So my question is, to kick this off is how did you become familiar with it?

Well, I mean, I could literally answer this question and you wouldn't have to ask me another one for the entire time.

That's a good way to start.

So I went to school, to a public school, which is a private school in Canterbury, a school called the King's School Canterbury.

And it's the oldest public school in in England, just by the by.

It's right in the confines, the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral.

The Canterbury Cathedral dominated my life from the age of 13 to 18.

you know, kind of a last hurrah, but with the latter one being more sort of, you know, cynical.

Anything, just say no.

I think I was on quite a few of them.

And because I was... enthusiastic and suggestible, they knew, like a lot of the people on these things, they could come and they would just offer their new single or a remix or something.

But they knew they could say to me, hey, this one's kind of going to be about Roe versus Wade.

And I go, oh, I'll write a song about it because it's just what I'm like.

So a lot of my contributions to those things, like when the Beatles hit America, that was a unique version of that that was recorded by Jimmy Dixon.

I remember it very well.

So

How did you two kind of find each other?

Well, oddly, his girlfriend, now wife, was a fan of mine in Chicago, and I met her at the merch table many, many years ago at Schuber's in Chicago.

David became a musician I was aware of, and then he moved to New...

They both moved... to New York.

And when I was, we weren't really working together initially, but when I got the cabinet of one, he made some albums with friends of mine and played with Mekons who I know and a few other people.

And when I was getting the cabinet wonder show together, I needed a house band for it.

And he was basically the first person I reached out to.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, that's the honest ...

Yeah.

That's the honest truth of it.

[singing] Oh, you're a funny one.

You saw me coming.

And I knew that you'd give me a run for my money.

Yeah

[laughs]

It's all synthesizer pretend bass.

Nobody notices.

Um, we had to send...

I didn't know how to even finish it.

At one point, I was just gonna release it as demos, which would've been a terrible idea, but we were all looking for good ideas in COVID, you know what I mean? Uh, you know, and so I sent it to San Francisco.

Prairie Prince did the drums in San Francisco with Chris Von Snidern, who I trust to finish something off without me.

Yeah

But tell me about making this album.

Well, the story of this album kind of starts off with the last album, which is, you know, my default sound is a kind of strummy folk rock because, um, I basically started out as a folky.

I've made albums with The Decemberists and The Jayhawks, so that's the kind of folk rock side.

Or it can skew a bit to the...

I've made albums kind of more baroque, I would say f- folk pop kind of, with string quartets and elaborate settings.

And also, of course, it can skew, it occasionally, when I've had the budget, uh, and the enthusiasm, it occasionally can skew quite pop.

There's an album called The Man With No Shadow that was on Hollywood.

[laughs] Yeah