Interview with Dan Potthast - Podcast 64

Hey, this is Dan Potthast, and you're listening to Sound Scene Revolution. Oh, yeah!

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Thanks for tuning into Sound Scene Revolution. What the brain damage is your host. I can't do a terrible Bill Cosby. I'm rich. I fucking suck at imitations. This week, we have an interview with a fantastic artist, singer, songwriter for the band MU330, and a ton of other bands, as well as a solo artist, Dan Potthast. Potthast. He had to spell that one out for me. Apparently, it's some sort of German dish. In the distance, you'll hear a tiny dog bark. That's mine. It gets a pain in the ass. So, moving forward, we have Dan Potthast on the show, and we still have running the Whole Wheat Bread Contest for three EPs of the Punk Life album. You can listen to that interview. And the Dan Potthast, as it was done at the Asian Man 11th Anniversary, will tie in with our Lawrence Arms interview for our Asian Maniversary Extravaganza, where you can win a copy of the Lawrence Arms Cocktails and Dreams, a copy of both of Dan Potthast's solo albums, Sweets and Meats and Eyeballs, and the re-release of the Alkaline Trio's Goddammit, as well as some other stuff that Asian Man Records will throw in.

That's straight from the keyboard of Mike Park, who is a fantastic guy, though horrifically tall, like scary clown tall, but he's a really good guy. So, we want to be sure to thank him a lot for hooking us up with that. So, yeah, Dan Potthast, pretty interesting guy, pretty intelligent, great songwriter, lots of fun. Check him out. We're going to play some music by him, so if you're not familiar with it, we're going to play They're Talking, which is off of Sweets and Meats. I believe it's the first song. Check that out, and then listen to the interview. Bye.

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What's going on? Sound Scene Revolution. We are hanging out in Sound Guy Nairman's car with Dan Potthast. Hello, hello. All right. First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time to come and talk to us on the night. No problem. Thanks for asking me to do the interview. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So, I guess we've got some questions. The first thing is, you have a pretty long musical history. If you can just give us kind of a brief rundown of that. Yeah, sure. Okay. Well, I started playing music in my freshman year in high school with some of my best friends. And that's the band I started called MU 330. We still play. We're still playing shows and still writing and recording. Our first show was in 1988. Oh, wow.

Yeah. We were a band in the 80s, which is pretty hard to wrap my own brain around. But, yeah, I've played all over the place with that band, all over the United States. We've been to Europe a bunch, and Japan, and Korea, and Russia, like, yeah, Alaska, Hawaii, all over the place. That band's taken me all kinds of crazy places. But I also have solo albums out, and I play in a couple different bands besides MU 330 when I'm not on tour with them. Oh, yeah. So when did you start working on your own solo stuff? Now, probably about eight years ago or so. I had a handful of songs that didn't quite fit with the MU 330 stuff. And I went in and recorded it with a friend who worked at a studio. And I had these new songs recorded, and Mike from Asian Man Records just offered to put it out.

And I had never intended to release it. And I thought, really? You'll put that out? And he's like, yeah. So he put out an album. Before I knew it, I had an album. And I thought, oh, well, I guess I should play solo shows now. Because it should do something. Yeah, yeah, right. So, yeah. And that's just kind of how it started. I never intended, like, I'm going solo kind of thing. You know, it just kind of happened that way. Not awesome. Is it weird playing? Because I know, I mean, MU 330 is a pretty large band. Is it weird going from that to being just, like, yourself on stage? Yeah, it's a lot different. I do miss the, you know, just having the full, loud rock and roll behind me. And, you know, if I drop a line or screw up, they've always got my back.

And it's just, you know, I know when I walk into a club and when we rock out with a band, like, we're going to kick butt, you know? But, like, solo, it could go either way, you know? And any blunders are, you know, painfully evident. So, yeah. But it's good for me, I think. I feel like if you can carry a show by yourself, when you get up with a band, it's just that much easier. So, I think it's helped my show with MU 330, too. Right on. I wanted to ask you, we had mentioned, just kind of in conversation, that you'd moved from St. Louis to Santa Cruz. Yeah. Now, was that your first, like, you moved straight from there to Santa Cruz? Yeah, yeah. I grew up and lived in St. Louis my whole life. I traveled all over the place with my band.

And I knew I was ready for a change and ready for something different. And I love Northern California. I just, like, I just met some awesome people out here. Some of the guys I met, like, in Slow Gherkin. And then Mike from Asian Man Records, he lives in Northern California. And we were really tight. So, it just made sense to move there. And plus, in Santa Cruz, it's almost selfish. We have these beautiful redwood trees and mountains and ocean. You know, it's, like, the best of so many worlds. I love it there. And a theme park. Yeah. Yeah, right on the ocean. You can't beat that. That's true. You ever go to the boardwalk? Sick. You guys. Absolutely. Yeah. Giant tipper. All the way. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the carousel with getting the rings in the clown's mouth.

Me, too. Like, you wouldn't think. Like, I never thought, like, oh, that carousel. But, like, when there's something to do, it's like a video game. Or something. It's like a challenge, you know. I'm going to get it in that damn clown's nose or whatever. Yeah, when you have the element of actually, like, competing in something, it makes things totally different. Yes. Absolutely. I'm a fan of that. I know. So, now we'll get you an endorsement deal with the boardwalk. We'll get you to play there on that big stage where, like, the Beach Boys and stuff come out. The Beach Boys. I wish they'd get the Beach Boys. They'd get, like, Eddie Money and Tiffany. No, she actually, she was amazing. You saw her play there? She was great.

Twice. Nice. Yeah, I'm a fan of the free Friday night summer concert series at the boardwalk. It's free music. There's nothing wrong with it. Who did I saw a long time ago? There was some, like, weird 80s, or not 80s, but, like, 60s, 70s band. I knew, like, one of their songs that my dad took me, and he was all into it. Sweet. Good time, man. Yeah. Actually, last year they got the English Beat to play, which was amazing. Yeah. Yeah, they were really great. I think their, like, English Beat, for some reason, is starting to do the free concert circuit, because they just did Music in the Park in San Jose. Yeah. Which I missed as well. Yeah. Well, you can go to Las Vegas on September 8th and see MU 330 play with the English Beat.

Oh, that's right. During the Ska Circus, right? The Ska Circus. The funniest name for a concert, I think, ever. Do you know Ska Circus, dude? They have clowns and fire eaters. Yeah, it's going to be a circus. Let me tell you. Do you know who all is playing, Ska Circus? I know some of the people. I know Mustard Plug is playing. Pie Tasters are playing, I think, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Ourselves, Toasters, English Beat, and I think maybe Westbound Train and a handful of other bands. It's going to be pretty awesome to be able to play with the English Beat, though. Yeah, they're one of the two-tone bands. I haven't had a chance to play with yet, so I'm pretty excited to play with some heroes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, I wanted to ask, in August, I want to say August of last year, you had mentioned, sorry, sound guy Nerman signaling me to hold the mic closer because I'm used to the condensers and I hold them about arm's length.

So, anyhow, August 2006, you had mentioned you were working on a handful of recordings and you were hoping to have an album out around December. Uh-oh. So, what had happened to all that? Okay, well, by, did I mean last December or this coming December? Oh, last December, December 2006. Gosh, yeah, I missed it. A little bit. I do have a new album out that's been out for a few months that is an album called Eat the Planet, that's a solo one. And I have a new album with a new band coming out in October, November, sometime around there. A band called The Stitch Up, and that's coming out on a label put out by Streetlight Manifesto. The guy, Thomas, is starting a new label and one of the first albums he's going to release is The Stitch Up.

And we're going on tour with Streetlight Manifesto in the winter. That's pretty cool. This is the big announcement. No one else knows yet. Oh, see? Except you guys. Now we know. You got the inside scoop. Now the internet knows. Yeah. So soon the entire internet will know, which is mostly 14-year-old kids. But they'll care. They're big Streetlight fans. Yeah. So that's kind of cool, though. So that's exciting. We're going to have a new album out and be on a big tour, so all in one. So that's some kind of big news going on for me. Yeah, and then September, playing a handful of shows with ME330 and Mustard Plug around the Midwest. Yeah. Maybe when you go on tour with Streetlight Manifesto, you can get on Thomas about when their new album is coming.

Yeah. Well, it's going to be out. But yeah, it's going to be out for that tour. That's the plan. That'll be good. That's what I hear. Same big news revealed on Sound Scene Revolution. Big news revealed and very soft, soft speaking. So I know you had recorded Eat the Planet. I know you had mentioned re-recording it more like Pro Studio. Do you think you're going to end up doing that? Possibly. I'm not sure because I have about five or six other albums written of other things that it almost seems to make more sense to just keep moving on. Get new songs recorded. I'd like to. My original idea was to re-record Eat the Planet in L.A. and get as many guests from the Sky World that I could. Get all my friends I've toured with that are around the L.A. area.

So that still sounds really fun to me, and I'd like to do it. Right now, I just don't have time. I'm trying to get this album out for the Streetlight Tour, and it's like, it's all I can do to get that finished. Yeah. We'll see about re-releasing Eat the Planet. It might have been wishful thinking. I've got to imagine it's kind of hard when you've got your solo shows. You have MU 330. You have the Stitch Up doing shows, putting out albums. Yeah. Things get lost in the shuffle, I can imagine. Yeah. I do have a lot of irons in the fire, so to speak. Do you ever, is it hard to differentiate songs? Are you ever writing something, and you're like, well, that could go either way? That could be for a solo album? Not usually.

The songs just seem to fit in different, and usually when I write, I have a project in mind. So I've gotten kind of used to that. The differentiation? Yeah. I know. All right. So we're going to take a quick break in the middle of all of that to play some more music for you from Dan Podhast. We're going to play the track, I've Set Sale, which I'm trying to remember if it's off sweets and meats, or if it is off of eyeballs. I'm going to say it's off eyeballs. I could be wrong, though. I've got to make sure I get shit right, because I got fucking crucified last time when I said a thousand resolutions instead of a hundred resolutions for the Lawrence Armstrongs, all you fucking kids got your dick in a knot, because you're like, that's not the right Lawrence Armstrong, it's a hundred resolutions.

How ridiculous. What could you possibly have a thousand resolutions for? So fuck, I don't want to fucking piss anybody off and misspeak a name. My God, how would we know? How would the thousands of feeding fucking Lawrence Arms fans know what song I'm talking about unless I get it exactly right? Oh, I don't know, because they fucking fall asleep with a photo of Brendan Kelly under their pillow? Fucking maniacs. Anyhow, I love you guys. Thanks for listening. So we're going to play I've Set Sale, and then we're going to play some more of the interview, and then we're going to wrap the show up.

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and such. Yeah. Do you actually eat shampoo in that video? Because I know there's a scene where you're in a tub, and you pour shampoo all over your mouth and face. Yeah. Was that real shampoo? It looked real. What do you think? It looked like, I can't imagine it was, but I was like, God, that looks like actual shampoo. I can't. It could have been. I'm not sure. They just handed me the bottle. The director said, eat this. So I ate it. You're a good actor. Thank you. Thank you. You can do what you're told. You're like, all right, I'll eat it. That's right. All right. Well, that'll be left up for the mysteries. I'm assuming it was either really good, it was like really good herbal essence shampoo or really bad substitute, if you can't tell.

It had a berry flavor. Yeah. It was kind of berry flavored. Maybe peach. Kind of peach, if I remember right. If I recall. Yeah. All right. Oh. That was kind of gross part in the video, huh? That was a little weird. It was hard to watch, like once the whole video got done. Is it hard to watch yourself like on videos and stuff? Are you ever like, ah. No, I love looking at myself. I do it often. Really? Yeah. Maybe just, you know, mirrors. You should see my house. Just the wall, the wall, ceilings, everywhere. Actually, the living room in my house is, the floor is a mirror. That's pretty weird. I can imagine. In case you're ever just like, gee, I wonder what I look like from down there. Oh, there it is. There it is. Yep.

It's a good looking man right there. Yeah. Yep. That's my best side, is the bottom of my feet. Coming from the bottom of your soul. Everyone's got one. Going back to music, we'll focus on that. Yeah, focus, focus, refocusing, I guess. Damn, there was going to be another word, rerouting. Anyhow, I know you had the Sweets and Meats and Eyeballs got put out as a double EP, or double LP rather, in the UK. With two unrelate songs. Can you tell me what those ones were? Those are two songs that are on Eat the Planet, or from the Eat the Planet session. Oh. So, they got kind of tacked on to the UK, because the Eat the Planet has not been released in the UK. Now, you got that when you play shows and stuff, or can people mail order that from you?

Not from me. I only have one copy of it. Oh.

Can't buy your personal copy? I think you can go online and buy it from the UK, but that would probably be very expensive. Yeah. So, yeah, pretty much not available. Yeah, pretty, would be kind of a stretch. What about the Eat the Planet? Where can people get that? They can order it online from me, and evidently, the button, the PayPal button, I did something wrong. So, it was working for a while, and now people are emailing, it doesn't work. It's like $8,000. Yeah, I have to, oh, trust me, maybe $0.08 is more like it, my PayPal sales. No. Hurry up and get it now. Yeah. Yeah, right. Well, it's $0.08. Yeah, right, right. So, no, I don't know. So, it just, I think nothing happens when you click the button, but if you email me, we'll work that out.

Yeah. We can figure out a plan on that. Yeah. Right on. A couple of things I want to ask, without getting too much longer, how much, yeah, it's a pretty alright line. But, I want to ask a couple of questions about your music, specific songs and stuff. First of all, one of the first songs in the years that I had heard that really, like, disturbed me was Perryville. Yeah. And I have to ask, is that based, for people who may not know, it discusses your brothers going with your parents to see a girl who was petrified, if I'm correctly? Is that an actual story? True story. Really? Absolutely. Where? Perryville, Missouri. There was a church there that, below the altar, it's all kind of in the song, but the story goes, she was going up to receive her first communion and her father did not approve, so he shot her as she was going to receive her first communion.

Pretty funny, huh? A little weird, a little weird. But, rather than, you know, her bleeding to death and just dying and then eventually rotting, like most people would, it was a miracle, as soon as he shot her, she turned to stone. She was petrified. So, this church had this petrified girl that they kept behind glass below the altar, and you could go and check this out. Really? Yes. Now, I know you say in the song, it was your brothers, have you ever had a chance to see it? No, I've never seen it. They moved, they moved her at some point, and I heard, last I heard she was moved to some, what do you call it, a convent somewhere in St. Louis. Oh, my God. So, I don't know, I'd like to get a look at it. That seems like, and your grandparents took your brothers to do this, right?

Yeah. What, they thought this would be big fun for kids? There's something to do on the weekends, I think, you know. You guys, you want to go see a movie? No, we'll go see that petrified dead girl. Exactly. Yeah. Are they, like, just out of curiosity, are they, like, really religious, or did they just, it was like a side trip? I think, you know, it was just kind of a different time. Yeah? A little. Yeah, it was a while ago. You know? I guess everybody's got their own thing, I mean. Sure. Well, that was the thing.

And I asked my brother about it, and my mom, and they both confirmed it, and it was just so strange to me. I had to write a song about it. You're like, that's the kind of thing I need to sing about. Yeah. That's the kind of thing I need to put it in a song and confuse people, and then talk about it for a long time in an interview. I was just, like, yeah, it was one of the first things, like, I bought the album, and I listened to it, and I'm like, yeah, it's pretty good. And then, like, it gets to the last song, and I'm kind of like, and then you start really paying attention, and you're like, what the f- it's a dead girl, petrified, that family took the kids to sleep. But she actually turned to rock.

Yeah, like stone. Yeah. That's what I'm told. I don't know. I've never seen it. Well, that's my new goal in life. I have a short list, and that is now on it, to go see The Girl Who Got Turned into Stone in Perryville. But I don't even know how you would hear about something. Yeah, I don't think that's the kind of thing you could find online. Maybe. I don't know. Is it in that book, A Thousand Places to See Before You Die? I'm not sure, but it should be. We'll petition them to put that in there. 978. That's somewhere in there. 978, Petrified Girl in Perryville. Go check that out. What is a beat out? One of the three things that it's better than. Yeah, right. Or 978, I guess the 22. God, I suck at math. There's something in there.

There's like the giant ball of yarn or something. The world's largest skillet. I would see it. Ooh, but imagine the omelet you can make. If you could get the world's largest egg and the world's largest skillet. I think we're coming up with big ideas here. This is a visionary interview. Coming up with plans. You have to dream. You got it. All right. That's what keeps us doing this. So I want to ask, do you have plans to do new solo material anytime soon? I know you got like a million things coming up. Yes.

Yeah. Well, I've got this band. This new band is kind of like my new solo thing. There's that. I also have plans to do. I play in a band called Spitzer in Santa Cruz with my fiance and my buddy Greg. And we have an album's worth of stuff that I'm really excited about that I'd like to record. I also play in a band with my friend Matt Porter who used to play in Slow Gherkin. And we do, it's all surf, ska, guitar stuff. Oh, wow. That's mostly instrumental. That's a project I'd like to get recorded. Yeah, I have so much stuff I need to get. So, yeah, basically you could spend the next eight years in a studio. I really could. And I still wouldn't have it all recorded. Yeah. Yeah, I could see why. Like you get a lot of people who have like solo projects or like side projects.

And it's like, eh, I do it. And maybe I go do something else. You sound like you just have like everything. Like the creativity is just pouring out. Well, I just, it's always why I've been in a band and why I've done what I do is that I love music. I love to play it and write it and come up. That feeling of creating a new song and getting something. You're like, hey, I like that. And then at the end of the day, you look back and you're like, that didn't even exist when I woke up. You know, that feels so good. And that's the rush that like keeps me playing music. That's cool. At least it's not, you know, money or something. Well, certainly that is not what's kept me in the game. I've met very few bands who make enough that they're like, yeah.

I pay my bills. That's why I keep doing it. Yeah, right. Eight cents an album's not doing it. No, no. I may have to reconsider. I may have to put some more plans in there. Just work, learn how to work those PayPal buttons. All right. So we're going to wrap it up real quick. You got websites. I know you got like a ton of things coming up. Anything you'd like to mention that we can just put out there for people? I think we covered most of it. I think the only thing I didn't cover is that MU 330 is about halfway finished recording a brand new album. Oh, really? That is going to be really probably one of our most fun albums because it's all ska, punk like you're used to from MU 330, but it's going to be a monster record.

Like every song is about a different monster. Oh, I'm really excited about it. Oh, you're just like, I just nerded out. I was just like, oh my God. Yeah, we tried to cover all the bases. We got, you know, zombies, mummies, you know, we've got vampires, wolfman. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. I'm excited now. I was like, yeah. Maybe, yeah, I'll play one of those tonight. I definitely should. I think that would be good. I don't want to give anything away. I don't want to, you know, spoil it, but that sounds like it'd be a really good thing. Awesome. Awesome. All right. So with that, we are going to thank you. And I just hit your side view mirror. So have a good look or good luck with the show and everything you got coming up.

Thanks, guys. This is a lot of fun. Awesome. All right. That wraps up our interview with Dan. Really like super, super nice guy. And I'm really glad I got the chance to talk to him. And he's a like phenomenal, phenomenal solo artist. His albums are good. I really like his albums. But if you ever get the chance, you got to see him live. He has a lot of energy. And for just a dude with some like thick rimmed glasses and a guitar, he's a lot of fun. So you should definitely check him out. Continuing on. Prize this week. It's the Asian Man Stravaganza. Which is totally a porn site. I'm going to copy right now. I'm going to go get the URL for that. But same as if you listen to the Lawrence Arms, same prizes. You get a copy of the Lawrence Arms Cocktails and Dreams.

Copy of Dan Pothast's solo album, Sweets and Meats and Eyeballs. The re-release of the Alkaline Trios, Goddammit. And some other Asian Man stuff. It's not a different prize. It's the same one. We're just bringing it over for this week. So if you're interested, send us an email. SoundSceneRevolution at gmail.com Asian Man Extravaganza in the subject line. Or Asian Man Stravaganza. Whatever you think will probably sound more like porn. Because Sound Guy and Eyebron has to open these. And I really hope he has to do it at work. So send that to him. Your name, your date. Or not the date. You could put the date. Your name, your mailing address. All of that. And just what your favorite Asian Man Records release is. Except I'm disqualifying Less Than Jake.

On personal basis that Less Than Jake now blows a lot. And so all their past work is discredited on the fact that they suck. But if you're listening to Less Than Jake and you're in the area, I'll totally interview you. Just don't expect me to buy your albums. Alright, good times. Happy fun times. If you stay tuned for next week, we will be returning to the Horseshit Fest, which is our Warped Tour interviews. Which you can all thank the lovely publicists from Warped Tour for hooking us up with those. So expect a lot of questions along the lines of, So how is Warped Tour and what are you here for? What does your band sound like? What do you do? And why do you have so much makeup on? It's a good time. Actually, a couple of them.

The Killswitch Engage interview, the Briggs interview in particular, I think are actually really pretty good. But we have a few that are just fucking terrible. I'm not going to lie. Oh god, we interviewed the Comedians of Warped Tour. And they're not bad guys, but I don't know what the fuck they do. Like, they could be really funny or they could be Larry the fucking cable guy for all I know. I mean, for all I know, I could have been talking to them and one of them could have busted out with a getter done. And that would have just fucked my day up because I would have had to kill him. Really, really painfully. Alright, that's it. We got one more song from Dan Potthast. We're going to play Perryville. It's not the best song on the album, but we mentioned it so much that I really feel we should put it out there for you guys to listen to.

Because otherwise I'm like, so what about Perryville? Tell me about the song. And half you don't know. So listen to it. It's really about what it sounds like. And it is an actual place, I guess. So enjoy that.

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