EP 9 Alien Boy's Sonia Weber Talks Smashing Pumpkins

This conversation was going to happen even if this podcast never existed. It's the first episode of the newly renamed Unc.slop podcast, with Sonia Weber from Alien Boy. We talk taking music seriously in a slacker city, developing lifelong artistic partnerships, and the inevitability of Billy Corgan.

Thank you to How Strange It Is for the intro/outro music. Please Subscribe to my Instagram page to get extra content starting next week. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I really don't like the here on the podcast in Kyle's basement. Can you try to get your mouth a little bit closer? Yes, I'm very close now.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Is it uncomfortably close?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

It's pretty close. I'm almost touching it, yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah, I kind of have this thing in my mouth, but you see that's your thing. Hello, yeah. Yeah. I think that should be.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I could keep it pretty close, I think.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Just try to fucking eat that microphone for me. Sure, sure, sure. Okay, podcast. Uh I'm not going to introduce you, even though we just did all that. I might keep that in. I don't know. Isabel is not here too. Do whatever you'd like. So Isabel's not here, which means I'm up to my own devices, my own decision making, which is always uh borderline dysfunctional. I think that's sort of my vibe. That's what I've been going off of for a couple of years now.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

But not quite.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Not quite, borderline. Not quite, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

You're keeping it together. As good as I can. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

When my wife and I got married, uh, I was just like, we only have to be half a person from here on out. If the two of us can be one adult, we'll be fine. And it's like, it takes a lot of pressure off.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

That it sounds really nice. Yeah. It's a very pro-marrian. One day, yeah, one day, hopefully for me. Yeah, it sounds nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Alright, I'll be rubbing it. Alright, so I'm here with uh Sonia Weber. I'm saying that right. I've said we have known each other for long enough that I shouldn't have to say that. That's my name. That's your name. Sonia Weber of Alien Boy. Oh, also, real quick, shout out to How Strange It Is for the intro music. I keep forgetting to mention that How Strange It Is provides the intro and outro music, which is the condition for having a song for free featured on your podcast, right? Yeah. Yeah. So Sonia Weber from uh Alien Boy, say hi to the podcast. Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me, Kyle. Oh, I'm pumped to have you mostly uh because I think every single time we meet at a house show or any sort of party, we at some point go into the corner and talk about the Smashing Pumpkins.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yes, I you know it's not just you. Dozens of us. Yeah, it happens all the time around this town, around this country.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

And it's good. You know, it's like one of the first things uh I I wanted to do is get you on the pod because we could talk at Smashing Pumpkins. I also want to talk about Alien Boy, which I made a whole reel about your video or about what was the name of the song, uh Changes. Yes, I saw it this morning. Yeah. A lot of people love your tones. I love your tones. I know.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

I mean, thank God we I've never worked on anything harder in my life. Like, I was like, if you guys knew, like when you were like, we need more tones, I was like, there's none left. Like we could we we did it all. At least it felt that way.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

I loved it that when somebody says, like, oh, this is a good take on the reels or whatever. I'm like, thank you. I try really, really hard. I'm not an effortless guy, really. I'm an effortful. Uh I think there's a lot of effort you can hear on your album. When did that album come out? Was it last year?

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah, it came out last May.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Ah, that was a perfectly timed coffee sip right there. Last May, so it's it's pretty fresh. It's pretty new.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Um Sony, how long? You're one of those people that I don't remember how we met. It just got too. I don't remember either. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

I'm sure that a million times I was like, wait, who's that guy? Oh, it's another Kyle. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

There's so many comments. I know. Why are there so many Kyles?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

But I locked you in a l a while ago.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

I feel like we never had a conversation like, hey, I'm Kyle.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Hi, I'm so it was just we were supposed to know who each other was, which is why I was confused, and then everyone was like, You don't know Kyle? And I was like, I don't think that we've ever actually said hi to each other.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I don't know. Yeah. We just hung out. Uh you know what it probably was? Uh God, I I hate how many times I mentioned Nathan Tucker on the podcast, but it was being in uh first rodeo. Oh yeah. I got close with Dylan Howe, Tim Howe. I didn't really, you know, I didn't know Dylan at all. Yeah. Didn't know Nathan at all. And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, and Nora.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

I used to work with Nora at Kennedy School.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Oh yeah. Oh, whoa. Crazy. Long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yeah, that was my first year in uh in Portland, was uh working Kennedy School School.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

I must have heard about that at some point.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Who knows? I I really don't think we've been like traveling in very similar circles for the most part, but like never at the point like we never played a yellow room show with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I don't think so. I think maybe with my old band. Because I used to play in floating room. Oh yeah. Um long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, that was back during the room as everybody had a room band.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yes, yeah, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

I wanted to get all the room bands yellow room, floating room, canary room, whatever. Yeah. Um, and just have a show called The House Show. That's good with all the different rooms. Uh, that's pretty good. That's too bad, it's too late.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

As long as the joke still hits, you know. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Um but yeah Yeah, I think that I I knew about that band a long time ago, and I just don't think that I knew that you were in it.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

It's okay. Yeah, I'm the least of the Yellow Room members, it's like uh which is so funny that I'm the one that is online and has it talks about us. I am the least like well known of all the Now you're the star. I know. Annie and Jordan have been in almost every I think that's the weirdest thing is that you and Annie have never been in a band together. Or you have you been in a band with Jordan?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

No.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

That's odd.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

No.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

You know? But you're more of like fewer bands. I guess you've got borders.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I used to play in a lot of bands. Um but yeah, Alien Boy really has taken up a lot of my time. And then, yeah, I play drums in Bory now. Nice. Um, and at first that was supposed to just be kind of like a fill-in thing, but then I just like loved hanging out with those guys. Uh, and I was like, fuck it. I'll stay.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, I guess I already know the once you know all the songs, it's so easy to just stay because then it's like, alright, we practice once before the show. Yeah. And like, you know, it's fun if you have fun hanging out with them.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

And I yeah, I love those guys. Um super fun. And I love playing drums in uh bands too.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Do you play so I know you play, you know, guitar. Do you uh do you play bass? You play drums, you play all the instruments?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah, I used to play bass in a couple of different bands a while ago, like your rival, stuff like that from a long, long time ago. I've done it all.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

The before times. The before times, yeah. Uh speaking of the before times, are you I don't know, are you a Portland native? Are you an American native? All right. Yeah, born and raised. All right. Uh I'm uh I'm from Massachusetts originally, but anyways, uh Bedford, Mass. Cool. I don't know. Exactly. That's the that is the appropriate response of the town with the oldest battle flag in America. Yeah. Yeah. My first week that I was in Portland, I was like just randomly walking around streets, as you've probably seen from my contest.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yes. He loves to walk around streets. I'm a wanderer, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Um, and uh I saw somebody had a Bedford flag, and I was like, oh, I should remember where they are. Like, I should it's a small town. Yeah. It makes sense that we would like talk at some point, and then I forgot where it was, never seen the flag ever again, and I've never seen a Bedford flag since then, so you gotta strike while the iron's hot, I guess. But uh yeah, I've been out here for about a decade. Um so you're from Portland, born and raised. Yes. Uh you go away for college, or you just been here the whole time?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

I've been here the whole time. I went to PSU uh for a couple of years, and then I went on my first tour, and I came back and I said, I gotta stop. I gotta rock. I'll go back later, and now I'm 34 and I have not gone back yet.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Let's go. Yeah. Yeah, uh, we I one of my reels is just uh I called well I called college a eugenics program, which I thought was really fun. But you know, I think honestly, going to college and graduating college, there's not really honestly there's really not that much difference in a lot of the programs.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

So Yeah, I mean I I would I don't know. Who knows? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

So um, alright, when did you start playing music? Are you from like a music family when you pick up the guitar? Are you like a virtuoso type of thing? Are you late to to the game?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I started playing when I was in like fifth grade. Um my parents listen to a lot of music, um, but they don't play. Um I heard Good Charlotte and I said, I gotta rock now. Oh my god. And I just changed my entire life's course. Fifth grade. I saw the enhanced DVD from the CD, The Young and the Hopeless, and it changed it all.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

You're killing me. This is so good.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, that was that's it. It's been on the same path. I it's been on the same path since then.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

I wish Gilda Charlotte I I I wonder how they deal with the fact that like so many people's lives were changed.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

I'm sure they love it.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

I'm sure I you know, does it do you think you get used to that? Have you changed people's lives with your tones yet?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

I mean, I hope so, but I don't know. I feel like, you know, it we're copying a lot of tones, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Stop. You're synthesizing. You're yeah, yeah. At this point, I was thinking about this this morning because uh, you know, my brain's always doing that thing. Um but it's like I feel like it used to be uh when somebody would accuse somebody of like, oh, you ripped off a song. There just weren't that many songs. In like 1965. If you ripped off a riff, it's like there's like seven other riffs out there. We know you stole it from. Yeah, totally. Now it's like, dude, there's so much music released every single day. I'm sure all of it is being ripped off of everybody else's.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I I mean we're I rip stuff off all the time. I don't care, everybody does it. There's everything has been done. Uh you know, I'm not worried about that at all.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

It's uh well I think that you do a good job, uh especially in the last album, of just like, yeah, you have influences. I you know, I think you say ripping off. I feel like you're just like acquiring tools from influences that you like.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

That is what it feels like.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah, and then you rearrange them into new, and it's like I think we uh I really like about a Hillian Boy, you do something that's really hard to do, which is it sounds new, but it's not uh I'm but it still sounds like a uh regular kind of rock and roll song. You're not like sometimes like even geese. It's like alright, this is new because this is just kind of weird. Like you're just doing like a new thing here. Yours is very much like, no, I like Good Charlotte. I like the Smashing Pumpkins. I want to write a song like they wrote those songs. I like that structure. Yeah. But there that's there's so much less room to operate in that. So it's like I feel like that's really hard to do.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

I mean, it helps me a lot. I feel like when I think about songwriting, it feels so limitless and like that it just can be anything that a lot of the times it's more like I am like giving myself boundaries. Like, what would this person do or what would this band do, or something like that? Helps me a lot so I don't like just lose the plot.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I like the phrase lose the plot. That feels like an attack on my whole life. Um I I like that. What what's your songwriting process? You know, when did you first start writing songs? How did you develop like a songwriting process? What does it look like now?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Um, I started writing songs just before we started the band. Like I hadn't I didn't grow up writing songs at all. Like I've been playing music and playing in bands since I was like 15, 16, even with Caleb and Derek, like we played in bands in high school and stuff. Um and then and I was always playing drums or I was always playing bass, and I was super shy, and I didn't want to be like I didn't want to be i in the front at all. Yeah. Um, and then when our old band, our first brains, was kind of falling apart, I was just like, I can't be reliant on like these other bands. Like, I really want to do this, so I think I'm just gonna have to do it myself.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

That's like scary.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

It was really scary, and I, you know, me and Derek, I started writing songs. I mean, I don't even like, yeah, I just started writing songs because I was like, I feel like I have to to make this work, and then me and Derek like practiced in secret for probably like six months. Like I didn't tell anybody that I was doing it because I didn't want to like commit to doing it, and then I told Caleb, and then we started kind of working on stuff together. But my songwriting process is way different now than it is then. Like then it was like, you know, an idea drops from the sky, or like I'm upset about something and it just is what it is. Um, but now it's much more of like uh practice where it's like I for the last record especially was like sitting down with a bunch of different ideas. Like we had this huge playlist, and like we all went through the playlist and like talked about what we liked about each song, and then whenever I didn't have an idea for something, I would just like go to the list and be like, I'm gonna try to write something like this, or I'm gonna try to like bounce off of this idea. And that's why I feel like there's so much more range um in the last record than on the other ones.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, I find that like intentionality thing there too. It's also like you're talking, you're you're trying to write do you feel like you write things with the full band, or do you present things to the band for them to work off of?

SPEAKER_01 13:10

I mostly present things to the band. Like there's a couple, like there are some instances where it's like just music, very rarely, but just music, and then the vocals come later. But a lot of the times it's just like uh the song structure and the chords and the vocal melodies are pretty much all done. Um but it also it's like all over the place. Like, you know, we especially for the last record, it was like kind of years in the making, and we did like a writing retreat thing. Um, you know, uh we had a third guitar player, Al, who isn't playing with us anymore, but like he like wrote all of the guitar solos for the record, and I like really wanted him to do that, and I think that it really, really changed the sound of the record, and like it's stuff that me and Caleb never would have come up with. Um, but but yeah, everybody had kind of like a different role. But for the most part, the like structures and like the main songs are all ready to go when I show it to people.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, I I mean I uh I I'm a big sports guy or whatever. Um and I view a lot of songwriting, at least a lot of the songwriting that I tend to like, kind of structured almost like a basketball team where it's like this is your star player. This person like they gotta touch the ball in every possession. Yeah. But like this guy's gotta be able to hit this shot, this guy's gotta be able to do that thing. Yeah, totally. You know, uh but that's how you some a lot of times that's how you create something that's bigger than the sum of its parts, which I think is like part of the appeal of a band, is like you wanna do something with your friends uh that feels bigger than just the individual people in that that space.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, I think that like I I I can be so uptight about it sometimes, and I think in the last couple of years, and I hope that my bandmates would agree, but like I just like decided I was like, I trust you guys. We've been playing together for so long, like I don't need to micromanage every single thing. It's like we're in this band together, it's supposed to be all of us, and I want to like hear everybody's ideas, and I want everybody to be able to like shine in the group. Like it's like an amazing group of musicians. I feel so so grateful to be playing with the people that I'm playing with.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Oh yeah. Um, sick. You guys are sick, they're gonna be able to do that. Legitimately sick, the whole band. Uh when Ellie uh you know took a break, got back to playing bass with y'all, and going from uh you know, play with Ellie and Pile Up where they play lead guitar and they're playing bass with you. And it's like Ellie's such a good musician. I always joke, it's like I'm it's kind of hard to be the second best drummer in your own band where you play the drums, but like Ellie is definitely so like when Ellie's like, Oh, I'm going back to play with Alien Boy, my first thought was like, Well, good, you should be in a band where like you're pushing your limits of musicality all the time. I can't do that as a drummer of pileup, like I'm I'm not gonna impress them at all with this, like it's not gonna happen. Uh I'm just a good hang, I think.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

And that's also a huge part of it. Um, but yeah, we're I'm really happy that Ellie came back. Yeah. Perfect timing. Really needed them.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

How is uh let's let's go for the beginning here. Uh what's your very first thought of being alive and then all your No, actually, uh That's my favorite dumb joke. But then the problem with that joke is that every once in a while people will just they get excited, they want to answer.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Oh yeah, no, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

A lot of people's very first memory of being live is horrific. It's like the first bad memory that they had. And I learned that in a lot of different ways. Not a great icebreaker kit. Yeah. Um how did you meet everybody in the band? Uh when did that all start? What what was it that you're like, was it just literally like, oh, you also like good Charlotte? We are now friends.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Um I met Derek going to I met Derek and Caleb both going to school of rock, um doing lessons and schools.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Oh yeah, school of rock.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Shout out. Yeah, I mean not as much anymore. I worked for them for a long time and they fired my ass. Um but School of Rock, boo!

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Mix I appreciate appreciate, but you know, treat your workers better. Um but uh yeah, I met I remember the day that I met Derek, he was I saw him through like a glass like a door with a glass, like a window.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Um was it like a dog thing where you started barking at him and then he barked at you? But as soon as the glass moved, you were timid again.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

He was wearing a briefs t-shirt. Um and I liked that band, and I was like, oh, this guy's into like punk rock. Like I gotta go try to talk to him. Um he was wearing like giant baggy pants and he had like huge swooshy hair. Um and we just like decided that day that we would be friends and we're still friends now. That was when we were like 15.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Um Caleb, I also met around that time, and he we went to the same high school, but he was a year younger than me. Um so eventually we were just hanging out at school and stuff, but I originally met him there. Um, and he was like, I'm starting a band, do you play drums? And I was like, uh kind of, but not really. And he was like, You're playing drums for my band, and I was like, Okay, and then I became a real drummer from that. Um and then we were in a band all through high school and just like never stopped playing music together. He's been like my like my songwriting partner for decades almost now.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Is that partnership first off, uh not really being a drummer into being in a band and then you become a drummer? I think that's how it's like learning to drive a car.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah, no, he didn't give me I in my memory, he didn't give me a choice. He was just like, this is happening now. And I was like, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

So I ended up being a drummer out here in uh Portland. It's like I mostly played guitar. I played a little bit of drums on my own recordings, and then uh when I started dating Annie, I originally wrote some songs and she played guitar on those, and then she wrote some of the early yellow room stuff, and we needed a drummer. Yeah. And then I was I aler listened to her songs, and I'm like, alright, I'm a drummer now. I can do I can drum behind that. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. But uh in terms of that like partnership, right? Yeah. Uh was that always like kind of a you lead, they follow thing, or like uh was it always equal? Like what how did it develop the partnership?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Um, I mean in high school it was his band, his songs. Um, and we were just a trio with our friend Rain. Um, and they were doing a lot of the writing together, and I was just kind of like the drummer, and then when we moved on to our next band, our first brains that Derek also played in, I was still playing drums, but Derek and Caleb were both writing songs on guitar, and that band was much more collaborative. Um, but me and at that point, me and Caleb have been doing it together for so long that it was already kind of cooking, and then when I started writing my own songs, he wa he our like first EP that we did, he recorded the whole thing, so he was like very involved in the production of it, and it was before we had ever played a show or anything, it was before he joined the band. Oh, sick. It was like just me and Derek, but he recorded it like when I still worked at School of Rock, they let us practice there, and they we recorded it like at night after hours there for like months.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

It was crazy. We s would stay there sometimes until like four in the morning, you know. Um and yeah, I was just like not sure if I was ever gonna show it to anybody. Uh button, staying up until four o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, you definitely want to keep that hidden. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

We were just like in the end, we were like, okay, like I think this is better than we thought it was gonna be. And then it just kind of snowballed from there.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

That's one of the best feelings in the world when you finish something and you like I was like when I finished the recording, I like kind of have to walk away from it for like two weeks. Yes, and then come back and I'm like, oh. Because I walk away at the point where I'm like, I think I'm bad at everything I've ever done. And then you listen back and it's like, it wasn't that bad, it was actually kind of good.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

So I mean that was like so early on in my to me now, like my music. I don't even remember how I felt about it then. I think I was just like, oh my god, like I don't know like this is so freaky. Like, I don't like I I feel compelled to do this, but like I really don't know if I should or if I want to.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Um You don't seem uh what's funny is like I only know you from when I know you the last, you know, six, seven years, something like that. Yeah. And it really only recently have we actually had a conversation. Yeah. And I always picture you as like a relatively extroverted person. You're always talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

It really it switched around around that time. Like I think that the pu like me deciding to do Alien Boy was a real pivot point for me and my like confidence.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Uh in my sense of self. Like, I feel like I figured out what I was actually like here to do in a way. Um, and before I was just kind of like really, really motivated, but like I just needed to have more control over what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Um and it changed everything. Positive.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

And it's also just like that's uh I don't know, that's it's good to have something you can pour your whole self into.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

I really needed it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Um I think everyone kinda does. I think you you you talk to people that are really lost, it's like those people that are just like, I don't I just do things. Yeah. But there's no, you know there's no drive for it really. There's no like It's like driving, you know?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah, yeah, totally. Um, and then Ellie uh also went to our high school and was friends with my brother, and that's how I met Ellie. There we go. There we go. Oh yeah. Was a couple years younger than us.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

What's funny is like with Ellie, I'm like, well, Ellie just knows everybody.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Yeah, no, I've been in Ellie since we were very, very young. But we didn't like, yeah, they uh we had a ton of different people playing in the band for a while, and then uh we got back from a tour where Mac Pogue, who used to play bass, was moving to the East Coast. Um, and we got asked to open for Frankie Cosmos, and it was like three days later, and we just got back from tour, we didn't have a bass player, and I was like, What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And Nora was like, Ask Ellie.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

That's sick.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

And I was like, Oh yeah, of course. And then I asked Ellie, and they learned the whole thing, and then it was on.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

That's sick. Yeah. Three days to prep.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

I feel like it was like maybe one. Like it was really, really quick.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

God. Oh, Ellie does stuff like that all the time. And it's like, it's all amazing. Ellie filled in uh uh for drums with Vista House, uh Tim Hausband. Yeah, uh, the day of. Yeah. Had been prepping to play bass.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

But I did not see I got there too late, but I heard that it was great. It was wild.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yeah. Like I don't think Ellie knew the songs all the way through. Uh and it sounded great. It was it was one of the most entertaining shows to watch because everybody was aware of what was happening in the situation. I was just like, everything was a tightrope. There's so much tension, uh which is great. You know, that's so fun. Um, what's your experience been playing in the Portland music scene? Like, when did you start playing shows? How did you start getting shows? Where where were you playing? What were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Um, the band that me and Caleb were in in high school called Star Party did stuff with like music in the schools um and played a lot of shows at Backspace back in the day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

So we're gonna miss a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yeah, we played at Satiricon uh when it was still open. Yeah. Uh it was like they reopened. It wasn't like, you know, the original days, but we played a lot of shows at Satiricon. And then uh like early 20s was when that band wasn't a thing anymore. We started our first brains and we were getting in with like all the people at Laughing Horse. Nice. Um and that was like very that was like when that's when I feel like I actually like was in a community for the first time. Um I loved that place, a lot of good shows there. Joyce Manner just posted that picture of a show there that we were all at.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

I was like, you're like in the middle of everyone screaming into the microphone.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yeah, no, we were psyched. We had just seen them like the day before in Eugene. Awesome uh because we were like really into that record, and it was like I think their first tour. Yeah. And we were like so psyched that they were gonna play. We were like, we'll go see them in Eugene, and like it's not that far a drive. No, for something like for like your favorite band that's doing their first tour that you know is gonna be huge, like it was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

I know Annie and I have uh we've done the trek up to like Olympia every once in a while to go see people play. Um I forget who we saw. We went up we went up one night on a Thursday for a house show and drove back that same night. It's like not that bad. It's not that bad. Yeah. Um but yeah, uh it's fun for me. Like, I'm I've I've I've been in this little bit of a music scene or whatever now for long enough that like we can actually talk about like venues that have closed down. It's not just the same exact venues, and I'm like, oh there's uh how have you seen the the scene change in your time here? Like, what do what do you where do you see it changing too? What do you what are your thoughts on it?

SPEAKER_01 25:28

I mean, there's just been like different epockets of time. It's like, you know, the laughing horse days, it's like all of all of that stuff is just like it just yeah, is like totally it feels really long ago. Like so many bands that I thought were really incredible, so much happened, like you know, I it's just like yeah, complicated to even speak on. But um that that was just like yeah, the uh the first time that I really feel like we were like, I really loved the bands that my friends were in, and like we were like making friends. Cause also like when we were growing up, like we were playing really poppy music to like a bunch of like and like our friends were playing like math rock and hardcore and stuff, and so I kind of always felt like a loser. But then when we started to play uh Laughing Horse, we were like, Oh, there's like emo bands, like I don't even really know about emo. Like we were coming from like I don't know, like we I didn't really know, and then Joyce Banner came out and everybody liked them. Yeah, and we're like, oh, like we're like friends with people and we like the same music and stuff. This is very exciting.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

It grows so quick. It's the like exponential thing where it starts off with just a very, very small group of people that you have a little scene that goes to all your little shows, and then over time you find your slot into like a slightly bigger scene or something like that, and then all of a sudden, I don't know. I uh you probably have a very similar experience to Annie and I of like when we first started dating, we would go to shows all the time, and then it very quickly became we would go to shows, and then Jordan Krinsky was also at that show, so now we were on a date also with Jordan. Yeah, yeah. And now it's like when if we go to a show where we don't know a bunch of people and we don't have to go talk to like ten or and we love talking to everybody, I don't don't take me wrong, get me wrong on that, but it's like it's it's much more rare for me now to like go to one of the shows I want to go see and not have you know ten different people that I've I have a history with that I want to go like hang out with.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Sure, yeah. I mean, yeah, same. I feel like I'm going to like less shows than I usually do, but then when I go out, I'm like, oh my god, all my friends are here. Like I forgot this is where all my friends are. This is great.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Oh. When did Alien Boy start to kind of take up a lot of uh your time, effort? When did you start taking it seriously?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

I mean, I was taking it, I was taking it seriously from the beginning. Um, but I also just had kind of like boundless energy and was also, I was like, I was playing in Little Star, I was playing in Floating Room, I was playing in Perfume V, like all of these bands. Like it was like we were, I was like just I was like, What's the most number of bands you've played in at one time? It has to be four or five, and it's that's too much. Like I remember talking to my friend Janie about us both being in like so many bands, and you'd see pictures of us and like our eyes are like yellow and we're like so tired. And then like I feel like we were joking where it's like when the pandemic hit and we finally like got some rest and we like looked and we were like, we can't be in that many bands, like that was killing us, even though it was beautiful, but it was too much.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

I think it's like there's there's two types of people that find a limit. People that can kind of like understand, like, well, four or five bands is probably too much, and then people that just like have to experience it and be like, oh, this I had the same thought by the way when the pandemic hit at the beginning, where it's just like, Whew, listen, it sucks that we can't go outside, but like a month or two of not playing shows would be really nice right now. And then I was like, oh it's too much. Uh monkey paw just curls one time really quick.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

But yeah, like I was yeah, playing in a bunch of bands, uh, they all kind of like fizzled out on their own, people moving, big, you know, trans social transition. I feel like a couple years later, uh yeah, when like Mac was gone, a bunch of the people that I was playing with were gone. Um, and then like we were getting ready to make our first real record, and that's like when I met Strange Ranger. Or like, you know, I kind of had like met them before, but it's like that's kind of when I think of like the next kind of phase. Or it's like before that it was like bands like Sister Palace and Golden Hour and stuff like that. Um, but then after that it was like meeting Strange Ranger and being like, oh, like these guys are doing exactly what I want. I'm gonna do exactly what they do, and like I wanna be taking it as seriously as they are. Because I was like around so many bands that were making such like amazing art, but I've always been really driven and I was like, these guys want it. Yeah. And I want to be in the same room as them and with other people that like really want it too.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

I think there's a real divide, especially from what I found in Portland, between like because I think there are a lot of people that are capable and doing like really great music, yeah, but like they never want it to stop being the hobby. They want to go and play shows in Portland, maybe go on some small tours and stuff like that. And they're gonna write songs until their fingers stop working or something like that. But they never get to that point where they're like, No, I want this to be everything. I want this to be my life.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Which I think is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

It's very nice, but it's also just like there's almost this kind of inverse pressure in Portland against doing what you did of like being like, No, I'm actually gonna put my chips on the table. I want this.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Just saying that phrase, like, no, I want because I think everybody, at least at different parts of their music journey, they want it.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Everybody wants it. Like, but you know, some people realize that they want other things too. Yeah. You were just like, no, you saw it, you saw the path to just emulate these guys. I'm putting the chips in, let's fucking go.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah, no, that is that's how it since since Good Charlotte. That is what I have wanted. Um it's like the the the eye on the prize has never left. It was just like trying to like figure out different ways to do it.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Um every time you say Good Charlotte, I had this fucking MP3 player that was basically just a USB stick that you could plug headphones into, and it just was chock full of Lincoln Park and Good Charlotte back in the day. And it was just middle school me was killing it that summer. It was the best.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

It feels good. It feels good. Yeah, it feels good. You listen to Good Charlotte, it feels good. I just I just uh listened to their first three albums again last week because I was like, I just want to kind of see what this is about. The first two I think are still pretty damn good.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Let's go. I haven't listened back. There are some things that I'm like, I am afraid to go back to it.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

I mean, I haven't in a long time, but I was just like, this is fun, and like I was like sending a text to somebody where I was like, you know, like I I feel like out of all the like pop punk bands not talking about like Blink and Green Day, that's like a different, you know. Yeah, yeah. That's a different but I was like, I think this one's like they're kind of like the best one. Like they're better than Simple Plan, Newfoundland Glory, whatever. I was like, I feel like there's some fucking tracks here.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

What uh what do you think of PLC about? Are you do you also listen to punk as well, or just just like the pop punk thing?

SPEAKER_01 32:09

I did growing up. I and I mean I don't listen to a ton of that stuff now. Not that I'm like I I I like it, but um, but no, I just like grew like the band I was really into punk and pop punk when I I was growing up and then like pretended to not like pop punk for a while because I was like spiky vest, you know, like patch kind of punk. Oh baby, let's go. Let's go. You leaned in. Lock necklace. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

You leaned in, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Leftover crack t-shirt, you know.

unknown 32:36

Oh, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

I yeah, I never got that. I always liked the punk aesthetic, and then I just would listen to the I I love going to punk shows in the same way that I like going to like ambient and noise shows. Yeah. But like if I'm actually just walking around the neighborhood, I ever I didn't listen to it on my own anymore, really.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

I mean some stuff probably, but yeah. But I didn't get into like yeah, and it's like, you know, Caleb was listening to Deathcab at the time, and I was like making fun of him. And then, you know, later teens, I was like, actually, this is pretty good. And then, you know, it's like eventually I was just like, I was I was uh I was just a very judgmental, punky kid when I was younger, and then I learned to love a lot of different kinds of music.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

I always love the phrase the truth wins out in time, and it's like the truth is that like you kind of you can't smell spell America without creed. It's true. Like they won in the end. That little clip of them playing like a uh Dallas Cowboys halftime show and they're playing higher or whatever, he's got the big long hair and there's cheerleaders, and you just look at that and you you salute like the flag, man. I just that's the truth, though. It's like you've especially as a kid, developing your sense of taste, a lot of it is being but is kind of posturing. That like, oh, I actually don't like that thing. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

I mean, especially back then, I don't know if well, I mean, I guess I work with kids and they're pretty opinionated as in that I don't even know what they like. I just know only know what they don't like.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

But I feel like there's like a not the teenagers that I work with now, but kind of like the like the kids in growing pains and rhododendron and stuff that I used to teach. They all like everything. Yeah, yeah. And they're not really bitchy about anything. Like that really is beautiful. Yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

I'm actually I I I'm trying not to be too weird because I know I'm I know I'm an old man now talking about teenagers and music, but like I really like their attitude towards music. They just what I've loved is that they'll throw in stuff, uh, you know, kind of like drum and bass, like electronica drum set stuff into uh an indie rock song or something. They'll steal stuff from lo-fi hip hop beats to study and relax to, and then put it into like a duster song or something like that. Like they don't have a lot of the or at least the genres that seemed like really big in our generation.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

No, I know. It's like it's really not the same.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

It's not that it all blurs, man.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Because I feel our stuff was like so holed over from like nine and it's like I think I think there's like cool things about being so into like whatever subgenre of thing that you're in that you like. I think that like culturally there was like a lot of like really like sweet aptness in owning it that much. Yeah. But also it's just like all of the judgment, like there's no time for that, like whatever, just like what you like.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

I do think it's like uh a lot of it had to do with just we got to a point, I think really the last ten years until relatively recently or whatever, where like rock really didn't have a mainstream anything. There's no mainstream rock bands, and because of that, like you didn't have a thing like Good Charlotte versus Coldplay or something like that. These are both mainstream bands and they come with some baggage to them. Yeah. Yeah, they do because rock was kind of dead for 10 years, it was just rock. It was just do you like stuff with guitars in it? Uh and it what cracks me up is like the uh the zoomers call everything shoe gaze now. Like it's all shoe gaze across the board, and it's like, oh, you just mean has a fuzzy guitar in it.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

It's like, oh no, that's grunge, that's alternative, that's indie, that's shoe gaze. Like those were big categories to me. And they're like, no, shoe gaze. I like that shoe gaze.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

You know, yeah. It's also yeah, out of all of the categories, too. That's such a funny one to be the one that got grabbed onto.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

I know. I wonder if it's I I blame TikTok, but you know. Uh just if shoe gaze works well with uh videos of you know people walking around the neighborhood or something like that. Like when B they have these little short form video videos that almost act like diary entries for people and like duster works really well for that shit. Yeah, so I think the band that uh watch this transition, I think the band that they call shoe gaze the most that I'm always just like, I don't know if that's shoe gaze, but I get it, is a band that we have talked about multiple times, that I've talked about uh multiple times on my reels and stuff like that, and I'm very excited to talk about it with you here. Because I I will tell you right now, I don't know if this is your experience. I grew up on the East Coast, uh, graduated high school in 2009. The least cool thing you could listen to during that high school stretch was the Smashing Pumpkin stuff.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Really?

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Everybody hated it.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Everybody hated it?

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Everybody they thought I they thought I was like depressed and angry, they thought I was being fucking weird and try hard, and they're like like Nirvana was okay or whatever, but like all of that grunge, all that alternative stuff was at its absolute nade.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

I hated it then too.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yeah, well, you were all making fun of me. Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah. I had to hold the torch for Billy Corbin. How hard it is to hold the torch for Billy Corbin.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Thank you so much for your work. Um, yeah, I don't know anything about what it was like to because I I graduated in 2010. We're very close in age. I don't know what it was like for Smashing Pumpkins fans then, because I I remember hearing Bullet with Butterfly Wings as a kid in my aunt's car on Long Island. Um, and I was like, I hate this. Yeah I was like, I was like, this is my it was my first least favorite song. And it took me years, and I was like a small child, small child. I was just like, this is turn like I hated it. And I didn't come back around into it to it until I was like in my early to mid-20s, and I still was just like, this guy seems like a dick. Like I don't like I just was like really, really not about it. But then I ended up having to work on a bunch of the songs with my students at the time for a showcase that they were doing, and I was like, This is like the greatest man I've ever heard. I was wrong. I was so wrong, they're so good.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Dude, I uh well what's it called? Like uh my brother got me into it uh because he was same thing. Like he listened to it, he had the opposite response. Like he listened to it in like uh it was called Kids Club. It was an after school program in like elementary school or whatever, but he loved it at the time, and then when he got old enough to choose his own music, he just kept listening to it, and I thought the same thing. I'm like, I can't get past his fucking voice.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

It's really I mean, I think he's an actually an amazing singer, I think. The stuff that he does, the like scream to whisper, is the control that it takes to do that is so hard. That's it. He actually is like really good.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

That's the thing about Billy Corgan, is like, uh, so you know OJ Simpson, the the famous football player, of course. He once had this thing where he talked about like uh, you know, if I was uh a guy and I I told you, if I was a normal guy and I told you that every time I walk into a restaurant, I think everybody's talking about me, you'd call me a paranoid schizophrenic. But I'm OJ Simpson, and every time I walk into a restaurant, it doesn't matter what restaurant, everybody in the restaurant is talking about me. That's my life. That's kind of how I feel about Billy Corgan, where it's like when he's like uh everyone gets mad at him for basically saying he's arrogant, he thinks he's the best in the world. It's like, yeah, but he is really good. Yeah, I know. He's just not likable. But that's fine. That's okay. Not everyone's likable.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

No, it's completely fine. Yeah, it's like I feel now I feel a lot of like um, because I've listened to, you know, so many podcasts and like, you know, watched so much stuff with him, and it's like he's just a he's a Pisces, sensitive, really sensitive, and is extremely talented and is such a tryhard, and nobody really likes it, like not it doesn't seem like he's like socially very with it. Can't really drink, I don't think, because I think he's like allergic or something. I don't know if that's true, but like, you know, just like can't he can't hang. He can't hang. He cannot hang. And it's just like so sad because he's like, look at this like grand. I mean, it's not that sad, he's doing fine, but it's like, look at this like grand masterpiece that I made, and everyone's like, okay, yeah, we know you're good at guitar.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

It's one of those things where it's like when he's not there, everyone's like, this is the best album I've ever talked. I'm never gonna tell him to his face because he wants it so much, you know? Um Billy, if you're listening. Billy, if you're listening, hop on the pod, buddy. Hop on. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

I'm a huge fan.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

I defended you against I would put on Smashing Pumpkin songs in a high school basketball locker room when everyone, everyone, it would go like Eminem, Eminem, Eminem, Eminem, everything was Eminem. Oh, yeah. The same one with like the uh the drum beat that sounds like military beats or whatever. It was every single school did that song as a warm-up. Yeah. And I'd come in and be like, we're putting on Cherub Rock. Not to them, not to those people. They fucking hated that shit.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Yeah, you know, that song, when that song was on Guitar Hero, I also was just like, I didn't like I don't know why I didn't like it, but now it's like I think it's one of the one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. Amazing opening track. Opening track to your like major label debut about the industry. It's so cool. It like every time I teach that song a lot to my guitar students, and like every time at the end, I just like have I still get goosebumps. Like, I think that it's so good. The guitar solo is so good.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Dude, he is I I stand for that. He's so good at I call him bumper sticker lyrics, where it's like, if you actually listen to all the lyrics, if you want to like direct about his poetry, it might be kind of cringe. But like, he knows he's gonna say this phrase at this time with all this shit going on the back, and it's like like life's a bummer when you hummer or whatever. It's like that's not a good line, but like the way he says life's a bummer or whatever. Uh I stand by having defended him for you know most of my adult life at this point. I think he's the most underrated guitar player in the history of rock and roll. I don't even think it's particularly close.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

I I don't think it is either. I think that I saw something where it was like oh, I can't remember. It was like some of the lists of like best guitar players, and he wasn't on it.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

It's unbelievable to me.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

It's like he like to me is probably my number one. It's like I can't really think of who is even close. Like, there's lots of others that I like, but when I'm thinking about actual guitar playing, or like if I'm thinking about I'm gonna go like learn a guitar thing for fun, yeah, it's always gonna be that.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

I I'm a huge dinosaur junior fan as well. Oh, that's and like Jay Mascus is a phenomenal guitar player, but like when Jay Mascus hits a guitar solo, I can see it as a guitar solo. I can like see him playing a guitar and he rips and you know get me on the right day. I'll talk about uh Jay Mascus, what he's done to my life. Uh probably made it worse to be honest. Uh I don't know. But like with Billy Corgan, especially that fucking Geek USA solo, I'm like I don't know what that was. I still don't really know what the hell happened. And it's like it's so short, it's so in the song. Yeah. Uh what was the first pumpkin song that like turned your head? And what was the first like pumpkins album and that you really like gave you're like, alright, I this is real now, like I'm I'm into this. When was the moment you're like, holy shit, this band's actually fucking good?

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Um, well, I guess like, you know, before I think I mean, I think it was my my least favorite song. I think that it was well with Butterfly Wings, 'cause Alien Boy started covering that song. I think before I had even like really committed to loving them, I was just like, I think I just I think that song just like all of a sudden it just like Changed and I was like, this song kicks ass. Um, I don't totally remember, but then it's like I remember when I was doing that showcase for work. I I mean I think that it was Geek USA. I was like, this song is undeniably rocket. Like this is like kicks, it just kicks ass. Like, I feel like it's the only thing to say about it. It just like kicks so much ass.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

It's uh that's weird because it's like that was one of the last songs on that album that I really got into was Geek USA, but like once it triggered, I stand by like Well, it's like watching teenagers play it. Oh, that's gotta be wild.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah, and honestly, it was probably like Noah and Ezra from Rhododendron.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

And I was just like those kids are fucking good. They're incredible. So fucking good.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

There is something uh so I think there's if there is, you know, any higher power, I think that they were put together for a reason. Oh, yeah. Very similarly to Jimmy and Billy. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

I am uh I I don't wanna uh what's the term they use? Glaze the kids. I don't want to glaze a bunch of kids, but like if you are in the Portland area and you have not gone seen Rhododendron play yet, yeah. Like, do it. They're on the short list of best bands in the world. Incredible.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

The last time I saw them, I was just like, I can't believe like I can't. I mean, they were so I I met them when they were both so young. All gauge too, but like everybody's young to me at this point. Like I was just like, whole like I was blown away. I thought it was it. I I have been teaching music for a long time, I've been playing music for a long time. I like, you know, I feel, you know, I'm professional in a way where it's like I know, you know, I can do a lot of shit. But when I was watching them, I was like, I can't do that. I have no idea how they're putting this together, I have no idea what they're thinking, I have no idea how they remember. Like I was just blown away.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

That's one of my favorite things. Like when I was younger, um, I the idea of talent, right? Like this sort of concept of talent, innate, whatever. Um, it always like I I had a period in my life where I'm like, I didn't believe in it. I was like, no, it's just work. You just like work and you you work the right way and you work that hard.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

But the more the older I get, the more I'm like, no, there's like there's something metaphysical here going on where it's like you think about like pro sports, right? Right. All of those guys are trying really, really hard. Yeah. There's one LeBron James.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

It's just like there is this sort of there is some something innate and it's like some people.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

It's like it's both. I think that for I am very much in the like, you know, you try, you work really hard and anybody can do anything, especially with like songwriting stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Like you can like study the craft and anybody can, you know, do stuff. But I think that there are just some people that you're just like, you are starting from a different spot. And it's less.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

At this point I'm like, sweet, uh I want to see what you fucking do. I hope it pans out because it's like shit, man, I'm waiting for somebody else to make a new Siamese dream.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Yeah, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

But uh yeah, did you more of a Siamese dream or a melancholy person?

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Um, I think that I think that I'm a Siamese dream person. Um, and I think that I look to that record a lot for, you know, guitar tones and stuff, and I think that they're just I mean, cherub rock, geek USA, Rocket, Disarm, mayonnaise, all on the same. It's like it's so crazy. Quiet, like it's so crazy. It's so messed up.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

And it's so messed up, but then each one of those songs at some point in my life I thought was the best song ever moved. I know.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

But then you put on the first disc of Melancholy, and you're like, wait, what the fuck? It's like it starts with the piano intro, which I'm obsessed with. It's why we have an intro on the Alien Boy record.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

You're so much, Billy, you're so much like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

And then it's like that hit parade, the like the melancholy intro, tonight, tonight, jellybelly zero, right? It's like that, and then it's like you get Here's For No Wire, whatever the fuck that song name is, I never remember, and Bullet with Butterfly Wings, all in like the first eight tracks, and you're just like, they've leveled up in like like their their pop songs. Like they're like so hooky and they're so heavy. Jelly Belly is like the guitar solo in Jelly Belly is incredible. Like that song, yeah, also like makes my hair like tingle when I listen to it. And it's just the music, like the vocals and the lyrics, they're it's like all amazing, but it's like the guitar work actually is like so thoughtful that on its own it like is moving.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

It is, and it's crazy. He's an incredible for a guy that doesn't seem to uh I don't know. I I don't want to say he doesn't pick up on social cues. I think he's more just like my read on his sort of like weird billiness is like he came up in a time where trying really hard wasn't seen as wildly uncool. You're coming.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

That's kind of what I mean when I was talking about it earlier, where it's like I I because I feel that way sometimes too. It's like I don't I'm not working with the same sauce that he's working with, but like I feel sometimes where I'm just like I know that it's not cool to like care this much, but it just is like how I am.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Yeah, you gotta do it.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

You gotta go out and be you and it's like thank god those records are amazing.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

I know well, I mean, you make pretty good music yourself. I'll I'll try to put it out there. I'll put it out there. Yeah. But yeah, it's gotta be hard in like Portland, which is like slacker kingdom here.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Yeah, I mean, I've said it before, but it's like sometimes where I like going to hang out in LA. Yeah. Because then you're just like surrounded by people that are like always like so taking it so seriously, and then I'm like, oh, this is like normal and fine. And then sometimes I feel like when I come back here, I'm just like, come on guys, like let's let's like really go for it. And it can be hard to find the the motivation.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

I don't I don't blame you. We are, you know, my wife and I and most of the people we have, we're very firmly in that like this is a hobby, we're here to have fun.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

Which again I think is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Great city for that. This is a great city for that.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

I just yeah, I I I feel like I have conversations about it all the time, but I think that it's like making art for art's sake is one of the best things that I think that you can spend your life doing. And I think that I get tangled up in like the competitiveness of it and like the ego of it and like wanting to be successful, and sometimes I'm just like, what is this all about? Like I like sometimes I just want to be like, Can we just like make a song? I just get so like tangled up in stuff, and it feels like sometimes it's very uh it's very like validating and like worthwhile, but sometimes I'm just like I just want to have fun with my friends.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

I love that feeling though of like, why am I fucking doing this? Like I to me that's like one of the great feelings because it only really comes when you're doing stuff. You don't think why am I doing this when I'm being a lazy piece of shit? It's like well I'm being a lazy piece of shit. That's like why I'm why am I lying in bed all day? Because I'm a lazy piece of shit. It's the easy answer. But like, you know, I I played a lot of like high-level youth athletics and all that dumb bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Um that's an interesting uh interesting context for you, and I guess makes sense with uh football. Did you play football?

SPEAKER_00 51:09

I played soccer. I was a soccer goalie in college. My favorite thing about being out here no one knows that I like played sports. Uh what I do for cash these days. I uh you know, you coach, you teach music, I teach sports.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Oh, I had no idea. I know. Are you a soccer coach to like kids?

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Yeah. Uh uh I coach uh at a high school nearby. I won't drop the thing so that they don't feel good about themselves. I know some of them probably listen to the shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

I have a lot of kids that play soccer. Oh, that's true. I wonder if there's any crossover.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Shit, if anyone played goalkeeper, let me know. Okay. But uh, but it's like, you know, uh there were those moments, you know, uh in sports for me. What I loved about sports is like you had this little magic square where the rules were different, and that mattered to me. Like you play a game, I was like you, very similar in basketball. Like I didn't play basketball well if I didn't try 100% from start to finish, yeah. Which rubs some people the wrong way, but it's like I literally can't play otherwise, I suck. I'm not good. Yeah. Uh but I loved that for me because it's like once the whistle ended, then I went back to the real world and I didn't know what the fuck to do. No one was nothing like felt urgent. Right. But it's like caring about something like that to the point where you actually feel a little bit crazy when you think about it. You're like, why do I care so much about this?

SPEAKER_01 52:23

I feel crazy all the time. I'm like I'm constantly wrestling with it. Yeah. I'm just like, this like, why does this mean so much to me? And then I'm like, I don't know why, because I think that making art is important. And I think that like, like, you know, especially making art in a community and like making art with my friends and like having it, yeah. There's many different things that it can be about, but just that at the foundation, it's like I don't really know what else is better.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Well, exactly. What else is better is like another the other thing too is like think of like when you asked that question like ten years ago. Yeah and now looking back at if you could talk to that person ten years ago, you'd have all these answers. You still don't have the full answer, but you'd have things that they didn't know ten years ago. It's like in ten years from now, if you keep asking that question, you'll still have you'll have new things to answer. Yeah. That's like having those unanswerable questions, why the fuck am I doing this? Being a completely unanswerable question when you really break it down. Is like, I don't know, it means you're participating in your own life. You're not just on cross control now.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

And also, in terms of like, why are you taking this so seriously, especially when you're a bunch of around a bunch of hobbyists and slackers like uh the Portland music server No No Shade. No shade. Um But it's like if you listen to Gish and then you listen to Siamese Dream, then you listen to Melancholy, right? At any point shed a tear. He could have just made Gish again and it still would have been a great album. He could have made Siamese Dream again, but that thing about Billy Corgan that's like I'm gonna keep pushing can I push this into the next band? It creates something that is uh unrecognizable without it already existing. You couldn't describe Simeon's dream without Simeon's dream.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

No.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

And that is like that's the real fucking magic. Yeah. It's like and just trying to do something like that, I feel like like, what else are you gonna do with your life, you know?

SPEAKER_01 54:08

I know, and it's like when you can too. It's like, you know, I have this beautiful gift of like having played music with like these people for, you know, ten or more years, and it's like we have a a really sweet thing going. It's like, why not try to keep like making stuff that you know inspires us, like inspires our friends, inspires other people, like to make more stuff or like you know, makes us laugh or makes us feel, you know, like excited. Yeah. The feeling of like actually making something that you're excited about is like kind of untouchable.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

Oh, it's so nice, it's so fun. And it's just like, you know, I think about that a lot because I play a lot of bands with my wife, and I'm like, oh, I got this like crazy to me, that's like my crazy thing is like, oh man, I get to like share in this thing with this person that I share every other thing in my life with, you know? Yeah. Uh but it's like, um, I don't know, I moved out here when I was like 26, literally with the thought process being like, alright, I have until I'm 30 to play one halfway decent show to justify all of this time and effort I put into this. Yeah. And like I got now I I I don't know. I genuinely have no idea what my life I mean, you start when you were 15, you're probably in the same boat. Yeah. I have no idea what my life would be like if I hadn't done that.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

No, I I can't imagine I can't picture it at all.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

It's like, yeah, has been such a driving force in my life for so long and is like why I've met like everyone that I know.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

It's really cool meeting people that also like have I remember when I first moved here, like one of the things was just talking to people that are also really committed to their bands and really committed to music. And the relief of like, I don't have to explain to this person why I'm doing this. Yeah. Because people that aren't doing it, like, they'll be like, Well, are you making any money off of this? Yeah, yeah. And it's like you feel embarrassed. You're like, I don't know. Yeah. Especially early on when you're playing shows to nobody, but like if you're talking to other people that are doing the same thing, you get to just talk about the music. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone. It's really nice.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

It is really nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

Well, uh, that's about an hour. Uh we did it. We did it. We talked for this is the longest we've talked.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

For sure. By far. Yeah. And I feel like it's pretty natural. So who knows what could happen next time we run into each other.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Next time I'm just gonna tip my cap and quietly walk. We need to get some space. Yeah, now we need space. Now we need some space to come up with new stories.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

Another band that we want to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

No, it's just Billy. I know. It's just Billy. I know. Any last Billy Corgan thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Um, well, I was just thinking about it's not really a Billy thought, but like when you were just talking about whenever we do run into each other going into the corner and talking about the pumpkins, it's just I always think about um the summer before we started working on You Wanna Fade, me and Al would have our like cocktail hour every weekend.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

Oh, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

That would always, we would like go up to our little like upstairs patio at our house at the time, and we would, you know, just be talking, talking, whatever, but it would always devolve into a screaming about the smashing pumpkins and listening to the smashing pumpkins, and it was just like clockwork. Like we'd be up there for like an hour and a half, and we'd just be like, it's another weekend where we're just basically exactly what we just did. And when I think about them, I think about that and the inf I mean that getting because he didn't listen to them before we worked on the last record, and getting him into them, reigniting my love for it, and then it just like fueled the whole making of that record.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

When you get to see through their eyes the discovery that, like oh, actually he is as good as he says he is when he talks. Have you listened to uh the short-lived Billy Corgan side projects once?

SPEAKER_01 57:46

Yes, yes. Honestly, that song's so good.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

That whole album is great. I stand by the best pumpkin song since melancholy is Jesus I Mary Star of the Sea.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

I have to listen to the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Do yourself a favor the next time you yell at somebody about Billy Corgan or whatever you want to get into, whatever you're in a mood, just and the problem is you have to go through the first part of the song where he says the word Jesus a lot. And he says it like Billy does, but the entire experience of it, uh, especially, you know, I God, I remember in college that song ruined my life. But he gets the phrase, everything just feels like rain. Like, just write down some thoughts. Just share them with me the next time you talk to him, because that is I love that album. And I love Billy Corgan and I love Alien Boy. I'm so happy that I got to do this with you.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

Uh yeah, super fun.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

The new album is awesome. Do you have any shows coming up?

SPEAKER_01 58:38

Uh we do not I'm playing a solo show on April 12th at the Twilight Room, Twilight Cafe with my buddy Adam. Nice. Um and this other emo band that I don't remember what they're called, but he's really excited about it, and everybody's really excited about it. But yeah, April 12th. Um, and then we're going on tour in June, but I can't say with who yet, and it is gonna be announced really soon. Hopefully, very soon.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

As soon as I stop this podcast, you're gonna tell me because Ellie's told me either. And what uh Bory, right, is the other project. Uh Bory has a show. When's Bory's next show?

SPEAKER_01 59:10

Uh Bory, our new album, Never Turns Tonight, came out today, March 6th.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Yeah, this podcast is coming out in a little bit. I'm trying to get ahead of these podcasts a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

It came out last week, two weeks ago on March 6th. And uh I played drums on it. It was very fun working on it with Brendan. We're playing with American Culture on March 12th, a band that I love from Denver, and then our record release show is gonna be April 23rd. Nice show bar.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

April 23rd. Sweet. Uh I will try to uh this podcast will be out before the twenty-third. I don't know if before the twelfth. Uh and yeah, send me uh whatever you want me, I'll post on uh Instagram page. Uh yeah, thank you very much.