Mailbag with Rob Harvilla, Plus An Interview with Militarie Gun’s Ian Shelton

It’s mailbag time, and once again Rob Harvilla is here to help Yasi answer your most pressing questions. Is 31 too old to go to shows? What would you recommend to impress a hardcore Swedish punk gamer? Why do all the kids these days look like Geese (the band)? And who was stage diving at a Riff Raff show?! Next, Yasi is joined by Militarie Gun’s Ian Shelton to discuss their new album God Save The Gun. And along the way they talk getting over your embarrassment, therapy through songwriting, and some less controversial topics (like God). CREDITS: Host: Yasi Salek ⁠@yasisalek⁠ Guests: Rob Harvilla ⁠@harvilla⁠, Ian Shelton ⁠@militariegun⁠ Producer: Rob Sundermann Editor: Adrian Bridges Additional Production Supervision: Justin Sayles Theme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

  The best part of waking up? A full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Shop Folgers K-Cup Pods and more at your nearest retailer.

• 1:41Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Bandsplain. I am your host, Yasi Salek. This is usually a show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists, but today, this is a show where we answer your mailbag questions. And also later, I will be interviewing military gun frontman Ian Shelton about the band's excellent new album, God Save the Gun, so stick around for that after. You guys, my guest today, helping field your queries.

• 2:07Yasi Salek?

  Putting in his two cents, none other than Mr. Robert Harvilla, Esquire.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 2:14Yasi Salek?

  Of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s Fame.

• 2:19Speaker 03

  Thank you for saying the colon. Thank you for having me. I've never been in a studio like this.

• 2:24Yasi Salek?

  In a place.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I haven't.

• 2:27Yasi Salek?

  Like such.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  And there was like a 10% chance I thought that it was all like fake, or like cardboard, or like AI, or something. I hadn't worked out the details.

• 2:35Yasi Salek?

  You didn't think there would be a real brick wall behind us like this one?

• 2:38Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yeah, this is the genuine brick wall, and I'm very impressed.

• 2:41Yasi Salek?

  We're in rent.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  By the craftsmanship. I, this is, I, can I sit here in like a normal manner while I do this? Is a question that will be answered over the course of the next 60 to 90 minutes, and I'm really excited to find out.

• 2:56Yasi Salek?

  Babe, I ask myself that question every time I sit in here. Can you be normal? And the answer is almost always no. No.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  It is sort of against our brand at this point, though it would be confusing to people if we did manage to be normal, and that, I guess, is soothing.

• 3:11Yasi Salek?

  I think it's maybe good to keep people on their toes, but again, I'm unable to.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 3:15Yasi Salek?

  Be normal. Um, don't think about it. Don't overthink it.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  I won't.

• 3:19Yasi Salek?

  Isn't it great that we're here together in person?

• 3:21Speaker 03

  It is wonderful that we're here together in person. I love Paddington. I am very excited. Um, how often are you spinning on your turntable the Oasis Argument single?

• 3:33Yasi Salek?

  In the evening, when I'm winding down, I make a hot cup of tea.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  I was gonna say a glass of wine for tea. Probably better.

• 3:40Yasi Salek?

  Whibbling rivalry and just listen to the Gallagher brothers argue.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  And then Joey just barks the whole time.

• 3:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's soothing. This is how my nervous system calms. Um, Rob, before we dive in to what is sure to be, again, a super normal mailbag, um, why don't we catch up? What have we been doing?

• 4:00Speaker 03

  What have I been doing?

• 4:01Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  I, we've been working on some cool new stuff that has, alas, delayed the return of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s just slightly. I should have a good, pretty good idea in the next couple of weeks of what exactly is going on. I will be back with an update soon.

• 4:15Yasi Salek?

  It's coming back, you freaks. Leave Rob Harvilla alone.

• 4:18Speaker 03

  No, and nobody's, I, I.

• 4:20Yasi Salek?

  Hashtag leave Brittany alone.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  I am eager, I am eager to come back, and we're working on some cool stuff. And I'm going to be very excited to be back. It's just taking a little longer than anticipated, but it's gonna be rad, I think.

• 4:33Yasi Salek?

  Taking a little longer than anticipated is the Ossie Selig story. And so I understand.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 4:39Yasi Salek?

  We do our best.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  We do. We try.

• 4:41Yasi Salek?

  I can't wait to hear it.

• 4:42Speaker 03

  And as you've observed, these shows are free, which is an under-

• 4:45Yasi Salek?

  They are not-

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Disgust quality of them.

• 4:49Yasi Salek?

  They're extremely affordable in the sense that they don't cost any money.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 4:54Yasi Salek?

  And we love our fans.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  And here they are.

• 4:57Yasi Salek?

  Am I coming on?

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Of course you are. What do you want to come on about? Like, we-

• 5:01Yasi Salek?

  That's a great question.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  What have we done so far? Let's think about it.

• 5:05Yasi Salek?

  Did we do System of a Down?

• 5:06Speaker 03

  We did. I did, but you were not. Wait a minute.

• 5:09Yasi Salek?

  No, I was the guest.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  You were. Oh, System of a Down.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  D M B, of course. I think Dave Matthews was the original.

• 5:15Yasi Salek?

  We did Hole.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  I want to say Goo Goo Dolls?

• 5:19Yasi Salek?

  I don't know if you did have me for Goo Goo Dolls.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a huge mistake if I didn't.

• 5:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  You'll be back.

• 5:27Yasi Salek?

  Better payment.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  You want to talk about, what do you want to talk about? You want to talk about Miley Cyrus? You want to talk about Creed?

• 5:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, have you done Creed?

• 5:33Speaker 03

  I have not done Creed.

• 5:34Yasi Salek?

  I really want to talk about-

• 5:35Speaker 03

  What's that?

• 5:35Yasi Salek?

  Fuel.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, you have a real fuel thing.

• 5:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I'm real hard on for fuel.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 5:43Yasi Salek?

  Shimmer, babe? That song goes so fucking crazy.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  It goes pretty crazy.

• 5:48Yasi Salek?

  Think about it.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  It's underrated.

• 5:49Yasi Salek?

  That's right. Live pitching Rob Harvilla here on the Mailbag, just like many of you in my Mailbag. And I'm no better than any of you. All right, should we take it from the top?

• 5:57Speaker 03

  Let's hit it. I am 31, and I've lived in New York City all my life. I've been going to 15-plus shows a year the last couple of years. I'd estimate 75% of them take place at no more than 150-capacity venues, so they're cheap and local. Local acts like Voyeur, Chanel Beads, who just opened for Lorde, I guess. Smaller regional acts like Feeble Little Horse, Militarie Gun, back when they were smaller, et cetera. I say all this because I wonder if I'm starting to get too old. To go to all of these shows, this person is thirty one.

• 6:30Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  I look around and everyone looks and sounds ten plus years younger than me. The clusters of NYU kids who all look like geese. The bands.

• 6:40Yasi Salek?

  Not the part.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:42Yasi Salek?

  Does geese sound like that? I don't know. Goose makes a honk. Yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Either of those were delightful. All these NYU kids are all starting to be six foot two or taller and blocking the stage. That's the most interesting part of this question to me. I feel a bit strange being surrounded by all these younger people now. Is it a sign that I'm still pretty okay at discovering the new music burgeoning around? Or am I just overthinking this? Am I too worried about how I'm being perceived to enjoy the music I like? I just went to a shoegaze showcase this past Friday in Brooklyn and no more than eighty people were probably present. This is a huge humble brag.

• 7:21Yasi Salek?

  Brag, babe. I was like, okay.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Enormous amount of.

• 7:24Yasi Salek?

  You weren't there.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Bragging. It was ten PM and the headliner was only halfway through their set. I left early because my back was starting to ache and I was worried about parking back near my apartment. I remember you petitioning for more matinee shows, which I'm all for. I want to know, how and when did you begin to realize your frequent late nights at shows were behind you? I wrote this on the subway home on a whim. Sorry for the email length.

• 7:49Yasi Salek?

  You're thirty one.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  You're thirty one.

• 7:52Yasi Salek?

  When I was thirty one, I'm gonna tell you a little story, Sonny.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Please.

• 7:56Yasi Salek?

  The first time I ever stage dived, I was thirty. That was the beginning of a beautiful career. I'm a really good crowd surfer. I need you guys to know. It's been quite some time, but I'm really excellent on it.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  I should know this, but what show?

• 8:09Yasi Salek?

  It was Black Lips in Atlanta.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  That's you. I, I have asked you that before.

• 8:14Yasi Salek?

  I believe it was the Black Lips and, oh my god, it was the Black Lips and riffraff.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  No, it was not.

• 8:21Yasi Salek?

  I was thirty, so I didn't understand. This was thirteen years ago. It was, it was a different time.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  It certainly was.

• 8:28Yasi Salek?

  I'm not, listen, we all age at different paces, apparently. That's, that's a thing, you know?

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Sure. How many times have you stage dived?

• 8:35Yasi Salek?

  So many. Like with it, once I started, it was like the floodgates had opened, babe.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  What is the key to a successful, non-concussive stage dive?

• 8:44Yasi Salek?

  You have to dive like with a twist. Like, you have to, so you land on your back.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  That the, okay, yes.

• 8:51Yasi Salek?

  And then, once you land on your back, you must starfish.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Right, okay.

• 8:56Yasi Salek?

  You must give as much possible

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:58Yasi Salek?

  surface area to be held.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Your center of gravity.

• 9:01Yasi Salek?

  Because otherwise, you will not be able to stay afloat.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  That's right. Regardless of what I do, if I were to stage dive, it would just

• 9:08Yasi Salek?

  You're, you're a little unwieldy.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 9:12Yasi Salek?

  Due to your geese-like height, your geese-like New York, uh, boys' height.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Honk, yes.

• 9:19Yasi Salek?

  Honk. A thing about New York, though, that I do understand is that everyone's 26. I don't really, I, I can't

• 9:27Speaker 03

  No.

• 9:27Yasi Salek?

  explain to you the population, the census of it all, but like

• 9:32Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 9:32Yasi Salek?

  Every time I go to New York now, I'm like, oh, it's really interesting that every single person that lives here is 26 years old.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:36Yasi Salek?

  Um, so I get it. But also, I'm gonna say something with like, I'm gonna hold your hand. Sunny with love and respect in my heart.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  The fact that this person is named Sunny makes this

• 9:46Yasi Salek?

  It's so good.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  10 to 12 times funnier, yes.

• 9:49Yasi Salek?

  As a 43-year-old woman, I'm gonna tell you that when you're older than people by over a decade, you are no longer visible. So you don't even have to worry about being perceived because they're not clocking you. They're busy being tall and young.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:03Yasi Salek?

  And thriving, and they don't even know that you're there.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:07Yasi Salek?

  Like, they're not like that. Sometimes I get it, because sometimes I feel like that meme that's like, what is this 56-year-old woman doing here? Well, anytime I go to any sort of live music concert.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:16Yasi Salek?

  But I'm gonna give you an inspiration point. Mr. Matt Penfield. I recently had dinner with him. Okay, that's me going to the Shoegaze show with only 80 people. That's my humble brag.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  The only way to answer a humble brag is with a humble brag.

• 10:28Yasi Salek?

  And, you know, iconic host of 120 Minutes on MTV.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  He was on a Wim Biscuit album.

• 10:34Yasi Salek?

  Absolutely.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:35Yasi Salek?

  He's older than you.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:37Yasi Salek?

  And me.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  Certainly.

• 10:39Yasi Salek?

  And that man is at a show three times a week.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 10:42Yasi Salek?

  He recently had a stroke and he's recovering beautifully.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 10:45Yasi Salek?

  He's doing great, and he still is at a show three times a week, Sunny. So if you love it and enjoy it, your back problems notwithstanding, I think you should still go. When did I realize? I don't have patience for anything anymore. So I will sometimes go to a show. There's, I'm going to a beautiful show on Sunday that I believe God crafted especially for me. It ends at 6:30 PM.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 11:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. A little man, you might have heard of him. His name's Neil Young. Um.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Will you be stage diving at Neil Young? What are the odds?

• 11:20Yasi Salek?

  They'll allow it.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, he will not allow it.

• 11:22Yasi Salek?

  What's a good Neil Young stage dive song?

• 11:24Speaker 03

  I...

• 11:24Yasi Salek?

  The Needle and the Damage Done.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Cowgirl in the Sands, yeah. I, it's just really any of them. Piece of crap if he pulls that out.

• 11:33Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  I suppose that's a deep cut at this point.

• 11:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I don't think they're letting me anywhere near the stage.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Probably not, realistically.

• 11:40Yasi Salek?

  But I'll, you know, have perhaps one singular glass of rosé and...

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Neil Young and rosé.

• 11:47Yasi Salek?

  Pack it up, pack, yeah, I'm 100. I can in, get home. So I don't know if we answered your question.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  I think we kind of did. I'm most interested in...

• 11:57Yasi Salek?

  You go to shows, Rob Harvilla.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  I go to one a month.

• 12:00Yasi Salek?

  You're one of these geese-like...

• 12:01Speaker 03

  I am.

• 12:02Yasi Salek?

  Tall people, so...

• 12:03Speaker 03

  I guess so. I'm interested in everyone being 6'2" now, which I had not observed, but maybe that's the truth.

• 12:08Yasi Salek?

  Do you think it's something to do with...

• 12:09Speaker 03

  It's like a genetic situation.

• 12:11Yasi Salek?

  I think it probably has something to do with like hormones and food or something.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  There we go. Yeah, we can lay this.

• 12:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  All those Lunchables. I stopped going to shows when my children were born, so that's probably, at, at, anywhere near the clip as when I was

• 12:25Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  31-year-old in New York City, already feeling old. And so that's, that's sort of the natural forced stopping point for being like really outside.

• 12:35Yasi Salek?

  Being out in the streets.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  As the kids say.

• 12:36Yasi Salek?

  I don't have children, I'm just tired. Can I posit a theory about these 6'2"?

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Please do. Geese-like gentlemen.

• 12:44Yasi Salek?

  Men, we love geese on this podcast.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  We do.

• 12:46Yasi Salek?

  We're really, I'm more, we're more of a pro Cami Winter podcast, but also we love...

• 12:50Speaker 03

  He loves it when you call him that.

• 12:51Yasi Salek?

  Cami Winter, he doesn't listen to this podcast, I don't think.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  Well, not yet.

• 12:54Yasi Salek?

  Maybe.

• 12:57Yasi Salek?

  A thing about New York is it has its own natural selection.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:03Yasi Salek?

  Whereas you have to, at this point, be pretty wealthy to live there in...

• 13:07Speaker 03

  That's true, that's true.

• 13:08Yasi Salek?

  In the ways that you would be going to these shows.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  To go to a shoegaze show.

• 13:11Yasi Salek?

  And obviously tall men perform better in the dating market.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  That's...

• 13:15Yasi Salek?

  And they, you know, are, I think, known to be hired more for higher salaried jobs.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Podcasting.

• 13:20Yasi Salek?

  So I think probably, yep, definitely podcasting, a known tall man's medium.

• 13:26Yasi Salek?

  And I, so I think that's what's happening with the height. It's a Darwinism situation.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  I would not crowd the stage. I, I always try and get as far back to the actual brick wall as possible. So like, nobody throws anything at my head.

• 13:38Yasi Salek?

  There's always some tall ass man standing in front of me.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  At Neil Young, it's gonna be like you're surrounded by the Duke basketball team. That's gonna be pretty rough.

• 13:46Yasi Salek?

  Really? I feel like the age range would imply that perhaps some people have lost a few inches.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  There is that. There'll be tall men in flannel, but hopefully degrading and slouching enough to allow you unfettered access.

• 14:01Yasi Salek?

  Lana Del Rey is also playing, so it's gonna be great.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  Okay, you could have led with that, perhaps. Are they gonna duet?

• 14:07Yasi Salek?

  I hope so.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's.

• 14:09Yasi Salek?

  I'll stage dive for that. Okay, the next question.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Celebrity.

• 14:15Yasi Salek?

  Will you ever do an episode on Daft Punk? And if so, can I be the guest? Thank you. Signed, Cole Koochna, parentheses, host of Dissect.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  So modest.

• 14:26Yasi Salek?

  Was sent by that because I know you, Cole. We know each other.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  You're friends, yes.

• 14:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. The answer, I'll do them backwards.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 14:36Yasi Salek?

  Can you be the guest? Yes. Will I ever do it? I don't know.

• 14:41Yasi Salek?

  Do you think a Daft Punk episode of Banshee would be good?

• 14:44Speaker 03

  I think that it would because there are at least three distinct eras to that. You know, like each album really feels like its own universe and sort of ushered in its own micro era.

• 14:58Yasi Salek?

  I think it would be good with Cole because him and his big brain would come on here and like explain once again to me like

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:05Yasi Salek?

  arpeggios and like whatever it is Daft Punk did with like loops or whatever, things I don't understand. And I would just nod and be like, they're French.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  Also a valuable perspective and not to be, not to be discounted, the Frenchness.

• 15:20Yasi Salek?

  Thank you so much.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  He'll bring, he'll bring the musicality, he'll bring the Frenchness and together.

• 15:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, my light racism against French people will.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  They don't mind. They're very easygoing about that sort of thing, yes. I hope that happens very much. I certainly hope you and Cole do something.

• 15:34Yasi Salek?

  I do too, honestly.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Tame Impala? I just, I'm just riffing.

• 15:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 15:42Yasi Salek?

  That, that makes sense for Cole.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:45Yasi Salek?

  I think he should do something like what people are always asking for like, what's it called? Like what's Rush? Prague Rock?

• 15:55Speaker 03

  Just based on that, just now, you need to do a prog rock season.

• 15:58Yasi Salek?

  That's what I'm saying. Not a season, maybe please don't do that to me.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  Okay, all right. Like a micro season.

• 16:03Yasi Salek?

  Like, I feel like Cole can come on here and explain.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Rush would be phenomenal.

• 16:07Yasi Salek?

  Adrian Bellew.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Sure, sure.

• 16:10Yasi Salek?

  Is that how you pronounce his name?

• 16:12Speaker 03

  We'll figure that out. It's...

• 16:14Yasi Salek?

  Is he King Crimson?

• 16:15Speaker 03

  He's King, among other things.

• 16:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he's done many things. Yes, we've talked about him in the talk.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, King Crimson.

• 16:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, Rush for sure. Yes, of course. Emerson, Lake and Palmer. This is a full season.

• 16:29Yasi Salek?

  One thing about Emerson, Lake and Palmer is that I don't know anything about them.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:34Yasi Salek?

  But the name infuriates me. And when I hear it, for whatever reason, I'm filled with rage. Why do you think that is?

• 16:41Speaker 03

  I was... Do you have the same reaction to Crosby, Stills and Nash? Is it any three names? Or is there something about the quality of those three names?

• 16:48Yasi Salek?

  Emerson, Lake and Palmer sounds like I'm gonna clean something with it.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  Like a law firm. Yeah, no, I get you.

• 16:54Yasi Salek?

  It's like a spray that you use on your hardwood floor. I don't know. I'm sure they're lovely men.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  I don't know if that's true, but I think you definitely need to do a prog season, even if you end up hating it. I'm sorry.

• 17:05Yasi Salek?

  Even if you suffer greatly.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  I feel bad for you, but this is tremendous content. That's how I would feel about a band playing prog season.

• 17:11Yasi Salek?

  All right. Well, thanks, Rob.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  What are some songs slash albums you put on heavy rotation as the season changes into fall? I feel music adds a special layer to the passing of time and seasons, so I'd love to hear what you guys put on during this time of year. Lorenzo asked this question. It's a great question.

• 17:34Yasi Salek?

  Can you read the second one, too? Because I grouped them.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  Okay, Jared S. asks, my question to both of you is, if you could in total come up with five to 10 songs to put in an autumn-themed playlist, what would they be?

• 17:48Yasi Salek?

  Okay, here we go.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, here it goes.

• 17:51Yasi Salek?

  Townes Van Zandt, lungs.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 17:55Yasi Salek?

  In Chinese medicine, autumn is associated with the breath and the lungs.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 18:01Yasi Salek?

  So I felt that's really spot on. Also, I feel the song has the feeling and tone of fall.

• 18:16Yasi Salek?

  How to say? Fall, I love it. We don't have it here.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 18:22Yasi Salek?

  I mean, we do in our own way, like today it's 72 degrees and I wore a crisp sweater. Um, and made soup, but

• 18:31Yasi Salek?

  there's both like a nice slowing down, but also like a light melancholy.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  I agree completely.

• 18:38Yasi Salek?

  Because the winter is coming.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 18:40Yasi Salek?

  And it's a Sunday-ish time.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 18:42Yasi Salek?

  Like where you're like, oh, I love it because it's cozy, but also

• 18:46Speaker 03

  Twilight.

• 18:46Yasi Salek?

  Light dread.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Here comes the time change.

• 18:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, exactly. It's gonna be dark.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Dark at 5:00 PM. No, I get you.

• 18:54Yasi Salek?

  So I feel Townes Van Zandt, all of his music kind of has that light through line of dread and is just a beautiful autumnal palette. Um, I'm not listening to the parameters.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  No, you're not, but that's fine. I don't think that's implied.

• 19:08Yasi Salek?

  All of Murmur.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Ooh, Murmur is.

• 19:11Yasi Salek?

  Except Radio for Europe, which is a bit more summery, late summer.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  Right, right. There's a humidity to Murmur, which I don't know. I could, see, I took my children to a pumpkin patch like four or five days ago at this point. We were in a corn maze.

• 19:27Yasi Salek?

  You're so lucky that you live in the Midwest.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  It was pretty rad. We, we rode, we did like a hayride, you know, and country music was playing the whole time. So Country Girl, Shake It For Me by Luke Bryan would be by default.

• 19:39Yasi Salek?

  That's your autumnal music.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Fall song as I ate an apple cider doughnut, you know, near the porta potties. That's what I have come to associate with fall. I also, I also always think of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving soundtrack, like Little Birdie. Little birdie, da, da, da, da, da. Like that's moving obviously into November, but I, I, that's, that's a real autumnal album.

• 20:06Yasi Salek?

  Still autumn.

• 20:07Speaker 03

  For me. Can I ask you a question spinning off of this question? Are you, well, it's, okay, two parts. Are you a Christmas music or a holiday music person? And if so, when is it acceptable to start playing?

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Holiday music.

• 20:23Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I'm so glad you asked.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 20:25Yasi Salek?

  I love Christmas and holiday music.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  All right.

• 20:28Yasi Salek?

  I love it. I have an extremely extensive playlist.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  Okay, please share that with me. Okay.

• 20:33Yasi Salek?

  I think my number one is Justin Bieber featuring Busta Rhymes' Little Drummer Boy. There's a part where Busta Rhymes goes.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  So he's the drum?

• 20:45Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he raps a little bit.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  I wasn't aware that was a duet.

• 20:48Yasi Salek?

  It's incredible. Um, but I like the more serious ones as well. Obviously, the Waitresses.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, Merry Christmas. That's, I think that's a Cleveland band.

• 20:59Yasi Salek?

  Merry Christmas.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  I should know for sure. Shot out Ohio.

• 21:02Yasi Salek?

  Um, I think that it's acceptable to start playing it in like mid-November. I don't like when people get the fucking jump on holidays. Like, let me live and breathe. Like, in my neighborhood, I started seeing these skeletons popping up in September.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's weird.

• 21:19Yasi Salek?

  I was like, bitch, slow it down. First of all, it's 91 degrees outside.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  October 1st.

• 21:23Yasi Salek?

  October 1st, bring out the entire fucking cavalcade. Go ahead, pumpkins, whatever you need, spider webs. Yeah, bring the gourds. But I do feel people get a little ahead of themselves.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  See, my feeling has always been the day after Thanksgiving is like officially, I thought that was decided upon. I thought that was like in the Constitution. And now, like, I hang out.

• 21:46Yasi Salek?

  No, if you go to CBS right now, there's Christmas things.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Well, CBS is a different entity, but just in the general population, I don't want to hear All I Want for Christmas is You before the day after Thanksgiving.

• 21:57Yasi Salek?

  I'm with you.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's, people, it's creeping earlier and earlier. It's like on a long enough timeline, it's gonna be in September that I start hearing a Charlie Brown Christmas. And it's gonna, as much as I love that record, it's gonna be dissonant to me. I have very strong feelings about this.

• 22:12Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I'm with you. I will vote for you.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 22:15Yasi Salek?

  Based on this platform. I have more entrance into the Autumn playlist.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  Please.

• 22:20Yasi Salek?

  Hunger Stray by Tumble of the Dog.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Just the flannel, yeah, totally. And like, Standing, Eddie Standing and like the wheat or whatever.

• 22:28Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  All right.

• 22:37Yasi Salek?

  The Replacements.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 22:39Yasi Salek?

  Little Mascara.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:41Yasi Salek?

  But perhaps more Merry Go Round. Or perhaps even more, honestly, the most unpopular album, but I love it. Darlin' One off Don't Tell a Soul.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  A deep, a deep cut. All right.

• 22:54Yasi Salek?

  I find that to be a very... Leonard Cohen, So Long, Mary Ann.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  I thought, oh, I thought of Here Comes a Regular, but that's almost too dark.

• 23:04Yasi Salek?

  It's a little wintry, I think.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Yes, that's, that's the, oh shit, it's almost winter.

• 23:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Version. Yeah. Okay. Leonard Cohen's excellent, of course.

• 23:12Yasi Salek?

  Pavement Frontwards.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Ooh. Shady Lane.

• 23:16Yasi Salek?

  Shady Lane, a little late summer, a little humidity, like I feel for me personally.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  You know, Grounded is the, I always think of snow.

• 23:23Yasi Salek?

  Grounded is the winter, yes.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  I think, I think of like a Charlie Brown snowfall with Grounded.

• 23:28Yasi Salek?

  I thought of Grounded and then I was like, no, that's a winter song.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  It's wintry, yeah.

• 23:31Yasi Salek?

  Round Here, Counting Crows.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:35Yasi Salek?

  Perhaps a pinnacle. Tori Amos, Cornflake Girl.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Hmm. And of course, leading into winter, which is

• 23:42Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  like a quintessential winter song that's called winter.

• 23:45Yasi Salek?

  Hmm. Buffalo Tom, Soda Jerk.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Hmm. Excellent, excellent, excellent.

• 23:51Yasi Salek?

  The entire album, The 59th Sound by The Gaslight Anthem, start to finish.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  That's right. Would you put?

• 23:58Yasi Salek?

  He said five to 10 songs.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Okay, well, you did it, I guess. I was gonna say Nebraska.

• 24:02Yasi Salek?

  I did. I put Atlantic City by The Boss on my list.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:07Yasi Salek?

  Atlantic City, a very autumnal song. Probably the whole album, Nebraska, but I chose Everything Dies. Maybe that's a fact.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Because winter is coming.

• 24:17Yasi Salek?

  Yep. Okay, Yasi, that's me. Is there a band or an era that you want to learn about for Bandplain? Also, Rob, is there an era slash band you want Yasi to cover?

• 24:30Speaker 03

  I'm very into this Prague idea. I'm like really, really into this Prague idea for you.

• 24:37Yasi Salek?

  Is it for me or is it for you?

• 24:39Speaker 03

  Why does it have to be either or, really? I think initially it would be for me begrudgingly over time, you would learn to appreciate it.

• 24:46Yasi Salek?

  I can't wait for you to study up on Emerson, Lake and Palmer, because if I'm doing it, you're doing it.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Then that would be fair.

• 24:52Yasi Salek?

  Mutually assured destruction.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  That would be fair. I would deserve that. Every time we discuss doing an episode, I bring up Guided by Voices and you're like, Rob, do you have any idea?

• 25:01Yasi Salek?

  You know what I want to do about Guided by Voices? I've said it before and I'll say it again. It has to be a 24-hour telethon that is live streamed.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  Have you said this before to me?

• 25:12Yasi Salek?

  Well, I've said it on this podcast.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  I'd like to think I'd remember. Okay.

• 25:15Yasi Salek?

  That's the only way that that episode will ever get done. 24-hour telethon, we're raising money. I am slamming Red Bulls. I am losing my ever-loving mind as each hour passes. There's multiple different guests. We have a break for live music, cover band of Guided by Voices, and that's how we do it.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  That sounds phenomenal.

• 25:36Yasi Salek?

  So if any sponsors would like to...

• 25:38Speaker 03

  I would love to be a part of that for 60 to 90 minutes. That sounds phenomenal and you should do it.

• 25:42Yasi Salek?

  This man released an album this week.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Are you sure it's just one?

• 25:48Yasi Salek?

  I don't...

• 25:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:50Yasi Salek?

  I think it's the third this year.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's really...

• 25:53Yasi Salek?

  The longer I wait, the more it might go into 48-hour telethon.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yeah. He's gonna lap you eventually. What is the actual... Is there any way to calculate if you count solo stuff, side projects? Like, it's... I would guess conservatively 150 to 200 albums? I don't think there's any way to even calculate.

• 26:21Yasi Salek?

  I think you can't do... I think you have to stick GBV.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes.

• 26:27Yasi Salek?

  Having written or co-written more than 1,600 songs.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  Oh, that's nothing. That's manageable.

• 26:36Yasi Salek?

  I don't even think they update the Wikipedia anymore.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, even the Wikipedia is like, fuck this.

• 26:43Yasi Salek?

  Whoever's doing it was like, I give up.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Just threw in the towel.

• 26:46Yasi Salek?

  You know what? I think for me, I would maybe want to learn about Kiss.

• 26:52Yasi Salek?

  Cause it's kind of a blind spot for me.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, with Ace Frehley passing.

• 26:56Yasi Salek?

  R.I.P. Ace Frehley.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 26:58Yasi Salek?

  Maybe like classic rock in general.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  Hmm. Kiss would be a great one. Bon Jovi?

• 27:03Yasi Salek?

  Pink Floyd. I'm quite interested in Pink Floyd.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah.

• 27:08Yasi Salek?

  But I think I haven't spent enough time.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Lots of guitar tones, and I love how much, I know how much you love guitar tones.

• 27:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we love a mentally ill, like hot bass player, you know, that's like very up my alley.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah, that's hardly needs to be said. Most basses are.

• 27:29Yasi Salek?

  So I think that would, those would be maybe, I mean, I'm also very interested in Bon Jovi.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:35Yasi Salek?

  Not maybe as interested as I was in Pink Floyd, but.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  I think Pink Floyd, Pink Floyd and Kiss.

• 27:40Yasi Salek?

  And Kiss. I think those are good ones.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 27:47Speaker 00

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• 29:18Speaker 03

  Okay, who are your favorite music critics and what is your favorite piece of their work? This is Reyna in Monterrey, Mexico.

• 29:29Yasi Salek?

  Do you have favorite pieces of music criticism that you have like memorized?

• 29:34Speaker 03

  I wouldn't say that I have memorized.

• 29:35Yasi Salek?

  I guess you were a critic, so.

• 29:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. I feel compelled to say Robert Crisgau to start, just as the father of all of our styles.

• 29:44Yasi Salek?

  So true. Bob Crisgau.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  I forget what Prince, I forget what Prince album it is, probably Dirty Mind, but Mick Jagger should just fold up his dick and go home. He's probably the single greatest sentence.

• 29:56Yasi Salek?

  There's too many from him. Like, it's just like endless one-liners that are so perfect.

• 30:01Speaker 03

  It's really the consumer guy, just as a concept that is now, however, 40-plus years, yes. Every, every time I go and, like, I wonder what Bob thinks of this, and I just, you know, look at all the Cars albums or whatever, and it's just this one.

• 30:17Yasi Salek?

  It's so great.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  So I, I think you have to.

• 30:19Yasi Salek?

  Unless you wanna look about metal.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah, that's, he's got, he's got some blind spots. Or he's, you know, he wouldn't phrase it that way, of course, but he's got some things he just cannot stand or countenance.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  I always think of Greg Tate. When I worked at The Village Voice, like, being able to work with, to edit Greg Tate, you know, it's just involved, like, reading it and just putting it on.

• 30:42Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  In print, in full, because I'm not gonna edit Greg Tate, but just. His whole book Flyboy and the Buttermilk is really phenomenal. Ann Powers, of course, our mutual.

• 30:54Yasi Salek?

  I was gonna say, one of my number ones, always Ann Powers.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  You know, I think, like, when The Life of a Showgirl came out, right? There was a lot of great writing on that. Like Craig Jenkins at Vulture, New York Magazine, has done really, really phenomenal stuff as well. But I think, I think Craig and Ann Powers are the two people who I am most initially interested in hearing from on, like, you know, the album, you know, the Kendrick Lamar, you know, Drake feud, or the new album, or whatever. As contemporary critics go, they're who I look to first.

• 31:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  What about you?

• 31:26Yasi Salek?

  I'm definitely an Ann Powers fangirlie. In this house, we love Ann Powers. We read everything she writes. I would be remiss if I didn't mention John Carmonica.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 31:36Yasi Salek?

  Even though he has, like, the opposite of whatever, like, when dogs can't hear a whistle, or they can only hear the dog whistle, like, he can't hear guitar rock music.

• 31:47Yasi Salek?

  But I think he's great. The dean is really, like.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:51Yasi Salek?

  You really, you really nailed it with that one.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:55Yasi Salek?

  I don't have specific pieces memorized, I'm sorry.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  I don't know if I do. Like, I'm trying to think if there's something that I go, yeah, and I, the Mick Jagger line occurs to me, but not any fool.

• 32:07Yasi Salek?

  I mean, Grill Marcus is pretty amazing. Oh, and Hanif?

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 32:12Yasi Salek?

  Anything Hanif writes about music just dashed off into his Instagram story is, like, better than anything I've ever said or written in my entire God-given life, so.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  Like, it's Polly Jean Harvey's birthday. Here's, like, an immaculate 2,000 words typed out in an Instagram story.

• 32:28Yasi Salek?

  Typed into my phone for you while I was waiting in line for a donut or whatever.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  I think it's in They Can't Kill Us Till They Kill Us. It's, whatever the essay is about Fallout Boy, and about, like, listening to Fallout Boy at different times in your life, and I think, like, friends that he had lost in between eras of Fallout Boy. I remember that being the first Hanif piece that I read that I was like, holy shit, like, this is genuinely amazing. So, yeah, Hanif is way up there, absolutely.

• 32:53Yasi Salek?

  And then Jessica Hopper's emo Where the Girls Aren is a

• 32:58Speaker 03

  That's a fantastic.

• 32:59Yasi Salek?

  iconic piece of writing, if you've not.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  That's a fantastic one, yeah.

• 33:01Yasi Salek?

  I mean, everything she writes, but that's very good. What was your favorite college course you ever took?

• 33:09Yasi Salek?

  This is really giving, um, I simply do not dream of labor, but, um. At my college, there was, uh, UC Santa Barbara, there was a college of creative studies.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 33:23Yasi Salek?

  That.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  That sounds fake.

• 33:24Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:25Yasi Salek?

  It didn't have grades. It was like really one of those. I obviously was not permitted to make that my whole major in life, although I thought, I thought about double majoring.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  Shout out your dad.

• 33:35Yasi Salek?

  Shout out my dad. But I took a class there that was just on creativity. And it was pretty great. It was like, we just read about flow and like.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 33:46Yasi Salek?

  I liked that.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Sure you did.

• 33:48Yasi Salek?

  Felt low stakes.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. What was the final for that one? You know, just.

• 33:52Yasi Salek?

  All I remember is like talking to the professor in like his living room with other students.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  Oh, good. Yeah. Okay. It was, you were in his house. That's, that's also.

• 34:00Yasi Salek?

  That used to be allowed.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  I, yeah. It's a very animal house construction. Yeah.

• 34:05Yasi Salek?

  That was great.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 34:07Yasi Salek?

  What about you, Rob?

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Same. Uh, exact same. I always went to journalism school.

• 34:12Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  Magazine journalism was my major. That was a great idea. I had a professor fart on me once.

• 34:19Yasi Salek?

  On purpose?

• 34:20Speaker 03

  Unclear. I, he, he was handing back tests.

• 34:24Yasi Salek?

  Worse than going to someone's living room.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  He was handing tests back to people, like just walking, like shuffling around. And he handed me my test. He turned, paused for five to 10 seconds, farted, paused five to 10 seconds, walked away. And I, I was sitting next to a guy, I was turning to the guy, I was like, I can't believe that just happened. He was like, what? Like, he didn't see it. Like, I, I did not have any witnesses.

• 34:50Yasi Salek?

  It doesn't seem like it's a, it's a visual thing, though. Would, you would have had to like, I guess, hear or smell it?

• 34:55Speaker 03

  I guess so. I, I don't recall smelling it. I.

• 34:58Yasi Salek?

  Just the, just the, the sonnet.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  But just, it was a really, it, it sounded like a gunshot to my ears. And I was just like, I can't believe this happened. This is not my favorite class I took.

• 35:08Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  But this is one of my only conscious memories of college. There was the time I was in a really boring English class and the dude next to me checked his watch. And there was like forty five minutes left in the class and you went fuck like really loud while the professor was still talking. That was probably the funniest thing that's ever happened to me in a college classroom. Um, I took philosophy one oh one and like all the questions on the final were Simpsons themed, as I recall.

• 35:37Yasi Salek?

  Kind of cool.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  That was easy and I appreciated that.

• 35:40Yasi Salek?

  You didn't enjoy ma- magazine journalism school? What did they teach you, like how to write a head?

• 35:46Speaker 03

  What they taught you is like, one student would go up and pretend to be the police commissioner and talk about like, like fake, like a crime had been committed. And you'd have to write like a news story like about it. And like I had to, I took, I think it was intensive grammar. The first journalism class that you had to get into and it was really hard to get into was, I don't know if it was intensive, but it was like extreme grammar.

• 36:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  Like super grammar.

• 36:13Yasi Salek?

  Grammar.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I had to take like an information gathering.

• 36:16Yasi Salek?

  You got to diagram the sentences.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  That's right. Oh, I love diagramming sentences. It's really pleasing visually. Yeah. I, I took like, like information gathering course in like nineteen ninety eight that involved like microfiche and card catalogs. And just was the most antiquated shit you can imagine.

• 36:33Yasi Salek?

  They still have that though.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  I'm sure that they do, but like it, it even felt at the time, it's like, is this gonna be relevant in like two or three years?

• 36:39Yasi Salek?

  They didn't know about the Wayback Machine was coming.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  They did not seem to know about the existence of the internet at all. And so it was like, it was like an archaeological detour.

• 36:50Yasi Salek?

  What we're saying is college is a waste of money and don't go and just join the circus.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 36:55Yasi Salek?

  Straight out of.

• 36:56Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 36:57Yasi Salek?

  I look, you kind of do think college is a waste of money.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Move to New York City, go to all the shoegaze shows.

• 37:03Yasi Salek?

  All the eighty person shoegaze shows.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 37:04Yasi Salek?

  Stand behind the six foot two geese guys and learn, learn about life.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  You'll learn more stage diving than you will on a college campus.

• 37:13Yasi Salek?

  I didn't go to most of my college classes.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  That checks out.

• 37:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Because you just, you knew everything.

• 37:20Yasi Salek?

  Well, no, but like, you just got the syllabus. You did your essays and work based on the book and then you studied for the final and took it.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:29Yasi Salek?

  It wasn't, they were lectures, you know? I would love to do it again, just take real classes that I cared about.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  What classes would you take?

• 37:36Yasi Salek?

  Probably philosophy. I love philosophy.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 37:39Yasi Salek?

  Maybe like more intensive English classes.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  That's what I would do. I think I would go the full, my wife was an English, you know, graduated English major and like, I would just do that.

• 37:49Yasi Salek?

  Like poetry? Do you know what I mean?

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Sure, sure.

• 37:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like philosophy, poetry, like really like the arts.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  Let's do this shit.

• 37:56Yasi Salek?

  The liberal arts.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  Let's be an artiste.

• 37:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but instead I was a communication major, which is an absolute joke.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  And here you are.

• 38:03Yasi Salek?

  Communicating.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  Here we are.

• 38:04Yasi Salek?

  I guess it did pay off.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Mark asks, I am newly in love since this spring with an amazing woman whose taste in music far exceeds mine in terms of coolness, sophistication and niche. She did grow up like me in the Swedish hardcore punk scene.

• 38:21Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  Uh, but has knowledge about artists way beyond my reach. Can you please give me one song each that you think I could use to further express my unlimited love for this beautiful gamer, straight edge, tough as nails woman? The word gamer thrown in there near the end is, is a, is a plot twist.

• 38:42Yasi Salek?

  There's somebody for everybody.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, there is, there is.

• 38:45Yasi Salek?

  We love Mark.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  We do, and Mark loves this.

• 38:49Yasi Salek?

  Tough as nails gamer, straight edge woman. I'm feeling a little intimidated.

• 38:56Yasi Salek?

  Because I don't know if I could know anything that the woman coming from the Swedish hardcore punk scene.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  I think trying to outcool this woman is the wrong strategy.

• 39:07Yasi Salek?

  Completely, I, Mark, do you know this band Emerson Lake and Palmer?

• 39:14Speaker 03

  It's not on any album, but it's just the tapes of their, you know, when they were in Paris.

• 39:18Yasi Salek?

  Like, what about like a dire straits Romeo and Juliet moment?

• 39:23Speaker 03

  Oh, I was thinking Walk of Life, but Romeo and Juliet makes way more sense, actually. Yeah, you have to.

• 39:29Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I know. Peter Sotera.

• 39:32Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 39:33Yasi Salek?

  I am a man who will fight for your honor.

• 39:47Speaker 03

  Is that the Karate Kid?

• 39:48Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, yes, yes, yes.

• 39:55Yasi Salek?

  At this point, we're gonna have to pay the license. I'm saying too many bars.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Money well spent, in my opinion.

• 40:00Yasi Salek?

  Unfortunately, I think it's unidentifiable because I'm so can't sing in key pitch or any of the things that would help you.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  How we evade the copyright laws is to sing so poorly. A jury would never argue that you sang the melody accurately.

• 40:16Yasi Salek?

  Rob, what was your first dance wedding song?

• 40:20Speaker 03

  The answer is Something by The Beatles. Something in the way she moves.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  It was beautiful, it was lovely, but my wife and I regret that we chickened out from our first choice, which was We Are The Champions. I was, I was gonna do We Are The Champions by Queen. You know, it was gonna be very amusing to everybody and we got cold feet.

• 40:48Yasi Salek?

  Nothing like doing a bit at the most important and serious moment of your life.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Right, but this is, this is the united front that we want to present to the world. Like, this is what we're about, right here. But it's, no, I, I think we made the right decision and, you know, as we are not the first person to do that, I suppose, and, but I, I still think that it was the right choice. I wish that I had taken dance lessons, you know, before my wedding because I even, it's not like we did anything complicated, but it's just, it's not a long song. It's like three minutes. It's not like it's American Pie or something, but I felt still awkward dancing for that length of time with everybody watching me.

• 41:24Yasi Salek?

  I find that tradition strange. Like, are you doing like a performance for the guests? Like, why do you have to dance by yourself for so long? Maybe just like a few bars.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, I've seen some really beautiful first dances and especially when they take like Tango classes or whatever. Like, not when they're trying to go viral.

• 41:40Yasi Salek?

  When they're doing a flash mob.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah. If, if they're not, if they're not, if it doesn't feel like content's designed for not the room, I'm fine with it. And so, but I, yeah, it was The Beatles. It turned out all right, but. I still kinda wish we'd done We Are The Champions. It would've been pretty rad.

• 41:58Yasi Salek?

  When you were in New York, Alice?

• 42:00Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. When we're in Reno. Yes.

• 42:03Yasi Salek?

  Okay. I hope that helps, Mark.

• 42:08Yasi Salek?

  This is from Sarah. You have alluded to it in prior episodes, but I'd love to hear more about your background. What was your journey to bandsplain? And how can someone make a career out of researching and talking about bands? Okay. Well, Sarah, I'm really sorry, but I get asked this question a lot, and unfortunately, the answer is so convoluted and nonsensical. I'm just not really sure it would be helpful to you, but here it goes. What I did was, I went to the aforementioned UC Santa Barbara. I graduated with a communications degree. I interned at an alt weekly while I was there. May it rest in peace, the Santa Barbara Independent.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  This is my problem. It's like, my path is functionally nonexistent.

• 42:49Yasi Salek?

  Then I interned at Accelerator Magazine. May it also rest in peace. But I couldn't get a job at any publication. I also tried to intern at the East Bay Express during this time.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  Oh, this is the great.

• 43:02Yasi Salek?

  And somebody...

• 43:03Speaker 03

  It wasn't me.

• 43:04Yasi Salek?

  Didn't hire me.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Have we determined?

• 43:07Yasi Salek?

  I think it was you.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  I don't think it was me.

• 43:09Yasi Salek?

  I would've been your intern. So why wouldn't you have chosen?

• 43:13Speaker 03

  We need to do the timeline on this, because I thought what we determined is somebody didn't hire you, and then I showed up.

• 43:19Yasi Salek?

  Yes, I believe her name was Katie.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Yes, that's who I replaced. Katie St. Clair.

• 43:24Yasi Salek?

  Katie St. Clair.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Who's awesome, who's really awesome, but super fucked up in this instance.

• 43:27Yasi Salek?

  That she didn't hire me. Katie St. Clair, if you're listening.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  But...

• 43:33Yasi Salek?

  It's on sight. Just kidding. Just kidding. Well...

• 43:36Speaker 03

  A real sliding doors moment there.

• 43:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we could've... I think it was for the best.

• 43:43Yasi Salek?

  But I ended up working at an underground hip-hop label in Oakland called ABB, where one day I was an intern and the next day I was head of sales.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  That's how it happens.

• 43:55Yasi Salek?

  Just slanging dilated people's vinyl to whoever would take it.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:02Yasi Salek?

  And then, once again, couldn't get any jobs in journalism, but I was still writing for free or little money interviewing, like, MF Doom.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  That's right, that's right.

• 44:11Yasi Salek?

  My morning jacket.

• 44:14Yasi Salek?

  These are the ones I remember.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  Both kinds of music.

• 44:15Yasi Salek?

  Both kinds of music. For the giant peach, if you'll remember.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  Oh, sure, sure.

• 44:20Yasi Salek?

  Vapers magazine, Graffiti and Lifestyle magazine, which I later became the music editor for. They paid me.

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Music editor of Vapers.

• 44:26Yasi Salek?

  Two hundred dollars per calendar month.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  If you're doing the math at home, that's.

• 44:35Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  What is that?

• 44:37Yasi Salek?

  That is twenty four hundred dollars.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Oh, my god.

• 44:40Yasi Salek?

  Before taxes.

• 44:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, the taxes are probably pretty severe.

• 44:45Yasi Salek?

  Picked up and moved to New York City.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 44:47Yasi Salek?

  Where I worked at a streetwear store. Um, and interned at Complex magazine.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  I hope she's writing this all down.

• 44:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and I'm gonna try to recreate this. Where I wrote about sneakers and salvage denim for a dollar a word, you guys. This used to be two thousand three, four, four, four or five.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Okay, pre-recession.

• 45:08Yasi Salek?

  Right before that all went away.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 45:10Yasi Salek?

  And then left New York, went to graduate school for business and opened an online store for women's streetwear.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  All right, what was it called?

• 45:22Yasi Salek?

  Cultist.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Cultist.

• 45:23Yasi Salek?

  Which collapsed. And then I graduated, turned the shop into a music blog.

• 45:32Yasi Salek?

  And did that, went on tour and partied with bands for many years.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 45:40Yasi Salek?

  Yada, yada. One day, found myself at the Pitchfork Music Fest where I'd misguidedly taken a weed gummy. That I can't handle those, so I was in the sunken place.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 45:55Yasi Salek?

  Where I met Jessica Hopper.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 45:58Yasi Salek?

  Who somehow still thought that I was worthwhile.

• 46:02Speaker 03

  You had what it took, yeah.

• 46:03Yasi Salek?

  And hired me at Spotify.

• 46:06Yasi Salek?

  And here we are.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  In conclusion.

• 46:08Yasi Salek?

  In conclusion.

• 46:09Speaker 03

  Stay in school, kids.

• 46:10Yasi Salek?

  Honestly, in conclusion, to be very serious, I think that what you should do, which now that I'm looking back on my storied and beautiful life here, I think what you do is you just follow what interests and lights you up.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:26Yasi Salek?

  Wherever you can, and it will lead you to where you are supposed to be, even if you can't imagine what that is. I didn't, there was no podcasts.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  There were not.

• 46:38Yasi Salek?

  When we were at the, you were at the East Bay Express and I was getting rejected by the East Bay Express for unpaid position, where I was probably gonna be collating paper or whatever, and I was not deemed fit. It kind of reminds me of-

• 46:51Speaker 03

  You were gonna be alphabetizing glossy eight by-

• 46:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and they were like, no, she doesn't seem up for the task.

• 46:57Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 46:58Yasi Salek?

  It reminds me of-

• 46:59Speaker 03

  Not detail oriented enough to help us run Gary Coleman for governor of California.

• 47:05Yasi Salek?

  The Morrissey book where he says that he was not hired at Target, but someone there with an eye patch was working behind them.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  At Target, the retail store?

• 47:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because he had a, he summered in Colorado with his aunt.

• 47:19Speaker 03

  Did he now?

• 47:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Okay, well.

• 47:22Yasi Salek?

  So that was, that was my, that's, that's my Joker, that's my villain origin story is not being hired by the East Bay Express to collate papers.

• 47:30Speaker 03

  Tim in London asks, if you guys appeared in a buddy road trip thriller movie together, sort of like a music podcast version of Thelma and Louise, which one of you would be the one who starts sticking up gas stations, and which one would be the voice of reason? Also, what band would do the soundtrack and why would it be Ben Folds Five? First of all-

• 47:58Speaker 03

  The soundtrack would be Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

• 48:01Yasi Salek?

  I just, I don't think the soundtrack to our road trip would be like the abortion Christmas song. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's just not the vibe I'm getting.

• 48:09Speaker 03

  That's not the tone I want to set for our crime spree.

• 48:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  Like, kiss my ass, kiss my ass, goodbye now.

• 48:13Yasi Salek?

  She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly. Like, it's not giving, you know?

• 48:19Speaker 03

  No, it's not. It's not.

• 48:20Yasi Salek?

  Um, obviously, Rob would drive the entire time, first of all.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  I would feel more comfortable driving.

• 48:26Yasi Salek?

  And I would do crime.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I think that's... I don't know if I'd be the voice of reason necessarily.

• 48:32Yasi Salek?

  You would be wincing a lot, though.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  I would be wincing constantly.

• 48:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 03

  As you held up gas stations all along Route 66 as we listened to Not.

• 48:42Yasi Salek?

  While we listened to Brick by Ben Foster.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  We'll just put that song on repeat, honestly. I really, let's not even explore the catalog.

• 48:49Yasi Salek?

  Make a short film of that.

• 48:50Speaker 03

  Wow, and then we rode off the cliff, obviously, after the fourth or fifth time Brick came around.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 49:08Yasi Salek?

  This is from Miserable Nick. "You regularly mention guys with great cheekbones and jawlines like Richard Ashcroft and Nikki Sixx and how hot they look." Sure do, babe. "Some of us out here have neither of these qualities. Some of us are also not particularly tall and can't grow facial hair. Should we just pack it in and never leave the house? Or throw ourselves in a trash can and wait for the garbage truck to come by and pick us up? Or, okay, there's a third option. Is there some hope for us to still have full lives?" Well, Nick.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  Miserable Nick.

• 49:45Yasi Salek?

  Miserable Nick. I don't think I ever said that if you don't have a jawline like Nikki Sixx, you should kill yourself. Um, I actually think attraction is really completely based on charisma and personality, which you obviously have in Spain.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  He's got, there's a lot of charisma in this question. It's very self-deprecating charisma, but I respond to that.

• 50:08Yasi Salek?

  It's working.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  For sure, it is working. He's nagging himself.

• 50:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:13Yasi Salek?

  Which we prefer.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:15Yasi Salek?

  I don't think you should throw yourself in the garbage truck. Listen, I'm certainly not emerata over here, do you know what I mean? And I still leave the house from time to time. I still inflict myself upon the high balls of the human population because I have charisma.

• 50:35Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Are you up on somber? With somber with no E?

• 50:40Yasi Salek?

  Do you know about, do you know this thing where you know about things against your will?

• 50:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  So you know about?

• 50:46Yasi Salek?

  I was, I was kind of into the one song that when when John pulled up in the car.

• 50:51Speaker 03

  That's right. Let's talk about it, yeah. But I just say that because those are the most striking cheekbones that I've seen in a pop music context.

• 50:59Yasi Salek?

  Possibly be, it's like when cheekbones go bit too far, but he's a very attractive a person.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  Right, yeah. Anyway, don't throw yourself in the trash.

• 51:06Yasi Salek?

  Also, there are a lot of gums, like mastic gums, being hawked on twitter.com. Um, that are purport to, uh, build up a Chad like jawline.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  Endorsement of these products?

• 51:19Yasi Salek?

  No endorsement, simply, um, simply mentioning that I've seen it cross my desk.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Is it just like really thick gum? What is the quality that the gum has?

• 51:29Yasi Salek?

  I've not used.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  Shape your jaw.

• 51:31Yasi Salek?

  I've not used it, but it kind of makes sense. Jawlines are, I guess, partially muscle. I don't know, I'm not a doctor.

• 51:40Speaker 03

  Gab in Portland, Maine, writes, Yasi has mentioned the deep and enduring love for guitar rock music in the UK. Any thoughts as to why this seems to be more pervasive there compared to the US?

• 51:55Yasi Salek?

  It's like a really good question.

• 51:56Speaker 03

  It's an excellent question.

• 51:58Yasi Salek?

  I do think about it often. Do you have any theories?

• 52:02Speaker 03

  I want to say it's the magazines, right? It's the NME of it all.

• 52:06Yasi Salek?

  But isn't it kind of like a chicken or the egg? Like, why are there so many magazines? If not as an homage and honoring of guitar rock?

• 52:16Speaker 03

  No, I get you, but I'm just, I think about the Arctic Monkeys.

• 52:19Yasi Salek?

  Sure, me, I often think about the Arctic Monkeys.

• 52:21Speaker 03

  Sure, and I, that was like, what, 2006?

• 52:24Yasi Salek?

  Sounds right.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  I'm sure this is overgeneralizing, but I, I don't feel like there was a guitar rock band in America that attracted that kind of media frenzy. Like, that first album was like, declared, you know, whatever I, you say I am, that's what I, like, that was the best album in British history, like, according to British historians, like, right when it came out.

• 52:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  I have not seen anywhere near that amount of hype for an American guitar rock band from American media, right? And so I, so the chicken and the egg question is interesting, like, is, do guitar rock bands in Britain get hyped because of the media ecosystem there, still trying to make a hot new band happen? Or are the hot new bands manifesting, you know, are keeping those magazines alive?

• 53:15Yasi Salek?

  I feel like it's just, like, so complicated, because all I can think about is how, like, rock music was invented by America.

• 53:22Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:22Yasi Salek?

  And then Britain, who was our colonized-er.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 53:31Yasi Salek?

  Then came to re-import.

• 53:33Speaker 03

  Correct, yes.

• 53:34Yasi Salek?

  Rock music back to themselves in the form of The Beatles and The Stones. And then we're like, yay, this is the best music that's ever existed.

• 53:42Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:43Yasi Salek?

  And then, since then, have continued to sort of, like, re-import or, or react against American music.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 53:53Yasi Salek?

  In bolstering their own robust rock music legacy.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  Right, and I feel like, I guess this strokes white stripes, you know, the rock is back movement of the early 2000s. Feels like the last time to me that like rock music was paramount.

• 54:13Yasi Salek?

  Was cared about. Anyone gave a fig about?

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Yes, to use a very American expression. Yes. You know, I don't know if that's because new metal became like our most prominent rock-based imports.

• 54:25Yasi Salek?

  Extremely American version of rock music.

• 54:28Speaker 03

  It's very, just conservatively American, that genre of music. Yes, it's a drag, you know?

• 54:34Yasi Salek?

  I kind of can't help but like be super broad about it and just think about like the UK in general just values art, arts and culture more. I mean, music and theater and, and again, maybe I'm wrong about that, but it does seem that that's the case.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  Right. Yes. They care more, there's more of an infrastructure.

• 54:56Yasi Salek?

  Perhaps they have the gene that John Carmonica lacks, where they hear guitar rock music better than, I don't know. Um, but we're grateful.

• 55:04Speaker 03

  We are grateful.

• 55:06Yasi Salek?

  Lot of great guitar rock music coming out of the UK right this second.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  Militarie gun, though, notably.

• 55:12Yasi Salek?

  Notably American.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  Notably American, notably fantastic.

• 55:15Yasi Salek?

  We have some great, we have great guitar rock music on both sides of the pond.

• 55:20Speaker 03

  We do.

• 55:21Yasi Salek?

  Dennis F. asks, if you could have been present for the recording of any album ever, what album would it be? And by present, I mean kind of hanging around with the band artist during the process, not necessarily sitting in the studio the entire time. Thanks and keep up the rad pod. Rob, did you have an initial thing that came to your mind when you read this question?

• 55:39Speaker 03

  You know what popped into my head unbidden was Songs in the Key of Life.

• 55:43Yasi Salek?

  You wanted to be with Stevie Wonder.

• 55:45Speaker 03

  I would just like to see Stevie Wonder cook.

• 55:47Yasi Salek?

  That's cool.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just, I, that came to me at random.

• 55:51Yasi Salek?

  But you're not in the studio, you're hanging out at night watching TV. Or whatever it is, I guess, not watching TV.

• 55:58Yasi Salek?

  I have to go.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  Precisely. I don't know why I said that, but just I feel like just watching Stevie Wonder cook would be a pretty amazing thing. It's recency bias and just thinking a lot about him recently, but like D'Angelo.

• 56:17Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 03

  You know, like voodoo, you know, like everything I read.

• 56:20Yasi Salek?

  I like to hang out with D'Angelo. I was making voodoo outside of the studio.

• 56:24Speaker 03

  Right, yes.

• 56:25Yasi Salek?

  Yes, indeed. I just thought of Happy Mondays because they just did ecstasy the whole time.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  You'd have a pretty good time.

• 56:32Yasi Salek?

  Vibing and laughing and doing ecstasy and playing pranks and like, I think that sounds great.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I don't know how much of that experience you would remember or remember accurately.

• 56:41Yasi Salek?

  I didn't say you needed to remember it.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  No, he did not.

• 56:43Yasi Salek?

  Not documenting.

• 56:44Speaker 03

  That is not part of this question.

• 56:46Yasi Salek?

  Just experiencing.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 56:47Yasi Salek?

  Like, you're going to the hacienda, babe? You're torturing Martin Hannah? You know, like, I think it sounds great. Someone has a gun?

• 56:55Speaker 03

  I think that... Always, always welcome. I think they would have really dug you, too. I think you would have been a really valuable addition.

• 57:02Yasi Salek?

  I agree. Thank you so much.

• 57:03Speaker 03

  To that crew, yeah. You've described the divine feminine in the past, even touching on what a divine masculine would look like. In the Motley Crue episode, I realized that all these men of hair metal could flex their masculinity through feminine features. How did we go from this to the homophobia of my youth in the 90s and 2000s? Nikki Sixx is not perfect, that's true, but is there a blueprint from him to embrace femininity that would serve well in today's culture? This question was asked by David, comma, a mostly boring, straight, white, Midwestern dad from Minneapolis.

• 57:45Yasi Salek?

  It's like a really loaded and complicated question.

• 57:49Speaker 03

  Right, because there's at least one Woodstock 99 documentary that laments that we went from Kurt Cobain in a dress.

• 57:59Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 57:59Speaker 03

  To Woodstock 99, right? Like, there's... There was an argument that Kurt Cobain was saving us from the hyper masculinity of hair metal, and I think what David is identifying is there was a pretty feminine quality to hair metal as well.

• 58:17Yasi Salek?

  I still don't have a handle on that. Like, was there? I mean, the obvious is the makeup, right?

• 58:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 58:27Yasi Salek?

  It, everything else is so overtly macho and masculine.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 58:34Yasi Salek?

  That I still couldn't really understand where this is coming from, you know? Like, obviously, it's the New York Dolls, but the New York Dolls were doing it to shock.

• 58:42Speaker 03

  Yes, right.

• 58:43Yasi Salek?

  Right? Like, it was, it wasn't to be beautiful, it was to stir the pot.

• 58:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just, I'm picturing Poison, like, a Poison press photo in my head and trying to be like, is this, what percentage of this is masculine, what percentage of this is feminine?

• 59:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 59:03Speaker 03

  Like, what are these people trying to do besides, you know, bang chicks and make money?

• 59:09Yasi Salek?

  Well, again, Little Richard wore makeup.

• 59:11Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 59:12Yasi Salek?

  So it's been part of the history of the preening rock god, you know?

• 59:20Speaker 03

  But the question of-

• 59:21Yasi Salek?

  I don't have a good answer for that.

• 59:22Speaker 03

  It's just interesting to posit hair metal as a utopian time.

• 59:27Yasi Salek?

  That's what I'm like, I, I'm like, I think, I don't think that, that, that's my point. I don't think it was a utopian time.

• 59:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:33Yasi Salek?

  I mean, the way, and again, the feminism.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  It's just-

• 59:40Yasi Salek?

  Called back into my hardened soul.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  Have we kept track of how many times it has left?

• 59:45Yasi Salek?

  It has, it has sort of like a, you know, revolving door situation happening. Not exactly ideal in the treatment of women.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  But it's interesting to think about, even if I disagree with that premise, it's interesting to consider that premise. And to think about the 90s as more of a backlash, like, an ant, like, a negative backlash to the femininity of the 80s.

• 1:00:11Yasi Salek?

  But that's not what the backlash was against. The backlash was against the masculinity.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  Right, that's what, yeah, it's-

• 1:00:18Yasi Salek?

  And, and the, like, unfettered debauchery with no, the thing that kept striking me was, like, the New York Dolls, which are patient zero for hair metal, right?

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:31Yasi Salek?

  Or glam metal anyways, they had a bit of an ethos because they were kind of punk.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:39Yasi Salek?

  And Motley Crue was kind of punk too, to begin with, you know?

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Yasi Salek?

  But then you just kind of got to this place where it was all excess and no, no philosophy.

• 1:00:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:52Yasi Salek?

  I kind of feel like that's what the 90s grunge and everything was sort of rebelling against.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think that's right. I just watched the Jeff Buckley documentary and they sort of posit him, like Grace is 93.

• 1:01:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  93 or 94 and like, we weren't ready yet to accept, you know, a singer who had some Chris Cornell, some Soundgarden to him, but sounded so divinely feminine.

• 1:01:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  You know, like where they couldn't figure out how to market him, you know, like he was ahead of his time, you know, and as progressive as we like to imagine, especially the early 90s being in the wake of Kurt Cobain.

• 1:01:33Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  Still, we were not ready for something as progressive, you know, as Jeff Buckley covering Nina Simone or whatever. Like it's, it's an interesting idea to talk about the 90s as not as progressive as we like to think they were, you know, and the alternative revolution is not as progressive as we thought it was. Like, I think that's true, but I don't know if I can get all the way to like, hair, it was better.

• 1:01:55Yasi Salek?

  Hair metal was better.

• 1:01:56Speaker 03

  It was better in the hair metal era, you know, it's, it's, it's an interesting idea, but I don't know.

• 1:02:00Yasi Salek?

  Last year you had the grunge draft and it made me wonder if you had to draft, this is from Jeff in San Diego.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:02:05Yasi Salek?

  You had to draft the non-frontman band members, who would be your top picks? You know what, Rob?

• 1:02:12Yasi Salek?

  You tell me, babe.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Okay. I think it's important. Tyrone is a good draft here. He said, I think my top pick would be Jerry Cantrell.

• 1:02:20Yasi Salek?

  Right. Okay. Sorry. I forgot that part.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  Alison Chaney's, of course, my value pick would be.

• 1:02:24Yasi Salek?

  What's a value pick? I don't do sports draft.

• 1:02:26Speaker 03

  I, just someone who you think is worth more than like your other drafters do. Like you get him in a lower rounds, but he's a higher value pick. My value pick would be Jeff Amen or Amen.

• 1:02:39Yasi Salek?

  Amen.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  Amen. Thank you. And William Goldsmith of Sunny Day Real Estate. As a late round drummer pick, I think you could get William Goldsmith pretty late and I think that would be a pretty solid.

• 1:02:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because Dave World kicked him out of the band, out of Foo Fighters.

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  Oh, was that, that was the color and the shape. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Okay.

• 1:02:58Yasi Salek?

  All right. I'm obviously also drafting Jeff Amen for the hats.

• 1:03:02Speaker 03

  I was going to say the hats.

• 1:03:04Yasi Salek?

  And the vibes. He's very funny.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  A lot of the value.

• 1:03:06Yasi Salek?

  Didn't we, are you a rumor that his ring doorbell plays Jeremy?

• 1:03:12Yasi Salek?

  In Montana. Love that for me.

• 1:03:16Speaker 03

  That is genuinely beautiful.

• 1:03:18Yasi Salek?

  I'm drafting Kim Thiel because he's a genius.

• 1:03:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:03:22Yasi Salek?

  I think he's really smart and he knows everything.

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:03:25Yasi Salek?

  And I'm drafting Patty Schimmel because she is the coolest and funnest, even though Hole is actually not a grunge band per se.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  Yes. That's really excellent. That's really excellent.

• 1:03:35Yasi Salek?

  What about you, Rob?

• 1:03:36Speaker 03

  I dig Stone Gosserd a lot. I always find myself drawn to the Stone Gosserd, the weird.

• 1:03:41Yasi Salek?

  Because he has a cool name.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  Punky. It's not to be discounted that his name is Stone Gosserd. But like Satan's Bed on Vitology, I think, is a Stone Gosserd song. And like, I've always found myself drawn.

• 1:03:52Yasi Salek?

  What was his side band name that had that one hit they played in CBS? Brad, yeah.

• 1:03:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Who is Soundgarden's bass player? Ben?

• 1:04:01Yasi Salek?

  Which one? The first one, Hero, or the second one?

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  The second one.

• 1:04:05Yasi Salek?

  Ben.

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:04:06Yasi Salek?

  I don't remember his last name, so sorry, Ben. I respect you so much.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  It's all right. We totally respect you. Like, the bass lines on Super Unknown and Blow Up the Outside World, like, I remember when I would see, when I would look through Guitar Tech magazines.

• 1:04:22Yasi Salek?

  As we do.

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, as we do. Like, just the transcriptions of bass lines to Soundgarden songs. Like, the tuning was always really weird. Drummer-wise, I'm going Jimmy Chamberlain. Does he even?

• 1:04:33Yasi Salek?

  Really good.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Does he count?

• 1:04:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we can count him.

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  Okay. I gotta say Jimmy Chamberlain's gotta be in there if we're going to regard, if we'll allow Smashing Pumpkins as a grunge band. I think that's the direction I would go in.

• 1:04:45Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I love it. I think we'll just do a few more and wrap it up. I'm gonna pick one myself.

• 1:04:50Speaker 03

  Please.

• 1:04:50Yasi Salek?

  This is from Alexandra. I wanted to thank UNCR for bringing up Cameron Winter in podcasts last year. I've never heard of him and Geese, Six Foot Two. And along the year, I became absolutely fascinated with Heavy Metal, the Cameron Winter album, and now Getting Killed. As a washed 31-year-old now expecting knee surgery, I'm just so thrilled with seeing the, quote, "youth" and being lucky enough to accompany Cameron and Geese in their career and exploits, hopefully for years to come. Given Cameron's voice and singing is so distinct, I wonder if you, and Rob, if he's with you, could list your top five unique voices in popular music?

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  Cameron Winter is the first one in a while that really struck me.

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  You know, like, just the warbling.

• 1:05:42Speaker 03

  It's not that it's hugely outlandish to me, but Mitski is the first name that's coming into my head. Like, there's just a very specific, like, intense melancholy quality

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  to her voice that's really striking to me.

• 1:06:08Yasi Salek?

  I mean, you know what I love to say about this with the feminism is obviously has taken residence again. Because no one ever mentions women, although you mentioned Mitski. Joanna Newsom.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. Okay, here we go.

• 1:06:20Yasi Salek?

  Which I love.

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:06:21Yasi Salek?

  But I think is polarizing. Courtney Love.

• 1:06:26Yasi Salek?

  Blake Schwartzbach from Jawbreaker.

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  Ooh, there we go.

• 1:06:29Yasi Salek?

  I think he has a pretty

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Yasi Salek?

  unique.

• 1:06:32Yasi Salek?

  And Alicia from Bully. If I'd heard of a unique singing voice, kind of raspy.

• 1:06:37Speaker 03

  I'd love the raspy. I love the screaming quality of her, especially.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  I've never heard anyone who sounds like Kim Deal.

• 1:06:51Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah. Because she has that, like, really charming sort of childlike singing voice that's so beautiful.

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, the Kim Deal solo album, like, No One Loves You More, or whatever it's called. I got to that late, but when I got to it, I just listened to it on repeat.

• 1:07:16Yasi Salek?

  I mean, we're leaving a pretty obvious one on the table.

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  What's that?

• 1:07:19Yasi Salek?

  Billy Quirk's.

• 1:07:20Speaker 03

  That's right. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

• 1:07:24Yasi Salek?

  Nobody sings like that.

• 1:07:27Speaker 03

  Many have tried, all have failed.

• 1:07:38Speaker 03

  Abria H. asks, "What is a favorite Flex on Them memory? Like, I've seen the original lineup when they played all covers acoustic in a garage in 1987 with six people, or just a favorite concert memory in general." It's you are being asked to humble brag, which ordinarily you do not need to be asked.

• 1:07:59Yasi Salek?

  It's true, Rob. It's part of my job to share my experiences with my listeners. And if sometimes they're exceptional, it's not my fault.

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  They're all exceptional. Yeah. I saw Yasi Salek stage dive at a Black Lips and Riff Raff show in Atlanta. And it was transformational.

• 1:08:19Yasi Salek?

  I feel like you have a lot of... You have good ones of these, no? Your time at the Village Voice?

• 1:08:24Speaker 03

  I guess I do. I guess I got to see some pretty cool stuff. I was just thinking, I saw Nine Inch Nails do the downward spiral in full at the Bowery Ballroom. This would have been 2008, 2009, somewhere in there. That was pretty transcendent. They did, they did other songs, too. They did Something I Can Never Have with a, with a, a giant double bass.

• 1:08:47Yasi Salek?

  Whoa.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  As the bass. That was their, like, that was a pretty transformational moment. Somebody asked me my favorite show I ever saw, and I gave the same answer I always gave, which is Jay-Z at a festival in New York City.

• 1:09:01Yasi Salek?

  They're so unexpected all the time.

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  When the Beastie Boy, when the Beastie Boys were supposed to play, and they had to announce that Adamiak had cancer. Jay-Z replaced them last minute, started with no sleep till Brooklyn, just bedlam.

• 1:09:15Yasi Salek?

  That's incredible.

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  And I had never, I just hit something there, I'm sorry. I had never seen Jay-Z before, and just, I was talking with Cole Kushner of Dissect about this, and just the absolute precision of how Jay-Z raps. Like, he knows all the words. He enunciates every word so clearly, like, just the command that he had, like, from the moment he stepped on stage. You know, and this is like Blueprint 3-era Jay-Z. Like, this is a time when you may be inclined to start underestimating him. And it was just, that's still one of the greatest shows I've ever seen, you know? And I saw that with X tens of thousands of people. Like, that's the opposite of kind of the question we're being asked.

• 1:09:54Yasi Salek?

  No, but still, it's a very special experience.

• 1:09:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Yasi Salek?

  That's really good.

• 1:09:58Speaker 03

  Fire away.

• 1:10:01Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I honestly have a lot.

• 1:10:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04Yasi Salek?

  But I will say, number one is probably seeing Prince on his 21 night stand at the Forum, where I was literally standing next to Magic Johnson in the front row.

• 1:10:18Yasi Salek?

  And Prince literally sweated on me and like, did nothing compares to you and held the mic down into like our faces and it had like a panic attack.

• 1:10:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:27Yasi Salek?

  And then he DJ'd his own after-party. I'm sorry, I've told this story a million times because it was very special, at the Forum Club, and he just DJ'd the whole time. We got to go to that too. So that's probably number one.

• 1:10:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:10:36Yasi Salek?

  Because that was amazing.

• 1:10:38Speaker 03

  I'm glad that I went first.

• 1:10:39Yasi Salek?

  I also saw Blink-182 play in the Snowboarders Lounge at like Snow Summit or something and like, I mean, I must have been 14.

• 1:10:46Speaker 03

  That's, that was Big Bear, right?

• 1:10:48Yasi Salek?

  Big Bear, yeah.

• 1:10:48Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:10:49Yasi Salek?

  95, 96?

• 1:10:51Speaker 03

  Right. Didn't you have to sleep in like a laundry room or something?

• 1:10:54Yasi Salek?

  No, that was when I went to see 311 at the, San Diego street scene. We slept in my car.

• 1:11:01Speaker 03

  My mistake.

• 1:11:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:11:03Yasi Salek?

  There's a few more, but I won't bore you with my beautiful and perfect life.

• 1:11:06Speaker 03

  It's very dull.

• 1:11:07Yasi Salek?

  Just kidding. There's many things I haven't seen that you guys all got to see, that I never got to see.

• 1:11:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:11:12Yasi Salek?

  This is from Miguel. The question I want to ask the legend herself. It's me. How do you read?

• 1:11:20Yasi Salek?

  She thinks I'm illiterate. What is the environment you set up for yourself to read and crush the books that are necessary for these episodes? Second question is, if you ever smoked cigarettes, what was your pack of choice? Love you, Yasi. Thank you for making me the most annoying 23-year-old bi man. Okay, I don't know if the "I" made you that, but thank you. I love you, Jamie Miguel.

• 1:11:39Yasi Salek?

  How do I read? One word at a time, left or right? No, I read at night, in bed mostly, before I go to bed. That's my reading time.

• 1:11:47Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:11:48Yasi Salek?

  I am a bit of a speed reader.

• 1:11:50Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:11:52Yasi Salek?

  I prefer to read on planes if possible because it's forced.

• 1:11:55Speaker 03

  Just a captive environment.

• 1:11:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Speaker 03

  Totally, totally.

• 1:11:58Yasi Salek?

  But that is how I read, and I use my sticky notes, as you guys all know.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  I was going to ask about the sticky note thing because I'm a serial underliner.

• 1:12:05Yasi Salek?

  No, I can't do that. I need the sticky notes. Also, I don't like to just sully my books.

• 1:12:08Speaker 03

  No, I understand that. What is, is there a... What is the color coded?

• 1:12:13Yasi Salek?

  No color coding. It's random.

• 1:12:15Speaker 03

  No, okay, that's good to know. Because I see like the pink, yellow and blue and I'm like, oh my god, they're like by categories.

• 1:12:20Yasi Salek?

  No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:12:24Speaker 03

  How long at a stretch do you read, would you say, like, like for an hour?

• 1:12:28Yasi Salek?

  At night?

• 1:12:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:29Yasi Salek?

  No, it makes me tired. So like, it depends how, what time I get in bed. Real heads know that I get in bed quite early. Sometimes Chris Ryan will text me and I'll be like, 10pm? You're already pissed. I've been in bed for two hours and I'll take my phone back.

• 1:12:43Speaker 03

  Okay, Elvira.

• 1:12:45Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, maybe like 30, 45 minutes.

• 1:12:47Speaker 03

  Okay, alright.

• 1:12:48Yasi Salek?

  I used to smoke Parliament Lights. Now I smoke.

• 1:12:52Speaker 03

  In your accelerator era.

• 1:12:53Yasi Salek?

  When I was a heavy, not heavy, but when I was like a regular smoker, which I'm not anymore. On the occasion that I do smoke, I smoke the skinny Marlboro Lights that come from France. Okay?

• 1:13:04Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:13:05Yasi Salek?

  So.

• 1:13:06Speaker 03

  Imported.

• 1:13:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's right. And smoking is bad and don't do it. That's it, I think. I'm sorry, we have a lot more questions, but I think this is the right amount to answer to leave them wanting more.

• 1:13:17Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 1:13:17Yasi Salek?

  You guys need to leave some stones unturned, is what we say. Rob, thank you so much for joining me to do this.

• 1:13:25Speaker 03

  I am going to fly. I'm gonna fly here in person and do this next time.

• 1:13:29Yasi Salek?

  I think you should.

• 1:13:30Speaker 03

  We can't do this separate anymore. It has to be in this room.

• 1:13:33Yasi Salek?

  You did a great job. You only hit the monitor once.

• 1:13:38Speaker 03

  It was right near the end. I got so close.

• 1:13:40Yasi Salek?

  You're gonna get the hang of it.

• 1:13:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you would hope so.

• 1:13:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:45Yasi Salek?

  Stick around, you guys. After this, we are gonna go to my interview with Ian Shelton of Militarie Gun. Thanks, Rob.

• 1:13:52Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  Shop Folgers Instant Coffee and more at your nearest retailer.

• 1:14:58Yasi Salek?

  You guys, please welcome to the podcast Ian Shelton of the band Militarie Gun.

• 1:15:05Speaker 06

  Hello.

• 1:15:05Yasi Salek?

  Ian, it's so great to see you. I feel like I never see you.

• 1:15:08Speaker 06

  I haven't seen you in a long time. Last time I saw you, your house burned down.

• 1:15:11Yasi Salek?

  That's so true. My house is still burned down.

• 1:15:13Speaker 06

  It didn't come back.

• 1:15:15Yasi Salek?

  It didn't come back. Ian, a wonderful person, came and saw me at my parents' house, brought me a gift of a Dave Matthews Band t-shirt, and took me out to IHOP.

• 1:15:26Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:15:26Yasi Salek?

  For breakfast.

• 1:15:27Speaker 06

  It was great.

• 1:15:28Yasi Salek?

  It was wonderful.

• 1:15:29Speaker 06

  And that was the last time I saw you. It's been...

• 1:15:30Yasi Salek?

  It's been a while.

• 1:15:31Speaker 06

  Has it been a year?

• 1:15:31Yasi Salek?

  No, no. That was probably...

• 1:15:33Speaker 06

  Oh, that was January. That was like...

• 1:15:35Yasi Salek?

  Seven months ago, maybe, yeah.

• 1:15:36Speaker 06

  So a minute, but...

• 1:15:37Yasi Salek?

  And then you went on tour for like six years and I haven't seen you since.

• 1:15:40Speaker 06

  This year, I haven't really been on tour that much.

• 1:15:42Yasi Salek?

  Well, you just don't call? You don't write?

• 1:15:43Speaker 06

  I guess I haven't.

• 1:15:44Yasi Salek?

  You were like, "Oh, your house burned down. I guess I don't need to talk to her or see her ever."

• 1:15:48Speaker 06

  Well, when you know someone is houseless, you know, you just figure they probably don't have a phone anymore, or...

• 1:15:53Yasi Salek?

  Wow, incredible, incredible. Ian, what's been going on, babe? I guess you put out an album.

• 1:16:00Speaker 06

  Put out an album. The, like, pre-record scramble of having to make music videos and stuff is somewhat over for now.

• 1:16:10Yasi Salek?

  Do you like making music videos? I feel like you do.

• 1:16:12Speaker 06

  I love making music videos, but the problem is that there's never enough, like, time. It's always like against...

• 1:16:18Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:16:18Speaker 06

  Deadlines.

• 1:16:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:19Speaker 06

  Which, I guess, is the part of the process of everything is like, nothing, the good shit doesn't get done until you're like at the last second.

• 1:16:28Yasi Salek?

  I think generally if you have unlimited time and budget, you will make something terrible.

• 1:16:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:16:33Yasi Salek?

  So...

• 1:16:33Speaker 06

  A friend produced a record for a big, uh, rock star with unlimited budget, unlimited time.

• 1:16:39Yasi Salek?

  And it's trash.

• 1:16:40Speaker 06

  And it's, yeah. By his own, yeah, I don't know. I won't go too far. But yeah, yeah. He was like, it's not, not great.

• 1:16:47Yasi Salek?

  This is a great segue for me to ask why I wasn't cast as one of the hot cheerleaders in the video for Bad Idea. Is it because I'm too old and is Militarie Gun ages? I'm just curious.

• 1:17:07Speaker 06

  That was all friend labor.

• 1:17:10Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:17:10Speaker 06

  It was all favors being called in last minute.

• 1:17:13Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:17:14Speaker 06

  And you are a busy person. I would never assume you would just have.

• 1:17:19Yasi Salek?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:17:19Speaker 06

  We were shooting that until 4 a.m.

• 1:17:21Yasi Salek?

  I would be sleepy.

• 1:17:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't think that. One, I don't even want to wish it upon anybody. I don't want anyone to have to do that.

• 1:17:27Yasi Salek?

  Famously, I love to make cameos in music videos, though.

• 1:17:30Speaker 06

  Okay, I'll 100% keep that in mind for the next one, because we'd love to have a cameo.

• 1:17:36Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna need to be home by 8 p.m., though.

• 1:17:37Speaker 06

  I remember, it's funny, it's really funny being here. It was funny being on the first time, but I didn't know you then. That was our first time ever talking.

• 1:17:44Yasi Salek?

  Was it?

• 1:17:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, we had never spoken before.

• 1:17:47Yasi Salek?

  We had DM'd.

• 1:17:48Speaker 06

  Yeah. But how much your voice was in the tour van, like, for all of our first tours was insane.

• 1:17:58Yasi Salek?

  You guys, Militarie Gun is a known band-splained fan band.

• 1:18:02Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:18:02Yasi Salek?

  They're band-splained heads.

• 1:18:03Speaker 06

  We're heads.

• 1:18:04Yasi Salek?

  Great taste. That's how I know about your band, because some, somebody was like, oh, this band talks about band-splained on Twitter.

• 1:18:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Yasi Salek?

  That's how I, like, knew about you.

• 1:18:15Speaker 06

  I remember when you, like, posted Drug Church, and it was like, oh, she knows similar band stuff. Like, oh, shit. But, yeah, yeah, like, I've even re-listened to some episodes.

• 1:18:27Yasi Salek?

  What are, what are your, like, redos?

• 1:18:29Speaker 06

  I love the Lemonheads episode.

• 1:18:30Yasi Salek?

  It's a really good one. Shout out Chris Black.

• 1:18:32Speaker 06

  Is great. Modest Mouse, you aren't as engaged, so it's a really funny.

• 1:18:38Yasi Salek?

  Which is weird, because I'm a big Modest Mouse fan. I must have just been tired that day.

• 1:18:42Speaker 06

  Not a Modest Mouse fan on that.

• 1:18:43Yasi Salek?

  It's so interesting.

• 1:18:44Speaker 06

  On that episode, I felt. The Fugazi episode, for sure.

• 1:18:47Yasi Salek?

  That's a great one.

• 1:18:48Speaker 06

  I just, and I constantly will give people the factoid of Evan Dando covering Guilty of Being White.

• 1:18:55Yasi Salek?

  So great.

• 1:18:56Speaker 06

  That, I learned that from your show, and I pass that one on to people.

• 1:18:59Yasi Salek?

  He mentions it in his biography as well.

• 1:19:03Speaker 06

  I gotta read the biography.

• 1:19:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:05Speaker 06

  That's probably a wild ride.

• 1:19:07Yasi Salek?

  It's less interesting than you think it would be, but it's still worth reading.

• 1:19:11Speaker 06

  He has to have someone else write it for it to be.

• 1:19:13Yasi Salek?

  He did.

• 1:19:14Speaker 06

  I did get to go, I get to, uh, we got to hear some good dandos stories when we went to the Christmas party and Lou Barlow was telling.

• 1:19:23Yasi Salek?

  Oh, my God, yeah. Oh, we went, Ben Lee, shout out friend of the pod. He had a holiday party. That was so fun. And Lou Barlow did a live podcast with his wife Adele, because they have a podcast, which is great. And then he played Sebado songs. I remember he was like taking requests and I was just shouting song after song.

• 1:19:41Speaker 06

  It was, I have a video where like I'm within, like, I'm within two feet of his socked feet because his shoes are off while he's performing. And I was just like, how did I end up in any of this?

• 1:19:53Yasi Salek?

  Because of your friendship with the esteemed podcaster, Yasi Salek.

• 1:19:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was.

• 1:19:57Yasi Salek?

  But now you're more famous than me, so you have to take me to some kind of cool Hollywood. Yeah, but you go to like.

• 1:20:02Speaker 06

  You know Bill Simmons.

• 1:20:03Yasi Salek?

  I do know Bill Simmons. He gave me a hug yesterday. But you go to like the Roc Nation brunch or whatever.

• 1:20:09Speaker 06

  No, no, we're not with Roc Nation anymore.

• 1:20:11Yasi Salek?

  Oh, well, you did go to the Roc Nation brunch.

• 1:20:13Speaker 06

  I didn't go to the brunch. I went to the Christmas party.

• 1:20:14Yasi Salek?

  Okay, okay, fine. Well, whatever your next big Hollywood, like, party or event is, I want to go.

• 1:20:21Speaker 06

  Okay. It's harder now without drinking. I feel like I'm not going to get invited to those things, so.

• 1:20:25Yasi Salek?

  They don't discriminate based on your status of sobriety.

• 1:20:29Speaker 06

  Maybe.

• 1:20:30Yasi Salek?

  In LA.

• 1:20:30Speaker 06

  I'm just less likely to show up.

• 1:20:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's true. No, what we're, what we are going to do is we'll go, we'll go get some big gulps.

• 1:20:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Yasi Salek?

  And then we'll also slam a Red Bull.

• 1:20:40Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:20:40Yasi Salek?

  That's how we go party.

• 1:20:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:20:42Yasi Salek?

  It'll be fun.

• 1:20:43Speaker 06

  When I was a kid, I, I, this, I'm assuming this is not a common experience, but 7-Eleven had these things called team gulps. Do you know what this is?

• 1:20:52Yasi Salek?

  Is that the really big one?

• 1:20:53Speaker 06

  It's the big one that looks like a cooler.

• 1:20:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:55Speaker 06

  We would fill it with slurpees and we would each have our own team gulps.

• 1:21:00Yasi Salek?

  Six thousand calories.

• 1:21:01Speaker 06

  I wanna pull up to a Hollywood party like that.

• 1:21:03Yasi Salek?

  You should.

• 1:21:04Speaker 06

  My true self.

• 1:21:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think that's the way to do it. In a fur coat. I have one you can borrow.

• 1:21:09Speaker 06

  Fur coat, Team Gulp, I'm in.

• 1:21:12Yasi Salek?

  Well, this is a great segue to talk about, I know you've talked about it in a bunch of interviews, but I guess it's a through line of this album, which by the way is so fucking good.

• 1:21:21Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:21:22Yasi Salek?

  I wouldn't be as excited about you guys liking Man's Plane if your bands suck, to be honest.

• 1:21:26Speaker 06

  I'm sure you have a lot of shitty bands that do like Man's Plane.

• 1:21:28Yasi Salek?

  Probably, I'm not gonna name any names, but you sent me the album in like June.

• 1:21:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:21:33Yasi Salek?

  It's a little flex where you guys had to do it to them. And I was like, okay, Ian is doing therapy, he's exercising some vulnerability, this is new, I love this.

• 1:21:45Speaker 06

  I feel like that's what I was doing the whole time, but this time I was more concentrated.

• 1:21:48Yasi Salek?

  You've always done it, but this one, I felt like it was a little more pronounced.

• 1:21:53Speaker 06

  My aim was more true on this one. I feel like it was just like, the, I don't know, I guess, I don't know how it resulted that way, it just happened. I think also drinking was a big part of it, because it was all written while drunk, for the most part, that...

• 1:22:07Yasi Salek?

  It's the most insane thing to me when you told me that you were like, "Yeah, I just started drinking, I'm 30", and I was like, "What are you talking about?" You were like, "Yeah, I never drank before this", I was like, "Who starts for the first time at 30?" I think it's cool, to be honest, because you were like, "Let me see what this is all about."

• 1:22:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, I joined the family business.

• 1:22:27Yasi Salek?

  Right, of being forced to back into sobriety.

• 1:22:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I had to try, you know, there was always that curiosity about it, but there also was the knowingness that that's where I would end up. Like, I kinda knew it from the jump, because I don't have moderation. Like, I just, in any part, if it's buying jackets, I don't have moderation, I buy one, I buy 10.

• 1:22:49Yasi Salek?

  I'm kinda the same way, to be honest.

• 1:22:50Speaker 06

  It's like, I basically start a manic episode and just purchase things, or drink, or whatever else, I just don't... Moderation is like not in my blood.

• 1:23:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:00Speaker 06

  And so, when I started, I somewhat knew that that would be the reality, and then, of course...

• 1:23:08Speaker 06

  That became the reality.

• 1:23:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because for people that don't know, Ian's mother is a recovered addict.

• 1:23:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:23:14Yasi Salek?

  And you grew up in sort of a chaotic environment.

• 1:23:17Speaker 06

  Very chaotic.

• 1:23:17Yasi Salek?

  Witnessing.

• 1:23:18Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:23:18Yasi Salek?

  Like, kind of active addiction. When you were coming up, like, in doing music and stuff, were the scenes around you pretty sober? Like, was it pretty straight edge?

• 1:23:28Speaker 06

  A lot of straight edge, yeah. And then, you know, like, at a certain point, all the kids you grew up with that were straight edge are no longer. And then the party vibe takes hold and, yeah, it was definitely very, very sober. I also, something that I think about a lot was, like, I was trying to get my brother into hardcore.

• 1:23:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:45Speaker 06

  And he would go to shows and it would be like dudes in their, like, early 30s being like, "You're not allowed to say the bad F-word."

• 1:23:52Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:23:52Speaker 06

  You know, it was like very stale and very boring and there wasn't the emotional release. Like, I feel like when I started going to hardcore shows, I was jumping off of tables in a YMCA.

• 1:24:02Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:24:03Speaker 06

  Singing, "I'm a fucked up, I got problems, I'm a fucked up kid."

• 1:24:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:06Speaker 06

  Like, that, that was what.

• 1:24:08Yasi Salek?

  It had, there was a release.

• 1:24:09Speaker 06

  I wish I could have showed him.

• 1:24:10Yasi Salek?

  Right, right.

• 1:24:10Speaker 06

  But at the time that I, he was of an age for me to bring him around, it was like so local, so boring, so...

• 1:24:17Yasi Salek?

  So, like, rules-based.

• 1:24:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Speaker 06

  And it was like, it just kind, it always goes through eras, but it, I think back now, I'm like, "Why did I even keep going to these things?"

• 1:24:28Yasi Salek?

  Well, it was, it was the lifestyle that you had signed up for.

• 1:24:30Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Yasi Salek?

  Um, I did love learning the detail that Waylon is the one that started drinking first and sort of, like, got you off the wagon.

• 1:24:40Speaker 06

  Well, so, Waylon hates that I talk about this, but...

• 1:24:44Yasi Salek?

  We're a pro Waylon podcast.

• 1:24:45Speaker 06

  We're, we love Waylon. I'm even wearing a, this is a Waylon Jennings shirt, but it's...

• 1:24:49Yasi Salek?

  In homage to Waylon.

• 1:24:50Speaker 06

  It's an homage to the, my, the two Waylens I know in my life, which one is a Waylon Jennings, AKA Shooter, and the other's Waylon Tripp.

• 1:24:57Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:24:57Speaker 06

  But... Waylon is someone I've known for a long time and he, I saw him like expanding his boundaries.

• 1:25:04Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:25:05Speaker 06

  And I was like, I wanna like sneak my way into that, that boundary, you know, and like, it was somewhat of a bonding thing for me to be like, he's trying something new, let me try something new with him.

• 1:25:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:16Speaker 06

  You know, and he hates that I tell people that.

• 1:25:17Yasi Salek?

  Why? Cause he doesn't wanna be like-

• 1:25:19Speaker 06

  It's too intimate for him. It's too intimate and personal for him.

• 1:25:23Yasi Salek?

  You're like me where you have like no filter on like telling people everything, I really need to work on that.

• 1:25:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:25:29Yasi Salek?

  You can do whatever you want. I'm trying to be a little more mysterious. It's not working.

• 1:25:32Speaker 06

  I think my job is, unfortunately, I aired myself out super hard on this record.

• 1:25:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I was again reading the interviews. I was like, babe, you did not have to tell people that.

• 1:25:40Speaker 06

  No, no. Uh, but again, I don't know anyway. I'm a dramatic person and-

• 1:25:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:45Speaker 06

  And I, and I let it be known.

• 1:25:48Yasi Salek?

  Can we talk like really briefly about Kick?

• 1:25:50Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Yasi Salek?

  I love that song.

• 1:25:52Speaker 06

  Killing Joke.

• 1:25:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Speaker 06

  I feel like not enough people realize that there's, that Killing Joke is like involved in that song.

• 1:25:58Yasi Salek?

  It's, I was like really like blown away. Cause I was like, why do you even know Killing Joke?

• 1:26:03Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, what lists why I know their music?

• 1:26:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:06Speaker 06

  Well, that's because I grew up in record collector-

• 1:26:09Yasi Salek?

  Right, right.

• 1:26:10Speaker 06

  Like pretentiousness, but I mean, Requiem is just such a classic track and I flipped that sample and I sent it to James from Daisy and three years later the song comes out.

• 1:26:21Yasi Salek?

  You guys had to like pay and clear that sample?

• 1:26:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, we did. They got paid. They got paid. Probably not a good payment for them, but for us-

• 1:26:28Yasi Salek?

  James from Daisy?

• 1:26:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:30Yasi Salek?

  Who, who co-wrote the song with you?

• 1:26:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:32Yasi Salek?

  Um, I love it. It was a super nineties. As you know, I love it.

• 1:26:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, we, I want it, we didn't have a bridge-

• 1:26:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:38Speaker 06

  When we went into the studio and then it was like, I had written that, that like thing down so long ago and I was like, I could do it like butthole surfers.

• 1:26:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:48Speaker 06

  And like that was the goal and I, we've only had one person call it out and I'm like, it's so obvious. How do you not realize that it's a-

• 1:26:58Yasi Salek?

  I don't mind the songs.

• 1:26:59Speaker 06

  But when I do it live, I feel like I'm, um, I feel like I'm like a slam poetry guy or something.

• 1:27:06Yasi Salek?

  Do you use like a vocoder or whatever?

• 1:27:08Speaker 06

  I have to like cup it.

• 1:27:08Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:27:09Speaker 06

  Cause it's like so, such a different volume from my singing that I had to be like, you know, like, uh, and I feel like I look like a real dork up there singing it.

• 1:27:21Yasi Salek?

  Well, I haven't seen it, I can't comment on it, but it sounds good, it's worth it, I think.

• 1:27:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think it's worth it.

• 1:27:32Yasi Salek?

  I just love this album. You love Daydream, look at you.

• 1:27:34Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:27:35Yasi Salek?

  Expanding your boundaries.

• 1:27:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:27:37Yasi Salek?

  Doing a little singing of an acoustic.

• 1:27:39Speaker 06

  I've been practicing, we're playing it live.

• 1:27:40Yasi Salek?

  I saw your tweet.

• 1:27:41Speaker 06

  And I'm singing and playing it, it's nerve wracking.

• 1:27:44Yasi Salek?

  At that point, does like, the band clear off and you just, you bring a stool out and an acoustic?

• 1:27:49Speaker 06

  They come in in the middle. The ideal way that I would actually love to perform that song is seated. Because I wrote that song for my nana and, um, like she, she literally like comes to me in my dreams still and like...

• 1:28:05Yasi Salek?

  She's the one, she's the you that you're addressing in the song.

• 1:28:07Speaker 06

  Yes, yeah, yeah. Alcoholic, workaholic.

• 1:28:10Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:28:21Speaker 06

  Taught me about creativity, like, she wrote me her own children's books, like her own characters. And, um, again, you know, also at the same time, crazy workaholic, alcoholic, and, um, was just so, you know, like, I didn't have a dad at first. Like, my dad wasn't around and I was raised by my nana and my mom. So, you know, uh, just like their impact on me is so huge and, and she's passed away like so long ago. But her, like, the tale of her influence like has really carried and I was like, I really want to write a song for her. But the first ever time that I played live was at, like, played music for people for an audience was at her funeral.

• 1:29:04Speaker 06

  So, I, like, and it was me seated, like, in a chair, playing, and, uh, so for me, like, emotionally...

• 1:29:12Yasi Salek?

  Did you play a cover or did you add an original?

• 1:29:14Speaker 06

  I had like, it was an instrumental, it was really bizarre that it even happened, honestly, like, why is this kid playing bass at this funeral?

• 1:29:22Yasi Salek?

  No, I think it's so beautiful.

• 1:29:23Speaker 06

  Um, I was in sixth grade, like, it was a long time ago, um, but yeah, I...

• 1:29:29Yasi Salek?

  You played an instrumental bass song?

• 1:29:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly, I'm telling you, it's weird as hell. I'm telling you, it's fucking weird as hell.

• 1:29:36Yasi Salek?

  Here you go, Grandma.

• 1:29:37Speaker 06

  And it basically was exactly "Radio" by Alkaline Trio.

• 1:29:43Speaker 06

  But, you know, you're in sixth grade.

• 1:29:44Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:29:44Speaker 06

  You're trying some things. But, you know, I was seated and it was at her funeral and like, so to me, that song, the energy of it feels like I would be seated performing it. But, one, we're playing like small DIY rooms. There's not room for the big change up in production, for me to get a chair out there, you know?

• 1:30:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:02Speaker 06

  Someday.

• 1:30:03Yasi Salek?

  Um, we had a mailbag question about the Divine Masculine and I just want to point out if that guy is still listening, this is the Divine Masculine. It is. What you're describing here is like kind of the perfect, like, expression of the Divine Masculine.

• 1:30:17Speaker 06

  I guess I don't understand, I don't know the concept of the Divine Masculine.

• 1:30:20Yasi Salek?

  The Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine are like the most exalted versions of the archetype of femininity and masculinity. And the Divine Masculine, I feel like, holds within it like the influence of femininity, but uses it to bolster the elements of Divine Masculine, which are like strength and like confidence and sort of like safety. You know what I mean?

• 1:30:43Speaker 06

  I'll take it. I'll take it. I mean, it's, uh, I was raised by women.

• 1:30:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:48Speaker 06

  So it's, um, obviously that, that influence is gonna bleed over, but I will.

• 1:30:53Yasi Salek?

  You'll fuck up a guy?

• 1:30:55Speaker 06

  An old guy.

• 1:30:56Yasi Salek?

  An old guy?

• 1:30:56Speaker 06

  The most recent one, yeah.

• 1:30:58Yasi Salek?

  You beat up an old guy?

• 1:30:59Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:31:00Yasi Salek?

  How old are you talking, like my age?

• 1:31:01Speaker 06

  Okay, well, one, kick, kick is autobiographical.

• 1:31:04Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so you're talking about...

• 1:31:06Speaker 06

  Those are real incidents.

• 1:31:08Yasi Salek?

  Your mom's boyfriend's husband.

• 1:31:12Speaker 06

  Mom's, mom's boyfriend's wife.

• 1:31:14Yasi Salek?

  Oh, wife, sorry.

• 1:31:15Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:31:16Yasi Salek?

  That would be even more crazy if it was...

• 1:31:18Speaker 06

  I didn't beat him up. My stepdad beat him up.

• 1:31:20Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:31:21Speaker 06

  Uh, that, you know, but it's all real stuff, but if I kicked you in the face, like literally that is, that line happened because I, two times within a short span, I... Kicked people in the face at shows because we got in fights.

• 1:31:36Yasi Salek?

  Oh, on purpose.

• 1:31:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, I did it on purpose. People think it's like some like stage diving thing or some shit, but no, that's like literally a kick to the face.

• 1:31:44Yasi Salek?

  What sparks these fights? What sets you off?

• 1:31:46Speaker 06

  Flipping me off.

• 1:31:47Yasi Salek?

  You don't like being flipped off? You find it disrespectful?

• 1:31:50Speaker 06

  I feel like I would have a higher tolerance for it now, but I feel like I'm such an insecure person that like when you go to someone's city and you're on stage there and they're like flipping off you, it's like you're trying to humiliate me?

• 1:32:02Yasi Salek?

  Hmm.

• 1:32:02Speaker 06

  You know, like, that was my feeling.

• 1:32:05Yasi Salek?

  My thing is kinda like if they paid twenty-eight dollars to come in here to flip you off, like, okay, you can do whatever you want. Okay, fair enough.

• 1:32:13Speaker 06

  If we're support, they didn't pay that, we're not getting that twenty-eight bucks.

• 1:32:15Yasi Salek?

  You're right, you're right, you're right. That's the distinction. I wanna also ask about Laugh At Me.

• 1:32:20Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:32:21Yasi Salek?

  I felt really into this song because it's, there's like two songs that are like kind of really sonically different.

• 1:32:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:32:28Yasi Salek?

  On the album, oh my god, I didn't even write this down. One is the one that is like synthy.

• 1:32:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, God Oils Me Money.

• 1:32:33Yasi Salek?

  God Oils Me Money. That's the one that has Marisa on it, like just saying, like the line. Such a great song. But that, so that's like obviously like one direction that like I haven't really heard you guys go. But this one too, because this one is like really eighties sounding to me, like a jangle eighties, like Lightning Seeds, like Johnny Marr core. Like is that something you were like thinking about when you were writing that song? Or when you were producing it or whatever?

• 1:32:55Speaker 06

  That one was really difficult. Both God Oils Me Money and Laugh At Me were the most difficult to be like, what is the correct combination of things that actually conveys it being us? And that it's this. And both, there was an electric version of Laugh At Me without the acoustics. And it sounded too much like The Killers. And God Oils Me Money sounds like The Killers. And so we were like, oh no, we're trapped in like Killersland. Um, but I actually was more so thinking of Radiohead in the original version. You can't really hear it at all. Originally, the way I played it, it just is such a like. Weirder chord that I wouldn't usually play and I was like, kind of like, this sounds like a little radio headish and it's like first version, doesn't sound like that way.

• 1:33:37Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:33:37Speaker 06

  At all. Now, Smith's definitely a huge, huge influence. When I did that, we like jokingly have called it like, here comes the gun.

• 1:33:47Speaker 06

  And then there's one 80s song that I feel like when I, in its demo versions, people would refer to it as, uh, maybe it's like Stop the World and Melody or something like that.

• 1:33:56Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I'll stop the world and melt with you.

• 1:33:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, but, uh, yeah, those are definitely influences. We don't like articulate as it goes. The funny thing, Laugh at Me, the day of that Christmas party was the day that I demoed that.

• 1:34:08Yasi Salek?

  Really?

• 1:34:09Speaker 06

  I was listening to it on the way to meet up with you.

• 1:34:11Yasi Salek?

  Oh, weird.

• 1:34:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:34:13Yasi Salek?

  Maybe I missed it in the 400 interviews of Militarie Gun, specifically with you.

• 1:34:18Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:34:19Yasi Salek?

  That I read this morning. Shout out Nick Dierle, the hardest working man in

• 1:34:23Speaker 06

  Annalisa.

• 1:34:24Yasi Salek?

  Annalisa in music publicity. I'm absolutely floored by what they're able to do. I didn't see anyone ask you if you believe in God.

• 1:34:31Speaker 06

  I think I've been asked about like spirituality because I feel like people think it's weird to like

• 1:34:35Yasi Salek?

  They hate to say.

• 1:34:35Speaker 06

  Ask the question. People hate saying God.

• 1:34:37Yasi Salek?

  They hate saying God.

• 1:34:38Speaker 06

  We got banned from a billboard on Sunset for the album title. They're like, we won't put, we will not put this up.

• 1:34:44Yasi Salek?

  Because they think it's like, um.

• 1:34:46Speaker 06

  They just don't know what it means.

• 1:34:48Yasi Salek?

  Right. I have a real issue with this. Like, I bring it up a lot. Like, I went on a date when I was in London and I, I genuinely feel the guy was like, put off because I said God. Like, I think like, I think it was like a deal breaker for him, which was so interesting because I was like, oh, but it's just, it's just shorthand, you know, like, like, I, I think people have a lot of baggage around it.

• 1:35:10Speaker 06

  They do, yeah.

• 1:35:10Yasi Salek?

  You know?

• 1:35:11Speaker 06

  Understandably.

• 1:35:12Yasi Salek?

  Sure, of course, but like, it is just really funny and it's, you put it in the title

• 1:35:17Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:35:18Yasi Salek?

  And in one of the main song titles.

• 1:35:20Speaker 06

  There's two, there's two songs that start with the word God. And I say God on a lot of songs.

• 1:35:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. You didn't grow up religious?

• 1:35:28Speaker 06

  Definitely did to some degree. I mean.

• 1:35:31Yasi Salek?

  You also grew up in the rooms.

• 1:35:32Speaker 06

  I think, yeah, well, that, that's a big part of it.

• 1:35:34Yasi Salek?

  Big higher power energy.

• 1:35:35Speaker 06

  When you, when you grow up around recovery.

• 1:35:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:39Speaker 06

  It depends on where someone's at in their addiction, how much they're reaching for something like that. And it would be on and off of like, suddenly the family's religious again.

• 1:35:50Yasi Salek?

  Right, right.

• 1:35:51Speaker 06

  And then it would completely disappear from our lives and then we'd be religious again. Higher power is definitely a thing in that. But, I mean, when I was a little kid, my mom would tell me stories that like, because we were very religious at a young age, that when I was really young, that I would talk about Jesus all the time. Like, it was like, I would not shut the fuck up.

• 1:36:12Yasi Salek?

  Because you're an obsessive person, and then you became obsessed with Jesus.

• 1:36:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, I tried to convert a neighbor when I was a little kid with a children's bible that I had. But no, I don't believe in God.

• 1:36:23Yasi Salek?

  You don't believe in God?

• 1:36:24Speaker 06

  I believe in something. I like, I don't think all this is happening in my life purely out of coincidence necessarily.

• 1:36:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I guess that's more the question. Again, I guess because I use it as a shorthand, I forget that. I remember someone phrased it to me as this, like, "Do you believe that everything is indifferent, chaotic, and random? Or do you believe that there is some unifying, like, situation that is sort of like benevolent?"

• 1:36:52Speaker 06

  I don't think it's either. I just, a lot of what I believe is just in karma. Like, just like, when I'm doing bad things, I find something bad happens to me pretty quickly after I make a decision I know that I shouldn't have made.

• 1:37:04Yasi Salek?

  See, it feels like a consequence, but often karma is like across lifetimes, though, you know?

• 1:37:10Speaker 06

  I think that I, if that, if it is across lifetimes, I paid for something very greatly in the first half of my life.

• 1:37:18Yasi Salek?

  Do you know that there's like, some spiritual theories that your soul chooses the circumstances that it's born into in order to work out, like, a thing that is trying to be worked out by the soul? And that's, that's just one interesting theory, right?

• 1:37:38Speaker 06

  I don't know why my soul chose the timeline with AI and...

• 1:37:42Yasi Salek?

  I know, but I don't know why any of ours chose the timeline with AI, but, I mean, you're making, you're making really good music about it. So, there is at least some, you know, purpose.

• 1:37:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel purpose and, um, but as far as like religion, I, I've read a thing about like, what, how particles behave when they're observed and not observed? And there is an un... Like quantifiable reason for if you if unobserved, they behave one way. If they are observed, they pay for.

• 1:38:13Yasi Salek?

  They do not wish to be perceived particles in general.

• 1:38:16Speaker 06

  And I kind of like that kind of felt like more of a foundational thing for me of like in the way of. What's the term where you're manifesting?

• 1:38:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:25Speaker 06

  Like manifesting in a way like I focus my energy like towards all these. Unmovable objects.

• 1:38:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:32Speaker 06

  Like when I wanted to get signed by Loma Vista, I listened to a lot of Loma Vista artists.

• 1:38:38Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:38:38Speaker 06

  And was just engaging with everything that they do. And. Uh, when I want to tour with a band, I'll listen to that band a lot and like I just do these things. And I think that's largely just to make myself. Feel okay about things that I'm completely not in control of.

• 1:38:54Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:38:54Speaker 06

  But at the same time, it's had results. So it's this weird thing. I think.

• 1:39:00Yasi Salek?

  Attention is powerful.

• 1:39:01Speaker 06

  I think organized religion is evil, like wholesale, completely.

• 1:39:05Yasi Salek?

  All of it?

• 1:39:06Speaker 06

  I think every one of them.

• 1:39:08Yasi Salek?

  Really?

• 1:39:09Speaker 06

  All fucked. I, I don't believe in any of it. I think that the. Someone standing in front of you and saying they ha- they have the answer.

• 1:39:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:17Speaker 06

  Is an evil perspective.

• 1:39:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:19Speaker 06

  I think that that means they're selling you something. It means that. Cause they know that they don't. Everyone knows. Deep down that they do not have the answer or they're a raging egomaniac who you should not be listening to.

• 1:39:31Yasi Salek?

  Listen, I completely agree with you on one end where I do think like organized religion has absolutely been perverted and like. Done terrible things.

• 1:39:41Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:39:41Yasi Salek?

  Under the guise of.

• 1:39:43Speaker 06

  It doesn't have to be that way, but it is.

• 1:39:45Yasi Salek?

  But I think that's the human element. Humans are fucked.

• 1:39:47Speaker 06

  Humans are.

• 1:39:48Yasi Salek?

  But I think like, you know, there are people within all of these organized religions who are just real believers like.

• 1:39:55Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:39:55Yasi Salek?

  They don't believe they have the answers, but they have faith. And they believe in the answer that is part of their religion and it gives them solace and it gives them hope and. I, I do like, again, I'm not like, I don't have an organized religion. Like I like to play fast and loose of like. Sometimes I wear a sacred hearts. I have a, you know, shout out Father Pocomius, the monk, Catholic monk that listens to bands playing. That's right.

• 1:40:21Speaker 06

  Is that against the religion?

• 1:40:23Yasi Salek?

  I asked him, I was like, can you, can you listen to podcasts? And he said, yeah.

• 1:40:27Speaker 06

  It's one of those loopholes, it just wasn't around in the

• 1:40:30Yasi Salek?

  I think God, I think God is very pro bands playing. And in my understanding of God, why would God care about bands playing? Why would God care if I were a sacred heart or not? Like, I just, I do, I do know that for some people, it's greatly helpful.

• 1:40:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:40:45Yasi Salek?

  And I also do think that like, that what's happening with the pendulum swing of like, full secularity is also not giving. Like, people are lost, babe. Look at Swifties. Do you know what I mean? Like, Swifties is what happens when people are godless.

• 1:41:05Yasi Salek?

  I, you think I'm joking?

• 1:41:06Speaker 06

  No, I love, I love that observation.

• 1:41:08Yasi Salek?

  I genuinely think like, they are pouring in what would otherwise be reserved for a religious fervor and, and faith into a pop star, which is fine. But I don't know if it's gonna give you the same solace, you know? And I, I don't know what the answer is. I'm not saying like, everyone should be fucking Catholic or whatever. Like, and again, I don't even know anything about the organized religions. Like, I'm not, I didn't grow up in one, you know? Like, I just used to go to them sometimes when I was a kid, because I was so curious. But like, I don't know anything about it. But I do, to the point of like, when, when you say God and people are like, eh, you know, ew, you know?

• 1:41:46Speaker 06

  Well, I feel like that, if, that's why it was an evocative title.

• 1:41:49Yasi Salek?

  So you were trying to be punk?

• 1:41:50Speaker 06

  Well, one, I mean, I love the idea of like, using someone else's title, like, our version of that thing, in a way, you know? Like, it's like Nirvana, the band, the show.

• 1:42:04Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:42:04Speaker 06

  You know, like?

• 1:42:06Yasi Salek?

  Or, uh, Replacements, uh, Let It Be.

• 1:42:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Basement did a record called Be Here Now.

• 1:42:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:13Speaker 06

  I love it in that way of like taking the cultural reference and being like, this is our version of it and like where this is the American version of that idea.

• 1:42:23Yasi Salek?

  I mean, you have yourself on the cover in what looks to be a religious pose. You're wearing a robe.

• 1:42:30Speaker 06

  Well, it was, I really, we went through so many ideas for the cover art. And I got this, I don't know how much I should say about the reference, the source material for a lot of it. But I got a book on a cult and I really identified with this one image of just someone putting their hands to the sky. And I felt that way at the time that I really wanted to be able to just like put my hands up and be rescued.

• 1:42:59Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:42:59Speaker 06

  You know, like there's a reading of it, of, of, of the thing as a, as a cult leader. But I think of it more as a follower.

• 1:43:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:07Speaker 06

  Of someone in desperate need for salvation.

• 1:43:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:09Speaker 06

  For the, the just wanting the weight to be lifted off of you and to just trust an unknowing being. And, and I have that desire so much to feel as though I could have any faith that someone outside of myself could rescue me. But I have not ever received any data that could lead me to believe that that's true.

• 1:43:34Yasi Salek?

  I think the irony is it's what actually rescues you is just the act of surrender.

• 1:43:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:40Yasi Salek?

  It's just this part. It's not even anything past that, right? You don't even have to believe that there's anything past that. But once you do this, you are kind of absolved.

• 1:43:50Speaker 06

  Well, you're open. Open is the most important thing.

• 1:43:53Yasi Salek?

  You know?

• 1:43:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:55Yasi Salek?

  This leads me to my next question. I felt very, when I was reading my 400 interviews, I was like, wow, this is why me and Ian and our friends feel a lot of.

• 1:44:04Speaker 06

  Okay, I'm excited.

• 1:44:05Yasi Salek?

  Well, because you said this in Office Magazine, earnestness is, I think, the MG brand. That means being embarrassed. It means risking embarrassment. It means that you could take a lyric and make fun of me and I'm going to have to be okay with that. As you know, cringe, but free, it's all. But I was so interested because then somehow I stumbled upon an older interview. This is why I'm good at my job.

• 1:44:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:44:27Yasi Salek?

  Grammy.com, two years ago.

• 1:44:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:44:30Yasi Salek?

  One of my main desires in life is to escape the embarrassment that I feel all the time. For some reason, I feel like there's an invisible enemy on my heels at all times.

• 1:44:39Speaker 06

  I knew this was gonna be gotcha journalism today.

• 1:44:41Yasi Salek?

  It's not gotcha journalism. I knew, I knew this was gonna be gotcha journalism.

• 1:44:46Speaker 06

  I was like, this is gonna be the hard hitting one.

• 1:44:48Yasi Salek?

  This woman asked me about God and why. No, no, it's, to me, it's, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like you've evolved. It seems like something has changed in the last two years and you've been able to like, you know, and be like, okay, it's fine to be embarrassed, you know?

• 1:45:02Speaker 06

  Well, that is how to escape the embarrassment, is to not care about embarrassment.

• 1:45:06Yasi Salek?

  I am cringe, but I am free.

• 1:45:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. And you're a part of that ethos forming. You talk about it and it does inform my worldview. I just have, I've kind of come around to the idea that I am, have to be people's avatars to some degree, like it's why you invest in a band.

• 1:45:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:26Speaker 06

  And I think that out of everything that people want is freedom.

• 1:45:31Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:45:32Speaker 06

  And so for me to be free is the only, is the only way that I could actually like, deliver on the expectation of someone who invests their time and money and their emotions into us, is I have to embody what they hope to be. And it is embarrassing, you know, like we were talking about fucking TikTok and like, I really want to reach these new people that are all out there that I can't, that I'm behind an algorithmic wall and I can't. And, but I like risk the embarrassment of it, because I know there's like people in other bands or whatever that look at our shit and they're hating behind closed doors. And at the same time, like those people wouldn't have.

• 1:46:17Speaker 06

  Said the things that we say on record, they wouldn't have chose to go down the roads that we are. I don't think they're in pursuit of as much as, as, as we are like emotionally and artistically. And therefore, like, I have to, I have to strike out. I have to be willing, like, there's no other way. Otherwise, we'll just make safe nonsense that I don't have any interest in partaking.

• 1:46:42Yasi Salek?

  It's not creatively fulfilling for you to do that.

• 1:46:45Speaker 06

  I have to be out on the ledge to be, to be.

• 1:46:47Yasi Salek?

  To feel alive.

• 1:46:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, unfortunately.

• 1:46:50Yasi Salek?

  Well, I also do think like, the TikTok thing is, like, if you were not a person that just said, like, I love making music videos and like, I think you like attention, you know? I also love attention, that's not, that's not a pejorative. It's more natural, like, when I see you or Missy from Mannequin Pissy doing TikToks.

• 1:47:09Speaker 06

  Best at it.

• 1:47:09Yasi Salek?

  But I'm just like, because, like, I need you guys to teach me.

• 1:47:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:47:12Yasi Salek?

  Because like, I'm like, oh, this just feels like so normal and natural. It doesn't feel like you're just trying to do it to like, beat the algorithm or you're like, get ready with me or like, whatever, do a TikTok dance or whatever. Again, I'm so like, behind on, all I do on TikTok is like, watch like, like weird bitches clean their apartments or whatever.

• 1:47:31Speaker 06

  Body cam footage of DUIs and.

• 1:47:35Yasi Salek?

  Yours is basically the TV show Cops, but broken up into TikToks.

• 1:47:39Speaker 06

  It's like domestic violence arrests, DUIs, I'm just going back to my childhood.

• 1:47:43Yasi Salek?

  Sure, I'm like, you're like reliving.

• 1:47:45Speaker 06

  Back, you know?

• 1:47:46Yasi Salek?

  Mine is absolutely smooth brain, like, I just wanna watch someone be like, every Sunday I reset my home, here's what I do. And it's like watching them vacuum and like dust and stuff.

• 1:47:55Speaker 06

  Do you watch the rug cleaning videos?

• 1:47:57Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:47:57Speaker 06

  Those ones are good.

• 1:47:58Yasi Salek?

  Or the, or the, the one where they clean the shower with the, the power washer thing, you know? And then I'm like, do I need one of these? Or go to a TikTok shop and get a power washer? I really respect Missy, cuz I feel like she is what I basically wanna do, where I'm like. Because like, most of what you see on TikTok is like, the strongest fucking ring light you've ever seen in your fucking life, and this woman who has not one pore and whatever. And like, Missy's gorgeous, that's not what I'm saying. But she does not do that, like, she's not like-

• 1:48:26Speaker 06

  No, she's like backstage in the lighting, isn't it?

• 1:48:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like, she's just like, and it ma- and that's honestly inspiring to me because like, I'm like, oh, I want to do that too, because like, influencer culture is so fucking toxic, because all it does is make you think you're not good enough.

• 1:48:39Speaker 06

  Well, and it's not, it's not genuine, like-

• 1:48:41Yasi Salek?

  Not at all.

• 1:48:42Speaker 06

  And that's what's so great, I mean, I feel like the, the, the real thing with Missy, and I feel like why,

• 1:48:48Yasi Salek?

  Your kindred experience.

• 1:48:49Speaker 06

  Like, gravitated towards each other creatively is that it's just, I feel like there's a priority on like, what is the realest version of everything?

• 1:48:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:59Speaker 06

  And like, even though you indulge in these social media things, it's never not the real version. And that's what I watch her stuff and I admire, where I'm like, I can't do that, like, I, like-

• 1:49:11Yasi Salek?

  Why?

• 1:49:12Speaker 06

  Looking into a cellphone and being myself at the same time does not work.

• 1:49:17Yasi Salek?

  Right, you need someone to film you while you're walking and chit-chatting.

• 1:49:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly it. But, but Missy's doing it, and I'm like, that's the, that's the person I know in real life.

• 1:49:26Yasi Salek?

  Totally. Oh yeah, what you see is, and she's exactly like that, she's the coolest.

• 1:49:30Speaker 06

  I feel like I talk about her too much, we gotta frickin' move on.

• 1:49:33Yasi Salek?

  I talk about her all the time too, I'm, I'm really, in, in a parallel life, that's me. I always look at her and I'm like, with, I'm like, you look like my little sister, and I wish I had fronted a really cool fucking hardcore punk band, but instead, I'm a, but I'm a podcaster.

• 1:49:49Yasi Salek?

  Do you feel like making music is a way for you to exorcise those demons? Like, do you feel like you're sort of like reparenting yourself, to use like therapy slang, or whatever, like, or kind of re, renegotiating the past by putting it in such plain terms and sort of like, understanding yourself?

• 1:50:11Speaker 06

  Definitely, I mean- It's trying to just externalize it in a way that I can rationalize it a different way. And so much of it is trying to be empathetic towards the people who have hurt me. And trying to find a new angle to see why they did what they did. Unfortunately, I feel like I've gone through a little bit of a change. And I'm a little bit less empathetic in my current mindset.

• 1:50:39Yasi Salek?

  You're in your non-empathetic era.

• 1:50:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm going anti-empathy. I want to feel sane and I've never felt sane. And that was why drinking ended up speaking to me so much was that it was the first thing that made me feel sane.

• 1:50:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it gives you a lobotomy, that's why.

• 1:50:56Speaker 06

  Exactly, yeah, it's like, oh, let's shut this bitch down.

• 1:50:59Yasi Salek?

  You're not sane.

• 1:51:00Speaker 06

  The lights are going out, yeah. And that felt great, it felt amazing and it didn't work.

• 1:51:08Speaker 06

  But it, you know, it's so much of it. And that's what's so funny, like, you know, there's a review that came out talking shit about us.

• 1:51:16Yasi Salek?

  What? How dare?

• 1:51:18Speaker 06

  We won't say the publication, you can guess it. But I didn't read it, but I've had people tell me pieces of it. And it was like, I guess they made a jab about it being like a concept record. But it's funny because it was never written as a concept record. It just feel like that concept really fell into place because I'm a broken record and keep talking about the same things.

• 1:51:40Yasi Salek?

  Having a recurring theme because that's what you're experiencing is not the same as making a concept record. Words mean things.

• 1:51:49Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:51:49Yasi Salek?

  Concept record is something.

• 1:51:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, so, I mean, you know, music journalism's broken, so.

• 1:51:57Yasi Salek?

  In the flop era, then.

• 1:51:59Speaker 06

  But it just, that, it's just, I'm just a broken record is all it is.

• 1:52:03Yasi Salek?

  No, because the repetition is part of what makes it impactful. I feel like you, you're working something out, so it's gonna recur.

• 1:52:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:52:14Yasi Salek?

  I think it's really great. I mean, kinda to your point where you were saying a couple of questions ago where you're talking about like, you want, you're offering something in terms of being an avatar for people emotionally. Like, it really reminded me of, we just did a Jimmy Eat World episode.

• 1:52:29Speaker 06

  Oh, nice.

• 1:52:29Yasi Salek?

  But I was just thinking about like how that wave of sort of emo music, for lack of a better word, was also kinda that, where it's like, it, like, you talk to like forty-five-year-old men and they're like, "I didn't know that you could be emotional like that." "Yeah, I didn't know you were allowed to talk like that."

• 1:52:46Speaker 06

  "I'm wearing the flannel and the New Balances right now and I didn't know that I could say these things."

• 1:52:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and it like sort of gave a permission to sort of explore a different way of being a man, you know?

• 1:52:59Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:53:00Yasi Salek?

  Not to gender it, but like, you know. Hardcore music is quite...

• 1:53:05Speaker 06

  A lot of people who need the learning are specifically...

• 1:53:08Yasi Salek?

  Not me, sister.

• 1:53:09Speaker 06

  Men.

• 1:53:10Yasi Salek?

  When will we hear the song with Manic and Pissed called "World's Always Burning" that you took off this album that I read about in this?

• 1:53:17Speaker 06

  Uh, hopefully next year.

• 1:53:19Yasi Salek?

  You can put out as a little seven-inch?

• 1:53:20Speaker 06

  We recorded six more songs that didn't make the record, so we're trying to figure out what to do with it. There's one really mean-spirited song on it that I actually don't think I wanna release, cuz it's...

• 1:53:31Yasi Salek?

  Do you think people will know right away who it's about?

• 1:53:32Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:53:33Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:53:34Speaker 06

  The person who it's about would know.

• 1:53:36Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:53:36Speaker 06

  And also, there's other people who I hope wouldn't interpret it to be about them.

• 1:53:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:41Speaker 06

  Self. And so I just was like, maybe, I'm off the mark on that song as far as like using, this is using it for a bad reason.

• 1:53:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, perhaps you, you got what you needed out of writing it, but you don't need to release it.

• 1:53:54Speaker 06

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:53:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:55Speaker 06

  But there's some really songs that I really love that are on that, and so I'm hoping that we will drop something of it next year.

• 1:54:04Yasi Salek?

  You guys are really fucking churning them out, huh?

• 1:54:06Speaker 06

  "World's Always Burning," I wanted to write a song that would age terribly.

• 1:54:10Yasi Salek?

  Okay, it's just like really hyper-specific internet language and...

• 1:54:13Speaker 06

  No, there's a little bit of that in it. I mean, I love the song "Love It If We Made It" by the 1975, and...

• 1:54:19Yasi Salek?

  We love the 1975.

• 1:54:21Speaker 06

  I love, I wanna meet Matt Haley.

• 1:54:23Yasi Salek?

  Dummy your heroes, though.

• 1:54:24Speaker 06

  We went to, we, we recorded some stuff at Jack Antonoff's studio like a couple of weeks ago and I was just like...

• 1:54:30Yasi Salek?

  You were hoping Manny would just pop up out of nowhere.

• 1:54:32Speaker 06

  Cause I think his office is there too, but he wasn't there, so unfortunately.

• 1:54:35Yasi Salek?

  I'm sure you will meet him eventually.

• 1:54:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, I hope so. But I wanted to write a song that was like, one, like, my brother would make fun of me. He's like, if you get drunk, you start talking about the world ending. Like, every single time, without fail, I'll start talking about water shortage and AI.

• 1:54:50Yasi Salek?

  This is like your preoccupation?

• 1:54:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, this is like what I think about.

• 1:54:55Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:54:55Speaker 06

  And I think about the disconnection we all have between us and the way that

• 1:55:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think about that a lot.

• 1:55:01Speaker 06

  Community is, is the ultimate answer.

• 1:55:04Yasi Salek?

  I know, but again, what, what fostered a lot of community? I know, I'm sorry to bring it back to it, but I do feel like what people never want to talk about is that a thing that fostered a lot of community was religion.

• 1:55:15Speaker 06

  I know, yeah.

• 1:55:16Yasi Salek?

  And I'm not saying we need to bring that back, I'm just saying it did leave a void.

• 1:55:20Speaker 06

  It would be better, but unfortunately, there, that is also a space of derision.

• 1:55:25Yasi Salek?

  Well, I really thought.

• 1:55:27Speaker 06

  Politics.

• 1:55:28Yasi Salek?

  I know. Well, well, I think, you know, organized religion was obviously in many ways partially made to control people. And then they had the governments, they didn't need it. And now they have the internets, they definitely don't need government or, uh, organized religion. But I, I really felt like when all these like cool churches started popping up again, like, you know, that that happened like eight years ago. Like, there was like, obviously the Hillsong, which wasn't very cool, but like, you see them around LA all the time. Like, there are these like hip, like, I would, I've not been inside, but I assume it's like Santal scented and like, you know, whatever, like.

• 1:56:01Speaker 06

  They got the Aesop soap.

• 1:56:03Yasi Salek?

  Absolutely, they got the Aesop soap, fucking bumping in the bathroom of the cool church. But I thought those would kind of take off.

• 1:56:09Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:56:09Yasi Salek?

  Big filling this void, but I really think people are so fucking scared of religion.

• 1:56:14Speaker 06

  One of the ones that took off, uh, ended up being a

• 1:56:17Yasi Salek?

  Sex cult?

• 1:56:18Speaker 06

  Sex trap, sex trafficking thing. By my house.

• 1:56:21Yasi Salek?

  This is why we can't have nice things. No way.

• 1:56:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, their gate was all busted, we'd drive down, drive by the house all the time and the gate was rammed by the police.

• 1:56:30Yasi Salek?

  I have the same preoccupations as you, particularly, particularly with the disconnection.

• 1:56:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:56:36Yasi Salek?

  Cause it really fucking freaks me out and bums me out. And I also experience it, you know, like, I think we all kind of actively experience it as well. And I just like, I need to be hopeful about it.

• 1:56:50Speaker 06

  I don't know that there's much to feel hopeful, cause anything that unites a large amount of people now is literally a 50/50 split thing, where it, there's nothing that crosses the line that I've seen. Like, we can't even talk about it because everyone gets, like, my whole thing is I just wanna talk about community. And like, loving your, like, hating your neighbor is the problem. Talking to your neighbor in a civil manner.

• 1:57:17Yasi Salek?

  You're right back, you're nine years old, you have your child bible, and you're talking about Jesus who said to love your neighbor.

• 1:57:23Speaker 06

  It's the same, I mean, I feel like there's a lot of similar, obviously, religion must carry over in an unconscious way in my life.

• 1:57:31Yasi Salek?

  It's archetypical, you know?

• 1:57:32Speaker 06

  It's also like, down to, like, I actively will surround myself with flawed people.

• 1:57:40Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:57:40Speaker 06

  Like, I think that that is an important part of life. That's part of, like, growing up in recovery with my mom.

• 1:57:45Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:57:45Speaker 06

  Like, I never grew up with the idea that you made a mistake and therefore you're dead forever. I don't understand it.

• 1:57:51Yasi Salek?

  I don't understand it either.

• 1:57:52Speaker 06

  You know, like, in my own life, like, I've seen every member of my family besides my youngest brother and myself be arrested. Like, it's, I don't believe in the idea of the one-way evil.

• 1:58:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:04Speaker 06

  And that trickles down into like, what is the culture of disconnection for me in a large way? Where I'm just fundamentally disconnected from so much of what like, youth culture is now. Because it buys in wholesale on the idea that you make a mistake and therefore you're gone.

• 1:58:18Yasi Salek?

  Um, they're all cops.

• 1:58:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, that is 100%. There's an amazing self-defense family shirt that's just Snoopy, dressed as a cop. And it says, "If you hate cops so much, why are you always acting like one?"

• 1:58:29Yasi Salek?

  Why are you always acting like one? They're all fucking cops, man.

• 1:58:32Speaker 06

  It's true. And that's what's so funny is like, these people who are talking about abolishing prisons also believe in... This like endless incarceration.

• 1:58:42Yasi Salek?

  That's right. They're like, we don't need prisons, babe, because I'm here to tell you what the fuck you're fucking up and how no one should talk to you.

• 1:58:47Speaker 06

  Well, that, I feel like, I don't know how much it's talked about, but I feel like The Hateful Eight was such a great commentary.

• 1:58:54Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:58:54Speaker 06

  On those things and because it's actually intellectually stimulating and not hack bullshit that just addresses it head on. It goes unnoticed.

• 1:59:03Yasi Salek?

  Unfortunately, you have to really dumb it down sometimes.

• 1:59:06Speaker 06

  But like the idea of frontier justice versus justice.

• 1:59:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:11Speaker 06

  You know, like, the, the hangman needs to be impartial.

• 1:59:16Yasi Salek?

  The hangman needs to, that, that's kind of, I mean, that is, justice is.

• 1:59:21Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:59:21Yasi Salek?

  You know, like, it's, it's, it's blind. It's, all of, all of this stuff is in the DNA of humanity.

• 1:59:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:59:28Yasi Salek?

  Archetypical, it's back there and we're all ignoring it.

• 1:59:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's true. I, I mean, that's what we're ignoring all of it, which is why we need to go back to religion.

• 1:59:36Yasi Salek?

  That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. But I do think we, I do think we need, we need something.

• 1:59:42Speaker 06

  Something, yeah.

• 1:59:43Yasi Salek?

  Something, something gotta give, you know?

• 1:59:45Speaker 06

  Unfortunately, our TikTok algorithms are totally different. You know what I'm saying? There's no unifying because it's all.

• 1:59:51Yasi Salek?

  There's no monoculture.

• 1:59:51Speaker 06

  There's no monoculture, so we're fucked.

• 1:59:54Yasi Salek?

  That's so true. It all goes back to.

• 1:59:57Speaker 06

  It's unfortunate.

• 1:59:58Yasi Salek?

  Well, I think they should give me the keys to MTV.

• 2:00:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:00:01Yasi Salek?

  And let me take over.

• 2:00:02Speaker 06

  Just license the, whatever the trademark is now.

• 2:00:05Yasi Salek?

  I know. I heard they were bringing it back, but TBD. Last, I guess, last question, speaking of youth culture. Do you know about six, seven?

• 2:00:14Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:00:15Yasi Salek?

  Why am I the last person to know about six, seven? Is it because it's like I'm really, that's how I know I'm really old?

• 2:00:19Speaker 06

  It's literally just a litmus test for being old.

• 2:00:22Yasi Salek?

  I think it, it is, right?

• 2:00:23Speaker 06

  That is.

• 2:00:23Yasi Salek?

  I never even like encountered it. It's just been talked about around the Ringer office.

• 2:00:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:00:29Yasi Salek?

  And then I was really.

• 2:00:29Speaker 06

  Once you know that it's reached the Ringer office, it's dead.

• 2:00:32Yasi Salek?

  It's dead. Well, I was, I became really obsessed with it because, because the person I was talking to about it is. Twenty something, like they were born in two thousand.

• 2:00:41Speaker 06

  That's still, that's still too old for six, seven.

• 2:00:42Yasi Salek?

  No, totally. And he was, he was not saying, cause he used it.

• 2:00:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:45Yasi Salek?

  He was like, it doesn't mean anything. And I was like, that's not possible, cause everything means something. It's telegraphing something, you know? And so I got really...

• 2:00:53Speaker 06

  And I think that the test is...

• 2:00:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's like, or it's like...

• 2:00:55Speaker 06

  If you're left out, that's it.

• 2:00:57Yasi Salek?

  Do you use it?

• 2:00:58Speaker 06

  No.

• 2:00:59Yasi Salek?

  Okay, cause you're too old for that, too.

• 2:01:00Speaker 06

  So I'm too old. No, I don't do the hello fellow kids.

• 2:01:04Yasi Salek?

  How did it come across your desk?

• 2:01:06Speaker 06

  I feel like the first time I saw it was the, the rapper David getting roasted for using it.

• 2:01:12Yasi Salek?

  I'm sorry, the, this is the one who had a fifteen year old girl murdered in his trunk, who is...

• 2:01:18Speaker 06

  Not arrested yet, so who's to say? I feel like they would have arrested him. I feel like they would have arrested him already.

• 2:01:24Yasi Salek?

  Is it in my trunk? Six, seven?

• 2:01:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. So it was around that time. That was my, I definitely was late to it.

• 2:01:30Yasi Salek?

  And you're pretty online.

• 2:01:32Speaker 06

  But I don't think it's online.

• 2:01:33Yasi Salek?

  It's not online, it's an IRL activity.

• 2:01:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think it's an IRL.

• 2:01:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Robert Velasquez's children use it. And they're like, I think ten or something.

• 2:01:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, I had my, my girlfriend, I, I told her to ask her nieces and nephews how much they say it. And the teenage boy said corny.

• 2:01:51Yasi Salek?

  Okay, cause he's old.

• 2:01:52Speaker 06

  And the like, ten year old girl was like, it's, like, they're like, that's all she says.

• 2:01:57Yasi Salek?

  As just like, a punctuation?

• 2:01:59Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:01:59Yasi Salek?

  Like LOL.

• 2:02:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Yasi Salek?

  So, it's so fascinating.

• 2:02:03Speaker 06

  Even teenage boys are out on it now. Fifteen year old boys are out.

• 2:02:07Yasi Salek?

  I'm so, I'm so not part of that culture, and that is...

• 2:02:12Speaker 06

  You should not be.

• 2:02:13Yasi Salek?

  It's not for me.

• 2:02:14Speaker 06

  If there was a grown man who came up to me, he was like, six, seven, I'd be like, lock him up.

• 2:02:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you'd be like...

• 2:02:19Speaker 06

  Lock him up.

• 2:02:20Yasi Salek?

  To catch a predator, babe. To catch a predator.

• 2:02:22Speaker 06

  Wait, there, there is a, there's a band...

• 2:02:25Yasi Salek?

  Called To Catch A Predator?

• 2:02:26Speaker 06

  No, no, there's a band...

• 2:02:27Yasi Salek?

  That has a pedophile in it?

• 2:02:28Speaker 06

  That, that, when people say positive things about, I'll say, put him on the list.

• 2:02:34Yasi Salek?

  Love put him on the list.

• 2:02:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, put him on the list. This person.

• 2:02:37Yasi Salek?

  You can tell me that.

• 2:02:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, off, off mic.

• 2:02:39Yasi Salek?

  As well.

• 2:02:40Speaker 06

  People will be able to guess. It's a band of teenage girls, so.

• 2:02:43Yasi Salek?

  Oh. Full list. Fully put him on the list. Yeah, and Angie's List. I did an interview a while ago where they were, we're talking about Nirvana, and I got so fucking dragged in the comments of the clip where I was talking about, because I was saying, and I realized, like, of course.

• 2:03:00Speaker 06

  Hey, that's engagement.

• 2:03:01Yasi Salek?

  It's an engagement. Of course, I can only see the world through my lens of being my age, you know? But I, I genuinely was like, I think Nirvana is still cool. I think like, I think something happened.

• 2:03:13Speaker 06

  You got pushback against that?

• 2:03:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like, people were like, oh, old people talking about their old time music, trying to say it's still relevant. And I was like, but, I was like, okay, I'd get it if I was talk, I, I don't know, I felt really shocked.

• 2:03:24Speaker 06

  Well, there's a, there's a really big age thing happening now.

• 2:03:28Yasi Salek?

  Ageist?

• 2:03:29Speaker 06

  Like, yeah.

• 2:03:30Yasi Salek?

  Like you not putting me in the music video as a hot cheerleader?

• 2:03:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, uh, similar to that. But I feel like Gen Z is very anti, like, like the, the pushing thirty, pushing forty, by the way, like, leaving that comment on things. Have you seen that?

• 2:03:44Yasi Salek?

  Is that like a diss?

• 2:03:46Speaker 06

  Yes. That's like Gen Z.

• 2:03:48Yasi Salek?

  I think if someone push, writes pushing forty on my, my social media, I'll pass away.

• 2:03:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's a, there's like.

• 2:03:55Yasi Salek?

  I'm forty-three.

• 2:03:55Speaker 06

  This Fortnite streamer girl, this is all so.

• 2:03:58Yasi Salek?

  We're, we're like so addled. We're, it's, we're so internet addled, yeah.

• 2:04:03Speaker 06

  But all of her comments are like, she's just having a good time, she's like, maybe twenty-nine or something like that, and people are like, pushing forty, by the way, to like, any clip of her having fun. They just hate, they just hate.

• 2:04:14Yasi Salek?

  They hate olds. Incredible. I mean, I kind of stick by it, and I just want to say to the haters, none of you are listening to that, that podcast came out four months ago, but I, in my neighborhood, there's one guy who's prob, from my eye gauging, in his twenties, right? He's definitely not older than his twenties, and every day I see him walking to the liquor store to buy cigarettes, and every day he's wearing some different alt-rock t-shirt from the nineties, and many times I've seen him in a Nirvana.

• 2:04:41Speaker 06

  Still the coolest era.

• 2:04:42Yasi Salek?

  Sorry.

• 2:04:43Speaker 06

  That's it.

• 2:04:44Yasi Salek?

  Fucking tell it to a wall, bitch.

• 2:04:46Speaker 06

  We had it. The right combo. Of drugs.

• 2:04:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:51Speaker 06

  And rock and roll.

• 2:04:53Yasi Salek?

  Monoculture, but also.

• 2:04:54Speaker 06

  It was there.

• 2:04:55Yasi Salek?

  Subculture. It was all hitting.

• 2:04:57Speaker 06

  What was so great is like, all of the bands who are truly great, you can trace back their roots to, like, even Modest Mouse, like, that's Fugazi on drugs.

• 2:05:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:09Speaker 06

  You know, like, Isaac lived at Positive Force DC, like.

• 2:05:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:14Speaker 06

  He came from hardcore in whatever way, and like, all these other bands, like, you can trace back, all the best ones, you could trace back their roots to like.

• 2:05:23Yasi Salek?

  To Fugazi.

• 2:05:24Speaker 06

  Subculture and.

• 2:05:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:25Speaker 06

  Specifically Fugazi.

• 2:05:27Yasi Salek?

  It's a beautiful way to end this, end this podcast. Ian, it's been a real pleasure to hang out with you. I'm sorry we didn't. I'm sorry that we didn't get to hang out in a more social and casual way than I.

• 2:05:37Speaker 06

  If you have time after this, we can grab food.

• 2:05:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:39Speaker 06

  Let's do it.

• 2:05:40Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Come back next week for a new episode of Bands Play.

• 2:05:51Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bands Play. Our guests today were Rob Harvilla of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: Cole and the 2000s, and also Ian Shelton of the band Militarie Gun. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video, animation, and graphics are by John Richter. Executive producers for Bands Play are Gina Delbacke and me, Yasi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Clavon, and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, AKA Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fantasy, Michael Hardman, Casey Simonson, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDonough, Dana Myerson, Jessica Hopper,

• 2:06:35Yasi Salek?

  and those dark chocolate toffee things from Trader Joe's. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bands Play on Spotify or wherever you listen or watch podcasts.

• 2:06:53Yasi Salek?

  I guess the very last thing, what did I want to tell you?

• 2:06:58Yasi Salek?

  I forgot. I guess it's not that important. Sure, it was related to six, seven, but... All conversations, all roads lead to six, seven and just end there, I guess. That's a, that's a conversation killer.

• 2:07:10Speaker 06

  It is a killer, yeah.

• 2:07:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you can't...

• 2:07:12Speaker 06

  We've outed, we've outed ourselves. It's so old. Like, it's, it's done.

• 2:07:19Speaker 00

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• 2:07:28Speaker 00

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• 2:07:49Speaker 05

  Now streaming on Paramount+. I'm Dexter Morgan. I've been killing killers for half my life. It gets to you. You're having a midlife crisis. I'm not ready for this. He's back. I'm older. I'm wiser. And sharper than ever. Things are gonna get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything. Dexter Resurrection. New season now streaming on the Paramount+ Premium Plan.