Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses)

0:06Pushkin.

0:10Ben Bridwell is a frontman of Band of Horses, a group whose sound he describes as y 'allternative, a genre that tips its hat to Southern rock's deep myriad of musical influences. Next month, the group is celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Everything All The Time, with an expanded reissue featuring previously unreleased demos and live recordings. The album was recorded in 2005 with producer Phil Eck, who's known for producing albums by Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, and The Shins. When Band of Horses started working on the project with Phil, Ben had only been writing songs for a couple of years.

0:44He was also new to Seattle, where he relocated from Tucson, a city he'd moved to at 16 after dropping out of high school in his native Irmo, South Carolina. On today's episode, Leah Rose talks to Ben Bridwell about recording everything all the time. He opens up about hitting rock bottom in South Carolina before moving to Seattle, including setting his mattress on fire, getting hit by a car, and getting arrested all within the span of one week. He also talks about recently breaking the generational curse of alcoholism and his family, getting his life together post-divorce, and explains why the upcoming Band of Horses album may sound aggressive despite the fact that he's in such a happy place.

1:22This is Broken Record. Real musicians, real conversations.

1:30This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. How did Sears go from a one-man watch company to the biggest retailer in the world to bankruptcy. I'm Robert Smith. And I'm Jacob Goldstein. On our new show, Business History, we tell the stories behind the inventions and entrepreneurs that shaped our economy. And we try and understand the lessons behind their success and failure. Our new episode is about the rise and fall of Sears, an incredible story that is really the story of America in the 20th century. Sears, rise, fall, America. Done. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. And for full video episodes, search Business History Podcast on YouTube.

2:11Here's Leah Rose with Ben Bridwell. Head over to youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast to see the video version of this interview. What were you like in high school? Like, what were you up to in high school? Bad. Pretty bad. No, I was all right. I only lasted, I think, my 10th grade year. I think I went, I'm not sure if I'm still a sophomore or what I am. But yeah, I didn't I wasn't there very long. I was missing too many days and they're kind of like, you don't really want to be here, do you? I'm like, not at all. You know, so like, off you go. So I moved out west and started the chain, like the whole thing that would kind of cascade into a band of horses and all that by searching for a place where there was like a punk rock scene and a rock scene.

3:06and you could go, you didn't have to drive 300 miles to go see a show. So there was no like punk rock scene in South Carolina? There was. There was a lot of straight edge kids and a lot of skateboard scene was kind of intertwined. And there was a couple of good punk bands out of Columbia, South Carolina. But again, I had to get like a mother's note to go to the club. You know what I mean? I was still like 16, you know, I'm like, I want to go for, I want to go, you know, and we'd drive to like Charlotte or Chapel Hill or Atlanta or something. Athens to go see oh yeah you know like your Archer's Loaf or Sebedo's playing there and Pavement was coming around and uh so we or the Ramones you know we'd drive we'd have to drive and I was like man I want to go someplace where that stuff is like people are like in bands that are playing big places you know like there's like a real scene going on I wanted to be near that so I went to Tucson Arizona and um what was going on in Tucson at that time a thriving punk and goth and weirdo scene oh my god i'd never lived out west and um or been out west um and it was it was different you know kids were like doing speed and like their nails and going to the club and stuff so it was a it was cool it was very different there's like raves and stuff like that i didn't know nothing about dance music or nothing and uh and i became kind of entrenched in that scene by working uh delivering pizzas and and working in cafes and stuff like that and um yeah it was pretty freaky honestly like these kids they weren't much older than me but they were out of high school you know they were like probably nearing 20 years old um they were like grown-ups and they were making a go of it so you were already playing music at that point no no no no i didn't just kind of like a fan like want to be in the scene and kind of yeah party type yeah i just wanted to be around it and um yeah and be friends with people that were in bands and i didn't and i was i was really always into making like mixtapes i was like always about trying to spread other people's music to others that was always what i thought would be more my calling um maybe working in radio or something like that or uh with a label even so um yeah like an anr or something.

5:28Totally. That would have been amazing. Hey, Dave's still young. I'm available. You have a label though, don't you? I ended up starting a label. Yeah. Yeah, I did. Yeah, it's funny how that worked out. But yeah, I didn't end up playing music until like my mid twenties or something like that. That's crazy. Yeah. I didn't think that would be something in the cards for sure. That's so crazy. So how did that happen? Was it just kind of like messing around with friends instruments around and you just took a go at it or how did you even make that transition well i was releasing bands on my label and um mostly as a stepping stone kind of label just to get like hey y 'all can have some cds to sell at the show you know i mean and maybe like a big label would be like yoink and you know they'll go into superstardom or something but uh And I ended up joining the main group that I was just entrenched with.

6:25I met out in Tucson called Carissa's Weird. And it was a male and female songwriter. And they picked up some good steam. Once we all kind of relocated, we met in Tucson, and we all ended up living in Seattle. and um they started to really get their act together and put out a couple records with them and then their one of their drummer had to leave to go be in modest mouths for a second as like a utility dude and um they needed someone to play kind of like slow chord drums and uh i hate that term but still that's what we kind of were it was it was very slow and easy to play drums so i was like they because i had a car basically and they trusted my driving skills and they need to go on tour i think they're like ben will you do it um learn to play some drums and so i started to do that and um a little bit later i picked up a bass a little bit for like a song or two you know and then the band broke up and it was like uh-oh what are we gonna do uh i now got kind of used to that lifestyle of like staring out the window all day and meeting new people at night um so i uh i just started fooling around with the gear that was kind of left in the ashes of that band it was just we still were paying for a rehearsal space i was like i'm just gonna go down there every day that i can and uh spend as much time as i can figuring it out and that's what i did i just put in the honestly the hours of i think that's what really got me to where i am now I didn't know what I was doing, but I just tinkered long enough to find some melody, and then it just kind of took its own course.

8:13That's so cool. Did it feel good to be on stage the first time you were up there playing drums? As someone who was such a fan of music, did it feel cool to be in a band? What was that experience like for you? I'm sure the tightrope act of it was a thrill, right? But I've always, I mean, more than imposter syndrome, like this just isn't where I'm supposed to be, you know? So that was always, I mean, I liked, I think I'm more like the camaraderie of being in a band more than I did like trying to grow my craft in a band. You know what I mean? I just like the whole, I liked, I liked the whole party of it all and the whole experience of, of traveling and that wanderlust that's been impossible to really satisfy my whole life.

9:06So I think that was more the thing. So the playing was out of necessity just to earn my keep, I think on the road, you know, still am still trying. Yeah. Yeah. I was reading an old article in Rolling Stone. It was in a section called Hot Band.

9:27Oh, my God. I think it was from 2007. And it said one of the reasons you left Charleston was because you lit your mattress on fire with a candle. True. What is that story? What happened? Good Lord. It was the first year that I'd ever heard the term El Nino. OK, I was like, what is El Nino? What is y 'all? But so one night I was well, my roommate was woken up by the ceiling dripping on him because this crazy El Nino pushed the storm through. And and so he woke up to find that my room was on fire. He could see it under the door, the flames or whatever. And he came in and kicked me awake. My bed had caught fire because I was making mixtapes before I was going to bed and drinking.

10:22And sitting there in bed making mixtape, drinking, pass out. And the candle ended up catching this$15 mattress from the 70s probably on fire, which was the opposite of flame retardant. It was only like it just it would not go out. So even like I had to run with this. I got once we realized dumping water on it wouldn't work. I had to drag it through the house and throw it outside where it was dumping rain. Right. Well, outside it lands on like the steps, the stairs going up to the house. It lands on this and still wouldn't go out in the rainstorm. The flames just got even more and more. Oh, my God.

11:04Yeah. And so, so that, and I, I, I gotten thrown in jail also for some stupid thing. No, for something different. But I had this, I had this like round, round trip ticket to go visit my friends from Carissa's Weird, who I met out in Tucson. They were living out in Olympia, Washington. Now I was going to go visit Northwest and then come back. but after all this happened within a week i mean i got hit by a car also right after that with all my bandage my hands were all bandaged up like fingers were touching this far apart and i got hit by a car delivering uh burritos and pizzas to the hospital and all my bandages like blew up so i'm like oh my god so i changed i changed the ticket to uh one way you took that as a sign yeah and moved out to the northwest and that's what also kind of started this whole push for uh for the music thing.

11:58You hit rock bottom, my friend. I reckon I did, yeah. My prospects were very, very low. But then I was homeless out there. I was living on the streets of Seattle, living outside before, and got hired by a rock club, The Crocodile, owned by one Peter Buck from REM. They hired me with my sleeping bag on my back and gave me a chance. So I was able to start saving up money and getting living inside. What do you think? Like, what perspective does that give you? Having once been sleeping on the street? Like, are you grateful for that? I don't like to go camping. I'll tell you that. I don't like to go camping.

12:39I'm like, no, I've done. Why would I do that? I don't need that experience. We have a toilet. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's yeah, I definitely don't like to go camping. But, you know, I'm just, I'm eternally also like a bit of a, like feeling a bit like I don't belong where I'm supposed to be. Like I'm not supposed to be allowed in this place, you know? I always feel like someone would be like, who let the freak in? You know? Well, it seems like you were a go-getter. I mean, if you're sitting there starting a label, like how did you how did you even come up with that idea? Yeah, well, I was working at this club in Seattle.

13:28God, now my dream has come true. I get to work at a rock club and like the bands that I like are playing, you know, every month you get a calendar. It's like, oh, oh, oh, I'm getting off that night. You know, it's like watching sound checks and watching how bands interact. And oh, my God, it was a dream come true. um but i was also not making very much money and i was i'm just always ornery too and i'm like man i want to do what those guys are doing like you know they're tipping me nothing i'm you know my tip out and i am getting like 11 bucks you know for like the busiest shift ever and i'm like there's got to be a better way so i just started saving every tip i was almost like in defiance of my own my own prospects as a growing person where I'm like I don't have an education I don't I don't have a whole lot going for me skill wise I'm going to just get it cooking on the line I'm just going to save every dollar and I'm going to hide it for myself and I'm going to put out my friend's record that those friends that I met in Tucson I'm going to put out their record and they're finally going to have a cd and everything will just kind of start you know um snowballing and it uh it did so you know i had enough to put out one record and i had enough to repress it and all of a sudden it's like jesus we got like a thing going on here now and growing up with like i mean even in irmo south carolina i had stenciled sub pop on my backpack you know in whiteout you know So there was already like this, like indie rock kind of like the branding of indie rock was, was working on me.

15:12You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Moving up to Seattle and stuff. There's so many record labels. This was like peak, uh, indie sleeves, whatever era this was. Uh, but there were so many great labels and, um, and everyone was cool and intermixing with one another. And my idea to help other people dream their dreams bigger was more than business savvy. Because I'd always said, like, this is like a stepping stone. I'm not trying to, like, put you on a contract. I'm not trying to do nothing but get us on KEXP, you know, and like and put our shops, our CDs and all these shops. There were so many great record stores in Seattle, too.

15:53So you could put them on consignment. And if you can sell those, they want to get more. And all of a sudden, well, now we got something going. And I was able to at least harness that dream and help some people believe along with me. We'll be back with more from Ben Bridwell after the break. How did Sears go from a one-man watch company to the biggest retailer in the world to bankruptcy? I'm Robert Smith. And I'm Jacob Goldstein. On our new show, Business History, we tell the stories behind the inventions and entrepreneurs that shaped our economy. And we try and understand the lessons behind their success and failure.

16:28Our new episode is about the rise and fall of Sears, an incredible story that is really the story of America in the 20th century. Sears, rise, fall, America. Done. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. And for full video episodes, search Business History Podcasts on YouTube.

16:47so when you started band of horses making the jump from being the guy in the back who's supporting everybody and and you know helping other people get a foothold in the scene and get you know the band to grow and stuff like that when all of a sudden it becomes you and it's your work and you're out there you're the front person was that a big transition for you or did that happen seem to happen more naturally no it's still a transition I still like I'm feel like I still feel like I'm like reeling from it in a way where it's like I've come now 20 some years later I do feel like okay I know what I'm doing but it took a while to get there where I'm like it could all just fall apart in front of everyone right here you know like uh and even times where I've like lost my voice or something been sick on the road i'm like oh there it is there it is now you can't do it and then oh like you're waiting for something yeah like waiting for like to either be exposed as a fraud or like uh or not not meant to be there in that role in some way i kind of accepted that i was going to feel that way and i just had to push through that but Somewhere along the line, I have accepted that this is my gig.

18:05And I am good at it. And I love, and I've found a way to grow in that space and really love it and cherish it and miss it when I'm not doing it. Oh, yeah, that's nice. So your 2006 album, Everything All the Time, turns 20 this year. man so how long were you writing songs before that album came out oh i would say it took me a while to uh to get those up to snuff probably about two years i think we started in 2004 yeah okay yeah so i didn't know how to play guitar or anything you know i had like i was like detuning the the pegs to to you know my hand is comfortably here i'll just work the the strings around that you know i still got them tattooed on me just in case i forget what songs are those uh no one's gonna love you in the funeral okay so it's two different tunings and i swear it makes no sense every guitar tech we've ever had is like it's kind of a nightmare trying to uh to line check those guitars in front of like a crowd because like i don't know how to what do you do with this oh these strings are they make no sense to another guitar player, but they're also part of the sauce that I discovered down there writing those first songs, not having any idea what to do.

19:28So it took a while to get them to the point of even, I think, playing live or sharing them with any demos with like Phil Eck or somebody who produced the record. Yeah. Do you remember the first time you played on stage? Like you sang your own songs on stage? Yeah, I do. I do. There's this place called the Sit and Spin in Seattle. And I still have the poster, actually, a little flyer. We were first of four on like a Wednesday night or something like that. And yeah, I had like a, I was such, I mean, I was such a fraidy cat about it too. I would sing with like a vocal processor thing that would just like delay it and echo it so deeply that it didn't really, it did not.

20:15Yeah, absolutely. I wish they made them for best man speeches, you know. Oh my God. Good call. But any public speaking, we need those delays. But yeah, I was nervous, but I do remember feeling like, of course, like exhilarated, but relieved that no one threw tomatoes or whatever. Did you get any reaction, like real-time reaction from the crowd? Like, did people seem into it? Yeah, I think there was a sense already that this was going to be a thing. And I knew, I mean, you could see it quickly up there. We also had like dueling weekly magazines. You know, who's got the better music coverage of the scene?

21:02You know, there's at least two. There's at least two. And, you know, someone's writing about it. And the first week you played a show, all of a sudden you're Seattle famous in the gnarly times or whatever for starting a new band and generating buzz. Was the sound of the band different than what else was going on locally? Like, did you guys stand out as a new sound? Yeah, I guess we kind of did now, thinking about it. because whether I like it or not, my southerness, my accent, my vibe, I mean, I'm very just like, I identify as y 'all. You know what I mean? I am y 'all. Y 'all, it's just everything.

21:49I say it constantly. So I do think I put some y 'all in that alternative, that y 'all alternative was is that a thing the alternative it was we talked about it back in the day I don't know if anyone's really uh stuck with it but uh yeah but it was because you had like people like let's say the super suckers from Tucson they ended up coming up to Seattle and living and they had like a kind of country punk thing going on and you know I grew up on the stones but like and Neil Young and uh and like the Allman Brothers and stuff so I was I think I was bringing something that was that was a little bit different um yeah yeah i don't know i think it was mostly the fact that i was just like it was so echoey and a bit more psychedelic before it got kind of cleaned up in the process that um that i was probably leaning more towards jane's addiction than maybe even say like the my morning jacket stuff or something i i think um a lot of that stuff snuck in there and built a spill and flaming lips i was listening to a lot of that stuff so i was singing a bit more of a higher register where a lot of the seattle bands there was still a lot of like um math rock going on a lot of post-punk vibes a lot of still like k records pop stuff still was like uh was popping off and then you had like this new kind of macho rock scene um that sub pop was having a go a little era with there's like a lot of like everyone's wearing black and getting sleeve tattoos today and And they're all dancing.

23:26You know, we definitely were a different kind of vibe where it was swinging wild in all directions, which is nice. But yeah, I think we were melodic enough to catch people's eye. Yeah. What was the buildup to releasing the first album? Like, were you a band that played out all the time? Did you tour? Did you play outside of Seattle? was your set covers was it original songs like tell me about the lead up to putting out the first album cool yeah well I was lucky that um well I had become friends with Sam Beam from Iron and Wine he's also from the same town that I'm from in the middle of South Carolina and he's a my brother's age they were buddies and I had met him one time um coming home for like a Christmas and I heard his songs in his truck and I was like, what the, this is crazy.

24:24Like, dude, you've got like something going here. And I was lucky enough to dub some of those songs down to another cassette tape and bring them with me up to Seattle and kind of introduce his music to the sub-pop folks. And my friend Howard in Chicago, who worked with Thrill Jockey and Overcoat Records, I was like, y 'all got to check out Sam Beamsta. So he ends up getting signed and kind of popping off, right? Around that. A little bit, a little bit that day. For sure that day, for sure. For one day. Oh, man. I know. Actually, you get one of those and you think all those labels are going to listen to you the next time.

25:09Right, right, right, right. No, no. This was once in a lifetime here. So luckily, Sam starts popping off right around the time that Horses was starting. And he took us out on tour of the United States. Yeah, we went around mostly in the South, opened up for Iron and Wine, which was a huge learning experience for us. I mean, for me as a singing person, but also for just like the level of operation compared to even the band that I was in before. It was just like, okay, this is how you tour, you know? And it's funny. I ended up getting, in some way, helping Sam get signed to Sub Pop. We ended up opening up for him two nights in Seattle.

25:55And in turn, he gets me kind of signed to Sub Pop. From all the way across the country, you know, these two dudes in Irmo, South Carolina, somehow end up connected to Seattle via each other. Yeah. Yeah, so that was amazing. And yeah, that process of seeing how Sam crafts his songs and then translates them onto the stage and becomes also from maybe a bedroom type of recording vibe all of a sudden in front of hundreds and hundreds of people. I kind of followed his lead. He was very much like a mentor in that way. Nice. So what specifically did you pick up from him as far as performing? Well, I still pick up from him his freedom.

26:44He expresses himself so freely on stage and in front of people, whether it's playing different ways of playing songs that he's written a long time ago and challenging the audience in a way, and just being unafraid to still make artful expression out of something that doesn't have to be. You could serve it on a clean platter. I like that he's messy with it. And he's brave. I'm not as brave. I'm a bit more loyal to the recorded versions. But he's showed me so much. I mean, how long you got? It might be a whole different other podcast. But I'm still learning so much from Sam. And we just got off a tour last year together again, which is crazy.

27:34That's now 25 years ago that we started touring together. I'm still learning things and, and I hope, I hope I have a bit more steady footing to maybe where he, maybe he learns a couple things from me too along the way. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I was listening to the, the album that you put out the live at the Ryman. Yeah. And I was thinking about the way that you play the songs live. And it's funny that you said that about Sam, how he has the courage to kind of like mix stuff up or try a new approach to a song. Do you find that you play the songs that maybe are like the bigger like hit songs, more straight, and then you feel more freedom to kind of bug out on the other ones that maybe are the deeper cuts?

28:24well an easy way of explaining this would be i don't i'm still not as like musician i'm still not that much of a musician about it like i'm like i just want to like i want the song to get off like i want it to just go i want the impact to be how people are feeling about finally finally getting to experience it i'm trying to hit them in their fields as hard as i can and for me that's like not messing up because i think i might come unglued completely it gets a little bit squirrely like even trying to jam we've been on like uh the show the jules holland show out of england and even on like these shows where you have to like we're gonna start the show and all the bands are like jamming in the round we had to do it like they had to start over twice just because i'm like i don't know how to jam bro i don't know where to put my fingers on the fretboard because these tunings are so weird it's crazy yeah i like that um all right so i want to ask you specifically a little bit about this album like now 20 years later what's the personality of this album for you like how do you describe this album wow well i had to like go back and listen to it and i haven't i never listened to our records once it's done i'm like good you know and it was get this thing out of here yeah and it was nerve-wracking too to for it to have like this kind of immediate success where um all of a sudden you know we'd walk into a bar and it was like playing on the bar speakers you know and you're like i gotta get out of here i can't this is weird you know so i've kind of i've i've hidden from it and all of its um amateurism i don't know just like yeah the way I sang even, I was like, oh my God, this is so weird.

30:14It's so weird. It's like dysmorphia or something like that. I'm like, that's so weird. I can't, you know? So how's it different than you sing now, would you say? Oh man. Well, it sounds very, that voice sounds very like closed and restrained and, and just not, there's not enough breath in there. And it's just, It freaks me out. But also, I would still criticize the voice I have now, I'm sure. But yeah, I had to kind of give in to the overall vibe and just listen to what everyone else was doing. The other musicians listening to them was more like it kind of allowed me to accept it a bit easier and get the whole vibe that Phil, the producer, was making.

31:04And just the soundscapes of everything was pretty revealing to me the other day. I'm like, this is actually kind of this kind of hits. All right, I got you. I'm grateful for all the rough stuff back then. And I'm really proud of the other musicians that we all punched above our weight to a great degree to also meet Phil's expectations, which was this is a moment in time that deserves to be captured and preserved. And you must give it every bit of your effort, you know, to really make it something bigger than yourself. And so I see it as, yeah, an awkward, scrappy, scrappy new dad that's going to take some licks before he figures out, you know, remembers to bring diapers with him when he goes to the store just in case anything goes down.

32:02Yeah. I listened to it last night. Oh, you listened to it last night? Yeah, I listened to the first side of it two days ago. And I was like, oh, man. It's like, I don't want to listen to the other side. But then I did it. I was like, I got to. I have to do my research to make sure I know what I'm talking about. So, yeah, I'm pretty familiar with it. Okay. Oh, man. Sorry you had that experience. Me too. That sounds kind of painful. This is not good for promo. But, yeah. No, it's just hard to look at old pictures of yourself. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yes. Okay, so are there any memorable sessions you remember, like any of the songs that, you know, maybe something memorable happened in the studio or all of a sudden a song started to work and make sense or maybe a funny story around recording one of the songs?

32:55yeah i mean it was i'm sure for for phil the producer i'm sure it was uh just uh us you know non-stop follies with us but um you know i didn't know what to do with my hands while singing i'd only been singing at to this point with the guitar in my hands so all of a sudden you're in a studio i didn't know where to put my hands without making noise like tuck you know putting in my pockets and you got keys in your pocket stop doing that you know so i took to the only thing that was available was this like serrated bread knife um that i would like just holding my hands kind of waving around just to make sure i didn't make any noise uh while singing stuff like that i mean serious greenhorn stuff where you just don't have any prior knowledge of what to do um much less i tell you what like trying to play guitar it's one thing to like write the songs and find the melody and then get over yourself to write lyrics that you're not afraid to display but now it's like you got to be able to play those guitars like adequately for phil who has a very high standard set so i was like i mean i've never played guitar like that before and while you're playing something over and over trying to make someone feel good about it even though you know they're just like accepting it's as good as it's going to get you know yeah kind of that kind of pressure was like was kind of scary you know or or seeing you know friends deal with like trying to keep a steady tempo or yeah to do these things that were he was really lifting us up into a into a weight class that we weren't ready to be in so it was it was terrifying and um and also just being a bit clueless that it would that it would catch on or anything i was trying i tried to not finish what would become like our flagship or bell cow song the funeral i was like oh we'll just save it for the next one it's too hard to pull off we'll just put this other song on there instead and uh i think uh phil and the label were like bro finish that song that is like the song you know they knew i was just clueless you know i didn't even want and when we were done i didn't even choose that one to be a single i'm I'm like, I've always been clueless about like what people are going to like about it, I guess.

35:15So I'm just like, I guess if I remember anything, it's that I didn't know nothing, you know, and I still kind of don't. Yeah. What were you writing the funeral about? Do you remember what was happening in your life at that time? Like what you were even thinking about? yeah yeah i think it's a mixture of um living out west and having to go home for like christmas like see my family and stuff like that and like having to like deal with um i don't know like uh just awkward conversations and just just social anxiety i think social anxiety was a big part of it where i'm just like oh this is all just this is all brutal i don't want to have to like talk in front of people and like answer questions about myself and then the growing anxiety i think of just growing older and the fear of the fear of losing like my parents and um and that like i'm just yeah death losing people like to death or um or even sometimes hearing you know other people's stories you know when some when people lose unrequited love or whatever you know it's like uh it just it really uh messes me up i guess and uh still does to this day i'm still terrified of uh of dealing with uh when people gotta go move on so uh yeah i think there was it was a mixture of those things, my own crippling social anxiety, and then the fear of mortality.

36:58Had you lost anyone who was close to you at that point? Friends, yeah, but no real close family members to that point. Yeah. It was just more of a fear of it rather than an experience. Yeah, which is maybe just a human condition thing that I just happened to have elevated or something. And sometimes, yeah, other people's stories make me cry like that. Just people go through that pain. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember what it was about that song? At what point were you stuck? What made it hard for you to finish? The guitar. The guitar, I remember I was just getting kind of exhausted by Phil's expectations of where it needed to get to, you know, and I physically didn't feel like I could pull it off.

37:55So I just had to, I think I probably gave up. At least one time I was like, I don't know. I can do it. It's just if it's not good enough for you, we'll just put it on the next album. I'll get better, Phil. you know uh but no i i think it was just a a growing moment where i had to get up and play big boy ball yeah yeah yeah well that's good that you didn't have someone else step in and just do the guitar part because you could have just i'm sure i still had help don't worry i'm sure okay i'm sure i still had the village lifting me up don't worry who else had phil work what other bands had phil worked with at the time like were you thinking of those people and be like damn when he worked with uh the black crows like they were probably killing it or whoever he worked with well yeah um he was working with a lot of bands that i admired like um and do still like built the spill and um modest mouse and the shins and um god countless bands lesavi fav was a band that i I really love and the guitars and stuff, his, his, his vivid sound textures and things were, or what drew me to him wanting to work with him.