Riot Fest, CaveFest, and Catching Up with flipturn at Moon River Festival

It's an incredible 2023 of festival season.

It winds down now.

The What Podcast today, Talking Riot Fest, Moon River, and What's Left of the Year.

Lord Taco, Barry Courter, Brad Steiner, The What Podcast starts right now.

Welcome in gentlemen.

Hi, good to see you.

Barry Courter, Lord Taco.

How's everyone feeling doing?

My favorite thing we do.

Good to see you guys.

Well what else do we do together?

So, of the things we do together.

So it's the only thing that we do that's your favorite.

Yeah, got it.

Yeah.

How's Barry?

How's dad?

What's been going on?

Everything is good.

I'm going to go with that.

We'll get into it a little bit.

It's been a rough week.

We'll get into that in a minute.

Rough week for Barry?

Those don't exist.

Okay, we'll get.

You are the most living, high, and chill human being I've ever met.

Let's jump right in.

Nothing ever penetrates the walls of Barry Courter.

It's been a tough week.

I've lost a couple of friends that have died.

What?

Boy, what a way to start.

Didn't mean to...

Yeah, no kidding.

Whomp, whomp.

I mean, give me some hey boys or something.

I need some lightness here.

No, this is the greatest thing about this show is they radiate positivity.

I am determined every day to say life is great.

And it is.

It is great.

It is.

But it's been a tough week.

We've lost a mutual friend that you know, and I lost another friend that I went to high

school with.

And I don't mean to bring it down, and I don't want to bring it down, but it's just sort

of...

And I also don't want to be one of those guys, go tell everybody you love them, but go tell

everybody you love them.

If there's somebody out there even saying, I need to call that guy, go call that guy

or that girl or whatever.

That's kind of...

I appreciate the sentiment, I will just say that if I'm on the list of people that you

want to call, just don't call me.

I've already done it.

I've already sent you a text.

You know I have.

I sent you both a text.

I love you both.

Feelings.

You know I do.

Feelings.

Well, you know, it's funny because we've had some...

I'm not the only one dealing with this, obviously, and it's been sort of a social media thing.

Do you call everybody every minute to tell?

No, I just mean let the people you know that you care about know.

That's all I would say.

Don't put your head on the pillow at night and say, gosh, I wish I had let Brad know

that I still think he's a putz.

Nobody's ever said that.

No one's ever said, I need to call Brad.

Well, that being said, Taco, I like you enough.

I like you.

I like you.

Okay, good.

I guess I've had a better week than Barry, I don't know.

Apparently, I guess.

Yeah.

Geez Louise.

How's the bus?

How are we doing?

Are we doing any more?

This is fantastic.

Are we doing any more...

Do you have any more big trips with the bus coming?

Yeah, we're doing Cave Fest.

I'm sorry.

This is not on my festival card.

What is Cave Fest?

Cave Fest at the Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee.

Really?

What does that require?

How do you drive the bus into a cave?

It's not in the cave, but there's a cave there.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

My understanding is there's two other stages.

They've built a whole amphitheater outside now.

I've never been to the Caverns.

You know it either.

They've had some pretty great shows.

I know, yeah, I know it is.

I just never been.

I thought they had St. Paul there a few years ago.

They did.

Brandy Carlisle's been there.

I mean, it's a really cool place.

Brandy Carlisle's been there?

Yeah, everybody's been there.

What is the capacity of this space?

2,000?

I don't know.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

I mean, forgive me if I...

As many as you can fit in the cave, I guess.

What he's going to is a combination of the two, right?

Because they, during COVID, they couldn't go in the cave, so they discovered they had

this sort of outdoor amphitheater, similar to Red Rocks.

I don't want to put it in that category, but it's sort of an outdoor rock.

Yeah, it's not that big, but they did.

They built a big outdoor amphitheater because they've got a huge field and they've got plenty

of room.

Who are you going to see?

Who's going to be there other than other bus guys?

As far as performances go, it's Bluegrass.

There's really nobody on the lineup that I'm happy to see, but I just want to go.

I've just never been.

Barry, what is your thing about Bluegrass?

I don't understand.

How do you...

I'm not a fan.

I appreciate the talent.

No, I'm good for three songs.

Man, time and space, I think I can really get into some Bluegrass.

I like a steel guitar.

I like a banjo here and there.

Yeah, I said time and place.

Yeah, this is going to be a full two days.

That's a lot.

Three days.

That's where I draw the line.

Bluegrass is fast, faster, and fastest, and then I'm done.

I appreciate...

What about a Bluegrass ballad?

Okay, tell me one.

I don't know.

I'm not Brad Bluegrass here.

I don't know Bluegrass songs in the world.

One of the bands is doing a cover of The Who's Tommy.

The whole thing.

Yeah.

But what about a steel guitar?

You don't like a steel guitar?

I love a steel guitar.

For about three songs.

Okay, well, oh, come on.

I don't believe you.

I think that you'd get really into it if you were stuck at Cave Fest.

I can't imagine a weekend.

Take Barry with you to Cave Fest.

Take him.

Yeah, let's go.

Yeah.

It's outside the zip code, man.

He cannot leave.

He cannot leave.

Yeah.

It's very close.

TACO, it feels like Barry has been on some sort of 30-year work probation.

He cannot leave the zip code.

Got to check in with your probation office.

Yeah.

I had a feeling.

So I know you guys have some more Moon River content to share today, but I went to Riot

Fest for the first time in Chicago.

I specifically decided not to do Lollapalooza this year because the Riot Fest lineup was

just out of control.

And boy, I love this festival because there is so much brand integrity.

They do such a great job of adhering to what we always call brand values, but I can't even

call these values.

But the way that the brand sort of cuts through and is almost cooler than anything that happens

around it is the part that I like the most.

I mean, you can't walk 10 feet without somebody having a Riot Fest socks shirt on.

And if you are...

There's a few festivals in that city like Pitchfork that I think that people always

tend to gravitate towards.

Anything that's not Lollapalooza is where the cool kids go.

And boy, I don't know if I've ever seen so many black shirts.

Everybody's got a black shirt on at Riot Fest.

If you wear a pastel at Riot Fest, I think you're getting booed out of the place.

There's just a couple of things about it that like other than...

So I think that the actual engagement of it is fantastic.

I think that their brand is really special and interesting.

Because it may be in the worst location in America.

Getting to Douglas Park is fine, but getting out of it, you literally have to wake up in

the morning and the first thing that you have to think about is getting out of Riot Fest.

You have to plan your entire day on how and when you're getting out of this festival.

There's no easy way out.

Good luck getting an Uber.

And it's not that it's just so far away, but apparently it's the same weekend, every

weekend, as the Mexican parade.

And what does the Mexican parade?

It's not a parade.

It's just flooding the streets with cars and flags.

You're what, four miles away from the Loop in Chicago?

It took one of our guys two hours after the festival just to get four miles to the east

to his hotel.

Two hours.

It's because every street around you is redlined.

I mean, you look at the traffic pattern, it's nothing but red.

Oh boy.

So we're leaving the first night and because we had to plan getting out, we had to leave

the Foo Fighters set early enough to get out and get back to a whole group of people that

we had to meet up.

It was a big radio sort of thing.

But we leave and thank God for this Uber driver.

If I could remember his name, I would send him money on Venmo because he was so kind.

He's weaving in and out, in and out, blocked streets, closed streets.

He found just the right way.

We take a left, we finally get to Open Road.

We're almost so close to our destination and we're going about 35 miles an hour down

Chicago Street and out of nowhere, he screeches the brakes.

We might have screeched, I don't know, 20, 30 feet to the crosswalk where a woman is

standing in the middle of the road taking a picture.

Taking a picture of the skyline.

Didn't even see a car coming, didn't realize it was a green light.

And it was one of those moments where the car screeches and her two hands slam the front

of the car and stares at everybody in the car.

Like she just saw her life flash before her eyes.

It was like a movie.

And of course, what do you do if you're in the car and you almost kill someone?

Fuck you!

What the fuck are you doing?

How dare you?

I had it loaded on my tongue.

There's a woman that almost died, but yet we're screaming obscenities at them.

We had seven people in this over just screaming at this person as if we're the ones that almost

died.

It was so scary.

It was honestly traumatic watching this woman.

We literally almost killed someone.

I don't know if you've ever been that close, but that just freaked me out all weekend.

And so let's just say the plan to get out was very, very, very on the top of our mind

come Saturday morning.

Man, come Saturday though, you get Death Cab and Postal Service.

And I'll tell you, as a guy who loves Death Cab, it's my favorite band of all time.

It's also my favorite album, Transatlanticism of all time.

I've been going to Death Cab shows for 20 years.

And I don't know, I've seen them, I don't know, two dozen, three dozen times.

I've never heard some of these songs played live.

This thing is magical even though they're only doing the album front to back and then

Postal Service comes on and does the album front to back.

They add a remix of one of the songs at the end and they do a cover.

But just hearing it in sequence, I just have never heard it before.

And it was phenomenal.

The other thing that I had never heard before live, and I don't know if I ever will again,

even though they're playing in New York tonight, I got to see The Breeders.

And they sounded terrible, but I didn't care.

I just did not care.

And they play their album, their essential album, front to back.

And we go with a whole bunch of people and it's like, I don't know who The Breeders are.

Who are The Breeders?

Who are The Breeders?

We're all like, just wait till the third song.

You'll know exactly who they are in the soon as it hits.

One piece of criticism about RayaFest.

You know, I hate to be, you know, Mr. Festival organizer guy here, but we've been to enough

of these to know where the money is left on the table, right?

There are a million beer stands.

You can't turn around and not see a beer stand.

So they're doing a fantastic job maximizing their beer money possibilities.

But there's no food.

Good luck finding a food vendor, not a single food vendor anywhere in the main area.

Now you can buy a ton of merch.

You can buy a ton of beer.

You have to walk damn near a mile and a half to the other end of the entire festival into

a corner that nothing else is there but a Ferris wheel.

It would be like if all the food at Bonnarooo was only at Where in the Woods.

You had to walk all the way to Where in the Woods just to eat.

And imagine if you're at the other and you have to walk to Where in the Woods to buy

a sandwich and you're starving and you're trying to get you're trying to eat before

the next show.

And then when you get there, the line is, I don't know, 25 deep.

It is one of the missed opportunities of this festival.

Otherwise, you know, the grounds are really nice, but boy, trying to trying to get Douglas

Park and the other thing about Douglas Park is that by the way, it's not the best part

of town.

Getting there is fine.

You know, people suggested taking Divvy bikes there.

You know, I know you can do their L, the pink line there and Ubering there is actually quite

easy and fairly inexpensive, especially at the time that you're doing it.

But getting back, I mean, good luck.

It's a coin flip on what you can and can't get.

Good luck getting an Uber unless you leave early.

Divvy bikes are all gone.

You might be able to get a scoot scoot.

Good luck.

I don't know.

But it's so hard to get out.

Some people swear by the pink line, but you're still you're jammed in there.

You're going to be the train for an hour.

It's just a tough location.

It's a really, really tough and the worst part and this is the part I forgot to mention.

Everybody in that neighborhood wants a thing.

They hate this festival.

So you can't walk anywhere outside of Douglas Park and not see graffiti all over the fencing

saying get out of our neighborhood.

They have taken over a predominantly black neighborhood that really utilizes this park

on a daily basis.

And it's not wanted.

So I don't know.

Maybe I was overthinking it a bit, but leaving, that's why I was like, I don't know where

this goes because they don't want us.

Nobody wants them here.

They don't want the parking taken over by this festival.

I don't know.

It's a tough one.

We talked about Governor's ball and how their location issues have lasted for a decade and

they finally get a good spot in Queens.

That's what I keep thinking.

Ryefest is beloved, beloved by the people that go every year.

I just don't know how it keeps surviving in Douglas Park.

I keep thinking, I was thinking about Governor's ball, but I was also thinking about you and

I at Four Castle, you know, when the storm hit and you were talking about your Uber driver

and I don't know if you had the same image, but you remember we called that Uber driver

to come and get us and he was stuck in traffic.

And in my mind, it was like Roger Rabbit where he's coming down and he said, I see you, I

see you.

And he comes out of the light and it was like he was on two wheels and he pulled over in

front of us and we hopped in.

I'll never forget that.

That is really interesting you say it that way because Russ and I talked about Moon River,

which we're going to talk about here in a minute, which is the Chattanooga Festival,

complete opposite.

I'm not sure every.

Yeah, because it's everything's walkable.

I'm not sure everybody in North Chattanooga is thrilled that it's happening that weekend.

We have Iron Man here this week, as a matter of fact, and it takes over.

Barry, as a guy who lived in North Chattanooga, I loved it.

I loved the fact that it was literally a five-minute walk from my house.

I think the city did a really good job of not shutting you out, right?

As a resident, right?

You could still get in and out if you didn't care about it.

So those are things that have to be considered.

That's really interesting to hear you talk about the fact that the neighbors don't want

it.

There's nothing worse than top down where somebody says, you know what?

I have decided what you need, right?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if that's how they, I would love to try and find somebody in the Riot Fest

world to talk about it.

I know that they've bounced around from location to location in the past, and they've been

in Douglas Park the last couple of years.

Look, I don't know if there's many good options in and around the city.

Look, you've got the main park that Lollapalooza is on, but that's really hard.

It takes a lot of money.

I don't know what the solutions are, but I know Douglas Park cannot be the long-term

solution.

But once you were in, the music was good, the festival other than the food.

Fantastic.

It was so well done.

It was so well done everywhere else except for the food situation.

All you got to do is just drop a couple of food trucks around the main park just for

bare essentials.

I just wanted a quick corn dog.

Give me a Cray Musty, for Christ sakes.

I couldn't even get that.

Nowhere to be found.

I think that's why we do this podcast.

Those are the kind of things.

Can I get my ticket?

Can I get in?

Can I get out?

Can I get a beer?

Can I get something to eat?

Am I comfortable?

Well, speaking of getting the ticket, I had to go to check-in every day.

Why am I blanking on the word when you go get your tickets?

Box office.

So I had to go to the box office both days.

Super easy.

Very efficient.

I think they do a really good operation.

You can tell by the passion that the main Riot Fest people who go every year, they

truly love it.

That says a lot to me.

There's just a little, I got little nitpicks.

I got little nits to pick around the thing.

We had similar.

We had rain.

They cleared out the festival, Moon River again, but this time they didn't cancel.

Cleared it out for an hour and a half.

Speaking of rain agent.

Those are the kind of things where you, how did they handle it?

I thought they handled it well.

Speaking of the rain, so Chicago had a major storm happen Sunday morning and I wasn't there

Sunday night, but my family was and they said the park barely any mud.

I don't know how well they drain that park or how well that the things built, but the

fact that they only ran into a few mud puddles after torrential downpour and a delayed of

a couple hours is really impressive.

Kudos to the organizers for that kind of stuff.

That's the kind of stuff that people pay attention to.

Did you see Chloe?

I did not actually.

It wasn't until you told me that she was there that I even, I had no idea.

I know she wrote me and said that she loves Riot Fest, but I didn't know she was there

until you specifically said so.

No, I never got a.

Yeah, she goes every year.

Yeah, she's a big fan.

Look, this is not important to anybody else, but that weekend could not have been more

perfect.

The weather was perfect.

I've used the analogy of like Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade where he's going for the

Holy Grail and he's got to cross that invisible bridge and he doesn't know, but every step

that he takes, oh my God, there's a bridge.

There's a bridge here.

There's a bridge here.

That's how it felt.

Every step was perfect.

Everything worked out perfect.

I couldn't have picked a better weekend.

I was going to ask, what was the year when we met Jared and Kristen?

It was our first year.

Twenty eight.

Okay.

2018.

Yeah.

You're talking about how perfect things were.

That year was like that.

Yeah.

It was like every single time I turned around, I either ran into them or somebody.

It was just amazing.

And Moon River and Taco, you and I talked about it, that was similar for us this weekend.

I mean, even with the rain delay.

Yes, it was.

I'm standing out in the road with my daughter and son-in-law and we run into folks from

AC Entertainment.

It was just cool.

And I know what you're talking about.

Those are fun when it happens that way, right?

You know, bad things turn into good things.

There are so many industry people and radio people that I haven't seen them forever.

And it was just this nonstop laugh parade where it's just a group of people, I mean,

12 of us busting balls all weekend.

It felt like Bonnarooo just, you know, with a bunch of Ubers and bars and restaurants.

We sat on Saturday night after we had a huge dinner and then afterwards we went to this

bar around the corner and it was just all of us that had flown in together.

There must have been 10, 12 of us.

And on the screen at 1.30 in the morning was the Colorado game.

Now I don't know if you're following college football right now, but Dion has taken over

the entire sport and maybe the biggest sporting piece of news that we've had all year.

And so it's 1.30 in the morning.

Now again, it's 2.30 on the East Coast.

It's 1.30 in the morning in Colorado and Colorado State are playing this football game that

at 1.30 in the morning got the fifth highest ratings ESPN has ever seen.

That's how like the bar was packed and everybody was literally on pins and needles watching

the Colorado State Colorado game except for our 12 people who couldn't give two shit

just screaming at each other making, you know, dick jokes.

But me and me and my buddy Derek Madden were just sitting there watching the Colorado State

game.

It was I just couldn't tell you how much fun it was.

It was literally fun.

And I think that there's part of that in that it's sort of the riot fest culture that helps.

It's just a wonderful time.

The people are great.

The festival experience is good and you get no hardly any complaints.

And that just feeds into the rest of the weekend.

If not for almost killing someone, it would have been perfect.

I think it's the festival thing.

And I mean, that's what I've noticed.

And we heard it from Noah Cyrus last week.

She talked about, you know, she gets to see her family because she's in the state.

She gets to see other acts.

That's the thing that I think you get with festivals is it's so big and so many people.

It's not like you're driving in on a bus and you're doing your show and you're on home.

It's an all day kind of thing.

You know, we talked about you get to see more acts than one.

But it's also you get to see people.

And I just love it.

I mean, we had a blast.

I did.

I hope you did, Russ.

I just thought that weekend was great.

Oh, yeah, I did, too.

I didn't get a chance to go back and listen to the Noah interview.

Shocked.

Yeah, tell me about it.

She was so much fun.

And we talked about it.

And Russ, I mean, I've been thinking about it all week.

Brad, she just talked about her dad.

She was just such a sweet little girl talking about how much.

Boy, she knows she knows the ticket to your heart.

She hit it, man.

She nailed it.

And it was, you know, you're looking at this star, you know, from a family of stars.

I mean, there are a family of creative people.

And I asked her, you know, what was it like growing up in that household?

Well, then you have forgotten me and my family, Scott and Rick Steiner.

Yeah.

Yeah, I imagine that was very similar.

You came home and everybody sat around and you just sang, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you just sat yourself on the couch.

Well, that's what I asked her.

You know, I said, what was it like growing up?

Because it's not just Miley and her dad, Billy Ray.

It's all of them are in some ways in theater.

And so, I mean, I just was it like you came home and everybody had a guitar and they sat

around the fireplace and sang all day long.

She was like, no, you think.

But you know, I did come home and my dad, her dad, Billy Ray would be sitting at the

kitchen table with a guitar singing and she said, I'm his number one fan.

It was really cool.

It was really sweet.

That's sweet.

Was cool.

How was her show?

Yeah, she was really good.

And it was a lot livelier than I thought it would be.

Right, Russ?

I mean, yeah.

Yeah.

When the lineup first came out and she's on it, it almost kind of stuck out.

Like, does she really fit on this lineup?

But she definitely did.

I mean, the show was perfect.

The crowd loved it.

Is it is it leaning country or I always thought it was a pop show?

Oh, yeah, I think it was more pop.

It was not a country.

I'm not sure.

You know, it's country is so many different things now.

It was it was not old country for sure.

And it was not broke country either.

But is it a pop show?

Is it a pop show?

I mean, she doesn't play guitar or anything.

But yeah, right.

OK.

Yeah, I thought she was great.

I'm so glad we secretly when we set that up, we secretly just we were hoping Billy Ray

was going to be there.

I was hoping to be lurking around, but he wasn't.

And and Russ and I were just talking off air.

She was scheduled for several interviews, so really didn't know what we were going to

get.

You know what I mean?

You know what I mean, Brad?

You get them.

They heard him in.

They heard him out.

So I was afraid we were going to get yes, no's and got to go.

And she she was very giving and answered all of our questions.

It was great.

I'm a fan.

Yeah.

Good.

Great.

All of all of them, Judah from Judah in the line.

It was terrific.

And we're getting a sweetheart from the guy, all of the guys from flip turn.

And that was that I started to say that was one of my favorites.

They were all great.

Yeah.

All three.

All three.

Good.

Well, you want to take a take a little spot here and come back from flip turn.

Speaking of interview, do you have anything to say before we get into a fun and taco hit

a home run as he always does?

My man.

Oh, I can't wait to find out.

I mean, the man the man is like a high, high percentage baseball player.

He swings very rarely, but when he does there and waits for his pitch and then when he does

it, when he sees it, he takes a lot of pitches, man.

He takes a lot of pitches.

When he sees it, he lets it go.

All right.

A lot of what?

My man.

Oh, you said pitches.

Yeah.

So we'll take a short pause here and when we come back flip turn on the what podcast.

So if you don't mind, introduce yourself.

I'm Mitch.

I play keys and guitar for flip tune.

Hey, I'm Devin and I play drums and flip turn.

My name's Dylan.

I sing and play guitar.

My name is Madeline and I play the bass.

I am Tristan and I play lead guitar.

Part of the reason I mentioned the rew bus and Daniel and those guys is you did one of

their shows last year, right?

At Bonnarooo.

Yes, we did.

It was it was a hot day.

Funny story about that set, the stage was turned directly towards where the sun was

setting and it was about three p.m. when we played.

So it's like the hottest part of the day.

And my symbol was so hot, you could probably cook an egg on it.

Like literally, it would definitely cook it so quickly.

But we had to cut a song short.

Madeline and I started like seeing spots in our vision.

I was like about to pass out.

I was overheating so much.

And then immediately after we got off stage, I literally threw up.

It was like it was the hottest show I think we've ever played ever.

That's a pro move where you wait.

Yeah, exactly.

It was a good set, though.

Yeah, it was good.

The crowd.

People really liked it.

They sucked through it, too.

Like they were in it with us.

It was hot and like it was really fun, though.

We're never going to forget that day.

I don't think.

Never.

It was awesome.

I understand you did a different set, right?

You did two sets.

You played the festival as well.

Yes.

What went into picking the songs for the Roobust set?

I remember we played Cold, I think, because he specifically wanted to hear it.

I think we opened with it and we're like, man, this is ironic.

It was Daniel's favorite song.

Awesome.

Yeah, we played that for him and having to sing like, oh, Cold.

We're like, no, it's hot.

I think we just brought out, since it was longer, we just played some other songs that

weren't in the set list for our other set.

Yeah, just tried to mix it up a little bit.

Yeah.

Something like that.

Is it fun?

I mean, you said it is, but is it you get to do whatever you want type of thing and

a little bit.

Definitely.

Yeah.

I mean, like, not to say that the pressure is not the same, but it is a different environment

when you're just playing for, I guess.

Well, everyone there just loves music.

Yeah.

And you know, like, you could do whatever you want on stage at that point.

And they're just there because they are there at Bodhrue and they're having the best time

no matter what.

So there is a stress that is lifted off of our shoulders, which was great because there

was a lot like the heat did definitely affect us.

But like, I think the people there, especially at Bodhrue, everyone's so nice.

So it was like it was a fun time and very stress free.

So there's a progression I want to get to because of some other stuff you guys have

done.

But compare that to like today.

You did a great set here at Moon River and beat the rain.

Yeah.

You got your set in.

Crowd was into it, right?

Crowd.

It was a great crowd.

Yeah, everybody was it was cool.

We saw some familiar faces.

Yeah, it was definitely a really fun crowd today, for sure.

Yeah, everyone.

It was cool.

Like, I feel like there are a lot of people that definitely knew our music and stuff in

the crowd because sometimes festivals.

You don't know what you're expecting.

You don't know.

They could be waiting for a band that's later that night, like at that stage.

But I think a lot of people there knew our songs.

So that was really cool.

And then I understand you did Red Rocks recently, right?

Yeah.

So that's that's why I was going with.

So you do Roobus.

Four million degrees heat.

And then recently you did Red Rocks, right?

Yes.

That was crazy.

Red Rocks was for the first thing that was so noticeable about that was when you walk

out and even in soundcheck, I wasn't even thinking about this.

I wasn't thinking about this until the minute we stepped out there.

But usually when you play a show, your eye level or you're standing a little bit above

the crowd.

This you're looking up.

You're below every single person that's there.

And not only is it you're below them, you're below 10000 people.

So it's like a feels like a big wave that's about to come and crash you crash down on

you.

And you just kind of walk out there and you're just like, oh, man, I don't know.

Crowd decided to like the rocks, like the pillars of rocks lining the auditorium.

It's just insane.

Like I kept looking at them the entire time.

It's become the cathedral, right?

Yeah.

It's become the place to play.

Yeah, it's it is the place in the US to go and and like and play.

I mean, if you play there, it's like it's a bucket list.

Yeah, it's a bucket list.

Every band I know.

Yeah.

I mean, even Mount Joy sold out both shows before we were at it.

So just the fact that they had us on was really, really nice.

It felt very special to be a part of that.

Honestly, like that was a huge moment, I'm sure, for their career.

So just to be able to share that with them.

Yeah.

And I'm going to ask one more and I'm going to put him on the spot because you guys have

had another pretty cool thing happen recently.

You have a song picked up for a video game.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, let's go.

But I mean, that's got to be the coolest thing.

You know, in my day, getting a song on like a Disney movie.

That'd be pretty sick.

Yeah.

That was a huge...

I played...

I grew up playing rock band or guitar here and then rock band.

I was like, I just thought it was so cool.

I never thought that...

Even now, I never thought that we would have a song in rock band.

So that was crazy.

I hope I have to get my whole song.

I think I had to play it to know it's real.

I still don't think it's...

I think it's not real until I do it.

I don't know.

But very exciting.

That was so cool.

So to be clear, the game is rock band.

So you're saying that you were playing rock band.

Yeah.

You're playing rock band.

Yeah.

So you're playing rock band.

Yeah.

So you're playing rock band.

Yeah.

So you're playing rock band.

So you're playing rock band.

Yeah.

So you're playing rock band.

Yeah.

So you're playing rock band.

Yeah.

It's in rock band four.

It's at the DLC.

So maybe we have to pay $1.99, but hey.

Go grab the DLC right now.

Yeah.

There's a ton of good Tears for Fear songs and you all covered Everybody Wants to Rule

the World.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you.

What made you pick that song or was there a story behind that?

I think it's the song that was the most important.

Yeah.

It's a song that was the most important.

Yeah.

It's a song that was the most important.

Yeah.

What made you pick that song or was there a story behind that?

We used to cover it like years ago.

We tried it one time, I think, maybe twice.

And we were like, okay, cool.

And I think we were looking to do a cover, honestly, just to throw something into our

set that was maybe different.

And I know everybody likes 80s music in the band, so.

We do a lot of 80s covers.

Yeah.

Like The Cure and someone else.

I can't think of any.

Yeah, but The Cure just came out.

But yeah, I know that's one of your favorite songs.

Yeah.

Growing up, my grandmother loved that song, so I listened to it all the time.

Your grandmother loved that song?

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

I love the song, too.

I have a very young family.

I'm a very young family.

And it's also, it's just a dynamic song, too.

You know, that's something that you throw into the set that even if you're there and,

you know, people don't know your music or if you're like opening for somebody or playing

a festival, you know, for instance, people, everybody, most everybody knows that song.

So that's something that people can like grab their attention.

That's another reason why we wanted to throw that one in.

Yeah.

I think you guys nailed it.

Thank you.

Great set.

Thank you very much.

I want to go back to the game a little bit.

How does that even work?

The game?

How do you get a song on a game, right?

One day our team was like, your song is either rock band or like, yes.

Yes, that's about it.

I think it's essentially you kind of submit your stuff and get some from people.

I mean, is it something you think about when you're writing a song?

No, definitely not.

Definitely not, yeah.

That might work.

Who has the...

I feel like, I feel like what we do have a record label and a part of that record label

is something called Sync.

And there's someone that manages that.

And what he does is he sends out our music and basically companies can look at it and

be like, oh, this will be really cool for a commercial.

And I'm sure what happened is rock band saw it and was like, oh, this would work really

well written out on our very linear button pressing platform.

And they're like, because I saw the demo, I was like, oh, this makes sense.

It makes total sense.

It's a very like, very gritted song.

So I think rock band was like, hey, we're interested in putting this specific song on

our game.

And then they brought it back to us and we're like, this is the first time we heard of it.

And we're like, yeah, of course, we'll totally do that.

And then like, I think like half a year went by, we didn't hear about it.

And then all of a sudden they're like, yeah, sign this and it'll be on the game.

And then that's how it happened.

So a lot of it was behind the scenes that we necessarily didn't have to kind of work

at, but like our label was like pushing that.

Huge thanks to Dual Tone Records.

Yeah.

It's really cool.

All right.

Like I said, you guys going to stick around?

You're going to watch some more.

Marcus King, Johnny Swim, Hound Mouth, Drew Holcomb.

You're going to be around tomorrow?

No, we're going home.

Yeah, unfortunately.

Very cool.

Ross, you got any other?

I don't have any more questions.

Just go get the DLC at Rock Band 4.

Yeah.

Tell your grandmother to call me.

Nice.

Thank you guys so much.

This was awesome.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

There you go.

Flip turn on the What Podcast.

Nice job, fellas.

Like I said, you got to respect Taco.

He just sits there quietly, quietly, quietly, and then bam.

He's a hired killer, man.

He's a hired killer.

Did you ever call, by the way?

Still waiting.

Nope, no call yet.

That's awesome.

Yeah, she's probably still waiting for the Prince of Prussia to send her the thousand dollars that she needs.

Yeah, we'll fix that.

All right, so I guess what else we got?

Anything else before we get out of here?

No, just glad to see you both.

Okay.

Yeah, and just what else we got coming up next week?

No, no, no.

In the future?

No, no, no.

I mean, I got a couple of things we just haven't nailed down yet.

And, you know, scheduling is becoming tight.

Yeah, thanks to everybody for their patience.

I can't tell you how many shows that I have.

I had four this week.

I had a monoskin interview that I had to do.

Like it's becoming every night.

I get to see Mitski at a little thing next Tuesday.

That's very exciting.

I don't know, man.

The schedule gets so weird at the end of the year.

And I thought I was clear and ready, free for the rest of the year.

But nope, this keeps piling on more and more.

Yeah, just make sure you subscribe so you don't miss what we got coming up.

Thanks everybody for their patience.

Like, subscribe.

Put out, give us a one, two second review on Apple.

That really helps, as always.

Anything else?

Love you guys.

Okay, guys.

Talk to you next week.

Love you.

Bye.