Hey, hey, hey, hey. How y'all feeling? Journey through the stories that define the artist playing Bungaroo. Who are they? What are they? What will you see? The what? Which bands? This year? That matter? With Brad Steiner and Barry Courter. You know, I really do wish that we could harmonize like this, Barry. How could we harmonize like this? 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 it. It's not there. 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. Has this Bungaroo? We have that. There is a chance. There is a chance. All right, so this is pretty amazing. This is, I don't think has ever happened in Bungaroo history. This is the Bungaroo Podcast. The what podcast? The Bungaroo Podcast for Bungaroovians by Bungaroovians. Bungaroovian A being Brad Steiner from WDOD Radio, Hits 96 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And Barry Porter, Bungaroovian B from the Chattanooga Times-Tree Press. And the Stone On Air Production team, please. Who's that by there? This is all my stuff. Don't forget. Okay. What is he, C, D or? Mysterious man. D, I don't care. Another B. This is at Stone On Air. Go ahead, proceed. Bryan Stone, running the boards. Yeah, and making all those happen. Running the boards. Come on, Barry. With us is Bungaroovian 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, I'm kidding. Yeah. 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 the thing. Now we got to fucking try it. Now we got to really try it. And that's the other thing is I'm always scared because I remember when JLo 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 like, 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... Okay, hang on a second. But 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 just weren't... You were too afraid to say it. So you locked in a room? Am I Dr. Phil right now? I don't... I didn't mean to 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. And 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 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? Yeah, good point. Our 11 rescue animals. That's true. Wow. It's become someone else's smell now. Yes. All right. 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. Nice. Man. You have it too. Yeah. Man. And if she ever leaves me, it's just kidding. I have this other one matching. Says, we are in space. No one knows what's going on and I love you. Oh, that's fantastic. She's kind of spiritual and I'm an atheist. And so I feel like this is the closest we can get to symmetry on that level. I could never love anything that much in my life. I don't know if I could ever. That's not true. That's not true at all. You might be normal. We might be the fucking freaks. Probably more likely. Yeah. No. This is not OK. 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. Brad. Yeah. My hair is somewhere in there. 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. Yeah. It changes by the day. Oh my goodness. Really by the hour. That is amazing. It really does. This is what is so amazing about this is that never in the history of Bonnaroo has a podcast been recorded about Bonnaroo with an artist that's playing a Bonnaroo backstage at Bonnaroo. 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. We started this podcast and nobody had ever done a Bonnaroo podcast and we said we love Bonnaroo. We've been here 14 years. Yeah. 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. Beyonce is here. Beyonce is here. I have to tread lightly with that one I feel like. I feel like Twitter would not like me trying to act like Beyonce. And Twitter is the judge and jury. I'm on a Twitter click right now. Of our lives. Are you? It's kind of like I'm like oh that person should have done that. Twitter is not going to like it. Yeah. Are you on a Twitter kick at Brad Stinks? At Brad Stinks on Twitter. I think I follow you. Oh you better. I hope so. I did my research. Can I get a tattoo? Yeah. Can you get a? 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. Tattoo partly backstage and they give you a haircut. Time period. And they give you an IV. 48 hours. Might not be making your best decisions. Seemed like a good idea. I've never. I've never made a good decision. Nothing says. But is a banana tattoo on your knuckle really ever a bad idea? Well because nothing says a really dangerous man like a knuckle tattoo. Of a banana. By the way. Here comes a banana. Look out. It's an Andy Warhol reference right? No. It's actually a reference to our dog. Okay. Well who? Andy Warhol who? No no. Dog. 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. I was like huh? So 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 of Bonnaroo including the Bonnaroo people by the way. So we're the first. 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 like learn about some people. Bonnaroo Lett. Get out. And Repeat Repeat was one of the artists that we found and we've been 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 were kind of like crouching tigers. Yeah and hidden dragons I think. We work really hard and we put ourselves out there but we kind of I feel like do it the old fashioned way just by like working our asses off. I mean we don't have some like rich uncle or like big investor like this is all like sweat equity and our own. I'm not like secretly the daughter of like a famous celebrity couple. Neither of us are like Instagram famous on the side. Trust fund baby. Yeah no. Trust fund baby is like this is all. See I wanted that life. I keep wishing and hoping but. Yeah so I think part of it is like when it 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've just kind of more or less. 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. Well you did 20 interviews. You don't hear that very often. Oh at a 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 heeled knee high gold glitter boots to every press occasion all over the thank God you've given me that tip. Yeah. Is everyone taking notes. I'm pretty sure I looked like a weird like superhero. Barry to go back to what you said. Like I think because we built the band early on like out of our own pockets I mean I mean I worked doubles at a restaurant in the early years of the band and like we just we we put off like buying a home and like having normal things and vacations like normal couples who we didn't go on a honeymoon like we dumped every ounce of money and time and energy into the band because of that we value like the people that you have on your team. And so I hear other like PR people be like oh yeah you guys say yes to like so much press like I would love to have an artist like that. I'm like I mean press people cost a lot of fucking money. Like you know I want to get my money's worth and you know also get my name out there. You know what I'm saying. So it's like yeah I mean we want to we want to get our name out there. We want to 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. They know 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. So I was keeping it very low key guys. Please thank me. It's hard to ask. So what about this is that like 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. Yeah. Which is insane. So that means your by the way your show 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 you know we had like soaked up every minute. So how often do you get to play to play Bonnaroo for the first time. You know and you're still you're turning into entire. Yeah. You're going to the entire thing all six days Wednesday to Monday. I'm sure you're here Monday morning. Actually no because we leave Tuesday morning for a six week long tour. Right. So this is it. And so when you when you start to plan Bonnaroo you said to yourself we this is our first our first shot of Bonnaroo. We're never going to experience this again. Had you been. Was this the white whale. Was this the thing that you wanted your entire career. Was this something that you said. Oh man Bonnaroo. If we just got Bonnaroo. Yeah. This was I can't think of like a bigger goal that we had. Yeah. 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. Because you're so spiritual. Yeah. Because you're putting out in the universe and you want to come back to you. I'm like I'm like I want to be the Oprah of punk rock. You know I want to be like this is the secret. You just make the goal. Make your way. 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 I have to if I don't cross it off I feel like a failure because I just have like all these insecurities about myself. Like I have to get this done. So if I write it down I feel like I will stop at nothing to 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 there. He has written lists types typed lists. Yeah you tattooed it on your body for Christ's sake. So yeah you've got lists. Yeah you know it's the homeschooler in him. I suppose. How long did it take three years two years. How long from the time you wrote Bonnaroo 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 we try to be smart. It's 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 Bonnaroo to do that basically because we weren't. We don't just say yes and go we're walking around with an acoustic guitar and be like here's my CD. We wouldn't sell merch. We wouldn't do anything to detract from the festival. So Bonnaroo was like yeah go for it. And we were like we would we were the only band that played Wednesday. Everybody else is a DJ. So we were the first band of Bonnaroo 2018. What was that like. We've 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'm going to show you. I know this is a podcast but you can tell them about I'm going to show them the picture. 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 little burry right now but that was last night. 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 were like we can't hear the vocals so somebody just like plugged in a speaker and like turned it towards the back and it was some wild. So why did Bonnaroo 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 Bonnaroo 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. Nice yeah. 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. That's 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. She loves telling the story. He was pouting by the trash can. I can't wait for that beach pop song pouting by the trash can. Yeah it's going to be like very melancholic. All I saw was a gravel road. I'm sitting over there like pouting because I'm hot and fussy and she's like over there like. I felt like a kid on Santa's lap or something. I'm like stop taking pictures. Yeah please. But I love that idea is how it got into your soul to begin with because you're not from Nashville and I guess you just you did because you're music fans and you knew that Vodder was sort of thing and you said I've got to be a part of this. Yeah we're festival people. Sure. Of whether well I would. Yeah I mean in a sense like we're festival people in the sense of like we love camping and we love playing in the band and seeing bands and stuff like that. But I like we also love playing festivals but I think that Bonnaroo itself just had I mean we played Shaking Ease 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 bro. I know. I mean tattooed on my chest. I don't believe you. You want to see my chest. I probably have at this point. If we're really thinking about it. It gets written down tonight. Uh yeah. 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. We were driving. 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. Does that go to the songwriting process and how you put together melodies and harmonies etc. Is that that 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 the 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 a hundred percent right and the other person's a hundred percent wrong even when like there's infidelity or whatever. Like there's usually these underlying psychological issues right. And so we watched 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 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 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 and 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? 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. Then she said and then I felt like he'd 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 the stand up comedy is the same way. People are going to assume when maybe it's not the case. Yeah. Other people that assume would be moms for example. Oh. Moms hear songs. And you did what? 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. Moms. I have never considered. Moms. Uh oh. Yeah. Moms not going to like this. Yeah. I mean you know what? 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. That's the one difference. The one difference. The only one. So I hope that you guys go and see that. Thank god he said that not Gone Girl. Oh yeah. I was. This is going to be a weird end to the story. That one. 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. The first record is really whimsical and very personal to our relationship. She made me promise that the next record I wouldn't. Not about me. Yeah. That I wouldn't just write all my songs about like our early blooming relationship. So I try 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 to wrap. 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. 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. Yeah we sang a couple of the demos at like at the reception at our wedding just like we were sitting around a bonfire. Yeah so he had me. He had me. Because that had been a good pull. That had been a good role. 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. That was suggested by the guy that has produced all of our music up until this point. And we just sort of went what. It took me about six months to sort of get over myself and be able to see myself in that role without feeling shy and self-conscious. But what a support system though. I mean you have the best support system you have to work through all those. Yeah kinks in armor. It's really fun to watch. You were the best through all of that crazy. Oh here we go again. Here we go again. For the sake of Brad we won't kiss again. They're making out again on the couch. He was so patient with me while I was like. Get a damn tent. But you know it was really fun to watch and it doesn't happen as often now because I feel like we've been in 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 in radio right. I mean just 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. It'd be like guys. Yeah. So did it reenergize you. I mean was it sort of thousand times. Yeah. Yeah. I mean like the cool even today I don't know like Alt press 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 Bonnaroo and they're like repeat repeat at Bonnaroo. Like check them out. And Kristen's like getting emotional. And when you've done it for so long you've been in bands and if it started and failed you get jaded. But watching her feel those feelings because she's never felt that before. I'm like what. It reenergizes you. It's just never something that I like pictured in my life you know. Yeah. That's cool. 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. That's awesome. We can hear all the helicopters flying. That means. Yeah. That's the generator. That's the generator. Bringing the bands in. The Bonnaroo. Guys it's 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 Bonnaroo 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 I can't wait to see shows with you. What do you want to see today. Where you guys gonna go. Who's playing tonight. We got Ron Gallo tonight. Got a picture playing ping pong. Okay. Yeah. Ron Gallo is amazing. Our friend Arlamar is playing tonight. Okay. That's how you're at. All right. He's great. Yeah. I think Flora is tonight right. One thing we learned at festivals is to be fluid with who we want to see because we're hearing a lot of them from press tents. Yeah. That's a great point. Yeah. You guys are at a festival you're not really at a festival unfortunately sometimes. Yeah we try to be as much as possible. And thank you for the kind words like we feel very hungry and like we try to balance this line. We've got some pimento cheese. Oh thank you. And some nut butter I think. We have my pimento cheese. Believe me when he gets 105 we'll have plenty here. Yeah. You know what I mean. I feel like we need like a cheesy sound effect right there. Yeah. Yeah. I think we need an edit button. Fart in the morning. You can get it in the morning. Who you want. Yeah. We really appreciate it. We we're very hungry for this. We we are excited for Sunday and you know. 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 tried to do that too. Yeah. Because pace yourselves. Pace yourselves. You guys got a long weekend. You got to be ready for Sunday. Pace yourselves. All right. Thanks guys. I appreciate it so much. Repeat repeat on the what podcast the what underscore podcast on Twitter all this weekend on Bonnaroo. Journey through the stories that define the artists playing Bonnaroo. Who are they. What are they. What will you see. The What. Which bands. This year. That matter.