Justin Townes Earle: In Memoriam

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin, We're really sad at broken record to hear about the passing of Justin Towns Earl. We recorded an interview with them some time ago before the coronavirus put in studio conversations on hold for us. Bruce Hadlin met up with him at GSI Studios in Manhattan. Justin played some music, they talked, as you'll hear, Justin was a gifted performer and songwriter. He was the son of outlaw country musician Steve Earl and got his middle name from his dad's mentor, Towns van Zand. Both Steve and Towns struggled with addiction, and so did Justin for most of his life. He talks with Bruce about his personal troubles in this episode pretty candidly, and their conversation about racial tensions in America seems prescient now. Justin identified with people on the margins. He wrote fantastic songs detailing Fringe Live with tremendous heart. They were full of desperation, humor, and specificity, and the best of the Southern songwriting tradition. We had this interview scheduled to run next month in September when we heard yesterday morning that Justin passed over the weekend. We weren't sure we should run this at all. There's some really deeply sad moments in this conversation with Bruce, but there's also a lot of soul. So in the end, we thought you might all enjoy spending some time with Justin Town's Earl. His talent in life for better or worse really shines through. We also hope you spent some time with his music, whether you're returning to it or just discovering it for the first time. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right, enjoy the episode. Here's Bruce had them with Justin Town's Earl. He starts with the performance of a song from his last release, The Saint of Lost, causes Justin Town's Earl with Flint City, Flint City, Shake It Flint City, Shake It Flints all right. Yeah, that was quite an opening. Thank you. So much. You gotta start out fast, man. Yeah, you always store your concerts fast. I like to, you know, yeah, try to, you know, but you know, you know you have to. You gotta give him something to say, right. Yeah, ain't gonna come out there and stare it. You know, very few people can get that, you know, the Jeff Buckley, you know, do that thing where you could stare at your shoes and get away with it. He was great. I saw it live. I couldn't do that. Yeah, I like, I like the show to start. It's like I don't want to see nobody come out on stage and town. It's like when I walk out, I want my guitar tooon for me and hand it to me and let's let's go. Um. So, tell me about the rating of that song, Flint City Shake It. Um. Well, you know, I think it was the first song I wrote for this record. Um, and it kind of it tied into this thing where I was looking at the way, you know how like Springsteen made New Jersey so cool. He made you feel New Jersey or before who you know. But but you know, you listen to him, you know, working on the Highway and things like that, like you you get this this mysticism about it and this thing where he made it romantic, made Jersey romantic. Yeah, that bon Jovi sure as shit couldn't do that, you know. So what I wanted to do is take that same which he's a Woody Guthrie disciple, right, which I am too. I wanted to take that same idea but apply it to all of America. So I have. I wrote Flint City, Shake it Um. Then I wrote Santa of Lost Causes. Then I wrote Appalachian hypemare Um you know about Appalachia. I wrote Ahistaminina you know about I based that on a my my basis was a Puerto Rican kid from the East village that from the Alphabets who got locked up on mandatory minimums when he was young um and was and got off a prison bus and met his daughter for the first time. That's what I asked to mean, he is about um. But but it's like that's that the whole idea. And it's like I wrote over Alameda about a kid from the Jordan Downs housing projects in south central Los Angeles. It's a very old impulse in American music that I think has been lost. I mean, Springsteen wrote about lost, but he you know, he's from New Jersey. He wrote about other places as well. But oh yeah, what is it about those songs or those kinds of songs that people like Winnie Guthrie used to write? What do you think that? You say, like, you know, everybody's Americans. But in a weird way, the beauty of those songs is it makes different parts of the country more mysterious, isn't it. Well? I mean I think too, It's like, yeah, it's like I mean, I hope that it makes it mysterious. I hope that it makes people intrigued by different parts of the country. I'd hope it makes somebody figure out that. Like, you know, if you lived in LA from the nineteen forties until now over Alameda, that was the dividing line. It was a dividing line between black and white. Was this so Flint City was the first song on this album on your new album? Was it? Did it kind of set the tone for you with this album? Was it characteristic of what you wanted to do? Well? I always have a conceptual idea about my records, even from the start, even from the Good Life. I had this concept of it. Even though it's light like my early records, they were like except Midnight at the Movies was pretty conceptual. I based that on Gregory Corso's book Mind Fields, Harlem River Blues, I based on Moving Here things like that. But um, I know, I um, I always know exactly where I want to start and where I want to end. And that goes with songs and records, because I mean, it's just like I'm not you know, I'm not pissing in the wind. You know. It's like I'm here to you know, I'm gonna you know, I'm if you want to be an artist, It's like I write about twelve thirteen songs a year. They go on my records. I think um saying of a lost causes the song. Yeah, it took me about six months to write. What did it start? As? Did? It started? As it was with a lick, with a lyrical idea? What how did it? What was the genesis? It started with this this idea of I was I was looking at It's like, you know, you're looking at people like Eric Gardner getting choked out by cops, the Me Too movement, all these things of all these people like you know, it's like, wait, people, anybody black people Mexicans. What women, we've we've traded them like horribly over and and so what I was trying to get at was the fact that if you keep poking at the underclass, what you call the underclass, you know, you keep poking at us, eventually we're gonna strike back and you won't like it. Okay, So was it? Was it stuff in the news you're reading, or stuff you were seeing up close? That stuff I've lived through, stuff I've lived through. I mean, I mean, you know, it's like everybody, I'm Steve Son, but my daddy was. I mean, my mom was number three of eight wives, you know, and he was gone before I was two. I grew up with my mother. I mean, I grew up. You know what, it makes the best grilled cheese sandwich in the world, Government cheese in the cardboard box, the best damned grilled cheese sandwich you can get. And I know that because I grew up. You know, I grew up with my mother, who worked three jobs. I grew up with, you know, and I gravitated towards a lot of dangerous people. And I've you know, I've always been a street level kind of person. I don't want to go to your martini bar and and sit there and bullshit, I want to go to the darkest, dimmest, most dangerous bar you got and let's get down with the people, right because that's how most people live. So that's where the song came from. That those memories, that idea all of it. Yeah, yeah, well you said that's where you want to start with the album. Where did you want to go with the album? Well, what I wanted to go with was actually when I wrote sat Saint of Lost Causes, the song which will play next yep, um, I knew. I was just like, okay, that's it. Now we got to add up to that. Is this something you map out very consciously or very feeling? Yeah, very Yeah. So when you're writing that song, you're I usually know where I want to end before I know where I want to begin, and you just keep working until you finished the record, I mean until you feel like you got to start, when you got to finish. It's a thesis. You need a hard beginning, a medal at an end. Yeah, and only the most pertinent information are you that way As a lyrical writer, you say you've got it. Oh shit, you ought to see my note. But I mean, if somebody stole one of my notebooks, um, you may get two songs, because it's just page after page of just rewrites and rewrites and rewrites. And I always write number two pencils, uh, and stint up pads. Always use the same kind of pad always always. Yeah, I like to you one of are you very precise in that way? Well? You know, well, the only thing that I you know, the pad, I like cineupads. It ain't necessarily the pad any thing, but the number two pencil is the thing, okay, because you can erase it when you get a bad idea, but you got to remember when you had a decent idea that maybe you didn't work out just right, and leave that and not erase it so you can go back and look at it and find another way to toy it around and and you know, and get it right. That I was reading this biography of Guy Clark, and they reproduced some of his notebooks and it was sort of done impeccably and hardly any revisions, which kind of just stunned me. Maybe maybe they're just showing the good pages, not the messy pages. Well, now he's the guy who told my dad were always write number two pencil. Is that right? And my dad told me I always write number two pencil. Yeah. It's like he erased everything that he didn't like. Oh okay that's why. Yeah, all right, So you cover up your history. I'm gonna you can. You can, you can, but you can only but but you gotta always remember as like as like, we can't all be as good as Guy Clark, So we have to hang on to what we were, where we came from. You know, sometimes you have to know what to hang on to. Um. You know, keep two eyes on the ground and pick up what you find, but be careful what you keep when don't we hear Saint of Lost Causes and then keep talking? Well, let's do that. So for people listening wondering how many guitars are playing on that song, it's just you, just one guitar. But you've got this very interesting way you you strum and pick kind of at the same time. I call it slid a hand. Okay. Um, I learned bit of it from Malcolm hokeom okay, yeah, great, great Sun House m hmm. Did this? I mean they but you gotta do this figure out this thing is like, you know, you gotta get your fingers bent like crap. I'm looking at some very ben fingers, very band and this thumb looks like a canoe paddle. I mean, but but you get this well. The other thing I was gonna say is uh, and this isn't very common anymore. You justif really swings, oh man, I swing like a pendulum. You know, it's it's a you got you got to swing. I mean, if you don't know how to shake your ass, then you mean that's something. I mean, did you get that from Western swing? What? I got that from the Blues? I got that. I got that from the Blues. I mean, I got that from listening to um. But you know I got it from Stacks. I got it from uh I did? I got it from Hank Williams. But you know what where Hank Williams think about country before Hank Williams, Right, it was just like, oh yeah, I said we're going to this and all on top of the beat, right, Not that it wasn't good, but it was all on top of the beat. Hank Williams goes down to the Louisiana Haye Ride and somehow, you know, everybody's like, oh, Hank, Williams did this. It's like all he did was introduced the twelve bar blues, the country music, you know. Or before I'd be like I'm going down to the river and then I'm gona no, no, no no man. But Hank Williams comes in and goes, I'm going down to the rip gone that day. You know, it's like whoa drop back, sit back, relax, right, relax, I mean, relax about it. But some some of your earlier songs like I'm thinking, uh the good Life, the song that was very Western swing. Oh yeah, no, no, I mean western swing was was definitely a part of of what I loved, but but it was it was weird how I got into like I'm not I'm not. Um. It's more like when I think about Western swing, I think about Moon Mullikin. You know these these these these these stranger Emmett Miller. Um, I think of these these different things. I'm Eman Miller who wrote Lovesick. He wrote the Lovesick Blues. And you know what, Hank Williams definitely saw Emmett Miller when he was down in Lazianna Aza right, without question, where Edam Miller did, he did Ragtime, I think he was. I mean he was a black face performer. He was a white guy who painted his face black and performed in black face. Old minstrel show kind of thing. Yeah, Um, and people don't really know how because it's so politically fraught, how influential a lot of minstrel show music will was. I mean, here's the deal. It's like people need to understand this about what the minstrel show did. The minstrel show for the first time. Um, before it's like you lived in a holler somewhere, or you lived in a bio somewhere, you lived on a rant somewhere, or even if you lived in a city, you knew a version of a song because your uncle knew how to play it and he played it on Saturday night when you all gathered together, you know, for your your gathering. So everybody knew these different versions, Like nobody's versions were the same. Right. This was before records were made, you know, So it's like nobody knew the same versions for the first time. The minstrel Show travels at travels and it introduces America to a uniformed song like the the that's how you play that song, you know that idea. You know, it was the very first widespread given to all of America at the time, music that we had before radio, before radio, before records could be made. And I mean, and of course there's there's there's always going to be this uh, this this stigma about it because you know, even black people had to paint their face black to be in a menstrel show, you know, right, Hell yeah, that's fucked up. Yeah, I mean what minstrel, what the minstrel show did for American music. We would not have American music the way that we have it if it was not for the menstrul Show. We wouldn't. We'll be back with more from Justin Town Zero after the break. We're back with more of Bruce's conversation with Justin Town zero. Do you remember the first song you wrote, m I do um um halfway to Jackson, So the first song you ever wrote in life ended up on Finished Yeah, Well, a lot of the songs on the Good Life, Yeah, a couple of them. Um. I wrote um halfway to Accent when I was fourteen. I ain't glad I'm leaving when I was fifteen. Uh, turn out my lights when I was fifteen. Uh, Rogers Park. What were you what were you listening to back then that that helped you write those songs? Um, those songs we were back then, like, I mean, those were the few, like there's I can't remember all the songs on that record, but those were the few that were the old songs that I'd had since I was a kid when you know, because I was twenty five when when when New Life came out? So those are the ones that lasted, all right. I wrote a ton of shit back then, like but when I was a teenager, tons, tons and a lot of It's embarrassing as hell, but you got to go through that. Yeah, you know, you got to write bad songs, try them out. I mean, and I mean it's not like you know, I used to write a song and you know, I'd like run down to Dad's studio when he'd be working, like run down and be like, hey, look at this. He'd be like, yeah, go back to the drawing boards. Soun as hard as hell on me about it? Yeah, because you how old were you when you started playing with his band? I was fifteen? Wow, what did you see the music business when you were fifteen? On the road? I knew it was better than selling to up and going to prison, which was which was what I was gonna do. I was gonna let's follow my you know, mom's side of the family down down the rabbit hole. Right, I'd be dad, or I'd be in prison. Period. You know what, if this ever ends, I can't make no money, I'll probably end up in prison because I only know two ways to make money. The only one's legal. All right, We're gonna help you with this way because you know, of course you get three square meals. I mean, as long as you you know how to get you you know, get your zuzus and lham wams. I mean, you know, you'll be fine. So I'm kind of wondering this because you know, particularly with music, a lot of music is pop music and rock music is born in rebellion. When you have a father who's kind of such a rebel himself, how do you rebel against that? How did you how did you separate yourself from your father's influence? You can't, and you don't because if you try to, if I said Steve Earl had no influence on my songwriting and that he wasn't one of my heroes as a songwriter, that would be the biggest I mean, the biggest lie I could tell you know, was that the case when you were fourteen? Well, we kind of just started getting to know each other when I was fourteen. He knew his music though, of course, you know, but it's an interesting thing. I mean you have to realize that, like any of those sons and daughters of they're like, I don't wanting don't talk about my dad. I want nothing to do with my dad or my mom. It's like the fuck you think you are. It's like you, it's like you. You you have to find your own way incause nobody can tell me that I rode my daddy's coattails into this fucking business because my dad can't play like me. Um, I can't write like him, and he can't write like me. We have a different I mean we've we've we have distinct things that we do differently. Um. But and you know, and we've done since I mean shit like since I started making records. I think we've done five shows together. What's that like? Period together? Five shows though? Yeah, but what's it like when you play together? It's it's it's something else you want to see. Two Earl's butt heads holy shit. I mean it is, it's something else, especially when we start playing together and I was doing songs together, and uh uh. I always liked to take one of his songs that he likes to do, and I like play one of his songs that I know he's gonna play it just so he can't do it, and things like it. But no, it's it's definitely it's a it's a head button thing. But I remember, I remember the first time, you know, my dad telling me go back to the drawn Bird. I mean I used to play from noon until seven pm at the spring Water in Nashville every Thursday, um noon until seven pm, just playing and playing and playing and playing up covers and songs that I wrote. But you know, it's like he you know, I had to get that get, get that test in get. You had to build all that up, hide to build all that up, um and um. I wrote a lot of songs and he said, go back to the drawing Bird. But I remember the first time when I wrote Maria. I can't remember what record it's on. I think it's on Midnight or something. I can't but when I wrote Maria, it was he came and saw me at um radio cafe in Nashville, UM, and we I was with my band the Swindlers at the time, and we played Maria last. And when I came off stage, my dad goes, well, hey, what was that Elvis Carstello song you played? I said, we'd played an Elvis Carstello So he's the last song. I said, that's Maria. I was like, that's mine mine. He goes, really, I went, hell, yeah, that was the first. Like I was like, yelp, doup and and you know, and and I still can make him cry with Mama's Eyes. Can you play the first two bars of Mama's Eyes? Because that's pritting into this conversation. Oh, let's say, uh, I have to do a little a little bit of tune in for a second. But when I wrote this song, I mean like it, it was like, you know, it's like you gotta be ballsy, you know. And I love the fact that when I came up, But that first line that you know, do you know that like right there when I did that, I was just like when I came up, I was just like, Hell, I'm onto something. Yeah, I'm onto something. What did he say when you he first heard that? He actually the first time he saw it was at a show. Um he came and saw him. Um, I can't remember where we were, Oh, the Rhyman. We're at the Rhyman Auditorium opening for Old Crow, I think. And Dad shows up, you know, like proud papa on the sides, and and I do do Mama's eyes and and you know, and you can see I mean I you know, I kind of peek over and like you see him shrink a little on the and after after the show, I was just like, Okay, he was like, hey, great show. He was like Mama's Eyes is a really fucking good son. There was this resignation and that he was just like so I think that that's it. I found this thing and speaking the truth, telling it the way that it is. And he respects that absolutely because he created me, even though he wasn't there for that. For a good point. That creates a lot of a boy who I'm a boy that doesn't grow up with a father. It grows up alone. Uh you know a mother that works three jobs, who's who's molested, beaten and abandoned. You know after dad left? You know what, you think I ain't gonna shape You're I was pissed at dad for a long It took us a long time to have a relationship. Long time. You read a lot about mothers. You wrote an album single mothers as You've got another one on this album, the Nina song. Oh ah, he has to mean Nina. M Yeah, well that was like that's dad getting off, you know, Amias Morelda used a site for sore eyes. I'm just off the bus from Clinton. They put me out on the Bowery. I'm on my way home to see mommy. Now, fancy seeing you along the way, don't know, don't go. Ain't you got a minute for your old man? Let me buy you something to eat, just a cup of coffee from Debodegga. I was hoping we might get a chance to speak, you know. Um, and that was someone you knew. That's based on, it's based on. It's a composite of a few people that I knew. I lived in the alphabets for years, and um, I mean people who don't don't nobody needs to be mistaken by anything. It's like alphabets are still strongly Porto Rican, right, you know, and the influence there is something else, uh yeah yeah, um, And but that whole idea of like like like you know, the Puerto Rican people came here in the nineteen fifties, started filling into this town um as soon as they could, looking for better life. They speak great English. They speak Spanish between each other. But when you're talking to them, the only time that they if you're if you're talking just like you know, sitting at the bar talking, you know, with the minutes, like the bunch of non Spanish because they're talking perfect English. But you know they you know, hit their thumb, oh ching. You know. So it's like emotional things that makes this right. You know, this this thing come up so and I got this ideally Adista me Ninya, my only child, Nina. You know now you have no fear of you're taking the voice of a Puerto Rican father. Uh, you take the voice of a African American kid in Alameda. Uh. You know there's a lot of controversy about that. Now we're all Americans, but we're all Americans. I mean that's the thing is like everybody needs to get the get the fuck over all that, like we're Americans. And you know what it's like, uh, you know, all the all the Puerto Rican kids that I knew when I lived in the alphabets weren't born in Puerto Rico. They were born in America. They may speak Spanish, their mom may cook some spicy food. I lived in the five twenty eight. Oh man, you should have smelled that building in the middle of the day. Oh shit, all the doors opening, the cooking going. It was good. But the deal is is they're Americans, right. But a writer could say to you, yeah, but you're a way to American. You've got a certain experience. But I grew up as a black kid in that neighborhood. I see it a different way. What does it like to take on that voice? Well, don't don't make sure that you think about it before you say it. I don't think I say anything that would offend anybody in this song. I mean I may have found corporate America, but I ain't gonna found up Puerto rican In with I es I meaning you, I'm not gonna failed any black man with over Alameda, We'll love more of justin Town zero. After the break, we're back with justin Town zero. Why don't we hear uh your next song? First? No? What do you connouct? No? I got it. We'll do it Frightened by the Sound? Okay, I mentioned before some of your songs could they could have been Merle Haggard songs, George Jones songs. That could be a Paul Westerberg song. It's kind of like, I mean like when when I recorded Ken Hartley wait on on Midnight at the movies. It's on midnight. That's right, you did. Yeah, and we should say Paul Westerbird writer for the replacement replacements. All you people who don't know look it up. You got head on your phone. So the song you just played, Frightened by the Sound, where you know, you talked about kind of the arc of this album, where he started, where he ended up. Where's that along that line? Um, it's it's um, let's just telling telling everybody that you know, uh, just don't don't don't be afraid when storm starts, and it will. But it's kind of a scary. It's funny because you're saying, gonna friend, it's kind of a scary song. It is, yeah, but I mean but it's like, but what, really, what can we be scared of these days? I mean, if you're if you're really in this day, and I mean if you're my age at least right. I grew up through the crack cocaine epidemic, the in the introduction of of of assault rifles to the streets, carjackings. Um, two bushes, Reagan, two bushes. Uh and and and now now and now Trump. What are you going to be afraid of? I mean you we better be we better get this is a we better get tough. We better get tough. Um, and realize that there's uh, you know, what's what's there to be scared of? I mean, the worst thing can happen is you die. Well, there's that, I mean, and that's over. What you got to worry about? Don don't be afright of something? Are you? What's your life as a musician? Now? Is it? Because I looked at your schedule? You too are a lot? I tore a lot. I'm you know, I'm I'm a good dad. I'm a terrible husband. Um, but I'm really good at what I do for a living. I know how to live on the road. Yeah. Um, I know how to do the shows. I know how to be tits and teeth. Uh, you know, the show goes on, get it done, um go um. But what I can't I'm bad at get me off the road for a week, two weeks. I want to beat my head against the porcelain just but I mean, like it drives me. I don't know how it works. I mean, I I don't know how it works. I've been doing this since I was fourteen years old, I mean toring since I mean touring Torran since I was fifteen. I mean, like, what what else do I know? Um? You know, my wife was like, you're messy. I was like, I'm sorry, I'm used to hotel rooms. I'm gone the next day, I probably like, you know, it's like I'm you know, I'm bad at it. My dad was never good at it, you know. Yeah, but but we committed to this. We you know, this is the thing. It's like anybody who wants to be around me, be with me, is understand that this is what I do. That's what I'm gonna do. I do not want to die at home. I want to die in a tour bus years from now. But I do not die sitting up my damn couch. You know, you're not in Nashville anymore. You grew up in East Nashville. But I didn't grow up in East Nashville. Oh, I thought you did. No, no, no, no, no no. I grew up in South Nashville. The only time we went to East Nashville is when our cousins got out of prison and our aunt was having a cookout. Okay, Um, this is one of the things that obsessed people in country music. What's your relationship to Nashville. What's Nashville doing? What's the Nashville sound? Now? How do you look at what's coming out of Nashville? Now? Well, um, there's a lot of cool stuff coming out in Nashville right now. Um, but I got I hate the bro country shit. H I hate it. I mean, but most of the stuff coming off of music row is is I mean, I would, I mean it's horrible, I mean horrible. Um, but there's there's a lot of cool stuff that goes on in Nashville. You mentioned bluegrass, and there's a there's a terrific song on your album, which is there's many terrific songs. The one that really stood up for me was Appalachian Nightmare. Oh yeah, which is And you say you don't want to sing it because it has too many words. I can't remember the fucker I can't. Yeah, it's got a lot of words. It's kind a lot of fucking words, but it's it's a kind of it's an outlast song. It's not quite a murder ballad, no, but it's an outlast song which has got a that's something else, that's got a real pedigree in in country here and much older music like well you know that. That was one of the few songs that I did take kind of like when I was writing that, when I when I got to the end, I was like, I'm gonna make this guy kill a cop and I'm gonna say it on the song I suggested. Was there a particular story you were thinking of with the new and Appalachian Nightmare? Was there? It? Was it a news event or something or was it just from your imagination? No, No, it's from friends from friends I lived. I lived in Johnson City, Tennessee for a while. Um, around Pokey, Tennessee. Um, and what goes on up in those hollers, I mean, it's it's something else. I mean, it's a it's a world onto itself that Um, it's a I mean, I mean, I know I placed Butler Holler like in the nineties and Butler Haller around a Pokey, Tennessee. They the police wouldn't go down Butler Holler. They wouldn't go down the road. There was one road in one road out and it was just like it was just trailers like tilted on Neil, but it was you know, math cooking pill snorton like. I mean, I remember there was this great robbery and we were living in I was living in uh Johnson City. This was a I mean, I remember it because it's amazing. These two guys evidently pull up in front of a drug store in downtown Johnson City on a dirt bike. One of them has a fifty gallon and garbage can and they both have some kind of assault rifles strapped over their shoulders. They go in, you know, motorcycle elements on fifty gallon garbage can, you know, stick it up like fill it and just rake everything, all the pills, everything into that fifty gallon guardge can, run out, get back on the bike, take it, and they put a strap around themselves. Right and right as they were pulling out, the cops got on them. So they took off of eighty seven, took up Unicoi Highway and at that point Unicoi Highway wasn't finished. It ended, and it was just like a bridge that just stopped. Cops are following them, Boom, dirt Mike, just right off that bridge up the hills. Gone, yeah, gone. They couldn't follow them. They couldn't do nothing. As smart as hell. That's some hillbilly ingenuity if you but you know, you waited about four months and then the town was flo with pills. Right, Are those stories still you still want to tell those kind of stories? Yeah, because they're real stories. I mean, I mean, if we really think that most people, uh, I mean, most most people in America ain't got a pot to piss in, And who are we to tell them? You know, I do what I do to support my daughter. I don't care what happens. I'm gonna do what I got to do. And I think they think the same way. You're gonna do what you've got to do. Our hearts go out to the friends and family of Justin Towns Earth. You can hear is the last album The Saint of Lost Causes by checking out our playlist at Broken record podcast dot com, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast, where you can find extended cuts of past episodes and also new ones. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler and his executive produced by Miolbell. Thanks to our CEO Jacob Weissberg and our President Malcolm Gladwell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. Follow us at Pushkin Pods and the Broken Record Pod on social media, and if you like Broken Record, please remember to share, rate, and review our show on your podcast at I'm justin Richmond. Bass