Country Fried Rock 1219: Gordy Quist of Band of Heathens on Songwriting Secrets and Life into Lyrics

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Welcome to Country Fried Rock, where we talk with musicians to find out what inspires their creativity.

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Country Fried Rock music uncovered.

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My guest today on Country Fried Rock is Gordy Quist of the Band of Heathens.

Speaker A: 00:00:12

Morning.

Speaker B: 00:00:13

Good morning, Sloan.

Speaker A: 00:00:14

Thanks for being with us.

Speaker B: 00:00:15

Yeah, it's good to be here.

Speaker A: 00:00:17

So let's go way back.

Speaker A: 00:00:18

How did you personally start playing music?

Speaker B: 00:00:21

Well, if you go way, way back, I had a fake guitar when I was like 4 years old that I used to play along to all the Beatles tunes that my.

Speaker B: 00:00:30

My parents played me.

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I remember as a kid watching A Hard Day's Night and the concert scene at the end, I would go nuts on my fake guitar as a kid.

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But shortly after, probably, I don't know, I think when I was around 10 years old, I convinced my dad to start teaching me some chords on the guitar.

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So I started playing guitar pretty young.

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Started playing in bands around, I don't know, probably about the age you start getting interested in girls.

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Started trying to form a band to maybe help in that pursuit, you know, maybe 13, 14 years old, started playing in bands and, you know, it was just something that I played a lot of sports and played a lot of music.

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Those were kind of the two things that I was really into as a kid.

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That was my start.

Speaker A: 00:01:13

So when you were first learning those early chords with your dad, what were y' all doing?

Speaker B: 00:01:16

I had three songbooks.

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I think actually the first song I learned might have been Puff the Magic Dragon.

Speaker A: 00:01:23

Yeah.

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And then I had the Complete Beatles, Volume one, the Complete Beatles, Volume Two.

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And then I had a Paul Simon chord book.

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And so I kind of started off learning a bunch of those songs.

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And then it quickly turned into rock and roll.

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And all the grunge bands were really big when I was 13.

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And so that.

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And even some heavy metal actually went through a little phase of shredding with the heavy metal stuff.

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So kind of all over the map growing up.

Speaker A: 00:01:55

So at what point did you start writing your own stuff?

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You know, when I was maybe 14 or so, maybe younger, I went to.

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My parents brought me to see Lyle Lovett.

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I think that might have been my first or second concert.

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And he was touring behind this album called I Love Everybody, which was actually old songs he had written really early on, and they never made it on an album.

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And then he finally pulled all these old songs up, and it's a really killer record.

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It's this really acoustic, stripped down record that I love to this day.

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Anyway, that concert had a big effect on me of the idea of writing Songs.

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And Lyle would talk in between songs and talk about writing them, and it kind of got the wheels turning.

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And so I think when I was 16, over Thanksgiving weekend, a girlfriend broke up with me.

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It had been a long month of going steady with her.

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And then she broke my heart that weekend.

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And I think I wrote a couple of songs that weekend.

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I think that was the first time I got into that.

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Eventually I really started getting into writers like Townsend Zanzant and Bob Dylan and Ev Earl and Guy Clark and that kind of scene of songwriters.

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And that really fed my.

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My hunger for learning about writing songs.

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And so were you just writing these for yourself or were you also.

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Was your band performing these songs, or were those kind of two separate parts.

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Of your life at the time?

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In high school, I had a band.

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It was mainly a cover band, but we would throw in our originals here and there.

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I wasn't the singer in the band.

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I was actually just the guitar player.

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But I would write these songs and bring them to the band, and we would, you know, every eighth or ninth cover, so we would.

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We would throw an original and try to slip it past everybody.

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That was kind of the very, very beginnings of the thing.

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And in college, I played in a band that was all original, and I was writing for that band.

Speaker A: 00:03:37

What changed for you musically, moving from kind of that high school band into forming your own band in college?

Speaker B: 00:03:44

Not a whole lot, really.

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I mean, it was the same idea, just different people.

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I met a really great group of musicians.

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It started off just kind of, you know, playing for fun, which is, I think, how.

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I think that's how music is meant.

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It's meant to be kind of a social.

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A social thing and kind of a therapeutic thing, and which sometimes I think you lose sight of when you're doing it for a living.

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It's nice to be reminded of that and to try to keep it in that light at all times.

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But, you know, it was just fun.

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It was fun to go.

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I was making a little extra.

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Extra beer money, you know, but it was.

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It was a lot of fun.

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Still is.

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We were playing frat parties, you know, small bar gigs up in New England, where I went to school.

Speaker A: 00:04:27

Where'd you go to school?

Speaker B: 00:04:28

I went to Dartmouth College.

Speaker A: 00:04:29

Oh, yeah?

Speaker B: 00:04:30

Small college in New Hampshire.

Speaker B: 00:04:32

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:04:32

Actually, I played football there, like £50 ago.

Speaker B: 00:04:37

Yeah, the winter is pretty brutal, but I gotta say, the summer and fall are both amazing.

Speaker A: 00:04:43

As you got out of school then, was music going to be part of your life, or was it kind of.

Speaker B: 00:04:47

Something on the side that's an interesting question.

Speaker B: 00:04:50

My.

Speaker B: 00:04:50

My path has been a little strange.

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Music was definitely the thing I was most passionate about and had been for a long time.

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But I had a lot of school loans and.

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And the kind of the.

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The general career path for the school that I went to was like, you know, work hard, study hard, party hard for four years in college, and then go get a job on Wall street making a ton of money.

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And I actually had a job offer doing that, working in investment banking.

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And I deferred the job for a year, put it off for one year, and went and played in a band up there.

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My college band kept playing after we graduated.

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Eventually that band broke up, like four months later, and I sold my favorite guitar.

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It was a: 1966

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And I bought a plane ticket to Europe and backpacked around for a couple of months with some buddies.

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Actually, one of the two guys I was traveling with, Trevor is a current member of the band of Heathens that we play in.

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Old friend of mine.

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So I got back from that.

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I went and actually worked for one year making, you know, way too much money for a 23 year old.

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But I hated my life.

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I hated the job.

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I hated.

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All I thought about was writing songs.

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And I had a notepad on my desk that I kept under a stack of other papers.

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And, you know, I would be scribbling down lyrics and song ideas all day long.

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And when someone would walk by, I'd shove a stack of papers on top of the notepad and get back to work.

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But I learned a lot about myself, I think, in that year, and kind of about what it means to follow your passion and what it means to actually not be doing your passion, but be being paid very well for it.

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And there's a lot of great things that come from that, from a security standpoint.

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But for me, that didn't make up for the hole that I felt, you know, it just wasn't fulfilling.

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And so I quit that job.

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I got a bonus check.

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You know, after one year, I got my one year bonus.

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And literally the day I.

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The day that money hit my bank account, I walked in and I said, I'm out of here.

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Within a month, I had moved to Austin and released an album.

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And that was.

Speaker B: 00:06:56

I think that was in 04.

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Been here ever since.

Speaker A: 00:06:59

So when you.

Speaker A: 00:07:00

When you did that, was there any sense of, you know, at least in Austin there's a big tech scene as well as a music scene.

Speaker A: 00:07:08

So if this music thing doesn't work out.

Speaker B: 00:07:10

No, I.

Speaker B: 00:07:10

You Know, it's weird, actually now at this point, I'm at the age, I think maybe the point of no return.

Speaker B: 00:07:16

I've been doing this long enough.

Speaker B: 00:07:17

But, no, there's no.

Speaker B: 00:07:19

Like, for me, there's no safety net.

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And, you know, maybe if I wanted to go get a job, maybe I could.

Speaker B: 00:07:24

I don't know.

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But I don't really think about it.

Speaker B: 00:07:26

I don't think I could go work for somebody else.

Speaker B: 00:07:28

I enjoy kind of.

Speaker B: 00:07:30

Obviously, music is music is music.

Speaker B: 00:07:32

It's amazing, and I'm really fortunate to be able to pay my bills doing it.

Speaker B: 00:07:36

But, you know, it's.

Speaker B: 00:07:37

There's no guarantee in music.

Speaker B: 00:07:38

If people stop showing up for your shows, then you don't make any money, right?

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And people stop buying your records.

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So I try not to take that for granted.

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And if that were to suddenly end for one reason or another, I have no idea what I would do.

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But I don't.

Speaker B: 00:07:51

I think I'd be doing something where I'm working for myself.

Speaker B: 00:07:53

I don't think I could go work for someone else, hopefully, you know, maybe I'd be on the street corner playing my guitar.

Speaker B: 00:07:58

I don't know.

Speaker B: 00:07:59

But, you know, I don't know.

Speaker B: 00:08:00

Music right now is.

Speaker B: 00:08:01

I'm all in, you know, And I think everybody.

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Everybody in the band of Heathens is.

Speaker B: 00:08:05

Everyone's a lifer, you know, we're all in.

Speaker A: 00:08:08

You brought up something that brings forth for me a word that in some ways, I think is overused right now, except that it seems to be coming from a very genuine place for you.

Speaker A: 00:08:16

And the word that jumps into my head is just an authenticity in being who you are.

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I mean, it takes a lot to turn down and walk away from what is defined by a lot of America as success like that.

Speaker B: 00:08:28

Maybe.

Speaker B: 00:08:28

I don't know.

Speaker B: 00:08:29

It wasn't hard for me.

Speaker B: 00:08:31

It was really easy, actually, because it didn't fulfill me.

Speaker B: 00:08:34

For some people, maybe money means more to them.

Speaker B: 00:08:37

The fact that I've chosen a career in music now maybe says something about how I view money, or maybe that one year of my life defined how I view money.

Speaker B: 00:08:45

I don't know which one came first.

Speaker B: 00:08:46

A lot of it comes from how you're brought up.

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And my dad was a Navy fighter pilot, an airline pilot.

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And for him, he grew up on a farm in Minnesota and had nothing.

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And he watched the astronauts walk on the moon and said, I want to be an astronaut.

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And so he went down the career path, kind of following his passion, what he thought was the coolest thing.

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And he ended up.

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Part of that path is being a pilot.

Speaker B: 00:09:08

He ended up loving that, and so he kept doing it.

Speaker B: 00:09:10

So, you know, maybe just following passion was something that was in me from childhood.

Speaker B: 00:09:14

I don't know.

Speaker B: 00:09:14

I think everybody has that.

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And for a lot of people, it's.

Speaker B: 00:09:17

The hardest thing is finding out what your passion is.

Speaker B: 00:09:19

That can be a hard thing.

Speaker B: 00:09:20

And, you know, I don't.

Speaker B: 00:09:22

I don't have any advice on that, except I'm fortunate that I figured out what it is for me, you know?

Speaker A: 00:09:26

As you ended up then in Austin, what was your musical path once you got there?

Speaker B: 00:09:31

I actually moved here with the guys I was playing in with a band in college.

Speaker B: 00:09:36

We all moved to Austin together.

Speaker B: 00:09:37

Trevor Nealon was one of the guys who's now currently in the band of Heathens.

Speaker B: 00:09:41

We moved here with that band, but I was also doing a lot of solo kind of folk shows, just me and my guitar, that band.

Speaker B: 00:09:49

Within a year, that band had broken up again, and everyone kind of scattered, except for me.

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I stayed here.

Speaker B: 00:09:56

My wife and I, we were dating at the time, and I wanted to stick around Austin, both for.

Speaker B: 00:10:01

To be with her and because of the music scene.

Speaker B: 00:10:03

And so, you know, I just started touring regionally around Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and then just mainly with myself and my guitar.

Speaker B: 00:10:11

And I had one solo CD at the time, which I no longer sell.

Speaker B: 00:10:16

It was just kind of picking up a gig anywhere, anywhere that I could.

Speaker B: 00:10:20

You know, you didn't even have to pay me at the time.

Speaker B: 00:10:21

I would just.

Speaker B: 00:10:22

I was, you know, telling people, hey, just let me open the show for 30 minutes.

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You don't have to pay me anything.

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You know, I'll make my gas money selling CDs, and just.

Speaker B: 00:10:30

I was really hungry for gigs and for writing songs.

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And I ended up getting a residency here in Austin every week at a club called Momos, which is a really great club.

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And that's where I met all the guys and the Heathens, and that's how that whole thing started coming together.

Speaker B: 00:10:44

It was really kind of unplanned and organic.

Speaker A: 00:10:47

The residency that you ended up with was a solo residency there?

Speaker B: 00:10:50

It was.

Speaker B: 00:10:50

It was with a band.

Speaker B: 00:10:52

So a friend of mine, Steve Wedemeyer, he was playing guitar in my band at the time.

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So I was mainly touring solo, but I had a band for gigs that required a band show.

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And in Austin, actually, most of the time, I played with a band because the clubs I was playing here were kind of more, you know, singer, songwriter, but with a.

Speaker B: 00:11:10

They wanted a drummer.

Speaker B: 00:11:11

It was kind of a band setting and this club, Momos, had a really cool kind of scene going on where it was all musicians hanging out in the audience, and everybody would jump up and down off stage and sit in with their friends.

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My buddy Steve is like, man, you gotta check this out.

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And he had his band that was playing every Wednesday night.

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And this guy Brian Keane, had his band, was playing every Wednesday night.

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And Steve played guitar in Brian's band, and Brian would play keys in his band.

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And they both had the same drummer.

Speaker B: 00:11:36

Colin Brooks was playing them.

Speaker B: 00:11:38

There were four bands on the night.

Speaker B: 00:11:39

And so it was.

Speaker B: 00:11:40

It was Brian, Steve, Colin, and then I think Wendy Colonna, who's a great songwriter here in town, she was playing.

Speaker B: 00:11:47

And at a certain point, Wendy decided to move on and do something else, and she left her residency.

Speaker B: 00:11:52

So there was an opening on Wednesday nights.

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So, you know, called up Steve and called up the booking guy, and Steve called up the booking guy and somehow got my foot in the door.

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And, you know, there's a ton of great musicians here, and it's hard to get a good gig, you know, So I feel.

Speaker B: 00:12:06

I consider myself pretty fortunate to be able to get in there.

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And people were really good to me to give me that chance.

Speaker B: 00:12:11

And so we started playing.

Speaker B: 00:12:12

And then eventually Steve moved to Nashville to join another band.

Speaker B: 00:12:16

And so there's another opening.

Speaker B: 00:12:17

And Ed Jerdy, who's in the Heathens with me, he had just moved to town, so he took Steve's spot.

Speaker B: 00:12:23

And so it was Brian Keane, Colin Brooks, myself and Ed and that we all had the same drummer.

Speaker B: 00:12:30

Two of us had the same bass player.

Speaker B: 00:12:31

We would all kind of rotate in, playing guitar or keys for each other throughout the night.

Speaker B: 00:12:36

That's kind of the seeds of the band.

Speaker B: 00:12:39

And we didn't know each other before this.

Speaker B: 00:12:41

We all met there and kind of started becoming friends and sitting in and playing music together.

Speaker B: 00:12:45

And eventually it was like, well, why are we calling this four different sets?

Speaker B: 00:12:49

Let's just call it one band and all stay up on stage together.

Speaker B: 00:12:53

And that was when the Good Times Supper Club formed.

Speaker B: 00:12:57

That's what we called it.

Speaker B: 00:12:59

And eventually the newspaper started calling us the Heathens.

Speaker B: 00:13:02

I think as a joke, somehow that name stuck.

Speaker B: 00:13:05

Hey, this is Gordy Quist from the Band of Heathens, and you're listening to.

Speaker A: 00:13:08

Country Fried Rock as it evolved live.

Speaker A: 00:13:11

Then.

Speaker A: 00:13:11

Bands that form in that way tend to have kind of different processes in terms of their creative interaction than bands that say form and then ultimately say, oh, yeah, we need to be playing out.

Speaker A: 00:13:23

When you all were first working together and leading towards your first record together, what was the interplay?

Speaker B: 00:13:31

I think this band kind of has a unique start and kind of outlook on that.

Speaker B: 00:13:35

We definitely started off as a live, and we still are.

Speaker B: 00:13:38

That hasn't changed.

Speaker B: 00:13:39

Like, we.

Speaker B: 00:13:40

The starting point for everything we do is the live show and touring and really like, the difference between that and making albums for me is the human connection aspect.

Speaker B: 00:13:52

As an artist, there's two sides to me.

Speaker B: 00:13:54

There's the side of me that wants to create and get out what's inside of me.

Speaker B: 00:13:58

You know, I have these emotions and creating is an event for those emotions.

Speaker B: 00:14:03

And that to me is like.

Speaker B: 00:14:04

Making albums is like, really fun and really just.

Speaker B: 00:14:08

It blows my mind when we're making an album.

Speaker B: 00:14:10

And for me, going to work every day is going into the studio.

Speaker B: 00:14:12

It's just.

Speaker B: 00:14:13

It feels like I'm just playing the whole time.

Speaker B: 00:14:15

It's really fun.

Speaker B: 00:14:16

But the other side of it, so there's the creation side, and then the other side of it to me is the connection side, and that's connecting with other musicians live and then connecting with fans and with an audience.

Speaker B: 00:14:27

You know, there's nothing like that either.

Speaker B: 00:14:28

You can't really compare the two.

Speaker B: 00:14:29

They're two very different things.

Speaker B: 00:14:31

They're obviously related.

Speaker B: 00:14:32

And some bands put more focus on the creation side and the album side.

Speaker B: 00:14:37

This band seems like the connection side is where we started for one, and it still is a huge driving force in everything we do.

Speaker B: 00:14:48

So, you know, from the beginning, there was no plans like, oh, let's make an album right away.

Speaker B: 00:14:53

You know, it was.

Speaker B: 00:14:54

We got this cool residency gig and more and more people keep showing up like, this is a blast.

Speaker B: 00:14:58

This is awesome.

Speaker B: 00:14:59

And there were no rehearsals.

Speaker B: 00:15:01

It literally was like, you throw a new song at someone live on stage, and everyone kind of just falls in and falls out and make it happen live.

Speaker B: 00:15:08

And the whole idea was kind of getting off on being on stage and connecting with each other musically and then having that connection, hopefully connect with the audience.

Speaker B: 00:15:17

And there's this interaction that happens.

Speaker B: 00:15:19

And so that's where we started.

Speaker B: 00:15:21

And the band lineup has changed quite a bit from those days.

Speaker B: 00:15:26

You know, nowadays we rehearse and we work.

Speaker B: 00:15:28

I would say we work a lot more at the creation side of it.

Speaker B: 00:15:32

And.

Speaker B: 00:15:32

But it's still, you know, and now it's about collecting songs and maybe not, you know, before it was like, oh, I got a new song, throw it out on stage live and let's play it.

Speaker B: 00:15:43

Now there's a little bit more of a calculation.

Speaker B: 00:15:45

And I got a batch of you know, 20 songs right now that the band hasn't even heard.

Speaker B: 00:15:50

And it's kind of like about holding those back until the time is right to start playing them live.

Speaker B: 00:15:57

So they're fresh for us and for the audience, and they're fresh when we go in the studio, you know, there's a debate on whether it's better to have the band to know all the songs before you go in the studio, or whether you just have a really tight band and you don't want them to know the songs to let there's, you know, something spontaneous happen.

Speaker A: 00:16:14

Do you all have a method?

Speaker A: 00:16:15

Like, do you always do it one way or the other?

Speaker B: 00:16:17

No, actually, our method, I think, is doing it differently from we've ever done every time.

Speaker B: 00:16:23

Our first albums were two live albums, and that stems from kind of the formation of the band.

Speaker B: 00:16:27

And it was just like we had all this back catalog between four songwriters.

Speaker B: 00:16:31

And so we were just making live albums.

Speaker B: 00:16:33

And honestly, on the weekends we were going out and doing other things.

Speaker B: 00:16:37

We were doing our solo bands or our singer songwriter thing, or some of the guys were just playing lead guitar and other bands as sidemen.

Speaker B: 00:16:44

And so it was really just a side project.

Speaker B: 00:16:47

Eventually we started taking that side project on the road and it just started growing.

Speaker B: 00:16:51

And here we are six years later doing, you know, between 150 and 250 shows a year for the last four years of that.

Speaker A: 00:16:59

Do you all purposely seek out different people, particularly in the production or on the team when you head in to record something in the past?

Speaker B: 00:17:06

Yeah, I think we have.

Speaker B: 00:17:07

And it's not always been like a calculated thing.

Speaker B: 00:17:10

But the first record in the studio, the first record was produced by Ray Wiley Hubbard.

Speaker B: 00:17:15

And Ray is a friend of ours that we met kind of doing his radio.

Speaker B: 00:17:18

He has a radio show?

Speaker B: 00:17:19

He does, and he's an incredible songwriter and just a funny personality.

Speaker B: 00:17:23

He's a great record producer.

Speaker B: 00:17:24

He, after meeting us and learned, actually I had lunch with him talking about a solo record I was releasing.

Speaker B: 00:17:31

I was telling him, like, yeah, you know, we're also thinking about doing a Heathens record, the first kind of studio one of New Mater.

Speaker B: 00:17:37

And, you know, his ears kind of perked up and he was like, you know, sounded like he wanted to be involved.

Speaker B: 00:17:43

And so he ended up producing that record.

Speaker B: 00:17:45

It was great and we learned a lot from him and just been a great guy to know and work with.

Speaker B: 00:17:50

The next record was kind of like.

Speaker B: 00:17:52

We went into the studio, just wanted to record demos of songs, but like full band demos.

Speaker B: 00:17:57

So we did a few Days of It and without really a producer.

Speaker B: 00:18:01

We were using Mark Addison's studio.

Speaker B: 00:18:03

He's another friend of ours that we just know through Austin Scene, and he's a great producer.

Speaker B: 00:18:07

But we.

Speaker B: 00:18:08

We weren't really thinking about producing an album.

Speaker B: 00:18:10

We were just kind of getting these songs done so we could later go make an album.

Speaker B: 00:18:14

And those sessions ended up being.

Speaker B: 00:18:16

I think we recorded 15 tunes and, you know, a couple of tunes in.

Speaker B: 00:18:20

We were like, this is sounding really good.

Speaker B: 00:18:21

Like, why don't we just make this the record?

Speaker B: 00:18:23

So that one was kind of, again, like, it seems like everything we did early on was an accident.

Speaker B: 00:18:29

You know, it was like, not thought out.

Speaker B: 00:18:31

And there's something to be said for that.

Speaker B: 00:18:32

I think creatively, like, there's a.

Speaker B: 00:18:34

There's something good that happens from not knowing or not having a plan and just letting whatever fly.

Speaker B: 00:18:39

And that's not necessarily in my personality, naturally.

Speaker B: 00:18:43

That's something I've learned a lot from the other guys in the band and just from kind of this whole project in its nature.

Speaker B: 00:18:50

But it's been great.

Speaker B: 00:18:51

And so that album was kind of working with Mark, and really we were producing a lot of it kind of with our own ideas.

Speaker B: 00:18:59

And then Mark.

Speaker B: 00:19:00

Mark would also have.

Speaker B: 00:19:01

He was kind of like the.

Speaker B: 00:19:03

There were, say, five or six of us in the band, and he was the extra guy in the band with just as many great ideas.

Speaker B: 00:19:09

And so really, Top Hat Crown, the most recent studio record, I think, is the first Time.

Speaker B: 00:19:16

Again, we went in for three days and we recorded three songs.

Speaker B: 00:19:19

And they were not meant to be a record.

Speaker B: 00:19:22

We actually had a plan to do three to five songs with, like, five different producers.

Speaker B: 00:19:27

We had, like, five, four or five different people we wanted to work with.

Speaker B: 00:19:30

And we said, let's go do a couple of days with each one of them.

Speaker B: 00:19:33

And it's kind of expensive, and it kind of is a waste of resources in some ways, because you have to tear down and set up and find a whole new studio.

Speaker B: 00:19:41

And there were some other cities.

Speaker B: 00:19:42

We were actually going to go travel to other places.

Speaker B: 00:19:44

And anyway, we did the first session with this guy, George Reiff, who's a great producer, great bass player.

Speaker B: 00:19:50

Those three songs ended up kind of being the beginnings of what became Top Hat Crown.

Speaker B: 00:19:55

We.

Speaker B: 00:19:56

We finished those sessions, we went back out on tour, and we were listening back, and we had kind of this big internal debate about whether to continue sticking with our original plan or whether just to go back with George and say, hey, this is killer.

Speaker B: 00:20:07

Let's make a record capturing what we just Started, which is what we ended.

Speaker A: 00:20:12

Up doing as you all then went out on the road after those few songs.

Speaker A: 00:20:16

Because we were talking earlier about the whole do you then road test stuff, or do you show up fresh in the studio?

Speaker A: 00:20:21

What ended up happening?

Speaker B: 00:20:23

Well, I can't remember.

Speaker B: 00:20:24

I don't think we.

Speaker B: 00:20:25

We didn't really start playing those songs live yet.

Speaker B: 00:20:28

Maybe one of them and actually the rest of the song, all the songs on that album, except for maybe one or two, we didn't even show the band until we went into studio.

Speaker B: 00:20:39

And that was the first time we hadn't road test the songs.

Speaker B: 00:20:42

We had always kind of been of the mindset of, like, working it out live on stage and finding the.

Speaker B: 00:20:47

You know, you want to find where the climaxes are and where to pull back and where, you know, how a song flows live.

Speaker B: 00:20:53

And even our harmonies, we would sometimes just work out on the fly on stage as we're playing live.

Speaker B: 00:20:57

And for this record, we purposefully said, let's hold these songs back when the record comes out.

Speaker B: 00:21:03

We want them to be fresh and new to the audience, and we want them to be fresh and new for ourselves, too, because we know we're going to have to play these songs for the next year along with, you know, the back catalog.

Speaker B: 00:21:13

We.

Speaker B: 00:21:13

Every night we try to mix it up.

Speaker B: 00:21:15

We don't ever, like, play the same set twice, so it was kind of a different process.

Speaker B: 00:21:18

And then being in the studio, working with George and really coming up with arrangements on the Fly, not just like, oh, well, we did this on stage.

Speaker B: 00:21:25

You know, there wasn't any other.

Speaker B: 00:21:27

There were no good things that we found on stage to fall back on.

Speaker B: 00:21:31

And there were no bad habits that we had formed on stage that we were trying to avoid.

Speaker B: 00:21:35

It was completely just a blank slate.

Speaker B: 00:21:37

I enjoyed that.

Speaker B: 00:21:38

You know, the band is tight as a unit.

Speaker B: 00:21:40

We've been playing together for a long time, so there wasn't, like, any question as far as, like, us locking in with each other, even though the material was new.

Speaker B: 00:21:48

George, we had known, he plays bass with.

Speaker B: 00:21:51

With Ray Wiley Hubbard.

Speaker B: 00:21:52

He plays bass in a ton of great bands.

Speaker B: 00:21:55

You know, when Chris Robinson from the Black Crows does solo stuff, he, you know, a few years back, he was using George.

Speaker B: 00:22:01

When Gary Luris and Mark Olson from the Jayhawks were doing kind of duo stuff, George was playing bass with them.

Speaker B: 00:22:09

So we've known George just kind of being.

Speaker B: 00:22:11

He's, you know, he's a guy who's been around Austin for a long time and just great bass player.

Speaker B: 00:22:16

And at first, I Didn't know about much of his, like, record production.

Speaker B: 00:22:20

I didn't know he was a great producer.

Speaker B: 00:22:21

But Colin, I think, had worked with him on some records.

Speaker B: 00:22:24

He was like, hey, let's, we need to try George.

Speaker B: 00:22:26

And so we were all like, yeah, that sounds cool.

Speaker B: 00:22:28

He's, you know, great personality, easy going and seems to have great musical ideas.

Speaker B: 00:22:32

So we went in and tried those kind of just three days, and it was great.

Speaker B: 00:22:37

It was a lot of fun working with him.

Speaker B: 00:22:38

And he's just, I, he's.

Speaker B: 00:22:40

I can't say enough about him.

Speaker B: 00:22:41

He's a great record producer.

Speaker B: 00:22:43

I hope that we do some more records with him.

Speaker A: 00:22:45

With this being the first record of going in to the studio without the songs being road tested.

Speaker A: 00:22:50

What has changed about them now that you've been out playing this for a while?

Speaker B: 00:22:53

A lot has changed.

Speaker B: 00:22:55

I think when we go get up on stage and approach the songs from that perspective, you know, you obviously have a skeleton and you have a.

Speaker B: 00:23:04

You have something in your head as far as how they go and what the parts are.

Speaker B: 00:23:07

You know, a lot of the songs have parts that are parts and those don't change.

Speaker B: 00:23:11

Like, that's part of the song.

Speaker B: 00:23:12

You need to play that part at this point.

Speaker B: 00:23:13

But there's other things where we completely rearrange it.

Speaker B: 00:23:16

A lot of the tunes our nature live is, you know, we like to kind of stretch out solo sections and jams and actually like let them lose form and let it go until whoever's soloing wants to cue it into the next part.

Speaker B: 00:23:27

And kind of everyone's listening to each other and, and letting it happen live like that.

Speaker B: 00:23:31

The songs, I think they change quite a bit live.

Speaker B: 00:23:35

Even songs that we've been playing live for two or three years, you know, one night somebody will do something completely different on it and it's like, oh, man, that's great.

Speaker B: 00:23:43

Let's try that.

Speaker B: 00:23:44

And so then for the next year we'll be playing it that way.

Speaker B: 00:23:46

And, you know, they're kind of like living creatures.

Speaker B: 00:23:50

And even with lyrics for me, you know, I'm not opposed to.

Speaker B: 00:23:53

I record a song and release it and two years later I find a better line.

Speaker B: 00:23:57

I'll sing the better line.

Speaker B: 00:23:59

And, you know, maybe it gets people scratching their heads a little bit, but to me, songs are.

Speaker B: 00:24:04

While you do capture them at one point, they're still evolving creatures.

Speaker B: 00:24:09

Some things in a song are more parts and I love parts.

Speaker B: 00:24:12

And a lot of times I'll work up a solo, little solo break in a song and it kind of becomes more of A part rather than the musician expressing themselves.

Speaker B: 00:24:22

And it kind of becomes like, well, that's part of the song.

Speaker B: 00:24:25

And it doesn't mean you can't change it.

Speaker B: 00:24:26

It's just, like, for.

Speaker B: 00:24:27

It's like, a little more jarring.

Speaker B: 00:24:29

And if you're gonna stretch out and say something differently, like, make it be good, you know, but for.

Speaker B: 00:24:34

For us, everybody in the band, Heathens loves, like, you know, we play a bunch of shows every year.

Speaker A: 00:24:39

Yeah, a lot.

Speaker B: 00:24:39

I think we did 150 last year.

Speaker B: 00:24:41

And we're slow.

Speaker B: 00:24:42

We've slowed down a lot.

Speaker B: 00:24:43

Two years ago, we did 240 or something crazy.

Speaker B: 00:24:46

And I know there are other bands that work harder than that, and it just blows my mind because it's a hard.

Speaker B: 00:24:51

It's a hard life.

Speaker B: 00:24:51

But when you're in a band doing that, you know, night after night, you want to keep it interesting for yourself.

Speaker A: 00:24:57

Sure.

Speaker B: 00:24:57

You want to.

Speaker B: 00:24:57

You want to.

Speaker B: 00:24:58

It's like.

Speaker B: 00:24:58

It's fun to, like, keep.

Speaker B: 00:24:59

Not only do you want to kind of blow the audience's mind, you want to do that to the guys in your band, too, you know, and it's.

Speaker B: 00:25:06

It's fun to try to, like, twist things and not do what everyone's going to expect every night, both internally.

Speaker B: 00:25:12

And I think if you're doing that internally to the band, then you're definitely doing it to the audience.

Speaker B: 00:25:17

And so for us, that's been a part of it.

Speaker B: 00:25:19

And from a folk singer kind of songwriting perspective, I don't think improvisation historically has been a big part of the history of that.

Speaker B: 00:25:27

But in blues music, which is another aspect of what we do and hugely informs the American landscape of music and rock and roll in blues, like, improvisation is.

Speaker B: 00:25:37

I mean, that's.

Speaker B: 00:25:38

Freddie King might sing the same song, but he's not playing the same solo every time.

Speaker B: 00:25:42

And what he's going to play in the solo or what he was going to play in the solo is.

Speaker B: 00:25:46

Is half of the excitement, you know, apart from the song.

Speaker B: 00:25:49

And so for us, it's.

Speaker B: 00:25:51

When we approach a song live, yeah, the song is fun, but we played this song last night.

Speaker B: 00:25:56

Now it's like, all right, let's play something differently in the instrumental section, or let's start the song differently.

Speaker B: 00:26:02

Or, you know, it's like.

Speaker B: 00:26:03

Normally it's a song that Medicine man, for example.

Speaker B: 00:26:06

Normally John Shipman, our drummer, starts it off.

Speaker B: 00:26:08

But for the last couple of weeks, I've been doing this weird guitar thing, and the first time I did it, he started scratching his head.

Speaker B: 00:26:15

He's like, what is he Playing, you know, what song is this?

Speaker B: 00:26:17

But then, I don't know, it's fun to do that.

Speaker B: 00:26:20

And everybody in this band does that to each other, just probably to more extent than I do it to them, actually.

Speaker B: 00:26:24

Right.

Speaker B: 00:26:25

Everybody's really good about, you know, trying something fresh and approaching it differently.

Speaker B: 00:26:29

And so, yeah, for us, like, the album is kind of an idea of getting the songs in a more concise form.

Speaker B: 00:26:34

And, yeah, there's some stretching out on the album, too, but live is.

Speaker B: 00:26:38

Live is where we really like to take liberties and stretch things out.

Speaker B: 00:26:42

Hey, this is Gordy Quist, and you can find a band of heathens online at www.bandofheathens.com.

Speaker A: 00:26:50

You mentioned earlier that you've got maybe 20 songs or something already that the band doesn't know anything about.

Speaker A: 00:26:56

Are you constantly writing?

Speaker A: 00:26:57

How does that work for you?

Speaker B: 00:26:59

I mean, everyone has kind of a different approach to writing, but for me, actually, the last, like, two months, I started committing to writing a song a week.

Speaker B: 00:27:08

And about two weeks after I started it, another songwriting friend of mine, Owen Temple, who I actually write a lot with, he's one of my good buddies and one of my oldest friends here in the music community.

Speaker B: 00:27:19

But he and I have a deal where Monday night by midnight, a song is due.

Speaker B: 00:27:24

We gotta email each other a demo of each of our new songs.

Speaker B: 00:27:27

That's great.

Speaker B: 00:27:28

You know, and that's something that I, you know, picked up from.

Speaker B: 00:27:31

There's some other songwriters in Austin who do a similar challenge.

Speaker B: 00:27:34

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:27:35

And the song doesn't always end up being a keeper.

Speaker B: 00:27:37

You know, there's this question of, like, what's more important, quantity or quality?

Speaker B: 00:27:41

And obviously, I'd rather have five great songs than 50 mediocre songs.

Speaker B: 00:27:45

And you just put out albums less often.

Speaker B: 00:27:48

But there's something to be said for going to work every day and thinking about songwriting and really pushing your brain to find songs and find ideas and connect.

Speaker B: 00:27:58

Connect melodies and connect lyrics.

Speaker B: 00:28:00

And for me, over the last two months of me kind of putting this artificial deadline on myself, it's been really great.

Speaker B: 00:28:06

And I think I'm not, like, cranking out four tunes in a day.

Speaker B: 00:28:11

Sometimes you, like, won't write for two months, and then you'll sit down in a week and you'll just crank out a ton of tunes.

Speaker B: 00:28:16

And I'm not really having that kind of output, but what I am having is, like, a bunch of seeds are planted.

Speaker B: 00:28:21

So, like, while I'm searching for one song and working on one song that I know is due in two days, there's a bunch of other seeds that I capture and write them down to go back to another time.

Speaker B: 00:28:31

And I found that just being constantly thinking about songs throughout my day, no matter what I'm doing, I'm hunting and I'm writing things down.

Speaker B: 00:28:38

And so for me, it's been great.

Speaker B: 00:28:40

And then I demo the songs and then I literally forget them.

Speaker B: 00:28:43

Like I half the time, like a week after I write a song, I can't even remember, like, what song I wrote last week, much less how it goes.

Speaker A: 00:28:50

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:28:50

But I have them all demoed and in a folder.

Speaker B: 00:28:52

And, you know, occasionally for solo acoustic shows, I'll go back and pull out a few of the new ones and do that.

Speaker B: 00:28:58

But sometimes I'll show it to some of the guys in the band.

Speaker B: 00:29:01

But in general, I try to just keep them and stockpiling them until it's time to go into the studio, which I think we're approaching that time soon.

Speaker B: 00:29:08

And Ed is doing the same thing.

Speaker B: 00:29:10

He's not doing the song a week thing, but he writes a lot and I know he has a bunch of songs piled up and we actually have another batch of songs that we've written together.

Speaker B: 00:29:18

Our writing process, a lot of times we'll write something completely on our own and then we bring it to the band or we bring it to each other and there's kind of a tweaking process that goes into it where it becomes something different.

Speaker B: 00:29:28

And then there are other times where he and I sit down from scratch and try to come up with something.

Speaker A: 00:29:33

What do you envision changing for you all as you are thinking you're maybe moving towards the studio again?

Speaker B: 00:29:38

I don't know.

Speaker B: 00:29:39

You know, we've had a recent change this year with Colin Brooks leaving the band, which is a big thing.

Speaker B: 00:29:45

You know, Colin was one of the three front men and one of the, you know, three primary songwriters.

Speaker B: 00:29:51

And so the.

Speaker B: 00:29:52

We actually were planning on going to the studio earlier this year.

Speaker B: 00:29:55

We're hoping to have a record done by now, but we decided when Colin let us know that he'd be leaving, we decided to kind of put those plans on hold and kind of get our legs under us as a five piece now instead of a six piece.

Speaker B: 00:30:08

And so going into the studio next, I don't really know.

Speaker B: 00:30:11

We haven't really planned out where we're going to do it, who we're going to do it with.

Speaker B: 00:30:15

We're still kind of just collecting songs and then trying to do lots of rehearsals and lots of live shows to kind of just get used to playing As a five piece, which by now actually like.

Speaker B: 00:30:25

It feels great.

Speaker B: 00:30:26

Like we've actually the last like two months of touring, we've.

Speaker B: 00:30:29

I think we've figured it out.

Speaker B: 00:30:31

We found our voice now as.

Speaker B: 00:30:33

As this band, which is a different band than what it was.

Speaker A: 00:30:36

Anytime there's personnel changes, there's an element of that.

Speaker A: 00:30:40

But also, especially when you've got someone who is writing as part of the process.

Speaker A: 00:30:45

So has that changed the pressure in some ways that's on you and Ed in particular?

Speaker B: 00:30:51

Yeah, there's an amount of pressure.

Speaker B: 00:30:54

I probably put more pressure just on myself whether I was in this band or not.

Speaker B: 00:30:58

I want to write great songs.

Speaker B: 00:30:59

I love music and I love song.

Speaker B: 00:31:02

I love great song and I want to write great songs.

Speaker B: 00:31:05

And that's, you know, I'll hopefully forever be passionate about that and be chasing that and.

Speaker B: 00:31:11

But, you know, that being said, Ed has that same drive with or without this band, and Colin has that same drive with or without this band and, you know, conellett and he's gonna go make a great record.

Speaker B: 00:31:23

I have no doubt.

Speaker B: 00:31:24

I can't wait to hear it.

Speaker B: 00:31:26

The interesting thing about being in a band with three songwriters or even two songwriters now is there's always songs left over that don't get recorded.

Speaker B: 00:31:34

And there's not really, because we're so busy and we work a lot as this band because we love it and, you know, there's a lot of people whose mouths, you know, we gotta feed.

Speaker B: 00:31:41

Feed families within the band.

Speaker B: 00:31:43

We stay working and touring in addition to just needing to tour for, you know, because it's our job.

Speaker B: 00:31:48

We also, we love our jobs and we like doing it and we love making music together.

Speaker B: 00:31:53

But the going into the studio, there's always these extra songs.

Speaker B: 00:31:57

The flip side of that is, okay, we'll just, you know, some.

Speaker B: 00:32:00

Sometimes, you know, obviously you write a bunch of songs, they're not all going to be good.

Speaker B: 00:32:03

Especially if you're putting this, like, kind of deadline that you're really just trying to crank out.

Speaker B: 00:32:07

In addition to quality songs, a certain quantity where you.

Speaker B: 00:32:10

Where you put that quota on yourself.

Speaker B: 00:32:12

They're not all going to be songs you want to record and release, but with multiple songwriters in the band, there are a bunch of songs you do like that either don't fit the band or they don't fit the concept for this album.

Speaker B: 00:32:24

And then they end up just kind of sitting.

Speaker B: 00:32:25

And the unfortunate thing as a songwriter is I don't really have time to go invest in like, hey, I'm going to go crank out A solo record really quick because I'm going to spend a bunch of money doing that, but then I'm not going to have time to tour behind it or to do any kind of release behind it.

Speaker A: 00:32:40

Exactly.

Speaker B: 00:32:41

I'm certainly not going to spend any promotional money behind it because it's not going to come back to me.

Speaker B: 00:32:46

So it's interesting.

Speaker B: 00:32:47

You know, I hope at some point we're at a point where we can, like, take some time off and do other side projects.

Speaker B: 00:32:55

I think it'd be healthy for everyone in the band.

Speaker B: 00:32:57

You know, Ed and I recently have been doing a bunch of kind of solo or duo acoustic shows with the two of us.

Speaker B: 00:33:02

And it's not because we're frustrated with the band or anything.

Speaker B: 00:33:05

We're just.

Speaker B: 00:33:05

It's fun.

Speaker B: 00:33:06

Yeah, It's a good way to go.

Speaker B: 00:33:07

Present some of the same material in a different way and then to play a bunch of new songs that either the band won't see or we haven't shown them to the band.

Speaker B: 00:33:17

And they're still kind of forming from a fan's perspective, I think that's a cool thing.

Speaker B: 00:33:20

Like, I love seeing some of my favorite bands.

Speaker B: 00:33:22

I love seeing front guys play solo.

Speaker B: 00:33:25

It's just kind of another dimension to the song.

Speaker A: 00:33:28

Do you ever get to hear anyone else play?

Speaker B: 00:33:30

Yeah, actually, this last week we did some shows.

Speaker B: 00:33:34

The Ryan Mont Blue Band.

Speaker B: 00:33:36

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:33:36

From the East Coast.

Speaker B: 00:33:37

I just.

Speaker B: 00:33:38

I love that band.

Speaker B: 00:33:39

I love Ryan's songwriting.

Speaker B: 00:33:41

Every player in that band is just a monster musician.

Speaker A: 00:33:45

Cool.

Speaker A: 00:33:46

They're like Boston or something, right?

Speaker B: 00:33:48

Yeah, yeah, they're from the Boston area, and we're actually doing some shows with them on the east coast next week, I think.

Speaker B: 00:33:54

But they're just a great band and, you know, so that, like every night it was great to be able to sit and watch their set.

Speaker B: 00:34:01

You know, we did an afternoon thing in Keystone last week, and they played first, and then we played and we were done by like, six o'.

Speaker B: 00:34:08

Clock.

Speaker A: 00:34:08

Nice.

Speaker B: 00:34:09

They were.

Speaker B: 00:34:09

They were playing a club date later that night, so we went to go check them out later.

Speaker B: 00:34:13

And it was just so.

Speaker B: 00:34:14

It's cool.

Speaker B: 00:34:14

It's great.

Speaker B: 00:34:15

You know, like, on one hand, you're always out and you don't always feel like going to see a show because you feel like you live.

Speaker B: 00:34:21

You live in music venues all the time.

Speaker B: 00:34:23

When I'm home, I actually don't.

Speaker B: 00:34:25

I mean, Austin is just an incredible city to see live music.

Speaker B: 00:34:28

And sadly, I don't go see a ton of music because if I'm home, I'm usually Just spending time with my wife at home, by ourselves, or with friends that I don't get to see often enough.

Speaker B: 00:34:39

And sometimes you go see music, but if I go see music, I don't really like to socialize.

Speaker B: 00:34:44

I want to listen to the music.

Speaker B: 00:34:45

So it's just kind of.

Speaker B: 00:34:46

But, you know, festivals are great festivals.

Speaker B: 00:34:48

We go play, and it's just great to get to watch the lineups and all the other bands.

Speaker B: 00:34:53

It's great to be able to go in and play a festival and then hang out for the rest of the weekend and just see music.

Speaker A: 00:34:58

Has there been an opportunity for y' all over the last few years for someone that maybe wasn't on your radar?

Speaker B: 00:35:03

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: 00:35:04

There's a band from California called Vetiver.

Speaker B: 00:35:07

I love them and I've seen them.

Speaker B: 00:35:09

I love their albums.

Speaker B: 00:35:10

I first got turned on to them through their recordings, and I love them.

Speaker B: 00:35:14

I mean, I have them on vinyl.

Speaker B: 00:35:16

I have them digitally, and they're one of my favorites.

Speaker B: 00:35:19

Then south by Southwest, a year ago, I went to go see them, and it just blew my mind live.

Speaker B: 00:35:24

It was amazing.

Speaker B: 00:35:25

I really love them.

Speaker B: 00:35:26

There's another guy, Jonathan Wilson, who is both a producer and a songwriter.

Speaker B: 00:35:32

I just saw him last week at South By.

Speaker B: 00:35:34

He's another California guy that I love.

Speaker B: 00:35:37

He's a really cool new album out, and then he also produced two records for Dawes.

Speaker B: 00:35:43

I don't know if you're familiar with Dawes.

Speaker A: 00:35:44

Yeah, we featured them earlier this year.

Speaker B: 00:35:46

I mean, I love.

Speaker B: 00:35:47

Love their last two records.

Speaker B: 00:35:49

I mean, the first one is my favorite.

Speaker B: 00:35:51

I know there's.

Speaker B: 00:35:52

I get into debates with people.

Speaker B: 00:35:54

I love the second one, too.

Speaker B: 00:35:56

I think that's a great songwriter, and the band is killer.

Speaker B: 00:35:59

But what surprised me even more about how much I love their music was going to see them live in Austin, like, six or nine months ago.

Speaker B: 00:36:08

They're just killer live.

Speaker B: 00:36:10

And it's very different.

Speaker B: 00:36:11

It's much more electric and kind of a frenetic rock and roll thing.

Speaker B: 00:36:14

But when I went to go see them live, I was expecting something more stripped down and acoustic.

Speaker B: 00:36:20

But, I mean, they didn't touch an acoustic guitar.

Speaker B: 00:36:22

It was completely electric and rock and roll.

Speaker B: 00:36:24

And the songs that I loved on the record, they completely hold up in a rock and roll setting.

Speaker B: 00:36:28

They're killer.

Speaker B: 00:36:29

They.

Speaker B: 00:36:29

They translate completely with the energy, you know.

Speaker B: 00:36:33

In fact, if I was them, I'd be tempted to go, like, want to do a.

Speaker B: 00:36:36

A studio record that captures that rock and roll energy of the live show.

Speaker B: 00:36:40

But I love what they do in the studio.

Speaker B: 00:36:42

I love the kind of 70s, almost singer songwriter feel of their albums I love.

Speaker B: 00:36:48

They're one of my favorites.

Speaker A: 00:36:49

I really appreciate it.

Speaker A: 00:36:51

Thanks a ton.

Speaker A: 00:36:51

Especially this early in the morning.

Speaker B: 00:36:53

Yeah, no problem.

Speaker B: 00:36:54

Thank you, Sloan.

Speaker A: 00:36:54

Country Fried Rock Find the full playlist from this episode on countryfriderock.org check us out on itunes.

Speaker A: 00:37:01

No music, just talk.

Speaker A: 00:37:03

Our theme music is from the Full Tones.

Speaker A: 00:37:06

Our Country Fried Rock stinger is from Steve Soto in the Twisted Hearts.

Speaker A: 00:37:10

Country fried Rock Copyright: 2012

Speaker A: 00:37:15

All rights reserved.

Speaker B: 00:37:18

Country Fried.