Washed Up Emo

I found out about your podcast after hearing about The Promise Ring episode and listened to that one, then came back a while later and went through and listened to all the ones with bands I was most familiar with.
It is interesting, your journey to it, because that is what’s happened for most people. They find one and then they are like “OK, I’m a huge fan of Promise Ring, what a minute you interviewed Braid, wait, you interviewed the Jealous Sound, wait, you have Jim Adkins” and then it sort of snowballs that way. Even like in this recent Saves The Day one, all of these new people are finding out about it. Recently there was an iTunes feature for the podcast, so that even exploded it even more. There is more people that I am noticing finding out about it. This is all word of mouth; I’m not really doing anything. I have a full time job and this is sort of my 10pm to 2am fun that I have.

I don’t know if iTunes tells you this, but do you know how many downloads you’re getting of each episode?
I have stats, but I don’t know if I want to tell everybody. Based on when I started, I can say they have tripled in two years. Some episodes, like Chris Simpson’s episode is one of the biggest, Jim Adkins is one of the biggest. It’s in the thousands. It’s interesting to watch which ones do well. Let’s say Saves The Day goes up. Well, a lot of those fans are also Braid fans, so I’ll notice the Braid ones going up. But if it’s an older band, then older fans will find out, maybe they’ll go listen to the Christie Front Drive one. So that’s been really interesting to see too.

What are you first memories of music and what interested you about it?
I remember my dad playing Willie Nelson records and having records and vinyl. I had a record player really early on and I just always gravitated to it. I was always interested in music. I grew up in a small town, so I wasn’t exposed to a lot of… I didn’t know about pop music, I didn’t have MTV for a really long time. I was sort of into the local scene or got into local bands or regional indie bands. I wasn’t a pop kid, and so, it was interesting to think back and really enjoy those times listening to those records or hearing that music. One of the biggest moments for me was in middle school, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video came on and that was it. I went upstairs and I was like “Let’s go to the store, I want to get a guitar!” We ended up not getting one that day, but I remember playing a bunch and trying it and then ending up getting a friend’s guitar and learning. It was THAT instant, like I was just like “Let’s go to the store, this is it, this is what I want to do!” It was in me, I just needed that spark.

Like a lot of people our age, our introduction to music was by what we heard on the radio or saw on MTV and some of the first bands you were influenced by were Nirvana and Helmet. At what point did you start seeking out non-mainstream music that wasn’t played on the radio or shown on tv?
It was almost instantaneous I think. I was into the Nirvanas and the grunge stuff. But then Helmet, they were such a different kind of metal band, and I really got into metal. I knew Century Media Records, Relapse Records, I knew all of those things really, really well. I liked it, I loved metal and then I sort of got into hardcore. Bands like Sick of It All, Cro-Mags, Gorilla Biscuits, all those kind of things, because those bands, regionally New York and Boston, were coming up to Vermont and so I would get to see those bands and it was making this connection. And even there are some regional bands, that no one will know if I reference them, that would come up from Boston and play. Those things where you bought the CD, you looked in the liner notes and who did they thank. I know I’ve mentioned that a bunch of times, and a lot of people and bands that I’ve had on mention that, but that was really their “Facebook Likes”. Like Cro-Mags thanked Agnostic Front, let me go find Agnostic Front stuff, or you see someone wearing a t-shirt and you talk to them and they tell you about another band. It was really that hand to hand and going to those shows and going to those hardcore punk shows, turned into post hardcore. Those bands got older, the Quicksands of the world, that thing started happening and then it turned into emo. A lot of those bands got even quieter. ‘95, ‘96, ‘97, that’s when it hit. That phase that I was into. There was another DC one that was happening previously, but that was really angular like Rites of Spring, the whole Fugazi chain that people go on. Mine was definitely ‘96-’97 Crank records, Mineral, Christie Front Drive, Jimmy Eat World, all of that world. The Midwest scene. That was sort of the progression and I don’t think that would have happened if I was anywhere else. I think I was so isolated that I went the indie path, because that’s what was easier for me to ingest. 

You’ve mentioned elsewhere before, that in college when you worked for the college radio station, the radio station manager gave you a box of records and it had a bunch of stuff and the Jimmy Eat World 7” in there, did you know the importance of those records then when you got them from him?
That’s a really good question. I knew the bands, but at that point, I had some…like I had a Jimmy Eat World record, I had some stuff, but I didn’t have it on vinyl. I didn’t have that specific 7”. I didn’t realize how much stuff was in there until later. There was an unopened Mineral Power of Failing in there, there was that Jimmy Eat World 7” in there, that they duct taped, that they did a limited servicing and it was stuff that the guy was going to throw out and these things are gold. I recognized the bands. At that point I didn’t realize that these were going to be important for me and what I was going to be involved in and invested in. At the radio station, I started as a Metal Director, and I think I probably told that story when I went to my first CMJ event at the station and everyone was looking for me, and this is before Facebook, Friendster, and Myspace…I’m dating myself horribly, but no one could find me because they thought I was going to have long black hair and a trench coat because I played black metal and that’s what I was super into. I was a hardcore kid with an Earth Crisis hoodie on and tennis shoes. It was just metal, hardcore, post-hardcore, emo, that sort of progression. And same thing at the station, I did the metal show, I did that for 3 and a half years and then I also did a hardcore show, which sort of turned into a hardcore/emo show. That box in particular, I think I recognized, but I didn’t know there were going to be that many fruits in there. 

You played in the band Halifax Code, was that prior to college or after?
That was after. That was pretty much as soon as I graduated. I lived in another place for a minute and then I was in New York and had an apartment with some roommates. A friend of a friend kind of thing “Hey, they need a guitar player”, I’m like, “Alright, I’ll play”. I had some connections at Deep Elm from college and that’s sort of how the Emo Diaries Vol. 7 happened and we were on another compilation from DC that we put out a song. It ended up, three of the members ended up forming another indie band that is technically still around and awesome. That was a fun time. 

I was wondering how you got on the Deep Elm series.
The Deep Elm thing was, Chuck at Deep Elm, who is now Beartrap PR, he is one of the first people that I ever spoke to at labels that I had liked and was talking to him on a regular basis. Chuck would send me Camber records and we got to be really good friends. I remember emailing him “Hey I’m in this band, in New York, check it out” and then two days later he was like “Alright, we want to release one of these songs on our next compilation.” It was literally that fast. It is interesting too. That there was some other label interest to sign us outright, and at the time, I had just gotten my really first music industry job. I kind of had a decision to make and I said “Do I want to go the band path and be in bands or do I want to have sort of a stable career?”. That was the point where I said “Let’s keep it part-time for now and we’ll do the comps” and if it gets bigger then… But I didn’t want to go full on, so we went that route. 

I know Chuck fairly well as we have worked with a lot of Beartrap bands in the past.
He was my first guest on the podcast. I wanted him to be first because he was sort of like how I navigated this early on.

Deep Elm had quite an impact early on in the scene and now it’s mostly a digital label. At what point did it start to wane and change it’s model from physical releases to digital only?
I think what definitely happened with them is, they were there with the Emo Diaries Comps and there are 13 and some people like to rib me and say “Well the Emo Diaries are good up till #6”. I sometimes agree too. Those first 5 are solid, solid stuff. I think for them, it ended up the name of emo got sort of wrecked and it got pulled through the gutter and associations that people still associate with eye liner or clothes or anything. Pop punk and goth sort of intersected in it all around the same name. That’s what’s been so amazing about that happening to Deep Elm and going under again, but to have it come back out again with Topshelf, Count Your Lucky Stars. Having that name and these stories come out and be like “Wow, there’s this revival” and yes, it’s been around the whole time, but it’s been so bastardized that it is finally that some of these bands know the references and some of them don’t, but they are doing it from the heart. They are doing it from what they do or what they feel inside and that to me feels like such a redemption of their remembering Mineral and American Football. They’re not remembering some of the bands from the MTV era. Which is fine and all, people can copy that stuff, but if you are really looking at how things are connected, those bands weren’t about clothes and weren’t about tour buses. It was the music and it was such a smaller community and that’s what this is now. A small community niche that is really about the music. 

In the music industry, is there a time line or a moment in time where you have to do your thing and keep people connected or are people going to forget about your band and move onto the new bands in that genre?
Just because I am in the music industry itself and been able to watch it from the personal side and also the work side, there are these sort of waves and I think that sometimes bands try and do those waves each time. They feel, “Ok, we gotta put keyboards in” or “We need to have a dance hit” or” We need a drum machine or girl vocals or EDM, we need to have something that is super dancey” Whatever that is, some bands do that and you can tell from their records. And then there are some that have just been doing the same thing and yes, maybe they are influenced by it. Maybe those bands feel that they are just really into keyboards and they just happen to line up that way, but sometimes that is not the case and you can see them sort of trying. Like Appleseed Cast has been doing what they want to do and the same thing and they write and have this system down. You see this consistency and you can ride their wave as a band. I don’t want to ride a trend. Like Jimmy Eat World can do whatever the fuck they want. They can put out a record because they’ve got that thought that you’re following them. They don’t care, they’re writing what they want to write. Yes, they may be saying “God, this will be a really hooky song” I do the same thing when I write, but it’s not around that sort of wave that is happening at the moment. They’ve been doing their thing. I hope that answers it. That’s sort of how I feel, that some bands are trying really hard to do that and some bands just want to do their own thing. 

What made you want to start the Washed Up Emo site and up until that point, had emo music been a constant in your life, or was it something that you had just come back to?
It was constant. There’s a joke that when the A&R guy at TVT handed me Bleed American and said “You like these guys, check this out” and I heard it, I was like “Holy Shit, this is amazing!” and that was in 2001. I was really angry. There was all these bands taking part in the time frame, so at that time it was awesome to be able to have this record and be like “Wow, this is going to be really good, this is one of my favorite bands, they are gonna break big” and I had a friendly bet with a co-worker, which I won. He had said it was going to sell 60,000 right away and it didn’t happen that way. A world tour later, they were on the map. I think for me, it definitely started in college with that box and it continued. I collected and I always went to record stores and was always asking people about what stuff or what records. It was definitely a task to hear these bands and find out about them and find out about things. College was great because I did get free records from the radio station and that just sort of continued and when I started working at record labels. I never left it, I just didn’t know how to channel what I wanted people to remember. I wanted people to remember the bands and that meant something and not the sort of hair and the face and eye liner. All those bands, hats off and congrats to all the success and all those things, but the name got tied to something that was more pop to me and not as commercial. Some of these songs I thought these bands back in the day had was just as commercial, just as catchy, they just didn’t have the gloss and the expensive video to go along with it.

Right. If you look at the videos The Promise Ring did, they were well done, but they weren’t super high gloss or flashy or anything. 
Yeah, they had some great videos and they had a sense of humor too. That’s the thing that a lot of people forget. These bands, they do smile, they are happy people, the music is just very melancholy sometimes. 

The early posts on the Washed Up Emo blog we’re pretty angry as to what the term emo had become. What was it about emo that you were angry about and at what point did goth and emo cultures collide to create this emo monster where bands like My Chemical Romance and the like were considered emo? 
It was definitely ‘04, ‘05, ‘06, that’s when I was like.. I hadn’t started it yet, but I was just like this is ridiculous. I was working at Equal Vision at the time and I was working a bunch of bands that were all rock bands. They were getting roped in with all these things and I was so confused like, this isn’t emo, what are you talking about. Steven’s Untitled Rock Show, I had a lot of success with that show and I had a lot of bands on there, but they would just play My Chemical Romance, The Used and all these bands all day. The Warped Tour kind of poached all these guys. And then Europe and the UK…I always like to poke my UK friends about their media and how they are horrible with understanding emo or even describing it. Those things started happening around the world and that’s when kids were being blamed for having eyeliner. Like don’t search emo on Instagram…I get depressed, so I don’t even look at it because it’s so off base. No one is posting Mineral records on there. That’s when I was like I need to get this outlet. I’m washed up, I’m a little older, let me explain emo before all the swoop haircuts and the tour buses. This is what this word meant or at least was associated with prior to all that. So, in 2007, I think in October might have been my first post, that is when I sort of started. Then an interesting thing, it was really angry. 

I would find posts online or find things in mags and I would call out bands. I sort of stopped that a couple years ago. The anger of it was to a point, I didn’t know what else to do. And then, I started getting some positive things back from people saying, “Oh man, I checked out this band and they sound like this” and I go “What?! There is a band that sounds like American Football, no.” And that’s when I started seeing “Oh my god, there’s this scene!” I literally felt it. I have an interview with Kevin from Topshelf Records, that I have in the can, and we talk a lot about that and just how when I found out about his label and I went “Are you kidding me?!” There is someone out there, that’s from the same kind of soil working with bands, doing it the same…This label would’ve existed in ‘95-’96. It would’ve been the same thing. Yes, there are different ways of promotion. Yes, there are different online things, but it would’ve existed and been the same thing. That’s what’s so exciting and that’s when I sort of turned and been like, let me talk about the old bands, but then bring in the new and make that bridge. 

How did you feel when you first heard bands like Algernon Cadwallader and Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate), who were bringing back music that was closer to the roots of emo?
I was blown away. I didn’t believe that this was happening. I remember asking a bunch of friends like, have you heard this band and how did they find out about them. That was my first thing. How did you get there? How did you get through the muck of the pop and the MTVs and all those worlds and Alt Press. No offense, again I don’t want to make it seem like it’s their fault, it was what was happening at the time, it’s just, the word got through it, so how did they jump back. Obviously the internet is great to be able to do that. Some of them have and some of them haven’t. Some of the bands that are around today, like talking to Keith from Empire! Empire! and chatting with him and finding out like “Oh I love this band and this band”. That was so great for me to feel that true music came through. Yes, it might of been below the fold and no one is really talking about it, but there was a certain part of groups of bands that were looking back further. When I heard Algernon or Snowing or any of these bands, I was so excited. It was one of those this is awesome moments. There are bands that will write me from Russia and say “Hey, I wrote this song, my favorite band is Mineral” and it sounds like Mineral. (Laughs) And hats off to them! 

One of the things I love about the podcast you do, is that it’s less interview format and more two guys just shooting the shit, having a conversation about music. Why did you decide on doing a podcast with face to face or over the phone interviews, instead of just emailing questions to your favorite artists and posting them on your site?
I felt like Alt Press did a great job. There are a few editors there that I know as well that have done a lot of oral histories of a lot of the bands, if it’s Cap’n Jazz or The Promise Ring. No one in history, no one had Jim talking for an hour. No one had Eric from Christie Front Drive get to chat for an hour and a half about stuff or Chris Simpson from Mineral. There is no outlet out there for them to be able to chat. I remember when I interviewed Blair form The Jealous Sound, I think my first question threw him for a loop, because he was expecting “What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite band?” and I asked him “What’s the first record you ever owned?” I think it got them to be like “Wow, this is a trip down memory lane.” This is me enjoying music and that’s what I love about it. I have a bunch of questions and I do a little time line and I like to start from when they were born up till now and what’s next because that’s what’s exciting too. Like, what are you still doing? That whole story it does, it turns into where I’m asking a question and they end up answering something that I was going to ask them later or turns into this whole topic about just in general of what’s happening or why something was. I love to hear why from their perspective. I had a different perspective because I was on the outside and sort of in the industry, but not really, and I just love hearing from the bands. That’s what I think people are really liking about it. It isn’t that interview format, it’s this conversation. AV Club had one of the nicest things to say, just saying that we have reverence for them and it’s a conversation. That’s exactly what I wanted people to get out of it. 

Is there any correlation/connection between you making mixtapes off the radio as a kid, working at your college radio station, and doing a podcast now?
Yes. I think making those little mixtapes and doing my own breaks…I mean, my first day of college, I went to the radio station and was like “I want to have a show”. That was partly why I picked the school, partly why I went there. I was going to have an opportunity to do that. In myself, I knew that was how I was going to get a career or get a job. I love connecting with people and I think the radio, the podcast or these things connect. A lot of people sometimes aren’t as social. I’m a very social person, so being before the internet age, being able to have these things where if it’s Twitter…We had Emo Night last night, I was tweeting at bands that we were playing and they were favorting or tweeting and it’s just like those kind of connections wouldn’t happen. I love that. I think it steps back to if it was my pirate radio station, or the radio show where high school kids will listen or the podcast where thousands of people are hearing it and sharing it and connecting.

About the Emo Night, do you make up set lists beforehand or do you take requests throughout the night?
What I like to have is, Brian and I figure out who’s guesting with us, so we’ll figure out “OK, it’s this band, so they can show up then” and we’ll split up the times and since I don’t drink, I DJ late so everyone can have a good time. For the most part, we don’t really have a set list. I must of had 45-50 requests last night from people. I have a general idea of how, and I gauge the room too. Brian does the same thing. We kind of gauge the room and find what’s working and what’s not and then sort of cater to that time frame. My favorite thing is when people come up and they’re like “I just had a great time!” I can tell I played the right tunes around the same time, they made the same correlation, they toured together around the same time, area. Long Island and New Jersey bands do well. It’s knowing the audience and it’s really fun to play something and there is a great reaction. I know enough, hopefully, or Brian can remind me, “Hey, remember this song?” “Oh yeah, let’s play that!” It really turns into a fun night, just because we’re playing to everybody that’s there. I try to stress too when we have people guest, yes, play what you want, but if someone comes up and wants to hear something, say “I’ll get to it” or “Hey, what about this band?” because that’s why they’re coming. I need to be careful about that. 

Are there any songs that you will refuse to play because they are not what you’d consider to be emo?
Look, I have a certain perspective, Brian has a certain perspective, the guests have a certain perspective. Some people think Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance and all those bands are emo, which is fine. I think of it another way. What I try and do is steer away from things that are more punk or more indie. Jawbreaker, Fugazi, those things make sense because of the touring. I also try to think of who they toured with. Those bands, if they toured together or if they were label mates, you sort of start to make those family tree connections and that’s how I try and help if someone’s coming up and asking. I’ve had some off the wall things, like someone was like “Hey, can you play Tool?’ and I’ll say “I can’t play that because of this, but what if I play this, or what if I played you Hum?” You know something like Quicksand. Some people have it in their head that this is emo because it’s from MTV and it’s 2005 and it’s My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy and no offense to them. There is one band I will never play, but I will play as much stuff as I can depending on the room. Like if it’s all people that want to hear that stuff, done, I’ll do it, but for the most part, I try and do it like a radio station would. They play you a song you know, like ‘Living On A Prayer”, and then the next song will be something that’s newer that you might not know, but you’ve been there and stayed to hear the old song, so you’re maybe going to stay for the next old one. I try and do that with everybody. I play a super sing-a-long, but then maybe get really old school or deep cause there are older people out there and then come back up. It’s sort of a little bit of a roller coaster. You can tell I’ve thought about it. 

How much time and preparation does it take for each podcast and how much editing is done per episode? 
Basically, the prep is a lot of back and forth with the manager or sometimes it’s direct with the artist. They’ll find out about it or they will @ reply me. A friend of past bands will connect me with them. For the most part, most of the bands I know front to back, so I could just sort of do my usual thing and interject what I’ve always wanted to know and what I would think that people would want to know. I’ll post questions like “Hey, does anyone have any questions for Chris Conely from Saves the Day?” and I’ll get a bunch and be able to insert those in. And then an hour to do the podcast, and then usually editing…I don’t really have the best audio. That’s probably the one complaint that people have with it is the audio of it isn’t as well. I just don’t have the time or money to invest in that and I think it’s good for what it is. It’s an audio interview, it’s not going to change the face of audiophiles, but it takes about two and a half, about double the time I interview. So if it’s two hours I interviewed them, it’s going to take 4 hours to edit. It is a lot. I was on a good clip for a while and there are ups and downs, but I think everyone’s pretty understanding about it. I don’t just want to do everyone every week, if it’s not someone significant. I’m working on really big artists. I want…this is what this thing is about…I want you to listen to it and be like “OK, I’m going to get the full story from these guys and not just anybody” and be able to tell the story from everyone’s perspective. I want this to be this oral history. I want this to live and have people come. Whatever, there’s a band starting up tomorrow and they heard about one band and they can hear Matt Pryor talk or they can hear Jim Adkins talk and maybe some of that can continue on to those next set of bands. 

The podcasts vary in length, do you edit a lot out or are you pretty much releasing the whole interview?
I have a hard time editing a lot of stuff because I love the stories and I feel like that’s the form of that and I can do however long I want. Like Eric from Christie Front Drive’s; I just loved what he was talking about, I didn’t want to edit. Jim Adkins; I’m not going to cut stuff. I feel like whatever he’s giving time about, it should be out there. Some of them are long and I try to keep it to an hour. I feel like that’s the limit. Then again, sometimes they run over a little bit. I’ve had ones where I’ve stopped interviewing, like you can’t tell in the edits, but there’s ones where I’m like “Well, that’s all the questions I have” and then we start bullshitting. We start telling stories and blah blah blah and this this and this and then I got to put those back in because we ended up just talking for another hour. That’s what happened with Jim, we ended up just bullshitting for another 45 minutes.

Is that where the music breaks are on the podcasts?
Sometimes, yes. That’s the secret. Sometimes it’s either I ask a stupid question or the answer wasn’t concise and they need to answer it again. Or their phone goes out and I have to call them back, then I’ll sort of do an interlude with a song.

Having an interest in many genres of music, do you think the podcast will ever branch out into non emo genres and artists?
I haven’t thought about that. I think there are so many bands to hit. I think the newer bands are what would be a great next step. Interviewing Empire! Empire! or interviewing Kevin from Topshelf, being able to get that out, that’s something that I’m excited about. Obviously with my background, I am able to connect with these bands really quickly, either it’s publicists or already having a relationship with them, so I just tell them “Hey, I have this podcast”. “OK, great this is why and we’ll do it.” A lot of times the band already knows about it and listens to it. Like Jim had already known about it and listened to a bunch, which blew my mind. It’s sort of this understanding of, you get what I’m trying to do, this is pretty simple. I don’t think I’m going to branch out and do punk or ska bands. I don’t think I’ll ever do that. 

A lot of bands in the emo and indie scene have had a short shelf life or career, do you worry about not being able to interview these bands while they are still around?
I haven’t done that many new new bands and the funny part is that a lot of these bands, like The Jazz June, I interviewed them and they weren’t a band at that time, they were broken up. I interviewed them and they ended up getting inspired from that and finding out that people were super into them and then they ended up reforming, playing shows, and they’re going to do a split 7”. I think that there is that whole time period of where time passes, like maybe a band that’s broken up is around now, I’ll interview them in 5 years or 6 years or something. I don’t know. I haven’t really gone that far with the newer bands. 

I also wanted to ask you about what you do, you currently work in digital marketing at Sony, working with the Legacy artists like The Clash and Tony Bennett. Do you get more nervous meeting celebrities through work or interviewing people on your podcast?
I’ve done it long enough where I can be comfortable in front of them and I think the difference is when I’m talking to them, I have a purpose, I have a “Hey, I’m doing this for you or working with you” kind of relationship. The podcast, I think is that same way. I want to help you, like tell me what’s coming up for you guys. Tell me what’s next or what you want to talk about. I don’t really have an agenda, I’m not going to open up the podcast and listen to it and be like “Oh my god, I look like a ass.” I want them to come, great, and I feel like I approach the artists I work with at Sony, the Legacy artists, obviously are such a different level than bands that I’m dealing with. They are just legendary and millions and millions of people around the world are loving them. I have to uphold that thing as well. I have to be really careful to make sure that I am very very understanding of them and their place in history. I feel that same way when I’m talking to the bands on the podcast or dealing with them for the DJ nights or interviewing them for other stuff. I want to make sure that they come out looking awesome. There is sort of a correlation in both my jobs; I’m dealing with bands that have been around for a while and some of them are shaking the cobwebs off and doing things and some of them are dormant. 

Working with the Legacy artists, have you worked with any that your parents were or are really into?
Definitely Tony Bennett, but then also Willie Nelson. I’ve gotten to work with him at the prior label, EMI, and also worked with him here. That was the first music that I’ve remember listening to was him. So to be able to work with him and work with records and meet him and traveled to shows and traveled to far away places for shows to hang. That was one of those full circle moments where that was some of my earliest memories of music and it’s one of my dad’s favorite artists and I get to send him records early. It’s his birthday today, so I have records going out to him of stuff that is new music from Willie. It’s fun to be able to do that. 

You’ve worked at a number of labels and you now work at Sony, is this the direction you wanted to take, is this where you wanted to be in music?
I was always against major labels and I was an indie kid for life and wanted to work at indies and work bands and break records and work with bands that no one has heard of and laugh in everyone’s face when they were trying to sign them. That was my early feelings and then I had the opportunity to switch and do more digital marketing and that was involving some other labels and went in that realm. I think the past, especially in music, it changes every six months. There is always something new, there is always something changing and especially in digital marketing, which is what I do, there is always something different that I can be working on and doing and it doesn’t feel like the same job everyday. So that’s what’s really exciting about it. You asked like a path, I’d always sort of been into digital and tech and things, so being able to do it with music and having that background, seemed like a perfect fit. I’ve been doing it this long and I hope I can do it just as long as I’ve been doing it. 

Going back to the podcast, I know you’ve said before that you want to interview Jeremy Enigk from Sunny Day Real Estate; are there any other artists that you especially want to interview for the podcast and are there any artists that people would be surprised you’d want to interview?
There are probably some obscure bands that I would want on that maybe some would know and some wouldn’t. Maybe it would be regional. Someone from the West Coast wouldn’t know about the Virginia band that I was super into that I’d want on. Sometimes that would happen. For the most part, the big guns, which I’m hopefully figuring out a lot of these things that are through connections, but definitely Enigk, Chris Carrabba, he’s got a lot of things to mention and is still making music, and  Blake Schwarzenbach from Jawbreaker and Jets to Brazil would be great. Those would probably be the few at this moment that would be the ones that I would love to have on. I think I’ve gotten a lot of heavy hitters and Jeremy, Chris and Blake would round those out. 

Where do you see the podcast heading in the future. Do you think it is something you will continue doing or is it something you see ending in a few years?
I joke with friends that if I get Enigk, I could stop. So that’s sort of a joke with friends, but I think as long as people are understanding of the time it takes and it’s just not pushing out an episode to push out an episode, but one that makes sense, I will continue in doing it as long as I can. If three months go by, but then the following episode is Blake Schwarzenbach, then great, or it’s a new band from Count Your Lucky Stars or Topshelf or another new band that we both haven’t even heard of yet. I don’t see it stopping. I’ve never made a cent on it, I don’t care, I’m more of a “Sure” if someone wants to run ads on it, that’s fantastic. I’m more about, I want someone to go to this in 5 or 6 years and look at this and be like “Wait a minute, I didn’t know about this band” or “Oh, that connects with this.” That’s great because yes there’s Wikipedia, yes there is your friend, but to be able to hear it from their voice and hear the Braid guys talk or Eric from Christie Front Drive talk about ‘96/’97. I think it’s eye-opening for a lot of people that have always been in the digital world and to be able to hear that pay phones and writing someone and waiting and doing 7”s and touring together, that sort of works and you’re connecting on such a different level. Yes a Facebook message is great, you and I emailed back and forth to set up this interview, but before email it would’ve been a letter, it would’ve been a phone call, but it also would’ve been something like seeing each other on tour. Is one better than the other, no. I just think it’s interesting to show how it developed and I hope people get that out of the podcast. I know I’ve brought this up a bunch, but it was really one of those last few times that before the internet broke, this scene was there and it was a lot of work. 

One of the great things about music is it’s ability to connect you to a certain important points in your past where that song or album had been playing. What song or album, when heard, instantly brings you back to an important part of your life?  
There’s a bunch. You want something emo or something different?

Either works.
Two examples; one when I got to see Refused in 1998, before they broke up and subsequently someone had this video tape of it, which I didn’t know was happening, but it was a show with Frodus on a college campus and it was two days before they broke up. So I saw one of the second to last full shows they did in that time frame. A friend had this video, he was like “Hey, I have this show and it was in North Carolina in 1998” and I was like “What, I was at that show!” So I watched it and literally that was the show I was at. I was able to upload it to youtube and had a lot of people reach out and be really stoked on it. Now, them being able to, recently this year, tour and make money and get that recognition that had always been there. I will always think about that show in ‘98, where I had the labels that I was talking to, I was a college radio station, say goodbye to them. Like “Hey, tell them goodbye from Victory or Equal Vison or Epitaph”, or whoever it was. I was talking to all those guys because they sort of had an inkling that they were done. That record, obviously, changed a lot of people. The Shape of Punk to Come is a classic record. To see it in its infancy and see one of those first shows and feel that and be able to experience it again online and be able to find it, then also have that satisfaction of seeing a sold out venue of 4,000 people two nights in a row lose their minds. They played a secret after show after one of the gigs in New York and I got to go to that and it brought it back to its roots again. It was such a full circle of seeing those two sold out shows, but then also them playing this limited show in Brooklyn for 150 people and bringing it back to when I remember hardcore shows. That to me was just the most full circle thing that whenever I hear Refused, I have such great memories about not only when I saw them before, but when everyone else got to experience it and understand what I had gotten to be apart of. 

The other one was Saves the Day. I booked a show right before I graduated college at a pizza place I worked at. I flyerd one show, a Boy Sets Fire show, 250 kids came out and the funny thing about it was that the next day, I had two finals for my major that I had to pass to graduate. I was obviously doing the show and being really busy with it. The show was awesome, all these people showed up. It was just as Through Being Cool was breaking and I stayed up all night and studied for the two tests. I fly home that next day and I was like I don’t know how I did and so I get the grades in the mail and I aced both exams and I was like “OK I can do the music industry”. I can stay out all night and do a show and then take a test in the morning. So that to me was “I think I can do this”. Whenever I think of Saves the Day, I think of it was sort of my pass to being in the music industry. 

If I could close or to just say another thing, this is something that I love doing and I try and think about everybody. I don’t try to think about just my experience or just what I’ve been doing, I really want people to listen to this stuff or be exposed to the bands and feel connected to it. I don’t want it to seem like I’m telling someone and that is sort of what I’m trying to do with these podcasts, is letting the artist tell the story and you understanding their situation and why they wrote what they did. It’s working, there seems to be a lot of people that are really connecting with these and it’s super fun to hear from people from all over the world and having people wanting to ask me about these things, it’s great. It’s obviously my labor of love. I don’t get paid for it, it’s just one of those ones that feels like a need, like there are people that agreed. It’s not happening in a vacuum.