While down at Bonnaroo this year, The What Podcast hosts Barry and Lord Taco got to speak with Briston Maroney for what is technically the Knoxville artist's third time on the show.
Following his That Tent show on Friday, Maroney spoke about what it means to be playing Bonnaroo -- especially as his father was in the audience this year for the Father's Day weekend set. He also touched on "that guy" in high school who always came back from The Farm wearing his wristbands until it fell off and the tan lines that remained like a badge of honor.
Take a listen to the episode above, or watch video of it over at Consequence. If you missed it, don't forget to check out The What Podcast's full recap of Bonnaroo 2022 as well.
You can also see what you might have missed at Bonnaroo by catching Briston Maroney on the road this summer; check out his schedule and grab tickets here.
This is one of three "snackable" episodes coming from The What Podcast this week as the gang reveals all their artist interviews from Bonnaroo 2022. Stay tuned for more episodes coming Friday and Saturday (July 8th and 9th).
Topic: Bonnaroo
Guest: Briston Maroney
It's a snackable version of the What Podcast today. Barry Courter, Lord Taco, Brad, you can call me Brad. So this is a we call it a snackable version of the What Podcast because you guys had some chats during Bonnaroo with some of our favorite Bonnaroo acts. Yeah. Yeah. I thought you called it as I thought you called it a snackable version because I'm a snack. Yeah. I'm a snackable version of Bonnaroo. Yes. Who doesn't want to put their face in a taco? Exactly. Yeah. No. You know, as we've said before, part of the fun for us being on the farm is being able to interview some of these bands that that we either learned about or are big fans of. And do you remember the time years ago we were supposed to I can't remember was it Alt J and we were like I don't remember what happened, but it was either really hot or we were really tired and we were like you know what I'll chase like 20 feet away from us. We're not going to be doing that today. Yeah, we're not doing that. Like, nah. Yeah, pass. It would require us to walk. Oh, I don't know. Hold 20 yards. We can't do it. Yeah, it gets way way over there. And, you know, we we had the other one that we talked about all the time where we had to go find a cigarette for the guy that we don't mention. But we don't talk about we don't talk about Bozzie around here. We don't talk about Bozzie. But then we've had the Warren treaty moments where we just fell in love. Yeah. You know, and again, that was another one of those that I would have very easily punted on if you gave me the opportunity. If you give me the opportunity, the opening to cancel, I'm going to take it because I just I'd rather just sit a camp. Well, I'm not going to lie. Backseat lovers who we're going to talk to and churches were back to back for us. They were within half hour of each other. And I think we went to see backseat lovers and then like idiots didn't bring the equipment with us to leave it in the media area. So we had to run from there all the way back. You know, wah, wah, wah. OK. See, this is such a what is like there's always a comedy of problems when it comes to this group. Something stupid happens. Like, for instance, in today's chat, you just decided not to record it with Brist and Veroni, did you? Yeah. Yeah. I did everything right. Except hit the little red button. Turns out the first rule in radio is you got to turn the microphone on. Yeah, and to add on to that, you know, I did the video recording, I recorded the first interview fine. Then we redid it because Barry didn't hit record. So I hit record and then like 40 seconds in, it stops recording. So we've got one full video and one full audio, but it's two takes. Look, I totally believe that the reason why things screw up, even if I'm not there or because of me, I'm sure it's my fault. We did blame you. Yeah, your name came up. I've broken every piece of lawn equipment I've ever been given. I'm good. I break everything we do here. You know, it's usually always my fault. You destroy dressing rooms. I had to laugh, too, because when we were interviewing churches, they were drinking the, what is that, Topo Chico? The Topo Chico. Yeah. I just laugh into myself remembering that incident. But I don't remember, if you remember, Taco Too with the bristen before we even started, and maybe it's why I forgot to hit record, is my battery pack, the sun fried it. Yeah, it was not working. We couldn't get anything to turn on because it had been so hot, I guess, sitting in my car. So fortunately, Russ had a backup battery pack or we would have not had it at all. Yep, I remembered to bring extras. Yeah, bring everything. That's the number one rule. But all in all, it was great. I bring nothing. You bring nothing, you didn't blame me. Yeah, that way you're somebody else's fault. Hey, I didn't break it. Somebody else did it. It's not mine. It ended up being great. Those are really one of my favorite things to do, is to talk to these guys, and they were all very receptive, and their management people made it work, and you were making it work from New York. That was kind of funny. I sent the text, was it churches or backseat? You're like, I'm at dinner with their manager here setting it up. Yeah, I know. I'll talk about that when we do the backseat lovers chat. But the one we start with today, bristen-moroni, you hit play, thank goodness, because the kid's got a great story. The only reason I even know him or know of him is because one of my interns when I was in Chattanooga, randomly, she's a superstar, this girl. I think that they dated when they were in middle school. She would always sit in the studio, and this is like 10 years ago, and she would be like, I've got this friend, bristen, he's a really good singer. Every time you're like, okay, sure you do. Everybody's got the buddy with a gig. Everybody's got the friend of the gig. She just kept talking about him, talking about him, and then one day, I found him, he was on one of my playlists on Spotify. I was like, wait a second. This kid's actually a thing? He's really, really good. He's just one of these Matt Mason types that you know he's going to write a good song. Not a good song. You know he's going to write these songs sooner or later, and it's going to blow up, and we're all going to be like, hey, it's that guy again. He was so sweet. It was a great interview. I'm looking forward to you hearing it. Which one, the first one or the second one? It was good. Both were good. Unfortunately, the first one was a little more off the cuff, but we still got, he talked about his father, which was amazing because it was Father's Day weekend, and he talked about the wristband, which I thought was kind of funny. What wristband? Like the Bonnaroo wristband? Yeah, the Bonnaroo wristband. Why would that come up? Well, because in the course of the conversation, he's a Knoxville kid, so obviously he's aware of Bonnaroo, and I think I said, what did you know about it? He just said all the kids would come back to high school with their suntans and their wristbands. Oh, that's good. And my daughter's friends, when they went, I think they wore those wristbands until they literally fell off their wrists, I mean years. So I asked him about that. Let me tell you something. I actually, so I'm glad you brought that up because one day we were eating, I don't know what the restaurant was, but we sit down and the guy that's taking our order, he goes, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I noticed the wristband that he's still wearing from Bonnaroo. And I'm like, oh, you went to Bonnaroo. That's great. And then he pulls the rest of his shirt up and he's got like three years of bands on his arm. And I immediately looked, do you know where I'm going with this, Barry? You know me. I literally looked across the table to the wife and I said, we got to go. I can't. This guy is going to be touching our plates. I can't have this disgusting thing interacting with my food. That's horrifying to me. It's pretty nasty because I know you guys, I'm sure you're the same when you get home. It's like when somebody loses a limb, they say they can still feel it. You cut that thing off your wrist and you feel it for the next week or two. Well, you know my strategy with the wristband. I keep it so loose that I take it off every night. It drives me bananas. I hate the thing. I cannot stand it. I wish there was a way that we could like figure out a different way than using these wristbands because I just I hate. I don't even wear wristwatches. I hate watches. I don't like things around my neck or my wrists. So I'm with you. I figured out if you put if you if you don't tighten it and use a rubber band to sort of knot it up, it won't fall off during the day. So then you can take it off at night or whatever. Yeah. Plus, there's all those years where we were like, especially the first two, three years where we were like using other people's cut wristbands before they sort of got smart to it and figured out that, yeah, why don't we just start tracking these people as they walk in and out of here so that you know, my very first one I left Sunday as I did this year. But I left and stopped at that gas station and a guy offered to buy it from me. And I was like, no, I'm not going to do it. They've been good to me. That's not right. And as I drove off, I thought, man, that guy looked like a cop. He was a narc. You know, it was not a long haired hippie. It looked like it looked like an FBI guy. And I'm glad I didn't sell that thing to him. That's pretty ironic considering you are the cop of the group. I know, it came up to me, right? He probably figured the old man's leaving. Let's go. You know, he didn't want to be there. Yeah. But, Briston was great. And I heard nothing but good things from all kinds of people. I think he's in a lot of, you know, people when they list their top shows, he's on a lot of lists. That's great. Nice kid. So, so nice. And he was a, you know, he's been a guest on our show before. As we said, this was his second and third interviews with us. Yeah, I was going to say, other than I'm trying to think, I want to do the big board of the guests that we've had on. Who has come back twice? Of course, Repeat Repeat are well in the lead. They're the gold standard when it comes to guests on the show. We have Quaeyar is probably second with three appearances. We got Ken Weinstein on two. And then who else is in the double appearance category? And we have Briston Maroney might be the only other one. We only have four return guests. No, no. Was Aaron the guy who won the tickets this year? He was a Patreon. Oh, yeah. David Grimes. Oh, I guess you're right. We could we could throw in the Ham babies and the Roobuses. But I don't I don't count them, I guess, for some odd reason. I don't know why. Multiple times. Yeah, sure. But as far as performers or like Quaeyar. You know what? If I get it. See, this is the problem. If I include the Roobus in the in the Ham's kids, that means I got to include a Brian Stone. And I just can't put him on the list of multiple guest appearances. I wondered if you were going to go there. Yeah. Yes. Stone's a repeat. Repeat offender. Oh, God. All right. Well, let's do it. Let's start the first of many snackable episodes coming from this year's Bonnaroo with Bristan Maroney on the What Podcast. Hey, everybody, we are at Bonnaroo. You can hear the music playing in the background. I'm Barry Courter with the What Podcast with me, Lord Taco, as always. And we have a special guest. Hello. A repeat guest. Three time. A three timer now. Technically three timer. We might have had some technical issues, but we're not going to get into that. Bristan Maroney is here. Great to see you. Thank you again. Anytime. For talking to us. You were a guest on our show a few weeks ago. One of our favorite guests. Thank you. And we have had you on the list of wish list, the people we wanted to talk to when we were here. Thanks. Thank you for making it happen. Anytime, dude. Tell me about Bonnaroo and what it means to you to play this festival. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is just like the history of this festival within being a Tennessee native and just being a kid who grew up loving just like specifically rock music, but all types of music. It just embodies just like what a music festival is inside of my brain and was when I was a child, too. Yeah, I think you had said off the air that you knew of it from high school. Talking about your kids would come back. Oh, yeah. There was the one dude. I won't say his name just for what's the word, posterity sake. But yeah, he was the festival guy and he would come back. One thing I didn't mention last time was that I was most envious of his tan line from the wristband. So yeah, that dude rocked his wristband for Bonnaroo for like seven years or something. He was the kid who would go and we were like 12 and I was still like just like eating gogurt at my house, like playing GameCube. And he was out like crowd surfing at fish. Nice, nice, nice. It's Father's Day weekend and you've got a special guest here this weekend, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My pops got to come out and he's been able to come to some more shows in the past few months than ever before. This was this was a big one for us. That's excellent. Yeah. I'm really still. Yeah. What does it mean having him there for you? I think the biggest thing, you know, that we were hitting on is just that the fact that there there's an audience there to see this music is very special, very beautiful. But we were saying that if all that was stripped away, knowing that that he was there would be equally as impactful and special to me more than anything. Yeah. There's your happy Father's Day. Father's Day pops. That's really cool. I know you're busy. You've got a lot of other interviews. What's coming up? What else besides this? When you leave here, we're working on new music that'll be out in the next few weeks. We're about to do a little run kind of zigzaggy with Rainbow Kidding Surprise, which I'm really excited about. And then we're doing some headlining shows in the fall in September. Very cool. Yeah, man. I said it before on the show and I'll say it here. We really think big things are in store for you. Thank you, man. That's so kind. You guys are so sweet. We mean it. I mean, we definitely. Yeah, we've done this too long to lie. We're not very good. I think that's the best. The best trait to have is being a bad liar. Thank you so much. Thank you. OK, kids. There you go. Bristan Maroney. Anything to follow up? Anything else before we go? No, it's just so nice to hear him talk about his dad. And I mean, the idea that if the entire rest of the audience went away and it was just his dad out there, he would still be happy. Barry, are we not telling you we love you enough? No. Never. Are you? Is dad not getting enough? Is dad not getting enough attention? I got I got some I felt the love from Bristan, so it meant a lot to me. What about Brad Guy? Well, I had to fish for it. I had to fish for it. No, it was just neat to hear that kind of I mean, that was completely unsolicited and it was really cool to hear him say it. Yeah, that's great. Nice kid. And I can't I wish nothing but the best for him. And super nice of him to redo the interview. He was very gracious. Yeah. You know, I think hasn't that's happened to us before. Who else have we done two interviews with? We had to completely start over and we're not even using it because this is like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who was that? I don't remember. I don't remember. I know what you're talking about, but I don't remember. I think I think I do remember and I will not repeat the other bands because they might be on the episode. They might be on an episode for you. So I don't want to remind them of that disaster. Yeah, we played it. I promise. No, we aired it. It's we must have gotten lost in the archives. Oh, it was one of our favorites. Yeah. It's. Consequence Podcast Network.