Episode 5 - PT. 1 - Dead Tooth - From booking on Myspace to getting a manager

This week I'm talking with Zach Ellis from the Brooklyn based band Dead Tooth. We talk about the history of Zach's musical journey where he chats about how he started playing music, his move to NYC, booking tours on Myspace and showing up to gigs not knowing they've been cancelled. We also chat a bit about the modern day attention span and how he navigates that as a musician. Then he shares how he got his whole team including a label, a publisher, a manager and even a liquor company on board.

Catch Part 2 coming out next Tuesday, Oct 8th!

You can watch the full episode on my Youtube at - https://www.youtube.com/@WhatItTakesToBeARockstar

Check out Dead Tooth at https://deadtoothbk.bandcamp.com/

Check out the Tea Eater tour dates at https://www.teaeater.com/tourdates

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction & Announcement
• 4:50 How/why did you start playing music?
• 18:00 Booking his first tour on Myspace
• 21:33 Getting a van for $1000
• 26:58 On starting his own band
• 35:22 Music vs. TikTok
• 47:27 SORRY Cables
• 48:12 On finding his lineup over the years
• 59:59 Who's on his team and how it happened
• 1:03:07 What do you tour in?
• 1:08:09 VAN TALK
• 1:13:43 Outro

Transcript

Hello, hello, everyone.

Welcome back to another episode of What It Takes To Be A Rockstar.

I'm your host, Mel, and today I am interviewing the Zach Ellis of the band Dead Tooth.

All right, everyone, welcome back to another week.

Thank you so much for being here.

I've been getting a lot of messages still about people enjoying the podcast, and I'm really happy because, you know, I'm not doing it so no one listens to it.

I'm doing it so people listen to it.

So I'm happy you're here.

And before we get into the podcast portion of this, I just want to do a little life update.

I'm going on tour next week.

I'll be playing bass in the band Tea Eater, which is the band of the song that you just heard, the I'm Starting A Podcast.

And we're going to be touring in Europe.

So if you're out there in Europe, look out for us.

We're going to be in Italy and Germany and France and Norway and the Netherlands and Copenhagen and Denmark.

So yeah, look out for us out there.

I'll be there in October, but I will also be putting out episodes as we go.

So anyway, this week I'm chatting with my old bud Zach from the band Dead Tooth, which is an amazing band from Brooklyn, New York.

They're incredible.

I love their music.

I've known Zach since I think 2017.

We played a show together and Tara from TeaEater, who is also my bandmate and Gustav.

She booked me solo acoustic and Zach acoustic, I think, with a violin player at this place, which is now Driggs Pizza Parlor in Williamsburg.

And yeah, we made friends at night, and we've been friends ever since, and it's been really fun watching both of our bands and music projects grow since then.

So I wanted to chat with him because he is in this unique spot, I feel like, where their band is getting a lot of opportunities, but they might not be like big enough opportunities to pay the bills, but they're the opportunities that you can't really turn down if you're really trying to do music.

So I figured he would have some really good insight.

And just like the last conversation, I split it into two parts because we did chat for a really long time, but I actually really love everything we talked about.

And so this week is more so the backstory of things and like how Dead Tooth grew legs or should I say roots like a tooth.

But anyway, we chat about that and we chat about like how they get around and a little bit about the logistics and about their team members and stuff.

But next week, we'll be getting into the real, the real, the finances and all those things too.

But I really wanted to include everything here today because I just find it fascinating and I love hearing people's backstory of why they chose the path that they did and part of my reasoning for this podcast is to get to know my friends better, honestly, because I feel like I know them but then, I don't know all those intricate details and it's the best ever.

So anyway, without further ado, here is the conversation and as always, let me know what you think and if you have any questions, any pressing questions that you want me to ask musicians in the future, let me know, send me an e-mail of what it takes to be a rockstar at gmail.com.

All right, here we go.

I'm just so curious how your journey with music started.

Like did you grow up in a musical house?

What made you want to be in a band?

I want to hear like be the history.

I grew up, my house was, there was always music playing, but nobody in my house ever played music or really sang or anything like that.

But they always, like my dad had a really awesome CD collection going all the time.

Like he had like everything from like the Beatles to like Radiohead and Nirvana and a bunch of, he just had like a bunch of cool stuff that, for like a dad at the time, I was like, oh, this is, what is this?

What's the Benz, dad?

And he was like, pop it on.

And he'd always play music really loud.

He loved to play music really loud.

And he showed me like John Prine and REM.

But yeah, I was never like, Zach, you should learn an instrument or something.

But I kind of just got interested through, I'd say kind of through skateboarding culture is where I got interested in music.

In middle school, like a small group of friends that I had, we all kind of started skateboarding and which I got into that because I actually wanted to be, I wanted to be a soccer player.

Nice.

But then I tried out for the travel soccer team, and I like during the tryout, I injured myself, like I messed up my knee, I like hyper extended my knee, and I like fell and I was crying.

And I just, I never like couldn't muster up the courage to go back.

I was like embarrassed by injuring myself that day.

And like, and I never like mustered the courage.

I like gave up on soccer.

I was like, that's, I'm, they're never gonna like me now, which is stupid.

But like, I always thought the soccer kids were really cool.

And then kind of gave up on soccer because of that.

But then discovered skateboarding, which is also terrible for your knees.

But, but it's more of like, you know, you kind of you're not like in front of a bunch of people try like you're not playing a sport like a competitive sport with other people.

You can kind of like progress at your own speed.

And I really loved that.

And so I started skateboarding and a bunch of friends and I got really into it.

And we'd always watch skate videos.

And there was like one particular video.

I remember Shorty's Fulfill The Dream.

I really loved the music in that video.

And it kind of like made skateboarding come to life.

Like without music in a skate video, like it's just not that fun to watch, but the rhythm of the music and the skateboarding.

And it was kind of like an act.

Like skateboarding to me was an amazing, meditative, actionable thing to do that I really loved as a kid.

Like just the whole world can go away and you could do it.

And yeah, my friend, my like best friend at the time, Chris abadessa, he had a guitar.

We used to skateboard all day.

And then he had like a old like fenders or a Squire Strat.

It was like a fender Squire series, Mexican Strat.

And his I think his dad got it for him, their stepdad.

And we were just like, he played it and he was like pretty good.

And we were just hanging out all the time.

And he really wanted to play the drums.

And we had just been listening to a lot of music through skate videos.

And we got like, we were like pretty into classic rock at the time.

We were listening to like Santana and Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Yeah, while we would skate.

Yeah.

We put on the boom box.

We'd have the boom box on the floor, maxed out at 10, you know?

Yeah.

We would just skate for like hours.

And then eventually he got a drum kit.

So once he got the drum kit, it was like, like I didn't have a guitar or anything, but he moved over to, he was like, I want to learn the drums.

And I was like, I kind of want to like learn the guitar because I would like go to his house and we'd like trade off on the guitar.

And then, and then so he actually like sold me the guitar for like a hundred bucks or something.

And then he moved to the drums.

And around the same time, my uncle, Gary, gave me an acoustic guitar.

So I got like two guitars, one for playing like at home and then one for the, like we could go to his house.

And he, he had, I think he had, he must have had some kind of amp.

It might have been like one of those like crate amps, you know?

I was gonna ask cause like the first jam amps are always so fun.

You know, they're like, I think me and my friend, I had like an amp like this big, you know, like the tiny, tiny, tiny ones.

And you can't even hear it over the drums, you know, but you're just jamming your heart out.

Yeah.

You need a crate, you think?

Yeah.

I think so.

I can't remember the amp situation of the time.

Oh no, no, I do remember the amp situation.

He had a rogue.

Do you remember rogue amps?

It's like ringing a bell, but...

Equally as like, it's like a practice amp, you know.

Yeah, we had a rogue amp.

Now I can like picture it now, the script lettering of the word rogue.

I really identified with that as like a rogue spirit, you know.

No, then he had like, and his, the house that he lived in was really cool.

He, in the town we grew up in Warwick, New York, there's like a part of it called Pine Island and the whole like, his whole backyard was basically like a black dirt field, which is like this really rich soil in upstate New York that people grow onions in.

And on that same property, he just had like a big barn.

And so we set up the drums and like the rogue amp in the barn.

And we would just jam a bunch like, and kind of like he was really in the songwriting, and I was getting into song.

He was like, he kind of like got me into it a little bit.

He was like, check out these rec, you know, we were like getting into music at the same time together, but he was like, his dad had like got him a guitar.

He was like, my in, you know?

And then through that, we just kind of like, we just started getting into it.

We got, we would like, we started skateboarding less and less and playing music more and more.

Around the same time we were introduced to marijuana.

I feel like your drive to do like physical activities goes a little bit down, but you're like, oh, let's jam for a few hours.

Yeah, then we just kind of like, we started, we had a band, me, him, and then I remember, because he was really, he was good at drums, but he kind of wanted to play an instrument that he could like sing and write on.

So he moved to the bass eventually.

He still needed them all.

Guitar, drums, bass.

And then he was on the bass and started singing.

We found a drummer and I was like, I'll play guitar, you play bass.

And then we found a drummer, which is my friend Dylan.

He was a cart pusher at a, we were both cart pushers at the local ShopRite supermarket.

And I met him one day.

He was like, we were pushing carts and he was really cold.

And I like gave him, I had like a fleece, like a old Navy performance fleece I got for like Christmas or something for my grandma.

And so I lent him that and we started talking.

He was like, yeah, I played drums.

And he ended up being like an incredible drummer.

He's really, really good.

And so we made a band.

We're called Canvas The Human.

That was like our high school band.

And we would just play all the time.

We would try to play any gig we could.

There was like a local cafe called the Tuscan Cafe.

And you know the Tuscan Cafe?

Oh yeah, I'd play there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can't remember.

I think our first show we ever played was an open mic there.

And we just brought all the gear.

We were like, we're doing-

I love that.

Yeah.

We brought the drum kit, the bass amp, and we just like, for one song, literally.

Like everybody got a song.

We're like, we're setting up.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

And then I can't remember if that happened first, or there was like a, there was like a park in where we're called Stanley Deming Park, and they had a thing where there's like performances, and they're like, they let us do like two songs.

I think we did like an at the drive-in cover, medley of like two at the drive-in songs.

We got really at the drive-in by that point.

I think that might have been the first time we ever like played out live like in front of people.

And yeah, and that was kind of just the beginning.

And then after high school, we eventually, I eventually moved into a house like in downtown Warwick that had a loft above the garage.

And that's where we ended up practicing the most.

Like we kind of moved the whole rehearsal space to my loft above the garage.

It was pretty cool.

It was like a little bit separate from like the main house so we could like have this kind of space that was like ours to just play music in kind of up until like maybe like 10 p.m.

You could just play as pretty much loud as you want, you know?

That's awesome.

Yeah.

So we just we just played all the time.

And then we we would play in like Warwick.

We play in Poughkeepsie.

I remember we'd go to the the Club Crannel.

Do you remember Club Crannel or Loft?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They'd make you like, they'd make you like sell tickets beforehand.

So we'd be like going around our high school trying to sell like $20 tickets to go see, go see us like an hour away.

Yep.

And I did the same exact thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, because you're you're from upstate too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like Port Jervis area.

So, yeah, you had to go elsewhere to play.

You know, there weren't too many options.

You had the busking.

Was there a venue in Port Jervis or no?

There was for a minute.

It was called the Vault and I never played there because I was in I think I was in eighth grade when it you know, it was before I even had a band when it was going on or it was like eighth or ninth grade.

And I didn't have a band till like 11th grade.

So but I went to the Vault a few times to see some shows and it was like the coolest thing ever.

But you know, once I started playing, we had to go out an hour easy to play, you know?

Yeah, that's just like living up there in that area.

Right.

Not many options.

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Yeah, that's most of the times we play like we played like Tuscan every now and then because they didn't have shows all the time.

But most of the shows we were playing were at like Club Crannell or The Loft in Poughkeepsie.

And it was like a huge pain in the ass because we'd have to drive like an hour.

We have to get all of our friends to drive like an hour.

It was kind of fun.

It was like, oh, let's go to like a road trip, kind of like a small road trip to go to like Poughkeepsie.

And yeah, it felt like that.

It did.

And I remember you had to carry your gear like up a narrow flight of stairs if I remember right.

Yeah, for I can't remember which one was like those club crannels, the loft, and then the chance, right?

The chance was like the big room, which we never got to play.

But we played a club crannel in the loft like a few times.

I think the loft was the one upstairs.

That would make sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

That would probably be the one that you had to like go up the stairs, I think.

Yeah, I think that's the only one that we played.

And I was like 17 at the time.

And the guy was like, I was trying to get back inside to like play the show.

And the guy was like, you're not playing.

And I was like, yeah, yeah.

And he's like, you?

No way.

And he like, he like was literally not letting me inside.

And I was like, my guitar's in there.

I need my stuff.

And eventually he like did not believe me, but it just let me in.

Damn.

Yeah.

I wonder where that guy's at now.

I have no idea.

Sounds like a dick.

Yeah.

If you're out there, if you're doing okay.

Yeah.

He was pretty pissed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, you know the upstate New York grind, the high school grind.

Yeah.

And then eventually we actually like at the time, I can't remember what, I think like when we graduated high school, we were like, it might have been the summer after that, we decided we wanted to book like a tour.

We really wanted to just drive across the country and like camp out a bunch of places and also play music.

So we're like, let's book like a tour.

We're like, let's take three weeks.

We'll do out to California and back.

Awesome.

Because the whole country.

Yeah, in three weeks.

Yeah.

And we did it on a, I don't know if it was more or less.

We did like two trips.

One time we just drove, me and a couple of friends, we just drove in my friend's jeep and did the same trip, but we weren't playing shows.

And I might be mistaking the time lengths of those two.

That might have been like three week one, and this one might have been like a month and a half or something.

I can't remember.

But we booked it all on MySpace, I remember.

Nice.

Yeah, because this must have been like 2008 or nine or something.

There wasn't like the whole like social media wasn't that that you couldn't really like book that much through other like MySpace was kind of it.

That and just like emailing venues, we had a, I remember that website, bookyourownfuckinglife.com was like a DIY booking resource.

So we would just email like tons of venues, every state would be like, let's hit up every venue in Austin, see who gets back.

And then we'd email them.

And there was no like, you know, back then we didn't have smartphones or anything.

So we were just like sometimes like on the road, we'd like get to the venue and they were like, oh no, like we canceled this like a week or two late.

You didn't see because you were like dry, you know, we didn't have any way to like check our emails or anything.

Yeah.

We just like went.

And yeah, that was really fun.

And that was kind of just like the beginning of it all.

And then moved to kind of came to a split, that band like we came to a point where it was like, okay, Dylan, the drummer wanted to move to Albany to go to school.

And Chris, the other member and I, the bass player and singer, did not want to go to school.

We wanted to just keep playing rock music.

So we moved to New York.

My friend Laurent was working at a restaurant in Soho called the Blue Ribbon.

And we just, he got us jobs there, and we just started working there and moved to the city.

And we're just like, let's just like work and play music.

That's kind of, and then that was like, probably 2010 or something.

And here we are today.

We're doing it, yeah.

Yeah, we actually, we just paired that band down into like a two piece.

And we both, we both saved, I think we both saved up, because the Blue Ribbon was like a pretty good job for how old we were, we like hadn't, it was like a bussing job, but you could make like 250 a night.

It was really busy.

The shifts were really long.

It was like 14 hour shifts, but you could make like 250 to 300 bucks in a shift.

So you'd work like three days a week, and then we have the rest of the week to just gig.

And eventually we both quit.

We both worked a shitload for like a whole year or two, and then we saved up a certain amount of money, and we bought a van, like an Econoline van, a Ford Econoline, like a 250 big ass van for our two piece band.

You have to have the van.

You have a van, you have to have the van.

We bought it for a thousand bucks from this guy in Pine Island in upstate New York.

This guy Richard, he was like a motorcycle driver, and he used to put his motorcycle in the back of the van, and drive around places, and then he kind of like got a little too old to be like getting in the van.

He's like, it's a little too big for me, like be getting up in it.

And so he sold it to us for a thousand bucks.

It was sick.

It was all jet black, matte black, and had like skulls on it and shit.

Yeah.

And then we, since it was only a thousand bucks, we didn't really break our savings too much.

We were like, let's just play literally every single show we possibly can.

Like we saved up a bunch of money at the Blue Ribbon.

And then we were like, let's quit.

We saved up to, we saved up like enough money to like live for like a year without like having to pay, without having to like get another job.

I think we saved up like 10 grand and our rent was like 700 bucks each or something.

And we were like, we just like calculated how much we, if we ate just like rice and beans all the time.

And we, we just started gigging as much as possible, like around Bushwick and out of town.

We went on like our first tour with, do you know, you know, like Lonnie and Sarah from the band Weeping Icon?

I know that band name.

I don't, I don't know them.

I don't think, maybe.

They had a band called Ed Veta at the time, and we shared like a practice space with them.

And one time I like ran into Sarah outside of the practice space and she was like, basically they had like booked a whole tour for their band, but they had like no van.

And they were like, we were just like kind of became friends through being at the practice space.

And they were like, what are you guys like?

How do you travel?

And your band, and they were like a fan of our band.

And they were like, oh, we have this, we told them we had a van.

We're like, we have a huge van actually.

And they're like, well, we booked a whole tour.

If you want to play and come with us, and we could use your van.

And so we just like went on tour with them.

That was like our first tour with post, the canvas, the human high school tour, which was another van we bought.

Me, Dylan and Chris like split a, I think it was like a GMC van.

And it was terrible.

First like week it broke down.

We had car troubles like the whole time.

But the Econoline van was amazing.

It lasted till pretty recently actually.

No way.

Yeah, till maybe like four or five years ago, I had that van.

Whoa, that's awesome.

That was a good investment.

Yeah, a thousand bucks.

Yeah.

And then kind of like through the years of just playing in New York, joined different bands, was playing drums in Hey Baby.

Do you remember Hey Baby?

Yeah, yeah.

I was like the original drummer in there.

Um, and yeah, just just been doing it ever since, you know, whatever job at the time I'm doing to make money, to continue doing music is kind of in the way it's been going.

Is there something smoke?

Is there like incense or something behind you?

That's a humidifier.

Oh, okay.

Is your house on fire?

I just saw that.

I was like, oh, my God.

It was like alarming.

Okay.

Wow, that is an epic origin story.

I love it.

Yeah.

What happened with that band?

Was your bud who you moved to New York with?

Of the two-piece band?

Yeah.

We actually had a little bit of a falling out at the time.

After we did everything together, we were literally like we...

He was the guy that I started playing music with.

We did everything.

We worked the same job.

We both worked at Blue Ribbon.

We lived together, played in a band together.

And eventually we had a bit of a falling out.

We were just like, it just got to a head where it was like, we were just not getting along in a lot of ways.

A lot of drinking and maybe just partying too much.

And kind of like we weren't like...

We were getting like cool opportunities.

Like this guy offered to like pay for a record to be made for us.

And it was really...

It was pretty promising as the record was like coming along.

And then we just kind of had like a blowout fight.

And we just like...

We just needed to go our separate ways for a while.

We're still really good friends.

I was actually just upstate hanging out with him.

He has a house upstate now.

We're still like...

We'll always be friends.

Like best friends.

But we just needed to kind of go our separate ways for a while.

Yeah.

And the band broke up.

And that's kind of when I started doing like my own music.

I kind of wanted to have like a creative outlet of my own.

I was always in bands as like a guitar player, drummer, bass player even for a while.

And yeah, kind of just wanted to like do my own thing.

I never had like written a whole record of my own.

So I was like, I want to try to do that.

I made like a folk record in my room.

And yeah, just was like...

I never even like really sang until then.

He was always kind of the singer.

And then was like...

But I had a lot of things I wanted to say.

So I just was like, I'm going to make a folk record and get all this stuff out.

And that's kind of when I started doing my own thing.

And that just kind of evolved from being like a...

Like almost like an acoustic bedroom recording project to eventually...

I was like, oh, what if I could like play this stuff out with like a band?

And that was like almost like a folk band for a while.

Like we had a banjo.

We had like a violin player.

But that, as you probably know, from playing in New York a bunch is pretty hard logistically to coordinate and make sound good at a lot of the venues we were playing.

We were playing like Muchmoors or something.

Or I don't know if you remember that spot.

I remember that spot.

Yeah, it's like a fancy spot now.

I heard.

I think I was talking to Tara actually.

Yeah, we went there one time.

Yeah, it's so different.

It's wild.

Yeah.

And around that same time, I was starting playing Hey Baby.

That's actually when I met Tara.

We toured to South by Southwest.

Hey Baby and Shark Muffin and Tara was dating this guy Kramer at the time in a band called Lunchbox.

And Lunchbox and Hey Baby and this band Hippie and Shark Muffin.

We all rented a huge mercedes Sprinter van.

Oh my gosh.

Drove to South by Southwest and nobody was even playing official show.

We were like, look, fuck it, let's just go.

We had like some, I think we had like two or three shows and like one of them fell through like on the way down there.

I think we got like another one in a yard or something.

We were just like, fuck it, let's just go for it.

And it was really fun.

Met a lot of great people and had a great time.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

So your friend, what was his name?

Dylan?

Was that the, or Chris, which one was your?

Dylan was the drummer.

Drummer, okay.

Chris was the other like songwriter, singer.

Yeah.

Was he, who between the two of you were the most like driving force?

Like who was like, let's go on tour.

Was it both of you?

Were you like right on?

I was the more driving force.

Like I was like, let's do this in the world.

That's kind of like why it ended.

Like he was, he was a very creative person.

Like had an amazing mind for songwriting and but he was not really about the like the, the like hustle of like, you know, we gotta like go out there and meet people and get booked.

You know, like that was pretty much me doing most of that.

And that's kind of where like the discrepancy happened.

I think he'd agree with that as well.

Like he like, cause when we like kind of like stop playing music together, he was, I think for a second, he was like, I'm going to do this on my own.

And then like, he just realized like, I don't have the, like I don't like to network.

Like he was, he was basically just like, I don't, I just like to play music.

And so he kind of was just like, I'm just gonna, he became like a union carpenter.

And he, he basically just like, I mean, he's still, I mean, like his music's still like my favorite music.

He has a like studio in his basement, you know, in a way I'm like jealous of him.

Cause he's like got like an actual income that he can like afford to make stuff, you know?

I'm like, I'm always like trying to like scrap some side gig together between tours and stuff.

But yeah, I'd say I was like the driving force of like making it all, like booking the gigs, doing the emails.

Like I started like a mailing list or, you know, kind of doing the hustle part of it.

And so I was kind of like, at one point I was just like, if I'm going to be doing all that, I kind of want like complete creative control over what I'm making.

So that's one kind of dead tooth.

I mean, first it was the Adventures of the Silver Space Man.

It was like a alter ego that I like to create through.

And then after a while I was like, I just want to be like me and I have a dead tooth.

So I was like, this is more suiting and real.

I'm not a superhero.

I'm just a guy.

You're not?

No, just a regular guy.

But I felt, you know, when it's like scary to make art.

And so I was like, I need like a superhero alter ego to do it through.

That's fun.

And it probably served its purpose for the time.

Yeah.

And it's funny because for those of you who don't know, I have a band, Francie Moon, and people always think it's like the stage name that I chose.

And it wasn't really, it was just this name that I liked.

And I wasn't trying to make like an alter ego or like a superhero person to create through.

But once you are being called this other thing, sometimes it makes you like be way more proud of who you are.

And you're like, wait, but I'm just me.

I just want to be me.

Just change the band name to Mel.

I've thought about it a lot.

Pretty cool.

There's a girl, Marissa sandejas, who she just has Marissa period.

But I think it's like Mercer or something.

Well, not Mercer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, something like, I think so.

Yeah.

But yeah, I like that when someone's just boom, like themselves and yeah, yeah.

I think male period is pretty sick.

No, yeah.

Maybe one day.

We'll see.

Yeah.

I was asking who was the driving force because I feel like in those close, creative relationships, there's usually one person who's like, like running the ship kind of like, right.

Let's go out door.

Let's do this.

The, you know, the idea guy.

Right.

Um, and the other person is going with it.

But that is those.

I feel like that kind of a friendship and musical, whatever, teammate, whatever you want to call it.

It's so important, I feel like, to grow as a musician.

And I feel like people who have that, they're really lucky, you know, who grew up with that person and their life, because it's just like such a beautiful time.

I'm sure you think back to those like barn jams.

And it's just so fun to learn an instrument with someone, you know, or you're just figuring it all out and like dreaming big, you know, and you have no idea what's ahead.

You have no idea, you know, where you're going to be, where you're going to live.

You know, you didn't know you're going to move to New York, you know, in that barn and we'll get you now, like doing all these cool shows and going on these cool tours.

And, you know, it's like it's what you set out to do, but...

Right.

And who knew how it would get here, but it did.

And yeah, I like still listen to those recordings.

We like we had some rudimentary recording here that we were just like making what we thought were great sounding records, you know, like we listen back, you're like, well, that sounds kind of crazy.

The like spirit is definitely there.

I'm like, wow, we were just going for it.

We were writing the epic, the epic song.

We were like, let's, let's go for it.

It's like, just try our best, you know, and you can, you can hear it in the songs.

We were like really, really going for it.

Yeah.

And I feel like those years, like, what was it, like 2007, 2008, the MySpace years is like, you know, nothing was taking your attention, you know, like social media or TikTok or whatever.

So like when you were jamming in the barn, you were jamming in the barn like super hard, you know, no one was stopping you.

Yeah, totally.

I don't know, I kind of have nostalgia for those kind of days too, because it was just, it's just music, it's just pure music.

And that's what you were doing, you know, there wasn't like, oh, we need to promote this, or wait, hold on, let me film this real quick for TikTok.

Like I need a 10 second video of this, or there was none of that.

Like, yeah, maybe you hit record on your like cassette tape recorder, you know, for like later, but it wasn't for 30 seconds later, you're gonna play the team, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I was watching, I was doom scrolling the other day, and I saw a reel of this guy being like, he was like basically doing, you know when people like interview themselves on reels or TikTok, and he was like, he's basically acting as though he was interviewing a musician for like a successful career.

And he's like, so you went to like Berkeley School of Music and you're a very accomplished bass player.

He's like, yep, and he's like, so you've got lots of experience with recording and engineering and mixing and mastering.

He's like, yep.

And then he just like keeps going down this list of like things that just like every like a like is just the quintessential musician.

And then he's like, well, how are you making stupid fucking videos all day?

And he's like, I'm not so good at that.

He's like, sorry, you don't got that.

Yeah.

I know you like need to have that brain now in order to like capture whatever.

But honestly, I have hope for the future though.

I think like good songs, I think regardless of, you know, maybe they might not get that much attention right now if you're not like making crazy TikTok videos to go with it.

But I feel like good songs will last over time, even if, you know, a hundred people love them for the next 30 years.

Like, I don't know, I just feel like good art is, there's still a place for that, you know?

And everything to me is like a pendulum swing.

Like every people are going to get really, really sick, I hope, of the like 30 second stupid video thing.

And I hope everyone just like throws their phone out the window one day and then appreciates full albums again, you know, hopefully.

I think like, I think the more and more it becomes like, just common knowledge that that, that like social media is essentially rotting our brains.

Like, like there's like studies go, like I listened to an interview with a surgeon general of America recently.

And like, he was like saying that what he's pushing for is like, like the same way there's like warnings on cigarette boxes for lung cancer, like warnings every time you go on like TikTok or Instagram, like this will rot your brain to a degree, like just like your dopamine gets all fucked up, like everything's just like all thrown off when you just sit on your phone all day and scroll it like, and I don't know, I feel like, I feel like people, the more that knowledge is just like commonplace, I think people will hopefully be like, I want to put on an album and not sit here and just scroll.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

We were just talking about my with, we were talking when I was hanging out with Chris, my friend, we were talking about another mutual friend of ours, and they were like catching up.

He was like, have you seen any good movies lately?

He was like, I don't really watch movies.

He's like, I kind of just scrolled TikTok for like two or three hours after work before I go to bed.

And he's just like, damn, that's sad.

Like these beautiful pieces of art that have these amazing soundtracks and thousands and thousands of dollars went into the creation and thought and time and artistic concepts.

And you're like, nah, I'm just gonna like watch people like dancing.

Yeah, I know.

It's sad.

It's sad that people, they don't have that, you know, attention span.

Do you feel like that affects like your live performances?

Like, do you feel like you have to like hold people's attention like every second?

Or do you think people have more of a longer attention span when they're like actually in a room, painting for a show?

What do you think?

You know, I've never really thought about that too much.

I've always just loved a good live performance since I was a kid.

Like we used to watch that Fugazi, I think it's called the instrument, the documentary on them.

Have you seen that?

No, but I want to.

That sounds amazing.

It's really cool.

And they were just always performing the shit out of their instruments.

Like, I feel like there's certain performers that they're like, when I get on the stage, this is my stage and I'm going to put on a show.

And when I was younger, I was inspired by like watching Fugazi videos or I don't know, any of those bands that just when they got on the stage, it was just like, and it wasn't for the TikTok, you know, I was like, and but those are the videos that everybody like reposts now, you know, on like, like a few, like for me, my, my feed is full of like 90s videos of these bands just going hard.

And it's like, they weren't doing it for TikTok, they were just doing it for the moment in the thing.

And luckily for me, I grew up, like I didn't have a smartphone till like, pretty late in life.

Like I didn't even, I didn't have Facebook till like after, I got Facebook cause I was like backpacking around Europe with, and I knew my mom, like I called her or maybe emailed her from like an internet cafe.

And she told me that like my childhood best friend was like in the same country I was.

And I was like, oh, how do I get in touch with her?

And she's like, well, you could get a Facebook.

I know she has Facebook, but I was like 21 years old.

And I like, you know, I hadn't had any social media or anything.

And I was like, so I feel like I was lucky.

I like got to like my formative years.

I feel like we're not with that.

So when I get on the stage, I still have the same mindset I did when I was like in my early, like I just, I'm like, we just got to perform.

And I don't really think about that much.

Like, do we got to do something for the Instagram or TikTok?

I'm like, let's just put on the best show, the most lively and through the whole thing.

Like I try not to have like, you know, but there are things like everybody I've noted, like when we have like, you know, there's stuff that happens in our set that I've like, noticed just because when like, after a show and everybody reposts stuff, it's like certain moments everybody like, is drawn to through their phone.

They like, film a lot of the same moments every time.

Like when we go like back to back or something, or like, you know, like when Nola does the dance piece, it's like all this stuff that's like, looks good on the Instagram, but like that was not the intention of like making it, you know, I was like, I just think this would be cool to experience live, you know?

Right.

Yeah, it's funny.

You can tell when a band is doing it for the Instagram, like it actually is one of my pet peeves.

Like when I see like, you know, they're like not performing and then like a camera shows up and then they just, they start head banging out of nowhere and you're like, oh, come on.

Like, this isn't like a, it's not like a shoot we're doing right now.

Like you're doing a show.

You know, like do you like, are you into it or are you not?

If you're not, it's fine.

Like, but you know, I've seen that though where it's like, oh, camera here.

Okay, let's do that crazy thing now.

Yeah.

I try to, try to not think about it too much.

And I think that that's what draws people to a good performance, I think.

When the second they get on stage to the second they get off, they're like, this is the show.

It's not like when the camera comes, I almost feel like sometimes when the camera comes around, I just want to be like, like turn away or like sometimes, but I don't know, we do.

We just try not to think about it.

We're just like, let's just like do whatever we do.

And then, and it is pretty cool that like everything's just captured.

Now, like when I was a kid, I was like, that'd be amazing if somebody caught that on film, you know?

And now I'm like, there's like too many videos of every show.

I'm like, this is insane.

It is funny what you said, like that some people, they take video of the same thing.

Because I've noticed that too, with after I play a show, it's like these certain moments where there's like nine videos of the same ten seconds.

But I also feel like cell phones are the new cigarette, you know, someone picks one up and then the next person picks them up.

And that happened just the other day.

I was at a show and I was like, oh, I should take a video.

And I pulled out my phone, I took like a ten second video, you know?

And then all of a sudden I look and the rest, everyone else just started like taking the video and I was like, this is so weird.

It's kind of like unconscious, you know?

People just say, oh yeah, I should take a video.

Yeah, I mean, I try to like also just supporting friends' bands.

Oftentimes I'm like, oh, I want to take a video of them and post it on the internet.

But then sometimes I just forget.

And then I'm like, shit, I should have got a video of them.

But then I'm like, I was enjoying the show, though.

Like, that's what I'm here to do.

I was just watching the show.

It's the whole point of this, actually.

Yeah, I know.

I know.

I know I feel bad if it's like I watched a set, I didn't, I forgot to like take a video or...

My phone has been so out of space recently too.

Like sometimes I have to delete apps just to like take a 10 second video and then like re, you know, I only have 32 gigs.

What can I do?

What can I do?

Yeah, and I don't even know, I feel the same way in my, like, I don't even understand how this cloud is working.

I'm like, are my photos on my phone or on the cloud?

Like I go to look at my photos and it's like downloading your photo and I'm like, but I see it.

Where is it?

And then, and then it's also my phone's full.

And I'm like, how is my phone full if the photo is not on my phone?

I don't understand.

I'm the same.

I literally don't understand too.

I'm like, why am I paying for this cloud?

And if I can't use my phone anymore, I'm like, I just want to go back to the days where I had a point and shoot camera and I would take the card out and put it in my computer and just dump it all in a hard drive.

And I was like, there it is.

There are the photos.

If I lose that hard drive, they're gone.

Yeah, now I'm scared if I delete a photo off my phone, is it deleting off the cloud?

It's like, now I feel like I have to keep everything or else it's gonna delete off the cloud too.

Yeah, no idea.

And then I watch like, I'm like, I try to watch video tutorials and like, what you wanna do is buy three hard drives and you wanna back up every single one.

And I'm like, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing.

Just skin of the teeth.

Everything's constantly full, just deleting or just stop taking videos.

Sometimes I just stop taking videos for a while.

I'm like, I'm out for a little while.

But then your phone like figures it out, right?

When you stop taking videos.

And then it's like all of a sudden not full anymore.

I'm like, what happened?

Did you like, did you vomit or something?

It missed, it missed you taking videos.

Yeah, I don't know.

Mine is the same thing.

And I'm like, I have to just wait a month and then also I could do whatever I want.

I get kind of nice.

You take a little vacation, you know?

If you and your phone need a little vacation, I suggest you take out.

Sorry, cables.

I love these cables.

I use these cables all the time.

I'm using one right now to record this.

Anyway, this is like a vacation for your sound.

It goes through these wires in a very vacationy sort of way.

Thank you, Sorry Cables, for sponsoring today's episode.

Check them out, sorrycables.com.

Great people, great cables.

Yeah.

All right.

But onward, onward.

Onward, forth.

Yeah.

So you started Dead Tooth.

I remember I met you probably like 2017 or something when you were playing your acoustic stuff at Two Boots.

Right.

I don't know if you had a band then yet, but when did you start playing with the band with Dead Tooth?

The band, Dead Tooth, kind of like, it kind of shifted from that band, the Adventures of the Silver Strakes band, that eventually kind of turned into a rock band that was like a four-piece rock band.

I played guitar the whole time, and there was another guitar player, bass player, and a drummer.

That's kind of the lineup we settled on.

Dylan ended up moving back to the city after going to school in Albany, and he was actually the drummer again.

So full circle, dude from the shop right parking lot started playing with us again.

But yeah, that was probably in 2016 or 17, because I remember River was playing with me, right?

At that time, she was playing violin.

Yeah, so a lot of those songs, River was playing lead guitar parts that the guitar player had written.

So we were gigging as a band at the time, but then when I got asked to do the two-boots thing.

And another thing, River eventually was playing the violin parts that Andrew, my guitar player, wrote.

But he's in like a, do you know Dive?

Yeah, the band?

Yeah.

D-I-I-V?

Yeah.

He played in Dive as well as my band.

And obviously like Dive was like huge at the time, and they're still huge.

So he was like touring with them a lot.

So when he was gone, River actually like learned his lead guitar parts on the electric violin.

Cool.

And so when I met you there and we did that like duo set, I was just like, oh, I'll just do the songs on acoustic guitar and you do the lead parts on violin.

But we were like a full four piece band then.

I can't remember.

I think we had maybe just made the transition to being Dead Tooth.

It was just basically like a name change kind of and a little bit of a lineup change, but it was still, it was always like a little bit of a rotating lineup.

You know how it is.

There's like, like you got a gig and somebody can't do it, but you have to do the gig.

It's like you can't turn down that gig.

Like even when we play with that stuff.

Yeah, it's like against the law.

Yeah.

It's like a free show in somebody's basement.

There's no way I'm turning that.

You're going to lose $400.

Perfect.

Yeah.

But yeah, so River was playing those lead parts.

Dylan was on drums.

Jason, our original bass player, was on bass, who played with us at the Gustav show.

Okay, cool.

After the pandemic, he was like, I don't want to play music anymore.

You know, he didn't not want to play music.

He didn't want to play like in bars, he was out all the time, like DIY Brooklyn shows.

And so he kind of like took a, he was like bowed out a little bit, but he's like, but if you need me, I'd maybe like fill in, you know?

So then he's the one who played with us when we played with y'all at a music hall.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I got like a whole cast of people that if like somebody can't do it at this point, there's like a, it's like having like a football team or something.

Yeah, they're on the bench.

But yeah, so yeah, eventually became Dead Tooth.

And we have like a, you know, we have a band now that's pretty like it's the core members of the band.

We kind of like post pandemic, we I basically had to rebuild the whole band post pandemic recorded an album before the pandemic with the original band with Jason on bass, Dylan on drums, and Andrew.

Andrew on like some songs on guitar, but mostly me, like Andrew was on tour when I was recording it.

But I really loved his guitar playing.

So I kind of like tried to like mimic his guitar style and do the leads that I like do leads I thought he might make, you know, just to keep the sound kind of cohesive because the first Dead Tooth EP was like a four song EP.

And he wrote a lot of those lead guitar parts, and I really loved them.

I was like, these are amazing.

So I kind of tried to like channel his style into the next EP, which was called Pig Pile.

And, but he wasn't around for a lot of it.

So I just like played kind of what I thought he might try to play in his style of like lead guitar.

And then, yeah.

And he was on, he like, I got him for like a day one time.

I was like, come over, like lay down some guitar stuff.

And then he like laid down like a couple little pieces that I ended up like splicing in and like using some of his stuff on like on a few songs.

But yeah, then the pandemic happened.

Jason quit because he was like, I don't want to fuck with being in bars anymore.

When the world's ending, Dylan had a baby, Lil Zinnia, sweet Lil Zinnia, Dylan and Chelsea, high school sweethearts.

They've been together since Dylan and I were playing in high school.

Cart pushing?

Cart pushing, yeah, that's true.

A little after cart pushing.

I think they got together after we probably were both fired from cart pushing.

Oh, you weren't good at pushing carts.

We were great at pushing carts, but we would often just like, I remember we would literally just leave in his like, he had like a sob, like an old sob.

And we would just be like, I think the manager is going to be inside for like an hour.

And I think we like left and just were like, like driving around smoking weed.

And then we came back and they were like, you guys are still like, I think we might've, I don't know if that's how it ended, but.

That's hilarious.

We eventually stopped working at Chop Right.

And then he met Chelsea and they had a baby around that time.

And so he was like, I kind of got to like, take a step back.

I can't really tour.

I can probably do way less local shows.

And then Andrew was just in LA most of the time doing dive stuff because they were like working on a new record.

So kind of like had this record and pandemic was like, shows were starting to happen again, you know, and had to basically from the ground up, like rebuild a band.

And that's when I was working at a Cava bar at the time, called Brooklyn Cava on Soydham Street in Wilson Avenue.

And two of the people there, actually it was really funny, we were shooting a music video for this song Hot Summer.

There was like another inter, there was another line up kind of like mid-pandemic, like coming out of the pandemic, and also like a little bit before, like some of these people were subbing in, this guy Ethan was playing drums, Ethan Glenn, great drummer, awesome dude.

My friend Mark was playing guitar.

But yeah, we just kind of like, everything ended, had to basically build from the ground up, and I was working at this Cava bar, and I met Taylor there, and we were shooting a music video for one of the songs, and Taylor kind of looks like Andrew.

They both have really long hair, and I was like, because Andrew was still like officially one of the members of the band, and there was like this, I wanted to shoot this video, and I wanted Andrew in it, but he was in LA, but it was like a lot of the video took place on a beach, which is called Hot Summer.

And I like, I was like, oh, what if like somebody filmed you playing guitar close up with like a blue sky in the background?

And I got him like a, it was like a, I got him like white scrubs and like angel wings, so he looked like an angel playing guitar.

And then I was like, oh, and then for like the far away shots, we'll have Taylor who like looks like you kind of like stand in, you know?

Like a double.

Yeah, like a double, like a body double.

And so Taylor did, he was like, yeah, sure, I don't give a fuck.

And then we shot this video, and Taylor was like kind of like playing the parts, and he's like kind of doing like cool stuff, just like, because we weren't plugged in or anything, but we're like playing the song, but I could like kind of hear him playing guitar, and I was like, oh shit, he's like doing some cool stuff.

And I knew he was like pretty good at guitar, I seen him in a band called Karaoke Mood Killer.

And he was like ripping, yeah.

And I was like, damn, he's good.

And I like his guitar style.

And then we had a gig coming up and like Andrew couldn't do it.

And I was like, do you want to just actually play the guitar?

Like not just be the stand-in.

There's a nice like superficial way to get in the band.

You know, you look like the guy in the band.

Let's get you in here.

That's hilarious.

Oh my god.

But since then, he's got a really cool, unique style playing guitar.

He's got like a lifted bridge and he like uses his palm like almost like a whammy bar.

Really unique sound.

And also kind of also the way John, the sax player, got in the band is because Andrew couldn't play a show and he's like a musical genius, John.

You could just be like, what's that song by, you know, Shakira?

And he just like play it back to you.

Like he's just like, he doesn't need.

He's got like a, he can just learn.

Like I was like, do you think you could learn all these lead guitar parts for like a gig like tonight?

There was like something like that.

And he was like, sure.

And he just like showed up and played and it was really sick.

And I was like, damn, I kind of want a sax in the band now.

Like kind of want you on the sax now.

And so we ended up just then we had a gig with the lead guitar and the sax.

And I was like, this is just the new thing.

Like this is like full throttle.

Yeah, it sounds awesome.

And I love when they play the same thing too sometimes.

Like the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, right?

It's like, it's like the special type of powerful when the two of them are doing the same thing.

Totally, yeah.

And then they go back to back.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a super fun line up you have.

I mean, even with the rotation of cast members, it's always a good time.

Yeah, it's pretty, it's been pretty, honestly, since the end of the pandemic, it's been pretty consistent.

This has been like James on bass, Taylor on guitar, John on sax and Gino on drums.

And Gino can't really tour, so we have like a fill in for tour for now.

But yeah, it's been pretty much the same thing.

We have like an EP we're sitting on right now that's recorded with that line up.

Are you going to release that as a seven inch?

I saw somewhere.

Yeah, we're doing a seven inch with like a B side.

First, it's like the first release.

We're going to tour in Europe in November, and that's going to be what we bring.

Is that single?

OK, cool.

But yeah, we're sitting on like an EP of of.

I don't know when it's going to come out, come out at some point.

The seven inches is coming out in the fall.

Cool.

So let's talk about tour because your band is sitting in this interesting spot where it's like.

I don't know, there's like, you know, the this the DIY, you know, playing local shows, stuff.

And then there's like the DIY playing, touring and doing all that.

And then there's the notch up where you have some help.

And I feel like you guys are there, right?

You have like a little bit of a team going on right now.

Yeah, we've got a team.

We've got a manager, the label.

We've got like, we've got some help from like our friends at Illegal Mezcal.

They actually like help us out with stuff sometimes.

What is that?

It's a Mezcal company there.

They may be like, it's a really cool Mezcal company that started, I want to say, like 15 years ago or something.

It was like super small batch like Mezcal that they were actually.

I think it started illegally, like that's why it's called Illegal.

It was like a, they were like shipping illegal, like illegally through like drunk smuggling routes or something.

Like it's some crazy story.

But they're really cool.

And we have a friend, we met at South by Southwest and he like, they're really cool.

Like if they love a band, they'll like help you out.

They'll like put you on their show.

They'll throw shows and they'll like help you get places.

They'll be like, we can get you here and here.

They'll help you with your travel and stuff.

Like with finances, they'll help you like, or sometimes, yeah, sometimes.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

They like flew us out to a conference in New Orleans to like play like a liquor conference and they got us paid.

Yeah.

They like, they're really cool.

And so that's like a way that we get places.

We have like a publishing deal now.

Like I kind of like one of our shows that we played post pandemic.

This guy Dave came, who's a lawyer and he basically was like, I really loved that show.

I want to bring my friend.

He's like, he works for Rough trade Publishing to your next show.

And he brought AJ, who's now our manager, because he loved he loved the show so much.

He signed us to Rough trade and signed us to his label and became our manager eventually.

He was just like kind of gunning for us.

Did it all.

And so yeah, that's pretty much the team.

And this dude Jason that lives up in Maine, he like books venues up in New England.

He's part of like the management team with AJ.

It's called Outlier.

And yeah, that's kind of like our team.

And you know, just like tons of connections from playing music all over the years, like as much as they're helping, like I'm hitting up people, you know, like to do stuff all the time.

Yeah.

And how do you make it work?

Like when you guys go on tour, do you take your your newest van?

Your Toyota?

Yes, yes.

That Econoline van eventually actually got stolen.

No.

Yeah, I drove it out to LA.

River and I did like a tour out there when we were dating.

We did like a like a full US tour just as like a duo and her project Ghost Piss.

And my van, that van had made it to Phoenix, Arizona before this.

Like I had a friend who was like opening a cafe in Phoenix, Arizona.

So I was like, I didn't want the van anymore.

I had a car at this point and I was like, I don't really need it.

So I was like, you can take.

He was like looking for a vehicle to have out there to like work.

And I was like, you could just like take it.

Honestly, I was like, I don't even want it.

I'm like sick of this van.

And so he like drove it to Phoenix to help open his cafe.

And then later when we did this tour, like River and I took her mom's van because we actually bought another van that was like a total, it was like a piece of shit.

It didn't work.

Yeah, it was a lemon.

It was a dud.

We got, we lost like $1,300 on this thing.

But we bought it from like a Croatian couple who were traveling and we bought it in cash.

And when they gave us the title, we didn't see it.

But on the title, it said like salvaged and like small print on the bottom corner of the van and on the title.

And that means like you can't drive it.

It's got to get like, it's got to go through a whole process of being like approved is no longer a total vehicle.

And that was like gonna take months.

And we had booked this whole tour.

So we just borrowed her mom's van and we drove out to California.

And on the way, I was like, I was like, hey dude, it's like my van's still there.

And he was like, yeah, but it's not really starting.

But I know how to like jump this van with a screwdriver actually, so I went out there and I like started up the van and then drove it to LA.

And then after our tour, we like lived in this big van for like a month in LA.

It was like a huge, we like put a bed back there.

And but eventually had to come back to the East Coast because the tour was over and we toured back and we had to get River's mom's van back.

And I like, this guy was like nice enough to let me keep it on his property, like outside of Joshua Tree in the desert.

But like one day he was like, dude, I'm really sorry to tell you this, but somebody stole your van.

I wonder if they had to jumpstart it with a screwdriver.

Yeah, I was like, how did they do that?

I don't even know.

Part of me was like, maybe he was just sick of having my van and got like, it was like either way company just stole the van.

It was so weird.

Either way, I was like, that's all good.

I literally left a van on your property for like a year.

Yeah.

I felt kind of bad.

That's like kind of like the rule, like if you leave an amp at someone's house for like more than a year and it just mysteriously disappears, it's like that's on you guy.

Yeah, totally.

Squatter's rights.

I hope he's driving around, you know, maybe he's driving around still.

I actually hung out with him last time I was LA.

He's a really cool guy.

He's got a sick band called The Normans, or Normans, I think.

Cool.

That's a fun story though.

But yeah.

So, oh yeah.

So now, sorry, that was a long tangent.

It's okay.

I liked it.

Now, so during the pandemic, I bought, because I had all that sweet pandemic money coming in.

I bought a 1993 Toyota Previa, also matte black.

It's a minivan.

And it's like, it's got six, it's got a bench in the back and then two captain seats in the back back.

So what we do is I take one of the captain seats out, I have a storage unit to keep it in.

And then we put all the gear in the back.

And then I have a roof rack that my parents gave me.

My parents had a roof rack and they gave me it.

And we just load like our personals up there and the gear in the back.

And then we have five people in a minivan and it works.

It's not terribly uncomfortable.

It's not the most comfortable thing.

There's like two people on the bench typically, one person up front and then one person in like the backpack.

And it's all pretty tight.

You know, like if you're in the backpack, you got like gear right to your left.

But yeah, we make it work.

And it's, you know, the amount of money I've saved on like renting a van on the amount of times we've toured, like it's paid for itself for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's huge to have your own van.

But also you, you know, you're beating it up too.

Yeah.

You have to like fix it.

But this van, I mean, it's a 93.

So you'd think it's like doesn't have a lot of life left in it.

But I bought it and had 90,000 miles on it.

And the dude that had it, he took really good care of it.

It's just in perfect shape, perfect condition pretty much.

Like there's nothing wrong with it.

The air conditioning still where I was like, this is a 93 vehicle.

The air conditioning is still cooking.

Like just drove back from upstate the other day.

And I was like, it's nice and cool in here.

That's amazing.

It's like unheard of.

I know.

And I've done a lot of research because I was trying to buy a van.

Like I was like, a minivan is the way.

Having that big Econoline van, I was like, it's just a gas guzzler.

It's like 12 miles to the gallon.

You'll just go broke, you know?

Like if every time you fill up the tank, it's like 100 bucks.

And you don't even go that far.

So the minivan was like the move.

I was looking for like a Honda Odyssey or something.

And then I found this one on Craigslist.

And it was just like, it was not what I was looking for at all, but it was really cool looking.

It kind of has this weird like egg shape.

It was matte black.

And I was like, every time I see like a matte black van, I think I'm just like, I think that's the one.

And so I went and I bought it.

And it's been there ever since.

I actually got T-boned in it once.

No.

And the guy ran a red light and just like hit right where I was sitting.

And I was fine.

Everything was fine.

The whole like post got knocked in.

And I was basically in a position where I either had to get it totaled, because like those old vans on the books are not worth a ton.

But I was like, I think I just want to like fix it, even though it's going to cost basically what it cost me to buy it the first time.

I'll have to just buy it again.

But I was like, honestly, I either have to buy another used van that I don't know anything that's wrong with it, where I know this one's good.

Like I'd already driven like 20,000 miles on it.

And it was great.

Like no problems.

And I was like, this thing goes and the AC still works.

I was like, I could buy another like a Honda or something Honda Odyssey.

And I don't know, I don't know what I'm getting into, you know?

So I just fixed it.

It cost exactly what it cost me to buy it again.

And I just bought it again.

Essentially, I was like, I'm not I don't know.

This seems like the like it's kind of dumb in a way, but I'm like, but it's also not like I would just have to buy a different one if I didn't.

Yeah, no, I totally get it.

Yeah.

It only has 110,000 miles on it.

And all the research I've done into Toyota Previus is like a cult of people that have had these vans.

They're like, it'll go to three or 400,000 miles.

If you just change the oil and like get the brakes replaced when they need to go, like this is literally not a lot of maintenance you got to do and it'll just go like everybody.

Like just if you go on Reddit and you're like Toyota Previus, it's like a van that's known for lasting.

So I was like, there's 90,000 miles on when I bought it.

I'm just going to drive it till I can anymore, you know?

And even when like if we get to a point where we're like renting like a Sprinter or something, we can like afford that.

I'll just like turn it in in my like camping van or something and just live out of it when I want to because it's cozy.

Yeah, vans are the best.

I'm a van person.

I have a van.

I have a Toyota Sienna.

There you go.

So you know, the Toyotas go.

Yeah, yeah.

And have you ever seen that?

It's like a Toyota.

It was like a Craigslist ad for a Toyota Corolla.

And it was like, it was like this car is just going to go.

And it was like one time I had like a noise happened and I just kept driving and the noise stopped.

And it was just keeps going.

And that literally happened.

Or like I had two lights come on in my van and I just kind of like waited a month kind of like with my phone.

And it's like it stopped and I was just like, yeah, it fixed itself.

Like sometimes you just like you just hit a speed bump at the right speed and the car just like fixes itself.

Yeah, you know, that happened to me with the starter was going like the starter, it would just like click and you had to go in there and you had to hit it with like a drumstick while somebody tried to start it and it would start eventually.

And I was like, shit, I got to replace that.

One time I had to get a toad because it was happening.

And then now it's just not doing it anymore.

I'm like, do I replace it?

I'm like, I don't know.

Do I just keep riding it out?

Maybe it'll happen again or maybe not.

I don't know.

But I'm like, it kind of costs a lot for a new starter.

Maybe, you know, and I already had it replaced once.

So I'm like, yeah, maybe it's just a little tired.

I feel like vans, they kind of mimic where you're at.

Like if you're tired, your van is also tired, you know, and it starts doing weird stuff.

And then you rest for a couple of days, your van gets to rest.

And then, you know, it's like a person and their dog, you know, you're like on the same wavelength.

I also feel like if I get it out of the city and I drive it around on like some nice country roads, it like fixes it.

It's like now it's running real smooth, like you got some wind through it, you know, it's like a dog, you need to get like run around on the beach or something.

Yeah, the dog is like super happy.

So we were I was just upstate for like four or five days.

And now that that van is like, it's feeling good.

Yeah, it's starting right up every time.

Very happy to get out, to get out of the city.

That's hilarious.

All right, everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of What It Takes To Be A Rockstar.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.

And watch out next week, next Tuesday for part two coming out with Zach, where we continue this conversation.

Bye.