Mike McFadden Interview
Doug Burke:
Mike McFadden leads the indie rock band, Animal Years. Born and raised in the Baltimore area where he began writing songs that garnered local airplay on the Baltimore NPR station, he then moved to Brooklyn, New York where he assembled the band, Animal Years, and began generating a rabid local following at the vibrant Brooklyn music scene based on his anthemic fist pumping songs. They began to tour the country where their song Caroline began garnering a huge amount of attention on Spotify. They are releasing an album this year entitled This Is an Album Called Animal Years, and Mike joins us to discuss Caroline and other songs from the Animal Years repertoire. Welcome to Backstory Song. I am so thrilled to have Mike McFadden on our show today. Welcome, Mike.
Mike McFadden:
What's up, Doug? Thank you for having me.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. This is your host Doug Burke and we're bringing you one of the hottest bands from the Brooklyn music scene. You guys have a brand new album coming out on June 18th of 2021 called This Is an Album Called Animal Years, and that is by Animal Years, in case you didn't know. There's a lot of Animal Years in there.
Mike McFadden:
That is correct. Yeah. That, I know, it's a mouthful. I apologize. There's a whole story behind it.
Doug Burke:
Oh, what's the story behind that?
Mike McFadden:
Well, we were named after an album called The Animal Years by Josh Ritter. When we started the band, I wanted to give a tribute to another artist or album that inspired me. I was thinking, and The Animal Years by Josh Ritter was just an absolute top five best albums I've ever heard in my entire life from front to back. I loved the name and I loved the art work and I was like, "Let's drop the The and just name the band Animal Years." So, we felt like it was weird to do a self-titled album called just Animal Years because there is an album called The Animal Years. So, we came up with this whole kind of thing where we split the albums part one and two and the whole album would be called This Is an Album Called Animal Years. The way that we threw the songs together, the way that it came together all just felt so right to just finally do a self-titled thing. But we didn't know how to do it because we named ourself after an album. So, that was our way of doing it.
Doug Burke:
All right. So, I'm ready for this new album. But you have an EP out and a full length, The Sun Will Rise and Far From Home.
Mike McFadden:
Far From Home was our label debut.
Doug Burke:
So, we're going to talk about some songs that are off of those two releases. But take me back to where you started writing songs, and why did you start writing songs?
Mike McFadden:
Sure. I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. When I was in middle school, the pop punk scene was very big. Blink-182, Sum 41. I'm 32 years old, so this is 2000, 2001. TRL, MTV, all those things, and I had a lot of friends who were joining bands, playing music. One of my best friends, his name is Zack Merrick. He's the bass player in a band called All Time Low, which is a big pop punk band that still is a really successful, amazing, hardworking band today.
Doug Burke:
In Baltimore?
Mike McFadden:
They're based in Baltimore, but they're internationally known. They've done everything. They've went on tour with Blink-182 and they're chart topping dudes. If it's not your scene, you would have never heard of them. But if you're into punk or pop punk, rock music, you know All Time Low. So, the lead singer of the band is now in another band with Mark Hoppus from Blink-182. They got to that point. So, I was really inspired by all that. I decided to pick up the bass, and then eventually picked up a guitar. Around when I got into high school, a couple years after, after learning a ton of songs, which I think anyone, any guitar player does, you start to just create your own stuff. First, you play G and you play C and then you play D and then you think that you wrote 3AM by Matchbox Twenty. That's what we all start on, and you think that you wrote a new song and you realize that it was 3AM. But then eventually, you start writing better stuff, and that's how I got into songwriting. I'd say I didn't actually write a real complete song until probably the end of my high school years. But that's how I got into it. I don't know. I definitely wanted to do it. It was a combination of a lot of things. I think at first, maybe my intentions weren't super pure. I wasn't some kid who was like, "I want to create art and do all these things." I was definitely like, "This is cool and I want to be a part of it and I'm seeing these guys doing it and I want to do that too." I think it evolved from there, but in the very beginning, I was like, "Yeah. I just want to be in a band." So, that's how it all started, I guess.
Doug Burke:
So, you wrote some stuff and the local radio in Baltimore put it on the air.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. Couple years after I got out of high school, I wrote a song, which was actually on our first record called Heart on Heart. But I hadn't released it as Animal Years. It was just under my name because we hadn't formed a band yet and I hadn't moved to New York. But I wrote that song and I sent it to them. When I say them, I mean WTMD 89.7, which is the big public radio AAA station in Baltimore. They loved the song and they put it on rotation at the station.
Doug Burke:
Where were you the first time you heard the song and how'd you feel?
Mike McFadden:
I don't know the first time, but I will tell you a funny story. There have been two times, two great stories, and I'll make them brief. But the first time, I worked at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the medical school, and at the time, I was a van driver. I was driving a van full of employees to the parking lot. We did a shuttle from the university to the satellite parking lot where everyone parked at. I was listening to the radio station. I wasn't expecting anything, and all of a sudden, Heart on Heart comes on. A guy that I was training at the time was in the passenger's seat and I turned to him and I was just like, "Listen, man. I don't know you very well and you don't even know that I'm a musician, and you're not going to believe me, but this is my song on the radio right now." He was this older guy. He thought it was really great. Then I think a month later, I was driving Uber as my side job. A lady was in the backseat. The song came on the radio and I just turned around and I was like, "Listen," because this was a different single, actually. I think this would maybe have been Caroline. I turned around and I was just like, "I want to let you know, I haven't heard this song before on the radio and it happens to be mine. So, I'm really happy they're playing it and I just thought I would share it with you." This was before the band started touring or doing anything like that. I think she believed me. I'm not entirely sure.
Doug Burke:
Did she give you a five star Uber rating and a decent tip? Do you remember?
Mike McFadden:
I think so. I think so.
Doug Burke:
All right. So, then it worked.
Mike McFadden:
You don't know. You don't know. They don't let you -
Doug Burke:
Oh, you don't know in Uber. I thought you got the feedback. You don't know.
Mike McFadden:
You get feedback, but they don't tell you who the person is because they don't want you hunting them down and stalking them at their house.
Doug Burke:
I know. I always cut a deal. I'm like, "You give me five stars, I give you five stars." I have a 5.0 pickup rating and I don't want to lose that. The first thing I say when I get in an Uber is I cut that deal. No matter how bad the Uber driver is, I'm still going to give them five if they give me five.
Mike McFadden:
Listen. I've been back in that game for a year with the pandemic. A lot of us weren't living on our royalties. We all had to get back to the old grind there. I've been unfortunately back in the Uber game, so I know what you're talking about, man.
Doug Burke:
Well, maybe we'll get a hit record off of this song and get you on tour again full-time. I've listened to your music now in preparation for this episode and I want to hear you guys live. Your songs are so anthemic. I can just feel myself screaming along to the choruses and the way they rave up. Let's star with Caroline because this one has got three million spins on Spotify.
Mike McFadden:
Seven and a half million.
Doug Burke:
Seven and a half. Sorry. Seven and a half million spins. Okay. Thanks for correcting me. Yeah. I should get my facts right on my show. Thank you. That's seven and a half. That's more than double since yesterday.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. You were cutting my numbers in half. I had to correct you.
Doug Burke:
I told you, I'm really bad at the facts. But I'm directionally correct.
Mike McFadden:
I unfortunately look at the Spotify for Artists app too much, which tells you everything about your singles. It's amazing and it tells you, hey, people listened in Moscow. So, I know these things. I know how many -
Doug Burke:
So, why do you think Caroline resonated with an audience around the globe, frankly?
Mike McFadden:
I think it has that pop folk kind of formula down that has been ... just people have been listening to for the past 10 years or so, and it has a lot to do with the Spotify algorithm and everything, and I think one person listens to it and saves, and then another person listens to it and saves it and shares it, and all of a sudden, it becomes this thing. It just is, it's like the minute I wrote it, I sent a demo to my manager and the band. You just realize it's one of those songs that has this undeniably catchy hook and it just appeals to this very broad audience. You don't have to like a certain type of music. You can just listen to that song, kind of like it, and yeah. It's just a catchy song. I wasn't ever concerned with writing any type of hit or super, super catchy song. But that one is just like it's the obvious choice. It just is. The chorus and the bit ... Ryan, the producer, really knocked it out of the park with the big chorus kick drum and all this stuff that he did, and he produced The Lumineers and the Vance Joy. So, he knew what he was doing and he knew how to do it and he made it sound as good as it possibly could. I think that's just what happened.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. It has that kind of wind up. It starts with you on acoustic guitar and then with these persistent hand claps, and then it just explodes at the chorus and this uplifting, passionate, heartfelt Mike McFadden sound.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. How does that happen?
Doug Burke:
Yeah. How does that happen?
Mike McFadden:
I specifically remember, we were in the studio, I think it was late 2016, place called Applehead in Saugerties, New York, like Woodstock, essentially. It's like farm, this barn that was converted into a studio. It's where the band had recorded The Big Pink right down the street. The cabin that we stayed in was Rick Danko, the guitar player from The Band, it was his old, old cabin he used to live in. That's besides the point, but it's all just cool stuff that I wanted to say.
Doug Burke:
So, you're channeling The Band and-
Mike McFadden:
I thought so, even though -
Doug Burke:
... Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko and-
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. Levon.
Doug Burke:
... Levon Helm on drums and feeling this stuff.
Mike McFadden:
I think so. Yeah. I remember Ryan, the producer, just adding these claps and he was adding this ... He took the kick drum beater and he took it off the pedal, and he just had our drummer hit the head of the kick drum with his hand. I was like, "What does that do? What is the difference?" He just looked at me and he was like, "It sounds like a party," I was like, "Whoa." I was like, "That's why Rick Rubin makes millions of dollars." It's like, I would have never thought of that. But he was absolutely right. That chorus, the verse and the intro are great and everything. But it's just basically a kick drum and a guitar. But when you get to the chorus, it sounds like a party and it's just this fun gang vocal thing. The song, it's just like it's a part, it's something that everyone can sing along to, and very easily. The first thing is just this big, "Whoa, Caroline".
Doug Burke:
I'm tripping over my feet.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. I wrote that and I was like, "Where did that come from?" I know it sounds pretentious. It's definitely one of those moments, and I think any songwriter can relate, where something is given to you. You didn't create that on your own. That was there. That appeared out of nowhere and you grabbed it. You remembered it.
Doug Burke:
Was there a girl in your life that this was inspired by? Because the protagonist in the song doesn't really have a relationship with Caroline.
Mike McFadden:
Right. It wasn't a girl named Caroline. I won't say her name. But Caroline worked. The name just worked. Looking back on it, if there was another name that would have rhymed better, I would have done it. I didn't even think about the fact that there are a hundred fricking songs named Caroline.
Doug Burke:
Oh, yeah. There's Neil Diamond song, I understand.
Mike McFadden:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think I maybe have heard of that before.
Doug Burke:
Ever been to a Red Sock game, you've heard it.
Mike McFadden:
Oh, god. I'm from Baltimore, man. I don't want to talk about the Red Sox.
Doug Burke:
They don't play Sweet Caroline at the Orioles games?
Mike McFadden:
I don't think so. No. You know what we play, because we're way cooler? We play Thank God I'm a Country Boy, the John Denver song. I have no idea why, but the seventh inning stretch, they play that song.
Doug Burke:
That makes absolutely no sense.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Why has Baltimore, the Orioles adopted that?
Mike McFadden:
I have no idea, actually. I'm thinking about it for the first time ever right now.
Doug Burke:
But that's what they do. Okay. Maybe they'll start playing Whoa, Caroline.
Mike McFadden:
I hope so.
Doug Burke:
So, there was a girl that inspired the idea?
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. So, basically, the song is all about the touring life as a musician, and essentially, I had met someone two days before we were about to go on this big tour. We had kind of hit it off and it was one of these things where it was like, oh, it was literally just a chance encounter at a place, we hung out once, and that was it. But I was very, very smitten and I wanted to see her again, but I literally the next day left for a month and a half. This whole song came about because it was that whole anxiety about, man, you barely know me. I feel like you like me and I like you, but how am I going to keep you interested for a month and a half while I'm on the road and we can't really necessarily build, establish a relationship, and I don't want to do that because I just think that's so difficult. You don't want a long distance relationship. We don't even know each other.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. It's kind of a fantasy. Right?
Mike McFadden:
It's like, want to tell me where you've been? I've been on the road for months, staying up too late, hoping to hear from you again.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. It's kind of like Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Something very good came out of that experience, for sure.
Doug Burke:
I really like the tenderness of the video you shot. You have these 15 year old-ish adolescent boy and girl.
Mike McFadden:
It's so funny. I think they were both at least 20.
Doug Burke:
Oh, get out. But they look so young? Is that just me? Were you trying to make them look young, or did I misread that, they were actually 20 and I-
Mike McFadden:
I don't think so. I think maybe the camera makes them look younger than they are. But they did certainly look young. I know the girl in that video is engaged to be married or maybe she's married. I'm glad you liked the video. It definitely was meant to be very lighthearted and tender and stuff.
Doug Burke:
It's coming of age. It's like that coming of age moment when you're smitten by a girl.
Mike McFadden:
We were trying to emulate that thing of I can't get to you, but we wanted to do it in a fun way. So, he's coming through the, whatever you call it, that blowup circus thing that we rented, which was so funny. We had a company come out and blow it up. Yeah. He can't get to her and at the very end, they're across the whole fire thing. But they really never fully get with each other and it just goes off of the whole theme of the song. So, I will tell you, two years later, I think there's eight and a half million people in New York City or whatever, I was coming out of a studio session and I ran into the guy who was in that movie, in that music video of ours. I went and I was like, "Hey, what's up, man? It's really good to see you," and he had no idea who I was. I had to literally explain. I was like, "The Caroline music video, man. You were in it," and he was like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember." It was just like the funniest.
Doug Burke:
It was very monumental for you, a little commercial in his body of work.
Mike McFadden:
- thought it was this crazy coincidence and he didn't even know who I was.
Doug Burke:
So, have you ever bumped into a Caroline who loved the song and a Caroline who hated it and said, "You've ruined my life"?
Mike McFadden:
No. Well, Caroline for sure loved the song all the time on comments in YouTube and Instagram. "My name is Caroline and I just love the song," which I can imagine.
Doug Burke:
But no one ever came up and said, "Everybody comes up to me and says, 'Whoa, Caroline.'"
Mike McFadden:
No.
Doug Burke:
"I can't stand you. You ruined my life"?
Mike McFadden:
No.
Doug Burke:
You should say, "At least it's better than Sweet Caroline, isn't it?"
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. This song is not Sweet Caroline. It's not a song that everyone knows in their house.
Doug Burke:
They should. They absolutely should. It's a great song.
Mike McFadden:
I think they should, but the blame is on Neil Diamond for that, and the blame is on Amazon for Alexa and all those different things.
Doug Burke:
I hope your song gets to that level of overplay.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. Seven million streams on Spotify, but-
Doug Burke:
7.5.
Mike McFadden:
... that's a drop in the bucket these days. It's just a bunch of playlists, and I'm glad that people are listening to it.
Doug Burke:
As part of Backstory Song interviews, we put the songbook, the Mike McFadden songbook, up on our website and you will be able to share this playlist with your friends. So, the next thing we want to talk about is off the new album, I suspect, because I have received a private listen to it. It's not out on Spotify yet. So, we don't know the numbers, and it's called Haines St. Station. Tell me what inspired this.
Mike McFadden:
This song is, out of all the songs on this record, this new record, this one has received, playing live, has received the most positive feedback. Most notably, when we were on tour opening for a band called Blues Traveler, they loved that song. The keyboard player would come up to me backstage and be like, "The Haines St. Song, is that a cover? Who wrote that?" It just has this impact when we play it live. I think it's because the whole scenario, there's a Greyhound bus station on Haines St. in Baltimore, Maryland. It's the Haines St. Station. I was kind of seeing this girl at the time. I remember we had been hanging out for maybe a month or so, and she lived in New York City, but she was doing something in Baltimore. She was acting in a play in Baltimore. That's how we had gotten to know each other. When I was dropping her off at the train station, sorry, the bus station. It was a bus station. I was like, "We've been talking for a long time," and I'm sure I said it in the most confusing way possible because I was probably very nervous. But I was like, "Do you want to take this thing to the next level? Would you like to be in a relationship? I don't think I can just do casual whatever with you." She couldn't commit to that and I was like, "I really want that and you don't." I told her, "I don't think I can be just friends and I don't think I can do what we're doing now. So, I think it's kind of over. I know what I want." It was a very rough little departure that we had. I literally dropped her off at that bus station and on the way home was humming this song. I think my brain was like, "This is a little too difficult to deal with. You have to find some way to express it immediately." On the way home, I just started.
Doug Burke:
Were you crying?
Mike McFadden:
I probably was. Yeah. I can't remember specifically, but I cry pretty easily. So, I would imagine that that was the case. If I said cry and then dry my eyes, for sure, I probably was crying. It was literally like a chain of events that almost all happened in one day. It was 20 minutes later. Two hours later, and then one day later. Then the next day is the second part of the chorus. I think "gonna try and find a new girl" is me getting back on Tinder or whatever.
Doug Burke:
It's a lot easier these days, I guess-
Mike McFadden:
Yeah, sometimes.
Doug Burke:
... than it used to be.
Mike McFadden:
But that's real songwriting to me. There's not a lot of hidden meaning, I don't think, in my stuff.
Doug Burke:
No, you're very openhearted in your music, and that is very much, I think, what the audience embraces. I can't wait to see you live because I can just tell the audience makes this emotional connection with you, and you make an emotional connection with your songs, I think. You can feel it on the record recordings, but I bet it's just stunning in person.
Mike McFadden:
I don't want to toot my own horn. I will say we are a band that loves to play live and there's an insane, insane amount of energy because that's when we bring it all out. I want you to come see us because the end of Haines St., I'm headbanging. My neck is sore every morning after Haines St. Station.
Doug Burke:
So, what I like about that song and why your neck gets sore is it starts off with an a cappella line and then some delicate harmonies. Then in the middle, you bring in this slow, bendy, bluesy guitar, and then unlike some of your other songs like Caroline where the anthemic chorus is in the middle and repeats, this one winds up to the explosion at the end with an organ crescendo signaling it, and then that guitar jam just goes off.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. That was Paul, the producer, Paul Moak. We recorded with him down in Nashville. It's so funny. Paul was a touring guitar player before he started his studio. He toured for everyone from ... God. I can't even remember the people he toured for. But I know that he literally turned down and offer from Keith Urban to be his touring guitar player to start the studio. So, this guy was a total badass and a producer-
Doug Burke:
He's the real deal.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. But a guitar player first. This song out of every song, he knew, because he played guitar on a lot of the album, because I don't shred. I write songs, I play chords, I finger pick. He saved that solo for the very, very end of the recording process. It became a joke. We're like, "Paul, when are you going to track that solo?" I'm pretty sure it was last day of tracking, I was finally like, Paul was ready, and he came in and he just wailed on that thing. We don't have a ton of guitar solos in our music. So, it was so cool to watch him do that. I'm almost positive that, I'm pretty sure it was one take, and we stopped and we were like, "That's it. Done. You're done. That's it. That's the end," and we were done with the recording and I fricking loved what he did on that album with guitar and honestly everything else that he played on that album.
Doug Burke:
On Haines St. Station, the guitar solo, what feeling do you have when you listen to that while you're playing with him?
Mike McFadden:
I think a liberation, like I made a plan and I'm taking care of myself and I'm letting myself know that it's going to be okay and I'm letting myself know that I'm a good guy and that things are going to be okay and I'm taking care of it the way that I can, and then, because I say all these things in the song, I say that I'm going to process this by writing songs about you, and then I say that I'm going to get over you because this song is like affirmations. It's like The Secret, man. You ever read The Secret?
Doug Burke:
Yeah. Yeah, I have. You know what? The feeling I get is that someone swiped right on Tinder on you.
Mike McFadden:
Oh, yeah? That's pretty good. Yeah. It's a very-
Doug Burke:
It's like, man, I am moving on. I'm going to find a new girl and, oh, she just matched on me.
Mike McFadden:
Here it is.
Doug Burke:
Let's go.
Mike McFadden:
There she is.
Doug Burke:
- It's like it's onto the next-
Mike McFadden:
... three and a half minutes.
Doug Burke:
... relationship time.
Mike McFadden:
I love it.
Doug Burke:
So, let's talk about Home, another song.
Mike McFadden:
So, we only have five songs to pick from on our debut EP record with Ryan Hadlock. Ryan Hadlock did The Lumineers and Vance Joy and Brandi Carlisle.
Doug Burke:
And Animal Years.
Mike McFadden:
And Animal Years. Yeah. Among many others. We just wanted big anthems. So, Home for me was my first experience living outside of Baltimore was New York City. My music didn't do very well. Besides that initial radio play that I got in Baltimore, nothing really happened for me there and I thought I needed a bigger market. Then I moved to New York City and I gained this following, Animal Years gained this following there, and after a while of having success in New York finally, I wrote this song, Home, to just thank the place where I came from because I thought that Baltimore was the reason why I wasn't doing well, and I don't think that was the case. It's like this whole thing, like the chorus is I turned away, but now I never. There's one place in my hearts forever. It's basically being like, yeah, I moved here and I did my thing here and I love New York for this reason, and yes, I experienced success here. But it doesn't matter. There will never be a place like the place that I came from. Regardless if only some nights in Baltimore, I would play for two or three people, that place made me the person that wrote the songs and New York is just the place where I played the songs and people came to the shows. Everything that I write is a product of where I'm from in one way or another. So, it's just a dedication. I didn't call it Baltimore. I wanted everyone to be able to use this song and apply it to their situation. Because there are so many transplants all over the world, they can use that song too and be like, "Yeah," feel a little good about being like, "Yeah. I moved. But I still love my hometown more than anything. Just because I moved doesn't mean I don't love it there." I think people have guilt because they leave their families and all these different things. So, it was really important for me to just write a song like that.
Doug Burke:
So, it's about Baltimore, but we're not going to tell everybody it's about Baltimore because it's about New York when you're in New York and everybody has a home, and it's non-specific. It's by design, which I like. What I really like is the harmonies on this. You got some pretty good supporting cast in your band on this song.
Mike McFadden:
Well, first, I'll give credit to my guys. They are the band, Anthony Saladino and Anthony Spinnato. Saladino's the bass player, Spinnato's the drummer, and they make the most incredible harmony group. It just works out so well. Spinnato has a higher voice. The guy went to music school. He knows more about music than any of us, and he sung opera and he can just, he can sing higher than me and he just makes this perfect higher harmony guy. Saladino is just like a low register guy who can sing. He's got the most boring harmony parts, but it's so important that he's a part of it. You need his part in there and he does it so well. It's just this perfect blend of voices that I can't even imagine how he ended up getting together. Any harmony that you've hard in any song was probably created by Anthony Spinnato, who's the drummer. With his music theory background, his biggest strength in the studio is just doing harmonies. Every album we've ever recorded, when it comes down to harmonies, he's right there and he is writing these harmonies as we're recording, and he's writing them all for me because I end up singing them on the album. It's crazy because I don't have that ability. I can write the songs, but I can't do the whole music theory harmony thing.
Mike McFadden:
So, the guys, they help us sound so good live and then we have this secret weapon, Spinnato, who writes the harmonies for us. So, it's freaking awesome and I love it. We get compliments all the time on our harmonies and I think that's really important because sounding good live is really important, and these guys, they always show up ready to go.
Doug Burke:
So, this has an anthemic chorus. I hadn't made the Blink-182 connection, which is the kings of anthemic choruses, right? What song that you play live gets the anthemic participation from the audience the most?
Mike McFadden:
Probably Let Go of Your Head, which is off Sun Will Rise, because it's just literally - Friends is more popular, but it's a whole bunch of words.
Doug Burke:
I like this song, Home, because it's got this earnest, openhearted, emotionally direct feel to it. Is there a banjo on this at the end there?
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. It's throughout the whole song, but it's very subtle. It's a banjitar.
Doug Burke:
A banjitar.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. I play five string banjo, but I never really took the time to learn how to play it. But I finger pick guitar, and so what I did was I took a banjitar, which is a, it's a six string guitar, but it's a banjo. It's tuned like a banjo, so it sounds like a banjo. I tune it to an open tuning. I just finger pick the banjo, or the banjitar throughout the entire song, a lot of our songs, at least on that EP with him.
Doug Burke:
Wow. Okay. That's kind of cool sound. So, you mentioned Friends as a chorus that people love. I can totally get it with the explosive harmonies of the chorus. What's this song about?
Mike McFadden:
I think after living in New York a number of years and being away, really being away from Baltimore for the first time, I was having this fantasy, or maybe we were getting together, maybe some friends were in New York, or maybe we were having a phone call with a bunch of old buddies, or maybe even going home for the holidays and getting together with a bunch of guys that you grew up with. It was this whole thing of whatever's going on in your life, you get together with your friends, you bring back these old memories, you have this comradery and this great time where you forget about everything that's going on in your life, and you just talk about what it was when you were kids, when you didn't have a car in the world and how fun it was and how stupid you were and the mistakes you made. God. We got thrown in the back of a cop car when I was 16 because I was at a party drinking and doing stupid stuff and just pretending for a second like you're back in that place and forgetting everything. So, that's certainly reflected in Anthony's music video, our bass player Anthony who directed the music video for Friends, and it was like that whole theme. Let's go back and just be a bunch of kids, and the kids are dancing in the woods and all that stuff. Friends is just like an escape. It's an escape where you go back and just be with your old friends and have a good time and remember all the good times you had when you were younger.
Doug Burke:
Did you party in the woods in Baltimore?
Mike McFadden:
Did I party in the ... There were definitely some field parties going on, absolutely.
Doug Burke:
Okay, there was field party. Because whenever I think of the woods of Baltimore, all I can imagine is the woods of the homicide podcast Serial.
Mike McFadden:
Leakin Park?
Doug Burke:
Leakin Park. Yeah.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. It wasn't those woods.
Doug Burke:
It wasn't those woods. Okay.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. Oh, it's so funny you mention that. No, these were more like country woods.
Doug Burke:
Got it. Further out in the burbs a little more. Because once you get out of the city, it gets really country, like horse country, pretty quickly.
Mike McFadden:
Very quickly. Yeah. An interesting little area.
Doug Burke:
This is one of your more popular songs live?
Mike McFadden:
Absolutely. Yeah. A lot of people really relate to this song and it's by far our most popular music video. I would suggest everyone go watch it because we hired these five amazing kids between the ages of 11 and 13. They're insane dancers, and we got a choreographer. Have you seen the music video, Doug?
Doug Burke:
I didn't watch this one. I'm sorry.
Mike McFadden:
Okay. So, no, no. It's all good.
Doug Burke:
I'm going to go look at it.
Mike McFadden:
I'm telling you, the one thing I tell everyone, it's going to put a smile on your face. These kids-
Doug Burke:
Was it the same ones from the Baltimore Step movie?
Mike McFadden:
No. No. No. These kids are from Canada.
Doug Burke:
They still know how to dance, huh?
Mike McFadden:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. The step dancers in Baltimore are amazing.
Doug Burke:
They are. I've seen them perform live.
Mike McFadden:
Oh, yeah. They're incredible. It's four kids from ... We hooked up with a choreographer in Canada, then we shot it in upstate New York. These kids are unbelievable dancers, and you'll see. I would just invite everyone to go look up the music video for Friends by Animal Years. It was Anthony's, our bass player's directorial debut, if you can believe that. He never directed anything his entire life and this was his first thing. Now, he directs all of our stuff. So, it was incredible.
Doug Burke:
I can imagine this is a song where people buy shots and toast and the bar tab goes up.
Mike McFadden:
A friend of mine was sending me, because I'm not on TikTok, but she was sending me TikToks that people have made to Friends, and it's just like, they're all compilations of people that are hanging out with their friends in different scenarios and they're minute long videos. But yeah. Absolutely.
Doug Burke:
Most of them, I bet they end in a toast or a shot, right?
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Doug Burke:
You get a lot of that, I bet. Yeah.
Mike McFadden:
That is how people relate to this song, which makes sense.
Doug Burke:
Here's to you, my friends. That's a good one. So, the last song we're going to talk about, What I'm Fighting For. What are you fighting for, Mike McFadden?
Mike McFadden:
Well, I wrote this song before I even moved to Nashville in 2019, and it's just one of those things with a lot of my songs where it's a general theme because I really do love songs that everyone can get behind. I like some country songs, but they're so specific and there's so many songs that are so specific. I love songs that people can really just get behind the general theme. For me, this song was it. At the time when I wrote it, I think I was struggling because I think maybe the band was at a standstill and we weren't sure what was happening. To be honest, I don't even know what was happening then. But so many things have happened since I wrote that song. Do you want to know what I'm fighting for now? Do you want to know what I'm fighting for three years ago?
Doug Burke:
I want to know both.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. Then, when I was writing the song, I think I was telling myself that I have to keep going as a songwriter. Think I was like, man, I've had my ups and I've had my down. I've been on tour, I signed a record deal. Eventually, I got dropped from that record deal. I've done all these things, and yet, I'm still out here working a side hustle. I think the song was really important the summer during the pandemic. It wasn't out yet, obviously, but there was a tornado that hit Nashville and me and Anthony were involved in helping two families get back on their feet, and for three weeks, we were doing cleanup and fundraising and stuff. Then eventually, we joined the Black Lives Matter movement and for a couple months, we were involved in a 62 day sit-in at the Tennessee capitol. Anthony got arrested three times, I got arrested twice for peaceful protesting, and I think that song was very important. It can be applied for what we were doing then, and I think with the country maybe getting back on its feet right now, I think that song could absolutely apply at this point in our lives as well. That's why I love this song. It's taken on a million different reasons.
Doug Burke:
There's a lot of things to be fighting for always in life.
Mike McFadden:
It honestly, it's whatever you're fighting for. It doesn't have to be my political leanings or whatever you would like to call it. I would call them human issues, human rights issues. But it's an important song and I think people are really relating to it, and I love that. I love hearing that.
Doug Burke:
We all have a cause.
Mike McFadden:
Yep.
Doug Burke:
Or we should. If you don't have one, you should find one.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And fight for it, and this could be your anthem.
Mike McFadden:
Absolutely.
Doug Burke:
I like the droning guitar in this one. It's a slightly different style guitar than some of the other songs.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah. For any guitar players out there, it's a standard tune, but it's a whole step down. A whole step down. So, the guitar is just low, and I'm playing a G shape chord, like a open G chord, and I'm just strumming on that. So, it is just like, it's just got that kind of heavy droning. All I'm doing is just literally strumming on this chord and moving one finger, and it gives it that whole kind of basis, that base layer throughout the whole song. That's what's droning on throughout that whole thing.
Doug Burke:
That's really cool.
Mike McFadden:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
I think that's helpful to listeners.
Mike McFadden:
If you're wanting to learn how to play the song, hit me up. I'll go on Instagram or whatever and find people that have learned songs on their own and they're playing in a completely different way, but it works, and I'm like, "Oh. I didn't know you could do it like that. That's pretty cool."
Doug Burke:
Yeah. Yeah. So, June 18th is the new album coming out. What else do we want to plug?
Mike McFadden:
Follow animalyearsmusic on Instagram. That's animalyearsmusic. Follow us on Facebook. Just look up Animal Years. We put out a single, What I'm Fighting For, on Friday, which was, what's today?
Doug Burke:
Tuesday.
Mike McFadden:
I was looking for the ... It came out on Friday, the 22nd. It's out. We're putting out an EP, we're going to put out another EP, and then we're going to put out a full length album.
Doug Burke:
You got a lot of music in the can.
Mike McFadden:
We do. We do. We were hoping to be touring and promoting this stuff, but that was impossible, and we just weren't willing to wait. So, we're putting it out now. We encourage everyone to go buy it on iTunes or wherever they buy music. Stream it, share with your friends. We released a music video for Talkin' to You, which was our first single off this new album, and Anthony, our bass player, directed that as well. So, go look at that because that's a lot of fun.
Doug Burke:
Cool. And that's up on Facebook page, right? You can click through on the link?
Mike McFadden:
Facebook, YouTube. Yep. Yep.
Doug Burke:
If I were to see you in any club in Brooklyn, I guess in Brooklyn, what would be the best venue that I could catch Animal Years?
Mike McFadden:
That's a good question. We played a lot of them, and there were definitely a lot of bigger venues. But we got our start at Rockwood Music Hall. Do you know Rockwood?
Doug Burke:
I do.
Mike McFadden:
Rockwood stage two is where you see Animal Years. After being a band for about a year, we sold that out and we went and moved on bigger stages, Bowery Ballroom, Music Hall Williamsburg, Gramercy Theater. But the Rockwood shows were crazy. Come to Rockwood.
Doug Burke:
I would like to be with all of my friends at the Rockwood and see you.
Mike McFadden:
That'll happen soon.
Doug Burke:
Well, maybe we'll get you out to Park City to have you play the Park City Songwriter Festival. I got to thank you, Mike McFadden from Animal Years. Thank you, DJ Wyatt Schmidt, and thank you, my social media director, MC Owens. Thank you, Andrea Guthrie, one of my favorite fans. Thank you for liking our stuff on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and Pinterest and all the social media. Please spread these song lists if you like this episode. Spread the song lists so our artists can get paid, and thank you to our listeners.
Mike McFadden:
Thank you, Doug. Thank you, Wyatt. Thank you, Andrea.
