Shovels & Rope have released 9+ records, including collaborations with Brandi Carlile, Sharon Van Etten and more, have numerous late-night appearances and awards, and also started and curate High Water Festival. We talk with them about carving out time to be creative, having, growing and touring with a family, and the the unique strengths and vulnerabilities of creating in a partnership.
Shovels & Rope have released 9+ records, including collaborations with Brandi Carlile, Sharon Van Etten and more, have numerous late-night appearances and awards, and also started and curate High Water Festival. We talk with them about carving out time to be creative, having, growing and touring with a family, and the the unique strengths and vulnerabilities of creating in a partnership.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Aaron: Hi and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:05] Michaela: And I'm your host, Michaela Anne. And since this show is brand new, I assume you're a new listener. So thank you for checking us out.
[00:00:11] Aaron: We like to think of this show as the anti album cycle show. So what that means is it's not your typical musical show where guests come on and talk about their latest album or their tour. We decided to call it The Other 22 Hours because we wanted to focus on the hours that were not on stage and explore different tools and routines that our guests used to keep balance and inspiration during the less shiny times.
[00:00:31] Michaela: Aaron and I have almost 25 years of touring experience between the two of us. I have spent the better part of the last decade putting out records, both on my own as well as with labels, touring the world, and building an independent career.
[00:00:42] Aaron: And I started making records with friends in high school, and spent years on the road with a ton of different bands, and now I produce records and write music for TV and ads. Essentially, Michaela and I are lifers, and through all this we've learned that there's no one right way to build a career around your passion.
[00:00:56] Michaela: And in an industry where so much feels out of our control and up to luck, being in the right place at the right time, and who you know, we wanted to focus on what is within our control.
[00:01:06] Aaron: So with that in mind, we decided to invite our friends to have a conversation about all the other times, outside of the public eye and ask them the question, "What do you do to create sustainability in your life so you can sustain creating?"
[00:01:16] Michaela: Today's guests are a personal favorite of mine, Shovels and Rope, a band from Charleston, South Carolina. They've been putting out records together since 2008. They both had solo careers before that. Over the years, they've put out nine records, including their Busted Jukebox series.
[00:01:33] Aaron: Which is a cool series of collaborations with artists such as Lucius, Brandi Carlile, and Sharon Van Etten, and guests on this podcast, The Milk Carton Kids. They also founded and curated a food and music festival in Charleston that happens every April. It's called High Water Fest and features a ton of great bands every year.
Collaboration is a really big part of what they do and they are great community builders. And we talked a lot about that They happen to be married, they have children, and it was a really unique experience for us cuz we're in the same boat. And so we got to talk about things like building a schedule at home.
[00:02:07] Michaela: The benefits of therapy to help communicate as partners who are raising children and working together. Carrie Ann and I multiple times asked if we happened to marry the same man.
[00:02:17] Aaron: Check Yeah. And to top it off, we had this conversation in a really unique place. We were on board the Norwegian Pearl ship during the Cayamo festival, in this really ornate dining room that looked like it was straight off the Titanic.
[00:02:32] Michaela: Out at sea.
[00:02:33] Aaron: Yeah, somewhere in the Caribbean between Tortola and Miami. And because of that, it was just too much to record video. So this will be an audio only podcast.
[00:02:43] Michaela: And without further ado, here's our conversation with Shovels & Rope.
[00:02:47] Aaron: Well, hi. Thank you so much for carving out time with us on this ship
[00:02:51] Michael: It's nice to hang out with you guys. Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. There's a lot I want to, there's a lot I want talk to you about.
Yeah.
[00:02:58] Michaela: Yeah. So for listeners, we're on Cayamo, a festival on a cruise ship, and we're very excited to have Shovels and Rope, Cary Ann and Michael. So you guys have been in music for a long time, had solo careers before you started working together, I would imagine you have a wealth of knowledge of how you navigate the ups and downs of all of that.
In your current life, what are the ways that you guys kind of try remembering that this is all about you guys being able to create and how do you care for yourselves individually, and as a family to be able to keep doing that?
[00:03:36] Cary Ann: That is a solid question that's gonna take a lot of unpacking. There's a lot to unpack. Yeah. And I think since having the children and, especially since the experience of the covid lockdown, where there was just so much time. The time that we are able to spend with them, and we just have created more time, and more intentional time. We're always together. Always. 24/7. But there's like, just when we are traveling, we've been more careful about making more, not traveling time. Just to be having a really regimented kind of home life not bouncing on tour and off tour constantly.
There's like bigger tours and bigger gaps in between them. And we also have kind of a schedule when we're not working, where we give each other hours. Like, here's your business hours, here's where you're on point with the kids.
[00:04:25] Michael: That's how we more or less started out, we hit a wall when our daughter was, you know, new and we had one baby, and we were getting frustrated because we couldn't. You know, we both work from home and we're both taking care of Louie and we didn't know how to create any time to be creative, you know, and do the thing that makes you feel like you.
And so, we, we did CBS Saturday Morning TV show, and we brought Louie with us she was very young, you know, still nursing, still, you know, crazy
[00:05:01] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:01] Michael: And we all stayed in the same hotel. We were just stupid. You know, like part of us was like "No, she's too little to stay overnight with the nanny. She's gotta stay in the room with us." And she just had a horrible night and we all, nobody slept. We were just like real grumpy. And we got up the next morning and we were a mess, you know, and we had to go do the show.
Cary, when she gets tired, she gets real, you know, zippy and wired and I get just more grumpy. And then her zippy wired makes me kind of mad.
[00:05:35] Cary Ann: We become intensely and incompatible at that point.
[00:05:37] Michael: Boy, yeah,
[00:05:37] Aaron: Sounds familiar.
[00:05:38] Michael: And, but, but at the TV station studio, you know, in a little holding cell with our publicist who's talking about all the, you know, all the stuff. And we are just like. Cary's, you know,
[00:05:51] Cary Ann: Pleasing everybody. Making sure everybody likes her! " Is that really? Is that good?"
[00:05:56] Michael: I was just like, we were both dying because we're so tired. And then we have to go on TV and do the thing. And we, I don't even remember it. I remember that I feel like we sucked. I felt like I was like, didn't even have time to look, in the mirror in the morning, before we had to be, you know, camera ready and all that stuff.
And we did it. And it felt bad. You know, I think we pulled it off, but I don't know. , we better go back and
[00:06:22] Cary Ann: I ain't going back looking at that. I don't go back. What happened in the past is in the past and on YouTube.
[00:06:27] Michael: We went back to the hotel and I immediately hit up my buddy and was like, "I think we need to go see a therapist."
Like, you were telling me about a therapist, a really great friend in Charleston. And, and he was like, "yeah, I'll hook you up". And we got the contact and then we started going to therapy. She helped us out with some scheduling tips. You know, it was like, She was just like, this person who could zoom out and say, " Well, why don't Michael, you give Cary from like eight to nine in the morning to do her wellness routine. You know, whatever she wants to do. If she wants to exercise, if she wants to just like go outside or just you know, you just be the parent on duty and then you can switch and you can have your exercise time or your wellness time. Meditate, you know, cry, do whatever you need to do. And then you know, and then From 11 to one, somebody is the main parent. And you know, we just sort of broke up the days like that and it really, I mean, it saved us. That type of thing.
[00:07:27] Cary Ann: We still revert to that. When we come off the road and things are not on schedule, we just be like, okay, let's break this day up into what amounts to shifts.
A/B. Divide, and conquer. Like, I'm on kids. While you're in the studio writing songs. You're on kids while I'm doing all the things that I do. And honestly, it's an interesting thing, like in the studio world Michael runs the studio. He is the director, it's musical director, it's the producer, the arranger.
And a lot of that's by choice. It's not something I'm interested in. It's not where my strengths lie. I prefer to be in the domestic end of things. I prefer to be kind of doing a lot of the mental housework. So we kind of like divided up our chores too. Like those lists of chores have changed and evolved over time. It's like Michael will always hang out the garbage. I never have to. Put that on my calendar.
[00:08:08] Michaela: Exact same thing in our house.
[00:08:09] Cary Ann: I don't have to do it. laundry was kind of my world. And then I got overwhelmed with the laundry and he like scooped up laundry and became like, " I actually actually like laundry. and now I have a way of folding that as my way of folding and everything is organized and I know where they go in the drawers", which is empowering for him.
[00:08:26] Michael: Yeah. just makes the day flow a little bit easier. And it's like meditative. I don't know, I kind of like to be up there and you just rip a podcast and fold some laundry and
you know,
[00:08:35] Cary Ann: Me time, yo, a little
[00:08:37] Michaela: This is hilarious because we've been together 15 years and I still don't know how to fold T-shirts the way Aaron likes.
[00:08:43] Aaron: I got my way. They, they fit in my drawer a specific way. You don't fold it that way it doesn't fit.
[00:08:48] Michael: I get it.
[00:08:48] Aaron: But for me dishes are my thing where I'll just like zone out on doing dishes and I'm in my zone. And it is, it's like a meditation. I can like, kind of like
[00:08:56] Michaela: And then I come in and load the dishwasher and he's like, what the fuck did you do to the dishwasher.
[00:09:01] Michael: These don't go here.
[00:09:02] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:09:02] Cary Ann: We have completely two different ways of loading the dishwasher. But you know what? I have the grace. I have decided Michael is doing the dishes. I don't have to ask him to do the dishes. This is not an issue in my marriage. It is an issue in so many marriages, like we're two stay-at-home parents, who bear almost equal halves of the domestic load.
I probably have more of the floating stuff. Like he just learned to make cinnamon toast on like, on demand. Man has many culinary skills. But now that he has the, the cinnamon toast routine down, it is just one more thing that he can do if I die first.
[00:09:36] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:37] Cary Ann: He's got it. He's got this.
[00:09:40] Aaron: So like when you guys carved out a schedule for being home, did that improve your creativity and your head space to create? Or did it feel like boxing it in, you know? Cause like a lot of times I feel like having like such a regimented routine, it's almost like being creative, on demand and doesn't work for everybody.,
[00:09:54] Michael: That's what our therapist said. She was like, "listen to what you just said, I need to schedule time to be creative." Which is, really foreign to I think a lot of creative people and the way that their brains are because they just, you know, a little bit more floaty.
I am like an organized, creative person. So I kind of relish it, and I actually will get in there and, even if I don't come up with anything, I like enjoy splattering the paint a little bit, you know? That kind of fills me up. I think that anybody, really, that actually has some focus ed creative time and they manage it, I think you'd be surprised at what you accomplish. And you're like, "Oh, it's only been an hour and have written a verse and a chorus just because I gave myself the time and space and quiet to be with my brain, you know?
[00:10:43] Aaron: Exactly. Yeah. I don't know for you guys, we're 20 months into having our first kid and I'm like, "What did I do before? I felt really busy before..."
[00:10:51] Cary Ann: You get real selfish with your time and you feel a little bit like you're, I mean, Michael has a lyric about it, you're feeling robbed of it. But they're your children and you love them and they have your time, but it's all of it. It's all of yourself. And you're like, can't I have like 5% of myself? Just so that I can like be me? But they do. They would need, they need all that you have. And because you love them and you're new at it, you give them all that you have. I remember when I first started changing diapers, one little line, one little shallow little line of a diaper changed. Twenty diapers a day.
[00:11:22] Michael: When it turns blue.
[00:11:23] Cary Ann: Yeah. The line, when the line turns blue, you can give it a, few more goes of pee, for example. You know, like, I'm like, you're still a really good mom if... you don't have to run, change that that tD diaper the very second that it happened.
[00:11:34] Michael: They're made to withhold
[00:11:35] Cary Ann: For 12 hours overnight. Sleeping. You know, they can go.
[00:11:38] Michael: Have you ever put one in a swimming pool? Have you seen what what happens to it? The science of things.
[00:11:44] Michaela: And that difference is like when your body kind of relaxes. Cuz I feel like since our daughter's been born, like my body's just on edge all the time. Cuz you're always like, Okay, what does she need? What does she need? What, what, what?"
And also watching that she's safe and what's she touching and who's she bothering? And like...
[00:11:59] Cary Ann: It takes up all of your real estate now and then that will get easier with time. And this is different things that are rascally, but that part, I remember the a hundred percent bandwidth devoted to just the safety and wellbeing of the child.
And some of the old timers fuss at you like "You're hovering over that baby. You are picking that baby up too much. You're..." But they don't remember, what it's like to have something depend on you for its every single thing that it needs in the world. All it does is breathe on its own, and it's heartbeats
[00:12:28] Aaron: It's on you.
[00:12:30] Cary Ann: It's on you. And if if something goes wrong, it's on you. And they're legal liabilities for doing a terrible job. You know, it's not just between you and God, it's between you and the law. If you mess up too bad, you gotta get,
[00:12:41] Michaela: So did you, so Michael said that he thrives from the schedule, but you said you find it both ways?
[00:12:46] Cary Ann: I said both ways. We both read a book that was informative and I was like, "Man, really? I gotta, that's what I gotta do?"! And Michael was like, "I knew it. I knew that that's what we were supposed to do. I've been doing that." It was, was it the first Jeff Tweedy book?
He talks a lot about when you're young and you're free and you don't have any responsibilities, and you're selfish and you're only thinking of your creativity, all those ideas come from the ether and you're just grabbing stuff and humming things and, and you just think that songs come through you like you're some kind of conduit for something. And then, when you have to budget your time, this is the conduit, and you're not available to create anything unless you've created this space and the time for you to create that.
I will very quickly fill up that designated space with frivolous activities that have nothing to do with creativity. So it doesn't necessarily yield art for me yet. And sometimes it does and it's just cuz I'm a bad time manager, which is why I have been interested in what you've been posting on Instagram.
And I've been laughing and I was like, "This is the sleeper that's gonna help me organize my life."
[00:13:47] Aaron: Oh man. That's like.. Organization is what makes me thrive.
[00:13:52] Cary Ann: We married the same people....
[00:13:52] Michaela: Yeah!
[00:13:54] Cary Ann: in
[00:13:54] Aaron: Yeah cause it's compartmentalization.
[00:13:56] Michael: Yes!
[00:13:56] Aaron: You know, it's, it's almost like the point, if I know things are organized, I can allow myself to forget about 'em for a minute and I can focus on creating, I can focus on writing, cause I know that that'll be taken care of later.
Otherwise, I'm constantly juggling everything all the time and I'm exhausted and I have no head space to make anything.
[00:14:14] Cary Ann: time. Mm-hmm.
[00:14:14] Michael: Totally. I think that I don't know when that switch flipped for me, but I was like, I can just put this in a box. I'm gonna put this in a box and just open this box and just work in this drawer for a minute, you know? I mean, maybe it was like a survival instinct because of some of the trauma that happens when you become a new parent.
And also we were just like drowning, trying to figure out how we're gonna keep, doing what we're doing and like, make these two worlds
[00:14:41] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:14:42] Cary Ann: Yeah. And like you, we don't have parental childcare proximal. It's like, there's not an us there's, we aren't near the family network that, our ancestors depend on to juggle life and work balance.
And like, there aren't very many bands where mom and daddy are both in the band. Some particularly unique conditions. But so far it's just been an incredible adventure. And it has forged us into something different than we were before. It breaks you all the way down to your most primal self and then it's like the deep, dark truthful mirror you're gonna face every day. Like all of your shortcomings are amplified. And for me wrestling with some of that and wrestling with always wanting to be the best mother that you can be, and also having to give yourself a break and be like, "Okay, I'm just the okayest mom today, but everybody's fed, and healthy and, and I asked them if they were having a good childhood today, and they both said yes, and they were not under duress when I asked them."
And, I give myself a lot of grace when I don't necessarily rise to my own standards or would I project the social standards to be.
of
[00:15:47] Michaela: Yeah. Well I think also historically and culturally, professional musicianship and touring musicianship, has been designated for men. And it's not a place culturally that's friendly to one women, who are raising children at all, but then also families. And I mean that's what, being on Cayamo is so cool because it's like there are more and more places that are nurturing of this and don't think your children are liability for your career.
And that's another reason I like to talk about this stuff, and like, we don't post Georgia. We don't show her face a lot on our social media. But I've thought a lot about how much I want my social media and my like identity as a musician, and sharing my music, to be tied to my role as a mother.
And I first had this self-conscious feeling that, "Oh, people are gonna think, oh, Michaela became a mom and now that's all she cares about. And she's not, you know, she's not relevant anymore as a musician."
And then I was like, that's actually really fucked up and patriarchal and misogynistic. And so then it became important to me to show constantly, no, I can have both and we're gonna keep working really hard to make sure that we have this life because I also wanna show little girls out there it doesn't have to be a choice. You can grow up and be a professional musician, or an artist, and be a mother.
Cuz I have even friends in their thirties who are like," I don't know how I could keep touring or be a musician and have children. But I want that, but I feel like I'm gonna have to give up my career."
So that's something I like to talk about a lot because there's still that mindset and I've, faced it also with my, people that I've worked with in the professional realm of like, "Oh, you're having a baby? That's, this is gonna be hard."
[00:17:40] Michael: "Oh that's It for you, huh?"
[00:17:42] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:17:42] Michael: I mean, I can't, obviously I'm not a woman. But I can speak to the social media aspect of it and like, that just made me think of some things.
We started this band, not because we wanted, we didn't want to be like the husband and wife duo band who like, looks at each other and is like, "Awwwwww." We're a fucking rock band. You know? And we like to play loud and we're like usually mad at each other when we're each other.
[00:18:06] Cary Ann: That is a funny truth. And we love each other so much. Like, I love you so much, you're my soulmate. We're best friends. But also like, we are just people doing the best we can and we're tired and we're different as we could possibly be.
And I want Atta boys. And he doesn't hand out just inauthentic praise, just to make you feel good, to sprinkle little unnecessary stuff. He's loving, especially affectionate, like with kids, but like those kind of,
[00:18:33] Michael: Yeah, I'm, I'm bad at that. I'm working on that. It's just like one of those things that just never, and like my parents weren't that way and like my family wasn't that way. Yeah.
And so we
[00:18:45] Michaela: Very funny
[00:18:46] Cary Ann: Isn't this wild?
[00:18:47] Michael: Yeah. you know, when we started this band, it doing stuff and people were paying attention, and we kind of have always been like, don't pay too much attention to what they're saying because that's doesn't do you any good.
And we were already a little bit savvy by the time we started doing this. We had careers before and we had been in the, you know, biz. So we just sort of stuck to what we were doing and didn't really pay much attention. Then we started, we have kids now and , I don't know, we could be perceived as like, "awww, look at now they have kids now this is the, you know, Carter family, blah blah..."
Yeah, you're soft! I know. I think I'm,
[00:19:22] Cary Ann: I think you're self-conscious about it!
[00:19:23] Michael: Am I showing my hand a little bit?
[00:19:24] Cary Ann: You're showing your hand, babe!
[00:19:25] Michael: Maybe so. Maybe so. But I, but like, just as a artist, and a musician, and as a songwriter specifically, we're not trying to lean on that. We just decided that we were going to do it and we're like, "Well, we're gonna have kids, and we're gonna go on the road, and we're gonna stay on the road. And whatever happens, happens." And we just make the art and the music that we feel like making.
[00:19:45] Cary Ann: We've made them make places for our family.
We like, we, well here's what, how it went down. Like when we got pregnant, we were at the top of our moment. It was, we were Americana, breakout art, whatever, and it was like our big moment to maybe rocket off. And it was New Year's Eve morning, we were playing a show with Jason Isabel in Kentucky.
And we had the big talk with the managers, the big year that was coming up. They left and literally five minutes later, I called everybody back in and Michael and I fessed up that we were gonna have a baby. Instead of being distraught or annoyed, everybody was beside themselves with joy. We're lucky in the sense that everybody in our infrastructure was a parent.
Our booking agents were dads. Our publicists. I mean, it was just like everybody was rooting for us. And also, we're not that big of a.. If you're like a giant act and everybody's making millions of dollars on you, I think maybe there's more pressure for them to be negative Nancy's about your life.
But we're like a low stakes band that everybody's rooting for. We're a mom and pop, shop. And I have never had a hard time. Whether it's because have a big personality or can kind of walk in the masculine easily. Like I have always felt being a mother made me be perceived with more respect, and tougher, and I'm a little big mama and I'm mother everybody, and project my femininity. Sometimes presents as masculinity.
And that's always been an interesting thing cuz I remember feeling that way long before anybody started talking about gender fluidity or how we use gender. And as a woman in this industry, I mastered having masculine energy and projecting it in order to be able to have what I felt like equal footing along with the boys, right?
So cursing, drinking whiskey and trying to be a bit like one of the boys. But also always held and treated with such respect and loved by those boys that, including Michael. When we became partners, it was this interesting balance.
So my experience when we became parents was everyone rallied and supported us. And the space that we were taking up was easy to shape because the stakes were a little bit different and we were such a one, paycheck, one thing, it's like we could get on a bus for example.
We were already on a bus for a year or two I think, or right, like a year before we got pregnant. And so having that bus in place was the secret weapon to us being able to bring the kids on tour and have a nanny and have it be super domestic out there.
[00:22:06] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:07] Michael: But I mean, I also haven't said that, there's a lot of people who do it not in a bus. bus.
And that's just it gracefully and who make it happen, and it works for them. That was kind of just like the path that we felt could do it. Like with our, skillset sets and everything. We need to have a safe space where everybody can go. Need to be able to bring the dog
[00:22:27] Cary Ann: I mean, we did, we had a baby, a dog, a mom and a dad, tour manager, a road tech, and a merch person and a bus driver. And that was our, that's our our life.
[00:22:35] Aaron: I mean, that's when I met y'all when I was out with Indianola. Yeah. I think that was like 2016, something like that. Lou, yeah. She was really young. And I remember, I mean, granted we were chasing your bus in a rented Chevy Malibu, so we'd show up a little bit later than you guys would, but we'd show up and you guys would be getting back, with your dog and with Louie and a stroller and you're like, "Yeah, we just went for a walk here."
And I was like, damn, that's. This is nice. This is a way to tour. Meanwhile, it's like me and Owen in this car we're like eight cigarettes deep at this point and like our back all messed up. And like, " oh, that seems like a great way to tour". You know?
And we're not on a bus and we've taken Georgia on tour a bunch and we're like, "Man, who would've known stopping at a playground in some random town for like an hour is actually a really great way to tour?!" Get out and like get some sunshine and stretch your legs.
[00:23:19] Michael: Totally. Yeah. Your perspective is different and it's healthier. There's so much hurry up and wait in this business. You have to show up so early to sound check and then you just sit around in a bar, and no wonder everybody becomes an alcoholic who's, you know, because there's shit else to do except for sit there and have a drink or like wander around and get into trouble or whatever.
[00:23:39] Michaela: Well it's also, again, another part of this podcast for us is trying to show people that there's not one way to be a musician. Like I used to think if you were really organized then you weren't really a creative.
If you, like, if you were good at math and spreadsheets, you weren't really an artist. And I always would combat that feeling and I would think, "Oh, I guess I'm not really an artist because I'm interested or good at other things."
And that's another thing that I think people fall into unhealthy habits cuz it's like, oh, you know, sex, drugs and rock roll. You're supposed to like go have fun and be wild.
[00:24:15] Michael: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:24:16] Michaela: And that's what's interesting to us talking different people. We interviewed The Milk Carton Kids and we did a tour with them when Georgia was like eight months old. And we, you know, the show ends and everybody leaves immediately and there's no late night hang.
The hang that we had was like going to an aquarium altogether with Georgia.
Like
[00:24:34] Cary Ann: Joey's a super dad,
[00:24:35] Michael: Mm-hmm. ,he shepherded us a little bit in the early days. Joey did.
[00:24:40] Cary Ann: We have a network and all the dads are talking, all the moms are talking to like coach each other and help each other along.
[00:24:46] Michael: Yeah. Carrie had a really great, I, think she still has a great text thread going on between all of these different tour moms, in all different kinds of bands.
[00:24:54] Cary Ann: All, that all had babies at the same time.
[00:24:56] Michael: Full of hacks, you know, like, " Did you know that you can bring along like, doggy doody bags and like throw a shitty diaper in there, and tie it off and it won't stink up the whole bus?!"
[00:25:08] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:25:08] Cary Ann: Or if you have a dirty shower in the dressing room of your, rock club, if you just have a collapsible laundry basket that you pop up, you can also have a safe, clean place where your baby won't drown in the shower, and you can wash them in a basket and there's just two inches of water for them to splash around in?
Yeah. But then they'll catch a gone too, cuz like one time, there's so many stories. One of the Indigo Girls mamas was like, "Do not make your baby's homemade food and put that on the bus freezer. Because what happens, is one night while the bus is being washed, the generator gets turned off, and it loses temperature. Then it gets turned back on, and then the baby's food is spoiled. But you didn't know, because the generator was off and you were asleep!"
Yeah, right. So she's like, " Just forgive yourself, and let's get you the squeezy bags and just do your best."
And so I stopped doing a lot of, I dunno, just there was tips, things to try and then also pitfalls that you could fall into trying too hard to nail it. . Yeah, exactly.
[00:26:07] Michael: To appease the judgy moms.
[00:26:08] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:26:09] Cary Ann: There's a judgy mom inside you, cuz you don't know what you're doing. You're just trying to figure out what kind of mommy you're gonna be and what your boundaries are and you know,
[00:26:16] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:26:16] Cary Ann: Whether you're gonna let them eat off the floor or not this time. It's a daily question.
[00:26:21] Michaela: We do that.
[00:26:22] Aaron: Or just learning how resilient they actually are.
[00:26:24] Michaela: I eat off the floor a lot now,
[00:26:26] Aaron: Yeah, me too. I'm like, cool.
[00:26:28] Michael: We all
[00:26:28] Aaron: I've come to terms with that. I'm, a walking snot rag and napkin at all times. It's cool..
[00:26:33] Michael: And what you are going to eat is just the refuse of what they don't eat. And that's, it's fine. It's, it's easier cleanup.
[00:26:40] Cary Ann: cooking two meals yet dinner time?
[00:26:42] Aaron: I 'm basically not ordering at restaurants anymore. Cool, I'll eat whatever everybody else doesn't eat, you know? I wish somebody would've told me beforehand that as a new dad, I'm gonna eat an hour later than I want to standing up and it's gonna be cold.
[00:26:53] Cary Ann: Yes.
[00:26:54] Michael: You're the garbage man. Yeah. We all, we become the The garbage man.
man.
Embrace it!
[00:26:58] Cary Ann: The garbage, man. I'm gonna eat your No, I'll . Eat it.
So you guys are talking about creating schedules for your independent creativity. What about creating together? Do you guys do that? Do you write your songs together ever? Or just is it a combination or separate?
It's combination.
[00:27:14] Michael: We've never really,
gotten in a room
[00:27:16] Cary Ann: and done a session.
[00:27:16] Michael: Been two people on stools, looking at each other with a guitar, being like, okay, what you got? You know, let's write a song about this. We independently come up with ideas and scratch things down.
And sometimes write full songs before we share them with one another. Or, sometimes it'll just be like, I had an idea about writing a song like this, what do you think? And that'll just be the, first, seed of,
[00:27:41] Cary Ann: Yeah. I gave you like some line in French the other day. You're like, I need a French line that ends in this syllable.
[00:27:46] Michael: Yeah.
[00:27:48] Cary Ann: And I gave it to you, and I haven't even heard the melody, but I was able to like co-write that moment.
[00:27:52] Michael: But a lot of times we'll work separately and then when it's, this is all part of the organization of it, you know, like, oh, it's time to make a record, or we're gonna make a record in the coming months or whatever.
We have some serious, sit down, you know, show me what you got and I'll show you what I got. From full songs, fully flushed out songs to like, the littlest ideas. And then we kind of pass 'em back and forth. And sometimes we'll finish each other's stuff, or sometimes one of us will just help out with a verse or a chorus or a melody or something.
It's like, it's really always been kind of like that. And I think when we first started the band, maybe it was harder for us to do that together because we were like, "I'm in control. I gotta be in control."
[00:28:35] Cary Ann: And I was that way. And I also had a crush on you, which was like, I was like embarrassed to try to write with you.
It too. It was like, I could never be, I was trying to land you, man. I was I couldn't like go like, get that vulnerable with you, like..
[00:28:51] Michael: But now everything is really easy in that way. Like, we're really wide open in that department and it's not,
[00:28:58] Cary Ann: It's not precious at all
[00:29:00] Michael: There's no embarrassment, and there's no preciousness. I mean, we take that seriously and it's always a little bit like, "I'm gonna show you a little piece of my soul right now. And, just be kind, even if it sucks. We're pretty good each other at locking in and being respectful of the sensitivities of each other. You know, that's a pretty intimate process no matter who you're doing it with.
[00:29:21] Aaron: it really is. I mean, we've been together for 15 years, and our dynamic has been different cuz, I mean, the band name is Michaela Anne, and We've always approached it that way, with that separation. That it's her band, it's her project, and she hires me.
I don't want her to feel any obligation to hire me to play music with her if I'm not doing a great job, if I'm not the right fit. We've kind of always kept that.
And we made her last record together. It was the first time we'd really worked that closely together, just the two of us making a record. And it, it's extremely vulnerable, you know? And she was pregnant at the time. We'd been married for at that point six? I mean, we'd been together for a long time. And still the, I'll speak for myself, the insecurity, and it's a really sensitive place even though we have all this history together and all this intimacy together, something about creating together as a whole other level.
[00:30:05] Michaela: Well, cuz it's so much more weighted when you know each other so deeply. And there can be then so much more tension. Like if I'm working with just a random person and they say something to me, I'm never like, "Well what does that mean?! And why'd you say it like that?"
[00:30:18] Michael: What do you mean by that?!"
[00:30:19] Michaela: Yeah, exactly. There's no edge. It's not as emotional, both ways, in a positive way and a negative way. That's cool to hear that you, it's gotten easier for you guys over time,
[00:30:29] Cary Ann: Definitely. And even though we don't necessarily sit down in a writer's room in the Nashville tradition of co-writing, we decided when we got married and when we started our band together, we would have a songwriting company, like Lennon and McCartney, where even if I write a whole song, our experience together is the song. And sometimes all I do is give him a vote of confidence to be like, no, that is a good song. I think this would be a better rhyme, maybe, here. Or, I don't really like repeating that line over and over again, but it's a good song and,
[00:31:00] Michael: We can talk about it like technicians a little bit at that point. You know, like both under the hood being like, well, is this the correct fitting? You know?
[00:31:08] Michaela: it's not as personal.
[00:31:09] Michael: Yeah, it's like with the thing that we're working on, and it's precious, but it's like, our footing is just so much more solid now. We have so much other shit don't worry about, you know?
[00:31:19] Cary Ann: So much real shit. Yeah. Just...
[00:31:21] Michael: We did, I mean, on the last record on Manacor, there's a song called Divide and Conquer.
[00:31:26] Cary Ann: I was just about to bring that sensitive subject up.
[00:31:29] Michael: And it's a heavy song and it's about two people. It's basically like, it's about two people, but it's not about us, but it is about us. And in this song it's
[00:31:40] Cary Ann: It sounds like a divorce song. But it's not.
[00:31:43] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:44] Michael: you know, the characters basically do what we do and then it gets too heavy. And then they split, and they split up the kids. And it, I
[00:31:53] Cary Ann: I was furious with Michael, and I cried and I cried and I cried about it. Cause I was just sure it was like, "Is this what you think we're
[00:31:59] Michael: gonna
[00:32:00] Cary Ann: gonna ? do..."
[00:32:01] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:32:01] Cary Ann: But then even that song, we were able to just kind of, after I had a little cry, it wasn't like
[00:32:06] Michael: I mean, we worked our way through it and we, and, and you know, all the things come through our heads we're 10 years into our career and we're like, oh, all these people are gonna think that we are getting a divorce. You know, it's kind of become that that way.
[00:32:19] Cary Ann: It has that have happy ending. Michael.
[00:32:21] Michael: Like how do we even, how do we even, what do we say before we play this song to assure the people that we're good? We're good.
[00:32:29] Cary Ann: We never play the song. And when we do, I do exactly that. I make a joke that mommy and daddy are fine and none of this is your fault. Almost
[00:32:36] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:32:36] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:37] Michael: But I think it was kind of good and necessary, to write. It was coming from a pure place and it, you know, as artists I feel like we work through our stuff in a real way. I mean, we're lucky to be able to work through our, things through writing songs, and if it happens to make some people uncomfortable, then...
[00:32:56] Cary Ann: It's just a story. Yeah. And it's a story of what if our thing went a different way. Or in this particular instance, we did kind of, it's a, there's a tie up and it's ambiguous, but it's hopeful at the end. It's not a presumption that all is lost. It says that you're stronger than you ever were before, at the end of the song.
And I would just, be able to work out and talk about those feelings in a song and the insecurities, even with a really strong marriage, like how it could go terribly wrong and kind of facing it, and then singing about it together, not divided.
It's also kind of like, I wanted to blow the idea out of people's minds that we were just elevated, perfect, married couple that would never have a problem and never fighting. "Goals, couple goals, kiss her." It's like, that is not our bag. We are deeply, we do love each other, but it's real, and it's intense up here and there's a lot going on, and people wanna project their mommy daddy's stuff on us. And now I'm wanting to like, yeah, I'll be your mama. I'm big little mama and I'm gonna tell you how it is. It's hard sometimes and you gotta like, grow a pair of chichis and cajones and, grit down and bear it when it gets hard. And then you find another little peaceful lull and you're stronger and better and more complete for having survived that.
[00:34:08] Michaela: that? Yeah.
[00:34:08] Aaron: Yeah, man, it was a few, five years ago or something like that. We were going through a time, you know, growing pains as a couple. It was just the constant push and pull all the time. When we were very much on the pull portion of our relationship, and I think it was a guy that came to fix our HVAC of all people. And he saw I had a wedding ring on, he was talking about it.
He's like, "I've been married for 65 years." And I don't know how he got on it. talking about fire. And he's like, " You can't get gold without fire. You gotta send it through the flames And it comes out and it's pure, and it's clean, and it's stronger than ever." And stick it through this and it'll come out the other side and it'll be a little bit stronger and a little more worn in the best
[00:34:44] Michael: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:45] Cary Ann: I've been trying to think about a way to write a song about old love like that. Like trying to think about.. My show in my hand now?
[00:34:51] Aaron: Now
[00:34:51] Michael: No.
[00:34:52] Cary Ann: But I've been thinking cuz there are love songs, and I have written love songs, and new in our relationship especially, all of my love songs are love songs from Michael.
Now we're writing love songs that are about the intensity of family and change, and love songs for sinking ships and, dying junky whores, and all kind of love songs for, you know, one-eyed salesman and waitresses and circuses and all these wonderful characters.
But I wanna write another love song about, an ode to loves that have survived and like...
[00:35:23] Michael: "She stopped loving him today." is that about when you threw me off of the, cruise ship? Yeah!
[00:35:29] Cary Ann: I was working on the chorus for that one.
[00:35:32] Michael: He died at sea.
[00:35:33] Cary Ann: He was well insured.
[00:35:37] Michaela: Charlie Rich has a great one that I think his wife wrote called "Life Has its Little Ups and Downs."
But I think that there's so much shame around having hard times, and ever having hard times in your relationship. And we talk about it that like there was a time that we separated and we took time apart and we thought maybe our marriage was over.
And we've been here since we were 20, 21 years old. Like to think that anyone could go through their entire adulthood living in perfect harmony with one other person, and there were never times that one or both people thought, " This is over and I have to get out of this." They're lying if that's what they tell you.
And I feel like there's so much shame in what's just honest and true that it's really hard to build a life together. And it's beautiful and incredible when you can survive the hard times. But my parents, my dad was a submarine captain and was out to see half the year, and we moved every other year, and my parents have been here since they were 16.
And my mom raised two kids, move into a new town, and her husband couldn't communicate with him. That's just like the tip of the iceberg of what their relationship has stood the test of time. And I feel like the best part of it is that my mom has always been like, "Marriage fucking sucks sometimes. There are days that I wanted to run away and never come back. There are days that I want to throw your father out the window. Like parenting is really lonely and boring and hard. It's also the greatest thing I've ever done, and the reason that I'm here on this earth." She's always been so honest that life isn't about always feeling good every day.
And you're never going to, and you wanna find people who will stay and dig in and do the work. And so I think that's really incredible to share that more with people of like, " Yeah, this is incredible what we're building, that we're a band, we take our family on the road, we play our songs together, but... that doesn't mean we're in perfect harmony every day. We fight, we have sad times, we have times where we question what our future is, but that's not scary because we talk about it and we put it out there."
What's the saying? The like mold grows in darkness?
[00:37:46] Aaron: Yeah, Mold grows in darkness. Yes. So if you put it out in the open, shine some light on it. For me, you know, I used to struggle a lot with shame and all that. And I used to think that vulnerability was a weakness. And then I had some good friends that helped me turn that on its head and it's amazing.
Like if I just kind of voice something that I'm ashamed of, even just with Michaela, it instantly kind of starts to feel better and that starts to spread and it starts to heal itself in a way.
[00:38:10] Michael: Yeah.
[00:38:11] Michaela: And Art has that incredible ability to do that for people. I think about, Lucinda Williams. Her songs are so exposing, that sometimes you're like, what?! She's sharing. And like if you dig a little deeper, it's probably a true story. But it makes you feel better about yourself because artists through their vulnerability, through our vulnerability, we're giving others the permission to be vulnerable in return and know that None of us are unique
[00:38:39] Cary Ann: Yeah, we're just little, we're little primates just trying to figure out if we're gonna be a bonobo or a silverback. Like, like, are you gonna be just a territorial beast? Are you gonna be the a loving, sex happy, community building ape? You know, what kind of monkey do you wanna be with me?
[00:38:57] Michaela: Mm-hmm. I mean, I don't know them, but Amanda Shire and Jason Isbell
[00:39:00] Cary Ann: Girl, I was just about to say. Amanda's record was the most vulnerable, crazy record. I was obsessed with the record and I was, kind of having a little, feeling insecure in my, not in my marriage, but about whether my husband still liked me that week, right? And I was listening to her record, cuz she is telling all of her business. All of this is real.
I can tell she has not written songs about somebody else's experience. She is experiencing all of this, and has the guts to share it with us. And her husband stands there right next to her, visibly supporting her and, the same as we're doing now, like owning that all of our, like, this is not some gilded perfect thing and we're not perfect people and we have complicated relationships.
And the record that she made, just besides the music and the songwriting, this all of it blew me away. But just the level that she just kind of owned what she was experiencing.
[00:39:48] Michaela: Mm-hmm. . Yeah, because I'm sure there's people that think, "Oh my God, they're beautiful. They have success. Their lives are perfect." And I feel like they both do a really good job of being like, and I think it was around his record too, that the press, they were saying like that he like went and lived in a hotel for a couple weeks cuz they were having a hard time. And they seem very intentional about being like, " Yeah, we have problems too. we work through them."
[00:40:12] Michael: Don't give them the the power to be like trouble in paradise. You know? You'd be like, fuck yeah there's trouble in
[00:40:18] Cary Ann: Ever been alive? Ever been alive before?
[00:40:20] Aaron: Exactly.
[00:40:21] Michael: Life is hard.
[00:40:23] Cary Ann: For every single person that walks earth. My sister got onto me the other day cuz sometimes I can't... If we're in the airport and it's going badly, and it's miserable, and I'm like uncomfortable, and I'm really about to lose it. And my anxiety is off, and my hormones are, so I'm sweating and I'm like, "are you hot? Oh God." And then I have to say, at least we're not running from world torn country right now.
My sister's like, you don't have to be running from a war torn country to have it be miserable time. You're entitled to this miserable..
[00:40:52] Michael: Not one or the other.
[00:40:52] Cary Ann: It's not one the other. This effing sucks what's happening to us in this airport right now. And it's happening to all of us. And there's a thousand people in here and it's 200 degrees and nobody can get their luggage.
And the babies are crying. And it is happening to you and it sucks. And it's okay to be like,
[00:41:09] Michaela: Have a little meltdown.
[00:41:10] Cary Ann: Have your little meltdown. And on the other side, gonna be two cold car rib. Think of french fries, airport hotdog stand to fix everything. . You know how quickly things can change.
[00:41:21] Aaron: Yeah, I had some pigs in the blanket the other night sitting up here in the artist lounge and that fixed a lot. Oh wait, this is great. These are the best things I've ever eaten. eaten. Said they're about 10 times in a a row.
[00:41:31] Cary Ann: Gonna be looking for it.
[00:41:33] Michaela: I had that same meltdown at Christmas at the airport and I was like, I'm throwing these pants away. I'm so fucking hot. And Aaron was like, can you just take,.... but sometimes you have to just let it out. You have to throw a little fit.
[00:41:44] Cary Ann: And I always say I'm sorry. And I'm always kind to the staff no matter how awful I'm being on the inside because I respect humanity and I understand what they have to endure.
But sometimes they can be very cold. It makes. Yeah, I just get my hormones flush and I just start to sweat, and I feel so hot. Like Pedro from,
[00:42:06] Michael: Dude.
[00:42:07] Cary Ann: uh,
[00:42:08] Aaron: From a Napoleon Dynamite?
[00:42:09] Cary Ann: Napolean Dynamite. I had my Pedro moment where I'm gonna shave my hair in the airport.
[00:42:15] Michael: Air travel is a, it's a thing with kids.
[00:42:17] Michaela: Oh my god.
[00:42:18] Cary Ann: Don't say anything about it. They might have two and I don't wanna do anything to discourage
enough
[00:42:22] Aaron: I will say we were, we were waiting at the airport in Nashville, there's a family in front of us and they had like one kid was like five, one kid was prime toddler, probably two and a half, three. And they had another baby on the shoulder, you know, burp cloth, all that. And they were having a time, and right then I turned to Michaela, and I was like, we're not gonna be unnumbered. I'm like, two is cool. We are not going with three . More power to people that can do it. But that is not our situation.
[00:42:44] Cary Ann: You can't sit in the same row at that point. Like they're logistically, you have to bring somebody when you fly cuz there's just going be,
[00:42:49] Michael: Yeah. on the flight to St. Martin or whatever, to meet up with this boat, they split us up so I had Oscar and she had Louie. And Oz was in the middle. There was a stranger in the aisle, and I was on the window. And then eventually he's gonna need to lay down.
So that means that either his head or his feet are gonna get up in the stranger's business. Yeah. Like in his lap somehow. And I think I used to care a little bit more, or used to be like, oh no, you know, I mean I still sweat it a little bit. Like I try to scoot him as much as I can, but at some point, you know, he is gotta meet eyes with that guy and be like, "Eh??",
[00:43:21] Cary Ann: Let me describe Michael's face. Eyebrows raised in curiosity of acceptance. Is this okay with you, sir? There's nothing I can really do...
[00:43:31] Aaron: I mean, this is happening, so...
[00:43:32] Cary Ann: This is happening to you and
[00:43:33] Michael: I hope that, I hope this is okay for you.
[00:43:35] Michaela: Because I'm not gonna do anything about it.
[00:43:36] Michael: There's nothing I can really do. You know, I did switch the other side once or twice. The guy was cool, and I feel like in most cases, the person, I like to give the humans the benefit of the doubt and be able to rise to the thing. You know, like, people want to be nice.
[00:43:50] Aaron: Yeah, yeah,
[00:43:51] Michael: And you should have headphones on an airplane, just no matter what.
[00:43:54] Michaela: You should have?
[00:43:55] Cary Ann: You should have, brought your own headphones at this point in the game.
[00:43:58] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:43:58] Michael: So if there's a crying,
[00:44:00] Cary Ann: got an iPhone or some kind of Galaxy, something. If you have a screen, you have a headphones.
[00:44:04] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Okay. I have a question about how long you guys have been in the music business. Obviously promotion has changed, and social media now is like a main driver of promoting even more than having an entire marketing department. That means nothing. It's really like," Artists, what can you do on social media?"
How do you guys, especially with having two people in the mix of having to deal with it, do you hate it? Do you like it? what's your relationship to it and how do you figure it out?
[00:44:34] Cary Ann: We have two different relationships with it. I am active but resistant and I curate, but I'm, I do scroll, and I do participate a certain degree in the social media world. And I, I don't despise it entirely because I'm of a certain age and I can mediate my use. But we are going to accept that we have to adapt to marketing strategies throughout the eons.
It's just another creative tool that you can use if you use it with intention. And we are about to expand into doing more of it without necessarily feeling gross about it, or feeling like it needs to take up a whole lot of our time. And management is going to help facilitate that, just cuz we need to do more of it no matter what we feel about it one way or the other.
But it does need to be good, and it does need to be a real engagement that you'd wanna do. Otherwise,
[00:45:26] Michael: Yeah, if you can go about it methodically. Never did we think that we would be hearing from the record label, " You guys really need to be on TikTok."
[00:45:33] Cary Ann: And maybe we don't need to hire a publicist anymore."
[00:45:36] Michaela: Yeah. that's helpful to your budget.
[00:45:37] Michael: The business has has changed so much, and we've always been like, let's write songs and make records and tour. And that's what you do right? To do the thing. And now it's different and you, if you don't adapt with it, you're gonna take a hit. Just because it's the way that the whole thing operates right now.
I kind of despise it, you know? And it's not what I think about. I never think about doing it. I feel like there's some sense of when you're younger, when you're first getting going, I think your ego kind of drives you in a way that's a little bit dangerous. It's like too much in control? But it has to be there to push you through the, like some of the,
[00:46:14] Cary Ann: Of course I can do this, of
[00:46:15] Michael: know? Yeah. You like have to, I don't know, it's
[00:46:18] Michaela: And like wanting to achieve more..
[00:46:20] Michael: Yeah. Drives you and then, now it's like, I never think, " Oh, you know what would be fun? I wanna get on TikTok and make a video of myself."
Like it's the last thing that I'm thinking about, and if I do think about it, I'm like, "Oh, I need to do that for work." You know? It's not, there's not a part of my ego that's like, " I need people to see me do this dance move. Like they need to witness this."
[00:46:42] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:46:42] Aaron: This what they're missing.
[00:46:43] Michael: Yeah. Everybody's missing out. Yeah. I need to share.
[00:46:47] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:46:48] Cary Ann: But slowmo squirrel scares.
[00:46:49] Michael: Oh, Don't, give it. Don't, sorry. Don't, don't, don't
[00:46:54] Cary Ann: There's things that you can make that you just make automatically that you realize like, that is actually brilliant content. And I won't disclose further what is slowmo squirrel scares. I bet you can figure it out.
[00:47:04] Michaela: Is that gonna be part of your.
[00:47:05] Michael: Maybe. I mean, we gotta find stuff to do. So maybe if I feel like filming a squirrel on my porch, in slow motion while I open the door and yell at it, and it is something that maybe shit will show up. I don't know.
[00:47:19] Cary Ann: Michael has hundreds of videos of him scaring squirrels in slow motion on front porch. Maybe not hundreds, but
[00:47:26] Michael: Well, I heard that you can embed your music in TikTok. This is like something that I didn't know. I just got debriefed about TikTok cuz we're not on it, but we're gonna be on it.
But we're probably gonna make stuff and then send it to our manager and have him put it up because I can't handle it.
And also it's like, your kid needs something and you're like, "Hold on, dad's got the bathroom door locked, cause I'm doing a dance for the, for TikTok. I'm doing my work! I'm busy!"
[00:47:52] Aaron: Serious business.
[00:47:53] Cary Ann: I'm gonna get Louie to be our creative director for TikTok.
[00:47:57] Aaron: It might go far. I look at TikTok, I feel like my eyes cross. I'm like, what is
[00:48:02] Michaela: I honestly downloaded the app recently, like the first time I ever looked at it and there was like a terrifying video that it suggested to me right off the bat, about like, a camera and a shower? Someone trying to catch a partner, doing something bad to their child...
And I was just like, no. And I deleted it immediately. I was like, clearly I don't know how to do it cuz I shouldn't be seeing those things. And I just, I can't. I like look at Instagram and Twitter too much as it is. And I can't add one more thing into the mix.
[00:48:34] Michael: Can you just connect 'em all? I mean, we're gonna sound like, let's have an old person conversation for a second.
[00:48:39] Cary Ann: Let's talk about old people. Come on elder millennials. Let's get it out.
[00:48:42] Michael: Is there a we can push that connects all the things?
[00:48:44] Cary Ann: It does.
[00:48:45] Michaela: There was, an app called like Hootsuite, I'm sure there's others, where you could just put it in the app and then it'll go to the others. All of them. But now all the formatting's a little different.
[00:48:54] Cary Ann: But now you can just make a reel, or you make a TikTok and it you just put that on Instagram. I'm gonna figure it out. I've got people who are good at social media who I consult. And I will pursue this, but also have a healthy situation cuz I'm not gonna, put on a bunch of stupid garbage on TikTok. Like, maybe I'll cook something nice, do a little gardening,
[00:49:13] Michaela: Ooh,
[00:49:14] Cary Ann: Just like something. So my mother's a TikTok junkie real bad. And she's even admitted it. She's a social media junkie anyway, but she will straight up be like, in my retirement, I just TikTok now. And she doesn't make videos, she just consumes videos.
And mostly it's garden TikTok. Cleaning TikTok. Only things that she's specifically interested in. But it is still just like, she's just scrolling. She's scrolling, she's just being, she can spend hours and hours. And she's learning, and it's not all necessarily bad. As opposed to the Facebook vibe, where it's like we'd start talking about people that we don't necessarily know, or really don't have any real estate in my life for any of the tertiary groups of my surrounding ancestors or whatever.
[00:49:52] Michael: Hey, it's Aaron from high school. I didn't mean that I, I Aaron as like, a name outta the hat. . You know what I mean.
[00:49:59] Aaron: I know what you're saying. Well, that happened to Michaela the other day. She was scrolling and somebody posts this horrific thing about like their brother taking their life, and it's like a pretty graphic detailed post and Micaheala's like, who is this person?
And we have like a bunch of mutual friends in Nashville, but like I'd never seen the person, didn't know the person's name. And same with her. And it's like, why am I being exposed to this?
[00:50:17] Michael: How did it get there?
[00:50:17] Cary Ann: I'm grieving this person I don't even know!
[00:50:18] Michaela: Yeah. a lot of like snap emotional, like the emotional journey that I go on within five minutes of scrolling is so wild.
[00:50:27] Cary Ann: It's gotta be weird for our dopamine.
[00:50:29] Michaela: It's definitely not good for our brains. It's not. When we got off on the, cuz we've been on the boat for a few days before you guys, and didn't have wifi that was working. So I haven't, scrolled anything. And I'm like, wow, I feel so content, and peaceful. And then we got off the island and I started scrolling and like nothing triggered me.
Like I didn't see anything specifically. But it was all of a sudden this creeping feeling of like, is my life good enough? Am I doing enough? And I was like, what is happening? Like I haven't even seen anything specifically that made me feel jealous, and I'm literally on a beach in St. Martin with my family getting paid to play music and go on vacation. And I open this little app, and all of a sudden I start feeling anxiety, and like inferiority. And I was like, this is not ok..
[00:51:18] Cary Ann: That's what's happening to the kids. And that's, I don't wanna be the adult that's like, "the kids these days" cuz it's not that. It's like, I think that they know what's happening to them now and maybe there's gonna be a youth revolution, or some kind of reinterpretation, or. They'll adapt to the way that they're digesting this media cuz they will have come up with it.
We all remember when there wasn't no screens at all and no internet at all, and phone lines were in your house.
[00:51:42] Aaron: Yeah, you gotta call and talk line dad to get her on the phone.
Yeah.
[00:51:46] Cary Ann: We tried to make a joke to the kids today. What's black and white and red all over, a newspaper! Trying to teach the kids dumb jokes. They don't know what a newspaper is! That's such a bizarre thing.
But yeah, I don't know. I get that too. Cause I, I love the artist community, and I love having friends in the mix. So I follow a lot of them. And then when we weren't on the road, if somebody was on the road, I would feel the jealousy. And I would wonder, am I losing my place in the...
And you also need to remember, there's enough pie for everybody, especially when you get on a boat like this and infinite amount of love in the world for art. And there's not, like you only have room for 10 bands in your heart, right?
But, the things that you love can even affect you in a negative way. And the people that you support and believe in, and who are your friends, would never want you to feel less Because you're not at work. Meanwhile, you're at work raising the two cutest little boogers that ever walk the earth at your house. And all they wanna do is play Mario Cart with you.
So who cares about what's going on, on the thingamajiggy? But it affects adults and I can't imagine how it's affecting the kids. And I hope that they can figure out how to rise above it and like rebel against it in some way. The way that we did to like smoking and racism.
[00:52:55] Aaron: Yeah, exactly.
[00:52:57] Cary Ann: We don't even mince words about racism anymore.
[00:52:59] Aaron: Yeah. I hope we all come to a place where we're able to see social media for what it is, which is just a big marketing tool essentially, for us as like, as small business businesses, but also like, for them, you know, it's like, what's the saying about any kind of app or website, like, if you don't pay for it, you are the product. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like in our attention span is the product, making facebook or Meta or whatever it's called now, billions of dollars.
[00:53:21] Michael: Yes.
[00:53:22] Aaron: So the algorithm is there to give us stuff that keeps our attention the longest. So I think me as a human, I am susceptible to that all the time, of the jealousy and the comparison and the, even though I know in my head, this is somebody just like me. This is just a friend that has to post this cuz they have their business that they need people to hear
[00:53:38] Michael: about It's just working too. Yeah.
[00:53:39] Aaron: Working.
[00:53:40] Michaela: They want the same things that we want. Yeah. And they also deal with jealousy.
[00:53:44] Michael: We all feel the best when we're the thing. You know, when we're just at work, digging out our soul a little bit. Being inspired. I don't know. The sites aren't the place for inspiration. You know, that's the place where you feel like you're not good enough. And then, if you spend less time there, and I'm not saying that we're any better than anybody else, but it is true that if it's down and you're working on the thing, then you feel better.
And that's what you're supposed to be doing.
[00:54:10] Michaela: Yeah. We have to wrap because you guys have to go play a show. But I have one last question. I was wondering how your definition and idea of what a successful music career for yourselves has evolved and changed from the beginning to now.
[00:54:25] Cary Ann: I'm getting to make a short answer cuz I tend to be rebos. At a time when I was young, when I was really, really young, I thought you had to be a big star to be a musician. Then I, became a bar musician, a working musician, who could count on a hundred dollars a night for a three hour gig and have my meal comped.
And to me that was success. But I knew I still wanted to be playing for a thousand people or whatever. And then it's grown, and now I've got a wonderful music career where I can play in a 200 or a thousand or whatever and there. But I know that I would be probably just as happy if it'd been different, like having a successful career in music is getting paid to make some noise, and being able to have the freedom, even if you have some other job that allows you to just play some music for your soul, that is a successful music career.
There's not a dollar sign on it, and there's definitely not a timeframe. Mary Gauthier started writing songs in her forties, right? And makes everybody cry when she plays guitar.
So I think that it's just, kind of whatever it is to you. But if you have the joy in your life of music, and you're lucky enough to make a dollar doing it, then you're nailing it.
[00:55:30] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:55:30] Michael: I think for me, in the beginning I always just wanted to be able to do it, and make a living doing it and not have to have another job. Didn't really care otherwise. That was the main thing. You know, We started this thing, we were a bar band. And it was a joke. I mean, it was like fun but
[00:55:44] Cary Ann: We were literally joking.
[00:55:46] Michael: It was, and then it caught on. Stuff happened. Now, I feel like balance is what I would consider a successful music career. Like we're always sort of trying to achieve balance. Like you can't be on the road too much, but you don't get paid unless you're on the road because music is free now. But if you're on the road too much you're gonna kill yourself, or your mind will become unhealthy. Like I can tell when we're on the road for too many days and we're like, " Man, I'm really feeling the show that it's too important in my mind." Because the whole day revolves around a show.
Like, yes, it's important and it's the job and people pay money to come and see you. But it can't take up that much real estate in my mind, you know? It's not that important. It's just rock and roll, you know? And so, I don't know, I hope the business can morph a little bit into something where it's more open, where artists can get paid for making this stuff, and not just shucking and jiving. Yeah.
Cuz especially through covid, there's a lot of stories of people just throwing up their hands and being like, " I cannot do this anymore." And these are people that you really wish that they would do it some more, you know? Or at least create more because it feeds people's souls and inspiration and everything.
[00:56:56] Aaron: Yeah. I, I agree. I like to think of it as like, little bubbles kind of floating around, and I have my personal bubble, I have my family bubble, and I have my career bubble. As long as I can kind of keep those the same size, and jostling around up there.
I feel the best. Call that a success. Cuz there's been times when one has been way bigger than the other, one has been way smaller than the other, and it, just doesn't feel right. And the wheel stops spinning for me at that point.
[00:57:19] Michael: Right.
[00:57:19] Aaron: All around.
[00:57:20] Michaela: Yeah. I think a lot of us start out also when you're younger, your career takes up everything. And then you're like, wait, I'm supposed to sacrifice my entire personal life for this thing that there's no guarantee that it's gonna return anything to me?!
Mm-hmm. .
So yeah. So that beauty of like learning that there's more to life than just that.
[00:57:40] Aaron: Michael, you said before we started talking you were ready to get going cause we could this every kind of thing.
[00:57:44] Michael: I do feel like you, we should just tonight let's just get together again and we'll just talk some more I feel like we need to talk to you some more just to
[00:57:53] Cary Ann: We'll go now, but let's, reconvene later. Yeah.
[00:57:56] Aaron: Cool. Thank you guys.
[00:57:57] Cary Ann: thank you guys.