Ep 513 - 311 (feat. Nick Hexum & S.A. Martinez)

The wow, wow, Wes.

Hey, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you guys so much. Nick Hexham, S.A.
Martinez. Sure.
Oh, come on, man. Don't show me.
That's my name. I respond to it.
Dude, I'm terrible with names and it's a bane of my existence. Dude, I know you guys for real.
I don't want to, you know, I don't want to be weird. You can say it.
You guys fucking rule. You guys got me through the sweatiest period of my life easily.

I would just, me and my friends would just wax up a four by four, like, post.

Just skateboard, like, board slide it and shit.

Seventh grade is all head boners.

It was fucking weird.

But no, you guys fucking rule, dude.

Thanks for doing this.

I was, like, genuinely stoked.

I don't get stoked on a lot of stuff.

And I saw that come through my email. And I was like, oh, yes, please.
That's so nice to hear. So seventh grade, like for context, was that late 90s? Yes.
Yeah. Late 90s.
Yeah. Because my older brothers, they graduated like 96, 98.
And I was like four years younger than them. But yeah, it was like, it was for real.
Like, I mean, you guys obviously are older than me, but you know, you don't really look it, but I'm aging rapidly. but yeah it was like, it was for real.
Like, I mean, you guys obviously are older than me, but, you know, you don't really look it. But I'm aging rapidly.
But, yeah, it was like, actually, it was crazy, dude. Just be like bopping around seventh grade doing your thing, and all of a sudden someone hits you with it.
I had the Blue album, the self-titled album first, and then I was just like, dude, this is crazy. We were just, that one song down, it was allegedly about making out, right? Well, he mentions making out.
So the funniest thing, the lore associated with you guys was so funny it was like everyone would be like yeah dude they studied music actually at the juilliard and i'd be like yeah obviously i can tell dude they're definitely juilliard i was like in seventh grade like yeah obviously but yeah we'd all think about making out we'd be like i can't wait to fucking make out dude it's gonna be so sick well it's so funny because we just played this spot called interlocking which is like the juilliard for high school kids and um the the chick i made out with in a dark hallway i went to interlock in when we met in summer camp and she was telling me about this other camp and it sounded really prestigious and it was like so we were just there. And it was one of those full circle moments.

Yeah, it was.

I did not know that.

This is news to me.

That's news to you?

Well, that was my dark hallway makeout.

But then you went to the other summer camp.

No, she went.

Yeah, we played there.

311 played.

They have an amphitheater there.

And it brought back this story. I know.
I'm trying to figure out if you made out to make it full circle. Yeah, we played there.
311 played. They have an amphitheater there.
And it brought back the story.

I know.

I'm trying to figure out if you made out to make it full circle.

Yeah.

Where was the make out?

The make out was in Nebraska.

It was in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Dude, that's awesome.

Music camp.

And she was a violinist.

What?

Those were the days.

Yeah, dude.

That was sick.

Making out before you knew about anything else like doesn't get better than this

And you know yeah, it turns out it absolutely destabilizes your life the rest of it

That's a good reference point. Well, dude, that's fucking awesome, man.
So you got you guys have been touring for what like?

23 how long you hasn't torn for since 93 what?

Yeah, what's the secret to the staying power do you lot a lot of a lot of like bands just completely disintegrate. How do you guys do it? We just don't say no to anything.
To heroin? We don't say no. Yeah, we just say no to that.
We don't say no to gigs, and we don't break up. Yeah, like, what's the secret to keeping a band together? Don't break up.
Yeah, true. That's a good point.
How do you balance? What do you think? What's the force? What's like the centrifugal force that just pulls bands apart, would you say? Ego. Yeah.
You know, people digging in too hard on their positions. I mean, you know, we respect democracy and we have five band members.
So if it ever needs to come down to a vote it's going to be you know two against three if there was four people and it was two against two then what do you do yeah so unfortunately we have a neat uh an odd number of band members and but most of the time we just talk things out and it doesn't really even come to a vote we just somebody gives in and we just keep talking till there's a consensus but if if there ever needs to be a vote then we respect that and just uh and also keep an attitude of gratitude knowing that we're super lucky to get to do this that we've stumbled on a really special lineup that uh we were better together than we could do on our own and for sure just take good care of it damn that's. Because I feel like that's pretty rare.
I mean, you guys must have seen bands come and go and kind of implode and all that stuff. Yeah.
Yeah, and so many bands that we started out with have like one or two original members and then just side guys. Yeah.
That's what I saw in your guys' Tiny Desk concert. That's like, I mean, I don't recommend you guys going through comments.
They're all very nice, but it was the big thing was like, I can't believe they're all still together. Usually it's one guy and a couple of studio musicians and it's, you know, so it's sick, man.
Yeah. It's awesome.
So how do you like, when you, cause you guys have come out with almost like an album a year with, I mean, give and take like a couple years here and then in the beginning, in the beginning, it was like that. I mean, you know, it's a mad terror when you think about it.

And I thought we were on a bender when we did that. And then I looked at REM's discography and they did like six albums or something like that in their launch like per year.
And but it also made sense because they reached a status in a level that is very hard to come by.

But unless you put in mad work man yeah you know so we did a lot of legwork obviously and um and then you know we continue to do it but um it's important to get back to the not imploding part to like have some space that you carve out, you know?

Yeah.

So, and now we all have families at this point in time.

When did the families start and how was that like balancing that whole thing?

Well, we, thankfully we kind of waited.

Did you really?

Yeah.

So, you know, I think maybe it's, it's possible had we started families early that things might have gone awry perhaps because there's tensions, you know, that can build. And if you don't address them, you know, in a familial setting that can spill over into your professional, you know, lives.
Oh, yeah. I know.
So I think we were a little wiser by the time we started families. How old are your kids? You don't mind me asking.
Ours are about the same. I have two guys, three.
Mine is almost, well, 14 and 12. Okay, sweet.
I got you. So you guys really waited until the time was right? Yes.
I definitely can not have to wonder if I sowed enough wild oats. You know what I mean? Yeah, I was the first one to have a kid, and I was 39.
And now there's been 10, 311 kids. So it's – Damn, that's pretty cool.
Yeah. So you kind of broke the ice, and everyone else was like, yeah, I'll do it.
The floodgates. Offspring.
It's okay. Yeah, they're tough, man.
I have a two- and a four-year-old in like and i i tore with stand up and it's it can be tough like kind of like deciding how much do you go away how much do you not and you just feel like consumed with guilt and stuff yeah that's that's a thing but fortunately i i kind of did the math once and we're maybe gone like between a quarter and a third of the year it's it's not like we're all year. So then when we're home, like I'm super hands-on dad.
Got you, got you. Kids ready for school and driving them to school and stuff in the morning.
Yeah, that makes sense. And if you put it up against a 9 to 5, it's like you're going eight hours a day almost every single day.
Yeah. Versus going away here and there.
And I also tell myself, too, if I had to work in an office, I probably would have burned my house down. So there's that.
I would have probably beat my kids. You know what I mean? So it's like being able to get a creative outlet helps me not be a nightmare to my kids and stuff.
Yeah. One of my kids said, Dad, I'm glad you're not a mister.
And I was like, what are you talking about? She was like, you know, comes home with a briefcase and a suit. I'm really glad you're not a mister because like like take them do those exist anymore i saw that on tv once that must have been nice to be like yeah i'm not a mister yeah you you get it i i was very good to i and then now when i do something crazy i'm like would a mister do that they're like no that's you're proving our point yeah you're not a mystery that's awesome man yeah my my kids have got to come when i do stand up like we've if i have like an earlier show like sometimes you're like a 4 30 matinee show and they've got to come do like just hop on stage and like mess with the mics while the staff's setting up and like they i feel like little kids love that like if you're telling them like i'm playing music or like they say i'm a funny man they're're a funny man you have to go be silly I'm like yeah that's pretty much what I do yeah that's cool but that is tight man so how you guys you started in 88 right um there was a previous incarnation of 311 called unity that was 88 and 89 got you 311 started on June 10th 1990 okay so and then we were in omaha for two years putting out locally produced albums that started to do really well so we used those as demo tapes to get us the record deal and we moved out to la in 92 put out the record in early 93 and i it would did we definitely didn't like rocket.

Cause like what you were sharing about,

you know,

the skateboards only like the really cool kids knew about us.

We were not.

Obviously.

We were not in the mainstream.

So that's why we named our second album grassroots.

Cause we're like,

we're not going to be embraced by the mainstream culture.

MTV was not touching us at that time. Yeah.
So we're not going to be embraced by the mainstream culture mtv was not touching us at that time yeah yeah so we're just going to do it through touring and stick to our guns and kind of what essay was mentioned like rem also like you too like they stuck to their own weird sound and waited for culture to come to them so that's what we did too like we're just going to keep doing our rap rock with reggae, even though that's not at all what's on the radio. And then finally with Down, that culture came around to us.
Yeah. But we just stuck to our lane.
And it's cool too because you already have like, dude, music might be an all-time album, dude. Like I'll listen to it still today and I'm like, God damn, dude.
It's on that's insane Eddie Offord was the one who touched the knobs there and he was this eccentric British guy from Prague Rock World he worked with like Yes Anderson Lake and Palmer and he'd worked with John Lennon and stuff so he he had a ton of stories. Yeah, that's pretty cool.
And it was just this very sweet English gentleman, prototypical, right? And us. Yeah, what were you guys like early on? Were you guys like good boys, bad boys? What was going on? Smoking weed constantly.
Yeah, around the clock. That's what's up.
That's what's up, dude. Respectable kids.
Yeah, so you guys were just smoking weed. I'm guessing that kind of usually gateway to mushrooms, LSD.
What was that? Was it just a weed? Ecstasy. There you go.
Ecstasy. Don't forget that.
Booze, Jack Daniels. Nice.
You guys guys kept it within like a very – I always say that is the best,

like keeping it within the sphere of like weed, some alcohol,

obviously some ecstasy and maybe some mushrooms and acid.

But that's good.

So you guys were able to keep that.

Did you guys have like – obviously maybe private issues, but like any public like meltdowns with cocaine, any stuff like that?

Or did you guys keep it just kind of tight the whole time? Well, me personally, I've decided that I'm better off sober. There you go.
It works for me. A little caffeine is fine, but that's it.
But everybody in general has kind of matured and cleaned up their acts. So there's no problems in that arena anymore.
Yeah, you get to a certain age. I used to smoke a lot of weed and you get to a certain age and you're like, why? What the fuck am I? Exactly.
I'm going to make a part with my kid and I'm bugging out. I'm like, I can't do this right now.
It does smell like weed in here. So was that...
Awesome me. Awesome me.
No, I'm scared of it now, dude. I sound like an old guy, but you see the fucking weed is like 47%.
Literally, I saw those 42 i'm like i don't need that well the weed back in the day was like very seedy very we i mean it was it was like a joke i know snap crackle pop i honestly think i could smoke a whole pound of it wouldn't do anything to me now but yeah it's like that's cool so i mean i just think it's cool because a lot of especially in entertainment there's this whole other thing there's like you know there's your core business which is like touring selling tickets albums all that stuff and then there's like let's say the forces of like fame fortune all of that other stuff and i really feel like that can have like such a fucking brutal effect on people but it seems like you guys kind of just were like all right let's just throw fun shows let people have fun keep doing our stuff and obviously i notice you're very like you know gratitude and i think it i think it's working that's fucking awesome man because you don't see it you only see you only see these stories that become like the ones that get like glorified or like and then they're doing this and it all fell apart and everything turned to shit and it's like i always wonder like why does that happen i'm always i'm always curious why people are making millions of bucks like where's where's all the destruct the seeds of destruction come from well i think and again like you know we didn't have it i think he was alluding to that at the beginning you know we the success didn't wasn't there initially you know so it was uh it took time and then yeah you you figure out shit this took a lot of effort to get here bro you know like yeah that makes sense it's not gonna you know ruin it so how old are you guys when things started really popping off you weren't you guys weren't oh we were young yeah you guys weren't old at all no 25 26 that's that's that's better than like 19 21 but still that's pretty young man super young this episode is brought by Max. Welcome to your new American dream.
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Yeah. Yeah.
So what was that? What was the big moment when you were like, holy shit, this is kind of getting out of control? Was it the Blue Album? Well, it was when you were hearing your music coming from other cars like on the street. Yeah.
And like. Yeah.
I remember. Maybe we should move.
You're still in Omaha. I remember once we were doing a gig at the Whiskey on Sunset's trip.
And I heard a car pull up with grassroots, and it wasn't even out yet. Like somehow they had gotten an advance copy of it, and they were trading it all because there was just so much demand that they were like, you know, stolen our music somehow.
Yeah, shit. That's kind of nuts.
So when you guys first so when you, when you guys first came out, you're saying you're sending stuff to radios and they're like, nah. Like, what was their big, because you guys said you had like local.
Well, it was like, we weren't the sound of the time. Like, you know, when we came out, grunge was like, you know, on the radio.
That was like alternative rock. Yeah, yeah.
And we weren't really grungy at all. You know, maybe a track here or there, but not like a whole album.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Of a vibe.
You guys were ahead of your time, though, because then like, you know, quote unquote, rap metal became just like blew up like right after kind of grunge fell. Pretty much rap metal became huge.
So you guys were right in time. You guys were right in time.
Yeah. And it's really awesome to see next generations of bands that grew up on us.
Like the guys from 21 Pilots tell me that once this drunk chick came up to them after a show and was like, you guys sound like a mixture of 311 and 311. And they were like, great, we'll take it.
And I'm friends with the guys from Turnstile, and they grew up on us too. So it's really cool to see passing it on as we were influenced by so many bands too.
So it's just all part of a big kind of family tree. Yeah, what were your guys' influences actually now? I'm kind of curious about that.
Well. When we met like he kind of got me into bad brains like i knew a bad brains but i didn't really listen so he was like we're listening to bad yeah we cranked it and then um but as like as a band you know jane's addiction was a big band for yeah 311 you know i think we all saw them together.
Helmet was another great band. Chili Peppers.
Got you. And you guys, I'm sure you guys have met all those guys, Peppers and all that stuff? Yeah.
We played with them a few times, yeah. For the big turn of the millennium, the 1999, December 31st.
Everyone was going to lose all their money. Did you guys lose all your money back then it took my whole family out we played with the chili peppers that night at the forum so that was like kind of the coolest gig that we we could have had that's pretty cool yeah fuck yeah man so what's your guys's plan now what's the plan going forward forward? Obviously, just staying shredded, staying ripped.
Obviously, you got the ordering. Monitoring.
Making sure everything's okay. What do you think about all this monitoring going on? Do you have feelings about it? Or what do you think? He's taking care of himself.
True. A lot of people are negative.
A lot of people get negative. They see the order.
They go, come on, man. I don't want to see that stuff.
Do you want the data? Or are you against the data? No, I mean, at home, when I run, I have, you know, obviously my phone's in my pocket and all. I don't, I'm not obsessed about tracking, you know.
Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, it's great.
There's so much information these days, right? True. So if you can tap into it, tap into it if you want.
True. Damn, you guys are too chill.
I'm trying to see if you guys will turn on each other. But it becomes like a thing, man.
When you get older, it's like you do have to take the helm on some regard. Like you said, you're running.
You're doing a bunch of other stuff. I'm sure it's like it's tough, man.
You get older, it's like it gets away from you fast, dude. Oh, absolutely, man.
Like it's. Well, what we do, you have to.
It's a sport and it's all season long. That's true, too.
Yeah. Like, you can't go home and just chill, hang on the couch.
Oh, we're going to go out in a week. Yeah.
You can't just show up at the Super Bowl without training. Like, you have to be ready.
Yeah. I'm guessing you guys have a pretty lively live show.

So yeah, I didn't think about that.

You can't, if you like, if you were like took time and chilled out, you'd be on stage like.

Oh, dude, absolutely.

That's crazy.

No, you're.

Yeah.

Well, that might be another reason why a lot of, you know, bands kind of just crumble because of the stress of touring, you know.

Yeah. How do you guys deal with that, though?

Well.

Working out. Yeah.
Preparing. Lifestyle, you know? Whoa.
Yeah, eat good. I like take a nap after sound check, you know? So I'm like- I sleep in.
Like I just woke up about 15 minutes before we came here. Damn, that's gotta be crazy.
It's, we work nights. Yeah, true.
And it's hard to get- We work nights by guys. After the adrenaline of a show, it takes hours to flush that out and get ready.
Yeah. That crushes me in doing comedy clubs.
You're doing a club. It's packed.
Then you just leave and go back to your room and it's silent. You're just in your hotel room.
It's kind of like, well, I love that. I like it.
Your body's flooded with adrenaline. So do I.
Dude, I get right out. I go right back to my room.
But your body's just flooded with adrenaline. You're just sitting there just like – I just take melatonin and wait until I feel heavy.
And I'm like, no, I pass. Well, what's crazy is that in the wild times of the early 2000s and late 90s, we would party so late, go to sleep when the sun is coming up, and then wake up at like one, smoke weed, and do sound shit.
Battle. Yeah.
What games were you playing back then? Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat. Just the street fighting games, bro.
That's so tight. Hockey.
Fuck you, my man. So fucking fun.
Breaking controllers when you lose. Dude, waking up, smoking weed, and playing video games.
And then doing a concert party all night. It's the life.
You guys have cracked the code. It's the life.
You guys have cracked the code, dude. Yeah.
It's so fucking tight. I really think you guys have figured it out, man.
You guys seem like, you know, you have like, you have normal.

Don't say it.

No fruitful lives.

Delete this episode.

We don't want anyone else to know.

So when it's done.

Have you seen, in terms of like being around entertainment,

have you, do you have any thoughts on kind of like how people kind of manage

like levels of fame and notoriety and like how to like kind of live with it without it kind of, I guess, throwing you for a loop. Well, you know, you mentioned don't read the comments and that's kind of that's kind of a good thing.
Like, don't Google yourself because there's people that are going to be mean. Yeah.
And i think the fact that we weren't immediately embraced um made it tough yeah yeah right you guys got thick skin already and we looked inside the circle what he said that makes sense you kind of you got to keep like a tight because it is true especially with the internet now it's like especially having like families like i you know i'm like i have my life with like my kids then there's like me on a fucking computer screen just getting all kinds of whatever like yeah great fucking this guy sucks he's the worst right and then like i'll catch myself being almost more concerned about like you know my digital rendering with the comments on the line and I'll be like with my kids I'm like what do I do and do this is sick this is disgusting you know it really does need to be like it's such a hard thing to sever because it gets you but it's also not you in a sense if that makes sense yeah they know he's not a mister true that there's a mister thing to worry about I'm a fucking mister I think so I guess I'm trying to think what other questions I have so you guys you guys are in it for the long haul what's the plan do you guys have like a you have the cruise too by the way were you guys the first ones who started doing kind of like the one of them but not the first one of them yeah like at first they were called like blues cruises so it was like kind of a thing with blues bands to go and and then they they contacted us and we like we think your band would be perfect for this and then it turned out to be awesome we're doing our seventh one coming this eighth eighth eighth there you go so we rotate one one earlier this year we did 3 Day, which is a big kind of convention in Vegas. And then the next spring, a cruise.
So they're like destination. It wouldn't have worked in the early days of 311 because, you know, they're high school kids that don't have the money to go on.
And the fan base isn't really built yet. No, that's true.
Yeah, you got to be like, ask your parents. Come on.
Get out there. Yeah, so my cousin's husband, I think he's been on it multiple times.
Oh, yeah. Shout out Flick, dude.
Yeah. He's a mega fan of you guys.
He swears by the cruise. He said the cruise is sick.
It is fun. You were like initially when we were approached, I'm like, that sounds awful.
You know, as soon as I heard, I didn't know it existed until years ago. And I heard about it.
I'm like, obviously, dude, that sounds like such a good idea. And it's turned into a shit ton of fun.
Yeah, I bet. It is so much fun.
So where do you guys go? What's the cruise destination usually? We're going to Nassau this time and one other destination. Yeah, something.
We keep switching it up. It's always in the Caribbean.
How many shows do you usually play on the cruise? Is it like? Like three. Two to three, yeah.
Oh, that's nice. And then they can stop and get off and then come on.
There's like a concert. That's a cool idea.

And a bunch of other cool bands.

Other acts, yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Comedians.

Nice.

Yep.

Well, it's pretty cool.

Bring me out to sea.

Yeah, man.

Tonight, you guys are at the Moody Center.

Is that what it's called?

It's outside.

Yeah, yeah.

Wait, it's outside?

Outside.

Yeah.

You guys are playing outside tonight? Yeah. You guys are going to be fucking sweating your balls off.
There's 105 degrees today. Yeah, it's hot.
It's no joke out there. Nice, man.
Yeah. Oh, that makes sense.
You're at the Moody Amphitheater, I think, or whatever it's called. Yeah.
Hell yeah, man. Well, nice.
What else? What are they? Give me some of the major lessons you guys have gleaned from your years and years and years. Well, I was just going to mention that we have a new album.
Right on. That is coming out this fall.
I was going to ask you that. I saw the single.
I was curious if you had the album. So I think one thing we want to do is put out music a little bit more frequently.
But the pandemic kind of slowed everything down. And we were just kind of scrambling to even stay connected with our fans.
We were doing like live streams from our studio playing music and grassroots and everything in its entirety. But we're super excited about this new album.
And I would just, you know, encourage younger artists to play out as much as possible because it's like live music is the most important thing. It can't be replicated by, you know, a studio artist.
It's like a tradition that's gone back 100,000 years. You know, rhythmic music goes back that far.
Melodic music, maybe 50,000 years. So we're part of that tradition of one set of guys plays an instrument the other other people dance and you know what i mean so it's it's it's just very important to play live a lot so that's kind of one piece of advice i always just take every gig yeah you know it was awesome play are you familiar with harry nielsen yeah apparently he never played live that was the bane of his existence he had like a zillion albums but he could never play live too nervous too nervous yeah there's a doc on him right yeah yeah he was too nervous he was so good he just couldn't play live it's kind of tragic yeah the guy from xdc too at one point said i'm Because he had a panic attack.
And he was like, I am done. And that was a big influence.
That's a really good group. Damn.
And I think I, at one point, did kind of struggle with a bit of anxiety. And then I just needed to learn tools to deal with it.
Yeah. Walk towards the fear towards the fear.
Yep. You know.
Can't walk away from it. I have panic attacks on stage doing stand-up like five times a year.
It's nothing. I just eat them.
I just sit down. I'm like, I'm going to die.
I'm going to have a heart attack. And I'm like, all right, whatever.
Bring it on. Yeah, here we go.
I'm going to forget. That's one of the things.
It's like, I'm going to forget everything. That thought is just an absolute brain worm.
I'm like, I'm going to forget everything. They're staring at you and you're like, oh, it's happening.
I knew this. You know, but you just got to.
Yeah. And I think having the mantra of like, stop, I'll know what to do when I get there.
Just trusting that you're going to know what to do when you get there. And then it kind of is a way to end that that i think you're right it's it's in you and it's just the questioning of is it in me creates that that feeling of panic just stop i'll know what to do when i get there this episode is brought to you by call of duty calling all call of duty fans verdansk is back in call of duty war zone starting on april 3rd you'll be able to drop back into verdansk experience all the chaos and relive the thrill you've been missing not only will you get the classic battle royale experience we all know and love but verdansk is back with upgraded graphics and gameplay that's right you'll be experiencing verdansk like never before smoother movement stunning visuals and new mechanics whether you're dropping in solo or teaming up with your squad, it's time to come home to Verdansk.
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That's a good move.

That's a good call.

What do you think about that? Well, for me personally, I just try to stay in the moment at all times. I kind of grew up performing.
I was always in musical performances in school, etc. So it was something that, and in my family too, it's like we all kind of performed and uh um but i remember our first like big show we did it was in omaha before we were to embark on our trek out to la and we played uh our biggest show to date it was in front of like 2 000 in Omaha.
And I'm like, holy shit. How am I going to do this? You know? This is serious.
Yeah, this is like, this is next level. But yeah, you just, you do it.
And we learned it together, essentially. Yeah, that's true.
It wasn't like, it wasn't like a, yeah or whatever and trying to figure it out or getting over these humps, obstacles, etc. But to back to your point, I think you place a lot of those in front of you, you know, like for me, I try not to look at the set list while we're performing because I have on occasion looked at a song and then I'm like, how's that, how's that going? Again? You know, so it's just kind of there for like a reference point, but I rarely look at it.
I do sometimes like how many fucking songs we have left. Other than that.
But yeah, no, that's a, that is a fun thing to think about because it's like especially with anxiety which again if you're doing any kind of performance even if you're like going into a meeting at work there's always anxiety you know and it's like the way i think about it is i think a lot of people take a pretty i think unhelpful approach to it today where it's like you know just like just silence that part of your brain with a pill which you know some people need whatever but there's a lot of people where it's like if i were to listen every time i got like supremely nervous about a thing if i were to not do it dude like i don't i can't imagine what my life would be like you know what i'm saying like like for doing stand-up my heart was leaping out of my chest when i first started yeah if i had been listening like no you're right let me just not i'm not do right, right. Dude, it makes sense because it's literally built into our body to keep us from, like, genuine physical threats.
But when it comes to, like, well, here, I want to perform. They're not going to, like, eat you.
It's just kind of, like, you know, it's kind of amazing to think of, like, the lives that lay on the other side of, like, pretty intense personal fear. Yeah.
I think we're told to kind of be like, yeah, yeah, listen to that. Dull yourself.
You know, get away from that. Yeah.
I think it's the worst advice.'s the worst advice to have like exposure therapy like let's go in towards that thing that's making us really uncomfortable last week's version of this american life has some really cool stories about like a guy that gets a concussion a woman that gets a concussion and then everything loud bright like for years and she just kept avoiding those until she met a doctor that was like go towards those most uncomfortable things and then that broke the the hold that it had on her so to me I always just you know walk towards the fear or discomfort whatever it is you gotta keep pushing into it or else it's gonna rule you yeah exactly i went to um i studied to be a social worker like you know in between doing stand-up and i i went to go i was like maybe i want to be a therapist i was kind of bouncing back and forth but i would bring up exposure therapy in my social work school and they're like that's abuse i'm like no it's not it's like demonstrated to be like 83 effective like better than a lot of other forms of therapy for anxiety and they'd be be like, that's kind of rugged. It's like, well, so is life.
Like, you know, like you got to do stuff that is scary. And you know, you can't always just be like, Oh, I feel very comfortable and safe.
It doesn't work that way, man. Totally.
It does not work that way. Kids today.
Oh man, dude. Don't get me started.
I was in school with a bunch of like 22 year olds been like, actually. And I was like, you have no talking about but that is cool man it really pumps me up to see you guys are able to kind of like again just be in a space that is you know can be very you know threatening to people's well-being and just stick to the mission of like you know we have our I think you mentioned like our core circle let's just focus on each other our families obviously the 311 babies and just you know keep the blinders on eye on the prize and don't get caught up in all the bullshit and the hype and just blast through let's go it's awesome man yeah because that was the thing is basically we had our our little gang so we could just walk into a venue and just we had each other so it just supplemented our confidence a lot like i don't know how solo artists do it but for us it was it was just great to have that crew and our road crew there and it was just like a big family so we just go in there with swagger and blow the place up it's awesome dude i think uh i think i don't know is there anything else you guys want to talk about you got you got the new album coming out i I mean, I think people should also dig into your entire discography because I didn't know how many albums you guys had.
I knew you had like a decent amount, but I like looked at it like three days ago. I was like, what the fuck? These guys are releasing album after album.
It's insane. Were you like conceptualizing the live albums or the albums for live shows more so? Were you just kind of like putting them out for like a listening?? It varies.
Like the Blue album was meant to be like, what are songs that just kick ass live? But then the one after that, Transistor, was just more experimental and studio trickery. So, you know, we went through different phases.
You do sometimes in our history, like, yeah, well, what are they going to like love to listen to? That type of thing, type of thing you know yeah what's gonna get hype and and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't yeah you think you ever have a song you're like the crowd's about to go fucking nuts and you play it they're like all right that's part of the thing though man like the same thing with stand-up you're like this joke's about the oh it's gonna kill it's gonna kill bro everyone just looks at you like why did he just disclose that detail about himself that's not funny that's disturbing you're like moving on yeah that is a process so you gotta you throw it out eventually you're like okay wow this one what was what was the song that like absolutely murdered that is there anything that surprised you guys that you're like damn i didn I didn't think this thing would be the one. Well, Down was a hit before it was a hit.
Like when we played it, but it was also just the zeitgeist of our fandom building, you know, moment where it was just like, the pot's about to blow. Yeah.
And that, but that, that was a song that when we played, it was a hit already, you know, and it wasn't even on radio yet. Right.
Yeah. Was there anything that like on the other way where you're like, this is your like whatever other song and it turned out to be popular? Have you always had a sense like? Well, with Amber, we were so used to putting out hard singles and worrying about like the male part of our fan base.
But then that song really was just like a sleeper that. Oh.'s classic as well so you're saying that that was not that was what the ladies are saying i mean it's it's more of a romantic song but then we'd have like these huge meatheads would be like amber is my favorite song it does roll dude it's awesome it does that song for real does something to.
When you're like just sitting there, you're like,

God, this is so fucking nice. My energy is definitely Amber, too.
It was our first chill single ever. We'd always had rockers before that.
Like Crush, too. That must have.
Yeah, it was like number one for a really long time. That's awesome.
You did it for the babes. What did the babes say afterwards? The babes like, thank you, or? Amber is the the color but it's having a moment now with like teenage tiktokers a lot of people making videos of them and a lot of times they use the slightly sped up version that makes it a little bit like sound like chipmunks but whatever brat baby they'll probably do it so they can like fit it into like you know i notice people do that now online where it's like they'll just speed themselves up talking at like three times the speed and you're like yeah it's already bad for me enough i don't yeah i don't need this this fast just more information faster right get it in well dudes thank you so much and where's uh where can people get tickets you guys are on tour right now where can people get tickets for the rest of your guys everything's at 311.com and we're heading over towards California and up the coast to Seattle.

And then we've got various fly dates in the fall and we're going to Australia for the first time in a long time.

Oh, nice.

Around Thanksgiving.

Hell yeah, man.

That's their summer too, isn't it?

It'll just be starting, yeah.

Nice.

Well, dude, thank you guys so much, man.

Yeah, man.

This was fun.

Appreciate it.

Thank you guys. Thanks for yeah man this is fun appreciate it thank you guys thanks for the invite of course