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Allison Russell Q&A

Canadian songwriter, and Nashville resident, Allison Russell is coming to Tampa on May 11, 2024. Here's our Q&A, unedited mostly, as a reference for anyone who wanted to read beyond the story I did for Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

I listened again to the record last night. I went for a midnight run for an hour and it was just hitting—it was wild. I live in Florida. One of my favorite things about the way you talk about activism is how often you always come back to just trying to change laws. Thinking about Nashville, the city that's given a lot to you, and obviously you've given so much back to Nashville in regards to your activism. And I was wondering how much do you have in your tank for other places? Can we get a "Florida Rise?" Because domestic legislative terrorism—it lives here, you know?

I know it's everywhere. I think I would love it if Florida artists adopted "Tennessee Rise" to "Florida Rise" and used it, I would be thrilled. We've been talking about the "Love Rising" benefit that we did here to push back against all of the horrific, unconstitutional laws targeting demonizing and criminalizing our LGBTQ+ community which I'm a part of—it's really our trans siblings who are just being assaulted left, right and center, you know, the most vulnerable among us—so we did this big benefit concert called Love Rising, that Hozier supported actually, and so did Hayley Williams and Brittany Howard and Sheryl Crow and Yola, and just all kinds of awesome people, Maren Morris. We raised, like, close to $600,000 for these wonderful organizations on the ground, sort of doing the work year round: Tennessee Equality Project, Inclusion Tennessee, Out Memphis, and the Tennessee Pride Chamber. What it really was, we did a ton of voter registration at that concert, that part of it was really successful as well.

The other part was that people saw each other—progressive and moderate folks who believe in equal human rights found each other in Tennessee. And once you see each other and realize—so much of it people despair, they think that there's no way to change anything. Everything feels sort of impossible or something, but the reality is that in Tennessee, it's just gotten this bad because only 32% of registered voters are showing up at the polls, so it's completely skewed. It's not a super-majority. It's a super-minority government. If 80% of the population had shown up and voted to say this is what the majority of people here want—but that's not the case. And I suspect it's very similar in Florida. I don't know if your voter turnout is dismal as ours. 

Turnout is bad. I'm afraid that the registration numbers are getting harder, harder to overcome for the Democrats. I think they're almost at a million disadvantage as far as active registered voters—I looked this morning. We had Joe Biden in town to talk about Roe v. Wade and our six-week ban. Speaking to change the things I wanted to ask you kind of a silly question. Tokenism and this false narrative of scarcity and people being interchangeable—the divide and conquer kind of manipulation—all that's kind of quickly fading away. You mentioned all those people that came to love rising benefit. And it's cool that you don't even have to try to change the system so much anymore, because you're creating your own ecosystem that works for you. But then thinking about diversity and representation and those moments where you can look around and there's like this really uplifting makeup of people on stage, but I think you worked out of Henson recording studio. I was wondering about Kermit the Frog. I saw him play Newport with Jim James, when is it your turn to have a Kermit collaboration?

Oh my god. You don't know how much I want to collaborate with Kermit. Kermit is the reason I play banjo, before I knew anything about  the banjo being America's African instrument, brought over by the diaspora. Let me tell you, if “Sesame Street” ever comes calling, me and Kermit have a date.

Someone needs to reach out to Chris Funk at Newport Folk Festival and make that happen.

Help me out. Bring Kermit back.

Let me ask you about Hozier. I love the videos of you singing "Work Song." Sometimes, reading about you and the way you talk about Fred Hampton and the Young Lords and how he brought them together with the Young Patriots—how powerful Fred Hampton was in his ability to create that coalition. You have the Rainbow Coalition, your band. You have a body of fans. I was wondering how close do you think you get to Fred Hampton's vision of collaboration across really, really diverse sets of people? When you look out at your crowd, and you look at your fans, like, do you see maybe what Fred Hampton was building...

Yes, absolutely. Particularly, Hozier's audience. It’s so diverse. It's so gender diverse. Last night I think there were more queer young Black women in the audience than I've ever played to in my life. And it was so joyful. When we sang "Eve Was Black," there was a group of women right at the front, holding up these signs saying "Eve was Black, and so are we." I was crying because it was so beautiful. There really is. I feel like Gen Z gives me a lot of hope. They just seem to not have a lot of the same biases that have plagued previous generations, and they seem to have deep wells of empathy and compassion and care. And it just gives me a lot of hope. These shows have been—I mean, we were only two in—they've just been so joyful. Such diverse, big crowds, and very young—his audience is very young. It's been really, really putting a lot of fuel back in the tank, really giving me a lot of hope. I do see that rainbow coalition out. Really the Rainbow Coalition is everybody that believes in the basic principle of human equality of our one human family and the fact that like, we have a shared destiny on this one life bearing planet that we know of in the universe. We gotta show up for each other in better ways. 

I was watching your Instagram story and I did notice that there were a lot of young POC folks. "Eve Was Black" is one of those songs.  I'm a Filipino guy. I listened to "Eve Was Black" and in a lot of ways I can't relate in any way—but it's still so powerful. As somebody who's not in that demographic or category. I can't imagine how...

But except you kind of are because—first of all mitochondrial Eve, look it up—we're one human species. We originated on the continent of Africa and then we migrated and we adapted to different environmental stressors. When we try and put some kind of supremacy on pale skin because some people went north where there wasn't a lot of sun and they had to maximize their vitamin D, it's absolutely nuts when you think of it that way. That anyone was ever like, "This means we're superior. It's so absurd. [Elenna Canlas] in our band is Filipinx as well. She's been teaching us a little Tagalog and she's been just talking about the revolutionary movements within the Philippines as well, and how it inspired Black revolutionaries—this was all sort of concurrently happening. I think any people that has ever been oppressed can relate to any other people that have been oppressed. You know what I mean? Because it's the same toxic hierarchies trying to divide and conquer in order to extract and hoard resources, basically. It's just the same story over and over and over again. People you know, we just have to stop falling for the divide and conquer.

You are so good at making people feel seen and welcome. So thank you for saying that because last night when it was really hitting I was like, "I can't, you know, like the imagery of swinging from the tree and all that stuff." It was so tough. Then like the critic mind me, it was like "It's like 'Strange Fruit,'" And I was like, "God, how stupid does that sound?" You know, like to try and say that from my standpoint—like what do I know about it. Yeah, I guess you just flipped that on its head a little bit. So thanks. 

I think you make art for survival. And you've talked about that a lot. But I think like refuge is a theme that's kind of baked into your music in a way. I don't know if we talk about it enough, but you grew up in Montreal. And you've talked about the things that helped you kind of escape even in the cold months, those student lounges, the chess matches, Persophone’s home and I think you had an apartment that you paid like $150 for and did telemarketing.

You've done a deep dive. How do you know all this?

I  want to ask you stuff that you've been asked before.

You've done your research. Yes, that's all true. You know what's wild. One of my dear childhood friends now works in Taylor Swift's camp. He worked on the "Fortnight" video with them doing art direction and stuff. Whenever I see these huge things he's doing I think about all of us little raggle, taggle misfits hanging out at that apartment, dreaming of being working artists one day. We're all doing it. It's so wild.

That is awesome. And none of it's like guaranteed but at least you guys had each other.

That's the thing—chosen family is everything to me.

So the pandemic, horrifying as it was on a global level, allowed you to pause like the substantive touring habit that you were in. You were on the edge of burnout. The pause let you find a great home for your record. And I know this run just started, but how do you take refuge these days in your own life?

It's really through community. I feel a sense of refuge in surrounding myself with a loving community and surrounding my daughter with that. And honestly playing and playing shows with my friends—I always think about Willie Nelson, "On the road again / The life I love is makin' music with my friends”—basically it's what I've always loved the most. We're able to do that, and my daughter is going to come out on parts of this run and that is just so joyful to me. And building these kinds of growing, loving circles bit by bit, thereby reducing harm in this world—that's what makes me feel happy and good and safe. I take comfort in growing circles of safety and understanding and connection. That makes me feel like I'm doing my small part to reduce harm in the world and leave it slightly better than I found it, and that gives me a lot of comfort.

Let me ask you about Ida since you brought her up. My wife and I were together for 16 years and also did not plan to have a child. You talked about your very joyful pregnancy, birth and the joyful, accidental nature of it all. And I know you've talked about your fears of motherhood. I mean, it's kind of baked into "Tennessee Rise," and breaking cycles, but I'm curious what has Ida taught you about life that you didn't already know?

Oh, my gosh, I feel like so much. Ida is remarkably fearless—not fearless, I shouldn't say that—a brave person. She's very aware of when she's afraid of something, and she'll do it anyway if it's something she really feels she needs to do. She'll joyfully try new things. She doesn't tell herself she can't do them. She is so loving with her friends and also doesn't take rejection badly. She handles rejection incredibly well—and actually, like, she tries again.

Like being told she can't have a cookie? That kind of rejection?

No, no. So Ida spent the first kind of five years of her life on the road with her dad and I. We were in a band called Birds of Chicago, so we were just in the van constantly, and on the road constantly, and so every day there would be  a new park in her life. A new group of kids. She would just joyfully go up to news circles of strangers and she would sometimes get rebuffed and rejected, and he wouldn't be daunted for very long—and often she would try again. She's made so many friends like where other people might just see or feel like they couldn't try again or take it to heart that they've been rejected. She has an endless curiosity about other people. She feels things really deeply. She can't understand why there's anyone that doesn't have a home in this world. She's like, "What is wrong? Why aren't we all doing something about this right now?" She just really motivates me to be more proactive in trying to change the things we can no longer stand.

Yeah, I do appreciate your stance on neutrality and options that we have, and things like that. Real quick. I want to ask you, how is dual citizenship going? Will you be able to vote here soon?

I hope so. I'm in the process of getting my American citizenship. Everything is so backed up, so we'll see. I don't know if I'll be able to vote this election cycle, but I'm certainly going to be able to by the next one. And I'm going to continue using my sphere of influence to encourage and plead with others to show up at the polls and remember that it's for the many. When people that have the privilege to vote, it's for every person who's underage. It's for every new immigrant for me who has a green card, but doesn't have citizenship yet. You're voting for your whole community.

There's this notion of being abused by ideology as a kid. You've talked a lot about ideological abuse and how it affects people, and the chain of abuse, but how far have you come in your understanding of true forgiveness?

I feel like I'm still working on it. And I think it's the most important thing we can learn how to do as human beings. It's in short shrift these days. There's a kind of an unfortunate kind of addiction to outrage that's that I see happening online. Definitely. I think it is really damaging and really harmful to our culture‚ the lack of forgiveness. Excommunicating anybody is really dangerous. To have a lack of forgiveness condemns us to an endless cycle of vengeance and violence and discord. I think that for me, one of the things that I have been working up my courage to do is to go see my abuser who is now an elderly ailing man. I'm gonna be in Toronto in June to open for Sarah McLachlan. And I'm going to try and go see him and just say, "I forgive you, go in peace," kind of thing. We'll see if I'm able to do it. I've been thinking about it so much. Especially in the context of—as we look at what's happening in the Middle East, what's happening in Sudan or Congo, or East Timor—I think about these cycles of unbelievable harm. People that have endured and meted out harm far greater than anything I've ever had to endure. And we're asking them as a global community to stop the violence, and we're asking them as a global community to change, to break the cycles. If I can't practice forgiveness in my own life, how can I be asking anybody else to do it right?

As a parting question, do you have anything you want Florida to understand as you make your way down here to the land where woke goes to die?

I want Florida to understand that we can't erase history by banning books. We can't break cycles of harm by pretending harm never happened. And that the only way out is through. And the only way through is together. We have to stop treating each other as enemies and the other—we are one human family on this precious beleaguered, under full-on assault by our worst practices, planet. We can change things together. We can grow circles of goodness together. We're so looking forward to playing and finding the Rainbow Coalition and finding each other.

[rayroa]

Hiss Golden Messenger Q&A for Creative Loafing Tampa Bay (2024)

Photo by Graham Tolbert/All Eyes Media

I'm gonna put some ear buds in here then it'll sound a whole lot better.

OK, and let me know if it sounds bad because sometimes it does sound bad on here. I've been listening to Pecker Power today, on your recommendation. 

Oh, really? Yeah, follow that. Follow that page?

Yeah, my buddy told me to follow it. And it's great because you forget that it's you. It's just like a picture of a record in your feed. And then you just make a decision for that  moment. ‘Yeah, alright. Let me find that, man.”

I love having that weird little Instagram account that's not trying to sell people anything—nothing. I'm just talking about dorky music stuff. It's kind of like my vibe right now. 

And you have The Kitchen Speculator, too. It's cool that you have these outlets to communicate. It's like a less cynical version of social media, or iteration…

That's right, man, I'm trying to keep it kind of keep it pure.

Hey, I know that fall is your favorite season, but I can imagine that the winter is kind of beautiful in the North Carolina Piedmont. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember listening to a podcast or something where you talked about your mom's felt Christmas ornaments with these bells on them. I was wondering, since we're in January, is yours the kind of family that has a tree still up? And do your kids know the sentimental value of the ornaments?

Do they know the sentimental value of the ornaments? Yes, definitely. I don't know if they see it as heavily as I do, but they definitely are aware which ornaments came from my mom. And no, we don't keep the tree up because I love the pageantry of the season—there's something very nostalgic and comforting about things like Christmas lights for me—but I also really appreciate the moving on of January and the feeling of a fresh start if you need it. I kind of think deep into the season and also I'm ready to move on, so I think we had our tree out of the house like just a few days after Christmas probably.

That's an aspirational thing for a lot of families, so it's cool to hear that you have your house in order to that degree.

It's really how I'm wired though. I'm a little bit of an OCD kind of person. So it kind of is in line with that.

Yeah, you gotta check these boxes. You gotta get through the day. I mean, it's kind of a less sexy version of getting a stone up a hill, you know, let me get this tree down first, and move on to the other stuff.

Yeah, kind of.

By the way, I realize there's no way we can like adequately talk about songs in 20 minutes, and I think a lot of people have said a lot of things about Jump For Joy already, so I'm just gonna let those songs kind of speak for themselves and maybe ask some kind of other questions around the band and whatnot.

You've mentioned that the songs are kind of like a long postcard between you and a younger, maybe teenage, version of yourself. And in a way the record's also kind of recalibration of your songwriting, and you're wearing hope, in a way, on this record, and I was thinking about that word "recalibration." And then I was thinking of the band and the fact that Hiss Golden Messenger doesn't do the same show twice—that's a lesson you learned from elders. I want to ask you about this live set. I know after that initial run, you said that the band is sounding good, and the shows are pretty uplifting for everyone. Especially now. Everything considered in the world. Simple question, and I'm sorry, I don't know the answer already. But who is in the band for this spring run coming to Tampa?

Yeah, the band is and has been for several years: Chris Boerner, playing electric guitar, Sam Fribush on organ and piano, Alex Bingham plays bass, and Nick Falk plays the drum kit.

Perfect, and the Hiss Mobile recording unit will be on tour as well. I'm wondering, to stay on that recalibration, Mike. I know that you unpack a tour after a run. How has that recalibration kind of manifested itself within the context of the band? Can you tell me a little bit about how the songs from Jump For Joy have already changed as the shows stack up? And what have these songs revealed to you about themselves in this context, and this run?

It's interesting to take a new record out on the road because we had played a lot of these songs a lot during 2023 before we recorded them, but not in the way that we have been over the past two or three months. The more times you play a new song, the more you learn about how it's working in that sort of heightened or amplified, emotional, state of a live show. And you also see how it's working for the audience. There might be a song that seems like a home run for the audience, and it just isn't like connecting the way that you thought it would and, and conversely, you're gonna find a song that you might have had a question mark about just in terms of how to present it—and it becomes its own.

A song like "Jesus Is Bored " on Jump For Joy. I love that song. I have a super-deep connection to that song; in a lot of ways it kind of feels like a thesis for the record, but it's not the loudest song, it's not the fastest song. I just didn't quite know what kind of quality it would take on live, and it's taken on a really beautiful thing that kind of unfurled really slowly and in a really extended fashion. That's not something I was anticipating at all, but it went there, and I was like, 'This is how we play this song for people.' That's one example of how stuff has started to exist off that record.

That's awesome, and I like hearing your talk about feeling the audience and being aware of it. I think some people would assume that some performers kind of blackout and I guess, to some degree they do on stage, but it's cool to hear that you still get to live in that moment of the live experience that you're creating in this space. 

It's a transcendental state for me. So my experience of it is, like I said, is heightened for sure—emotionally, physically. But at the same time, I can feel the energy in the room even if I'm not looking at the audience directly in the eyes, I can feel what the energy is. I would say I'm usually pretty on the money about what an audience wants, what an audience needs, what an audience can take. This is just stuff that, when you spent enough time on stages in front of people, you start to learn how—you can read it.

In that vein, and that kind of context, transcendental memory in that state, are you able to remember anything about geographic locations? Like can you remember, how crowds in Florida have made you feel or is it not like that?

Oh my god, that's a good question. I mean, I want to be diplomatic about it.

I mean, it's OK to be forgettable man.

I don't want to be that dude in the paper that's complaining about the place that he's playing. That's not a good look at all.

Listen, there's a lot to complain about in Florida from a legislative standpoint, historically there are some things...

You don't need more from me. OK, I'll put it this way. I'm fascinated with Florida. I'm not against Florida, you know what I mean? And the last time we played in Tampa, I think, was at a festival many years ago.

It was called Gasparilla Music Festival.

Yeah. And I had a fucking great time. I thought it was really cool. And I thought, 'Tampa seems cool. I'm into this place.' So if I had to talk specifically about my experience with Tampa, that's what it would be: I had a great time in Tampa.

And Tampa has changed a lot, I think as much in the same vein as it has up there with you guys as far as people's concerns about affordability and who matters and what voices get amplified and acknowledged and conversations from a civic standpoint, and things like that. So I think our regions have experienced similar growth. 

No doubt.

I want to ask you about November 27 Kitchen Table Speculator. You opened with poems from Diane di Prima and Joy Harjo. You talked about the possibility of a sunset on an empire and whatever this collective thing is that we're witnessing, but then you also talked about holding on to joy and pain and magic and fear all at once—you know, back to getting that stone up the hill. Sorry to kind of bring it down here, but I think I heard somewhere that in spite of all this narrative about joy and this album, in some ways, you're still like the same depressed guy, but you kind of alluded to how the band is bringing some joy and happiness. I'm wondering chemically, or in the inner wiring, how and in what fashion does it change you to play these "happier less cynical songs" every night? Or does it all stay up there, then you get back to the world when it's over.

I mean, this is a multi-part question. First of all, I wouldn't say that I'm the same old depressed guy. And I don't know that I ever would have described myself like that. I definitely struggle with depression and probably always will in some fashion, but also think of myself as a very fun, funny person that can be as light and easygoing or as heavy as the situation calls for. Probably, if you were to ask my bandmates, "Is Mike as heavy as some of the songs might make them feel?," they would say like, "Not at all." So that's that part.

I think that Jump For Joy, in so many ways, is totally consistent, thematically, with the music that I've made all throughout my life as Hiss Golden Messenger. I think that I was working really rhythmically and thinking a lot about tempo for Jump For Joy, and that was very intentional. But in terms of the way the songs exist, the chords that get used, the things that were troubling me, or bringing me joy and peace—that stuff on Jump For Joy feels like it's pretty consistent with the rest of my work. I feel like what people are reacting to when they think of this record as more joyful, which I would agree with, is just the musical feel of  the record, if that makes sense. 

No, it does. I think from the get go—even on your lo-fi recordings, which I spent some time listening to in the run up to this interview, and revisiting those—there is still this devotion to groove throughout the whole thing.

That's what I'm saying, man. Even the Hiss Golden Messenger songs that are at the slowest tempo, everything always grooves. That's always been almost the most important musical quality of what I do as Hiss, I think. Everything has to feel like it's in the pocket, it's in some kind of pocket, you know? That's really important to me.

Now that you're saying that kind of that out loud, I think of my first—you know, you only get one first time listening to a band—but those first few listens, I think, is interesting how Hiss music does kind of embed itself within whatever tempo you have going on in your life and sometimes Hiss music doesn't fit with whatever's going on in your day at the time, and you realize that, "Oh, this isn't the record for me right now. I gotta find something else." So I've always appreciated that about your music, for sure.

I want to ask you about mystery. I think you've talked about kind of craving mystery and this time of digital media, and endless access and over exposure in a way. What is your mind wandering and wandering about and around today?

I'm working on a lot of projects right now that are Hiss adjacent. I feel like I am just starting a quest—and who knows how long it's gonna last—to find my way back into not knowing, if that makes sense. I'm trying to find my way back to a feeling of mystery and magic. I want that to be the first feeling that I feel when I pick up an instrument. And I'm not saying that I don't feel that already, but it just occurs to me in this moment of our time, that that feels almost like the most important part of music, both as a listener and as a creator—the mystery. So I'm really honing in on that feeling whenever and wherever I can find it. I feel like certainly, part of this year for me is going to be about encountering the mystery, the not knowing, the freshness, the experimentation—encountering it wherever I can find it.

And it's such a wonderful excuse to really work on you're listening, too, whether it's physically listening with your ears or just body listening and emotionally trying to be quiet and tune in.

That's right, man. That's right.

By the way, I liked that you mentioned that you're probably funnier than people might think you are because when I found out that Johnny Fritz was in your “Nu-Grape” video, I immediately went to it because I think he's like, the funniest and best like songwriter with a replaced hip out there.

I mean, that guy is so fucking funny.

But you met the moment in that video. I feel like you two had good, parallel, complimentary performances that were rooted in humor.

Oh, dude. He made that video. I don't even really know Johnny that well, but I'm a fan. It feels like we know each other kind of well now. But before that video, as we were conceptualizing what it was going to be, who, all that stuff, I was like, "We're gonna get Johnny Fritz. It's really like the only way that this concept works, or someone like Johnny Fritz." But I couldn't think of anyone else. I love being with him because he's so funny, and has so many different characters, but he's also a super deep, super smart dude—he's not turned on like that all the time. He's also like a real deep cat.

The songs really mess you up when you're listening to him. He's got those records that like they'll kind of hit you on like the eighth or ninth kind of listen, and you're like, "What did he just say?" You thought it was a song about riding in a tour van,  then you realize that he kind of deconstructed this emotion inside of you about abandonment and things like that and it feels intentional once you kind of see it. know?

And I'm sure it is. He's an extremely astute person.

I know we're kind of getting short on time. Mike. I want to kind of go back to happy songs, sad songs, and I want to talk about how those emotions are kind of complex in their own way. Some would believe those emotions are complementary. I know that there is an art to finding the language to write songs about happiness. You mentioned you know, "Jesus Is Bored" as a song that's kind of transformed for you in the live setting, but do you feel like there are songs on Jump For Joy that include both happiness and sadness, in a way, and using language that you're pretty proud of? As far as being a songwriter and being a person?

I think every song on the record is a combination of both at the same time because I've always wanted that to be my mission as a songwriter: to be able to convey like the fullness of being a human—as grandiose or as lofty is that sounds—to convey the fullness of being a human in a song. Part of that, for me, feels like this idea that not everything is either happy or sad. My experience of the world as I walked through it is that everything is both of those at the same time. I mean, not everything, but you know what I mean? My experience mostly is that I'm feeling both at the same time. And I've really chased that ambiguity intentionally over the years with some very specific things that I do technically, from tuning a guitar in a certain way to like leaving the chords very undefined. So yeah, it's a little bit of a cop out answer, but I really think my best songs are songs that feel happy and sad at the same time.

That's a great answer, especially for at the end of a short interview, which I know we're at the end here, and I wanted to kind of leave with this question, maybe. You mentioned you know this mission for this year about encountering that mystery, that not knowing the freshness, that experimentation, and trying to touch it wherever you can find it. Can you maybe tell me—I don't know maybe from a mechanical standpoint or practice standpoint—what does getting small and quiet look like for you? Like, how do you get there?

Well, getting small and quiet isn't the same for me as encountering the mystery because I've actually been doing a lot of work with a lot of different musicians lately. It has been kind of cacophonous in a way. But to answer your question of what it means to get small and quiet, I mean, I think it means me going back to the room that I write in, with a guitar or whatever instruments, and a notebook and, seeing what happens. Sort of surrounding myself with the creative input that still fuels me. There's tons and tons of poetry in this house, there's tons of records, and this is just my place. There's tons of guitars and amplifiers. It's just my place to be sort of quiet and meditative, I guess.

Well, Tampa will be grateful when you get out of that place and come visit us for a few and I think we would all like to join you on the Kamayo Cruise but we'll let you eat cruise food for three days on your own there.

Cruise Food. That's a good name for a band.

It is a great name for a band—that should actually be the sequel to "Nu-Grape," just call it “Cruise Food.”

Haha, that's funny. OK, dude. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for the good questions, actually, they were great.

I really enjoyed talking to you. And thank you for making the time for me and thank you for all your music. It's, been great to have in my life. So I hope you have a great week.

Thank you, brother. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Of course. Bye.

[rayroa]

Judy Collins Q&A for Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

Judy Collins returns to Tampa Bay on Jan. 28, 2024, and Creative Loafing Tampa Bay has a feature story advancing the gig, but here's our Q&A for anyone interested.

—

Merry Christmas. What's that like in your house?

It's beautiful. It has a beautiful tree, and all my favorite possessions, and my husband. It's full of beautiful plants, and beautiful lamps and lights—so it's perfect.

And this is in New York, right?

Yep.

You talked about all your possessions and things like that. We obviously catch you at a very prolific time in your career. Still heavily gigging on the road, feeling great. What does Judy Collins ask for for Christmas? And what does she get for Christmas at this point?

Oh, I got a fireman Santa Claus ornament. An ornament of a microphone. I got a beautiful scarf from my sister and one from my husband—they're beautiful, gorgeous. And I love those things. They cozy me up on the road and they help me get through things. And books, and of course wonderful little tchotchkes from my sister and my granddaughter. I got a candle in a beautiful cup that has butterflies all over it. I love butterflies.

That's awesome. Gifts are really nice when you can figure out how to attach them to warm memories of the people that give them to you.

Exactly.

I want to ask you about Leonard Cohen a little bit. Obviously the story is well told and has been told a lot. He asked you why you weren't writing your own songs. You told him he's got to sing his own songs. And then you wrote "Since You've Asked" right after that. But I haven't seen you kind of talk about what you think Leonard would say about this latest album of all originals.

I know he'd love it. He'd love the one about Thomas Merton, certainly and he'd love the one about Spellbound. He was always generous with his praise. I would send him songs since I wrote them, and he would send me notes and tell me how wonderful they were. So I was always grateful.

Was he a good songwriting collaborator in terms of...

Oh, no I never collaborated with him on anything. He was a friend, and he was a fellow artist, and he was a great inspiration to me. And I think that's really where his  friendship helps me out. Because he inspired me with that first question. He got me going. And then after that, it was up to me, of course, but I did send him everything to get his response.

Did he ever give you constructive criticism?

He always said "That was wonderful." And that's the way that's the way he rolls.

For 32 years you learned that bel canto style under Max Margulis. He's the reason you can still work like a dog and I know you picked up a lot of good practices from him..I know that today is as good as it gets, you and I are both alive—and I know you have songs on the album that talk about some bad times, thinking of Arizona and tuberculosis in 1962—what about your own New Year's resolutions what are you working on this year?

Work harder. Keep on the edge. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Delight in the present. You know, keep your weight steady. Do your exercises and your bone strengthening. And take care to think of all your relatives and friends every day. Try to pray for them in this difficult time. It's always a difficult time on this planet. I don't know how we get by, or what we're supposed to do, but hang in here and try to exist and survive. Art's the thing that helps us which is why I treasure what I do. I think about the past year—I've had, in my experience, some of the best performances of my life in the past year. When I come off the stage, and I have that feeling that I have been present in something unique and transformative, it's transformative to me as well as the audience. I am so blessed because this is what keeps me going. This ability to get out there and do what I do, and sing and sing and sing, and talk, and tell my stories. It's just such a great privilege.

Yeah to be helpful for people's lives, too.

Absolutely. And the people who follow me and who come to my shows, they know what I'm going through because I'm always honest with them, I always tell them. This whole past month-and-a-half when I've had this cold which wouldn't go away, I was still able to sing and perform and I didn't have to cancel anything, thank God. So, you know, they know you're human, and they accept what you can do. Max has taught me what to do. So that makes my life much easier. Because I know how to get around these barriers to the voice.

You've kind of alluded to the cyclical nature of things in the human condition, and how the human condition kind of asks us to have art. Art gets us through things. And obviously, throughout your career, multiple people told you things like you know, "You got me through Vietnam," and I know that for poets hope is everywhere, but as you alluded to, there's this circle—and we love to kill each other for some reason—what is some of the art that gets you through these days?

Well, it's just the fact that being able to embody something that is of the nature of the other. Of the emotional, the spiritual, of the perception. You're dealing in something that's not on a foursquare basis. It's on the basis of spirituality, understanding, hearing, learning, listening, creating, dreaming, and that's what our life on the planet really is all about. I mean, the rest is a lot of work. And as far as writing and creating, my friend who's a mystery writer says, it's like laying pipe. You have to get up and do it, and practice it and write it and paint it. And that's the work that goes into it. But the result is just this connection between the spiritual and the practical. And that's what gets us through life, I think. I don't know what we would do without art. From the beginning, the caveman was drawing pictures on the walls of the caves because it had to express their experience of nature and of the powers of nature—and they did. And that's what we do. We basically were expressing what's happening around us—the nature, the growing things, the birds, the air, the clouds, the sun, the light, the morning, the night, the stars, the moon. So we see ourselves reflected in the universe, and we try to make something out of it that can inspire us, inspire one another.

And obviously reflection and song is its own special art form. Expression in songs is its own art form. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's hard. It was interesting to hear you say that you'd like to forgive more in the new year. You're so expressive in your music. You're always also a very vivid storyteller in your music. Oftentimes, your songs can take somebody back to a year, or a moment in history, but what are some of the things that you find hard to express? Is forgiveness one of those, or what's hard for you as far as expression goes?

The hardest thing to express is my being vehemently against war, and sometimes that has to come out with a song by Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie. I have shied away from singing "Masters of War" lately. I usually sing it in my shows, but since this disaster in the Middle East, I'm not singing it. I just can't even bear it. It's too painful. I don't want to take people to that place in the moment. I mean, "Amazing Grace" will do it. John Lennon's "Imagine" will help—a song that transcends the moment instead of leaving us to have to live in that feeling of despair and horror and hunger and human suffering. We don't have to live through that through a concert. We have to be given something to lift us over that and through that. And also, I think that helps the planet. I don't think it's important to poke people's eyes out with the information that everybody has. I can't even watch the news.

Yeah, I totally understand that. And you know, listening to you talk about not wanting to sing "Masters of War" was interesting. Because I have a four year old and they did a Christmas program a week ago, and I didn't know what they were singing. And they did "War Is Over." 

Good.

And it was so crazy to see a bunch of four year olds, you know, singing like, "War is over if you want it." And I'm in Florida, like, this is where woke goes to die, you know?

(laughs)

So I was like, really happy to see these kids like singing this song. I couldn't believe it. And you know, and it makes a lot of sense now that you wouldn't play "Masters of War." You talked about Leonard a little bit, and I was gonna ask you, you know, because he was an Orthodox Jew and I think you've played you know, in front of Jewish audiences, but I think you kind of answered the question in the previous answer. I was going to ask you how you thought your conversations about the current war would go with Leonard, but I feel like you answered that. Do you feel that way, too? Or do you feel like you have more you want to say about that?

Well, you know, he was so explicit. Also there was a point in I think '73 when one of the wars—the Six-Day Way, I think, happened—he went to Israel and sang and wrote a song…(hums it out, trying  to remember the song title)... I forget, anyway, he was always expressive. On You Want It Darker, some of his last material is so powerful and so painful, because we wanted to darker—and we're getting it darker. This free formed mental illness that's what it is, it's freeform or mental illness.

My brother in law's in town and we've been talking a lot about Martin Luther King and his quotes about how violence could change somebody but also change a country, you know. You're one of the most famous activists in American history.

I don't know about that.

I don't know, I think your career is really interesting, because you have sung activist songs and you've, I mean, you're a woman also making music and art through all those really hard years for women. And you talked about the cyclical nature of things and thinking about the song "Mama, Mama" and that brave story that you told about traveling to Nebraska when you were 23. And I think the last time I talked to you was early 2022. And since then, in the last year, we saw the right to abortion fall, and I was wondering, why are men still so obsessed with telling women what to do? You'd think we could exercise that out of our humanity.

I don't know. I mean, the fight might be there to keep our seal up and to make us aware that it's not right, and that we have to take action. Maybe that's what it's all about. I don't know. It has to be so hard. Why does it have to be so hard?

The animal kingdom is very hard and very simple. The rules are very simple. The aggression is based on hunger and predatory, land grab, and survival. And maybe that's all that it is. It's survival. It's predatory, land grabbing, and knocking off the neighbor who's annoying you. That's sort of historically what it's all about. War and fighting and anger and ferocity is part of our planet, life. Everything has a time. And then it goes, and species die out. Ours may. I mean, we're sort of forcing that on the planet to get rid of us because we're damaging it so badly. We may get retribution from the planet. And maybe war is part of that retribution? I don't know. I don't know the answer to any of these questions, except that I do know that it's one day at a time. That is getting through your own battles and your own struggles with this degree of kindness, gentleness, and understanding.

If you can't see that on the planet, you have to do it in your life. To show gentleness, to show respect, to show forgiveness, to be an even handed neighbor and friend. The kindness to one another is essential. The fact that we can learn to hold our tongue unlike some of the forces around us, people who cannot hold their tongue and have to say everything on their mind. That takes us back to mental illness.

I wanted to ask you something about your dad. I think he woke up every day, I think I remember you telling the story of him maybe singing like Dorothy Dandridge.

Yeah.

And being smiling and kind of ready to work all the time and learn something new every day. And obviously, your dad was also an alcoholic who got the job done. But then you've also described him as you know, a blinded man in a sighted world which  could be a beautiful metaphor, but also quite literal, in his life, but that joy that you talked about, that your dad brought to every day—smiling, ready to work and learn something new—what are some of those things that he taught you either directly or indirectly by example that you kind of bring to your work every day and maybe want to amplify even more this year?

Yeah, show up on time. Your work to the best of your ability. Always be present. Always be cooperative, always be enthusiastic. Always be happy. I mean, he was happy most of the time except if he was dead drunk. But, you know, that's the challenge. He overcame it. He knew how to do what he had to do. And I learned that from him. I had the benefit of discipline. In terms of my studies, I had to practice several hours a day. I had to show up. I had to do my homework. I was helpful. I was industrious, and that's part of why I do what I do. I love to be happy. I can tell you that some people in my family think I'm a cockeyed optimist. Why am I cockeyed? I have to be an optimist. You have to think there is something beyond what's going on, which is going to come out well. And I think even in chaos and the death and the destruction that's happening. The other side of that—it's like the fire burning in the forest and the next spring, all the wildflowers come bursting out dancing around in their colors and their shapes and their shifts—we have to look beyond the depths into what can be the brightness of the outcome. That's what we have to think of.

Right, I know we're getting short on time. I wanted to squeeze in a couple more questions. I think you kind of alluded to this. You've said people lose sight of everything—and you were just talking about that big picture—but you also said they watch too much television. They're on social media too much, which is not surprising but then you also said, "I'm also guilty of that sometimes but I tried to stay away from it." I don't imagine you like doomscrolling on Twitter or Instagram much. Do you?

No, I tell you, I do my due diligence. I check my email. I check my Facebook page. My Facebook is really a wonderful place because I get things that I love. Lots of paintings. A lot of scenes of herding dogs, sheep dogs—they excite me a lot—and horses. I get a lot of rivers and wind and trees and things like that. So I dip in there but I don't stay very long. And last night we watched “Christmas Carol” with Alastair Sim. That's a yearly event—we always watch that—it's the best film.

Real quick, do you still do the Canadian Air Force exercises?

Well, I do everything I can to stay healthy. I run. I walk. I have a FitBit that tells me my steps; I quite often get 2,000 a day. I try to do my stretches. I try to work out. Now I have a trainer for my weight bearing exercises so that I can increase my bone mass. The Air Force Exercises, I don't know if I could do them now, but I'm pretty fit.

And last question. I want to revisit “Arizona” again. The stories it conjures up for you, whether it's being brought to the lung doctor after the ash alley gig, the custody battle with Peter, but what about the writing of a song like that? Does it sting emotionally to have to revisit all of that over and over until you land on lyrics and an arrangement you love?

Well, it was a long-term song. I started it years ago. I worked on it on and off. I put things in it that I liked, and eventually when I was writing songs with Ari Hest, that's where the whole concept of Spellbound came because when I was writing with him, I realized that I just had to get down to start writing a poem every day, and also finish some of the things that I've been working on. He was very helpful. It’s a very mysterious process. And I'm very grateful to have it in my life.

I'm very grateful that you made a little bit of room for me in your life this morning.

It’s been wonderful talking to you. You're very inspiring.

Thank you. You're also very inspiring and I'm proud to talk to you and I'm proud to tell my parents that I get to talk to you and your music has meant a lot to my family over the years. 

Have a beautiful holiday Happy New Year to you.

Enjoy those scarves. Happy New Year.

Bye bye.

[rayroa]

Q&A: Nels Cline for Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

I just got done transcribing a Nels Cline interview I did on Friday, Feb. 24, 2023 ahead of Wilco’s April 20, 2023 stop in Clearwater, Florida. I hope to turn it into a 1,500-word featured before the printer comes calling, but wanted to get the Q&A down somewhere.

If you get sick of talking to me just let me know.

Ask me a question and watch an hour go by, so beware.

You need that space. Your whole thing is taking space and creating texture and all that stuff, so I'm not surprised that you can talk for an hour.

Right on. 

And I might bounce around a little bit, too. It was funny trying to come up with questions for this because they're all very guitar centric, and it's such a testament to the career you've built and identity that you've built. You know what I mean?

Sort of. I didn't think about the identity much. I'm not really aware of it, actually. But I know I feel respected. And that's nice.

Yeah, for sure. I think you're beyond respected, obviously. We'll just get right into it. Wilco is on a tour, right, and essentially, that's why we're talking—although I'm talking to Nels Cline.

Yeah, we're coming to Florida.

And we won't get too political here because I think you've already made your views on that clear, and I know you don't see Cruel Country as a political thing. But I wanted to ask you: You're coming up on your 20 year Wilco-versary. 

It'll be 19 next month.

Right. So 2024 marks two decades in this band. And I know when you joined, Jeff was going through what he was going through.

Yeah.

He got through it, and it's been a really productive few years. But I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, when you joined, you didn't necessarily want to bring your personality as a jazzer or soundscape kind of guy to the band. But that kind of happened. And there's this part about the Wilco songbook that kind of brought out that 14 year old fan of the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, right?

Yep.

So thinking about that 14 year old that was brought out when you join the band, that 14 year old would be 33 or 34 now. I know Jeff has encouraged you to not be so reverent, maybe, to the songs that he brings to the table...

Yeah the one predictable thing about Wilco recording is that it's not going to be predictable.

Right. But when you look back on the last few decades of Wilco, look back to that 14 year old who was reawakened. Can you talk about how that person has grown over the last 20 years with just being in this band—that guitar player?

I was playing rock and roll settings prior to joining Wilco, along with the other improvised music and whatever else music that I've been doing. I guess that 14 year old is 33, you say now, he just still loves to rock. The feeling of the rock band, and at this point, the pageantry of it, like I don't really know about the show aspect of it, I'm comfortable with—but I don't see it really. I'm not seeing all these design things and all these changes that are happening that are supposed to be enhancing the product. So the 14 year old never cared about that so much and still doesn't, but the rocking is great.

OK. I think it’s Jeff that tells you, "Just shred, man."

That was what he said to me when I asked him what he wanted me to do at the end of "Art of Almost." He said, "just shred."

That's awesome. OK, cool. I love hearing your stories about all the rock you love—and I want to ask you a little bit about that—but I wanted to stay in Wilco world for a little bit, and kind of bring some reader questions that were presented to me. There's this jam on "Many Worlds" that feels like this high point in the Wilco canon as far as guitar and you're place in it and stuff like that. Obviously, fans are obsessed with some of the older stuff, and there's a solo on "Ashes Of American Flags," and obviously, the many think pieces on "Impossible Germany." But as far as solo on "Ashes," would you consider that the pinnacle of your fretwork achievements?

No, I mean, I don't even think about music that way. Whatever my pinnacle achievement is, I probably didn't notice it. But it was my idea to do that coda at the end of "Ashes" in my early days in the ensemble, and it turned into a big guitar solo thing, which I was probably encouraged to do. But I don't think about pinnacles. I do so much music, and a lot of it is Wilco, and I'm just trying my best.

OK. That's cool. I think what it is, is that a lot of people, guitar players specifically, they want to be you. You know?

Oh my god.

I know you don't want to hear that.

I'll say this. I'm a very fortunate human. It's OK to want to have a fortunate, nice, decent way of life. And I have that. You know, it's pretty cool. And I get to play and travel and do all the stuff that people do. I don't really care much for airplane stuff and airports, but that's part of the job.

This is kind of a watered down version of a follow up to that. Talking about the people that obsess over your work, is there a solo out there that you are still working to decode or one you hold in mythical, kind of air?

Oh my god. It might take me a minute to think of specific solos. But I mean, I could just think of hundreds, thousands of them.

What about one that you can't decode? Like one that bothers you.

By decode, you mean like, comprehend?

Or even, like, put your hands on your guitar and feel like you could kind of visit or touch it, you know?

Well, there's a lot of solos that have influenced me if that's relevant in terms of not just one thing. So I could feel very close to that soloist and possibly do some sort of emulation. But that's usually, for me, more in the rock or blues world because so much of the intricacies and nuances of so-called jazz elude me. I'm no jazz expert, but I do love the music, so I try to play it sometimes. But if I heard somebody I felt really close to do something that I felt a very  personal connection to, I might be able to, you know, pick up some of that stuff. But I don't think that answers your question. 

I mean it's all in context, right? You hit it right in the beginning—we're just trying to understand each other more.

Right.

Do you sit down to practice solos?

I don't practice solos. I don't think I ever learned anyone else's solo. There's certain solos that I can play by ear because they're so kind of memorable, or I can get close to them: Jimi Hendrix, or Dickey [Betts] or Duane [Allman]. I was never in cover bands, and bar bands, and things like that. So I'm not one of these guys that just says, "Hey, which Rush epic do you wanna do today?" or, "We know all of them!"

And you hate to sight read, right?

Well, it's not that I hate to do it. I'm terrible at it. I have a mental block about it. It's awful. If somebody wants to write a bunch of intricately-notated, dense music and put it in front of me, I can guarantee that they won't hear any of their music played by me. If I have a recording of it, then I can take the music home, and I'll do everything I can to learn a piece. That's how I do it.

OK. And this leads to my other question, because I think it's part of the core of who you are. I think we view you as an emotional player and sometimes an emotional composer. And emotion sometimes comes from melody, or for Western listeners there's harmonic information and modal elements, too. So this kind of piggybacks on what I asked you earlier, and you kind of mentioned it when you're talking about jazz. Are there still emotions, or modes or harmonies that you still hope to unlock from the guitar?

Absolutely. Yeah, I think sometimes the way I get around is when I'm just messing around, because I've actually been able to live, in the last year, someplace where I can—if I want to—I can play through an amplifier and not bother anybody. I didn't plug in and practice for I don't know how long—at least 30 years, hardly ever. Just to test the pedal or something, maybe. But it's been rather revealing about certain things. One of the things has to do with experimenting with different pedals, which I never allowed myself to do before except maybe on the gig. I just didn't sit around for hours working stuff out. I just got a little setup, and I just mess around.

One of the things I like to do is open tune the guitar and just start playing. That's a pleasing sound to me. It also means that I can use a lot of open strings, and everything's ringing. And it's kind of my own personal methodology that is from an extension of a trio that I had for a while in Los Angeles—three acoustic guitar players—that's how we started improvising. We would make up a tuning before every improvisation and then just start. It's fun, and it takes me sort of out of the patterns and habits and crutches—and it's pleasing to my ears. Does that even answer your question?

I think it does. And it might not have been a fair question because how can you know what emotion you're trying to unlock if you haven't felt it yet?

Well, I mean, OK, speaking to emotion. I do have a near consistent reaction to certain sonorities. And I guess what I was trying to get at by telling you about messing around with tunings, is something I do with a harmonizer pedal—a really shitty one—where I can just detune the guitar by hitting the pedal and play chord clusters. That's fun. But in terms of the emotion, sometimes that detuned sound for example, if as harsh and abrasive as possible, can be a very strong emotion. Just as a perfectly voiced major minor ninth chord, can just send me. I do experience emotion in a non-theoretical way, but unfortunately, I've also thought about the theoretical way, which sometimes can be, you know, a bit of a cage I guess.

I was gonna call it a jail cell, but "cage" works.

Here's something I can toss at you that has nothing to do with anything you're asking me but kind of covers almost everything. 

OK.

David Crosby. So David Crosby died, as we all know, The Byrds were extremely important to me, I even saw them with David Crosby as my first big rock concert in Central Park, 1967. When he died, I immediately wanted to listen to two songs: "Déjà Vu" from the album Déjà Vu, not some sort of live version. And "Guinnevere" from the Crosby, Stills & Nash record, which in my view is very Croz.

These made me realize upon listening to them that I wanted to go back to The Byrds songs that he had the most to do with—he actually had everything to with. When I did that, I listened to "Everybody's Been Burned " from Younger Than Yesterday. I'm assuming that "I See You" is the Croz, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I started listening to these pieces of music and realized that a huge part of my so-called jazz harmonic language that I'm drawn to, I may have first heard when I was listening to The Byrds when I was 10, 11 years old. And I've heard so much of my own happiness. There's so much harmonic interest and and it's so gorgeous to my ears. And then his voice is incredible. So I realized like, "Holy shit," I think that David Crosby may be very, very responsible for my earliest leanings, in terms of harmonic information, particularly, but also in the case of a song like “Déjà Vu,” it's episodic. It starts with his that super brisk and amazing vocal harmonic thing, the goes into the down, sort of Crazy Horse kind of tempo that we all love to play over for the rest of the song—it's amazing harmonies, it's just so great. And I really respond to that.

The same way I respond to hearing Tom Verlaine [Television], now the late Tom Verlaine, and all the things that I basically remember, so many of his solos. I can probably sing almost all of them along with records, maybe—after Flash Light I lost the thread a bit. So these languages, what I'm trying to say—they live. And at the same time, I'll just mention something that I first encountered when I was 10 that had a huge impact on me. My twin brother Alex's band was The Rolling Stones, so basically, it was Byrds and Stones until maybe '67, or late-'66 for us.

Definitely not the Beatles, because only girls like The Beatles, you know?

Exactly. That's why we didn't like them until we saw "Help!," and then we loved them.

You couldn't help it. I liked that you mentioned Croz because I had a question about Croz in the context of your love for The Byrds. I know you never wanted to be this amp-humping shaman, you know, but "Manic Depression" was kind of an inception point for you. Then Miss Godwin plays Ravi Shankar for you, and you get to drone. Then I started thinking about Croz, and Jimi, and Ravi and then also I started thinking about Tom and your wiggle, right. You kind of answered it a little bit, but I wondered how deaths of musicians affect you because when a musician dies, it's a little bit different than somebody else in our life since musicians have such this body of work that you can revisit. It sounds like when Croz died, it triggered all these memories for you.

It started with Jeff Beck. Jeff Beck was a big shock. I think to everyone, Jeff Beck just seemed like he was gonna live forever. He always had this a bit of a larger than life quality, and at the same time obviously really kind of a humble dude, because the musical path that he chose is just what he wanted to do and not rock and roll stardom. But his language that you've developed on a guitar had become so personal, and so at times, utterly profound, and always entertaining and expressive as fuck.

So it started with Beck, then David Crosby dies. And by this time most people are probably thinking like, "Oh, who's the third?" or, “Croz made it to 81, that's awesome.” And a lot of people thought he was a jerk. Then two, three days later, people started writing about David Crosby a bit, and talking about it, so I was very happy because I had gone into a David zone for a while there.

Tom Verlaine was the crushing blow, and also totally unexpected. I didn't know anything about what was going on with his health and stuff. Basically, as I tried to process this, I can tell you that as the senior in the band Wilco, the cold tap of death finger on the backline edges is not infrequent. So, I'm just going to try to stay positive, and and stay alive. It's sobering is what I'm saying. Maybe it's a little different than some musicians I don't know. I have an emotional reaction sometimes. And other times I just go, "Yeah, we're all gonna die."

This is what happens. We're looking at two generations of old people dying because that's what they do. They're very noticeable old people because their media figures, they're celebrities or notable in some way that we read about these other people. So that's what's happening. We're just watching them go, many of them in their 80s and 90s, but a lot in the 70s, and even in the 60s—my age. So it's sobering.

The Tom and the Croz thing definitely sent me into a bit of a nostalgia haze there for a while. I'm still not out of the Tom Verlaine one. It's an ongoing thing. His songs have been parading in my head for days and days and days, like two weeks. Then I just had to start reinvestigating. I hadn't heard Cover or Flash Light in a long time. Anyway, that's a whole other story. It's hard. It's really hard, but it's going to just keep happening. I could have said that in one sentence and saved you five minutes.

Dude, people don't want you to tell them something in one sentence. I think that's why they listen to your music, right? Like they want to sit down.

Oh god. All my records under my own name are pretty damn long.

Yeah, but that's why people come to them.

I hope so because I can't seem to self-edit to save my life. Whatever.

That's why you're in a band with Jeff. That's why you have strong band leaders like Jeff. They'll edit you in that realm.

Yeah, Jeff's a strong bandleader. He's a smart dude, too. He's just amazing.

I'm actually going to miss the show here because I'll be in Monterey with my wife who's running a marathon.

Whoa.

So I'm pretty bummed because I haven't seen Wilco since the Bob Dylan tour with My Morning Jacket. I've seen Jeff a couple of times since. This is probably too much information, but I know exactly when my son was conceived because it was after a solo show from Jeff. And I blame Jeff. 

Oh that is too much information.

My whole review that night was about this woman in front of me who was holding her son, and about Jeff's music and how warm and familial it can be sometimes. I was mad at people for hushing people. I was like, "Gosh, everything we have is in our arms," you know? Anyway that's too much information. So you mentioned Déjà Vu and going back to Croz and feeling these things that you felt when you were 10. I'm thinking of "Manic Depression" and that kind of innocence or nativite. It sounds like you get to tap into that 10 year old person and be innocent when you listen to music quite frequently.

I can kind of feel it almost anywhere except for maybe in a straight ahead jazz setting, which I don't do anyway. But if I'm just improvising in pure sound world, or playing some of my friends' music and we get into a thing—I particularly like improvising. We can, you know, honor—I don't even know how to say this, I'm sorry I lost the thread there, I immediately started thinking about something else...

It's OK. We're talking about how sometimes you're in a strange jazz setting which you don't really do and you're improvising and there's this pure sound and, or maybe you're playing with some friends...

Put it this way. Here's another example—a succinct example. I like soundchecks, like on tour with Wilco. As soon as sound starts and everybody starts playing, I'm in a very happy place. Especially when there's no bullshit and it's just functional—not coldly efficient, but still very efficient, very together. It makes the whole thing so cool that even soundcheck—which we don't always do—I like them, because we get to play more.

The point is really when sound starts and there's that sort of feeling of connectedness, or chemistry, or whatever you want to call it. Everyone's just kind of creating something together. I live for that—that's really it.

That's awesome. You're really good at this by the way. You're good at giving the pull quote but setting up the pull quote in a really good way that gives us great context.

Oh my god. It must be my over attention to... I try to examine to some extent the erudite among us, and my wife started to watch this documentary on Margaret Atwood, who she really likes. And I've never read Margaret Atwood, but I watched this documentary, I think twice because she watched it a couple of times at least, and it was incredibly inspiring and super interesting. But there's also a level of erudition involved in various statements, and quotes, and things like that. So without trying too hard, I do like to think that there's a phrase, like a kind of a cool phrase. It's just another improvising moment I guess. You know what I'm saying, it's fun. And also, my brother and I are the sons of two English teachers. I think being too language oriented can be actually a hindrance to certain ways of experiencing life, but I'm damaged. It's OK. I learned to live with it.

No, you're right. I mean, language is a barrier to emotion sometimes, and that's why, you know, we like German, you know, it's more precise...

It's funny because I actually was going to study German. I studied French in junior high and high school—that's what they called it back then, junior high. And then I thought because I was a philosophy major for a sec there, which by the way [Wilco multi-instrumentalist] Patrick Sansone, who has a degree—and I never got a degree—I was a philosophy major. I thought, "I'll take German and read the real dudes in our own language." Oh my god. If you've never been in college level German where it was going so fast. Oh my god, it's the only class I think, besides algebra, that I ever had to cram to pass. I feel so behind in German, and it's so hard, and yes, it is very precise.

Going back to Wilco world. Talking about loving the soundcheck. I'm curious about the title track on Cruel Country. Pat's playing this B string Fender, and some people think that’s you. While he's doing the twang, you're more like on the lap steel or neck dobro. How often do people mistake you for Pat, do you think?

Well, on this last record, I think almost consistently. In the past, I don't think Pat has recorded a lot of guitar solos, until Cruel Country, and then he and I are head-to-head a couple of times during the program, and then his B-Bender thing was absolutely delighting Jeff, and it just ended up all over it. It made Jeff smile from ear-to-ear, pretty much, and I was digging it. I think we got a lot of pleasure out of Pat's contribution on the B-Bender Tele. Now that we've been playing the songs out, playing them live, now he's crushing even more. And then mixing up, I don't know that anybody mixes us up other than that. Live, you know, Pat gets to wail on a couple of songs, but that's kind of like more digging into, almost inheriting a part and a solo, because they're older Wilco songs.

Right, right, right.

I can't get out of the sound of total rock guitar when I solo on songs. Sometimes I think, "Why don't I just take a completely weird approach one night?" But I'm just rocking out. I just kind of want it to be identified as full rocking. Because that's how the architecture of the show kind of is. Jeff likes to have an innocent rock out where it's just completely communal at the end of the night—I'm down. Rock and roll, the chiming guitars, it's a very good feeling for me. I think for all these other folks that decide to attend recitals.

No, I think people like to come to the recitals, and I like to hear you talk about your bandmates. They all have their own activities that they do on tour—hiking, coffee photography—but you are not a sightseer. You just sit there and you play guitar, but in Tampa there's a guitar maker James LeClair who makes some of your guitars. Do you have any plans to see James while you're here?

He's in Wyoming now.

Oh, I thought he was still here.

I thought it was a part-time thing. I can tell you that he's no longer in Tampa. And I can tell you that we met when we were down in—I think it might have been an Orlando show, I can't remember now, it might have been Tampa—and a friend of the band's, I believe his name is John Close, I don't really know him well, but I should have looked this up while I'm talking to you. Not that I can find it, but anyway, he introduced us all and Jim brought some guitars. He's my age about, I think, and we hit it off, and I bought one of his guitars—a weird kind of Tele-shaped guitar that's nothing like a Tele. He wasn't making guitars for a living. He still doesn't. He's, I think, a commercial photographer or something, but he's a lovely guy, and I have a bunch of his guitars now. And I can give myself credit for one thing: I'm the one that convinced him to put his name on his guitar headstocks. He's a lovely guy, and he likes to mess around with various guitar design ideas.

I know you like your Mike Watt Fender a lot, but how do the LeClairs hold up to your Fenders, specifically on tour and during the recording and composition process?

Honestly, I don't play a whole lot of Jim's guitars on one show, so they've never they've never taken he beating that my Jazzmaster's been taking all these years. But they're totally A-okay. The one I play the most is what I call the "Almosta-Tele." I hadn't played that on tour for a little while, but I played it with Phil Lesh. It turned out to be the right guitar for that kind of Grateful Dead language. And it's got a beautiful neck pickup that I never get to use because everybody wants me to play that guitar like a Tele, super-trebly with the bridge pickup.

This said I have a funny story, which I just remembered. I played the "Almosta-Tele" as the only guitar on a four-CD set by Anthony Braxton that I'm on, and it was a total accident. Because I played with Phil Lesh & Friends in Port Chester the night before. I was on my way to New Haven to to record with Anthony Braxton, and Phil's guitar tech—I mean, he literally had my stuff broken down within three seconds after the show and sitting waiting for me, it was insane—but he switched the gig bags, and I didn't check before I left. So I went to New Haven, and I opened my gig bag, and the LeClair "Almosta-Tele" was in the bag. And I was like, "Oh my god. No strings behind the bridge. No tremolo. It's not my Jazzmaster." So I made the entire thing, which is completely avant garde, improvised music with some structure dictated by graphic scores from Anthony Braxton, with Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier,  and brass instrumentalists Taylor Ho Bynum, and Braxton—it's a quartet. So there's a four-CD set with Jim LeClair guitar, everything I play on this thing is that guitar. So everybody go buy that record, a four-CD set, I can't remember what it's called. I actually really like it, certainly not for everybody. But man actually when I heard it all finally—it came out at least two years after we recorded it—and I had some good strategies and kind of rebounded and got a lot out of the "Almosta-Tele."

And I have a Gibson-scale fake Tele, one of his earliest guitars, I think, that's out in the barn. Most of our stuff is in storage and has been since we left the city in March 2020.

Oh, by the way, that record I think is called Quartet (New Haven) 2014. I know we're getting to our mark, but I want to go back to Wilco. Jeff came into Cruel Country kind of on a tear. I think it was something like 50 songs in 52 days, or something, and he was still kind of really running hot. And when you got the Cruel Country songs, it kind of struck you as being classic—you know, classic country or folk with these big strong choruses and traditional song structures—but Wilco, I think, was also working on an art-pop kind of type record over the winter. How did that go?

That's what Jeff called it, I think. Art-pop. It's still going. It's going well, I think. It's a completely other vibe. I can't wait to hear it finished.

Did you stay in the loft for it?

I did. Yeah, I always do. Unless it's deemed that there'll be too much traffic, and I won't be able to rest, in which case we'll insist that I go elsewhere to some sort of hotel.

So it's still kind of like that live recording setup from Cruel Country.

Yeah. It's mere yards away from my bunk.

And I wanted to ask you about Yoko Ono. She just had a birthday. And she's 90 years old, the same age as Willie Nelson. And I wanted to ask you how Yoko has pushed your art artistry in a way that no one else really could.

Oh. Oh my god, how much time do you have?

I figured I better sneak this one in.

So my involvement with playing with Yoko is because of Yuka [Honda] and Sean Ono-Lennon. Sean specifically, kind of, music directs her, and Yuka is sort of like a lieutenant or something who takes care of all these musical details. And, and I came in to play on three, four songs in the course of an evening with the Plastic Ono Band with Yuka and Sean, and at that time this amazing drummer Yuko Araki from Japan who also plays with Cornelius, just a monster, and this guitarist named Hirotaka Shimizu also from Japan. Various people, Michael Leonard would play. Devin Haas played with us. We would get our shit together, and then Yoko would come in and soundcheck, and then just totally go for it. We did this big show at the Orpheum with all these guests. Iggy Pop, Lady Gaga, these are like people who cannot phone it in. The soundcheck was nuts, the rehearsal already, whatever, you know. But beyond that, it's hard for me to speak really, candidly or objectively because I do feel like Yoko and her family are kind of like all part of a family of some sort. And so I kind of don't want to go into any of that, it's too personal.

But the thing about Yoko that's amazing is pretty much everything. For example, when I saw the exhibit—I'm trying to remember where it was now, might've been Berlin, of because I played with her on her 80th birthday, I can't remember—anyway her early work during what people generally term her Fluxus movement was represented in this gallery of work from the early-'60s, like '62. I guess you would loosely call it multimedia work or something. It's just always with the same level of—I don't know how to describe it—it's poetic and so direct, and profound but so simple. She just has always had this amazing sensibility, and in terms of womanhood in Japanese of her generation, very revolutionary. So anyway, Yoko's amazing.

It's time for us, but you mentioned your dad being an English teacher.

My mom and dad, both of them were English teachers.

Both in Los Angeles, right?

Yep.

And your dad bought a guitar from a student once he realized that you needed to play—you know since your brother is out here banging on boxes, you're sitting around...

That's right, the Melody...

And you still have it. It's that one pickup half scale guitar, right? Do you still play it?

No, it's in storage. It hasn't had strings on it for a long time. I kind of messed it up because when I was working at Rhino Records, my sort of third official task was to be the indie and import rock buyer in the early-'80s, which was a very fun time to be an import rock byer. But anyway, I made a window display for Sonic Youth's album Evol. It was a good one actually, and might be my favorite I ever did. That and the Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra window I suppose—those were pretty good ones. So I hung the guitar in the window, and I put a drum stick through the strings, and then I shot the whole thing with silly string. OK, I gotta go. Thanks so much for the call.

Talk to you later, Nels.

Bye bye.

[rayroa]

Q&A: Jack Johnson on not losing friends during the pandemic, and the process behind his new album 'Meet the Moonlight'

I was fortunate enough to interview Jack Johnson a couple weeks before the release of his new album, Meet the Moonlight, which he's bringing to Tampa on Friday, Aug. 19. Per usual, you can never fit all the good parts of the interview into the story, so here's our full Q&A.

Hey Jack, how are you?

Good How you doing, Ray?

Good. Thanks for making the time. I know you're officially in the thick of album promotion life now.

Oh, yeah, no no worries. It's a nice morning for it. Is it afternoon over there?

It is. Yeah, it's about four o'clock. It's nice and rainy. It's pretty nice out. You know how it is sometimes, it's just kind of really nice to look at the rain and the clouds.

Yeah. I guess it's actually early afternoon here. I feel like it's still morning. I'm on Hawaii time still. I'm slowly waking up. But I'm like, “Oh, yeah, it's actually afternoon here.”

Nice thing about Hawaii is that you can't have an East Coast job. Nice job on “Kimmel” last night. Was Joe Biden on with you?

Oh, thank you. We were like ships crossing into the night. We didn't see each other there or anything but  I saw his motorcade, and I saw the Secret Service were everywhere and the police officers. It was pretty wild. But he was there at the same time.

Right on, that's really cool. I might touch on the president here a little bit when I asked you some Moonlight questions, but I just wanted to say thanks real quick. I was in Hawaii in March and we went over to Heleiwa, and my two-year-old picked like 15 pounds of green beans at the farm.

Oh no way.

Yeah. Kelly [Perry,Volunteer and Partnership Director at Kōkua Hawaiʻi Foundation] set us up on a workday with the Patagonia people.

Oh, awesome. Sorry. I wasn't there that day.

Oh, dude, it's all good. It was so fun to just being in a patch of plants and just spend two hours picking. Thanks for creating that space and, and for doing that kind of advocacy. It's pretty cool. Full circle thing for you. You know?

Yeah. Appreciate it. It's a lot of fun. During the last few strange years, it's been a really healing place for a lot of families. I mean, I know for my own, just to get to go out there and be amongst other families doing positive work in the community. It's something I hear time and time again; a mom or a dad will walk over and just be like, "This is so great for our family. Thanks for having this.” It's definitely a really big crew. We are very lucky to have people like Kelly Perry that you've mentioned that do such a great job. They do it all. I get to be there and be a big part of it, but it's all running because of this great crew we have there.

Yeah, it's really cool. I'll ask you about cafe con leche later in the interview since you are coming to Tampa. But jumping to some of the stuff about Moonlight, you kind of mentioned the farm and the role it played for you over the past two years. Obviously the concept of this record is whatever the hell has been on your mind over the last two years, and for a lot of people, it's been the pandemic.

And on the surface, Hawaii is this great place to go through it in the sense that you are outside and you have places like the farm and and nature, but in the beginning, at least in town there, people weren't even allowed to stand on the beach. When I was there in March, they were just about to lift the mask requirements and restrictions—totally different from Florida where we're where I live. So there's obviously always been a struggle with everyone trying to get by, especially in Hawaii, and this high cost of living, and the fight against developing the countryside.

But what have the last two years been like for you? On your record, I can almost feel you like working through something. I don't know if it's stress or worry, or something but it's different from almost everything you've put out as far as thematically as a whole. What was that like for you over the last two years?

Yeah, good question. I mean, you got 45 minutes?

Ha, I know, I was like, "20 is not gonna be enough."

If I think back and go through it all, it was really stressful at times like it was for everybody in the world. The easiest way to say it is "what a strange couple of years." And it's been a lot of stress, but I've tried to find, like I always do and like hopefully a lot of people do, is try to find the positives when you can. And there were a lot of beautiful parts, even amongst the most stressful. Like in Hawaii 90% of our food is shipped in, which is an unfortunate fact. And so when it first began and there was so much uncertainty about where things were going, there was this fear that we weren't gonna have enough food on the islands and in the islands. And so there was a lot of interaction and conversation about how to support the local farmers—and the farmers became the heroes. It was like they were providing the food for kupuna [grandparent, ancestor, and/or honored elder] and for the community. And just seeing that interaction and that collaboration was really heartwarming. Just to see how much the community came together to make sure everybody had food. Those are the kinds of things that I wanted to kind of focus on, and find the beauty in those moments.

Because like anywhere else there's divisiveness happening to where people have different opinions on what should be done or what shouldn't. It's so hard, you know? Nobody really knew, in the beginning especially. It's so easy in hindsight to look back and say what didn't work or what did work and kind of try to point fingers and say, "See, I knew the whole time or whatever," but it's like nobody knew what was going on. I think that was the most stressful part, you know. So anyways, there were all the normal stresses that everybody went through, but like you said, it felt really fortunate to have a place to get outside and be with people on that farm and, and work together and kind of focus on the positive. It seemed like "Meet the Moonlight," on that song in particular, is this idea that you do your best to maybe walk through a doorway some time or make the simple choices you can to find yourself in a more positive place. For me sometimes it's even just taking the trash out. When I remember tomorrow's trash pickup, and I find myself outside. Like sometimes I'll even be in bed, and I'll be like, "shoot it's trash pick up tomorrow." I'll wake back up, walk out there, drag the cans out, and then I'll be like, "Oh." I'll look up and see what a beautiful night. How do I not do this more often, and I'll just kind of stand there for a while. So it's the simple reminders—sometimes it's better not to dream too far into the future because sometimes those goals don't end up being the best moments in life anyways. It's the it's just taking out the trash sometimes or something. Anyways, I'm digressing. Like I say in a song I have on the album, "I Tend To Digress."

I like it. When you talked to Kyle Meredith, you went on a few tangents too. I wish I could talk to you for 45 minutes, for sure. But you hit on that division. And I'm thinking about "One Step Ahead." You talk about friends losing trust, and I think you kind of hinted at how some of us handle those conversations.

Obviously, as a listener, you project, but as far as the rest of us in the pandemic, were you just like us and that you were getting in arguments with loved ones over things that you wouldn't have normally thought about? Did you lose friends over the pandemic over arguments and stuff?

I made a choice not to lose friends. You almost had to intentionally decide, and I think it's a really good question. I'll be honest, like nobody's posed that one to me yet. It's probably a big part of what informs some of the lyrics on this album, and really trying to focus on things like empathy. In the fragile state that people were in, it pushed us to sometimes have those types of arguments. So to answer your first part, yeah, I definitely got into sometimes heated debates with friends like everybody else or family—and just had to make that decision to try to kind of be as empathetic as possible, and to see things from different sides and try to encourage others to do the same. I wasn't perfect. Usually the songs are meditations on the struggle between my own head and heart, you know, and trying to remind myself, "Hey take a breath. Listen more than you talk," maybe at times. Those kinds of things.

Right on, and I'm sorry, if I'm jumping around here, I did want to ask you a music question and process question and I want to ask you about your Cafe con Leche buddy Blake [Mills]. Obviously, he pushed you out of your comfort zone on this one. But there's still a familiarity to the sound for fans. It's not like you're going back to the Limber Chicken sound.

I think it's funny because it is very familiar at the same time. There's like there's subtle pushing, and I think you're right. Sometimes it gets maybe over exaggerated. I think the trust came from knowing that we shared enough musical tastes that any of the pushing would still be to an area that wasn't so far out that I would regret it—that kind of thing. There had to be that trust first.

A Greg Brown level of trust, when you guys bonded over Greg Brown.

Yeah, once I knew that guy liked Greg Brown, I knew I could trust him.

And what about those arguments you had with Blake? I always feel like arguments in that setting—a creative setting or setting where something really important is on the line—can feel bad, but they're often the best arguments. You're debating sounds. Are they the kind of arguments that needed winners?

No. So it's funny because after a lot of the interviews I do, I will throw him a quick text, and be like, "I just talked to somebody about this or that" because there's things that you wonder if people will pick up on the album. And whenever somebody picks up something that was a conversation we had or an intention we had with a certain palette, or part of the palette we were using, I'll always kind of reach out and be like, "Hey, this guy in Germany just dug that part on ‘3 a.m.’ that we were trying to go for that AM radio sound or whatever. So an “argument” would be an exaggeration. They were like debates.

I'll give you a best example. One of our longest debates we got in, it probably took us away from making music but then ended up informing lyrics, was about whether or not there is a now. He has a beautiful song—I probably shouldn't share too much of his lyrics because I don't think it's come out yet—but he has a song questioning whether there is a now or no now. And so we would spend like an hour talking about whether now is a concept or if there's only now. We're both so bullheaded, so we would just like sometimes take the opposite side of each other, and be like, "No there's definitely a now—there's only now," and the other would be like, "No there is no now." We'd sit there and we'd debate about it for like an hour, it'd be so dumb, but it'd be really fun. So it was all it was more just we would both love, good conversation, that’s a better way to put it.

It's like a "Stepbrothers" moment where you look at each other and you're like, "Did we just become best friends?"

That's exactly it. I think when you spend 12 hours a day with somebody for like, weeks and weeks, you kind of get to this point sometimes where you're like, "Hey, let's take a break. You go do your thing. I'm gonna do my thing." But after like, a week went by all of a sudden I was like, "Man, I want to hang with Blake." We both thought the same thing. We would reach out to each other and just be like, "Oh, we gotta hang out again." Anyways, more than anything, I feel like we developed a really nice friendship through the whole thing. And I know we're gonna play a lot of music together in the future.

That's a really cool thing to hear and I'll be happy to try to work that into this story. You know, we're both feeling really good talking about some positive stuff, so I'm sorry to go back to a somewhat dark place, but I was exchanging some emails with Rick Ridgeway from Patagonia. I was just griping about this sustainable apparel coalition that he started, just kind of getting lost in some of the bad stuff and he pulled out this David Quammen climate quote that said something like "the trouble with despair as a response is not only useless, it's also no fun." You kind of go the Joseph Campbell route and say, "Participate fully in the sorrows of the world."

But ever since I've been a fan, your environmentalism and your activism has been a huge part of that. I was so excited to talk to you because a tour is so multifaceted. You give a lot of people a lot of opportunities both in your inner circle and in every market you go to, to make a living and make money and put food on the table. And then onstage, you get to connect with fans, but I mean, everything is more expensive now. Sustainable merch, etc., and I know you're really good at finding these bright lights in the darkness of the big picture—but is there going to come a point when the growth and all this learning and teaching get to do with these local nonprofits, and the paycheck you get to provide for for not only the crew and their family, but your family too, but is there going to be a point where all of that it's just not worth it? In the cost of in the context of the environment? I mean, you're not the Department of Defense or anything when it comes to emissions and what not, but, you know, does that ever weigh on you?

Sure. Yeah. That's a great question. We did multiple tours, I forget the years, maybe sometime between 2008 to 2013, where we donated 100% of all tour profits to nonprofits. We just literally made them fundraising tours. I wanted to kind of just make sure in my own mind, I wasn't going out to make a paycheck. Things have been so much crazier than I ever thought it was gonna be. We've made a great living off of it. And like you said, we have all these friends that get to come out and make a living from it, too.

I think more than anything, maybe this will answer part of your question. I don't mean to sound like I'm going off on my own thing but I realized that for the environment, on a personal level, my own footprint, like the best thing I could do would be to not tour at all. But then I kind of wonder, I'm part of this industry that has a large environmental footprint. So is it not the better thing for me to do what I can to kind of push the industry into a better place and see if we can kind of mitigate a lot of those negative impacts as best we can. And then really, I think the only thing that we can do to really spread the positive impact of touring—besides like the things you already mentioned, like sharing good feelings with songs and stuff like that, those are obviously all positives—but as far as the environmental aspect, is connecting with the nonprofits in every town that are working within that town, so after we leave, there's energy from the show, both in funding these groups—because every night we put money from the show into nonprofits—and then also, I think, more importantly, is connecting the fans and this younger energy with these established nonprofits so that after we leave, there's all these new members of these groups.

I've even met people who've said, "Oh, the first time I met this group was at your show and I'm actually working on the staff." I've heard that several times where people have gotten involved, and they've even become part of the staff of the of the group.Those are the stories that kind of makes me feel like it's worth it, you know, and it's the positive impact on my own tour hopefully outweighs the negative.

For sure and obviously, it's also kind of pretty much the 20th anniversary of Brushfire Fairytales, but it's also, correct me if I'm wrong, the 30th anniversary of your last ever surfing tournament this year. I think in '92, You got to Pipeline Masters. Kelly Slater, Florida boy who's a friend of yours now, beat you. And I know that there's this competitive nature of that final that pretty much made you sick almost, and then you had that accident a few weeks later, and that's a personality changer. So I was wondering, how lucky were you that you got to have that transformative experience in not winning? And how many other personality changing moments have you had since?

Yeah, that was definitely a big shift in my life. But I would say the part that gets exaggerated in that story is just that I was never going to be a professional surfer. There's a lot of kids in Hawaii that get to kind of flirt with pro contests and stuff. And I was already kind of applying to college and knew that that wasn't my path. I made the finals of the trials, which was a big deal, but I never even made the main event of the Pipe Masters. I was 17, it was a huge deal at the time. I was like the youngest person at that point that got to do the contest and stuff—and it was really cool, I don't mean to belittle it—but the biggest part was just hitting my face on the bottom of the reef and losing my teeth and smacking my head and having that kind of a near death experience. I can't exaggerate that, that was a big deal.

More than anything, I couldn't surf for a few months, and I just ended up playing guitar quite a bit. It wasn't like I decided at that moment that I wasn't going to surf for anything. I still surf as much as I can. It's still my favorite thing. But it just allowed me a few months to be in my bedroom playing guitar every day. My mom spoiled me for a little bit with all these Jimi Hendrix books. She felt so bad for me so she would always grab me all these tablature books and stuff, and I really jumped into guitar playing during those few months, I think and it really became next level for me where I just really wanted to follow that path as well.

Gotcha. And sorry to go back to the past year, but "Go On," was this thing for me and a song I checked in with a few times when my father-in-law had a brain tumor. He was in his early-50s. And I had read that Kim's cousin was a lot younger, and you dedicated the album to him, but on this album you dedicated to Uncle Darrell, so I was kind of wondering if you felt comfortable speaking to Darrell was for you.

Yeah, sure, sure. He's like a father figure to me. He's actually one of Kim's uncles, but I call him Uncle Darrell, too. I'd see him, and even if we're the only two people in the room, I call him Uncle. I've known him since I was 18. I lost my dad years ago, but Darrell was another father figure to me. He was a great, great human. Super smart. Had a great sense of humor. So yeah, the last song on the record, "Any Wonder" was definitely kind of a meditation on losing Uncle Darrell. A lot of the songs are influenced by him in different ways, just from things I've learned from him over the years. That's who he was, he was a great man.

I'm gonna try to squeeze two questions in here and these last couple minutes, but people think you're this mellow guy, which you are, and I feel like you're going to strike this folklore down, but you're also known as a taskmaster—like anything can be done and accomplished, just like your dad who you were talking about—I know your older brothers were more like father figures to you. But when did you notice that quality in your dad? That he would just get stuff done? Obviously you got two boys I think, and a little girl you wrote "Your Mama" for. And I was wondering, who they know you to be? My romantic version of you is as a musician who travels around, runs the farm, goes to school and teaches kids—brainwashes them to recycle—is that the image that you'd like your kids to have of you? Is that true? Is that a good assessment? Or is there more to like, who you are as a dad? Do you feel comfortable talking about that?

Sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, I always try to find this balance of like keeping my family somewhat private, but I'm very proud to be a dad and I think we have we have a great relationship, me and my kids. They just know me to be dad most time. We talk about all this stuff all the time, and how weird it is the dead because to do this for a living. And that it's just a byproduct of loving something so much and then having a bunch of luck, you know?

And it's when I say "luck" sometimes people think I'm being overly modest, but I realize you have to have confidence in what you do, and be confident in your trade and all that—you know, you deserve to be in there because you work hard at it—but all that being said, it takes an awful amount of luck. I can tell you firsthand from seeing it. I can look back and see moments. That time that me and Ben Harper were hanging out, and just because of the friendship, and I loved his music, and he loved my surf movies. And we were talking one day, and he he just was like, "Hey, you should come on tour with me." And I look at that moment—I would not have had a music career if I didn't do that first tour with Ben Harper. And he just decided one day to slide into the studio and play on my record—both those things were like the jumping off point. Garrett from G. Love & Special Sauce—the time that we just by chance got the hang out, we played some music, and he's like, "Come to the studio tomorrow."

Again, I mean, and there's like just so many people, I will look down the line and be like, "Whoa, he's one of those things didn't happen, it wouldn't have happened at all." Anyways, I try to explain to my kids how much of it is luck, and it's just really like "love what you do and and don't do it for these reasons." Like this isn't why dad plays music and this is why dad write songs. And all the other things, it's like playing and coaching soccer and going into schools. That's all the fun dad stuff that I love doing. It's just normal, normal stuff, you know? Sometimes it's weird because there's parents all around the world doing that stuff. It's normal stuff people are doing and sometimes it gets  exaggerated because I'm doing it, but it's no different than all the other parents that are doing that normal stuff. It's the fun stuff. That's the stuff you love the most.

And don't tell your kids to have the hard eye contact like your dad told you. Tampa is gonna kill me if I don't ask you about Cafe con Leche. This card game that you and Blake played.

Well, it takes me a while to describe it. We learned it in Spain, and we forgot the name, so my wife and I started calling it Cafe con Leche. We were on this van road trip. We were living in a van for four months. And it was probably the one of the best four months of our lives, just really fun. Never got a hotel room. Lived off of like 25 bucks a day, including gas everything. We would have to budget, and so we would buy a cheap botel of wine here and there and play Cafe con Leche. We renamed it—it's funny because now that's what I guess a lot of people know it as—but it's a game that we'll have to sit together for me to explain the rules to you. You start with one card every round you get another card, and it's more or less you're trying to have the highest card of the suit that's led, but spades always trump, and you're betting on how many you're going to get right in each round, and so you want to bet correctly, even if that means you're going to win zero rounds. If my wife could hear me explain right now she would butt in and be like, "no, no, no." Every time we try to clean up we get an argument.

Yeah, yeah we don't have time for that in the interview. Hey, I really appreciate you making the time. It's really cool to talk

Likewise. Thanks for doing all the research. I could tell you it dug in, and I really appreciate that, it's cool.

Of course. It's my pleasure. Thanks for all your music and everything. It's really cool to talk to you.

Yeah, likewise, good. I hope we can hang out sometime in the future, hopefully even in Tampa, we'll see.

Yeah, for sure. If you want me to run some cafe con leche, drinks, tea, whatever I can run stuff over or suggest stuff for you guys. I gotta send some clips to Brittany anyway, so I'll let her know.

Yeah, keep keep in touch with her, and maybe we can cross paths. That'd be fun.

Sick, man. Thanks so much. 

Right on.Take care. Bye.

[rayroa]

Q&A with Paul Tash

Paul Tash liked to tell some employees that newspapers are a seasonal business, and last week he told what's left of the Tampa Bay Times that his season as CEO has come to an end. He will also step down as chairman of Times Publishing Co.'s board of directors on July 1.—Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

Read a full, minimally-edited, Q&A with Tash below. I really appreciate you giving me some insight into some of the criticisms that I've heard and I have observed and whatnot, but I kind of like being late to stories like this sometimes, because you've had some time to talk to all the people who probably would have had been ringing you all week, and all the emotions, so a few days after making it public, how are you feeling this morning? This is the right decision at the right time. And I know that in my head, and so despite my long and loving relationship with this news organization, that knowledge helps it feel right in my heart. As far as the emotions of it, now that it's final and it's out what have you felt? Is it like this mix of joy and sadness or relief? You were the longest serving chairman and CEO of the Times So far. Correct about that. Nobody can argue that it has been the most difficult time, probably in the history of newspapers. You've made a lot of tough decisions and had to see a lot of people out the door. Is there any sense of relief for you? Obviously, you know it's the right time, but what is it like? Is it relieving? Is it sad? Nerve racking? I mean, there's a rich mix of emotions. I'm glad to have the news shared with my colleagues and the world. I've been tremendously gratified by the kinds of responses that I'm getting. I'm extraordinarily pleased for Conan and for the Times that Conan is in position to take up the work and the responsibilities that I've been doing. I feel good about the contributions that the Times has made to the community while I've been associated with it—not just over the last 18 years, but over the last 44 years. Since I came here as a reporter. It's been a wonderful ride for me, and I know it's been difficult. There have been some hard things, some very hard things, over the last 15 years, but if it were easy, there wouldn't be as much satisfaction in having done the work well. Nelson Poynter put in the system of the outgoing chairman selecting the next one, and I know that you've been pondering who your successor would be since the day you took the job. When did you know for certain that it was Conan? Over the last few months. Did you know that you're going to retire in July before you made the selection and knew it was Conan, or did you want to make sure you knew who would succeed you before you decided to retire? I thought succession had to be in place before I would decide to retire. I talked a little bit to Conan yesterday and we talked about the things that the Times has to do going forward. Probably a weird time for him because a lot of people probably ask him about you and why should he have to speak for another person, but for you, as far as selecting him, is tapping somebody from the business side right now at this critical time the only way for the times to survive? Was there an option for somebody more on the journalism side—and I know his background in newspapers and his belief in high-quality journalism—but this is a break. Was it essential for the Times to see its way through whatever's about to happen next? I think people from any variety of backgrounds could have come to the job and done it well. As it has happened, in the last three times since Mr. Poynter's death, it has been someone who started in journalism taking the job, and in fact Conan started his career as a journalist. So I don't think that that is the most significant difference between this succession and selection and the ones that have come before. Conan like the other three people has a deep appreciation and puts a very high value on journalism as the core mission of the Times. I think what's different is you do see in Conan a recognition that the the opportunities going forward are going to be much more digital and the success and growth that we've had in those digital dimensions, since Conan's arrival and since Mark's arrival—and a greater emphasis by the company in general on the digital opportunities—is a recognition that we need people who will be very keenly focused and also quite talented in those regards. I kind of asked Conan a little bit about this because he'll obviously be the person to make the decision. The gist I got is that it really is a economic situation and those types of factors will have to be considered and those types of factors are very uncertain right now, but Conan could be the person who brings the Times back to seven-day printing—and obviously with printing and delivery comes delivery and those hiccups and things like that—is there any desire from you to try to find a way to increase printing frequency before you leave in July? Or are we going to be kind of looking at you know, two days of a physical paper and the weekly TBT for a while—I know there's an E edition every day... Again, as Conan said, that's a question that will depend very much on the customer demand both the customer demand among advertisers—what they need—and also the customer demand among readers. I find that our audience has come to understand how robust the journalism of the Times is, whether it's delivered in print or whether it's delivered electronically. I mean, the news of this transition, of my decision to retire, and Conan's appointment as my successor was in "the paper" on a day that the Times was not on paper. And it seems to have gotten very wide attention, so I think our audience and our readers are coming to understand how robust the Times journalism is in all the forms that we publish, whether that's the E-edition, whether that's on tampabay.com or whether that's in print. Now, we did just bring back—as you would recognize—the TBT Weekend edition in the Times itself. That is a reflection that the world is starting to come back—even despite this latest surge of the virus—as some of the events and aspects of life that will make that return a good time for us. As an aside to that and talking about the world returning to normal, do you think one of your last acts or decisions that you have to make will be bringing folks back to the office, whether it's St. Pete or the Tampa office and things like that or do you foresee a more true hybrid situation? We've made the decision to bring people back to the office a number of times, we just haven't been able to act on it because the damn virus keeps firing up, but I think we'll be back—I think we'll be having more people back in the office well before I retire. That's still my hope. I'm a Midwestern optimist at heart. Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. Nobody could predict the virus and the way it would affect the way we interact with each other, but how much do you miss seeing everybody frequently in the office, and how bittersweet is it that you will be retiring after two years of not seeing everybody on a more frequent basis? Well, I miss them a lot. We've done a tremendous job of staying vibrant and creative throughout but I do very much miss those sort of happenstance encounters with my colleagues and the everyday give and take that you can have in the office when you're together that you don't have when everyone's working remotely. I would have liked to have brought everybody back to the office a month after we scattered on March the 13th of 2020, but it's gone a little longer than that. I want to kind of get into some of the things that weren't in that digital piece that you mentioned, about your tenure and I want to ask you about the arena and obviously, one of the first big developments was that 12 Year $30 million deal at Amalie which was extended obviously with three years left, at the time, establishing regionality for the paper, and that kind of recognition was important to you, especially since you were still a few years away from buying the Trib. When you look back on those decisions to spend that kind of money—and I haven't talked to you a lot so I have no inside angle to even try to guess how you would feel or whether you're a person who regrets doing things—but is that a decision as far as that amount of money that you might have done differently? As far as the naming rights goes? I think the decision to put our name on what was the Ice Palace and became the St. Pete Times forum was a very important step in that process of becoming the regional news organization for all of Tampa Bay. I think it helped us, I think our logic at the time holds up. One, it helped us establish ourselves as local in a place where our name could signal that we were from somewhere else. It helped establish ourselves with younger people, particularly, and to be associated with fun. And I think it helped establish ourselves, deepen our connections with national advertisers who would see the Tampa Bay market as a single market and who would recognize that the St. Pete Times, though it didn't have "Tampa" in its name, was very much a part of the Tampa market. So I think all those things held up. It was a unanimous vote of the Times board of directors to do that at the time, and I had decided we wouldn't move forward unless it was unanimous; and after a very full consideration, people did that. I think it was an important move for us to really get serious about being a news organization that would represent all of Tampa Bay. And we're not gonna blame you for people calling Tampa "Tampa Bay," either as "Tampa Bay, Florida" as if Tampa and St. Pete were all weren't separate places. I told Joe Lopano we ought to change the name of the airport to Tampa Bay International Airport, but he's disinclined to do that. That's funny. Oh, that'd be a fun interview, even on the airport's anniversary, that'd be great. You mentioned putting yourselves in front of younger people. As a somewhat younger person, I'm 36, I will say that when you did launch TBT*two, with some of your high school and teenage reporters, it definitely drew me to the paper a young person, and I think it made me, without me realizing it, realize that I could one day work at a newspaper. So I do appreciate the decision making behind that. And I'm grateful that you did that as well. Paul Tash I'm glad it worked out for you. Yeah, so far. You never know, right? I'm always just like, "Well, I just get fired any day. Who knows?" But that's just a personal thing. When the plant was sold, some of the money went to return the investment on FBN loans including your own, and I mean, me personally, I can totally see how you'd want to make sure that the FBN loans were handled before you left. But folks have also criticized you for not retiring until you got the money back. What do you say to people who will grumble about that? First I haven't heard that criticism. You may be correct, but you're saying something that's not known to me. I might well have retired had the pandemic not hit and the plant was still in use seven days a week, and we hadn't sold it. I might well have retired without having that loan fully repaid but having an extended and having things on a stable footing going forward. So we didn't sell the plant to repay the loan. We sold the plant because the pandemic cratered the advertising market and we therefore shifted to two days a week of publication. And there was a relentless logic that ended ultimately with the sale of the plant. One of the saddest days in my career was the last press run at that plant. Yeah. I felt keenly the passing of a great era of newspaper printing and production when those wonderful machines would rumble every day. But the world is going digital, and the pandemic accelerated those trends very, very much. And so, there was a relentless logic that the world has stopped, advertising has cratered, we need to adjust our business plans accordingly, we'll go to two days a week. That plant was built for seven days a week, not two, the tremendous capacity there was being hugely underused. That means that we either need to get bigger and do printing for others, or we need to place our own printing somewhere else in that consolidation. Gannett was disinclined and other publishers were disinclined to come to us. That meant that we needed to place our printing somewhere else. And once that printing is placed somewhere else, then that means that the plant should be sold rather than sit empty as an unproductive asset. So I want to be clear: what drove the sale of the plan was the economic realities and the public health realities of the pandemic, not the need to repay that loan before I retired. I would have been thrilled to see those presses humming every night of the week long past my own retirement. Yeah, most certainly. I mean, I don't know if emotions are scalable, but thinking of just the little amount of responsibility that I've felt for other people in my particular role, I can't imagine what it's like to have to shut down that plant with all those, you know, 150 some odd jobs in there. And then all the history of the plant itself and what the paper coming off the line there means and you can't even measure what that means. I can't imagine what that emotion was for you. And thank you for clearing up the motivation behind tha. I understand that you're definitely in a tricky situation that you are one of the FBN partners—back to my assumption that wanting to pay off that loan before retiring was something you'd want to do before retiring—let's just say you weren't even one of the partners, how wrong was I in that assumption? I do feel a great obligation to the other partners who stepped forward at a very important time and who gave the Times room there to really follow through and position itself for the longer term. I remain deeply grateful to those other people. That said, I was keen to make sure that Times would be able to meet its obligations there, but that's not why we sold the plant. There are a lot of ways; I would have been happy for the Times to repay that loan through the continued operations of the presses and the way the business would run if that had happened. So yes, did I feel a personal obligation as someone who persuaded others that this was a good thing to do—not just as a financial transaction, but as something that would make a real difference in our community—yes, I do feel an obligation to them and to our other stakeholders. And to stay kind of on these lines here, my other question that was in the email, your pay over the years has been criticized, whether it was the sheer figure of the salary—especially as some reporters who spoke to me on background, not in the very recent past but not too far off—some were making under 40K on entry. Your pay was criticized, the pay cut you took was criticized, although yours was percentage wise, larger than the others. In hindsight, do you think that you could have taken a deeper pay cut to either get some use that money to retain or hire staff or or even taken a deeper pay cut as a symbolic measure for the newsroom? Is that something that you think about? So that's why I did take a deeper pay cut; and it's not just for the newsroom, but for the rest of the company. Sometimes in coverage of newspapers, there's a focus only on the newsrooms, but there's a lot of employees in the company and I wanted people to know that I felt, as well, the sacrifice we were asking others to make and I would, I would do that and then some. OK, and forgive me if I'm sorry if you feel like I'm poking you or pestering you—I truly am not—but do you feel like you if you knew it would change attitudes across the entire company, would you have taken an even deeper one? Or am I just treading on kind of something that's kind of... I'm gonna make two or three quick statements, Ray. One is, I have never had any complaints about my own compensation; whatever it is, whether it was as a reporter making $13,000 a year or in my current job making whatever it is—that's a matter of public record—I have no complaints about my pay, because it's been an honor to do the work. There were days I couldn't believe they were paying me to do this job. As a young reporter, I would marvel, "I can't believe they're paying us to do this." Second, my pay over the years is a matter of public record, so you could go back and look at the Poynter Institute 990s from 2004, and even previous to that, and you would have a record of my pay you can judge for yourself. I asked you about a salary as Chairman of the Board of Trustees, but obviously you make $0 doing that, and it's my assumption that you continue to make $0 after your retirement in that role, so apologies for sending that undercooked question along in the email. To continue on some of the more tumultuous difficult parts of the history, and thinking of the Trib. I somewhat feel comfortable asking you this because you've also been comfortable with making hard decisions and having to do those kinds of things. But I was thinking about this column that Joe Henderson wrote a while back. He was commemorating the five year anniversary of the sale of the Tribune and he had an anecdote about when you spoke to them. Henderson wrote that you didn't want any video record of your words. And Henderson said he thought it was strange because newspaper's are about transparency—especially the Times. Henderson also criticized not being able to put out a farewell edition. He said that you said that you didn't believe in long goodbyes. Looking back on that day, is there anything you would do differently about handling the acquisition in those last moments for those particular Tribune employees? So at the outset of that meeting with the Tribune employees in their big meeting room, recognizing what was about to happen and recognizing the gravity and the grief of that moment, I did suggest as one newspaper man to other newspaper people, "Let's give this moment some real dignity. And let's not have our cameras and our phones and our other devices on." I did say that, and I'm glad I did. That was out of respect and regard for the very sad moment in the life of the Tribune that was about to happen. Second, we did publish, the following Sunday, a retrospective section honoring the Tampa Tribune and its life and the role it had played in the community. I don't know if you remember that or not. I do, and I also remember it because CL also dedicated its paper that week to the Trib, we made it look like the Trib—I wasn't here at the time, so speaking as a reader at the time. I know that the Times did put out that retrospective, and I know that printing a newspaper is expensive. But to Henderson's critique that that staff would have liked to put out its own final paper. Do you think, this many years later, you would have done that differently and allowed them to do that? I would not have done that differently. And I've heard that criticism, but I've never heard the criticism from anybody in the community. I've never heard that criticism from a reader. I've only heard it from former Tribune staffers. I've never heard that from a reader. And I've never heard that we treated the Tribune or its people badly through that difficult transition. In fact, we treated the Tribune employees—not just in news but in a lot of places—with dignity and compassion. To kind of stay on the Trib because that was a huge deal, obviously, for this community—and obviously nobody could have predicted what happened after that—but many have speculated that the Tribune was on its way out anyway. I've heard that there were other entities looking at buying that paper that land, maybe the Church of Scientology—which as an aside, you know, I will always credit the Times for its coverage of Scientology and its ability to even publish those stories, and the legal backend for those stories—but when you finally got to open the Tribune's books after the sale, what were your immediate thoughts on how buying the paper was going to affect the Time's strategy going forward? We had a pretty thorough look at the Tribune finances before we bought it, that's one. And two, I'm not aware of any other buyers in competition with us at the end. In the beginning of this conversation, or in the middle of it, we kind of talked about how you miss these happenstance run-ins with your colleagues on both sides of the newspaper, but also that you've been able to adapt and continue to have this kind of communication. I think you're pretty famous for having all staff meetings and all forum meetings. I talked to a lot of people over the years of reporting or trying to report on the Times. I haven't really ever been able to get on the record comments, but one particular person spoke to me on the record yesterday, and we're just kind of talking about some of those meetings and they expressed that there were times when your message was overwhelming. What I'm getting at is that you're pretty famous for saying the hard truth, and then I don't know if you even remember this, Paul, but this person mentioned a story you told in the auditorium—maybe was the Holocaust Museum, I don't remember—but the story was about two sled racers trying to get to the South Pole and one trying to keep all of his dogs fed; he never made it the other barely made it but only after having to lighten the load as far as dogs and things like that. I understand the power of storytelling and framing things a certain way, but this person I spoke to kind of felt like, "Man, I was grim. I don't know if I can handle this." Do you feel like sometimes it was too dark of a message for the newsroom although you were right there in it and you saw how dark it was going to get and how bad it was going to get? Got a couple observations there, Ray. First, that's actually a chapter of history. I think it was on the 100th anniversary, there was some attention to the expedition—there was a race between a Norwegian team and an English team to get to the South Pole, to be the first in the age of the great explorers. This isn't just some Tash story... Yeah, yeah, I'm not suggesting that you made this up. There was a Norwegian team and an English team. The English team had a very complicated plan. They were going to use horses and dogs, and they had a lot of different equipment, they had more people and more resources, but it was a very complicated plan and it ran into some problems. The Norwegian team had a very simple and much smaller scale of their expedition. They were fast and simple, and the English were complicated and slow. The Norwegians got to the South Pole first and made it out successfully. It's one thing to get there, and then the other thing is to get back to safety. The English team not only ended in failure, but ended in disaster. And so the point of that story was "simple and fast beats complicated and slow." So that was the point of that. Now, in terms of my approach. I am an optimist. I'm from the Midwest. And I am a genuine and natural optimist, but I also recognize that the optimism has to be authentic about what the challenges are going to be. And you have to be able to recognize what those challenges are so that you can surmount them because if you try to avoid the hard decisions, some very hard results will be forced on you. And I've tried to be clear with our colleagues at the Times whenever I thought things were going to get a little rough. I tried to tell him that so that it wouldn't be a surprise, but I've also told him that so that we can, together, be confident we're going to find our way through tough times. And we have. And I know we're at 30 minutes here. I don't want to keep you much longer, and I will say I don't have very many more of these super pressing or probing questions for you. I appreciate your candidness with me. I never got to ask you a lot of questions, just how it is, but this one just popped into my head. You're obviously outgoing and you've been here for a long time. We're two different entities, doing different things in a lot of ways, but how do you see the relationship between Creative Loafing Tampa Bay and the Times in our coexistence together in this market? I don't really have an answer on that, Ray. I don't know that there's much of a connection. I mean, there's plenty of room for everybody here in the market, and I wish Creative Loafing all the success in the world as they figure out their own way forward. Throughout this conversation, you mentioned that, you know, a lot of people haven't brought these criticisms directly to you, and I think you know better than anybody that as time goes on, people move on and they start to focus on other ideas and, and we'll move further and further away from Paul Tash as the chairman of the Times—is there anything that you feel like people don't know about you that you'd like them to understand and your time here that you haven't said elsewhere, or perhaps hasn't been said more explicitly or through a loud enough megaphone? You know, when I got here in 1978, as a reporter, I thought I would be here three or four years. I could not have imagined how important the Times would become in my life. It has held me in its embrace longer than my mother, my wife or my daughters. And so it's a little jarring to think about my life beyond the Tampa Bay Times, but I'm sure it will be a wonderful and rich chapter to come, though it will be different from the last four-plus decades. Yeah, gosh, I wish I could talk to you one more time in, like, September or something because you mentioned how jarring and difficult it is to imagine your life after the Times, and that was gonna be my question for you: "What the heck are you going to do now?" Obviously, you'll stay on at Poynter, and you'll obviously still be a part of a lot of your colleagues' lives, but what do you want to do? You want to go on vacation? Are there some books you've been meaning to read or write? The first thing I'm going to do in retirement is to help decide how I want to spend my retirement. So that's the great thing about it, the chance to figure out what I want to do. Alright. Cool. Well, you have my phone number if you think of anything else that you want to say. I appreciate you having this entire conversation on the record and being very clear about what you wanted to say and I really appreciate you making time to answer these questions this morning. Congratulations on a very long career, and congratulations on your retirement, and congratulations on all your successes at the Tampa Bay Times. I can't imagine the highs that you felt, the difficult decisions you've had to make, and also the lows of everything that you've been through as well. I can't imagine what your dreams are like and how you sleep, having to have these things on your shoulder. So I really appreciate you making the time to talk to me today. Thanks, Ray. To just sum up by saying while I was chairman, the Times made good on a generational ambition to become the news organization representing all of Tampa Bay. It did that while doing some journalism of great impact at a very high standard. And it achieved both those things in the midst of the worst economic challenges for publishers in at least 100 years. So I get to leave the Times now with a wonderful set of memories and turnover the responsibilities for a place I love to a guy who is terrifically capable and will carry this forward in outstanding fashion. I have no complaints. I will not disagree with you about the kind of work carried out in the time you've been there. So congratulations on that, and I hope you enjoy your retirement and these final few months—I know that they won't be easy. I hope that you get to say goodbye to a lot of your friends in person and shake some hands and hug some people, but I'm sure you'll do a lot of that in your retirement. Hope you have a good weekend. I hope you do, too, and enjoy that two-year-old; time goes too fast.

[rayroa]

One of these guys does a great impression of the other, not saying who though. New issue of @cltampabay it's on stands now, and here's to @rickkriseman who had his last day as mayor of @stpetefl. (at Creative Loafing Tampa) https://www.instagram.com/rayroa/p/CYZiBP6pWqe/?utm_medium=tumblr

[rayroa]

When I got to CL full-time, I had to catch up with my co-workers' enthusiasm for the whole Kriseman-Baker Rick-off. In the years since, mayor (L) has always been accessible for any question. May not have always liked the answer, but Kirby (R) made sure we were heard and acknowledged. That means a lot in this day and age of politicians dodging the media or only talking to friendly outlets. Here to see mayor's farewell ahead of Thursday's inauguration for Mayor Elect Welch. (at St. Petersburg Pier) https://www.instagram.com/p/CYSBcVwJrYu/?utm_medium=tumblr

[rayroa]

Grateful to have linked up with the @alllove_bikeride (felt, looked like a couple hundred??) as it made its way back west on Lake from Myrtle Hill Memorial Park in east Tampa, south on Tampa street back to @joehaskinsbikeshop whose namesake passed last Sunday. The contingent continued on Tampa Street, to the Riverwalk, on to Main Street, through West Tampa and up Armenia, winding left on Swann and back up Howard, through downtown to Water Street and back to Ybor City. @crab_devil said it best when it comes to the sheer volume of people whose lives were improved because Haskins cared about them. You could definitely feel that today. @kombatrocker's story about Joe is in my bio, and @fotosetbyjames photos will be online and in print Thursday. Rest in peace, Joe Haskins, and peace to his family, which will work to make sure the shop keeps serving the Tampa. (at Joe Haskins' Bicycle Shop) https://www.instagram.com/p/CM-5vmHsU27/?igshid=1ilwxzdo51y7m

[rayroa]

New issue of @cltampabay hit stands on Thursday with Justin's story about Tampa activists who're trying to make city council meeting must-see TV (cover 🖌️ by @jujmo!). Inside, McKenna breaks down a disturbing new report about disciplinary discrepancies for local school-aged Black girls and updates the St. Pete D8 city council race, Colin and I add a vaccine update, Deb Kent previews today's Art In the Yard sale in Gulfport, JPC gets Q takeout, Stephanie and Alexandria break down restaurant openings, Allman has streaming movie reviews all while Powers, Cory and others give you historic real estate, live music previews, politics, cartoons, puzzles and more. Thanks for making it all happen by picking up the paper and visiting us online! (at Creative Loafing Tampa) https://www.instagram.com/p/CM67YW0Mfa4/?igshid=pxhsu1qq3xkw

[rayroa]

Rolled up on @mergeculture block party on an evening ride. @siennaqueenmusic is doing a jangly tune about a dog that frequents Julian B. Lane dog park. These get togethers, outside, seem like a good way to ease back into life this summer as vaccination numbers rise. (at Oceanic Supermarket) https://www.instagram.com/p/CM5zdiXsSIr/?igshid=1mqlggaffbyvo

[rayroa]

Got lucky this week and landed a Moderna vaccine after getting on a waste protocol list at my local Winn-Dixie. That store has since closed its waste protocol list, and Florida is expanding vaccine eligibility to anyone 50 years old and up starting Monday. Fucking hope service workers are next, but in the meantime everyone eligible now and wanting to get poked should do it ASAP to relieve the queue for whenever vaccines open up to more people. It's all pretty tough to keep up with, but there are a few stories about it on the @cltampabay homepage. (at Winn Dixie) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMnm0a4svjj/?igshid=9uol6ygd95tp

[rayroa]

Well this issue is only on stands for another few hours, but I hope you got to read about @tampatheatre reopening, food news + openings from Alexandria and Stephanie, Dave's photos of @painkillercamisyourdaddy's downtown rappel, Chelsea's butterfly conservatory story, live music and @zubrickmagic updates from Steph, Cory's cartoons and more. Thanks for reading @cltampabay everyday save meeting us on the newsstands week in and week out. Huge thanks as always to @aestheticized for making the website work on newsprint. (at Creative Loafing Tampa) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMhzYIAM1dW/?igshid=1uy57bsto9w13

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On stands until Thursday, the latest physical edition of Creative Loafing Tampa Bay where contributors like McKenna Schueler, Alexandria Jones, Stephanie Powers, Jon Palmer Claridge, Colin and myself get you a new round of news, theater reviews, restaurant openings, community projects, music. previews and more alongside a Cory Robinson PSA, politics, sex advice, puzzles and more. Thanks for picking it up and visiting @cltampabay online. (at Creative Loafing Tampa) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMI_Vu0sz8G/?igshid=11co103k8gi75

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When Colin's Kaepernick story triggers someone. #CLmailbag (at Creative Loafing Tampa) https://www.instagram.com/p/CL1ajZgM9Ty/?igshid=18i1dnmqcahgo

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On stands until Thursday is Jon Palmer Claridge's remembrance of @stageworkstampa's Anna Brennen. Her story will make you want to work harder to lift up everyone around you, and reading JPC's piece will also lead you to work by Chelsea Zukowski, Stephanie Powers, Alexandria Jones, Carter Brantley, Dave Decker, Cory Robinson and more. (at Creative Loafing Tampa) https://www.instagram.com/p/CL1cTJ2sG5L/?igshid=rides7625t7i

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In the new issue of @cltampabay on stands now: Jack's 👨‍🍳😚 cover x layout for a story about a new #BurgertBrothers book by Chip Weiner, #SBLV 📷s from Nicole and Dave, a nice dose of hypocrisy from the Hillsborough school superintendent, a poem about space from Yuki, Cory's PSA, 🦖🏴‍☠️ sports commentary from Carter, strip club art gallery update from Jen, Prof. Hallock's heartwarming Florida trail tale, food news from Alexandria, live music previews from Stephanie, streaming movie recs from Allman, plus all the politics, irreverent takes+news, puzzles, cartoons and buffoonery you've come to know and love. — Thanks for continuing to pick up, read and support your free local alt-weekly. Go find one at @k1ngst8 or anywhere else that'll let the paper fester. (at King State) https://www.instagram.com/p/CLgE6jJM0IO/?igshid=hy6gjjtkrrmr