Marc Roberge of O.A.R.

That's why the name Artist Friendly matters to me because I feel like it's giving more credit to an artist for the dynamics of what they can provide, what they can do, you know, and that's a message to the people watching. For me, my music and everything we do is based on the good feeling you used to get when you were in your room, it was raining outside, you opened up the windows and you had your book or you had whatever you had and it was just that. The smell of the rain, the peacefulness of that moment or that you had, and whether that's there or at the park or walking down the street hanging with your voice, what we're about is trying to deliver that feeling to people through our music and through our shows. It's good that you're here. We want you here. How's LA treating you? It's beautiful. Do you live here? I live in New York. Okay. So it's good to be here on a break and get a little... From the weather? Yeah, from the weather. It's bitter. It's bitter to ask you in bitter in New York. Yeah, but I was kind of glad to get a cloudy day in LA because I don't think I could handle 80 degrees yet. It's wet. I prefer overcast cloudy days here in California because it's the closest thing, especially in the fall months, it's the closest thing to home that I feel seasonal. And obviously, Maryland is a very seasonal place and like, what the cold fucking sucks when you're there, but when then when you leave for a year, I've been gone for 20 plus years, you miss it. Yeah. If you could say with OAR, 30 years this year, I always thought you guys were super cool in how you like operated and moved because it feels like 30 years of kind of a dedication to a practice versus trying to grab onto a moment or... You know, it's hard to explain, but I feel like you know what I'm talking about. When you're navigating a career in music, especially when you're younger, you sometimes feel and maybe it's internal pressure or in some, maybe it's external influence. It's different for everybody. I'm not judging that part. You feel a need to like keep up with the moment or the time or the... And then you have like some version of a hit or a success or you did something and you almost like discredit all the work that led to that moment and you give it to something else like... I don't know, the stars lined up and the song is a hit instead of like, now we put out like fucking five songs and then we built some momentum and then this moment happened because XYZ, there's probably a lot of factors. And so I'm setting it up for you to explain, but there is something like an anxiety and a pressure in music sometimes if you chose this for a career and a life and you're trying to make a living and also make art and also do all the things. It's like constantly looking around and keeping up. It can feel like that. It's a very kind of pressure and anxious feeling. And from the outside, because I've always, with OAR, I've always known and followed you guys because the Maryland thing. So it's like a very proud... Yes, same, same. You know what I mean? From Maryland, there's not hundreds of bands you could point to and say like, this is all Maryland. There's like maybe dozens that's right that we could point out of artists who came from where we're from, where you're like, oh, that's 45 minutes away from me or that's an hour away from me. I know that place. I know those people. So I always had like an affection for Maryland. Yes. So keeping up with OAR, I've always felt like you guys were more of like, there was like a dedication to a craft and a practice of playing live. And then it felt like the record experience was something like even still a bit of a live thing in a bubble. Like you're... Yes, chasing that, trying to get it. You know what I mean? So it felt like a dedication and a practice to something musical that felt very like calming and almost like farming or like some other craft or some other life of dedication to something where you're like the weather, the this, the that, should we, should we not? So that's my perspective of OAR, right? My experience of it from the outside. Everything you just said, it just kept hitting home with me because I know, I think you've experienced the same thing I've experienced coming where we come from, doing the job we've chased. Yeah. And when you say a practice, it makes a lot of sense to me because what we have always told each other is just be ready. So we're not chasing a fad or chasing anything. It's just we're doing the live music job and we're ready if something commercial comes along. And we're ready if a hit, if a song becomes a hit to then follow up and do that job. So you had to capitalize or be opportunistic on the good weather or, you know, make the hay when the sun's shining type thing. It's so dead on. And the first time I met you, you know, you said just a few things in a very short meeting, you know, we're at summer in Maryland out at Oceans Calling and I'm standing there and with just a few words you'd said, I knew I could identify with you because you look at things and the name of the show is perfect because it's from the point of view of knowing that we know something. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, for sure. And in this job, a lot of times maybe people don't think you know stuff. You're just there to make a song. You know, I always say as a joke and as serious, but you're prancing around on stage. Right. Yeah. Now we're not prancing around on stage. It's a craft that we, to be excellent, to be in the league, to be NBA level or pro football level or a major league baseball level at your craft is a practice. Yes. And there's a precision to it when a band is good and they're on the big stage. You cannot be subpar. Right. Right. Because it's live. That's right. And so great live bands like yourself, this is 30 years of a dedication to being, to doing something that takes precision on a big stage. You guys have sold out Madison Square Gardens multiple times. You've done Red Rocks. These are the biggest stages in the world. And so to be excellent, it's a life of dedication. And you do have to have natural talent and put the work and all that. We do get treated sometimes like, oh, the singer of that band. He's just like, I do feel in some rooms, I'm just like the dumb rock guy who, all I do is sing in a band. You're like, well, no, we've been playing a game of survival and being smart and figuring out how to do this for a living. Because also making a living doing this is more complicated than people. As you get older and you create a family, right? Yeah, it is. And there's layers and all that. And so we do know stuff. And then if this was a model of success, if we just took your band, we said, okay, let's analyze the last 30 years. And let's take every decision, micro decision, major decision, big inflection points, big deals, little decisions, little deals, and put it all on a table. First of all, it would take us months to go back. And then to analyze it, we would see whether it was all instinct, whatever the process was. To me, it's like any other business. You could try to track how someone built a business. And treat it in a long form. You know, it's something both your group and ours have done. It's overwhelming. It's that when we're looking at it, I'm not looking at, oh, this weekend I want to be famous and I want to get some money. Right? I'm looking at, okay, my dad and my mom worked tirelessly. And we got jobs when we were 14. That's what you do. So when the band became a job, that's what I look at it as. Success. Right? And so you have to be ready. So our whole thing is like, listen, we had fun partying. We did all the cliche things you're supposed to do. We did young. We did tons of it, but now it's not the place for that. You know, it's the time for, I guess, really, you said professional sports. We feel like we're in the league. Yeah. But you got to stay in the league. Yeah. And in order to do that, you have to take yourselves, not seriously, in that you're saving the world, but that your craft, right? Be unapologetic about honing in on an artistic endeavor. Whereas maybe sometimes you feel like, I know this is silly, but I like to make stuff. I know this is silly, but I like to make music and cover an art. I like to do all this wacky stuff. Now, if I can make that a living, make a living out of it, and I can do my wacky art stuff, I'm going to be unapologetic about it. And I hope that when my kids go, Hey, you know what? I like how hard they work. I'm going to work hard, but maybe not in the same sense of business or whatever. But he's showing me that you can work hard and do something a little off base. You can do both. Music is that opportunity, but it'll cut you down. I mean, you just have to stay in the game. I love what you're saying. And I'm going to say, I'm going to stay on that for a minute, because I just was thinking about this the other day. There's whole schools, the Frost School of Music, the Iving School of Music at USC, Frost is at University of Miami. There's the Band-Aire program up in Syracuse. So these whole institutions being built that are going to be there now forever on analyzing, formalizing, intellectualizing what we did, whether it was intuitive or not, whether we decided what you just said was my wacky art, right? Me too. Because that's how it was labeled when we were kids. We're from the same generation. And especially in Maryland, it's not like it's an industry in Maryland where you go, oh, that's one career path. I mean, there's a pathway to some life. We're taught growing up in the industrialized school system that was built decades and decades and decades, 100 years ago, probably when it began in the 1930s, with the need for workers, let's build a system that builds workers. So then that kind of system has evolved a little bit, but it's not actually a creative system. And so we need a one size fits all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then out of the school system comes people who are good in systems. So then they go to college and college is cool. It's great. I'm not, I didn't go to college, but because that wasn't in the carts for me. That wasn't on the table, the money, the opportunity, and even just having an adult help me go, hey, this is how you go to college. You fill out these things and you go and you visit schools. And I had none of that. My parents were, they couldn't do it. They were off trying to stay alive. So then I go, well, I, my whole life now 30 years into my journey with good Charlotte and my own interest in business and career and my hunger for growth and all that stuff. I now realize how fucking serious it is. And what I've done, I take seriously and it's not wacky. It's right. It's just wacky to a large group of people who can't see a building where an empty lot is. If we use terms for people to understand, if I see an empty lot and I go, I'm going to build a building here and it's going to be magnificent. Okay. Good luck with that. You know, that's kind of how it feels to be an artist. So like, oh, how's your little, uh, your music thing going? Oh, everything's giving. Yeah. How's that music going there? Like my fucking band that, uh, you know what I mean? You're like, like that being said, God bless them. When you come out of a system that only teaches a few pathways, you can't see a pathway. What most people I find to no fault of their own cannot see a path if they have not been told the path is there by someone else. And so what I encourage people that are listening, so people who like OAR or people who like any of the artists that have been on the show, enjoy it as a fan to see the person that you, you love their music and then you get a sense of the person and you go, I fucking like them more. I knew why I, I know why I like the music now. I like the person. Generally, that's nine out of 10 times is going to go that way. Right? It's, it's not what we're told, which is all successful artists and famous people are bad. Actually, it's more like they're all super creative and most of them are generous and most of them are excited to help and most of them get excited by other artists. And then there's a percentage of bad apples, like all things, but take away the idea of the pathway. So when you started with OAR, you guys were in college? We were in, so our story starts for us in eighth grade. Okay. We're at the talent show and we had Frost Junior High School in Rockville, Maryland. Wow. And we're there and we decide, we want to play some Pearl Jam. And I want to do what Ed did on the unplugged for porch. I want to do the whole song just like that. And that's what I want to do and we're going to do it. And we went out on the stage and we played and we were hooked immediately. I remember sitting behind the stage in the hallway, sitting on Richard's on his guitar and he's nervous as hell. And I was nervous as hell. But something about it wasn't like nerves turn away and leave. It was nerves, let's get out there now. I gotta get out there now and deal with this. I got to deal with it. It's here, it's in here somewhere and I've loved working my jobs. I've loved working and cleaning people's golf clubs and I love doing all that stuff at the country club. I love doing that. But this is something different. So you worked at a country club? Yeah. That's cool. Richard worked in Banquet, cleaning dishes and I cleaned golf clubs. Oh wow. That's cool. It was awesome. That's cool. I was like Caddyshack in real life. So when I'm sitting there and I remember going on the eighth grade stage and playing the song and feeling like this is what I want to do. How can I keep doing this? Because no one's really showing me. My brother was in a band. I knew about touring bands. I knew that I liked touring. I liked the ruggedness. I wanted, I had an image in my head of a person in the wild west, always on the road basically. And that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to gain some sort of respect by being on the road and I'm in eighth grade. So then ninth grade comes, high school. Look, I didn't want to be popular. I wanted to play music. So we played in the cafeteria, original music during lunch. Nobody wants to hear original music, but we did it. I faced that nerve, you know, faced that shit. And then you did that. And then it was like backyard birthday parties and keep going until we were recording records in Kensington. And putting those tapes out and selling them for five bucks, people buying them, put a stamp of approval on, yeah, keep chasing that nerve, that weird, I love what my dad does. I respect the hell out of what he do. He worked in, he was a lawyer. My mom was a teacher. I taught at Redland Middle School for 35 years and like, our drummer's mom was a teacher. Like, I love what everyone's doing, but I want to try this, this thing. So I'm going to aim at it. And so what we did was in high school, we were selling tapes and selling CDs and we all said, where can we keep doing this? We have to find the biggest college campus in the world. None of us had good enough grades to go to University of Maryland or any of those types of colleges, but Ohio State at the time was pretty welcoming. I just, how else to say it, you could get in. And we got in and we knew there were the most bars in this circumference of this campus. And so we went there with intention, faced that we went into town, no one wanted us there. We were under 21, they wouldn't even book us in the bars, but we just would rent out the place ourselves. I'm always kind of trying to chase this thing, maybe not just for me to feel like I can be an artist, but do it in a way that respects the art as a business and like, not fuck up, not be a fuck up, be a musician, a touring music. And so that just was always in our heads and we would continue to do that. So we grew in our Idaho State and really started to spread more regionally there. And that's what took us into the tour bus. I remember I leaving school in 2001 and our first tour was opening for Kid Rock like five seconds later at Memphis and May and all these festivals. And I said, there's our first tour bus. You remember all this shit. And you're like, you can make two choices here. I want to lean into this and party myself into a hole, or I would just want to party myself halfway into the hole and keep my eye on the prize. And that's where OAR went. Yeah, that's just smart. But I think it was more just the respect for this. I had this image in my head of a rock star who wasn't famous for anything other than live show. Yeah. And that's what he rests his laurels on or her laurels on. Yeah. And so I try to stay on that focus at all times and be ready for the commercial stuff. And when you got it, you got to turn it on and do all that. But it really all is based on the music. Do you think you were more inclined not to fall into the excess because you come from like a stable family? Like, do you think there's something to the good kind of stable home life? Look, I do think there's there are addicts out there, but I think it's a smaller category than people think. Like I do think there are people who are just they are addicts. They have the disease that we would call like need sobriety. I think that's our and then I think there are people who are medicating like trauma and and like ding ding ding. And so I think those are two different things. As an older guy, you could sit there and tell the kid like, yo, you need to stop that right away. You're closer than you think to closer than you think. What a great way to put it because when I'm sitting there, I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was Bonnaroo number one or Bonnaroo number two. It was our first time at Bonnaroo, but it was very early. And I had a guitar tech, Darryl, who's an amazing person. We loved him to death. He was hilarious. We had lifetime of memories together. He's there. And then he's gone because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he was killed. And so the world kind of just came to a screeching halt. And you look at that situation, you go, Hey, he's not wrong or right. He's not a good or bad person. I'm not good, but I'm literally on that same. I'm right there with them. We're all on that. And we don't even realize it. We're on the buses together. We're cruising around doing the same shit together. And however you justify moment, but I'm good, but I don't do that. I go to bed at three or whatever it is. It's all the same shit. So it took a while to realize that. But when we did have two, three bad things happen, finally it sunk in. You're just going to give it away. You're just going to give it away. So it's like no one's going to come save you. No one's going to give you that advice that you know you could give to a 20 year old right now. No one's back then. No bands were, Hey, little brother, come on over here. Let me bands didn't do that. It wasn't like that. And now it seems like they're a lot more communicative with each other. Back then it wasn't like that for us. Yeah. Well, now we live in a time where information is shared freely and quickly and all every day. So if you went on Instagram or TikTok or anywhere, you could find someone with talking about the thing you're looking for. So we do get what we look for. So if you look for bad on in the modern space of social media, you can find plenty of it. But also if you're looking for information, you can find it. If you're looking for inspiration, you can find it. If you're looking for, I want to figure out how he did it. You can find it. And so that's different than in the nineties and in the 2000s. It was very confusing. It really was. You're looking around. You're seeing what everybody's doing. I mean, blind melon, great example. We all love blind melon. What happened to Shannon? It affected everyone in the system because you're looking like that's real. That can actually happen. I think when I was coming up in rock and roll, stories of tragedy were stories of tragedy or myths. They were happening in folklore. I used to people I didn't, I wasn't part of the world. But then you become part of that. You see them in real life and you get to know the person. And they are a real person. They're not like a rock god. We're almost like when, you know, one of these guys like Shannon died as a fan. And before we were in on those festivals, in those tours, it's almost like they ascended to heaven. Yeah. Right. Like you would think like, oh, he just disappeared. You don't think of the implications of how awful an overdose is, how awful a suicide is, how awful the depths of what someone, of what their life becomes, what someone's life becomes generally most of the time when they overdose and they're living in that they're on that edge long enough for it to happen. Because it's not a matter of if it's going to happen with certain drugs. It's more just like when. Yeah. That's also the thing when someone goes all the way and they just become the drug addict and it's just out there and everyone knows, then everyone's just kind of like, I wonder when they're going to die. It's a weird thing. We don't say that loud. Right. And then so for us, like we didn't know that in real life. No. In real, yeah. And then we get on the road and it's still a fantasy camp. Crazy. Everyone's living it and then something real happens. Someone dies. And then you say, okay. Wait a second. That that can happen? I don't want that to happen to me. How do I get out of this cycle that I'm in? Because I'm not, it's not like tomorrow doing done, you know. Yeah. You're doing shows every night. You're playing five nights a week. You think, I mean, I was at the point where I, you're like smoking cigarettes because you think it's clearing your voice up. Oh yeah. I have something much better. I had an engineer once I was in a, I had quit smoking cigarettes finally and I'm singing and I'm recording and he's saying, something's different. Can you, you want to smoke? I was like, no, I'm good. Right. So this is like in a, in a nutshell. And we were the clean guys smoking cigarettes and drinking. You know what I'm saying? So in a nutshell, you're put into this situation where you're in the, in this weird fantasy mythological world of rock and roll. And then you realize it's not so mythological. Bullshit. It's all bullshit. So then you either make that decision. Am I going to be one of these or am I going to be one of these? And you got to work hard. You got to work hard to fucking maintain, battling that because it's so tempting. I'm not saying drugs or alcohol, cigarette, whatever it is, it's the life that's tempting. Easy to fall into if you don't, back to where we started though, you can be a serious guy and you can be serious about life. And it doesn't mean you have to be not fun, but you can be a fucking player. You can get in the game and people can go, I can give him the ball. He's a serious guy. I can work with him. Yes. He's serious. He does what he says or he'll give me the straight up answer. You know the serious guys who just speak plainly. Yes. They'll tell you if they can or they can't or this or that and it's not that complicated. And you respect the hell out of them. And you respect the hell out of them. You're like, I don't know why I respect this guy so damn much. And then you find out he's just a fucking serious guy. He's dedicated to something, whether it's his craft or his wife or his kids, something. Yes. You know, everyone's different, but you start to see the same qualities in all the serious players. They show up every day. They practice, they work. And then there's this like calm, stern reverence to something not like it. Oh, this is going to be, we can dream, but then there's like a respect for the work we all know it's going to take. Yeah. And so there's a calmness to it because we know that the work is ahead 100% instead of the how big something's going to be, how great something's going to be, how this, you're like, after a while, all that falls away and it's not the championship is a moment if you get there. We all know how fleeting that is. And if you get there, you're focused. You're actually not partying. You're not. And that's why in an older age, we realize in music how hard it actually is. And how rare. Yes. You look around OAR, how many people have you seen try and not succeed. It gives you a gravity to your own career because it's actually not about the platinum. You guys have platinum records. You have gold records. You could put it all on the wall there and you'd be like, oh, shit, we've accomplished some shit. Yeah. I have stats right here. It's 30 years of platinum records, gold records sold out this sold out that. And then just to be at a 30 year anniversary, when you see it all on one thing and you go, oh, I have a deep respect and gratitude because I lived through all of it. And if you said, hey, now you got to go back and do the whole thing over, I go, nope. No, no fucking way I could do that. Well, you couldn't repeat it. You couldn't repeat it because then you'd be, you know what you'd be in? You'd be in the game of if I do this, I'll be successful. If I do this, I'll be famous. If I'm famous, I can do that. That's never the game. Y'all never did that. We didn't do that. You stumble through until you get older and then you realize like, I wasn't stumbling as much as I thought I was acting on instinct. And it felt like I was stumbling because no one was telling me like, hey, kid, you're doing a good job. You know, keep trusting your gut. What's the difference in trusting your gut and making instinctual decisions and stumbling through the fog? That's a great question because there's a difference between following your instinct and trusting your gut, right? Because like, I think trusting your gut is just something that it happens to you. Walk into a room, you know, you're in the wrong room. It's four in the morning. I'm in the wrong room. I'm going to leave. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, yeah. All right, I'm out. That's your gut. Your instinct might say to you, hey, if I get my shit straight, something is telling me that's the right way to go. And it's going to take longer. Yeah. It's going to take a lot longer. And I love your sports analogies because that's we're constantly talking about that. You've made it to the show, right? You're in the NHL or whatever, staying there. Okay. Most times in music and sports, 30 years old, see you later alligator. That's a wrap, right? They don't need you anymore. They don't want you anymore. So then you're talking about when you start in your 30s, that's when you really got to get your act together and trust your instinct. Your guts going to keep you out of trouble. Have your shit together. Have your shit together. Your guts going to keep you out of trouble. Your instincts going to keep you on the right path to success. That's good. You know what I mean? And I feel that if I'm able to follow that instinct at all times, it will lead you to the right place. And it might sting. It might sting. Yeah, yeah. It hurts a little bit. Yeah, you got to go on tour. Oh, I got to go and play this opening on this tour for six months. Okay. Because that's where I'm going to the next thing and the next thing. And it's not necessarily to be, again, famous, known. It's to be successful in this job that you've been gifted. This job is so rare, dude. It is a rare job. It's so fucking rare. So to just flaunt it or just to like dismiss it or take it for granted. Take it for granted, disrespect it. Right. It just, it became clear to us. And again, not the first 10 years. First 10 years, paddle to the metal, no, no, what's going on. Yeah. But then when they wanted to get rid of us from the music business, that's when we really, I remember getting sat down at 30 by Atlantic Records going, well, we had a great run. We're done. You guys went through an entire deal. Great job. We had just come off our biggest song. We had shattered. It was like our biggest song. I'll never forget it. It was June 12th. I'm sitting in my bus and my dear friend from Atlantic Records is sitting with me and he's like, all right, I didn't think him. We're going to get fucking paid. We're about to get a deal. And he's like, good luck. And that's it. They're like, well, you know, right? We just don't think. We had a great time. Y'all did great. Good job, guys. Good luck. Basically is what they're saying. You did great in the NFL until your 30 now. It's time to go off. And we, we looked at that and that, that inspired me. Let a fire inside of me to just continue doing what I'm doing. Follow my instinct. Even though somebody's sitting right next to me telling me it might be, that's a wrap for you. My instinct said, no, no, no, you just keep going. You'll be all right. It's going to hurt. It's going to sting like make decisions based on the right thing. And it's going to be harder. You know, I thank God I have my wife. I mean, she, I went to high school. She was my best friend in high school. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Became my girlfriend and then my wife. So she's always there with that objective viewpoint of like, Hey, when I'm calling, God, we just got dropped. She's like, who the fuck cares? Because she knows the long game, right? So if you can just dial in on that instinct and that long game, it's way more important and it's way more healthy. I think, because if your expectations in this game are to be successful for 30 years, it's probably not going to happen. You got to really go for it and really try hard and it'll sting. But we got lucky. I always say we got lucky 100 times, but we were just ready. I think you go down the road and if you're focused and prepared as you can be, the most physical manifestation, I could say of success is when you look at the guy who lives in the gym and he's ripped and you go like, Holy shit, how the fuck did you do that? It's dedication. Yeah, he'll go, I came here every day. Every day, I come here every day. I eat this every day. I do this every day and you're like, Holy shit, good for you, man. That's dedication. Yeah. But if we play that out in that same dedication out in lots of other ways, you see other forms of excellence, right? People who are intellectual, they've read, they've dedicated their whole life to understanding things. People who have careers in certain fields, surgeons who are the best surgeon, well, there's some talent. There has to be some inclination. Yes. I think no one can just have a music career. That's not or a painting career or a basketball career. Right? That's another one I say, like, if I go baseball, basketball, football, if I, I'm not going to say to a guy who's 411, that he can't play in the NBA, I'm going to say it's a very hard thing to accomplish. Most of the guys are tall. Here's what I, but here's what I would do and then you're getting feedback. So if you're good, mugsie bows, there's, there's examples of it happening. So I'm not ever going to tell anyone it's impossible. What I think should be the main focus of everyone's personal journey is their own success. Yes. Become a master of something. And of yours. Yes. And it's not about, thank you, you're nailing it. Dude, every time you talk, it's just right in here. I get what you're saying because I feel like if you become a master of what's important to you, it leads to all those other things, respect. Things will come to you because you have been, you've had that discipline. The use of the word of mastering anything, right, is not to be the master of, but to master it. So a master painter, a master carpenter, that's how I think is like, how do we continue to build on what we've done and do better and better and music. And so what I think where we're at now, which is you guys are a great example. So OAR, 30 years in this, just getting started in the real career. What I think is the mastery of music business and art coming together to create experience for people where they can count on it. You don't have to guess, is this going to be worth the money I'm spending? Can I come out like Oceans Calling is a great example? Like you guys put together this experience, it's live, people need it. And now it's this really amazing thing. We loved it. Yeah, you guys, dude, just having you guys there meant so much. It was so great. To every one of us. First of all, I told you this story, but we used to pretend that we were friends with you. Because we would go to fucking like, we were always on the outskirts of like the VMAs or the blah, blah, blah, all this bullshit. And we'd be on the carpet and they'd be like, who are you guys cheating for? And we'd always go, this is our boys, go to Charlotte. Like we would just straight up die. Yeah. Well, no, we always had a connection whether we knew each other or not. There's a, I found this with everyone too from Maryland, different genres, different moments. There's actually like a genuine for the most part, right? All the real artists, right? That are working. Like I think across like like Maggie Rogers, there's all these different artists, right? There's a lot of like shared love and respect for what everyone had to do to make it an ecosystem that has zero opportunity for arts and entertainment. Zero industry on the national level, right? There's a localized support, which I think is super important. And I also think like why we're also genuinely like, I actually find the through line as well for Maryland folks is like a decency and like good manners. Like I would agree, genuinely nice. And I would agree. And we kind of accept everyone's because Maryland's like this bubble of everything you have the very diverse, far left, super diverse, every culture, every, it's a, they say it's like the microcosm of America. It is, right? And then you have DC, it's super this. And then you have Baltimore, it's super this. But like there is a through line I find with all Maryland people on this kid, you know, Luke Borschelt. No. Oh, you gotta get Luke Borschelt, dude. What is it? He's country singer for real. Okay. And he's from Riva. He's from that area, right? Like Baltimore, Annapolis on the on the river area. And I love his music. And we were talking about this. There's something, it doesn't matter what genre you're in. There's no genre in Maryland. Everyone's doing like it's all a little folky. Even if you dig into Good Charlotte, you could hear the origins. What's songs, dude? Yeah, songs, songs. You could play them in any style and they're going to hold up. You could jam it. You could do this. If you break, if you take away the guitar amps or this or that, you could, there's a core like quality you hear in all this music that came out of Maryland, that's songs. Yep. And then you kind of almost hear like a bar. You could hear them in a bar. Yeah. Even the R&B music or whatever. Like it's interesting. Like there's something super like root C in organic. That's what I always felt about Maryland. That's what I always tapped into about Maryland. That's why we would be so outspoken of our support of Good Charlotte or Wale or anybody who came from anywhere near us, not because we would gain anything from it, but because we genuinely were proud. Yeah. There's a pride there. And it's a small group and it is a small group. And I think to your point earlier about the mastering of something, it's like, you need the time to do that. So all those mistakes and lessons learned in the first 10, 20 years, they're buying you time to like, you got to make some right decisions at some point to keep going, to get to the point of master because it's not going to happen in 10 years. It's not going to happen in 20 years. It's not going to happen in 30 years, but you still need to like buy your time. And so at some point, you have to find out for yourself, why am I doing this? My kids are going to school. I'm on the road. This is happening. I'm on the road. Why am I? What am I doing? What's the ultimate? What's this for? It's got to be, it's not for money. You could figure out a way to make the kind of money. Yeah. Listen, bands, it's a blessing and all that, but you could figure out a job to make the kind of money. Yeah. It's something else. Yeah. It's the why. What is it? What is it that, you know, any relationship you've ever been in, they've wondered, what comes first? What's the deal? And you're like, I don't even know at this point. And then you get a phone call and it's an opportunity. It's a balance. And like, you're just buying time, just try to keep it going, you know, and you can't go too hard in because then you're going to lose everything at home. The balance, man. And I feel to bring it back to Maryland, the way I think we were raised in Maryland was in a sort of accepting way of life, of anyone's choice of life, choices, love, job, anything. And so there was an opportunity there for you to take this chance and be this music person. And people were silently supporting you. You just felt like, Hey, I can do this. I can try this. And if I keep making some good decisions, I'll get to do it another year, maybe. And then it's a little more and a little longer. And they started talking, well, it's a sacrifice. I mean, you're just going to like, you're just giving up your life to go on the road. No, it's a balance. It's not a sack. You know, I'm missing out on things and I hate the fact that I missed out on them. But I feel like maybe they bought me some time later that I would never have had. Yeah. You know, it's not all going to feel good. It's not all going to be right. Like you said, I mean, you miss all the weddings, you miss all the birthdays, you miss all the things that you would have otherwise experienced from, let's say, 18 to 30. There's a lot of experience in there of like, growing up into adulthood, because I really don't think you're an adult until you're, I mean, 30. Or maybe, maybe just it was me because I needed to develop. But I was like, eternally, so underdeveloped emotionally until I was probably like 29 when I had my first kid. And then I was like, Oh, I need to go therapy. I need to like figure some stuff out. I realized that. Yeah. And my wife too, she was like, I think you need to like. I remember I'm laughing because around that time, this first time I went to a therapist, like literally the whole thing, I was like 30 minutes in and I'm like Niagara Falls. Like, holy. And I didn't even think I needed to go. My wife was like, hun, I don't know how to tell you this, but I think you are deeply depressed. She's like, this is really hard for me to tell you that. And I was like, what are you talking about? No, I'm not. I'm happy. Look at this. You're depressed. That's how it feels. You're like, am I crazy? But you stay in crazy long enough. And you think crazy is normal and normal is crazy. And that's why this job is not an excuse to be crazy. That's right. Right. So 30, you start to fucking go, okay, all right, we made it. We survived. Yeah. Somehow we always say this in our band where we are was like, we survived that first 10 years of cool guy bands. So real. That's so fucking Lord. Because like, that's so funny. You say that. I think that you just said it. And I'm like, we were making all the wrong choices. We survived the first 10 years. How did we? So then you're there, you're having your first child, you're married to the love of your life. Everything is there. You're like, I made it. I better not blow it. That's right. And that's when my life changed. And that's the thing though is I had the same thing. I really actually at the core realized what I wanted because I didn't know if I want, I didn't know the sad part is actually, it's not that I didn't know I wanted it. I didn't think I could have it because I didn't have a good example of it anywhere. And I was like, no, that's not real. You don't meet a nice girl and settle down. And yet every relationship I had was two, three. I was definitely not like running around. Like I was always kind of a relationship guy. Yes, me too. And the relationship always felt, I think my version of being in a relationship was some form of like purpose. Because I think that also I didn't believe in relationships. So if I was in a relationship and it felt like I had a purpose, then I could be there and it could maybe work. And it's not that the other girls before that, not to say anything, it's just that with her, it was the first person that said, yo, you need to like, we need you. Yeah, we need you. Yeah. And we need you to get your shit together. And they might not even be saying this, but that, but when you're, when you're talking about a family and you're in this job, you have to make a choice at some point, right? Are you going to decent? That's what it is. You said it. She said, we need you to take care of yourself. And then you, she's like, she saw some stuff and she was like, you need to go figure that out. Because we need you here in like full power. Right. And that's where I think, that's why I think 20 years in, that's why I'm with my wife. Because she does that time and time again when it comes to like, she sees through where she's got great vision, like great clarity, great instinct, and has been through a lot herself. And so she didn't give a fuck about anything. She's just like, you need to figure that out. Yeah, because they need you. That's how I feel. And when I felt that, like when, when I finally, you know, had somebody, I mean, it was just perfect. It was just perfect timing because we were doing the band thing so hardcore. And now I had someone to not tell me how good the songs were. It's like not interested in that. It's cool. She's like, yeah, I love the band. I'll support you to the end of the, I'll make your mur, I'll do anything for you. But I like you. And that was cool. And I was like, yeah, I like this, I like this, and let's protect this. What can I do? And it's you make mistakes a thousand times, you know, and that's more, more just being on the road too much, right? Yeah, yeah, that's out there doing too many shows. It just takes time up. But like, aside from that, I think like finally surviving that first 10 years of a band, and then being given this opportunity with the love of your life, your first kid, it's like, hey, you're getting dropped by your label, oh, everything's happening. What are you going to do? Are you going to fucking let this thing just beat the shit out of you? And then you're just going to be a mopey partner around the house? Or are you going to find some purpose, lock in, master what you're doing? And those good things come to you, right? Like when you get into that master mode of like, this is what I do. And it doesn't have to be a major thing. It can be I'm the best event organizer in the world, you know, that's what I want to do. And I just felt that like those things happened at the right time for us, we were given that opportunity of having like relationships and things like real tangible good things and real tangible bad things that happened in our world. And we learned from both of them. And we're bought another 10 years. And then when we got to the 20 year mark, we thought, okay, like things are really hard now, it's 2016. Okay, we've had some songs and stuff, but like the touring's not the way it was. And then the pandemic and all these things, it's like, look, you just got to make it happen. At this point, now you've promised your family, I'm going to be this person. I'm a musician. I'm an artist. This is what I do and who I am and stuff. So when it gets hard, I got to still do it. I'm not going to run away and quit. Yeah, that's right. You know, no quit. Yeah, no quit because you've been given this thing. And it's important. I think you can relate, I think so much because we're living such a similar timeline. Yeah, we're right in line with each other. Yeah. How old are you? 47. Okay, so we're the same age. Yeah, I turned 47 in a few months. Yeah. And it's been the most interesting decade, challenging in a lot of ways in between the years. What would you say like your favorite, if you could name three bands that you were your favorite to play with? Oh, to play with. Like which community do you find like your fans also like them? Or okay, your fans like you or that you just enjoyed? I mean, as far as touring, I remember when we've had our first big tour that was hugely just becoming very successful. And I started to really enjoy another band bringing that to what we were doing was Jax Mannigan. Oh, cool. So Andrew McMahon is someone who I really love being around. I think he's coming on the show. He is? Yeah. Yeah. So Jax Mannigan out of control. He's a huge fan. He was coming off of cancer. He coming out on tour. And I don't know if his information or not, but he was literally going through chemo on tour. And from that point on, I was just that he was doing chemo pills doing you know, the guy was amazing. He was playing every night, killing. And I just the respect thing, I just became a huge fan. And then his one of his albums became everything in transit was just so important to my life. Oh, wow. So being on tour with him was both friendship, great. And like music fans. Yeah, right? Yeah. So I remember that incredibly the band that was the nicest to us for opening for them when I was new into this thing. And the very first tour we really went on was the Jeep World Outside Tour. I probably the words are not Jeep Outside World Tour or something like that. And Cheryl Crowe seems cool. I've never met her. She had lined it. She literally we were brand new to the thing. You know what we were doing. Yeah, she would play ping pong with us. She would do everything and invite us out to hang and watch the set. That was really welcoming. Yeah, that always stuck with me. And it's not like my favorite tour I ever did, but it was my favorite first feeling of acceptance and kind of almost like a great example of how to be how to be. Yeah. And she's still that way. Yeah. Okay, so like she came to oceans calling a couple years ago and was just as nice as the first day I met her. And yeah, so my respect for her and everything they do is he seems like a real classy lady beyond classy. Yeah. And so beyond and talent that she doesn't show it down your throat. It's like it's just there incredibly talented. You know, yeah. What about the new record? So the new record is called three tinted windows. It's coming out this year. It's about my car. I mean, basically I had an 84 Civic when I was growing up. I bought it for my brother for 200 bucks. We had no tint. We ran out. We had the back windshield tinted and the two little triangle tents. We ran out of tint. Did you put it on yourself the tent? Yeah. So it's used to do back then. Yeah. Bubbles bubbles bubbles and you're so funny pushing them out. You know, same thing. I had a beanbag ashtray on the front. I tell my kids all the time like you don't realize back in the day you would buy a car out of someone's yard. Literally. My first car was a Ford Escort wagon 87 maybe I bought it out of someone's yard. I had for sale sign on it. And I was like, does it start? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, I'll be back. Came back. I think he wanted 900 and I was like, I got $700. They saw my cash and he was like, done. Give him the money. Drive off. Literally. No registration. No registration. Nothing. It had a license plate on it. I don't remember ever transferring anything to anyone. Yeah. The nineties as well. No registration. Nothing. I just drove that thing. No insurance. This is driving zero. I don't I don't remember any of that. I bought it for cash. It was crazy. And the clutch, the clutch, you know, the clutch burned out. I just replaced the clutch and it was back in business. You're gonna love this. Do you like that, Nick? It's a good story. Nick was a generation behind us. So he's like, no insurance. No way. That's nothing. I drive the car for like nine or 10 months, 11 months, probably I got a year out of it. And then the engine smoking. I know nothing about cars. I'm driving the car breaks down. It won't start the engine smoking and I leave it in my yard. So what do I do? What if her sales sign did it? Guy pulls over. He goes, what's wrong? What's up with the car? I was like, it won't start the engine smoking. He'll turn over, but it won't whatever. And he goes, how much you want for it? And I was like, I paid $700 for it. So if I could get any of that back, he goes, I'll give you 200. And I was like, okay, he comes back with another guy. He gives me the money and then they go, they open the hood, they do some stuff. Oil. Boom. Starts right up. They drive it off. You're like, oh, 10 W 30. I used to pretend I knew anything. I didn't know anything. Those cars. Holy shit. Then we bought a Ford tempo that was like primer gray. We had to pop the clutch to start it every time. And so we'd have to push it, pop the clutch and no registration, no fucking insurance, driving around, going to work doing this. It was insane. That was insane. Wait, you ever get pulled over? No. So this is what happened. My car, dude. So this car and it became everything to me. I would drive it around cigarette, you know, astray beanbag, smoked out the neighborhood whenever you turn it on because the exhaust, right? It's a piece of shit. Kids would carve their names in the roof of it. Just when they got in, like they're signing in for school. Stickers on the back. Stickers everywhere, you know? And we'd drive it around and I wrote my first songs in that car. Amazing. So this album is about, essentially, my wife and I just like escaped, not escaping, but leaving Maryland. You know, it's just like, it's 1996. We're in Maryland and what are we going to do to get out of here? And it's the story of that. And it's really about, it's like the Goonies, you know, adventure. Going out into the world, into the big, the shittiest car in the world. Yeah, the start. Yeah, because that's what it was. That's so cool. You know, and we just want to capture that to celebrate and it's not going to, look, clearly we're not writing for the times. We're not like looking to win. We're just looking to tell our story. I think that's actually where culture is going is back to little stories. Yeah, that's what it seems like. Big ideas are kind of a fraud. You know, these big, we're going to take frozen yogurt or salt. There's a through line with the well-being of your music and band is directly connected to your own well-being as a person. Buddy, you know? Completely. And I would compliment you in the fact that you're, were you providing for artists like myself who've been doing it for a little while and brand new artists who get to see your show, where you're providing for them is this confidence that, hey, I can do this right like him. Like, hey, I can do it like I can have fun, but I can be a serious person about my craft, become a master of my craft. And then the world opens up to you and people then are inspired by your walk and not your talk. The talk is what they're getting. They're hearing what we're saying. Yeah, we have to communicate something. Sure. But you're following through. Yeah. Like, when I saw you a year ago, the first thing we talked about was how, you know, it's important that you don't get pigeonholed as just the guy who just up there making songs and stuff. If you choose and you want to do other things in this business, you should go and do that and feel that confidence to do that and not that you're just some, that's why the name Artist Friendly matters to me because I feel like it's giving more credit to an artist for the dynamics of what they can provide, what they can do, you know, and that's a message to the people watching. For me, my music and everything we do is based on the good feeling you used to get when you were in your room, it was raining outside. You opened up the windows and you had your book or you had whatever you had. And it was just that, the smell of the rain, the peacefulness of that moment that you had, and whether that's there or at the park or walking down the street hanging with your voice. What we're about is trying to deliver that feeling to people through our music and through our shows. It's good that you're here. We want you here. We're not on stage and you're allowed to, we're in this thing together. And that's basically what our music has always been. It's for the neighborhood. It's about the neighborhood. The success of the band is directly related to the health of its members is something that becomes more and more powerful as you age, right? Yeah. And more noticeable as you realize it. Your relationship with your brother is what we want to see. Your music's great. But when I hear you talk about him and I get to see this in real life on stage, like we've all seen around the world, it's like, I can do that. Yeah. And that's what we want to be. We don't want to be so separated on our stage that it's like, a show. We're doing it and you can't do it. And we're here and you're there. It's none of that. Like this is what the band is. So for me to make an album that is centered around telling the story of leaving a small town in Maryland in my shitty car with, I love that story. You know, with the love of my life. It's like, that's all I can do. That's all I know. So I'm just going to put it out there. And again, our band is comprised of brothers, similar, right? So I say I because I'm sitting here by myself, but everything is we. And again, we're just excited for that opportunity. But you know, I learned that Talib Kuali, dude, another artist I'm on tour with. And I said, hey, I'm sorry to bother you in your dressing room. My wife's a huge fan and tomorrow or my girl, and I'm getting engaged tomorrow. And I'm so sorry to bother you. I know this tour has been weird. Can I get an autograph? And Talib just like, he's like, whoa, chill. We're in this thing together. And that was on a tour in 2003. And it changed my entire perspective on what it is we do out here. Yeah. And so I could credit him and thank him for that motivation as well. And like to me, it's like, I think getting to a place for me personally, I had to go on this like journey of self where I did demystified everything so that I didn't think this was a lottery and that you could build things. And so a younger artist, right, listening to all this would say, how does this affect me? You're saying, well, what we're telling you is master your craft. All the other shit will fall into place. Don't get blinded by the lights. Like, you know, it's like funny Zoolander thing where it's like, when he's at this thing, he's like, Fred Durst, Christina Aguilera. Don't be blinded by it. Stay focused. It's like that, right? Young artist. Listen, you're in this for music, right? Be in it for music. All that other stuff will come. The fun is there and you're good point though. Keep the fun there too. Awesome. But thank you. Thanks, bro. Thanks for the opportunity, man. Thanks, man. Thanks for coming. Do you any time? Thank you for watching Artist Friendly. 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