But are you-- Is that something that you're busy with? Like-

Really, I mean, I'm a big music fan, and since I was a kid, I've liked a lot of different kinds of music.

For better or worse, my dad was a musician and quite successful, but was very, very fussy about what music he allowed us to play in the house.

And the era of music that when I was very young and growing up was pretty -- My friends all listened to shitty hair metal pretty much, and he was not having it.

There was just no way we could play it in the house.

And so I gr- grew up listening to field recordings and classical music and Motown and Stax Records and Talking Heads and PIL and things like that.

So just from the, kinda the minute that music was presented to me as something that was important in life, the breadth of music was also made very, very clear to me.

[laughs]

I mean,

and I think just kind of generally in Shishu, I mean, that exact point is really interesting for me and serves as a kind of constant source of conflict for me also, which is explored in the band a lot.

I mean, you know, I mean, like I said, I am sort of privately religious and ascribed to a lot of the kind of hippie ideas of a lot of different... spiritual paths, you know, but at the same time, like I'm interested in like the grossest, darkest aspects of sexuality and, you know, and violence.

And, you know, I have a lot of very unhealthy habits, which I have really no plans of ever stopping.

Uh, you know, but I, I don't really feel like these are necessarily go against spiritual ideas that I have, but maybe they fucking do.

It's, I don't know.

It's a big, it's a big question.

Like there's something that seems like it's destabilizing the harmony, but the harmony is actually dependent upon it, if that makes any sense.

So I'm really curious to hear it on a turntable.

I think kind of for all mine, I got a little backward-looking as opposed to forward-looking, starting with Garland by Hot Chow Twins.

When I was a teenager, I started getting into, as teenagers do, getting into goth, which I have never stopped being into.

But I was also learning to play bass at the time, and this is possibly the best example of goth bass playing I have ever heard.

It's incredibly romantic, incredibly rhythmic.

The feel is wonderful.

The note choices are very, very unusual, but still ultra compelling.

But for a lot of years, he channeled it into pretty meaningful, moving modern music.

You agree with the idea of the Jets playing their guys tomorrow night, Jamie?

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I wanna see Geno Smith with Garrett Wilson under the Frank Reich offense.

I wanna see this offensive line under the Frank Reich offense.

I wanna see Frank Reich.

Um, defensively, I wanna see the secondary, I wanna see David Bailey.

People are tired of it.

Okay.

And I, at the time when everything first happened, I genuinely wasn't sure about my job security.

I was, you know, teams were being separated.

We weren't really sure if we were allowed on job sites, in offices, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, my p- husband, Matt, the same.

He's in the music industry, but it was the same.

Um, he got sent to work from home.

Mm-hmm

May- maybe I'm just asking what you like to do.

Oh, I'm just a workaholic.

I mean, I go to the studio six or seven days a week, and we tour all the time.

[laughs] I just really love working on music.

But m- our, our music tends to ...

Uh, l- the lyrics are, uh, f- the lyrics ...

Actually, I guess that's another aspect of cover songs that are important to us too is are the lyrics saying something? As I mentioned, my dad was a musician.

Thank you very much indeed, Jamie Stewart, for being my guest on the Music Show.

Berlin must be interesting right now in terms of like all of this conversation because it's like this place that's sort of liberating and and potentially hedonistic for a lot of people but then right now it's like this very heightened or at least from what i'm hearing very heightened version of um all of that hatred coalescing in a way that is more visible than ever are you finding any weirdness around that

the well not around that particularly in berlin certainly in germany the weirdness in berlin and law enforcement has to do with it relates to the very shirt you're wearing with a protest about Palestine.

I mean, I can, I'm going to sound like an ass talking about it because I only, I mean, I'm not German and I don't, I mean, these are, you know, things that I only glean from reading the newspaper.

I don't live it.

I don't really understand the psychology particularly, but my understanding of it is, and I, and probably gonna miss a lot of nuance in this, is for obvious reasons, people in Germany feel fairly unresolved about questions around Zionism having to do with some small events in their 20th century history that we may not know anything about.

So- Will Google.

yeah yeah possibly yeah so because of that there is uh i feel like even bigger because there's a term for it but essentially it the philosophy around the term comes around israel right or wrong and it's a it's a way of just trying to put to just kind of muddle through the sins of people's grandparents Having perpetrated one of the worst crimes in human history, Germany will, no matter what, Israel does support Israel regardless of the logic of what is happening.

shows with those types of bands? Yeah, all

But Jamie's also asking listeners and fans to think about how they approach music in the streaming era.

Streaming as a platform in and of itself, unfortunately, it's just going to be the way that people listen to music.

It's the easiest way to do it.

But because it's the easiest way to do it, it's also the hardest way to really engage with music meaningfully.

You have to really put effort into engaging with music meaningfully.

You have to consciously decide, okay, I'm listening to this song.

It's not blowing my socks off immediately, but I'm going to make myself listen to the entire thing.

So in a way, this move is both a moral choice for you and one that hopefully sends people to a better way to engage with your art.

It's hard and probably unrealistic to expect people to just toss their Spotify subscriptions, but Jamie's also asking listeners and fans to think about how they approach music in the streaming era.

Streaming as a platform in and of itself, unfortunately, it's just gonna be the way that people listen to music.

It's the easiest way to do it.

But because it's the easiest way to do it, it's also the hardest way to really engage with music meaningfully.

You have to really put effort into engaging with music meaningfully.

You have to consciously decide, "Okay, I'm listening to this song.

It's not blowing my socks off immediately, but I'm gonna make myself listen to the entire thing.

So in a way, this move is both a moral choice for you a- and one that hopefully sends people to a, a better way to engage with your art.

But Jamie's also asking listeners and fans to think about how they approach music in the streaming era.

Streaming as a platform in and of itself, unfortunately, it's just going to be the way that people listen to music.

It's the easiest way to do it.

But because it's the easiest way to do it, it's also the hardest way to really engage with music meaningfully.

You have to really put effort into engaging with music meaningfully.

You have to consciously decide, okay, I'm listening to this song.

It's not blowing my socks off immediately, but I'm going to make myself listen to the entire thing.

So in a way, this move is both a moral choice for you and one that hopefully sends people to a better way to engage with your art.

It's hard and probably unrealistic to expect people to just toss their Spotify subscriptions, but Jamie's also asking listeners and fans to think about how they approach music in the streaming era.

Streaming, as a platform in and of itself, unfortunately, it's just gonna be the way that people listen to music.

It's the easiest way to do it.

But because it's the easiest way to do it, it's also the hardest way to really engage with music meaningfully.

You have to really put effort into engaging with music meaningfully.

You have to consciously decide, "Okay, I'm listening to this song.

It's not blowing my socks off immediately, but I'm gonna make myself listen to the entire thing.

So in a way, this move is both a moral choice for you a- and one that hopefully sends people to a, a better way to engage with your art.