Episode 003 TROY RICHARDSON: Do Not Fire The Bass Player

A song can be a hometown you carry in your headphones, a dare to leave home, or a mirror you did not know you needed. We sit down with Troy Richardson, songwriter and frontman of Los Angeles Americana punk band Truckerbomb, and let him build a ten-track “My Greatest Hits” mixtape of the songs that messed him up in the best way. The stories start in Minnesota with Prince’s “Another Lonely Christmas,” a once-secret B-side that feels like home, and they keep pulling the thread of what representation means when you are a kid trying to imagine a life in music.

From there, we get nerdy and honest about songwriting craft: Soul Asylum’s genre-bending storytelling, The Cars’ dark pop sarcasm, and The Replacements’ “Unsatisfied” as proof that simplicity and instability can hit harder than perfect structure. Troy also drops in his own track “Irregardlessly,” talking unreliable narrators, lyric choices that stick, and how COVID forced a reset that pushed him into voice work, remote songwriting circles, and a sharper focus on what actually makes a band connect.

Side B goes deeper: Jason Isbell’s “It Gets Easier” opens a real conversation about sobriety, drinking dreams, and the line “it gets easier, but never easy.” We move through Johnny Cash, Carly Simon, Cheap Trick’s unexpected comeback mechanics, and Nirvana’s two-chord magic to land on the big theme: the feel comes first, and the songwriting toolbox comes out only when you are stuck. If you care about lyric writing, music theory as a map, and building songs that last, this one is for you. Subscribe, share it with a songwriter friend, and leave a review. What’s the one song that rewired your life?

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Transcript

Welcome To My Greatest Hits

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, everyone, welcome to My Greatest Hits, Truck Stop Mixtape Productions Presents My Greatest Hits podcast here where we uh invite guests and talk to them about uh their 10 favorite songs or songs that uh inspired them, moved them, changed them, made them who they are in their lives, and uh um presented kind of like a mixtape kind of thing, and and uh and we talk about the songs. My guest today is uh an amazing songwriter himself. He's uh lead singer and uh composer for the band Trucker Bomb, uh sort of Americana punk uh band that's been around for a few years in the Los Angeles area and has been uh getting a lot of accolades and and uh cool things happen. And uh first off, why don't we just say hello? How you doing, man? Doing great. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. Thank you for being here for real. Um we've known each other for a few years now, and um we've had interviews in the past, and I've always wanted to uh get to know you a little differently because we've talked mainly about trucker bomb and and uh songwriting process and stuff like that. But to have the chance to talk to you specifically, since you're such a good songwriter, especially too, uh, about the songs that kind of uh that have messed you up along the way is really cool. And uh tell me first what's going on with you right now in general.

New Lineup And New Record Plans

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Working on new songs as always. Um got a new lineup with the band. Um one very new person, a sort of new person, and then uh Alric, the drummer, has been with me for a couple years. So um, yeah, getting it together, gonna get in the studio and do some of the new songs. And uh at the same time, uh very ridiculously slow timeline, unfortunately for me. Um I'm working on um some solo songs too, and also I hope to get a compilation album of all the songs I've co-written with other people together.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Awesome. Yeah, I think we need to write a song together. Um just putting it out there. Um let's begin with the list. Let's start with uh let's start. Um I like to think of these as uh kind of a cassette where it's just like a side A and side B, five songs per each side. Um I usually say that's you know, the order is really up to you because it's kind of like how you would make the tape, but but let's start with your number one.

Prince And A Secret B Side

SPEAKER_00 2:41

My number one, which when you said top ten songs of all time that mean something to you, whatever, there was only one that could be number one for me, and that's Another Lonely Christmas by Prince for many, many reasons. And so, first, I could take up a whole podcast talking about Minnesota, but I can't nothing lives in a vacuum. So I have to say, growing up in Minnesota, especially when I did, was before the Cohen brothers, before Fargo, before anyone knew that there was a culture there that was very different than the rest of the Midwest. And also being from there, you didn't know that you were different from the rest of the Midwest. You didn't know you had an accent until you moved to Boston and people are mean to you and say, dude. You mean people are normal to you? Well, yes. They're not Minnesota nice there. They're like, dude, what are you from? Canada or something? You know, what are you gonna oh you're gonna go get a pop, are ya? You know? So Minnesota's like it's like this island of a mix of like Scandinavians and like a little of everything, and um education is big and the arts are big. It's um it's really it's not like any place else. But if you're from there, you don't think you're ever gonna go any place else. Because like the idea of moving to Los Angeles or moving to New York or something to a kid in Minnesota is like, I might as well think about moving to Mars or something like that. It just doesn't happen. And Minnesota had like the Andrew Sisters, Bob Dylan doesn't count because he's from there, but he went to New York and got signed. His whole career is New York and on. We had Funky Town by Lipsync, that was the big hit out of Minneapolis until Prince. And Prince was so Minnesotan. If I just like you know, rock and funk and uh band that was mixed with races and men and women and whatever, and that it just feels like Minnesota to me. Um and and you don't know how special it is until you leave. And um and then the other thing is that like Prince stayed in Minnesota. He didn't get famous and leave. Yeah, he and whatever happened, he always went back. And and even like, I mean, purple, like, you know, his name's Prince, and you think royalty, but also you don't realize the Lakers from Minnesota were are purple because of the University of Minnesota. That's where they started. And the Vikings are purple, and uh the state patrol cars are purple. They're kind of maroon, but whatever. But Minnesota's just purple. Yeah. And anyway, it's it's it's from being so cold. Princess you turn purple. The cold keeps the bad people out. The cold keeps the bad people out, yes. So getting on on track, I moved from Minnesota to Boston to go to Berkeley College for music. And at this time, if there's any kids watching, there is a time when you had to pay money for music. Yeah. And I don't know about I remember like I'd say if like if a kid could buy an album a month, that was kind of a rich kid. Yeah. I remember like birthday and Christmas was like you'd get an album or something like that. It was not an everyday occurrence, it wasn't an even my allowance allowed for a single or two. Yeah. And so I moved to Boston, and I I was like paying for college all myself and got myself from Minnesota to Boston, and I was on really on my own in a lot of ways. And I had uh, I think uh with no job, I moved to Boston with $800 to last me the whole year, and that included flights back to Minnesota for Christmas and that. So I already owned all the Prince albums and stuff like that, and my roommate in college had a record player, and so um not wanting to buy the full albums again, I went to uh Newberry Comics and I started buying um extended singles. Yeah, 12 inches. Yeah. So I, if I wanted to hear Prince, I'd go buy an extended single. So I started building up this collection to not buy the whole albums that I already owned, because you know, that's the way money works. And uh, so I got the single I Would Die For You. And uh on the back side of that was Another Lonely Christmas, which until the hits and the B sides came out, virtually no one heard that song. No, so it was almost like if you had a favorite artist and they sent you a demo of this song, and like no one else in the world heard it, like you'd run into some people, like maybe I mean it has to be like the top of the top of Prince fans that would know Another Lonely Christmas. And so what I loved about it was other than that, was just this one time in my life, and it was a story song, and there are not too many songs where uh one of the characters in it gets pneumonia because they fell through the ice, and uh that's again that's a very Minnesota thing. Like every year you lost someone to the ice, like you know, Boston. There was like kids went swimming in the quarry, and every year there was someone that drowned in the quarry, and like, why did you go swimming in the quarry? Someone's gonna die. That's just what happens. And there's a time in Minnesota where the ice gets um thin, and then it's always like, Why did someone go out? And it's not like it's not like an ice report or anything like that. You gotta like, how warm is it? Where's it has it been warm for a while, and whatever? So um it's this story song, there's ice, it seems it seems so Minnesota. It felt like home when I listened to that. Um, and I was in Boston, and uh, and uh yeah, it just had all these elements of there's a surprise, and it was just my own. And it's a great song, and no one, no one else knew it. It was like my secret thing for the longest time. And then the Hits and B-sides came out, and I was like, why didn't this just like start getting airplay? Why isn't why isn't it everyone's favorite song?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, I I remember hearing it for the first time. Um I didn't get to hear it till um a a few years later, uh maybe uh like 86 or 87, because that's when I came back to the States and I was able to procure uh the those 12 inches and the remixes. But uh I remember the one a couple things hit me hard about it. One, I remember feeling like the first song that of his that there was like a tragedy involved. Like, you know, it's sort of like Right. Yeah. It's like a you know, it's not uh common for him to have like a story about someone who died or right. And he's got a few, but uh but uh not they came later, I think. Yeah. And then uh also the drink. What's the drink that he mentions in it? Bananadacri. Bananodacries. I remember I remember going out and trying to find like somebody to give make me a banana dacri because I wanted to know what it was like. Uh but uh but yeah, no, and it's just like you said, it's an amazing song. He was just on a string too where the B sides were just so like there were gems, and very few people knew about him. Yeah, and and uh and you know, he's he's he's your he's your guy, he's Minnesota.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah. And you know, it's just like it it's crazy to just think like I don't know if I would have gone to music school if it wasn't for Prince. I don't know if I would have thought of, oh, I could do this if it wasn't for Prince. Like anyone around Minnesota is like you take lessons and then you play in a bowling alley um and you do covers or you know, whatever. That was kind of the extent of everything. And like, yeah, you'd think someone does this thing, they're professional musicians and they do you record and whatever, but it was is not something that was like right in front of you that easily accessible. Like, you know, if you lived in LA or New York, like, oh yeah, people go and do that.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

It's it's uh I always come back to this because people always like, you know, in these days it's it's it's uh it's a common phrase, but I feel like it pertains to all the things that people kind of relate to. And it's just that you need to have, you need to see representation. You need to see something that you connect to in a higher place, you know, in an upgraded place in uh a level higher than yours, so you can see what's possible for you. And that's like somebody like Prince, who was just kind of like let the freak flag fly, you know, and you're like 13, and you're all these crazy things in your head, and you're like, here's this guy who's you know, amazing and talented and can wear whatever he wants to wear and gets all the girls or whatever. It's like it's like it's like you know, it's just like, oh wait, he's you know, the oh you can do, you can be whatever you want to be. Um great for a start, man. Great number one. So side A, song number two.

Soul Asylum And Story Driven Rock

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Nice guys don't get paid by Soul Asylum. We're still in Minnesota. Staying in the region. Yeah, staying in the region. So this album, this is like, this is I'd call this like the second wave of Minneapolis, that I guess it was going on when I was there, but I those bands weren't like readily available. They seemed to play up north and and down south. They played colleges and stuff like that. As far as like the club scene, um, it was like, you know, uh if you remember, there's kind of a one-hit wonder called the Jets. They played my um my prom. They were a cover band. Um and as far as I remember, when I was younger, the time was a cover band. They played a lot, but I think they were a cover band, as far as I knew, they uh from the places they played. So after I moved, I started listening to a lot of stuff out of Minneapolis that was very different than Prince. But uh Soul Asylum, the replacements, who's gonna do all came out a little while after that. I don't know, maybe it was like the Prince effect. They were like, oh, we can do this too, just like I did. So uh the Soul Asylum album, one of my favorite albums of all time. It's uh Soul Asylum and the Horse that they wrote in on. And this is pre-Nirvana of the quiet, loud kind of songwriting. And it was just it just wasn't done. Um and like before the the new wave of alternative rock or whatever it would be, there was like there's pop, there's metal, there was punk. Um and no one really mixed all of those together to be punk and rock and you know, everything. And like even that album, there's like country in there, there's like there's a little of everything. And especially like like punk or or whatever. I wouldn't say that there's no songwriting involved, but there's not like there's not like Chris Christofferson kind of, here's a story, here's a character, here's this thing we're building up. Um Soul Asylum did that. That was this amazing story of kids and drugs in a city, and I'm not really sure exactly what happened with nice guys don't get paid, but um, it was it resonated with me, especially being in the music scene and being a nice guy not getting paid like every week.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

I I I love that album. That's a great album, and I feel like it's uh it's it's it was a turning point for those guys as well. Um it's funny because Solo Sound gets gets uh thrown into this pile of sort of the early 90s alternative wave of bands that were kind of getting popular. And they had been around for many years, like you know, five, six albums before they they really crossed over. And I think of this album, um, I always kind of have to reference when I came back to the United States. I instantly started working in record stores, and I remember very much Twin Tone. I remember, like, you know, I remember Skurdoo because of SST and all the stuff that was like that sort of Midwest rock that was happening. And I also remember there being like a clear cut thing of there were bands that were kind of you mentioned the mix of things, and I I I divided them into two different groups. There were bands that were doing the mix within a song, say like The Pixies, you know, that were just kind of like undefinable what they were doing, but you could you could clearly hear all the different things. And then there was a band like Soul Asylum, where on an on an one album they'd have like different kinds of, you know, it was kind of almost every genre would be represented in a thing, but also in a way that they were kind of more old school. Um, they felt more like an old, like almost kind of like the replacements, the more rock and roll kind of like uh approach of let me try this style, but it's gonna be all crazy, dirty, and punky, and the energy is gonna be kind of crazy. And uh I also remember too that uh like uh the there was a song on that album I want to say it's like something to hold on to or something like that, that was just like basically the sound that the chili peppers did a year or two later on Blood Sex Sugar Magic, where the Chili Peppers were just had this sort of like they were just like this punky funky thing that they were doing for a while, and then on one album when they got John Freshante, they became a more of almost it was almost slightly like metal y, like you know, but that song, there's a song on that album that's like I swear to God, they heard that and they got that sound, which is a sort of like heavy groove, but tight, almost like James Brown kind of like syncopation, but it's fucking loud as hell. You know, it's like really kind of like you know, um I wish I remember the title of the song, but it's that same that's that album. I think I think it's their best album personally, uh, for me. But um and I do know another weird fact that the producer on that album was the one who produced their last album uh that came out a couple years ago. Steve Jordan. Oh stupid information. Silly information to have my hand. Well, and Bob Mole did uh produce their first few records. Um but uh tangent, yo, tangent. Um I wanted to ask you about the song really quick, uh, because the song itself, like you said, it's kind of like uh it's got a message that I'm gonna say that you probably didn't follow, which is the the you know, um about what was some line in the song that goes something going straight. You know, nice guys never whatever nice guys don't get paid. Yeah. Um I don't know. I just it's it's uh the message of the song is kind of one where you're like, you had you you you can't be nice, you can't be uh uh you can't be suckered, you can't be, you can't let yourself uh be taken as a fool. But at the same time, they it's almost like they're asking you to be a drug dealer or something. I don't know, like they're saying, like, get into selling drugs. I could uh it's whatever. My bad, my bad. Um let's move to song number three before I

The Cars And Dark Pop Sarcasm

SPEAKER_01 21:20

lose it. Um tell me what's your song number three on side A is Good Times Roll by the Cars.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Nice pick, nice pick. That one is if you if there was a definable life-changing moment, it was at that time. That was another one of those I got that as a birthday present. And it was, I think it was like the first record? No, no, no. It was maybe definitely under 10, maybe under five for my first records. But it was, I believe, from The guy my mom was dating at the time, who had a couple of boys, the older boy said, This is cool. And I uh dropped the needle on the car's first album and Let the Good Times Roll starts. And it was like nothing I ever heard before. And later, um, I actually got to record in in um Synchro Sound, where the cars that was their studio in Boston. Oh nice. And it was when I first heard that, I thought, there's no way the cars are from the United States. They have to be from England or another planet. There was Rick O'Kasic is definitely from absolutely nothing like that. And I wonder when I look at my own songwriting, which maybe it lands, maybe it doesn't, but there's a lot of sarcasm in my lyrics. And Rick O'Kasic was always like there is never a song that's just a song. There's some kind of twist, there's some kind of dark element, and there's always something coming out of left field. Like you never know where it's headed. And you know, let the good times roll should be an um temp up-tempo pop song, or you know, whatever. And it's, you know, it's dark, and you know, it's Cynthia and just the drums and everything going on. Um there's just nothing like it. There was like the world changed. Yeah, yeah. And of course, then, you know, Elliot Easton with like the most new wavy of songs or whatever, throwing country licks in the middle of a soul, and you don't, you know, it's like a million years later when I listen after I knew more about country, like he just did country solos in the middle of you know, this new wave song, and uh yeah, it was brilliant. And uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

I I love that song. I love that song. It's a song that uh I I always enjoy covering occasionally when when there's an opportunity to do so. And uh it's one of the best first songs on a first album from a band ever. You know, uh I love that. And uh it's got some really funny lines in it too. Um if they got thunder appeal. Yeah. I love that line, man. It's just like and uh let them brush your rock and roll hair. Let them brush your rock and roll hair, let the guitar. Also feel like the chorus, the all I always felt that the chorus always felt like an ending of a song because of the the thing. It's like the every time they do it, and it's like that's such a such a crazy uh motif to repeat in the song. Um and like you said, about him lyrically. I don't know for sure, but it just sounds like he's kind of making fun of people who are letting the good times roll. It seems like that, yeah.

The Replacements And Honest Instability

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Moving on to number four on side A of Troy Richardson's My Greatest Hits, we go to Unsatisfied by the replacement.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

So we're back in Minnesota again. Yes, we're back in Minnesota. Back in 1984, too. Yeah, yeah. And so this song, I I didn't hear it in 1984. I was I was probably well within the Berkeley songwriting program by the time I I heard that. I had to like go back and revisit a lot of Minneapolis bands that uh I didn't hear when they first came out. And unsatisfied, first I just love the song, and I don't know why. There is almost nothing to that song, the lyrics are almost the same all the way through. Sometimes they're the same with like one word changed as it comes back around, and the song is super simple, but the lyrics are super simple, and it just that song just always hit me so hard. I don't know if it's his vocal delivery or whatever, it just seemed so real, so honest, and that I couldn't figure out what is going on with it. Like, especially if you're middle, middle of it like Berkeley, you're like, oh, that that landed. Oh, well, of course, it was the five chord going to one at the end of the phrase. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

You know, that's how you give them the hook.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah. Pull them into the song, you know, and it's just like, you know, title of the song that lands on beat one of the chorus, or it's the last last part of the chorus, or you know, whatever. That is uh one thing is like probably um, you know, it's the odd phrasing and it just it just works, and I don't know why. One thing is that there's a certain uh instability of it, um, you know, which is uh Berkeley songwriting term, is something can be stable or unstable, like you know, my tattoos so I don't forget, which is stable, it lands on the one chord, you feel at rest. Um, you know, if you end on a five chord and it doesn't resolve, that's gonna feel unstable. It's gonna keep propelling the song along. So everything about that was just it's the most unstable song I think I've ever heard. And uh, you know, I just I always thought about it, and I I wish I had like more of there's a Berkeley time, you could bring a song in to her songwriting class, and like, I love this, and I don't know why. And then the teacher would say, Well, this and that, you know. Um, so yeah, that's a song that's always been a mystery to me.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

I think you hit it on the nose about is just the vocal delivery. Uh there's there's a certain energy there. Uh the thing, how they recorded that song, you know, how he just went in and he all he had was the in a the satisfied line and just kept repeating and improvising. It's a one take. Uh Bob Stenson did the soloing halfway through the song. Like as they were doing the take, he just decided to pick up the guitar and start noodling and went on. And he said, if only we had spent five more minutes on that song, it would have been great. And and Wessenberg himself has dismissed it many times, saying it's just like it's just whatever it was, you know. But at the same time, he's also uh acknowledged the sort of effect of it. And I always think of that song of like one of those uh I forget what they're called, and it's like Rue Goldberg, maybe like the when they do the domino and it just kind of hits all these different things and it goes all these different places. Yeah. I think that's like the domino that led to Nirvana. Exactly, yeah. I think that's like that's the the sort of like the straightforward angst that's like sort of honest, but presented in a way because he was just like, I mean, Worcesterberg is just so, so he's he's a classic guy, like in a crazy way. Like he's he was so punk rock, he was so uh on the edge, but he was practically a kind of a crooner. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? His his sort of vocal style and melody choices, you know, he he sang very much like like he was singing a show tune, like you know, his choices. So it's just always funny to me how the that dichotomy of of the replacements. I mean, um, I don't know, I just saw a clip of Keith Richards talking about the replacements, and he was it's like it's a crazy clip that surfaced from the late 80s, and he was in his words happy, uh you know, uh but he was saying about how that they were one of the few bands that represent like pure rock and roll. It's like rock and roll is like knowing that one night you're not gonna be great, and the other night you're going to be phenomenal in a way that you're gonna capture the electricity of the room and you're gonna not not even know how it's gonna go beyond the talent that you have, it's gonna go beyond what you people, the people on stage put together. It's just like something from somewhere else. But that that that it's all about that like falling down and getting up. It's like that that's what rock and roll is, and he's like, the replacements have that. Um so it was cool to see that. Um but uh yeah, I always think it's funny because it's like the also the year that that came out. I don't like like you, I didn't discover that till uh this the same year that I discovered another Lonely Christmas, which is like 86, 87. Yeah. Then I I started like, ooh, replacements. Well, that's like, you know, whatever. There was also so much lore around them, too, that they it couldn't, it was hard to beat, hard to miss them.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

The uh crazy thing is I go back to Minneapolis, I play shows, and you know, I'm playing through my songs and whatever. I I got off one time and uh the sound guy said, uh, do you like Paul Westerberg? And I was like, Yeah, I do, but those weren't even the songs that I ripped off of him, you know? And he's like, No, no, no, they were good. And and he said, it's like the phrasing, or it's you know, it's this or that or whatever. But yeah, if you're playing show in in Minneapolis, that's the last place you're gonna get a get away with like taking something from Paul Westerfrick and getting away with it.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

I definitely hear that a lot in your music. I hear him a lot. Um, but it's it's mainly in that in the same respect of of of how you're taking a classical form of music and you're just kind of like running it through the mud. You know what I mean? It's like this how dirty can we get it, how like down to the ground, and like um, you know, how deep can we get as far as like the lyric content and what it's what what you're trying to say. I mean, I feel like there's a you get you have a a kinship with Mr. Westburg, which is a good thing. Um I could have said somebody else from Minneapolis and it wouldn't have been good. But uh number five, song number five on Troy Richardson's My Greatest Hits.

Writing Irregardlessly And COVID Reset

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Number five is uh Irregardlessly, me.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Yay.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

So this I put right after Unsatisfied because for some reason I was thinking of Unsatisfied, that it was just you could never nail down what that song was e about, but you knew the guy meant it. So it's one of my songs, like many of them, that I feel I failed at, but what I it wasn't what I was going for, but what I got, I was pretty happy with, and so um I wanted it to be like unsatisfied, and I had this idea that the narrator of the song was gonna be all about how much in love he and his partner are. But the lines were all gonna be a uh gonna be a uh uh anyone hearing them would be like, that's not love at all. Like a delusional, unreliable narrator telling about this love story. And I think I got I got about halfway there, I would say, but it's a from start to finish, it it wound up being a good story. There's enough of that, and everyone remembers it, um, probably because of I at the start, before I had any other lyrics, I had the title, which is at that time there's a little controversy whether irregardless was actually a word, which um I was working as a copywriter at that time. It was like a kind of a decent sized team, and there's one uh older guy I worked with, and and it wasn't irregardless, but it was something else. And he said something like you can't just change a meaning of a word because so many people start using it wrong. And I thought, that's exactly what happens. Enough people use a word wrong. That's what that means now. Yeah, I mean ironic does not have the meaning that it did. Ironic is just something odd now, yeah, even though there is a very specific meaning for that. And irregardless, it's wrong. What people meant was regardless, but you know, flammable, inflammable, same word. Uh boneless chicken, boned chicken, same thing, you know? So regardless, irregardless, and then I added the irregardlessly, just to drive the wrongness home of that. So it was like, I'm I'm gonna take a word that's not a word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the other the other thing that I will always remember this song about is that this is the first Trucker Bomb single that was released. And it was released right at the end of we're just coming out of COVID. And one thing was like Trucker Bomb got started, and it was rolling right along. And I've been in a lot of bands. Some of them had some success, some of them had no success. What made the successful ones different than the unsuccessful ones? I have no idea. There's like I thought I had the best band ever and it got nowhere. I was like band I thought was kind of dumb, people liked it, you know, whatever. So this was it started, and there was something about the songs I was writing at that time, people I had that gravitated to the audience that we were playing for. People would come up to me and would remember lyrics. They were like, I like that song that you have the you know, whatever. And people were coming back to see us. And I'm like, that's that never happened, really. Like, you know, um, people member remembering songs and things like that. And so I'll always remember that there's like we're rolling right along, then COVID happens, and we're out of business for like a year. At least. And COVID happened when I had a fully functional band and ten songs that we were playing for a long time, and we we had booked studio time to go in and record an album, and then that got on hold. Uh then the band had some members fluctuate, and so I as they do, and so that year I was like, I um a lot of changed. It was like this COVID thing, I was like, I can do nothing, and then I'm gonna be restarting over again, or I'm gonna concentrate on whatever I really can do. And a lot changed for everyone over COVID. And one was like, you could take voice lessons remotely, like I guess you could before, but no one did that. Um, I could go to songwriting circles remotely, and I did that. I took, you know, uh some I joined some songwriting circles. My teacher, Berkeley, had one, had a seminar, and joined a circle of a bunch of students after that, and just I was like, the band's not playing live, so what am I gonna do? I'm gonna work on my voice and I'm gonna work on my songs. Um, because I just I always kind of step away from the band and I try to look at it objectively. Okay. And listening to the old recordings of our live show, like, you know, the weakest link is my voice. I, if I could get my voice 20% better, I think the band as a whole be 50% better. Like the better this one element can be exponential. And so, you know, it's like bands like, I think they kind of survive or fail on drums in the lead vocal. Yeah. Like a bad drummer can kill the best band. And the audience doesn't even know, really. They're like, something off. I don't know. I don't really like these guys. Or a great drummer would be like, you know, there's no songs there, but people are still like, these guys are good. Like, no, they're not, they don't have any songs, but you know, and so that was coming out of COVID, recording, getting back, doing the thing. It's our first uh single that we were released. And on my own, that was also that was the first thing I released for uh embarrassingly enough, 20 years. I recorded, uh, played bass for other people, but for one of my songs that I sang, it was 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

So yeah. That's uh This is a good mark, man. It's a good, it's a good stepping stone, a good chapter. Uh yeah, yeah. That's awesome. That was song number five. Yes on and now we turn the tape over.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

So that was the end of side A.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Um I love it that you put the song, your song there in the middle. Uh and now uh we begin side B with song number six.

Jason Isbell And Getting Sober

SPEAKER_01 41:37

All right. Song number six is Jason Isabel, It Gets Easier. It gets easier. Um I will say that you assembled quite a list of songwriters. Uh you know, that's it's because you know how it is. It's like I feel like you can appreciate a good song, and occasionally uh a song that's popular, or uh say a songwriter's maybe maybe had many, many songs written and performed or c or or um so only has like one or two f familiar songs or whatever. You've kind of assembled a list of people who who are just really good songwriters. So not just like they were good for that song. These are people who've had like just have at least 20 to 30 other songs equally as as good as the deck. So it's kind of interesting to me. Um and I'll even throw you in the bunch. Uh-huh. But uh but yes, Jason Isbel.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Um tell me about this song. So first, I never listened to Jason Isbel because for some reason I got Jason Isbel and Jason L. Dean mixed up. Ooh. And I was like, Jason Isabel, that's a that guy's an idiot. I don't want to listen to that one, whatever. And so I went to high school with a woman named uh Betsy Hodges, who wound up being mayor of Minneapolis. Wow. So um uh, you know, everything has to tie back into Minneapolis, I guess, somehow or another. And she said, Oh, I do listen to Jason Isabel and he has a new album. And I'm like, I don't listen to that guy. And uh, I thought I thought you'd like him. I'm like, and then I listened to this album, and this was uh I think it was Reunions that just came out. Uh 2020. And this is his first album uh that he did after he got sober. And I just listened to that, and I swear Jason is bell could have been following me around, getting ideas. I was like, it was like weird. So one thing it gets easier is a couple of things, which one in there he talks about dreams where he He drank, which I have those. I had those when I when I first quit drinking. Um, another, you know, just an aside, like that single, irregardlessly that I didn't produce anything for 20 years. It's because I was drunk every day for 20 years, which is a really bad career move. I would I would not recommend that. Choices that we make in life every day. So Jason Isville has uh in in It Gets Easier, which it does get easier. Um he had dreams where he drank again and woke up and, like, oh, thank God that didn't happen. The craziest thing is I was very lucky. I quit drinking, and everything in my life got better, like immediately. It and it gave me this very healthy fear of drinking again, that I was just so happy and so happy to wake up each morning and not be hung over. And um, and this Jason Isabel. All of these songs were so much like that. Like it really, it's if you haven't been through it, it it's life-changing, obviously. There's just there's my life before I quit drinking, and then my life after I quit drinking, and and um I quit drinking, I started getting fen um serious about fencing and writing songs and stuff like that. So it's like basically I picked up when out from when I was like 18 or 20, all of the things that I loved doing that I'd kind of not done um because I was drinking all the time. And really, I unfortunately I don't have any great drunk stories either. I never got arrested. I you know, all of the things that people talk about. I don't have any creeds that I remember, yeah. Um I was just it just wasted a lot of time. Like it's a lot easier to drink than it's to reverse.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

It was a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Yeah. And then the other thing is then it gets easier. Jason Isabel talks about driving and seeing a cop behind him as he's sober. And that exact same thing happened to me. It's like when you're drinking and driving, unfortunately, you see like a checkpoint, police checkpoint up ahead, you're terrified. And you know, I was lucky, it was like they were doing every third car or something like that. So I get up there and got waved through. And and the other thing is that I had looked up what they stop people for, and it's a lot of it is like not using a turn signal or putting a turn signal on way before you should put a turn signal on. Someone hitting their windshield wipers when it's not raining, because you know, you all of that. And so I was sober and I I like got you know, got in my car or whatever. I had parked underneath a tree and some dirt and some stuff had fallen on my windshield. I started driving and I look and I hit my windshield wipers to get the crap off my car, but it wasn't raining, and I was just I laughed like I would have driven with all that crap on my windshield until I got home rather than put my windshield wipers on when it's not raining, because I know cops look for that, and just all of those things. And like, even there was like there's a checkpoint up ahead, and I was like, I'm sober, and and I'm like, even I'm driving up, I think I might have even like weaved a little bit, like, come on. Like having to get out of the car. I haven't been drinking. This is gonna be awesome. And of course I get waved through and all of that, but yeah, yeah, all of that is uh that whole album is a lot of stuff like that. And then the other thing is that I was going through this period of like, you know, I was writing songs or whatever. Jason Isabel's songs are so good, yeah. It's sometimes you just need to hear something and remind you, oh yeah, you can do something that good. That and and it's mostly lyrically. I think, even though, you know, I graduated Berkeley as a bass player and all of that, when you get into bands and everything like that, um, no one wanted to write lyrics. Um, there's always, you know, it was like hot potato, like uh, we want to do songs, but you know, no one wants to write. And and I wrote a few, and you know, people said, you know, you're you're kind of good at that, you know. And so it just, you know, you keep doing stuff that you're kind of good at, and then you want to be better at it. And and I also I just always enjoyed writing. And uh I had a had a girlfriend who's a TV producer, writer-producer, and you know, just my emails, you know, this is before I had a had a job writing advertising. She said, you know, you could be a writer if you wanted. I was like, nah, I could do that. And she said, well, I don't tell anyone that they should be a writer. I tell people they shouldn't be a writer. But, you know, and I said, like, no, I don't, I don't know, punctuation and grammar and like all of that. And she said, you can learn all of that. Your emails, you have like, you have a cadence and you have a flow to telling a story. You can't teach that. And you have that. You can learn all the rest. And uh and I was like, huh, okay, and that could maybe be a thing. And she said, Didn't um didn't teachers in in high school tell you you were a good writer? And I said, Well, yeah, but I thought that's what they're supposed to tell kids or something like that. She's like, they don't tell kids that, you know. And all of my friends that are teachers now, I tell them that story, and they're like, No, we don't. We do not don't tell people they should be a writer if they're not good. No. Um, but no one could have said anything to me at that time because I wouldn't have thought being a writer was a real career, you know, being a rock star, that's a real career. That's obtainable. Thanks, Prince. You know, so uh yeah, so that album, he uh he raised the bar for me. I'm like, I I I have to put more work into the lyrics that I don't want any dead weight in there. I don't want any line that's where there's a word that's just filling space for the rhythm or the rhyme or whatever. It's just it's everything has to stand up on its own. And then uh so that was that album, and then and just uh as an aside, his last album was his first album after he got divorced. Yes. It's like all acoustic, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh voice and acoustic, man, that is tough to pull off for more than a couple of songs. The greats have trouble with that, but he's just he's become a hell of a guitarist in the last few years.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

And it's like it's the kind of uh um I feel like he's undervalued uh uh as as a guitarist because you know we we love his lyrics so much and he's so good uh at at uh you know writing songs that that uh you can easily forget. But I had that album kind of turned for me, this latest album was just like because I felt the same way. I'm like, okay, I mean I would listen to him at all day no matter what. I was just so impressed with how the guitar sounded. Like his it's like, oh, yeah, you don't need a band anymore. Like you can continue doing this, like your songs. And it was like the like I I like the reunions album, but I like this one better just because it was uh I feel like he's been putting a lot of emphasis on the was it a 400 unit? Yeah, yeah. So it's like to try to make it feel like a cool band. You know what I mean? Like I feel like he's he's maybe had like some sort of syndrome where he felt like people look at me as like just like a songwriter guy and not like being in a band. That's what he like puts all those events in Nashville where he does like the sort of like cover nights, and you know, and it it's it seems like somebody who just wants to do everything and not just be pigeonholed in one thing. But but going back to the song, like I want to make sure that people, you know, when they listen to it, that like the the line that the song title is um It gets easier. It gets easier, but never easy. Uh yeah. And that's and that's like that's the that's the Is Bell.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

Yeah, yeah. You know, the craziest thing is that I used to smoke cigarettes, and I quit. And those nightmares were horrible. I always had nightmares that I started smoking again, and it was so hard to quit. And honestly, it's a bigger um muscle thing, like uh, you know, the cigarette. It is, and it's crazy that what my probably my worst fear about when I decided to quit drinking was one, I thought I would be bored all the time, like what am I gonna do with all this time? And then you just have such a great life, you don't have enough hours in the day to do all the things that you want to do. It's great. Not never been bored since I quit drinking, but I was like, I thought it was gonna be as hard as uh when I quit smoking. And thankfully, it was not. Good. Good. There's nothing harder than quitting cigarettes. I heard interviews, people were getting off heroin and tried to quit cigarettes at the same time, and they said cigarettes was harder. I'm sure. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Um write a song about that. Um song number seven, we're inside B here.

Johnny Cash And Childhood Memory Songs

SPEAKER_01 54:15

A boy named Sue.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash. I'm Johnny Cash. So when the first about Johnny Cash, live at Folsom Prison. I grew up with my grandparents for the first eight years of my life, who were not, it was not a musical family. Actually, not makes it sound like I when I moved in with my mom, um, that was a musical family. That was not either. There was no music in in growing up or whatever. And we kind of forget that civilians have like five albums or something like that, with the big console, you know, wood grain speakers in there and all of that. So I was playing like hard rock and you know, all kinds of stuff. And it wasn't until I was at Bill's Bar in Boston. Bill's Bar. The Jukebox programmed by Jay Giles had a ton of Johnny Cash, and I realized I knew all the words to all these Johnny Cash songs. I must have heard them growing up a million times, and they were like, that was somehow, that was like in my bones or something. It was this memory that I didn't even know I had, but it was like ingrained in me. And uh there are, you know, he's like, I don't know if Johnny Cash does anything well. Like, he's not in a great singer, but he sounds like him. Yeah. He's not a great guitar player, but he plays as well as he needs to. He was such an iconic figure, and obviously he was huge, but I was like, I think he was just like he was just like a little before Elvis, and a little he was a little too early for something, a little too late for something else, uh, you know, uh, you know, like uh um, you know, a little too late to be Hank Williams, a little too early to be Elvis, and of course had his own huge career. So, boy named Sue, I could have picked any song, but this one is again going back to my childhood, which is pre-internet, pre-everything, and growing up in Minnesota again. I thought this song was a boy named Sue S-O-U-I-X. Because obviously my uncle's from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and and you know, Sue comes up in in the Midwest in that area all the time. Yeah, and it's and actually uh Johnny Cash is also fascinated with the American Indian culture. And so I heard that song maybe a million times thinking, I think Sue is kind of a cool name. Like, why would you change S-O-U-I-X? That's an awesome name. And it wasn't until later, but probably when I learned how to read or whatever, and saw a track listing, I was like, oh, S-U-E. Oh, I get it now.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

No wonder he's pissed.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

And uh, and then, you know, I just appreciate how big the song got when the premise is a little ridiculous that everyone since the dawn of history can just use their middle name or say, I don't like that name. Don't call I'm gonna be this. Um so anyway.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

I I I love I love that song. I think it's uh the I remember hearing about how it was recorded. I just I've been I'm I've been such a Johnny Cash fan all my life, but it's always been uh peripherally, you know, until the American recordings with Rick Rubin. That stuff, the first few albums, those albums came out, that made me go back to discover um his earlier stuff, and especially the the the we'll call them the prison albums. Yeah, yeah. And uh, you know, San Quentin won the um. But this song wasn't even supposed to be on the album. He it was given to him days before as something to consider to record for another thing, and he thought it was kind of fun. And the band I think Carl Perkins was with him for this for this recording. They're just like playing along, and he's he's the oh there's a there's a you watch a video of it, he's actually looking, still looking at the piece of paper where the lyrics are on. I saw that one. And uh and the sort of the response he got was so immediate that he was just like, there's something here, and he kept it. And uh it's just kind of crazy how um he was always good about that. Like you said, he's he's wasn't the best singer, wasn't the best guitarist, but he was who he was, you know, and uh people think of like outlaw country, and you know, he's not he doesn't he's not in the same sort of like uh wavelength of whaling and and anybody else on that on that side of that spectrum. But for some reason, you know, when when you're an outsider, when you have the sort of outsider mind, and I can only imagine being from Minnesota, how that's kind of ingrained, because you're not, you know, you're not from the South, you're not New York, you're not LA, you're like Minnesota. And it's just like a weird, like he was the perfect outsider. The man in black. And all but also he always he always stood strong. Like he never like he the he was strong in his beliefs, and that's what kind of I feel like made his sort of uh icon status just like be uh so so uh so just strong, man. I mean uh we're still talking about it today. It's just like he I don't know, he didn't have as many hits of all the people that we we were talking about. A lot of the songs that he did were you know covers that people wrote for him or whatever. And and I it's just crazy to think how how but uh but uh but you know, it's just again, he sold that song. You know, he sold it. Uh and he was in on the joke. That's all you hear in the song that he's in on the joke. But um let's move on. Uh song number eight on My Greatest Sex for Troy Richardson.

Carly Simon And Specific Lyrics

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

You're so vain, Carly Sil. That's this is a good choice, an interesting one too. Why this song?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

This is one of the songs that always struck me that you can enjoy a story that you have no idea really what's going on. It is like I now I forget. There's a a dance that she mentions, um uh and all of these things, which especially like Minnesota, like you know, flying in a jet or a yacht or you know, whatever. Yeah, Nova Scotia, yeah. None of this stuff was my world, would ever be my world. But it's the her singing as the narrator. The eclipse?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

Yeah, just to catch the eclipse in Nova Scotia or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of these crazy things, I didn't know what was going on, but I knew she knew what was going on. And that resonated with me so much, and and it was very powerful to sometimes as songwriters, we like take a step back and like, oh, this has to be for everyone, and this is you know, it's the opposite. However, specific you can get, even though, you know, uh Prince talks about Uptown, and I I read this review of like Uptown's being this state of mind, it's this, it's that, whatever, and all of that. And I'm like, Uptown is is Lake Street in Hennepin, it's a part of Minneapolis. That's where we all went. Yeah, you know, sometimes it snows in April. That's not figurative, that's literal. Sometimes it does snow in April, and somehow this um this song was just uh you could see it, you could feel it, you could be a part of it, and not know what you were really a part of, but you knew something was going on there. And then it's also it's another song where, like, you can't remove a word, it would fall apart. Every word it has some weight to it, and every word needs to be there. And just as an aside, I'll I'll mention how much growing up I hated Woody Allen movies. That this song is the opposite. If, especially early Woody Allen movies, if you weren't from New York, these movies exuded this thing telling a kid in in the Midwest that he wasn't cool. Yeah. That I missed half the jokes, I missed everything. It felt like you were just an outsider of this world that, you know, New York City, I didn't, I didn't when did I see New York? I might have been 20 before I saw New York City. Um, and you know, my mom never saw New York City or LA or anything like that. Um so as much as like Woody Allen movies were excluding me, there's something about Carly Simon's song that welcomed me into this world. Yeah. And there's something about there's like perhaps in the second person as she's singing to this person who does not know that they are the subject of this song. That person is someplace else. They'll never know what this person is thinking, that perhaps you're in that world because you also don't know exactly what's going on. So you can feel like the subject of the song that that person involved in all of this is also missing a point.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:34

No, I I I I agree with you 100%. There's something about there's so much um the fact that the person who's surveying has remained a mystery to this day, who that person really is, even though she's admitted to like some people.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

Um I read it's about three different men, which would make sense to me because I, as however many breakup songs That I have, there are pieces of different breakups that make them. And uh you're pulling from all the experiences.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

And uh to know that and uh I mean I love that. I just oh for me, it was always a thing where I related to, like you said, the part where it's like there's this other person that probably doesn't even know this about them, that she's saying this. And like the the thing that I connected to the most was this idea that someone's such a narcissist. And you know, she's singing the song, she's writing the song, and she's denying do you think this song is about you? You know what I mean? And and she's saying, Oh, I love the clouds in my coffee. It's like that line is always just like stuck with me, you know, this clouds because it's like in your day-to-day, this person is fucking raining on your parade. Just because being who they are. And you just like you're such, you know, it's like you're Sylvain is really you're you're such a dick. Yeah. You're such a bitch. You're such a this. And it's like you think that everything, you know, you think this song is about you, you think the world revolves around you.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

And it's like such a, you know, sentiment that I don't think has ever been said better since then, either. Like that about that specific thing, about calling somebody out like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Yeah. And then the crazy thing when the song is about this person who'll never get who they are. You also feel like I think we're we've all been there at some point. Like, how dare that person not realize what they did to me? This is affecting me every single day. Like, and they don't care. How can they not care? And it takes, you have to get older that's like, they're never gonna care. No, it's my problem. I have to deal with this. Yeah, they're and and they don't, they shouldn't, you know. They're they're who they are, but you gotta worry about who you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:15

Yeah. I'll say one last thing about this song that I love too, is that I love how in the choruses, each one, one by one, you hear a little more of Mick Jagger. That by the time the end of the song, he's like full on in there. Yeah. But like you hear a faint of him in the first chorus, and you hear him a little there stronger in the second chorus, and then the end he's all like all in your face. And uh it's um it didn't it didn't help the rumors, that's for sure. Uh everyone thought it was him. Um sound number nine, the flame.

Cheap Trick And Unexpected Song Structure

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

Cheap trick. This is interesting to me. So why this song? I mean, Cheap Trick, another kind of they're not from Minnesota. They're from Chicago. Chicago, right? Yeah. But you can claim them as Midwest.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:04

Close enough, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:06

Um why this song, man? This song, every time I hear it, it sounds like triumph to me. The band triumph? Victory. Okay. on the radio, whatever. And it's like that was a band. I didn't have any brothers or sisters, so a lot of music I got, like, you know, my car's album was uh, you know, my uh faux step brother recommended it, or whatever. The the kids my age had older siblings that liked, you know, KISS or ACDC or whatever before, you know, it was it was widespread. So Cheap Trick was one of those bands and they were great. And and they're another one that was like, they were like a real band. It was like what you would get your friends together and you would you would form your cheap trick as opposed to.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

They were like superheroes because they all had like personalities, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:10

You know, like Edward Brick and And so they were they were just you know, and that song was like everywhere, and then there were those three albums right in a row that were so brilliant. And then Cheap Trick um fell off the map, you know. It's uh, I don't know, could be, you know, uh they lost their bass player, so you know, yeah, don't fire the bass player, fall apart, all falls apart. Um and uh and you know, there's just album after album, it's like there was nothing deader than cheap trick right before the flame came out. Yeah, it's strange, strange. And you know, I don't know if they switched labels or whatever, and I know someone else wrote the flame. Yeah. They were always on Columbia. Yeah. Even for that album. So but uh maybe someone at the label liked them and decided to put some more money in it, or you know, whatever it was.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:11

It was specifically, they were like, okay, guys, really sorry. We're gonna have to bring outside writers. You have to record these two or three songs from outside writers. This is it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:23

You know, and it was just like two or three albums in a row that didn't go anywhere. Yeah. And I'll remember I probably saw the video first for the song before I even heard it on the radio or whatever, but I remember it opens and they're just like, they're coming back. And it's like I think they're walking in slow motion or something like that. And then I think that came out as I was kind of like midway through the songwriting program at Berkeley. And I I remember thinking at first listen, this song is a mess. It's like the highest note comes in the verse, like the highest note's supposed to be in the chorus.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

And oh voice yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:07

And then the the the title was like further on in the song, and I was like, that's not where the the hook is supposed to be. And then I, you know, in repeated listenings, it's like, no, this song has like three awesome hooks, and it's just a song that I always feels like someone saying, we're back, we're we always mattered, you forgot about us, and then here we are. So it's just, and then it's just the song lyrically ties into that too of the narrator always being there, you know? Um, and then also this is uh that tour, I got to see them on New Year's Eve at the limelight in New York City. Wow. And great, great club. That's possibly my favorite live show of all time. I'd never seen them before.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:20

Um And for those who don't know, the Limeland was a club that was inside of a church in New York City, um, mainly known for a lot of dance and and uh new wave electronic shows back in the day, but they'd have uh big bands play occasionally.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:37

Yeah, and it's a big of a room. It wasn't that big. And and and that just made it even better. Like you can see. I mean, if I would have seen Cheap Trick earlier, I would have seen them in an arena. I would have seen, you know, them at the Met Center in Minneapolis when there wasn't a hockey game. Um that would have been there. But I was, you know, five or six people back. There's not really a bad place in the limelight. It's there's there's the floor, and then there's I seem to remember like like a couple levels or something that you could all and it just went around and it was like they're the the balconies too around it. And it's like smaller than like the Wiltern or whatever. It's like maybe even smaller than like the Ace hotel, but anyway, um Ace, another, another saw Wilco there, and that was just like it was like listening to an album in your home. It sounds so nice there. But yeah, that was just they were they were back, and you know, original bass player back, of course, because you know, they'll fire.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:44

I got the mojo back. Um just to just dive a little deeper in into this one, um, because I think it's uh of all the songs, it's the one that surprised me. I didn't I didn't expect I'm not a huge cheap trick fan. Um you mentioned the lyrical content. You mentioned the song arrangement, how whatever you feel like the high point is in the verse or whatever. Um are there any um as a songwriter, and this applies to all songs, um do you find like when you hear a song like this and it doesn't do the thing that you expect it to do, what do you walk away from besides the obvious or like, oh, I should try something different? Do you like have anything specific that you pulled out of this song in your mind, like the that stayed with you as far as the songwriter? Outside of the emotion, inside of the sort of like the the happiness of seeing Cheap Trick come back. Yeah. Um like I want to like, you know, uh like for example, for me, that song just proved to me, okay, no, Robin Xander is just a way, we kind of underestimated him. Like he's a way better singer than you know, and he's always sung that way. Yeah, it just made me go back to like listen to the some of the ballads. Uh each album had like a ballad or two away. And uh and you hear his that sort of that searing voice that voice that's kind of like uh angelic almost. Um but uh I don't know, just I'm wondering because it's such a particular song. Again, that you know, the story, I'm sorry to go on a can a different tangent. They they presented several songs to them. And the first song they presented to them was a song called Look Away that they said, if you guys don't want it, we're gonna give it to Chicago. And Chicago recorded it. And Bunny Carlos said that when he heard it, he was just like, eh, let's hit let's hear the next one. And they played in the flame, and Rick took the cassette, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it. You know, and the producer was convinced that that was the song for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

And he went to them individually. Yeah. He started with Robin. He said like he recorded like a little drum track and some keys. You sing the song, and he got everyone to do it eventually. And um Rick Nielsen since since has denied like saying that he didn't like the song. It was just that they kept they kept pushing songs on them because they were like, you gotta record some of us' songs because these your songs aren't working. That he but at that point he says, I remember he said that I wish you guys would have come with this song first. Because that was like the last song that came, you know. But sorry to return to your question, the question to you, like about this song in particular. Um is there anything that you can you can uh trace to the song that you feel like as a songwriter is something that you would kind of nip?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:56

I think that the structure and how it builds and everything like that, like and where the hooks were, where they were unexpected, um, it just reinforced that songs um you don't start by bringing out the toolkit, you bring out the toolkit after you have something there to work on. Um, there's a lot of people in, you know, especially in rock and punk or whatever that'll be dead set against learning theory or learning about music or anything like that. Like, man, there's so many people that say, Oh, I'll I'll suffer for my art, but um, do you want to take a songwriting class?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:42

Oh my god, no, I want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:44

Oh no, no, I'm on figure it out on my own. Like, okay. And then they they think of everything, I think, backwards, which is music theory, they did not set down a bunch of rules and say, here's the way it goes, now make music. People made music, and then there were people that said, Oh, a lot of people keep doing this thing. Let's put a name on that. It's gonna be called this thing, you know, it's gonna be called a dominant chord, and it's gonna want to go to the tonic, and you know, whatever. They're not rules that you have to live by. It is a map of those who went before us. Yeah. And they say, this is all of everything that is that has been done and and and how it works. And, you know, you don't have to follow a map, you can just go driving, but it's there if you want it. And um while the flame is definitely a pop song, it is not start to finish a pop song. It is, it it has different elements going on. There's something interesting in every part of that song. And it is the high note in the verse, it's the the drums come in later, and the the title, the flame is at the end of the chorus. And uh, so all of those things, I don't know how many songwriters are on it. Um two guys, two guys, yeah. Um before before the era of you know, 20 people writing songs. Um but so I can just see two guys throwing that back and forth, like especially like I bet it started like, I think we're really on to something, and it's okay, I think we're on to something too. Let's let's make sure this is perfect. Let's let's keep doing this, like, and then it maybe it's something like that doesn't make sense, but I like it. Do you like it? Yeah, I like that. Yeah. And uh, yeah, it was just it was just a great, great song for that. That moment in time and for Cheap Trick, a band that, you know, I think deserved a comeback.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:06

And uh and uh I think I I I truly believe that they're still writing on the comeback fire from that song. No pun intended. Yeah. Yeah. Like that turn that happened to them because then the they became a legacy act with that album.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:22

Yeah. And that was great. That was uh and then the other thing is like outside writers, people always like, you know, say, oh, they killed this band or whatever. But you know, outside writers don't kill bands. There's like the Aerosmith train was not going along the tracks just fine, and then Diane Warren killed it. No, no, no. That train was off the tracks, and they brought Diane Warren in to fix it.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:49

Especially Cheaptrek because a lot of they they did do a lot of covers. Yeah. From Cheap Trick, we go to song number 10, the last song on uh Troy Richardson's My Greatest Hits, Troy.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:05

Let's take it home.

Nirvana And Two Chord Magic

SPEAKER_00 1:22:07

Song 10 Something in the Way, Nirvana. Great choice. Last song on Nevermind, which the song only has two chords in it through the whole way. Um, which is it's another thing, just like unsatisfied. It's like, I don't know how that works. How am I never bored with two chords through the whole thing? But the the texture of it and his voice and everything, um, you know, would it be an opening track? No, probably not, but it's brilliant as the last track on that album because you'll listen to that album and it changed everything, you know. That was, you know, it was beyond groundbreaking. And there's as a songwriter, that you know, that just moved the goalpost of everything. It's kind of what you know, the replacements or soul asylum would have started. Um, and it is that varied structure, kind of no rules, but nevermind is very cohesive. That I would say no soul asylum or replacements Poosker Doo album would really be. Like, I think Paul Westerberg's solo albums would eventually get to be cohesive. Um, Sugar or Bob Mold Um, they made more sense. They were those were younger younger songwriters all over the place. Um Nirvana, that album, whether I think they uh wound up hating their producer for making it sound like that. Um but it all made sense in that um that is the last song on there. It's like you listen to all of that, and this is the the lullaby that's gonna put you to sleep at the end. It's just it's the bookend. It's like this is we did this thing, and then here this is um slow, two chords, and it's don't know why it works. It's just it does, it's it works, it's brilliant, and uh, I think it's the it could be the phrasing and the rhythm of the the vocal line, because really there's not much else going on to change in that.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:56

Well, I mean they went they it was supposed they started it as something else. They they had gone into the studio with played it full band and it just didn't work. And uh when uh Butch Vig tried to get out of uh Kirk Cobain, like what is it that you're trying to get with this? They were sitting in the control booth and he was playing the acoustic guitar, singing it. And Butch Vig was just like, uh, hold up a second, let me turn off the air conditioner and put a mic on up. And that's what happened. And they recorded that and then they built around that. Um and I think that's something you said earlier, too, that's like very poignant um about the toolbox. Like I want to ask you to expand on that because the toolbox comes after. Yeah. But let's talk a little bit about what is it that comes first. Because like a song like this is a perfect example. Is that you know um I would say that I don't put importance on the words or the or or the music. I put importance on the feel. Yeah. So it's like whatever it feels like, whatever it feels like, that's what uh I'm satisfied. It's just feel. It's just like I don't know why this feels like an anthem of, you know, angsty youth of, you know, but and there's nothing to it. Yeah. Right? Same with this. This is like you said it perfectly, this is like a teenage lullaby. Yeah. Like this is, you know, this soothed the the the turbulent hearts of many a teenager in 1990. And what what's to it? You know, there's like and the weird thing is that something in the way always when I first I remember seeing the title and thinking, wait, isn't that like that? Frank Sinatra, whatever, what's that like an old something um the 70s? Oh no, the colour. Uh no, no, remind me no of of uh the Beatles. Uh-huh. Um, you know, something in the way. Um But then it was just like, no, this is uh this is this is this, this is its own thing. So

Songwriting Tools Versus Pure Feel

SPEAKER_01 1:27:11

so let's let's let's let's close off with this idea of um as a songwriter, like you know, and and this using this song as an example of the toolbox, you know, there's the you you people are afraid of learning, people are afraid of like any sort of gaining any sort of knowledge in in in the thing that's that would help them, mainly because of that fear, because they feel like if they have too much of the toolbox, they'll forget, they'll lose this, whatever this is, right? Whatever their their own personal um expression is. When in reality it's like you want as many of the tools as possible. Yeah. Right. But let's talk about that that initial part, if you can.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:58

Yeah, the toolbox. Is what you uh you go and you get when you're stuck and you do not want to use every single tool in the toolbox every time. That's another thing. Um my um unless you're doing you know uh bohemian rhapsody. Exactly. Um still, you know, bohemian rhapsody, if one of your tools is let's go cut time to full time or whatever, that's not in there. You know, song efficiency. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:34

Song econom uh economy uh definitely not that.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:39

So you can step back. Uh my my songwriting teacher, um Pat Pattison, who wrote a bunch of uh lyric writing books, is great about getting the heart of things, which is any song, who is speaking? Who are they speaking to and what are they saying? Can you condense that song down to that? Who's speaking? You know, the narrator, me, the singer, or I'm, you know, speaking to someone. Um who am I speaking to? Does it feel like a real person that I'm speaking to? Um Am I someone Am I a crazy person yelling at the clouds? That's that can be justified. You know who that is, you know who they're speaking to. And what is it about, you know? Um uh Merle Haggard in an interview, I still remember like they like, how do you how do you keep writing songs? And it's like, well, you just look at it differently. It's like you can write a song about a flower, you can write a song about the person who picked the flower. And I was I always that always landed with me. It was like, I could write a song about there used to be a flower that's I mean, and you can go that flower growing, that why did that person pick it? You know, why is it gone? All of that. There's a million angles to look at. Um perspective. And the uh yeah, the toolkit is uh um I uh it's just one of those things where you it's usually when like I think like we talked about like the flames. There's like it probably was there. There's like we're on to something, let's let's not stop short of the goalpost or whatever it is. We we owe this song the work to make it great. Um, you know, there's there's one thing I was playing, playing bass in a band um for a songwriter. This is years ago, and this person had had written a song and and it had a good vibe to it and and all of this. And then I was I was like, you know, the verse is in E and the chorus is in E, and the, and it's this whole song is is one giant E chord. We should move away um from that, if just for a little while, to get back to it. And you know, it's just it can't sustain itself. Um and uh I believe I was right, and I was also fired after that. Which, and then did that person get anywhere? No, they don't fire the bass player. The one the one takeaway from this the whole podcast. But it's uh yeah, that's uh, you know, um, you know, the songs that can sustain themselves with the same thing going on on the, you know, it's James Brown can do it. It's very limited.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:50

Yeah, it's feel, it's feel. I mean, it's conviction. It's also like conviction of what you're doing. You can't um that only survives if you're if you're on fire. If whatever you're doing is like the only thing you can do at that moment, and that's it. You know, and then if somebody happens to record it. Otherwise, you're you're uh you're treading on things that that have been done before. So it's like everything's been done. So what do you do? You know, well, you have you are you, you have your own story, you have your own outlook and the way you see things and uh experiences and and and also the way you express, right? So that makes it unique. You your fire makes it unique. The tools are there because everyone can use them, right? I'm still it's funny, all the while I'm still singing that stupid that that song, Fucking the Flame. I don't know why I'm still it's like you know, I was thinking right now, I'm just like, oh, it's crazy. Because they could have ended that song without going to that last part of that chorus. They could have just been like, wherever you are, I'll be with you. Wherever you are, I'll be with you. And then that that could have been the chorus. And then just add that third part on top of like, you need someone. The the flame part. You know, after the fire, after all the flame. I'm gonna study that song now. Actually, I'm gonna steal that song. I'm gonna copy it and change the chords. Don't tell anybody. Oh gosh.

Timeless Songs And Final Takeaway

SPEAKER_01 1:33:36

Troy, thank you so much for being a part of this, man. Thank you for having me. It was awesome. Um if there is uh one last thing you can say about the collect, like the mixtape itself, let's say it's the Troy Richardson mixtape. Um if there's one theme, if there's one message you'd like to give, or if there's anything you'd like to say to anybody who's a songwriter listening.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:03

Well, it's ten songs that are like I think they're pretty timeless. Recording, you know, production aside, they're all things that I think should they're they're gonna touch people for generations, which is that's why we have songs. That's uh why people still listen to Beatles songs. They're gonna sell albums every year as until there's no such thing as an album, until you know, we are hardwired to have music sent right to our brains. And then they're, you know, they're gonna hit the charts again because everyone's gonna get that download. Um But uh, you know, that's kind of the magic of when when I was like junior high or something like that, is when I first realized like four of us can play, and if we have a different guitar player, a different drummer, whatever, there's this thing that and it just changed, even if they're playing the same part. There's a certain magic of humans interacting and playing things together. Um except for, you know, Prince who can play everything himself and has his own kind of magic. But but other than that, there's there's just there's something universal and uh that ties everyone together, and you know, and that's there you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:32

Tying everyone together. My greatest hits, y'all.