I can't get into the whole pleasantries like the official opening of all this otherwise it'll be half the conversation will be spent with my reflection and thoughts on what your music means to me but just simply thank you uh for giving me such amazing songs and moments and
companionship through your art over the course of my life man you've changed my life >> well thank you very much I I appre and I understand the companionship thing because I've I've had it with many artists throughout my life and uh and and and I understand that that connection with someone. So, thank you So, thank you very much. >> Yeah. Yeah.
Well, it's great to finally meet you at last and to be able to say that and thank you for reciprocating with that observation.
And I want to start with feeling cuz that's all you bring to this music is feeling.
That's what I connect to.
The notes and the melody follow the feeling.
And um we know that's not always the case.
Sometimes it's a bit more mathematical than that.
But um you know I I as you walked in, we were playing a simulation which is the end of this particular film, >> this Afghan wigs film.
you always find a way to finish it in the most beautiful way.
Um whether it's about you or about somebody else or someone you've created in order to reflect you or it's a combination of all things totally understandable and we don't need to dissect that.
But how do you feel when it's time to release that vocal performance into that arrangement in the studio to get that feeling that you translate to me and I feel it so clearly?
I have written songs the same way since I was 15 years old.
And uh I I come up with a riff and then I put a melody on top of it.
Then I look for vowel sounds and syllables.
>> Uh and uh and then I put then I put meaning behind it.
you know, like it's uh I I've I've I've said before, maybe flippantly, that it's uh >> 10% what you say and 90% how you say it. >> Yeah.
>> So, uh uh but there there is something to that. You know what I mean?
Like I I you know, you you'll watch people like sing words and >> they don't know the words, but they know the vowel sounds and the syllables and they know where it goes.
>> Well, let's phraser cockto twins.
I mean, you know, it's sat in emotion and feeling rather than you got into the cerebral aspect of it. >> Sure.
Vinnie Riley from Derudi column like same kind of like viby. >> Yeah.
>> But it doesn't, you know, searose. >> Damon Oran's done it.
Whatever it feels like, you know.
>> I believe in uh um it going where the song wants to go.
I I saw this interview with this the with the lady who wrote September with uh Maurice White and Al McKay.
I forget her name, but uh uh when he had the bada part and that she's like, "What does that mean?"
And he's like, "It doesn't matter what it means." Yeah. So, >> yeah. Yeah. We'll make it our own. >> Exactly.
when you have got some words that are attached themselves to the to to the sounds and you know that it's going to there's a there's a marriage a union there between um the the feeling of making the noises and the words that you've created and then I guess I guess
to to put it simply Greg when you recorded the vocal of a simulation what was that experience like for you to capture it forever >> it was uh uh it's a one take vocal I do remember that >> you do that a bit Yeah, you know, >> right? Am I wrong? I think you Am I wrong?
I think you >> No, no, I I I I love the one take vocals.
I do I you know, there are comps.
Sometimes you need to do it.
I mean, like, you know, the greatest example of a comp that I can think of is uh David Gilmore solo and Comfortably Numb.
That's like five five pieces glued together. And great. I'm glad it was.
You know, I mean, maybe that he didn't nail it that way, but he plays it that way now.
So, uh, uh, that for me, if I can nail it in one, that's that's great, you know.
>> Do you know it's time to do it? >> Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I once I because I've because I've already done the scratch vocal, >> so I know like where it can go >> and uh and once I get words in there and I and I can sing them naturally, like it's I'm ready. I'm ready to do it.
Has there ever been a vocal performance in the studio where you've broken down after or it's you actually it's actually cracked you a little bit, you know, because you went somewhere I know you sing with this real heart that's very much at the core of how you approach singing.
Um, has there been a vocal where you know at the end of that moment perhaps what was going on around you in your life or perhaps what what inspired that vocal performance they connected and it it became something more human than just art.
Uh, I mean, back I I' I've back when we were making uh Gentlemen, uh, um, there's a song called My Curse, and uh, >> uh, I tried to sing it, and I could not I couldn't sell it the way I wanted it sold, so I brought in my friend Marcy to sing it for me.
It wasn't that I was like I that I broke down after it or anything like that, but I I recognized that it had to come from a different perspective.
And uh uh uh that that happened there.
I have I have recently worked on a song that I wasn't able to get through because I just I was I was too emotional and and I knew what it was about and and and the loss of of who it was about was uh was a little more overwhelming than I I anticipated.
So, I'm I'm taking a a timeout before I try to uh to attempt that one again.
>> What a beautiful challenge >> it it will be.
and and when it and when it when I finally stick the landing, it'll be uh I I'll be I'll be happy for that and and and hopefully I'll be able to get through it live someday.
>> The fact that you got Marci to come and sing On My Curse, which has now gone down in in history amongst all Afghan wigs fans is one of the most as a very moving moment.
Um even though it's not you singing it, it definitely is your song and people know that.
Uh the band nurture it as lovingly as they would have if you had been singing it, which is a beautiful thing as well. You you and the band.
Um, it it just shows that these songs that you write that it's almost less about the ownership of them and more about setting them free. Is that fair to say? >> Sure.
I mean, once it gets to the the spot where I'm where it has coalesed and been realized, that's it's no longer yours.
Now, now you've now you've given it to the world and you know, whatever section of the world is going to listen to it, but it no longer belongs to you or even you and the engineer who who's been with you the the entire time.
>> So, >> well, it's it's fascinating, is it?
This relationship that we all have with music, whether you create it or you listen to it and love it, is that it changes shape and constantly searches and and the context changes around you and then reflects back on you something you didn't even know.
And I'm sure you've got many experiences of that as the band reaches its 40th anniversary.
Congratulations, by the way. Thank you very much.
>> What a remarkable milestone for a band that could have just spiraled off into outer space into blood, guts, and dust after a few years of very prolific, you know, creativity.
And amazing to think that you've been around this long now.
>> I think the break >> was was that that is why I'm able to sit here today and and and go out and do those songs again and and and be uh in a band with with John again.
you know, we that when when we broke up in whatever that was 2000, I think >> uh um it was it was strange at first.
I mean that you know whether you want to admit it admit it or not it it is your identity.
It was who you were for blank amount of years and and and to go try to do something else.
But that doing something else and and learning that I could do it and that I could continue doing what I had already done.
Uh that gave me the confidence that >> when I was finally when it was finally presented to me to to do it again in a meaningful way, I was I was ready for the challenge.
>> You know, it's interesting.
I was going over an old conversation that you had.
There's a Substack, a guy called Stu Berman who used to be well or still is a journalist but he he's uploads old conversations in previous you've done and I found one of yours with him and it was interesting because it was around 98 you know and you just released 1965 and there was this window in this in the conversation where you're talking about like I love you know environments and I
think I'm already deciding I'm going to come back and do the next record in New York and then within 18 months the band was over and it it it just reminded me how quickly these things can happen and how you can go from one day feeling like the whole world's laid out for you and I've got these plans and it's all sorted >> to just being like that's it, you know, there's no going back on this for the time being. And how that felt at the
And how that felt at the time for you because it reads whiplash quick.
>> We made a bunch of music in a short amount of time and uh uh and you know weathered three drummers in that in [snorts] those years. drummers. >> I know.
I mean, I you know, I've I've never played with I've never played with a bad one, but I've played with a bunch of crazy ones.
I mean, looking back now, you know, there was uh it was time like we had just we had run that thing as far as we could take it.
And uh uh and when we reunited, it was time for that, too.
So, everything has its time.
I didn't even expect that that would there would be a time for that.
And then I did an acoustic tour >> and John Curley uh uh would always play with me in Cincinnati whenever I would come through.
He'd get up and we'd do some wig songs >> and then we'd leave town and he'd stay there.
This this particular time uh I asked him if he wanted to come to Chicago, which was the next show.
>> And we had not played together outside of Cincinnati for 12 years or something like that.
Had you stayed in touch with him at that time? >> Absolutely.
You know, uh he had kids and you know, he just he went into another lane.
>> But, uh >> when I introduced him in Chicago, the the response from the audience was pretty staggering.
And I realized how much the two of us playing together meant to the audience, you know.
And uh we did that and then I invited him out to the West Coast and we did the West Coast, same reaction, you know, LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, everywhere.
>> Uh and that was the seed, I think.
So I mean, and two years later, we reunited. So yeah, there you go. >> And there it is. It's funny.
I was talking to um to the guys from Quicksand about this, you know, the other day and we were talking about how they broke up sort of a couple of albums into into their first phase and now they're back and very similar, you know, three or four albums in and making some of their best records like yourselves and it feels very fresh and exciting and the way it should be.
way it should be. Um but whether you know they look back on that time and the decision that they made back in I think it was 96 95 96 off the back of Mic impression when they called time they were again signed to a major label the whole thing whether they sort of felt with the benefit of hindsight and some
wisdom and experience more for the benefit of people watching and listening to this who are having tough times and just to think you know just think >> don't ever make a decision about a band backstage is my motto >> ever because it's not a rational place uh and they were like yeah I I think looking back on. Even though it's worked
Even though it's worked out great, we probably could have given ourselves a beat or a breath to think about that before we made that decision.
It sounds to me based on what you're saying that you never felt that way even looking back on the decision.
>> No, it was the right decision at the time.
It had it could go no further.
I mean, we we >> we made a great record that, you know, that that last record that we had made was great.
So it wasn't for a lack of like ability or or output or anything like that.
It's just like we were exhausted as >> humans [clears throat] doing that, you know, like that that >> the >> the treadmill >> the treadmill of of record tour, record tour.
We'd done it for whatever 10 years, 12 years, something like that.
It takes a toll, you know?
I mean, like I look back, uh John has uh uh has kept records of all like we played like 210 shows for the congregation album, you know?
I mean, like that's insane, you know?
Uh you're never home, you don't have a life.
It's uh it's, you know, and then Gentlemen, we played probably 150 shows.
Well, then but then the wheels start turning even faster because people start to really recognize that you've got something special and they want you to catch up to them and you're like, "We've already been running." >> Oh, yeah.
We've already I mean, we've played your town twice this year. >> That's right.
So, now you wanted to come back six times this year. Yeah.
It just it it just wears you out.
And then like the back and forth to I mean, you know, Europe has always been a good place for us.
England has been a good place for us.
So, we were going there three times a year >> and it just it just wipes you out cuz you go over there and you got to play for six weeks to make the money, you know, to pay for the bus and and and all the stuff.
It all just becomes this thing.
And what looked so glamorous to you >> as a child or a teenager is now now you're in it and you realize like okay that that 75 90 minutes you get on stage that's the drug. >> Yeah.
>> The rest of it is a beatd down. >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And also leading you to the other drugs and other stuff. Exactly. >> Yeah. Yeah.
It's it's distraction by self-destruction.
And I've spoken to so many people who I love about this, you know, and the fact that, you know, it's it seems like it's a byproduct of a lifestyle, some kind of choice that you make.
But a lot of times it's actually to dull the fact the world's going on without you. >> Mhm.
>> And this isn't to make a misery of this, don't get me wrong.
These are what dreams are made of.
But you have to make your decisions earlier on in life than we ever got a chance to cuz I think it's it can be pretty brutal.
Certainly in the 90s, it felt like there was no one really doing checks and balances on that stuff.
Well, I mean, you think about the uh um like uh a film actor for instance, >> uh you depending on how big your part is, you're going to have a lot of downtime.
>> You might not get called to set that day.
Maybe you're just like hanging out in your trailer.
Well, you know, that's the devil finds work thing.
like you you start to look for ways and and a lot of times you're not in your own town, so you don't have your community around you, so you just start hanging out with randoms and you look for things in common quickly. What could that be?
You know, >> everybody wants a story. >> Exactly.
>> Greg's in town, the banner in town.
I've got some in my pocket.
Let's go have a good time.
You'll leave and I'll have a great story. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. Know, I get it.
Um, which is why we're so grateful that you've made this new album and the albums that you've made since you returned because it feels like there is um, it feels like it's perpetual.
It doesn't feel like it's caught up in that typhoon of, as I said before, it could spiral off into outer space at any minute.
This feels like a life that you enjoy living, making these records, playing these shows, and that there's some form of maturity that that plays into this. That's a good thing.
I feel like I I I feel like after all this time like I actually can say like I know what I'm doing. >> Yeah.
>> Like I know how to do it. Yeah.
I know what will happen if I do this.
I know what will happen if I do that.
It's not that there won't be some surprise or or some accident.
I mean some of the best stuff I've come up with has been accidental.
And this album is no uh uh there's no difference in it.
But, uh, I enjoy this as much as I did when I was a teenager.
Like, I, you know, I've I've waited for the bloom to to to wear off and and it just doesn't, you know, like I I I I move toward it like a magnet and uh and I'm and I'm happy while I'm there.
>> You know how we can tell?
Because the set list reflects it.
It covers all the ground. It's not like, "Oh, man.
I'm trying to capture something from 20 years ago. Like, no, no, no. We love these songs.
And also the way that the show looks, it's clean >> and it this the the lighting is very tasteful and the way that the amps are positioned and the finish and everything.
It's like it's not like, oh, we're just going to keep making doing shows here.
It's like, no, you obviously really love the detail >> for the the budget that we're on, like just like changing the screens and adjusting the lights for our our our the environment we want to change.
Like, you have to you have to realize, and I've I've thought this from going to shows and and being the performer at shows, you're mostly playing venues that everybody plays.
So, the people in that town have been to that venue a hundred times.
You need to make it look different than the last time they were there.
You need to create the environment that they're going to spend 90 minutes in or two hours in or whatever you're going to give them.
Uh that just very like simple things you can do to to make it look like, >> hey, this is a you're in a different place tonight.
This is this is this is our place.
This is our collective place.
That it becomes more intimate and meaningful to me.
I think it speaks also to the some of the inspirations that have become part of the DNA of the Afghan wigs as a band beyond just the records and they feature in the records but also like the idea of of soul music of it being a show.
It doesn't have to be a per you can perform at your highest level but what does how are you going to make the most of the space?
How is it going to feel and give some kind almost a tactility like I can taste something when I see the way the show comes out and just it's just speaks to all of that level of of attention and all way all the way through to the artwork.
I think you know you you you've had one of the most consistent runs of tasteful album cover arts ever and uh and I know you're obviously really visually turned on >> like that like not everyone is but you it feels to me like I really got it when I realized that moving picture image art and all the arts played a big part in what drove your songs and your music.
Can we talk a bit about that? >> Well, sure.
I mean, I I I'll tell you like once I got to when I got Led Zeppelin 4 and there was nothing on the cover. Yeah. >> But just the picture. >> Yeah.
>> No band name, no album name.
Uh uh I was like super intrigued by that.
And uh um most of our albums don't have any any any writing on them.
When they do, it's always kind of weird. And I kind of like it.
Uh um and on on Due to the Beast, I even like came up with my own kind of like zoo uh uh rune imagery um that uh that I was I was, you know, not so secretly thrilled by.
[laughter] I love it, man.
Like I love to like it's it's art and it should be like this, like you said, a tactile experience.
Like I just got this album the other day.
Like it the box showed up.
It was it and and I open the box and I'm like every time I open the box it's it's 1988 all over again.
It's the first the first album I made.
I remember we went down to the dock the loading dock that it appeared at >> and the new one. No, in Cincinnati.
This was this was on the first album we made.
>> And we went down there and got the box cutter and opened it up.
It was like you know it was like >> it's real. >> Yeah.
You're like you're 22 years old and you're having your Spinal Tap moment.
you know, and I had it the other day when two days ago when the box showed up.
It was outside my gate and I opened it up and I was just as thrilled. I designed the record.
I took the photograph that's on the cover. >> Where is it?
>> That's Sid Silverlake.
It's uh a place called Rattlesnake Park.
It's down by the LA River >> and those are the heron gates. >> It's beautiful.
I mean, it's poor Thomas Anderson levels of like architecturally perfect.
I mean at one point you have to really look at the detail upon second or third viewing when you realize that it's not actually a mirror image.
Um and the idea as well just to super noodle it just to zero in on the grading of that and the and the and the fact you've gone for a sort of purplish tone more of of a deeper darker sepia.
Um what what are you trying to say with that?
What if you're so artistically and visually dialed in?
What do you want us to get out of that?
What did you get out of making?
We changed the background, you know, to something a bit more celestial.
And uh uh obviously uh the uh the herand don't throw their shadows.
Uh there is a version of them with the throne shadow and it just didn't look as cool to me.
So I I made the executive decision that those are vampire herand and they do not cast shadows.
>> So uh uh that is uh that is the idea of the cover.
But I loved like I, you know, having a title called soft control.
I didn't want to get all like literal with it, you know.
Uh so I I I drove by I've driven by the Heron Gates a million times, but I was on a walk down by the LA River >> and the look going into the park of the gates is totally different than coming out.
I had never come out of the park.
I had never seen it from the back.
And that's what triggered me when I saw it from the back and I went three different times of day and the time of day that it was throwing the shadows was one photograph.
So I built I comped the photograph.
>> So uh um >> that's your David Gilmore solo right there.
>> There's my David Gilmore solo. Exactly.
>> I love it and I love all the artwork of your records.
Um, and I want to go through a few of them over over time as well, but you know, okay, the artwork doesn't give us a literal sense of what the term soft control means, but again, same thing with the album titles.
I mean, Black Love, Gentlemen, Do the Beast, you know, uh, Soft Control.
You can press play on an FG wigs album and get a sense of what kind of movie we're going to watch. So, what is this?
How does the album title relate to the songs on this particular record?
>> This one is pure feeling.
like you know these last bunch of records I've done like are very abstract.
There are there are things there is me and my experiences in there >> but I you know >> I have a vivid imagination always being that way >> and yeah I mean I no I mean I I would say like congregation black love congregation gentlemen and black love were very I was in the this is happening to me and I'm going to tell and I'm going to tell you all about it.
So, Greg, we're going to we're going to go a little bit into that with your blessing because because I've read a ton of interviews with you and seen a ton of conversations with you where at the time when you were asked about those records, you said the same thing.
You were like, "There's my experiences rolled into this, but I have a vivid imagination.
Doesn't necessarily mean it's happening to me."
I remember there were all kinds of crazy stories and I know this not to be true now, but before the internet, the story was that Black Love was recorded in New Orleans, which I've realized now subsequently was 1965.
But that when you went to record Black Love that this was almost your goodbye to life.
That's the rumor that floated through Afghan fans.
And I'm sure that's not the case.
But can we talk a little bit about like >> can we can we pull the curtains back a little bit on that time >> if you're willing to kind of say no that was way more literally what I was going through than perhaps even I led on at the time.
Um and because that suite of records is for people who live with them and love them.
>> [clears throat] >> um a very beautiful heavy reminder of life and what people can go through when they're searching. >> Sure.
I mean, congregation to me was when we became the Afghan wigs.
Like that's, you know, up in it has what I think are like, you know, a couple of our first like songs that I would consider great songs.
Uh, but we were still kind of trying to figure out who we were.
Congregation was where we figured out >> we're we're we're going to be something like this.
And it was us and we played slow songs and we played uh Jesus Christ Superstar covers and and like exactly what we wanted to do.
It was, you know, like in some of the subpop brass were like, "What the [snorts] are you doing?"
And we're like, "We're from Cincinnati. Cool it. >> We're emoting." >> Yeah.
[laughter] You know, Congregation was like the the prequel to Gentlemen. It was the it set it up.
The girl who sings the first song on Congregation is the girl that Gentleman's about.
>> So, uh there's the connection there.
And uh that was, you know, the breakup that that I had.
And we we had, you know, we lived together.
I went to Europe for like seven weeks and I came back and she had a new boyfriend and he had been in my house >> and it was very sobering because uh I had not been the most faithful fella out there on that Europe tour.
Although, you know, but I I still was a gasast that at what had been done to me.
>> And there was the hypocrisy of gentlemen. >> Exactly.
And that's and that's when I figured out, you know, that, you know, >> it was I who was the you know, and uh and that's >> when it's staring you in the face, and you are a hypocrite.
It's >> it's not your best day, but it's what you do with it afterwards.
It's who you you either evolve or devolve at that point.
And I really do feel like I I I evolved enough to get myself in similar trouble with the next album.
And uh uh and that was all like mixed with, you know, I probably always wanted to write a quadrophania type situation.
Uh I was super into noir at the time.
Uh, the song that I think maybe started that he wants to check out was probably Crime Scene.
>> Crime Scene was inspired by my friend Nicholas Klene wrote a screenplay called Million-Dollar Hotel that Vim Venders directed. >> Yeah.
>> And Jeremy Davies is the star of it.
And at the beginning of at some point in the movie, he goes to commit suicide at the at the Million-Dollar Hotel.
He's on the roof >> and he it's it's very dramatic and it it it it ended up shooting different than it was in the script, but that's where Crime Scene came from. I'm not that guy.
It was literally me being inspired by, you know, Nikki's uh uh Nikki's story was was was very inspirational to me and I took elements of it and made my own out of it, you know, made it a musical.
Man, did you did you deliver it with such a such an serious level of of of personal commitment?
I mean, you know, at the very beginning, you know, that opening line is just so heartbreaking, but it also has this sense of like when I'm listening to it on my headphones, as I've done in different parts of the world my most of my life, I feel like I can do anything.
It's the weirdest combination of desperation and resilience in that delivery.
Do you know what I'm saying? >> Yeah, I do.
You know, I I felt that way living in the song. There's attention to it.
There's a calmness, you know, like the words are delivered very softly and calmly, >> you know, it's very it's self assured.
>> Well, there's a line that when you repeat the kod later on and you say, I say goodbye to everything that thrilled me. Thrills me. >> Oh, you're right.
I mean, that's just when you're just like, it's not even just about the people anymore.
Like, it's the experiences.
It's the memories of what I've done with my life, not just the people I'm leaving behind, right?
>> Or the experiences you had with those people. >> That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> There's the solo experience, there's the group experience, and then there's the one-on-one experience.
There's all, you know, >> so >> going back and revisiting that before we play catchup, revisiting that album at an anniversary point.
Um, how did it feel for you to to come back to that record and and have that shared experience with us as one?
experience with us as one? because we've been living with that album our whole lives as this incredible body of work that you created with your friends at that time moment in time and we celebrate the few songs that you play in the set in order to honor it but to have a moment where it's like okay we're
going to play this album we're going to do it together with you did it did have you how do you feel about black love now knowing how we feel about it >> I feel the same way that the people who love black love feel I always loved it was always I you know I I I I remember telling John, I'm like, they're not going to know what to make of this. Like, it's not it's not gentlemen part
Like, it's not it's not gentlemen part two.
It's like it's its own thing >> and it's probably going to be confusing.
And we're I mean, we were kind of like still remain like a a confounding band.
Like no one sounds like us. >> Nobody. >> It's a blessing. It's a curse. It's it is what it is.
But that record I will I you know I'll stand behind every time I'm I'm there's no fat on it.
It's uh it's everything's good to go.
Everything is where it should be.
Uh uh we it's it's you know one of the >> I've I've I'm not a big fan of the play play the whole album in order >> trick.
I've done it I've we did black love twice uh and we did that for Dave Roser who was on his way out of uh of of the world.
Um and we we we did it to get some money for him to to live more comfortably at the end of his life.
Uh we did Blackberry Bell, Twilight Singers record.
That was the the final show of the Twilight Singers was the Blackberry Bell performance.
And then we did In Spades in 2017 >> doing Black Love and watching the audience uh um react to it like especially when we did it at when we did it LA in in LA.
Uh, for instance, uh, the song Night by Candlelight, uh, uh, we had Karina Round and Mark Lanigan do a duet on it and, uh, they did the parts of me and Sean Smith >> and I I just stood on the side of the stage and watched and it was I I I felt like I got to be a fan of that.
It was a it was a unique opportunity to to experience that song in a different way as an audience member.
I was a member of the audience during that performance and I loved it.
>> I'm so glad you got to do that because I mean you give us those experiences all the time and I often think that's a bittersweet part of the trade.
Um, you know, just over the course of that really thoughtful answer, you know, you mentioned three people who are no longer here >> and it's it's >> it's the part time in our life, man.
I'm right there with you, you know, where we're starting to lose people.
Um and uh and it is part of the the part of the journey.
Um I do feel like there's elements of that and of course it would that that are reflected in the music as you move through.
There's a sense of urgency in this music um both lyrically and just in terms of like uh the arrangements and the playing on this album that make me feel like you get it like you've got the message.
We got to make good with the time we have right now.
simulation was uh originally supposed to be the last song on uh How Do You Burn?
And uh it just in the end I was like it didn't feel done and it wasn't because when I when I went back to it and heard it I sent it to John Skiick who's played with me for years and he's really good with like pedals and ambiance and I'm like give me a give me an intro to this song.
And uh and so for the first 45 seconds of the song, you're floating in, you know, his cloud structure.
And it became I it wasn't ready for uh for How Do You Burn because it didn't have that.
And subsequently when I heard that, I went in and I added Melatron and strings to it as well.
And it became what it wanted what it wanted to be.
it just wasn't ready then.
So, I've learned that uh about, you know, songs have their time.
Also, you might love the song, but it does it didn't fit that uh millu uh when it's ready. This one was ready.
And and uh it was it was odd when I when I walked in the studio and met you and you were playing that song.
It's that's I heard that string part and and I remembered like that was everything we did to get it ready for what I walked into.
It was it was really cool.
>> But there are moments when the music brings all of the use together.
And I feel on this record we're getting we're getting a sense of like because you were lean when you came out back and started making this new run of records. It was very lean.
and it was tight and it was lean and the songs got in and got out.
They were like gut punches and we're out.
Whereas there is a tptic on the end of this record like there is on Black Love.
Not a direct comparison but a sense of a closure, an idea of letting these songs want to strive for something beyond arrangement, right?
Like the end of a simulation even with the high with the bending guitar notes that feel like you cannot bend that guitar high enough.
A sense of like I'm okay leaning into the drama on this.
Did did it feel like allowing that to come back into focus a little bit?
>> I my favorite part of the song >> oddly is is the release at the end where it just it just it there's no big it doesn't drop there's no symbol crash.
There's no like it just it just it just stops >> and and it's it's when it stops there's a weightlessness to it that uh uh that I I feel like I'm floating and even more than in the ambiance at the beginning which is super floaty.
the end of the song is just this there's a release to it [snorts] that is is like maybe like the the most pure release I've ever uh concocted in a recording.
>> How did it feel when you listen when it was when it was arranged and completed enough for you to acknowledge it that it had form and it wasn't in the creative process and you heard it and it happened to you for the first time.
When you got the release right and you listened to it, >> it's what you're looking for.
It's it's the color in your in your palette.
It's the uh it's the word you wanted to say to the person you loved.
It's the it's you nailed it.
>> And when you when you nail it and you know you've nailed it, there's a it's that's why you do it.
You know, >> at the end of side one on this album is a song called The Deepest Part.
Um, and um, it it is again a classic moment where I I I just imagine you behind a piano and it's nothing's arranged, nothing's surrounding it, but somehow you've landed into this place which just comes naturally to you when you're feeling something.
And I'd just love to talk a bit about that song and what went into making that song.
My bedroom was upstairs >> and I was very comfortable one night and this idea popped into my head >> and I could see my guitar.
I have an acoustic guitar in my room and I could see it.
I could easily get up and get it and get back in bed and put the covers on.
But this particular song was sounding like a piano song.
And I'm like, piano's really far away.
Like I got to go all the way down there.
I'm warm and comfortable. I'm like, don't do it.
Like, how is this one really worth it?
And I talked myself out of it for a minute.
And then I was like, dude, just go down and bring your phone with you and see what you get.
And uh I could, you know, I could I could scroll back through.
I could show you the the day one of of Deepest Part.
Uh and uh but I I went down there and it's very simple.
There's two changes in it.
Uh, it has a little bit of a Benny and the Jets vibe where it like bounces.
Uh, it gets it almost like a muted gospel vibe, too. >> Yeah. And it's got groove.
I mean, that the kick drum is the is the is the is the quite a defining shift in the dynamic of the song. >> Yeah.
After the big uh uh solo in the middle, the verse comes back and it's completely different than when it the song first started.
It changes the the song has matured after the uh uh after the the solo and it becomes this kind of serpentine sort of uh uh poem almost.
Uh, so I we're going to play it in the show uh for for this next round and uh so I I I I went downstairs two days ago and I'm like let's see if you could do it and it was oddly tricky.
It kept like tricking me so I have to keep practicing that one.
>> Start a show with that once in a while. It would be outrageous. Well, it does switch up.
But I love the fact you bring it back to the car at the end.
There is absolute closure and of some description at the end.
this turnaround, this classic songwriting idea of bringing you back into the space where it all began.
It's like whatever this memory is, it's it's a complete memory. >> Yeah.
>> One of the things about arrangements that I love about your music is the fact that you have no problem holding holding key.
You have no problem not going all over the fretboard and figuring out.
If you find something and you hold it, it's fine.
And often John does that work.
>> Often you will hold something and he will move around you and create that emotional resonance from the bottom end. >> It's crime scene. >> It's crime scenes.
a lot of what you know this idea of like once you find the perfect riff and it's just on the verge of of discord and he will come in and give the soul and bring it all together and make it all beautiful.
Now obviously you discovered that was a part of the sound and what it is that you but what what is that?
Where did that come from?
Cuz I can't discern that from a song book or a record collection.
It's a purely Afghan wigs experience when I listen to that.
So what is the origin of that idea of tension with movement as a as a as a combination?
>> Uh a lot of R&B >> does that.
a lot of later Pink Floyd does it and those were very much touchstones for me like uh um there were certain groups that like everyone in like the the wigs Mach one loved and uh um and that was one of them >> and uh um was Pink Floyd and the uh we would do we do like the happiest days of our
lives like in the middle of the show and like link it into one of our own songs like you know like we would open with in the flesh sometimes like just just like rockstar fantasy stuff that we could actually pull off because we were becoming rock stars and we we could do whatever we wanted. >> I was in I was in London on the 65 the
>> I was in I was in London on the 65 the beginning of the 65 run.
You were there for reading and leads I guess it's 98.
I'm at a place called Subterranean in West London. You're playing. You're on stage. It's a big underplay. It's a club show.
You're on stage with my friend.
You're doing all of that.
You're dancing around incorporating different songs into things.
I think you might have been doing crazy.
And you and I, Dude, I can't even believe I'm admitting this. Don't hate me.
I was in there and people were yelling songs you left, right, and center.
And I think I just yelled to you, "I like the way you work it."
And you didn't miss a beat.
You just went and you just did a verse >> of no dity. Yeah. There you go. Yeah.
>> And it was like it was one of my favorite memories of all time because I remember waking up the next morning and saying, "Okay, don't yell songs at rock stars. That's super shit."
But you responded and you did it.
And it was and so I got a great story out of it and a great lesson at the same time.
you know, at the advent of crowdsourcing, you know what [snorts] I mean?
Like like with with Yeah.
Like Cowwell Comics are like doing that, you know, their whole act is like getting on stage and talking to the audience, you know what I mean? >> Yeah.
I was definitely the part of the show where that made sense.
I But I couldn't believe how quickly you slipped into it.
>> This um this balancing act between the party and the party is fun, but the after party and the after party is not is a big part of the spirit of this band.
the idea of live your life and push yourself to the brink, but then you should also write about the after aftermath. >> Sure. >> Yeah.
>> How has has leaving the party behind or at least learning how to live a long life and not a burnout life, how have you enjoyed adapting your writing to that?
Um, we talked about the trilogy of the first three albums and the destruction and the and the and the and the wake of the destruction that you wrote about, but these albums are something different and how it's how it's changed you as a writer.
>> First of all, if if I had not ceased that type of behavior, I would not be sitting here talking to you right now.
>> People loved you for it though, right? They did.
I mean, people cuz you were so charming with it.
I mean, people loved you on stage with it.
They loved you in interviews with it. They loved it all.
Was there a moment when you realized like they can love it all the they want, but at the end of the day it's going to kill me?
>> I mean, I I was knowing it.
I was knowing it 3 years before I stopped.
Like I knew like I just I just kept talking myself out of uh you know, [snorts] doing what I needed to do until finally something probably a survival instinct was like, "Dude, there's no tomorrow if you if you do this again."
Did you did you seek help or were you able to do it yourself?
>> No, I was I I kept you know I'm all for that.
>> But uh I I walked away and I kept on walking like I learned this from smoking.
>> Like >> you can't practice quitting smoking. You can't like tail off.
You have to stop smoking.
>> That's exactly what happened to me. >> You stop.
You just like you don't you don't chew gum. You don't do vapes.
You don't you just stop and you stop and you stay stopped and that's how you stop.
>> I think a moment of clarity the people we throw that around like it really is uh something that occurs a lot and it sure but I think the real ones the ones that are very memorable are real.
Like I remember the day I quit smoking cigarettes and exactly how I felt.
I get emotional thinking about I got three-year-old and a one-year-old and I feel like this >> after I smoked till 2 in the morning >> drinking wine. >> Mhm.
or like making deals with yourself like I'll just have one after a meal.
I'll just have one when I'm having a drink with my friends and I'm like well you're gonna start having drinks with your friends all the time now. >> Yeah. Find any reason. So what are you doing? Come on over.
Um so uh got cigarettes >> especially when you're a bar owner.
Can I be the 1,000th person to point out the uh the hilarity of your earlier life decisions?
But how I'm sure it's been great for you on a you know >> it's been great.
And I'll tell you, as a bar owner and as a rock and roll singer, like I I stopped drinking uh back in 2011 for like a year and a half and not for any kind of I I never had a drinking problem.
I I did it for Lent and uh I you know, you do it for 40 days and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to do three months.
Oh, I'm going to do six months.
Oh, I'm going to do a year." And it felt good.
And then when I like began drinking again, it was like an innocent kind of there was a great uh bottle of wine in Milan and I wanted some and I had some and they were like, "Do you want another one?"
I'm like, "No, that one's cool."
And uh uh that was how I I I came back into it.
But uh uh that kind of being an adult about your choices and knowing like hey don't you know anything that I had an actual problem with I just don't with.
Yeah, I think yeah, it's been pretty well established, I think, in in other conversations, a few conversations you've had, we've talked about indulgences that, you know, willpower is not necessarily an issue for you on that level, that you have the ability to be able to walk away.
[snorts] But then when you think about the kid who started this band and um you know, from Ohio, you know, one of the things about about the wigs when we fell in love with your music was that it did feel dangerous, right?
There's a danger to the music when you hear it.
There's a sense of like I'm writing about something like >> meet me on the corner >> before something really bad happens and we'll see if we can escape this situation before it gets really bad. >> Right.
>> Sweet people in bad situations. >> Sure.
U you know, a world with consequences.
>> A world with consequences.
and you write them so vividly now that you've coped to the fact that you were living these albums to some degree and and you know you made these lifestyle decisions.
Looking back on that young guy like do you feel lucky that you came to the conclusion that you did because it can get the better of even of people even with the strongest of willpower and the smartest of brains?
I I personally know uh you know just some brilliant human beings that could not overcome the addiction problem >> and uh uh and they're not here anymore.
>> Uh that's you know could have been me.
You know, a couple of the people who aren't here anymore actually helped me not be that version of me.
>> That's got to be one of the hottest things >> when someone you know helps you get up over that and then they succumb to the very same thing.
It's it is it is the definition of heartbreaking.
I felt as a music fan, I would never say this as someone who knew him well enough to make a personal observation, but as a music fan, I felt that way about Chris >> because Chris Cornell helped all of us through our depression. >> Sure.
>> With those songs, >> no one wrote as vividly about it as he did in my opinion of my lifetime where he was able to capture it and show you the way through.
And the day I tried to live, I just don't think it gets more beautifully captured than that.
And then for him to not make it was just like I couldn't get my head around that at all.
>> I I had no idea about his background or or that, you know, I mean I I have I I have also suffered from depression. So, same.
I'm very I'm I'm very aware of of of what it can put you through and and I've been >> I've I've I've been at not my favorite spots in life, but like those those things would when you know, you're alone and you finally just quit, you [snorts] know, like it's I've I I have two friends personally who who checked out on their own like did did did themselves in and brilliant, kind, funny, deep, loving people.
In the end, there was a hole in them that could not be filled.
And [snorts] that's everything you do to to try to be there for them like they were for you. It's not enough.
It's it it makes no sense.
your records have absolutely saved me in moments of distress.
Like no doubt about that.
And so I wonder what your relationship is with that.
And and cuz I know I'm not the only one.
I'm sure many people have said to you after shows and in the street, "Oh man, you know, that song, that album, LA, you know, it's too direct and emotional and powerful for it not to connect to to all of us that way."
And how you sort of have leared to traverse that that ground of something of something that you conjure up that inspires you that you love that you want to share, but then knowing that it's going to have an impact on us.
I mean, it's I I would go back to again like any type of experience I had as a as a kid or as you know growing up where I connected to someone's art like especially their their songs or a song uh that song can become your friend.
It can become your companion.
It can be it can you know oddly when you're listening to it it's listening to you as well.
It's >> it's it is and it's >> a real relationship. >> Absolutely.
Blood on the tracks the Bob Dylan album like you know I had heard it before.
I had heard uh uh Tangled Up in Blue and and you know uh but only when I really had my heart broken was I able to really listen to Blood on the Tracks and listen to someone else's heart being broken [snorts] and relate to it in such a like it was he was writing my feelings, you know, like I had a kinship with Bob Dylan.
Like I jumped like he was my friend and I spent a lot of time with him, you know, in that environment.
So I if if I if if one of my songs could make me feel how he made me feel, highest compliment I could get. >> Wow.
I'm glad you feel that way because we've really benefited from our side of the trade.
um there's a pain to the to to the music that we hear in it as well.
And um and I've always felt that you know regardless of whether or not you know your your imagination is at play that that you've been dealing with pain as you've been as you've been making these records and at times it must feel painful to make these songs too that it comes with the territory to release it. You must experience it.
>> I'll give you I'll give you an example of of a song that I did not write but I was around when it was written. my friend Sean Smith.
We recorded together, toured together.
Uh he he was he lived with me for a couple years.
Uh as as good of a friend as I as I've ever had.
Uh he wrote a song called Wrapped in My Memory about Andy Wood.
Um and uh it's it's beautiful. it.
We weren't speaking for like five years and uh I was watching Sopranos one night and at the end of the episode where I think uh uh u Adriana gets taken out in the woods and shot.
Uh there's a song called Wrapped in My Memory by Sean.
And as soon as I heard as soon as I heard the piano, like I didn't even hear the the the vocal and I knew it was him.
And I hadn't seen him in five years.
And it was like instantly recognized and uh we ended up like, you know, I ended up contacting him after that.
And that was sort of like what got us back talking again.
And we later uh he came and played a show with me and I left the stage so he could play that song by himself.
I'm like I gotta let Sean do this not just for you but for me too.
I really want to hear him play this.
And same thing I stood off the side of my own show and watched him do that song and wept.
And you know, when he passed away a few years ago, uh I I thought about it a couple times and then like I learned the song and we did it several times and there was I remember one one day we soundchecked with it and I couldn't get through it and uh I'd struck it from the set list and we weren't going to do it and I usually play like two songs at the piano and I got up to leave and it wasn't on the set list and I sat back
down and I played it and uh So that is the kind of power that a song can have for you know now I'm interacting with it completely because I'm performing it and and uh uh and I knew the person who wrote it and I knew who it was about but
now it's about the person who wrote it and uh that was super heavy and and and and an an amazing feeling to experience especially like in front of a thousand people, you know. >> Yeah. The it's funny, you know, the more >> Yeah.
The it's funny, you know, the more that I talk about music, I used to be afraid that I I would I would exhaust myself just kind of trying to understand it.
But the less I understand it and the more I enjoy that, the more I realize the magic is in this intangibility and it's okay to search for it because it can never be found.
So, you're not actually doing it a disservice by sitting here and talking about the the the impossible to to to comprehend.
That's actually the point.
The point is to dive as deep into it as you can because you'll get something beautiful out of it and you'll never touch the true magic of what makes it special.
Uh, question I've always wanted to ask you.
I don't know if anyone's ever properly asked you. I'm going to ask you.
I'd love you to answer it once and fall away from the wigs.
You're the only recognized registered guest on the self-titled Foo Fighters album on a song called Ecstatic. >> Mhm.
>> Which is one of my favorite songs that Dave's ever put out to this day. >> Oh, wow.
>> I just love how just direct and just unapologetically alternative that song is.
>> You You if you played that song right now, I wouldn't know it. >> You serious?
>> No, I have no I mean I I heard it then and I never heard it again. >> You're kidding me.
No, I mean I I don't I don't >> Hey Siri, play Ecstatic by Foo Fighters.
>> I'm I'm I'm dying to hear. >> Oh man.
>> Now playing Foo Fighters on Apple Music.
>> I think I'm underneath.
>> You're doing the chords underneath. >> Yeah.
Yeah, I might be the counter there.
Yeah, that sounds like my tone. Good drummer.
[laughter] Ah, you're still a funny guy.
You still got the timing of a comedian. [laughter] What? How the did that happen? There you go.
If you never heard it again, ever since after you did it, how did you find yourself in >> I I wasn't even living in Seattle yet.
Um, but we traded phone numbers and uh um I ended up when I was when whenever he played with uh with Tom Petty >> at uh um at Saturday Night Live >> and uh I was, you know, I love Dave, I love Tom Petty, kind of upset that Stan Lynch wasn't drumming for the Heartbreakers anymore.
One of my favorite drummers ever. >> So, mixed feelings. >> Yeah.
>> Psyched to be at Saturday Night Live. Never been there.
>> Psyched to be with my friend Dave.
Super psyched to meet Tom Petty, >> Ben, Mike, all of them, you know, like really awesome.
>> But it ain't down the torpedoes.
>> Well, and and I'm like I waited till the party and I was I was like, "Dude, don't do it.
Don't ask Tom Petty about Stan Lynch.
And uh and then I and then I had and then I had the drink that >> got me to ask Tom Petty about Stan Lynch.
And he was very diplomatic, by the way.
I I think he could tell that I was, >> you know, like a heartfelt fan of Stans.
And you know, also >> I'm a guy who's played with like seven drummers.
So I, [laughter] you know, it's not like >> qualified. >> Yeah.
So, uh, Dave and I were, you know, we we we ran around until like we both moved out out of Seattle, and I don't think I've seen him since.
>> So, but I, you know, I mean, obviously I I I know people who Brian Brown, who who's playing drums with me now, >> was uh was I think in Dave's wedding. >> Yeah.
So, uh, you know, he he's around and, uh, >> that role you played in that album is, uh, >> is legendary because because that's a really important step for him, too.
And the fact that you're the only person who ever kind of touched that record in that moment in time.
>> Did not get invited to the Hall of Fame induction.
I was a little little little little disappointed [laughter] by that.
>> Um, this is without a doubt one of the great Wigs albums.
It blows my mind when I when I when I press play on this record or even before I got a chance to hear the album in full and I'm just listening to like House of I or Jungle Roo or I'm listening to any of these songs how they're just jumping out at me and reminding me that the fire that that that has always driven this band is still is still 100% there.
So, I'm hoping we get to do this again cuz I'm hoping that this you realize now that the road ahead is beautiful with this band in your life.
I mean, I'm, you know, I'm already on my way to the, you know, I wrote a bunch of songs for this.
Um, four of them in particular that I really liked, but they just didn't fit >> this vibe.
So, I'm kind of, you know, we're we're uh we're wrapping up right before Christmas and I'll probably jump back in the studio next uh next January, my guess. Yeah.
>> Well, it's been a lifetime waiting to have this conversation.
I hope it happens much sooner the next time around. Me, too.
>> I've had such a good time getting to know you and talking with you and thank you for indulging in some of my fan questions and and I'm very excited about the show I'm going to come see in London and all that's to come.