Episode 17: "THE COURAGEOUS FOOL" feat. Ana Roxanne

Kind of like the ignorance is bliss kind of vibe. Right. I feel like The Courageous Fool should be the podcast title. Does that resonate? That does, actually. It really does. That's nice. What does that mean to you? Are you supposed to move it down? You're ahead. I guess so, yeah. It's like ingrained. That's off the... Steal this album, that album. I think so, yeah. What song is it again? I can't remember. It's a good song. Yeah, it's good. I feel like it's the only good one on that particular album. Steal Your Album isn't my favorite. I mean, I guess it has to be Toxicity. Yeah, of course. Definitely. How deep did you go with Sode? That was pretty deep. I guess like, yeah, I was in like eighth grade. And it always makes me think of like, my brother was a few grades above me and we would drive. school together and we would be like blasting toxicity at like 8 a.m. But yeah, I was obsessed with them. I have like a coffee mug that I thrifted that's like their official merch. It's like one of my prized possessions. You should have brought it with you. I know. Because our receptacles are so shoddy. Yeah. Anaroxana drinking out of the one.

fluid receptacle in this house. That's the cloud from Guest Privilege. What's the goaded system song? Gosh. I feel like Ariel's is really good. I don't know. That whole album is like a no skip for me. I'm with you. That's the one that's like... So good. Aerials in the sky. What's that one? This is one really beautiful acoustic duet between Serge and Darren. I think it might be on Toxicity. Do you know what I'm talking about? I can't remember. Yeah, they have like... I wasn't so familiar with their earlier stuff either. But, yeah, I can't think of what that is. Do you, like, revisit any heavy music from that formative time? Yeah. Sorry, I'm like, this is, like, scary to talk. But I do. I visit that music a lot. Yeah, it's like, I feel like... Ian. Ian Kim Judd. When we became friends, we were like, oh, like Deftones, like White Pony. Like that was sort of like how we like bonded at first. But yeah, I do listen to a lot of that music. What do you return to? Let's see. Sorry, I'm blanking. I think when people talk about that era of music, it almost invariably comes back to bands like Deftones and System of a Down who are slightly more on the tasteful end of the spectrum. Yeah. Deftones, I kind of got lumped in with a lot of that. just by virtue of the timing of their arrival. But they're just a lot more musically sophisticated than a lot of their so-called contemporaries. Yeah, I guess from that era, I was also really into The Used. I revisit The Used a lot, actually. I get emails from them.

Like Spotify, it's like, thanks for being like one of our top fans. And they'll like send me like a promo, like a code for like their tour and stuff. And like, it's kind of embarrassing, but I'm also honored. So that's really nice. It's more embarrassing than honorable, I would say. No, I think you can talk with them. That would be really cool. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, that would be interesting. I only know that one album of theirs. Also, I don't know if it's the same thing, like Thursday. I was thinking about who I was really into early years of high school, and those are the biggest ones. Did you like any of the English, British scene bands? I didn't really, like, know about any of that stuff. I grew up, like, kind of sheltered. Like, I was homeschooled for, like, half of my life, and then I went to, like, a Catholic school. So my exposure to, like, counterculture was very limited. Like, I was just really into MTV and, like, the alternative, whatever was, like, popular alternative. Like, that's kind of all I knew. So yeah, I wasn't getting deep into like, I don't know. Yeah, not really. Somehow I got really, I remember being really into the streets. The streets are awesome, shit. Yeah, that was like. What's your favorite streets song? That's hard to think of right now. That had nothing to do with your response. I chugged the coffee a bit too hard. I haven't listened to the album in so long. Just whatever the popular one was. Maybe Sharp Darts? Sharp Darts, yeah. Shot dots. Wow, I haven't thought about this in a long time. Spit and farts. Spit and dance faster. I thought they were so cool. Does Rob's accent kind of bring it all flooding back? Does he have the kind of, like, the geyserous cockney twine? I really love, like, British accents. I don't know. It's like a nice sound to me. You should move to London. I've thought about it.

Yeah. You should join Brian and Nick in the cool guy house. The most creative space that side of the world. It's kind of the British equivalent to the space you're currently in. I reckon it smells better. Anywhere Brian goes, definitely smells. The unsound hype house. What's that? The unsound hype house. Brian's mad into colognes and scents and shit. This is true. Yeah, hardcore. Hardcore. The UK's ambassador. Holding off his caliber, your beats are inferior. Don't want to embarrass you, so call you solicitor. The jury voted unanimously against you. Sharp darts, speaking masters, speaking darts faster. Shut up on the driver, you're the passenger. One brain superior, the pressure blows the dial on your barometer. Do you understand or do you need an interpreter? Now this one's fat like your mother contains enough calories. So given your sheltered upbringing, when did you first start going to shows? I didn't start going to shows until college. I feel like my parents wouldn't have allowed me to go to big shows. It was also expensive. I would go to some super local stuff, like my friend's band in high school, in the suburbs. But I didn't start going to proper shows until college, which I went to college in the Midwest. I think my first show is Mates of State. Who's that? They're like this indie pop. duo. They're like a married couple. Nice. Do you think they were kissing? No, don't be crude. Don't be crude. What? You don't have to answer that. Okay. Yeah, mates and states. They're pretty good. Was it like the books type vibe? I feel like I really recognize that name from being a teenager. I don't know how to describe it. It's like very poppy, like keyboard and then like...

drummer and they would like harmonize and it's really like cute and like kind of tweed yeah a little bit yeah were you making music like that at the time no um not at all no well um i guess kind of on that note uh You ever play in any bands prior to the Anna Rex Island project? And we have a particular interest in math rock or techie music. I ask this for no particular reason. Yes, I have. I was thinking about this actually. I was like, should I talk about this? I don't know if I'm quite ready to go into the detail or talk about the name or make it like... searchable or something. But I, yeah, I was in a band in college that was like a math prog band. Were you in dream theater? What is that? It's like a stadium prog rock band. No. Okay, that's good. By process of elimination, we'll arrive at the actual band sooner or later. Was it kind of like Terra Mello style, like Hela style? It was like, we were super into Deerhoof and I guess Mars Volta. I feel like those are the top two. I've been, yeah, I've been listening to it again and I, I don't know. I think I want to like share it at some point, but I don't think I'm ready yet. What were you playing? I played bass. So did you study music at college? Yeah. Yeah. So I went to music school. It was this really weird jazz program, like in the Midwest, like in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. It was very strange. Yeah, I lived there for like three years. Did it feel strange at the time or is it looking back on it? Playing jazz in the middle of nowhere for three years is a strange thing to do. Looking back is very strange, but at the time it was really exciting just because, or I was excited to like be away from home. Of course. And like just be like an insane college student, you know? Yeah, it was a very formative time. It was like a really small town and...

a really small program and it's very like niche, this very niche corner of jazz. Do you like specialize in something? How does that work? Well, like the curriculum was pretty basic. We would, everyone was taking like jazz theory, classical theory or like traditional Western theory and like piano and voice lessons. The school was like heavily into like vocal jazz, like acapella. So that was like the huge thing. There were these like really like intense or like these vocal groups that everyone would try to get into like by audition. And like it was a really grueling, intense process. Like super competitive and insane. And then like the groups would tour and like. recruit other students from like different high schools and colleges to like come to this random school in iowa and some of it was i mean some of it was really cool but a lot of it was like terribly terribly like cheesy music that's really embarrassing to perform in public but that's what we all signed up for what like kind of jacob collier type stuff um ish Um, like I remember once the group I was in, it was like the second best group. Or that's like as far as I went. Nationwide? No, I was in the school. Oh, Jesus. But like, my art director, like... uh arranged like a disney song and so we had to like that kind of and it was so humiliating but there were parts that were really cool and beautiful and like it really helped me to like learn how to sing and like it was really good for ear training and yeah i i owe a lot to that time in terms of like how i like formed my music practice or something what i always find is what kind of like funny and striking is when there's a disparity between um like technical proficiency and i guess like taste and i mean in a sense it does come down to swag obviously there's there's no accounting for taste whatsoever um but i just find it funny when people who are incredibly incredibly skilled technically at a given thing

gravitate towards disney music for example yeah it's so weird um i feel like that goes with like i feel like that's really common in like music education like environments where like the focus is like just how good you can become and like your chops and it's not about like creativity yeah um so yeah I've definitely been around a lot of that. And that's kind of like why I like dropped out because I couldn't like I wasn't like good enough. I didn't like have a background or like an upbringing with music. So everything was like super fresh. So everything was like really challenging for me, like learning theory and piano. I was like starting from scratch. So I like dropped out. Eventually. How far did you make it in? I made it. Well, it's like it is so weird. It was like a two year program. But then they had like a third year for people who have no knowledge. So like I did the like pre-year and then I made it. I like dropped out like with one semester left. Anyways. Yeah. I was pretty close, but I was, like, not doing well. Just, like, making you, like, whip out your grades. Yeah. I'm kind of curious. You alluded to the fact that you kind of thought that was, like, a national... Jazz league table? How do you think that would work? I feel like in the US, they make these things competitive. I feel like high school marching bands have competitions. I think it's quite interesting. I had, like, exactly the same experience of you. Really? Yeah, I did a year and a half, like, a year and a half of, like, jazz, and then dropped out. But I think what I found funny is that I've...