Matt Connarton Unleashed: Modern Fools

0:00 Speaker 1: The band is Modern Fools, and we got a couple of the guys from the band here with us. Welcome, gentlemen, if you could each introduce yourselves and tell us, tell us who you are and what you do in the band.

0:11 Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Josh Blair. I played guitar and sing and yeah.

0:16 Speaker 1: All right, very good. Welcome Josh, and you, sir.

0:18 Speaker 3: I'm John Brought. I also played guitar and sing, but not as much singing.

0:23 Speaker 1: Okay, ye, very good, very good. So and Josh, So I interviewed you. We were talking off air back in oh my god, twenty eleven.

0:33 Speaker 2: Is that right, twenty eleven?

0:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, you were in a band called the Ghost Dinner Band.

0:37 Speaker 3: That's right.

0:37 Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, so and you you mentioned too, So you actually went back and listened to that. I did.

0:41 Speaker 3: Yeah, I found the archives I was. I was listening back as funny.

0:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember. I remember the Ghost Dinner Band and whatever ended up happening to that.

0:52 Speaker 2: I mean, we we had a good run of it, and things just kind of fizzled out. You know, we all we were like a high school sweetheart band. You know, we have been playing together high school. Yeah, just you know, we all just kind of win our separate ways, but everybody's still playing in different bands and yeah for the most part.

1:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, excellent, excellent. And that song that we just played, so is that the current single that that on my mind featuring Rachel Sumner?

1:14 Speaker 3: Yep, that's that's it.

1:15 Speaker 2: And Rachel Sumner is an incredible songwriter from Boston area.

1:19 Speaker 3: She's just amazing. Yeah. She had a giant TikTok moment last year really yeah with a song called Radium Girls, right yeah, yeah, yeah, they went really viral. It's a great song. You should check it out. Oh I will.

1:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought her name was familiar. Maybe that's why I know it. Yeah, how did you guys get connected with her to do this track?

1:41 Speaker 2: So we just we knew her, like, you know, acquaintances and friends in the scene, and when writing the song, we just knew that it needed a female voice, yeah, kind of do that duet classic thing. And yeah, she came to mind. So we reached out and she was into it, and yeah, she just nailed it. We sent her the tracks and she kind of sent like, hey, is this what you're looking for? And we were like absolutely, like just knocked it out of the park.

2:05 Speaker 3: Yeah.

2:06 Speaker 1: Well, very cool. Yeah. I like that song a lot. It's got got kind of a little bit of a balance, a little bit of a swing to it. But yeah, very cool. Now the album or album, I guess are you calling it an EP? It's seven tracks. It's kind of in that, right, It's it's seven.

2:21 Speaker 2: It's seven So yeah, it's an EP, but it's like, you know, it's somewhere between.

2:24 Speaker 1: It's in that weird gray zone between EP and album. And is that already out or is that coming out soon?

2:29 Speaker 2: It's coming out on the seventeenth, Oh, next week?

2:32 Speaker 1: Oh, very good, very good. So this is this is like a world premiere, world premiere. Excellent, excellent. Yeah, and it makes sense for that to be, you know, because of Rachel. It makes sense that that would be the first h the first single. But you guys have released other things before.

2:47 Speaker 3: This, right, yep.

2:49 Speaker 2: Yes, this is our third album and this is actually the third single from from the album. So we've we've dropped a few singles. We've been trickling them out a little bit.

2:56 Speaker 1: Oh okay, Yeah, that's interesting. That's something that comes up a lot on the show, is you know, we living a time where you can use all these different strategies in terms of of how you release things. And I've noticed that, you know, because I'm old enough to remember that. You know, every band would release an album, the first single would go to radio maybe six eight weeks before the album, right, you know, and then the album comes out, and then the second single, and then the third single and so forth.

3:19 Speaker 1: But now, you know, because of the Internet and the way things have changed over the years, there's so many different things you can do. You can release an EP, you can release an album, you can release a series of singles that eventually become an album. You can you know, release you know, a few singles ahead of an EP. What what decisions? Why did you guys decide to use the strategy that you're using for this release or or did it just and there may may not be a reason, It may just feel organically right to do it this story, but.

3:46 Speaker 3: Yeah, we're guessing at what works. You know, we've seen a lot of like strategic how you do all this stuff, But also like albums in collections of songs aren't really something that that gets a lot of shine these days. You know, a lot of there's a lot of singles and stuff like that, and like there's a real reason to do that, but there's there's a level of we like to get together and work on six, seven to eight songs in the studio at a time.

4:17 Speaker 2: So right, well, yeah, it is sad because albums as a whole aren't being consumed as they used to be. Still people still do listen to them, and yeah, but you know it is a single culture for that matter. But yeah, I mean we follow the what is the the Waterfall releases what they call it, where you kind of tickling the algorithm before the album comes out.

4:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. By the way, we have received an instant message from deb Blair, says Josh's mom, listening live from Phoenix, Arizona. Well, hello, more we go so very nice. Nice Where did you guys record? Where do you record it? Because everything sounds fantastic.

4:54 Speaker 3: Thanks.

4:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a kind of a home studio, yeah, in peterbornh Hampshire, and yeah it's it's where we rehearse and it's kind of like our project studio and yeah, do everything there.

5:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's another thing that's kind of changed over the years is you know, we live in a time where you can there's so many different options for how to record and you can you know, obviously there's a lot of great studios around, but you can also do you know, do most of it at home or all of it at home, and you know, you can email tracks back and forth if you want to. There's so many ways to do it, and you can you can actually produce something that sounds like it was recorded in a million dollar studio totally.

5:31 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I'm always reminded that that first Billie Eilish album I think was recorded fully in her bedroom with your brother. Yeah, you know, like, I'm not a pop guy, but that's impressive that you can do that and then blow up like that.

5:46 Speaker 4: It is.

5:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. How do you, guys, how do you just describe your sound? I was looking at the website and I saw some pretty interesting verbiage. But somebody who was it somebody recently, because you're the name Modern Fools has come up on the show more than once, so there's a lot of other artists in the area who are are big fans of you guys. And somebody described you as cosmic country.

6:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of what we've been rolling with lately, and I know that gets a lot of ties to Daniel Donado, who's a younger artist now who has put it in his name, but it really goes back to like Grand Parsons is really the founder, I would say, the godfather of cosmic country, which is sort of just a blend of you know, country rock, which is he's responsible for that.

6:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it certainly doesn't sound like what you hear on the radio.

6:40 Speaker 2: Sure, yes, it's not bud Light country. We're more of a Miller high life.

6:46 Speaker 1: I had not heard that term to describe modern country. I've heard the term bro country.

6:51 Speaker 3: Yeah, that works.

6:52 Speaker 1: I've heard that a lot.

6:54 Speaker 2: We've been working on figuring out, like I think that beer is a just a good description for country and general.

7:00 Speaker 1: Yeah.

7:01 Speaker 2: So there's lots of different varieties of country. Obviously Corona country, Yeah, Corona country. That that'd be more like the Jimmy Buffett era of country, you know.

7:10 Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong, I still like Corona country sometimes. Yeah.

7:13 Speaker 2: Sure, so, I just you know, whatever you're whatever you're drinking is kind of, you know, defines you in the country real.

7:21 Speaker 1: Well, are so we live with u? Or he lives with us? Really?

7:25 Speaker 5: Uh?

7:25 Speaker 1: DJ Reckless, I don't know if he has no DJ reckless, but he's he works at ninety six five. Uh what it now? Live free country? Yeah, live flif free country. I keep wanting to still call it the mill, even though it hasn't been that in at least a year. But but uh, you know, I'll turn that station on and and some of what I hear it it doesn't even sound like like it's country. It's got just enough twang in it to be country, some of the modern stuff, but but some of it like just barely enough, you know what I mean.

7:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basically just pop music, right, and then some of it, Yeah, got a banjo in the back, like a pedal steel and then.

8:01 Speaker 3: Yeah, well the Nashville thing is has really been homogenized at this point. And it's not it's not bad. Those guys are incredibly talented players. But you go to Nashville to make a certain type of music and and it comes out being in that vein and it it's not the same kind of classic country that that were turned onto. It's definitely a derivative of that thing. But yeah, you know, there's there's there's merit in in in anything you're making. For us, we when we think of country, we're thinking you know, Christofferson, cash Parton, you know, the Graham Parsons, the Flying Burrito Brothers.

8:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, I could probably name them for for longer than they should. And we go back to an era where it really feels like it was like it was an outsider art form.

8:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, interesting. What about are there any modern country artists who who you guys kind of relate to a bunch?

9:05 Speaker 2: I would say that right now is probably like the healthiest time for what I'm gonna coin is good country for lack of a better term. But yeah, I mean like there's there's a lot of just bands that are like, you know, like Charlie Crockett maybe being like one of the bigger artists right now. But yep, that's you know, like going back to that roots stuff and it's you know, it's very much not but like driven.

9:30 Speaker 1: I still love that. That's funny. The name that comes up really consistently on the show is Chris Stapleton. Like, especially with the not just with bands, but singer songwriters. This guy's coming in with just an acoustic guitar like Chris Stapleton's name. Chris Stapleton's name comes up all the time.

9:48 Speaker 2: Definitely he's he's doing he's doing it right for sure.

9:50 Speaker 3: I think he's one of those few guys that's still like like keeping that whole art form pure. It's cool to see a guy that's doing that still maintaining that level of popularity too. Right, Yeah, well.

10:03 Speaker 1: He's uh yeah, he's a hell of a songwriter. I think, great voice and and as far as Nashville goes too, I feel like, uh, I always say this from a just from a production standpoint, Nashville really has it down. Like I think that just sonically in terms of production, Like I'm I'm really picky about drums when I listen to a song, and I think, you know, the drum sounds coming out of those Nashville studios just are I think it sounds absolutely perfect. And I think a lot of things, you know, a lot of I listen to a lot of metal, but a lot of modern metal something went wrong, where like the guitars don't sound right to me.

10:46 Speaker 1: They sound small, if that makes sense, Whereas when I was growing up, metal sounded, you know, the guitars sounded nice and crunchy. So I have complaints about how modern metal is produced and how and I can you know, I have a little bit of an audio engineering background, so I can pick apart a lot of things. But when I listen to anything coming out of Nashville, it's like just from a production stamp. Whether I like the song or not, just from an audio production standpoint, it's like wow, like they've got it.

11:10 Speaker 1: You know.

11:10 Speaker 3: That's Have you ever been down Music Row in Nashville.

11:14 Speaker 6: I have not.

11:15 Speaker 1: I've never been to Nashville, So, I mean, given it was.

11:18 Speaker 3: It was probably three or four years ago now, but my wife and I were down there and we're walking through and we're seeing like big Machine and you know, all the all the giant labels, and I had that same thought. But that, I mean, like, I'm a music nerd, right, and how could you not be being you know, our age still releasing singles to But like, for for us, like that emanates from like the late sixties and the seventies when you had guys like Bob Dylan going in uh to record with a what was his name, Billy the Nashville producer.

11:51 Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not, I'm not gonna go, but you know who I'm talking about. So he went in there, and then Neil Young goes in there ten years later and the sound like it's the Nashville thing they went there to record and lay down those kind of tracks. It's really cool.

12:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely do you guys, everything that you've recorded, have you've done it the same way in terms of how you produce it.

12:12 Speaker 2: No, now we change it up. This record we did almost exclusively live. It's very live in this Oh cool. This record was kind of like a concept album to some regards anyway, with moving into the honky TNK realm. That's not really what we typically do. There's always kind of a tinge of country in there, but this is like full on country. And the whole thing actually stemmed from On the album cover, there's a sign that says clearly country, which I found at a yard sale and I had seen it in the daytime and I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

12:46 Speaker 2: I didn't buy it. Yeah, I don't know why. I just had to go. I had to go buy it. So I went back and bought it, and I didn't really know why at the time, but it sort of sparked this inspiration.

12:56 Speaker 3: It was like, that's an album cover, yep, honky tunk record.

12:59 Speaker 1: So yeah, it's very cool. It's very cool. Has the lineup been the same over the course of the band or has that changed at all?

13:07 Speaker 2: So it's actually changed. So the band formed originally in twenty fourteen, okay, so, and I was the only original member from that lineup. We kind of fizzled out in probably twenty sixteen or seventeen. We never actually did a record. We did a bunch of local.

13:23 Speaker 3: Shows well, and by fizzled out. That was about when I joined the band and we became a different band entirely sure called the Flood. And I don't know if you know eight A m or Adam in the Flood, but we used to play in his band and did a little little move in with him, and then COVID happened.

13:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, the pandemic time is we just kind of like got it all together and started recording.

13:47 Speaker 3: And so he was traveling all throughout the US writing songs and sending us the demos back here. You know. Some of our favorite came from your time in Joshua Tree in California, and then Justin and I the drummer, would get these demos and we were kind of pouring over them. These are great.

14:09 Speaker 1: Yeah.

14:10 Speaker 3: So our first album was largely recorded distance. Okay, now, not all while you were on the road, but because of COVID, like none of us knew what was going on, we weren't getting together. Yeah, So so we were sending tracks left and right in that first album see or we did probably about ninety percent separated from each other, for sure.

14:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, was it hard doing it that way? Or because one of the things, you know, the pandemic comes up a lot on the show because it's a very very common tale. You know, we were doing this, we were doing that. We had all these plans and then the plague. But and as awful as it was, you know, I always say we have to find these silver linings where we can, and I feel like one of the few silver linings of it was it kind of forced people to be creative in ways that maybe they hadn't previously considered and getting comfortable with things like sending tracks back and forth and doing all that.

15:00 Speaker 3: Sure, so I think for us we in various iterations. Right, New Hampshire is a small state, right, and we're a small music scene. Josh and I have known each other twenty some odd years now, you know, we started playing music together about ten years ago. In real capacity, but like, like you know, our stories are very intertwined, and so there was a level of we've played with these guys, all of them for a minimum of five six years at that point, or various like ins and outs. Yeah, how do we take that relationship and how do we do it in a different sort of way.

15:36 Speaker 3: So, like, it probably would have been a lot harder to try to get the whole thing going like like like fresh. Yeah, but you got a bunch of guys that are gonna eat nachos with each other any day anyway. You know what difference is it if you're sending texts in everything?

15:50 Speaker 1: That makes sense? Yeah, that makes sense. Definitely we should. Uh, let's play another track. What do you guys? I'll let you I'll let you all pick. I listened to the you know, obviously I listened to the ones you suggested, but I also listen to the rest of the album too, or EP. The whole thing is great. I love it, but whatever whatever you want to go with next.

16:10 Speaker 2: Let's do something that we haven't released yet. My side, my side. This will be like a world premiere right here. Yeah, world, we like the I don't know if you know this. We really like the World Radio premieres here.

16:21 Speaker 3: This one goes out to all the Steel Guitar fans out there.

16:24 Speaker 2: Yes, yes, into all the ex wives you guys ever played with You must know them regals? Yeah yeah, yeah, we we haven't played with them, but we've been chatting with them and talking about doing some shows.

16:36 Speaker 3: Yeah familiarly. We would love to. We would love to have them out to Keen and come out to Manchester do a show. Oh yeah, off with them.

16:42 Speaker 1: They're fantastic. Actually, I think they're one of the I think they mentioned you guys because I think they're one of the bands we had on that mentioned you because, like I said, the name Modern Fools has come up a few times, but you know when you mentioned Steel Guitar made me think of that love it. Yeah, those guys they came and played live to you know, just two of them and it was amazing. But let's give this a Spain. So this is yes, the World Radio premiere. This is my side and the band is Modern Fools.

17:15 Speaker 4: This how empty lies.

17:21 Speaker 6: Outside knowing inside your souls no food.

17:32 Speaker 4: And my flues nobody He's waiting by the door.

17:46 Speaker 7: Like cut you soft inside?

17:58 Speaker 4: Why I still step.

18:03 Speaker 5: My side of.

18:11 Speaker 4: This high thinking drinking mock mychoes.

18:27 Speaker 5: I'm getting when she said and watch dragon hard gravel and ask you or.

18:42 Speaker 4: My durtain.

18:46 Speaker 7: Country saw it still inside of her? Why am I still step.

18:59 Speaker 4: My side hard song?

19:33 Speaker 5: Woy hit like don't sup five skied baby Wolf?

19:46 Speaker 4: Since you when when probatry say forget why my side of my country?

20:21 Speaker 8: So stay inside of why my side of thing? Why

20:38 Speaker 8: you say my side of.

20:59 Speaker 1: That is my side? The band is Modern Fools, and we have two of the guys here. Do we have fifty per Is it a four piece or a five piece?

21:08 Speaker 2: It's a fluctuating five piece.

21:10 Speaker 1: Okay. We weren't sure because your bio says for us them on the website. But then there's a picture on Facebook with five people.

21:17 Speaker 3: We can do shows with four. We like to do him with as many people as possible.

21:21 Speaker 1: Got ya.

21:21 Speaker 2: We have a keyboard player that is he's there sometimes he's there.

21:25 Speaker 3: Not. Okay.

21:25 Speaker 1: I suspected it might be something like that because obviously the style of music that you do, the vibe and everything, you know, you've got that flexibility you can kind of, you know, kind of do that. I've I've always been I've always been a little envious of that. Actually, you know, I used to play. I don't play anymore. I used to play in a bunch of bands, but I was never in a project where we had that kind of thing where you know, you could you could, you could vary it and still make it work no matter what, you know, and bring guest musicians on stage.

21:52 Speaker 3: And yeah, that's really the thing we get. We get. I mean, you don't say the four core because Nicky is Nicky's five, but four of us can pull it off. We got steel players we can bring in. We have a great time, a couple auxiliary vocalists and yeah, this is yeah, fun thing to do.

22:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it's cool to be able to do it that way. Are you guys planning out a lot? Are you doing a lot of shows?

22:16 Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, we're This is actually probably a good time to plug our next next week on the release date, the seventeenth, we're also doing a release show at the Bank of an h Stage conquered excellent.

22:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah that's with Slim Volume as you know.

22:30 Speaker 1: Oh yes, they were on with us last week and they were talking about that.

22:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, they're amazing, absolutely love those boys.

22:36 Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we got Rachel Berlin from Conquered Area. She's opening the show. It's gonna be amazing.

22:42 Speaker 1: I interviewed her a long time ago.

22:44 Speaker 3: I think still at it. Yeah, she's great.

22:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, I interviewed I interviewed her on the same show I interviewed you on. Oh yeah yeah Center Band, but yeah, probably around that same time period. Actually wow, okay, well yeah yeah yeah, yeah, Oh very cool, very cool. Do you guys play everything from the from the EP? Do you do all the songs?

23:04 Speaker 4: Oh?

23:04 Speaker 3: Yeah, we will so, and we'll have the full band.

23:06 Speaker 2: We've got keys and pedal steel and uh, our friend Jocelyn is gonna be singing with us that night too, so where we've got the whole old lineup and it's uh yeah, it's gonna be a good night excellent.

23:16 Speaker 1: Is that an NH Music Collective show? It is, ah, very cool. Yeah. Yeah. We had John MacArthur on the show and uh boy, he that guy's busy. Huh yeah, keeping it moving absolutely absolutely. Do you guys do any covers when do you play out or a couple?

23:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, well we'll throw some covers in, especially like if it's a longer night, you know, we'll add some some covers and stuff.

23:38 Speaker 1: What do you guys do for covers?

23:39 Speaker 3: Well, Josh has H has the cover edict of if if you could hear my dad playing it with his band, we're not allowed to cover it, that's true. I don't know. I I feel like, uh no, we gotta We got Luxury Liner by the International Submarine Band, which is the cosmic country stuff. Okay, Graham Parsons, you know the band Big Star is that I know of them.

24:04 Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever listened to it.

24:05 Speaker 3: So we do. Uh we do in the Street, which is also that seventies show. Uh opener. Oh okay, Cheap Trick does the opener. But Big Star wrote the song. Oh we got that one. We did a share song for a little bit.

24:18 Speaker 1: Yeah we really Yeah what what share song? I believe really interesting.

24:24 Speaker 3: Put Josh through an auto tune. Yeah yeah, I don't know. We mix it up. We tried to changes seasonally.

24:33 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I just realized you've got your your water bottle. It says clearly country on it. Do Yeah, that's the sticker. That's the sign. Oh okay, if you haven't seen the cover, that's the I did. I did see the cover. Yeah, Oh that's cool.

24:46 Speaker 3: Josh's mantra is always be selling. Yep, so you can.

24:50 Speaker 1: You can put that sticker on anything, really and uh and then you've got branded merch.

24:55 Speaker 3: I love that. Also, come get stickers and brand your own merch.

24:58 Speaker 1: There you go. Yeah, Now are there hard copies available of the Are you doing CDs or is it strictly digital.

25:04 Speaker 3: Or yeah, we're doing CDs.

25:05 Speaker 2: I think we will do vinyl eventually, It's just that it takes a little while to get the vinyl in your hands these days. Yeah, but yeah, we got CDs and we're actually tomorrow we're actually going to be over at the Music Connection to Manchester. Okay, we're doing like a little in store performance thing, so it's it's worth mentioned if you're in the Manchester area two pm, two pm. Gonna play a few songs and we're giving away a pair of tickets to the show, and I think they're going to add in some other.

25:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, we've been told it'll be a cool little event by John over there.

25:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, out standing, outstanding. Where is I haven't been in there and I feel like a very like I don't even remember where it is exactly, I've I've never been.

25:45 Speaker 3: Uh yeah, so we're not. We're not Manchester local, right, I think you're a Peterburger. I've been in Music Connection a couple of times. And he's also got a Turner's Fall store, which is cool. Oh, I'll look up the address. Why not, might as well put it put it out there. Yeah, let me do that so I.

26:00 Speaker 1: Know it's not on ELM. I'm just trying to think. I think I've been there. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I haven't.

26:06 Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's a cool store. It's very much stuck in that like we are a record shop. Yeah, we love being a record shop mentality and I love that. Yeah. Yeah, it's super great. We'll be there.

26:19 Speaker 2: We'll have some hard copies of the CDs, which is kind of funny because I don't think people are going there to buy CDs.

26:24 Speaker 3: But right right that maybe seventeen eleven South Willow across from the mall, New Him or Oh okay, use the connection.

26:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, I have been in there. I remember going in there now. Yeah, because I can now you said the address, I can picture it right across from the mall. Yeah, that's very cool, and it's great that there's still places around that do that.

26:46 Speaker 3: You know, definitely.

26:47 Speaker 1: I don't think a lot of people probably don't even realize that there's still places around that do that. So that's awesome, dude.

26:53 Speaker 3: I still pull up all those old Wilco in store performances to watch back. Those are some of the greatest ones really. Yeah, yeah, they're so neat.

27:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool? Are those on those You.

27:03 Speaker 3: Can find them on YouTube. Yeah, there's just hear in a band do a stripped down thing. Yeah, it's fun.

27:07 Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You guys want to pick another one? We should play another one?

27:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, John, why do you pick one? I already told you what I want to pick. Well, it's your turn, all right. So I wanted to give a shine to the other two guys who couldn't be here today, Justin who's a great drummer, and hopefully we'd play Ballroom because that's an unbelievable drum drum track. But Ian did the lead off on this one, which is Don't let Your Love Run Cold, so Josh wrote it. But Ian, who is our bassist, is just an unbelievable vocal arranger. So this is a Yeah, this is a not a long song, but it's always fun to give shine to the guys that can do stuff that's incredible.

27:50 Speaker 2: It's this you didn't even say run Colu the first track there.

27:55 Speaker 3: It is. It's it's kind of a funny one to play on the radio. It's all vocal arrangement.

28:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's short, it's it's only a minute and a half. But uh yeah, and it opens the album opens the album. Yeah, very cool. All right, let's give this a listen. This is Ron Cold. The band is Modern Fools.

28:09 Speaker 9: Don't let your love run cold, keep your heart on go turning fire to cold. Don't let you run cold.

28:30 Speaker 4: If there's live, so.

28:35 Speaker 9: You hail in line, stay by your side.

28:45 Speaker 4: If it is live a live.

28:50 Speaker 9: If I be food, the hell are you.

29:01 Speaker 8: Lovely?

29:02 Speaker 4: Ah evoving?

29:11 Speaker 9: Don't let you run cold, keep your heart of cold,

29:21 Speaker 9: turning fire to cold, don't you run cold?

29:33 Speaker 1: That is run Cold. That is Modern Fools. And we've got Josh and John from the band Modern Fools with us here in studio. That's nice. I like the I do like the vocals. There's a little bit of although it's not all vocals, there's a little bit of guitar.

29:46 Speaker 3: Little guitar in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like in the back room sounding yeah yeah, that one we intentionally recorded huddled around an old microphone. Oh no, if it sounded like it, it does, I can. I can picture it. I can definitely fix No, that's cool. Have you guys done any Yeah, you could do some interesting visuals with that. Have you guys done any videos.

30:06 Speaker 1: For any of these or not? For these?

30:09 Speaker 2: We have done some some interesting music videos in the past. We've had some fun with that, but uh yeah. We recently did a like a live session. We took over the Hancock Depot, which is in Hancock, New Hampshire. Yeah, it's an old train depot and they have like a it's a really cool little cabaret style venue and they have a stage. But we took over like basically like the living room there, which is like this turn of the century looking.

30:32 Speaker 3: Railroad station.

30:33 Speaker 2: It's like all this old stuff in there, and we uh yeah, we brought in some friends and film crew and recorded the whole thing. So we're starting to release that and they'll be sort of a like a full band live video shoot that's we're gonna slowly start putting out.

30:47 Speaker 3: Oh okay, So the recap. We recorded the album live and then we re recorded the album live to release a video of it.

30:57 Speaker 1: No, that's cool though. How many songs did you record for the video?

31:01 Speaker 2: I think we did all we did eight because we added a cover and there did the full album and then we did an extra song.

31:08 Speaker 1: So are you going to release a full video at once or are you gonna split that up?

31:11 Speaker 2: We'll split it up to what we already released.

31:13 Speaker 3: One.

31:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, we did a version of Ballroom Bender Blues, which is which is really cool. It's just that oh, very cool visual and it was just a fun experience. It was. Yeah, we have a little content to keep the content train rolling after the fact.

31:26 Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, well that's important. Absolutely, It's very important to do that. You guys. I ask everybody this question. But I'm always curious. Are there any other bands in the area that you kind of you know, it often happens organically, but anybody you've kind of teamed up with that you happen to play a lot of shows with.

31:43 Speaker 2: Well, we started playing with our friends Coyote Smoke, who are a newer band from the Sea Coast.

31:49 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't know them. Yeah, they're cool name.

31:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, they're brand new and they they're also like playing with the Regals as well, So like, yeah, we're all kind of tied in and that regard and sort of creating this this new scene hopefully, like this interesting kind of old country thing that's that's forming.

32:08 Speaker 3: There's Slim Volume, who we love those guys. There's the Rear Defrosters. They're out of Vermont, but they are I mean, they're kind of like the spiritual country grandfathers of the area. Yeah yeah, I mean like we're we're getting on the the old Uncle territory. But but these guys were doing this kind of stuff like you know, the early two thousands and now. Actually one of them owns one of the venues in Keene called Nova Arts. I don't know if you've been there. It's a great place.

32:43 Speaker 1: I've heard about it. I've not been there, but if you like that.

32:47 Speaker 3: And because New Hampshire is so small, once a month there's actually a honky tonk night by the Rear Defrosters over there. Worth a trip over for sure. Yeah.

32:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, Vermont.

32:58 Speaker 3: They are Brattleborough, NY. Okay, you know the Hill people. Yeah, no, that's cool.

33:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't heard of them either. I'll have to look them up. That's cool. You do you ever play shows with bands that you don't necessarily fit like.

33:13 Speaker 3: It's happened for sure.

33:15 Speaker 5: Yeah.

33:15 Speaker 2: You know, sometimes venues will just put together a show and yeah, but for the most part, people are pretty in tune with like trying to get us, you know, onto like like similar bills. We we did a thing with say Zu Zoo on Stone Church where those guys are great.

33:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool.

33:34 Speaker 2: All country Legends in New Hampshire basically and yeah. Yeah, so hopefully we'll do some more stuff with them this summer and yeah, and John Nolan's side project band as well.

33:45 Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I think probably the weirdest ones that we've been paired up to or are those ones we're supporting like major national acts coming through, but you know those are just like we're happy to be on the same Yeah.

33:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, So like, what what are some some nationals you've you've gotten open for.

34:05 Speaker 3: Well, I mean this one's not weird, but Steve Earl was a fun one to that was very cool. Wow. Ryan Montlu Yeah, he's he's a Boston guy. We did last year Fogerty and thorough Good. Yeah, that's a meadow brook It was a meadow Brooks. So we were on the Hazy stage at that one, but that one was a lot of fun.

34:26 Speaker 1: That's pretty good.

34:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, we we left pretty bad to the bone.

34:29 Speaker 2: On that day, John and I did a duo set opening for Charlie Parr. Are you familiar with Charlie park.

34:35 Speaker 1: I don't think she's amazing.

34:37 Speaker 3: Oh man, resonator, guitar champion of the world. Oh yeah, what what?

34:43 Speaker 5: What was it?

34:45 Speaker 9: So?

34:46 Speaker 3: So there's there's only a few guys like this out there. But he's been a folk musician for so long, and I'm gonna tell his story. I know I shouldn't, but whatever. He's not he's not coming on here in the next month or two, so we're safe. But we're so We're sitting in the green room in the back of a venue in Low with him, and he's like, you know, I did a two hundred and fifty dates last year, and I was like, that's a lot, man. He goes, yeah, I call it the divorce here because when I got home, my wife handed me the keys and said her boyfriend moved in.

35:13 Speaker 1: Oh my god.

35:15 Speaker 3: But like like the kind of like the kind of life that leads to those stories comes out in his music and and like there's a lot of fun guys, right you know here here in Bad to the Bone is fun. But when you hear a guy that's, you know, playing the two hundred and fifty people and has them captivated with a resonator guitar, like, there's something special about what Charlie's doing.

35:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll follow him up. Charlie Park, Charlie Park. Okay, all right, yeah, I'll follok him up. Very cool, Very cool if you're just joining us. We've got two of the guys from Modern Fools, Josh and John are here with us in studio, and we got time. Let's play another one? Should we? You mentioned ballroom Blender Blue? Should we play that? Yeah?

35:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good one.

35:54 Speaker 1: We'll do that one next. This one. I seem to recall this one standing out. And where should people go while I'm loading that up? Where's the best place for people to go online to keep up with everything you guys are doing?

36:05 Speaker 2: If you ask jeeves about us, well, I mean we're on Spotify, in Apple Music or you know all the places you can listen.

36:13 Speaker 3: But yeah, we're doing it like most bands. Instagram and Facebook if you want news about us, and Spotify and Apple if you want to listen to our stuff, band camp. If you actually want to send us money instead of sending it to Spotify.

36:24 Speaker 1: There you go, There you go, which is not a bad idea.

36:27 Speaker 3: We love it and merch too. That's always cool.

36:30 Speaker 1: All right, well, let's not give this a listen. This is called Ballroom Bender Blues and the band is Modern Fools.

36:53 Speaker 1: Some lock the.

36:54 Speaker 4: News at the end of the day.

37:00 Speaker 7: Some like booze take the pain away. Some books treat you ride last away. Trembling hands will start to ship,

37:20 Speaker 7: shaky hands, don't do no chues.

37:27 Speaker 4: Got me a friend that liquor store. Jack, be nimble, jack, be quare.

37:40 Speaker 3: Squid and be really.

37:43 Speaker 10: Strip show up, pull me the strongle go your dance shoe,

37:56 Speaker 10: do not bud to the dance ground.

38:00 Speaker 4: Shake it for the broom loading like my shop.

38:08 Speaker 8: Got those ball room.

38:11 Speaker 5: Mad have two spreezio glass. Pour it on the ground for your friends and bands round the rock strong man,

38:51 Speaker 5: brow come gun BULLI gam so.

38:58 Speaker 4: Molly, let us all.

39:02 Speaker 1: Your pagan shoes.

39:08 Speaker 4: Numbers. I'm shaking the booze.

39:17 Speaker 8: Loading like my shack down those ball room boots.

39:27 Speaker 5: Nonsk lock to steal my ladies and.

39:35 Speaker 4: Lost my game. Stop so fool.

40:00 Speaker 7: Man, no joy dancing shoes.

40:09 Speaker 8: Loading, lock my Shop gun, come Bob.

40:26 Speaker 4: Loading, lock my Shop gun. Got those bar.

40:35 Speaker 1: Band of Blue, I love it, Ballroom Bender Blues. The band is Modern Fools, and we've got Josh and John from the band here with us.

40:54 Speaker 5: Now.

40:54 Speaker 1: It's definitely got that live vibe. Well, especially at the end of course when you hear live people.

41:00 Speaker 3: But yeah, we wanted to be.

41:02 Speaker 2: Like those old like Hank Williams records where you got a hoot and holler and yeah, it's like all his buddies are in the room.

41:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's very cool. You definitely you definitely captured that. Hey, by the way, where does the name come from? Modern Fools? What's the meaning?

41:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not very deep. Really.

41:18 Speaker 2: The original logo that we had was the waffle house logo, you know, like the sign is just like the big sign with the letters, and I don't know. Initially it was just I knew I wanted that sign to be the logo, so I was figuring out different letters that fit within that sign.

41:35 Speaker 3: Okay, that's that's pretty much it. Oh okay, And then over the last few years we've really grown into the name. So really, yeah, absolutely for sure.

41:43 Speaker 1: There you go. There you go, are you guys already obviously you know this, this EP is just about to come out, but are you already working on new stuff? You strike me as guys you probably have a lot of ideas.

41:54 Speaker 2: Definitely, there's there's some stuff in the works. I think we're gonna start putting their nose at the grindstone very soon.

41:59 Speaker 3: And yep, the next thing we've got, we've got hopefully some covers that we're gonna be dropping over the over the next few months. Josh has had a tumultuous twenty twenty four that that led to some songs coming out, so uh so we're gonna be working on some demos to that too, hopefully hopefully some new music coming out in the fallish.

42:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, we're doing a Midwestern emo kind of thing for sure.

42:25 Speaker 3: Oh my god. Yeah, just kidding, but we just do like full switch arounds every time you do an album.

42:33 Speaker 2: I don't mind that though. I like there's some bands out there that do that. There's just like one album is like a punk album for no reason, and the next one is a country album.

42:41 Speaker 3: You just oh yeah, like you're a long for the Red. Daniel Romano is one of those.

42:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, well even you know, last week we had Slim Volume, and you know, we're talking about the difference and the two EPs that they released, and you know, even they kind of went for a different not drastically different, you know, but vibes with each EP.

43:02 Speaker 3: I mean, at the end of the day, it's still the same guys playing the same instruments, right, Like, so, yeah, you only get so much variation, right, Well, we.

43:12 Speaker 2: Thought we'd jump on the train with Post Malone and Beyonce doing country albums.

43:16 Speaker 3: So here you go, Blay can't wait.

43:18 Speaker 1: That's your real inspiration, right post Malone and beyond.

43:20 Speaker 3: That's it.

43:23 Speaker 1: We should remind people before we run out of time about the EP release officially, and of course the event coming up at Music Connection and all that.

43:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, so just to plug everything real quick. Tomorrow we're gonna be at the Music Connection in Manchester, across the street from the Mall, down by the Mall, down by the Mall, and yeah, we're gonna be given away, We're gonna be playing some songs. We're gonna give away some tickets to our January seventeenth release show, which is in Concord, Hampshire at the Bank of nh Stage with Slim Volume Rachel Berlin. It's gonna be a killer show and the actual cool physical album will be out everywhere and you can steal it wherever you steal music from.

44:05 Speaker 1: Oh excellent, very good, very good. And of course you guys are easy to find online and everything is on all the major streaming platforms and so forth.

44:15 Speaker 3: As long as you can spell modern fools, you're you're in for a tree.

44:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, very good. Well, guys, I want to thank you so much for coming in, thanks for having us. This is absolutely we will do it again in the future. And what should we end the segment with. We've got a couple we haven't played yet. I love all these, Like I said, I listened to the Holy p It's great. Yeah.

44:34 Speaker 2: I guess maybe we close out with She's No Saint's Yeah, the final single on that. It's an interesting, uh maybe a spiteful song that I wrote about a conversation I had with my high school sweetheart who broke my heart and I told her mother that her daughter was the devil.

44:51 Speaker 1: Oh.

44:51 Speaker 3: Like I said, twenty twenty four has been hard for Josh. Yeah, a long time ago, but I still feel it.

44:57 Speaker 1: So all right, very good, so well, we'll end with that in a moment. And Jenny, you want to plug your website. You've got a You've got a lot going on, as our regular listeners know, Yes I do. You can check out more about me at gencoffee dot com.

45:11 Speaker 4: J E N N C O F F E y dot com.

45:14 Speaker 1: And uh, last week at this time we were talking about your interview. What you've done now for Status coup? Yep, that's up and on YouTube. Yes, check it out. Jordan is an excellent, excellent host and I watch them regularly. Yeah, yeah, it's really good. So if you haven't seen it or listen to it, you should definitely definitely check it out. All right, modern fools guys, thank you again. It's called She's no saying bye, Modern fools.

45:51 Speaker 4: Oh love werehead you've been.

45:58 Speaker 11: Swim nights gloves and then call your name, but just came Who loved man?

46:14 Speaker 4: Where has of it? Look round?

46:21 Speaker 2: Checked in the door?

46:25 Speaker 4: The line still gone before my valantie that would say.

46:39 Speaker 5: It's gone away forever. Your daughter has a devil in the ride Wicked Hearts store apart my life?

47:00 Speaker 4: Excuse did me?

47:02 Speaker 5: The sweetest scale I know? Daughter is still pull down flow.

47:28 Speaker 4: Silver betweens. Linen can pregat.

47:37 Speaker 3: Man with.

47:42 Speaker 5: Soon remain from the hills. Your cheating hard lie next to daughter has devil in the ride shed her store.

48:05 Speaker 4: Are my life?

48:09 Speaker 8: You still mad?

48:11 Speaker 4: Sweetish Gale?

48:12 Speaker 9: I know.

48:16 Speaker 5: Daughter is double down. Don't call me in the mornings because I'm.

48:27 Speaker 4: Crying in my bed. Lived with thinal waters and I'd rather receieve red hair. Shootook, she never was my friends.

48:49 Speaker 4: Devils and details heal five devils in the details Hell five, I said,