Hudson Freeman talks Short Form Videos, Political Philosophy and Internet Trolls

Hudson Freeman (@thehuddog on instagram) joins Kyle to chat about his life after the success of his viral song If You Know Me. We talk about the world of short form content creation, dealing with the backlash of Geese Bot Allegations, and the philosophy of Teddy Adorno.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:28

We also have a sponsor, which is Clubhouse Fantasy Sports at ClubhouseFantasy Sports.io. It's a game that I'm building out because for some reason this is my best uh attempt to advertise something I've been working on for two years now. But it's a game built around the concept of Mario Kart, but for fantasy football, where the better your team's doing, the harder it is, the easier your uh the worse your team's doing, the easier it gets. It's built to just make the game more fun for the casual fans that I tend to play fantasy football with. I tend to play with my buddies from high school who don't even really watch football. I just wanted to build a game that was fun, even if you don't watch football. If you are interested, go check it out. Clubhousefantasy Sports.io. That's an ad read. Look at me. I'm all professional. Speaking of professional, I have uh a guest that I'm very excited to have on. He's uh been a fan of the reels for a while, actually, and you've probably heard of them. Uh it's Hudson Freeman. Hudson, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

I'm doing so well. How are you, Kyle?

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Good man. Where are you right now? I know you're like on tour all the time. You were just down in like Australia, New Zealand.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Um, yeah, I just got back. I'm I'm in Brooklyn. I am uh I I have whatever kind of ADHD is inherent to Gen Z because I have to like go on a walk if I'm gonna have anything useful to say. So I'm uh but it is raining. I apologize if the sound is bad.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

No, dude, it just adds the aesthetic. I think uh also man, you uh you're you're breaking the steel on the walking podcast. I've been trying to get guests to go on walks with me and and record podcasts for a little bit because if you've seen the reels, uh that's what I like to do too. I I I guess I'm definitely a millennial, but I got the same type of ADD, man. I just gotta keep moving.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

No, I feel like I always like I enjoy doing a walk and talk. I think that's my my most I don't know, I get the most ideation, I think. The walk and talk.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Oh yeah. Some people are shower thinkers, you know? They like to just like stand in the shower. Uh and I, you know, obviously I love a good shower, I think, but uh for whatever reason I just I gotta be moving. I like shooting a basketball whenever I have to like think through something. Like I have to kind of do something physical. Otherwise, I think I just get lazy. Yeah. Like I have to trick my brain into being as active as my body is being. Uh how's Brooklyn this uh this summer?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Um, it's like it's not quite getting warm yet. Uh so it's like it was like nice when I got here, and now it's like cooling down and getting rainy again, but whatever. I'm I'm fine with it. I'm happy to be back. I've been away for a long time.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

How long were you on the road?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

I was gone for two weeks to Australia and New Zealand, but then I had just been back to New York for maybe like two weeks, and then before that I was gone for a month.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Ooh. So you're you're probably on the road a lot these days. Uh obviously, for anybody that doesn't know who Hudson Freeman is, uh, I am one of probably not a few people that first encountered you via a very viral TikTok uh of you playing a detuned uh what is it, nylon string guitar uh on a riff that immediately got stuck in my head and got stuck in a million other people's heads. Uh how long ago did that video come out?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Um, it came out like the beginning of September. So I guess that was like maybe six months ago.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

Wow, that is not that long ago. Uh no.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And no, I I in fact it happened while I was on like the longest kind of DIY tour that I had ever been on, which was like a week. So I definitely I've never I mean I've been like recording music for a decade, but I I haven't really actually had the chance to tour up until now, so I don't know. I guess I'm just taking advantage of the uh the chance.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Hey man, uh you know, you just when something like that happens, you just gotta run with it. What was it like when uh when you first started to notice, like, oh, this thing's kind of taking off, people kind of like this. Uh did it hit you all at once? Did you kind of have an idea of how big it was gonna get? Or was it just like, oh, okay, this is interesting?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

It's kind of, I mean, I've been like friends with a lot of musicians on TikTok for a while now. So I feel like I've kind of seen the way it happens, and it's very like almost this waterfall effect of you kind of one video gets popular and then you record it again, and that gets even more popular. And um, I guess what happened was uh I just posted a video with more of like a hook that was kind of like, oh yeah, you should tune your nylon guitar down. And I think it just kind of got on like guitar Instagram, yeah. And so I kind of was just like, okay, there's something about this song that's working, so I'm just gonna like keep making videos when I go on this tour. And I don't know, there was just this very serendipitous field that I drove past on the way from Indiana to Chicago, and it just it genuinely was like, I don't know, I don't have these moments a lot, but I kind of knew that it was gonna be a cool video. It just like was so beautiful outside. It was like kind of ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

Honestly, I watched the video again with you in the the cornfield, and uh just because I I'm you know I love to try to understand these things and like you're saying, that sort of moment of serendipity. Yeah, uh it really is kind of a perfect TikTok video. Like, I think if you were to show people in 20 years, like honestly, what culture is like uh if you were living in 2025, 2026, right? I would kind of start with this video and be like, yeah, this is sort of like why people watched TikTok. You have and I think honestly, the thing that is underrated, I think everyone obviously talks about the hook because it's very catchy. Uh but that first line you sing mixed with you know your whole general appearance standing in the cornfield, you look like uh what's that farmer in the wife painting? Uh American Gothic, right? It's a very American Gothic vibe. And that line, if you know me like you say you do, fucking nailed it, dude. That was really good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, that's very that's weird to think about. I I mean, maybe you're maybe you're gassing it up a little too much, but I think there was like there was a very strange kind of kismet quality to it. And for I mean, if for me it was just like, I don't actually really care about this at all. I just like I've been I've been like I've been wanting to have uh any kind of chance at making music for like 10 years, and I was just like, oh, something I did finally worked. I don't know. That's like that's all that really I was thinking about. That's yeah, I mean it's it's I think it's it's interesting to like think about it in a more retroactive way, is about like I don't know, maybe maybe I feel like everyone was freaking out about AI around that time. And maybe there was something kind of like I don't know, a little bit against the grain about it, or like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Well, uh as somebody else that has uh picked up a minor amount of internet notoriety for a very relatively similar thing, I've also thought of my success as being like in due in part to both the mix of like how much AI stuff there is out there and how professionalized a lot of short videos have gotten. Like even podcasts, it's it's you know, this is my basement, right? You're on a walk. Most podcast clips you see, it's like two guys in a professional studio, and and you can kind of tell they spent a lot of time picking up their outfit. I mean, I I think I look really good right now, but like obviously, you know, there's a bit of a difference there.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Uh but like I think I was gonna say with yours, I I don't know. I mean, yeah, I personally feel like there is a quality to what makes like videos do well online, and I I don't I think it's it's inexplicable in some ways, but then I was gonna say about like your videos is just like there's um this immediate invitation to association that you have with like okay, here's a song that's listed on the screen, but then like I have actually no idea how it relates to the 30-second mini essay, and then it's like you kind of you get this automatic retention that I don't think other videos will get because I don't know that that's the thing that everyone's trying to beat is like trying to get people to stay for longer than five seconds, and you just I know you can automatically you can keep people because you're just like what what does this have to do with this song?

SPEAKER_03 9:52

I mean, uh one of the things I wanted to talk about with you is like well, my theory on a lot of this has to do with uh because people watch so many videos these days, right? They they're so inundated with uh short form videos. You know, you might sit down for an hour and watch 200 videos or something, something like that. Something crazy. Uh I think people's ability to kind of discern a level of authenticity uh has skyrocketed ahead of our ability to fake that authenticity, you know? Like a lot of the professionalization, a lot of the AI is trying to fake an authenticity. But like one of the things I think you can kind of tell from your video, it's something that I try to do. Like when I go on my walks, I'm just going on a walk, listening to music, or listening to podcasts, or sometimes just not listening to anything at all, until I have an idea, and then I pull the phone out. My friends have now watched me do this, they make fun of me. But like it's just when the idea comes, I try to record it immediately because I want it to be a spontaneous moment. I think they can tell when I'm being authentic or not. And I think in your video, for whatever reason, uh when you were able to uh step out of the car into the cornfield and record that video, it very much came across as like, oh, there's an authentic moment. He just stopped in this cornfield, he just had the idea to do this, and I don't know. I I it sounds like that was the case. Do you feel like authenticity is coming through more these days, or do you think that we're losing out to uh the automation professionalization of everything?

SPEAKER_01 11:22

That I do I do think that the authenticity thing is kind of what is being talked around to some extent because um I don't I don't know, I just don't think I don't think even if you trained like an AI on indie rock music that it could just produce more great indie rock music. Um I don't know. I I just think that like authentic stuff can't be I I just don't I don't believe that it's possible, really. That you can like I I was talking to this artist other artist, um Hank Heaven. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they're kind of like this indie twangy kind of ironic singer, songwriter. It's it's really great. But they're talking about like purposefully putting random shit and imperfections in their recordings because they just are like you have to like zig and zag with this technology. And I kind of I don't know. I my my understanding of art and culture is just like there's nothing really to worry about with the like AI stuff because I think we did just immediately go like, no, let's find the most authentic shit and like amplify that. Um I I don't know. Even even like the impulse to hyper pop music and stuff, I feel like is an attempt to make keep the computer music more human. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

I completely agree.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

I don't know. I I just I've a very I have a lot of faith in the artistic uh I don't know. I just I I have like a lot of faith in in humans' creativity. Yeah I I kind of I think I do see and I authentic shit on online more and more every day.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

I I I kind of try to stand by uh this idea that it's like the good, you know, like you're searching for the good, uh, and the good is what is true, is what is good, you know. And at the end of the day, it's like AI can give you something that's pretty, AI can even make you laugh with some, I don't know. Uh but like inexplicably, like the most authentic AI thing is like uh Italian brain rot, right? Like that is the thing that you watch in AI and you're like, oh, this is because it it kind of brings a reflection onto AI. It does something that only AI can do. Yeah, draws light to the reality of the situation. You know, have you ever there's a short story called uh the new automaton theater? I can't remember who it's by, uh but it's just this guy, and he like he's a master at making these little automatons, these little mechanical dolls that would like chop uh look like they're chopping wood or something like that in Germany. And then he disappears for 10 years and he comes back with the new automaton theater, and it's all these little dolls that are moving in these kind of grotesque ways that only the automaton could move, and the audience hates it at first, but immediately after, like it splits, and there's the old automaton theater, and people just watch that, and some people just can't stop watching the new automaton theater because they feel like there's some sort of inherent truth, even though it's unpleasant to watch. And I think that's like something that we can't recreate, we can't strip away, you know. That humanity, that like that reality do it all.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Right. Yeah, I I completely agree. Um that's so funny that you bring up the good because I've been thinking about that a lot. I don't like want to get too in the weeds because I can definitely get super annoying with philosophy. Um but I like music. I don't know, like I have been yeah, true. Uh I I'm really excited to to continue talking about music. But yeah, I I think I I definitely um I grew up um religious, which I've talked a little bit about and I think is on is on some like biograph short biographies of me or whatever, but um it's never I I think it's that the idea of the good, like this social ethic thing, this this idea of there being a a first principle of the good, like is something I just have never been able to really let go of, I think.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Um and in in some ways that's like I I grew up like playing in church, and I think there's there's such a difference between like I think great gospel music and like really horrible corporate Christ Christian music.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Um and I think part of the part of the reason why I like couldn't keep playing that as a teenager and kind of like I got conf, I I kind of like started to hate church was like mostly just because I thought that like the music sucks and like wasn't good. Like there was something like soulless about it, and something like deeply ironic about like music that's supposed to be for the soul, like being so opaque. Um yeah. I don't know. I don't did you ever did you grow up in church or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Uh uh yeah, I went to like Catholic church a little bit here and there uh back in the day. And interesting. Yeah, it always uh I mean I think Christianity is always about this idea of uh the way I look at it now is it's all about the the battle between form and content, right? That like a whole part of like Jesus in the New Testament is he's going around Jerusalem talking to people. You know, my favorite part is when he flips over the table in the temple and he's like, Yeah, you guys, uh this is the form of a temple, but you're uh perverting the content of it, you know. This is not what the temple is for. This is supposed to be a holy place, and you guys you think you've done enough just by replicating the form. So in your situation, it's like, yeah, you went to church and you sang about God, but it it wasn't from uh you ever listen to like sacred harp music?

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Oh, sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Yeah, like that is like a type of music that honestly kind of only can uh be from the heart, you know, it's just people singing in these like little uh you know, backwoods country uh churches and stuff like that. But it's like that that battle between form and content, I think like especially uh as it plays out in churches and as it plays out in organized religion or or whatever, but like that is what to me fascinates me about Christianity is like Jesus constantly pointing to the content, uh the triumph of content over form is like his his mission, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah, interesting. I I like that. Yeah, I think for me, um I think what drives a lot of people away from, and I I think I don't know. I mean, I I basically I basically am as critical or more of Christianity than anyone is because I feel like I have lived in it so long and know so much about it or whatever. And um I guess I think yeah, I I I'm not very like dogmatic about what it is, and I don't really I don't think of it as these like set of propositions that I'm trying to like convert people to assenting to, you know, it's like it's more I don't know, like I I think I always say like the the metaphysic is the social ethic, or like, or vice versa, like um the kind of life that I think Christ is like inviting people into living in the New Testament is like I I don't know, it's um it's a it's something that you do, it's not something that you believe. Yeah, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

I I mean I totally agree. I I honestly love uh readings of the New Testament as like uh a political economy text, right? Uh there's the the Lord's Prayer that talks about uh forgive us our trespasses, we forgive those who trespass against us. It was originally translated as uh forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us, because the word for debt and sin were the same word, you know. Uh back in the day, it's like the reason you would go into debt is because you had wronged somebody and you owed them something. Uh and it's only through, you know, the mechanations of society, it's a people influence that kind of comes in and keeps saying, like, well, he meant like a spiritual debt. He didn't mean like the actual debt, and it's like, no, no, he meant the actual debt. He meant wipe it clean, and it's like, I think that's very relevant in 2026, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Right. I think, yeah, I think there is kind of like an idealistic and like spiritualized interpretation of these more real, like materialist politics that I think, yeah, that you're alluding to with like the Lord's Prayer. There's a really great, um, there's a great essay from this uh this theology like philosopher of religion guy, really like David Bentley Hart. Um he did an essay with Jacob and that was kind of going through the Lord's Prayer. Um it's really great, honestly. But I've I've always been Yeah, struck by how much um obviously the history of the church is kind of spiritualizing these things that are much more akin to uh like the kind of left politics that I imagine we're both interested in.

SPEAKER_03 21:03

Yeah, I never really explicitly uh say anything like overtly political on this because I I don't I've taught enough politics with people, but like for the most part, I think it it's pretty easy to I I I'll throw it out there. I am a Marxist in the sense of like uh I just I think he was right. I still think he was right. I I read his books, uh I'm in line with the actual existing socialist nations or whatever. But like I don't really care. I uh I view myself more foremost, not like a Marxist, not like a Christian or anything like that. I I I'm an American and being part of an American means to understand and like love every part of America because like you have to take ownership of it. You know, you can't just say I'm an American in this way and those are that's bad. It's like no.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

I agree with you.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

I'm this way and I want to fix those things too. It's like that's my view of like what American Marxism is. It's like, no, we're taking we're taking blame for everything and we're gonna fix it. That's the Goal. It's like we have to figure out a way to do that. And that blends the spirituality aspect with the practical aspect in the same way that like Lenin made Marx real by bringing his ideas into reality through practice, you know? I view these things as all dialectical.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah. Totally. Yeah, I that kind of reminds me of um that reminds me of this like this, like um he's kind of a Zhizak guy. You might know him, Todd McGowan.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

I've heard of him.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Yeah, I mean, he he talks a lot about like how I don't know, I think people misunderstand Freud or like kind of make this moralist critique of Freud that's kind of like uh you know, you're you're kind of just allowing all these like repressed thoughts, like you're almost like saying the the repressed shit is all just kind of like it's all explained by something and then kind of like justified or whatever. Um but I think McGowan talks about how like you're in a way like psychoanalysis allows you to take responsibility for your unconscious, to like take responsibility for your desire. Um and it's not about like repressing your desire in the sense of like uh ignoring it and letting it kind of come out in all these uh unsublimated ways, but like by doing this work um like through talk therapy or whatever, you can like realize your desire and like take responsibility for it. Um and I think likewise I I tend to feel like maybe some like lefty people I know look at America and are kind of like, this is all like fucked, and like I don't even want to consider myself American. And in a way, it's just like, no, I think I think we are by whatever I mean, some people view it as luck, obviously. Um, but other other people obviously um and I I see it, I can see their point that this is like a deeply um inhuman political situation that we we uh find ourselves in, but I think we also do have to view our I don't know, we have to separate the state from the citizenry and kind of like see people as not being identical with their government and and worth um worth caring for.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

Oh yeah, I mean I I absolutely agree with that. Uh uh first and foremost, in terms of like the the Freudian psychoanalysis, I think that's an example of like granting form to content, right? You have these uh feelings, right? And by literally just granting them words, by putting them into some sort of form, you're able to deal with them in a new categorically different way. Doesn't mean you they're done with, it's just it becomes a problem that's more solvable. And like, you know, you can tie that whole back into the the idea of of Jesus as the like word of God, right? Like the the power of words to grant form to things that previously were mysterious, that is like part of evolution. And then the other part about uh you know uh Michael Hudson writes about uh parasites and he he points out he's talking about financialization as like a parasitic force, and and he talks about like parasites one of the reasons that they are so successful is that they trick the body into thinking that the parasite is a necessary part of the body, right? And I view this American empire, which is you know, eight hundred military bases, uh an economic system that really only serves a very small amount of people. It's simply a parasite, and it can change without changing the essence, the core natural or the core like essential aspect of America, in the same way that like countries will change government systems, but remain their countries. There's something more deeply rooted in the soil.

unknown 25:59

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

I think the thing that makes America unique is because uh it is, you know, uh ostensibly a very young nation. Obviously, there were natives that have been here forever, and that's part of the American tapestry. But like we are a civilization that is discovering itself in a way that like European or Chinese civilization isn't. It's sort of it's it's we kind of have to create the civilization to then or take the civilization away from the parasite that we have right now. Whereas a country like China, they already had the roots of the civilization, they were able to change their system and install uh what they have now, which seems to be working for them, whatever. Uh but it's like I think ultimately it comes down to uh you know, like a type of faith that this is something that can be saved, that there is some good here, there's some good in the American people. And I think that ties back to like what we were talking about short-form content. Everybody can latch on to how bad it is and like how brain rotten how much it's like wasting everyone's attention span. But there's still good there. I listened to your song and it changed the way I went about the rest of my day. That is a good piece of art. That is something that I I genuinely view as like worthwhile. I don't know. Do you see uh similar things? This is a this is I like this, it's a fun pod.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think I I do think that music has the capacity to I I guess I view like art as having like the capacity to to make I make like with a very lowercase eye like intervention into life and into culture. And I think like I I really do view it as being that like powerful um uh not to say that I I think because I had like a viral video that it was like it really made this mark on culture and in a in a way beyond just being a pretty thing, but I think I do think that um I view like works of literature and and movies and albums as having the ability to like kind of view view our present as history, which I think is is like a really hard thing to do right now. Like I think I like I think it is really hard to see um the unfolding of like our reality happening as as being like actually a part of the history that precedes us, because it I think that kind of that would kind of get us into like the Mark Litcher territory of things, but it's like I think there really is this feeling of just this infinite present kind of extending out into the future that doesn't feel like the history that we read about. And and I I think there is a little bit of cynicism at times to not see at least the way art can can uh can reveal the way history is past. To actually like look at the 2020s and like see a discrete time period. Um sometimes I've it feels like we're just are living in the infinite 2020 or something.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Yeah, I mean, did totally agree. I I've said it a couple times on a couple different reels that like poetry and art is history being written in real time, where it's like the historians for the 2020s are going to go back to the art of the time period to write their history books, right? To make sense of it. But it's like good poetry, good art. You know, I I I like this. It's like the justification for good art. One, it's all part of uh the cycle, everything that precedes it leading up to it, the moment of its realization, and then the justification for it in the future, right? Like the future will justify the thing, but it like exists now in the present. And I'm with you on that. Like uh most of my stuff is just trying to figure out I want to figure things out right now because I love the sentence that like the world is rational, right? What is real is rational. What is here exists for a reason. It all makes some sort of rational sense. And so when you see something like a viral video, like when it's happening at the time, there's this element of like, oh, this is mystical. Where did this come from? What the fuck happened? But in reality, it's uh a result of processes, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Right. I I think maybe that is where I almost have this like like my my marks and my Christianity are kind of like coming together in the moment where I kind of feel like history, like viewing history, um seeing our life as being made up of history, whether that's personal or shared and social, it's like it has this mystical quality to it. Um and it's that like it like evades it evades like the binary of like determined and free, you know.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Oh yeah, absolutely. I was listening to somebody have a debate on that a while ago, and they're talking about free will, and the person was just kept bringing up like, well, I could choose Coke or I could choose Pepsi. This guy's trying to make this uh argument that it's like, well there's an element of determination in anything you do, in that uh if you're operating within the boundaries of what has already happened, right, then there's gonna be a level of predetermination to it. But if you make a decision outside of the idea of what has happened, you know, if you do something that is truly and wholly uniquely new, that is an act of free will. So these things can coexist together. And it's like honestly, when you talk about Marxism and Christianity, the thing that I always like about it is like it is always putting the onus on me to make sense of these things. So it's like when you have these contradictions, like, well, if I have free will, but my actions are determined, uh, the onus is on me to figure out what's like I gotta go figure out how this thing actually makes sense. Like, how do I square the circle? It can't just be random, you know?

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yeah. I guess I I really do just see I I I do feel like you have to invoke a sense of free will to kind of make sense or to at least kind of be able to have the utop the utopian horizon. Because I I just kind of can't I kind of can't see it any other way. I I like the thing that Graber is always talking about of like you know, like realizing that the way things are are because of the way we have decided that they will be. And that means that it is open to change, like I I just think that that requires some kind of understanding that things are not pure just completely determined. Um, we can have agency in in history.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Yeah, I I think that specifically to me it's like Graber is describing the lock mechanism, right? That the consciousness has not sort of moved past. And obviously Marx then ties into this with like, well, the consciousness is also duh uh tied to the material reality, but uh the form that society takes is not a permanent thing. And to me, a lot of it is like the uh the idea behind Jesus as like this guy that came and said, if you just keep telling the truth and you're willing to die for that truth, uh that's the key that opens that up. And that's you know, that's why I I'm interested in the New Testament, is he's just going around to all these institutions, basically just saying it's like, no, you know this isn't right, you know this is the right way that it's supposed to happen, and watching as like the ramifications of that are you know, the last two thousand years of human history. It's just a guy that was willing to die to say it's like this is the temple, don't trade money here, dude. Yeah, wipe the debts, man, wipe the debts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yeah. I think for me, I I'm always feeling like the contradiction that the church has not kind of lived up to what feels like the truth in Christ. It that just seems like obvious that that would be the case. Like it does feel impossible that the institution would not become captured by various different polities throughout history. And it seems like that's the case for a lot of religions, that that they become that they are captured. And I I think maybe the thing I struggle with is the sense when I'm talking to people who are critical of religion, who are kind of like maybe there's something inherent to religion that it will be captured by uh by these regressive um you know forms of hierarchy and and institutions. But I guess I it seems to me like there are just as many examples um, you know, like like like MLK Jr., who are kind of like invoking uh religion for the sake of turning turning hierarchies. So um I don't know. That's my take on it.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

Yeah, yeah. In terms of like the churches and stuff like that, I think the thing that it speaks to, the truth of like how human development works, right? Is that you have your ideas, you try to put those ideas into practice, and sometimes the forms that these take uh end up being regressive at a certain point. But like if you look at like the Protestant Reformation, right? And if you were to look at the Catholic Church today, it's far more Protestant than it was when the Protestant Reformation happened. Like this progress happens, and then there's the actions of uh the you know, the the reaction to it that tries to recapture it, or there's the misinterpretation or whatever. But when something has changed, I think this is the thing that a lot of people uh because America's uh it's got a very narrow time frame for things. They they they they're very sort of like, well, what's gonna happen in the next five years? What happened in the last five years? They don't kind of see the permanence of of change. Yeah, like once something fundamentally changes, yeah, yeah. Uh I talked to a lot of my friends here that uh make music in Portland and they're very hesitant to like make short form videos and stuff like that, but I always like to tell them it's like, well, they're they're now here, dude. Everybody watches these things, so it's like either don't advertise your music or make short form videos. It's it's not really up to your preference. This is the world now, you know?

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Yeah. I agree. I I do think that people have a very like out of this kind of justification for not trying. And it's kind of just like, well, you know, do you think Cobain would be on TikTok? And it's just like, I don't know. Like he's not he's not from this time, and I just kind of think that's a ridiculous kind of justification for just not if you I mean, like, sure, I think the thing with the whole um uh the whole chaotic good thing that happened recently is it's really interesting in terms of like the politics of indie music because it's like the whole thing with all these people that have become popular um in the last you know five or six years, like Keys or like Wednesday or MJ Lenderman or whatever, is like there's a real nonchalant quality to these bands that people like. And it's so it was so like offensive and like a proof of their inauthenticity when you showed that they have you know like fan accounts that are happening in the background. But in in actuality, like the reason why these fan accounts are so popular with like indie labels is because it lets the artist not have to do the whole kind of labor of being an influencer. Like the whole beauty of having a bunch of dispersals of like fan activity on different accounts for a band like Yeast is like you don't have to have Cameron Winter go and do the shit that everybody's sub-50k on Spotify is having to do, where you're like doing a million different kinds of ad campaigns or like getting in front of a camera and talking about like whatever um I don't know, like whatever the news is and how it relates to your mental health, self-help, or whatever. Anyway, I'm making a change. I just think I I'm not I'm not really I'm not really trying to uh actually punch down at people having to be influencers because I think that's what I've been doing. I kind of just think like people want the performed authenticity, and then like when it's revealed of like, oh, actually, this thing that the music industry is doing to allow artists to be nonchalant is like actually that's the real, real inauthentic thing that it now they're hated for. And I just think it's super ironic.

SPEAKER_03 39:02

Oh, yeah. And it's also funny because it's like uh well, now you know, first of all, I view the the chaotic good thing as like that was an advertisement for chaotic good. Um that was I didn't I knew who geese was before that article came out. You know, everyone knew who Geese was before the article came out. Yeah, I didn't know chaotic good, and now I know chaotic good is great advertising.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Anyone who's pissed off about it, right? You're just mad at the game, man.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

You know, again, to make a crucial reference, uh, as Jesus says, uh, give to Caesar what is Caesar's, right? If you're gonna play the game, you gotta play the game. You can't just not participate in the development of music right now. For real. Like you were talking about Kirk Cobain, and it's like everybody has like, oh, would he be making TikToks? Like, well, he wouldn't be Kirk Cobain right now if he didn't make TikToks. And also, I mean, he'd do phenomenal. He's a charismatic guy. It's the same thing I say about Cameron Winter. I saw him play live at N Boise. He's a charismatic, very talented musician. It's like, dude, that's who does good in these things. He just decided to play the game, man. He decided to play the game. You're mad at the game, but don't get mad at him. He's just good at it, man.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

I just think, I just think, I just think it's like really absurd and like kind of conflating with serious shit to just be like, we're using the we're all gonna just all collectively start using the word psyop to refer to like people having like fan accounts on TikTok. Like that's just like absurd to me. Like the idea that it's because I like literally I've had people in my comments section, because I I made like a video making fun of it, but I had like somebody in the comment section literally being like using like Noam Chomsky analysis, like telling me like that it this whole chaotic good thing is them manufacturing consent from the population, and it's like it's evil what they're doing. And I'm just I just kind of I kind of can't deal with that. I really I crashed out on my Instagram story the other day about this. Um and I'm taking a a sabbatical from Instagram right now because of it. So I am I am taking care of it, everybody. Um but I think there there was some there was some like in like R slash indie account that just like put a bunch of different indie people on a list and we're just like these people are suspected of doing chaotic big campaigns. Um and um I don't know, this is like this is the first time that I've ever like been had any kind of uh you know, whatever, whatever the word we're using, whatever kind of internet the internet spice that is like it's not necessarily like trolls.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Like beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

It's more like demons. You know, these people are willingly making themselves into kind of little demons to just bother you, to like test you in this way for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

I totally fell for it. Like I 100% fell for it. And what what really pissed me off about it was it was like I fell for it hard because it like this person didn't have any followers. I just like I amplified it way more than it ever would have. But that the the little story starts with like, man, it's like a shame that these artists I like, McGee and Yacht Club, are on this list. Um and like, but like of course Hudson would be on it. Like, I knew you, I knew you were a I knew you were a player one. I was just like, okay, okay, so you don't you don't fuck with the music. That's fine. But like he basically just was like, how how could you possibly have gotten like 200,000 followers in this short of time without doing this? And I was just I I really I'm I am being completely dead honest. Like, I like this is this has turned into an interesting episode, honestly. But I'm being I'm being 100% dead honest. It just the video got just like 5 million views in like two or three weeks, and I really did just get 200,000 followers with like a spam of a few weeks. Like I I I really I found out did have like this fan. You can find these fan accounts on TikTok. It's like there's like two of them, and they have like no views on them. They're like people just automatically create this video. It really isn't what happened.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

I can speak from my own perspective as again somebody that has found minor internet fame after not nearly the same level that you're at, but like the first video that I ever posted that like blew up uh got 300,000 views. I was talking about fantasy football. And uh it was just overnight that like this thing kind of popped off. And I can't really explain to you why some of my videos do well. I actually don't really fully understand why so many people like. the videos that I make. I'm very happy for it. I'm very thankful for it. But uh I think my brand or whatever. I it's weird to call it a brand, but it is, you know, I I I I'm trying to do this. Uh is very definitively like I'm not gonna do anything above the minimum here so that you uh I'm like laying my cards on the table. This is just me in my opinion. This is all I got here. Which is cultivated though. Like anyone that thinks that I'm anyone that thinks I'm doing that not intentionally, listen to this fucking conversation. We're thinking a lot man I'm very intentional about this. But that idea that like you know people didn't connect to your it's really this metaphysical idea of like enjoyment where people think that like all thoughts are top down that you can just kind of brainwash the population whereas in reality it's like no these things come bottom up.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Dude I'm yeah it's so funny that you you bring up the enjoyment thing um because my fucking my my philosophy friend Jason like he messaged me that like he met he messaged me this like quote from like Lacan like he sent this thing and then he and then he sent like okay I'll no it's it was from Adorno it was from fucking Adorno and he he then he messaged me and he was like dude he's like people hating on artists for being viralized is pure cope obviously because the first hint that their desire is the desire of the other shakes the image to the core and makes them guilty as fuck. They have to punish somebody for it but in the process they deny art any force of reality because they let the commodity form exhaust the art form.

SPEAKER_03 45:39

Yes 100% man uh dude I love that you're bringing up Adorno usually I'm the guy that's bringing up uh shout out philosophers yeah let's go um but yeah man I just I always kind of go to again I'm gonna this is a this is me just uh quoting the Bible up but it's like Jesus said they know not what they do. I've gotten into you have no idea how many fights I've gotten into online I do a lot of TikTok live debates that I've had to like buck out of because I personally I love I want to know like how people disagree why they're disagreeing what is this thing that is the internet and for me confrontation helps I'm not against confrontation I come from a confrontational family we talk a lot but it's like you do realize after a while a lot of it is wasted time like you were saying you responded to somebody that had very few followers and probably blew they probably made their fucking week just because they threw some bullshit out there smearing your name and now all of a sudden they're gonna get all the reward you're gonna get all the heat and you got to take a week off of Instagram you know it's like what was the fucking point of that and you know I don't know don't tell you yeah no it's it's very silly.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

No I I basically was kind of like allowing myself to I was allowing myself a little moment to just let it all hang out because um I I don't think that like anybody has responded to it from from that list. Actually I think Rachel from Water from your eyes apparently crashed out on Twitter. That's what I'm told I didn't see it.

SPEAKER_03 47:19

I guess uh we'll just cut back you were saying you were you were you don't like being nonchalant that's so funny. Yeah I uh I was complaining about um a that kind of uh the the indie um indie heads what's the word the indie head kind of uh yeah the just the posture towards the world that's kind of like I it's kind of it's kind of just like things need to be performed as nonchalant and then like I don't know the moment that the performance slips it's kind of like well I knew I knew all along that that wasn't that wasn't real I just like it's just a bunch of people kind of like complaining that everyone else is a sucker it is a uh culture of endless critique that only serves to service somebody's ego really at the end of the day uh I personally hate the posturing too it's why I'm a huge proponent of uh David Foster Wallace it's why I like I I try to harp on the fact that everybody calls me uh David Foster Wallace or that one guy who called me David Foster no bitches which still kind of fucking Olympus. But like he was very adamant about like he kind of saw the problems uh coming down the barrel of American culture and he's like this only solution to this is going to be sincerity. You know like you have we are going to have to move past sarcasm in into a type of new certain sincerity. Cannot be the leave it to beaver type of stuff because that's already been done. But I'm with you on that and it's like I think that's something that comes through in like in obviously short form videos but in your music as well. It's like you are you are trying to be Hudson Freeman the musician and you're succeeding at it right now but it's like you're not trying to pretend that you accidentally had to be a musician just because so many people asked you to do it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Yeah. No, I mean I I was talking earlier about how like I kind of struggled with the church growing up because of how much like playing music was a part of it for me and how I kind of like it wasn't even that I was like, oh this this like you know these beliefs themselves are bullshit as much as I was like I don't believe that people really believe them. Or like I think that people are going onto a stage to perform for people and they're you know between every song they're doing the same kind of like ad read for Jesus with the same kind of like prayers and the same beats and um and I see it I see it in in r and you know in like actual show business too obviously. But I think I don't know it's it's the similar thing I it's a similar thing for me realizing oh yeah like uh indie music is show business too um I but I do I do hold it to a higher standard obviously and and like I like I said I I like I don't think it's possible for AI to quite capture you know a fucking pavement song.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

I just don't think it's possible Yeah I made a a video once that there's never gonna be an AI David Berman just because I don't know everything everything that goes into good art you know uh I love this idea uh when I think about uh America specifically um where I think part of like our cultural DNA is like we do the right thing only after exhausting all of the possible wrong things but in this kind of backwards logic it proves that this is the right thing to do because we've eliminated all of these other options and uh I view like a a lot of good American like spiritual music you know uh stuff that I I feel like sings to the soul or whatever is done by people that are kind of explicitly trying not to do something spiritual you know I don't think Kirk O'Bain thinks of in utero as an album that has any sort of spiritual awakening divine quality yeah exactly but like he touches into the sublime that like church music wouldn't let you do because the sublime is not good it's not pretty the sublime is you know staring at those weird biblical you know yeah uh yeah but in doing that in the rejection of that form you end up creating these things that it's like uh the negation of the negation right that's uh that's ultimately what we're always heading towards uh right yep I'm with you we gotta sublimate that shit I guess uh real quick talking about music like uh you said you you got a little bit of a start in uh DIY scenes uh you said you've been playing for about ten years what got you I mean obviously church which is uh an interesting American thing is like so many people that end up being very very good musicians got their start playing in church so that's like a positive thing yeah uh what I always say that it yeah I always say that like it basically is this form where you can play every week.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

I mean if you play on the youth band and like the Sunday band like you can play twice a week. Yeah it's like people have to clap after every song. It's like amazing positive reinforcement for a performer where you can really like you don't I mean people aren't really like focusing on the performance so much. You know like you're everyone's supposed to be singing along so like if you that's like the best space to learn how to play an instrument for sure. Like it's a really um but I think I mean what I I think I whenever my family moved because they're they're missionaries um whenever we moved when I was 13 I I I was homeschooled and that's when I really kind of got into playing and singing and like kind of discovered music for myself. I never really had an older brother character figure in my life to really show me stuff but I actually I take that back. There was this one guy I played with in church when I was like 14 or 15 and he was like yo your guitar tone reminds me of this band Explosions in the Sky and like um I that kind of like introduced me to post rock and like honestly a lot of where I've ended up over the years is like because of this one guy kind of I don't know he played bass on the on the big the the Sunday band um I yeah Dwayne that was his name Dwayne I owe I owe the world to you shout out Dwayne man shout out Dwayne let's go I love that story because it's like I bet he's never thought twice about it you know he might have seen you on TikTok or something been like I maybe know that kid or something but like it sits in your brain forever.

SPEAKER_03 54:18

Those things early on especially it just makes such a huge difference to a kid.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Totally yeah I really I mean I really discovered music through like Bandcamp there was this there was this um one website that was kind of like the the you know name your price feature on Bandcamp it was like it's called like Noise Trade and I think you like tons of bands would just like post their demos and like like samples of their albums basically um like I remember Sufyan had like an EP or something on this. But like you would just put in your email and your zip code and the idea was like now the band would have you on their mailing list and they would know like where to tour. And it was pretty sick. But uh I mean I was downloading it from South Africa so they were like they were on tour yeah um I found so much music through Bandcamp and then like the iTunes free singles of the week.

SPEAKER_03 55:24

Yeah oh my god that stuff was huge I think I love hearing stories of like uh old internet people discovering stuff I want to talk to some zoomers about like uh finding music through discord because I feel like discord has replaced a lot of that like human connected music discovery. Yeah but just that experience of like sitting on the computer trying to find something new yeah before you've developed your taste is uh it's so exciting. It's like it's something I I struggle with now as like an older guy because so much of my taste has kind of calcified. Uh I'm trying to do a better job of leaving myself open to new stuff, new things that are coming out and uh it's definitely harder but it it's you know it's rewarding to do. Um so I also I I like that you'd mentioned post rock and stuff. You sent me a new song that I listened to earlier and it's like uh I'm sure most people who have heard you think of you as the guy in the cornfield with the nylon string guitar uh but your full band recorded stuff and this new song you sent me uh it's awesome man I really like how heavy it gets I like how chaotic the new song gets at the very end it's very much like a rock song are you thinking more about like playing shows in front of an audience do you just want to play with a band?

SPEAKER_01 56:36

Is this just music that you just want to make what's sort of um influencing your decisions now I mean if if people like dig into the record that I released last year like prior to If You Know Me. But I mean even like If you know me like the studio version and like my my cover of Wild Forces like I've kind of been doing a more rock band thing for a little while. I mean it it always is dipping in and out of like just songwriter stuff. And I'm gonna have I have a new project I'm working on that's gonna have lots of quieter moments and and and the kind of demo stuff that people like but um I totally have been just waiting for a chance to have a recording budget to make a post rock concept album and so I got this record deal and I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

That's awesome man. Uh how'd the record deal come together? Um I mean I If it's something you can talk about or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

No I can talk about it. I I think it I I haven't really ever talked about it publicly but it I would I I think it'd be interesting to talk about it with you. Um I kind of was approached by everybody after the video went viral um as far as like Prettiest girl at the dance baby prettiest girl at the dance the major stuff but not really indie labels um and really the only reason the label that I signed with Mom and Pop I think we're kind of in my orbit is because they had signed an artist that I had been doing a couple of shows with this guy Rennie Conti, who you should check out if you haven't listened to him. But he signed with Mom and Pop last year and we did the show together around the time the video blew up and so they were at the show and we kind of just developed a relationship from there and it the conversation moved a lot slower than with the major people but they just seemed a lot more about the projects um I think I don't know I just had this sense that if I took like a deal with a major label, not only would it be kind of not really taking a chance of myself financially, because I I think as everyone knows with a major label deal um if you you know are an undiscovered artist you're you're looking at giving the blind share of the royalties to them um and the in and you can certainly get paid a huge advance but then that you're paying that advance back on the money that you uh the m the small amount of your royalties that you're getting. So if you take like the like the normal deal of like an 80 20 you're going to pay your advance back in the 20% that you're making um in addition to like only like yeah there's basically never being able to like see your own royalties again. So brutal anyway it kind of felt ridiculous to successfully self-market and then give I don't know take a crazy major label deal where they I don't know like they can't they can't really they can magnify this stuff and I guess they can make a bunch of fan accounts because I guess that's what they're all doing but um I don't know I it felt like absurd.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:10

So that is a really unique position that you're in where you're just like they're like hey uh give us all of the future proceeds off of this become kind of an indentured servant to this giant label and then you're like well I I just did everything that you would probably do for me. Like you guys I could get you guys could have two million dollars you're not gonna have the kind of success that you've had online exactly what's the fucking point man and they're just sitting there with their thumbs right but I think at the end of the day I was just like I'm not even sure that I really want to do this rig of moral anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

Like I would rather Yeah I mean I don't know I'm I've I've I've gotten the chance to play some cool shows. I mean I just did this very I mean it's very bizarre to me I was like doing this arena tour with Mumford and sons in Australia um crazy I I like I I that's not it's not because of a label or anything it's just because of this really arbitrary act of luck that I had happen to me. Um I don't know. People are people just think that labels have a lot more power than they do. I think people think that Yeah I mean to go back to the chaotic good like it just that geese thing couldn't have happened if it wasn't just genuinely a good band that a lot of people were having word of mouth about. It just you can't create that level of traction you're you're just like building them all. I'll let to say Yeah um Mom and Pop was like the only indie label those that really seemed interested. I almost was like I almost felt like having a viral video made me less appealing to indie labels if anything. That was kind of what the experience felt like I don't maybe I was wrong.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

It's almost like when you're uh applying to a job and you're just like I just need to get this job at a restaurant because I no one's hiring me for anything else and they look at your resume and they're like you're overqualified for this job and it's like just let me have it then you're saying I can do it. Let me do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

Exactly yeah exactly exactly and I I just was like I don't I I don't have the capacity to make ten more if you know me's and like I just knew that that was not gonna happen and like that's not actually my aspiration it's like my aspiration is not to get just as big as humanly possible within the next two years.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:41

I just like my favorite artist is Sufyan Stevens like I I want to make bizarre things that are appealing to me and so yeah I anyway I it was but it was really strange to me that it felt like they weren't really listening to any of my prior music and really had only heard it you know they just see the dollar signs that come with it uh there's a Norles Barkley lyric that just my hero from the song Crazy very popular song whatever my heroes had the heart to live the life I want to live and again uh I'm not trying to compare my internet success success to your thing but it's like I have had enough success now where I'm like I know I could do certain things with this or I could reach out to bands and take money to like promote their songs or something like that. But everyone that I admire, I admire because they specifically didn't do that. They just did what they thought was right. And so like every once in a while I'm sitting there I'm like fuck I just gotta keep making these videos man I just got to keep doing it this way because this is the thing that feels genuine and honest or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:46

And it's like exactly but it's admirable it's just it's you know it could be stupid who the fuck knows but it's it's what I it's what I personally know I have to do and it sounds the same to you you know did you did you ever see this is stupid but did you did you ever see like all the interviews with that that Lux Maxer guy closed where he was like he he was like well what's the ROI on love you know like what's well what's the ROI on like going on a date with like a hot girl like and I just like that's such a crazy way of like that's how like instrumentalized and how like absurdly we our understanding of value has been warped. That we're just like that that it's just like it it it just wouldn't be the life that I would think is worth living if I'm only making choices to maximize my my my value or my profit making capacity.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:45

Your happiness quotient you know it's like it's not um it's not an empirical thing. Which is also like when he says that about like dating or whatever it like breaks my heart because I'm sitting here thinking like if if you told me I could never play music again and I had to get rid of all my social media account stuff uh to like make my or you know if it was that or like hang out with my wife like if there was for some reason some re uh situation where it's like I had to give all this up to stay with my wife I'd give it up in a heartbeat. Like I would rather be poor with her than be very rich with all without her. It's like that 100%. And so you hear that it just like it just breaks my heart because it's like it it is it is heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

Yeah. Because I I just I think there's like this weird tautology to like to to being absurdly rich or something and like where it's like yeah I mean yeah I'm just gonna sacrifice like my own enjoyment of my life and my own like li my own kind of social network and like the feelings that I can have commitments to people. Like all of that stuff is like not worth just getting as much money as as as humanly possible. I just I don't I don't understand it. And I think that's why To go back to the beginning of it, like then the idea of the good is just it's necessary. Like it it's necessary to fight like this neoliberal like consciousness. I think if you if you can't just be like if you can't make this prior distinction to fucking clavicular and be like Well, like because that wouldn't be a good lot you know? Yeah. Like the ROI on not having love is like you shall get love, and love is good.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:32

He has the forms of the good. He looks handsome or whatever, he's rich, he's got societal things, but he doesn't he completely misses out on the contact or uh content of that thing. And it's like it's just but I mean, you know, again, at the end of the day, I just look at a kid like that uh and I'm just like, well, he knows not what he does. You know, he thinks he does. If you talk to him, he'd be like, I oh, I definitely know.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

Well he's complete yeah, his his his self-understanding is one of like complete self-awareness. And it's it's actually that everyone else doesn't realize a place in the social hierarchy.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:08

But I view him as like an example of uh that kind of brilliance of America of like do the right thing only after exhausting the wrong thing. What he has correctly done is he's gone, these algorithms, all of this stuff, is telling me to be this person. It's creating clavicular. Somebody's gonna be clavicular uh clavicular. I'm gonna be that person. And by him literally physically existing, there is now a form to the theory that this stuff makes you inhuman. Now instead of being like, instead of having d uh countless arguments about like, well, it's it's telling you to looks, you know, make yourself look prettier and and just you know go for that, and then somebody will be like, well, it's not really saying that. It's like, no, look at clavicular. Look at clavicular.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:49

Does that seem like a good life? Like there you go. Does that seem like a life worth living?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:54

It's through his own practice, he's made the theory tangible, and now we can react to it, and almost everybody just goes, like, oh, I'll I'd rather be fat, man. I'd rather Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:05

You know? Exactly. Like at least that there there is an obviousness to the enjoyment of just like eating what you want. That I just that this idea of this like obvious social hierarchy, and like, man, you don't even realize how low you are on it, man. It's like I don't care. What ye like you don't realize how enslaved you are to caring about this thing. Like, yeah, maybe people don't treat me as well. Like maybe I don't get as far in like my profession or whatever, because I'm not as like perfectly symmetrical as you, but like my life is better than yours. I'm enjoying it more than you.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:46

Yeah, I'm having a good time. This has been great. I like you know, I like but I like too to use the word enslavement, and I feel like it's the the people that are very like Roman pilled, they would talk about the master slag, slave uh dichotomy, and they're very outwardly projecting that they are the master, right? They're saying, like, no, look at me, I'm the master. I'm I'm moging you, right? I mog you. Yeah, yeah. It's that beautiful part of like, you know, Jesus, the meek is gonna inherit the earth.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

Exactly, exactly. And and I still that's why I I can't help but like continue to like invoke the Christianity stuff in my life, even though I of course I'm not like I'm s I'm not an evangelical or conservative or whatever whatever I like. Just this idea of like the meek will inherit the earth, like that there is this we have to be able to like reject reject this uh the way social hierarchy is like is is is like preventing us from from actually I don't know, I'm kind of losing the third here.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:53

Uh I mean don't worry about it, but like I I know exactly what you're saying, where it's like the the essence of the good is always going to uh be a potentially revolutionary force against the uh form of society. Like civilization is always going to uh low key have some sort of impediment to that good. But like if you just believe in that good, you can have these moments where it it comes into contact and you see yourself as somebody that's like, well, I just regardless of what everybody else says, like there is this thing deep inside of me that knows that the things that I'm doing, I'm going with an indie label over uh uh a major label, and I don't need to logically defend that to every single person on the internet. I just know it's the right thing to do, and that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

And then you know, then from there it's like I always I've always loved um I've always loved like my favorite novelist, Kurt Vonnegut. I I mean he's he's like so important to me in so many ways. He's also a Hoosier.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:52

Um Hey, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

I have that mystical connection with Indiana, it seems. My wife is also from Indiana.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:58

Um Heartland, man, Heartland. Yeah You know that's important.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:01

But but Vonnegut he talks about how like because I mean there it it's the same kind of bullshit Republican culture war in the South for every several decades for the last sixty years. Where it's like having, you know, having the the Ten Commandments listed in the classroom or whatever. And Vonnegut's just like, it's never the Sermon on the Mount. It's never the Beatitudes. It's never it's never actually what is like the the figure of Christianity's pronouncements about like re about about social ethics. Which which says like like blessed are the meek, like for they will inherit the earth. You know, it it will not be the master that's moging everyone that will inherit the earth.

unknown 1:11:53

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:54

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

I I don't know, I mean like very real in a very real way, I just like I I don't I genuinely don't know how you can have the like this a masculinist like reactionary politics and and actually be reading the New Testament. I just think you I just don't believe you. I don't believe that's the thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:16

Yeah, where's uh where are these you know Christian senators or whatever slamming their fists on the table saying we need to wipe the debt, the Jubilee year is here, the Jubilee year is upon us, you know? And it's like that at the end of the day. But like, you know, uh if that is still the truth, if that's still the message, if the message is still true, you just keep saying it and you keep moving forward and you have faith that it's gonna work out. But it's like Yeah, I think the fact that most of these culture war stuff like people always bring up the culture war stuff in politics as though the culture war is politics and the economy is not politics. It's like the culture war stuff we can resolve once we've resolved the economic part. Once again, this is a country that like the governing body represents the people and not this parasitic, you know, entity of the US Empire, then we can resolve the conflict issues in the same way that like a brother and sister or two brothers, like they'll fight, they'll have different opinions, but they're they'll still sit down at Thanksgiving. It's like right now we have this bigger issue, and it's like that's I don't know. I I I try not to I try to keep everything very simple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:17

Yeah. I've always loved um I do you know Nancy Frazier? No. She's like a socialist feminist, but she I feel I feel like she has like such a useful way of analyzing identity and like uh culture war politics because she's essentially like you have to make this disambiguation between the politics of redistribution and the politics of recognition. And I think I think I think you're exactly right that like the capacity to really handle these social politics and like these like interpersonal politics, um these politics of recognition, and they they just require first I think handling the redistribution. Um because I think they end up becoming vectors for that for the actual politics. Um for what you're talking about, these economic politics that are at stake. Um, like like preventing you from actually getting to the heart of things.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:26

Absolutely. And I I think honestly, my personal take on it is like it's not even uh a distribution problem as much as it's like a working hours problem, right? It's 2026. Your computer does all of your desk job for you, or most likely will do all of these email jobs in the next like I don't know, uh 10 years, something like that. We got robot, uh China has dark factories that build cars with no humans that walk in it, they don't even turn the lights on anymore. And it's like alright, in what world does it make sense that we have a 40-hour work week and not a 12?

unknown 1:14:58

Right?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:58

If we had 12 hours focused on the actual work necessary for reproducing society.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

Listen, listen, if we didn't if we didn't have those 30 hours to be PMC employees to like look at our phone and get mad, like that wouldn't keep that economy going. So that I think that's I think that's why like you you have to have people at their desks like getting mad at Twitter when they should be doing their desk job, but they don't actually need to do it because they only need to be there for some hours.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:32

Oh yeah. Somebody's gotta go log on to Reddit and accuse you of being an industry plant. You know, that's a necessary part of our economy. Hudson, uh, I don't want to keep you any longer than I have. Uh this has been really, really good. I really enjoyed doing this. Uh obviously I like talking to everybody, but uh you you I saw you uh tweeting, you know, books that you were reading, and I was like, all right, uh this will be one of those conversations where I can kind of just talk about all the stuff that I'm reading as well, which is very always very fun for me because sometimes I sound like I don't know if it's gonna be fun for the audience, but I I definitely enjoyed it too. It's never been important to me, and uh I know my wife is gonna listen because she listens to all of them sometimes with me in the room with her, which is very odd because it's like she's got the headphones on, listening to me talking. I'm I'm right there. She can just ask questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:17

Does she do like a shot for every time you talk about the dialectic?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:22

I think she's just she's used to it by now. All of my friends in Portland are used to this by now. Uh but yeah, I I think the one that really gets the eye rolls is uh the amount of times that I've quoted like Deng Xiaoping when talking to other musicians is is probably the highest in podcast record. Uh but um what uh what do you got coming up? Well let's do this again sometime. Let's wait like a year. We'll run this back and see where we're at in the World Lord era of the United States of America. This is fun. But what do you what do you got coming up? What can people look uh where can people find you? What can they look forward to? Uh time to plug, baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

Time to plug. Yeah, so I am doing a tour with this UK band I really love called Lots of Hands.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:09

Oh, dude, Lots of Hands is uh awesome, man. Uh they were one of the first videos I posted uh a long time ago back when I was like 2000 or something like that. No, don't ask questions about nouns. I can't remember nouns, they're terrible, but uh I saw them play in uh in Boise recently, and uh I didn't get a chance to talk to them, but like uh tell them if they want to come on this podcast. I'd love to have them. I love that band, I think they're really, really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:34

Yeah, I love them too. I I was like very, very excited and keen to to do this like co-headline thing. Um so that's gonna be throughout uh early June. I think we're starting in New York on May 28th, playing uh this venue elsewhere on the rooftop. And then we're playing some places around the East Coast, somewhere like Kentucky, Virginia, Carolinas. Um yeah. So you guys should check that out. Uh I am working on a new album. I shared a song with Kyle that uh is gonna come out in probably August. Uh yeah. What else? Um I don't know if you have any listeners in Europe, but I'm gonna be playing in the European UK in August and September.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:34

Weirdly enough, I do have an international audience. It's been very, very fun for me to get messages from people all over the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:41

Uh I've not sure Germany, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:46

Germany, Poland, Norway, England. Uh it's, you know, uh it's something that I'm still getting used to in my life, uh, because this is just it's not necessarily something I thought would ever actually really happen, but uh I'm sure you're in a similar boat.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:01

I feel I mean, yeah. Yeah, I can't I can't believe I'm I yeah, I'm yapping on uh on a podcast. Like this this is this is my ideal this is a venue that I've been waiting for for years.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:12

Um dude, you're good at this. I like it. I like it a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:15

No, thank you. I appreciate it. Um yeah, I would I would love to run it back. Um but yeah, it's been it's been real.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:23

Yeah, I mean anytime you want to come back, uh anytime you want to send over any music or anything you want to promo and uh whatever you're tell your label too. Uh this probably shouldn't be on the podcast, but I'm gonna leave it in. Um if your label has anything that we want to promote, uh just send me songs, I'll make some reels out of them. I'm always trying to help people out that uh help me out. So if you think it's a cool label, that's good enough for me, man. Uh you seem like a cool guy. So uh I'll I'll help him out. Uh and definitely, definitely say hi to the lots of hands guys and tell them uh I would love to get them on the podcast at some point or or just see them out in Portland uh because they they were really fun. They played literally right before Geese played at uh the festival in Boise. And so it was like a room that I think started out pretty full and then emptied out because everybody went to Geese. So unfortunate time. Oh yeah. Great band.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:09

Yeah. Man, I would not want to be playing in front of Geese right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:14

I couldn't get any of my friends to come. They all wanted to like get towards the front of the line, so it's a bummer. But uh they were sick. They were they like killed it, they had their little laptops and everything. Lots of hands then. Lots of hands. They they killed it. I thought it was great.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:27

Were they were they doing a duo or did they have a basis? Duo.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:31

They went with a duo, so I think that's what they're doing on ISK.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:36

Yeah, I'll let you go, man. That was a lot of fun. Uh we'll we'll talk again soon. And uh send me any links of anything that you want to promo and all that's uh, and then we're gonna be able to do that.