Penny & Sparrow is a folk music duo from Austin, TX. On their tour through Louisville, Andy Baxter and Kyle Jahnke, the talented guys behind the band, stopped by for a few bourbon pours. We talk about life on the road, their musical creation process, and how their fans give them bourbon at shows. You can catch their latest album, Finch, wherever you stream your music.
Show Notes:
- Pappy Map retires: http://bourbonr.com/blog/pappy-van-winkle-release-map-retires/
- This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about the holidays.
- How did you all get into music and start the band?
- Where does your inspiration come from?
- What is your craziest moment with a fan?
- How did you get into bourbon hunting?
- What bourbon got you hooked?
- How does the band work when you live in different states?
- Who is the messy one?
- What’s it like on the road?
- What do you listen to on the road?
- Have you been on the Bourbon Trail?
- Where do you go when bourbon hunting?
- Do you ever get free bourbon?
- How did fans discover your were into bourbon?
- What does it mean to you when someone says your music has changed their life?
- Where did the name Penny & Sparrow come from?
- Was there a moment where you felt like you made it?
- Tell us about your latest album, Finch.
Transcription:
0:00
We like to call ourselves rose a rock occasionally was a rock yeah sleep folk sleep. Good music to procreate to Yeah. Yeah, these are the things that we call Yeah, we discover music as like nobody’s working out to Penny and Sparrow like, at least to the best of our knowledge nobody’s getting a good pump while they listen to your workout as a stroll.
0:32
Welcome back, everybody. It is Episode 228 of bourbon pursuit. I’m Kenny. And here’s the news. The dates for the Kentucky bourbon festival 2020 have been announced. It will take place on September 16 through September 20 of 2020. The festival which draws novice and experienced bourbon lovers to Bardstown, Kentucky every year will celebrate the storied history of distilling America’s native spirit during National bourbon Heritage Month. Tickets for the Kentucky bourbon
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festival will be made available for purchase during the summer so make sure you continue to visit Kentucky bourbon festival at KY bourbon festival.com. To stay up to date on all the latest festival happenings and developments. Now for some pursuit series news Episode 15 is now hitting retail shelves across the state of Kentucky. If you’re interested in getting a bottle, pay attention because here’s the small list of stores that our distributor gave us so you can go out and find your own. Westport whiskey and wine, the party source go big blue liquors depths, fine wine, Ernie spirits bind pig bourbon market, the brown hotel and the brown barrel. We appreciate all the support for going out there and buying a bottle and we hope to bring more here in the future as well. Now it’s a sad day in the bourbon world is Blake from bourbon or calm is announced that he’s retiring his Pappy release map. It’s something that many people around the country including myself used over the years to kind of know when Pappy was gonna be hitting in my state. And Blake he puts it all out there.
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His latest article, that it’s time to stop because there’s a rare chance that you will ever get it. And if you do, the odds are you are not going to be paying MSRP. He also kind of throws a quick jab in there saying that Sazerac rock really isn’t doing anything to prevent counterfeits, nor are they doing anything to stop stores or distributors from playing this game. And you can read more about this in this article within our show notes. Now for today’s podcast, I met Andy and Kyle the guys that are behind the band, Penny and Sparrow for the first time back at the 2019 for castle Music Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. I won’t ruin the beginning of the podcast for you. But besides being great musicians, and also being incredibly funny, these guys are also really into bourbon. And I’m going to anticipate that after you listen to the stories that these two have to tell about their life on the road, their creation process, and of course, their love for bourbon. You’re gonna become a fan as well. Now, it’s time for Joe to tell us a little bit about barrel
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spirits. And then you’ve got Fred Minnick with above the char.
3:05
Hi, this is Joe from barrell craft spirits. We’re always trying to push the envelope of blending whiskey in America. Find out more at barrel bourbon.com.
3:15
I’m Fred Minnick, and this is above the char. We’re coming up on the holidays. What a wonderful time of year you have your family and your friends together. And you crack open the cork. You pour a little bourbon in your glass, you sip by the fire. It’s so magical. It’s so wonderful. I absolutely love the holidays. But here’s the here’s the kicker of it all, is that it is not easy to buy bourbon for people anymore. For God’s sakes, I’m trying to figure out what to get some of my friends who I always get bourbon and they get everything already. So here’s my recommendations for
4:00
Want to buy your friends who are bourbon fans? Come down to Kentucky or find someone who’s in Kentucky and buy private barrel selections. I mean truly, and honestly, those are the best possible gifts that you can get because they are unique. They are unique to that particular store. And if you don’t know what a private barrel selection is, it’s when a liquor store or a club goes to the distillery and they actually select a barrel of bourbon that is bottled specifically for them. You’ll see their sticker on it and then when you give that as a gift to somebody, you can tell them you know, that’s one of only 75 or 200 bottles of that bourbon it when that bottles gone, you’ll never have any of it again. And in fact, you don’t have to go to Kentucky you’ll find that whether it’s a total wine or a local liquor store in your market or a big chain like Kroger, you’ll find that there are excellent private barrel selections there. Just walk up to the cash register and say hey, you have any private
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barrel pics. And if they look at you like you’re crazy, you know you’re in the wrong store. So hopefully by now if you’re listening to this podcast, you’ve already found your bourbon store. And if you don’t have your bourbon store, just ask us in the comments where you should be shopping. And that’s this week’s above the char. Hey, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter or Instagram, hey, even my YouTube, just search my name Fred Minnick. Until next week. Cheers.
5:32
Welcome back to that episode of bourbon pursuit the official podcast of bourbon. Kenny here today just in the basement recording studio, but this is going to be an opportunity that we rarely get. I mean, it’s an opportunity where we are trying to find new guests that are able to bring a new dynamic to the podcast. You know, we’ve had WWE superstars on before and today we’re going to have a music artist on that. me you’ve maybe heard of and if not, you’re going to learn more about them too.
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Day. But I want to tell a quick story of how we all kind of got connected here. So, you know, we’re starting to get involved with a lot of more music festivals, and, you know, for castle, bourbon and beyond, and so on and so forth. And when you do that, you get put on a media list. And with the media list, you kind of get spammed with a lot of band managers and PR people. And it’s usually pretty generic. Sometimes it’ll say like, hey, and then they’ll be like a variable that says, like dollar sign, insert name here. And it says, like, you got to meet these people. They’re great. You can see you can see him on stage at this time. And let me know if you want a chance to have them on your podcast or have them on, you know, maybe in your newspaper article because they don’t really tailor it. It’s just, you know, just something generic that goes out. But you know, shout out to Joe, Joe’s, the PR manager for Penny and Sparrow. And he sent me a very personalized email and it kind of started off and saying like, Oh, hey, like, Listen, these guys are actually like really into bourbon. And that’s kind of what kind of kick this off because usually people’s
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You know, you gotta have mon like, okay, sure what are we going to talk about? music that is because if we don’t have any shared interest in bourbon, this is going to be a pretty, pretty lame for a bourbon podcast. And so we took an opportunity I said, Yeah, that’s that’s awesome. Let’s go meet these guys so we had an opportunity to sync up at four castle after their set. And we talked and I mean, we talked for probably a solid 30 minutes there and I think we just we there’s there’s magic I mean, there’s there’s something was happening right all the all the stars were aligning, and, and we really kicked it off. And these guys are huge bourbon nerds. They’re really into it. Plus, they make great music. And so I’m happy to be able to introduce these two guys to the show. So today, we’ve got Eddie Baxter, and Kyle Yankee. They are the duo behind Penny and Sparrow which has been featured in Rolling Stone and they’re also came out with the latest album Finch. So fellas, welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you for having us. Greetings to you constant listener.
7:58
So, you know, I couldn’t be
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Usually like talk about bourbon like as we usually go into this like it’s because we usually have a master distiller somebody get coming on but you know you guys bring a different dynamic to this so we’ll talk about bourbon here in a little bit. I kind of want to learn more about you all like talk about the origins of the band. Maybe talk a little bit more about the type of music y’all do as well because I know it’s kind of it’s like folk music maybe like iron and wine mixed into it kind of talk about like, where you all get your you know, your vibe and everything. folk music iron line is very, very good. A good comparison. We like to call ourselves rose a rock occasionally was a rock Yeah, sleep folk sleep. That’s good music to procreate too. Yeah. Yeah, these are the things that we call Yeah, we describe our music as like nobody’s working out to Penny and Sparrow leads to the best of our knowledge. nobody’s getting a good pump while they listen unless you enjoy your workout as a stroll. Yeah, cuz that is what we can provide a good stroll soundtrack can do that. We started doing music and
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College because I needed a place to stay. My wife knew this guy and 11 other guys that lived in this huge house. That was basically a shithole frat house.
9:10
By the way, not at all. I’m just letting you know this was that many people in a small space with very little air conditioning is filthy is filthy. So I moved in and Kyle and I pretty quickly found out that we both liked music and both sounded pretty okay when we sang together. And man, the rest as they say sort of history. We just kept plugging along and on a small home rig that his mom and dad got him for Christmas, we recorded our first song with the sheer expressed intent of having music that our kids could someday listen to. And here we are eight years later with no kids.
9:46
That’s pretty cool for one day they’ll listen to it. Yeah, if we procreate Yeah, they’ll be able to hear it. They’ll be able to they’ll be able to get down on it. But I mean that your all’s vibe like what you all do. You know I think I read that you make serious songs, but you’re not very serious people.
10:00
All right. And that’s kind of like the kind of vibe y’all put. I mean, we were down here talking before we started recording here. And we were just cracking jokes left and right. So kind of talk about the music, like where the inspiration comes from the lyrics, everything like that. Yeah, we that’s I mean, what we mainly try to do is write basically autobiographical songs, things that we’re working through things that would be cathartic to us.
10:26
But that’s usually the more internal stuff, which is great. I mean, we talked about it all the time. It’s the the deeper conversations Andy and I have.
10:35
But yeah, I mean, I don’t we don’t live in that part of our we have, I feel like the majority of what we do is, as humans is just light hearted. Yeah. And I remember years ago, when we started doing this, we started taking ourselves really seriously on the front end, right? Like we were we featured ourselves being serious guys writing heartfelt music with good lyrics and the least on stage. Yeah.
11:00
So we’d show up to these shows, and then we would, you know, barely move an inch and not talk and not laugh in between songs just to try and, you know, sing our ass off. And then I remember my dad talking to us after a show one time and more or less said, Jesus Christ, let him come up for air. I think the point he was getting at was like, Look, this isn’t who you are, when you’re not onstage like, this is sort of more of a character, you’re creating this overly serious, you know, facade. So just do you see like that I didn’t raise an overly sensitive son that would happen to all that he definitely raised an overly sensitive side is true, he did do that. But he also raised a sort of a goofball as the his old man. And so for what it’s worth, it felt so much more free just to be the same person on stage and off. So the same dumb shit jokes that we make in the van is what you get here on a podcast is what you get on stage and we do a show and that feels really nice. Yeah, I mean, I had the opportunity last night to go and check you guys out on the show because you guys are doing your your nationwide tour right?
12:00
Now and I know it’s going to be finished by the time this this wraps up. But it’s funny because you all you mean exactly exactly what you just said, right? It’s it’s serious songs, and then you all bring this different vibe to it where you like you try to bring it up lifting. I mean, at one point, Andy, you’re doing this thing of like, All right, let’s get the clap. Let’s get the beat going. And then you would raise your hands slowly, slowly need said as I raise my hands. I want to see your hands in the air. And then when I make like this musical cue of like, stop, everybody stop. No, I don’t want to see repeat. And it’d be great job too. Yeah, really impressive. Yeah. And I think I even told him when I do that, I want you to shut the hell up. Yeah. Which is aggressive to say to a crowd of paying customers who came to see you do a thing, but really, that just point needs to be gotten across. And they do they went into it. It’s awesome when people are I mean, maybe it’s because it’s bourbon country. Everybody was slightly hammered, but they really they bought in which is nice. Yeah. I was about to say how many venues do you go to and there’s like four roses posters just blasted everywhere over like Morgan headliners last night. Oh, dude. It’s this is a different
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chunk of the country okay like people here get the brown water and they’re down with it as are we but I feel like we had three gifted bottles to us last night and they were all good Oh really? Yeah they were all nice we had an eagle rare we had a Woodford double oak forgetting one from a another distillery but we got gifted these bottles and I was like, man, it pays to play in Louisville. Yeah, so good. That’s awesome. And yeah, free bourbon is always the best bourbon. It’s a great bourbon. Yeah, it tastes better. Yeah, that’s what we’re down here to we were sitting there sampling from my bar before we started here. We had started with some dusty and I think we got we got Booker’s right here is what we’re sampling on right now. So that’s a fact and constant listener. You should know that. We are in a layer. It’s not just a studio, we are in a bourbon layer. There is lighting fixtures made out of barrel hoops. There are thousands of bottles surrounding it thousands. Like if it’s a powder keg in here, one errant match and the whole blocks going up in flames. Yeah, we’re gonna make sure we don’t have a gas leak little bit later. He just
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Right, yeah, positive of that.
14:02
And so, you know, the music is fun and it’s interesting and you all are been going and I kind of want to talk a little bit more about, you know, the road and the tour because I’m sure you’ve got fans. I remember there was one fan last night and I think she tried standing up or waving she was she was on the right side about five rows back and every song she was just going crazy. What’s your craziest like fan moment that you’ve had? That’s a good question. I’m really good one you know, Skid Row comes to mind. Yeah, Skid Row probably comes to my most likely that mean Andy with a fan
14:36
who loved our stuff. The the man had a few too many drinks and was kind of shifting between being extremely excited and happy to see us like tears of joy seeing us and telling us how much he loved us to literally almost throwing punches at us. And he had some just Jacqueline
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Hi, I’m going on while we were there, oh, he was a psychopath. And he shall remain nameless. But he went by will actually this is not on his birth certificate. So I think it’s safe to say this. He introduced himself as joke. That was his name. Yeah. So rule number one. Yeah. Don’t be friends with anybody named john. Sure. Yeah. But junk like Kyle said and met us with tears in his eyes saying I’m so glad we got you here. I’m so glad we got your you’re going to show them you’re going to show them and saying a lot of nonsensical like the hell does this guy mean? So Kyle, and I basically consoling him. Yeah. While he was meeting us, which was really sweet. Like I took it. We’re here. We’re here. Thank you. So we’re also glad you’re here. Thank you for this is a gig, right? Yeah, we can still play. And he then proceeds to, you know, basically ask us a really basic question. Like, you know, how far was a draft day? And he’s slurring over himself. And as Kyle goes to answer the question, it was just act it out. Yeah. Let’s just do a little role play. Yeah. Okay. We’re used to this. Yeah. Okay. You I’ll be
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junk UBU Okay, and how how long was draft today? Oh the drive Shut up. fuck up, dude.
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So the important parts of that interaction dude, buddy, buddy that’s it. Yeah, I took away that took away that’s the most important thing that you could Garner from that story is that he said shut the fuck up dude, buddy. And we have ever since us dude buddy as the perfect you know, hey, screw off they want to call somebody and that was with a fan so I don’t really know what to do with that other than Hey, thanks, john I’m glad to exist in this weird world of ours. But no no crying outrage like on stage when you’re up there and he was just cool calm and collected in a seat. Oh, no, there’s no Well, there were some crying outrages he kept screaming out the phrase make them wonder over and over, which we still to this day are not sure what he meant by that. But we’re doing our best still junk. If you’re listening to this. We are trying to make them wonder every night every night. I think that’s
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That’s the new lyric to our new new title though new song is what it’s got to be. Yeah, it’s totally true meta man named junk in Skid Row. We’re going to make them 100 mega one day we are eight years later still making them.
17:13
Oh man, that’s fantastic. So I guess we’ll we’ll kind of shift a little bit and we’ll kind of talk about bourbon. So kind of talking about your all story with bourbon like, Where are you introduced to it? How did you kind of get into it? Because you know, Kyle, I know last time we talked it you know, you’re part of like the r&d next and we talked you’re part of like the the hunting party now like you’re searching for bottle bottles and stuff. So I think we both got started, I guess similar in time, our our manager Paul’s a big collector of bourbon. And he’s got this thing called the steel speakeasy, which is really rad. And he was the one who showed us for the first time like, Hey, here’s the really nice stuff. You’ve had a lot of the shitty stuff. Let’s try some really good things. And I’m going to talk you through some of the taste notes, some of the flavor profiles just
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Some of them get you get your feet wet a little bit. And I took to it really fast really enjoy it as this Kyle and for me one of the things that keeps me sane on the road is hunting for two things, where books and bourbon so I’ll go to liquor stores just along the highway as I’m driving in the van or used bookstores and it’s just really neat once you’ve been introduced to how big this world is. how big the world of dusty hunting is how big the world of rare bottle hunting is, and raffles are like the secondary market when you get invited into that and you see how crazy it is but also, you know, the community family aspect of people tagging you in a thing because they know you like Booker’s 20th anniversary or they know you’ve always wanted to find the Booker’s right bottle and so they tagged you in when they thinks a decent price in the secondary market. This world’s huge man. And so once we got our feet wet into it, it was sort of snowballed from there and now, and now I’m a moderate alcoholic, and I really like bourbon a whole lot. That’s where it’s thermometer. It’s good.
18:59
Good lottery
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Good don’t go over that that edge right? Yeah, that’s all I need to worry about. Do you think like how early on when we were down in the speakeasy were you overwhelmed a bit when we were like down there with 1000 and a half bottles known because you and Paul are my Sherpas?
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You guys tell me everything I need to know about.
19:18
I love that answer. Yeah, thank you. I felt comfortable. calm. You made me wonder down there. That’s that’s how I wanted your first experience. Be. I was it was I tender and affectionate Ender? Yeah. Oh, I’m sorry. Laughing that’s how that’s Yes. No, that’s how your first time should be tender. Whisper the notes. Yeah, it was a bourbon into my hand and give me a soft, gentle kiss on the cheek. Got It’s hot. And I’m glad that I didn’t know 24 proof
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tenants.
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Man, we just fell in love with it pretty early on and now it’s on the writer every night.
20:01
It feels neat to be able to try local stuff and and go by I love baby distilleries. I’ve got like this massive affection for seeing someone knowing that the craft took so many years to make, like there are these people who gather buddies together started a small distillery, and all of a sudden, they’re like putting juice and barrels, and they have to wait. It’s a waiting game, and they hope and their fingers are crossed. And so when good stuff comes out of that, I know that for me, it’s inspiring because I know what it’s like to crockpot a creative idea and wait for it. And that hoping is part of the thing that you’re doing, whether it be making music or making booze like you just have a hope you really desire to make a good thing. You put everything into that you can knowledge know how expertise, advice from other people, and then you sit and you wait and hope. And I have a lot of value for that. Which is one of the things I think I’m drawn to bourbon about and baby distilleries, because I think that that’s hard to do. And it’s risky as shit, man. Oh, yeah. And that’s good. That’s cool to me. I love that. Well, Andy, I mean, what
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can talk about more about what was there like one bourbon or anything like that that got you kicked or hooked on it or anything like that. Like there’s Oh yeah. So kind of talk about what that what that was. It was Booker’s for sure it’s my favorite to this day. I mean, the way that I always when people ask us our answers the same we both love Booker’s and my usual response depending on who I’m talking to with why I love it so much is a the nostalgic pull of it being the first fancy bottle that someone bought me like the first fancy ish bottle and being blown away by how spicy it was. And I tell them the reason why it’s my favorite is it it’s a it’s a bourbon you can have three ways. It’s three Bourbons in one bottle. You that is a totally different flavor profile, if you haven’t need versus how you have that with a drop of water swill let it open for a minute versus having a couple cubes in there. I mean, you are literally changing the flavor complexion three totally different ways. And as the ice melts, you’re going to get a fourth and fifth and six depending on how long you sip on it.
22:00
So any chameleon bottle like that, that exists I’m fond of, which is normally Why go for the hazmat shit. I’m just a huge fan of high proof stuff like that a chameleon. I like that I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one I’m Can I steal that you can share science yours now I’m gonna go ahead and pour in the ship for me and it’s all yours will keep going.
22:19
So, Carl, what about you? I mean, I know he said, You know, he said he’d like Booker’s as well. But I mean, was that your first introduction was somebody that said, like here drink this hundred 25 proof stuff. You’re gonna love it. So I remember Andy and 2011 when he was like, man, I think I like bourbon. That’s, that’s great. That’s really cool. And at the time, I didn’t know too much about it. I just started doing a text message. Really? sweet man. Yeah, thanks, man. Cool personal epiphany. Yeah, enjoy a good Tuesday. And I remember you would you drink.
22:51
Just like all of the standards, just like a makers are bulletin, any of those and you are just learning about them. And I do remember when you got your
23:00
First, your first bottle of the good stuff daddy’s first book. Yeah, it was very sweet. isn’t good time. But then that was it. I feel like it just came over. And I mean, we at the time, were already spending so much time together that I was part of the whole process. And that’s just not like yours like guiding Angel, like the whole thing. I’ll continue on Go on. How would you say that I’m your enabler and that I to have made you a moderate alcoholic through this process? Because I’d like for you to not say that. I can’t not say that. It’s definitely true. Yeah, it’s very true. Cool. Yeah, we’re in the same spot. Yeah, I feel great about that. Our liver is fine. It’s fine. We’re young. It’s length. And if anything, if anything is Old Ironsides Yeah, there that thing can take. And it’s fine. I’m say take a look. And I don’t know if I like that. But it’s okay. Because you really can you have to look at the end. I’m working on that. But yeah, that’s how I just and you is for sure my enabler. Through through all of it. My dad is more of a scotch guy. And so I knew about scotches and then I think Andy’s
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My whole family in fact about the bourbon world because my dad now will go and buy anytime he knows we’re going to travel through hope by the biggest bottle of bourbon that is possible to buy and will be so excited about it. It looks like a super super soaker tank
24:16
it’s literally like I didn’t know they made them that big It looks like a novelty inflatable but it’s real and it’s full of Woodford any acid every fucking time. Yeah, I’m so grateful.
24:26
And it’s almost cash by the time you leave. Well, I wouldn’t gonna say it but yeah, but yeah, if I had a nickel for every like ambling midnight to 2am walking down the stairs at the young house. I’ve had that huge daddy bottle I’d have loads of nickels.
24:43
So kind of talk about more your your all’s camaraderie because you know you grew up together went to school together in Austin. But you don’t live in Austin together anymore? Correct. You guys are separated by a state now. So like that. Yeah, that’s my talk. So kind of talk about like how that all works out.
25:00
You know the band The friendship, everything. Yeah. Will you talk about the band? I’ll talk about the friendship. Yeah. So as a should we should we start with that? Let’s go friendship then you do? Yeah. Okay. So I don’t think that friends. In fact, I know this. Friends don’t spend as much time around each other. Normally as Kyle and I do. I’ve lived with Kyle in three different homes, both as a married individual, me, my wifey, his wife and another buddy and his wife all lived in this house in Austin in this communal type setup, where we would be going on the road, and our wives and friends all get to always share meals together. And so we lived in married housing together, we lived on the road in various hotels, we lived in San Antonio and a house together. We have lived together in college so much time has been spent with this human. And over that time, you learn a few things not only about each other, but you learn about how to have interpersonal relationships, but
26:00
Right, like you learn like if I again, the amount of mercy extended and mercy received and hard conversations had and celebrations and things to be more and and births and funerals and everything that we’ve had as a friend group is so much higher than most people have just out of sheer proximity. We live together we work together, we have slept in the same lucky into bed more times than any friends have ever done before, at least to the best of my knowledge. And when we were recording back in the day, we would sleep on couches, just head to toe unlike one individual couch that that was a fact. Yeah, and we didn’t enjoy that. One is not
26:42
to say somebody enjoys
26:44
that somebody is a me.
26:48
Yeah, we just with the sheer amount of time that we spend together I feel like not only is this my best friend, but there’s there’s something deeper than that. It’s something that’s close enough to begin and it comes
27:00
Out of hard fought years and time spent, there’s no substitute for time spent ever. There’s no sub for it. I’ve spent thousands of hours with this person talking about the scary shit in life, the beautiful things in life. And everything in between. And the end result of that has been something that, like I said, is closer to kin than most things that people will ever have. And closer than brothers, that I know like most people that I know don’t even have this relationship with their kin. And that has definitely fed into how we do music. And this is a little bit weird for us to live in a different place. Now. It’s the first time in our lives that we live in a different city different state. And granted, we still see each other hundreds of days a year as we toured together, but it’s definitely affected the music in a good way but surprising. Which brings me to the next phase, the music kind of what would you say our friendship is when it comes to music and its creation. Well, me and Andy we hate each other. So we have to be separated by at least by at least a two to 300
28:00
jerril Simon and Garfunkel thing, right? Yeah.
28:03
And well So Andy we both moved to Alabama for a season. And Andy fell in love with it. I also loved it but wanted to come home to family were to be back in Texas. So I moved back. And so to record we wanted to stay home just because it’s a lot of travel if if we don’t.
28:21
And so we’ve just learned learned how we each have our own little individual studios that we go to we record with our buddy Chris Jacoby in San Antonio. And he goes and records with Chris buffet. We each have our own individual Chris’s that we record in their studios. CRISPR get on the phone, right Mike Chris over here, his Chris over there is perfect. And we just do the method. I do a lot of the melody and he does a lot of the lyrics. And
28:48
when it comes time to record, we just do our own individual thing and kind of just mash it all together and see what works and technology allows it. Pretty crazy thing now. Sweet. Not so hard. Yeah. Sweet, sweet.
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Internet. We couldn’t stream it. Who knows where to be here, man? What was it I think, who was at the open for you all last night. Caroline Spence, Caroline Spence she had a she had a really funny kind of like opening to one of her songs and saying like, oh, I’ve got like a couple million downloads on Spotify with this one song. It’s amazing that my parents have figured out how to use Spotify
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solid Carolina.
29:24
So who’s the messy one between you to me? No, I were both pretty messy. I would say I you’re very sweet to say so. I think we can both be tidy when necessary. But I think I would probably get because he’s more form and function like he would never asked me to pack up the van. What I do, and I’ve learned it now I’ve learned this about myself and it’s fine. I am not efficient in a lot of movements. And so I look at Kyle and I’m like, Kyle, if you will please do this for you. Or will you do it and then teach me so that I can now know how to do it your way spatial reasoning I did not score very high.
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On I knew lots of synonyms but I did not know how to put the blocks in the right order so that they would fit neatly into a van he does so I think that would mean that he’s cleaner well that’s that’s like a dad move right you know to pack up a pack up the truck to go down to Myrtle Beach or to Florida or desk whatever it is and you’re sitting there playing a game of Jenga with all your luggage I’ve got that I’ve got that gene whatever it is in my tool I it’s so hot The other day I literally it did happen where you start waving fan and yourself like Oh, it’s so nice to have a man around.
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And I would honestly say something like that every time I see impacting man like I’m so proud of you. Amy peg the van the other day and the doors wouldn’t shut up. He was like trying feebly trying to shut both of the doors to say Cleveland was not nice, but it was just calling it what it is and painting a picture. Yeah, typecast. Listen, it’s here. It’s banned. I think I literally pushed you out of the way was like I got this. Just
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I’m out, and then I put it together. Oh my insolence my silliness that I would even tried to back the van but did but in terms of who’s cleaner, both of our suitcases explode. That’s why I’m entering every single hotel room we enter. That’s true. They do so to answer your question, maybe it’s a push, but the more organized of the two of us would be Kyle. Yeah, I don’t be somebody I’ll take her. Yeah, you’ll have to look at its object. I’ll take it. So when you’re on the road, are you are you all constantly talking to each other is like one person napping while somebody else is driving? Or is it you know, you said like, you’ve talked about everything deep and everything here. So is that is that what does that what driving on the road is like for you also, we, the last four days. Before we got to local, we had four days of six hour drive days each. So within that six hours, there can still be two hours of talking, and a good two hour nap and then two hours of just
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Looking at your phone or whatever else you want to do, or just staring off into the distance Yeah. And that’s about what happens each time is just a mix of all of those and whoever is in the driver’s seat gets the ox cord and gets to choose what we listening to.
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So you got into on the road got a good system. Well, I mean, it’s almost guaranteed. You’re going to look at see a few things with Ryan, our tour manager, you’re going to get a steady diet of pop divas, you’re going to hear lover by Taylor Swift over and over again. Then you’re going to hear him switch over to never getting to know Anderson’s lover, that whole album on repeat that some Shania Twain and I will never weasel in when Kyle’s in the seat recently. It’s been a lot of RMB RMB Yeah, yeah, I don’t I can’t listen to anything but right now, which is just fine some slow moving kind of get you in low juniors. Yeah, that’s what I’m looking in this home a little bit as I will always Yeah. Manny, what are you alluding to? I didn’t
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just like thank you.
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Yeah, you mean you can make it look at Andy as much as you can, but it’s like yeah, after a while you’re just like, all right. I miss home a little bit. Yeah. Listen the RMB stuff. I get it, man. It’s nice. It does. That’s been that’s been on the docket for him for a while now. So it’ll probably bleed into the next record somehow. Yeah, for me, it’s guaranteed I will sit in the front seat. Probably be quiet for like 20 minutes and then put on my Stephen King audiobook more Stephen King podcast. And they will both look at me smirk a little bit and put their headphones
33:32
such as life man such as life. So So I mean, so you’re a podcast listener right. So the Stephen King stuff, so you don’t you’re not a fan of just like listening to whatever’s happening. Going around as you’re driving then. No, not so much for me. Yeah, I think we’re gonna let him have a Stephen King. No, I’m sure he’s a beautiful human, Stephen King, and I hope to meet him one day, but please, I I just haven’t read his books yet. Now, I’m not a book reader either, but I can listen to a book
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Totally that’s like why they invented movies. Like why would you? Why would you read a book? Yeah, we made it past them. Yeah. It’s like when you sit down with a book for a month when I can get finished in an hour and a half, and see the problems, my shit on y’all and I don’t want a problem here in the zoo, Andy’s a fast reader. And so he doesn’t get that he can finish a book in a few hours. And that’s where he finds enjoyment. And it still I’ve been reading the same book this whole tour and I think it’s like 150 pages. Oh, God, and like it’s half and more pictures. Right? Yeah, it’s actually it’s actually shell Silverstein it’s a really good novel. He’s gonna love it when he finished it. I could barely finish it goose goose bumps novel anymore, right. So man, choose your own adventure. Yeah, sweet RL Stine. I love you.
34:42
So, you know, kind of shifted a little bit back to bourbon real quick before we start losing listeners talking about this random.
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So, you know, kind of talk about, you know, have you all visited the trail, you know, come into Louisville, Kentucky, like have you been to distilleries like is there something around there that that kind of fascinates you
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36:00
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Give you been to distilleries like is there something around there that that kind of fascinates you? You know
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IC getting ready to jump in? Yeah, I have I have been up for my 30th birthday, which is four years ago now I went my good friend and Florence drove us down, went to the bourbon trail saw a few distilleries, so bullet Buffalo Trace. And one more that is eluding me right now. I can’t remember. But I got to see a lot of the stuff behind the scenes in terms of like I didn’t know about the ALGEO and orphan barrel stuff and how I was involved with bullet and all that stuff is my first time ever being behind the door. That was my first experience was the bullet one and then I went to Buffalo Trace which sort of like the Cadillac for me. It was lovely. Never seen a brick house never been inside one before. I was the the perfect target for the guy that sits down and watches the video in Buffalo Trace and was just like
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just just full, full geek Boehner and loved it so much and I’m sitting like asking questions of the tour guide I’m that guy. I was. I was really loving it. And like man, I again, if
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I lived nearer to here I do it so much more often because it’s such a cool thing man. I know that there are other worlds as big as this in the booze world like I know the the world of smelly A’s and wine is huge and if you want to go to you’ve got favorite vintners and favorite years and all that famous and maybe sometime that’ll be a thing that I get into but right now this is like the second most passionate affinity that I have is bourbon and I love that and Stephen King’s a good number one to have it is pretty good
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again selfish plug listener out there if you know Stephen please connect him with my people.
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Hey, will you tell me Can you show your Somali a skills with this bourbon with what we’re having? Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, let’s put you to the top I
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want the listener to hear what I basically what I go through, but I get to go through Oh, and welcome to Andy’s bourbon tasting. This is imagine you’re my ear. Yeah. If you switched by normal
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Take the left earphone out, put it back in, but the right one and I’m all around you. What I’m drinking today friend is Booker’s right. This is the first fancy bottle I ever bought for myself. My wife was furious. I found it in Texas, or outside of lower Greenville. And here it comes to me via the bourbon pursuit podcast and his willingness to share his nice booze on the nose, a stringent rye smoky, very sour ish In my opinion, which I love very much very much right? But this drinks more like a bourbon very spicy, stays in the back of your throat right above the tongue just lingers there for much longer than it would the burning taste that you’ll get with anything high proof and Booker’s is always there and always present. But this even though it’s Ryan astringent, in my mind still has a sweetness that is not normally present and rye whiskeys for me that I love, which is why I would compare it to a bourbon and that is my tasting note for today. On Booker’s right, thank you don’t fantastic, slow clap for that. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was nice.
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Right yeah sure head guys into it. I mean, because Booker’s ride this was this was one of the most, you know, highly anticipated and allocated releases that came out a few years ago. It’s long gone from the market who knows if we’re ever going to see something like this again, because this was a batch of ride that actually Booker know put down, right? I mean, this was this was something that happened a long time ago. But what was it that kind of got you into the kind of the hunting scene Andy like what got you into trying to find where bottles or anything like that? I think it was the first time that Paul described to me how few of these get made and the stories behind him like you just alluded to the fact that if I remember right, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but Booker Booker know when he was there, and like his latter years, this was the only project that outlasted in terms of his actual life. This is post mortem released. Absolutely. But he had his actual hands on the mash bill on the creation process on the front end. And the story of that to me, I knew this was a bottle that I had to hunt down and find which is why I have it in the bunker because
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Booker’s get that in style jackpot For me it was the first thing that made me fall in love with bourbon I collect as many of their offerings as I possibly can the best use of ever had my life is Booker’s 25th anniversary and so for me hunting began with this bottle which is pretty cool that we’re you know, having it in this podcast but the first time I ever remember bouncing over to multiple different liquor stores when I news release week for this, and I was just hoping, you know, and I was I was so green, like, didn’t have a fucking clue. I’m literally walking to places like, do you have it? Yeah. And they’re like, like, I would get laughed at so hard. But this one, like, younger clerk at this liquor store was like, I think I can probably get one. I mean, I think that the dude that we had promised to bailed, and it was just too high of a price point for him at the time, and I was like, I’ll do it. And again, wife was none too pleased until I explained like, I’m not gonna do this all the time. We don’t have the cash for it. But I saved up my money from the road. We’re good. And it feels really cool to say that it began a love for
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Hunting dusty is later on when I learned what they were finding out old distilleries that I occasionally can find on the secondary market that people sell. And where do you go for this? Like, how do you hunt? Yeah, that’s good question. I mean, like, I would say that you’re you’re in a decent position. I wish I should I say you probably wish maybe when you started doing this, like six years ago, you were on the road. Yeah. When you’re on the road. That was prime opportunity way back then. Right. Because even back in 2013 2012 timeframe, the stores were still littered back then they couldn’t sell the stuff sure until 2014 hit 2015 then everything just was scarce. It was just a ghost town and some of these liquor stores to find allocated bourbon. So yeah, to talk about your story there. Well, the hunt for me like it begins not on the secondary market. For the most part, I love going to hole in the wall along the road hole in the wall, seemingly dilapidated liquor stores and checking behind the front rack and what I mean by that
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I’ve had incredible luck in in and around smaller towns and Alabama checking package stores and looking at old like literally they’ll put the new version of wild turkey one on one of the front. And then if you look behind you might be lucky enough to see like you can tell cork difference you can tell label difference that I’ve found at least six bottles of us Austin Nichols wild turkey that way just from looking in the back and that just means that nobody goes into that package store and buys wild turkey. They had to buy it to get the new label to keep their rep happy or whatever. I found age state at old charter and found some old log cabin some really great best old saying yeah some some really cool dusty finds just from people who’ve like only these package stores for years. And you know, don’t know what they have and I’m not out there trying to scam them because I don’t do any I don’t resell anything. My my meager bourbon collection in my little closet of my house is all for drinking. I wanted to have specific bottles set aside for specific purposes in my life.
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When a buddy has a kid, we’re going to open up birthday bourbon. When there’s a death in the family and I want to celebrate the life that has been extinguished, I want to open up the Booker’s offering. I want to open up the dusty of the bottle and bomb bomb beam that I have from the 60s. That was there. I mean, he was in the barrel when Kennedy was alive, like, Are you kidding me? Like there’s so much of this stuff that I see a bottle that there’s limited number of and I immediately see a story. And I see who was alive when it was first in the cask and I see all of those things that matter to me as a storyteller and my other job. And so I admittedly I wax nostalgic and poetic on everything in my life. And I’ve done that Full Frontal with bourbon and I’m very pleased with it. It just makes the hunt so much easier because it makes it something fun to do. And so the secondary markets like the last stop the last stop I’m like, I really want to thing but I know that there’s no chance I’m gonna be able to find it in the wild. But for a person who hasn’t done that, what does that even look like the secondary market secondary markets tough man sometimes you can invite
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The private Facebook’s and lots of stuff, but you’ve got people online that’ll buy a bottle for X number of dollars. And then they will take that MSRP and they will multiply it by 1000 million dollars. And then say yes, you can have this MSRP bottle of $170 for the meager pricing of 1200. Gotta and it’s brutal but to be honest with you, and this is just being really blunt and whether this gets me castrated by bourbon fans or not, there are times where the story the juice is worth the squeeze the story of the bottle and me never being able to get access to that bottle outside of this really jacked up price on the secondary market is worth it. Like I’m saving up for the sheer fact that someday I’ll be able to get a bottle of Booker’s 25 be for probably 850. Now I think 600 was a couple years ago, but that about right azz pretty much on point or out there. So looking at that I’m like, okay, I want that and and is the story and the amount of time
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And dinners that I’ll be able to have that with and back porch conversations.
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Is it worth it? And the answer is, of course, of course it is. To me and that’s not for everybody but if you spread out that price point over the amount of time and stories that I’ll be able to have it on it then yeah towards it. So there you go. So if your listener out there, you’re a fan of these guys. You got a book or 2015 around. There’s there might be a private private concert you could have in your backyard for a bottle who knows I’ll rub your back. Lots of stuff. There’s a lot of ways
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so I mean, are you so Kyle I’ll ask you so when when when you’re on the road and Andy’s driving or you’re driving or whatever? Does a DC like a rundown liquor stores like pull the pull pulled over pulled over? We gotta go, Sam. Yeah, we both do, because I know that’s what he did. So I’ll see what it’ll be like, is this a good looking one, we need to stop here. And most times, ZS there’s really not a there’s very rarely I know, to go into a liquor store. So we’ll go pretty often and I know what to look for.
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Now, which is really fun, I know how to say the things to the guys behind the counter to see if there’s anything back there. Yeah to play that game game, and I’m in it now, which is nice, but I know that uh, whatever whatever we find whatever the bounty is. We’ll go to Sir Baxter, which is great. And then I’ll get a couple polls off at every once in a while. Pro tip for you hunters out there, just one. I won’t spoil all the tricks. But one, a really great way to get in good with a local liquor store that sells fancy bottles is before you let them answer upon asking if they have that midwinter nights DRAM or whatever really cool bottle you’re looking for you immediately say before you ask before you let them talk after you’ve said do you have this is Do you have anything in the back? You say also if you do have it will open it right here right now and will each have a poor and that is a great way to immediately be like I’ve seen people turn on a dime when they were going I gotta tell me No. And then I’m like, Is it worth
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it for me to like have a poor of this stuff right now with the the owner then buy the bottle from him. Yeah, because it does two things in one thing you get to try the juice, you get to try the juice with a friend who also probably loves bourbon because he’s selling the stuff he pedals it and then you’re probably going to get future offers or future looks because that guy knows that you give a shit because then you’re not going to resell an open bottle. Like for him I find it for most people I find that disarming because they know that I’m not in this to make cash. I’m in this because I love the juice. I love the story and I really want that bottle to open up and drink in my house and it’ll get open eventually might as well now yeah, exactly as will make it happen. So take that and run with it listener So even with the with the fandom that you have anything like that nothing’s like nothing’s free coming your way. I mean, I talked about bourbon all the time and yeah, all I get samples sent to me But yeah, for the most part, nobody sitting here sending me allocated bourbon, but even in the music world. Nobody’s like, Hey, I got all this Booker’s in the back waiting for you guys, right. We got occasional offers
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The occasional offers of people that are kind enough that want to bring us bottles and we get gifted because they know that we dig it we can give to a fair amount of booze on the road which we love the idol amazing. Please continue doing really great, really love that’s a good trend. Let’s keep that rolling at the end of every tour we do a bourbon lottery because we’ll have
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a decent amount that we’ve both accrued by ourselves and that we’ve accrued from GIFs from people and so we’ll get to the end of a tour a leg of tour and we just go one for one we like rock paper scissor who goes first then we go one for one and first Captain second cap Yeah, and usually those bottles that we still share but we just keep in our house and get to slowly sip on but we’re both at each other’s houses enough that like we basically choosing which ones we want to have a little bit more of a drink anything at my house and whenever I’m over at his house like he’s got bourbon, I’m drinking that too. And so it’s literally like it’s a first Captain second captain and the only way that he’s not going to get it as if he doesn’t show up in time for me to finish that bottle.
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get hurt. Yeah.
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So I guess the way to get in good graces, you gotta feed these guys bourbon. Yeah, you guys are bourbon bourbon geeks at the end of the day, which is awesome. And I think that’s one of the main reasons why we love to have you on here is because I don’t think there’s a whole lot of people, we could go and talk to better musicians out there that could have this level of conversation with us as well. Because, you know, like you all are, you’re in the trenches, too, right? You’re, you’re out there, you’re hunting, you’re driving, you’re looking for stuff, and you know what to look for. Right? I think so. I mean, and again, this world’s huge still learning what this is like, I’ve only known about dusty for like, three years. And so like the amount of knowledge that you can amass in this world is massive dude, so crazy to learn about who used to own Old Crow, what years were good. When did it stop being great? When is it is it making a resurgence? Like all these nuance things that you can figure out about this world is huge. And to me, that’s just fun. It’s just a fun thing to start studying. And so it’s changing really quickly. Yeah. Like, especially some of the smaller distilleries around the nation that are happening. feel like there’s no
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More to know than ever. It seems like Yeah. It’s just an exciting time to be somebody who loves this stuff. Yeah. So if I remember correctly last night, Andy, when you were on stage, you were drinking bourbon. That’s fact. Yes. I mean, you were you’re drinking bourbon between the songs like you had I think he had a poor with some some rocks in it or something like did you know I was getting we were both gifted that we were gifted
51:23
some old forester on stage. And before that, I was I was Yeah, and we had Eagle rare. In the cup Eagle rare walking onto stage. We had a good amount of bourbon last night just from people bringing us random poor, which is great. How did how did fans get to know that you all were into bourbon? I don’t know if there’s a time on stage that Andy or I are not drinking bourbon. And I think it think it became apparent after a few years of us just just constantly in between songs, having people. Yeah, okay. And so I think and then eventually people would buy us Bourbons, and send them
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onstage and we started, we just would say how appreciative we were, and we would drink them, which is also great. And that on top of just talking about it,
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whether it’s social media or random interview questions like print interviews when they ask, I mean, again, like I said, it’s like, second most touted affinity in myself. And so when it comes to both of us being asked on interviews, what do you into? What are you on the road to stay sane? Aside from drinking, we don’t drink this thing saying, Yeah, but it complicated, complicated answer.
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But But in all seriousness, when people ask us what we’re into, like, it’s one of the earliest things we can talk about, like we like drinking bourbon, we like collecting it. We like trying new stuff, local distilleries, like all that. It’s a natural overflow of something that’s already cool, that we have loved for years. And so when people caught on to that we are very grateful that they have decided to say like how cool this is a way that I can say, Hey, I like your music. It’s given me a lot of solace. Have a pretty
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It all the moments that have like music, your music has been a part of our life for a few years now and we’d like to give back. And a lot of times they choose to give back with sweet hundred proof goodness, we are pleased with that choice I was about to say and kind of tail off on that last one is like when somebody does come and says that, you know, your music has inspired their life, like kind of talk about that, right? Because I mean, this is we’re getting a little deep with this, but kind of talk about like, what that means to you all as artists. To be honest with you, man, anytime we get to be a part of a thing that’s been healing for somebody. Anytime somebody comes up and says as it happens fairly regularly, now, we’ve toured enough and we’ve seen enough cities and met enough people that people get to come up and tell us a story of of a moment in their life that they got through with the helping hand of catharsis and music, and we’ve gotten to be a part of that. And so anytime someone steps up and says that a good thing resulted in emotionally beneficial thing healing. catharsis happened because of our tunes, and
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I don’t know that there’s a better compliment you could give our music we a lot of why we write our music is is for that it’s our own healing. A lot of the times it’s it’s pretty often autobiographical. And I know that’s not the only way to write music. I mean, in the pop world, you’re not looking to write something that’s heavy or something that’s that’s going to be specifically cathartic. Yeah, I think carry on a grand day said, you know, leave your boyfriend for me or something. Yeah, yeah. So, a little is emotionally deep. Yeah. Like, there’s a lot of shift, it really can be.
54:32
But the fact that someone else would also feel what we’re going through kind of it just as pretty binding for us. It’s a really cool thing.
54:39
To although our intention wasn’t to be like, we want to write something specifically for other people, because we write it for ourselves to know that other people are also connecting with it is just really, it’s a cool bond to have with somebody to be like, yeah, we’re, we’re in the same thing together a lot of the time. So it’s really cool. It’s really cool for us when anybody tells us right on absolutely
55:00
And so I guess another thing to kind of tail off on from the last question before then is you know you all are not also discriminated in the whiskey world as well because I think it was a city or two ago you did a shout on Instagram saying somebody sent you some of your favorite cinnamon flavored whiskey. Oh yeah, well let’s Let the record reflect a few things one will drink it if it’s wet and it tastes decent. We will
55:24
we will say the the honey whiskies we just have had we had too many bad experiences in college can’t do it so much honey and few can’t do it. Yeah, do not good. It’s bad to like I just barely heard before. Okay, good I it’s it’s very triggering. I get I get like American honey shell shock and it’s no good. But for the most part, if it’s wet and curiously tasty enough to try we’ll we’ll do it and somebody said for whatever reason we didn’t talk about it. They didn’t talk about I think we I think we just
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just mentioned it on a whim, did you? I don’t remember. I don’t remember doing that sometimes you just they’re talking on stage you know and that’s fair. We could have rambled and said something about fireball but like four shots of fireball appeared. Oh gosh, and well and four shots later like we were like crossing arms on stage and like newlywed couple shooting fireball and then they flirting with us on the line. Yeah, it was great. It was such a such a
56:26
fireball reached out to us is really great. We never responded to him. We need to offload it back. Don’t get there sending us a care package.
56:34
No idea What’s in the bag. I hope it’s just a huge fucking beach ball with fireball on the side. So take it Yeah. Cool. Sounds great. I think because last night you were talking about like, you know, trying to figure out how do you get sponsorships and you’re like, you’re like what do these guys actually stand for? Now? I think you figured out what you all stand for total fireball. Yeah. Honestly, it’s like bring us your strange it like if you could say like, what’s your thesis statement for how you want to
57:00
Like roping your sponsors like who’s strange out there who wants to do something really weird? Because we’re into that that’s great for us. We’re we gave a random shout out to white claw and great hopes that they’d flirt back with us. We don’t even know to what end we don’t we’re not asking for anything. It’s just like what will they say if we start and I also just want to pit white clog against fireball second half storm of the century baby we say go for the highest bidder go for our affections. You don’t care Be it cinnamon popery whiskey or if it be this sweet, sweet blackberry White Glove go Yes, sir. Vodka. There you go. You’ll start wearing like fireball jerseys on stage now like when you’re going out there. That’s okay. We didn’t sell out 10 out of 10 would do it but I would only do it if they didn’t pay us money. I’m like I’m not getting paid for this. Just want the leather jacket. I just want this jacket because I think it’s dope.
57:52
I guess one more thing about the band that I want to ask you because I don’t think we ever talked about it back in forecast when we first met is the name
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Penny Sparrow like, Where did the name originate from? And how did y’all come up with it? So when we were roommates, we had one other roommate in our room, and it was way too crowded for all three of us. It was basically bed dresser bed dresser bed dressing. And he was an author or a writer.
58:19
And he wrote under the pen name of Penny and Sparrow, and we were getting started. We used to just go by sports teams, because we Why not? It was nothing was really official for us. So anytime we would play a show, it would be like, Hey, we’re the Utah Jazz happy to be here. I read the Dallas Cowboys. And by show he means like when somebody in the community was like, hey, we’ve got a fundraiser and there’s gonna be like 13 needy people. We need we just need somebody to play matchbox. 20 covers and
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we’re like, oh, we know Rob Thomas. And so we did that a lot of media by sports. So you go by sports teams, and eventually we did one that was paid out, be it not very much money.
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And so they came up to us and basically we’re like, Hey, you can’t be a sports team anymore. This is making me look bad. Please don’t make me look bad we just pick we please just pick anything that’s not Utah Jazz. Yeah. And so our roommate who went by opinion Sparrow, we basically just asked them were like, Hey, can we just use your name and then anything we do in this room will do under the guise of finance barrel? And that’s where it just kind of stuck and we just kept it and here we are. We years later doing we picked that name when we saddled ourselves with that we didn’t think that this was going to be where we would be no seven years later. Yeah, if we did we would be the Utah Jazz Oh yeah, man. What a great name.
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But we picked it not be Karl Malone is their middle name. Oh my god, Stockton him alone baby. NBA Jam Tournament Edition all day. We just get to wear jerseys on stage all the
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way to go all serious anyway.
1:00:00
us cry over spilt Yeah Do we have this name? Yeah, we gotta move on.
1:00:04
But yeah man we didn’t we didn’t think it was going to be a thing we thought that goes like the idea of making it a that’s a sliding scale subjective and weird anyway like we get to do music full time and we’ve gotten to do it full time for a number of years now which is a a crazy fact that we’re crazy grateful for but we didn’t expect that like we weren’t looking at that we picked this band name and I’m not even saying it would have been different had we had we looked at each other. We’re going to make it Kyle you and me man to the top baby. But like maybe we would have picked that name or maybe we would have considered it a totally different avenue but honestly part of what I feel in my chest is just happy to be here. I can’t believe this is still happening. So glad. I mean, was there was there a turning moment or something where you’re all like, Oh, this is this is real? Like what was like that? That gig or that venue or that whatever it was when something like turn you’re like, Oh, I can quit working or I can quit doing I can just focus on music.
1:01:00
The time like what was what was that moment for y’all?
1:01:04
That’s tough man like a singular moment eludes me like it because it feels so built upon brick after brick after brick of next steps. And every every career is different in the music world like, I’ve never it’s all different fingerprints, so it’s hard to really decide. like to say that that’s how it works for every single person. Yeah, some people might have a moment. But there’s like the meteoric talents of like, like you mentioned earlier, like we love our underground and like, there’s the meteoric town, this human who’s so good, who can dance on the heads of pins has a whistle register. And before she’s 26 can have this unbelievably gigantic career. Because I mean, she’s, she’s got the goods for it. And then that’s so many people’s story and not a lot of people but some people have that other people have sort of what we’ve had, which is, honestly man, it’s been this weird, crazy slow building block trajectory upward, where more and more people tell their
1:02:00
Friends about our music. And that’s made enough money for us to make the next record, and then make the next record and get a little bit more notoriety. And a few more people know who we are. Few more people start listening. And it’s felt like a really beautiful mixture of creative and blue collar. And we couldn’t have routed this for anybody when new musicians come over and ask us like, hey, I’ve listened your music for years. What advice would you give us? We sort of look at each other.
1:02:24
And tell you what we don’t give up. Yeah, I can give you our autobiography in a few minutes. But there’s no chance that that would work for another person. Like I don’t know. It’s just like, play your ass off. Sing your ass off, sing for as many people as you possibly can. And only release things that you love. Yeah. And speaking of releasing things you only love talking about finish a little bit because it’s your latest album, the one that just came out with. So kind of talk about it. It is different than our other stuff, which I did. I think it was in the beginning phases of my RMB phase. So there’s a little bit of RMB grinding just
1:03:00
This Yeah, just a little bit. It’s a small amount.
1:03:05
It’s more rhythmic than our previous stuff. And
1:03:10
it’s it’s really fun album, I’m, the way it came to fruition was really cool the way that we recorded it because we were in different states. We didn’t know what we’re going to end on and what we ended on. We’re just really happy with. It’s just a fun record to sing and play. And, yeah, I feel like he’s right. He brought new melodies to the table. I got to bring new world bank stuff for this record. I don’t know that. I mean, we’ve had fun making all the previous records. But to cows credit, this is the first record that I can look at and say I think people will leave this record saying that’s fun. Like this is a mix of high and low intermingled with heavy emotional death but not sacrificing joy. Like there’s legitimately jubilant songs on this record, which there’s been joy in our previous ones but this one is like straight up, crack a smile and pop your head
1:04:00
Which is a different color to paint with. For us, we got to paint with a few times on this record. I feel like it’s decidedly still our DNA, still our fingerprint, but we got to do a thing that we wanted to experiment with, which is we wrote songs that were new. we’re experimenting with different soundscape with different production like all that stuff. So I like this being another brick in the wall of a career because that’s what we’ve been building on.
1:04:26
Next time just wait because it’s going to be straight genuine Boys to Men show to see because I’m deep in the RMB now so it’s just going to be insanely RMB so enjoy the like, middle folk arose a rock Yeah, if you will, because now it’s gonna be Rosie RMB I heard the still RMB of ice a baby. Yeah.
1:04:47
So you know, as we kind of like, tail off on this, you know, I think I talked to Joe and we said we could probably use a sound bite here on the podcast too. But there was also one song that when we we talked about it last night You’re like, this is our fastest
1:05:00
song writing the newest one on the right you know it’s kind of little more upbeat something like that so it’s blisteringly quick The name is escaping me it’s like don’t want to be with that you don’t want to be without you. That’s it. So So kind of talk about the vibe behind the song and really what you’re trying to accomplish with it. Yeah, it’s a we love Simon and Garfunkel we we love.
1:05:22
Paul Simon wrote an album Graceland that is really unique and out there. And between those two Graceland album and just everything Simon and Garfunkel, we realized that we wanted to do a song similar to either that or like Cecilia,
1:05:40
from Simon and Garfunkel and also looked at our previous work and just realize,
1:05:46
to for us to change and evolve, we wanted to start the foray into faster funding music. And this was just kind of our first attempt at it. And, and so we basically just got bourbon
1:06:00
I think and you don’t have to think anybody wants the fact that that’s what we got. That is what we got. Yeah, that we had it we had a reference track, which is sort of like, anybody who’s a musician knows that when they go in, they may have a certain song that inspired them or like production wise, they’re like, I’d really like to have some of this DNA in this track. And for us, I feel like it’s Akin, if not cousins with the song Cecilia by Simon Garfunkel, which to me is this really intense emotional song with a lot of depth and a lot of angst and sadness all wrapped up and really jubilant package. Like it’s so heavy, so vibrant, so full of life. So rhythmic and all of that is him talking about like you broke You ruined me, Cecilia, you ruined to me like you are the object of my affection and you have decimated my heart. And so all of that is wrapped up in this this attacking Miley rhythm smiley rhythm. And so for us we’re like man, what would it be like to write a reincarnation Love Song where you looked at somebody and said
1:07:00
every iteration of you that you ever will become or have been I’m into and so before the next life before you pick what you’re going to be just tell me so that when I’m done I can pick the same thing. And so I wanted to write something of that much affection that much emotionally enamored devotion in a really smiley track and we did it I think it’s a home run I think everybody loves it I mean even last night people were were digging it so i mean it’s it’s my one of my wife’s favorite tracks on the new album is so yeah, so keep it up. I mean, I whatever whatever you all are doing keep drinking bourbon and keep writing songs Definitely check to both Yeah. So we’re going to kind of wrap it up here so make sure that you follow Penny and Sparrow they’re on all the social media is Instagram Twitter, probably Facebook official page to right there. So we got that. Right there. Everything. We don’t have a tech talk yet for no tech. Sorry, guys. That’s what’s up. Now. We need to get on Snapchat. Can they find you on Snapchat? Oh, no. We’re not on Snapchat. It’s too much effort.
1:08:00
themes I know Yeah, just like I’ll probably for
1:08:07
about 3am after this. We like
1:08:12
bourbon porn. Download the app
1:08:16
for sure. So make sure you go follow Him and all the socials. Make sure you go check out Finch, checking out any streaming service you can. They’ve got albums coming out talk about that as well, because I know we’re leading up into Christmas time kind of talk. Oh, yeah, we got it. We made a Christmas album A few years ago called Christmas songs quite apropos. And this will be the first year that it’s always been able to stream since we released it a few years ago, but we’re pressing it’s vinyl. And so it’s not too many. So it’s limited, so you gotta go snack.
1:08:43
But yeah, just like, just like bourbon. Yeah, this is your bourbon hunt. It is our Christmas album on vinyl. So go get it if you want one. We’d like that. Awesome. Well, fantastic. guys. Thank you again for coming on the show today. You know, understanding your story, your connection with bourbon. I think it really connects with our
1:09:00
Fans too. And hopefully we made some new Penny and Sparrow fans out there as well. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, awesome. Absolutely. And so follow these guys on social media follow us bourbon pursuit Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. We don’t have an album but you already know you’re already subscribing to us on podcast. So maybe one day there will be a vinyl. Absolutely. Gosh, that’d be terrible to listen to a bunch of guys about bourbon on vinyl into it.
1:09:24
There’s a market always good. Always good be. So with that we’re going to play you out with don’t want to be without you. Cheers, everybody, and we’ll see you next week.
1:09:37
weary encounter. And whatever God said it’s your turn to choose. Would you rather come back the following circle. See owners garden the crescent is for all that you prefer to see live from
1:09:56
only no emotions.
1:10:02
Saman
1:10:06
season
Transcribed by https://otter.ai