Bandits On The Run Interview
Doug Burke:
Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host Doug Burke, and today we're here with the members of the band, Bandits on the Run. Bandits on the Run consists of three members Adrian Enscoe, Sydney Shepherd, and Regina Strayhorn, who go by stage name alias’s of Roy Dodger, Bonanza Jellyfish, and Clarissa. They started their musical journey by busking in the New York City subway system. The band formed when Shepard saw Enscoe busking, and they struck up a conversation that led to a romantic relationship and continues as a musical collaboration today. Shepard's college friend, Strayhorn, joined with additional harmonies and instruments, rounding out the band. They shot their video for Love in the Underground commando-style or bandit-style, without the permission of the MTA, who finally tossed them out of the subway, but not before they had gotten the film shots they wanted. The band features 60s throwback harmonies with a pop music cello at its core. Their new album, The Criminal Record has been positively received and led to an invitation to perform at the Sundance ASCAP Deezer cafe at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. So let me start at the beginning, I'm with Bandits on the Run. And your members are Roy Dodger.
Roy Dodger:
That's me.
Doug Burke:
Bonanza Jellyfish.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Hello.
Doug Burke:
and Clarissa.
Clarissa:
Hello.
Doug Burke:
Do we stay in persona for this? Or do you -
Bonanza Jellyfish:
See, the thing about the personas is, it's basically us, it's like a heightened version of ourselves. So you can you can call us by our real names, which are Sydney,
Roy Dodger:
Adrian
Clarissa:
and Regina.
Doug Burke:
I don't know if I can keep track of it all...
Roy Dodger:
It's okay, we'll answer to either.
Doug Burke:
Well, okay, so can you tell me the background on the names like why it fits your persona?
Roy Dodger:
Yes, I mean when we started the whole thing was kind of like this guerrilla like immersive theater project idea, which was that we would be bandits on the subway and do like train car hold ups in the style of the 1850s or in engaging with this like American mythos of bandits being on the run but in kind of a romantic way.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Right. So instead of like outlaws who are there to harm you, it's it was like a Robin Hood sort of style thing. Like we're stealing your attention for something -
Roy Dodger:
I'm gonna bring you music for free.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Right. And so I mean, you have like these sort of legendary outlaws everyone has, like an alias. So we all decided to create aliases for ourselves and it all sort of comes from different inspirations. Like my name Bonanza jellyfish is a sort of a bastardization of a character from a Tom Robbins book 'Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,' there's a character named Bonanza Jelly Bean, who I really heavily identified with, and liked, so that's that's how I came up with my -
Doug Burke:
Where'd the jellyfish part come from?
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Well, I - this is a long story, and well, my name is Sydney. And so my best friend's dad growing up would call me squid-ny so I like heavily identify with like animals with tentacles. And so yeah, I just thought I didn't know, that that was - and you know, they're weird and mysterious and dangerous. You know, they're like, other worldly weird creatures, which I like.
Doug Burke:
I was gonna guess that you were a SpongeBob SquarePants fan.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
That's my generation. Yeah, I watched some SpongeBob. Maybe that's that's where I -
Doug Burke:
That's where I thought it had come from.
Roy Dodger:
No, it's far more literary than that.
Doug Burke:
Yes, it really is.
Roy Dodger:
So for me, I guess Roy Dodger, I was kind of like really into this whole, like cowboy, vigilante kind of identity. And I had been watching all these Roy Rogers videos, I love that he would like ride a horse and play guitar and sing and, and I also really like the Artful Dodger from Oliver, who's like, kind of a rabble rouser, someone who's like, gonna, you know, cause mischief on the streets. And so that was definitely just a conglomeration of the two of them. Oh, and, I like to think of myself as very princely. So - - Roy, in my mind is short for Royal. Royal Dodger.
Doug Burke:
Okay, I get it. Okay.
Clarissa:
Yeah. And then for Clarissa, I like - I have no last name. Because I really kind of like people like, Cher, Beyonce, Madonna, where there's no - there's just a kind of diva aspect of it. And also Clarissa is alluding to being clairvoyant. And in the bandits universe, Clarissa is a little bit more of a trickster. She's more like a Miss Cleo or like a Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost sort of figure where she's more of a hustler than a real clairvoyant, but then there are some times where she accidentally actually does have mystical powers. So that's where I got that from I like to be quite silly and overdramatic, and I think that's part of where that sort of mysterious vibe comes from.
Doug Burke:
Well, I definitely got a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kind of feel I don't know if that was inspirational for you guys at all.
Roy Dodger:
Definitely.
Doug Burke:
Okay. Okay. And then I was wondering if Bandits on the Run was at all a reference to Paul McCartney's 'Band on the Run' song.
Clarissa:
Oh yeah, for sure -
Roy Dodger:
That's definitely where it came from. I was listening to vinyl of that album in Los Angeles, actually right around the time that Regina moved to New York. So I knew that we all wanted to do a musical project together. We were just kind of looking for -
Bonanza Jellyfish:
We didn't have a name
Roy Dodger:
- for the identity and the kind of the game behind it. And I thought, well, Band on the Run was awesome, but like, it'd be really fun to like, make it a little bit more literal and just be Bandits on the Run. And so that kind of like that, that ended up spawning the idea of doing these train car holdups. And that was that was really what kind of like gelled the world for us, of these characters.
Doug Burke: I've read that you guys do a lot of pranky trickstery stuff in your shows, and I want to table that for a second. So I really want to dive into the backstory of a song, and really this is up to you to - I don't know if you've decided what song you'd like to talk about as a group but -
Roy Dodger:
You said a couple songs?
Doug Burke:
As many as you want.
Roy Dodger:
Okay, so there was one that you mentioned in -
Doug Burke:
Well, I just got your The Criminal Record printout of your song. So but -
Roy Dodger:
That's right. That's right.
Doug Burke:
Which is out there. I think I should actually talk about that. Yeah, I think your digital presence is better than most and -
Roy Dodger:
That's nice to hear.
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Roy Dodger:
That's funny because we consider ourselves so much of a Live Act. It's nice to hear somebody liking or appreciating the digital presence because so much of the time we're like, oh, but they haven't seen this.
Clarissa:
Yeah, 'cause the positive side is that we're always creating something new. And we're always we call them shenanigans at our shows, we always are coming up with new shenanigans and we write so much we really like have so much material that we're working on putting out there. So the good news is we have a lot of stuff. The bad news is is sometimes it's so hard to translate that onto you know, a screen, but we try, so thank you.
Roy Dodger:
We're very picky. We like we really like to put stuff out there that we are totally over the moon with so we've been slower in the process of getting everything out online. I mean,
Bonanza Jellyfish:
I think I was gonna say that maybe a good song to start with would be Love in the Underground. Because it's not I mean, we're releasing it soon.
Doug Burke:
Okay, it's unreleased, so I don't have lyrics for it.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
You don't have the lyrics for it but -
Doug Burke:
That's fine.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
There's a YouTube video out for it. Oh, do you have to have the lyrics?
Doug Burke:
No, no I don't care.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Okay, cool. I think it's just a good, I guess, intro to the band because it's sort of like talks about a part of our origin story. Are you pulling up the lyrics?
Doug Burke:
Yes.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Awesome.
(Love in the Underground plays)
Doug Burke:
So, Love in the Underground, fire away.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah. it was kind of an interesting song for us. It was a monumental landmark because it was the first song that all three of us really heavily contributed to the lyrics. Usually what happens, I mean authenticity is very important to us and so I think the best way, often, to get that is to have one person's voice really guide the storytelling and the character.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Right so like, you'll have somebody, one of us from the band, will come in with like a skeleton for a song basically. So like, sort of a general idea of melody and like a lot of the lyrics and then we sort of all like huddle around and, you know, figure out what works and what doesn't work and start to use the instrumentation to kind of build the song because like, so much of the harmonies and stuff aren't just decoration for us. It's all very kind of like, built into the fabric of the songs. So yeah, so it is interesting because Love in the Underground was very much like all of us sitting in a kitchen, in one room. Like, I can't even remember who wrote what in the song actually. Yeah.
Clarissa:
Yeah. Because we were entered into a competition. It was the Coffee Music -
Doug Burke:
Coffee Music Project
Roy Dodger:
Wait, wait, we can go further back though, because like really the story starts with, we got accepted into the competition. We were, we're on tour in North Carolina. We were sitting around having brunch, and we got this email. And we were talking about ideas for the song. And we were like, what could encapsulate life in New York and we really wanted to frame it in a positive light, because typically people are can be really dark about New York and say, like, oh, it's so hard to be an artist in New York. And that seemed like an easy choice. So we wanted to make it - to tell a positive, uplifting story, which was readily available to us because, in fact, Sydney and I met on the subway.
Clarissa:
- Project. And that was happening, I believe, like the first show, the first round was on Monday and for the competition, you were performing an original song and then a song that you wrote about a topic and the topic was New York. So we were like, time got away from us. And it was the day before. And we said, Oh my gosh, well we have to we have to write a song. And that's when -
Doug Burke:
Oh, no way.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah. When we first - Sydney and Regina had gone to school together and there they had co written songs over their time at school. But when I met Sydney I was just playing music on the subway. I got really into busking the first year that I moved to New York, and Sydney came down the stairs. And it was a relatively deserted subway stop. So essentially, I was just playing songs for Sydney. And -
Doug Burke:
Did she have her cello?
Bonanza Jellyfish:
No I didn't.
Roy Dodger:
She didn't have her cello. But I found out very quickly that she was a cellist because I started talking to her. And then when the train came, like I kind of was like, Oh, actually, I was gonna get on the train. So yeah,
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Let's go on together!
Roy Dodger:
Yeah. We'll take the train together. And then we started talking, found out that we're both musicians and -
Doug Burke:
Well she could tell you were.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah, I kind of led with that. But it was a totally random kind of chance encounter that happened in a way that really - I mean, it could happen in public transport anywhere, but New York subway system is very iconic to New York and as like kind of a mixing pot, melting pot.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
And like the fact that like such a formative experience could happen like in that second because of something that was like built in New York was really exciting so we actually named the song Love in the Underground before we wrote anything else. Like we decided that was the title like at brunch one day we were like, okay, we're gonna write about meeting. Okay, Love in the Underground, that's a good title. And then like -
Roy Dodger:
Also because this competition was run by these really wonderful people from London and so we were that's the reason that we call it "the underground" instead of "the subway" although -
Bonanza Jellyfish:
No, no, no that's not the reason! That was a happy coincidence that's not, we weren't thinking oh, we're gonna win this British competition. We're gonna say "the underground," no! Love in the underground is more poetic than Love in the Subway. That sounds so dumb. No, that is false information
Clarissa:
And the rhymes would have been totally different if it was Love in the Subway. We like the rhymes in Love in the Underground.
Roy Dodger:
That's fair, that's fair. So when we actually got in the room, we usually do, we're very lucky as a band because we don't need to rent most of the time, we don't rent rehearsal space. We are very acoustic, we have pretty minimal percussion, and we don't have a bass player. So we're able to kind of work around a kitchen table. So that's where we do a lot of our work. And we're just sitting around the kitchen table, and we really like kind of mapped out the story together, like Regina would say, a line and we'd be like, Oh, I like that, how does that sound, and a melody, and we were just kind of we talked it over for this whole night. And we basically wrote the entire melody and maybe not the bridge, there was some holes in it. And we had one more day to rehearse it. After that, we kind of smoothed it all over just in time for the competition. We went for the first day of the first round of the competition, and we ended up making it through to the next round, which we also won a couple weeks later.
Doug Burke
Nice!
Roy Dodger:
And the prize is actually going to London and playing in the London Coffee Festival and recording the song there, which we basically just kind of used as an exercise to demo it out. Yeah.
Clarissa:
Because - this particular song is really special - because we worked on it after the competition as well. Which I feel like is a little bit more unique and also something that we're doing more now, where we are. Like, this particular song, as a whole, its first iteration, we're pretty happy with it, but there were some moments we were like, oh, that could maybe make more sense. So that could be a, you know, I'm not the biggest fan of this as I could be. And we went back and we changed a couple things. And
Roy Dodger:
We rewrote lyrics after that first - after, probably about nine months after we'd written the song, we're going back to rewriting lyrics. And then even a year later, we revamped the bridge.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Which is a big reason why it's not out yet. Because like the song is such a calling card for us because it's so distinctively us. Like the instrumentation, the harmonies, everything is so us, and the story of course. But one thing about this that I do think the whole like British competition thing did influence was that we found these harmonies we were like, Oh, that is kind of Beatles-y, and then we like really leaned into that in this song. And so I think a lot of the songs we've written post-Love in the Underground have had a little more Beatles influence as well, I would venture to say. Not in like any sort of like, like, obvious way but that was really good - sort of just to find out that we could do something like that, was a cool milestone for us. I think.
Doug Burke:
I think that you hit on one of the things I love about your sound and that is the combination of this unusual instrumentation and harmonies. And in particular, I think you are the, the second rock cellist that I've actually seen. But the first one, I've actually listened to a recording of and - kind of funky. Yes. So tell me about that. Like, yeah, how did that happen?
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah!
Doug Burke:
The only other one, I was in Austin, Texas on Sixth Street and there was a cellist and a guitar. So I was like oh, I never saw that before. And but they -
Roy Dodger:
That was before Bandits on the Run.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah, well -
Doug Burke:
That wasn't you, right?
Bonanza Jellyfish:
No, maybe in another life.
Roy Dodger:
It could, we've played in Austin -
Doug Burke:
You have?
Bonanza Jellyfish:
But the funny thing is, I think that it's becoming more of a moment now, like having strings in more rock and folk bands. Which is funny because like when we first started playing together, people like assumed we were like, a bluegrass band or like a super folky band, which like, I guess, is just like from the way we look and our instruments. But we've had to like really draw a line and be like, no, we have our own sound, we're our own genre. Just because the instruments look like this doesn't mean that that's like, that's who we are. And I don't know, but there's cello baked into a lot of pop and rock songs. You know what I mean? It's just when it's someone playing it live and singing and standing up, then that like really brings that to the forefront, which is unusual. And because it's such a melodic instrument, but the way we use it, we also use it as a percussive instrument because, for the longest time, we didn't have a drummer and now Adrian's feet are the drummer because he plays a suitcase drum. I use it as a bass, but it's very versatile instrument because it's so similar to the human voice, so a lot of times it's our fourth band member, like vocally speaking. So it's really an invaluable instrument in the band, for sure.
Roy Dodger:
- on the street in Austin. Yeah, I have so much artistic respect for for Sydney for being able to sing and also play a lead line at the same time. That is not easy, especially without frets. I can't even say that I would be able to do that on a guitar. But I think one of the things that kind of defines us is that we're really just working with what what we have as artists, as instrumentalists, and with our voices. You know, we never - we are constantly pushing our boundaries with what we have but, like for instance, we've never really had a drummer so we've kind of found ways to be that percussion, that rhythm section, just between the three of us whether it's Regina playing the shaky banana and the tambourine, which is what - those were the chief instruments that you started out with.
Clarissa:
Yeah.
Roy Dodger:
And then the addition now I have a suitcase kick drum that I use just to kind of like give a little bit of foundation. I also have a foot tambourine that I play in our live sets. And yeah, Sydney really does hold down the the bass line a lot of the time and then but, amazingly, she's also able to give these soaring cello solos. So it's kind of an amazing dual purpose instrument, or array of instruments that we have.
Clarissa:
Yeah, well, I think that people respond to our music and I think a lot of that comes from it's really, really personal to us. Like we are working with what we have and we've never ever tried to fit into something or change our sound to fit into a certain mold. We really are led by what we like as individuals and as a group. And our tastes are super eclectic, and our strengths are super eclectic too. And I think that that's been really lucky. And the alchemy of all of our different backgrounds has led us to the sound that is sort of, like you can't quite pin it down into one genre, which has been frustrating at times, because the number one thing people ask is "what genre are you" and we're like, well, a little bit of everything. But I love that and I wouldn't change it for the world because I think that music, at least the music that I like to listen to, and the artists that I really enjoy, I feel like always are kind of playing with genre and I feel like the the lines between genres are sort of floating a little bit. More music is more accessible.
Doug Burke:
But definitely, there's harmonies in every song, it seems like.
Roy Dodger:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, harmony is the backbone. I mean, I would really consider harmony, the essential voice of Bandits on the Run. We don't do a song where there isn't three part harmony in some aspect. Also our arrangement of having three gives us the ability to have like a leading voice and a backup section of voices, which is really a wonderful, versatility.
Clarissa:
And we're unique in that we switch off who is the lead voice. So that also gives us more versatility.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah. And we trade. I mean, I call it the stack, like, Who's singing the low, the middle and the high, we don't have like a set arrangement. I mean, we have like, kind of some sweet spots that we found over the years. But oftentimes, me and Regina are trading, we're switching back and forth, or me and Sydney will switch back and forth, or Sydney and Regina will switch back and forth. And we'll do these like crossing harmonic lines. And so like, it's always really fun to be arranging with these wonderful humans, because we try lots of different stuff and -
Doug Burke:
Well, it definitely, for me, evokes the 60s and definitely you mentioned the Beatles. I also think of The Mamas and the Papas and The Birds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and, you know, the classic Laurel Canyon harmonic sound. And I don't know if that would be a way to describe, you know, they didn't use a cello and showcase drummers. I don't think. I mean,
Roy Dodger:
That was actually a lot of what we were listening to when we started. And in fact, for a while, we were playing kind of like more in the vein of like, doo wop-y and 50s and 60s.
Doug Burke:
Totally. And I was also thinking Phil Spector produced, without the wall of sound, it was like, kind of like these Shirelles kind of -
Clarissa:
Yeah!
Roy Dodger:
You know, we played a Shirelles' song when we first started.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah, because we were busking in the subway, we were obviously just starting out as a band. So we didn't have many original songs. So a lot of the covers we would choose to do would be things like that, like the Shirelles.
Doug Burke:
I ask this when you write the lyrics out. I call it the woo-woos. When it's like Whoo hoo hoo woo like, what do you actually write when you, like some of your songs have the woo-woos.
Roy Dodger:
Oh yeah .
Doug Burke:
Like name some of your songs that have that.
Roy Dodger:
Oh like
Bonanza Jellyfish:
A lot of our songs
Roy Dodger:
Funky Ghost has like the iconic woo-woo
Clarissa:
Cowboy on the Run
Doug Burke:
Yeah, Cowboy on the Run.
Roy Dodger:
What do we... my favorite new one is we have this song She's the Queen that we've been working on. That we have this like but duh dut dah daht. Which is like, that syllable is so much fun to jam on.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
The buh buhs?
Roy Dodger:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And the dah duhs?
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah they're just buh bahs. We're like a trumpet section for like 30 seconds in that song which is so fun.
Clarissa:
Because I think the uses of la las, whoa whoas, shenanas, like, they need to come back because they're super fun.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah, it's the voice as an instrument. "Instrumental soloist" is kind of like what Louie Armstrong would do with his like vocal lines, he was just kind of like redoing a trumpet line with his voice and I think that there's a lot to be said for that.
Doug Burke:
And so do you do that? Do you like create that when you're working on the song performing it? Or do you actually like write it out? I think this would be "dah dah dah."
Clarissa:
We write it out right.
Doug Burke:
You write it out?
Clarissa:
Yeah, I mean, though, there'll be some times when we're in the early, early forms of writing a song or performing it like when we're busking, or if we're like kind of just showing it to friends where we'll improvise some of those things and then we go, "well that's interesting," let's add that in. But for the most part, they're a very essential part of the song so I think, you know, as much as anything else has care and love and attention paid to it, those definitely have -
Roy Dodger:
100%
Clarissa:
- as much.
Roy Dodger:
The question always amounts to being like what syllable It is like, there are many times when we go back and forth like is that an mm and ee or an ahh? We are very familiar with the different things that those different syllables conjure. Like ahs like more of a flat sound or a wider sound and ooo is a little bit better for like being a mellower Background Vocal. It really depends on what we're using it for.
Doug Burke:
Love in the underground. Yeah. Love in the underground.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah, I don't even think we told the full story.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
We told a lot of it!
Roy Dodger:
I mean, this is cool, because we're coming up on a release. So in the last year, we've kind of put the cap on the final version of the song. When we were out, we did a little bit of time in California, which was a really great place to just kind of like spit ball and put the finishing touches on things. And then we entered that song into the Tiny Desk contest at NPR music. We didn't win the contest, but they really liked the song and they featured it. They invited us to play at the Tiny Desk on the Road Show. And so that kind of, it really has become our calling card for like on the national music scene, which is great because it really does kind of tell our story and our vibe. But recently we were going into the studio to record with our our friend and producer William Garrett. He kind of was able to sneak us into Electric Lady studios in the village, in Manhattan. And this is an old studio. It's a story studio because Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix recorded there and the architect who designed Studio A has gone on to do a bunch of different studios around the world, recording studios. We did the whole thing in one day or two days. And at the end of the second day, William was going to go, he was mixing, I think he was copying a vocal track. And he was like, I need some time, why don't you guys just go over to the piano and like, do a different version of it figure out a different version of the song. And so we we spent a bunch of, probably about an hour, figuring out how we could play the song with just piano and vocals.
Clarissa:
Well the inspiration was really like - I think maybe I was privy to this with William when when you were recording something - but the piano in that room was so great, and so that was really... So yet again we kind of ended up writing another version of Love in the Underground, but this one was just - with this different arrangements because the piano in the studio was so fabulous. And we were like what if, you know, what if we just did a really quick take of a version of the song on the piano and that's what we ended up doing. And we loved it so much that we were like okay, well, we really have to give this, honor this version because it, again it kind of happened in a snap. But it was like, we found it to be really lovely and it unveiled another side of the story of the song having a different vibe, having different instrumentation. So we wanted to share that as well.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
And honestly, it was really refreshing as songwriters who work with similar instruments most of the time to like, sit down, just at a piano, which is an instrument we never use, and use only a piano and our voices and see what happened. And it was really illuminating because it was like, okay, yeah, it is a good song. It's not like just the bells and whistles of like, how cool it is that - the cool instruments that we play, and like our stage presence or whatever, like at its essence, like it's actually a good song. Which is cool and validating and like, I'm really excited for people to hear it because so many people are familiar with the other version. Like just to see, like the different colors that come out when there's something as simple as like, taking down the tempo and changing an instrument - can tell just a completely different story. Yeah, so I mean, we're working on the release right now. It's gonna be an A-side B-side of the same song, lots of different harmonies and completely different arrangements. The A-side is very uptempo, and bright. B-side, the piano version, is a lot more melancholy and lonely. And we're excited for that dichotomy to come out in this release. We're also working on a video that kind of goes through both sides of the song.
Clarissa:
Yeah, so the song is definitely an example of how we're taking our time a little bit more as a band, as we go through, which I feel bad sometimes because I know it's frustrating for our fans who come to our shows and and we have so many new songs that we're playing and they always are asking us when are they coming out, and we're like we promise we're doing is as fast as we can. But we really are giving ourselves time as a band, now to experiment a little bit more with our songs and to give it a little bit more air as we're recording it. Because everything that we want to put out, I think we said before we want it to be, the best version that it can can be. So yeah, so we're really excited with how the song has developed over time and releasing the A-side and B-side and the two music videos is really going to demonstrate like, the different sides of this one song.
Doug Burke:
Well, I think it's fascinating to me that you're releasing an actual 45 that might get played on jukeboxes if they still exist and -
Roy Dodger:
We hope so!
Doug Burke:
I don't know anybody who has a 45 record player anymore but I guess they're coming back.
Roy Dodger:
Oh, they're definitely cool. Yeah. We have a friend that just worked on a production a TV production with with Sarah Barry Ellis and the cast president was actually Record Players. So vinyl is definitely -
Doug Burke:
I know vinyl is coming back, I guess like you still can put those little plastic inserts in the record and play them on either 35 or 45
Roy Dodger:
You can actually. They're making 45s now with the tiny pinhole center so you can play it on a record player.
Doug Burke:
Oh, you don't need little inserts.
Roy Dodger:
Thank God.
Doug Burke:
Well, that's wonderful that you're doing that. You touch on something that I've asked a lot of the songwriters, when do you know a song is done, and it sounds like this one's been hard.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
It's very hard thing like, when is it done? Like, do you have to get out and perform it and get the audience reaction? And then do you try new stuff when you perform? Like, do you experiment?
Clarissa:
You know, I think this answer might be kind of maddening. But I think that when you know, you know, like, I know, it's such a - but for example, we have this one song Cadillac, that we've been working on for, at this point, a couple years. And the thing is, we performed it, we've been experimenting, and the audience likes it; every iteration that we do. And we like it, but we just don't have that, like, punch to the gut, like all kinds of knowing like, aha, this is like, you need to stop. Like how painters have a moment where you're just like, I don't put anything else on there. We've had that feeling with songs before and it's kind of a very ephemeral feeling,
Doug Burke:
Mmm
Roy Dodger:
Yeah, I feel like you kind of know when it's done. When you, as the artist, want to play it again and again, when you keep coming back to it as like a, this is me. I feel like when something is not totally finished, we always are going into it playing it like being like, we should play this to like try to workshop it, but it's not as full as much of a full throated endorsement of the song yet. Until it's at that point, you know, but there have been I mean, Love in the underground. I thought we were done with it before we ended up putting the final touches on it. So it I don't know, it is hard to know.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
I think it's different for everyone too. I mean, the three of us are really emotional people. And so like my first my first impulse was to be like, I know it's done when I cry. I don't know there's like a switch, you know, and it's like, it doesn't happen for every song but for most of our songs, I feel like there's like an arrival point where it feels like almost like relief or something. Like there's like this wind that feels like alright, it's ready to be seen. yeah. When you want to play it for people, I feel like that's when it's like it's like we want to show people like, look what we made! I don't know yeah, there's just -I don't know there's like an emotional -
Doug Burke:
Do you have different types of cry like Eskimos have different words for snow?
Clarissa:
Oh I have so many cries. I love crying, I cry all the time. There's like a finished song cry song cry. There's like a frustrated why can't I sing this right cry. There's why did I write such a hard song to play for myself cry.
Roy Dodger:
Like this why is this song so sad or the subject material? Why is it so sad cry?
Clarissa:
There's a soft dewy after it's all done looking at the audience like wow aren't we lucky cry.
Roy Dodger:
That's my favorite cry.
Doug Burke:
There's a happy cry?
Roy Dodger:
Yeah the happy cry yeah.
Clarissa:
There's oh my god I messed that harmony up again, I have to try again cry.
Roy Dodger:
But sometimes that's just a blank stare though like I'm dead inside.
Doug Burke:
So let's talk about another song. Yeah, we done on Love in the underground? I am glad you called it the underground and not the subway. Because like Love in the Subway sounds like this awful thing.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
And, it was about poetry! not about the UK transit system
Roy Dodger:
For me it was about the UK transit system.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Okay, well agree to disagree.
Clarissa:
What song do you want to talk about?
Doug Burke:
You know, I like the cowboy one.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Oh, yeah!
(Cowboy On the Run plays)
Roy Dodger:
That's a great song to start, or to go on to, because it was one of our earliest songs and, in fact, you Regina aka Clarissa wrote the lyrics to the song before I even met you.
Clarissa:
Yeah, so the beginnings of the song called Cowboy on the Run. Before I moved to New York, I was good friends with Sydney. But I hadn't met Adrian yet. And I wanted to move to New York. But like kind of long story short, I was stuck in North Carolina where he owned a house and I kept on - it was one of the situations where I had to wait way longer than I wanted to to move. And I was feeling really stuck. And also in like a creative rut. I just came out of school and I was coming from a time where I was creating every day and that's like my nature and so to be in a place where that wasn't happening felt really difficult and a struggle and is kind of like life just slapping in the face. And so I wrote the words and the melody and like a couple of chords to Cowboy on the Run in like the small house in North Carolina, as as a way of expressing my frustration because the song is sort of framed as a romantic relationship where the cowboy has left. And I don't say this too often because people have different - people listen to the song and have different like interpretations of what it means. But for me when I wrote it, it's about an artistic life, going away for a bit. About the opportunity to create leaving for a moment and how that was making me feel very deserted and very lost. It's actually kind of a beautiful story that - I never expected to be in a band. I kind of, you know, wrote songs for fun. My background was I mostly was writing poetry. And then when me and Sydney were in school together, like we were friends, we were hanging out and I was like, Oh, look, I wrote this poem. And she was like, let's put it to music. And then we ended up kind of having a very easy collaboration. And then obviously, that has grown from there.
Doug Burke:
She's like, that song needs a cello!
Clarissa:
Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So when I'm moved to New York, I moved in with Sydney. And then we were all three of us were hanging out in the apartment all the time. I don't even remember the exact moment when I showed it to you guys, but I'm sure that I was like, I have this thing that I wrote. And then we added harmonies and Adrian made the guitar part so much better. And we performed it in the subway. And it's really funny to think about when the song started and where it is now. It's like, you know, talk about, like, wanting, wanting art to come back into your life. I mean, that has happened in a super major way. Yeah, so that's the Genesis point of that song. And that was one of the first songs we performed together as a band, because when we were first getting together and playing in the subway, we were like, Okay, well, we need to go down there. And it's like, well what songs do we know together like, Oh, we should write some songs. We definitely - our impulse as people is to sort of perform first and then work out the details later.
Doug Burke:
So what are the lyrics about?
Clarissa:
So the lyrics are about missing a creative life that has left you but it also could be about any love in your life. For me, it's art but for anybody, it could be something that you once had, that has gone. And also we're playing with being Bandits on the Run, and we're talking, you know, working with cowboy imagery in the American West. And that sort of the image of a cowboy riding into the sunset, that we think of all the time, but what about the person that the cowboy left? Like, how do they feel? You know?
Doug Burke:
So I've interviewed a lot of country and western musicians, both Country and Western, I actually covered the Western Poetry, which is just an awesome crowd of people, you guys have to come to it and play. It'd be wonderful. But this is not a country western song.
Clarissa:
No, it's sort of it's very, like, inspired by those themes, but it's, I don't know how exactly you describe it. It's at times it's...
Roy Dodger:
It's funny because there's a certain like Motown six-eight vibe vibe to it too, although obviously we didn't have the full arrangement of Motown. I think thematically though it has the wistfulness of a lot of a lot of country western stuff and and the broken heartedness of that. So I don't know, it's funny to go that far back. Because that was really when we were in the heart of our like, old timey doo wop-y phase.
Doug Burke:
Yes, it's very doo wop-y
Clarissa:
Yeah.
Roy Dodger:
And we were writing a lot of songs in six-eight at that point. And playing like a cover of Blue Moon in six-eight. That was really fun. But at a certain point, we had to like cut ourselves off from from six-eight for a time because you can't play six-eight on every song.
Doug Burke:
So, on Spotify, your top most popular songs are What to Do, Funky Ghost, Potted Plant, Paris and Blue Heaven. I like Blue Heaven. I really like them all.
Roy Dodger:
There's a good story behind behind Blue Heaven. That was one that we wrote probably in the first year or so of being together. Actually, we all lived at a certain point in this loft building in Brooklyn, that had amazing staircases, just three stories, but they're kind of stacked in an interesting, weird way. And so I have a very vivid memory of Regina showing me the lyrics to that song and the melody that she was thinking and she was like, I think it needs a xylophone hit right here. And that was happening out in the, in the staircase with these like wonderful acoustics.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Well, I remember she showed you that but I was gone because I was in Seattle, doing a show for like a couple months. And then I came back and we were like talking about Bandits and Regina was like I have this idea for a song. And I distinctly remember us like going into the staircase specifically like for her to show us the song. And she just had her xylophone and she like sang the song acapella but did like the xylophone hit that goes bing bing bing bing and it was like, I just, I loved it so much. It was like -
Doug Burke:
It makes you think of the Jimmy Kimmel show where -
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah, it was like that! I just I definitely remember like, distinctly, the first time I heard that song was like, let's go into the staircase. We've got the xylophone. I just like, I don't know, like that birth story is like so distinct in my mind.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah, but, Reg, why don't you talk about the story behind writing it?
Clarissa:
Yeah, yeah. So the story behind writing it is... it's kind of an experiment on how can you talk about harder aspects of love and package it and a really fun, friendly, playful musical frame. Because when I was writing the words for it, it was coming from a point where my uncle had just passed away and my family was going through a hard time, and I had friends whose family members were also passing away. And it felt very much like there was just a bit of awareness of death, that sounds very heavy, but that's what was happening at the time. And it just made me rethink like certain relationships that I have in my family and you know, and things that are strained and things, you know that at the end of the day, like, what's most important is loving the people that you're with and being very generous with love and not letting like, the small - it's okay if I curse on the radio show?
Doug Burke:
Yeah!
Clarissa:
Yeah, not letting the bullshit of life get in the way of loving people to your full capacity. And in the way that they deserve you know. And so, the song is about that, but it's kind of a heavy complex topic, but we wanted to make the song fun and a dance tune and kind of funky and kind of silly. Yeah, so I like pairing kind of opposites, you know?
Doug Burke:
A lot of your music has that serious lyric, thoughtful lyric, you know against sort of a playful, goofy, fun melody with the harmonies overlaid and -
Roy Dodger:
That's what we try to do, in a nutshell. Is, like retain the emotional authenticity of our lyrics, the emotional state that the lyrics come from and the personal stories behind them. But dress them up in a fun, unique engaging way and that's also what we're trying to do with our bandits personas. We feel like that gives permission for everybody at our concerts to, like kind of, exist in a world that's maybe not so heavy and weighty, with the reality of the world outside. Anybody can be a bandit, and anybody can join this playful atmosphere. But we are going to talk about the real shit that's happening to us in our lives. You know?
(Blue Heaven plays)
Doug Burke:
What does Blue Heaven mean to you guys?
Roy Dodger:
I think we probably all have different interpretations of it but to me it's a song about loving people, despite all the pain that you may inflict on on each other. Which I think is, like kind of the truest reason for love or the truest way of loving is like you always hurt the ones you love. Like the emotional proximity that you have with your friends and family means that you're gonna, people are gonna get hurt sometimes, but you just work through it. And it kind of sums up what we like, all the stuff that we've gone through as a band. We've been through some tough times, but we've always like kind of pulled together and can continue to communicate.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's great. I mean, I was just gonna say, I think the term Blue Heaven is clever, because I mean, Heaven is just this sort of ultimate feeling of bliss. And then you've got blue, which is, you know, there's like a whole genre of music dedicated to being sad called the Blues. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's those it's those things coexisting and
Doug Burke:
Somewhat oxymoronic.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Clarissa:
And that's what love is I mean, whenever you love somebody or - it's not true love if you're not willing to be hurt. And sometimes you do get hurt because you're being vulnerable and that's the risk that you take in order to actually love in a way that is big and bold and heavenly. You know, in order to get that you have to resign yourself to the fact that this crazy idea of like perfect love doesn't exist. It's a blue heaven. That's what heaven is, heaven is a blue heaven.
Doug Burke:
Was this written about a person? Specifically? Or?
Clarissa:
Yeah, it was written about a couple people. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And do they know that?
Clarissa:
Um, no. Which is funny. But you know, I don't know maybe one day I'll send them this podcast and be like, hint hint.
("What To Do" starts plays)
Doug Burke:
What To Do. That's you're most popular song on Spotify.
Roy Dodger:
Yes.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah, this song is kind of another one with sort of dark lyrics, I guess. I was at a time I guess I was like in my early 20s writing the song, where I felt very frustrated. I feel like a few of my songs come from a place of frustration, which is strange, but just like feeling a little worn down and unsure of the direction that I wanted to take and being like, not a great person because of it. Feeling like - because I felt like I was sort of like climbing up a wall and like falling back down again so many times. That sort of damages your generosity of spirit. So this song was sort of like a pledge to myself to like when it's like "I'm going to get it right this time with love / No jealousy or spite this time," like - get up. It's a song to myself, honestly, I was just like, it's a monologue basically. Like looking at myself in the mirror and being like, I'm seeing this hurt that you're going through and like, it's not over. It's gonna be okay. You know. So yeah, it's a very sort of like, introspective thing. But yeah, I mean, I think there was like a bridge in that song when I first wrote it, and then like we like took it out because we decided we didn't need it like that. But it was pretty fast, right? Like, I feel like I wrote that song in like an afternoon, mostly.
Clarissa:
And like going back to what we were saying before, that song is one of those songs where like, the switch was flipped, and we're like, yeah, it's done. And I really love the song and this song is definitely one that people respond very viscerally to and I think it's because Sydney, like, the fact that it is a monologue. It's always so tempting to think like in frustrating moments that you're the only person who's ever felt a feeling. And I think it's really relieving for our audiences to hear that song because I get people coming out to me all the time saying how much they love it because you know, I think people really feel seen by that song and that's been really exciting to me. To hear from people over the years how people put that song on loop. You know, it's nice.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
And going going back to like, what you said about Cowboy on the Run, like that's how I felt when I was writing the song but people have come to me with like, different interpretations. Like that song got me through a breakup or like, someone told me it was a song they listened to on the subway when the train is stuck to like calm themselves down, which I thought was like so awesome.
Doug Burke:
Wait till you hear Love in the Underground.
Clarissa:
Right!
Bonanza Jellyfish:
And then like someone, it's kind of funny The day after the 2016 election was our like single release of that song, Funky Ghost, and Paris. So we had like a big concert like the day after the election and we had a lot of friends who were really bummed out. And a lot of them said that that song really resonated to them like in terms of the world in that moment, which I thought was just like wild because I would have never expected that to be like, a resonant thing in that situation. So it's just you never know, like, once you've created it, it's not yours anymore. It's like it's everyone's and, and they're gonna use it, how they need to use it. So,
Roy Dodger:
I mean, this might be a great way to talk about the way that we generally kind of work on songs is, often someone will, one of us will come with an idea or a melody, a set of lyrics and a melody. And we'll all sit down together and kind of figure out the rhythm, the tone, the instrumentation, even the chords. And this is a song that I really remember having a simple chord structure originally, that kind of morphed into, like these different chords that we could play that would bring out a little bit of the darkness behind it. And it was also one of the first songs that we really dipped into these using our voices as instruments in an innovative way. We have this section, you have -
Doug Burke:
You have the oo's and the the doo doo's in this song. Yeah,
Clarissa:
It is definitely a little Lou Reed nod.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah a lot of this song is a Lou Reed nod actually. Like the first couple chords kind of sound like the beginning of what is it? Take a Walk on the Wild Side. Which is funny but like I yeah, I don't know. When we were doing the doo-doos then that's like when that came together.
Roy Dodger:
Originally, with the first draft of the song we had the doo do doo do do doo doo from Take a Walk on the Wild Side. We were just doing that instead of doo doos.
Doug Burke:
And you were like we can't do that, it's already been done.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
That's too much.
Roy Dodger:
We're actually it's funny because, it was right around the same time as Cowboy on the Run. We'd written Cowboy on the Run like a couple months before, and we had made a reference to Bang Bang Shoot Shoot of The Beatles like -
Bonanza Jellyfish:
So we were like what if we just rerefence amazing songs in all of our songs.
Roy Dodger:
Great artists steal, right? but I'm really happy with - in the end, we like ended up having this like echoing thing where Regina and I were just trading doodoos. It was it's a really fun moment to play live too because it kind of feels like the arrangement has been so big up until that point, and then it really like shwoops back and it's just the cello and those two voices trading off. And it like, it's, I mean, it's thrilling for me when we get to those moments.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
You know what I love about your cello? It reminds me of Tammy Rogers, who I interviewed from the Steeldrivers. And she plays the fiddle, and when you listen to her, she plays the fiddle like an electric guitar. She does these electric guitar solos like you do solos, not like classical cello solos, you're making sounds that sound you know, much more like, you know, a guitar's solo.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
I think it's because I listened to that kind of music more than I do classical and now like, I haven't, I haven't really, I'll still dabble in classical music. I love it. But it's like my -
Doug Burke:
You're doing rock solos.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah, well, yeah. The things that make me like, that light me up, are you know, more rock based. So.. Yeah,
Roy Dodger:
I have to say, as a Sydney's bandmate, it's really fun to watch her come up with a solo and often they're being developed over a long period of time.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Oh yeah, I never know when a solo's done like when it's like, right. It's like I'm always experimenting with it.
Roy Dodger:
Which makes recording really funny because often like it'll change during the course of recording a song. And then you know, it's up on the internet forever and it will always be that way or we're making a distinct change from it when when we play it live.
Doug Burke:
I would never guess that this is an introspective song, you know, the opening lyric "You got that look in your eyes." It's like you're having a conversation with someone else or you're - not a conversation, you're looking at someone else but -
Bonanza Jellyfish:
I journal a lot and sometimes I do talk to myself as like, you are feeling this like so, I don't know. Yeah, I think this kind of comes from that, I guess. But yeah, you're totally right. It sounds like an insane person, it's like I wrote this song about myself talking to myself.
Roy Dodger:
I think that's why people sometimes consider it as a breakup song about not being able to access your partner's emotions, right? In some ways, because you are like looking through a mirror in the song that like you can't necessarily get past the wall.
Clarissa:
Yeah. But I love hearing people's different interpretations of songs. Yes, it's endlessly fascinating because we know the original impulse and we also know each other very well. So like, I will never get tired of people coming up and being like, Oh, yeah, that song, thank you for it. It reminds me of this and sometimes it will literally be the exact opposite of what we thought, but we never correct anybody because it's like, if that's what it is for you, that's what it is for you. And that's like so fun for us to hear about and to understand and it makes us kind of, I don't know, think about the nature of songwriting in a really fun way. That like if you're honest, and you put something out there, like obviously it means one thing to you but, that honesty sort of almost means more than the actual literal intention. You know, like people can feel the truth of it. But sometimes they like build their own narrative around it. It's fascinating. It's fascinating what people say.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah, everybody listens to songs in their own way. And it's kind of beautiful. Everybody plays songs in their own way, it can be such an individual unique experience and what you get from a particular song. And another funny song that that happens with is Paris -
Clarissa:
Oh my God.
Doug Burke:
Oh, let's talk about Paris. I love this.
Clarissa:
All the time. Oh, so many people. So many people come up to me and go I'm heartbroken. You must have really had your heart broken like this song is like a breakup song and actually, to me, it's a love song. You know, like to me, the song is about finding someone or something that's so exciting to you and who knows if you'll ever get the, you know, the fantasy A-plus plus version, but any version that you get is going to be exciting.
(Paris plays)
Bonanza Jellyfish:
I also do want to say like, something I love about Regina is that she'll bring a song to us and she'll be like, I don't know if it was like, I don't know if the lyrics in the second verse are like any good, but we can change them later, blah, blah, blah. And we never do because we're always like, this is perfect. Like, I remember that happened with Cowboy on the Run. And it happened with Paris. Like second verse Regina is always like, I don't know about the second verse. And I'm always like, it's so good. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I don't know, that's just a fun little fact about, like, something I've noticed about the process. It's just like -
Roy Dodger:
Surfboard, soft core, breathe more.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Like, yeah, because like, I can see why you'd be like, oh, is this too like, I don't know, interpretational or whatever. But it's like, it's so vibey. Really, I don't know. I just -
Clarissa:
Yeah, I think Paris is definitely one of our songs that is the most, what's the word that I'm looking for, like it's one of the most poetic, one the most up for interpretation. It's not direct storytelling, you know?
Doug Burke:
So "I've never been to Paris, but you can draw me like one of your French girls."
Clarissa:
Titanic.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
We love referencing other things in our songs.
Doug Burke:
That's from the Titanic?
Clarissa:
Yeah, it's from Titanic, because it's one of my favorite movies. But also it's kind of an emotional shortcut. Because anybody who has seen that movie, which is most people in America, when you hear that it instantly takes you to that feeling of like, being so in love and being enamored and being like, oh, oh, jack, like, it's like new love -
Bonanza Jellyfish:
and vulnerability too like, in that moment, like, if you've seen the movie, you know what's happening like, she's naked, and she's like - you know what I mean? Like, that's such a cool thing like "I've never been to Paris but you can draw me like one of your French girls," that's so just like, I'm here to be vulnerable with you and I love that. It is an emotional shortcut. That's a good word.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, we know how that ended.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
The tragic love story of our time.
Roy Dodger:
That's not how our story ended. Because we wrote this song - we're playing it in the subways for years and then eventually when we won the Coffee Music Project, we got flown out to London and we made a stop in Paris while we were there.
Doug Burke:
Oh you did, so you've been to Paris? As a group?
Roy Dodger:
We have now been to Paris.
Doug Burke:
Did you sing the song in Paris?
Roy Dodger:
Of course! What's the story you always tell?
Clarissa:
Yeah, I was actually worried when we were playing it in Paris that people would be confused because everyone's like, you're in Paris now. What do you mean? But they loved it. And it's funny now. Now, since we've been to Paris - we've actually been to Paris twice, we've been lucky enough, we love France. But we actually had a discussion we're like, can we keep on playing the song, does it feel untruthful? But now we kind of - we'll substitute other cities in a joke way we'll be like, I've never been to Reno or something.
Roy Dodger:
That's the one that William Garrett, our friend and producer, he really likes to sing the song like a big band song. But it's called I've never been to Reno.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Roy Dodger:
By the way, William Garrett has his own his own Bandit name, I think we'd be remiss not to say his name is Lucky Jesus.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Yeah.
Clarissa:
Because he looks like Jesus except he has white hair. So he's Lucky Jesus.
Doug Burke:
Okay
Roy Dodger:
Like the Jesus that got to live to his 50s.
Doug Burke:
Nice. And this song has the ah's in it, not the woos or the doodoos. This is Ahs.
Clarissa:
It's bigger.
Roy Dodger:
This is like conjuring like a cathedral we wanted to conjure Cathedral resonance. The reverb of like Notre Dame
Clarissa:
Reference.
Roy Dodger:
Yes. And I kept thinking about do you remember that movie? Catch Me If You Can?
Doug Burke:
Yes. I love that movie. Yeah, and, I've seen the original guy give a speech
Roy Dodger:
Really?
Doug Burke:
Frank Abernathy, it's great. Yeah.
Roy Dodger:
Amazing. Oh, wow. But there's a scene in the end, where he's like, escaped the United States. And he's, he's in France, and Tom Hanks, like, tracks him down to this little tiny town in France and it's snowing. It's like Christmas Eve. And there's the Midnight Mass happening at a church like a couple doors down and you just hear this like, beautiful choral music happening in the background of this entire scene. And I for some reason, like that's what I was thinking about when we're filling those Ahs. Interesting,
Clarissa:
But from a fun collaborative standpoint, like that section to me, I feel like really is the hallmark of our alchemy together because I remember being very surprised how like, you really surprised me with the chord structures. You really kind of went outside the box and then like the ahs built on top of it and it ended up being this I think very unique build.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
We recently got to sing the song with a choir, singing the ahs behind it and it was just like a really cool bucket list moment where I was like, yeah.
Doug Burke:
That sounds like I can't always get what you want. The opening sequence.
Roy Dodger:
Yeah, well, that was always a dream of ours. We've always wanted to do a children's choir in our songs. Which - we haven't totally met that bucket list goal yet. Although working with the Urban Choir Project on the ahs for Paris, was great, they were a grownup choir.
Clarissa:
They're adults. The way we talk about them, we're like we love them so much. They're so cute. They're lovely. They are full on adults that just are just lovely people. We should be clear.
Roy Dodger:
But, although we did get to do like a simulated Children's Choir on one of the Christmas tunes that we worked out for a little Christmas EP that we did. We invited like, our six friends that could sing the highest to the studio, and we just recorded everybody's singing at the top of their range as loud as they could.
Bonanza Jellyfish:
And you can hear that on our Christmas EP. Um, it's the, Baby Please Come Home is the song we did. It's really hilarious.
Clarissa:
And the EP is called We Three Bandits.
Doug Burke:
Yes.
Clarissa:
See? Yeah, we'd like we'd like to have fun with our names.
Doug Burke:
So after the ahs it's "surfboard soft core breathe more." What does that mean?
Clarissa:
What do you think it means?
Doug Burke:
Good, fair question. You don't have to answer these questions.
Clarissa:
I won't answer all of them. But I will. I will say one. So "surfboard" is from the Beyonce song Drunken Love. Okay, when we were writing it, that song was really big. But it's also it's like talking about just how things just go, you know, things are wavy. But yes, that is a direct Beyonce reference.
Doug Burke:
Okay. You guys are very referential that's
Roy Dodger:
referential and reverential.
Doug Burke:
Yes, here reverential. Well, thank you very much and we're here with Bandits on the Run. Thank you.
Clarissa:
Thank you!
Bonanza Jellyfish:
Thank you!
Roy Dodger:
Thank you!
