If you'd like to participate, and you have a good pitch for a song and a reason you'd like to talk about yourself in the context of examining that song, then hit me up! Or I'll ask you eventually, I guess.
Joe: Okay, I'll start again to explain what I'm doing here, so I don't have to write an introductory paragraph. So, it's gonna be called "Scatched into Our Souls." It's a lyric from a Hold Steady song. About how songs are important to us. But, ya know, I feel... it's my theory that they're important because of the listener, not the artist, not the song. The audience is imposing it's own feelings and emotions onto the art. You said that this song, "Fast Times at Dropout High," is important to you.
Dave: Very.
Joe: So in finding out why it's important to you, we learn something about Dave N., and about what you're putting onto the art, as opposed to the other way around.
Dave: Right, right.
Joe: "Fast Times at Dropout High."
Dave: The eighth track of End Is Forever.
Joe: Do you remember the first time you heard this song?
Dave: I do. It was on my headphones, on my Discman, and I was in my parents' car going somewhere. Not long after I bought the album with my hard-earned money.
Joe: What year was this?
Dave: 2002.
Joe: So over two decades ago.
Dave: Yeah.
Joe: Did you know at the time that it was going to be an important song to you? Like, was it immediate, or was it something you grew into?
Dave: It was kind of immediate, but not emotionally. I love this, the lyrics are pretty cool, I like the raw guitar. Over time, it grew into something more. Because I'm a pretty nostalgic person.
Joe: [laughter] Understatement!
Dave: Yeah. The whole song is about nostalgia. Just him going through his town, seeing stuff... for example, it talks about going back to a spot where him and his friend wrote their names in wet cement. And I had done that with my buddy Pat, who I'm actually seeing this weekend. We don't hang out much anymore. But I know it was on Oxford Avenue, out front of the apartments—was it Oxford? No, Rockwell Avenue, out front of the apartments out front of Rockwell Ave. I've been meaning to go back there sometime, just to see it was still there. It was there for many years. Maybe by this time one of the owners of the apartments chose to have it jackhammered out and re-cemented. But if they didn't? That'd be great. I'm not there very often though, because I live in West Chester now. And when I am in Fox Chase, it's just... I have the girls in the backseat, Ashley in the passenger seat, and Rockwell is out of the way. So things sometimes... if I'm in Fox Chase to see my parents, one day I'm going to pull over, get out of the car, and see if it's still there. I know exactly what apartments.
Joe: So when you hear this song, you hear yourself in the narrator, or the protagonist, of the song.
Dave: I do. It opens up like: he's alone. He grew up in Indiana, so he's there, and he's just walking around, back to the old spots where him and his buddies used to hang out, and just talk about it. I see myself in that.
Joe: Have you done that before? Purposefully walk around Fox Chase.
Dave: When I still lived in Fox Chase, I would. Not so much anymore, obviously. But also, when I was in London for three and a half months, there were some days where I didn't have class or my internship, and I didn't want to be around my roommates anymore, at the time, so I put my iPod on, and just walked around the city, to see the sights, but also thought about home the entire time. It was something else. So I wasn't walking around Fox Chase, I was walking around a completely different country, but I was thinking about that kind of stuff. Music does crazy things to you.
Joe: Yeah man. Do you think you would feel the same way about this song if you grew up somewhere else? Like, do you think it's Fox Chase specific, or just the idea of...
Dave: Yeah, just the idea of good friendship. We all, when we were all kids... and a lot of the song revolves around before his formative years, about those friendships. So I grew up in Fox Chase, so I think about Fox Chase. But anyone can relate to it. For example, for you it would be Lawndale, right? Is that where you grew up?
Joe: Eh, until eighth grade. Then we moved to Rockledge. But in my mind, they are kind of the same thing. And, I don't know, I tend to think of it in terms of the people instead of the places. I guess... I don't know. I was also thinking about all this when we were at Willow's birthday. I spent a decent amount of time at Burholme in my youth.
Dave: Me too.
Joe: And it was fun telling Keelan's new boyfriend, like, "Yeah, we used to play football down there, we used drink down there, every weekend..."
Dave: "We used to sled there."
Joe: Exactly!
Dave: "I used to go to the playground there, but it looked a lot different."
Joe: Exactly.
Dave: "I used to use the bathroom down there, which I didn't today because there were some shady characters outside."
Joe: [laughter] Do you think... I hate to keep saying "the protagonist," is this supposed to be the frontman of the Ataris?
Dave: Kris Roe.
Joe: Kris Roe, okay. Is this supposed to be... is Roe, does he have any sort of point besides "Remember When?"
Dave: See, that's a good question. When I look into his music—he has a lot of songs about this. He has a song called "Looking Back on Today," and "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." It's all nostalgic. So I really don't think he has any other reason to write these songs other than he's looking back on his life and the times that he used to enjoy.
Joe: Do you think there's value in that?
Dave: I do. Ya know, I find... I'm still a nostalgic guy.
Joe: I promise we will talk on that.
Dave: I'm pretty emotional too. What I've found over the years is that I've become less of both. Things get in the way. Family, the job, life's responsibilities. You have bills to pay! So I feel like being nostalgic can be fun, but also sometimes it doesn't get me anywhere or make me happier. I'll look back on old pictures on Facebook and be like, "Oh man, I wish I was doing that again."
Joe: So you feel like nostalgia makes you sad?
Dave: Sometimes it does. But then again, you always think about the saying, "Smile because it happened." So I've been more inclined to think that lately. I've been trying to take the emotion—purposefully trying to take the emotion out of things, not looking back on things so seriously, or... life's not a movie. For example, you're listening to music while you're doing the dishes, or you're in the car or whatever, and your favorite song's on, right? Or just music in general. And then it stops, and you're back to reality. Life's not a movie. There's no soundtrack to it. So getting nostalgic, again—I do like looking back, but I don't do it as much as I used to. Simply because it's... sometimes you have to be more serious about life. It's kind of hard to explain.
Joe: I get what you're saying though. Like, alright, do you feel, as a family man—father of two—do you feel some sort of responsibility to not be nostalgic?
Dave: No, because I'm definitely nostalgic with them. They're only three, they'll be three in a couple months. So I love looking back at their pictures and stuff. I can't really explain it though... every morning, I go on the Facebook, and it's like "You have memories from today." And I just stopped going to them. I don't know. I just felt... I don't want to take responsibility, but I don't want to sit here and say "Aw man I wish I was 22 again." Because, ya know, I have family now. I should be happy with my life, and I am very happy with my life, but I just... I don't know. I do still think about those times, all the time.
Joe: It kind of makes me think of the theory or whatever that when people look at Instagram, or any social media—like say you're looking at your friend's social media account, and it's all pictures of their kid, their dog, their vacation that they took, their pool and shit. They are presenting the ideal version of themselves on social media. They're selling themselves. Not necessarily on purpose, like they're trying to trick you or something. This is just what people do on social media. So I wonder if it's the same deal that, when you're looking back at your own social media, you're still seeing an ideal version of it. Right?
Dave: Yeah.
Joe: Like, I dunno, what's a shitty memory from when you were 22? What's the worst time when you were 22?
Dave: When I was 22?
Joe: Or around that time. Doesn't have to be "the worst." Name a bad memory.
Dave: [pause] I don't want to name the absolute worst.
Joe: [laughter] Why not?
Dave: Because we're on the record. And it's...
Joe: You don't want to call out people specifically? Or call out yourself?
Dave: I don't want to call out other people.
Joe: If I asterisked out the names, would other people know who you're talking about?
Dave: I think everyone would know immediately. But, yeah, I mean... let's see, the worst memory. That would have been...
Joe: Say 20 to 22. I'm just trying to make a point here.
Dave: When I was 24, my grandfather passed away. That was hard.
Joe: And you're not reminiscing about that on Facebook.
Dave: I'm not. It's not a highlight.
Joe: So I... I used to keep a journal. Back on Xanga. Started it around 2004. I wrote on it more or less every day, less as I got older. But I was still keeping up with it semi-regularly until right before I got married. But I've never showed anybody, it's private. But if you go back and read the '04, '05, '06 entries... they're very bad. Very uncomfortable.
Dave: Do you still read them?
Joe: Every once in a while, if I'm trying to remember something specific. But it's all negative emotions. It's like the opposite of the Facebook highlight reel. I was presenting to my future self a very bad part of myself.
Dave: So you must look back on that and feel pride on where you are now.
Joe: ...Yeah. But also just... I don't know. I think it's hard to remember how miserable we were, back in the day.
Dave: When you're a teenager.
Joe: Yeah. And that's a good way for me to remember. Not that it's bad to think of the good times, but it's very easy to slip into the whole "Things were so much better when I was eighteen years old."
Dave: Revisionist history.
Joe: Yeah! So. That's kind of what I was thinking about with this song. Do you think that's what Roe has to say about it?
Dave: I think Kris Roe has no other motive other than talking about his past and then writing songs about it. Because it's so prevalent in all his songs, really. Talking about his past and stuff. A lot of music from that genre talks about breakups, and he does plenty of that too. More than anybody in the music I listen to, even today, he talks about his old friends, and stuff he did as a kid, and stuff like that.
Joe: Even if you hadn't recommended this album to me originally, I would have immediately known that this was a Dave N. album. I don't mean that as an insult or a compliment, I just know you to be the type of person who is going to be thinking back on the past.
Dave: I appreciate that. I know I rambled at first about how I try not to be nostalgic anymore. But I still am. The Ataris are the perfect example of doing that. Again, so many songs talking about that. I appreciate the part about his friends and stuff.
Joe: So when you hear that part, who do you think about?
Dave: For that specific part, I think about Pat M., and my buddy Eric. I'm seeing them both this weekend. I think about my other friends from that time too, like Mike and George. Maybe those two the most because we hung out every single day. We did everything together. We walked the railroad tracks through Pennypack Park. We rode out bikes through Pennypack Park. We built forts in Pennypack Park. We did everything in Pennypack Park. I remember the creek down there, down where I live, used to freeze. When the ice is clear like glass, that's when it's hardest. So we'd do everything to try to break it. Throw rocks at it. Rode our bikes on it. We'd wrestle on it. Nothing could break it. I think about those days a lot, in the dead of winter. It doesn't get too cold like that anymore. When I was a kid, it was freezing. I think about those times, in the woods. And the summer too, walking along the tracks in 100-degree weather. I talked about the cement writing.
Joe: So those two guys you were talking about, what were their names?
Dave: Pat and Eric.
Joe: Oh, the guys you were seeing this weekend. You don't see them too often?
Dave: The last time we hung out was back in March, but before that, it was over a year. We saw each other in March, we were over our friend's house, and I was like "Let's make it a point to do this," so when I got home, and it's like, we're adults now, let's pick a date three months out. Look, those weren't exactly the happiest times in my life, but I did love them. And this song specifically talks about those times, when you're a kid, with your friends.
Joe: What do you think you're mostly going to be talking about with Pat and Eric?
Dave: We'll probably be talking about the past. Just funny shit that happened, or what we did. That's probably it. Maybe sports too. But mostly bullshit. The past. When we hung out last March, we hung around the kitchen table till two in the morning, talking about the past. It was fun!
Joe: I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I think that might even be necessary at this point in our lives. Because what the fuck else is going on that other people would care about? Like, I personally care very much, and very deeply, about the shit that my kids are doing and getting into, and, like, worries that I might have, like the job, or the cool stuff I get to do with my wife... but that's not the stuff that I'm going to slide up to the bar and tell you about. I'll mention it, because we're friends. That's more of a courtesy, checking in on each other's lives. But, when I first got here, how long did it take before we started talking about the night that the dude from Joseph's almost ran over Harry with his car?
Dave: It was almost immediately.
Joe: Yeah!
Dave: And it was like the conversation naturally took us there.
Joe: I think that there can be too much of that.
Dave: Do you?
Joe: Yeah, but it's only too much if you're hanging out with someone every day, and that's all you talk about.
Dave: That's just a waste of time. I try to go out with a couple guys from work every once in a while, and we'll talk a lot about sports, we'll talk a lot about our current jobs—we don't work together anymore—but obviously we don't have a past to talk about. That conversation, it's a lot different. But if you're hanging out with someone every day, like I hang out with Ashley every day, we don't talk about the past that often.
Joe: If you were to try to explain the Joseph's incident to your coworkers, would you be able to?
Dave: I think so.
Joe: Successfully? Would they "get it"?
Dave: They both grew up more in the suburbs. I think they probably did less walking than we all did. So I don't know if they'd fully comprehend it. But they'd get the gist. I think that it's truly a city thing to do. Not saying that Fox Chase is "inner city." It's not. But it's a city neighborhood, and you can walk.
Joe: Right. We walked down a somewhat busy street. Yeah. What was my point with that? I guess my point was... like, what is nostalgia? Is it me and you talking about it? Obviously that's nostalgia. Is it nostalgia for you to be telling people who don't know the story? Is nostalgia a two-way street, or can you impose your own nostalgia on others?
Dave: When I think of nostalgia, I think of it as a no-way street. It's all within myself. I can get nostalgic with you, but typically when I get nostalgic, I'm by myself. I'm walking around, or in my car. And I'm just thinking about the good times I had with my friends. I don't get nostalgic about dying or anything. It's always about the good times. But it can be a two-way street. Like earlier, when me and you were talking. We were talking about the funny night with the flowerpot at Joseph's. I think that's nostalgia. Looking back on the good times, fondly. Not miserably. That's not nostalgia. That's a nightmare.
Joe: I feel like I've talked about in the past, and maybe even during past interviews, the idea of "toxic nostalgia," about how you can talk about it too much, or rely on it. I think where I land now is: nostalgia needs to have a purpose in order for it to exist. So... have you ever watched The Sopranos?
Dave: I haven't. It's on the list though.
Joe: You don't have to know anything about The Sopranos to know that at one point, Tony Soprano is sick of people talking about the old days, and he says "'Remember When?' is the lowest form of conversation."
Dave: I can see that, from what I know about The Sopranos.
Joe: I think that's true to an extent. But I also think that only applies to when somebody is living in the past completely. As opposed to trying to learn something from the past, or reflecting on what you've already learned.
Dave: I like where you're going with this, because I think it'll help explain my rambling from earlier in the conversation.
Joe: I don't think they were ramblings.
Dave: I don't want to live in the past. There are more important things in life now. Family. I stopped doing it as much as I used to.
Joe: I mean... you were meeting certain benchmarks in life that are considered normal. Meeting the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. Making a commitment to that woman. Having children, starting a family. If you're the type of person that those things are going to naturally be occurring, then there's also going to be that flipside that we're not going to be hanging out at McNally's as much as we used to. That happens naturally!
Dave: It does.
Joe: But I think there's also the type of person that those things don't come naturally to. That you need to... you need to be conscious of the fact that it's very easy to stay where you were. And not move forward. I don't mean to put words in your mouth, whether you thought starting a family came naturally to you.
Dave: It's funny, when you look at that kind of stuff. When you're a kid, and you think about where you're going to be when you're in your 30s, and then I woke up and I was in my 30s. [laughter] It kind of just happened! I got married, I bought a couple houses, I had a couple kids. It just happened. The future comes quickly.
Joe: That's what I'm saying. So, what kind of lessons can you learn from the nostalgia? Or, maybe that's too broad. Let's say... okay, you're nostalgic while you're walking around London, listening to this song. What would Dave N. of 2023 look back on that and feel like he learned from it?
Dave: It's so generic, but: be happy that you had a good childhood. That you liked the things that happened to you. Not everyone can say that. A lot of people have a miserable childhood. I'm here today, and I look back on my childhood, and I'm happy. It probably wasn't the happiest time in my life, but I was so happy as a kid. I'm thankful for that. What I've learned is to be thankful for having a good childhood.
Joe: It's interesting, because it feels like Roe is grappling with some not so happy memories, right? I mean, I only know the lyrics. Do you know what's going on there, behind the lyrics?
Dave: I think he was troubled. I know he never graduated high school. He dropped out in ninth grade.
Joe: Did his dad tell him he had a secret sibling or something?
Dave: Yeah. He actually talks about that while playing live. I saw a clip of it online. His mom and dad pulled him aside and said, "Before you, we had a child that we put up for adoption." And that bothered him, because he didn't know until he was older, maybe nine or ten. That messed with him, because he has a sibling out there who he doesn't know. Who is maybe into the Ataris. [laughter] I don't know any of the deep details. Maybe his upbringing wasn't fantastic? Anyone who drops out in ninth grade... I mean, me and you, we grew up with good parents and guidance, ya know? I don't think he did.
Joe: You would say he's still... he uses the word "nostalgia."
Dave: The first line of the song, yeah.
Joe: What is he saying about nostalgia?
Dave: This song... it's funny. The exact line is "Alone at last, nostalgia and I." So he wants a day to himself, alone, to just look back and remember. He talks about the house he grew up in. The piano that used to be there. He talks about the place where he and his friend wrote their names in cement. I think it's clear that he loves nostalgia, he loves to look back. On the side, Roe is a photographer. He loves taking pictures of carnivals, Ferris wheels. He's from the Midwest, so he loves the abandoned factory feel as well. If you go to his Instagram, it's all stuff like that. He likes looking back at his own life, but also looking back—using the example of the abandoned factory—thinking about "imagine this 50 years ago, the people coming to work, the hustle and bustle, and now look at it. Overgrown. Rusty." That feels special to him. And I can kind of see that. To him, that signifies a better time, maybe.
Joe: Isn't there a term for nostalgia for something you never knew in the first place?
Dave: I think so. What is that term.
Joe: I'll put it in brackets when I look it up. [Editor's note: "anemoia"] Okay, so explain who he's saying goodbye to at the end. Or what.
Dave: I think he's saying... it's more of a what. Saying goodbye to his friends he had when he was young. There's the audio from Good Will Hunting embedded in the song, which coincidentally—or maybe not coincidentally—is my favorite movie. I know you're not a fan of movie quotes in songs.
Joe: No, but it's important. Let's put a pin in that.
Dave: But yeah, he's saying goodbye to his childhood friends. But he already said goodbye to them, obviously. He was 23 when the song came out. It's just a way of him saying goodbye. I don't think he's letting go completely. He's obviously a nostalgic guy, he probably thinks about that stuff all the time.
Joe: I took it as him saying goodbye to the idea of nostalgia.
Dave: Letting it all go?
Joe: Just like, letting go this need to rehash the past.
Dave: "I think it's time for me to go." Yeah.
Joe: Literally, he's going to be leaving town. But figuratively, he needs to... or spiritually, he needs to leave that place too.
Dave: So, in a way, what I meant by that, he's just saying goodbye to all of it.
Joe: Yeah, I don't know. I'm of two minds with that. If this song had caught me four or five years ago, I definitely would have taken it that way, in that I need to let go of the past. You know, at the turn of my life, where I had the first kid, and there was the awesome responsibility of parenthood kind of crushed me a little bit. So, maybe there wasn't room for nostalgia? Or obviously, there was room, and I made room. But maybe I thought there shouldn't be room for nostalgia.
Dave: I feel that way. And I'll tell you. When we found out Ashley was having twins, I was scared shitless. [laughter] But I still hung out with my friends—not as often, obviously, but I still saw you guys. And then, all of a sudden—I remember this very clearly—I was in my kitchen, working remote because of COVID, I was listening to something on my phone, and Ashley called from the gynecologist appointment, which I couldn't attend with her anymore because of COVID. And my phone rings. She was still a month and a half out from her due date. I'm like, "Oh, she's just calling me to check in, maybe Facetime me to see the ultrasound." But then, when I hit answer, and I brought the phone up to my ear, even before she said anything, I was like "Oh no, this is not good. Oh fuck." So I say "Hello?" and she says, "My fucking water broke!" So I slammed the computer shut, I run upstairs, and I grab her bag that she had prepacked... and that's when I felt it. Everything that I had known in life has completely changed. I'm not going to say "taken away from me," but all my wants and needs are no longer mine. They are now secondary. I felt it all go. It wasn't a great feeling. [laughter] It wasn't all bad! I'm a dad now. But I was like... it was weird. It was weird. She was like, "Grab this purple dress that's in my closet" and I was like shaking a little bit, like, "I can't believe it's all over."
Joe: I think it's okay to feel things in addition to love for your newborn children. I think it's okay to feel angry or upset or tired. I don't think—I mean, I don't know how you feel—but I don't think that feeling takes away from the love of becoming a father. You can feel both!
Dave: I have to remind myself of that sometimes. You can absolutely feel both, because they are two separate things. My parents probably felt that way as well. We had a lot of fun growing up. Some of the best times of my life were with you and all our friends, the Usual Crowd, getting drunk and doing dumb shit. And then some of the best times in my life are with the girls. It's two separate things. And you have to learn to separate them. And if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy life. You're just going to feel guilty.
Joe: I think that's a good lesson to take from nostalgia. One, that it's not everything. But two, you needed those experiences to appreciate other experiences. If your whole life was nothing but leading up to parenthood, then it wouldn't be as special.
Dave: You learn a lot. You look back on the times you had. You do learn a lot, because you look at moments a little deeper than before, and you see: that person was thinking that at that moment. You learn a lot. You need it.
Joe: Do you feel like you can learn about yourself?
Dave: Oh yeah. I learned a lot about myself from thinking about the past.
Joe: It's interesting how many times nostalgia can be reframed as you get older. Sometimes it feels like every year you can look back on something, a particular incident, and it feels different every time. Or you feel differently about it every time.
Dave: When I was talking about earlier with childhood friends, I usually feel the same about that. Because I'm so far removed from it now, it's twenty-something years ago. I feel the same about all that. Maybe closer memories, I feel different. But all the main memories, with my friends and the good times we had, I feel mostly the same. It was just something that happened. Sometimes I want to go back to that. I think a lot about the Warped Shores, at Bri's house. We had such a great time. I think about them all the time. I wish I could go back to them.
Joe: I mean... we could. Technically. If we wanted to. But it would be... disappointing, right? It would be a let down.
Dave: We don't do it because we don't actually want to. We could all coordinate a year ahead, get babysitters, but we don't want to. It would be a let down. You know that next morning, you're gonna have to... you have responsibilities at home. That's what we just talked about, separating the love for your children from the love that you had for your friends and partying. The next day, you have to return to that. It's not a bad thing, it's just separate things. For example, me and Ashley will get a babysitter for one night, and we'll go to the bars we used to go to, and we'll have a great time. But the next morning, it's back to the grind. We'll pick up the girls, and we'll have fun with them too. You have to separate the two. If you don't, you'll feel nothing but guilt. "Oh, I don't feel the same love for my family." You do, you just have to separate it.
Joe: Does nostalgia ever lead to guilt in terms of the things you're remembering? Like, your behavior.
Dave: Sometimes it does.
Joe: Give me an example.
Dave: I guess that kind of contradicts what I said about nostalgia being positive.
Joe: It can be all of the above. This is just a facet of it.
Dave: I think about moments with my ex. I could have been more mature. But dude, I was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, ya know? I could've been more mature. It's funny, because a lot of the Facebook memories I was talking about, it'll go back to 2009, '10, '11. I look at some of the pictures of myself, or some of the statuses... I was fucking intolerable. I attribute it to being a young kid, but I'm like, "Wow, I was annoying. How did people like me?"
Joe: For the record, I personally don't remember you being annoying. I'm sure it happened at some point, but there are certain things you filter out. [laughter]
Dave: You were annoyed with me once. I have an elephant memory.
Joe: I know you do.
Dave: You had asked people multiple times to not do beer bongs in the Florida Room, because you don't want it to smell like beer when your parents come home. [laughter] And this was at your 2008 Laf Party, which was the biggest shitshow of them all. This was the banger. This was it. Summer 2008 was enormous. So I did a beer bong, and the last one I did—I was blackout drunk—it went off my chest and all over the floor, and you're like [angry voice] "I told you not to do that! Please get out!"
Joe: [laughter] Oh man. I do not remember that.
Dave: I'm sure you were blackout too at that party.
Joe: I was pretty drunk.
Dave: I remember that was the night I blacked out walking home. I blacked out twice, and I came to, twice, walking the opposite direction. [laughter] Once on Rhawn, and once on Rising Sun.
Joe: When I was talking about feeling differently about behavior from things you're nostalgic about, I've been going through that a lot with the sobriety thing.
Dave: I'm sure.
Joe: If left unchecked, I would be very hard on myself.
Dave: Really?
Joe: I would. Thinking back to all the times I got unnecessarily drunk. I was an asshole, I was annoying, all that shit. I feel like it's my responsibility now to myself to hold myself back a little bit in that regard, not really go down that road too far just yet.
Dave: To atone?
Joe: Honestly, I don't really think there's anything to atone for.
Dave: I don't think so either.
Joe: I could see myself convincing myself that maybe there was. But in the moment, or at least immediately after any given moment, I was pretty self-aware about needing to apologize for x, y, or z.
Dave: It's good you were self-aware.
Joe: I mean, I'd like to think that I was. Somebody might be reading this right now thinking "Well you didn't apologize to me!" or whatever. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm trying to take the right lessons from all that shit. Now. Being sad about me being too drunk is not helpful to me now, because that happens.
Dave: You achieve nothing! You can learn from it, but being sad about it, you'll achieve nothing that way.
Joe: I think there are other aspects to my behavior and my personality that maybe I could see more clearly from this distance from the drinking. I'm curious... and I'm sorry for talking about myself, or my sobriety, which is not that important in the context of this conversation. But that was just an example for me, in terms of—
Dave: I don't mean to interrupt, but the sobriety, it is important. I am happy for you.
Joe: Thanks.
Dave: When you told me your decision, I was happy. But it was a little melancholy. I was like, "Damn, some of the best moments of my life were with that guy, just... getting blackout drunk and having a good time." Not even blackout drunk, just drunk. It's the end of an era, but it's cool. It's great. Good news.
Joe: Well, I'm gonna put words in your mouth here. That feeling of melancholy? Do you think that was stemming from the fact that it will now be tougher to build memories that we will then be nostalgic for at some point?
Dave: I think it is. I don't know why, because again, we have families now, and we don't see each other often anymore, and also we don't get together for the sole reason of drinking anymore, anyway. Those days are gone. I think that's part of it, yeah.
Joe: There are definitely going to be moments, in our lives, that won't be as fun, for me personally, or maybe we collectively, will miss out on memories, because I'm sober. That's something I'm grappling with. And I appreciate you being honest about you grappling with it as well. I know exactly how you're feeling, because I've gone through that with other friends.
Dave: Have you?
Joe: I mean, not... like when [friend] got sober. The same reaction that you had for me, I had for him. Very happy, very proud that he's making that commitment, but also, yeah, "Damn, we're never going to do a Pike Hike again." Ya know? Together. Or if we do, me and [friend] are gonna be coming for like two bars and then sipping on seltzer, and then...
Dave: Well, the bright side is that it doesn't happen too often anymore.
Joe: Nah, doesn't happen.
Dave: We have a few weddings in the future, hopefully, with a few friends of ours. But, ya know, Pike Hike ended, and random nights at different parties and different bars, it just doesn't happen anymore. When I think about when me and Ashley had kids... we were some of the last ones in our friend group to have kids. I mentioned the feeling of all my priorities being secondary to me now, and that was a real feeling. But in terms of the partying and seeing our friends every weekend, there wasn't much of that because we didn't do that anymore. All our friends had kids by that point anyway. There were a few who didn't, who we still hung out with, but it wasn't like that.
Joe: Yeah, I definitely feel in my mind that this is a convenient time in my life to get sober, because, if I had done this when I was 22, I would have been fucking miserable! I mean, you remember when I did that in 2017.
Dave: I do. I enjoyed talking to you at that time. It was funny. A lot of people, when they go through sobriety for any amount of time, they'll be like, "I feel really good, I'm awake, I feel healthy." Every time I talked to you, I'd be like, "How's it going man, do you like it?" and you'd be like, "No, it fucking sucks." That was real to me. I was like, "Oh, okay." You were being a real person. You weren't being a fucking robot about it. So that was cool. And you seemed disturbed by that, but...
Joe: [laughter] Nah... it's... I mean, in the context of this conversation, me remembering a previous sobriety attempt... and I shouldn't say "attempt," I was sober for exactly as long as I wanted to be.
Dave: You knew it wasn't permanent. And I think that's why you read it differently. That it sucks.
Joe: Right. So, would you consider me thinking about that particular 112-day period of my life to be "nostalgia"?
Dave: Probably not. No.
Joe: Because it's a negative memory.
Dave: You just weren't happy.
Joe: I wonder if, thinking about it now, I would consider it nostalgia, just because I'm working on beating that record, right? Of days in a row. And knowing that at least I can get to that point, even under worse circumstances.
Dave: I mean, it's a memory... it's a goal...
Joe: It's something to learn from.
Dave: I'm not sure. I have an emotional tie to nostalgia. It makes me smile. "I'm so glad that happened to me." I enjoyed those people, I enjoyed what we did. If you look at it that way, then that's nostalgia. At the time you didn't... but that harkens back to what we said about learning something.
Joe: So you're thinking of nostalgia as a purely positive thing. If it's a negative thing, it can't be nostalgia.
Dave: I think so. Like I said, my grandfather died when I was 24. My other grandfather died when I was in my early 30s. They're both gone. I don't look back on those times often, or fondly. If you look up the definition of nostalgia, I'm sure it's just like "memories" in general. But most of how I look at it is... happy. Maybe not happy, just, emotionally gratifying.
Joe: So put that in the context of the song. When he says "goodbye." You're saying that he spent the whole day thinking positive memories—
Dave: Except for his parents telling him about the sibling.
Joe: —so now he's thinking about the bad memories, at the end of the day. And he is saying "goodbye" to nostalgia because those bad memories are not nostalgia, according to your definition?
Dave: I don't think he's saying goodbye to nostalgia. I think he's saying goodbye to all of it. All of it. His hometown. All of his friends. The "I think it's time for me to go," which ties into the Good Will Hunting audio, in that scene, it's one of their last conversations before he leaves town. It's just the end of it all. I don't think he was saying goodbye to nostalgia itself.
Joe: The Good Will Hunting thing is interesting, because of that being professed as your favorite movie, and this blog project being a sort of transition for me away from talking about movies. It's a good transition, because now we actually get to talk about your favorite movie!
Dave: Yeah man.
Joe: I remember saying this to you before, about how I always thought that it was really fucked up that Ben Affleck's character would say that. That he wished that Will was gone? I guess the song kind of, in quoting that, made me think a little differently about it. What's Ben Affleck's character's name?
Dave: Chuck. Chucky.
Joe: That Chuck realizes before Will does that this time in their life is over, or should be over—
Dave: Yeah, he talks about how if they're bringing their kids to watch Patriots games together, that he'll fucking kill him.
Joe: Right.
Dave: Because he thinks that Will is better than that. He's a super smart guy and Chuck wants him to live his life. He also mentions about how if Will's working this dead end job—they're working construction, and he thinks he should be on to bigger and better things. I saw Good Will Hunting years after I heard the song. I never knew that it was from Good Will Hunting. I was watching it in my basement one night—with my ex-girlfriend, actually—and that part came up. And I heard him say it, and I was like, holy shit. Now, I loved the movie up till that point, the whole story's really good, but that tied it all in. It was unbelievable. A lot of Good Will Hunting is about spending time with his best friends. And then the geniuses he hangs out with, the psychologist, they would like criticize who Will would hang out with—"they're a bunch of apes"—and he'd be like, "No, they're my fucking best friends, and they'll protect me." That's what Kris Roe was thinking too when he wrote this song. He added the Good Will Hunting audio because he really cared about those people.
Joe: But he's letting them go.
Dave: Yeah. By the time the song was written, he was already... he does say that he never had any closer friends than the ones he has when he was young. That's the exact line. That's a great line. "I think it's time for me to go." But where it is in the song, with the chord progression to... ah, it's just so good. So good.
Joe: Do you think there is truth for yourself in that line, that you never had any better friends than you did when you were young?
Dave: No. I don't think it's true. Because I met you later in life, actually. I was in my late teens. You, Mike, Kev, all those guys, you were in my wedding. So I don't think that's true. I met good friends throughout my whole life. The ones when I had when I was young, it's different. They were my first friends—and I love them, and I can't wait for this weekend—but no, that's not true at all.
Joe: What do you think that says about a person, that he's never had better friends like he did at that point in his life, but also that he has let them go?
Dave: That might just be... this might be insensitive, but it's reality... I think it's part of him being a musician, honestly. He left town early, in his late teens or early 20s, to be a musician. And then moved back to Indiana, and lost his friends. I guess his bandmates weren't as close as his actual childhood friends were. I know one went to jail for fraud. It just means that he left town early, and that was the end of it. It's kind of sad, actually. Friendship and socializing is good for your mental health. The fact that he never reached that pinnacle again, of friendship, is sad.
Joe: Do you find value in hanging onto friendships?
Dave: Oh yeah, absolutely. You need it. We had a lot of good times together, my friends and I. You need to keep in touch. It's good for your mental health. You can't talk to the same people every day. And we have so much in common. We share a lot of the same experiences.
Joe: We grew up the same, like you were saying earlier.
Dave: Yeah, it's a comfort level. We could be in the car together for ten hours and not feel awkward at all. Talking about whatever, and knowing exactly where we're coming from. That comfort is good. Of course it would be fun and interesting to hitch up and down the east coast and talk to strangers you've never met before. But the comfort level, and someone who knows you, it's so intuitive. Even this conversation, even though it's a actually an interview, it's intuitive.
Joe: I feel like there are certain types of friendships that remains the same, no matter how long you go without seeing that person. Which is an idea I try to hold onto, because we don't see each other all that often. Ya know? But we can pick up wherever we left off.
Dave: It's been a while. We saw each other at Willow's birthday, but before that, I don't even know when the last time was. But we saw each other, I grabbed a beer, we said what's up, and didn't miss a beat. It was like it always was.
Joe: What do you say to the idea that sometimes people just leave your life? Is that acceptable too?
Dave: It is, because people have their own lives. They just get busy. It happens. I don't think it's intentional. I feel bad because there are friends that I haven't talk to in a long time. And I'll make the effort to reach out. But it just happens. I put myself in their shoes. I have a friends, Dave, who I haven't seen in a while. I met him in London, actually. He lives here. I haven't reached out to him in a while, and he hasn't reached out to me either. But I get it. He has a family, he has lots of stuff going on. It is what it is. It's acceptable, and understandable. I don't get mad.
Joe: I don't know. I think I would.
Dave: Really?
Joe: Not mad, like I wouldn't call them out or anything. But I think there is a low level of resentment that, like, you couldn't put in the very minimal effort to keep in touch every once in a while?
Dave: Like, was our friendship not enough for you, that sort of thing.
Joe: I'll give you an example. [Former friend].
Dave: Oh yeah, she's long gone. Facebook, that's it.
Joe: I mean, I don't even have that. And this isn't me being resentful of the fact that I'm not hanging out with her on the weekends and wasn't invited to her wedding or whatever the fuck. But, like, I think it's easy to...
Dave: I see where you're coming from. I do. Maybe it's because I'm guilty of it. I have failed to reach out to friends, and I feel bad about it. Maybe that's why I think about it differently, because I put myself in their shoes and think, "Okay, well I haven't done it either, and here's why I haven't done it." I do hate that feeling though.
Joe: That's why I'm like... I don't know if I can personally relate to Good Will Hunting and that whole thing was about. It seemed to me that Chuck was talking literally. Maybe he was talking figuratively, like, "You need to move on, but we can still keep in touch."
Dave: That's how I viewed it. He just didn't want Will to be in the same spot. Doing the same old shit. Which I think is noble.
Joe: It took me a while to figure that that might be the case. I've always read it as literal, like: "I hope I don't see you." He says "I hope I walk up to the door and don't see you"! That, to me, doesn't make sense. I get that it happens, and I get that people coming in and out of your life, there's nothing you can do about it. You can't control people's feelings and actions. But my personal belief is that that doesn't have to happen. And I wouldn't wish that upon anyone that I know. I can't imagine a scenario in which I would say to you "You have to move on from what we have."
Dave: But you and I, we both lead pretty accomplished lives. The movie is different. He was best friends with a genius, who was hanging out with a bunch of ragtag dropouts, working as a car mechanic, with no further aspirations.
Joe: I guess so. That they weren't on the same level, and that's more what he was talking about.
Dave: And it's cool because Will didn't give a shit. He loved them. He didn't view himself as better. Our situation's different. But I agree, I wouldn't wish that upon my friends.
Joe: I think that's maybe where the nostalgia comes in. Nostalgia for us is maybe—between me and you specifically, and also between me and other friends, you and other friends, our mutual friends—nostalgia is reaffirming our friendships, which maybe at this point in our lives we need to do sometimes.
Dave: That's a good way to put it. The reaffirmation of our friendships. You're right because I wouldn't look back if I didn't give a shit. I love those times, I love my friends. It is reaffirming my care for those people. And here we are, hanging out tonight. Hopefully again soon.
Joe: Reaffirming our friendship through song! It's a good song.
Dave: There are songs that do bring me back to those times too. A lot of the songs we'd sing at Warped Shore. It's funny, I can't put my finger on a lot of them. What we would do is, you would always bring the dock.
Joe: The clam-shell dock!
Dave: You'd play stuff that everyone enjoyed. It was just stuff like Taking Back Sunday.
Joe: It was mostly Motown.
Dave: Exactly. Whenever I hear Motown songs, I think about that, and I smile.
Joe: We had those good times. We know that me and you, we have the same values—and I don't mean that in a fucking religious way, or moral way—what we consider important in life, was true then, at least, right? And to hang onto that is important. To hang onto the memories is important, because that gives us a reason to be here together now. And then there's also the music aspect to it, that not only soundtracks those memories, but also... like you said, when you listen to Motown, and you think about that... the music itself is shorthand for nostalgia, which is the proof that we need to... I don't know, I'm talking out of my ass.
Dave: Nah, it hearkens back to reaffirming the friendships. I wouldn't look back if I didn't care.
Joe: Hopefully you wouldn't have picked this particular song for this specific interview if you didn't care about nostalgia. [laughter]
Dave: I don't look back at the things I don't care about. I only look back on the times I was with all my friends.
