Repeat Repeat / Live from Camp Nutbutter

You know, I really do wish that we could harmonize like this Barry.

How could we harmonize like this?

Well, it would take a lot of practice.

Do you think that we could at some point be bi-coastal beach pop?

At any point me and you could be bi-coastal beach pop.

I looked for that in the record bin and I didn't find bi-coastal beach pop.

I think you could harmonize like that if you guys were madly in love.

Are you madly in love?

Who says that we're not? I'm not saying that. I'm asking.

Why are you judging me? No judging. No judging.

There is a chance.

Alright, so this is pretty amazing.

This is, I don't think has ever happened in Bonnarooo history.

This is the Bonnarooo Podcast. The What Podcast.

A Bonnarooo Podcast for Bonnarooians by Bonnarooians. Bonnarooian A being Brad Seiner from WDOD Radio Hits 96 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

And Barry Courter, Bonnarooian B from the Chattanooga Times 3 Podcast.

And the Stone On Air production team, please.

This is all my stuff.

Don't forget.

What is he, C, D, or?

Mysterious man.

D, I don't care.

Another B.

At Stone On Air. Go ahead, proceed.

Bryan Stone, running the boards.

Making all those happen.

With us is Bonnarooian C and D, Mr. Repeat and Mrs. Repeat.

So you guys are not madly in love. Are you madly in love?

Oh yeah.

Are you?

We've only spent one night apart in...

Seven years.

No kidding.

Wow.

But we're not out here saying that that's what people should do.

Yeah, I have a thing about that actually.

You can't get away from him? Is that what you're...

We were three years into it before realizing that we had only spent one night apart.

Yeah.

And then we were like, this is a thing. Now we gotta fucking try it.

Now we gotta really try it.

And that's the other thing is I'm always scared because remember when J.Lo was married to Ben Affleck

and they were on all the TV shows and they were like, we're the perfect couple.

We will never get divorced.

And then boom, divorce.

So I'm not going to be like, oh, we're perfect. Everybody's got to do this.

I'm just stating the facts. Only one night apart.

So I don't know how that... hang on a second.

Something must have happened in those three years if you're spending every night together.

Something's got to be going on. Everybody's going to figure that out.

Even you guys. You guys figured that out. You were too afraid to say it.

You locked in a room.

Am I Dr. Phil right now? I don't know if it would be that way.

I will say this. I lived in a house three blocks from hers.

Okay.

And I lived with a bunch of stinky boys.

Right.

All musicians.

Welcome to Camp Nut Butter.

Yeah.

I lived in the Camp Nut Butter of East Nashville, Tennessee.

And she lived three blocks away with a girl roommate.

And they had a very nice and clean house that had better air conditioning.

It smelled better. The bathrooms were way cleaner.

Yeah. The number one reason that we spent every night together was because we were madly in love.

And we are currently.

But the number two reason was because her house was just... it smelled better.

And it was nicer.

And it was like three blocks away so I could just leave my stinky fucking friends in the dust.

So living together now, who's taking over the smell?

Our 11 rescue animals.

That's true.

It's become someone else's smell now.

Yeah.

Well, I'm probably more of the domestic one though too.

You are.

And you guys are so in love. You have a K tattoo on your hand.

It's a J and K. Check that out. It's a J for Jared and a K for Kristen.

Man.

You have a two.

And if she ever leaves me, it's just kidding.

You know what I mean?

I have this other one matching. It says,

We are in space. No one knows what's going on. And I love you.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Because she's kind of spiritual and I'm an atheist.

And so I feel like this is the closest we can get to like symmetry on that level, you know?

I could never love anything that much in my life.

I don't know if I could ever.

That's not true.

You know what? You might be normal. We might be the fucking freaks.

You're probably more likely.

Yeah.

Like this is not okay.

Brad's not telling the truth. His tattoo would be a B and a B.

Yeah, right.

For Brad and Brad.

And then my hair.

Maybe an H for the hair.

It'd be a B with a little B inside the circle of the top of the B.

So what's happening here?

What was it I used to say? You only like two people.

I do.

One is yourself and the other is fluid.

It changes by the day.

Really by the hour.

That is amazing.

So this is what is so amazing about this is that never in the history of Bonnarooo

has a podcast been recorded about Bonnarooo with an artist that's playing a Bonnarooo backstage at Bonnarooo.

That's never happened in the history of mankind.

You guys are breaking.

You guys are number one.

We were so thrilled and honored to be here.

So we started this podcast and nobody had ever done a Bonnarooo podcast and we said we love Bonnarooo.

We've been here 14 years. Let's do it.

You know, if we just want to fake it too, if you just, after this, I can just kind of talk in a different voice and you can say I'm Eminem.

Right.

I don't know how we got her. Beyoncé is here.

I have to tread lightly with that one.

I feel like Twitter would not like me trying to act like Beyonce.

And Twitter is the judge and jury of our lives.

It's kind of like, I'm like, oh, that person should have done that. Twitter's not going to like it.

Are you on a Twitter kick at Brad Stinks on Twitter?

Yeah, I think I follow you.

I hope so. I did my research.

Can I get a tattoo?

Yeah, I got one at the last festival we played at Shaky Knees. I got a banana.

You went to Shaky Knees?

Yeah. And they had a tattoo. I think every festival should have a tattoo artist.

I don't know.

I got a tattoo partly backstage and they give you a haircut.

It's got to be that time period, right?

And they give you an IV.

48 hours.

You might not be making your best decisions.

Seemed like a good idea.

I've never made a good decision.

But is a banana tattoo on your knuckle really ever a bad idea?

No, because nothing says a really dangerous man like a knuckle tattoo of a banana.

By the way, it's an Andy Warhol reference, right?

No, it's actually a reference to our dog.

Okay. Well, who? Andy Warhol who?

No, no. We're huge Warhol fans. Yes.

Actually, that was a huge inspiration for why we kind of made the music we did.

For this whole look of yours, too.

Yeah, actually, I wear the stripes all the time.

You match her fanny pack.

Yeah. No, it's over there.

Oh, there you go.

Okay, so when I go back to to reset a little bit, because this is the first time this has ever happened,

a Bonnaroo podcast has never existed about Bonnaroo,

and we've never done a Bonnaroo podcast backstage at Bonnaroo, including the Bonnaroo people, by the way.

So we're the first, and we're so excited to have Repeat Repeat sitting on our couch at Camp Nut Butter.

And the reason why we liked you so much is because in a moment of desperation,

we needed some content for a show one day, and we had no idea what to do.

We're like, oh, I know, we could just spin the Bonnaroo wheel and see who we land on,

and see if we can learn about some people. Bonnaroo Lett.

Get out!

And Repeat Repeat was one of the artists that we found, and we've literally been listening to you guys ever since,

and we can't believe that you've been so close to us this entire time, and we had no idea.

Well, there's a thing about it is that we...

We were kind of like crouching tigers.

Yeah, and hidden dragons, I think.

We worked really hard, and we put ourselves out there,

but we kind of, I feel like, do it the old-fashioned way, just by working our asses off.

We don't have some rich uncle or big investor.

This is all sweat equity and our own sweat and blood.

I'm not secretly the daughter of a famous celebrity couple.

Neither of us are Instagram famous on the side.

Not Trust Fund Babies.

Yeah, no.

Trust Fund Babies, this is all...

See, I wanted that life.

I keep wishing and hoping, but...

Yeah, so I think part of it is like when people hear about it, it's organic,

because it's not like, oh yeah, I saw that person on that TV show, and now they have a band.

There's nothing wrong with that.

That's just not how we've done it, you know?

We just kind of have more of a multiple method.

I don't know if I told you, Brad, but when I reached out to see about maybe getting them to do this,

I don't remember who your label person, but she was like, oh yeah, they'll probably do it.

They're the hardest working band ever.

Well, you did 20 interviews.

You don't hear that very often.

Oh, at a Forecastle, we did...

This is actually a funny story.

We did 24...

It was going to be 22 in 24 hours.

It turned into 24 in 24 hours, and that was the festival.

This was, yeah, Forecastle 2017.

That was the festival that I learned you cannot wear healed, knee-high, gold glitter boots.

To every press occasion all over the festival grounds.

Thank God you've given me that tip.

I was this close.

I was going to say, Denson, you need to write this down.

Yeah, is everyone taking notes?

I'm pretty sure I looked like a weird superhero.

Barry, to go back to what you said, I think because we built the band early on out of our own pockets,

I mean, I worked doubles at a restaurant in the early years of the band,

and we put off buying a home and having normal things and vacations like normal couples do.

We didn't go on a honeymoon.

We dumped every ounce of money and time and energy into the band.

Because of that, we value the people that you have on your team.

And so I hear other PR people be like, oh, yeah, you guys say yes to so much press.

I would love to have an artist like that.

I mean, press people cost a lot of fucking money.

You know what I mean?

I want to get my money's worth.

And also get my name out there.

You know what I'm saying?

So it's like, yeah, I mean, we want to get our name out there.

We want people to hear us.

And also the fact that you guys take time out of your lives and want to be interested in us,

we don't take that for granted.

We really appreciate that.

Well, I'll tell you what's interesting and what's so refreshing is that when you do...

Oh, they're kissing. Oh, God.

Not on my couch, please.

I was keeping it very low key.

Guys, please.

Thankfully, it's a podcast.

So a lot about this is that when I found out that you guys were going to do this,

the guerrilla marketing that you probably don't even press people to do,

but you also did the RV party last night, which is insane.

So that means...

By the way, your show's Sunday.

Yeah.

You guys could have gone home.

Yeah.

Why didn't you go home?

It's a magical wonderland experience that you don't get.

I mean, we feel like we're going to look back at this time in our lives

and wish that we had done...

We had soaked up every minute.

How often do you get to play Bonnarooo for the first time?

And you're turning into entire...

You're going through the entire thing, all six days.

Wednesday, it is Monday, and I'm sure you're here Monday morning.

Actually, no, because we leave Tuesday morning for a six-week-long tour.

And so this is it.

And so when you start to play Bonnarooo, you said to yourself,

this is our first shot at Bonnarooo.

We're never going to experience this again.

Was this the white whale?

Was this the thing that you wanted your entire career?

Was this something that you said, ah, bam, Bonnarooo, if we just got Bonnarooo?

Yeah.

I can't think of a bigger goal that we had.

And I remember Jared sort of set the goal way before I thought

it was a goal that we were going to have a chance at reaching.

So I remember sort of being like every year we write down goals

like right before the new year.

Because you're so spiritual.

Because you're putting it out in the universe and you want it to come back to you.

I'm like, I want to be the Oprah of punk rock.

I want to be like, this is the secret.

You just make the goal, you just think it, and it happens.

No, it's because I'm fucking anal retentive and I have to write everything down.

That's why.

If I don't cross it off, I feel like a failure

because I just have like all these insecurities about myself.

I have to get this done.

So if I write it down, I feel like I will stop at nothing until we do this.

We have a friend that described it beautifully one time.

He said, man, you guys run a tight ship.

Jared keeps lists of his lists.

He has written lists, typed lists.

You tattooed it on your body for Christ's sake.

So yeah, you've got lists.

It's the homeschooler in him.

I suppose.

So three years, two years, how long from the time you wrote Bonnarooo down as a goal?

Oh, that was this year.

That was 2017.

Because here's the thing.

I think also we're like, and that's one thing I wanted to say too,

is like even though we do a lot of press, like we try to be smart.

We are like defining our destiny here.

So it's like we don't just take like every single thing.

And just like we played last night, even though we're playing Sunday,

we almost didn't play that.

We made sure that we got like the blessing from Bonnarooo to do that basically.

Because we don't just say yes and go walking around with an acoustic guitar

and be like, here's my CD.

Like we wouldn't sell merch.

We wouldn't do anything to detract from the festival.

So Bonnarooo was like, yeah, go for it.

And we were like we were the only band that played Wednesday.

Everybody else is a DJ.

So we were the first band of Bonnarooo 2018.

What was that like?

You guys have talked about this for two days or more really,

the whole camping experience out there.

What was that like playing to those guys?

It's kind of like Mad Max.

Hold on.

I know this is a podcast, but you can tell them about it.

I'm going to show them the picture.

Mad Max is a great description of that.

So what I love about the RV camping that I noticed that was really different

is everyone sort of has like their little homes there.

Like they have everything.

They have, you know, like just above average set up.

So everyone's just like come in for a margarita.

You know, like everything's just a little swanky.

And they're definitely like a group, you know, like all the RV people.

Like you can just tell they've been in that same section for years.

And yeah, it's it was really cool.

They welcomed us in just amazingly.

Yeah. And there was like no stage.

We played on grass and there was like 400 people and they were all around.

Like literally at one point the people behind us like we can't hear the vocals.

So somebody just like plugged in a speaker and like turn it to his back.

And it was so wild.

So why did Bonnarooo become such a thing for you?

Why would that become on the list at all?

Gosh, it's just such a dream.

I mean, this festival is.

Had you ever been to Bonnarooo before? Yes.

Did you? 13, right? Yeah, we were here in 2013.

Ask them the name of their camp. Camp Peanut Butter.

That's all we ate the whole time.

Newly married at the time. So it was like, yeah.

2013, we also camped all four days.

We camped way out. We actually had media passes.

Nashville Perks.

We at the time we were definitely not here for the band.

We parked as far out in GA Camping as we could thinking we want to sleep.

We were going to be here for four days. We really want to sleep.

The amount of walking that we did in four days.

By the fourth day, Jared was just like pouting by the trashcan.

She loves telling this story.

He was pouting by the trashcan.

I can't wait for that Beach Pop song.

Pouting by the trashcan.

It's going to be like very melancholic.

She has a picture of it.

I'm sitting over there like pouting because I'm hot and fussy.

And she's like over there like, ah.

I felt like a kid on Santa's lap or something.

Stop taking pictures.

Yeah, please.

I love that idea is how it got into your soul to begin with because you're not from Nashville.

I guess you did because you're music fans.

You knew that Bonnaroo was sort of a thing.

You said I've got to be a part of this.

We're festival people.

Sure.

We're festival people in the sense of we love camping.

We love playing in the band and seeing bands and stuff like that.

But we also love playing festivals.

But I think that Bonnaroo itself just had.

I mean, we played Shaking knees and Forecastle and Firefly and they're all unique and special in their own ways.

Bonnaroo, the fan base with that and the whole idea of radiating positivity,

totally aligns with how we feel like as people in any sense of our life.

You know what I mean?

That's interesting.

Do you have like a set of brand values as a band?

Oh, yeah.

Do you really?

I mean, we haven't written it down, though.

I can't believe that for a fucking second.

I didn't have to.

I don't believe you.

You want to see my chest?

I didn't really think about it.

It gets written down tonight.

I mean, yeah, we're both just into.

I mean, we're very.

You brought it up this morning on the drive here.

Oh, no, sorry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If there's one word to describe us each, Jared's would be inclusive and mine would be compassionate.

This is totally our festival.

And does that go to the songwriting process and how you put together melodies and harmonies, et cetera?

Is that the follow through to a point?

But I try not to like box myself or ourselves in when making the song.

So I try not to be like, Kristen, you've only gotten like 30 seconds of singing time on this song.

So we need to kind of even it out.

Maybe we can add a couple more seconds.

Like I think it's more like we want to make songs that are relatable to as many people as possible.

And that gets tricky at times because we have a song called Mostly and it's about like a deteriorating relationship.

And the idea that when a relationship falls apart, it's not usually one person's fault and the other person's totally in the clear.

Like, I don't know many relationships where one person's like like 100 percent right and the other person's 100 percent wrong.

And even when like there's infidelity or whatever, like there's usually these underlying psychological issues.

Right. And so we watch a friend go through that where both sides were at fault in different ways and just like, you know, all the head games and everything.

So I wrote mostly about that.

What's tricky is when you write a song about that and you're in a band with your wife, sometimes people assume that that's coming from a place of your own personal experience.

But the funny thing is, is that I feel like a lot of people can relate to it. I can certainly fucking relate to it from past relationships and so can you.

But it's not coming from Mars. You know, so so I think in the idea of inclusivity, we try to write songs that, you know, that you can I think of Ben Folds in the opposite.

Because when Ben Folds writes a song, I like his songs, but they're all about like a girl named Kathy.

Right. You know, and you're like, unless your name's Kathy.

And you're going through whatever's going on in the song. This has nothing to do with you.

Yeah. You're like, this is a good song, but I'm not Kathy.

So in that sense, I try to write songs on the opposite end.

It reminds me. I've told this story a couple of times, but I got to interview Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell's wife.

And the big story that year is he'd written that beautiful, you know, love song to her.

Yeah. Yeah. What was that like?

And she said, Well, first of all, it better be good. You know, if you're going to write a love song for your spouse, it better be good.

Yeah. And she said, And then I felt like he put all our laundry out there.

Yeah. You know, like everybody knows what's going on in our lives.

Yeah. Well, you sort of have to do that. I mean, that's sort of what you do.

I mean, it's kind of a stand up comedy is the same way we're going to assume when maybe it's not the case.

Other people that assume would be moms, for example, moms, and then they're like, So what's the story on that?

Was this that your mom? No, this was literally not that I've never thought about mom.

Yeah, I have never considered. Oh, yeah. Mom's not gonna like this.

Yeah. Wait till you have my mom.

If we were to go through something and it inspired a song that we felt really passionate about, then so be it.

I think that's just all part of making art. We just haven't gone through that yet.

And that's the difference between us and JLo and Ben Affleck is that we're the one different one.

So I hope that you guys go and see that. Thank God he said that not gone girl.

I was going to end the story that way.

We're not over here being like, Oh, like we're perfect.

And we're going to write from everybody else's perspective, but not ours.

I just I don't know. Like our first record was all about us when we were dating and got engaged.

It's like my love record to you.

First record is really whimsical and very personal to our relationship.

She made me promise that the next record I would not about me.

Yeah, that I wouldn't just write all my songs about like our early blooming relationship.

So I tried to observe things and things in my life.

I mean, at the time when I when we made our last record, like three years ago, I was waiting tables

and like things I experienced in that scenario and just things in my family and stuff like that.

So I know we got around. I want to I have a personal question to ask because something just struck me when you were talking about that.

You said earlier that that you had to be convinced about this, Kristen, right?

You had to be convinced of the whole thing.

Oh, well, I have never had to be convinced of him as a musician, his band.

I had to be convinced to sing in it. Ah, kind of.

I had to convince myself.

Everyone else was like, you've got a great voice.

Let me ask you this. Do you feel like that was his play to get you?

No, we were together before we were already engaged.

We sang a couple of the demos at like at the reception at our wedding, just like we were sitting around a bonfire.

So he had me. Oh, OK. He had me.

Because that had been a good pull. That had been a good rope.

I worked on the back side, the business side of music, doing branding and design and websites for artists and that kind of stuff.

And so I was always around for the practices.

I basically put the visual to repeat repeat where he brought the music.

And the part that we didn't see coming was that I would take part in the music.

Right. That was suggested by the guy that has produced all of our music up until this point.

And we just sort of went, what?

You know, it took me about six months to sort of get over myself.

Yeah. And be able to see myself in that role without feeling shy, self-conscious.

But what a support system, though. I mean, you have the best support system you have to work through all those kinks in armor.

It's really fun to watch. You were the best through all of that crazy.

Oh, here we go. Here we go. For the sake of Brad, we won't kiss again.

They're making out again on the couch. Jesus. He was so patient with me while I was like.

Get a damn tent. You know, it was really fun to watch.

And it doesn't happen as often now because I feel like we've been a band for a few years.

We've done a lot. But in the early days, I've been in bands since I was like 14 years old.

And then I went to college and was in bands and stuff like that.

So I you know, you get to a point. I know you guys, you've been in radio a while, right?

18 years. So it's different when you watch somebody their first year radio, right?

So like you see it from different lens. And so for me, I've been when we started the band, I had I knew I wanted to take it to the next level.

But when we brought her on, this was her first band she'd ever been in.

So to watch her go through all the things that I went through when I was like 14 was really refreshing to watch because, you know, I'd get really excited about stuff.

You like, guys. Yeah. So did it reenergize you? I mean, was it sort of thousand times?

I mean, like the cool even today, I don't know, like Altpress tweeted about us because we're doing this takeover thing.

And, you know, three or four years ago, we were like, they don't even know who the fuck we are.

And so we just woke up. We had this great show last night.

We're here at Bonnarooo and they're like, repeat, repeat at Bonnarooo, like, check them out, blah, blah, blah.

And Kristen's like getting emotional. And when you've done it for so long, you've been in bands that have started and failed.

You get jaded. But watching her feel those feelings because she's never felt that before.

It reenergizes you. It's just never something that I like pictured in my life.

You know, that's weird. Well, we can't thank you enough for being a part of it.

Thank you. You're letting us be a part of it, I guess. It's better.

We can hear all the helicopters flying. That means that's the generator.

That's the generator. The Bonnarooo hat. Thank you. Not only is it refreshing to talk to an artist like you guys and talk to a band like you guys,

but I feel like you're part of the Bonnarooo experience. I feel like you guys understand it and you get it.

Those are the guys I like the most on stage, especially at this festival, because the guys that get on stage and don't really care,

they're the ones we usually walk by, right? And you guys really, really care. And I can't wait to see shows with you.

What do you want to see today? Thank you. Who's playing tonight? We've got Ron Gallo tonight.

We've got Pitcher playing ping pong. Ron Gallo is amazing. Our friend Arlo Mar is playing tonight.

That's gonna be rad. He's great. I think Flora is tonight, right?

One thing we learned at festivals is to be fluid, which we want to see, because we're hearing a lot of them from press tents.

That's a great point. You guys are at a festival. You're not really at a festival, unfortunately, sometimes.

We try to be as much as possible. And thank you for the kind words. We feel very hungry and we try to balance this line of life.

We've got some pimento cheese. And some nut butter, I think.

That's on the way. We have my pimento cheese.

When he gets to 105, we'll have plenty here. I feel like we need a cheesy sound effect right there.

I think we need an addict button. Fart and fart in the morning. You can get it any morning.

We really appreciate it. We're very hungry for this. We are excited for Sunday.

We hope that translates. But in my mind, my favorite bands and my favorite shows are where the bands are having just as much fun as the fans are.

And we try to do that, too.

Pace yourselves. You guys got a long weekend. You gotta be ready for Sunday. Pace yourselves.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate it so much. Repeat, repeat on the What Podcast, the What Underscore Podcast on Twitter all this weekend on Bonnarooo.

Thanks so much.