Speaker 1: Hi, This is Scott Donna Telly from Confluence, Pennsylvania, and
I play at the store. Some of it in golf
course is golf Starter number nine six four.
Speaker 2: The bridge of the song it gets quiet, and it's
just a Ben Hogan interview and.
Speaker 3: He just talks about, what do you mean it's a
Ben Hogan interview, that's.
Speaker 2: Exactly the song just gets quiet, it's just guitars, like
bass and drums kind of go away, and it's just
Ben Hogan where he's like.
Speaker 3: Actual Ben Hogan. Yeah, oh cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it was the early eighties. He was
super old, and he was talking about how he feels
sorry for the young kids because you know, they don't
know adversity and you know, they don't know what it's
like to have to really grind, and that he grew
up poor and he knew that the only way he
was going to be able to compete with anybody else
was if they were work two hours a day, he'd
have to work eight. And then what he says is
every day that I progressed was a joy to me.
And I recognize it every day. And I thought that
fit in so nicely, looked so and it's really good
gives me goosebum just got.
Speaker 3: Together.
Speaker 1: My family wouldn't richly recoord.
Speaker 3: And I had a tough dail mild line and I
can handle tough, and I talked well the only way
I can win.
Speaker 1: I'm just just I work. These comers so uh, they
might work.
Speaker 2: Two hours a day, and I worked, and every day
that I progress was a joy to me.
Speaker 1: And I think.
Speaker 3: Songs in the key of golf the punk rock band
made conquers our favorite pastime.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from
great golf minds to help you lower your score and
raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 3: There's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 2: Justin Helloy, Fred, thanks for having us.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it absolutely, and he said us, Hey Bricks, how
you doing.
Speaker 1: Hey good Fred, thanks for having us.
Speaker 3: So this is gonna be fascinating for me because I
get this email from you and it's like, hey, we're
a punk band that loves golf. It's like, what does
that mean? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Not two things that necessarily go together. Like I live
next to a golf course and I hear people who
have speakers on all the time. I don't know if
I ever hear punk music coming up of a golf
course or anybody I play with. What made you guys
decide let's do punk music with all lyrics?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess I'll leave the charge. Well, we basically
we Bricks and I were in a band that was,
you know, in that scene back in I think I
joined the band in two thousand and seven, and it
was just always the music we grew up loving, and
it was something where, you know, as we got older,
like the band kind of fizzled out. We did our
thing and had fun. And it actually coincided with me
playing golf, Like I didn't start golf to my mid twenties,
and it was just an app just got totally addicted,
Like I think my first two seasons, I didn't count it,
but it was between one hundred and twenty to one
hundred and fifty rounds my first two seasons of playing.
So it was just an full blown addiction. And then
you know, he lives super far away and then we'd
stay in touch, but it was like that was still
the music we grew up loving. And yeah, we started
going on a yearly golf trip and we just it
was like mentioned it as a joke like, how funny
would it be to write songs about this? Because it's
so not a thing, And we like started joking about it,
and then one day we were just like, all right,
let's let's do it. Let's do it for real, And
now here we are on the Golf Smarter podcast. We
made it.
Speaker 3: We made it. What is this is from Steve Martin's
The Jerk. I am somebody, I'm in the phone book,
I'm in somebody. All right, Bricks, what is your story?
I mean, do you concur with what Justin just said?
Speaker 1: I do? I do. I think it was really just
a joke that continue to gain steam until now we
find ourselves fully promoting a band and on your podcast,
and we've got a full bona fide album that sounds fantastic.
It's distributed everywhere. And it all started from us just
joking around on the golf course because we would so
we would do a trip. It started just out of
the pandemic. I think twenty twenty one, I got a
text from Justin saying, Hey, I've got this craz is
the idea and I don't know if you're going to
be in or not, but let me know what you think,
and of course we're all locked down in our houses
at the time, and I'm like, I don't really talk
to Justin in six months. I wonder what this could be.
But I'm in because I haven't left my house in
six months. Help me, Yeah exactly. So yeah, it's like
we're planning a golf trip Anina fourth and are you
in it without even thinking of what it could be
or how much it costs us? Absolutely, I'm down, sign
me out. Uh, And so we would go. And it
started in twenty twenty one, and we're golfing thirty six
holes a day for four or five days. Every day
we're offing thirty young man. I think we hit our
limit this year though. We did thirty six holes for
five days straight. And but wow, just just shells of
shells of men.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you don't go out drinking afterwards at night.
Thirty six holes every single day, you're like, okay, I'm
going to sleep in the morning.
Speaker 2: That's the problem. If it was only golfing, then we
probably would have survived a little bit better. But there
was I mean, it wasn't going out. But you know,
you get back to the get back to the house,
you're like, let's just crack a bottle of the whiskey.
See I see where it takes us. And then next thing,
you know, at seven am the next morning, like what
was I thinking?
Speaker 3: Oh, we got a team time in three hours?
Speaker 1: The last last trip, we were in Tucson, and I
went to bed early, and I hear back in the morning,
Justin's just rolling out of bed, you know, just in
time to get into the car to go. And we
find out from John who were with is like Justin
was on top of the picnic table screaming the decline
by no effects for eighteen.
Speaker 4: Minuts straight, three in the morning, which is where this.
Speaker 2: Whole band came from. So that's it's we're kind of just.
Speaker 1: Going of going.
Speaker 3: So Briggs, tell me about your golf history.
Speaker 1: I didn't start until later in life, like like Justin,
I was probably twenty six, twenty five. I know, you're
killing me so much, so much waste.
Speaker 3: I started playing in my forties. Okay, oh did you Okay,
all right, you haven't you haven't even reached later in
life yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. Yeah, I had a buddy who just
kind of kept poking at me, saying, golf's the best
you would do it, and I always considered it, you know,
coming from the punk rock background and anti establishment and
you know all that. It's kind of mentality was it
didn't really seem like the thing for me, right, country club,
rich white dudes like not my scene. But he's a
good friend, so I'm like, you know what, sure, let's go.
What can it hurt? And then of course, you know,
hit a pure iron and it just became my life,
right pure It just.
Speaker 3: Takes once where it feels right, and it's like man.
Speaker 1: And I've been chasing it ever since then. Yeah. So
I didn't put up huge jumpers like justin in my
first year, probably fifteen twenty rounds, but now I'm averaging
like forty fifty. Well I'm probably about fifty right now
and we're in bit obviously. All so, yeah, doing pretty well.
I'm not getting any better, but I'm golfing a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's that's how it works. But so, Bricks, You're
you're in Canada, right, how many months a year do
you get to play?
Speaker 1: We this year we had an early start. I was
able to play in April, like early April, which was nice. Yeah,
We've got a hill out here called Calibogi. It's a hill,
it's a golf course on a on a mountain. It's
on a ski l so it drains really well. So
we were able to play. There was still snow on
some of the greens. I can't believe they even let
us play, but yeah, we were playing. There was snow
on the greens. It was snowing for a couple of
rounds we played there. So yeah, so.
Speaker 3: Hard stock Man, You're great.
Speaker 1: We we just we cope. We do what we have
to do. Oh yeah, I've got I've got the warm
weather gloves. I've got a little mittens that I put
on my push cart so I can push it around
and then like in the cold, like the whole thing too.
Speaker 3: Tires on your push cart.
Speaker 4: Should get chance for there's a song title right there, yeah,
where it all comes from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll play. This was the earliest I've ever
got out, but we'll go until. You know, early November
is the latest you would want to go. But then
this frost delays every day and you're just kind of
sitting there waiting for your tea time at two o'clock.
So I've got some friends in Toronto. They're they're a
little bit milder, and they were golfing in December a
couple of years ago, which is insane to me. So
you gotta get it in summer, you gotta get it
in and.
Speaker 3: You exposed your Canadian without oot and justin you're in
South Carolina, so you get to play twelve months a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, year round here. I mean, you'll it'll get
it gets a little chilly in the winter. But I
moved here. I've been I've been in Charleston now about
three and a half years, but I came from Detroit.
So it was a similar story with bricks, like similar weather, play,
like cram in as much as you can during the season,
and then that was one of the main big reasons
for moving here was year round golf. So really it
was well, yeah, it was well, the wife doesn't like winter,
and I love golf, so it was like, all right, well,
let's get out of here. Let's go somewhere where we
can where I can golf all year and you can
not have the winter. And that's kind of how we
ended up there.
Speaker 3: Where's your wife from from?
Speaker 2: She's actually from Canada. So that was back in the
that original band we were in. I kind of always
joke because like, I, uh, the band needed a singer,
and I had seen the band come through Detroit on
tour and I was like, man, that band was like
I just became a fan of that band, and then
I tried out for them and then ended up finding
myself living in Ottawa, Canada for four and a half years,
and that's where like, the band didn't work out, but
I met my wife there, so it kind of, you know,
all worked out for the best. So but yeah, lived
in Detroit.
Speaker 1: What's that because it almost didn't because I almost turned
you down to be the singer the band.
Speaker 3: That was true.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, well that was more behavior related rather than
vocal ability.
Speaker 1: And so no, no, no, that was in the email.
So he sent that. We we blasted out a full
here's a track with no vocals to everybody, right, So
we got submissions from all over everywhere for to be
our new singer, and we would get tons of emails
and we were looking through it just kind of jaded.
The band was just like tired of getting these awful singers.
You know, people sent in music videos of them like
rocking out their garage. It was great, kind of more
funny than anything. But so Justin, we were just got
so much. It was just on autopilot to just reject, reject, reject, reject.
So Justin had submitted a great song and the band
had already listened to it a few of the guys
and they were like, Yeah, you're awesome, let's bring you
up for a tryout. And then I got to the email.
Didn't think that it was wrong.
Speaker 2: I totally forgot about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, you're sorry, you're not for us, t
get Yeah, so we almost, Yeah, I almost turned you down,
but you know now you're my number one pick.
Speaker 2: Good Who would have known that twenty years later we'd
be right here.
Speaker 3: Well, it feels like we're having a therapy session here,
So let's continue to see how you guys work this out.
So and you both came from a punk background. Is
that what your yeah got into? What was this on
the let's say the late seventies or the eighties. What
were your bands that were influencing you?
Speaker 1: I guess go first, Well, late seventies is a little
before my time, but we were more like late nineties
early two thousands was kind of the time period. So
the skate punk era with Live Wagon and No Effects
and Penny Wise and all those types of bands. You know,
Rantid like that. I like fans that you would see
on book towards typically a lot of you know, Barria,
Green Day and won Ransoms from the Bay Area I
think as well. So Green Day was, you know, my
first album when I was a kid, and that just
kind of flipped a switch at me. I got four
albums from a Columbia house records, you know, you mail
in the stamps with the records. All I got Green Day,
Ace of Basse Bull and like something else. So I
had a big, you know, a lot to choose from,
and Green Day was that was the guiding light that
kept me.
Speaker 3: That was the first album you purchased.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one in that pack of four, and that was
the one that I chose to be my north star
for my music career for the rest of time.
Speaker 3: First album I purchased with my own money, Sergeant Pepper's
when it first came out, nice, not a bad one
while ago, yeah, right right there. And there was a
skip in it. I mean these were records, right, and
there was a skip in it. And I returned it
and it had skipped again. I don't know why. But
now every time I listen to that one of those songs.
I heard that skip every single time. And for people
who don't know what records are or a skip isn't
a record, I can't explain it to you. Justin tell
me about your influences on music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it was a similar story to me,
Like I got really into. The ones that got me
were a lot of the ones Brick's mentioned, but like
lag Wagon was probably was and is my favorite, strung out,
just a lot of the fast skate punk bands that
almost got it was almost like cause you mentioned I know,
I know your history and what you did, which is
wow that we were talking about like with the radio
station and all of that. But it was almost like, yeah,
we'll talk about that. Yeah, But it almost like the
influences we had like all funneled from that, you know.
So it was like we didn't necessarily get into like
and I still did because you almost like you view
it as like, oh, that's part of your history lesson
and where this music came from. So I listened to
all of them, but I would really drawn to the
fast skate punk that kind of took influences from like
the older stuff in metal as well, and that's kind
of just what I got into and what kind of
I almost feel like the music you discover when you're
an adolescent, like thirteen fourteen, that just it just kind
of grabs onto you, you know, and it's like I'm
forty now and it's like that's still there. It's like
it's it's almost just like you don't you never shake it.
Speaker 3: So no, actually, I think I've read some research recently
that says that the music that you listen to between
the ages of eighteen and twenty one is what you
consider the best music ever made for your entire life. Yeah, yeah,
that makes sense. Yeah. So in the late seventies, I
had just graduated college and got a job, got an
internship that turned into a job at a radio station
in San Francisco, and it was the first free form
FM rock station in the country. It was KSA in
San Francisco and which we referred to as Casan And
in seventy eight we started playing punk music before anybody else.
I mean, we kind of there's a documentary being made
right now about the radio station. Elvis Costello is in it,
and you know, talking about how I knew nothing about
saying the radio in America, and I came here in
case and was there with open arms and let me
run through the record library and stuff. So we were
playing Elvis Costello, the Ramones, the Cars, the Clash. I mean,
these were all new bands at the time, Blondie and
I can go on, but that was that was the
beginning of the scenes. So the fact that you guys talked,
you know, sent me this stuff and introduced him like,
oh my gosh, I haven't started thinking about punk music
in a long time, and I did know that it's
still had life.
Speaker 2: Well I don't know. I mean, I think it does.
But that's what like the ven diagram of golfers and
people who listen to punk rock is probably a tiny
little space in the middle. There's there's there's dozens, and
that's what we're open to get.
Speaker 3: Or anyone who likes guys I play with, they're playing
Grateful Dead that all the times. Yeah, could you please
play something? It's like for me, it's motown. So it's
the same, I go, yeah, exactly exactly. I mean the
music influences in Detroit incredible, which is.
Speaker 1: Those artists, and those artists are the Ramones that Clash.
Those are like Justin was saying that was the history lesson.
So I was the same as Justin. I started with
the Live Wagons and those bands, and then I was like, okay,
I need to I need to understand the heritage of
so I really latched out of the class and the Remones.
Those are two that they had a melody, they were fast,
they were they had an edge to them, but the
recordings sounded. I still think they stand up to this day,
you know, understanding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sex pistols still forget sex pistles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what you got quite the blue rock history. Like
I was reading up, you worked with Ben song Torres.
That's pretty cool. Do your listeners know how cool you are?
Speaker 2: Not just some hack golfer even uh so?
Speaker 3: Actually Ben funk Torres still friends with him. So I
had a He had a Sunday show on our radio
station every Sunday. You know, they let him just do
what he wanted to do on Casan and he was
on from ten p ten am to two pm on
Sunday mornings. I was on before him. I was on
six am to ten am on Sundays and six am
to ten am on Saturdays and then Monday through Friday
from six to ten, I was producing the morning show
and so they had given me an air shift. And
the day of my college graduation, I was on the
air on this radio, so like, where's Fred. He's all
in the air. So that was pretty big deal for
h and because what I was nine years old, I
was like, I want to be a disc jockey. Hey,
you know, And so I did that until I was
a dis jockey there and when I left that radio station.
But as the old saying goes in radio, if you've
not been fired from radio, you've never worked in radio.
So when I got fired from KSAN because they were
making changes, I went to another radio station. I was
doing jazz radio, and then they started giving me lists
of songs to play in order and said say this
in between each one. And I'm like, this is not
what I signed up for to be a disc jockey.
But I loved doing production, so I just kind of
stayed with the production and I did that for the
rest of my radio career, and then you know, did
a national syndication And when I started doing this podcast
in two thousand and five, it was the first time
since nineteen eighty that I had got and in front
of a microphone.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: I was always behind, you know, the board, doing the
engineering and production. But I had never I had not
and when I was just jocking, didn't do interviews either,
So this was all new to me when I started
doing this podcasts, working on it, still trying to get
it done. Yeah, let's take another quick break. I want
to get back into your music and go over the
lyrics and more than just the lyrics, the motivation behind it,
and see what you want to do. And we'll do
that when we come back after that, because it's all
so who's the songwriter and who's you're both musicians justin
you do the singing. Yeah, what are the roles? I
mean you're the entire band.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, just the two of us, two of you now. Yeah,
if we ever actually well like if we ever tour,
we would have to Well that's the funny you say that,
because we made we made actually a pretty hard rule
in recording that, because we have a lot of friends
who can play, Like I didn't play bass for twenty
years and then we were we were talking about who
we're going to get to play bass on the record,
and we have like like our buddy cam is like
a studio like he is. So he's probably the best
bass player I've ever known personally. But we were like,
we made a rule that in order to be on
the record, you have to keep and maintain a twenty
handicap or lower. So that just ruled out a lot
of people for being on it. So I was like,
I guess I got to figure out how to play
bass again.
Speaker 1: We have a whole other songwriting input, no other It
had to be us because nobody else we knew how
to handicap that was lower than twenty and could play
an instrument.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and went into punk views. Yeah that was yeah,
so we uh crazy, I love that.
Speaker 2: But as far as songwriting goes, we kind of just
like a lot of voice notes get split around, like
I'll I'll think of an idea for a song and
just kind of record a voice note, send it over
to Bricks And he definitely does more of the arranging,
and then I feel bad sometimes because it'll spend all
this work arranging the song. I'm like, yeah, I don't know, man,
let's try it this way. But that's I would say,
more of the structure of the song and the arrangements
are definitely for for bricks and then a lot of
just it's it's kind of just like a team effort really,
because we'll just like, we'll get the basic structure of
the song and we'll both just pick it apart too.
Speaker 1: So it's, yeah, it's a lot of iteration, I think,
so Justin will absolutely do that. We actually just made
a post on Instagram today that goes through our entire
songwriting structure and it's it's a screenshot of the actual
voice and emo Justin sang it was. I think the
first song that we did together is Golf Gotts is
the first song on the album. And he's just sitting
there singing into his phone and he'll send me a
text saying, I've got the voice of an angel. This
is the greatest chord. Turn this into a hit, and yeah,
so I'll take it away. I'll throw it into my
into my daw and I'll start running a progression round it,
so putting some drums and just get the feel together
and I'll usually do a course reverse send it back
to Justin. He'll hate it, tell me why he hates it,
and I'll try something else, and then we'll just go
back and forth. Once we have it kind of together.
We kind of treat it like homework, not homework. But
he'll take it away, stew on it for a while,
write some vocalalities, tracks some things, upload it back, and
I'll take it away, do my part, change a few things,
send it back and then it's almost like it's the
postal service in that way. It's not We're not sitting
in a room like we used to and you know
back in the day in the two thousands where we
all had acoustic guitars when we were working at ideas.
It's a lot I feel like it's a lot more
efficient this way because you don't have to remember all
the churt changes and all the different things that you've done,
but be there's less. Uh, I don't really like that.
Can you try that again? It's you're able to just
sit by yourself and work out a problem from start
to finish and then you know, bounce it off the
next person. Is a fully formed idea, rather than having
to burst something in the presence of somebody else, which
can always be you know, difficult to do right the
first time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, when I'm doing these interviews, lots of times
when I guess we'll say something that's kind of like
an inside baseball reference and I have no idea what
it is or it's you know, random, so I asked
them what does that mean? But I do know that,
daw because there's people going.
Speaker 2: I was gonna hop it there, like people don't know
what to.
Speaker 3: Digital audio workstage. Yes, I produce on pro Tools, so
probably one of the few people that does podcasts on
pro tools anyway. All right, so justin your thoughts on
on the the creative process, it's for your songs.
Speaker 2: It's it's fun. It's almost like like because you get
out of not to say it, like you almost accept like, oh,
I'm a grown up now, my band days are over,
and that's almost like the vibe you had, but you
always just want to scratch that itch. So we started
doing this again and it was like, you know, he's
obviously we both still have day jobs, but it would just.
Speaker 3: Be like that was one of my next questions. You
both golf and you're not making yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, we'll see. But it was basically, you know,
you're just you're looking at the clock and then it's
it's almost like it just became my the funnest hot
I do outside of golf, because it was just like
you have ideas, Like I have a note in my
phone where we're on the course and someone says something stupid,
I'm like, that's a song idea. You just type it
in and you're just constantly writing lyrics constantly, just so
it just becomes a big focus and it's just fun.
So it's but it's also like Bricks was saying, like
when you're on your own, you really do kind of
hash it out and you just like like with vocal takes,
it's like, I'm going to do this fifty times before
I think it sounds perfect because I know if I
send it back to Bricks and there's a part that's
flatter sharp, he's going to be like, dude, you're not.
Speaker 1: That good, So you got to get it together.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the song content itself is so fun to really
create and build off of because everybody's got a street.
Golf is such a fertile topic because there's always a
funny story in it somewhere, right, you can't get out
of a sandtrap, or your wife doesn't want to let
you golf or whatever, and then we have a lot
of fun going back and forth with the lyrics adjust,
We'll write a subtle lyrics and I'll say, oh, wouldn't
it be funnier if it was like this are And
then we could really, you know, dig into it and
take personal experiences too. Like Liar, for instance, is the
song on their album about somebody who cheats a golf
as the name that Yeah, exactly, so we've all played
with somebody like that before, right, and we we just
you know, you well, this is the problem now that
we wrote that song. Now, every time I go out
golfing with somebody and who knows the band, they're like
playing by the rules to the team. They think I
am the police of golf. So I've got to live
up to this high standard. Not that I ever did,
but it's like it's tense now and the golf course
people know about this song, but yeah, you know it's uh.
There's a lot of great opportunity to have some some
good jokes and really work together to make it as
funny as possible. In UH. In addiction, there's a line
of balls and towels and balls and town some training
aids and I think it was something else, but Justin's
like I changed this word to training aids because it
sounds more possessive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I that was almost like a lot of
it too, is just like the silliness of it because
like when you listen to it, like it's it sounds
like a passionate song with like the sing and everything,
but it's like it is really silly when you when
you look at the lyrics, because that was kind of
the goal. So I'm wondering if some people here and.
Speaker 3: Be like, are these are these guys serious?
Speaker 2: Like that's that's kind of the vibe. I you'll, you'll, yeah,
but when you see it, You're like, they can't be serious.
This is the silliest song I've ever heard. So that's
a lot of it.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna want to pick pick apart some of
the lyrics. I want to get into it. But you know,
I've always had a difficult time listening comprehending lyrics on
both hip hop rap or and my kids hate me
for that, but in punk, so needing to see the
lyrics makes all the difference. Well, listen, I watched TV
with close caption on so I can understand what the
hell they're saying too, And boy, what a difference it
makes when the content you're like, oh, that's what they're
talking about. Okay, So you know, for your lyrics, I'm like,
you know, because I love the song addiction, but I
wasn't sure what you were talking about. And so it's
like you sent me a link to another version of
it that was just the lyrics. So I want to
see the lyrics and the video together on one one
of those videos combining to please, I'm asking, so let's
talk about you know, let's how about we do this.
Let's start with addiction and can you just tell us
the words? Can you just read or you know, talk
the words through so we get this story.
Speaker 2: I could probably do it.
Speaker 3: It's like trying to Yeah, it's so well, like doing
the national anthem speaking. I'm on those you see oh
sorry breaks.
Speaker 2: I'm on the course six days a week, but I
can't feed my family. They keep begging me to quit.
Maybe after Scottsdale Boy's Strip. My wife wants couples therapy,
the handy therapy certain second. The handicap is down to three.
The kids are wearing tattered clothes while I drain altars
with my gros. The games so strong, how can anyone
say I'm wrong? Someone help me and of the choruses,
I'm so poor now and my bank account's empty. I
thought that this was all good fun.
Speaker 1: But you can't pay rent with prob ones.
Speaker 2: No, I'm so poor now. And that's basically that's the
first person of the course. I don't know if you
need the whole day that gives. Can't pay rent with
prob ones for that course. And I was like, dude,
that's really good. I got a big kick up that.
Speaker 3: Came down.
Speaker 2: What they say that shine?
Speaker 3: Well, that was very impressive that you were able to
speak the lyrics of at least the first verse and
the chorus of addiction if you want to sing the
next like another one, and so we can understand the words,
and then we'll go back and we'll by the way,
I love the name of the album, Songs in the
Songs in the Key of Golf. That's your detroit under
absolutely Songs in the Key of Golf. What a great name,
great name for it. So let's see the golf gods.
What's it all about? Liar uh and addiction? How many
those songs are there?
Speaker 1: Greening regulation, green regulation? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Is that green? Three's or scur is.
Speaker 2: How it's written? Just g I R. Ticking kay of
the stats. Swing thoughts is another one. Uh, there's one
called playthrough, but that's twenty six seconds long, which is
a which is a funny one because that's about if
anyone's ever been there, it's when you're you're just you're
rolling up to the tea box with your buddy and
there's four guys in front of you, and you're like, hey, guys,
do you mind if we play through real quick? You're like,
don't worry, we play fast, will be quick, and then
you hit your t shot and you just pull it
right to the left. Why everyone just thinks less of you.
So that's a quick twenty six second one. It's also
the fastest song in the record. It's a.
Speaker 1: I think it's twenty two seconds long, and half of
it's a drum.
Speaker 3: Shold yeah exactly. Oh man, okay, we would bricks. What's
your favorite song?
Speaker 1: I really like what it's all about because I really
feel like it's from a songwriting perspective and an accessibility perspective.
I really feel like it could scratch a lot of
you know, get get into a lot of people's listening rotation.
It's and it's also one of the only uplifting songs
on the album, because golf is all about you know,
why can't I hit agree in regulation? I'm terrible? Or
I'm having all these awful swing thoughts. Or this guy's
a cheater and I hate him. I'm going to kill
him in the clubhouse, or you know that's like our
whole album, or you know you you pull a t
shot when you play through. But what it's all about
is it's aspirational. It's kind of from the perspective of
somebody who's put in the work, who's been out grinding
on the range, who's taken lessons, who really took responsibility
for their golf game and making it better. And it's
about them eventually realizing that, you know that what that
glorious feeling might must be of, you know, being able
to hit a high cut at will, or you know,
bombing and drive without even thinking of it. Right, it's uh,
it's from the perspective of somebody who has gotten there.
I am not there. It's you know, it's what I imagine
and it would would feel like. And I just think
it's a really nice song.
Speaker 3: Can you do the words for us? Justin do you
are from what it's all about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should probably talking about it's been a well second,
it would be that would be a little interesting.
Speaker 1: It's so cheesy though it kind of works best with
the with the with the music. But give it, give
it a try.
Speaker 2: Well, it's while it also has he didn't mention that,
but Bricks structured this song in a way where like
it all breaks down, like the bridge of the song,
it gets quiet, and it's just a Ben Hogan interview
and he just talks about, what.
Speaker 3: Do you mean it's a Ben Hogan interview.
Speaker 2: That's exactly, it's a it's a Ben Hogan. The song
just it just kind of comes to like it gets
quiet and it's just guitars, like bass and drums kind
of go away and it's just Ben Hogan where he's like,
I like.
Speaker 3: Actual Ben Hogan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did back I think it was the early eighties.
He was super old, and he was talking about how
he feels sorry for the young kids because you know,
they don't know adversity and you know, they don't know
what it's like to have to you know, really grind,
and that he grew up poor and that you know,
he knew that the only way he was going to
be able to compete with anybody else was if they
were work two hours a day, he'd have to work
eight and every day. And what he says is, you
know every day that I progress was a joy to
me and I recognize it every day. And I thought
that fit in so nicely with the song and it
Yeah it is really it is really good. Gives me goosebump.
I just got.
Speaker 3: It's good. Yeah, it's awesome. I love it.
Speaker 1: It goes into a ripping guitar solo, which is fast.
Speaker 3: So what tell me what instruments you both play on
these wreck on the record? I do you each do
multiple instruments? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well I do all the vocals and bass, and then
Rick's drums.
Speaker 1: And guitar, drumming, guitar and any keyboards that are in there,
little pads or synthesizer stuff all put in. It's there's
not a there's not a lot in there. You'll there
are little pads here and there, but we try and
keep it pretty punk rock. You know, four chords, a
couple of guitars at a bass and drums are our
mix and mastering engineer Dan Aggie Christ, who is a magician.
Each of our recordings from the basement at our Project
studios and elevated them to what it sounds like today,
which is could be on the radio.
Speaker 3: It's so good if there's a radio station playing punk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But he did a lot of magic in there to
elevate with some pads and he he just went the
extra if you listen closely, and I forget what the
song is, but there's little there's bells in behind a verse,
there's all these tiny little things. And if you listen closely,
every time you listen to you or something new, it's
a really well produced album. Credit a lot to Dean
for putting in the work up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's awesome. That's awesome. I'm gonna throw something out
that's kind of strange. But when I listened to a
couple of the songs, I had this thought and I'll
share that in a second. But I forwarded the songs
to some of my friends. I said, you got to
check my golf buddies who also you know, they love music.
And one of my friends responded with something that had
crossed my mind, and I'm going to present it and
see what you guys think. He His response was, this
sounds like it could be rent and I'm like, yeah,
I was thinking that this could be an off Broadway
show that.
Speaker 1: Would be incredible.
Speaker 3: This is I mean what, You've got enough songs and
there's stories in there that you can tie this together
to make it a stage show. Has that ever crossed
your mind?
Speaker 2: Never? Once? What sign sign me up?
Speaker 1: I know well now that the amster wheels turning because
I was thinking for ourn extra release. It wouldn't it
be cool if you did a concept album there was
a story of a full round, you know, eighteen songs
start to finish, and I would fit in quite nicely.
Speaker 3: With eighteen songs. Is you want to do?
Speaker 2: This is what brainstorming?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 2: You're gonna you know, it might not be that good.
Speaker 3: Or the show is called the front nine and you.
Speaker 1: Just do nine knowles right, and I'll have to pick
us up for a second season.
Speaker 3: Right you go to be continued, right? Or or or
you do the back nine? You just call the show
at the turn and there we got right? But it,
oh man bricks your face right now? You're like, I
can see the wheel spin. But this is to me
because the story, because the thing is how do you
get the golf community, which is not necessarily the punk community,
and then the punk community, which is pretty sure it's
not you know, the golf community. You know, as you
talked about the country club thing, and I'm not in
the country club thing. But there is something there that
could definitely be a stage show. And then you you know,
you do, you know you're going to have to not
just do straight punk. You know, there's got to be
a maybe there's a ballad there or something, you know,
a softer one and a motowny one, and there's going
to be different feels to the songs. But I think
you got something there that could be really compelling that
you can bring in the golf crowd to go. I'd
go to that show, dear. We're going to the theater tonight,
Oh we are. Yeah, We're gonna see a punk band
do golf songs. Oh we are.
Speaker 2: I think what I think the main takeaway I'm getting
here is we're gonna have to learn how to dance.
That's That's what it sounds like. That kind of a music.
Speaker 3: So it just it's a mosh pit man, or that
the name for our next song on about being in
the bunker. The mosh pit.
Speaker 2: It's not a bad idea and I'll throw it on
the list.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just every Thursday night we go over these ideas.
This is a top of the list on.
Speaker 3: Uh oh, well, we're gonna have to have you back.
I was getting excited, like, oh, I want to go
on you. I want to go on your golf trips.
But then you started talking about the whiskey and the
thirty six holes a day for five days. Is like,
I'm too old for that. I'll just I'll just wait.
Speaker 2: Well, we did learn our lesson for sure, just on
the amount of like I officially found that last golf trip,
I was like, okay, five days of thirty six is
too much golf. I found out that there is such
thing which I never would have believed before. But yeah,
raft to swap eighteen thirty six eighteen thirty six.
Speaker 3: That'll be the plan for the future.
Speaker 1: And we're going to book any swaw session in between
one of those eighteen old days.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We had a golf trip once down to San Diego.
I have this group of guys that I traveled with
every year. We're down to three, but every year and
one year we were in San Diego and for after
one of the rounds, I booked masseuses to come to
the house.
Speaker 1: We were all, oh, and never mind strippers were too
well married, then it's no stoppers.
Speaker 3: We didn't bachelor party. I can tell you a story
about a bachelor party. I was in Detroit and I'm
not going to share it now, but guns came out,
so I I just I, you know, I want everyone
to go check out songs in the key of Golf
and you can go to Majors band dot com and
and find more about these guys. And quickly, how did
the name Majors? It is such a great name for
a band. Majors it was and it is everything. It
was like, it's a golf band.
Speaker 2: It was just kind of tied into I mean, the
majors in golf and it and it looks really cool
all capitalized, So yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: Justin just came up with it as a stroke of genius.
We were on that golf trip, I think, and we're like, Okay,
we're gonna do the band. We're gonna do it, and
Justin's like, what should it be called? Majors? Perfect? And
then we looked, We're like, can we find a better name?
And we looked for weeks, we thought about everything and
there's nothing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we tried a different one for a long
time and it just stuck.
Speaker 3: So well, yeah, it's Dick's Hard. It's Dick's Hard Songs
in the Key of Golf from majors Band dot com.
Check it out just than Brix. Guys, this has been
so much fun and I look forward to the stage
show and I'll be there for opening. That's good.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having us so you really do appreciate it
a lot.
Speaker 1: This awesome. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well, you just never know what you're gonna hear on
this podcast from one week to the next. Right, it
was really fun for me. I hope you enjoyed it too. Again,
you can learn more at majorsband dot com and the
EP is called Songs in the Key of Golf and
in order of how they were played. I give you
small tastes of what it's all about, gi R swing
thoughts and my favorite addiction or should I do that
like an FM disc jockey? And what it's all about
before that gi R swing thoughts in my favorite addiction. Yeah,
that's why I left radio. I had a really fun
round last week at the Claremont Country Club in Oakland, California. Now,
I lived around that area between nineteen seventy six and
nineteen ninety two and never even knew that club existed,
even though I drove right by it many, many times.
The club was established in eighteen ninety seven, but the
course was designed by doctor Alistair McKenzie in nineteen twenty seven.
It's a wonderful little par sixty eight course with beautiful
views over the Bay of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge,
and Marin County from the back tease. It's only fifty
five hundred yards, with two par fives at one in
eighteen and five par threes. Four of the par threes
are over one hundred and seventy yards, and two of
those or over two hundred and fifteen yards, and most
of the par fours demand a long second shot to
either a protected or elevated green. As it is with
Alistair mackenzie designed courses, he uses bunkers to create illusions
that make the hole seem much longer from the tee
than it actually plays. The course beat me up pretty good,
and luckily my host has offered me an open invitation
to play again. Of course he did. He won all
three games we played, even though we have the same handicap.
Next week, you'll walk with me and my caddie Sam
through the final five holes of my round at the
infamous Link style public course Chambers Bay, designed by Robert
Trent Jones Junior in two thousand and seven for the
first Northwest hosted US Open back in twenty fifteen. And
speaking of historic courses, this week's Golf Smarter Ambassador, Scott
Donnatally plays at the historic Summit Inn Golf Club in Farmington, PA,
which is only open from April through October. So, unfortunately, Scott,
your playing season is coming to a close for twenty
twenty four. I'm sorry, but I hope you'll continue to
listen to Golf Smarter each week three year off season
to find out how to keep your game fresh. And
here's some more fascinating stories from our eclectic variety of guests.
Scott took advantage of our limited time offer of receiving
all three gifts given to our Golf Smarter Ambassadors that
included Tony Manzoni's video, a box of flight Path golf teas,
and a red rooster golf glove and glove storage compartment
I'd like to invite you to also be a Golf
Smarter Ambassador and choose from one of those three great gifts.
When you participate, all you need to do is introduce
a future episode. Just write a golf Smarter Podcast at
gmail dot com and I'll get back to you with
some simple instructions on how to play. If you have
any questions, comments, or suggestions for upcoming episodes, please write
to golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot com or click
on the Heyfred button when you visit wolfsmarter dot com