Kenneth Masloski: Thank you, Fred Thomas, for being here with me. Fred Thomas, for those who don't know, is a musician and also a music writer. Is that fair to say?

Fred Thomas: Definitely.

KM: OK, great. My first question is actually about kind of the intersection between making music and writing about music. To me, that seems like it would provide a really unique perspective on success and failure. Do you agree with that there is a unique perspective to be had?

FT: That's a totally correct assessment. Yeah, I think I think of it as being on - sometimes I feel like I'm on both sides of failure.

KM: Do you think that as like a music writer, you're sort of like a gatekeeper and in sort of a maybe a gatekeeper position? Is that - would you agree with that?

FT: That's, um. Well, I mean, gatekeeper has such a such a raw connotation. It's not the most positive thing. But I mean, it doesn't have to be a negative term. But I kind of think of it as a negative thing. I kind of think about like - gatekeeping doesn't really intone sharing or like letting people know why you think something is so cool or why you think something maybe should be avoided culturally, musically, whatever. But for me, like before I was writing about music, I was working at record stores from a very, very young age. And there's definitely an element of negative gatekeeping that happens in the physical world at the record store. That happens in the publishing world, too.

KM: It’s been a while since I've been in a record store, but that yeah, I imagine that people asking you maybe for your opinion about stuff gives you a kind of a neat way to support maybe those that you think deserve support, I guess musicians that maybe are under underappreciated. Was that the case? Did people ask you a lot for, like, your takes?

FT: Oh, my gosh. I feel like that was part of sort of like – so I'm 44 and I started working at record stores when I was like 18 in the mid to late 90s. And so this is sort of like a pre Internet time when it wasn't the type of thing where you're like, oh, what's this? This new artist, I'll just listen to everything that they've done. I know all about it. You have to really get somebody to let you know, like, ‘Oh, yeah, I've done the work. I've listened to it. I deem it acceptable,’ or ‘I deem it shitty.’ So I kind of came up with that that background of like first like looking to people who I trusted and thought were cool and just thought were like interesting gatekeepers, if you will, to be like - at that time when you're 19, 20, someone who's 24 is old to you, you know.

Right. Yeah.

So I remember like I went to go see Mudhoney. Remember that band?

Yes.

I went to see Mudhoney in 1993 and I was milling around before the show super excited, I was probably 16, 17 years old, and I saw the guys from Mudhoney walking around, just like going to get coffee or whatever. And I was like, ‘Hey! Mudhoney!’ And they were like, ‘Yup that’s us.” And I was like, “Oh my god! I’m gonna go to the show, I’m so excited!’ And they were like, ‘Cool.’ And I was like, ‘Can I get your autograph?’ And they were like, ‘We don’t really have a pen.’ And I was like, ‘Well, we can – I guess we can go over to see if there’s a pen over at this shop,’ so I was walking around with Mark Arm and Steve Turner from Mudhoney. Super Geek, but I realized, like, I didn't have anything to talk to them about and they weren't really like - they're just being nice to this annoying teenage fan. And right after I got their autograph and was like, ‘Thanks you’re the best! Stoked to see your show!’, I saw an older friend of mine who was like like maybe like 21 at the time. And I was like, Oh, Brad. I just met Mudhoney. I got their autograph. And he was like, Dude, you don't get autographs, you know, you don't ask for autographs. That's, you know, like, like he just really kind of like made fun of me in that way that younger people sometimes harshly can.

And it was such an interesting lesson. And like, I was like, why? I thought it was I thought it was cool to hang out with rock stars. I thought, you know, like all these things were sort of if we're talking about like rejection, failure and confusion, all of those things were kind of like an early introduction.

I'm getting off topic of like sort of like, you know, the gatekeeping of record stores or music journalism. But it sort of took those things so much to heart that when I started working at a record store and someone come in and be like, ‘I'm like something that's kind of square and normal,’ I'd be like, great, you know, that's cool. Like whatever you're into, that's it for you. And there's there's merit to it. I don't want to be someone who is like, I've been so wrong and change my tune about some artists and so many things like, you know, like if I'm still listening to the same stuff, I was in 1993, I would feel pretty limited.

KM: Sure. Yeah. On the subject of writing about music, does that help you kind of inform the music that you create? Because you I would assume that you, when you write about music you are looking for and hearing certain things and know what to talk about and then does that influence how you make and create your own your own stuff?

FT: It certainly can. I, I write - my day job is working for a company that our reviews and biographies for musicians are sort of like licensed out. The main thing that, like when people ask what my job is, I'm like, oh, do you have Spotify? And they invariably say, yes, I'm like, well, I write the bios for rappers on Spotify, which is a very like dumbed down like elevator, party conversation. I write like SoundCloud rapper bios for Spotify. That's not necessarily true. But a lot of the work I do does end up in the form of Spotify biographies or in just - like I'm listening to new mainstream music for my job and I also occasionally freelance for Pitchfork, where I actually get more of a say, like I have to pitch something to them that I'm really interested in, whether I'm interested in it because I think it's great, because I think it's missed the mark or because I have I have something to say about it. I don't get assignments or freelance stuff.

So I'm listening to music all the time. And it's not always because I enjoy it or because it does something for me and that influences the way I make music because I get to like kind of track what's happening in terms of, you know, cultures that I don't actively participate in, that I don’t actually participate in as like a member. I mean, I'm not going to, like, see that many mainstream rap concerts or like gigs and that sort of thing. But I'm writing about it. I've kind of watched that unfold. And but what I'm writing about stuff that's more in line with my own music, I get to kind of be like, I'm seeing this thing happen in like indie circles or ambient circles over and over again. Do I understand it? Do I like it? Do I really dislike it? Why are people responding to it the way that they are? Does this seem like something that I've seen before? Like, how can I reflect on this and do I have any voice in it? And most of the time the answer is no, I don't have any voice in it. That it's just this is what somebody else is doing and good for them.

KM: OK, yeah. Is there a place for, like a negative review of something?

FT: Absolutely. Like the thing that's interesting is when you're making music or writing about music or whatever art, your passion, whatever, the thing that I always get slapped in the face with is that that really, people are trying to kind of suggest that there are correct answers or that there are rules and there really aren't, you know, there's no formula for why something is good or isn't good or why an outfit, like, works or doesn't work. The other day I got a text from a friend that was like trying to dissect this very particular part of Radiohead’s Kid A and I had to be like, I've never listened to that record. And he was like, ‘Shut up,’ I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I just - I didn't - I'm not being, like, too cool. I just, I heard Radiohead, but that one I missed. I was listening to, like, something else. And I am open to hearing it when the time is right. But that's just one of those records I know is very important that I just kind of like, I was doing something else. When you were getting your mind blown by Kid A, I was whatever.

And so, like, what I'm getting at is that you have to remember that it's sort of just for fun. And it's there is the element this very serious of like, oh, but you have to know that that Kid A was so important and the Greta Van Fleet is terrible or whatever. But this is just this is just sort of like this is how I feel about something. And it's fun to expand on that. And it's absolutely subjective. It's the most subjective thing. I have so much stuff. I have a record collection full of records that if I played them for 90 percent of the population, they'd be like, what is this unlistenable garbage, you know? And me and my friends are crying and like getting married to these songs that it's just like, that's just kind of like that's what I keep in the forefront of my mind, is that, you know, to answer your question, a negative review is super great because like say, like you get through all those layers of like, ‘OK, well it’s subjective and not for everybody,’ but like, wouldn't you want to know if an artist you really loved made something that was just so incredibly terrible or like so incredibly different from what you liked about them or whatever, like I feel like that's the most exciting thing, is when somebody makes something that's not necessarily even terrible but just like, what is this? What is this record from somebody I thought was just going to, like, repeat their cycle for the next 20 years?

KM: So I'm going to get into a specific song. In “Open letter to Forever” you detailed this encounter with Olympia Street Punks.

FT: Yeah.

KM: And I'm wondering, just first of all, did that happen? And then I have a question also about does image and perception of one's self tie to maybe their success in some ways?.

FT: Well, first part: that instance that was in the song, for anyone who hasn't heard the song that’s listening it’s a song in one of my solo records where I'm just talking about a bunch of, you know, watery mental images and talking about, like remembering everything very specifically and how that's kind of like painful. And to give an example, in the song I talk about this time, I was on tour in Olympia, Washington, and had just finished playing not a bleak show, but just, you know, if you've ever played in Olympia, you know that sometimes people don't go to the shows, even the good shows. And also it's got that sort of North-Western like it's sort of the end of, I don't think they call it like the it's like some West Coast trail of crust punks and homeless folks who kind of like travel up and down the West Coast and Olympia's definitely a stop.

So in the song and in real life on this tour in 2011, me and my friend Timmy who was in the other band, we're standing out front of the show space after playing to a few people who were like mildly enthusiastic, but we've been on tour for a long time, we're broke, we didn't get paid and there's like a little hot dog place right next door that has like a vegan hot dog option and I don't eat meat. So we’re eating these hot dogs standing there completely not talking to anybody and this gaggle of crust punks walked by and they're like, oh, look at you guys being all hip with your hot dogs (laughs). And they all start cackling to each other as if it's like the most hilarious thing ever. And it's really sort of like not a good joke. We weren't really fucking with them at all. We were seriously just like standing there and I thought to myself like, dude, like I'm like 40 years old on a tour where, like, I don't have any health insurance. I don't have, like, a job back home at this point, like I was definitely like sort of like on tour a lot because that was my most viable option. And I thought to myself, like, ‘If you knew. Like what? Like you're doing maybe probably better than I am and you're, like, harassing me because I have like a sweater and some like skinny jeans on and I look like something.’ Like I probably did have like a dumb outfit on to them, but it was it was like it was this type of thing where that happened and then something really amazing happened. Another crust punk ran by and started screaming, ‘The British are coming, the British are coming!” And all the crust punks, like, ran away. And then seconds later, three cops walked up and so like these Olympia Street punks had this sort of like code for like OK, cops are on the way, 5-0, whatever. And they all knew like oh this is serious. Like we have to stop bothering these hipsters and run away because we're, we're either holding drugs or just like don't wanna be bothered by the cops, whatever. And I was like wow. Like what a little microcosm.

Like my music doesn't mean anything to these folks even though I'm making it in some way for them. And I'm making it for anyone who wants to feel like - anyone who feels like disenfranchized or like maybe on the outside of a world built by capitalist constraints. And in theory, like, I might shower more regularly than the person who's like chastising me, but like what's - there's no difference between us except maybe like you have more of like a jock mentality or something. I don't know. It was just like it was a really awful experience.

KM: Yeah, that doesn't sound fun now that you - I feel bad bringing it up.

FT: No no - I wrote a song about it. So it wasn't an issue like that. It was sort of like one of those moments where it's like, you know, like who's winning here, you know? So that was what that song sort of was about.

KM: OK, yeah. And then so then I guess to kind of clarify or re-, maybe reconfigure my second question about that, in terms of like somebody’s image, how important is… I guess this is… now I feel bad about this question just because it doesn't seem maybe that interesting now, but like somebody’s image is probably very important to them in certain music circles. Right. Like. You maybe kind of have to look the part that you're playing in some respects, do you think that's true? I guess is that - is like image tied to somebody's success in their particular field?

FT: Well, I don't think that's an uninteresting question. I just think it's such a deep question, I guess. It's one of those things where, like what's always disappointing to me about independent art is how completely like one-for-one of a mimicry of the society that it's supposed to be an alternative to, it ends up being, you know what I mean? It just becomes like, ‘Oh, cool, so like the attractive people who are sort of like not that talented rise to the top in indie rock just like they do in the workplace, you know?

And I remember seeing, you know, early YouTube days were Tune-Yards would have like just like these brutal, horrific comments about how ‘Tune-Yards is like super ugly’ and ‘what the fuck’ and all this like garbage shit and like early BrooklynVegan, like really going after Vivian Girls. And in a way that a sort of like man, oh, man like, you kind of can't win. You're too ugly. You’re too pretty. You’re too feminine, you’re too masculine too - like the only folks that seem not to get any shit at all are like - I don't remember the Hold Steady being a particularly like good looking bunch of folks, but like I also don't remember them being like harassed online for how they looked. It was sort of like, oh yeah, those are like middle aged dudes who sing about like getting drunk and being disappointed.

So it's interesting because I think it just reflects like success on whatever level so often reflects like how hollow success is as like a concept. in terms of like ‘Oh I look the part,’ oh my God, like that's just like a whole other like layer of hollowness.

KM: Sure. Yeah. OK, thank you for saving that question (laughs).

Speaking for yourself only, when you're writing music do you think about how it's received and like whether or not, like, people will like it or dislike it or does that, I guess, for your process in writing music, like, do you have to let that go? Because maybe you could get nothing done if like if you were so concerned about what how it was perceived, like after it gets sort of put out or people hear it?

FT: You know, like it would be a lie to say that no part of me thinks about how the end product will be received. However, like, I feel pretty lucky in that when I'm writing a song I'm just sort of like in a. In a fugue like state of, like reflecting on something that's going on with me and trying to collect, usually it's collecting a memory and kind of putting it into the present tense and trying to, like, see what's happening. And then it'll all come out. Conversations I've had with people I care about and things I'm going through. So it's sort of just the songs sort of write themselves and I'm hopeful that some of the feelings and lyrics will resonate with people, but very rarely have I - the only songs that I've made that I'm really disappointed with are the ones where I was thinking about how somebody I was imagining would receive it. But to me, that means to say, like when I'm not thinking about an audience, that's when the great songs come out. And when I have the audience, I'm pretty embarrassed by those songs.

KM: So for then to sort of talk about this specific song ‘I Built a House’…

FT: Oh, wow.

KM: I like that one a lot as well.

FT: Deep, deep cut.

KM: (laughs) The - my interpretation of it is that, you know, about building something and then it getting torn down. And I'm wondering, is that sort of a reflection maybe of like self-sabotage or sort of like a preemptive destruction before somebody can maybe tear your tear you down, you tear yourself down. I feel like that if that is the case, then I will let you answer.

FT: That’s an interesting take. When I think about that song, which is now, I think that's from 2005, so a long time ago, that was sort of the images that come to my mind were thinking about friendships and living situations I had with friends of mine when I was just out of my parents’ house and the sort of like hyper important feeling that is also very fleeting from those early years of independence. So I had like my friend group and we're all like living in punk houses with like seven, eight, nine roommates. And it felt like everything that happened was so visceral and so important. And then I think back and like, oh, I only lived in those places for like three months, you know? It felt like so formative and like every day felt like a very like a capstone of my youth, but then it was only like a very, very small amount of time. And I don't know if any of the other people who were there with me were feeling the same way. And we shared something but at the end of that experience, we kind of just went our separate ways. And some of those friends aren't friends anymore. Some of them I don't know if they're alive or not. You know, like sometimes like faces come back from that time. I'm like, like. What happened to them? What happened to that one person, like are they around still or did they, you know, you lose track of people even in the digital age.

So that song isn't so much about, to me, isn't so much about self-sabotage, except like it's more about like just like the whirlwind bulldozing of youth where everything is so important, you're building everything very quickly and then it's just like it's gone because you're on to the next thing. And it all felt so amazing, what was happening but then you make a quick decision and you do something completely different.

KM: That's really I mean, that's awesome, thank you for telling me that too.

FT: Yeah, I will say, though, like, when I think about self-sabotage. I was thinking about this coming into your series because that to me was talking about rejection and failure in art and I don't feel like I'm being self-deprecating when I say, like, I can relate to those themes for sure, but I feel lucky that self-sabotage is something that I've seen in other artists and don't have an impulse for as much myself.

KM: It just seems like there can be so many things that will or can sort of get in one's way or tear one down, that to at least not have yourself be one of those things is really, probably really helpful.

FT: Yeah, as someone who's been making music pretty consistently for 30 years with very, very, very little commercial appeal, certainly not by any sort of mainstream standards and even by the standards of the circles I'm involved with, like independent people who work on labels like Polyvinyl and K and stuff like that, like I struggled for a long time with what the definition of success is to me. And when you ask, like, are you happy with what you've done? I've gotten to a place where I'm really, really happy with my practice as an artist because I've kind of let go of some of my…

I don't know anyone who's making music is like, ‘I am successful. I'm doing great.’ Every single person, everyone I'm talking to, like on any level. ‘It seems like your record did really well.’ ‘Oh, my God, like now it's a nightmare.’ ‘You toured with that one band.’ ‘It was like nobody cared. They talked over us the whole time.’ ‘Oh but that one thing,’ it's like, what does it take? What does it take to feel like you're successful? And if anybody got there would they still make a good art, you know?

So I feel like really lucky in that I really enjoy making music. I really enjoy writing. I really enjoy communicating. I really enjoy, like growing as an artist. And I get to live out that enjoyment on my own terms every day. The question of like, oh, are you happy with what you've done? Like a lot of the stuff that I've put out already, like I look back and like this is bad, this is not good work and hopefully somebody finds something, hopefully somebody found something in it when it was put out that was like helpful or felt like it fit a moment. But I'm not really still there and I'm happy to be moving on. So like part of my practice is being embarrassed by something I did 10, 12 years ago and trying to, like, do something better now.

KM: Ok.

FT: Not across across the board because I definitely, like, stand by a lot of stuff I've done in the past, but like some of it, whoo, not very good.

KM: Yeah, I, I think about, not to kind of insert myself into this, but I think of that way, I think that way a lot about the music that I make too and I have only sort of recently I think felt the desire to be maybe a little bit more, I don't know, self critical and… instead of just being like upset that I made something that I don't like anymore and just trying to like replace it, I'm sort of thinking about what I didn't like about and what, you know, what I what I really want to do, I guess. And if somebody doesn't like something that you've done, that one has done, do you think that is related to the process, or is that just something that, (of creating the thing) or is it maybe context dependent or depending on the person that rejected it, or…

FT: I think it's I think it's definitely part of it. I think I think everything that we've talked about is for me, as is part of staying in the flow of your art. And to expand on that a little bit like, I remember very, very vividly when I made a decision in the year, say like the year 2000. So like 21 years ago, I was 25 years old or I was like 24, twenty-whatever - I was like in my 20s, I was like, I'm going to be a musician. I'm going to like, I got this band I'm doing. It's good. I'm going to start sending out demos, send out emails. Here we go. And so like every day I would go to the post office and I'd send out a bunch of the CD-Rs and then I'd write emails and like and I remember that time because it was just like such a heartbreaking horror show of like staring at a blank screen waiting for any of the 700 messages that sent back to set out to come back to me, go into the post office and like the clerk being like, ‘You are sending more stuff out again? You’re still trying to get people to listen to your songs.’ I was like, ‘I know this is this is the one. It's going to be like, really good.’

And just sort of like when things started to sort of come together in the way I had wanted. I started to get like messages back from people, when I started to get interest from the labels I had been sort of pursuing, it happened a couple of years later, when I'd long since kind of given up on that sort of like, ‘I'm going to do this and then this is going to happen for me.’ And it happened so much later and such a different way than I thought it would I really had no control over it at all. It was just sort of like a thing where like none of my actions resulted in me getting the things that I thought I wanted, and when I got those things, it didn't feel exactly like I thought it anyway.

I remember so vividly too like - I love K records from when I first heard Beat Happening in high school. I sent K a demo, never heard anything back, never heard anything back, like, went out to Olympia like I talked about, like played some shows. Like I thought Calvin might come out, check it out. He didn't. He didn't. He didn't whatever. And then, like, I eventually started working with K when like years later, like 2006, like Calvin and Svenonius from Make-Up came through Ann Arbor and played a house show and they didn't wanna stay at the house because it was kind of like a punk house. So I was like, ‘Oh yeah you can stay at my house. It’s a little bit or quieter or whatever.’ They started being friends. I was like, ‘Oh Calvin, you should check out this band.’ He's like, ‘Oh, I have your CD. You send it to me a couple of weeks ago.’ And I was like, ‘I sent that to you 5, 6 years ago.’ He was like, ‘Oh, that's where I have your phone number.’ I was like ‘That phone number is like 5 phone numbers ago.’ He like, got the CD, listened to it, liked it. Eventually we started working together. But like his timeline of making Fred happy was different from my timeline of making Fred happy.

So I, with years of experiences like that, years of like this straight up kind of like excitement and enthusiasm that kind of like curdled into different things I’ve kind of started to embrace the flow of just like you just keep doing the things that you - you keep making the sounds you're looking for and that you are wanting to be in the world and where they land is kind of none of your business.