Jonny Couch | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: That is catchy as hell. That is where the sidewalk ends from Johnny Couch and we have him on the on the line with us via restream. Johnny, are you there, I'm here?

0:09 Speaker 2: Can you can you hear me?

0:11 Speaker 1: Absolutely? Welcome to the show, my friend. It's it's great to have you on. I've been excited about this because I you know, I listened to the whole album via the SoundCloud link that we receiving and really good. But I love that track. I love the the baseline in that, I love the groove, I love everything about it. Just so catchy. Kind of reminds me of you know, Brian Ferry Roxy music. Oh great, just really really good. Where are you from, by the way.

0:35 Speaker 3: I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio?

0:38 Speaker 1: Oh okay, but I've been a.

0:41 Speaker 2: New Yorker for about about twenty years.

0:46 Speaker 1: Now, okay, okay, did you pick I trying to detect it? Did you pick up the accent at all? Because obviously a couple of decades. I mean, is that something you do you learn to talk like a New Yorker or do you still feel that you sound like you're from the England.

1:00 Speaker 2: No, I don't really, I don't really have the accent at all.

1:02 Speaker 3: It's just something I start using if I say I've been in New Yorker.

1:08 Speaker 2: But no, I don't really have the.

1:09 Speaker 1: Accent, gotcha, gotcha. I want to know more, of course about you know, not only out the album, but that the single Where the Sidewalk Ends. I know the album comes out July twenty fourth, Is that correct?

1:22 Speaker 2: That's corerct.

1:23 Speaker 3: It comes out this coming Friday, this Friday twenty fourth, That is correct, outstanding.

1:30 Speaker 1: You know, obviously when I hear when I hear that phrase where the Sidewalk Ends, you know, my first thought was when I was a kid, I had the shel Silverstein Book of Poetry, and for some reason, the cover of that book too. It always sticks very vividly in my mind. But but but tell me about the inspiration for that, for the for the song and for the album, and why you decided to call it where the Sidewalk Ends.

1:54 Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's funny. I am a big Shell Silverstein fan.

1:58 Speaker 3: I mean, Shell Silverstein is just brilliant in my opinion and all of all of his work. But the funny thing is I was writing this song and I am a big fan of film noir fifties kind of film noir detective movies, and also even later period when it went into color, they called it neo noir movies like Chinatown or Body Heat and all of those types of all of those types of film noir, neo noir types of movies. And so I was writing this song, and I was looking for some inspiration, and I was in the middle of writing it, and I did actually come upon a movie called Where the Sidewalk Ends, and I watched it.

2:46 Speaker 3: I watched it because I watched these movies. Sometimes I'll just randomly watch a nineteen fifties movie, and this movie's from nineteen fifty and it's called Where the Sidewalk Ends. It predates the Shell Silverstein work, oh and I and I really loved it. And and then I went back to working on this song and I thought, you know what, that would actually be a good title for this song. And so then I started to incorporate that into it, and it just all kind of fell into place, and I put the pieces of the puzzle, so to speak, together, as I was, you know, once I had that song title, I kind of wrote the rest of the lyrics from there.

3:28 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's really good. The uh, I'm curious on the album, So what what do you do on the album? And I mean, is it all you? Or do you have other musicians on there with you? Or because I know you start you started out as a drummer right in the New York City scene, that's that's right.

3:46 Speaker 3: I was a drummer for many, many years in the New York scene and some bands that were touring.

3:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, and.

3:54 Speaker 3: I had a punk band called The Choke and so yeah. So I do play drum on all my records. So on the record, what you're hearing on that track, for instance, is I'm playing all the drums. I'm playing a lot of the keyboard, not all of it actually, because usually on the songs I record, I'll play the drums, I'll play the keyboards, and then i'll have a producer or someone i'm working with will play bass and guitar. And on this track, this track is actually there's a few people on it. It's me, it's this producer in Texas, and it's this other friend of ours that played some percussion.

4:35 Speaker 3: So the producer in Texas, Jonas Wilson, he's the one that played that slamming bass line that you hear.

4:41 Speaker 1: On Oh oh, okay.

4:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, he just really put together this great bass line while we were tracking it, and then all of a sudden it took on the whole new life once he put that bass line down and I did the drums and the keyboards, and then he added more keyboards, and then we turned it into like this whole kind of like nineteen seventies Georgia Moroder inspired kind of peace because we added these swirlings and claviers that you can hear in the synthesizers that you can hear in the chorus, and a lot like what you might hear in a in like a song that Georgia Moroder did with Donna Summer.

5:23 Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I'm a bass player myself, so you know, my ear tends to be tends to be drawn to that. But I'm sorry, what did you say? His name was again the producer.

5:32 Speaker 2: So his name is Jonas Wilson.

5:34 Speaker 1: Jonas Wilson, and he's brilliant.

5:36 Speaker 3: He actually toured with a lot of bands. He toured with The Heartless Bastards for a few years, and he's toured with Alejandro Escovedo, who's a really well known musician and he's he has many years as a touring musician, but also as a producer and engineer, and he was just a great collaborator for this track. He did the guitars, the bass or extra since I brought in my original demo with the synthesizers and drum machine. And then the first thing we did is we recorded the drums. I played real drums on it, and then we kept a lot of my sins from the demo, we added more and then he played some bass and guitar, and then we had a friend come in and played tambourine.

6:21 Speaker 1: Now I'm curious, how did you come to work with him? Because obviously where you are in New York, you know, you're surrounded by so much incredible talent. I mean, that's really the well. I guess what is the musical capital of the country would depend on who you ask. Some would say Nashville, but obviously where you are, you know, in New York, I mean I would I would consider that the music capital of the country in terms of how much talent is there. So how did you come to work with someone in Texas?

6:47 Speaker 2: That's a great question. So I have this other great producer.

6:50 Speaker 3: His name's Peter maver Georgis and he's also a great producer, and he and I did some show. We took the Johnny Couch Band Show on the road and we did some shows in Texas. We played we played Denton, we played Fort Worth, we played Austin, and at the Austin show we ended up being recommended to Jonas Wilson became recommended to us as a keyboard player, as a synth player, and so he joined us on the show in Austin and we met him there and he was just this great guy and we had a great time with him.

7:32 Speaker 3: And then I just kept in touch with them, you know, over the years, because that gig in Austin was in twenty nineteen, and so I kept in touch with them, and then eventually I said, you know, hey, we should do a couple tracks together, and so we ended up. I ended up doing four tracks with him that are on this upcoming album. Four songs that are with Jonas, and Where the Sidewalk Ends is obviously the main one because that's the title track single release. But yeah, just kept in touch with them and he added that incredible baseline and then the whole song took on this life of its own in the studio, and we started adding more and more ingredients and.

8:10 Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun putting it together.

8:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it sounds like it. It's a fun like I said, I listened to the whole thing on SoundCloud. It's a fun album. So now the four tracks that Jonas Wilson is not on, are those done with the other producer that you mentioned.

8:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, so's.

8:27 Speaker 3: It's actually quite a number of producers because the producer that I did my last record with, Peter Maverick George's. He's fantastic. He lives in Georgia now and I did two records with him, but it's hard for me to always go down to Georgia.

8:45 Speaker 2: So what we did was we and I have some.

8:48 Speaker 3: Friends here locally in Jersey City that I also work with. So this record is actually four tracks are produced by Jonas down in Texas. Two of the tracks with Peter, my buddy in Georgia, and then there's two there's four other tracks, two of them with a producer here in Jersey City and the other two with the producer also here in Jersey City, but with a studio and Hoboken. So the songs were recorded and basically Hoboken, Jersey City.

9:25 Speaker 2: Atlanta, and Texas.

9:27 Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, there's four producers on this record, which is not the way I usually do things, but it just kind of worked out that way, you know, a few of the songs were released as singles first digitally, Yeah, but I wanted to include them on the vinyl release. So it's kind of like a Greatest Hits of like a few songs are released plus seven brand new tracks.

9:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm excited about it.

9:54 Speaker 1: Your first solo album, Mystery Man, which was in twenty nineteen, if I'm not mistaken, and that was that also with multiple producers or did you have a different approach with that one?

10:06 Speaker 3: Right, So my first solo album was actually twenty sixteen, although oh well, it's called Animal Instinct and it's also online, but it's actually an EP, so that maybe that's why it's probably not showing up as a full album cause gotchak so online. It's an EP because it's a five song but I did release it as a five song twelve inch vinyl release and it's five songs. Animal Instinct is lead track that was produced by Peter Maverack, Georgia's All in Savannah Georgia. Then we followed that up with Mystery Man, which is released at the end of twenty nineteen.

10:48 Speaker 3: That was a ten song release, also on twelve inch vinyl, full album ten songs, also produced by Peter Maverack Georgie's in Savannah, Georgia, Okay, at Dollhouse Productions. And then and then he moved to Atlanta. And then we did, like I said, we did two songs on the new record with Peter, four with Jonas and Texas, and and two with a couple more producers, actually Overwhelmed produced by this guy, John Chinn, who lives here in Jersey City.

11:18 Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, Now, when you're doing an album that way, because obviously, uh, that's not how you did your previous work. Did it ever did it ever concern you at all? Like, did you ever think, what if, you know, having all these different producers, what if it's not, uh the final work doesn't seem cohesive, what if it doesn't all sound like it goes together? I mean not that, I mean for me as a listener, Like I said, I listened to a whole thing on on the SoundCloud link that that was sent to us. And you know that isn't available publicly yet obviously, and and to me it sounds like one, you know, like I wouldn't be able to tell like it sounds like one cohesive work.

11:55 Speaker 1: But I'm curious if, as you're making the album did that was that ever a concern for you or were you not worried about that part of it, that that maybe with all these different people involved, it might sound, you know, like it's going in too many directions.

12:10 Speaker 3: You know it. It was not a concern, And I'll tell you why. It's because at one point I did this one track with one of the producers here and his names as I mentioned, John Chinn, and we did we did a song. It's not there's a song that's not on the record. It's called found Out You're a Zombie. Yeah, and it was played. It's actually been played on Sirius XM. Peter Zarimba from the flesh Tones, he's played it on his show on Serious XM oh and because he likes to play scary, spooky, Halloween e kind of songs.

12:45 Speaker 3: And yeah, it's called found Out You're a Zombie. So anyways, I did this song just kind of as a joke, and we did it kind of as a joke for Halloween because he's he's an old buddy I went to college with and he was in and he said hey. I said, hey, man, could I do a song with you? And we recorded it and it ended up being great and everyone loves it and there's a lot of people it's their favorite song to hear live. And it's crazy because it just it sounded so great that from that moment on, I wasn't worried at all about about putting the record together, you know, with a combination of him, Peter Jonas, and then there's a fourth producer, Dan Haig, who's also fantastic.

13:31 Speaker 3: But we actually had John Chin mix and uh mix the those recordings, so so John was kind of uh, you know, I had I had a good enough team that I wasn't worried about any of that.

13:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, that makes sense. And what what transpired between because obviously it's seven years between Mystery Man and where the Sidewalk Ends. Uh did you intend it for for it to be that long? I mean no, As we get older, you know, we we kind of started to realize the time passes quicker than we know.

14:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, you could say seven years. But to me, it feels like, you know, it almost like COVID was. It was really COVID was in there, and that made it really hard to accomplish things. But because you couldn't really collaborate as much with people, I guess I could have done some records during COVID where I you know, uh, you know, but I like to get together with people, yeah and stuff.

14:36 Speaker 2: So uh.

14:38 Speaker 3: Anyways, I did do a side project during COVID with a guy called Greaser Phase, and so that was kind of like that was kind of a record we produced more that way, where we set tracks back and forth. Yeah, he didn't actually get back get together in person. We just sent things back and forth and did a record that way. But no, to answer your question, I didn't intend for it to be so long between releases. It kind of like, you know, the music industry has changed so much that people aren't really expected artists aren't really expected to release full albums so much anymore.

15:18 Speaker 3: And so what I was doing instead was I was just releasing a single here in there once in a while, you know, I was keeping my music out there, and then I'd release a new single, and then I'd release a new single and then really you know, and you know, I was keeping active and keeping myself out there that way and not even really thinking about that. But enough time passed that I thought, you know what, I need to put out another full length and you know, and and I believe there's a little bit more time than I wanted to pass between the two.

15:54 Speaker 1: It's interesting how even now in twenty twenty six, how much COVID still comes up on the show show and how uh you know, the the interruption and the disruption that it created, uh that it caused in the careers of so many people, and not only that, but also this weird sort of time distortion thing. It's you know, uh.

16:13 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that The exciting thing about COVID was I put out Mystery Man, and I was able to promote it a little bit, and then and then when I would have really done an even harder push than it was, Lockdown, and I wasn't able to push it as hard with tour dates and stuff. So yep, that's what I'm excited about this new record. I'm doing a bunch of stuff now to promote this and some touring, so uh, it's a little bit better of a situation. They'll be able to push it harder.

16:40 Speaker 1: Absolutely. So when you were playing drums in you know, twenty years ago in New York and in punk bands, did you always kind of have Was it always your goal to become eventually a solo artist and do what you're doing now? Or or did is like if you if you kind of go back in time and and think about yourself back then, would you have foreseen all of this or or did you think at the time, you know, this is you know, I'm a drummer, I play in a punk band, and you know I'm in the moment and this is it. I mean, was this always a goal for you to get to this point?

17:15 Speaker 3: No? And you know I wish that it was, actually because it would have been cool to start this solo career and the and the earlier on. Yeah, it would have been interesting to do that. But I was really into being a drummer. That was my that was my vibe, that was my identity. I was really into it.

17:37 Speaker 2: And so.

17:39 Speaker 3: You know, at the time, I was really into being a songwriter. Because I ended up being in a band with a buddy of mine, Eric, and we had a couple of other great people in that band.

17:51 Speaker 2: It was called The Choke.

17:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, and we ended up co writing most of the material, So it was it was really it became important to me to be a songwriter, even more than.

18:03 Speaker 2: The front man.

18:04 Speaker 3: At that point, I was I was writing, co writing all the songs and playing drums and even kind of managing a lot of that band and do the day to day and the booking. But uh, you know, and then I ended up doing that even in another band after The Choke, I ended up co writing a ton of material, and so it just became important to me to be a songwriter. But then I kind of finally realized later on that I wanted to sing sing these songs.

18:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, No, that makes sense. Yeah, of course I'm curious too about the album artwork. Uh, this says here it was created by and forget me, I'm not familiar, but New York artist and Moncus. Am I saying that correctly?

18:50 Speaker 2: I think it's pronounced monchies, mon cheese munchies.

18:54 Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, and I guess I guess she's a big deal, right from what I from what I've read.

19:00 Speaker 3: Yeah, she's very accomplished because she's an artist that's had work featured in some kind of iconic books about women in rock. Okay, at least there's one very well known book. And so she's she's had her work published, you know, and she has also worked with music before. She's done work before with bands. This isn't really like public knowledge, but she but she, I believe you used to work with bands in Rockchester and do like some posters for them, and used to do a lot of work with rock bands.

19:46 Speaker 3: And so when I found that out, I thought, oh, well, that's cool. And then when I saw some of her work for the Women in Rock book, and I saw her her drawing of Tina Turner, and she had one of Sinead O'Connor, and she was, all right, someone who was used to drawing rock artists and doing a great job of it. And the work I saw was incredible, and I thought, well, I'd be honored to have her draw me on this album cover. And so she did a wonderful job.

20:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, that's excellent. And I'm also curious about the video for Where the Sidewalk Ends. This is pretty cool. I actually have it pulled up right now. I'm taking another look at it, but uh, it looks like it looks like it's all it's all outdoors. Where was this shot this video?

20:35 Speaker 3: So the director and I, Richard were on the phone and he said, he said, where do you want to shoot this?

20:44 Speaker 2: And I said, I don't know. Maybe Jersey City is kind of cool.

20:47 Speaker 3: And he said, nah, nah, nah, we need something a little bit more and I want something that looks a little bit more desolate, maybe just like empty kind of feeling. And I said, oh, we should do it in red Hook, Brooklyn. It looks like it just looks like deserted all the time, you know. And and so we so then we met up for a beer in Red Hook at this some great bar, I forget the name of it, but we went there twice, and we we did a whole brainstorming session of what the video should be and how should capture the song and how she capture the meaning of the song and all of that.

21:27 Speaker 3: And then since we were there, we went location scouting, and then while we were location scouting, we luckily, luckily came upon Sonny's Bar, which is a really famous bar in Red Hook. And then so then we were able to take part at the festivities at Sonny's. So that that was I mean that wasn't important for the video, but it was a they have good good alcohol.

21:48 Speaker 1: There, gotcha? Gotcha? So yeah, I'm looking at the credits. Richard Jordan was the director and then who's who's Alexander sarus Am I saying that right? Is that that's the name of the guy and the other guy in the video?

22:00 Speaker 2: Yeah?

22:01 Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh that's a funny story. That's a great story.

22:04 Speaker 1: Yeah.

22:04 Speaker 3: So Richard is this guy I met at a party and he's just this great, jovial guy and he's he's so cool and he ends up getting he's actually an actor as well as a casting director. But he's he's had these bit parts and shows like Vinyl that was on HBO, and then he was in this new newer show, The Share Company, I think it's called on HBO or one of those channels, and he gets these like small little parts. But he's also a casting director. And I called him up and I was like, hey, man, we need to do a video, and he said, oh, we should have someone in it.

22:46 Speaker 3: And so we wanted to get someone that was kind of like, you know, a rocker like me, you know. And so what's funny is he he put out a casting call and he sent me like like fifteen people and I was looking at and I was looking at them, and I was like, okay, well, you know, none of these look quite right. They don't necessarily look like musicians that much and stuff. And then and then he sent me another uh, he sent me another actor, a profile of an actor that he that he found on Instagram because he put up an Instagram post and the guy, uh.

23:24 Speaker 3: He sends it to me and I say, oh, I know this guy. This is Alex. It was a guy that I'd met at a bar. And I was like, I've met this guy and I'd only met him once. Yeah, I'd only met him once, and and I only but i'd met him in the last like two or three months recently, and I only and I met him once. And I said, oh, Richard, I know this guy, and this guy is cool. Let's just get this guy. And so that was that was how he got Alex. Yeah, and then he showed up and he was just all like ready to go and excited and energetic and he had swagger and yeah, he was It was cool because the idea of the videos, well, you know, I'm I'm supposed to let people draw their own conclusion a getting to them according to the director, but it's like, uh, you know, it's almost like he's a former version of myself or something and we're trying to or or at least like you know, and we're trying to heal the relationship or whatever.

24:24 Speaker 3: I don't want to get to detailed because it's kind of opened interpretation, but you.

24:29 Speaker 1: Know, sure, sure, absolutely no. I like the video a lot. I'm also curious too about, because you mentioned touring, how does all this work live? Because obviously on the album, you know, everything's you know, there's a lot there, everything's very layered and so forth. What what do you do live? Do you have a band that plays with you? Do you do?

24:48 Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah, okay, I always play with the live band, because you know, you need to bring the music. You need to bring the music to life, you know, and you need to bring it, you know. And Plus, I I'm from the rock world from the punk I was in. I was in you know, loud punk bands and loud rock bands, and so I believe in putting on a loud rock show and so I always get a great band together. I've got a really wonderful band of musicians currently. Uh, this great guitar player that has been working with me for for ten years now.

25:23 Speaker 3: His name's Andy Black Sugar and he's also last for the last i think four years, uh played in Blondie.

25:33 Speaker 1: Oh okay cool?

25:34 Speaker 3: Yeah because and and he's he's just this great, great guitar player who he plays with me in the New York band. And then I also have a great drummer, John Weber. I have a couple of drummers that I've used depending on who's available, but John Weber, Mike Mann's a few few different people that have worked with me, and.

25:59 Speaker 2: Uh uh, and you know I.

26:02 Speaker 3: Have it's great new bass player Paoul and this great keyboard player Origin and it's it's been really fantastic.

26:10 Speaker 1: Is it hard to find the right players who can really replicate the sound that you're looking for? Or has that been again? You're you're in an area where you know, you're surrounded by so much talent, so maybe it's not hard at all. I don't know.

26:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it could be, but but I've been around for a long time and some of these guys have been playing with me since the beginning, and so it's.

26:31 Speaker 2: Uh, it usually it usually falls into place. Yeah.

26:36 Speaker 3: Uh for the most part, I've I've had really good luck with that, and I've also had a really good luck, like you know, the producers that I mentioned earlier have all been super helpful. Uh. So, for instance, Peter Maverick George is when I've gone and played down South, He's arranged to have because he's a studio guy, He's arranged to have a band play with me down South when I've toured down there, and so I have this great I have this great southern band.

27:02 Speaker 2: Same with Jonas in Texas.

27:04 Speaker 3: He's had he's put together a band for me down in Texas that was the Texas Band. Yeah, and we've done two shows down there when I recorded down there. I played Texas a few times in Austin, I've done Atlanta and Savannah, and I have this southern band that's going to be amazing for this UK tour because it's like the two best producers I've ever worked with, Peter and Jonas from Texas are coming with me to the UK. So I'm gonna have Peter on guitar and Jonas on bass and you couldn't ask for a better lineup.

27:39 Speaker 3: And then what's even better is I've got these two, these two other individuals coming with me from the indie band Barrol Barrow.

27:50 Speaker 2: They live in Savannah.

27:51 Speaker 3: Their names are David and Veronica, and Veronica is the most amazing since keyboard player. She back backing vocal list and David is also in Barrel Barrow with her and he's going to play drums on this tour. And so I've got a really solid lineup for the UK tour dates.

28:09 Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome, good good? What is that happening? When do you go to the UK?

28:14 Speaker 2: Yeah?

28:14 Speaker 3: So my album release show is coming up this Friday in Brooklyn. It's at Sleepwalk July twenty fourth, early show at seven pm.

28:24 Speaker 2: And then.

28:27 Speaker 3: Then I'm playing at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, which is next to Stone Pony, very famous venue, the Wonderbar. That's August third, and then is the UK. Then's the UK tour, and the UK tour is August eleven, twelve, thirteen and sixteen, and the shows are Nottingham, Hastings, London and Brighton and the London shows at the very famous venue, the Dublin Castle, and we're headlining that. It's going to be great. Wow, kind of our London album release show if you will. Ye, and yeah, so it's your question.

29:00 Speaker 3: Yes, August eleventh through sixteen. Are those dates?

29:03 Speaker 1: Oh, that's fantastic. Have you toured there before? I have?

29:07 Speaker 3: Actually I was in that that punk band, that Choke, and we we toured. We we we've went to London once and we did like five shows in the London area I think once in four or five shows, similar to what we're doing now, although now we're touring around so it's even better. But yeah, and then The Choke went back and uh later on we went back and we did like a whole tour of the entire UK with a with a famous band called two famous bands. It was a Theater of Hate and Jane Loves Jezebel Yep and The Choke and it was like a really cool, solid touring lineup and we played all over the UK.

29:45 Speaker 2: We've been played in Glasgow. Yeah, it was. That was a great tour.

29:49 Speaker 1: Oh that's fantastic, that's great. Good good, Well yeah, no I'm coming back to the UK, Matt, excellent. Well, we do have listeners, We do have listeners over there.

29:57 Speaker 3: Absolutely well great, yeah, yeah, I'm out.

30:02 Speaker 1: This show is multi continental. I don't know if that's really a word, but.

30:08 Speaker 2: That's a word today.

30:10 Speaker 3: No, that's great, I'd say come out.

30:12 Speaker 2: We're playing great venues.

30:13 Speaker 3: Billy Bootleggers in Nottingham, the Jenny Lynde In in Hastings, Dublin Castle and London Dalton's in Brighton.

30:21 Speaker 2: These are great venues, great lineups.

30:24 Speaker 3: Everything sorted as far as the venues, the lineup, the bands, it's really really I have a great artist. There's a great artist songwriter in London named Veronica Bionki and she's playing on this bill with us at Dublin Castle. And I'm so excited because we actually did a show in Brooklyn in twenty nineteen together in Brooklyn at this venue the Broadway, and that was amazing. And now I get to play with her again in London.

30:53 Speaker 1: So oh fantastic.

30:55 Speaker 3: We're we're old friends and she lives there now, so this is just super exciting that the show is super exciting.

31:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, outstanding, excellent, excellent, Well in a moment, uh, when we let you go, we're gonna play Overwhelmed, which was of course the first single from from the album. Anything we should know about this before we play.

31:14 Speaker 3: It, Johnny, Overwhelmed is one heck of a cool track that I didn't. It's actually really cool because Peter that that's another color. It's another one that where the producers collaborated because it was like, you know, my buddy John Chin and Jersey City here produced it, but we actually had Peter down in Georgia play the bass on it, and it's just a really cool It's a different flavor for me because it's kind of a bouncy, jangly track. In my yeah, a lot of my songs tend to be more straight ahead rocking, you know, straight ahead rocker kind of power pop songs, more like a cheap trick kind of deal.

31:58 Speaker 3: But this one, this one's a little bit more bouncing and jangling and has more of a maybe even a more of a British feel, And I'm really excited about it because it's it's a different kind of flavor for me, just like the Sidewalk Ends is a little bit different for me because it's more more disco even, you know, And you know, that's that's what I what I try to what I try to do to define myself, what I try to do to define myself as an artist is I try to not define myself. I try to go off in as many different genres as possible because I don't want to be limited to genre.

32:41 Speaker 3: I don't want to be stuck in a box. And I want to be able to to do a song that goes in this direction or that direction, or or even blends genres. And that's what I really love to do in songwriting is blend genre, blends something that maybe a sixties influence blended with an eighties or seventies glam influence, because that's that's what I do, That's what I can hopefully do to be unique.

33:07 Speaker 1: Right right, No, I think you've accomplished that absolutely. So before we let you go and before we play that track, where's the best place for people to go online to keep up with all things Johnny Couch? Where where should people go to keep up with everything you're doing?

33:21 Speaker 2: Yeah?

33:22 Speaker 3: So great question Number one, of course is you know, is Instagram and so that's Johnny Couch Music, but there's no ch and Johnny. So it's Jay j O Y c O U c H Music, Johnny Couch Music, and you're gonna find me right there on Instagram. And then there's of course my website Johnnycatch dot com has everything and that has links all my videos. There's also my YouTube channel, Johnny catch YouTube channel where you can see Where the Sidewalk Ends the brand new.

34:00 Speaker 1: D Yep. Yeah, definitely yeah. People should should absolutely check it out. Johnny Couch, thank you so much, my friend. This has been wonderful. We're going to hit that track, so we'll let you go for now. But sounds like you've got a lot of great stuff coming up, so I'm sure we will have you back in the future. But thank you so much for joining us today.

34:16 Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Matt.

34:17 Speaker 3: It was a real pleasure and I really enjoyed speaking with you.

34:22 Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

34:22 Speaker 1: Same, thanks, Johnny. All right, take care, bye.

34:24 Speaker 2: Bye, take care bye bye.

34:26 Speaker 1: All right, that was Johnny Couch. We did play at the top of the segment his newest single, Where the Sidewalk Ends. But let's play now the first single from the album, Where the Sidewalk Ends. This is really good too. I like this a lot. This is called Overwhelmed.