Sublime

0:06Pushkin.

0:1030 years ago, Sublime released the album that defined their career in Southern California's music scene for a generation. Now the band is preparing to put out their fourth full-length, and for the first time, Bradley Knoll's son, Jacob Knoll, is stepping in as lead singer. Bradley, Sublime's original frontman, died of a heroin overdose in 96, just a couple of months shy of that breakthrough album coming out. Jacob was still an infant then, but he grew up surrounded by the lasting influence of a band that blended ska, punk, reggae, and hip-hop into a sound that dominated the 90s. In 1997, after Bradley's passing, bassist Eric Wilson and drummer Brad Gah launched Long Beach Dub All-Stars and stayed active with different projects.

0:51In late 2023, they shared the stage with Jacob at a benefit for Bad Brain singer HR, and the spark between them was immediate. On today's episode, I talk with Jacob, Bud, and eventually Eric about how this new chapter of Sublime came together. We also revisit the band's scrappy early days when they had to beg, borrow, and steal just to keep going. and we hear their memories of recording the self-titled album at Willie Nelson's studio just outside of Austin, Texas. This is Broken Record. Real musicians, real conversations.

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3:15The standard of amazing results in a feeling in drivers that their car was built in anticipation of them. Machines that make you feel more human. Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. here's my conversation with bud gah and jacob noel of sublime and later in the conversation eric wilson joins us as well a big thank you to inner trend and creative class for allowing us to use the facilities in downtown long beach to record this to watch the full video version of this episode visit youtube.com slash broken record podcast man it's great to have you guys two thirds of the band we'll have Eric here shortly but Bud, Jacob thanks for doing this y 'all yeah thanks for having us stoked to be here man, Long Beach I live like 20 minutes from here so this is super easy I know, we were talking beforehand I live here as well and this is the first time though I've ever been able to record one of these episodes here we bumped into each other at the gym like a couple weeks ago super random Yeah, it's rad.

4:23We manifested this moment. That's absolutely right. Absolutely right. Long Beach is such a great place. You know, I was young, though, when Sublime, like you, young, you know, like in the 90s. So I was aware of Sublime, but didn't get to fully enjoy or soak in the culture of what Long Beach was like at that time. I would love to start with just with you, bud, taking us back a bit about what Long Beach was like when you guys were first starting out. You know, Long Beach was crazy back then. I mean, you could drive from one side of Long Beach to the other and hear 20 different styles of music as you're driving through the neighborhoods.

5:04It was truly a melting pot. You know, I mean, you know, different different different lifestyles, you know, on on every block, you know, as you're going and and everybody all kind of, you know, got along for the most part, you know, skaters, punks, jocks, everybody pretty much got along. So, but yeah, that was the 90s. We were, it was hard for us to find shows in Hollywood. So we would play anywhere we could and, you know, started out in backyard parties and little warehouses and stuff, you know. What were the places to play in Hollywood at that time? Like, where were you trying this? Oh, just like, you know, the whiskey or the marquee, some of those places.

5:53they wouldn't let y 'all in there no it was they didn't know where to put us you know the music was that was happening in hollywood at the time was all you know it was all rock and roll you know it was hair metal it was it was hard metal you know it was glam rock you know it's like you literally if you didn't have like 15 cans of aquanet and some some cover what do they call it foundation on your uh writer then you know well we're not even gonna waste our times with these posers and we just seen you click you know it was just like where are we gonna put these guys you know were you interested in that scene at all like nah punk's sort of like a response to that almost huh yeah yeah it was like oh yeah you could put us with like the chili peppers or fishbone or something like that you know did you go to like fishbone shows absolutely yeah we used to go to Defenders Ballroom here in Long Beach, and we'd see the Chili Peppers and Suicidal Tendencies and all kinds of stuff down here.

6:56That's right, man. Yeah, Defenders was kind of closed by the time that we started playing. I mean, we got a few shows in early, but it closed up early. There was other little clubs in Long Beach like Toe Jam and stuff, but it was basically just kind of like a warehouse. It wasn't really a club with a good sound system. Did it feel distinct? So, I mean, obviously, like, so Hollywood had, like, the, like you said, like, the Motley Crue, like, glam thing going. Did Long Beach feel distinct from what was going on in Orange County, too? Or was it? It was a lot more similar to Orange County. You know, we played a couple shows with No Doubt, and we immediately found out, oh, wow, you know, it's like your guys' fan base is the same as ours, you know?

7:39We're seeing Long Beach faces over here in these Orange County shows. And then when you guys are over here, you're seeing the same thing. Orange County faces at the Long Beach show. So, you know, why don't you guys call us when you have a show and we'll do the same. And so we kind of partnered up that way. And it was like, you know, whenever, you know, we could, we, you know, work together. So it kind of seemed to work out that way. And I think that was kind of like our solution, you know, to Hollywood is, okay, well, let's move south. What does San Diego have to offer? You know? Yes. Then we started venturing, you know, down that way.

8:12And it was like, oh, wow, this is a whole different market down here. You know, this is great. Yeah. So we had, you know, a whole new set of schools and bars and stuff to work off of and feed down there. Did it seem feasible going that route that you guys could, like, get signed or break into the industry in any particular way? We were always just so hopeful. We were, you know, I mean, we didn't know what we wanted. You know? We just know that we wanted to keep on playing music. And what was the best way that we could do that? And so it seemed like, well, we need to get a record contract. But then it was like, well, it was impossible to do that.

8:51So we made our own recordings and sold them and touring around. And so we were always trying to get to that next level. It was like so hard to, yeah, now we got CDs. What do we do with them? We sent them to K-Rock. They won't play our music. You know, I think Jed the Fish might have done one time, you know, way back when, you know, hey, check out this song. How early, like, Job Won't Pay the Bills, like that era? Or 40 ounces. Yeah, yeah. We had sent them massive amounts of CDs back in the day. And now look at it. And I don't even think the ink was dry on the gasoline alley contract, you know, when we signed that.

9:32And they were spinning date rape, you know. It was like, I think as soon as we walked out the doors of the office there with Mr. Phillips. That's incredible. Yeah. So cool, man. K-Rock's all sublime now. Yeah. That's like your own radio station. K-Rock, I mean, they totally supported us. We loved K-Rock. We would go down to Loveline and some of those shows and stuff. Killer. That was always a real treat, a real blast for us. How did hip hop enter the equation, too? So like, you know, there's like the punk scene, there's like the ska thing. How did hip hop enter the equation for for Sublime? Well, you know, it was it was just it was happening at the time.

10:16And like I say, you know, as you drive across town, you know, it's like you're over here and and, you know, you're hearing you're hearing, you know, N.W.A. or or, you know, Wu-Tang or whatever. and it was like man you know so we started searching this stuff out we're down there at the reggae record store and they got hip-hop records over here and so we're listening to this you know it's like oh wow who's this you know uh bdp boogie down productions oh wow this stuff's dope you know and it was just like instant you know um i took a little hiatus for a while and marshall came in and and and started playing drums and he was a dj too and so he brought that element of hip-hop into the uh the group at that time too as well although we had that influence you know like just ice and so um it was there from from the beginning but it just wasn't we didn't it was like him know it but him don't know how to do it yeah you know yeah so it uh it took some learning you know it's incredible man i don't know if you feel this way like going back and listening to the the records the original handful of records is it's there there are very few groups that did like the reggae ska thing or like the mixing of rock and hip-hop thing as authentically as sublime like it didn't feel like a put on it didn't feel like just trying to go for something that like it was just it really felt like authentic to you guys and just hearing you mention like those the like you know obviously bdp because of the krus one we would know that but like just ice and like you guys were really plugged in to to to rap into hip-hop like you it's like so um it seems like you guys were really digging for those records actually yeah yeah i mean the 90s it was just exploding i mean hip-hop was was amazing i mean it was just like this whole brand new sound but it was so familiar too you know r &b you know jazz and blues and and stuff so it was it was familiar yet it was all brand new and it was just like this whole new way of making music you know using already created music and so like kind of fit into our kind of thing where you know it was beg borrow and steal to get that feeling you know we needed that that that groove you know and so how do we get there well we're gonna we're gonna make it by you know listening to some of our favorite musicians and you know imitating and you know i mean life imitates art art imitates life is that how that idea to do doing time came about because that's a really weird that was a really weird thing to take a bite of like who's thinking to do that that was that was marshall goodman there you know i'm going to give that where that is because that was that was marshall marshall brought that that track in and and him and brad worked on that one together like solid so when you when you heard the idea or like i was just like oh man this is amazing you were into it i was like oh this is dope i mean it was like you know janice joplin and you know billy fucking you know just i mean all of them you know the the greatest people that you know our greatest artists have all redone that song, you know, in homage.

13:27It's a beautiful song. Yeah, yeah. And the chord structure is pretty magical. It seems like you guys, though, brought it back. Similar to the way Frank Ocean has sort of brought that standard Moon River kind of back in the popular consciousness. I feel like Sublime did that with Summertime. I mean, Gershwin is Gershwin, you know, but you guys really did an incredible version. It really lives on through you guys and the Lana Del Rey doing it and whatnot. Yeah, and it's like a testament, too. it stands to like i don't know the collaborative you know nature of that era and all the stuff you guys were doing the fact that you know you take that little part and then from there evolves this whole totally different song that could have never existed without all the stuff that came before it so it's like so inspiring to hear like the evolution and what you guys were getting down into and how the stuff comes about like and i think that's what makes uh music like that stand the test of time is people can see that it's like genuine you know they're just like having so much fun yeah man what was uh it just blows my mind here and i love hearing about the history what was growing up in long beach like for you man being being bradley knoll's son that had to be kind of heavy yes i um i was born here and then i uh then me and my mom moved to hawaii and so i lived there for a couple years and then we moved to san diego where i'd go to school and i'd stay there until i was 17 and i moved back up here but from you know 6 to 17 the summer times i'd spend all the summer times here in long beach so i would go to like junior lifeguards and i'd kick it my grandparents house that's a rite of passage here yeah man junior guards was was it's great looking back on it but at the time like i love doing the fun stuff like jumping off the boats and stuff but you what they usually do is you get there at 9 a.m and then they're like all right start running you're like all right swim around the boot oh my god oh my god he's fucked up dude It's like a kid work camp.

15:16Yeah, you start seeing, you see like, you know, like nine-year-old kids running like it's like boot camp or something. Oh, it is, man. You get out at like noon and then you're just like, please, can we go get a hamburger somewhere? I'm just so hungry. But it was good, man. You know, a lot of what Bud was saying stayed true. You know, there was so much, what me and my friends always saw, you know, a lot of different genres of music and people and just this big, cool melting pot. and there was cool stuff happening but we were like keenly aware in our like i would say like high school age that we started to take notice like oh man it feels like we're on the other side of like an era like kind of how hunter s thompson if you ever you know how he's talking about like in uh fear and loathing it's like you could see the high water mark where the wave almost broke the wall it's like yeah yeah it feels like we're in this whole other era now where people consume music differently like people don't didn't go outside as much you know what i mean they weren't out having having fun like that which is a bummer you know there was definitely like a period where it felt like um it was maybe harder for stuff to happen but i i think we're starting to see it happen again you know things go in waves and in cycles and and people's attention spans they'll get over even the things that are distracting them from going outside and having authentic experiences so uh the people that i see at our shows nowadays i mean they're they're hungry and craving that that experience again so it's kind of you know we kind of came back together at like the perfect time it feels like yeah right at a time when it feels like people are wanting that authenticity that you know you guys really brought you know um were you did you but so i mean obviously when you're saying in high school a lot a lot of kids were maybe into things other than music but you were you a music head growing up yeah yeah for sure and even if they were into music it was just sort of different like you would go out to shows and stuff like that but things were kind of put in their in their boxes you know what i mean like uh it almost felt like going to a show was was sort of like it wasn't just something you did it was like this weird relic of the past kind of thing like you know like oh look i went to a show like it's like yeah no i don't think anyone thought about it like that or even we did at the time um but i mean the internet just takes up a lot of your time and energy and imagination unfortunately like and uh and i think now we're seeing it to be not so much of a bad thing there's ways to utilize that creatively but when i was coming up i mean i was obviously a fan of all the music my mom showed me which of course was all the same stuff the guys were listening to so i ended up being influenced by those same artists and stuff you know like minute men butthole surfers and johnny osborne and you know a bunch of cool hip stuff too but and your mom was feeding you that stuff yeah yeah but uh and and not so much like homework sit down and listen to this that would come later like miguel would tell me to do my homework he's like you need to listen to these records otherwise you won't understand music i was like 17.

18:04miguel's a dude who like big part of sublime's history obviously recorded your your first recorded some of your first recordings if not your very first we still see him all the time he's our buddy yeah he's uh i'm really grateful for that for sure and um but at the time i think what made me really excited was uh like queens of the stone age uh tool uh mastodon these were all i mean coincidentally i get maybe or not coincidentally but just matter of factly they were just bands that were releasing music and you know 2002 2006 2009 2010 you know they they had that was what my friends liked growing up and uh it's what we were enthusiastic about and sure we'd go out to a show every now and again but it didn't feel like belonging to a scene i think like how when we look back and view the scenes and clicks of like the 90s you know those the way that people were starting to consume music was changing like a little bit see that's that's the weird that is that's that's what i was trying to get at is where you put so succinctly is like the 90s 80s i mean like kind of like most of you know the 20th century like music was really segmented into like and scenes were segmented as the punk kids and the rock and the glam scene and the you know like or whatever and i don't know how you guys managed to like escape that trap of just being like oh you know like it's it's really wild that you guys yeah because we liked it all i mean you know it's like sometimes i think one of the best quotes that i can take from brad was you know what what kind of music do you like like good music yeah you know if it's good if it makes you feel something mad sad glad angry or afraid you know then then it's doing its job it made you feel you know so yeah you know it's good music it's good music doesn't matter what kind or style it is yeah yeah when did you when did you start uh ingesting the work of of bud and eric and your dad i mean you know it was definitely always present when i was a kid you know um my mom was always playing it and stuff and uh but i think when i got the first sorry but you remember the first time like do you remember like the first time your mom's like hey that's your oh no because it was happening since i was in the cradle you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah It was so, it just seeped into my life.

20:15I always had known. I couldn't even think back or point to a time like, it's kind of a little bit of a tearjerker, but I remember being very little, maybe like two or three, like over in Hawaii. And like my mom saying that your dad is alive, he's alive in your heart, you know? And so that was kind of a cool way. I always had felt that. She said he was alive in the music and stuff. So that always tied this huge emotional component to the songs and the work. But, you know, like most kids, I mean, since it was so emotional, it kind of just was in the background. I never gave too much crazy thought to it until like my teenage years.

20:46I think everybody's teenage years. Music is such an important, such an important tool because, you know, who doesn't have a weird, you know, teenage saga? You know, when you're that age, everything's so intense and crazy that if you if you have music that can make you feel like, oh, maybe I'm not the only one who thinks this way, like or any kind of art, that's your escape. Right. So I was I was at that point, like learning and interacting with all these different sounds and artists and of course just naturally because sublime's dope and awesome like i would listen to it like any other 15 year old smoking weed would do you know what i mean and you could do it like objectively and just be like yeah this is just great to smoke weed yeah i remember i mean i definitely listened to all the records i was taught by like my older friends like if they caught you listening to because in our day and age was like the itunes era and live wire live wire stuff and if you listen to just singles they would like shame you ruthlessly like what you can't just listen to a single you gotta listen to a whole record or the song won't make sense dude like come on okay okay i'll listen but but then you'd find your favorites and you'd put you'd make your own little playlists or whatever and uh for me i'd always listen to pawn shop uh boss dj and um i'm trying to remember there was definitely a few more uh definitely all you need still one of my favorites uh but i don't know it just it just fit very perfectly into the teenage experience i I guess, or the youthful experience.

22:08And I think that's why we see so many of our fans still to this day are all ages. Yeah, yeah. Did you, I mean, over the years, I mean, you kept playing music, you kept going, you and Eric, did you recognize that like successive generations of teenagers kept having that same experience with your music? Yeah, it was wild. I was just like, man, this is like the gift that just keeps on giving. It's just like, it's never ending. you know this is this is an awesome ride that we're on here you know there's all these other bands that that have kind of you know taken to our sound and and it's started its own you know kind of little sub genre of music and in a way and it was just like it was like wow you know at first i was it was kind of you know angering you know it was like we didn't get to do that you know and and it's like you know write your own style you know go do something original you know but then it was like wow these people they they really truly like loved our band and you know it's like just like what we were doing you know imitation is the purest form of flattery and it was like wow man whoa this is an even greater awesome feeling you know it's like holy cow it's like what did we do yeah yeah it was a trip there was a part of you that maybe initially saw other people doing a version of sublime and having success with it that's kind of like you know it's like man i was part of it you know we're on this we're on this magic carpet ride we're you know 10 000 feet in the air and then the carpet gets ripped out from underneath us you know we we were just on that launching pad all this stuff that we were working for those childhood dreams when me and Eric were in the Coliseum watching, you know, the clash and the who going, we're going to be up there someday.

23:58You know, we're this big. It was like, all that stuff was like, yeah, we're finally.

24:06Yeah. Yeah. Bam. You know, and it wasn't a soft landing, you know, a lot of drugs and alcohol came into play and, and, uh, you know, pushing the feelings away. And there was a lot of emotional damage you know internally to you know ourselves and and others around us you know typically the ones we love the most too yeah they seem to catch a lot of the flat because they're right there hugging you when your bomb explodes you know yeah so it's yeah man been a lot of uh a lot of uh uh you know reparations along the way you know so man it's one of the heaviest stories because like you could point to some people in music history that you know um like maybe like otis redding you know maybe randy rhodes just thinking about ozzy he's just past randy rhodes who was just like you know they kind of you know gone too soon but it's like the rides really like it's never happened in the way that it's uniquely happened to you guys losing It is totally a unique story.

25:09Completely unique. From start to finish, from high school to present day, you know, from 89 to 2025. There's nothing quite exactly like the story of Sublime. And it's stayed pretty, like, underground in a cool way. You know what I mean? It's big, obviously. Bigger than anybody ever thought it'd be. It's obviously very big, but it's a countercultural thing. It's almost like its own sub-genre. Not sub-genre, but you know what I'm trying to say. It is. That's what I'm trying to figure out, too. It's like a sub-genre that gets just... Sub-culture, maybe. It's a subculture that gets adopted kind of everywhere around.

25:41Everyone has their own little personal experience. I mean, like, it was so funny to hear you explain your teenage years with it. Because it was like the same thing with my teenage years of like people smoking joints and listening to like, you know, Ruka. Or like, you know, it's like that was like what we did. And then that's how, and then going back and then finding like Barrington Levy or, you know, like, just like how hip hop helped me go back and find new records. like you know sublime helped me go back and really rediscover what was going on in in jamaica and the islands and then discovering people like gershwin and you're just like it's a whole musical education and then like you know digging deeper into caris one you know like it's like that was um what what you guys did but yeah but it's just it's just unfathomable that you guys were right there with this album with the self-titled album that just sounds like as perfect as any album that's ever existed lighting a bottle dude it's such a classic rock record that was like the sound that we were attempting to achieve from the beginning you know when when we when we had the rough tracks done in in uh at willie's place there willie studio yeah when we the rough edit it was like that's it this is the sound that we had been trying to make this entire time you know and from john won't pay the bills all the way through you know what were you guys going for on robbing the hood that sounds like a funny story there well um we were talking with brett gerwitz uh mr brett from from bad religion and and uh yeah brilliant he had had uh expressed some interest in signing us to epitaph records and so he said well come on down to the studio donnell's going to record you guys and just just uh you know have some fun you know do what you guys do and so we go down to the studio expecting to see mr brett there and everything and he's like oh well he's he's in uh he's in new york he's signing a a deal with atlantic for bad religion right now so he's not going to be able to be here so we stayed there we knocked out a bunch of tracks and the engineer went to go get some uh food pick up food delivery or something like that and so we hit rewind on the tape machine boxed up the two inch tape and took it with us left and no said have mr brett call us when he returns and uh you know brett was pretty upset you know he'd just given us all this time and was like well brett this is our this is our intellectual property you know we owe you for the tape okay you said you were giving us the recording time but we owe you the 250 bucks for the for the tape you want to sign us we can negotiate all this later that's gangster got lost in the shuffle and so now here we got this we have half a record well probably a full record if we looked at it like a regular band but we like to fill up all the plastic on the cd so we had half a record in in material what are we going to do with it well we have to make another record so um it was demo days and we had some friends that had found this community down in south county that had some homes that were damaged and and uh so you know it was uh was free free studio time we set up our equipment and uh in the abandoned homes and squatted and you took various living rooms across yeah you know kathy cornhole's uh living room was part part of it um yeah there was a couple other people who donated their their rooms and and but yeah a lot a lot of uh a lot of debauchery went into that album that's why it's called robbing the hood because we were stealing time.

29:37Dude, this is so rad to hear. That's insane. We'll be back with more from Jacob and Bud of Sublime after the break. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at an OOCL speed test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged.

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32:12Lexus is a company that believes in the importance of setting a standard, which I can appreciate as someone who holds themselves to lofty if not ridiculous standards, especially with the car I drive. The standard Lexus has set for themselves is to experience amazing. Lexus measures success by the feeling and emotions evoked in a driver, like exhilaration and joy. Amazing can only be achieved by knowing people on a deeper level. The standard of amazing results in a feeling in drivers that their car was built in anticipation of them. Machines that make you feel more human. because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing.

32:49Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. So you had the, I mean, the stolen, but not really stolen, because to your point, was your intellectual property. You had those tapes from Epitaph. It was, yeah, eccentrically borrowed. Accent, yeah. Repurposed and recommandeered. Have you heard that? Have you heard that story before? I hear bits and pieces, but hearing it all together is just like blow my mind every time that's so crazy you just don't hear like stories like that anymore man it's not too late you guys can steal you guys do you have some tapes you can steal from these sessions you guys did let's go right now let's go rob the hood real quick let's go to john josephs but so when you guys put that together i mean just to get back i don't and obviously we'll we'll start talking about sonata and the new stuff but it's just it's we got both two generations of the band going here so it's just um it's it's like an embarrassment of riches um but you know the the self-titled album it's like this perfect sound and even you said it's the sound you heard robin hood was definitely the exact opposite of that but you guys knew that putting it out you just wanted to have something experimental album you know at the time you had albums like paul's boutique coming out you know yeah i was gonna mention all of this you know really great wild stuff and so you know we're we're pushing the limits with with the hip-hop and you know element and and uh in our music and and really trying to find that next sound you know and and so like i said we had we had this half of an album that was you know it was professionally recorded and then the other half was not so professionally recorded and then we all put it together and produced it on our own you know that was Miguel and Brad and you know mine and Eric's two cents in there when needed so you know it was uh that's how we put that album together and it was like all right now we got something new let's get it out there you know and it was we always looked at our records like a finished product a piece of art but it was also a business card you know this is what we're going to hand people this is going to get their attention you know and so So it was like, we got something new to pass out.

35:01We have something new to sell. We're just putting gas in the van so we can get to the next show. What was the reception when you were passing that around? 50-50. Some people loved it. Some people hated it. Couldn't understand. Raleigh, what the fuck did you put that guy on the album for? He's like, you don't get it. Okay. This one doesn't get it. 50-50. That's the most obvious description of that. record it's like it's it's pretty abrasive it's like you know it's it's definitely you know like if you hear that you're gonna get it or you're just yeah you know it's for the seasoned listener the odds are good but the goods are odd

35:50so good so then once you finally get out to willie's place and in in outside of willie nelson outside of austin just outside of austin texas and you guys are recording the self-titled did you just like was it an accident that you got that sound like did it just or i mean i would assume not but like you know it was just the years and years of of working together you know playing playing shows out on the road you know i mean there there's times when you know eric and i were lockstep from from the jump and i think that's partly because you know being trained by his father and stuff both of us so his father was a drummer right his father was a drummer and also played piano and and vibes and stuff too um but but you know being playing shows out on the road you know for for as long as we did we developed like this kind of third eye between us you know we all knew what we were going to do when you know it's like all it took was just like brad turning around and looking at me and going like watch this hold on you know and i was like i knew a change was coming and i was like i know what he's gonna do i i remember the music we were listening to on the way here you know yeah and so so you know things would change up and we had improvised and and you know it was it was just developing that that musicianship you know really played into the the recording and you know a lot of times we were you know the the other recordings we were pressed for time and money, you know, because it costs money to be in the studio.

37:26And we didn't go into the studio without a purpose. You know, there was, we had 10 or 15 songs and we're going to bust out as many as we can. And we went in there, bing, bang, bing, bang, bing, bang, boom. You know, because it was costing us money and we were broke. So we're going now to Willie's place and the record company's paying for it. And I remember flying out there asking Eric, what the fuck are we going to do? We got maybe two or three songs, you know? I mean, and he's like, I don't know, but we'll figure it out when we get there, you know? So, you know, every day it was just something new.

38:01And it was part of that jam, that improv kind of feel, you know? And it was just wild, you know? Just things came to us every day. And some days nothing came to us. We'd sit there and try as hard as we could. and paul would be like why don't you guys go play golf or something yeah because he had that set up there it was like a little golf willie's uh studio was a um it was on a golf course it was a it was an old golf club it was a um yeah country club and the country club for the golf course was the actual studio and there was homes around the the golf course and i think that like all of the the touring families lived out there you know so all of his roadies and such you know they all kind of had their their community out there it was willie world you know it was pretty really cool thing you know was any of willie's like like so willie's some of willie's entourage must have been around to some degree right yeah yeah did you meet you got to meet him didn't get to meet willie he was out on the road at the time okay yeah yeah yeah so you a lot of that was jammed you guys got in to hit record see what happens and then you would just shape it from there like yeah listen back to the tape here's something okay so for instance uh caress me down i had a um an electronic drum kit i think it was a roland td7 and um there was this one pre-programmed drum kit on there that had like reverse cymbals and drums and i'm just messing around with it i got like the headphones on you know and and i'm just playing around on this thing and then and i didn't realize that it was in the monitors too and brad was like wait wait wait play that again play that again you know and that was like the first part for caress me down and that's how that and he was like i got something i got something and he just grabbed a microphone paul hit play and record and it was the drums and brad and brad was like kind of directing me as he's singing lyrics you know and so the scratch lyrics on there i'm sure he'd be like now bring it down bring it down okay now that you know so it's it was pretty cool like wild like on the spot like live creation so you do that and then he might he might like it'd be scratch the lyrics so he might rewrite and redo it yeah that's pretty insane though yeah that's pretty nuts how much of that i mean you can't like obviously like the sound of ensenada which is like the first fully original song that you guys have done with with with jacob it sounds like a bit like logically what you would think comes next after that album but you can't recreate the magic that might have happened at willie's studio no totally so how do you guys think about going in the studio once you decide to do this together basically everything bud said i kind of wanted that to be the case too and so it's kind of exactly the vibe i mean there was some basic ideas here and there from various sources and then we just go in there and jam it out and that's exactly what you're hearing on this recording ensenata and all the recordings of the record like and same thing we had like the mic and me and john would be listening to drum doing the or bud doing the drum takes and uh eric on bass or on the keys and uh i mean that's just like how good music is made you know and we're smiling the whole time and then we'd break for lunch and go take a little walk in sunny san pedro and it was just like such a cool experience we were there for a couple weeks i think yeah i'm like yeah how many songs you guys recorded in pedro for the for the news shoot i think it was like 16 or something like that 16 we did and we did even more if you count the jams because sometimes you just turn it on and be like all right start jam you guys must When did you guys first jam?

41:34Honestly, the very, very first time was at Doug's birthday party. That's right. Yeah, we have a common employer. Common employer. We both worked at Billings Hardware growing up in Long Beach. Right down the street from here. On 2nd Street. Yeah, that's right. Shout out Doug. Doug had his 50th birthday party, and he had invited me. Doug got me into jeeping. He's real big into driving jeeps off roads. yeah yeah not cool enough to know that no you're good and uh so he's like yeah we're having a little party out at my house in the desert and have a bunch of jeeps out there and you know might go cave in and cave exploring because he's a spelunker he's actually an underground cartographer dude i don't know how he does that that stuff gives me nightmares like i'm brave he like maps like underground cave systems for really foreign governments and stuff too it's on the side yeah what yeah i'm draining cartography it's nuts dude and it's dangerous if you have you're the first dude in the cave mapping it out i'll say too it was one thing to be like adventurous like i'm gonna just go for it and try it out and like that's like a hobby but to do that for four he's got like a propane lantern he carries a canary in his pocket the canary in the coal mine yeah see that's that's tweety bird yeah so i went out to uh his 50th birthday and he said there was going to be a band out there he's like oh yeah probably a z-man will probably be out here or something like that.

42:57Yeah, he was. And I show up and Jake was out there with his band. I was like, yeah, rad. We were playing some punk tunes or whatever. It was very early in my musical learning. I think I was like 18. So what year? Like maybe 2008? Oh, man, if I was 18, 39. No, no, this would have been more like 2015, maybe. Yeah. Oh, right, right. 2015, 2014, maybe. Yes, right around there. So you saw Jacob out there with his band. Yeah. I jumped up on the drums and played a couple songs. Yeah, I just kicked it. It was fun. And then the next day we did some caving and very, very light because Doug's the real deal.

43:37And then I totally blew it. I'm taking, I think I had a 4Runner. No, it wasn't a 4Runner. It was an FJ Cruiser. And I got it caught in the dirt. And then Bud and Doug came and winched it out of the sand. Got him unstuck. Oh, yeah. Put a bunch of brush underneath the tire and stuff. and got unstuck. I was about to ask, was Eric there that day? Eric was not there that day. But he's friends with Doug too. Eric's good friends with Doug too. I'm talking about Doug from Ace on Billings. We're talking about Doug Billings. Yeah. Doug Billings. I'm going to set you up here with the mic. Good to see you.

44:16Good to see you. Great to meet you, man. How's it going? Good to see you. When Eric still lived down here, when I started working there, he would still come into the shop all the time yeah when did you guys when did you guys first jam then with eric yeah all three of us together kind of same thing so me and bud you know we see each other to show jam a little bit me and eric we saw each other to show we'd hop up jam a little bit that happened like with his band spray allen and stuff and then the three of us jam for the very first time to prepare for the hr benefit show to see if we dug it and it made sense bad brands hr yeah yeah and uh the teragram tetragram ballroom teragram ballroom yeah yeah yeah and like what was uh how did it feel like to do like actual dude it was cool i mean show these songs felt right yeah it definitely felt right there was a lot of healing going on in the room that night definitely yeah yeah yeah it was uh it was a pretty magical moment my favorite is when i pick like some old obscure favorite that i love and they'll look at each other like man i don't think i've played that for like 25 years and they wrote it so they remember it perfectly at least to me it sounds perfect yeah are you what's the process of learning the songs like are you i mean i imagine you can get most of them but then do you occasionally have to ask them like yeah well you know i've been invited to be uh i've been invited to projects before to sing or to fill and stuff for pre-established material so i just go in and just try to listen all the material okay i watch a bunch of live sets to the best of my ability and then there have been some parts when i'm like wait it does it here on this recording but is that how you guys did it live so you know there's sometimes there's differences about how we want to portray things or sometimes just just because we'll switch things up a little bit yeah yeah has your voice always sounded similar to your dad's like that close to your dad's when you sing or i mean in the same way that like sometimes kids look like their parents and stuff like that i think there's definitely like similarities and people definitely tell me they hear it um i hear it more more times than others but i mean you can't you know you can't go and try to emulate something you're not all the time like i i would try to get it as close as i can yeah i'm never trying to insert my own interpretation of the material because that doesn't seem like uh if anything i'm trying to be like okay let's see how this type of singer i my dad would would approach things and how he would deliver things and when to use vibrato and when not to and i was much worse at it i think a year ago when we started i think it was still you know fun show for people to co-see but all the time i'm trying to improve and so recently i actually started listening to the isoed vocals there's people up there who who put it on youtube where they they isolate you know drums bass vocals and so that helps a lot for me to hear um hear the inflections and where things are supposed to go but ultimately you know no plans survive contact with the enemy you know when we're when we're up there playing, it's all about just having fun and chaos.