As we open the windows and let the spring breezes blow, I find myself reflecting on what a year it has been. Confidence Man by Pat Ferguson has been the song to help process all this muck and mire. With arrangements on vocals by Elliott Peck and moody string arrangements from Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone, this song evokes the prism of a looking glass when it comes to this crazy roller coaster that is the 2020s thus far. Grateful Web had a chance to catch up with Pat & Tim to chat about the state of live music today, football, and the Confidence Man.
GW: I'm incredibly impressed with Amanda Gorman and the fact that we just had a poetry reading at the Super Bowl and then in reflecting on Confidence Man and the popularity of Amanda Gorman, there's a quote that says, If civilizations were to perish, it's because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets. Do you guys think that in this post-pandemic world, we're hopefully entering into, that people will be able to see past politicians and heed the words of their poets?
TC: You are talking to the wrong dude! I'm going to tell you no. My wife calls me the president of the Debbie Downer club.
PF: Well, I guess my take on it is I can't say that I disagree at the macro level. But my hope is that the folks have had the chance to do some self-reflection and realize what it is they feel is important to them to make them happy on a daily basis. There's no taking away from the importance of that. But how life affects us and how we channel what has really kind of been a relentless smattering of negativity and anger and everything else. You know, that's exactly what this tune is about, saying goodbye to that kind of influence, and trying to better yourself as a person. Finally breaking free from it.
GW: And that was the question, who is the Confidence Man? From what I took, it was a chapter moving on. It wasn't an actual but metaphoric man. But is there an actual Confidence Man?
PF: It's meant to be more metaphoric, but you could certainly personify that. So the way that I wrote the song really, truly, about myself and about my own anger and weight of this past and of the present and of everything else, again, those outside negative influences. When I finished the song, I looked up at the TV and there's a Netflix series called Dirty Money, and there's an episode on Donald Trump called The Confidence Man that happened to be up on the screen the day that I finished the song. It is partly about that. I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't his reign of anger and hate was not a negative influence on me. But it is about more than that.
GW: And I definitely felt, especially with Elliot's vocals, there is this beautiful juxtaposition of patriarchy and matriarchy and these societal influences that are coming in with that. My buddy, Chicago Farmer wanted to ask you a question, and I guess this kind of goes there, he says, 'The instrumentation sounds amazing. So what brought you to or inspired these types of arrangements?' And I guess that's what I'm hearing with Elliott's vocals as well. There's such a hard and soft juxtaposition. Was that something that played a part in your writing of the song?
PF: For me, it actually started as a very somber soliloquy or a monologue of sorts. I knew that you could turn it over to a couple of really good friends and let them help to layer in some influences and change the perspective of the song. And that's exactly what I feel like Elliott was able to do in arranging vocal harmonies. And Tim had his own, you know, go ahead Tim, I'll let you go from here.
TC: I knew that Elliott had already done some stuff when he sent me the song, but the first version of the song I got, didn't have Elliott on it. It was just Pat on guitar. I'm just gonna give you the nuts and bolts of how I did it. So I sat down and put my leg on a percussion track, which is essentially like a little kick drum thing that was on the floor. It was a real simple pound. And then I have these wooden brushes that I love. This is kind of a kook who makes these wooden brushes out in Colorado of all different sizes, and they're kind of very delicate so you can really whack them really hard. But I've discovered that if you just beat em on each other in front of a microphone, it's got this amazing shushing percussive sound. And so you've got the start all of the percussion that you hear, a really gentle little kick drum and me beating on a couple of wooden brushes. And then I worked on these backward piano patches, these samples that are manipulated. And I just put, I followed his chord pattern. I didn't even know what they were. I just kind of followed them and layered them in a sort of... I recorded probably 4 or 5 tracks with them, just hoping they would hit on the right chord at the right time. And I sort of played, I played Pro Tools like it was a keyboard almost. I just made a big patch of all of these ambient sounding, I don't know if you can hear the ambient sound, but it's kind of this ambient sound thing that follows the chord progression. And then I arranged a string trio and the string trio I kind of wanted to get... That's where I really dug into the emotion that I was feeling from the song. And I also have been attempting to arrange strings that are less pad-dy, less pads and more things that have openness to them, kind of like around Portland or like a John Adams. And so I was hearing like strings that were far apart from each other and the harmonies were not standard one three, five And I added stuff that sounded a little odd with movement in the places I thought there was definitely some tension in the song. But despite the beauty of the melody.
GW: Yeah
TC: So I kind of tried to form the colors there, the best I could. I just played the strings first third double and triple tracked strings cello and violins and stuff. That's it!
PF: Yeah. When I heard that final arrangement, it provided that exact additional perspective that I was hoping for, you know, and one of the reasons why I felt like Tim, in particular, was who I wanted to hear. He and I had spent a lot of time together with this upcoming record of mine and then beyond. We have gotten to be pretty close over the last couple of years. And I just feel like we've kind of covered the gamut of conversation. He is somebody who knows where I am, as a musician, as a songwriter, I think probably understands me and where my head's at more than most others right now. So the way that those two both were able to help kind of fill out the painting, the picture that we were we were trying to accomplish, and ultimately the collaboration that came to is really something.
GW: A question on the lyrics? "There upon your throne" What is the correct spelling of thrown?
PF: T-H-R-O-N-E.
GW: OK, I wasn't sure if it was like being thrown.
PF: I mean, it's technically t-h-r-o-n-e. It's meant to be...
TC: A throne
PF: From where you sit.
TC: You sit upon the throne.
GW: Yeah. So yeah. Okay, I gotcha.
PF: Exactly. So it's meant to be like that figure, that metaphorical or personified figure sitting there in a position of power and greed and anger and, you know, for as angry and as intense and conflicting as some of those lyrics are in a song. They're who I am as a person. I'm an empath. So there's always going to be a part of me that tries to look at that from that angle.
GW: This song is such a beautiful painting because I think everyone that views it, hears it, will get something different out of it. That's why we're so excited to have a chance to chat with you about it.
PF: Exactly. Yeah. There are certain times I hear the song and it's like, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't me looking in the mirror, staring at everything that I know, everything that's staring back at me, which I know it doesn't really define who I am, all the negativity, all the anger, all of the whatever, you know, and trying to reconcile and find what is staring back at me that I know really is who I am. So that's one example, right? But then it's also talking directly to the Donald Trumps or to whomever else may be reining down just a terrible weight of negativity on people and making it hard for us to prosper.
TC: There is always going to be someone like that in your life that never discovered... In my experiences, you'll go through long periods of time, if you're lucky, where you don't have someone like that even if it's just personal life or political life or your work life. How you deal with it is how - that's how you become a winner or loser. It's how you deal with it. It's more about you. You know, how you respond, then that is about the actual situation you find yourself in, at least that is the way I look at it.
PF: 100% Because you know what? And here's the thing, is that no matter what it is, whether it's with yourself, whether it's with somebody else, whether you're just talking out loud at somebody on the TV, whatever the case is, the worst thing in the world that you can do is just not deal with it. Just try and suppress it to where it comes back up and rears its ugly head tenfold. Do you know what I mean? I mean, that's the whole point of the song, is finding the courage to have that difficult conversation and then at the very end, being able to walk away and finally say goodbye. Say I'm done with that influence. It's not who I am. You will not have that power over me anymore.
GW: Oh yeah. "Goodbye to the lies" these lyrics stuck with me. "I owe you nothing but a smile." I mean that just stuck out so poignant to me because a smile is, you know, words can be hollow and empty. You can say something and not mean it. A smile doesn't necessarily mean anything, but that is definitely something Donald Trump is good at, smiling for the cameras, you know. So again, both sides very mirrored there.
TC: Yeah. You hit it on the head. That's the real reason why he would never wear a mask. Because you know what I've discovered now that as I go, you know, I look at people but I can't help but notice women, especially because you can't really see their faces now. So you have to read their eyes. And then too, for some reason, women's eyes seem to be a little more expressive. And so now I sort of feel as if I'm learning more how to read people from the expressions in their eyes because you don't really get to see their faces any more or it feels like I'm actually developing a slightly more acute social ability. I guess it's the only way I can describe it I'm pretty way off topic here so I apologize.
GW: No! It's actually something I had written too, just another sentiment that I got from the song, which I don't know was intended or not, was just, again, that matriarchy, that patriarchy.
PF: Yep!
GW: And as we are moving into this new society, just the way that Elliott's lyrics came into it and what you're saying there, Tim, with the masks and women, I mean... “Owing you nothing but a smile” is something that I, as a woman, I get that all the time. Well, why aren't you smiling? I don't owe you anything. I don't have to smile for you. So it's interesting what you're saying. I like that.
TC: Yeah. Looks like that is what I get. Totally, totally tangentially, when people assume position. As a fiddle player especially, I might have my fiddle with me as I'm going from one place to another and somewhat... Someone that will know will say, 'Hey man why don't you grab your fiddle and play a song?' And I'll be like, 'What do you do for a living?' Well, I'm a plumber. Well, I'll tell you what man, I got a problem with my toilet. Why don't you come over and take a look at my toilet? Oh, I get it. Dance Monkey Dance!
GW: That is what happens with cameras, too. Take my picture! I don't have the right lens and they don't understand that. I can't just take their picture right now. I would if I could, but I can’t so I won’t.
TC: Yeah.
PF: Yeah.
GW: And so Cody, Chicago Farmer, has another question for you. Any Smokin Bandits reunions on the horizon?
PF: Oh, boy. You know, and that was actually the reason when you said you are in Central Illinois, the reason why I ask that question earlier is to see if you knew Cody and Kymber.
GW: Yes!
PF: Two of my favorite people in the world. To answer his question, Yes, always! Never when? But always! That's what you should tell him.
GW: Yeah. And he also says, sorry about your Packers.
TC: Let's just hope we don't lose Aaron Rodgers, man!
PF: That one was... That one was hard. That was a tough one.
GW: Yeah.
TC: Well, that was reading the handwriting on the wall for me. I saw that game, not for nothing, but I thought that basically. Tampa Bay's defense just ripped them up. Then I was like, the Kansas City has three of their offensive line injured, they're going to eat them alive! Not for nothing, I'm not going... Maybe Tom Brady is the greatest of all time. I don't know. But what I can tell you one thing, if he doesn't have a successful offensive line and a very good defense. He doesn't win.
PF: True that.
TC: I know. I know you could just ask my old quarterback, Eli Manning. We've never beaten a Super Bowl because we had a defense that was crushing him and, you know, an offensive line that protected Eli just enough so that he could win the game.
GW: Being from Chicago, defense is everything. That's all I have to say about that. So tell me a little bit about the LP then. You said you guys were all working on this new LP. Does it have more of these stunning serenades or what can we expect?
TC: I think it's a brilliant record, even if I say so myself, but I don't know if I am qualified to say that.
GW: You've worked on plenty of records. You're Tim Carbone. So you are definitely qualified to say that.
TC: Yeah, no, it was a joy to make. We brought some really great folks, people that I really love to work with. Elliott is really... Making that record was the first time I actually got to be in the studio with her. But I did spend a bunch of times with her in of all places, Lisbon, Portugal, when I did a 10 day, kind of cross-cultural festival, there back in October. I think it was before we started the record, right?
PF: Yeah it was a couple of months before. Yep.
TC: And so I got to know her and play with her. And I just I knew right away that she was someone that I wanted to work with and just by, you know, by some wonderful luck, she and her boyfriend moved into my late musical partner Andy Goessling's house in my town! So she moved out from California and then wound up here in this little teeny town in Pennsylvania on the Delaware River.
GW: If that ain't some foreshadowing!
TC: I was like, this is awesome! And then the virus hit. And then I wasn't able to... Although, Jesse, her boyfriend, he and I have busied ourselves fly-fishing like every other day. So it's not the worst thing in the world. So, yeah, and so then Pat allowed me to call on some of my heavy hitters to make the record and one of them was one of my favorite bass players to work with, a gentleman named Tony Moreno, who's played with all kinds of people, but mostly for almost 20 years, like 17 years, he worked with Phil Woods, the great alto sax player. The super sympathetic bass player with impeccable intonation and beautiful tone. And I think he just did a great job with the songs that we chose for him to play on the record. And he really laid it down. It was beautiful, ya know?
PF: There is nothing, nothing like his bass talent. You told me that leading into it, and I walked away thinking that it is incredible. He's really something.
TC: Yeah, it is beautiful. Pat brought his normal players and Pat's fiddle player...
PF: Kenny Leiser.
TC: Kenny, that's right, of course! Kenny! and so I knew Kenny was on. I was like, oh I know I won’t be needing to play any violin on this record cuz this guy is a badass! And he layed it down. His regular bass player was killer and of course, we use Carey Harmon from Railroad Earth (RRE) on drums, who is one of the most sympathetic drummers that I've ever worked with. You know, I think he was perfect for the project.
PF: I agree.
GW: Sympathetic, what a great way to describe a drummer!
TC: What is really great about someone like Carey that he listens really carefully to form and then works really hard to develop the right drum part. That's why I call him sympathetic because he knows where to lay in and lay out how hard to hit it, where to hit the drum, he plays the drums, they were my drums. He just like, knew exactly where to hit them to play them like they were like an instrument. A lot of people like to think oh I'll play drums because they think it's something for the people beat on, but they're not like that. But the great drummers play them like any great instrument. It could be a trumpet. It could be, you know, it really doesn't matter, and Carey is one of those guys. And we got the great Tony Trischka to come play some banjo on the record. That was great, really, just an amazing, beautiful experience from top to bottom.
GW: How many tracks?
PF: We recorded nine but 8 is what is on there. Yeah, for me it was... So my first record, Light of Day, Dark of Night, was on LoHi Records, which is the label that Tim is affiliated with. And that's how he and I really were formally introduced. My wife and I were... We were laughing because we knew we had met backstage at festivals, I'm sure over the years, whatever.
GW: Everybody knows Tim! hahaha
PF: Well exactly! A good friend of mine lives in Stroudsburg which isn't far from where Tim lives. My wife and I went out there for a wedding and I gave Tim a shout and to see if you wanted to hang. And we ended up spending the morning together and he showed me the studio, his little studio room, a part of the bigger Mixolydian over there. And it was actually a pretty thick time for my wife and me. That trip as a whole, as an experience, was a much-needed release for us. And I walked away from that saying, I want to record in that studio.
GW: Yes!
PF: And so Tim and I talked not long after that and we put the plans together in December 2019 is when we spent five or six days together laying down the majority of it.
GW: So grateful that you did!
PF: It was something. Yeah. It was an exciting time.
TC: I can't wait for the world to hear the record because it is really, you know, I'm thankful for Pat allowing me to, he gave me the latitude to, make some production decisions that... Someone, someone that had more... Someone else who may have had their ego more involved might not have allowed me to do. I mean, I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly, but it so just made it so that I felt as if I was in a creative space, some sort of almost like hyper creativity during those five days.
PF: It was so cool, too, because we were in your... We're in the building where your studio room is. So all of your toys that you had - we pulled out that reed organ, we pulled out... You just sit there and you'd be like, what about that? There's a song where Tim plays the popcorn cans with brushes like I mean, seriously, he was just like, leave the room. He'd go, oh, oh, oh!. And then he'd stand up and leave the room and go into a storage closet and pull out some crazy-ass instrument. It just always worked. It was a very wide-open process. I really wanted it to be, and particularly just for the sheer respect that I have for Tim, not only as a musician but what I know of him as a producer as well. I really wanted him to feel as though he wasn't, you know, handcuffed, so to speak, and that he could do it. And I mean, there's no better there is no better environment to do that in, not only his own studio, but we all stayed at, myself and Kevin Rowe, my bassist and Kenny Leiser, the fiddle player that Tim spoke of, we stayed at the Deer Head Inn, which is this old jazz restaurant and live venue in the hotel on top. No TVs in the rooms, you know what I mean? And we literally hunkered down there for six days every day straight to the studio. It was great.
TC: There are ghosts there.
PF: Yeah, there are ghosts there.
TC: The Deer Head Inn is the oldest continuous jazz club in the United States as it opened up in 1936. And they've been having jazz there three to four nights a week since 1936.
GW: That's a rarity to hear that they are still continuing through. How are they doing these days?
TC: Well you know, they're doing... They are suffering and they're doing the best they can. I haven't been there. I haven't been inside any place since March. I have been to a lot of outdoor stuff. They are doing some very limited, they're doing Friday, Saturdays, Sundays with 25 people as the limit. And then they have this big wrap-around porch that wraps around the two sides of the building. So we have socially distanced tables out there when the weather's nice enough. And so they have you pay a certain price, to stay on the porch because you can still hear the music and the food is great. So they serve food out there and its still interesting to be on the porch and they are doing the best they can just like everybody else.
GW: All right. So here's my final deep thought question: Is there a place for music and performance again? How do you think that society is going to embrace live performance again? How would you like to see them embrace live performance now that we've gone so long without it?
TC: Well, I will let you go first, Pat. Let's keep the lights on.
PF: I was just going to say one thing as you get to know Tim and I, we are a very good counterbalance to each other because I'm the eternal optimist and he is the eternal pessimist.
GW: Gotta have it!
PF: We definitely balance each other out pretty well. I think, my hope is, and this is your rose-colored glasses and I really appreciate this. My hope is if you're asking the question, what do you hope it's like? What do you hope? Or what was the last part of the question? how did you ask it?
GW: How would you like to see society embrace live performance as we're moving back in? I mean, it's a question all of us are thinking about. What we call arguably "around" one another again. Are they going to rush back? I mean, I work at the Rialto Theater, which is a theater that's been opened since 1918. And I'm just, you know, we do weddings and all that kind of stuff, and I'm sure that that'll come back. But are people going to come back for live music or are they going to come back for live theater?
PF: How I hope that they approach it is with both a renewed and enhanced sense of appreciation because this has been a segment of our society that has been so ravaged by this, one of many. And I understand that. But, you know, it's created a level of uncertainty that makes people who have put so much time and effort, blood, sweat, and tears into this wonder whether it's sustainable anymore. And so I guess my optimist.
GW: Yes!
PF: I'm putting my optimistic view on it and saying, how do I hope that people view it is with a renewed sense and an enhanced sense of appreciation. I know there's a ways to go before we understand fully, what that means. I think it's going to be with a lot fewer venues, probably with a lot higher demand for the venues, unfortunately. Those people can come back with even that much more appreciation Then perhaps maybe we start to point it back in the direction that it was.
TC: My turn?
GW: Counterpoint, Tim?
TC: So this is kind of a multi-faceted situation where sort of... I'll answer the first part of the question, which is how would I like it to come back - exactly how it was before. That, because that's kind of the only way it's going to work because the situation is... It's just the sheer economics of it are not going to work unless it comes back. My job, Pat's job is, to a certain extent for sure, RRE's job is... Our job, simply put, is to cram as many fucking people into a room as possible. That's it. End of story. That's it. That's the beginning, middle, and end of it. And there's no like, well, what if...? Nope. It doesn't work economically well? What if? It just doesn't work. I'm not talking about places like Red Rock or places like the enormous Domes or the arenas. I'm talking about, you know, John Q. Public size 500, 1200, seat venues where you have your mid-level promoters who are already working on the fringe. They don't even make money until they get 60 percent of the house full.
GW: Absolutely.
TC: If they don't get 60 percent of the house, they're losing money or breaking even. Nobody can break even forever because the government calls that a hobby. Every model I've seen so far is basically, even the most optimistic ones, it's like when everyone gets herd immunity that they're going to still have to be social distancing. Then they're still going to have to be mask-wearing because the virus is going to mutate and they'll have to get booster shots and all that other stuff, and so none of it does us any good. The only way it can work, unfortunately it's going to hurt the people that always get hurt, which are the people that don't have any money. The only way it's going to work is, yeah, if you want to put 50 percent of the house in, let's say, the Rialto where you work and you're going to have to charge a hundred dollars a ticket to see a mid-level act.
GW: Yeah.
TC: And that's how it's gonna go down. I don't see any other way that's going to happen. And it all just makes me incredibly frustrated and sad. And also, on a selfish part, I kind of wish that this happened three years in the future so I could just retire and get my Social Security and not worry about it...
GW: Oh, no! please don't say that!
TC: If we're honest, I'll never retire but this is what I'm saying. Musicians don't retire! They just die. But here is the bright side, the bright side is what I really hope is that because I'm going to be blunt, honest with you, I'd say this to anybody else that asks and even if they don't ask, I'll tell them whether they like it. I love to play live. It's been a part of my life since I was 20 years old. So 44 years. Yes. But if you put a gun to my head and said, what would you rather do? To play live or make records? I would say every day of the week, three times on Sunday, I'm saying I'm going to make records. And so I know that people finally get it in their minds that the only way you're going to be able to have music in your life is to go buy records because people aren't going to be playing live anymore. Like, hello?! Yeah, you support musicians and artists. Like, you can't go on the Internet and get a free Van Gogh right? No! you got to go buy that damn thing. Obviously a much larger expense. But, you know, you get my drift.
GW: Yep.
TC: So my hope is that people just say, oh! And they and they fall in love with records again. That's what I want to have happen.
PF: Yeah. And I think that honestly, that plays into what I had mentioned before too, right? Live music, for as riveting and incredible as it is energetically from the stage, the crowd, and back again is just one really relatively time-wise, a very, very small piece to the puzzle. Right? A very impactful one, don't get me wrong. But a small piece of the puzzle in terms of what Tim and I and other people spend the vast majority of their time actually doing to put into the craft. With that, there are other ways that you CAN show appreciation. And to Tim's point, I do think that it ends up in order for a lot of our friends and people that we love going to watch playing and sharing the stage with and to deal with everything else that's really going to be dependent on people embracing the fact that you have to support them through other means other than live music.
GW: Will the new LP be coming out on vinyl?
PF: Oh yeah!
GW: Thank God.
TC: Yeah, I want to be clear on where I am. I am a music junkie and I'm OK with that. I'm a live music junkie. Like my wife and I, we go to this festival in England. We try to go every year. We've been like six times since 2014. It's called End of the Road. We go there because there are like a hundred bands and half of them, I've never heard of them before, but I always come away going, like, absolutely jaw dropped blown away by something I've seen. Some musicians from some other part of the world that I'm like, oh my God, I'm so glad I saw them perform. I feel so lucky to be in this space. Well, they're in that space performing for me. I keep thinking, am I ever going to go back to England for this festival? Because it's almost at this point, it's like, going home week for my wife and me. We glamp. They set up a camp and we know every place we want to go and we have it all figured out. I drag her around. She's the greatest, greatest partner in the world. She lets me drag her around from one stage to another. And this is a person that does one hundred, I play 100 plus shows a year and make two or three records a year, so I'm always deep diving, but when I had some time off, I go deep dive in someone else's music, who knows?
GW: Well, without my theater this year, I have taken to hanging out at my local record store, which is connected to the theater that I work in. And so I help them with Record Store Days and just you know, I can talk music there! Be myself. It's nice.
TC: That's all right. That's awesome. I love that kind of stuff.
GW: When left with only one device, you got to do what you got to do.
TC: And that's why I thought it would be really great. But I wrote to say that it's all going to go back to normal or it'll be the "new normal," which is fewer people and venues. It's just not economically feasible for the most part. And that's what that's the reality of the situation. And, you know, not for nothing, but it is kind of our own fault. There's a greed element in there and everybody wants to make more money, make more money. Promoters, venues, the rent, everything was huge.
GW: I can't keep up! I hear what you're saying because of these huge festivals, you're never going to see every band on the bill. I was always wondering when that bubble was going to pop. This is not how I expected it to pop, right?
TC: Yeah. It's kind of like the virus kind of put a bullseye on us and just hit its mark.
GW: Yeah.
TC: You know, we still get to record and that to me, is the greatest gift that I've received from this whole pandemic, is I've gotten to spend enough time with my wife that we both figured out that we actually do like each other.
TC: And I've seen, for the first time since I was 20 years old, I've seen all the seasons come and go from one place. That's a long time to not have that happen. I haven't seen that in 44 years and it's amazing, you know. So that's those are two things I can take away and I get to spend a lot of time in the studio. I'm writing a book. I wouldn't have time to do any of this stuff. I'm standing here looking at a gigantic beaver out on the ice here on my lake. This beaver, I've been fighting him all year long because he cuts down all the trees around me. Of course, how American. He brings them up and stuffs them under this big log in the front of my property and it's stopped up the water. And I have to go in there and take out, I shit you not, every week in the summertime, I was in there taking out about two hundred pounds of cut wood. And there he is! This guy! He's taunting me. I see you just giving me the finger. So yeah.
PF: Tim and I are in the process of figuring out, the record is going to be put out a LoHi again, which we're super excited about. We're in the throes of finalizing all the planning. The mixes are all done, which is awesome. So we're just in the middle of this conversation that we've been having. It's where you're forced to sit on it. And so you hope that there are shows where you can try to promote it or otherwise you come up with creative ways to get to people's ears. We should have a bunch more info on it. So, we'll definitely we'll get you in the loop.
GW: Sounds good. Do we know when another single will be released?
TC: Well, towards the end of the first quarter or maybe early summer. I don't know. What do you think Pat?
PF: Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. Yep! Actually, this track is just the Confidence Man, it's just a rogue single. So the full record is 8 brand new songs.
GW: OK. Awesome!
PF: So yeah. So it'll be the first single off of the full LP will be sometime in the first half of this year I would say. For sure. Yeah.
GW: Awesome. Well, we'll be looking forward to it!
TC: Yeah. I can't wait for the world to hear it. I really am super excited.
GW: Did you do a video for the Confidence Man?
PF: No, we didn't, we all recorded it in our own separate studios, So we could have done just a parting of clips and videos and but at the same time, with this particular tune, there's so much left to the imagination about who it is and what it is like. I think the videos are awesome and certainly serve a purpose for certain kinds of songs. This one to me was not one of those.
GW: Yeah, absolutely. You don't want to take away from the listener's experience.
PF: You'll definitely get a video or two with the terms of the record. I'm really excited for you to hear it. It's we're very, very proud of it. We can't wait for the world to hear it.
GW: Save me a vinyl! I want that!
PF: Yeah, you bet.
GW: All right, guys. Well, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your efforts and your art, as always.
TC: Great. Really great talking to you June. And thank you very much.
Carbone and Peck had finished 2019 in the studio with Ferguson,
recording his sophomore LP at Mix-o-Lydian Studios in Delaware Water
Gap, PA. That record is produced by Tim Carbone, and features Peck
along with Carey Harmon (Railroad Earth), Jacob Jolliff, Kenny Leiser
(Joseph Huber), Tony Marino, Mike Robinson (Railroad Earth), Kevin
Rowe (Buffalo Gospel), and Tony Trischka. The LP set to be released on
LoHi Records sometime later in 2021.
