We pulled up “Midnight Train in Memphis”, the Stapleton single, you know, when he was a solo artist, not the bluegrass version, just to sort of show, like, how rock band-ish that sounded, you know? We were just kind of looking, listening to things to play that sort of almost had, even though “She's Waiting” is an eighties tune, almost a seventies feel. And we didn't quite go there with all the production styles that we chose, but it was just a starting point. The idea wasn't to go with these giant drums. We made them bigger as we went, but it was to be more garage bandy in a way. Not GarageBand the app, but a garage band.

 

The idea that this was a band who'd been playing these things in a basement and is now going to record them, because I *had* been playing them in the basement, I'd been recording them on GarageBand.So to me, I had played these songs a lot. To the band, they had not, but to me, I had.So I had a sound in my head.

 

Rain: Myron Elkins, is that really young kid, isn't he? Kind of Southern Rock. 

 

Rich: I saw him play. He's very young. I think he's like, 21, 22, with the voice of this 65-year-old man.

 

Rain: Who’s been living on whiskey and cigarettes. 

 

Rich: And then you meet him, and he's like (adopts boyish voice) ’Nice to meet you, sir’. He’s the sweetest kid. I went over to talk to him after a concert, because he's just standing there, I'm like, hey, man, you were great. He was the opening act. He's like, ‘Thanks, really appreciate it.

 

Rain: He looks like a cherub. The long hair and that baby face. I found him through your recommendation; I think you mentioned him on Kings of Con or something, and I ended up checking him out because of that and downloading the album, and loving it. 

 

Rich: Yeah, his album's good, man. Good musician. Good band he plays with, too.

 

Rain: So you mentioned there, recording on GarageBand, which is where much of ‘Fistfights’ took shape. Versus the first album, where there was just a couple of, original tracks -  one that Rob penned, and then a co-write that you did with Emma and Zach. Was it always the intention that this time around, you’d have an album of mostly original material?

 

Rich: I don't know, to be honest. I don't know what I thought the second record was going to be, if I go back that far. You know, I did a lot of covers on that first album, but I don't necessarily think of them as covers in the classic sense, unless you're talking about ‘Jackson’, which is a very, very well- known song, and I covered it. But some of the other songs are not songs that people know, in the same way that, you know, George Jones version of ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ is a cover. I mean, theoretically, like, he didn't write it, so you know, the idea. Certain country music artists write their own stuff. Plenty of country music artists, especially coming up the ropes back in the day, didn't. And, you know, Nashville's biggest business is song selling, not song recording. It's a town about brokering music. And that was so common in my mind about the business of music for country music, people that I didn't necessarily think about it. Cause people have said, oh, your first album is a lot of covers.

 

And I always think that's not a fair way of labelling that album. ‘Covers With Friends’ is covers. I took, songs that other people had written and maybe they had previously recorded them, but they were not common enough for anybody, unless you were a local, Nashville person to even think of them as a cover. And we did our own spin on them. You know, we interpreted them in a way that we wanted to interpret them. So they're not straight covers either. But certainly ‘Raspberry Beret’ is a cover, because that’s a hugely popular song. But I think when you're talking about ‘Living At Night’ or ‘24 Hours A Day’, those feel less cover-y to me. Because what I'm doing is I'm taking a song that matters to me and recording it and making it my own. But it's certainly, you know, the art belongs to the writers, but this version belongs to the Dick Jr. & The Volunteers.

 

Rain: Yeah, makes sense. And your audience might not have heard those songs until your album, too. So what was the first thing you did write for this album?

 

Rich: The first song I wrote, well, it would be ‘I Liked You More (When I Knew You Less)’, because we wrote that, and the original recording sessions for that, were during the first album. So Billy and I wrote that together during that first album with the idea that we put it on the first album and didn't.Three of the songs that are on this album were either recorded in full or largely recorded during that. And that's ‘I Liked You More (When I Knew You Less)’, ‘Copperhead Road’ and ‘16 Tons’.They were all part of a different set of sessions, same musicians, same guys, but different sessions from years and years and years ago.The things that changed - ‘I Liked You More (When I Knew You Less)’, we changed a little bit, but not enough to make it dramatically different. If I played you the original version, you'd go, that's kind of similar. We changed a word or two and we added slide guitar from that Nashville player Jules, but that would have been the first song written for this new album, even though it wasn't technically written for this new album, because it was from years and years ago.

 

Rain: So why didn't it make it onto the first one?

 

Rich: It didn't feel right. I don't know why. It just felt like we were putting that album together, you know, obviously nobody knew Covid was going to happen and close down the world. And I think there was a thought that there would be a second Rich Jr. album, not that far off of the first one. It wouldn't be five, six years, it’s be two. And I kind of felt like ‘I Liked You More (When I Knew You Less) felt like a launch pad for a different album. I don't know. Jason was really the guy making the decisions on that with me. He produced that album and we agreed. Billy was bummed.He's like, I'm really bummed this is not on that album. He was bummed out. But Jason and I just felt like there was ten songs. Some felt super cover-y, like, ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’, ‘Raspberry Beret’, ‘Me and Paul’. Some were deep covers, like we already talked about. And then there is the two originals, and we kind of felt like that was a good mixed bag. It was ten songs. It just felt right in terms of pacing and listening to the album. And I'm glad we held it back from it.I mean, not that I wouldn't have wanted that song out there for years and years and years, but I think it just works so well in this album, which is just newer, fresher. 

 

Rain: Yeah, it's nice to have Billy as a producer featured more as well. You know, that's kind of a cool thing to have something that he wrote on here.

 

Rich: Yeah, in a way, it makes more sense to have it on this album for that reason as well.

 

Rain: I just interviewed Jason about the album. Well, basically about the journey of Dick Jr. & The Volunteers. And I asked him about how he encouraged you to record the first album, and why he decided not to produce the second. And he talked about holding off on when you made the decision to do the second album, because you meant to tour the second album. You wanted to do an album and get out there and play loads of shows.

 

Rich:  That’s right. You know, there was a minute there and I think you two might remember it, where I was going to release some songs during lockdown and it would have been probably these, you know, ‘Knew You Less’, ‘Copperhead’ and ‘16 Tons’. And I'm glad we didn't because we went and improved them anyway. We went into the studio and did other things to them, and then that would have felt like a weird halfway step, too.You know, I mean, it's all, you know, the impact of Covid is pretty, pretty substantial. I feel like we would have gotten a lot more mileage out of the music had I been able to carry the momentum of the releasing the first one and then going on the convention tour with it right after. And I wasn't able to do that.I had a fun time making a, Covid lockdown music video with the band for ‘Going Straight’, but for the most part, that was it. Nothing happened. And, you know, Jason was obviously key. I would never have recorded an album without Jason's not just consistent encouragement, but his kind of relentless encouragement, because he really thought it was a good idea, really liked the idea and really liked the idea more than I did. Not that I didn't like the idea of playing music, but I've been in bands my whole life, but I've never been the front guy. Well, I was the front guy, but it was a cover band in high school. I've never been out front on my own without three other dudes regularly with me, like band practice, playing live. Very different to kind of have studio musician and know some of them and don't know some of them.And, you know, I lived in constant fear of making something cheesy and I just didn't want to do that and I didn't want to feel like I was making a cover album.You know, I didn't want to feel like I was making something that was just…

 

Rain: A vanity project?

 

Rich: Yeah. Like, hey, I'm going to do this and it's just going to be all songs you already know. Here we go. Felt weird. Once I was able to sort of find it in myself to enjoy the idea of taking ‘Walk The West’ and ‘Bottle Rockets’ and some of these other bands I grew up with and putting their songs on something that mattered to me, then it made sense. And it made sense in the process. I had to sort of trust the process and trust Jason Mann's to steer the process, and I did, and it was great. I learned a lot. I was more involved in the second one, and I'm glad I was, not because I wish the first one were different, but you just feel less vulnerable if you're speaking your mind and you feel like you have a mind to speak. I don't think I felt like I had a thing to say in the first one because I didn't really understand the language, the shorthand or anything. I'm super happy with how that album turned out. I wouldn't change anything, but that was that.

 

And then the next one was the next one, and they were different.What did Jason say about his reasoning behind not producing the second one?Just like synopsized. Yeah, I mean, I know what I think it is and I know the conversations we had.

 

Beth: He says it made sense to him at the time because of the distance and with Billy already producing an album. 

 

Rich: Yeah, OK. It's just kind of interesting because I thought the matchup of Jason and Rich was pretty solid and we kind of agreed. You know, we rarely found ourselves on opposite sides of an issue. And if we did, then whoever was the more passionate, the other person would just go, okay. I mean, neither one of us are huge scrappers in that. Especially myself in a world where I was very new. I had to start a publishing company name for music. You know, when you write stuff, you have a publishing company name. It's usually not just under your name name. And the name I chose was ‘Burn The Shirt’ music. And ‘Burn The Shirt’ music was a reference to... I was so nervous making the first album that I smelled terrible every day after recording, because I was sweating myself silly. So I was like, you know, we have to go home and burn the shirt.

 

Rain: Jason said you were *so* nervous on day one. 

 

Rich: I remember him commenting like, man, I've never seen you nervous, because I can get up in front of 6000 people at Comic Con without a script and wing it for 45 minutes and barely break a sweat. But this was not that. This was different. I think that's also distance was a big deal with Jason, because of the, you know, him being in Virginia and the three-hour time-difference and everything else. It could have been achievable probably, but way more efficient to have Billy be here, be in the room and be playing a guitar. Like he was actively part of the whole process.

 

Rain: Billy talked about kind of wearing the different hats and sort of said when he was first tracking the guitar, kind of at the very beginning of the recording sessions, that he kind of found that a little bit more difficult because he would have liked to have been, like, stepping away from it and just being wearing the producer hat. You’ll have to read what he said. You might learn some stuff about your album.Rich: I'm sure I will. I look forward to reading it. He's a fascinating guy.

 

Rain: One thing Billy talked about was you two having kind of a similar kind of perfectionist streak. 

 

Rich: Billy and I are both very anal, turns out, which doesn't surprise me because most, a lot of the guitar players I know are pretty anal guys because it's a pretty specific instrument, and I've known Billy for a long time on the road, and so that also wasn't surprising to me. Maybe he was more surprised to find out how specific I am. I don't know, but if you think about what I do for a living, being a director and working with editors and things, it also kind of makes sense. We were both very specific and very anal and very driven to find specifically down in the minutia what we were looking to do. And by the way, we could still be working on this album. If we hadn't run out of time and money, we could still be working. Like, I would still be mixing things. I still listen to it now and go, hmm...

 

Which is a blessing and a curse. But what was great, again, is that, and you don't know this going in. Doesn't matter that you're good friends, doesn't matter what your relationship is. We were anal about the same things. We were worried about the same things. We were focused on perfecting the same moments. And that was cool because it wasn't like he was over there looking at that and I was going over this, and we weren't meeting in the middle because that perfectionism, if you want to call it that, I think is an asset, unless you're pulling on different sides of the rope with somebody else with the same energy, and then you're going to end up going nowhere. So we got lucky that we see and hear things the same.

 

Rain: Zack's also pretty particular as well, isn't he?

 

Rich: He's very particular. But, you know, I kind of felt like I started dealing with Zack less at the beginning, more at the end. You know, I kind of deferred to Billy to have that relationship with Zack and have that conversation. I consider Zack a friend, and love the guy, and had no problem going, do you guys like A or B? Zack what am I doing wrong? You know, Zack gave me some great technical stuff to find sort of some acting beats in a story of the song or a way to find the vocal truth of a moment. All of which sounds very esoteric, but sometimes a song can have all this vibe when you demo it, but when you're breaking it down into its tiniest Lego pieces and trying to build it back, you lose some of that, you know, passionate drive that kind of fueled the original creation of the song. And Zack is very good about helping… he's not just a technician; he's a performance guy.

 

He's very good at helping you find the performance. I always liked Zack's comments that were critical more than his compliments, because I knew I could appreciate the compliments if I was getting the critical. Meaning, I don't need Zack to tell me that I have a beautiful voice. I *don't* have a beautiful voice. I have the voice that is needed to tell the stories that I write. And I think Zack was really good at almost like an acting director, saying, hey, I'm not believing that moment, or I am believing it, or, you're hitting that way too hard. And so that he's hearing the story, almost like the audio story in song form, and not just worried about the technical aspect, but was very frank and honest about his ability to either get it or not get it from an emotional standpoint, that helps a ton, because you might think you're, you know, in the pocket and it might sound like crap over there, but you can't tell the difference if you're, you know, out of, if you don't have the language for it and if you're listening to it through different ears. So that was during the recording process.

​

But then Billy would do a lot of talking to Zack about detail stuff that, honestly, I'd be muted for. I'd be in, like, in a room, and they're muting and talking to each other for four minutes and then come back to me, which is fine. That's the gig. That's what, you know, Billy was there for. So there's plenty of conversations I wasn't a part of. And that was true of the first album, too. I think the second album, I injected myself into more conversations, not necessarily as a micromanager, but also as an eager student. I wanted to know more about what was being discussed and why and what the solve was. So I listened more and maybe chimed in, but also did a lot more listening to their dialogue so I could try to understand what was happening.