287. - David Lovering (The Pixies)

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. Hi, Chris. Oh, wow. He's up. He's up today. I'm up. Damn, Jason, did you... I'm up. Gushy voice. What have you ingested today? Have you ingested some... some just coffee or is there some super foods in play i mean good guess adaptogenics and super foods are both in play right now chris oh so he's he's absolutely fucking flying this motherfucker's in a helicopter he ain't crashing on the train tracks either no i'm i'm mixing my supplements i got the ladder and the layered in me the double l the low hand so you're saying you mix the ladder what do you do you cut the layered with the ladder because i told you earlier it's funny you bring this up because i was ideating with friend of the show andrews okay on on you know because tinned fish is really hot right now even though i find it disgusting tinned fish but the there's been a you know there's been a lot of tinned fish in the news hot girls eating tinned fish etc etc and you find it to be disgusting i mean it's it's like i guess if i was like a stowaway on a boat and that was the only rations that i had i guess i would if i was only allowed to eat saltines and some sort of fish aren't really at the top of my list for appetizing snacks. I can't say I disagree. Sure, more power to you, but we were thinking kind of a how-long-gone version of this would be if the tin, which the tins are cool. We can all agree that the tin looks cool as a vessel for delivery, and it has a nice...

sheen to it it has kind of a nice history it kind of looks you know vintage as some would say yeah somebody was like all right this fan this can of fancy feast looks good exactly but we need to make a different all right instead of a circle let's do an oval and then boom 27 dollars for the hand cured albacore but when you get the how long gone 10 fish and you crack it inside is actually ladder pre-workout just pre-workout just powder in a tin can Exactly, because we were talking about cocaine coming in vials. This is kind of like that vibe. Okay. Because we're used to protein powder or pre-workout coming in these large bags with a scoop or maybe a single serve if you're trying to kill the environment like me. And we need to think about the delivery vessel because we're kind of brand guys. We're into marketing and stuff. I'm a packaging slut. Exactly. I think that this is an opportunity for how long gone to disrupt yet another. failing industry there's a call i have a call out please so when you have the the the pre-workout powder either in the uh the bro tub or the bro bag well you're thinking of creatine because i know that's your go-to i do have creatine on the mind as i am trying to bulk up for winter season as i uh and i managed to do that without even trying this year unfortunately but it comes it comes in a container You know, 180 ounce. Yeah, it's large. You know, it looks like a five gallon bucket. And so that's going to last you, you know, days, if not weeks. Yeah. And the problem with the tin is once you crack it open. That's pretty much it. So are we doing single serving? No, much like cat food, you can buy, you know, you can buy, let's say you can buy a 36 pack, you know, on Amazon. And yeah, they're single serve, but it's much. Okay, single servings, but okay. So Chris said. I mean, you guys are doing an okay job at killing the environment. I am going to really show you guys how it's done. See, and this is where, of course, you're mistaken. And as somebody who's on the front lines of sustainability, I'm aware that aluminum actually is great for recycling. Oh, you can recycle these?

Exactly, Jason. So not only are we saving the planet, we will not be taking the private plane to the board meeting for this company, but we will also be recycling all of the tin cans after we pop the top and get our pump on. When we go to NorCal for our meeting, we're going to travel by train, I'm assuming, just to kind of help things out. Yeah, that's fine. Maybe we'll take one of Elon's tunnels. I would prefer a tunnel or maybe a speedboat. But that seems a little more complicated, and there is gas involved in that. But I don't know how – I kind of just – this is fresh off the presses. Andrew has made this suggestion, and I said, you know, bro, I'm going to run with this. I didn't tell him I was going to do it on the program. The point of that is that if you talk to me about any idea that could be applied to how long gone for us to make money, I will take it from you. And I'll credit you on that. So you get a shout-out on the show, but you don't receive any monetary compensation. But we'll give you a really fat-ass shout-out. Yeah, you'll get a fat-ass shout-out. It'll be like 15 seconds of shout-out. Exactly, yeah. And I'll make sure that you get the first case after Jason and I, of course, and then our sponsored athletes. Yeah, and of course after costs. I think it would be interesting if we only sponsored disgraced athletes. You know what I mean? If we were like, you know what? Djokovic is kind of down on his luck. This has been a big deal. Let's send him a case of the How Long Gone Fish 10 pre-workout and see if that kind of lifts his spirits. And if it does, then maybe we could talk business. Is How Long Gone collaborative? pre-workout at the top of his wish list probably not but Djokovic knows as a champion a dub is a dub you know you get one under your belt and we go from there exactly so that all that does is drum up interest from the other competition and I think it's a I think it's a wise move for him I don't think he can afford not to partner with us and speaking of disgraced

athletes partnering with brands, a loyal goner sent me a DM saying, check this video out. And it was a video of known motocross X Games legend, Travis Pastrana. I'm sure you're familiar with his work, Chris. Of course. I love the X Games. That guy fucking rich. And I'm just, is Pastrana, is he maybe from where you're from? Or is that just a feeling I get? He might as well be. I don't know if he's, I can't confirm or deny. He could be from Arizona, but Arizona is merely an extension of Huntington. So that kind of makes sense. But he's, you know, for fans of energy drinks or motocross racing, you guys have known that he's maintained an endorsement deal with Red Bull for, what feels like 20 years. Like most of my life, Travis Pastrana has been whipping fucking badass tail whips. Much, much like, much like friend of the show, Ryan Sheckler. You could catch, you could, you could catch Pastrana in the, the Red Bull logo flat brim snapback, uh, in the, in the mid two thousands, collecting those big old, big old checks. Yeah. So the, the, the shock and surprise that I saw. when the cool video that Travis put out where it's him in his shed, and he's sort of saying, like, you know, I want to give a shout-out and a thanks to Red Bull after all these years of sponsoring me, but a change is coming, and he puts the Red Bull helmet on the shelf, and he dons a new helmet for his new sponsor. Chris, do you know who it is? I hope it's Monster. It is not Monster. It's something even better. Is it bang? Oh, my God, Jason. Is it Celsius? It's not. It's something that goes bang, but it's not bang. Is it the NRA? Even closer. It's black rifle coffee. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. So you're telling me that this guy's... Oh, my God, bro. So that means Black Coffee has enough money to cut this guy a giant check. Yes, absolutely. What if Black Rifle sponsors R&B DJ Black Coffee, though? Well, that's the big link-up we need. I don't think Questlove would like that too much, but what are you going to do? I don't think he would, and I don't know if their boards would really like aligning with the POC, but, you know, that's 2021. That is absolutely twisted. So in no surprise to anyone, that obviously...

reveal some of motocross star Travis Pastrana's political leanings, I would say. I don't think anyone saw it coming that motocross riders would be into nationalist views and gun rights. No, that's crazy. I mean, I'm very surprised by that. I'm proud of Black Rifle for having enough walking around money to flow. I mean, Pastrana, he's seen better days. You know, he's no spring chicken on two wheels. No, but he's a legend. He's a legend in the game like Pee Wee Kirkland. Yeah, you have to think of the – what's it called? The opportunity cost. That's something I learned about in community college. Yeah. I didn't know you actually went to any classes. I thought you just enrolled, but that's good to know that you kind of took something away from that. Yeah. Very good to know. So it's not a How Long Gone exclusive, but I'm sure we're breaking this news to a lot of people that Travis Pastrana has left. the uh red bull energy corporation and and taking his talents to uh black rifle racist coffee yeah if anyone at conde nass wants to uh get a quote from me you know you know where to find me my email is in my signature as well as my pronouns yeah he has his pronouns his email and of course his shoe size if any of you guys over at uh under armor have any 17s laying around you know where to find him yeah just email they them jeans and i will get back to you post haste That's really some cool news, though. The fact that Black Rifle is just like, we're going to sponsor whoever just because we need to find some racists that are popular is pretty wild business strategy. What on earth do they, what business do they have sponsoring a famous motocross driver? There's no connection to these two things. Yeah, I feel like people that race motocross professionally, they're like, coffee, ooh. Yeah. That's nasty. It doesn't taste like candy. No, they only have Red Bull or one of its main competitors. You know, I hate to palate shame extreme sports athletes, but... No, I mean, look, I think the skateboarding community, unless they're on the Street League tour, would have maybe the best, I would say the best palates in extreme sports.

I don't want to start a riff in the extreme sports community. I know we have a lot of listeners there. Maybe we'll get a top 10 extreme sports pallets list in the new GQ. Who knows? They've been working with athletes a lot. Sam Hine, can you get that going for us, please? I'll call you. If you don't do it, Jake over us. Wall Street Journal will do it. Wall Street will be all over this. We need a deep investigative piece on the best palates in extreme sports on our desk. Now that we've been featured in the Financial Times, it might end up finding a better home over there. Well, unfortunately, the FT is a little more European. I don't want to put words in there. accented mouths but i would have a feeling they might turn their nose up at extreme sports it seems very low rent and american in some ways you're right you know it's different but we do we do have a guest today um and he's into some extreme stuff as well not uh it's not wakeboarding thank god uh but uh david david lovering is the drummer of the legendary band the pixies uh he's also played for years with cracker many other artists but His interest in slapping the skins pales in comparison to his alter ego as a scientific phenomenalist, which is his brand of magic that he has perfected over the last 10 to 15 years. This guy's got so many wild interests, and I don't even know where to start, TJ. Yeah, I like it because on paper, one would assume that this is not Chris Bate. You know, he's a fan of unicycle riding cats, you know, magic, sleight of hand. These are all things that I love, and these are all things that maybe you might not be drawn to as strongly. Yeah, but, I mean, the beauty of this podcast is that sometimes I do it for you, but also, I mean, in this case. You know how many times I've been peeking on cocaine when the Pixies came on in MJQ in Atlanta in 2005? These memories run deep in all ways, and hopefully he can get us into the magic castle. Let's give David a big jingle. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince.

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is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app. using promo code howlong. Taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, so do our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world, writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly, a website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could, you know, have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools so those future graduates can find me. And, you know, I'm able to accept, quote, unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early. And we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more. So, head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. David, welcome to How Long Gone. Where are you coming to us from? I'm in Santa Cruz Valley, north of Santa Barbara. Okay, so you're kind of a NorCal guy. Okay, so you're up your way. So, I live in Glendale, California. You know where that is? Oh, yeah, because I...

I lived in Los Angeles probably 20 something years, longer than I grew up in Massachusetts. And then I moved up to Santa Ana Valley about eight years ago. So I'm very familiar with L.A. So if I were to drive to your house, it would be, what, three, four hours, something like that? It generally takes about two and a half hours to get up and back from L.A. But with traffic, you know, especially when I'm going down to L.A. Okay, so did you move up there for winemaking? You got a horse? What's going on? No, I wish. What it is is we were looking, you know, being a musician, I can live anywhere. It's pretty much. And I just could be near an airport. So my wife, we were looking for a place to live out of Los Angeles. And we have two children, 13 and 9, boys. And the impetus of it was school. So coming up here, Madonna Inn or whatever, just traveling through. And then friends up here also pointed this place out. Yeah, so it's a peace of mind here. I mean, I'm in a town where there's about 1,500 people, so I have to behave or else everyone is going to know I'm an asshole. Sure, sure, sure. No, I understand that. We act like assholes for public consumption three times a week, so we can't relate, but I understand where you're coming from. It's so small, tight-knit, and sleepy that you... In your mind, you're like, okay, I'm like a 60-year-old kind of dude who's chilling out. And in their mind, they're like, rock and roll, lifestyle, you know, coming here to... raise hell, party it, you know, trash the town kind of vibe. Is that, is that the energy that you could receive? Yeah. Being 60, you know, I've done all that. I have done, done it, done it, done it. And, uh, David was doing donuts behind the Walmart again. These little fucking, he thinks he's better than everyone here. When we, you know, back in the day when we would get rental cars to do recordings of place, I would be doing exactly, I'd be doing donuts and I took out a whole rental car, a whole wall of it, side, side, side of it and everything like that. But yeah. I've never, you know, as many cars as I've rented, I've never really, you know, pushed the limits because I had insurance. You know, and I kind of regret that of my, I've done some e-brake tricks, of course, but I've never really, you know what I mean? Because I feel like some people really, especially back in the day, you know, it'd be left to die almost. You know what I mean? It's funny. I bought a car once. One of my car, I don't know, after the PCs broke up, I bought a car. I bought a Toyota.

And I didn't realize I looked like it was a rental car. And I can imagine, oh, someone like me drove it and ran it to the ground. But the funny thing, I have a funny story about it. The trunk really smelled bad. It was just, it was death. It was death in that trunk. Stinky little trunk. It was a Toyota, it was a Corolla. That's what it was. And I had some British reporters that came over to the States that were doing an interview. And this was about 1990, I don't know, about 1995, somewhere on there, 1904, something like that. And we took a drive down on PCH and we're going up to Malibu because I was going to do some metal detecting. They were going to film me doing some metal detecting on the beach. So we're doing that. Take a note of that for later. Carry on. Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. Okay. Yeah, please. I have so many hobbies. It's crazy. But we were on the beach. We got back in the car. We're cutting down. I forget which road it is to cut back to Los Angeles. Not on the one. And all of a sudden a cop car gets behind me and a bunch of others get behind me. Tons of cop cars and they pull us over. And I'm like, I wasn't speeding. I know that I didn't do anything wrong. So the cops get out of the car with all their guns drawn, all guns drawn in my car. Two British guys in that seat, and they're shitting their pants. And I'm telling them, I'm reassuring them, I'm not a bad guy. I don't know what's going on. So the cop comes over the guard. I roll down the window. They're drawn. I have my hands up and everything like that. And they go, give me your car, registration, everything like that. It turns out. That car, which is a rental car, which had the old plates, it was a murder suspect. And that's why my trunk smelled so bad. It was probably because I killed someone and put it in the trunk. So they let me go and everything like that. Did you ever find out why your car smelled so bad? Yeah. Decomposing corpse. It's turned out that's what it was. Yeah. I mean, but good story for the British press. He's like, hey, you know, Scotland Yard, we're behind us, guns drawn. Yeah. That's crazy, man. I mean, hopefully you were expunged of all the charges and you're a free man now.

Oh, yeah. I mean, there were no charges. They knew it was mistaken identity, and that car was something that I bought. Yeah. You done any jail time, David? Well, this – no. I haven't, but I've got a drug story kind of almost there. But can I go with that? Oh, hey. We share drug stories on this podcast very often with ourselves and guests. It's welcome. It's welcome. Well, I'm a magician as well. I do magic, and I'm a professional magician. I used to do a stage show called Scientific Phenomenalist, where I wear a lab coat and I just do science experiments, physics things. And a lot of the stuff that I bought, I would do real crazy experiments. So I was doing that. I've been a magician for years and I was touring. I was opening up for Frank Black and the Catholics. That's what it was. I opened up for a few bands with my act. And before I left from California, I bought about an ounce of weed with me. And I was driving to the first gig or some gig. I don't know. No, it wasn't the first gig. We were doing gigs. And we were going through. I was on the 10. And it was about 2 or 3 in the morning. And I was going through Hudspeth County. And if you go through the 10 through Texas, you're going to see a giant agricultural stop. Giant lights across the 10 freeway. So I'm coming up on that and the lights are flashing. And I'm thinking nothing now. It's an agricultural. Guy comes over with a German shepherd and the German shepherd starts jumping all over my car. So immediately they tell me to pull my car over there. They pull me out of the car. And I am looking at a sheriff, an officer. And I can see my car in the distance. The officer is facing me. And I go, he goes, do you have anything on you? And I go, yeah, I have a one hitter. Automatically. Boom. And it's behind my back. Cops on. He goes, do you have anything in the car? And I look at the car and I can see, this is no joke. And I mean, I was only being honest. And my suitcase was out of the car. It was on the ground. And I said, no, I don't. Because I could see it. And the thing was, I didn't put it in my suitcase. It was in my backpack in the car. So right after I said that, the guy just pulls out the ounce and slaps it on the roof. I'm like, well, you lied to me. And I swear I wasn't lying.

I thought it wasn't a thing like that. It was semantics. It was just, gosh. So they brought me inside. This is getting good. So they brought me inside. I got you on the technicality. And they sit me down. It's one officer facing me. And he starts going, what are you doing? I go, I'm a magician. I go, well, why can't you get out of the cuffs right now? All those typical things. And I'm just, yeah, yeah. So after a while, conversing with the guy, he knew I was a good guy. I wasn't any danger or anything like that. So I said, you want to see a magic trick? He goes, sure. So I did a magic trick. It wilded him. He said, hold on. He got on his intercom or his walkie-talkie, and he said, All you guys, all sheriffs, come on. And they closed, they turned off all the lights on the tent to stop the agricultural stop. All the sheriffs came in. Wait, this is all, this is all, this is not in like the, you didn't get taken to a police station. This is still at that agricultural stop. Still at the agricultural stop inside the building there. So they're all saying the only thing, you know, you're fine here. The only guy you've got to impress is Hudspeth County, the sheriff. The main guy whose jurisdiction is that area who is on his way coming. And he knows his magic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the heat is on. So I get all the sheriffs in there before the Hudspeth County guy comes, and I have them all cough up $20. So they all cough up $20, and I take a deck, I shuffle it, and what they do is I give them the deck, and they're able to deal down as many cars as they want. When they stop, they put a $20 bill, and they put the deck on top. They give it to the next person, blah, blah, blah. It goes along like that. So that's what I did. And then I spread the deck, and it turns out every – $20 bill that they put in was next to an ace. They're all going crazy like that. All of a sudden, the guy walks in and he goes, where is it? They give him my weed, which was in a brown paper bag.

And he opens up the paper bag. He looks at it and he takes a sniff. And he looks at me and he goes, yeah. He just shifts his teeth like up and down with his head like, yeah, this is good stuff. And I'm like, okay, yeah. So he comes over and I do a trick where he signs a card. And it just, no matter where it is, it keeps coming to the top of the deck. It just comes to the top of the deck. Cool, cool, cool, cool like that. I walk out of there that night. paying a $500 fine. That was it. And my charge was carrying paraphernalia, which is a smoking implement. That was it. So I got out of there. They absconded. They smoked the rest of the ounce when I left. Yeah, they definitely smoked. So you're saying magic kept you out of jail is what we're saying. Yeah, it did. Magic has been an amazing thing in my life. I did magic when I was a kid. You know, that kind of elementary school kind of one kind of show kind of thing. I never thought if you told me, you know, much later in life, you'd be a magician. I would be rolling on the floor laughing. I would never, never have figured I'd be one. But probably around 1995, I went to a magic convention in Los Angeles with a friend of mine, a musician, Grant Lee Phillips. and he was a magician as well. Okay, so he was already into the dark arts of magic. Yes, yeah. Okay. And he kind of got me into it, and we thought we'd go together. So we go to this convention, and a guy showed me a magic trick, and it blew me away. It was the first professional trick that just stunned me, where it wasn't a kid's trick or something. And at that point, it changed my life. I had to learn everything. I bought every book, every video. I took classes. I joined the Magic Council. I did everything to become a professional magician. And it changed my life in the terms of I was a shy guy growing up. And magic, I mean, even with the Pixies, you know, I'm sitting behind a drum set. I have four people in front of me. I'm in front of, what, 100,000 people at a festival. I'm not nervous at all because I have people in front of me. It doesn't faze me. But my first magic show I did in front of 10 people.

And I could have wrung my T-shirt out and filled a Dixie cup with sweat. It was so nerve wracking. But doing magic over these years, I've been doing it since 1995 professionally. And it's given me confidence. It's given me a confidence to deal with people and talk, you know, because you have to engage people and you have to go up and do that part of it. That seems like a big part of it, actually. Yeah, it's massive. It changed me completely. And I got to say, you know. When the Pixies got back together, I was in a band and I was a magician. Magic did better with the women than a band, I'll tell you that. Oh, dang it. Because, David, you were just kind of shitting on a joke that I really had planned where it was like, yeah, sure, magic, it's going to get you out of a pinch with the fuzz or something like that. But I don't suspect it's drumming up a ton of pussy. But you're saying, oh, the contrary. The contrary. Absolutely. I mean, I can't tell you. No shit. I can't tell you. I mean, a lot of the magicians we know are considered legendary stickmen. If you think, you know, if you think about it, Copperfield was known. You know, that's like he was not to go start at the top, but something to think about. That's a good point. And he didn't play drums either. He just did magic. He just did magic. Okay, so this is giving some hope to young magicians out there in the community, I'm assuming, because that, you know, like you were saying before, like, I was a shy kid, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like, that's sort of, if you're hearing an interview with a magician, it's a similar tune that you hear. Absolutely. You know, I didn't have a lot of friends, you know. The cards became my friends, and I was able to impress people with my tricks. And I got, you know, that was my end. For me, it was comedy. For Chris, it was cocaine. So we all have our thing that we, you know, we use to break in when we, you know, when we're not, you know, supermodels or captains of the football team. You got to do something to get your little ding dong wet. And you found the gift of magic. And it was completely blind. I mean, I had no clue. I had no clue. But wow.

I mean, I wish I did it when I was in high school or elementary school. You're like, yeah, I was in, ever heard of the Pixies? And she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Could you, could you? Make that nine of diamonds disappear again. So if you're doing, where does, you know, because obviously we understand how bands work. You know, you start a band, you practice, maybe you record, you play some shows, you record, you play some bigger shows, et cetera. Is magic the same trajectory? Is it like you practice, then you play shows, and those just get bigger and bigger? Is that how it works? No, if I should preface it by saying I think both Chris and Jason that. To be in a band, you've got to be good. I wouldn't say you've got to be good. You've got to have something that's different. There's got to be something interesting about it. And I think it's with magic. It's the same thing with anything. You've got to be kind of different in a way that'll catch people's attention. I'm sure you've got to be skilled and good at depth at what you're doing. But you've got to bring something else to the table. You've got to have a hook. You've got to have an angle. And yours was the gift of science, which I've got to say doesn't sound like a penny dropper, but I'd like to hear more. But, you know, I toy with every, you know, magicians, when you do a stage show, you know i had done card magic is my favorite i love card magic and but to do a stage show if you're going to make money this was at a time when the pixies broke up when i was looking at a new career and i don't think magic was the greatest choice to pick but um to do a stage show and before i got before i before i developed my stage show i was thinking of the naked magician the uh the lawyer magician all these kind of um How would you say? Characters, which a lot of magicians take. They take on characters. And the only character that I think is the best is you. Thank you. The character of me is basically I'm a nerdy physics drumming magic guy. And I love science. So what better thing than to actually pretend to be the naked guy or the lawyer magician or the Jewish magician or whatever like that, to be the scientific anomalous, which is something I know all about, and it's me.

And I think that was an epiphany to me that opened up that whole world and it made it much more comfortable and a direction to follow, which was much easier being myself. Now, that makes sense. It's just like, hey, I'm a magician. The world is your oyster. There's too many possibilities. You get wound up in your mind. But if you focus on I'm going to be a Jewish lawyer magician or I'm going to be whatever it is, then you have a place to start and then you can go from there. Yeah. But you want to be yourself. That's the key. You've got to be yourself. You've got to be yourself, really. That's good life advice. Yeah, that's good life advice. You can apply that to any career, really. Yeah. When you're opening, because we did a podcast tour this year. And it was pretty successful. And we were like, man, it would be cool if we opened for a big band, like a big tour. Yeah, yeah. Because that's something that comedians have done. But you're saying that there was a time when magicians were opening for bands, or is that something you paved the way for? Well, no, it was just me. I'm just talking about me. I had my connection, of course, with the Breeders and some other bands. Of course. Just bands in general. And I was in the music world, so people knew me, and I was a much different kind of opening act than a rock band. So that's what worked. I mean, I was even asked, I actually went to, I did the All Tomorrow's Parties Festival in England. I actually, they asked me to go over there and do that. And I was the only non-musical act. It was only myself and Fred Arminson. And we were the only two non-people. We would go on, and everyone else was in a band, and we did the shows there. Fred's also a drummer, isn't he? He is, yes, yeah. And it's funny, he asked me to do, I did Seth Meyers one week, I don't know, a couple, three years ago, whatever, I had to fill in for him. And that was a joy. That was a lot of fun. That's cool. Very cool. I mean, this gives us hope, is what I'm saying to you, David. This gives us hope that there are audiences that would want to hear us talk for 25 minutes before their favorite band comes on. Even though we're probably not quite as compelling as Magic, I feel like we could keep people engaged. Jason, I don't know if you feel as confident as I do. Yes and no. But I'm kind of curious because even though you said,

you were able to kind of break in and open for some bands and open some festivals and tours and things like that because you already had these relationships. Was it still a little weird? Because I figure if you're like, hey, breeders, is it okay if I do my science experiment magic before your concert? Are they just like, oh, yeah, you're our friend. That sounds awesome. Go for it. Do it. Or are they a little hesitant? No, I think everyone has asked me. They've seen it. They know what I was about. So they've done it. And the funny thing about it, I got to say this, was, I mean, I was touring, especially on the Frank Black tour, which is a lot of the U.S., I could do no wrong, really, because everyone knows what the pictures are. Yeah, that's a good point. Even if I sucked, it didn't matter. Yeah, it didn't matter. Damn, that's not like that. When you were doing that, were you also playing drums for him at the time? Only on one gig. We were in San Juan Capistrano at the, I think it was the Coach House. I did the gig. I did the opening. And then their drummer fell sick. And he had to leave for, I think, the last two songs. And we actually got up there. We played. yeah we played gouge away which is a pixie song which i hadn't played in years because this was before the reformation and uh yeah yeah so it was an interesting uh interesting night so so black francis is like does anybody in the crowd know how to play pixie pixies on drums and you're like and then the funny thing was i played gouge away probably not i played a little faster than usual and they're all like wow that was rocking fast we loved it It worked out. So you're doing magic, doing your thing, and then you get a call like, hey, we're getting the band back together, and you're like, hell yeah, or you're like, damn, I'm just getting into my magic flow. No, correct. It's funny because at that point, like I said, magic wasn't the greatest career to pick. So you're saying the Pixies Festival headlining gigs were paying more than the Tuesday open mic in Van Nuys? You bet, you bet. You know, you've heard of the starving musician, right? Yeah, yeah. Now, the starving musician, you know that name, but there's the dying magician. That's the other. Oh. You guys dream to starve. Yes. David, it's pretty cool that you found someone to marry you with your career choices, I have to say. You've been lucky. Because you have a lot. I mean, you must have something going on, you know, in terms of game.

As it were, because if you look at your list of interests, no offense, but we got metal detecting, unicycling, magic. It's an uphill battle in terms of finding a suitor. Am I wrong? These aren't traditional. They're not traditional interests. My question is, David, how big is your dick? Because something's going on here. No, what it is is I have a lot of free time. That's what it is. I mean, I've done metal detecting since I was a kid. And I've been into electronics since I was a kid as well. Music I've been in since I was a kid. unicycling i've been in since i was a kid in a lot of ways you're living the dream you truly are an adult and you're living your childlike existence but you get your shit you have responsibilities now and you still get a family i have to provide i've got work and stuff like that but i've got a lot a lot of hobbies that i love and um yeah i've got to fit them in somehow well this this metal detecting you know i i The first question I have to ask is, it seems like something people do because it's kind of like meditative and you're spending time outside. Is that accurate? Absolutely. Fresh air, a little time away from the old battle axe. Am I right, David? Yeah. I can't think of anything that I would love more than being in an idealistic place. Now, you're usually outdoors in a very nice place. No one around. You have headphones on and you have a slight tone in your head. And it's just, it's peace. It's peace. And Jason, correct me if I'm wrong, this seems like something I could see you getting into. Definitely. It definitely does. I mean, thank God Radio Shack closed down. Otherwise, I'd be in trouble because that little beeping sound, that's kind of God's click track in a way, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I mean, I know that tone by heart. And Radio Shack, I cried relentlessly. Radio Shack was my savior. I mean, I worked there. I actually have a ruby pen. from working at Radio Shack for six years. That's the Radio Shack version again, the Rolex, right? Yeah, yeah. And Radio Shack was near and dear to me. I mean, Radio Shack, I'm sorry the way it went. It just got out of electronics and went the wrong way. But that killed me. It killed me. Don't blame yourself, David. But so if you're out here, you know, you're out here on the beach, you got your headphones on, you got your machine out.

Let's talk about your take-home pay from this kind of work because it seems like it's like a bird watch. You're spending a lot of time. It's a lot of time. Have you pulled in some treasures? I grew up in Massachusetts, and that was the epiphany. got into it because of the history of the area that i grew up in oh i see okay so i have coins from 1720s all the way up to current date all from i mean i have tons i have a bag like a bank bag filled with silver silver and copper and nickel all old oh old i'm talking yeah nothing new i'm talking the 1800s 1700s early 1900s all those coins That's what I found in Massachusetts because it's old there. When I moved here to California, which I've lived longer in my life than Massachusetts, the beach was the only place that I could hunt here because it's old, but it's not that old compared to where I was hunting before. So I bought an underwater detector and I was hunting the ocean every single day down in Santa Monica. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on, hold on. So you put on the wetsuit and like the tank? Well, I have a snorkel. I have a snorkel, a wetsuit, and an underwater detector. And I worked all of Santa Monica, all that beaches for years and years. And I have tons of jewelry, tons of wedding bands, watches, rain, you name it. That's what it is. I don't look for coins here. I look for gold and jewelry at the beaches. So do you sell this stuff? Do you just keep it? No. I keep it as a dowry or to show and tell. And I actually know every single one where they came from. If you're going up the 101, there's these kind of pull-offs on the road. You can see these beaches you can go down and park. And I pulled off on one one time. And a tour bus pulls up with Russian tourists. And I'm out on the beach. And the problem with hunting around California is people always, what are you doing? What are you doing? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You catch anything? Yeah, yeah. I wanted to put on like a nuclear suit and look like I was testing the water so no one would come near me. But anyway, I'm hunting and all these Russian tourists come around me. They didn't know what I was doing. And I get a signal and I dig down and I pull up a cocktail ring with sapphires and diamonds.

And they all just, it was crazy. Don't show some stolen jewelry to the Russians. They'll get hard as a rock. Those guys love that show. That's kind of their beat. That's kind of their beat, you know. And then years ago, one time I had frequent flyer and I went to Hawaii. I went to Maui on a frequent flyer. And I stayed in the cheapest hotel on the island. And I rented the cheapest rental car. And every day I would leave and for two hours I would work. and the water in front of every four- and five-star hotel on the aisle. Okay, smart. So I was there for seven days. I worked 14 hours. In 14 hours, I took home 20 men's wedding bands, big, gold, funky ones, right? and oh my god i am i'm i'm kind of getting i'm kind of getting upset because i'm not finding diamonds where's the engagement ring so all i'm finding is some bullshit yeah this is bullshit yeah the last day i get my 21st ring it's an engagement ring but it had been in the water so long that diamonds had been knocked out of it i mean i can't think of anything more ironic oh that's that's okay so you you got 20 Wedding bands. Yeah. And then you just throw them in a bag and put them in your closet. That's it. Bye-bye. You know, I have a little safe here and I have all my treasures in it. And when people come over, I just take them all out and just show them all. Okay. Does your wife ever be like, maybe we can start selling a couple of these guys? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a nice, how would I say? It's a nice savings for a rainy day or something like that. A little nest egg. Have you ever considered cashing those coins in? And then getting you a little Bitcoin? Yeah, yeah. The only thing I've thought about was taking all the jewelry and buying a smelt and melting it down into just a giant piece of gold bullion. Well, you got two kids, and after talking to you for 30 minutes, I can tell they're Ivy League candidates, and that's not cheap. You know what I mean? That's not cheap. I hope so. It's something to keep in mind because these scholarships, it's tough. It's very competitive. I pray for scholarships. So have you ever found – because you're saying all this stuff, and you're kind of like, oh, I just found all these wedding rings and things. These are like –

very personal heirlooms for people's lives, and you're kind of speaking about these things with a lack of sympathy, perhaps. What's the logic there? You're just a cold-hearted snake? What's going on? I'm desensitized. What it was was originally, I thought there was a calmer in finding a wedding ring. I have to return it or something like that. But I found so many, and I can't. And it's just like I've given up. If you're going to lose them. Hey, you're not going to post on Craigslist like, found, diamond ring. Is it yours? Come pick it up. Yeah, I'm not being, I don't mean to be a bad guy about it. It's just, that's what I, you know, it's just. No, that's fair. It's another, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Nobody assumes that you're a bad guy. How many of those rings, how many of those rings in Hawaii do you think were thrown off the balcony in a fight? No, that's true. I can only imagine the rings that were thrown because of disgust or something that happened. There's got to be a small percentage of those that are. Yeah, I would imagine there would be. You'll get there one day, Chris. Don't worry. I'm just going on detecting stories, but I had someone, a friend of mine asked me. He had lost his ring in his yard while he was gardening. So I brought my detector over there, and I get asked this all the time. Someone's like, oh, wait, I got a guy. I'll get a lovering over here. Yeah, call lovering. He's off this week. Honestly, honestly. He's not cheap, but he's good. So I go over to this guy's house, and I'm going through the yard, and I'm not finding anything. All of a sudden, I get a signal. I dig down, and I pull up a gold ring. Like, here we go. We got a hit. It's not his. It was somebody else's from the previous owner. So I get, okay, I get to keep that. And then I look around, and I finally found his ring. And his ring was amazing. He's a German guy. The ring was, imagine a wedding band that goes around, but it's not connected. There's a diamond that is connecting them that is just held there by the pressure. It was absolutely stunning. So it was one for you, one for him. Yeah. Give and take. I mean, so how many guns have you found? That's the real question. I found an old, like I say, in Massachusetts, I found a lot of weaponry, revolutionary. I have a lot of them. Oh, okay, okay. So when you're on the 101, though, you're not finding like a discarded 9mm? No, no.

But if anyone cops want to call me, I'm available. You know, after your last story about the body and the trunk, you know, I'm starting to, yeah, I'm wondering about what this guy's really doing, Jason. This drumming thing sounds like a cover. Yeah, you're like the Zodiac detector. You're trying to give us clues. And we're on to you, David. I mean, so you do this, so people will hire you to do this or you do it for fun or both? Just for fun. Okay, okay. No, if someone asks me, especially a friend. I'll do anything for a friend. I've been asked many times on the beach to come to my house. I have to find this. I can't do that. I can't do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if it's someone I know, absolutely, I'll accommodate. It's so interesting because we've all grown up going to the beach and seeing the metal detector guy. Yeah. Speaking of, how often are there metal detector gals? There are a few. Not as many. A very small percentage on the beaches. community like is there like a reddit community there is a facebook group okay i'm just i'm just wondering which one you're a part of you know uh i'm on i have a i have about seven or eight detectors um they're all different types um and i'm on groups for all of them as well as oh just metal detecting groups uh to you know just to talk and talk about your finds and you know research is is is key You have to research and to turn over what you want to hunt, you have to research. And once you have all that information. And you know what you're looking for. You take the detector or just throw a bunch in the car. How much do these things run? Like, what's the price range? I would say if you want to get a quality one, you're spending $[redacted address] to $3,000. Okay. All right, Jason. So, you know, your birthday is – I got some time to save my ducats. Yeah. So, David, I'll hit you up for some recommendations. But I could see this. No, a lot of the – sorry, really quick. kind of coming through in terms of you got to have different hooks for different streams. And, you know, the only difference is with fly fishing, you just lose thousands of dollars. And with metal detecting, you could possibly be making thousands of dollars. Yeah. And Jason, I should say, if you do get one, being in Glendale, I think.

You know, on the land there, if you have permission to hunt, I mean, Los Angeles is old. There are places that are old there, especially homesteads that you can find there. It might be old. You'll find coinage there. But I think the best thing for you, if you're going to get a detector, I would get an underwater or a beach detector. Yes, let's go. He needs this. He has a lot of free time. A lot of free time. And what's wonderful about a beach detector is, you know, if you're on the land and you get a signal, you've got to dig a hole and you've got to kind of go down. On the beach, it's sand. It's so easy to dig down using a scoop or something or a sift kind of thing to find something. So it's a lot easier job to find. And once you learn to do your detector, you can hone and know those signals. You know what a coin is. You can tell the tone of a ring. So you can sit there and all these detectors also have discrimination. So they can cut out the pull tabs, cut out the nails. Oh, wow. You're only getting the good stuff. Okay. So you can get this thing dialed in like one of your. One of your Pearl snares. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe you're a Ludwig guy. Who are you sponsored by? I'm a Gretsch guy, but I got Pearl. I got a lot of them. I got them all. This is, yeah, this is fascinating. I have to say, I think that I really do think this would be a good hobby for Jason. Yeah. I think we could be on the cusp of a renaissance of metal detecting because, you know, the height of it was what, in the 80s probably when the technology became kind of. More consumer-friendly? Well, actually, the height of it is now. Oh, COVID. The COVID effect. It's like tennis. It's a solo sport. And I wouldn't say technology. I would say because of the press, you know, media and things about metal detecting. There's a show called The Detectorist that's been on in Britain, which was huge. It was a show that I watched, and I actually cried. I actually cried watching. I cried watching The Detectorist because it's not only about The Detectorist. Of course. It's human interaction and stuff like that. Wow. It was an awesome show. Are you saying that metal detecting is also about the friends you make along the way, David? Yeah. Fuck me. Yeah, I got to say. Isn't it funny how only the British can be like, we've got a show where we fix up old cuckoo clocks, and then by the end of it, you're just like, God damn it. Awesome show. Awesome. Honestly.

honestly david it's so it's so nice to hear about any tv show that's not succession right now that i i'm i'm willing to pay extra for the bbc this month right on well uh speaking of film and television i was actually just thinking what we know we we like to talk a lot on the show with when we have band members and musicians about different syncs that they get for musical things, but I don't necessarily need to do a sync talk with you, but I'm more curious about the Pixies bump when Fight Club came out and you guys had a real... What happened to the Pixies at that point for you guys? That was crazy because I'll preface it by saying this. My mom knows everything I've done. It wasn't until I was on whatever late night show. Leno or Letterman or whatever. Yeah, something I was on. that was the point that I made it to my mom. That was on TV. That was the point I made it to her. So Fight Club, I'm just kind of simulating it on that level. It's the same thing. There's so many people that know where is my mind of the Pixies just because of Fight Club. Basically, everybody younger than Chris and I, that was... very often their first introduction to the pixies uh-huh yeah yeah and then and then that that turned that song which is a song that you guys have you know recorded i don't know however many years before fight club came out 80s yeah from the 80s 87 86 or yeah not unlike uh you know buried treasure in the sand it's just like hey guys we we made where is where is my mind you know 30 years ago why weren't you guys liking it then now it's like you know they It's like the ultimate song to play at the end of a movie, even if it's happy or sad or, you know, like a Marvel movie or whatever. It's just like so poetically perfect. And it's like, you guys, it's been sitting here the whole time. It's funny because, I mean, it was just astounding, I would say surreal. Yeah. This movie comes out, and it increased our, I would say, our demographic.

would say yeah that'd be the word as far as people that knew about the pixies just because of a movie and that was stunning that was just wow you guys you guys are one of those weird bands though that i feel like also is just kind of cool forever and for everyone. And it, and like, it's just going to, there's going to be peaks and valleys in the career like that, where, you know what I mean? Where it's like, we've been, we've been around for a long time. It's a record that your older brother might give you kind of vibe. You know what I mean? It's like kind of, there's like, you know, really there's like 10 or 15 records that feel like that, that, that like, I didn't have an older brother, but that kind of sentiment, you know? So I think if you've been around long enough, it's, you know, it's, it's what's happening with TikTok right now, to be honest. It's like you, bands are fully dormant and a song gets big again. And then it's, you know, you have a second life, you know, and it's bigger, it's bigger than it ever has been. I think that like TV and movies were the only thing that could do that with our, with our generation. Now there's a lot of places, but you know, commercials, I mean, even commercials like the Feist era of one, two, three, four, and like the Apple commercial, that's, that's over now too, I think. That doesn't happen the same way it used to either. It's just interesting to see the different phases. Yeah. The new commercial now is Noom or whatever like that. It's Where's My Mind. Oh, you're in the Noom. Oh, shit. I love it. I love it. It's the one about weight eating or something or eating food. Yeah, yeah. But I got to tell you something, Chris, Jason. If the Pixies are on the radio or on TV, somebody is going to tell me because I have no – I can't tell. I can't hear it. Well, I was just going to ask because, like, yes, all this stuff happens and it's in movies and TV shows, but you don't really get a chunk of that because Frank Black's taking all of it, right? Well, in that level, too, we share it, but I'm just talking about sonically. Oh, you're just too, you've heard it too many times.

No, I mean, the Pixies could be on the radio, and somebody's going to tap me and go, hey, that's you, and it's just I don't hear it. Really? I can't explain it. It's on TV. My son said, hey, isn't that your song? And I'm like, what? And I'm listening. Oh, yeah. That's interesting. That's happened to me every once in a while. It's not necessarily a song that I made, but just like a song that's a big part of your life or whatever from a long time ago, and you hear it in a hotel lobby or you hear it or wherever, and you're like, I don't know what the song is, but I know this song. It's in my DNA. Something about it. Making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. But it's weird. You wrote a song. You drummed on it. You sang on a couple of Pixie songs. And it could come on. And you're just like, that's music. What do you think that is? Are you repressing old memories? No, I don't think it's because of hate of playing it so many times. I think it's just... I mean, I love music. I know. I can hear. I hear everything. But for some reason, maybe I think it's cacophony, or I just don't discern that it's the Pixies. I can't explain it. I don't know. I kind of feel the same way as you, and one theory that I have for the way my brain works is that... You seem like a very smart guy, electronics engineer, musical genius, so we're kind of two peas in the pod in that regard. And I like to think of my mind, pardon the pun, as a computer hard drive. It's a MacBook Pro, fully maxed out, of course, but the hard drive only has so much room in it, and you've got to... You know, you've got to empty that recycling bin every once in a while or else you won't have room for all the new files. And that's kind of, you know, that's the way I like to justify my onset memory loss as I've smoked and drank myself, you know, away. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I find myself, I mean, I'm 60 years old right now. I don't know if it's forgetting because of pot or whatever. I can't discern which one it is. But, yeah, there are some times I'm going to do something and what was I doing?

Of course. It's a little pot. It's a little age. I mean, you aren't traveling with an ounce. So, you know, it sounds like marijuana was your friend. The one hitter was merely a suggestion. Clearly you were doing something a little bit. So are you still enjoying the devil's lettuce? I do, but not as much as I do. It's only when I am not home, as far as being a parent and stuff like that. So when he's on the road, he's cutting loose a little bit. Exactly, yeah. As long as you're in a city and state where it's legal, of course. Of course, of course, of course. True, yeah. So you guys, are you touring this year? No, we've been, what happened, we've been off for two years. We had a world tour. We did a new album, and we were, this is in 2020. The new album was released in September, and we were starting to tour on it. We were supposed to play in February of 2020. China, then Hong Kong, and then Japan, and then New Zealand, and then Australia. Of course, China went down. And of course, Hong Kong went down. Then Japan went down. So we went to New Zealand. We did two shows in February and then heading into March. And then we got to Brisbane in Australia to do on a day off. And it was a day off. And I went out with the crew. And we just drank, drank, drank, drank all day from 11 o'clock to 1 in the morning. And at 3 o'clock in the morning, I got a text. We're leaving the country at 6 o'clock in the morning. I was like, oh. So that was it. That was the last time playing. The tour manager always takes the fun away. I tell you what. It's funny because I had a conversation with a friend of ours who was on the show, a musician named Kevin Morby, and he had a similar. They did a similar thing when he was on tour, and then he found out while he was in New Zealand or Australia that he was on a plane with the 70th case of COVID ever recorded. Whoa, wow. Because it was still those early days when no one knew what was up, but it was a very similar thing. He was supposed to go to Japan. They ended up doing this or that, but I'm sure that was a wild flight home. Yeah, so it's been two years now, and I'm just waiting.

In 2021, which was this last year, we had the tour moved over, the world tour, and now it's 2022. So the tour is scheduled to start. Well, I have one show supposedly in Mexico City on the 20th of March and then another one hopefully coming up in April 1st over in Europe and then the rest of them. starting all the European and the World Tour starts in June. So that's all with fingers crossed. I mean, this is just crazy. I mean, if they can go to church, why can't you have a band play? Great point. Great point. We stand with you, David. Maybe you need to switch up some of the lyrical content to lean a little more Christian. We'll be all right. Come on, Supreme Court. Open these venues. Speaking of world travel, what... Two-part question. What country goes the most gaga over the Pixies, and what country goes the most gaga over the magician work that you do? Ah, okay. Oh, wow. What's funny is the Pixies, when we first started, it was Europe. England, Holland, and the rest of Europe. were caught on to us really quick. And what year was it the first time you went over across the pond to do some shows? This is 1986, 1986. Do you remember who you played with some of those early shows over there in London? Oh, gosh. No, I think it was all headlining ourselves. We might have done... Let's go. I can't think of who we might have... Oh, My Bloody Valentine, something like that? Oh, My Bloody Valentine we played with plenty of times back in the day. Yeah. Like I said, that was early on, but now... South America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. South America. Mexico. Mexico is number one. Come to Brazil. Like, you guys are doing, like, soccer stadiums in Mexico. Like, it's crazy. Yeah, we did the Socolos. I can't pronounce it. Socolos. It's the giant city park. in Mexico City. We did that four years ago. I actually had a local street magician slash comedian

insult me in front of a crowd of hundreds of people the last time I was at that park. What? That is a little triggering for me, David, so if you wouldn't mind apologizing. Pray for TJ. Pray for Jason. He goes through a lot. It's always so fascinating about those bands. A lot of them are typically the hard-rocking bands where they have that thing where they just... are so huge in south america and mexico like yeah you know a lot of the 80s kind of hair metal bands and metallicas and all those bands but also you know like the strokes rush yeah yeah sure rush but like the strokes are also really huge over there huge like yeah like i don't know what it is about a band To have that thing where just down in Mexico way, it just goes crazy. The only thing I can think about, South America, I mean, that's the only place in Brazil and Mexico I have to go and assume name. Really? Where it's that crazy. People love the Pixies. You got to check in the hotel on a different name. Lucius Saint, I would use. Come on. Come on, Senior David. No. Where was I going? I forget what I was saying again. Oh, God, it's this pod or something or my age. I don't know what I'm saying. I'll clean up all of your stoner thoughts in post. Don't worry, David. Yeah, you know how it works. Well, actually, David, I had a couple more questions. Can I add on something, Jason? Please. Of course. I think I know why we're big in South America. It's because our early albums had Spanish in it. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's true. That's the only thing I can equate to it, why we have this. But I think it's like a certain kind of rocking. Like it doesn't have to be the hardest rocking, you know, like you guys, the strokes, you know, you guys aren't like mega death level of shredding, but you guys have a certain just like, it's like, I don't know, it's like in the blood, it's in the DNA, like a certain tempo, a certain tone, and it just kind of speaks to our bros down south. I don't know what it is, but like if you can hit that sweet spot, you know, you have a career for life, and those fans down there,

They're just so much more loving than anything you'll get playing at the fucking Greek theater or something like that to a bunch of guys like us with our arms folded, you know, looking at our watch. I have a good Greek theater show story. We were doing the Greek theater, and it was at a time with my stupidity that I was wearing all white, all white, white pants, white shirt. It was a look. That's what I played. It was a look. It was a look. And anyway, I love wine. I love red wine. I love red wine. David, I see where this is going. I see where this is going. Is it a that time of the month story? But no, we're going Merlot. So the show ends, and I meet everyone in the after party, and I'm getting my wine. I love it. All of a sudden, I fall or something, and I wasn't drunk. I tripped or something, but all the wine went over me, and I was covered. My white thing of red. Looking like Andrew W. K. I don't know if it makes any sense. It's a great story. It's just from the Greeks. Did you have a change of clothes in the wardrobe case, or did you have to rock? Yeah, I had to just shamefully leave. Yeah, I mean, I feel like after you just headline a sold-out show at a big legendary arena like that, you walk around with wine all over you. You wear it as a badge of honor. Yeah, right. Hey, gentlemen, I have some other stories that might be interesting I could tell you. I don't know about that. Please. Please. We're all ears, buddy. We're here for you. We have like five, six minutes left. So give us the best you got. Okay, I'll run down. Okay. Kurt and Courtney. Kurt and Courtney. Okay. Whoa, let's go. Okay, shit. Okay, wait. We don't have five to six. We got 15 to 16 now. Okay. Things change. Okay, so this is 1995. This is when Nirvana's album just hit big, huge. And I had friends. We do Kurt and Courtney. Well, we do Courtney at Kurt and Courtney. We went on Super Bowl Sunday to Six Flags in Valencia. Now, if you're not into football, tell anyone, if you want to go to Six Flags, that's the day to do it. There was nobody there. It was empty. Kurt and Courtney, not football fans? Now, mind you, Nirvana have hit it huge. They're huge. And I'm with them. We're walking around, and Kurt is in his pajamas.

He's in his pajamas. He's unmistakable, right? We're walking around Six Flags, and some kid stops. He goes, oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's David Lovering. No way. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. Kurt and I looked at each other like, this is fucking, this is nuts. Because I'm next to the guy who's the biggest guy in the world, and I'm in a guy who's in maybe a critically important plan that nobody knows, but this guy calls me up. By name, full name. That's got to feel, I mean, and the drummer too. Yeah, that's great, man. Not Frank, not Kim, but I mean, when you just said David Levering, I was like, who? I'm like, oh yeah, the guy I'm talking to right now. No, that's crazy, but I mean, I feel like Kurt, wasn't he like, he was like a huge Pixie supporter, right? He was, yeah, I remember that. That's why, yeah, that's, yeah, that was the connection. while we were going out. So he was probably just like, yeah, it's fucking crazy. I'm at Six Flags with the Pixies right now, of course. He wasn't even phased by it, probably. He's like, yeah, you should be acting like this way, kid. Yeah, I don't look at it that way. We saw that, yeah, we were doing our research. We did see that you... chose Cracker over Foo Fighters, and I would like to say that was smart. I prefer that, and I think you made the right decision. I don't care what anybody else does. Cole asked you to be in the Foo Fighters, and you knew that eventually they would become one of the dorkiest bands in the world, and you said, no, it's not worth it. Well, no, no. It's just that I... That was a joke, but not a joke. Yeah, but I just wasn't ready, or I didn't have the information or something like that that happened. Right, right, right. Yeah. But, yeah, Taylor is an amazing. Oh, yeah, he's a great drummer. He's a great drummer. Fine, fine, fine. I felt a little bit of a trigger there from you maybe. Is that a soft spot for you? No, not at all. Not at all. Okay, okay. But I have some more rock and roll stories. You know Susie Sue? Of course. Susie and the Banshees, sure. Okay. I love Suzy and the Banshees. I'm a big, you know, I had this thin tie back in the day, the new wave kind of. Back in your Debbie Gibson days, huh, David? Yes, yeah, back in the day. We'll get to that in a minute. And I had some mutual friends that knew Suzy Sue back in Los Angeles. So she was visiting with Budgie. I guess they were recording an album. So they asked me if we want to go to Center and I said, yeah, I'll drive. So I went over and I picked up.

I picked up Susie Sue. She's in the back of my Toyota Tercel, which we talked about. Corolla, Corolla, Corolla. She's in the back of my Corolla, and we're driving to Santa Anita. Now, I got to tell you this. You said Santa Anita, like the horse racing track? The racetrack, the racetrack. Let's take Susie and the Banshees to go play the ponies. Just Susie Sue, yeah. Okay. Now, this is before magic, and I am shy, shy, shy. I said Marble probably. 10 sentences to her during the whole time. I was so taken by her. That Susie Sue, who I look up to. Like if I had Dua Lipa in the back of the Tesla sweating bullets. So we go to Sanity. We have the day. I hardly say anything to her. I'm scared shit. And we get home. I drop her off and go like that. A month later, I get a letter in the mail. This is all a long time ago. But I get a letter in the mail. And it's from Susie Sue. And she's taking the piss out of me, talking how much I was so shy and blah, blah, blah, blah. And kind of a little love letter. And I can't tell you that just, not a love letter in real, but just taking the shit out of me, you know, just because she knew I was shy. So you're just kind of like, oh, it was kind of cute and sweet and endearing. What a cool thing. It was a cool thing. And the worst thing is I don't have that letter to show for it. I have no idea where it is. I was hoping you had that. You know, I was really hoping you had that. Damn. David, you've lived a lot of life. Give us one more. He's got another one. I have one which is recent history. Maybe four years, five years ago, COVID's throwing me off. But I was on a plane in Europe. I was a plane in England. We were leaving. We did a festival. And I'm on the plane. I was sitting next to Joe. There were three seats on one side. Joe was one seat over. And I decided I didn't want to sit next to him. So I moved over to the other side of the plane. There was one gentleman over there. The gentleman looked at me, I sat down, and the rest of the flight's going on. And all of a sudden, my manager was with us, and the World Cup was happening at the time. So we started talking about the World Cup, and this gentleman next to me started chiming in, and there was a whole discussion going on about the World Cup. And at that point, I realized, I kept looking, I'm talking to him, it's Robert Plant. I'm sitting next to Robert Plant, right? Shit.

I am like, whoa, the conversation's going and we're having a great time. The plane lands. The conversation is still going. Everyone's having a great time. We get off the plane. We're all still talking. We go to baggage, pick up our baggage. We're all still talking. We go out to the port to get our vehicles to go where we're going. We're still talking. And then finally he introduces himself and he goes, I want to introduce myself. And my manager says, we all know who you are. And then Robert says, who are you guys? He goes, we're the Pixies. He goes, oh. Boston's finest. At that point, you could have shot me right then. Robert Plant knew exactly who we were and knew about us. That blew me away. So anyway, let me jump ahead. Now we're jumping ahead four months. And my manager calls me. He said, Robert Plant called. He wants you to open up for us for seven shows in the U.S. North America. Wow. Oh, wow. This is a chance meeting. This all happened. So we get on that. And Robert Plant has laryngitis. And he canceled, I think, I don't know, a number of shows. We actually did, I think, three shows with him that turned out. But anyway, every night, he would come down to the dressing room and hang out with us. And one night, he comes down. He goes, David, he's talking to me. He goes, you're an awesome drummer. He goes, my drummer. I don't know. He was just lamenting on his drummer. And I'm like, oh, God. No, no, no, no, no. So anyway, we wished him well. It was all great. Now I'm jumping ahead. This is four months later. My crew, they're all British. Not all British. We have some Americans in our crew. My drum tech, Chumpy, he's British. And Chumpy and Duncan, they also sub for Radiohead. when we're not on the road. Chumpy and Duncan are working Radiohead, too. Yeah, yeah. So Chumpy gets to meet with, they're doing a show, I don't know, Radiohead, or I don't know what it was, with Robert Plant. And Robert Plant knows Chumpy because he met him with the Pixies. And he goes, how's David doing? He asked him how I was doing. Damn. And is he still drumming like that? I love it. Now, Chumpy told me this, and this shook me.

Robert Plant went back on the tour. Two months later, he had a new drummer. And all I could think of, he was looking at me, maybe. That should have been you. That should have been you. That was just, I mean, Led Zeppelin to me is just, that was just killer, killer, killer. Yeah, no, that's wild. That's the beauty of, I feel like, festival stuff is that you really are with everyone and you never know. I mean, this could have been different, but I feel like that happens more often than it ever has with the popularity of the festivals. Yeah, camaraderie. There's a nice thing about festivals where everyone is equal. It's not support apps. I mean, there is billing apps. filling stages as far as it goes, but like that. You guys are all shitting in the same toilet at the end of the day. Yes, that's it. We all enjoy the same port-a-potty. I have one more story about David Bowie. Yeah, recent birthday. We celebrated his birthday just a few days ago. Yes, yeah. David Bowie was a massive Pixies fan. He loved the Pixies. And Tim Machini, he covered, I forget which song he did, and he would take us to dinner. Just David Bowie. I knew him as David Jones as far as I was. But one of my things, I should say, when I was a kid, not having traveled, being in Massachusetts in a suburban house, I always wanted to be at like a Bavarian festival with an OPA band, with the ladies, with the Lederhosen. Oktoberfest type of thing. Oktoberfest. That was some kind of hidden kind of thing, a fantasy that I wanted. You little pervert. And I happened to be in Munich with the Pixies, and Bowie was finishing his tour, whatever tour that was. He was having an end-of-the-show party. So we were all invited. We went. He had a tent, and he held the picnic tables, the whole lederhosen, the beer, the sausages, the whole deal.

So David Bowie made a fantasy of mine come true. I can actually say that he did it. God bless. God bless. Wow. I feel like you got to get a podcast of your own here, David. Yeah. I mean, at least the memoir, at least the memoir, honestly. Oh, I can keep going. I mean, honestly, it's, like, it's really interesting. I mean, it's just, like, you've done it for so long. You know what I mean? You've just been around, and, like, there's such benefits to that. Yeah, yeah. It's been, I mean, since 1986, so that's, what, 20, 40 years, 40-plus years that I've been doing something, you know? And it's so cool. I mean, you've been doing it for so long, so legendary, but also, like, you know, you're telling all these stories that are just as relevant and interesting and entertaining as, you know, in 2022. It's pretty crazy. It maintains. It maintains. Damn. As soon as I'm done with this, I'm going to take a shower, and then my girlfriend's going to be like, oh, who was on the pod today? I'm going to say, oh, David from the Pixies. She's going to be like, what the fuck? You talked to the Pixies today? It's true. It's true. It's true. And she's like, what did you guys talk about? I'm like, metal detection mostly? Jason, Chris, can I add another couple of stories? Yeah. Why not? Okay, because I'm an electronic engineer. I'll just go into electronics portion of it. Save the best for last. This is around 1970. Cable TV came in around 1977, something like that. I can't remember. But I figured a way, well, to steal cable TV. And what I would do is I would climb the telephone poles and I would just hitch up your house and then put cable in rather than the cable guys. So what had happened was I did it to my parents' house. And what they did is HBO, back in the day, used to be broadcast on Channel 3. And what they did is they had a, I would say a filter. It was a blanker, it was called. And it would be da-da-da-da-da-da-da. When you put it on Channel 3, it would be like da-da-da-da-da-da-da. So you couldn't watch HBO. It was impossible. And what I found was if you took 300-ohm lead, not 75-ohm cable or coaxial cable, but 300-ohm flat lead.

If you want to attach it to your TV, now back then TVs had UHF and BHF terminals on the back. And you could attach to your BHF terminal with alligator clips rather than the cable that's going in from the, like I said, the cable TV. You attach another flat line piece of wire to that cable. And what you do is with a pair of scissors, you keep cutting it. You keep cutting it. And you'll see that the access has like a band tuning kind of thing. And you can actually get HBO in. It causes kind of a trap, a signal trap. And you get HBO. So I would do that. Then the cable company found out what was going on. So they put these filters on the pole. And these were things that went up on the pole. And then the cable into the connector. And then the cable would go into it and then go to your house. All I would do is I would get a ladder at night and I would unscrew that and I would go back to my flat lead and watch PO. So what they did is they figured out that they would put a sheath over this. So there's no way you can unscrew it from the telephone pole. Impossible. Challenge accepted, David says. This is where drumming came in, especially Ludwig drums. Ludwig drums use an octagonal kind of key to take off their toms, which is the same. kind of thing that would fit over a coaxial F connector. So what I did is I built a shaft. I cut a line through it. I cut a line through this long thing that would go through a coaxial cable, slide up into the sheath over it, and then I could unscrew the cable. So I would climb at night, all dressed in black, and I would take this off. I would take the filter off, and I would take the whole thing. I'd go watch HBO again. And the cable company wouldn't do anything because, you know, they're not going to prosecute anyone who's, you know, it just wasn't going to happen. So I kept getting it and doing it and getting it and doing it and doing it. So anyway, I found out that that filter that I took off, if I pulled the sheath off it, an inner sheath. and I used a tuning key on it, I could actually use it as a filter, a real filter, to filter out the scrambling signal of HBO better than my file 8. And that actually, it came in crystal clear. At that point, I advertised to all my friends, for $50, I would climb your pole, I'll put an HBO for you. And I did that all over the town.

Wow. Look, David, I'll say one thing about you. You're an enterprising guy. Well, David knows the supply and demand of softcore pornography. Back then, times were tough, right? There's nothing people wouldn't do to get that. Now, let me jump ahead to 219.90. 1994. Okay, so we're moving to 94. This is our last story, by the way, David. I'm sorry. Okay, this is it. This is it. We'll have you back on for more. Don't worry. Cell phones are all new now. Cell phones are all new. They're all those flip phones, all that kind of analog phones. I was into electronics, and I found that I had a RadioShack scanner called the Pro26 that I could modify, and I could receive 800 megahertz, all the cell band. I could pick up every cell power. all around me i could hear every communication that was going on so that's what i did and i would run a a um not a vhs a beta tape on slow and i would record all the phone communications i was living in north hollywood at the time and i could record everything that was happening i was picking up joe pesci bob barker murder everything you name it you name it Everything you talk about on the phone, which is normal, but then plus. And I said the word desensitized, and that's what it is. I got desensitized. Yeah, I'm sure. It was something, because what I'm hearing is horrific. I mean, not only gang things with murder and incest and cheating and everything. I mean, I'm hearing everything on the phone like that. And I even had a scanner that I had a unit that I could have in my car. that if anyone came near me in the nearby, it would tune to their cell frequency. I could hear anyone that was in my immediate range. It would lock onto them. So anyway, with this know-how, I built a DTMF decoder. A DTMF decoder is, you know, a touch file phone. Yeah, yeah. This one would display the numbers that were hit on. So if you hit a two, it would display two, three, four, five, six, something like that. I hitched it up on my scanner.

And now that I have my scanner, I get information now. So not only do I get banking codes, I get calling codes, I get everything. So I can call and go into any system whatsoever or discern whatever it is and find out what it is by the touchstone. So somebody is like, you're calling something and like, okay, now enter your social security number and it's like, okay, 943-781. I have it all. I can get it all. I could go into anyone's banking. I never did this. I never did this. I could go into anyone's banking and do anything I pleased. The only thing I did was I got a call one time, and it was two houses behind me, and it was the girlfriend of one of the Backstreet Boys. And the information that I got was I got a conference call number that was going to happen the next morning with the Backstreet Boys. So the next morning, I go to a pay phone. I put the coin in, and I enter the conference call number. And I sit there on the phone, and it answers. I enter the conference call number, and I'm into the conference with the Backstreet Boys. And this is pre-Zoom, so nobody knows that you're there as long as you're quiet. No, they know that the caller is there. And all they're saying is, AJ, is that you? AJ? And I go, no, this isn't AJ. I go, this is David. I go, what did I say? Oh, I said some line like, is your... Something about a bed sleep number or something. I can't remember. It was some line, like a joke line that I hung up. what it is, but I got actually into the Backstreet Boys conference call with their lawyer. What a different time. Jesus Christ, man. Jesus Christ. David, what a pleasure. Honestly, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. Chris, Jason, it was awesome. Thank you for having me. Gentlemen, it was awesome. Hopefully, our COVID problems will clear up and we can get you guys back out on the road again. We don't need backstage for the Greek.

Floor seats would be nice, and then we can kind of break bread after that, of course. Yeah, I'm more of a laminate guy. Jason's fine with GA, but I need at least a sticky, David. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. All right, AAA, AAA, David Lovering, thank you for joining us. We'll talk to you soon. Great, gentlemen. Anytime you want to go to the show, let me know, all right? All right, we will. Thanks, David. Guys, thank you so much. All right, bye-bye. Later.