The Way We Get By

Joshua Zarbo is, is the bassist on this album, although he left the band by the time they went on tour for this album, so he's no longer with, with the band.

Uh, we covered Series of Sneaks uh in season four bonus 21 and we covered girls can tell their third album a mere six episodes ago on episode 20 and this is their fourth album this came out a mere 18 months after girls can tell so pretty pretty quick turnaround there um britt daniel wanted to um build on the momentum that girls can tell generated from them you know they were kind of their their narrative was that they were an underdog they got dropped from the major label and um girls can tell was like starting to turn that around and they were kind of critical um darling so he holed up in a apartment in new london connecticut that he rented and trying to get out of austin he just stayed there for three months writing writing songs and um such as jonathan fisk which was um his memories of being bullied as a teenager in in temple texas and uh funny story about that is that guy that that song is about actually became a fan of the band and so like was a big fan of theirs and they never like you know i guess he heard britt daniel heard about this from from other people or something he never like confronted him or told him the song was about him or even what the guy thinks about the song but it's funny that kind of you know he changed and grew up and liked the band um they wanted to make the songs in this album a little stranger and less straightforward um than than just like a guitar driven band and um so britt daniel began playing more piano on the recordings when they were recording he also wrote some songs on keyboard and he made up a band member um called ego johansson that's credited on the band as playing the piano even though it's him so he wanted to like i don't know he he had this idea i read an article about like wanting to create like the band mythos and like having all these members of the band um and uh so that's why he did that he also said quote like on the first couple of albums i thought the idea of having piano was very embarrassing it didn't seem like something wire would do it didn't seem cool but that was just a very limited frame of mind we started realizing there's nothing not cool about marvin gaye or plastic ono band there's piano all over those things so why not uh fucking loosen up a little bit after he had written a dozen songs or so he they went back to austin and and uh wrote uh the way we get by and small stakes um and then they went to work with producer mike mccarthy who recorded um kill the moonlight on a shoestring budget primarily in jimmy no's garage and this album pretty much got um critical and popular claim right out right off the release um it also found some commercial success because the way we got by or way we get by was in a 2003 episode of the oc and some he said quote brett daniel said quote something about that show really introduced this band to a lot of people so i think that music supervisor and uh she julianne jordan was the music supervisor she won a grammy for a star is born the most recent one uh recently with lady gaga and bradley cooper um spoon didn't tour much for girls can tell but then they toured a lot for this album and they also you know so they start filling up you know venues which was not the norm and then they got calls from late night shows so they spoon played on conan o'brien and carson daly in 2002 and this album sold around 40 000 copies um after several months which is like way more than any of their previous albums had sold and this was the first time brett daniel saw like that they could be like a band that you know continue on as a musician and that people would remember and just being amazed at like knowing like going home for christmas or you know going home to his parents or whatever and just being unable to comprehend that they've sold 40 000 copies of of an album so it was a real turning point for the band and um and uh yeah it's kind of here on up uh from here on out so um that's what i've got for the band so let's matt what did you think of kill the moonlight

Yeah, I'm a bit mixed on this record.

I knew the first two songs and I was really trying to figure out why or how I knew them because I don't own this album.

I think that Small Stakes is a cool way to open the record.

It's like this driving kind of, I don't know what instrument they're using, but it's some sort of keys, but it's like not a Mellotron or something like that, but it's like this very driving kind of keyboard part.

The way we get by is more of they're using piano there, but it's got a really good groove to that song, I think.

It's got the good bass part and certainly the way that they're using their staccato nature, which is still all over this album.