Get Offset Episode 131: Let Me Thank The Ratboys For Their Music

Episode Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below. 

Emily: Yes. So, you know, whatever, maybe a little bit more editing posts, but Andrew through let them in very, come on.

[00:00:19] Julia: So are you in Seattle? Yeah, we’re both in Seattle. Nice. Yeah.

[00:00:24] Emily: How is it there? Sunny and 70 degrees today. Amazing.

[00:00:30] Andrew: We’re supposed to hit close to 80.

[00:00:35] Julia: That sounds nice.

[00:00:38] Emily: Nobody has AC here.

[00:00:41] Julia: Dang. Well, hopefully some nice breezes.

[00:00:48] Emily: It’s too hot, man. I wanted the box early in the day.

[00:00:52] Andrew: Yeah, I’m going to disco thing and then doing a backyard thing with the

[00:00:58] Emily: in-laws. Oh, turn yourself down. Turn it back down. And it was too loud. You don’t get to overpower this podcast.

[00:01:11] That’s fine. That your levels are fine. Whatever.

[00:01:19] Andrew: Yeah, so I guess, cool. All right,

[00:01:25] Emily: well, welcome to the, get off set podcast. My name is Emily and my name is Andrew and that’s Julia from the band rat boys.

[00:01:35] Julia: Hey, thanks for having me guys.

[00:01:37] Emily: Thanks for coming back. Um, if for those of you follow the podcast for at least a year, we had Julia on last year, right after kind of COVID hit, we did a bunch of episodes about, uh, where we talked to, you know, musicians and builders who were affected by COVID.

[00:01:52] Uh, and then we had Steve salvage from the hold steady back. Cause he was one of the first people we talked to. And we thought, why not try to bring back some other people that we’d had during that very short lived series, because we very quickly all got tired of saying, they’ll know what’s going to happen.

[00:02:08] Andrew: We’ll just do the series, you know, for a couple of weeks. Yeah. Maybe a month. We did just do it for a couple of weeks. It’ll be over Easter.

[00:02:16] Emily: Oh, Andrew

[00:02:23] Okay. Wow. Well, what’s new as you did

[00:02:29] Andrew: was different. I’m trying to, it’s different. In fact, everything, this room is different. Um, any froze. Fantastic.

[00:02:41] Emily: Truly amazing. This isn’t. This is going to be a fun one. It doesn’t matter. All right, well, what’s new with you, Julia.

[00:02:49] Julia: Oh, well not too much. I, uh, I just got my second shot on Thursday. Happy about that. And how you feel, you feel okay? Yeah, I feel great. Um, I was just a little bit tired and my arm is hurting, but other than that, my, uh, Dave and Sean both got their second shots recently and I think they had more side effects than I did.

[00:03:12] So I don’t know, but hopefully everything’s going okay. Inside my body.

[00:03:18] Emily: Yeah. I mean, You know, if I feel bad, that’s fine. I heard that like getting hydrated, uh, helps. Yeah. If you’re hydrated. Yeah. Lots of water. Uh, meanwhile, I’m drinking from a literal pint glass of coffee.

[00:03:35] Julia: Oh, nice. Very good. I mean, true Seattle.

[00:03:42] Emily: Yeah. That’s true. That’s true. I don’t know what happened to Andrew. This might be an Andrew list episode, but it’d be the first one, you know, he’s had a bit of a rough morning and then I,

[00:03:57] listen, you can’t just turn off your mic inputs, you know?

[00:04:01] Julia: Yeah. You gotta, you

[00:04:02] Emily: gotta dial it in for sure. When you can turn up your amp on the stage as much as you want, but.

[00:04:08] Julia: See, that’s what you would think. That’s true. But I got yelled at a few times for, for, uh, you know, overstepping our bounds with, with stage, but that’s okay.

[00:04:20] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. You play, um, you’ve played a fender amp, right?

[00:04:25] Julia: Yep. I do. I it’s a, I think it’s a fender blues to bill. Hmm. Um, much like the Dr. Guitar that I talked with you about for that reverb piece, uh, definitely bought that amp based on like, looks alone. I didn’t didn’t really know anything about it when I bought it.

[00:04:41] And actually the guitar store where I bought my first electric guitar, just kind of like, was like, Hey, we’ll sell you the amp, like with the guitar for like cheaper or whatever. So I was like, okay, but it’s broken when I bought it. So, uh, it was, oh, it was broken. Yeah. If I try to turn it up to a certain level, it started making crazy noises, but luckily, uh,

[00:05:07] Emily: nice. Well, um, that’s good. Andrew is interest back, but have before, yeah. Before we dig back into, uh, Here’s what’s new. Uh, you mentioned the review article for those who are listening and don’t know what Julia is talking about. I interviewed Julia for an article on reverb.com about Dan electro guitars.

[00:05:28] And thank you for thinking for talking with me about that. Um, you were one of the first people I reached out to, and you’re also one of the only people to respond.

[00:05:37] Julia: Hey, I was really stoked about that. Thank you for thinking of me. It was a, I don’t know I was guitars. I’m very loyal to. So those guitars and it was cool to have a chance to talk about them.

[00:05:47] Emily: So it was funny that the re uh, the, uh, Dan electro Raptors wouldn’t respond to my emails, like, well, okay. I feel like the fall people would want to be a part of this.

[00:05:56] Julia: No, I’m not surprised at all. I’ve actually reached out to Daniel extra in the past, um, because you know, those are the only three guitars I play and I thought.

[00:06:05] You know, fender is so artist friendly with giving away. Like they give artists guitars and basses and amps and shit, like out the wazoo. So I was like, maybe jam electric, do something else, like something similar. And yeah, they never responded to me. And I was like, well, whatever, it’s fine. But they did follow us on Instagram after that piece came up.

[00:06:24] Emily: Same actually. So maybe get a little closer. Maybe now you got an end. Cause obviously it’s not about the order

[00:06:31] Julia: indeed. Well, only time will tell.

[00:06:33] Emily: Yeah. So Andrew you’re back.

[00:06:38] Andrew: I don’t know what happened. My internet drops. For no reason for like a minute or two. Um, so, you know, that’s exciting. Um, yeah, so what’s new with me is I’m in a new space.

[00:06:52] Uh, and you could, if I do this and try not to break something, you can kind of see like all my crap and my windows and, you know yep.

[00:07:05] Green signature backdrop. Yep. Uh, yeah, so that’s one of the first things I moved in. Um, I don’t know why, but I think it was probably just because it was in the middle of my other room.

[00:07:18] Emily: Uh, are you even going to use that green screen now that you’re in this other room?

[00:07:22] Andrew: Uh, probably just, maybe not all of

[00:07:25] Emily: the time we’ll use the green screen.

[00:07:27] We’re going to need to start getting you to clap and because there’s quite a bit of latency. Oh, really the audio and I headed the videos.

[00:07:36] Andrew: Good to know. Good to know. Um,

[00:07:41] it’s probably just the GPU on my PC. That’s 10 years old and try and keep up with modern technology.

[00:07:47] Emily: Does this certainly letters? Did you just turn up your volume again?

[00:07:51] Andrew: I did not. I have not touched it.

[00:07:54] Emily: All right. Fine. It’s fine. I’m beginning

[00:07:57] Andrew: to wonder, is there something up with your interface because I don’t touch my settings.

[00:08:01] Emily: I don’t know,

[00:08:01] Andrew: probably I’m not your average guitarist is like cool soundcheck. And now I’m going to bump it up a little

[00:08:05] Emily: bit. We didn’t talk about that. Yeah.

[00:08:10] Andrew: But no, I, I, I was, uh, so well past midnight last night, kind of moving stuff into this room and trying to get a sense of settled and.

[00:08:21] Emily: I certainly feel so much older than you because I definitely went to bed at 10 o’clock last night

[00:08:28] catfished, and then we went to bed.

[00:08:31] Andrew: Oh yeah. I’ve been up till midnight, like every night for like a month now. Um, yeah, I’m trying to keep up with everything, but, um, yeah, so it’s been, uh, it’s been a long week, but finally starting to make some progress in every room in the house is moved. Um, so yeah, fantastic.

[00:08:54] Excited to have a new space and looking forward to being able to build out whatever this backdrop is going to look like. I’ve got ideas I’m not certain yet. Um, and also looking forward to, uh, dealing with the echo in here. Hmm. Yeah. Hopefully I hopefully like putting a carpet in here and maybe hanging some things on the walls.

[00:09:17] They’ll

[00:09:17] Emily: say it’s fake haters will say that room reverb is fake.

[00:09:22] Andrew: Um, that, that, that is a statement that could be made. Yes.

[00:09:29] Side note, Dan electros, I saw a hot take this week on the interwebs that said Rick and bonkers are just dental lecturers for rich people. And I thought that was interesting.

[00:09:39] Emily: That’s really funny. I don’t really want to disagree with that one as the thing.

[00:09:44] Andrew: I kind of agree as well. I’ve enjoyed more Dan lectures than I have Rick and blockers.

[00:09:52] And the thing is I want to like Rick and block her so much. It’s just something about them. Like, they look nice. I dig the aesthetic. As soon as I pick them up and start playing, like maybe this a 4,000 series base isn’t for me.

[00:10:08] Julia: Yeah. Those basics are really heavy. I talked about that in the piece, like. Not like heavy sounding, but like physically extremely heavy.

[00:10:17] And so like, Dave has a, what, what’s it called? Rickenbacker 4,000. Is that what it is? He’s ignoring me, but, um, yeah, it’s, it’s extreme. I can’t like play that for more than 10 minutes name. I’m just a baby when

[00:10:34] Emily: you’re a petite.

[00:10:36] Julia: Yeah, I just, uh, I just like, you know, if there are lightweight options out there, that sound great, then I’ll go for that.

[00:10:41] You know,

[00:10:43] Emily: even Annie Clark, when she was making the St Vincent model, she was like, it has to lightweight. Cause if I tour with Les, Paul, I need to tour with a chiropractor. Nobody wants that.

[00:10:52] Julia: Yeah. I respect that. I asked one thing. I’ve never played that guitar, but I was reading about like, when she put it out, uh, the shape of it and stuff was like designed for like a woman.

[00:11:02] And I think that’s really cool.

[00:11:04] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. So you don’t let wait guitars though. This, uh, my tuna tone over there probably comes in at like five pounds, maybe. Nice. Yeah. It’s very small. So it makes me look very big, but I love that guitar. That’s awesome. Um, yeah, so that then electric piece was a lot of fun.

[00:11:22] Got a lot, a lot of comments on the Facebook from people who didn’t read the article. It was pretty amazing. Oh really? I didn’t even look. Well, there were actually, I think people didn’t read like the history part, like dinner lectures never went away. I’m like, well, it didn’t make them from 1969 until like the nineties.

[00:11:38] And then they didn’t make up from 2001 to 2005. So yeah, they kind of went away

[00:11:46] twice. They went away, people are lazy. Yeah. For my first guitar pedals were electric, but other than the DS one and the crybaby wall, my first, uh, Pedals were all Dan electro from that little lunch box.

[00:11:59] Andrew: But depending on what drugs you were using at the time, those decades might not even exist in your memory.

[00:12:03] So really,

[00:12:05] Emily: I really tried to just push you past that, that joke. Lot of cocaine in the seventies, lots of Coke. Fleetwood Mac. Oh man. Yeah, that green is so green.

[00:12:24] Andrew: It is very green. That’s why it’s intentionally. So

[00:12:29] Emily: Julia is no stranger to green screens.

[00:12:31] Andrew: Is this poppy?

[00:12:36] Emily: Wait, is your cat in there?

[00:12:41] Andrew: What is he doing?

[00:12:48] What just happened?

[00:12:52] Emily: Oh, your coffee. I thought you said is that poppy and then went to the door. And then you were like, at this level, it looked like you were petting a cat still.

[00:13:03] Andrew: I was not hitting a cat. No, I was getting coffee,

[00:13:10] Emily: Tom, our Patrion, Tom, for sending you that much

[00:13:13] Andrew: is, uh, your spouse. The only one that’s allowed to bring you coffee on

[00:13:16] Emily: the podcast.

[00:13:17] Come on. I did not apply that.

[00:13:21] Andrew: I was waiting for you to imply it so I could feign being upset about it. And then you didn’t. So I decided to imply it anyways. Sometimes

[00:13:27] Emily: I don’t like to make the joke that I know that everybody wants me to make, but can I talk about what’s new with me really quick before we started talking about, I got babies first, lo sounds pedal.

[00:13:41] The FM thingy made from a real deal radio shack and our comp system. That looks so cool. It’s this much, it’s a modularly low-fi delay. And this led shows you the, the, the, the rate of the modulation and this, this lights up this talk icon lights up when it’s on. And it’s really cool and very happy. And then in the mornings on the back or in de Moines

[00:14:07] Andrew: opened

[00:14:10] Emily: Emily built by shallow.

[00:14:15] Yeah, it’s really cool. I like it. And I also got her a super fuzz that she makes. So, uh, check out. Iesha Lowe, friends, viewers, listeners. She’s based in Oakland, California as her and her partner, Fiona, doing everything. Um, if you funeral we’ll do hand painted enclosures that are really, really neat too. So, um, yeah, big, thanks to, I shot.

[00:14:38] I did by the FM thing you, but she sent me a two for one with the super fuzz, which I very much appreciate for disclosure. Cause people will say I am bought and I’m sold. And then I’m a corporate client, which is hilarious.

[00:14:54] Andrew: Cool.

[00:14:55] Emily: All right. Well, um, do we have any other sponsors? Anyone else you want to thank before you finished sending off that text?

[00:15:03] Andrew: Uh, no. Sorry. I’m just

[00:15:07] Emily: teasing you.

[00:15:08] Andrew: You don’t need this plan in the court and happening that might involve the police.

[00:15:14] Emily: Jesus. Oh. You know what, okay. So I gotta, I gotta talk about the one time. I like the last time I had to call the police. I’m just like what a cluster that was. I’d had someone bro, like actually just walked into our office when I worked downtown and I’d written my bike into work that day and it got wet.

[00:15:34] So I put the shoes I was wearing on the bike along with some gloves and uh, just so they would dry out and someone just waltz in. Stole them. So my little lady size six and a half boots. Thank God. I had extra shoes at the office that day. God, like I had like my workout shoes. Otherwise I would have not had shoes at the office that day.

[00:15:59] Um, but I had to call the police like a week later because the next day I was going on vacation. So I called the police. And I like my here’s a description of everything. Here’s the approximate cost, just because, you know, I want like statistics to be correct. And my boss told me he wanted me to call the police, I guess, to like have more, um, uh, like push or pull with the buildings, like maybe improve security measures or something.

[00:16:30] The cop was so mean. He was so rude and I was thinking. Why, why do they have to send a police officer to just do this thing? That’s essentially a 99% of the time for insurance purposes, police don’t solve crimes, like, like half of crime, half of major crimes, especially go unsolved by the police. So all you need is like an insurance form.

[00:16:51] Why do you need a police officer to do that? Because they don’t want to be,

[00:16:56] Andrew: and I’m rethinking my career in corporate, in the corporate world. Maybe it should just be, be a criminal.

[00:17:03] Emily: So you can stay a size six and a half

[00:17:07] Andrew: boots and catalytic converters. And Prius’s

[00:17:10] Emily: what made me mad was that the gloves were like a size women’s small.

[00:17:14] Cause I have, you know, smaller hands and the shoes were so small. All of those things ended up in a gutter. You can’t sell any of those things.

[00:17:25] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:17:27] Emily: Maybe his feet were smaller than they looked on the camera.

[00:17:33] Well, it really looks like that. Who’s that? Who’s that? Not Chris. D’Elia that other dirt bag from the TV show? Silicone valley, TJ Miller yet the guy, we actually didn’t have a camera cause like another reason we call the places it’s like, we know what the guy looks like because we got a really clear shot of his face.

[00:17:52] Looks so much like TJ Miller from silicone valley.

[00:17:57] Andrew: Yeah. Comments concerns.

[00:18:01] Emily: I w I would actually, how, how, how, how far he has fallen if you stealing my shoes? What a world. Yeah. So it was unpleasant and I don’t envy you for having to deal with that today.

[00:18:16] Andrew: Well, it is what it is. Uh, shall we happen to the

[00:18:19] Emily: episode?

[00:18:20] Yeah, let’s talk. I don’t know how much time we have left on, so we’re doing this via zoom because then Casta wasn’t working, which was really fun. Um, but last year we’d had Julia on, right? Haftar just some terrible things happen in the music industry and the world in general. Um, rat boys had just released a really great album.

[00:18:42] They were going to tour. And first headlining to her printed, the t-shirts and everything. I have one it’s a great shirt. Um, and then of course everything gets canceled. So last time we talked, it was, um, we talked a little bit about like how you were keeping momentum going via these live streams. And it’s about a year later, it looks like live music will possibly be back in the fall.

[00:19:07] Like really hopeful that September ish, um, Music will will happen again. So, uh, D I just kind of wanted to get a take on, like, what happened this year? Like, how was, how was the rest of your year? How has your past 12 months then?

[00:19:23] Julia: Yeah, it’s been a year for sure. I think everyone has kind of their own personal individual experiences, but we’ve all kind of.

[00:19:34] At the same time lived through this collective event. That’s something I was thinking a lot about last night. Like everything that we’re going through now, it just feels like, uh, I feel very like connected to people through social media, even though I haven’t like seen a lot of my friends in person in a long time.

[00:19:53] So it’s been tough. I mean, I’m an introvert. I feel kind of. Like sign being alone most of the time. Um, and I feel like he too, cause I live with two of my band mates and so we are kind of, we were kind of set up to be able to thrive as much as possible during this whole pandemic. Like we have our gear downstairs and we’re able to record, you know, at home and, uh, it could’ve been way worse, but yeah, it’s been really tough.

[00:20:23] Like we, uh, Try to stay positive. You’ve been trying to stay busy. And like you said, having the possibility of playing shows again, you know, on the horizon is extremely exciting. So yeah, we’re just doing our best to, uh, kind of work to that point and, and keep a little bit of momentum going because yeah, it was, it was tough.

[00:20:46] Like having everything, having the rug pulled out under our feet last spring, but yeah. It wasn’t just us like that happened to everyone. So that was not burdened by the like shared misery of all my peers. But I was, it, it is a little bit comforting that it’s not something it’s not like a mistake we made or it wasn’t, you know, our fault.

[00:21:09] It was just circumstances and you gotta figure out how to react. So that

[00:21:15] Emily: feels a little bit like one of those, um, Group therapy sessions. One can like share their own experience. It is, and it is comforting to know that you’re, you’re not alone when all of this terribleness, like nobody is nobody remembers how to play guitar.

[00:21:34] Julia: No, absolutely. It’s it is extremely comforting and it’s nice to like, just, uh, I don’t know, be able to reach out and like, Lean on your friends, even if it does feel like you’re kind of having the same conversations about nothing. Cause there’s not that much to talk about, but I don’t know. I’ve, I’ve kind of gone back and forth.

[00:21:56] Never felt kind of more isolated, but also more connected to people. In a weird way. So, um, yeah, but it’s going to be weird getting back out into the world again, like yeah, I’ll be totally, you know, immunized or whatever the word. So, um,

[00:22:15] Emily: so you’re fully inoculated and, and then you’ll be

[00:22:21] Andrew: in the,

[00:22:24] Julia: yeah,

[00:22:25] Emily: I don’t know. Did you do your research on the Porky pig? Stutter, Andrew?

[00:22:30] Andrew: No I’ve been spending my entire week. Moving

[00:22:35] Emily: immunized of a verbal way

[00:22:38] Julia: is, yeah, I’m really excited to go to a baseball game this summer. It’s going to be quick cheap

[00:22:44] Emily: rate,

[00:22:45] Julia: the guaranteed rate field.

[00:22:47] You know, it, that’s where I’ll be. Catch me in section five 55. Um, that’s my zone, but yeah, I like cannot wait. It’s going to be really weird though with shows, like I’ve seen a few tours be announced and uh, people in the comments you’re like, what are the like COVID protocols you’re taking? And like, no one has responded.

[00:23:05] And so I’m like, fuck, like, cause we’re going to announce some shows like a couple of weeks and I’m like, we need to figure that out before we announced these shows. Like, because every show is in a different. City like different municipality, like there’s rules that might be different everywhere. So like having that figured out by the time you announced the tour is kind of important, but at the same time they might change.

[00:23:27] So it’s like, is it even worse? Like. Announcing that when maybe, I don’t know.

[00:23:34] Emily: Cause like in Seattle it’s like 25% capacity has been the rule, but no venues are opening because you can’t make money at 25% capacity. Like imagine like, or you charge a hundred dollars for a ticket and then you charge.

[00:23:48] Andrew: I don’t know.

[00:23:49] I think if I had to pay a hundred dollars for a ticket to a show right now, I might, I might, I’m getting pretty desperate.

[00:23:56] Emily: There there’s some bands that would pay a hundred dollars to see like yesterday. Yes. Yeah. I basically have paid a hundred dollars to see, but

[00:24:03] Julia: it is just so interesting though. How it’s like different based on where you are.

[00:24:06] Cause like in Nashville they’re open. It’s like it’s a free for all. Yeah. It’s inside of a nightmare. Yeah, totally. So it’s kind of a clusterfuck as far as like, just figuring out like a safe and consistent stable way to tour, but yeah, we’ll get it. We’ll get

[00:24:27] Emily: it going. Yeah. And then you have, uh, some very exciting news coming up in 2022.

[00:24:33] It’s been announced. Yeah. I

[00:24:35] Julia: mean, we, Europe, Julian baker. Can’t wait for that. I am like, so stoked. That kind of like fell out of the sky. Yeah. We were just so, so excited. You were like, fuck. Yes. Yeah. Well, in a big fan of theirs for a long time and I don’t know, um, I. Like randomly, I don’t know, randomly met Julian baker on tour in 2016 and she, and she was touring in a Prius back then person.

[00:25:08] And she was

[00:25:09] Emily: just, it’s just her. It’s just her. Yeah.

[00:25:12] Julia: Back then it was just a band out. Um, eventually she started playing with like a string section and stuff, but yeah, back then it was just her and a TM merge person in a Prius. And she was like the most down to earth, like warm, nice person. And, uh, yeah, kind of just kept in touch a little bit over the years.

[00:25:33] Not really, but, um, the fact that, yeah, she invited us to do the store is like, So, so awesome. And we’ve been to Europe a couple of times, but never like on an actual official tour. So this’ll be, this’ll be something special for sure.

[00:25:50] Emily: I remember when I saw her, I drove up to Vancouver, BC to see her because I had a thing the night she was in Seattle and Rick and I were like, let’s just go, let’s go.

[00:25:58] It sounds like fun. That’d be fun. And it was, and every single person working on that tour with her was a woman. Nice sound person. Whoever was collecting the merchant money. I actually, it might’ve been a dude, but like, it’s like the, the, the roadies that people don’t under set up all women like oh yeah, yeah.

[00:26:18] That is very possible to do.

[00:26:21] Julia: That’s really, really cool. Yeah. The woman with her, uh, when they were in prison, what a woman it was. Yeah, it’s just, uh, I don’t know. It’s just cool to see how she’s grown over the years, but maintained like a very. I don’t know, she’s always just herself. And, uh, I really admire that, um, new records, so cool with, I was waiting for this to happen for there to be drums and a full band.

[00:26:47] And it sounds just as cool as I was hoping. So,

[00:26:53] Emily: yeah. Speaking of new records, do you have a new, old record?

[00:26:57] Julia: Indeed.

[00:26:59] Emily: So rapport is, but if I have this correct rerecorded, your first. Like record or NEP and it sounds great.

[00:27:09] Julia: Thank you. Yeah, we rerecorded 10, really, really old songs. The first half of that, the Brittany side is the first EAP that we ever put out.

[00:27:19] And then the B side R is a collection of other old songs from that same time period that we never really put out, um, like officially. So yeah, we went to the studio. We recorded them. We also recorded a lot at home. So that was kind of fun. Cause it was almost like calling back to the experience of recording the original 2011 songs in our bedrooms and stuff.

[00:27:44] So yeah, it was, uh, it was dope,

[00:27:48] Emily: like emotionally revisiting those old songs because I feel like it’s really easy to be hard on yourself or like, oh, I would’ve done that differently today. But also there’s like, when I revisit old stuff, I’m like, At the same time, like that was really good. Like I’m proud of what I, what I did.

[00:28:04] So like how did that kind of, and with you,

[00:28:07] Julia: yeah, I’m probably leaning toward the second thing you mentioned where I was honestly really kind of surprised with how much I still enjoyed the old songs and, uh, how much. Held up, uh, as far as like the meaning and like the, I still like was kind of impressed with some of the lyrics and stuff.

[00:28:27] Granted, I’m definitely able to look back on some of those old songs now and be like, oh, like, you know, like for instance, the song had a heart, which I like a lot. I’m like I wrote that song for a class and even collected. Yeah. Those two songs. Like I wrote, I could tell now that I like wrote them for school, because I definitely was like cramming in as much like specific information in the lyrics as I could, that was like relevant to what we were learning in class.

[00:28:55] And so, uh, I definitely, if I could do those ones over, I probably would have like repeated some lyrics in a chorus or something. Cause they’re so fun. Wordy, you know? I definitely like I’m able to critique them from a distance now, but at the same time, uh, I was kinda, yeah, like surprised with how much they held up for me.

[00:29:17] And, and yeah, it was definitely wasn’t like cringy or anything. Any goal can be wrong. There’s some songs from like our earliest years that, uh, definitely are cringey looking back and we did not choose to record those. So, um, you know, We were kind of, you know, yeah. We were happy with the ones that we chose though.

[00:29:40] Emily: Nice cream of the crop.

[00:29:42] Julia: I’d like to, I’d like to think so, but yeah, honestly like that first DP, um, like I still think it’s really good and it was kind of interesting rerecording it because like, um, I didn’t want to. Like I wanted it to be something new that it could exist beside it and not replacing those original recordings or anything.

[00:30:04] Cause I still think they have a lot of like heart and merit. So, um, yeah, it was, it was a joy to do this though. And honestly COVID gave us more time to do this than we would have had because for a long time, not a long time for like a few months before COVID I had been brainstorming about. How we could maybe bring these songs back to life or release them, uh, around the ten-year anniversary.

[00:30:30] But then when COVID happened, we, you suddenly had like a ton of time to actually see it.

[00:30:35] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:30:37] Emily: Yeah. I feel like one of the themes of some of these revisits is that. Good things came out of like a big pause. Like there were bad things, obviously lots and lots of really bad things and loneliness and you know, what you thought was going to happen didn’t happen.

[00:30:53] But there was a lot of time to work on things that maybe weren’t prioritizing, but kind of want to, to do

[00:31:00] Julia: hundred percent. Yeah. I feel like that’s true for everyone. Like we, um, yeah, we were just kind of given this gift of having. Like Supreme amounts of time on our hands. So we were able to learn a ton of new things and, yeah, I don’t know if this record would have happened the way it did if we didn’t have, uh, the time we had, because the original idea was to rerecord the EAP, put that on the side and then put the original recordings of the P on the B side and release that.

[00:31:31] Um, but suddenly we had more times, we were like, oh, we could just do like five. Other songs in addition, and have like a whole LP of new recordings to put out. So yeah, it worked out great. And like I said, we had a lot of fun just messing around at home. There wasn’t really a hard deadline. Like we, we gave ourselves one eventually to, because we knew that there were like final delays and stuff, which have become.

[00:31:56] Extreme, um, like in Luxor eight months. Yeah. Luckily we got it like right in time. I think we sent out the vinyl order in December or something, but, um, yeah, it was, it was really chill though. We had like a lot of time to just try stuff at home. And since we were recording at home, we weren’t on the clock for like a studio, you know, date rate or anything.

[00:32:17] So it was super

[00:32:18] Andrew: chill, frees you up to be a little bit more creative and figure out some how to play with it a bit. And yeah. Totally.

[00:32:27] Emily: Yeah, it was usually writing in the studio is very expensive.

[00:32:30] Andrew: Yeah,

[00:32:32] Julia: definitely. Don’t do that. We don’t go into the studio. We have a plan. So

[00:32:38] Emily: there was something that I was looking at on Twitter.

[00:32:40] Somebody had sent, um, this recording and this person who has a studio, a message that says, Hey, we have nine songs and authorship, we hope we can finish in the studio. We saw that your day rate is $400 and we want you to know that we take our music very seriously. And if you don’t, if we don’t have fully mixed and mastered nine songs in two days, we’re not paying.

[00:33:03] I’m like,

[00:33:04] Andrew: Ooh,

[00:33:05] Emily: sorry, what you guys are doing, finish the songs and you want to do nine songs like that might be possible to record if you’re really tight and know what you’re doing. It will not be possible to record. If you are still writing, the endings

[00:33:20] Andrew: will just fade out. It’s like the golden triangle of like, you can get it like one corner it’s cheap, one corner it’s quality in one quarter corner.

[00:33:30] It’s fast. Like you pick two.

[00:33:34] Emily: Yep. We’ll do back. Welcome back. We back. Yes. There’s going to be a very awkward transition right in the middle of that. But a long story short, Andrew had to drop off. So we’re going to talk for just a little bit longer because Julia’s got hot sauce plans.

[00:33:53] Julia: Yeah. I really, uh, really overbooked myself today, but it’s going to be great.

[00:33:58] And I’m happy that we get to keep chatting.

[00:34:01] Emily: Yeah, dude, that’s me. Everyday. I don’t know what I’m thinking when I’m like, I am just so atrocious at saying now.

[00:34:09] Julia: Yeah, me too. And it’s like, it’s fun to do stuff, so I just want to do it all, but we’ll

[00:34:15] Emily: make it work. We will. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Um, so we were talking a little bit about, um, the, the new, old DP and, uh, I think in, you know, we were talking about like, um, feeling proud about.

[00:34:29] Old older songs and like, oh man, it’s really cool that I could accomplish that when I was, you know, a little bit younger. Like I think that the key thing is just, um, and I try to practice this a lot as an adult. I think it’s so easy to look back on like anything you did when you were younger and not be kind to yourself.

[00:34:47] But like, then I think about like what little me would, would think. If she knew that adult me was being so hard on her and I think she’d be really sad. So I try not, I try not to do that. And it’s, it’s something you gotta practice. I think.

[00:35:05] Julia: Totally. I, and I mean like, something I think about too is, uh, when I look back at some of the, some of the music that we made 10 years ago and just, you know, Life decisions I made, I feel like my, my move back then was just to go through life, spend, like, not really think about it, or if anything, like, obviously you want to, you know, put a little bit of thought into your decisions, but at the same time, like just kind of trusting your instincts and, uh, being yourself was just such like a big part in my life back then.

[00:35:40] Uh, if anything, I feel like I’ve like lost that a little bit over the years and it’s kind of nice to look back and realize like, oh, that was, that was the way you lived back then. And like good things happen. So it’s good to kind of Alison and just, uh, you know, live every day. So it’s a good reminder of that for me.

[00:35:59] Yeah.

[00:35:59] Emily: And you know, I, I don’t know how you feel, but like, I feel personally like, I like where I am right now. I think I’m pretty happy with like the life I have. I’m, you know, happy that I’m living in Seattle, that I’m married to my husband, that I have like musical tools and have outlets and, and like my job.

[00:36:17] And I’m like, you know, every dumb ass decision I made when I was younger, still led to this like shitty boyfriends, the shitty decisions, like all of that, like broken friendships, like. It led to this thing that I’m pretty, pretty okay with like, it’s like not just okay with, but just really genuinely happy with.

[00:36:39] Yeah, I think

[00:36:40] Julia: that’s, uh, that’s the goal, you know, and I’m right there with you. I, I feel, uh, any regrets that I have about the past are vastly outweighed by just general, you know, contentment with the way things are now. So I feel lucky to be in that position for

[00:36:56] Emily: sure. Yeah, and the band’s doing really well.

[00:36:59] What else could you, what else could you ask for this? The thing you’ve been working on for 10 years, you’re going to be an overnight success. Oh my

[00:37:04] Julia: God. What even, right. Well, like, just to have, uh, people like by our side, who believe in what we’re doing, like it’s taken us years to kind of like meet people and gather them together.

[00:37:17] And, uh, that is the ultimate goal is to just kind of have, uh, you know, relationships that you can depend on and that, uh, You know, nourish you and that’s, that’s something that we still are working on and it’s, it’s kind of a lifelong goal for me.

[00:37:35] Emily: Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s, that’s really great. Um, let’s talk about skyline chili.

[00:37:41] Just, I really do want to talk about skyline. What’s your go-to skyline order.

[00:37:49] Julia: I usually just get. Uh, it depends. If I’m hungry, I will either get two or three cheese Coneys with mustard and onions and the biggest mountain Dew they sell. I love everything too, while I’m waiting. If I’m inside in the drive-through was different, but you know, get the oyster crackers, they got the blue hot sauce bottle.

[00:38:11] You can like dab a single dot of hot sauce on the oyster cracker in each one of Bob’s. Yes. So that’s my, uh,

[00:38:20] Emily: What about you? Mine is I do two cheese Coneys mustard and onions. And then I do this child size a three-way that’s just enough. It’s just enough.

[00:38:31] Julia: That’s such a good idea. I am a confession. He never had like the spaghetti, the three-way four-way whatever at scale.

[00:38:38] And I’ve only ever done the Coneys and I’m, so that’s just kinda how I am once I like find a thing. I like, I just kind of Porter that until I die. So, yeah.

[00:38:46] Emily: Yeah.

[00:38:49] Julia: That’s a really good idea though. Cause that’s like not too much of a commitment, like, cause I don’t want to waste food. Well, that’s a good idea.

[00:38:55] Emily: Three ways are fucking enormous.

[00:38:58] Julia: Yeah. I don’t need that much, but that would be that’s a real video.

[00:39:01] I’ll

[00:39:01] Emily: probably do that next time. I think another thing is that like you can buy, you can buy the Chile, you can buy regular noodles and you can buy like mild cheese and shred it finally yourself. But you literally can’t buy those little ass, hot dogs.

[00:39:15] No,

[00:39:16] Julia: you can’t. No. And I would honestly argue that the shredded cheese they use, I know it’s literally just like the shittiest, like shredded, you know, American cheese, whatever, but like the texture of it is so perfect. And in my opinion, like family difficult to replicate, but I tried making myself once. Did you buy it

[00:39:36] Emily: shredded cheese?

[00:39:37] Cause that has like that weird, like a powdery film that keeps me in that. That ain’t it it’s like, it has to be mild. Cheddar has to be finely shredded, and then they have somebody there who’s like puffs up laughing. Yeah. They have a cheese fluffer.

[00:39:54] Julia: Crucial. Yeah. That’s a professional right there. So that doesn’t do labor.

[00:40:00] Can’t do that myself

[00:40:02] Emily: skilled, skilled labor pay that person a month and Tacoma there used to be a chili parlor. It was called the chili parlor and it was a guy from Cincinnati and he, he did his best. He did his best, but the big thing, the big issue that we always had with him is he just bought the pre shredded cheese.

[00:40:21] It’s not melting in, right. Like I. Yeah, that was always like, that was the place that my brother and I dearly wanted to love. But, uh,

[00:40:30] Julia: yeah. What a shame.

[00:40:32] Emily: Yeah. Wow. What was the forest? But Hey, you know, I got some skyline in the freezer. Nice. Jealous. Yeah. Skylander the freezer, no graders in the freezer right now.

[00:40:45] Um, got scaling in the pantry. It’s a special occasion food, like. I’m not, I’m smell the smell to this lady. So like, if I, if I go box eight rounds right now, maybe I’ll feel like I can have some

[00:41:00] Julia: nice, a little treat for a physical

[00:41:03] Emily: exertion. Yes. I guess learn how to stop. Like, I don’t know how other people reward themselves, but I always reward myself with either food or guitar shit.

[00:41:12] Julia: Oh yeah. I’m the same way. I’m completely. Or TV. Sometimes I like will say like, oh, I can watch an episode of this once I’ve done this dumb task that I keep fascinating, but

[00:41:24] Emily: I did something good. I get to watch a Frazier now.

[00:41:27] Julia: Yeah,

[00:41:28] Emily: exactly. That actually sounds less damaging than eating and it sounds less expensive.

[00:41:34] You

[00:41:34] Julia: both, and that’s when it gets pretty wild.

[00:41:39] Emily: That is, that is the money stuff. That is the, as the good thing. And. Yeah. So, uh, you get any new guitar pedals lately, bring it back to

[00:41:46] Julia: gear. So I got one for Christmas and it’s actually the Julia pedal. Yeah, I, uh, my, uh, who plays in pest symmetry was telling me about that pedal and was kind of joking.

[00:42:01] And like, you should get this because of my name. And so then he was actually like, it’s my favorite chorus pedal I’ve ever played, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, I’ve never owned a chorus pedal. I really don’t have, it’s only my third guitar pedal, um, sooner. And so, um, I was like, yeah, fuck it. Like, I should probably expand my.

[00:42:21] My, uh, palette, my Sonic palette. So, uh, and also I had a kind of in a Tiffany recently where I was like, oh, I don’t necessarily need to bring this on the road. Like, just cause I don’t have any songs that would use this on tour. I can just use it at home to record and stuff. So yeah. Um, and I can write with it.

[00:42:43] So that was exciting. Honestly, I haven’t really used it much though. I’m kind of ashamed. I need to like, uh, I’ve been so focused on like rehearsing songs for shows and stuff. I haven’t really, and I usually write with an acoustic guitar and so I haven’t really used that, but hopefully this summer, we’re kind of going to switch gears this summer and earnestly, you know, keep working on new music.

[00:43:06] And so I’ll be able to break that

[00:43:07] Emily: out for sure. Nice. Yeah, the Julia, uh, it has a lot of fans, its voice, a little dark for my taste, but I’m like, that’s something that you can compensate pretty, pretty easily for sure. Playing like a very bright app. You, you, you would love something like that, but totally.

[00:43:26] Yeah. I don’t play bright amps. I play dark amps anyway. So it’s just dark on dark and

[00:43:30] Julia: dark respect. Yeah. My, I don’t even know my amp is just kinda like, uh, it sounds insane. So it’ll be interesting. Uh, what comes of it, but it’s so far when I’ve just like, kind of chilled on it. It’s been really nice. And I was like, we, we ran, uh, Dave’s lap steel through at once, and that sounded really cool.

[00:43:49] So, oh yeah. We’ll just have to give it a go and even like, it might be cool to like run vocals through it or something. I don’t know. I’m just going to

[00:43:58] Emily: see what happens. Yeah. I have this pedal from old blood noise endeavors. It’s called the, the mod. I don’t, I think there’s a. I don’t know if there’s a core setting on it, but it’s basically, um, an XLR and you can control it.

[00:44:09] You can add like saturation for a little bit more distorted tone, but then there’s like a ton of effects. And it’s really, really fun. There’s an octave up an octave down, which is really funny all the time and then reverbs and delays and, um, rotary kind of sound. So I liked that. I liked, I like playing acoustic instruments with that.

[00:44:28] Just like put an S and 57 up and, uh, just strung acoustic guitar, the Mondo. And so it’s weird where it affects yeah. Plugins. Yeah.

[00:44:39] Julia: Yeah, for sure. I, uh, that’s how I first started out, like experimenting with effects was I have this app it’s called a Roland micro cube. It’s like a tiny, tiny amp. It runs on batteries.

[00:44:52] Like you don’t even need to plug it in. Um, but it has some built-in presets, like a flanger and, uh, I don’t even know what else. Just some weird, like little they’re kind of like really cheesy, but I also love them. And so when I was first like, uh, writing songs in my bathroom in Kentucky, I would just like plug my acoustic guitar into that because it had my acoustic guitar.

[00:45:16] I had to pick up at the time. And that was my first, uh, it felt kind of like I had a pedal, I didn’t know what pedals were at the time. So that was just it for me, but it was awesome. I still have a soft spot for that stuff.

[00:45:31] Emily: Oh, those, those are like big busker ants because of the batteries. But, uh, yeah, my first foray was kind of, I had one of those lions sex amps, like a flex step too. Um, I never really got a ton of use out of the effects on it, to be honest, but, uh, I was like, I might be the only person ever bought that amp and then just use like the cleanest setting it had

[00:45:53] Julia: for sure.

[00:45:54] Yeah. Effects on the micro view were more for my benefit. I don’t know if I ever showed them to anyone, but that was mostly stripy by myself,

[00:46:03] Emily: you know? And my mom get up. My mom, just, my mom taught me my first guitar chords on a few stick and she’s been paying two electric over quarantine. And I, uh, had her get one of those.

[00:46:13] Um, it’s like a fender Mustang amp, and it has a bunch of built-in effects. And I only just really been playing with it very much, but I think she’s gotten, she’s had some fun. She was like, yo, I was doing one of those lessons for a David Bowie song. And it said, and it said that this is the preset. She wants to use it to sound like the album.

[00:46:31] And I’m just not quite sure how to like, make the sounds. I’m like, this is really.

[00:46:38] Julia: Like while it’s there for phase or it’s there for her whenever she’s ready.

[00:46:45] Emily: She and I have matching Jazzmasters. Now she bought the, um, American national two series. Yeah. I sent my fender guy a picture of me sitting on the sofa, playing mine, and then, cause my mom had sent me a picture of her sitting on the self applying hers and I sent them both to him.

[00:46:59] I think he thought it was pretty great. That rules. Yeah. Cool. Well, I know you got to get going cause you gotta, you know, have a hot sauce experience that hopefully will be better than my Haas experience. I will

[00:47:11] Julia: let you know how it goes for sure.

[00:47:13] Emily: Well, I hope it goes well. Um, so, uh, where can people check out rapid boys?

[00:47:18] Julia: Yeah, well, we are, uh, kind of all over the internet. We are unwrap wiz-bang dot bandcamp.com. Um, we got, I don’t know when this episode is going to air, but April 29th. You say, okay, great. Yeah. April 9th, which is on, on Thursday night, we’re going to do our big 10th anniversary show. We did kind of a cool thing with it.

[00:47:39] We like went to Schubas. Have you ever been to Schubas?

[00:47:41] Emily: I haven’t been to a few of us, but I’m familiar.

[00:47:44] Julia: It’s a really great venue. It’s one of the first venues that we played when we started playing shows in Chicago. But anyway, they let us bring in all this furniture into Schubas. Um, and we set it up on the floor and kind of tried to make it feel like a living room show, little

[00:48:00] Emily: vignettes, almost.

[00:48:02] Julia: Yeah, well, that was the first show we ever played was a living room show. And the idea was to try it, make it feel like that make it feel really cozy and intimate. And, uh, yeah, so that I’m so, so happy with how that works out. And, uh, yeah, we it’s super different from any of the live streams that we’ve done, uh, during the pandemic because, uh, we, you know, kind of.

[00:48:26] My friend who brought a bunch of nice microphones and some friends who brought some nice cameras. And so it like looks and sounds nicer than the other stuff we’ve been doing. But anyways, so it was April 29th and we’re really, really excited for that. Um, is it free

[00:48:40] Emily: or is it, um, people buy, like fans thought live or something?

[00:48:43] Julia: It’s ticketed it’s on rapids bank. It’s 10 bucks. I, I like to think it’s worth it. There’s a lot of, uh, Old footage in it too. And we did like some interviews kind of just reminiscing. So it’s more of like a, it’s almost like a documentary kind of, um, yeah, we put a lot of time and effort and money into making this, though.

[00:49:03] We’re just hoping to break even and, uh, have something cool to share with people. So, and

[00:49:07] we’re

[00:49:07] Emily: gonna I’ll drop the link for that in the, in the video description, in the show notes for the listeners, if you’re listening, click on that link.

[00:49:14] Julia: Cool. Thanks. Yeah, it’s uh, we’re going to do a little Q and a after, too.

[00:49:18] We’re just gonna be hanging. Lives, but then also, yeah, we’re on Twitch. Watch  we go live. We try to do it. It’s been a little bit inconsistent lately, but ideally we go live once a week. So we’ll be back. I think May 1st is going to be the next show a Derby day.

[00:49:35] Emily: Oh yes. You’re going to drink your mint juleps.

[00:49:38] Julia: And we’re going to bet live on TV. So it’s going to be something

[00:49:43] Emily: I did. Um, I worked for a company and, uh, we did an event that was on Derby day and it was called the front stretch festival. And, uh, the guy who like was running the whole thing, he forgot that the Derby is like, Early afternoon and is over 90 seconds.

[00:50:01] Yeah. And then everybody left at like, by like two 30 or something very early. And we just had all this whiskey and shit and we’re like, oh

[00:50:10] Andrew: fuck.

[00:50:11] Emily: Yeah. What am I supposed to do with all this booze?

[00:50:14] Julia: Yeah,

[00:50:16] Emily: we bought it. And then it was like tastings and then people. Could buy more tokens, but yeah, you learn a lot working whiskey of tasting because I’ve worked, I’ve worked several and they are.

[00:50:29] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:50:30] Julia: Well, Hey, there are worse things than a leftover bourbon, for sure.

[00:50:36] Emily: I didn’t get any of the leftover bourbon. I just got whatever I could fit in my flask. Well, that’s it. So this episode drops on four 20.

[00:50:48] Julia: Well, happy holidays to all of our weed smokers out there. Um, celebrate. Yes, indeed. Sending, greet you.

[00:50:57] Um, yeah, I I’m just stoked. We’re going to be announcing some tour dates for the fall, uh, in mid may. So really, really that the four of us will all be fully Vaxxed by then. So. Super excited just to get back out there and hopefully, hopefully we can all commune in person again before too

[00:51:17] Emily: long. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

[00:51:21] Uh, again, video description links, yada yada yada rat boys has a Patrion. I think I support your Patrion

[00:51:29] Julia: tool. I think you do too. Yeah,

[00:51:31] Emily: I like, I just take the Patrion. Many people give me and I funnel it into like yours and Charlie bliss, my friend, Mike. My friend has the modular podcast. Podular Madcast and yeah, I’m just like, let’s just redistribute funds.

[00:51:45] Well, thank you. That’s my favorite. Andrew doesn’t know I do that. I don’t care. I pay for everything. Um, what else? Uh,  uh, please rate, review this podcast on iTunes. It really helps us click subscribe on the YouTube. Check out rap boys on Twitch. Check out all the links in the video description. Uh, Julie, again, thanks so much.

[00:52:05] I think what you all are doing is very. Wonderful. I think you guys make great music and I love the creativity you all have had throughout this past year from hell. It’s been really nice to really nice to see, and also nice to see you all get some, get some products. Cause I remember I was coming back from tree Fort was put on KXP in the car, heard y’all like cakes was playing one of your songs.

[00:52:29] And I was like, that’s great.

[00:52:33] Julia: Great. I, I really appreciate you listening and having me on and, uh, just saying, I think we might be a tree for later this year, so maybe we’ll, uh,

[00:52:43] Emily: maybe we’ll see, I’m hopeful to go two tree forts. They’re like six months apart this time, but, um, yeah. Um, yeah, I haven’t invested in tree for it now.

[00:52:57] I did the, we funder for them because I think it’s a great festival, but. Yeah, I won’t keep you any longer. Um, thanks for watching. Thanks for understanding until next time. My name is Emily. Andrew bounced a while ago. That’s Julia. If you’re listening here, if you’re listening to this on the podcast, you’re about to hear Michelle Sullivan and the all-night boys featuring me.

[00:53:17] All right. Goodbye. .