The Mandolins and Beer Podcsast #324 Sam Parks (The Fretliners)

Hey everybody, this is Daniel Patrick and this is episode number 324 of the Mandolins and Beer podcast, brought to you in part by my favorite website, the Mandolin Cafe. How's everybody doing? I hope you are doing well. Sorry there was no episode next week. I had it recorded, but my daughter got married last Saturday and I guess I just overestimated how much free time I would have with everybody getting into town and how much stuff that needed to be done for the week. But we're back this week with Sam Parks from the Fretliners. They have a brand new album coming out October 26th. It's incredible. It's called When the Kettle Sings, and T-Bone Burnett is the producer. The story is crazy, how it came about. I'm excited for you to hear that. I'm excited for you to hear the album. And Sam's got a special connection to Sam Bush in an interesting way as well. And it was a great episode. Thank you to Sam for doing this. Again, the album comes out on October 26th. Also, if you're gonna be at IBMA, I have 2 showcases on Wednesday. I'm playing 11:30 in the morning at the Acoustic Shop stage, and then I'm playing 11:30 in the evening at the Dark Shadow conference room showcase. So I'm really looking forward to that. If you're gonna be at IBMA, come on out. It's gonna be all original tunes with my trio, possibly a fiddle. Player as well, but right now for sure acoustic guitar, upright bass, and myself on mandolin. So really looking forward to it, and if you're gonna be there, let me know. Before I get into my sponsors, I want to thank Ben from Picker's Folly, P-I-C-K-E-R-S F-O-L-L-Y. Ben is in Chicago and he hand makes leather pick cases, and he sent me one and it is a work of art. I mean, this thing is killer. The stitching is incredible. It holds 8 picks. I've got 8 of my tones slabs in there, and I just want to thank Ben for sending me one. They are beautiful. They got— he's got multiple color of colors of leather. 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Oh, also, we talk about a kind of a, a lesser-known mandolin player, uh, David Peters. And so there is a link To the YouTube video. I don't know if the album's still available for sale, but it is available to check out on YouTube. It's called Art in America and it is pretty incredible. All right, thanks again to Ben from Picker's Folly. Thank you for listening, I truly appreciate it. And by the way, you could support this podcast for as little as $2 per month at my Patreon. Head over to patreon.com, type in Mandolins and Beer, or look in the description, uh, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, have a fantastic week. Cheers, everybody.

Cheers.

Jeremiah. All right, man, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome my next guest. Doing this intro twice now as my dog was going crazy downstairs. Uh, it's Sam Parks from the Fretliners. How's it going, Sam?

It's going great. 5 o'clock somewhere. So I'm a Mainstage Brewery beer out called Banjo Tuner.

Nice. So, man, you— so you just got back from Americana Fest. I was just— we were just talking a little bit about that. My guest last week, Ethan from Arkansas, was during the podcast was kind of bragging you guys up a bit. So you were just talking about you did a couple shows this weekend, just kind of got, got back into town.

Yeah, we just got back into town this, uh, well, we got back Thursday or Friday of last week and then had to shoot over to, uh, Winter Park for a, uh, kind of afternoon wine and food festival that we had to come— we had to leave Nashville for, um, and also Miss Winfield for.

Oh man.

So there was all kinds of Sadness leaving Nashville.

How was the Americana Fest? So I've never, I've never been to it, but it's, uh, you know, it seems like it's a good time. Lots of cool bands there, that's for sure.

There's a lot of cool bands. And then, um, they're, you know, it is kind of scattered about town. It's like highlighting all of these different venues around Nashville and these different, um, companies like record labels or record pressing companies or audio or music stores. Like, everyone's kind of like vinyl stores. We played a vinyl— we played at Vinyl Tap. We just signed with Soundly, which is a subsidiary of 30 Tigers.

Oh, nice, dude. Congrats.

Thank you very much. They're on the, um, kind of like the Americana roots branch of 30 Tigers. And so 30 Tigers did an afternoon kind of appreciation party of sorts at the Vinyl Tap. So we played that and then played the Five Spot later that evening.

Well, congrats on the subsidiary of the 30 Tigers. The album out October 23rd. It's called When the Kettle Sings, and there's 2 great singles out already: Stitch Up My Heart and then, uh, uh, Silence Says It All.

Birds sing to the morning sky. Where is my love? How'd you fare the night?

So people want to check those out. I'll post links to those below, but I'm really excited for the album. Before we talk about, I guess, that, like, how did you get into mandolin?

Yeah, so I come from a musical family. My folks really started— they started playing fairly young. My dad played bass in high school but was kind of like in that classical world of sorts, but also like all his buddies were playing bluegrass. So he was like, really got into bluegrass, but then, you know, was really listening to classic rock and stuff like that. And so then his bluegrass buddies were like, hey, you got to come up to Winfield and see this festival. So they went up there in 1975 or '76 and saw the New Grass Revival, and it completely changed their trajectory. So Now they're into bluegrass. They're learning all these songs. My dad was the only one playing at that point. And my mom and dad had been together since 9th grade, and my mom never played anything other than piano. And then after they got married, she was like, I gotta like learn how to play something, be a part of these picks, you know?

Yeah.

So she starts playing guitar. And they're going to Winfield every year, and then they decide to have me in 1985. And Sam Bush had kind of changed their life. Sam Satterfield was my dad's best friend, and Sam is part of a family name. So they were like, we're naming our firstborn Sam. So I, you know, I've— so Sam Bush was kind of like this, you know, real tangible, like, thing that is a part of my moniker. So I'm like, you know, kind of given a mandolin when I'm 6 months old, like, hold this, this, do this, do that. But I didn't really, you know, I wasn't like— Give me that thing. I'm meant for this. Like, right away. I had to kind of like be a kid at the festivals growing up. And then— and the picks, like, we did all that stuff. And then we finally— we, we would always go to Telluride and Rocky Grass. And then around '96, Or 7. We go to Rocky Grass and we camp next to the Pagosa Hot Springs, which are like— if you don't know Josiah Payne as a mandolin player, you got to check him out. He's out in Portland, Oregon. Yeah, Josiah Payne. So we go, him and his brother Jared Payne. And Carson, who's no longer with us, we go out fishing on the St. Vrain and they teach me how to fly fish and catch fish. And then we come back, I come back to camp and they start getting instruments out and I'm like, holy cow, this is really cool. They're like kids my age that are like really crushing, like sounds so good. They won the Telluride band competition when they were like all 17 and 15 and stuff. They were like, they were like rippers. The Pagosa Hot Strings.

Yeah.

And Josiah won the Winfield National Mandolin Championship. So they're, you know, this like higher level presence that's like my age is like kind of starting to infiltrate my world and I'm like, I want to play mandolin. So I— we come home from Rocky Grass in '96 or '97, and I told my dad I want to learn how to play the mandolin. He's like, all right. So we get out of DB— He already has some of the VHSs and stuff of the instructional things. And so like, we get out this one of Sam Bush that he's teaching Manzanita on, and I am so like dedicated just like to learning that song. Manzanita, that like, I wouldn't stop playing until I figured that out. And I'm like, bringing it in the car on the way to school. And my dad's teaching me things like building the low ground in the morning before school. I'm like, I'm just like, got the bug.

Now, where did you— did you grow up in the Colorado area?

I grew up in Duncan, Oklahoma. So Scott Vestal's from there. Billy Joe Foster's from right outside there. There's so many good musicians from Oklahoma. Astounds me all the time. And, you know, I, I did the traditional thing going to Oklahoma State University and did business school, and I got 3 or 4 years into that and just like— I couldn't. The music— I had a band at that time, Flatland Grass Band, that doesn't have any recordings unfortunately, but there's some YouTube stuff. Still great friends to this day. And I'm like, I just, I wanna, I wanna play music. So I wind up leaving there and going to South Plains College in West Texas, in Levelland, Texas. Joe Carr and Alan Mundys. kind of bluegrass program. The bluegrass program is unfortunately no longer, but they still have a commercial music program, which is what I went down there and did. It's everything within the music world and industry. It was a really, really cool program, and I value my experience there so much. And I got to do 2 years of all music because I had all my basics and everything taken care of.

What, what year, what year was that? Just to ballpark it.

That would have been 2008 to 2010.

So at that point you've been playing about like, about like 10 years at that point then?

Yeah, about 10 years. So I get done there and I get to talking to Joe Carr, and I was like, where should I move to be a part of a music scene? He's like, well, you pretty much only got, you got New York City, you've got LA, You've got Nashville and you've got Denver and Austin. You know, I was kind of torn between Austin and Denver because I didn't really want to go too far from home. You know, we started coming to Colorado when I was like 5 or 6 years old and like doing— like I just got really into Colorado at a young age. And I already had a bunch of friends out here playing music, musician friends. And I was like, I'm going to move to Colorado. So I moved to Colorado in 2010. I immersed myself right away, got into that band Bluegrass Delta Force. Fast forward a little bit and I wound up in Head for the Hills, which I was on the Oceans and Poisons album. You can hear one of my tunes called Floodwaters on that record. And then I also wrote Give Me a Reason, which is on that record.

Give me a reason to get you off my mind. Could you hurry up and help me out with knowing you can't be mine? I'm still thinking you're the lady for this Heart of mine. Oh, I should have asked you while I had you, can we go back in time? If I set out to walk, I'd walk for many years. I'd go around the world and back again, it'd be no trouble. Here would I find you?

And right about that same time, Johnny Miller from the Lonesome Days calls me up and he's like, hey man, you play mandolin, I bet you play guitar too. We're looking for a guitar player, would you at all be interested? And I was like, hell yeah, dude, I want to play guitar in a band. That was actually a little bit before Head to the Hills. And then I got that Head for the Hills gig, which was an established, like, 10-year-old band, and I just, like, couldn't say no to. So I somehow made those 2 function tandemly. And then I left Head for the Hills around 2018, 2019, something like that. Lonesome Days made a record. We made a record, um, E-Town Studios, Nick Forrester's studio there in Boulder. Yeah, I wrote a few of the songs on there and do all the guitar work. I got to play Charles Sattell's guitar, like the D— the 1936 D-28 on there. It's, it's the most amazing guitar on the planet, I think. It's unbelievable. I got to change strings on that thing. I got to like really get to know that guitar. It was really cool.

That's awesome. What a legendary instrument.

Yeah, that Sawtell guitar is— takes the cake. So anyway, 2020 happens, right? We have everything set up and we got studio time at Swing Fingers with Aaron Youngberg up in Fort Collins. The whole pre-production was taken care of, and smack, the lockdown happened. We're like, what is going on? And so we just have to like roll with the punches and be like, guess we're not Is this kind of how you end up in the Frontliners?

Because I mean, talk about, you know, making, uh, lemonade out of lemons, you know what I mean?

Absolutely, 100%, man. I like, you know, the pause happens and, you know, I'm in Lions at this point, wound up kind of hanging out with Taylor, and then he was in a band called Woodbelly with Tom and Taylor got this thing called the Shuck Wagon. His last name's Shuck, so he's— he calls it the Shuck Wagon. And he will kind of book some gigs not knowing who the band is, and then kind of like the, the week before, build the band with who doesn't have a gig that Friday or something. And you just hop on the Shuck Wagon and play the gig.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, it's really great.

Yeah.

And so that's what happened with the formation of the Fretliners. And then we played this show up at the BJ Kenny Farm in Fort Collins and had a really great time doing that around a single mic. And so then we realized we got something unique, so we had to— but we were— there was some other things that needed to shake out. for us to take it seriously. So the summer happens, and the fall starts to come around. We get a few more gigs, and we're kind of like all in. And one of our first shows at the Velvet Elk Lounge, I also met my wife that night.

Oh, nice.

My now wife. Then the kind of the fall happens, and spring, and building a relationship and building a band all at the same time. And then like, we decide we're just gonna do this. Telluride Band Competition. It's like, if we want to start this band and get it on the right foot, like, we got to do it. We do that and we like took first on the 50th, the 50th year of Telluride. It was like really something special.

Yeah. Wow.

You know, then a month later is Rocky Grass and we're signed up for it, but we're like, should we do it? Should we just like leave? You know, it's kind of like when you're gambling, it's like just like kind of pull out when you're ahead.

Right, right.

So we're like, whatever, we're signed up for it. Let's, let's just do it. So, um, yeah, we wound up winning that one too and then wound up the second band in, in history to do it in the same year.

I was gonna say, has there ever— who was the other band, do you know?

Spring Creek was the other band. Front Country also won them both. But they won them consecutive years. So there's only one other band that's done it in the same year.

Gosh, that's awesome, man. That— how cool to win both in the same year. That's incredible.

Yeah, yeah. And so that really kind of set our foundation. We then— yeah, I forget, I forget where in the timeline we recorded that album.

The the debut album, the or the self-titled.

The debut album.

Yeah.

Yeah, the self-titled.

Cornfields and windmills paint the picture of the plains. Wind is hot, rain won't stop, weather's never tame. Since a kid, I've always seen what the mountains they can bring. Put me on a bus, send me on a train, and now I'll sit and whittle while I listen to that fiddle.

I can't remember if it was before Telluride or after, but because you, you do also get, as a part of that win, you get 3— a 3-song recording session at E-Town. So we wound up just doing a 3-song thing because it was close enough to our record. Yeah, I think we must have recorded that in the spring before Telluride.

Was that the one that you, um, was that the, uh, like an EP then that you did after you won Telluride with Prince of Peace on it?

Yeah, so yeah, so Prince of Peace It was 3 songs and each 3 singers did one, right? Which we've kind of shaken up our dynamic now. But that was like why we called it Three of a Kind is like each, you know, Tom and Dan and I each singing one. And so that was like kind of the idea with that. It was just like creative little splash, you know, kind of keep content rolling.

When I hear the intro, when I first heard the intro, To Prince of Peace, I had to Google to see if Sam Bush played on it.

Oh, really?

I'm not joking.

Well, try and judge me only by my time and changes.

It's the closest I've heard somebody in a minute get that close to that that feel at the intro. I mean, I was just like, Sam Bush playing this? Yeah. It was great, dude.

Damn, that's a huge compliment.

Yeah, man. Well, it's— yeah, that's how you— it's great, great player, buddy.

Thank you.

Who were some of the other mandolin players? Because obviously Sam Bush— I mean, your name's Sam, your, your family, and, you know, New Grass Revival blew your dad away. But were there some— who are some of your other players that when you were like kind of coming up you were listening to and, and working on?

Um, you know David Grisman, obviously. Um, Matt Flinner was a big one. I kind of came across him at Rocky Grass Academy when I was a kid, and we did some instruction there. And it's right around the time that album Black's Fork came out, and I was like really into that instrumental record. Let's see, David Peters is one that is not brought up very often.

No. Whoo!

And I really like his, um, sentence structure, if you will. Like, I think he puts ideas together in a way that I really appreciate. Like, they just kind of— they make a lot of sense and they're very listenable. And I don't know, you know, how much of it is improvised or if it's like worked up, but like doesn't really matter. Um, it's like, it's just a style that I really, I really vibe with. Um, and there's only one recording out there and it's 30 songs or something, right?

Yeah. Is it the Art in America? I believe.

Art in America. Yeah. Art in America.

It's so good.

John Reichman was an influence. In more of like a simple kind of way and, and in like a kind of methodical tone, like finding tone. Like early on, somewhere like at some camp or some instruction, what was introduced to me was the 3 Ts, and that was tone, timing, and taste. And, you know, tone and timing are pretty self-explanatory. But taste is the one that I got hung up on as a kid. Like, what is that? Like, I— like, it's something that you think you know, but you just kind of have to explore it on what you kind of resonate with, what you think is tasteful. Getting to define that on my own as a player, coming into like not only my own personality but my musical personality and like all of that, it was a very important thing for me at that time.

That's great. I mean, a lot of people don't ever find that, you know. I mean, that's— I think that's probably the hardest part as being a musician, especially if you want to be a professional, is It's trying to find yourself and, you know, and not trying to be the next whatever. Yeah, that's, that's tough to find that. That's awesome that you thought of that early on.

I mean, I'm— it's still working on that, but like, it's, you know, that's part of— that's part of music. There is no finish line.

Exactly. That's what I love about it.

You have to accept that early on, and you have to love that about it. Yeah. It's like it keeps you continually curious throughout your whole life. So that's like one of the best things for the brain.

My, my next question for you then would be, how do you find time? I mean, you guys play a lot. Your schedule looks busy all the time. How do you find time to say— I mean, to practice mandolin, you know, at this point?

Honestly, so I also, I just left my full-time. I was a grounds mechanic at CU for like 8 years, like pandemic, like pre-pandemic that kind of started and it kind of reassured that. And so earlier this year, I let that go and was full-time Headliners. And like, when that happened, it was like, oh my God, thank God I can like actually practice now. Because it was like, I mean, no stopping. It's, you know, I'll get— I would get home at midnight or 1 from some fly date on a Sunday. And have to go into work at 5:30 next morning.

Oof. Ouch.

Yeah.

So what's the stuff? What are you working on now that you've had this free time? I mean, what is the, uh, what is the stuff that you, uh, have been, have been woodshedding on?

You know, a lot, like a lot of stuff has just kind of been going back to basics. And how to, how to make challenging things sound simple. And like, kind of, you know, always having a metronome going and working through like transitional points of double stops and back into this or that. Just make like, kind of just like double-checking myself. Also with some of this new material, you know, I have a, I have a process with bringing new material in that I'm gonna like be performing with. So I'll, I'll go through that stuff. I love iReal Pro.

Have you, um, have you ever used— it is called Strum Machine.

Oh no, I have not.

Oh buddy, I have just changed— I have just changed your world. You, when we get done, download the Strum Machine app. It Is unreal. It's all basically—

Can you build charts in it?

Oh yeah.

All right.

You could build charts, but there's also, there's also thousands of bluegrass charts that are in there already as well.

And the band probably just sounds a little better than iReal Pro.

A little bit. And you know what, um, Mike Marshall actually, I believe, worked with him a little bit, so the tunes have a little bit more like swing to them. As well.

Oh wow.

Yeah, dude, it is. I use it every day. Every day. Not, uh, they're not a sponsor. I, yeah, I'm just, I gladly talk about it to anybody I can. It's amazing.

All right.

How much time did you guys have to, um, speaking of like developing ideas, how much time did you guys have to like work on this new album before going in and recording it, or did you do it in bits and pieces?

Maybe only like 2 or 3 of the songs that we wound up recording in the studio were pretty new. Most of them we had kind of toured for a while, so like Rewind back to Telluride. And we, like, we won that festival. We got to come back and play the next year. And that year, T-Bone Burnett was working with the Planet to do a 50-year documentary. And so now it's 51st year. They're gathering a pool of footage from the previous 50th and this now 51st year. T-Bone is there, and then also Billy Strings is there, uh, opening the festival with Chris Dealey. Billy, like, winds up coming into the campground post-rehearsal with Chris Dealey, like, you know what, I'm just gonna go see what kind of campground picking's gonna happen down there. Well, the documentary crew is with him, and it turns into, like, He's like, starts walking out, and Tom, our guitar player, sees him, walks over to him, and is like, hey man, let's, let's sing a song. You want to? And he's like, I don't know, I think I'm heading out of here. It's like, oh, it's all right, man, I'll get the tenor. And anytime someone's like, a stranger is like, I'll get the tenor part, it's like, okay, they probably know what they're doing, right?

Right.

So he's like, all right, I'll get my guitar out. So they go and they play. They create this magical moment. I joined in for a while and we had a set that was happening in camp right when this thing is starting. So we wind up like 20 minutes late to our set. Oh, Jesus. But then we had to— we had to live out this moment.

How could you not, dude? And what a better excuse. Oh, sorry, we were jamming with Billy Strings. Sorry we're late.

Yeah. So then, so then Billy goes back, uh, the next morning and, and is hanging with Thiele and T-Bone and stuff, and he's just like ranting and raving on this experience that he had last night with, with, uh, Tom and us there in the campground. And T-Bone raises his ear to like who this Fretliners band is, and he— He wants to— he wants to work with us. He decides he wants to work with us. So it takes— it takes like a year to kind of finalize that. So we're like working these songs on the road, trying to figure out what's good and what's not. We had to go through a member change, met Grayson Wickell online, and he comes and does a few tours with us. And then we're really digging what he's got going on. But we did— it's like that awkward starting phase. But we're like planning to go do this record. Like, we have plans, we have studio plans to make this record. We just like don't know enough about like what's going on with our 4th member yet. So T-Bone's like, let's get Stewart. Let's get Stewart Duncan. He's just so brilliant. It'll just be great. We're like, that sounds awesome.

Oh my God, that's amazing.

So I make all these charts up for these songs that we want to do and send them over to him and he I mean, we're talking holiday season. I was like, January 1st, we're flying to Nashville and starting recording on January 2nd. So, and like, I'm sending this stuff like the beginning of like, I don't know, December 15th or something. It's like kind of like, good luck finding time through the holiday season to like mess with this stuff. But I guess Stuart Duncan, so I don't think we'd have too much to worry about. So we— so then, yeah, we go out to Nashville, it's Sound Emporium, uh, to record at the Sound Emporium. And we go out to— we're about to eat at this barbecue joint next door to the Sound Emporium, and T-Bone's like, there's nowhere to sit here, so let's, let's go back to my house and we'll just eat there. So we go and we sit around his, his round table and we get to talking about how we want to record this record. And Daniel Toshin is there as well, and Mike Stankovich, who's the, the engineer of Sound Emporium, one of the lead engineers there. And so we're like sitting around the table talking about, you know, how we want to do this thing. We're going in tomorrow morning and he's like, you know, I It just hit 25 years of O Brother, Where Art Thou? since I did that record. And I think— and it hit platinum and did all this and that. And he's like, I really— I think you guys are the band to bring that recording style back. And like the way that they did that record. And so we were like, all right.

Oh yeah.

We don't know exactly what that means. We don't know exactly what that means. But, you know, Toshi and Daniel Toshi is like— I just remember him going, well, do you have any regrets about it? Like, because it's a, it's a very specific recording style that, like, there's no, there's no, like, fixing things, right?

So, okay.

So he was like, No, I think it captured— it captured the vibe, which is like what I think people really liked about that record, is what he said. And then he goes, I think what we need is a— is a Nagra. Nagra is a tape machine, really nice quarter-inch tabletop reel-to-reel. And then we— so this recording style is with a single mic, a really vintage Neumann single mic, a Decca tree, which is a— it's kind of like a term for these 3-room mics that are set up in what's called a tree formation that Decca Records, they pioneered back in the '50s or something. That energy's there. You get into a new song and I'm telling you, man, we like— we're in the studio and Stewart's with us in the studio and he doesn't Like, we don't— we don't run one song, like, on the whole record. We didn't run it before we recorded it.

Wow, I had no idea. I didn't realize this whole T-Bone Burnett tie-in either. This is— this is amazing.

Yeah. And so, um, yeah, we recorded— we get behind a single mic and we recorded, I think, 5 songs the first day. We're talking like 2 to 3 takes per song, you know. I think 9 out of the 12 that are on the record were first takes.

What's your, uh, what's your main axe? What'd you play on the, uh, on, on the album?

I played Turkey Creek number 108 on the whole thing.

Oh, nice!

It's a, it's a Manley builder out of Conifer, Colorado. And he— I don't know how many he builds. He's building a year right now. I don't know. But he made 99 for Alex Johnstone, I think. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I was like, hit me up when you make 108, because 108 is just like a really cool number. The, the list goes on on 108, but there's things like there's a lot of cosmic things like The sun is 108 times larger than the Earth and the moon is 108 times smaller than the Earth. There's like this proportional thing with that number. It's like there's, there's a whole list of 108. But I've always been— thought that was a cool number and wanted, wanted to kind of put my name in the hat for that number because it was coming up. And he gets a hold of me. He's like, hey, I just strung up 108. So I— he lives about an hour and a half from me, and I just— I mean, like, I think that day I drove up there.

Awesome.

Yeah. And I— yeah, I don't do that very often. Like, oh yeah, I'm not doing anything today. I'm just gonna like drive, drive up there. Like, I usually have something going on, and like, it just— perfect alignment. I was like, this thing's just got it. Oh, it's like strung up brand new. And I was like, can I leave with this and kind of make some, you know, an educated decision in the next couple days? No problem. No problem. Yeah, take it with you. And yeah, it's a varnish. He detailed it like I couldn't have asked him to detail it the way he did it. and had it turn out this good. It's like just so like me. And, uh, it's Engelmann spruce from the Western Slope and a maple.

What about, uh, what about strings and picks when you play?

I use John Pierce 2170H. That is a 12 E string, so that goes 12, 26, 16, 40.

I think you're the first person on here who's, uh, who's used those.

Yep, yep, I think so. And I am a huge fan.

And then what kind of, what kind of pick do you use?

I use a TP45 Blue Chip. Um, I was using the TDs for a while For a long time, and I was like kind of wearing through them like every 3 or 4 months. I was like, this isn't, this isn't sustainable. I gotta get like 2 more points out of the same price. Right, right.

What is your, uh, what is your live rig? What do you use when you play live? You have really good live tone.

Um, so I've got a K&K Pure Mini, um, that was built into this instrument, thankfully.

Mm-hmm.

And then I use a Grace Felix DI. Um, they're made here where I live in Lyons, Colorado. Um, and our bass player Taylor Shuck used to work there part-time for several years.

Oh, nice.

So, he would build those things and test them and knows them in and out. And, I've got the second generation, I believe. There might be a third now, but with the second generation, there are more jumpers on the inside. So, this is a very complicated piece of gear but the best in the biz if you know how to run it. Which is kind of part of the problem is like there's— I've been trying to tell Taylor to— or, uh, Taylor and I have talked about him doing an instruction video.

Oh man, yeah.

Um, on how to kind of like properly set those up.

Dude, I think it would be easier sometimes to land a plane than— I have the same one and there's so many things on there. Like, I'm like, there's no way I'm using this thing to its, uh, full capacity at all.

We all have those, and, um, I think that has a lot to do with it. I think we're like the, the digital to audio— sorry, um, digital to analog conversion is, is congruent across all instruments, and We have a really defined process with the way that we run through our, our, um, tones and getting everything set up. Um, and then the, the other thing that— though, with the one last piece of gear that cannot be forgotten is the cable. I use a Lava cable.

Lava cables, huh?

And they're expensive, but they are zero impedance. It's kind of like the cherry on top part of the setup. And I've been through a lot of— I used to run— what was that? Something like Wind Over the Earth. There was like an under-the-saddle pickup system, and I ran a vintage jack. Um, I have a Collings that had all that set up in it. I still have it. It's an MF5A.

Oh, nice. Yeah, those are killer too.

Yeah. And then I've got a mandolin I built from the Rocky Grass Academy, and then I've got a National Triolian, the 36.

Oh, sweet.

Yeah, set up slide. That's— and then I've got several tenors that I have strung up, like, they're tenor guitars that I string up G, D, A, and have fun on those so I can play mandolin and not have to worry about a C. Right.

Yeah, the dreaded C. What is that ringing out so low? Uh, and sounds terrible. I'm like, oh, it's me with the C string that I don't know how to use. Which is messing with my brain.

Yeah, dude, it's all the same fingerings, but the conversion, the live conversion that, that has to happen is like, this is unnecessary. I'm just stringing up GDAE and moving on.

There you go. If you, if you only had 10 minutes a day to recommend playing, I always like to ask, if you only had a few minutes, what is something you worked on that you felt helped you become a better player?

I'm always like, always, always having the metronome be a part of whatever you're doing. It's the— and arpeggios and pentatonics. You know, I love my thing that I run every night before I go on stage is I run a diatonic, like an arpeggio series that goes up from I just do it in G, but it— so I do it diatonically and I go G, A minor, B minor, C, D, E minor, F sharp diminished to a G, and I just run it up and down and it just several times. And then I'll kind of like connect some other things like in between before I'll like kind of— there's a lick that I'll throw in between. It's like just a cartilage of 2 things going together. And then I'll run it maybe another time and I'll do it like triplets and then I'll do it, you know, at different tempos. And it just, it's kind of like gives me the whole fingerboard, sees these shapes. It kind of, it covers a lot of areas. You know, most chords that are going to be played tonight, I'm going to like kind of feel that. And it takes me, you know, 5 to 10 minutes to kind of mess with that.

Yeah, that's, that's great.

I just love, I just love that. I love arpeggios and I love— I think they're, you know, they're just so Simply powerful.

Yeah, well, there's a reason why so many people say to use them. It's because they really do kind of— I mean, if you want to hit the right notes soloing, even if you just know those arpeggio notes, you're going to be all right, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I mean, it gives you kind of like the in-betweens of the whole scale, and then you know where you can go forward or backward from that 1, 3, or 5.

Like, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then the last question: Do you have a favorite beer?

Before I forget, yeah, we're gonna be in Charleston on the 14th of November, and I'd love to see you.

Oh yeah, dude, for sure. Oh, at the Poorhouse, right? Yeah, yeah, I play there the next Friday night. That yeah, I'll be in town. I just you know what? I just looked at my sky. I have a morning gig, and I'm off. Uh, the evening. I'll make sure I block that off and put you guys on the schedule. I'd love— are you guys on the deck, like an early show?

I don't know.

That's probably so. That's the jam if it is. Okay, in my opinion anyway.

Um, sweet. You probably know that venue well. It's like the Oscar Blues for me.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. It's the best. Oh, sweet, man. I look forward to it.

Me too. So I, yeah, I was wondering if I'd be asked this. And I, right now, my favorite beer is made right here in Lyons, Colorado at Mainstage Brewery. It is a really cool brewery. If you're ever in Lyons, Colorado, you got to swing through the Mainstage Brewery. Yonder Mountain String Band's monitor guy is who— Eric Keane is who started this brewery in town. He's from here and started this brewery. And he has this— him and Sam Scruby, they have this like musician-themed beer. Like this one I'm drinking right now for this podcast called Banjo Tuner. And then, but my favorite one is, is called Stage Light. And it's a light, it's a light lager, kind of a classic American kind of thing. And it's got like American malted barley and flaked rice and corn. And I think that flaked rice That flaked rice is really— I think it like mutes some of the edges of other ingredients. And there's no weird aftertaste. There's no— it's so— it's 4.5% alcohol. And yeah, I just— I was an IPA guy for a while, long while, and then I just kind of went back to the— went back to the lager world.

Same, man. I did. I mean, I still love a good IPA, don't get me wrong, but man, they're just so filling. And if you're not careful, you get drunk real quick. You know what I mean?

You gotta watch out. Yeah.

So I'm, I'm all right with a lager and a pilsner right now. And, uh, you know, maybe if they have a good IPA somewhere, I'll grab that and then just only have one as opposed to 3. And then, you know, just follow it up with some, some lighter stuff. So.

That brewery, Mainstage Brewery, they opened a second location in Gun Barrel. Um, and they're actually— so they were renting brewery space and now They have their own in-house brewery over there in Gunbarrel, and they are doing us a beer.

Oh, wow.

We're very excited about, called the Fret Lager.

Oh, that's amazing, man.

Yeah. So that's going to be like a dark Vienna-style lager. That's kind of— we did a festival down in Baja. in La Ventana called Baja Grass. And there was these Mexican lagers down there that I cannot remember the name of them. It's right on the tip of my tongue. Anyway, they were down there and we were like, these are so good. And so we— when Eric came to us about this, we were like, yeah, what about you know, adding something from that. So it's gonna drink super smooth and have kind of that full-bodied lager profile.

So we're like, oh dude, when are they, when are they gonna make it? Are they gonna have it out there before you make this run? If you can squeeze one in a suitcase, I'd love to try it.

Oh, you know what? I will have one for that.

Oh man.

It's gonna be, it's gonna be, Released with the records. So it's in, it's in the process right now. And, uh, we'll have that.

Yeah, if you can fit it. I mean, I know how it is to Tetris gear sometimes, so I completely understand if you're like, yeah, there's no way I can make that happen. But if for some chance you can, I would, uh, I'd absolutely love to, uh, try one.

Oh, I will do— yeah, remind me.

Yeah, I'll do that.

You know, because there's going to be all kinds of stuff going on.

Of course.

Yeah. But I will— I'll do my best to remember.

Yeah, I'll try to remember too. I'll look— I'll try to look up— I'll try to look when you guys are getting ready to leave for the run and put a note in there to text you the day, a day or two before. And again, if not, no big deal, buddy. There's plenty of great beers. But man, I'm looking forward to it. This is— this has been an awesome talk, and I'm looking forward to hearing the whole album. And, uh, I'm looking forward to meeting you in, uh, in Charleston in November, buddy.

Absolutely, man. Me too. Thanks so much for, for calling and, and, uh, yeah, getting to talk man wins and beer together.

Absolutely. And congrats on the, uh, the success and all the— I'm super excited. I can't wait to see you in person, bud.

Yeah, man, same.

All right, thanks to Sam for doing the podcast. Thank you for listening. Again, you can pre-save this album on all the streaming things. You can pre-order a copy at their website. Links are below. October 26th is when the album comes out. And again, thank you to Ben from Picker's Folly for this beautiful, beautiful pick wallet. Have a fantastic week. Cheers, everybody!

Cheers!