Speaking of albums, on Labor of Love, some of the songs on the album are years old. And last year, out of the blue, new EP [ Holehearted Fools ], most of these songs never played before. How did one take so long and the other happen so quickly?

Jay: When we went into the studio to record Labor of Love, without knowing what it would be called or what the album was going to be like, the way we do things is we all as songwriters bring songs to the table. We had a whole back catalog of stuff we’ve been playing already. “I Don’t Mind” we’ve been playing for 5 or 6 years. There’s a couple others that we’ve been playing forever.

The EP, what was great about it. The way we did it we went into the studio, Kellen, myself, and Mimi brought all of the songs to the table. We narrowed it down to about 17 songs. We basically recorded all those songs. We were thinking of making a double album, but we weren’t sure how we could do that. Also we were starting to feel bad about how long it was taking to finish the thing. When we first started recording the album, we put all of our money into it. We didn’t have any label support or anything. We didn’t Kickstarter either because that got complicated.

Was it the classic reverse of the Kickstarter syndrome? People like Kickstarter because you send out your money and forget about it and years later you get stuff. From your end, you have the money, and now I have to do all of this stuff.

Jay That wasn’t the issue as much as sending material to people. A lot of people, especially some older generation people that I know specifically, some of my dad’s friends and stuff, they signed up and gave money, but they felt weird about leaving their email address. That was our only way of contacting them. So people were like, “Where’s my stuff?” and we’re, “You have to give us your email.” So it was complicated. It can be tough when you’re a band and you’re out there to play and you’re trying to figure out who’s supposed to do this.

So anyway back to the EP thing, we released the EP right away because we weren’t done with the album. We didn’t want to do a double album because we thought it was a little early. Although, I’m really interested in doing that for the next album. We have enough material. That’s tricky too because it costs a lot more. We felt that those songs were a great representation and a prerequisite for what we were about to put out. With songs like “I Can’t Stop,” it was folky Fruition: a classic Fruition vibe with good harmonies on the chorus and mandolin and acoustic style. But we also put in a song like “Sanctuary,” it like completely different. And having “Lay Down” which is a fun rocker.

Sorry but I just have to ask. Why exactly are you “looking for a woman who ain’t looking for a man” [Lyric from “Falling On My Face”]. You’d think you’d be looking for one who is looking for a man.

Jay: [Laughter] It’s funny that you bring up that song, I wrote that song five years ago. At the time it was relevant to a girl that I loved who was from Wales. She couldn’t stay in America. And then I was just hanging out, thinking about the whole scenario to still be in love with someone and knowing that it’s not going to work out. That song is about that mindset where you’re like, “I don’t know what I’m doing but I know I should be moving on.”

Oh god, I shouldn’t even say this much about this song. People should connect in their own way.

Maybe, maybe I won’t print this part. And by maybe, I mean it’ll be all bold, italicized, arrows around it, with a blink tag.

Jay:[laughter] Oooooh no! I’ll be all, “Whyyyyyyyyyy?”

But I think that line specifically, most people can relate to it because everyone’s had their heart broken anyway.

I used to be a Deadhead. Every summer I used to go see the Dead at R.F.K. in DC and every summer was the same. It would be incredibly hot and then there would be a thunderstorm that would roll in.

Jay: I was blown away today by the amount of people who stayed. That was inspiring. That made us said that we were going to play for as long as we could. When the rain started coming at us though… My old guitar from the 30s was just not going to take to the rain very well.

Was that the worst rain you’ve ever seen on stage?

Jay: It was the worst rain we’ve ever seen on stage but we did get shut down once at this festival in southern Oregon somewhere. God, I don’t even remember the name of it, but we got shut down by lightning. There was so much lightning. It was just crackling everywhere. The stage managers were looking at their phones. The storm was coming right at us. Then lightning struck not too far from us; you could tell when it hit the ground. You knew that it hit something. Kat, our manager, was like, “Nope. Shut it down!” You can get electrocuted on stage.

Actually, wait a minute. We played the All Good Festival in Ohio. That was definitely the worst rain we’ve ever seen. We got three songs in. We had this guy Sam [Cutler, last name provided by Kellen from across the room] – he was the Grateful Dead’s manager, he’s still the Rolling Stone’s manager – he’s this old English guy.

We met him and he was just sitting under this tarp. We came up to him and smoked and started talking about his rings.

“Where did you get that ring?”

[British accent, not too bad actually] “Oh Keith Richards got me this ring. They made three of them. He gave one to me. He gave one to Ozzy Ozbourne.”

And I was all, “What the fuck? Who’s this guy?” He’s the guy who introduces them on Live Dead. He’s, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead.” He says it twice. He also introduces The Rolling Stones on one of their live albums and he does the same thing, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones.”

So we got him and said, “Can you introduce us?” So he introduced us… at noon… on Saturday [laughter], at this festival we’ve never played at ever.

What’s great about this – this is an awesome story – we were scheduled to play noon at the All Good Festival and then midnight at String Summit. We thought this was a badass rock star move. Let’s do this! Let’s play Ohio at noon and Oregon at midnight! So we had Sam come out and introduce us. Yes, this is awesome! So we got three songs in and I’ve never seen water like that. It was like today but it instantly came at us. We were in the middle of one of Kellen’s songs “Big Sky.” Hilarious, “Big Sky.” It’s always Kellen’s songs that make the rain, I guess.

See, you’re learning something today! [laughter]

Jay: I’m connecting it all together. We’re in the middle of the song and it’s pouring on us. My guitar is getting soaked. I’m running to the back of the stage. It started chasing us. That was the worst rain I’ve ever seen. What sucked is that it rained through the whole time that should have been our set. We were out in Ohio for three days. We were there early to do some interviews. And we got to play three songs of our set and we were shut down by the rain.

It rained through our entire set and we had to pack up all of our stuff and get on the plane. We got on a plane. All of our clothes were soaked. All of our tents were soaked. Everything was soaked. Half of us had to take a different flight to get there early. Kellen and T Tom [Tyler Thompson] did that and me and Keith [Simon] and Mimi, our old bass player Keith. Oh my God, it was hell. I had a toothache. There was a baby crying. Mimi’s soaking wet and so cold that she’s crying and I give her my soaking wet jacket. [laughter]

We were switching off and both of us were crying. I’m getting aspirin from the flight attendant just to rub on my tooth. We flew from All Good where there was a storm all their own into Vegas where there was an electrical storm. We’re on the runway. The baby’s crying. My tooth is hurting. Mimi is crying. The captain comes on. “We can’t take off yet because there’s a lot of lightning in the area.”

“What the fuck is going on?” We’re looking at the window and the whole sky is just [lighting sound effect]. Finally at some point he’s, “OK, I think we have our chance. He goes to take off and then he stops. Nope, they called us off.” [Laughter] We’re like, “We’re gonna die.” I was ready! Do this! I’m ready to die.

So he finally takes off with vicious lightning crashing all around us. We finally get on top of the storm and everything’s calm. The baby starts to sleep a little bit. My tooth starts to feel OK. Then we landed in Portland and instantly – we were late! – Kellen and T Tom had already set up our stuff. We had another band, The Congress, filling in for us. We ran down the stage through the crowd, got up on stage, and played until the sun came up. That was one of the best things ever. But that was probably the heaviest rain we’ve ever played in.

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