INTERVIEW: J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.

This week Yasi is joined by the man, the myth, the legend: J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. They get into their shared love for Gilmore Girls, biking around the neighborhood listening to Howard Stern, ideas for a debut feature film (Hollywood, listen up!), and of course, Dino’s beautiful new record, ‘There Near'. Listen to Dinosaur Jr.’s ‘There Near’Subscribe on YouTubeCREDITS:Host: Yasi SalekGuests: J Mascis @jmascisProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany CosentinoLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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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• 0:20Speaker 01

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• 0:52Speaker 02

  What's with this band anyway? I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, Bandplain?

• 1:04Speaker 02

  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 hate this band. Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. Bandplain.

• 1:31Yasi 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 episode is a little different. Today I am talking to an iconic artist himself. Jay Mascis of the band Dinosaur Jr. Welcome to the show, Jay.

• 1:49Speaker 04

  We could discuss a cult band.

• 1:51Yasi Salek?

  We can. Do you want to just really pivot? I'm happy to do it.

• 1:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55Yasi Salek?

  What would you want to talk about?

• 1:55Speaker 04

  I don't know where it's going anyway, so you tell me.

• 1:58Yasi Salek?

  I don't want to freak you out, but we did do a Dinosaur Jr. episode and my document of research is 77 pages long.

• 2:06Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:06Yasi Salek?

  Today I texted our mutual friend Patty Schimmel and I was like, I'm interviewing Jay Mascis. I'm a little nervous. Do you have any guidance? And then she was like, why don't you ask about this? And why don't you ask about this? And I was like, wow, I did already know all of this stuff because I did so much research and I guess I didn't need to ask you. But she says hello.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, we just had a Pitchfork article came out that was kind of like that. I think it was 77 pages.

• 2:31Yasi Salek?

  I read it.

• 2:32Speaker 04

  Eighty hours of interviews.

• 2:34Yasi Salek?

  Grayson Havercurran has been on this podcast and I asked him.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  He's very thorough.

• 2:39Yasi Salek?

  He's very thorough. You guys rode bikes together, that sounded fun.

• 2:43Speaker 04

  I don't think Lou is happy with it, but.

• 2:46Yasi Salek?

  Lou, Lou has also been on this podcast.

• 2:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:49Yasi Salek?

  A while ago. He told me a story about writing a song after hanging out with Evan Dando that was quite interesting. I'm going to offer you the option of three topics for us to open up the conversation. And you can choose skateboarding videos, the new Dinosaur Jr. album, which is the 13th one. And it's called There Near, came out in August, or cinema.

• 3:21Yasi Salek?

  I know, it's tough. So.

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Some boring topics.

• 3:24Yasi Salek?

  Boring?

• 3:28Yasi Salek?

  Okay, conspiracy theories.

• 3:31Speaker 04

  Geez, I guess the album?

• 3:34Yasi Salek?

  That's your, your manager's outside being like, good job. Well, I love the album. I don't know, honestly, if I have a lot to ask about it because I don't know tons about guitars or pedals. And I know you don't like to talk about lyrics.

• 3:54Yasi Salek?

  But I guess I can ask, the album to me, like, I love it and it has, I hate to say the word because it's so corny and cheesy. So please forgive me, but like, return to form. Like, it sounds like the best possible expression of a 2026 Dinosaur Jr. album. And I did read that you got, you like, went back to the amp that you used on the first album. Was there like anything in your mind that you were like, oh, like, kind of want to like, go back to our roots?

• 4:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was kind of like, you know, I've been, you know, buying gear and listening to stuff for so long. And get the perfect guitar sound. I was just kind of like, I think I'm sick of the perfect guitar sound. Maybe I'll go back to kind of like the guitar sound we used to have and see what that's like.

• 4:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. You played drums famously first and in Deep Wound. Do you still have that sweater, by the way, that your mom knit you from?

• 4:55Speaker 04

  I hope so, unless, you know.

• 4:57Yasi Salek?

  I'm really obsessed with that. I hope, I hope it should be in a museum somewhere. And you started writing songs for Deep Wound.

• 5:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:05Yasi Salek?

  Is that, was that kind of the impetus to play guitar, like, more formally? Like, in a more of like a, I'm going to take this over because you write songs more on guitar than on drums?

• 5:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I definitely wanted to write songs and, you know, from a small town, the pool isn't that big of people who play guitar. I didn't like any of the guitar players in town.

• 5:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  And I figured, since, yeah, like, I was writing songs. And I felt like I'd had so many drum lessons, I feel like I could teach somebody how to play drums. But I couldn't teach somebody how to play guitar like I wanted to hear. And so I just thought, you know, hardcore's over, let's just do something else. And just pivoted to guitar. And, you know, I had a, my friend was a great guitar player, you know, and he's like, he wanted me to join his band on drums. He's like, why should we have two mediocre bands when we could have one good band if we get together? And I'm just like, I couldn't really answer him. I just was like, well, I just, I don't know, I just.

• 6:16Yasi Salek?

  It sounds like there wasn't two mediocre bands. There was one really good one and one other one.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  Not in his mind.

• 6:24Yasi Salek?

  Never is in their mind. Okay, what happened between Mogo's Flute and Dinosaur? Like, was that not the first name of the band?

• 6:34Speaker 04

  Mogo.

• 6:35Yasi Salek?

  Oh, just Mogo.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  But oddly enough, someone brought that book, Mogo's Flute, to the show last night and gave it to us. It was pretty weird.

• 6:44Yasi Salek?

  That someone, perhaps they listened to this podcast where I talked about Mogo and Mogo's Flute in the book.

• 6:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was looking at the book and it looked creepy. And I was like, here, do you want this on? No.

• 6:55Yasi Salek?

  Okay, do people give you a lot of weird gifts?

• 6:58Speaker 04

  No.

• 6:59Yasi Salek?

  Do people bring you streetwear since they know you like it?

• 7:02Speaker 04

  No.

• 7:02Yasi Salek?

  Never?

• 7:04Speaker 04

  Not really.

• 7:05Yasi Salek?

  Wow. Do you have, are you like an online shopper or do you, or even, oh, yeah, fully online, not really in person?

• 7:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's nowhere to go where I am.

• 7:17Yasi Salek?

  Well, you have a Home Goods now, you told me in the hallway.

• 7:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, the Home Goods. I mean, like, if I go some other town, I'll go to the Adidas Original Store or something.

• 7:26Yasi Salek?

  Do you like vintage stuff? Like, is this shirt that you're wearing vintage?

• 7:30Speaker 04

  No, it's new.

• 7:31Yasi Salek?

  Oh, it's so nice. It looks like it could totally be vintage.

• 7:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:35Yasi Salek?

  Do you know the brand?

• 7:36Speaker 04

  No, my wife gave it to me, you'll have to ask her.

• 7:38Yasi Salek?

  Okay, well, ask Luis after, it's very nice. We did an episode about music of skateboarding videos.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:45Yasi Salek?

  With Jerry Sue and I did like, I grew up on skate videos, so like, that was a way for me to find music. But I was just really, there's a database, I can't remember the name of it right now, that kind of documents all the songs used in skate videos. And Dinosaur Jr. had the most out of any other artist.

• 8:03Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 8:03Yasi Salek?

  Which I thought was really interesting. I guess, like, do you have any sense or do you remember, like, how that first kind of came about? Were you like friends? Okay.

• 8:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, we met Neil Blender on the Bug Tour.

• 8:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  And I became friends with him and he's the one that kind of got all the Dino songs and skate videos. Because he started using it and he's cool, so other guys want to use it. Because they're trying to emulate him. So it was all from Neil Blender.

• 8:33Yasi Salek?

  And he was just like, oh, well, Jay's my homie, I can ask him and he'll say yes for us to use it.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Well, I don't know that anyone ever asked anything. I mean, maybe they asked Greg and maybe they didn't.

• 8:44Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  But I had no, when people are like, oh, your song's in skate videos. I was like, no one ever told me, I don't know.

• 8:52Yasi Salek?

  Our engineer Jamie informed me before this that he first heard Dinosaur Jr. in the Sinbad film.

• 8:59Yasi Salek?

  Was it House Sitter?

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 9:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And I was like, that's.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  What happened with Sinbad?

• 9:04Yasi Salek?

  I don't know, that's such a great question.

• 9:07Yasi Salek?

  He was pretty funny.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. So you don't remember being asked about the Sinbad film? House Party? No, House Sitter, I think it was House Sitter, they used Freakseed.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  No idea.

• 9:20Yasi Salek?

  Um, house guest. House guest. Thank you, Jamie. Um, do you watch a lot of movies?

• 9:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  We live right near a movie theater we can walk to, which is good. It's like an artsy one, so we can see all the artsy movies and it's fun to be able to walk to a movie theater.

• 9:39Yasi Salek?

  So great. Being able to walk anywhere is so great. Anything you saw lately that you were like really into?

• 9:48Speaker 04

  What was that one? Serat?

• 9:50Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah, I didn't see it. I heard it was really good.

• 9:53Speaker 04

  That was good. I love that movie. But that was a little while ago.

• 9:56Yasi Salek?

  Devastating, right?

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Just up my alley, just, you know, uh,

• 10:03Speaker 04

  it's the kind of movie, some of the scenes are, I've thought of for movies that I want to make, just random, kind of random violence that doesn't have any meaning, you know, that just comes out of nowhere. I like that kind of thing.

• 10:19Yasi Salek?

  You, you want to make films?

• 10:22Speaker 04

  No, I just thought of one movie I was gonna make.

• 10:24Yasi Salek?

  Oh, do you like write, did you write a script or it's just sort of like floating in your mind?

• 10:30Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 10:33Yasi Salek?

  I feel like I would love to see the Jay Mascis movie, whatever is floating in your mind.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it'd be good. It's mostly, um, just like this, people sitting in a diner talking.

• 10:46Yasi Salek?

  The best kind of movie.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  And then, you know, that maybe the waitress comes up and her arm falls off and nobody says anything about it.

• 10:54Yasi Salek?

  It's like a little surreal.

• 10:55Speaker 04

  And they keep talking, yeah.

• 10:58Yasi Salek?

  And they keep talking and it's so, it's like, it's just a conversational film with random bits of body horror and violence.

• 11:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's part of it. It's just, I like the, I like the idea of just random body parts falling off.

• 11:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Especially when it's not scary. It's just like.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  It's just random.

• 11:24Yasi Salek?

  Do you, are you a horror movie guy? Do you like them? It is the season?

• 11:28Speaker 04

  Certain ones I love. I don't, I don't, wouldn't say as a genre, but I guess some of my favorite movies are, you know, Baskett case. Yeah, but, um, I haven't followed all the new.

• 11:42Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  My, my kid has watched all these crazy new horror movies. I don't know much about it.

• 11:49Yasi Salek?

  Is he really into horror movies?

• 11:52Speaker 04

  Just the normal amount of kids.

• 11:55Yasi Salek?

  Just the normal. Does he like music?

• 11:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:59Yasi Salek?

  I'm, I'm like really obsessed with what young people like because I feel now kind of disconnected from it. No matter what I do, like I'm not, I'm 44. So does he ever, does he bring you music to like, show you to be like, check this out. I like this?

• 12:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:16Yasi Salek?

  Do you find that you tend to like it or do you tend to be like, I don't know about this?

• 12:21Speaker 04

  It just really depends on the song, yeah. He's always interested in why I don't like this or why I do like that. I'll go, yeah, this is pretty good.

• 12:32Yasi Salek?

  Is there anything that he brought you recently that you were like, oh, this is so good. I wouldn't have known about it if you hadn't brought it to me?

• 12:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I never remember what it is. I just go, yeah, that's cool. It sounds pretty, it's all rap kind of based stuff.

• 12:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Oh, he likes rap music?

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, but now he's also throws in some indie rock is mixed in as he's gotten older with his friends and everything just kind of mixed up and I don't know how it works with TikTok, which is songs kind of, yeah, I don't know how they get into anything, but they are into some stuff.

• 13:08Yasi Salek?

  It's really interesting because I, I like, again, I feel like I'm only old man yelling at the clouds because I'm not 18, but like, I always, I see it that like these songs get really big on TikTok and often they're really old songs, you know, like old shoegaze or whatever.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:22Yasi Salek?

  But from what I can tell, most of the kids don't, like they don't find the song and then be like, I gotta find out everything. Like remember, I'm sure you were like that too. Like when I was a kid, like, you hear one black flag song, for example, and you're like, I gotta know more about this band. Like I'm gonna go like find whatever I can. But they seem to not do that. They're just fine with the one song.

• 13:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's interesting. I haven't thought about that.

• 13:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know why, or if it's maybe it's too easy to get the information now. So it's like, just not as satisfying. I really don't know.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's hard to know how anything works.

• 14:01Yasi Salek?

  Totally hard to, at the dinosaur junior shows that you've been playing recently, what's the like age range in the audience?

• 14:11Speaker 04

  I think there's all the ages.

• 14:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like young people, like pretty young people too.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've noticed a lot of young people, which is cool.

• 14:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  So I mean, I remember when I was like 15 and saw John Lee Hooker or something and he's like 80 or whatever and I was into that.

• 14:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think I do find like music like dinosaur junior is like kind of timeless in a way like, did you ever think that that would be the case when you were making it?

• 14:45Speaker 04

  No, but I can understand like, uh, I get kind of the sense, you know, with all the,

• 14:55Speaker 04

  every, you know, when you watch a band now, sometimes at festivals I'll watch a band. I can't hear anything. There's no sound coming out of the stage. It's all like in ear monitors and no amps and it's so weird like, where's the music? It's like some sound man is creating it. I think just because we have amps and we don't have click tracks and we don't have in ear monitors. There's some more reality to it that kids are craving or some things. It feels different than

• 15:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's.

• 15:30Speaker 04

  what's going on.

• 15:31Yasi Salek?

  It's a really visceral experience and I feel like I always loved that going to shows, growing up that you can feel in your body, the music as well as like, see the people and hear it. Yeah, I can see kids craving that. I'm sure it's like, it's a longer conversation, but I'm sure it's tied to like, that they're so detached from reality because of so much technology.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. Whatever it is.

• 15:56Yasi Salek?

  Whatever, man. Yeah. Good for them, I guess.

• 16:01Yasi Salek?

  Were you allowed to eat candy when you were a child?

• 16:03Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 16:04Yasi Salek?

  Really? Even with your dentist dad, he wasn't like, we are gonna limit the candy in the house?

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Heard the saying like, you know, the cobbler's son has no shoes. It's more of that scenario. My mom had to make appointments under fake names because he didn't want, you know, the, work was more his happy place. He didn't want to think about his, I don't know.

• 16:29Yasi Salek?

  He had church in the state a little bit.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  You know, at home he didn't talk or anything. He's just quiet and at work he's like the life of the party and.

• 16:40Yasi Salek?

  The party that is going to the dentist.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  For him it was, yeah, it was like, he's always singing. He was the singing dentist. He'd hum along to music, but so you can't, you can't go to another dentist, but you can't go to him either. So your teeth just rot. So that's the.

• 16:59Yasi Salek?

  It's rough. That's, that's not, that's really not ideal. And your mom was an avid golfer. Did you pick that up from her?

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 04

  And my grandma, who her mom.

• 17:11Yasi Salek?

  That's so cool. It's such like an elegant sport, I feel like for a woman to play. Are you neighbors with Frank Black from the Pixies and do you guys see each other?

• 17:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, he used to live on my street, but he moved to the next town, but his ex-wife still lives on my street in a different house. They had two houses on my street. The ex-wife bought one and then they had their old one.

• 17:37Yasi Salek?

  And they had their old one. For a certain type of man, I feel like that street is like Mecca. Do you know what I mean? Like, imagine like you accidentally ended up living on the same block as Jay Mascis and Frank Black from the Pixies.

• 17:51Speaker 04

  Well, it was sort of like the fancy street in town. When I was growing up, I remember, uh, my cousin's new wife's mom lived on Lincoln Avenue and we'd never met her. And we know it's before I lived on Lincoln Avenue.

• 18:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  And she was like going to us, well, I live on Lincoln Avenue. Like it was like some big.

• 18:16Yasi Salek?

  Excuse me.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  It's like, whoa, yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 04

  It's pretty strange, but.

• 18:23Yasi Salek?

  And now you live there and you can be like, yeah, it's pretty cool. Nothing to write home about, to brag that way, but it's pretty cool.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's good. You can walk to the movie theater.

• 18:34Yasi Salek?

  And you guys bike a lot or, well, I know you're, you're like a big biker. You, you use Strava and really get into, what, do you listen to music when you bike around? No.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  I listen to Howard Stern.

• 18:46Yasi Salek?

  Oh, great.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  And now that he doesn't do much, I have to venture into some podcasts.

• 18:51Yasi Salek?

  What podcasts do you listen to if you don't mind sharing?

• 18:54Speaker 04

  What do I listen to?

• 18:57Yasi Salek?

  Or like, what's the topic that you're, you go towards?

• 19:00Speaker 04

  Just celebrities, I guess.

• 19:02Yasi Salek?

  Or like interviews?

• 19:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, interviews.

• 19:04Yasi Salek?

  Like Marc Maron or I guess he doesn't really make podcasts anymore.

• 19:07Speaker 04

  He doesn't do that anymore.

• 19:08Yasi Salek?

  Dax Shepard does some.

• 19:11Speaker 04

  He, he went to some pay thing that I didn't follow. I don't know where he is.

• 19:17Yasi Salek?

  Like a behind a paywall.

• 19:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I lost touch with, but, uh, Bob left it sometimes.

• 19:25Yasi Salek?

  Oh, sure. Yeah. Legend. Music legend.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  I don't know. There's, I have a few in my, I just look at who's the guests and.

• 19:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Yasi Salek?

  If you're interested, then you check it out.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that's because now Howard's only one day a week, so it's not much content.

• 19:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, especially if you're biking every day.

• 19:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:49Yasi Salek?

  I like, I really like music when I bike because I've, I think it's probably quite dangerous actually because I like to, and not here anyways, nobody really bikes here, but like if I'm in like London or New York, I like to bike. And I like to put my headphones in and listen to music and I feel like it's probably dangerous, but it just feels so good because you're like in motion. And then you have like this beautiful music in your ears. It feels like.

• 20:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, now I just use a speaker and.

• 20:13Yasi Salek?

  Oh, really?

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Put it on my bike because the earphones can really.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  Make my tinnitus worse.

• 20:22Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 20:22Speaker 04

  I feel like the speaker, it's mixing into the world.

• 20:28Yasi Salek?

  The ambience. Yeah. So, so if you're in Amherst, Massachusetts, you might catch Jay Mascis on his bike booming some Howard Stern.

• 20:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. And somehow there's some, sometimes some offensive language coming out of Howard Stern. You're driving by some people and you're not sure how it's gonna go over.

• 20:44Yasi Salek?

  Like in elementary school or something.

• 20:47Speaker 04

  No, I don't worry about that. More like older people.

• 20:50Yasi Salek?

  Right. Yeah. Oh my God. I was in, I go to a weightlifting class. So it's like weightlifting, but it's a, it's very nice for.

• 20:58Speaker 04

  I need that.

• 20:59Yasi Salek?

  It's really great. I know. Again, I don't know what goes on in that scene in Amherst, Massachusetts, but we have a couple here.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:05Yasi Salek?

  And they have, they play music, right? All, actually very loud. And one day they were playing Closer by Nine Inch Nails, unedited version. And I remember just kind of being like, I don't, I don't care. I'm not approved. However, the class is very mixed ages and types of people. And I was like, surely someone's gonna say something. And then like two weeks later, it happened again. And some woman like flagged over the teacher and was like, I think that's not appropriate.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  Really?

• 21:39Yasi Salek?

  I mean, it's, it's, it's a pretty hardcore song lyrically. And it's like, it's eight in the morning, you know?

• 21:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. I guess I'm offended by other things more musically than lyrically.

• 21:51Yasi Salek?

  Sure. Like, music being corny and cheesy is more offensive to you. I'm not offended. It's just more that I don't want, it's like watching porn with like, a random man I don't know who's like 65 lifting weights next to me. It's just like lightly uncomfortable, you know?

• 22:09Speaker 04

  That sounds very uncomfortable.

• 22:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Well, we weren't doing that, but I guess that could happen too.

• 22:17Speaker 05

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• 22:47Speaker 06

  Hi there. I am fully charged and here to tell you, Toy Story 5 is now on Disney Plus. It's been too long, cowboy. Woody, Buzz and Jesse are back for a brand new adventure with some seriously cool new tech. What? Holy butterscotch! You said it, Jesse. So save your batteries and watch the global phenomenon at home. And the best part, it's perfect for the whole family. Power up your movie night and watch Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5, now streaming on Disney Plus, rated PG.

• 23:18Yasi Salek?

  Did you ever think, like, when, when Mogo started, were you not gonna be the singer?

• 23:27Speaker 04

  I was not gonna be.

• 23:27Yasi Salek?

  Charlie Nakajima was gonna sing.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  Right.

• 23:31Yasi Salek?

  Did you sing before that? Like, just even to yourself or in the shower or anything?

• 23:35Speaker 04

  No, just backup vocal sometimes, like recording.

• 23:39Yasi Salek?

  Was it, was it like a hard leap to go from not singing to having to like, kind of be so front and center?

• 23:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Still. Still, it seems like a chore to sing, yeah.

• 23:54Yasi Salek?

  You have such a beautiful voice and it's so distinctive. Like, I can't think of Dinosaur Jr. without hearing your exact voice.

• 24:02Speaker 04

  Hmm. Well, to each his own.

• 24:07Yasi Salek?

  Do you, do you feel like it's nice to have a place to like, put, I don't know, like thoughts and feelings that like, maybe like, don't have another place to go, you know? Like, it's like, not like you would broadcast them somewhere or like, share them past maybe like a friend. Like, does it ever feel nice just to have a place to put all that stuff?

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I love music, so.

• 24:32Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Good lyrics are a part of that.

• 24:35Yasi Salek?

  Are you a lyrics person when you listen to other people's music? Like, do you clock really good lyrics?

• 24:42Speaker 04

  Yes and no. I mean, I don't need the lyrics at all.

• 24:45Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. Or, you know, you make up your own lyrics if you can't understand them, which is usually better.

• 24:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Speaker 04

  I thought that's always why R E M did well at first because everyone made up their own lyrics that related to them about what they were singing.

• 25:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, murmur is a little indecipherable in the lyrics, but really beautiful music.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:10Yasi Salek?

  A lot has been made about how loud you play. Is this correct? I read a quote from you that you said, part of the reason, or maybe the whole reason, that you played guitar so loud was because that's the feeling you got from playing drums. That was that it was so powerful.

• 25:29Speaker 04

  Right.

• 25:30Yasi Salek?

  Is that, was, is that part of the reasoning behind?

• 25:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's just to recreate that feeling of playing drums, which I've never really gotten there either. It's still not the same. But I also seeing shows, I like that. Like seeing Motorhead, feel like you could lean back and the sound would hold you up. You know, it's this all encompassing.

• 25:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a cool feeling.

• 25:55Yasi Salek?

  Does it feel the same? This is kind of a dumb question, but I'm not, I don't understand a lot about music. Does it feel the same from onstage as it does in the audience?

• 26:06Speaker 04

  It can. Yeah, that's why I think it's weird these days when there is no sound onstage. Yeah, because you're, the sound is like hitting you in the back, kind of the amps and stuff. And it's definitely part of the experience.

• 26:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. The loudest show I think I've ever seen was a Dinosaur Jr. show. It was not that long ago, but maybe 12 years ago. It was like a Marshall Amp show. Do you remember this at all? It was like a house here in LA. And there was, it was very small. There's so many amps because it was, it was sponsored by Marshall Amps. They handed out earplugs at the door and it was amazing. I think Dale Krover was drumming at that time.

• 26:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:44Yasi Salek?

  Great show. But yeah, it was like, really, it felt like being in an ocean of sound. It was so cool. Okay. Question for you around ambition. I also read that you said that you always took music seriously. It was never like, oh, I want to be in a band for fun. Because obviously there's, you know, many reasons to start a band. One of the most common ones being to have fun and get girls. But that was not the vibe for you. You just wanted to make good music. But it wasn't, but you weren't ambitious, right? It wasn't like, I want to like conquer the world or like make a bunch of money or be famous.

• 27:24Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, with Dino, the ambition was to get on SST Records and tour, you know, be one of these, because that's the bands we liked. And so that's what we wanted to be. So that's the only goal I remember having in music. And then we achieved that. And then that was strange because then you're like, I never really came up with another goal. So I'm just kind of floating from there on.

• 27:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Well, floating's kind of your vibe, right? Like, whenever I read interviews with you or listen to interviews with you, I like think of Taoism. Like, have you ever read about Taoism? Just like the, like, I, I used to read The Tao of Pooh, who's one of my favorite books for like, who would calm my anxiety. And I'm like, oh, Jay Mascis is just like the living embodiment of like, going on the river, you know, like not, I don't know, I find it, I know that, you know, people are sometimes like, oh, it's hard to talk to him or whatever. But I find it so inspiring. Like, it's, people try to like, force things or like, fill space. Like, I do it all the time. I made a career out of it. But like, what a nice, I don't know, I'm just like

• 28:37Yasi Salek?

  very like into the idea of like, just doing the next thing that comes in front of you and not having to have such a like grip on things.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  But yeah, I don't know if that's how I'm experiencing myself.

• 28:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 28:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, like people are saying that I don't talk, but I'm just like, as far as I know, I'm talking all day, every day. So I don't know what you're talking about.

• 29:01Yasi Salek?

  Very chatty in this interview.

• 29:02Speaker 04

  Just because you're, someone asked me a one, a question that is a one word answer and I answer it.

• 29:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Speaker 04

  Then I realize, oh, they just want you to talk.

• 29:12Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 29:13Speaker 04

  Not necessarily about anything, just fill the space.

• 29:16Yasi Salek?

  Fill the space, exactly.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  Like, keep talking, but it's like, if I answered the question and you're.

• 29:22Yasi Salek?

  What else do you want me to say? Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's such an unnatural form of communication, I guess. It's just, I realize they, now I realize after all these years, they just want you to talk about, it doesn't matter what you say. Just, just if they ask a question, they're just saying, okay, you talk now. And it's not like, they don't want you to answer the question or anything. They just want you to keep talking so they don't feel weird. Yeah.

• 29:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. But I think being able to sit in a bit of stillness is a good skill to have, a good strength to have, because what's so bad about it? You know?

• 30:02Speaker 04

  Or, you know, people have said I talk slow, which I never experienced myself doing. But then you understand that's how you're coming across. And I have noticed before in my life when I, someone asked, said something to me and I didn't respond fast enough for their liking.

• 30:24Yasi Salek?

  Hmm.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  Like this one person, I remember in that instant, she hated me and wrote me off and never, that's it. That was my chance right there. I blew and I can't. She just hates me now. Because I just didn't respond fast enough to her initial, like, I don't know what, but I could feel it in that instant. I was written off. And that never changed.

• 30:49Yasi Salek?

  That's such a like, that's like the person projecting, you know, a thing on to you.

• 30:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. But still, the result is the same.

• 30:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. But like, that, I mean, when, when that happens, I'm always like, okay, well, that's not the kind of person I want to like me anyways. Because we're like, clearly not on the same wavelength of like, how we operate in the world, you know?

• 31:14Speaker 04

  No, but the problem is, yeah, then she married a friend of mine and then.

• 31:20Yasi Salek?

  Then you had to be around her?

• 31:21Speaker 04

  No, then I wasn't friends with the guy anymore.

• 31:25Yasi Salek?

  That's dumb. That's dumb. Is that one of the downsides of being a public figure? For lack of a better word, you know, I don't really like Brad Pitt or whatever, but like, you know, is it like having to deal so much with how, what people think you're like?

• 31:47Speaker 04

  I'm not sure. Yeah, cuz I just don't deal.

• 31:49Yasi Salek?

  Care. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't like register for you. That's nice. It stresses me out all the time.

• 31:54Speaker 04

  Or like I can't read any review or any kind of anything that's written about me cuz I'll find some something I hate about it.

• 32:03Yasi Salek?

  So you don't read any reviews?

• 32:05Speaker 04

  No, I can't.

• 32:06Yasi Salek?

  Absolutely not.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  And sometimes something will slip through and weird things will haunt me then for years.

• 32:13Yasi Salek?

  Totally. I totally agree. It's not, it's weird cuz it's not natural to like know what other people think about you through

• 32:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:22Yasi Salek?

  a distance cuz it's not like your friend coming to say, hey, that hurt my feelings or whatever. It's like, I mean, for, for me, it's people on the internet being like, her voice is so annoying. And I'm like, oh, oh, I didn't. Okay. Well, I didn't know that. And I'm, I'm so sorry. I hope that you don't have to listen to the podcast.

• 32:40Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, like jam with someone that I

• 32:45Speaker 04

  you know, wouldn't necessarily jam with. And I was interested just oh, I wonder what someone thought about jamming with this guy. And I read one comment. And it was something like, this guy does not deserve to have the amps that he has cuz he's not good enough to play with anyone cuz this guy's a real musician and you're I was just like, which, I mean, that hit home too cuz I've had that feeling as a you know, when I'm starting out, like, I wanna buy a Marshall amp, but I'm like, I don't deserve that yet. I don't think I should buy that cuz I'm not at the level where I but yeah, this one comment I read and that's haunts me for, you know, years.

• 33:29Yasi Salek?

  I'll think about it forever. I try not to. I try to like practice my spiritual.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  It's not like I don't agree. It's like, you're right. I don't deserve this, but I have it. Where does that leave me?

• 33:39Yasi Salek?

  What should I do? Burn it? Should I give it away? I'm also like, yeah, my voice is kind of annoying, but like, I don't, I can't change that. I simply, I have, I have two options.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  I know there's no solution offered.

• 33:52Yasi Salek?

  No, like, would you like me to? Anyways. Um, so you don't, you're not really too online, I'm guessing.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  I am. I just don't read.

• 34:03Yasi Salek?

  You just don't read the comments. Do you like to like surf YouTube? I know men really love YouTube.

• 34:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  But yeah, the algorithm does fry my brain.

• 34:17Yasi Salek?

  It really, it really.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  I can't. I don't want, it's like,

• 34:23Speaker 04

  yeah, I wish there was an easier way to control the algorithm for your own liking or something.

• 34:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I think what, in my experience, what's so scary about the algorithm is like, I'll go to my like for you or whatever. And I'm like, oh, my God, is this who I am?

• 34:41Yasi Salek?

  This is so dark. Is this, is it really mirroring back to me what I actually like am interested in? And then I'm like, oh, I gotta like, I gotta get my mind read. I gotta go read some philosophy or something, rinse this out.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  I know.

• 34:56Yasi Salek?

  Do you read a lot of books?

• 34:58Speaker 04

  Not lately. I felt like I read all the books that I could think of. And then I was like, I didn't know what else to read. And

• 35:06Speaker 04

  so I would read just like rock biographies and then like religious kinda spiritual books and then.

• 35:13Yasi Salek?

  Oh, those are my favorite.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  After a while, I felt like I read everything and it's kinda like, so it slowed down quite a bit.

• 35:22Yasi Salek?

  There's a new book that I'm interested in reading. Maybe you've heard of it by Chuck Klosterman. It's called Rock with an asterisk and it's fiction, but it's about an imaginary world where the Velvet Underground was, was the size of the Beatles and the Beatles were small. And basically like what the world looks like.

• 35:41Speaker 04

  It's like my mind is like.

• 35:44Yasi Salek?

  You're like, I already live in that world, babe, so I don't need that.

• 35:49Yasi Salek?

  That's how I lived my life. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm interested to read cuz I was like, I'm just curious what, what he imagines would have changed or like.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, that sounds good, except I don't read fiction, but maybe I should.

• 36:03Yasi Salek?

  Ever.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  You know, I've read Interview with a Vampire.

• 36:08Yasi Salek?

  Sure, great book. Love, Love and Rice.

• 36:12Speaker 04

  That was all right. I would consider reading that book, The Velvet Underground.

• 36:17Yasi Salek?

  It feels like it's like almost a halfway between fiction and nonfiction. Yeah, it's like,

• 36:24Yasi Salek?

  what's your favorite? Well, maybe not favorite, but what are some really great spiritual books that you read? I love books on spirituality. I read them all the time.

• 36:32Speaker 04

  This Amachi Awakened Children, Volume Two. I like that one.

• 36:37Yasi Salek?

  Amma is the guru, is the right word? I don't wanna miss.

• 36:43Speaker 04

  Or they call her Hugging Saint.

• 36:45Yasi Salek?

  Hugging Saint. Yeah, she's, she's.

• 36:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, like a spiritual figure in India.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  But yeah, there's you know, many volumes and the first one is is good too, but it's maybe too hard to start with. It's more, way more intense or something. So the second one, it's

• 37:08Speaker 04

  maybe the sweet spot for me.

• 37:10Yasi Salek?

  Better place to start. Do you consider yourself a spiritual person?

• 37:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Do you like meditate? Do you journal?

• 37:22Speaker 04

  A bit. It really fell off once I had a kid.

• 37:27Yasi Salek?

  Sure. Takes up a bit of your time. But now you're empty nester. You could go back to your journaling.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Except you just moved home.

• 37:34Yasi Salek?

  Oh, never mind.

• 37:38Yasi Salek?

  Well, that's kinda nice, right?

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, we'll see.

• 37:42Yasi Salek?

  You guys? Tiny violin alert. You already know what I'm gonna talk about. Yeah, it's a tiny violin. It has a bow and everything.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  That's cool.

• 37:53Yasi Salek?

  My house burned down a year and a half ago.

• 37:56Speaker 04

  Which neighborhood were you in?

• 37:58Yasi Salek?

  Altona.

• 38:00Yasi Salek?

  And I lived with my parents for four months afterwards and it was the best four months of my life.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  Really?

• 38:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I think people were like, oh, weren't you like, it's gonna be, you're an adult. And I was like, but actually like, maybe cuz I'm 44. Now, it's, you don't have the same angst with your parents. And, and my parents are in their seventies. And I was just like, this is awesome. Like, I'll never, what a gift. Like, I'll never, no one gets to do this. Like, you don't get to have that like day in, day out with your parents that you did as a kid. And when you're a kid, you don't appreciate it. Cuz you're just, that's just what life is, you know? But I was just like, it was just awesome. We would laugh. We would watch TV shows. Like, it was so great.

• 38:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, my friend had the exact same experience.

• 38:47Yasi Salek?

  After the fire.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  I don't think she's talked about it. It's such glowing.

• 38:52Yasi Salek?

  Well, you know, every, as Tolstoy said, all the, all, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but all families are different. But yeah, I loved it. And then I wanted to bring up because your wife, Luisa, who is an amazing angel. So this was my favorite, well, not this exact one, but my, my favorite shirt I owned was a Green Mind Dinosaur Jr. T-shirt. And it was really perfect. My friend Albertina had gotten it for me at some like random shop in Brooklyn, like a lady that has like a curiosity is an antique shop.

• 39:21Yasi Salek?

  And I was so sad about it. I was so sad about all my T-shirts cuz I love T-shirts. Band T-shirts are my favorite. And people sent me so many and your wife helped spread the word and now I have five.

• 39:35Yasi Salek?

  Green Mind T-shirts. Sorry to be the guy that wore the dinosaur junior shirt to the interview, but it was part of the conversation that I wanted to share and announce.

• 39:45Speaker 04

  That's cool, yeah.

• 39:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. We used to just make fun of our friend Kevin Spanky Long and say this was him on, on the, I think he made it, I think he made a T-shirt. He has long hair as a reporter. That was him as this. Um, do you keep band t-shirts? Are you a band t-shirt person?

• 40:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, but no, I just have a couple. I have a Negative Approach one I bought when I was 15.

• 40:10Yasi Salek?

  Check it out.

• 40:11Speaker 04

  That's maybe the one that, yeah, I kept.

• 40:13Yasi Salek?

  Wow, you still have it? Is it still like hanging together, like in good shape?

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not bad.

• 40:20Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  And, uh, cause it's white and I don't wear white shirts much. I never wore it really, but. I have a My Bloody Valentine Loveless one that I saw my wife wearing the other day and I was like, isn't that worth like $5,000 now?

• 40:35Yasi Salek?

  I was gonna say, it's literally worth.

• 40:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:38Yasi Salek?

  Luisa, if you're listening, you should sell that and buy those tabbies. Like two pairs of tabbies.

• 40:43Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 40:44Yasi Salek?

  I know. Did you ever think that one, I mean, this is not, none of the ones I have are like an original one, but I'm sure an original Green Mind t-shirt is probably like $3,000 or something insane like that.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 40:56Yasi Salek?

  When I interviewed Mark Arm, he said he like sold like big lots of, cause he had kept all the t-shirts from like his whole life. And I was like, you're so smart that you kept them until now because just one day they became this insane coveted. The price is crazy. It's like, it's like stocks. It's like investing in stocks.

• 41:20Speaker 04

  Somehow the shirt's making me sad. It's making me think of, you know, the Gilmore Girls, which I love.

• 41:26Yasi Salek?

  I love.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  There was an episode where, you know, the boyfriend wore that shirt, but it didn't have the band name on it. It just had the girl bigger. I felt so ripped out.

• 41:36Yasi Salek?

  That sucks. And you guys, you should have been on it. Kim and Thurston were on it.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  Of course, I was mad about that.

• 41:43Yasi Salek?

  I love that you guys are fellow Gilmore Girls heads. I feel really seen. It's one of my happiest places. Like if I'm feeling sad, I just put on any episode, like Gilmore Girls Roulette. And I'm like, this is where, this is the vibe. I live, not to docs exactly where I live, but I live close to the Warner Brothers studios where they filmed it. And so when I look out my window, I, I basically see the back of Stars Hollow, but it's not Stars Hollow. It's just the same hills because that's where it is and it makes me.

• 42:15Speaker 04

  That's pretty cool.

• 42:16Yasi Salek?

  Quite happy. Was there, there was never a dinosaur junior song on Gilmore Girls.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 42:21Yasi Salek?

  I don't think so. Damn, why wouldn't they have used the name? Maybe they thought that you guys would sue. Little did they know, you would have sent a fruit basket. You would have been like, this is the best day of my life.

• 42:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. I remember getting these Gilmore Girls sweatpants that they gave away to everyone on the last episode and they gave some to me.

• 42:41Yasi Salek?

  How did you get a pair? Just they knew you were a huge fan? So cool. Is there anything you're watching now that you're really into on TV?

• 42:51Speaker 04

  Oh, there's this show, Youth, which was weird.

• 42:55Yasi Salek?

  Oh my God, it's so good.

• 42:56Speaker 04

  Cause the kid is named Rory and he just dropped out of college.

• 43:02Yasi Salek?

  I know. I thought of that.

• 43:03Speaker 04

  And his girlfriend, ex-girlfriend was Mia, and that's the name of Rory's girlfriend.

• 43:08Yasi Salek?

  No way.

• 43:08Speaker 04

  So that was a bit psycho. I was like, what is this? Are they stalking my life or something?

• 43:14Yasi Salek?

  When you said that earlier, cause I, me and my producer Bree are watching the show right now and we were like, this is the best. And then you just said that and I was like, also named Rory, although his spelling is very strange. Cause I think it's an Irish spelling. It's like R U A R.

• 43:29Speaker 04

  Maybe that was just.

• 43:30Yasi Salek?

  They were just, they were trying to hide that they were copying Jay Mascis' life. It is about, um, a middle aged woman trying to date again. So that part's not quite your life.

• 43:41Speaker 04

  Or is it?

• 43:44Yasi Salek?

  Do you speak German?

• 43:45Speaker 04

  A tiny bit. I had some in college. Um, but I get embarrassed, uh,

• 43:56Speaker 04

  when they don't understand what you're saying.

• 43:58Yasi Salek?

  Is Berlin a place that you can kind of get around without having to speak the language?

• 44:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 04

  Easy.

• 44:03Yasi Salek?

  Easy. Okay, that's nice.

• 44:05Speaker 04

  And they're not, it's not like they're gonna let you try. They'll just start speaking English if you try to speak German.

• 44:10Yasi Salek?

  Like, let me stop you right there.

• 44:12Speaker 04

  They don't even, they just answer in English and.

• 44:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. It's kind of embarrassing that every other place can speak like two to three languages. And we're just out here being like, we got English.

• 44:25Speaker 04

  You don't even have a language. I mean.

• 44:27Yasi Salek?

  I know. It's pretty degraded at this point. Um, so you bike, but you, you don't lift weights yet?

• 44:36Speaker 04

  No, but you know, everyone's telling me to and I'm thinking about it.

• 44:40Yasi Salek?

  It's good for bone density.

• 44:42Speaker 04

  That's what I've heard. That's what we're thinking about these days.

• 44:46Yasi Salek?

  Everyone said, bone density, protein grams.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  I can do the protein, the bone, yeah. The, I suppose I'll have to get into it. What are you gonna do?

• 45:00Yasi Salek?

  It's just like, there's so many things that they say you should do. And then I like stay up at night. I'm like, I'm not doing all the right things. And then my dad is like, your stress is much worse for your health than any of these things that you think that you need to do.

• 45:16Speaker 04

  And what about the supplements you're supposed to take? I have a bag full of supplements.

• 45:21Yasi Salek?

  Do you take them?

• 45:23Speaker 04

  I try, but I don't even know, is this doing more harm than good?

• 45:27Yasi Salek?

  Is it, or is it doing anything at all? Is it just like placebo?

• 45:31Speaker 04

  Only one I've ever taken, I've noticed anything about.

• 45:36Yasi Salek?

  Do you have like pain from shredding, for lack of a better word? Like, is it hard on the joints?

• 45:46Yasi Salek?

  Or just maybe just standing a lot for?

• 45:49Speaker 04

  I mean, I had tennis elbow, yeah, from maybe guitar playing or possibly alien abduction. It's hard to say.

• 45:58Yasi Salek?

  Why would they give you tennis elbow?

• 46:00Speaker 04

  I don't know. Ask them, you know?

• 46:03Yasi Salek?

  They were like, we're gonna take, uh, one of Earth's leading indie rock guitar players. And we didn't do some experiments on his elbow and oops, sorry, we gave him tennis elbow. Our bad.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  Obviously they don't care that much.

• 46:18Yasi Salek?

  Maybe they're huge fans.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  I doubt that.

• 46:22Yasi Salek?

  What do you think? They like Coldplay?

• 46:25Speaker 04

  I really have no idea.

• 46:26Yasi Salek?

  You've never thought about what the aliens might like?

• 46:28Speaker 04

  Aliens can even hear.

• 46:31Yasi Salek?

  That's true. They might experience the world in a different way.

• 46:38Speaker 05

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• 47:08Speaker 06

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• 47:39Yasi Salek?

  We didn't get too much into streetwear, but I feel like you've talked about that a lot. You just like it. I used to work in streetwear.

• 47:46Speaker 04

  Oh yeah. What is streetwear? I mean, I don't even understand that term.

• 47:50Yasi Salek?

  If I'm thinking correctly, it's something that was kind of coined of like what the kids on the street were wearing. And then they kind of took that and commodified it.

• 48:02Speaker 04

  Sold it back to them.

• 48:03Yasi Salek?

  Sold it back to them. Yeah. So that's, but when I was first kind of in the work world, I worked in the streetwear in my early twenties and it was kind of the booming time of it.

• 48:16Speaker 04

  Like what company did you work?

• 48:18Yasi Salek?

  I worked with the hundreds. I did an advice column for them, but I was friends with Greg and the Mishka guys. And I worked for an online store called Digital Gravel that used to sell like all the, as a multi-brand store. I worked for Altamont, the skate company. Just, you know, all the, all the. This is, this is my friend's brand, Sci-Fi Fantasy, which I really like.

• 48:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I like.

• 48:44Yasi Salek?

  Did a collaboration with this artist named Sonia, who was by Comte's, has studs on the back.

• 48:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:51Yasi Salek?

  I was really excited to wear it today. It's pretty.

• 48:54Speaker 04

  That's cool.

• 48:55Yasi Salek?

  Um.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Why do you think studs only on the back and not on the front?

• 49:00Yasi Salek?

  It's a really good question. You would think actually the front would make more sense, cause probably when you lean, I haven't, I've only had this for like a day and a half, but I assume when you lean back on studs, it's quite painful. Or maybe it's more like an acupressure thing?

• 49:16Speaker 04

  If you hit the right spot.

• 49:17Yasi Salek?

  You hit the right spot. When, when I was still like a written journalist, now I'm illiterate and just talk. But I did a piece on a place called kink.com. It was, well, it was a website, but it was a porn website. But they, they had the armory in San Francisco was there, like they owned it. And that's like where they filmed all their content. So I had to go there to like do, you know, the interview. And they took us in the basement with all like the supplies. They had a real iron maiden, like an actual one. I'd never seen one. And then they were just had these like bins of rice. And I was like, I'm sorry, I don't want to sound like I don't know anything, but like, what's the rice for?

• 50:02Yasi Salek?

  And they were like, oh, the dominatrix is make people kneel in it, like on, on like a concrete floor. And then you think that's probably so painful. Like put your full body pressure on like little kernels of rice.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  They were good.

• 50:17Yasi Salek?

  I don't know how I got here. I'm sorry, Jay Mascis. We've now, we've, we've strayed so far from God's light talking about kneeling and rice.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  Oh, you never know.

• 50:28Yasi Salek?

  You never know where a conversation is gonna go. The aliens will like it though, cause I think they're surely listening. Cause I know you don't believe it, but I think they're huge dinosaur junior fans.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  I hope we find out someday.

• 50:39Yasi Salek?

  Okay, one last question, since we didn't talk much about the album, even though I love it, and if you guys don't believe me that I love it, we can talk more about it. But do you have a favorite song on there?

• 50:52Speaker 04

  Well, usually I put my favorite song first.

• 50:54Yasi Salek?

  My favorite song is the first one, too. Is that your favorite song? It's so good. That made me really happy. Several Got Away.

• 51:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. I just know the songs by the number of their appearances on the album. That's kind of driving the tour manager crazy. He's trying to write the song titles down. I was like, I don't know what that is.

• 51:16Yasi Salek?

  Do you not name them yourself?

• 51:18Speaker 04

  I do. It's the last thing, and I don't think about it much. And I relate to it more as the number in the album, the song is.

• 51:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's an interesting, that's an interesting way to organize information in your mind.

• 51:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, because I see all these titles. I'm like, what is that? But now, certain guitars I'm using for certain songs, so I'll, I still don't know the title, but I'll look at the guitar and I'll be like, oh, that's on.

• 51:47Yasi Salek?

  But Several Got Away is in the lyrics.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, that one's not as hard, I guess, because it's number one also.

• 51:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  They're all in the lyrics. That's where I get the titles from the lyrics.

• 51:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, we had a, I can't remember what, I think it was about Billy Corgan. But there's like certain artists that like go out, kind of go out of their way to title songs with words that have nothing, that have no relationship to any of the lyrics.

• 52:16Speaker 04

  Oh, I always take them lyrics. Yeah, that song title's always a lyric.

• 52:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think it makes sense. Makes it easy to.

• 52:24Speaker 04

  It's just easier just to pick something in there and get on with it.

• 52:30Yasi Salek?

  It's part of your, your life philosophy.

• 52:32Speaker 04

  Except, yeah, like Start Chopin wasn't.

• 52:36Yasi Salek?

  Where did that come from?

• 52:38Speaker 04

  Because this was in the days of tape and then

• 52:44Speaker 04

  they had a lot of edits, like, you know, the chorus is from one take and then the outro is another take. So we kept,

• 52:57Speaker 04

  you know, it was big tape and he kept like slicing it up with a razor blade and you're just finally, yeah, you're like, and you change your mind again, and you got to start chopping again and put in a different part there.

• 53:11Yasi Salek?

  One of the greatest songs of my lifetime, to be honest, Start Chopin. Just, my favorite, though, is I'll Be Grazing By Your Window, Please Come Pat Me On The Head. Just want to find out what you're nice to me for.

• 53:28Speaker 04

  That sounds familiar.

• 53:29Yasi Salek?

  You know that one? Why is it so, I, I'm not, I'm really.

• 53:34Speaker 04

  Just maybe because I sang it last night, otherwise I might not remember.

• 53:38Yasi Salek?

  You would be like, boy. I love memes and I don't, maybe it was when we did the dinosaur junior episode. I found just this picture of a cow at someone's window, like literally just staring into someone's window. And I was like, I already know. And I just put I'll be grazing by your window. And I don't know if anyone else laughed, but I laughed and laughed.

• 54:01Speaker 04

  What does this mean?

• 54:03Yasi Salek?

  Probably a lot of people were like, I'll be grazing. Why is there a cow at the window? But I know my heads, my dinosaur junior heads.

• 54:11Speaker 04

  But why would, it could be anything grazing. Why would you think it's a cow? From later, the picture of the cow from the T-shirt.

• 54:19Yasi Salek?

  Oh, I see what you're asking. Um, that's a great question. I guess it could have been, I mean, it could be anything, but maybe like the logical conclusion would be some sort of farm animal.

• 54:31Speaker 04

  Could be some S and M thing.

• 54:34Yasi Salek?

  BackToTheKink.com. I just, I assumed cow, deer, perhaps a goat.

• 54:40Speaker 04

  Deer, I never would have thought of a deer.

• 54:42Yasi Salek?

  Rabbit.

• 54:44Speaker 04

  Well, rabbit, a lot of people thought also on that album, they thought it was Rabbit Runs Away.

• 54:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  Rabbit.

• 54:55Speaker 04

  That's not the lyric.

• 54:56Yasi Salek?

  People like to imagine animals. They're like anthro.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:00Yasi Salek?

  So it wasn't a cow? Well, you can tell us you wrote it. Who was, what was it?

• 55:06Speaker 04

  I guess.

• 55:07Yasi Salek?

  You're like, it was me, Jay Mascis.

• 55:09Speaker 04

  I think it was me.

• 55:12Speaker 04

  I could have been a cow, but you know, I'm just looking through my eyes. I don't know what I am.

• 55:17Yasi Salek?

  Okay, you were like, it's like a vision quest almost. You were in, you were in the body of some sort, something, but you didn't know what it was.

• 55:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, like I did a pass life regression once and you're supposed to look at your feet first.

• 55:28Yasi Salek?

  To see what you are.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  And I had hooves.

• 55:31Yasi Salek?

  Oh, okay. So I was on the right track.

• 55:35Speaker 04

  I don't know, I'm just making this up after the fact. I mean, I don't, I don't really.

• 55:39Yasi Salek?

  I've told this to many people on the podcast, but I'll have to tell you, because my ex-boyfriend is a musician, many such cases. And I would, I can't play music, right? Like those who can't do podcasts about it, like I think I took guitar lessons when I was 12 and I sucked so bad at it and I never went back. I was too embarrassed. And so I don't, I just love it. But to me, it's like, it's like witchcraft. It's spell work, you know?

• 56:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 56:05Yasi Salek?

  But he would write music at home, right? And then I would see him being like, he would play me demos. He'd be like, yeah, I just gotta like, I just gotta find some word that works here and just put it, whatever, like this word. And I was like,

• 56:17Yasi Salek?

  what? That's how you do it? It's not some like thought through, like beautiful poetry? You're just shoving in words wherever it works? I wanted to die.

• 56:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, he shouldn't have told you that.

• 56:29Yasi Salek?

  I know, he wiped, it's like, it's like telling a kid Santa Claus isn't real. I was like, you've ruined life for me here.

• 56:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. Sorry about that.

• 56:39Yasi Salek?

  I'll Be Grazing By Your Window. You know what? You can never take it away from me. That is a special lyric and even if.

• 56:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I haven't thought about it until you said it. I'm thinking about it. I have no idea.

• 56:52Yasi Salek?

  Maybe that's why it's always stuck with me because it's so unusual and like, it really like, I picture the cow at the window.

• 56:59Speaker 04

  Or maybe it's a dog grazing and you're like, don't eat grass, you're gonna throw up.

• 57:03Yasi Salek?

  It could be because pat me on the head, you know? Animals get patted on the head.

• 57:08Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 57:09Yasi Salek?

  Okay, we don't have to, we don't have to, uh, forensically investigate this lyric anymore. I'm just happy we got to talk about it at all.

• 57:15Speaker 04

  It's been so long that I just, it's interesting to think about because I have no idea what it was about or.

• 57:21Yasi Salek?

  Do you have any like, I know, I'm sorry, I've said this is the last question like eight times, like a full liar.

• 57:28Speaker 04

  Howard Stern does the same thing.

• 57:30Yasi Salek?

  Hell, yeah. See, I'm in the lineage of the greats. Do you, when you, I think of this about all artists who have had a long and enduring career.

• 57:41Yasi Salek?

  When you play songs that you wrote like 30 years ago, do you, like, is that, does that experience bring up anything? Do you feel, are you like transported to that moment or is it just kind of, no, I don't want to say wrote because that's, that's a negative word, but is it just kind of like, no, it's just like, this is part of the set and we play it and it's, I'm here now playing it?

• 58:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't even know if there's that much thought.

• 58:08Yasi Salek?

  It's, you're like, I'm just like someone who pours concrete. Instead, instead of pouring concrete, I play the song that changed your life when you were 12.

• 58:17Speaker 04

  I mean, sometimes I would get, get choked up on songs, but that would always be a new song, you know? By the time you do it a lot, if, yeah, the choking up of it kind of dissipates.

• 58:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I can't hit you. I mean, there's, I guess I can't for 30 years choke you up. That would be, you wouldn't survive.

• 58:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mind, but it just doesn't happen.

• 58:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's dulled by repetition. Yeah. Do you have songs that you have like

• 58:50Yasi Salek?

  a, not your own songs, but other people's songs that you like, no matter what, if you hear it now, it transports you to like a certain time or place in your life?

• 59:01Speaker 04

  I'm sure. It sounds like something that would happen.

• 59:06Yasi Salek?

  Like, I can't give you any specifics, but I promise you it does happen.

• 59:09Speaker 04

  It's usually a live, like if you see some song, you know, you never maybe thought you'd see somebody play. That you was, you know, yeah, like if,

• 59:21Speaker 04

  I remember a few times, like Negative Approach one, they,

• 59:27Speaker 04

  when they got back together.

• 59:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 59:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'd heard, you know, one song, I felt a tear. Or this other band, Magazine, I saw.

• 59:35Yasi Salek?

  Sure, great band.

• 59:37Speaker 04

  I'd never seen. And then a certain song, yeah.

• 59:40Yasi Salek?

  That's so cool. I felt that way when I first saw Pavement because it was after, I thought I'd never, I saw them in like maybe 95 on the Lollapalooza and then they never played, you know, for whatever. And then I was like, ah, and then every time I see The Cure. It just, I just went in Edinburgh and I was like, this is insane. Just like 28 songs and all 28. There was not one song that I was like, eh.

• 1:00:09Speaker 04

  I watched a YouTube video on how to say that city.

• 1:00:13Yasi Salek?

  Edinburgh?

• 1:00:14Speaker 04

  No, that's wrong.

• 1:00:15Yasi Salek?

  Am I wrong? What do you say? Edinburgh?

• 1:00:18Speaker 04

  Well, according to the video, the girl said it's three syllables. Edinburgh.

• 1:00:24Yasi Salek?

  Edinburgh.

• 1:00:25Speaker 04

  Bruh, yeah.

• 1:00:27Yasi Salek?

  Bruh.

• 1:00:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I guess I made it.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  That's what I learned from YouTube.

• 1:00:31Yasi Salek?

  Edinburgh. Apologies to my Scottish listeners.

• 1:00:34Speaker 04

  Think three syllables, not four.

• 1:00:37Yasi Salek?

  Edin-brah.

• 1:00:40Yasi Salek?

  We learned something from Jay Mascis today.

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  That I learned from YouTube.

• 1:00:43Yasi Salek?

  That you learned from YouTube, from your algorithm bringing you. Yeah, it was fab. The Cure in Scotland, many, many goths of all ages.

• 1:00:56Yasi Salek?

  We, um,

• 1:00:59Yasi Salek?

  We saw a man walking through the crowd and he was, looked so normal, Jay. Like he was just like, from the back, he was wearing like, like a polar fleece and like jeans and just like normal Nikes or something. And he turned around and he just had red lipstick. It was so cool and made me so happy.

• 1:01:18Yasi Salek?

  That's a, you know.

• 1:01:20Speaker 04

  Me and my wife saw The Cure and she was very happy because we were after, after party and this woman comes up to me with a Cure t-shirt and she's like, hey Jay, remember me? I'm Robert's sister. And that's exactly what my sisters would do. Walk around backstage with Dino shirts. So she, Louise was like, it's the same everywhere. The families.

• 1:01:47Yasi Salek?

  They're so proud to be your sister. I think that's so cool.

• 1:01:52Speaker 04

  It was heartwarming, yeah.

• 1:01:54Yasi Salek?

  Did Robert ever give you feedback on your cover of Just Like Heaven?

• 1:01:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, he likes it.

• 1:02:00Yasi Salek?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 04

  And he said, uh, that he had to stop. Like, I don't know, they would try to play it that way and thus he had to stop playing. It was kind of distorting his view of the song for a while, I guess. So I don't think he listens to it anymore so he can remember how to play his version.

• 1:02:19Yasi Salek?

  It is one of the greatest covers of all time because it's like such a, I always feel like covers are supposed to like transform a song, you know, a little bit. It doesn't, it's not like a one to one.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it was more like, uh,

• 1:02:35Speaker 04

  someone was saying to me back then, it was more like the sixties when bands would cover current songs rather than cover some old song.

• 1:02:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I used to have a seven inch of it.

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  Not the three inch CD?

• 1:02:49Yasi Salek?

  No, I guess, it must've been a later thing, like, um, there was like a box set of Dinosaur Jr. seven inches. And I like truly like begged my way into getting one. Cause when I used to DJ, I liked to DJ with seven inches because it's easier, you know?

• 1:03:06Speaker 04

  Me and my wife have been DJing recently with seven inches only, yeah.

• 1:03:10Yasi Salek?

  It's so great, right? A, it's lighter.

• 1:03:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, one box, you don't have to think too much. This is all you got.

• 1:03:16Yasi Salek?

  And like, it's, it's good to have limitations because then you don't like rack your brain. You're like, I have these.

• 1:03:22Speaker 04

  I curate them all beforehand, see what fits in the box and that's it.

• 1:03:26Yasi Salek?

  What, in Berlin, not in Amherst? Or also in Amherst? You're DJing?

• 1:03:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, both.

• 1:03:31Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 1:03:32Speaker 04

  We've done Berlin and Amherst.

• 1:03:38Yasi Salek?

  Like late night sets?

• 1:03:40Speaker 04

  Well, it's dark out.

• 1:03:43Yasi Salek?

  I would love to DJ again, but I'm tired. I need the set to be at like seven to nine. Do you think people come for that kind of thing?

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  How famous are you?

• 1:03:53Yasi Salek?

  No, not really.

• 1:03:54Speaker 04

  I'm not sure.

• 1:03:58Yasi Salek?

  I don't even need people to come. I would help, I would just do it by myself. I just like to hear the music, but I just, the night, like 11:00 PM? That's crazy. I guess you're, it's different because you're still a touring musician. So you're kind of used to like a different.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  I'm not used to it. It's just what's happening, yeah.

• 1:04:14Yasi Salek?

  At home, do you sleep earlier?

• 1:04:17Speaker 04

  I sleep, try to go to bed earlier. I don't wake up earlier because I find my best sleep is from like 8:00 AM to 10:30. Just for maybe being on a bus and it stops then, so then you can sleep. So I'll be awake from three to 5:30 and then

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  sleep from 5:30 to seven and then, but 8:30 to like 10:30 seems to be my best sleeping time.

• 1:04:46Yasi Salek?

  That's the sweet spot. I, I read a theory that they said that actually humans did use to sleep in two shifts.

• 1:04:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, they go stoke the fire.

• 1:04:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, or like, yeah, had to do something in the middle of the night and for like a couple of hours and then went back to sleep. But now it's changed and that's maybe part of the reason that sleep habits are bad or something.

• 1:05:08Speaker 04

  And I'll be, we're doomed, I guess is the main problem.

• 1:05:12Yasi Salek?

  I think people have been saying we're doomed since like the bubonic plague or whatever. So I try not to take too much. I mean, like, you know, it's like that meme of the guy looking out the bus window and the other guy looking out the bus window and one's sad and one's happy. And it's like, it's all the same. Just pick the one that you want to be, you know? I just want to be the happy one looking out the bus window. It's not going to change anything.

• 1:05:34Speaker 04

  I would like to be the happy one, but.

• 1:05:36Yasi Salek?

  You seem, listen, I'm sorry, but I feel like you've tricked people because you're a fun talker. We had a great time. You laughed a bunch. We made jokes. This was lovely.

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  I try.

• 1:05:52Yasi Salek?

  I, I just, I think the, the jig is up, Jay Mascis. You're actually like a super fun and good time talker. So I don't know what these people are talking about.

• 1:06:03Speaker 04

  All right, well, tell everyone else.

• 1:06:05Yasi Salek?

  I just did. Um, well, Jay, thank you so much for coming on. Um, sorry, this was a little all over the place. It just, I don't like to like.

• 1:06:12Speaker 04

  I had no agenda, so it was good for me.

• 1:06:14Yasi Salek?

  Me neither. And I didn't want to ask you a bunch of questions you've already been asked, so I tried to kind of spread it out. Um, you guys, please go listen to the new Dinosaur Jr. album. It is the best. And then listen to all the other Dinosaur Jr. albums, because guess what? They're also the best. Um, and come back next week for a new episode of Bandplain.

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think some, I saw some video and some guy was using this mic for something and I wanted to try it for recording and I'm like, oh yeah, I have that. And I opened it up and I'm just like, what the fuck?