First Spin

Danny Golden on Sobriety, Austin, and The Big Blue

• First Spin

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 49:54

In this episode of First Spin, Hayden sits down with singer-songwriter Danny Golden for a conversation about his new album, The Big Blue, and the life experiences that shaped it. The discussion centers on the emotional terrain behind the record — sobriety, surrender, grief, creative doubt, and the strange ways music can help make sense of change. Danny talks about how getting sober transformed not only his daily life, but also his relationship to songwriting, performing, and even his own inner voice. The conversation also explores the origin stories behind several songs, including “War Fever,” and where that title comes from.

Songs featured in this episode:

Powerless

War Fever

The Big Blue (Shadow's Song)

If You're Looking For a Sign, This Is It

Great American Novel #2

Hungry Ghost

War Fever - Acoustic Field Recording

Introduction music Blood Sugar Blues by former First Spin guest, Drew White.

If you enjoyed this episode, it’d mean a lot if you left a quick review—it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show.

And if you want to hear more artists worth your time, follow First Spin on social:
📱 TikTok
📸 Instagram

Official Spin Podcast Spotify Playlist

Official Spin Podcast Apple Playlist

Thanks for listening—see you next week.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, hi, hello, and welcome to another episode of First Spin, the podcast that introduces you to up-and-coming artists before they hit it big, so you can say I knew them when. It's been a minute since I shared a new episode, but based on the numbers, it seems like a lot of people took that time to get caught up on the older episodes, so that's cool. Thank you for that. My guest this week is Danny Golden, singer-songwriter, originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, now living and working in Austin, Texas. Danny and I talked about sobriety, his life-changing trip to a famous musician's house in Greece, dealing with sage fright, and his new album, The Big Blue. Here's a snippet of his song Powerless, and then my conversation with Danny Golden.

SPEAKER_02

Joel to wake and think of you.

SPEAKER_00

Danny Golden, welcome to First Been. So glad to have you on, man. Thanks for having me. I came across your song War Fever um probably six months ago, maybe. I don't know. When did you put out the original version?

SPEAKER_03

Uh February or March, probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So okay. So right around that time, I think is and man, it's been on repeat. It's been on repeat over here. I think it's so damn good. And then you released an acoustic version, too.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Thanks. Um yeah, I that was kind of a surprise. Like we had recorded this video playing the song acoustic just as like a teaser. It was really just for like uh an Instagram reel. We made the video, and so many people were commenting on it asking to release the acoustic version that we just we just released it. And that's nice, that's the one that has been, you know, it's become the top Spotify song to my much to my surprise.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, do you have a sense of why that is?

SPEAKER_03

I couldn't really tell you. I think maybe it it just feels organic and and people are connecting with like the the liveness of it is maybe my guess, but you know, like it's funny to spend such a long time making a record and then literally five minutes doing this little acoustic thing, and that's the one that takes off. Of course. But I'm not complaining.

SPEAKER_00

Right. I mean, I for me personally, I go back to the studio version uh significantly more often than the acoustic because I just the guitar work in there and just like the grittiness of it is so great. Um I read something about it having to do with a a phrase uh relative to sobriety.

SPEAKER_03

There's a a book that starts War Fever Ran High is the opening line of that book. And it's it's the beginning of of the story of the guy who who started a very famous group for recovery that you know you're not really supposed to talk about it too much. Like the the yeah. I'm kind of like uh I try to be respectful of honoring the the simple rules of of uh of AA when I'm uh doing talking about this stuff. But yeah, uh like it's not like I personally have no problem talking about it. I I love talking about sobriety and recovery. There are just like a couple rules you can't break with uh with uh respect to that group out of out of uh respect for the traditions of that. But yeah, the the big book of of AA, you know, which tells the story of the founder. And his story begins with this line, War Fever ran high. And uh I was in a meeting one day, and the topic of the meeting was, you know, what do those words mean to you? And I listened to all these people tell their stories, and it mean it meant so many different things. Like the way that people interpreted what what war fever means, and uh it just uh I don't know, it really resonated um the variety of what that could mean. And and then in my head I just started hearing this song and I yeah, started writing the song that meeting.

SPEAKER_00

And so you had come across that phrase uh previously from having read the book, I take it. Had you thought much about what that phrase meant to you, or was that kind of a new question when you were in a group being asked that question?

SPEAKER_03

No, I you know, it's like the first line of the book. So you keep you know, I I uh honestly it didn't stand out to me when I read it. There's there's so much amazing wisdom in in that um in that program. Yeah, it was somebody highlighting that section, which I I yeah, I never thought twice about it. So uh that happens a lot with like in the world of recovery, there are these little slogans and one-liners that you'll see on the walls of the meetings, and it look, and it's so cheesy until you realize how profound some of these simple little sayings are. You know, keep it simple, whatever it is, take it easy, like how much how much power is in these these little kind of tripe phrases. And um yeah, I don't think reading the the book that the opening lines stood out to me. It was only when somebody else pointed it out that I started to think about it.

SPEAKER_00

But it is objectively such a cool lie. Like War Fever ran high is just such a great lie because it what what does it mean, right? Like I I there's clearly no one answer. Um what does it mean to you?

SPEAKER_03

To me, I guess it makes me think of a sort of before and after. Like there comes a time in a lot of people's lives, if they're lucky, when you have a certain you get to let go, you get to realize things maybe aren't as serious as I've been taking them. And I think War Fever ran high. Uh to me it's it's about kind of yeah, looking back on on life in survival mode and from the other side of things and having grace for yourself and for for everybody else with this uh sense of maybe peace that you get once whatever the war is over. But it changes all the time, I think. Like so you know, sometimes people ask me what I'm thinking about when I wrote a song or when I'm singing a song, and it's it's always changing. I think that's as as best as I can say what it what it means to me right now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Do you have people either on social media or or privately um who recognize the line from their own sobriety journeys and are like, oh, it's you know, we're kind of making that connection?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know that anybody has made that connection. Um thinking about it, I don't think so. I mean, I've that song has had a few people just, you know, leave some comments out in the world about their own journey, but not really with respect to sobriety. Um and, you know, in a way, I'm kind of I'm cool with that because I'm always a little yeah, I just don't want to be the person who's like waving the flag as the representative of AA or something, you know. So getting kind of getting away with that feels like, okay, cool. I I don't want to be uh you know using this uh this program or its wisdom in any any way that's uh that I'm not supposed to. So yeah, I'm glad to be that that's maybe flying under the radar.

SPEAKER_00

You released an album about six weeks ago called The Big Blue, and Warfever is on it, along with another uh uh uh a ton of great tracks. That all ten, I think, are are great songs. There's a couple that really stick out to me. Um but sobriety, I think, if I'm understanding correctly, is a theme that kind of got you into the album, and then you explored so much more beyond that once you once you got into that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think sobriety I got sober four four and a half years ago, and it just changes your life in so many ways, and um it it I I think a lot of the album is exploring um the journey to get sober, which is its own thing. It's sort of this like, you know, those first days, those first months, uh that first couple of years. And it never really becomes it's like you're always kind of recovering, I guess.

SPEAKER_00

But um what's that Jason Isabel song? It gets easier, but it doesn't get easy, or it never gets easier.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, Isabel is so great at distilling uh lessons of of that world, absolutely. Um and I think so there's a lot of that on the record, but then life also happens. Like there's there's songs about love and there's songs about heartbreak, and you know, I lost some people that I really cared about in the last few years, and and the thing that connects all of this, I guess, is they were all these lessons in letting go, whether it was letting go of alcohol and drugs or people or the way that I thought life was gonna be. And I think that's a theme that's just like ringing throughout the whole album is learning how to surrender. Because you know, there are things that that you're desperate to let go of and for some reason you can't, and then there are other things that you don't want to let go of at all and you have no choice. And I think some of these songs are about about that struggle, and some of them are about the beautiful things that that I found on the other side um of letting go. And yeah, so I guess surrender and and acceptance, which are keys to getting sober, also turned out to be keys to getting through all these other things in my life. And so all of these songs, no matter what they're about, I think those themes were living in all of these songs.

SPEAKER_00

Was this the first time you had tried to approach writing an album? Because you've been making music for a decade or better, right? Like you've been releasing music for a decade, you've probably been making music for even longer.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. I've been making music for I mean, since I was nine or ten, probably. And I think I I wrote did my first recording all the yeah, over ten years ago.

SPEAKER_00

Was this the first time that you had tried to go into the studio and write an album from a completely sober headspace? Yes.

SPEAKER_03

I think I I used to rely on alcohol quite a bit as a creative tool. A lot to kind of fight that inner critic and and intrusive thoughts and stuff. And that's it's effective till it isn't, you know? Uh same thing with going on stage and fighting the stage freight and all that. And you know, it might shut that voice up, but it's not the solution for me. And what I got to so I feel like I I uh I used to really struggle with um that that brutal inner critic. And in sobriety, I found just kind of a whole new approach to going into the studio and writing. And I didn't feel like I was in a battle with some inner critic in there. I felt like I was I had kind of cultivated a relationship with like my inner best friend, and like the two of us were in there making something we loved, and it was just fun. It was it was it was a beautiful experience.

SPEAKER_00

What was the the inner critic? What what what was your inner critic being so critical about?

SPEAKER_03

I think as artists, like we can beat ourselves up. Like no one really gives you, you know, permission and says when you know, when you're born, like you're an artist, you can do this, you're a writer, you're a singer. Like no one knows for sure if they're any good at this, right? Like, especially starting out. And going into the studio, you know, I could just question all of those things, if what I'm doing is any good, if the writing's any good, if I can sing, you know, like that sort of intrusive thoughts that could be for me kind of debilitating sometimes.

SPEAKER_01

Sure.

SPEAKER_03

And I think where what I got to with like, you know, I remember my first time going into a recording studio and and hearing my voice through a really nice mic without any effects was like it's a weird feeling. It's uh it's freaky. Um and you know, it felt like the the like a fun house mirror or something. Like it was almost uncanny, and and I've always loved performing live a lot more than being in the studio. Um I don't you know hearing things back, it gets kind of weird. There's a really good book called The War of Art. You know, it's uh Stephen Pressfield, I think, is the author, and he talks about it as as resistance, um this force that is just always, you know, getting in the way of your motivation and your belief in yourself. And and uh, you know, for me, a long uh for a long time, my my biggest tool for fighting resistance, I think, was was alcohol. And once I, you know, got got that out of my life, I actually was able to take it on in a way that I made a lot more progress.

SPEAKER_00

So you've like it was almost as though the alcohol was contributing in a way to the critical voice?

SPEAKER_03

I think so. Yeah, I think like it's just it it just put up a wall between me and that thing, and I never really faced it. I just it just yelled at me louder from the other side of that wall. I think of okay, like with performing on stage, you know, I used to have a bit of stage fright, and I still do from time to time, but I had there was this feeling of going on stage and performing for people is really scary, and and I don't know what could happen out there, but um alcohol, you know, a few drinks will protect me from what whatever that feeling is. And maybe that's true, but also sometimes like it's for me like not always making the show better. And um when I got started getting used to performing sober, I it it went from this like scary place, the stage, to this beautiful place. It's this place that's separate from the rest of my life where I get to do the thing that I love. And I went from you know, feeling before shows this sense of impending doom, or that's a little dramatic, but like, you know, that that dread that stage fright can feel like um to just excitement. I can't wait to be up there because it's my favorite place in the world. I love I love making music with with with my friends, and uh I just I cherish the time I get to spend on stage now.

SPEAKER_02

After summer title, the bloom in the cave of light. Somewhere way back down the road shadow behind skipping school.

SPEAKER_00

So you grew up in Pittsburgh and now you live in Austin, Texas. Why of all the music places, you know, most of the people I talked to for the podcast are in Nashville. Um, some of them are, you know, there's been people in LA, obviously, some people in New York. Why Austin of all the places?

SPEAKER_03

Um, yeah, I've been here for I guess over 10 years now. Um my sense of things when I was figuring out where to go, I guess I felt like my sense of Austin was it it's a place where I can go and make the music that I want to make, and it operates at a different pace than Nashville or LA, and I don't necessarily need to like um plug myself into the machine of Nashville or something. It felt like a place where an artist might be able to go and and become who they really want to be. And at the time, my sense of of some of those other cities was like those are machines where you've got to become what they're looking for. And you know, whether that's true or not, who can say, but that's I think that was a feeling that was guiding me towards towards Austin more so than those other places.

SPEAKER_00

Do you feel like Austin has given you that opportunity, that platform to become the artist that you wanted to be when you first got there?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, well, I think I've become I don't know that I am uh the artist I thought I would be ten years ago, right? Life sort of shapes you in all these in these different ways. But uh yeah, I I feel like Austin has let me build a life that I really like and play with musicians that I love. And yeah, it's it's I haven't questioned it. It's felt very right to me. I like visiting Nashville. You know, another reason that I came down here was had some friends that were uh filmmakers and we had all gone to college together, and they were gonna come down here and start a film production company. And so there was just a sort of camaraderie of like we're gonna go to Austin and and try it out as artists, like try going for that life. And uh those guys didn't end up coming down for like I came down first, and it was a year, year and a half before any of them showed up. So I just, you know, kind of dove in and had to figure it out. And that was great because it forced me to just go out of my comfort zone and meet people and and put myself out there. And but you know, part yeah, so part of it was just uh a sense of intuition. Intuition, I guess, of like this is what's calling to me. And you know, I wasn't a hundred percent logical, but I don't know, my life has has often worked out that way. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

So Big Blue, I also read in the little bio on the website about going to Greece and like visiting Leonard Cohen's house and and that kind of influencing the shape of the album. Talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that was I guess two summers ago now. Um I've always really, really loved Leonard Cohen, and um but I was in a moment where I was feeling extra connected to his music and his life, and I had spent I had gone on tour in that spring and was reading uh this really great biography, I'm your man. I think Sylvie Simmons is the author. Um and so much of that book talks about Leonard going back to this this house that he bought when he was really young in Hedra, Greece. And I don't know, I was at this moment in my life, um I just wanted to kinda take a trip, get away, kind of drop off the grid for a second, and I was just kind of just out of a relationship and um yeah, processing, grieving some some friends that I lost. Um and I I had been writing about that stuff and not even knowing I was really gonna make an album. Like I was just right I was it was just art as a means of of processing. And anyway, yeah, I I ended up deciding I want to go to that island and and see what it's all about and see that house. And it was kind of funny. I I got there and it's it's hard to find Leonard Cohen's house on on Hedra. Like it's there aren't a whole lot of signs that tell you how to get there or anything. Like it's it's um you've got to climb these hills and these old like 500-year-old streets. And yeah, I got up there and I brought a little guitar and sat there and I played Bird on a Wire, and I finished playing, and this head pops out of the window, and it looks just like Leonard Cohen, and I was I was like amazed. I and it was his son, Adam, and he was like, hey man, that that sounded great. That's I love that song. It's one of my favorite of my dad's songs. Um but I'm trying to take a nap. Did you get lost? So I can't, you know, it it was beautiful, and uh sorry Adam, but that was a special moment for me.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, how cool is that. I did you know that that members of his family still lived there?

SPEAKER_03

No, I I assumed that they didn't because as far as I understood it, it was it was Marianne's like she lived there until she died, and you know, she's not the mother of of Leonard's kids or anything. So I thought it would might be in her family or something, but no, I guess I guess it's still Cohen's house.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh, that's cool. How long were you there in Greece for?

SPEAKER_03

I spent a couple days on that island, and then I was over there, so I just kind of took the ferries and wandered around to to a few islands. And yeah, it was it was in that trip that I felt like I I just processed a lot of stuff and I finished writing a lot of these songs, and I knew I wanted to make a record, and I I could kind of hear the sounds I want like it just it really like the conception happened over there. Um and yeah, I was I had a really, really magical time, but I could not wait to come home to make this record. And and I got back and I called the boys and and we got to work, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What has the reception been of the album in the six weeks or so that it's been out? It seems like it's doing well by all accounts on Spotify, um especially relative to your previous releases.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, it's magnitude uh more popular, whatever word you want to use than like I I've put out music in the past and and they're you know, I have some friends and family and a small, small group of of other, you know, fans out in the world that are into it, but this record I've I've just never had numbers like this. And it's it's cool. It's cool, you know. We did a little release tour and to see people coming out to the shows that know all the words that like um that's new and it's it's really exciting. Yeah, I I yeah I'm proud of the album artistically more than I've been of of anything I've made before and and and to see people connecting with it. It's especially after doing this for for you know 10 years, it's kind of surreal. It's it's beautiful and and I'm I'm really trying to appreciate it uh you know as much as I can. It's it's it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00

What has that process been like of just kind of keep chugging along over 10 years when maybe you're not quite getting the uh notoriety or the listenership that you were hoping for? Like how do you get back up and say, okay, we're gonna do another album, and maybe this will be the one that you know does something?

SPEAKER_03

Um, you know, I never I've never thought of it like as if they were like flops or anything. Because when you're starting out, it's just like you don't have an audience, you don't really deserve one yet. Like it's just like you get better, and but for me I do it because I love doing it. And and making music and writing songs and performing live and occasionally playing instruments for for other people's bands that I love, like it's it feels so meaningful to me. It's it's what I want to do with my life. So um that's like success to me is like as long as I get to keep doing that, I'm I'm really happy. So the fact that this record is suddenly becoming like relatively popular, like is is the cherry on top. You know, it's it's not necessarily if that's what you're chasing, I think you can have a hard time because it's gonna feel great when you get it, but it's just not always gonna happen. And if you're sourcing your your well-being from that, it's gonna be a trip. And I know that too, like even the course of putting this record out and having singles do really well and have singles do okay, I could start to feel that sense in myself of when I'm making that what this is all about. Ooh, that's not that's not good for me. Like that's that's that's not it. Yeah, so for me, I've never uh I haven't felt like um anything but small incremental progress in the last two years, and and it's I've had to be creative about how I make it work, and that's it, you know. I think being an artist is is an honor and a privilege, and and however however you get to do it, uh you know, uh no two artists' paths are remotely similar and uh you know and it's had its its ups and its downs, and it's been a great ride, but I've I've appreciated getting to do it the whole time.

SPEAKER_00

It opens with the song Hungry Ghost, which I think is an awesome song. Have you watched Margot's Got Money Problems? No. What is that? Uh I think it's on Apple TV. It's a it's a based on a book, it's a TV show with like Nick Offerman and um oh, what's her L Fanning. Okay. Um anyways, she part of the premise of the show is she starts an OnlyFans, and her like OnlyFans name is Hungry Ghost. Really? So yeah. So as soon as I saw that, I was like, oh, I wonder, I wonder if there's a connection there. I don't know. Maybe there's something to do on social media with that. No, I didn't uh I didn't know that connection.

SPEAKER_03

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um, so I really like that song. Obviously, War Fever is great. Um the other song that really, really jumps out at me is Great American novel number two. Um, it's got a real Tom Petty vibe to it, which I you know, I I'm a massive Tom Petty fan. So um anything that kind of hits that Southern rock Tom Petty thing, I I'm all about. There's a line in it about little elves coming to get you. And um I'm I've I love that. Where's why elves? Tell me about writing that song.

SPEAKER_03

Oh man, I you know, some of these songs took a really long time to write, and some of them just like came really quick and I didn't question it. And that one was a yeah, a pretty quick one, and I don't know, it was it was uh some of it was describing some surreal kind of psychedelic experiences of of sort of past experiences, but I don't know, I was reading a lot of um like this this album is inspired by you know a lot of musical heroes, but there's a lot of stuff that I was reading that really um that really inspired the record. And I was reading a ton of Thomas Pinchon. Um he wrote Mason and Dixon and and Pineland and um anyway, they're just all these like really kind of surreal like uh moments in those books. And so I think that just sort of it but they're serious and they're profound books, and but so reading those, it kind of opened up my mind to like, you know, it's really fun to mix trying to say something with adding bizarre, surreal, hilarious little moments too. So yeah, it's as much as I can like explain that song. I don't know. I don't like I love that one too.

SPEAKER_00

I just think there's so many great, like obviously there's the Moby Dick references and all of that, but there's other great kind of just pop cultural and musical references. There's the line about you can call me out, you can call me the breeze, which like you know, two wildly different songs, but that same you can call me at the beginning and connecting those two together, I think, is really cool.

SPEAKER_03

I think that song is like it's a bunch of lines about trying to find I don't know, meaning. And you can find it in so many different places. It connects to a lot of the other songs of like, you know, I used to think I had this thing figured out, but I uh now on the other side of it, I realize I did not.

SPEAKER_00

And I I feel like the older I get, the more I realize that I have less and less figured out all the time than I thought. And quite frankly, so neither does anybody else, right? Like nobody, nobody knows what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03

Like that's it's so interesting because I feel like when we're young, we assume you know we're gonna get older, we're gonna get wiser, we're gonna understand how it all works. And and maybe whatever our our passions are, our careers are, we're gonna figure out how to do it and it's gonna be easier and easier every time. And it turns out that's not really the case. Like I just saw an interview with Bill Frizzell, the the jazz guitar player, who's like, if anybody is a master of their instrument, like he would be on that list. And he's talking about how, like, yeah, you never really like I still feel like I'm figuring it out every time I play. And you know, that was such a a revelation for me to hear somebody like that say that. It's like, you're still figuring it out? Okay, then then that's how it works, I guess. Like, we're all yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Keith Richards says something similar in his book, right? Like, which, you know, at 80 some odd years old, Keith Richards is like, I'm still learning things on the guitar every day. It's like, how is that possible? But it's I think that's what's so cool about it.

SPEAKER_03

That's the beauty of music, yeah, endless discovery. Like you'll you just will never have this thing down. It will always be giving you gifts.

SPEAKER_00

Another song on The Big Blue I love a lot is if you're looking for a sign, this is it. There's a line in it when you're looking for freedom, sometimes what you get is loneliness. I want to hear more about that line because I that really stuck out with me. Um but I'm curious as to where it came from for you.

SPEAKER_03

That line I had in it written in a notebook many years ago as just a little, you know, a truth and something that I wanted to find a way into a song. And I think this, yeah, looking for a sign, like that one I wrote in Greece a lot of it, a lot of the lyrics. Because I before I went on that trip, you know, I I I traveled halfway around the world by myself in the midst of like all of these life changes, and I had this feeling going over there of like, what am I doing? I didn't think this through. Like, I'm about to this might be a terrible idea. Like, I don't I and I've had this feeling before a few times, enough to know that like I had it when I first moved to Austin when I was driving down at age 22. That same like I didn't think this through. I don't even know anybody down there, and I had it the first time I went into the studio to make a record. All these like threshold crossing moments, right? And and so feeling that again on this journey that ended up being so important to my life, which is this like this kind of pilgrimage to to Cohen's house and and to Greece, I've kind of learned that that feeling of of of panic, it's usually the precursor to some of the best things that will ever happen to you. And I and I think that thinking about that is where this song came from. Like if you're at one of those moments of all is lost, just hold on, because something great is coming.

SPEAKER_00

And it's a lesson that you know is I think difficult for a lot of people to learn. And a lot of times you a lot of times you bail uh, you know, prematurely. Oh, yeah. You're heading towards something great and it's scary, and so you jump off.

SPEAKER_03

And it's so true, like what we were just talking about. It's like even though I know that I'm gonna find myself in that situation again of feeling that thing, and I'm not gonna be confident that this that it's gonna work out. You know, I'm gonna think, well, this is probably the time where it doesn't, and I'm gonna try and find ways to abandon ship. And sometimes you can, sometimes you have no choice. But it's the same thing. It's like we're always we can learn these lessons, but then in the present moment, we're it's always a mystery.

SPEAKER_00

It's not all of Nebraska, but there's a lot of Nebraska on it, and it was kind of I was it around the time the movie came out? How did that come to be?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it's uh I guess it's most of Nebraska. So I was I was out of town. I was uh in Beauford, South Carolina. My dad was down there. He's my dad's on this uh sort of journey. He he he bought this old boat that he's been fixing up. So I went up there to to go help him, and I got a phone call while I was up there from a uh British CR agency, and they said, Hey, we're doing the marketing for the new Springsteen movie and we want to do an activation event in Austin. Can you play Springsteen songs? And I was like, Yeah, sure. Okay, they're like, Great, great. Can you play it's it's for this new movie, and we only have licensing for the Nebraska album. Like, legally, we're only allowed to play those songs, and we've asked a few people and they don't know. And I was like, Oh, I know those ones. I I know those ones very well. And so that was like on maybe a Thursday, and the event was on Saturday, two days later, and I didn't have a guitar, so I spent a couple days just you know revisiting the album and kind of imagining playing it in my head, and then I came back here and showed up and just it was so cool. They they built a recreation of that that uh the house where where he recorded the album. Like they it was uh uh an old shipping container, and it had like the the tape machine, and it was it was decorated like that bedroom where he he recorded it. So and then they they had it parked on South Congress here in Austin, and it was, you know, like this this activation event. To promote the movie. So for me, it was a dream. It was like I got to go in and kind of inhabit that spiritual space where Springsteen, who is a hero of mine, like made this record. And I feel so connected to that particular record because that was his. I think he was maybe 30, 31 when he did that record. And it was, you know, life caught up with him. He couldn't outrun whatever, depression, all these things. And he kind of wrote his way through it with the Nebraska album. And like, lo and behold, I was in the middle of doing that myself with the album I was making. So I felt I felt very spiritually connected to it. And yeah, to just get to sit there all day and live inside that record was so cool. And I I had no idea they were recording it. Then on Monday, I got an email. I was like, oh cool, let's let's put it out. Why not?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's great. Did you have to go through any like licensing stuff to like be able to put it out?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but it's pretty simple. You know, you go, whatever, the Harry Fox agency does a lot of that licensing, and it's it's pretty inexpensive to get uh permission to to do it. So I I didn't have any problems knock on one.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. I love that. Um, so you've got a show at the Continental Club there in Austin at the end of September. Any other you said you did a little run to support the big blue when it first came out. Any other plans to tour later this year?

SPEAKER_03

Um, yeah, we're putting together some some dates. We haven't announced anything yet. Um but for now, yeah, September 26th at the Continental Club in Austin. And we'll have some fall dates in Austin and probably around Texas. And then next year we'll get we'll get back on the road, hopefully, like early spring is the plan. But hopefully in LA. Nothing ready to announce yet. I hope so, yeah. Yeah. We played at Gold Diggers a couple years ago. I really loved that range. Oh, it's walking distance.

SPEAKER_00

I I I literally live like you know five blocks from Golddiggers. So the last section of the podcast is called Final Spin. It's just rapid fire questions. First thing that comes to mind. If you could share a stage with any artist, living or dead, who would it be?

SPEAKER_03

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00

Uh Bob Dylan. What was the first album you owned that was just yours?

SPEAKER_03

Uh Grateful Dead, ladies and gentlemen, The Grateful Dead. I think it's like 71 or 72 at the Fulmore East.

SPEAKER_00

They're making a biopic about your life. Who's playing Danny Golden?

SPEAKER_03

Oh god. Um plays Danny Golden. Uh I couldn't tell you, man. They should have. You know who I really like is I just saw a movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman's son, Cooper Hoffman. He's a really great actor. Let's have him play me.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I didn't I didn't know Philip Seymour Hoffman had a son that was acting.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, he's been just a couple movies now, but I've just loved watching him on screen. I like I like I like his vibe. So I want him to play me.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Um, is there an artist or a band that you love that people would be surprised by?

SPEAKER_03

Surprised by. Um there's like a lot of electronic music that I really like. I mean, one of my favorite artists, consistently, you know, my Spotify top artist is Fortet. Um you know, you definitely wouldn't know that from listening to my music.

SPEAKER_00

And then the final question is who's an artist with less than 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify that you think people should be listening to?

SPEAKER_03

Oh man, my favorite artist that I discovered this year is Thomas Dolbaum. Um he has got a record out called The Birds of Paradise, I think. Somebody sent me a track in January, and it was like I I couldn't stop listening to it. And then he put a new album out, and it's doing well. I think he got signed to a label and he's been touring with some some bigger indie bands, but yeah, he's currently my He writes songs in a way that make me want to be a better songwriter. Like he's doing things that I don't hear anyone else doing that that really just yeah, uh makes me excited to to write songs again.

SPEAKER_00

That's great. So, well, speaking of music that I can't get enough of, Danny Golden's the big blue, man. It's just fantastic.

SPEAKER_03

Uh thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks, thanks for doing this, man. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, this is a great chat. Thanks, Aiden.

SPEAKER_00

Danny Golden is playing the Continental Club in Austin, Texas on September 26th. And as you heard, he's working on more shows, so keep up to date with his social media at Danny GoldenTune. And while you're there, follow the First Spin socials at first spinpod. That is all for this week. Thank you so much for listening. And you know what? Send this to your mom. I think she's gonna like it.