Meeting Bill Murray and Interviewing Wild Rivers

So what does a podcast about music festivals do when there are no music festivals?

You talk about petting Bill Murray, of course, maybe even a dab of Woodstock 99 chatter,

and of course, always, always talking about PBR.

A bevy of potpourri today on the What Podcast.

Lord Taco, Barry Courter, Brad Steiner.

It starts right now.

Welcome to the What Podcast.

Lord Taco, Barry Courter, I'm Brad.

A podcast about music festivals, music industry, inside baseball, and hair.

So I want to start because I know we've got a lot of things to get into.

By the way, nice to see you guys.

I haven't seen you in forever.

I'm so happy to be back.

The most important thing, though, to talk about first and foremost is PBR has a new

can.

Yeah.

Uh oh.

What do you mean?

What?

Okay.

All right.

Let me back up for a second.

So Barry, Taco sends me a picture the other night of PBR in a new can.

A whole new designer can.

And he's happy about it or not?

That's what I'm trying to find out.

Taco, your official review of the new can.

Yeah, they do this every year.

They have an art contest.

They let people vote on the art and then the winner, they put on the can for a season.

Why aren't you on the can?

Can you draw me and get me in there?

You have a head and put that cartoon head on the can.

I think we know people who can make it happen.

Somebody please design us a PBR Lord Taco can.

I'm begging you.

We'll submit it for the art project and then maybe this time next year you're going to

be on the PBR can.

Man, that'd be great.

That'd be better than me on the milk carton.

It would be one of those moments where Taco look around like, yeah, I'm done here.

Check.

I don't need to do anything else in my life.

The Lord Taco PBR collectible can.

Oh God, that swells my heart.

Just thinking about it.

I'm so excited.

Please somebody do that for us.

I think it would taste a little bit better with my face on it.

I'm not sure I could drink it.

I just have to stare at it.

I'll be totally honest with you.

I don't really, as much as I love you, I don't want anything of Lord Taco that close to my

mouth.

Nor should you.

I don't know where this has been.

Probably you do.

Yeah, you probably do.

What's the born on date on this thing?

Well, that's exciting news.

That would be a bucket list item for Taco.

I can't believe I'm saying this and I don't want to bring it up.

When I say I don't want to bring it up, I absolutely want to bring it up.

Guys, I hit a Mount Rushmore.

A Mount Rushmore of my life two weeks ago.

Actually two weeks ago yesterday.

I became best friends with Bill Murray.

I know.

We saw pictures.

Yeah, we talked about it.

We talked about it.

Did you?

And Taco pointed out that it didn't look like the normal selfie where you ambushed him and

he was not happy about it.

It actually looked like you were having a conversation.

We had a long, long conversation.

And I'll just tell you my Bill Murray story really quickly because I love telling this

story.

So we're at the Phoenix show and I'm talking to the guy after the show from Phoenix, the

bass player from Phoenix.

And he's a sweetheart.

And I love this band so much.

So we're just chatting about the band and going back and forth.

And he looks over my shoulder and goes, Oh, look, there's Bill Murray.

And I go, no, no, it's not.

Give me a break.

Bill Murray is not here.

I'm not even turning around to justify what you just said.

He goes, no, no, seriously.

Not again, pal.

And then he goes, he goes, no, seriously, it's Bill Murray.

And I turn around, I see Bill Murray.

I turn back to the Phoenix guy said, see you later.

I run to Bill Murray.

And so we get to Bill and he's like, he's getting he's getting manhandled by this woman.

And she just won't let him out of her grasp.

So he talk and talk and talk and talk.

And so I'm not going to interrupt them.

So we take a lap around the room.

We come back to Bill Murray.

And by that time, there is the there's these dudes who are like, like bro dudes.

And they break up the conversation.

They're you know, being jerks.

And then Bill Murray gets the wife, my wife to take a picture of them.

And you know, she may she cracks a joke, makes Bill Murray laugh.

And that gives us the end to go after Bill Murray.

And so we start talking.

And I, I can't explain to you.

It's like he was right out of central casting.

If somebody were to cast Bill Murray, he's the perfect Bill Murray.

He's everything that you think that he is.

He's charming.

He's hysterical.

So I start I start just cracking jokes.

I call him prime minister.

Nice to meet you, prime minister.

People walk up to him like this is Gary Murray.

Don't tell anybody.

And he starts to really start cocking his head.

It's like, what is going on with this dude?

And then finally, I start petting him.

He's wearing a very he's very wearing a very fluffy shirt.

So I'm petting him.

And I look at he looks at me, he's like, what are you doing?

I was like, I'm petting Bill Murray.

You can't wear a fluffy shirt if you if you're Bill Murray, because everyone will want to

pet Bill Murray.

And he just loses it.

And every time he would leave, he'd come right back to me and he'd hold his arm out and say,

you want to pet Bill Murray?

Yes, yes, I do.

Yes, I would like to pet Bill Murray.

And so then we struck up another conversation.

We talked about Letterman, of course, you know, my hero in life.

And we talked about golf.

We talked about his first pitch at the Cubs game years ago.

He throws the ball over the fence.

You know, we had we talked a good I mean, I'm not trying to overstate this a good half

an hour.

And I just had this moment of like, I just I was in awe the whole the rest of the night,

the rest of the night just kept spinning around saying to myself, I cannot believe on the

and the thing I didn't tell him you see all these posters behind me.

Well, the one that's hanging in my house in Chattanooga right now is a poster of Bill

Murray.

I've got a Bill Murray poster in my house.

And on the bottom, it says, Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Murphy signed a Letterman.

And you know, he's just been on Mount Rushmore of my life for I got since the moment I ever

saw him on Letterman.

So so with all that being said, Bear, you know me well enough.

There's only one left.

There's only one more left.

Who is it?

I think you just said his name.

It's Dave.

I only need one more.

And I'll be in I'll be Lord taco happy.

Check, check me out of this life.

I'm good to go.

I only need Dave.

And I've got the I've got the Mount Rushmore of human beings that I have been able to meet

in my life.

And that's I can't believe it.

I just can't believe it.

And when you when you think about all the like the crazy Bill Murray stories that you've

heard, right?

Right.

And you know, you know, he shows up at a at a frat party and starts doing dishes.

You know, I had a guy you walk he walks up to somebody and takes a bite out of their

hamburger and just walks away.

You know, like, I know some of these have like created their own living legend.

Right.

But it's because he's you know, he's that character.

He's exactly that person.

And so one time I heard the story from a buddy of mine who goes, he goes, I was I was standing

at this.

It was like the map room or chart room.

It was Matt is map room in in Chicago.

And all of a sudden he had these hands go over his eyes from behind and whispered into

his ear.

The guy behind him says, this is Bill Murray.

No one will ever believe you.

Takes his hands away, turns around and sees Bill Murray just walk away from him.

I mean, he's just that kind of guy.

And he's exactly that person when you meet him.

I I was I've been giddy for two weeks ever since.

That's cool.

That's cool.

When I saw the pictures, I think I told Taco, I said, I'm not surprised.

It seems like something Bill Murray would do.

He loves it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was totally, totally appropriate.

Yeah, it's awesome.

It wasn't just a photo bomb.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Good for you.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, look, I mean, if you see Bill Murray, you have to figure out a way to get

a picture.

And I just didn't want to do the regular.

I don't know.

I'm not sure I would have laid hands on him, but good for you.

I don't know if a petting was where I would go.

I wouldn't advise it for most people.

Let me let me.

OK, do you think that he is going to remember the PBR guy or the guy that pet him randomly

on a Friday night?

You're lucky there wasn't, you know, authorities called.

He touched me.

He found he found it to be a kick.

You know what?

So you said you said it right there.

That's my people always ask me if I got autographs or whatever, you know.

And I'm always like, if I feel like they connected like they're going to remember me, it's it's

I'm it's memorable.

Otherwise, yeah, you know, yeah, I've never really been a pick.

I've never really been a picture guy.

I've never really taken these moments to sort of document because they're more they're more

fun when I get to tell you guys.

Right.

Like the moment is so much more important than a picture.

I guess because I live in the world of radio and I just like having a story to tell instead

of a picture to show.

Like that picture does me no good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I not that sounds like a you have a story now.

I have a story.

But I mean, I got to talk to Lucinda Williams two weeks ago.

Oh, I love Lucinda Williams.

Couldn't get her off the phone, man.

We laughed.

We started.

In fact, I quit recording.

We just started talking.

It was it was really cool.

That's great.

Yeah.

She said she's such a sweetheart, too, isn't she?

She's so great.

You know, she laughed and I.

Yeah, it's the same thing.

It was it was.

But she has a I bet she has a great giggle.

Yes.

It's a hearty, real, honest laugh.

It was really cool.

At this point in her life, she's a grandmother, right?

Oh, I don't know about that.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't think so.

Did you pet her?

I mean, I was in the zoom.

He breathes heavy.

Yeah.

She talks about her dad a lot, which is really cool.

Her dad, very influential in her life.

So that was cool.

And then is that an age thing, though?

Did you get to a certain age and you start talking about your parents a lot because you

probably become the parental unit that you always saw as a child?

Well, you know, he was a poet and she's written a song about a musical artist that he would

take her to go see when he would play in New Orleans.

And so that's what triggered it.

But I've talked to her twice.

She grew up in a lot of places.

She lived in New Orleans for a while.

She lived in Macon when she was little.

And she's in Nashville now.

Yeah, I know.

She used to come up to Chattanooga, Rock City.

Loved it.

Loved it.

She and her siblings were kids.

The dad would bring him up here.

So I think I think about Rock City a lot when I it's very Mad Men.

You know, I think about Don Draper in those episodes of him just getting in the car and

going on road trips with the kids.

You know, back in the 60s in the late 60s, Barry, you know what?

You were 40 in the late 60s, early 70s.

You get in the car and you drive in these roadside attractions that are not around anymore.

You know, Rock City was way up there.

All right, that was the place where you stopped and just let the kids do something for a few

hours instead of sitting in the car.

That's right.

And we don't have any of those anymore.

And talk about marketing.

I mean, those barns.

I mean, it's crazy.

Everybody knows about Rock City.

Mm hmm.

C7 States.

Stop it.

Really?

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Yep.

C7 States.

So what all have I missed in the last few weeks?

I feel like there's so much to catch up on.

Go ahead, Don.

Okay, sounds good.

All right.

Good talk.

We were geared up to talk to a bunch of bands on Sunday for Moon River.

And then the storm came, got rained out, got canceled.

It was fun.

It was fun to be able to go to a festival, saw a bunch, saw several, you know, Bonnarooo

friends.

Yeah, we had a mini Bonnarooo reunion.

Me, Lindsay and Zach and Daniel and Sharla and who else?

Dewar was there.

Chrissy was there.

Yeah, Dewar and him.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

And then rained out and we, you know, we did last week's podcast on that.

Oh, by the way, yeah, I mean, you and I haven't spoken and I'm glad we are because I, we made

the point, I hope in that podcast of, you know, this was Live Nation, C3 and AC getting

it right.

My daughter got her refund yesterday.

So what is that?

Nine days, 10 days, you know, after the cancellation already has her refund for half.

That's pretty good.

That's real good.

You know, we, we picked on them and picked on them.

So they got it right.

Yeah, and I think that along the way, I think you start realizing the, the reason why they're

able to do something like this is because of the very thing that we all complain about.

Yep.

Because they're so big, they're able to take, take something like this on the chin.

No question.

Yeah, it doesn't happen if it's a, you know, small outfit.

If it's Barry and Brad's festival.

Yeah.

With Lord Taco as our beer vendor, we, we're not really taking the hit.

Yeah.

Every can has my face on it.

Yeah.

So that's the, that's the plus side of having a Live Nation behind it.

But also, as I was told by several people, they learned, they learned their lesson, you

know, they, they can do it.

What lesson?

Well, you know, with Bonnarooo, we all, there was talk and certain complaints that their

communication wasn't great.

Oh, okay.

It took forever to get refunds.

You know, it just, the things that you and I and, and Taco, we've all bragged about for

four, four and a half years, they seem to kind of lose their way a little bit, you know,

by focusing on the fan experience is what it seemed to be.

And man, they seem to get it right.

Wouldn't you agree, Russ?

I mean, that was, oh, absolutely.

They, they did everything right.

They didn't even have to give refunds.

Yeah, I'm not like that.

And it wasn't just 50% of your, or a full refund.

If it was one day of your ticket, it was fees and all.

So I mean, they really, granted, it's a much smaller festival.

It's a singer songwriter festival.

You know, it has, it had some things different than Bonnarooo, but it was essentially the

same people running it.

Who did you miss on Sunday after it got canceled?

Band of Horses, Leon Bridges.

Oh yeah.

There was like three bands that played and then they had to cancel.

It was right in the middle of Sammy Ray's set and then she was the one we were scheduled

to talk to later that afternoon.

Yeah.

We had interviews lined up with Sammy Ray, Wilderado and Ben from Band of Horses.

So it was just disappointing.

Yeah.

But it was, you know.

Nobody more disappointed than a Mr. Bryan Stone, who is a massive Band of Horses fan

and called me in a fit of rage because he, I had all so much material, bro.

He did work.

He is so excited, ready to go for Ben.

The one time he does research.

Actual work.

The one time he knows what he's talking about.

Exactly.

He'd put in some good research and was ready and had questions and everything and it didn't

happen.

But like I told Taco, I mean, you know, it'll pay off.

We'll talk to him somewhere down the line.

They'll remember.

They actually reached out.

His management reached out that Sunday afternoon to see if we could meet somewhere.

And so they were, you know, it was all, that's nice.

Yeah.

Everything was cool.

The whole thing.

Other than the weather, you know, it was just a really, I like that.

It went from a real downer, you know, thinking that all this has canceled to actually being

a really good time and a good story.

And a lot of that's got, I gotta imagine is thanks to Drew Holcomb, huh?

No question.

Oh yeah.

That was mentioned several times by a couple of people in our podcast that, you know, having

somebody who is the face and the curator is different.

And he's also a nice guy.

You know, you'll hear in the interview that we're about to play with Wild Rivers, who's

actually, and I had forgotten this.

His son was born the weekend of Moon River.

The first year they came.

The first year.

Yeah.

Ellie was very pregnant.

It sang and then went home and had a baby, literally.

And they held his fourth birthday party backstage where we were doing our interviews.

So you hear clapping and cheering and singing.

Well, I'll let Lord Taco be the judge on whether or not they had a baby or not.

That's his department.

There were a couple of, he identified a couple of babies.

Did you?

There were a couple of babies there, yeah.

Wow.

Okay, just to clarify, because I mean, Lord Taco is the expert at identifying babies.

Are there any babies on this call right now?

No.

Wow.

See, I would have guessed differently.

He's 100%.

I can't believe it.

You've never got it wrong.

I mean, you're in the hall of fame of identifying babies.

All I have to do is see it and then I can tell you if it's a baby or not.

Didn't tell you it's a baby.

I don't know how you do it.

I don't know how you do it.

All right.

He knows his beer and he knows his babies.

Yes, he does know beer.

So are we in the world where it's Bonnarooo rumored season yet?

Are we in rumor chatter season?

I think so.

We're pretty close.

Can someone tell me who the rumored headliners are?

Do we have anything like that yet?

I don't know if there's any big rumors or not out yet.

Okay.

Okay.

Rage.

We were hoping you'd tell us.

Got to be rage, right?

Rage, yeah.

Well, I mean, I don't know why not.

I've made my demands.

Demands, that's right.

I told everybody on the show last week that the reason you were not around was because

you were on a hunger strike that you hadn't eaten red meat since you made your demands.

That's right.

I've been making demands for 13 years.

That's right.

So I did find out who the Saturday headliner is and I'm pretty sure the Friday late night

was told to me as well.

They don't know if it was definitely Friday late night or if it's the closer on Sunday.

So I don't know and I don't necessarily feel the most comfortable saying it out loud just

yet but boy, that rumor mill was going around.

We really could make that a lot easier, this conversation.

But I'll just put it this way.

The Saturday headliner is going to be massive and then the Friday late night is everything

that we've wanted for years or at least Barry's wanted for years.

It's a perfect, perfect combination and these two bands alone I think make the Bonnarooo

faithful very, very, very happy.

Yeah, good.

Yeah.

I'm excited from what you told me.

I also wanted to say I had some folks reach out.

I'm going to talk next week with some folks with Live Nation and they have some prizes,

some plans they're working on and we're going to hopefully set up a podcast.

Looking forward to having that.

Surprises as in campsite adjustments?

I'm not exactly sure.

It was a very short note just basically when we talk next week about some things we've

got in the works and perhaps do a podcast.

I was thrilled that they reached out and I want to talk about it.

I'm very excited about it.

I hate to tease like that but I don't know any more than that yet.

The other thing that I was going to ask, we did an event a couple of weeks ago, maybe

a couple of months ago.

I was talking to their managers and we were just over some beers and that birthed this

idea of let's have the Smashing Pumpkins on a tiny stage in New York and do it all

for free.

The radio station was going to go through a couple of different things that didn't pan

out, but the show remained and we had it over the last week, last Thursday.

The thing that I was thinking about this whole time during the show was someone fact checked

me has Smashing Pumpkins never been to Bonnarooo?

I don't think so either.

That kind of took me back for a second.

I can't really understand why.

I don't know.

This is one of the bands on the Mount Rushmore of rock music and yet no Bonnarooo.

And frankly, I don't know if I remember any real festival they've been on before.

Maybe it's just a Billy Corgan thing.

When you start thinking that they have a new album coming out that has 33 tracks, that

they're putting it out in three parts and it comes out all by April, I've got to imagine

that.

Why would Smashing Pumpkins not be on their radar for Bonnarooo?

The show is fantastic.

Now I know a lot of Smashing Pumpkins diehards get a little irritated because the set list

doesn't really ever change, but I don't care.

I'd never seen them before.

Can you believe it?

One of the great bands of all time.

I had never seen Smashing Pumpkins and it didn't even occur to me that I had never seen

them until Wednesday.

Yeah, when you say that, I don't remember seeing them on other festival lineups either.

I don't know.

Maybe they just don't do a lot of that sort of thing.

I don't know.

We always say that it's all about timing and availability and all that.

I don't know.

I don't think they've ever been there though.

I can't recall seeing them on a lineup.

Yeah, man, that show was so good.

Oh God, it was good.

Oh, the other thing that we never got to was the Woodstock documentary.

I finally watched that, Dad.

I finally watched it.

What did you think?

I liked it better than the other one.

I liked it better because it felt not as...

I don't know.

Maybe I felt like it was less accusatory and put everything on the bands and that they

sort of expanded sort of the blame a little bit.

But also the part that I think that I take away from it the most, people really had a

good time.

Aside from the people who had their complaints, everybody in that documentary that they asked,

but would you do it again?

Yeah.

Yeah, I want to...

Was it one of the great weekends of your life?

Yeah.

Yeah, it was.

I mean, even bringing it back to Bryan Stone, he was there too.

And he remembers it being a struggle, but one of the best weekends of his life.

Yeah.

Well, it's pretty epic.

I mean, it's pretty memorable, I would have to believe.

I could see that.

Once it was over and you were past it, I could see that being part of it.

The things that stood out to me, and I forgot that we hadn't talked about it, was how much

just what we...the opposite of what we were saying about Moon River, the fan experience,

the fan was not considered.

So how far festivals came, if that was 99, Bonnarooo started in 2001, right?

2001 or 2002.

So three years later...yeah, it was 2002.

So three years later, they go from basically that shit show on a tarmac, nothing but concrete

and asphalt, little...not enough bathrooms, not enough food, not enough water, all of

those things to...you know, Bonnarooo had its issues the first year too, but it was good

enough that people wanted to go back and they continued to fix it.

That and the other thing that stood out to me, and I had asked you if your wife, Hillary,

had seen it, I remember thinking just how different women, females have been treated.

I mean, they were treated so badly at Woodstock, you know, per both of those documentaries.

And I know there have been issues at Bonnarooo.

Anytime you get that many people together and alcohol, there's going to be some issues.

But I remember second or third year there just thinking how different everything was

in that regard.

You know what I mean?

It was nothing for a female to go to a show by herself, whereas just a few years earlier,

we would have never done that because guys are just pigs basically.

I think that you read brand values.

You determine what you want your brand values to be and the audience will follow you.

So if you espouse a certain level of, like Bonnarooo does, positivity, hope, inclusiveness,

then that's what you're going to get from the audience.

If you breed commercialism, that's what you're going to get from the audience.

So your mission statement means a lot to, even from 2000 to now.

And I think that the other thing too that these things have benefited from is failure.

They failed a lot in 99.

And frankly, I bet Bonnarooo would even tell you and our guys that we've talked to in years

past have sort of hinted at it.

Failure really sort of fixes a lot of blind spots.

That complete rain out in 2004 that was an epic disaster at Bonnarooo turned out to be

the reason why they made all the improvements on the farm and the reason probably why they,

maybe not the reason, but a reason why they bought the place so they could never have

to worry about having a complete disaster that was that rain out in 2004.

Which by the way, we will be talking about a lot in the coming weeks and months because

2004 will be on somebody's mind.

I don't know how to say this without giving it away.

Anyway, just remember the rain out in 2004 because it's going to be a big part of the

conversation come the spring while we're talking about Bonnarooo 2023.

Very cool.

I don't want to give too much away because it's going to, it will probably be my Christmas

present to Barry.

It's a good one then.

You're my hero.

So yeah, so I think the Bonnarooo people were very smart in that and maybe the Coachella

people too, we just don't know them as well.

They were so smart to pay attention to all of the problems because you could have saw

that and said, no, no, no, we're done.

There's no possible way we're going to put ourselves in this position.

Frankly, how they even got an insurance policy after seeing the disaster that was, but by

the way, it wasn't supposed to be Bonnarooo.

It was supposed to be Cuckoochoo.

What the hell was it originally?

Itchy Coo.

Itchy Coo and it, yeah, and it didn't work.

Well, it was Itchy Coo, which was an AC thing.

And then when Superfly reached out to Ashley at AC, they were going to do Bonnarooo.

The reason it's at on in Manchester is because Ashley had done Itchy Coo and knew the farm,

knew it would work.

So I mean, it was, I don't think it was always supposed to be Itchy Coo because Itchy Coo

was not hugely successful.

So I've got a whole dog pile sitting in my lap right now.

They wish I could show you the faces that are bothering the hell out of me right now.

Guys, what do you want from me?

I can't do anything for you right now.

I have to give all my attention to Barry and Taco, not you two.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I'm sorry about them.

But yeah, I like this.

Sorry, excuse me.

I like the second one so much better.

I mean, essentially the same story, but I just felt as though it was a little bit better

of a, you know, story, telling of the story and, you know, associating blame sort of everywhere,

not just on the artist.

I felt like the artist got a lot of the bum rap the first go around.

They did.

And I don't remember who, maybe it was Pondo pointed out that they really focused on just

the one stage.

There were two stages there and we never really saw much from the other stage.

Don't know what was going on there.

Yeah.

And I also appreciated the way that they told it.

They put the plot out.

They explained to me what the lay of the land was better than the first one.

I didn't really know anything about that hanger.

I didn't really know how everything was set up.

And the way that this podcast started was because we were obsessed with, you know, chords

on the, on the farm and how they built a, a festival site.

I look at that festival site that they explained in that second documentary and I just say

to myself, ugh.

Yeah, I know.

Oh, that's what I mean.

That sounds awful.

Three years, three years later, it went from, you know, that to, you know, the beginning

of what we know now.

Like I said, they didn't get it all right that first year at Bonnarooo, but they got

it pretty close.

Well, the other thing too is like back in that day, so it was 2003, I went to Music

Midtown in Atlanta and it was the exact same thing.

It was just a big parking lot.

Yeah.

Oh, it was miserable.

Yeah.

Miserable.

Yeah.

Now the fan experience, that's what I mean, like you said, that's why we started the

show and that's what we focus on.

But that was what was fascinating to me to think about that it seemed so, so long ago,

but in a way it wasn't.

You know?

Well, I remember the first years and I think that we'll probably talk more about those

early years in the coming months, but I remember because I had never really camped before,

I remember thinking that I needed to come with like a bow and arrow.

I was going into the wilderness and I had no idea what I was doing.

Like I need to take a toolbox in case I need to build a shed or something.

I don't know what I was thinking, but I really came with all of these expectations of I might

die here.

No, I was petrified that first year.

I'm with you.

I tried to think through toolbox, you know, everything.

More food than you could possibly eat in the days, you know, because you're going to the

moon basically is what it felt like.

It did.

And I like, I love the kids now that go and they're on their third, fourth, fifth, Bonnarooo.

And I'm not trying to be back in my day kid, but man, in 2003, my first Bonnarooo, I just

looked around thinking to myself when I prepared for it, what do I do?

I don't know anything about any of this.

How do I even, how do I even?

Yeah, it's like going to the moon.

It's like, well, what do I, what do I take to go to space?

I need everything.

Yeah.

I need everything.

I got to take everything.

Yep.

Yeah.

I might as well pack up my cat.

Yeah.

What do I do?

Oxygen.

You need it all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That there's people around you that are going to have it.

And like I said, they've developed to they, you know, and we'd leave, you know, we can

actually leave and go to Walmart if we have to that that's another thing that's changed.

So I don't remember that Walmart existing by the way, in 2003, I don't know if it did

or not.

I don't remember anything existing by the way.

I, nothing about that space is the same as it was in 2003.

True.

Except for maybe the waffle house.

I think the waffle house is still there.

True.

Yeah.

Anyway, it was interesting to see that and consider how things have changed and developed.

So yeah, I'm glad.

All right.

What else?

What else is going on?

What's going on in a tacos life?

What have I missed?

Just just a lot of car stuff and streaming and Twitch streaming.

Yeah.

I've been doing Twitch.

Barry, have you been watching a show yet?

Have you been watching the thing?

I watched a little bit.

I sure did.

And I'm with you.

I don't get it.

I don't get it.

But I feel like it is like the best public access late night TV show.

I'm obsessed with it.

I feel like it's really what it is.

Yeah.

What was that guy?

We just celebrated 420 followers.

That's the weed number.

Yes.

We know that that's the weed number.

It reminds me so much of like early Tom Green.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a good way to put it.

Yeah.

I just love it so much.

It's so goofy and I have no idea what I'm watching.

I really have no idea what I'm watching, but I'm into it every time.

So what is this interview that we're going to put on, Barry?

Who are we talking to?

Wild Rivers.

What was it?

Yeah, they were great.

They're Canadian originally and they fascinating.

They are now, Devin is moving to Los Angeles.

Khaled is moving to Nashville and Andrew is going to stay in Canada and they're going

to be a band.

So we talked about that a little bit.

I mean, it's not uncommon.

We had Daniel from Interpol come by the station the other day and that's how they operate.

Yeah.

I know.

I asked him straight up.

I was like, are you guys friends?

He's like, well, yeah, but as much as friends can be when we live in seven different time

zones.

That's right.

Yeah.

It's not that unusual, but they don't plan to record separately.

They want to be together when they record because they did.

I'm actually glad you brought that up because the thing that is so charming about Phoenix

is that, which by the way, I did an interview with Phoenix that you can go back and watch

on the station website or something.

But the thing that's so charming about Phoenix is that they've been around 25 years.

They were best friends then and they're still best friends.

They vacation together.

They all live near each other.

He's married to Sophie Coppola.

They're all just hanging around the family.

And I asked him straight up, Tomas, I asked him, I said, is it kind of weird that somebody

like me brings up the fact that you guys are best friends so often?

It kind of feels like you're the white unicorn of the music industry and that you're the

only band that hangs out and they're friends and that vacations together.

He's like, yeah, it feels kind of strange because it always feels like that was what

it's supposed to be.

And you just don't see it very often.

There aren't many.

You too, I know those guys are all saying they're all friends and vacation together

and hang out.

So I've read.

They didn't tell me personally, but it is rare.

And you got to like each other.

That's one of the things that...

I don't know if you do.

Well it's one of the things we talk with Matt Carney about.

You got to be on the road.

He's like, you might be a really good guitar player for 90 minutes, but I got to see you

the other 22 and a half hours.

You know, maybe it's a status level.

Maybe you have to get along when you are a mid tier act, but it's not like the Black

Keys get along.

Yeah, well Oasis, the Kinks.

Yeah, I know.

There's all kinds of examples, but I mean, if you're going to spend that much time with

somebody but moving that far away.

I mean, we kind of joked about it with the guys from Wild Rivers if they couldn't pick

any farther apart, any places on the planet.

It's almost as if it was on purpose.

Can I get as far away from you as possible?

Purpose I can move, yeah.

How's Alaska this time of year?

What's that tour going to look like?

Where are you going to meet in the middle?

They kind of laugh.

Man, I've been looking at this piece of property in Russia.

It was kind of funny.

They were super nice.

Like I said, you'll hear Drew and Ellie having the birthday party.

They had a three legged race and did all kinds of stuff.

That was kind of cool.

Yeah, our interview got kind of crashed by a four year old's party.

Yeah, that was all right though.

That was a lot of fun.

And once again, as we said before, Bryanstone was a huge help.

And everybody was.

I mean, it was everybody who's, you know, it's funny.

We've talked about how you get all stressed about these things because you're not sure

if you're going to get access and what access and all that.

But it always works out better than, you know, better than you hope.

So thanks to all those people.

You guys, you guys are the stress balls, not me.

I don't, you guys.

Oh, I know.

We had the jitters right before everything, you know, because we weren't sure if we're

going to get this or that.

And of course it all worked out.

And yeah, loading equipment and all.

I mean, it's, you know, it's just there's logistics, but Sue Marcus with the PR stunt,

she was great and lined everything up and Hannah.

I mean, it was, you know, dad got taken care of.

Everybody took care of dad.

They really took care of dad.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

As long as they should.

I feel like one of these days you're just going to ask like a, like a wheelchair.

You get somebody just wheel you around and a motorized wheelchair.

You'd be great with that.

You know, I got the golf cart at Riverbend.

I got golf carted around all over.

That was pretty, I kind of was kind of waiting for that from at moon river.

Never happened.

Well, you know, just start pointing at your hip.

Just a bad hip, bad hip next year.

Okay.

All right.

Let's get into the wild rivers thing.

And after that we'll talk to you soon.

You guys just finished your set.

Did you have a good time?

It was awesome.

Big old crowd, people up on the bridge singing along.

It's super fun.

Have you been to Chattanooga before?

I don't think so.

I think this is our first time here.

You guys are from Canada.

Toronto, Canada.

Yeah.

Is that still home?

Yeah.

Home for most of us.

Cal's making a move to Nashville and Deb's making a move to LA, but I'm keeping the home

base.

Couldn't find any farther points.

We're trying to be international.

We got outposts everywhere and we'll slowly take over the world.

Is our plan.

What's taking you to LA first?

Obviously the weather.

Canadian winters are not something that I was built for despite being Canadian.

Also just the music industry, the water, the hiking, all that stuff.

Is there something specific about LA or you just, I'm leaving Canada and this is where

I want to go?

I think just I meet so many creative people there.

So many songwriters move down there and I don't actually know that many musicians in

Toronto anymore so it's such a good creative hub for me to be able to collaborate with

people and it's very inspiring and we've all spent time as a band down there.

We live there for four months while we were writing our albums so we're familiar with

it and I just loved it so I wanted to stay.

And yet you chose Nashville.

I like LA too.

I like the vibe.

I think I prefer the vibe of Nashville in that I grew up in a small town and it's a

very small town and you run into everybody you know at every bar, every coffee shop and

people are just really chill down to earth but incredible, incredible songwriters.

Have you driven in Nashville?

Oh yeah.

Well, if you've never driven in Toronto, Nashville is a cakewalk.

Toronto is a...

Interesting.

Okay.

From 2 to 6 p.m. every day you're not getting anywhere so everyone says the natural traffic

is bad but I'm very used to it.

Wow.

That tells me all I need to know about Toronto.

That's the one big downfall with Toronto and the cold weather in the winter but we love

home too.

And you're staying?

Staying.

Staying.

I assume you guys are going to stay as a band.

Have you talked about how you're going to make this work?

Yeah, I think we're just going to plan to get together before tours and when we're recording

and make kind of little vacations out of writing trips and stuff like that.

I mean a lot of bands do it.

It's not unprecedented.

The reality of it is that we're never home anyways so even us changing locations, like

we've been on tour this entire year so having a home base is a little less relevant because

we're always doing stuff together all the time whether we're making a record, whether

we're touring.

So yeah, I don't think it will be too tough.

Let's go back a little bit.

You guys started in 2016, right?

What was the, first of all how did you get together?

I'm always kind of fascinated.

Was it an 8.5 by 11 poster on a telephone pole or an ad in a magazine or did you know

each other?

Yeah, looking for a singer.

We went to school, Devon and I went to school in a college town a couple hours outside of

Toronto called Kingston.

We went to university there.

Neither of us studying music but both interested in music and we were both from the Toronto

area and my neighbour in first year, the girl next door to me in my dorm room said, you

have to meet Devon.

She's an incredible singer.

I know you're like looking to do music stuff so we kind of got introduced and I was working

on songs and Dev was wanting to start a project too so we kind of just started singing together

and instantly it was super natural.

We liked all the same music and kind of blended in a very easy way so we kind of rolled with

that.

All of university, playing coffee shops, bars, any gig we could, doing little tours, slowly

focusing less on our studies and more on the music and then by the end, by the time we

graduated we're like, let's make a go of this and record an album so we used all the

money that we had made from our bar gigs to go towards our first record and during that

time we wanted to flesh out the song so we built up the band for the record which included

Andrew and we started working on that record and then it felt really good and it kind of

turned into a band project and turned, we all played shows together and it was more

than just a duo thing so that's when Wild Rivers itself really started.

At the point when you said, I think this is the trio, this is who we are, this is the

trio, we want to do this, what was the goal?

When you sat down, I assumed you had a sort of meeting and said, what do we want our sound,

where do we want to go, what's the direction for the band?

What was that conversation?

I don't know if we've ever had explicit musical goals.

We're lucky that we have all the same tastes and we like a whole bunch of different music.

Our goal with the music is just to serve the song, song based writing.

Party!

Alright.

Whoa!

We love music!

Oh!

I don't know if you guys can see it on the camera that Ellie and Malcolm just arrived

with, I see one of their children, it must be a birthday.

This is exciting!

Alright we may have a happy birthday right there, yeah, okay.

Cute.

We might have to talk over a little bit.

That's okay.

That's cool.

That's neat.

But I was saying just our musical, specifically what we're doing musically, we've allowed

ourselves to draw outside the lines and not really be tied down to be like we're going

to be this Americana band, like we want to make whatever music that we're feeling at

the time and we have career goals and playing festivals like this and playing.

Our dream venue in Toronto, Massey Hall, was a big goal that we just did this year so it's

only in recent years that we're kind of realizing some of our big band goals which is awesome.

Has that changed at all?

I mean as you've grown, do you now sit and talk more specifically about what you want

to do next?

Every few years we'll kind of check in with each other and be like okay, this is working

to a certain extent, this is the direction we're moving in, what do we want out of this

and how can we kind of like narrow our focus to get there but I think since we started

we were just kind of trying to make music and trying to play shows and whatever that

meant we were happy with it so as it has started to evolve it's allowed us to kind of like

expand what our goals actually are because we were always just thinking about what was

right in front of us like okay this next tour, how can we make this the best tour we can,

how can we make this record sound how we want it to sound and I think that maybe is why

things have worked for us because we're kind of focused on the music and focused on the

shows and keeping those authentic and consistent and that has opened up some doors for us which

has been great.

When you play a festival like this, it has to kind of help right, it's got to be a boost.

It's the best, we love it, this is what we want to do, like this is what one of the goals

we wrote down when we started the band was to play outside the packed crowd, people singing

our songs and that happened today, it was amazing, it's so fun and I don't think it

will ever get old.

Another big goal for us which has just recently been unlocked was we always wanted to tour

in some kind of bus situation and this is our first like time in a bus so we just woke

up outside of the stage here and it was a beautiful thing.

How does that work or how's it gonna work?

LA, Toronto?

It's gonna be a long pick up route.

I think we'll probably fly to one central location and then start the bus from there.

Yeah, I figure.

All of our families are from Toronto so like we're gonna be home kind of all the time as

well and we all love each city that we're in so we'll see, maybe a little LA trip before

the next tour, Nashville trip.

A lot of Zoom meetings, that kind of thing?

Hopefully not, we kind of did half of our record in the pandemic a lot remotely because

in Toronto the lockdown was so severe that we couldn't see each other for a couple months

and yeah, nobody likes Zoom meetings, no one wants to make music like that.

It's honestly pretty hard to that stage of making a record where we were apart but then

we were able to, we actually went back to the town that we met at university, holed

up in a studio there and finished the record which is so much better than sending files

back and forth.

So much of what we do is like a dynamic live thing so it was nice to actually make music

in the same room again.

You talked about being on the bus and before we actually started recording I think you

were talking about you're excited to go out and watch some music today so we won't keep

you much longer but who in particular are you looking forward to seeing and are you

gonna be here tomorrow as well?

I'm stoked to see The National, they're one of my favorite bands and Peter Kadis who produced

our last record produced most of The Nationals records so it'll be cool to see them.

What about you?

Bristan Maroney's great.

We've done a few festivals with him this summer but I haven't actually been able to see the

set so I'm excited for that.

We love Bristan.

Yeah he's awesome.

Yeah we, Bristan is a three time guest on our show.

It's technically two because I forgot to hit record.

Oh no!

But he's so sweet.

Yeah he seems like he's forgiving.

Oh he was so great.

He got up and he had this kind of, yeah I'll do it again.

So run it back.

So we're huge huge fans.

Plus he's from Knoxville which is not far from here.

We're fans of his music but also now he's you know, it's kind of a special place.

It was a bad day but it ended up being a good day.

I think we hit record today.

I think we did.

At the very least we had a good conversation so it's all good.

Yeah we appreciate it.

Well I know you guys want to get out and hear some music so anything else that you wanted,

anything coming up, where can people see you next?

Touring the whole month, every major city in America will be there.

This is going to be our last big stretch of touring before we take a break and then go

into album mode.

So yeah if you want to catch a Wild River show look on our website wildriversmusic.com

and we got a new album too.

It's called Side Lines.

You can find us on all of the Google things and hopefully see you at a show or listen

to the music.

Absolutely.

Cool.

Devon, Andrew, Kyle thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for doing it.