The What Podcast wraps up their three-part interview series from Bonnaroo 2022 with The Backseat Lovers.
The Utah indie outfit joined Barry and Lord Taco immediately following their This Tent set on Saturday. Though their set had been delayed because of technical difficulties, The Backseat Lovers hit the stage with a fury and easily won the crowd over.
The quartet talk about what it's like when things don't go as planned, playing festivals, and even tease new music. Listen to the whole episode now, or watch the interview straight from The Farm over at Consequence.
If you missed it, don't forget to check out The What Podcast's full recap of Bonnaroo 2022, as well as interviews with CHVRCHES and Briston Maroney. You can also see what you might have missed at Bonnaroo by catching The Backseat Lovers on their summer tour by grabbing tickets here.
Photo by David Bruce
Topics: Bonnaroo, The Backseat Lovers
Guests: Joshua Harmon, Jonas Swanson, KJ Ward, Juice Welch
11:33 | The Backseat Lovers made up for a lengthy delay by hitting the This Stage on a mission to win the crowd over and they did. |
Another snackable edition of the podcast today. Barry Courter. Lord Taco who's praying all of a sudden. I'm just excited for these snacks. I love these snacks. Yeah, you do love snacks. I do. For a man who doesn't really enjoy food all that much, you do enjoy a snack. You gotta have a good snack. Yeah. Favorite snack. What is it? Popcorn. Sure, popcorn. Yeah, I'll go with that. Popcorn and peanuts for me. Oh, come on, taco. You have an opinion about this. Don't just say, yeah, popcorn. I'll go with that. You know, if I'm feeling fancy, maybe some Ritz crackers, you know, get the upscale snacks. Cheese whiz? Yeah. How about you, Brad? Favorite snack. Nothing will ever beat a pretzel. You give me a regular pretzel, good amount of salt, you're not being a pretzel. You're not being a pretzel. You're not being a pretzel. You're not being a pretzel. You're not being a pretzel. You're not being a pretzel. You're not being a pretzel. You're not being a pretzel, good amount of salt, you're not beating it. It's the easiest- Pretty solid. Yes, because you can walk around, I like a food that you can walk around with, pop in, and you can like experience the world with it. You know, you can't do that with like a handful of chips, no, those crumbs and- You get the impression that a pretzel never goes bad. It has a shelf life of like 100 years. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I feel like aged pretzels are the better way to go. Get a nice little softness on them. Yeah, you don't even need to heat them up. They just have that hard shell on them. Like, they're gonna be there forever. Sort of like you. Like me, hard shell. Little salty, little salty. Yeah, so this is another snackable edition of the podcast because another artist interview from backstage at Bonnaroo. Who do you have now, guys? Backseat lovers. Oh, good, these are my guys. So this happened randomly because I found myself, I didn't even know it was happening, to be honest with you, but I had dinner in New York with the manager. I just happened to be sat right across the table from him. And I didn't even know what he did for a living until the end of the night because we were having such a ball. We literally were making each other cry, laughing at the table. I loved this dude so much. And then at the end of the night, I'm like, so yeah, why are you at this dinner? He goes, oh, I have camp and I have backseat lovers. And that's when I just erupted because I love this band. I love this band. I love Killby Girl. Talk about a song that my format and the stations inside my format have just completely whiffed on. I thought that song was great. It's tailor-made for the farm. It's tailor-made for big open wide spaces and the sun with wind coming across the field. I love that band and I couldn't stop talking about them. And then I was like, oh wait, you're going to Bonnaroo? Literally in two days, let me introduce you to Barry and Taco. And that's when he decided like, yeah, let's do the podcast with it. I don't know if you get to talk to him and then hang out at all, but he's just a dreamboat. I love him so much. Yeah, I don't think we, are we met? Yeah, we did meet, but they were terrific. And we all went to this show as a group. I think there were six or seven of us in the pit, Tara and Kai. Tara, Kai, Brian Stone, you, me, the whole family. And Sean, Sean Stewart managed to get in the pit, which we'll talk about later. But what I liked about them besides the show was they had sound issues. They were on the this tent. They had a delay, 20 minutes or so, which we talked about before with Japanese breakfast, which did not go well. These guys on the other hand, when they came out, man, they came out on fire. Yeah. Did it shorten their set at all or did they go the full 45 minutes or something? They might've cut a song or two. They got more time because it delayed everything as we talked about later. Even the super jam was delayed on that same tent. So I don't know what was going on there, but there was- Barry, I think that this tent is perennially late. They perennially have sound problems. Where we used to make fun of the witch stage for not sounding very good, the witch has completely transformed into one of the better sounding stages. And now we have to try and get somebody to understand that this tent is, it struggles sometimes. Yeah, I don't know what happened, but I was feeling bad for them, but it was forgotten as soon as, and I want to give their names because they didn't get it when we're interviewing them, but Joshua Jonas, KJ and Juice, Juice is the drummer. I think it was Joshua came out- I want to be a Juice. Yeah, that's a good name, right? That's a solid name. Yeah, it's a great name. It is, yeah. But Joshua and Juice locked eyes and it started and it was pretty awesome. And then they rushed right back to talk to us. Oh really? Yeah, which was great. And they were so nice. And kind of funny, again, I'm hoping it was Joshua that I'm getting right, but never heard of Bonnaroo before. What? Until they were booked, he said he'd never heard of Bonnaroo, didn't know anything about it. Stop it. I think that's the first time we've ever gotten that answer, right? Where is he from? I think so. I don't know. I was so stunned. I couldn't, I guess I wasn't thinking quickly. So which member of the band said that? The singer, the lead singer. Okay, I'm gonna have to address this. I'm gonna have to lodge a complaint. I'm texting him right now. I don't, this is very confusing to me. Cause it's always one of our go-to questions is, what do you know about the festival and how excited are you to be here? And what can it mean for your career? And he's like, I'll be honest, I'd never heard of it before. Wow. Where am I again? Yeah, wasn't it just, I don't, it was, like I said, I've never heard that answer before. I mean, like, had he heard of Lollapalooza or Coachella? We didn't get all the way into that. And partly, I'm really kind of proud of the way this sounds is cause there was a band playing on the witch stage, 50 feet away. And so they were great. They were very nice. So of the three that you talked to, Bristan, churches and backseat lovers, how many of them, or which ones of them stayed and how many days did they stay? Did they try to get some of the festival in or they were all in and out pretty quickly? That's a good, I think Bristan had to leave. Churches was hanging around a little bit, weren't they? Yeah. Yeah, Bristan hung out a little bit because I saw him in center route. He was just walking around. Oh yeah, yeah. And so, you know, walked up and said hey to him. Yeah, asking for money. Try to buy a clean dog. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Ooh, I haven't brought this one. Give me a snack. Do you guys have any Cray Mustys? I didn't get one. I had one of those, but I had spicy pie. I did have spicy pie. Nobody had a Cray Musty in my honor, how dare you? What kind of friends are you people? No, I think, I know Stone did. Okay, so I had to count on Stone to get a Cray Musty and not the guys. I'm telling you, this was a different Brian Stone than what we're used to. He had a good weekend. He was happy. He had a good weekend. So if you don't know what a Cray Musty is, it's obviously a vegetarian corn dog with a lot of, a crazy amount of mustard, which is in one night, one very random night, me and Nick Turner coined the Cray Musty. So it annoys the hell out of our campsite that we call them Cray Mustys, but you know. Yeah, which is partly why when you started talking about poutine, I just thought it was another one of your made up, annoying words. And for like two days, I was like, I'm not asking. I'm not acknowledging this made up, stupid word. You never blasted a pootsie? You never? And then we walked over and got one and I immediately fell in love and they haven't been bad. They haven't been bad, but that was, if you remember, that was the walk over when we walked by the this tent and they were doing sound check by playing bird noises. And that's when our friend Denson, as we walked by, stopped and said, whatever it was, I didn't know the Wisconsin warbler is native to Tennessee. Whatever bird, I'm just making it up. But we took like two more steps and then every one of us went, what? Really is one of my favorite stories in all of Haderup. He was so impressed with himself that he was like, oh, that is a Norwegian cockatoo that, no, it's just a fucking recording. I didn't know they were native to Tennessee. He's the hunter in our group. In case you didn't know, but yeah, I'll never forget that. It was so funny. God, that was good. All right, Backseat Lovers, so you guys liked the show? Yeah, they were terrific. Yes, oh yeah. They were really, it was a good rock and roll show. They came out swinging and the crowd kind of going back. The crowd was waiting and patient and boy, as soon as it started, they had the crowd. It was always forgotten and forgiven and let's go. It was great. Yeah, that's great. All right, well good. But Adam and everybody was good to you? Everybody was? Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like I said, they literally came off stage and walked right over to talk to us. Came over to the media area and again, we had, I think we mentioned Kai. Kai wanted, she loves him. She wanted to be our intern for that one. So she got to take some pictures and they posed for some more pictures with David. Now you can't say that out loud because I think that we haven't paid her so we might be going at some sort of child labor law here. It's true. And I need to be careful too because I don't want to give too much away about access and stuff like that. But no, they were super nice. All of a sudden we get some sort of letter from the federal government wondering what our intern program looks like. Where's our EEO sheet all of a sudden? Thanks, Barry. Yeah, sorry, I didn't say it. Let's do it, the Dex and Bexie lovers on the What Podcast live from Bonnaroo. Any workout, any mood, any time. That's what the Peloton Tread is all about. From interval runs that motivate you to go the extra mile, power walks that work up a sweat, rolling hill hikes for you to enjoy and full body boot camps to hit your goals. Plus thousands of workouts that go beyond the Tread. Strength programs, core classes, yoga, Pilates and even boxing. Everything you need on and off of the Peloton Tread. Experience it all for yourself with a 30 day home trial. Learn more at OnePeloton.com. ["The Backstreet Lovers"] All right, hey everybody. Welcome back to the What Podcast. I'm Barry Porter. With me is the Backstreet Lovers. Backseat, I've been doing that all day. Tell me I'm not the only one that does that. Oh, you're not the only one. Backseat lovers. Man, I was just sitting here saying don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. I did it. Thank you guys for being here first of all. Of course, yeah. Thank you for having us. We're really happy to be here. All right. Saw your set. Had a little bit of a late start, but man you came out on fire. What were you guys thinking when you hit that stage? Quite honestly it was really stressful right before. We were all kind of freaking out because a bunch of stuff was going wrong. But as soon as we got on stage it just kind of channeled itself into craziness. And explosion. And it was so really fun. It was really fun, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. It was fun. I think once we got into it and started playing it just kind of turned around a little bit. How much did the crowd help? I mean they were chanting ready to go, they were ready and then when you came out it seemed like let's just go, right? Yeah, they were great. It was a fantastic crowd honestly. It's really hard to worry about logistics and things like that going wrong when there's a bunch of people just smiling and having fun and I don't know, sharing a beautiful experience with music. So it was cool. I don't want to focus on it too much, but I'm curious because I'm sure it happens. What are you thinking backstage when it's like, let's go, we're ready and then things aren't working? I'll ask you first. I don't know, yeah, I think we're just kind of worrying about what we're gonna do if something, thinking of all the options of what we can do if something is broken or something's gone wrong. So it is really nerve wracking, but I think usually once we get up there we can, it feels like the nerves go away. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, we just remind ourselves that we're just up there to have fun and I think today especially, we kind of looked at each other before, like after everything was going wrong, we just gave each other a big hug and we're like, let's go do this and it was fun. You're being awfully quiet. Is that, what were your thoughts? Yeah, no, it was, I think those moments kind of empower us to make the most of what we have and be in the moment as much as possible. Thank you, sir. For anybody that didn't see it, what I loved was you sort of came out, you made eye contact with him and said, let's jump up in the air and then it was on. What does it mean to you guys to be here? Well, we've kind of been learning our way around festivals this last year. We hadn't really done much touring until this year and we've just been kind of constantly on the road and learning what it's like to go to a festival and the different amazing parts about it and the challenges and stuff too. But being here today is really, really special. I had a really fantastic time and I think that we all, even though it was a tough show for us, I don't know, it felt really worthwhile. And also after this, we get to go home for about a month. So it feels really good to kind of end on that note and go get some time to be with our loved ones. Are you gonna stick around today and tomorrow and see some shows? Today. I think so, yeah, today. Who are you gonna see? It's a question everybody asks at Bonnaroo. Who are you gonna see? Let's see, I'm really excited for Billy Strings. He's a shredder. Mount Joy. Yeah, Mount Joy. We always ask this because we're here and it's a Bonnaroo-y type of question. But does this festival mean anything different or special to you guys in any way? To tell you the truth, I had never really heard of it until we got on the bill. For me, it's kind of a special experience because I used to, well, I kind of still do, but I used to watch a lot of YouTube videos of just festival videos and stuff. And one of my favorite videos is one of KG Elephant's live performances here at Bonnaroo. And so when I heard that we were playing this festival, I was really stoked to be on the same place as them. Nice. I know you played at least one song, new song, that I got to hear before we came over here to get set up. When is, what's coming out? What are you guys working on? When can fans start seeing all this stuff? Well, we've been working quite a lot on a new album and it's coming very soon. This year, we'll be releasing it. I'm not sure what other details we can relay, but it is coming, it's coming. It is coming. Anything you want to mention that I didn't ask you guys about? You're holding out, you're holding out something? Nope, I guess not. No, thank you so much for having us. Thank you guys so much. Especially, you just came off stage and come talk to us like this. We appreciate it very much. Of course, yeah. All right, thanks guys. Backseat lovers. Great, great set. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Appreciate it. Thanks, appreciate it. Thanks for your time. Yeah, of course. Good luck with everything. Thank you. Can't wait to see you again next time you're here. Yeah, we're excited. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. See you guys. All right, there you go. There's your snack. You know what? This was not so much of a snack, these three taco. This was more like shareable plates. You know, you've gone through. This was a, yeah, this was a three course meal. This was a tapas restaurant. We did tapas today, not just snacks. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I think taco did as well. Those are all, yeah. I did, and shout out. Yep. Shout out to Brooklyn from Roobus, because she was over the moon that we were interviewing Backseat Lovers. She loves them. And that was the only selfie I took there was with one of the guys from the band. I sent it to her, and she was very happy. Oh, wait a second. So you're telling me that you didn't have another intern show up? Because apparently our intern program is thriving right now. We can do this. Adam, as we see fit. We're taking applications, right? We need to print out one of those pictures of the big giant Keebler elf, and I'll sign it and send it to her. I'm sure she'll be thrilled. Just what she wanted for this band. She loves the Backseat Lovers. Here's a picture of Barry. Yeah. This is what you always wanted. The good news is I think I'm on the end so you can cut it out. You know what, by the way, can we just stop this for a second? Had Brad just said, oh, you love insert band here, well, here's a picture of myself, you guys would have murdered me. Well, come on now. I threw in the Keebler elf bit. It was a bit of self-deprecation, which you would not do. Oh, come on. King of it. My handle's literally Brad Stinks. Well, that's a good point. I'll give you that. All right, anything else to get to before we take some time off, huh? Anything? No, we got a couple more. I still want to have Sean on. Yeah, we're gonna have Sean. We have more? Yeah, we've got a couple more. You'll enjoy it. I'm so excited about a break. You'll enjoy it. I really want to hear Sean's adventures. If we can get him out of bed or wherever it is that he was. Yeah, because he was scheduled to be on last time and he overslept. Well, that's never happened to us. That's what we're calling it. No, not in this professional. This is professional grade. Yeah. All right, well, do we hit record? Yeah. Good question. All right, talk to you guys later. All right, see ya. Bye. The end. Consequence Podcast Network.