086: Zach Nytomt
On Episode 086, I'm joined by Texas songwriter Zach Nytomt. This too was an interview conversation held pre-quarantine. Matter of fact, as I was heading to Nytomt and company's soundcheck at Blue Light, it was announced that SXSW was being canceled. It felt surreal and an extremely foreign idea to all of us--and still does.
Regardless, Zach Nytomt is yet another rising singer-songwriter coming out of the state of Texas. Last year, he released New York to Montana, an extremely strong and diverse sophomore full-length. A play off Nytomt's last name, New York to Montana (ahem, NY to MT) is ample space for Nytomt to roam, both sonically and conceptually. With Timothy Allen (formerly of Shane Smith & The Saints and currently of Brother Band) at the producing helm, Nytomt and Allen go off in dynamic directions on the album--everything from the sugary space pop of "Interstellar" and country-blues rambler "Robert Jenkins" to the road-weary escape of "Seven Day Bender" and the redemptive soul of "Troubadour."
This episode's presenting partner is The Blue Light Live and Smith Iron & Design.
Interview Transcript
Note: Transcripts aren’t always accurate since they are computer automated and haven’t been edited for spelling, grammar, etc.
Thomas Mooney 0:02
Everyone you are listening to new slang. I am Thomas Mooney, your host, and this is episode 86, where I am joined by Texas songwriter Zach Nytomt by thinking back to when Zach and I recorded this is a Friday evening and I'll never forget that because that afternoon was when South by Southwest announced that they would be canceling for the first time due to concerns about the Coronavirus. There was this kind of a strangeness in the air, a part of you is obviously shocked over the news. But it's also because we all weren't really sure on how things were going to be going for the next couple of weeks. We'd spoke about this while they were loading in. And it's just kind of strange to think how naive we all were at that moment. And still, like despite being so unsure how things are going to be going the next couple of weeks, I think back and we were all kind of really ridiculously optimistic at the same time. Like there was this thought about how like if you just closed the country down for a couple of weeks, it more or less curb the coronavirus from spreading. And of course Two months later, we're still in the midst of this quarantine. This happened to be like the last live show I saw two which is incredibly surreal. Because literally a week later, I would wind up having COVID-19 myself. Granted, I It wasn't until three or four days later, where I started to feel those initial symptoms. Anyway, I don't really want to talk about all that. Again, if you want to read about my COVID-19 experience, though, I did write an essay of sorts that's over on medium, I will throw a link into the show notes if you want to give that a read. So Zack released his second full length record last year. It's called New York to Montana. He recorded it with Timothy Allen, who you may know as the former guitarist of Shane Smith and the saints and his current band brother band, which as you probably guess, is a project with his brother Nathan, which they just recently released a new record too. It's called Volume One, I highly recommend checking it out. So Tim has been doing a lot of fun work as a producer and it gets hard. So the last couple of years brotherband Comanche moon, Cody sparks, obviously he was an instrumental cog in the last few records by Shane Smith and the saints and of course, this record out here by Zack, I think so much of New York to Montana strength comes from that back and forth between Zack and Tim, they obviously have like a, a real deep connection on what kind of music they both like and what they want to make. And it's very progressive in a lot of ways. There's still though a lot of the, the great pop since on this record. It comes in a lot of ways as well. on something like Interstellar, it's effectively simple. It's obviously an infectious melody and chorus. And there's that touch of that atmospheric postrock to give it a spacey vibe. But then like on something like seven day bender or disappearance by design, you feel that wide openness. You feel that space, but there's also a lot of textured elements on those songs. And then of course on songs like 123 or alcohol there's even a little bit of this like smooth jazz element. And then even on like the longest song, the title track New York to Montana. It's a storyteller song but the the course rhythms are as strong as ever on that. And so like a lot of these songs are, are they revolve around those really strong, infectious chorus melodies. There's a smooth rasp Enos to Zach's force. There's a lot of soulfulness mixing in there as well. And I think that really bleeds into how this record is supposed to sound the sonic qualities of New York to Montana. At times it's very clean and polished and light. But then there's also like this thickness that creeps in on songs like Robert Jenkins and even disappearance by design or the punk edge. Song sober. Anyway, I highly recommend checking out Zach's New York to Montana if you haven't, just yet, as always, please subscribe to new slang on iTunes, Spotify, Google podcast Stitcher, or wherever else you may get your podcasts. Give me a like on Facebook Follow me Thomas Mooney on twitter at underscore new slang. It's also that on Instagram, give the podcast a five star review if you haven't done so already. Okay, here is Zack Knight.
I feel like we've been trying to do this podcast for like,
Zach Nytomt 4:49
a couple years now.
Thomas Mooney 4:50
Yeah, yeah, like the first time it was just too busy fucking weekend.
Zach Nytomt 4:55
And then maybe and then drinks. Yeah, night before and
Thomas Mooney 4:58
that was a You guys are opening for read back to back nights. That's
Zach Nytomt 5:02
right. Yeah, that was last year, two years ago. Now it feels like yesterday. But yeah,
Thomas Mooney 5:06
that wasn't I feel like it's like split the difference.
Zach Nytomt 5:09
I was so exhausted after that, that weekend, back to back nights at blue light is it can put some hell and damage on your liver for those Apple burners man,
Thomas Mooney 5:19
get the best deal that they do. And then I feel like you guys have been back a few other times. And it's been either I've been at a town or too busy to do something or we finally Sit down. It's great.
Zach Nytomt 5:32
Man, I'm honored and humbled to be here, man. It's great. It's let's have some fun with it.
Thomas Mooney 5:36
Yeah. Well, obviously, the record came out last year.
Zach Nytomt 5:40
Yeah. A year ago. In one day one. Yeah. So it's, it's a year old? Well, she
Thomas Mooney 5:45
was like that specific. One year old. Obviously, like one of the cool things with this record is there's like the book attached to it. Yeah. How did? How did all that go down? How did you guys get approached about a book and
Zach Nytomt 6:02
what I started with. I've been doing a faith based on a nonprofit organization called Trinity oaks based on San Antonio. And that's where we get the the youth of the fallen and wounded veterans and we take them in outdoors and fishing and, and get them introduced to that side of things. And so I was out in South Texas on a place called the cage ranch. And I met a guy named Tom Shepard, which Tom Shepard is a great singer songwriter. He wrote redneck Yacht Club, he wrote, riding with private Malone for David ball. And so, you know, I knew the kind of caliber of rider that Tom was. So whenever I went up and introduced myself to Tom, I was like, hey, Tom, my name is Zack Knight Tom, like New York to Montana abbreviated, and he just had this, he immediately just stopped what we were doing. And he's like, come with me real quick to the, to the cabin, we need to we need to write something. And I was like, let's do it. So we ventured off into this songwriting idea about a man that was working for them, or, you know, kind of laundering money for this new jersey mob, but he was also working on the World Trade Centers. And so on September 11, of 2001. When he was running late for work, he saw the towers fall, and he was like, This is my perfect time to everyone thinks I'm dead. So I'm going to take this opportunity and, and escape this lifestyle because the mob would have had a price on my head anyway. So he had, he had ventured off from New York to Montana, and an in depth of the of the song, we had a big Shootout At the very end, he learned how to be a rancher in Montana and learn learn how to shoot a gun and, and so we finished the song and we recorded it about a year and a half ago, and we recorded it and didn't that real time audio and, and about a month later, after we had released this song, Tom was up in Idaho and met this author named Dan Sullivan. And Dan had heard Tom sing this tune. And after the show, he asked Tom permission, you know, hey, do you mind if I, I'm looking for another idea novel to write and this one just seems to fit. And it's so interesting and intriguing. And so Tom was like, absolutely. Let me call my buddy Zach. And, and when I heard the news about Dan Sullivan, wanting to hop on this idea of writing a novel, based off the song that we wrote, it was just, it was automatic. I was like, absolutely, let's let's dive into this side of things. And it been It was about two months or so with Dan emailing me and Tom back and forth, you know, get an ideas and and talk about a transition from a songwriter, you have to get everything in less than three minutes of the story, which this song is like six minutes. Yeah, but you had to get all this detail in but then for an author to come in and say, well, let's, let's describe every character. There's no time limit or any limit of paragraphs or words, it's just let's get the story out and describe it as well as we can. And so, I learned a lot just from, you know, as a writer to go through and see the process, how different it is from a songwriting perspective and an author. And so we released that book, and along with the album last year, and our next step is hopefully we can make a Netflix series out of it or something kind of like an Ozark Yeah. Or Yellowstone kind of deal. Yeah, that's, yeah, be really sweet. So then we'll dive into that other side of
Thomas Mooney 9:11
this episode is sponsored by Smith, iron and design. It's owned and operated by one of my good friends Aaron Smith, and his dad sonny. As the name implies, Smith iron and design specializes in creating custom metal and woodwork. They have a vast array of metal signs that are perfect wall decor that will tie our room together. That is on everything from welcome signs, the family crests, flags and Texas cutouts. They have a series of these metal reads that are perfect for your front door, and you're able to change them out depending on the season. Are you a sports fan? Well, there's nothing better than having a giant logo of your team on the wall of your dinner office. When it comes to signage. The possibilities are really endless. What you should really do though, is head over to Smith art and design calm To get a look at their vast portfolio, that Smith, iron in design comm I'll throw a link into the show notes as well. They don't just do science either. Some of the smaller items are custom bottle openers and key chains. Then they also have bookshelves, TV stands, nightstands and firepits. You know, it was about a year ago, Aaron built me a custom shelf, I needed something new to store some of my vinyl and everything I'd come across. Either the shelves weren't big enough for LPs, where it looked too bland or cheaply made, or, to be perfectly honest, too expensive. So I wound up talking with Erin, and about a week later, I was able to pick up this custom shelf unit that's just been amazing. It's incredibly sturdy, has a bit of a rustic feel. In my opinion, one of the best parts was just having so much control in the process, you can get them as tall as you want with the shelves at the perfect depth and length. Again, for me, this was for storing vinyl, so they had to be a certain height and depth. I've been thinking about getting a custom bookshelf companion piece soon as well. Now, for the most part, they primarily serve the Lubbock area and the South Plains. But for some of their smaller pieces. They're able to ship nationwide as well. Again, Smith, iron and design calm. Now back to the show.
Zach Nytomt 11:27
What do we leave off?
Thomas Mooney 11:28
Oh, yeah, you that's what I was gonna say. The book, The, the coming of the book together, all that stuff. Yeah. Okay, so you had mentioned your next step, you kind of want to try and do something like Netflix or
Zach Nytomt 11:46
Yeah, dive into that. Yeah, you know, it's always just been a thought and, and something to just kind of dive into another side of film and just, you know, music and, and film go hand in hand. And I would like to know more about that side of things. And, you know, introduce myself to as many producers as I can just get the story out and see what happens. So it's still brand new, it's just a year, but I think the story itself can really last a while, I mean, with the novel in itself. So I mean, if we can dive in and, and make a Netflix series out of that. I think that'd be really cool.
Thomas Mooney 12:20
Yeah, it's interesting to talk with songwriters who some, some people, like don't think about their songs, or the characters in a song. Like past that, like five minutes, or whatever we're talking about, you know, of the, whatever the length of the song is. And then other people think about, like those characters. What are they doing outside that song? But you know what I mean? Yeah, I've talked with some people, they're like, No, I've not really ever thought about, like, who this person is, yeah, has this song before the song who was this person before the song. But sometimes you can get obsessed about, like, a certain kind of character in a song and, and do this whole? Totally. There's plenty of songs that I go like, Man, that would be a movie or you know what I mean? Like that? That'd be cool to see it.
Zach Nytomt 13:09
Absolutely. I'm, I'm thrilled, I'm excited to see what can happen. And like I said, it was just such a, it was a learning process of just getting to, you know, talk with Dan Sullivan, the author of New York's Montana along with Tom Shepard and myself, and, and just to see that there is no boundaries, there's no limits. And you have to really get to the reader of who these characters are, and make them know, you know, like, they would have a handshake with them in real life. So it was such a, it was such a learning experience, for sure. And hopefully, maybe me and Tom can get together again, right? Come up with another false narrative and make another story.
Thomas Mooney 13:43
What did you has it made you overthink characters like what this who these people are? We're not necessarily overthink, but like, you're obviously thinking about these characters, more than any other song,
Zach Nytomt 13:58
I would always think like, it'd be cool to have a prequel of like, maybe the New Jersey mob, and see their side of the story as well. So you can branch off of that and go into their side and how they got hooked up, you know, with the main, the main character in the story and, and, and with Jodi, his wife, where they tapped the phone lines and had a huge shootout in Montana. They were trailing her from New York to Montana. And so I think it'd be cool to just drift off and see what the the mob has, you know, right on their side, because we didn't really dive into much of the mob. They were just the bad guys.
Thomas Mooney 14:31
Yeah. the proverbial bad guy. Yeah,
Zach Nytomt 14:34
exactly.
Thomas Mooney 14:37
But it is interesting to see like, a character being you really like because I think a lot of times, you only got like five minutes, like you're saying, to, to dive into a character. There's only so many things you can so much character development you can have and you've obviously had to like Think about the the little things that maybe the details that wouldn't get put into us. Yeah, exactly. That's such a. I don't know. Like, like I said, like, you can kind of get obsessive about, oh, this
Zach Nytomt 15:13
song was like 12 minutes long before we even decided to go and I mean, we're flowing, we're flowing and then you look back, you're like, Oh my God, we have to freakin we have to Holy shit. We have to edit this, you know? And so it turned into being like a 12 minute deal. And we had
Thomas Mooney 15:28
to go, did you send like that version to, to the rider? Who's what's the riders name?
Zach Nytomt 15:32
Again, Dan Sullivan, Denzel. And we did actually we sent him a lot of our roughs and we everything that we had just our ideas, and how it even got formulated into being the song itself. So it was just a lot more, you know, you could probably dive into as an author to grab a hold of another side that we had brought up, but we had to shrink the story down just to make it for the listeners. You know, you're not listening to our long song. Yeah, you know, I'm not Robert okene here, but Choctaw Bingo. Yeah. James mercury. Absolutely.
Thomas Mooney 16:05
Yeah, there's always a story about like how Leonard Cohen's hallelujah has, like, just endless amounts of versus total is never been used, because he was never fully satisfied with that final, whatever his final version was, and he's still to his dying day was just kind of like not sure what, yeah, how this song was supposed to be. You know? I was gonna say that, like, I was gonna ask, had you been holding on to like the the New York to Montana, like as a idea for a song? It was? Or is it was that has
Zach Nytomt 16:43
that just been something you've always kind of held on to to tell people how to like pronounce, it was really just the thought of how to spell my last name. Because everywhere on the mark, he is just, you know, it was just brutal. You know, how they in is it's funny nowadays. I go in, and now it's my first name that's misspelled. And not because everyone knows New York to Montana. So they're spelling it right. But now my first name is misspelled. But it was really a thought my dad had come up to me years before and was like, hey, my dad actually came up with the New York to Montana, abbreviated for my last name in yt. O Mt. And he came up to me, he's like, Hey, man, you should probably start telling people in on emails, you know, exact nights on with New York to Montana abbreviated, and so that's whenever I went up. And I started telling people that like when I introduced myself, yeah, I was like, Nah, Tom, like New York to Montana abbreviated, and that's when Tom Shepard just said, Oh, hold hold that thought. Yeah, you know, and drag me into that cabin down south Texas. And we just got busy on that idea of, let's let's write this crazy story and, and see where it goes.
Thomas Mooney 17:42
Yeah, the record. You guys really do a lot of going out into like different directions of sound like there's a lot of experimentation that your typical quote unquote, Texas songwriter, singer songwriter would not be would be apprehensive to go down. You know what I mean? There's some like jazzy kind of pops, for sure. Was it just one of those things where you guys were just,
Zach Nytomt 18:11
you know what? Anything, I was so stuck on this album by iron lion called ghost on ghost. And it just extremely artistic album that they came out with. And then I was also head I just dove headfirst into Wilco and was just obsessed with their tones and that in their experiments in the studio now, you know, I dove in with Tim Allen, the producer of New York, Montana. And we dove in with just so no limits, you know, let's just experiment and, and by the time everything came together, I was like, yeah, I'm happy with this. I like how weird it is. And, and that's what I wanted to put out was just something weird and artistic and, and everything is just all over the place. But yeah, it was it was really, I would have to blame iron and one and we'll go for that.
Thomas Mooney 18:56
See, I like the a lot of people can complain about a record being too sprawling in a sonic direction. But I think sometimes what you do is like you go as far as you can, and then like that next record, you rein it in, because you know, like, with with that setting in for like it's been a year you probably know like, this next record, I want to go more into this. You know what I mean? He kind of gives you the you know, you you throw up the paint. Yeah. all over the walls, and you see what sticks and you realize like, Oh, that's actually this is more what I want to go towards or for sure. What
Zach Nytomt 19:38
are the cases? Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of how I looked at it was like, you know, Bob Ross or I would watch Bob Ross all the time growing up. My mom would have a twin brother and for our naptime was you turn on Bob Ross. Yeah. And we watched it. I was always it's always funny to me how he would be like, this is a beautiful mistake. But let's make that mistake into a beautiful tree. It's like holy shit, let's, let's make this album kind of like that and dive into it. Let's see. Are limits of how artistic we can be and then formulate, you know, dive in of kind of a general direction of where we want to go for the next album. And, and that's really I'm thinking for this next album just be a little more poppy with electronic Southern integrity with it. Yeah, yeah.
Thomas Mooney 20:17
I guess like when I first heard you, like the first two songs I had heard was the Robert Jinx. Jenkins and I had heard Interstellar, and I just kind of got hooked on Interstellar. I thought that was such a just Well, first off just fucking catchy. Well, thank you shit, you know, like, you kind of get that melody stuck in your head. Yeah. Where do you where I guess? Like, what were What did that song come from? What's the it was,
Zach Nytomt 20:42
it all started I was I was going through like a really weird breakup. And we're, it was kind of the first girlfriend I had where we lived together, growing up, and I remember sitting on my couch while she's in the kitchen, just cleaning dishes, you know how that that sound is? It's like the most irritable sound ever. And she's packing up boxes. And it was such a weird feeling, you know, knowing that you guys are splitting up and you're packing these boxes. So I sat down and I just wrote this line with this melody that already had and I was just like, you know what I'm thinking about why don't we just go mess around and forget about our worries, because there's nothing to worry about. And I took that idea and kind of ran with it. And I had a buddy of mine named Brett Houser, a great songwriter, that came over and showed him the melody and the first bits of the, of the verses that I had. And we immediately knew the idea and the direction we wanted to go was, let's be metaphorical here and make this song about having making love in outer space. Yeah. And so we kind of drifted from the sad idea of like, this is upset, you know, came up with that idea of her leaving and, you know, forget our worries. But then we made it into like a happy little kind of like a love song but fantasizing a little bit and yeah, made an interesting is a lot of fun writing it. And then in the studio, it just came to life. You know, it was just, it was just an acoustic song. And then I remember that feeling looking over at Tim Allen in the studio booth, and we're all playing live. And it was just right when we had that feeling. We all looked at each other and just started laughing. Yeah, so it was just those are those kind of golden moments you want to capture in the studio and in the song as well.
Thomas Mooney 22:13
Yeah, that's there. Is that that crest that you guys kind of like it builds up to that point? And then you just kind of ride it for a while? Yeah. When I always think incredible, but like those kind of moments in songs is that if you really like time did or whatever. They're very, very short and brief. Yep. But for some reason. They like they they linger in your head. And that's what you remember that a lot of about a song, you know, is like it's kind of like, if you know the promise by surgical. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. You think in that song? Probably like what you think about in that song is him like, you know, just belting out the lyrics. But he doesn't do it that long. Yeah, there's so much restraint. You know, I always and then it goes into that. And whenever it happens, it's just like a brief little moment. I
Zach Nytomt 23:05
love that. Yeah. And that reminds me of Creedence Clearwater. You listen to like their albums. And it's only two and a half minutes long. Except for born on the bayou. It's like five and a half minutes or something. But yeah, it's like, all these songs are just two and a half minutes. Get to the point. don't bore us get to the course. And then, you know on to the next
Thomas Mooney 23:22
Yeah. Creedence man that's like it's it's always a are they
Zach Nytomt 23:26
gonna Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Oh, I
Thomas Mooney 23:28
have no idea. I don't really keep up with
Zach Nytomt 23:30
Yeah, man. Got it. But they're, they're badass.
Thomas Mooney 23:35
Would they they define an era of music. Right? Somehow they, in a lot of ways define Louisiana even though they're from like Northern California. Like that's, that's an incredible idea of a band of like, how you can just define an era. You're just like in every fucking Vietnam movie,
Zach Nytomt 23:58
right? Oh, golly. No kidding.
Thomas Mooney 24:01
That's
Zach Nytomt 24:02
Yeah. Every time I think of it Oh, I just have to go back to that scene of Forrest Gump. where he's just carrying out Baba. Yeah, he gets bitten the air hitting the ass and some bit me Yeah, like a bullet came into what a great movie man
Thomas Mooney 24:17
that movie is. Like the the funniest saddest, like just like every emotion you've ever felt takes you through all
Zach Nytomt 24:27
all journeys. Yeah. All journeys. I got a question for you, Thomas. How long you how many podcasts have you done?
Thomas Mooney 24:35
I think on officially released have been like 60 something. Wow. So
Unknown Speaker 24:39
no, I don't know.
Thomas Mooney 24:40
Like, something's like 60 someone who was
Zach Nytomt 24:42
who was like the coolest person you'd interviewed. Oh, I don't know if I have like an answer to that. Or one of the most interesting.
Thomas Mooney 24:50
I mean, they've all kind of been an interesting. I think like my favorite one has been with jack Ingram and Bruce Robison. I think that was like just a You kind of get out of the way and let them like, talk. And it's like shit, like they probably have talked about before. But I know that there's really moments in there where they're like, we've actually we never talked about this together. And sometimes like, it's always like it. I probably say it's interesting too much just because I can't think of anything else to say other than interesting. But sometimes, like, you just have to ask the obvious question. Like, it's so obvious. Like, that's what makes it a good question. Because like, no one's really asked them that before, you know, for sure. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I asked about. But like, even I think that I asked him like, when did like, how did y'all meet? And I'm sure like, that was something that, you know, you've been asked a million times how you met this person, but I don't think they really ever fleshed it out. And like, Jacqueline was talking about how he had sent, like, a fucking handwritten letter to like, Charlie, I think. And that's how like, that was their first initial meeting was because he hadn't heard that first record by Charlie and was like, it sent him a letter. Like his address was like, on the bottom of the record or something like that. That's and that's how they all kind of met was
Zach Nytomt 26:14
like that. You know, that's cool. That's a good example of an obvious question. Yeah. Yeah, that's bad.
Thomas Mooney 26:22
I don't know. I don't I don't want to get on the soapbox, of how to be a good journalist, because I don't think like I'm the greatest journalist, but like, it's one of those. Sometimes the the simplest questions the best, but then like, there's so many fucking bad, simple questions, you know, like, Yeah, well, how did you get your band name? Now, where are your top five influences? Right, right.
Zach Nytomt 26:46
Yeah. You know, I didn't care about that anymore. You know,
Thomas Mooney 26:49
my, my rule of thumb is, if you can, like aving Google it. If it's, if it's been written, you don't have to, like rewrite that. Yeah. But I mean, nothing's new underneath the sun, you know, we can go out and just like, move on. I don't have to, like, introduce you as a guest. Yeah. It's if it's been done before, you know. So why don't want to hear about that again. Yeah, you know,
Zach Nytomt 27:16
exactly. But, no, I think you've done excellent. I mean, I remember what was When was the first time is probably four, four or five years ago? I'm not sure. Yeah. See? That's the question. How did y'all meet? blue light, you know, here in Lubbock, right. Yep. And with Charlie stout, I think he introduced me to you. And yeah, and then I've always kept up with your articles and everything and all the truth. I mean, it just comes out. And it's super cool. Super awesome. And also including me on that top 50. of lautrec albums of last year, which is an honor to be a part of,
Thomas Mooney 27:52
yeah, well, that's, that's one of those things where I try and like write that throughout the year. Like, try and keep tabs on it. Because like, if you try and do it, the final week of the year, you're overwhelmed. And you're like, Fuck, I don't know what to do. I don't know. Like, that's, that's, I feel like everyone releases like top 100 records of my favorite 50 backers every year, and I've thought about like, not doing it. But sometimes if I have a lot of the groundwork already done, I'm like, I might as well fucking finish it.
Zach Nytomt 28:31
Oh, yeah. Amen to that.
Thomas Mooney 28:33
So it's a I don't ever think like my opinions more important than anyone else's. But if I feel like if I've done some of the homework more than other people, maybe it can show other people like, Hey, I didn't realize this record came out, you know, right. Yeah. It's less about the numbers. Because I like in my intro, I was talking about how every you should put like a plus minus of like, three and a half on it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Spread because like, you know, next week, someone's record could like rise by points in the Exactly. You know, you over your favorite records of the last year.
Zach Nytomt 29:14
Did you have any? They just this is probably been stuck in 2017. After Ryan Adams came out with his prisoner album. I fell in love with that album. And honestly, I haven't really been doing a lot of homework on on a lot of new stuff that's been coming out. I just been kind of listening to a lot of livan Holmes, going back and man, he just had some swaggy just bad as lyrics and just just a cool factor to them that I you know, being on the road with other musicians in the van, you get turned on by a lot of other artists. So I've just been kind of relying on my band. Yeah, show me you know, songs I've never heard before stuff that they've been working on. And so it's just all over the spectrum. Really.
Thomas Mooney 29:54
Yeah. The at any point that you think like you understand American music or like pop music in the in the general term of like pop music, you know, you realize that there's another rock that you you accidentally hit up another rock and like there's logistical worlds Oh, like, music that you've not discovered? Yeah, exactly. And we just like we live in a great time period where you can you can do that, you know, you can find easy, so much new stuff. It's not just like relying on the radio. It's not just relying on your local record.
Zach Nytomt 30:34
Yeah. And their algorithms are so accurate when it shows like that you might enjoy this. And it's like, oh, check it out. And then you're like, Oh, this is groovy, you know. And so that's I found so many great artists just by doing that. But also with Chris Jane, my, my drummer that has been on the road with us for over the year. I mean, he just hit me up with this awesome playlist on Spotify. It's called the Golden Age of Nashville. And it's all the same studio musicians that I played on, like, you know, Alan Jackson to Garth Brooks to Brooks and Dunn. And I mean, it just goes on a list of everything and maybe 100 300 songs on there. And it's just all classics of 90s country. Yeah. And so I recommend that to any listeners, golden age of Nashville.
Thomas Mooney 31:17
I've got a playlist of that I made a while back, and it's the every top 10 song that hit that charted top 10 on Billboard, from January of 92. December of 99. Wow. And it's for, for me, that's like a playlist that's more for like, Oh, you want to subscribe to it. And you can pick out of that to make your own plays nice. Because it's, it is like, fucking longer than shit. And I've got like an 81 and a 71. as well. But it is a because you forget so many damn songs, like, so I'm kind of a 90s country
Zach Nytomt 31:57
kind of soul. It's nice to have that though. Like we put it in a folder and have it there. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, we are growing up in a hell of a time right now, with all of our resources that we can have. It's not like limewire anymore. Yeah, and putting the virus on our parents computer to
Thomas Mooney 32:13
one of the things I was thinking about the other day, because everyone goes to Napster as the as the I guess the reference for illegal downloading, but and then of course, I yeah, limewire was huge. And then you could turn a whole lot of stuff, but like, in between those, I feel like Was it mediafire or something like that? That was like real big. Where you could, it was just like a I guess it was a fire. It was like media something where it was basically just a zip file of whatever record. And you know what I'm talking about download? I've never heard of it now. Okay, there was a moment like it was a probably like, a couple years, where it would just be a, it was kinda like a database, I guess, like the same kind of thing that you would search, but it was online. And you would just search and then you would find that zip file and then just download it directly, in a lot of ways. It's like Dropbox, but it was like an open source, I
guess. No viruses, though.
Oh, you could probably get talking about I don't know, like there's I feel like I'm an apple guy. Yeah, I feel like I've not ever had a fucking virus on any of my Mac's ever. So like, thank God. That's one of those things where I'm like, once I switched over, that's
Zach Nytomt 33:33
the you remember Chatroulette? Yeah. Oh my god. So about last year, we were playing the show in Sam's burger joint in San Antonio. And me and some friends were on. We were like an eighth grade ninth grade or something. And we come across this this girl that was on there and we just started communicating a little bit and then once Facebook and MySpace came out, we all you know connected through MySpace and connected through Facebook and then all that well. Last year in San Antonio. She comes to a freakin show. Parents. I'm like, holy shit. We met on a chat or lead out of all places in your fucking Yeah.
Thomas Mooney 34:08
People are embarrassed about meeting on Tinder. Imagine Yeah, meeting on Chatroulette word y'all. Just? Yeah.
Zach Nytomt 34:18
How do you see your kids?
a pumpkin patch anyone that met on Tinder? And you know, you're in love. I mean, yeah. That's beautiful.
Thomas Mooney 34:28
I was gonna say about illegal downloading music. I don't does that. Do people still download a whole lot of
Zach Nytomt 34:38
I just think I think modifies kind of considered in that realm. Yeah. You know, I mean, if you look at the percentages that they they're keeping from the artist itself. I mean, that right? Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, but I would have to say that's the new
Thomas Mooney 34:52
caught the new kind of illegal downloading.
Zach Nytomt 34:55
Yeah, no, you know, yeah. I go both ways on it. We did. tours out on the east coast of Georgia and, and out to North Carolina. We had fans that came out that found us just through Spotify off their algorithms, you know what I enjoy? And, and we got connected through there and they came out and said they found us through Spotify. So it has its ups and downs for sure.
Thomas Mooney 35:15
Yeah. The I don't know if people download off like the Pirate Bay anymore. I don't think that's the thing.
Zach Nytomt 35:22
I don't think so either.
Thomas Mooney 35:23
Yeah,
Zach Nytomt 35:24
I wish MySpace was still out, you know, or is it?
Thomas Mooney 35:27
I think it's still around, but it's not like
Zach Nytomt 35:29
yeah, we used to I thought
Thomas Mooney 35:30
like Justin Timberlake had it. Really bought like, or had a share of it. Good for him. Fuck. Yeah, I was trying to bring it back. I don't know. Because I downloaded so much illegal music. Yeah, like you just like, hear about whatever band and like each and what I was real bad about was not bad. Is I'm like a I'm like a music order. a hoarder of like, what you like, you know, so? I've got like, just fucking too much fucking music. Too many records too many books. I love that. I mean, yeah, but I would always like I always try and complete the discography. That kind of thing. It's like, Well, actually, they only like this one record by insert name of the band. But I have to have all the records just in case I
Zach Nytomt 36:21
when you put it in on a record like a vinyl, do you? Do you listen to the whole thing?
Thomas Mooney 36:25
Yeah, I think like, my thing is on vinyl. It's supposed to be a moment. Yeah. He's supposed to, like listen to, like a moment of that. If it's on Spotify, if it like you're doing stuff around the house. That's like playlist kind of, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. And I mean, like, what around the house where you're not in the room with the with the record player. You know, if you're driving around, it's hard to like play a fucking record, right? or CD. Yeah. My truck. Don't you have a CD player.
Zach Nytomt 36:55
So I know. It's a shame
Thomas Mooney 36:56
arzeda neither. It's so I I just like listened to just run all the Bluetooth? No.
Zach Nytomt 37:02
Yeah. Unbelievable.
Thomas Mooney 37:03
Yeah. I don't know. Like, I think like, if I'm driving far. I will. I'll try and play like full length records still. Yeah, I think that's still like a
Zach Nytomt 37:17
there's a story always in those records. Yeah, you know, the artists always put the time and each song and where they're set in the record. And there's always those stories, those hidden Back stories, you know, like Ryan Bingham always had like the hidden tracks and all that stuff I just fell in love with and he really couldn't ever tell until he listened to his like michelito. Record, I was just kept spinning and spinning and spinning. And then like the head on the rail song came on, like five minutes later, and you're like, holy shit, right. And that song is bad. As you know, the missing or the hidden track
Thomas Mooney 37:48
is always like, I guess people don't do that anymore. I tried to do tarted doing work. I came here whose record was it that had like, like the first like five tracks, were like, just five seconds. Like of just nothing. I there was like, I can't remember probably
Zach Nytomt 38:06
Wilco or something.
Thomas Mooney 38:07
I don't know who it was. But I can't remember that kind of stuff in the 90s. And early two, early 2000s.
Zach Nytomt 38:15
Yeah.
Thomas Mooney 38:18
The hidden track. I've not thought about that in a while. But what's like the, is there anything off the top of your head that you can think of that? After the quote 100th time you listen to it, you're like, Oh, fuck, that's now I get that part of that. Or, you know, insane.
Zach Nytomt 38:33
Chris Knight always has those songs for me. Like he just when you listen to Chris tonight, it's it's almost like listen to Hank Williams. There's always just more. We're like dogs, dogs is a great example too. And, you know, you listen to those songs, and you have so much some like million dollar bill. And I would just put that on repeat, repeat, repeat and just hear, like, every verse I just would be astonished by how did he write that verse? And then I'd be so focused on that, then I'd miss like all the rest of the song because I was so drained on how great of a verse he wrote there. And then so it took like, God over 100 times to just keep listening at song to just find, you know, those moments because every word just means something. Right? And that's what I learned from co writing with a lot of different artists is just, you know, it's not what you say but how you say it. Yeah, and less is more. And so as always, like when we get in a room staying up late Mia Marco and, and Alden hedges from American aquarium, and Marco from dirty river boys. We stayed up, you know, until seven just pitching ideas off of each other. And sometimes when you're by yourself, you know, you got to swallow your pride for nourishment and realize there's probably a better line and Gordy quiz taught me that too. You know, in temple like they're like, you know, you flow you flow you flow but the goal always go back and edit. There's always probably something better if you're by yourself, but when you got co writers it's, it makes it so much more free and easy.
Thomas Mooney 39:54
Yeah, I was. Not that I do any co writing but when I'm writing something I'll He's like, keep stuff. If even if it's bad that I know like, I don't want this. I'll keep it as like a filler. Yeah, you know what I mean, just to get on to the next thing, and then hopefully go back and change it up, you know? Yeah. How much of that you were, it's like a, a. I know, I don't want to say this. But let's go ahead and to get on to the next thing.
Zach Nytomt 40:23
Yeah. I was really big into that. I always jumped ahead. But some other routers like like bread, bread houses, or which I've loved riding with him and still do and, and he would be like, I don't know, let's stay right here. Don't move forward. Let's stay right here and get the best one and then move forward. And I'm like, oh, man, like, but shit, I want to flow, you know, but there's always it's just different aspects. Bear with me, whenever I'm writing by myself. Yeah, I just, I literally just flow and flow and flow until I have to go back and, and then edit. You know, because your brain is just working. And you don't know if you're gonna spit out something that you really enjoy her. And then you can go back and then edit, make, make it make it make sense, you know, because sometimes I can be so out there and, and, you know, say a different phrase here. And I can get off track. Easy, but yeah, it's always nice to just go back after you've been flowing and just go edit your lyrics and, and then take a step back and look at it and see if it makes sense.
Thomas Mooney 41:15
Yeah. Well, I know, like, some people they don't realize, like, this line doesn't make sense now, because of what we've written. And we have to go back and change that. Or, like, I know this sounds this line sounds really, really fucking cool. But what does it even mean? Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like getting over that, the pride of like, taking that line away, or taking part of that line away to make it make sense.
Zach Nytomt 41:48
And that's, and that's another thing with like, when you make an album, and you go back, and you're listening and listening and listening to mixes, before you want to release, you're like, oh, man, like, I could have said that. Or, and then but you have to really just like I said, swallow your pride for nourishment. And and just say, that was that was made for a reason. But take the trash out, clear your head, so you can make more trash, you know, and then take it out in and I think that's a healthy way of just approaching, you know, going in as a songwriter or even a journalist and, and tackling, you know, just flowing and then finding or just releasing stuff and be proud of it, you know, because there's a lot of stuff that I could have changed or we could have changed on the on the New York to Montana album, but it was it was time for a new record. And it was time to put something out. And, you know, I sold my product loved it. And that was it. You know, people told me no, we do this, do that. And you just have to voice them out and say I enjoyed it. And that's for me. And so
Thomas Mooney 42:43
there's a balance to it all because like, you're never gonna get everything. Perfect. Yeah. Because if you try and get it so perfect. You're never gonna get it fucking released. Yeah, basically. Yeah. And sometimes like the, you have to just have like the rough edges. Now, just to move on to something else, you know, show the
Zach Nytomt 43:03
readers that you're real. Yeah, you know, you got to relate. Yeah, that's why it's like some of these Nashville songs that are coming out. That are just so simple and, you know, corny lyrics, but the masses that we have to understand is kind of dumb. Yeah, you know, we as listeners, there's a lot of people out there that just like Dumb, dumb down lyrics.
Thomas Mooney 43:21
I was talking literally yesterday with Jared Morris. Yep. He said where you are. Now we're talking about he was saying, we're talking about he had mentioned something about some for the masses. And I he said like, they they can sniff out some bad stuff. And I said, Yeah, they can. But like, that's usually like a person. I don't know if the masses, the masses want to be told what they listen to. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and then I don't think there's nothing anything wrong with it. At one point in my life, I was very hardcore about like, judgmental on what you listen to you, right? But then I realized, like, people like us are the exception. They have time to like, fucking criticize. Yeah, get obsessive and like, go over the top about,
Zach Nytomt 44:15
because that's what we enjoy doing.
Thomas Mooney 44:16
Yeah. You know, most people though, like, it's, they don't have, like, they don't have time to, like, invest in listening to somebody discography today, because they don't they have got like a, I say, like a quote unquote,
Zach Nytomt 44:30
real job with like, they have to spend 30 minutes in a vehicle. And man, it's
Thomas Mooney 44:34
like time with, they've got a wife and kids. They've got like, there's so much stuff that eats into their time, right? And there's consequences to, to if you were if you become obsessive about something like that. With a high maintenance job, you know,
Zach Nytomt 44:53
yeah.
Thomas Mooney 44:54
On the other side for us, though, it's like you do have time to to To go over that with something, and there's there's nothing wrong with that, you know? No, yeah. Like, yeah, you have like your own you know, time limits and stuff like that. But if necessary, if necessary. If I said like, hey, this next week, listen to every Rolling Stones record, you could make time
Zach Nytomt 45:23
by time Trust me. Yeah, we got, you know, it takes about what six hours from Austin to get to Lubbock, you could probably maybe fit all those Rolling Stones records into that trip,
Thomas Mooney 45:34
you know, it's, there is a, like I have I've done the the discography dive with a lot of different artists like that, where I'll just like, listen to that band for like this two weeks, and then all of a sudden you kind of like, I think, I think I know what they're trying to do here, you know, and it's, that's honestly, like, my favorite stuff to do is like, you kind of, I think, understand a band better. If you listen to everything at once, for sure. You understand? I guess, like, my favorite thing, being a journalist is trying to find the, I guess the why abandoned this at a certain time, and why that fits within a scene at a certain time. And like, why that was important at this time. And there's
Zach Nytomt 46:28
a great example for that. Which, you know, I'm wearing a Paul coffin out right now, but I don't, I was listening to a lot of Paul coffin and, you know, have some funny stories of Paul back in the day over in New Braunfels. And, but I was like, on the way here to love it. I was like, Man, I'm gonna turn on some sons and fathers and go back into there. And see, you know, how did he grow from being such a cool sound of of a band man, they had such a cool thing and and then both now david back doing the tejana weekend and broth and doing Paul cawthon and it's just, you know, you see this time period and matter of five years of these growths from these artists that branch off and you go, Well, what did you learn? What did you take away from that situation? And how did you grow from it? And that's what I really love to you know, go back do some homework and not study these guys, but kind of study these guys that you know, yeah, our Hello,
Thomas Mooney 47:21
songwriters, you know, you're trying to find the lack in the word here. The I don't know, like you're trying to like find out like, the, I'm gonna probably cut this part out here. Like in relation. It's the the context. Yeah. Like you're trying to find you're trying to contextualize an artist. A song. Yep. And a even a scene. Yeah. Like, on every, like, That's what I think. Like, that's what my favorite part of this is, like. Why did this record come out at this specific time? And like, why is it important? Why was it overlooked? Why is it you know, because I will the sons of fathers, I thought, like, they were gonna be like, the next band. Yeah, but the most like the next most important band. Yeah. And those
Zach Nytomt 48:17
songs are just still great, you know, and will always be be great. Yeah, you know, and, yeah, it's such a good that was such a great freakin duo that they had man right. But, you know, life goes on. And I'm proud of them both now for what they're doing, which is killer. And now leads me to he introduced me to Orville Peck, which is like a, you know, Roy Orbison sounding gay cowboy that's just killing it you know, and really kind of dove into such a different genre of music that it just is, you know, it's just cool whenever you get to be in this music industry and and around Texas musicians and and you can there's some underground to it you know, we're sure you definitely know the underground but
Thomas Mooney 49:00
one of my favorite guys right now who is going to get a record out this spring is this guy named Logan ledger? He's from outside San Francisco has been in Nashville for a while now and his record was produced by T bone Burnett
Zach Nytomt 49:16
Oh yeah. Excellent. And
Thomas Mooney 49:19
he reminds me he said well over and that's why I'm reminded of it he kind of like reminds me of like Chris Isaac mix with like old country like George Jones kind of love it and all of his stuff is so it's like they they bottle the mood like certain specific kind of like even like Alanna del Rey kind of like atmosphere. Mood kind of yep tone.
Zach Nytomt 49:46
The Edison mobilize
Thomas Mooney 49:48
on stage went into like this country kind of George Jonesy kind of feel as well and it's just like this and he's got like a fucking great boy. Oh yeah.
What was his name? Logan ledger?
Zach Nytomt 50:02
Logan ledger.
Thomas Mooney 50:03
Yeah, he put an EP out last fall. And the new records coming out. I think it's just self titled perfect but there's a couple of songs on there. He released two singles I guess last around this time last year imagine I think there's one called like imagining raindrops and can't remember what the other ones got starlight. Oh, nice. Okay, dude, there. I'll show you here in a minute. Yeah, hell yeah. They're they're really good bad ass. So new music right
Zach Nytomt 50:33
there folks. As easy as easy as that.
Thomas Mooney 50:40
This episode is brought to you by the blue light live here in Lubbock, Texas. Obviously the coronavirus pandemic has had a massive impact on the music industry. And on our daily lives at large. The blue light has been closed for nearly two months now. And if you're like me, you're probably jonesing for some live music, perhaps a lone star beer or around a burn shots from your favorite bartender. If you're truly missing the place, there are two things you can do. For starters, lovely songwriter Charlie stout, and 49 other songwriters have come together for a 50 song compilation called Monday night lights. It's 50 demo style recordings for $50 where all the proceeds will be going to furloughed bar staff at blue light live, all you have to do is head over to Monday night lights.com to be getting songs from the likes of Josh Abbott and Wade Bowen and William Clark green to up and comers like Slade Coulter and Morgan Radford to blue light singer songwriter competition winners like Juliet McConkey, Isaac Hoskins and Kenneth O'Meara. You'll recognize a whole lot of people on this list. Just too many to name right here. Trust me when I say you will want to get Monday night lights, it's just a incredible collection of incredible songwriters. There's also some pretty cool limited edition poster prints that Charlie has for sale on the site, where those proceeds will obviously be going to barsaat as well. And we will probably end up having some other cool items listed on Monday night. lights.com as well, pretty soon. Again, Monday night lights calm, we've already raised a good chunk of money. So far, we're super proud of how this all came together and proud of how many people have shared the compilation and everything but as you know, more can always help. And of course, head over to blue light lubbock.com click on the merge tab. They have koozies and T shirts and caps. I swear if you put on a blue light cap and a T shirt, it almost feels like you're there if you close your eyes. Especially if you already thrown all the money that lights compilation. Okay, back to the episode. Yeah, what's like the last one you wrote? Or I've been working on
Zach Nytomt 52:56
wrote this new one with Marco Gutierrez. Last week. We've been staying on this 100 acre ranch outside of Austin, near maner. And it's kind of like a little puppy, heartbreak song but has like this Matt Mason feel to it. And so yeah, we just, it's just like, I can't be your lover. I can't be your friend. And it just has this real drive of like almost almost like an interstellar field but more of the heartbreak lyrics. So and like I said, we're just trying to dive into that, while I'm trying to dive more into that realm of have like a puppy, happy beat and maybe sing sad lyrics with it. You know, change it up a little bit. So last song we wrote last week. Yeah, I think I think we'll just call it I can't be your lover.
Thomas Mooney 53:39
Yeah. Yeah. You were saying before we were recording, you mentioned bigger whiteboard. Oh, yeah.
Zach Nytomt 53:45
We we had this huge what we still do, we have this huge whiteboard. And so we've been staying up, you know, it makes it so much easier. Like, like I said, when we're just flowing and spitting out lyrics, and I'm up there, right, and our markers up there, right. And, and, and then all of a sudden, you can rip off this huge sheet of paper. We've had these, like the big big, the poster board pretty much. And so we're just writing and writing, right? And then what we don't like and we rip that page out. So we have huge chunks of paper laid out in this little living room area. But yeah, it helps so much. Like, unbelievably a lot. Instead of having a little notepad or people with laptops, like I'm more of a guy that likes to write with a with a notebook and pen. I've always just been that guy. And growing up. I mean, I go back to my parents place in my old room. And the drawers are just stacks of notebooks. I mean, just stacks and I can see the growth of the writing process from when I was 13 to where I am now. And it's just so funny. I could still go back though. Yeah, and look at some of the notes and just be inspired by some 16 year old kid and find some words that I really enjoyed and then throw them in a new song. So it's, yeah, I've always just been old school. I've never been a technical guy with laptops or anything like that. I mean, Hell, I just I know how to barely use my iPhone. So
Thomas Mooney 54:57
I so like, for me It's way more practical to have stuff written on a laptop. But I do likely I think there's something about like physically writing stuff down. If I get like stuck on stuff, I have like a notebook that like I'll just always have like a notebook recharged just like by my computer anyways, because you write notes down writer like words that you want to use totally. One of my favorite things is I have like that I have a notepad open on my computer to where I'll think of something for like an article. I don't know what article it's going to be. But I like I kind of like the rhythm of like that description. Yeah. And I'll just I just have it up like in there. So if I like get stuck on something, I'll look at those and what's like a vinyls
Zach Nytomt 55:45
let's fucking like the records that you just held in your hand. You listen to that record being played and and what was it that haze Carl have like a comic, a comic book, in his in his record, like when you open it up, you could like read this whole comic, I'm not sure what it's been while listening to the album. And it's like, that's super cool. You know. And that's, that's that gratifying. When you have something and you're listening to it, and you're holding it in your hand, it just has some gratifying feeling. And it's just almost with writing your words on paper, you know, because you can burn it in and it'll be gone
Thomas Mooney 56:17
forever. When you listen to the record. With you know, the art. I think it makes it a moment it makes it something special that is not just, you know, there's there's a big difference with getting the record out, putting it down, dropping the needle as
Zach Nytomt 56:36
versus like, clicking, it's so organic. And
Thomas Mooney 56:39
it and it just makes a little bit more of a moment. And I think moments are kind of
Zach Nytomt 56:45
rare. Coming back. Well, vinyls coming back, which
Thomas Mooney 56:48
is great. Well, one of my favorite things about vinyl too, though, is at one point, it was not like this. But like, if you've not been with vinyl coming back, and if you've not been around if you didn't grow up around vinyl, like I didn't grow up around vinyl. Yeah. You know, there's something like comically big about it. Yeah. Like it's kind of funny in a way like this, like, huge artwork. And like, you know, especially there's like lyric notes, or like liner notes in there. Or if there's like, just stuff with it, you know, like that. It makes it a little bit more. It's kinda weird. Exactly. And there's always I've always been one of those guys who like loves looking over who's played on this fucking record, like being like, Oh, yeah, blah, blah. He's right on this record. Do you know? Yep, all that kind of stuff. I look at all music. Way too much on music.com. Like that has, like all the everybody has been on records and shit like that. So awesome. Yeah. The another great website for that kind of stuff is discogs.com. And it's like where you can. You can buy vinyl and you can like catalog your own vinyl as well, which is what I do. But it also like it's kind of just a really great database where you can like, search for somebody, and then it'll show you like, let's just say you you search for like some, like some well even let's go with like Jamie Lynn Wilson. Yeah, Sutherland, like easy like that. It is she's credited in the harmony vocals. You'll get like all those credits of like, all the records that she's been on.
Zach Nytomt 58:28
That's all that's right. Yeah, that's awesome.
Thomas Mooney 58:30
And that's, I kind of like doing that kind of shit. I like to look it up like, like on all music like songwriters. And seeing like all the songs that they've been on, or like
Zach Nytomt 58:43
all the records they've been Dean Dylan. Yeah. And you're, you're amazed you know?
Thomas Mooney 58:49
Yeah, like Dean Dylan,
Zach Nytomt 58:51
Gaddis.
Thomas Mooney 58:52
There's a lot of really great like 90s guys and 80s guys who you kind of like Oh shit, man. Like he was on tour I think what his name is Dennis Lundy. He's like he wrote he's got like this like kind of crazy career cuz he produced like the the first Mickey Newberry records Wow. But then he also wrote fucking goodbye Earl. And like john deere green by June No kidding. Yeah. And like a bunch of like really? queendom a double wide trailer, like shit like that. He wrote those songs but then he also has like this like connection to like, one of the greatest like most underrated singer songwriters from Texas, you know, that's awesome. Which like Mickey Newberry to like he people, I think is like probably more well known now. But he like he wrote just dropped in by Kenny Rogers in the first dimension, you know, and that song you would not necessarily think about it being like this like, song that he would write. Yeah, that's cool. He's got a version out of his, I guess there's a version of his of that song that he did to it wasn't on his first record or anything. But it's very cosmic country. Like it's just really cool and it makes you like the the the Kenny Rogers version. Like I was just think of like Big Lebowski obviously. And there is like a little bit more of a fun aspect to it. The Newbery version is a lot more man in my fucking going crazy. Yeah. Because like, it's a little bit more
Zach Nytomt 1:00:34
checking into that. It's like maybe it's New York to Montana, for example. You know, Tom Shepard and I are just completely different styles of music. And so he has a version of his New York's Montana and I have mine and his is like a traditional kind of country. And then mine was like, more of rockin kind of drive. So it's just such a great example of talking about, yeah.
Thomas Mooney 1:00:53
Do you have any other examples of that, that you like? Where you like the you like the two versions of a song?
Zach Nytomt 1:00:58
Yeah. El Cerrito plays by Keith gattis. Yeah, Kenny Chesney, such cool versions.
Thomas Mooney 1:01:04
I mean, Charlie Robinson also.
Zach Nytomt 1:01:06
Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep, exactly. And I mean, that's another great example right there. I love hearing different styles of how different artists Yeah, and then you hear a song that some artists are saying, and then another artists will go and make it huge. And that's just another fascinating side of things where you're like, man, how, you know, was it the vocal? How, like, was it how he said it? Or, you know, so it's,
Thomas Mooney 1:01:25
yeah, there's the one of my favorite is better boat by Travis meadows. And he Kenny Chesney has a cut of that. And, like, both versions are really really great. But like, obviously, like Kenny's version is a lot more commercial. And Travis is a lot more fuckin like,
Man,
I'm getting up after somebody already, like kicked me. Like somebody's kicking me right now again, that kind of thing. Man, that's, there's so many damn great songs out there like that. Oh, so there's the two great versions, and they're kind of different. What was that?
Zach Nytomt 1:02:10
How was the it was great man. Pat green. You know, flatland was out there. We had a hell of a time all the time. We're going back again next year, for 2020 in September and just another great lineup of artists that are on the cruise and it's just a seven day Music Fest on on a big cruise ship you know? Yeah. And just a blast. Just prepare your liver. It's one of those.
Thomas Mooney 1:02:37
I know what you mean.
Zach Nytomt 1:02:37
It's a nice transition from steamboat and getting on a cruise ship and now Milo key fest you know, Milo fest and that's just a more of a more of a son guy. You know some guy yeah. Yeah.
Thomas Mooney 1:02:54
Don't Don't underrate The, the being snowblind
Zach Nytomt 1:02:58
Oh, man, that's that's where I actually just met so many artists with steamboat really yeah. JOHN Michael would be was managing me for quite some time and he plays piano for George Strait and manages an app called car park and he he really opened a lot of doors for me and got me introduced with john Dixon. And in the past couple years we were out in steamboat and I met you know, Shane Smith and and all those guys and it just became such a ride you know, we all were in a piled in a van me Josh Ward and Shane Smith and we drove like 22 hours with all of our guitars and gear all over us just piled up me and Benatar hitting the Franzia bag in the back of the van. And that was whenever they legalize pot for the first time in Colorado, so we were all just yelling at Josh ward. Like, take us to the dispensary. He's like, no, we're
Unknown Speaker 1:03:44
like come on. He
Zach Nytomt 1:03:44
takes us finally he gave it and yeah, so he just find you just make relationships with all these great artists out there and those kinds of festivals, man it's it's a great opportunity.
Thomas Mooney 1:03:54
Yeah, Franzia bag it's a very specific era and everyone's like all right. Oh,
Zach Nytomt 1:04:01
man, talk about hangover.
Thomas Mooney 1:04:03
I had a buddy who this is like a fucking old yet. There's probably 15 years when he said it, but it's always stuck with me. He's like that How? Like bag one was better than bottled wine. And his whole rationale on it was because when like you get ready to go to bed you have a pillow or like, you just take the bag.
Zach Nytomt 1:04:25
Oh my gosh, that reminds me that time sleeping, sleeping in a place talking about being on the road. And we're up in Yukon Oklahoma and Nathan cross was like y'all can just stay with us and so we me and Chris Shane, my drummer money the only place for us to sleep was a big water bed. From the 80s man I'm sleeping I just roll into freakin Chris was snoring his ass off you
Thomas Mooney 1:04:49
know I'll just lay in here going man. The road Life is beautiful man. The the waterbed when i i don't know i was probably like five or six. When I first Heard of like, What? Oh, yeah, it was and it was like, Mom, Dad, can I get a water but like you're just so disappointed because they're like,
no, no.
No don't make I don't think they make twin size.
Zach Nytomt 1:05:15
Water beds, man God,
Thomas Mooney 1:05:17
is that still a thing
Zach Nytomt 1:05:18
or wait and city had it since the 80s. So I don't know if he changed the water or not. But yeah, it was alright. I'm not a waterbed. I'd rather get a TempurPedic
Thomas Mooney 1:05:30
Yeah, be honest. That's the thing I think like we've, we've evolved enough to realize like, yeah, there's like these really great mattresses.
Zach Nytomt 1:05:40
Bring it back, you know like, start a waterbed company,
Thomas Mooney 1:05:43
man. So, some fish in it. Got a water bed aquarium. Something or another?
Zach Nytomt 1:05:56
Let's do it, man. Good times.
Thomas Mooney 1:06:02
Folks, thanks for listening. Be sure to check out New York to Montana by Zack ninth out. Check out episode sponsors Smith iron and design and the blue light live here in Lubbock, Texas. Be sure to check out Monday night lights calm. Okay, I'll see y'all later this week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai