The Daily Stoic - Mike Herrera, Punk Rock Stalwart (MxPx, Goldfinger), On 30 Years On and Off the Road

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

On today’s episode, Ryan speaks with singer Mike Herrera, founder of the punk band MxPx. They talk about being a touring musician during COVID, the insights he has gained from being in MxPx, and more.Mike Herrera is lead vocalist, bassist, and songwriter for the punk band MxPx. Herrera founded the band in 1992 in Bremerton, WA, and it has since gone on to reach Billboard charts multiple times and sell millions of albums worldwide. Herrera also performs solo and with LA punk band Goldfinger, and he produces The Mike Herrera Podcast as well.This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusive deal for Daily Stoic listeners: get up to 39% off their bestselling Lion’s Mane bundle by visiting foursigmatic.com/stoic.This episode is also brought to you by Amazon Music. Amazon Music has a great new promo where you can get your first three months of membership for free. With 70 million songs, millions of playlists, and thousands of radio stations, you’ll never run out of things to listen to—and it works great with your Alexa products. Get this offer now by visiting Amazon.com/ryan. Terms and conditions apply.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Mike Herrera:Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikeherreraTDInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeherreratdPodcast: https://mxpx.com/blogs/mike-herrera-podcast/the-mike-herrera-podcastSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. of necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to Business Wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode, the Daily Stove podcast. Obviously, one of the perks of having the podcast, but also just being a writer, so you get to meet people you admire, people whose work you love. I think if you'd been talking to a 12-year-old version of me, being a writer, so you get to meet people you admire, people who's work you love. I think if you've been talking to a 12-year-old version of me, they would have not believed so many of the things about my life would even be possible. But this one, they probably wouldn't believe at all. I remember probably around age 12, I remember I saved up my money and about a stereo for

my room, and it had the ability. This is a very long time ago for some listeners, I'm sure. But you would listen to songs in the radio and you would put a tape in the tape deck and if you hit the record in the play button, you could record things off the radio. And I remember I recorded a song by the band MXPX, I'm okay, you're okay,

which I think was their biggest hit to date and I just loved this song. And I remember I heard it a couple times but I never caught it right at the beginning and I finally got it just in time to record it and I would listen to this song all the time and then I bought the album when it came out. I remember actually even the first album that I ever bought on Amazon, the first thing that I ever bought on Amazon which I bought with a gift card was was their next album, The Ever Passing Moment. And the first concert that I ever went to was an MXB show in Modesto, California in

going to be September or October 2001. And I still have the T-shirt, and it still fits. And I wore it a few days ago. So my guest today actually is Mike Herrera, an amazing musician, the founding member and songwriter of MXPX, so the basis in a band called Goldfinger. He's got a bunch of awesome side projects he's done over the years that I also like, including the band Arthur, and yet a country band called Tumble Down. MXPX is a pop punk band.

They do a lot of great acoustic stuff too. It just been kind of a soundtrack to my life over the years. And God knows how many, how much time I've spent listening to their music. I remember one time I was watching the Super Bowl as a kid and they weren't a Super Bowl commercial. I just thought, holy shit, this is amazing. And I ended up meeting Mike when I was writing a perennial seller.

MXPX is a band that has been now a band for 30 years. They've had their ups and downs, and I wanted to look at how an artist weather's just the realities of something as difficult as the music business. Comes out of the other side, does great work. And I got to meet Mike and I've been to a couple shows since then, which has been cool. Anyways, today's guest is Mike Herrera, you know, great conversation,

probably even more unbelievable to me as a 12 year old, is that Mike's wife Holly and my wife Samantha are friends. Things I could not have conceived of as a kid. Certainly the life is weird, man. And if you ever watch the show Fixer Upper, Mike and his wife Holly were the, were on the finale of that show, they built a really cool house,

chip and Joanna Gaines remodeled an incredible house for them in Waco, Texas. So I've gotten to see Mike and Holly quite a bit. So I wanted to have this conversation. And Mike and MXPX are crushing it. Actually their new song Let's Ride is when I've listened to a bunch of times to check it out. And I think Mike says in the interview, it's in the new Tony Hawk Pro Skater game. A bunch other stuff. So great band, follow them on Instagram, follow them on Spotify, buy their stuff, see them live when live music comes back. And I hope this is an interesting interview. And it certainly was treat for me. And I'm glad to share it with you.

Well, it must be strange for you, right? Because although obviously I hit the road a fair amount for what I do for a musician like it's it's all about the road Yeah, it is about the road, but it's also You know for me the last five years really it's been It's been about the road, but I haven't been touring full time It's been a lot of weekends a lot of big events a lot of uh fly out shows and stuff like that So this really hasn't I mean has, but it hasn't really ended everything we've been doing because we kind of switched over five years ago, right?

So it's kind of, I guess, lucky, San Dippitus, whatever you might say for the position that I'm in, not having to be constantly touring. You don't have a huge machine that you have to keep in perpetual motion or it all comes crashing down. Right, exactly. I mean, we kind of, here's the thing is, like, don't get me wrong,

most of our money was made in playing shows and playing live in touring. But over the past five years, we really have kind of started focusing on a lot of the other revenue streams that were not really available to musicians back in the day when we first started out. And I guess I'm talking about it's regular streaming services for music. That's really changed the whole landscape of the music business. Now there's plenty of people that are still mad, right? But it's just like we're finally moving in the direction where independent musicians,

independent artists can really just do whatever they want. And you kind of, you know, what I've experienced is the amount of work I put into something is usually the amount of success I get back. Do you miss that connection with the credits? So when I'm saying it's sort of all about the road, I don't just mean financially. I think part of it is like you make this stuff like I'm in the middle I'm just putting this book out. It's a weird experience to be and I know you put it out an album somewhat recently. It's like you put this thing out in the world and part of the, not the rush, but just, just your sense of like, whether it worked or not is like meeting and

experiencing it, landing with like human beings in the same room. Yeah, that is, that is definitely a huge part of it. And it's something that I have had to almost train my mind to just not worry about or not think about. And even when it was a thing, I think I guess the parallel would be kind of social media, right? And just looking, it's similar to that where you're looking for other people's approval. And certainly we wanna make people happy,

we were out there for the fans. But at the beginning, when I'm alone in my room, I really can't be thinking about fans. I'm thinking about this song. This is it. And then of course, the thinking changes as I bring it to the guys, the band, and we work through it, we may be thinking, okay, how's this going to translate to an audience?

But I really try to train myself not to worry or think about that, at least at the beginning stages, because I don't want it to taint or change what I'm writing. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, I've always wondered that, obviously, with writers, there's a little bit of it, like, I know writers that are just sort of total road warriors and they're like doing multiple talks a week. But it's always, I've always wondered like on some of these older bands that have made hundreds of millions, if not in some cases billions of dollars

touring over the years, like why are they still doing it? At 60, 70 plus years old? Is the rush of the crowd almost like your point about trying not to think too much about what the fans think? Is it almost like an addiction like the adoration, the rush of like the crowd? Is that what keeps people going to a certain degree? Oh, certainly, certainly. I mean, that's the thing is like,

I guess I'm kind of talking about two different things when I talk about creating the music. Sure. But then you go in out and perform in the music, that's a whole different thing. That's like, you can perform somebody else's song, you didn't even write and take it and make it your own and make it something that the crowd loves.

So yeah, I mean, as far as why do these musicians or artists, these touring type people just keep going. Like Tom Petty literally toured until he died. And he was one of my favorites. And I heard that. And I was like, you know, to be honest, that's not a bad way to go, you know, just being just touring until he died. But I think what it is is honestly, it's like with anything you find in your life that connects you to happiness, connects you to feeling alive, connects you to feeling worth having a self worth, that's touring really, it's like the highs and lows of that, you know, because you're spending a ton of time, downtime, where you have a lot of time to do nothing or to do everything.

You know, it could be destructive. It could be very productive. And that's I think a lot of reasons why a lot of people get into drugs and alcohol, because there's literally nothing else to do and you're just going crazy. A lot like people in the pandemic and the lockdown. But I like it when you're saying you're like, you're pinning back and forth between like boredom and you're the racing thoughts of your mind and just all your issues.

And then for an hour and night, you're like a god in front of people and then you have to go right back to the loneliness of the bus that up and down. Is that just really hard? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's definitely what I'm saying. And it's crazy when you get like, when I personally am like about to hit the stage, I mean, that's definitely what I'm saying. And it's crazy when you get, like, when I personally am like about to hit the stage, I'm not necessarily nervous, like,

oh, I'm gonna screw up or I can't do this. It's a nervous energy, certainly. It's an anxiousness, and everybody kind of experiences their own version of that. But for me, I'm excited and I'm nervous, and I'm a little worried. I was like, you know, just because you just, I've always felt like you have one chance every night

to go out and prove yourself, you know. So like, to me, that hour or, you know, two hours on stage is the height of like your, everything you can feel, right? And at the same time, you're not really thinking too hard because you're just, you're not really thinking too hard because you're just in it. So it goes by fairly quickly. I mean, obviously, there's times where you could be thinking about what you had for dinner earlier that day and be out of your head and out

of the show. But for the most part, when it's going well, that is the best, the best, you know, a couple hours of your day. And the pinging back and forth. Yeah, really, really can be hard, but I think these days, some people have figured it out, you know, back in the day when I was touring, you know, when I was 24 or 25, like in those years, my early 20s, I didn't think of my time as being as valuable, you know. It was just more about let's get to the show, let's get to the show and everything. And still today, I have a part of that that I've still brought with me where everything, if I have a show that day, that's the most important thing happening. So, I'll still have things that I do during the day, but it's all geared towards putting on a good show,

whether it's physically putting on a good show and mentally. So that hasn't changed, but just the whole idea of, we don't need to spend basically every day out on the road. There's other things you can do to build what you're doing. And so, yeah, that's changed huge. I know you mean, though, one of the benefits of the speaking that authors do is most of the talk, if not all, is in the morning. So you get to get it out of the way. Sometimes

I've done talks at seven in the morning. So, so the one end you have to get up early and you have to find some way to pump yourself up. Usually I go for a run or something. But the nice part is then it's over. You know, like I don't have to, when I have a talk that's at seven at night, that day is like a weird loss day. Although I even find sometimes after the gig,

it's like the energy that you've picked up from the crowd and the weird, almost like egotistical place you have to go to to perform, it's hard to come down from that sort of re-enter normal life. That is so true. And so waiting around all day is hard for one, because like usually around four o'clock in the afternoon, I'm like, I wish we were just playing right now. I wish we were ready to go. We're ready to go.

You know, like that would be perfect for me because I could, you know, then in a perfect world I could like sleep in a little bit. And not even where, like there's no reason you have to get up. But, okay, maybe set an alarm just in case, you there's no reason you have to get up, but okay, maybe set an alarm just in case you know that kind of thing to get the sound check, but it's kind of a slow moving day for me. And then once the show is going, it goes really quickly when it's leading up to the show, once you're at the show, even after the show, you're sort of like coming down, you've got all this energy, this.

And it takes a little while, like you're awake, awake, awake. But then once you lose that, I get really sleepy. And it's funny because like sometimes I'll do like private parties and in the past, I've shown up to a party where it's just like a group of people and I'm playing acoustic, not the full band. And they'll be like, hey, do you want some food? And at first I would be like, no, I'm good all the eat after.

And I quickly realized one, all the food's gone by the time you're done playing. And two, I'm just so starved by the time, you know, and so if the food is gone, you're just out of luck. So I started changing my mindset to be like, you know what, I need this food. And so when people that ask me, I would say yes right away, and I would just dive in and I'm just like, stopping my face in front of these strangers. And then I go up and play a show. And I felt so much better since then. So there's little things that I still think of. Absolutely. I'm a little... Yeah. I give it to... I give it to... I give it to... at the NFL owners meeting. I guess it was two years ago.

There was five speakers, I think. I was the last one. We were each speaking for like roughly 10 minutes. So they were like, okay, all the speakers will sit in the front row. I was the last one. And I was like, you got to be out of your mind. If you think And I was like, you got to be out of your mind. If you think I can sit here in a chair for an hour, watching the other speakers from the front row, I was like, you guys are great, but I don't think you're understanding the energy that begins to sort of course

through one's body and the mental place you have to get to to be able to perform. I was like, I'm going to have to find a way that you can let me pace in the lobby because I'm gonna walk like a few miles walking back and forth over the next 50 or so minutes, probably listening to music. I've noticed, because I've come to a couple of your shows

and I've seen you beforehand. It feels like you have to, you've gotta gotta get yourself into a zone where you can then be in that place where it goes by like that. You know, it's funny is I'm super weird at shows and it is sometimes hard to like bring guests out and then you have to like, Hey, what's up? How you doing?

And you've been very gracious and very cool and patient because you've had to wait for a little while a few times. But it is weird because I really, and I've seen other artists do this, not just me, something that can do what a boxer does. You know, I always wonder when I'd see boxers come out first round sweating. You're like, I was like, yeah, I was asking my dad, why are they sweating already? Like, he's like, well, because they warmed up, they got ready to go. They're in fighting shape.

And it makes sense now that I do, fairly physical with my act, which is jumping around on stage and singing and playing. But I have to mentally and physically kind of get into fighting shape, stretch at the whole nine yards. And back in the day, it was very, very not punk, not cool to be seen stretching and to be seen doing like jumping jacks or anything like that. But, you know, of course, as we went on tours, open for bands that had been around longer than us, we watched them and they would be wearing tennis shoes. They would be stretching.

We like, oh, okay, huh. Maybe there's something to that whole physical get your body ready thing. It's so funny. It's so funny you say that because I noticed you used to wear, like with the first show I ever saw you in and for everything I'd ever seen you and you were always in converse all stars and you're not wearing those anymore when you're on stage

because that's gotta be like the worst athletic shoe you could imagine. Yeah, it's like wearing like cardboard. Like a 100 feet. That's good. But yeah, I mean, many years went by. And I remember there was a few warp tours where we were out on this metal stage.

The first couple of years we played Warped Tour in the US. And it was so hot out in Oklahoma, out in the Midwest that if you stood long enough on one spot your feet would literally start sticking and melting to the stage. So yeah, I had some converse that got a little sticky. That's not why I switched though. Sure. No, that's hilarious.

Well, and actually, I have this probably in urban legend, but I heard that converse had that weird fuzziness on the bottom. So like for an import purpose, they're like taxed as slippers, not as shoes. They're probably, if you ever notice that, they have that like softness on the bottom. Maybe that's why they were sticking. I never noticed that, to be honest.

It's one of the- I never heard of that, that legend. So I was thinking back, when I was prepping for this, I was thinking back to the very first show that, that very first MXPP show I ever went to. It was in Modesto and I know it was in either late September or early October because it was right after 9.11 and I remember I was in high school,

but I remember the idea being, was there ever gonna be, were all events gonna be canceled where all events gonna be canceled, was it gonna be safe to get together and groups of people anymore? Of course, in retrospect, it's preposterous that like a punk show in Modesto, California would be a terrorist target.

But there was that weird sense of like something has changed and we don't know what life is ever gonna look like again. It's interesting how quickly that receipts into memory and life does resume. That's something I've been thinking a lot about with the pandemic. Like, I don't remember when it switched over,

but eventually it did switch over and we have to remember that that will happen again. Yeah, that'll happen and, you know, our memories are kind of weird or at least minds terrible But I have a way of just making things a little better, right? Like it's like, huh? It wasn't so bad now that we're through it. That wasn't so bad So I think we all do that in a lot of ways, but thinking back to 9-11 that was I, everybody's got their story, but we basically were supposed to leave that day to fly. And so I got a call from our merch guy across town. He's like, pick up, you know, turn on CNN and I turned it on

and there it is. And so we're like, we're not going anywhere. It took a, it was a week. We actually, we skipped a couple shows. We moved some things around. We, we didn't fly. We rented too many vans, if you can imagine. We're supposed to fly down to California, the whole crew, the whole band and crew meet

up with a tour bus. And instead, we just drove some vans down there and met up with the tour bus anyway. But things were very wild. I just remember it just like, yeah, what's gonna happen? But like you said, things went back to normal. People were super nice to each other for quite a long time. And then that, that receded as well. And here we are.

I have been kind of thinking about that too. When this first started, it was, okay, is this gonna be like, do I need to like, stock up on ammo? Like everybody else seems to be doing that kind of thing. Remains to be seen, right? But surely the music business, the entertainment business,

the large crowd business is hugely affected as is just about everything. But that's not gonna be normal for years, but maybe someday, someday it will be, like, two years from now. Like, I just keep pushing it back. Like, it was like one year, okay, next year, and then that's like two years.

Pretty soon it's going to be five years. But before you know it, things are going to slowly be changing as it is, and our habits are going to change. And we won't really notice that things are different anymore. Well, as you said in the song, which I remember sort of having a bit of a resurgence then, you know, tomorrow is another day. Like, you do get eventually that the clock starts

over and things change. Yeah, I've got so many songs about that. Time brings change from our very first album. I think I wrote that song when I was probably 16, 17, something like that. I didn't know much, but I did understand that time brings change, the obvious ones. But I mean, that's the thing is we all worry so much about this and that. But yet, when you just like look at your daily life, okay, don't look at your bills, but you're just daily life.

You're going through life and it's fine, right? Like you're just, it's hard. You may be tired, you may be this or that, but it's when we really think about the things that are out of our control, the big pictures that can get scary. I think about it, but I don't dwell on it. I really just think about what I'm gonna be doing today and try to make sense of it all. Do you think, I mean, I was trying to think back to that show too, like, one of the opening acts

was that band messed, and I forget who the other one was. But it must be an interesting experience for you. I mean, you've been at this almost 30 years now. You've seen, like you've done so many tours. You've had so many opening acts. You've been the opening act so many times. You've seen so much come and go. Is there a part of you too that's just like,

and there's this very stoic idea, Marcus, does it in meditations over and over again. You just sort of like, list all the emperors that came before him or he lists all the famous people that nobody's heard of anymore. Is there a part of you too that's just like been at this long enough, you just sort of have this almost philosophical view of how trends and events and moments come and go?

You know, I wish I was that smart Ryan, but just like anything, I need reminders. I need markers in a lot of ways because just like a set list, I kind of know the general ideas of this and that and that, but I don't always put it together the right way and the right order and I get mixed up. And so I think having a set list, having an idea of, and to be honest, that can go out the window at any moment. So I can just understand in that. That's how I work best.

I'm just having a few things written down. And by no means am I organized. I'm the worst organizer. But when I really have to do the deep work, like writing a song, coming up with ideas for a marketing campaign, things like that, sure, I can get it done. I can sit there and put pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard and make it happen. But I wish I was better. Well, it's funny because there's a part, the roll your band has played in my life. It's

been a weird one because, for instance, I remember going to the sunrise mall in Sacramento and buying 10 years and running. I think that's what it's called. The greatest hits album. Yep. 10 years and running. And so, I remember thinking like 10 years, that's so long to do something because I was teenager, although you were not that much older at the time.

So that would have been what in 02? So sometimes when, because we've become friends since, I think, and then it's like, okay, 2012, that's 20 years, and then 20, it's almost like your band has been a measurement of time in my life just because of the round numbers of it, and I have certain memories of it. It's just 30 years, years is just such a long time to do something. You must have, it must, in a way,

just kind of blur together, but also, it must have gone by very, very quickly. Yeah, all of those things, for sure. And so we're 28 years now, And so 1992 was when we got together. And it was the year right before we went into 10th grade high school. And that's all I've known, my whole adult life. We never quit.

We, you know, there's been some lows along the way. Definitely around the 2007 economic downturn. The music business was in the crapper. And I mean, we were still going, but it just wasn't as successful. It wasn't as big, you know? And so you just kind of like, you go on your first gear and you just kind of move along. But we made it happen.

And we've gone through this boom, you know, the last decade or the last six years, I would say. And it's not slowing down. Even we talked a couple of years ago. And I was saying, you know, we've had this boom. and it's not slowing down even we talked a couple years ago and I was saying you know we've had this boom and it's still going like we're number one on Spotify a brand new song a 28 year old band has a brand new song from 2018 this number one on our Spotify number one wow and it's just insane it's called Let's Ride and um I love that song. Yeah, I mean, it's a huge success for us. And just the fact that people want to listen to that

more than they want to listen to Chick Magnet or Concrack Show. And it was on the new Tony Hawk Pro Skater video game. So it's just had this sort of resurgence for us and not even a resurgence. It's a new song, like I said. Right. Yeah, it feels like it's not a real light. Like this is definitely some sort of like, you know, some sort of a set up software program we're living in. It's weird like you'll hear sometimes like metal bands be like, oh, you know, the grunge years were rough.

Like you were just talking about the financial crisis, which is like, in retrospect, the long time ago, and you know, all the grunge years were rushing, you're like, that's almost 40 years ago, you know? Like, it's like, it's just, I guess, 30 years ago, to just wrap your head around how long ago that was, but in their mind, they've just been, you know, like, it's hard for me even to wrap my head around that my first book came out almost a decade ago,

like, because you keep your head down, you do your thing, you're taking it one day at a time, and then the years just pile up. They fly by, absolutely. I mean, that's the thing is, like, if everything's going, if time is moving really slow, you're not really doing anything. You know, because in my experience,

when I've actually been busy, whether it's touring, writing, recording, when you're actually busy doing it, it goes pretty fast. Because it takes time. It just really does. Right. Do you ever think of all these bands that have come and gone?

I'd always wondered, how did it feel for you sort of being early to the type of music you play, being in the scene with all these different bands? And then some of those bands for a brief period went on and were like some of the biggest bands in the world. Now it's even now, obviously in some of those bands no longer exist, so there's sort of a tortoise and the hair element to it.

But like how did you, I was always curious like, how did you handle that? Was that hard to swallow? Did it make you angry? Or was it something you were excited about for them? Like how did you see your tour and your doing your stuff? And then the next thing you know, somebody you know is like, you know,

going from show to show in a private jet. Well, that's an interesting question because it's not really just one answer. I mean, they're thinking back, sure, there's jealousy, there's, I wonder why their song got big and not ours or this or that. But I don't think there was ever any real animosity or jealousy or anything like super personal. It was more of a natural reaction, human reaction to dang it. But later on finding out there's so many reasons why certain bands got big and other bands didn't. And a lot of times I had nothing to do with the music, I had everything to do with the manager,

or the label, or the decisions being made behind the scenes. So for me, I can, I mean, we can go back and look at a million mistakes we made, but we can also look at, oh wow, this is actually a pretty good thing that you did this, even though it seemed bad at the time, it actually led to this, this, this, this, and then here you are now, you know, with all the things you have.

So it's easy for me to like play that Monday morning quarter back, but I also have to play it with the good things that have happened because so many crazy good things have happened. But jealousy, all of that, the politics involved, I had no idea that there's actually, and I won't name any names, but like, well, actually I named this, this is something that happened to us, and I won't name any names, but like, well, actually, I'll name this. This is something that happened to us. And it wasn't the band's fault. But at

the time, we were on tour and we were, we were going to be on Jimmy Kimmel. And we had, we were booked ready to go when we were going to play L.A. We were going to get there a day early and do the show. Well, at the time, our record label wanted to sign another band that we were on tour with. They were called brand new. And they instead called up whoever booked, us on the Jimmy Kimmel show and said, hey, we got another band that we want to put in place of MXPX brand new.

Can you do that for me? And of course, they did it for him. Whatever you need, you know, all good. And Shmoosdom did the whole thing. Brand new didn't even end up signing to the label. So all these things are done, screws us. And it's like, and it wasn't, let's screw MXPX. It's like, let's just try to get what we want here.

Sure, if you were expecting to do that. Yeah, yeah. So like that kind of stuff we found out about Sure. You were expecting that. Yeah. Yeah. So like that kind of stuff we found out about later and that is disheartening. And it is it's something that made us mad absolutely. We were mad at the label about that. We weren't mad at Jimmy Kimmel. We weren't mad at brand new. We were mad at the label. And after that record, we asked to be, you know, this is a mistake in my opinion, maybe not, but we asked to be let go. And so we gave up, I don't know, $500,000 or more,

just to get out of our contract. So yeah, there's a lot we did wrong, but there's a ton we did right. And looking back, it happened to so many other people, not just us, politics, the music business, all of this and that. But what it taught me, I guess, in the end is, you know what, you just gotta do you, make decisions the best you can,

and not dwell on the mistakes you made, just learn from those and pay attention. Paying attention is huge, it needs to be surprised. No, it's something that I think causes, it causes me a lot of anxiety in the present moment, right? Like, you know, like currently because of COVID-related stuff, but then also just, you know, mistakes of people have made, I'm like two of my books,

which are selling well, I've run out of stock. And there's this, I think this worry that like, each one of these things matters so much right now. And if you know, like that if this happens and that happens, then you don't get this thing, like, you know, you're going, we didn't get Kimmel, which meant we didn't get this, which mean, you know, you sort of extrapolate out all the things that it could mean. In retrospect, of course, I look back at all these moments or junctures where things got messed up or somebody forgot this or somebody actively screwed you.

And you're like, it really didn't make a difference. But it's hard not to feel in the moment like it's almost like life or death for your career or something. Yeah, absolutely. And it's unquantifiable because, I mean, all the things we do, even just being on this podcast right now is probably unquantifiable because it may hit somebody in like three

years, you know, so I can't really know all of the places you're making an impact or a negative impact, right? And so all you can do is just keep working and keep doing what you're doing and lo and behold, you see the results, you know, you as a writer. I'm sure see that But it's very similar for musicians. It's like a book or an album you put out may do really well right away And then go away, you know, and then and then not be sort of in the in the minds of the audience The way other albums or other books have been and you're like what did I do wrong here? Well one, it's just the law of nature that not every album can be a smash. Not every Michael Jackson album was thriller. Raising kids can be one of the greatest

rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego

in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. How did you feel about it when you look back at your career? I mean, so early on the sort of image of MXPX was like, not quite a Christian band, but not quite a regular band. Whatever this weird ability or weird inability we have to sort of understand that, however we seem to need to put bands in one box or another, but then that label seems to have fallen away, I guess.

Do you, and I'm one, I'm curious where you stand today, but two, do you think, do you look back at that and think, I'm glad I identified as how I identified at the time, where do you look back and go, I took, you know, maybe I inhibited my reach in some way. How do you think about that part of your career? Well, you know, I grew up, you know, going to church and, you know, doing youth group and that was sort of the world I lived in when I was young. And I certainly didn't understand press and I didn't understand how to talk to the media. And the fact that it even mattered,

not that it really does matter, but it kind of mattered. And they used my words out of context. I mean, that's, yeah, it's like 101, right? Of course, they're gonna use your words out of context. I mean, that's, yeah, it's like 101, right? Of course, they're gonna use your words out of content. I didn't realize that, you know, Yuri being, Yuri, our drummer, being talked to after our interview has spent magazine and like, he was asking about like,

personal relationships and this and that. And like, Yuri not realizing that he's, this is not off the record, you know, things like that. Sure. We didn't know any of that. So like, so that mixed with being very naive about the world, things were a little weird for us for a while. People misunderstood what we were trying to do.

And to be honest, what we were trying to do is just be ourselves, which we were trying to find. We were trying to figure out who are we as kids, as a band. We were always the younger kids there. So it was, it was always like, there was like a spotlight on us. And I rebelled that in a lot of ways. I rebelled and talked and had a lot of songs about anti-establishment, anti-religion, even though I was practicing Christian at the time. And I think that's a natural thing to do as a teenager as well, is to rebel against what

people are saying, if a critic was going to write something in a magazine about me, I would get mad and write a song about it or something like that. The record label did something we didn't like. I would write a song about it or something like that or the record label did something we didn't like, I would write a song about it, so it was like my weapon. In some ways naively, and looking back, I don't regret writing those songs at all, but at the same time would I write them now?

No, I would probably think a little differently, be a little more measured, say it in a different way. And as far as where I'm at, I think, you know, I'm at the place where I respect all religions. I just, I don't choose to follow one. Right. It must have been weird too. Like, you have this sort of identity or this thing

that's a part of who you are. And because people are not good with nuance, it sort of maybe that gets inflated, but it becomes the thing by which you're known. And it's weird how timeless that struggle is, but it must have been frustrating. Well, it was frustrating at first, and then I realized that's part of my story, and to not shy away from it to...

I mean, I absolutely embrace who I was and who I am now, and all the fans all along the way. You know, there's been millions, so they're all from different walks of life as well. Like you can't pigeonhole, an MXP expand as being this or that. I've truly met so many different types of people. So in that way, you know, you just kind of like knowing what you know about other people. Yeah, I feel like there's just nothing I can really do

to fight that. So why fight it? I embrace it. I embrace the story. And if I wasn't in a good spot now, I would probably be in a much darker place. And as it is, as crazy as life is, and as happy as I am, it's still stressful.

It's still hard to deal with the realities of what's going on in this country and all of that. But when I just think of my story, man, I've come so far, and I've got so much further to go, and the fact that, you know, I can still write songs now, and I feel like they're better than ever. And different, you know, it's like, sure,

somebody that doesn't like punk rock that listens to M. X. And listens to any one of our albums, you may go like, okay, that's pretty simplistic music here or there or whatever. But like okay that's pretty that's pretty simplistic music here or there or whatever but like that's fine because to me I always wanted to make the best simple music I possibly could so for me it was it was like the simpler the better if I can do it with doing less that means that the thing that I'm choosing to be the hook of the song the theme of the song is that much stronger I think you get to a place two where,

at first you're like, I wanna be for everyone, I wanna be as big as possible. And obviously that's good as far as it goes. Like if someone is starting their career and they're like, I don't wanna please anyone, it's probably not gonna work. But then you kinda get to a place where you go like, oh no, no, my main job is to make things

for this audience. That's true to who I am and true to the kind of connection or universe we've created together. If it attracts other people and brings them in, so be it. But you kind of have the, especially you after 30 years, it's like, you're not trying to make it on a top 40 radio station tomorrow with some trendy new song.

You're trying to make MXPX songs, which is a sort of a universe you've created. It's like you're making another Star Wars movie because you created the Star Wars franchise. You know what I mean? Like it's a universe. That's a great analogy. I was gonna ask, I mean, how, how old were you

when you wrote your first book? I think I wrote it when I was 23 or 24. And then did you write anything when you were 16? I mean, I was mostly writing writing music. There's the joke that all authors wish they were musicians. So let's get those songs, let's find those songs and put those out to the world. Let's definitely not. Actually, the worst part is at some point I took everything I'd ever downloaded on the internet, put on my computer, and I put it all on my phone at some point. And every once in a while I'll have my phone on shuffle.

And one of my own songs will come on. And it's just the worst, most humbling thing you could imagine to just like shuffled, you know? And one of my own songs will come on. And it's just like the worst, most humbling thing you could imagine to just like, well, you can imagine it, but you're much better than me. But you hear something you did when you were 15 years old, like on a four track recorder and you're a garage and you're like, oh. Oh my God, yeah, we don't even need to get into

four track recording because I didn't understand at the time like when I was a kid I was putting together these recordings. I didn't realize that if you if you sing it's going to sound exactly like how you sing. So what I thought was I could just sing quiet and then turn the volume up and it would be loud and sound good but no it just makes you're really quiet singing sound loud and terrible. So I had a long way to go. And a lot of those things I just learned from failing. You know, I learned from hearing it back and going, that sounds absolutely what am I doing wrong?

And not realizing, oh, you're singing quiet, dummy. So no, I loved your point about, you know, you'd experience something and then write a song about it. To me, that's like, when I think about what made me become a writer, it was that I was having experiences that I could not explain. You know, it's like, you don't feel understood by your parents or you feel like this is happening in the world and it pisses you off. The impulse, like a nor an articulate, you know, sort of well-adjusted kid would just say what they think, but it's your inability to do that that drives you to go spend hours in your room learning how to

play the guitar or in my case reading books and learning how writing works. That becomes, the art becomes your safe place. It doesn't matter what's happening in the world, it doesn't matter how mad I am or frustrated I am. I can go sit down on the computer and I am the master of that domain. You know what I mean? So that thing remains true and constant and I gotta imagine even after 30 years, that's true.

Oh, it's so true. I mean, it probably explains why I'm not a good talker. You know, and I can get good if I'm talking a lot. It's funny because I have a podcast as well, but it's true. It's like, when I listen to myself talk, I'm like, what are you talking about at the time? But yeah, but making a song, sitting down with a guitar feels really good, really natural. It can change your mood. It's weird how I could be feeling one way in the morning,

I just come over to the studio, be like, okay, I gotta do this work, or even I gotta do a podcast or this or that, I'll sit down with the guitar for just like two seconds and just strum it, sing for a second, not even do a whole song. When I put that guitar down, my mood, whatever it is, my being feels different. I feel different. And that is, I can't really explain that, but it's pretty cool. It's like a lot of life. No, it's like imagine how awful your life would be if you had never discovered that outlet,

like where you would have had to go to get that release. Yeah. I mean, everybody's got whatever that is somewhere. Maybe they haven't found it yet though. No, that's what I mean. I think for a lot of people, it's drugs, or it's, you know, sex or... It's unhealthy.

Yeah, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a productive use. I mean, I heard this great thing from Tim Ferriss, which I think about, I think it defines what you're just talking about, his sort of rule is like, make before you manage, so that like every day you have to start with whatever the creative like the making thing that you do is you can't start the day with the bullshit. So for me, it's like I always do the writing or the reading or the editing. I do that in the morning. I don't start if if someone's like, Hey, we need to hop on the phone. I don't go like, all right, let's schedule that for 9 a.m.

because that means I'm going to start my day with something that I don't like that doesn't give me that purpose you're talking about. But if I flip it, if I sit and write for an hour first, I can put up with pretty much anything the rest of the day. That is a cool way to put it. And I don't really do that, like because for me, it's hard for me to just like jump up. I'm with it.

It's more of a scheduling thing for me, but I really feel like one, I gotta get off the phone in the morning, but that's usually what I'm doing. I'm like, okay, I'm checking my messages, or did it, or did that. But when I have, I'm just thinking back a couple weeks, when I have started writing, like say lyrics

or something, first thing in the day, it's pretty cool because you feel, like no matter what you've written, you feel like you've done something, you've done something actually we're doing. So I'm gonna give that more thought. And I generally write a lot at night. So yeah, musicians are weird cats. They're almost always night owls for some reason.

Yeah, so but I do I do absolutely agree with what you're saying, like just from a from an organizational standpoint doing what you make first. That's gonna be a lot more enjoyable. So last question for you. One of the first Greek words I ever remember coming across is in your song One Step Closer to Life. I think the lyric is the first step to chyrosis to take the shells out of your eyes. I always, I mean, I remember this is obviously before

rap genius or anything like, what would you've had to do? Probably read the liner notes of the album, but I remember being like, what the hell does that mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what the hell does it mean? So, so I was probably read, I used to read a lot. I still read a little bit, but I used to read a lot.

And that's where I came up with these like words I would throw in the songs like, if some of my songs back in the day, you're like, this guy doesn't know what that word means. Like entropy or monogany or, you know, some part of metalizing. They're part of metalizing that in a song. Yeah, and I read that out of a book.

Okay. A philosophy art book about like the Western civilization and art and stuff like that. And it was like talking about compartmentalizing and marketing and all this stuff. And I'm like, okay, then I start writing. Yeah, you see these catch phrases, but I'm so, Kyros, yeah, I think I was meaning it as enlightenment.

Now, I know that there's, it's a, I was probably reading a philosophical, you know, philosophy book, I was in debate, I was in, see, I was in a few other classes like that, like literature classes. So I probably honestly was just reading stuff and then writing songs and using that, which is, I guess, like, why should I be embarrassed? That's what you're supposed to do. Like, no, of course.

You can't find words out of yourself if you haven't read anything or you know even I wouldn't necessarily read the dictionary but I would I would collect books with interesting words so like the source books and things that had poems and just words that I wouldn't normally use I would see how they were used so like in the early days of songwriting, I did a ton of that. And take the shells out of their eyes. What do you mean? That's another reference to like philosophy and biblical reference kind of thing

where when you are being a hypocrite, a lot of times you're calling out somebody for something they're doing, but you've got shells on your eyes, meaning you're blinded. And you're like almost like similar to, I think there's a biblical reference to having a sticker on your eye. Yeah, log in your eye rather than a sliver,

yeah, that kind of thing. Right. So I take these ideas and I kind of like make my own way to say it. No, I mean, I love that song. And I think it's a great example. Austin Cleans book of steel like an artist. I think people don't realize that really what you're doing as an artist is you're picking up little things here or there and combining them in new ways.

And that's how you create something new. This isn't just like visited from upon you from the muses or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing, it's like when you read, when you consume things, even watching movies, I mean, I've got a lot of songs that have movie quotes in them or little bits from an idea, from a movie,

or like a little line. Things that make me laugh, things that are funny, I'm like, oh my God, can I somehow fit this into this song? You know, so there's a new song called Friday Tonight, it's on our stuff title album. And it's a good song, it's just a song, but if you really pay attention to it, you're like, oh, that's a quote from the movie Friday,

the actual Friday movie with Chris Tucker. And anyway, and people obviously kind of like caught, you know, picked up on that after it was out for a little while, because there's a part that's like, I'm in the kitchen, you're in the kitchen, in the goddamn refrigerator. So, I mean, it's like a direct line, but the way I sing it

is nothing, you wouldn't even think Friday. So, no, I love that. I think that's what keeps, the work has to be interesting to you too. And sometimes, as inside jokes and like little things are what keep you going. I think so. I mean, it doesn't hurt, as for sure. Mike, this is amazing. Thank you so much. And of course, thanks for all the music over the years.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. If you're liking this podcast, we would love for you to subscribe. Please leave us a review on iTunes or any of your favorite podcasts, listening apps. It really helps and tell a friend. It really helps and tell a friend.

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