Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody.
Speaker 3: It is that time again, Matt Connorton Unleashed and we
are live from the studios of w m n H
ninety five point three FM and Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire.
Of course, you can stream the show from anywhere, go
to Matt connorton dot com slash Live. Today is Saturday,
July twenty six, twenty twenty five, and I am not alone.
Speaker 4: Jimmy Dure.
Speaker 2: Morning Sunshine.
Speaker 3: Jenny is here at the news table. Good morning, yes, yes, yes,
it can be another hot day in the city.
Speaker 5: Yes, And the haze in the air is actually smoke
from Canada.
Speaker 1: Canada once again on fire.
Speaker 2: This air is ucking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, if you've had if you have asthma like
I do, you know you definitely want to be mindful
of that kind of thing, air quality and so forth.
But we have an exciting show for you today and
of course later on, probably in the second hour, after
we talked to Lyle Hutchins, we'll talk a little bit
about what we did last weekend because we went to
a big show at Jewel saw some great bands there
and lots to talk about, and of course we lost
some lost some people.
Speaker 1: This week.
Speaker 3: We'll probably talk about that in the second hour as well,
but right now joining us, let me get these mics
up here. We have so making his return to well
technically they're both making returns to the show.
Speaker 1: But we do have Jesse Rutstein here.
Speaker 3: Hello, Jesse, Hello, welcome, Thank you having me anxious to
talk to you about.
Speaker 2: The new EP, anxious to talk about it.
Speaker 3: And share some share some tunes from it, and uh
and get into it. This is your Is this your
second time on the show?
Speaker 2: This is my second time on the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, and you have with you so you brought
Caleb Caleb Diris here, Hello, Caleb, Hello, Hello, Now this
is your I think this is your second time on
the show, but you don't correct, you don't remember the
original time.
Speaker 2: But that's okay.
Speaker 6: I recalled being on TV, yeah, on the Public Access
TV with with fellow representative Gary.
Speaker 1: Garry Hopper Garry Hopper Wake, Cary Hopper Lake.
Speaker 2: Carrie Hopper.
Speaker 6: Yes, and uh, I so you tell me immediately thereafter
or something.
Speaker 2: To that effect.
Speaker 1: Right, it was, it was before, it was right before,
it was right before.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that that that makes sense as well, that I
was on your show and I I fully accept that
because I did a few different radio I did radio
I think in Texas, in a couple other states, Michigan
as well. Yeah, for stuff all around that time.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, Yeah, that day you were on with Brandon
Finney and I think you guys were both state reps
at the time of front.
Speaker 6: Indeed, much like the honorable Jank Coffee, except we were
in the.
Speaker 2: Legislature right after you left.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, I left in twenty twelve.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, so one separated by one term in between.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. And Brandon's been on the
show with Vigil. Oh excellent, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, excellent.
Speaker 6: I'm so glad all of that former state reps doing music.
So much more productive and beautiful, no kidding, much healthier
for the song indeed.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I love Brandon's band. Vigil is absolutely amazing.
They are very good, absolutely bavy.
Speaker 1: But so Jesse. When you were on with us before
I think.
Speaker 3: You you had released You had released a couple of
songs I think as singles or refreshed my memory.
Speaker 2: So this, this entire project is being produced by myself
and Caleb, and I had released two singles basically to
just work out the kinks leading up to the EP
because I didn't know what I was doing. Now I'm
my own record producer in addition, in addition to being
the singers, songwriter, musician and all of it. So I
did work out all the kinks. We released Stay Anywhere
and Dear Baby Gene first, and those two songs are
on the EP, along with On Your Toes, Getting Nowhere
and Lost in It All. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember, yeah, you play it because the last time
you hear you played live, and I think you had
played Dear Baby Jeen live in studio.
Speaker 2: You played the recording Dear Baby Gene I had played
On Your Toes and Superhero Toys. Oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, yeah, it becomes a blur, you know what.
Speaker 3: Dear Baby Gen though, stands out in my mind because
I remember you talking about it saying, you know, someone
was going to be mad.
Speaker 2: When they heard it. Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 1: So I have to ask you a follow up question.
I am a journalist, after all.
Speaker 2: I don't know. We haven't talked about it. This person
is very close to me in a in a family
kind of way, and we get along just fine. Now
that's good. We get along just fine. But My art
is my art I released. I wrote the song two
years ago, we released it, and that you know, would
I do like instead of getting angry or sad and
I just put it all into my music. So you know,
you ever want to know what I'm thinking, just listen
to my latest my latest releases.
Speaker 3: Well it's like we talk about this comes up all
the time on the show. How I mean, isn't that
kind of the best way to work through things is
through creativity?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I mean what better therapy is there
than that then than taking something, especially if it's something
really negative, something that maybe has caused trauma anything at all,
and creating something from it. I mean, that's what's better
than that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's how this whole thing happened. Yeah, that's how this
whole thing happened. Last year, twenty twenty four. I had
a very turbulent twenty twenty four. I won't for you
with the details, but it was a very sad, sad
time in my life. And uh, I had stopped playing music,
and it was I was in I was in a
bad place. And uh, around December January ish, this guy
just said, enough, dude, enough, let's get back in the studio,
let's get these songs going, because we had we had
a bunch of material, uh from from before that we
were working on. And that's what I did and music
was my therapy. I'm, you know, doing a lot better now.
I'm on I'm on fire right now. Like I was
on the radio in Nashua the day after the release,
I was pumped and I'm just the music saved me.
The music saved me because I was not not in
a good way. And Caleb, Caleb.
Speaker 6: I've seen them before and after. I can attest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was tough love too. He wasn't nice about it. No, yeah,
he wasn't.
Speaker 6: But I was like, you, you are too good of
a songwriter to not be doing this and doing it
with you know, the full effort that it requires to
do it. You know, I've been basically since I stopped
kind of doing all political things, I've been doing music
pretty much full time.
Speaker 1: Comes up a lot on the show.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm I'm sure it does, Yea, I do get
around at this point, you know. I I've been been
doing it, and I've been trying to be kind of
a side man for not just Jesse, but as many
people as I can to try to, you know, find
people who I think, man, they're doing something really nice
and let's let's take it. And that's actually the whole,
the whole impetus for Hatchet, Acs and Saw, which is
kind of this is the first time we're kind of
publicizing this week, we've saw, we've softly launched it. Now
today is kind of the I guess the the world premiere.
But we're not trying to solicit a whole lot of
clients right now. We we kind of want to focus
on just people we know locally, who you know, are
producing really good original art. And and you know, the
impetus for that was these two songs, these the two
singles that that Jesse released, but specifically Dear Baby Gene.
For me at least, was listening to that, listening to
the quality of what we put out and and and
what that song was, and and it got me thinking,
I'm thinking, like, how can we take this what we're
doing right now, Jesse and I and turn this into
a business model and apply it to well beyond just
the two of us. And you know, I mean, I
obviously I have some selfish motivations. Eventually I would like
to record or re record some of my own tunes,
which are as of yet unreleased, but I I principally
do want to do this to get you know, other
very talented artists, like you know a band that I
currently play with, Crank and Wagon. You know, we're eventually
going to record some sort of of album I'm sure
in the next year, and you know, we we want
to get that out, but we also want to get
out like Cosmic Blossom.
Speaker 2: If you're not familiar with Nick Burns.
Speaker 6: And in the the genius of of that that group
and the music that they put out, get familiar.
Speaker 2: But it's the Cosmic Blossom absolutely.
Speaker 6: And and one of the playing is oh yeah, I
I've talked with Nick. He's going to be doing the
artwork for Hatchet Acts and so cool, but we've both
discussed that with him, but also getting Cosmic Blossom in
to do one of my tunes. So I've got a
very funky tune that I think that they would do.
Speaker 2: Very well with.
Speaker 6: And it's very tentative. I know Meg is you know
Meg and Nick. Of course they're going to have their
child very soon for uh early congratulations to them. I graduation.
I saw Meg yesterday at Troutstock. She was rocking out
with pit the young one in there, so that kid
is gonna come out rocking.
Speaker 2: So yeah, very cool. But anyhow, you know, it's actually
really it's funny we're talking about cosmic because Nick is
actually on the song On Your Toes. He plays the
lead guitar and he absolutely that he transformed that tune
and it was it was one of the It was
the first song that actually I was like, yep, I'm
not just releasing singles. This is gonna be an ep.
The song is about my daughter. It's a beautiful, beautiful
like ode to dancing. My daughter's a ballerina. She she
dances on point shoes and for those that don't know
what that is, it's it's like their little pieces of
wood that that's how the ballerinas spin the way they
do that go in the bottom of their shoes. And
the song was about how nervous she was about getting
on that, you know, and and and learning it. And
then the first time that I actually saw her do it,
and it was I mean, she's my daughter, so I'm biased,
but she's a magnificent person to begin with and a
wonderful dancer. And it was the first time that I
saw her dance on her toes, and this song started
off as just me an acoustic I remember, Jen, you
said that was the one you liked the most when
I was here last, and so I was like, all right,
going along with the turbulence from twenty twenty four. There
was a breakup involved, and there was a song that
I wrote for the person that I'm no longer with,
and I didn't want to play that song anymore. But
the drums Seth Cedars, huge shout out to Seth Cedars,
our drummer mad man, he's the best yes's in the business.
But the drum track was so good. I'm like, I
can't get rid of these drums, right, What am I
going to do? And it just so happens that the
chords to the prior song and my daughter's song are
the same chords. So I was like, all right, let
me see if I can work something out here. So
I literally went in, chopped his drums tracks up and
moved things around and it worked perfectly with the acoustic
guitar on the bass, and that's what I thought it
was gonna be, just this acoustic tune. And then we
had Peter Davis from No More Blue Tomorrows come in
and play lead guitar on Dear Baby Jeans. So I'm like,
all right, maybe I'm gonna ride this train a little bit,
which is exactly what I did. I have so many
wonderful musicians that were on these tracks, and so I
was like, you know, I was chatting with Peter and
Nick one day and I said to Nick, I was like,
I got a great song for your style. You want
to come down, And I mean, Nick, Nick Burns is
a beast. I'm kind of making this whole interview about Nick,
but but we love you Nick, indeed, we love you.
But he came down, and I didn't know what he
was gonna do. Cosmic is a very freeformed band where
my stuff is like, it's not intricate, but there are parts,
you know. So Nick came down, put down his pedal board,
turned the guitar on. He's like, you got an amp.
I'm like, oh, yeah, it was actually Chris Drew's amp.
Chris Drew and we plug Nick in and he he
just transformed the tune and when you play it, you'll
be able to hear it. But he just transformed the
song into something that I never thought it would ever be.
So I was like, all right, well, I got this
great tune, but why stop there. Caleb's like, this needs keys, great,
put some keys on it. I'm like, all right, my
song's done. This is a beautiful, beautiful song. But then
I was talking to my buddy Patrick Matthews, who plays saxophone,
and I was like, you know what, maybe some saxophone
on this song. And then Patrick came down again, just
like Nick, super pros. These guys, like everybody that's been
involved in this just really professional. And Patrick came down
and basically transformed the song again, and I was like.
Speaker 6: Okay, bangs out in ninety minutes.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think Nick's session was was just around the same
amount of time.
Speaker 6: Just I mean in the actual taking, the tracking was
like very little of that it.
Speaker 2: Was And I had never I don't think you have either.
We had never really recorded saxophone before, so we didn't
really know what we were doing in our in our area.
But and so finally song's done, that's it. But then
my niece, Josie Rutstein, Josie she's a she's a professional actress.
She is sixteen years old, just getting leads and all
the plays around town. She's performed at the Palace Theater
right down the road. She played me something on her
phone of her hitting these high notes because her voice
is like off the chart. So I'm like, all right, well,
I guess this song isn't done yet. And she came
down and recorded the track, and it is just the
way the way it came out brings tears to my
eyes because, like I, I sent it off to master, to
my mastering engineer, Chris Cormier, and and he sent it
back to me and it was like hearing my song
for the first time, and it was just it still
brings tears to my eyes. I love that song, not
just because I wrote it, but because of what everybody
else did.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I mean the layering and the production of
that tune. It did start very simple, as Jesse described,
but it didn't. It was never at any point overproduced.
It was just kind of like it was a very
natural progression of him kind of hearing like, oh, that's
a very nice addition and an element. What else? But
is there more? Is there more?
Speaker 2: And will it? Will it not? Promise it's done? Promise
will it not sound overdone?
Speaker 6: And it's not a tune that demands orchestral arrangements or
anything crazy like that.
Speaker 2: But those auxiliary.
Speaker 6: Elements, you know, the saxophone, the woodwinds and and the
guitar that was layered on it, just it really does
make that song. Yeah, yeah, and you know, I mean
I I don't want to toot his horn too much.
Speaker 2: You know, he can my head. My head could not
possibly get bigger, right.
Speaker 6: Jesse is an excellent songwriter. And when he is nudged to,
you know, to do things and and and consider additional elements,
he makes a lot of great choices.
Speaker 1: Well, very good, Well, I think we should play it.
Has this been on the radio yet? This has not
been on the radio yet. This is not well you
know what that means.
Speaker 2: I know what that means.
Speaker 1: All right, here it is.
Speaker 3: This is the world radio premiere of On Your Toes
from Jesse Rutstein.
Speaker 4: You are listening to walum and.
Speaker 2: A world premiere.
Speaker 4: Thesis.
Speaker 2: It can't be real.
Speaker 4: Put the lot of when they.
Speaker 7: Would get me, they'll be out. She could win walk
in touching the Tree.
Speaker 4: And we Touched you and Sally dancing if you to
I knew the email when he said inside to.
Speaker 8: Watch the world when.
Speaker 9: You first dance with me, I had to old dance,
can't you?
Speaker 4: Said?
Speaker 7: Love?
Speaker 10: Now?
Speaker 4: I can't believe she's reading looking man, I can never
be I see a woman, not a girl, and a
can man a time of silence.
Speaker 10: The day came into my life. I've been so proud.
I saw a dancing on your tour.
Speaker 4: I knew a name man.
Speaker 11: To say it to watch a girl when you first
dance with me, I have to watch you can't go?
Speaker 4: She said up.
Speaker 8: Yeah, hello, the man saw you dancing. How are your time.
Speaker 4: Of what? The man said it? Song? The man saw
your dancing?
Speaker 8: Hung it to.
Speaker 12: Sam said it, yeah, it's watch a bird.
Speaker 3: Lots that came out really really well on your toes.
Jesse Rutstein here with us live in studio, and Caleb
Diler here Caleb Dyer. It's like, I think I do
that sometimes I create amalgams of words in my brain
if I'm talking too fast.
Speaker 1: So what did what did I just say? Dialer? Yeah,
Caleb and Dyer Dialer, I do that. I do that
a lot.
Speaker 3: So Caleb Dier here with us uh in studio as well,
And yeah, that that did come out. That came out fantastic.
Thank you absolutely absolutely, And the EP is out on
all those streaming platforms.
Speaker 2: Correct, anywhere you can stream. I didn't even know Pandora
was still a thing until the other day. I was
talking to somebody who's like, no, I still do Pandora.
I'm like, pull it up, see see if I'm on there,
and sure enough, oh you yeah, so yeah you could.
You can stream it anywhere Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, YouTube
is where I'm doing the best right now. Yeah, Spotify.
I don't know. I feel like an old man when
I opened Spotify. I'm not crazy about it. I just
I didn't get it at first. But my daughter, who
that song was about, had to come out, like, because
social media is such a huge part of what I'm doing,
but I didn't know anything about TikTok or Instagram. And yeah,
my daughter had to come over and she's she's credited
for marketing on the release. She is. Yeah, she came over.
She came over and she showed me how to how
to TikTok and how to Instagram and and uh, you know,
because I just scroll through Facebook, that was my extent
of social media. But it is such a big part
of this process, and I didn't realize that when I
when I started this whole thing, but I'm getting I'm
getting there. I went from having no TikTok at all
to twenty six hundred followers, which I know isn't a
ton in the world of being an influencer, but it's
it's you know, I'm getting some some solid views off
of that. People like the videos of my dog more
than the videos of me singing. Oh really, so I
just start I just started making videos of me singing
to my dog. Here you go.
Speaker 1: Smart, that's smart. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In a couple of minutes, we're going to play another track,
Getting Nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, getting Nowhere.
Speaker 1: We should talk about that one. That's that's and that's
that's a very different vibe.
Speaker 2: Than oh, totally different, totally different. I Uh, this is
the one I'm the most nervous about. I'm nervous about
it because people could easily take take it the wrong way.
It's it's yeah, so that the last song was very
you know, beautiful saxophone about your kid, Oh what a
nice guy. Getting Nowhere is quite the opposite. It's super gritty,
almost pop punk, heavily influenced by like the heavy Sublime
style late nineties vibe, and it's about it's about politics.
So so I'm a middle of the road kind of guy.
I believe in a lot of things that the left
says and a lot of things that the right says.
And I'm in the middle. So when I talk about politics,
everybody hates me. Yeah, yeah, you know, I've seen some
of your posts, you know, and so so, But that's
what the song's about. The song is about people going
back and forth on social media and and saying, like
writing off family members because of their political views. And
if you did this, then you're no longer my friend.
And if you did this, then you're you know, I
got an uncle who doesn't talk to me because I
don't agree with everything he says politically. Yeah, and I
love the guy, you know what I mean? And and
and and then when you run into these people that
you're like being a keyboard warrior with in real life
and have a real conversation with them, you start to
get to get somewhere right, you know. But as long
as you're yelling at each other on your phone. Yeah,
and and this media driven division, which I can't get
into without sharing my political views, which I don't want
to do. But as long as we're going back and
forth with each other and you're stupid, no, you're stupid,
then we're gonna get nowhere. And that's what the song's about, because,
like my my biggest issue with the political climate right
now is that people are divided for no reason. We're
divided based on on Facebook memes and half the people
that are talking about these things don't even really look
into the issue. They just get their news from from memes.
And and I'm not trying to insult anybody. It it's
more along the lines of if we keep arguing amongst
ourselves about nothing, we're going to get nowhere. Yeah, that's
what the song's about. And it's very gritty, it's not polished,
which drove him nuts nuts. It didn't drive me nuts.
Speaker 6: Well, I under I understand that, you know, there are
different production styles, but it was it was at times
I was listening to it and I'm thinking, like, I
understand the intent of this song is to get a
really punk vibe, But there were there were some things
like balancing right wise, the essentially the there were certain
frequencies in the mid range where it's like conflictory right,
It's like really really saturated and that is part of
the vibe, but also trying to get the separation of
the instruments so you hear everything, but you know, also
still have the vibe of everything being kind of like
really loud and in the face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to pull off. I think we I
think we did all right. You know, I think I
think we did all right.
Speaker 6: You know you of course we'll hear it in a
couple of minutes, but you know, it is really loud
and it is really in your face.
Speaker 2: The idea that I was trying to get at with
the whole vibe of because the music needs to go
along with the lyrics. It's not just it's not just
the background so I can get my message out. I
wanted it to sound garage band ish. I wanted it
to sound like you're going to the bar and seeing
the band and the drums aren't miked so that the
symbols are just like cutting through the whole mix, and
it's like, you know, like when when your buddy who's
in a band, it takes a video and says, hey,
look at my band, how do we sound? And you're
all you hear is right.
Speaker 6: It's as close to that as we could get while
still being a professional release audio.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, yeah that makes sense, you know, yeah, yeah,
I I I kind of took what what you were saying.
That's what I from the lyrics when I listened to it.
You know, so I I understood and I and I
understand too about you know, like uh, like I have
a family member who sends me a lot of angry
text messages.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you know, it's so it's silly, it's so silly.
Speaker 1: I've never seen it like this. Yeah, I don't even
argue with about politics on social media.
Speaker 2: I post in ghost Oh I did, I know you do,
and I appreciate that you this this there's a couple
of people that are always commenting and always disagreeing. But
so so a full disclosure. I was that guy. I was.
I was like really upset during COVID. Uh not like
the first year we did we had to do to
be safe, but then you know, we I was. I
was working in a bar and all the adults would
be out, huge crowds of people, no masks, but they
made my kids still wear a masks mask for a year.
So I was. I wrote a mask, mask, mask, and
and I realized what an idiot I looked like. I
look like an idiot arguing with somebody about something that
that really didn't matter. And and I, you know, I
I hope I didn't lose any friends, but there you know,
there are people.
Speaker 1: That you probably did though. I mean that's the thing
that sucks.
Speaker 2: Well, and they weren't a friend to begin with. But
but you know what that if if I lost, I'm
losing people and we're getting nowhere, you know. So that's
what the songs about.
Speaker 1: You know, well, I think we should give this a spend.
Speaker 2: I like it a lot awesome.
Speaker 1: Now this is which one of one of the songs
we're playing today has been played on uh in Nashua.
Is that this one?
Speaker 2: No that's lost in it All?
Speaker 1: Lost it All? Well, okay, so this one's another World
radio premiere.
Speaker 2: Is what you're saying, Yes, sir, oh, well you know
what that means. I know what that means.
Speaker 4: We're listening to WUM and H.
Speaker 2: World Premiere.
Speaker 4: Coming like being. If you don't you got caught like
mental resms, you sleep.
Speaker 2: See you know we got to me.
Speaker 4: And I'm just another classes clown. Now then on me
the Wizard. It's no surprising, I'm classics.
Speaker 2: Land on it.
Speaker 8: It's no podcast.
Speaker 4: Walk can't we Cad and the were playing the Las
Virtues in Blackless City.
Speaker 10: He said, not walk, so we're agad and no, well
know we got for human decent city.
Speaker 13: Got to talk to me about my concerned for Russ
of the Bible and the climate is.
Speaker 4: For the just the city. Elizabeth waited to.
Speaker 5: This side of the sling, I'm all rival thinks I'm unstressing,
not of my suffer.
Speaker 4: Your campan so my campaign games you mind find out
the calf came. Are we going and camp back to slave?
Can we up there? Back? Can you? Can? You believed
over there? Want? Thank you?
Speaker 5: Up? And wall can't?
Speaker 2: We can nowhere.
Speaker 10: Lando lasbas is in rock the Sea, not wal so
we can in awe?
Speaker 4: No, we got for human decency? Can nowhere? Can now
can now nowhere?
Speaker 2: Oh? Whoops?
Speaker 3: There we go, all right getting nowhere. Caleb died, I
mean not dire Jesse Rudsteen. But Caleb was talking a
lot about the songs Wallow.
Speaker 6: I mean he played he played guitar, played some guitar
on it, yeah, which is unusual. I'm not really a
guitar player.
Speaker 2: Very much.
Speaker 6: But really, yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting on
a couple of these tunes on and even though the
one that was played before getting nowhere on your toes.
So the main guitar lick that's in that was actually
was a creation of mine, right, Oh.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, Caleb brought the lick for the tune on
the versus and I not not nixt part like we
that we had Nick play that that part obviously with
with my track, but yeah, a lot of the collaboration
and production, like I couldn't have done it without Caleb Dyer,
Like I just I couldn't have done it without him,
like like even talking about opening up the space and
the actual mixing. Because people hear a song and they're like, wow,
you play guitar. That's cool. They don't realize I did
that guitar track twenty seven times, and they don't realize
that I spent hours just listening to one snow a
bit of vocal to just get the level right. And
I don't want them to care about that. I just
want them to hear the song. I talked to somebody
yesterday who was like, hey, I listen to your stuff.
I didn't really like sit down though, so I'm sorry.
She's like it was just on in the background, and
I was like, no, that's great, that's great. That's what
music is it. It can be super important to somebody
like me, but it could just add a little joy
to somebody's life that doesn't play you know what I mean, Like,
like it's it's the universal language.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, No, that's great, that's great. In a
couple of minutes, we'll also play out Lost in It All,
the track that you did with Faith and and that's
such a great song too. I'm curious what what's the
live situation like for you these days? Are you playing
a lot of shows or have you been so more
on the EP or I am.
Speaker 2: I've been the laser focused on the studio work. It's
kind of funny we were joking around because I'm not
playing live. I am playing tomorrow at Terminus in the
pop up event. Hopefully the weather holds up so we
can actually be out outside the way it was planned,
but if not, we're going to be playing indoors. A
lot of great artists, a lot of great musicians, you know,
just Terminus doing what Terminus does, you know, I'll plug
them I'll talk about them as much as I'm talking
about Nick Burns.
Speaker 3: But that's where Jenny and I met you, by the way, Yes, yes,
the earlier this year at the open house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was with Quincy. Yes, yeah, Quincy.
Speaker 1: Raymond or quin Lord.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never know which to call him.
Speaker 2: But so as far as the live situation, I am
booking for twenty twenty six. The full length is coming
out on December seventeenth. It's a song called Superhero Toys.
All of the dates that I released stuff are strategically placed.
The song Superhero Toys is an ode to my son
and being the dad of a boy, which is, you know,
very tough at times, like like, am I doing the
right thing? Am I pointing him in the right Am
I giving him what he needs on my end to
be able to make his own decisions?
Speaker 1: And you know that's a great song too. You play that? Yeah,
course last time.
Speaker 2: He did just yes, yeah he did just you know,
he's in his first year of being a United States marine. Wow.
So my contribution, I feel like I did all right,
you know, but but it's very scary.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So December seventeenth is the release, and that is the
title track of the release, and it also happens to
be his birthday. Oh nice, So that's why it's And
then in twenty twenty six is after I have the
full length release, after I've been on the radio, I'm
in people's ears. I got the social media going, there's
going to be plenty of merchandise. That's when I'm gonna
get out and start gigging. So it's it's it's all
a plan. And uh, the the EP's been out for
a week and so far I'm gaining some serious momentum.
So I am beyond pumped. I'm beyond thanks full to
everybody who's taken the time to listen, everybody who's taken
the time to be involved. Yeah, including yourself, you know,
like like hitting me up. And so yeah, that's that's
that's the plan for the live stuff. Okay, okay, cool, cool,
So twenty twenty six, watch out. You want to be
seeing my face.
Speaker 6: It helps me out a lot too, because my twenty
twenty five is kind of these books solid and he's
in my bad I'll not solidly hooked, but I do
have a lot going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 3: And you've got the we should we talked about it
a little bit, but we should circle back to it
the label because you know, and a lot of people,
you know, a lot of people in the scene listen
to the show too, So we want to make sure
everybody knows, you know, if people want to get involved,
if they want to sell your music, if they want to.
Speaker 2: We don't have the only thing that I'm worried about
right now talk because I want to talk about it.
I want to get in people's ear. But we don't
have a website or any social media going right now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's kind of that's almost deliberate in a way.
Well one Facebook kind of put me in nazi Nazi
mode for some time, so I can't can't create a
new page. But but setting that aside, it's kind of
strategic because we kind of don't have the ability. It's
a partnership, so it's just Jesse and I. We don't
really have the ability to be taking on a lot
of people, and we know that there's demand because of
course all of our friends are like, you know, like
when when can we when can we do this?
Speaker 2: When done?
Speaker 6: Because you know, there are a number of people who
have heard the Jesse releases and you know, they're they're
they're very, very eager, you know, so we we kind
of want to be selective. We've got one young, lovely lady,
Sarah Bird, who's in the band Doggate Dog. Really she
hasn't yeah exactly, and she's an excellent musician. And I
saw her yesterday and she was rocking out with the
Dogs out in Greenfield. I wish, I wish, yeah, I know,
it would have been great to have you out there.
But but anyhow, we want to get Sarah Bird. And
she's got some excellent originals of hers that are kind
of more on the light side. They're not so heavy
rock and roll like Doggate Dog as a band is,
and you know, we would love to get her in
and get those tunes recorded, you know, in a format
that is more true to who Sarah is as a
kind of solo artist in her own right. And you know,
we've we've spoken with her about that and and hopefully
we can get her in as one of the first
few test cases. Of course, I'd like to get my
own band, Crank and Wagon, which is kind of not
my band. I kind of just am the organist for
the bands. Yes, correct, Paul Fry is the true true
leader and mastermind of that band. Indeed, Paul Fry very
very astute guitar player and and good good friend of mine.
But so you know, we we have a bunch of
these test cases that we'd like to kind of try
out because we've done it with Jesse, We've proven the concept,
and now we need to take this sell it hard,
you know, through to the end of the year, through
the album release, which is I guess technically the first
official Hashtags and Saw release will be.
Speaker 2: That will be in the first Hatchet Acts and Saw release.
Speaker 6: Yes, that will be, yeah, the first official one. And
in the meantime we'll have other things kind of cooking
to be released in the next year.
Speaker 1: So excellent. Oh did we talk about where that? I
know we talked about it off air before the show.
Did we talk on air about where the name comes from?
Speaker 2: Oh? Oh yes we did. So this is a cool story.
Yeah I'm a musician. No, no, really, So I love Rush.
I love Rush if how could you not love Rush?
Speaker 7: Is?
Speaker 2: Is is the thought that I hear when people say,
but but I do have a unique voice, and I
do enjoy groups like the Dave Matthews Band, and and
and so some people will say I don't like Rush
because I can't stand his voice, and I'm like, how
could you not stand his voice? He's perfect, you know.
But so I love Rush and Caleb loves Rush, and
coincidentally we didn't. So so the the one person we
forgot I have well not forgot I haven't mentioned yet
is Dave Patterson, our executive producer who runs Tree Streets, Inc.
Which is where facility that's that's the studio. So we're
on the Tree Streets recording and we just happened to
be talking about the record label and Rush came up,
and coincidentally, our favorite Rush song is Trees, both of us,
so I'm like, and then we were talking about naming
the record company, I'm like, Trees is really your favorite
because it's just the most beautif like getting Nowhere. It's
a very political song people about about fighting over something
that you can't change, you know, and that's that's what
the whole song is about. And the last lyrics of
the tune are Hatchet Acts and saw and I'm like,
how about we just call it Hatchet Acts and Sauce.
Speaker 6: Well, more importantly, the full lyric is the trees are
all kept equal by hand Hatchet acts and Saw yeah,
And and now, one thing about the music business which
I don't think a lot of people understand, is that
there are sort of some gatekeeping going on by by
some some shall we say oaks, which are you know,
very large multimedia conglomerates. Sure, they kind of don't let
the Maples get sunlight. And whether or not it's by
the design of the system or you know, no fault
of their own, which I don't think it is in
this particular case. I do think that they have deliberately
lobbied and created this sort of system that protects themselves. Sure,
but the local musicians are the Maples in that song,
and they're not getting enough sunlight. And you know, Hatchet
accent Saw maybe you know, we're not trying to make
everyone equal, but at the very least we'd like to
get the Maples some sunlight.
Speaker 2: We're trying to do the exact same thing that you
guys do here. Yeah, and you know you put us on,
you take the time and and and do your due
diligence and put the show together. And it's a great show.
Like I watch you almost every Saturday. Thank you. Yeah, Yeah,
it's great. I I forget what's the guy's name, Eli
something he was on a few weeks ago.
Speaker 3: It becomes such a blur he tour, He's a oh yeah,
I'm sorry, Eli Love, Yeah, Eli Love.
Speaker 2: I was watching the show and I had never heard
of this guy before, and I just watched him play
this tune. And literally, I've working on this project. I
haven't listened to anybody else but myself for like a year.
I'm so sick of my voice that everybody's like, wow,
I like your voice. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm me too,
I guess. But I was watching your show and I
saw I saw this wonderful, wonderful musician, and I went
following him and he emailed me, you know, like after
I started following him, you get the email, like because
he's a pro, Like, I'm literally modeling some of the
marketing stuff that I'm doing after what he does. Smart
and uh, long story short, I saw new music because
of you, you know, And that's what we want to
bring to the area. We want to get people like
like Sarah Bird, and we want to get the Cosmic Blossoms,
the Dog eight Dogs. I'm talking to another really wonderful
musician in the area's name is Justin Jordan, about getting
him down in the studio, and we're just we're just
that's what we're trying to push.
Speaker 6: Get get him down there, get him recorded, get him
selling it, because if we can sell it, if we
can prove commercial viability, then we can actually make Nashua
and Manchester Southern New Hampshire. Like you know, my my
tagline for the last couple of years is I want
to turn Nashua into a mini Nashville.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want we talk to anybody, anybody else in
the country. They say where are you from, and you
say Nashua, They're gonna be like Nashville. Yeah, I just
say Boston now. And I mean for the music that I.
Speaker 6: Love, I play a lot of blues and rock and
stuff like that. I'm actually a shameless self plug the
Blues Fest on August second here in Manchester. I'll be
playing there with the Craig Thomas band or that it's
called Bluetopia, Craig Thomas and Bluetopia. But that's the music
that I really love, the music that I kind of
grow up, grew up listening to and and caring about,
and you know, the the whole idea is at least
with Hatchet Ax and Saw, is to you know, bring
local musicians who are doing it, producing original music, you know,
take that to the market, prove commercial viability, and and
turn this you know, area into a music hub much
much in the same way. And I think it's long
overdue because Boston. Boston's had, you know, a very strong
local music scene, but there's there's like, you know, maybe
a couple a dozen recording studios, and there's even fewer
actual labels that you can that you can publish through.
And I mean, you know, we we have great, like again,
great studios around and it's not like the facility that
we're at as any better, any worse. But I think
the product that we actually offer is going to be
the promotion, the actual trying to get it out to market,
cooperating with local you know, record distributors. There's this fellow
Dan up in Laconia who owns a little record shop
up there. I would love to plug the name of it.
It's oh my lord, I'm so sorry Dan forgetting the
name of your business.
Speaker 2: But it's a little little.
Speaker 6: Right exactly. But it's this little record shop right up
in Laconia, right down the street from the theater there
where they have a lot of live music acts, and
I planned to partner with him get physical copies in
stores around that, you know, like down and Lowell.
Speaker 2: There's there's a couple of little record shops as well.
Speaker 6: So getting the music out to the people selling it, yes,
and and that that is the thing that a lot
of local artists have the hardest time doing. They'll play
gig after gig after gig, and they'll be grinding themselves
into dust, but they don't have any sort of you know,
means of passive income selling the music.
Speaker 2: Right. That's the reason why I'm not Now, that's the
reason why I'm hanging tight on the live shows. Uh,
getting the product, and then then you use the live
shows and just a product. We're going to be pushing
lost in it all until until the uh till the
til the full length comes out. I mean, I'm gonna
be sharing the other songs too, of course we're playing
them today, but yeah, that is the single. And then
but I'm well aware that I'm not going to look
at Spotify and see myself blow up until i start
playing live. But I'm going to be killing myself in
the studio. If I'm trying to juggle playing live and
get this all together.
Speaker 6: The right way creative balancing acts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.
So in a moment, will yeah, We'll play lost in
it All to close out the segment.
Speaker 2: Faith in We got to talk about faith featuring. Yeah.
So this this tune, Yeah, this tune was how we
started this. This started. We started recording this song four
years ago. I was in a band with a wonderful
local musician and sat sound therapist. Is that the right, Yeah?
So her name is Jessica's Songbird of the I ka
Jessica Olsen, and we were both members of the jess
Olsen Band, and I did a lot of writing and
I came up with this tune about how it all
started with the group. I went out saw her playing
with a guy named Seth who I had never met,
but I knew. We played in a group called Project Mess,
and that's where the lyric guy played Mess. So the
whole song is me not even play that. It's not
about me playing. It's about me going to a show,
seeing this wonderful band led by a really great female
artist and getting lost, getting lost in the moments, you know,
And so we started a band. Things didn't work out.
We didn't uh, we didn't necessarily see eye to eye
in the direction of the music, which is one of
the reasons that I'm a solo artist. It's I've come
to terms with the fact that that if I want
to do the stuff I want to do, I have
to have creative control. And I'm not saying anything bad
about about Jessica. She's a wonderful, wonderful human being. We
just didn't She wanted to she wanted to go in
one direction. I didn't want to go. So so I'm like,
all right, you know. And and that he was the
one who convinced me to do the solo thing. He's like,
you should, we should do this, as you you know,
and and and it obviously it takes a village. I
keep plugging all these wonderful, amazing artists that are on
the tracks, but I put them on the tracks, And
and when they came in they were they looked at
me and they're like, all right, what do you want
me to do? With the exception of Nick Burns just
coming in and killing it, they would look at me
and be like, all right, what do you want me
to do, and and then I wanted them to put
their mark on it. So the original tune was recorded
with the jess Olsen band. I wrote it for a
female to sing and wonderful bass player. His tracks are
still there, Alex Philip Brown and Seth Sears on drums obviously,
Caleb on organ and piano. I think some guitar in
there too, No, I redid all the guitar.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, yeah, yes, yes, yes, there are some fun stuff.
Speaker 2: So I'm listening to the tune and I'm one day
and it was not supposed to be on the EP
at all. This song wasn't I did, but it's in
the studio. It's like there's a list that drops down
of songs. I'm like, I'm gonna listen to loss and
listen to Just's voice instead of mine. And this was
at like midnight. I had been working all night and
I was like, wait a minute, this song's awesome. I'm
gonna sing it yea. So needless to say, I was
there until about four in the morning re recording lead
vocals for this tune. And I finish it and I
think it's great, and I said it to Caleb and
He's like, no, no, no.
Speaker 6: I laughed at some things.
Speaker 2: I said a couple of lyrics because there is some comedy,
like getting Nowhere. There is a little bit of comedy
involved in what I do. I really love SNL and
like Mad Magazine. My father my biggest musical inspiration was
in a group called Gross National Productions back in the seventies,
and they did comedy. Their lead singer ended up being
a regular on Howard Stern back in the day, you know,
just because all slapstick stuff. Yeah. So, but some of
the lyrics, Caleb was like, no, no, You're going too
far with this. So I'm listening to it and I'm like,
how am I going to make this work? Because it
still sounds like a song about a girl going out,
you know, because it was originally written for Chess. And
I did a show at I did a show on
June twenty second, opening up for the Faith and Band,
and I knew of Faith. Everybody knows Faith, but I didn't,
you know, we'd never really like met in person. So
and I was really nervous because I had an issue.
Caleb couldn't make it. We had a bass player issue,
and so I'm like, I'm gonna be so unprofessional and
I'm gona show up without my bass player. And then
I introduced myself to Faith and she looks at me.
She goes, I'm sorry, I can't find my drummer anywhere.
And I'm like, oh sweet, I'm not the only one,
like awesome, I don't have my bass player. That's cool.
But yeah, So we ended up just setting up together
because I was the opener and and we hit it off,
like like she is just so cool, like like just
down to earth, chill person, like like just one of
those people that you like to be around and as
and then I was working on Lost and it just clicked.
I'm like shot in the dark. I got her, I
got her number. I'm gonna text her and see how
she wants to come down. And she said she'd love
to do it, and so she came down. She came
down and we did two sessions. The first session, I
was just basically replacing Jess's backup vocals because I wanted
there to be a female presence in this song. There
had to be, and it's theme through a lot of
my songs. There's a lot of there's a lot of
vocal tracks on this Jade Bailey also released a single yesterday.
Check out Jade Bailey Everybody. She's actually on the chorus
of this as well. Okay, so we have on this course,
we have faith, we have Jade, we have Caleb, myself
and Alec the bass player to make it big. And
I'm listening to it. I'm listening to it. You know,
faith is faith is loving it, and everybody's loving it.
And I'm like, it's just not right. This should be
a duet because of because of what she did and
how she put her mark on things and the or
the way we organize the lyrics, and it already sounded
like a duet. But so I'm like, if I just
get her to sing two lines in the verse and
have her take the lead on two of the lines,
this is a duet and that's what's going to make
this tune. So I text her back again. I'm like, hey,
you know, I said, everything's so great, can you come
back down? She's I'd love to, and and and she's
a pro, like in in the in the studio, she
just came down absolutely nailed the tracks and like sometimes
you're working with singers and uh, you know, because we
miss notes and we have to retake with her. It
was just like we both knew when she missed something,
stop rewind go. Like there was no like, oh I
thought that was good, or let's talk about it, let's
worry about feelings. It was just like, all right, let's
hit it. And so she did. She came down, She's
saying the other two lines, and.
Speaker 6: I love singers that can admit when they're wrong.
Speaker 7: I have to.
Speaker 2: Dude, yeah, which is you know, it is what it is.
But so then we're digging in and I'm like, just
like on your toes. I'm like, all right, finally the
song's done. Like I can get Kaled down here to
mix it. Caleb's like, let's go. Because we recorded these
tracks for the guitars years ago. He's like, what guitars
are you using? And I'm like, I don't know. And
they started digging into the guitar tracks and the plugins
that I used. It was just awful. And so I'm
like it was another situation where it was like midnight
and Caleb's like, I'm going home. You figure it out.
And again I was there till four in the morning,
re recording every guitar track on it, including the solo,
and then the song was done, and when I wrapped
on that, it was three days before the release. I
had to re send it over to my mastering engineer,
Chris Cormier, who is absolutely wonderful, and I keep seeing
when I talk to him, like you're gonna hate me, dude,
but I need another one. Yeah. I even had to
do it to him the other day. I need some masters.
I forgot to do the radio edits, and Matt texted
me and yeah, So finally it's done. The day before
it goes. The day before I post everything and everybody
that's been involved in this song, from from Faith to
Nick Jay, I'm not I don't have to mention everybody.
Just rewatch the interview.
Speaker 8: Guys.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep posting it. I just am so so
blessed that that when I was having a horrible twenty
twenty four, all these people came out of the woodwork,
and I have such a great support system.
Speaker 3: Awesome, awesome. Well we're gonna play this. We're gonna play
this to wrap up the segment. But guys, I want
to thank you both so much.
Speaker 6: Jess, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Jesse Rutstein, Caleb Dyer, thank you both for coming in.
Congratulations on the EP. It is amazing. Thank you and
absolutely and if you are listening live on Saturday, we
have Lyle Hutchins who's going to be joining us via
Microsoft Teams at the top of the hour.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to that. But again, check this out. This
is so good.
Speaker 3: This is Lost in it All featuring Faith and from
the new Jesse Rutstein EP and the it's just called
Jesse Rutstein.
Speaker 1: Right, it's completely self.
Speaker 2: Leading up to Superhero Toys that the whole length.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, looking forward to that. Very cool. All right
here it is this is Lost in it All.
Speaker 12: We made plans to see the bad because my friends
lass run.
Speaker 4: It's been a long week, can I can? I can't
wait to get it all jump?
Speaker 5: So something gotta let do, sort of Uncle Greg loose
mysel to city or.
Speaker 4: Good to me having little fun baby gets u.
Speaker 5: It's just something about Mesa, the way that you love.
Speaker 4: No thing please makes.
Speaker 8: Me again up bout my team having lost in it all.
Speaker 4: Because we've all world.
Speaker 12: God were getting lost in it all about then bid
then we're gonna.
Speaker 1: Sit ride in and getting lost in it all.
Speaker 8: They fan out in a long time.
Speaker 13: Then I just lie in joy in my no, I
ain't seen this curling a lot time and now singing.
Speaker 4: On stitis well because they messed down. Then alout the dressing.
Speaker 8: The man is riding away, then.
Speaker 5: Begin a nonsen something won't dim my ULTI five antitude.
Then he now even and chine in the bosh in
nine spence Benny. This is something about.
Speaker 13: The music, Glen song, raise the cheese mal Maskamon.
Speaker 4: I needed the dos a dog.
Speaker 12: Because they had all work looking Bostar to die. Somebody
got me then said riding lever care.
Speaker 4: Loosty the dog HA been nine a long time, and
I just my.
Speaker 8: Oh, I just my charge by n.
Speaker 2: To Bosting.
Speaker 4: Because we did all we can lost lost.
Speaker 12: Just got a gat Thingsdayvalda can bos.
Speaker 4: I want to say this can long shot and now
one joy that scared