Say She She Takes On Bonnaroo 2024 as Festival First-Timers

You know, there's this incredible community of musicianship amongst the musicians and then also musicianship with the punters.

The people that come to this festival really care about music over fashion.

You've barely been here.

I think you just did their promo for next year.

Can you see the smile on my face?

Do you all have it?

Have you seen the text that we just got like seconds ago from David Bruce?

Am I? Have you seen it, Brian?

I have not seen it.

Have you seen it, Russ?

Oh my goodness.

And you're wearing his t-shirt.

That's part of why I'm smiling.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the photo shoot potentially from a couple weeks ago.

It goes so much beyond that.

And it's so the timing is so amazing.

So, all right, I'll quit smiling long enough to try to explain.

Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm Barry.

That's Russ.

That's Brian.

This is the What Podcast.

This is a podcast that we do every week and we have since 2018.

It's primarily focused on the Bonnarooo Music and Arts Festival, but we talk music in general.

And a lot of what we've talked about in recent years is these unbelievable threads and these unbelievable...

I don't know if they're not coincidences.

They're not coincidences.

They're things that have happened because the world can sometimes be great.

And this morning is one of those.

Our friend David Bruce, I am Bonnarooo, has been so cool to shoot.

I don't even know where to start.

I'm not going to try to rehash it all, but David's a great guy.

He's kind enough to shoot a lot of the interviews that we do, including the one that we have today with Say She She.

Guys, if you remember, David shoots these.

It's the first time I've seen him fanboy.

Yeah, he had a selfie.

Absolutely.

I just got to know David this year.

I've been around him before in the last few years, but I've just spoken with him this year more and was impressed.

First of all, just the 35 millimeter.

What he does is gorgeous.

Who does that?

He's so kind to share with us and things have worked out.

Things have worked out, you can go back and he's been on our show several times.

Please go back and listen.

But he takes pictures for us.

You know, I mean, it's a vanity thing, right?

He gets access to musicians just like we do.

And and we get pictures.

But he was fanboying a little bit.

He was it was hard not to because it was a fun afternoon.

Oh, it was. We're going to recap.

But we should, you know, say she she is our.

And I don't even think he fanboyed this much.

No, that's what I'm saying.

He's never done.

And so I looked up, you know, typically what he does is we do the interview and he shoots and we look like professionals.

It's so I mean, we come in with our equipment and we have photographers.

I mean, we look like we're somebody, right?

We're fooling them all just enough.

And then he, you know, ask him to, you know, do a separate photo.

And then I look up and he's handing his phone or his camera over to his friend to take other pictures.

And I'm like, that's the first time I've ever seen that.

So he's like, yeah, I don't do you remember, Russ, who it was?

He was missing. There was another band of favorite of his.

And I don't remember.

Because, yeah, he was supposed to go see somebody and he ended up hanging out with us.

Well, apparently he's not doing Bonnarooo right then, Barry.

No. So, yeah, exactly.

Sorry, sorry.

That's all right. We'll get into that.

So literally seconds before we hit record, he sends us a text and you're Brian.

You'll see it because you're included.

I know it's just me and Russ, but I'll send it to you.

The band reached out to him and asked if he wanted to shoot their show in Palinville.

I've never heard of Palinville.

I guess that's New York because that's where he lives.

So he went and shot them hung out.

I'm not going to read it because I hope he doesn't mind that I'm even telling this story.

But, yeah, he's all works around here.

He's in the kitchen doing tequila shots with the band.

So that's why I'm smiling so big.

That's cool.

And that's so that's a great jumping off point, I think, for this show.

And I kind of wanted to recap because we've been reading some of the stuff online and we've never.

I mean, I guess we have, but I wanted to recap if that's the right word.

So, again, Brian, you've been every year since 2002.

I've been every year since 2007.

I went to that first one.

Russ, you've been since 18, you know, minus the covid years.

I've done it every way you can do it.

I've done it by myself.

I've done it as a working journalist, which sucked, but I was glad to do it.

I mean, those first five years, I went by myself and.

All I did was the work, which was fine, and I couldn't believe I was there.

I was hanging out with, you know, this was the coolest place on earth.

It is the coolest place on earth.

And I couldn't believe it.

As an entertainment reporter that I was getting to cover what is the coolest festival in the country, in my opinion.

I stand by that all day long, but did it by myself.

2013 was Paul McCartney.

You know, I'm a huge Beatle fan, so you can't even imagine.

I'm wetting myself.

I'm so excited.

But it was also the year that I realized that the paper that I worked for didn't care.

It was just something else to fill up, because I remember I got to take pictures of Paul McCartney.

I was one of the journalists allowed in.

There was like seven of us and I was one of them.

They didn't want my picture.

They were going to run whatever was on the wire.

And that's when I was like, they don't care.

I don't care.

Yeah, it's a shame.

That's just shocking news, right?

Breaking news.

The print industry is gone.

So, yeah.

So and I mean, that sounds bad, but I think it's a good thing.

I mean, that sounds bitter, but it really wasn't.

It kind of was freeing, because from that point on, I was like, I'm just going to have fun.

I'm going to do this for me.

And then Camp Nut Butter sort of came out of that coincidentally.

So we've all become friends and we've done it different ways.

And so this last year, well, last year, I just changed jobs.

So I didn't get to get there until Saturday morning.

And then quick recap, we had to put a cat down.

So I had to leave on Sunday.

That was pretty heartbreaking for me.

But this past year, and I've said this before, I had such a great Thursday and Friday and Saturday and left.

And I was glad to do it.

Why am I saying all this?

There are so many different ways to do Bonnarooo.

Brian, you left last year for whatever reason.

You can relate it.

You can tell it again if you want and came back.

We're fortunate that we are so close.

We can come and go.

And I guess my point in all this is I've never understood people who could stay in a hotel or people who would leave and go to the Walmart and get groceries.

I never wanted to break the spell, but I did.

And I'm OK with it.

And I guess my point in all that is there are so many different ways to do Bonnarooo.

Right. We talked about leading up to this one, the one and two day tickets.

What would that be like?

And that was based on my past experiences.

Yeah. And the chatter online with the one and two day and people being potentially concerned with that never came from this show.

No.

That came from every other corner of the Internet.

That's a way to do Bonnarooo also.

Yeah.

And this is coming from a thread on Reddit.

And if you want to see it, you can go find it.

And it's got a lot of responses.

And I am a pretty close to believer that all chatter, press, all publicity is good publicity.

Now, that's not entirely true.

There are exceptions to that kind of generic overall.

All press is good press.

Most press is good press.

And so I'm happy people are talking about the show anywhere.

That makes me very, very happy.

And I've been doing this for audio distribution for over 20 years.

You know how many times I've been told I suck?

More times than I can ever count.

I mean, I'm not even...

I said, Russ Berry.

Hey, Brian, you suck.

I'm not even kind of exaggerating.

I mean, it just comes with it.

And at first, when I was younger, I would get defensive like, ugh.

And then after a while, it's like, you know what, man?

I mean, it doesn't matter, move along.

So this isn't a reactionary response to that.

Thank you for spending 200 some odd comments discussing this show.

Right.

But to me, first of all, I've only been directly involved for about six months.

I am still learning how to do this brand, meaning podcasts, videocast, YouTube.

I've never really done a lot of this.

Now, the learning curve is pretty easy for me, but I haven't done it a whole lot.

I'm still learning how to do a show like this.

We're all still learning.

I mean, this is new to all of us, really.

Exactly.

And so I ain't got it all figured out.

And I'm every week trying to get better, no matter what it is I'm doing in my life.

But for Bon Rue itself, to me, it is a choose-your-own-adventure book.

If you don't know what it is, look it up.

No one looks at them anymore.

It's a choose-your-own-adventure.

There are no wrong answers.

Right.

And maybe there's one or two wrong answers, but I don't know what they would be.

And to use younger person slang, the gatekeeping is bizarre to me.

You're not doing it right, therefore this.

And I can't make everybody happy all the time.

We never will, and I'll never try to.

But the essence of Bon Rue, the spirit of it, is to make it your own adventure.

And if you think this year is appalling, let me tell you a few years in the past.

Oh my gosh.

Let me go back to 2003 when I was 23 years old and left before the dead played on Sunday

night, The Dead, when Warren Haynes was taking over for Jerry, what John Mayer does now.

And that was the biggest buzz of the year.

I was at home in 2003.

So I can make you really mad if it's that simple.

And I'm not here to make anybody mad.

And I'm just trying to be flipping about it that I have missed a lot of great shows over

the years.

And I thought it was funny, though.

And I am being, you know, I am kind of playing around here.

The dude, first of all, turds are us.

All right, cool.

And he wants to start the other what podcast?

Hey, I think it's a joke.

That's fine if it is.

It's fine if it's not.

Give it a go.

If you get a legs to it, we'll have you on this show and we'll talk about it.

100%.

You will find out really quickly how difficult and humbling this is.

You will you start the same place we all start.

Nobody cares.

Right.

You got to start at the line.

The start line is nobody cares and you got to dig yourself through those weeds and then

just go and it will humble you and it'll make you feel like you're wasting your time.

But the other what podcast?

Let's go.

Come on.

Yeah, we'll link.

We're all in.

I'm ready.

And I thank you.

And there was a lot of positivity on a lot of those threads and Twitter.

We were getting some love from some friends to thank you.

You know, you are.

I don't have that.

I didn't make a list.

I don't have time to go through at this moment because I don't have it.

But hey, we it's it's a time we do this because we absolutely love this.

That's why we're doing it.

That's why we do it.

And if we don't do it the way you like, I'm sorry.

Really, really fast.

There's a couple of Pearl Jam.

Go ahead.

I don't know.

I'm not going to cut you off.

I cut Russ off last week.

I'm sorry.

I did it like five times.

I'm sorry.

Go.

This just happened to happen the other day.

Pearl Jam canceled a show in London.

And it's because of health and a lot of the Internet chatter is really worried because

they're very limited tour and these are not postponements.

They're cancellations.

And a lot of us I'm going dream show with Brad formerly of the show in New York.

I'm in September and I'm like, oh my God, is Eddie okay?

And the reports were he was struggling to get through shows before the one they canceled.

So this isn't Pearl Jam World.

Big news.

Well, there's a couple of Pearl Jam podcasts I follow.

And I asked him, hey guys, are you going to you got something coming on this?

And you thought I would ask them, you know, hey, do you guys want to do your crappy show anymore?

They came firing at me like, what do you think you can do a show better than us?

And my response wanted to be, well, yeah, I do think I can do it better than you.

I didn't say that.

And so we kind of went back and forth on Twitter slightly.

And so this is I am going to play a both sides ism.

I get it.

I didn't like what they were doing.

They were covering something in a way that didn't satisfy me.

Well, tough, dude.

It's not my show.

They decided that for whatever reason, because they cover Pearl Jam extensively,

like ridiculously amount, they're like, we've already covered this.

We've covered how much the tickets cost.

We've covered how much he still smokes and drinks.

And sometimes it messes up his vocals and he's had some issues overseas.

Jet lag and all that.

This has been a recurring thing.

We've already talked about this.

And that wasn't good enough for me.

So this is kind of the same thing.

I understand.

I was the fan, the audience, the consumer who was like, you're not doing this

the way I want you to, and I'm mad at you.

And that's pretty silly.

You know, that's pretty silly.

And then, you know, they and they were pretty dismissive towards me and like,

well, then you can just get you in pound sand.

Well, then maybe I will, man.

So I'm not trying to be mad about this and dismissive and reactionary.

I think it's great.

I think anything that can be involved with this festival, more avenues to talk

about it, more avenues to have fun with it, bring it on.

There is, I don't live in a world of competition in anything I do online,

because if you do that, you'll feel like you're never winning.

There it is.

I want to first say, I'm thrilled you said pound sand, because that was one of my dad's

favorite expressions.

It came from my grandmother.

I went from gatekeeping to pound sand from 50 years ago.

I love pound sand.

You can go pound sand.

I love that.

Good for you.

Raj, what were you going to say?

One thing nobody's really talking about as far as this year was the heat, and the

heat got to us.

I mean, you know, that was the major reason I left Sunday night was it just got

so hot.

And I know that's a big reason why you left too, Barry.

You know, it was just a really, really hot year.

Yeah.

And I'd like to see how many people, you know, people leave on Sunday.

This is not an unusual thing.

I had every intention of staying until Monday, but I just got enough heat and I was ready.

I left Sunday night.

I don't think that counts as early.

Tuesday to Sunday night is not leaving early, man.

Also, real quick, sorry, Barry, real quick.

This Tuesday thing, that's brand new.

We used to be there Wednesday every year before they even opened up.

Way early.

Way before they opened the gates.

We were there when there wasn't a soul on the farm.

It was stupid early.

This Tuesday thing just started.

And Russ gets there on Tuesday.

I love Tuesday things.

You think I'm coming on Tuesday?

You're crazy.

I'm never coming on Tuesday.

And I went back through all the years just quickly and like I didn't go line by line,

but I can only remember two years that I stayed until Monday.

There might be more than two, but I could only vividly remember two.

2014 for Elton John, 2017 for the weekend.

I don't remember another one.

So therefore, I guess I'm doing Bonnaroo wrong every single time.

Sorry, go ahead, Barry.

I've done it twice.

And I wanted to, first of all, say I lost my train of thought.

Oh, I am sincere when I say Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were so perfect for me.

And the heat was a huge thing.

I did not want to stay and be miserable and that be my memory.

Sunday was a bad, bad heat.

I told you guys when I got up Saturday, right?

I mean, I was smiling.

I was so happy.

We sat in Russ's bus.

I was like, I've had everything go a million times better than I could have hoped.

And I don't want to ruin it.

And it would have.

If I had tried to go to that Chapel Rowan show at 3 o'clock on Sunday, boy, that's what

I'd be bitching about.

It was so bad.

Hot.

It was a one.

Yeah, it was me if you want.

And if anybody, man, I'm tired.

Call me names.

Do whatever.

But I love this year's Bonnarooo.

I had a blast.

I'm so excited about next year.

I can't stand it.

We have four interviews that we did press the things at the beer change with the Roobots.

We've got we recorded a lot.

I mean, we put a lot of work into this.

Yeah.

And that started this morning.

Yeah.

David.

That Chapel Rowan show on Sunday was one of the coolest things for personally me.

I've seen it a long time because I've been such a fanboy recently.

Right.

But that was painful.

It was painful for me to get through.

Like I remember the last song hit.

I'm like, oh, thank God.

Thank God.

Because I knew it was an hour long and it was, you know, seven till the top.

So I knew it was the last song.

I'm like, I never watch a show and think, boy, am I glad it's almost over.

I never do that.

And that's because the beatdown of the weekend, I saw the beaches, I saw Chapel Rowan.

And the same thing that you said, Barry, for your experience, which is completely

different than mine, was that was it.

Boom.

You want to come at me for something?

Jason Isbell is one of my favorite and I didn't stick around for it.

Right.

That's what you should come at me for.

Hey, what about you?

Such a big fan.

Why didn't you stay for that?

That's still a stupid argument, but that's the one you come at me for.

So.

Spin it how you want.

My spin is I left there with the realization that there are a thousand, there are 80,000

different ways to do Bonnarooo.

Yeah.

And there's no wrong answer.

Yours is not mine.

Yeah.

Yours may not be mine.

And real quick, Russ, I want you were talking about before we started, just some bad information

you wanted to just dispel.

Well, just some, you know, some people making comments.

People said, oh, they work for the festival.

That's not true.

We do not work for Bonnarooo.

We're not.

I mean, if they want to hire us.

Yeah, I wish.

Hey, ring me, man.

Some people think we're industry plants, which I think it's funny because that's something

that people call chapel room, but we're not industry plants.

You know, no, this is an independent.

We just have done it for so long.

We're just fans.

I mean, again, if we have to, I worked in the newspaper business for Chinatown Times

Free Press for almost 37 years.

Brian done radio 20 something years, podcasting since then.

We've met a lot of people.

We know a lot of people.

We know a lot of people.

It took a long time to do that.

It's just relationship building is all it is.

Right.

And we have a lot of connections between family and the fact that we've done it.

So yes, we have certain people on speed dial and we can get them.

But we are not employees.

No, and it's not lost on me.

And I think I can speak for y'all.

It's not lost on me that this is a really special thing we get to do.

Oh, 100%.

And access we get to have.

It's very, very special and it's very, very I'm very proud of it.

And 100%.

And it means a lot to me.

So when we sit around, you know, another one that would shock and all people.

The first set of music I saw was 10 o'clock at night.

Pretty lights on Thursday.

Didn't see another lick of music all day long.

But you know what I did do?

I talked to people in the industry and in bands all day long.

Right.

That's what that's what Bonnarooo is for me.

I'm not bragging or trying to be a jerk about it.

That's what that was an exciting day.

Thank you.

That was that's what I wanted to do.

That's my goal was to do those interviews and I did it.

And then we did the beer exchange the next day and and got to hug and howdy.

And that was my goal.

I do what are we three weeks after I do have regrets now.

I always have Bonnarooo regrets.

I really wish I had seen.

I have Bonnarooo regrets that go back 20 years.

You know, I don't I'm not happy that I didn't see the dead.

That Sunday night.

Yeah.

Or yeah, or whoever it was I missed.

But I've seen so many things and had so many amazing experiences that I don't feel like I owe any apologies.

No, the fact that I wasn't at Wear in the Woods at 3 a.m.

on Saturday morning.

Yeah, there was you know, hate me.

Hate me all you want.

Somewhere saying are you really doing Roo if you don't go to Wear in the Woods?

I guess I don't do it.

I don't go.

Done similar.

You know, where were you at Gucci Mane at 530 when I was dancing, you know, whatever.

And probably spent a lot of time on it.

I'm glad you all had a yeah, I'm glad whoever had a great time.

That's the point for me this year was hugging howdy stand by it.

I had one of my favorite Bonnarooo experiences ever and I can't wait till next year.

Seriously can't stop thinking about it.

And that's stupid.

It is.

It's ridiculous.

It's also not lost on me that this is pretty ridiculous.

But there's enough ridiculous stuff out there for everybody.

But what isn't ridiculous is the girls from Say She She.

My goodness.

We had some nice segue.

Well done.

Beautiful.

It's like you've done this before.

We had some conversations on the pre-earlier in the year about, you know, suggestions and

they were one that was brought up more than a couple of times and Barry it was pointed to you.

This would be your kind of thing.

And somebody who didn't know me that well, but knew me just enough from this was like

probably not yours.

And I get where that comes from.

But boy after talking to these ladies, they got a fan for life.

All right.

So we're out of order.

They were what last?

Might have been.

They were last.

They were our last interview of the night and I loved setting this up.

They were late.

So there's a media area.

We go, you know, we have all this equipment and it's again, it's a hundred degrees and

we're looking around and we're like, I think that's them.

I think that's them.

And sure enough, they're doing it.

I don't know what they look like.

I don't know what they look like.

Yeah.

Coincidentally, they're doing it with WTC.

I don't know if you guys remember that.

I don't.

That's our college.

Local college.

And they're late.

And but we're not going anywhere.

What do we care?

No, we don't care.

And all of a sudden the manager, you know, he has my cell and he comes over and he's

he's a big guy and he's Welsh, I think.

And he comes over and he says, how long you want?

And I'm like, you know, 15, 20 minutes.

And he said, and I'm thinking, oh, what are we going to get?

Two?

Cut it short.

Yeah.

What are you getting two?

And he says, they've been drinking.

Better go 30.

Better plan for 30.

They've been drinking a little.

They're in the sauce a little bit because they had already

played their show.

If I remember right.

They played an early Thursday set.

And so they were and people were talking all over the farm.

I remember people saying how great a show it was.

And you can tell the excitement they have in this conversation.

Yeah.

So I in my experience, I think I said this that day very that usually if you get somebody

from the entertainment world who's used to being interviewed, whether you know,

whether they're good at it or want to do it or not is not necessarily what I mean on this

one.

But if they're a little lubed up, just a little splash.

There's a splashy poo.

There's a parabolic graph.

You get a lot more.

But a little too far and you've got a mess.

This one registered right in.

They were so much fun.

So comfortable.

I mean, I don't think I've ever been hugged more times.

Oh my God.

When we were done offering.

If this was 15 years ago, I would have thought like.

Yeah, we're on the bus.

I know.

Getting on the bus.

Where's the next show?

And that accent too.

My God.

I'm just I'm a sucker for a British accent.

Holy geez.

Oh my goodness.

So Sabrina Pia and Naya sat down and like, you know, we know a little bit.

Let's be honest.

It's not like we're you know, if it was Paul McCartney, I could do three days a week.

I don't know a whole lot about say she didn't know the first thing I did because I did a

little bit of research and I love the fact that their vocals.

They're the vocal trio and they I mean, you've got keyboards and flute.

I mean, their music is it's eclectic.

It's really a cool sound.

Yeah, it's really, really cool.

But they were so great and so open and we just started talking and probably and you're

going to hear it.

I won't I won't recap too much.

But what were we three minutes in and Pia suddenly launches into if Bonnarooo doesn't

take what she says and use it and something.

Oh, yeah, it's a somebody's not doing their job because she she started comparing it to

Glastonbury, which I don't know if you guys knew that was the inspiration for Bonnarooo.

Ashley Caps told me straight up Glastonbury is what he wanted.

That was the that was the the model and she nailed it.

And I think I even asked her at one point I said, how did you know what?

When did you realize that she said about an hour and a half after we've been on the grounds?

Yeah, oh my gosh.

Yeah, because of the lore of Woodstock.

I've always also had the the the the Glastonbury lore has always really fascinated me.

So yeah, that was they were so great fun.

Yeah. And if you remember, we interviewed Danny Clinch and he he claims, you know, that

he was the one that convinced radio had to play Bonnarooo.

And that's what his reasoning was.

He was like, this is like the Glastonbury of the US and that's kind of what got them

convinced to come over here and play.

I hate to always bring everything back to Pearl Jam, but the same story is with Eddie.

I mean, they do all those European festivals and he's had some of the same quotes over

the years is like this is as close as I've ever seen to all those great European festivals.

And so to tie that into the our first 10, 15 minutes, that's what people don't understand.

Maybe if you've never been or if you've only been once and you went because you wanted

to see a band, it's not just about that band that you wanted to see.

There are so many things happening and she nails it.

Right.

I mean, it's the hanging out backstage.

It's the seeing the bands.

It's the community.

It's the high fives.

It's the happy ruse.

It's the I don't even it's so hard to explain to people if you've never been.

If you just think it's about going to see a band that you love, you're missing it.

If you think it's just about going to hang out with people in camp, you're not seeing

the bands.

And which I think is probably what some of these people are throwing shade at us is,

you know, look at Barry in that lingo.

Shade.

I know.

That's how hip I am.

I'm over here pounding sand.

You're doing finger guns.

Yeah, that old man's hip.

I'll get to.

We should probably let's just start this interview.

I loved it.

It's one of my favorite.

We've had so many great ones.

Noah Kahan, Bristyn Moroney.

I was thinking about it this morning, Russ.

We had so many great interviews.

I loved this one.

I loved everything about this one's right up there with those.

I mean, one one for the ages.

All right.

Anything else?

Well, again, I cut you both off last week.

I'm sorry.

I missed the cues.

No, for now, no.

You know, we'll be doing these recaps for for a few weeks minimum.

So we'll have plenty to still get to.

The only thing I was wondering is how the that first ticket price or the ticket sales,

which we won't know.

But the initial like, hey, we're going to sell tickets for next year thing that I think

they've already cut that off.

I'm always curious as to how that does.

But that was the only thing I kind of made a note to myself.

We can talk about that and other things more later.

I'll ask, you know, because we're part of the crew.

Apparently we're on the we're on the dole.

I wish I mean, my only thought and the reason for writing it down was if you're going to

go, then you should buy the ticket now.

Like what are we waiting for?

Other than I don't have the money.

If the answer is I don't have the money, then I got nothing else for you.

I get it.

But along those lines, though, a lot of the online stuff I've seen was people saying I've

already bought tickets for next year.

I don't remember seeing that many.

You know, it might be half a dozen, a dozen, which is, you know, nothing in comparison.

But I'm just saying this again to recap this really, except for one or two people who had

a bad time.

This feels like this was a big event, right?

This feels like Bonnarooo's back.

Yeah, there's a lot of things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So, you know, we're still talking about it.

All right.

Here we go with Say She She.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you to Naya, Pia and Sabrina.

Can't wait to see you guys again.

We talked about that in the show.

This is one of those bands.

I have a feeling we'll come back for sure on a bigger stage.

They want to.

Yeah.

All right.

Here you go.

Introduce yourselves again, please.

Sabrina, Pia and I'm Naya.

Naya, Say She She.

You guys crushed it today from all reports.

Oh, thank you.

How much fun are you having?

Bonnarooo is going down on the books, honey.

Nice.

Yeah.

I always like to ask, what were your expectations, especially now that you've performed?

What were your expectations?

High.

And then did you, have you had time to process?

Expectations were high.

Outcome was high.

It didn't even exceed that.

You know, we definitely, of course, you know, Bonnarooo, everyone's excited.

It's our first time coming to the festival, let alone playing it.

Like just what an incredible experience.

And we've gone through that in certain other festivals around the world.

But like there's a special affiliation, I think, that we have with Bonnarooo, like our

band being American, when we did mostly, you know, apart from myself, but when we did

Glastonbury, that was like the biggest festival that we'd ever played and the most exciting.

And then today we got to play what we considered like the US equivalent of Glastonbury.

And it's just, you know, you're, of course, you're like anticipating it for months and

you're so excited and you can't even believe you're on the bill.

And you know, you don't even know what it's going to be like at four o'clock.

Are people going to be there?

And it's Thursday.

And I'll tell you something, Thursday crowd at Bonnarooo is like unbelievable.

It's the most excited the crowd's going to be all weekend.

Is that true?

Because everybody's just getting here.

Fresh.

Yeah, okay.

Everybody's fresh.

And I wanted to go back to Glastonbury for a second.

I'm fascinated with that place.

I don't know.

I'll ever make it to that side of the world.

Compare the two.

Talk about Glastonbury to this festival.

Very much was modeled after Glastonbury.

European festivals in general.

Yeah.

So happy you told me that because we were talking about this on the way here, weren't

we?

And we were like, why is it that this feels like Glastonbury to us?

Like just even seeing the promo and the bands, the type of bands that we're playing and the

programming.

And it just like, you know, not to shit talk other festivals, but you know, that we've

never been invited to play anyway.

You can shit talk whatever you want.

We ain't worried about that.

The biggest one that people think of in America to me, that's like, that isn't festival culture

at all.

That is not the festival culture that excites us.

It's about some weird fashion thing and like these bands that I don't know.

Maybe you, maybe it's an age thing.

I don't know.

But to us, it's like the most exciting thing is to have people who are number one part

of the community that keep coming back to a festival year after year, because that is

what sustains a festival.

That's what sustains musicianship.

It's a lot of returning patrons every year.

Absolutely.

There you go.

And also live music.

You know, it's not just like one person with the track playing to like a million people

in the crowd.

This is like real musicians who've been on the grind, been on the road for years, and

now it's their time to play to the crowd.

And there's a camaraderie.

There's a beautiful feeling of people will play on each other's sets.

We just had Neil Francis jump on the end of our song for.

Oh wow.

Nice, nice.

You know, there's this incredible community of musicianship amongst the musicians and

then also musicianship with the punters.

And people that come to this festival really care about music over fashion.

You've barely been here.

I think you just did their promo for next year.

So how long until you realize that?

Step off the bus?

I mean, how long do you realize this is something like you've seen on the other side of the

world?

I mean, quickly?

Very quickly.

Yeah.

I mean, within like a couple of hours, actually, we were here a couple of hours and then we

were just talking.

But the minute we got off the bus, the way that people were talking.

But also, you know, before that, you're anticipating, we're looking at the lineup, looking at the

programming, you're looking at the way things are advanced.

You're looking at the community of people who are telling you, oh, you're playing Bonnarooo.

These are my Bonnarooo stories.

I had so many friends tell me their beautiful stories about Bonnarooo and being proud of

us that we're finally doing it.

And I've never been and they were like, oh, P.

And so it met the expectations pretty quickly, it sounds like.

Definitely.

For sure.

Some people might say it's a passage of right.

And for us, we were talking about this.

You know how like a lot of festivals or even shows you give as entertainers, you know,

we, you know, we're beauticians and entertainers.

We take that role seriously.

You're not here for us.

We're here for you.

But this was different.

Like, actually, we were not these people are not here for us.

They don't even know who we are.

This is a Thursday.

It's our first time in Bonnarooo.

We're a new band.

No one knows who we are.

But the crowd that was there, the support of this, the energy, they welcomed us to their

Bonnarooo.

That was the difference.

And it was amazing.

Yeah, it was amazing.

Like, as soon as we stepped out on the stage, we felt the energy and welcoming spirit.

And yeah, it was amazing.

It just set us up for a really good time.

And they were so ready to have that good time.

And so we're ready.

So it worked out nicely.

We do this podcast every week, 52 weeks a year.

You just summed up the whole show in 10 minutes.

It's amazing how you, like he said, you got it.

You get it.

It's a...

That's going to festivals since you're little.

And you go all around the world.

I mean, I've been to festivals.

I lived in Spain.

I lived in France.

These guys, they've come all around the world.

We used to travel as friends together for years, didn't we?

Going to Spain, going to France, whatever.

We'd go see music wherever, whatever city we land as friends for years before we started

our band together.

And we played in other people's bands.

And we were always like kind of complaining to each other as friends do sometimes.

We're all friends to the other bands.

We played them.

We love you guys.

How long do you get to stick to hang out?

Not that long.

We have a show in St. Louis tomorrow.

So we're in the middle of our tour.

Yeah, we're gutted.

We can't stay.

A bunch of our friends are playing tomorrow.

I mean, we obviously get to see Neil Francis tonight, which we're excited about.

The heavy, heavy...

Yeah, we just got some guar experience around here.

Oh my God.

Oh yeah?

We just talked with them earlier, so that was fun.

The madness that is guar is pretty wild.

Well, we have yet to see them live, so hopefully we can see...

Well, don't get too close.

I'm not going to stand in front.

I'll tell you that much.

We heard there's a lot of...

I will not be...

Especially in my white shirt.

No, thank you.

Tell us about the Talking Heads track.

Oh yeah.

Tell us how that come about.

I mean, it's sort of in collaboration with Bonnarooo, right?

I mean, or was it just the timing when you released it?

We just love the Talking Heads.

We have so many influences.

Say She She is like, pulls from all decades, all sorts of artists, but Talking Heads is

definitely a big one, especially for me personally.

I grew up listening to them.

My parents love them and Tom Tom Club, and I just think that...

We play Miracles is the other cover that we play on the set, but we wanted to kind of

introduce another one and we just felt like that was kind of just...

I don't know.

It was just a really fun one for us to kind of put our spin on it.

We love playing it.

I don't know why David Byrne played here in what?

Eight, nine?

Oh yeah, something like that before.

Yeah, it's been a minute.

It was great, but what I'm sitting here thinking, he brought his bicycle and he rode up and

down that road to all the different tents.

He's amazing.

I got to meet him once and I was just backing singer in this band and it was at Panorama

Fest in New York and he came and he just sat down with us and it was like the band was

predominantly Chicano and brown and black people in the band and he just came to us

and he just was like, what are you guys doing and what's your band?

He's talked to us for an hour and it was so amazing that he gave us that time.

We were not a big headline or anything.

We were very low on the bill.

I'll never forget that.

We made friends with that whole band that day and some of the band members, we've seen

them in London and we've seen them around the world and they're just really good people.

They have such an artist mind and they're so open.

There's a freedom to being let in the club if you have something to say and you're going

to say it the right way and you have good politics, you're in the club.

I really love that about him and the whole crew that he works with.

How did you go about picking that song in particular?

There's so many good ones.

That was all Sabrina.

I don't know about that.

Come on Sabrina, it's all you.

It's just a favorite.

I don't know.

I mean everybody, you know the live performance, the live video that they did, people just,

what is it?

Yeah, people.

Stop making sense.

Stop making sense.

Thank you.

I don't know, just that whole thing is so inspiring and just the way that they transition

from song to song, the way that they have the dance moves, the way that they interact

with each other, everything about it is like, I feel like been such an inspiration.

We do that ourselves in our own way.

But I don't know, I think the standout one on that film was probably Slippery People

for me and yeah, you know, that's the beautiful thing about this band is we throw an idea

out and everybody is supportive.

Our band is, they're the best.

So it's New York as fuck.

Yeah, 80s New York, come on.

So how did this trio come together?

I mean I read something about you guys, somebody heard somebody singing, you guys said, hey,

you can sing, I can sing.

How does this trio become a thing?

It's mates.

It's Brooklyn, it's New York, it's Manhattan, it's Lower East Side.

We all just, we're in New York.

That's what New York is.

It's a melting pot.

It doesn't matter that I'm from London and she originally was born in a different city.

You know, we all lived in New York at this moment in time and it's this like downtown

culture that, you know, we have friends with people.

When I grew up, growing up in London, you really don't make friends with people outside

of the people you grew up with if you grew up there.

It's a very different culture.

When I came to New York, suddenly I became best friends with people who are in their

60s who are telling me about the 80s downtown culture in New York and I had more in common

with them than I did, you know.

That's the beauty of New York.

Is that because people in London or in the UK stick to the neighborhoods they're from

or something?

No, it's just New York.

It's not anybody, it's not anywhere else.

It's just New York that, it's New York that has that special sauce.

Like you can't really say why London or why DC or why, New York just has this special

sauce that just maybe it's because everybody is forced to be close together in this, in

this concrete jungle.

Yeah, you have no option, you're all on top of each other.

So you have no choice but to interact and to connect and to be in these spaces together

and you're forced, you're kind of forced to do it.

And then because everybody's there, has like a go get them kind of attitude and like a

open, somewhat of an open mind, you just, it's the energy of the city that just brings

you towards the people.

And also music was a thing that we all just had in common, obviously the scene that brought

us together also music.

Of course, yeah.

But this is a story.

Yeah, we just, we were all in other projects.

We were all singing backgrounds for different, you know, singers.

Chicano, Batman, right?

Didn't somebody play with Chicano?

They were both singing, they, yeah.

Did all the time with Chicano, Batman.

All right.

She was in another band doing backgrounds and me and her used to go watch her and say,

she should be lead.

Do you remember that?

Let's get her in this.

Let's get her in our gigs.

We just go and support each other.

And then finally one day we were just like, we want to just do this together.

Let's just do it ourselves.

You know what I mean?

We want to, we want to lead the charge.

So the-

When you did get together, was the, was it an immediate, here's what we need to sound

like or did it take some time to sort of-

I mean, we just sound like ourselves.

We just, we wanted to just sound like ourselves.

And that's what we love about finally being in a band with your best friends who know

you and accept you.

Gotcha.

Like if I get on the mic and sing some Hindi stuff, I've been in other bands where they've

been like, yeah, that's not really the vibe or this isn't like that.

And you're like, okay, fair enough.

So you don't do it and you can't do that.

You can't be yourself the thing you want to do.

And then like when we come together, you know, Naya has all these amazing character voices

and Sabina has these ethereal riffs and like, I'm going to sing a weird Punjabi thing.

And everyone's like, we've never said no to each other.

Like that's what makes us still happy around each other and want to keep doing it.

Like we've never said no.

We don't say-

Not out of necessity.

It was just, you're just talking to genuine yes to whatever the question is.

Yeah.

I mean, I think-

That's why I'm reading it anyway.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

The through line is we always wanted to make music that made people feel like-

Feel good.

Forget about whatever their worries were.

We wanted to make people dance.

Obviously we have some songs that are more, you know, mid tempo and sexy and slower and

whatever.

But you know, I think that we always wanted to play festivals.

So it like, we love to dance.

So that was a big part of it as well.

And sort of some of the direction.

And I think writing with a rhythm section and a band, the drummer in the room, the bass

player, the guitar player and the keys.

You can make, it's just a limitless environment to create.

And it also lends itself to kind of more, you know, I think rhythmic focused music as

well.

And also, I was just going to say, because we got, well I joined the band, Pia and Sabrina

started the band and then I joined later.

I used to go to their shows-

Yeah, but we were just waiting for her to join.

We were like, come on, Naya, come on.

Just waiting for it to kind of gather.

Wait guys, I maybe want to like-

I couldn't hit the numbers.

I maybe want to like, I maybe want to, we're like, all right, we'll just get back and say

good, so she says yes.

So I used to go to their shows, but anyway, one of the first, one of the last, we were

together right before COVID.

I like, I kind of joined and then COVID hit and then obviously we all know how that was.

Yeah.

But wanting to come out on the other side of it and to celebrate life and seeing that

that the world also needed that kind of healing and that kind of infusion back into, you know,

back into the music.

We felt that it was, it was the thing that we needed to do because, because, you know,

we have, we're here.

It's like, just like the roaring twenties after, you know, the Spanish flu.

It's like everybody needed to just celebrate still being on the planet and, and you know,

being able to move forward.

Release, have a good time.

And have a good time.

And just so that was also, I feel like part of the reason why we felt like we got to get

these up temples going.

Sabrina, you mentioned you love playing festivals.

There's a difference in a club show or a standalone show and a festival set.

How much, how much attention do you, do you, do you gals put into that from, from a standalone

to a, to a festival as far as song selection approach, those kinds of things?

I mean, I think we, we tailor it slightly.

Of course.

When you have a club show, there's more room to kind of like have an ebb and flow on the

set as far as like energy and tempos and stuff.

Yeah.

I think for festivals, cause they're usually a bit shorter.

Our club shows are around 75 minutes.

Oh yeah.

Unfortunately they're always shorter.

Yeah.

So we have to kind of cut the set like pretty much in half.

So, you know, we try to pick the bangers.

There you go.

Don't mess around.

Get right to the good stuff.

Yeah.

But I do, I, I, I love the club shows.

Like I love playing festivals, but I, I need those slow jams and that coming down.

Well, you know, the club shows have got your, your really hard cores are there.

Like they, and, and, and, but I mean, they have, they're both have pros and cons out

here.

You're going to have a bunch of people that are just, Hey, what is that?

What is it?

What is that?

Whoa.

It's a talking heads.

Are you crying?

What are you kidding me?

Like that's, that's a real, that's really cool to work stuff like that in.

Cause that's I'm going to grab somebody, a big heads fan out there.

And next thing you know, they're downloading or yeah, Spotify.

I just think it's amazing.

This, the culture in this festival is one of the best I've seen in the USA and in the

world.

And that really makes me happy because sometimes, you know, you're like, this is not festival

culture.

Like this is not it.

Like, this is not what we give our life to this endeavor for, you know, it's a lot of

sacrifice.

You know, people maybe think that it's really glamorous.

And of course like there's moments where we have that, you know, we have a lot of joy

from what we do and a lot of appreciation, but there's also the other side of it, which

is there's a lot of sacrifice.

You're away from your family and friends for a long time, but we, we do it.

We do it because we believe in bringing music to a specific culture.

And if you go somewhere and the culture doesn't exist and it doesn't hit, they don't get it.

You can't fabricate it.

You can't make it.

You build it, inflate it and you go, okay, well maybe there's somewhere else in the world

and we keep going until we find that place.

So when you come to a place like Bonnarooo and they get it and they've been getting it

way before you were a part of it, that's when you're like, man, I love what we do.

The word we hear a lot.

The word we hear a lot is commitment.

It's a commitment to be here for the artists, the fans, everybody.

And that's what makes it fun.

It makes it special.

Yeah.

There are people that are just wandering around into the, into the festival.

You can get in other places.

That's right.

You don't get the festival organizers.

Like they put so much care and you know, into every detail and you can really tell.

And it's, it's really nice.

Like the photographer, we were in the, in the go-kart going over to the stage.

He's like, yeah, I've been doing this since Bonnarooo number one, like taking photos.

He's been to all of them.

I've been to every one of them.

Really?

I mean, I've not driven people around in golf.

That says so much.

It says so much.

I was a child when it first started, but 20 or 20.

I've been to 18 of them.

Wow.

That's amazing.

Can you tell me what the necklace is?

Cause I've seen some real diehard Bonnarooo people have the like silver Bonnarooo logo

on a chain.

Apparently I wouldn't let in this cloth.

Maybe it's just one of the ladies.

Let me know about the necklaces.

We may be able to get a little bit of a better look.

Let me know about the necklaces.

We need to look that up.

All right, Russ, as always, you've dominated this conversation.

I mean, you just nailed everything about this festival.

What makes it so neat and fun.

And we're glad you, we were picked to play and we hope you come back.

Thank you so much.

I hope we do too.

Yeah.

Please have us back.

We, we love it.

We're dedicated.

The thing about this is that the trajectory of artists and bands goes from one stage to

the next over the course of a decade sometimes.

And it's, it's always really fascinating and fun to see smaller stage acts years later,

you know, my morning jacket, black keys quickly come to my mind that are here a lot.

And it's, it's, it's just, it's another cool part of this that I don't think you see at

Lollapalooza.

I don't think you see it at Riot Fest or anywhere where, where they do that kind of almost like

a graduation of sorts.

And maybe that's the wrong word to use.

Maybe that's not a cheap word to use, but it's, it's a real thing.

It's always an upward trajectory.

Yeah.

They don't ever put you on the worst stage.

You never go down.

Well, then I have a question for you gentlemen, since we've answered all yours.

Okay.

If there was a fest, a festival stage that you could see Say Shi Shi at, what would be

your favorite stage for us to perform at next year?

On this, at this place right here?

Next year.

Next year, yeah.

Well, the greatest stage in the world is the what stage right over here, I always say.

It's the best stage.

And I don't think I'm being too hyperbolic when I say the main stage of this festival

is the greatest stage in the world.

Don't normally jump that far the next time.

I'm just going to be honest with you.

I hope you do.

It's okay.

We know, we know our place.

The tents to the witch to the what, you know, there.

So it's the witch or it's the what?

I think you would probably need to be on the witch before they threw you on the what.

I'm not a promoter, guys.

Okay, everybody remember that.

Stick us on the witch next year.

We're here.

We're coming.

I'm just an out of work radio guy who does podcasts for fun.

We'll start the campaign right now.

Thank you.

We love you guys.

Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being here.

This was a blast.

All right, there you go.

Like we said, this was one of my favorites.

I love that interview very much for people because, you know, once we turn the camera

off, how many times?

Six hugs each.

Yeah, it was I love you man stuff.

That was so much fun.

That's what I always love when the band when we hit the off button and they say that was

fun.

I'm like, well, yeah, is it not supposed to be?

Is it supposed to be painful?

Well, I mean, Barry, you know, this industry as well as I do some of the questions that

are asked and then I'm not saying what you know, I'm we're the greatest at this, but

a lot of the sports media, music media and really political media as well.

Here's some of these questions that are asked.

Right.

What are you doing over there?

How'd you get your name?

Now, have you ever asked that question?

It's also difficult to you know, you don't know if somebody's going to want to be, you

know, want to be there.

No, they don't.

Why would you would you?

Generally speaking, the answer would be absolutely not.

Exactly.

Absolutely not.

But I also understand.

And so it's a job.

It's your job.

And that's the job.

That's why which we'll get to the beaches story down the road that when I was trying

to stalk them out on the festival farm is that they were there for all that extended

time for publicity reasons.

They weren't there just to have fun.

They were there.

They were there to see you.

That's why.

Yeah.

Well, is that a time interview?

I always talk to the opposite.

Right here.

That guy's standing right here.

And sorry, we'll get to this down the road.

All right.

All right.

You know what?

We need real quick because I just thought of it.

I think it's fun.

Have you ever asked, where'd you get your name?

Oh, yes, of course I have.

Okay.

What's the other job?

It's not a good I'm not proud of it.

I'm just no, no, it's a stupid.

What's the other dumb ones that always is cringe worthy?

I don't know.

You know, songwriting process.

How do you write song?

Like, that's my go to.

Yeah.

I mean, sometimes you have to go cliche.

I mean, there's we're not we're not talking to Robert Oppenheimer here.

No, no.

You know, we're not trying to figure out world history.

But yes, a lot of the go to is we I still do.

I'm not I'm not I'm not.

Well, and some of them anyway, we won't go down there.

I just maybe we'll do that later.

One of these days when we don't have a topic, we'll we'll do stupid interview questions

because I gave me some time to think about that one.

We can do that.

We can do that.

I don't know if anybody would want to hear about us, but we can do that.

All right, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you guys for listening.

I'm cutting you off.

He's so patient.

He just has this look like I'm done and I just wanted to go around a little bit, talk

about what we've got planned, who we want to talk to.

And, you know, if you think that we didn't see enough bands, we're going to have Kai

on the show and she saw a ton of bands.

And so her experience from us was way different.

And we're going to have her on and talk about that.

Right.

Yeah.

And that's what we do.

Yeah.

I don't not just my experience.

We want to have other people on and talk about that experience.

Yeah.

That's the other thing I don't get that, you know, we we talk to everyone, you know, especially

if if if it's something we don't know as much about, you know, we did a whole panel on EDM

one show we've done different.

Which is questionable that we did that well at all.

I would say not.

But that but we tried.

We tried and we don't go down roads that we are super familiar with a lot.

And I'm glad you brought this up, Russ, on on on the way out, because I mean, that is

also to we're we're trying to find so many different angles from this farm.

Do you have you ever talked to somebody who's been married in the House of Matrimony?

Well, you will if you listen to this show in the off season.

So that we're always looking for angles.

And you know, I don't want to flood out our emails with people saying, let me be on the

show.

I told you a podcast guys actually, and they were like, get out of here.

So that might be where my irritation started.

But but but hey, if you've got a great story to tell, hit us up.

You might.

Maybe we'll we got a lot of time to fill.

But if we don't respond and it doesn't happen, it doesn't mean because we don't like you

and think your story sucks.

But there's so many stories to be told.

And so I'm glad you brought that up, Russ.

I. Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

We want to talk to Corey and Brad.

You know, we want to get Tuba on.

There's a lot of there's a lot of angles to this.

We're not done.

And that recap episode, it wasn't just one and done.

No, we've got to keep this thing going.

No, no, no, no, no.

Yeah, we're going to believe this for all it's worth, guys.

Milk and we're milking this riding this pony.

And again, my experience in your experience, Russ was there Tuesday to Sunday.

Brian was there Thursday.

Whatever.

I'm not going to.

I mean, you know, Thursday to Sunday, that's that's a hell of a plenty.

It's a hell of a weekend.

Don't let you know, you negative comments, you know, burn us out.

We actually do have a lot of people that do listen every week and love the show and enjoy

it and think some people listen some weeks, you know, we're not covered.

This is the same thing I mentioned earlier, like, you know, what I wish that guy from

the Pearl Jam podcast would have told me is, well, hey, I'm sorry we're not covering what

you wanted to this week, but I hope you're back next week when we cover X, Y, Z. That's

what I hope the answer was.

Said it was, well, you think you can do better than me?

And so that's the response I want this to come across is we're not we're not going to

be able to get to every single thing you want here.

But I hope when we do talk, whatever it is next, that that'll interest you because that's

why those that do listen.

Thank you sincerely.

We appreciate all the all the likes, all the comments.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, it means a lot.

We appreciate it.

I do.

I know they do, too.

I'm not going anywhere to us.

Are we done?

Yep, I think we're done.

All right.

Love you guys.