The Long Winters

0:00It's got John for the long winners here in the studio. Just play us a couple of tunes. Let's talk about that new record putting the days to bed. It's been out for what year in a bit now? No, not quite a year. Yeah, it came out in the summer last year. So nice. You've been working on new materials since then? Well, we've been on tour almost exclusively since then. So I haven't really. You don't ride on the road? No, it's really hard for me. I mean, we're a small enough band that we don't have an extensive staff. So there's nobody that's we don't have a driver or a tour manager. And I end up doing all that. Do you drive most of the time? It's you that you do most of the driving. I mean, the guys help out. Yeah, that would distract them from listening to their headphones. So they prefer that I do it. Completely tune you out. Yeah, that's awesome.

0:45Well, I guess it is kind of your band. If you think about it, if you go back to the beginning of it, does it still feel like that? Or is it now a group effort? It's much more of a group effort. I mean, everybody is. Everybody's. The other three guys are really vested in the thing. And on the road, we absolutely feel like like a band. But you know, I'm. I'm kind of a turkey and I I boss them around. Yeah, well, you have that. What song is it? Teaspoon. I wasn't made to play on a team. The first line of the song, right? Yeah. Kind of a dictator, no way. Well, you know, there are a lot of people that weren't made to play on on a team. But most of those people end up probably being forced to play on a team. In one way or another. And they end up being that that grouchy guy in the cubicle next to yours who, you know,

1:31just doesn't cooperate or I mean, you meet people on the road all the time who obviously don't have a team ethic just just on the highways, right? And people that won't let you merge in or whatever. Hey, thanks a lot. Up yours, especially in Alberta. I've noticed that since I moved here. Yeah, there are pockets in North America where people are worse than other places. And the plains states in America and the great plains here in Canada. It sure is about to go through it. It's quite friggin boring. Yeah, I'm excited about it. But anyway, you know, part of being a musician, obviously the myth is the myth of a band, a rock band is that, you know, that you're all one big happy family and it's a democracy or whatever. But even going looking at the Beatles, you know, obviously some of those guys were team players

2:17and some of them weren't. And as their career went on, you could see the crack start to form, the strain of trying to work with other people. And so in the case of the long winters, we just do away with the whole mythology that we're going to be some kind of cooperative, like socialist democracy. Instead, I just am sort of a Kim Jung, Kim Jung-yell of the long winters. There you go. How can we decide a band name and then not just like put it under your name? Well, did you always like that idea of having a band and not being you, not being that celebrity, like John Mayer, for example, or something like that?

3:04Oh, John Mayer. It's an honor. He's a great guitar player. Yes. Yeah. So I think the idea behind the band name is that I guess the music I make is it reflects a certain aspect of my personality, but it isn't my whole self. You know what I mean? Like, I have kind of a dark sense of humor and that is conveyed in the long winters music to an extent. I didn't want the band to have to be, if it's my name, then it ends up sort of representing my whole personality. And there's a whole side of my life that I kind of leave out of music.

3:49And having a band name gives you a little bit of distance. You can say, oh, that's, well, I'll have to talk to the long winters about that and see what they say, you know, even if that's just kind of a shim, you know. Yeah, there you go. Well, you say I create them in other ways. You're writing a book. Did you put that under your name or do you put a pen name for that? Oh, I know I would put that under my name. Yeah. I mean, I'm not writing fiction and sort of creative nonfiction. So I'd have to own it if I published it. Creative nonfiction. What do you mean by that? It's a, it's, it's, yeah, what do I mean by that? Or what does anyone mean? It sounds like a cool, it's cool genre. Yeah. I think creative nonfiction is a, is a, is an idea whose time has come.

4:36And I think more and more people are working in it, which is to say that, that there are a lot of, a lot of nonfiction stories that are maybe best told with a little creative license. And you know, it's the, it's the tradition of the epic storyteller. I mean, if you, if you think even back to the Iliad or something, I mean, some of the events of the Trojan War are true, but through the course of time, the story of the Iliad becomes more than true. Mythology, legend, all those. A little, yeah. Some, some, and, and not even, not even. Fellish. A little embellishment. And it's not even, not even embellishment where the, where the facts are falsified, but just that the, that the color of the lighting is intensified a little bit.

5:23You know, you can't, you can't always in the moment know four or five different perspectives. And if you're writing strictly nonfiction, you're kind of stuck in, in, in retelling only what you saw at the time. And, but with little time, you can look back at events and say, Oh, actually, you know, it was, it, it didn't, it wasn't like it seemed. And with that perspective, I can tell the story a little bit more fully. Yeah. So it gets called creative nonfiction, I guess. So is it about your, your trip to Europe and you're walking around there? Yeah. That would, cool. So you can kind of meet like whole prostitutes in Amsterdam and crazy stories and sew or something. Prostitutes in Amsterdam and the crazy stories in Sioux. Exactly. Well, embellishment maybe.

6:09Let's talk about that new record. I mean, the song hindsight kind of sums up the album, you know, in a way, do you see that at all? Well, that's why the, the title of the record comes from hindsight. That it's a lyric. Is it one lyric on that song? Okay. Yeah. I mean, I, I did feel that and that is a song. I mean, I was writing the lyrics of that. Uh, still on the last day of recording. And it was the vocal of that song was one of the last few things I did before the record was done. Oh, cool. So it was a, that song was a little torturous to, to complete, but it ended up having a lot of elements that, that a lot of themes that you find throughout the record. And like Rich Wif and you know other songs like that, it kind of, it all ties together in a way. Yeah. Were you writing a thematic kind of record when you were doing it?

6:56Do you think about that? No, not at all, but, uh, but you can, you almost can't help but have, have, uh, your records be thematic because you, you have to make one every year or two. And so after, after your first couple of records, you've used up all the, all the events of the 30 years of your life prior and then you're, you're, uh, you're left to kind of write about what happened in the, in the year previous, you know what I mean? Like, well gee, what have I done since the last record and, and, uh, and so you, you do get general themes that run through it. Cool. Yeah. Um, a lot of people worked on a lot of people working the band back in the day. I'm wondering about this record as well. I heard funk was on the record and wall of producer and didn't produce, but came on

7:43and did a couple of things. Yeah. I, you know, I, the, the first two long winners records I made sort of hand in hand with Chris Walla and, uh, so as I, as I was producing this one myself, there were a few moments there where I was like, am I doing a good job? I don't know. I have no way of knowing. And so I called Chris and asked him to come in and listen and just, you know, what do you think and kind of like a soundboard. Yeah. And just, you know, I, I trust him and he's obviously a great producer and I learned a lot from him working with him. So I wanted to get his ears on it and then once he was in there, he heard the song honest and sort of true to his form. He was like, I've got to get out there, you know, get in, ran out and got on the piano and then moved over to the guitar and pretty soon he played three or four things.

8:29There you go. And got rid of all your track and just put his up there. Yeah. He didn't, he, I didn't let him touch the board. He had to sit in the chair like a normal person, but that's speaking of honesty. That brings up an interesting point. The lyrics of the song, you know, it, it's a celebrity and the way the culture's going now and what's the one line down here. Everything is different when he's singing right to you. Must be, you know, being in a band and I've heard you talk about this in interviews before, you know, it's a completely different perspective. And I mean, when you were writing backstage for CMJ and that kind of stuff, you see things from a different way. Yeah. And I'm, I'm in a kind of a good, unique position in that, you know, my band is, is adored by a small select group of fans. But I also, I also know a lot of guys. Guys whose bands are, have, you know, exploded onto the larger scene where the, where they're,

9:18they have sort of a mass adoration. I mean, you know, they play really large shows and there are people that are never going to get a chance to meet them and shake their hand. And you see that worshipfulness in their eyes. Yeah. So I'm, I'm kind of in that in between place where I, I do get to meet almost every fan that's interested in coming up and talking to me. And I also get to sort of stand on the side of the stage and watch these guys who are playing the stadiums. And it, it, that combination inspired that song, just kind of the, the, the view of, of fandom and fame from multiple sides. So we had culture with them, and they, with all the celebrity worship?

10:04It is a weird culture. But I, you know, I think that there's something about being a musician that is, that inspires a tremendous, like, loss of reason in, in, in fans. Because you know, a great song is a poem and it's also music and how music affects us. Like I don't, I don't think any of us can really know all the different ways it does. So, you know, a single song can, can hit you at about 50 different ways, more than a novel, more than a, more than a movie. And I think, I think a lot of people, not even, not even people that are part of the culture of fame are vulnerable to that.

10:51You know, I know I am. Yeah, well, especially. You hear a great song and you just think, oh my God, that person's inside my head. And then you meet the guy and he's like drunk and total pain in the ass. And you're like, oh, you're not inside my head or at least I hope you're not. Get out of here, buddy. What else do I want to talk about? I'm almost completely incapable of writing fiction yet somehow I'm pretty good at fictionalizing reality. Right. Good quote. Yeah. You should put that on somewhere. Well, that goes back to creative nonfiction. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I should have brought it up then. But it makes me think of the Republican governor is watching John Stewart last night and something like that came up. Yeah. And, or two nights ago, I guess. And I heard you weren't too pleased about what happened, even the Democrats winning the House because, you know, in all honesty, it doesn't really change anything. Kind of helps. Well, I hope it changes stuff. You know, I grew up in a family of liberals.

11:39Yeah. And I think most musicians do. One hopes are at least the ones that, I mean, there are some musicians who are fallen from their very conservative families and they go off and practice the dark arts. Well, because it's like being inside of the brain, right? It's a different thought process. Right. But yeah, I mean, I think growing up as a growing up in a liberal family in the 70s and 80s, I still felt very idealistic about, about liberalism. And the Democratic Party in America has gone far afield from what we used to think of as liberal ideals. So yeah, they've won. They're obviously better than Bush. But almost anything would be better than Bush. And I don't think that I just don't, I don't think the Democrats should be congratulating themselves quite yet for defeating Bush.

12:27Because he got elected to two terms, which is like inconceivable. Yeah. You know, like, it's because it didn't happen. Well, one term, well, you know, the first term, maybe he stole it, but there's no excuse for the second one. Well, when you put John Kerry up there, you know, you know, and Kerry was a, Kerry was a good man. I got a t-shirt, but you know, but nobody, no, the problem is that nobody in the Democratic Party has been, has been describing a coherent ideology for, for 30 years and the new Democratic Party, most of their platforms we would have called Republicanism in 1982. You know what I mean? Like it's conservatism and it only seems liberal because the Republicans are like insane.

13:14The Republicans have become some kind of like Fasho Christian cult. Cult, right. And so the Democrats can come in and be Rockefeller Republicans and everybody thinks, oh, they're so, you know, warm and fuzzy and I just, I'm not buying it. It's a lesser two evils, right? Yeah. What do you think of these new candidates? I mean, Obama, you think they, you think your country's ready? For Barack Obama? Yeah. Well, I mean, even Hillary for that. It's an interesting, it's an interesting situation. Hillary Clinton and Barack. I mean, I think that the, obviously the country's ready. But I kind of don't believe in protest votes. You know what I mean? Yeah. This, this Mike stand is, you guys got this at the Valley Village. Boy, should have brought mine in. There we go.

14:00So yeah, I mean, I absolutely do, I absolutely think the country is ready and the question is, is Barack ready? And I can't say. I know Hillary's ready. And there's a part of me that, you know, Hillary does not have much of a personality, but she's an incredible technocrat. You know, she's a detail oriented paper shuffling, like she reads every bill from top to bottom. And that's kind of the way that I believe government. I mean, government should be run by bureaucrats, I think, rather than rock stars. And Clinton, her husband, was a combination of both. He was a rock star and a total technocrat. But that rock star president cult is what got us George Bush, because he's not detail

14:47oriented or a technocrat. He's just a guy that the Cowboys think is the real, you know, honcho and I'm not into it. Yeah, here once you meet him though, he blows your mind much like Clinton, right? You see him in person and they're just, they have that he can kiss my ass. I don't. He doesn't have any charisma. Have you seen him? I mean, he has that kind of smug fat boy charisma that, you know, no way. No. So, so yeah, I mean, I, and I think, I think Barack has got it too, but I just don't know, I don't know enough about him. And I mean, I don't think anybody does. Yeah, soon enough, I mean, once the debate starts, we'll get to know a little more about him. Right. Being a history buff, how do you think we're going to be remembered this time period? Oh, it's such a transitional period. I mean, the, the, you know, we forget that the story of, of like democracy or liberal democracy

15:39is still a really young story. You know, it's 200 years old. And, you know, the story of America is, is still being written. And whether there's a tendency to think that we know what it is already, we know the answer and we're already watching the decline of it. But in fact, there's, there's still no place in the world that has the sort of plurality that we have here in, you know, in the US and in Canada, right? I mean, there are people from all over the world who have immigrated here into a, a landscape like abundant with natural resources. And we're trying to find a way to live together. We're trying to find a way to, to craft a, a, what we call a democracy.

16:26But you know, there's, there's no other place in the world, not in, not in Holland, not in Israel, not in India, where you have as many kinds of people all inventing a culture as it goes. You know, there is no homogenous culture in North America. It is a culture of, it's a pastiche. And so, you know, the rest of the world can kind of look at us and wag their finger and shake their head knowingly like, oh, those Americans, it's all over now. But in fact, you know, the, the human experiment is really being still played out in, in places like L.A. and New York and San Francisco. And now for some reason in places like Kansas City and, and Calgary, you know, places that

17:13didn't used to have a voice on the, on the big stage. But now the Christians and the Cowboys are coming out and saying, no, we have a voice to, and we're crazy and we're, we're part of the process. And they absolutely are. You know, you can't, you can't, you can't write them off. So I, I, I take the long view of it and just say, you know, I voted for Nader. There you go. Nice. I voted for Nader in the first election. And then in response to everybody telling me that I had cost, you know, or the election, I voted for Nader again, just because I'm the one. Yeah. Because in the, in the long view, I would rather have, I would rather have somebody like Ralph Nader, who would incidentally have made a terrible president.

17:59Glad you voted for him. But I had, I voted for him, not, not as a protest vote and not as a, not as a way of throwing my vote away, but as a way of saying like, I think Ralph Nader is in some ways an American hero for the, for the work he's done. And we take him for granted, but we also take those ideas for granted. And you know, without him, there'd be no clean air act. There'd be no clean water act. There'd be no auto safety rules. There'd be, there are a thousand things you can trace to his influence. And that's the message I want to send to the Democratic Party. And it isn't, you know, I don't want the Democrats to feel like they have to pander to the bomb throwers on the far left, but just that the mainstream of the left is much smarter

18:47and much sainer than they give a credit for. So but oh yeah, as far as the long view goes, I, I think that American can survive eight years of George Bush and Dick Cheney, just as it survived eight years of Ronald Reagan and just as it survived, you know, countless, uh, Republican, yeah, countless, you know, not jobs in various places over the last 150 years. And you know, we'll emerge ultimately stronger because it's, because it's the place where humans are really getting to play out there. Various where the differences between cultures and people are actually rubbing up against each other in a practical way. And I'm not just like, oh, that's, you know, that's the way the Dutch are.

19:36And that's the way the, you know, people in Nigeria are, but actually like what happens when you put a Dutch guy and a Nigerian guy together in on a bus and you're only going to see that really, you know, time and time again in one or two places. Are you noticing it shows? I know you mentioned Kansas and here in Calgary. Thank you for mentioning. Of course. Yeah. Are you noticing it shows diverse cultures in the audience and that kind of thing? Is your music transcending gender and race? Well, indie rock, unfortunately, is a culture that is, um, is pretty Balkanized, you know, and pretty, I mean, within indie rock, I think there's, it's a pretty big tent, but it's a pretty big tent within a pretty small slice of people, you know, typically

20:24sort of college, it's taking the place of college rock. And that means that, you know, a lot of the listeners are college people. And that, that tends to be kind of a, kind of a small, insular, nerdy, waspy group of people, um, which is unfortunate. And I think part of the, part of the thing is that when I was growing up, there were like five kinds of music. There was country, there was rock, there was metal, there was soul. That was about it, you know, and, and now there are 15 different kinds of metal. There are 15 different, you know, you get five hip hop fans in a room and not one of

21:12them would like a single artist that the other one does, you know. And unfortunately, what happens is that you get people arguing about 50 different hip hop groups and not one of them is listening to pop music, not one of them's listening to guitar or rock, because they've just, in order to focus on, on their culture, they've eliminated all these other cultures. And you, you, I'm sure you hear it all the time, people that say, I like all kinds of music except country. I won't listen to any country. And it's like, well, all right. But what about that one country guy that's really good? His name is escaping me right now. But so, you know, the long winners audiences are, are still small enough that they, that it's hard to do a demographic sweep on them and say, let's see how many Ukrainians are

22:03there. Oh, yeah. But, but, you know, there, there is, I wish there were more black people. I wish there were more Asian people that, that were, that were listening to, you know, guitar pop right now. And so the, the, the few that do come out, you're really excited about it. And it's like, Hey, yeah. And then you have that awkward exchange. It's like, as you hear of us. Hi there. Thanks for coming. You know, and they don't want to, they don't want you to, to single them out. No, of course not. So, I'm sure they're happy you're saying. I don't know. Well, right. Of course. Of course. And, you know, and of course that's, that is, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's more true in places like Calgary than it is in New York. Obviously you go to, you play a show in New York and you've got 400 people from the whole whole world in Calgary or, or Kansas City or even Seattle are homogenous, more homogenous

22:51places by, by virtue of just, well, it's just not where people immigrate, right? Right. Right. Not where people immigrated and nowhere. It's not where same people from other places are ever going to want to go. Let's see. Where am I going to go if I move to America? Let's see. Seattle sounds fun. I think Seattle will be cool. But Kansas City is, yeah, is maybe more analogous. We won't play this in Kansas City. We won't let anyone figure it out. Tell me about Seattle though, because I've never been and I need to, now that I'm on this part of the country and this side of the world, I need to head out there. Where are you from originally? Ontario. Oh, you're from Ontario. Well, Montreal originally and then Ontario and now here. So yeah, well, you're headed west. So, in actually, in actually, in actually, good word. Okay. Point. Well, you know, the West, as you move further west, it really does, and in Canada and in

23:37the United States, the culture really visibly changes. I mean, people in Vancouver do things very differently than they do anywhere else in Canada. And can we throw in American? That's an interesting thing. What do you mean by that? Well, they're just, I mean, you can read it in sort of Vancouver pride, but also you read it in the faces of people in Edmonton or Winnipeg when you mentioned Vancouver. Oh, okay. You know, there's a certain sort of like, oh, Vancouver, right? Those people think they're real special. And then when you go, when you take that experience back to Vancouver and you see the people in Vancouver, you realize, oh, right, they do. And in a sense, they are. They're the only Pacific, the only contact with the Pacific that Canada has.

24:25And pretty much. And they're very influenced by Hong Kong and the Pacific Rim. It does change the culture. Seattle was not on the American map for so many years, you know, in the in the 50s and 60s, if you watch an old weather report on the national news, they would say, sunny and warm in in Los Angeles and cold and rainy in San Francisco. And now back to Chicago. And there was this huge empty place in the Northwest where most Americans had no conception. It was like Oregon territories or who knows what happens up there, you know, like Indians in Birch bark canoes. And that that only really started changing in the last 10 or 15 years. Do you think Nirvana had a lot to do with it and that whole scene?

25:11Nirvana. I mean, Boeing was the first thing that made people go. What are they doing up there? What are they? I didn't know that was from there. Yeah, Boeing airplanes are from Seattle. And so that was obviously with the rise of the jet age all around the world, people are riding on Boeing jets. And so that name was the first ambassador for Seattle. And Nirvana and the grunge movements directed attention to the city. But I think those the grunge guys just exaggerated the tendency for people to think that everybody in the Northwest was wearing flannel shirts and living under like a rotten log. But it was really Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, all those companies that all came up in the early 90s or all became nationally prominent.

25:59You lost a lot of musicians, those companies I heard. Oh man. Well, you know, I mean, being a musician is hard and it's really hard when all your college buddies are making 150,000 a year at Amazon.com. And you're sitting there in your van doing across the front. Yeah, or not even in your van, just sitting in your practice phase trying to figure out how to get in a van in the first place. I mean, that's the thing that musicians in every town have to suffer through. But unfortunately, during the last 10 years in Seattle, it's been boom times. Yeah, well that whole Northwest, I mean, all your friends, right? The Oregon scene, right? It's huge. Right. Well, the music's been blowing up, but also there are a lot of other good jobs, you know, good as in jobs that pay well. Yeah. And I've watched a lot of great musicians get frustrated in not getting famous fast

26:47enough and they end up in a cubicle at Amazon. And they're making good money, but they're not happy or maybe happy, but not, you know, but they definitely had to give something up. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, obviously growing up is about giving something up, but it's a shame. It's yeah, or or maybe not, obviously, I mean, I'm trying not to, I'm not trying to think I'm let's let me rephrase that. I'm trying not to think that way about my own life. But I think a lot of people do feel like the process of growing up is a process of sacrificing your either your idealism or your youthful dreams because you now have new responsibilities or, you know, and who knows how much of that is really people being status conscious or

27:37or, you know, desiring a standard of living that they think they deserve. Yeah. And I think that's the way we're able to provide it for them and they're really upset now about not being able to buy a new car. And so they feel like they're under pressure when they're not really. Well, yeah, they're bombarded by the media, right? Everyone is you need this you need that this is a cool thing to have, you know. Yeah, but I and I hear that argument a lot, but I'm just surprised that at how susceptible people are to that. I mean, it's a celebrity culture. I'm being bombarded by the same media. And I go great, you know, take it on the lamb. You take it on the jumps, you know, like it's so easy to turn your TV off. Yeah. I'm I'm always astonished by people who who describe the decisions they make in their

28:24life as like as being somehow irrevocable or or or that they are powerless really in the face of of the juggernaut of culture to decide for themselves. Like, I don't need a new car. In fact, I don't need a car and that is going to make me I'm not going to be able to go to my high school reunion and blow everybody away with my Bentley. But who cares, right? I mean, if the quality of my own life is is gratifying to me. That isn't as hard as it sounds and people make it make it seem like that's just some kind of hippie pie in the sky mentality. And, you know, the fact that they need a new jet every three years is some something

29:12written in the fabric of life. Of course, and I never understand it. Is that something you hit in your 30s? Because I'm kind of going I'm 23 right now and I'm kind of thinking that, you know, it's it's and I was talking to a couple buddies about this too. How they warn you about puberty and everything like that. And I'm so hard. I don't remember that being hard. It's this time in my life where it's like I shouldn't care what people think yet. I still kind of do. And like does that change when you hit 30? Not at all. No, I mean, I think part of it is or one of the things that I've learned growing up is that you never stop really caring what other people think. You just have to find a way to put that in perspective and be able to live with it comfortably. You know, there are plenty of people 23 years old who decided when they were 14 that they were going to go to law school and they never changed that decision.

29:59And now they're in law school and they've never given it a second thought and they're going to live their whole lives based on a decision they made when they were 14 because if you go to law school, you're respectable. You never have to think about that stuff again. You know, like you might have stress at work. You might be, you know, you might get divorced. You might be in a protracted custody battle over your kids. But at least you don't have to worry that your business card is a respectable thing that you can hand to people and they look at it and go, oh, he's a lawyer. And that little, you know, that little modicum of respect, people are willing to trade the decision making of their whole life for it. You know, they never, ever get to really be free.

30:46And they've traded it just for that look in a stranger's eyes when they first look at their business card like, oh, he's a respectable guy. And you know, part of part of being a musician or part of being liberated, I guess, is realizing that you're going to meet people and you're going to tell them that you're a musician or an artist and they're going to get a look on their face that looks like they just stepped in a turd. Well, that's some people. Some people will be like, oh, no way. Oh, some people are thrilled. But you do encounter a lot of like, oh, you're a musician. Well, aren't you a little old? Shouldn't you have grown out of that by now? And you say, look at the jagger. Yeah. For a lot of people, that's not an argument.

31:31They're in favor, right? Like, oh, yeah. But even more than that, it's, you know, it's those quiet moments when you're lying by yourself at night going, aren't I a little old for this or do you think that sometimes? Oh, absolutely. Really? Well, because I grew up in a middle class family, my dad was a lawyer. And there are a lot of avenues of life that that that aren't it's not that they're not open to me. Certainly not. I don't belong to the tennis club right now. Yeah, do you want to? There is a little voice in the back of my head that that for many years did. I mean, I think now I know very much what belonging to the tennis club entails.

32:16So, no, I don't have any interest in belonging to the tennis club, but or the golf club or whatever, you know, that kind of middle class life. But you know, I'm 38 years old and I am driving around American Canada in a 1997 Ford O'Connell Line van with three other guys who, you know, are eating the same curry as I'm eating. And then, you know, we're sitting in the van and just like, mm, doesn't smell really great in here. And we can't take our shoes off because it's, you know, our socks are stinky. And you think to yourself, I there are classmates of mine who have 5,000 square foot houses

33:02and, you know, have to decide whether they are going to take the jet ski or the or the beamer across the lake to get their potato foie gras. And although although there's no part of me that that after a week in that life wouldn't be screaming to get out of it. That isn't ever really the question. Like, you know, like that voice that creeps into your head at one o'clock in the morning doesn't listen to reason. It's a voice of it's a voice of comparison or competition or self doubt or self doubt. There you go. Yeah. That maybe some people are able to banish it from their mind and still live a life of

33:48their own choosing. But I've never met one. Yeah. The act of banishing that voice from your mind is also the act of removing choice from your future. You know what I mean? Like the lawyer analogy. Yeah. Like the fewer choices you have, the more secure you are. And that's the power of religion too, right? I mean, the fewer choices available to you to decide for yourself the more confident you are in your beliefs and the more comfortable you are in the life that you're leading. Because if it's preordained, then you don't have any doubt about it. And living. Just easy sailing, right? Yeah, that's right. I mean, this is what it says in the Bible or this is what, you know, this is what the partner at my company says I have to do and that's what I'm doing.

34:34And, you know, I mean, I haven't spoken to my wife in 14 days. And the last thing she said to me was I hate you, you bastard, but I must be doing it right. You know, this just has to be what life looks like. Yeah. Shame. You know, making choices and keeping your options open means that every day you have to wonder whether you're doing it right again. Deep thoughts. Deep thoughts about your jacket. Let's get back to music for a second. Tell us about through with love. Documentary movie coming up soon. You want to switch to the other one? Well, coming out soon. No, no, I'm enjoying wrestling this mike stand. It's kind of one of the things I do as part of my job. I wrestle Mike stance every day. Now I bet you do on stage every night. Because you know, clubs have varying qualities of mike stance.

35:20Whoa, now it's really going to dip it away. Well, I don't, you know, I'm not making that documentary about the long winters because you're in the band. Yeah. That's right. It wouldn't really be a documentary. It would be a John Roderick as seen through the eyes of John Roderick. Yeah. Which is kind of like the book in the way. Oh, no, the book I'm writing is more the world as seen through the eyes of John Roderick. Is that what it's going to be called? You have a title for it? No, I hope to God not. No, I don't have a title for it yet. I have to finish it first. Fair enough. How far away do you think? Well, in time or in pages. How big is it right now? It's about 400 pages. Nice. It's going to be a big like thick, thick, thick book. Yeah, maybe two volumes. Two, there you go like Dylan's Chronicles.

36:06Yeah, bound in calf skin and are Dylan right two Chronicles? I'm halfway through the first time. You read it? I read the first one. I didn't know there was a second one. No, it's called Volume One, right? So I'm assuming there's going to be a volume two. Oh, right. But I mean, didn't Terence Trent Darby's record wasn't, did he call that Volume One Two? Oh, yeah. Yeah, where's Volume Two? I don't know. We're still waiting. Yeah. So anyway, the documentary, he's been working on it for a long time and I think his name's Adam Pranika and he's a very talented guy and he's sort of been expanding his scope as he digs deeper into the story because as you said earlier, the long winners have a lot of, on the family tree of Northwest Indy Rock, we, we're in contact with a lot of different

36:53branches and a lot of people have come and gone through the, not just through the doors of the band, but through the periphery. So as you start scratching the surface, oh, here's a whole other story that wants to get told and that isn't really necessarily about the long winters, but it's about Pacific Northwest and it's about Indy Rock music and culture. So as his focus expands, the movie becomes, or the project just gets more and more out of control, I think. Yeah, it should be a pretty cool film. Yeah, I hope so. I hope it comes out before, before 2050 and I hope it's less than eight hours long. It might end up being a documentary that plays on PBS like 10 nights a day in parts.

37:39You're kind of like the broken, you know, broken social scene? Of course. Kind of like the Northwestern American broken social scene in a way. Although we've never had really more than four or five people on stage with us. You have like 20 with them all the time. Yeah, just the revolving door poles. And they keep spawning, you know, people like Fyze to actually become like, you know, brilliant musicians on their, on their own right. Have you heard a new record? It's coming out in a little bit. Well, we just did, we just played several shows with her down the West Coast. No way. Yeah, it was awesome. So we got a little taste of that record live before. Sounding good? Oh, wow. I've only had the single. She's amazing. Yeah. From Toronto. Do you play on Death Cab's new record? I heard something like that. Not the new one. I, excuse me, I sang on the track on Transatlanticism. Oh, what's wrong? Transatlanticism. Oh, there you go.

38:24Transatlanticism. Yeah, but that and Wallace new record. I hear he's working on a solo record. I figured I asked you since you're friends with him. Yeah, Chris has been working on that record for many, many, many years. Oh, really? Yeah. Back. But his Death Cab, you know, stuff has always taken him away. And also, you know, he produces everybody. 15 records a year or whatever. But I've heard, I've heard, you know, a lot of tracks off of it. And I mean, Chris is an incredibly talented musician. I think it's going to be a fantastic record. You play on it? No. No, it's not. I figured he'd bring friends in kind of like, kind of like the first long winter circuit to be kind of like that. Yeah, but Chris has the... He can play everything, right? He can, exactly. And Chris has the advantage of being able to play everything and produce his own first record. I mean, the reason that I had so many people come in on the first two long winter's records

39:11is I hadn't learned that I really could do so much of that myself. And also that it was fun. And I knew a lot of fun, good players. But I think Chris's record has been much more of a project that, you know, he's down in the basement by himself at late at night, like, you know, putting this record together. And less of... I mean, I'm sure he'll have plenty of guests on it, but... Yeah. His touring commitments and mine have kept us kind of a part for the last year or two. Fair enough. I ask every band five questions, five quick questions, just one more answer. Oh. iPod or CDs. Neither. Neither. What, are you vinyl? No, I don't listen to music. Really? Not really. Being a musician, you don't listen to music? Yeah, I'm one of the... I'm a rare breed in that I'm a musician who doesn't listen to music.

39:56I think the majority of people don't consume music the way that people in our culture do. You know, if you think about it, there are 300 million people in America. And a hit record sells 3 million copies. Yeah. So that's 297 million people in America that didn't buy the record that was a huge hit. So at least 150 million of those people have to just not buy records. Probably closer to 250 million of them. You know, the record buying public is actually much smaller than we think. And those of us who are musicians or who love music or who are in radio or in, you know, promotion or whatever.

40:42In the industry. In the industry in some capacity. We really, over the course of a career, begin to see, begin to think that our world is the world. And it's true of people in every industry. Yeah. You get used to that, right? So you begin to think that everybody is, you know, that, or you want everyone to be. But let's not go there. Right. And I think, I think that kind of insularity is part of the, you know, it's part of what makes the culture part of why the ragged edge of the music business is so dull-witted. You know what I mean? Like there are, yeah, because it doesn't, it doesn't allow for information from outside. You know, if you don't know about the new block party record, there are a lot of people

41:29that just don't have time to talk to you after that. It's like, how do you love that new block party record? And I go, I don't know. And they're like, oh, well, they're massively disappointed. And you're part of the indie rock community. Right. Right. And so, so in terms of my music consuming, I'm part of what I assume is the majority of people that kind of just, you know, they hear music as they go through life and they enjoy it. And people are always playing music for me, obviously. But when I go out the door with 20 bucks in my pocket, the last place I would think to go is the record store. I take that 20 bucks and I go, you know, buy myself a nice meal and I sit and read the newspaper and, and stare off into space. And then I have $16 still in my pocket.

42:16You know. A nice meal for $4. Yeah. It's a cheap meal at the walk box. But yeah, that puts me at odds with a lot of my culture because I'm also, you know, I'm relying on the people that do buy records to buy my record and be interested in the music I can get you those 20 dollars in your pocket. That's right. That's right. And if I was, you know, if I wasn't in the long winters, I probably wouldn't buy a long winter record because I just wouldn't ever be introduced to it. It's a, it's a, it's a little bit of a conundrum. Yeah. Yeah. Circle. Well, they are one word questions. Yeah, that's right. That was a little bit of a. No, it's an interesting little theory. And in fact that I did not know about you or your band. Lettinger McCartney.

43:02Oh boy, Harrison. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I, I obviously, Paul is a songwriting genius. Obviously, John was a cultural. Phenomena force, right. But George always was the beetle for me. Yeah. And I just, I loved his guitar playing and I really liked the songs he wrote in the Beatles. Yeah. Well, it comes across in your music a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Harrison was an influence on me. I mean, they all were obviously, but. Well, there, see, we were talking earlier about the culture and everything. And I get into this argument with my dad all the time that no one, because of so many genres of music now, you're saying there's 15 types of metal, all that kind of stuff, that no one's ever going to be as big as the Beatles. He thinks it'll happen again. I don't think it will. Because it's just, it's not the same time. There's not four channels on the TV anymore.

43:47Right. And I think it's just a huge info for that to happen again. What do you think? Well, I thought Eminem had a shot at it. Eminem. Yeah. Because I really, I mean, I really dug Eminem's first two records. And so you bought those? I didn't. But they were actually the first time I heard Eminem. We were on tour with Death Cab for Cute. It was 1999. Okay. So still playing small venues. Way back. Yeah. And shows where there were 80 people in the audience for both of our bands. Geez. And we were in Texas somewhere. And Nick, the bass player of Death Cab, went into a truck stop. And this Eminem record, the first record, the Slim Shady record, was, I think it was

44:35a cassette tape. And it was at the truck stop for $5.99 or something. And the record had just come out. Or maybe it was $9.99. Maybe it was, it was fully priced. But how it got into this truck stop, you know, it's just one of those things. Yeah. But he bought it just, just like, let's get this, you know, rap record. And they listened to it in the van on the drive from this truck stop to, you know, somewhere in New Mexico. And we all pulled over to get an ice cream cone or something. And they, all four of them came out of the van. Their eyes wide. And they were like, you guys have got to listen to this tape. And they handed it to us. And then we listened to it on the drive, you know, to the next town. And we basically, for the rest of that tour, we just would hand this tape back and forth every time we would stop and listen to this Eminem just all the way through.

45:25And in my mind's eye, he was, he was a completely other thing, you know, he was obviously working in hip hop as that was his vernacular. But he was so completely other that I wouldn't have been surprised when I first saw a picture of him. And he was like, I'm not a three piece suit with a bow tie and a bowler hat, you know, like, and I, and I wanted him to be almost. He sounded so different that, that he could have broken the, the stranglehold that kind of this stupid mock thuggery has over hip hop. Like everybody working in hip hop seems to feel like they have to pretend that they're the toughest guy that ever lived. And it's so boring.

46:11Everybody, everybody in hip hop, and I'm not afraid to say this, is a fucking pussy. And they, you know, and these guys might have to be edited, but yeah, these guys are like, I'm a gangster. And it's like, no, you're not. I could kick your ass. And so I really wanted Eminem to just be like this total nut. Yeah, but she is. But, but he felt he, he caved to that pressure and, and spent the next several years just, you know, every picture you see of him, he's trying to look hard. He had that stupid do rag that he wore. And he just, he didn't break out of hip hop. He wanted to be, he wanted to be accepted by it. And so he, he, he caved to the lack of imagination that is, you know, the, the mainstream hip

46:58hop. That's just his persona though. His music never really did. Well, isn't he? But you know, his music didn't and, and, and, and to his credit, you know, but in terms of a band ever being as big as the Beatles again, it has to, you know, it, Eminem had the creativity, I think. But in terms of the, the way he presented himself to the world, it was just a big yawn. And what made the Beatles exciting was that their music was exciting. And also, you know, their whole, just as soon as you saw them for the first time, you were like, what is that? And we forget that now, you know, how exciting they looked and how exciting they, their schtick was. schtick. Yeah. And, and so, you know, you need, you need both those things. And I think, you know, somebody like Prince or whatever, he was super flamboyant in 1986,

47:46but he was kind of, Hendrix had already been there. And so you have to get, you have to get something that, I think you have to have a, have a thing that, that nobody's done before. And yeah, yeah. So when, when, when Eminem turned out to, you know, when he just showed up in an Adidas track suit. I was like, Oh, um, in the clock. Yeah. In the clock. Exactly. Yeah, boy. Do you watch that show? I don't watch reality. Flavor Flav. I, I want, I actually watched the real world, not real world, the surreal world. Oh, yeah. The year that he was on, I got into it because I don't know what happened. I think I was, I think we were between tours. I was making a record. I was up late. And I just ended up watching this thing.

48:31Yeah. Oh my God. All right. Next one. Alcohol marijuana. Well, I quit drinking and quit smoking pot. So neither. Good. Nice and healthy nowadays. Well, I don't know. Hard to say. I was, I was definitely. I was definitely unhealthy back in, back in the day. So I always used to say that I never, I never once woke up in jail because of smoking pot. And I did wake up in jail quite frequently because of a drinking alcohol. So in, in, in those terms, I would recommend pot if you, if you have a tendency to wake up and not know what you've done the night before. There you go. But I also, you know, smoking pot sort of robbed me of several years of, of creative

49:19output because I was incapable of getting anything done. Oh, really? When I was still, I guess that makes sense. I mean, in most, I, I know a lot of pot smokers who get a lot done, but it's all paper clip stacking. You know what I mean? Like it's nervous energy. Like, I've got to arrange all these post it notes in chronological order. And then nothing, you know, nothing good comes up. And it's just like, yeah, okay, you post it notes arranged. And I wasn't that guy. I was like, I've got to go sit in the bathtub for four hours. I can't do nothing. Right. And that's not how you make rock records. No song you've written you're most proud of. Oh boy. Um, that's really hard. Because, you know, they're all important to me.

50:04But I'm pretty proud of the commander thinks aloud, which it only was ever released on an EP in North America. Is that on ultimatum? It's on the ultimatum EP. Yeah. And it's a, it's a real simple song and only has three chords. Oh, the money's spread? The lyrics? Yeah. Well, also, you know, if you can make a three chord song last six minutes and, and, and not get boring, it's something to rejoice about. There you go. But, but yeah, it, it, it's, uh, it's one that I find personally affecting, you know, like I listen to it and it, it, it gets to me and I know it, I heard from people that it gets to them the same way. So you still play live? We do.

50:49It's a challenge to play live because it involves everyone playing a keyboard. It's a, oh really? Yeah. Everybody has to play the keyboard on it. For real? It's all going at once. Yeah. Honestly? Yeah. Are you tour with four keyboards? We do. We tour with one, two, three, four. Uh, yes, four keyboards. That's right. Wow. Crazy. He didn't know that. And, uh, one word, first thing that comes in your head, the long winters, duh. Come on. That's a word? That works. I guess I've heard dumber. I guess. I, you know, one word. Apocalyptic. Good word. Yeah. Thank you.