“Amber”—311

Rob explores the genre-fluid positive energy of rap/reggae/rock ‘90s holdovers 311 and their hit ‘Amber.’ Among other things, he also talks about them as a bridge from a previous era, the musicality of their bass in particular, and the way they’re in conversation with bands that petered out in the ‘90s, as well as bands that grew in popularity in the 2000s. Then, Rob is joined by New York magazine music critic Craig Jenkins to discuss why 311 is actually good and situates their legacy as it stands today. Yasi's GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/yasis-house-burned-down-to-the-ground Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Craig Jenkins Producers: Jonathan Kermah, Justin Sayles, and Bobby Wagner Additional Production Support: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hello friends. Real quick before we start, I wanted to say that our friend and colleague Yasi Solak, host of Vansplain, she lost her house last week in the devastating fires in and around Los Angeles. And there is now a GoFundMe set up to support her. So many people are struggling and in grave need at this moment. And I think even Yasi is simultaneously helping raise money for so many others. But if you do want to contribute to Yasi's GoFundMe, we'll put that link in the show notes. Thank you so much and stay safe.

• 0:36Speaker 01

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• 1:51Speaker 00

  So I go see a hockey game, right? I go see the Columbus Blue Jackets, who are a real hockey team, a real NHL team. This is late 2000, early 2001, and the Columbus Blue Jackets are the newest NHL expansion team. Blue Jackets is a reference to Ohio Civil War history. Never mind which side Ohio fought on in the Civil War. I forget, I dig going to hockey games. Man, I've been to like 12 hockey games in my life total, but I dig it. I dig the chilliness. I dig the sound, the ambient slushiness of a bunch of burly dudes skating around on the ice. I dig the omnipresent threat of violence.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  The Columbus Blue Jackets have never won anything, ever. And so we're all just there for the vibes. We got a cannon, a Civil War cannon, I guess, that we're supposed to fire when we score a goal or win or whatever, but we never win anything. So we just fire the cannon indiscriminately. It's quite loud. Actually, the Blue Jackets didn't get the cannon until late 2007, but just roll with it. I dig hockey games, man. But this hockey game in particular is extra cool. Late 2000, early 2001, Nationwide Arena. The inaugural season of the Columbus Blue Jackets. We have arrived as a city. We are introducing this team to the world.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  We got a hockey team now and also apparently a cannon. The cannon came later, never mind. We are putting the NHL on notice. The chilliness, the electricity, the threat of violence, the delirious anticipation in the air. And the game's about to start and the arena lights go down and we crank up the sound system and the spotlights and the fog and whatnot. And our new hockey team takes the ice to the most anthemic and electrifying and intimidating song we can think of.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  And I swear to you, hand to God, the Columbus Blue Jackets hit the ice to the immortal strains of "Blue Dabadi" by Eiffel 65. The 1998 Top 5 hit "Blue Dabadi" by the Italian Eurodance trio Eiffel 65. And the opposing team, the Vancouver Canucks or the Anaheim Ducks, or the St. Louis Blues, or whoever, these poor guys are super intimidated. They are seized with terror. They are quaking in their skates. They are soiling themselves. We gotta bring the Zamboni back out just to clean up the ice. Of course, I'm joking. This is terrible.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  This is the single worst song choice I have ever personally witnessed in my whole life. The opposing team is laughing at us. The game is delayed because the opposing team cannot compose themselves. They are soiling themselves with amusement. The Vancouver Canucks are like, "We are gonna kick these dudes asses." And they do.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  Ridiculous. Who's in charge here? The single worst song choice for anything in any context that I have ever personally witnessed in my whole entire life. To this day, I get mad whenever I think about it. I'm mad right now. There was a time and a place for "Blue Dabadi," and that time and place, respectively, is not here and not now. And years pass. And the Columbus Blue Jackets lose their first 700 games or so. And finally, somebody's like, "We gotta stop playing 'Blue Dabadi' at these games. This is horrible." And then one day, years later, I'm at another Blue Jackets game, late 2000s, I think.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  The chilliness, the electricity, the violence, the delirious anticipation in the air. We've already fired the cannon three times for no reason, and the game's about to start. And the arena lights go down and we crank up the sound system and the spotlights and the fog and whatnot. And I think, oh geez, not this shit again. And then the Columbus Blue Jackets take the ice to mercifully a different song.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Oh, hell yes. Now we're talking. The Columbus Blue Jackets hit the ice to the, I mean it this time, immortal strains of Bush's Machine Head. Bush, the phenomenal English second wave grunge band. Machine Head, of course, one of the myriad jams from their 1994 debut album, 16 Stone. And the opposing team collectively soils itself in terror for real this time. And we bring the Zamboni back out and clean the ice and then kick their asses. And the Columbus Blue Jackets win the next 15 Stanley Cup championships in a row. And we start firing

• 7:16Speaker 00

  the cannon at the opposing team's bus as they flee the arena in terror. I love hockey.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  And what we've proven to the world in this moment via our ingenious deployment of Bush's Machine Head is that the Columbus Blue Jackets are the greatest hockey team in world history. And Columbus, Ohio has arrived as a major prestigious American city and the 90s will never die. I got a speeding ticket once late at night, driving south on 315, State Route 315 in Columbus, just a little west of Nationwide Arena, because I was listening to the Austin, Texas rock band, and you will know us by the Trail of Dead at incredible volume. And I got way too into it. This is early 2000s. I'm listening to the 2002 Trail of Dead album,

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Source Tags and Codes. Pitchfork gave it a 10. I love this record. I got the volume cranked up and I get pulled over for driving like 95 miles an hour, probably during the exceedingly rad and loud climax to the song Days of Being Wild. I love this song especially.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  And the speeding ticket's like 150 bucks and I get so mad, I punch my steering wheel and the car horn gets stuck on and won't go off. And now I'm driving the speed limit on 315 with my car horn blaring the whole time. And I gotta pull into a parking lot and get the car manual out of my glove compartment and look up how to pull the fuse to the car horn while the horn's blaring the whole time, but I still love this band and this record and this song because it's the early 2000s now and I'm an adult now and I love new rock bands now. I love And You Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead. You know who else I love? Queens of the Stone Age.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  The Seattle stoner rock gods, Queens of the Stone Age. Me and my brother, we drive up to Detroit to see Queens of the Stone Age and Trail of Dead live and it's very possibly the best concert I've ever seen in my whole life. I love the 2000 Queens of the Stone Age album Rated R and especially the opening song, feel-good hit of the summer and especially this song's exceedingly rad guitar solo.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  I love that guitar solo, man. That is a suddenly I'm driving 95 miles an hour guitar solo, but I've been thinking about it and you know what else is a suddenly I'm driving 95 miles an hour guitar solo? You know what remains for me, the single greatest and also most dangerous suddenly I'm driving 95 miles an hour guitar solo? License and registration, please.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Stone Temple Pilots, 1996. Tripping on a hole in a paper heart. Stone Temple Pilots, the grunge adjacent giants from San Diego. This jam is from their third album. Tiny Music... Dot, dot, dot, Space Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop. 96 was a weird year. This is a first-ballot air guitar in the minivan Hall of Famer. That sounds pejorative, but it is not. Do you have any idea how ridiculous I look? Playing air guitar to this whilst driving my minivan? Do you have any idea how rad it feels?

• 11:36Speaker 00

  Still a classic. Still the feel-good hit of the summer in my minivan. Because the 90s will never die. My first job here in the early 2000s, I'm an arts writer for a Columbus, Ohio alt-weekly called The Other Paper. That's what it's called. And I get to review concerts. And I go to Ohio State's basketball arena, right? To review The Deftones. Sacramento post-hardcore giants of The Deftones. And I really dig The Deftones generally, but I hate this show for some reason. The Deftones sound horrible to me. And so I write this super bitchy concert review. How bitchy, you ask? My lead for this review.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  You know the famous comic strip, The Far Side? Gary Larson? You know The Far Side strip where it's a rock concert? And the angry crowd is throwing shit at the confused-looking band onstage? And the caption says, "Raymond's Last Day As The Band's Sound Technician." And in the foreground, there's a guy, Raymond, is at the soundboard. And he's turning up the knob on the soundboard that just says, "Suck." That was the lead to my Deftones concert review. I was like, "The Deftones must have turned up the suck knob." Devastating.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  That's "Digital Bath", from the 2000 Deftones album "A White Pony", and that song rules, and that whole album rules, and the Deftones rule, but not, apparently, on this particular evening. But there is a saving grace on this particular evening at Ohio State's basketball arena, because the opening act for the Deftones turned the suck knob all the way down.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Incubus, 1999. Stellar. Incubus, the art funk metal pride of Calabasas, California, from their classic 1999 album, "Make Yourself", also a first-ballot air guitar and the many-van Hall of Famer. The whole record, because the 90s will never die. My Deftones review with the suck knob lead wins the Pulitzer Prize for stupid music journalism, and I get hired by another alt-weekly, the East Bay Express, out in Northern California. So in 2003, I moved to Oakland, and I'm writing a weekly music column, and one day I go to the Greek Theater in Berkeley, famous, beautiful, old, outdoor concert venue, the Greek Theater.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  There's a show happening, but I don't go into the Greek Theater. I go to this hill just outside the barbed-wire fence at the back of the venue, right next to the parking lot, where you can hear the concert for free, but the sightlines totally sucks. You basically can't see the concert. So kids who want to hear the music but don't want to pay for a ticket, they just go sit on this hill. It's called Tightwad Hill. Great name, not my name. But so I'm interviewing people on Tightwad Hill. I'm doing more stupid music journalism. People are smoking pot and drinking frappuccinos and reading magazines and playing chess. The Roots are playing. The beloved Philadelphia hip hop band, The Roots, Questlove and so forth.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Awesome. You know who else we got? Medeski, Martin and Wood. The jazz fusion-ish Brooklyn jam band is playing. The pot smokers are extra into Medeski, Martin and Wood, I presume. The Frappuccino drinkers as well. But these are just the openers. Tightwad Hill tends to attract people who want to hear the opening acts, but don't want to pay for the headliner. Right? No offense to these fellas.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  The headliner is 311. 311, the funk rap rock reggae pride of Omaha, Nebraska. The crowd has thinned out on Tightwad Hill by the time 311 hits the stage. But I'm still walking around bothering people because it's the early 2000s and I'm an adult now and I have a job. And I've moved to California and I am living in the future in every possible respect. And the rock bands I love now are what? Broken Social Scene and the Arcade Fire and whatnot? And yet, and yet, and yet, in this moment, I cannot physically see 311, but I can hear them the whole time. And every song 311 plays. I'm like, huh, I forgot about this song. I love this song.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Huh. And pretty soon I am fully vibing with 311, almost in spite of myself. It is 2004. A new era, a whole new century. I am a professional music critic. I am no longer a stupid teenager. I am a stupid adult now. The 90s are over, except the 90s won't leave me alone. Even when I leave Tightwad Hill, I can still hear the 90s. All the time, even if I can't see them. Even if I'm ostensibly no longer living in them. Because the 90s will never die.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 13th episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, Cole and the 2000s. And this week, we are discussing "Amber" by 311 from their 2001 album, "From Chaos." In the early 2000s, rock is back. Yes, rock had died, but now rock is back. The Strokes, the White Stripes, the Hives, the Vines. The future is now. The future sounds suspiciously like the 70s, but never mind. The 90s are dead, except they ain't. Sure. "Is This It?" by The Strokes and "White Blood Cells" by The White Stripes. And what else? Like "Oh, Inverted World" by The Shins, all came out in 2001. You know

• 18:12Speaker 00

  who else put out rad albums in 2001? 311, Incubus, Stone Temple Pilots, and Bush. You know what happens if you disrespect 311, Incubus, Stone Temple Pilots, or Bush? You get worked. That's what.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  "If You're Under the Rock, You Get Worked." That's another 311 song from their 2001 album, "From Chaos." It's called "You Get Worked." You think about that for a while. Let's all dust ourselves off and regroup in 60 seconds or so and discuss this like gentlemen and ladies.

• 19:02Speaker 01

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• 19:48Speaker 00

  I am humbled to announce that I have just won my second Pulitzer Prize. The Deftone Suck Knob review got me my first Pulitzer, but this time I won for my podcast ad breaks. They invented a whole new category just for me. I am honored and humbled. Thank you. You want to go for a third Pulitzer? Right now? Let's do it. I've been thinking about the precise moment when I became an adult. The split second when I set aside childish teenage things and fully matured when I accepted my life's mission. And by extension, when I spiritually departed the 90s and spiritually entered the 21st century. I know the exact moment when it happened.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Late 90s, I'm in college. I'm studying magazine journalism at Ohio University. That is the 90s-est major imaginable. Magazine journalism, don't try that at home. Don't leave home and try it either. I'm the arts editor at the OU student newspaper, The Post. I'm in the newsroom. We got a newsroom full of those super 90s iMac computers that come in neon colors, right? That come in blueberry, strawberry, tangerine, grape and lime. So I'm sitting at a strawberry iMac. I'm writing a story. I finish the story. I hit spell check and spell check goes over my story and flags the word burrito and suggests

• 21:18Speaker 00

  as a replacement, the word purity. Flags burrito, suggests purity.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  And I stare at that computer screen for 20 minutes straight. I don't move. I don't even blink. People walk by like, Rob, you all right? I'm like, yeah. And I'm just staring at the little red squiggly line underneath burrito and staring at the little box that's like, did you mean purity? And I'm like, did I? Perhaps I did. Now, why was I using the word burrito in a story for my college newspaper? A good reason. That's why the word burrito was apt. Excellent word choice by me.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  It was appropriate for the circumstances, or was it? What is the journalistic, the spiritual, the cosmic connection between burrito and purity? What ancient cosmic wisdom is this strawberry Imac attempting to impart to me? Is the burrito a corrupting force that I should replace with purity? Or, or is the burrito itself purifying? I think you'll believe me when I tell you that I've been thinking about this for 25 years. Burrito equals purity. I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it's the last thing I ever do.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  It is my personal mantra. It is my life's work. If you ever see me walking down the street and you're like, what is he thinking? What I'm thinking is, if you imagine me as a cartoon character, I've got a thought bubble coming out of my head. And in the thought bubble, it just says, burrito equal sign purity with a bunch of question marks around it. A man's got to have a code. Preferably, a man can decode his own code, but I'm built different. I bring this up now because.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Why do I bring this up now? I bring this up now because not only is this the moment when my childhood ends and my adulthood begins, the moment when my 90s end and my 2000s and beyond begin, but also, I think you'll agree that burrito equals purity is an extremely 311 type sentiment. No, 311 know what I mean, even if I don't. Just now, when I was typing out the dumbest 400 words I'll ever type out in my life, I was listening to a 311 song called Livin' and Rockin' from their 1999 album Sound System. And I'm telling you, these guys know exactly what I mean.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  I'm at ease when I feel there's a breeze. Give me a little, please. Aristotle, I'm not, but think of Socrates. Burrito equals purity. Aristotle, Socrates, the Greek theater, all of this shit might feel hopelessly random to you, but I assure you, it makes total sense to me the whole time. 311. 311 formed in Omaha, Nebraska in 1988. Your front man is singer and guitarist Nicholas Lofton Hexum. Nick's not the guy who just rapped about being Socrates, that's the other guy. Nick Hexum grows up in Omaha. He's in a band called The Eds. He's in another band called Unity.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Unity moved to LA and tried to make it and don't, so Nick moves back home. Now he's in another band called Fish Hippos, but Nick cannot countenance being in a band called Fish Hippos. And so the Fish Hippos announce onstage that they've changed their name to 311 while opening for Fugazi. That is an elite name change announcement environment. And the most important decision facing any rap, rock, reggae, funk band from Omaha is what do we rhyme with Nebraska?

• 25:59Speaker 00

  And I am from Nebraska. My girl is satisfied, you can ask her. You know I've never visited Alaska. That's what you rhyme with Nebraska. This song is called Fat Chance from 311's debut EP released in 1989 and called Downstairs because that's where they recorded it, obviously. Ah, but don't get too hung up on rhyming stuff with Nebraska because we've moved on immediately to some trenchant political and ecological commentary. Specifically, we appear to be recommending the death penalty for the captain of the catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill?

• 26:41Speaker 00

  The crash that dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound off the Gulf of Alaska? Fuck him up, Socrates!

• 27:01Speaker 00

  Again, the guy who raps about being Socrates isn't in the band yet, but you get me. This one goes to all the birds that drown. Fuck the bullshit, it's time to throw down. I do imagine two crude oil soaked seagulls hanging out in Prince William Sound. And one seagull goes, "Did you hear we got shouted out by a rap-rock reggae funk band from Omaha, Nebraska?" And the other seagull goes, "Nebraska." The second 311 release is called Damn It!, exclamation point, and comes out on cassette in 1990. This song is called This Too Shall Pass. These dudes are barely out of high school, but they already sound both utterly ridiculous and sneakily profound, do they not?

• 28:02Speaker 00

  Get Stupid and Sing is also an extremely 311-type sentiment. And then, just to drive home this sneakily profound philosophical point, 311's bassist, born Aaron Wills, but better known to the world as Peanut? Well, let's just say that Peanut beats that thing.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Thank you, Peanut, for beating that thing without even being formally asked to beat that thing. P hyphen nut, what is Peanut's deal? You ask? I'll tell you Peanut's deal. Here is a paragraph from a 1997 Rolling Stone feature on 311 that I believe succinctly sums up Peanut's deal. Quote, "Peanut, the youngest and most visually striking member of the band, is obsessed with four things: music, pot, The Simpsons, and occult figure Aleister Crowley. Peanut's right shin is decorated with a multicolored rendering of Crowley's motto,

• 29:18Speaker 00

  'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.'" Peanut got the tattoo only after he turned 18 and received his mom's permission. End quote. I have to say, I tremendously enjoyed reading that paragraph. One of my favorite paragraphs in recent memory. "One has to be of a very specific disposition to wait until one is 18 years old, until one is a legal adult, to then ask one's mother if it's okay to get an Aleister Crowley quote tattooed on one's shin." Peanut is of this day.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  Disposition, the third 311 release comes out in 1991 and is called Unity and features what I have come to believe is the official 311 mission statement as delivered on a song called Damn.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  If you don't like it, well, I hope you do. Phenomenal. 311 will, in the years to come, have substantially harsher words for their myriad haters and doubters, discouraging words up to and including "fuck you" or more accurately, "fuck the naysayers because they don't mean a thing because this is what style we bring." But 311 will remain a band that radiates jovial, genial, welcoming, relentlessly positive, disarmingly earnest, other cheek turning energy. 311 are now the biggest band in Omaha, Nebraska. No offense to Omaha, Nebraska, but it's time to move to Los Angeles.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  Again, in Nick Hexum's case, but this time's going to be a little different. 311 moved to LA. By this time, 311's remarkably durable, present day, imperial lineup is set. Nick Hexum on vocals and guitar, Doug "Essa" Martinez on vocals and turntables. "Essa" is in the letters, S and A. "Essa" is the higher pitched, the more rap centric Socrates guy. He goes by "Essa" because you can't be a rapper named Doug. It's the law. Tim Mahoney on lead guitar, Chad Sexton on drums, Peanut on bass. 311 record a six-song demo called Hydroponic.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, this song is called "Plain," P-L-A-I-N, like the terrain of Nebraska, like the ideal serene, unbothered, zoned out headspace to be in whilst you listen to it.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  Tabula Raza is my brain indeed. Those vocal harmonies. Yes, the casual insinuating excellence of the vocal harmony between Nick Hexum and S.A. Like you just met your two best friends. Your two best friends live in L.A. now. 311 gets signed to Capricorn Records and released their official debut album in 1993. They call this album Music. Oh, you don't like that album title? Well, I hope you do.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Payback's a motherfucking mission. Rhymes with derision. Rhymes with we're sending you a vision. Hmm. This is a band that realizes that they will never be critical darlings, that they will never be cool in the classic elitist sense of the term. They will frequently be misunderstood and looked down upon. There will be derision. There will be haters. And there will be payback for the haters. This is a band that has, in fact, always known all of that. Many songs on this record and music had been previously recorded for 311's various self-released albums, including this song. And in fact, this was the very first song in the very first 311 release, the Downstairs album.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  And this song sounds way better now on account of it being recorded in a studio and not just, you know, downstairs. But the chorus has always sounded great. And the chorus has always been directed at all those critics and haters. And this song is called "Feels So Good," by the way. And it does.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  But let us not neglect the best part of "Feels So Good," which is the part where Peanuts bandmates make a formal request.

• 34:45Speaker 00

  I have to say, as an easily intimidated amateur bassist, I always felt really bad about my own lousy bass playing whenever I heard Peanut beat that thang. You can feel the Aleister Crowley tattoo on Peanut's shin flexing gloriously as Peanut beats that thang. Yo Peanut beat that thang shall be the whole of the law. A great many genuinely excellent songs on this first official 311 album, Music. Yes, lots of great choruses to tattoo on one's shins. This one's called Freak Out.

• 35:39Speaker 00

  If you don't have someone to do it with, it's not worth doing. What a lovely wholesome sentiment to express in a song called Freak Out. A similarly wholesome and lovely and somewhat syntactically convoluted sentiment is expressed on a song called Visit.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Is that syntax convoluted, actually? Or is it just that such a sweet and direct and optimistic sentiment, "Visit. I want to visit the world, so now I visit the world with my time on this world." Does that just sound unnatural in 1993, in the midst of peak grunge, in this tough guy alt-rock era, where all our biggest, coolest bands seem to be dour, cynical, moping, cryptic grumpuses? Is that an oversimplification of the vibe in 1993? Sure it is, but lay off, man. I'm 15 years old in 1993. Oversimplifying shit is my job.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  I am an oversimplified person. Actually, let's say I'm 16. Let's say it's 1994. I know I'm 16 because I'm driving. I'm sitting in my car in the parking lot of an Aldi. You know Aldi, the grocery store? If I pronounce that wrong, I don't care. I'm sitting in my car in the Aldi parking lot. Why? No idea. None. Didn't work there. Didn't shop there. I don't remember anything about this situation, other than I'm sitting in my car in the Aldi parking lot with the radio on, and this song slaps me across the face, but like, slaps me joyfully.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  This song is called "Do You Right." Dig the bass and drums kicking ass underneath this. First of all, the exuberance, the speed, the fanciness, but not the fussiness of Chad Sexton on drums and Peanut on bass.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Lots of wild rhythmic action brightening every corner of a 311 song. Do I register immediately, sitting in my used Chrysler LeBaron in the Aldi parking lot, that Nick Hexum just sang "Passin' the Kind Buds, Kickin' Back in the Sand and the Sun"? No, I don't. Would I have known what kind buds were precisely? If I had registered the words "kind buds"? Also, no. But I do think that I subconsciously absorbed that message, that sentiment, that idyllic vibe, that utopian worldview. You know what I thought about the lyrics to this song as a 16-year-old, if I thought anything at all? Forgive me,

• 38:45Speaker 00

  but I probably thought, "Did he just sing the word semen?"

• 39:00Speaker 00

  No, he didn't. "To be alive is lovin', where the shore meets the sea, comma, man, comma, I'm humming, I'm humming." Thank you very much. Excuse you. We are not yet to the part of "Do You Write?" that imprinted on me immediately, but we're getting there. Here comes Chad Sexton on the drums again. (mimicking singing)

• 39:39Speaker 00

  "Which is L-square?" That's what he sings next, right? L-square, like an anthropomorphic square with perhaps a sombrero. I'm 16, dude.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  "Which is elsewhere?" Excuse you. That makes sense. That makes more sense. For God's sake, listen, when this part of "Do You Write?" hit, my soul jumped out of my body, but like, joyfully.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  "Like I said before, let me say it once more." Right, the lyrics you get there eventually are cool, too, but just the shocking, walloping joy of that instrumental moment, the cheers, the raucous party atmosphere, the crunchy, distorted guitars, but for once, they're conveying delight and not despair. "Do You Write?" is one of apparently hundreds of teenage musical micro epiphanies I personally experienced, but this shit adds up. This shit adds up and forms me. You know who put out a lot of albums in the 90s? 311. Starting with music in 1993, this band tours relentlessly and puts out five records in seven years. We ought to better speedrun this somewhat.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  In 1994, they put out the album Grassroots, which I experienced in high school primarily through the medium of stoner-adjacent classmates who sometimes liked to chant, "311, God, grassroots for your mama," during study hall. Look out for Peanut right here, though. (mimicking singing)

• 41:36Speaker 00

  But yeah, okay, more notable for our purposes is an exceedingly chill and pretty song called 816 AM.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  And the long arc, the unexpectedly long arc of 311 starts here, I think, with this song, with the chillness and prettiness of 816 AM. We will move slowly across these five 90s records in seven years. We will tilt Grateful Deadward. We will get jammyer, noodlier, blissfuler, stonder. This is the 311 mode I will gravitate toward, anyway. And I would argue that it is this quality, the bong ripping expansiveness, this brazen musical adventurousness, this fuck the naysayers because they don't mean a thing because this

• 42:35Speaker 00

  is what style we bring self-belief, that will allow 311 to pass the invisible but extremely literal and serious barrier between the 90s and the 2000s. This adventurousness will allow 311 to endure. But first, I suppose, we've got to let them actually sing the fuck the naysayers line.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  This is All Mixed Up. This appears on 311's self-titled 1997 album with the blue cover, the 311 logo. This is the first 311 CD I buy as a 19-year-old, and I buy it for All Mixed Up and Don't Stay Home and Down, right? I buy this record for the ubiquitous radio hits. But I do not fully grasp in the moment that All Mixed Up is a song about how maybe 311 are thinking that they won't have any more radio hits, but they want to keep making music anyway. I do not grasp that this is a quintessential 90s alt-rock hit about 311's

• 43:43Speaker 00

  strategy for surviving the 90s alt-rock boom. I am too busy luxuriating in the casual, insinuating excellence of the vocal harmonies between Nick Hexum and S.A. to notice any of this. But they do, for the record, harmonize beautifully on the lines "Thought a freak might be the thing, but the first could be the last."

• 44:08Speaker 02

  All mixed up, you don't know what to do. Next thing you turn around and find a person and it's you. Thought a freak might be the thing, but the first could be the last. So just get off of your ass.

• 44:19Speaker 00

  And All Mixed Up is, of course, neither 311's first nor last modest hit song. But I submit to you that 311 will continue to have modest hit songs precisely because they don't try to make them anymore. And they never really did try. This is a band that tours endlessly, records endlessly, works endlessly. But 311 do not make any of it sound like work. There is no strain. There is no insecure ambition. There is no attempt to placate or win over the naysayers, the haters, the critics. You know what there are? There are guitar solos. There are myriad excellent, infinite fields of sunflowers-type

• 45:04Speaker 00

  guitar solos. The next 311 album, released in 1997, is called Transistor, and it is quite long, 21 songs, hour-plus, and the blissful guitars are taking over the languid, fish-coated contentment of the guitar solos. 311 lead guitarist Tim Mahoney would like to beat that thing as well.

• 45:41Speaker 00

  That song is called "Stealing Happy Hours", and I find it to be quite startlingly gorgeous. Our dear friend Yasi Solak over at Bandplain, there is of course a nearly five-hour-long 311 Bandplain episode. And Yasi talks about how transistor is designed in a cheerful, super posy, "You gotta trust your instincts and let go of regret", 311-type way. This record is partially designed as a middle finger to the concept of selling albums, because 311 just assumed they'd peaked commercially with a self-titled "Blue" album. And 311 are correct about that chart-wise, but this tension, or really this lack of tension, this refusal to cling to the alt-rock hit model

• 46:26Speaker 00

  is what I hear and what I love about 311's catalog going forward. The self-contemptment, not the resignation, no, the empowering realization that there are way more important things, even for a rock band, than cranking up the distorted guitars again and sneaking back onto MTV. For example, another important thing you can do as a late 90s rock band is start uncorking incomprehensibly rad Santana via Steely Dan jams.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  This song is called "Life's Not a Race". It appears on 311's 1999 album, "Sound System". It's not that 311 sound like this all the time now. You got tasty, jaunty, spiky, alt-rock-type jams if you want 'em. The transistor record had beautiful disaster. Uh, "Sound System"'s got "Come Original", but on "Come Original", the warped, little, hazy surf guitar in the background, "Boo-ah, boo-ah, boo-ah, boo", hits me harder than the crunchy stuff. Mid-period 311 to me is a triumph of atmosphere over immediacy.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  Artists called out by name, musicians praised in the 311 song "Come Original" include the LA pop punk band No Effects, the English drum and bass producer Ronnie Size, the Jamaican dancehall star Mr. Vegas, and the Black Eyed Peas. The pre-Fergie Black Eyed Peas, I guess I should clarify, no offense to Fergie. And then the 90s end, and then it's the year 2001. And it unnerves me, even back then, as a 23-year-old, it unnerved me how so many bands that I loved in the 90s already felt like the past, like remnants from last century,

• 48:42Speaker 00

  like they somehow hadn't made it into the 21st century intact. There is an objectively arbitrary distinction dividing 2001 from 1999, or for that matter, dividing December 31st, 1999 from January 1st, 2000. But it felt momentous, it felt permanent, it felt severe, this dividing line, this thunderbolt when one era ended and another began. Is this a Y2K thing? Am I just being neurotic and rude? But like, I sit there as a 23-year-old in 2001, listening to a Stone Temple Pilots

• 49:22Speaker 00

  album released in 2001, and I can't quite convince myself that we're all on the same timeline anymore.

• 49:42Speaker 00

  This song is called "Days of the Week." In 2001, Stone Temple Pilots put out their fifth album called Shangri-La Dida. It will be their last album for nine years, and their second-to-last album with original frontman Scott Weiland, who died of an accidental drug overdose in 2015. He was 48. Is that why this album feels unstuck in time? For me, the looming tragedy that animates this whole band's catalog in retrospect, especially the later stuff, is this a purely musical issue? STP get weirder as they go along, they get glamier, they get power poppier, but they

• 50:21Speaker 00

  never lose their foundational peak grunge swaggering crunchiness, their elegant bachelorhood. Maybe they just sound 90s to me in an inextricable way. Or is it just that I listened to Stone Temple Pilots for many hundreds of hours between roughly 1992 and 1997, and I will thus never convince myself that it is not, say, 1995, when I hear Scott Weiland's voice. It could be that. It could be that if I loved you too much as a teenager, I will lock you up in my teenage bedroom and never let you leave. If that's the deal, then bad news for this guy also.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  The things we do to the people that we love, the way we break if there's something we can't take, destroy the world that we took so long to make. Hmm. Offensively handsome Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale is on to something here, I think. The song is called "The People That We Love." In 2001, Bush put out their fourth album called Golden State. It will be their last album for 10 years, and they'll have a new lead guitarist and bassist then. As Bush evolved, they fart around some with electronics and drum machines and atmosphere, but they too never lose their foundational peak grunge swaggering crunchiness.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  And I listened to many hundreds of hours of Bush between, say, 1994 and 1998. So, no, no, this Golden State record does not feel very 2001 to me. Although, although, can I interest you in Greg Brimsum's golden dub remix of this song, "The People That We Love"? This remind you of anyone?

• 52:30Speaker 00

  Gavin Rossdale's got grassroots for your mama. I put this Bush record on, the 20th anniversary expanded version of Golden State, I guess, and I got distracted and suddenly this remix popped up and I thought I was listening to 311 again. You know a band from the 90s that made perfect sense to me as a 2001 band? The new metal band that learned to feel.

• 53:08Speaker 00

  And "In This Moment I Am Happy" also sounds a whole lot like 311. Does it not? This song is called "Wish You Were Here." It's the second best song called "Wish You Were Here" ever. That's a compliment. In 2001, Incubus put out their fourth full-length album called Morning View. Incubus and 311 have both a compatible happiness and a compatible funkiness. Founding Incubus bassist Dirk Lance, that's a pseudonym, is also known to beat that thang. The rough arc of Incubus from 1995 to 2001 is from noisy goofiness to spacey gorgeousness.

• 53:48Speaker 00

  Or again, it's the spacey gorgeousness that I come to prize in Incubus once they cross over into the 2000s. I got a thing right now for this Incubus song. It's the last song on Morning View. It's called "Aquous Transmission." That's what it's called. It's a good title.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  And I guess I have to admit that this is what I want from a 90s band in 2001. Gentleness, wistfulness, elegance, perhaps even mushiness. This is a bizarre demand to make of, for example, a funk rap rock reggae band that's still writing rad, crunchy, anti-naysayer battle raps that employ but refuse to define the word usurp.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  That is Nick Hexum on "From Chaos," the title track. I don't have time to look up usurp right now, but I just assume it's cool and tough. The majority of this record "From Chaos" is like this. Medium tough talk over medium tough distortion. It is charismatic. It is workmanlike. It is perfectly enjoyable live, even if you are standing on a hill outside the venue, interviewing a guy who's reading the Sherman Alexie novel "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." But this is not what I want most from 311 anymore. I do not necessarily want rowdy buzzbin fodder. Write some love songs, fellas. Emote.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Gimme something I can get tattooed on my shin, but like romantically.

• 56:06Speaker 00

  There we go. This song is called "Champagne." "When I look at you, it's like praying with my eyes." Great lines, Socrates. Nick Hexum's got a great line, too.

• 56:32Speaker 00

  Not this line necessarily, though. "Brainstorm, take me away from the norm. I got to tell you something" is an oddly beautiful way to begin an oddly beautiful song. We are perfectly aware, a decade plus into 311's career, that anyone in this band can haul off and beat that thing at any time. And so, one striking element of the loveliness of this song, Amber, is the restraint. Yes? The groove. The simplicity, but also the fluidity, the ease. It's way, way less in your face, but it still feels so good. "Amber" has long been rumored to be a song Nick Hexum wrote for his then fiance,

• 57:18Speaker 00

  the singer and songwriter and pop star Nicole Scherzinger, who would soon become the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls. You know the Pussycat Dolls, right? "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me? Don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me? Don't you..." If I use, if I get too close to 50 song clips in one episode of this show, my producers get very angry at me and I'm at 45 clips right now. So now if I want to talk about any other songs, I have to personally sing them. You've been warned.

• 58:07Speaker 00

  Nick Hexum has never quite revealed, or I guess admitted, who he is singing to here. Songfax interviewed him and asked, quote, "Is it ever difficult to perform the song 'Amber', since it was written about your ex-fiance?" End quote. Well, that's direct. And Nick says, quote, "There have been people who have speculated that, and I won't confirm nor deny. But to me, it was just a cool analogy, because I love soft lights and colors, like the color of a sunset. Blue light is harsh and amber light doesn't hurt your eyes. So to say the color of someone's energy is amber is kind of a cool way to compliment." End quote.

• 58:52Speaker 00

  Well, that's diplomatic. Then he says that Paul McCartney is the greatest rock musician to ever live.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  I dig the ever so slight dissonance on "And I Know Why." One quick flash of blue light amid all the, you know, amber. Let's not overthink this, though. It's a breezy, enchanting, cool compliment of a song. It is a pleasure to vibe to.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  And this is a tremendously sweet sentiment as well. No, don't give up your independence. Nick Hexum is not trying to usurp you, baby. We are a long way from, and I am from Nebraska. My girl is satisfied, you can ask her. But then again, are we? It is a long line, but a straight line. And so from one angle, amber is just a veteran raucous alt-rock band mellowing. Yes, this is the typical arc, the natural order of things. When you are a young man, you, you know, beat that thang metaphorically. But then, as you mature, as you learn to give love and receive love, in turn,

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  you realize that the single most crucial thang beating in all of us is the human heart. Oh, my God.

• 1:00:51Speaker 00

  Let us never speak of this again. "Launched a thousand ships in my heart" is a logistically odd but exquisitely mushy line. The harmony on "so easy" is a gentle delight. The vibes are immaculate. 311 will endure. The 90s will never die, but the 90s will. If the 90s wish to survive and even flourish here in the 2000s, they'll learn to get a little more sensitive. They will change, perhaps, the color of their energy. Hearing this song is like praying with your ears, even if it's me singing it.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Whoa, amber is the color of your energy. Whoa, burrito equals purity.

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• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  Our guest today, we're thrilled to welcome back Craig Jenkins, music critic at New York Magazine and Vulture and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. Also Craig, I should note that you and I are speaking on January 13th, so 113, which is not 3/11 day, but it's reverse 3/11 day, which is almost as cool. Thank you for spending reverse 3/11 day with us, Craig.

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  Wouldn't have it any other way.

• 1:02:47Speaker 00

  Craig, in 2016, you wrote a Vice article with the headline, "Whoa, 3/11 is actually dope," which is an excellent headline.

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, you could tell I was, part of the fun of Noisy was just coming up with a headline. And then maybe you would like fit an article to it, but like, sometimes the idea was just there and we were having a pretty, you know, it's a bittersweet thing to think about Vice because it was a fun day, but like, that was not everyone's experience. It was, it was a carefree 3/11 day and Noisy was being particularly annoying about this fact. And I decided to write an article that I didn't know would be the first thing that someone at my next job would read that I wrote, which is pretty funny because like,

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Is that what happened?

• 1:03:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. I was, I later learned that someone at New York Magazine saw that very silly 3/11 day thing that I wrote at Vice and. Appreciated it, which is, yeah, so like the band ties into my story a lot of ways.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess so. I, when did 311 days start? Like, it's only in the last few years that I became aware that this is a thing. When was it officially canonized as a holiday?

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  I, it's, I never like noticed. It's just like, suddenly there was an excuse to, you know, make noise about that band on that date. I, I mean, you know, I don't remember it past a decade ago, but like, could be,

• 1:04:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  I'm, you know, not the most keyed in. I don't like be listening in the community, ready to chop my head off. Like, we were doing that back in 1999. You weren't there.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  You've mellowed a little bit as a 311 fan, which I guess is appropriate.

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  Why are they actually dope, Craig? What makes 311 great? What makes them worthy of a holiday? What makes them, you know, a band that still exists and is beloved to this day?

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  I mean, the, the 90s are a time when all of the cultures and the genres are mashing together. I like to think that sort of the last innovation of that century was, oh, everything can just be jumbled together in a strange ball. So like, and not to mention, we're in the long tail of like Bob Marley's legend album, having been on the charts for decades and just the places that that permeated. So I feel like this is one of those stories of like, a band was like, oh, wow, we'd like all five of these things that nobody's really mashing together like that. Like, let's hope that it works. And eventually it comes together really nicely. I'm not necessarily like, one of your, like, the first couple albums are great types of guys. Like, it took some time to.

• 1:05:18Speaker 00

  They're all right. Yeah, yeah. I, my entry point at least was the self-titled, The Blue Album, right? And those are pretty.

• 1:05:27Speaker 04

  The singles from that.

• 1:05:28Speaker 00

  Right. And those are, there's some reggae to them, but they're more straightforward. You know, there's a little bit of new metal in Down, you know, and that's not really the direction that this band went in long-term. Like, do you think the version of 311 that had kept trying to make another Down, another all mixed up, another Don't Stay Home, would that band still be together, do you think?

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  I mean, probably, but like, it was, it was really dicey to try and keep making that kind of weird hodgepodgey metal stuff like everyone, it's the core conundrum of like the story of Linkin Park past a certain point is like, how do we stay loud and not like necessarily in these pockets that people don't pay attention to anymore? I don't know if it would have lasted, but they could have definitely stuck around and made some weird ones.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  Linkin Park's an interesting parallel, right? Because like every album is a little different, you know, in the same way that 311 is, you know, they try new things, you know, they get a little mellower and then they go back to being a little harder. I had never thought of that, but it makes a lot of sense to me now that you say it.

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  I had just, I read the bio this year, Jason

• 1:06:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:34Speaker 04

  Shitz's a big book and yeah, it's just the rubber banding of how to, how to embrace or how far to run away from this like new metal legacy has haunted a lot of bands. Everyone except Deftones who just like

• 1:06:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:48Speaker 04

  persist and don't care about definitions.

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. Even more so than like, you know, other genres like trip hop or whatever, like new metal was a curse, it seems like to bands, you know, that got tagged with that, right? Like Linkin Park.

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  It just arrived with like a set fashion and then there was just like a kind of character. And this is right when like the, the sort of the, the dark haired goth kid is not having a good time in the press. Like, so

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:14Speaker 04

  It's very easy to, uh, it's very easy to associate that, that with like a terrible like, and it was just an embarrassing kind of movement a little bit. It got really grody, like culturally speaking, some of the music was not that, like I could see why there was the looking down on, on that, you know, the, there was the, people were looking down their noses even critically at the time at it because, you know, it represented some of the worst instincts of some of the most annoying people, but like also told

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  Well said.

• 1:07:45Speaker 04

  But also like spoke to the, the, what happened a generation after, you know, the, the building of America that, that we hear in these, in the classic rock songs, the celebration of the thing, like, it's like, yeah, the, the children of that music did not turn out too well.

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  No, they did not.

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  I bet 311 has always been, I think, critically disparaged a little bit, or at least not critically respected. You know, when you became, you know, a music critic, did you have this sense that this was, you know, that you were out on a limb a little bit to be a 311 fan? Or are there more of us than we let off?

• 1:08:21Speaker 04

  Many such cases. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that's only, I want to say, probably even just now, recently started to lose the stink, like, that I used to have. It just used to be okay to pay no respect to a lot of music in the, in the critical sphere particularly, but also, you know, as fans. You didn't necessarily have the sympathetic eyes that you did at the places where, you know, the, the public opinion was being molded to the extent that critics had any control over that.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  I, in terms of being, you know, a rap-rock reggae band, like, does being from Nebraska almost give 311 more credibility? You know, they're not on a bandwagon, you know, and they're not doing this for the money. They're not a part of this scene that they've glommed on to. Like, you have to really want it and know it and believe it to come out of Omaha as like a reggae rock band. Like, does that almost make them cooler?

• 1:09:11Speaker 04

  I think it just says that that's how deeply, like, the American interest in reggae in various shapes, like, permeated in the 90s. It, it was in California, it was in New York, it was in Nebraska, like, they're in different shapes.

• 1:09:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, slightly different, but the same.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  I had to say different shapes because, like, I grew up where they was playing dance hall records and stuff, like, it's not my experience. You know, I don't come at the music from like a generation removed. It was kind of like a weird, like, this was happening simultaneously to the actual reggae music that I was, like, you know, New York and Harlem and stuff. It was like a very, I always appreciated that some of that 90s stuff was pointing you back to the sources. And I don't know if I could say that about the version of it that exists now. I think that the discussion about the appropriative aspects of that stuff doesn't necessarily take into account that everyone was like effusively in love with whatever the source was.

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  That's the thing about effusively in love with reggae is a great way to describe 311. They're not like, let's try this.

• 1:10:13Speaker 04

  Like, just the whole like subset, like the love could be often embarrassing because like, it's like, you know, at a glance, these people didn't look like who you might expect to to love this stuff. But, you know, same could be said about hip hop in the 90s, like, plug the average American hip hop fan by math. It's not necessarily who we think it was.

• 1:10:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. So if you don't know anything about reggae, you're a teenager, you love 311, you go back to the source material. Like, does that make you, when you go back to 311 then, do you love them a little less? Because they're, you know, they're a little different, you know, from the reggae that influenced them? Or are they always going to be cool in a way because they're so earnest about their love for it?

• 1:10:57Speaker 04

  The earnestness and like, I mean, just the the stuff that I think hits like still does. I don't, maybe I don't need their version of the Bad Brains reggae joint as much as I used to, like, when I didn't know.

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. But like, yeah, I still see a place. Um, I still, there's still stuff that I buzz back through. If I can remember to watch the 311 Day Cruise performance, I actually kind of do from time to time.

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  The 311 Day Cruise performance?

• 1:11:24Speaker 04

  They stream the 311 Cruise performances and they'll like perform an album. And I watched Trance Sister like maybe a couple of years ago, like, actually.

• 1:11:32Speaker 00

  Where is this boat cruising? Is it, you know, it's just around Alaska?

• 1:11:38Speaker 04

  See, like, that's just like, I have a weird level of engagement where like, I know that the cruise is happening, but I could not tell you like in what waters.

• 1:11:45Speaker 00

  That's the right level of engagement. I think to know where the boat is, is a different level of fandom that maybe is going to impact your personal life a little bit.

• 1:11:55Speaker 00

  Are are S.A. and Nick Hexum good rappers, Craig?

• 1:11:59Speaker 04

  When you think of, when you think of what was on the market, like. With all due respect to, to a lot of guys like.

• 1:12:09Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:12:10Speaker 04

  On, on the, on the spectrum of Durst's and Kedys's.

• 1:12:14Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:15Speaker 04

  Pretty certain.

• 1:12:15Speaker 00

  That's a different, that's a curve. That's a nice curve for them. Sure.

• 1:12:19Speaker 04

  Like, like they're not seeing Prodigy.

• 1:12:23Speaker 00

  Okay, right, okay.

• 1:12:26Speaker 04

  But like, of their million, like, of the guys who were out there doing what they were doing, like, it was a pretty decent job.

• 1:12:33Speaker 00

  Sure, sure. When you go back to the old stuff, like, where do you go? Do you go transistor? Do you go to the, the Blue Album? Like, what's, what holds up for you the most?

• 1:12:43Speaker 04

  I buzz over those Blue Album singles, I drop into a sound system for a slow one, and then what's the one after that from Chaos? The one with Amber on it.

• 1:12:52Speaker 00

  With Amber, right.

• 1:12:53Speaker 04

  Low key, I might not visit Amber when I go through it because it's not the best joint necessarily on there.

• 1:13:00Speaker 00

  What's the best joint on there?

• 1:13:01Speaker 04

  It's, I feel like it's that I'll be here a while song. That's the one that I really stick to, yeah.

• 1:13:06Speaker 00

  That's really good. That's a good, yeah. So is, is Amber, is it, have you always preferred that song, you know, to Amber? Or is part of it the overexposure from day one?

• 1:13:16Speaker 04

  Well, no, you know, like, as someone who definitely had that burned on a CD when it came out, I always, I had my preference. But I, yeah, I definitely feel like, yeah, I mean, it played out, like, it's just, it played out past the moon. It's incredible, like, the extent to which that became, and also, like, it, it speaks to the fact that, like, for that being the biggest single, I think, really is telling about how much of an influence you could have and not be on the Hot 100. Because, like, these guys are in the 90s, I would consider, like, these are, like, reigning alternative chart sensations, right? Who, like, a Hot 100, it allused them the whole 90s? It's bizarre stuff.

• 1:14:01Speaker 00

  It is bizarre.

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  There was that much competition for the charts at the time that, like,

• 1:14:04Speaker 00

  That's what it was, yeah.

• 1:14:05Speaker 04

  All mixed up to be this huge, you know, teen sensation that does not have that representation topside. But, you know, in the 2000s, the connect really shifts because there's a presence on TRL and whatnot, but like, fascinating to think about.

• 1:14:22Speaker 00

  It is. I looked it up. The only song of 311s that ever made the Hot 100, like any 100 of the Hot 100 was Love Song, was their cover of The Cure's Love Song, like from 50 First Dates. Like, is that a drag that their one chart hit is a cover? Or is it, it's a fantastic cover. It's a beautiful song. And is that just a testament to how versatile? And how chill they are?

• 1:14:47Speaker 04

  Um, it's the pen, it's Robert Smith, it's that man's versatility, absolutely, because who would expect that to have come from there? I think there was an element of that in the thing, kind of. It's also, you know, you could slap a certain beat on anything at that time and it would go the distance is another part of the story. Like you could turn The Cure into a reggae jam and it would be a massive hit because the Fedora Bro era was, you know, at its peak.

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  I don't know if I've ever heard it described as the Fedora Bro era, but that makes a lot of sense.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  But you know, like, think about, like, think about the person who was at the Jack Johnson concert, who's at the

• 1:15:29Speaker 00

  Oh, yes.

• 1:15:29Speaker 04

  Who's at the

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  Barefoot, perhaps? Yeah.

• 1:15:34Speaker 04

  The Jason Mraz listener who also loves 311, who also loves, like, Barely Breathing, who also

• 1:15:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, Duncan Cheek. There we go.

• 1:15:45Speaker 04

  It's, yeah, it's bizarre, all the stuff that was happening at the same time in the late 90s. But I love that we're having to revisit it and all the, like, strange, sort of, sometimes ugliness of it, like, because the rep has been too cool. Like, we've been going back to, like, 91 to 94, which is like, solid, sturdy, like, stands up as goth and cool, like, time. But now it's like, when stuff got cheesy and corporate and, like, embarrassingly about, like, how much it loved knowing about the world, like, that, that whole, like, the sublimeness of, of that era is definitely about, like, I want to learn about more than what's available to me, you know, musically in

• 1:16:26Speaker 04

  the court, you know, maybe, and maybe it made something beautiful, maybe it came out corny, like, some of the new metal stuff that is also, you know, honoring that same Do I want to call it an anthropological impact? That same

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  Sure you can.

• 1:16:42Speaker 04

  It's something. Nineties like multicultural club, like, like white kid who loved learning about stuff to the point that like it becomes their personality and maybe have, you know, maybe they start the baby dreads, like maybe they don't.

• 1:16:56Speaker 00

  Okay. Let's hope not, but yeah, this is.

• 1:16:59Speaker 04

  I'm just thinking about that time in the nineties.

• 1:17:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. Listens to, listens to Bob Marley once is definitely the vibe of a lot of this stuff that you're.

• 1:17:09Speaker 04

  Oh, that legend like just washed over my high school. I remember like, like listening to Concrete Jungle in the park, like, wow, I really like, no, you did not like.

• 1:17:23Speaker 04

  This is like, so this is like 95 and had the tape in it like really impacted me. So I can just only imagine.

• 1:17:28Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:17:29Speaker 04

  Did to people across the country, like.

• 1:17:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. In dorm rooms.

• 1:17:35Speaker 04

  You particularly.

• 1:17:36Speaker 00

  In the late nineties.

• 1:17:37Speaker 04

  Especially there.

• 1:17:38Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Especially there. In that Vice article, you, you shout out transistor from 1997. That's sort of their longest, their most sprawling, you know, maybe their most experimental. I don't know. I'd never spent a ton of time with it, but it's beautiful. Like I love it so much. Like, is that their best record? Is that the one you'd recommend as someone getting into 311 for real?

• 1:18:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I probably would recommend the sort of long one, you know, people.

• 1:18:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:06Speaker 04

  Seem to have 70 minutes for an album in this era. So like.

• 1:18:10Speaker 00

  They do. Thank you, Drake.

• 1:18:13Speaker 04

  In this era of eras, um, in this, you know, tortured poets department deluxe edition that's long as a movie era. So like, yeah, like go for, go for the long boy from 1997. It's not, it's not the coolest packet of the nineties, but it is the most like earnestly searching kind of stuff that you'll find in that subset, I think.

• 1:18:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's how stealing happy hours, you know, really, I was like, I didn't know 311 could do this kind of thing, but they they always could. They always did. You know, that's really cool. That sort of points toward Amber. Like, does it surprise you that Amber has emerged as like their biggest hits? You know, their biggest, you know, hit that they wrote? Or is is this Amber sort of what this band was always working toward, even from the beginning?

• 1:19:01Speaker 04

  I think that they were definitely seeking the tools to make something that felt like that they just like landed smoothly and like, yeah, it's something they're working towards, like, often, well, in the early days, super cheesy, but less so, like, across the decade. Although, if I must be honest, like, I'm just like trying to figure out through what circumstance, I start to think that something like Come Original is not cheesy. I'm like, self-interrogating in the moment right now, like, what?

• 1:19:29Speaker 00

  That's, yeah.

• 1:19:30Speaker 04

  Maybe we are too free from embarrassment about what we listened to in the 90s nowadays. I don't know what the right level of embarrassment is.

• 1:19:37Speaker 00

  It might be true. It might be time to start being embarrassed again. Yes. Come Original is cheesy and delightful, but cheesy in a different way. You know, Amber is cheesy and mushy, I guess. I don't mean that pejoratively, but.

• 1:19:53Speaker 04

  The stuff that bands from decades, you know, later have tried. Like, I feel like, unfortunately, that that Magic Rude song is playing in the back of my head, and it's thinking that, oh, there's an archetype for this now on the mainstream.

• 1:20:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm sorry to say that you're right. It's, I had never, I have never made that connection, but that connection is there to be made, unfortunately. That's all right. That's not 311's fault. That's our, that's our fault.

• 1:20:20Speaker 04

  You know, like, each, each generation, the, the youth get really ambitious in the same ways, maybe they don't realize, and.

• 1:20:31Speaker 04

  It's fun to sit back and watch those cycles happen.

• 1:20:34Speaker 00

  I, 311 is a shockingly durable band, right? They're still touring, they're still making albums. You know, there's not a lot of infighting, internal drama. Like, are you surprised that they've lasted this long? You know, they've lasted decades or were they always built to last this long?

• 1:20:49Speaker 04

  I mean, it sounds like that was gonna, it sounds like that was gonna go the distance. Like what they were writing about in the beginning is like, hey, like we're hanging out. Like we're chill dudes, we're not that weird. Like, that's, that's, that's a good foundation to, to, to build a friendship on. That's, that's, that's a good thing to have central to your crew.

• 1:21:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for talking.

• 1:21:13Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me on.

• 1:21:18Speaker 00

  Thanks very much to our guest this week, Craig Jenkins. Thanks very much to our producers, Jonathan Kerma, Justin Sayles and filling in this week, Bobby Wagner. Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help. Thanks to Juliana Ress for fact checking and thanks very much to you for listening. And now without further ado, let's all go listen to Amber by 311. See you next week.

• 1:21:44Speaker 05

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