Valentine’s Day Mailbag With Amanda Dobbins, Plus an Interview With Joyce Manor’s Barry Johnson

It’s a special Valentine’s Day mailbag, and The Big Picture’s Amanda Dobbins is here to help Yasi solve all your life problems. Should you avoid your ex at concerts? How do you get over a break up, even if they are a loser? Need mixtape help? Plus, vacuum cleaner advice! Next, Yasi is joined by Barry Johnson of Joyce Manor to discuss their new album ‘I Used to Go to This Bar’ (1:01:33). Get a quick tour of their beloved Torrance (they are a Torrance band, confirmed), learn a little Joyce Manor history, and find out which song was written on the Torrance 3 bus. CREDITS:Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuests: Amanda Dobbins @akdobbins, Barry Johnson @joycemanorofficialProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme 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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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:05Speaker 02

  What's with this band, anyway? I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, Bandplain? Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you haven't? I'd love that. Really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. I really like this band! Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. Bandplain!

• 1:45Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Bandplain. I am your host, Yasi Salek. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist, but today's show is a little bit different, you guys. Today's show is a Valentine's Day mailbag. And me and my special guest, Amanda K. Dobbins, will be solving your life's problems. But before we get into it, I just wanted to also let you guys know, please stick around after the mailbag, because I did a gorgeous little interview with the great Barry Johnson of Joyce Manor, and you're gonna want to listen to it. All right, Amanda, welcome to the program.

• 2:18Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me back.

• 2:20Yasi Salek?

  I love calling it a program.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  It has a nice NPR quality to it.

• 2:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, right? Like, I like to feel I'm like a real cherry glazer moment. Amanda, are you excited? I feel like we're gonna bring both sides of the aisle to this Valentine's Day mailbag. You, obviously, good at relationships, happily married, mother to two. Me, doing something a little different with my life. Also, you guys, I'm really off my game today because this is the first, I think, ever a band's plane in which I'm not wearing hoop earrings, and I feel nude. Feel naked.

• 2:51Speaker 04

  You look great.

• 2:52Yasi Salek?

  Thank you.

• 2:52Speaker 04

  I didn't notice, but now that you pointed out, you know.

• 2:55Yasi Salek?

  It's weird.

• 2:56Speaker 04

  I mean, it's OK. I don't wear earrings very often, so.

• 2:58Yasi Salek?

  Ever, really?

• 3:00Speaker 04

  Well, I got some clip-ons, yeah. So, we may be from different sides of the aisle, but this is currently the only Valentine's Day plan that I have of any shape or form.

• 3:08Yasi Salek?

  Well, I think that's wise, because Valentine's Day is a whole... It's a situation.

• 3:13Speaker 04

  And I'm thrilled, honestly. There's no better way to spend it.

• 3:16Yasi Salek?

  The thing is, like, I'm not gonna have a prefix menu.

• 3:19Speaker 04

  OK.

• 3:19Yasi Salek?

  You know what I mean? Like, leave me alone.

• 3:22Yasi Salek?

  I'll read the first. I guess the first one is, there's two, but they're kind of asked the same question. So, the question is, favorite love songs for the beginning, peak, and end of a relationship? And favorite parasocial celebrity relationship? I love you both so bad, XOXO, Claudia.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  Thank you, Claudia. One of my favorite names.

• 3:42Yasi Salek?

  It's a wonderful name. And then the second one is, hi, Yossi and Amanda, can I get a mini mixtape of a song that best describes your love life when single, in a relationship, and post-breakup? What songs are getting you through at all? Also, a show I feel like fits the romance or lack thereof vibe? Tell me why I'm still broken-hearted over High Fidelity with Zoe Kravitz not getting a season two. Thanks for the great podcast, banj. Abria Hernandez. I love when people throw a banj in there.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  I do as well. I also completely agree about season two of High Fidelity, the show.

• 4:11Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna tell you something.

• 4:12Speaker 04

  You never watched it?

• 4:13Yasi Salek?

  I've never watched it.

• 4:14Speaker 04

  It was so good. I mean, it was sort of a COVID blip, right? It came out 2020 or 2021. It was just the one season on Hulu, I believe.

• 4:21Yasi Salek?

  It's my fault it got canceled.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  It was great, but, you know, a lot of things... Were just in limbo at that moment.

• 4:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  It also caused like a personal renaissance for me with the film, with the song Come on Eileen.

• 4:36Yasi Salek?

  Great.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  Uh, which is like, I do think was number one on my Spotify wrapped for like two years.

• 4:42Yasi Salek?

  Because of the TV show.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  Because of the TV show and then I had children and then it was like, honestly, that was the music man because my life stinks. But, um, it's, I agree. I wish that there were more of the show. It was very good.

• 4:55Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna watch it, but then I'll be sad because there won't be anymore.

• 4:57Speaker 04

  Also, in the vein of like streaming specific TV shows that are actually the best recent rom coms that we have. You know about Starstruck?

• 5:06Yasi Salek?

  Yes, I watched Starstruck. That was more than one season.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  It was ultimately three seasons. It's wonderful. But if you're watching at home and you haven't seen Starstruck.

• 5:14Yasi Salek?

  Give it, give it a.

• 5:15Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 5:16Yasi Salek?

  Throw it on.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  So love songs for beginning, middle and end.

• 5:19Yasi Salek?

  Well, what, should we start with favorite parasocial celebrity relationship?

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Yes, though I forgot to prepare for this, so go first. Well, I think.

• 5:27Yasi Salek?

  We might have the same one.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 5:29Yasi Salek?

  Mine is Dua Lipa and Calvin Turner.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  I really am rooting hard for them. They are beautiful, beautiful people.

• 5:36Yasi Salek?

  I was like, I must have something else. Like I'm, you know, perhaps I'm more niche or alternative than this. And then I was like, no, I love these two people. This is also my dream to be a gorgeous, um, fit, sun kissed, vacationing, yoga doing pop star. Who has, who reads many books and has a super hot British blokey boyfriend.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. Did I tell you when we were together at the Venice Film Festival? Uh, I tried to get you into a party.

• 6:06Yasi Salek?

  It's Calvin Turner.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  And Calvin Turner did walk by me in the hallway and he was very tall and very handsome, but that was really the only thing that you missed from the party. I'm sorry. It was otherwise like an awkward afternoon party. You like went home and did work for this podcast.

• 6:19Yasi Salek?

  What if he had walked past me and been so taken by me?

• 6:23Speaker 04

  That's true, but I think the reality was that other people were trying to stop him for photos and his publicist was very polite, was like, no, I'm sorry, we don't have time. And he was very polite. That's a good answer. I'm trying to think if there's anyone older that I'm also into.

• 6:36Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I love Kevin Bacon and Keira Sedgwick. That's a long, long time one of mine.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 6:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  I mean, you know, Ben Affleck, but he's, I can't say Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.

• 6:47Yasi Salek?

  You just like the Jennifer, Jennifer axis.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 6:50Yasi Salek?

  Of Ben Affleck.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm rooting for everyone. Um, but I hope they find happiness and also real estate solvency.

• 6:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Oh, I like Mandy Patinkin and his wife. They make nice Instagram content together.

• 7:00Speaker 04

  That is very true. Those are good. If I think of any more while we're talking about this.

• 7:04Yasi Salek?

  We'll just pop them through the episode. Okay, well, for me, beginning, I have a couple.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:09Yasi Salek?

  The Flies, Got You Where I Want You.

• 7:12Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:12Yasi Salek?

  You guys are gonna look this one up. Does it have a bit of a reggae breakdown? Yes, it does. It was, it was the 90s.

• 7:17Speaker 04

  Listen.

• 7:18Yasi Salek?

  Um, also Love Song, which is a sort of undersung Madonna song. It's a duet with Prince.

• 7:27Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:27Yasi Salek?

  Off Like a Prince.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  I'm listening.

• 7:29Yasi Salek?

  It's incredible. It's like a very sexy song about like, is this or isn't this? You know? So I feel like they're both sort of circling sexy songs, which is sort of what I like to

• 7:40Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:40Yasi Salek?

  hope that the beginning feels like.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  I have, I guess, some more, it's not not sexy, but the first thing that popped into my mind was Thinking About You, Frank Ocean.

• 7:56Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  Which also aligns with when I started dating my now husband. And I think this is the only like biographical choice that I have. Um, but I remember like the whole Channel Orange moment. And this, I mean, this song, I don't know, like you can like lift a table with, it's so wonderful.

• 8:15Yasi Salek?

  It's so yearning though, and I think, not though, I mean, that's often exactly how I've felt. That I'm now reimagining myself as a powerful sexy woman.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 8:24Yasi Salek?

  You know, so that was my, I think, I, I was like, no, I no longer yearn.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  That's, I think that's beautiful. Maybe that's what we all can, you know, work towards in our relationships.

• 8:35Yasi Salek?

  But really, it more, it really more is. No, no, no, no. What about the middle, Amanda?

• 8:40Speaker 04

  The first thing that came to my head, and this is because my son, I have two sons, my four-year-old, older son, has Miles Tanser's book about music for kids.

• 8:50Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  And is really into it, and he's really been taken with the Joni Mitchell page. And he would prefer to be listening to Big Yellow Taxi at all times, which is not my peak relationship song.

• 9:00Yasi Salek?

  It tore down paradise, babe.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  I mean, I've been, I, you do quote it a lot, and I think of you. Um, but we've been, like, listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell, so Case of You.

• 9:09Yasi Salek?

  Oh, that's so good.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  Is in my head. And there is something in, like, peak relationship that also implies that there's gonna be like a down.

• 9:17Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 9:18Speaker 04

  You know, and so Case of You, like, in, like, in cases, all of that, but I mean, just, it completely goes over a four-year-old's head, but every time we're in the car, I'm like, no, no, mommy's having a moment.

• 9:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, this is, you're, you're like the one actually, but the Emma Thompson character.

• 9:33Speaker 04

  That's both sides now, okay, that's a different Joni Mitchell.

• 9:36Yasi Salek?

  Just saying, it's similar energy. I'm right there with you. I feel like the songs I picked are all sort of like, both beautiful and sad, because they feel like there is like,

• 9:46Speaker 04

  Well, peak means that they're like, yeah.

• 9:49Yasi Salek?

  And I mean, of course, there's like, we're talking about relationships that end, so it's kind of different. I'm not talking about like your 40-year marriage or whatever, because I'm sure the song in the middle of your 40-year marriage is probably a totally different song.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:00Yasi Salek?

  Structure and style. I put Within Your Reach by The Replacements.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 10:04Yasi Salek?

  Really got to your song. Blue Light by Block Party.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 10:09Yasi Salek?

  And I actually have five, I'm sorry, I really like this part.

• 10:13Speaker 04

  It's fine.

• 10:13Yasi Salek?

  Number 41 by the Dave Matthews Band.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  You don't even have to tell me about number 41. Listen, okay, Number 41 specifically lives, the live at Luther College version of Number 41, I definitely, made out in the back of a Jeep Cherokee with my first ever boyfriend to Number 41. It's so good. That's a great pull.

• 10:31Yasi Salek?

  I have a playlist of like 20 different versions of Number 41 that I sometimes put on when I'm at peak mental illness. Um, and I think it is one of the most beautiful and romantic songs, and unfortunately.

• 10:43Speaker 04

  I just had to physically restrain myself from like doing the first line and like my Dave Matthews voice, anyway.

• 10:48Yasi Salek?

  Come sing, I swear by now.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:51Yasi Salek?

  Um, unfortunately, this song, I believe, is about his lawyer, so it does take a little bit of the sheen off of the romance for me. But fuck, that song goes so hard. He didn't have to go so hard with that song. He really snapped Dave Matthews on that one.

• 11:14Yasi Salek?

  And then "Find Shrine" by purity ring, which is a real, like, you had to be blog house moment thing, but there's like a lyric in it about like, cutting open your sternum. I'm like, oh, yes, just like, go inside. I've opened my sternum and you go inside and you live in there. And Bjork's "Hyperballad."

• 11:31Speaker 04

  Oh, good one, yeah.

• 11:33Yasi Salek?

  "I go through all this before you wake up so I can feel happier, to be safe again with you."

• 11:40Speaker 04

  It's beautiful.

• 11:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Yasi Salek?

  And then it has to end, man.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:54Yasi Salek?

  It's all fucking over.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. I mean, I, again, I just went gut here, but I would say that my favorite is your, you respect the music of Taylor Swift on this podcast, if not the whole thing.

• 12:05Yasi Salek?

  I'm a big fan of multiple albums.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  Okay, so I actually, I thought about, "All Too Well" is my favorite Taylor Swift song, the original. I want nothing to do with the 10-minute version. It's an abomination.

• 12:17Yasi Salek?

  I sat down at the era store when she did that.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  We have to edit. We like, we have to, like, boundaries are good in life and in art. But anyway, I go with "Dear John." I mean, "Shining like fireworks over your sad, lonely town." Really, really, really good. Also, the guitar riff subtweet of John Mayer is beautiful stuff.

• 12:34Yasi Salek?

  She might be the Picasso of like, breakup songs, actually. You make a good point.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  "Sad, empty town," sorry, but, yeah.

• 12:51Yasi Salek?

  Now I just remembered a really dark period for myself, post-big breakup, which coincided with the exact beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  Oh, boy. Was it like, was that a cause and effect situation?

• 13:07Yasi Salek?

  No. I moved, I broke up and moved out, and two and a half weeks later, they were like, now you need to stay inside your house by yourself.

• 13:14Speaker 04

  I mean, that's, it's good.

• 13:15Yasi Salek?

  It is good. I would've gone probably to prison.

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:19Yasi Salek?

  But it also coincided-

• 13:20Speaker 04

  That's like when I stayed in a relationship too, too long and I had to go on a cruise with the, with the guy's entire family.

• 13:29Yasi Salek?

  That was God punishing you for not acting.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  It was like, if I had, if it had ended two weeks earlier, then I wouldn't have had to accept the free cruise tickets. But you know, they were like buying all the flights. So then I was like, committed for another year. Anyway.

• 13:43Yasi Salek?

  No, I'm glad, I mean, listen, I have no ill will towards this person. Lovely man. But like, there I am, in my one bedroom apartment, alone, COVID-19 pandemic. I was supposed to have my sex in the city here. I was like, yes, I'm gonna go get cocktails with my girlfriends. We're gonna flirt, we're gonna make, no, you're up in the house on FaceTime doing puzzles. And also, Miss Taylor Swift puts out Folklore.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 14:06Yasi Salek?

  So.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  Is Folklore the one with the Bon Iver song?

• 14:08Yasi Salek?

  That's the one.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  That one goes so hard.

• 14:10Yasi Salek?

  To me, that is one of the best breakup songs.

• 14:12Speaker 04

  I don't have any time for Folklore or Evermore, to be quite honest, except for that song. Like, Justin Vernon, you're a real one.

• 14:19Yasi Salek?

  I love.

• 14:20Speaker 04

  And also Joe Alwyn, who is credited with a pseudonym or a pen name on that. Listen.

• 14:25Yasi Salek?

  I tried so many times.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  Step right up. When it comes in, come on.

• 14:30Yasi Salek?

  Oh, come on.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  Absolutely killer. Okay.

• 14:32Yasi Salek?

  And then my other one is a little different.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 14:37Yasi Salek?

  I don't know if you'll know this one.

• 14:38Speaker 04

  Okay, that's okay.

• 14:39Yasi Salek?

  If you do, that's great.

• 14:40Speaker 04

  It's just a cultural exchange, you know?

• 14:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. This is a song by a band from the Apple Valley called Face to Face, a punk band, and it is called Disconnected. And if you know, you know.

• 14:50Speaker 04

  Does my husband, Zach Baron, know about this?

• 14:52Yasi Salek?

  I feel like it would be in his wheelhouse. No, you don't know what you will give up.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  He's not allowed to play his music for me, so no, however many times you sing it, I won't recognize it, but.

• 15:10Yasi Salek?

  We talk on the side about.

• 15:11Speaker 04

  That is, that's a secret to a healthy relationship, which is like, that's you, Ty.

• 15:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  That's, that's exciting. I hope it never comes up in our house.

• 15:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's okay. But Zach Baron, if you're listening, you know Face to Face.

• 15:25Yasi Salek?

  Okay, the next one, do you want to read the question?

• 15:26Speaker 04

  Yes, please. Hi, Amanda and Yasi.

• 15:28Yasi Salek?

  Hello.

• 15:29Speaker 04

  I love the Big Pick and Vance plane. I have a question. What is your best or worst Valentine's Day? Or do you have any memorable stories associated with it? Thank you. Sammy Robles.

• 15:40Yasi Salek?

  Okay, just to be clear, I'm not a Valentine's Day hater, because I also really hate that vibe where it's like, ugh, Valentine's Day is just a capitalistic.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, Hallmark, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 15:50Yasi Salek?

  But like, it's, it's sweet to celebrate love. I think that's nice, like. I like when the kids make Valentines for each other. I like that.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  Though I have to say now that I am in charge of it. No, no, I I am currently at a school that doesn't do Valentine's Day. Which is just, I'm so glad to not be making those Valentines myself. Can you imagine?

• 16:09Yasi Salek?

  Well, they used to be so fun. Remember you would go with your mom to the store and you'd be like, oh my God, I want the Sonic the Hedgehog. You know, you got to like express your personality.

• 16:16Speaker 04

  Now, fast forward and you're the mom trying to get to the CBS and I just, I like, I can't, I can't be there. But I, it's nice. You're right. It's, it's nice to have a holiday.

• 16:25Yasi Salek?

  However, I don't think I've ever meaningfully particip- I do have one really bad memory, but it was like going to a dinner with a friend and she was nearly an hour late. And so I was sitting at a restaurant on Valentine's. And I had like a little like present for her and it was just like, I was like, fucking humiliating.

• 16:48Yasi Salek?

  And I was not even a guy.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  I'm in a similar vibe with you where my most memorable was, I want to say it was like the second year that I was dating my now husband, Zach, the aforementioned Zach Baron. Because the first year it was like too early in the relationship for us to spend. So I believe he spent that Valentine's Day with John Carmonica, just like deep cuts for everyone.

• 17:07Yasi Salek?

  They must have done something romantic together.

• 17:08Speaker 04

  But I think they had a lovely dinner. I think they had many lovely dinners before I was on the scene. But so for the second one, I also not being of like Valentine's Day spirit and also like not wanting to assume anything, I had like a standing therapy appointment on the day of Valentine's Day in question. And so I was like, you know, before I told my therapist, it's like a five o'clock appointment. Like, why would I, you know, I was like, sure, I'll see you next week, whatever.

• 17:33Yasi Salek?

  Even if you would have a plan, you could, should have been able to.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  And then Zach was like, yes, no, you can't go to therapy because I'm taking you out for Valentine's Day, which was very nice. And it worked out. And I don't even remember where we went to dinner.

• 17:44Yasi Salek?

  Did he take you to dinner at 4:30?

• 17:46Speaker 04

  No, and honestly, like I probably could have sandwiched it in. Maybe it was, maybe it was a six o'clock. Maybe I was like, you know, it was pre-kids. I could go to therapy whenever. Like, it was crazy. But um, the texting my therapist being like, no, I'm sorry. Actually, I do have a Valentine's Day date was all, uh, is the memory. That's it.

• 18:04Yasi Salek?

  That's it.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  That's what I got.

• 18:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I just had a dark memory of when I was a checker at a market in college and I had a stalker. He brought me a piece of cake that he made for me.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  Okay, this turn.

• 18:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and I was like, that's

• 18:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 18:17Yasi Salek?

  It's beautiful, my beautiful Valentine's Day memories. I didn't eat the cake.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  Okay, good.

• 18:23Yasi Salek?

  Cause he made it and I was like, it's really nice, but also

• 18:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:28Yasi Salek?

  It feels dangerous, feels poison control.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I hope, I wish him well. Um, okay. We've all been desperately in love, then broken up with. Maybe, just kidding, of course. Um, I was like, not me, but yes, me. What album or artist do you associate with an ex that is forever tainted or ruined based on their association with that relationship? Michael Manning.

• 18:52Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. I mean, do you have anything off the bat?

• 18:55Yasi Salek?

  Honestly, not really, because A, I'm often the one who put people on to music.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:03Yasi Salek?

  B, I think, I probably did at certain points, but I like, I've gone to therapy for 14 years.

• 19:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:11Yasi Salek?

  And I've developed superhuman levels of dissociation. And I even still listen to my ex-boyfriend's music sometimes. His own music. And I'm like, this bangs.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  That's beautiful.

• 19:23Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 19:23Speaker 04

  I'm not the person introducing the music, but I have historically kept my music interest very separate from Cause like, unlike you, you know, you're, you know, you're like a women leader in music. Whatever like the music version of women and stimulus is what you are.

• 19:38Yasi Salek?

  I'm not like other.

• 19:39Speaker 04

  And I, on the other hand, like, have just like dated a lot of men who are like, let me tell you about like whatever I'm into at great length. And so it's always been sort of like a no, no, no, no, no. Like this, my interest like ends here and I'll only watch like

• 19:52Yasi Salek?

  I would have absolutely paid top dollar to be a fly on the wall the day that Zach Baron sat you down and was like, this is jawbreaker.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  I think that I now have heard some Jawbreaker songs. But I don't know if I could reliably, like if you played one.

• 20:09Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 20:10Speaker 04

  Right now. And like, I would say that like, four out of seven days of the week, like in his home life, Zach is just like wearing a different Jawbreaker shirt like this. It's like, very important. And I do not think that I could pass the test if you played it. And I could like positively identify them. I, we just, we stopped because he would, I think he, it was too much, too fast.

• 20:33Yasi Salek?

  If this was a rom com.

• 20:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:35Yasi Salek?

  And we didn't think Zach was maybe gonna listen to this, although famously not a Banzai listener.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 20:41Yasi Salek?

  I would be like, okay, for, we have a year till next Valentine's Day.

• 20:44Speaker 04

  Right.

• 20:44Yasi Salek?

  And what we're gonna do is we're gonna get you trained up with an electric guitar and a Jawbreaker song. And we're gonna, and then you're gonna surprise him by serenading him with a Jawbreaker song. That's like the rom com moment, you know?

• 20:59Speaker 04

  I do wonder if he would even want that because another thing that I think is important in relationships is like.

• 21:06Yasi Salek?

  It should be at a GQ event also.

• 21:11Speaker 04

  You gotta have your own, you have your own interests, right? And like, I, so it's not just that prior to Zach, like I dated like a ton of fish heads, which is just, that's on me. And that's why I married Zach and not them. But it's, so it's not just that they had bad taste, but it's also like, that's your thing. And I gotta have my own thing. And I can't have you, and I guess,

• 21:37Speaker 04

  music out of all of the like, shared art forms is not where, like going to shows is not like a part of my, was never a part of my dating ritual.

• 21:46Yasi Salek?

  You never had like an hour song though? Like this is our song?

• 21:51Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 21:52Yasi Salek?

  It was a, it was a fish song.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  No, I'm trying to think. But like, maybe that's just because I'm not really as a. Like, that's too sentimental for me. Did you have an Our Song?

• 22:02Yasi Salek?

  I like, most meaningfully-

• 22:03Speaker 04

  Our Song by Taylor Swift is a beautiful song.

• 22:05Yasi Salek?

  Definitely wasn't that one. Um, it was with my high school boyfriend, Patrick Dugan. Um, "Wherever You Are in the World," again, "Wishing You Well, Thinking of You Fondly." Um, it was Eminem's by Blink-182.

• 22:17Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. Oh, I know that. It's a good one. Great.

• 22:20Yasi Salek?

  Great song. And later in life, I found out that two of my other friends also had the same Our Song with their first high school boyfriend, which I thought was very adorable.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  That's cute. Yeah. Were they all from?

• 22:30Yasi Salek?

  No, completely different, like, people I met later in life, like, not even in the same geography.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  But you found your people.

• 22:35Yasi Salek?

  That's right. Um, so the answer-

• 22:37Speaker 04

  The real song was the-

• 22:39Yasi Salek?

  The friends we made along the way.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 22:41Yasi Salek?

  Um, I'm really sorry. The answer is me and Amanda are just apparently above-

• 22:45Speaker 04

  I mean, Phish. I'm not listening to it. I, I'm really-

• 22:48Yasi Salek?

  Phish started out ruined for me, so couldn't have gotten any more ruined.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  Really, it like expands to any sort of jam band situation.

• 22:54Yasi Salek?

  Except for Dave Matthews.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Uh, well, that's true, but even that, there's like a little more structure.

• 22:58Yasi Salek?

  We're gonna go, we're gonna go to Dave Matthews.

• 23:00Speaker 04

  I grew up in, in Atlanta, Georgia, so there's a lot going on musically, but there was like a whole Widespread thing that was happening.

• 23:08Yasi Salek?

  Absolutely not.

• 23:08Speaker 04

  And then this like really hot guy I went to college with, like, came to Atlanta for one of the Widespread New Year's shows and like, was like trying to, I don't, I don't know whether he was trying to come to my party, or he was trying to get me to go to Widespread, but I was like, I'm absolutely not gonna be doing that. Um, I, this is, this is a nonstarter, so that's my answer.

• 23:27Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I like it.

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 23:28Yasi Salek?

  I think that for a future episode, we should fly to the gorge-

• 23:33Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:34Yasi Salek?

  And see David Matthews' band, and we have mushrooms together.

• 23:37Speaker 04

  Great.

• 23:37Yasi Salek?

  And we film the whole thing.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  I think it'll be my first time with all, maybe I went to a Dave Matthews show in con, in, in high school? Like, that was the cool thing to do, but I don't know if I ever made it, or whether I just lived vicariously through other people.

• 23:49Yasi Salek?

  Well-

• 23:49Speaker 04

  The other two would be first time. This is a really long email.

• 23:53Yasi Salek?

  Okay, do you want me to read it?

• 23:54Speaker 04

  No, no, no, I can read it. I'm just gonna, it's gonna be, but listen, it's, you know, it's a mailbag episode. I'm just gonna be brisk. I'm a male in my mid 30s from Maryland who mostly listens to rap, Fugazi, and Snail Mail. I know what all of those are. I have a teller tendonitis, so I can no longer jump to music or join the mosh pit, but I'm going through a rehab. Anyway, my ex-girlfriend introduced me to some cool bands from the past and the present, such as Radiohead, Bar Italia, Fontaine's DC, Louis Cole, or is it Louis Cole?

• 24:18Yasi Salek?

  I actually don't know.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Et cetera. There are a few other bands that she helped me discover, and a couple of them are coming through my town to play their shows in the next few weeks, and I'm 90% sure my ex-girlfriend will be there with her new boyfriend. I do not want to see her with her new partner at these shows, and she probably doesn't want to see me at these shows either. I'm afraid of ruining her experience, especially since she's the one who introduced me to these bands. Should I go to these shows knowing there's a high probability of running into her, or is this a bit of a selfish move by me?

• 24:44Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  So I like, there's a self-awareness here that I appreciate.

• 24:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 24:49Speaker 04

  And so this is where, as like a not professional showgoer.

• 24:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  I have to ask you, like, are you gonna like run into this person, or might there be like a slightly awkward moment? Yes, probably, but isn't there a way, like, you don't have to spend the whole show right next to each other, right?

• 25:07Yasi Salek?

  I, I think I just, I'm like, I need more information.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 25:11Yasi Salek?

  Did you wrong this woman? Do you know what I mean? Like?

• 25:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:15Yasi Salek?

  Did you do something hurtful or terrible? And I'm not presuming that. I'm just, if, because if that's the case, then okay, like, perhaps you let her have her thing, because it was kind of her thing. If not, if it was just sort of a normal breakup, amicable, you know, or even if it's not amicable, but it was like, no one really like, their hands aren't dirty, you can go to whatever show you want. She doesn't own these bands.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  You probably will run into her, and you do need to be emotionally prepared for that. And I would also encourage you.

• 25:46Yasi Salek?

  Bring a friend.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  Well, and also just like, be prepared, like, know what you're gonna do if you run into them.

• 25:53Yasi Salek?

  Have a plan.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  And be, have a plan in like, a gracious way.

• 25:56Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 25:57Speaker 04

  Plan for the best version of yourself.

• 25:59Yasi Salek?

  That's good.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Plan to say, like, Like, and if you have anxiety, you can even say, like, I hope I'm not ruining this for you. I just really, like,

• 26:07Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  Wanted to, like, see the music. I hope you're well. And then you can leave.

• 26:10Yasi Salek?

  Easy.

• 26:10Speaker 04

  Like, whatever.

• 26:11Yasi Salek?

  Tip your hat.

• 26:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, but, but know what you're gonna say, know if it's gonna happen, and plan to be as nice as possible. And then, yeah, I think that you should get to go. I mean, I, it also feels like you've got your own stuff going on, you need music to help you. Let's, listen, do your thing.

• 26:27Yasi Salek?

  Music is for everyone.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  Just have a plan.

• 26:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And you know what? She has agency.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  And don't be a dick.

• 26:32Yasi Salek?

  She doesn't have to talk to you.

• 26:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:33Yasi Salek?

  She could be like, she could avoid you. I avoid people like it's my job.

• 26:37Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 26:37Yasi Salek?

  You should see me at the Hollywood farmer's market, babe.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:40Yasi Salek?

  Like a pinball machine.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:41Yasi Salek?

  Oh, nope, nope, that's not happening. You know, like, you've just gotta, kind of. Okay. Next question. Hey, Ossie and Amanda, love bands playing in the big picture. Thank you so much for listening. I have a question about y'all's opinion on collaborative music habits in relationships.

• 26:56Speaker 04

  Okay. Well, I think I'm on the record, but keep going.

• 26:58Yasi Salek?

  My boyfriend and I are long distance, and early in our relationship, we connected through a joint music playlist that we both contributed to. We have similar tastes, but we also got to introduce each other to a lot of new music that is personal to us. Put me on to a lot of stuff he listened to in college, in New York, like Block Party, Future Islands, and Pierre Obu. Okay, Pierre Obu. And I got to introduce him to local Austin scene bands like The Opera and Font. Music was a great outlet for learning more about one another. Although now we watch movies together every weekend to spark new conversations. She was like, I listen to The Big Picture, too.

• 27:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:26Yasi Salek?

  Um, I know sharing music has been a thing for as long as we've had physical media to share. Mixtape CDs and playlists are all just evolutions of the primal urge to share things you love with people you care about. Do y'all have any memorable experiences about sharing music with past partners slash crushes? Have you noticed any significant changes in the habits of sending music in the age of streaming? This is from Isaac in Texas, who is 25 years old. Okay, so you, church and state, did you ever, were you ever like, I really feel you might love this Taylor Swift song? To any of your boyfriends?

• 27:57Speaker 04

  Um, Taylor Swift is pretty much exclusively overlapping, I mean, this is how old I am, with my current relationship with my husband, who was also, like, very into music and a music journalist.

• 28:10Yasi Salek?

  Right, so he was aware of Taylor Swift.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  And, and he was like, he was like, smart enough, and also friends with John Carmonica.

• 28:15Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  So John Carmonica took the two of us to the Red Tour. Um, it was like, it was really a very beautiful thing. So he was, I didn't have to introduce Taylor Swift to him, and he was like, up with optimism enough to, like, not neg it. But- The fish thing, obviously, you know, I had some fish CDs made for me, but I do have an answer to this, which was my, my high school boyfriend, in addition to being a fish head and very smart, was also an incredibly gifted cellist. And he was in the, um, like, the U Symphony Orchestra in Atlanta. He was very, very accomplished and so, and I had like some classical music training and some appreciation for it.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Like, he taught me about a lot of, like, a lot of classical music that I did not know about. Like, you know, like, the Dvorak Cello Concerto, which is like the most famous cello concerto. It's not like, you know, deep cuts or whatever, but it's amazing and really beautiful. And like, we would, he would get free symphony tickets, so we would go a lot to the Grown-Up Symphony. So, that's not like, it was never a mixtape situation. I'm sure that I got some, but I don't remember them. But that was a very cool thing that I got.

• 29:24Yasi Salek?

  That's a really good, that's much better, actually, than anything else.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Well, and then, but then the new version is that for my 41st birthday, which was my rager since my 40th birthday, I was, um, like, on the disabled list. Yeah. We had a party and Zach made me a playlist and then he asked friends, including Yasi, to contribute to the Spotify playlist, which is like my most treasured possession. And I do feel like friends should, it's really good.

• 29:47Yasi Salek?

  It's so nice.

• 29:48Speaker 04

  It was also, it like, I was very specific with my requests and everyone-

• 29:52Yasi Salek?

  We tried to deliver to what you were looking for.

• 29:54Speaker 04

  You did deliver and sequence it and it was beautiful. Nick Sylvester also contributed. So that is a good new way to do things for someone.

• 30:02Yasi Salek?

  I like the idea of collaborative playlists. I think that's really sweet. My memorable thing is kind of funny and annoying. Um, I think I just don't remember the good ones because they're good. You know how that is? It's very like Tolstoy, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. I dated a guy and he sent me a song over email and it was the Stone Roses, "I Wanna Be Adored," which I obviously already knew about. But I was like, oh, that's cute, you know? I didn't think anything of it. I was just like, he wanted me to know about this song, that's cool.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:33Yasi Salek?

  And then I was like, oh, we're sending songs back and forth. I'll send him a song that he might think is cool. So we were both DJs at the time, really.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  Okay. Well, I was gonna ask, like, what era is this? And when you say he sends you a song, is it like an MP3 attached to it?

• 30:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, to an email.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 30:48Yasi Salek?

  I know, because this is, this, I would have been in my, like, late twenties. So this is like 2000- Seven? Okay. All right, so pre YouTube, pre Spotify. Pre Spotify, pre YouTube, yeah. And I sent him back, well, maybe YouTube was wrong, I don't remember, but I sent him back, uh, "One, Twelve, Only You." Okay. "The real heads will know. Mason's the one that'll pay for your phone. Mason's be the one that'll take you home." Anyways, and he was like, "Whoa, whoa." This is like, he was like, kinda like, came for me, like, I was being too, like, I was taking it too, like, oh, this is like, I think you're misreading the really, and I was like, "What?" I was like, "I just sent you a cool, it's just a fun song." But he was like, "Oh, but it's like, it's about, it's like, only you, I only like you." I'm like, "You sent me a song called, 'I Wanna Be Adored.' I thought we were just sending fun songs."

• 31:33Yasi Salek?

  And then I was really fucking pissed. Yeah. Men just like- And then where did it go? And then you kept dating him? Just like briefly, and then it like, it, you know, sparked out. And then he married a friend of mine. Okay. They have three children, and they're very happy, and I wish them well. That's good.

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• 32:52Speaker 04

  Hi, Ossie and Amanda. I'm coming up on my 20th high school reunion later this year. Welcome. And it, what is mine? Oh, my? No, no, mine was a couple of years ago. This is 20 college. That's okay. It's like same, same tax bracket, sort of. And it unsurprisingly has me looking back at Gross Point Blank, my favorite unconventional rom-com. For years, the soundtrack was the emergency CD I kept in my car's stereo. I'm curious where this one ranks for you as far as movie soundtracks go. For me, it's near the top. And to this day, when I hear "Under Pressure," I still think about Cusack holding the baby and having a moment of clarity before I think of "After Sun." Thanks for everything you both do. Skylar from Scranton.

• 33:28Yasi Salek?

  Well, you already know for me, this is a god-tier soundtrack.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:31Yasi Salek?

  Absolute peak, huge, major. I have, in recent years, rediscovered the Pete Townsend song, "Let My Love Open the Door," Ecolomics, and I can't stop listening to it. And I think I a bit overlooked it in the like 90s and early 2000s. Yeah, this is just one of the greatest soundtracks of all time. Shout out DV De Vicente, who was the co-screenwriter, I believe, on this movie. And also, I was in charge of the music.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  I see your Gross Point Blank, and I raise you Romeo and Juliet.

• 34:04Yasi Salek?

  Well, of course, Romeo and Juliet is the number one best soundtrack of all time.

• 34:09Speaker 04

  Oh, sorry. I just, you know, that's, listen, some of us were normie kids in the 90s.

• 34:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  This is how some of us learned about garbage. It's okay.

• 34:17Yasi Salek?

  It's okay. And it, that is, I mean, talk show host, Radiohead, Nellie Hooper mix? Let's fucking go.

• 34:24Speaker 04

  First time that I learned about Leonardo DiCaprio and Radiohead in that one shot. I think cinema is powerful.

• 34:33Yasi Salek?

  Learn about movies, soundtracks, man. Really sad that we don't really have that anymore. Isn't that so heartbreaking?

• 34:39Speaker 04

  I don't know. The Marty Supreme one's going pretty hard in my house.

• 34:41Yasi Salek?

  That's like a score, though.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  It's true, but it does like, and it uses a lot of the 80s songs in the score.

• 34:47Yasi Salek?

  That's true.

• 34:47Speaker 04

  But when we do it, it's a combo of Tears for Fears and the score itself.

• 34:52Yasi Salek?

  Maybe that's kind of the way going forward is doing some sort of hybrid of like original score and like some songs that sort of like are all thematically connected or whatever. Because I really miss soundtracks. They were so important.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  They were great. They also used to spend money on them. That's the other issue. Now, now it's just all filler.

• 35:10Yasi Salek?

  Because they would sell. The CDs would sell. There's no way for them to sell it now.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  But they would also, like, they actually tried. Now, especially the soundtracks of movies geared towards women. Which they don't really make anymore, but when they do, it's like whatever like junk artists they're like trying to promote, you know? It's not, it's not the quality that you want.

• 35:27Yasi Salek?

  It's not giving. It doesn't have a pressure draw by the specials, for example, like Girls Wave Wave does. Bonj, Yasi and Amanda. Yes. Let's get this taken. There is a strange man on Instagram that I know has been using Bonj, and I do feel that he stole it from me, but there's no way to prove that, and we're just gonna let it go. Because it's more Bonj to let these things go. Longtime listener and parasocial friend here. In past episodes, Yasi dropped the lore that exes have written songs about her. My question for you both is, what songs do you know that were written about you? And if that's too messy, what songs would you add to a mixtape for someone that you're in the starry-eyed, crazy, swooning, warm, liquid goo phase of falling in love with? Exo, exo, Annie.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  Annie, this is a nice email that supposes that I've ever dated someone who knew how to write a song. So, thank you for thinking that about me. I don't think that anyone that I've ever been romantically involved with has ever composed any sort of music, ever.

• 36:26Yasi Salek?

  What about the cellist?

• 36:27Speaker 04

  No, I think he was playing, he was playing other great hits. You know, he was interpreting, but that's different. None of those songs are about me.

• 36:34Yasi Salek?

  I think it's okay that none of the Phish guys wrote a song about you. I think it's better for the world, honestly.

• 36:40Speaker 04

  What would writing even constitute in that? But whatever, it's a different podcast.

• 36:45Yasi Salek?

  I'm not going to do that. I'm not doing that.

• 36:48Speaker 04

  It's too messy.

• 36:48Yasi Salek?

  It's too messy. Let's do, let's do chaos. I am a chaotic person, but like, you know, I believe, I believe in maintaining a level of privacy. I know that doesn't seem like what I'm about, but you have to keep a little. Also, I'm dead that her PS was that she never had a song written about her, but an ex recently sent her a text that said he's putting a song out that uses her joke, and it's a song that he wrote about being a gold prospector.

• 37:16Yasi Salek?

  I'm deceased. I'm like, what are you talking about?

• 37:18Speaker 04

  And the clown emoji. That's really good. That's honestly better than any answer, anything any of us could give.

• 37:24Yasi Salek?

  I'll give you my starry eyed swoon list, though, and if you have any songs.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:29Yasi Salek?

  I have a million, but I'll try to keep it short. Replacements, I Will Dare. Perfect beginning starry eyed swoon. If I Was Your Girlfriend by Prince. Let's fucking, you know. Lay My Love by Brian Eno and John Cale. Just an absolutely spiritual love song. Fontaine's DC favorite, The Cure, Close To Me.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  Oh, so good.

• 37:47Yasi Salek?

  Lightning Seeds, Pure. Nirvana, Drain You. Dave Matthews Band, Lover Lay Down. You'll have to really feel that one out because I think some men are made uncomfortable by that song. PJ Harvey, This Is Love. And Sunny Day Real Estate, number 47. Oh, just so sticky, warm, gooey, falling in love music. I love it.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  That's beautiful.

• 38:07Yasi Salek?

  Thank you.

• 38:07Speaker 04

  I don't remember what that feels like, but, you know.

• 38:09Yasi Salek?

  Me neither, babe.

• 38:12Yasi Salek?

  But I like the music.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  Hey, both. Big fan. Moriarty on Big Pick, please. I'm trying. Tell her to come to Venice with me again this year. I audibly laughed when I saw the Insta post asking for questions. I recently broke up with my long-term boyfriend because I finally listened to my friends and realized he sucked. It's hitting harder than expected, even though it was my decision. Any advice for getting over a relationship, even if it was with a loser? Bonus points for anything to do in freezing NYC. P.S. I hope Amanda knows she has a devout queer Gen Z following in Brooklyn. Thank you for keeping that straight Blu-ray DVD man in line. Love, Sam. He was 27. Sam, I love you right back.

• 38:46Yasi Salek?

  Not that straight.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  You Blu-ray DVD man.

• 38:51Speaker 04

  I'm kidding, I'm gonna use that.

• 38:52Yasi Salek?

  Sean Fantasy. New name just dropped.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  It's true, like, we all.

• 38:56Yasi Salek?

  I don't see.

• 38:56Speaker 04

  Boundaries, once again.

• 38:58Yasi Salek?

  I detect no lies in that sentence.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  Um, this sucks. But, I mean, it's like, I'm glad you did the right thing, Sam. And I think, I mean, this, this sucks, but time and other activities.

• 39:11Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna say a thing you're not gonna like, which is the only way out is through. I'm sorry. I know it's a coffee mug.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:20Yasi Salek?

  I think, like, the only way to get over a thing is to just surrender to the bad feeling and do whatever it is that you need to do to really feel that bad feeling. And also, like, again, I'm not, I'm not.

• 39:38Yasi Salek?

  Condoning alcohol use, but if like, if maybe you need to, maybe you need to like, get wasted with your friends, or like, maybe you need to watch a bunch of stupid movies, you know? But the truth is, yeah, it's time.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  I have one more thing to add, and I don't know whether this is helpful, but if you can, after a while, separate what you miss about the being in a relationship, or being with someone, or if you can isolate the feelings just of loss from the feelings of what do you miss about this person?

• 40:12Yasi Salek?

  The specific person, yeah.

• 40:14Speaker 04

  Because, find out what's what, you know, like, does this person stink? Um, maybe it'll become a little bit easier. And I'm, it's like, it's hard, especially, it's like, some things are just better with another person. I will also say-

• 40:27Yasi Salek?

  Going to the movies.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  I have, well-

• 40:29Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I like going alone too, but some, okay, here's, here's the thing.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:33Yasi Salek?

  I've never watched The Sopranos.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 40:35Yasi Salek?

  Because it's not really fun to watch that by yourself.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  I guess that's true.

• 40:40Yasi Salek?

  Or like Game of Thrones.

• 40:41Speaker 04

  Oh, well, that's just not fun to watch, in my opinion. Here's the thing, is that you don't know what's fun until you try it. So some things are fun to do with another person. And also, if you learn that, yes, like, I am someone who wants to be with someone else, I think that's like valuable.

• 40:56Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  And mourning that is as valuable as mourning this particular person. I do also think that like, some things are absolutely awesome to do by yourself. And I say that as someone who lives with three other people, and most of, three other men, most of the time, uh, though they don't collect DVDs, thank the Lord. But do you remember that scene? I bet Sam is too young to remember the part in Sex and the City, where they talk about all their weird single behavior.

• 41:22Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  And Carrie talks about like, saltine jam sandwiches alone. And it's like, I have so much of that, that's just locked away in a box in me.

• 41:32Yasi Salek?

  My whole life is that right now.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  I know, and it's like, obviously, you want like, a little bit of a medium, but you know, try to find-

• 41:38Yasi Salek?

  I sometimes think I'm like- I don't think anyone else can live here.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 41:42Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 41:43Yasi Salek?

  I have my things.

• 41:44Speaker 04

  So I think, you know, therapy is Tommy is like if you can understand at least why you're feeling the way you feel, then that's halfway towards.

• 41:52Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  So see what you can.

• 41:54Yasi Salek?

  Also, I do have.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  Also, we're proud of you for breaking up with a loser.

• 41:56Yasi Salek?

  We're proud of you. I have one more thing. Take it or leave it. Throw it out if you don't want it. But I also feel sometimes actually tapping into compassion for that person instead of like, I know it feels easier to just write them off as like a loser or whatever, but like maybe letting go of that sort of negative is almost like a connection back to them. Whereas like if you're just like, nice guy, wish him the best or wish them the best. It ironically is so much more freeing because you're no longer like throwing any emotion towards them, you know?

• 42:31Speaker 04

  That's very evolved and very California of you. I don't know whether I personally could get there, but you know, it's whatever helps.

• 42:39Yasi Salek?

  Next question. Hello. I'll be spending this February 14th the same way I spend every February 14th, cleaning my house and wishing misery on all the happy people in the world. Okay. I love it. Spicy. Only problem, my vacuum cleaner recently broke. There is a stranger on Facebook selling a refurbished, high-end brand vacuum. He put refurbished in quotes. For about the same price as a new but low-end brand from Target. When it comes to vacuum cleaners, do you think price or brand matters? Do you think a vacuum should be new or is used okay? Also, keep in mind, I will be considering this a Valentine's Day gift to myself. That may sound kind of sad, but in actuality, it is incredibly sad. But I'm okay. I'm great. I have the living room walls to talk to and podcasts to listen to. I'm doing great. So Lady Doth protests too much. Thank you for your help with this miserable Nick.

• 43:23Yasi Salek?

  Providence, Rhode Island.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  I think this is a great Valentine's Day gift for yourself. Here's, here's what I feel. I'm like skipping through the.

• 43:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we're not indulging your.

• 43:35Speaker 04

  We're all coping in our own ways and that's fine.

• 43:38Yasi Salek?

  Being alone on Valentine's Day is a real who cares, like.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  You've emailed me a question about vacuums and I have a very strong perspective on this.

• 43:46Yasi Salek?

  We endeavor to actually solve this problem.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  Which is like, I act, I think the best case here is a refurbished, high-end brand from. The manufacturer.

• 43:55Yasi Salek?

  I agree.

• 43:56Speaker 04

  You need the manufacturer's guarantee on the refurbished, even though they won't let you return it or whatever. But at least, once it's a stranger and it's on Facebook and there's no regulation, like, I don't know, vacuums or machines, are you an engineer? Can you fix it if it goes wrong? If not, then go for it. If you can, then go for it. If not.

• 44:14Yasi Salek?

  Well, I would just piggyback on that to say, I agree with Amanda, that's the best case scenario. If you can't, I will say, I still think you should always go high-end, high-end everything, especially if it's like a very known vacuum brand. Do a little research, hit the Google, hit the wire cutter. Because often with very high-end vacuum cleaners, even if you don't know how to fix it yourself, there is a place you can take it that for a nominal fee will fix it. And it will still last you way longer than a low-end brand, which is gonna fucking crap out on you in like a year.

• 44:48Speaker 04

  And will also work better.

• 44:50Yasi Salek?

  This is one thing where the difference. You deserve a good vacuum. You deserve a clean floor. You need those dust mites taken out. So that's our advice.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  What kind of vacuum do you use?

• 45:00Yasi Salek?

  I use a Dyson.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 45:02Yasi Salek?

  Um, like the cordless one, just because I have to constantly vacuum because of the pet hair.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:07Yasi Salek?

  Um, I don't think it's like the best one. I think of the best one is probably like a canister vacuum. But my house is tiny violin, too big. Um, and I have to go on too many flights of stairs and too much vacuum to have a canister vacuum.

• 45:20Speaker 04

  I would like to use a Roomba, but we have too many stairs.

• 45:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  So we can't do it. So mine's purple and I don't really know what it is.

• 45:27Yasi Salek?

  The cordless stick vacuum from Dyson is quite nice. And it has a little green light that shows you dust.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  Okay. Oh, this is a good one. Hey, Yasi and Amanda, with the Tamara Davis doc, the best of summer on its way sometime soon. Will you do episodes on bands related to the doc? And if so, please, please, please do Sonic Youth. That's more of a question for Yasi. But, okay, side question, do you have any kind of tradition at concerts? As a frequent concert goer, I try to buy a band shirt at every show, if given the option. I'd like to know what if you have a must, like, if you have a similar kind of tradition for shows. Thank you, Taylor. Also sort of a question for Yancy, because I don't really go to shows that often.

• 46:02Yasi Salek?

  Okay, I'll, I can bear the brunt of this.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  You often go to shows with loved ones in my life.

• 46:06Yasi Salek?

  I do, yeah. Okay, I was wondering if someone would be able to squeeze in a can you do this band? And my hat is off to you that you were able to do that. Um, I think we will do those bands. I don't know when, and I can make no promises. Um, I think, uh, the DV, the straight DVD collecting man should consider doing an entire episode on music documentaries coming out this year, because there's really great ones.

• 46:30Speaker 04

  He texted me while watching The Best Summer, um, which was part of Sundance, uh, this year, and liked it very much. He was like, this is the best thing ever. I don't think it has a distributor right now.

• 46:41Yasi Salek?

  Right, yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  Uh, but that's okay.

• 46:43Yasi Salek?

  And do I have a tradition at concerts? Not really, but I love buying things, so I do often, I do like to buy merch.

• 46:48Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. Can I plug my merch now?

• 46:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 46:51Speaker 04

  I'm wearing, the last concert I went to was my four-year-old son's band concert. And this is, his, his band is called Candy Freeze, and this is their shirt.

• 46:57Yasi Salek?

  And they rip.

• 46:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're great. He was on guitar and vocals.

• 47:01Yasi Salek?

  He took both, he took both on.

• 47:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:04Yasi Salek?

  Even though that was unexpected.

• 47:05Speaker 04

  And then he got off the stage and asked when it was his turn again. I know. I was proud of him.

• 47:12Yasi Salek?

  Okay, hey, girls, love the pod. Music has been the obsession of my life for over 20 years, and as a custodian, I have the chance to listen to four to six hours of music every day. But since 95% of my favorite artists are lesser-known metal hardcore bands, it is impossible for me to find any common ground with women. Okay, well, I think some women probably listen to those bands. When trying to talk about the number one passion in my life, some of my favorite artists are the Mars Volta, Swans, Converged, Zillinger, Skate Plan, Neurosis, Kralis, and Norma Jean. I know women who listen to those. It's okay, we don't have to get into that right now.

• 47:43Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no. I, like, I know what you're saying, and I, keep reading.

• 47:47Yasi Salek?

  Okay. I do love two Lana Del Rey albums, wonderful, Honey Moon and Norman Fucking Rockwell. Okay, not the correct ones. Um, but I have never heard a single Taylor Swift song in my life. Well, that's fine. I have no knowledge of any other popular music, and I tried to listen to that Geese album, but it was incredibly boring and lacking musical creativity. Okay, we don't have to. So I had to stop and cleanse my brain with Cassandra Gemini by the Mars Volta. I would say this on a date would be I did not connect with the geese album. That's good. That's a nice reframe. I know that none of this is that serious and everyone enjoys different types of music for different reasons, but do you have any ideas of how I could form some connection on a date when I have no knowledge of popular music and the other person has no knowledge of the biggest passion of my life, one in which, again, I spend four to six hours a day immersing myself in. And for context, I'm a 36 year old straight man using the dating apps and I

• 48:32Yasi Salek?

  can't go to shows because I have epilepsy. Thanks. See you in hell. Nicholas Van Orton, not my real name. Okay, I'm just gonna say one thing.

• 48:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think Nicholas Van Orton is the name character is in the game, the David Fincher film. Sorry, Michael Douglas, which is

• 48:47Yasi Salek?

  One of, one of my favorite movies.

• 48:48Speaker 04

  So there you go. Talk about David Fincher films, if that's your

• 48:50Yasi Salek?

  I was gonna say, have you, have you not read any books? Have you seen any television programs? Have we seen a film? Have we thought about philosophy? Do we have ideas about fate, God? There's a lot of topics of conversation to connect over.

• 49:03Speaker 04

  Four to six hours of music every day.

• 49:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 04

  That's, that's a lot of time spent, though.

• 49:08Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  So I understand. It's like, so this is about, I mean, there are two questions here, right? There are number one, it's like, how much of like, a relationship needs to be built on a shared passion and mutual interest. And then also, just, you know, had a date in 2026. I don't really know how to do the latter one. It seems pretty hard.

• 49:31Yasi Salek?

  Me neither.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  I don't think it's that hard to listen to a Taylor Swift song, but also if you're not interested, I honestly don't think that you should bother. And I don't think that, and if, like, the other person needs you to have listened to a Taylor Swift album to be interesting on a date, then you're not on a good date. That said, I, like, on a dating app, how are you supposed to screen for this? And if you're the guy being like, I don't care about Taylor Swift on a dating app, like, that seems aggressive and annoying and not what, not even what you're putting out with this.

• 49:58Yasi Salek?

  Right. And we're not saying you're doing that. So, because it did seem like you knew how to recontextualize your feelings about geese.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  I do. I, I think you're right, that you can have other shared passions or other You just talk about other things. It doesn't all have to be based on mutual interest.

• 50:13Yasi Salek?

  This is very, um, high fidelity, the film. It's very like, it's not what, it's not what you're like, but what you like. But actually, it is what you're like and not what, as much what you like.

• 50:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 50:26Yasi Salek?

  Listen, I think the right woman

• 50:29Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:29Yasi Salek?

  will be like, wow, that's so cool that you're so passionate

• 50:33Speaker 04

  Right.

• 50:34Yasi Salek?

  about Jawbreaker, Zach Baron. I would love to marry you.

• 50:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 50:38Yasi Salek?

  And that is what happened with Amanda Dobbins and they have two beautiful children. So just know, there's precedent for this.

• 50:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. Also, I mean, we, we have some middle ground. It's like, I don't really know. There are, you're right, women who like geese, but

• 50:52Yasi Salek?

  There's a lot of women like geese. There's a lot of women like all these bands, but also you don't have to find a woman.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  Right.

• 50:56Yasi Salek?

  That's what we're saying.

• 50:57Speaker 04

  You also, you don't have to find yourself.

• 50:58Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  You don't have to find another person who has the exact same interests. Um, I mean, it does mean that you have to find like other things to talk about. Maybe there's also embedded in here, like, you know, a wish to find someone to talk about music with.

• 51:14Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 51:14Speaker 04

  But you can't go to shows, so you kind of like can't find your community that way.

• 51:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 51:18Speaker 04

  So I think we probably have two things to solve for here, which is like finding your music buds.

• 51:25Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Finding people that, and, and you should just find the people who also like all of these bands, half of which I've heard.

• 51:31Yasi Salek?

  I would love to interest you to Reddit.

• 51:33Speaker 04

  Right. But like, but then actually like making friends and then, you know, if you can't go to shows, which many people can, you can find other ways to bond over that. And then, then how do you just, how do you go on a date with someone, which is hard? I don't, I don't really know how you go on dates.

• 51:50Yasi Salek?

  I don't know. Those apps are an absolute mystery to me. I'm like, I'll just look at five pictures and like two sentences and be like, yes.

• 51:57Speaker 04

  Right. So what are other places

• 52:00Yasi Salek?

  To meet people.

• 52:01Speaker 04

  What aren't shows that are like music-ish to meet people?

• 52:04Yasi Salek?

  The record store?

• 52:05Speaker 04

  That's great. There you go. I mean, don't be creepy, but it seems like there's, you know, I don't know.

• 52:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 52:12Speaker 04

  What else? Anything else? Merch table?

• 52:16Yasi Salek?

  Well, you have to be inside the show.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. Okay, that's tough.

• 52:20Yasi Salek?

  Listen, what I'm hearing is that you are a cool guy with cool tastes, but perhaps you would benefit from expanding your interests

• 52:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:32Yasi Salek?

  beyond these tastes.

• 52:35Yasi Salek?

  And meet people that way.

• 52:37Speaker 04

  And listen, if Nicholas Van Orne is the game reference, which is like a lesser Fincher than

• 52:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 52:44Speaker 04

  Letterboxd, my guy, you know?

• 52:45Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 52:46Speaker 04

  Like explore the movie thing.

• 52:48Yasi Salek?

  Film.

• 52:48Speaker 04

  And Rep theaters and there is like a whole community that there is another way. And then from there, I think that we just don't have to marry, like finding a music friend and finding someone to date in the same thing. Like we can, we can look for both, but they don't have to be in one person.

• 53:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And that's why we have friends.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  Yeah. Hi, both. Love both the pods. Thank you. My question is about knowing when to settle down and have kids. Oh, boy. I'm 29 and have been with my boyfriend for seven years. We're incredibly happy having moved in with each other over a year ago and have great independent lives outside of what we have together. Okay, A plus.

• 53:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 53:22Speaker 04

  Nicholas Van Orne. I am starting to have feelings, I'm starting to have feelings that I'm falling behind. I live in London. Bring the big pick back to for an event at the Prince Charles Cinema, please. I'd love to. Prince Charles Cinema rules forever.

• 53:34Yasi Salek?

  Cinema.

• 53:34Speaker 04

  But everyone I know back home in New Zealand are marrying and having children and people at my work are not marrying and having kids. I love my life. We travel for long periods and go on spontaneous nights out, but I worry that I'm losing time to have children. We are definitely on the same page about, not yet, but I still feel unsure. Well, I love both of your views on this age old question.

• 53:50Yasi Salek?

  The way that.

• 53:51Speaker 04

  Megan, you're thriving.

• 53:53Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 53:53Speaker 04

  Megan, you're doing it so right. You're doing it the most right in the world.

• 53:57Yasi Salek?

  When I read the 29.

• 54:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:02Yasi Salek?

  I was like, I'm going to put all the rocks in the pockets and walk into the ocean.

• 54:05Speaker 04

  One thing that I have observed, so this person lives in London and is also back from New Zealand.

• 54:09Yasi Salek?

  It's a geographic thing.

• 54:10Speaker 04

  Well, so both countries have better, better social support systems than we have here in the United States. And so people do tend to just have children earlier.

• 54:18Yasi Salek?

  I've even, I mean, I don't know much about New Zealand respectfully, but I, I know in London, even though it is like a city, I think on par with LA and New York in terms of like being like a huge city in Coswell, Palestine, whatever. People tend to marry and have children much younger there than they do in LA and New York. And I think it is because of the social system, but I'm sure it feels.

• 54:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 54:38Yasi Salek?

  A type of way, you know?

• 54:40Speaker 04

  So I think like particularly in the US because we have no paid leave, like no, you know, the healthcare system is so messed up. It's so hard to have a child that those who can't, like people do tend to wait a little bit later, but any, but there are a lot of reasons. Who cares? Whatever. 29, you have all the time in the world.

• 54:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  Like emotionally and biologically, by the way, don't let them.

• 55:02Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  Don't let them mess that stuff up.

• 55:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Claire Dins, babe.

• 55:06Speaker 04

  Listen, that's true. Awesome. I had my kids at 37 and 40.

• 55:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 55:09Speaker 04

  So.

• 55:09Yasi Salek?

  Here's my real advice as a childless woman. If your reasons are keeping up with the Joneses or feeling pressure or should, then like throw that in the trash. Who cares? That's nothing to do anything in your life about. If you're, if you're actually feeling like losing time is about like, you want to be a younger mother. Like that's the thing, you know?

• 55:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:34Yasi Salek?

  You want, um, I don't know, like there's various reasons, I think, to have children at various times in your life. And like, if you, if you actually want, think that you want it for a reason that is valid about how your life, you want your life to play out, maybe just let yourself think about it. Sit with your husband and be like, okay, if we have kids now, here's what our next 18 years of our life looks like. Do we want to do that now? Do we want to put it off for five years? Like, and again, as someone absolutely deeply childless, I think I can ask you, it sounds like from all my friends, like you're never ready, ready. It's just like you just do it and then it happens.

• 56:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. And or in my case, if you are ready, then you're like, oh crap, it doesn't happen. And then you did like lots of IVF for a while, which by the way, the IVF was not because I was older. It was because of other issues that I had. So again, you have all the time in the world. It's a crazy decision to make. You're never like, I'm totally ready. But I think if you know where you are and what you want, you are in a better position than 95% of people and keep following it. And like also your life sounds really awesome.

• 56:41Yasi Salek?

  I was gonna say.

• 56:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:42Yasi Salek?

  We travel.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  Feel good about yourself.

• 56:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. You're, you're doing great, Megan.

• 56:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:46Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Well, this will be the last one.

• 56:48Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 56:49Yasi Salek?

  Hi, Ossie and Amanda. Longtime listener of The Big Picture. I was so thankful to be introduced to Yasi. Oh, my God, thank you so much. On the podcast episode discussing both Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy and Paddington in Peru. Truly inspirational work you two are bringing to the Ringer Podcast Network. As a hashtag dob mob enthusiast, I can't thank Yasi enough for giving Amanda a platform on which she can answer for the crimes the Big Pick has committed against my dating life. I, 29, female, love movies. I love spending my evenings with my girlfriends watching movies and then discussing those movies over dinner. I have a Letterboxd account, but I use my laptop to access it and do not keep the app downloaded on my phone. That's good, healthy boundaries. Movies are important to me, but they are definitely not my entire personality. Unfortunately, whenever the topic of movies comes up on a date, I have found that men who also like movies,

• 57:31Yasi Salek?

  okay, here we fucking go, and listen to the pod, feel the need to physically pull out their phones, show me their Letterboxd top four, and tell me in depth about their physical media collection. Yes, I blame Sean. What was his name? I'm dead. DVD, straight DVD man, straight-

• 57:47Speaker 04

  Straight Blu-ray DVD man.

• 57:49Yasi Salek?

  I guess my question is, damn, Sean catching a lot of strays on this random bands playing listener mailbag. I guess my question is, how do I stop this phenomenon? Recent dates have made me weary of even bringing up the topic of movies lest I be forced to watch Pulp Fiction while he quotes Samuel L. Jackson.

• 58:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:03Yasi Salek?

  A love of movies is not the most important thing I look for in a relationship, but Joe Fox's idea of drinks or dinner or a movie for as long as we both shall live has always appealed to me. Thank you for both keeping me entertained on my commute to work.

• 58:14Speaker 04

  Oh, this is very nice.

• 58:16Yasi Salek?

  It's from Marie.

• 58:16Speaker 04

  Thank you, Marie. Marie, I don't relate to the specificity of the Letterboxd details of your questions, but otherwise, we've all been there. Like, I see you, sister. I'm with you.

• 58:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 58:30Speaker 04

  I feel like all of my, and I feel like I talked about this on The Big Picture, that especially college, but also like early dating, was just about men who were very excited about what they were interested in, and they were like, no, really? But like, have you read Afghanistan? Like, no, really? But like, have you watched The Last Waltz? Like, we had to watch The Last Waltz, like, again, and listen, The Last Waltz is great, but like, I don't need another man telling me it's Thanksgiving and we gotta watch The Last Waltz, okay? I know. That's, it's, it's, it's good. So this is like an inherent tendency among men is what I've found.

• 59:07Yasi Salek?

  They're hunter gatherers and they're no longer able to go kill a deer and bring it home for us. So what they do instead is go out and tell you about a film or music you already know about.

• 59:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, they've been doing this since the beginning of time.

• 59:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 59:22Speaker 04

  Or if you don't already know about it, they are just certain that you're gonna love it. And they're like, no, no, no, now we're gonna watch all of it together. And you're like, pretty clear on the fact that you're not interested. And they just keep going and they're like, no, no, no, no. But if we watch one more Lord of the Rings or whatever. And I'm just like, I, you know.

• 59:39Yasi Salek?

  I personally like Lord of the Rings.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Listen, people, it's, you know, it varies. Everyone, men and women, have all different types of interests and all different types of things. But the constitutional inability for a man to stop himself from being like, no, no, no. And like the Letterboxd detail, keep the phone in the pocket.

• 59:56Yasi Salek?

  Keep the phone in the pocket.

• 59:56Speaker 04

  You know, and that's something that we can work on, on, on our end. Like that's some big pick advocacy that I can take on.

• 1:00:03Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 1:00:03Speaker 04

  Of telling the nice men.

• 1:00:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 04

  Keep, don't bring the Letterboxd out. The other thing, listen, Letterboxd doesn't have a messaging function. So it can't actually function as a dating app on its own. And so then these guys, they don't, they don't have an outlet within the app. So they've just gotta take their.

• 1:00:22Yasi Salek?

  Take it on the road.

• 1:00:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. So maybe we could also work with Letterboxd on that.

• 1:00:27Yasi Salek?

  Mary, here's what I would say.

• 1:00:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Yasi Salek?

  Cause like hashtag dudes rock, okay? I would just like, let's like, maybe it would help to be a bit more compassionate. I mean, I think you can totally tell the difference between a guy who's like, coming to fucking tell you what's up. And you're like, can I have the check please? And a guy who's just like, kind of really overly enthusiastic and wants to impress you, you know?

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 1:00:55Yasi Salek?

  And like, it just so happens that you kind of are cut above in the cinephile space, which is very cool. So I feel like it's maybe like, not immediately putting them all into the same bucket. And trying to like, be a little more open minded to see like, is this guy just kind of fumbling? Because he's just trying to like, connect with me and be enthusiastic. And it's coming off as mansplaining, but that's not his energy. Cause I feel like you can tell the difference.

• 1:01:18Speaker 04

  Right. Or like, is he a little bit nervous? Everybody is gonna show off. Everyone peacocks a little bit at the beginning.

• 1:01:23Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  That's right. You know, we also, you know, my husband and I, like, much of our dating was at press screenings.

• 1:01:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:31Speaker 04

  Um, because we both had access to these free screenings. So, we, we also, we did have a lot of overlapping interests and we figured out pretty quickly that what we shared was what we shared and everything else. We didn't, we didn't need to really do this exchange where it's like, no, no, no, really, I'm gonna make you like this. So, if you get a good vibe from someone, even if they're trying a little hard, you can, you can strike the right balance over time.

• 1:01:56Yasi Salek?

  That's, I think. I really think it's like, it's not what you do, but how and why you do it. So, like, there will be versions of this that are like,

• 1:02:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:03Yasi Salek?

  absolutely the fuck not. And there are versions that are like, okay, like, I'm, I'm, because it, it won't last. Like, it's like, past the first couple of dates, they'll feel comfortable, they don't need to impress you.

• 1:02:12Speaker 04

  And if it does last, then you know that you're on your way. I don't want Marie to feel alone here. Like, I, I recognize this, recognize this deep in my soul.

• 1:02:22Yasi Salek?

  Is, oh, same, babe. Do you know how many men have tried to, like, explain Dinosaur Jr. to me?

• 1:02:26Speaker 04

  I can't imagine being, yeah.

• 1:02:28Yasi Salek?

  There's a four-hour podcast I made about it. Um, which, you know, it sucks, because I need, I like, but men need to feel like, you know, they get dopamine from doing things for us, whether it's showing you a thing or hanging a shelf. Perhaps you could redirect their attention to be like, I need some light carpentry done in my house. Would you like to come do that?

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. Or just, they can go make a friend. And I, I think what we're finding here is that there are a lot of,

• 1:02:53Yasi Salek?

  Men need friends.

• 1:02:54Speaker 04

  Like, there are a lot of men who need a friend to talk about their shared enthusiasm

• 1:02:58Yasi Salek?

  Men need to friends max, is what they need to be doing.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  There we go.

• 1:03:01Yasi Salek?

  Instead of doing whatever maxing it is they're doing here and mogging, they're being frame mogged, you know, out in these streets.

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  And then we find a healthy balance in our relationships. It's beautiful.

• 1:03:13Yasi Salek?

  That's beautiful. I think that's a great way to close out.

• 1:03:15Speaker 04

  I think we solved everything.

• 1:03:16Yasi Salek?

  We've, we fixed the world, I think, for everybody. Um, thank you guys so much again for sending in your questions. Um, please stick around, uh, for my interview with Barry Johnson of Joyce Manor, right after this.

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• 1:05:03Yasi Salek?

  Hey guys, it is my absolute pleasure and honor to be joined by the one and only Beryl Johnson of Joyce Manor. Barry Johnson, as he's known to his friends and family.

• 1:05:13Speaker 07

  How's it going?

• 1:05:14Yasi Salek?

  Barry is not short for anything.

• 1:05:15Speaker 07

  It's not. People sometimes think it's like Bartholomew.

• 1:05:18Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:05:18Speaker 07

  But that's Bart, obviously.

• 1:05:20Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:05:20Speaker 07

  Barry is just Barry.

• 1:05:21Yasi Salek?

  I learned just five minutes ago as we were getting these gorgeous beverages that you are a first-generation immigrant child.

• 1:05:30Speaker 07

  Yeah, straight up.

• 1:05:32Yasi Salek?

  That your parents are from Manchester.

• 1:05:34Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:35Yasi Salek?

  The hair is giving.

• 1:05:36Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Yasi Salek?

  And also Barry, it's like, does your mom ever call you Baz?

• 1:05:40Speaker 07

  My, all my dad's friends.

• 1:05:41Yasi Salek?

  Really?

• 1:05:42Speaker 07

  So yeah, my dad moved to California and hung out with only British people, so uh...

• 1:05:48Yasi Salek?

  That's what I'd like to do too, if he knows anybody from me.

• 1:05:50Speaker 07

  So all his, all his friends were these, these, uh, British guys. And they all call me Baz, Bazzer.

• 1:05:56Yasi Salek?

  Amazing. When you go to Manchester, does like the whole fam come out?

• 1:06:00Speaker 07

  I'm not super close to my dad, but when I was a kid, I used to go visit his mom every now and then. And so I would spend like three weeks, like having a British childhood.

• 1:06:09Yasi Salek?

  Wow.

• 1:06:10Speaker 07

  So I'd play like soccer in the streets with kids and stuff. I had like a friend group over there.

• 1:06:14Yasi Salek?

  Do you feel like it affected your music making?

• 1:06:17Speaker 07

  I mean, yeah, like especially like my dad's friend Sean Daly was like super into like um Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Morrissey Solo and stuff. So he lived in in a trailer in La Mida and he was just like a, this is British redneck that kind of looked like Billy Idol.

• 1:06:33Yasi Salek?

  Incredible.

• 1:06:34Speaker 07

  He was amazing. He was hilarious and like super funny, really fun, like infectious person.

• 1:06:40Yasi Salek?

  Just a real bloke.

• 1:06:41Speaker 07

  And just with like great music taste, you know? And so, uh, yeah, we would just put on like, uh, Morrissey Solo and he would like kind of act it out. He'd like roll around his trailer all hammered. It was amazing. Yeah, he was like the best, one of the best shows I've ever seen in my life.

• 1:06:54Yasi Salek?

  Uncle Sean, babe.

• 1:06:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, totally. Sean Daly. Love Sean Daly.

• 1:06:58Yasi Salek?

  We're both from the same place.

• 1:06:59Speaker 07

  Torrance.

• 1:07:00Yasi Salek?

  Torrance, California. Shout out. I have a little more of a rose colored glasses view of Torrance.

• 1:07:04Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:07:05Yasi Salek?

  Actually, I get asked, I'm just gonna say a lot, but that's a bit of an exaggeration. I get asked often like, oh, did you guys know each other growing up? And I'm like, well, first of all, I'm quite a bit older than you guys. Not quite a bit, but.

• 1:07:17Speaker 07

  Yeah, you're like three or four years.

• 1:07:19Yasi Salek?

  Four years. So it's exactly enough that even if we did go to the same high school, which we didn't, because I went to South.

• 1:07:24Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:07:24Yasi Salek?

  Where did you go?

• 1:07:25Speaker 07

  I went to West.

• 1:07:26Yasi Salek?

  You went to West, yeah. So we wouldn't have known each other. And also I moved away after freshman year.

• 1:07:30Speaker 07

  There you go.

• 1:07:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. So my love of Torrance is kind of like preserved in amber of like, being 14 years old and like walking to Rat Beach with my friends and going to LBJ, LBJ Junior, for those not in the know. But I, I wanted to right away, before we even talk about your new album, which I know that's why you're here, but first we're gonna talk about these disparaging comments you made about Torrance in the Los Angeles Times, the paper of record.

• 1:07:54Speaker 07

  Wow.

• 1:07:55Yasi Salek?

  I don't have that much love for Torrance. I like things about it. I think it's got a lot of problems. It's haunted and weird. Well, you know what, Farid is kind of haunted and weird.

• 1:08:05Speaker 07

  Super haunted and weird, yeah. I have friends in San Pedro and they have a term called Torrance weird about people who are from Torrance.

• 1:08:14Yasi Salek?

  Okay, San Pedro.

• 1:08:15Speaker 07

  I know, I know. They're a specific brand of weird. And I know, like, I mean, I know people like my mom's friends that went to high school in Torrance who like are fully Torrance weird.

• 1:08:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Speaker 07

  And like I, in the Red Cross documentary, they talk about that where it has to do with like, the like planes flying overhead or something like the.

• 1:08:33Yasi Salek?

  Oh, it's like caused brain damage.

• 1:08:34Speaker 07

  It caused brain damage, yeah. And there's all these refineries in Torrance. And so I think like, yeah, we have like a specific kind of combination of a few things of like this like sleepy, shut off suburban thing and brain damage.

• 1:08:48Yasi Salek?

  I also think like, this is gonna be so uninteresting for like the 900,000 people who, that's me being really generous about how many people listen to Man's Line, but like the 1% of people listening that even know what Torrance is or where it is. But I, I, like, when I was thinking about this, cause I read your quote, I was like, oh, Torrance specifically, cause the whole South Bay is kind of weird, like, it's not LA.

• 1:09:10Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:09:10Yasi Salek?

  It's Orange County. It's like this secret third thing in between.

• 1:09:13Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 1:09:14Yasi Salek?

  But also Torrance in particular is like wedged between like extreme wealth and not extreme wealth and kind of like within the city has both.

• 1:09:23Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23Yasi Salek?

  Which is a sort of an interesting vibe.

• 1:09:26Speaker 07

  It was the product of like white flight, you know, like, so it, it has this like weird kind of racist thing going on. It's really anti fun.

• 1:09:35Yasi Salek?

  Well, yeah, that.

• 1:09:35Speaker 07

  If you, if you're walking around in Torrance, people look at you like you're like in like causing trouble.

• 1:09:40Yasi Salek?

  People are always like, oh, did you go to shows? And I'm like, not really, because the only shows I remember going to were in people's backyards. Like, I don't remember there being much by the way of venues.

• 1:09:50Speaker 07

  No. It's funny, cause yeah, like you watch like the decline of Western civilization. Some of that stuff is in like Redondo and Torrance.

• 1:09:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Speaker 07

  The, it's like called like the Fleetwood maybe?

• 1:09:58Yasi Salek?

  The Fleetwood, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, so there was that at that time. And like, you know, the church, we've heard of the black flag and stuff, so there was. But then around, yeah, our time in like the late nineties, you had like the PCH Club, which is not in Torrance, but it's sort of, it was like Wilmington or whatever. But yeah, there's almost no clubs.

• 1:10:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I wonder if it's because I'm researching the Germs right now. So a lot of that Fleetwood era, like Black Flag and like the kind of infringement of suburban hardcore into the punk scene.

• 1:10:28Speaker 07

  Like Alpine Village.

• 1:10:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Alpine Village.

• 1:10:31Speaker 07

  In Torrance, yeah.

• 1:10:32Yasi Salek?

  But because they were so gnarly, I think like maybe that had something to do with them not allowing, because those, I mean, it was always cops. It was always crazy fights. These were like, you know, testosterone out jocks that had kind of like heard that punk was a cool place to whale on people.

• 1:10:48Speaker 07

  Stab somebody.

• 1:10:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And so that might have something to do with the lack of scene of actual infrastructure for bands.

• 1:10:56Speaker 07

  Yeah. And I think just like Torrance just decided it was like, it's just like, uh, it's just gonna like cause like trouble.

• 1:11:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Speaker 07

  You know, it's like, it's an invitation for trouble to have like rock concerts.

• 1:11:05Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:11:06Speaker 07

  And they're like, we don't want that. This is a family friendly place.

• 1:11:08Yasi Salek?

  Thanks a lot.

• 1:11:08Speaker 07

  It's gonna bring, yeah, so they just got rid of, yeah, like, live music in general, you know, there was really nowhere to even go see like, a big like heavy metal band.

• 1:11:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:18Speaker 07

  Like Slayer would play like in.

• 1:11:20Yasi Salek?

  Like Inglewood, maybe.

• 1:11:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:11:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:23Speaker 07

  But they just didn't want it for Torrance.

• 1:11:24Yasi Salek?

  No, it's true. I, I like, again, the only shows I really remember seeing are Backyard, like, The Deviants would play.

• 1:11:30Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 1:11:30Yasi Salek?

  House parties.

• 1:11:31Speaker 07

  Yeah, Suzie's with the bar.

• 1:11:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:33Speaker 07

  Yeah, so.

• 1:11:34Yasi Salek?

  I didn't, I was 14 when I left or 15.

• 1:11:36Speaker 07

  Same. I mean, yeah, I, there was nothing like that. Like Orange County had like Chain Reaction. Um, and you know, in like, if you were kind of like Thousand Oaks area, you had the Cobalt Cafe. And there was these places where touring bands would, smaller touring bands would play.

• 1:11:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:49Speaker 07

  You know, and, uh, yeah, Torrance didn't have it.

• 1:11:51Yasi Salek?

  And it is like.

• 1:11:52Speaker 07

  Drive 45 minutes.

• 1:11:52Yasi Salek?

  That's what I was gonna say. It's like, kind of insurmountable to drive 45 minutes. A, when you don't have a driver's license.

• 1:11:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, right.

• 1:11:59Yasi Salek?

  You know, or like you're telling your parents like, yeah, I'm going to LA for the night on a Tuesday. Like they'd be like, no, you're the fuck. You're not.

• 1:12:05Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:12:06Yasi Salek?

  My immigrant parents, not from Manchester. I mean, Ron saying, absolutely not. But then, so you started playing music. You were in a thrash band, I read. Or is that an incorrect statement?

• 1:12:17Speaker 07

  I think that's kind of incorrect. Yeah.

• 1:12:18Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:12:19Speaker 07

  I'd say that's incorrect. I guess that the record's straight though.

• 1:12:21Yasi Salek?

  Please do. It was in a, it was in a piece I read about your band.

• 1:12:24Speaker 07

  Okay, first band that I was in was a ska punk band. That sounded exactly like Operation Ivy.

• 1:12:30Yasi Salek?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:12:31Speaker 07

  Exactly like Operation Ivy. Like it was basically.

• 1:12:33Yasi Salek?

  Shout out Jesse Michaels.

• 1:12:34Speaker 07

  Shout out Jesse Michaels.

• 1:12:35Yasi Salek?

  And how old were you?

• 1:12:36Speaker 07

  I was sixteen slash, it was about seventeen.

• 1:12:39Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:12:40Speaker 07

  About seventeen.

• 1:12:40Yasi Salek?

  And that was a kind of the music that you were more drawn to than?

• 1:12:43Speaker 07

  You know, it's so weird. It's just, I had, I made friends with this guy, Rick Quell. And he was good at guitar and was like, kind of in the, um, like, street punk scene.

• 1:12:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Speaker 07

  Of like backyard shows happening in like Compton.

• 1:12:57Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:12:57Speaker 07

  And, um, he had a, he had like a street punk band that would play shows. And he liked, like, he liked punk, but he was like, cool with ska punk.

• 1:13:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:07Speaker 07

  He's like, I like, the specials are cool, Op Ivy's cool, you know, Leftover Crack is cool.

• 1:13:11Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:13:11Speaker 07

  But that's it. And then I was like, well.

• 1:13:13Yasi Salek?

  He's not wrong.

• 1:13:14Speaker 07

  Yeah, I know. And he's like, that other stuff is lame. And so.

• 1:13:17Yasi Salek?

  You guys weren't going to the Aquabats.

• 1:13:18Speaker 07

  Let's start like a minor, I was, I was into all that.

• 1:13:21Yasi Salek?

  I actually, actually, low key, I was also going to see the Aquabats.

• 1:13:23Speaker 07

  They're still great.

• 1:13:24Yasi Salek?

  Shout out Travis Barker.

• 1:13:25Speaker 07

  Yeah, so, he's like, let's start like a minor key ska band. And he was kind of like, I can already like book us a show. I'll get us on shows. And so that was super motivating. I was like, that sounds fun.

• 1:13:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Speaker 07

  Play a show.

• 1:13:36Yasi Salek?

  Was he older?

• 1:13:37Speaker 07

  Uh, younger, actually. He's a year younger than me. But he was just well-connected and just really likeable, charismatic dude.

• 1:13:43Yasi Salek?

  What was this band called?

• 1:13:44Speaker 07

  Kid Gruesome. Terrible.

• 1:13:47Yasi Salek?

  Amazing.

• 1:13:47Speaker 07

  We were, it was only like six or seven months, but we played like a dozen shows. This is my first shows I ever played.

• 1:13:52Yasi Salek?

  That's such a, what an incredible entry point into playing music where you're like, already have a guy that can book you shows.

• 1:13:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, I, I wasn't really connected like that as far as like, you know, if I was going to see a show at Chain Reaction, I didn't know anyone who could get us a show there.

• 1:14:04Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:14:04Speaker 07

  But this dude was like, he was already playing shows and, yeah, he was like, let's start a band. Like, I know this guy who does ska shows. Like, well, I'll get us a show.

• 1:14:12Yasi Salek?

  Did you play with anyone iconic, like Voodoo Glow Skulls or anyone?

• 1:14:15Speaker 07

  No, nobody like that. We played this band called Ivy, which is weird because Operation Ivy, but there was a band called Ivy.

• 1:14:20Yasi Salek?

  Maybe an homage.

• 1:14:21Speaker 07

  The guitar player was named Porno.

• 1:14:23Yasi Salek?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:14:24Speaker 07

  It's awesome, right? Yeah.

• 1:14:27Yasi Salek?

  It's perfect.

• 1:14:27Speaker 07

  Pouring out.

• 1:14:29Yasi Salek?

  What what transpired that this band fell apart?

• 1:14:33Speaker 07

  Got bored of it, honestly. And I kind of tried to, I was like, pretty into like, getting, you know, like I said, like, I wasn't like, as Operation Ivy super fan. It was just like, I was given kind of an assignment.

• 1:14:42Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:14:42Speaker 07

  Let's start this kind of band. And I was like, I could probably do that.

• 1:14:45Yasi Salek?

  And you were kind of coming in, again, you can set the record straight if these are incorrect. One of your entry points, I just felt a lot of kinship was Nirvana, right?

• 1:14:54Speaker 07

  Oh, as a kid for sure.

• 1:14:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:56Speaker 07

  I was like, yeah, that was, I was obsessed.

• 1:14:57Yasi Salek?

  And this was like, were you like a kid kid?

• 1:15:00Speaker 07

  Kid.

• 1:15:00Yasi Salek?

  Was it like when it was contemporaneously happening?

• 1:15:02Speaker 07

  Yes, I remember when Kurt Cobain died.

• 1:15:04Yasi Salek?

  Incredible. I mean, me too, obviously.

• 1:15:05Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. So I was born in eighty six. So I don't really remember when they broke, but I remember like watching the In Bloom video as a little kid, you know?

• 1:15:15Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:15:15Speaker 07

  Like, same time as like the November Rain video.

• 1:15:18Yasi Salek?

  It's exactly right. I think a lot of people forget that, that those two things were like just as big at the same time.

• 1:15:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, Madonna Like a Prayer, like that was, that was kind of like my-

• 1:15:27Yasi Salek?

  That was my other thing I was gonna bring up. I was like, fucking Barry is a goddamn real one with Madonna Like a Prayer. That's my guy.

• 1:15:34Speaker 07

  I was, yeah, I just remember being like, in a trance.

• 1:15:37Yasi Salek?

  Why have you guys never covered it? Why are, why are you taking this away from me?

• 1:15:40Speaker 07

  Have you ever heard the H2O cover of it? I think H2O cover, right?

• 1:15:43Yasi Salek?

  Stop.

• 1:15:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:44Yasi Salek?

  Okay, Toby.

• 1:15:44Speaker 07

  That's why I don't do it.

• 1:15:46Yasi Salek?

  There's another Madonna song you could do. We could, we could rifle through.

• 1:15:48Speaker 07

  Yeah. Oh, no, I love Madonna so much. I'm a huge Madonna fan, yeah.

• 1:15:52Yasi Salek?

  Damn. What was it about Like a Prayer that sort of resonated with you?

• 1:15:55Speaker 07

  I didn't know at the time at all. I just like, the video was super intense. And I just loved the song. The song?

• 1:16:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Speaker 07

  Just loved it.

• 1:16:04Yasi Salek?

  Of all, of all the Madonna songs, it isn't like, like, the way it builds and stuff, I could see it having like, some emo feel to it, you know?

• 1:16:14Speaker 07

  Yeah, you could mic him it up.

• 1:16:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you could totally mic him it up.

• 1:16:17Speaker 07

  Yeah, I could totally hear that.

• 1:16:18Yasi Salek?

  It's an incredible video, too.

• 1:16:20Speaker 07

  It's, yeah, it's amazing.

• 1:16:21Yasi Salek?

  Quite confusing to a young child.

• 1:16:24Speaker 07

  All of VH1 and MTV was confusing to the child. It was all so weird. And I just thought it was over my head and kind of deep and I don't understand it. But then you go back and watch like a- I don't know. Yeah, you go back and watch a lot of those videos and it's nonsense.

• 1:16:37Yasi Salek?

  No, Like a Prayer is the, the level of transgression in the Like a Prayer video for the time, if you go back, it's mind blowing. Like she was really that fucking bitch, you know, like discussing religion, race, like and putting it all in this like really like in your face way in the video.

• 1:16:52Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Yasi Salek?

  Burning crosses. Like they let that be on MTV, like full on crosses on fire.

• 1:16:58Speaker 07

  Honestly, the video could have been just like a white wall with just the song playing and I would have loved it.

• 1:17:02Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:17:02Speaker 07

  Just because the song is so beautiful. But um, yeah, the video, the, the, the perfect combo is a great, great video. So intense.

• 1:17:09Yasi Salek?

  So this is sort of your musical backdrop as a child and you've got Nirvana, you've got Madonna.

• 1:17:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, just whatever's on MTV.

• 1:17:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. For me Nirvana was absolutely the gateway drug. Like it was like, what the fuck is this? This is the coolest and most amazing thing I've ever heard. I mean, it was a little bit Red Hot Chili Peppers for me because that was the first time I heard like aggressive guitar music.

• 1:17:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:17:30Yasi Salek?

  But Nirvana had this whole other thing to it and it brought me down rabbit holes. Like I was like, starting to like look to see what they were into or like what scenes, which was much harder back then, obviously.

• 1:17:44Speaker 07

  You were just looking for scraps everywhere.

• 1:17:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you was liner notes.

• 1:17:47Speaker 07

  Flipping through magazines.

• 1:17:48Yasi Salek?

  Exactly. Like going to Go Boy Records. Shout out. Is it still there?

• 1:17:52Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:17:53Yasi Salek?

  No, God.

• 1:17:53Speaker 07

  None of them are there.

• 1:17:54Yasi Salek?

  Fucking rest in peace. Asking, getting zines. Like for me, I bought famously the book, I say famously, but if you listen to this pod, it's called Route 666 on the Road to Nirvana by Gina Arnold. I mean, one of my-

• 1:18:05Speaker 07

  Never read it.

• 1:18:06Yasi Salek?

  Oh my God, it's so good. I'll get you a copy.

• 1:18:08Speaker 07

  Cool.

• 1:18:08Yasi Salek?

  But basically I just bought it because I was 12 years old and obsessed with Nirvana.

• 1:18:13Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Yasi Salek?

  I didn't know anything about what it was about and it ended up being about this incredible journalist, Gina Arnold, kind of through her own experience, talking about her ascent through punk and indie and like hardcore. And then also painting the picture of like how all these bands set the stage for Nirvana to blow up.

• 1:18:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:18:32Yasi Salek?

  So it's like bands I had never heard of and I'm like Husker Du? Okay. Saved up allowance money, went and bought it Fugazi. Like I'm 12, you know?

• 1:18:40Speaker 07

  Daniel Johnston.

• 1:18:41Yasi Salek?

  It blew my mind and I wouldn't like, how is a 12 year old going to hear about Husker Du? You know?

• 1:18:45Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 1:18:46Yasi Salek?

  Older people maybe, but.

• 1:18:47Speaker 07

  Exactly. Yeah. If you were on the college rock thing like in the eighties, but yeah, it, he definitely like, synthesized all that stuff into like um,

• 1:18:57Speaker 07

  Just did it so well.

• 1:18:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:58Speaker 07

  Like did Pixies or, you know, Husker Du or took from like Meat Puppets and all that kind of SST, like Sonic Youth stuff. But like, yeah, I did something really special with it.

• 1:19:09Yasi Salek?

  Do you remember the first band you kind of got into that was like, you were like almost age appropriate enough to like go see them play or they were like contemporary but not huge? Do you know what I mean? Like for me, it was Blink 182.

• 1:19:22Speaker 07

  Sure, sure, yeah.

• 1:19:23Yasi Salek?

  But like, what was that band for you?

• 1:19:25Speaker 07

  So yeah, like throughout the childhood, I was really into like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins,

• 1:19:32Speaker 07

  The Breeders, that kind of stuff. Like just that stuff that you would see on MTV that was kind of edgy or whatever. And I just, I like gravitated towards that. And then I had a friend Ben Turk and he had an older brother named Chris Turk, who was like quite a few, a few years older than us. And he was like super, he was like punker.

• 1:19:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:48Speaker 07

  He had like stickers all over his room. He like listened to Music Loud. He was like, he's a punker. And I was obsessed with him. I thought he was so cool. And he was really nice to me and he would let me come like sit in his room and he would tell me about punk. He would tell me about like

• 1:20:02Speaker 07

  going to like Union 13 and stuff. And like, he got me into AFI. And this would have been like pre like makeup Davey. So it was like, they were like a pretty small band at that time.

• 1:20:15Yasi Salek?

  That was the only AFI album I ever really got into was Answer That and Stay Fashionable, which I think is the first one.

• 1:20:22Speaker 07

  First one, yeah.

• 1:20:22Yasi Salek?

  That's like, it's two minute punk songs.

• 1:20:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, produced by Tim Armstrong.

• 1:20:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Momma let me get a Mohawk.

• 1:20:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. So I was really into that, like that era AFI. And that was the first band that I saw AFI Sick of It All Hot Water Music at the Ventura Theater in Ventura.

• 1:20:40Yasi Salek?

  It's quite a fucking trip.

• 1:20:41Speaker 07

  Yeah, my, my, uh, my stepdad drove me and my friend Scott out there. Yeah, it was really, it was, I wouldn't even, it was actually insanely fun, but also pretty scary. We were in middle school.

• 1:20:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I don't know what Ventura is like now, but when we were growing up, it was quite, uh, Intensely dodgy. There was a really strong skinhead contingent.

• 1:21:03Speaker 07

  Oh, I could totally see that.

• 1:21:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Up through like, up through when I was in college, because I went to college in Santa Barbara. And I mean, we'd go down there to like, go to shows or go thrifting. And there was like, a pretty intense, again, much like everywhere in California, back then, it was like, wherever there's a strong skinhead contingent, there's also a lot of ethnic groups. Like, there was lots of Latino and Asian people. So, there was a beautiful tension viewing there that was quite scary to a seventeen year old.

• 1:21:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, the whole world is such like, I was so little and it was, everyone was so big. And, but I was like, I went to a rock concert and it didn't feel like a rock concert. It was like a club show for like hardcore bands, essentially, at the time.

• 1:21:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Speaker 07

  And it was really fun. I didn't like mosh or anything. I was too little.

• 1:21:44Yasi Salek?

  You're just, you're just standing in the back?

• 1:21:46Speaker 07

  Yeah, there's like, it's like a tiered floor and there was like the pit. And I was like, on the other side of a railing and the pit was in front of me, like, looking at the pit. And I was like, that's crazy.

• 1:21:54Yasi Salek?

  Were you not tall yet?

• 1:21:56Speaker 07

  I was not tall at all. I didn't get tall till junior of high school. I was five two and then over the summer I became like six foot. And people like, didn't recognize me and were kind of like, like would laugh in my face when they figured out who I was.

• 1:22:09Yasi Salek?

  I'm, I'm so interested in this, given the like, great weight that height has with men, you know?

• 1:22:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:16Yasi Salek?

  Did you feel like that, like, impacted your personality? Like, mostly being formed as a short guy and then all of a sudden being a tall guy?

• 1:22:24Speaker 07

  Hundred percent. I had like a, like a little guy personality.

• 1:22:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:27Speaker 07

  I was like, I'm silly. I'm like a silly little guy, you know? And then, and when I was like, like sixteen, seventeen, kind of like went through puberty late.

• 1:22:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:35Speaker 07

  Late bloomer and got really tall. And then was like, and looked weird, looked really weird.

• 1:22:41Yasi Salek?

  Like gangly?

• 1:22:41Speaker 07

  Super gangly, yeah. Like baby deer, just kind of, didn't know how to like really, didn't know how to be tall.

• 1:22:47Yasi Salek?

  Your new long limbs.

• 1:22:49Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, so. Didn't really kind of settle into it till I was like 22, 23.

• 1:22:54Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:22:55Speaker 07

  And then I was like, all right, I got this.

• 1:22:56Yasi Salek?

  All right, I'm tall guy now.

• 1:22:57Speaker 07

  I'm tall now.

• 1:22:58Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so you, you're, you're seeing AFI.

• 1:23:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw AFI. It was amazing. I later talked to my friend Eddie, who, who put that show on, and he was, he told me that he was like, Davy used to settle the shows still.

• 1:23:11Yasi Salek?

  Wow.

• 1:23:12Speaker 07

  And he would be on like full pleather with like his makeup all smeared, like settling, like talking backend and everything. That's awesome. I, I didn't see any of that, I was like, but my friend told me about it later.

• 1:23:22Yasi Salek?

  We love Davy Havik. Davy Havik has a Ramones cover band?

• 1:23:25Speaker 07

  He does. Straight Edge Ramones cover band.

• 1:23:26Yasi Salek?

  Very cool.

• 1:23:27Speaker 07

  That's super cool, yeah. I've never met him.

• 1:23:29Yasi Salek?

  I've met him, he's very nice.

• 1:23:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:23:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. No, this is a Matt, quote, Matt Ebert.

• 1:23:34Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, I can speak to it probably.

• 1:23:35Yasi Salek?

  He said, I for years wanted to play a show in Torrance, where we're actually from, but I just don't know how it ever could or would, so I've kind of stopped thinking about it. Well, guess what? A man DM'd me.

• 1:23:45Speaker 07

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:23:46Yasi Salek?

  And said, I want to book Joyce Manor to play in Torrance, ask them if they ever want to play. And then I was like, should we make a little Torrance Music Festival?

• 1:23:54Speaker 07

  Uh, I would be totally into it.

• 1:23:55Yasi Salek?

  Do you have like a mini Joyce Manor Yasi Salek?

• 1:23:59Yasi Salek?

  Michelle Kwan, um, Torrance Music Festival?

• 1:24:01Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 1:24:02Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so I've, I was out in these streets, and by these streets, I mean something in the way Music Festival in Boston. Which is wonderful, shout out Run for Cover Records. And I won't name names, but a person came to me with some gossip about Joyce Manor.

• 1:24:15Speaker 07

  Oh wow.

• 1:24:15Yasi Salek?

  To get me, of all people, to confirm or deny. And they said, I heard that actually Joyce Manor is from Palos Verdes, and they lie about being from Torrance. And I was like, why would they do that? And he was like, I don't know, cause like, cause Palos Verdes is posh. And I was like, well respectfully, nobody on earth knows what those places are. So what would be the end game? But I was like, well, let's confront this head on.

• 1:24:42Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, let's get into it.

• 1:24:45Speaker 07

  So, the only member of Joyce Manor that ever lived in Palos Verdes was Matt. And Matt's parents inherited a house up there. And after he graduated high school, they like fixed it up and sold it, and they live in San Pedro now. So Matt did go to high school in, in PV.

• 1:25:02Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:25:02Speaker 07

  But uh,

• 1:25:03Yasi Salek?

  But never lied about it?

• 1:25:04Speaker 07

  He never lied about it, no. But the band is from Torrance, cause there's another kind of like, Half truth there, because I didn't live in Torrance when Joyce Manor started. I lived in Long Beach.

• 1:25:14Yasi Salek?

  Oh, you had already moved to Long Beach?

• 1:25:15Speaker 07

  I'd already moved, yeah. But we practiced in Torrance.

• 1:25:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but you were from there.

• 1:25:19Speaker 07

  We're from there, and I think spiritually, we're from there.

• 1:25:22Yasi Salek?

  Chase Knobi is from there.

• 1:25:23Speaker 07

  He's Torrance, he's an extremist. He's the most Torrance member, and he lived there at the time. And he's, yeah, born and raised in Torrance.

• 1:25:30Yasi Salek?

  I just thought it was really funny, because I was saying to you all, we were getting coffee, that people are extremely weird about your band.

• 1:25:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:25:35Yasi Salek?

  And this was part of my thought process about why people are extremely weird about your band. It's just so funny to me, like, 2026, that we're still being like, oh, they're posers.

• 1:25:45Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:25:45Yasi Salek?

  They're not from Torrance. Like, who cares? That is such a minor, you know?

• 1:25:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:25:50Yasi Salek?

  It's also, it's not a place that, it's not like, oh, I'm from Seattle during the 90s grunge, you know? Nobody cares about Torrance, except for literally me and you.

• 1:26:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:26:02Yasi Salek?

  And Chase.

• 1:26:02Speaker 07

  Yeah, I went to high school there. I've never lived in Torrance. Matt, I think Matt was born there, and I think he might have lived in Torrance before his parents inherited the spot in PV.

• 1:26:12Yasi Salek?

  Oh, you didn't live there when you went to high school there?

• 1:26:13Speaker 07

  No, I lived in Lamita.

• 1:26:15Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 1:26:15Speaker 07

  We used my grandparents' address.

• 1:26:17Yasi Salek?

  That's even more, that's even, like, I don't know how to say it, but that's like, that's like even realer than being from Torrance.

• 1:26:24Speaker 07

  I kind of agree with you, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I would have gone to LA School District. It's this school called Fleming.

• 1:26:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:31Speaker 07

  And so my mom wanted me to go to a better school, so they would drive me 20 minutes each way.

• 1:26:35Yasi Salek?

  Debunked.

• 1:26:36Speaker 07

  Debunked.

• 1:26:37Yasi Salek?

  That must have been hard to hang out, though, after school.

• 1:26:39Speaker 07

  Yeah, I had different friends in Lamita.

• 1:26:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like your neighborhood friends?

• 1:26:42Speaker 07

  Yeah, I used to skate with, like, mostly Mexican dudes that lived near me, yeah.

• 1:26:47Yasi Salek?

  You ever get into music through skate videos?

• 1:26:49Speaker 07

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 1:26:49Yasi Salek?

  We just did it.

• 1:26:50Speaker 07

  I just saw you at Jerry Sue.

• 1:26:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we just did.

• 1:26:51Speaker 07

  I'm a huge Jerry Sue fan.

• 1:26:52Yasi Salek?

  Me, too.

• 1:26:53Speaker 07

  Yeah. And I love, yeah, he skates to that Cass McCombs song, Sacred Heart. I love that song.

• 1:27:00Yasi Salek?

  It's a very Jerry move, although, as he told me on the episode.

• 1:27:03Speaker 07

  It wasn't him?

• 1:27:04Yasi Salek?

  They don't pick the songs.

• 1:27:05Speaker 07

  I know, I know a lot of times.

• 1:27:06Yasi Salek?

  It's very rare for skaters to pick their own songs.

• 1:27:09Speaker 07

  He didn't pick those songs?

• 1:27:10Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I think.

• 1:27:10Speaker 07

  That blows my mind.

• 1:27:11Yasi Salek?

  I think they approve them.

• 1:27:12Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:27:13Yasi Salek?

  Or sometimes not. Like, he told me some stories where, like, sometimes people will try to fight against it, and, like, the editor will be like. Don't do this to me, like, we need to put this on here.

• 1:27:22Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:27:23Yasi Salek?

  Um, I think what it is, is like, it's such a tight knit production. You know, so it's like, it's not like the guy that's cutting the video isn't like your fucking friend that doesn't know you well.

• 1:27:32Speaker 07

  Right, I got you.

• 1:27:33Yasi Salek?

  So like, I assume they're choosing based on your persona and your skating style. Again, we kind of get into it in this skate video. But yeah, you were, you were, uh, you were being put onto music through these skate videos.

• 1:27:43Speaker 07

  Big time. I kind of forgot about that, honestly. Yeah, but like the, the Zero videos, Toy Machine videos, like, the, yeah, 100%.

• 1:27:49Yasi Salek?

  They all did. I mean, we talked about it. I don't want to retread our skate video thing, but if you guys want to watch it.

• 1:27:54Speaker 07

  A lot of, like, some videos, like, were more, like, kind of rap-heavy, and, like, that, that stuff didn't really permeate. Didn't permeate with me as much, yeah, like, um, like, some, some of it, but, yeah, I need, kind of, anything punk, you know?

• 1:28:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you were, you were down. Okay, so the Op Ivy-inspired ska punk band has fallen apart. You're over it.

• 1:28:15Speaker 07

  Six or seven months into it, yeah.

• 1:28:17Yasi Salek?

  You've moved on.

• 1:28:17Speaker 07

  I was over it, yeah. So then I started a band with Matt.

• 1:28:20Yasi Salek?

  And it wasn't Joyce Manor?

• 1:28:21Speaker 07

  No, it was called The English Work Standard, yeah.

• 1:28:25Yasi Salek?

  Incredible.

• 1:28:25Speaker 07

  Incredible.

• 1:28:26Yasi Salek?

  It's not a bad name. I was just, I was not, I was not prepared. I wasn't prepared for the length of the.

• 1:28:31Speaker 07

  The English Work Standard, yeah. It was at that time.

• 1:28:33Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 1:28:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:28:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, what did that band sound like? Can we hear it? Is there other remnants on the internet?

• 1:28:39Speaker 07

  Please, please don't, but yeah, you can. Um, it was ambitious. It's still at ska parts, uh, because that's what I, I was conditioned to do that. But, um, a little more, kind of like, maybe sass going on, sassy.

• 1:28:50Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:28:51Speaker 07

  I was like, girl jeans happening and stuff.

• 1:28:53Yasi Salek?

  Is it because you got tall and sassy?

• 1:28:55Speaker 07

  Maybe. Yeah, I was really tall and skinny, and I was kind of like, who else is tall and skinny? I was like, Blood Brothers, they're pretty skinny. Let's try that. Yeah, I was just listening to a lot of Add the Drive-In and stuff, and, uh, but nah, I couldn't, like, play really well, so it was kind of like, I, I'm not sure what it sounded like. It was, it was something.

• 1:29:12Yasi Salek?

  What, then what led back to, like, being like, okay, we're gonna, we're just gonna do, like, a kind of a?

• 1:29:19Speaker 07

  Pop punk band?

• 1:29:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And I don't know, is, is pop punk like emo, where you're, like, not allowed to say it, because people get mad?

• 1:29:24Speaker 07

  I, I think we started, we consciously started a pop punk band, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:27Yasi Salek?

  Were there, like, influences that were happening that you were like? Oh, we can do this. Is it more like you just said, like that one was too ambitious? Like, let's do something easier that we can like actually with our skill set play?

• 1:29:41Speaker 07

  I couldn't sing really. So like when I started the band, it was very like monotone. You know, like it was, I was almost like rapping. Seriously, it's kind of spoken word.

• 1:29:49Yasi Salek?

  That was kind of a big thing in that era.

• 1:29:51Speaker 07

  It was a big thing that time. I was talk singing.

• 1:29:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:53Speaker 07

  And yeah, it's really embarrassing. So yeah.

• 1:29:56Yasi Salek?

  It's not embarrassing. That's what I mean.

• 1:29:57Speaker 07

  It was like spoken word, like slam poetry over like, over like, like listens to add the drive in once.

• 1:30:05Speaker 07

  And so that didn't go, that went on for a while and we had like a local following that was like, you know, decent. It was like kids coming to the shows and singing along and stuff. So it was really fun. And then I went to Europe with my family to visit, cause my stepdad's Irish and so he went to visit his mom.

• 1:30:23Yasi Salek?

  Your mom really kept it within the greater.

• 1:30:26Speaker 07

  Manchester guy.

• 1:30:27Yasi Salek?

  Not United Kingdom, cause Ireland is separate.

• 1:30:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, Irish guy. And so we went to go visit his family over there and I was, I was gone for like a month. And while I was gone, our guitar player started another band. He started a power violence band.

• 1:30:39Yasi Salek?

  Oh, cool.

• 1:30:39Speaker 07

  With Sam from Trash Talk, who was not in Trash Talk yet.

• 1:30:43Yasi Salek?

  Shout out Sam Boston. We love Sam Boston on this pod.

• 1:30:46Speaker 07

  So him and Sam started a power violence band. And then when I got back, like the band was just kind of over.

• 1:30:52Yasi Salek?

  They were like, Barry, you were gone too long. We started a new and cooler band.

• 1:30:56Speaker 07

  We all moved on completely without you.

• 1:30:57Yasi Salek?

  The English workstation is over. The word was standard, sorry.

• 1:31:00Speaker 07

  Yeah. Then there was like Elliot and Sam kind of in the, in the, in the mix. Elliot from Touche Amore.

• 1:31:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:31:06Speaker 07

  He was in that band too.

• 1:31:07Yasi Salek?

  Oh yeah. We have a rumor that came from him as well about you.

• 1:31:09Speaker 07

  Oh wow. I can't wait to hear it. But yeah, so that, I kind of came back and like, sort of like, kind of like my life fell apart, honestly.

• 1:31:17Yasi Salek?

  Really? Because you were, you were really like.

• 1:31:19Speaker 07

  I was all in. I was all in. I can talk about how it wasn't very good now, but at the time I was, it was the only thing I cared about, you know? And so.

• 1:31:25Yasi Salek?

  Were you like 18?

• 1:31:27Speaker 07

  19?

• 1:31:27Yasi Salek?

  19, yeah.

• 1:31:28Speaker 07

  Yeah, 19. And then, um, yeah, so 20, I kind of, um, stopped hanging out with that group of friends so much and started hanging out with like my friends from high school who had become like.

• 1:31:39Speaker 07

  Kind of burnouts. They were like taking a lot of like mushrooms and acid.

• 1:31:41Yasi Salek?

  Hell yeah.

• 1:31:42Speaker 07

  And like listening to like the Beatles and stuff. And so I was hanging out with them and not playing in a band, but just like listening to a lot more music and getting really into like more into music and um still like playing guitar and like I I kind of tried to learn how to sing.

• 1:31:55Yasi Salek?

  What what did that look like? Learning how to sing?

• 1:31:58Speaker 07

  Singing really bad. Like it just wasn't very, I don't have natural pitch very well.

• 1:32:01Yasi Salek?

  Would you just practice by yourself in your room in the shower and stuff?

• 1:32:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, totally. And I started writing songs that like are early Joyce Manor songs that are more melodic, like they're not like but they have like a melody. Like I was singing a melody, but it took me a long time to feel comfortable like doing that in front of somebody.

• 1:32:15Yasi Salek?

  I think it's so cool that you did that because I do think there's like sort of like a misrepresentation, especially in like alternative types of music like punk and stuff that like we don't try, you know, like

• 1:32:28Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:32:29Yasi Salek?

  Like, oh, you're like, it's so lame to like try to be good at something.

• 1:32:32Speaker 07

  Dude, seriously.

• 1:32:33Yasi Salek?

  And like the fact that you were like, yeah, I had to like I had to like figure out how to sing. Like if I wanted to do this properly.

• 1:32:39Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 1:32:39Yasi Salek?

  And that's that's amazing.

• 1:32:41Speaker 07

  So I spent like a year in hibernation. Like I had this little blue tape recorder and I would just record myself on there. And it's a lot of like the really early Joyce Manor songs. Like Beach Community and a couple, a couple other ones that and they are melodic and I just recorded myself over and over again until it kind of sounded like sort of like the mountain goats or something like that. Like I was like, okay, this sounds like I'm listening to a song and not like my a guy who can't sing, you know?

• 1:33:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:07Speaker 07

  And it was torture. It was so hard. And I was like, what am I doing wrong?

• 1:33:10Yasi Salek?

  It's really, there's a lot to be said for overcoming your like it's so embarrassing to be bad at something.

• 1:33:19Speaker 07

  Singing, it's like, it's like, it's people's like worst nightmare, right?

• 1:33:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, for me, it was guitar. Like I can, I'll never forget taking guitar lessons when I was 12. It was group lessons.

• 1:33:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Yasi Salek?

  And being like, actually, I'd rather die.

• 1:33:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:33:32Yasi Salek?

  I'd actually rather strap this guitar to my back and walk into the ocean with a bunch of rocks in my pocket and sink to the bottom. Then continue to try to play these chords in front of these like cool boys and and I so I never continued, you know? And even by myself because I was embarrassed to be bad at it by myself and like that it takes that. Not everyone is like born with like a perfect ear and perfect pitch. I mean, it does happen, but like it's rare.

• 1:33:57Speaker 07

  But yeah, I can remember once I kind of got the hang of it, I like, this girl I was dating at the time, I like pushed play on the tape recorder and set it down and left the room.

• 1:34:04Yasi Salek?

  Don't look at me.

• 1:34:04Speaker 07

  And then I came back and she was like, it's super good.

• 1:34:08Yasi Salek?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:34:08Speaker 07

  And I was just like, are you serious? Are you just saying that? She's like, and she was not that nice.

• 1:34:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:14Speaker 07

  If it was, if it was like, if it was bad and embarrassing, she would have been like.

• 1:34:18Yasi Salek?

  Don't do this.

• 1:34:18Speaker 07

  Keep, yeah.

• 1:34:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:19Speaker 07

  Don't do this to yourself, you know? You know, I did a couple of bands like in, in the, in the meantime.

• 1:34:25Yasi Salek?

  Did you use those songs?

• 1:34:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:28Speaker 07

  I tried to, I tried to get it off the ground a couple of times. No one was into it, cause the circle I was in was just like not really, uh, I don't know, they didn't know what to make of it or like.

• 1:34:38Yasi Salek?

  That kind of music wasn't their vibe.

• 1:34:40Speaker 07

  It's just harder. It's harder to try to play like a rock song. That's like a rock song.

• 1:34:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:44Speaker 07

  It was like, it's, we were relying so much at that time on like, as kids, just like, how energetic it is or how crazy it is or how like.

• 1:34:51Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:34:51Speaker 07

  Fun, it's gonna be at a rowdy horror show. Yeah, exactly. And, but actually trying to do a thing where you like, play like a rock song, it's just hard.

• 1:34:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:59Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:35:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Especially I feel like what you do, and it's like something that I have loved about your music since I first heard it is like, I know you say you don't have a good voice, but I think like, your voice is really unique in that all the emotion is really palpable in it.

• 1:35:16Speaker 07

  Oh, thanks.

• 1:35:17Yasi Salek?

  And like, that's something that's like, it's different than doing hard, fast, aggressive music, you know? It's like, you can't kind of hide.

• 1:35:24Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:35:25Yasi Salek?

  Yourself in that, if that's the way you sing.

• 1:35:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, totally. It, I mean, it took me a really long time to not be like embarrassed, to like, kind of like, just put, put, put some emotion into your singing. Like, your friends are just gonna like, laugh at you at band practice, you know what I mean? Like laugh in your face. When you get all like, like emotional, you know?

• 1:35:43Yasi Salek?

  I, listen, I think that's baked into the emo, uh, genre. Like, there's something deeply embarrassing about it.

• 1:35:49Speaker 07

  And you got it, yeah. You just gotta go there, you know? Honestly. And then people, you start to see people resonating with it and you get more comfortable with like, okay, I, I'm right. This is the right way to do this. Yeah.

• 1:35:57Yasi Salek?

  Not to be like, me too, but that's kind of how I felt when I was making this podcast. Like, I wanted to, I wanted to die. Like, when I would have to listen back to tape.

• 1:36:05Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:36:06Yasi Salek?

  And I was like, mm-mm, no, absolutely not. This is humiliating. And it wasn't until like, people started to be like, no, we like this. And I was like. Okay.

• 1:36:15Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:36:15Yasi Salek?

  But that was like, still took like two years for me to believe them. And I still kinda don't believe them. And I'm just like, whatever, we're five years in. I don't know how to do anything else.

• 1:36:22Speaker 07

  I have my days where I'm just like, so everyone just be a nice. Everyone just be a nice here. Yeah, yeah, come on.

• 1:36:29Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so that was like a mini Joyce Manor Band's Plan. I'm curious about the evolution of a musician that like, there was kinda a lot of stops and starts. And then like, you're within this scene. And it's like, obviously like Elliot's doing great, you know?

• 1:36:45Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, everybody at that time, like Sam was playing in Trash Talk.

• 1:36:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:51Speaker 07

  Elliot was doing Touche Amore. Uh, we were friends with this band that we played with in Phoenix called Andrew Jackson Jihad.

• 1:36:57Yasi Salek?

  Sure. Now it was by AJJ.

• 1:36:58Speaker 07

  AJJ, but they were blowing up.

• 1:37:00Yasi Salek?

  They were incredible.

• 1:37:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, they're incredible. But we had played with them, like English Works Center had played with them. And they were incredible.

• 1:37:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:06Speaker 07

  I was like, this is like Finding the Violent Femmes or something like, they're so great.

• 1:37:10Yasi Salek?

  They really slept on, I have to say.

• 1:37:12Speaker 07

  Oh, they're amazing, yeah.

• 1:37:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:13Speaker 07

  At the time, they were like blowing up. And like, all my friends are like, these talented people who um are finding success and touring and see, and doing all this stuff that I really wanted to do.

• 1:37:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Speaker 07

  And I felt kinda left behind. I felt like I had some talent and I didn't do it right. And I couldn't stick with the project. And then um.

• 1:37:32Yasi Salek?

  Well, in fairness, one of your projects abandoned you.

• 1:37:35Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:37:35Yasi Salek?

  Because you went on vacation.

• 1:37:36Speaker 07

  It was time for, it was time for that to end anyway. And those guys all did what, you know, they, they should have been doing. And we're all still friends. Like, I still, I love Chad so much. He toured with us for years, with Joyce Manor for years. And he's like, one of my favorite people ever. It was tough at the time, but I'm glad that that's the way it went. And I had to kinda figure something else out because.

• 1:37:53Yasi Salek?

  Well, yeah, because you landed, you landed exactly where you were supposed to be.

• 1:37:56Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was, that was a painful time for sure. And um, yeah, and like, the first Joyce Manor record didn't come out till I was 24.

• 1:38:04Yasi Salek?

  Which is really interesting, given the genre, you know, like, yeah.

• 1:38:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, right?

• 1:38:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:08Speaker 07

  I know. Like, if you can like, I think you could maybe become a doctor. Like, you know, by that age, right? Maybe? I think eight years, almost.

• 1:38:15Yasi Salek?

  Almost, like, you'd be two years from being.

• 1:38:18Speaker 07

  Pre-med or whatever, yeah, I don't know what that means. But yeah, you would be like, pretty close to being a doctor.

• 1:38:22Yasi Salek?

  You went to a different kind of college.

• 1:38:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, if you really got right on it, you know, and you were in AP classes or something. You might be.

• 1:38:28Yasi Salek?

  No, I had friends like, growing up, that were like, fellow Persian. You know, kids of my parents' friends that were like full on like, I'm a lawyer now. And I was like, I am touring with a band.

• 1:38:40Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:38:41Yasi Salek?

  Not playing in it, obviously, just tagging along. Or like, I don't know, I'm at a bar.

• 1:38:45Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:38:46Yasi Salek?

  I'm listening to the Smiths.

• 1:38:48Speaker 07

  Twenty-two, twenty-three. Yeah, I had nothing.

• 1:38:51Yasi Salek?

  I'm professionally listening to the Smiths at Max Fish.

• 1:38:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, I was amateur Smiths listener. Still try going, trying to go pro.

• 1:38:59Yasi Salek?

  Trying to go pro.

• 1:39:00Speaker 07

  Trying to go pro, yeah.

• 1:39:01Yasi Salek?

  I don't want to do early Joyce Manor or Razzia, because there are two albums before Never Hungover Again, right?

• 1:39:06Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:39:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, which are also really good.

• 1:39:09Speaker 07

  Thanks.

• 1:39:09Yasi Salek?

  It's, but Never Hungover Again is like when you guys went pro.

• 1:39:13Speaker 07

  I think so.

• 1:39:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:13Speaker 07

  I agree.

• 1:39:14Yasi Salek?

  Got the Epitaph.

• 1:39:16Speaker 07

  Just songwriting got better.

• 1:39:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:17Speaker 07

  And Chase started contributing more in a way that really made it something special, you know? It was, that's when it kind of the Mick and Keith thing started happening. Seriously, I'm like, there's like these two personalities. Like, I can hear so much of Chase and what makes Chase such a great and cool person in his guitar playing. It's like, it sounds like Chase. And it's like, once you have that with it, it's like, that's just so rare, you know?

• 1:39:41Yasi Salek?

  Do you guys have the Mick and Keith thing where like you're, you're writing songs about Chase and singing them?

• 1:39:46Speaker 07

  No, I don't write about Chase, no, no, no. No, or the Smiths, or yeah, Morrissey's writing about Johnny Marr. I Won't Share You and all that. Um, nah.

• 1:39:54Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 1:39:54Speaker 07

  I'm not writing about Chase, no. I'm often thinking about how much I love him and stuff. Well, on stage, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm not writing songs about him.

• 1:40:03Yasi Salek?

  I, I listened to the new album, which obviously we are going to talk about, because I think it's so fucking good. But just to like refresh, I put on Never Hungover Again and Just Like Christmas Card came on. And I was like, first of all, transported back to exactly 2014, which was not a particularly happy time in my life. But also the album was perfect for that.

• 1:40:18Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:40:18Yasi Salek?

  Because it's like a little bit of a Les Mis album.

• 1:40:20Speaker 07

  Same.

• 1:40:21Yasi Salek?

  But I was also like, they didn't have to go so fucking hard.

• 1:40:23Speaker 07

  Thanks.

• 1:40:23Yasi Salek?

  With this fucking intro, this opening track.

• 1:40:26Speaker 07

  Yeah. Um, sequenced by Brett Geirwitz. I didn't have it as the opening track, but Brett Geirwitz sequenced it and put it first.

• 1:40:32Yasi Salek?

  Kind of knows what he's doing.

• 1:40:33Speaker 07

  Seriously.

• 1:40:34Yasi Salek?

  Did you, when you guys signed to Epitaph, like, because I know for me, growing up in Torn's, like, the specter of Epitaph and like Bad Religion and Pennywise and everything was like so major.

• 1:40:44Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:40:45Yasi Salek?

  So for you, was it kind of the same when you were like, oh, my God, I'm like? Signing to Brett Girovitz's label.

• 1:40:50Speaker 07

  No, Brett's a super unassuming guy and Epitaph, like, from, like, the year, maybe like 2000 to like 2010, weren't putting out a ton of stuff that I liked.

• 1:41:01Yasi Salek?

  They were a bit in their flop era.

• 1:41:02Speaker 07

  They just, or they just got, you know, they had to survive. You know what I mean? And I get it, like, the 90s punk bubble had kind of burst. And they wanted, you know, they'd become a big.

• 1:41:10Yasi Salek?

  Offspring's only gonna pay the bill, keep the lights on for so long.

• 1:41:13Speaker 07

  They'd become a big label, there's all these people with jobs, and they kind of had to look at what was selling and what people were listening to. But, you know, throughout that whole time, they still put out great punk records. And they just sort of took the major label approach of, like, diversifying, like, putting out different stuff.

• 1:41:27Yasi Salek?

  I think it's so genius what they did, especially with Anti. Like, I remember when they started Anti, like, god, it must have been like 2003, maybe even before that.

• 1:41:34Speaker 07

  Or Tom Waits, it was their first album.

• 1:41:35Yasi Salek?

  And then, like, what they started doing with that, which I don't think people got right away, but now it's, like, so fucking thriving. And you're like, oh, yeah, they were so ahead.

• 1:41:42Speaker 07

  I've come to find this is a sore subject, and I'm really glad it didn't happen, but I asked about being on Anti.

• 1:41:47Yasi Salek?

  Interesting.

• 1:41:48Speaker 07

  I was like, do you think we would maybe make more sense on Anti?

• 1:41:50Yasi Salek?

  Because you thought it was cooler.

• 1:41:51Speaker 07

  I thought it was cooler, yeah. I thought it kind of made more sense.

• 1:41:53Yasi Salek?

  You look kind of folky.

• 1:41:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:41:55Yasi Salek?

  Or kind of like Americana, especially at that time.

• 1:41:57Speaker 07

  I was, yeah, I was just like, we're not really metalcore, and that's kind of what your guys' bread and butter is these days, like.

• 1:42:02Yasi Salek?

  But maybe they wanted to go back to the source, you know?

• 1:42:04Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, Brett is really, really proud of Epitaph, rightfully so.

• 1:42:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:08Speaker 07

  And over the last, I would say, 10 years, they've put out, I mean, kind of starting with, with us and a couple of other bands that they signed a lot of the time, Menzingers, Sun Kicks and stuff, they sort of did enter like another era. So it does make more sense kind of in retrospect. And I'm really glad they were on Epitaph, I'm really proud to be on Epitaph, I love the label.

• 1:42:26Yasi Salek?

  I think it's like a perfect, I was talking to Missy from Mannequin Pussy about this, because they're also on Epitaph, right? And I was like, what a, like, dream scenario, because you get a little bit of the best of both worlds, right? Like, they are so major, in the sense of not being a major label, being just major and so long-running and so well-connected, that they can offer you all of that support.

• 1:42:47Speaker 07

  The infrastructure.

• 1:42:47Yasi Salek?

  The infrastructure, but they're not a major label, so you're not gonna get lost in the shuffle. Like, there's so much, like, high-touch, and also, like, you know the ethics are kind of there, and like.

• 1:42:56Speaker 07

  Hundred percent. I love the label, I'm so happy that that's like where we ended up, because I would have, I wanted to be on Matador.

• 1:43:02Yasi Salek?

  Well, who doesn't?

• 1:43:03Speaker 07

  I know. Well, no, honestly, now.

• 1:43:04Yasi Salek?

  I want to be on Matador. Matador, would you like to sign me as a podcast?

• 1:43:07Speaker 07

  If I could time machine, I would, I would not. Yeah, I'm so happy that that's where we ended up and, you know. I just think it's the spot for us for sure. But at that time, they were signing like, you know, Fucked Up and Ceremony.

• 1:43:18Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:43:18Speaker 07

  We were playing shows with them and I was kind of like, that, that would be great for us. And we were talking at Polyvinyl, too.

• 1:43:24Yasi Salek?

  Also a great, amazing label.

• 1:43:25Speaker 07

  Amazing label, amazing label, but for us as people and the relationships we've made at Epitaph, like, is 100% the right place for us.

• 1:43:32Yasi Salek?

  I like, I like the continuity of like Torrance Band, Epitaph, SoCal label, like, has so many roots with like different SoCal bands, like.

• 1:43:39Speaker 07

  Yeah, trying to like, trying to be like on an indie cred label, I just, it's not, I like that we carved a little different path for ourselves where we made kind of like unconventional punk records on a punk label.

• 1:43:50Yasi Salek?

  We didn't even mention up top that you're a Return Band's playing guest because you've done one of the most popular Band's Plan episodes on Weezer.

• 1:43:56Speaker 07

  Yeah, Weezer. Um, that was so cool.

• 1:43:59Yasi Salek?

  You were a perfect guest. I thought we had a lot of fun.

• 1:44:02Speaker 07

  Absolutely.

• 1:44:02Yasi Salek?

  Anecdotally, I've heard it's very popular with teenagers, that episode.

• 1:44:06Speaker 07

  Cool.

• 1:44:07Yasi Salek?

  I don't know if that's because of you.

• 1:44:09Speaker 07

  I wonder.

• 1:44:09Yasi Salek?

  Or because if Weezer has like some sort of TikTok popularity.

• 1:44:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, right.

• 1:44:13Yasi Salek?

  It might be both.

• 1:44:13Speaker 07

  It might be both, yeah, with Buddy Holly, kind of.

• 1:44:16Yasi Salek?

  We talked about this on the episode, but it was like, I feel like three years ago now, so I don't remember. You didn't get into the Blue Album until later. Like, when you were mentioning those like 1994 albums that you were into, Blue Album wasn't one, or Blue Album wasn't one of them.

• 1:44:28Speaker 07

  Not so much, yeah. Uh, Weezer was not a, it was more of a high school thing.

• 1:44:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:33Speaker 07

  I was into, I got into ska first and then people in, that were into ska, liked Weezer.

• 1:44:38Yasi Salek?

  Interesting.

• 1:44:39Speaker 07

  I don't know, it was like nerdy.

• 1:44:41Yasi Salek?

  Okay, yeah, I feel like I read something you were saying about like glasses and cardigan or backpack or something.

• 1:44:45Speaker 07

  Converse, you know what I mean? Yeah, and I was just like, it all kind of went together.

• 1:44:49Yasi Salek?

  I hear some Weezer on this new album.

• 1:44:51Speaker 07

  Of course. Oh my god, so much, yeah. I got really into the Red Album.

• 1:44:54Yasi Salek?

  Interesting.

• 1:44:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, yeah. We, when we toured with them, they would play this song called "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" every night. And it's like seven minutes long and completely unhinged. And all these like just normal people that were at the show know every word. It's like, it's kind of like people know, like, there's like, diehard Weezer fans know every song.

• 1:45:13Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:45:14Speaker 07

  And then there's like another layer of people that know like Hash Pipe, Say It Ain't So.

• 1:45:18Yasi Salek?

  Right, Beverly Hills, the like radio hits.

• 1:45:20Speaker 07

  Also know that one, and I don't know why.

• 1:45:22Yasi Salek?

  Maybe TikTok?

• 1:45:23Speaker 07

  I don't know. But I, but the song is, is ama, is awesome. I really love it, really grew on me. But I had never really heard it much. Or, you know, maybe ever made it all the way through it. Cause it's, it's totally unhinged, but.

• 1:45:37Yasi Salek?

  Do you guys have a song on your set that you feel like is like that where you're like?

• 1:45:40Speaker 07

  Why is this one popular?

• 1:45:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:42Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:45:42Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 1:45:45Speaker 07

  But yeah, this song is like seven minutes long. It's pretty crazy. It's, it's, yeah.

• 1:45:48Yasi Salek?

  Not, not Joyce Manor style?

• 1:45:49Speaker 07

  No, no, no, yeah. It's like a Joyce Manor album.

• 1:45:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:45:53Speaker 07

  Seriously.

• 1:45:54Yasi Salek?

  Is it weird that your biggest song is from your first album?

• 1:45:58Speaker 07

  Um, no. I mean, it's really weird. I, I kind of knew that song was special when I was writing it.

• 1:46:06Yasi Salek?

  You did. We're talking about constant headache, by the way.

• 1:46:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm talking about constant headache. I remember I wrote it on the Taurus three bus.

• 1:46:11Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:46:12Speaker 07

  I mean, so if anyone wants to challenge my Taurus cred.

• 1:46:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:15Speaker 07

  What songs do you write on the Taurus three? You know what I mean? So. Um, yeah, and I fully just like, was like really moved. I was like, you know, like wiping away tears when I was writing it. And I wrote it all in one go. It had an extra verse. I wrote like, it was like Bob Dylan level, just like six verses in a row, you know?

• 1:46:33Yasi Salek?

  Could have been five minutes.

• 1:46:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:46:35Yasi Salek?

  Could have been the first ever five minute.

• 1:46:36Speaker 07

  I have, I have the, cause I got home and that same little blue tape recorder I have, like I just recorded it onto that. All in one go. And I already had like all the verses and I kind of just kept running it over and over again in my head not to lose it. But yeah, I was like wiping away tears. Like I was like, I was really moved by it. And, um, it all, it all came at one time, like no, didn't have to slave over anything.

• 1:46:57Yasi Salek?

  Those ones come from God. That's my, that's my biggest thing. It's like, that's just, you know?

• 1:47:03Speaker 07

  It kind of feels like, I don't know who wrote that. I don't know where that came from.

• 1:47:14Speaker 07

  I had it for about a year before we ever played it because I was super embarrassed of it. I thought it was like.

• 1:47:20Yasi Salek?

  Because it was too emotionally vulnerable, yeah.

• 1:47:22Speaker 07

  Yeah. Um, our first EP is called the Consonetic EP and has a song called Constant Nothing on it.

• 1:47:29Yasi Salek?

  But you were hiding the constant headache.

• 1:47:30Speaker 07

  I had showed it to everybody and we tried it and we couldn't quite get the arrangement right. It didn't, didn't quite feel right. And then we played some shows and. We were doing two versions of it. We were doing a fast version and a slow version. I was asking like my friends who were on tour with.

• 1:47:46Yasi Salek?

  You were polling people?

• 1:47:47Speaker 07

  I was.

• 1:47:47Yasi Salek?

  Which one did you like?

• 1:47:48Speaker 07

  Fast or slow? And some people were like, fast for sure, dude. And because they're just.

• 1:47:52Yasi Salek?

  They're punk.

• 1:47:52Speaker 07

  It's fast.

• 1:47:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:53Speaker 07

  And I was like, dude, slow. And majority of people were like, the slow way, of course.

• 1:47:57Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:47:58Speaker 07

  And so.

• 1:47:58Yasi Salek?

  It goes with the feeling and tone of the song.

• 1:48:01Speaker 07

  Yeah, but we did a west coast tour where we would alternate. One night we would do the fast version, one night we'd do the slow version. But the version I had recorded that I'll put it out someday because it's interesting to hear.

• 1:48:11Yasi Salek?

  You should, the long one, yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:13Speaker 07

  Yeah, with extra verse, um, is fast.

• 1:48:17Yasi Salek?

  Did you cut it literally just because it didn't work within the arrangement? Or is there like lyrical content there that you were like, no?

• 1:48:22Speaker 07

  It's not bad, actually.

• 1:48:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:23Speaker 07

  It just, it just, the song made, worked, but it was too long.

• 1:48:27Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:48:28Speaker 07

  And I.

• 1:48:28Yasi Salek?

  For a choice.

• 1:48:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, and that song has no chords. It's the same chords the whole time. It's kind of like a Goo Goo Dolls, Iris. It's like the chorus and verse are the same melody.

• 1:48:38Yasi Salek?

  You're speaking to my heart right now.

• 1:48:39Speaker 07

  The chorus is, the verse is the one melody and then the chorus is just the melody an octave up. So it's like the same melody, the entire song. It's hard to keep that interesting.

• 1:48:47Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:48:47Speaker 07

  And the only thing that keeps it interesting is like the, I feel like the lyrics are fairly compelling. And it was just like, I had too much. And so I had to chop it. But there's some cool, there's some cool imagery in the other verse. It'll come out eventually.

• 1:48:58Yasi Salek?

  Can't wait. I love this song. Embarrassment of riches. I think Iris could be 22 minutes long and I would still listen to it.

• 1:49:04Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:49:06Yasi Salek?

  It's just my, that's my, uh, let's think about it. Guided by Voices?

• 1:49:11Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:49:11Yasi Salek?

  Let's book and go. That was also a late addition to your arsenal of inspirations.

• 1:49:17Speaker 07

  Yeah, I moved to Long Beach and then I got an apartment with this guy Stu and we were really broke. And we decided to be like super bohemian and not get any internet.

• 1:49:26Yasi Salek?

  I'm obsessed with this. I'm like, can I, should I do this? I'd love, I'd love to not have internet at my home.

• 1:49:30Speaker 07

  It changed my life. I mean, totally like I, so we had no internet for like the first year or two. And so I would just go to the library and check out CDs. And the first, my first trip, I got a couple of books and maybe like a few movies. And, um, the two CDs I got were Enema State and Alien Lanes by Guided by Voices.

• 1:49:45Yasi Salek?

  And you hadn't really engaged with either of these bands yet or you had?

• 1:49:47Speaker 07

  I, I had, I was, in middle school, um, Enema State came out and this girl I was hanging out with, Melanie Marco, was really into it and I loved it.

• 1:49:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:57Speaker 07

  I thought it was great. But I never owned it or anything or spent that much time with it, but I I still knew every part of it. And like, and when I, you know, I was like, oh, yeah, I loved this album. And so like, okay. And then when I put it back on, like, I still remembered every word, every part. Cause she would listen to it over and over again.

• 1:50:12Yasi Salek?

  This is how fast things used to move, you guys, by the way, which is like for me, Enema of the State was the last Blink 282 album. That was like part of my world. Cause like, it was like, they just like went to another place for me after that. Cause I was like Cheshire Cat on, you know? But they were putting, those albums came out pretty quickly in succession, you know?

• 1:50:31Speaker 07

  I had Dude Ranch. I had Dude Ranch before that. I loved it, yeah. And I got, I got Dude Ranch for Christmas, like maybe two years before that. And I also got a bunch of Peanut Brittle.

• 1:50:41Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 1:50:41Speaker 07

  And I.

• 1:50:42Yasi Salek?

  The food, not the album.

• 1:50:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, the food, the food. And Dude Ranch kind of looks like Peanut Brittle. And like.

• 1:50:47Yasi Salek?

  Cause it's like that westerny kind of brown tones.

• 1:50:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's all big horse's ass.

• 1:50:52Speaker 07

  And so like, yeah, yeah, right. And so listening to Dude Ranch, like still, like I kind of taste Peanut Brittle. I can taste it like a sensory thing.

• 1:50:59Yasi Salek?

  That's like your synesthesia, but it's a taste.

• 1:51:02Speaker 07

  Like that, cause and I was so sick of this Peanut Brittle and it was a big fucking thing of it. And just like listening to Dude Ranch over and over again, just, yeah. Like, I don't even just sonically, it has this like, that record sounds like gritty. And like the taste of it, it's just they really, yeah, it's crunchy, it's crunchy.

• 1:51:17Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so, so you also picked up Alien Lands, one of the greatest.

• 1:51:21Speaker 07

  It took me a while, that grew on me, man. Cause when I first put it on, it sounded just like, like drunk boomers making up songs as they went along. And I knew.

• 1:51:30Yasi Salek?

  Drunk boomers.

• 1:51:31Speaker 07

  And I knew it was like, I knew it was critically acclaimed. And I was just shocked, I was like, what?

• 1:51:36Yasi Salek?

  What am I missing here?

• 1:51:37Speaker 07

  Yeah, what am I missing? But it's one of those ones where just kind of like one or two songs at a time. I was like, okay, Game of Pricks.

• 1:51:43Yasi Salek?

  Game of Pricks.

• 1:51:44Speaker 07

  That's incredible. And then I would be like.

• 1:51:45Yasi Salek?

  God tier song.

• 1:51:46Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah, exactly. And then I'd be like, okay, as we go up, we go down. Amazing.

• 1:51:49Yasi Salek?

  God tier song.

• 1:51:50Speaker 07

  But then like weirder stuff started to creep in where I would be like, oh, Buzz's Duffle Crows or just.

• 1:51:55Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:51:56Speaker 07

  Some of the more kind of, um, arty or noisier, collagey or ones.

• 1:52:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:00Speaker 07

  Started to kind of, uh, and then I just loved the whole thing. And I still, I love, love, love that record.

• 1:52:05Yasi Salek?

  For those of you that don't know, this album has 28 songs on it.

• 1:52:09Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:52:10Yasi Salek?

  They're all very short.

• 1:52:12Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:52:14Yasi Salek?

  Since then, Guide by Voices has put out 150 more albums.

• 1:52:18Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 1:52:18Yasi Salek?

  That's a rough estimation, but I don't think I'm that far off.

• 1:52:21Speaker 07

  The last one was pretty good.

• 1:52:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it came out this year, or 2025.

• 1:52:24Speaker 07

  I'm into it. Yeah, I haven't checked out like the 23 that came out before the, yeah, but.

• 1:52:29Yasi Salek?

  He's a genius.

• 1:52:30Speaker 07

  He's so great. I love Bob Pollard songwriting.

• 1:52:33Yasi Salek?

  It's incredible. I love that his approach is literally like, it's all good and I'm gonna put it all out.

• 1:52:38Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:52:38Yasi Salek?

  You know, like, that's like a very like interesting way to approach.

• 1:52:43Speaker 07

  I have the exact opposite. I'm like, it's all bad. I'm not putting any of it out. And then people have to be like, it's good. Please put it out. And I'm like, okay, you can put out this one, but that's it.

• 1:52:51Yasi Salek?

  You just need a touch of the Bob Pollards.

• 1:52:53Speaker 07

  Yeah, I wanted this last record to be a seven inch, just like two songs. Just, I used to go to this bar and all my friends were so depressed.

• 1:52:58Yasi Salek?

  Great.

• 1:52:58Speaker 07

  I know, but I know it's like, oh, let's keep writing. Like, okay, okay. But it took me a lot of writing.

• 1:53:02Yasi Salek?

  Then you would deprive me of great guitar?

• 1:53:04Speaker 07

  Uh, thank you.

• 1:53:05Yasi Salek?

  I'll slap you in your mouth.

• 1:53:05Speaker 07

  We'll get, we'll get to it. But yeah, I was, I'm always like that. I'm always like, I, let's just only put out these ones.

• 1:53:10Yasi Salek?

  So when you're, this library excursion time, does this coincide with Joyce Manor songwriting?

• 1:53:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, just beginning.

• 1:53:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally makes sense to me. It's like almost like you needed like the last ingredient.

• 1:53:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, seriously. Yeah. And, and like those God by Voices songs are so melodic and, and I, you know, I was just getting comfortable enough with my singing to like, okay, I'm gonna like sing a melody and, you know, in front of people, which is really terrifying. New, a whole new, no, a whole new strain of terrifying.

• 1:53:38Yasi Salek?

  Couldn't do it, but karaoke maybe.

• 1:53:40Speaker 07

  So, yeah, a lot of those early melodies are like super Bob Pollard. But, you know, I'm, I've always been the kind of person where it's like, I wouldn't want to just be in like a band that sounds just like God by Voices.

• 1:53:50Yasi Salek?

  Sure, of course.

• 1:53:51Speaker 07

  And I was like, well, can we think of like one other thing to combine it with to where it would be like fresh?

• 1:53:56Yasi Salek?

  I was just arguing with someone about this where they were like, oh, I can hear all the different influences in XYZ band. And I was like, that is every band ever. Like, the point of making art, well, I'm with the point, but what often transpires with making art is like, you are a funnel for a bunch of influences. And then what comes out the other side is different and new because it's, it's seaved through you.

• 1:54:18Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:54:18Yasi Salek?

  Like, it comes with a prism of you who are a different person with different experiences. And that's what makes it cool. Like, nobody is making art in a fucking vacuum.

• 1:54:26Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 1:54:27Yasi Salek?

  Never heard anything.

• 1:54:28Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:54:28Yasi Salek?

  And when they do, it's called noise music. I don't want to listen to it.

• 1:54:30Speaker 07

  I know. Who wants to listen to that? Exactly. Totally. So many good ideas are just like that where I read a thing with Morrissey was talking about like, him and Johnny Marr were both into like the girl group Seven Inches. And he was kind of like, well, what if this kind of had the?

• 1:54:46Speaker 07

  Like Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, like, personal wordiness?

• 1:54:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:50Speaker 07

  With this kind of like upbeat pop thing?

• 1:54:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:54Speaker 07

  And he's like, "That doesn't exist, but I wish I wanted to exist," you know?

• 1:54:58Yasi Salek?

  And that's why I made it.

• 1:54:59Speaker 07

  And, and it's the best thing ever. Or like the, like Oasis is like The Beatles and Sex Pistols at the same time.

• 1:55:04Yasi Salek?

  And, well, and Stone Roses.

• 1:55:05Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but, you know, there's, there's these other purple things, but you can kind of just like layer these two things and get this like new color.

• 1:55:12Yasi Salek?

  Right. And the girl group one is a great example because there's many bands who started with the girl group influence and can sound completely different from each other.

• 1:55:20Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 1:55:20Yasi Salek?

  You know, but that was sort of their like inkling that got them going.

• 1:55:24Speaker 07

  That's actually another one from that library time. There was this, um, like box set of all of these girl group songs, singles that came in a hat box. And I checked that out from the library. I was listening to that non-stop, so.

• 1:55:34Yasi Salek?

  That was one of my first, uh, pieces of vinyl. I got it at a garage sale. It was like a four record duop classics.

• 1:55:43Speaker 07

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:55:44Yasi Salek?

  And I would sit in my room with the record player and listen to it non-stop.

• 1:55:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:55:48Yasi Salek?

  Because it's like, everything you relate to, like, I think you and I have something in common. It's like, when you're relating to Nirvana, a lot of that is just pop songwriting.

• 1:55:58Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 1:55:58Yasi Salek?

  That comes from The Beatles that kind of is also, you can go back to duop, you know, like, and so like hearing it's like, especially if you're 12 years old, you're like, let's fucking go.

• 1:56:06Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:56:06Yasi Salek?

  Sherrill, let's go.

• 1:56:07Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 1:56:08Yasi Salek?

  All right, let's, let's talk about the new album.

• 1:56:11Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:56:11Yasi Salek?

  I love it.

• 1:56:14Yasi Salek?

  It's really good.

• 1:56:15Speaker 07

  I appreciate it.

• 1:56:15Yasi Salek?

  A lot of people asked about the album cover, which I thought was interesting because it's listed on Wikipedia, but I'll tell you guys. Um, supplied by friend of the band, Chris Clean.

• 1:56:25Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:25Yasi Salek?

  And it's a photo of his grandmother at a party.

• 1:56:27Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:56:28Yasi Salek?

  Is that correct?

• 1:56:28Speaker 07

  That's true.

• 1:56:29Yasi Salek?

  It's very cool. You guys have great album covers.

• 1:56:31Speaker 07

  Thank you so much.

• 1:56:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:32Speaker 07

  Super Smiths influenced, you know?

• 1:56:33Yasi Salek?

  Well, it kind of, it is, but also it ties into like, oh, a quote I read from Brett Gurwitz, who produced this album. Very cool. This is the first Joyce Manor album he's produced.

• 1:56:42Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 1:56:43Yasi Salek?

  That, where he called you, uh, or compares you to Ernest Hemingway.

• 1:56:47Speaker 07

  Yeah. I think it's because of the, um, like, baby shoes never worn.

• 1:56:52Yasi Salek?

  I was, in my head, I was like, "Antony's skate shoes never worn."

• 1:56:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. Which I I looked into that and I think that's maybe like actually not something that he did. I think it's maybe falsely contributed to him, but whatever. I know what he means.

• 1:57:04Yasi Salek?

  I think it's more that you, and I wanted to ask you about this because throughout your songwriting, especially on this album, I noticed it, there, there's so many like specific details that make you think of a short story. And I was wondering, but then I also read that you said that you were accessing past feelings and experiences and emotions to write this. Do you keep journals in order? So this is all kind of like you're mining your memory?

• 1:57:33Speaker 07

  I guess so, you know, and I think, I think a lot of the narrative of this kind of being like this backwards looking album of kind of like remembering when. There is some truth to that. I mean, the record is literally called I Used To Go To This Bar, you know? So there is some of that, obviously, but then also like our, we did the social media thing where this company we hired to do our social media, Be hooked. They like just asked us to reminisce on key moments of our career.

• 1:57:56Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:57:57Speaker 07

  And I think that people think like we decided to do that.

• 1:58:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:00Speaker 07

  We were kind of like, hey, guys, you want to sit around and talk about the old days? Which is like, no, it was not my idea. So, so this isn't supposed to be kind of like a, let's take a trip down memory lane. But I guess it has ended up being that. And I think it's partly just partially just getting a little older.

• 1:58:13Yasi Salek?

  I was gonna say.

• 1:58:14Speaker 07

  It's really fun to remember stuff.

• 1:58:15Yasi Salek?

  I think it makes a lot of sense, given your age.

• 1:58:18Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:58:19Yasi Salek?

  Cause it's like you're coming up on 40.

• 1:58:20Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:58:21Yasi Salek?

  Oh, that's really a very classic time to sort of take stock.

• 1:58:25Speaker 07

  Yeah. You, you, you mean the world you spent your twenties in is completely gone.

• 1:58:30Yasi Salek?

  Completely gone. Also, the way you're miserable in your twenties is so unique. I mean, it's not like we're not miserable now. I don't want to speak for you, but.

• 1:58:37Speaker 07

  I'm a lot happier.

• 1:58:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I mean, like you're like a happy, you know, you are successful at what you do. You're in a beautiful marriage, like you have a nice home, you know, like, and not to say that your life is perfect. Obviously, we all grapple with different existential stuff.

• 1:58:53Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 1:58:53Yasi Salek?

  But by the time you're pushing on 40, it's just, it's not, it doesn't have the urgency it has when you're 20 and you're like, this is fucking life or death. And like, so it makes a lot of sense to kind of tap on the past to put into songwriting, you know?

• 1:59:06Speaker 07

  Getting a little, yeah, getting a little like, uh, after a couple of drinks, thinking about the old days and stuff, you know? But gotta shake that off. I think that, I don't think, I don't think I have like. Many albums worth of that in me.

• 1:59:17Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:59:18Speaker 07

  Or like, it's just, you don't want to give into that indulgence or that like.

• 1:59:22Yasi Salek?

  Well, now you can make your opera, the way that Rivers Cuomo is doing, completely fictionalized.

• 1:59:27Speaker 07

  Something, yeah, right, something else.

• 1:59:29Yasi Salek?

  Well, I also, I also do feel like you did it a bunch here and I do it a bunch when I talk about my past, but I feel like there's something about torrents, because it's like this weird bubble storybook suburban place and limited to all the South Bay, where you, you talk about everyone by first and last name, right? It's like, people are like characters, you know?

• 1:59:46Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:46Yasi Salek?

  And like, we have, obviously, I know where Mark Chen lives.

• 1:59:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:59:50Yasi Salek?

  Mark Chen, a friend of yours from the band Summer Vacation and Winter Break, or did I get that?

• 1:59:55Speaker 07

  Exactly, no, that's right.

• 1:59:56Yasi Salek?

  Okay, great.

• 1:59:56Speaker 07

  Yep. He's from the San Gabriel Valley, and he was like, he was a band that we played with in early Joyce Manor, and he's such an amazing songwriter, but he's reclusive.

• 2:00:06Yasi Salek?

  Did you have to ask him for his permission?

• 2:00:08Speaker 07

  No, no one's talked to him, no one's talked to him in years, no.

• 2:00:10Yasi Salek?

  Is this your kind of way of like a siren call, like, Mark Chen, please come back to us, I wrote you this song?

• 2:00:14Speaker 07

  There's this band, Television Personalities.

• 2:00:16Yasi Salek?

  Yep.

• 2:00:17Speaker 07

  And they have a song called I Know Where Sid Barrett Lives.

• 2:00:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:19Speaker 07

  So it's about like, he's like our Sid Barrett.

• 2:00:22Yasi Salek?

  I love that.

• 2:00:22Speaker 07

  He's reclusive, you know?

• 2:00:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because you guys did a split single with.

• 2:00:26Speaker 07

  Yeah. We used to play with Summer Vacation all the time.

• 2:00:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:29Speaker 07

  We used to play with them like once a week, but we were not, we weren't really friends.

• 2:00:32Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:00:33Speaker 07

  I liked them a lot and I loved their band.

• 2:00:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:35Speaker 07

  But we never hung out outside of playing shows together. I never had like their phone numbers.

• 2:00:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:40Speaker 07

  We weren't like buddies.

• 2:00:41Yasi Salek?

  Have you Googled Mark Chen? Have you gone on Facebook?

• 2:00:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, he's, he's not around.

• 2:00:45Yasi Salek?

  Should we hire a private investigator?

• 2:00:47Speaker 07

  I don't think so, I think we'll leave him alone. He's, you know, he's kind of troubled.

• 2:00:51Yasi Salek?

  Someone's gonna get in touch with you, I'm sure, soon and be like, Mark Chen is my neighbor.

• 2:00:55Speaker 07

  People have asked me, they're like, dude, have you talked to him? I've been like, wondering, where's Mark? And I was like, no one's talked to him.

• 2:01:00Yasi Salek?

  That's so interesting.

• 2:01:01Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:01:01Yasi Salek?

  I hope he's okay.

• 2:01:02Speaker 07

  I hope he's okay too. He's so talented. I'm sad he's not doing music anymore. He's one of my favorite songwriters.

• 2:01:07Yasi Salek?

  That's interesting.

• 2:01:07Speaker 07

  Best voice.

• 2:01:08Yasi Salek?

  I love that you kind of like commemorated him here with this song title.

• 2:01:13Speaker 07

  Yeah, I don't know why, I don't know why, I just, um, I just think he's awesome and I like Television Personalities and it was kind of a nod to.

• 2:01:23Yasi Salek?

  Incredible band.

• 2:01:24Speaker 07

  I got to like, yeah.

• 2:01:32Yasi Salek?

  What did Brett Gourwitz bring to the producing table that you felt was like maybe different than what you'd experienced with producers before?

• 2:01:40Speaker 07

  He's my favorite producer we've ever worked with. He was, it was such a great fit. Amazing chemistry as far as just workflow in the studio. He's a bit more of a cheerleader than I've had in the past.

• 2:01:53Yasi Salek?

  What did you have before, like sort of like?

• 2:01:55Speaker 07

  Rob Schneff, who is amazing.

• 2:01:57Yasi Salek?

  What an iconic.

• 2:01:59Speaker 07

  Rob Schneff is such an amazing producer.

• 2:02:01Yasi Salek?

  If you guys don't know about Rob Schneff, all you have to know is he produced Elliott Smith.

• 2:02:04Speaker 07

  Elliott Smith, God by Voices, Saves the Day, like a ton of great, great, great records. He's so talented.

• 2:02:10Yasi Salek?

  He's also just really cool.

• 2:02:11Speaker 07

  He's super cool. I love Rob. And he's not a cheerleader though, but he brought a lot of, I learned so much about songwriting and song structure and how to make songs better from Rob. Like it's invaluable. Like I love that guy and I love working with him, but um, he's not really there to like boost up your ego. Seriously, he's, he's a pretty dry dude and he's, he's not really there to like, you know, make you feel good about yourself or whatever.

• 2:02:37Yasi Salek?

  Probably Robert Pollard doesn't need it.

• 2:02:38Speaker 07

  Exactly. I mean, a lot of artists don't, you know, so.

• 2:02:41Yasi Salek?

  And also maybe for the arc of your output, that was right for that time. Like, you know what I mean? Like me at that time, you kind of needed like a little like ass whipping or whatever.

• 2:02:50Speaker 07

  Especially Cody. I love how Cody.

• 2:02:52Yasi Salek?

  Cody is so good. Cody is unfairly blind.

• 2:02:55Speaker 07

  I love it. Yeah. So.

• 2:02:57Yasi Salek?

  They don't like you to try, they don't like you to be different. They don't let you be different in this world.

• 2:03:01Speaker 07

  So, um, but Brett is very much like, he's coaching your performance. And like when you like give him a good vocal take, he's like jumping out of his chair and pumping. It's just like, yes. You know, so he's like getting you kind of pumped and um, just always kind of telling you like how great your band is and what people like love about your band. And like when, cause I can get kind of down on it. Like, oh, I don't know. He like really is like. You can't see it, but this is great just because it's like you.

• 2:03:31Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:03:31Speaker 07

  And it's, it is you and it's, and you're just really good at making you feel confident. And like what you're doing is worth doing.

• 2:03:36Yasi Salek?

  Can he come to my house?

• 2:03:38Speaker 07

  Seriously. I feel, I can't, yeah. He's really, really good at just helping you feel good about what you're making and that it's worth doing. And, uh, and I guess I'm just someone who needs that. I need like some reassurance.

• 2:03:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, well, we, we've picked that up from the bits of your story of like, I sang by myself in the shower for a year before I was able to show anybody.

• 2:03:55Speaker 07

  But Brett could have rolled in and be like, you sound awesome, man. Like people are gonna love this.

• 2:03:59Yasi Salek?

  Putting it out.

• 2:04:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, he's like, all right, well, it's good enough for Brett.

• 2:04:01Yasi Salek?

  Do you feel also like it holds a little extra weight? Cause you're like, this person absolutely has been through this and knows it because they're not just like a producer who's never also had to put themselves out there, been in a band. Like he's done all of it, you know?

• 2:04:14Speaker 07

  He's done all of it, so much wisdom, so much experience. And yeah, I just felt so comfortable trusting him. And yeah, like I, I feel like sometimes I want, I want someone to add something to make it less like, like me or less Joyce Manor so that it'll be better.

• 2:04:28Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:04:28Speaker 07

  But he would just like, he didn't add stuff that they didn't need. Cause he's like, it's your voice, it's Chase's guitar playing, it's Matt's bass playing, and we hired the drummer of Oasis. This is gonna be awesome.

• 2:04:40Yasi Salek?

  Joey Waronker.

• 2:04:41Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:04:41Yasi Salek?

  Of the Waronker musical dynasty.

• 2:04:44Speaker 07

  He's like, this, this rules, trust me.

• 2:04:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:47Speaker 07

  And so it really just puts you at ease and kinda like, it, it, and sort of you can just be like, well, if it doesn't, it's on you. Cause you told me it was good, you know? So he really kinda.

• 2:04:56Yasi Salek?

  You shirked the responsibility.

• 2:04:58Speaker 07

  You, you're the one that said it was good.

• 2:05:00Yasi Salek?

  This is your label.

• 2:05:00Speaker 07

  I never said it was good.

• 2:05:01Yasi Salek?

  If it bombs, that's money out of your pocket.

• 2:05:03Speaker 07

  That's your fault. Yeah, exactly. So.

• 2:05:04Yasi Salek?

  I, I read that he encouraged you to speed up songs.

• 2:05:07Speaker 07

  He encouraged, yeah, when we were about halfway through the record, there was a lot of indie rock happening.

• 2:05:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:14Speaker 07

  And I was kinda like, yeah, whatever. Like that's what I'm writing. I'm gonna go with it. Those are the songs that I feel like are turning out good. And he was like, he liked those songs a lot, don't get me wrong. But he was like, I think we need some tempo.

• 2:05:28Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:05:28Speaker 07

  And so I resented, I really didn't appreciate being told that. I was like, well, I'm, I'm grown up. I don't have to write fast songs. Yeah, I don't need to do that. Like, for what? To what end?

• 2:05:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:41Speaker 07

  You know, but I, but then it sat, it just stuck with me. I knew he was right. I knew it would be better to listen to. And like, no one, including myself, really wants a Joyce Manor record that's like 100% indie rock.

• 2:05:53Yasi Salek?

  Well, also, I'm sure he wasn't coming at it from like, a place of like, we talked about Cody, where like, some, sometimes people who are fans do literally just want you to do the same thing over and over again. But like, obviously, that's not Brett's MO, right? Like, he, so you could trust that he was coming to it from like, kind of a more objective, like, the song will sound better this way.

• 2:06:12Speaker 07

  But I was, I was kind of like, you know, our most popular song is Constant Headache. It's not fast.

• 2:06:16Yasi Salek?

  Right, right.

• 2:06:16Speaker 07

  I was like, I don't think people necessarily come to Joyce Manor for fast. You know, and I, I was like, you know, we had songs already, like, um, like, like, All My Friends Are So Depressed and stuff, which I was really proud of. Yeah, and I was kind of like-

• 2:06:30Yasi Salek?

  God tier song?

• 2:06:31Speaker 07

  So, it was, it was really good of him to tell me that, because it wasn't easy to tell me that.

• 2:06:36Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:06:37Speaker 07

  Because like I said, he likes, he likes you to feel confident.

• 2:06:40Yasi Salek?

  Very sensitive.

• 2:06:41Speaker 07

  You're very sensitive, and, and he did hurt my feelings. And I was kind of like, moody and, no, I'm fine. It's okay, yeah.

• 2:06:48Yasi Salek?

  No, me? I'm fine.

• 2:06:50Speaker 07

  No, what did I, I don't know. You know, you know how to do everything, so yeah, like-

• 2:06:54Yasi Salek?

  Obsessed.

• 2:06:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, I was, I was, I was like, pretty, pretty, it hurt my feelings, yeah. And so, I was kind of like, write fast songs, whatever. But it stuck with me, and I was like, he's right. If we, I think he was just thinking about Never Hung Over Again, and there's a couple of fast songs on it. And it breaks up the album in a, in a nice way.

• 2:07:11Yasi Salek?

  Never Hung Over Again is one of the best-paced albums.

• 2:07:13Speaker 07

  Thank you. Yeah, and, and so, yeah, just-

• 2:07:16Yasi Salek?

  This one is too.

• 2:07:17Speaker 07

  Once I wrote songs, like, some of the songs I wrote, like, there's a song called The Possum, which, it was literally, it sounded like Bel and Sebastian. It sounded like Boy, The Arab Strap.

• 2:07:24Yasi Salek?

  Interesting.

• 2:07:24Speaker 07

  And I was like, we don't need more Bel and Sebastian.

• 2:07:28Yasi Salek?

  In this world?

• 2:07:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, they're so good at it. And so, I was like, is there, I was like, so I made it double time. But the melody stayed the same, same, but the music was twice as fast. And I was like, well, that's pretty awesome.

• 2:07:38Yasi Salek?

  It's so good.

• 2:07:39Speaker 07

  Thanks, yeah, I know.

• 2:07:40Yasi Salek?

  It's a really good song.

• 2:07:41Speaker 07

  Thank you. So, but that was Brett in my, in my head. And I was like, is there any way to make this fast? Which I wouldn't have really cared about.

• 2:07:48Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:07:48Speaker 07

  Personally, I would have been like, I'm just gonna

• 2:07:50Yasi Salek?

  Just slap it on there.

• 2:07:51Speaker 07

  Let the idea come to me how it comes to me and then just try to do it justice.

• 2:07:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:55Speaker 07

  But that was kinda like, ah, let's try to make it fast. And then it was so fun. And that's Joey Warner playing drums, which I don't think he's ever done. Like, I don't think he's ever played like a D beat.

• 2:08:04Yasi Salek?

  Really?

• 2:08:05Speaker 07

  I mean, well, not on a record.

• 2:08:06Yasi Salek?

  When you say this, I don't know what you're talking about because, you know, I don't know about music, but other people will.

• 2:08:10Speaker 07

  So he's playing like, like a fast rockabilly beat in the verse. And in the chorus, he just plays like a really fast punk beat.

• 2:08:15Yasi Salek?

  Hmm.

• 2:08:15Speaker 07

  And I could be wrong.

• 2:08:17Yasi Salek?

  That's a D beat?

• 2:08:17Speaker 07

  Yeah, like a discharge, like the discharge drum beat. The discharge drum beat. It's not quite the discharge drum beat, but it's, it's similar to that. It's just like a really straightforward, fast punk beat.

• 2:08:32Speaker 07

  Which, I could be wrong. There could be a recording out there of Joey playing really fast punk drums.

• 2:08:36Yasi Salek?

  Just covering discharge?

• 2:08:37Speaker 07

  Yeah, maybe. Maybe, I don't know, you know? But I kinda doubt it. So it's really funny to get this guy that's played on like Paul McCartney records. And be like, alright, just play.

• 2:08:46Yasi Salek?

  The range of this man.

• 2:08:47Speaker 07

  And he crushed it. And it was so fun playing that with him.

• 2:08:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, he was having a lot of fun doing that. Cause I don't think he ever gets to do something like that.

• 2:09:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:02Speaker 07

  And yeah, it was really, that was one of my favorite moments of recording, was recording.

• 2:09:06Yasi Salek?

  Shout out Brett G, man.

• 2:09:07Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:09:07Yasi Salek?

  Cause that, that's a possum song.

• 2:09:09Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:09:10Yasi Salek?

  Goes hard.

• 2:09:11Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 2:09:11Yasi Salek?

  I think it's perfect exactly the way it landed. Although now I want to hear an entirely acoustic version of this album where you just play them like real fucking slowed down.

• 2:09:20Speaker 07

  Yeah, we have all that stuff and I, I hope it'll come out eventually, but I'm really just trying to do new stuff. But I, we do have like a lot of unreleased stuff that I think would be interesting to super fans. That, at some point, yeah. I would like to do like, it was like on Bandcamp or like charity or something.

• 2:09:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah, that's so great.

• 2:09:35Speaker 07

  At some point.

• 2:09:35Yasi Salek?

  Talk to me about the synth.

• 2:09:37Speaker 07

  It's Roger Manning.

• 2:09:39Yasi Salek?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:09:41Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:09:41Yasi Salek?

  Plays with Beck.

• 2:09:42Speaker 07

  Plays with Beck, same with Joey.

• 2:09:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:44Speaker 07

  We use all Beck's guys. Roger Manning was, also played on Enema State.

• 2:09:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, no, he's, I mean, he's incredible.

• 2:09:50Speaker 07

  He's incredible.

• 2:09:50Yasi Salek?

  Also the range.

• 2:09:51Speaker 07

  Brett's like, I could see some keyboards. I know a dude. He's really good.

• 2:09:54Yasi Salek?

  I really liked it because I said I hear Weezer, but what I really meant was I hear the Cars.

• 2:09:58Speaker 07

  Super Cars.

• 2:09:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, which I, which I love because I wasn't expecting it, right? You know?

• 2:10:02Speaker 07

  I also was heartbroken recently. Someone pointed out, it's just Canon and D. It's like, I don't know who that, who does, like, I forget who does that. Packer Bell's Canon?

• 2:10:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:10Speaker 07

  It's just Canon and D, that song.

• 2:10:11Yasi Salek?

  That's okay. There's only so many. There's only so many.

• 2:10:13Speaker 07

  There's only so many things.

• 2:10:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:14Speaker 07

  It's a lot, like, if you listen to Canon and D.

• 2:10:17Yasi Salek?

  We won't put it. We won't put, no one would. You didn't have to say it. You don't have to out yourself.

• 2:10:20Speaker 07

  I know, I bet, yeah. I was like, oh, God, it is just Canon and D. But I really liked that one. That one came out great. And yeah, Roger Manning's synth stuff he added really elevated it.

• 2:10:37Yasi Salek?

  I need to ask about, all my friends are so depressed. Yesterday I was extremely luteal. You know this. You have a wife.

• 2:10:42Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:10:43Yasi Salek?

  And I was like, real like, actually, it's okay if I don't live anymore. Actually, there's no, there's no point in living, you know, crying in the Starbucks, you know? And then you're like, you look at your calendar and you're like, can't be trusted.

• 2:10:55Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:10:55Yasi Salek?

  But then I put this song on repeat because I sometimes like to wallow.

• 2:10:58Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:10:59Yasi Salek?

  Um, I usually don't care about asking about, like, influence, like, like lyrical influences, but I was a little curious about this one. Like, where, where was the headspace here? Because, again, this one has, like, all those, like, really great little details.

• 2:11:14Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 2:11:14Yasi Salek?

  Like, the Frampton Comes Alive, like, you really painted a picture of, like, a time in life.

• 2:11:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:11:22Yasi Salek?

  So I was just curious. You don't have to out yourself.

• 2:11:23Speaker 07

  No, no, I mean, I know. I think this one's super influenced by Hundred Gecs. I was listening to them a ton.

• 2:11:28Yasi Salek?

  Interesting. I'm so glad I asked. I would never have.

• 2:11:31Speaker 07

  The song, like, Doritos and Fritos has, like, the verses have, like, this just kind of word association.

• 2:11:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:36Speaker 07

  Eating burritos with Danny DeVito.

• 2:11:39Yasi Salek?

  Lord above, Takati truck.

• 2:11:39Speaker 07

  Swimming to Cuba, chewing bazooka.

• 2:11:50Speaker 07

  I was just listening to so much of them and so much, so many of their lyrics make me actually laugh out loud, but I'm also like, that's so great. And they kind of, especially Laura Les will slip in like some kind of just like really relatable, like moving moments of vulnerability in these otherwise kind of like jokey, or not jokey, but just like funny, but they're funny because they're like good and witty.

• 2:12:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:13Speaker 07

  But also like just full on embracing stupidity, sort of, which I was also trying to do where I was just like, not trying to be like super tasteful or something, just kind of allowing myself to be silly.

• 2:12:24Yasi Salek?

  That's why it works so well, because it's like, it's not too heavy handed. It's obviously like, the song is called "My Friends Are So Depressed", and there's like a through line of depression. And so, but then the song is so twangy. And so when you get to a lyric like "wish that I would fucking die", and this like sing-song voice, that's like, comes right after "key lime pie and Frampton alive", it's like, it's a perfect balance, right? Because it's not like pummeling you over the head with this like Morrissey-esque almost like melodrama, you know? It has like both.

• 2:12:54Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 2:12:55Yasi Salek?

  And you can kind of be like, it is kind of funny that I wish I would fucking die.

• 2:12:58Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:13:09Speaker 07

  Yeah, there's some really, just funny rhyme, like rhyming, hit the bong, wrote a song. It's like, it's almost like, kind of trying to write like the worst song I could write, but I didn't really feel like that. I was also just kind of like, let's, this is a fun thing I'm exploring of just like being silly and having fun.

• 2:13:27Yasi Salek?

  I think it's really emotionally resonant despite it being really silly, you know?

• 2:13:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:13:31Yasi Salek?

  It hits pretty hard.

• 2:13:33Speaker 07

  There's a Misfits reference?

• 2:13:35Yasi Salek?

  The last dress, babe?

• 2:13:36Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, boy dress, last dress.

• 2:13:37Yasi Salek?

  You already know I caught that.

• 2:13:38Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, so I'm just kind of listing stuff I like and making funny rhymes to amuse myself and including it on the record and really, really being like proud of it, weirdly like. And just like, and just parts like "I pursue a deeper dream", "kill it with a laser beam".

• 2:13:55Yasi Salek?

  That's another example, because "I pursue a deeper dream" is such a kind of a lofty, like, open-hearted thing to say, and then the next thing is "kill it with a laser beam", it's like perfect.

• 2:14:04Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, that's sort of like about writing that song almost, you know what I mean? Like, what am I like really trying to get to the bottom of myself through this like? Exercising like almost stupidity, was it dumb? Like hit the bong, wrote a song?

• 2:14:16Yasi Salek?

  It feels very Buddhist, honestly.

• 2:14:17Speaker 07

  Oh, thanks.

• 2:14:18Yasi Salek?

  You know, like to be like, I'm going like, actually the most true and like, kind of serious thing you can do is just be fucking dumb.

• 2:14:25Speaker 07

  Yeah, sort of. Yeah. No, honestly, like, I honestly do feel like that was like me breaking through actually, like, that was the first thing I'd written in a while where I was like, oh, I love this.

• 2:14:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:33Speaker 07

  And I think this is like, really, this is me. This is a huge reflection of like, who I, who I am and what my inner world looks like.

• 2:14:39Yasi Salek?

  Wow, it's like you're putting it all back together. It's, it's short, silly Barry.

• 2:14:42Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:14:43Yasi Salek?

  Has been unified.

• 2:14:43Speaker 07

  That's five two.

• 2:14:44Yasi Salek?

  With, with tall, tall, uh, rock star Barry.

• 2:14:47Speaker 07

  Yeah, super deep guy, you know?

• 2:14:49Yasi Salek?

  Um, you also, I'm sorry, I have to add this because I love Lana. You said in an interview that you were tangentially inspired by Lana Del Rey around this song.

• 2:14:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, her, her thing is like a cool detached 50s Americana.

• 2:15:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:03Speaker 07

  Which, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I don't, I don't have anything against Lana Del Rey, but I haven't listened to much of it.

• 2:15:07Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:15:08Speaker 07

  But I know that's kind of her, I like that song, Video Game. It's a cool song.

• 2:15:11Yasi Salek?

  Incredible.

• 2:15:11Speaker 07

  Yeah, um, but I've never got super into it, but I know that's kind of her vibe. And I was kind of picturing this like, despondent, shag carpet, bong rip.

• 2:15:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:22Speaker 07

  Seventies.

• 2:15:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:23Speaker 07

  America.

• 2:15:24Yasi Salek?

  I think you kind of nailed it.

• 2:15:25Speaker 07

  Thank you. Yeah, it was not really supposed to be cool and sexy. It's sort of like, more like damp and like shitty and like poorly lit.

• 2:15:32Yasi Salek?

  I can actually literally smell bong water like on the, I'm like picturing Long Beach and like, there's like a brown carpet.

• 2:15:37Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 2:15:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:38Speaker 07

  Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Like a mattress, no, no sheets on it. Just, yeah, just that kind of shit.

• 2:15:44Yasi Salek?

  It's very, that's vibing.

• 2:15:52Yasi Salek?

  You really hit me at the end there. I was like, okay, I'm loving this album we're going through. We have highs and lows and then, not lows, but you know what I mean?

• 2:15:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:15:57Yasi Salek?

  Like tempo wise. And then gray guitar comes out of nowhere and just punches me in my mouth. I need to know, as a Counting Crows mega fan, is this Counting Crows reference, gray guitar?

• 2:16:07Speaker 07

  That's insane. This is the second person to ask me that.

• 2:16:09Yasi Salek?

  Oh, so it wasn't? Maybe, maybe it subconsciously is. Are you a Mr. Jones guy?

• 2:16:14Speaker 07

  Man, it's so funny, so.

• 2:16:16Yasi Salek?

  Cause the lyrics, okay, so for you guys that don't know, lyrics of Mr. Jones are, yeah, well, you know, gray is my favorite color. I felt so symbolic yesterday. If I knew Picasso, I would buy myself a gray guitar and play. That's the lyric. That's why I asked.

• 2:16:28Speaker 07

  Oh my god, okay.

• 2:16:30Yasi Salek?

  Buy myself a gray guitar and play.

• 2:16:32Speaker 07

  That is unreal.

• 2:16:33Yasi Salek?

  Mr. Jones. Maybe it embedded itself in your psyche.

• 2:16:36Speaker 07

  It must have. I'm totally aware of that song. I do like that song.

• 2:16:38Yasi Salek?

  Of course.

• 2:16:39Speaker 07

  I do. It's a great song.

• 2:16:40Yasi Salek?

  You have two ears and a heart.

• 2:16:41Speaker 07

  I have two ears and a heart. I've never put it on of my own volition.

• 2:16:44Yasi Salek?

  You don't need to. You just have to walk into a CVS or a Starbucks or anywhere in life.

• 2:16:48Speaker 07

  And I do like it. I like the lyrics a lot, actually. I think it's a great song, but I never picked that up. I must have at some point. And because the other person who asked us as an interview didn't tell us the lyrics. He was just like, is that Counting Crows? And I was like, what?

• 2:17:02Yasi Salek?

  Cause it did. So it wouldn't make sense to you why I was asking.

• 2:17:04Speaker 07

  He's like, oh, never mind. I just thought it was Counting Crows. And I was like.

• 2:17:08Yasi Salek?

  He should have backed up his statement. That's not real journalism.

• 2:17:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. But I think he just got like embarrassed.

• 2:17:13Yasi Salek?

  Right. Cause he was like, oh, I asked the cool guy with neck tattoos if he listens to Counting Crows.

• 2:17:19Speaker 07

  And I was like, what? I mean, I like Long December.

• 2:17:21Yasi Salek?

  Who doesn't, babe? God, here.

• 2:17:22Speaker 07

  I put that on on my own volition. I've like been like, I feel like listening to Long December. Beautiful song.

• 2:17:27Yasi Salek?

  I feel like it somehow, cause.

• 2:17:28Speaker 07

  I think it is. I think you're right.

• 2:17:29Yasi Salek?

  Because Mr. Jones is a really melancholy song, actually. And then the fucking lyric after.

• 2:17:34Speaker 07

  Goosebumps.

• 2:17:35Yasi Salek?

  Literal goosebumps for me. This is about your song, not about Mr. Jones. We both know that they can't fix you. They haven't got the parts. I was like, drag my ass straight to hell, Bear Johnson.

• 2:17:45Speaker 07

  Thanks.

• 2:17:55Yasi Salek?

  This is the Ernest Hemingway to me though, cause Danielle, is that a fake person?

• 2:17:58Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:17:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. You can, you can kind of immediately tell that this is like a character, but obviously like all characters are based on amalgamations or whatever. But I was like, well, it's really a short story. This is like a Raymond Carver short story distilled into a song.

• 2:18:12Speaker 07

  Love Raymond Carver. Wow, thank you. Um, it's, yeah, that's interesting because I wrote the verses. When I first started meditating, I had this insanely prolific.

• 2:18:22Yasi Salek?

  Are we TMing, babe?

• 2:18:23Speaker 07

  Yeah, I did TM. And um.

• 2:18:25Yasi Salek?

  TMHive stand up.

• 2:18:26Speaker 07

  Yeah. So I started doing that and I had this really insanely prolific like month or two where I wrote so many songs. And um, not a lot of it didn't get used, but that that verse, the first verse, I had that. But it was um, the rest of the song was kind of about like um, being the first person to walk up to a car crash.

• 2:18:47Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 2:18:47Speaker 07

  And just being like, oh shit, I think, I think this dude's dead. And like finding it like, like being the like, I gotta call the cops.

• 2:18:53Yasi Salek?

  Thursday corps?

• 2:18:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, kind of Thursday corps. Well, I'm not a Thursday guy, but I know what you're talking about. Understanding in a car crash, right? But sort of just being like the person who like pulls over and sees if everyone's okay.

• 2:19:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:03Speaker 07

  And kind of being like, I don't know, is it, I think, could be dead?

• 2:19:07Yasi Salek?

  Interesting.

• 2:19:08Speaker 07

  But it was, I said, I think.

• 2:19:10Yasi Salek?

  To try to tap into.

• 2:19:11Speaker 07

  And it was about like calling and be like, I, I said, I think this guy's dead.

• 2:19:14Yasi Salek?

  Right, right.

• 2:19:14Speaker 07

  He might be alive.

• 2:19:15Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:19:16Speaker 07

  And.

• 2:19:17Yasi Salek?

  Like that kind of moment of like fear and anticipation, but not knowing.

• 2:19:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. So first time you see a dead body or like, and just like, I, I could want to do something, but I gotta wait for the ambulance to get here and they know what they're doing. Yeah, so it's like, yeah, so I don't know why when I was, that was, that just came out, I wrote that. But it was, I said, I think this guy's dead. And I was like, this guy is not very good.

• 2:19:38Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:19:38Speaker 07

  So when I was working on it again for this new record, it's been, that's been sitting around since like 2000, like 11 years I've had that, that part. Changed it to Danielle and then just kind of expanded on it with the second verse. And the second verse came really fast and I, I love the imagery in that one, like um, a brick of lead in her stead, a thousand swords in her mind.

• 2:19:56Yasi Salek?

  Well, because it makes it kind of one of my most favorite kinds of songs, even though I shouldn't like these, but I do, which is almost like a manic pixie dream girl, where it like the songs about mentally ill women.

• 2:20:09Speaker 07

  Totally, yeah.

• 2:20:09Yasi Salek?

  As everyone knows, this is canon for me, like.

• 2:20:12Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 2:20:13Yasi Salek?

  And there are a lot of songs like this, which I think there should be, I mean, that's, that's a type of muse, like a, a unknowable woman.

• 2:20:20Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:20:20Yasi Salek?

  Who is complicated and maybe partially broken.

• 2:20:23Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:20:23Yasi Salek?

  Is an incredibly rich subject matter.

• 2:20:25Speaker 07

  It's very, it's very Twin Peaks to me.

• 2:20:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:28Speaker 07

  It's very uh, Laura Palmer.

• 2:20:29Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 2:20:30Speaker 07

  Like that's what, that's kind of what I'm picturing. Um, somebody is like, yeah. And then I pop the truck in my car and there was nothing inside like that. I almost, that's very murder mystery-ish, you know? Um, but that was just kind of like, once I changed it to Danielle, I was kind of like, oh, this could be like, there's something, there's another thing I can do with this, kind of. It's not just about walking up to a car, it's kind of like a. Sort of a premonition thing?

• 2:20:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:52Speaker 07

  Like someone like not kind of like I

• 2:20:53Yasi Salek?

  There's someone in your life.

• 2:20:55Speaker 07

  It's like I just had this bolt idea in my head like I think this person's dead. And I've kind of heard that where people say like when so and so was in a car accident, my mom bolted up out of bed and called like, are you okay? They somehow knew.

• 2:21:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:07Speaker 07

  You know, or something like, and I don't, I'm not super into that stuff per se, like supernatural things, but it's interesting.

• 2:21:12Yasi Salek?

  I don't know that it's supernatural. Like in, in my take is that like we're all tapped into a collective unconscious.

• 2:21:19Speaker 07

  I believe in that.

• 2:21:19Yasi Salek?

  And it's just we have a lot of distance from it. It's part of the reason we meditate, right?

• 2:21:22Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:21:23Yasi Salek?

  It's like part of like TM, I'm sorry, not to get into into the about TM, but if you guys want to get into meditation, transcendental meditation, especially for creative people, I think is like unparalleled.

• 2:21:33Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:21:33Yasi Salek?

  But I don't know if you noticed, like when you would do it in the group, which I never do.

• 2:21:37Speaker 07

  Kind of hit harder, huh?

• 2:21:39Yasi Salek?

  It hits harder because you're tapping into, there is a collective unconscious.

• 2:21:43Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:21:43Yasi Salek?

  And I think sometimes when those bolts come through, I think we all really have access to it, but we kind of have too much bullshit in between. We have too much circus in our mind. We have too much ego, whatever.

• 2:21:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:21:52Yasi Salek?

  But sometimes you really, and that's why like I believe in psychics. It's not because they're psychic. It's just they've figured out a way that they can tap in more for whatever reason, you know?

• 2:22:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, I, I, I'm like not super like woo woo about stuff, but, but, but no, but I, I actually do agree with a lot of that. Um, and, uh, yeah. So, I mean, that's, it's interesting. It's a song I wrote when I first started when I first got into meditation. And it's kind of, it's kind of David Lynchy, sort of Twin Peaks-ish. So, yeah, that's, I like that one. It's, it's spooky. Chase wrote that amazing guitar riff.

• 2:22:23Yasi Salek?

  So good.

• 2:22:24Speaker 07

  Which just sounds like the lyrics. It feels how the lyrics feel, which I think is like, like I'm saying, like, once Chase entered the picture, that's when I think we really became like something just special. It's like, it's like the relationship. Yeah, exactly.

• 2:22:49Speaker 07

  The gray guitar and the chorus and stuff, I guess I stole that from Counting Crows.

• 2:22:52Yasi Salek?

  No, no, no, you didn't. It's like at the very lightest, just like a reference. I was just interested because I was like, oh, that's, that's a really, and I'm probably being really stupid. Maybe the Counting Crows one is also a reference. There's probably some Bob Dylan song I don't know about, you know?

• 2:23:06Speaker 07

  No, I must have just had that in my head and liked that, you know, subconsciously.

• 2:23:10Yasi Salek?

  It's a beautiful alliteration.

• 2:23:11Speaker 07

  It's super cool. And yeah, when I came up with it, gray guitar, I was like, oh, I really like that.

• 2:23:14Yasi Salek?

  It's also like, it makes, kind of like, it doesn't go together because it's like gray is this like colorless, lifeless thing.

• 2:23:19Speaker 07

  Then no one would really put on a guitar.

• 2:23:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but then guitar is supposed to be this vibrant, beautiful thing of life, you know?

• 2:23:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, totally. And yeah, it's always like a pearl, like sunburst, you know?

• 2:23:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:29Speaker 07

  It's never just like gray.

• 2:23:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:31Speaker 07

  That's a song I wrote entirely in bed with no guitar or anything in front of me, just like.

• 2:23:36Yasi Salek?

  With your mind?

• 2:23:36Speaker 07

  In my mind. I have a recording on my phone, singing it like into my phone, super quiet, so I like wake Ally up.

• 2:23:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:46Speaker 07

  I'm kind of like, working on it like all night, didn't sleep at all. And then recorded at seven in the morning, just like. It just, I couldn't stop, I was trying to go to bed.

• 2:23:55Yasi Salek?

  God, you know?

• 2:23:56Speaker 07

  Yeah, I just couldn't like, I couldn't sleep because I was like still trying to work on it and get it right. And I was like, I gotta go to bed, you're not gonna get it tonight. But I just stayed up all night, working on it. And yeah, I love that one. I'm so proud of it.

• 2:24:09Yasi Salek?

  This is why I'll never write any great songs because I don't sleep with my phone in my room. Amongst other reasons with me being tone deaf and not.

• 2:24:15Speaker 07

  I got an idea that blue light's messing with you. Sleep's so important, huh?

• 2:24:18Yasi Salek?

  And sleep is, you gotta sleep, babe. You really gotta get those sleep hours up.

• 2:24:22Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:24:23Yasi Salek?

  Especially as we age.

• 2:24:24Speaker 07

  Totally. As we get older and you know, you want to stay good at what you do.

• 2:24:27Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you want to stay looking nice. One thing I wanted to say, shout out Kenobi. Really riffy album all through, like so many good riffs. So many songs where I'm like, oh, this is like a pop punk riff, but you did it in a different like container. Like I really like those unexpected moments.

• 2:24:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, he's so good. And just like, they're just him. Like he, every great artist or whatever can put like something about them in, in the way they do it, you know?

• 2:24:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I kind of, Chase is the only one I haven't met.

• 2:24:55Speaker 07

  Oh, he's lovely.

• 2:24:55Yasi Salek?

  No, Matt and I know you and it's somehow.

• 2:24:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, Matt's great and lovely one, but Chase is, yeah, Chase rules. I love Chase.

• 2:25:01Yasi Salek?

  Great. When we do our Torrance, uh, uh, music festival.

• 2:25:05Speaker 07

  There we go. You'll meet Chase.

• 2:25:06Yasi Salek?

  Well, the last thing I was gonna say is, I don't know if this occurred to you and I don't know if I'm reading into it, but I think it's very interesting. The last song and the first song are almost like thematically linked because there's like a bit of like an anxious anticipation moment around what happened to this person. You know, what happened to Mark Chen? And I think that's an interesting bookend of the album, you know?

• 2:25:26Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 2:25:27Yasi Salek?

  And it is something about when you get older, right? Like you lose touch with people.

• 2:25:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:25:31Yasi Salek?

  The worlds that we come from with like music and all this and tangential, uh, you know, things, like some people don't make it.

• 2:25:39Speaker 07

  Some people don't make it.

• 2:25:41Yasi Salek?

  Or some people end up, you know, in more dire straits than others and.

• 2:25:44Speaker 07

  I used to go to this bar, the song.

• 2:25:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:46Speaker 07

  I kind of wrote after Black Chris died.

• 2:25:48Yasi Salek?

  Oh, God.

• 2:25:49Speaker 07

  And it was sort of just about like, cause I, I like to drink. I drink a lot.

• 2:25:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:53Speaker 07

  But I, I just can't like, it's so sad that just kind of died of this thing that everybody.

• 2:25:58Yasi Salek?

  Was also doing kind of.

• 2:26:00Speaker 07

  And just saw it happening kind of, you know, but it's like, so it's not like it's just total shock, but it's just so sad. It's like slow motion kind of thing.

• 2:26:09Yasi Salek?

  That is really, you, that really makes so much sense. I mean, rest in peace, our,

• 2:26:14Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:26:15Yasi Salek?

  Our friend, Black Chris, um, Christopher Mathis, he was like a real cornerstone of the Los Angeles punk scene, music scene. Like if you were at any show.

• 2:26:25Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:26:26Yasi Salek?

  From 2000 to, you know, 20. Twenty, he was present and like ubiquitous with his tote bag and screaming and smoking a cigarette and.

• 2:26:37Speaker 07

  Just such a, he was such a cheerleader for like.

• 2:26:39Yasi Salek?

  Such a cheerleader, like such a proponent, such a.

• 2:26:42Speaker 07

  Fun person, yeah.

• 2:26:43Yasi Salek?

  Fun and hilarious person.

• 2:26:45Speaker 07

  I met him in high school before he was Black Chris. He was just Chris.

• 2:26:48Yasi Salek?

  He was just Chris, yeah.

• 2:26:49Speaker 07

  Yeah, and he used to bully me kinda. He like kinda like roasted me all the time. Cause I was ska and he was like indie rock. He was in like a Montreal and stuff.

• 2:26:57Yasi Salek?

  That was a classic Chris thing. Like if he, like you knew he loved you because he would drag your fucking ass down. But my favorite Chris story is. So was, I used to go to this bar for me, that bar would have been cha-cha and Chris's too, but we would always hang out there and he would always, this is like early Instagram days. And he would always take pictures and post them on Instagram where I looked like fucking disgusting. And I'd be like, Chris, man, what the fuck? And he'd just be like, bitch, that's what you look like. And again, it unlocked something Buddhist for me where I was like. That is technically one version of what I look like. And then I had some like radical self-expectance where I was like. He's right, bitch. That is what you look like and that's fine.

• 2:27:38Speaker 07

  Learn to love it.

• 2:27:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. He was a really special and unique person. But yeah, I mean, we, we lost him to this like. Disease of alcoholism that none of us could stop. And also like in various states, we all kind of. Left behind that level of partying, you know?

• 2:27:59Speaker 07

  I, I party still, you know, but it's like, but yeah.

• 2:28:03Speaker 07

  But yeah, but um, it's, it's tricky, you know? When my band got popular and we had like mutual friends, he like apologized to me one time. He's like, dude, I'm so sorry. And I was like, dude, it's totally, it's totally fine. We're cool. And so we were always like, like, and I, I never was like. You were mean to me when we were kids, you know? And so we were just friendly, but I was never like friends with him. But like to when I. Saw that he passed away, it was really sad and that was like around the time I wrote that song. And it was a couple of people that kind of happened at the same time. Just this sort of like, it wasn't like a, oh my God, can you believe that happened?

• 2:28:38Yasi Salek?

  No, it was, it was zero percent, oh my God, can you believe it happened? It was a hundred percent, I always knew this phone call was coming. I just didn't know when. And it was heartbreaking. And what was the most heartbreaking to me about Chris was like. That I felt like he made that a cornerstone of his personality.

• 2:28:56Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:28:57Yasi Salek?

  When he didn't have to because he was so smart. He was one of the smartest people and he was the funniest people on the planet. Actually, even even though he would roast your ass to hell and he was like so funny in that way. He was so loving and tender.

• 2:29:11Speaker 07

  Very sweet and.

• 2:29:12Yasi Salek?

  He would cook for people, like he would give you the shirt off his back. That was what was his personality, not the party, you know?

• 2:29:19Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:29:20Yasi Salek?

  Not being like a crazy psycho or whatever. Yeah. Well, why don't we talk about the, let's get into fan questions.

• 2:29:26Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 2:29:27Yasi Salek?

  Okay, number one from my girl Amy, also from Torrance.

• 2:29:32Speaker 07

  Amy.

• 2:29:32Yasi Salek?

  What is your LBJ order?

• 2:29:34Speaker 07

  Uh, when I haven't eaten LBJs in a while, but the specialty.

• 2:29:37Yasi Salek?

  Specials.

• 2:29:38Speaker 07

  Two bean cheese burritos, chips and a drink. It used to be like, I don't know, four bucks or something like that. It's like, it's like thirty three dollars now.

• 2:29:46Yasi Salek?

  I actually, I think I looked up on the website to see how much it was. I think it's like ten ninety nine or something, which is so crazy because I really think it was three ninety nine.

• 2:29:52Speaker 07

  And the best, it was always the best when they would have like the bean cheese burritos like stacked in a pyramid of foil. So it could kind of like, um, solidify.

• 2:30:00Yasi Salek?

  Right, right. Like all the cheese would just become like.

• 2:30:03Speaker 07

  It would just all kind of, yeah.

• 2:30:04Yasi Salek?

  Compact.

• 2:30:05Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. Once they were chilling in that, in that pile. So you, if you went at peak hours, they were, I feel like a little better. So yeah, I would get a specialty.

• 2:30:12Yasi Salek?

  I like that. But I was maybe a junior deluxe saute burrito girl, but a specialty is also tender to my heart. Okay, this question is, did you punch someone's dad in high school?

• 2:30:21Speaker 07

  No.

• 2:30:22Yasi Salek?

  And was there a band called The Dad Punchers because of it?

• 2:30:24Speaker 07

  Yes, Elliot's band. Elliot had a band called Dad Punchers. But I wasn't the person who punched anyone.

• 2:30:30Yasi Salek?

  Oh, but there was someone.

• 2:30:30Speaker 07

  There was, yeah, yeah. I could name, I, I, God, I don't have that guy's name at the front of my head.

• 2:30:36Yasi Salek?

  Interesting that the, the gossip hotline, the myth has taken on that it was you.

• 2:30:40Speaker 07

  I know, isn't that funny? I wasn't even there.

• 2:30:42Yasi Salek?

  Okay, at DJ Kaufman asks, will they ever make an album longer than thirty minutes? Okay, if not. I loved the, totally okay if not.

• 2:30:52Speaker 07

  I have no idea. Like, I don't, I'm never trying to make short songs. I'm never like, it's like. I guess that opposite of Bob Pollard thing where like it's hard for me to feel like something is worth releasing. So I write a lot of stuff that doesn't get used or it eventually gets used once it's worked on more. And so I'm a really, really brutal editor. So I kind of find our stuff works better in a shorter format and shorter albums with like just what I consider to be like the best of what I've done and kind of get that to kind of make up a little world.

• 2:31:29Yasi Salek?

  Maybe your third act will either be like you guys will come a jam band.

• 2:31:33Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:31:34Yasi Salek?

  And absolutely start making 12 minute long songs or you'll become a short story writer.

• 2:31:37Speaker 07

  I mean, I do kind of wish like something would click or I get into something like The Grateful Dead or something like that. And just like

• 2:31:45Yasi Salek?

  Don't wish that for yourself.

• 2:31:46Speaker 07

  I know. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't really like that kind of stuff that much. And so I'm always looking for new things to be inspired by. And I think it'd be great if we would manage to actually write a compelling song that was seven minutes long or something like that.

• 2:31:58Yasi Salek?

  I think you could.

• 2:31:59Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:31:59Yasi Salek?

  But don't force it.

• 2:32:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. No, I'm kind of, exactly. I let I let the songs happen to me and they are what they are.

• 2:32:07Yasi Salek?

  There is a song that is crossed out on the tracklist of the new LP. What song got cut and why from at notfollowmiaso?

• 2:32:15Speaker 07

  I just scratched it. I wrote it. They just like spelled something wrong.

• 2:32:21Yasi Salek?

  You're like, there's no, there's no like secret. It's not a song. It was

• 2:32:26Speaker 07

  Oh, I think it was maybe, it says, I know where Mark Chenlow is, but I was gonna

• 2:32:31Yasi Salek?

  Oh, the sequencing was different, maybe?

• 2:32:34Speaker 07

  Must have been. Yeah, I don't know. That's my writing though.

• 2:32:36Yasi Salek?

  Joyce Man are not really a band that's like hiding little Easter eggs for you. You're not Taylor Swift-ing with these albums.

• 2:32:45Yasi Salek?

  At alright, alright, alright asks, have you ever met Robert Pollard?

• 2:32:49Speaker 07

  Uh, I haven't, but I saw God by Voices in 2009 when they were doing that Matadoro 21 thing. They played at the Wiltern. And I got on stage.

• 2:32:59Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:33:00Speaker 07

  Cause I was just like having so much fun. And I sang Weed King with Bob Pollard and I put my arm around him. And I took a swig of his tequila, which is real tequila.

• 2:33:09Yasi Salek?

  I'm sure.

• 2:33:09Speaker 07

  It's not like watered down either. And then I gave it back to him and then he grabbed me and pulled me back and handed me the bottle again. And I did another swig of tequila, sang a little more. So that's the closest I ever came to being Robert Pollard.

• 2:33:20Yasi Salek?

  I mean, that's a beautiful moment and you should not replace it.

• 2:33:22Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm such a huge fan. I would love to play with them. I think they're kind of like semi-retired, but if um.

• 2:33:27Yasi Salek?

  I really keep putting out music. Maybe they're not playing.

• 2:33:30Speaker 07

  I think they might be retired from playing, but you know, people come back.

• 2:33:33Yasi Salek?

  I think they played FYF where I interviewed you guys. I have like a really distinct memory.

• 2:33:37Speaker 07

  You know, I think they played the next year because I was on tour.

• 2:33:39Yasi Salek?

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:33:40Speaker 07

  Yeah, I remember missing it and being kind of bummed.

• 2:33:42Yasi Salek?

  I think I cried.

• 2:33:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, I love them so much. They're such a great band.

• 2:33:45Yasi Salek?

  Um, okay, these ones I forgot to write down, the people, I'm sorry, but what is your favorite song to perform live?

• 2:33:51Speaker 07

  I think my favorite song to play live is probably Constant Headache.

• 2:33:57Yasi Salek?

  Because just it's a crowd pleaser.

• 2:33:59Speaker 07

  It's sort of like, it's the right tempo.

• 2:34:01Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:34:02Speaker 07

  And like as our shows have gotten a little bigger and like everybody at the show knows that one and likes it. And it's just the right tempo. It's like, it's almost kind of our only song that could actually maybe go to like an arena.

• 2:34:14Yasi Salek?

  Totally. Yeah, it's anthemic.

• 2:34:16Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. And so I think that's probably my favorite one.

• 2:34:19Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:34:19Speaker 07

  A little too obvious, I know, but I love playing that one.

• 2:34:21Yasi Salek?

  No, why?

• 2:34:22Speaker 07

  I'm a man of the people.

• 2:34:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you are. You're, you know what? I like to give the people what they want.

• 2:34:26Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:34:28Yasi Salek?

  Um, okay, and the last one, this is for the crossover big picture heads and cinephiles. What is your favorite movie?

• 2:34:35Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:34:36Yasi Salek?

  And has any piece of cinema affected the writing of any of your songs?

• 2:34:40Speaker 07

  Uh, my favorite movie is Mulholland Drive. It's the same favorite movie as Rivers Cuomo.

• 2:34:45Yasi Salek?

  Is that why it's your favorite movie?

• 2:34:46Speaker 07

  No, I asked him. I was like, because he's into meditation too, and I was talking to him and I was like, "Have you ever met David Lynch?" And he's like, "No." I was like, "Do you like his movies?" He's like, "I love him." And I was like, "Do you like Mulholland Drive?" He's like, "It's my favorite movie." And I was like, "Dude, me too."

• 2:34:59Yasi Salek?

  Also, for those of you that don't know, David Lynch, mass, major proponent of trans and genital meditation, which is part of the reason that we would ask.

• 2:35:05Speaker 07

  R.I.P. David Lynch.

• 2:35:06Yasi Salek?

  R.I.P. David Lynch.

• 2:35:07Speaker 07

  Home Alone influenced.

• 2:35:09Yasi Salek?

  Close second.

• 2:35:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, honestly, that was one of my favorite movies. I love Home Alone. But they have a song called 21st Dead Rats that references Home Alone.

• 2:35:17Yasi Salek?

  R.I.P. Catherine O'Hara.

• 2:35:18Speaker 07

  You're such a dude, honestly.

• 2:35:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, what a fucking legend.

• 2:35:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, seriously, she's just so good. Best in show, all that. Um. You know, her sister is on November Spawned a Monster by Morrissey?

• 2:35:30Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:35:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:35:31Yasi Salek?

  What?

• 2:35:31Speaker 07

  Mary Margaret O'Hara.

• 2:35:33Yasi Salek?

  What?

• 2:35:33Speaker 07

  Isn't that crazy?

• 2:35:34Yasi Salek?

  I didn't uncover that in my search research.

• 2:35:36Speaker 07

  She's a, um, she's a musician, I believe.

• 2:35:40Yasi Salek?

  Incredible Bandplain moment from you to me.

• 2:35:43Speaker 07

  Anytime.

• 2:35:44Yasi Salek?

  Um, and then my last question for you is, will you come back on Bandplain?

• 2:35:48Speaker 07

  Of course, anytime.

• 2:35:48Yasi Salek?

  What would you do?

• 2:35:49Speaker 07

  Another artist.

• 2:35:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Fred Cross?

• 2:35:52Speaker 07

  I don't.

• 2:35:53Yasi Salek?

  Is that more of a taste?

• 2:35:54Speaker 07

  Or Ally.

• 2:35:55Yasi Salek?

  Or Ally.

• 2:35:55Speaker 07

  Um, yeah, I don't know enough about him. I love him. I loved the movie. The movie was great.

• 2:36:01Yasi Salek?

  What about when we do our 24 hour Guided by Voices telethon?

• 2:36:06Speaker 07

  I could do a lot of God by Voices.

• 2:36:07Yasi Salek?

  You can come play also a cover.

• 2:36:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, I would totally do that. Yeah. And I could give, I could do my best on God by Voices. I know a lot about God by Voices, but you know, so much material.

• 2:36:17Yasi Salek?

  That one is, again, I've always made the joke, but I think I'm being very serious. The only way I'd ever do it is if it's like an eventized thing where I literally have to do it for 24 hours straight.

• 2:36:25Speaker 07

  I would do it.

• 2:36:26Yasi Salek?

  If you would do it.

• 2:36:26Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:36:27Yasi Salek?

  We'll just slam Celsius's and like laugh. We could have a couple of guests. So like you guys could like tap in and tap out, you know?

• 2:36:34Speaker 07

  You're gonna do the whole thing, though?

• 2:36:35Yasi Salek?

  I have to, babe. This is, I'm the host of Bandplain.

• 2:36:37Speaker 07

  Yeah. That would be awesome. It's like an endurance.

• 2:36:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:40Speaker 07

  Thing. Yeah.

• 2:36:41Yasi Salek?

  Exactly. By like, by the time we get to like, you know, 2010, I'm gonna be like absolutely fucked and looped and just being like, okay, then there was this.

• 2:36:51Speaker 07

  Well, Bob, Bob Pollard did that. He, he, um, he went to the doctor and his doctor said, I had a dream. You played a show where you played a hundred songs and the tickets were a hundred dollars. And he was like, okay. So his doctor had a dream. They did that. And then they did it. And they played in LA.

• 2:37:06Yasi Salek?

  And how long did that? Well, the hundred songs is two minutes. So let's, how many, that's not 24 hours.

• 2:37:10Speaker 07

  It was like over four hours.

• 2:37:11Yasi Salek?

  Wow.

• 2:37:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, they played a hundred songs.

• 2:37:13Yasi Salek?

  That's incredible.

• 2:37:14Speaker 07

  Isn't that amazing?

• 2:37:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:15Speaker 07

  Yeah. So that's like, to do the God by Voices one is very, to do that, that's cool.

• 2:37:20Yasi Salek?

  You have, yeah, you have to do it to honor the way that they would do it, you know?

• 2:37:24Speaker 07

  That's super cool.

• 2:37:24Yasi Salek?

  Which is like balls to the wall.

• 2:37:25Speaker 07

  I'm into it. I'm there. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:37:27Yasi Salek?

  All right. Well, we'll include you. Barry, this was so fun. I'm so glad that you came to do this. I feel like I learned a lot more about you. Um, I'm proud to know you. I'm proud to be from the same hometown-esque-ish. Um, and I love Joyce Banner.

• 2:37:42Speaker 07

  Thank you so much. It was really nice to be here. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

• 2:37:45Yasi Salek?

  Come back next week for a new episode of Bandplain.

• 2:37:57Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandsplain. Our guests today were Amanda Dobbins and Barry Johnson of Joyce Manor. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production was by Jacob Corbett and Sarah Reddy. Executive producers for Bandsplain are Gina Delavec 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 and L. Burrito Jr., which I think is technically not in Torrance, although I'm not sure it's on the PCH, go give it a visit. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 2:38:49Speaker 06

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