Hey Smiling Strange
I talk mostly music but also really whatever interests me. Guests most of the time. Please sign up for my fantasy football game at klubhouse.gg
Hey Smiling Strange
Milk St.
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Talking about songwriting, new hampshire vs vermont, going to a 30 person rural school, and trying to capture the joy of making music with your friends.
Milk St. is Hardcore Soft Rock from New England. Their third record “Good Grief” is out 09/25 with the title track single out on 08/23! Follow @milkstreet on Instagram
Check out Klubhouse.gg if you want to see my fantasy football app
Depending on how strange it is. They gave us the song that comes on at the beginning and end of this podcast, which is always super weird to do when I'm recording the podcast because I don't listen to the song as we are starting the recording process. So I just have to remind myself that there's going to be a song playing there, which you heard, so I don't need to explain this to you. I do need to explain to you why I'm doing this podcast, is because I have a fantasy football app that I've been trying to build. All of the stuff I do online is what I call part of the worst marketing plan ever devised, where I'm trying to get people to play a fantasy football app. And by doing that, I have started an entire media ecosystem where I walk around and talk about indie rock, which is an absurd way to get people to play fantasy football. But we're trying to get people that don't really like football to play fantasy football. Our game is based based off of the logic of Mario Kart, where the better you are at the game, the harder it is. The worse you are at the game, the easier it is. You literally, if you are bad, if you've never played football before, if you've ever wanted to play fantasy football, but were afraid you were too bad to play. If you're bad in our league, you literally get to play more players every week. Right? So you have a built-in handicap going up against other teams. It also incentivizes a lot of trades because if you're a bad team, you're incentivized to trade good players for a package of assets. We have over 70 trades in a season because trades are fun. I play fantasy football to stay in touch with my friends. You can play fantasy football to stay in touch with your friends. That's it. That's all I'm gonna do for that. Now we can go to the actual podcast itself. I have uh, I guess uh this is the first time we've talked. I'm trying to think, like you know, we're fans of each other. I think you Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so this is Jonah Wakefield of Milk Street, which is a band that uh I think you just DM'd me and was like, hey, can you listen to my band? I did, and I loved it, and I wanted to, you know, talk to you a little bit more about it on the podcast. So, one, to everybody wondering whether or not I listen to the music that you send or if you should send me music, absolutely do it. You know, I I I I really enjoy all the music people have sent me. And I also enjoy that you are a New England native. Uh I am also a New England native.
SPEAKER_04Oh, no way. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm from Massachusetts originally.
SPEAKER_04Oh, no way.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, I I love the the, you know, you had, I think one of your songs or albums is named after Vermont. So Jonah from Milk Street Band. Jonah, the first question off the bat Vermont or New Hampshire?
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. So I'm that's hard. Uh Vermont. I'm not gonna lie. You're not gonna lie. I yeah, Vermont. I live in New Hampshire, I'm from Maine, but Vermont.
SPEAKER_01That's funny. I am uh I'm from Massachusetts. I'm a New Hampshire guy over a Vermont guy. I enjoy the live free or die ethos. I love shooting guns, it's fun. It's real. Uh you know, the fireworks and the liquor store that was right there that was over the border, that you could go get cheap liquor. I'm a bigger fan of uh it feels like to me a lot of Vermont is people that made money in Boston and then moved to Vermont to pretend to be from Vermont. Whereas the people I know from New Hampshire are from New Hampshire. This is where they're at.
SPEAKER_04That's real. Less transplant action. Yeah, that's true. I will say though, that we uh got cheap liquor, but uh no cannabis, no legal cannabis.
SPEAKER_01Uh well, honestly, my uh official stance is that uh we should make marijuana illegal again just because it got less cool. It's not cool in the world.
SPEAKER_03Then I can start making money again when I sell them.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. It used to be a thing where it's like if somebody smoked weed, right? I knew that they were at least willing to take some risks in their life, right? Yep. They were willing to do something illegal, they were willing to meet somebody behind the 7-Eleven at their local high school and buy drugs from a stranger in the back of their car. Now these are people that have like the exact percentage of THC that they want to dose themselves with so they can be 15% more productive at work. And it's like, I don't understand that culture at all.
SPEAKER_04I hate it. It's kind it's kind of like the culture of like taking away any amount of wonder by looking everything up immediately. It's just like you're you're not taking that that leap, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, where's the I mean, that leap that you're talking about, all faith is a risk of some sort. Right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, real.
SPEAKER_01It's genuinely why I like talking to musicians a lot of the times. I've done podcasts with a bunch of different people, I've enjoyed talking to everybody. I like talking to musicians because there's an element with every musician that I know where they were like, all right, at some point I'm gonna start publicly playing music, and it's kind of embarrassing to admit that that's what they're gonna do. And then to promote it and the go play shows, there's this risk element to it that I just appreciate when I talk to other musicians. You find the a similar thing?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I kind of feel like uh the way I've never had this about someone, but the way people describe like the term like the ick or whatever, like in relationships and stuff, I feel like that, felt like that at least about myself when I first started playing music. I'm like, what am I gonna sing my like little who gives a fuck? Like, am I gonna sing my little songs to these people? Like they don't care. Like, I don't I felt like gross. I was like cringing myself out, and I was like, God, but then I was like, this is amazing. And I had a really good great response at our like our first show that we had. Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_01So you actually had positive reinforcement early on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, very early. Yeah, like right away. That's awesome. When did you start playing music? Um, so I started uh I started playing music when I was like seven. I'm 26 now, so like almost 20 years ago. So you're like young. Do you come from a music family? Um my mom's an incredible singer, and my dad's a great guitarist, but neither of them ever did anything with it. My mom's a nurse, and my dad uh grows cannabis, actually. Well, now he isn't anymore. He builds cabinets now, but for a long time as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um but yeah, no, like he they but I I was gonna say, my mom's also it's a hell of a way to grow up. Because anytime you get hurt as a kid, all the other moms would be like, Oh my god, is my son okay? Is everything alright? And my mom would be like, just take an amount of Advil and you'll be fine. And I'd be like, How many literal dude? Right? Literally, she was like, three Advil and a bagel, you're fine. You're just always get kind of freaked out when somebody's like, Oh my god, I took like two Advils, am I gonna be okay? I'm like, my mom told me as a child that the amount of Advil I take is irrelevant. It just you can take as much as you want. And I'm like that can't be true. It can't be true.
SPEAKER_04But is the advice I can't I've never had issues from it either, which is it's sounding, but like usually you get stomach cultures and stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean I wait till I'm actually like hurt or I have a headache from drinking too much, but uh exactly, exactly. Um you know, shout out to all the uh all the parents who are nurses for raising kids that have a very strange relation to the amount of drugs that they should be able to take.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, especially Advil, especially specifically Advil.
SPEAKER_01I just view it as honestly, it's kinda it tastes kind of like candy, especially Advil, you know. So uh but yeah, so your parents uh you got got into music at seven. Were you playing uh guitar, piano? What were you doing?
SPEAKER_04I was playing, so I um uh I'm I went to like a weird charter school. Like my graduating class was like five people. Um and yeah, and um so I was there through most of elementary school and stuff, and they didn't have any extracurricular at all because I did this woman's like house. Um and yeah, it was like this old farmhouse in Scohegan, Maine, uh is where I grew up, and but she just had this school in her house and and they were like 30 kids a year. Um and I didn't have extracurricular. She was like, you have to do something, and I hate like I played basketball a little bit, and I just could not get I was like, I want to play video games and that's it, like I don't want to do anything. And but I liked music and and I was like, Well, I guess if I have to do something, I'll do guitar. And then and then uh yeah, and then I took lessons and I hated it. I was like, I hate reading music, I hate doing this whole thing. And then the guy who actually is a friend now, like we still keep in touch, his name's Dave Tibidoo, and incredible bassist, but he's great multi-instrumentalist, and he was like, um, he was like, Well, what do you want to play? And I was like, Green Day and Tenacious D. That's really all I listened to.
SPEAKER_01And I thought I was like, I love that Tenacious D was number two on the list. Like, yeah, literally is number two.
SPEAKER_04And and you know, iPhones were like just coming around, so I only I still had CDs and stuff, so I brought um that first Tenacious D record, the like black one with Vim on the front, and it has like the demon on it and stuff. Yeah, um, and then uh like uh greatest hits Green Day uh record, and um he taught me uh Tribute by Ten Hus D, and he taught me Time of Your Life by Green Day, which both between both of those, you get all of the primary, you get G, E, C, D, F, A, Minor. You know what I mean? Like you get like the primaries, and I was like, I don't need you anymore. And I quit lessons like right after that. And I was like, I can play Green Day in Tenage's D. I don't need lessons at all. And then uh yeah, so then I left there and um I learned like barcodes and I got super into like the front bottoms and Joyce Manor and Nirvana and like all these other bands, and I started just learning those songs through like tabs online. Yeah. Um and then I started writing songs. Yeah, yeah, right. And then I started writing songs when I was like 14, um, super rudimentary, and then um I from from there I started like I didn't have any musicians in my town that were my age, like at all. At least not that I knew.
SPEAKER_01So then I was like, aren't that many people in your town?
SPEAKER_04Tot dude, yeah, like maybe 1200. Maybe 1200, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like they're the grocery store was where was your town in relation to uh other Portland? Uh Portland hours north? North, okay. Two hours north, yeah, yeah. I feel like a lot of people don't understand, uh, especially about Maine. Like if you're from New England, you know Maine as two one of two things. Uh either one is like Portland as the capital of coastal Maine, and coastal Maine is like where the Kennedys are gonna go on vacation in the summer. Yeah, right. Like it's just waspy and beautiful New England, oceanside, whatever. And then the rest of Maine, as soon as you get like outside of the Portland seaboard corridor thing, the rest of Maine is uncharted, unclaimed territory. It is literally there are areas of it that I don't think have electricity. If you drive like from Maine through Maine to Canada, it literally like society fades away, and you are just in the untamed wilderness. It is a wild place. And it's a little kid get that outside of Maine itself.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I when we're on tour, that's a big people be like, Oh, you're from Maine, like do you like lobster, blah blah blah? And I'm like, dude, I grew up, I grew up, so I grew up originally. My family's from the northern side of Moosehead Lake in this little town called Greenville. Um and in the middle of nowhere, and it's literally like you said, like they call it the Hundred Mile Wilderness or the Great North Woods. Depends on if you're talking to hikers or like people live there. And the Alagash runs through there, and it's just moose and people, like this the um like there's like one grocery store, there's one doctor, and everyone knows their ba each other, you know what I mean? Like everyone grew up together. Um, I mean, the town my mom lives in is Cowhegan, it's where they make Gifford's ice cream. Uh and but they we have Giffords, and then they're the grocery store is called Georgia's Banana Stand. And then they're like recently has become a Walmart. Uh but like when I was like younger, yeah. Um, but there's literally like my my best friend's a um a main guide, so he like guides fly fishermen and stuff like that. And moose moose safaris, I guess. And um, yeah, he'll uh he'll uh go up to places where it's like the town name is like RT-24.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04And like they're unestablished, but people are living there like not paying taxes or whatever. It's really like the Wild West.
SPEAKER_01It absolutely is. And people you kind of forget that that would because like the Northeast is is probably the most developed area in terms of you know, you can drive from Boston to Washington, DC, and essentially never actually get to a rural area if you just stay on ID5 all the way from Boston to Washington, DC. Almost none of none of that is actually like rural or whatever. So you kind of think like, oh well, Maine, you think of Vermont and you think of Bernie Sanders and Burlington and all that, and like New Hampshire's got their weird South of the North thing going on. But like Maine is it has this reputation as this really nice like vacation homes area, and it's like, yeah, that's the coastal part of Maine. The rest of it is where all of the ghosts in New England that were exercised by the Salem Witch trial, they have all moved and relocated up there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and they're alive, and they're named things like Phyllis and Barb and like you can go hang out with them.
SPEAKER_01They don't want you there, you can hang out with them and feel the cool chill of hundreds of years of uh New England mystics just passing through the trees. It's it's it's a great place, but it's weird.
SPEAKER_04And everyone, even like everyone's grandparents are like slightly um or not just like pretty pretty like uh philosophic and like but they don't realize it. They're just so salt of the earth, and that like backwoods is like sounds demeaning, but like so like out there that they're they just but they're like giving this wisdom that I'm like whoa, you like know something other people don't.
SPEAKER_01Dude, I'm uh I'm like fascinated by uh like pure I've been fascinated by Puritan New England since I learned that they had a 99% literacy rate back in the day. Whoa, I didn't know that. Well they they genuinely two facts that I always bring up is like one, they have 99% literacy because they believed if you could not individually interpret the Bible, right? That like you couldn't make re you couldn't draw references from the text that they failed you and that you were gonna go to hell, and that it's like, oh, only by being able to interpret every man had to be a priest. That was the idea behind the Puritans, right? That's the idea behind the Puritans.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? And the other one is Puritans are like you view it as like they're kind of prudes or whatever. It was illegal in Puritan New England to have sex with your wife and not have her come. So that's awesome.
SPEAKER_04That's Puritan? Are you real?
SPEAKER_01That's Puritan that's the Puritan dude. The Puritans were they had these Puritan laws or whatever, but like they took this stuff very seriously. How did they get here?
SPEAKER_03What what how like how what went down?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean in part, a lot of the Puritan like mentality, a lot of that Puritan uh ethos, it was sort of somewhat incompatible with society because everybody was individually interpreting what they thought was the word of God. So they're very uh obstinate people, you know, they're very like hard-headed, the old I like to call the swamp Yankees or the people that got driven. Yeah, that's real, right? I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, and so like like the story of uh Rhode Island, the reason Rhode Island is its own colony, like its own place, and not just part of Massachusetts. Uh a pastor in Salem was excommunicating too many people from his flock to the point where they kicked him out of Salem, Massachusetts for being too Puritan, too puritanical about the Bible, goes to Rhode Island, eventually cuts it off so he's only talking to his wife, and then does an abrupt 180, and it's like, actually, now everybody could be part of my flock. Like turned it around completely.
SPEAKER_04Whoa. That's like he was like, he was like, You're not making your wife come enough, you have to leave my flock.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, maybe he was just making her come too much. He's like, You have to talk to other people, like me and she's something else.
SPEAKER_03That's crazy, dude.
SPEAKER_01I had no idea. The other part of that sect that really starts to take off is like as things started to move west, as the west started to open up, a lot of that Puritan ethos ends up becoming the Mormon church. And like a lot of that makes sense.
SPEAKER_04That makes sense. I was thinking that when you were saying how like the very determined, hard-headed thing, I can see how that's a slippery slope to like Mormonism and like that, all of that, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's just but I just like that whole I I think our idea of uh you know, because I'm a an older, straight white man at this point, revolutionary history is obviously something I find.
SPEAKER_04Fuck up your minute man history is up your ass. Absolutely, man.
SPEAKER_01But it's like I think it gets categorized all the time now as a sort of like bourgeois revolution, but like people don't understand at the time that a bourgeois force was a revolutionary force at the time, being driven by the roots set by the Massachusetts colonies. You know, it's like this idea of uh every man a priest, right? Every man is in charge of his every man a priest becomes every man is his own entrepreneur, and that spirit still lingers through like the American psyche.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I think that I think the definition of like priest or whatever you want, whatever that term has become now has just changed, right? Like I that's probably the the core of it. Like, because that's I was thinking, like, that's still there, that's still a driving force, but like what people what people value has changed, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Oh, 100%. Nowadays, too. It's like when I go back and I I talk the thing that like the other side of this coin, the other side of the Puritan angle in the coin is like when I do go back to Massachusetts uh and like talk to people, uh they seem contained in a an environment where they can't really see outside the box. New England is a very sort of uh parochial, yeah, very regionally focused place. I always tell people it's like people in Boston don't think that you can actually physically get west of New Jersey. It's just not possible to do. Like you have to live in that, you know?
SPEAKER_04It is a microcosm, very, very culturally and uh physically totally.
SPEAKER_01And there's a there's a stifling conformity to it that like all of them through one way or another seem to have kind of like settled on this like yes, I'm wearing the exact same stuff that everybody else is wearing. Yes, I'm doing the exact same stuff doing. Yes, I care about other people's resumes, and I ask people about their jobs all the time, but I independently came to those conclusions, which just doesn't seem also true. But they think they think like, oh, I am an a real independent person, just settles on being somebody from Boston.
SPEAKER_04The same deal, yeah. Yeah, it's just an always wild. With the with the sit go hats that say Boston Red Sox on it or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Dude, out here in uh Portland, I would everybody out here doesn't give a shit about sports for the most part. And I always tell them it's like whenever I'm back in Boston, when I'm talking to uh anybody, like if the conversation isn't going anywhere, I will ask them about the Patriots or the Red Sox, and we will have a conversation. Bruins too.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_01I just don't know the Bruins that well. I was more of a basketball player.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. Yeah, so I I grew um where I went, where I started the band, I was living in Orno, like where Umain is, and it's huge hockey school. Oh, yeah. And I'm not I'm not a huge sports guy at all, but I I learned I've bartended like since I was 15. Or like weighted tables bartended. But I learned that was if I didn't know what to talk about, if I was like swinging and missing on like music or whatever, I'll be like, You like the you like the Patriots? And then it was just like it was just like I'd be like, Yep, I know some names, and that was the extent of the conversation, but they would love it, and you know, it would I'd get better tips and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, I mean you gotta learn how to speak the language. Also, I love the idea of a 15-year-old main bartender. That's like one of those things that I feel like that that's part of the main experience that people don't understand. Where they're like, wait, no, that's that's illegal. It's like, dude, there's no law in the world. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter to get to enforce this. Who's gonna come and break this up, man?
SPEAKER_04I was literally I was getting hired at weddings, like to do like that, yeah. And I was just going in and doing it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love it, man. All right, so you're like 14 years old, you've been playing guitar, you start writing your own stuff. You're in a high school that at this point, how many people are in this high school?
SPEAKER_04So there were like 30 per year, all age, like from fourth grade-ish up to you know senior or whatever.
SPEAKER_01So 30 per grade or 30 in total from fourth grade.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01This is like one step above homeschool.
SPEAKER_04Yes, 100%. And she she was just she amazed, I haven't ever talked about this um before. Um, she was uh uh she's alive. I made it sound like she's dead. She what it was is she's just not a teacher anymore. Um but she was just this amazing woman who wanted to, she's working in um public school system and was like, and Maine has a pretty, pretty uh not awesome, especially compared to Massachusetts, pretty not awesome public school system. And she was like, I'm sick of the no child left behind stuff. People aren't getting the help that they need, and then people who are advanced are getting held behind, and it's very frustrating. Um and so she was like, I'm just gonna start my own school, and she just did it out of her house. That's awesome. And she's brilliant. She was like our only teacher for every subject, and if she didn't know something, if we were like, I want to learn, blah, blah, blah, she would hire someone who knew, or she would learn it herself over a summer and then come back and have a curriculum ready. Um, and we would basically like I was horrible at math, terrible at math. Like, if there's enough numbers on a page, it becomes it literally like swirls. I cannot do it. I struggle. It's like the way people describe dyslexia is literally numbers, fractions, easy math, anything. Um, but English, I was like always really, I always have written essays for myself even for fun. Like that I was that kid. And uh so I was like literally like seventh grade doing you know, 11th grade English, and she would let me test out of it. So, like my last two years of high school, I just didn't have an English class, but I had extra math because that was where I struggled. So she would hold me, but I we'd all start in the same pocket every year or grade or whatever, and then we would start going, and if I fell behind in math, she would start meeting with me separately. And everyone was like a big family, they all helped each other, and she would literally just sit in her living room and call in, you know, government twelve or whatever, and and then those kids would go in.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_04And it was very self-driven. Like, we would just like do our homework and put it in a bin at and there was no conversation about it. It was very like, Do you need help with this? No, okay, go do it. Like, learn to figure it out on your own. It prepared me for like even like running the band. I was like, Oh, I know how to like I can organize all of this myself, you know what I mean? Like, I could do all of the the deal and have my schedule because I'd dump and doing it. Um, but you know, we didn't have a lot of people. I was a little socially inept when I started college, kind of. The only reason, but I was like, uh, yeah, I was just like, I had I thought everyone was like my four friends that I had from third grade until I graduated. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Oh man, yeah. I uh I love hearing about this schoolhouse thing because it's like this is yeah, this is that uh New England like roots thing that I I think hard to explain otherwise. What you just described, this school system that you're talking about, that was the entirety of the American education system up until we started doing compulsory education on the behalf of the Rockefellers and uh the Austrian school. So, like we kind of re uh European, Europeanized our schools of compulsory education. Uh, but previously, uh, you know, like I always like to say uh George Washington, the first president, you know, the general, his first class that he ever took, he was 12 years old and he took calculus, which at the time was like 35 years old, you know.
SPEAKER_04Right, but for him, he was just into it, right?
SPEAKER_01Like it's just the idea is there's this guy, John Taylor Gotto. Have you ever heard of him?
SPEAKER_04No, actually.
SPEAKER_01He was a New York educator. I love his story because he was literally like living with a roommate. It's very school of rock to get back to Jack, uh Jack Black. I always get Jack Black, Jack White mixed up my Jack Black. Uh he was living with a roommate in New York and he stole his teaching license in the 70s.
SPEAKER_04Whoa, that's literally like Jack Black. That's like an HD bit or something.
SPEAKER_01He gets there and he has none of the education for because he just stole the license. And he starts talking to these kids, he starts seeing how the school is set up, and he's like, Well, this isn't how the real world works at all. You guys are just learning, this isn't how anybody learns.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He's like, the way you learn is you find a kid, you ask them what they're into, and then you just have to stay slightly ahead of them. Like, you don't have to like it. And he I my favorite thing that he would talk about is like what we do is what we do in education now is we teach people the like core components first, which tend to be the most boring things, very abstracted things that don't really have a real-world application. And then hopefully, if you master all of those, eventually you can be, you know, an engineer or something.
SPEAKER_04Eventually, it's so and I get like the well-rounded thing, like you're trying to like make people, but like don't uh maybe hook them for like even with the Green Day Tenacious D thing. Like, if I had had that day one, I because if I my mom wasn't like so, like you're not gonna give up on something you start kind of deal. Um, I would have dropped out and probably not played guitar. Like, I probably would have been like this.
SPEAKER_01Because for a lot of people, the way they learn is they don't go, well, I want to learn calculus so that eventually one day maybe I'll be an engineer. They go, I want to build a bridge. And then in the process of trying to build a bridge, in the process of failing to build a bridge, you now encounter stuff that you need to now learn how to do. Totally. Then you start learning it, but learning it with a very direct sense of its applicability, right? So like you want to learn how to play a tenacious D banger, you know? You want to learn how to play tribute, which is a phenomenal song. And in doing so, he's like, all right, well, now you have to learn these chords and how to switch between these chords. And in doing that, you're gonna encounter your first this is gonna be your first encountering like how a song gets structured, how this chord goes into this chord, goes into that chord, and you start like encountering information that eventually is gonna be much more necessary. But the other way to do it is you start with like chord charts and stuff like that, which for some people they look at it, it's far more abstract, it has no real world applicability. Yeah, it's completely abstract.
SPEAKER_04Totally. That's how I would he had like a big a bunch of posters, like circle of fists and all that stuff, and I still don't know a lot. I I mean obviously I can do it, um, and I and I like I don't think about it though, you know what I mean? Like I have friends who do who do, and it's just a different process. But um when I look at those things even now, I get very, very overwhelmed. And see, it's because it's so math-driven, I think. I feel the same way when I do math. Um, it's the same, I think it's very like, but if you recontextualize it, because if there's a kid like me that wants to learn, you know, music, and they're like, I just am I I hate math, I'm horrible at it. You're not gonna teach them scales and and how they relate right away, right? You're gonna be like, This is a so this is metallic or whatever, you know, whatever you want to learn, this is it.
SPEAKER_01You wait for them to find the interest. I I've been talking obviously on this podcast with a lot of different musicians, and I keep stumbling upon uh this kind of dichotomy between how people get again, the beauty of art is there's no wrong way to make it, right? Like you can be River's Como and turn it into like turn yourself into the AI that produces music, right? Yes, uh which becomes its own art. You know, you listen to it and you're like, well, it's actually kind of fascinating to hear the result of this insane sounding process, this inhumane sounding process. He still makes something that sounds like human and I can go dance to at a club or whatever. And then this other group of people view it more as like I like to describe it as like you're an antenna and you're sitting around with a guitar in your hand, waiting for some vibration.
SPEAKER_04Like the Rick Rubin thing.
SPEAKER_01And then so the artist is uh is not creating something, it's more just giving form to something that's already there, you know?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there's something more h humble and and like Buddhist about that. That's like very Rick Rubin, but I've heard a lot of people say that, and I've heard a lot of thinkers like Alan Watts even in lectures talk about that phenomenon, even outside of art. But that is like I feel like that's like that feels and I and I think maybe I'm probably just biased because that's kind of my process, but it feels more human or something. But like feeling like a conduit for something, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01For me, it's always just like uh, you know, as a as a dialectical historical materialist myself, right? It's always in the dialect, right? Even the guy that is trying to be purely abstract, purely spiritual, purely a vessel for the flow. At some point, though, you do have to give it form, and in giving it form, you are engaging with the concept of process, right? Art is this mixture of inspiration and process, and the contrast between the two of them creates the artist, right?
SPEAKER_04And it's very that's an interesting way to put it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man. Everything, everything is the contrast, right? It's always uh the everything's in dialogue with each other, but like form and content, and art is this attempt to give form to things that otherwise are inherently like inherently have content, right? Yeah, if you write a love song, it's inherent that love exists. You're giving something that doesn't, you know, that otherwise would not be easy to explain because it's so obvious almost, you know?
SPEAKER_04Totally. There's my f um one of my best friends, he was a basis for our band for a while, he's a phenomenal musician. His name's Gabe Chambers. Um, he once was taught, we were talking, we were just around when we first started that we were gonna release that record Vermont, we were recording it, and that song Peyote kind of is like proof in the pudding for what you're talking about because I had a bunch of these little parts of songs I wrote around like 16, 17, 18, and then I had written this like half a song, and I was trying, and I'm like, these all go together, they're in the same key. I'm even talking about the same things just at different times of my life, and I'm just gonna trying to put them all together, and I don't know where they go, and blah blah blah. And I was like, but it doesn't sound this enough, it doesn't sound that enough, or it sounds too much this, is it too kitschy, blah blah blah. And he was like, dude, we because I was like, I worry I'd be pulling inspiration too much from people or something, and he was like, We literally what defines an artist is your favorite artist, like Cobain, whatever, front bottoms, modest mouse like is one of mine, like Isaac Brock went about his life probably trying to mirror your his favorite artist, yeah, and trying to make some good sounded exactly like that, but because he's not that artist, it no matter what inherently fell short and made modest mouse, and now that's this beautiful, awesome thing you love. So just try to be whoever you think you're supposed to be mimicking or shadowing or whatever it is in the moment, and you'll have to fall short because you're not that person, and it will create something new. Like, and that combination of you just being you, and then this other thing, pressure, is what makes Milk Street or whatever, you know, or whoever it is.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I uh uh one of my favorite like Twitter threads that I ever read was by this guy, logo deedalist, who uh I'm not familiar. Go follow him, he's cool. I like him, I like him. Anyway, uh he talks a lot about like if you are going to be something, one of the stages to being that is LARPing as that thing, right? Totally. I 100% agree. 100% agree. And it's like it's only through like you're what you're talking about. It's like only through the attempt to try to write a modest mouse song do you actually discover what makes you different from Modest Mouse. You can't like you can't intellectualize yourself into the differences between you and Modest Mouse. You sit down and try to write, like my thing whenever I would write music is I would listen to a song that I really like, and I would try to write that song uh without looking up any of it. I wouldn't look up the tunings, I wouldn't look up any of that song. Yeah. Because it's like I I knew that if I looked up the tuning or whatever, I'd stumble on a chord and I'd play around with that. But like, what I want to try to do is capture what I think that song feels like, and I wouldn't listen to the song as I'm doing it. I would let the song fade into memory, and now I'm just trying to capture the feeling of sounding like that song or something. Yes.
SPEAKER_04I've written songs through that process before. Like, I'm like literally just like playing a song how I think it's played, and then I'll end up writing something new, and then I'll have to there's even been times where I had to like look up like how do you act like later on? I'm like, how do you play this song? So I want to make sure I didn't actually like do it right, you know what I mean? I just put new lyrics over it or something. But yeah, um, I I think that that's very like and and those are end up being our most popular songs, like most of the time.
SPEAKER_01Uh that's a great feeling too. Just like, you know, I I think one of the things that I really enjoy when I talk to artists is um how much they seem to get a kick out of like what works and what doesn't work, right? Like there's this, yeah, I think there's sort of this element that some people have where it's like the creation process is sort of magic, everybody is a wizard, they kind of know one way or the other, like what is or isn't going to work. But like for the most part, uh my favorite is how many people have told me it's like, dude, some of the songs that are really popular I wrote in 10 minutes and I thought were absolute dog shit.
SPEAKER_03That's always the case.
SPEAKER_01And then other songs I spent eight weeks on, and I thought it was great, and it's like it also did well. Like I thought maybe it would make more sense if one did well and one did poorly, you know? So it's like, oh, totally this is how it works, but it's like, oh, they both did well. So what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to spend eight weeks on every song, or am I supposed to spend ten minutes on every song? And it's like you're not supposed to know.
SPEAKER_04It's just supposed to happen, and then I think like the only one rule I've found, and I've heard other people talk about it after I kind of realized it for myself, is like if if in three weeks you you listen back, like because it's hard to have an objective oh yeah, well it's all subjective, right? So but like it's hard to be like like if in three weeks you listen back and it sounds like shit, then then it sounds like shit, right? Like that's that's probably wasn't worth it. You probably had this lightning in the bottle feeling and you were so excited that you got jaded by it. But at the same time, I think that sometimes people hold on to like well I created it, so I it's good, and and they're like I have to do it justice because it came out of me, and like all this stuff. And it's like, I mean, you can like you can you can put it out there, but if it sucks, it sucks. Like, don't expect people to like it, you know.
SPEAKER_01That is the other thing I I think about a lot with other artists, is like, yes, you are making something for you, right? But if you just want to do that, then deal with the consequences of it, which is you might not end up making anything that other people like, but like the real art, I feel like is always made as again these this dialectic between the artist and the audience and the the people because you can't just give the audience everything they want, or you end up with slop. But yeah, you can't give them nothing that they want, otherwise, you end up with self-indulgent masturbation, and it's like it's gonna be somewhere in the middle of those two things. But like again, yeah, there's no formula for it. It's not math, it is a feeling.
SPEAKER_04Not at all. And I think some are in there, I think some are in there like you like people hold on to things. I think the problem arises when people hold on to something and they're not actually enjoying the song. They think it's they listen back three weeks later or whatever, and they're like, Oh, this sounds like shit, but I need to like push and push and polish it, and it's just a mixing issue, or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, but it's like maybe it's just a bad song and you're not willing to accept that. But if they if they really love it, then then you've gotta put it in. I mean, look at like like Wien, right? Or Black Country New Road or or whatever. Like, um, they just love what they're making and had fun with it in the moment, and they didn't think too much, probably, about the audience or being cool or edgy or cutting or whatever. Some fans probably do, but like Slint didn't, you know what I mean? They're like, I mean, they're already pretty big.
SPEAKER_01But you know, I mean, they they still end up making something that an audience enjoys, and it's like it would be impossible to be Slint and play your shows in front of an audience as much as you do, and not internalize it to some extent. Like the level the slider goes over on like what do I want to give my audience versus what do I want to uh do. I mean, at the end of the day, all the music you make, you are making for the void, and now you're just trying to share, you're trying to use whatever you made for the void to build some sort of connection, and it's like get some followers and some money.
SPEAKER_03I'm getting it. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I've been saying, dude. We our follower count keeps going up, and there's no money coming up. It's all uh We're spending more money, actually, probably not than ever.
SPEAKER_01So that uh if you want more reading, because I I love giving homework assignments, uh the economist Michael Hudson in his book Super Imperialism uh writes essentially how the US dollar is backed by a system of debt and military the threat of military intervention to keep the world servicing the debts that America creates to have military adventurism uh so that we can project the fear of falling outside of the Bretton Woods system, outside of the dollar diplomacy, right?
SPEAKER_04Right, right.
SPEAKER_01This is the whole idea. In order for that system to upkeep itself, right, you need to increase debt servitude under the logic that existed only since the Roman time, like the real Roman invention uh in invention into economics was the idea that all debts have to be repaid. Before that, the system of debt collection came from the Levant, came from like Mesopotamia, uh, you know, Syria, wherever. Uh, but they had a understanding that every 50 years or so you'd have to have some sort of jubilee and wipe all the debts. Otherwise, the system of debt collection would outpace the system of production. Of course. Romans solved that problem with expand military expansion. So whenever the debts became too much, they would just expand farther and farther out. And we're in that stage now in the West where it's like we have this dollar system that uh financialized in order to create a global economic system where you can push a button from your house and get something delivered from Thailand to your house in 24 hours. That's the exist that's the positive aspect of financialization of the economy. The problem is that now it is a monster that is trying to make everything you do part of debt collection, you know, drinking water, going to work, owning your car, owning your house, owning music. Spotify is simply collecting rent every single month on whether or not you can listen to them. And obviously, the money's not going to you, it's going to the service of debt that Spotify was able to take out from the bank because they know they can get you to pay rent on it every single month.
SPEAKER_04And that's the right it's technofeudalism, right? Really? That's like who is that? That was uh uh there's what's the philosopher's name? Have you read about the this the the book? It's I think the book is called technofeudalism. Yeah, we talked about how we're basically like serfs that are working for our rights to be participate in internet and Netflix and Amazon and Spotify or whatever, and we're working for those rights to exist on that land, and that's like our entire economy is getting going in this direction. Already there are going in that direction.
SPEAKER_01Ultimately, at the end of the day, what I love about Michael Hudson is he takes the techno-feudalism thing and is like, well, it's obviously distinct from feudalism because of the material differences from feudalism to today, uh, but also like simplifying it, right? You I I always love the idea that like simple things tend to be tend to hold more currency. American politics is all about common sense. Whoever has the bastion of common sense tends to uh have at least the authority, you know, the other people have to argue, right? Uh and his whole argument boils down to it's like at the end of the day, the difference between the United States and a place like China is that China's banks, the way that China prints money is publicly owned by the Communist Party of China. And so when a debt has to be written off, right? So the debts that are written out and the debts that are written off, the ones that are bad, the ones that's that go belly up, China can write off the debt for a bridge because they can go, well, it served a social function, and we don't we weren't gonna get the money from something anyway. So, like, we'll write that debt off. In America, we have the Federal Reserve, which is owned by a cartel of banking institutions, a cartel of private interest, and so when we have to write off debt, we have to ask the cartel of banking institutions whether or not uh it's profitable for them to write off that debt, and that is the difference as far as I can tell in the economy. So it to me I kind of like it because it's it's relatively simple, but it's also just like you know, frighteningly abstract and complex. Totally obviously on the short term, it's crushing everybody's hopes and dreams of every life with any sort of dignity. But you know 100%.
SPEAKER_04And then if you're if it's education-based and you die, your kids have to pay that back to channel.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. I mean, they want to just have it perpetual debt cycles forever, it's so crazy, dude.
SPEAKER_03It's so insane.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's it's a Tony Soprano economy. Everybody is just Tony Soprano saying, like, hey, listen, you want to do this, you want to open a coffee shop, but unless you want it to be a coffee shop that is known for having broken windows every night, you're gonna have to pay me this amount of money. Is that money gonna have any productive value whatsoever? Absolutely not. It is basically going to be used to halt the production of other things. And it's like, yeah, why does it feel so stagnant right now? Why does it feel so because 40% of all of our tax money goes to paying off the interest in the Federal Reserve? If we could get 40% of our money to not pay off interest on money that we already spent, yeah, maybe we could, you know, have better schools or something. I don't know. That's my theory.
SPEAKER_04And on top of it all, on a consumer level, I mean, we have like everything's built to break on purpose. Like, right? Like whether it's fucking refrigerators or your iPhones or uh I watch this YouTube when I'm driving. Uh when we're on tour, sometimes I do.
SPEAKER_01Um watch YouTube videos while you're driving the car, yes. Of course.
SPEAKER_04I do. Well, I might it's like up there. It is like I I will say I do have them, especially on long drives, like sitting in the holder. But I'm like glancing when some like when they're like, and you see here, I'm like, uh but it's different. But uh I watched Wendigoon and he did a video recently. Show Wendigoon, man. Love Wendigoon, dude, like so much. And uh he did uh the video, did you see the video on iPhones and Apple and like their whole model? Oh not yet. It's like incredible. It's it's just like whoa, they really are building it to break and on purpose. And they had to like admit it out loud.
SPEAKER_01Like you look at that though, too, and it's like, why? Like, why are they doing that? Why can't somebody the question always comes up is like, all right, if that's the case, why can't somebody just build one that's gonna last for 10 years and compete against it? It's because in order to do that, the capital necessary to build up the industry against it, right, that's the problem is gonna be dependent on the same bank loans that Apple is getting. But because Apple can tell the bank our phones need to be bought every two or three years because of uh obsolescence, they get the bank goes, Well, that's a better investment for us because that's a better business plan for servicing the debts. Yes, we need you to pay off. And now they have because it's not necessarily supply and demand. Supply and demand doesn't make any sense in a world of mass marketing advertising, demand is induced. They talk about this all the time.
SPEAKER_04So it's like and constant, it's just constant, it's like feeding the the little like demon in you that wants more constantly and like lots of what you don't have. That is like like egged on 24-7, right? And not even just through ads, but just in every way.
SPEAKER_01Because I mean that's that's the goal. The goal is they just want it to be kind of a churning treadmill of unproductive work, and this is why I always argue it's like you know, uh, I like to say that I am uh a communist, but in the way that it's like free time and nothing else, because that's what communism is is free time and nothing else. And people asking, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Look at your schoolhouse, the woman that ran your schoolhouse. Imagine that all over the country. All of these smart, bright people that just are like, Yeah, I can have 30 kids in my house and and teach them. I'll do that for free. If I have less work that I have to do, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_04And tax write-offs, maybe, or yeah, and health insurance, right? Or whatever the fuck. Just give me a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01It's just a scam at this point.
SPEAKER_04And then you'll have educated people that are out there. I mean, every one of the well, not every, I shouldn't say that. It's definitely, but most of the people that came out of that school are successful in some way, whether they're in a um I'm the only one in the band, but one's an uh homeopathic medicine specialist out in San Francisco, like owns a house in San Francisco. You know what I mean? Like, we all started in Skowhegan, fucking Maine. Like middle of nowhere.
SPEAKER_01That's the same thing uh John Taylor Gotto found it. Like the school he taught at, obviously, they're not checking credentials that hard. It was not a great school. But like his whole thing was like he would have the first thing he would do is have all the kids come in and shake his hand at the beginning of the day, and he taught them how to interact in a business world, and then like would tell them it's like if you get an internship for any industry that you like, and you show me not only that you're working at that industry, but that you're gonna do something to in return to the person that hired you for this. You know, there's like one girl that interned under a newscaster and then gave her all the notes, and the newscaster turned that into a book to sell, you know, like that kind of mutual relationship, right? But like that's how the business world works, that's how the real world works. You do something for me, I do something for you. All of those kids from the poorest school in the Bronx all turned into successful people because they learned if there's a problem, I might be able to solve it, as opposed to the way we do it now, which is like if there's a problem, maybe one day I'll have the certification necessary to be on the committee that reviews the problem. Yes, yes, yeah, that's a give it totally.
SPEAKER_04And I think that that's the that's whenever I talk with people about this, that you know, especially people who disagree with me, um, they are that what you just that the the benefits of of capitalism that you just like outlined. Is what they or that what you just outlined is what they think the benefits of capitalism are. You know what I mean? That's what they think that cap that this whole process inspires is to be more driven to help each other so that all boats rise and like all this stuff. But it's this the antithesis. That is like quite literally the antithesis of the whole process.
SPEAKER_01The difference is that uh in America, the hardest thing to do is to recognize that um the authority over who gets to define what the terms are is very hard to people, right? People say capitalism versus communism, right? They're not talking about you know capitalism as Marx wrote about it in the 1800s or whatever. When I hear people on the left, you know, talk about capitalism and communism here, and they're defining communism purely as what Marx wrote about in the 1800s, and they haven't read up through like yeah Xiaoping or something like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, nothing contextual, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. It's like I mean, the idea behind Marxist Leninism is not to take Marx's words as gospel, right? No, we got there's plenty of things. It is to understand the logic he used to write capital to apply that to the current state of things. That's all it is, and that's dialectical historical materialism, you know. But like, so when I talk to people all the time, I've learned because I argue with people, look at me, I love arguing, it's funny. And I just stopped defining terms. It's like when people were like, Well, capitalism's this, communism's that. I always go to the same thing with the capitalist argument. It's like, well, have you seen China's electric vehicle market, right? They right now, all of those companies they have multiple like Tesla competitors, and their big problem is they have to make the cars so cheap that they're losing out on profit because there's so much competition. It's like I, as an American, I want that here for everything. I want them fighting over making cheaper stuff for me.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's 100%. And I'm sure there's like downsides and and negative sides to you know, there is to everything, right? But like, yeah, exactly. But like when I think it's more I think the problem comes more in these like big scary words, like communism or whatever it is. You know what I mean? I think that's like there's this great book I read recently, or started reading, I guess, but um um is it called it's something along the lines of like Jesus was a communist, and basically he's talking about if you if you read the Bible as like a labor work, like like uh you know the Communist Manifesto, it it reads like that. It doesn't read spiritual in many capac some, but not in many capacities.
SPEAKER_01I could talk about this. This is my same, same. Yeah, this is my book. 100% The Sermon on the Mount is about the restoration of the Jubilee year. The Jubilee yeah was a 50-year cyclical releasing of all of the debts. And he said, I'm here to restore the jubilee year. It wasn't until later on that people started to apply this spiritual definition of debt, but the concept of forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us, forgive us that trespassers, we forgive those who trespass against us. The term for trespass, the term for sin in that phrase was originally debt. It was the same word.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yes, yes. That was included in the book as well. Yeah, and also even like even down to like the whole um like flipping over the table, like him being revolutionary and flipping over the table. Yeah, in the in the temple. The the thieves were were tax collectors. It wasn't like they were like petty thieves, like he was like, No, get the fuck away from these people.
SPEAKER_01What are you doing? My favorite story of the early Christians is like, how did they spread? I'm like always fascinated by this. And like one of the things they would do is a tax collector would come and then they would essentially like give the tax collector the good news. Like, dude, the taxes are because the tax collector fucking hated his life. Everybody hated him. And then the tax collector, once they were converted over to you know, the ward of Jesus or whatever, they would just continue their route and instead of collecting taxes, just go from house to house and be like, I'm here to give you the good news. Your debt is free. I'm not here, I'm not gonna collect. You guys are free, you're absolved, uh, go with the ward, and then they walk away. And it's like that was like a huge part of early Christianity.
SPEAKER_04And and and those things aren't like uh like everything else that when people talk about from the other side, the other point of view, their hypothesis and spiritual and whatever, these are like objective historical facts, right? Like this happened, and and it's being interpreted in different ways or whatever, but all of these things that we're talking about were the case, um, they're just being recontextualized. For I mean, dude, if if if there was if you walk sorry, walking around going, if your videos were you walking around going door to door being like, your dad's absolved, and it worked, I eventually my grandkids would probably be like, That guy was God. I don't know what to tell you. That guy was literally God.
SPEAKER_01I think about that all the time when people are like, Oh, it's kind of weird how everybody in China has a picture of Chairman Mao up on the on the house. Like, I can't believe they're forcing him to do it. I'm like, dude, if you went from the center of humiliation to where China is right now, I would tattoo his face on my exactly. If there was a politician right now that, like, like if Mam Dani actually wiped out all of the debts in New York City right now, how many fucking millennials would have a Mom Dani tattoo on their arm for the rest of their fucking lives? Yeah, it's like me there. Yeah, I think that's the thing. It's just like, and also the part of it too, it's just like different cultures, man. China has a different group of people than the United States of America. Like, they're gonna have a different relationship to Mao that we're gonna have, but we still put we called the state of Washington Washington, guys. Like, we aren't yeah, right, exactly.
SPEAKER_04We're not free of this same concept, you know? But hundred percent, yeah, yeah. And I think also people, I mean, even that the concept, this is like so normy or whatever, but like even the concept of like people idolizing like Thomas Jefferson and then finding out he owns slaves and they're like, but he did all these awesome things, I don't really care, or whatever, you know, that's the same, that's the same thing, that's the same like uh concept, right?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean that idea of like the sins of I talk about this all the time, like a huge part of the reels that have taken off or whatever is my idea that America is a civilization discovering itself, and in doing so, the sins are baked in with the good, but you can't throw the good with the bad. And I always point out to people, because I'm not talking about the American Empire, I'm not talking about this financial system that we've put in place that you know again, it it served a positive purpose. There is a global market now, right? You can buy things from anywhere in the world. That is something, whether it's good or bad, that's up for debate. But they did it did something, whatever. It's outserved its purpose, though. There's no place to expand the market into anymore, it's already done, right? The only places to expand into are places that are like we absolutely don't want it here, like Iran, Russia, and China. They're like, we're done, we don't want it. And so it's like, cool, I respect your sovereignty as an American citizen. But the idea is that America, the place, America, the concept, in the same way that like China was a concept during the Ming dynasty, and then during the Kuming Tang, and then now under the Communist Party, it's still China, right? Yeah, America here that is still going to be America, even if we have to reconstitute, right?
SPEAKER_02It's gonna be the same country.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. But like what is that is always gonna be different than China and Russia and Iran have these historical roots that go very, very deep. Europe has these historical roots that go very, very deep. America's historical roots are very shallow, which has advantages and disadvantages, but like this idea that it like we can't we can't be all the evil in America, right? Uh and ignore any of the good, that's a folly. We also can't just be the good and ignore the sins, because that's a folly as well. In order for us to actually rectify the sins of the past, to pro deliver on the promise of the 40 acres and a mule that we African Americans after the uh the Civil War, to do that, we have to move forward and move forward on what works in America. What not just on the evils or whatever, like it is not, I don't know. I just I don't see America as an inherently or uniquely evil place. I think it's a good place. Yeah, it is figuring itself out to some extent, and I want to be part of that process, you know?
SPEAKER_04Totally, yeah, because people like and uh people, even as an ethos, even as like a culture, and I'm talking over like generations, make mistakes, even also obviously on an individual level. But you can I think I think um I'm a friend, and this comes through in the music a lot too. I think, uh at least that's what I write about a lot, is people change, people can be better themselves, people can like go from this piece of shit to like and also their new version of themselves might have new hangups that they're like, I didn't even expect all this. I thought I was figuring things out, you know what I mean? Um but but I think that like as a culture, as a people and as an individual, on all levels, people can like change and grow and and especially and that's the benefit of having shallow roots, right? Like having shallow roots might make it so that we're more susceptible to bullshit and more easily brainwashed or whatever it is, but on the other side, it means that we can change our mind a little more easily.
SPEAKER_01Like we that's my thought is like if you brainwash uh a culture that has more civilizational roots, it's gonna be harder for them to unbrainwash in there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's in there.
SPEAKER_01The beauty of America is that like we shift every four years. In my lifetime alone, right? Think about this, guys. In my lifetime alone, uh conspiracy theories went from the most left-wing coded thing to the most right wing coded thing. That shifted in a generation that is nothing in the historical record. And it's like that is uh that's what I think of with America. It's like uh the the things that I think are concrete are that idea that like America can change very, very quickly because uh we just don't have any no one cares about 50 years ago. We just don't care. That's a advantage of disadvantage. The other part of it is that like America will do the right thing, but only after we've exhausted all the wrong things. We want to try all the wrong things first, which sometimes produces something really fun. Yeah, jet skis objectively, yeah, the wrong thing to make. Yeah, super fucking fun. Unbelievable.
SPEAKER_04100% and I America is just perpetually like in its like early to late 20s. Right? Like not quite like 20 to 27 forever, just trying out shit, throwing it at the wall, and being like, holy fuck, that didn't work, and then just keep keep on doing it. You just gotta do it, man.
SPEAKER_01But that's how you eliminate you know things that do or don't work. You know, it's like yeah, it's it's a mentality to it. Uh, there's a book uh written by Wang Huning, who's one of the right hand men uh of Xi Jinping in China right now. It's called America Against America, where Wang Huning came to America to study how we govern in like the height of the Reagan era, right? So this is like the peak of interesting, yeah. And the things that he was fascinated by were like the Amish, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's this group that's objectively anti-American, they're not embracing technology, they have deep traditions, they don't participate in greater society. But like, how is it that they're able to stay independent and self-governing in this country and be such an object objectively opposing thing, right? That's like in America, we don't think about it at all. Obviously, there's gonna be Amish in America. That's part of being America is living in a barn and raising with your buddies, you know.
SPEAKER_04And and thriving, right? Like they're there as a culture, like like my dad, uh, we disagree on a lot of things, but like the one thing we do agree on is like you know, the the food system is just completely fucked right now. Absolutely. And he will he will only he eats meat constantly, but he will only eat meat from Amish community, that's Amish farmer that's down the road from his house because he knows it's clean. So they figured some things out, and and and to me, I'm like, they're thriving because of all of those things. But to a lot of people, they're like, oh, they're like, you know, in the dark ages still, and it's like there's one of those issues.
SPEAKER_01But well, for China, it's like their thing was like, dude, it's so hard for us to get anybody to embrace new technologies. People are still washing their clothes like they've been doing for 200 years, which is kind of fucking awesome.
SPEAKER_04Like, that's kind of that's what all Americans want to be. That most Americans, even like especially actually, like really like right-wing traditionalists, want that. That they want to be using washboards, and but then they're like against yeah, I don't know. That's a confusing.
SPEAKER_01The idea is that like in America, the concept is like my idea of of what makes America is like one, we have a highway system and you can drive anywhere in America. Your birthright is in America, is as an American is at any point if you can afford it, you get in a car and you just go. And that's like that's that's a huge part of the cultural DNA. The other part of it is this idea, it's like it's honestly kind of a very libertarian idea. You deserve a house, you deserve a place that's your domicile, and you are king of your own castle. You and your family are your only jurisdiction that matters in that zone. Uh, as long as nobody's being like abused in a way, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like you in your wall, you know, in your home, you can do whatever you want, have sex however you want to do it, as long as it's consensual and all that stuff. Like, eat however you want, wash clothes, yeah, get fat, get fit. I don't give a shit. When we're in public, you give me a uh enough dignity that we can exist in public space. I'll give you the dignity to exist in public space, and that's America. It's like everything else is like it's something that nobody wants to micromanage here. Yeah, 100%. And that's when I talk about the reason I'm fascinated with China is they had this process of discovering socialism with Chinese characteristics. We need socialism with American characteristics, but a big part is American characteristics, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I exactly. And I think you look at New York and and you know, I think it's probably over talked so much now, but like Mamdani being in especially in this climate, like a brown socialist and winning shows that no one gives a fuck about anything other than are you going to make my make my living conditions better?
SPEAKER_01Are you gonna make it we are a hyper pragmatic people at the end of the day? Did you make my life better or worse? It's why I'm actually not worried about uh war with China. Yeah, at a certain point. It might be awesome. We just I think most Americans are right. So we either go to war with them and we bomb them, or hypothetically, maybe we just stop maybe we let them sell their cool electric cars in America for twenty thousand dollars. Maybe we let them come and we give them a contract to build a high-speed rail because it seems like they're pretty fucking good at it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right. Isn't that the whole point? Isn't that like the whole deal? Like that we take the best parts from all the other countries and the best things they're doing, and then we profit off of it.
SPEAKER_01Isn't like the whole We're Americans, we deserve the best stuff. That's what I believe is an American. We deserve the best things. My kids deserve the best things. Why do we deserve it? I don't know. Yeah, that's between the kids and God. I don't want for me to deserve it.
SPEAKER_02That's literally you know, that's what I believe.
SPEAKER_01I believe we need nice, nice things here. We need a nice America. And I think, you know, my hope on this is uh China had their century of humiliation that eventually led to the revitalization under the Communist Party. We are gonna get our century of humiliation, but in good American fashion, we're gonna do it faster and dumber. We might rip through it in like 20 or 30 years. I think we can fucking do it, man.
SPEAKER_04I think I think in our our lifetime it's gonna we're gonna there's gonna be like a sense of peace. There's gonna be like that, like six, you know, yeah. I think that's a hope.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm naive. Uh I'm probably naive, but I've like some way that I think the US men's national team might win the World Cup. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, I know it's not true. Like I know when I think about it with the part of my brain that like can read, I'm like, all right, there's no way we're gonna win the World Cup. But then my heart of hearts is like, but we are the best. We're the best ones. Christian Pools is just the best soccer player in the world all of a sudden. I don't care. Fuck it. Uh and the more mad that Europeans get at us, the more I believe that we're gonna do it just because you know, fuck it, man.
SPEAKER_04Right. Uh yeah, exactly. Exactly. You gotta create your own reality for sometimes for sure.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of creating your own reality in a music podcast, uh tell me a little bit more about your bands. Tell me about like the direction you're in right now. Like what what how would you describe the style of music that you make? This is so funny to like wrap this back into this, but this is a good thing. I know, right? Whatever. But like, you know, now that everybody knows who you are to some extent, uh why this music? Why why Milk Street?
SPEAKER_04I it just I I think at my core, I've always just wanted it to be what I remember, I remember there was like an aha moment, and uh it was I think it was the front bottoms that made me realize it, but I was like all the music I like, even if they suck, like I everyone else thinks they suck, and I love them. But the biggest thing I usually love is how genuine they feel, and that there's no like bullshit. And I think that that was like the biggest thing. I was like, I don't care how it sounds, whatever comes out, comes out with the people that I'm doing it with. Um because it's always been like my project that I have multiple friends come, and sometimes like Gabe and Harry were with me for like two years, you know, and that was Milk Street. Now it's uh Hunt Hunter and Holly are like Milk Street, and they've been doing it for like a year now. Um so like uh and and it kind of the music always stays the same because it's like songs that I'll write and I'll bring to people that I'm hanging out with a lot of the time and playing shows with, and um, they'll add their two cents in and add on and be like, what do you think this? What do you think that? And it becomes like ours. Like I've always been like, there's been times where they're like, well, it's your everyone I've been with is like it's your band, and I'm like, well, no, it's like it's like our thing, it's like a little community. And we still call up, like when we record, I'll call people that used to play in the band, and I'll be like, I'll introduce them to the new members and be like, and then we'll all write something together, you know what I mean? And that happens often. Um and uh, but I think it's just like whatever genuinely comes out of me and my friends. Like that's the that's Milk Street at its like core.
SPEAKER_01I love that. I I mean uh a lot of what I talk about these days is just like trying to figure out what is genuine in a world in which, like you said, everything's advertising, you know? Yeah. Everyone's trying to do something, everyone's trying to be an influencer or something like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think people are tearing away from that direction now because it's so so in your face constantly, right?
SPEAKER_01That's what I mean by America gets the right thing after doing the wrong thing. We've exhausted everybody's topics. So like off this so much to the point now everyone's like, I just want I will do, I don't care if I make zero dollars. I just want to make a song with my friends that feels like the experience of hanging out with my friends. That's because I love these people, and I want this to I want this to be reflected in something physical, you know?
SPEAKER_04100%. That that is the goal, and I actually there's a song um on the new record that by the time this comes out, uh probably the single will be announced, not out, but announced. Um, and it's called Good Grief. Um, and that's the title track off the record. And um in it, it's supposed to be like a house party kind of thing. It's it kind of follows the narrative, the record does, but um uh it's supposed to be like the a house party and and it's about dissociation, because I was going through that a lot at the time and feeling like my friends don't actually like me. And and I actually we stood in the room and I was like just it was we even Harry and we were best friends, you know, we'd played 145 shows together that year, and I saw them more than anybody, and yeah, I saw them more than anyone, and uh they were like, I was like, just like berate me, just like pretend you're at a party talking shit about me. And I sat in the chair and they stood in the middle of the room with the room mic on, and they're like, look at this fucking guy. So if you listen to the song with headphones on, you can hear them on both sides just going back and forth. Oh, that's funny, yeah, yeah. But it sounds like it's a house party. Um, and we just a lot of our friends, like a lot, I think it's a New England thing, honestly, but we just talk shit about each other to each other. Like that's our whole thing. That's our whole deal. We just like are so mean to each other on like but it it's so but the more mean my friends are to be, the more I'm like, oh, they love me. They like really love me.
SPEAKER_01It is the most New England thing. It is literally, it took me uh like years living out in Portland, Oregon, to like uh wash myself of that. Yeah, the assumption is like if you like somebody, you're mean to them. If you don't know somebody, you're nice to them.
SPEAKER_04You know, you're gonna be really respectful and like I'm not comfortable with you. It's a sign that they're comfortable with me, and I'm like, hell yeah, I'm making my friends feel comfortable. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so you have to like you it is a specific type of like interaction. I think it's why so many people go to New England and they feel like it's very insular. Because it's really hard to take that first step of being like, Oh, uh, that's your shirt today. Um, look at this buggy guy. It's like a kid-size shirt, like, why did you do that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, 100%. Right now, me and my friend Hunter, the the drummer for Milkshire right now, he'll get out of the car and I'll be like, Look at you. And he's like, Why? I'm like, just look at you, and that's it, and we'll leave it there.
SPEAKER_01Like, that's how funny people don't understand how fun that is to say to somebody and just kind of like just be mean for funsies. I don't know.
SPEAKER_04It's so good. But then he'll walk up and be like, shut the fuck up, and he'll hug me and I'll be like, What's going on, bro? You know, like it's just like, yeah, it's like a really good feeling. And I and I wanted that to come through. And it's funny that something so regional like that is what we were like, let's try to show each other, let's try to sound like we're having fun at a house party, and all it was was like, fuck like just look at your face, and like whatever. Um and like and the record's all from the perspective of a kid uh sitting in his room alone, like trying to do, you know, all these whether it's music or watching TV or listening to records, just trying to check out while his parents argue downstairs, and the intro that kind of is obvious, and then it goes through the record. Um, and there when I wrote the songs, they were over like a year and a half period, not meant to even go together. I didn't even know if they'd be on the same record, but they all have a through line that I kind of connected after the fact, um, which is really a cool feeling.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I like recognizing the at the end of the day, it's like, oh, actually, like hey, I stayed on theme. Good job, mate.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I have like a 10-page Google Doc because I was trying to think of music videos for each thing, and I was like, oh my god, and then this song comes next because da da da da da. And there's like a whole like narrative that I kind of uh had it flow through. Um, but yeah, so uh uh where is it going with that? Oh, but good grief, like in this song and the music video, it is supposed to be like, oh, these are my friends, and then it kind of feels like oh fuck, they're not my friends, and it's like, oh these are my friends, but like the song's very simple, and it was genuinely it was like a last minute song that I wrote right before we went to the recording studio, and it's just G and C back and forth, and um yeah, and it's one of my favorites on the record. It's the feels the most not like unique for some reason, and it feels it's like every time I hear it, I like get really emotional because I'm like, that is just me and my friends having fun. That is just us in a room talking shit and like whatever. Like that's awesome, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I it I I talk so much with people on this because like the thing that it interests me about an artist isn't necessarily even like what they sound like. It's like the the why was always the the start question for me. It's like, why are you doing this? Because if you've ever played a guitar, like you have to suck for so long that it's kind of embarrassing, and like it has to be. Yeah, yeah. There's like there's all this humiliation, and it takes so much time that like you have to have some big reason. But so many people get to the same thing that you're talking about of like, or at least the people that I talk to, of like, I am trying to create something genuine. I don't really care why after that. Like, I know that I'm trying to create something genuine. What does it say about me? I'm not a psychologist, like, I'm not gonna Freudian myself into a rabbit hole in this. It's like I just I love my friends, I love this part of being alive, and I just I feel like I can do it. I feel like I can actually like accomplish that. So when you have those moments where you do do it, even if it's just you that hears it, which you know, I doubt that's the case. I haven't heard this song yet, but I'm like even if it is just you that hears that moment, that's still your moment. You'll have that for the rest of your life. You have to carry it with you forever.
SPEAKER_04I think it makes you feel more human than most things. I think it's like even if there's been times I'm in a room with all of my childhood friends, um, and if they we all because we take so much to get together now. Um some are been in Northern Maine and some are down here. And it happens, and I'll just like sometimes I'll like look around and I'm like, oh, we're like, this is the most human experience. There's not we're not gaining anything, we're not like making reels or whatever the fuck. Like, you know, we're just in it. Like, we're just doing this thing right now, and it doesn't like whatever doesn't matter. But we love it so much.
SPEAKER_01You're talking about that, it's like the funniest thing. My favorite thing to do now, now that I have like a reels following, is to pull my phone out and make a reel in front of all of my friends. Because it's the most embarrassing thing to do. Like you see the reels, and it's just my face, and so it kind of looks like you're walking next to me. If you were to take a bird's eye view, I'm a man holding a phone off to the side, pretending he doesn't see his own arm pointing the phone at him, talking, and then you have to like you have to do different takes, you have to redo it. I don't edit anything, so if I mess up, I have to start over from the beginning. Yeah, I love doing it in front of my friends because I can tell how uncomfortable it makes them. Then they're like, No, I'm one of their friends, you know.
SPEAKER_04Honda, that's so fucking funny. Honda, yeah, I we I've done that at restaurants. I uh we've been out and it's my friends and my friends are like, oh, here we go again whenever I pull out the phone tripod or whatever. Oh yeah. Um like we could just I could record us. That's the beauty of like people wanting um things genuine again, is that I can just record us sitting in our living room with my friends and have our new song over, and that performs way better than me like doing the talking head thing sometimes.
SPEAKER_01It's tough, man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and I like that though, it's like those actual moments. They want to see those actual moments. Yeah, and it hits a vibe, you know?
SPEAKER_04Totally. But uh, we've been at restaurants before, and I've been like, I'll pull my phone, like, here he goes again, and I'll and I'll do the whole like I'll like over-exaggerate it and be like, So I'm at this place and I have the mac and cheese, like da-da-da-da-da.
SPEAKER_03And they they're like, please stop, bro.
SPEAKER_01It's so funny. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there is a I have a different cadence when I do this podcast and when I do the reels than I do in real life. There's like, you know, I I know I know what I'm doing, you know. Or not like I know what I'm doing, I'm good at it. I mean I know what I'm doing in that like I'm clear there's a microfone in front of my face. Yeah. You know, it it's it's just it's fun to show people that character that you can kind of slip into and just quickly feel uncomfortable every once in a while. It's like, yeah, dude, I'm an influencer guy now. Yeah, yeah, you like my reels. How do you like seeing the sausage? How do you how do you like seeing it made? Yeah, you hate it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly. And also, like, I mean, even like bartending all my life, I have like a I could do my server voice, right? Like, it's just like, hey guys, how's it going? Like it totally you can just like turn it on, you know what I mean? Like Yeah, it's just like it's disgusting. And and if I work too many days in a row at the restaurant, I can I I become so dysphoric about it that I can hear the voice, and like the real me is like, you gotta get out of here.
SPEAKER_01You gotta separate from your own. Like, I want to throw out soda. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'd rather just blend and be like blissfully ignorant. But when you start separating, it's like, oh my god, this is like so jarring. Yeah, it's horrible.
SPEAKER_01Well, um, that's about an hour. I like to keep it about an hour. This is really fun, man. I I'm always interested when it's like I've never talked to this person in real life. Yeah, I don't know anything about him. Let's see if it'll be a fun conversation. I had a lot of fun. I have no idea how much people are gonna want to hear me talk about Michael Hudson again, but check out Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism.
SPEAKER_04I will.
SPEAKER_01Check out the uh Destiny of Civilization, check out uh John Taylor Gaddow's book, Dumbing Us Down. I think I have it over here.
SPEAKER_04Okay. This is stuff I want to always talk always talk about with my friends, and every time I start in, they're like, Here we fucking go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that's why they start podcasts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, that's real, actually. I've ruined so many parties uh constantly. Because people say something in innocent, and I'll just be like, My wife came over My wife came over to me. I was talking to somebody the other day, and she said she heard the phrase that I said is like uh I am listening to you, I'm responding to you. That's me listening to you. And she just turned around and walked the other way. And I was like, Yeah, I'm that guy. Yeah, I was heated. That's me. That's me, 100%. Um, Plug, what do you got? What uh what's coming up in the next couple weeks, months, years, whatever.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so we just released a single called Just So as of recording, um, with a music video. That was the first single off of a new record that we will have announced by the time this comes out called Good Grief. Um by Milk Street. Uh single, the same name's coming out soon. Uh the record will be out, I believe it's September 22nd. Uh and a Toyota Corolla is another song that will be coming out as a single. Um so we have all kinds of stuff in the pipeline. Music videos for all of it. We're planning tours, we're planning to go places that we we've been a lot of places. We plan to go places we haven't been before, um, which is really exciting. We're gonna be playing as a four-piece on a lot of that for the first time, which is really exciting. Um yeah, so I'm I'm I'm really really a lot of new stuff, but I'm really pumped.
SPEAKER_01Where can they follow you?
SPEAKER_04Uh, everything. Milk Milk ST band on socials, and then milk space S T period on Spotify and Bandcamp and all that.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Well, Jonah, thank you very much. Everybody that's listening still at this point, uh, go check out clubhouse.gg. I gotta plug my own thing. I can keep it. 100%. That's the point of my podcast. Yes, where can I play fantasy?
SPEAKER_04Where can I do fantasy football? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Clubhouse.gg, baby, with a K. K-L-U-P-H-O-U-S E. Uh, I do actually want to get like a league together at some point of bands. So, like e does a team. So I'll I'll let you know. I'm definitely gonna start with the people that came on the podcast first.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, I'd be sad.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, uh, thank you to How Strange It is for lending me uh their song to play, which it should be playing now. I don't know how I'm gonna edit this. And uh Jonah! Uh everybody go follow him, go listen to his music. And uh yeah, uh, thank you very much for coming on, man. It's a lot of fun.