Full Conversation [00:00:00]

Nicky P: Welcome everyone to another episode of We Came From Celluloid. I'm Nicky P here, as always, with my brother from another mother, my bandmates and. Small round. Good guy, Mr. Brian Pri,

Brian Pritchard: Good morning.

Nicky P: Looking all dapper in his, his, his business attire as I look quite, I'll say dark and brooding almost over here with this, I don't know, tears for fears kind of haircut.

It's, it's kind of how it's feeling right now. Definitely the beard is coming in in an aggressive sort of way, and thanks to lighting you can't see as much of the white as is in my beard normally. Morning. We'll say that

Brian Pritchard: I'm,

Nicky P: So how are we doing?

Brian Pritchard: I.

I, my buddy, max, who you, you know, a little bit, um,

Nicky P: I talk to Max all the time now, thankfully.

Brian Pritchard: Well, fair enough, fair enough. But he's, he's, he, he was in my band, right. And, and Max and I really is like a guitar playing duo. Goes back. Foundation of.

Less available and engaged in the music stuff for a couple years. And as he's, you know, emerging back in that space, it's sort of intriguing because it's at a time again where, you know, I'm approaching this empty nester, phase. Right. You only have, the, the, the one daughter and how, how old is her mom?

Max only has the one child

I'm.

Whether it's dome stuff, whether he's part of the, you know, performing and or traveling, Puma act. He knows and loves all of this material he, he's been involved in, in, in a lot of it. So anyway, I, I, I specifically wrote a song. The other night, night because Max had expressed an interest in doing something with Dome.

I like wanted to try to write something that was like a dome tune on purpose. You know, write like a heavy, metal song that to me. You know, it's been interesting because in, in the, in the last number of years, everything I've written has logically been to Puma because if I want it to exist, that's been the only option.

You know what I'm saying? Like, if I want it to exist at all, that's been the band to put it in. Um. Yeah, no, it's, it's interesting. The comment that I, I, I, I I ultimately made as it related to like writing material for a given project is, you just need to see consistency from the people, the people involved.

You just like, you know, you like the feeling that everybody's, rowing in the.

Nicky P: I definitely feel getting.

Brian Pritchard: There's done on that side. You know, I, I know you were talking last week about, about wanting more of the details from a marketing perspective, but my mind keeps even drifting to being like, where are we sleeping? Like, just like little details like that, you know. But, it's, it's a really exciting time.

Nicky P: I assume I was sleeping armed. I assume I was sleeping armed in the van.

Brian Pritchard: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. Yeah, no, I, anyway, no, it's, it's an exciting time. I'm loving all the, the, the creative, output, you know. I like it when my friends send me. With little snippets of things, that I can just like immediately react to.

I, I love excuses, frankly, to stop working during the middle of the day. So I'll get a text message like I did yesterday from Max where, he was like, Hey, I, I was, he sent me like a two and a half minute you.

I was doing again and, respond to this music, right? There's, there's the stuff that you write, and then there's the stuff that comes out in, in response to somebody else's ideas. And some of the very favorite melodies I've ever, come up with ideas and stuff. I, I, I go like, well. I don't even feel like I can fully own them because they only exist in reaction to what you did.

You know what I mean? And, that, that to me is just part of the magic of collaboration. I, I would never wanna be a solo act, not because I don't think I could write an interesting album, but objectively, like I, I, I have a healthy ego, but I'm still sitting there. There's no fucking way that what I could do on my own would be better than what I could do with other people.

It's just no way. No way.

Nicky P: Understanding. I mean, sometimes the reaction itself is the magic and you know, it's, it's almost like, it's almost like YouTube in that you have people, yeah, you could go up there and you could monologue for 10 minutes, but it's way more fun to just sit there and comment on what somebody else did in a lot of ways.

You know, that's, that's literally why YouTube burst out and became, what it became was the ability to comment on other people's stuff. And when you can do that from a musical perspective, like when you, when you're in academia, there's this idea, it's called the, the great conversation you've heard of that.

Brian Pritchard: No, I don't know that I have, I mean, conceptually, as you say that it's just the idea that you're forever volleying ideas back and forth, but define it for me. Yeah, tell me about the

Nicky P: Well, but its that premise, but in actuality, there are specific pieces of work that comprise what is called.

The make up. The accumulation of like human philosophy and human knowledge. You know, it's, it's like your, your Socrates starting with your Socrates, Plato and all that stuff moving up through like, you know, the guys that are talking about modern political philosophy and stuff like that. It's, it's a specific can.

What is accepted as the, the current thoughts of current commentary on the big ideas. So, you know, and, and it happens in culture no matter what. Like it's, there's always gonna be people commenting on it. What ends up becoming like Canon is kind of like where we end up, what is socially acceptable at the end of any given era.

But it's always been interesting to think that like there's individual voices. That make up that it's not like everybody's having the conversation, that's what it's called, the great conversation, but it's a particular voice that's the one that shines through, maybe articulates everything the best. So you're sitting here and you're talking about like, you know, in the music world, the idea of like, yeah, like there's a lot.

Important. It's give and take.

I would discredit.

Let's, let's make it clear. Hauling os is hauling, os taking either one of those guys outta the equation. It's, it's not the same animal. Like, hey, that operated and work because you had two guys and I think it's, you know, a little bit of the, you know, metal on, metal sharpens metal, that kind of thing.

Brian Pritchard: Well, it also makes me think of, there's another sort of call and, and, and response dance that happens outside of the unit that actually knows each other.

What I mean is on a cultural level, let's, let's say for the sake of argument that like. The Beatles put it out an album, and then Rolling Stones put out an album and they're both aware of each other and they're both listening to each other's stuff. Right. And that there, there's the idea of that dance, or, Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino are, are friends with each other.

You know, they're contemporaries, but they're also kind of competitors, right? That they both wanna be. The best. And, and so I do feel like when one of them goes to see the new work of the other, that in a a really cool, fun way, they probably have oh shit moments, right? Of going, oh fuck, now I've gotta up my game.

Right. That any moment where you're impressed by your, the work of your contemporaries? I think particularly when you are. Big show, so to speak. Right. Where, because I, I've had that thought too of going, like,

Nicky P: Did you ever play sports at all when you're growing up?

Brian Pritchard: I played baseball, yeah.

Nicky P: Okay. No, you didn't actually play.

I'm, I'm, of course, but I'm thinking more along the lines of like individual competitive sports. Like, so be like you're wrestling or, in my case, I ran cross country track and field.

Good as I was in a, I the record of you're unaware, I did go to college at a cross country running scholarship and what is, I grew up in a, a curse and a blessing. I lots of places to run in that I hardly ever gotta race people. Like when I, my senior year when I was, because I only ran long distance my senior year, I was a football player.

Until then, I. I raced against me because there was nobody fast enough to race against me. Like I'm winning races by a half a mile in some cases, like people are so far behind me. So whenever I'd go to a, like we, we call 'em invitationals, where you have, instead of having you and another team, you have like 30 teams all show up and you're, you're competing against a, a much larger group of people.

And it was in those instances where. I finally be able to push myself and see what I'm capable of because dude, it's, it's hard to do your best when there's nobody out there like pushing you to do your best. The case, like the Tarantino Thomas, like there's that, that, oh, I have to level up, I've gotta.

Well, we usually bring out the best in people, certainly if it's friendly competition. I do have scars where people spike me during meets because I brought out the, the lesser level of competition in them too. But, but it's like I never, I know personally, I can never realize that

Brian Pritchard: You do occasionally see a version of that that makes people crumble too.

Right? That, that, that, um. I've heard than once somebody watch somebody. If somebody I know who plays guitar would watch, you know, a virtuoso guitar player and be like, well, I just never wanna pick up my instrument again, kind of thing. You know what I'm saying? That like, there are times where, where people see the levels of achievement and feel so far removed from it that they just go like, oh my God.

You know? But I, I, I prefer obviously the other one, which is that excitement of somebody sort of clocking. Oh, if that is possible, if what that person did is possible, then clearly I can do it too. And you know,

Nicky P: The, the nobody could break a four minute mile until somebody broke a four minute mile, like they thought it was humanly impossible until the first guy did it.

And then within a year, four people had already done it. But specifically even music related to what we're talking about. When I, so I didn't learn how to play guitar at all until college. I'd never picked one up. I only picked one up because I didn't have a band anymore. I couldn't rely on somebody else to play guitar for me.

So at, you know, 18 years old, this is the first time I really learned how to play guitar. And I went and saw the roots my freshman year of college over in the gymnasium. And I remember distinctly having that. What the, why am I, why am I even bothering? Like watching Cody Chestnut, like rip it up for them was just like, wow, I'm, I'm such a fucking imposter.

I'm just gonna go not play guitar anymore. Like, this is stupid. Why am I bothering now? Granted, that's my initial reaction. Eventually, like the pragmatic side was like, well, but I've got these ideas and I got these things I wanna do and I can't do them unless I do this. Push myself past that point, but that, that visceral reaction of like, oh my God, like why am I bothering with this when there's somebody who's just that capable of it.

But then you listen, you know, listen to Jack Johnson, and there's nothing Jack Johnson does that anybody else couldn't do, but nobody else would do because that's just how he wrote, how he expressed himself. He did very well for himself for a number of years as far as like and like the popular of it.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah. Well, and mentioned even last, times where. Would give a hard time for, always writing and drop deep, you know what I'm saying? And, and, and things like that where there are songs that only exist as like a direct fuck you to my friend, you know, like, show you, you know. But again, it's like that, it's cool.

It's, you know, I'm saying there's no, fuck you, it's, it's. It's, it's to get pushed. It's nice. Get pushed.

Nicky P: I.

Are you afraid of? Afraid of like offending levy or something? He's like, know what? Come on man, you're gonna let this shit fly outta levy. All this root note bullshit. You know, he's some far more capable base player than that. No, no. I just haven't posted the most recent thing. I'm like, yeah, better be. I'm not fucking taking that shit, you know?

You know Bri don't bring that weak sauce over here.

Brian Pritchard: I found myself, doing a version of what I almost understand directors do. Right? Which was that.

Giving almost abstract sometimes, you know, instructions, right? Where it's like, no, you know what I need, I need a little more Neil Diamond Daddy here. You know what I'm saying? It's like, as long as it makes sense, then, then, then it makes sense. I, I, I was watching the movie Night Crawler, with Jake Gien Hall, and there was a scene in there and I was listening to the commentary track.

And the, the, writer director goes, oh, in this, in this moment, I gave him a, an instruction to pretend that he was doing a marriage proposal on a, on, on a top of a hill. And like you could see the way that it informed the performance and the moment and the scene, but like the scene was inside a news setting.

You know I'm saying, but, but as he's saying that, you're at like the sort wide eagerness in Jill's eyes and going. It's brilliant for the character and the moment and the performance and like what a, what an interesting way to get him there, you know, like, as far as just taking, you know, an isolated moment and, and yeah.

Be like, yeah, put some grease on it, Nick, you know, I'm saying like, it's, it's funny to. Sometimes. And, and that's one of the fun things with, I suppose why in our world, in, in the film world and all of it, why it's fun to, to, to, once you have a good team of collaborators, you build upon that is because that, that's one of the things with language just in our daily lives, right?

You and I both speak English, but we infuse different words with different meanings, you know, and. A common native language. There's potential for misunderstanding in conversations. It happens all the time in life, right? Where, where somebody's like, you know what that word means to me is actually different than what it means to you, you know?

So yeah, no, it's, it's, it's fun to work with people over decades where the shorthand becomes, its own special, special little secret language. Well

Nicky P: As someone like language and linguistics as part of communication, something like it's where I come from a academically, and one of the things I saw was it's amazing that people can communicate at all.

The fact that we developed the ability to talk to each other is remarkable. A.

I want you to think, think of a dog and I'm gonna think of a dog. What do you think the chances are when I say dog? The same dog I'm picturing is the dog that you're picturing.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah. Right? I, I would, I dunno what the exact are, but I hear Yeah, you,

Nicky P: You, you see a rotweiler in your head. I see a corgi in my head.

But now let's take that, let's extrapolate that to non concrete. Thought and then I go, huh, there's absolutely way.

But develop the ability to kind of fill in the gaps and negotiate what meaning is well enough. Communicate and talk and do all the things that we do and like it. I want you think, translate that to music things where we're even not even in abstract thought, we're dealing at the level of conceptual, abstract emotion and somehow we're able to communicate feeling to people.

That is some of the most just baller amazing shit in the world. That's even possible.

Brian Pritchard: Well, right. But, but part of the magic even there, is the idea that, to use that dog metaphor, right? If the song we've written is our dog, one of the things that's kind of magic about music is that somebody else can hear it and see a different.

You know what I'm saying? Even inside the group, my dog can be different than your dog, you know? Load the listener, right. It's fun. It's a lot of fun.

Nicky P: I bring it back to Speed song with something as simple as what note that song starts on, finds if that song is so many ways.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Nicky P: I, I officially reached out to one of my old college buddies, to try for, I'm gonna try and get him to do some actual professional graphic design for the, the t-shirts.

We'll see if, like he actually bites on any of it. If he did do it, I, this gonna look awesome because he's just a stupid. Designer some all of the best stuff like I've ever put out. Artwise for my musical projects has always been him, but you know, he's a dad with kids and stuff, so sometimes getting him to actually follow through and finish anything is always the issue.

But I didn't, didn't wanna say I reached out and tried to find someone to like handle that part of things. I have other design people I might actually reach out to as well. It's those tended to be the kind of people I hung out with in college.

Brian Pritchard: Well, what I wanted to share with you in closing is that, I, I, I remember, I, I know we've talked previously about the Cave of Forgotten Dreams documentary and, how that, you know, inspired me in terms of the, the role of storyteller in society, having, roots that go that deep, um.

Subsequently, I saw that there's gonna be an IMEX 3D screening of that fucking documentary at Crocker, this month. So I'm gonna get us tickets and, you should come see Cave of Forgotten Dreams with me. I couldn't believe it, right? That, like, that movie of all things is somehow getting like, what must be an anniversary screening.

But I'm excited

Nicky P: Who made that movie? It sounds familiar.

Brian Pritchard: Made it.

Nicky P: There you go. There you go. He, he made a great, a great and terrible Lochness Monster movie. I enjoy, I have not seen that one. I've seen a lot of his work, but

Brian Pritchard: I have not seen a Lochness monster.

Nicky P: The beauty, it's not his work, it's the beauty.

He's an actor in it.

Brian Pritchard: I liked him in the Deaf Reacher movie. He was, he was the villain in the Tom Cruise Jack Reacher movie. And he was really good. He was good.

Nicky P: So there's this weird movie where I still don't understand exactly what the, the design of this movie was 'cause it's so out there. But someone is trying to do a hoax movie about Loch.

They hire him to, you know, be the documentarian or like the, the voice. So the voice guy's, and they're basically like trying to play a hoax

And like, it's, it's a huge, it's a huge failure, but.

It's just absolutely bonkers. You're like, it's like a, a constantly breaking the fourth wall in a way that's like, this is all completely, it's, it's all complete narrative designed to look like documentary.

Only a movie like that could be. And, and the fact that it's Vernor hartzog is there, always cracks me up. There's like so many good vernor hartzog jokes. Do you ever watch? I think it was an SNL bit once where it was like finally a, a line of clothes inspired by Vern Har and it was like just, it was, it's all random colors of beige.

Brian Pritchard: He's, he's really like a, a such a singular, singular artist, you know what I mean? Like, you know, one of one,

Nicky P: Didn't he like try and make a movie like crossing a mountain at some point in South America or like, he made a movie about a guy who did that.

Brian Pritchard: I know that he made a, a movie where he eats his own shoe.

I, I definitely remember that one. And I know that he never saw his first movie until he was an adult. His entire childhood. Unlike every other filmmaker we know, he did not grow up with the movies. He didn't see a movie until he was an adult.

Nicky P: If you've ever heard of Michael Malice, he was the subject of a movie, of a comic book by, I can't remember, like the real, very famous like artist, like art artist made a comic book around called Ego and Hubris.

And it was literally about him as a child. And he amusingly enough, he went on to become like a, a celebrity ghost writer. He's written like books and things like that, the unauthorized biography of Kim, but. The weird ways in which people's lives intertwined and all that kind of stuff there. Certainly amusing.

So anyways, folks, it's about that time before we belabor this episode as we could and very well will on another day. But Brian, thank you so much for coming out. Hopefully it was entertaining to the people that are into the, the weird things that we get into, but otherwise folks. Keep, keep doing your thing, keep looking for future releases.

Lots of things are going on. I know I'm gonna be in the studio a bunch over the next couple months. The list keeps getting longer for things that I wanna wrap up and get out there and like what I feel is a finished way. And I think Brian is, well, Brian never stops writing, so there's always another 10 songs that he needs to record and get people on.

So.

Brian Pritchard: It's the truth man. Well, we're gonna keep making magic happen. Excited.

Nicky P: Alright folks.