Wesley Schultz

Of The Lumineers. He's a thoughtful guy playing his own game

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Webset's podcast. My
guest today is Wesley Schultz of Illumineers. Wesley the band
has a new album.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Tell me about it, Thanks, Bob. Yeah, we have new album.
It's called Automatic. We finished it last June, so we've
been waiting to put it out. It feels like forever
and it's what do you want to know?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
There's a Okay, well let's start. Why the delay in
releasing the album?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Honestly, I'm not quite sure. I think there's a there's
sort of a thing people say about setting up a
record that I don't really understand that well, that a
lot of younger artists don't seem to need to do
it all, so I don't like and it's working for them,
But it was kind of a good thing for us.

(01:03):
As much as we start to blend time on the
road and then recording, it seems like it there's never
like a pause to take a breath, So it was
kind of, in a weird way, suite to take a
minute and regroup and just get ready for about two
years on the road. But I don't I wish I
had a better answer. I've been told that the things

(01:24):
take time to organize and behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Okay, the Luveneers were signed to an independent label. Was
that a conscious choice.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
And no, the choice was The choice was basically like
when we were starting out. It was twenty twelve when
we finally got any attention. We've been trying for myself
probably ten years at that point, and with Jare about
seven or eight. And so we had put out or

(01:58):
we had gotten the song ho Hey put on this
TV show is called Heart of Dixie, and they played
the whole song. They had muted the dialogue like on
the show, and so they played the entire song, and
our song was nowhere to be had. You couldn't get
it anywhere. It was like the worst If you were
trying to blow up, this would be like the worst plan.

(02:20):
And so the only place you could find our song
was on a site called day Trotter. It's this place
outside Chicago where you drive out as a band and
you'd record versions of your songs live. So that's the
only place people found it. So we shot up I
think the like second all time and like day Trotter
at the time. But at that point Majors and Indy

(02:41):
started approaching us and offering us potential deals, and none
of the deals were very good, especially from the major side,
and it was a lot of like multi year deals,
three to five record deals, and we just wanted a
one record deal. We wanted to know whoever worked with
us would want to do well like we wanted to

(03:01):
do well, and we actually gave the right of first
refusal at the time to Daniel Glass. We really wanted
Daniel Glass to do this record. He had worked with
Phoenix and Mumford and Sons and among other bands, and
we thought, well, if he could do it with pretty
different bands that aren't sort of on the traditional path
per se, maybe he could do it with us. And

(03:22):
he came to our show at the Mercury Lounge and
he passed on it. He was like, I'm good, no thanks,
but I wish you guys all the luck in the world.
And so we ended up going with Dualtone, who at
the time I think they had Brett Dennen as one
of their artists, but he was on the way out.
He was heading somewhere else. So it's kind of like, man,

(03:42):
I guess it was the only fair deal that was
being offered, so we took the fair deal and we
could own our own music and you know, keep it
all like in house and do one record deal. So
we ended up doing that.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Okay, when you said it was a fair deal, you
got to own the record, And was it a typical
indie deal fifty to fifty split of net.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
It was something like that. It's since you know it
changes over time slowly. I think it was something like that.
It was almost like going in on a business venture
with someone where they they're not giving you any money
up front. Really, we had already made the record, we
had recorded it for like our management at the time,
I think front of us money to do that. It
was like ten grand to record the album, and then

(04:26):
it was and then we ended up scrapping the whole
mix of the album because we didn't like what the
original producer had done with it. So then we took
it to Sound City and Kevin Agunis remixed the whole
thing from scratch, and I think we then double the
budget to twenty thousand, which looking back, that's a pretty
good way to make a record compared to what records

(04:48):
cost today. And yeah, we remixed the whole record. I
had heard a story about Damien Rice early on, before
we had had any record deal, and how he had
like scrapped an entire record he had saved up to
make because he didn't like how it sounded, and that
stuck with me. So when it came time for us,
we didn't. It sounded way polished and all these comp takes,

(05:09):
it didn't sound like us, It didn't sound like human.
So yeah, we remixed it and then went on from there.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Okay, how did the song get in the Dixie Show
to begin with?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Oh? No, Like somebody heard it and they called it
sync it. They synced it to the show. They offered us,
you know, a few thousand dollars or something. I forget
what it was, but it was like more money than
we'd ever seen in our lives, and we're like, whoa,
that's amazing, let's do it. And our management facilitated, like
helped us figure it out with our lawyer and got

(05:44):
it on there. But it wasn't like a well planned thing.
Like I said, we would have had the song at
least somewhere to like download it, and it was nowhere.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Okay, you made a one album deal with Duel Tone.
You're still with Duel Tone. Yeah, so you must have
liked it after one album.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, they've been great. I mean the year we worked
with them, the opening two years we worked with them,
it was they were a lot like us. They were
like the little engine that could. They won an award
for best Best Record Label with five or fewer employees.
They had I think four people, and they were they

(06:23):
got us like we had gotten on the Grammys and SNL.
We were just doing things that it doesn't normally happen
to a band that is not on a major. So
it was it's kind of like a fairy tale in
a way. And then we were basing a lot of
our decisions on we had heard from. We have a
really wise lawyer. His name is Richard Grabile, and he's

(06:43):
been doing it for a long time and he's kind
of like always I always turned to him when I
need really deep advice, and he was just like saying
that all these whether it's a major or an indie,
the person that signs you is your cheerleader. It's like
a coach who drafts a player. And if that coach
or that executive in a label gets fired or leaves,

(07:08):
the next guy that comes out comes after him isn't
necessarily going to be brooding for you or trying to
help you as much. It's so you was. His point
was always know who you're working with, and if you
do one record deals, there can't be that much instability
within that short period of time, so you can kind
of control a lot more of your destiny and how
much attention you're getting from your label, because sometimes you'll

(07:31):
there are a lot of stories of bands that sign
like a three record or five record deal and the
guy who championed them leaves pretty soon into it and
they're kind of shelved or ignored, not prioritized in any way.
So I think we were just mainly concerned about how
fair the deal was. We enjoyed the people at Dual Tone,
but it wasn't I gotta give most of the credit

(07:52):
to Richard Grabil. He really helped us navigate these things
that we were just frankly just happy to not be,
you know, working side jobs, which was just happy to
be able to play music and get I was thirty
at the time, so I wasn't sure it was ever
gonna happen, So there was not a lot like being
taken for granted. But I feel like it helps to

(08:13):
be a little older because you can say no a
little easier because you've been the whole thing has been
a failure up to that point.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
So, okay, you're in Colorado, Grables in New York. Ha'd
you hook up with him?

Speaker 2 (08:28):
So there was a band called Rah Rah Riot and
there my neighbor happened to be friends with one of
the band member's parents, and that was their late that
was their lawyer. And so I remember I had my
wisdom teeth taken out and I could barely speak, and
I got this management contract offered to us, and I
sent Richard an email and I was like, please, are

(08:51):
you Are you gonna work with us? Because I had
I had there was the only lawyer I knew to contact.
It was the only person I had access to. And
he's like, I only listened to physical copy. So I
had to send him a CD. And then I kind
of said, hey, it's been a couple of weeks and
I just got this management offer. Can you please get
back to me one way or another? And he's like,
don't sign that and call me right now. And so

(09:12):
I called him and I could barely speak, and I
was like, oh, redshird, I just got my wisdom teacher
like and he was so excited for us, and he
loved the music and he started helping us immediately. So
we luckily didn't sign some really bad management contract to
begin with, and he helped us kind of navigate it
all from from there from there on.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
How many managers have the Lumineers had.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
That type of manager, like I'd called a day to
day not a tour manager. We've had just two.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Okay, So the guy who will offered you the contract,
did you end up making a deal with him or
did you move on?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
We did, but we amended some things on that that
had we not, it would have been a mess, you know,
to ever like break up with that manager. You know
there's like sunset clauses and things like that that they
put in there is like it helps them, but it
hurts the artists. You can't really move on very easily.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
So how did it end with the first manager?

Speaker 2 (10:10):
So Dave Minor was He's based out of Seattle. He was.
It was Dave Minor and Kristin Green and there were
a few others, but they were like the main sort
of managers entitle and Dave was like basically canceled. He
was like accused of something like double digit sexual harassment

(10:32):
charges that was in like twenty seventeen or eighteen, and
so it all happened like really fast. He called us
on like a Wednesday, he said, this articles coming out
and I want you to know about it first, and
he tried to kind of explain it and we were
like whoa. And then talk to the lawyers, and then

(10:53):
by Sunday we had let him go and as well
as like the whole management, we wanted a fresh start,
and and then we interviewed that I don't know if
you want to go there, but we interviewed like ten
more so after that, we're making our third record and
we're in the middle of it, and we scheduled like
nine or ten two to three hour meetings throughout the

(11:17):
course of like a week or week and a half
where they all flew to Denver and it was some
of the most amazing management groups and managers and you
could ask for because at that point we were like
proven goods to some people. So we met with like
az like just people I'd only heard about or see,
you know, seen on documentaries, and it was really it

(11:39):
was really cool to hear their their viewpoints on how
either they could help us or their philosophies about music
and how to essentially like help their artists. And we
ended up going with Activists, which is run by mainly
Bernie Cahill Matt maher mayor I think you say his name.

(12:02):
I always messed it up because I had a friend
grown up. They went by mar and anyway we like
and you know, an Anna cole Ender is also someone
if she ever listens to this, ione her to know.
I'm so grateful for. But but we ended up going
with them. But it was something where I didn't really
expect to go with them, you know, like if you

(12:26):
just base it purely on roster. There they were working
with Ded and Co and I'm just I had I'd
seen the dead and different iterations of them, and it
just felt like, well, we're not a jam band. I
don't know how they're gonna know how to deal with
us in terms of like that's such an improvisational band.
We're more like a writer kind of band. And then
when we heard them and we had a meeting with them,

(12:50):
it was just kind of like it felt like a
perfect fit in their personality and what they were trying
to do, and they had just had a person leave.
It was Zach Brown had left them to start his
own management group, so it was like he had left
and left this void that they were just all had
everyone kind of ready for us. They didn't have to

(13:12):
hire kind of many more people to make it work
with us, So it was kind of like good timing
for both both sides. But it was kind of surreal
because we were working on our third record and writing
it and then having these race sort of stressful meetings
with these you know, people who were all big deals
and we're having them in these shitty like I remember

(13:33):
we had meetings in this coffeehouse and then this dive bar,
and that was like we do back and forth each
day two hours and one or two hours in the other,
and it was just like you glaze over after a
certain amount of like hearing the same speeches over and over.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
So since you were dealing with the top layer of management,
what'd you learn about visions, personalities? What was the experience
like and what were they selling you?

Speaker 2 (14:01):
I'm not quite sure. It's like we made a T
shirt with all the things that were sett in every
meeting over and over as a joke, because there would
be like the thirty thousand foot view is are they
say boots on the ground or they'd say it was
very like there were some platitudes or cliches they would
throw out there. I think what I was really really
had a nose for or wanted to hear was what

(14:23):
they really thought they could do and had done with
their with bands in the past. Like I really enjoyed
speaking with the manager of the Black Keys. I thought
he was so thoughtful and he sort of customized things.
When he was talking about them and how he did things,

(14:45):
it was like, well, that's a real thoughtful or artistic
approach to helping a band grow. It's not just like
paint by number make them bigger. He was because I
was commenting, like I love one of their videos where
it's this dinosaur or it's just saying lyrics and it's
like a dinosaur puppet and then there's a girl at
the pool and it's I think it's called my ex

(15:06):
girl or my next girl, and you know, things like that,
and so I think, you know, he was an example
of someone we really wanted to work with. But the
the deal breaker for us was like he was a
one stop shop. He was a one man band. So
if the Black Keys were putting out a record and
we were putting out a record, there's only one of him,

(15:28):
you know, and we needed like we needed a team,
you know. So uh, But he was an example of
someone just like really impressed me as far as like
how he wasn't just treating every act the same, and
he had done his homework on us and had figured
out ways he thought we could do some things better.
So but it's a little bit like some people surprise

(15:52):
you with like how they just kind of show up
and they maybe rely more on their reputation than having
anything original to say, and that that could be That
was disappointing for me. But on the flip side, some
people really shock me with how much energy they put
into it and like thoughtfulness they had, because I think
that's what it takes. It's really not especially now more

(16:15):
than ever. You need to figure out how to make
an audience understand an artist in the way that the
artist feels authentic to otherwise it won't work. And you
have a lot of examples of I mean, I know,
I think you interviewed Billy strings On here. I met
him at Willie's ninetieth birthday, and just thinking about how

(16:38):
two decades ago, I don't know if he has the
same opportunity. And now, all of a sudden, you have
this person who's like a musical household name, and he's
playing a style of music that isn't necessarily always in vogue,
but people know about him. I think that's pretty great,
But that also takes either the artist or the management
with the artists to try to communicate that out to

(17:00):
the to the audience.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Let's go back a step. How'd you end up with
a manager in Seattle?

Speaker 2 (17:13):
We were doing a residency in New York and me
and Jerry grew up you know, we ended up moving
to Denver, but we grew up in New Jersey and
we just we were, you know, a short drive into
New York City, and so we were. We did a
residency at the Living Room. It doesn't exist anymore. It closed,

(17:33):
but it was like this great, amazing club that in
New York that I want to say. It was like
near Chinatown. And it was the unique part about it
was they didn't charge a door fee on like almost
every other small club. They just passed the hat and
so it offered you a chance to play to strangers,

(17:55):
kind of like Rockwood Music Hall is now to play
the total stranger and have people just walk up and
discover your music. So we had done a residency I
believe it was in let's call it February of two
thousand and eleven, and we had or twenty ten, it

(18:17):
must have been, and we had we had five tuesdays.
I think there was happening to be five tuesdays in
that month. So the management flew out for one of
those and express this was the Seattle based management, that
they might be interested in working with us, and they
wanted to feel us out, and honestly, we didn't have
any other like suitors at that point. We were like whoa,

(18:37):
this is cool and then things and we were recording
all these songs at our home studio and like at
Jared's parents house at that time as well.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Okay, what did the first manager do to help your career?

Speaker 2 (18:54):
I think he saw so Dave Minor was a is
a restaurant guy and then he got into music. So
I think he's he looked at it differently, which I think,
you know, some people like anything it can be a disadvantage,
but I think he's he just saw he saw certain
pillars that were important to like what we were trying

(19:16):
to do. So one of the things that he instilled
in me and maybe understand was that the whole, like
music as a whole, is like you know, if you're
a band, all of the things that you do beyond
the music. So the music is the most important thing,
and that's the true art. And then when you're out

(19:38):
and managers are trying to help you promote it basically
get it heard in some way and recognized and distinguished
from the ocean of other music that's out there. He
was really big on this idea that like it's all
an ecosystem. So you don't want you want your live

(19:59):
oh you should be wor on your live show. You
should be putting a lot of energy into sounding good
live and having a good show. But also you want
to if you want radio to play your songs, you
have to visit radio stations and you have to you know,
kind of like put in a lot of miles in
terms of doing that. You can interview with different publications.

(20:21):
It doesn't mean that they're going to say nice things
about you, but you know, you kind of just you
have to put yourself out there in a way that
I thought it was just like you make good records
and people find them, and it was. It was very
apparent after that that touring will, will is and will
always be the most important thing you do beyond the

(20:42):
music you make. It's like, if you're not willing to
tour and tour hard, you're just kneecapping yourself immediately. So
I don't know. I think part of him is you
made me understand that there is there's more to this
than just the making of the music, because I think
me and Ja were so dedicated as writers and we

(21:03):
just love writing music that we didn't really want to
have time. We didn't really want to do the other things,
and we had to learn how to do those things.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Okay, you have success, your a known quantity. What have
Bernie an activists brought to the table.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
I think I think one of the things they did
immediately that it really impressed me was we were making
an album, our third album, we called three because it
was about it was our third album, but then it
became about these three generations, all focused on how this

(21:44):
this matriarch we called a Gloria, she was an alcoholic,
and how that kind of had this splintering effect, this
ripple effect through the family and how it affected each generation.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
And wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we get to Bernie.
How did that become the theme of the album.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
It was my mother in law just passed away. It
was about her, so like ever since I got together
with my wife, Brandy, that was in two thousand and ten,
we've been I mean, I wrote the song dead Sea
on our first album because she said, you never let
me sink down. You're like my dead Sea. Because she
was dealing with this really heavy thing and her dad

(22:22):
had died. My dad had died, so we bonded over that.
And then her mom was a severe alcoholic. She could
drink like a gallon of Tito's vodka day and was
arrested in different jails, and she was homeless and she
got taken into the emergency room ninety nine times in
one year. I mean, she's and we bought her house
at some point when we finally had a little bit

(22:43):
of money, and we had a victor from that house.
It was just sad, like the whole thing. So there
was nothing left for me to do in a way
except write about it. I was trying to process it,
and I asked Brandy, and then I asked her family
if that was okay in a way. Is that okay
with you guys. I'm not trying to, you know, make

(23:04):
you feel terrible buy us, but I'm this is how
I'm dealing with it. So we made this record, and
then we had made these music videos for previous records.
You know, the first album was kind of like they
were ambiguous videos. Second one, Cleopatra, had some really I
think interesting videos. This great director, Isaac Rove Shunkar, I

(23:25):
had to come up with this idea of like tying
a through line through all these songs. So on the
third record, we kind of wanted to ticket to like
a different, different level. And so I have to get
his name, he says, Kevin. I should know this. I

(23:45):
just haven't spoken to him in a little while. He's
the man, though, give me two seconds of just looking
up his name. Kevin Phillips is his name. So Kevin Phillips.
One of the reasons why we hired him was because
he would often cast and work with people who look real.
They didn't look like models or Hollywood. It looked like

(24:08):
a documentary almost, and so we we wanted to do
a song every song had its own music video and
it formed a short film. So our activist comes in
is we tell them we want to do this. The
label wants to help us a little bit, but basically
Jared and I self finance the videos and it's a

(24:28):
lot of money and they they're supportive of this whole thing.
And the album is pretty dark. It's pretty in a
way depressing to certain people, but we really Jare's brother,
who's my friend, died of a heroin overdose at age nineteen,
so between him and Brandy's mom, there were things to

(24:52):
sort of sing about and feel like grounded in, and
so we made these videos and they were pretty like
unflinching in that they try to tell the story of
what was really happening with an addict and how it
affects a family, and they got they helped us. Activists
helped us along the way, and they got it into
They helped us get into Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF

(25:13):
and the Nashville and Geneva and a bunch of others,
and they kind of really helped us try to get
that thing seen as best they could. And that I
remember sending our manager, Bernie Jimmy Sparks, which is like
the longest song on the album and it's a story song,
and he was like super into it and supportive right away.

(25:35):
And that wasn't like a hit. That wasn't like at
all what a manager typically wants to hear, which is
like they hear a song that's short and fast, and
they hear dollar signs. He was in this long, like
six or seven minute story song. So I think in
a lot of ways we got off on good foot
good footing with them because they supported us wholeheartedly in

(25:55):
trying to get this three film scene and the album heard,
and it it eventually got optioned into making to be
made into like a TV show, and that's like still
in the works. We're gonna see what's gonna happen. But
like John Mark Valet was like involved in it and

(26:16):
he was gonna spearhead the whole thing, and then he
tragically passed away and so it's been tabled a little bit.
But that was all through this new activist management group
that like kind of got creative with how to help
us get this album heard.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Okay, let's go back and do a little backfilm. So
Jerror's brother died of a heroin overdose.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, when he was nineteen. Yeah, so I grew up.
My brother is Ja's age, my little brother, and then
I was friends with Jerr's older brother's name is Josh,
and so I mean we were real close when we
were young, and we used to me and him, we
would take drawing classes together and spent a lot of time.
He'd come on family vacations with us and stuff like that.

(27:02):
And then, yeah, he had a lot of social anxiety
and he would sort of self medicate, I think, from
to try to deal with it, and it just kept escalating.
Like I was there when he took his first drink
and you could see like the way he drank was
to the point of it was to get out of
his head and get out of his body. And that

(27:24):
seemed like he only knew how to take it to eleven.
It wasn't like a middle ground, and he just I
think he kept searching for things to numb that feeling
of anxiety that it was really deep within him. And
Jerre was sixteen at the time, and it was a
lot for him. It would be a lot for anybody
in any age, but to be that young and to
lose your brother, it was like pretty pretty awful.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Is he something you can ever get over? I should
be asking him, but I'm talking to you.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, I don't think so. But I think it's something
you learn how to live with and try to try
to not It's not like you're trying to forget him
or forget it, but you're trying to like live with that,
you know what I mean. It seems like that's the
way Jarry's trying to deal with it. It's still remember him,
but it's I think it's it'll always be pretty pretty

(28:15):
raw and just under the surface.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
It still exists in retrospect. Well two things. Did you
see it coming?

Speaker 2 (28:24):
No, I mean not really. I was like eighteen when
he died, and he was nineteen, and he went to
rehab and sort of had to get pulled from our school.
And I remember dropping off like he played guitar and
so did I. And I remember dropping off like guitar
player magazine to him. Afew me and a buddy walk

(28:44):
went over to his house and he wasn't like allowed
to come to the door. And his mom, who I love, Kathy,
she she took the magazine. She said, thanks so much.
Joshua really loved these and so it was like the
sort of last time I saw him, but I didn't
even get to see him, but we kind of knew
something was a lot more serious than we realized. And

(29:06):
then but at the same time, you're so I was
so young and ignorant of like you just feel invincible,
so you're you don't think anything bad's gonna happen like that.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
So we're in New Jersey.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Did grow up a little town called Ramsey, New Jersey.
It's near you know, it's funny. I think Springsteen has
a reference to mahwa and Johnny in ninety nine, right,
and it's right, that's our neighboring town.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
I certainly went to college with people from Mahwah. So
what was the town like growing up.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's a tiny town, fifteen thousand people, suburb, a lot
of commuters into New York City. I'd say like middle class,
upper middle class. It's like neighbors to the town that
The Sopranos is set in, Like it's it's kind of
like the Surprise is the real like wealthy area in

(30:03):
that and that was Upper Saddle River kind of like
near us. It's an interesting place to grow up. It
was a really for me idyllic place because you were
in this what felt like safe place, like a little
safety bubble, but you're on the doorstep of New York,
where it feels like anything can happen, and there's all
these all this it's known as the greatest city in

(30:26):
the world, and you're right next to it, but you're
kind of out of the madness as a kid, but
you have access to it. So I thought it was
a beautiful place to live.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
And at what point did you start going into New
York alone?

Speaker 2 (30:37):
It was like nineteen twenty something like that. We went
into show, I mean my first show. I have a
tattoo of it on my arm. Is like me and Josh,
Jerry's brother, went to go see Bob Dylan and Joni
Mitchell at Maison Square Garden when we were like fifteen.
And then I remember I went and saw Neil Young
solo at the theater there when I was sixteen. So

(31:01):
I went and saw shows really young. But as far
as playing shows, we weren't playing shows until probably like
twenty one.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
And what did your parents do for a living.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
My mom was a preschool teacher and my dad was
a psychologist.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
And are they still with us?

Speaker 2 (31:21):
My mom is my dad passed away in two thousand and.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Seven, and were they together when he passed?

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, So what was it like.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Having a psychologist for a father?

Speaker 2 (31:34):
You know, it was perfect for me. I was a
sensitive kid who had a lot of feelings. I could,
you know, how to work through a lot of them.
And he was a great listener. I don't think like
doctors and like any other profession, not all of them
are created equal. I just he was particularly good at
what he did. You know. He grew up in a

(31:54):
family where his brother went to Vietnam and two weeks
in he weirdly he volunteered to go to Vietnam. Two
weeks in he got killed. And that was his oldest brother,
and he had there were four brothers altogether, so he
was the he was the second youngest. My brother was sorry,
my dad was, and so when that happened, it kind

(32:16):
of just shattered the family. It made the parents go
pretty numb. And so my dad was was I think,
pretty dead set on trying to make people connect and
feel again, and that was one of his like special
powers or something like. He came home from college and

(32:37):
his family still talks about how he he hugged everyone
in the family, mom, Dad, all the brothers, and he
told them he loved them, and that was the first
time they had ever done that, and he was the
one to sort of crossed the picket line of that.
So I think he was a very to me, a
very interesting guy because he also before that got in

(32:57):
a lot of fights as a kid. He was a
really tough dude, and then came back and found this
new part of himself. I found out he could be
a really good listener, and so he had his duality
of like we all knew he was a badass and tough,
but he was really good at just holding the space
for someone like a teenager like me at the time
when I was growing up and listening. So I could

(33:18):
confess anything to him. And the rule was like I
wouldn't really get in trouble necessarily. It was it was
a bigger, much bigger sin to lie. So if I
told them I smoked weed or drank, they were like,
all right, well, keep it a moderation. But like if
I kept something from them, it's like, what are you doing?
Just tell me what you're doing, you know. So honesty

(33:39):
was encouraged and and I felt like I had a
real listener in my life. And I've had a therapist
since then with the band and Independent, and they they
are not all the same. So I feel like, looking back,
it could be really annoying to have a therapist as
a parent, but in my case it was it was
really nice.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
So how many kids in the family?

Speaker 2 (34:08):
We had three? I had an older I have an
older sister and a younger brother.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
And how did they co pandle your success?

Speaker 2 (34:18):
They do well with it. I mean, I think they
were just worried because I was almost I was basically
thirty when I got signed. So like I remember going
to my brother's like college family weekend, and I had
long hair, and I was this dude who like worked
at restaurants and in that awkward, creepy like you're twenty five,

(34:40):
twenty six and you're like pursuing something that at a
family weekend when you're meeting other families and they're like, hey, buddy,
what are you doing here? And I'm like, oh, musician,
you just come across like an idiot to a lot
of people, or misunderstood or just kind of outcasted. But
I felt like they were really supportive of me, and uh,

(35:02):
I think they were very secure in who they were,
so when it blew up, there were moments when my
brother would tease me, my little brother and say, like,
you know, we went to like they'd get together and
my mom would be like playing videos of me like
at some show, and he's like, West isn't even here?
Can we just like hang out? And I think that

(35:23):
I think that's like eased off, and my mom is
cool down with that and listen to my little brother.
But I think she was she was just excited because
I think she was relieved. But I think there it's
a testament to them because they're both pretty like accomplished
in their own right and and do their own thing,
and it can be happy for me, and I'm obviously
really happy for them, and so they've been like a

(35:44):
big support system through it, through it all.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Do you know why your name Wesley?

Speaker 2 (35:52):
I gotta some sort of genealogy thing for my uncle.
It it was it was in the family, but not
much beyond it was somebody's middle name. It was either
gonna be Keith Wesley or Wesley Keith Schultz. And it
became I like Wesley better than Keith, So it worked
out okay.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
So you're growing up, you say you're a sensitive kid,
good in school, bad in school, athlete, loan or what
kind of kid were you?

Speaker 2 (36:19):
All of those things. I was pretty good athletically, depending
on the sport, so I fit in that way. I
was good in school as far as like I knew
how to I knew how to pass classes and get
decent grades without having to try extremely hard, like I
knew when I had to try, Like, you know, you

(36:41):
read the cliff notes, you don't have to read the
whole book. You know. That came later in my life
when I started actually reading books. But I was like
very comfortable being alone and missing parties. But I was
also lucky that I kind of navigated between different groups
because I was like into athletics but not really and
I was like, I felt like I could hang with

(37:02):
a lot of different social groups, but I was never
really fully with one of them. And then I was
like I felt pretty alone a lot of I don't
know why, but I always had this deep sense of
longing and loneliness, like just in a temperament kind of way.
So I was always writing poems and poetry and rhyming.

(37:25):
I always loved doing that, And you know what began
is drawing. Me and Josh were drawing, and that was
the kind of solitary thing. It became writing, and then
it became playing guitar and stuff, so I would say.
And then in school I was like I got in
trouble for behavioral stuff, like, you know, just goofing off

(37:48):
in class and being a bit of a having making
my friends laugh. And maybe I remember I was supposed
to be on some honorable thing, but they kept me
off because of my behavior. It was like my mom
was so mad. But in a way, it was pretty innocent.
It was more like you know, telling I didn't like.

(38:10):
I didn't like when any adult was condescending, so I
or if I feel like I was being forced to
do something, so I would act out against that. But
it was overall pretty innocent.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Okay, So now people around the world know your name,
you played it tens of thousands. How does that help
or not help with your loneliness.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, in some ways, it gives you access to really
interesting people. I've heard that said, and I agree. It's
like I've met some people that you just get to
meet them. You don't have to. They're if they're on
the inside of fame so to speak, and quotes there
and they feel like you get that there's less to

(38:58):
talk about in that zone of life and they can
just be a human being, and I crave that. Like
if I remember I got to meet Chappelle, or shit,
i've met a comedian I really like today's Shane Gillis,
Or there's different people in comedy world, or in let's
say restaurants, Like we joked that the chefs are like

(39:18):
the rock stars of our world because we're it's you
get to meet all these different people that are excited
about what you do and you're excited about what they do,
and it's a beautiful way to share. I would say
we're we're in a unique position as as the lumineers
because no one really knows what we look like on

(39:39):
a large scale, or knows my name, or they know
our songs. Our songs might be famous, but our our
personal lives have been I think we got grandfathered in
to like this generation that we weren't. They didn't ask
that of us, and they no longer want that from
us anyway. So like if I could be totally wrong here,

(39:59):
but I just went and saw day. You know a
few months ago, and like, I don't think whether they
have a TikTok account or not, it really matters. It's
like it's green day. And I feel like in some
ways those if you're an older artist and you start
to try to keep up with the jones as it
can be awkward anyway. So just like another, I like
the mystery of some of the bands I grew up

(40:21):
listening to, and I feel like our fans hopefully don't
mind that there's a little bit of a layer of
mystery there, because it is like annoying to me that
if if if I was to be asked to be
a broadcaster full time of my life and my personality
and hey, I'm over here with the it's just I
can't do that. It would I would suck at it

(40:41):
and know one it would make this a lot less fun,
you know. It's like all all the perks of like
So I think I think basically like most of it,
I never really cared that much about. But I love
getting to know people like that. You don't get to
see that side of them that often.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
So at what point do you pick up a musical instrument?
How old are you?

Speaker 2 (41:04):
It was like sixteen fifteen sixteen. I mean I was
playing trumpet, you know, you know, in school, and I
remember that. I I remember the guy telling me you
were verbe. We didn't get along that well, and he said,
I want to put you first chair, and you're the
best trumpet player, but you don't practice your scales and

(41:26):
I can't tell the rest of the students that it's
okay to do that. And I was like, well, I
could play the songs better than anyone else. He's like,
doesn't matter, and I was like, I don't agree with this,
and I just like walked down. And I always felt
like it was like, well, what's the point of this.
I thought it was to play the song? So I
knew I had like some level of acumen when it
came to that and like remembering lyrics and holding a

(41:49):
melody and things like that. But I didn't really pick
up a real instrument again until I was sixteen and
I played started playing guitar.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Okay, you're growing up up. It's the MTV era. To
what degree were you watching MTV into those acts into
popular music?

Speaker 2 (42:07):
I didn't have cables, so I wasn't watching it. I
wish I did. I would say I was really, really
much more into My dad had all these. He had
a few tapes that were in rotation in our car,
and we take like long road trips, so it was
mostly that. To be honest, I never music videos were

(42:28):
an exotic thing. I didn't really see many of them
growing up. I remember seeing like Soul Asylum, Runaway Train.
That's like one of my most vivid memories.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
So what tapes was your father playing.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
He had the Cars Greatest Hits. He's the big Greatest
Hits guy. He had the Cars, Billy Joel Talking Heads,
and then he had this Leonard Cohen The Future album.
I think those were like the only ones we ever heard,
and they were great.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Okay, so why did you start playing the guitar?

Speaker 2 (43:00):
I saw? So my brother in law is now he's
a Green Beret colonel, but at the time he was
just entering military school at West Point and.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
It would slow down a little bit. So you met
your wife at a very young age.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Oh so, no, this is my I'm sorry, my sister's husband. Now.
At the time, it was their boyfriend girlfriend and he
was going to West Point. So they knew each other
in high school. They dated and then he was going
to West Point and Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds came
through and did their duo thing, and he got me
ticket and I went and saw it with him, and
my mind was blown and I felt like it was

(43:38):
watching like a magic trick. And I soon after saw
that Neil Young solo show, and again I was like,
how do you do that? What is that? And then
I started playing guitar and within a year or two,
I think I started playing guitar in like ninety seven
or ninety eight, and and I have an old CD

(43:59):
of like Christmas of ninety nine. I made my dad
loved if you made him gifts, like he didn't want
you to buy anything, so I made him a home
recorded like covers album with actually with some originals on
it that I still have, like a CD where I
recorded on that really like the tiny little mic that
they used to give you with a computer, you know,

(44:21):
just a shitty little But I started playing because because
I saw these shows. I would say, I couldn't believe
how entranced I was by these shows. And then I
remember just it reminds me of Howard Stern because he
talks about watching his dad with the radio and how

(44:42):
he just was fascinated by that and wanted to be
that to his dad. And I couldn't relate more to
the idea that I would sit there on these drives
with my dad and he'd be like hitting me in
the arm and be like, listen to this. Listen, like
listen to what playing a Warren Yvonne song and be
like like and start laughing, that's hilarious, or talking heads,

(45:02):
you know. He focused a lot on the lyrics, and
I think because he was a shrink, he loved when
people were right on the edge of like and they
were so honest with what they were saying. And I
remember and then I remember him saying about Billy Joel,
like listen, all these styles this guy could do, and uh,
I remember thinking, like, wouldn't it be cool if he
thought that of me, Like not consciously, but just like

(45:24):
it was just like, this is my hero and his
hero is in that coming out of that speaker. And
I think that really drove home for me. Like, as
I reflected back on it, I was like, why was
I so fascinated by this? It's like, well, because I
saw this dude that I he was my whole world
and that was his whole world. Was this music, even

(45:45):
though he wasn't like a musical guy himself. You know,
he didn't sing or anything, but he was just into it.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
Okay, you're like in high school, you started playing the
guitar acoustic electric, You take lesson what songs you're learning,
playing out what does it look like?

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, so it was acoustic guitar first. My mom had
an acoustic guitar, which I actually reference on the new
song Automatic. H I said, I never say my mom,
I'm sorry. The new song, same old song on Automatic
has the reference to her guitar geting stolen because I say,
I'll never see my mom's guitar again. It was this
like Yamaha nip On Ghaki, like they made him in

(46:27):
Japan FG one, which is like a beater of a guitar,
but it's amazing guitar for if people want to buy,
they call it a poor man's Martin and it's just
this great guitar. It's just not good for touring because
it'll break down. But I had that. So its acoustic guitar.
And my first song was a Dave Matthews song. It

(46:51):
was like when I'm walking by the wall, it was
just I forget the name of it, but I remember
open for him and wanting to play it for him.
It's like but U And the next one, one of
the ones soon after that was Tangerine by led Zeppelin.
It was like a lot of I learned Dave Matthews
because I felt like that was like some of the
hardest rhythm guitar to play while singing, and I kind

(47:14):
of knew that, so I was like, if I can
learn this, then there's a lot of other songs I
can learn that are going to feel easier than this,
because he had a lot of stretches and really intricate stuff,
and I think it was free fallin'. I have that.
I took lessons for a few months and that's all
you really need, and I have the early lesson book.
I saved it all these years. He taught me basic

(47:38):
scales and basic chords and some blue stuff, just stuff
to like I said, just give me a really basic
foundation and then I'll just hopefully take it from there.
And because I didn't like having to do it, but
it kept me going, you know, for the beating part
of it. And then soon after I just found myself
like wanting to write songs because I love writing poetry.

(48:00):
So I've heard John Mellencamp describe, you know, his guitar
playing as a vehicle for the lyrics, and I always
felt like, I just really love the lyrics in the music,
and the guitar and any instrument was just a way
to put that on put that out there.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
And at what point did you start playing with other people?

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Pretty soon after I was probably like seventeen when I
tried joining a couple of different bands in town and
we played some talent shows, and I remember played first
time I ever played with a band. We played Hotel, California,
and I said, I have like footage of it. It's hilarious,
but I was so scared going into it. And then

(48:49):
unlike sports, where if I was scared going into it
and I took the court, it's like a lot of
bad things would happen with sports, a lot of things
that like didn't go the way you practiced it. With music,
for some reason, it went better, and it was like
felt locked in and that those nerves were no longer
like hurting me. They were like creating this, this better,

(49:13):
better thing coming out of me, which was like a
totally unique feeling because I had really love sports growing
up and now would get out there and just like
try way too hard, and for some reason, music it
was just different.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
So you join these bands or the bands playing gigs,
or you're just rehearsing.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Mostly rehearsing, mostly trying to do home recording, occasionally do
a talent show, occasionally play a coffee shop, but nothing
like nothing's nothing too crazy or impressive.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
So you see Neil Young, you go to these shows,
you get inspired. At what point does the thought because
I want to do this for a living.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Pretty early on, I mean I was, I was ending
high school and I told my parents I didn't want
to go to college because they were very dead set
on it. They had saved up and my grandparents had
saved up so that I could go to school. And
I was like, you're wasting your money, like I don't
want to do this, and they were like, well, we
really want you to do this, so if you do this,

(50:24):
like we're not going to financially support you, but we
won't slam you for pursuing music once you finish college.
And I think they thought, if we give him four years,
he's moved on from every obsession he's ever had. Because
I used to be kind of obsessed with things. He's
moved on from every one of those, so what's the

(50:45):
odds are He's just he's gonna get that out of
a system and then he's going to find something that's
more steady work, you know, more like a normal job.
So you don't go to college, no, So I tried
to convince them. My dad had a good pitch. He's like,
I want you to go away to school, and I
want you to like find yourself outside of this town,

(51:07):
outside of this family, and just get through it. Like,
just do it. It's not a punishment. You'll have a
good time. But like I always felt like I was behind,
you know, like I could be in the real world
trying to make it in this and you're asking me
to do that. So then when I got to school,
I went to the University of Richmond, where my sister
had gone, and uh, I started playing a lot there

(51:31):
and I remember, like I kind of cringe looking back,
but there was like a courtyard with a gazebo, and
I would sit in the gazebo and it like I
would sing at the buildings of dorms. Like, thinking back,
it was so obnoxious, but I think I just wanted
to get this self consciousness out of my system. So
I would just play, like for an hour. I remember

(51:53):
people yelling out the window was like shut up, you know, like,
and I would just keep playing. And then I played
at the and played the mics, and I just started
playing a lot and formed. I formed a band. I
called it like Wesley, Keith and Co. And I had
different people coming and going, but most of that there
were I remember I had the biggest I would say,

(52:15):
the biggest event that happened to me, or the biggest
thing that happened to me that was really serendipitous, or
it was like the reason I was supposed to go
to school to that school was In college at All,
I met this guy, Charles Arthur, who's an incredible musician,
and he was an adjunct professor there where he gave
lessons and I took lessons with him. I decided, you know,

(52:38):
I know how to do rhythm guitar. I want to
learn how to solo. It'd be so cool if I
could solo. And I went to take lessons with him
and we sat down and we almost never picked up
an instrument. We just talked about music and the approached
to it. And I didn't really learn how to solo,
but I learned how to write songs with him. And

(53:01):
there is a minimalism to what he brought to the table.
He was like, how do you say the most with
the least? So you know that old that old adage
is like, if I had more time, I would have
written you a shorter letter. It's like Mark Twain apparently
said that. I don't know if you did, but it's
it's like every note should matter, and every word you

(53:23):
say and every and he taught me just how to
create tension and then relieve that tension. It was a
very incredible experience just talking music with this guy that
I still keep in touch with and we still talk often.
And whenever I get a new album, I said it
to him, and whenever I make a new album, I

(53:43):
mean and whenever I get a gold record, I send
him a copy with his name on it as like
a thank you for showing me how to write music.
And he lives at he lives still in Richmond, and
this is a guy who plays in a lot of bands.
But it was funny because he plays in some wedding
bands and he's like, you fucker. I got to play
your songs now at these ways. It's so good.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
So how did you finish college? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (54:10):
I finished college in five and then I came home
planning to just leave, you know, I was gonna come home,
kind of collect my things and then find a city
that I felt like I could work side jobs and
play music. Maybe New York, I didn't know. And then
soon after I met I had known jer but I

(54:32):
really kind of met him at that time where a
friend of mine was playing drums that I'd played with
a lot, and I was like, let's jam, I want
to play some gigs in the city. And then he's like, okay,
can jare come? And I was like, I don't. I
don't really want anybody else there. This is a pain
in the ass to try to coordinate everybody's schedule. And
then he's like, come on, come on, just let it
and he came in and we kind of hit it
off musically, and that that other guy justin ended up,

(54:55):
you know, having kids, getting married and all this stuff,
so he was he couldn't can continue to pursue music,
and Jared and I kind of just stuck with it.
And at the time my dad was sick. He had
like a three plus year about with cancer, and so
I was staying home for him in a way, and
I was and I was staying home to play music

(55:15):
with Jerr, but I really didn't want to be home,
and so there was there was a lot of pride
that was it hurt my pride be you know, past
a certain age. But I stayed and it was kind
of good looking back in terms of we were able
to do a lot of experimenting home recording and just
with no overhead, you know, no money being spent, just

(55:39):
recording in this anonymous way, driving into the city, constantly
gigging and just seeing that side of it before we
really got a break, and you know, any spotlight was
on ut, which is I think important for every band
because I think the nightmare scenario would be that you
come up with a style and a song that you
really hate, everybody loves it and they want more of

(56:01):
that from you, and you you don't even want to
play it. So I think by the time I remember,
something really shifted where I was in this Brooklyn apartment
and I was I ended up writing like a ton
of really good songs in this really dark period living
in Bushwick where, But I like O Hey and Flowers
and your Hair and all these songs. But I remember

(56:23):
writing Flowers and sending it to Jare, And the great
thing about Jerry is he hears it and he goes,
I love that car alarm in the back the background,
so he's trying to recreate that. And but I remember
playing that for my little brother, and my little brother
has always been supportive, but he's not effusive in praise,
like he's not going to tell you something's great if
he doesn't believe it. And it was really sweet because

(56:45):
that was the first song I'd shared with him a
ton of songs. That was the first time he said
it's a really good song. Like it was kind of
surprised him. And you know, whenever you do something like
that and you have someone in your life that doesn't bullshit,
it was really a moment to be like, yeah, I
thought it was good too. And from Flowers came Classic Girls,

(57:05):
came Stubborn, Love, came out Hey, came Dead Seat. They
were just pouring submarines. They were all just like pouring
out of us. But before that, it was like the
pipe was clogged, and all of a sudden, it was
just like boom, stuff started pouring out of us, and
none of it was that similar to the last song.
So it was a really strange, cool time of like
we crossed over some hump.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Okay, what were you doing for work at that point?

Speaker 2 (57:32):
At that point, I was working at a butcher shop,
a deli butcher shop. You know. We'd like sliced meats
and ground the beef and like triple ground it and
then like weigh it and work behind the counter doing
the lunch meets. And then I worked next door to
that place at a Starbucks, and then I worked at
a our local country club restaurant that I had gotten

(57:57):
fired from five years, probably a different part of it.
So I just found I found all these different jobs
I could do, uh, and I worked all those kind
of like at the same time, like in little spurts,
you know.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
So when did you guys decide it was a duo
or the two of you were going to be together.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I think it just kind of happened naturally, like people
would come and then they'd peel off. You know. We
had our first guy, Justin, who was amazing, you know,
life just kind of happens. And then our next guy, Dave,
he became a school teacher, and I remember we were
we told him like he described it as like he
thought we were being delusional in retrospect because we were like,

(58:41):
are you sure you want to do this? You sure
want to leave? Like he's like, I'm getting this teaching joby,
what are you guys talking about? And and the next guy,
Joe bran Support, who's really accomplished musician in his own
right to this day still records and plays music and
he's insanely talented, he peeled off. So we had these
people like a third member come and go, third member

(59:02):
come and go, and it finally just was easier to
look at it more like, Okay, we're the we're the nucleus,
and anyone else who joins is is probably gonna leave,
so let's just like do it in the house. Let's
figure out ways to do this ourselves, or just view
it that way. So then we renamed the band Wesley
Jeremiah as like a an idea. It didn't really stick,

(59:24):
but we always liked the name. We always like a
band for some reason. That was our generation was like bands.
So we were we were, you know, romantic, We were
romantic about the word band. Like we thought it was
so cool to be in a band, which is why
we ended up naming it the Lumineers. But that was
even that was an accident. That was like a we

(59:45):
were at an open mic in Jersey City and there
was like an MC who was running the open mic
and he's like, up next, we have the Lumineers and
we got on stage were like, we're not the Lumineers,
but uh, we're Wesley Jeremiah. Nice to meet you guys,
and and then I was like I kind of like
that name. And then that was an instrumental band, and
then they broke up and we just kind of adopted

(01:00:06):
the name, and then we were certain it was going
to have to get taken away because it was like
a dental veneer company. And our lawyer was like, no,
it's unrelated. It's not the same you know Lane or something,
so it's yours. Like whoa, this is crazy. So it
kind of stuck. But it's something that the band name

(01:00:27):
is a hard thing to arrive at because they all
sound stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
When you first Sam, Okay, you come home, you're living
at home for three years, you're woodshitting with Jerry. At
what point are you guys playing out and saying we're
trying to make it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Almost immediately, like that was my mentality because I was
twenty one and I was like, we're going to go
into the city. I remember played The Bitter End a
ton that was like a big one for us, and
then we got into Rockwood Music Hall, the living room,
this space called the bag It In. There was a
ton of them in the Lower East Side in New
York that we were playing, and it was just kind

(01:01:05):
of trying to cut our teeth and get experience in
doing all that and hoping someone would notice, and no
one really did. I mean, that city's wild. And when
I was I decided to move there. And Jay was
still finishing school at William Patterson and so I decided

(01:01:27):
to move there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
And like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
I was like, man, how do these kids who are
here in bands make it work? And I realized pretty
quickly that all the kids who are making it work
there were like trust fund kids. It wasn't like there
was no way to really live in that city unless
you were the son of a millionaire or the daughter
of a billionaire or something. It was like you had

(01:01:50):
to have some sort of backing and we didn't have.
I didn't have that. So I was like there for
a little while, taking it really seriously, but also doing
the math and realizing that all the time I used
to have when I was living at home to write
music with Ja and record that was all going away.
And I was joking that I got really good at

(01:02:12):
making hot and cold drinks, but I was not getting
better at music because I was a barista and I
was a bartender, and I was all these things that
I didn't care about and I so I was like,
I'd be better off in Buffalo, New York versus New York,
New York because I had no time for the thing
that I knew I had to put all this energy into.

(01:02:32):
So we moved to Denver just because a couple of
friends were like, this is what the rent costs. And
I remember being on a subway platform and Jar wasn't
gonna do it. He was like, all right, I'm gonna
I'm gonna go start a studio with Joe Brandsport, and
I was like, I kind of just gave him my
sales pitch on why if we try to make it
work remotely it's not gonna work, then what do you
You can always go back and make that studio. But

(01:02:52):
you'll never have this this chance, you know, and he,
like God bless me, he took the he you know,
he bit the pitch and we went and we drove out,
and Denver was a much better place at that time
to try to be making it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Okay, you're playing in New York. How often are you playing?
And what is the experience. It's not like the band
has a brand name. You're playing to people who don't
care usually. What was it like?

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Yeah, we didn't name ourselves Lumineers until we moved to Denver, honestly,
and that was two thousand and nine, end of two
thousand and nine, So between two thousand and five and
nine we were just going under different band names. And
the thing was you always had your friends at those shows,
somebody hopefully, but you didn't really have anybody new because

(01:03:40):
the way a lot of those clubs work is that
they take any money from your fans, who are if
their fans are friends, mostly friends. They take their ten
dollars door fee or whatever, they sit them down. They
make them buy drinks at a comedy club, you know,
one drink or two drink minimum, and when your set's over,
they kicked them out. They're not even allowed to stay.
So it is a vicious circuit that you get exposed to.

(01:04:05):
But there was something exciting about it, and there were
glimmers of hope, but overall it was like pretty it was.
It was all about just like wanting to make it
any way. It's like if you were in a movie
but you were an extra. You know, it's like you're
not really no one gives a fuck whether they're or not,
but you feel like you're part of the movie. And

(01:04:27):
that really mattered to us at the time. And then
I remember my buddy who was my roommate, Matt Maddy Collins.
He said to me it was like the Goodwill hunting
scene where he's like kind of like, I love you, man,
but if you're still hearing five years, I'm going to
fucking kill you. Like he said, you have the same
five or ten people coming to every show and that's fine, man,
but like nothing's changing here, Like you need something needs

(01:04:49):
to change, you know, And he's like, I believe in you,
but you gotta like do something. Something's gotta give, and
that's something given. Was definitely moving somewhere else. So we
we took the plunge based on just what became what
felt like a Merry go Round where you just or
twilight Zone or what's Groundhog's Day where you're every gig

(01:05:10):
feels like it starts to blend in with the last,
because they're all just nothing's changing or growing, it's just stagnating.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
And were there any glimmers of hope? Were there people
who interested it when it faded away? Anything that happened
in those years.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
I think we had it, our glimmers of hope. We're
not so much external at those gigs. It was a
lot more of it had to do with breaking through
on a song, you know, having a moment where you
feel like the song is dead in the water, and
then all of a sudden you part emerges and you

(01:05:48):
feel like you climbed up some mountain together. I think
there's a reason. You know, this year marks twenty years
of me and Jared making music together, and the only
thing that has really kept us here. You know, it
isn't like the rider we get backstage or something. It's
it's writing music. It's like the core of what we

(01:06:09):
love to do, we get to do without anybody bothering us.
And I think that is the ultimate ultimate high for us,
So those were like what kept us going. I think
was like the joys of like the simple act of
getting to write music.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Tell me about thinking about giving up?

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
I don't know. I mean, I didn't really have much
of a plan outside of music. I was like, my
dad's really cool. Maybe I'll try to be a psychologist.
I did undergrad as a psych major. But I think overall,
I just kind of felt like I want to see
this through. At the same time, as you're getting older,

(01:06:52):
you're like, well, the world hasn't told me that this
is working, So who's crazy here?

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
You know that?

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
I think that was the dark hour was like I
remember I went home one night from working this waiter
job or bartending job in my hometown. My mom had
her college roommates over, like the once a year they
get together and have this dinner, and they had done
that this tradition, and so they see me and they're like, hey, Wes,

(01:07:19):
And I'm like twenty six at the time, I'm not
feeling great about anything, and I'm not happy to see
them because you know, you're gonna get like a lot
of questions. And I had worked a long shift and everything,
and I kind of just felt embarrassed, you know, and
the lady was like, I, I just we just have
the best idea, you know, all these kids like want

(01:07:41):
to learn math, you should write math songs. And I
just went up and like cried, Like I went to
my room and I just cried. I was like, I'm
such a fucking loser, like and I will not do that.
Like there's a part of me that was like I
didn't make music to make money. I just like I
wouldn't do it like that. That would be like that
would be.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
Counter.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
It wasn't why I was doing it, And so I
felt really misunderstood that someone would think I would want
to do that, and that you just feel like people
don't really get why you're doing it. And I come
home from my mom me watching like American Idol or something,
and I'd be like, ugh, it's like there's this element
of that show that all that show is is Broadway singers.
That's all it is. It's not like artists. These I'm

(01:08:25):
sure they they're artists and how they sing, but this
isn't like what I'm into. This isn't the type of
artist I want to be. This is operatic, technical singing.
I want someone who's like baring their soul and in
a way a shitty singer that is risking it all
by putting it out there. And so even that was
weird to come home and you're like, maybe I'm the fool,

(01:08:47):
you know what I mean. And then like years later,
American Idol was licensing our songs so that contestants could
sing it, and I'm like, this is so fucking weird,
like our song Angela or something, and You're like, I
don't know how to square this, but but life is
weird that I think that. I think I just kept
my head oblivious, like and I have deliberately kept my

(01:09:10):
head down and like stayed oblivious to a lot of
it and tried to I kept trying to tell myself
that this is like just part of the like the
hero's journey or something. You're like, you're gonna do it.
This is just make your story even better, you know,
like just trying to convince in any way that you're
not being an idiot.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
In the back of your mind was wherever like if
this doesn't happen in five years, I'm gonna have to
do something different.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
I think what I thought was if this doesn't happen.
And I have kids and I'm going to some open
mic and my kid has barely enough to eat, and
I'm like, sorry, I got to go to the open mic.
I think I would hang it up. I just don't think.
I don't like I don't think that's in me. I
think I would want to provide. I'd be like, this
is wrong. But if it's just me or just me

(01:09:56):
and a girlfriend, you know, can go on for a
long time.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
So what degree was this pursuit for stalling a serious relationship?

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Like did it hurt having a serious relationship? Is that
what you mean?

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Or yeah? Sort of like were you so listen, there
are a lot of people. Everybody's different, okay, but especially
in the millennial generation of which you were a member,
they know the score. They know there's winners and losers.
You gotta basically get a job base a certain amount
of money, you know, otherwise you're going to be on
the wrong end of it. So consciously, did you say

(01:10:43):
I'm going to wait to do all that until I
have you know, I've broken through, or did you conversely
find or maybe simultaneously find that women said this isn't
what I'm looking for?

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
No, I didn't get a lot. I didn't get a ton.
I felt like college, you were the coolest dude ever
if you could play guitar and sing and you were
also in school. And the minute I left college, it
was like, what just happened? You have no you have
you have no, Like all the game is lost, it
felt like, and all the attractiveness that the same thing

(01:11:18):
they liked you for they are repulsed by. They think
you're delusional. I remember seeing a teacher that I kind
of had a crush on, you know, like, come to
the country club where I was working. I was cleaning
the salad bar at the end of the night, and
she was like, are you all right? It's everything alright.
I was like, oh my god, like because I was like,

(01:11:39):
I'm a musician. I'm actually you saw her. It's like
if she went to an asylum and was talking to
a crazy person, and I'm like, oh no, she thinks
that I'm crazy, you know, so I think there there
was like when I moved to Denver, I had I
felt like there was more of a culture around being
an artist. But in New York, at least the experience

(01:12:02):
that I had, it was pretty hard to link up
and meet people that way, because yeah, it's a pretty competitive,
successful city and if you're just like this on this
part of the totem pole, it's not very interactive. So
when I moved to Denver, I met a lot more
like gypsy like people, some carnies you know that like

(01:12:22):
got what we were trying to do. And then it
was a little easier to date and to meet people.
So I met I met my wife. She threw like
a house show. She threw a house show for like
her best friend where we show up, and my wife
was like dating a woman at the time. So I'm thinking,

(01:12:44):
like I'm a Jersey boy, and I'm just categorizing, like, oh,
Denver has house shows, and that's a lesbian, and that's
Harry Armpit and that's a you know, like you just
I just moved there, and so it turned out she
was not a lesbian. She would just have I've been
dating a woman at that time and had dated men before.
But for about a year I was just talking to

(01:13:04):
her like a friend, and that was like a really
nice way to meet somebody because I wasn't putting on
any fronts. I was just like being myself and she
she happened to like that, and it's not how you
draw it up, but it was a beautiful way to
meet somebody in the sense of like there was no fronting. Uh,
it was just like candid talk. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
You know, I don't want to be a tabloid guy here.
But you dropped in there that you had dated men.
You can just give a little bit about what was
going on there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
No, I hadn't dated men. She had dated men.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
Oh why did I stopped? I'm glad I stopped.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
I heard it wrong, Okay, So like I didn't know
that my wife and also dated men, right, and I
figured she was just only going for women.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Okay, So you're in Denver. Two things. Could it have
been anywhere? Or was it that you just new people
in Denver and it made it easier? And once you
got to Denver, what was different? And how did you
start to climb the ladder?

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
I feel like it could have in a way, it
could have been anywhere, but the people who I met
there helped helped out, especially someone like Stealth, who's our
piano player now, in the sense that he shared all
of the contacts he had and possibly have in music.
He's like, here's where you can go in the West Coast.
Otherwise you go out to the West Coast, you don't
know where to play, you don't have anybody interested in

(01:14:31):
coming to your show. So he just gave me a
Rolodex because he had been touring with his band on
a very grassroots level and a DIY house show kind
of level. So he's the first guy to take us
out busting went to Boulder and busting on the streets
for money, and then gave me this just long list
of people to call an email. And that's how we

(01:14:54):
did our first touring. And I feel like Denver was
helpful because if you're on a coast, you stick to
that coast unless you're just really getting after it. But
when you're in Denver, you got to go left or right.
You can't really stay there. There's only a couple of
cities you can really play. So it was like it
was on I mean the first tour we did that

(01:15:17):
was a real deal tour that was DIY. We went
took a mini van and a little U haul trailer,
the smallest one they had, and we drove it all
the way out to the West coast, all the way
up the coast through the country down the East coast
back in thirty days and just played a ton of shows,

(01:15:37):
and it was like that was a baptism by fire
in the most beautiful way. Had I gone somewhere else,
let's say I went to Buffalo, New York, I think
I just stay on the East Coast, and then that's
less of like a baptism, that's less of a challenge,
you know. So I think being in the middle of
the country had its pressures of like, you're gonna have

(01:15:58):
to go and one's not that much easier than the others,
so you got to go all over. It made us
think about it differently.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
Okay, how do you you got in a van and
you started playing, how'd you get the gigs?

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
I called, called an emailed. I was the tour manager,
so I was calling and emailing all these people that
Stealth had given me and just like googling places, and
we found that the best impact and the best way
to really come back to that city and see real
people come out wasn't playing clubs. It was playing people's
living rooms. So you like, on our first album, you

(01:16:31):
hear a lot of the influence of kind of bus
styles singing and performing. When you're busking, you have to project,
and you have to sing really loudly and almost scream.
So a lot of that album is just it's like
informed by those gigs. You know, you kind of like
glean what's going to work in that style room, and

(01:16:52):
then that ends up on your record by accident. But
I would say you kind of just take a leap
of faith and you do that first few gigs and
hopefully someone has steered you correctly, like this is a
good place to go. And so we just did a
lot of that. We called people that we knew would
have friends come out, even if they didn't know the band,

(01:17:15):
so'd be like, hey, can we just we just it's
almost like we're not going to pay you, but we'd
almost pay you to do this, Like can you just
get some people here? All we want is bodies in
the room. We want to just play to people. And
there's so much of our previous musical life have been
spent being so proud of posting on the website all
the gigs we had scheduled. And then you get to
that gig in Philadelphia or Virginia or wherever, and it

(01:17:39):
looked nice online and on the flyer and no one's there.
And then when you go to a house show, everyone
has a different feeling about it and they're kind of
forced to commit there, they're really engaged in listening, and
the next time you come to town, you almost it's
like double the people. There's some deep, deep intimacy impact

(01:18:00):
to that that I never knew until I did it.
And then it became like a way to to really
effectively tour and like make it somehow work while you're
being a busboy on the side.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
So when you talk about touring the West Coast, you
were mostly playing living rooms.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Yeah, mostly people's houses, house shows.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
And was this a self sustaining tour or was it
in the red.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
It was like break even territory, like you maybe maybe
lost a little bit, maybe you made a little bit,
but nothing nothing significant, nothing gained or lost, but the experience,
you know, and I think the belief that if you
could do that enough, maybe somebody would invite someone with

(01:18:46):
some connection to somebody and it would get on somebody's radar,
which weirdly, like I remember, our publicist Jim sent a
video of our house show, of a house show of
ho Hey to the booker ofl and then a year
later we were on the show. So it's like those
things have a way of they keep playing a big guard.

(01:19:08):
You're playing a lot of seeds, and you just never
know where thing's gonna come from.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
Okay, when you went on this tour, was it like, well,
we never did this before, let's try it, or was
there already momentum.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
We had never done it, and let's try it. And
then we did it and enjoyed it, so we did
another one. I think we did probably three.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
So at what point did you feel it's starting to
turn I think this might work.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
I think I went home for Christmas and we were
gonna record and we were gonna have that residency at
the living room, and my brother said, did you know
that ho hey house video show? The House Show? Uh?
They put on YouTube. That thing has like five thousand
hits And I was like, no way, no fucking way.

(01:19:54):
And we looked and it had like six and I
was like what. And that was it was around that time,
like the four or five six thousand hit mark where
I was like, something's happening here. And then we played
five shows at the living room and then we used
that as kind of like a satellite here in New
York every Tuesday. Where else can we go in between?

(01:20:17):
So we went to Virginia, went to I think Pittsburgh,
maybe we went to DC, we went up to Maine.
We went all these different places in between those five gigs,
and by the fifth show, the living room, that show
sold out. So it was like, over the course of
a month we even saw a half empty room to

(01:20:41):
a sold out room. It was really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
It was like.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
Really innocent, you know, you're just like the room probably
helped forty forty five people, but for us, that was
like playing Madison Square Garden. It was like, I cannot
believe these people are here, and it was people. Suddenly
there's people there we didn't know, you know normally, like
how did you find out about It's like, oh, it
would always be a friend of a friend, and then
that's how you kind of know something is breaking a

(01:21:07):
little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
Okay, So that's where they make the connection with the manager.
How long after that is your song in the CW
TV show And how long after that till ho Hey
gets on the radio?

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
I think that happened probably November October November something like
at the end of that year. That song was recorded
and then made it onto that show, and then we
were signing management because we had recorded that at some
point that year. We had recorded our demos that year.

(01:21:49):
So the following year we're going through the label process
and it gets released I want to say it in
April of twenty twelve. And at that point when that
album came out, oh hey, it was already on the
radio a couple months before that, and it had kind

(01:22:10):
of like shot up into different formats and it was
all just news to us.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
Tell me about the first time you heard it on
the radio.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
I was living with my girlfriend who's now my wife.
We were that's a different whole other story. We were
living in the basement of the nanny. She was a
nanny for this family and they let me live with
her in their basement. They were like the nicest people,
the Swedish family. So I was like living with them
and sort of helping to nanny like babysit a little bit,

(01:22:42):
and they like would hire me to give their kids
music lessons just to be nice to me, because I
think they felt bad. And then I was making some
sort of Swedish like we were using dough and making
these Swedish pancakes or something and my hands were like
covered in flour and we were in there with their

(01:23:03):
kids and it comes on on the radio station and
it was the first time I heard it. It was like
I wanted to like get my phone out and text somebody.
And my hands were covered in flour from the cooking
we were doing. And we were about to leave for
for tour at that point, and and I was like, well,
that's a good sign. And I think we had just

(01:23:24):
found out we were going to play Conan and that
was a real dream come true. We just love Conan O'Brien,
and like things were happening, you know. I think we
got in a south By Southwest after years of rejection.
That's I mean, that's like the sort of irony of
festivals like that south By and stuff like that. It's
like you're almost getting in when they already have heard

(01:23:45):
about you, which is not the point to me, but uh,
it seems to all snowball are happen at once sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
So were you pinching yourself? Did you believe it? Did
you feel like well deserved? Did you feel like it's
gonna operate in any minute?

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
I think I felt like the ladder. I think I
felt like easy comanies ago, and I was I felt
like I was in a dangerous place, like I needed
to protect myself, and I was, you know, I was
thirty at the time, and I was like I had
this attitude of like, I don't want them to make

(01:24:26):
me someone I'm not. I want to I want to
feel like true to myself. And so we'd go to
photo shoots and they would have a rack of clothes
and I would get upset up, like why did you
bring clothes? Like I have my clothes. I'm gonna wear
what I wear, you know. Even down to that, it
was like, really remember going to the Grammys and they'd
be like, here's some free sunglasses. You just have to

(01:24:47):
take a photo. I was like, I don't want to
fucking take a photo. Like it was. I felt like
the industry as a whole, whether it was imagined or real,
it felt like it was just to sort of like
soften you to change in a way that I didn't like.
And I didn't feel safe around. I felt like I
was always in this weird danger zone of maybe whatever

(01:25:10):
I thought made us who we were was gonna be
played around with and rooted out of us. So I
was like really wary of the whole thing, and then
I wasn't so concerned about like whatever was going to
happen next. I just felt like a lot of this
stuff felt cheap, like it wasn't didn't mean that much

(01:25:33):
to me versus some other things in my life, Like,
you know, it felt like objectified, and I don't really
know if that's a healthy way to look at it.
And I think other people around me were enjoying it
a lot more. I think now I feel in a
really happy place with it, because I feel like there's
a level of like independence from some of that and
security where I'm like, I felt like we built a

(01:25:56):
trust with an audience that doesn't can't be like taken
away from us in an instant. But at the time,
it felt like there's some people out there who just
like want to make it known that they can make
you and unmake you.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
So you mentioned a couple of times of being in
the Grammys, you have this incredible peak with ho, Hey,
to what degree has that been in your mind for
the ensuing decade plus we're saying, Hey, you know, I
have to go back to that pinnacle where I want
to go back to that pinnacle.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
I think we were really we were really lucky to
have a like the album. First album, I felt, I'm
I'm super proud of that record, and we had Stubborn
Love is like a follow up to that to ho hey,
and my manager at the time brought up this really
good point that I had lost sight of. He said,
you know, if any band had that song and that

(01:26:51):
was their only song off that album, they would be
over the moon. That is a big deal. It's just
was like you're talking about ZEITG stuff when you talk
about what happened around o Hey. That's not as lightning
in a bottle. That's almost circumstances way beyond anyone's control.
And when we came out the second record, I was

(01:27:15):
I felt like we had made an even better record
and like instinctively, you know, and then I felt like
we were really really lucky that Ophelia had the connection
it did and it had its own moment where we
didn't feel like we had to prove that was just
a fluke, you know. I felt like that already with

(01:27:35):
having Stubborn Love in the mix, but then having Ophelia
just shoot up, and then we had Cleo and Angela
on that second record. It was. It was definitely strange
to to you know, you come out of the gates
with your first album and you get nominated for Best
New Artists and Best Americana Record, and then you put

(01:27:56):
out what you feel is a better record that connect
to a lot of people, and it's just crickets from
the Grammys. There's not like a nomination. But I don't
I've learned over time that that's like, that's just a
strange world. I don't I don't necessarily understand how things are.
I know we don't fit neatly into a box, so

(01:28:17):
that probably works against us with some of that stuff.
And I know we're not on a major I know
we don't play the game as well as other people.
But it was surprising to be like, I'm just kind
of shocked we got nominated at all, knowing what I
know now, and then we got to play the show.
It was kind of a miracle for us because that
a lot of our friends and family and just fans
thought we had won because we had played the show.

(01:28:37):
So like in a lot of ways, it's it's a
really beautiful break like turn of events and break for us.
And now we've kind of remained under the radar as
far as that goes. But I guess you just you
take your breaks where you can get them. That's how
I kind of view it. It's like, at first, you
don't understand it and it doesn't make sense, and it

(01:28:59):
can be kind of like deflating, but it's also a
strange measure of yourself. If that's how you're like viewing it,
you know it's a kind of a trap.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
Okay, there's four years between the first and second albums.
Why is that?

Speaker 2 (01:29:17):
We toured a lot, and we just we wanted the
first album we only had ten days to make to
record and I think five days to mix, and this
one we wanted like a chunk of time, so it
was like six weeks. We just kind of waited. We
didn't record while we were touring, so we waited until
touring wrapped up, which was lasted something like three years,

(01:29:40):
and then it took a half a year to write
and record the record, and then by the time it
came out it was four years. But I didn't particularly
care that much about how long it took. I just
thought the fastest way to plummet is to put out
a mediocre record, So I was like, as long as
this is strong, we're our chances of like survival and all.

(01:30:02):
This is way higher than if we rush something to
please someone. I think today's people making music have a
lot of fear around people forgetting about them, and I
just don't agree with that. I think I get really
turned off when I hear music that sounds rushed. It
sounds like half baked versus someone who, oh yeah, remember that.

(01:30:26):
I love that band, and every time they put something out,
I fucking dig it. So I was never really too concerned.
I know our management was a bit or a label,
and our management are concerned about those types of things,
but it never really bothered me that much.

Speaker 1 (01:30:46):
So what is the process? Do you say, oh, it's
time for a new album, let me write songs. You're
writing songs all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
I think it's you're always kind of collecting little little
song ideas, little parts of songs throughout touring and then
off tour. I sift through all those ideas and Jerry
sends me his ideas to sit through those, and then
you you often react to those ideas and come up
with new ones, and then you kind of smash them
all together. Those good ideas and that makes a record,

(01:31:16):
and then some of us just written on the spot,
but a lot of it is just like ideas that
have been existing independent of each other, just sitting around
on your voice note voice memo thing.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Okay, So if the record that's coming out automatic imminently,
if that was cut in July, when were the songs written.

Speaker 2 (01:31:38):
Yeah, it was cut in like May June. So songs
were written. I want to say, they're written March, like
end of March, early April.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
So they were written right before the record.

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
Yeah, Like, and they weren't really written. They were just
really rough, rough, rough sketches. They were not well written
or recorded at all. They were just quick notes, quick
voice memos. Meet Jared and I did around a guitar
and a piano usually and just hey, I think this
is the melody. And then and then I would take

(01:32:12):
like I would take a adder all and just walk
around the park and just mumble to myself like a
schizophrenic person and just get a bunch of lyrics written
between when we finished sort of demoing the the rough,
rough ideas and then trying to fill in the blanks
with some lyrics. So it was like that that area

(01:32:34):
of time was just a lot of constant like trying
to create something, and it was and then when we
got to the studio, I think it's our it's I
think it's our best record on a lot of levels,
mainly because take the first record, for example, we we
had written all those songs over the course of like
three four years, and then we had performed them hundreds

(01:32:56):
of times, and so by the time we went in
to make the Alb it was like you knew everything
about the songs, and there wasn't discovery, There wasn't like
that feeling of danger or curiosity. It was just like execution,
almost like you'd been putting on a play and now
you're gonna do the movie of it. And and this

(01:33:17):
one was there's we had no we call demo ititis,
where you've done something so cool as a demo and
now you're all you're really trying to do is like
pantomime thatt recreate that, and that's impossible. It's like I
always say, it's like if you ever have the best
date with your partner, every time you go back to
that restaurant and try to recreate it, it's always not

(01:33:38):
as good. And there's something about that process that we
did on this one where you can hear us being
like children just exploring and like playing around like they say,
play music like we were playing for the first time
in a long time, and it was It was really beautiful,

(01:33:59):
and it kind of it was surprising that twenty years
in Jere and I were as excited as we've ever
been for something. It made me feel good about me
and him and a band and what we're doing because
I know there are elements of this where bands kind
of get into it for other reasons and then it
kind of becomes something different over time. And for us,

(01:34:21):
it was like, wow, this is great. Can you know?
There was such a a wellspring in it and I
think you can hear on the record and we did
most of them takes are live. They're like really there's
a a lot of humanity and all of it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
So was there like hard start date that you were
working towards. Yeah, And who's the producer on the new album?

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
There's three it's like us, me and Jerr and then
David Baron and Simon Fleee.

Speaker 1 (01:34:50):
So you've continued to work with Simon Felice. What does
he add to the mix?

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
I think he has this kind of like raw instinct
when it comes to things that are working, and an
ability to unite the troops. You know, he kinda when
things are starting to splinter off, he can bring the
room back together. And he's really a savant when it
comes to lyrics. So I really love to check in

(01:35:19):
with him about stuff that I'm doing. What do you
what do you like? What do you really think of this?
And he'll tell me just shoot me straight with that.
And then David's more of he's a great producer in
his own right, but he's he's also a wizard when
it comes to the engineering side of things, and he's
an artist in his own way when it comes to,

(01:35:41):
you know, presenting a guitar, presenting a vocal or presenting
piano drum sounds. It's like he's really pushing that to
the limit as far as like what what's possible and
how raw you want to make it? And like with
the vocals, for example, all the vocals are like sitting

(01:36:02):
really upfront in the mix and not a lot of
adornment for most of them. Like a song like Automatic,
the title track is just like right, he describeses like
it's holding right in the center, right at you, and
he's just encouraged us to be really brave with our
choices and mixing, and I think it and he was

(01:36:23):
the one who wanted it to be like get back
the Beatles, where it's a big, open room and there's
a lot of bleed and you're kind of like playing
all together live, not multi tracking and doing everything separately.
So he's a big he was like the instrumental force
behind that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:40):
So how do you feel about your touring band playing
on the record or other musicians.

Speaker 2 (01:36:46):
Yeah, I mean on this one, it was just me
and Jerr and then we brought in a violinist who
this violin player was from the area, and then it
was not Lauren Jacobson, who's been played with us on
every record since the beginning. She wasn't she wasn't in
the immediate area the day we wanted violin, and so

(01:37:09):
we we tried out and we didn't want to have
her on call in terms of it just felt like
we weren't even sure if what we wanted, so we
called someone local, weren't sure if that wasn't sure, if
that was gonna be a placeholder or whatever. And then
it worked out and Lauren was super understanding of what
we were trying how it all unfolded, which credit to her.

(01:37:31):
With regards to the other instruments we have Byron Isaac's
on bass and he tours with us. He used to
play with Leavon home and for like six years and
wrote a song or two on his Dirt Farmer record,
and he's an amazing musician in his own right. We
met him on the second album and he's been with
us ever since. So he played with us a lot
live for this for this album, and then we had,

(01:37:55):
you know, a choir of three singers that would come in,
amazing singers and they would do backing vocals, and we
had a little bit of James Felee, Simon's brother who
has sang on our records a lot. He's fantastic. He's
in the Police Brothers.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
Okay. Even when Ho Hay was a hit twenty twelve,
the landscape was completely different from the way it is today. Today.
You look at the Spotify Top fifty, you can look
at the top five records and people a vast swath
of the public, even music fans, have never heard them.

(01:38:32):
So when you put out a record today, I mean
the old cliche used to be that the tour was
the advertisement for the record. The record is now the
advertisement for the tour. You make a new album, not
to mention the fact, I'm sure you'll sell you know,
physical product, whatever, but eighty four percent of the revenues

(01:38:53):
now or on streams. What are your expectations.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
I don't know. I try to keep my I try
to keep everything kind of like as a surprise. I
don't really know on tour where I'm gonna be the
next day. I don't look too far ahead, and it's
almost like not on purpose, but it's instinctive. So I
like being surprised if people connect with it. I think
that was what was cleansing about making an album. Three

(01:39:21):
was like I knew it wasn't gonna do quote unquote
well like I knew it. I was like, this is
not that type of record, and I still want to
make it. I think it's important that we make this record.
And it kind of tamped down whatever that part of
my side of my brain or that ego part of it.
It was freeing to just make something for the sake

(01:39:43):
of making it. That's probably you know, that's how you
should make every record. And so with this one, I mean,
I'll say that the early responses of playing it live
are really special, and I don't think that's I think
that's a strong indicator of it's more. I think the
more the bigger question is like, well, anyone know it's out?

(01:40:06):
And if you're not dating or Kardashian, does anyone know
your music or something? So I think there's ways people
cleverly promote. Whether it's Jack White, who I think does
it super artfully, it's like a genius when it comes
to letting you know he has a record out.

Speaker 1 (01:40:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
I feel like we've always been a slow burn and
hopefully things take hold, but it feels like a trap
to like want something specific to happen with it. And also,
I've been proud of every record we've made, and they're
not always they don't always hit the way that you
thought they would, or the songs like look we have

(01:40:46):
on on the album three, we had a song called Donna,
and I don't know what the streaming numbers are on that,
but like live, that's a big song for us, and
that means so much because it's a slow, piano, sad
song and I just love when those things. I love
when I feel like the audience is choosing something organically

(01:41:09):
and they haven't been force fed something, because obviously when
something like Ophelia happens or oh hey, that stuff is
force fed, it's like a duck, you know, making the
foie gras. It's like the audience is it's forced upon them,
and I don't that's part of the game. But what
made me really happy or mental lot to me was

(01:41:30):
when people like songs I Slow It Down or Donna,
or songs that never made the radio. You know. Those
are those show you that an audience is is discerning
and does have a taste, and they tell you by
by how they listen to it online or had a show.
You could just feel. And that's to me, that's a

(01:41:51):
lot more like sustainable and reassuring, and I try to
focus on that because otherwise it's like, I mean, I'm
not just turned forty two or not like a young band.
This isn't like the new shiny thing. And I hope that.
I hope that's it's a situation like Tom Petty Wildflowers,
where it's like a renaissance constantly. I couldn't believe being

(01:42:15):
a teenager listening to that album and it feeling so fresh,
and I could go backwards in his catalog and get
blown away, like it's so such a cool feeling, and
I'm I've always been enamored by that situation. Just it
was a very formative time for me. I remember holding
that CD. It was that brown paper like CD the

(01:42:40):
outside of it, and just being like, who is this guy?
And then remembering realizing that I'd heard all these songs
on classic rock stations by this guy, and yet this
is something he has to say, that's brand new, that's
maybe the best thing he's done. You know, it's so
so impressive. So I'd like to believe that it comes
from like the audience sort of finding it and gravitating

(01:43:03):
toward it. But they're so out of our hands.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
So you play a gig, you know, if a band
prior to the turn of the century goes on the
road and they play the new music, people go to
the bathroom, what is your experience?

Speaker 2 (01:43:21):
They do that too, They also stay I mean we
so we'll play our whole new album live every tour
we're doing. If that's the if that's the tour we're on,
if it's like the bright Side tour, we're playing the
bright side albums, the automatic or You're gonna hear the
album like, and I think the trick is committing to
that and fans expecting that is probably an important thing

(01:43:45):
for a band to do. Now as you get older,
who knows how that plays out. Like I remember seeing
Bruce Springsteen or Tom Petty and they'd have new albums
out and they would play like chunks of the album
select tracks, and I see that as cool too, But
for us it wasn't. Maybe it was encouragement by our

(01:44:06):
booking agents or management or something I don't really know,
but instinctively, it was really fun to play new stuff,
even if I feel like you break people in enough
to it the shock goes away or something and they're
just they're down with it. And like we opened for
You two in twenty seventeen, and that was the first

(01:44:28):
time I think in their career where they had really
like kind of looked back. They played Joshua Tree as
an entire They were going to play the whole thing,
And it was thirty years or something anniversary and we
were opening and they started playing stadiums for that. Two
nights at the Rose Bowl was the first gigs we
played with them. And so they had gone from playing

(01:44:49):
arenas to stadiums because they were willing to play older stuff.
But I thought, what a testament to you two that
they've continued to like do what they wanted to do
and not being like dance, Monkey Dance, I'm gonna play
only the hits and I'm gonna I'm gonna enjoy these
stadium gigs. They were like, we want to play it
our way. So if our way means you play arenas,

(01:45:12):
that's great too. And uh so they're they're playing arenas
as like almost their version of an underplay versus like
playing just the hits. And I think for us playing
the whole song, playing the whole album, uh for for
for audiences has been it was tough in the beginning,

(01:45:34):
but it was all we had. Like we put out
our second album, what were supposed to do? We didn't
enough music to fill up like the whole the whole time,
unless it was cover songs. So from the beginning we
were forced to play our whole records. And now it's
just an old habit that I think is a good
one to have.

Speaker 1 (01:45:49):
So I had to get hooked up with Louis Messina.

Speaker 2 (01:45:53):
That's a really good question.

Speaker 1 (01:45:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
Uh, he came into our world early on and believed us,
and he works with just heavyweights and had this weird,
like it's like otherworldly enthusiasm for music for a guy
who's been doing it for a while and been very successful.

(01:46:17):
I think you'd expect someone to walk in the room
that was a little more businessman, cold calculated, and he's
like jumping up and down, and he's like tearing up
at shows and he's like a kid. You know. It's like,
it's great to see. I mean it. It sounds like
it should be a prerequisite to work in music that
you love music, but as you probably well know, not

(01:46:41):
everybody who ends up here actually likes it. So it's
nice to be around people who have that fire and
that passion and in his case, believed in us way
more than we ever believed in what it could. I
hesitate to even say it that way, because I don't
I think it's odd to like want to play a stadium.

(01:47:01):
I don't, that's not like an ambition. But he, for him,
that's exciting. He's like, I'm gonna get the most people
at your show, and it's really cool. And he's kind
of He's made it happen in a lot of ways
for us, and I think him just expressed in a
faith in us has made people who haven't paid attention
to us maybe take us a little more seriously because
Louis he's like, he's like a mafia dude that like,

(01:47:23):
you know, you're a made man if you like he
kind of like expresses I believe in that, and suddenly
people go, well, maybe there's something there. And so it
was a big thing for us. It would be like
getting a really positive review in a magazine where people
read it. It's like that's before anybody kind of took
a chance on us.

Speaker 1 (01:47:42):
Okay, he had to play in Chicago in a stadium.
What has been You know, You've done a lot of
work where no one was paying attention other than being enthusiastic.
And you know his impromod of being Louis, what is
he added into the mix? And what does he foresee

(01:48:02):
going down the path? I know what he's told me,
but I would hear from you.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
I think he well, I like I can. There's a
few different ways to talk about it. One is I
think he knows from just a wealth of experience how
to like promote a show that I would just never understand,
Like he just knows how to find the people that
might go to a show and get them that information.
So I on a base level, he's just a genius

(01:48:28):
when it comes to like how to do that. And
then I would say, it's our job to deliver a
show that is memorable and like you want to come
back to. So it's like there's a deal there. He's like,
blow their minds. I'm going to bring him here, blow
their minds. Like and he whenever we see him, he goes,

(01:48:48):
I just need one more song, just one more song,
Like he's always like talking about one I need one
more song or two more songs, something like that. And
I know what he means, but I'm like, it's if
I knew how to do that, I would just do
it for you. But it's not that simple. But I
think the other side of it, I think he I

(01:49:10):
think he like challenges our management and the band and
the booking agents to sort of go for it in
a way that everybody's so cautious that he's like, why
would you what? Go go big? Like try it, And
there's something that's a good person to have as a
part of the mix in the room, you know, Like,
I think there's a lot of conservative people and he's

(01:49:32):
not like that. He's a dreamer, so he's always like,
you know, pushing the envelope and getting us and and
the other part of it is I think he's he's
aligned with us in the sense of he's not someone
who's gonna throw out a bunch of money and give
someone a big advance. He's like, if you win, I win,
and if I win, you win. We're going in on

(01:49:53):
this together. That's not like you know, someone's gonna lose.
And you know what I mean. I think there's like
a there's like a we're all in this together aspect
of this that is. I think that's why his business
works because he's like taking a chance right there with you.

Speaker 1 (01:50:19):
So, how has it worked financially? Not that you want to,
but if you stopped playing music right now, is there
enough money to make it to the end?

Speaker 2 (01:50:29):
Yeah, I mean I don't know, but I've talked to
my people, and every once in a while it's something
I don't like thinking about as far as like I
feel like it's just a strange side to this, But yeah,
I think there's an element of this that if I
wanted to live a life that was, in my estimation,

(01:50:53):
a really good life, I could do that, and that
makes music become a choice. But I also think it's
a funny thing because I was discussing this with Simon
Felice a few years ago, where we got into music
on the back of the nineties and early two thousands,
when everyone was like, man, there's no money to be

(01:51:15):
made in this bit there, and so it was almost
like you were joining the Peace Corps or like becoming
a teacher, where everyone's kind of looking at you like,
you know, there's no money, but I'm glad you exist.
And so to have that flipped on its head, and
now people are sometimes doing music to try to make money.
It's bizarre to me. But I feel like like I

(01:51:37):
was standing in front of my house the other day
and these people were walking by and they were like,
I live in Denver. And these people were walking by
and they parked the car and they're like, it's a
beautiful house, and like I looked, I'm like thanks. Man.
He's like, wait, you live there, and I was like, yeah, yeah,
I lived there, and I was with my wife and kids.
And then he turns I don't believe him, and then
the person goes, wait, you live there, and he's like yeah.

(01:52:01):
And I was talking to a neighbor and they I
don't believe him, and I was like, I told my
wife lear I was like, I think that's the nicest
thing someone's ever said to me. It is like, I
don't believe him because we didn't really get into this
for any of that, and so it feels okay to
to have things go your way and have something nice
because it wasn't the reason. It's just kind of like

(01:52:23):
I could take it or leave it. I enjoy I
enjoy parts of it, but really it's just like the
joy of I'm sitting here in my like workshop home
studio thing. This is the best part of it. And
then music somehow made its ability to buy a house
and stuff like that, but all of it. It's it's

(01:52:44):
cool because none of us got into it of that
era for money. It was the opposite people thought we
were being more on So in that way there's a
guilt free aspect. I remember our first house, like these
dudes while I was walking that was with my wife
and he's like, oh, go back to mommy and Daddy's house,
and I was like, all right, man, it's just like

(01:53:04):
there's an element of this that I feel like, uh not,
You're just like this is all kind of funny money.
It doesn't really make sense. There was no promises about this.
This is just like this happened to be the era
we were born in. It could have been twenty years
ago and I would be in a much different situation.
It's it's all fucking timing and luck in some of

(01:53:25):
that stuff. But the bottom line was I loved music,
and now this is cool that we're getting paid at
all to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:53:32):
So you're going on tour in Europe? What do the
lumineers mean in Europe? And we now really truly have
a worldwide business because people can stream your songs or
not stream your songs all over the world. So what
do the lumineers mean outside the United States?

Speaker 2 (01:53:48):
That's a really good question. I mean, like when we
go to the UK, the UK has like almost never
played us on the radio ever. We were too old
for BBC one, we're too young for BBC two, they said,
and so it's like very grassroots or they heard it
on like I think they got us on a commercial
or two, so there's like some way for people to

(01:54:08):
hear the song. To me, it's it's it's kind of
like this underdog thing where it's just we recently got
to go to Poonie or Pune in India when we
played a show. There's like fifteen thousand people there and
we were like, this is insane, Like you know, suddenly

(01:54:32):
Spotify exists and smartphones are in everyone's hands all over
the world. There's places that English just the second language
and they're playing to a large crowd of people. It's
it kind of blows my mind. I don't I think.
I think country to country it's pretty different. Like if
you take Ireland, I think Ireland likes us because of

(01:54:52):
the storytelling, but it's it seems to differ place to place,
and it's like almost like not for me to understand.
But like you know, a I would take a band
I've always loved, like growing up, like The Killers. The
Killers are like probably arguably bigger in Europe than in
the States, and I feel like we're bigger in the

(01:55:13):
States than we are in other places. But we've gone
back so many times to to Italy and to Spain
and to Ireland and Germany that you start to see
it slowly grow and it feels like trustworthy or something.
I don't know how the right way to say it,
but it feels like at least something that feels like,

(01:55:35):
all right, maybe this is a real thing versus in
the very beginning. It was like when we first went
to Europe on our first album, and then we returned
on the second album, I think our ticket sales like
divided in half, and it was kind of shocking. It
was like, whoa, no one's here, what the hell's going on?
And then we we've sort of like, over the next

(01:55:57):
two to three albums, have built everything back up to
where it once was. And I think that's an interesting
thing to happen to somebody. It's like you realize in
the beginning, it's kind of like a moment in time
and you're and then you slowly grow back into this
original thing that you thought was so easy, and it

(01:56:17):
was like a lot of hard work to get back
to the thing you thought was easy or it thought
was like, oh, I guess it just happens. Like it
doesn't just happen. It went away just as fast as
it happened.

Speaker 1 (01:56:28):
Okay, Once when somebody listens to you. You're very much
a thinking guy and a little bit like Lloyd Doebler
in the movie say anything, you know. I don't want
to sell anything. I don't want to believe in blah
blah blah blah blah. So I don't know, Jerr, is
this just okay, We're going on the road. People know

(01:56:52):
who we are, We're obviously doing this podcast. But to
what degree, or you or somebody on social media, to
what degree is this being worked? Because it doesn't look
like you're working.

Speaker 2 (01:57:05):
It worked in terms of like advertising it or something
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:57:09):
Yeah, promoting it, making people aware of it.

Speaker 2 (01:57:12):
I mean, my wife always jokes that we just married
the wrong people because we're like not married to famous people,
and that would have helped our career a lot. No,
there's not. I mean, I think we try to promote
it in the way that we would receive. We put
up a couple of billboards with lyrics on it. I
think we want to send some lyric books out to
some fans. We sent like tape recorders out with a

(01:57:36):
new song or new album on it to certain people.
But it's not overly done because I find a lot
of that cheesy and probably not authentic to like, I
don't think we'd come off doing it well anyway. There's
some people are just naturals. They're like, that's what they're
about and they know how to do that. I just
I don't and I don't care. So I live with

(01:57:58):
the I live with the understated rollout and like, you know,
let the chips fall where they may. But like, in
another way, we've we put a lot of behind the
scenes work into Like there were a lot of years
where we were showing up to radio station early morning
the day of a gig and playing an in studio
session and doing an interview. We did a lot of that,

(01:58:21):
I think to try to like plant seeds of maybe
the radio will support us in some ways, or you know,
there's different ways to do it. But I sit back
and total admiration of someone like Jack White, who can
he can promote something and somehow it's just so cool
the way he does it, And that's just don't I don't.

(01:58:43):
I don't have that like same instinct. I can't. I wish,
I wish he could help us. But at the same time,
there's a charm to like letting people find it. I
think they feel like they own it a little more
if it's on their terms, which is why hit songs
don't feel as personal to people. I think they just
feel like they were shoved into your face, and if

(01:59:04):
they're good, it's almost a surprise, you know. It's like
it's like, I'm sure Bruno Mars has some amazing songs,
but all of them feel like they're just like pushed
directly into my ear and like it's a little aggressive
versus like I don't know. I got into Time out
of Mind, that Dylan record from like ninety nine, I
want to say ninety seven, and I listened to that

(01:59:28):
NonStop this whole recording session. I don't know why. It
just gave me a lot of comfort and I kept listening.
I've still listened to it, and it's kind of like Rodriguez.
There's these albums that I get into. They feel like
mine because nobody forced me to listen to it, And
maybe that's part of it. Maybe that's like I mean,
we were we were sitting in with Zach Bryan. I

(01:59:50):
think he's an example of someone who the fans tend
to feel like his music is their music, and I
think part of that is that he released this is
a lot and doesn't really like having an extravagant roll out,
and it's just like a here it is unadorned. This
is it direct to you. And you know there's something

(02:00:11):
to be learned from that because everybody thinks that they
know what they're doing and how to promote a record. Well,
like he's kind of broken that mold, at least for himself.
I don't know how many people could pull it off,
but he's a good example of like, hopefully some good
music can find its own way.

Speaker 1 (02:00:27):
Well, Wes, you know we did that piano together. I've
seen the lumineers, but I'd be lying if I didn't
say I was anxious, Like I knew you were sort
of a low key talker. I said, well, you know
house is going to play out? Am I going to
be able to go? But you know, I didn't know
what a thinker you were, and you know how you're

(02:00:48):
true to your beliefs. So it's been a real pleasure
talking to you, and I know my audience will very
much enjoy listening to you. So thanks for doing this.

Speaker 2 (02:01:00):
Yeah, absolutely, and I revealed I was gay at one point.

Speaker 1 (02:01:04):
Absolutely, you're gonna see it on GMG and in five minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:01:08):
You know, that's the way to promote this record now
that we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (02:01:12):
Okay, just before we go, you just put this hat
back on. This is AWD. Is that the logo from
the super Room.

Speaker 2 (02:01:19):
Yeah, but it's like I got it at of trendy
shoe stares as all well dead, but I I think
it is. I think it's like you'll see it on
the Superrew thing.

Speaker 1 (02:01:30):
Well, do you have a suber U. I do.

Speaker 2 (02:01:33):
I have a super U out and the Catskills and
I have a it's unrelated, but I have a Toyota
land Cruiser here that I've had for like ten years.
That that's my real baby. The superw is just a beater.
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:01:48):
Wait, wait, what year is your land Cruiser?

Speaker 2 (02:01:51):
Eighty seven? Nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 1 (02:01:53):
Okay, so it's the giant station wagon style, not the
one that looks like a jeep.

Speaker 2 (02:01:59):
Yeah, it's like I think so it's kind of that
classic like if you see the drug dealers in the
old movies or old like Netflix has that, uh Narcos, Yeah,
all driving that, they're all driving they are, Yeah, and
that's my that's mine.

Speaker 1 (02:02:16):
So you have a place in the Catskills yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:02:18):
I have a place in a place called Palinville. It's
right in your Woodstock. We made the last four records
out there, so it's just like the first. We were
gonna make our second record. We had found a studio
in the woods of Colorado in the middle of nowhere,
and like three weeks from about to record there, the

(02:02:40):
owner called me or called our management and said the
price it tripled because I guess they found out our
band or something who we were, and we were like
what No, So we ended up changing plans and going
out to the cat Skills for the first time, which
turned out to be like an hour north of where
we JOURNI up just fell in love with the area,

(02:03:02):
and so I have a few yurts out there in
a house and it's like a little bit of a
compound where we spent a lot of time. We make
records out there. I produced records with David Barrett out there,
so it's like a beautiful Do do you spend time
out there? Have you been out there?

Speaker 1 (02:03:17):
Oh? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:03:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:03:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:03:20):
Where do you go to Woodstock or where do you go? No?

Speaker 1 (02:03:22):
I mean I've been to the Catskills. I worked in
the Catskills, which this is like before you were born.
This is like the sixties and seventies.

Speaker 2 (02:03:31):
But like, what do you remember where all.

Speaker 1 (02:03:32):
Those hotels went out of business? Yeah, okay, and there
were summer camps there. I worked at a summer camp.
You go to Manaicello, I remember, you know, actually seeing
the Woodstock movie for the third time at a theater
in mana Celo and going to the Delhi. So yes,
you know, I grew up in Connecticut. That's not awesome,
so believe me, I know the cats skills.

Speaker 2 (02:03:54):
Yeah, yeah, we're I mean, it's just kind of like
a really beautiful place and it's close to the city
in a weird way to have like both of those
places nearby each other. But yeah, we go out to Hudson,
New York a lot like Sogerate's Woodstock and then Hunter
Mountains just around the corner.

Speaker 1 (02:04:13):
So wait, wait, wait, wait wait Are you a skier
a little bit? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:04:17):
I snowboard ski?

Speaker 1 (02:04:20):
Yeah, well Hunter Mountains you know with ski area, yep. Yeah,
you live in Denver. Need to partake of the mountains.

Speaker 2 (02:04:28):
A little bit, I like genuinely don't. I generally don't
do it that often, only because I don't want to
fuck up an entire tour by like tearing an MC
and a c L. But like, weirdly enough, the epic
pass that you can buy for vail Rea. They that
works at Hunter. I know it's wild. So you like

(02:04:50):
Simon Fleece came out here a couple of years ago
and he's like, my past works out at your spot
in Colorado's wild man.

Speaker 1 (02:04:59):
So since you grew up in New Jersey and you
have a place in the Catskills. Because no, the world
is smaller than ever because of the Internet. But there
are differences between the East Coast and the West coast.
So what is the difference between the East Coast and Colorado?

Speaker 2 (02:05:17):
Pretty big? I mean I felt like the East Coast
was like, at least music making wise, it was pretty doggy,
dog pretty like old school competitive Your gain is my loss.
And then in Colorado was a lot more like there's
a lot more Kumbaya in the air. Like stealth helping

(02:05:37):
us right off the bat was one of the biggest
things that happened to us, you know, so I think
part of it. I mean I remember walking to work
in Colorado and the guys I said to a guy,
how you doing, Like that's just an East coast. How
you doing right? And he was like pretty good the weather,
and he like launched into this explanation and I was like,

(02:05:59):
is this real? This guy's like talking to me right now.
It was so friendly, and I was I was I
found myself when I first moved here, like what's the catch?
What are you trying to do to me? What are
you trying to sell me? And it's just pretty kind,
you know, Like so I had to adjust to that,
and I think people actually found me to be quite cold,

(02:06:19):
hence the song asshole. But it was like I think
I was pretty like unnerved by how nice everyone was being,
and I was like I didn't find it very authentic.
You know, No one's just nice. And then I've been
here long enough where it's just normal to me now,
and when I go back East, I can kind of
switch back to that and I definitely understand it a

(02:06:42):
lot more.

Speaker 1 (02:06:43):
So.

Speaker 2 (02:06:43):
We brought my wife's family out to New York City
and then the cats goes for Christmas and they were
like they had never seen people hawking at each other
or yelling at each other, and I was like, this
is just normal to me. I was like, I was
going to the Museum of Natural History as a kid
and seeing like drug addicts on the street and like

(02:07:05):
homeless people and just wild behavior at a sort of
young age that this is like they're in their twenties now,
like her brothers in his forties and their kids are
their teens, and they were just like, well did you
see that? Guy?

Speaker 1 (02:07:18):
Yelled the other.

Speaker 2 (02:07:19):
Guy like yeah, that's like a day in New York,
Like what's the big deal? So I felt lucky. And
when I moved here, the biggest thing I noticed was
like New York and New Jersey, the sort of tri
state area as a whole, has this hustle to it.
There is an urgency to everything you're doing that I

(02:07:40):
was out hustling people just working normally, so it prepared me.
I had advantages here just because people were a lot
more chill, and I was like, what what are we
doing here? Like what's going on? Like when is band rehearsal?

Speaker 1 (02:07:52):
What?

Speaker 2 (02:07:52):
Like I need my coffee, let's go. Like no one
was like like that, So it was a cool thing
to come out here and be like, oh, maybe in
New Jersey I was average speed, but here I'm like working.

Speaker 1 (02:08:04):
At listen, I can talk to you forever. We're gonna
call it a close now. In any event, till next time.
This is Bob left six