The Avett Brothers Return
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- Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Modest Mouse. - Hello. - Hi, what are you reading over there? The same intro? - Yeah.

Today we have our friends on, the Ava Brothers. They're back. This is round two, Ava Brothers. Yes. But we get some good singing in this one. It's so fun. They're so, so special. They are. They combine to make something impossible. Yeah, they do. Yeah, sitting in the middle of it was transcendent. Fuck. That's what I want to say.

The word transcendent? Yeah, as we say it again. Okay. It's like a whole thing. Okay. The Averett Brothers are a Grammy-nominated folk rock band. Their albums include Closer Than Together, True Sadness, Magpie, and Dandelion, The Carpenter, I, and Love and You. And they have a new album out now called...

Self-titled, the Avett Brothers. Yeah, they did a little loop-de-loop. They did. And they went self-titled now. Yeah, most people start self-titled. They're one, two, three, four, five. That's their sixth album. That's a cool move. It is. I like it. You're going to love the Avett Brothers. What a special performance we get from both of them. Yes. Please enjoy.

We are supported by Twizzlers. I love Twizzlers. Monica, hit me with one of your memories from eating Twizzlers. Movie theater Twizzlers. Always. So nostalgic. Yeah, and it was cool. Like the cool kids ate Twizzlers. Elevated. Wasn't baby stuff. That's right. No matter the situation, the perfect candy to relieve your boredom is Twizzlers.

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I bet if you played it down there we'd be able to hear it. Take them in Monica.

I know. It's once in a lifetime. Have you guys been offered coffee and all this stuff? Yeah, I got a coffee like I know I should. Scott, how is that gone? For him not drinking coffee? The notion that he's not drinking coffee, I found it to be a betrayal. An off-putting? Yeah, who wants to hang with a guy who's not drinking coffee? Well, he doesn't have coffee with you. I'll tell you that much. And if he ain't having coffee with you, what is he doing? What is he doing?

- And he's judging you drinking coffee. - He sure is, he's feeling high and mighty. - I'm silently judging. - How's the air up there, Seth? On that moral high ground. - What about tea, are you a tea guy? - It's stifling, no I like tea. I like decaf. - He likes coffee, actually. - Yeah, I love coffee, when I smell it I'm like, ooh. - All the more offensive.

How dare you? Oh, that's true. It's just that I have so much self-control. I know. He's like proclaiming to the world I'm a stoic. You should have a shirt that says I'm a stoic because it's so much worse that you love it, isn't it? Yeah. That's someone who quit something every 10 days. For sure. But I would argue the thing I quit was driving the car into the ditch. Seth was just getting more energetic and likable. No.

No, not more like a ball. We talked about this last week. I didn't have a plan. This only happened out of solidarity because Jennifer was doing this cleanse, no meat, no caffeine. I was like, I'll just do it with you just for fun. But I had such a headache for about seven or eight days. I moved through it and then I was like, well, that's it. I'm not going back. That's a great motivation. You don't like the headphones. Do I have to have them? No.

You can do whatever the fuck you want. That's a great motivation, but similar solutions don't ever stop. I understand not wanting to have the headaches ever again, but just resume and don't stop. Yeah, because it's always readily available. It's not like you can't get a hold of coffee. We all have our little battles with having to depend on things. I just didn't like, I was like, I don't want to depend on that. I know, I get that way too. I didn't mean to pick a fight with you as soon as you got in, but I took it really hard, as you can see. I was thinking about it two weeks later. This just feels like good motivation just to come back to it.

I've been missing out. Well, what would be great is if I could get you to do it now. Because as we discussed, Michael Pollan wrote about caffeine in one of the books. And he said that after two months off of it, he takes his first sip and he's like, it's like doing cocaine. See, that's the thing. I do have it about once every few months and it's awesome. Ooh. Yeah, rocket fuel. Maybe that's the way to do it. How are you doing, Scott? I'm good. You're good? Real good. Where's your energy level at?

It's solid. We've both been up since about 2.30 this morning. Yeah, but I'm peaking right now. So this is midday for you. This is good. You're fucked for Kimmel. Yeah, Kimmel's going to get me the leftovers. Sorry about that, Jimmy. Kimmel's down river. Why were you guys up since 2.30? We're on North Carolina time. Okay, but you didn't fly here this morning. We flew here yesterday. Yesterday. Yeah. And I mean, I wake up around 5.30. And you boys over at that Hilton Universal? No. No. Bummer. Should be. I love the Hilton.

It's a lot closer to here than where we are. Yeah, Seth was explaining to me that you guys have to stay there because of the tour bus parking, basically. We have in the past, and we fell in love with it. Yes. Like it turned into this little thing. I have those too. But you've told us the story about your relationship with it and your perspective of the area because you have a much longer life.

You have a much more dynamic relationship with the area and some people that you encountered there. For people who didn't hear that episode, I think he's referring to the time that five gentlemen almost jumped me in the lobby of the AMC 26 over there at Universal CityWalk. But I love that. I have certain... You guys must. We were just talking about it. There's a hotel in Austin, and it's where I stayed on my very second movie ever. Four Seasons, we can shout it out. Yeah, and it's the first time I ever stayed at a Four Seasons, and it's on the river, and I was

doing a movie with Mike Judge. And I walk into the lobby of that hotel and it's, I bet, as close as I'll feel to church that people feel. Oh, this is so special. Where do you most look forward to going where it kind of delivers every time other than the Hilton Universal? Well, we do have a couple of those spots that we can't say on Mike because they are away from places and

They're really random. Okay. And they're usually rural. We have found a couple of really sweet spots in rural areas for days off that you wouldn't expect. And they're not necessarily fancy. They're just really good for bus parking and for space and for being able to walk to a place that has good juice. Just a nice usable spot. Here's the rule. So somebody said, well, what's the prerequisite to know where you're going to go? I say, if you can leave the bus door unlocked. Okay. That's hard to find. And are you finding that's possible at the Hilton Universal City Walk? No.

It's not possible. No, you do not. You do not leave the doors unlocked. In fact, it's very rare that you leave the doors unlocked. You leave the motor running there. I'll tell you that much. Yeah. No,

Not the generator motor. The engine. The one that you can put into park and drive. You got to make a hasty exit. Are these places so sacred that even off-air you're not going to let me in on them? Because you know I too contend with bus parking. We'll tell you off-air. You'll give me the cheat sheet? Yeah, we'll give you the cheat sheet. We'll send you a map. Are you guys allergic to fancy? Do you feel embarrassed if you're at a fancy place? No, I like fancy. No. Okay. I do like fancy. Oh, good.

Yeah, if you broke up Scott's sections of his life, he had a period. Like if he were an artist and he had a sunflower period, Scott had a whole period that was G-Wagon. Boy, I was obsessed with the G-Wagon. Oh, yeah. I saw you live a few times. I mentioned it on screen. Couldn't keep it off your tongue. I mentioned it during a song. Yes, you did. I can't believe at some point they didn't just give you one. I mean, my man, you were out there promoting the product. Not anymore. And then you didn't get the product.

I still may, eventually. This is a really good approach to life. You have something you can get. It's got a little stoicism. You resist the urge to...

Because the fantasy's generally better than the acquisition. Yeah, must be. But I tried to talk you into, and I want to tell the story of this really lifetime fantasy you guys granted me two summers ago. I'll hit you with that first. I had been begging you guys just let me ride on the bus and act like I'm in a rock band for a minute. Keep asking, keep asking. Apparently logistics was always the issue. That's what they say.

Locations couldn't be provided because of privacy. But by God, Aaron Winkley and I were driving around in my bus and we're like, where are we going to go? We have two weeks to fuck around. And I thought, let's see where the Avid brothers are playing. So cool. It's awesome. We were in North Dakota when I Googled this. And I was like, by God, they're in Indianapolis in three days. So we hightailed it down to Indianapolis and we got to park our bus with y'all's buses. Fuck.

Fuck me, that was great. It was nice. Thank you for that. You know, I've talked with Jennifer. We've talked about this a few times. We always laugh about you and your bus because it's...

Because there's a reason that bands lease them, you know? Because, you know, it's like a house. There's always something breaking. They're not cheap to buy. They're not cheap to run. And there's a million working parts. And they're always breaking. The brand new ones are breaking. And we always talk about how impractical it is. Oh, yeah. Our most recent conversation about it, she was like, but why did he buy it instead of, like, borrowing it when he wanted it?

And I'm like, babe, Dax wants to drive the bus. That's the difference. Like, we lease a bus, we lease a driver. He helps us, you know, we've been with him for many years. Sometimes you wake up and the guy's washing the inside of the windshield while driving the vehicle. Fully off the seat. That has happened. That's why I want to drive the bus.

It's not just the bus. It's not just that type of travel. Dax, he needs to be behind the wheel of the giant engine. I got to spend 60% of the vacation fixing the fucking contraption. That's right. Because when you say it breaks like a house, that doesn't even begin to explain it. And the guy who I bought it from, David Garza in Dallas, he said, Dax, this is like owning a home that's in a hurricane with 100 mile an hour winds at all times.

The thought I just had was like two hands like on the side of the house that you live in, just shaking it. That's what is happening to it. So of course the hot water heater is going to break sooner. The seals are going to come undone. That's just how it is. Everything's going to break inside it. It's a perfect thing to own if you love problem solving.

You got a busy mind. You want to get out there and figure out why you got no power. Nothing's working. And it provides the same thing that is provided for people that love RV and camping. You get to have your cozy little home anywhere else. And the most embarrassing thing, I can bring all my weights. How else am I going to travel with a few hundred pounds of weights? You're not going to be able to do it, Dax. That's the bottom line. And so really...

It was imperative that you buy the bus. That's true. I had no choice. I would love to see the little mazes in your mind that work out how to justify certain purchases. Like, well, I got to take the weights with me. Sorry, Kristen. So I guess I got to buy this bus. Hey, Kristen, I got to buy this bus. Got to have Lincoln's dirt bike everywhere we go. Everywhere we go. What would she do if she didn't have her dirt bike that she barely likes to ride? I can't just drop this thing off at UPS and have them chip it over there. Okay, so Scott, on that.

Lovely little. What was fun about it is we were parked with you guys and then we would wake up in the bus and we'd come out and basically just live like the band did. We'd meet you all for the meals before the show. A lot of chit chat. It was so fun. We were catching mice in the thing. I don't know if you remember that part of the... Like a house, you can get mice in the bus. Did those come with your bus? They were an add-on, yeah. Upgrade.

I was trying to talk you into a Raptor R. Yeah, that's right. And I thought I had tickled your fancy a bit. You had. But did you get that? So I didn't. Scott made a purchase recently that you'd be interested in, though, that he immediately regretted. How do I say this?

You know, some people make one really big purchase every now and again. And then some people make a lot of piddly purchases and break themselves doing that. So I would back off of something like a Raptor R or a G-Wagon, which I think are just blessings to this world. They're not just fancy, just like a fancy hotel room. I think this is a gift. And it's not just luxury. It's earthly. It's beauty. I think the Hawaiians would call it mana. It's

It's power. Well, that too. So what I did end up doing was buying a 1986 Ford Crown Vic. Yes! With 22,000 original miles. It's like a brand new car. It's incredible. That's a great purchase. I don't know. It is. I'm having some title issues with it because it came from Pennsylvania. No problem. We're working it out. But we're still trying to clear the paperwork. I'm not sure. I think I bought it because...

Well, we were watching Men in Black, me and the boys. We saw the black one that he's driving. They heard it. And I was like, oh, man, Luke, that's an incredible car. They didn't make them like they are. And they don't fly like that. They're not like Men in Black. No. But so we purchased this car. Do you know I was horny for the exact same car?

Really? Oh my God. That's one of my favorite movie cars of all time because it's so goddamn plain and stupid and boxy. They have blocks. And then the way they made it sound in the movie. And with 22,000 miles, it is pristine. It's like sitting in a brand new car. It's really weird because nobody saved those cars. They bought them for their family and they wore them out. For us in our generation, we see that as like, oh, I remember my buddy's mom had this car and we rode into school or whatever, but no. It's as close as I can get to time traveling. It is. So I bought the exact same thing, but the

GM model because Lincoln has a Lincoln to inherit. And I was like, Delta needs a Delta to inherit. And the Oldsmobile made the Delta 88. And it is as stupid and boxy and boring as that Crown Vic. And so I bought an 85 Delta 88 that's currently getting an LS3 and a six speed. So that's the trick. We got to link up when we come down to Nashville. You and I got to do like a stupid...

hot rod car cruise so I need to do that to that car we have enough resources around Charlotte you could dumpster dive and find a NASCAR motor where you guys live that's actually true probably throwing away crazy parts it's ridiculous but I had started earlier what is the venue that never fails to

rekindle the romance and the nostalgia. There are several. The New Hampshire venue. What is it called now? El Pollo Loco Vampire Theater. It's changed. The Bank of New Hampshire. You guys play at the bank when you go to New Hampshire? Well, it's a boring name. Financial Center Theater. Ha ha ha.

It's high interest, APR loans to low credit score arena. Amphitheater. It's like an old fairground, but there's several. That one comes to mind just because the nostalgia of being there. Is Red Rock up there? It is. We have such a relationship. I mean, it's been 30, what, six times we've played? So we have a history with it.

in terms of always delivering. Yeah, it's like that. It's been so celebrated. It's more exciting for us to think about other places, but Red Rocks is an obvious answer. It's a place that could never be built now. You could never get permission to build that. Because what, they just blasted out. Yeah, like in whatever, 1900, carved it out of like one of the most beautiful natural. Put seats in it. Yeah, we're going to make this a theater. Thank God they got that happening before you couldn't in a way, but there is quite a spiritual element to seeing a show there or performing there.

We've developed a personal relationship with it at this point. You know, it's one thing to pass through it on the way as you hit stardom. But we've developed this long-lasting personal relationship with it. Is it the same date every year? It's a similar time frame. But it's for us kind of like our New Year's show. We've done 20 years in a row now of a New Year's show every year. It took a long time, I think for Scott and I both, to...

accept it as just something to enjoy rather than this occasion that we had to rise to, which sort of took some of the joy out of it. Of course. And so Red Rocks had the same thing with so much renown and so much in the spirit of and the history of it that it took many times for me to be okay being there and just know that I can inhabit the place. I don't have to match the energy of 10,000 people. I can just have fun with them. It's easier to do that in certain venues. Red Rocks, it took longer to get there. Could we say maybe that you belong there? Yeah, that's a good, simple, true way of putting it.

Oh, good. That brings me to a later question I had for you, but that kind of sums up perhaps an interesting challenge for artists, which is, yeah, I think all of us don't feel like we belong where we're at for some long period of time. And there's a bunch of weird reactions that come out of that. You see it with young artists. And then you do reach that sweet spot where you're like, okay, no, no, enough time's passed. It wasn't a fluke. I belong here. That's a nice

zone to be in. But is that potentially problematic for creativity? And even further, as life carries on, you guys are getting older and I'm getting older, and your life gets more sorted, it gets more stable, there's less angst and ire. Is it harder to keep the engine flying creatively when we just think of what causes all these great

outbursts of creativity. You're like hurting because you love someone. You have your first baby, C-sections and railway trestles. These things happen.

And then, you know, less stuff happens. You like might build an 86 crown Vic by choice. It's not getting boring. Maybe the key component is being involved, invested and interested in your own life because it's not getting boring. I wouldn't think that performing would ever get boring. Right, right. But in terms of the creation side, like the idea of like making a thing, continuing to give yourself permission to do things that are scary creatively certainly doesn't have to be fueled by a conflict of like a negative nature.

I think that's something that had to be learned possibly for our generation or certainly when I think about my own personal relationship with art. I did connect early on to more tortured, the whole Cobain, Elliot Smith kind of world. Or going further back, just looking at all the different artists that have had troubles mixed into their output. But that's not the only art that I love. I love Tom T. Hall and Beatles, music about love. It doesn't have to be

a conflict necessarily. That makes sense. But definitely I would imagine that music, part of it is a salve or solve. That's a tough word to say. Solve. I thought it was sad. Sad? Yeah. Just sad. We don't need the L. I think it's a silent L. Leave that behind. Let's get rid of that L. But don't you find when you're hardcore depressed, hardcore heartbroken, the song becomes a bit of the remedy? Yeah.

Yeah. I certainly know that that's how we consume and use music in a way. This is an unbearable feeling. But weirdly, when I pair it with this Cure song, now this is okay. I kind of can live in this funk. We have company.

which is nice. You feel a little less alone. And it's just like any organizational tool, like talking to a therapist a lot of times, it's just talking. Let me get this out. It can be helpful to you, it can be helpful to others. But yeah, I certainly don't think that it needs to go away just because things in your life are getting sorted or you're learning. That should be cause to make even more and have even more fun with it and

discover more angles that you haven't discovered yet. Yeah, some of the artists you mentioned, they were almost painting themselves in a corner where they had to shovel more chaos into their life regularly. Another divorce, another divorce, another this, you know, another OD. Which is like a cop-out. I was thinking about this the other day. Man, am I out of new thought.

I was thinking so much and coming up with all these thoughts in my 20s and early 30s. And now I'm like, I haven't had a new thought in quite a long time, which is scary. But then I was like, I need to force myself. I mean, we do this here all the time. We repeat what we've already figured out as opposed to what haven't I figured out? What am I still curious about? But when life's going pretty well, you're not really forced to do that. So you almost have to make yourself do that.

Well, life going really well, it just sort of presents an illusion that you have something figured out, really. Right, exactly. And like believing it, that's the problem. Yes, that's so true. Because maybe it just means that you're not either challenging yourself or opening yourself up to enough of a new experience to be confronted with that. And evolving. Do you

Do you have the same takeaway, Scott? Well, I kind of doubt that you've ever had a new thought in your life. Oh, there we go. This is provocative. Okay. Yeah. I doubt that I have either. Really. I think about three things there. Conflict, covenant, and practicality. And so I don't think what caused Kurt Cobain conflict is what made him creative. At the end of the day, I think it probably was a major distraction. And unfortunately, it was probably the end of it. I could be wrong. That's just a guess. And I think about our covenant to our creativity. Yeah.

So our commitment, the objective demands to being a creator. And so as we get older, we think about, well, we're not athletes like we were. We are athletic on stage, but that changes over time. If you ride motorcycles or BMX, eventually, you know, it changes how you do it. You have to. But what only gets better with age is our writing. Certainly just gets better and better. Probably no new thoughts, but we keep returning to these same things within that covenant of commitment.

to it. So in a way there is not necessarily any need for any new, it's our commitment. Then there's this practicality to like, okay, wait a second. So when I was younger, I was thinking about these mystical truths that I was shuffling through to find, which there's a reality to that. There's certainly mystical truths that we all reach for, but what are the practical things that I can do to set myself up

So has the mechanics of how you guys create evolved at all? Massively. This most recent album that we're here to talk about, the Avett Brothers, side note, most people do a self-titled album on the debut. There's got to be some rhyme or reason to that. Earmark that. But when you're working on the Avett Brothers, the newest album, how has that process changed? The process changed majorly by time.

technology in tandem with art. Technology's cutting through and doing all these things, and art's responding to it. It was happening to us as well, because we all of a sudden realized, well, we can make this record in Malibu, Concord, North Carolina, and Nashville, and really other places as well, because we're sitting there tagging ideas constantly still. And so you would think that'd make you make the record faster, but maybe not. And for us, we made it slower, because I think there was more listening. There was more critical thinking in it. That's a side thought.

But one thing I've learned in the past five, six, seven years is feeling that belonging is like feeling at home. This is your spot. You haven't changed it since the last time we were in here. Whether you know it or I know it or anybody, it's for a reason. So for me, what I learned was something Chris Cornell told us too, was I work best when I'm

comfortable. And if I'm sensitive to where I am when I'm leaving, where I'm going, who's there, what am I eating? I'm not as comfortable. Do I belong here? And so what I learned in it was through technology, I was very comfortable at home being able to record. We did that at Seth's studio, but it was like right across the street. So I sing better when I'm like that because I've got nobody telling me, like,

Let's go. We got 10 hours here at the studio in Malibu. We're going to be here for 10 days. Let's go. I like to work slowly and Seth and I can work slowly together and we don't get in each other's business. And that's something that's good for me. I learned that. The way Scott writes music, so far as I can tell, I've always been a little more of like a studious, get in my comfort place, get in my kitchen when it's quiet and lay out the sketchbooks in front of me and the tape recorder and the guitar and the pick and the tuner and everything and work on it like a book.

And with Scott, it's always more of lightning in a bottle. So early on, I would expect him to work like me. Maybe we make this mistake a lot, expecting others to navigate things like we do. But I would give him an idea and I would think that, well, he's going to go and work on it and then he'll come back. But being in the room with Scott and playing him the idea, he hears it for the first time and then responds. I like to work like that too, but he really...

excels in that way. And sort of the franticness and the rapid fire of Love of a Girl, it did make me think more about Scott's energy and what he brings to the table musically. I gotta just tell you this. So Seth and I hung out a couple weeks ago. Lovely hang by my estimation. I give it an A+. I really do.

It was a great opportunity to get up to that Hilton Universal. We were on the Roadmaster. Isaac and Jennifer sat in the backseat that faces the back. Oh, the rear. There were all kinds of new rattles in the dash. Yeah. Seth was telling me that you guys have been playing with a really huge act recently. Who's the country?

guy luke holmes but noah khan was another one that we sang with all this to say you guys been playing some bonkers huge venues right in your plane so far that's tomorrow but yeah i think i may have mentioned with luke because luke is just a giant i mean noah's this huge to know is like i guess more like on a songwriter pop sort of world that's taking him in then luke is just this massive country star at this point yeah and you're like playing so far and i was saying to seth what's it like that transition to a fucking full-blown arena and

And you know the first thing he said, and I'm kind of always waiting for him to dish on you, because fuck, I have a brother. If you get me alone, I'm like, this motherfucker won't shut up about politics. He thinks he's got it all figured out. He's never done it since I met him. And in fact, I go, what's it like playing in these enormous arenas? And he goes, you know, I just had a moment one time, because we go first, and people are sometimes there to see the main act. And I'll be behind Scott watching him walk out into the middle on the long catwalk. And I'll be thinking, hey, guys.

Open your fucking eyes. That's a star right there. And he said that in your absence. And I was like, oh my God, what a sweet brother. And I said, he is my God. Look, it's an interesting thing being 23 years into this band, right? And being the opening act, we're not kids. We're older. I'm almost 44. Scott's almost 48.

I don't know what we look like to an audience of like 60,000 people. There's a lot of young people out there. Like, I don't know what we look like, but I'm sure that we don't look like what I think that we look like. We don't look 25. We don't look 25. You guys both look pretty good. Well, that's very nice. We're still excited to be there. Girl, you're 36 as well. Like when you're 19, you don't know. Like you all are both gorgeous, but it is possible that the 19 years are like, I think those guys are 60. Well, yeah.

They don't have no idea. They don't, and they shouldn't. It's not their place to know. In that scenario, I just have to say, we're getting on in age. We're still excited to be there. We're still excited to share this music. But we find ourselves back in that very wonderful, very precious place of introduction. If a crowd's 50,000 people, 60,000 people, it's almost like there's counties, like different regions. Like these 4,000 over here might be digging it. It's hard to tell. You know, it's just so giant. But what I was seeing in front of me were a ton of

of young people, teenagers, people in their early 20s that were processing. They're just looking at you. They don't know the songs. There's no relationship whatsoever. They are biding their time to see Luke, which I appreciate. And going out on the thrust, on the catwalk type thing and like throwing down and dancing and singing and going for it when you're 20 is one thing because you're showing off. There's a lot of reasons to do it, but it's different than doing it when you're in your 40s. And we are in this place of settledness and who we are that to me,

really shines, like to see it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - We're playing the song. We were doing "Ain't No Man." He just went out there. I was proud to be up there with him. The thought did go through my mind, like all you kids pay attention. - Yeah. - This is it. Like look at him. He's the one. - He's the real deal. - There's a star right here. - Yeah. - It's not show off for the sake of show off. He's throwing down because he belongs right there.

And we're having fun together. There is no threatening ego in it. There's no dangerous ego in it. There is no I'm better than you in it. There's just somebody that's just doing their thing at a high level. Yes. Look at this. I feel like I can talk about this in third person, too. I feel like I can talk about him as well right now. It was an awesome feeling. Yeah. And I know what you're saying. In your 20s, you're trying to establish and define. But at 47, you're kind of mastered now.

You are the thing at this point. Exactly. And it doesn't matter anymore. There is no prize. You transcend it. We do it because it's going to be a great show. And I think Luke is awesome. And it's an honor to be playing in front of him and to be involved and to be invited. All of that's awesome. But we don't have this thing anymore where we think, man, if we play before this bigger act, we'll get more fans. We don't talk like that. We don't think like that. It's a luxury not to think like that. But we're just on our journey. It tickles me to think that some out there might see that and think that it's funny.

Sure, sure, sure. You know, we're like, look at this old dude, like, dancing. Or that some might connect and think, like, oh, it's badass. Who knows what they think? That's secondary. It doesn't really matter. It's just that we're doing our thing, and we're where we need to be, and it's my big brother, and he's killing it, and it's just awesome. Oh, my God, you guys are cute. I wish I had you as a little brother, Seth. I know. Well, you do now. Oh, bullshit. You're like, why'd this guy buy a fucking bus?

Oh, man. What a compliment. It is. It is nice. I feel like compliments from your baby sibling. There's nothing that beats that. I painted this huge painting in 2020. As soon as I finished it, it went to New York to be shown in a show of paintings during COVID time. And a lot of the paintings were of that time. And this was a painting of 2020.

just looking down at a creek. That's all it was. And so it wasn't exactly a COVID time painting, but it was very much was for me. And Seth and Jennifer bought the painting from me. And when my gallery, we were on the phone talking about the deal and how do you do it? And he was like, Scott, just so you know, nobody's family members, much less their brothers. Sometimes it's a mom or a dad, you know, but brothers and sisters don't buy anything.

major pieces of art from their siblings. It's just, no, this doesn't happen. I was like, okay. Another thing, something I think about and then put it away is nerve. Sometimes when I feel old, I'm hoping that somebody would look out there and go, what nerve does this guy have to step out here on this catwalk at 47 and jump around like he's whatever. What?

What nerve? And I'm like, I can hang on to that. Eventually, maybe I'll be in a wheelchair. What nerve does this guy have to roll out? Look at Willie. At some point, Scott will be in a wheelchair going out there. He'll be like 80, and I'll be back there at 76. And at that point, I'll have no reserve whatsoever. During the song, I'll be like, y'all look at that. That's how it's done. Or you'll have to mention, you'll be like, you suck. I'm like, what?

Unfortunately, you will probably be wheeling him out into the catwalk, but that's fine. You have an obvious confidence, Scott, but I do wonder...

Have you allowed yourself to evaluate? How much of that have you been able to build off of Seth's pretty undying love for you and adoration? Is it a big chunk of the foundation? For sure. Like, you almost got to live up to what he thinks you are? No, I don't think that. I want to make sure that I can reflect and reciprocate the sentiment. That's the key. Because I'm a little harsher and a little rougher around the edges. I don't think in my heart, but in my behavior. Yeah, yeah. I will be willing to say more things about...

that I'll regret, I think, a lot of times. Is that why you're being a little quieter today? No, no. I am a little quieter today. But a lot of times, if I listen back to something, I'll hear how I try to interject every opportunity I can, and it's nice to listen. Can I make an observation? It comes from a place of I think I deeply relate, which is I think it's really healthy to be very self-aware.

And then I also think it can tip into a little bit of getting in your way of just existing. A hundred percent. The first feeling of that was with children. Your ego gets in the way and then you go, oh, okay, I want to push on this. And you think you're supposed to kill your ego like early. And that's not the deal. No, no. I love my ego.

And really it's to foster and to love and really lift up. No, I'm in. So I'm with you. There's a lot of thinking about disappearing and I can muse on that. We've written some about that. But to a point, the self-reflection is like, forget it. Come on, let's do this. Let's be people. Yeah, let's shut this thing off. Yeah, we don't even talk about it anymore. Let's have some coffee. Yes.

Let's get some coffee. Let's do it. All right. I want to hear, by the way, thank you for offering because I always feel very guilty asking musicians to perform. I don't know. Well, because it's an added pressure and we want everyone to feel comfortable. It's different here, though. We're friends. Well, I'm just so glad you offered.

because I wouldn't have asked, but it would always be my pick that you guys would play a few songs anytime you're here. So we know that I've got to give the chewed up, discarded remains to Kimmel shortly. So maybe we should get to jamming a little bit and then I have some more questions. Yeah, we can. We've got to figure out what we can do. Are you open to playing a song, chatting, playing a song, chatting? Or would you want to chat, chat, chat, chat, play songs and get the fuck out of here? Yeah, we can play and chat. Okay. Because now we've referenced some songs, so it'd be good to hear if we can.

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I will say one thing. It's funny you're just now considering what songs you can play here in the attic because you had a few days to think about what might work. That was kind of like a self-reflection thing. We didn't really think about it at all. Didn't want to overthink it. I didn't bring an instrument axe. I see that. Do you need anything?

I have a guitar. It depends on what we're playing. Do you have a banjo? Oh, fuck. Why don't you have a banjo? How do you not travel with the banjo? We just didn't have the bus. We are loved. That's a no-brainer. Yeah, okay. I'm itching to talk about Country Kid when we're done singing this one. Oh, Seth, and we also could just play Country Kid. Just strum the guitar and just sing it. We totally do that. We'll play what you're going to play. Then maybe we'll do Country Kid after that. Okay. And then I want to chat about some fun... Oh, damn. You don't have headphones on, but it just got real smooth in here.

This song gets loud on the mic with the vocals, so just as long as you know. As you can see, Rob's a one-man everything. Yeah. When I see the guy putting the mic on the guitar that made the coffee earlier, I know what kind of operation we're running into. Yeah. Let me know when we're good. We'll go. All right. We are loved. Whether we speak up or we are silent, if we are willing.

or we are done. If we're courageous or we are cowed, we may be burdened, but we are loved. And whether we stay true and do for another, if we are hid or we're discovered,

If we're forgiven or we're forgotten We may be lonely but we are loved Every stitch and seam, every wish and dream Even in tragedy there lies divinity

Even as hope seems lost it may be found again I have felt all but I have never been If you are standing, oh cannot stop moving If you are home, oh cannot remember

♪ Over the gravestone ♪ ♪ Under the rain ♪ ♪ Pain comes and pain goes ♪ ♪ And we are lost ♪ ♪ Every stitch and seam ♪ ♪ Stitch and dream ♪ ♪ Even in treasure ♪ ♪ There lies divinity ♪ ♪ Even as hope seems lost ♪

It may be found again. I have felt alone. But I have never. If we are spirit. Or we are human. Crossing the river. Harboring change. We deny. Or if we fail.

May we embrace it. We are loved. Fuck. Oh my God, you guys. Fuck off. What?

Oh, my God. How can humans do this? Wow. Oh, my God. You know what's nuts? There are so many beautiful instruments in the world. What are the chances that really the human voice is the number one? That's impossible. It's got to be. Right? Maybe not mine, but it's got to be. Seth, you beautiful boy. I know it. You are such a beautiful boy. It drives me nuts. Okay.

You are! That voice is so fucking sweet. Keep it coming. And you play it like a laser beam. It's nuts that you have that kind of control over your voice. You guys have such a way, apart from just being beautiful sounding, there's something that happens when you two are together doing it. It is transcendent. Like, that is the

only way. We've had a lot of people come play. Everyone's amazing. But there's a moment of real there can be harmony in the world. It's so special. That was perfectly said, Monica. Transcendence, the operative word. There's also an implicit, beautiful potential for family and blood and siblings. There's something that happens that's really big. Scott and I are really lucky to play music together and sing together because I think that we haphazardly present

like a thing that can't get presented by a solo artist, which is basically just a lifting up of another or like a collaboration in real time that's loving and trusting. It's an example that we get to show just kind of by happenstance. That's what it is. It's hopeful because we all have siblings and it's hard. I love my little sister. I love my brother.

But this is somehow a display of the most hopeful union. To me, more than just siblings, it's any relationship. It's such a visceral sort of embodiment of how two people individually are great, but the mix...

can elevate to such an incredible level that you would never have on your own. The kinship part is just sort of, that's how it happened. The universality is the point that like, we want to believe and know that we can work together. And if we have examples, we can make something together that I could never do alone. That same truth goes for all of us. The world. Family, not family. Yeah. And that's the thing.

sometimes you really don't want to believe that because you don't want to count on somebody else. But Scott and I, we have built a thing where we have over time just announced to the world or anyone that would pay attention, like we count on each other. But we don't talk about it. I,

it. I know, I know. And it's just doing it because what it becomes, what you're saying is, I like what that symbolizes. Do you like Kendrick Lamar? Sure. He's got that line in King Kunta, maybe. I don't talk about it. I'm gonna be about it. I had to play that for my daughter the other day. That song is so underrated. It couldn't be celebrated enough. It's so good.

But yeah, there's a hopefulness. Honestly, my brother's coming Sunday. We only get to see each other once or twice a year. And we're going to do the only thing we can do, which is play grass volleyball together. When we're on a team together, that's as close as we get. That's incredible. It is. And in those moments, there's a bittersweet heartache where it's like, God, if we could have figured out how to work together, we'd be unstoppable in a way.

There is some crazy strength. That's also kind of like that dog you have that passes away and you lose this pup and maybe you did all these wrong things with it. You get the next dog. In that dog's honor, I hope this makes sense, you raise this one just right. Our brothers and sisters are out here on the street. And if you miss that opportunity with your sibling...

In the honor of that, you go, you know what? When this joker says this thing that I want to bark back or punch him or whatever, instead, I'm going to love him. In honor of the times that I have screwed this up, that's where you start really getting at it. Now, that sounds like a pipe dream, but it's real. But you're right. I think it's better expressed in doing and not thinking or talking.

You almost got to lean into the belief that it's just there. Can't be acknowledging that stuff. It's so awesome to hear it. This was the moment at the end of the doc where you guys put down that impossible first take of no hard feelings. Oh yeah. And Scott was like fucked up over it. Or at least it appeared in the movie. I don't know that I want to acknowledge that this happened. It's embarrassing. I think that's ultimately it. Yeah. So,

And then Seth talks about it in love of a girl, in a way, where he says, doesn't talk about the celebration, et cetera. That's funny. Psychoanalysis. So my therapist, he has this interesting thought experiment he makes me at least consider. Is that that inherent Icarus flying too close to the sun? Do we have this fear that...

to really own what we are and acknowledge what we are, it would be taken from us 'cause we flew too close to the sun. - Earlier I was gonna say this, Seth was talking about process and I was envisioning what my process is. Seth, when he explained how he lays things out and organizes things. - Ritual. - What I realized was I'm in constant, and I don't know if this is your Gemini or whatever, but this conflict that I put myself in,

to deter the need to own up to the task. Right. So it comes out in this thing, well, I'm painting, but this song's pulling on me. And I'll say, well, I'll do it, but I don't have to completely succeed at it because I'm doing this. And I do that in all these ways. And in older age, you go, acknowledge this.

Go and try to win this. It's okay. Instead of making it like you're terrified to fly too close to the sun because you're afraid. Instead, if I could go back to that, if we were recording No Hard Feelings and everybody was congratulating each other over that, whether I felt it or not, I would have said, absolutely, y'all, good job. I wouldn't mess with it now. It was the growth from it. And watching that was painful. Was it? Yeah. I didn't want to see that.

It was really an interesting, wonderful moment that was caught on camera. Every now and then you see them. We called you on a fact check. Yeah, we did. We interviewed Ruben and I wanted his perspective on what happened. Which is bound to be radically different. And as close as we are to Rick, that was something to him that was bizarre that we would let it. Because to him, he was seeing it as like, keep it rolling. Now, you know, we understood that. Let's keep going. Where for us, it was like Watershed.

moment. But Scott, I think I'm probably projecting a lot, but I feel like I relate. Is there this weird tension between I'm afraid to fail and not be great. So I can almost not tackle this thing. I've got to convince myself I'm doing something else. And this other thing is ancillary. So if it turns out good, great. But if I commit to this and focus on it and it's not great, then I have failed. So I have this workaround. And then on the other side of it is

when I'm great, I can't acknowledge I'm great because that's flying too close to the sun and I'll be smited for this runaway ego. Right, right, right. So like you're never winning. Either you're going to suck and fail or you've succeeded and you're not allowed to succeed. And it's like, what is this trap we've built for ourselves? Yeah, but I'll tell you a lie. I think just being Southern is...

And growing up in the church, my counselor's out here and we talk a lot about this. You need a West Coast therapist. But speaking to her, like she'll sort of lay that out. Like what's the guilt status here? What's the humility aim? I think it's easy to hear in our voices. You just sort of assume that that's going to be something that is hard on us. But we grew up in really a very confident, urged us to be cocky.

We were willing to say, yeah, I'm great. We didn't have a problem with that. We didn't feel real guilty about that. And maybe we were a little secretive about it. We weren't like Ric Flair. In our hearts, we were Ric Flair. But we might be acting like Billy Graham. On the outside, we were Andy Griffith. We were Dusty Rhodes. Yeah, I wish we were Dusty Rhodes. But yeah, I think there is truth to that. I don't think it haunts us too hard. You didn't ask, and this is completely unsolicited, but I'll just say the one word that my therapist gave me that's been a breakthrough in all this is,

is presidential, which is you should act presidential. And I'm like, Ooh, that feels like the perfect middle ground between egomaniac and denying who you are. Like,

Like, okay, you're on a mission. It's justified. Presidential. All right. So you just put the betweens because I'm in the thick of this right now. But there's the is and there's the ought. And that tension between the is and the ought is where we live. And what's the quality of that tension? A bad quality would be one that's pulled far to the is. It is what it is. Screw it. I'm going to do this. This is who I am. Deal with it. And you never really look at that ought.

And when I go towards that, I kind of land not as far down as just the is. It just is what it is, whatever. But you're never at either one of them. It's how the quality of that attention. Oh, I love that framing. It's really something. Okay, before you play it, I want to talk about Country Kid. And I hope this comes as a compliment because...

In my top five country songs of all time is Country Boy by Hank Williams Jr. It's so good. The level of pride I would feel when I would latch onto that song about being a kid from the dirt road. Sing it a little bit. Oh, I'll do the whole thing with you. I live back in the woods, you see. A woman and the kids and the dogs and me.

I got a shotgun rifle and a four-wheel drive and a country boy can survive. There it is. A country boy can survive. Boom, boom, boom. What a fucking song. So good. Definitely male 1.0.

Yeah, we grew up on that song, though. I mean, it was all over the place. We're going to solve problems by spitting beach nut in a guy's eye and then shooting him with the .45. Obviously not, but let boys be boys, okay? Yeah, but look, we're not going to miss an opportunity. You've got to rhyme survive. There's something on the front side. That's right. So .45.

Maybe it wouldn't actually do it, but we're going to use that rhyme. But there was a version of that pride we grew up with, and it's a beautiful thing to explore. We had Barbara Kingsolver on who wrote Demon Copperhead. No, Copperhead. Have you guys read that book? No.

- It's outrageously beautiful. - Poisonwood Bible, she's huge. - It's about a young boy growing up in Appalachia. Mom's an addict, brought home to a trailer. She ODs, he's in foster, he becomes an opiate addict. It's beautiful. And it is so kind and generous and thoughtful to what the people in Appalachia experience. There's a scene in the book where the kid actually says,

You guys know we're basically in the stall of the bathroom and we can hear you talking about us. We watch TV and we listen to songs and we watch comedy. We know you're all laughing at us. We're here. We hear you.

And it's heartbreaking and it is cruel and terrible. Generally, the city is so glamorized and people want to chase either a dream in New York City or in L.A. There's very little offerings to go like, oh, you're already at the place that's got it all. I mean, I guess that's what country is, but I think it's very beautiful to celebrate what it means to be a country kid.

Did you care about any of those things as this song came to you guys? 100%. Do you get that feeling when you're in North Carolina? Like, hey, y'all, the whole world doesn't revolve around New York and L.A., believe it or not. Yeah. Bonnie and I were just talking about that this morning. The requisite for a song that I want to pass along to Scott or maybe want to push through to maybe this will become an Ava Brothers song is just that it has to be real. It has to be honest. There has to be sincerity. The inspiration has to be there.

When that one came along, it was just like, oh, this is fun because it's honest and it's real. It's like a list, like a lot of country songs are. And not to throw shade at the genre, but there is a lot in the genre, which is only demographic pointing towards, like, just mentioned the boots and the dirt road and the truck. It feels a little pandering. And the beer. And that's it. And as long as you mention those things. Well, have you heard there's an A.I. song? They deployed A.I. to do a country song. Oh, really? And it did it perfect. I mean, it's insane. But then it gets a line wrong. It's like something about their butt. I don't know. Oh.

Have you seen them? It's hilarious. It's so good. Country music can fall into that. Or there's a judgment against music that's country music, that it's going to be that. That it's just going to sort of fulfill that order. So that it was real and based in truth and our actual experience felt really good. And I think it is a good thing to celebrate. The genre itself doesn't matter. It's sincerity that matters. And substance. We were talking about New York City recently, about playing in New York and being accepted there. Kids from the South going to New York and sort of celebrating.

sidestepping any pressure to present something that wasn't authentic because that's what gets responded to in New York or anywhere else. Yeah, yeah. I felt really good about just presenting our little story because that's so often what happens. You dial in like even hyper specifically to something in your life and then you can't believe how many people have had the same experience or respond to it. That's been really interesting. But like I mentioned, like being on the bus and the cussing and what a war zone school bus is. Oh, yeah.

It's just incredible. 15 minute Lord of the Flies experiment both ways. Right.

Those poor bus drivers, holy shit. Yeah, I really am drawn to, like, the country boy can't survive, and like Tom T. Hall's country is, the Charlie Daniels song with the big speaking part in the beginning called Carolina. I really love a heartfelt song that celebrates. Well, it gives you pride. It's damn good to love where you're from. And when a great portion of the entertainment industry sort of ridicules that area or that background, you do feel the need at times to push back against that a little bit. And you see it in entertainment, they don't really understand it. The southern accent's always wrong.

You know, it's just not really fully understood. There's a great elegance in the South and an eloquence among the history there. Very ironically, the greatest parallel genres are rap and country. Right. The elites hate both. They don't understand what the fuck's going on. They can't acknowledge that there's poetry and genius. Right. And both of those live on their own. They don't really need a lot of pop horsepower and are sort of self-generating.

And they're very autobiographical more than any other genre, those two. Right. Country Kid, by the way, that song is a prime example of being at its best because of collaboration. I even called Scott to talk to him about this at some point in the midst of the process of this one, because that's one. A trap for me is completion, finishing a song. Like, now I can move on. I'm bad about that. Sort of subconsciously assessing my value through finished pieces. We have a lot of good boyisms. And wanting it to be observable as a finished thing. I did a good job. Move on.

I have been guilty of shortchanging an idea, like a really good idea, because I got it 80% of the way, but I was like, now it's finished. So when I brought the song to Scott, I thought it was a finished song. Here you go. You know, here's a good one. This will be fun. I had kind of sketched it out and I'll do that too. Like I'll sketch songs out fully with drums and bass and everything. And now you just play this. But Scott, he could tell this better, but I think there was something kind of nagging at him. Like, yeah, it's good. But there were pieces, like the whole part that he sings is,

He wrote the part that it stops and there's that holler. He took it and put the time into really understanding the song, recorded the whole thing by himself. It was incredibly informative. The song is a great example of it being as good as it can be because he went so far into a song that I thought was already done. Is it fair to say that one of the cool aspects of you guys as a pair is you are quite different. And so you're very meticulous, Seth, and you're very structured.

And then Scott brings the chaos and we put these things together and make them work. And now it's very multidimensional. It gets more so for sure. Because I don't finish a lot of songs at all. I had a hunch. Yeah. In the studio, it's finish time for me. Just is what it is.

- Well, I'd love to hear country kid. And I do urge everyone to go watch the video while you're setting up. 'Cause the video's so good. I don't know if you know this, but we have Delta's birthday party every year, nine years strong at the roller rink. Did you go as a kid? - Yes. - Live there. Middle school years, every Friday, Saturday. - Girls. - Girls. - There were so few sports I was good at, but I was a very good skater. - Speed skating. - Yeah, it was very fast. I would win the speed skating thing. In fact, they put fourth and fifth graders together in the race.

And I won it. And then the fifth grader who thought he was going to win. And you won a free Coke. And I was on my skates about to drink my free Coke. I was so excited I had won. He skated by and smashed it in my face. That's mean. Really broke my heart. That Coke was a trophy. And he just drove by and smashed it. Well, I'm going to pee pee.

Oh, yeah, great. Do you want me to step out? Are you sure? Yeah, yeah. Speaking of embarrassing... Well, fuck it. Dane's in there? Oh, my God. This is going to get real. We spent a lot of time... You're about to shit in a phone booth. I guess you're well-trained on the bus life. Yeah, yeah. It's not a big deal. That's true. That's spacious. Speaking of embarrassing moments in the skating rink, during the filming of that video, I fell. Oh, yeah. And I mean...

major, like, standing there, all of Concord's behind us. We're about to do a take right before the L action. Both skates out from under me, up in the air. I mean, it was a hard fall. Tailbone? Everybody saw it. Actually, the crazy thing is everything hit at the exact same time. And it didn't hurt at all. Dissipated all the way. It was unbelievable. But boy, my pride. The first year we had it, we had two different

I don't want to call them broken wrists. Me being one of them and my friend Nate in wrist braces for three weeks after the first skating one, someone blew out a knee in another one. And we have over the nine years figured out like, okay, we got to. Everyone brings wrist. Yeah. We wear gear now. And the edict is start slow and slow down from there. Yeah.

I had a similar thing as I reintroduced myself to snowboarding this past season. By the end, I had some really, really hard falls. I'm like, I'm going to go one more time. I was really demoralized, but I wore the butt pad, the wrist, things, all of it. Yes, you have to. Come on. Let's be smart about this. You look like a hockey goalie. I'll tear for a rip. But everyone should really watch this video. It's so wonderful and nostalgic and colorful and bright and fun, and you guys are in a bunch of different

outfits and your rock stars and your monks and your superheroes. Real quick question, that double-decker Gibson, was that a rental or do you own that? What's amazing about that guitar, we're referencing Led Zeppelin. I was like, man, I've got to get a guitar that shows that I'm emulating Jimmy Page. And I got on eBay and it was like $300. No!

Oh, is it a Gibson? It's a mock-up of like an Epiphone. It's just the cheapest you can get. It's called Cozart. Okay, great. It came with a hard shell case. I'm like, I don't know how you can possibly make... Wow. By the way, Jimmy Hoopage just released a run of those with Gibson and they're 50,000 a piece. Scott, are you going to buy one? Maybe I'll talk about it tonight. Sit in the back of your G-Wagon. Just trade that Crown Vic and about $45,000. All right. What has this one started? Just the vocals, yeah.

I was a country kid through and through I got my bare feet bit by a wrecking crew of fire ants on a mission for total domination of the front yard Three years old on a ramshackle farm Winnie the Pooh in the crook of my arm Brother and sister not meanin' no harm pickin' on me

I was a country kid with a strong foundation Givin' myself a whole second education In the back of the bus, kids kissin' and cussin' all around me One more pickup in the trailer park Hand to mouth livin' will break a young heart Beautiful girl with a hard, hard look in her eye Then I grew up and hit the city But the skyscrapers never get me

fly above them all the time straight through cloud nine flowing fast like the mississippi i was a country kid shooting hoops in the dirt hiding smokes in the pocket of a homemade shirt running laps in the yard until my little legs hurt and then going again six feet of air off a plywood ramp dad's welding machine part where i would land all i could taste was blood all i could feel were the rocks in the palm of my hands

I was a country kid throwing parties in the woods Dragging my friends out of the neighborhoods Jealous of the cable TV and the girls next door Slipping off into the dark of the night The shape of a body traced by moonlight Interrupted by some other kid wanting to fight over her Then I grew up and hit the city But the skyscrapers never get me

♪ I'm above 'em all the time ♪ ♪ Straight through cloud nine ♪ ♪ Flowin' fast like the Mississippi ♪ ♪ Flowin' fast like the Mississippi ♪

♪ I was a country kid ♪ ♪ And now I'm grown with a job and a wife and a son of my own ♪ ♪ Navigating time zones ♪ ♪ Inspecting the bones of the second half ♪ ♪ And talking to God a little more often ♪ ♪ Less requests and more saying thank you ♪ ♪ For every single town and every single acre in between ♪ ♪ 'Cause I grew up and hit the city ♪

♪ But that metropolis will never get me ♪ ♪ I fly above it all the time ♪ ♪ Straight through cloud nine ♪ ♪ Floating fast like the Mississippi ♪ ♪ Yeah, I grew up in the city ♪ ♪ But the skyscraper never get me ♪ ♪ I fly above them all the time ♪ ♪ Straight through cloud nine ♪ ♪ Fast like the Mississippi ♪ - Goddamn. - God, you guys are good. - What a party! - So fun.

First song broke our hearts, and then this one... Got us up. God made me nostalgia. I don't think I noticed how much skateboarding stuff was in that the first time I heard it. God, do I relate to that. Oh my gosh, right? The launch ramp? Come on. The cinder blocks and the plywood? It's just such a good idea. You should see the half-pipes we had. Our dad built them. No plans or anything? He just went for it? Sure. We had two different ones. Country extreme sports are special. Yeah.

- It's one thing when you live in El Paso or LA, you know, but when you're in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, trying to come up with what's the angle, what's the radius of this thing, you're eyeballing it. - Yes. - What was the trick? 'Cause my brother and I, so we made a quarter pipe and what you would do, right? No one wants to hear this, but let's talk about it. If you wanted a six foot transition,

you're going to make a six foot tall ramp. You would take a six foot piece of string and then you would tack it to one end of the plywood and then you would run it in the circle. And then by the time you got to that, that'd be a perfect six foot transition. Then you'd cut that plywood out. What did your old man do? Literally the first one we built, he free handed it and it was eight feet. So two pieces of plywood and never built a platform. So if you made it up there,

jacked up and then it went up at an angle of like, say this, two feet of vert, four feet, then a foot of vert. But then we built a mini ramp that actually we had some specs on and were able to, but still, I mean, come on. Again, people don't really understand pre-internet

Unless you were going to drive to some city and track down some skateboarders, how the fuck were you going to figure this out? You had Transworld and Thrasher. You could order the plans or you'd go to the local shop, which we didn't really have. Or dad would go down there with a jigsaw to order some plans. Good for him. I got to spend 30 bucks on some plans. I applaud that. Well, he did a good job. It helps with creativity, for sure.

How is he? Always great. He tours and plays music. He does. He's a storyteller. But no, he's wonderful. They're both doing great. And the boys love him? Yeah. He's super generous and sweet, but he's of a time that he still can be sort of scary. Grandpas should sometimes be. Yeah. They won't listen to us, but when Papa's talking, they're like... He'll sit down and tell a story from World War II or something, or of like a gator swallowing somebody whole.

When the kids were like five and six. That was always the push and pull. Rotting flesh. Like he loves to talk about rotting flesh. I mean, every time. Yeah. It's a trip to McDonald's. You're going to hear about rotting flesh. You rotting flesh.

Maggots and rotting flesh. I mean, he's big on that. You go in there with your five-year-old, it won't be 30 seconds before he's talking about a shark eating somebody when a truck carrier went down. He has tons of stories. He really does. And I got to say, our dad is the most generous man. And he gave us the right of way for this. All that dynamic is very funny because I always felt like going over to see mom and dad, having Isaac with me when he was really, really young. It's like you're always kind of playing defense. You know, what kind of concept is he about to get introduced to? Sure. Inevitably through war. World War II, likely. Yeah.

I thought a lot about it. I was like, God, why is there always something so gory? Something so death-filled? But I did have a realization at some point. What our dad is into is heroism. And there's a lot of that in World War II. He knew people that knew. And he knew a lot of veterans. And justified heroism. That was our last great war where we...

Should have been there. But it's a great thing, though, because he does have that old school personality. I don't have that. If a young kid walking in right now and be like, come on over here, let me tell you about this general. That feels like an older school kind of social dynamic. Well, that's a toughen these boys up for the life ahead of them. Also, when Isaac's five years old, Isaac at nine years old, me, we're riveted.

Later on, we'll be like, good God, that was a heck of a way to go. That was stressful. It was stressful, but it's super interesting, and it is part of the handing down of these great stories. That's Isaac's sweet voice I hear on Cheap Coffee, right? No, that's Max. And he doesn't have that voice anymore. Oh, and you're telling him about infinity. Yeah, and now he's 13, bulking up and testing me. Yeah, he's about ready to shove you in the kitchen. He's about ready to shove him into infinity.

Yeah, he's done. That I just found out infinity does end right here, right now. That is exactly it. That is exactly it. I mean 100%. I found the end of infinity. It's at the end of this knuckle. It's so awesome. It's all a far-breaking tip. It's incredible. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

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Last thing before you guys go, tell me about this musical that you guys are involved with. Swept Away. It is a musical that's going to Broadway. This is like a 10-year journey for us. So John Logan, who is this brilliant writer, he wrote The Last Samurai and Rango and Gladiator. He wrote a couple of the big Daniel Craig, James Bond movies. Wow. He's just brilliant. He's sort of a Broadway, blue blood, incredible writer. He was introduced to our music by a fellow named Matthew Mastin, who's a producer, a

and a friend now, but it was a fan of our music. He got into a record of ours called Minionette that we put out in 2003. And that record was like a concept record loosely based on an actual event, a whaling ship that went down off the coast of France in the late 1800s. All of us were reading this book about it at the time. Scott introduced the book to us. I guess dad passed it to us initially. Sounds like a dad book from what you've described. A lot of death. Gore. The custom of the sea is like a central theme. Cannibalism. Okay.

Perfect. And so the quick version of the story is that we were seeing all of these parallels between these survivors in this dinghy and us in our little van trying to go out and do this thing. So this record menu that sort of formed a little bit around that, and that became the art concept. Anyway, so years later, Matthew, he introduces our music to John Logan, and John starts writing a story based in that world. So for like a year, he just listened to our music only. Wow.

Wow. Made like this board on this wall, like an FBI looking for a serial killer, all the red lines, all of our songs with all these notes. And he wrote a story where our songs tell the story, like they create the narrative. Wow. And they're played within. Yeah, within the musical. There's dialogue as well, but it's basically a story that's set in late 1800s, end of the whaling era. These two brothers, a captain and the first mate. Wow.

What a great idea. That's so cool. It's incredible. Oh, it goes deep. It goes really deep. It did a run in Berkeley and then a really great run in D.C. at the arena stage. And now it's the big moment. It's going to Broadway. Like, this is what we always hope. Do we have a date? November 18? Somewhere around there.

- This'll be the first time Kristen says, "You wanna go to New York and see a musical?" I'll be like, "Yes, let's go." - You gotta go. - It's like 85 minutes, no intermission. - Yeah, fuck intermissions. - But it's fantastic. - This is a corny question, but I'm sincere when I ask it. Did all of his research and consuming and analyzing the music reveal anything to you guys? Like, did he discover something about it that was news to you? - For me, some of the story with the brothers,

It's like, he must have been reading up or things about interviews or something that he knew about our relationship. It turned out he didn't. It's just so archetypal or so common. It was so revealing how universal that is. Also, listening to singers sing the songs versus those of us who project the songs. We conceive the songs, but we're not trained singers. Yeah, these singers are singing the songs. Killing it. Like, oh, oh, oh.

Like that's a different thing. Right. And we've stuck with it. I think that's the real thing. Like that. Yeah, I'm like, man, I'm over here like, and they're like. But that's something to hear people really sing. I found myself trying to sing them. That's funny to think about singing along to your own song and not getting it. Like, fuck, I can't. Yeah, I wrote this.

The weird thing for me about the first time really getting to see it was that the meanings of the songs being one of the authors, I didn't imagine that they could mean anything else than the specific thing I was thinking about when I wrote the line. Well, you think you're telling a very personal story and then it's revealed to you it's universal and that's really weird. But even in the universal telling, there are elements of specificity that are mind boggling to me. How things got turned around and mean something new in this new narrative. It's incredible.

I can't wait to see it. No, you'll love it. All right, awesome. Well, you guys, I love you. It's such a joy to have you in here singing. Everybody listen to the new album, The Avett Brothers, and then, of course, go to Broadway in November and bump into us there. Be well. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Monica. Next up is the fact check. I don't even care about facts. I just want to get into your pants.

What is the aphorism slash saying slash saw ding, ding, ding connections? What is the one that you use the most? Because I just twisted this and I remembered righty tighty lefty Lucy. Oh, uh-huh. That's a good one. I use that constantly.

Like that's the only way I know how to remember that. Right. Yeah. Even I as a mechanic. Yeah. We'll say that occasionally. But I'm more like I've memorized the hand feeling of spinning my hand to the right. Yeah. So I will kind of like I'll look at something and I'll move my hand because I know which way is tight. Okay. So it's not really righty tighty lefty loosey for you actually. No, but it's like it's morphed into a physicality. Sure. Okay. Okay.

But what one do you use a lot? To remember stuff? Yeah. Fuck, that's a big question. Like, do you remember I before E except after C? Yes, I use that a lot. But again, as you know, that's one of the least probabilistic ones there are. I mean, that's a rule, but I swear it's about 50% of the time. It's I before E except after C or...

All the time. And then there's some others. Yeah. Except for almost every time I'm using I and E together, it seems to be an exception. That's a good one, though. That comes up a lot. I before E, except for after C. And then when you tie your shoes, do you do bunny ears? What is that saying? That's not a saying. Well, I think it is, actually. Well, I think there is one, like hop through the thing and go under the... Yeah. I didn't...

I'm grateful for it. My mom didn't try to teach me that cute shit. It was just like, tie your fucking shoes. Here's how you do it. Use your brain, you know? I know, like you're stupid if you don't know how to do this. Yeah, that was the theme, I think. And I appreciate it. I know it's not how I'm raising my kids or people do it now, but there's some part of that. There's some tough love. There's something good about it as well. What about Roy G. Biv? See, I have a lot. Yeah, you remember, like I can't even think of any and you have so many. Holmes, do you know Holmes? No. The Great Lakes.

Oh. Even with that acronym, can you tell us the Great Lakes? Holmes. Holmes, okay. Ontario. Great, that's the O. Yep. Michigan. You know the M, yeah. Lake Erie. Nice.

You only need two more. Lake H. Don't tell me, Rob, if you know it. Shut up, Rob. Lake... I would suspect you wouldn't get this one. Like, not Hartswell. Definitely not. Yep, that's it. The Great Lake Hartswell. We did have... We have a Lake Hartswell in Georgia. That's a real lake. It's not a Great Lake. I believe it. Okay. Why don't you get the S? The S you could get. I can? Okay. It's the biggest of the Great Lakes. Oh. It's where the wreck of the Edmonds Fitzgerald happened.

Lake. It's very cold, very clean, outrageously clean. It's the best lakes. We have the best lakes. Trump says that? No, but I was just thinking of it. Oh, Lake Sequoia. Superior. Oh, yeah. Yeah, duh. It's in the name too, really. It's the superior of all the lakes. Okay, what's H? Huron. You wouldn't know that one, right? Oh, no. Yeah. You did great though. You knew Erie.

Do you know like Erie more because of Pennsylvania and Ohio? I just know it from like reading books. That is what Cedar Point is on. It's on like, it overlooks Lake Erie. Wow. Wow. Great place. Okay. Well, you'll come back to me because, well, Holmes, I guess is yours. Holmes is nice. Holmes is. And that's where I'm from. That's my home. Yeah. I think that's why you like it. I don't think you actually use it to remember. Uh, IPMAT. And I made that one up. Okay. Okay. Uh,

IP. That's for the five stages of mitosis. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Tell me. I pretty much forget them now, but it's like interphase, metaphase, protophase. You forgot P. Yep. Interphase, protophase, metaphase. Antiphase? Antiphase.

T-Low phase. I know the T is T-Low phase. All right. I'm not going to count that one. But when I had to pass that test, I made up IPMAT as an acronym so I could remember it for the test. This is not going to count, but you'll come back to me. I will. If one pops into my mind. Don't use it, use it. Click it. If you don't use it, you lose it. You lose it. Yeah. Click it, tick it.

- Click it ticket. - Yeah, it's on the signs to put your seatbelt on. Click it or ticket. - Okay, I don't think you use that. - I don't know. - Every good boy deserves fudge. - Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, for the music. - And then the other ones are face. - That's just F-A-C-E? - Yeah, those are the notes in between. - Oh, in between. Okay, I didn't know that part. - They're called something. Oh God. - Oh, I'm exposing her. - Wait, how did you say it, Rob?

Every good boy deserves fudge. Yeah, mine was every good boy does fine. Oh, mine was deserves fudge. Maybe it's some Midwestern fudge. Midwestern's love chocolate. We do, Mackinac Island fudge in Lake Huron. I had a hell of a thirst just now. Yeah, I'm cutting that. No, keep it. No, it hurts my ears. It quenches. No one likes that. Oh, maybe people will.

they'll want to quench their thirst and they can go to sprouts right now and get ted seger's where today we went on sale every sprouts really yes 300 some stores fourth of july exactly july one is when it started you can go to sprouts and get theodore seger's that's a premium regal brew did you bring any yeah it's right there next to you this one's rancid it probably is rancid yeah so i can't drink that i'll put a new tap on for you everything in this

attic is rancid. All the stuff in the fridge, all the milks are rancid. The Ted Sears is rancid. The carpet's rancid. No, the carpet looks great. Relative to how it has looked.

People should know the cleaning schedule for this carpet. Once every two years, I take it outside and clean it with the power washer and OxyClean. And then it's like so sparkly for like a month and we can't believe it's the same rug. And then it just accumulates. Like there's a terrible stain over there on the way to the bathroom.

It's too close. Someone didn't make it. Yeah, it's actually so close to the bathroom, it's unsettling. Yeah. But it's coffee, I'm sure. And we're getting due for me to power wash it. But my hat's off to this rug because it withstands power washing as a cleaning method. It's not like it gets pampered. If people think that's gross, I implore them to think about how often they wash their rugs. Mm-hmm.

I would say most people never do. Like they vacuum them, but they don't wash them. They don't power wash. Or have them cleaned because it's a big to-do. But they probably don't have white rugs like we do. That's a mistake we made. This is the rug from the child's bedroom. The children's bedroom. I do, yes. It's kind of Charlie Brown. Speaking of rugs and cleaning, there was a leak in my apartment. There was? Yeah, in the living room. In your apartment specifically or from above you?

I don't know. Okay. My apartment ceiling leaked. Okay. From above. Yeah. So probably a leak above you in the apartment above you. Well, I think that, yeah, they were doing something. They left their tub on or something. Yeah. And it leaked through and then it was, you know, went out in the room and there's water everywhere and it smelled bad. Really?

Like it was gross water. Was the ceiling yellow where it was coming out? Yes. And it's plaster, right? You have plaster walls and ceiling, not drywall. Right. Yeah. It's from the 30s or something. No, actually the ceiling. I don't know. Okay. How are they going to fix that? Did they already fix it? No, but I've asked for it to be fixed. When was this? I mean, they cleaned the, I mean, the leak stopped.

Oh, okay. That's good. Oh, this was like a week ago. Oh. I forgot to mention it last time. How much water was on the floor? Because you have wood floors. Yeah, a lot. And then the rug is a little stinky now. Okay. And I'm going to need to get that clean. Ding, ding, ding. Okay.

Maybe you could power wash it for me. What if I came in your apartment with the power washer and just gave it a good spray down? I would like that. Well, if anyone was worried, I got the bus home safely. The last time we spoke, I was going to drive it home. I did. I had a very fun stop in Mesquite, Nevada. Yeah. Very unique experience. I rode my motorcycle to a casino to a steakhouse and had a steak dinner there.

And then when I left to come home, it was dark out. Yeah. Pitch black. Okay. And 100 degrees. Yep. We're in it. It was a very surreal. I don't know that I've ever been riding in 100 degree temperature while it's blackout. Are you feeling like I'm feeling? I feel very childlike about this summer. Oh, fun. Like, I feel like it's summer mode. Yeah.

As if I just got out of school, but I didn't. So I don't know why. That's great. I don't know where it came from. That's a great feeling. I made a fruit salad. Can I just add, this is a real transition from how you felt like a month ago. Like happiness? Happiness, optimism, excitement, enthusiasm about the future. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. That's because I went up on my medication. We always notice when we're feeling low, but sometimes we forget to notice when we're feeling good. That's true. And kind of miss it.

Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And you're feeling like a little kid, a little childlike. Yeah, it just feels like... You're a rascally. Well... You're going to get into trouble this summer? No. I'm going to be a really good girl. But I just...

I don't know if it, I do feel optimistic and happy and excited and fruit salads, but I also feel like I don't have to do anything. Right, which isn't totally true. It's not really true, but I feel it. That's great. That's all that matters. 'Cause sometimes you have nothing to do and you don't even feel that way. Yeah. Right? The reality is just how you feel. I'm gonna eat so much fruit this summer.

Wow. I've decided. You're transitioning from a burrito-only diet to a fruitivore diet? Yep. Okay, like a bat. Here's a question. We just interviewed someone, a boy, who was so kind and nice and optimistic and clearly a good fucking boy. Yeah. Doing everything right. He's going to church and he's dancing for recreation. So here's my broad question. Do you think it's easier for some people to be good than others? Because when I'm watching him...

I'm scared for him. Like I get this actual scared feeling like, how does one maintain this level of goodness and no mistakes and doing everything right?

And I get suspicious it's gonna break. And then it's gonna be really hard when it breaks because I've been trying so hard to be such a good boy. But then I wonder, are people just, their baseline's more rascally than not? And is it easy for some people to be super good all the time? My opinion is, yes, it's a spectrum of personality. Okay. So it's interesting you brought this up. I've been thinking about it too on my wogs. Interesting. Why is that in the air, I wonder? I don't know why. I just, because I...

Because I operate generally with the thought that everyone is capable of anything depending on their circumstances. And I really believe that. And I...

I still do, but I'm starting to wonder if actually that's not true. If some people are not, they're not capable of, I mean, bad things. I'm not talking about good things. I mean, bad things. Like I think everyone's capable probably of murder depending on the circumstance that they're in slash the circumstances they came from. But I think I'm just sort of might be saying that to protect myself or to make myself feel better.

Yeah.

I was so locked into my perspective that I actually-- Because I did murder just for people. I think they knew that. Yeah, I think that was pretty, the subject was pretty obvious. I think I'm so locked into how I experience life that I'm watching "The Good Boy" that we just interviewed thinking it must just be a battle, right? Like to stay that like swing dancing and ice skating and like really nice G stuff, right?

And I'm like, I feel like I'm battling all day long, like go eat that thing and drink that stuff and do this like...

I just, I don't know. I don't know if I was born that way or my childhood made me that way. All of it. Yeah, probably all of it. It's the mix, but it has led to this person, their disposition and the way they go through life would be very hard for you. Yes. And it's funny. I'm like, I actually am having compassion for the person. I'm thinking it must be so hard to maintain this level of like goodness. Right. But I-

And then they're gonna snap, like they're gonna snap. And so I have assessed certain people over the years as like they're gonna snap and then they did. But certainly a lot didn't. Yeah, I think a lot of people are in circumstances that lead them to just things being easy. Also that person's not perfect. We don't know, we talked to this person for 10 minutes. Yeah, but just assume, let's just assume they really are like they're saying their prayers and they thank their nurses and they do all the right stuff. Yeah.

It just seems like so much pressure to be perfect. But again, this is what I'm kind of confronting. It would be a lot of pressure for me. Yeah. I would be there going like, whoa, man, we got to, oh, you know, whatever. Yeah. Perfect is different than good.

Very different. Because no one is perfect. And this person we spoke to is imperfect. I think he might have been, but... No. God. And this is another sort of flaw in your thinking. I think you think like... Weirdly, you think it's sort of binary. No. And it's not. No, it's a big gradient. But maybe some people are really up there. I think trying to be good, trying to like who you are is a good effort. It doesn't always mean you get there, but...

That's what these people are doing. They're trying to live a life where they like who they are. Yeah, be the best version of themselves. Even though I just said all this. Yeah. Last night, I experienced an event, emotional event that I won't get into. But I did think, hmm, I think everyone in the whole world is bad.

Different types of bad and different things are going on, but I think we're all bad. See, now you're joining kind of my point of view and me saying I'm a piece of shit. So I think we're all bad and we're all good, but we're all selfish little creatures trying to figure out how we can get the best situation for ourselves.

There's a gradient there, though. Like, okay, I guess I've just been back and forth on all this a lot. Yeah, it's hard to nail you down on this. You just said everyone's bad. And then I said, well, everyone's trying to make the best scenario for themselves possible. And you go, no. If we were just like we know, then we'd be very arrogant. We don't know. It is all very gray and confusing. And I do think people land all over the place on this map. But it's like...

The map isn't just vertical. It's like horizontal and diagonal. It's a Rorschach. It's a mess. And people are a mess, but they're also good, I guess. Yeah, we're all complicated. We're all good and we're all bad. But do I think like some things that I've done that were for me bad, like, but that I did...

other people would have no problem not doing. Yeah, I do. Even though like for me, it was like, no, I had to do that. Right. I do think though, life, I think this is universal. And again, maybe I'm overestimating my similarities with other people, but I do think your nature is to be entirely selfish and

And then that's the friction of life. It's like, well, I want to grab all that pizza, but I'm not going to do that because I'd be a bad family member and a bad community member. Right. You have to like you first year desire is like more for me, the most for me. People struggle with that for more intensely and for longer in life. Yeah. And I think.

Parts of that fade out quickly for people because you learn, depending on your environment and how you've had to grow up, you can learn pretty quickly. That actually doesn't get me what I want. Well, right. But in a weird roundabout way, you're still getting to where you want to get for yourself, right? Yeah.

You go, that's actually, the shortcut's the fastest way to the back of the line. Like I could steal all that pizza for myself right now. And then I never get invited to do another thing again and blah, blah, blah, blah. So it wouldn't serve me in the end. So you do make a decision that is, that remains selfish, but it's like evolved selfish. But some people have to do that train of thought that you just said. They have to do it. You don't think some people have to do it at all? No. Really? There are elements of mindfulness

my life where I have to talk it through. And then there are elements that I definitely don't, but I see other people having to do it. Right. Yeah. I feel like I have to talk myself into being the version of myself I want to be. You have to talk yourself through most things. Yeah, I don't think it comes naturally to me. I think I'm more like,

go steal everything I can and make sure I have everything I need. Well, as long as you know that that's your nature, but that it's important for you to then have the second step of it. This is why having a family is a really wonderful immersion therapy. Because like it happened a few times just in the last few days where it's like within rapid succession, three different people

yelled at me for stuff that I really had nothing to do with. I mean, really let me have it. It was like one, two, three. I got it from my wife and then I got one from Lincoln and then Delta was the last one to light me up. It was in the theater. She like, I just said, yeah, like I was trying to solve something for her. And she's like, stay out of it. I don't want to hear it from you. You know, she really let me have it. And I simply, I didn't respond at all. And I just sat there because we were about to watch Iron Man for the first one. I convinced them that let's give that a shot.

I just didn't say anything, right? Again, that's not me. I know. I like defend myself. Stop trying to hurt me. Stop trying, right? I just took it. And then, so then Delta turns back towards the screen and Lincoln puts her arm out and like pets my arm. I was like, oh, that was lovely. Like if I would have defended myself aggressively-

I wouldn't have gotten this beautiful moment of compassion from Lincoln. So that's a win I would have never seen coming. Sure. And wouldn't have evaluated. And then about 30 seconds after she let me have it, mom came and didn't say something to me. And Delta goes...

Guys, we have to be nicer to dad. And I just did it the worst. He just kind of taking it and getting getting beat up. And so, mom, don't don't ask him about that right now. And what was so great is like this was an outcome that was unforeseeable to me for most of my life. And it was so much better than me defending myself in any one of these given moments. But.

But like I got my own reward, which is they ended up being really nice to me. Yeah. And they took a moment to actually see me. Yeah. And I was like, I couldn't have figured that out in life. Yeah. Without these three people that I I have to adjust how I am, you know.

Yeah, that's why I always feel guilty on my parents because they just eat, take it all. They just take it all. I mean, I know you don't like this, but I do think that's part of being a parent. Of course. It's like. Yeah. Oh, it is. And that's why I do it. It's not, as my therapist says, there's no what about me's. Yeah, exactly. There's no what about me's. And that's like a rule I have for myself. Yeah.

And it's hard because I like to say, what about me? Yeah. And I've had to practice not saying what about me because I love them all so much. You practice. And this makes perfect. Well, no, the reward is there. It wasn't the one I was expecting, but it was there and I wouldn't have ever discovered it. Yeah. Do you ever say practice makes perfect?

That's an aphorism, saw, saying. I am tempted to say it to my kids a lot because they want to do something, they want to be great at it, but they don't really want to practice. That's, again, back to human nature.

You just wanna be great at stuff. You don't really wanna put in the time. You just wanna shine. Depends on the thing. I actually think if you really do want something- It doesn't feel like practice. No. Right. 'Cause it's all towards the win. But like an instrument in particular is all practice. Yeah, fuck that, I know. Yeah, and you don't get any of the rewards for a long, long time. That's why acting is a hack because it's fun the whole time you're practicing. Yeah, but I think people who are truly musically inclined like it. They like it. Yeah.

I guess we have coming up learned how to make beats at age 11. Like most people are not enjoying figuring it all out. Yeah. That's how you know you're doing the thing you love. Speaking of cool stuff, I talked about the Hermes podcast already, but now I'm on many other episodes of that show. Acquired. Yes. And I'm obsessed with it. I got to start listening because Eric...

I hung out with Eric yesterday. And of course we were talking about your mutual obsession with Hermes. Yeah, now we've moved on. We listen to LVMH. We listen to, I listen, there's an,

There's an episode on Taylor Swift that at first when I first started, I thought because I've already listened to so much on her. And there's a very, very good podcast called Every Single Album. Shout out on her and each album and whatever. So when it started, I was like, I already know this stuff. I don't even think I'm going to get much of it. But then it transitions into the business element. And it was so good.

fascinating. And then I listened to amazon.com and then I listened to Walmart and I'm becoming such a business lady. Yeah. I'm learning so much. I have not felt, well, again, it's like summer mode feels fun and old and new. And this feels new. This feeling of

Oh, I'm learning. I'm learning about something fun and interesting that I know so little about, but I want to know more about. Yeah. I want to listen really bad because I like business. It interests me. It's fascinating. Celine Dion doc. Okay. You have not watched it. I have not watched it yet. Are you going to watch it? Do you think? I might. I might. It's pretty fascinating. Yeah. And.

And I want to not sound judgmental, and I hope it sounds like just a great curiosity that came about while I was watching it. First of all, I've never bought a Celine Dion CD. The music wasn't for me. So I don't really even know how to evaluate her. Through watching the documentary, it's pretty clear she's probably the best singer to ever live on planet Earth. She is as close to perfection as...

is I think a human voice can get, she can play her voice like a synthesizer. She can go through every single note through every single scale. There's no pause. Like they really show all the different things she could do with her voice, which were crazy. And I did not know this and what the doc is about is she has a disease, stiff person syndrome. Never heard of it. Yeah. It only afflicts one in 3 million people, which means there's only 100 people in America with this disease. Knock on wood.

I'm not even going to knock on wood for 100. I'd rather you knock on it. Thank you. Okay, wow. We don't know. Well, she has this disease. Yeah. She's one of 100 people in America. And the symptom is she can't sing. It doesn't make her blind. It doesn't make it so she can't walk. It makes it so she can't sing. Yeah. That's beyond an odds fascination. Yeah. It's more than one in three million. It's also the person who's got a one in a billion voice. Yeah. Yeah.

It's very fascinating. I think you need to say more. It sounds like you're saying you don't believe it. She definitely has it. Yeah. She's definitely experiencing it. I was shocked in the doc. No one asked the question psychologically what might be going on. You wonder how much of this is in the mind. That the body has protected the mind. That the identity is... To me, this doc is almost...

frame for frame the same doc as the Ronnie Coleman doc I'm obsessed with. Oh, gosh. Which is the identity is so, so cemented in this voice. And she says that. Yeah. That...

the notion of should I retire, should I quit, could I quit, could I retire, who am I without doing this thing? Also, there's no downside to it. She loves being Celine Dion. The only heartbreak is she can't perform. And that's curious to me, 'cause we've interviewed a lot of people who have achieved a lot of great things and most people it's a mixed bag. I've never met anyone that it's just all gravy to be Adele or Celine Dion or these people. A lot of it's hard.

And so I just, I can't help but be fascinated with just the odds of this happening and how curious it is.

that the symptom is she can't sing. Is everyone with stiff person syndrome have different symptoms? Well, there's only 100 people with it. So there's cramping. Okay. There's foot cramping. She has to be on a lot of Valium, which is interesting because Valium is an anti-anxiety drug. So we're acknowledging there's a psychological component, but we're not really acknowledging there's a psychological component. Right. We go through the whole doc and we don't ever point out that it's pretty wild in

But is the voice all, I mean, I know it's really rare, but in all the cases, is the voice always affected? Or is it per person, kind of like,

Lyme's disease has different iterations in each person. Is that how this is? They don't really say that. But in her, she's moving about and walking and doing everything. I think her feet hurt. She gets massages in the film. But what has taken an enormous hit is her voice. She's so brave. She sings for us and it's gone. Didn't she just have an album come out? Well, yeah.

That's a fascinating part of the doc. I don't want to kind of for people are going to watch it. I want to ruin the ending. But there's also an interesting overlap with her trying her hardest to record again. And then a very strong episode. Yeah, I don't know. But there is a new song because Liz was like Song of the Summer. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. I don't know about that part.

Huh, wow. It's such a uniquely cruel, weird thing to happen to someone that's so specific that has only happened to 100 people. Right. And it has forced her to maybe retire.

And I just think it's really fascinating. Yeah, it is fascinating. It is fascinating. It's like if Picasso got a disease that only affected his right hand, you'd go like, well, that's really interesting. Right, because it's not even like if Picasso had ALS. Correct. It's like very specific. Or he went blind in the eye. You know, it's just like, it's...

It's just weird. But I mean, look, I am not saying I don't believe it. You're not saying you don't believe it. I'm not saying that. She has it. There's no question. She's experiencing all that. I am not at all, at all suggesting that she's faking this. Right. She's not. Yeah. She has something. Yeah. But at what point do you have something and you go, wow, I'm one of 100 people that has this and it's forced me to make a decision I would have never been able to make myself. Am I curious about this?

That sounds like I'm blaming her in a weird way. I know, which I just want to be careful. But it doesn't. If people really hear what we're saying, I hope they can hear it. But, you know, what's funny is like when you have a lot of symptoms of something or something's going on, often, you know, you go to the doctor and they're like, well, it's probably just stress. And that's so annoying to hear. And everyone like really hates that. And everyone says like the medical system's bad because they just say you probably have stress. But the truth is...

does cause so many problems. And people's brain can push on long past what their body can take. I would say, I would kind of, I'll,

all run the exact same risk saying like, Kristen just got really, really sick. And we all live in the same house and kissing and doing all this stuff. And it hits her uniquely hard. And I will just say that Kristen's not the type of person who will say, no, I need a break. She will push really, really, really hard.

And I do think your body can say, no, we're taking a break whether you want to or not. Yes, I do think that's true. Like this happens a lot when you have like a crazy three weeks of work or something and you have to, there's just no other option. You have to show up, you have to do it. And then immediately you get sick. The day you go on vacation. Yeah. People really relate. They go on vacation and they're just done. They're like cooked on the vacation. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I just think it's...

I think there's a lot yet to be discovered about that process where the body takes over. I just think it's really fascinating. Yeah. And interesting. It is. Okay. A couple of things. This is for Ava Brothers. Wonderful. What a joy to hear them sing. Yes. A couple other good boys. Great boys. Yeah. I mean, fucking Suss not even drinking coffee. Yeah. My God. He's not. Yeah, he's not. Yeah.

weirdly, we spent the beginning of this whole conversation talking about the bus and then like, why do you have it? And to own it is to be fixing it and blah, blah, this whole thing. And then you had your- You think I jinxed it.

I don't actually think you jinxed it. I think it's just the reality. It is, it is. Like that bus means always you're just gonna, something's wrong with it. That's right. It's almost like you can't be surprised. Nor was I, to be honest. And inconvenienced and annoyed, but not my expectations were completely different. But yeah, it's like owning an old car. If you like old cars and old motorcycles, whatever.

Quite often when you go to the fucking donut shop to show it off, it doesn't start when you wanna leave and go home. That's just how it is. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's got a little, everything's proportional. Okay, now you said that you thought it was King Kunta, the lyric. I just be about it. I don't talk about it. Yeah, yes. I think it's Money Without Me. It's definitely not King Kunta.

Then it's, because I only have two on my playlist by him. Then it's... The lyric in Money Without Me is, you can talk about it, I'm a B about it. But I will say this song is confusing because I can't find it on Spotify. So I don't know if it's like a, I don't know. Then I think it's got to be All Right. Some of his songs have samples that can't be cleared for Spotify, it looks like, too.

Right here. Right here.

Oh, I don't talk about it. I don't talk about it. Be about it. Okay. That's not what I looked up. But it's probably in the song you referenced, too. Maybe he's using that often. Yeah, it's in You Can Talk About It, I'm a Be About It. Oh, he's got a whole song dedicated to it. Yeah, but I'm confused about this song. Okay. It's a confusing song. I just can't find it. Even though the premise is pretty clear. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm just going to be about it. Right. Well, that's kind of weird that you said the lyric wrong, but that it is a lyric. Yeah.

What did I say? You said what I just read. I don't talk about it. Be about it. Yeah. And what did I say? You said, I'm a be about it. I don't talk about it. Yeah. Okay. Well, I fucked it up. But it was a little wrong, but it seems closer to this other lyric that I guess is real.

Anyway, okay. Anywho, Kendrick Lamar, if you're listening, we'd love to talk to you. We'd love for you to clear this up for us. Yeah, come in here and explain what the fuck's going on and why that song's not on Spotify. I'd love for him to come on. Me too. But he's in all kinds of dust-ups right now. Yeah, you said with Drake. Yeah, he's in a big Drake dust-up. We might get like Firebomb by Drake lovers. I think it's a heated. We'll have Drake on as well. Counterpoint. Okay, I looked up.

Asking AI, I mean, there's a lot of these. Asking AI to make a hit country song. There's a lot. Asking AI to create a hit country song about beer for breakfast. Woke up in the morning, cracked my beer. Then went down to the kitchen to grab myself a beer. I said to me, I want to get more. Oh, that's good. I can start me just one more.

It's a good song. It's not a bad song. I like when AI gets confused. Those are my favorite ones. Like the one I had heard, it started out really good and normal. And then somehow it became about pooping your pants. Oh, my God. Yeah.

you know what's interesting is like i was following this architecture feed on instagram that i had no idea was all ai generated and they were the most gorgeous houses i was like who could afford these houses and they're so beautiful and then one of the houses had a boat parked in front okay and i'm looking at the boat and now i know about boats i don't know about the limits of architecture right and i'm like

where's the steering wheel on that boat? And where is the engine located? Where's the motor and where's the steering wheel? And I realized, oh, AI generated this boat and forgot some pieces. Oh, wow.

And that's what led me to then read more about the Instagram page and come to find out it's all AI generated. And they're not even hiding. And I just didn't know. I just saw it suggested. I'm like, oh, I love looking at these beautiful houses. Right. But it took something in my sphere of expertise. That's funny. Or they fuck up fingers, right? Yes. That's a good clue. Like count the fingers. Yeah. That's really it. That's everything for the Ava brothers? Yeah. Yeah.

It was fun. I like them. They're sweet. Very sweet. I get to see them at Red Rocks in a couple days. You are? Yeah. We're driving and just happened to be going through Denver the night that they play. That's like one of my big bucket list goals to see them at Red Rock. I'm so jealous. Yes. That's their cathedral. Well, they said. First of all, Red Rock is supposed to be the best place to see a show. Yeah.

And then I love them so much. And the spirit of Red Rock that I think is the spirit of Red Rock feels like such a synergistic, symbiotic pairing. Yeah. I just think anywhere it's outside in a little, like, I think them at the Greek was great. Oh, yeah. And look, I saw them in a parking lot in Indianapolis in this, like, very weird kind of fairground. Yeah. That was awesome. Yeah. They're awesome everywhere. I mean, honestly. They're so good.

I mean, this is a weird thing to say, but even if you're like only a six on them as their music, as you hear it, trust me, the live show, even if you were lukewarm about their music, you got to go see them play. They're also talented. And there's so many musicians on stage and they fucking rip. They're so fun to watch. They are. Yeah. That was Lincoln's first concert. She sat on my shoulders.

Cute. Yeah. All right. Anything else? We covered it all. I think we did it. Okay. Love you. Love you.