Max Clarke of Cut Worms

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hi.

00:00:00
Speaker 2: I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with Max Clark of Cutworms.

00:00:05
Speaker 3: I'm just playing lo wey, I'm just playing lone with you.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm Nora. Thanks for joining us with me, as always is Sarah Oda.

00:00:22
Speaker 4: Hi there.

00:00:23
Speaker 5: Our guest today is the incredibly talented singer, songwriter, guitar player, and illustrator. Oh yeah, Max Clark of cut Worms. That's the band name, Cutworms. What does it conjure? I like saying that I'm a huge fan of his. His music is amazing. You should check it out. He also has a new album out. Yeah. Not only do you get to hear his beautiful new music, but there's also a very special duet in this episode that I think you will love. If you like harms, I'm like, what is it?

00:00:53
Speaker 6: Oh?

00:00:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, I did it Arms.

00:00:55
Speaker 2: This is a harm harm heavy, harm heavy episode. Harmony heavy. Yes, we hope you enjoyed this episode with Max Clark.

00:01:03
Speaker 7: I've got worm.

00:01:10
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this at all, but I'm obsessed with one of your songs.

00:01:15
Speaker 5: Oh and it happened.

00:01:18
Speaker 8: A couple of years ago that you had covered it, and that was like a shock to me. I really just like woke up one morning and yeah, it was like I don't know who.

00:01:27
Speaker 9: Somebody pointed it out to me.

00:01:29
Speaker 2: I did it on this live stream I was doing during the pandemic, Like every week I would do four songs, so this song was on. It was on like a bunch of playlists that my husband had going, and it kept showing up and every single time. I don't know if you listened to a streaming.

00:01:45
Speaker 9: Platform, yeah, I listened to a few.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, like they make these playlists for you, there's often so many songs that I like, And I asked him every time who it was.

00:01:55
Speaker 10: Oh, it's cutworm, So I was like, I love it.

00:01:57
Speaker 2: And then you know, the song keeps coming back and you always forget who it is because or I do, because there's just so many different people on these playlists, right, and then finally I like stole it and I put it on this morning playlist that I made, and we listened to it every morning during that time when we were home every day. Oh wow, And not only is it an amazing song, but my kids, who are seven and nine, every time it comes on now and it still comes up all the time. We still listen to it all the time, and they always say how much they love the song, and they say, oh my god, this song is so nostalgic for me. They use that word because it brings them back to that time when we were just all together every day and we were listening to this song.

00:02:41
Speaker 9: Oh' that's really nice.

00:02:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this song will stay with my kids for their whole lives. So I covered it, and I was wondering.

00:02:50
Speaker 9: I thought it was great if we could do it.

00:02:52
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:02:53
Speaker 9: Absolutely.

00:02:54
Speaker 2: Where did this song is on an album from.

00:02:56
Speaker 9: It was among a bunch of demos I did home demo before I was signed to a label, and it ended up going on the first EP that they put out on jag Jaguar, and I recorded it. I started recording it in Chicago and then we moved to New York and like finished it here. I mean, it's kind of sort of thing that I had done before I started writing it. I remember, like the day that lou Reid died. It was tentatively titled Sunday's Morning, like like m O you are and I.

00:03:33
Speaker 8: Don't know, it's kind of dumb, but the lyrics I took from I had the tune for a while and didn't wasn't really sure where it was going, and then I was I had been reading a Season in Hell that Arthur Rimbo. It's like the rock and roll poet you know, Patty Smith and Bob Dylan are all like I heard about him through them, like reading them. And so yeah, there's actually a poem in that book called Song of the Highest Tower, which I partially just took a couple like stanzas from and then and like the choruses basically are like weirdly just fit right into the tune that had I had so and then I just added some some other verses of my own and just kind of I don't know, I didn't really think about that much. I just like did it or that's the best way. Yeah, I mean afterwards I was like, am I allowed to?

00:04:30
Speaker 6: Yeah?

00:04:30
Speaker 9: What you do with all that? I mean, no one's come to sue me yet, but I mean it's it's like eighteenth century French poetry.

00:04:40
Speaker 2: I don't know, Yeah, I during the pandemic. The words, I mean, the words are just so. I mean when I think back to that time, I remember driving the car once and just getting some fresh air and listening to this song and just with a friend of mine who we were quarantined with, and it was just like we were just both kind of sobbing but also like laughing. It just felt so good, and it's like the perfect encapsulation of that melancholy feeling where you feel good and sad to me. Sorry to talk about stuff before you play it.

00:05:20
Speaker 10: I mean we should just play it, stop talking about it, and be about it.

00:05:50
Speaker 4: I've impatient to know.

00:05:55
Speaker 11: Momories, all fears and all run.

00:06:05
Speaker 4: To the heavens a fly.

00:06:10
Speaker 12: With the feace.

00:06:11
Speaker 4: Bursting rime, while my veins burns.

00:06:21
Speaker 11: Uncome filthy flies and the sickly.

00:06:27
Speaker 13: First may come the time of love, the time we would be bena.

00:06:54
Speaker 4: Have with it for two long.

00:07:00
Speaker 1: Logan, I've done nothing wrong, clean, don't feel bad, but be free.

00:07:30
Speaker 7: Many days I've.

00:07:32
Speaker 4: Spent many times I've tried.

00:07:39
Speaker 11: You give a name to the thing that is you, though no I haven't the right looking all the reasons I've been on adviser argy drifted on like so many floats, and so Sensusporade.

00:08:17
Speaker 4: Made come the time.

00:08:20
Speaker 13: Flow, the time would be in amerder.

00:08:33
Speaker 14: Have waited for tu loved in that do nothing wrong, don't be a.

00:08:49
Speaker 12: Bad but diffree.

00:09:09
Speaker 4: Know this misplaced fat. It's like a charm or a spell.

00:09:20
Speaker 11: Let.

00:09:20
Speaker 4: You know, it makes you feel so fun while it pleas ways to your head. Everyone else see everywhere that I'll go. But I know it's just how you feel.

00:09:43
Speaker 7: It's not.

00:09:45
Speaker 9: What you know.

00:09:57
Speaker 15: Man, Come the time love time, we would be in name.

00:10:09
Speaker 6: But I.

00:10:15
Speaker 11: Fortune lord and love done nothing wrong.

00:10:23
Speaker 4: Flee Just don't feel bad.

00:10:33
Speaker 6: Be free.

00:10:49
Speaker 16: All the feeling that is gone. Oh sense it has loved, take.

00:11:00
Speaker 4: Leave and gone.

00:11:02
Speaker 11: Abroad to other worlds while he slept. It wouldn't be much dam friends, it would be quite the same. Only believe you can possibly dream of.

00:11:24
Speaker 4: No one to blame.

00:11:36
Speaker 15: Man. Come the time of love time, we would be nam.

00:11:52
Speaker 4: I have played it for two long nothing wrong. Don't move that.

00:12:13
Speaker 6: Beefly.

00:12:54
Speaker 2: It's funny because when I recorded this song, I mean when I played it for that live stream, I think I felt more exposed than I've ever felt.

00:13:02
Speaker 17: Well.

00:13:02
Speaker 2: First of all, I was covering a song by someone that you always feel a little bit like you don't own it, you know, And I think you have to own it to cover it. Yeah, and I did it on piano. I don't think I did it on guitar and it's such a strummy song. And then I got to like the fourth or fifth verse, and I was like, wow, this is a long song for me to carry so but I mean it was great because the lyrics are so great, but it is a long song.

00:13:27
Speaker 8: Yeah, thanks, I mean it goes on and on. It's like I kind of ran into the thing on my last record. I was just writing too many, like really long songs. So for on this most recent one and try to go the other way with it, write some back, get back to the shorter, short and sweet ones.

00:13:44
Speaker 2: I think it's great to have a long song. I think it's hard. It's hard to write a long song for me. Yeah, I'm really bad with lyrics. You must just write a lot of lyrics. There are a lot of story songs.

00:13:56
Speaker 8: Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess I once I get into to the writing thing, I'll sometimes it takes a really long time to write words for me. But if I get on a roll or whatever, then I'm then I'd start getting precious and don't want to cut things out when maybe sometimes I should, but I don't know.

00:14:18
Speaker 2: I kind of think it's your world that you're painting, so people love it. Sometimes I think songs are too short like this.

00:14:26
Speaker 11: One.

00:14:26
Speaker 2: Part of what was so satisfying for me about the song during that time was that it was long. You could wallow in it, you know, yeah, which felt really good, and usually when it was done, I played it again.

00:14:39
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:14:40
Speaker 2: So when it's really short it, you know, it's less satisfying.

00:14:44
Speaker 1: See.

00:14:44
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean that's like the right around that same time, Bob Dylan came out with that Murder Muse Foul, that like sixteen minute one. I remember that, Yeah, And I kind of feel the same way about that one, where it's like it is so long that you just kind of like live in it. But even even though it is so long, like when it's done, I want to play it again.

00:15:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you're used to it by the right. Yeah, I like a long run.

00:15:11
Speaker 8: It's really nice here in the I mean, you're such a really great piano player getting those like accents and things in there.

00:15:20
Speaker 9: It's really nice.

00:15:21
Speaker 2: I liked it how the guitar just sort of plays over the whole thing on the recording, So it's fun to do that.

00:15:27
Speaker 9: Yeah, good chords. Where are you from? Originally from Cleveland, Ohio or really suburbs?

00:15:35
Speaker 2: How long have you been in New York.

00:15:36
Speaker 8: Eight and a half years. It'll be I think it'll be nine years. We moved here on Halloween, so on Halloween, it'll be nine years, I think, which is crazy.

00:15:47
Speaker 10: That's a fun day to move to the city.

00:15:49
Speaker 8: Yeah, but yeah, it's I mean, time flies here. It's like I know that that whole thing of like the New York minute or whatever is true.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: I think it is. It's yeah, it goes by fast. But do you love it?

00:16:04
Speaker 6: Yeah?

00:16:05
Speaker 9: It's great.

00:16:05
Speaker 8: I mean it's kind of one of those things where it's like we've talked about maybe moving up state, my partner and I at some point, but once you're here for so long, it's like kind of hard to like nothing else really compares to like the energy level.

00:16:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and you'll feel like you're missing out. I feel like if you move out of the city. Yeah, did you guys live anywhere between Cleveland and here?

00:16:30
Speaker 9: Lived in Chicago for eight years.

00:16:32
Speaker 7: Ok.

00:16:32
Speaker 8: I went to art school there, and that's where my partner and I met Caroline Goldkey.

00:16:36
Speaker 9: Is her name?

00:16:37
Speaker 2: Okay, cool art school like visual art school.

00:16:41
Speaker 10: Yeah.

00:16:41
Speaker 8: I went to school for illustration technically cartooning really yeah, which is not the most lucrative field either.

00:16:50
Speaker 10: School though, yeah, yeah, do you still do it?

00:16:53
Speaker 8: Yeah, I still do it. I have done like artwork and stuff for myself, and I mean I've often done most of my own artwork. For the last record, I did like like a comic panel kind of thing for like each song, which was like ended up being like a full poster of like seventeen things that I was pretty happy with. Recently did a cover for a Bob Dylan book by this guy, Grail Marcus.

00:17:21
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that guy.

00:17:23
Speaker 10: He's a classic music criticis he's one of the.

00:17:25
Speaker 8: Top guys of the rock biographers of the twentieth century.

00:17:30
Speaker 9: I would say, yeah, music that nice, So that was cool.

00:17:34
Speaker 2: Always do both things.

00:17:37
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think it helps to like for me anyways. I feel fortunate that I can if I'm like burnt out on one thing, like switch gears to the other thing for a little bit.

00:17:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's important, really important. I don't really have another hobby that's big for me, but I have little hobbies that helps.

00:17:56
Speaker 9: What are your little hobbies right now?

00:17:58
Speaker 2: Nothing, which means I need to find I used to have more. I need to get my life back back in order. I think so you have a new record that's exciting. What's it called.

00:18:11
Speaker 9: It's self titled, so just Cutworms.

00:18:13
Speaker 2: Band name by the way, great band name.

00:18:16
Speaker 9: Thanks. Some people don't think so. I mean, I think it's uh well.

00:18:19
Speaker 10: I think it brings up imagery of an actual cutworm.

00:18:22
Speaker 9: Yeah, I don't know.

00:18:24
Speaker 8: I kind of liked the the idea of like a band name that doesn't sound like what the music like the zombies like. You know, you wouldn't think that the zombies sound like they do. Yeah, they like soft, but it's like sort of scary sounding.

00:18:40
Speaker 12: I like that.

00:18:42
Speaker 10: We should do one of the tunes from the new record.

00:18:45
Speaker 9: Yeah, which one I like?

00:18:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I love the whole new record. It's so great. But thank you, let's try Can we try too bad? This one's really good. It makes me feel so good.

00:18:58
Speaker 9: We thank you.

00:18:58
Speaker 8: This one sort of felt somewhat in the same realm as Song of the Highest Tower when I was writing it.

00:19:05
Speaker 10: I think I think I kind of felt that can I take a verse? Was that bold?

00:19:10
Speaker 2: Too bolden?

00:19:11
Speaker 9: Please?

00:19:11
Speaker 7: Really?

00:19:12
Speaker 8: Yeah?

00:19:19
Speaker 11: M hm, walk in amaze a brivate dress, acting like a Noma way.

00:19:57
Speaker 4: Something neat and that Mama that I'm doing my best, not to.

00:20:06
Speaker 18: Say, just would always stand to lose when at last we do depart.

00:20:25
Speaker 4: All the dreams you never had collection in the dme.

00:20:39
Speaker 11: Too bad that we never see him at all too bad, that we never see him at all.

00:20:53
Speaker 4: Too bad. We never see him at all the rock.

00:20:57
Speaker 17: Time hearts mountains cold and slow.

00:21:31
Speaker 4: I wanted out.

00:21:34
Speaker 19: Touch and my comes face is black.

00:21:44
Speaker 7: And the Mappa have.

00:21:47
Speaker 19: Shows too, like divings in the rain, like waiting to be fast love the courses to revay likely.

00:22:22
Speaker 11: Too bad.

00:22:23
Speaker 4: We never see it at all too bad. We never see it at all.

00:22:37
Speaker 7: Too bad.

00:22:38
Speaker 4: We never see it at all the wrong time.

00:23:08
Speaker 11: Deed inside the chin room, Wave pun froze to be I retired control has drifted himself far out re.

00:23:34
Speaker 10: Gent.

00:23:37
Speaker 11: I look out from the wood and watched the ship spurned on the show.

00:23:51
Speaker 4: Never not list to.

00:23:54
Speaker 20: Lay just the kind INDI too bad. We never see it all.

00:24:12
Speaker 4: Too bad. We never see.

00:24:15
Speaker 6: It all too bad.

00:24:20
Speaker 4: We never seen it a road.

00:24:39
Speaker 9: That was great, that felt good, that sounded.

00:24:41
Speaker 10: Great, that was fun to play.

00:24:43
Speaker 9: Thanks.

00:24:43
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:24:44
Speaker 8: Rhythmically it gets a little weird from like the choruses to the verses, the verses to the choruses.

00:24:50
Speaker 9: But I feel like that that sounded good.

00:24:52
Speaker 10: When did you start playing?

00:24:53
Speaker 8: Probably when I was like eleven ish. Uh yeah, my mom, Hi, mom brought me bought me like a garage sale guitar for like five bucks, and I learned how to play iron Man on it. It had like had like one low east string. That was all all I had.

00:25:14
Speaker 10: You just taught yourself iron Man?

00:25:16
Speaker 12: Yeah.

00:25:18
Speaker 10: When did you finally get some strength?

00:25:20
Speaker 9: Well shortly thereafter.

00:25:22
Speaker 8: And then my my uncle's on my dad's side both played music and played guitars, and they would sometimes have them around, like when we.

00:25:32
Speaker 9: Would go visit down there down in Oklahoma, oaky country.

00:25:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Did they teach you stuff then? Yeah?

00:25:40
Speaker 8: Yeah, so they kind of like wrote me out basic like chord charts and stuff. And I took guitar lessons for a few months when I when I was back in Ohio. But then I was too impatient to like learn how to read music, which I kind of regret now.

00:25:55
Speaker 2: But I don't know. I mean, reading music is great, but it doesn't matter as long as you can feel it.

00:26:02
Speaker 8: Right, Yeah, I mean I mainly now it's like I've been listening to a lot more like jazz and stuff. I really wish that I could play like jazz piano, but like you just can't. You can't like fake that. Really, you can't like do it unless you know like theory and stuff.

00:26:18
Speaker 2: I mean, you can always learn, yeah, but do Do you write on piano a lot? I don't.

00:26:23
Speaker 8: I usually don't have access to a piano, but I have like a little keyboard that I play on sometimes.

00:26:29
Speaker 12: Yeah.

00:26:29
Speaker 8: Unfortunately, it's just really hard to get access to, like a real piano in the city.

00:26:34
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's true, it's hard. It's hard to have a.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Piano in the city.

00:26:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:26:39
Speaker 2: I feel like switching instruments to write is a really good way to get out of your lane.

00:26:44
Speaker 9: Definitely.

00:26:45
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:26:46
Speaker 9: I'm definitely not as good on piano as I am on guitar, which I'm not even that good on guitar either, But it is like a different like seeing the notes all laid out, it can if I get stuck, you know, you can kind of sometimes get out of it that way.

00:27:02
Speaker 2: It's such a different way to look at well, you can actually look at it, right, I guess with the guitar you really can't. You're just making shapes and hearing chords. Yeah, and it's all laid in front of you and it's a really big like only recently have I started really like trying to use the bottom and the top. I have a friend Thomas Bartlett, who's an amazing piano player, and he plays the piano like he's in like a whole orchestra. Oh yeah, and so I feel like watching him play, I got kind of inspired to use more of it.

00:27:33
Speaker 9: That's cool. Yeah, yeah, well you do you come from a jazz background? You do? I mean, are all your records on Blue Note?

00:27:41
Speaker 2: They are?

00:27:42
Speaker 9: I mean that's like really cool to me.

00:27:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Blue Note is such a cool jazz it has such good history and there's so many classic albums.

00:27:51
Speaker 8: From you back in the day, I mean, your labelmates with like Coltrane and Miles Davis.

00:27:57
Speaker 2: But you know, I don't feel like there's a lot of jazz in what I do. But I wouldn't call any of my albums straight jazz albums.

00:28:06
Speaker 6: Right yeah.

00:28:06
Speaker 8: I mean, yeah, you can definitely hear the jazz, and I think, but yeah, there's like a pop sensibility that's not always there in jazz, which I like.

00:28:16
Speaker 9: I like that me too.

00:28:17
Speaker 2: I mean I think I come from listening to country music and stuff like that. I like three chord songs just as much as I like a complicated chord.

00:28:26
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.

00:28:28
Speaker 2: Sure, you actually have a song on your new record that does have kind of some more poor man's jazz. Well, I mean there's such a relation between jazz and just old timey pop. What am I saying? You know what I'm talking about.

00:28:45
Speaker 10: Yeah, there's like a relation between jazz and old It all.

00:28:49
Speaker 9: Kind of came from the same place, you know.

00:28:51
Speaker 8: I see pop, the current modern pop song as like having its roots way back and like show tunes and the Twin and stuff, which was all intermingled with jazz and exactly.

00:29:03
Speaker 9: Yeah.

00:29:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some chords in this song, isn't magic that I was like, oh, what is that? There's a lot of vocals on it, But I think we can do it.

00:29:16
Speaker 9: It might take me a minute, yeah, once.

00:29:18
Speaker 2: I hear what you're doing, because I'm not sure exactly which one you're doing on some of them.

00:29:22
Speaker 8: Right, Yeah, I mean I kind of had to like go back to my session files and like stripped down some of it to see what my root thing was.

00:29:32
Speaker 2: But what doesn't matter. I'll follow you. You recorded this upstate New York.

00:29:37
Speaker 8: This one I actually did all on my own home recorded, Yeah, or like a little studio thing I have in Brooklyn.

00:29:43
Speaker 2: Do you do a lot of that home sort of have you for a long time?

00:29:47
Speaker 11: Oh?

00:29:48
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean that's kind of I feel like doing home demos. And you know, I've had like a little digital eight track thing that I've had for years. That's part of the songwriting process for me, I feel like.

00:30:02
Speaker 2: But that's so fun. Yeah, when you do a bunch of harmonies.

00:30:05
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's like instant gratification being able to just layer up harmonies.

00:30:10
Speaker 10: But I wish I didn't wear that.

00:30:12
Speaker 2: I've never been very techy, I know that, Like at eight track, it's pretty simple.

00:30:16
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I'm not at all either. That's why I like it. It's because it's kind of like hard to mess up like I've wanted to. Like, I mean, I love like old tape machines and stuff, but I'm just like not technically minded at Also, if it breaks, I'll just get really frustrated and.

00:30:32
Speaker 10: Like always break right, I'll tell you, that's what I hear.

00:30:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I own a tape an old tape machine and it's in storage. Yeah, but they're great if you have someone to fix them on the spot. All right, this is isn't magic. I almost wanted to do like a.

00:30:52
Speaker 9: That's cool.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I hear that on it.

00:31:29
Speaker 4: I love him to.

00:31:34
Speaker 7: He been all calls.

00:31:40
Speaker 4: I have to all that we've been through. Now nothing is lost.

00:31:52
Speaker 21: Doesn't anybody have the time?

00:32:00
Speaker 4: I lostn't it?

00:32:04
Speaker 7: But if you don't know any.

00:32:17
Speaker 4: Man, could I make you billy.

00:32:33
Speaker 15: Miss magent fee Len, I'm head.

00:32:46
Speaker 6: Through?

00:32:49
Speaker 22: Oh love for you?

00:33:13
Speaker 7: I had love.

00:33:14
Speaker 4: It's gone be true without it?

00:33:23
Speaker 1: Now the changes about me all over again?

00:33:35
Speaker 21: Doesn't any body at the time? Oh doesn't any body say?

00:33:56
Speaker 4: If you don't know.

00:33:58
Speaker 21: Now, then.

00:34:05
Speaker 1: I could I make you busy.

00:34:15
Speaker 15: In this mass chick fee? Then I'm heaving.

00:34:30
Speaker 7: Not through?

00:34:34
Speaker 4: Oh Loo for you?

00:35:01
Speaker 9: That's not great?

00:35:02
Speaker 2: That was fine?

00:35:04
Speaker 6: You're right.

00:35:04
Speaker 2: Jazz, that's jazz. Yeah, straight up, that's a great one.

00:35:11
Speaker 10: Those harmonies are they got me.

00:35:15
Speaker 2: They're great.

00:35:17
Speaker 8: I was trying to do like Brian Wilson meets late era Bob Dylan doing the Frank Sinatra tunes.

00:35:25
Speaker 2: Totally that makes sense. Do you love Brian Wilson?

00:35:28
Speaker 12: I do.

00:35:29
Speaker 7: Yeah.

00:35:29
Speaker 9: It's one of my one of my very favorites.

00:35:32
Speaker 10: It's pretty deep. All that stuff.

00:35:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and thick with the harmonies are so complex that you think, whoa, this is really heady, but then it's really hearty. It's the best of combinations. Where does your love of harmonies come in? Because I can hear it in everything you write, I mean everything recorded.

00:35:52
Speaker 9: Anyway, I've always liked that stuff.

00:35:54
Speaker 8: The Everly Brothers were like a revelation to me when I when I first heard that, because I was already so into the Beatles, and then I realized that, like that's where they got that from. Ye, that that aspect of the close harmonies and stuff. I mean, they did more on top of it, some of the early stuff like they were They've said that they just were trying to be the Everly Brothers.

00:36:17
Speaker 2: At the point.

00:36:18
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah, at some point, just like in doing the home recording stuff and overdubbing vocals, I realized that I could kind of do that. Another person who I really love is a Skeeter Davis, which shell they started off. It was her and her sister similar to Everly Brothers, like doing close harmonies, and then I think her sister very early on died in a car accident or something. But then Skeeter Davis went on to have like a career in pop music in the in the sixties and seventies and stuff. But then but she just.

00:36:56
Speaker 8: She had all that like knowledge of harmony, so she harmonized with her self with overdubs, which I felt like, I don't know somehow it can to what I like. I mean, she she's like incredible like her, I always i'm jealous of, like the female voice. They can go so high, like like on that Carol King demo. I sent you something about those close harmonies when it's like in that higher register as like next level to me.

00:37:23
Speaker 2: When it's close and high, it's pretty special. Yeah, but the Everly Brothers had that too good. They had such.

00:37:28
Speaker 9: High voices, right, Yeah, they could pull it off too.

00:37:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. I definitely hear that in your music. You know, it's it's got the flavor of all that. I mean, can tell you love those those close harmonies.

00:37:38
Speaker 12: Yeah.

00:37:39
Speaker 8: The best that it gets, I feel like, is when you can't like tell them apart sort of, or you can't pull them apart in your mind. It's like you can't listen to one or the other because you don't know.

00:37:49
Speaker 2: Which one's dominant, right, Yeah, that's what I like about that. Are you in a Gillian Walsh and David Rawlings at all?

00:37:55
Speaker 12: Yeah?

00:37:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do a lot of that close harmony stuff. I used to tour with them and I would always sing along backstage like the third harmony, but it doesn't work.

00:38:07
Speaker 10: It's so not needed the third harmony because it's so much cooler without it. Basically, it's the thing.

00:38:14
Speaker 2: It's like got the disonance and it's just on the cooler side without it.

00:38:18
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean it's weird to I mean, especially with doing overdubs and stuff, the third harmonies there or the fourth or the whatever. But then it's better to not put it in sometimes.

00:38:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's way better and people I feel like people still hear it in their brains. But yeah, it's the space is the place sometimes you want to do that. Toune Carol King too.

00:38:41
Speaker 9: I guess we can kind of do like the Everly's version.

00:38:44
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I mean that was the first version I heard of it, but the Everly Brothers.

00:38:49
Speaker 2: Version, but that's I've never heard that version of the Carol King version. It's from a demos sort of. Yeah, we're probably released later.

00:38:57
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think so.

00:38:58
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm such a huge fan of hers. She's like the best of the best in my book mine too.

00:39:04
Speaker 2: And I don't even think I realized certain songs that she wrote, Like I didn't know she wrote this song.

00:39:09
Speaker 10: Oh no, yeah, I didn't even know.

00:39:12
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, there's there's so many, so many that.

00:39:15
Speaker 2: My first song book was a Carol King song book, and it was the first time I learned how to record changes instead of just reading the notated notes.

00:39:30
Speaker 10: Give that chat, yeah, I can get our chat on.

00:39:36
Speaker 2: Will you take this the middle bit? Please?

00:39:39
Speaker 10: Sure?

00:39:40
Speaker 9: Please? Yeah? Yeah, here we go.

00:39:44
Speaker 4: All right. Let you see my brok heart is hurting me.

00:40:03
Speaker 15: I've got my pride and I knowed I had all my sorrow and pain.

00:40:11
Speaker 4: I'll do my crying.

00:40:13
Speaker 7: In the rain.

00:40:19
Speaker 22: You fall away for cloudys, Guys, you'll know the rain from the tears in my eyes. You never know that I still know your soul though the heartts remained. I'll do my crying in the rain, rain drops fallen from even I.

00:40:50
Speaker 11: Could never shoe in my misery.

00:40:55
Speaker 23: Since we're not together, I'll look for stormy where the univers.

00:41:06
Speaker 4: Sunday and my cry and done. I'm going to wear smile and walk in the sun.

00:41:16
Speaker 22: Maybe a fool buntil then you never see complain.

00:41:25
Speaker 4: I'll do my crying in the rain. I'll do my cry.

00:41:31
Speaker 7: In the rain.

00:41:40
Speaker 8: Cool, that's fine, Yeah, Leon, Yeah, I saw. I mean, I know that you've done. You must be a fan because he did that whole thing with Billy Joe Armstrong.

00:41:50
Speaker 2: I did, and I was a fan, but that was totally spearheaded by him. He really Yeah, he really wanted to do the whole album, like could do a version of that album, and I'm not sure. I'm still not really sure exactly where it came from. I remember I was like, let's just try a song and see how it goes. He's like, okay, but that's.

00:42:10
Speaker 10: Not really what I want to do. I want to do the whole album.

00:42:13
Speaker 9: And I was like, that's really imbicious and a lot on there.

00:42:17
Speaker 7: Yeah.

00:42:17
Speaker 2: I mean, I knew him from meeting him, and I really liked him. He was super nice. But we'd never sung together. And I didn't know how we were going to blend, because that that's ambitious to do because it's a.

00:42:29
Speaker 10: Blend for sure, their blend is so special.

00:42:32
Speaker 2: But we ended up doing it. Was it was blast and I love how it came out. It's very different from their original records, so it's it was fun, but that was all him. But I do love them. I mean I grew up on them completely. Like most people did, you just always sing like grown up? Did you go to church or anything?

00:42:53
Speaker 6: We didn't.

00:42:54
Speaker 9: I mean we went to church on like holidays sometimes, you know.

00:42:58
Speaker 2: We weren't in church choir or anything.

00:43:00
Speaker 6: Nah.

00:43:01
Speaker 8: I maybe sang just from by myself in secret, but no, I was always pretty like shy about that in most things. And I mean I'm still pretty like I was never like a natural performer. Really, I kind of like forced myself like I wanted to be, but then I just wasn't really So like in high school when I first started playing open mics and stuff in Cleveland, I had a good friend of mine who would come with me and we'd drive forty five minutes away to like another town, so I would have no chance of running into anyone that I knew.

00:43:43
Speaker 2: Were you able to put on a different persona could sometimes people hide behind that as a way to be more comfortable.

00:43:50
Speaker 9: On stage, right, Yeah, I mean maybe to some extent. I don't know, if it's nothing like it's not like Bowie or anything. It's not like that. Obvious.

00:43:59
Speaker 2: I always wanted to do that, and I feel like my time, you know, it's too late now to start it in my my career, people who would think it was weird, but I wish I had had something like that because I was also not a natural performer in that way. I feel like the music was always good, but as far as, like, you know, being charismatic on the stage, it's hard.

00:44:21
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:44:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I wish I had a wig from the beginning, you know, like a pink wig or something. Yeah, let's take us out on another favorite song of mine. I love that sold my soul song. Oh yeah, sure, yeah, that's a good one. When did you start playing? I mean, obviously your your dad was like pretty massive. He was, but I didn't grow up with him. Oh no, no, I mean we saw each other on and off, but I never lived with him, and then when I was nine, we were kind of a strange for another maybe nine years after that, so we didn't even talk or see each other. But I started playing piano when I was seven. Yeah, I took piano lessons and I always sang in church choir. Okay, yeah, but I didn't really see my dad play even until I was eighteen, Oh wow, and I was like, oh wow. I knew he was like really good, but this is a whole other level. It's also coming from jazz, and it was just so different from anything. His music was so complex in some ways but also super simple. But yeah, church choir was big for me. So that's what I'm always curious about if people grew up in the church playing music, because I feel like that's a huge thing for a lot of people.

00:45:37
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:45:37
Speaker 8: I mean I know a lot of R and B and soul artists that I loved, like you know, Sam Cook or Marvin Gaye, like they all came out of like gospel, and yeah, a lot of what I like about it is stuff that comes from that. I never really like knew that until later on. The church that I went to wasn't really like the church that they went to.

00:45:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think the same here. It wasn't a gospel church. What I still sang in it, and that that was helpful.

00:46:06
Speaker 9: I did always like the like the organ music and stuff.

00:46:09
Speaker 2: Though, yeah, it's special.

00:46:11
Speaker 10: I feel like growing up with music in that way it makes it.

00:46:14
Speaker 2: It takes all the thinking out of.

00:46:16
Speaker 10: It because it's focused on worshiping God.

00:46:20
Speaker 2: You know, it's focused on this one other thing that's pretty big, Like there's no like songwriting analysis, so it goes to those songs, but they come from the heart, which is also much nicer sometimes or not. I told Sarah, I gotta check out the new album, but tell them I want to do the anti croad Show song. I don't think I realized that it wasn't called that.

00:46:42
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, I mean I could have called it that, but no.

00:46:44
Speaker 10: I'm glad you didn't want to solve my.

00:46:46
Speaker 9: Soul full on the commercial.

00:46:49
Speaker 10: So my soul is much deeper.

00:47:26
Speaker 4: For somebody had found it somewhere.

00:47:30
Speaker 11: I had an old free market fair with no old number on the tail. Let it go for half a dollar. Now, that didn't even bother had it of been side that. I was drink and gasoline in a half ride fmousine, watching TV.

00:48:04
Speaker 7: And the band.

00:48:09
Speaker 4: When much too much surprise, I didn't chill fire. They had a hard time.

00:48:24
Speaker 11: I saw mysel somewhere so long ago. Oh, I didn't think too much at the time.

00:48:33
Speaker 4: I was young, and I didn't.

00:48:35
Speaker 11: Know until Outside played one night on the eighteenth road Show Expert Collectors to praise with the trip that I was on, like a rewrite math of blue Days and bland Nights where the Marbro lane just plays for the Menli bird to pray.

00:49:23
Speaker 4: Me the last head burning bright.

00:49:30
Speaker 11: I saw on display like imitation fabrigae able by the mid life. Then the signal came on through like a bad dream come true.

00:49:52
Speaker 6: Leaves.

00:49:53
Speaker 11: You had a loss for word so much, so somewhere so long ago.

00:50:05
Speaker 4: Oh, I didn't think too much chat the time.

00:50:09
Speaker 23: I was young, and I didn't know until I side late one night on.

00:50:16
Speaker 4: The Ante Road Show, just to see what I could raise.

00:50:36
Speaker 11: Hello, commercial gray fit for the wall Stream train, swimming with the price a goal commemoration baseball come courtesy of Scottland.

00:50:57
Speaker 24: You you dug up from the days of old ring model cathedral class and written leaves the grass in certified and guarantee.

00:51:21
Speaker 11: Well they're throwing it all away, they get it back some day. Ages could never see.

00:51:33
Speaker 4: What it could mean to me.

00:51:39
Speaker 11: I saw mysel somewhere so long ago.

00:51:44
Speaker 23: I had anything too much chapter time. I was young and I didn't know. Hi side laid one night on the eighteen Roll Show looking into my old grave. Ye, So what's it gonna be? You're on a pace, Tom, could it help the pain?

00:52:31
Speaker 4: Can you tell me so? Because I like to know.

00:52:38
Speaker 7: If you have been in.

00:52:46
Speaker 4: Five Nis.

00:52:50
Speaker 11: For even half his love, if your intention spell love?

00:53:01
Speaker 4: Can you tell me so because a look, if you have been in.

00:53:37
Speaker 9: Yay, you got it?

00:53:40
Speaker 17: Awesome, it's great.

00:53:43
Speaker 8: Yeah, thank you. I love the piano you were doing on the is It Magic song? I wish I wish I could have had you play on the record.

00:53:53
Speaker 2: Maybe we can catch up at a show sometimes. Of course it'll have to be a piano there. That's always the trick, right right now? What kind of band do you tour with? Is it always changing or no?

00:54:02
Speaker 8: It's been the same guys for a number of years. Now it's like a four piece. It was a four piece and now it's kind of become a five piece. It's like drums, bass, I play guitar, keys, pedal steel.

00:54:17
Speaker 9: That's a big recent edition.

00:54:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, does everybody Pedal steel is an addiction. I have a pedal steel player with me this summer. I had him last summer, Dan and I need. He's a local guy.

00:54:28
Speaker 9: Okay, I know that name.

00:54:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's around, he's in Brooklyn. Yeah, it is an addiction, Like, can you play pedal steel on every song. He said, let me just space it out because he plays great regular guitar. So yeah, we space it out, but I could have it on every song.

00:54:42
Speaker 10: That's a big band, though. Does everybody sing harmonies?

00:54:44
Speaker 9: I sometimes get them all to sing. Yeah.

00:54:47
Speaker 8: I mean the keyboard player John Andrews, he's he's got his own whole solo thing that's really great called the Yawns.

00:54:54
Speaker 9: And so we toured together.

00:54:56
Speaker 8: It's like his band in my band, and there's just the same band, the different front person.

00:55:01
Speaker 7: Yeah.

00:55:03
Speaker 10: Yeah, I've seen that before, so it's the best way to do it.

00:55:06
Speaker 12: Yeah.

00:55:07
Speaker 9: Definitely makes the changeover between sets very easy.

00:55:11
Speaker 10: Yeah, financially it's easier.

00:55:14
Speaker 2: Are you going to be on tour all summer? Pretty much?

00:55:16
Speaker 6: Sure?

00:55:17
Speaker 8: I'm in the fall is when I'll I'll go out. I do have a residency thing planned for July, like when the it'll end in like the record release party. So I'm doing like three fridays at this place, Union Pool.

00:55:32
Speaker 9: Oh great, So that should be fun.

00:55:34
Speaker 8: I'm trying to get some like special guests and make it fun.

00:55:40
Speaker 2: It's a party.

00:55:41
Speaker 9: Yeah.

00:55:41
Speaker 2: Last time I was at Union Pool, I danced in the front to a DJ.

00:55:46
Speaker 10: There were only four of us there.

00:55:50
Speaker 2: I danced like I've never danced before.

00:55:52
Speaker 9: That's great. Yeah, those are good nights.

00:55:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are good nights. I've had some good nights there. Thank you so much for doing this. I love song that, I like you likewise, and I love meeting you finally after listening.

00:56:04
Speaker 10: For so long.

00:56:05
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean yeah, I've You've your songs and everything have been pretty big in the my consciousness for it since I was a lot younger, so it was really real honor to do it.

00:56:18
Speaker 9: Thank you.

00:56:19
Speaker 2: Well, I'll see you around and I'll come to a gig.

00:56:21
Speaker 9: Yeah, that'd be great.

00:56:22
Speaker 2: Awesome, thank you for listening.

00:56:28
Speaker 5: What a sweet, down to earth guy. I love him.

00:56:32
Speaker 2: He's so great. I love his songs. I love his voice. Yeah, he's special.

00:56:37
Speaker 5: He's a deep lyricist too. His songs are very earnest and kind of take you on a journey.

00:56:42
Speaker 7: Well, I like that.

00:56:43
Speaker 2: We talked about the long song thing because I really do feel like if it's that kind of a song and it holds the mood, you just want to be in that mood for a long time, right, and it.

00:56:53
Speaker 5: Doesn't feel long, no at all.

00:56:55
Speaker 2: It was. It was really special to finally get to meet him and play that song with him that I've been It's been in my brain for four years.

00:57:02
Speaker 5: It's been your favorite song for a long time.

00:57:04
Speaker 2: It's really one of my favorites. Check it out.

00:57:07
Speaker 5: Check out his new album it's called Cutworms It is.

00:57:10
Speaker 2: That's right. It's self titled titled Yeah, and check him out on tour. Thanks for listening. The first song we did was My favorite song of the Highest Tower from Alien Sunset twenty seventeen, Too Bad, from his new self titled album We did Is It Magic. Also from that album, we did Crying in the Rain, which is a Carol King song with lyrics by Howard Greenfield and was also recorded by The Everly Brothers. We did Sold My Soul from Nobody Lives Here Anymore twenty twenty. Today's episode was recorded by Steven Sacho, assisted by Jasper Leech, Maximilian Trophy, Tanner Wallace, Andrew Kohinka, and mixed by Jamie Landry. Edited by Sarah Oda, Additional editing and mixing by Matthew Vasquez, Additional engineering by Pete rem artwork by Eliza Fry, Photography by Sheridan Linez. Produced by Me and Sarah hoda