The Shaped by Sound podcast is made possible through support from Come Hear NC, a program of the North Carolina Arts Council, within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

I'm here with Mike and Doug from the Connells.

Thank you both for being here at PBS North Carolina.

We are really, really stoked to have you here.

I'll tell you that, like, a lot of people in these rooms are just, like, over the moon that you've joined us.

So, thank you so much.

It's, like, such a joy and a pleasure to have you here.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thanks to you.

We're really flattered.

We're excited.

I want to just go ahead and jump right in.

And you all started this group out of a garage in Raleigh, right?

It actually started a little before that.

A couple of us were in school in Chapel Hill.

Right on.

Okay.

So UNC.

For one hour, Friday afternoons, my younger brother David and the band's first drummer, who was one of Doug's best friends growing up, would just get together and play whatever was on the radio.

And one day my brother said, "John, my older brother Mike plays guitar and he's writing some songs.

Can he start joining us?"

So, and this is right across the street from where the Cat's Cradle is currently.

Wow.

Okay.

So I started joining them and we just started working up tunes that I was writing in my room.

That is so cool.

So you all literally started where I feel like one of the beacons of, like, triangle music is, right?

I mean, you are on the ground there, truly.

How cool.

Just to be in Carrboro or Chapel Hill, you know, for any reason.

And what year was that about?

It started, we would have started this in '82 and on into '83.

It was September of '84 when we finally played out for the first time.

So that was like your first gig was in '84?

September of '84, yeah.

There was a lot going on musically.

There was a lot of places to play.

There was parties to play and a lot of bands.

Yeah.

It's good.

Like it always seems like it's always that way here.

Right.

Yeah.

And that's something I want to kind of tap into a little bit is like, what that was like for you all as young musicians, sort of like starting to figure it out, starting to play music with each other.

What was it like to be in that specific part of North Carolina at that time?

I mean, this was just before things really took off in Chapel Hill.

Yeah.

You know, with Polvo and Super Chunk and all those bands who were far cooler than we ever were.

But my response would have been that it was just never having been in a band before.

It's pretty heady.

Yeah.

You know, suddenly this is happening, something that you kind of were questioning if it ever would happen.

And then the response kind of from the get-go was pretty nice.

Yeah.

That was a big surprise.

You know, when you're working in a vacuum and amongst one another working up these tunes, you don't know how they're going to be received.

But we were really pleasantly surprised at how quickly we got a favorable response.

You start playing this music and you were saying like pretty quickly people are reacting to it.

So was that sort of just like a lightning strike?

I mean, you all were sort of experimenting and then it kind of goes from just playing tunes with each other to playing songs you heard on the radio to like very quickly pivoting from that and saying, "We need to get really serious about it."

When we first played out, we had a total of maybe seven songs.

We didn't even have titles for the songs, so we numbered them.

And so the only song that kept its number is seven.

Right.

But people were saying, "You can't go out to bars and parties and play with no cover songs, you know, just doing your own material when you've only got five, six, seven songs."

Well, that's precisely what we did.

Yeah.

The first time we went into Greenville, North Carolina, we had to play three sets.

Oh my gosh.

With seven songs.

So we played obviously the same seven songs, we just changed the order each set.

Nice.

We fooled them.

And were the songs all just numbers, right?

At that point they were pretty much all numbers.

So you're like, "All right, this is six."

And people were like, "Cool, this is four."

Yeah, we might have yelled out the titles.

But yeah, there was a time when that was unheard of.

So we just happened to be-it was a good time for bands who were writing their own material strictly.

Because yeah, a lot of places, they don't want to hear about it.

They just want, you know- I think it's still the case.

It's tough.

Yeah, probably so.

At least on the party circuit or wherever to get off the ground if you're just playing your own stuff.

Doug was talking about how there were a lot of bands-there were far fewer bands then.

It was a lot more, by my way of thinking, the field was more wide open.

Easier to get a leg up or a foot up or whatever body part up at that point.

When did you sort of transition into Raleigh?

Because I feel like you all moved into Raleigh and then sort of make that home for a while.

Is that right?

Yeah, quickly became Raleigh because those of us who were in school in Chapel Hill, after graduating, beelined to Raleigh.

So the band got started, started my third year of law school.

But I knew if I didn't go ahead and finish law school and take the bar that that would never happen.

So I did.

Left Chapel Hill right after finishing law school.

That would have been spring of '85.

So you finished law-first of all, you were in school, in a band, finished law school, took the bar, passed the bar, and were still in a touring band.

We had not really started touring at that point.

Our first-I don't know what year it was-our first outside the triangle gig was at the Daniel Boone Inn around Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Yeah.

Big moment.

I bet.

Yeah.

But yeah, touring meant a couple of weekends here and there.

When did that sort of start to evolve and become a little bit different?

So the spring of '85, when we played our first show outside of North Carolina at the original 40 Watt Club in Athens, which was pretty amazing to be doing that.

I bet it was special.

But it took another year or more before we actually could start branching out further than the immediate area or get any further out than Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina.

One of your albums is called "Boylan Heights," right?

I mean, this is an area that's literally-I live down the street from it right now.

And it's such a-I feel like it's probably changed a lot over time, or maybe it hasn't.

So I'm interested to hear your take on that.

I don't think it has changed a lot over time.

For better or for worse?

I mean, there are now restaurants that weren't there before.

Not to put you on the spot too much, but I'm just hyper-curious because I ride my bike through there.

There are areas around it that look a lot different, but it seems like that neighborhood is pretty much nice.

I'm glad it hasn't.

Yeah.

I don't think the personality of the neighborhood has changed a whole lot.

It was Raleigh's first suburb.

Right.

Still probably one of the more progressive parts of town.

And now there's a massive music venue that's right down the street.

So what a change, too.

It's funny.

Like I said, I ride my bike through that neighborhood, and sometimes I'll just ride around Red Hat Amphitheater and just hear whatever is playing.

It's pretty crazy.

Yeah, right downtown.

Downtown, yeah.

That's a good venue.

So you all were living in Boylan Heights then, huh?

We were living more in Cameron Park or- Cameron Village.

It's called Village Park now, I guess.

One of the songs off our second record called "I Suppose."

There's reference to Boylan Heights.

And so when it came time to name that record, we wanted to tip our hat to the city, to Raleigh, without calling the record Raleigh North Carolina.

So Boylan Heights sort of suggested itself.

Yeah.

That's how we ended up with that album title.

How cool.

And why the tip of the cap?

Why did you feel the need to do that?

This is the town we're from.

This is where we're from, yeah.

Yeah, and we were lucky to have friends and support there when we played.

Do you feel like it's sort of like more than just a home base?

It's sort of like, I don't know, an identity thing for you all?

Like it's a sense of place to tap into, say, Raleigh specifically?

Yeah.

I don't want to overstate or make too much of this, but even though a few of us got things going in Chapel Hill, our hip quotient was never enough to call ourselves a Chapel Hill band.

I'm saying this somewhat facetiously, because we did get a really nice, strong following right here in Chapel Hill.

I know we're in Durham now.

But yeah, it was more just as a point of reference.

We're a Raleigh band.

It wasn't some sort of like, this is how we're different?

No.

Yeah.

In fact, the opposite.

We probably would have wanted to be more like-- Chapel Hill.

Yeah.

Yeah, cool.

Mike, what's it like to be in a band with your brother?

You could ask the Gallagher brothers or Ray and Dave Davies.

No, there have been some volatile moments.

The barrel of monkeys.

We've managed to get along through all these years.

Yeah.

But I mean, there are challenges that come with that, because of all the baggage that you come in with.

Right.

We've probably done better than Noel and Liam Gallagher.

I'd say so.

Yeah, I'd say so.

When I say that, I'm not talking about music.

I'm just talking about-- Your relationship.

Yeah.

Right.

No, those guys, amazing.

Yeah.

I'm sure it's incredibly difficult, but the fact that you are still in a band, I feel like says a lot.

And what were your parents thinking about that as you two were in a group together?

Well, your dad was pretty-- maybe he was more supportive than you thought.

I don't remember what-- No, my dad was in no way supportive.

So I thought you found a scrapbook of some clip outs or some newspapers.

That was later.

Yeah.

He helped me through undergrad and law school.

At that point, at the end of law school, I decided to give the band a shot, just thinking it would be a year or two and just see what happens.

And then we ended up touring for more like 16 or 17 years before coming off the road.

Yeah, I remember calling my dad to say, "Dad, thanks for getting me through school."

Incidentally, my first job out of law school is at School Kids Records.

So that conversation went kind of like you might predict.

Right.

Yeah.

So no, he was not that supportive early on.

But then we were the first band to headline whatever Walnut Creek is called now.

Yeah.

Fourth of July '91.

And he came that night and 12, 13,000 people there.

So by that point, he had kind of come around.

Yeah, he came around to it.

I bet.

And to be honest with you, there's such a short amount of time.

I mean, within six years of you all starting to really play.

Yeah.

You're at 13,000 people playing at Walnut Creek Amphitheater.

It's incredible.

Yeah, it was scary.

I bet.

Yeah.

And I kind of want to tap into that a little bit.

So not the scary part of it.

But sort of as you moved out of this maybe garage rock kind of thing and into more like truth, like hitting the pavement hard and touring hard and really starting to record a lot more, what was that like for you all then?

Like what was that transition like?

That's a real eye opening.

Yeah, I bet.

When you go out for a couple of weeks or a month, you start really kind of seeing like you've got to play someplace on Tuesday night.

Nobody's there.

I'm glad we did it, man.

Because it was the best way to promote a band or promote a record, I think.

Well, the reality is we would not have ever done it.

But for a guy that was in my class in law school and the band's first manager, who's since--he and his wife are now in Spain.

But he was the one that basically kicked us in the pants and said, "I've called these clubs or sent cassette tapes to these clubs.

We're piling in a van and we're going."

He definitely got-- He was the one that kind of kicked us-- And made you do it.

Made us do it.

Otherwise, we probably left our own devices.

We probably would have been more comfortable just going down the road and play The Cradle or something like that.

Right.

And what's their name again?

Tom Carter.

Yeah, still a great friend.

Thank you, Tom Carter, for kicking it all in the pants.

Yeah, seriously.

Making that happen.

Yeah, he was good.

As early as '87, we're crossing the country for the first time.

We would play some--what we call anchor shows in the South, where we could make some money enough.

But we would play, say, in Atlanta, and then might get lucky enough to play a show in Louisiana, and then nothing between there and Arizona or California.

And so it was--I don't know even what's the term.

Yeah, it's slim pickings.

Once you start going west through Texas, it starts to become pretty clear.

You've got a lot of days off.

Long stretches of road.

Driving through the desert.

Yeah.

A lot of existential thoughts going through your head.

It's great seeing this country, parts of this country, would probably never have seen otherwise, which was a real upside.

Yeah, I'm sure.

But, yeah, those were pretty lean years early on.

Well, how were you all developing as musicians and songwriters?

I mean, it must have been something that was-- Well, we haven't.

We've been stagnant for the last 41 years.

Well, trial by fire, yeah.

Right.

I mean, you know.

Sink or swim.

I think it's the only way I ever could even call myself a singer is by actually going to do it repeatedly.

Otherwise, yeah, there's no way.

Yeah, because you've got to--there's an audience to think about, and you've got to think on your feet, and you never know when-- you've got to come up with a cover song.

We've got to kill some more time.

We didn't have that many songs, but it was a good challenge.

Yeah, it seems like you grew a lot, though, right?

I mean, whether you knew it or not at that time.

The slope, slow growth.

That first record--we made our first record in maybe '86, and we didn't know who we were, what we were doing at that point.

So things changed a lot from Darker Days, that first record, to Boiling Heights.

The second, Doug sort of figured out his voice, and maybe I started getting a little better at songwriting.

I don't know.

But you learn from just the way people respond to certain things.

And I say that.

It wasn't that calculated.

Not really, no, but sometimes you think about how a song might-- I mean, you write a song and think about where it might be in the set, that kind of thing.

When I sit down to write a song, I'm not thinking about ultimately-- I'm just thinking about-- Up tempo, up tempo, slow-- Can I finish a song and come up with lyrics that aren't too terribly embarrassing?

I guess I was wrong about that.

Well, beyond that, Doug, you said this earlier, and I want to follow up with you on this, because you said you were finding your voice.

I had to find somebody's voice.

Well, that must have been--it must have taken a lot of courage, and it must have been sort of terrifying-- I've been to a few times where it was.

We were just talking about our first show in Atlanta, the Celebrity Club opening for Blasting Jesus.

And those guys were--it was good natured ribbing, but they were shooting us with water pistols.

Yeah, just standing right out in front of you.

Oh, my gosh.

Welcome to Atlanta.

It was like a former stripper club that was kind of like a hardcore-- it was our first Atlanta show.

We met RuPaul that night.

We were putting up flyers, but not as RuPaul, if that makes any sense.

Yeah.

Anyways, but, yeah, I mean, we've been lucky enough.

You have too much stuff thrown at us.

I mean, some of the stories I've heard about other bands, but there is like--yeah, you kind of learn to try to read a room or try to figure out what's happening.

Sometimes it's just like on a--we stopped doing any dates on Monday nights because of Monday night football.

And the ones that we did, I eventually started saying, "What's the score?"

because people were just watching the game.

And not watching the game.

They were irritated that there was a band playing.

Those are the bad nights.

First time we rolled into Detroit was a Monday, and the weather was bad.

And these old-timers at the bar, and we come rolling in about to start sound checking, and the club owner just comes up with a case of Budweiser and says, "Guys, take this and please get out of here."

"Not tonight."

"We're not having a show tonight."

It was Chris D and the Divine Horsemen that were on Sub Pop and a band called Phantom Tollbooth that were on Homestead, and we were in the middle.

And Chris D didn't show up, and the guy said to us--it was in Hamtramck-- and he said, "Boy, it'd be really great if you guys didn't play tonight because I don't have the money to pay you."

And that's the case of beer.

See you next time.

See you later.

It was a long day.

Yeah, I bet.

But I do want to circle back to this idea of you finding your voice.

I want to know, if you can, expand on it.

What was it like when you did find it, when you tapped into something you're really proud of?

Mike's writing these songs, and you found the right key for me, and also your key as well, vocally.

And that helped.

That helped a lot.

And, you know--and then, again, I'll say playing live is the best-- to me is the best way to learn your instrument, I guess.

And for me that was the thing to do because you've got to sing for maybe an hour back then or longer, and you've got to pace yourself a little bit and that kind of thing.

So that's what that was.

That first record, it's almost like he's singing a baritone--I mean, a much lower register.

And, you know, for one, the tempos were too fast, but then Doug's voice might lend itself better to singing in a slightly higher register.

And so I started writing songs with that in mind.

Yeah.

That was helpful.

And all of a sudden new things started to click then.

Yeah.

I had kind of a Robert Goulet meets Morrissey kind of thing going on.

It was really something.

It's a special sauce, huh?

Yeah, yeah, boy.

So that was--yeah.

But, yeah, you're right.

I think you guys discovered capos or something.

I don't know what it was, but anyways we found the right register.

At some point you all go overseas into Europe.

Yeah.

Can we talk a little bit about that?

So in '93 we went up to Woodstock, New York, with Luigi Jordano, who had been Husker Du Soundman at the board to produce it.

And we recorded an album, Ring.

There it is, yeah.

That one.

This one.

So it happens to be sitting there.

So the third song on the record, "74-75," it got a little bit of airplay here in the States when it was released.

But the summer after, summer of '94, at the New Music Seminar in New York City, two guys from a label in Germany came over and approached the president of TVT Records, our record company, Steve Gottlieb, and said, "We're interested in licensing the bands for release in Germany."

And Steve Gottlieb said, "Well, that's fine, but unless and until they take off in England first, they're not going to do anything on the continent."

That was probably the rule of thumb back then.

Right.

But he was wrong.

Right.

Well, yeah, so they struck a deal, a licensing deal, with estimated sales of maybe 2,000 copies.

These guys from Germany knew their market because-- They're from Stuttgart.

Yeah.

--it was in the first week, it was in the charts in the 400s, and within maybe seven or eight weeks, it was-- We were getting faxes with showing our positions in the charts, and I thought it was somebody was playing a joke on us.

I was like, "This can't be happening."

Yeah.

And it kept coming in, and so, yeah.

And what were you seeing on the fax?

Huge chunks.

They were playing the song on the radio all the time.

Yeah.

Mostly just through Germany then.

It started in Baden-Baden and kind of spread from there.

I was at home one day in Raleigh and got a call from Steve Gottlieb, and he said, "Congratulations, you got your first number one."

We had gotten the number one in Germany, not either Sting or Madonna out of the number one spot.

Take that, Sting and Madonna.

Both of you.

Yeah.

But that was like, "You've got to be kidding me."

I mean, it's kind of hard to believe, yeah.

Yeah.

But the song connected for some reason.

Right.

So that was, you said, it was in 1995?

It was '95, yeah.

So you were having success and had a good amount of success in the United States then.

Like you just said earlier, you're getting 13,000 people to a show in Raleigh here.

We were doing okay, yeah.

Right.

You were making a lot of movement.

But nothing like this.

All of a sudden you make this massive leap though, right?

Yeah, there was nothing to prepare us for what happened.

Yes.

I mean, we were pinching ourselves.

We played a couple of festivals, and we needed to do about a 45-minute set.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden, these people are just looking at us like, "I have no idea who we are.

What's going on?"

And then we start playing that song, and they kind of would erupt.

Or at least they recognize it, and it was just the one song.

That was a nice one.

But it was great.

Yeah.

They finally figured out what was going on.

It was bizarre.

There was one night we played in, it was an all-day show in Rome.

Some radio station was celebrating its 20th anniversary or whatever, birthday.

And so we were sandwiched in between.

"74, 75" was top 10 in Italy at the point, which is the only reason we were on the bill.

But it was in a piazza and free to the public, and there were 100,000 people there.

And that was scary walking out in front of a- Oh my gosh.

100,000 people?

Yeah.

So we were done and got off and talked to a couple of guys in the next band who were true English gentlemen.

It turns out it was Def Leppard went on right after we did.

Def Leppard.

And Alanna Miles, who had that song, "Black Velvet."

So it was that kind of like, we played one, I guess we played one song, two songs.

We played like three or four songs.

Yeah.

What was it like for y'all to play for 100,000 people?

Scary.

Yeah, I bet.

But they were great because they knew the song.

Yeah.

Were they singing it back to you?

Yeah.

I mean, it was this number in the chorus.

Man, what a dream.

Those guys in Germany heard something in that song that they knew would somehow connect.

Yeah, because it spread throughout.

I mean, the song ended up going top 20 in maybe 14 countries or something like that and got to number one in Norway, Sweden.

What about the UK?

Whatever happened there?

We got to number 14 in the UK.

And if it had moved up any further, they would have had us on Top of the Pops.

Oh, wow.

I didn't know that.

But I think that Stone Roses probably had about five songs in the top 10.

So we fell back.

I love the Stone Roses.

Right.

They're great.

Are they going to take one song off so it can move up a spot?

Yeah.

I mean, for you all to do that in Europe and just have this just incredible breakout, rocket ship success like that, what's it like to do that and then come back to the United States?

I had a situation where we had been touring a lot over there and went to visit some friends who live in Charleston.

And I saw a guy I knew.

And he goes, "I heard you guys broke up."

Which was a reasonable assumption.

You know, he hadn't seen us around at all.

And I told him what was going on.

You told him that you were huge celebrities in Europe?

I was a major, major big.

And I had friends who used to come refer to me as Mr.

Hasselhoff because I was big in Germany.

Yeah, I enjoyed that.

I enjoyed that part.

But what about as a band?

I mean, what's that like to come back home and it be different?

Well, I can answer that.

I think, I mean, as nice, as amazing as it was, as unprepared as we were for what happened in Europe, after not playing here at home for about a year, we lost a lot of momentum.

So that when we finally did come back in to the States, you know, that would have been '96 or whatever.

We'd lost a lot of steam.

So that was the downside to that.

That was the trade-off.

Yeah.

But it seems like you still had a really core audience here at home.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, again, like what I was saying earlier, you know, so many of the people on this crew are just like, "This is my introduction to North Carolina music," as the Connells.

So what was that like to come home and just have, I mean, maybe it's a little bit different than, say, 100,000 people, but the people that are here at home are just like over the moon about it, right?

Yeah.

Still so much locked into who you are.

A lot of stories to tell.

It must be nice to at least have that homegrown audience still be so connected to you all.

It is.

It defies expectation.

We've been so fortunate at how loyal, you know, people have been to us.

So it's humbling.

It's been so nice.

Yeah.

Thank you for answering that.

I know those are some questions that could be hard to answer, so I appreciate it.

But I'm wondering, too, you know, after a lot of that, you know, what was it like to sort of keep going and making music and trying to stay on top of this and be a business, really, right?

Like, what was that like for you?

It must have been very difficult.

Have you seen the movie Spinal Tap by any chance?

Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah, I haven't seen the second one yet, but I have seen the first one.

Yeah, it kind of, toward the end, when I say the end, we kind of came off the road in about '98 or '99.

So, yeah, those last couple of years, there were still great moments, but it wasn't sustained or, yeah.

I think some of us probably didn't mind so much not having to go away from home for that for a month or so at a time.

I know I was tired of it.

There was a lot of burnout, right?

Families were starting to come along at that point also.

So there was that.

Yeah.

So it becomes a lot of things to manage at one time.

No kidding.

But later on, just making the music and showing up, you have a lot of other things to do, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's one thing when you got guys in their early to mid-20s who are unattached to jump in a van and go out for five, six weeks at a stretch, and it becomes far more complicated when the equation changes.

Yeah.

What's it like for you all now to kind of think through this and play this music still and continue to create?

What's it like for you all now?

I love it.

I love still-- we don't play that much, but we play enough to where I still enjoy it.

And yeah, I'm glad we're still doing it for what it's worth.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not-- I don't know what else to say.

No, that's okay.

That's pretty much it.

Yeah.

I don't want to flog a dead horse, but I marvel that people still coming out to see us.

That's a good point, yeah.

Pretty decent numbers some nights.

Yeah.

It kind of makes-- doesn't make a lot of sense, but so grateful for it.

I kind of figured that eventually people would stop coming and we would just stop.

But if they keep coming, that's great.

That's a nice thing to have.

Yeah.

And I will say just sort of beyond that, it seems like people are really proud of you all.

Wow.

I mean, if they're still kind of showing up and still so excited about it, there's a little bit more than just you as-- just your sound.

It seems like there's a little bit more to that, right?

Maybe, maybe, yeah.

We just try to have-- we try to have fun when we play, and we hope they do too, and that helps.

Yeah.

Yeah, we play just enough.

We don't want to overdo it.

One last thing.

I kind of want to-- we've talked about Raleigh and y'all starting there and Chapel Hill, obviously, and just North Carolina.

I'm kind of curious to know, what do you all think about where it is right now?

Because you saw it in such an interesting-- you were a part of it in such an interesting time.

Yeah.

What is it like to kind of be at this stage in your career and see it now?

That's a great question.

Well, like we were talking about earlier how the scene was when we started.

I mean, I was in school in Greenville.

Go Pirates.

Yeah, Pirate Pride.

And there was no music scene there.

So for me, it was kind of a big deal to be around the triangle.

And to me, it was exciting.

And so whenever I can, I try to go see bands play.

And it seems like there's still a lot of people playing live music.

I mean, it's a great way to get to-- especially after the pandemic and everything, it's really such a great activity for-- a communal activity.

It's nice.

So I mean, I don't know.

Hopefully, there will continue to be guys getting into the garage-- guys and gals going into garages and starting bands.

I think it's possible.

Yeah.

I mean, Duke, UNC, NC State, and so many other schools right here.

I mean, it's so fertile, this area, for that thing.

I got a son who's a senior at Chapel Hill now.

And I ask him because I'm oblivious, but who he's going to see and-- Yeah.

--who's taking off and who he likes and that sort of thing.

So I get some sense of that from him.

Yeah.

But left to my own devices, I'd just be staying put every night.

Do you all see live music together, you and your son?

Have, yeah.

What's that like?

It's great.

Big Star Tribute Band comes through, goes to the Cradle, and we're there.

And you have a number of other bands.

But it's gotten to the point now that when we play, say, at the Cradle, my son is coming out with like 20 or 30 of his buddies.

And again, there are young people in the crowd, which had not happened for a long time.

Yeah.

I never thought that that would happen again.

Yeah.

But it's the damnedest thing.

I mean, there are young people singing along.

Right.

And I have the same situation with my kids.

And my son brings his friends.

And my wife and I went to go see him perform at Local 506.

I was like, perfect.

But it is weird to see people in their 20s in the audience.

Yeah, it feels like-- It's nice, though.

It feels good.

It must be a very odd but really invigorating feeling, right?

I mean, your music has come full circle.

It's multi-generational now.

Yeah, I hope so.

It's well put.

Yeah.

And I have another son who's a junior at the University of South Carolina.

He's playing in a band, and they're pretty good.

Yeah.

Yeah, I want to see.

I can't wait to see those guys play.

Yeah.

Doing covers, but-- Starting out like y'all, right?

Yeah.

I think they did work up anyway.

Yeah.

But they play real music like the Band and Tom Petty and you name it.

The question that I like to ask everybody on this show is kind of tying it back to the title of the show.

It's asking you all sort of, in what ways do you think that you're shaped by sound?

I don't know what I would do without music.

I have to have it.

I mean, I can't imagine not being able to go in a certain mood, go to a certain song or album, and use it to brighten my mood or whatever.

Yeah.

But that's about as good an answer I can think of right now as far as how it's shaped me.

For me, I'm older.

I was born in '59, so I was well aware of the Beatles by, say, the second grade, third grade, and Stones and the Monkees and Dylan.

And so at a very young age, it was like, whatever these guys are doing, I want some of that.

I want some of that.

So I started playing guitar at an early age.

And it's been this thing all my life.

For me, initially, if it wasn't from England, I wasn't interested in it.

Well, maybe with the exception of Dylan and the Byrds and a few others.

But I even grew up in Macon, Georgia, a few blocks, a few miles from the Allman Brothers, where they were living and recording.

And all my buddies were--I since have come to appreciate and love that band.

But at the time, I wasn't moved by them.

But yeah, music has been the most vital part of my existence, since I can remember.

And then the punk rock movement happened at just the right time.

Thank God.

And that just kept me going.

Yeah, that's funny.

That's right.

You were more of a British listener, and you had the Allman Brothers' Wet Willie down the street.

Yeah.

That's funny.

And it's particularly really cool that you all were so big in Europe, and you're immediately drawn to, I would say, British music, but European music, right?

Like how interesting.

Yeah, I never even stopped to consider that.

Yeah, now that you mention it.

It comes full circle.

Yeah.

At this point in the conversation, I'd love to go through some of the songs, all of the songs that you're going to be playing for us.

And really just sort of maybe add some context to them, if you can.

One of the things that I think we really love is to kind of hear a story about what it is, what it means to you all, or why you put it into the set list, right?

And I can kind of go through the list here, if you all would be able to kind of tell us a little bit more about it and some thoughts there.

So I'll start out with the song "Seven."

Yeah, that was the last number, the seventh number.

That was the seventh song.

That was the one that kept its number.

Yeah, it did.

Kept its identity as a number.

I was really pushing for eight, but it wasn't going to happen.

Yeah.

So I came in with that song, with a vocal melody and the chord progression, which was pretty typical.

I would bring it into the band, and I would, as best as I could, try to sing it to them and teach it to them.

But that's one where Doug kind of took over the lyrics, which was not always the case.

You know, sometimes you have one of those dreams that's really super real, and you wake up and you don't know.

Right, yes.

I had one of those, and it was... It's like a lucid dream.

Very.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that's pretty, you know, it's about a friend who passed away.

It's still even when I sing it, you know?

Yeah.

That "knew that he was all right" lyric that he wrote, that's what that's all about.

Yeah.

I'm sure that sort of carries with you, too, like you were saying, right?

Oh, yeah.

That doesn't go away.

Yeah.

So I'm glad I did it.

I mean, I'm glad I'm still... And we're still playing it.

That's, you know... Yeah.

So, very personal.

Yeah, Doug.

That's the only song from that first record.

So the thinking was, you know, to represent, you know, as best we could across, you know, over the span of years or whatever.

Yeah.

Can you talk to us a little bit more about "Over There"?

Yeah, that's all me.

It's a good one.

Yeah, it's kind of... I wrote that sitting in my apartment in Raleigh.

It's an anti-war song.

"I'll decline when the sun sets over there."

What year would that be?

It would have been '86, and we recorded it in '87.

Yeah.

So what was inspiring, like, what was the inspiration specifically for that?

What was going on in '86, '87?

I don't know that it was that topical, necessarily.

It might have been more general.

Yeah, yeah.

Because that is an old war, you know, the song "Over There."

World War I. Oh, right, okay.

Yeah.

"The Yanks are Coming," "The Yanks are Coming," "The Drums Are Tumming Over There."

That's where the, you know, just the title came from.

Right.

Yeah, I'm going to try to avoid going into... Yeah, sorry about that.

But it does span, you know, decades.

Right.

If you want to look at it that way.

So, yeah, if that was '86... Right, yeah, second term.

'87, I'm thinking that was before Bosnia and Sarajevo and all that stuff.

Yeah.

The sentiment doesn't change.

Yeah.

The futility of war.

Right.

Yeah.

Would it be World War I or where we are right now?

Sure.

Right, right.

Yeah, and I'm a military history buff, so that played in, factored into it, I guess, to some extent.

Yeah.

Can you talk to us about Scottie's Lament?

You all are laughing, so this is going to be a good one, I think.

The title.

Well, so the opening part has that sort of... You were like playing that.

You were like thinking and playing it at the same time.

Yeah.

Has that sort of lilt, that sort of Gaelic, whatever type thing.

Yeah.

So it had this Scottish feel, and there was a song out about the potato famine in Ireland called Pattie's Lament.

Pattie's Lament.

Yep.

And it's just changed from Ireland to Scotland, and you've got Scottie's Lament.

There you go.

Working through history again.

Yeah.

But that's another one that was mostly facetious.

It's you, I swear.

It's you, I swear.

I delight in my despair.

Yeah.

And then in the lyric sheet, the record company got it wrong.

They have, "I delight in your despair."

And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's not at all what I'm trying to say here."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you find yourself telling that to people if they ask you about it?

Like, "It's the record company's fault.

It's not my fault."

I did explain that to a few people.

Yeah.

But it's the intro, right?

I mean, I don't remember how that-- Yeah, that's where the title came from.

I'm just saying, I don't remember-- I wish I could remember how you-- when that happened, when that-- just how you attached that to the beginning of the song.

This got in the intro.

I guess, was it always-- I thought that was something separate.

The intro part.

And that you just-- I don't remember how we did it.

I'm not entirely sure of what you're talking about.

The intro of the song is completely different from the rest of the song.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah.

That just-- it's just one of those things that happened in practice.

I don't know.

Yeah, it was-- it worked.

Yeah, it was just a weird-- Yeah, you couldn't sustain that initial thing for a whole song.

For too long.

Yeah, yeah.

It's exhausting.

I wouldn't be doing anyone any favors.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

What about "Carry My Picture"?

Can you tell us about "Carry My Picture"?

That's another one off of that record.

And as with so many of these songs, I really don't have a clear recollection of what I was thinking-- Yeah.

--or what my mindset was when I sat down.

I mean, for me, I was mostly just trying to avoid lyrics that I thought were too cliched or sentimental or trite or sappy.

And so that's just another example of that approach to songwriting.

Yeah.

And because it's a little more up-tempo, you know, it lent itself, I thought, maybe to-- to-- to play in-- Yeah.

--one of the six songs.

I'm curious, because you kind of mentioned earlier that, you know, a lot of what you're writing was sort of facetious.

Right?

So do you feel like that's sort of like kind of like a through line for a lot of your songs and songwriting, is that it's sort of comedy in a way?

Yeah.

I mean, it's-- it's-- it was my-- it's my-- I hear-- yeah, I hear it.

--trying to suggest not taking-- Don't take this too seriously?

--ourselves too seriously or myself or any of this-- Yeah.

--self-deprecating stuff.

Yeah.

And that kind of makes it feel like it has like an evergreen-ness to it, maybe.

Right?

Like, if you've read this song, do not take it too seriously, then you'll never take it too seriously-- Yeah.

--and always have fun with it.

Yeah, great point.

Yeah.

Maybe be more timeless that way.

Right, yeah.

But I hear stuff-- when Mike will play a new song, I'll be laughing, because I know what he-- you know, it's-- it's a great way-- it's a great way to go, you know?

Yeah.

And can you talk to us about '74, '75?

Yeah, I can.

There are not many songs that I remember kind of the moment at which the song started happening, but one morning in the winter of '91, just picked up the acoustic guitar, and that phrase, that A minor to C to G initial phrase, and that single note thing was-- it just suggested itself, and then it was just a matter of using that as a springboard-- Yeah.

--for the remainder of the song.

But the lyrics themselves-- so the numbers '74 and '75 were never meant to be about the years 1974 and 1975, even though that's the angle that Mark Pellington, who made the video, worked to great effect.

Right.

I mean, when he first presented the idea, it was like, "Oh, this is really corny, and it's never going to work."

Yeah.

But it did-- Yeah.

--to his credit.

So for me, it was because the numbers are sequential, and it's a failed relationship song, so the idea is that things had gone from point A to point B '74 to '75, and there's no going back.

Right.

So that was a song that did have some thought to the lyrics.

Yeah.

Was there something going on in your life at that time where you were like-- Yeah, a failed relationship.

Yeah.

[laughter] --and so it was just, "Hey, there's a new year here, and it's not carrying over," or what's that?

It's the end of that.

Well, that's across the Rubicon.

There's no going back.

Yeah.

And so that's just the best way--in a few syllables that might sing or might not sing, but that was the best I could come up with was those two numbers, which-- I think it worked.

--the syllables fit.

Yeah, they did.

It was metrically competent or whatever.

Yeah.

It's a really pretty song.

The German disc jockeys really were drilling him about that.

That song was about them.

I'm sure.

Yeah, they wanted some answers.

Well, thank you for answering it.

I'm sure you've had a lot of-- Yeah, again, people asking you about it, but we appreciate it.

Yeah, well, those wounds have healed.

Until I just rip the scab off of it for you.

Can you tell us a little bit about burial art?

Yeah.

What you got?

[laughter] That's a weird stab at writing.

It's a love song, which is kind of fitting.

One of the rare times that I try to write a love song, it's called "burial art."

Again, being maybe facetious here.

Yeah, totally.

But you like burial art, me too.

You've been falling apart, me too.

So that sort of--that angle.

Yeah.

And that's off the most recent record and the one that we had not made a record in about 20 years.

So Stedman's Wake.

Yeah.

You didn't write music there for a very long time, and then you do write this new album.

What was that like to kind of come back and play and make new things again?

I was excited.

I was ready to do it.

And you had some--I mean, I heard that song "burial art," and I thought, "Here we go.

This is--yeah, that's great."

So it felt like y'all again, in a way?

Is that what you're saying?

I guess.

We just hadn't recorded anything in so long.

Yeah, it was pretty daunting.

I bet.

But John Playmall, who was in the Pressure Boys and Sex Police, produced it.

And it was so great working with him.

And he is someone that can definitely put you at your ease.

And we went over to Durham to record.

So--well, we came over here to record.

So close proximity.

So the first time--I'm sorry.

I was going to say, the first time I ever had a fellow singer as a producer.

Usually, they're--a lot of producers are former drummers or guitar players or whatever.

So it was kind of cool for me in that regard.

But yeah, we enjoyed going over there.

We'd go over there when we could, right?

We weren't over there--most of the records we made in the past were done in one month somewhere.

Right.

So this was--we took our time.

Yeah, because a record company was sending us somewhere.

Oh, yeah, they gave us money.

And then you were on the road, touring, trying to write at the same time.

Yeah.

So, I mean, in 1990, TVT, we were either going to go to Memphis to record with Jim Dickinson, who'd produced our--Big Star's third record, and produced "Pleased to Meet Me," the replacements.

Wow.

Played piano on "Wild Horses."

Yeah.

He did.

That's cool.

So we'd go to Memphis with Jim Dickinson or to Wales, Rockfield Studios, with Hugh Jones, who'd produced Echo and The Bunnymen and Modern English.

So we were like, "Memphis, southeastern Wales.

Why don't we go to Wales?"

Yeah.

It was a good choice.

Yeah.

So, yeah, when a record company is paying for you to do that, there's no choice but to get in there and knock it out as quickly as possible-- Right.

--for obvious reasons.

Yeah.

And like Doug was saying, when we were doing it, paying for it ourselves on our own, it took a few years for that record to come together-- Right.

--just because you have to go out and play some shows to get enough money to pay for more studio time, that sort of thing.

Yeah, but you can really take your time.

We had nobody breathing down our necks.

Exactly.

So we talked about that a lot, and it was good to be able to do it that way.

Right.

Probably really refreshing from your previous experiences.

Yeah.

Well, thank you all so much for doing this.

I would like to just take this opportunity now to ask you all if there's anything else that you would like to speak to that I haven't maybe covered yet in our conversation.

Wow.

I mean, just great questions.

It's comprehensive.

I can't think.

Go Pirates?

Yeah, sure.

They're just so horrible.

Purple, gold.

I do want to thank you and y'all for being here and what you do.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's amazing.

It's awesome.

It's an amazing setup, and the production value and everything is incredible.

Well, this day and age especially.

Right.

The fact that y'all are here is crucial.

It's awesome.

So thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you all for saying that.

I appreciate it.

I do want to just ask the room and anybody else who's watching us record if there's a question that they have that they'd like to ask, because we have, like I said, a lot of Connell's fans here who are watching.

So if there's anybody that's got anything, let me know.

I got a little one.

Okay, yeah.

Even though I'm going to ask it, answer to James.

So just to keep.

Nick has got a question.

He's a producer and director here.

Okay, go for it, Nick.

And I can restate it too, sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Why stay in North Carolina?

What kept y'all here?

I'm sure y'all had the opportunity to move on to other bigger cities or different cities.

Why North Carolina?

Why stay here?

I'll restate that question just in case we couldn't hear it.

So the question from Nick is why would you all stay here where you could have so many other places you could have gone?

So by here in North Carolina specifically.

Well, when we started, the whole independent music scene, scenes throughout the country were, you got Austin, you got Boston, Athens, Minneapolis, Chicago.

It just seemed to make sense to stay put and I didn't want to go anywhere.

I don't know about you.

I didn't want to go anywhere.

I love North Carolina.

I love the triangle in North Carolina.

Yeah.

But what Doug was saying, I mean, REM had demonstrated that, I know ultimately they moved to parts further west and stuff, but the fact that those guys stayed in Athens for as long as they did, their Southern band started playing small clubs.

They paved the way for a lot of not just Southern bands, but... A lot of bands, yeah, bands throughout the country.

They blew things wide open.

Yeah, right.

They, you know, we just had to look to REM and say, well, you know, if they can stay put, they can stay home.

Why not us?

Yeah.

It's a good question.

It is a great question.

Thanks, Nick.

Is there any other questions?

Is there more?

I think that's all.

Stevie Nicks questions.

Stevie Nicks.

Well, if there isn't any other questions, thank you all again for being here.

Thanks for having us.

We're massive fans and just, it's so special to have you here.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And yeah, it's been great talking to you.

Thanks very much.

Great interview.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Thanks for joining us on the Shaped by Sound podcast.

If you'd like to hear some of the songs we discussed today, you can find them on our website, pbsnc.org/shapedbysound.