Hey everybody, welcome to the Phantom Power Artist Hour.
This is a listener-supported value cast.
There's no ads, there's no commercials, there's no sponsors.
And if you like it, if it brings value into your life, I would ask that you give me some
value in return, be it with your time, your talent, or your treasure.
And I would hope that you would do the same to the artists and the music that we share
on, not only on this podcast, but on the other ones that we have as well.
That is what value for value is about.
It's not just about Bitcoin, it is about time, talent, and treasure.
So I welcome your feedback, I welcome your suggestions, feel free to reach out to me on
Telegram, on Noster, on Instagram, all that fun stuff.
And today's show, we are speaking with Jack Bemister, out of Southern Australia.
I have been following Jack's music for about a year and a half, two years now when I first
found him and started blogging about his work.
And I'm just blown away by the authenticity of his artistry, and I say all of that because
if you listen to the music that he put out in 2020 and then 2022, and then the absolute
hard left he took with his latest releases that you've been hearing on my shows as well
as other people's shows, songs like Setup and Morgan, it is vastly different than where
he first started.
And I love all of it, and I love his authenticity.
So we have a great conversation, and as always I'm splitting this show with him, so if you
send any Boosters apps, half go to me, half go to the artist.
And we're going to start it off with a song that is a bit of a sneak peak.
Rescone the cough is the name of the song.
And if you are up on your Russian literature, you'll know what we're talking about.
This song is not in the value of just yet, it's going to be baked in the podcast, you can't
find it as a single.
But Jack wanted me to open up the show with this one, and I love the idea.
So let's play the song and then we'll bring him on for the interview.
This is Rescone the Cough by Jack Femister on the Phantom Power Artist Hour.
Here we go.
[Music]
All right, welcome to the Phantom Power Artist Hour and I am very fortunate to have Mr. Jack Femister on the line with me today.
What's up, buddy? How are you?
I'm good, man. How are you going, James?
I'm doing great. I really appreciate you coming on and doing this.
And we just heard Rescone the Cough which is a sneak peek for you.
Yeah.
And we'll get into that here in a minute. But I'm just, I'm thrilled that you came on because I'm fascinated by your writing as you know you and I, everybody else doesn't know this but you and I have had conversations now on and off for the better part of the year.
And I'm thrilled that you are in this whole Bitcoin value for value space. And I want to talk about the work that you put out in 2020 and then 2022 and then how
different everything is now.
That last couple of songs you put out but just thank you for coming on, dude.
No, thank you so much for having me.
If you really are can't sing in phrases and often tells you if you have been my guiding light in this
value for value, Bitcoin world leading me through the darkness and by the end telling me telling all the stuff that it's been very lovely.
All of these wacky people that are better now sending you Bitcoin and what and we'll get into that too.
But actually, you know, there's a bunch about you that I don't know.
I mean, you're down on the southern on the south eastern part of Australia. You're in Melbourne, right?
Yeah, put the now for now. I grew up in country and south Wales and have been living in Melbourne, which is kind of Australia is a tub.
I've been there for a couple of years, but I'm actually about to jet off to the Czech Republic.
I'm moving there with my partner and we're going to go and figure out what's happening in Europe for a while.
Now, where did your whole musical life start? Like did it start with piano lessons in the third grade with violin and in.
I think or like where did start?
I don't think this will surprise you that much. But I think for me it started when I got given a guitar when I was four or five and I immediately decided that I was going to be a rock star.
I was like, this is it. I'm going to be an ACDC or something. I'm going to sell out stadiums and just like since then, like since I was that little I've just been obsessed with the idea of making music my life in some way.
And I don't know, it's like obviously it's changed quite a bit since then. My relationship with music, but it's been pretty constant.
I've always been the thing that I wanted to do. And then in my teen years, I realized that maybe I was more interested in writing songs than in shredding on the guitar.
I don't know if I'm a stuff still doing a little bit of both, I guess.
Yeah, well, I mean, your guitar skills are stunning. And I know that of course just having listened to and really enjoyed death of the closed-minded, which is your folding record that came out in 2022.
But did you come from a musical family or your parents' musicians?
Well, my granddad is a guitarist. And I go and remember as a little kid, he used to go and play folk songs in a cafe every other Sunday.
I remember always going to that. And that was quite influential. But none of my immediate family in these musicians, but they are all artists.
My mom's a painter and that's a sculptor. And I've never always been very supportive and very excited that I'm doing anything creative.
That's cool. My grandmother was a painter. And I've got a couple of her pieces. She's passed now 20 years, but just to have those pieces around of her.
Yeah, it's such a wonderful memory. But I don't know what it's like having parents whose artistic sense is of a different medium.
Like, you know, with your dad being a sculptor and your mom being a painter. I'm sure conversations around the dinner table were interesting.
It's interesting. I spent a lot of my 10 years and actually I've got an older sister and her medium is photography.
So I kind of was like everyone next to me was like these very visual arts oriented people. And I love visual art. I still love drawing and kind of still enjoy it.
And so I've been kind of exposed to a lot of that world, but I was so I was such a typical teenager and then I was just like, oh yeah, like my family are artists, but I'm not that like I'm like the black sheep, like I'm a musician.
Like it's like totally different thing. Like I kind of, I spent a lot of time being like wanting to rebel by being a different type of creative person.
Like silly as that is. So it wasn't until kind of I became more of an adult, I guess that we actually did have those conversations.
And but I've kind of just realized that it's given me this like quite well rounded creative idea or like the I mean the position where I can kind of envision a wider thing than just the music.
Like I already have kind of the tools and the sensibilities to think about more visual things that accompany the music that I'm making.
Yeah. Yeah, your your visual palette is much broader, I would imagine.
Then most people because of you've got your surrounded by sculptors and painters and photographers and you know the smart ass in me couldn't help but just think you know if you really wanted to rebel you should have like become a dentist.
I know. I know.
I'm going to be the insurance king of Melbourne, Australia. I'm going to piss off my sandwich.
I could have been the first feminist to have had an income like it would have been.
That would have been the ultimate revenge like.
Well, and thank you for letting me know how to properly pronounce your last name.
Like every American, the ugly American syndrome, you know, Femistar, you know, sorry.
Yeah, I'm just a master. All right. Got you. Got you.
So I didn't mean to sneak that in the habit. You know, it's all good.
It's all good. It's all good.
Yeah, that's, I mean, you know, I don't mind being told I'm wrong. It's all it's all good.
All right. So you got the guitar like four or five.
You started, you know, trashing local clubs. I'm assuming not long after that. What to, what, like tell me about your first band.
Oh, yeah. Well, I actually didn't have a first band until I was 14 because I grew up in this small town in New South Wales called Yes, which,
like no one at my school, I was the only person who had any interest in music that I knew like it was, I don't know, not an adult and obviously not concerned with the guitar practice of a six or seven year old.
So I really didn't have any musical peers for a long time until I changed schools and I went to school in Canberra, which is the capital of Australia.
And then finally when I went to school there, I joined the school band and I met which, we all know what school bands are like, but I did that and I met some actual musicians and from there, I think, I think my first band, I was actually playing the drums in and we were just playing horrible funk covers of like weather report and junk of the story as tunes.
We were just like, so we thought it was just the coolest music ever and that was what we were doing, but it slowly transitioned to me on the guitar and deciding that I was going to do my own songs.
And my first band was just out of school and we were called Jack Fenester in the wine tasters and it was this three piece kind of, kind of more like my first record than this more recent stuff.
But kind of like a little bit psychedelic, a little bit surf rock. I was playing this telecaster that I got for $50 from a junk shop and just, yeah, like really dense chord structures, really quite primitive, leoricism.
But the drummer that I was playing with is just this absolute monster, just constant stream of 16th notes, no matter what the tempo, kind of thing.
Yeah, it's super fun. I just got straight into the trajectory that's led me to here.
Well, I can hear weather report and I definitely hear Jaco in the first four measures of setup.
Who, whoever is playing based on that when they hit the harmonics, I'm like, okay, yeah, I know what I'm getting into.
Yeah.
The first project you got, songs hastily prepared, which is a four song EP that came out in 2020 and then you've got the 10 song LP that came out in 2022.
They are, and you and I have talked about this in email, they are vastly different than the three songs that you've released this year or even the one that we started the show with.
Yeah.
Talk to me about that, like, how has your writing process changed over the years?
Yes, it's just that I'm a lot angry at now because I was making that music.
I feel so, and like humorously, like constantly laughing at myself, and especially at the version of myself that was writing this latest collection of songs.
I was so hard done by the world in my own estimation, like I guess that kind of was in some ways, but I was just so angry while I was writing this music and just really wanted to lash out at everything with unnecessarily verbose lyricism and just the absolute most abrasive guitar sounds that I could think of.
I was just really like reaching for this kind of literati anger, like some sort of dusty of skin or Arthur rainbow kind of attack on society.
But it kind of, it happened more slowly than that for me, obviously, because of like, I put that record that came out in 2022 was written and recorded in 2021.
And then I just didn't have any idea what I was doing and it took ages to put it out.
But then it did come out eventually, but I'd already kind of started writing this new material. And a large thing was just that I had changed my listening from really focused in on kind of beautiful.
I guess slightly more folk oriented artists like Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen and even Bob Dylan, I was listening to heaps of those three guys and I was writing death of the quote is minded.
And then I kind of was steadily shifting towards this darker, more industrial, more poetic narrative music, like stuffed by Patty Smith and PJ Harvey and Nick K.
Yeah, probably the biggest influence on Garret Lidiot. He's got a few bands, tropical fuckstorm and the drones and stuff.
I love that band.
I love, I love tropical fuckstorm. Yeah.
He's really kind of the high water mark for me, like I just think his lyricism is our parallel than his storytelling.
And so I've kind of just been emulating that a lot more and sunk into the depths of my psyche and done some research on bizarre, very specific stories of lawsuits in the 1870s.
I mean, you were responding to, because like, if, I mean, my God, nocturn and black and gold, if I compare that to backwards sideways, which is backwards sideways, just floors me every time.
And like, I don't know how the, the guitar part, the subtleness of your voice, the melody, all of it.
And don't get me wrong. Like, I love the new stuff too. And I think having known this progression that you've made, you remind me a lot of like Jeff Buckley.
Like, I'm just, I'm just floored by the depth of your material, even though you quote unquote only have released roughly 17, 18 songs.
So, I mean, were you reacting to COVID? Were you reacting to geopolitics? Were you reacting to the response you got from the first record?
Like what? Like, you took such a hard turn on these songs, dude.
Yeah, it, like, all those things of factors always like for, like, my, my writing process is a mystery event to me.
It is. It is. It is.
It's, it's, it's really just like one of those things of like, no matter what you try and write about, you end up writing about what you're thinking about at the time.
Most of, so, so I guess I haven't said this, but these, these three new songs, not turning black and gold, set up and Morgan and Raskolnikov, which we just played at the top of the show.
That's half of a record that I've got coming out on all the conventional platforms, quite certain actually. And we're going to keep fading it into the podcasting together.
You guys are going to hear it, but right on it's a record called eternal eternal.
And the love that you have.
Yeah, like this, this whole kind of record, it's very, like, it gets quite political.
It gets somewhat historical. It gets very poetic.
some extreme use of language and lots of references
to cry and punishment like that song was called, "The Korv"
to Greek myths in some of the other tracks.
Morgan is very referential of authorial legend
and a lot of Italian folklore.
Like there's all these kind of very pretentious layers
to the songs, but for me at the heart of them
they're all just very emotional, you know,
and the emotion is often displacement or rejection.
And like, yeah, in some ways it's like,
probably this kind of immature thing of like,
"Oh, I put my first record out and no one listens to it
and I'm not famous now or something," which like,
I don't know, it's hard not to feel that a little bit as an artist.
Like it's so easy to feel hard done by
because you're not getting the attention
that you feel like you deserve.
So I'm not going to pretend that I don't feel like that.
But it's just as much.
It's good to admit that.
That's fair.
You're not alone in that.
Yeah, exactly.
And but it's really just as much about like my own relationships
that I was having at the time and kind of,
I moved to Melbourne, the city that I'd
romanticized for so much of my life
because it is where Nick Cave and the birthday party
and so many of my absolute idols were.
And like, there's this Melbourne scene
from the 70s and the 80s and the 90s,
which is just so amazing.
And it's everything that I want to be a part of,
but it doesn't exist anymore.
And so that was kind of like,
but like there's still a lot of great stuff happening in Melbourne,
but I kind of came here and was just so disappointed
that what I wanted wasn't here.
And so it was kind of like anger about that
and then feeling just kind of rejected
and displaced from what I wanted to be.
And it kind of just resulted in this very industrial,
aggressive rock music that I love to be a rock music.
Well, do you, like, there's a word that I have seen
and associated like when I look at certain websites
that your feature don't, and the word is mis-enthrope.
I mean, and I find it fascinating,
you know, like one of the labels I saw was like,
music for the modern mis-enthrope.
And it's, but that's a fun term.
It's also a real term.
And I think it's a fair term to use in today's day and age
when you think of, not just COVID,
but geopolitics and the environment and the economy as well.
But it's what, what, how do you associate the dichotomy
with writing like that, writing with that label
of being a mis-enthrope,
but yet being an artist and knowing full well
that you need the public.
But, you know, to make a living like that.
I mean, that's a fascinating dichotomy.
To, I mean, to break it down very simply, people suck
and I'm gonna write about how people suck.
And I hope people like the fact that I write about people suck.
- That's exactly it.
And I've gotta say, it isn't more complicated than that.
Like, it should be like I shouldn't have like,
I feel like I need to have this like three-pronged approach.
I'm like, okay, well, people are asking about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
but it's really just, it's really just that I am kind of
quite mis-enthropic a lot of the time.
And I guess I'm just typing that I'll reach the right people
who are also quite mis-enthropic.
Like, you know, like I feel like, I don't know, I'm not,
I'm not making music that is for everyone.
And yeah, especially this new music, it could really is
kind of by design, pretty alienating.
Like, it's something that you'll listen to and get
or you won't.
And I've kind of accepted that.
But yeah, so it's this kind of,
it's not very intelligent what I've done.
Like, I'm not, I'm not really,
I'm not necessarily selling thousands of records,
but it's, I don't know, it really is.
And like you said, in your very eloquent review of Nocturne,
it's kind of art for art's sake in more ways than one.
- Well, I appreciate that, but let me correct you on something.
You just said, you basically said that you don't believe
that it was intelligent of you to do that.
And I can't, maybe not intelligent.
- No, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even go there.
I completely disagree with you.
I think it is very intelligent to do that.
Don't confuse, you know, just be,
there's not a lot of commercial success behind something
now or ever.
Does not mean it's not intelligent.
Does not mean the work doesn't have any value.
You know, I mean, I mean,
look at, look at Bach for God's sakes,
you know, like a lot, like all of his stuff was just work for hire.
- Yeah.
- You know, he probably thought Canon or, or not Canon,
that's Pocca Bell, but he probably thought a lot of his fuchs
and a lot of this organ stuff was like,
ah, you know, fuck it, it's Tuesday.
I gotta write this shit, you know?
(laughing)
But then look at it, now I'm not saying that,
hey, I hope your shit goes global after your dead, Jack.
That's not what I'm saying, but I have a lot of respect
for what you're doing because you are really diving deep into
who you are as an artist and you don't give a shit
what people think about it.
You're searching for something within this whole
mis-enthrough theme and I think that there's a lot of tie-ins
with the art that you grew up with, not just the visual art
or the photography and the sculpting and the painting,
but with the books that you have obviously read
if you're writing about painters and London in the 1800s
and crime and punishment and all this other stuff.
- Yeah, no, it was official, like it's definitely,
and I think that that is really what it is.
Like for me, I'm making the stuff that I want the most to exist.
Like there are some, I think especially,
but you haven't heard yet,
but the first track on Eternal Eternal is called,
is This See Taken and it's kind of just my office.
Like I really, like, as kind of balsy as it sounds,
I really don't think that anyone has ever made anything
that sounds like this song.
Like I think that it really is something completely else
than what other people are doing.
And I, like, it's siding.
Like it's so fun to find that
and it doesn't really matter to me if people love it.
It's kind of satisfaction enough to have made it,
to discover it, but hey, it'd be great
if people liked it as well.
But you know what?
And I think that as long as you keep that,
like if you are making music for you,
you are being true to yourself.
And the general public can sniff out bullshit
in authenticity, authenticity right away, right?
- Yeah, I mean, I think that,
like if I'm crazy and I'm just thinking something's cool,
probably other people will agree, you know?
Like this is good, like I'm not gonna make something
to try to like tailor someone's sensibilities
other than my own because I don't actually understand
what makes them like something that they like,
but I understand what makes me like the things that I like.
So I'm gonna just keep making that stuff.
- Good.
That's what you should do.
You know, I mean, if you, because if you sit around,
you're like, well, it's Sunday morning,
I gotta write a top 10 song.
- Yeah, well, good luck.
That ain't good, you know?
I don't believe that that's the way it happens.
It only happens when you find your true artistic self.
The other thing I wanted to mention too,
'cause I was gonna ask you about the gig scene in Australia,
'cause I don't know, you know,
I don't know what that well.
But I hear the same thing about Nashville
that you have probably heard about Melbourne.
The magic is gone.
The only people that are here now are the bullshit artists.
It's fake, it's plastic.
It's not the mud of a bunch of drunks playing, you know?
So, and I think that that's,
part of that is just the general passage of time,
just with any art scene anywhere, they come and go.
You know, they come and go.
- Well, are you, I mean, are you doing a lot of gigs
with a band around the area
or are you just gonna wait until you get to Europe
and kind of reach out to them?
- So yeah, like the last two years that I've been here,
it took me a while to get set up,
but I did end up doing quite a lot of gigs,
well, I mean, like, a reasonable amount of gigs.
We were playing kind of every month
for pretty much the whole last two years, which was good.
And we did a couple of little runs out of town.
We went, like, played some hometown shows in Canberra
and then ran off to Sydney and Brisbane
a couple of times as well.
And yeah, like it's Melbourne probably does
as much as I, as much as I may rag on it.
I do kind of, I do love Melbourne, like, let it be said.
And Melbourne does honestly probably have
one of the best live music scenes in the world.
Like, there is, I live in Northgate
and there's this street that runs through Northgate
and up into some of the more Northern suburbs
called High Street and it is the street
with the most music venues per capita on it in the world.
- Really?
- It's like a street that you walk 50 meters up High Street
and you've walked past two live music venues at least.
So just like the sheer, and they've all miraculously
survived COVID somehow as well.
So like just the sheer amount of music venues in Melbourne,
like there really is so many, and there are so many bands,
like the live music scene is just absolutely massive here.
But no one's making any money at the same time.
- Yeah.
- Like the live scene is really, really great.
But it's just kind of also, I think the biggest problem
with Melbourne and music industry is that there's just far more
musicians than there is industry.
Like there's kind of no opportunity
to be passed playing at just a slightly bigger pub.
It's like, okay, well, yeah, we've played this 15-cap band room
and now we're gonna play this one.
It's got a 30-cap and then a 50-cap.
And then eventually we'll play the Brunswick Ballroom
which is a 500-capacity room.
But then that's it, you know,
and like you haven't made any other opportunities
along the way, like you kind of still,
you're in the opportunities to perform live.
It's really hard to ever get any money together to record anything
and there's no other opportunities like there's no other
live music scenes in other cities in Australia
than compared to Melbourne.
So it's really hard to tour.
It's really expensive to talk with other cities
just so far apart from each other.
Like there's really just kind of, it's such a bubble.
Like you can kind of be happening in Melbourne
but it doesn't mean anything.
Well, the bands that are playing in Melbourne
are they playing cover tunes?
Are they playing originals?
Like what are those clubs like?
- It's probably like the biggest original music scene
that like it's enormous and like, that's really funny.
We've got this kind of city where I think
that there's two genres that are really popping off
at any one time and it's shifted a little bit now.
But when I moved here, it was like country music, Americana.
Like if it didn't sound like Patsy Klein,
it wasn't gonna get booked or like Jazzy House music
like people playing in the end but online instruments
were like these two things that were just absolutely going off
when I moved here and it was like,
oh you're doing like folk rock but not with like a country accent
but that's not gonna fly there.
Like you're not gonna get giggled at that.
- Yeah, just so funny.
But and yeah, these days there's like a huge kind of like
punk is really big at the moment kind of like,
but like more like art punk kind of,
a bit more like, one of my saying,
yeah, like punk's really in like lots of bands
playing just like really catchy rock songs
that last a minute and a half, that's massive.
And it's a complete oversaturation of original bands
and it's like it's awesome.
Let me like the musicianship,
the creativity is astronomical
but it's just couple so sad
because it doesn't really have very far to go.
- Is Melbourne where the majority of the high end
recording studios and the publishing companies
and the entertainment is based out of or is that up in Sydney?
- So it's, there's a lot of studios in Melbourne,
like heaps and heaps of studios
but most of the actual industry,
like most of the performance royalties and publishing
and labels and all that, most of like,
especially the bigger ones,
like if it's not on like the kind of independent level,
all the bigger ones are based in Sydney
and that's because Australia is like,
pretty much the entirety of the rest of Australia's creative
industries are in Sydney, like all of our film industries
in Sydney, most of the like higher level arts worlds
are centered around Sydney.
And so that's just like where all the big music stuff is as well.
So it's, yeah, this is like interesting separation
of all the artists are in Melbourne
and all the opportunities are in Sydney
but then if you, like I know some friends who,
I've got some friends who are musicians in Sydney
and they're kind of, they can't get a gig
because there's so few music venues.
So it's like you can't really,
like you can't really go and get any balls rolling in Sydney
to start and get noticed, like get into these opportunities
because there's just not actually the,
like infrastructure before then,
like you kind of need to.
Yeah.
What about way, I mean, I know Perth is on the other side
of the world for you guys, but what about it?
Oh, really?
Yeah, it's, yeah, because like Perth is like,
as far away as, like from Melbourne as New York to LA,
like, that is back far away and that is,
yeah, that is New York to LA and then.
Yeah, oh, it's monstrous.
Yeah, it's like, and the thing is,
there's nothing in between.
Like, yes, but like,
there's nothing in between the two.
And the, there's like beautiful scenery,
but that's it, like there's,
there's really nothing in between the two.
Wow.
Yeah, I mean, people just don't realize how massive Australia is.
I mean, it's almost, it's almost as big as the lower 48
states here.
Yeah.
And you know, good, lower.
Yeah.
It's enormous and so,
spas, like, so like it really is like,
everyone lives on the east coast of Australia.
Like, there's nothing anywhere else.
Like the Northern Territory has,
like, I think that I'm like,
I don't know, I'm not going back to myself
with my beautiful knowledge of Australia.
Like, of geography for your home country.
Yeah, look, like, just such a tiny amount of people live in
the rest of Australia.
Like, Western Australia is so,
so spasely populated, like, there's really no one there.
I get it.
No, I get it.
Yeah, I'm kind of zooming around Google Maps right now
on the, on the north end of Melbourne.
Looking around, Roxburg Park in Sumerton
and Epping in Mill Park in Bandura.
I'm sure they're all fun.
Oh, the industrialistates, those ones.
Beautiful, beautiful places.
I'm sure they're all, I'm sure they're all lovely neighborhoods.
So tell us, I mean, you kind of briefly mentioned
that you're, you're heading up with your partner
to the Czech Republic pretty soon.
Tell us a little bit more about that and what your plans are.
Yeah, it's, it's this amazing situation where,
since I was a little kid, I mean, as, as you'd guess,
from being obsessed with music and having no peers
that were even remotely interested in it,
have inherited from that this just constant need
to always be somewhere else, like, like,
sit growing up in your house,
I just desperately needed to go and be somewhere,
where something else was happening.
Yeah, I went to school in Canberra,
and I lived there for a little bit,
and I just constantly needed to go and be somewhere bigger
and where there was more going on.
And then even being in Melbourne, which is,
which is a place that on paper totally ticks every box
my whole time being here, I've been looking to somewhere else
and I've always been totally,
as, as, like, probably most of,
like Western people are, just totally enamored by Europe.
And like, I went on a trip as a, as a kid,
we went to France, into the UK,
and I just totally loved it.
And I just kind of always wanted to go and live over there
and like, this totally, like, artistic society,
like, that's always the interpretation of it.
And so I've just been so desperate to go and do it.
And then meeting my partner, Adelaide,
she grew up in Prague,
and her dad lives there, he's a jazz saxophonist.
And so it was just perfect, this perfect excuse to go
and to do it.
So we're kind of going with not too many plans,
like we're gonna go, we're gonna,
we're gonna travel around for quite a bit.
I'm gonna hopefully get, like, work in Travel Visa
and just kind of,
bum around from place to place,
sounds everything out.
And then the idea is to figure out where we wanna be
and settle down somewhere with a scene
that we wanna get a part of.
So, like, whether that's Berlin or Vienna
or even London or something,
like, we'll, we'll kind of just figure it out
and just keep it a bit loose.
Is your partner and artist as well?
I mean, her, you said that.
And by the way, thank you for properly saying
saxophonist, that is the proper term.
Is she an artist as well?
- She actually is, she's a,
she's just honestly incredible songwriter.
She's got this, she's just finishing a third record
but she's got two out.
We met because I heard her first album in Austin
to play a gig that I was organizing.
And she's, she's got two incredible records out.
She does it all herself.
She's like, never had a band, never, never wanted to bother
with the personalities that come with that.
She's got very, very parallel to me in a lot of ways.
Like lots of just very intricate songwriting,
her productions are so good.
I can't sing at prices and not the music song
under Adelaide the Girl if you.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I was saying, she's some stuff, James.
- Yeah, we got to get her into,
we got to get her into the whole Bitcoin thing.
- Yeah, I've been talking to her about it.
She's one of those kind of reluctant to
- Fair enough.
- To push out into anything.
She just really likes making music
but we'll get her in.
- No, thanks.
- Well, hey, I know, I mean,
I know you're really new into this whole Bitcoin thing
and I see you jumping around on,
you know, we've gotten in the fountain,
we've gotten in the noster,
like, you know, I know it's early for you
but like, what's your take on it?
Like, you know, when you see your songs pop up
in these podcasts and people are like sending you,
even if it's 10 cents or a buck,
like, what's your take on it?
- It's just like amazingly refreshing is like the first thing.
It's like, literally from,
I've also been so distracted.
Like, it's kind of been in this, in opportune time
where the last couple months of my life
have been complete chaos
because literally moving overseas in three weeks.
- Okay.
- So it's just like being this like quite,
I've been so distracted in whatever,
like, kind of, and you've been amazing
and helps me out a lot.
But it's this like super refreshing thing
where like the community is so excited
and even though it's comparatively small, you know,
like the user base of like a fountain or whatever,
doesn't, doesn't compare it all to Spotify or musical,
whatever, but that's kind of a good thing.
Like, it's been, like, it was kind of amazing.
Nocturnal black and gold, this like six minute drony,
like, whiny song, that's about some very,
(laughs)
- It's like a bizarre subject matter
that's not really relevant to anyone except maybe me.
(laughs)
At one point it was like number 10 on the,
- Yeah, that's it.
- Those blue charts or whatever, which is just crazy.
Like, it's like, that's just a crazy thing.
I've literally already made more money
from these three songs being in the value of a value world
than I ever made from my first record on Spotify, you know?
Like, it's kind of, I just see a million of it.
Like, it's awesome of this, like, this direct line
from the artist to the listener.
- Yeah.
- You can easily open.
And like, I'm excited to see where it goes.
Like, I wonder if that will change somewhat
as the platform grows or it will be like, but, um,
yeah, I think that's just something I'm very,
very excited to be invited along the ride for.
- Yeah, man, I think you're,
I think you're really gonna do great in here.
And I know you've had some publishing issues
in the past of trying to reclaim back your old songs.
- Yeah, which one?
- Which one?
- But I think like, to get all of your shit up in here,
and, you know, to kind of use fountain as a way to create
a playlist of all your tracks and to be pinging people out.
And, and to take all of these sats and to, you know,
you can think of it as like a savings account
for later on in life or when you and Adelaide
are kicking around Europe and, you know,
you've got money coming in and you get Albie Wallet
and you run into other Bitcoiners like,
shit, man, life's easier that way, right?
- Exactly.
- Yeah, well, I'm just thrilled you're here doing it.
- It's really good.
- You know, you get out of it exactly what you put in.
And I know you've been really busy and, and,
but as you get deeper and deeper into it
and I find out more stuff and points in the right direction,
hopefully it'll just keep going up for you.
But, and, and the community of people who are here,
you're right, it is early, it is small.
But they dig the heavier tunes, man.
Like, you know, I think it's all,
I think probably because like the majority of these folks
are all, are all developers right now
and they're, they're, they're toiling away
behind the computer, right, and code, right?
And they just, and they want that good,
mis-enthrough rock.
(laughs)
- Yeah.
- So, no, yeah, it's, it really is,
and I, and I really need to get more active
and I need to get on Nostom,
while I really start connecting with everyone properly.
But I'm like it has been a,
just remarkably inviting experience, you know?
Like there are some of the things that you do as a,
as a songwriter, as opposed to trying to put your music out there
that make you just feel so alienated, you know?
Like you write, write all these pitches
and send them to blogs and to radio presenters and all this stuff.
And you just, at the end of the, just feel like some weird monkey,
you know, like you just, they're all, what am I,
what am I doing any of this for it?
Like I don't feel like a person, whereas like,
at least for me, so far, it felt very observed
as an actual person, as an actual entity in this world,
not as just some words on a screen,
by this, by this, by this community,
which is so nice, so refreshing.
Well, and I would encourage you to use Noster
as you guys get ready to go to Europe.
Like reach out, but, you know, see who's in the Czech Republic
that's on there, you know?
Like make some contacts, like, you know,
'cause it's a pretty small community right now.
Like I wouldn't be surprised if somebody's, you know,
like if Derek, or Kyron, or somebody is listening to this,
and they go, oh yeah, I know so and so in Czech
and they tag you in Noster and you're like, boom, okay,
there we go, you know, you got a contact.
So use it for sure.
I mean, the Bitcoin, you know, even though you're brand new
to Bitcoin, like, it's a tight community
and every, you know, and people look out for each other.
So as we start to wrap this up,
and we'll play Morgan to end the show.
Excellent.
I wanted to just, as I always love to do,
I always wanna ask a couple of fun questions.
So tell me if radio head or tropical fox storm
was going to cover one of your songs, which one would it be?
- Oh man.
I'm gonna say, I would actually just so, so much love to hear
tropical fox storm, just utterly destroy one of my songs
from the first record.
(laughing)
- Yeah, like it's just love them.
- Cluster.
- Cluster could be like some weird radio head,
like King of Looms era sort of thing actually.
But like I just think that like gas taking a shreddy guitar solo
in the bridge of Backwood sideways would be the best thing
out of all the other things that would be so good.
- Yeah, okay.
- Yeah, I'd love to hear that.
Not more than anything.
- Okay, another fun question.
Give me a, give me like a dirty secret,
like, oh, what's the phrase that I always use?
Like favorite song, favorite band that nobody would ever
think that you actually like, like, you know, like for me,
it's like, like I love a good, I love a good spice girl song,
dude, like, you know, I love a good pure pop song.
I'm not gonna bash it, right?
- I'm, I'm gonna say,
are you on a grand as records, wait, no?
I adore, I think it's so good.
I think a lot of people are saying that to quite surprise,
I just reckon it's an amazing record.
- Yeah, I'm not doing that.
- What do you think about the new, about the new single,
yes, and what do you think?
- I haven't, I haven't heard anything that she's done
after, thank you next.
- Oh, really?
- Okay.
Like, I wanna check out that new record,
'cause it's like, Adelaide was telling me
it's like this very like 90s club saying influence thing,
which I'm pretty interested in.
I'm like, intrigued to say what she's done with it,
but I'm just haven't listened to it yet.
- Her voice, my God.
- I know, she's just got.
- Can you imagine what the insurance policy is
with Lloyds of London for that voice?
Like,
- Oh my God.
- Right?
- Like, 500 million dollars coverage.
- I would imagine.
- Yes, just, just a standing.
- Be honest, how many times did you go
to the Taylor Swift Error's tour in Australia last month?
(laughing)
- I didn't think it.
I wouldn't have loved to have gone,
but it was a fiscally irresponsible decision for me,
but Adelaide went and loved it,
and I was actually really jealous.
- Yeah.
Well, that's good.
That's fair.
I've seen her in concert three times.
I did not go to this recent tour,
the last tour that I saw was the reputation.
And my God, that was like the best stadium show I've ever seen.
- Yeah.
- Like it was, yeah, just, yeah.
I'm just obsessed with the spectacle of it.
It's like, just like, so,
like it would just be so cool to be in a position
where you could present your art in that way.
Just like, yeah, I could just like do whatever I want
on like the biggest stage imaginable.
Like, it's so,
it's so cool.
Like, I'm so glad that someone's doing it.
- And they really, she really has the benefit
of technology too in terms of what you can do
with the visuals, with the cameras.
And like, 'cause I remember,
I saw the who at my college stadium
in Boulder, Colorado in like 90, right?
- Yeah.
- And my brother and I went,
and we were all the way the fuck in the back.
And like, there's just like two little,
two little screens down there.
And nowadays,
nowadays stadium shows are totally different.
Sound is better, vision is different, lights are,
everything's better.
So,
- Yeah, they really get the point,
they can be enjoyed from any stage, you know?
- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well, sir,
really appreciate you coming on the show.
We're gonna,
we're gonna go out with Morgan, tell us about the song.
- This one is,
one of the,
I think this is my favorite song that I've ever written,
to be honest.
It's kind of,
it has a lot of references to like,
myth and folklore.
It's not important,
you don't need to know anything about it,
but basically Morgan is this temp dress,
she's like a siren,
she's the,
there's demon of the mischievous stretches,
like an evil fairy,
and I thought we're in a legend or whatever.
And it's basically a song,
kind of about my relationship with Melbourne,
kind of about a lot of other things as well,
but it's about a person or a place kind of seducing you
and inviting you along into this kind of world
that you realize ultimately is a horrible place
that you don't wanna be a part of.
And just kind of the absolute torment
of being in that situation.
But then,
and then in the end, maybe you become Morgan,
you know, like maybe,
maybe we all turn into Morgan if we don't escape,
like maybe that's kind of the part that we take.
So,
yeah, that's Morgan.
I hope that you'll enjoy it if you're listening.
It's been an absolute pleasure to be on
the Phantom Power Outer Star with James.
Thanks so much for having me, man.
It's always so fun to talk to you.
- I always love catching up with you, dude,
and I hope to meet you in person one day.
- Yeah, we stick around,
we'll stick around, we'll talk in the green room,
but here it is, this is another misent rope
by the favorite son of Yaz,
new South Wales, Mr. Jack Femister.
That's right.
Jack Femister on the Phantom Power Outer Star.
Thanks, buddy.
- Thanks so much.
(upbeat music)
♪ Morgan's soul is down the river ♪
♪ Just to me, yeah ♪
♪ No one was in reach when I was with her ♪
♪ She put a hand up on my shoulder ♪
♪ And I floated like a sinner ♪
♪ So I've laid on the horizon ♪
♪ And pretty bit was violent, I kissed her ♪
♪ Morgan's soul glided to a kingdom ♪
♪ I felt like we were flying in a sail to where we've done ♪
♪ All the sirens were siling to listen to listen ♪
♪ Morgan begged us not to leave her like we ever could be ♪
♪ She took my life to peace ♪
♪ She probably stuck all the way again ♪
♪ Like the land that first fought from a quadrant young again ♪
♪ But no one out of the world was when I threw my fragment scene ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ And my flesh is all in this room still swimming in ♪
♪ I remember the morning ♪
♪ Yeah, I was busy falling in the morning ♪
♪ I heard it from all I was up in ♪
♪ I heard a photographic mobs of the bulb and now I see ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ Oh, so many requirements ♪
♪ She made all sorts of journeys been abreast through a stomach ♪
♪ She just stopped at doing so weird really ♪
♪ All been Morgan and found here is my head ♪
♪ She was singing, singing, singing, boom my tongue ♪
♪ What's fine after the whizz of an ocarina town ♪
♪ I fed her my whole soul she told me this place could be out ♪
♪ But next thing the world was hung over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over now ♪
♪ But I stole class sheet and died in light ♪
♪ With all the beauty of a world that lives at me ♪
♪ But on cross with inspection there's nothing in nothing inside ♪
♪ So long time's of the wind and all this bring all the way ♪
♪ Oh, Morgan's just my precious picture ♪
♪ It starts to get a little bit less liquid in the room ♪
♪ To do my thing much worse is to get the hurt, get the hurt, get the hurt ♪
♪ And then she's that she's that she is that she is that she is ♪
♪ I think we're alive like you're naked night ♪
♪ The people in places that frighten night ♪
♪ I screamed like you're crying ♪
♪ The only love, the only love, the only love ♪
(Christmas music plays)
[Music]