JD McPherson is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer who's put out records on Decca, Rounder and New West, toured or collaborated with the likes of Dan Auerbach, Nick Lowe, and Lucius, is the guitar player for Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, as well as opening the shows with his own band, and is the producer of the recently-announced Jessica Simpson (comeback?) record. We talk to JD about all modes of touring - from bus to plane to our shared affinity for van and trailer, touring to experience different cultures and meet new people, the long game of building a body of work and the value of word of mouth, Tulsa Oklahoma, and the advice that Nick Lowe shared with him backstage.
JD McPherson is a singer-songwriter and guitar player who's put out records on Decca, Rounder and New West, toured or collaborated with Dan Auerbach, Nick Lowe, and Lucius, is the guitar player for Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, as well as opening the shows with his own band, and is the producer of the recently-announced Jessica Simpson (comeback?) record.. We talk to JD about all modes of touring - from bus to plane to our shared affinity for van and trailer, touring to experience different cultures and meet new people, the long game of building a body of work and the value of word of mouth, Tulsa Oklahoma, and the advice that Nick Lowe shared with him backstage.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Michaela: And I'm your other host, Michaela Anne, and I can't believe it, but we're on episode 95, our second new episode of the year. And this week we're featuring our conversation with JD McPherson.
Aaron: JD McPherson is a singer, songwriter.
guitar player from Oklahoma currently residing in Tulsa, which we talked a lot about in this episode. JD's put out a bunch of records on his own on Labels like DECA and Rounder and New West and he's also in recent years, kind of diversified into being a producer, producing our mutual friend, JP Harris, along with a few other records, and also being a sideman for little bands like Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
Michaela: Yeah, he has a very [00:01:00] interesting journey. He started out as he says, starting music later in life in the professional arena. He was art teacher. He has an MFA before pursuing music full time. Since then, he has toured or collaborated with people like Dan Auerbach, Nick Lowe, Lucius, Nicole Atkins, just to name a few.
Aaron: On top of opening every One of the shows in North America for the Plant Crowds tour. We talk a lot about touring at different levels. Our mutual love for van and trailer tours and the kind of spontaneity that allows, whether it's, you know, being a Facebook marketplace hound, as JD is self described, or being able to stop at a barbecue joint, and we talk about that a lot, about, like, the different levels of touring and being able to, like, meet people and see the way that they live and the Experience cultures and communities, both inside America and around the world.
Michaela: Yeah. We also got to touch on a lot of emotional, personal growth, things that can happen through building a career in music owning mistakes and missteps that happen [00:02:00] along the way when prioritizing maybe things that you decide.
Later, aren't the best to be prioritized, creating art for art's sake, how to hold onto that and get back to that when you're still trying to build a livelihood and trying to resist getting completely hung up and focused only on the business commerce pressures of what it is to have this career.
Aaron: one of those, really great free flowing conversations that include words of advice from Nickelodeo himself.
And if you're watching on YouTube, there's a really great picture of a legendary musician on stage in shorts. So we talk about that taboo of being on stage in shorts. So check out the YouTube if you're into that. But as always, there's some topics that we touch on in this conversation that come directly from our Patreon subscribers, And that's because they get advanced notice of who our guests are, and they can submit questions or topics for us to touch on in these conversations.
There's a bunch of other Patreon esque things over there, like discussions and behind the scenes things and input and generally just trying to grow this community in a deeper, more meaningful way. So if that intrigues [00:03:00] you at all, there is a link below in the show notes.
Michaela: And as Aaron mentioned, if you're a visual person, be sure to check our page on YouTube for this conversation as well as all of our previous conversations.
But without further ado, here's our conversation with J. D. McPherson.
JD: I'm in hibernate mode, so
give me a little, give me a little grace. Yeah.
Aaron: Michaela is Very pregnant. Yeah, her due date's next week, technically. Yeah. So we've got that, like, weird extended You know that week between Christmas and New Year's where time like, is kind of amorphous and doesn't really exist?
Mm hmm. We're still in that. You know, we're doing this, we're doing some work stuff, but like, we could have a kid tonight. I don't know. Yeah.
Michaela: Yeah.
JD: God bless you two.
Michaela: we have like this interview with you and then we have another one on Thursday Aaron's like, you're insane, Michaela, we just went to the midwife and I was like, I just want to get through these, I just want to do these interviews and then go into labor.
And everyone's like, just, just chill. I'm like, no, but I just want these interviews to
JD: make it [00:04:00] happen.
JD: I really do understand that because, have things teed up so that you have less to do when your life is crazy again.
Michaela: Yeah,
Aaron: exactly
Michaela: I feel like I've only met you maybe once
JD: I think a couple of times, I know we met JP's thing,
Michaela: Okay
JD: thing, I think. And then I think at a show once, and then we were going to do a tour and then the global pandemic happened.
Michaela: Yeah. I was just saying that I was like, I was supposed to go on tour with J. D. then
JD: Maybe you dodged a bullet.
Aaron: there's a really amazing time capsule on Joe Pugs podcast. Oh yeah. Michaela was on there right as the pandemic was starting and we had a gap in her tour schedule right around that time.
And I think the next stage she had was with you. So Joe's like, man, did you have to cancel a bunch of stuff? And because like No, no, I don't have anything on the books for a couple months, so it's kind of great, you know, this whole thing will pass by and I'll get back on the road, and, you know, I'm lucky, I'm not missing anything.
JD: Oh, man.
Michaela: famous last words yeah,
JD: I mean, I don't even know. I still, have trouble talking about it.
Aaron: It's really [00:05:00] messed me up in so many ways and it changed my life in so many ways. Some ways, in many ways for the better, but also just the dark, darkness that I was swimming in during that time. it sticks with you a little bit,
It does, I feel like I'm still peeling back layers and be like, oh, that's residue from.
Those years, you know, because for me. A lot of great things happened, you know, I was kind of threatening to stop touring for five or six years, you know, and it's like, couldn't say no. And you know, now we're, we built a studio in our backyard and the, pandemic kind of called my bluff on that one.
now have kids, you know, it's like, it's a very different
Michaela: that's the funny thing, I mean the pandemic had such different impact on all of us, but think we in the camp of like, it was significantly life changing. And some people I think it might have just been a bump in the road, but if I had been touring that whole year like, knows if we would have been like, yeah, let's start having kids.
Like.
JD: Yeah, there's certain things that weren't planned for able, I had a friend something that he said was, I was built [00:06:00] for global pandemics. He loved it. He loved it. It was the best time of his life. And,
uh, yeah I know it wasn't, but,
I'm already disappointed because Mikayla did not wear her brown jumper
Michaela: know. I was, I was just noticing that. I was like, oh wow, you guys are really twinning it up here.
Aaron: He sent me a picture this morning. He's like, does this work? I'm like, that's great. You know, Shoulders up. It's great. Yeah.
Michaela: No, but we like, we like to talk about the stuff that we don't publicize.
Like, This isn't like a professional interview in the sense of like, we're not promoting anything. We're trying to have just like a genuine community building space of talking to artists about what. Life is really like to be an artist in 2000s to 20, 20, 20s.
Yeah. And, and, like constantly changing music business
JD: yeah, we touching on the pandemic for a second like the changes in that so like in my Perception of what's been going on for you like, you [00:07:00] know, cuz we played that one show together But then also, when I was playing with Nicole we played a ton of dates together and did all of that And it seems If I was to put a word into what's going on in your creative life It just seems like so much more diverse now than it was then is that accurate? Yeah,
definitely.
I feel like all of us, all of our musical pals are constantly. Sort of renegotiating the ground we stand on and, finding ways to do the thing. I just wish that there were some big, maybe this podcast episode will lead to some organization of all of our um, collective will to make things a little more regular.
Let's just send that out into the world, but yeah, Every one of my friends, like from the top, top tippy top to people who are just hustling, weekend warriors, everybody that's musical creative person, is like, well, I don't know what to do. the second it feels like we've got a plan, everything changes and it's just happening so [00:08:00] quickly.
So it's definitely discovery time. And just kind of trying to. Keep up with the, tides as they ebb and flow,
Aaron: Yeah for sure it definitely feels like You know to us and to a lot of people we have conversations with it, you know It kind of feels like trying to build a Sand skyscraper, you know, where things are constantly shifting and but it's also like, a really solid, uncomfortable lesson in non attachment got to make plans and be like see where these darts go and we'll adjust to wherever they end up landing.
Michaela: it's less individualized. I think so many of us think like, we're so responsible for our own success or failure. And I think like what's happening with world, like the pandemic happening and then so much feeling really out of control with streaming and how you can even access your fan base and communicate to people and all of this stuff, starting to understand a little more detachment from like, I'm not solely responsible for whether this thing is going to be successful or not, that it's not a direct [00:09:00] reflection on just am I good enough.
There's so much more context now that I think we're understanding at least that's how I've been thinking about it, of like releasing my grip when I've thought like things haven't turned out the way I thought they would in my life or my career. felt personally responsible for it.
And recently I've been like, there's so much stuff at play that I have no control over.
and and
JD: less every day. like,
less, less control over more things every day.
Michaela: kind of like what you mentioned though, of like the evolution of prioritizing. Your health, your mental, emotional well being and then being like, and then let's see where we can go from there as far as like the business of my art and the creation of my art versus I think earlier days for a lot of people, there's a lot of sacrifice of that because we want to do anything to be creative and to be successfully sharing our creativity with the world.
JD: I started working later. In my adult [00:10:00] life, like in my thirties, I had a family, I had a, MFA and a job, and suddenly I'm doing music and it was everything I ever wanted since I was 15 years old. And I was like, please don't take this away from me. Like whatever I have to do to not lose this.
And I jumped through every hoop that got me pretty stressed out. before I was a school teacher, I did teach like volunteer stuff at this local art collective. And I would always tell the kids, you want to go to art school? It's great. But right now you guys are obviously interested in a creative life enough that you're signing up for these weird postmodern art exploration camps. The most important thing is that you're making stuff and you just always have a creative outlet and you have a creative life and it doesn't matter. If it's doing something for you or others just keep making stuff. And I've been trying to heed those words and sometimes it's hard once you start, eking out a living in the creative world, there's definitely valleys you kind of have to be like, well, You know, what would make me happy right now is just listening to some records [00:11:00] or going and getting with some buddies and just playing cover songs or something, you know, you kind of forget, I lost sight of that a lot in the past of why, I am doing stuff.
a friend of mine told me one time, he's like, you're biggest thing. You should never expect anything from music. You should just do it.
In a kind of a weird Zen way, somehow things worked out for me better once I stopped worrying and trying to hold the bird
Michaela: Yep.
JD: tightly.
Aaron: yeah, I've kind of experienced that, too. Um, And I've spent a lot of time thinking about that paradigm. The squeeze in the bird and like, that approach and like, what I've gleaned for myself is that when I'm doing that, when I'm really holding on to something, really trying to control it, I'm missing all the other, Doors that are opening because it's not these, one or two doors that I'm focusing on, I think it was Joey from the milk carton kids was like, you say yes to doing things, think about all of the things that you're then saying no to. That don't have time to happen, there's not space for them, all of that.
And so, kind of taking that paradigm, it's like, [00:12:00] oh, if I'm really holding on to this one thing and like, trying to be, efficient or prioritizing that, it's I'm missing all of these other incredible opportunities that could lead to really cool things. I don't even know what's possible.
JD: anybody's listening to this that is sort of starting out or in the nascent phase of their career or, Wonder how things go. I will give you a piece of advice that I did not take very early on that I should have taken My first record came out.
very early on I did a solo it was technically solo electric because I was playing electric guitar But it was a solo acoustic gig opening for Nick Lowe who was doing a solo acoustic tour Nick's one of my all time favorite artists favorite songwriters, I was scared to death To do this gig because I, barely played outside of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas city, and I'm going up the West coast with one of my heroes.
And after the first night, we were in the great American music hall in San Francisco, and he kept telling me JD. I want to have a talk with you before this is over. And I was like, okay. And [00:13:00] sure enough, in San Francisco, he came into my room and sat down and he gave me the talk.
And the talk was, is. Yeah. Not only is it okay to say no, you'll find that they want you more if you say no. And at that point, I never said no to anything and I didn't say no for many, many years. It caused me a lot of trouble. And I actually did miss a lot of things because I took too much on
and last year was the busiest year of my life.
I took everything on that I could. I said no to a couple of things and I felt like Oh my God, I can't believe I said no to this one thing and it absolutely was the right thing to do. So kids, take my advice, listen to Nick Lowe, take Nick Lowe's advice, don't take my advice. It's okay to say no. And in fact, when you do say no, it tends to make, them come after you even more.
So Very important to remember that you have to, keep this straight and steady
I don't know Maybe that you could be argued that that first year of touring or very early on [00:14:00] you want to take on more than you Normally should because
you Want to strike the iron and you're younger and you can handle it But I think at some point you have to keep that advice if you want to be Sane.
Michaela: that kind of is like the mindset of, and that's reiterated in the business of music of like, you have to be, you know, be everywhere that you can and say yes to everything. don't kill the momentum. Momentum is always something that's talked about, but there's so many other things that you have to be aware of in this stuff of like, okay, you're your compulsion to create as a human being.
Also, you have an ego as a human being and feeding that ego and keeping that ego in check. Also, you want to financially survive. And as a musician, it can feel like On the edge all the time. So it's all constantly balancing like, what do I prioritize and what feels right? that will be the most helpful in the long term.
If I want to do this for my entire life versus, Oh my God, I have to say yes to everything because that's the only way that I'm going to make money. Even if actually saying yes to [00:15:00] everything is bleeding me dry like, financially too.
JD: hmm. Oh yeah.
Michaela: that's a huge challenge of like, all the different things you're trying to balance in yourself to build a lifelong career.
JD: it helps to just, not only what's important to you, but what should be important to you.
my family definitely paid the price early on, I was definitely chasing that thing. And there's some people that say you can't have both. I think it's very difficult to have both.
If you're just constantly checking yourself and saying, am I being present when I'm at home? Am I being present at the dinner table? Am I taking calls at night?
Am I,
Putting things off with my critters to do some weird pie supper gig? I don't know.
You have to, figure out what's important. And um, it took me a long time to really. Figure out that I was going off the rails,
um, in my priorities.
Aaron: those lines, like, when you kind of made that switch from Being a teacher to on the road [00:16:00] being full time chasing the music thing What was the deciding factor? Did know jumping off the cliff and just being like I need to go all in and I need to make this Record and hit the road or it basically just be become too busy that you couldn't really stay around and teach hmm
JD: since I was 16 years old. I played pretty much every weekend, pretty much any job I ever had. tried to somehow inject music into it. When I was teaching school, I was teaching how to make a PowerPoint about the clash that
I made, or kids, you have to test your typing skills
by
copying this paragraph about Charlie Christian, the jazz guitarist,
I couldn't help myself. And then I actually just like after three years of teaching school, my contract was not renewed and I had just made an album in my spare time
Everything clicked to where I was approached by management and a boogying agent at the time my job was coming to an end and I was like, I've got the summer off. I want to try this out and I did it and I just jumped into it.
I would definitely not have left [00:17:00] my
Aaron: hmm.
JD: you know, that would have been weird, but didn't have anything else happening and I had this opportunity to do a real tour and try it out. And man, that first year I was out over 200 days, I
Michaela: Wow.
JD: it was a very big jump, very big leap.
Aaron: how was your, creativity after that? Like you're writing once your livelihood was like hanging on touring and you're like, this is what I do. This is how I support my family. Did it affect your creativity at all?
JD: I don't do well with that kind of pressure.
Aaron: Mm-hmm . . I don't know a lot of people that do.
JD: it's sort of funny how when you're doing it for work, it starts to, go in a, place of you're afraid of every move you make.
I was definitely thinking first record I made was just pure joy. It was like, I always wanted to make
this record. I wanted it to be like this. I found the people that I needed to make it. made it. It was. Just going to be something that I did. And after that, a lot of decisions were based more on how do we keep this thing [00:18:00] going in it and that's okay. To some degree you have to kind of like think in terms of what should come next or what should I try?
Now I'm in a phase of like, I'm back to where I was, where. I don't think at all about what anybody is going to think. And I,
you know, I was joking with my manager about how every record that I make is a little bit weirder. And if you compare like three and four to one and two, it's pretty far apart.
And in my mind, it all chains together, but it's almost like. We gain a few people with a new record and lose a few people with it, so
it's, I'm kind of, I kind of have this, I kind of Have this, errrr, and that's okay, cause um, I'm happy now, and I don't feel burdened by the past.
I'm a little
less Unencumbered, you know.
JD: ironically, the stuff that I want to make right now is much more like what I originally was recognized for. I've kind of tried a lot of things, and I, I'm like, oh, I love this again. And
part of that has to do with the fact that I got Record shelves.
Okay. So we [00:19:00] moved, to Tulsa a couple of years ago, and we've been living like semi boxed life. Like Everything's been in boxes. And so year ago, I met a friend who builds furniture and he built us these really nice record shelves. I'm looking at them right now. it caused me to unbox all my records and I will stand for hours at night, just listening to old 45s Be like, Oh my God, I love this Benny Joy 45 and then I want to do that.
I want to go make that. so it's kind of funny how, just your input and your mental state and all that stuff really can affect in a positive way what you're working on. I feel like I want to go make stuff and usually it was, all right, JD, it's time to make stuff. You've got to make stuff.
You haven't made something in three years, six
years, you know,
that I Really get a lot out of helping other people make music because when I write and record, I'm always thinking about production stuff.
Like when I'm writing a song, I'm thinking about the drums. I'm thinking about what they [00:20:00] sound like. I'm thinking about it'd be cool if there was tape echo over the whole kit or over the whole track, or, kind of making a lot of production decisions go into songwriting. And I've always been that way, partially because I was by myself for so long. And then now I find that working on someone else's. Projects feels like really good to me. And I feel like I've spent a whole lifetime of building this sort of taste palette that some people it could benefit them. so I've just really been enjoying producing and writing with other people that kind of difference between subjectivity and objectivity can make a real difference too. I think it's really healthy to collaborate as much as possible too.
Um,
you know,
there are some people that can just sit and write just ingenious songs by themselves. And I wish that were possible for me, but
man, just working with other people and how somebody else plays a D chord can change stuff.
Michaela: though about just relationship to your own creativity is [00:21:00] also changing and growing and growing apart and coming back together. And all this other context that informs how creative we feel or what we're drawn to and That's the challenge, I think, of being artist that's trying to build like commercial success off of it and wants to explore and doesn't want to stay in their lane. I know, we met in jazz school and there was a long time that both of us couldn't really listen to jazz because of the context of what going to jazz school
I
Aaron: mean, couldn't hear the art.
I could only hear like the technical, you know, like, Ooh, look at, listen to how he played those changes or, Oh man like, listen to how he's comping that. And then like, then there was like the ego there. Cause like, at least my experience at the jazz school, we went to a felt like a bunch of bodybuilders like flexing in front of a mirror and it's like, look what I can do.
And it's like, I, it took me definitely a decade to be able to like put on a jazz record and be like, Oh, I just like this not because like
JD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron: it's just I just enjoy this,
Michaela: all is like informed and then we moved to nashville and I remember [00:22:00] like bluegrass and country music Was like my refuge from jazz then I kind of pulled away from jazz and got really into country music and then moved to nashville and I was like Then everybody's like kind of policing country music Yeah, and then it like makes me feel like, Oh, I want to try new things.
And then when you're putting records out, then you see what fans are like Oh, I really like when you did that style. It's there's a lot bouncing around and to just like, follow your whim. And also understand like you might be pulling away from certain styles because of all this other stuff that happens relationally, that's like a natural progression that I think is just hard to allow ourselves to do progressively harder when we're working within getting our music out to, through platforms that are like driven by AI and algorithms now.
And it's like, not really rewarding to. Be inventive and exploratory. Mm
JD: I was talking to dear friend, our mutual friend, JP Harris, because we made a record together [00:23:00] recently and we were just talking about, we were both sort of putting out a record around the same time and we were both fretting. I don't even know how it works now. Like, What are we supposed to do?
Like, you know, We've got a team of digital people saying, you don't need a PR team anymore. You need just to know how the algorithms work and PR hasn't really changed their pricing. And then I had this conversation with JP about it. I was like, look, man I love your record and I really think that the one thing that never changes is the long game of word of mouth.
Something could happen and you could get like a, tick talk or whatever that, all of a sudden your name is everywhere, but if you have put something out, that's good.
Someone is going to care about it, and they're going to share it with somebody, and over the long game, that is what sustains you. I really believe that it's better to plant a garden than to buy a bag of carrots, you know what I mean? you
think about it like, I'm making a body of work and they shall know thee [00:24:00] by thy pile of stuff. you have to kind of like figure out a way get records, people to discover it. It's really hard to get people to discover your records online, even if you know the algorithm, because it used to be, if you followed somebody to a band that you liked on Instagram, you knew every single time they posted.
And now you might not ever know that they did, or somebody may love your band so much and not have any idea that you're coming to their town.
With information and like people are playing tricks on you to try to get you to pay attention. And after all, we're all just still human beings.
And, my friends who have good taste in music, making a music recommendation to me is. Means way more than a recommended playlist or whatever So as long as people still, care about listening to records that artists they care about it'll get spread around maybe very slowly Mm
Aaron: my approach to everything and what I talk to like every artist that I work with in here, it's the same thing. I'm like, longevity is, goal, know, and to me, is being in integrity with your unique artistic vision.
You [00:25:00] know, I was born in the eighties. I was raised on like, you know, the talking heads,that are like you can hear 10 seconds and be like, it's this band is that band because they're just so drenched in their unique sound.
And so as an artist, as a creator, if you find that and chase that down as closely as you can, you can listen to your record or any record 30, 40 years from now and be like, sounds great no. There's no pretension. There's no trying to something that it's not.
Michaela: And I think it also, ties me back to what you were saying about, you know, even having a family and people saying, you can't have it all like, you can't have a successful career and,family, you, these things get sacrificed and had. Edwin McCain on here. Do you know who Edwin McCain
JD: Sure. Yeah.
Michaela: So he was fascinating to talk to because he had, you know, massive 90s celebrity pop success and he stepped away intentionally for a while and is now like back out touring with, Hootie and his 90s revival. He's like making a new record, but he was talking about how [00:26:00] important it is to know what is enough.
And I think that scale for each of us of what is enough might have to change considering like what's happening out in the world. And it ties back to the idea of like, can we have it all? think you can. If your scale of what is enough is, movable and understands that what is enough different compartments like changes, like feel like if I really think about it, I have it all.
I have a family that I love and I get to make music for a living. Am I selling as many tickets as I hoped I would? Do I have a supportive booking agent that I hoped I would? Dono. But, I'm still making music. still get to like, come out here to the studio that we built and record a song, and I know there's at least one person out there who cares when I put it out, and I've been trying to like, go back to that wonder of like, that's pretty miraculous.
Is it the top? No. But is it [00:27:00] enough? I want it to be. Will it change? Yeah.
JD: Spike Lee said, not gonna get this exactly right, paraphrasing his quote, but he said, if you're making creative work, you're supposed to be doing that. if somehow someone at some point gives you money in exchange for the gift of being able to do that, then you're winning life.
It doesn't matter if it's 50 and a steak dinner, which I have, had a bunch of gigs sold to me when I first started playing music, this really infamous. Band in Oklahoma City and I would always get these phone calls like man, Dave, we're going to play a gig in Salina, Kansas and they're paying everybody 50 and you get a steak dinner.
And I'm like, let's go to
Salina, And just the happiness I would get to drive to Salina, dress up play music and eat a steak with my buddies and
50 bucks.
Aaron: Oh yeah.
JD: Like, that's winning.
That's winning, not really a game [00:28:00] of, against other people, but just winning at life.
Aaron: Yeah.
JD: I'm getting something back for what I'm putting out.
Aaron: Yeah, man, so many times I've heard, you know, my years of being a sideman, like money's okay, but the food is great
JD: Yeah Yeah Oh, man. I am so, I mean, you have no idea how motivated by food. I, I really like have become kind of a go to person for a family who's traveling. They're like, well, okay, we're going to upstate New York. Do you have any, Oh boy. Have I got a place for you? The ale house in Troy, New York. Get the tequila wings I get the red chowder, you know, I have in salt Lake city is probably the best cheese steak you're going to get.
Even probably better than most places in Philly or, going to Spain like, food is such a, thing for me joie de vivre and, all of that,
Michaela: Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah.
JD:
Michaela: have friends who made a website called
Aaron: Tourfood. us. And it's two friends of mine. We used to tour together. We had a 12 piece Afro beat band of Brooklyn, New York that half the band. was from [00:29:00] the Bay Area, like born and raised. They all, we all lived in Brooklyn, but so we basically just tore like the Northeast and then the West Coast as a 12 piece band, which was, about as financially successful as you could think.
Michaela: Caravanning in cars.
Aaron: Yeah. Somehow they made it work, but so it was two guys in that band and one went on to tour with hooray for the riffraff and a bunch of other people. And the other one has his own band and has done stuff like Japanese breakfast. Either way, they both toured a lot and they've.
Elicited input from all of their friends, but it's basically this website of restaurants. Purely recommended by touring musicians. You can like search along your route, if you're touring, and then you can like filter by like, is it open after the gig? You know, Are they open past 11?
JD: I'd like to know this
again. Tor food. us.
Aaron: yep.
Yeah. It's pretty amazing.
JD: So do you guys know about Bob net?
You don't Bob net Bob net is this semi secret forum for. Music and audio workers. So riggers front of house techs, monitor techs, roadies have this kind of secret [00:30:00] forum called Bob net.
if I need to know what's the best brand of like short, ankled, steel toed. Hiking shoe or, you know, gear discussions, but there was a secret spreadsheet that was revealed to me from a. Friend who's from house tech and it was exactly what you're talking about and it was from all the roadies and the crew people
And they would rate things on stars and they would say exactly what you're talking about And I actually contributed a few Things for Tulsa.
I don't know if it's still there or not, but it's such a good idea.
You know, Do we need to edit this out? Or is this, are we allowed to put this I don't, I'm not, I'm not in that
Aaron: I'm not in a union or anything. So somebody shared it with me. I won't say, I won't say who shared it with me, but it does exist. Bob net is a real thing.
Okay. It's like, it's something we've been talking about a lot of just like realizing, know, now that we of enter our forties, like we have traveled a lot, necessarily spent a lot of time.
in a city, but spent a lot of short [00:31:00] times in a city, you know, a lot of six hour stints in a city
Michaela: small towns just everywhere in the U S as well.
had some friends in town who, haven't toured the U. S. as extensively, and we've,we were talking about just like, there's like pockets of, culture and art and
touring is an incredible way to see that there's so many like pockets of really incredible places everywhere in this country.
JD: and I've learned from touring because I'm from Oklahoma I'm from one of the kind of in between places, I love Oklahoma. I really love Tulsa there is so much culture here that does not exist anywhere else. I always grew up being just deathly afraid of New York city.
I just, I was like, Oh my God, I thought it was like taxi driver. You
know, and there was like this cloud of fear around New York city. And it was just all like trash in the streets and stuff. And then I go to New York city and I'm like, Oh my God, this is the best city in the planet. Like, it's just incredible. But I also [00:32:00] love, how beautiful Sioux falls is the purple rock that goes through the middle of the town and
water. It looks like lavender. And I love. Tucson, Arizona, like it really is an incredible place to see it and nothing changes your, it improves your worldview like travel.
And that doesn't mean like world travel. That means traveling even three States away,
Aaron: Yeah. Mm hmm.
JD: meeting somebody from South Texas for me, or going to St. Louis,
there's so many different experiences. People are living every day you really start to change how you think about yourself and how you think about how you regard other people when you travel a lot
Michaela: hundred percent.
Aaron: Yeah. Getting to,to somebody at a coffee shop, even just for 15 minutes and know, I always like to kind of get up early, you know, the next morning before a van call to go for a run or just be in a town. It's like,that's what I miss the most about really not touring anymore is just like.getting to see how people what other people live. Yeah what their lives are like, you know, and it's like you're [00:33:00] talking about You know being afraid in New York It's like I know alot of people down here in Nashville in the south is like New York is like Oh,it is kind of scary. And then I know a lot of people up in New York They're like, ohman, I would not go to the rural South and it's like man Have you ever have you ever been to Dahlonega, Georgia?
It's a beautiful town It's like, you know, I don't know if you've ever been there, but
JD: I'm gonna get this wrong, but it's about an hour to kind of triangulate Atlanta and Athens kind of to the northeastthe hills. You're kind of driving throughnothing and it's like beautiful hills and then you come to this town Completely walkable stained glass artist it's awesome.
Aaron: know, where did this come from?
Michaela: Yeah
JD: um, there's little pockets that we'll never even know about. My friend, Beau Sample, who's been playing bass for a long time now he, just moved to Viroqua, Wisconsin, and he was just like, trying to tell me, explain to me about it, and then I went and visited him, and I'm like, oh my god, one of the best restaurants I've ever eaten at is in this place, it's a farm to table place, and Viroqua, in Viroqua, Wisconsin. The driftless area of [00:34:00] Wisconsin, which I think means it wasn't touched by glaciers. So it's sort of like this very old soil and very undisturbed kind of microclimate. it's got like the highest concentration of like organic farmers anywhere. and then there's like this, the Norwegian sauna culture is there. And there's just this kind of crazy little thing or Boise, Idaho,
uh, which I love Boise and I love Idaho, the highest concentration of Basque people outside of northern Spain are in Boise, Idaho.
And there's like the city block or four city blocks called the Basque block that are just, basque restaurants and bars and cafes and they have a huge street festival every year with Basque dancing and, the signs are written in the Basque font that you see when you're
in
Bilbao or
Aaron: Yeah.
JD: Lierganes and it, that's so cool.
you probably wouldn't know that unless you. Happened to be in Idaho for work,
Michaela: Yeah.
JD: as we so frequently might be, you
know,
Michaela: I'm curious, because [00:35:00] you've,done the van touring, the bus touring, and then you've spent the last few years on like, one of the biggest tours with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. What is that, style of touring? does that change on the, level of type of production it is and how does that change how you're seeing the world and interacting with it and then how that like informs your creative buzz and feeling of musicality of your day to day life on those tours.
JD: Let's start with van and trailer touring, which is what I started on and what I still do now.
and why I love van and trailer touring is because if you have the time. You can stop at a barbecue spot,
so you have a little bit more like latitude in your daily drive
drives are three to five to eight hours
to 14 hours.
If you did my last tour. We drove from Seattle to Salt Lake City,
and, um, We did that. Yep.
yeah, that's not easy, especially there was a, pass, the Snoqualmie [00:36:00] Pass was closed, and
they were saying, they say, don't take the pass, which would add another two or three hours on, we'd still did it anyway, don't tell anybody,
van touring is,
cool too, because I'm a compulsive Facebook marketplacer, used to be a Craigslister.
So I'm always looking for gear, sometimes
small pieces of furniture and you just throw it in the trailer.
that's kind of nice. And then just, I like the whole us against the world feeling of van and trailer touring, I don't know if you ever saw the Minutemen documentary, We Jam Meccano.
this whole badge of honor thing of we're doing a lot with what we got and what we got is an econo van.
love that. honestly it's still one of the most economical ways to make a tour happen if depending on the Size of your band and your production set up. Bus touring. have done some bus touring. Like generally we only would do bus touring when it was like the beginning of an album cycle. And we had to do a radio in the very early mornings. So if you're playing [00:37:00] in, New York and then the next morning, you've got 8 AM radio in Philly,
you have to just do bus.
So
bus touring is great. In that a, you have your own place to go after the gig in between soundcheck. And you can have your own little private place, your
little cubbyhole.
Aaron: hm.
JD: Two,
cereal after gigs. You can make cereal
after gigs. And then three is you wake up in a town and you can go to a museum. I used to do that a lot.
Again, if we do Philadelphia, I would wake up and go to the museum, or I, there would be something I would want to see. Can't really do that as much in van touring, especially, you're like me where you're trying to get as much work in and as possible.
I don't really take days off on the road unless they're drive days. I'm trying to like make as much Skrilla as I can
to bring home the bacon. bus tours allow you to see a little bit more of a town.
Aaron: Mhm,
JD: then the highest thing. Was the plant crowd stuff, which is, I will just say that [00:38:00] you have so little to worry about as far as getting enough rest and all that kind of stuff that I really, really enjoyed playing so much more
because there was a lot more time off
travel was very quick.
Aaron: mhm, mhm, mhm, mhm, mhm,
JD: Paul Ackling, who was my guitar tech for that gig, having Paul
changed so many things about what things I had to think about or worry about. And, he helped me so much, like develop my, stuff and sound so much more. so the short amount of time that we were on stage, I really, really enjoyed it. I always enjoy it, but I really thought about it more offstage. If that makes sense. I'll just say too, that, touring with a huge, 30 plus crew of musicians and, crew people is a really fun way to travel too, because instead of being in this band with the same six people for hours and hours at a time, and then on stage with those same six people, and then rooming with [00:39:00] one of those people which can sometimes lead to discomfort and personality clashes. Touring with a large group of people with days off, you can spend quality time with groups of people and that's really cool too. you're Not forced to be in close quarters with
I don't know.
I don't know, those are the kind of things that popped out in my head as the different kind of styles of touring as far as it was for me.
Michaela: Is something I haven't thought about of what you're saying about on the bigger production tours where you have so much more time where you don't have to take care of stuff like thinking about on in van tours, just how at least in my experience, if I'm touring with in a van where We're off, we're, usually it's Aaron and I like TM ing ourselves in a band and like, also add in a baby in the last few years, which we would be crazy and bring a baby on the road, but it's like, your mind is like, okay, where are we going next?
And where are we getting food if the venue's not providing it? And what's the set list? You're just like running through, oh, got to set up [00:40:00] merch, is everything taken care of? Okay, now I got to get ready for, oh shit, we got to get on stage, like run on stage like, there's so much happening versus, I've,I did one bus tour opening for Watch House in Europe and I was like, this is wild because I'm so free.
JD: Yeah.
Michaela: I was just like, I wake up and hang out. I set up my merch and I play. Wow.
JD: I love opening gigs
I love the 30 minutes on
I love the camaraderie of being on road with a band exclusively and It's fun to do those opening gigs. We've done a really eclectic, group of opening slots. But yeah I gotta tell you, so after the last show of the Plant Krause tour and we had, my new record was coming up and we were going to do a tour everybody was like, Oh man, you got to get back in the van.
And I was like, let's go. I wantto do it. I want to do this again. Cause I, it's just a different mode of thinking my friend Dominic who plays bass for Jack White,
uh, I [00:41:00] wasDominic Davis. Yeah,
he were, we were talking and he was like, yeah, we're going to do some band tours coming up. And I was like, oh, and they really did. they really did do fan
tours and Jack's driving the van. Yeah. And I just know that they had blast doing that.
it's really more about Again we're out making music. we're Out playing shows. We're out like doing the thing.
I never felt like there was a difference between, my mental state, like I wasn't disappointed to get back in the van. I
love it.
Aaron: cause your band opened for Plant Kraus for a while on one of those tours, right? Am I remember that
JD: so, well, we did all the openings, all the
openings.
This whole run the past three years, except in Europe,
you know Theo Lawrence?
he's French. He's from Bordeaux he lives in Austin, sings country music and it's incredible.
He's really, really good and really smart and stylish. And, he has a great t shirt, I don't want to get it wrong, but it says. Theo Lawrence. And on the back it says, [00:42:00] first we give you Liberté, now we give you Ze Musique Country. It's something
like that. Um,
so yeah we opened all those shows in the U.
S. anyway, in
Canada.
Aaron: How was juggling that? You know, where you're kind of being band leader and then you're swapping and being side man and doing all
JD: was the best thing that could have happened, especially right off the bat. The first show with Plant Krause, where I was just About to come out of my body with fear. And that feeling continued for almost a year but, to be able to go out with my own guys and just get my yah yahs out
and get work up a sweat and,
feel like, winning some people over. Really helped steal my nerves a little bit. I never ever regretted that. I mean, It was also just the kind of thing of like, you know, my, I'm keeping my guys working.
it was extra work, but it wasn't work,
you know, 30 minutes set. And then the, the side guy set and it was awesome.
It was great.
Michaela: We saw you with them atBonnaroo. At Bonnaroo. Yeah, we played [00:43:00] Bonnaroo the same day y'all played the,
JD: Okay, man.
Aaron: we didn't play the same stage, but we,
JD: No, man. I'm laughing because. Something went wrong during Bonnaroo. I won't go into it, but something went wrong and it was really funny it just made me laugh out loud because it was, let's just say we had a glitch in offstage communication as to how long. Our set remaining time was
Michaela: done. Uh, I don't,
JD: it was, like, Whoa.
Okay. All right. We're done. See you guys later.
Michaela: know, maybe we played earlier in
Aaron: the
JD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Aaron: day. So Michaela and the band said, and I was like, I've been here before and I came home. So I was actually, I watched your set. It was later, the Bonnaroo like stream or whatever. And the stream mix sounded great. What blew my mind was hearing Robert plants voice through a 57. And Alison Krauss through her, Neumann, Condenser, all of that, like both beautiful voices, but it's just the difference in gear on that was like, this is, wait, and Jay
Michaela: Ballarosa is on drums, right?
JD: Yeah. they did [00:44:00] a lot of Mike shootouts for Robert and Allison.
Cause their voices are so different.
they tried a few different mics. I can't remember if Allison ended up using an SE, which is what, we started using, which are really great.
Really great. lot of people I thought maybe were like, SE, I don't know. Those are really good mics.
Aaron: That's what I've heard time and time again. I've, I've never engineered with them, but I've, used them when somebody else is engineering and I was playing drums or something. They, sound great.
JD: killer stuff. So I,my touring rig is almost all, I'm not endorsed by SE either. So
Michaela: I'm saying this for free, but like almost all of our vocal mics and most of the like drum kit and everything is. It'sNice. Cool.
JD: good stuff. Good mics.
Michaela: Well, we always ask our last question. We're very mindful of time.
I just want to say this like that. Tulsa is, uh, I moved back two years ago. And every single time I've gone out to see a band. Here, has just blown my mind. There is an incredible well of talent here. And there always has been, you know, and Tulsa's kind of known in some circles as being like a real place where a lot of really [00:45:00] great musicians come from, but man, it really is still happening.
JD: And, I just encourage anybody that's listening to just like,check out artists like Ken Pomeroy and, Wildorado and Samantha Crane, though she's not from Tulsa, but we just played a show together, there's like some really cool stuff happening here. people like Andrew coming here, Steven Egerton, who plays for, The descendants lives here. We took a few out of towners that have set up a home here.
I could actually kind of see that happening more in the future. the infrastructure here is starting to grow a little bit. And
it's such a super welcoming, super tight knit musical community here.
Everybody helps each other out. It's that way in, in Nashville too, but I don't think that there's quite the, there is an air of competition in Nashville that, that is a little distasteful sometimes, someone told me recently who had tried to go to Nashville and came right back to Tulsa and then tried to go to Austin and came right back to Tulsa. And they were like, no, I'm here. I don't want to chase Nashville and Austin victories. there was [00:46:00] like these little, these little things that were happening that was just like, I didn't mean to get into like a kind of a slam any other town thing, but I'm
just trying to lift up, I'm trying to lift up Tulsa.
Tulsa is like, Really beautiful
place to be making music in.
Michaela: We had Samantha on here and John Moreland and yeah, we were saying before you came on like, it just seems like there's a lot of cool stuff. I've been to Tulsa once or twice and was, blown away by cool little shops and restaurants and,
JD: Yeah, it's a neat,
Michaela: beautiful community building too.
JD: it's neat. Samantha, man, we just played a show together at Kane's, she just blew my mind.
Michaela: She's
JD: It was unbelievable. And John, I haven't seen John since I moved back, but we did a tour together. I'll tell you a funny story about John, really quick. this was like a while back, this was pre Dark, Dark Times.
We went on a tour and John, at the time, was in the support slot, which is hilarious to me now because I can't even imagine that happening, but he did some shows with us and it was so great and he was kind of just starting to get out and do some [00:47:00] stuff and I knew that he came from Oklahoma and he came from like the Oklahoma City area,Edmund, and that he was in the punk rock scene, we hadn't really had a chance to talk.
So I sat down. With John, and I was like, man, can we talk, Punk Rock, and he's like, yeah, yeah, do you know Communist Ross, and he's like, no, I don't, I don't know who that is, Timmy Haskins, or any of the bastard people, no, did you go to the Peter and the Test Tube Babies show at the Hole, no, I don't even know what the Hole is, and I'm like, what is going on, because we were both, In OKC like, did you see Rat Piss or Black Dahlia play in a basement show in Edmond?
He's like, no, no, I don't know who that is.And then I was like, John, how old are you? And then it realized that he's a lot younger than I am. And I just assume everybody is in the same age group as me. it was so funny, we lived in the same space, in the same scene, but just separated by about 10 years.
It was pretty funny. He's so rad. He's so good.
Michaela: He's so sweet. We had never met him [00:48:00] until the podcast and was one of those guests that just he was like, I know what we're doing. Let's dig in and it was like
Aaron: just
Michaela: dude just started awesome
JD: you know, If you guys ever wanted to talk to somebody who, in my opinion, is doing a really good job of balancing art work and family is Ryan Lindsay from Broncho, another Tulsa band who happens
to be in my top five favorite bands of all time.
Aaron: cool
JD: is one of the greatest melody writers I've ever been around. He's super creative, really original. All of his stuff is like the catchiest thing you ever heard behind a layer of. Fuzz and reverb. he's got a wonderful young family. He gives them so much time and attention he's making it happen.
I
would reach out to Ryan if he likes, want to have that conversation again, somebody who's doing
it successfully from the beginning
and.
Michaela: So here's the thing though, that I don't think people only benefit from hearing from people who seem like they have it figured out from the beginning. the [00:49:00] feedback we get is that there will be JD fans who listen to this and who are like, wow, it's really incredible to know that JD struggled with this or has been learning this along the way, or this makes me feel better.
It's really just like hearing that. I know the word vulnerability is such a thing these days, but it really is like sharing honest experiences and knowing that people who look really successful on the outside also have lessons to learn and hardships and challenges and that's what seems to help people, I think, what I've learned from this.
JD: I don't really share much personal life outwardly, like through the socials or whatever, I just never did I, I've always tried to keep some kind of, lineis great because I'm talking to people who I know about stuff that we both know about, but yeah, I, definitely, definitely made Some huge missteps and made some huge misjudgments along the way, and I just want to encourage anybody who's making music or in the arts in general to just remember what it feels [00:50:00] like to make music in your bedroom at 15 years old and also remember that you need to make sure your family is, taken care of not only, If you're providing not only that, like they need you to be, present and you're going to have them forever.
So just make sure you cultivate that life. If you have to sit every morning and think what am I doing today and how am I going to divide my time and my attention? you should do it. Cause, it'll be much easier on you and on everybody around you if you just give it a little bit more. Attention.
Aaron: I mean, You just hit the nail on the head on what we Kind of like to close every episode with it's either like what would you tell your younger self? that's just getting into it or what's word of advice that has stuck with you and between that and Niccolo's conversation with you,
JD: costumes, dressing everybody the same, is a really great way. and cheap way to add production value to your stage show that takes very minimal upfront cost.
Aaron: the jazz drummer are [00:51:00] breaking the jazz messengers. He used to say they see you before they hear you
JD: I
learned that from the hives. They
always dress the same. every time
The hives go outside together, it doesn't matter if they're going to a show or if they're going to a dinner, they're always dressed the same.
Aaron: Oh damn. Interesting.
JD: I've seen it.
They were at the Pinewood social one time and all the hives were there and locked in.
And this girl walks out and goes, is that a band? And they're like, yes, we are the greatest band of all time. You should listen to the hives. It's like business card. Um, oh yeah. No shorts on stage.
that's the fifth rule,
Aaron: you can
sweat on stage for 90 minutes. Except for,
Michaela: what's his name,
Aaron: Buck, who played, drums for Lucinda. In Lucinda's band. He wore shorts on stage. I
JD: you know? I would say there's no exceptions, but I am going to give you one exception really quick. So, I guess there are exceptions, but this is the coolest picture ever. This is B. b. King on stage in the fifties, in like his safari outfit with
shorts. Isn't that awesome? [00:52:00]
Aaron: still wearing a blazer too.
JD: Yeah, yeah.
Blazer and tie, big old Gibson Switchmaster, two
tone shoes, shorts. That's how you do shorts on stage. If you have to do it,
that's the only way.
Michaela: I'm
pretty sure there's, there's images of Vince Gill on stage in cargo shorts. I believe that. And Vince Gill can do anything he wants.
Ha ha
JD: You're absolutely
right. There is a video that I watch all the time. I've seen it probably
20 times. I go and watch it of him on stage at Third to Lindsley with the
time jumpers. And it's so great
because it's, the camera starts over on Ranger Doug and Ranger Doug is like just chopping away on those Freddie Green cords.
And he is just resplendent in his vintage nudie Western suit, rhinestones, neckerchief, beautiful hat, everything is period correct. And he's singing, don't roll those bloodshot eyes at me. He's singing that song and panning across the stage and yep, yep, there's somebody in a cowboy hat. and then Vince Gill's in a sweat shirt, a [00:53:00] hoodie and some shorts with like like slides. Yeah. Slides with socks and like a, like a hat on and he's just like shredding
Michaela: And singing with the greatest voice that's when you're right,when you have that sort of level of ability, you can you can do what you want
Aaron: Yeah. Man, J. D., thanks for making time to have this conversation with
JD: really nice to talk to you guys next
to see your faces and congratulations on the fam send pitchers, send pitchers.
Aaron: we will. Hopefully it'll
Michaela: be any day. Maybe I'll go into labor tonight.
JD: No, you got another podcast to do.
Michaela: Oh, that's right.
Aaron: Thursday at two 30. This
Michaela: was
Aaron: so fulfilling that I forgot about the other one.
Cool. Thanks, guys. Nice to see you. Happy new year.
too, man. See
JD: Bye bye.
Aaron: [00:54:00]