Every band has the story of how they came to be, and Beach Weather is no different. Band members Nick Santino and Reeve Powers sit down with Brad, Barry, and Lord Taco to chat about how the band had been broken up when their 2016 song Sex, Drugs, Etc. suddenly began attracting new attention.
Now back together, the band has taken advantage of the unexpected hit. They're touring the country and stopping at big-name festivals like Shaky Knees. The band gives The What Podcast the whole story.
Listen as Nick and Reeve of Beach Weather dive into Sex, Drugs, Etc. and more. You can also watch the full discussion via YouTube. Also, remember to like, review, and subscribe to The What wherever you get your podcasts.
Topics: Shaky Knees, Beach Weather
Guests: Nick Santino, Reeve Powers
| 03:31 | Be honest, who had Wayne Newton on their festival bucket list and who isn't stoked to see him at Bourbon & Beyond in Kentucky this summer? |
| 33:39 | Are you watching "Daisy Jones & The Six?" Nick from Beach Weather is and he tells Brad and Barry why. |
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Let's span the festival globe, why don't we?
The What Podcast, Barry Courter, Brad Steiner, Lord Taco, diving in to shaky knees.
Our guest this week, Beach Weather, once a struggling band, now one of the biggest songs
on the planet.
How they got here, where they go next, we discuss that and more.
As we traverse the festival lineup on the What Podcast, it starts right now.
It's the What Podcasts, Barry Courter.
Lord Taco, Brad, thanks for jumping in.
We are traversing the festival landscape.
Last couple of weeks we talked about Merle Fest, we'll pop into some other music festivals
as we go along while Bonnaroo is sort of in there selling out days.
Is Bonnaroo close to being sold out?
Did I see that this week?
Yes, no one will comment officially, but yeah, they're going to sell out.
Okay, good.
That's big news.
Do we have like a timetable on that by the way?
No.
No.
How close do you think they are?
In your informed opinion, how close do you think they are?
We are what, around 90 days depending on when you're hearing this, 90, 95 days, I would
say we're in the next.
Yeah, we're just under 100.
I'm betting within the next month, month and a half anyway, which is, I don't think they'll
get to like week of, which they have done in the past when they've sold out.
I think it will.
Festivals seem to be doing well.
Last year was such a weird year, now it seems like they're back.
Yeah, I mean, we're going to try and take some time away from the Bonnaroo landscape
and talk about some other spots.
We did Merle Fest last week.
I wanted to start this week though.
Oh, by the way, this week we got Beach Weather on.
I love these guys so much.
I had the, one of the very first interviews that I had when I got to New York was with
Beach Weather and they came in, I mean, dressed like highlighters.
I mean, you couldn't miss them for the world because they were just like, they just don't
care.
They are in it for them.
Like they just want fun.
They just want to have a blast because they've been through the wringer.
And at this point in their career, they're like everything past this is, is gravy.
Yeah.
What a great attitude.
That's funny.
Highlighter.
I like that.
Like big glow sticks or something.
They look great.
They look great.
I could never pull that outfit off.
But the one festival I wanted to talk about before we talked to Beach Weather and hear
about their rebirth, if you will, did you guys see this Bourbon and Beyond lineup?
The Louisville Festival?
Yes.
You did.
Taco.
Did you see it?
I saw it.
I don't remember what was on it.
Okay.
I do know that I saw it.
Okay.
Now I'm going to-
I know where you're going.
Yeah.
And I thought the other one you sent me that was it in New Orleans?
That was an amazing lineup.
I don't think I sent you anything from New Orleans.
Let me- I just-
Go ahead.
I don't remember the Bourbon and Beyond Festival.
I just don't recall this being a thing.
I'm sure it has been in the past.
It doesn't bank in my memory.
Right?
Isn't that the one that's out near the airport that kind of came up a year or two ago?
Yeah.
Maybe.
The exposition center, which is massive.
Okay.
So it was- yeah, it had a rough start, but this lineup, go ahead.
And I think I know where you're going.
I want to go through one of, maybe one of the most batshit crazy lineups I have ever
seen, especially in the five, six years we've been doing this podcast.
I don't know if I've ever seen a lineup that goes from Brandi Carlile and Train to Bruno
Mars and Babyface to the Black Keys and First Aid Kit to Brittany Howard and Wayne Newton.
Yep.
Yep.
Talk about babyface.
What the shit is that?
That's the Beyond section, right?
It's so crazy.
I think I'm in love with it.
I think I'm absolutely head over heels in love with this Whackadoo thing.
I mean, the only thing that's missing is like puddle of mud, you know, of all of the concoctions
that they could have put together.
Guys, who saw, who had on their bingo card, Wayne Newton in 2023?
Yeah, with my old man, Mavis, they, Palo Nutini.
Haven't heard that name in a good minute.
I just, I'm stunned.
I'm stunned.
And I, and I, and I had done nothing but talk about this for weeks.
Now I know nothing about the festival.
I know nothing about the experience, but who is booking this?
I don't know, but I like them.
Who in the world?
This is, this is like how me and you guys would get high one night and just say, yeah,
tell me who's singing this song.
Is Don Ho available?
Can we do Tiny Bubbles?
Yeah, Dan Kamint, Dan Taminski is on there.
You know, the old brother guy, Constant Sorrow.
I mean, it's everybody.
It literally is.
I think you're, I think you nailed it.
It's like, let's get high and see who can outdo who with the playlist.
Yeah.
I mean, as soon as I think I have an angle for this festival, Elaine for it, as we talk
about all the time with Brandi Carlile and Brittany Howard and, you know, City in Color,
Old Crow, First Aid Kit.
As soon as I see that, and then all of a sudden I see Babyface, Blondie and Bruno Mars?
I'm loving the Wayne Newton.
Cause that's who I'm going.
I'm going to see Wayne Newton cause I'm not going to Vegas to see him.
I don't care what anyone says.
I don't care what you think about me.
I am seeing, if I have the chance to see Wayne fucking Newton, I'm seeing Wayne Newton.
That is nuts.
Absolutely nuts.
That's so funny.
Anyway, I was, I was, I was floored when I saw that and I, I was hoping that you had
the same feeling as I did because I mean, yeah, I mean, now, now I got Donka Shane in
my head for the rest of the day.
I'm trying to think of another, like that out there kind of booking.
Now, corn for Bonnaroo is, is a way out there sort of thing, but they're known for having
at least something like that every year.
They're Lionel Richie, Kenny Rogers.
They have something a little out in left field like this, but I have, I just, but not really.
I mean, that was such a great, yeah, but she was really in the pocket at the time.
She had a new album.
She was getting that Jack White heat.
I just can't think of a more completely out of nowhere booking like Wayne Newton.
How'd you like to have been in that board meeting?
Guys, guys, who you got?
I got it.
I got it.
I'm bringing Wayne Newton.
They might have asked, they might as well just ask taco to show up.
I love it.
I want, I swear to God, I want to do anything to meet the person who, who first threw out
the name Wayne Newton.
I love it.
Yeah.
I, I'm a big fan.
Is there anything else that happened this week that, that I might be missing?
Okeechobee was over the weekend.
Anything from that?
Just, they had a death, right?
That didn't, it went badly.
I mean, obviously any death is badly, but there was a lot of what, controversy.
Is that right?
It kind of went on, on dealt with if that's the right word for some are saying maybe too
long.
I don't know.
I think they finally came out and made a statement.
Yeah, I just, that's terrible.
Anytime somebody dies.
Yeah.
I, I'm not, I've been to Okeechobee once.
I, I have mixed feelings about it because it's just so far out there and I got a speeding
ticket so I'll never really like that county and the cop is such a jerk.
I don't know.
I just got a weird feeling about that.
That whole space, you know, it just makes me feel a little icky.
I don't know.
And then what was the other festival that came out?
Oh, pilgrimage.
Now.
Okay.
So I think that was the, the, the juxtaposition in which I saw this bourbon and beyond festival
lineup.
You have pilgrimage come out in the morning, which it's such a clear Americana sort of
festival with Lumineers, black crows, Zach Brian, then a rate lift, Margo price.
And then when I see bourbon and beyond, I totally anticipate it being something similar.
So I almost just sort of zombie my way through that lineup.
And then, you know, I see Brandy and then I see them.
Wayne Newton pops and my head just sort of spins and I immediately think to myself, is
this like some sort of like indie rock band who's just using the name Wayne Newton or
is this really Wayne Newton?
And then I started looking at the rest of the lineup and I, when I'm sitting here thinking
I'm going to get an Americana festival and all of a sudden I'm seeing Bruno Mars and
babyface everything starts spinning around.
But any thoughts on the pilgrimage stuff?
It's going to be right up north of you, Barry, right?
Outside Nashville.
Have you ever been, you haven't been to this, have you?
No, I haven't been to this one.
I mean, it, it, I like, I like, Wayne Newton's got me so much I can't even think about this
one.
It's a good lineup.
I would go if it were here.
I'm not sure I would, you know, travel to go.
You know, it's on Justin Timberlake's farm, you know, he owns that property.
So it's up there in the Franklin area.
So when I think of, when I think of pilgrimage, I say to myself, yeah, but I'll just go to
Moon River.
Yeah.
Right down the road in Chattanooga because more, more bands, but similar.
I would a hundred percent agree.
I mean, in fact, Nathaniel Reitlef is coming to Chattanooga this summer.
So is he really?
Oh, good for you.
Oh yeah.
I just go to Riverbend, the Riverbend lineup is even better.
Very similar.
It's kind of a mix of the two.
It's a little bit of a treaty, of course, who we love, love, love.
But yeah, very similar.
And then the other one that popped out was Outside Lands, which my God, I mean, it's
always, it's always so big.
I've never actually been to Outside Lands because I don't know, those West Coast festivals
just become so difficult and costly.
But Janelle Monae, Maggie Rogers, Odessa, Foo Fighters, Kenjick Lamar, Noah Khan's Cigarettes
After Sex.
I mean, it feels like a lighter Outside Lands festival than years past.
But you know, people really enjoy that.
And I've heard people at least close to me say they like it more than Coachella, which
is kind of crazy.
I mean, I don't know.
I don't really have any experience.
Anytime you can see Janelle Monae, do it.
No kidding.
Do it, do it.
I told the story about, I told the story about meeting Janelle Monae a couple of days ago
and I've got this ridiculous picture and I swear to God, because I was so in love with
her and I felt I felt so overwhelmed by her beauty.
I sort of lost track of what I was saying to her.
And I was I just found myself.
You know how stupid I get with my great work nonsense.
But I remember looking at Janelle Monae and I was so struck by how gorgeous she was that
all I could bring myself to say was, well, I think you're gonna I think you're gonna
do pretty well in this music stuff.
And the label guy at that exact moment took a picture of me and her when I said that to
her.
And I will never, ever forget the way she looked at me.
It was just like, what the fuck is this guy saying to me?
I felt so embarrassed.
Good luck in your career.
Yeah.
Good luck in your music career.
What are you doing?
All right.
Enough of that.
Let's get to Beach Weather.
As we traverse around some other music festival, Shaky Knees with Beach Weather on the What
Podcast.
Here we go.
Well hi, guys.
What's happening?
Good morning.
How's everybody doing?
Is everybody surviving?
What part of the world are you guys in?
I'm in Boston.
Reeves and Nashville.
Yeah.
Okay.
So in Boston, have you done what is that festival that we love in Boston, Barry?
Is it Levitate?
No, it's Boston Calling.
Oh, Boston Calling.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you like that?
I've gone to it one time and it was fun.
I just went to it as like a fan of a couple of bands playing.
We actually got an offer to do it this year, but we're going to be the day before we're
going to be all the way in San Francisco doing Bottle Rock.
So we couldn't logistically make it make sense.
And then the day after we're going to be in Jersey.
So we would have had to have like a sandwich.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Doing a red eye flight from San Francisco to Boston and play Boston Calling and then
just booting down to Jersey on the same weekend.
But it feels like you guys have at this point, I mean, it's like the hardest working band
on the planet right now.
Right?
Let's just hit the gas as hard as possible right now.
Yeah, it's what it feels like a lot of the time these days.
Yeah.
And how's it been going though?
I mean, the last time I saw you was here in the city and it kind of like, I don't know,
it felt like you guys had just found your footing and you're like, okay, is this how
the world's going to be for a while?
Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
I mean, it seems like everything we've done so far, like we've gotten together every,
you know, once for like a week every last couple of months and every time we've done
that it seems like it's for some beneficial purpose, you know, like playing Jimmy Kimmel
and stuff like that.
So it's pretty wild.
Oh, you don't say.
Yeah, like pretty small town stuff, you know.
So it's kind of crazy, yeah, from going from that New York trip where we were just little,
you know, not really sure what was on the horizon for us and then to go into this year
just full blast.
It's pretty crazy.
Are you like in your studio right now?
Is that what you're doing?
Is that your own person?
I'm like a little like home studio, like he's in his little home studio.
You have one too, Ruth?
Ruth, is that?
Yeah.
It's just one big studio apartment.
So I basically sleep in my studio.
I am so impressed by you guys.
I'm so happy for you.
This has been a pretty odd journey for this band, huh?
Yeah, quite.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's where I wanted to go.
For sure.
Reading about you guys and everything, you probably can answer the question as well as
anyone.
Tell us how you got to this point because I mean, it goes this way and that way and
then it goes backwards and it stops.
Yeah.
Well, we started the band in 2015 and we toured it for a couple of years.
And then we kind of hit the point where we like sort of started losing focus on what
it was going to be.
So we took a little break and I think that was our time that we all focused on our like
individual personal lives.
Just like, okay, is music going to be the thing?
If not, like what else is out there?
And for me personally, I was doing it for a long time.
So I kind of been, I was ignoring that little, that person that was like, hey, let's go home
for a little bit.
I want to be home and not in a van, a stinky van with a bunch of dudes.
So we took that couple year break.
I went off, I got married, I had a couple of kids.
And then just for the love of music, we all started kind of talking again.
And actually we never really stopped talking, but more so talking about beach weather and
the future and what the plans were.
And then, yeah, Reeve, if you want to take over, because that was when you kind of started
tapping in.
Yeah.
I mean, I, the first tours I'd ever been on was with beach weather and it, you know, those
first tours were pretty lucky for me.
Cause a lot of people have to do like, you know, little bars and stuff like that.
And with this band, it was like house of blues.
And then we, our second tour was like in Europe.
And I was just like, you know, I never had to like rough it out really.
So when we were on a little break, you know, I was in other bands and stuff and kind of
did the, you know, I had to kind of be the leader and stuff.
But made me really appreciate what these guys were doing, you know, cause he taught me how
to tour, which was kind of cool to see me like do it with other people.
I kind of got a grasp on how to do it.
And coming back into it, I feel just a little bit more professional, you know, I don't really
feel like the younger kid all the time.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
I mean, you know, just like never done it.
I mean, there's, there's like different levels.
There's like doing our own merch and you know, setting up, you know, places to stay.
The level we were doing at, yeah, it was like four of us in our van, renting a van, getting
a hotel every night, like setting up our merch, selling our own merch, playing the shows,
you know, being the tour manager, the booking agent, the, you know, travel agent, doing
all of that stuff.
And he was like the rodeo king of the whole thing.
Sorry.
That's why I'm kind of dialing down a little bit.
It's like, I think a lot of people think of this romantic thing, right?
Where like on TV, you just show up at the next gig and you play and there's fans screaming
and everything.
They don't consider the eight hour, what is it?
11 hours or 23 hours in a van.
Yeah.
I mean, sometimes longer.
Yeah.
And a lot of it is like, you know, the routing on some of those tours are routed for buses
that have a driver that drive 10 hours overnight while the band gets their beauty rest.
And we've never had that luxury.
We've always like play San Francisco and then we got to hoof it down to Los Angeles in the
same night and be there in the morning.
And you know what I mean?
And then from LA have to drive out to Phoenix that night after the show and be there.
So not complaining.
We've just did it for a long time.
And I think what he was saying is that when this band started, he was still so new to
that world.
He was lucky because we had some friends that brought us out on some, our first tours that
we were opening and doing House of Blues is still grinding it out in the van, but lucky
enough to be playing in front of some crowds and not having to play in front of, you know,
the national bar crowds.
I, I am drawn to you guys so much because I feel as though your band is like a real
life experience.
I always, I always find myself gravitating towards artists who find success later in
their life, at least later in their professional life.
It's sort of like I wasn't ready for this relationship as a 20 year old, but talk to
me, talk to me again when I'm 35 and I've, I'm going to be ready for you, girl.
I think we got this in 15 years.
And when you get later on in your life, it's things seem to slow down even professionally
for you, doesn't it?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I've said it multiple times.
If what we have with the success of sex drugs, et cetera, happened when we were younger,
like, you know, in our early twenties or whatever, when like we thought touring was all these
other reasons and it really wasn't, you know, I think we would have messed the whole thing
up.
I think we would have been having a little bit more, you know, we got our asses kicked
by life for a couple of years.
And I think we had to be like humbled.
And like I said, I have two kids now.
So it's like, if there's anything that forces you to reprioritize your life, it's having
a couple of kids and then, you know, showing you like what the important things are and
what really aren't important.
And I think that's our attitude these days is like, we only do things for this band now.
If we all three of us want to do it, if one person is just like, I don't know, we're like,
cool, then we don't have to do it.
Or before it always felt like we had to do everything.
And if we didn't, we were going to get passed by the next band trying to do it.
You know, and that was always the mentality.
I guess the pre-COVID lockdown mentality of bands were like tour to survive.
And if you don't tour, then another band is going to get that tour, at least in the alternative
feel like pop rock world that we came from.
You just, you just said something that I forget about all the time.
The competition between bands.
Like I know that, well, you know, because sometimes, sometimes you think that's the
thing to yourself.
It's like, oh, it's just, it's artistic and you know, audience will find you, but there
really is a cap to consumption where like, I only have so much time in the day to give,
give you how competitive is it really?
I mean, I feel like I know, but do I really know?
Yeah.
I mean, for me personally, and for us, I feel like I come from the old school way of like,
like I said, like touring and like that kind of thing, where I feel like nowadays it's
like you get discovered online and on Tik TOK and you don't really have to do that.
Even with our experience these days, it's like we're doing festivals and little one-offs
and like, there's really not a whole lot of emphasis on long-term touring, which we will
probably do at some point.
But you know, compared to me in 2009 with my old band, where I was home for three weeks
total for the whole year, you know what I mean?
Like, because that was like, if we don't go out on this tour for two months, then this
band's going to get it and we're not going to, we're just going to be sitting home all
summer.
And by August, we're going to be knocked down a couple of notches in terms of like how you're
perceived in the scene.
You know what I mean?
It's a, it's a fierce world.
Can I stop you there for a second?
Can I stop you for a second?
Okay.
Let's say you do take that job that takes you through every festival.
And what's the ROI on it?
Is it enough that it did matter for you to take it and not stay at home and have that
band take over that spot that you would have just used All Time Low, for example?
Yeah, right.
Is the, is the return on investment enough?
It's, I guess it depends really.
I mean, I've done tours in the past where we think it's going to be the best tour ever
because the, I'm not going to name any names, but the band that is bringing us out, you're
like, oh, they're, they want us to come out and you go out and you learn very well why
they picked your bands because they're probably not at the level that they were at.
And they're now they're just scraping the bottom and they're like, let's bring this
band that brings 20 tickets in, you know?
So we've done those tours where you think it's going to be an amazing little thing and
it ends up being like a soul crusher.
So it's like, yeah, you think it's going to be the first time we went to the UK, like
Reeve said, we were actually booked on a tour where I was supposed to be.
So I was booked solo acoustic guy for like a previous project.
And then when the band heard that we were making beach weather records and I showed
them a couple of songs, they were like, do you guys want to bring beach weather out instead?
The pay isn't any different, but we would love to have beach weather instead of no offense
to you.
But instead of your solo stuff, we'd love to have the whole band.
And so we just went, hell yeah, we'll make it work.
And I think we were thousands of dollars in debt.
We had to like ship merch boxes back from the US that cost us like 500 bucks a burke.
Like we did.
We're in Amsterdam.
But that tour, yeah.
But that tour and the other like was kind of the opposite.
Like we went into it thinking like, shit, we're going to lose money.
And we did, but we left it with fans.
And the next time we went back to the UK, we noticed it, you know?
So it's like, it kind of depends on the tour.
Sometimes they suck and sometimes they suck for good reasons.
And sometimes they suck for bad reasons.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So two things I want to, I want to ask Reeve.
We cut you off and really didn't let you finish the progression if there is one as it relate
to this conversation.
But Nick, it reminds me of one, our interview with Paul Janoway where he St. Paul and the
broken bones, they were on the Rolling Stones tour.
I love them.
As he tells us, he was like, it was made very, very clear.
Nobody is here to see you.
Absolutely.
Oh yeah.
Nobody.
That's how I feel about this podcast every week.
I think it's written on my computer screen.
But anyway, Reeve, yeah.
Did you guys along those lines?
What did you learn from doing it that way?
I mean, it's kind of like, sounds like, you know, you landed pretty good.
I mean, you didn't hit the huge time, but you didn't have to do the, you know, six guys
in a Lincoln going to the same sweaty club.
Yeah.
I mean,
On those first tours we did at Beach Weather, it was just, you know, I, I, it still felt
strenuous some days, but I know it wasn't quite as bad as other people have, you know,
kind of gotten into it.
And when I did the other stuff while we were kind of on a break, just like fun bands, nothing
crazy like Roadhouse Rock stuff with like me and my friends.
Like it was just super fun.
But you know, it was like, like, oh, you do have to have a credit card to like rent a
mini van.
So I'm like inviting another friend on tour to like come do that for me.
And then I'm the one wrangling everyone in because everyone else has never.
I have my own credit card guy.
Hang on.
I got to bring my credit card guy with me.
Everybody else who like was coming out with me had never done this before.
And I have like gone around the world with Beach Weather.
So I found myself being the one like, get in the van.
Like we got to go.
Yeah, but what's what's funny about your whole story is that like your position when you
were doing these tours in the Gap when we were off was exactly what I was doing when
we were in Beach Weather a couple of years before.
I was the old grumpy man like, no more drinking.
We got to drive for it.
I was getting the van.
And then they'd be all pissed because they're like, Dad, we just want to hang out with our
friends.
And I'm like, well, we got to drive to Albuquerque, get in the van.
You know, it's funny that you then had to experience that.
Oh, I know.
It was just wild.
Like some of the guys I had with me were kind of doing a little bit more hardcore kind of
stuff.
And I had to like really wrangle them in.
But it was like it was just I was like, dang, I really feel for like what Nick was doing
because I was 21.
I turned 21 the week we went on tour.
And it was like his first tour.
And then for me, I was like 28 and I had been touring since 2007.
You know, so like we're just I'm a little older than him.
Yeah, so we've just been I don't think I was too crazy, but I definitely like wanted to
have.
Now you weren't fine.
You were you were just a kid that was the first time on the road really away from home
and you were like seeing a sunflower field for the first time.
You know what I mean?
Like I remember doing that.
And then I get to the point where I get jaded and then that stuff pisses me off.
I'm like, no, we got to get to the venue.
Or he's like, oh, come on.
I just want to see the Grand Canyon.
You know, seriously, Brad, raise your hand if you thought he was going to go a sunflower
field.
No, I know.
No, I just I just mean like a euphemism for strip club.
Yeah.
No, that's like literally an example for me.
Like I'm from Boston.
So I remember like my first tours in 2007, like in the middle of the country and then
being blown away by like just landscapes and being like, this is nothing that I'm ever,
you know, I feel like I just landed on Mars, you know, because I just my family vacations
were to New Jersey.
You know, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yes.
May I?
May I just interject?
I had to go to Jersey last week for the first time in my life.
And I was in your life.
Yeah.
Well, it was a mutual friend of all of ours birthday.
And I told him the whole time I was riding the train over, I said, am I going to grow
a tail?
If I what happens when I cross this line, do I get splotchy hives?
It's very strange feeling going to Jersey.
Jersey is a wild place because I feel like there's all different parts.
I mean, I guess any states like that, but there's all different parts to Jersey.
I feel like there's parts you can go to that are like middle of nowhere farmland.
And then there's like cliche Jersey.
And yeah, it's beautiful.
90 percent of it.
But the part that everybody knows is the most disgusting.
Yes, exactly.
It's the only part that we associate with Jersey.
So now that you are where you are now, although you have, I'm sure a ton of different perspective
and you appreciate it more, but it never feels as though with you guys that.
How can I put this?
It doesn't ever feel like you guys care all that much in the best way, in the best way.
Right.
If I could just say I cared for a long time and went through the ringer through the classic
cliche music business drama.
You know, I was signed before to a major label.
I was dropped.
I was put, you know, or I had a record shelved.
I've had I've kind of went through it.
So I cared a lot for a long time.
And I just realized that a lot of people don't care about you.
So I just kind of or at least they only care about the product that you're trying to sell.
And that's it.
So I just along the way became jaded guy and was just like, you know what?
I only care about this band and this band's interests.
And if other people align with that, then that's the way we should be doing it.
You know?
Yeah.
And I feel like a lot of people have like the theatrics of caring to where they don't
actually enjoy it themselves.
You know what I mean?
We care very much.
So it's like, oh, thank you so much.
They never actually like sit and be like, wow, this is really cool, which I feel like
we're so thankful and grateful for every little thing.
I think now we're in like our appreciation stage where you got it before.
It would have been more of the showboating stage.
Like we have a number one record.
We're now we're just like, we have a number one.
OK, yeah, I think that that might that might be that might be it.
I never get like a peacock feeling from you guys.
You know, I don't like to do that.
You know, we feel like it'll blow it.
Like if we do that, it'll jinx it.
I think there's nothing like boasting than just falling on your face.
You just look like such an idiot.
You know?
Yeah, I think you said it perfectly, Nick, when you said, well, when we like it, what
did you say earlier?
And basically we don't do anything unless all three of us want to do it.
And there's that clarity of the moment where you just say, yeah, this is really great.
But for sure.
And we've been in previous bands and stuff where that isn't the case, where like communication
and agreements like the hardest thing.
You know, you have three people from three different walks of life, like our guitar player
Sean, who just got double hernia surgery, so he's still on bed rest right now.
He got it after our record release show.
He's been putting it off for a while, but he's from like Brooklyn, New York, now lives
in LA, you know, Reeves in Nashville, I'm in Boston.
So you get the three of us together and we're three different personalities, you know?
And I think the one thing that we've really worked on with us specifically is like learning
from the past, learning from our past bands and like communications, the number one thing
that keeps you guys together.
And like if someone's having a bad day, like trying to talk about it, get on the same page,
you know, and like, I don't know, I've had things blow up in the past over throwing away
someone's leftover food and then they're like, why'd you throw?
And you're like, really, is this about the spaghetti or is this about soundcheck yesterday?
Like, we just don't let it get to that point.
We try not to let it get to that point, you know?
It's never about the spaghetti.
Never about the spaghetti.
Yeah, that's what I call it.
The spaghetti incident.
You know, I always count on Lord Taco to come in and bring in the clarity.
It's true, it's always food.
That's why he's here, man.
Word sniff.
One of the things, I mean, listening to your music yesterday and reading a lot of the comments,
almost instantaneous, one of the first comments when I was reading, listening to Sex, Drugs,
and so many people said, this is the music I put on when I just landed at the airport
coming home from college and I'm driving back at night.
That's awesome.
I was like, well, that's interesting.
That's specific and I love that.
That's where I'm going.
It was like four or five very much similar.
And when I was listening to the song, I was like, damn, that's spot on.
The thing about this, and Nick and Reeve know this, but I don't know if Barry really does,
in my industry, there's very few songs that we play that make it to the finish line, that
get to what we call our library and our catalog.
What these guys have made is one of the biggest hits that we have had in the last three years.
I mean, this is a song that's going to last at our radio station in our format maybe forever.
And it just doesn't happen that often.
We maybe get one of these a year, two, max.
Someone mentioned that to us the other day about it being a song that possibly lasts
a long time.
And we just looked at each other and we were like, that's enough.
When we were kids, playing our guitars in our middle school bands, that was the goal.
Imagine having a song.
Imagine playing this show.
Imagine meeting these people.
It's like we've accomplished that.
That's enough.
If it all stopped tomorrow, we'd be fine.
If I got to go work at a coffee shop tomorrow, I hate to say.
That's it.
Yeah.
I'm watching that show Daisy Jones and the Six right now with my wife.
I feel so aligned.
At first, I was like, I don't know if I want to watch that show.
I'm going to judge it too hard.
I'm too close to the music.
It's very accurate and it feels a lot similar to the way that our career is going off right
now where I'm just like, I don't know.
It feels awesome.
It feels really relatable.
I just want to embrace it.
It's interesting you say that.
Yeah, I'm watching it too.
It's because your song connects.
That's what hit me when I was reading that.
I was like, dang, like you said, that's so specific.
At first, I was like, that sounds like something the band's manager put on there.
Then I saw three and four others.
I was like, yeah, it connects.
I love that.
That's it.
We were reminded the other day from a friend.
We were doing a podcast with a friend of ours.
He brought up the point that we never even really thought about, but sex, drugs, et cetera,
before we took our hiatus, we put out that EP that had sex, drugs on it.
It's the last song on that EP, Chit Chat.
It's technically the last song that we released as a band before we took our break.
It was the song that brought us back from our hiatus.
It feels like it might be an older song, but looking at it through that perspective, yeah,
that was the last single we put out.
It just took a couple of years to marinate and then pop off.
Can I ask a little bit about how it did come back?
Who calls you and tells you that they're about to use it for something?
How does it find its way back into the stratosphere?
This time around, we didn't.
Usually we had someone from our sync team at the time that would send you an email like,
oh, your song was used in Teen Mom on MTV.
We get a lot of that stuff.
One time we just, Reeve, I think, noticed the song was trending on our Spotify plays.
The streams were going up a little bit.
Wait, wait, wait, at that moment, what do you think the number was at?
Right now it's what, 350 million?
It's a lot of days.
Every day it's a lot.
I think at that point we had hit 300,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
I was like, oh my God.
Right now it's at almost 11 million or something crazy.
I remember our manager being like, because I've been trying to get the guys back together
kind of.
He was poking the whole time we were on a hiatus.
He's like, we got to get the band back.
We're like, yeah, yeah, we're doing other things, Reeve.
We'll get the band back when we're ready.
He's like, no, we really need to get the band back together.
I was just listening to this stuff and I was like, dang, it's been two years now.
Let's do it.
You know what I mean?
It was around that quarantine era of stuff.
He was like, are you buying plays right now?
I'm like, don't.
I'm not that desperate.
I found that so offensive.
I had to go online and I was just Googling beach weather, sex drugs, et cetera.
I was trying to find what it was in.
Then I finally found something.
It was on the show called Control Z. I was like, well, that explains why it's popular
in Mexico City and Spain and all this stuff.
It's because it's a Spanish Netflix show.
It's kind of like a euphoria.
It's like a teen drama.
It kind of worked out.
Our song was in the first, I want to say within the first 10 minutes of the pilot episode.
We were like, hey, if people watch the first episode, at least they're going to hear sex
drugs.
Yeah.
It was like a janitor closet hookup scene.
All these kids are like, this song rules.
Sex.
That's why it happened before TikTok and stuff.
It was just kind of like naturally from a show.
Well then from that show, we noticed on TikTok, people started to take it and add it to like
shows like they would make montage clips of like Stranger Things and then like euphoria
and shows like Control Z, but they would use that song.
So it was almost like they heard it in a setting and they wanted to recreate that on TikTok.
So they would make their own video clips.
And then that's when TikTok took over and started to kind of make it trend up that way.
And Reeve, you're watching the streams happen in real time.
Nick, are you paying any attention to it?
If you say this, if Reeve doesn't call you and start poking, would you have even noticed?
I wasn't paying attention.
No, I was like, I mean, I think at the time it was like me and Sean, guitar player, were
like throwing ideas around for the possibility one day of bringing beach weather back.
But it was never like we're making a record where our song is trending.
You know, it was if he didn't let me know, then I don't think I would have.
Yeah, the first time I saw it, at some point I would have found out.
One of the guys, yeah, I was managing this tattoo shop and one of the artists there was
like, what was that band that you toured with?
And I was like, oh, Beach, he's like, can you can you like play one of the songs?
He's like, I just want to hear it.
I'm like, all right.
So I go look it up on Spotify.
I'm like, dang, we're like, oh, shit.
What did he do when you played it for him?
He's like, that's not you.
Well, a bunch of the guys were like, this is pretty cool.
And then I remember like one of the more like tough like tattooers that worked there is
like, he's like, this is for frickin high school girls.
And I was like, yeah, like that's who listens to it.
What did you make?
Yeah.
Show me your song.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Once you're done putting that tattoo on that teenage girl, they're going to go listen to
my song.
She's going to save it in her phone.
That is that is kind of crazy because I think of so weird like Taylor Heinecke is the Washington
quarterback.
Right.
And he was like doing math work, like math homework before they were like, hey, we need
a quarterback this week.
Can you come in?
And you're working at a tattoo parlor.
OK.
So so it happens.
It seems you would have figured it out eventually, though, because someone's going to pay you.
Someone's going to tell us.
Yeah.
I hope.
Still waiting on those checks.
Oh, God, I hate to hear that.
We're supposed to get paid.
Yeah.
Streams get you paid.
I had no idea.
So did you guys then did you guys reach back out to, you know, whatever label management
or did they reach back out to you and somebody said, hey, this is legit.
I mean, how does that even work?
Yeah.
First, it was like, yeah, first we had the the moment of being skeptical.
We're all like someone.
This is like a bot farm that's just trolling us.
Like something's happening because a lot of the plays were being played in like, you know,
other countries that weren't the United States.
So we're just like, why is Portugal playing the song so much?
You know?
Yeah.
Like plays like Turkey.
Why are they so into sex, drugs, etc. right now?
You know, like some someone's playing a trick on us, like because that's just how I don't
know.
I guess we've just been traumatized by the music business.
We've been getting our ass beat the last.
Yeah.
So now we just doubt everybody.
We were big in North Korea for a minute.
Yeah, exactly.
I was fascinated by.
So we just sort of had this mindset that people were like messing with us for a while.
Like you're not.
It's not real.
You know?
And we just started like once we realized like, OK, this is actually happening.
We just made the excitement kind of come up a little bit more.
And we were like, all right, let's those demos that we had recorded or started writing, like
let's take those a little more seriously, see what we can do with these.
So it turned into making a record and then not too long.
We were just going to put up.
We made a record in June 21 and we were going to release it in September.
And then shortly after that, Arista Records, this record label hit us up and they were
like, we're really interested.
You know, we see the song, blah, blah, blah.
And then we told them we had a new record.
They were like, oh, you guys are coming back.
It's not just the song.
Like you have new stuff.
And they were more excited about that.
So it kind of worked out timing wise.
So we just put a hold on the record and it just came out last Friday.
And I bet now with with having this bank of success, it frees you up and gives you so
much more flexibility going forward.
Do you would you write a little lighter now?
Yeah, it's nice.
We can just kind of write at our own our own pace.
If nothing's like pushed like with especially doing like we are show.
We don't have anything until the end of the month.
We have to go to the I have to I say we have to go to the I Heart Radio Awards that were
nominated for something.
It's like if you told us that a year ago, we wouldn't have believed you.
If you told us a month ago, we wouldn't have believed you.
You know, and then the next thing we're doing is like a handful of festivals in May.
It's like if you were told touring me in 2009 that this would be the way that it's going
to be, I wouldn't have believed you either.
You know, do you have one in particular?
One of them, Shaking Ease, do you have one in particular that you actually know of that
you are excited about that you've been to Shaking Ease, Hangout?
These are all these are all I've never been to any of them before.
Before like I can't afford to go, but now I get to play at them.
So that's pretty cool.
I mean, you you guys that song at Hangout is almost tailor made for that space.
I just can't wait.
Last night, I was like, oh, shit, when we get to that song, like I hasn't clicked yet,
you know, like when we get to that song at these festivals, it might go crazy.
Yeah, yeah.
You're not doing you're not doing Bonnaroo.
But when I was listening yesterday, I was thinking, what a perfect song for that person
who's driving 10 to 13 hours.
Yeah, right.
You're not going to hit it when you start out.
And I'm not sure it's the song you want where you're loading in.
It's the song when you like hit midnight and you still got a ways to go.
That that's the song and that you guys are the band that I would want to be listening
to it one or two or three in the morning.
You know, I hope I mean, I thought I thought about that hard one year yesterday.
I mean, yeah, especially being in Nashville.
I mean, you got to be pretty well accustomed to Bonnaroo life, don't you?
I like I said, I've never been able to afford like going to a festival.
So you know, but you've been to Amsterdam.
Yeah, we've been to Amsterdam.
You know, I think I think you're good.
If you want to go to Bonnaroo this year, I think we shared a bed.
So it wasn't that luxurious.
I think that if you want to go to Bonnaroo this year, I think that you'll be able to
go.
I think that you'll easily be able to go this year if we're not doing anything for sure.
So tell me.
So tell me about the new album.
Yeah, we wrote it.
We finished it 21 and it's taken a second to put out, but I think it was worth the wait.
If anything, I think it fits better now in 2023 than it does in 2021.
And it makes more sense to us like sitting with it for a little while and kind of now
we got to got to sit with it.
But I mean, it's a fun record.
I think it's the best thing that we've made musically as this band.
And I just I love it.
I think it has a lot of themes that are very relatable, like how you're saying even just
the way sex drugs like sounds and the lyrics are how people can connect to like late night
drives like I feel like all of our songs kind of have those different, you know, things
that people can go like, oh, I like listening to this song when I'm, you know, driving
or whatever.
I think they all have there's like a nice theme throughout the whole record.
I like the idea that you said that you sat with it because normally, you know, time doesn't
wear well, you know, sitting with it for a long period of time.
I'm surprised you didn't tinker and have the urge to pick and product.
Yeah, the thing was mastered, I think, in September of 2021.
So like we never opened it back up.
We were just like when put it in a little archive and when it's ready to come out, we're
going to release it, you know.
So even hearing it on Spotify now, it just sounds so different to me because it like
feels legit, you know, because I'm listening to on Spotify, not my iCloud folder or something
on my phone like I have been for the last two years.
It's so funny to hear you guys talk about like going to this awards thing where you
said a month ago, you would have never believed it.
What does that do to your psyche going forward?
Do you now?
Do you have a piece of paper that said, here's what I'd like to do.
I mean, you mentioned doing festivals and a Bonnaroo.
Do you I mean, is yeah, what are the goals?
Think?
Yeah.
Can you even think that way now?
I think we've just kind of not been expecting anything.
And we've been having this very natural, you know, flow of things.
And we don't want to ask because we feel like, you know, that something's meant to happen.
It's going to happen.
We haven't been forcing a thing.
Yeah.
And it's been voting pretty well for us right now.
So yeah, and I think once once you create the want for more things, it starts to get
disappointed.
Yeah.
We've been disappointed a lot in the past.
So by things like, you know, false expectations and stuff, I keep trying to tell my wife she
should live that way.
Yeah, it's not easy buying it.
Well, that's why you're in the basement, Barry.
We just like kind of changed our attitude around things.
Like now we sort of look at like the yin and yang of everything.
Like we played this amazing show.
It was our first time ever playing in an arena in L.A. in January for Alter Ego, like a big
I Heart Radio show.
And we it was pouring the whole week, like dumping, like soaking wet for the whole week.
And we were just like, we're playing an arena.
We can't get mad about the weather.
Like, so everything about what we do now is like, whenever there's like a speed bump or,
you know, a roadblock or something, we just we're not like, oh, shit, why did this happen
to us?
We're like, we got a great thing going.
If this is the one thing that's going to set us off.
Oh, yeah, you do.
We sort of just been like, I don't know, we like this idea of like leaving it up to the
universe to surprise us, you know, and then we'll never be disappointed.
So that's why that's why I keep coming back to this, you know, finding success later in
your life.
I just don't know of a band that's out right now that is as content as you guys.
Yeah, we love it because this is what we've always wanted to do.
There's nothing else we want to do.
So a couple of years before this, I was it.
I was like, what the fuck is going on here?
That tattoo shop that he worked at got destroyed in a tornado right before this record took
off.
Oh, yeah.
The ultimate irony for me is like his job, his life came crumbling down in Nashville
and then the next day, pretty much like is that the same tornado that took that took
what's the music at the exit?
And he's still baseman.
Yeah, baseman.
Oh, my God.
So, you know, it was like our friend's birthday that night and then we were all like kind
of high eating burritos like at like two a.m. and then my friend calls me and he's like,
dude, the tattoo shop is gone.
So I drove my truck down there and it's flattened out and I was like, you got to be kidding
me.
I was kind of comfortable and like content working there.
And you know, they were going to open another location.
I was possibly going to like move to New York for like this new location.
I was like, this is kind of a cool life.
I don't know.
I might do like my little experimental music and work at a tattoo shop.
And like, that's cool with me.
But it like took that thing out.
And then the owner got really sick and ended up passing away.
And I'd never got any sort of like, you know, unemployment or anything, because he can help
me prove that.
So I just started like shampooing women's heads at the salon.
And like there was a bar that was like still open and I like did a bouncer job there and
I was doing Uber Eats and then like all at the same time.
And then once this once this music started popping off, I was like, I kind of just saw
like this light at the end of the tunnel.
And that's when I start hitting them up a lot.
I was like, yo, look, look, I've said this.
I've said this for I've said this forever and ever and ever.
I just don't think that anybody with a trust fund can write a great song.
You have to struggle.
You have to go through some of this stuff to appreciate and find that spot where where
the struggle turns into a song and turns into art and then, you know, hopefully success.
I just that story in and of itself is I hate that you went through it.
I really do.
But boy, oh boy, we all went through heavy shit.
Like I know, you know, I don't know what he wants to share.
But like Nick has gone through his own things, too.
And I think we all just coming back into this.
It's like we don't want to live through that anymore.
Yeah.
We want to be the best that we can be.
Yeah, sure.
Like there was a couple of months ago, him and Sean kind of gotten a little tiff on a
phone call and it was squashed the next day.
Squashed where like they're now giggly, laughing, love you, bro, like all that stuff.
It's like that's the way it should be handled.
You should be able to be in a band with your brothers and act like they're your brothers.
And if you guys argue and you fight, you can argue and fight.
But as long as you get over it the next day and it doesn't ruin what we're doing, that's
the way we got to do it.
You know, and I think that's just how we're why we're so level headed about it.
And we're like, if we don't win this award, fuck it, at least we were nominated.
It's crazy that we were even invited that they let us in the door, you know?
So Reeve, did you give him the hernia?
You gave Sean the hernia.
All that stress.
Yeah, stressing the hell out.
He's always stressed.
If Sean was right here, you would go, oh, this guy's naturally stressed all the time.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's Russ for us.
Look at him.
Yeah, look at him.
Oh, they're stressing.
He always stays medium, man.
He always stays medium.
Extra medium.
Yeah, guys, I just I'm such a big fan.
I love you guys as people.
By the way, also, thanks for wearing the gray and the black today, because I don't think
I've ever seen you in any anything other than fluorescence.
Yeah, we're usually pretty dressed to the nines.
Yeah, I got my golf clothes on.
I'm hitting my hitting nine with my dad today.
Are you playing you're playing golf today?
Yeah, we're going golf.
We like to it's Boston.
You know, what do we got?
Forty one degrees.
It should be right now.
It should be forty eight by one.
We'll be OK.
I mean, Nick, if you ever want to come down, if you ever want to come down to Brooklyn,
we'll yeah, we'll go swing some sticks.
Do you?
I'd be happy.
I don't.
So I don't.
OK, it's funny.
I don't sniff out a top golf or something.
I don't like telling people that I play golf because the insinuation of white dude who
plays golf is just so bad.
You know, and I hate golf culture.
I hate golf dudes.
I don't like that.
I don't like the guy who's standing behind me in Target who's practicing his golf swing
in the air.
I practice my swing in the kitchen all the time.
Someone golfing like you fricking fascist.
Exactly.
Where's your truck?
I don't know.
I don't know what he's talking about.
He and I played two or three times a year.
I know.
I know that I love it, but I don't like telling anybody that I love it.
There's a new wave of culture around golf I think that's coming up.
There's people like there's this company called Random Golf Club and they're trying to make
it like kind of cooler and take away all of the cliché-ness of golf out of it.
This hat is from a company called Bob Does Sports.
They're like YouTube golfers, but I think they're bringing golf to like a new generation
of people and not just the old grumpy like white guy culture.
You know what I mean?
I'm seeing a lot of people that are on the course that are.
It's how it should be.
It's fun.
It's meditation.
Yeah.
That's how we play.
We play it when ready.
I mean it's you know we don't.
We're just there to bust each other balls.
We just want to sit there and screw with each other.
My dad's my golf partner you know.
So him and I go out and fight with each other on one hole and then we're high-fiving on
a little buzz.
Yeah.
Also speaking.
The best thing about playing with Brad is the guy that hits right behind Brad is awesome.
Yeah.
It's really good.
Very, very good.
Which is what I always tease you about.
Yeah.
That first shot he hits sucks and then he unhails the second one.
And I take 160 strokes but 80 of them are really good.
Yeah.
It's great.
As long as 80 are good.
Yeah.
So how close are you to Lord Hobo by the way?
I'm sorry to take this in a completely different direction.
What's Lord Hobo?
Oh it's one of the best breweries in the entire northeast.
I found yeah there's this great IPA.
One of the best IPAs I've ever tasted in my life is called Boom Sauce and I found it in
Jersey.
I found it in Jersey.
My trip to Jersey that I grew a tail.
I found the great Boston IPA and it's called Boom Sauce.
So I've been trying to get.
I've seen Boom Sauce.
I didn't know the name of the brewery.
Yeah.
It's the Lord Hobo.
Not Lord Taco but Lord Hobo.
Which by the way, Lord Taco and Lord Hobo, very similar people.
Man, I just I love you guys so much and I hope to see you guys again soon and next time
you're in the city please reach out.
Yeah.
We'd love that.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for talking to us.
Thanks for the album and thanks for giving us one of the great songs the format and radio
has had in a very long.
Honestly, Barry, the last one that we've had is probably Heatwaves.
It's probably Glass Animals Heatwaves.
Glass Animals.
That's great.
That's a great company to be in.
Thanks for changing our lives.
I mean you guys are responsible for changing everyone's lives.
Spanish TV apparently changed your life.
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, Spanish TV.
It's not you guys.
Telemundo.
Thank you Telemundo.
Yeah.
And now, Telenovella, Telenovella changing everybody's life.
Guys we'll see you soon.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having us.
Incredible guys.
I just love them so much.
The kids at Beach Weather, Nick and Reeve.
I hope you enjoy that as much as I do because I really have a fondness for them.
They're fantastic, a dazzle of people.
They were great.
So nice.
And I really do.
That music to me, man, when I heard it, it was like this is great late night travel music.
So it's funny to have that connection with them.
Which, Taco, don't you find it funny that Barry knows anything about late night travel
since he's never done it?
He has never once gotten in a car in the dark.
He's home by 5 PM.
If I imagine what it'd be like.
All right, there you go.
All right, we'll see you again next week on The What Podcast.
Love you, bye.
