Hometown Sound: Richmond’s Butcher Brown on Jazz as a Language, Tiny Desk, and RVA Roots #031

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In this featured episode - Tennishu, Corey, and Morgan of Butcher Brown join us to talk about how they work: jazz as a shared language, the role of trust and collaboration in a five-piece band, and why they design live sets with intention. We cover their path from Richmond venues to national placements (Tiny Desk, Monday Night Football), how front-of-house shapes what audiences actually hear, and their production approach to a genre-agnostic sound.

Butcher Brown is a genre-bending quintet that’s been creating music together since 2009. Widely celebrated as one of Richmond’s premier creative music acts , this band brings together top-tier talent: Morgan Burrs (guitar), Corey Fonville (drums), and “Tennishu” (trumpet, saxophone & vocals) are 3 key parts of the magic. Their sound flows effortlessly from funk to jazz to soulful hip-hop. 

With 2 appearances on Tiny Desk - NPR even praised Butcher Brown for “scoffing at the limitations” of genres. They’ve repped RVA on the world stage when they covered Little Richard's classic “Rip It Up” for ESPN's Monday Night Football in 2020. With their musical innovation and hometown pride on full display, Butcher Brown embodies the soulful, creative spirit of Richmond, Virginia

We also get into Richmond’s influence—the VCU pipeline, house-show history, and the city’s current rooms—plus the overlap between rap and jazz, streaming/label realities, audience shifts, and what’s next for the band. If you want a clear view of process, performance, and the scene that built them, this episode delivers.

Quick interjection to invite you to Vera House Studios. If you are a local Richmond business, entrepreneur, brand owner, or service provider—and you know you need to create better content to get your products and services in front of the right people—we can help.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome back to the Verahouse Podcast. Today, Richmond's very own Butcher Brown is in the building. A genre-bending quintet that's been creating music together since 2009. Widely celebrated as one of Richmond's premier creative music acts, this band brings together top-tier talent. Morgan Burrs on guitar, Corey Fonville on drums, and Teneshu on trumpet, saxophone, and vocals. They are three key parts of the magic. Their sound flows effortlessly from funk to jazz to soulful hip-hop. With two appearances on Tiny Desk, NPR even praised Butcher Brown for scoffing at the limitations of genres. They've repped R.V.A. on the world stage when they covered Little Richard's classic, Rip It Up, for ESPN's Monday Night Football in 2020. With their musical innovation and hometown pride on full display, Butcher Brown embodies the soulful, creative spirit of Richmond, Virginia. They just released their new single at the end of last year titled Hours After, and right now they're getting ready for their upcoming show on January 24th at the National. Butcher Brown and Nate Smith with Plunky and other special guests. We couldn't be more excited and grateful to welcome Marcus, Morgan, and Corey of Butcher Brown to the show. So what's up, fellas? Thank you for being here. Glad to be having us. Yeah, really appreciate it. So right before we started recording, I mentioned like a little story where I went to go see jazz for the very first time. And it was an experience like it was. You know, I think people think they know what jazz is until they go and like watch it and actually experience it, see it, listen to it. And what I noticed along the way is it's. Like highly technical, you know, I grew up as a wannabe wanting to be in a band. I'm not a musician like everyone else in this room. But I can have a huge appreciation for watching jazz and seeing the drums and how like all the different musicians riff off of each other. And it's truly just like the essence of improv. So for anybody listening to this, how would you explain jazz music to someone who's never really sat down and listened to it before? It's like, I would say it's like verbal music written down. Like if you just did the music and then came back after the fact and wrote it down, that's what it would be. So it's, you know, so for example, like when I, when I was watching, I found myself like watching the drummer and then watching like even like the eye contact between the band members and they're kind of referencing each other to see what's going on. Now, of course, you have recorded music and you have tracks that you perform. But when you guys are just playing and even like when you were first beginning, like what were you looking for as a jazz group to see, like how that chemistry worked out as like friends and musicians like playing together for the first time? I mean, I think first and foremost with making music, you got to get along with each other. You got to like one another. You know what I mean? It's like a nonverbal conversation that's happening. You know what I mean? And so, you know, sometimes certain personalities just don't work and you can hear it, you know, or, you know, you go into a situation where they just try to put like an all-star band together. And oftentimes, in my opinion, doesn't sound very good. because these people don't know each other. But when you put a bunch of homies on stage together, whether it's a trio or a quintet, quartet, it just feels like, oh yeah, you can tell they boys. You can tell they're all friends. They get along. They know each other's jokes. They laugh at the same stuff. It's just this chemistry. Inside jokes that just happen in the moment. You know what I mean? we'll catch each other's like, sometimes we'll hook up on some phrase. It's almost like you're finishing each other's sentences. Well, like we do that too. Like it's, it's, it's literally the same thing. And I mean that, I mean, you know, we've all heard that music is universal language and, and, It is a language that you have to learn how to speak and do all of that however you absorb the music. So it really is that. We do complete each other's sentences and we laugh and stuff and we complete the phrases they're about to play. And that's super important in jazz. That's more than you know, more than more than a lot of other styles of music for sure. Like, because a lot of it is just, you know, kind of riffing off, communicating with each other, not like non verbally and, and all of that. Um, you know, yeah, that piece is good. Yeah, it's almost like, like, poetry in some way, you know, it's like, you could read like one poem, And you're like, what is this structure? What is this? Or like, what's going on? You can read another poem, and maybe that makes sense to somebody, but not somebody else. It's a really fascinating style of music. Yeah, I think I didn't really know that that was a part of it. Like you mentioned your first time seeing a jazz show, and you just didn't know what was going on. It's kind of the same for me. But I like music. So I wanted to try and appreciate it. I wanted to analyze, you know, I'm an analytical kind of a guy. So I like to take it in, break it down. But with jazz, I was breaking it down in reference to a typical song structure or the typical structure of a show or a band where every member has their part of that song. And jazz isn't really like that. So you kind of just go into it and you have to forget about all of it and just experience it for what it is, because it's always going to be a little bit different. and that little bit when you get in there and you're like, man, I didn't think I was going to like this, but this is amazing. You can't really put a label on it. It's hard to describe, but people who don't really know music, people who are professionals and people who are in the middle, they can all have that experience when you go and see the show. I was like, all right, I get it. I see what the hype is about now. You know what it reminds me of? At least when I play with Butcher, It reminds me of like the and one mixtape tours. Those guys will get out there and just improvise the whole time. Just get creative. No one was, no look passes. You just dropping dimes, throwing hoops, just doing your thing. I could just hand it off to Marcus. We may call an audible, hey yo, lay out, or I'll just drop out and it might just be drums and bass. It's like, there's just endless opportunity. None but space and opportunity. But when there's trust. Yeah, that's the thing is the trust. You can see the chemistry between people on the stage. The musicianship is one thing. There's you all are super talented. And when you play with different musicians, everybody has their specialty. But like that, I know, like, for instance, like, if you're playing, I know you can or you know, you can stop playing for a minute, and Morgan's gonna pick it up. And then Tennessee is going to finish it off. And then you're going to jump back into the song where it began. maybe two or three minutes later, and everybody's like, mind's blown. But you didn't plan it, but because you all know each other, it sounds like you just did it without thinking it. So much fun that way. Yeah. It's cool, man. It's very cool. It's fun. It takes a lot to get there, but like... Once you get there, you can develop that same relationship with all kinds of musicians. Which is, that's the fun part to me, is just having that secondary mode of communication. So we could communicate verbally, like with English or whatever language, or we could just play music, because we both know it to that same degree. And we can use it emotionally. We can use it to send messages. We can use it to make fun of each other. And it's all nonverbal. For the most part, it's all just musicians. Like we were, you know what I mean? We went to school. We've been doing it since, you know, I've been playing music since I was 11 and I'm 40. So like the, you know, just. Being able to recognize like a bass player beating up a drummer as a trumpet player to me, it's kind of like, no one else sees that, dude. You've been doing this for a minute. But it's like, I can tell he's antagonizing, like, bully boss. Being in that, it's almost like knowing another language and going to that country. You can see things that you wouldn't be able to see if you couldn't speak that language. Yeah. I was actually gonna, I was asking, I was thinking about that rather. when you are on stage with a musician that maybe English isn't their first language, but you know that they're talented, they know you're talented, and maybe you're going into it with some sort of structure, but there's gonna be some improvisation. And the language that you all share is music and the ability to just to freestyle, to go with the flow, maybe throw some jabs or some alley-oops your way and have them pick it up. And then at the end, maybe they're not any better at English, but you all understand each other more. I think that's super cool. I mean, they would read charts, but still. People just locked in, you know? And it just, it's crazy to just be able to do that. It doesn't affect, the ability to communicate with music is not affected by anything other than the ability to communicate to music. So it's kind of like, this person could speak whatever language, be from the farthest point from where you are or whatever, but if you could speak music, then, it's going to be you're going to lock it immediately. Yeah. I think one thing to point out is like in jazz and at least what I've picked up just from listening to all of you and also just learning about the genre is that it's different from other genres where you guys have like many projects. You work with all types of like different musicians and different artists and different projects and different bands. Can you maybe speak to that a little bit? Like where does Does it come from that exploration of language, almost like different people with different styles, with different instruments? Because I guess it's different than just a band, right? It's not like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, where you go hear their top 10 songs and it's the same thing every time. That was one big thing that stood out to me about jazz and just this whole genre in general, is the huge variety of collaboration that goes on within the genre. Yeah, I mean, you know, even from jump, like when you're learning, when you're on whatever scene you're on, when you're gigging, rhythm section players, I mean, a lot, like, you know, the drums, bass, guitar, piano, but like, you know, same for horns. It's like, you're getting calls, you come play a gig and you don't know anybody there. And it's like, all right, we all know, what songs do we know? And I mean, that's kind of part of the spirit of like, it's really hard to do it without kind of accepting that spirit of collaboration, because it's just that at the core. I mean, to me, like, and you know, we have a band that we all love doing. And it's like, to me, that's, that's what music is the best, like, because we can all do way more together than we can, you know, individually or the five of us. And, you know, so, so from the jump of just, just getting on the scene and learning, learning how to be a jazz musician, that's just one of the lessons you learn is just like, you're going to be on a gig somewhere with somebody you don't know. And yeah, they might be foreign or anything. And it's like, you got to like, you know, figure it out, figure out what you know, like figure out what, where y'all intersect with each other versus like how y'all are different. Just kind of figure that out. And yeah, that's, that's a heavy part of the spirit of it for sure. Yeah. And so that all started for all of you here in Richmond. You mentioned going to school for music. Did you all take a similar journey and did that journey start for each of you here in Richmond? I grew up down in Virginia Beach, Tidewater area, which I went to go see jazz down there when I was a little kid. There were guys playing in the area that are notable musicians from down there. But when I started coming up to Richmond, it just opened up a little bit more because of VCU being here. I didn't go to VCU, but that's how I met everyone that's sitting here and in Butcher. Because there was just more of a music community, like an area that you can go see things, like whether it was over there. The Devil's Triangle, or was it Cary Street Cafe, or The Camel, or Strange Mad? Yeah, yeah. Just those old spots, man, and it was so cool to see that in live bands. But anyway, yeah, I mean, there was always the avant-garde scene too, I feel like, back in the day. I used to go, my boy Billy Williams, who's a great drummer, was playing a lot around here with tennis shoe when he was just playing trumpet, Alan Parker and Matt Hall. It was like Bogarts. Bogarts, that's a throwback. Yeah, yeah. Richmond has always, it's always had like the art stuff, like high grade. Like it's always just been like people who, Bogarts and Cafe Deum were like examples to me of like when musicians It was about making money to pay rent, but it was like, we're still going to, it's still going to be cool. And like, we're still going to take it serious. And that would funnel into like festivals like Bonnaroo and funnel into all the other stuff. Cause those dudes would come hang out at DM during the week when it wasn't festival season. And then when it was festival season, that's the band that's going to... So it just kind of created these, like, these, these, like, orbital paths that really blew up small things. So you could walk around the city and you would have, you know, you'd have a cool coffee shop that's having, like, jazz in the afternoon. And later that night, yeah. And then, like, later that night, there's a DJ at this thing and, like, Or there's a bar that's got a bunch of mixologists and they're just having this dude play trumpet and do some DJ tracks. And it's like, he's doing it because he wants to perform, but he's really doing it because he knows everybody in here. This is like a hidden community, more or less. And if you hang out long enough, you'll be hanging in that community too. And then now you're plugged up with glassblowers on Lombardi. you're just doing all this stuff that's just like, it's just Richmond. The Yerb House was another one. They used to have these house shows, bro. And I had never seen that before until I came up here. It was like, it was so punk rock. So like, just gritty. We know about the house parties. Kid was wearing Sambas before Sambas became cool again. Fixed gear bikes and then Yerb House. Yeah, hipster town, man. Valiso, R.I.P. Valiso. Yeah. That's why you could really get creative, man. So much music. It was so much, because you had a dude that was just a rocker. He was just a dude who just wanted to rock the boat, like a life rocker. Yeah, man. He was thinking about music. He just wanted to throw some rocks in the dryer and see what happened. He was the one in charge of the music, and he was also lit. So he was on the like folk festival committee. So he was like in charge of a lot of different projects that brought a lot of different things together. And he was curating the music for Balasor. So there was a big run there when Balasor had the baddest music, had the biggest crowds, the baddest bartenders, and it was just a spot. It was a spot right there. And it turned into like, and I'm like, that's cause Chris was bringing all that music in there. And all these people coming from all these different angles were mixing and mangling. And they're like, you were at that show? I wanted to go to that. And then like, now you, And he had running series, you know, poetry, music, dancing. Like, it was just like a period where there was a lot of people who really cared about the quality of it or in charge of it. And they put it together and it was like a huge thing. And Richmond just like always has had that. There's always been killers in that way of like, we're gonna have this going on, we're gonna have this going on, we're gonna have this, and then it's just like this quiet hub bubbling. Now it's at the point where everybody knows they're putting Carmack's part. Yeah. Secret's out, man. It's so funny because like kind of circling back to the jazz thing, like anybody that came up, I think at least from my perspective, playing jazz here, you were pretty well versed in other music too, because you know, jazz wasn't the biggest thing here. So you were playing funk gigs. You know, that's what's kind of, musical chameleons. Yeah. You need to do what you had to do, right? You want to stay relevant. And also it was fun to play at gigs. Switch it up if jazz is like your mainstay, like where you usually play shows is in the jazz format. Then somebody says, yo, can you play drums for this rock group, maybe some covers, maybe some originals, just to get a little exposure. But then you're mixing it up, so you get an opportunity to play a different rhythm, different format. It's important to be versatile, man. I think first and foremost. Be fluent in multiple languages in music. It's a good skill. Also, it's going to feed into the other, if you're focusing on jazz and you can play the other stuff, it's going to feed that. It helps you form your own sound, your own musical identity. You ever watch a Drumeo? I'm sure you have, right? Like some of the best episodes of that are like jazz drummers covering like heavy metal songs, right? It's so cool. I love watching those, man. They've never heard the song before and they go up there and they just play, you know, and they just open their ears up and just get creative, listen, because that's really what's key in this music is listening. You know, learning how to have a conversation, not stepping on each other. You know, just reading, you really have to breathe the room. We're real sensitive when it comes to that. Yeah. I'm curious what you all think about it nowadays, talking about Balaso and talking about, it was the hub for a while and it was the hub because everybody was putting all their effort into one place and they cared about the music, they cared about the atmosphere, they cared about like the bartending. So the good cocktails, it was a good space. So it was always nice to just be there, even if it wasn't a show, like the food was good. So good chefs were coming in there. There was good service. So you can go there pretty much whenever you wanted and have an incredible experience. And it was unique in that way. So that was like the spot. That's like the only spot like that at the time. And now it seems like little bits and pieces of that are just kind of scattered around the city. But I'm curious from y'all's perspective as musicians, you know, are there pockets of that still? And you know, if you want to spill the tea, where are they? The Reveille? Yeah, Reveille. I think Reveille has pockets of that. Ooh, Tom. Especially when there's like jumping shows. Cobra has elements of that and it has that edge. But yeah, it's just too scattered to really concentrate that because it just like that was I don't know what I like, that was in a period of my personal life where I spent like every day in there. Cause I was in multiple bands, I was playing in there. And so like one of the bands had like a system discount where we would just like, no matter what you drank, your tab was this much money. I was like, well, yeah, it's because we had like a line around the block every time we played in there. And we were also playing a bigger room during that time. So to play a bigger room earlier in the month and then come to there and you got a line around the block, it's kind of like, oh yeah, you guys are good. It's just that going on, I'm like, the thing that made me want to go there was just like different parts of the experience would make you want to come back, the food, You know, the show might not have been that good, but that burger was killing, so I want to go. You know what I mean? Or the show was killing, so I want to go see another show. Or they're having a DJ thing back there, and it was like a girl back there I want to talk to. It was just like, every time you thought about it, there was a different thing about it that was attracting you to it. So there's always a reason to go there. And I'm like, I just don't, I think all of the venues now have their own vibe. And so like, when I want that vibe, I think about like, oh, I want to go to that venue because it'll bring me that vibe. Yeah. It was actually the Reveler. And you just went recently, right? Yeah. Actually, it was cool. I went to your Christmas special with you and Andrew. And I can't remember the name of the piano player. Justin. Justin Coughlin. That was... A game changer. I didn't know what to expect, again, going to a jazz show, but I've seen you play before. And I think it was my second time at the Reveler ever. And my mom has been wanting to go. So I was like, mom, let's go see Corey play. It's a Christmas night. I know you'll like the vibe. She loves jazz. y'all just blew it away. You played one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, the Peanuts theme. And then you just stretched it and twisted it and then brung it back. I was just blown away. It was so good. I mean, that's the spot, man. All of those Virginia Beach mutants. They're just that good. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, like I remember when I started meeting those guys and it was literally like that. It was just like, whoa, crazy. They could play. We couldn't play. Like I couldn't, we were more into the, like, you know, garage band, go, just, just, just go out there and just do it kind of thing. So I was like, I didn't really know anything about music at that point. And then to run into these dudes, And it's like, they sound just like the records. And I'm like, I have never heard these instruments sound like that. They had that professional, like, sound, you know? I'm like, you guys are only like 18. How'd you get that sound like that? That's how much they've been playing. So the reveler's the spot now. I think so, man. Like, it, I mean, I was, I wasn't around for the, the prime Balaso days. I was just younger. I was like in high school, but, um, After that, they had the few venues like Poor Boys in Florida, whatever. They were still trying to get music in it. And there was still some good shows happening. And then after that, it's probably some stuff. And then at one point, Brambley Park was having a whole bunch of different types of bands, and then some changed over there. And then it was like, Hofheimer was super jumping and they had the three rooms or they had the roof and yeah, and it was like and it just feels like you know, a new spot just pops up Cove happen and then whatever and then like now we're just always like revel a plan and Tom's really Tom like I mean you could really like actually make some money there like make loot like it Tom's been like just real real good about getting people in there and like, you know trying to make it a good experience for the bands and stuff. So it's that. That spot's been cool, man. It's a lot of different types of music. I know they're gonna, you know, expand who they're bringing and stuff at some point. And it's just, it's a good experience, like, to take mom to or take your girl to. It's just kinda, I mean, people are looking for jazz now, like, take it back. It's like, it's different. We got this whole other, Butcher has this, like, alter ego called Time for Jazz. And that, It's really fun. It's just right on the nose. You know, it came from that meme where he's like- Snoop drunk? The Snoop one. He's like, he's 40 trying to rap. Nah, pack it up. Time for jazz. Oh, pack it up. But it's just like, you know, we've been ready for this. And I feel like I've noticed, I don't know about y'all, like our peers, their ears are starting to mature a little bit. They don't just want rap. They want a different experience and it's just like, oh man, we've been here. Now I'm noticing younger people coming out. It's more diverse, which is great to see. People just want a new experience too. It's like, okay, cool. I can go here and hear the same 10 songs that I'm going to hear as soon as I get back in my car, or I can go experience something fresh. Probably all of us have had someone come up during a butcher show and be like, this was my first jazz show. And I'm like, well, what did you think? And they were like, it was amazing. And I'm just like, oh man, okay. Cause like, I feel like there always was a little stigma, like jazz is the music everybody hates. It was out there. No one goes to that section of the record store. Well, and I think it's because people don't know, like, it's kind of why, how we started off this conversation. Like, I don't think people either they don't know what they're signing up for or they actually don't know how to appreciate it because they don't know what to look for. And they don't know like what the experience is that they can expect. And I think this is my opinion, right? But I think the truth is all of it. Like you get a little sexy, you get a little fun, you get a little dance and you slow it down, then you speed it up and it's all of the above. So it's like this whole you know, cohesive, like listening experience. And that's kind of the point is like, you don't want to have like a specific expectation going into it. You just want to know, I'm going to listen to some music. I'm going to see some talent and I'm going to hear all different types of things and different instruments that I'm not hearing in rap music. And we were just talking about this. ASAP Rocky came out with like a new single or a couple of new tracks, totally different than like his normal music. And I think it speaks to what you're saying. Yeah. And it's like, you can tell. I love rap music, but maybe it is that time where like, all right, people are maybe getting kind of like burnt out and tired of hearing the same shit all the time, you know? And I love rap music, but I agree. Like sometimes I'm like, all right, I just need to like take a break from this. Something different, man. It's like food. You know, we eat chicken fingers for the rest of our lives. It's something different. Yeah. I mean, it's hard too, because a lot of the rap music that you hear has all these other components in it. You gotta have like the star power, you gotta have like the brand associations going on in order to get to those super visible places. But that's like, the actual rap music stuff is like, to me, like the most creative rap music exists in the same world as all the other types of music, like Schoolboy Q's album. The Kendrick stuff does in a little bit. That stuff kind of sits in like blockbuster movie land now. It's not really like, it doesn't go into the other genres. It kind of just got bigger. With Tyler, the creators, his vibe, in my opinion, is like, He's like a person that steps into a lot of genres, but he's just so lit. It's turning into a feature kind of film kind of situation. So it's just not... The thing I think is just like, there has to be more awareness of the Sminos in the world. There has to be more. And that will break the wall down because there's a lot of similarities between rap music and jazz music, but they've just kind of been permanently separated. And so it makes it With jazz music, it makes it hard because I think the things that made rap music attractive before it got flooded with streaming, it's the same things that are bringing people to jazz right now. And it was just so blocked off and so separated that you can't really see that it's the same thing. Like, the Migos triplet thing is the same thing as the Elvin Jones triplet thing. It's the same thing. And they're using it the same way, but it's just with different curtains on the wall. It's triplet. It's all the same thing. And like, Elvin Jones took that rhythm and made a whole sound out of it. And so did they, they did the same thing. And I'm like, it's the same thing. And I'm like, so in my mind, I'm like, you know, there has to be, and the same thing happens in jazz, pop music, all of this stuff. It just has to, there's certain stuff that gets pushed and then there's certain stuff that doesn't get any attention because it's not, it's not easily pushable. which is not a good thing or a bad thing. I think that that's just how the commerce and the music intersect with each other. But like, if that awareness could get to the consumer, I think that would make a much more rich listening experience. Cause there's a lot of records out there and there's a lot of artists. that don't wanna do the commercial dance, but they make records that really will connect with a ton of people, and they just don't get the look, just because it's not, it's like, we can't spend labor resources on it. We can't, we just can't, because it goes against these people's job, and we'll lose the money, and we gotta fire people if we don't do what we think is best. But on the flip, this person's about to get ignored, and they would smash this. You just gotta be willing to gamble, and y'all don't have the room to gamble right now. I guess that's part of like the collaboration, too, of like, yeah, like being, you know, a solo jazz artist or collaborative jazz artist, you're like looking for these opportunities to bend genres and participate in other things like Monday Night Football or a movie soundtrack or a rap song or all of the above, right? How did the Monday Night Football thing happen? That was through Concord. Yeah, label records. Somebody at ESPN, I think, was a fan of ours. Somebody over in the music side. Just happened to like Butcher Brown. When it got brought up, were you guys immediately like, we're in? Pretty much. It was during COVID? During. Okay. This was like fall 2020. Yeah. Okay. No vaccine. None of that even was a thing. We were just like. Just in the house indefinitely. Yeah. Looking for stuff to play with. Yeah. And we had like an official thing like that. It was like, oh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Giving you some excitement. It's such a weird time. How was it received? Did you get any feedback from like peers, from people online? It was such a weird time. Cause I feel like everybody was just dealing with their own personal stuff. So it was like, I think they were like, yeah, it was cool. But then it was done. It was cool. There was a lot of people that would reach out and say, I saw the commercial again. Or like the neighbor across the street from DJ. He always used to get on me cause I'd park in his parking spot. And you know, when he get off work, he want to park his truck, you know what I'm saying? But then one day he would come over and I thought he was kind of be like, we need to get these cars. He was like, man, we just saw the commercial. We just saw y'all on TV. This what y'all been doing in this house, huh? And I was like, yeah, this is what we've been doing in this house is recording and working and trying to get that. when you did that. So did you all get together in a studio? We got, we got together at Devon's house. And I mean, we had been recording remotely. I mean, we were basically like just accepting we were in each other's bubble or whatever. Like, I mean, and obviously we're going to do that. So whatever. But yeah, to get the best results out of it. And we did some extra stuff at home, like too, I think, or we might've sent stuff back, like after the initial session started recording at home remotely, but like, um, yeah, just, together bringing out there's actually we did a few versions um there's a there's one version that we did that sounded very uh sauced out cultured it was fly um but uh and they were like it was too good it was too good too crazy it was too country too like you know it was just too like It would have been a great commercial release, like if we were really gonna just step out and do a record with Little Richards Estate. But since it was going on TV and doing all this stuff, they were just like, that's a little too... They're not ready for that. I mean, real quick, like that was a situation where, you know, having, being fluent, cause like, they wanted Chuck Berry. They wanted like boogie woogie, like shuffle rock, like old 1950s rock. So it's like, you really had to put on this other hat. It wasn't about us being Butcher Brown. It was like, no, we're acting, we're playing a role right now. And so I remember Morgan had to play Chuck, be Chuck Berry. He didn't know the jazz language that existed in 19-something, 1980, between 1980 and 2000, whatever, right now. It was prior to that, he had to stick in that little timeframe. And same with me, because they wanted this very specific thing. I feel like that right there, like explaining that is like very close to like talking about the essence of jazz, right? So like being the artist who can like pick that up and being like, yeah, I can pick that up and I can do that. You know, whereas like, yeah, maybe maybe a different typical artist in another genre wouldn't do that. They wouldn't bend genres or go visit some other style and pick it up and say, yeah, I can definitely pick that up, learn it, enjoy it, riff with it, and we can come up with something cool. You know, I think it's a good way to like Yeah, it's like the gateway into jazz, like helping people understand that it's, yeah, like, so of course you guys call yourself a band, right? But it's almost like a, it's like a collective. It's like a, it's like different than a typical band. We're producers, band, it's kind of a lot of different hats that we wear, you know, we're all like just creative in our own ways. So are you guys pretty hands-on in like the production process? Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, it's all, I mean, we get like real in, you know, we'll record our records, we'll schedule a big session, like, you know, four, five, six, seven days, whatever. And then we just, we do get real into the mixing, but we also like love our engineer, like, which is Alex DeJong and, you know, Adrian, another buddy of ours has mixed a few of them, but like, we kind of just get into all phases of it rather than just like play everything and then I mean, we want the music to be 4D. You're hearing a really well-engineered project. You're also hearing all these different genres and whatever, and genres will close. Because I think the ethos of the band is just like, we just do what we we want, whatever we're into at the time will inform what we're doing. Like we're going to go in the studio again. We don't know, we don't know what we're doing, like, you know, but we're going to, whatever we're listening to the few weeks before, like right now is what, you know, you guys know what the hell is going to sound like. Don't ask me that. I'm curious about this dynamic as like more of a collective and not a traditional band in a lot of ways. Cause y'all have your own projects. Y'all come from different backgrounds. I know you've been like playing together for a long time. And we're talking about how being really close and knowing your bandmates and knowing how you all play together, it has a lot to do with you all being able to riff and freestyle at a live show. I can imagine that it wasn't always like that. So this is a two part question. When did you all find that groove, like find your groove together? Like if you can remember that point in time, maybe you all just started playing, you only played a couple of shows together and you realize, all right, we're still kind of figuring it out. And like, when can you say like, all right, it's clicking now. And then, you know, you guys got a, you have a lot of talent all in one sitting. Who calls the shots? That's such a good question. I mean, it was always locked from the beginning, I think. I mean, we got lucky. I think you just found your tribe. You know, there was like multiple different bands inside of Butcher Brown, like DJ Harrison and Andy used to play trio a lot with Tennis Shoe, like jazz trio, DJ on drums, Andy on upright. You know, I've done trio gigs with Morgan. Devon has played drums with the Randazzo Big Band. It's like, and this is going back to, you know, damn near 2012. You know, even before Butcher Brown became like an official thing, it was like, Cass was still in the same ecosystem. So when we decided to actually make it a unit, it locked in. It wasn't really no... Because we were listening to a lot of the same... We were sharing music. We each were like, hey, yo, check this out. This is what I'm on. We would just sit around and hang and play video games and just turn beats on and vibe out. So it was real organic. And I knew it was special because I'm not sure if this happens all the time, where you just find some homies, y'all get along, y'all like to, you respect each other, and you actually are curious what the other person has to offer. It's not an ego-driven situation, which I know is probably rare. Yeah, it feels crazy rare. It just doesn't. You know, no disrespect to any of the other artists that I work with or any of that, but like, you know, this is kind of, it just has that feeling to it. It just has that thing of like, oh, this is so free that it unlocks what I can do. Like, I don't even know what I'm about to do because I'm in this super comfortable situation that was put together through like teamwork and through sacrifice. And just the fact that we get to go do all of these different things, not as the typical, we're not in a typical position of the musicians that are on our, in our kind of peer situation. We're out here under artists. that we created, more or less, and turned it into an organization that's going to take us and do all these things. So it kind of provides a vehicle for us to go travel and be a part of these different things, as opposed to trying to get there by yourself. It's all me, me, me, me. It's more like, oh, let's just come work for this company we made and be a part of it. And then we'll all just go do this stuff, whether we, you know, have the numbers or not. We're in Butcher Brown. Oh, right this way. That's pretty cool. Richmond's a unique place, man. Like it, you know, I moved to LA two and a half years ago, so, but I'm still here a lot and do all of that. And, um, Richmond's not an industry town like New York or LA or Chicago, whatever. So it's, Not talking about any of those places, but what happens is, here, people that are doing music are just trying to do music. It's not cart before the horse. oh man, I need to get rich off of this," or whatever. It's not a bunch of people in music that don't do anything. There is everywhere else. It's really just people that love music that are doing it for that sake. Of course, we're all trying to figure out how to live off of it. I don't think this band happens in New York or LA because there's too many other things to be involved with. you know, pulling everybody in other directions, and the rent is a bunch, so you do got to go freelance. Like, it's just, you know, for this, it was just like, this all made sense for us, musically, and it scratches that, like, creative itch. And it is not common that there's a band that took that, you know, as well as calling the shots, I guess. to just have a band where it is five equal parts and go down to the contract or whatever, but also it's just like, we all just give. And it's not like if everybody else is making suggestions and I don't have anything that I feel that my ego shot, it's just like, we just go the way that the band is feeling. It really is just like kind of full collaborative effort in that, again, it's just not a common business model right now. Usually it is a band is the person in front, really, and LLC is him. And I was talking to someone in LA and they were asking about Butcher Brown. And it was just like, yo, so you like, you like in it? Like, I mean, they like show you love, like you ask just about like, you know, recording stuff. And it's like the mentality. It's all of this bro. Like it's They think Butcher Brown is him. I just want to give him a hug, man. I'm just like, no, man. It's cool, man. It's not even like that. I'm one fifth of Butcher Brown. I'm not Butcher Brown. Maybe it's like a Richmond thing in a way. Because it's not as commercial. It's not like a big commercial project. Like, yes, it's an organization, a company, business. It helps you guys make a living. But it's like this organic thing, too. So yeah, that's like, yeah, probably super rare. That model worked for a lot of different bands that got pretty big, a lot of different studios that got pretty big. Some of the bands have got pretty big. Talking to some of the lawyers that work around here with some of the artists, some of the bigger artists, they split all of their paper. And I'm like, well, that's the only way you can stay big. If everybody's getting paid, yeah. It's gonna be a band for a long time. But the situations where you got, I'm not trying to say anything bad about anyone's business model. You gotta do it how you do it. But generally, you know. If the pies aren't getting split, that's just a reason for somebody to become not a part of it. The salt is real. And the salt, you know, it's just like it is in real life. It'll eat through your car. That's why you don't really have classics on the East Coast like that. That's a good point. Is there anything you guys had to unlearn along the way? like set up processes or music habits or even like decision-making. Is there anything you had to like unlearn that you could think of where like, man, along the way we had to like stop doing that. Is there anything that comes to mind? I felt like. I felt like when I joined the band, I came, I dropped out of school, like to do the band basically. So yeah, it was cool. I was, I was hype. When I came into the band, it'll go back to the jazz combo. There's a lot of stuff that you learn about jazz, classical music, just music in general, when you're in music school, there's ways that music's been looked at for years and whatever, and there's a whole bunch of like, you can't do this, you can't do that, like jazz is this, it's not that. And this all contributes to the convo that we have about people not thinking that jazz is this or this. And when you ask the question, it's like, to me, jazz is more than you know. Jazz is a whole bunch of stuff. And you got people that are pulling up instrumentals on YouTube and listening to samba and bossa nova stuff. And they're like, yeah, I like that. And it's like, yeah, that's all. It's always all been a part of all of it. And jazz has always been fusion where there's mad genres and mad influences from wherever going on. So when I joined the band, I had to kind of unlearn a lot of that. I had to just shift my focus. I started getting into production and everything, and it's like, all right, turn off the jazz chorus, bro, or whatever. You got to kind of think of music from the wider scope that you know, because you've been doing freelance gigs around town and playing smooth jazz and playing whatever type music, too. So I had to kind of just widen the scope. And I learned a bunch of whatever other stuff from school. I learned a lot of great things going to VCU, too. But it's just like, again, for the band, but coming into the band, whatever, how my thoughts have formed, it's just like music should be inclusive. It's more fun for me to find similarities than things, rather than the differences and similarities between genres and similarities between whatever. The spirit of jazz music and the improv and everything, we play a lot of different types of music. We just try to take that spirit and kind of spread it, just put it through our lens. So that's why we're still playing jazz. It's all jazzy, Jason, and whatever. no point in yelling at somebody that it's like, that's not real. It's like, come on. You know what Miles Davis would be doing right now if he liked what type of music? Like he was already going towards the crazy fusion, crazy craziness. Like, you know, it's just, it's always going to evolve. I think that that's how we look at it. You know? Playing original music, I think it's helped me find my own voice. Like this band has helped me like Not sound, because you know, you don't have the opportunity to create your identity if you're just always doing somebody else's gig, because you're playing by their rules. This is how they want you to play this song. But in Butcher, it's like, nah, we do what we want. This is how I feel today. All right, cool. I may want to play more simple today, because that's the mood I'm in. But it's like, nobody's going to look at me funny. It's like, we're just able to explore and try things and be creative. You don't get that opportunity if you're like, you know, And people got to do what they got to do. But if you got to be a side musician, you just don't have that moment to like, oh man, let me experiment with this today. Let me try these pedals out and see what happens. Hey, I'm going to play this guitar today or these cymbals. Nobody's going to be looking at you crazy like, where's that ride cymbal that you usually have with the sizzles? Right. All of that stuff just gets erased. And it makes it a much more creative work environment. And you know, we have the luxury to do that. But at the same time, it's like playing your own original music, being able to get creative with that with a bunch of professional musicians that are good freelancers. And then being able to go back to the freelance thing and being like, oh, this song that we're about to play. Yeah. They want you for you now. They want you to play what you were playing with Budget. And it's like, but this is a cover band. I'm not going to do that. That's not what we're doing. But then it turns into like, oh, they want to play this country song where we have some joints that I feel like this would sound good in there. And then you can beef up the covers because now you've been messing around with the sound. And it all, it's just like buckets that keep pouring into each other. But it's because we can do the high-powered stuff together as friends under our own rules instead of like, oh, you're out there with such and such, or you're over here, so you can't play around like that. But we go up there. We're going to mess around with all of the stuff of that song, and we're just going to make it up. Nobody can say what they're going to do before we go on stage. Yeah, that's a good niche. We stopped calling set. We don't even have a set this halftime. Yeah, we don't even have a set halftime. It's just like, we just run in isolation playing basketball. All right, cool. Open run. What are we doing next? You guys got it dialed. We were going back to one of the points where it was like, how did you know it was locked in? For me, it was like when we were on tour with Kamasi. We had the clock and we were getting really into playing. 45, 60s, and 90 minute sets. But we wanted to get it to a place where we start exactly on time and we end the last song exactly when it was done. We got it to a place where Devon would literally be playing the cowbell on the last song and would point to the clock. 46. Thank you. That's actually insane. Yeah. I mean, I think about other bands that have like a set time there. That's not even like a thought across their mind. Like they're not looking at a clock or a timer in that way, right? It's just like, yeah, we're just trying to have a set time so that we don't go too far outside of our window. It's not like a tempo instrument. It's like, you know, so that's actually pretty insane to think about. I mean, we were open. So we had to be respectful of the headliners. These people came to see Kamasi. I mean, maybe a sprinkle were there for us too, but it was like, yeah, it got really fun though, because we didn't feel like, oh man, we're not able to play our whole show. We were like, nah, if it's 30 minutes, we're going to give you exactly 30 on the dot. Yeah, that's a 30 minute adventure. It'd be a 60 minute adventure. And I'm like, that ability to do that to me is like, That's what you use the music school skills for. That's where you juice it. But with regular people, it still has to be in service of the regular person because Like you were saying, it's gotta be a wide net to include as many people as possible first, and then let them decide what parts about it they don't like. Because I could frame it in a way where it would be unlikable. I could frame it in a way where it's likable. That's just because I was spending mad time with it, just like a mechanic. They can tell you something that'll make you spin or not spin. But that's their skill. That's not my skill. I don't like this. I ain't buying it. I don't want this. And it's like, okay, if you don't like this song, just know that like, you know, just because you didn't like that song, let this one hit you in the same neutral way and figure out how it makes you feel when you're listening to that song and decide if you like that song then, as opposed to saying, I don't like this song. I'm not going to like the next 10 songs. That's the part where jazz becomes like, oh, you need a case-by-case basis. Because this one could sound like balloons, and the next one sounds like inferno, fire. But if you write them all off, you miss what you actually like, which is the unicorn joint. After that. You got to take the ride. Miles Davis says something along the lines of, it's like a buffet. You just take what you like. You just take what you like, and that's it. That's great. I like that. Yeah, it's real good. So I'm curious, you know, we talked about before we got on the show, we talked about some venues in town and, you know, status as they are now, you know, over the years, you played a lot of different venues, venues that aren't here anymore. Some venues that are here, some are more, more popular than others for different reasons. And I'm curious, you know, you got the show coming up at the National. Nate Smith, Plunky, and a couple of mystery guests that are maybe joining the lineup, which I know y'all are pumped for, I'm pumped for, I'll be there. Mike is, I'm gonna bring, I'm making sure that he's coming. He's gotta come. He's gonna be there. Is the National your favorite venue in town? Ooh. I haven't played there enough. Okay. I mean, they got an insane, the green room is sick. Yeah, yeah. That's one of them. They got the pool table back there. Little bar in the back, VIP bar. Seen the hot tub? No, I didn't know. Oh, yeah, yeah. Is it hotter than Ashley? If it's still there, I think they moved it or took it out. There used to be a hot tub back there for the headliner. Someone said that. I think that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. It's crazy. It's nice. I mean, it's a beautiful venue. I mean, yeah, venues are so, because it's like every venue is different. I mean, sometimes you want to play a more, you want to play an intimate spot like Reveille. I feel like National and the amphitheater, like the, you know, the new amphitheater, you know, there's like the big ones where like a big act could come. Whereas like a big act couldn't go to Reveille. You know what I mean? I don't even think you could do an Unplugged in there. The Independent in San Francisco, they do Metallica private shows and stuff in there, because it's still big enough where you can have that, but there isn't that type of venue. somebody like that could come, like J. Roddy could do, like, just an acoustic set. Right. Just to get him on the piano. Or something simple like that. Like, I don't think he could do that. I mean, it jumps from Camel to Broadbury. That's kind of like the, and that's a big discrepancy in like the amount of bodies. And I mean, That's one thing. I mean, I think Richmond does like probably like that, that kind of, cause I do like those size thingies. Like, I mean, independent, like 930 club, like, yeah, yeah. The smaller 930. Yeah. Like, um, But the national, I mean, you know, it is kind of what you're looking for. Sometimes, like, you know, we play, like, a little private house party, like, the other day, and, like, it's just, sometimes you want to do that, too. I don't get to do, like, cocktail hour, like, kind of whatever stuff, like, as much anymore. And part of me does, like, still crave some of that, because you kind of just crave the different types of experiences. Nationals fly. I mean, Nationals and Reveille fly. What about like Gold Wing? Gold Wing. I like that spot. That's like a low stakes spot. You can mess around in. That's a good vibe too, because you could just come in there, get a drink and leave. It's very transient, which is, that's a good place for it to be transient too. There's a lot of stuff over there. That was the first spot last year, 2025, when I realized that what you were saying earlier, like, people our age or your audience that are around the same age, their ears are maturing and they're looking for that now. They don't always want to go to the bottom or go to a club or go to a game room or whatnot. Every time I've been to Gold Wing since the first time, like near when they opened, it's a mixed crowd, but it's more young people than it is people that I would have assumed wanted to go and see jazz or sit at a cocktail bar. It's kind of like the grown and sexy, but for people in their late 30s, 40s, maybe late 20s, growing into 30s. I think that's fantastic. I'm a big fan of that juxtaposition. You would see people in their late twenties, maybe 10, not even 10 years ago, they didn't want anything to do with a cocktail lounge. They just want to hit the club and go to a drinking festival. They want to have that Project X experience. But now you've got people that are my age and a little bit younger that's what they want. The bars where you can go and play games and take shots, that's cool and all, but let's be real, it's a little played out and some variety is well overdue. That's what people want. Everybody don't want to have a drink in their hand and somebody bumping them or the floor's slippery, man. Off the slippery floor. I mean, it's a vibe too sometimes. I remember one time we was at Gold Wing, I think you were playing and they had the little sign out there that said Live Jazz. There was these young ladies just walking by, I don't know, in their 20s, and they saw the sign, and it was like, Live Jazz? I just was like, oh, this is great, man. I just love to see that because it's like, yo, man, this is a cool alternative. It's just for younger people to go out, have a good time. Maybe they want to get dressed up a little bit, feel fancy, get a nice little drink. The service is going to be a little different too. I don't know, treat yourself, and you hear some new music. Yeah. Yep. Well, it's almost like, you know, I think there's a nostalgia for just like history and the way things used to be too. And I think Jazz speaks a lot to that as well. For sure. And, you know, not to go on a whole tangent about like social media and all this other stuff. That should help though. Yeah. TikTok helped. Oh, I bet. Blue and Green went viral at one point a couple of years ago and all these kids were sharing it and Miles Davis. Yeah. Well, and it, you know, it's a hybrid. It's like, you know, it's two totally different worlds, like, you know, conjoining or converging in a way. Yeah. And, you know, places like Goldwing are kind of an example of that, like people have this nostalgia and this like desire to have a different experience than what they're used to. Different than the typical like go into just a regular bar and either like it's music over the speakers that's super loud with football on on the televisions, right, or whatever. There's a lot going on. Yeah, whereas like you could go to Gold Wing and maybe like the maybe the reason you went there wasn't to listen to jazz but you can go there and then that's a benefit or a compliment to the original reason you went there. And then you discover like, wow, that was a way better experience than what I was gonna do. You know? Right. Yeah, that's a big thing in Richmond. That situation is always like, oh, what I was gonna do is not as cool as what I'm doing now. I'm like, yeah, that's why we need to have them bars sprinkled throughout the area, the events going on, because you find stuff that way. And there is a lot of cats in Richmond that'll walk through the fan on a Friday or Saturday night just to go see what's up. And if there's a bunch of cool stuff going on, they'll pull up in there and spend some money and kick it. And I'm like, that all strengthens the scenes because, you know, walking down Boulevard, you'll be able to like, in my mind, I'm like, man, what if they did like First Fridays up here too? Like they did it down there and then expanded it up here to where Diamond's at, where Nsuboka and all that's at. And stuff like that, you know what I mean? That's just gonna bring more awareness to jazz, to Gold Wing, to whatever's going on. Because they're like two separate sections of the city and everyone's already doing that. They're just not doing it in the same place. And it's still, you think of those places as too far away to connect. And I'm like, man, what? It's 10 minutes now, traffic. Oh yeah. Well, and you mentioned you moved to LA two years ago. Yeah, two and a half. So what's it been like for you, leaving and then coming back and seeing all this development in just the past couple of years? Yeah, yeah. There was only like one pocket where I hadn't come for like a few months, but luckily I wind up here like every three months or something and I'll just come kick it. That's what I'm doing right now. I'll just come see my mom. So as a group then, what's it been like to like kind of see things rapidly change like over the past, you know, handful of years and how has that impacted like music? I think it's been weird. It's been weird in a good and a bad way. Just kind of going to all these major cities and like, leaving being like, oh, well, we don't have that here. Coming back and it's like, oh, we do have that. Barely, oh, wow. And just seeing all of these things that have been in all these places for so long, now they're here. Like the scooters, me and Devon and Andy were riding scooters in San Francisco before they were in Richmond, and then we came back from tour and they were in Richmond. I was like, oh, wow, okay. So we just gonna be like everybody else, which is cool. But it's definitely changed the music in a way of like, Richmond used to be a lot of like black painted stages with like neon green, neon pink gaff tape. That to me was like Richmond. It's like, this is where you go if you wanna play and you wanna just like stand in front of the people and play and show them what you can do. It's not really commercial. You're probably gonna have to leave to get linked into that. Or you could just stay here and work on your skills and just like, hope to run into that. But this is like ground level, like almost like Fight Club for musicians in a way. So you're going to play all kinds of genres. You're going to play in all kinds of venues. You're going to meet all kinds of people, professionals, otherwise crazies. And they're all just going to love music and production and bartending and, you know, all the other stuff we like to do. I'm just like, that is kind of insane. It's insane. Was Alleycats still around when you guys first started playing music together? You remember Alleycats? I remember Alleycats from some other stuff. What you never played there though? Yeah, I mean, it was Balaso. Browsers, Camel, Joint. Yeah, this is definitely more like the jazz vibe. But as soon as you said the pink and green tape, I'm like. You thought about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like, you know, like, Strange Matter. Strange Matter. Yeah, house sound guy, he's got an attitude. Yeah, you know. That stereotype of the grumpy sound guy had to start at Strange Matter. Like, nationwide, it was that dude. It had to be, because like, everywhere you went, after you went to Strange Matter, it was one of those guys that was just, Former rock star was in a band that split up eight times, wears a black hoodie 24-7, has a busted pair of tennis shoes. is really good, but you never want to work with them. That is absolutely a thing. 1,000%. I will say, because there's going to be some engineers that are going to be mad if I don't say this. We love our engineers. A lot of the venue engineers, when you run into them, they've just been dealing with bands that have just been getting wasted, drunk, high. all day, and they were supposed to follow a schedule that was sent out weeks ago, and they didn't do it. You know what I mean? It's, I will say, as much as an attitude as the soundman, and that is a thing, that is absolutely a thing, but as much attitude as those soundmen have given musicians and bands and artists, bands have given him, right back at you. Their hands are made engineer drives. Horrible. There's a reason they're jaded. They're impossible tasks sometimes. And like, I definitely, you know, I have a soft spot for like front of the house guys at venues now, because I understand, you know, man, you don't, you don't know anything about this group. They showing up either late, you know, being, being assholes to them. Like, you know, You might be excited about doing this job at first, but over time, it's like, all right, man, I've been getting punched in the face every week by some random band that I never heard of, and they're being jerks. After a while, you just get jaded, and then you're just like, all right, who are y'all? We've all snapped on them too. Like, you know, sometimes it just is what it like. It's like, all right, bro, we got to get something done. Like, I feel you, bro. Like, you know, like, so we've all snapped, but we definitely, and we've been, we started traveling with Engineer like a while ago, just after we did a Europe tour when we met a bunch of, you know, where we just had to, I need a new sound, man. I was so stressed. So you got some stories from the Europe tour? Just, man, they don't know us. Americans love bass. Yeah. And so bass is its own engineering monster to handle. Like it's a separate section of the mix almost. And so, you know, a lot of the rooms are also in buildings that were built before they had like HVAC running through them. So there wasn't a lot of like acoustical uh, you know, thought. I don't want to say that because, you know, it makes it sound like they didn't, they wasn't thinking about it. They just weren't designing the building for that. And so like to then have shows in the room, it makes it difficult when you don't have someone to manage the actual profile of the band sonically. Well, and like jazz has a lot of unique instruments that maybe aren't in those venues every night. And it's just like a compounding problem over time. And that's kind of partly why I want to be like, yeah, they are annoying, but at the same time. That relationship is so wonky just because you have a venue owner. Well, I guess not no more. You have a regional manager from Live Nation, but they'll be breathing down the engineer's neck about the decibel levels because sometimes these venues are in buildings where they're sharing residents. And so they're like, we made an agreement to stay under 85 decibels. It's like, yeah, you did, but you also made a push to get your marketing. and your band profile higher. So that means you brought higher quality bands, which unfortunately are louder. So you have to retool your whole entire business. The guy you fired when you bought this whole section of this business, he knew all that. That's why this business was worth buying. But, you know. So we are not talking about a mid to high tier venue in the general vicinity of this podcast. Well, I don't want to say that. Because it's like true and untrue, but like it all affects those little things like what the genre is, what musicians play where, and it's so, it sounds like... You know, it sounds like someone, sometimes that argument can sound like someone just getting really particular about something, but I'm like, that engineer's attitude is gonna shape the whole night. Because if no one brings a sound man, he's gotta do three different bands, with three different profiles, three levels of organization. One guy sent his whole chart. two months ago, he's got to dig it out the email because that guy was so early. Not a bad thing, but it is what it is. The other guy never sent it. And he's the headliner. So I got to fight with his manager. And it's just all of these things that go on. Shout out to the sound man. That dude would be on some Superman. They are the sixth person, especially R. It's art, right? So it's like, you gotta trust that person, you know? And it's like, you might be showing up with the paintbrush and all the different color paints, but it's like, that guy needs to bring the canvas. And if it's the wrong canvas, it's like, it doesn't matter how good you are, I guess, right? It's literally, bro. We'll play a show and like, we'll be like, man, we smashed it, bro. It was crazy. Like, you know, just feeling great. Somebody in the crowd is like, bro, I couldn't really hear the kick. Like, it's like... Man, right. That was the worst feeling ever. Oh, man. You up there giving your all. And then all of a sudden they're like, hey, the bass. I couldn't hear the bass. I'm like, bro. I was wondering why y'all were looking at me sideways. You don't tell if the audience isn't responding. Clearly, because when we would do them opening dates, they would normally turn our sound down a little bit. We started breaking our person. Oh yeah, that room was going like this the whole time. And you saw everybody getting loose. Yeah, that's how I discovered the venue owner putting pressure on the front of the house, because the engineer would come back there and be like, oh man, they're screaming at me to turn it down. I'm like, who, the audience? and how to manage it. Because that shit was lit. You got to keep this down. I'm like, oh, so they'll literally influence this. They'll be like, oh. Yeah, because they're probably going to get heat from the managing manager of the headliners. Like, don't let your opener outshine the headliner. They had a tough tour. This is the last stop. Let them have the win. She ain't really trying to deal with a bunch of, you know. Right. And we got the bass knocking. Right. That's a big thing, too. I think that has a lot of influence over how well your show goes. I learned that after DJing for almost 12 years at this point, but it was a while before I understood that dynamic. I've had friends that have been in bands and it's built into their sets, built into their show, it's built into their process. You all have a sound engineer that goes along with you on the shows now because you understand the importance of that. But when I was playing, I got to play the National a couple of times, I've played Broadberry, played the Camel. You can tell when an engineer knows exactly what the task is, right? Even if it's an opening act, the opening act, the job is to set the tone. Like people are queuing up, people are coming in a little later than your set time to see maybe the second act or the closing act, but it's your duty to set the tone. So you come with the right energy, but the sound man has you at level 25 when the headline is going to be 80. It's not a whole lot you can do, but there is a lot to say about somebody who understands that, the psychology of how that sound affects people on a physical level, emotional level. Because the music can be really good, but if it doesn't sound the way it's supposed to sound, it's not going to resonate. I've learned too about ear fatigue. It's all these little things that I wasn't really aware of when we first started going out and touring. It's like, oh yeah, okay, I understand why maybe they want the sound a little lower. You know? Yeah. It separates you from the second act. And then the third act is an audible difference. Even they might tweak the EQ or tweak the compression or something along the lines like to make it so that each act is slightly different so that people feel like they're experiencing stages in the show. Yeah. I mean, it's... The Europe thing, I mean, honestly, they're pretty well equipped to handle just a band coming without their people. They have the live music thing more dialed in in a lot of the venues there, and these venues have government money and stuff. It's actually nice, and they're equipped to handle it. We had a tour where we just, it was like every day for like two and a half, three weeks, whatever, like just like different guy every night. And you lose so much in translation, like with different languages. And you think this dude getting the attitude, he probably is. But like, you know, it's just- You want to go outside and smoke a cigarette? Yes. Like, you know, so it was a lot. We just, we love being on stage, knowing that like everybody's hearing everything, how we're hearing it and how like, how we want them to. And like, because we really do care about the music we make. So it is like, And it's a money thing. We probably started bringing sound earlier than we could afford it, but we were just like, guys, y'all wanna take a little lesson? Like just bring some- Yeah, I'm gonna take a little lesson, it's cool. Yes, we're gonna be happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because on the other side, it's like, man, no, people are gonna leave and be like, man, that joint sounded crazy. They can tell their friends, the promoters is gonna see that. They know you take it serious. You don't realize that these promoters and folks that are like buyers pay attention to all those little things. They're like, oh, these cats really care. They bringing they own sound. They investing in their product. Yeah. You know, any promoter who's willing to throw up any money to bring you somewhere. they'll say, what am I bringing? I'm bringing a band. It's like, well, I'm bringing a band with a front of house engineer. I was like, oh, who is that? I'm like, oh, now you know, no one's heard any music. No one's seen any albums. No one even knows who's in the band, but they already know which one they're about to get on the show. Because if it was easy, everybody would do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So what was Tiny Desk like? Like you've done it twice, right? Do you have like, Did you favor one appearance over the other? Was one experience better than the other? NPR does not watch our podcasts. I mean, I'm hoping they do, but. Man, they did a really cool thing during COVID when it was the at-home tiny desk. Obviously the office is iconic. It looks dope. And after we did the at-home one, I was like, Can't wait. We were all like we can't wait till we get in the office, too So so it was the office was cool. Um The at-home thing kind of let people put their stamp on it creatively like whether it's visually or like, you know With the clothes or like just the film style or whatever. So, um, we had a lot of fun doing it doing that one because we did just have our whole our whole like squad, you know, Zach and you know engineering and Tony and um Tony and I R.V.A. Mag. R.V.A., yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Homies from up there. Shout out to the Roots. Shout out to them before they built the apartments that killed The View. So we were kind of like one of the last- It survived. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just fun to do it ourselves, too. And we're thankful they brought us in the office. Bobby and, yeah. Yeah, it's like, it's iconic. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you don't even have to like, know anything about music. And you see that you're like, I've seen that before. Like, what is that? Yeah, that's pretty cool. That was probably like, that's probably pretty cool. Like moment where you're like, yo, we're on time. Oh, man, that Yeah, man, it was like, that was mind blowing, especially when we went to the office. Because for me personally, I realized like what the whole concept was, like, it's just what's going on at Boylan's desk. And like, if you think about the office, you just like walking around, what's going on in her cubicle? What's going on over there? And like, tiny desk is what's happening in that Bob's cubicle. I'm like, yo, and I'm standing at the desk, like looking at the rest of the floor, like, that's what this is. The walls decorated, you know what I mean? It's just like a circus in his mind over there. That's cool. Yo, I never realized that's what this whole thing was. Yeah, just one dude trying to put a show on. What's going on in his cubicle? All that. All the Tiny Desk concerts. That's dope. It was cool, man. We're super. Yeah, great experience. Shout out to NPR, man. They took care of us. Nicky Burch. They love Richmond in general. They've taken care of a lot of Richmond bands. Got them on a lot of stuff. That's cool, man. So what do you guys got coming up for the rest of the year? Anything in particular you're like, look, really looking forward to? Obviously you got the show January 24th at the National. So that's obviously like right around the corner. What else is, you know, on the horizon when you think about this year, anything in particular? Right after that, we go to LA. Yeah, we're going to LA to perform with DJ Jazzy Jeff. Jazzy Jeff. The legend. Doing the Dilla tribute. Everybody staying on your couch? I just got a new couch. It's not that big. Nah, it is cool. I love when Butcher gets to come out there. I'll just be like, yeah, he's my dog. But yeah, we'll do that with Jazzy Jeff at the Regent Theater. Just like do a celebration, a bunch of our Playlist Retreat homies be there and he'll call some crazy somebody that we don't know at some point up and we'll just Yeah. So we'll do that. That's on the 27th of this month. Okay. And then we go to Japan in February. What? Tokyo. We'll be out there. And then we go to Taipei. Taipei. That's great. Perry's about to quit the podcast and try to go with you guys. For real. It sounds incredible. It's going to be fun, man. First time Butch has been to Asia. Okay. Yeah. I was going to ask, because that was going to be your first time there. Yeah, it's going to be the first time. Man, that's... First official time. We stayed on the Asian side of Istanbul. Oh, true. First official performance. Right, right. What else has happened? Working on a new record. Yeah. Got a couple of records coming. We're playing Jazz Fest in New Orleans. New Orleans Jazz Fest. New Orleans Jazz Fest, okay. Yeah, with Nick Payton. That'll be crazy. Yeah. That's going to be crazy. We got something in the works. Nicholas Payton, great trumpet player. I heard he plays all of the stuff. Bass. I mean, his dad plays electric for sure. I heard he plays trumpet, saxophone, flugel, trombone. He plays keys and trumpet at the same time. What? Yeah, he's doing a super wild thing. He's insane. That's incredible. I'm going to do some shows. We'll get him out. Well, yeah, I mean, shoot. I know there's dates in the summer, the EU dates are going to start coming in. Usually around this time, we start getting the email at last about, hey, Europe. Once you come to Europe for six months, y'all cool? No way. I think we have something with the Giles Peterson thing. It's happening in August. We Out Here Festival. Yeah. That's in the UK? Yeah, London. But yeah, man, I mean, it's a lot of music, man. We just, like I said, we got next month, we're about to start working on a new Butcher record. So yeah, quick turnarounds, man, but just trying to stay in cruise control, bro. Oh, yeah. Y'all just rolling right into 2026. Love to hear it. It's going to be fun. What's the best way for everyone to stay tapped in, right? So new record, music, tour dates, all that type of stuff. How can people find you and learn more about everything you have going on? Instagram and YouTube. Those are the two channels we've been putting a lot of the major focus content on. Select Cuts on YouTube, putting out song videos from different spots around Richmond. And then Instagram is where we put a lot of the quick updates, a lot of the short form content. So those two platforms is where we've really been trying to spread the information. And you'll find everything at ButcherRound.com. Like if it is just trying to see all of that, cause we try to update it and put everything on there too. But like, we're going to go, go hard on the YouTube thing next year. We just like the videos we recorded last year, just kind of people like enjoy them and we want to make sure we give people something. Got to give people what they need. Subscribe to that YouTube channel. What we can do is we can collab this very episode in the YouTube channel. So they'll be able to find your channel as they're watching this right now. So we could do that too. We got a lot of videos coming, a lot of stuff. We're looking forward to it, man. Any last thoughts there, Perry? Anything you guys want to throw in? Go see some jazz. Yeah. Yeah. See some jazz. It's going to be cool. It's going to be cool. I promise. Find the jazz near you and just go connect with those people. Yeah, we all got social media. We always playing shows, look out for Butcher Brown or Time for Jazz. Time for Jazz. Coming to a theater near you. Yeah, it's the new wave. It's the new, cool, mid-30s, mid-40s vibe. Some live jazz, break middle, low set vibe, broken down sets. I will say one last thing about jazz. When I used to go up to D.C., it was a trio. Oh, man, yeah. It was Chris Funn, Alan Johnson, and Quincy Phillips. And I remember, like, that was the first time when I, they used to play at a spot called Cafe Nima. I believe it was the Young Lions. Yeah. So, I always thought jazz was like, you know, You're in a theater, you're suit on, jacket, you know, you're a certain vibe. That was the first time I went up to DC and it was like girls everywhere. It's like cats wearing Jordans, bartender like spinning drinks, like it's a house show or something. But this is like straight ahead. They're like chopping up moments noticed by a coal train. They playing like the modern jazz sound with the standards and they're taking the standards with the same level of respect you would an original tune. And so I'm like, that was the first time I really saw that. And so that's the spirit I feel like this band brings back and locks in on. It's like the music, it sounds that way on the record. So just know that that's the record. When you go see it live, it's going to be something different. So you got to make sure you go see it live. And if it's over there, you got to go see it over there because it's going to be different. It's going to be different over there. Every time you see it, it's going to be a different representation, different dimension, different sides of what this thing actually is. So I think that that's a good thing to take if you go to find jazz, especially if you don't know who it is or like it's something foreign, just know that like, it's just different dimensions of the same thing. You'll like it. You'll like it. You will like it. You will like it and just let it be what it is to you. Yeah. Don't try and fix it. Yeah. What did you say earlier? Pick out the parts that you like. The buffet. It's the buffet. I like it, yeah. You like chicken tenders, eat the chicken tenders. Right. Just do it. I promise you're going to like something from the set. Yeah. One song, maybe two. One hundred percent. Or the whole thing. Or the whole. You know, it's an experience. We will include all the projects that you guys have going on, all the information, your website, your social media stuff in the description of this video. And then, yeah, from both of us, man, like, thank you guys for your art, your creativity, your energy. And the difficulty of like creating a market that maybe wasn't so big in Richmond, it's growing. And I would say that Butcher Brown has contributed to that in a big way. So thanks so much for hanging out with us today and having a good conversation and like, yeah, we really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for having us. This podcast was recorded at Vera House Studios in Richmond, Virginia and produced by Perry Young and Mike Metzger.