[SPEAKER_00]: Hi and welcome to the Working Songwriter.
[SPEAKER_00]: The show where today's best songwriters come to talk shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Joe Pug.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each episode here, we host a distinguished guest and we ask them to go deep on their inspiration, on their process, on the general ups and downs of making a life in music.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, whether you're a grizzled veteran,
[SPEAKER_00]: Opening a reverb store in the vein hopes of selling your seven rack mount reverbs from the 1980s, or else a scrappy upstart, using algorithms to mix and master your entire stereo bus.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your show, because ultimately it is what every writer seeks most in iron-clad excuse to put off actually writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, this week's show is brought to you by Bandzougl.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Vault is a private, members only section of my website that hosts every single episode of the Working Songletter ever recorded.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Today's artist on our program is a very old friend of mine and who is long, long overdue to be a guest on our program here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a lovely guy and an absolutely killer songwriter and I hope that you enjoy this week's episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our guest this week, Hales from Delevin, Illinois.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cody D.Coff better known as Chicago Farmer grew up in a small farming community before moving to Chicago in 2003.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the past two decades, he has built a devoted following through relentless touring.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, as a solo performer and more recently with his band, The Field Notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Along the way, he has shared stages with Robert Earl Keene, Todd Snyder, Greg Brown, The Wood Brothers, Elizabeth Cook, Lane Hancock, Green Sky Bluegrass, Del McCurray, and many others.
[SPEAKER_00]: His album flyover country was recorded with the members of the band of Heathens, and this year's album homemade is his first release in six years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elmore Magazine says that he has the novelist's gift of building a suspenseful story to a surprising conclusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: No depression declared if the Midwest is looking for a voice, the search is over.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I mentioned before, Cody is a very very old friend of mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were both coming up in the Chicago folk music scene 20 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's one of my favorite modern artists and he should have been on this podcast years ago by now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a chance to catch up with him over the phone to hear about his musical journey so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were mentioned in their, the name Chicago Farmer and how you were kind of ambivalent about it for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it does really get to the heart of this kind of Midwest music that you make.
[SPEAKER_00]: We met in Chicago in the early amid 2000s and we were both doing that scene, which I want to get to in a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what's really interesting about your work and your life is where you originally come from.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people across the country, when they think of,
[SPEAKER_00]: Illinois, they think of Chicago.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Chicago is the outlier in Illinois.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst of Illinois is one of the most agrarian kind of small town places in America.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where you're from Delevin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you kind of describe to people what your childhood looked like culturally?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was a town of 1700 people and my entire all my grandparents were farmers who came from
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of took a different path, so to my dad, my dad was kind of a free spirit guy, he owned a head shop when he was pretty young, and helped put on concerts and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom was a teacher and a speech therapist, so came from very humble beginnings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just, I spent a lot of time on the farm working for my grandpa and getting to know him and getting to know his stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Delvin was a small town with no stop lights.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was just constantly as a kid kind of looking for things to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're young, you just get to run around and, you know, my mom would come out on the front porch and just be all my name when I was time for dinner.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of a life like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you get older, you get a little more bored and you're looking for more things to do, kind of let that old story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had this thing called Study Hall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had a lot of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were small town, we ran out of teachers, sometimes we ran out of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: We never consolidated with our schools that always stayed on our own.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I started writing in Study Hall, at least to go on little adventures in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I would get back from those adventures, I started writing them down.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then I started kind of adding characters and then I took some money from bailing hay and got a guitar and kind of been doing it ever since.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was storage at first or it was lyrics before you got back a tour.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was definitely lyrics.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were these kids in the back of study hall and they didn't seem like the studio's tight but their pencils were going 100 miles an hour and they had like blue hair and you know shirts on the set iron made in a Metallica
[SPEAKER_01]: I realized they weren't studying at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were like drawing and they were drawing things that were similar to like The images on their t-shirts and stuff and so I tried my hand at drawing and just realized This is not my thing at all, so I kept hanging out with them and
[SPEAKER_01]: I started writing and so yeah I was just kind of kind of stories and then kind of turned into poetry and lyrics and just hung out with those guys and that was the first time I realized I had like a creative bone in my body and once once I realized I had a little bit of creativity inside of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't stop and then the later the guitar came along and kind of helped put those little little lyrics in those that were poetry and emotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a real revelation at that age when up until that point you've just been consuming art in culture and then you make something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a real crossing to the Rubicon at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no going back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be hard to remember like what an earth shaking moment that is for all of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really was.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just kind of had this fire in me and I remember pretty much immediately telling my parents that I wanted to be a writer and a musician having, you know, knowing nothing about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like I said, after just you've got a song about I don't mind driving around that's what we did in high school.
[SPEAKER_01]: We drove around and I was always looking for something.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know what it was and then these words started falling on a page and I was like, okay, this is it and just kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: And that fire still kind of burns, but man, when you first realize what a couple chords are on a guitar, when you first write two lines that connect to each other back in the day, when you're first starting out, that's a feeling really tough to be, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, and you can't go back and listen to a recording of it, because you haven't recorded anything yet, you just want to get your hands on a guitar, so you can play your little thing that you have.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the other absolutely just kind of start tinking around and figuring it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did you start putting the songs in in front of people?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I started a little band in high school and we every year we had a little carnival.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was called the fall festival and they had a little uh, they had a little uh, talent show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we would practice in the basement and then we would go play the talent show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And uh, I think there were three three performers and we got beat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, there was a girl who sang somewhere over the rainbow.
[SPEAKER_01]: She didn't know all the words and then there were these other two guys that there were two farmers They shot many marshmallows out of their nostrils across the stage and we took third place to those two acts and that's when I knew right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: This wasn't going to be easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's kind of crazy how close our job is to just like a straight-up early 20th century like Carny lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like I was well, well into my career, like 10 years into my career, had had stuff written about my music in reputable magazines, had done cool stuff and yet I was somewhere in, you know, Idaho playing directly before like a chilly eating contest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it paid well enough, I would go do that again tomorrow, you know, like I know, absolutely, you know, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, at what age did you make, how old were you when you made your way to Chicago and what brought you there?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in 2003 and I had I didn't sleep so much from that small town straight to Chicago I had moved to in the late 90s into Bloomington normal Illinois after bombing around a bunch but that's really where I found like my first music scene you know I played the two bars in my hometown and everybody's backyard so I went to Bloomington normal whereas we're Illinois state is and there we're um
[SPEAKER_01]: there were suburbans that were really great and that's when I first started like really witnessing live music and feeling the power behind that and you know being from Delive and there were maybe two or three musicians in the whole town but now here I was surrounded by like
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, people in my age who had new ideas and new forms of creativity and who were kind of like speaking out and had different views, you know, they were coming from Chicago and all over country really to this to this college and I didn't last on college, but it was very memorable and that's kind of where I decided to go all in, you know, I think in and that study hall I realized I want to be a writer and musician.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I got to Bloomington Normal and immersed myself in the music scene was when I knew I wanted to to go all in with music full time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I had some guys that I live with, they were called the Herbert Wiser Band.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in 2003, for various reasons, they moved to Chicago.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I decided to join them about a month or two later just to just see what was up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there were seven of us in one loft apartment, next to the double door.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a three bedroom apartment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we went to that home depot, they're on North Avenue, and we got some supplies, and we turned that three bedroom loft into like a six bedroom loft.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: splitting the rent you know seven ways I was paying about the same much amount of rent as it was in central Illinois somehow so I was able to survive off of playing music in Chicago which was just insane to me really at the time see this is where people realize that the hipsters from small town Midwest are different than the urban hipsters because you guys go to home depot and frame out frame out your loft immediately
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it was pretty great and the guy on the loft was pretty cool about it because he went from having a three bedroom loft to a six bedroom loft So everybody won, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there was a hole there was
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking back now, there was a real, not only a scene, but an infrastructure in town for small original music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back then, you mentioned living next to the double tour, where there was the double tour, and there was subterranean, and there was a host of places that were small.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's still uncommon ground, which is still there, martyrs, just still there, lilies, I mean,
[SPEAKER_00]: I just can't imagine at this point that even Chicago, but many towns have as robust of an infrastructure for small time original music anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was a special time for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I said, being from the town of 1700, it was pretty overwhelming, both equally exciting and inspiring.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, there was also a place right there across the street called the filter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would go there and write songs all day, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would just write songs all day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then at night, I would go play him somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, maybe it was like somebody's living room or, you know, a place where you go knock on the door, like an underground little speakeasy where you got to have a password or something, but there was just poetry's flams.
[SPEAKER_01]: And open mics and gigs everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody in Wicker Park in the early 2000s was carrying an instrument or covered in paint or something, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, I fell in love, I was still scared to death, man, small damn kid, but man, I loved it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody was cool, like everybody was, you know, it wasn't like a cut, cut throat thing for me, everybody seemed very helpful and, you know, if you sucked, they wouldn't tell you you sucked to your face and if you were good, they would throw you a bone and that was, that was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, you know, I moved there in 2005 and I spent many days in filter as well, writing songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that there's well above, like a non-zero chance that we were in there at the same time, writing to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would assume, I would assume, yeah, before we actually met.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, that's from Sam.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it pains me to report that I think it's a bank of America now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, double door, I think is Ari, I or you had to hear something, but man, we, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, double door is going to filter was going on while we were still living there, um, yeah, that went early, but double door hang on for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I did, um, so I, I'm about to interview an artist later today and I was checking out their tour schedule and I'm happy to report that they're playing sub T next month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so T still holding on.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a different scene that you mentioned how people were kind of helpful in a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember when I was in my early 20s visiting friends who were kind of in an arts scene in New York, and it seemed a little not holier than now, but cooler than now.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, there was you had to be real cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be doing what was happening in New York, and I did not feel that in Chicago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't feel like you had to be real cool part of the cool kids stable to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's good because I'm never going to be a part of the cool kids tables.
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed to go to a place where that wasn't a requirement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Chicago was great for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I couldn't believe really, you know, being from where I was from kind of more of a rural upbringing that that there was a lot of like country music and roots music and Americana music being played.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember stumbling into a place called the hideout, which I'm sure you remember and a band called Dublin a wood pile playing in the corner.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my friend had taken me to this place called the exit, which was on North Avenue.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he kind of took me there as a joke, taking this country kid to the exit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it might have been like an SNM night or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody was in leather and spikes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I walked in, you know, this little country kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had a good laugh about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody was kind to me and then we stumbled over to the hideout and saw this little neon light and I walked in there and there was like a jug band playing country music and I was like wow This is I think I can live here.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is got a little bit of everything here and so I immersed myself Yeah, there was there was a great scene and great variety.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember a corn meal was kind of the bluegrass band at time
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, obviously a Wilco and umphrees were really, you know, doing their thing on full, you know, full speed and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you were, you were the, the songwriter guy of the time, you were, you know, making these young kids, you know, hang on to your every word.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these, these spots, and it was, it was beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, it really was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a crazy time too, you know, early 2000s right up to 9-11 and everything, everybody was just,
[SPEAKER_01]: trying to everybody was full of questions and I think the music, you know, at least gave us a few answers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very interesting time post 911 pre-financial crash, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: When things really get shaken up politically and then funny enough, the politician that would come to power after that was from Chicago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the ones who directed 2008.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think you mentioned that there was a lot going on because of bands that you mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we'd have to say we'd have to put a bullet next to the name of Wilcoe because I think that was really important.
[SPEAKER_00]: The knock-on effect that they had there in Chicago, like Uncle Dupel it got it started out of...
[SPEAKER_00]: St. Louis and then when Tweetie came to Chicago and Wilco really took off with Yankee hotel fox trot like that made a big difference I mean that was that album was a really big deal and specifically in that city.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a really big deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah my my folks my mom used to live.
[SPEAKER_01]: my mom taught in Belleville and whatnot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my hometown was like right in between St. Louis and Chicago.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to kind of have the connection there with Wilco coming from, you know, both of these been north and the south of where I was.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was pretty special.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still can't really describe their music.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really can't, but yeah, I think there was definitely a lot of pride in Chicago that that, hey, we had we got we got the band, man, the band right now is from here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I remember at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was a really big fan of Tweeties, but I am not sophisticated enough to have Yankee Hotel Fox therapy in my favorite.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was always like an AM guy, which was like, you don't want to admit that in a company especially at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I want to listen to casino queen, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are like, no, man, that's not it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, there's always like a songwriter,
[SPEAKER_01]: Seeing I think in Chicago when I got there all my roommates they were they were more into like Jam music and improvisational music and they were really into like umfrees and you know It was cool to see umfrees like hanging out in Chicago on random nights and then they you know See them like rise from like the small venues to the big theaters and then multiple nights too and so it
[SPEAKER_01]: Seeing these things like Wilco, and corn mill too, just watching these, and yourself, watching acts grow right in front of your eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a pretty cool scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not involved probably in the scene enough right now to watch something like that ever again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe and see it on my screen, but to be right there when and witness those things, it's pretty special.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in Chicago recently, I played, I'm sure you've played this before the 4th of July thing at Fitzgeralds in Berlin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The friend of both of us will owns that place and I was there to play and I was closing out the night and not outside in the little theater thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was looking around because you know at that point, you all kind of share the green room behind the stage there So I was there with a bunch of the bands that were playing beforehand and they realized there were all people who were 10 or 15 years younger than me And they all knew each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were all these Chicago bands that played with one another and someone's base player also plays keys and this person's band and all that
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was kind of like this bitter sweet thing of like bitter of like I'm kind of I'm kind of the old guy now And I don't I don't have a scene like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I go out and I play a club and I go home to my wife and kids and and hang out there in the suburbs But but sweet in the sense of the beat is going on, you know what I mean like People are continuing to do this and sweet in the sense of I can look back at that time with like true fondness now Like I there's a really fond Memories I have of that time
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, same.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got there in my car and I got the old welcome to Chicago gift, which was somebody broke my window and sold a few things out of my car and I was so green and young and not a gray hair and now yeah, I feel like whenever I'm in Chicago, I'm kind of the elder statesman now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that when you're like the older states may supposed to be wise or I don't know if that's worked out for me yet, but yeah, there is a cool young scene up there and a lot of people are doing that thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like I know so many Chicago musicians who just never leave Chicago and just stay busy playing in Chicago and playing all these great clubs and
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we started off talking about a club closing and man some of these have, but some of them are going strong and God bless them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm wearing the martyr shirt right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're playing up there in April and it's just still an independent mom and pop thing like this club.
[SPEAKER_01]: They still like cookie food like right there in the kitchen to the green room and bring you out of spread and just treat it like family and it really is family and.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I hope that I hope that continues for the next generation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope they get to see some of the things we saw and, you know, it's, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, for the most of the life is different, but it sounds like they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you, you know, you were talking about that jam scene and we talked earlier about how, you know, Todd had gone out and he was really known for,
[SPEAKER_00]: being like kind of strangely, strangely in-meshed in that scene as a songwriter, have you, it seems to me from the outside looking in the evadabled in a similar way, like you can kind of cross over and play to that crowd as well as the songwriter crowd.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I was, like I didn't dive into the Chicago songwriter scene right away, because my friends were, we're into like festivals and things, and I had grown up in central Illinois,
[SPEAKER_01]: J. Goldberg, him and my old man were buddies.
[SPEAKER_01]: They put on like Alice Cooper shows back in the day and and used to hang out and he ran summer camp music festival in Shilokothi and he would come to like when I play my hometown.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would come to like my birthday shows and stuff at the bar and so he was aware of what I was doing and
[SPEAKER_01]: I think somehow just word got out about it and was kind of like, hey, we're at these festivals like raging and getting our faces melted all weekend long.
[SPEAKER_01]: What if we just have this farmer guy you know sing his songs and tell his stories and we'll just stop raging for a minute and we'll smoke a joint and drink a beer and listen to this guy's songs and stories and
[SPEAKER_01]: It seemed to work and it worked, I think, because, you know, most, you go to Nashville or somewhere else and it's like everybody's a guy in a guitar, but it's some of these like jam festivals.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was kind of like, I was unique.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a guy with a guitar and a story singing folk songs and nobody else at the whole place was doing that, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that, it kind of worked out for me pretty well, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you were like, a pentatonic scale will not be harmed in this making of this concert with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I, so I really love gigs like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love gigs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're headlining a night and you know this very well, I'd be interested to see how you feel, but when I'm headlining a night and I know I have to play 75 to 90 minutes of music, but not only that, that the whole night hinges on whether
[SPEAKER_00]: On whether I can do the thing that night and make everyone kind of throw out of their chairs for a second feel something different and 99% of the time that happens, but it's a lot of Responsibility and I yeah, if I wake up on a showday, it's the first thing I think about when I when I wake up in the morning It's totally different when you're kind of like the set up guy for a band
[SPEAKER_00]: stakes are much lower, expectations are much less, set is 35 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I love those gigs, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love them.
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah at summer camp it was kind of like known as like breakfast with Chicago farmer I would play it noon on Sunday before all the big headlining acts and you know there were people that were still sleeping in their tents there was his hippies that happened slept in four days and they were sleeping in but yeah I could just go out there there's always a little bit of pressure but yeah there's definitely those gigs where it where it's not there and you can just kind of have a little more freedom and
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, playing breakfast to people at noon on a campfire stage at a festival.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, knowing that everybody's going to have a great day because the flaming lips are planned eight hours later or something like that, or Todd Snyder and the hard-working Americans or something like that, you know, that's a good gig, I'll admit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and if for some reason, it, you know, if for whatever reason, it doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, all right, I just got 20 more minutes up here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The headlining geek, you're like, I have like over an hour to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's gonna be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just, I just played Eddie's attic for the first time and played it on on a Monday.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, he had a nice little crowd, but it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: after the Super Bowl.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my first time here is, you know, it's a lot of pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a deliver and, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, after the gig there's always a couple of things you wish you would have done differently, but, but yeah, you know, that's After playing like that was like my fifth show in six days and we had driven all the way from like Bonita Springs, Florida and just fried and, you know, that that pressure has still got to deliver here on a Monday night because all these people paid 20 bucks to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, see this guy posted deliver.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a whole trick.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a thing when you're the headliner.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember calling my wife from the road years ago and being like,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've been doing this too long for nobody to come to a show and this is B has and this is that and the other and she was like cool Yeah, you've been doing this for 15 years now and Pretty much once a month you call me and you complain about being no one being there and every time you make that call It's a Monday night and so I'm going to need you to either stop playing Monday nights or never call me again on it like what are you expecting here?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would never go to a show on a Monday night
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but you know, it's like it's eddies and I had to get in there and that's what they off.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, totally.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's a, and plus, you know, we were driving home and we could.
[SPEAKER_01]: just drove driven straight home from Jacksonville Beach, or I could, you know, no, bleak for Mike, asking my hope to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Believe me, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I'll, but yeah, believe me, a Monday night gig is not normal on the repertoire.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's yeah, it's a tough one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I still panplay them now and then what it's something like that, like a routing date, but I just know that I'm not allowed to call home and complain, which has been,
[SPEAKER_01]: wives are smart minds upstairs work minds upstairs working right now laughing at me because I had technological problems earlier she's she's an online teacher so yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I try very hard to not repeat poems on this podcast, but to have Cody from Delovan, Illinois on the show today, Chicago, former himself, there's no other poem that is suitable besides Wendell Berry's legendary work, Manifesto, the Mad Farmer Liberation Front.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love the quick profit, the annual rays, vacation with pay, want more of everything ready-made, be afraid to know your neighbors and to die, and you have a window in your head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not even your future will be a mystery anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they want you to buy something, they will call you.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they want you to die for profit, they will let you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love the Lord, love the world, work for nothing, take all that you have and be poor, love someone who does not deserve it, denounce the government and embrace the flag, hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give your approval to all you cannot understand, praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ask the questions that have no answers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Invest in the Millennium.
[SPEAKER_00]: Plant Sequoias.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Call that profit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Prophecy such returns.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to the carryin, put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Expect the end of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lathter is immeasurable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ask yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go with your love to the fields, lie down in the shade, rest your head in her lap.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swear allegiance to what is nious to your thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail the way you didn't go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Practice Resurrection.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you were in Chicago, like you were talking about how your in some ways your mind was kind of blown by the size and scope of the city and also kind of the cultural depth of all these other artists that you were encountering what kind of metamorphosis were you going under as a writer at that point what were you starting to learn about writing songs what were you getting better at what were some habits that you had to let go of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, man, I was just constantly writing at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I wish I still was writing as much as I did back then now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I still had that that fireman.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still do now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I don't write as often.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was cool to just, whenever I go to a different environment, I'm writing new things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and pretty much when I got to Ferragul, all my songs were small town driven.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so now I have this whole new, you know, canvas of a whole new place with whole new people and whole new struggles to go from.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's really when I started kind of tapping into just, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: people on the street, you know, we don't have a, really have a homeless population in Delive in Illinois, but we, you know, we do right there in Wicker Park.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have addiction in Central Illinois, but it's kind of a different kind of addiction than what people have in the city.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think I was just tapping in more on my characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, I was developing a lot more characters that were different than my small town rural characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: And,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not gonna lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was eye-opening and fun, but Manchakago's hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was writing about the hardships of Shakago.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd play a gig for 50 bucks, and I would go to my car and have a ticket on my windshield for 35, and just constant expenses of living in a city and getting around.
[SPEAKER_01]: It inspired a lot of writing and a lot of music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, you just jogged a memory of mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember playing Bowery Ballroom in New York City and in the advance for that show.
[SPEAKER_00]: As to where to park, this had come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Park and a loading thing right in front of our theater, load in, and then don't move your van because it will cost more to move your van and park it somewhere else in Manhattan than it will be to just take the ticket.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ticket's like a hundred bucks and parking's like 150.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they don't make it easy on us, you know, but those things create stories and songs, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess so.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's funny that you were saying that moving to the new place made such a difference in writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always found that before I had kids, I pretty much recorded records in different studios and different talents every time, because I always felt like a slightly different person.
[SPEAKER_00]: when I was there and I always felt that to be very helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't do that right now in this season of life because I travel so much to play shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't travel to record too, but I do look forward to later in life, God willing that I'm still healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'll travel to make records again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it makes a really big difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think so too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that different environment and the different setting.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been in this house.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been in Bloomington now for about for several years.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been in this house for five or six years, but there was a stretch there where we moved like 9 or 10 times.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like in that first two weeks of moving into a new home, I was writing new songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it is, but...
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, and we just went and made this record our latest record in Canon Falls, Minnesota, having never been in Canon Falls, Minnesota in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just where the studio recommended to be and where the producer was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just soon as we got there, you know, in this new setting, you know, new ideas in a new place just started bouncing around in new vibes and new inspirations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's nothing like home and you can always, you know, you can close your eyes and go anywhere, but, you know, experiencing new places seems to always get the, get the water falls flowing for, for, for, for songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it really does, there is something about being home when you kind of get an idea and you're thinking about, well,
[SPEAKER_00]: am I going to sit down for now and a half here and finish this song or am I going to go get tacos and you know just knowing well like you know the little workspace down here this this will be here tomorrow is here all the time it's been here for you know hopefully be here for another 10 or 20 so maybe I'll go get tacos but maybe you know something about being in that different place you're like now I'm here to do this thing right now you know yeah absolutely and for me
[SPEAKER_01]: I got this guy, he's a friend, and he's kind of a fan, his name's Mark, he lives in Cincinnati.
[SPEAKER_01]: And every time I go play in Cincinnati, yeah, first thing he asked me is, how are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: How's your wife, how's the dog?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he asked me, do you have anything new?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, most of the time I do, but I remember one time, I was like, no, I don't have any new songs tonight, and he was just, I
[SPEAKER_01]: He was cool about.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, well, I dig all your old stuff, but I could tell he's a little disappointed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have something new.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I am the same guy who prefers tacos over riding a song, just like, you know, Brian, I think preferred hot dog, but anymore, I just, I kind of demand that if I'm going somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know twice a year I got to bring new material and so that makes me forced as me to write it home even though I don't want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it kills me even more stepping out of the stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try to come to it back to a place about once I've eaten once and I'll step on a stage there and the thing that gets me even worse is if I step on stage and I see someone in the audience who I knew was there last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah well not only am I going to play a lot of the
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a couple jokes I have to tell here that I'm not I'm not going to pull the punches on this I got to tell the jokes I have any to tell the joke to someone that you know is in there before kind of kills you too Yeah, it does, man, but you know, yeah, it's not like the days and filter where you're just
[SPEAKER_01]: You know one song after another.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember driving to gigs and writing songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yeah, you know, and they weren't great But they entertained somebody the main smile and it was something different and what they saw the week before when I was doing like a a weekly residency or something like that and
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I think the songs are definitely better, but man, they seem harder to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember writing, you know, on the way to gigs or having just written something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even the song that's been the most successful for me, him 101.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember playing it that day at Lillies.
[SPEAKER_00]: I played it the day that I wrote it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the lyrics at that time were like, I've come to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've come to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've come to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in the recorded version of the song, once per verse, I like,
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of hold out the the word and I've come and the reason for that is I was on stage that night night written at that day and I forgot and what the next thing that I just written was so I had to hold and come until I remembered and so there was
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that obviously makes it a better song.
[SPEAKER_00]: It never would have happened if I had written it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I would have written it now on my basement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I would have recorded it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I had forgotten what the lyric was, I would have pressed the space bar to stop recording it and looked up what the thing was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's different than you did, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the songs that I have now in my new record, I wrote them all here in this little basement where I'm talking to you now, but they definitely evolve from playing them live.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, yeah, there are, you know, I was hearing like people will go like Steve Earl, just go into a studio and write a song and record it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, he's also Steve Earl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, but, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah for me the songs kind of have to evolve especially with the band because the band comes up with new different little parts and new little things that color in parts that I love as they go on so
[SPEAKER_01]: But the problem with that though is like now I've been, the songs are coming on a record and I've already been playing them for quite a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: People know the songs, but I guess now they're getting to hear the recording version, which is different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it looks like, so this is your first full length in five or six years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you had an EP.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Between was there a reason?
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like this has been your longest break between LPs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I recorded an album called Fly Over Country in 2019 with the band of Heathens.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hopped on a plane with our old friend Chris Harden, I remember Chris Harden, and flew down to Austin and locked ourselves in the studio with the Heathens for about four or five days, and had a blast making that record and felt really good about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we got to tour in January and February of 2020 and then the whole world shut down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, you know, I'm kind of one of those guys who empties out their bank account to make a record and then try to hit the road to recoup it and there was just not a lot of time to recoup.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as I just needed, I need a break from recording and
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the the EP was forced a little bit just because I had a new band I wanted to give him in the studio, but this one we actually For the first time had a producer and really thought it out a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of had a plan Jo and and I think it worked out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was worth the wait.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to wait as long next time, but
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of why the big gap there in between recordings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, no, I feel you, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I'd like to get them out at a faster clip, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, it's like, with recording and paying salaries and manufacturing, and then obviously you got a market it if you're going to pull that money into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, yeah, I guess I'll just use this spare 30 or 40K that I just had sitting in a trash.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like not stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's not how this works at all, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm very fortunate.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a label called Low High Records, which I really love and they're helping me with some of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that helps.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even with them thrown in like half, you know, it's like the other half is just it's kind of mind boggling sometime.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is over over time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might not seem like a lot, but when you see those numbers like right in front of your face at the moment, it's it can be, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be a little down-trying and devastating to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a cash flow because ultimately it'll be an asset that you'll have for the rest of your life and that you've been doing your poster.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's totally worth it, but it's the cash pinch in that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually, I don't use AI for a lot of stuff, but I thought it would be good for this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, because I have, I'm trying to work on several releases for later this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, I just know, I'm used to the cash pinch.
[SPEAKER_00]: coming, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm like, chat, GPT, teach me about cash flow.
[SPEAKER_00]: How does cash flow work?
[SPEAKER_00]: You are my teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to business school, teach me about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's kind of taking a little bit of the mystery away from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's not that complicated.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like you've got to outlay a lot of money now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how are you going to survive into the point when you start getting revenues back in?
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's ways to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ashamed that it took me to age 41 to
[SPEAKER_00]: to even think about learning about it, but here we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you do that record with the heathens at finishing school in?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dude, that place used to be owned by the Space Player Great Base Player, a name George Reeve who died well before his time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got cancer out of nowhere, but I did a couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: not albums down there, but there was a couple albums that I did where it was like, you know, you finish it and everyone's like, yeah, but we don't have that song yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you go recorded that song?
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went and did a couple down there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like that little just that little suburban house of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's sweet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they yeah, it was I didn't get to meet George but the heathens and and Gordy obviously loved him very much and had a lot of
[SPEAKER_01]: praise for him and it was a special place.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad they're keeping it going and yeah yeah we just we I feel bad we didn't really get to see much of Austin we just locked ourselves in there and then at night they're in one of those little side rooms was a Murphy bed you pull out the wall you know we would crash and then wake up the next morning and the heathens were show up again and we'd start starting recording again but it was a great vibe and a cool experience
[SPEAKER_00]: it's good you locked yourself in because if there is ever a city where the top of the tacos from that city could make you not write a song.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'd be awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well listen man, congrats on the new record and thank you so a lot of took us so long to do this together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do another episode soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was a blast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for having me.
[SPEAKER_00]: This week's show was brought to you by Bandzogl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Built by musicians and form musicians, Bandzogl is an all-in-one platform to build a beautiful website for your music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Use promo code TWS, the initials of our podcast, TWS, to get 15% off the first year of an in-new subscription.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chicago Farmers latest album is entitled Home Aid, available everywhere music is sold or streamed.
[SPEAKER_00]: If before we meet again, you sit down to write, please remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: An expensive drug habit is not a song, a compelling Instagram account, is not a song, and most importantly, reverb is not a song.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let all that take care of itself and for you just keep your eye on the song.