Welcome to chuck shoe podcast. And thanks for checking out my little show here. Jeremy Popoff, guitarist for the band lit is here. But before I get to that, I do want to do a quick shout out, actually to another podcast, the rock and roll coffee show they recently had me on as a guest on their show. So I want to thank Nick and Joe for hosting me. I don't think I said too many stupid things. Although my girlfriend said I trashed working in education a little
too hard. So just to clarify, I did have some bad experiences with that. But I also met a lot of great people in there as well. And it wasn't all bad I was, but I was definitely soured on working in education. So anyways, check out that episode of The rock'n'roll coffee show. And you can also hear their interview with my guest today,
Jeremy from lit. So, in this interview with Jeremy today, he's a blast to talk to we discuss his whole career, from when lit was a hair band called Razzle all the way through partying on MTV with Carmen Electra and Paris Hilton to the tragedy that struck the band with their drummer, changing record labels making a country album and so much more. This was a lot of fun to talk to Jeremy and I think you'll agree, lots of good stories, highs and lows.
Here we go. So welcome to the Czech shoe podcast, Jeremy pop off. Welcome to the show. So I pop off. I was like so curious. I had to Google this because I'm like, is that a stage name? But it sounds like it's a Russian name. Is that right? It's right. Yeah. Very cool. So it wasn't cool. Growing up. Oh, really? When we were little kids, you know, AJ and I would get teased about our last name quite a bit in elementary school. It's funny, cuz
you know, when people finally you know, when people finally knew who we were, and they would think that like, Oh, you know what, you come up with that name. Like, dude, if I was gonna make up a last name, you think I picked pop off?
And yeah, it just made me wonder. Because I was like, lit like, popping off. Like, I don't know, like, I just thought there was maybe like a stage thing connected to I don't know, I was just curious. I never heard the name. But yeah, so solve that puzzle. But yeah, so growing up, your dad was actually a DJ on the radio. So that's kind of how you got into music. And a lot of it was country early on, right?
Yeah, the first couple stations that he worked at were, were country stations. And that was when
I mean,
AJ was pretty much. I mean, we're talking like, early one, he was one and I was three. And my dad was just starting out his radio career. And then and then yeah, and then he and then, a few years later, we moved around a lot of kids because we would kind of relocate to wherever they do radio station was okay. And then he kind of got his big break in la radio. And that was a station called it was k 100. At the time, and it was kind of a rock
pop hybrid kind of station. And, and, and then he was there for a couple years. And then he got to get kiss FM, which was the big pop station in LA. And, and then at that point, you know, we were Adrian, we're probably, you know, nine and 11. And in those years, and our dad was, you know, on the biggest radio station in LA and so that was, that was kind of different and kind of neat, you know, but we
were definitely exposed. You know, our whole childhood was just constant exposure to different kinds of music,
right? And so wasn't it around this age that your cousin took you to see? Was it like AC DC and Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath or no, so he took it as the Iron Maiden and UFO, but that led you getting into all that other kind of like more rock stuff? Right.
All right. And so he was kind of our it's actually ironic that you bring him up, because I think today would have been his birthday. He passed away a couple years ago, but I hear that on my Facebook today that it was his birthday, but his name was Brett and he was like the older cousin that had like, you know, he had a cool room with black lights and cool posters and shit. And, and he was, he was several years older
than us. So he was really into Black Sabbath, and Ted Nugent, and Ozzy, and, you know, kind of the early metal, but he also turned us on to maiden and, you know, I remember he turned us on to Queens Reich, and it was like the four song EP, that, you know, when they first came out, and we went and got that we were like, We were really into queens, right? We were into Def Leppard when it was, you know, on through the night in high and dry, you know, before Pyromania
or any of their cars. He was, you know, he had the subscription to surface magazine and to you know, and he hit parader, and he would He would be sort of the guy who just I think all he spent his money on was records, right? Oh, and posters and concert shirts and stuff. And so. And yeah, that's that's what started the whole heavy metal years. And then you
started getting into that stuff too. And yeah, and you were talking about, and this is cool, because I think, you know, we're gonna kind of date ourselves, but like going to Tower Records. Like that experience. I heard you talking about that, like going out and checking out records and magazines? Is that how you discovered a lot of music being able to go because back in those days, you couldn't go on Spotify
or YouTube? Sometimes you just had to blindly buy a CD and hope that all maybe you heard one song on the radio? Is that how you would discover music? Or like I remember to like reading in magazines about an album and then just blindly checking it out?
It was a Yeah, I mean, I remember. There was a record store near our house in in Anaheim called pure, pure records. And we ride our bikes down there. And Motley Crue. too fast for love was in like its own little cardboard box standing that they had made. And they were selling it for $5. And it was on their own label called like, leather records. Yeah. Hmm. And I so I bought that album for five bucks, the original vinyl version. It's just because I thought it looked
cool. Yeah. And that was kind of the thing, you know, like you would you would? I mean, you know, we're kids and, and $10 was a lot of money back then. And so, it was really kind of a battle of who had the coolest looking cover? Or who or who on the back cover, right, who was who looked the coolest? You know, sometimes that was the deciding factor of which record you would help with?
For sure. So then you started you started out playing the piano. But then like you saw there was like this like hot guitar teacher that was like there that at the same lady's house. So then you start taking guitar and then obviously you you fell into that music. So you were saying that when you first started you, you liked Randy Rhoads and stuff, but you couldn't play that. So then you decide, okay, I'll start writing my own music. Can you play that stuff now? Or is it still a
challenge? No. I like the honesty.
Yeah, I was taking I was actually with Oregon lessons. My grandpa, my grandfather played the Oregon and he had it in his living room. And he was a huge influence on us, musically. He was a jazz musician and played Oregon. He was a drummer and everything. But you weren't allowed to touch his Oregon if you didn't know how to play it properly.
Okay.
And so he bought me a little cord Oregon, like a little kids organ with a little songbook. And it was in the bedroom, like the playroom. And I went in that, you know, I went in that play room and I like, mastered that songbook on this little kid's organ and convinced him to and then so he bought me in Oregon. He bought me a Wurlitzer Oregon and, and so I started taking Oregon lessons.
And it was really cool. And in retrospect, I really wish I would have stuck with the Oregon for a couple more years because I would have loved to have been better at it. But But yeah, I had this old teacher this, she was a real nice lady, but she was an older lady. And she was very militant. Like she was very, I play by ear like I'm a self taught guitar player and a self taught musician. So I would hear the songs and I would just figure him out. And I wasn't
playing him correctly. But I was playing them because what I heard and she would know, she would know when I was bullshitting there because I wouldn't turn the page in the middle of a song I would just keep playing the song It's and so the lesson part of it was very like unenjoyable for me, right? Cuz I just wanted to play and I was kind of impatient. And then yeah, she had this hot
daughter that talk upstairs. So I see these kids with their guitar cases walking upstairs, you know, it's a what I just imagined, you know, my Stairway to Heaven. My seven years old brain like learning. It must be awesome. You know? And, and then yeah, I started getting into heavy metal. I was just like, I got to play. I got to figure out guitar and then what really?
What really kind of pushed me off the cliff was, you know, at the time, all I really gave a shit was about was BMX and riding my bike with my friends and we would leave. My dad was our parents were divorced. We were total latchkey kids, and my dad was on the radio in the afternoons and they were at the station was in Hollywood. We lived in an inland empire at the
time. And so you know, he would drive an hour to work and then he'd be on the air and then he would drive an hour back and he would come home till like 10 o'clock at night. So from school Getting out till 10 o'clock at night. We're just like, you know, we're like, raised by
wolves, you know. And so we would just literally ride our bikes from school to wherever the newest coolest jump was, or, you know, or to the arcade, and we just, we just like this gang of kids that just would jump shit and just build tracks and do all that. And then, and then my bike got stolen at an arcade. And it was like, someone just pulled the rug out from under
me. And it was, and all my friends still every day went, and, you know, and my parents were like, sorry, you're out of luck, you know, wow, there was no new bike in it for me, you know, so. So I started coming home from school every day, and just sitting on the edge of my bed with this piece of shit, heavy down electric guitar that someone had given me that, you know, barely stayed in tune
sounded terrible. But it sounded just terrible enough that it kind of got distorted with this little crazy app that you know, that it came with and which actually eventually caught on fire in my bedrooms. And I should throw it out the bedroom window so they can catch
fire. But that's scary. See, so you started playing in bands, and obviously, your brother is the singer. So tell me about how you came across the bass player, Kevin, because he was into kind of more of the lighter bands like journey and dokin. And you guys are into more of the heavier stuff like made and you kind of compare him to Stuart from Beavis and Butthead the guy more like the winger heroes
compared and distorts that since that came out where I was like,
but yeah, you still want him to be in your band. So there must have been something there that you saw.
What's funny, so so he was he lived in the neighborhood behind my best friend Tony. And we all went to the same Junior High Kevin, Kevin was like a year between me and AJ. So okay. When I was when I was in eighth grade, he was in seventh grade. And, and Tony lived in these apartments, right on the edge of this neighborhood. And Kevin would come over he, I mean, he was only a year younger than me, but he looked like he was five years younger than me. And, you know,
he was a small kid, you know, okay.
And he, and he would come over and he would trade he would come over to trade pictures, we would tear pictures out of like, metal edge magazine and circus and stuff, and he would trade us like the meaty stuff for like, the dock and stuff. And the, you know, and, and his, his thing was definitely Van Halen, and kiss, you know, okay. And so that's how we got to know each other. And then when my brother got the junior high, they became
friends. And we all were just, we were before we ever stood in a room and played music together. Like we used to go to concerts together. And we would go to each other's houses and play records and, and just, you know, make up fake band logos and stuff. And so we were, we were all bros, like through music before we started playing music. And then I actually started playing. I was 16 I was 15 when I got my when I was in my first band, but I was in a band with dudes that were in
their early 20s. And I was playing bars. You know, a couple nights a week when I was 16 years old. I can you know, junior in high school you dropped out right? Yeah, yeah, I dropped out kind of more of out of necessity just because I was showing up at school like at noon tired Yeah, hungover and tired and I was I was like living this other sci fi feeling that I'm coming in and I'm you know, listening to morning announcements in the principal counselors on like, what
the fuck?
So then you guys start this band Razzle, which I looked, I scoured the internet, YouTube. I can't find any clips or pictures. But this was during the heyday of the 80s, the warrants and the skid rows and the Guns and Roses. And you guys were popular.
They didn't have camera phones.
So you but you're selling out clubs in Hollywood. So tell me about those days in that scene of the Sunset Strip because you're seeing these members of the bands like walking around and stuff. Did you say that you had a conversation with Izzy straddling from Guns and Roses about guitars?
I did yeah. We so there was nowhere to play in Orange County there was no at the time you know, being in basically high school kids or out of high school. There were no rock clubs in Orange County and a couple that there were were either 18 and over or 21 and older and and but the strip and Hollywood you know bizarre ease and the whiskey and the Roxy and, and the troubadour. They were all ages. So if we wanted to play a gig and have our friends come, it had to be
one of those places. So and it was during that time when it was just a crazy party every weekend like in those days. You know, like 8788 like those years. Nobody ever, you never called your friend and said, What are you doing on Friday, because we just always went to the strip.
So, every, you know, every Friday and every Saturday, we would meet at someone's house, and we would all pile into a car we leave around 930 and we show up to the strip around, you know, 11 in from 11 to two or 230 we just walk up and down the strip and just run into people in bands and promote flyer and it was like, you know, it was a contest to see who had the biggest and brightest and craziest fliers and right, and it was just, it was just guerilla marketing,
the original
Rost purest form of social media, because it was just literally hand to hand combat. You were just trying to get someone to take your flyer, look at it, not drop it. And hopefully if it was like a cute girl, she would, you know, maybe write her number on it or, you know, put it in her purse or
whatever. But it was it was really like, you know, it's crazy to look back on that time because at any given night, you know, there was maybe two or 3000 people on this like three block stretch of road on a sidewalk. They were right
on the side, they couldn't get into the clubs. But
But out of those 2000 3000 people there was probably 100 bands, doing the same thing you know, so it's wild, which
about Yeah, which bands? Were you friends with of that era that are bands that maybe people have heard of what major label bands? Were you good friends with any of those, like hair bands, I guess you call them?
Um,
well, we definitely saw war a few times in the clubs before they were signed. Okay. They were like, We were just starting out and they were like, you know, crushing
it. Okay.
They were just about to get signed. And so we saw them a few times and they were great. We saw a lot of the dudes still hung around you always see character bead, you always saw people hanging out
the rainbow. You always saw Lemmy and you always saw you know, Guns and Roses guys and different, you know, motley crew got I mean, you always saw people, they just always ended up coming back to the strip and catch glimpses, and you'd see, and then bands that were making it from other parts of the country
would go hang
out there just to see it. Sure. Because it was like the Mecca, you know, of, of hair music. Right. And so, you know, there might you might be hanging out on the strip one eye and just see like, you know, whoever hanging out, but they're not even there from frickin Wisconsin, but they're just here going like, Whoa, man, this
is crazy. Yeah.
We didn't really run with very many of them. Because we were kids, you know, we
were waiting.
We ended up kind of being like, a lot of the bands. A lot of the older guys in the older bands from Hollywood thought we were like rich kids from Orange County. They thought our parents like bought us all our gear and paying for our full page ads and our flyers, but they didn't realize like, you know, we were the opposite. You know, we were broke kids that were just fucking relentless. And, you know, we would like we would go to construction sites and steel, wood, and build like ramps and
stuff for the stage. And we would like, you know, hand paint giant backdrops and just like we were, we were just trying to be like, you know, a band.
Yeah.
Just trying to act like our heroes. And eventually, like, you know, we, we were selling out we were, we were what I mean, I don't think we ever headlined a show in Hollywood that wasn't sold out by the time. By the time we opened up for enough people and work our way with Friday or Saturday night when they would when they would give us that time of day. I think it was, you know, they were always sold out. And so it was it was an awesome,
fun time. Good. Good. It was a call it was our college base
for sure. But so then this is pretty ballsy, so 91 because like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, all this stuff's coming out. You scrap Razzle you get rid of the name, the songs, the mailing list, all your contacts and everything, all
your fans. And you know, the music was changing, but that seems like such a ballsy move was anyone at the time saying hey, maybe we should at least keep the mailing list and let our fans know that we're going to do something different and maybe the old fans would like the new stuff or like what was the strategy behind just scrapping everything?
I think we I think we just didn't want any ties to you know, it wasn't that we had like, jumped on some sort of bandwagon because music was changing. The reality was we had changed tremendously from being you know, 16 and not knowing how to play your instrument to being 19 and installing out the Roxy in a band, you know, to being 21 and going, dude, I fucking love Nirvana. I love Stone Temple Pilots. Yeah, yeah, I don't love
white lion. I don't fucking you know, some of these bands in metal edge and it's starting to become a little bit of a parody of itself. Why the fuck would we you know, keep doing this it started it's like, it was fun and it was awesome. And you know, I love those times. I love a lot of those bands. I mean, we you know lit has been waving that flag since day one. You know, we we've always we're in a what's cool is like we're friends with a lot of those guys now like we're friends with the
war guys. But I was friends with Janie you know, we became good buddies over the years. And I was trying to convince him for a long time to come to Nashville to to write and
he's been great to hell.
But But what Kevin is like, he's like best friends with Joey Allen. Their kids go to school together. You know, we're friends with I mean, we're friends with so many dude, like the skid row guys. And just like, you know, there's just a lot of those guys from that, that era that are our boys. Now, Odin was another huge band on the Sunset Strip, and they never, they never like made it. They made a couple records. And regionally they were huge. For me, they were everything. I
fucking love that band. But, you know, Jeff Duncan is an armored saint now. And I think Sean is brothers and boy, it was it was in both boys and a couple other things. And but Randy of a singer. I mean, what else 15 that guy was like fucking, you know, one of the best frontman on the planet. And, you know, just recently he was here in my Nashville house with his with his family. And he came in, they stayed for a few days. And it's, it's wild, the people that we, you know, loved and admired when
we were teenagers. And then later, I think, because we were so openly like, waving that flag, like, Hey, here's where we come from. A lot of those bands, and they maybe liked our sanity when they first started on the radio. And so they were like, Oh, that's cool. Oh, fuck, and they're, they like our shit to like, right?
Yeah, great.
festival, whatever it was, you know, that's very cool.
Yeah. So you change the name to stain and then eventually to lit. But I heard you talking about this is kind of interesting, just kind of how you had different goals and like, milestones, it was kind of refreshing to hear you say this, like, you know, your first performing. There's like a show of 80 people and you're thinking, what if we could double that like, and then what if we get a record deal? And you had these kind of different milestones? Do you think that mindset like helped contribute
to your success? And or is it unusual to have that mindset? In other words, like, do most successful musicians kind of think that way of having these milestones? Or a lot of musicians more like, well, I'm just doing it for the art and if it's popular, great, and I don't care?
I, man, you know, I don't know.
I, you know, using that, that that concept that mentalities is pretty for a group of kids to think of that is kind of forward thinking hearing you say now, I'm kind of thinking like, that's a good philosophy and a good principle for anything in life. Right, right. Yeah. For Business for for anything. It's like, it's almost like Grant Cardone, you know, the TEDx? Oh, yeah. Next year, you know, if something's working, do it, just do it. 10
times, right. And I think that's what we, I think we were such fans of music, you know, we would have, we were rehearsing three, four nights a week, and then we would play a show, and we would have our shows videotaped, and then we would meet at someone's house the next day, and we would watch and critique the show, and we would figure out what we needed to work on more and what didn't
look right or feel right. And, and, and we did that with with too, but I think we were just such fans of concerts that we were like, if we're, if we're going to do this, we want to do that. We want to play concerts. And you know what, there's no fun in playing a concert in front of three people. Right? So and also, to be honest with you, like you know, I'm a self taught guitar player Kevin's a self taught bass player. None of us have any formal training
whatsoever. And so it's kind of like we never were in it for them. Of course we're in it for the music but we were never in it for like, the art of music like we were always in it for the for the party for the fun for the catchiness for the you know, for the hour and 15 minutes or hour and a half that you're at the show. You're not thinking about other shit. You Right.
Yeah, no, that's really cool. So then eventually you get signed by RCA. They turned you down a couple times. But on the third time, they finally sign you. And obviously, you know, you have the big hit with my own worst enemy, which I found, I found that interesting that it was about, like, AJ had an old car with a broken fuel gauge. And he had to write down the mileage, so he wouldn't run out of gas. And so that's how he
came up with a line. No surprise to me mo Moore's enemy, because every now and then I kick the living show to me. And then it worked with that kind of poppy field. But it could have been a darker song, right? Because based on the lyrics,
yeah, that was the only line that he had written. And it was, it was, he had a little notepad in the front seat of his car, he had an old, like, 63 Cadillac, and the gas gauge didn't work. So yeah, he would, he would put five gallons of gas in his car, and he would go Alright, I've got 45 miles, you know, in my tank, and he would write down his his, you know, odometer, and then he would have to do the subtraction to know when he needed to get
gas again. And it was because he had that Notepad, on his front seat with a pen. That's when he wrote that thing down. And so there's literally he has it still, but it's just a scrap of paper that says that, and it's torn off the off the page of his gas, you know, log. But yeah, that was just a song we wrote one night at that band practice is just sort of happened in a
relatively short time. And it was just one of a batch of songs that were We were just kind of in a I guess in a in a zone, if you will, you know, we were just that we wrote because there's the place, the place in the sun is a really different sounding record than tripping live fantastic, which
is more heavy,
more heavy, a lot more experimental. And then we kind of just honed in on this thing. Yeah, man, I don't know this. Yeah.
And then the miserable song that was a really popular song that was played live. So then you guys were gonna make it a single and a video. And it's kind of interesting, because you wanted to do kind of like a live concert thing. And you had all these, like people pitching you ideas. And you thought the idea of the giant woman was terrible. But then you worked out a deal. Well, if you get Pamela Anderson to do it, do you think that she gave you guys a spark of popularity at the time?
Absolutely.
You know, she exposed us to a whole different audience because we you know, while we were filming that video, you know, Entertainment Tonight stopped by and and, you know, that got that got coverage on shows that wouldn't normally cover a rock band. Right? But they would damn well cover her. You know, it was the it wasn't like she was available for hire for music videos. Yeah. So it was it was she that she was doing that? Well,
she was a fan of the band, right? Cuz she had you on her show, the VIP and all that stuff, right? You guys made a cameo, right? Did you get to hang out I just happened to work out
that way. And, and, and you know, and it was a worldwide thing to which was great. And it actually that song even though the song only went to number three, it stayed on the charts for like almost an entire year. And it made the record, the record had gone off of the charts for one week. And then it came back on the charts and stayed back on the charts
for like another year. So it really was like that song and that video and the exposure that it got was it was like it really like kick that whole campaign into like, it extended it a whole other year,
right. So tell me what that was like to go from, you know, playing these smaller shows at the whisky but still popular, but now you're playing festivals with Ozzy and the Foo Fighters and STP and all these bands that you were fans of and seeing your videos on TRL and stuff. I mean, must be kind of mind blowing, right?
It was very mind blowing because we to be on TRL with Carson Daly having been watching TRL with Carson Daly just a year or two before that or I'll never forget the first time I think our video I think the debut of enemy on MTV was on 120 minutes. And like Matt pinfield was interviewing I
remember him Yeah,
and the whole time we were just like,
fucking Matt pinfield dude. Yeah, and we're
like, and he's like, he's like so guy. So and and he knew a lot of facts about us then like you're saying, you know, like we're talking and you're going so I heard this. Matt pinfield would say that and we would just sit there and go
are you fucking fucking know that man? Yeah.
It's it was moments like that, you know, being like, MTV spring break and doing that kind of shit when we were just literally watching it a year before on our couches and just going wow, that's so cool. That was that was fuckin mind
blowing. We always say eight you know, we always say now that we wish we could go back and do it a little bit slower and take more pictures and just soak it in a little more because you know, when you saw MTV spring break and you saw Carmen Electra dancing with AJ on the thing and we're on the ocean and look at people are partying and girls are getting naked and it's just fucking amazing.
Yeah and go the lifestyle, the dream and
the debauchery and sure in Paris Hilton's hanging out, you know, all this shit, it's crazy. But we had to fucking leave like an hour after that and catch a private plane to go play the second stage at a radio festival in Pittsburgh. So imagine being imagine dancing with Carmen Electra partying with Paris Hilton, and Mandy Moore at a fucking five star resort in Cancun, and then having to leave that, because in five hours, we got to be onstage.
Who scheduled that who's a tour manager that Fuck that. Now, that sounds like a fuckup on the tour managers part.
Okay, but it was just one of
those things where we, we didn't want to miss a thing. And we didn't want to say no to anything, we, if we, if we could cram it in somehow and make it then we would do it. You know, in retrospect, it was, we missed a lot of it. Like, you know, people will ask, like, you know, what's it like having a song number one for 11 weeks, I'm like, I don't know, we were so fucking busy. That the chart position of the song was the last thing we were thinking
about. Interesting. And about, like, you know, we were learning how to take naps standing up. And, you know,
we weren't, we were literally
just like, going from here to here to here to here. So it was wild. I mean,
so it's still like a job. I mean, you're working, you're busy. You're not just you know, doing the cut, people just see a concert, an hour and a half, like, Oh, they only work an hour and a half a night. But no, you got to rehearsal and doing all this press and all this other stuff, right? traveling.
When you're when you have a single that's doing well on the radio, you are wanted. In every town you go to you're wanted by the morning show, and you're wanted by the afternoon show, sometimes you're going from one station to another station, you're there to promote, obviously, your record and your show, but you're also there to give love back because they're playing your song.
Right. And, you know, luckily, in those days, that was before the meet and greet, because I don't know how we could cram that in. I mean, they had them but it was more of a, like, now meet and greets almost like part of the show, right? Yeah,
the huge part. Now you
guys make my ticket this or you can be commended for this, do this. Back then it was more like we did meet and greets, because we decided to go out and meet fans or we would, you know, go to an in store or go do something where we could be with or go to the merch table and do that. Like we kind of did our own meet greets before they were a thing but we didn't have time. You know, we you know, you we just later years or even in between songs when things would kind of
mellow out a little bit. Those were actually pretty cool. Because you did get a chance to like, check out towns, you know, walk around and like, you know, start discovering like your favorite restaurant in Chicago or your favorite bar in this town or whatever and being able to actually go Hey, you remember that? Let's go check. Let's go to that spot. That place was awesome. Having a little bit of time to kind of explore and do
that. Okay, AJ always did these things called danger walks before the show where he would, he would he would take a cab to like the shittiest part of town. Dangerous and he would just go walking around. And danger. Man, I never went Wow,
he he like did it to kind of like get in his own before.
That's crazy. So then the next record atomic, you guys got the tour with Kid Rock and Butch Walker on that one. But this was cool that I didn't know this Steven Tyler he's saying backup on over my head. Was that just a happy accident? Like he happened to be recording nearby? or How did he How did that come about?
Well, that song came about. We were We were literally tour. I mean, we were on the road in 99. We probably did 300 shows and 99 and crazy appaling almost constantly. I think we only had like three weeks off total that whole year. And I mean three weeks in the sense of like 21 days but they were peppered in. So we got hit up to do this soundtrack and They called they called me and asked me if I would write a song for this movie soundtrack. And I immediately said, No, I was
like, not interested. I don't have time. I'm sorry. And we're not one of those bands that really that writes Well, when we're on the road, because we're kind of like, we're in writing mode, or we're in recording mode, or we're in road mode, but Okay, we're not good at all of them. Like, you know, God, God bless a lot of people are they do a lot of riding on the bus and they record they have their rigs out. world, you know, little easily distracted, I
guess. But we saw I was just like, man, I just don't, I don't have the time, you know. And then they threw the number out that they were willing to pay. And I was like, Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. Okay, I'll do. And then they sent me basically a, like a teaser and a script. And they told me what the movie was about. I'm like, just fucking
easy. Now, like, you just get, you know, for a songwriter when you when you basically tell him what the song is going to be about and what the tempo is and how you want it and all that shit. You take all the guesswork out. And then it's just a matter of trying to write a great song about it, but you're not sitting around going, what are we writing? What do you want to talk about what you want to say?
And the other reason that we said that, you know that we said yes to it, not just the money, but that it was Glen Ballard. producing it. Oh, yeah. We were like, Oh, fuck, we get to maybe work with Glen Ballard. That would be amazing. You know. So I wrote that song and an afternoon at my apartment and and went to Glen Ballard house played it for him. He loved it. We chopped up a little demo. And then he was like, it's going to be the first
single, we're doing it. And then we were like, Fuck, we're leaving. We're leaving, like next Thursday for the whatever tour that was. And he was like, Alright, come to what studio was that? Some famous studio in LA. And we went there on the day before we left recorded drums at that studio. Then we hit the road. And the next day off, we had we were in New York, and we went to, but we met Glenn flew
out. We met him in the studio, and I laid the guitars down that day on that day off, and Kevin was there and did bass.
And then
so keep in mind, these are our dead. These are our days off. So now we're going on number going on week three with no days off. And then week three, we're in Boston. And its vocal day. Okay, so and we're fucking spent because we've been really like hitting it hard. And sure he'll, we're gonna mess up. So we go to the studio to meet Glenn. I think it was like three o'clock in the afternoon. And we get there. And we're waiting, and we're waiting in four o'clock rolls around. We're
like, What the fuck, man? And then like, 430 rolls around, and we're like, literally calling our manager like fucking gland man. What the fuck? What? Sir fucking only day off. We're sitting here in a studio. Like this is bullshit. Like, we should be like walking around Boston, you know, or chilling out or whatever. And all of a sudden, the door opens in fucking Glen Ballard walks in with Steven Tyler. And apparently they had been doing whatever they were doing talking
to the shit. That's why they're late. But like, Oh, shit. And he was like, and Glenn is like, you know, he's like this very zen, calm soul. Like, I don't think that the entire time working with them. The energy level there was never any no bad energy ever got in the room with that guy. He's just like, it's hard to explain. But if you ever, like, hear him talk or see any interviews with them or whatever. He keeps the vibe just like this the whole time and
it's really fucking cool. Okay. He was like, let's get some dinner. All right, okay, so he ordered a bunch of stuff and wine or whatever. And it's just the four of us. And Glenn and Stephen sit around the dinner table out there at the recording studio. And Tyler's just tell them stories and we're all just sitting around. Tell us more Uncle Steve. And, and then at some point, Glenn goes, Hey, I, I tweaked this one part here. I want to play this thing. So he press play. I think it was a
fucking cassette even. Maybe, maybe it wasn't at all, but he puts it in the thing. And so Tyler was like kind of rocking out to it, you know? And he goes, dude, you want to come in and sing some shit with me. And and and Steven was just like, Yeah, man. Fuck yeah. And that was when the whole room just went No fucking way. Yeah,
it's cool.
He went in the room and he's saying he did all the harmonies. I was like, fuck That means I gotta sing these live.
Because you're back. Oh, God, that's rough. It was fun man, he was such a cool guy. So, yeah, so such a such a high and then but you guys had some tragedy around this time to your parents, or your mom and your stepdad were on a Harley and got hit by a drunk driver. And then some of you talk about having to slow down, you kind of were forced to slow down at this point, right? Because you had to help your mom for several months. And is this did your record label drop you like?
Because during this time, or did you guys part because of this?
No, we actually we actually parted. It's how it went down was we were after a Thomas, we were writing songs, getting done making demos, and basically working on what was going to become the self titled we call it the Black Album, but the self titled record, and I think oh five. And during that time, all our people left RCA Marine, our guys were gone. The President had changed. The radio guys had changed, the entire team that we were going to have to work with was all new people.
And it was like starting over. And we were pretty disappointed in how they handled the atomic record. And actually, those changes were actually happening during atomic. So like during the atomic campaign, we lost half of our team. And then after that record, we lost all of our teams. So we were like, well, we're gonna have to you guys kind of fucked up our last record. Yeah. And then if we're gonna start from scratch with a new company, we might as well
start with a new company. And so we were able to we grace, great, what's the word? We just respectfully and graciously asked for them to release a small contract. And they luckily enough they did. I mean, in retrospect, maybe we should have just stayed and maybe the new team could have fucking killed it. I don't know. I'm you know,
it does make you wonder, though, because that 2004 2005, the self titled album, I mean, those are some of my favorite songs of all time, the looks like they were right. Forever begins right now too fast for you turn. I mean, they're so catchy. And I was just like, I couldn't I never for the life of me could understand why those are not bigger hits. Do you kind of agree with that? Or is that just my
favorite records?
It's one of my favorite. Yeah, I think we were I was so proud of it. And we took a chance. We was a brand new company that was founded by three guys that were from other labels. Okay. On paper, it looked like a great idea. But they just didn't have the resources. They just didn't have the, the traction to you know, push it over the finish line. And so yeah, you know, looking back, I mean, we would have definitely played that hand differently. But then, yeah, the
accident happened. How? I mean, I can't remember if the accident happened before the record came out after but it was around that time. Okay. And yeah, we had to, we had to kind of not tour for a while because he and I had to take care of our mom, our step that was killed in the accident. And our mom was just, you know, she almost died, you know, at the scene, and then in the hospital, the trauma center.
And, and so, you know, we were basically taking care of her for for four or five, six months in the hospital and taking turns and taking shifts and doing that. And then and then we started doing shows again, and then also out of that time is when I started coming to Nashville and writing country songs, right. Okay. And that was in a way Nashville was my escape from the darkness of what had
just happened. Sure. And then you had Yeah, then you had more darkness because your drummer Alan is diagnosed with brain cancer, which I'm still trying to figure out how he got cancer so young, did they have any theories? Like how do you get a brain tumor in your 30s it's just like so it was you think it was like chemicals he was exposed to or something or talk and
I'll tell you this, the craziest part about owl is that he was the guy. He was the guy in the band that never smoked, never did drugs. Got up at six in the morning and went for a jog, played golf whenever he could. And during the time, that the only and nobody really thinks that this is why but his last couple years he opened a couple of boxing gyms. And I don't think he was
sparring. I don't think it was like, because his type of cancer wasn't the kind because at the same time he had a ted kennedy at it. You remember when he had okay? They were they had the exact Same type of brain cancer at the exact same time, they were diagnosed at the same time, and they passed away around the same time was really a trip. But it was they don't know, you know, they don't know what what the cause of it was. It wasn't,
you know, there. I mean, he wasn't exposed anything that we weren't on the forums, he was definitely the most healthy.
That's weird. So that definitely shifts your priorities, like making music and touring is not the most important thing. But like, I have a buddy right now, and his brother has leukemia, and he's really struggling. So like, like, what advice would you give for someone that has a friend or family that has cancer? Like, how do you deal with that that's gonna be one of the hardest things in the world to deal with.
Man, I mean, the craziest thing about cancer is it's like, you know, there's so many different kinds. And, you know, there are some that there's just no, there's just no, you know, your odds are just not good. You know, there's some that that have good, that have positive, you know, outcomes and, and it's like, you when you get the bad one, you know, it's just it's I don't know, I don't know what you how you do that. It's like, it's like somebody
getting diagnosed with ALS. You know, this is going to be the worst fucking thing that's ever happened on the planet. And you've been, but what do you do? And I think all you can do is it does, it does make you realize that, you know, you got to try to just spend time with them in a way you have them and just appreciate.
And you did that guys canceled, like a tour with kiss. I think you canceled a lot of shows to spend more time with him, right?
Yeah, well, what happened? So I was I was dating a girl in Nashville at the time when we were going back and forth. And our was living in Phoenix because he was opening a second boxing gym. Okay. We were we were doing a kiss tour in Europe. And so out, came back to Orange County, and we're staying at my house and we had rehearsals before the tour. And I just got back. I just got back from Nashville, and ALC actually
picked me up at the airport. And we were driving back to Fullerton, back to my house and he was like, kind of like getting lost a little bit. And I was like, I was like, dude, you've been you only been in Arizona for a few months. You're already fuckin forgot where you live. He's like, Oh, that's weird, man. Sometimes I just like kind of spaced out. And I was just kind of chalked it up to like, it's just you're probably just stressed from the, you know, the new gym and all
that. And then I got home and the next morning my girlfriend flipped her car in Nashville. And I had to jam back to Nashville to like, take care of that. And so I was only back in Nashville for like 24 hours but when i when i and this is before
they had Wi Fi on the planes. So when I was I was up in the air for four hours and when I landed my phone was just lit up and it was all my guys sent out I was in the hospital and he was he went to he went to Target to buy supplies for the for the tour he would go to buy you know deodorant, toothpaste and shit. And when he was walking through target, the whole left side of
his body just went numb. And so he got he drove back to my house and then when he got back to my house he called Kevin and and Kevin drove him to the hospital and that's how that all started.
So we waited then we've got them as soon as they said brain you know we had him transferred to Cedars Sinai and had like the world renown you know, brain guy working on him and we just stayed by his side until we found out what it was and then literally we were supposed to leave like two days later for the kiss tour and we just had to we had to bounce because we're just like Dude, oh boy just got this news. You know? Yeah, gnarly man.
Crazy so and unfortunately Yeah, you know it doesn't that story doesn't have a happy ending he passes. But so then you bring in Nathan Walker, who's the the drum tech and he and he takes over as a drummer. So is that like a dream come true for him though in a way like, does it does every drum and guitar tech they want to play right or do some actually like being Tech's?
He will you know, how he became Alice tech was he was a drummer, in a band that I hadn't worked with, I was you know, producing stuff and writing stuff with other bands. And there was this girl singer, he was playing drums for her.
And he was a killer drummer. And that's how, you know, he, I mean, he was a great drummer, but he needed a job, you know, so he he, you know, owl hired him to be as tech and for a couple of tours and But yeah, I mean, he, I mean sitting behind out for however many shows that was I mean, he knew he knew the songs. He knew he knew he knew he could live with us on a tour bus for weeks at a time. So when he was actually in the room, we were all in the room when our pass right. And he was there
too. He was with us. So it was kind of like a passing of the torch and it took us about a month or two for it to dawn on us like it took us about a month of kind of just numbness and like, what now and then we kind of all met up at that at my bar and we were just like, we think dude, he was like man, man, you know before that Adrian young
from no doubt filled in. He did he did three or four shows with us he filled them for out and there was a couple shows for him and out we had two drum sets on stage did
you did rich Redmond fill in a little bit too. I had him on the show. He's JSON. Dean's drummer. Yeah. I like him.
He's one of the best man.
Yeah, and then some other people. So the next album view from a bottom or view from the bottom. You work with some really cool people Marty Fredrickson, who's co written songs with Aerosmith and Motley Crue, and then Butch Walker produced that album. And that guy is so fascinating to me just because he's worked with so many big name artists like what do you think that guy's secrets of success is?
I was just at his house a couple days ago. He's Oh, really? Yeah, he's out here in Nashville now.
Okay, Tom to check his messages. He's got to do my show. I gotta have that guy.
Honestly, he his his recipe for success is the old fashioned one, man. It's just that he's so fucking talented. And he's very, very disciplined and hard working. Ah, there's really no, there's no kind of bone. Not a lot. Not a lot of luck involved with that. That's just pure, pure fucking talent and hard work. And
yeah, because he could, if you look at his like discography, I mean, the number of things that he produces. Plus, he's a solo artist. Plus, he co writes, I mean, he's all over the place. He must just not sleep.
Okay, he doesn't. He's up early. And he's and he's up late. Yeah. And, but he's always been that way, you know, which almost produced the atomic record. Okay. And we pushed for it. But he the label said he wasn't a big enough producer
to produce anything. Okay. But now. Yeah. Yeah, he's huge now. So then you guys, this is interesting. The 2017 album, these are the days you go into country rock. And this is good stuff. I'm really amazed at how much I liked these songs. Very well written, produced and performed. And you're very proud of this record. But you also understand how it's a little bit confusing for lit fans. And for country fans. So now you guys have the pop off brothers, which is a strict country rock band, right?
Well, we don't know yet.
We had we had started writing AJ and I had written and recorded like five or six new songs. And we were listening to them and we were like, man we're getting further away from from lit. Okay, but these are great. And we and we love this. But let's let's just rip the band aid off and let's just let it be lit. And and when we write a song that we love, that's completely not lit. We've got a new vehicle to release it whether it's country Yeah, okay. Yeah, ata or fucking disco or
whatever. And there's no expectations and
they're not awesome.
And, you know, we may throw out a turd or we may throw out something that no
yeah, the song I heard the sons and daughters of summer. Everyone should check that out right now. It's it's the only song on frickin pop off brothers moniker but it's great song. So I look forward to more stuff like that.
Yeah, we have some good ones in the can. And we haven't really we've got another one that we're ready to put out. But we've been really focused this new Lit record is... it's been our focus and it's very, it's raw. It's jammin, it sounds like...it could have come out between the Atomic and the Black Album.
I like it.
It's old school.
Is it? Can you tell me anything else? Is there any song titles or ideas that are concepts or anything or?
I mean, one of the first things we said is we just signed a new record deal and this thing's coming out. We'll have a song out hopefully in spring, if not... very beginning of summer. And we've been working with some that we... actually Marty Fredrickson is back in the mix.
Oh, nice.
And we've been working with these guys- Carlo and Eric who- with Nashville such a talented town and there's so many great artists in and writers and collaborators and producers and it's, and we really found a couple of them that really had jived with what we're up to. And we've got some stuff coming up with some other other guys. But he and I just love that collaborative process. And one of the I mean, we don't
we don't have any rules. But one of the first things we said when we set out to start making this record was if we wouldn't have set we want universal themed saw, we don't want to talk about politics. We certainly don't want to talk about COVID. You know, we want to make up a live record. And of course, A Place in the Sun, Atomic, the Black Album, View From the Bottom, it touches on Hey, man, let's party. Hey, why'd you break up with me? Hey, let's go fuck somewhere. This car is awesome.
Like, whatever. But... I'm sure we'll end up going to a couple of dark places. But for the most part, I just want to put out a fucking fun record...
a fun record. Yeah, for sure.
And a timeless record. I don't want it to be like, I want the subject matter to just be like, it doesn't matter what year it is or what time it is or what a fun
record would be good, right? That'd be this is a good time for a fun record to come out. There's enough dark shit in the world. So that's good. I like that idea. That's great. Yeah. Do you ever hear like your song? My own worst enemy? Do you ever hear that? Like, like at karaoke? I feel like that's one of the most done songs during karaoke. Are you ever at a bar and hear someone doing that karaoke? Or is AJ ever get up there and sing it for karaoke as a joke? Or?
Yes. The It happens all the time, especially here in Nashville. Well, any bar we go to there's a you know, especially if you go down to Broadway, there's cover bands, there's, there's three levels or four level cover band on every last
national one of them plays it. Yeah.
And so it's, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's very flattering, but it's it and we love it. And sometimes we will get up and play it with the band record. If they recognize us and ask us to do it. We always say yes,
that's awesome.
But a lot of times, they don't know where they're and they're just playing it because it's in their fucking.
That's hilarious.
And a lot of times we look around like someone fucking with us.
Not one of those songs
that for whatever reason, has just, you know, crossed genres and crossed decades and it's just still. We don't know. Like, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. It doesn't there's no rhyme or reason for we. I've said in a couple interviews, like the song itself breaks all the rules that there's nothing rhymes. There's no bridge. Yeah, there's barely
a guitar solo. It's just a fucking why it became what it became why it wet still is what it still is, is there's just no there's just no explanation for it. Yeah, no. But it's just a bit of blessing. And it's just been a an amazing thing to be a part of in a while. Yeah.
So you, you discover bands like through other bands a lot. Like I know you're talking about like you like Iron Maiden. So you wanted to listen to like, who they were influenced by? Is there any other under the radar bands, like you're in Nashville, that you want to shine a light on now, like any any bands that people should check out that maybe aren't as big and maybe should be bigger? I know you like to be on Digg. I know, you've mentioned that one a few times, then anyone else though,
did was a huge influence on on us in the 90s. And like, they had a record, I think their record came out. I don't know maybe like 96 or something. I think seven somewhere around the mid to late mid to the 90s where we were fucking really into that band. And they just I think just started putting out new music which I'm super pumped to check out but as far as like new got a lot of my friends are probably gonna kick my ass for now.
There's so many bands that should have been huge back in the day that influenced us that that that just didn't, didn't, you know, make it to the finish line that were that were that were big influences on us. But But now I mean, I'll be honest with you, I haven't heard some have heard much. A long time in the rock in the rock world like okay, I don't listen to a lot of rock radio because it's all old stuff. And then the new which there's nothing wrong with that.
Yeah. It's like, I don't know, I haven't discovered anybody knew that. Oh, you know, actually, I take that back. There's this guy is I don't know if it's if it's him or his band, whatever, but blame my youth. Okay, song called, here's a song called fantastic. Oh, that's fuckin really really great.
Okay,
I'll check that out. It's one that I heard that I was like holy shit and I fucking had it on repeat. And I'm hoping to hook up with him he and he really tried to what we want to hook up with this guy and you know, maybe collaborate but
that
that's kind of one of the first things that blown me away in a long time.
But
others genre wise, I mean, you know, country wise, that Haley winters I fucking love her new record. And there's a girl who is a pop singer in Nashville who I think is going to be massive Her name's
Taylor.
And she's, you know, super hot and super edgy and super cool. And her songs are fucking amazing. And I think that she'll be one of those girls that you'll see carrying a bunch of trophies in a couple years. Her name's just Tayla I think Haley Witters is gonna be the same. I think it'd be massive in the country world. And
what is this girl named Taylor, though? You said just one name like Madonna?
Yeah. Okay. TA de la.
Okay. Very cool. Do you run into a lot of big name people in Nashville in Hollywood. And I heard you tell us some pretty cool stories. Like you got to like hang out with Vince Vaughn at the premiere one of his movies. That sounds pretty cool.
That was awesome. We were big, big fans of obviously, of swingers and ya know, people would ask us in interviews back in 99 or so how would you describe your band and known to someone that's never heard your music? I would say well, we're somewhere between swingers and spinal tap.
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, we're big big fans of those guys. Hearing that I mean, honestly, it would just sound like a name drop Ah, but here in Nashville. Nobody gives a shit I mean, I got really famous, famous people come over to the house all the time and vice versa and we hang out at bars together all the time. Guys that you see on TV that this neighborhoods crazy and and to drive through it. It just a normal neighborhood. But Nashville is just become where everybody's Mecca, right? If
they're not here yet. They're on their way.
Yeah, no, definitely. It's really cool. I only went once it was, but I went to an NFL Draft. I don't know if you were there during that time, but it was and I kept asking everybody is it always like this? And they said, Oh, yeah, it's like this every weekend.
Yeah, crazy. So I was here. I was here when they were building the stage for that. Oh, and, and thank God I left during the visit. It was an absolute shit show. It was Yeah, amazing. But yeah, before COVID you know, Broadway would have, you know, 100,000 people on the street for for Fourth of July for New Year's Eve and for CMA fest. And for all this stuff. I mean, Nashville when it comes to throwing parties, it just doesn't fuck around.
No, for sure. You know, nobody you knew was hurt during that bombing or whatever happened a couple of weeks ago, right?
No, I didn't know anybody. I knew a guy who has a little bit of damage done to his shop and he had to stay out of it for like a week and a half. Okay. Travis Austin, he does the custom jackets and hats and stuff... It woke us up. I mean, shit. We're only we're only you know,
you could hear it.
We heard it. We were up pretty late at night for have some cocktails with some friends. And it was and was Christmas morning. Right. My wife and I were asleep. And it was snowing the night before. And... it was early in the morning... Well, before we wake up, usually, and we heard that we heard the explosion. And we both like lift their heads off the pillow and I looked out the window. And it was light outside but it wasn't storming. It
wasn't raining. There was a and I go and I said like what the fuck was that? Thunder? She's and she was like, I don't know. We're like, Okay, back to bed, you know? And then we woke up a couple hours later and turned on the TV and it was all over the place. But that's everything in Nashville too, is it's like, I mean, we live in we live in... there it's a city so it's not unusual. There's construction
going on. There's the occasional gunshot you know, it's not it's very rare to hear a loud noise, right? Like I thought was like, right. Last thing I thought was that's a bomb...
Yeah, that's frickin crazy. So hey, this was cool. Swear to that. You When you guys were recording atomic, you rented a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, and you were across from Tarantino, and you guys wouldn't kept like ringing a doorbell trying to get ahold of him. Did you know you never saw him then? Did you ever meet him later? Or is that still on your bucket list?
never met him.
Wouldn't that be so quick Mike bucket list. I want to watch movies with Quentin Tarantino and Rob Zombie. Wouldn't that be like the best night ever?
I mean, and the thing is, we knew he was there to
Oh, he was in there. You knew he was in the house. He was there. He was ignoring you.
The cameras were fucking on us. You know, you know, he was just like,
too bad.
He had he had the property across the street from the mansion that we had was like, on top of this hill, and it was a big property. And he had like this other structure wasn't the main house. It was like the this other structure on the property. And I believe, I want to say it was a basketball court. But it was something and Counting Crows. Were in there recording a record. Hmm. And so people were coming and going. We were hardly there. I mean, not come with killer parties. But we
were. That was when we were like, We were there maybe six hours a day just asleep. And I was producing a record at the time and then making the lit record doing. You know, we were we were snazzy, that's another that's another one of those times that I wish we could have just
taken some slow down
or rented it for two weeks longer. Chill by the pool.
That's an interesting thing take to have on your you know, this fast ride that you had of being in this crazy band lit that did all these amazing, amazing things is that you wish you could slow it down a little bit. It's good advice for younger bands, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's I mean, it's it's weird now with social media and everything else, like younger bands that are blowing up now are it must be equally as as because the the demand is still there for all the other things, but it's like they're required to like, constantly document. And? And yeah, if that was how it was that I think we may have just completely lost our
minds. Yeah, that would be crazy. Well, thank you so much for doing this interview. The lot of ups and downs. This is a crazy story. I like listen, all this stuff. I do like to end with a charity is there so is there a charity that you work with? You want to give a shout out to
the charity that's always been closest to my heart is jdrf the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation? Oh, okay. And it's, uh, you know, for anybody who has type one diabetes, that they're probably very familiar with them? Absolutely. They're they're much more hands on and research oriented and much more community outreach than say, like, the American Diabetes
Association or something. But why is that one day because they when when, you know, if you're, if you're 12 years old, and and you get it, and you think, you know, life is fucked? Or if you're a parent and your eight year old gets it, you're like, holy shit, what did we do wrong? Are we gonna die or whatever. You know, jdrf is has a lot of great community outreach, and a lot of great programs. And they really, they really do a lot of great things for That's awesome.
Did you know somebody with diabetes?
Father,
my ex wife has it
okay.
She almost died twice while she was pregnant with with my son from just really like hardcore crashes, low blood sugar. And she's doing great now. And he's an awesome, everybody's awesome. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, I've always just had a, I think that there could be a cure for that disease in our lifetime. That would be nice. And I think that they'll be on the forefront of that. So that's kind of that's kind of my jam. Okay. And of
course, dog stuff. You know, I always support animal charities in your local Humane Society. Yes, absolutely. And no kill shelters and all that kind of stuff are always I'm a sucker for that. I love dogs. I just got a new puppy. So Oh, cool. What kind of puppy I just got a little female boxer. Okay. We had a boxer for shoes, our little princess and we just lost her right before
the holiday. So we had to, we had to, we had to replace the you know, when you have when you're a dog person, you got dogs and yeah, and when one goes, it's like it throws off the fucking Juju in the house. Right? You gotta like you gotta bounce it back out.
Yeah, it's like a hole and that people don't realize like when you're so used to having a pet around and then they're not around. It's like, if it's like a big hole in your life. It's weird.
It feels weird. It almost feels like you know, it's like walking you know, walking into Your your apartment one last time. Make sure you didn't forget something when you're moving. And when you walk in, it's all empty and you're like, Whoa, yeah, that feeling is kind of like that the first time you come home and that dogs out there.
Yes, yeah, I'm a cat person. But yeah, same thing I just my first pet it was a cat and he just passed away. I was so weird cuz like every day come home and he's on the steps waiting for me. And he wasn't there. I'm like, this is weird. This is like really weird that he's not here. It's Yeah, it's so good.
Another one man.
I did. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm thinking to get a second one. So well, thank you so much for doing this. Jeremy. I really appreciate it. Everyone should follow you and check out social media and make sure that they check out the new pop off brothers and the new lit album when it comes out.
Yeah, appreciate you, bro.
All right. Thanks so much, man. All right, but by so many good stories from Jeremy, I'll have to have him on again. or his brother AJ cuz I'm looking forward to this new lit record. I'm also really curious what will come out of the pop off brothers because that stuff is solid to the song I heard was great. Make sure you follow Jeremy on social media to keep up with him and follow Me too. If you want to see what episodes
I'll have coming up. If you liked this episode, check out some of the other interviews I've done like Robin Wilson from Gin Blossoms had on crystal makes from less than Jake. And if you subscribe to the show on YouTube or Apple podcasts, you'll be set for future episodes. If you want to support the show you can like or share stuff on social media or write me a nice review on iTunes. Thanks again for listening and remember, shoot for the moon.