Festival season is upon us and Brad and Barry talk to Matt Quinn from Mt. Joy, one of those bands that can play at just about any festival. Plus, it's confession time for two "veteran" media guys as Brad forgets to turn on his microphone.
Topic: Mt. Joy
Guest: Matt Quinn
Listen Via:
Less than one month away from the official start of the festival season.
Can you believe it?
Lollapalooza happens at the end of July.
One band appearing at Lollapalooza, Pennsylvania's own Mount Joy.
Our guest this week on The What Podcast.
Mount Joy, here to talk vaccines, songwriting, festivals, Red Rocks and more.
Oh, and we get into What Podcast Confessions.
On what will go down is one of the strangest podcasts in What Podcast history.
The What Podcast, which fans this year that matter, starts right now.
Welcome back to the What Podcast, which bands this year that matter.
I'm Brad, that's Barry along for the ride, Lor Taco.
Behind the scenes today, Barry Courter.
We start the home stretch into festival season 2021 that seems as though is bigger than life.
There's no question.
Two months and yeah, it's got a life of its own, doesn't it?
Not just in our universe, but I mean everywhere.
It's interesting.
If you look at the whole list, right?
Every festival lineup that you've seen so far, which one do you think is your favorite?
That's a good question.
I don't know.
I like Bonnaroo.
I like Bonnaroo.
And you know, I thought about this and I'm kind of surprised you haven't sort of hooked
me on it before.
My morning jacket is on this and I just sort of, eh.
I know, but you love my morning jacket.
That's what I mean.
I know, but it would be like if I said, I can't believe you haven't brought up Brittany Howard
yet.
True.
It's just sort of like a given for both of us that these are our red circles that we're
drawing around the lineup.
Most people say, whatever your schedule is, there's that one artist every single day that
you're not going to miss.
I know yours is my morning jacket.
I know mine is Brittany Howard.
You know, I am sort of saving our my morning jacket conversation for our my morning jacket
interview.
I can't wait.
You know that.
I'm just saying it sneaks up on me every now and then because I was re-listening to our
show, you know, because I love listening to our show as everyone should.
Everyone.
Oh yeah.
That's why our numbers are so big.
Barry just keeps hitting replay, replay, replay.
And you know, the mini-roo that we had with those guys, they asked who you're looking
forward to it.
And I don't even think I mentioned my morning jacket, which is legitimately my favorite
band out there right now.
That really surprises me.
Well I know.
It's sort of, that's my point.
That's exactly my point.
I don't.
So to your point, as far as favorite, I haven't, I'm just more looking forward to going and
doing this than I am looking at festival lineups.
That's a really great point.
Yeah.
I think that you might be right.
This is one of the years that the lineups really don't matter.
You can see ACL Fest, excited we were about the ACL Fest lineup until, you know, 10 minutes
later I realized, oh, this is really bad.
It doesn't matter.
It sells out in an hour.
We're in a world where the lineup just has no bearing on somebody's excitement.
I will say though, if I were to pick a lineup, and I feel like I say this every year, based
on our conversation of foreign festivals versus American festivals, Primavera Sound every
year just has this bizarrely huge feel to it.
You know, I can't wait to explore the festivals overseas more and get into some sort of head
space as to what that might look like, because at least in my mind, I have made it out to
be the biggest Disneyland that you possibly could imagine.
It's sort of like if somebody has never been to Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza and whatever their
creation in their mind is, it's never going to meet that.
I feel like that's where I am with Primavera Sound.
That's a good point, yeah.
And it brings me back to like, if you do listen to this show and you have built a Bonnaroo in
your head as this just gargantuan being that you're never going to be able to tackle, give
it about a day, it's really not that big.
It's really not that, so long as you prepare properly, so long as you know where you're
going, so long as you understand the lay of the land a little bit, it's really not that
big of a space, do you want to compare it to a Lollapalooza?
It's bigger than Fortcast, but Fortcast is teeny tiny, you know?
Okeechobee, teeny tiny hangouts, footprint really is only like three city square blocks.
Bonnaroo, not that big.
It's the camping grounds that are so vast and large.
Oh, there's no question.
Okay, alright, there's the qualifier.
And you and I have done it a while, so we're used to the, you know, how to get through
Centauru and this and that, but for that first timer, the other thing I will disagree with
you on, when the sun goes down, it's a different place.
You better know how to navigate.
Your first night you're going to be totally confused.
You know, you think you've got your marker and then it changes.
Even back in our camp, you know, it took a couple years for me to figure out and we've
made the point that Camp Nut Butter becomes that marker for a lot of people.
Well, it's a big giant screaming marquee in the sky, you know?
Yeah, but that's the point.
I mean, how many times have people come by and said, oh my God, thank y'all for doing
what you do, because comparatively speaking, I think you're 100% right, but it's still
a big event.
I mean, if you've never been to an event like it and you suddenly you're dropped on the
farm literally, it's a big confusing event.
That is true.
If you've never been to a festival, it is very daunting.
I just wonder if it's as big in the mind of a Bonnaroo virgin as Primavera Sound is for
me.
I feel like I'm going to walk into Madrid.
I'm anxious for you to do, have you done the festival down there?
The Jazz Fest?
Have you actually done it?
No, I've actually never been to Jazz Fest, but Jazz Fest is actually small.
It is small, but what I understand from people is it's so hard to navigate because it has
all these bottlenecks.
Yeah, because it's packed.
It's absolutely packed.
It's packed and it's bottlenecked.
So you think, you know, I'm going to run from this stage to that stage.
Unlike all the other festivals, La La Palooza, and I've said this on this show before, is
unbelievably massive.
Going from one side of the park to the other is a half an hour, 45 minute walk.
And nowhere on the farm takes you 45 minutes to walk.
Unless you're in that back camp.
Inside Centaru, you're correct.
Inside Centaru, yeah.
No way, no way.
It's 10 minutes at most.
Yeah, you can get from the other to what in five, 10 minutes.
Yeah, and you get a spicy pie on the way.
On the way.
La La Palooza, not a chance.
It is unbelievably massive.
With all that being said, we're going to lead up to our first festival of the calendar years,
La La Palooza.
We have a La La Palooza band on today in Mount Joy.
Yeah, he was great.
That was so much fun.
If you don't know Mount Joy, we say this in the chat with him, but Mount Joy is one of
these bands that sounds right in every situation you put them in.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter what you're doing.
There's a feel like that.
For me, it's my morning jacket.
That literally is, when I don't know what else I want to hear, I hit that and that's
where I start.
Then I usually end up going somewhere.
That's always a good starting place.
It always is a feel good.
That's actually a really good question.
I wonder what my, I don't know what I want to listen to, but I'm just going to put this
on until I figure it out, sort of soundtrack is.
I feel like it changes.
Right now it's Cautious Clay.
Every time I don't know what I want to listen to, I put on a couple of Cautious Clay tracks.
Oh, you know what else is right now?
Black Pumas.
Black Pumas is one of my perfect, this is my off ramp into wherever I feel like going.
Bahamas.
Bahamas on the weekend for me.
My morning jacket when I know it's going to eventually end up loud.
That's kind of my start, but I don't know what the loud is just yet.
It's been that way for eight, nine years now.
Oh man, James Vincent-Memoro is another good one.
I feel like I don't have one that has been one for years.
Oftentimes I do get into habits and it becomes the same thing over and over and over and
over.
I don't know if I'm still hanging on to something from 10 years ago though.
Like I'm not starting my playlist world with Alabama Shakes.
I might get to it, but I'm not starting there.
Yeah.
No, and it's, I love doing that.
I love playing this game in my own head to see where it starts and where it goes.
Cause I literally could start with my morning jacket and end up with B-52s and used to be
bass nectar.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, not anymore.
You know, it goes back to everybody's the best DJ at their own radio station.
Everybody knows the hits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you think, gosh, if someone else were listening, they would love this.
I am really good at this.
All right.
So a couple of things before we get into the Mount Joy interview, it's confession time,
Barry.
It's confession time.
Cue the sad music because it's time for me to open up the diary and confess.
I'm with you.
Dear diary, dear festival quarantine diary.
Right before the interview with Mount Joy, Brad forgot to turn on his microphone.
Should I pile on or just let you go?
Confession time is over.
I can't believe a professional broadcaster who has known this for 21 years forgot to
turn his microphone on.
That was my question.
What is it you do for a living?
I don't know.
It'd be like Barry forgot to bring a pen.
That's a great one.
Exactly.
Has happened.
Nothing worse than a reporter with a notepad and a pen that won't write.
I feel so unbelievably stupid about this.
There's no defense.
Right?
Okay, I'm just going to make it clear.
There's no defense of this.
I should have just turned the damn microphone on.
But what had happened was a total mix up in behind the scenes with us, me and Barry and
Taco and it was totally my fault so I'm not casting blame on anybody else.
It's my fault.
But there were so much other things happening and I was put in a position where I've never
done before and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I've got this.
I've got this.
Well, I forgot the one thing that was important, turning the microphone on.
Well, if we're doing this, so we typically would be on Zoom with cameras and we were
supposed to start recording about 45 minutes ago and I jumped in the shower and I might
have the worst shaving bleeder I've ever had.
Cut yourself, huh?
Cut myself.
Are you sure the old lady didn't take a stab at you?
No, it was...
A little left hook.
You know what I was actually thinking right before you came on?
You know what it reminds me of?
Steve Buscemi in Fargo.
That's me.
You two have a very striking similarity.
That is true.
No, it's the bleeder.
Oh, gotcha.
He can't... You know, he's so mad he's driving and he can't stop that bleeding neck.
That's me.
It is a little bit of a mess this week.
We understand, but the interview was so good.
But we are professionals.
Let's make that note.
We are professionals.
I don't know, man.
I tell fart jokes on the radio.
Apparently we aren't.
I don't know how professional I am.
Look, the interview is really good and you're not calling Mount Joy back and say, hey, can
we do that again?
People hear echo.
It's not...
It just sounds like a dope talking into a computer camera.
I'm sorry.
I apologize in advance.
It's my fault.
I'm stupid.
I just didn't hit the button.
But either way, it's a really good chat.
He is such a smart, interesting dude.
Yes, yes, yes.
I loved it.
I didn't want to toss the baby out with the bath water just because this idiot forgot
to turn the microphone on.
No, I loved it.
I thought his insights into how they've dealt with this pandemic, what they've done, this
whole idea of do we blow up the whole machine and start over just because we can.
It was great.
It was a really good interview.
Good.
I hope you like it as much as we did.
Mount Joy on the What Podcast.
First off, thanks for joining us on this.
We're getting into the home stretch of what it feels like going to be a nonstop explosion
of shows.
You guys way out in front of a lot of these shows.
In fact, you've got one, depending on when you're listening to this, you've got one
tomorrow and the next day in Chicago.
Yep, correct.
We're doing a couple shows around Lollapalooza.
We're pretty excited to get started.
Are you ready?
You know, I feel like there's like no possible way to make this a good sound bite.
But I feel like we sort of made it through the pandemic as well as any other band in
terms of playing shows and, you know, the socially distant kind, of course, but, you
know, drive ins and whatnot.
And I feel like we're pretty ready.
I obviously, you know, we wish we could have been touring the way we had been prior to
COVID.
But, you know, we're as ready as we'll ever be kind of thing.
I think it's just if there's anything that works for us, I think it's just that, you
know, we do play our instruments.
We play live and there's an element, I think, of improvisation to some of the stuff that
we do.
And so it's not so reliant on, you know, the perfect sound system or whatever it is that
a venue has to offer.
So maybe that plays into our favor a little bit.
I think that might be part of it.
Barry, I feel like I've said this to other people, but if you need a sound for any time
in any place, whether it's a family reunion, a late night rager, a bake sale, Mountain
Joy seems to fit the bill in every space that you put them in.
And I feel like those are the ones that made it a lot easier through and can adapt into
pretty much any space.
You're almost like a water balloon.
And really, whatever you squeeze is going to take whatever shape you try to make it.
Yep.
Been working on that one.
Yeah.
Did I?
That's pretty good.
Yeah, I like that.
I think we might we might need to make some t-shirts.
Yeah, I'm a water.
I'm going to be your water balloon.
Well, some of us are becoming shaped that way.
Yes.
And that's exactly what I look like.
It's funny you mentioned the schedule.
I was going to I was going to bring that up because I was looking.
I don't know if you or your tour manager, maybe you need to look at a map, but whoever
has done your scheduling, you guys are getting ready to go literally all over the country,
aren't you?
Yeah.
And then it's not like back to back nights, but Chicago, then Bend, Oregon, L.A., Louisiana,
New York.
I mean, you're about to see a whole bunch of the country again, aren't you?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, that's kind of what we were doing before the pandemic.
And I guess that's the part that I'm sort of most excited to get back to.
And a lot of ways is just like, you know, it is you have to enjoy the adventure side
of it because there's, you know, there's the reality of it, which is that traveling that
much puts puts a lot of stress on some of the other parts of your life.
But you know, you have to love the adventure part and getting to see the country.
And we definitely are about to get to see the country.
So we're excited to do that.
You guys you guys have a pretty, you know, stacked band.
You get five, six members in your bit.
What is your touring group like?
What is your how many people you take along with you on a regular stop to Bend, Oregon?
Right now, you know, we're I think 10 or 11 of us will be going on this tour.
And we're all on one bus.
So, you know, buses group.
That's a lean number.
Yeah.
I mean, buses are in one bus.
So I think buses, at least the ones I've been on, have 12 bunks.
So there's like one bunk open at this point, which is what we call the junk bunk.
And everyone's, you know, crap is up there.
Barry, you're up.
Yeah.
They called you junk bunk in college, buddy.
It's time for you to go.
Man, this this episode is working for me.
I'm getting all kinds of, you know, got a new porn name and everything.
Yeah.
Look, if I know you have a new album amidst the pandemic and George Floyd, but I want
to sort of start from the very beginning and how Mount Joy found each other.
And we'll go from there.
For those who may not know, you know, it started out Sam and I grew up around where I am right
now, which is outside of Philadelphia.
We both sort of separately ended up in L.A. after college.
But, you know, we had written songs together growing up and we both didn't really know
too many people out in L.A.
So got back to making songs together and felt like we had some good ones and literally just
went on Craigslist and found our bassist, Michael, who is still our current bassist
and one of our good friends, obviously now.
And, you know, he had been in L.A. for a little while longer than us.
And he connected us to Satyri, who's our current drummer, you know, and from there it was like,
you know, we were kind of tapped into a bit of the L.A. music scene.
And that's how eventually we got Jackie through a friend out there who was also playing music
with her.
And yeah, that's pretty much it.
You know, we tapped into the L.A. music scene through Craigslist.
And even the first person to record our stuff was just Michael's roommate.
You know, we did it like Astrovan and those songs just in his house.
I find that to be remarkable because we now live in a time.
I wanted to say it specifically, I'm glad you brought up Craigslist because we live in
a time that meeting somebody off of Craigslist to buy a motorcycle is dangerous in this city.
I don't know how it is in Philadelphia, but I'm not meeting anybody on Craigslist to do
anything or anything.
This was in L.A., right?
Yeah, this is in L.A.
You know, what's funny about that is that it's so I guess Craigslist is there's such
a dichotomy of like crazy people and then just like earnest looking for a job folks that
like it's pretty easy to suss out in the return email that like this is a psychotic person
and like this person gave me a link to their previous work and a picture of their Instagram
and like, you know, they really like, you know, like so we really we really it's not as though
we like we did put up an ad on Craigslist, but we answered one of the emails and that
was Michael's and the rest of them were like, wow, this person's psychotic or whatever.
But it totally worked out.
I don't know if we should.
We probably need like a Craigslist commercial because we're like a true Craigslist success
story.
Yeah.
But did you meet that first time in a public place or did you come to you come to your
house?
That's a great question.
I think we met at a rehearsal studio.
So we probably I don't know.
We weren't really thinking we were like in our young 20s.
I think probably it probably helped that we had no idea what we were doing in life anyway.
So that's usually the best way.
Yeah, you make the best decisions that way.
The history of the band, though, I mean, I feel like you're three, four years in.
Right.
This still feels like a growing zygote.
Yeah, I hope so.
You know, I mean, it certainly it feels like there's a growing sort of energy to what we're
doing each time we've gone out.
We've been so fortunate.
Like we've had this real feeling of like there's more people here than the last time we were
in, you know, whatever city it is.
And I think that's like a powerful for any band like that's sort of the powerful engine
that drives you on, you know, that makes you want to get back out there again.
Well, Matt, I mean, let's cut straight to the chase.
I mean, you've got 85 million streams.
That is not too shabby, turns out.
Up on the mountain, caught on the rail line.
Up on the mountain, caught on the rail line.
You know, in three years, you've got you've got 85 million streams now.
I know that probably equates to twenty five dollars.
But you know, the the there's got a momentum is a real thing.
And feeling it from city to city is is obviously fuel for you.
And when you go to make it the place in New Orleans, make it to the team is the next time
you come back to Joy Theatre and it's all of a sudden you've got a thousand people in
the room.
When you feel that momentum, how do you make it through a covid when all of that momentum
just crashes and burns and you are sitting on a brand new album and you're sitting on
a tour that you didn't get to go on?
I mean, you know, you try to keep everything in perspective, really.
I think that's how we did it.
We just kind of thought, you know, we don't have this the worst.
You know, there's we were all fortunate to be healthy, but there's no question that it
was a real bummer to our business.
And, you know, so many other people's businesses, businesses and, you know, not to give a canned
answer, but truly, like, that's the only way when you have something that you care so much
about and you put so much of your sweat equity into and to see the trajectory and feel so
good about it.
And then, you know, to question if you'll ever get to do it again.
I mean, I think I think a lot of bands probably reach that low where you're like, oh, they're
never going to let people go inside and listen to music again.
And the only way for me personally was to just try to keep everything in perspective
of like, you know, we're still able to go out and do these drive in shows.
And that's why we did them, because it was like, you know what?
I don't know that there's going to be another moment where you get 50, you know, 10,000
people inside of a basketball arena again.
Like I had my doubts as to whether that time was coming again.
Obviously, it looks like it is.
And that's fantastic.
But we weren't going to take anything for granted.
Did it help or hurt, especially early on, sort of knowing this was a literally a worldwide
thing and there's nothing you could do about it?
You know, it's not like I mean, everybody's had big dreams and plans that were interrupted
because of whatever.
What did it do psychologically?
Knowing that and there's just nothing we can.
I mean, this sucks.
But what can we do about it?
Right?
Yeah.
I mean, I think I hard to like, I guess it helped.
You know, for me, it's like my my two family members that work in hospitals like the Mount
Joy thing just felt small.
You know, it felt like there was just much bigger fish to fry and things to worry about
than me playing acoustic guitar, you know, for people.
It just you know, the scale of the pandemic certainly hit home.
I was in New York City when everything started kind of going crazy.
So I was sort of like face to face with it right right at the beginning.
Saw the just like carnage really of what it was doing to this country and the world.
And so on that level, obviously, I was worried about Mount Joy, but there truly was, like
you said, there was this psychology of like, well, fuck Mount Joy, you know, like, I don't
know who cares.
Yeah.
That's why that's why I ask.
I know that I felt that way.
Kind of have your own pity party and then you realize there's a whole lot of people
in a lot worse shape than I am.
So for sure.
Now, when you OK, so you start to put the tour back together and you you feel the momentum
starting to build again.
Was there a conversation in anything that you were doing or your people that you wanted
to do like proof of vaccine or, you know, show showing a card?
Did you guys have any sort of those conversations or was it you know what vaccines available
or just going to roll?
I personally like, you know, I think we had the conversations, but, you know, we're at
the level where there's lots of other people and players involved in booking our shows.
And I personally would love love for everybody to get vaccinated and love for people to have
the peace of mind at our shows to know that everybody there have been vaccinated.
But it's you know, we have a lawyer and we have these conversations for sure.
I think we but you find that it's tricky, you know, as our as our country and as the
world is finding out, we do have laws in place that make that tricky when we're just a band.
You know, we're not we're not looking to get I mean, I'd love to be, you know, standing
before the Supreme Court trying to figure out if what we did was constitutional.
But I don't think we have the resources for that.
And you know, it's it is hard.
But I think personally, I would I would.
Do you have do you have anybody getting to a point here?
Do you guys have anybody in your team that refuses or doesn't want to be the vaccine?
As of now?
No.
OK.
So yeah.
The thing is, when we start to look at all of these different industries around the country,
whether it's radio, whether it's working back in a newspaper or an Amazon plant or going
on tour again, there is going to be this this moment where we start looking around and asking
ourselves, I wonder if that guy's got got the shot.
I wonder if that guy's got the shot.
And then all of a sudden we start really questioning each other even more than we already have
and become even more polarized.
So I'm trying to fast forward to the day where you're at La Lollapalooza and there's 80 to
90 thousand people walking around and there's a good chance that 20,000 of them aren't vaccinated.
There's got to be a conversation on the C3 level or on the Mountjoy level or even in
the local radio level.
Well, what do we do with our people that are vaccinated?
Unvaccinated.
Is that a worry for somebody like you?
There are artists that refuse to play if you're not vaccinated.
You got Dave Chappelle doing shows and he refuses to do a show unless everybody's masked up.
I wonder if there are there are places in this where you start to say, you know what,
we're going to start changing our tune if things start to get a little weird along the
way.
I think that's very, very possible, especially from a band like us who takes public health
very seriously, especially this pandemic.
I guess the way I look at it, and maybe this is naive, is that these next couple of months
in our country and around the world will be crucial to determining what exactly is appropriate
as far as that's concerned.
I think we're still learning as far as I know about the transmission between people who
are vaccinated.
Obviously, we have this new variant, the Delta variant, which throws maybe a potential curveball
into things.
And I think we're sort of in this learning phase.
And I think if we find out that people who are vaccinated don't transmit this virus and
people who are not vaccinated do transmit it, and that becomes an accepted piece of
science, which I know there are studies that do seem to show that it lowers transmission.
But I think there are things like that.
But once you sort of cross that barrier into like, hey, like you said, you're making people
at our concert unsafe.
I do think you get to a point where, and personally, as a musician, I think that there are promoters
and there are people who run these venues like Live Nation, who have a responsibility
to the artists that they basically employ as contractors to step up and say, we're a
big company.
We have million dollar lawyers.
You're not coming to a Live Nation show unless you're vaccinated.
I don't think Mount Joy, who is the little man in this, should have to stand up to right
wing propaganda on its own individually as an entity that has half of, a millionth of
the bargaining power of a Live Nation or someone like that.
So I think if it does come to that, I think there are powers in the music industry that
could step forward.
And to the extent that they don't, I think you won't see sort of a general, if they
put it on the artists, personally, for me, that's pretty weak.
How much, if anything, Matt, has this last year changed the band dynamic as far as things
like this?
And I guess I'm thinking as a band member, I just want to play.
I just want to get on the bus and I just want to play and show up and go to the next one.
And then I want to go to the studio and make music.
I don't want to have these sorts of deep political, socially, you know, maybe you do, maybe you
don't.
I don't know.
But how much do you think it changes that sort of dynamic?
We're now a question like what Brad just asked, which is a very legitimate question, is something
that you have to actually consider.
Whereas a year and a half ago, it was like, you know, what's the next town and where do
I have to be and at what time?
You know?
Sure.
The goal for every artist, I think, is that right, is to, you know, try to just do music.
But you know, I think there is a balance that you have to find where it's like, you know,
most likely Live Nation or whomever the biggest power in music is, is not going to do something
like that.
They might.
I'm not here to crap on any of those people.
Who knows?
Maybe they will.
But it often does get left to us to decide.
Just to add quickly, you guys have families.
You have people you love, too.
You know, I mean, that's what I mean.
It's bigger than just an individual.
And that's, I think, the reality that most intelligent people have realization have come
to in recent months is, you know, it's not just about me.
I think it's incredibly selfish to not get vaccinated.
I'll just leave it at that.
I think it's incredibly selfish.
Yeah, it is.
And the non vaccinated people will say it's incredibly selfish to tell me I'm selfish,
which to me is fine.
But OK, so so all of this to weave into sort of the point.
You guys and you specifically, when you are putting together an album, you're writing
a song, you have no problems going into topics like this.
Right.
I know that this seems cliche, but do you find yourself as a guy who writes lines like
the weed, the wine?
Do you find yourself dipping a toe in this pool?
Yeah, I mean, a little bit.
I think I think for me and I've said this before, it's just like you can't force that
stuff.
I think like songwriting for me has always been to try to sort of conjure up whatever
is coming out that feels like.
It's worth people hearing kind of thing, I guess, is the most simplified version of it
or most concrete version of what I'm trying to say.
But there's this sort of abstract, you know, what makes a song worth writing or something
like that.
And I think when you go in there and you're like for me personally as a writer, I'm sure
there are writers that are great at this.
But when I go in to be like, I'm going to write a song to make sure people get vaccinated
and I kind of kind of go in like line one, like it is selfish if you don't do like it's
just so the big hammer.
Yeah.
Get that to an A&R guy today.
Go.
Yeah, it's just going to be bad.
The song's going to suck.
The people on YouTube that are like, you know, the haters are going to win like their their
their burns are going to hurt.
They're going to be right.
The song does suck.
You know, so I think I think you've just got to make sure it comes from this sort of organic
place where you were writing a song and and that's what it felt like it needed to be about.
And that's rare, like I think because these things deserve good songs like, you know,
I think the 60s and 70s and sort of with all the social unrest that, you know, music touched
on in that era, like those are some iconic songs behind those words, you know, so like
I think it's more than just an artist standing up for what he believes.
I'm like, I guess we can all do that on Twitter.
Everybody in the world does anyways.
But when it comes to a song, it's got to be like worth it.
Yeah, but you're sorry, Barry, but you're the type of writer who would never write something
like if you don't get vaccinated, you are selfish.
You would be able to weave it into a little bit more of a, you know, you know, side body
blow, if you will.
Sure.
You know, to me, I can fit something else.
That's what I was going to say.
If anyone's not familiar with Mount Joy, I just I really like you guys.
I like you as a songwriter so much because first and foremost, one of the best lines,
one of the best lines I've ever read in my life was in the wife reminds me of this all
the time.
Be your where your two feet are.
You know, life is going to go around you and spin around and tear you down.
The only happiness is where your two feet are.
I mean, that sort of sounds like a Mount Joy lyric.
Sort of sounds like Christmas where you are.
You know, you would not need to be that on the nose.
I would imagine.
No, and like, for me, it's like I guess what I'm saying is I would love like my heroes
did that.
I would love to do that.
But I guess I just and I think we I think we will.
I think there's some songs on the next record that you'll hear that that have that.
It's just my record already.
Yeah.
Wow.
But I think I think for me, it's it's just like I throw out some of those songs, you
know, where you where you listen to it and you're like, it just doesn't meet the moment.
It just doesn't.
You know, some of the things that are happening now, like the stuff we're talking about is
super important stuff.
And I certainly don't want to like throw a lame punch if I'm going to throw one.
You know, I want to hit.
I don't think I've ever asked this question this way.
But do you ever consider a lyric or a song like, do I really want to be singing this
later?
I mean, it might it might it might land now.
It might feel right.
But do you know, do you ever consider it that way?
Like this, this will sound really weird a year from now or 10 years.
Or do I want to sing it every night that, you know, that sort of thing?
Yeah.
I mean, to your point, like a little bit, but it's funny, like not until not until
after we had gone out and toured.
I'd never toured like we do for this band and anything I had previously done.
And you know, we have a song that is named after my now ex girlfriend.
So it tells you like, you know, OK, yeah.
There's categories.
There could be one.
I like getting a tattoo with somebody's name.
Yeah, there's that, you know, the bubble gum song that becomes your biggest hit.
Now you got to sing it every night.
There's but I think that's going to happen.
I guess it has to feel it's kind of like putting it away and coming.
It's like, you know, before you hit send sleep on it type of thing, I guess is maybe what
I'm getting at.
Oh, yeah.
You sleep on it or you don't sleep on all the songs.
I mean, you know, I think once you hear like your recordings back, it's sort of like, I
mean, you guys do this.
So you do hear yourselves, but you're always like, oh, that's what the song sounds like.
Sounds great yesterday.
Yeah.
Sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.
Sometimes you're like, man, we killed it.
And then sometimes, yeah, you definitely have this moment where like, I don't know if that's
what I want to sound like.
I think specifically to your point, though, the more you think about that type of stuff,
you just songwriting is hard enough as it is.
And you really got to try to be in the moment and gets a little too precious.
Yeah.
And like, I think songs are about the moment that they're born into.
You know, it's like, which, which is sort of a ridiculous thing to say out loud, but
it basically what it means to me is that like, you can look back on any song or pull out,
you know, one of my pet peeves is when people are crapping on a songwriter deserved or not,
when they're just reading a line out of context from the song.
Like, you could take any lyric and make it bad by reading it out of context or, you know,
where was that coming from, whatever it is.
And sometimes people aren't even really trying to make a huge point.
They're just like, wow, I found this great melody and these are the words that fit into
it.
So you got to try to look at them.
Look, I mean, Bony Bear so famously said on 22 in May, he's like, his lyrics don't matter.
I just want to put words in a sound rate.
He's like, I'm just making sounds and the lyrics work with the sounds I'm making.
I'm going to go with that.
But I want to go back to this ex girlfriend.
Do you ever listen to the song that's ever written about a girl and say, man, I really
wish I didn't give her that energy?
You know, like I said, no, I mean, even, even singing a song about like my ex girlfriend,
it's like, I do write songs or try to write songs that are honest to me and honest to
the way I feel or the way I felt and completely honest.
Like it, it honestly just fuels me in that moment and allows me to feel all these weird
emotions on stage that are like, this is weird that I'm doing this.
And I think that that weirdness, that energy is like what music is all about.
Like, you know, you get in a room with people and like music is so stupid.
If you zoom out, like I get up there, there's a bunch of people staring at me.
I've never met.
I do these songs that are like about my grandmother and like ridiculous things.
I just essentially cry into a microphone for like an hour and a half.
People sing along.
It's non religious, but it kind of is.
It's a very strange thing.
I think, I think if you allow yourself to just lean all the way into the weirdness of
all the stuff like ex girlfriends and that, that just makes it more authentic and it is
weird to sing it, but maybe that makes it interesting for people out there.
I don't know.
I had a story before I got, I interviewed Amanda Shires and asked her about what it's
like having, you know, a Jason Isbell sing a love song like, like that.
And she said, well, first of all, I had to kind of get on him because he's basically
putting our laundry out there in front of everybody.
And then she said, and it better be damn good.
You know what I mean?
You better come strong with it.
For sure.
He did.
I guess the vulnerability on your side is appreciated.
My fear would be if I wrote something for somebody and on my side, it feels vulnerable.
It makes me feel therapeutic and I'm putting something out there in the moment, but she's
really taking this the wrong way.
She's now thinking I've written a song and I'm obsessed about it.
You know, like you get, fortunately for us, I think that's, that's more of a problem.
The less, you know, that this thing is like your career and the less necessary it is for
you to do what you're doing.
You know, it's like at this point, at this point for me, like, I feel like this is my
job, you know, and it's an amazing feeling, but I feel like I need to be creative and
thinking and writing.
And if I, if someone's upset that I, they think I wrote a song about them or I did or
whatever, then it sort of comes with the territory of being around me.
You know, I don't know.
And if, and if her name doesn't rhyme with what you need it to rhyme with too bad, right?
Yeah.
Well, your name's getting cut or changed or whatever.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I, I'm really happy that you wrote that song about me named Julia.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm really happy about it.
We had a great run.
Speaking of names and I almost never do this, but Mount Joy, I keep thinking of the, the
John Lennon Yoko Ono story where she, you know, had her art exhibit and he climbed the
ladder and looked in the teller, the viewer and it said, yes, could have said anything.
Mount Joy is a happy name.
I know it's a, it's a place, but that's the kind of thing.
Naming a band is like naming a child.
It's a very difficult thing, right?
What was, what, what were you guys thinking when you, when you picked that?
Because it, it's a, I mean, joy is a happy word, right?
Sure.
Yeah.
I really miss.
I know.
Yeah.
I'm so, I'm so worried.
He's going to say, no, it's total irony.
No.
I mean, you know, like, I think if any band was honest with you, it's like, there's, there's
this moment where you're not, you know, we weren't even certain that we were going to
make it past the, you know, our parents hearing the song on Spotify when we gave ourselves
the name.
So it wasn't like the most important moment of our lives or anything naming it, but we
definitely thought about sort of, I think at the core of sort of a lot of the songs
we write and just songwriting that comes out of Mount Joy in general is this sort of
juxtaposition of like maybe a happy sounding song, but if you kind of dust off the first
layer, there's, there's, it's a pretty dark theme or something like that.
And I don't know.
I think we were, we were just sort of mostly thrown by the idea that, uh, we, you know,
we grew up writing songs in this, in that place and, and that it has this sort of juxtaposition
of our songs, like hopefully bring joy to people, but by maybe exposing not so joyful
topics, this is like, I'm supposed to be good at words, but.
Well, let me, Hey, so how hard is it?
And I know it's, this is a stupid question for somebody who is a professional at this,
but how hard is it to not write things in a Mount Joy like voice, or do you find yourself
having it's a harder to get to the Mount Joy voice?
Yeah, I think I can only speak like for right now, you know, like, I feel like we've been
fortunate that each moment where we, I've gone out to like write a record has presented
this like total craziness, you know, like the last, the second record, um, rearrange
us, uh, we were going to record and I, uh, it was like the exact end of a five year relationship
for me.
And it sort of became this dark record or whatever it was.
It sort of comes about that inevitably.
It's all, it's all that you're kind of able to think about.
And then this one, this next one that we're working on now is like, you know, we're working
on this during the pandemic and all the stuff that we've touched on in this interview is
swirling around.
And I think it's just, for me, it's just, you just reach into whatever subconscious
feeling you have and try to be as honest about it as possible without being too on the nose.
And you just write, you know, it's, it's not, it's not, I'm not trying to write in any voice,
but if you're honest enough, it becomes your voice, you know?
And I think that's sort of it.
Yeah.
I asked mainly because I heard Dave Grohl one time talk about how it was on that documentary
that was so brilliant.
Unfortunately, the album wasn't very good, but he, you know, how it went to different
cities around the country and he wrote songs about each city that he was in.
And he was saying, I like this song, but it's got to sound like the Foo Fighters.
It almost felt like it was dumbing the song down.
He almost made it come across as, well, this would be fine, but it's got to sound like
the Foo Fighters.
So let's put it inside this box and just sort of screw it around.
And then you have somebody like Brittany Howard.
So brilliantly step outside of whatever the Alabama Shakes were and create a whole new
voice for herself.
And for her, it seemed so easily done.
And for some people it sounds, you know, simple, but I wonder if it's really more difficult
to get into a band sound as a songwriter than it is have a songwriter or a band songwriter.
You see what I'm saying?
Well, I mean, you know, I think, I think Brittany Howard is like a singular talent in the history
of music.
I don't know if that's a non sequitur or not, but I think she's just capable of whatever
she puts her mind to.
But I don't know her, but I would imagine it's the same.
You know, she seems like she writes from this spout of creativity that is so brilliant.
And I think it's just the Dave Grohl thing.
For me, it sounds more like that was a moment where he was trying to do a thing there, where
he was trying to write a song about all these different places.
And that just in and of itself is a hard way to write a song when someone's like, to me
is like write a song about this arm.
It's like, I don't know how to do that.
Yeah.
You know, like, that's not how I write songs.
So the songs sort of I pulled them out of somewhere instead of like, I couldn't like
describe a thing to you over a song that I've never really been successful with that.
I think it gets what to what you said earlier is you write about you write for the moment
in the and then and capture it.
And then you just have to go with that.
I mean, I hear that really, really, really good orange.
Yeah.
Well, some guys can do that.
You know, those are the ones who sit in a cubicle eight hours a day from nine to five.
And well, that's a great way to put it because it did feel that's what it felt like to me
when Dave said that it was like it felt like it was math at that point.
You know, and he was just putting words into a formula and then spouting it off and all
of a sudden it's on a spreadsheet album, cash or credit where's my million dollars.
So the other thing I wanted to get to with you is because you guys are so festival ready
as a live show.
First, why does every band like you work at Red Rocks?
That sound always just fits Red Rocks so perfectly.
And you guys as a band and bands like you love it so much.
Right.
Whereas I just don't see Cardi B working at Red Rocks.
You know, it just does not look the space.
I don't understand why certain bands work in certain spaces.
And second part, to the same point, festival like does it feel easier because of the kind
of band that you have on a festival stage versus a club show or a theater show?
The first part, the Red Rocks thing, you know, I think there's just and I'm not like the
world's most spiritual person, but there's something going on there that just there feels
like there's sort of this great spirit of music that I think that comes from the fans
and the artists, you know, like when you're backstage there, they have all the artists
that have played there.
And there's definitely a thread there.
You know, there's all different types of artists, but there's a thread between the Grateful
Dead and whatever music that just felt like it had this, like you're saying, perfect sort
of vibe for Red Rocks.
And I think it probably feeds into itself, right, where it's like if I think that our
band would work there, then that gives us more confidence and we have more fun and whatnot.
I think Cardi B could be cool at Red Rocks.
But you know, I kind of hear what you're saying.
And I think there's just a tradition and you know, I'd love to see Cardi B to do that now
because that sounds awesome now that I think about it.
But you know.
Well, you've got a date coming up.
It's going to be Kristen Maroney, but Cardi B is going to be showing up and taking the
spot.
God, that'd be amazing.
But yeah, and then other than that, the festival, the festival thing, you know, I don't know.
For us, we're super focused and this kind of might come off as a cliche answer, but
we really are super focused.
We always have been.
I think that's how we got here in a lot of ways on just getting better live all the time.
We know we listen back to the last show.
We treat it like a pro athlete treats a game, like where we analyze what we've done and
what we can do better.
The venue shouldn't really matter at the end of the day.
You know, like if we if we do what we're supposed to do and if we push ourselves to try new
things and challenge rifts or whatever it is or rhythm, whatever it is to get tighter,
whatever that is, we really just focus on that and try to, you know, and then you just
roll with the energy of the thing.
So I think sometimes festivals can be worse.
You know, if you get a slot where there aren't many Mount Joy fans out there and they're
not really, you know, maybe giving you as much as sometimes we get in those smaller
rooms and everyone's hanging on every word and you could just feel the it's a lightning
bolt in there and bouncing off the walls and that that you take that and into all the hard
work and preparation.
And that's when really special stuff comes out and that can happen at a festival or at
a room with 50 people in it.
So with that said, did this last year and a half almost the foot, the athletic athletics
analogy, how much did you say, let's take this opportunity and break everything down
to the very basics and rebuild it?
Did you do that or did you say, look, guys, everything was working.
Let's don't overanalyze this, but just because we have the time and mess something up, was
there was that conflict?
Yeah, I think there's I think it was both.
I think we did that where we deconstructed it.
We tried a bunch of new things.
We even went out and played different things out in these drive ins.
We felt like that was a great testing ground for some of these sort of ideas that we had.
We do like kind of a medley kind of thing where we sometimes jump into other songs and
jam on other ideas and stuff like that and try to get back in our songs.
And we try to punch in new ones.
And then, you know, we kind of came back and analyze it again.
And we said, like, look, it's it's a thing that is undeniable when we take certain aspects
of this show, people go crazy and to remove them is such an overthink.
And so we had all of that, I think, where we where we tried new things.
We realized a lot of times the old thing is, you know, it's just about doing the fundamentals
better.
You know, it's just like take the things that work and get better at those.
You know, one of the things that's always fascinated me about creating an album like
this or a movie or something is that little bitty throw away thing that gets put in there,
you know, that that as a fan, we all know it, you know, whether I mean, the Beatles
were famous for it.
It always amazes me how that stays in, you know, when a band does many, many takes and
listens to something for a year and a half, it's like a, you know, a grunt or even the
count it off, you know, to have the confidence to keep that in there after listening to
it, right. So that's a great point. I think it's a great point.
I think it's for any band, you know, not that I'm in a place to give out advice, but I think
that the only way to achieve that is to just try to always be as zoomed out as possible,
right. Because a fan of music is like the most zoomed out person relative to the band.
They just hear the song for however it was made. They don't know that the trumpet guy,
you know, like was having an affair with your wife or something like they don't know the
breaking news right now. Wait a second. Should we alert consequence and tell them that we
don't have a trumpet player and none of us are married, but you can imagine what it'd
be like if we were.
Yeah. He's like, man, Matt just ran me over with him. Yeah. He's like, wait, you guys
weren't married. And that's not a trumpet. But yeah, I don't know why I said that, but
I'm glad you did and not like the drummers. I'm the new do have. No, I just think that
you got to try to stay zoomed out. And when you listen to something, it shouldn't be about
something as small as the grunt. It should be like, does anything take you out of the
moment or does everything that's there additive? Are there things that aren't that are just
taking up space? Like, do we need to grunt? You know, like if you're if you're if you
find yourself thinking that you should discuss it. But you know, like I always think that,
you know, like, I don't know, I like the Grateful Dead. And there's like in St. Stephen, there's
like a yell in there like that. Just like to me, just like, you know, same type of thing.
Exactly. As a fan, you know, it's coming, right? And you, you probably in the car, you,
you know, yeah, we all have those moments. And that's what I'm talking about. It makes
me it makes me so happy that you're so intentional about all this, right. And you it's a dichotomy
in that you're being so intentional about so much, but also then realizing the same
time the audience is really pulled back and they don't even notice half of it, but you're
still pressing yourself to be that dialed into the small details. And those kind of
things make me feel very those like those small details are the reason why I love everything
in my things that I love most is because the people that created them really, really cared
about the teeny tiny, tiny little stuff. Yeah, I think that's all of it is about for us,
you know, the type of music we make, trying to make it sound like five humans making a
song together and having that translate and some whether it's a grunt or even sometimes
like we've left in like, you know, someone getting up from the chair after the
Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, look at that, that Fiona Apple album. I mean, she
kept her dogs barking in the back of because she made the album literally in her front
room of her house and she had street noise. She had dogs barking and it just worked, you
know, because she knew she knew exactly where she was going. I mean, that's the reason why
and I hate bringing this up. I bring this up all the time. I talk about breaking bad
all the time, because there's not a thing in that show that wasn't intentional. Everything
matter. And I try every line matter, every shot matter. And that's why the show is so
wonder. That's why as a user for the show at the end of it, everything feels so like
it felt like it not only just came to fruition, but everything felt like it exploded emotionally
for me because everything mattered. And it ended up actually mattering. I wanted to finish
though, a little game that we play every now and then. And beat the Google box and the
go go box beat the Google box. Now beat the Google box. How we play is we put Mount joy
in the Google and the Google predictive text finishes our sentence. Okay, so I'm going
to get asked you some questions that the Google box asked me when I just put in Mount joy
and you answer them for me. All right. Sure. Is Mount joy a Christian man? No. Okay. Is
Mount joy good life? Yes. Okay. Is Mount joy Mountain Dew? Yes. Okay. Who does not
joy sound like? Oh, man. Cardi B. I don't know. Cardi B. Cardi B. Yeah. Mount joy go
station. Now try what? Go station. I don't even know what that is. Go. Apparently there
is a gas station called the go station somewhere in Mount joy. And then the final one, the
final one is my favorite. Will Mount joy take my robots? Yes, but we'll take good care of
them and we'll they'll maintain their resale value and we'll talk at a later day. Oh, good.
I love that. That's really I can trust my robots with you. Thank you so much. There
you go. That's how we play beat the Google box. Matt, thank you so much for your time.
I'm really excited for you to come to New Orleans. Ironically, Barry Mount joy playing
at the joy theater. That's how you draw it up. It is brilliant. Brilliant booking agent.
That t shirt. I know the poster I bet it's gonna be brilliant. Love it. Who's designing
that poster? I want one. We'll see when you get when you get to New Orleans and I'll see
you hopefully at Lollapalooza and along the way. Can't thank you enough for being here.
I really like you guys and I I'm really excited to see this live show for the first time.
And I'm really, really excited. Well, awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate
you guys. It was a great conversation. Thanks so much.
Oh, the sweet sounds of Midas in my di st. Check them out on band camp. They're also
a linked on Spotify. Check them on Spotify themselves on their own page. They're part
of our camp mates. Nick is one of our camp mates. I can't nut butter. And that's his
band Midas who was allowing us to use their wonderfully beautiful soundscapes each and
every episode of the What Podcast. That was Mount joy. Barry Courter. The second part of
the show is even more baffling than the first part. I know it. It's one thing that we forgot
to turn the microphone my microphone on. I forgot to turn my microphone on. But then
you and I went into a diatribe that I was not going to originally allow to be part of
the show. But I am relenting because you have fought for it so hard.
It was an interesting discussion. You really threw me a curveball, which I did not expect.
But I felt like after we talked it out, we came around to an understanding, if that's
the right way to put it. So you weren't wrong. You weren't right. I wasn't wrong. I wasn't
right. But I think we got to the point to prepare you for this. This is essentially
how every conversation at Camp Nut Butter goes. I say something completely bizarre.
Barry Cox's head sideways. We argue about it for 45 minutes. And then at the end of
the day, dad falls asleep under a blanket. Or more importantly, I think what it is, is
I say, we're talking about both sides of the same coin. We're just coming at it from different
angles. I thought it was an interesting conversation.
I didn't want to keep this in because it's more of me not talking into a microphone while
holding microphone. It's more me forgetting to turn the microphone on. So it's hard. The
audio is a little funky, but we've gone this far with Mount Joy. Might as well keep the
ridiculous episode going with our conversation that leads into, of all things, Carlos Santana.
Yep. I still think you were, I still not quite sure where you were going, but I think I understand.
You make the call here. We end the What Podcast this week with a very bizarre conversation
after the Mount Joy interview on the What Podcast. We promise, I'm promising you next
week will be a lot better. In fact, next week, I'm very excited about this, next week we
get to talk to founder and publisher of Consequence, our own Alex Young.
He knows how to turn the microphone on. He does. He does. He even talked to us from his
beach house. Man, those Consequence guys make so much money that they are literally just
doing their job from a cabana on a beach. I love it. I love it.
They're phenomenal. I can't believe how we got them. I think I've seen his beach house
too though. It's weird. Looked familiar. The background looked familiar.
Alright, next week we're back, I promise you, with actual audio quality with the publisher
of Consequence, Alex Young. This is part two of the worst episode in the history of the
What Podcasts. Enjoy.
What's going on with Barry Courter? How's Barry Courter's week?
It was great. It was great. As you know, I had got the opportunity to talk to one of
our heroes.
Brad Steiner.
Brad Steiner. Got to talk to Brad. No, Carlos Santana. He was very, very cool. It was awesome.
I'm going to call that a good week.
Are you teasing me with a Carlos Santana interview that will soon be on the What Podcasts?
Yeah, we might have some of that for sure. He was terrific.
You know, guys like Santana, I guess I can save this for a conversation about Carlos
Santana, but there are certain guys that have turned into being a parody, right? I feel
like Santana has done that and I don't know why. I feel like Billy Joel's probably there
too, where, you know, we're just getting to the point where we're all kind of making fun
of him and I don't quite know why.
I don't have any clue what you're talking about.
You don't think that Billy Joel has turned into being a little bit of a movie.
I don't think Carlos Santana has. The only thing I can say in that regard is, and I have
nothing but respect because he's figuring out how to wear pajamas all the time, which
puts him at the top of my list. I mean, come on now.
Barry Courter's got a high bar for art.
Think about that. Think about where you are in your life if you can wear pajamas all day
long and nobody says anything.
I know. I'm not saying that I like it, but I just get to get this impression that people
don't take Carlos Santana seriously anymore and I wish that they didn't. I wish they did
take him seriously. I wish they didn't feel this way.
I don't know what you're talking about. He's one of the great guitar players of all time.
And then
Okay. Well, look, it's the same thing that I feel about Kenny Rogers. At some point,
people stopped taking Kenny Rogers seriously.
Well that's because he had surgery that made him look like a clown.
Because he changed his face.
He also did the gambler song.
That was his first hit. He did this gambler song. That was his first hit.
No, my condition was in with his first hit.
I know that, but the gambler is... Oh, come on. It's not like he sold out doing the gambler.
The gambler was a major hit and it was part of his whole cat. It was a major part of his
catalog. You're telling me that people lost their feeling for Kenny Rogers because of
the gambler?
Yes.
Oh, come on.
Me? I did. I hated that song. I still hate that song.
All right. Hang on a second. I've got to figure this out. So in the pantheon of Kenny Rogers,
what are the list of hits? You say his first hit was what conditions my condition in. But
what point was the dollar that was islands in the street?
I actually asked him about that. I said, how do you go from doing that song to the gambler?
And he said, drugs. He also built his own golf course on his farm, which I totally respected.
I said, what do you know about that? He said, nothing. I hit the ball and wherever it lands,
that's where the green goes, which is the same thing Willie Nelson said. It's funny.
I don't like a gambler. And what was the other one he did with Dolly?
And this is somebody you don't like?
I like Kenny. I don't like that music.
I am. I am very confused here. Okay. So you're talking about Carlos Santana not being respected.
And I don't know. Hey, I don't know. Have any idea where that's coming from?
All right. So I'm trying. I need, I need a chronological list of Kenny Rogers hits because
there's gotta be, he's had to have hits after the gambling.
Well let's put it this way too. He also got into that. I didn't like that. I don't like
eighties era country, which was when he was huge. I don't like any eighties era country
unless it was the old guys doing what they'd been doing.
So you like mid seventies Kenny.
I like six 56. I like Murl. I like Murl, George Conway.
But Kenny was sort of like the transition into sort of like the pop music.
He's a little bit, but he got into that variety TV show era stuff. I didn't, I didn't like
any of that.
Like who else? Who else did you put in that era?
Ooh, that's a good one. I mean, are you saying just circling the country guys that went into
like the, what was that, that, that show with all the people popping through the walls?
He ha he ha. Yeah. Like, I think he ha did more harm to country music for me, but I was
12 and 13. And so it was just hideous. You know, I was listening to the Beatles and then
the Ramones and that sort of stuff. So he ha to me was horrible. Now I can go back and
look at it and see.
So you equate a lot of those things with he ha and the things that you don't like with
he ha and Kenny Rogers being one of them.
Well I'll give you an even better. I think he ha ruined Buck Owens. I mean, Buck Owens
is a, is, should be a hero to music lovers.
Okay. See, this is where I can't, this is where I, you start to lose me. The Gambler
was 1978. Lady was 1980. Lady is a great song. 83 was Islands in the Stream. Oh, come on.
Islands in the Stream is great. Oh man. Barry Courter. Okay. But again, in 83, I hear this
very far away.
But no, 78, 83, I'm listening to the Ramones and Dead Kennedys and Clash, you know, later.
So I was in the stream would not been me. I know, but it's still Kenny, the guy that
you've been listening to for 20 years.
I mean, I can go back now and appreciate it. I mean, Lady is a great song. And that's,
that was 1980. You know, Lucille was 77 just two years before the year before the Gambler.
You don't like Lucille? Not so much. Yeah. Oak Ridge Boys, all that stuff. I love, what
was their big Flowers on the Wall. Are you, are you, are you bailing on Alabama? I never
cared for Alabama. I can see that. Okay. All right. Again, this is, I appreciate what they've
done, but you know, you gotta put me, I'm a know it all music snob teenager. I'm not
going to like any of that stuff. In 1983, you were 40. Okay. 1983, I was 20 right at
that point.
Well, the point that I was making, long story short, but we did go a long way around. I
know. When we started talking about Kenny Rogers and let's Kenny Rogers. All right.
So I feel like Kenny Rogers took on a persona and maybe it was his face, but that seems
so callous. That seems so short-sighted. Okay. So maybe that's a little recent. He takes
this goofy personality on where people start, he becomes a goofball and people start making
fun of him. He, you think it's just defined. You've just described he, all right, fine.
So be it. But I always thought that Carlos Santana had an error. Maybe not to that extent,
but a little bit of an error. Can't take him seriously because he made the, you know, the
local festival circuit because he made the, you know, he did local apple pie festival.
You know, you can book Carlos Santana for $25 if you wanted to. And all of a sudden
he's playing next to a merry-go-round.
Are we talking about the same person?
Very, you know, that any county fair could get Carlos Santana if they wanted.
Wow. I mean, is Eric Clapton the same? I mean, they're in the same stratosphere or not.
I know that I'm not saying that they are. He's not great, but is Carlos Santana still
not playing at county fairs?
No.
He played in the Chattanooga county fair.
I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. I'm so aligned with other people.
He played the Chattanooga county fair.
He played River Band.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. And killed it. So did James Brown. So did...
In the eighties.
Whoever else.
All right. Okay. I just want to go through Carlos Santana. Like I want to go through
his tour dates in 2017. All right. Let's just go through his Santana summer tour in 2017.
He's doing some theaters. He did the Borgata Spa and Resort.
Okay. He's going to be doing the...
In Goldendale, Washington, he did the Mary Hill Winery.
Okay. I mean, I just have never, ever considered him that way. Ever.
I understand. I love him. I think, look, I think I know what it was. I think it just
hit me. I think that when he did Smooth, it sort of changed maybe my perception of him
into, oh, now he's, you know, goofy uncle that's playing with all the kids.
Yeah. All right. I mean, I, you know, some folks could probably argue Billy Joel.
That's what I'm saying. I agree with you on Billy Joel. But yeah. Okay. I will say this.
There was a lot, there were, there have been a lot of artists who came out of the sixties
and seventies and for whatever reason, eighties, nineties, maybe even early two thousands.
I don't know if it was because they needed to make a buck or just the industry had changed.
I mean, you know, hip hop was, was everything from 90 to 2000, what 15. So guys like that
didn't have a lot of places to play. So maybe there's some truth in what you're saying.
Okay. I actually feel, I think that you might be onto something there. Those older guys
don't really, you know, they gotta keep, they gotta keep paying the bills too.
They gotta keep playing. Yeah. And they didn't have, I mean, they had no radio support. He,
he probably as much as any. And a lot of them, like a Graham Nash, Brian Wilson or Paul McCartney
or back getting even McCartney. I told you, I saw the, the him down in the dome in Atlanta.
Oh man. McCartney is a great point. McCartney was right there in that, in that Michael Jackson
phase of turning into being a joke. Yeah. He was very close and how he wound himself
back into not being, I don't, I don't really know, but imagine, I mean, look at how many
people make fun of his, you know, Michael Jackson and wings days.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the stones even, I mean, uh, their disco album is not one of
my favorites. So, but you know, you're talking about a 40, 50 year career. They're probably
going to be some missteps. So now I, in that light, I can see what you're saying. Okay.
All right. And the other thing too, is he playing, what's he playing in Chattanooga?
Is he doing a Chattanooga take Carlos? Memorial. He's coming in Memorial auditorium. Okay.
Feels like it should be bigger for Carlos Santana. I mean, it's a 1200 seat venue. 37,
but you're close. Is it 37? Oh, and the world is spinning. There's not 3,700 people to go
to the Memorial Auditorium. Who is going to 30? Who is filling that place? I don't know.
Who am I talking to? Who is this I'm talking to? All right. We've gotten completely off
course here. I apologize. This has been a very bizarre episode of the Lord podcast. This
is going to be another short one. Don't ever let me say it's going to be another short one.
By the way, um, if you, if you want to know what camp feels like, this was one of the
camp, this is a camp conversation. Absolutely. This was a meandering, no point, have absolutely
no argument to justify our opinions. We just throw them out and see who agrees with us.
We'll see it coming. Yeah.
Get the latest episodes of The What Podcast delivered straight to your favorite app. Subscribe now!
📩 Join our mailing list for weekly updates.
YouTube