Cold open / back in separate rooms [00:00:00]

Brian Pritchard: Celluloid. And we're turning it into music and podcast free

Nicky P: Welcome everyone to another fine episode of We Came From Celluloid. For those of you who d- don't remember, I am Nicky P. Here with Brian Pritchard, and we have been off on an adventure, an excursion, an illusion perhaps even. And we're here to talk to you about it today. Welcome everyone.

Brian Pritchard: Good to be back, Nick.

Good to be back. Weird to see you in this, at this remove, you know, after such a close proximity, you know. We are once again in different rooms, different places, little boxes on a computer screen.

Nicky P: Not in the shotgun seat of the van, getting hip damage and all kinds of other uncomfortablenesses.

The post-tour mental shift [00:01:00]

Yeah, it is, it has definitely been a bit of a, a shift, and I think a lot of people would u- kind of think maybe vacation shift. But it's, it's been just kind of a mental shift in a bunch of different ways. You know, I was back to work yesterday, and it was all right. It wasn't a big deal. Um- But there's a certain sense of like I'm definitely amped up about, like, band stuff still.

Like, ready to kinda take on new chapters and, like, work on the next thing and see what else we can kinda squeeze out of the orange, so to speak. So it's, it's been a, I don't know, a, a weird sort of shift for me. How about yourself? How's that feeling?

"Condensed learning": what a single show teaches you [00:02:00]

Brian Pritchard: I've been all over the place, honestly. Throughout the experience, I had been teasing my wife during the couple of weeks leading up to the tour, 'cause she had been with my daughter out of town doing the last of, these road trip dance competitions that they've actually done several times, but this was, like, the, the climax, the last one.

And, hearing her, like, she would check in with me, and, like, every other message would be, "This amazing thing just happened," or, "I hate these people." You know what I mean? Like, and, and it would pivot back and forth that way. And, and I would tease her about the sort of whiplash, feeling of it all. And so, you know, what, what, what I'm talking about in that respect is just that, like, I felt, every emotion throughout that 10-day period at different times in terms of, how stressed I felt, how sad I felt, how unbelievably excited and grateful I felt, how much fun I had, and laughter I had, and, also times where my fucking hands were shaking with, with, anger, you know about different things.

And, I, I was very much all over the place, and I, I, I was thinking about how, how I was, so flippant almost and, and, and light about, like, talking about this idea of being like, when, when we last recorded, being like, "Hey, you know, like, th- this is, like, the old version of, of us, and, like, when we come back it'll be the new version."

Like, in, in a certain way I almost, yeah, like, where I use the word flippant, I, I, I didn't even, I think, appreciate how much, would be hitting me so quickly in such a short period of time. One, one other way I'll try to explain it is, like, I've recognized before how there's things you can learn in band practice over long stretches of time, but then a, a single onstage performance you can learn so much, so much faster about, about things.

Nicky finds his footing as a frontman [00:04:00]

Like, that's an experience I've had before where you go, like, oh man, like, what, what condensed learning you get when you actually take a thing out into the field. And, and, and, and, and high level, that's a takeaway here too, is that all the months of talking, planning, thinking, speculating, that condensed learning was, intense.

It was intense for me, dude.

Nicky P: Well, e- to, to kind of piggyback on what you were saying, that for me, it's the sense of iteration that's the, the important thing. Th- that you get, like, it's one thing to kinda go out there. And you know, when we play shows periodically, we play a show, and by the next show I've kind of forgotten some of the lessons I, I learned.

So like, when I make changes, it's like they're all kind of a, a little bit amorphous. Whereas getting out there to go out and do the show every night for the most part, I can make changes every night based on what last night was like, and kinda tweak on the fly and see exactly, you know, almost real time, like, what the differences are, how things work out.

And certainly by the e- by the end of the tour, like, I know that my, I know that my performances were... Maybe my voi- voice was getting a little weaker as the week went on. Surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would. But, the, the personality behind the performance was definitely picking up with each iteration.

Setlist spontaneity vs. a locked-in show [00:06:00]

'Cause I was more comfortable with the songs, more comfortable with the motions, more comfortable with, like, what is, what is the mean to be the lead singer of Puma Thurman, you know?

Brian Pritchard: I like that. No, the, the, you know, even something as simple as, I, I sort of defied a request that multiple people had made for a variety of reasons, some of them practical, some of them just, you know, I don't know.

I don't know what the other word would be. But, so where, where I'm going is something like the set list spontaneity, right? That, that more than one, band member had talked about their preference being to have a defined set that we dialed in and then, executed on every night. That's not what we did.

And, and there were different reasons for that. Like I said, s- some of that, like, high level, my preference is always errs a little bit towards the spontaneity. I, I, I do, I do like both in a practice setting and even in a show setting, having some room to call an audible. I like being able to pick the mood of a song based on the mood right in that moment.

Even if the set list is defined, the idea of it being a moodier version of Cowboy or a intense version of Cowboy, or you know what I'm saying? Like, I, I like being able to, to fuck with those things and, um- But, but, but yeah, like it was cool. We, we debuted, a song that we hadn't performed live. So that, that, that was a, a level of, of spontaneity, right?

That, that, proved to present itself. And then to your point about the iteration of it, like getting to talk about what, what we did and didn't like in that performance so that we could go after it again. We did the same thing with Renee where I, I hadn't really intended to include Renee in the tour at all.

We did end up playing it twice I think as well, just like 1212, where, once it had been introduced at all, I had that desire recognizing the opportunity you describe where it was like, "Oh shit, we've got another show tomorrow." Like, we absolutely have now this opportunity to, to build off of that momentum in, in, in interesting ways.

Similarly it was cool to look at, our tour mate, um- Amelia performed on stage by herself as I'd seen her do previously. And then we had conversations about having Ben as an on-stage presence, and then I got to watch them experiment that with, with that approach night one, have takeaways from that initial experiment that they had then applied to the next performance.

And then, you know, le- leading that into, to conversations, you know, for the future. You know, I'd be curious, you know, what, what Joe's perspective on that was 'cause again, he was more in that, that camp of going, "I've got in-ear monitors. I've got a set list that I'm executing on," you know? Um- But yeah, yeah, yeah.

That, that, that, that part was indeed interesting to get to. And, you know, I, I, I've come away w- speculating about that stuff with bands that I like. I, I won't look up a setlist for the Deftones before my show, but once, once I've seen my show, I like to see what were the setlists that led up to this, and then I'll pay attention to what they do the next night and for the rest of the tour.

The 10 to 20% wiggle room rule [00:10:00]

And I'm always curious about what the bands I like and their decision-making process, and which ones kinda reinvent the wheel every night, and which ones, you know, do have a, a prescribed setlist. Or within that, like, maybe it's 90% prescribed, but they have a slot or two that they leave open for a semi-wild card.

But then is it a true wild card, or is it just, like, option A, option B for some reason? I, I find all those things interesting, and, it was cool getting to execute on it in, in our space. Setlists are h- honestly just one of my favorite parts of what we do, you know? I enjoy that shit.

Nicky P: Yeah, I've always been a 10 to 20% guy.

Like, because in any performance, like, there's... You, you, you need to have built-in sort of, peaks and valleys. You know, your introductions and your outros should be very well-rehearsed and should feel special. And it's difficult for things to feel special when they're just kind of haphazardly thrown together.

But there's also a certain amount of, yeah, but you don't want every set to be exactly the same. So you, you put your 10 to 20% of wiggle room in there of things to kind of call on the fly, you know. Or maybe the, like you said, the emotion in the room was a little different. So, you know, you kinda tweak around how the middle of the set goes a little bit.

Maybe push a song later, pull one a little earlier. You know, you know, "We haven't played this, but this feels like the right night to play something special and different. Let's do that tonight." so it was definitely, I think if we had more dates, like it wasn't the longest tour, you know, we had five gigs.

But I think if we had, like, a longer run, we would've had a little bit more time to even then to experiment with, like, what that really looks like. But, you know, when you got five so different gigs, like, you know, one of them's in an art space at a bookshop. One of them's in this punk bar across from, like, where they're having a huge party for the, the, the soccer.

Five nights, five completely different venues [00:12:00]

One of them's a bar in Chi- you know, in Chicago. One of them was in a guy's apartment above a bar in Denver as we're playing off of a balcony to a park across the street. So like the, the situations were so drastically different in some ways. It provided almost like too wide a swath of different types of venues to like really just sit back on any one concept.

Um-

Brian Pritchard: No, even the acts that we were flanked by, like, you know what I mean? Like the, the, the, the first night show in Indiana, I m- I remember just, you know, looking at the other acts on the bill and feeling like some of our songs, you know, that, that, that I was wanting to construct a set list again to try to fit in to, to whatever degree was logical, you know?

Interpersonal tension on the road [00:13:00]

Nicky P: W- I want a thing I definitely want to bring up is, you know, because o- obviously I'm the one who has the, the strong personality, you know, like, like really, really dark coffee, and was quite concerned with like some of the interpersonal machinations of the tour, and how that was going to work out. I thought for sure me and one of the members of the band were probably gonna get into it.

Even going into that first, that first couple of hours I'm like, "Oh God, this is gonna happen, isn't it?" And it, lo and behold, it didn't. Like things chilled out really quick. Everyone kind of settled, I think, into, "Hey, let's just kinda keep the peace mode and just keep things light and airy and get through all this."

Now, do I say that everything was, all apple pie and roses the whole week? No. Even moments where you and me were getting pissed at each other because like we all have expect- different expectations of communication and things, like, so I'm, I'm getting talked at by people and you're, kind of handled something, but it didn't disperse past a certain point, and so I'm freaking out because I'm like, "God damn, I don't know what the fuck to tell these people."

And like I gotta come to you and like, and you're like in the middle of doing something that you don't wanna be pulled away from. And, you know, so there were, there were those moments where I think e- everyone kind of got pushed in some ways to kinda have to do, do uncover things. That being said, I think everybody walked away largely, you know, feeling, feeling good about how everything went for everybody.

I can't speak for you, I suppose, but, you know, ultimately I don't, I'm not any more pissed at anyone in the band than I was when I went out. I generally feel pretty good.

Brian Pritchard: No, in, in, in, in, in a way I, I, I, I would, I guess part, part of my, it's funny saying this 'cause I, I, I ironically one of the things that even came up as, as a squabble of sorts was, was, uh...

I mean, I guess you're even talking about it now. That, that, that there's a, a degree to which as one of the, the planners, that th- there's a leadership hat that's being worn, right? Where I take on that mantle at times, and then there's moments where it's like I don't, I don't feel like having the people turn to me to look for i- for that information.

You know what I mean? But, but, but anyway, like I, I, I say that to say that, like-

Nicky P: Just i- in fairness, I, I would normally have t- because I ha- like this whole thing kind of stemmed with you and Joe, I would, I was leaning out of leadership mode more than I normally would. Like, I would normally have been the guy in the, your position in most of the shows, but since you were the guy who'd been making the contacts, it kind of fell on you.

Brian's leadership hat and burnout [00:16:00]

Brian Pritchard: No, for sure. For sure. For sure.

Nicky P: And one of the, one of, one of the, one of the issues we'll all say is y- Brian, e- everyone, if you haven't gathered this from our podcast, Brian is a sweetheart. And, and Brian goes out wanting to make everybody happy, and sometimes that can cause issues and like, well, we have very strict time requirements that we, we should be getting things done in, and And, and y- you know, when you're trying to kind of make everybody happy, we're pissing, you're inevitably pissing somebody off because something's not going the way they thought it was going to.

And I'm perfectly content to be the asshole in a situation, 'cause I usually am. So I mean, it's, you know, o- one of the things is like, you know, what would, would've looked d- what would look different in the situation where, you know, I have to, I take that on and do things differently. That being said, like, we're talking about the some of the most minor shit people, like set times running too long kind of stuff here.

Brian Pritchard: No, and, and, and, and that's all I mean is, is in answer to your question, that was a long way of my saying, I, I still feel like I need to have some individual check-ins. Like I haven't talked to Brian, you know, since, since he, vanished in the middle... Not n- that's, I, I don't mean that literally. Like we, we knew he was leaving, but he, he had a middle of the night flight, so it was like we were, we were hanging out and then he wasn't part of the drive home.

So like, I, Br- Brian's just somebody that I, I do wanna check in with as everybody settles in and, and go like, like we, you and I are talking right now, I wanna have that conversation with everybody. That's all I mean. You know what I mean? And, and so that, that, that checking of the pulse is, is something that, still needs to happen as I, yeah, sort of just re- re-acclimate to, to the normal, normal world.

But no, I mean, to, to your point, um- Even, even with like My tendency with the people I love as it relates to conflict resolution is to not let things, not let things lie sit. Or- I'll put it this way. If there's somebody that I value the relationship, I will put work into mending any damage that has been, done to the degree to which I can control that.

It, it, it would be exceptionally rare for me to sit there and have a conflict or something where my, my answer is, "Well, just fuck that person. I'm, I'm, I'm never gonna talk to them again," this, that, or the other. You know what I mean? And, and so I guess from that perspective, that, that's what allowed me to be flippant going into the tour when you would talk about the idea of, like, people coming away angry or whatever.

It was like, well, I have so much history that the idea that, like, somehow those relationships could completely deteriorate in that time, indeed i- seems impossible, seemed impossible, is impossible. It's like from my perspective, no, like, that's not something I would, I would ever allow. All, all that being said, it was a unique enough experience, like, like I said earlier, it was such, for me even, an intense, you know, concentrated thing that I just do wanna check in with everybody and be like, "Yeah, how, how are you feeling?

Would you fucking do that again or not?" You know what I mean? Like, yeah.

Nicky P: Well, I was definitely less concerned with you as far as that goes 'cause, you know, obviously we're going into this, you've known these guys for your entire fricking life at this point. Whereas, you know, somebody for me, who in, in, in large ways is an outsider, you know, and I'm trying to kind of make friends with your friends in a lot of ways with- along this tour, you know.

The relationship that quietly ran its course [00:20:00]

And there was just, there's some m- me- members of the band that, like, I definitely have more of a rapport with. We have more shared experience, more time together. Obviously you and me have the most out of anyone I have shared experience with. But, like, there's certain band members I think we even discussed that are just kind of a mystery.

Like, I'm not sure if they actually like me, don't like me, whatever. And so, you know, I, I, I figure, well, we're sure as hell gonna find, find that test i- while we're out here, and- No, I- It never came...

Brian Pritchard: Dude, no, I, I, I remember feeling that way with, with, with Third World Leader when I was in the band as well.

I remember, talking to somebody at one point about being like, there's things that come up conversationally that I feel like if I probed them too far, it would, like, break this thing that I really like, and so I don't. You know what I mean? I, I remember saying that about them. So I'm, I'm not even assuming that that's your sentiment.

It just reminded me of the, of that sense of number one, like, I, I, I love being part of these different creative projects. And yeah, it's, it's an interesting thing to try to, uh- I haven't quite been in that position as an adult outside of different, like, business scenarios, right? Like, I've, I've, I've been lucky.

And, and Third World Leader, that was the exception to the rule, right? That w- that was the time where I had a project where I wasn't surrounded by my fucking childhood friends, right? And, and had to figure out how to, how to navigate personalities and stuff. So, you know, yeah. I, I, I do have, have empathy even if limited experience with it.

Nicky P: Only thing I find amusing is there's probably the same reason that you would've had issues w- in that group that I expected to have issues with our band member too, just-

Brian Pritchard: No, that's fair...

Nicky P: Just- Yeah... Just by what I know of those guys in Third World Leader, like, and what I, I know of the Zoolook. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, that, that could've been, I could see a problem for Brian.

So, yeah, no, dude, it, I'm not gonna say like I, I definitely walked away from this having at least kind of- One relationship that I feel I don't know, it wasn't, it wasn't really that there was necessarily a relationship there before, but, like, I could sense that at least one member of the tour and me were, were reaching the end of what we could take with each other.

And it will, I won't go into any more depth than that, but so it, it, it didn't come from where I actually expected it to come from, but there was a certain amount of it. I think it's inevitable that you're gonna have some of that in, any situation where you have people locked in a van for really, really long periods of time or...

Well, that's about as much of them as I think I can take for right now.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah. Well, and, and that, that came into my mind, too, right, as far as, just broadly speaking. I, I, I, I thought of the small doses nature of things, right, being, being part of what was tested, right? I- i- in, in that context is going like, got it.

The, what- whatever personality stuff meshes or doesn't mesh to different degrees, inside any relationship. You know, you, you look at how friendships get, get tested by becoming roommates. That, that romantic relationships get tested by moving in with each other. The idea that, that a band gets tested by, spending 24 hours a day, you know, locked in a van, locked in these, you know what I mean, k- sort of confined circumstances.

Testing a band like a relationship gets tested [00:24:00]

It, it, it, it does make sense. It makes sense that that is a, a thing that, you can't fully know what is gonna happen until you go in and do it, you know? And, and we did it.

Nicky P: Well, and, and, and that's sad. Like, you know, surprisingly, like, it's not like people weren't hanging out with each other outside of, you know, the gigs and the performing.

Chicago, you guys all went and did your little scooter tour and had a blast doing it. You know, we, while we were out in, Denver, we went out into the hills kind of as a group and looked at the mountains and stuff, and that was its own little bit of blast. So it's, you know, it's, it's not like even when there were opportunities to spend time apart that, like, m- most of us chose them.

I'm perhaps, like, the most, you know, the most internal out of all of us as far as, like, I, I, I kinda need to be by myself guys and do my own thing a bit. But even I, like, you know, s- still finding, you know, excuses to go and hang with everybody. So, you know, it, it, when all was said and done, like, it was, I don't feel like any, any relationships were really ruined if, if not only just built upon further.

You know, there was, there was more shared experience built than, you know, taken away, I guess.

Brian Pritchard: I think so, too. And, and, and, I feel Almost guilty that in the immediate aftermath that I haven't had more of a, a sense of just embracing the joy and all the wonderful highlights, 'cause there were so many of them.

But, but I'm, I'm just being honest that there's been somewhat more of, like, a shell shock, like you know what I mean? A sort of sense of just coming back and going, "What the fuck just happened?" You know? And, and, part of that I acknowledged right before the call is the intersection with, with, Y- you know, I, I, I talk about the table legs of, of my world being my creative self, whatever I'm doing to make money in business at any given time, and then my, my, my family, my heart, my, my, my wife, my kids, my, my closest relationships, right?

The table legs: creative self, business, and family [00:26:00]

And, I like, I'm at my happiest when all of those ingredients are... N- nothing's ever perfect. It's not about that, but just like th- th- there's times where things feel stable, and there's times that things feel shaky and, and, you know, wobbly, right? To keep the table metaphor going. Okay? And, um

The professional where my ability to pay bills and stuff like that, table leg is at a really, for me right now wobbly place. And, I feel good about the future in, in, in part because that's just who I am, right? It's like I, I don't, I try not to let my negative imagination run wild. But mo- moments that feel shaky, again, kinda freak me out.

And, and so the overlay, in fact, of having so much intensity with the, the band, which is such a critical, critical part of just my ability to feel balanced and well as a human being, also placed in, in, without overthinking the word too much, what felt like a vulnerable spot. All of that just leaves me, like I said, in, in a position right now of, of just almost, clinging to the anchors that I have.

And, w- what I'm grateful for is that ch- ultimately, even with aspects of what we were doing with the band, making that table leg, wobbly and, and uncertain, like, just because of, of what we were doing, being forging new ground, I, I am grateful that the relationships do still feel like anchors in my world, right?

The individual relationships with the human beings, on an individual level certainly continue to feel like anchors. What I'm, what I'm curious about for myself, and like I said, checking the pulse individually, is what everybody's takeaways were about just some of the, the directional stuff, you know? You and me talk about, and, and it remains a goal of mine.

Chasing evangelical-level fans [00:29:00]

You know, when, when we went to Red Rocks, when we were standing outside that bookstore in Sioux Falls, I don't know if you noticed what was on their door was some local music festival being advertised where, whoever the headliners were, I don't even remember. They, they weren't, like, huge acts, you know what I mean?

But it was, like, 100 bands you'd never heard of, and then this headliner. And, I'm going, like, I'm pointing at it and going, like, "Yeah, th- those are the sort of things that I'm, I'm interested in as that next level up," you know? That I wanna be able to be on festival sort of bills. I wanna play for audiences, right?

Like, you and I talked about that idea of going, like, shit, you know, one, one takeaway is what if we looked at all the money we spent on this entire run, and if one of the desired outcomes was getting new fans, getting evangelical-level fans, fans that feel the same way about Puma Thurman that I feel about Deftones and Queens of the Stone Age, where I go tell people about 'em.

I shout their name from the rooftops. I wanted those types of fans. I don't know that I got 'em You know? And, and, and so I feel like even there, like, would spending the money on mar- you know, marketing tactics and list building and, and other methods of getting the audience, be the smarter thing to do before, you know, contemplating, another version of this again?

And, and, and with that in mind, once again, checking in with all the guys and going like, "Would you do this again? Would you do this again? Would you do this again? Would you do this again?" You know?

Nicky P: Well, to that extent, one of the positives certainly is that your son coming along and, you know, gathering footage for various things is going to make a lot of the things we've needed necessary to do this something that we have.

What they'd do differently next time [00:31:00]

Like, shortly before tour I didn't have much time to do anything with it. We finally got a band photo. Like a photo of the band together. That was something like why we didn't have 10 years ago baffles me, but like it's been a hard one to get. You know, having good solid live footage, you know, i- in quantities that it'll be useful to us has been something we haven't had, and one of the th- best ways to make a video to promote yourself on like, you know, any of the short-form media places out there is to have live video.

You don't have to have even live music, but live video so you can see the performance is something we haven't had access to. It's been we've just kinda had crappy phone videos that like were not taken by people with auteur eyes, we'll just say, you know, in crappy dark lit rooms with people not paying a whole lot of attention.

You know, we actually got some of the basis for an actual music video finally for one of our songs. So it's like there's thing- there's a lot of things that we, we gathered that I personally feel like are going to be able to help us, to help take us to that next level where we can start doing some of the promotional things that we need to do to get what we're looking for as far as starting to actually build a fan base.

You know, y- you and I- I- I'll tell anybody, I think that you and I got what we wanted and expected out of this trip, which was to build relationships. That was the thing that we knew we had to walk away with, 'cause we knew we weren't gonna sell out every room. We walked away with we know people in town that we can, you know, we can start...

W- we don't, we won't start from nothing. You know, we can start with, "Hey, I got a guy who could talk to you there." You know, we, we learned, we've got lessons. Like, dude, I, I know next time I do a tour I'm not, i- i- it will, there will not be any of this t- ten-hour day crap. I will book a small venue in between there and some town, and we will find a way to make that vi- viable.

You know, even if it's just like we stop so that you and me can play a bookstore by ourselves and do an acoustic set. Like, the- there's no need to spend all day on the road when there's so many damn cities in the US, you know? So I'm, I... One of the things I wanna start doing is putting together my map of like these are all the places within five hours of each other across the country so we can start, you know, playing different loops in there if we, if, if so be it.

You know? That's the kinda stuff that like, you know, one of the things that we learned was, you know, I asked going into this should I bring my PA system, you know, just in case. And, and the, the consensus was, "No, no, we gotta preserve physical-" 100% I should have brought my own PA system, because there were just situations where- Learning somebody else's 'cause the p- the guy who normally runs it was at the, the gig across the street, would've been a hell of a lot easier on us to just know what we're going in there with and know how the equipment works, and it would've been a lot less stress going into situations.

Brian Pritchard: No, thr- three of the five venues. You know what I mean? We, we, we could have used that. Yeah, you're right.

Nicky P: You know, and then that's like a s- a thing that like I know from years of doing the cover band gig but wasn't sure it was necessarily transferable to what we were doing. In retrospect, it was very transferable and definitely would've been helpful.

So, you know, I- all, all in all, like, you know, the, the lessons learned, man, like I, I'm, I'm frankly very excited for, you know, what we can, the opportunities I think we can make for ourselves in the future based on what we learned doing this.

Brian Pritchard: Me too. And, and, One of the highlights, I'll go ahead and pay you the compliment, like, to whatever degree you were worried about doing multiple shows, you sounded consistent and great every night.

I thought, I thought, you know, I thought we crushed it in terms of, performances, you know? I, from a planning perspective, right, you, you acknowledged, I, I, I overdid it in terms of trying to book four acts, you know what I mean? On, on, on every night, and stuff like that, you know what I mean? That, that was one of my lessons is going, got it.

Final thoughts and sign-off [00:35:00]

I, I, I would probably be a little bit more selfish knowing some of the extra pressure that it created for me, in terms of if I'm gonna wear the multiple hats of also being the guy booking the shows, you know, promoting and stuff like that, I probably wouldn't be trying to represent the interests of multiple bands again.

Nicky P: E- exa- and that's one of the things that, you know, w- we'll say was definitely a common, a, a, a big thing w- for me and Levy, it's like, you, you, you feel like you have to advocate for three different groups on the bill, and sometimes your bandmate's like, "Nah, dude, I j- I just want you to advocate for the band that I'm in, because that's what the hell I want."

You know? And, and, you know, I, I'm not mad at you at any re- re- respect for any, like, the uncomfortableness that became of that, because number one, you didn't really know until, until you're there. But moreover, you know, the... You know, you, you created opportunity for musicians that, you know, might not have ever had that opportunity before, so, you know.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm lenient certainly in that. So you know, I'm, I'm glad Melodite got to go out and, and learn kind of with us in a lot of ways.

Brian Pritchard: Yeah, well, and, and it, it, it's not just her, again. Like, you know, the, the, the Sioux Falls example w- it was everybody. It w- it was ultimately just that as a person I'm, I'm willing to set aside my needs for what I perceive as the greater good.

So in, in, in that moment it was prioritizing what does the venue want, how do I take care of the local band that, that, you know, showed up and brought some local people to help us, i- in addition to, IREWYRM, who, you know, has their own, you know, tour and I invited on this thing. And, and you know, yeah, i- i- i- i- and then our three acts, being Melodite, Dome, and, and Puma, that I, I was trying to include.

Within our traveling unit. Yeah, no, my, my, my, my good intentions, sometimes, you know, overlaid with the practicalities of... It's, it's just so interesting and, and I'm, I'm no stranger to it even on a local level how quickly the, the best laid plans of it all can go awry. You know, that, we, we show up with, with a plan in mind and a timeline and a schedule and it, and it's like I always laughed over the years at these, like, 15-minute set changes that they build into things.

And you go, like, "If I'm the last band on the bill, I know that by the time it gets to me, things will be, like, an hour off fucking course by then." You know what I mean? So I try not to be that guy when it's my show and, and, yeah, you know, so, but I, I still definitely made, clumsy mistakes. So it is what it is.

Nicky P: All right, boss. Well, I, I've got the wife calling me, so I think it is about that time for today. Look forward to catching up with you next week. Everybody watch out for this episode, watch out for the artist episode. I can't remember who it is this week, but we got, we got somebody we're talking to.

Brian Pritchard: Hope so.

We've got some good ones, yeah, queued up, I know that.

Nicky P: Yeah, absolutely. So take it easy, folks.

Brian Pritchard: And we're turning it into music and podcast for you