Jack: I want to welcome my friends Jeff Witscher and Daren Ho. Hello. What's up?
Jeff: Hey, how's it going? Nice to be here.
Daren: Hey, what's popping? [laughter]
Jack: How did you initially experience music when you were a kid? What were your early experiences with it? And how did that then get you towards getting involved in music as you got older? I'll ask Daren first.
Daren: Well, I think it was pretty straightforward. My mom and my brother and I took piano lessons. That was when I was four, or something like that. That was one exposure to music. And then also my parents listened to a lot of Beatles and oldies radio. Honestly, one of the funniest things is that I had this epiphany because they were playing this Beatles mixtape that my uncle made and I thought that was literally every Beatles song that existed and I thought it was just one album, you know? And then when I heard "Yellow Submarine" several years later, I was like, What the fuck is this song? I've never heard this in my entire life."
Jack: How old were you when you heard "Yellow Submarine" later?
Daren: I think I was probably in fifth grade. Yeah, fifth grade. But yeah, I played piano for a few years, and then I ended up playing saxophone for two years. Then in middle school I ended up dropping that and picking up violin and I played throughout high school. But it's funny because at the same time, I was also listening to a lot of punk music, and I became friends with a bunch of kids that went to shows in seventh grade. These early matinee show things or it'd be, like, ten kids or whatever, seeing some local punk band.
Jack: Where would those shows be?
Daren: That was in Des Moines, Iowa. I think the first show I went to that was specifically a punk band... Because I was listening to a lot of Green Day at that time, I had cousins and they would stay, living with my family for a few months at a time, either to go to school for a year or some of them were in college and some of them were in high school. They were coming from different parts of Iowa or California, so they had different exposure to music.
Jack: Did they influence your taste at all? Were they into punk as well?
Daren: Yeah, one of them listened to a lot of different music, a lot of it was college-y rock type stuff. And then one of them listened to a lot of Dr. Dre, I remember. So it's like, I'm really into The Chronic in second grade. I repeated some lines I shouldn't have said.
Jack: Wow, second grade?
Daren: Yeah, well, I also had a friend in the neighborhood that was much older. His parents were liberal and let him play music and he would just be the white kid on the block dropping the n-bomb all the time.
Jack: Classic early '90s Iowa.
Daren: Yeah, it's the early 1990s, you know, you don't know the limits.
Jack: No Limit.
Daren: Yeah, exactly, when you're, like, an eight year old.
Jack: If I remember correctly you were 1st chair violin, as well.
Daren: Yeah, I was the concertmaster for my last year. I was really lazy about practicing so I would be fumbling because I just didn't practice. But I would be able to sightread everything pretty easily.
Jack: Okay, so you had you started going to matinee, kind of like all-ages punk shows.
Daren: Yeah. There's a venue called Hairy Mary's that would have those. I think they would happen every couple of weeks or so. I don't know why my parents let me go. Maybe because I saw some bands I liked.
Jack: How old were you then? Is this middle school, like seventh or eighth grade?
Daren: Well, yeah, it's around eighth grade, I think. Eighth or ninth grade. I also had a transition because I was going to Catholic school up until sixth grade. So when I started going to public school I was exposed to different people. Catholic school was a class of, like, 23 kids. And then when I switched over, I was like, "Oh, it's just not like white people."
Jack: That's the benefit of public school. I'm public school K through 12.
Daren: But obviously going not just to public school but going to this magnet school in high school where everyone in a school district would just go to the downtown area, it was a weird school that had three different schools in it. There was a vocational school and then there's an AP class floor, so you only take, like, academic courses. And then there's an alternative school for troubled kids.
Jack: You obviously went to the alternative school.
Daren: [laughs] Yeah. I ended up just sneaking out of class and hanging out with my friends who were in graphic design.
Jack: You could just go to the other schools.
Daren: Yeah. I met friends that were taking Japanese class, because they were the "punk" kids.
Jack: So going to this magnet school you were hanging out with kids who played music and went to shows. So how did you start your first band?
Daren: I had a classmate who now is actually a well-established jazz pianist from Des Moines, he's touring all the time. He was really into playing guitar, so it was him and his older brother and a bunch of other kids that went to a completely different school on the opposite side of town. They formed this band and I joined it.
Jack: So you were playing guitar?
Daren: Yeah, I played guitar in that band.
Jack: What was it called?
Daren: It was called Driving While Stupid.
Jack: Yes! Okay, because I also always remembered the other band from Iowa, the other ska band. I thought you were in it for a sec, but I got my facts wrong. The Skabortionists.
Daren: Oh yeah, that's my old bandmate, we met from high school. That band is from 3 hours away, near the University of Northern Iowa. That was a different band. [laughter]
Jack: But you would play shows with the Skabortionists?
Daren: Yeah, occasionally. A lot of the shows in high school happened at the Des Moines Botanical Center because they had rooms you could rent out. That was a place that a lot of shows went down. For a lot of those shows at that time, too, different genres would play shows with each other all the time.
Jack: That was the thing in the Midwest. From my experience coming out to the East Coast, it's so funny talking to people and I'm just like, you had such a more curated experience, which is better and worse.
Daren: There's a larger pool of people here and everyone is kind of in their cliques.
Jack: We just took what we could get, honestly.
Daren: It's like, "Oh, we need another band to fill because there's not a lot of bands. We'll grab the Oasis/Brit pop cover band."
Jack: Yeah, exactly, and they're playing with the noise band and the rap rock group. [laughter] But so then from there, what was your first exposure to weirder music?
Daren: When I started going to college, you're exposed more. You basically get sick of the town and the scene there so you can branch out. I ended up going to Iowa State University.
Jack: Where is that?
Daren: That's in Ames, Iowa. So that was only 45 minutes away.
Jack: So you're still pretty close.
Daren: Yeah. My band at that time was Raccoo-oo-oon. I knew those guys through basically the hardcore scene. They would throw shows...
Jack: So Shawn [Reed] and Ryan [Garbes] and...
Daren: Yeah, Shawn and Ryan and Andy Spore and this guy Benji were in this hardcore band that was, like, pretty weird called Hugs. And then I think when we all ended up going to school in Iowa City, the bassist in that band, Benji, didn't want to be in the band so they were talking about me replacing him and then we ended up just doing something completely different.
Jack: Right, which became Raccoo-oo-oon. So at that point, when you guys first started, was it like the sound that you ended up making, like weirder, krautier, psychier, or was it...
Daren: Yeah, I think immediately when we started jamming, all that stuff became material.
Jack: "This isn't going to be a screamo band."
Daren: That all became recorded at some point. I don't think we really have any music that we threw away, that actually seldomly happened, which was cool, actually.
[Raccoo-oo-oon "In the Woods"]
Jack: Okay, so at this point, I think it's a good place to transition to asking you, Jeff, the same question. What was your experience with music growing up? With your family or with friends and what was the progression for you getting into music?
Jeff: Mine is pretty similar to Daren's, my parents listened to a lot of music when I was super young.
Jack: What kind of stuff would they listen to?
Jeff: My dad would just listen to the Les Misérables soundtrack and Leonard Cohen. [laughter] And he would listen to it at incredibly high volumes and would just be belting out all the lyrics to the Les Mis soundtrack.
Jack: So he's a crooner, that and the Leonard Cohen...
Jeff: Kinda, but he can't sing and he would almost just be yelling it, you know, he'd just be screaming these lyrics. I think he was mostly obsessed with just the narrative element of the song, you know?
Jack: Jesus, at least my dad can sing. [laughter] He would sing Vietnamese songs, like, Vietnamese pop songs from like the '70s and '80s, but he'd actually be able to hold the tune down.
Jeff: No, I just think my dad was fixated on the injustices from that story, you know? So he'd get really excited about it. Then at some point, when I was pretty young, I think I also tried piano lessons, but I couldn't do it. And then I started taking guitar lessons. I remember I had this guitar teacher named Phil. I would just go over to his house and it was probably a 45 minute long lesson. We'd work on the guitar for 30 or 35 minutes and then for the last 10 minutes I could bring in a song on my little tape recorder, and then he would teach me how to play the song. It was the tape recorder that had the speaker. And I remember I would just sit there while he would play, rewind, play, rewind, and figure out the song. He'd write it out for me and then I could go home and have a new song to play.
Daren: That's cool.
Jack: I like the tape recording thing. Imaginative minds can piece together some sort of later-in-life influence from that.
Jeff: Yeah, it was pretty cool. I do remember that I did do one singing lesson with my brother and sister. My grandpa took us to this woman's house and he was like, "Oh, I want you guys to take this singing lesson," which made no sense at all.
Jack: Weird. Like, no interest, no expressed interest.
Jeff: No, no, no. I mean, I think he knew that we were into music so he was just like, alright, we have to try this. And it seemed like just an ordinary woman. We went to her house and I wish I could find it, because we did have a recording of it. It was recorded to tape and I just remember the only lyrics were like, "Never give up, never give up on your tomorrow." And we just had to sing it over and over again. [laughter]
Jack: You wonder if your parents still have that, if they threw that tape out.
Jeff: It would be incredible to hear it. But from there it was just natural. When I was super young, I had my neighbor Chris, and he was allowed to walk me to the Warehouse to look at CDs. I remember we'd always go to Arby's, too, and we get a strawberry strudel and a roast beef sandwich. And I remember the first time we went there, I didn't even know what to order because I'd never been to Arby's, so I remember he ordered and I was just like, "Oh, I'll just take the same thing that he got." You know?
Jack: "That's pretty good."
Jeff: But yeah, just pretty normal stuff like that. And then I had a lot of friends who were also into music and I played music with them.
Jack: What kind of stuff were they into?
Jeff: It was just really shitty, not even rock music. Kind of like Green Day imitation or something like that. We would be playing in my friend's room or something like that.
Jack: These were just local bands.
Jeff: Yeah. And I mean, I barely knew how to play. I was taking guitar lessons and we barely knew how to play. I do remember I was in, like, a fake Green Day band in my school at some point.
Jack: Oh, you had a talent show.
Jeff: Yeah and I had, like, trash cans, and we just...
Jack: Wait, what? [laughter]
Jeff: Because I don't think that we were allowed to actually bring the real instruments for some reason so we had to use fake instruments.
Jack: Like, a fake guitar too?
Jeff: Yeah, because I think for some reason they didn't want the kids playing.
Jack: It's, like, too subversive or something?
Jeff: Yeah, or it's just too annoying, so they play the backing track, you know?
Daren: Oh, it's like that. [laughter] It's all mimed.
Jeff: It's kind of sick, actually.
Jack: Wait, that's crazy. You're miming along to a recording. How would you record it then?
Jeff: No, no, they'd play the Green Day song.
Jack: Oh! It's just a cover.
Jeff: Yeah, they didn't want all these kids having their bands play.
Jack: How old were you? This is middle school?
Jeff: Yeah, I was super young. But yeah, from there, same thing, similar to Daren, playing with my friends. You'd go to a show at a bowling alley...
Jack: You grew up in Long Beach. So this is Long Beach, Greater L.A.
Jeff: Yeah, Long Beach, and then I had a lot of friends who lived in this town called Downey who were really into music. I mean, just a pretty normal progression.
Jack: So then what was your first exposure to being like, "Oh, music is not just a four chords, guitar thing."
Jeff: I think it's probably similar to what you guys would experience. You're just really curious, you know, and you're kind of like...
Jack: We say this now and it's like a common experience with us or pretty much anyone else I've interviewed who we probably know. It's like, yeah, we would think that you listen to or you get exposed to enough music and then you want to see what else there is. But I feel like that's actually not that common. It does take a certain type of person to be like, "I want the craziest, the most extreme music."
Jeff: Something more.
Jeff: That is true, because a lot of my friends from that period weren't really interested in exploring things further. But yeah, back then you had to do it in an analog way, you would see a band and then you would go to the merch table and there might be some kind of mail order catalog that was just text and then you would literally have to just guess on a 7" or a CD. But then you actually listen to it in its entirety because you're so excited about it, you know? And I feel like... I don't know. But too, in L.A. at that time, I feel like there were just so many things happening. There were more experimental...
Jack: Can you remember the shit that you would see or anything notable that you remember?
Jeff: You almost would just, like, hear about some band and then you would see they're playing at some weird venue or weird space, and then you're like, "Okay, now I know this space."
Jack: That there's stuff here.
Jeff: And you're just like, "Okay, what is happening there?" And I feel like, like you were saying earlier, you would just go to so many things.
Jack: You just would go to everything, especially when you get a car. That's the one thing that could unite all of our experiences, you would have to have a car to go to any of these places. [laughter]
Jeff: And you're pretty much cool with whatever you see, honestly, at that point.
Jack: Yeah, I remember seeing the worst music...
Daren: As long as it's different.
Jeff: As long as it's different, that's right.
Jack: Exactly, exactly.
Jeff: It was amazing because at that time The Smell had a really crude website and I remember it was just this very specific font and it was just a text page that you would scroll down.
Jack: And that's how you would find out about the show.
Jeff: And you would just scroll down this page and obviously, you know, all of the band names are, like, insane.
Jack: Yeah, and there's probably no link to anything.
Jeff: And it's, like, five bands. [laughter] And it's, like, $5, you know? It's just like, "Alright, I'm going here all night."
Daren: I love those websites when they just list the show and it's all you get.
Jack: That's it, there's no hyperlink.
Jack: You might be lucky if you get an Angelfire or GeoCities.
Jeff: Well, back then too, even though it was in L.A., some of these shows that we would go to, there would be, like, four people there, still. [laughter] It would be at, like, somebody's house in Riverside and there's five people there and there's a band playing inside of a tent. [laughter] You just see them there and you're like, "Hey, what's up?" You just keep seeing them there. A lot of these shows that we would go to were not well attended. They were still very kind of marginal, not popular. Some definitely were, but we would go to some shows and, like, Gang Wizard would play and there's just a handful of people at the show. So I think that connects you to your future friends.
Jack: Yeah, because then you just keep seeing the same four people.
Jeff: Exactly, and it's not like when you're older, when you're like, "Oh, man, I don't want to talk to anybody.".
Jack: You're like, "Oh my God, you also look, like, around the same age and you kind of dress the same as me."
Jeff: Exactly.
Jack: You're like, "Please, I don't know anyone who dresses like this."
Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
Jack: So you were going to shows, you were making music, when did you first start playing shows or when did people start booking you? Or did you set up shows yourself?
Jeff: We each set up a few shows on our own. I remember we set up one show in our friend Jorge's backyard.
Jack: The classic first show ever booked.
Jeff: And that was way before we played that kind of music at an actual show, it was in the backyard. Honestly, I think we even played inside the house and it was insane. It was totally insane.
Jack: I was thinking about this recently. Kids these days forget - I say this now as a 32 year old - not until somewhat recently was it completely expected that there would be a PA where you play. Because also fully electronic music was not completely the standard. You were like, "Oh, it's a big show, there's going to be guitars and stuff like that." But even up to a time when you were going to see more like just electronic music or noise music or whatever, it was not a given that there would be a PA. You would be having to ask for a PA. People would expect you would show with amps.
Jeff: Whenever we were trying to make more experimental music, I remember - and this is so stupid thinking about now - I would just email cafes and just be like, "Hey, can we play a show?" [laughs]
Jack: Of course. Oh my God, how else?
Jeff: And of course you'd never hear back and if you actually ever got to play there it would be insane because they would just be like, "Wait, we're a coffee shop."
Jack: And you're like, "Well, okay, so I have, like, my Peavey amp." [laughter]
Jeff: Exactly. You're like, "I have my homemade guitar," you know? So we would just do shows like that and eventually we met Brian Miller, who ran the label Deathbomb Arc.
Jack: Had he started Deathbomb at that point?
Jeff: Yeah, he had. I don't know if this is accurate, but I feel like it was still very obscure at that point. His releases would look insane. At some point we met him and I think he asked us to play a show.
Jack: Right. And he was booking, quote unquote, "real shows."
Jeff: Yeah, he was booking at the Smell. He would have this series called Neon Hates You and I think maybe we played one of his series.
Jack: Was that Rainbow Blanket?
Jeff: I think it was Rainbow Blanket. And I honestly don't remember how he would have even asked us to play.
Jack: Like how he heard you guys. Had you put out any tapes or anything at that point?
Jeff: I don't really remember, but I don't think so. I know he was incredibly generous at that time, super open-minded. He might have honestly just been seeing us, we would go to his band's shows and there would be, like, four people there.
Jack: That's the classic thing where it's like, "Are you guys in a band? Do you want to play?" He hadn't even seen you guys.
Jeff: I think so, yeah.
Jack: You just showed up enough. It's like, "Well, you're obviously into good stuff, might as well play a show."
Jeff: Again, I might not be remembering this correctly, but I think we would just show up enough. And eventually he was like, "Hey, like you should play one of the Neon Hates You." And of course we were like, "Oh my God, this is so insane."
Jack: "We finally made it."
Jeff: Yeah, then from there we became friends with him and his friends and then it was pretty easy because they had the venue and everyone was pretty connected and tight. So we would just go to shows all the time. That was the beginning of that period.
[Jeff Witscher feat. Paul Balance & friends "Cinco'd"]
Jack: When did you start releasing music? When did you decide to start a label?
Jeff: I think the more that we would hang out with Brian, we understood that you could just do it.
Jack: You could just do it, and you were introduced to a network of people and you're like, "Oh, people buy this stuff," there's built in, quote unquote, "distribution."
Jeff: Even, too, just the manufacturing aspect where, like, oh wait, you can actually just burn this shit and spray paint and, like, put a photocopy on it and that's it, you know?
Jack: Yeah, that's such a funny thing, getting into the, quote unquote, "DIY scene" or the noise scene or whatever and being like, "Oh yeah, you can just do this." As obvious as that sounds, everything we're saying, like, "Oh, you can just do this yourself." You don't have to get it sent out, you don't have to have a graphic designer. It's like, oh, you manufacture it, this is what looks cool and this is how you do it, and then there you go. And you make however many copies.
Jeff: And I think too, when we were younger, we understood that with making tapes or CDs, the way that he was doing it and they were doing it, you were just like, "Oh, no, but you can actually just do anything." And it's okay from an artistic point.
Jack: Right, because of the way his stuff looked and what he was putting out.
Jeff: Yeah, it could be anything. And it was obviously pretty infectious hanging out with those people because they were very prolific in their own right. They would have all these different projects that would be releasing stuff. That time, there were all these releases. It was hard to even keep track or understand what was what, you know?
Jack: Well, it's such a different era, too. I mean, obviously you know very well. It's maybe the same now, but we're just not in that scene or something. But just the amount of stuff that people would put out and everything's a different moniker, every other project, it's the same person and you're putting out, like, 70 releases a year on your label and it's, like, editions of 40.
Jeff: Yeah, if that. [laughter]
Jack: So then this is an interesting transitionary thing too. You guys are both independently doing music, unaware of each other at this point. This is early, mid, '00s. And then at some point, if I remember this story... We can fill in the gaps between where we're at now and at this point, but at some point, you guys were both on tour with your bands and you shared a bill in Baltimore at Tarantula Hill, Twig Harper's space.
Daren: No, I didn't play. Raccoo-oo-oon didn't actually play.
Jack: So why were you guys there?
Daren: Yeah, so our car broke down three days before that show and we were supposed to go up to New York to play some shows. We played a show in Baltimore at some bar with Talibam!, actually. That was the first time that I met Matt Mottel and Taliban and some of these other guys in different bands. And then we went back to Tarantula Hill because there was a show there and we were still waiting for car to get fixed and that's when Jeff's noise supergroup...
Jack: Was that Men Who Can't Love?
Daren: Yeah, the Men Who Can't Love. [laughter]
Jack: That was the Men Who Can't Love tour! There's a video of the Providence show online.
Jeff: I don't know if I've ever seen that.
Jack: It's amazing. It's, like, actually insane, a document that people will look back in a thousand years and be like, "This is what human civilization was like." It's incredible.
Jeff: "This was considered music." [laughter]
Daren: "So we can extrapolate from this evidence that humans were fucking ridiculous."
Jack: Exactly.
Jeff: So we met Daren and Shawn and Ryan and Andy because their van was broken down and we ended up talking to them, and Shawn for a lot of the night.
Daren: Yeah, Shawn was kind of the one who did all the socializing. He was very interested in talking to you guys about music.
Jack: Yeah, well, especially after the performance, I imagine. I want to paint a picture for those who are listening and aren't familiar. Can you describe what the performance concept was for the Men Who Can't Love? Which is also one of the greatest names in music. [laughter]
Jeff: Yeah, we just had these two enormous speakers, this pair of speakers, and they had to have been, like... How tall do you think those were, four feet tall? And we had a pair of them. There was probably, like, four or five, maybe even six of us, and we would just set up everything all at once and then we would just, like, scrub through everybody's set. [laughter]
Jack: So everybody would play solo for... five minutes?
Jeff: No, no, no, everybody would play solo for, like, a minute and a half. [laughter] So one person would go and they would play and then they would unplug the 1/4" cables and then they would hand them to the next mixer. [laughter] And that person would just be ready to go and so on and so forth. So it would probably be, like, a six or seven minute long set for, like, six people.
Jack: That's really amazing.
Jeff: Yeah, and it was really loud, obviously.
Jack: Who was playing the, like, modified guitar? Was that Greg?
Jeff: My brother was playing the modified guitar.
Daren: Oh yeah, that was cool, I remember that.
Jack: So this was, like, 2006?
Jeff: It was probably before that.
Daren: No, yeah, that was my first tour. I went to Iowa City in 2004, so it would have been 2005.
Jack: Was that your first big tour with Raccoo-oo-oon?
Daren: Yeah, that was the first time I was able to travel the U.S. that was more than seeing family, so that was cool.
Jack: So, I'm telling the story that everybody knows, but at some point, Jeff, you decided to pack up from L.A. and move to Iowa City to meet up with Daren and those guys.
Jeff: Yeah, I kind of felt like when I saw you guys the second time in New York, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to be friends with these people." I don't know, I just kind of understood that. And then at some point, I don't even know how I would have even been in touch with Shawn.
Daren: Probably just through email because he was very active with just emailing people.
Jeff: But at some point I bought a Greyhound ticket from L.A. and I think I had a backpack...
Jack: What was the impetus? You were just like, "I just want to try something different."
Jeff: Yeah, I was just like, "I'll try it. Yeah, it sounds interesting." They seemed interesting and I could tell, at least from Shawn, that they were pretty active.
Jack: That there was a good scene.
Jeff: There was a scene in Iowa, which seemed so bizarre to me.
Jack: It wouldn't just be, like... I can't imagine it wasn't boring at certain times, it's Iowa, but... [laughter] There was stuff going on, you could have the opportunity to play.
Jeff: Yeah, I was just like, "I have to check this out, this sounds interesting." And then I just took the Greyhound.
Jack: Did you stay with Shawn first or did you stay with Daren?
Jeff: I moved into Shawn's. He had an extra room but, of course I couldn't really pay very much rent, so then he needed to rent the room, so then I moved into the basement. [laughter] I must have lived in his basement, this tiny little room in his basement for quite a while, wouldn't you say?
Daren: Yeah, totally, because the basement was big, but it was our practice space, so under the stairs there was room.
Jeff: It was under the stairs, there was this tiny little room that would always get flooded when it rained.
Daren: If you just had a backpack, it's no big deal.
Jeff: Yeah, it was fine.
Daren: It did get wet.
Jeff: It would always get wet. [laughter]
Daren: That shit was disgusting now I think about it, but I thought it was fine back then.
Jeff: Yeah, it was totally fine back then. But I also think that I knew before going to Iowa, I was aware of Night People and the releases and the different projects and the music.
Jack: Okay, so at that point Night People was going? I'm sketchy on when that started.
Jeff: That was part of the reason I wanted to go check it out.
Jack: Shawn made it seem like a really vibrant scene there. [laughter]
Jeff: Exactly. But it totally was for a period of time. Whenever I moved there it was probably more exciting than what was happening in L.A. at the time.
Jack: Well, I can imagine it's a small city, versus L.A., where there's so many little pockets of stuff, it's not like you see people all the time.
Daren: So before I moved to Iowa City, I knew there were lots of shows there. What's that venue called, the Picador? But then they renamed themselves to Gabe's.
Jack: But that's where a lot of the shows would happen?
Daren: A lot of the shows were there, the indie shows would go there. Then I befriended one of the booking agents there because he was a student at the University of Iowa. I knew him because he lived in a suburb of Des Moines also.
Jack: When did you guys first start making music together? There's so many different threads we could go on with this, and I wish we could have a six hour episodic take of this.
Jeff: We started making music fairly quickly, I think, when I moved there, right?
Daren: Yeah, totally.
Jack: What did you move out there with, Jeff? Any equipment?
Jeff: Honestly, I don't even remember.
Daren: You probably didn't bring anything, honestly. [laughter]
Jeff: I probably didn't bring anything.
Jack: It's kind of like now! [laughter].
Jeff: I'm like, "I actually don't own any gear right now."
Daren: But it's one of those things, though, where we kind of just formed bands, like, we knew a band that was playing, that was a friend of yours or that we knew, so we kind of had to form something to fill in the gaps.
Jeff: And there was so much gear laying around.
Jack: Oh, so it's like, "Oh, hey, the band dropped off, we need some music, there's a show tonight." And you're like, "Alright."
Daren: One of our friends would eventually be like, "Oh, I kind of want to try something out."
Jack: Yeah, of course. That's an amazing thing and obviously everyone is older now, but thinking about our immediate scene in New York and, again, maybe it's that way for some people... But it's that thing where everybody is doing this stuff and there are so many shows happening where it's just a testing ground for your new thing. And you just play the show. Also the stakes are so much lower, you're just having fun. And at least in New York - this is just me going off about New York - it's just such a different world where now shows happen and more often than not I feel like the stakes are higher and it's like, "Oh, it's like a big show." And, like, your "career" is on the line.
Daren: Well, you know that it's not going on Instagram the next day or within that minute.
Jeff: There was, like, zero archiving back then.
Jack: Yeah, exactly. For better and for worse.
Daren: Thank god. [laughter].
Jack: There's something about the complete documentation of everything and the subsequent judgment of it in terms of the numbers it does and Instagram or whatever, it's just this ranking game. But when there's so many things happening and it's this fertile period where you're like, "Oh, we need an extra band on the bill." And you're like, "Let's just jam." So then you guys just started playing and you found some instruments to use. [laughter]
Jeff: There was probably all this gear laying around Shawn's basement. Daren had a lot of equipment, so we would just throw something together. But then we were also always forming other bands with anybody who was around, like, I had a band with Brendan and then we'd have a band with Evan and then Ryan. It was pretty exciting at that time, you know?
Jack: And you had been in a number of bands before, most notably a band whose name... If you know the name, you probably know the band I'm talking about, but we can just leave it at that. [laughter] But you had plenty of experience playing in bands with people.
Jeff: Exactly, yeah.
Jack: Okay, so we're at the point of Daren and Jeff collaborating. So that was the natural way things went; there would be a show and you would just play with somebody.
Jeff: There were just shows all the time, there were shows all the time.
Daren: They would either be in Shawn's basement or Chouser's basement, which was literally next door.
Jack: Oh yeah, Chouser was there too! There were so many damn people there.
Daren: Or they would be at some other person's basement if it wasn't in the other venues. Shows happened a lot.
Jeff: Yeah, it was just natural to start playing music with anyone.
Jack: With everyone who was there. At a certain point, I feel like you guys probably played with every single person in town.
Jeff: No, exactly.
Daren: Exactly.
Jack: So and then at that point you guys were making music, I saw you guys play in St. Louis.
Jeff: But then at some point you must have left Iowa City while I was still living there. Is that correct?
Daren: Yeah, that's true.
Jack: Oh, that's interesting, you were still there, but Daren moved to New York.
Daren: Yes.
Jack: Oh, very interesting, I didn't realize that. I thought you had gone back to L.A. at that point.
Jeff: No, I think I was still there for another year.
Daren: You were there for at least another year.
Jeff: And then you moved to New York. I don't know where I moved after that. I don't remember.
Daren: I think you're probably just bouncing around or something.
Jack: But so, Daren, you wanted to get the fuck out of Iowa for a while.
Daren: Yeah, I think at that point I had done already three tours of the US with Raccoo-oo-oon and then we already did two tours of Europe, so I got a little better idea of...
Jack: You got a little worldly at that point.
Daren: "Tour of Europe," quote unquote, it's mostly just, like, England and Spain and Portugal. But anyways, I kind of knew that I didn't want to be in Iowa City anymore because things were finally slowing down a bit.
Jack: It was getting a little stale.
Daren: Yeah, it was getting a little stale. You had these young kids who are taking over. I liked what they were doing, but I just wasn't gelling with them musically, you know? I was like, "Oh yeah, these are cool kids and they can do their own thing. But I think my time here is a little bit over."
Jack: Yeah, for sure. So you decided to move to New York?
Daren: Yeah, I finally made amends with New York. I think on my third visit I was like, "Alright, I can imagine myself coming here."
Jack: It's dirty, but I can accept it.
Daren: I feel like around when I moved out and everyone else started to move out. Andy Spore from Raccoo-oo-oon moved out a year before that to move to L.A. because his girlfriend was going to school there, or was doing her art thing there, and he was just living there. So essentially we did one more tour while he was still living there and then after that we kind of just quit unofficially. So that happened and then when I left, Shawn was already doing Wet Hair. I played one show with him and then after that it was just mostly him and Ryan, and then that dude Justin joined later.
Jack: Oh yeah, he played bass or whatever.
Daren: Yeah. But then everyone moved out. Basically everyone got old and kind of sick of each other and moved away.
Jeff: Yeah, you're just looking for somewhere else or something else to do.
Daren: Yeah, new experiences and things like that. It was becoming a bit old hat.
Jeff: But then we reconnected again at some point to do that tour. We did a couple of tours. Didn't we do a West Coast tour?
Daren: Yes.
Jeff: And then we did an East Coast tour.
Daren: You guys did the tour as Mandelbrot & Skyy?
Jeff: No, the West Coast was solo, because I remember your thing was...
Daren: Oh yeah, I brought my laptop.
Jeff: You brought your laptop and you were like, "I'm going to play with my hand in my pocket the entire time." [laughter] And so the first show I was watching for it and then you did it. And I was like, "Man, he's so insane." [laughter]
Jack: Were you sitting down or were you standing?
Daren: Standing.
Jack: Because I remember when you played in 2011 at Hampshire, you did the classic Russell Haswell "lie down on the table with your laptop." [laughter]
Daren: Yeah, totally. That was so funny.
Jack: Definitely an innovator, an innovator in America.
Jack: Who did you know moving here? Did you primarily know music people?
Daren: I knew people but I wasn't close to them because Shawn was mostly the person who talked to a lot of the music people. He had a stronger bond with them because they actually traded music and things like that. But I remember the band USA Is A Monster came through Iowa City and they had mentioned that they might have an opening three months down the line.
Jack: Wow, that's amazing. So then you took him up on that?
Daren: Yeah, I hit them up and they were like, "Yeah, it's still open if you want to take it up."
Jack: That's some true old school, word of mouth...
Daren: Yeah, that was just through email, straight up. That was like a very difficult move because I had to drive from Iowa City to New York City.
Jack: Did you just drive your car? Did you have to rent a U-Haul?
Daren: Well, you know, you had to print out all the Google Maps directions.
Jack: Hey, I remember. [laughter].
Daren: Google Maps was around, it wasn't just MapQuest.
Jack: Do you remember every day of the tour, you had to be like, "Do you have a printer?" And go onto MapQuest.
Daren: Well, I think on the last Raccoo-oo-oon tour, I had a laptop and we had an inverter for the car. And my dad had given me his GPS that was for the laptop, so we were using that.
Jack: Whoa, that's some weird hybrid, pre-smartphone...
Daren: And that shit was kind of outdated, the maps too, so it was kind of goofy.
Jack: Yeah, they're like, "Turn right here." [laughter]
Daren: And you couldn't see very well because the laptop was really pixelated, it wasn't meant for outdoor use. So you're just like, "I think this is the turn," but it's kind of hard to tell.
Jack: You can only zoom in so far because it's just a GPS.
Daren: It's early computer mapping, so you're just seeing from a bird's eye view and you're like, "Alright, I'm trying to read this text of what the street says." And it's like, "Oh God." It wasn't optimized for viewing.
Jack: Yeah, but you had the 50 instructions of driving the interstates across the country to New York.
Daren: Yeah, totally.
Jack: Did you do it in one day? That's a good 20 hour drive.
Daren: Yeah, sort of. I think I remember sleeping in some parking lot of a gas station. I slept for, like, an hour and I remember waking up from this insane nightmare dream. And then I was like, "Well, I think I'm in Pennsylvania, I'm going to keep going."
Jack: Oh my God.
Daren: Yeah, I think the drive was supposed to be, like, 19 hours long. It was just me with all my shit in my car.
Jack: Oof, been there.
Daren: But I moved in with Tom Hohmann and Barbara [Schauwecker]. Tom was in the USA Is A Monster and Barbara, Tom's partner, was in... They were called some funny animal name, I'm trying to remember. [ed. Animental] They lived in a huge loft, it was awesome.
Jack: In Bed-Stuy.
Daren: Yeah, in Bed-Stuy. So I live there. I tried to contact some people that I kind of knew from tours, but, you know, everyone's busy and they're doing their own thing and I didn't really have super strong ties with everyone. I was just just seeing them for the past three years, once every year.
Jack: For those of you who are listening, who don't know, Daren has a reputation for going to multiple events a night, every night of the week, for as long as I've known Daren, and it continues to an extent today. I guess you probably didn't have as many opportunities in Iowa City, so you probably started doing that more in New York, but I imagine you would just pick up a Showpaper and see what shows are happening that day.
Daren: Yeah, the Showpaper was there. The problem, though, was that I didn't have a job, so I was super broke. It'd be like, okay, I guess I'll just go to this show and not drink, just be the guy who's just standing, like, sober at the gig. [laughter] It's like, "I would love to buy this CD, but I just can't."
Jack: Of course, it was the same when I moved to New York, it was very similar.
Daren: But then I end up working for Todd P, so I would end up doing sound at a lot of gigs later.
Jack: Right, so you'd kill two birds with one stone, you actually get paid to go to a show.
Daren: And also I think that was the time when Obama just came into office, literally he got inaugurated maybe the month after I moved here, so the music industry was weird because the economy had crashed from housing. And I think it was on the come up because there was free, stupid money being thrown around for shows all the time, which was really bizarre. Like Advil threw a fucking campaign and they made, like, zines they would include in Vice magazine and it would be, like, Black Dice or some shit.
Jack: Well, I remember how easy it was to get energy drink sponsorship for, like, a warehouse show. You could literally get Red Bull and get, like, coolers full of Red Bull for literally a show at America [ed. a former warehouse space in Baltimore]. There's so much to go over here.
Daren: We're definitely glossing over a lot of stuff, which is totally fine.
Jack: Well, okay, how did you meet Jonas [Asher]? With whom you started the synthesizer shop, Control, that so many people know you for, at this point.
Daren: He was at Mike's show, actually.
Jack: Who is Mike Pollard of Nina.
Daren: Yeah, so, Tom and Barbara, whose house I was living at, moved out and then eventually this woman Sarah from Minneapolis moved in. She was in this crust band called Question. She brought in all these more punk related people that I met. Some of them are still friends, like Soren Roi.
Jack: Oh yeah! Shout out Soren.
Daren: He dated her briefly. And then Emil Bognar Nasdor.
Jack: Oh yeah, shout out Emil.
Daren: I was living in the practice space, which was really funny because this is in a warehouse, right? And there was a door between the practice space and this other unit that they didn't rent, but they just blocked it off. And it was actually the guys from Metro Area, one of the guys had a space next door. They told me they stole all this sheetrock and then they blocked the door off with the sheetrock.
Jack: That's one way to do it!
Daren: It was super funny. But I was living in the practice space and that's how I met Emil. And then eventually I wanted to just move out just because the energy was different.
Jack: Where was the practice space?
Daren: It was in the same spot.
Jack: Oh, okay, right.
Daren: I moved out of the practice space into one of the rooms because a roommate left but then I was talking to Mike, and I knew that he was living with four other guys and they had this weird second living room that was like a half living room. So I just asked if I can give each of them, like, $25 each month. I just lived in this weird space big enough for a bed.
Jack: So how did you meet Mike for the first time actually?
Daren: I met Mike when he was 15 the first time Raccoo-oo-oon played in Chicago. He had put out his compilation that we were on.
Jack: On his label Arbor.
Daren: And when we finally met him we were like, "Oh, it's a 15 year old." [laughter]
Jack: Honestly, that's what Mike said, that he kept having the experience over and over again of meeting the people and them being in shock that he was 15 years old and that they completely changed their tone after that, because I think they were being really harsh on him. And he didn't, as a 15 year old, know the social etiquette around stuff. And then they would find out that he was 15 and be like, "Oh, sorry."
Daren: Well, you know, it's really just a social etiquette of, like, you're an adult and you're dealing with someone who's a child, you know? I just remember our band was very enthusiastic, so I was like, "Oh, this person's super young and really into this." But I could see everyone else being like, "This person's a liability."
Jack: Not every bit as altruistic, maybe, but at the same time also Mike is six years younger? Mike and I are the same age. You're born in '84?
Daren: Yeah.
Jack: But at that point, six years is a lot, between 15 and 21. That's a big gap, that's a huge gap.
Daren: In the US for sure.
Jeff: I don't remember the first time that I met Mike.
Jack: Did he hit you up? Was it online first?
Jeff: Yeah, I'm sorry, I mean IRL, I don't remember the first time I met him IRL.
Daren: Probably when he came to Iowa City, because he came at least once, maybe twice.
Jack: Right, I feel like one of you guys told me about him coming out. Or honestly, he might have, because we did the episode with John and Mike. That he went out to Iowa City for a show when was in high school and he took the bus out there or something.
Daren: Yeah, I think so.
Jack: And you made him party with you or that he was super enthusiastic about being at the show.
Daren: Yeah, I think he did. I am vaguely remembering this stuff now.
Jack: That he was having a lot of fun, I guess.
Jeff: That's cool.
Jack: So then you, Daren, kept up with him and you were in New York at that point.
Daren: I mean, I knew Mike from the Midwest so we started hanging out and I moved to New York a little bit. Going back to how I met Jonas. Jonas went to Paris, London, West Nile, which eventually became 285 Kent and now is Vice offices.
Jack: Which was Tony Conrad's studio, in addition to other people.
Daren: Yeah, so there was a show there and Mike was playing that show and Jonas had showed up. I knew that Jonas and him had been talking for a while online, so we finally met him, and then that's how we hung out and all that.
Jack: Oh, so neither you nor Mike had met Jonas.
Daren: I don't think Mike had met him until that show.
Jack: Oh wow, so you guys all met each other at the same time.
Daren: Yes. I think maybe Jonas played it, too.
Jack: Grasslung.
Daren: I'm trying to remember, I'm not sure.
[Mandelbrot & Skyy "System R"]
Jack: We can just go... Just piece together things here. [laughter] Our dear friend Door, how did you meet Door for the first time?
Jeff: I do remember meeting Door. The first time is when he was making shows in New Brunswick at, was it called Castle Puppy?
Jack: Yeah.
Jeff: Okay, Castle Puppy, so this was back when I think you would almost just call somebody. Someone would give you a phone number to call to make a show.
Jack: Totally, Black Flag style.
Jeff: Somebody was like, "Hey, call this guy's door in New Brunswick, he'll make a show for you." So he made the show and we got there and that was at the time where, were they called Fat Sandwiches?
Jack: Yeah.
Jeff: So we got there, we went and got the fat sandwich.
Daren: I don't know about this.
Jack: Yeah, it's from the truck.
Daren: I never played in Jersey. I still have never played in Jersey. [laughter]
Jeff: So you go get the fat sandwich from the truck, that's the big thing, then you play the show in the basement, it is so absurdly loud, you know? It's so painful. And that was the first time I met Door. [laughter] It was a cool show.
Jack: What was the tour? What were you playing?
Jeff: I think it was Men Who Can't Love.
Jack: Wow, yeah, so it sounds like that was a real formative tour.
Jeff: Then at some point, years later, he convinced me to get into Frac rack.
Jack: Door was always the...
Jeff: The PAIA.
Jack: Yeah, the PAIA-neer, as they call him. [laughter]
Jeff: The PAIA-neer! It's so unstable.
Jack: You make it yourself. Did you buy them or did you make them yourself?
Jeff: I bought it, I probably even bought it used. It was so cheap, it was so cheap.
Jack: Unbelievably cheap, I mean, probably to this day.
Jeff: It's so cheap. And I remember taking it to Europe once. I played just a single show in London. I took the Frac rack there and it is so unstable. It was so unstable on their power.
Jack: Hopefully you didn't blow it just trying to plug it in.
Jeff: It didn't blow, but the power was, like, crazy, so it just sounded insane. [laughter] It was really funny.
Jack: Well, I mean, everybody went through the Eurorack phase. [laughter]
Daren: People are still going through the Eurorack phase.
Jack: But the PAIA-neers, as we call them...
Jeff: PAIA-neer, that's so sick. [laughter].
Jack: Well, to sort of inch closer to current day, you don't remember where you moved after Iowa?
Jeff: I was just probably bouncing around a lot. I would come and visit Daren in New York and I would stay with him. He was living with Mike and you had that very narrow bedroom with the loft.
Jack: 95 Morgan.
Daren: No, this was, um... Oh, wait, with the loft?
Jeff: Yeah, you had the loft.
Daren: Oh yeah, that was 95 Morgan. That's a tattoo shop now.
Jack: But maybe there's also the one before.
Jeff: No, it was that one. I remember I had the tiniest, narrowest sleeping bag, I slept on literally just a sleeping bag. And that was the amount of space that there was.
Daren: Oh yeah, because it had tables in the way.
Jeff: Exactly. Then we would get back to working on music, which was nice. We started up Mandelbrot & Skyy at that point.
Jack: So Mandelbrot & Skyy was after you guys had moved away, or at least after Daren had moved?
Daren: Yeah, totally. I guess you were touring a lot after I moved out of Iowa City.
Jack: That's what I remember, you were touring constantly, like, 2008, onward.
Jeff: Yeah, that was it. And then I would come and stay with you for, like, a month at a time. I remember one time you had one ramen pack left at 95 Morgan and you were like, "Don't eat this ramen." [laughter] And I just remember I was so hungry and I was like, "Oh my God, I have to eat this ramen." [laughter]
Jack: Because there's no way you'd be able to get any other food in New York, there's no possible way. [laughter]
Jeff: I was just like, "I can't leave the house, I just have to eat this." [laughter]
Daren: What was my reaction when I found out?
Jeff: I don't know, I feel like you were pissed, but I want to remember that I replaced it.
Daren: I mean, I think we had food stamps at that time still, so it would have been fine.
Jeff: I'm like, "I need to get back on those..." [laughter]
Jack: Well, I guess a lot happened for you between when Daren moved to New York in 2008 and then when Daren opened control in 2012, which is then when we became friends, in 2013. At that point, is there anything that we should talk about? Between 2008 and 2012? [laughter] At, like, the most active point of your music career. [laughter] Like, "I don't know, nothing really happened!" [laughter] I don't know, do you want to talk about it at all?
Jeff: Well, I'm just trying to think, is there a thread or a theme that ties us both together? Instead of just individual...
Daren: I just feel like everyone was just kind of grinding on their music at that point.
Jack: Well, that's what I mean, especially for your guys' larger scene.
Daren: Yeah, because I stopped putting out music after 2012.
Jack: 2012 was when people were still young enough that they were actually really focusing on their music. It was when you were the most active, doing the label, playing shows, touring, getting your music out there. It was when Daren was still making music. In a way, actually, it's like, what do you even say about that?
Jeff: We gloss over all that, we're like, "Yeah, so, you know, there was a fire in the apartment." [laughter] He's like, "Yeah, he left." [laughter]
Daren: We're not waxing nostalgic on that era just yet.
Jeff: There was just so much happening during that time.
Jack: That's what I mean, it's almost not even...
Jeff: It's almost like a different thing.
Jack: Well, yeah, I don't know. Then the rest is history.
Jeff: We're like, "The rest is history! Now we live in New York." [laughter]
Jack: Yeah, you moved to New York. You've been in New York for over a year now.
Jeff: Yep, that's right. I hang out with you guys all the time.
Jack: No signs of letting up. [laughter]
Jeff: I still don't have any gear. [laughter] I have even less gear now, I don't have an audio interface.
Daren: "I got no money, I got no gear." [laughter]
Jack: Yessir!
Jeff: No audio interface.
Jack: Damn, you don't even... "She took the interface!" [laughter]
Jeff: She took the interface!
Jack: "She took the speakers! She took the interface!"
Jeff: She took everything! [laughter] How do you tie a bow on this? How do people usually end it?
Jack: We just decide it's over.
Jeff: Okay. [laughter]
Jack: Thanks a lot for talking to me you guys.
Jeff: Thanks, Jack.
Daren: Yeah, that was fun.
Jack: Nice talking.
