrase is. So do you wanna do it? I remember. I was joking. I was joking. Oh my god. Oh, sorry, I was joking. All right, without further ado, how do we end the show?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:21

Everybody, stay safe, don't eat beef.