Virtual Camp Nutbutter continues with some of our most favorite people in the world: *repeat repeat! Jared and Kristyn have now joined us for every season of The What Podcast, and they happened to be our first podcast guests back at Camp Nutbutter in 2018.
Topics: Bonnaroo, *repeat repeat
Guests: Jared Corder, Kristyn Corder
Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey. How y'all feeling? Journey through the stories that define the artists playing by the rules. Who are they? What are they? What will you see? The what? Which bands? This year, That Matter. With Brad Steiner and Barry Courter. The cavalcade of stars continue. A surprise guest has said they're on the way. They're on the way to Virtual Camp Nut Butter. Bonnaroo Weekend with Barry Courter, Lord Taco with Brad Steiner on the What Podcast. Welcome to episode two from Virtual Camp Nut Butter. It's been a glorious day so far. So they're walking back from media. They're on the back road. They're coming back. The little area there where we have the crawfish boil. And they're trying to find us because nobody knows how that split works except us. Yeah, there's two ways to go. There's one of two ways to go. And if you go the wrong way, it could lead you to the wrong entrance of Camp Nut Butter. And nobody can come through the back of Camp Nut Butter. All right, Taco, here's the challenge. You need to find the sound of porta potty doors slamming right now, because that's what they're hearing. Follow the sound of the porta potty. Bam, bam. And we did, there was one year. Now our campsite has gotten a little bit better, but again, we're at the mercy of wherever they decide to put the porta johns, right? So, you know, some years it's a little further away, but most years we unfortunately get lucky enough to be right next to the porta johns. And one year was the worst. We were not only- The year I met y'all. Was the first year. So I, you said, Barry, you should join us. And I looked around and this is the dumbest group of people I've ever been around. They're seriously, you think I'm kidding. I was like, I'm not joining you. You chose to be next to the- That one was, wait a second, wait a second. You know me well enough. Do you think that I would choose to be there? That was a, we need to stay on high ground conversation from this decision ever. Who do you think made that decision? I'm not gonna name names. But you know exactly who said it. Me. I was me back in the corner, happy. His quote was, because for some odd reason, sometimes he, when we would start setting up camp really, really early on, he thought that it was the wild west. And if anything got hairy, he needed to be on high ground, right? And so that was the place, like he wandered. We got there really early. He wandered through that back lot, that back 40, maybe 10 times. And he swore that that was the best place to keep away from flooding. And I said, that's fine. But the Porta Johns are right there. And so if that wasn't bad enough, we looked up that night, the first night, and we looked up and there was this giant beaming light coming right down on us. It was the worst spot we've ever had. It was this generator sound, the bright light and then bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. All night. And you guys are like, hey, there's Barry, come join us. And I'm like, no, probably not. Cause not only that, I had the best campsite I've ever had. Yeah, you're up against a tree line. We were on the tree line. So there was nobody around me and the secret little Porta Potties back there, which we know, we kind of, we don't talk about, but. Yeah, they're not very secret. The problem with the secret Porta Potties is not only are they secret to the people that are in the, in Bonnaroo, but they're also secret to the people that clean them. They don't know they're there. So they never get cleaned after day two. We got to get into that. That's a whole nother thing, but that was the worst. And all right, so I will get into it in a minute. That reminded me of such a funny story from last year of, was it Doyle? Was it Doyle that came out of the Porta Potties? Don't even, don't even, I still scrubbed my skin off of my face. I ripped the skin off of my face just thinking about that moment. That's the best. She came out of the bathroom and you know, of course I'm a, I'm a germaphobe and I lose my mind. And a jerk, and a jerk. You had already wound her up. And I said germaphobe. You wound her up. So she went into the Porta Potties and that tell the story. All I remember is her coming out and putting her hands on my face. She walked, she walked out of the Porta Potties, walked right up to Brad grabbing by both cheeks and said, I didn't wash my hands and then walked off. I had a small, small little panic attack. Just teeny tiny. I remember that this morning. I love that moment. So the thing about that campsite was, we were unlucky that year. And we noticed the next year we found the same spot. And luckily enough, we kept coming back to the same spot every year. And now we know exactly where our campsite is. Every year it's in the exact same little slice of that backstage forest area. And yes, I hate to say this to general admission, a Bonnaroo person, but you guys have got a lot better out there than you used to. So I don't feel as bad as saying it now, but we have nothing but trees back there. We have a forest of shade. Well, we're at the mercy of whenever, or wherever they decide to put the line of Porta Potties. Some years it's up 15, 20 yards and some years it's right next to us. At this point, we've just come to grips with it because it's either be right there and get all the space in the world that we want, or be somewhere else and be totally cramped. Totally cramped. That's why I'm challenging taco to find that sound. Bam, bam. It is- That and the smell. That's part of what I think of. To be fair, the smell only comes around once every couple of days, because that's when they decide to clean them. It only smells when they decide to clean them. And it's not been that bad. What was the year that was so bad? Yeah. 13, 14, 14. Let's see, taco, when you were out in GA, the thing is, it's like the GA bathrooms, we get a lot of perks back there. So don't let me fool you. I mean, life is not hard, but the one thing that you guys got over us, and I'm saying this with all honesty as a pre-COVID germaphobe, our bathroom situation's not good. It is not good, and it's never been good. The bathrooms in pod two were much better than the porta potties we have. They're disgusting, and they're the very last ones that ever get cleaned. They just never get cleaned. Anyway, so our surprise guests, when I got the call, they were gonna be driving, they've already driven in, they've parked, and they're walking towards us. They should be passing the first line of porta potties right now. So literally, at any moment, they're gonna be walking right through the Camp Nut Butter marquee, and I just can't wait for you to see who has decided to stop by this year. It's a very, very exciting moment. Oh my God, there they are. They walked through the Camp Nut Butter marquee, and they're here. I did the repeats. The family of repeats, Jared and Kristen Korda, from the Repeat Repeats. I didn't give Skype permission to use the microphone, so I was about to hop on this call, and it was gonna be silent. So then, like a grandpa, I had to be like, ah, I was just pressing buttons. We just had one of those. Yeah, he's right there. We just have one of those. No, this grandpa was giving the other grandpa instructions. That's what was funny about it. We had a... You look very... Pardon me? You're looking good. You're looking like... Thank you. Yeah, I'm so happy to see you guys. I love this. Love this. This is what we've tried to do is, out of nowhere, treat this much like our Bonnaroo campsite, and the Merv Griffin show. Any moment, anybody could pop in, and decide to crash camp. So this is it, virtual campsite. Great reference, Brad. You know, I try to keep it current for the kids. Thank you. Yep, Steve. I think the Roo crew are very big Merv Griffin fans. So I think... You're damn right. They're like quality. They better like Merv Griffin, damn it. That might be a DJ at one of the stages, you know? DJ Merv Griffin. Yeah. Hey, Jared, is that your three month beard, or your four month beard? How long has that taken? I don't even know anymore. I don't know what is it. I don't know. I'm just like, this hair, do whatever it wants. On natural. You know, we moved out to a farm, so naturally it just now makes sense that just I let it all grow out, and then of course, quarantine and everything. So I don't know. I'm trying to, I'm hoping that it helps our next, you know, the next series that we put out. Maybe it makes people go like, oh, he's going through a serious phase. He grew up here. You know what I mean? It's always going to be serious. How's it, is it working, Kristen? I personally love the scruff, so I'm all for it. This is about as long as he has let it get now. Are you okay with it being as long as Lord Taco's beard? That's only like two days. That's two days for Taco. He grew that in the time of our last interview. It took 15 minutes. Yeah. Oh my gosh. He's got foods. He's got a PBR in there somewhere. Yeah. This is the first year that my mustache is connecting to the bottom half of my beard, so. Yeah. I feel like I can take it there. I remember puberty too. Yeah. It's good. It's very good. Do you, Brad? Yeah, sure do. How's it, guys, what have you been up to? What's been happening? Other than like living out in the country and decorating the house for a perfect Skype set. What else, what have you been doing? We have been making a lot of music, thank goodness. I think we came off of the tour with the Black Keys and the record with the Black Keys just really, really inspired. And we learned so much in that process that we were sort of really ready to take everything that we learned and try to do it ourselves at home. So we've had an extremely productive quarantine, although we started working on the record a little bit before the turn of the year. So we've been at it for a bit now. And it might end, we might end up with a double record by the time it's over, because we just keep going. So it's been good. It's been as good as can be expected. I mean, you guys do nothing. Like, if you go back and look at it, I don't know if you guys took a day off last year. How many shows or like you guys, it felt like you were on the road all the time. This was probably very welcome, a very welcome break. It felt like that to us too. So we were already planning on 2020 being kind of a quieter year for us and touring a lot less and just kind of working on music and honing in on kind of what our next chapter is. And so if there were a perfect year to be quarantined in your home, this would have been for us either way. Especially moving into a new house. These are the best times to be quarantined. You would have been quarantined anyway. You've got a new house, you've got to build a fence. You've got to build a patio set. You got stuff to do. I've gone more than I got to shave my beard. That's better. Honestly, it's a weird juxtaposition because it's like we're like stuck at home. It's interesting. It's like we're stuck at home. We're making, we're feeling really creative. We're making lots of music. We're spending all the time in the house in this new house that we wanted to, it's not new, but I mean in our new house that we wanted, that we didn't get last year. We feel like we're connecting with our family more and with our pets. And we feel really fulfilled in like so many areas of our life, but it's juxtaposed with like the constant feeling of just sadness of the world, you know? And it's weird because there's like nothing to blame it on right now. You know what I mean? Like I was telling somebody yesterday, it was like, cause like we're just now seeing the like residuals from Glaze that came out a year ago. Right? So it's like, you know, we're even like just not touring. We're doing okay. We've played a couple of like online shows and things like that. People have been really supportive with that. So it's like, normally it's just, my excuse is like, yeah, I'm just like depressed cause I'm a broke musician. But when you don't like don't, when you don't have that, or when you're like, I'm just depressed cause I haven't been home in like six weeks and it's been on tour or, you know, just cause I haven't spent enough time with the pets. We're exhausted. We're exhausted, but we're definitely not. We're sleeping all the time now, it feels like. So it's like, it's weird when you just feel sad about things, even though like a lot of things are going really well, but you just feel like the world is kind of hurting. There's a lot of heaviness. Do you guys, and I know this is going to be a little bit personal, do you guys fight? We asked them at camp nut, that very question at camp nut. I know, but now we know them better. Now they're, we demand the honesty. They'll tell the truth now. Well, so I think we told you guys this, but we've never spent a night apart. And about 10. Since the day we- That's right. That's right. Yeah. And we really don't fight very often. We bicker, but not often. It's usually when we start to feel cooped up. So like the first, how long have we been in quarantine right now? Three months? March 11th. So March 11th, we've been like basically not leaving the house unless it's for groceries or something. And it was so good. It was just like, it was like, it was like a montage out of a fucking rom-com. It's like every day for the first month, we were like, you know, we were like, yes, we don't have to be anywhere. No one expects anything. We could just write music all day. We can play with the dogs all day. It was like so great. I was like, you want a pancake? You know what I mean? And- Yes, I do. I want a pancake. Literally the other night I was like, I'll make my favorite dinner. You make your favorite dinner. She made- Jared is the Oprah of pancake. Smoking a pancake. But really just in the last like couple of weeks where there's this like weird interim where some people are out and some people aren't and it's just like strange. I think we're both a little cooped up. And so it's just easy to like, and it's getting hot. So it's just easy to be like hot and like, don't touch me like, right. But the only other time that we got vicarie that I can, and that's not even a word, was our first time at Bonnaroo. Oh, but this was, yeah, this was 2012. Bonnaroo was hard on Jared year one. Well, the first couple of days were good. It was the last day. Yeah, that's true. It was day four. We went for all four days. We camped as far out in GA as we could. We were not ready. On purpose? Yes. The reason- We even had an artist test. Again, this was first year. The reason we did that is because my big concern was that it was gonna be too loud for me to get any sleep any closer. I'm a really light sleeper. And so we were like, let's just go as far out as we can. We're still here, but we'll definitely get some sleep out there. And it kicked our butt to walk that much for four days straight. And then the last day, Kristen, I was like- I took a picture. I was like being pouty or something the last day, and I was just sitting next to like a dumpster or something. You were sitting- And Kristen took a picture of me. She was like, she like- I know that picture. I didn't know the story behind that picture, but I know exactly, I feel like I've seen it. I feel like you've shared that before. Obviously we love concerts, and we also love the outdoors, and we live in the woods. We love to camp, but four days at a music festival camping is like not the same as camping like in the wilderness. Right. So that is so hysterical because the first year that I took the wife, Hillary, to Bonnaroo, I had already been before, and I was swearing that I would never come back. I hated it so much because of exactly what you guys did. I did the same thing, essentially. I had all of the passes, but I didn't know what the hell any of them meant. So I went into GA, and it turned into be a complete disaster. Well, when she convinced me to come back, I was like, all right, but under only one circumstance, if we're really taking care of and they make this something I can't even turn down. So we go, and then the first night, they're really trying to lay it on thick to me because they want me to enjoy myself after all of the bitching and complaining that I did. I mean, Barry knows if I've got a bitch, oh, it doesn't stop. It will go and go and go. And so they're laying it on thick back there, man. And they're making cocktails and cocktails and cocktails. And Hillary just has not figured out that this is not a marathon. This is a jail sentence. I mean, you have got to figure out how to maneuver your way through the jail so that you don't find yourself in some trouble. Well, we go out, we get carted out to it was that the it's the other at this point. So we're carted out and we get lost. Of course, she is plowed. I mean, she is completely hammered. She has and she all of a sudden starts fighting with me. And I'm like, you can't leave me. We don't know how to get back. So at this point, she is furious with me. I don't even know what the fight was about. But I was sort of sober. She was not. And she started just running away from me in the middle of the field. And I'm like, please don't do this. I don't know how to get back. And then all of a sudden she runs and she stops dead in her tracks. And she looks up and there was a Mountie. There was a cop on a horse. And it was like this moment where she had seen sort of like a vision of God. And then we finally get ourselves back to camp. She passes out. She wakes up the next morning and she goes, did I see a horse? Doesn't have anything about the night before except for the horse. I can see this unfolding in my mind. I feel like, so to answer your question, we don't really fight. I feel like really thankful that she's my best friend. But also, like the stuff that ever makes me mad is usually stuff that she's very much right about. It's like, I was like, should we, I don't know, should we play this show or something? And it's usually related to the band stuff. And she'll be like, she's really smart about that stuff. And she's really savvy and keen on like, building your own, building your business. And she'll be like, no. That is true. It is actually 99% of the time band stuff where I am trying to be like quality over quantity. Jared is like the sphere opposite. Or like with music, she'll be like, I'll be like, what do you think of this? I'll spend like all morning like working on something. She's like, yeah, it doesn't work. And I'll be like, fuck, she's right. She's definitely right. It's not working. Just think about the happiness you could have if you didn't work together. Oh my gosh. Just think about it. It's like you guys are reading my mail. I'm sitting here, we just had this discussion at home. She's always right. I get so mad. Come on, we gotta be early. We gotta be early. And we're 10 minutes late. Nothing has happened. She's always right. I'm sitting here listening to Brad. I'm listening to you guys talk about though. My wife, Kelly has only been to one Bonnaroo. She came up for the Springsteen night and she had to come and go through the whole rigor moral, carrying all this stuff. She couldn't get on a van, the rigor moral. Brad loves, that's a whole. It's a Merv Griffin reference. It's a Merv Griffin. Go with it, Brad. If only I was hip to the words of the youth. Like the rigor moral. If you were hip to it, you would know what I was jiving about. But anyway, I'll never forget, it took forever for her to get a van from that Holiday Inn to the back. And this picture of her carrying her pillow and food and all of this stuff. And the first thing she sees as we come out of our tent after she settles is a girl come running out from a van, dropping her pants and peeing in the middle of the road. And I'm like, welcome to Bonnaroo. Let's go see Springsteen. And did she ever come back? Never came back. Okay, good. Never came back. Yeah. Not her thing. Did she even bother to stay the rest of the night after Springsteen or she was bailed out that night? No, she stayed and liked it. Actually loved it. She gets it, which she's just not a, that's not her thing. And we've talked about this, Jared and Kristen. Kristen, yeah, it's, if both sides aren't into it, it's not a place, it's not a happy place for either side. Yeah, you guys are a testament to it. And I guess I am too, but take Barry's advice. And I've said this to Taco, me and Russ have talked about this in the past. Don't bring a significant other. Don't bring a significant other unless you have complete confidence that this person is not going to ruin your weekend. Being tied to another person at Bonnaroo is a very, very, very sketchy proposition. Well, I did in 2018 and it worked out fine. But not 19. Not 19. I did it. Yeah. I'm following here. Yeah. Another on our first year on the farm was, this is kind of an odd little detail of the story is we ended up going with a beer sponsor to our, so we had some friends that work in distribution, beer distribution here in Nashville. And she knew that we were going to Bonnaroo and was like, let me send you guys with some beer. So she sent us with literal palettes of beer. We had a, it was six feet tall. Yeah, it was six feet. Full of, you know. How did you get it in? Through our car? I don't know. I took the button and I like, it's under some, I don't remember. Yeah, I don't remember us having any issues. We had a, we had a photography pass because we had a friend that worked at a music blog and she couldn't go. And she's like, if you'll write the blog post and take a few pictures, I'll give you my pass. So we were able to go through that way. I don't know. If you do my job for me. Yeah. Yeah. So we had a ton of beer. So we were like a really popular campsite. Are you able to say what kind of beer it was? A. Yeah, it was Lime and Cougel, Summer Shandy and Blue Moon. Okay. All right. Russ, how's the bus? It's good. I'm sitting in it right now. Of course I'm in my garage, not at Bonnaroo, but I'm in the bus. I'm drinking a PBR, which is exactly what he would be doing. Exactly what I'd be doing in Bonnaroo. So I'm doing great. Talking about going to see a show that he's not going to go see. Yeah. He's not going to see it. What was that Jared? I said, please be careful. Either leave the garage door open or don't turn on the bus. If you're just going to party in the garage all day, please be careful. Okay. That's what I've done for three months. Yeah. I've got this whole house, but for some reason I've been living in my bus in the garage. I get attached to our tour van too, after we've been on the road for a long time. I'm just sort of like, no, this is my home now. Yeah. I live in your house. Last Halloween we played, we do an annual Halloween show in Nashville. And at the end of the night, it was like 3 a.m. and I was DD. And I was like, do we want to just go get a cheap hotel right now and sleep for a few hours? And Crystal's like, no, let's go back to the house, which is an hour away. So we packed all our shit up. We drove an hour all the way back to the house. It's like, by now it's like four in the morning. We get to the house, she's like, I don't want to wake the pet sitter. Let's just sleep in the van. So we slept in the back of the van. In our drag. In our drag. A couple hours later in our drag. She was more freaked out that we were just asleep in the van. She's like, why didn't you knock on my door? It was 3 a.m. Like we thought that was going to be creepy. So yeah, it is really weird. If you sleep in a van in Nashville, you're homeless. If you sleep in a van outside your house, you feel like a regular person. Let's be a musician. Let's be a musician. I'm being thoughtful. Okay guys, I'm being thoughtful. So I got a question, Jared, going back to what you said, make it a little bit more serious, but we had Jim from Burris from Capitol records on earlier. Columbia. Columbia, excuse me. Okay. Wizard of Oz. Yeah, we've got a lot of them. Mike Tyson. Yeah, we're going to talk about it. Yeah. And the idea, the question of, and you guys were talking about songwriting. And so the question came up of sort of, how do we move forward? What artists are we going to expect albums and music about this last three months? Or do you go past it? Or, I mean, you know what I mean? It's so universal. And like I said to Jim, I don't think that Lizzo's Good as Hell would work right now. Well, I also have to talk. It's one of my favorite interview quotes from all time. And I don't know who said it, but it was related to the whole sophomore jinx thing, you know, where an artist has a great first album and then they spend months and months and months on a tour bus. And so the next album is all about life on a tour bus. And this guy said, yeah, nobody cares that your chauffeurs had a bad day. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so with that in mind, that's what I mean. What do you do? I mean, you guys have a farm, you got all kinds of other things going on, but you know what I'm asking? Yeah, I will say two things. We did start writing this record several months before any of the current happenings. We started writing in October. Yeah, so we were well into this record before some of these things were really on the forefront of everyone's mind. That said, I will say that this record to us, the writing means more than any of our previous records. And I think that can be attributed to us having more time. When we did Glazed, we had 20 days with Patrick in the studio and everything had to be done that minute. Like if we needed to rework a song, we had to do it sitting right there with Patrick Carney, sitting a few feet away from us as we're trying to work through lyrics. And while we're extremely proud of that record, sometimes the lyrics of it, you know, we just kind of look back and go like, oh yeah, I remember writing this like on the spot. I've come up with, I ate an apple. Is that okay? What is the? Yeah, a little bit of that kind of stuff. They didn't feel like, I mean, this is just honest. They didn't feel like our songs went, by the time we were done in the studio, right? Over the course of a few months and listening to the album a bunch before it had been released and practicing with the band and then touring, like they're now feeling like our songs. Like we just did a live stream thing and we had all the band play. And I was like, damn, like we, these songs sound like our songs now because we went and played them on the road. And like, because we're feeling like we're growing into them. But we didn't feel like they were our songs. Like literally we finished the record and then it was like rolling with the label on releasing it and they wanted that out like quickly and everything was moving really fast. And so with this record, it's like we get to start with our first record again, because our first record, we spent months on and we took all the time in the world to formulate the right team and the right release and everything. And with that, we get to do this too. The other thing is, is like it level, COVID and everything in the quarantine leveled the playing field for a lot of artists because I'm literally, my touring schedule looks the same as Lizzo's. You know what I mean? That's a great point. So. Me and Lizzo are playing the same arena. Yeah. Instagram. No one's wondering like, oh, you know why you didn't get this festival or that festival or why you didn't have more tour dates. It's like, no, no one has any shows. And so it did really just kind of like wipe the slate clean, which is really nice. A lot of like, and I think as a songwriter, like a lot of the trivial things that like, oh, like they've been a band for really long. So they like run out their welcome or they've put out, you know, they're like too old or they're whatever. Or, you know, like I hate that, the thing that people say like, where does that band been? You know what I mean? Cause there's like so many bands in the like middle-class of like, if there's like the Lizzo's and then there's like the bands that are just starting making songs on Garage Band and you've never heard of them. They're playing to two people. Then there's this weird middle-class, you know? That's like any bands like us that are playing the smaller stages at Boneroo up to like, I don't know, like Group Love, right? Like Group Love is probably big enough to make enough on the road, but they're not as big as Lizzo. They're not headlining Saturday night at Boneroo. And I think like there's so many of those bands that are just, it's, you know, it's a grind and they have to work at it. And you- If you go away for 10 minutes, people are like, where did they even go? Are they even a band? Yeah. You're like, we're working so hard. Right. So now I feel like, now people are just so starved for any sort of content or music or art or anything really. And especially stuff that gives you joy and stuff too. But that I think that it's like a welcomed return to like being creative and just putting stuff out. You know what I mean? And not being too precious about it. Well, okay. So it's a totally natural thing. And I know it's not fun to admit, but how often do you compare yourself to other bands and other artists? Yeah. And every band does. And we know better. I mean, we've been at this for seven years now. We know better. We still do it all the time. Kanye West, not a man that I generally model my personal process off of, but he did say something- Stunning. Actually in Nashville, he said something else. I know you find that hard to believe, but- Well, he said something in Nashville that was really poignant. And he was like, he had been trying to work with Nike forever. And he's always wanted to have like a sponsorship with Nike and do something with them. And he had all these ideas. And Nike's always turned him down. And they've always said no. And he was like, the point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't matter how big you are, you're still gonna compare yourself. You're still gonna get told no. You're still gonna have shit that you have to work towards and stuff that you might work towards and never actually achieve. So like that feeling of either inadequacy or that feeling of like, you know, I call it the constant like just small drip of like, you know, you'll be like, one day you'll be like, ah, fuck this, I'm not gonna make music anymore. And then like one cool person will be like, hey, I really liked that song. And you're like, that's that one drip. I'm gonna go back to- You know what I mean? It's like- It takes very little to sort of keep you going. That's actually, you know, what, okay. You know why I say this to you all the time, but your vulnerability, you guys' vulnerability is the thing I love the most about you. And if anyone's actually ever listening to this, take away from it that artists are at the end of the day, bands are people and human beings. And even though it may not go into, it may go into the ether, a tweet that says something nice or an Instagram message, and they may never respond to it, but boy, there's an opportunity where it might be grabbed, held onto in a really good moment or a bad day of theirs and totally change their perspective on something. Yes. Absolutely. I think any artist, you know, like one, just one really nice comment on like Instagram, it seems so pointless at times, but one really nice one can totally make your day. Just like one comment can like ruin your whole day. And I don't think it matters how big you are. You know what I mean? True. No, it doesn't. And that again, and then again, not every band has Penny Lane, you know, traveling with them like Switchfoot or whatever the hell the band's name was, almost famous. All right. I used to work, the guy whose position I took, guy named Jim Ruth was a reviewer for our paper for many years. And he finally, he came to me one day. I told him straight up, I want your job. I'm gonna take your job. And he said, you can have it someday. Well, he came to me one day and he said, I'm quitting. I'm not doing this anymore. He'd been in a 12-step meeting. And he said, part of my job is to review records. And it's not funny. A guy looked up at him and said, reviewers are pond scum. And he said, I'm not doing this ever again. That always stuck with me. And then the other thing listening to you say that is, when I read about like Dylan and, you know, people who we hold up as icons, talking about how this review or that review or this moment made or motivated them, that just always stuck with me to hear you guys say how much it means to you. Cause I mean, from my point of view, I've done them. And I'm like, you know, it's just my opinion, but it hurts me. And that whole pond scum thing hurts me. So, I mean, I've really not done it. Well, guess what they say about radio people. I hate to. It's just an interesting conversation that it means so much, but it doesn't, but it does. You know what I mean? That infuriates us both that some artists do. I feel like not a lot, but the ones that you really hear about, you know, there have been several that we've all heard about, but when artists clap back at negative or even, not even negative, sometimes they clap back at anything less than, you know, glowing reviews. That makes us absolutely crazy. Like I remember Anne Powers, wasn't it Anne Powers, this is something, I can't remember who the artist was. Fortunately, I can't remember. But like they basically just tore her to pieces for something she had said, honestly that she truly felt about their music. And I just think that that is just absolutely horrid when artists do that. Like we deserve the good, the bad, the in-between, and it's all valuable. Well, there's always different. I mean, there's sometimes reviews are just, the guy's trying to be clever. Sometimes it's, you know, trying to be funny. I don't, that's not right. I mean, if it's an honest review, your opinion of the work, that's one thing, but just- Yeah, to be honest, I actually like when there's some criticism to our music because, you know, you'll do like press junkets, like at festivals and stuff. And it's different, like with you guys, I feel like we became like friends and family, you know what I mean? But like, you'll do like a five second interview with something and they'll write some review and it'll be like very nice, but you can tell it's like, like, you know, when somebody's just like saying a lot of nice stuff and you're like, okay, I know, but like, yeah, like I- They're so neat too. It would feel weird if we put out a record and Pitchfork was like 10 out of 10, no words to say, it is perfect. I'd be like, ah, did my mom write a review or something? Yeah, yeah. If something, I can like kind of see my teeth into, like I wanna know your thoughts about, like, you know, when you ask somebody like, what do you think of this thing I did? Whatever it is. And they just go, oh, it's great. And you're like, but if you really value their opinion as a music reviewer or as a listener or something, you really want their feedback. Oh, but yeah, it's, you know, I really like this. Hang on a second. Let me, let me, I'm gonna push back on you for a second, but the same thing could be said about somebody's food that they make at a restaurant. A chef has prepared a certain meal for you. I have taken this, I've could, look, I said this the other day. I don't have opinion on many things. I really try not to have an opinion on many things. Don't give me that look, Barry. I know you're gonna do that. But like, I'm talking about like beer, art, cocktails. You don't ever not have an opinion. Oh, okay, I got it. But for like food, beer, stuff like that, I've tried to keep my opinion away from it and just have the product the way that it was intended to have it. I try not to say words like I like it, I don't like it, et cetera. I probably just try to enjoy whatever it is they were trying to present to me. That's sort of the way that I take music sometimes. This was prepared for me in a certain way based on where they were. Now, whether or not I think that they did very well, it really doesn't really matter. That's what they prepared. And it would be like me telling the chef, I don't know, man, it just didn't have enough salt. It really needed some more garlic. I don't know if that's where I need to be. So, I mean, this conversation took an interesting turn, but the way we've always approached it and the way I've always told our, especially our young new writers, it's pretty simple. It's two questions. What's the artist trying to say and did they do it well? And if you approach it that way, doesn't matter if it's supposed to be a dumb film, stupid, it's Caddyshack, it's whatever, or it's 2001. What are they trying to say and did they do it well? And if you just approach it from that way, it doesn't really matter. To your point, Brad, what's the chef? I mean, was he trying to make a hot dog or was he trying to make whatever? Cocoa Von, I mean, you know. Pancakes. Pancakes. Yeah, peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I think to us, if we have met the writer, I sometimes feel like they have a harder time writing something negative. Yeah, well, that's because y'all are the nicest two people. Well, no, it's hard to hate up close. It's really hard to hate up close. Yeah. We also loved, that's why we loved working with Patrick because he was really good at telling us his opinions. And that's also why I love writing songs with her because she'll tell me if something sucks. And I know, I think it's a level of trust. Brad, if you go to, I don't know, Taco Mamacita in Nashville and you're just like, I didn't have enough salt. You know what I mean? The person's gonna be like, all right, well. We have a Taco Mamacita in Chattanooga. It never doesn't have enough salt. It doesn't have enough salt. But I don't know. I think that like, we, I think that it's better when, I know that she has the best interest in mind because I trust her opinion. And if I like wrote a song and she was just like, yeah, it's fine. It works. We can put it on the record. I'm like, I need more. I need a little bit more than that. You know what I mean? And I think that. It's so fascinating. It's so fascinating because what you're describing is a process that is very collaborative and which a lot of those things work. A lot of artists have worked very well like that. But then there are those artists that don't give a damn what anybody says. And this is what it's gonna be. I had, when I had that conversation with Ed O'Brien from Radiohead a few weeks ago, the way that he interacted with Tom York was basically like, he just gives me the songs, man. You know, it's like, there's no collaboration here. It's my way and I know it's fucking right. And I don't care what you say. That's a great, that's a great pull, Brad. Actually, that was a really good conversation. And it's part of what I was gonna say because I ask artists this all the time. Who's the voice in your ear that tells you, eh-uh? Oh, it is me. I am. But everybody's gotta have that, right? Yeah. You think. Literally, Barry, that happened yesterday. I was like playing her a track I had worked on. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna play you this first round and it's gonna have a solo that I know you're gonna hate. But if I don't play it for you, then I'll always wonder if maybe just like 1% of you might be like, oh, no, cause once in a while she'll throw me totally off. I'll be like, you're gonna hate this thing. I'll play it for you. She's like, no, it's awesome. Keep it. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I was like, I'm gonna play it for you. You're probably gonna hate it. But we just got, I gotta know. And I played it. Yeah, I hate that. There's a guitar right behind you. Let's hear it. If there are horns in it, there's a pretty good chance I'm not gonna like it. Yeah. She has like horns in her music. Wow. No kidding. That's a big piece of news. I did not know that. Similar with my wife. I did a project I was proud of. I mean, it's pretty public thing. And I come home and I'm like, well, did you see it? Yeah. I said, what'd you think? Well, you didn't flub it up like I thought you would. You should. Man, I do this. You know, you think that would hurt, but it's exactly what I expected from her. Just the other night, I walked through the house and I was like, I had a joke, right? And I was like, I'm really proud of this joke. And I walked through the house and Hillary goes, yeah, that's not funny. And I said, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Yeah. But she was right, probably, right? No, it was a good joke. It was a good joke. We show each other memes all day long. And we just like keep one after the other. But sometimes I'll show her a meme, show her. I don't get it. I don't get it at all. I'm like, oh. Let me take this to Brad. He'll think it's funny. I mean, everybody has that. So you guys. That's corners. Like if I know that he's just like doing something that he's not really pushing himself, I just won't let him do that to himself or to me, who is also in the band. I just am like, no. Even if we have to spend a week reworking this, we just have to. It's not your best. And we have to get this to you. Now, Jared would probably be a better answer to this. But Kristen, do you have a thing where you're trying to tell him it's not good enough, but you don't want to hurt his feelings with it? Do you have a thing like, oh, that's cute? We used to have that. Her whole thing is she'll be like, one thing she'll say is, that might be a good song for your solo album. That's right. Yeah, that's how I like to say it. The other one is she'll be like, I think you're pulling too much from your pop punk roots. Oh, yes. Those are the two things. Every now and then, he'll have a song that I'm like, whoa. We're like All American Rejects right now or something. And I'm like, I loved this band, but that is not this band. Literally, yesterday, I had a melody in my head. So I was playing it on guitar. The electric guitar wasn't even plugged into an amplifier. And I was just playing it in the music room with the door shut. She comes out. She opens the door. She goes, that sounds exactly like On My Own, Here We Go by Green Day. Stop it right now before you go any further. I did, because it's harder to accept the criticism. Although, I will say a blanket, you're very good, especially for an artist. You're very, very good about feedback and not being too precious and not like you. Generally, he wants my feedback. But I'd like to not let him get too far down the road on something that I know isn't going to work for us, because it's harder if he's spent more time on it. So he spent a couple minutes on this yesterday. And I just was like, it's never going to not sound like state to me, so we just stop it right there. Yeah, and that's like, for me, my feelings are never hurt if she's like, that's not going to work. It's only just sometimes frustrating if you have, like, it's easy in your mind to correlate time spent with value, right? But that's not always the case with art, right? Some people, for example. It's not that case with people. You're right. It's not the case with anything in the world. That's true. That's very true. We've made songs that took us like three hours, and it's done. And we're like, wow. And it ended up on the record. We've had songs that we've spent months on and ended up on a record. And neither one is judged by the amount of time we spent on it. But for me, if I spent like 12 hours on a song, and she comes in, she's like, I'm not feeling this. You want to be like, I spent 12 hours on it. You know what I mean? Try to catch them quick. Our big joke at the paper is, now, don't take this the wrong way. Nothing good ever follows. I want to come back to this thing real quick, because we'll let you go here in a second. So thanks for stopping by Virtual Camp Nut Butter. But you don't like songs with horns in them? That is baffling to me. Hello, goodbye, Otis Redding. Goodbye, anything from the 60s. Goodbye, Alabama Shakes. Goodbye, St. Paul and the Broken Bones. Earth, Wind, and Fire. Oh, my god. I love a lot of 60s songs, but my 60s vibes are like The Birds and Peter, Paul, and Mary and things like that. Not a lot of horn-based stuff. I generally speaking like sauces that are creamy and things that are gentle and lovely. She doesn't like marinara sauce. Like, she doesn't like red sauce. I swear to god, I think that is going to be a lyric of you guys one day. Sauce is better creamy. I have a feeling. That's really good. They're either harsh or they're like, woo, like, frivolous, like, silly. But she does love 12-string guitar. Anything jangly. She likes jangly, just not like, horny. I don't know, mighty. You know what I mean? Is that an instrument jangly? Is that an official instrument? Who plays the jangles on the new Repeat Repeat album? There are some songs. There's some songs. There was something recently. I can't remember it. But I was like, she was like, I really like that song. And I was like, it's got a lot of horns in it. She's like, yeah, I know. But every now and then, one slips through. Right. Oh, man, I love the jangles. Yeah, my favorite band is the jangles. That's stunning to me because, I mean, look, it's just such a different world than if it doesn't have horns, you can just trash it. I don't even want it. I love horns so much. I mean, I am a sucker. I can do all the horn songs then. You can have those. I'm a sucker for them. Like, you know, I feel like. What's your sauce preference? But to her point, I'm a cream guy. Like, I want all cream sauce all the time. I like a marinara. Fine, but I want a cream sauce. But what I'd say is, you know, music is food. I'm the biggest, I'm the biggest Mark in the world because if you send me something with a horn in it, I guess I'm going to play this on the radio. Well, I mean, you can literally fart in a microphone. And I would with a horn. And I'm OK with that. I can tell you in advance, Brad, there is one song on the record, Headspace, I haven't heard yet, that has a lot of horns at the end. Because it's supposed to be this, like, end of the world kind of feel, triumphant and sad all at the same time. And you're going to be, because I'm just telling you now, so you don't give me that phone call. And you're like, I thought you didn't like horns. Yeah. Yeah. We've got some horns on this record. We experimented. But yeah, you know, just. Interesting. I played her this thing that had this, like, I don't know. Like, I listen to this band, the Viagra Boys. They're like, if Huey Lewis and the News did crack, basically, it's just like, yeah. And she doesn't really like them. Our neighbors got mad at me for playing it really loud on the porch one day. Cool thing. So I was trying to put this saxophone solo in a song. And I was like, wah, wah, wah. But it was just weird enough that I didn't like it. And she was like, oh. She was like having a physical action. Somebody put a marinara sauce in her mouth. And she was like, no, I can't do this. I just can't. The math on this doesn't add up, man. I just cannot get for two to two equals five on this. It makes no sense. Any songwriters out there, just watch this episode and you'll figure it all out. This is how you do it. All right, let's pull it back to Baneru for a second. You guys couldn't go to Baneru last year because you were on tour at the Keys. Were you planning on going this year? I don't think we were planning on going this year. I'm trying to remember what our plans were before everything changed. You didn't even think about it. So in December, when you're writing some stuff, you didn't even think about, well, we could drive down the road and go to Baneru? I think we assumed we would also be on tour in the summer. And I think we also assumed we would not be. We were doing tricks. Well, that too. Oh, wow. So instead of, like this year we were going to just, we actually never went on a honeymoon because we came home and then had to go tour. So we were going to basically play a handful of shows and then the rest of the year work on the record. And then we had four vacations lined up. For Christmas, I bought her all new luggage because we were going to go to Scotland and drink scotch. And then all this shit happened. So she's got really nice luggage that we can't use for another year. Brand new luggage still like raps. We weren't planning on going to music festivals. We wanted to just go do stuff we never get to do. Pack up all the luggage and go out in the driveway and sleep in the van tonight. Yeah. Just pretend you're in and take a bottle of scotch. Like pretend we're at Baneru or on tour. Because if we're pretending like we're on tour, I should also throw some money in the trash. I should throw some money in the trash. And one of my pets should get sick. But I can't get home fast enough. You should stay up for three nights. Yeah. Because there's literally no time to sleep. Someone with like a, someone should call themselves the venue owner and yell at me. It should be yelling at me. I miss you guys like crazy. And hopefully, I'm so glad to see you. And I'm so excited about the new stuff. And take your time with it. Add some horns. It'll be all right. You're on our short list of people that when it is appropriate to be social again, that you're on that list. OK, well, I hope you like New Orleans in the summer. Because it is hot, hot, hot, hot. By the way, here's the thing. We've sat here for a few hours. And I've sweat so much. And I stink so bad. Because of this New Orleans humidity, I feel like I'm at Bonnaroo. I feel like I'm at there. Are we all smelling the same? Or is it just me? I mean, Russ is in his garage. No, I smell pretty good. Jared and Kristen, I'm sure it is up there too. We are so mad that this weather is so unbelievable this week. It's killing us. It's rough. Guys, the Twitter people. And play Bonnaroo once. And you have this collection of people that, as you guys know, you're friends with forever. So all of our Twitter feed is a bunch of people really sad that this weather is so beautiful this weekend. It is one of the hardest things that quarantine was tough. But this sucks. This really, really sucks. When we woke up yesterday morning and felt our air and then looked at the weather forecast, it was just a knife in the back. It was the worst, worst thing that you could have thrown onto our week. It was bad enough. But boy, stab us a little bit more. Because the weather is just too, too perfect. It would have been. And I don't know if you guys spent much time with the lineup. Because if you weren't planning on going, I don't know why you would. We did. Fantastic. This was the day that will go down as a day that may be the greatest festival day of all time. I mean, this lineup today, just today, was unbelievable from front to back. And to be that useless piece of paper that TACO's holding up. Yeah, but you know what? And I mean, this weather, oh man, I can't imagine. I mean this sincerely. It hit us hard yesterday. And Brad and TACO and I have talked about it. Our group talked all day yesterday. And then all of a sudden, I mean, we're going to talk to you guys today and Jim Burris. It's helped a bunch. I mean, y'all, the connection that we had when you guys came to camp met the world. So it's really cool that you're doing this. Really, really cool. Well, it's like family to us. And yeah, y'all will be some of the first to hear the record when it's done. So good. All right, good. All right, well, we'll talk to you then, I guess. You guys be safe. Enjoy the farm. Hopefully, we'll talk to you plenty more between then and now. But y'all have a wonderful weekend. And pretend it's Bonru. Before you go, I got to tell Barry this. I did offer to help Jared build his back patio. And Barry will testify as to how good I am with my handy skills. So there is a silver lining to this pandemic. You didn't have to have Brad try to help you fix anything. You both are winners. This is all over. Y'all can come over and have a drink on the porch. You can't wait. It's going to be a big drive. But we'll do it. We'll sleep in the van. We'll see you guys. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye. All right, there you go. The repeats. Another surprise guest on the What Podcast virtual camp butter experience. I guess we've got some more surprise guests along the way this weekend. Were they our first? Were they the first to come? The first ones ever to do a backstage podcast at Bonaru. Ever. Not just ours, ever. Love those guys. Yeah, and it was huge. I mean, not huge. It was terrific. So yeah, I love it. Yeah, so we were talking to Jim earlier today. I meant to tell him, but we ran out of time. There was no body. Deca, he works for VJ Records. Yeah. Just say so much of letters. There was nobody more excited this year than Lennon Stella. When we talked at Lollapalooza, she could not stop talking about coming on the show and coming to camp. So it's just chalk another one. Put another one on the board. Put another heartbreak on the board. Yeah, well, she'll be a guest. Yeah. So there you go. We'll see you next time. Hey. Whoever we got next. Taco, you have a phone number in front of you? Yes. We'll share that right now. Yeah. Let's share that right now. We have a virtual mailbox set up that you can call in. And give us your thoughts about this weekend, about Bonnaroo, about what you'd be doing. OK. You ready for the number? I'm ready for the number. Is this some sort of telethon? Do I have to give some money? Yeah. Venmo me a dollar. All right. The number is 423-667-7877. There it is. Yeah. Call that. Tell us your favorite Bonnaroo moments. Tell us Brad's hair, good or bad. Tell us whatever. There's no other than good or great. I think this is going to be a lot of fun. This is something we did at camp. We left a recorder in the mailbox at Camp Nut Butter and got a whole bunch of audio. So this is our virtual way of doing it, right? Yeah. I'm really excited about it. This could be a lot of fun. Call, leave a message. We'll play it on the air. Yeah. Have some fun with it. All right, guys. Till next time. Till next time we get back to virtual camp. It should be here in a couple hours. See you then. Hey, hey, hey, hey. How y'all feeling? 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 with Brad Steiner and Barry Courter.
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