Djo joins us for an #AudacyCheckIn ahead of the release of his new album 'The Crux.' 🎸
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00:00You know, you have a, you have a fellow musician now, part of the cast. Any suggestions to Finn
00:06now that he's a songwriter, got a band, starting live shows, a duet? I think he's got a new song
00:14out today. The thing that I love about him is that he's really interested in like the process of
00:21recording and songwriting.
00:22Welcome in to the Odyssey Soundspace, the Hard Rock New York Hotel with Joe.
00:33Hey.
00:34Hey.
00:34How are you?
00:35Good. How are you doing?
00:35I'm doing good. He's a winner. He's a winner. I love that line. Kids, I don't know if you know,
00:40he's on TV and it's a show called Fargo. I don't know if you know that.
00:44Yep.
00:46Is there anything you don't do well?
00:49Many things.
00:50Come on.
00:50Absolutely. I can't book a restaurant for dinner. That's so hard for me. It's difficult for me to
00:58find a doctor.
00:59Archery, great archery.
01:01I haven't tried that.
01:02You'll be fine.
01:03I'll be okay.
01:05The Crux, very excited about this project. It feels like a lot of people's debut to you.
01:12Not a debut at all. Doesn't sound like a debut either. There's a lot going on in this album.
01:17There's so many. It's slick without being, you know, over the top slick. It's clever without
01:23being too cute. It's fun, whimsical. It's almost exactly like the cover art.
01:30There's something correlating with these two things, isn't there?
01:33Well, that's a huge. Thank you.
01:36There's so many different Easter eggs. You could watch, look at this cover art. You can sit there
01:40and look at it forever. You listen to the album, listen to it 15 times in a row. You'll never hear
01:44the same thing twice.
01:46Man, thank you.
01:47There's a lot of weirdness in there.
01:48Yeah, we're going for that. Definitely try. I personally am a fan of eclectic albums,
01:56things that don't take itself too seriously, things that reveal itself with multiple listens,
02:03like you said.
02:06I always liked when the Beatles would throw in like rattling spoons and they'll never come
02:10back to it for a while.
02:11Yep, and just a random, you know, I think ELO does a fair amount of that too,
02:16or just like a one-time. My pal Adam, we work on this music together. He's got a good friend
02:23named Steve Christensen, who is a producer and mixer, and he works with Krungbin,
02:28and we played him some of these songs, and he said, man, you guys have really good gags.
02:33And gags is basically what you're talking about, like little tiny things that kind of,
02:37ear candy that keep people interested.
02:39Whether something drops out, there's a phone call all of a sudden in the middle of it.
02:42Why not?
02:43It's a ride. Why not?
02:44Why not?
02:46The difference, obviously, by the way, nice socks, let's go Mets.
02:49The difference between the vulnerability of acting and in playing music.
02:56I'm aware that it's different, but how much different is it?
03:00Well, it's a good question. I feel like you're kind of like, when you're acting,
03:06you're kind of using your own personal experience, at least the way that I'm doing it.
03:11I'm using my own experience, kind of like filtering it through a character's life or something.
03:18But when I'm writing these songs, it's just about my life.
03:21And if you're playing them live, you're just singing about your life.
03:24So there is a different level of maybe exposure.
03:30I've always had this theory that the best parts that actors get are the
03:34shade off of who they really are, Leonardo DiCaprio and, you know, Wolf of Wall Street.
03:40There's a shred of him in that character, right?
03:43The best music, the best songs that you write have a lot of a shred of you in them, right?
03:48Yeah, definitely. That was the goal on all of these songs is to
03:52make them as personal as possible and to get out of the way, I guess.
03:59Which one's the most personal on the album, you think?
04:02All of them, really. I mean, Golden Line is a song that's for my parents.
04:10How are the parents? What are the parents like?
04:12I love my parents. They're fantastic.
04:14Are they artistic in any way?
04:16Absolutely. Yeah, my mom is a writer and a teacher and a lover of art and just kind of
04:25a wonderful person.
04:26My dad could have been a famous actor. He could have been a director. He's an architect.
04:37But again, he's just the happiest guy in any room that he's in, I feel like.
04:45Years ago, I saw you say something to the effect of you wish that this writing and producing part
04:52was a little bit more authentic, maybe organic. I don't mean to steal your words, but words in
04:58your mouth. But the way that you wrote this, just in the studio, no zooms, no back and forths.
05:05Does it just a start and finish? One session, we just go in and bang it out? Or
05:10are we still relying on some old Zoom tricks?
05:16That is the goal, and some songs definitely had that. Like the song,
05:20Gaptooth Smile, was in two days it was done. Other songs like Egg or Fly or Delete Ya took
05:29a longer time and had a longer road to finishing the songs. But we kept it so small. There aren't
05:37any other songwriters. It's a very insulated project. So it's super personal, at least
05:45lyrically. It's all just kind of like based on my own life.
05:47Well, let's talk about Delete Ya.
05:49Sure.
05:50So how about this for a night? I am obsessed with dive bars.
05:56Love it.
05:56I love dive bars.
05:57Who doesn't?
05:58I specifically love dive bar bathrooms. I am an expert in this field. I feel like...
06:02Like the ones that are plastered in...
06:05Yeah. I mean, look, dive bar bathrooms need to have one thing, and one thing only,
06:09cheap solutions to inexpensive problems, right? So instead of a toilet paper holder, you've got
06:15a chain hanging from two screws holding the toilet paper, right?
06:18Perfect.
06:18Could have been a $5 thing, but it's now $3.50.
06:21Yeah.
06:21All right. So one of my favorite dive bars in the city of New York is Blue and Gold.
06:25Oh, yeah.
06:26This is a great spot in the Lower East Side, right? East Village. So how about me one night,
06:32St. Patrick's Day, Friday night, I'm sitting at the front booth of Blue and Gold, and who walks in?
06:39The entire Stranger Things cast.
06:41Yeah. Charlie. That's who...
06:43It was Charlie. And you guys go back to play pool.
06:46Yeah.
06:47I don't think anything about it. I leave. Some friends of mine start fanning out,
06:50and they start taking pictures. How about that second verse of Delicia?
06:56Blue and Gold on a Friday night, take Charlie and the kids out, have a ride.
07:01Yeah. Something like that.
07:02That was that night.
07:03Yeah.
07:04That's the wildest moment of my life.
07:05Yeah. That's kind of fun.
07:06When I heard that song, I lost my ever-loving mind. I was there.
07:12I was there the day you wrote that song, and I've got pictures to prove it.
07:16It's funny, because I didn't write that lyric until probably this past fall,
07:23but for whatever reason, that night stuck out to me.
07:25Why? It was me.
07:27It was you, man. It's always been you.
07:31All right, love, actually. This is getting a little too... What about that night was so special?
07:36Because I know you live here, and you're probably bouncing around the same bars that I am.
07:40What was so special about Friday night playing pool at the back of Blue and Gold?
07:44Really, what that verse is about is you're out, you're having a nice time,
07:48you're with your friends, you're enjoying your life, and then something happens arbitrarily.
07:54You hear a song, or you smell a perfume, or you do something, and it suddenly knocks you back
08:02into thinking about the past, or your ex, or whatever. It's hard to shake that off.
08:08And it's hard to... Once you go someplace like that, it's hard to throw that back.
08:17And yeah, it's funny. That was just the setting for that scene, though, in my head.
08:22Was there a moment in that night that you could remember that...
08:24Yeah, there was. Yeah.
08:25Yeah?
08:25Yeah.
08:27Do tell.
08:27It was seeing you.
08:28It was the smell of my perfume every time.
08:31It was the smell of your perfume, and when we locked eyes.
08:33Yes.
08:34That's so funny.
08:35It's the most random thing.
08:37I lost my mind, and I started calling everybody that was there that night.
08:40Yeah.
08:41You gotta listen to Joe's song. You have to listen to this. I've never had a moment like that.
08:45What'd they say?
08:46They're like, okay, yeah.
08:47They're like, oh, sure, yeah.
08:49No, it's really wild. I mean, they were pretty... It was a pretty crazy run of...
08:54That just doesn't happen.
08:55No, that's kind of cool.
08:56When Elton John's writing Crocodile Rock, you're not usually there for it.
09:02Yeah. I'm not... We're taking it a little too far here. I'm no Elton John.
09:06Crocodile Rock here, but yeah, I'll take it.
09:11I really want to press on what the moment was.
09:14What was the perfume? What was the song?
09:16Well, I won't honestly tell you exactly what it was, but it's exactly that.
09:20It wasn't a perfume. It wasn't a song, but just something that knocked me back to...
09:24Yeah. In a bad way, did you bring yourself out of it? How did you pull yourself out of this moment?
09:30Well, you know how it is when that happens in a public place.
09:33You're kind of like... Someone's like, hey, you okay, man?
09:35You're like, yeah, yeah, you know, just sort of maybe caught up in your own thoughts.
09:43You know, you mentioned Charlie and the song.
09:47How much is everybody else jealous you keep talking about Charlie and the album?
09:52He gets two name drops.
09:53He does get two name drops. Yeah. He got a whole song pretty much.
09:58Got a whole song about his whole garden, man.
09:59I know.
10:00You know, start talking about Finn's kitchen.
10:02Yeah. I went there. That was disgusting. You don't want to go there.
10:09He did not know how to clean.
10:13That's what took me back.
10:14Yeah, that's what took me back. No, Charlie is just... I don't know. He's a great person and I
10:23just... He was kind of... Maybe because I was writing this as I was shooting, I don't know
10:28what, but he was just kind of like floating around in my head and, you know, he's a good friend.
10:35You know, you have a fellow musician now, part of the cast. Any suggestions to Finn
10:41now that he's a songwriter, got a band, starting live shows? A duet?
10:48I think he's got a new song out today. The thing that I love about him is that he's really
10:54interested in, like, the process of recording and songwriting. And I know that this new project
11:02that he's doing was all done, I think, primarily to, like, four track. He got a little Tascam
11:07four track tape recorder and he did the whole thing that way. So, he's really interested in,
11:11like, the process. And I really respect that. He's a very bright guy and I think he's gonna
11:18do very well.
11:18I mean, look, we understand the acting part and you're a classically trained actor, right?
11:23What about the music stuff? Did it just come naturally?
11:25I'm, like, classically trained. Not really. I went to a theater school for sure.
11:29When you're sitting next to a guy like me, you're classically trained.
11:32Okay, sure. I'll take that. Music stuff, no. I didn't necessarily have any training, but
11:40it was just an interest long enough where I, you know, learned this scale from this guy or
11:48what these chords were from other friends. And yeah, I think kind of like not knowing
11:57things has been actually beneficial to me because it had never set up any rules of what
12:03can or can't happen. So, although I probably, my skills are lacking in a lot of ways, like,
12:11I couldn't get up there and play a cover and sing a bunch of different songs.
12:19It is helpful for writing music, I think.
12:21Sure. When you've got so much that you're juggling, right? You got the archery,
12:28the, you know, the kitchen, Reno.
12:33Yeah, with Finn.
12:35But how do you ground yourself in all of this? I mean, you're a pretty chill guy. You're pretty
12:39cool. You're pretty down to earth. But how does, I mean, there's got to be things that
12:43you got to do for yourself, huh?
12:45Yeah, I think just taking everything with kind of like a grain of salt and not,
12:56and yeah, doing things because you like them and trying to tune out everything else. And
13:03it's, you can't obviously tune it out 100% of the way. You can't turn it all the way down.
13:08Well, you've damn near gotten close with, you know, removing all social medias in the world.
13:13Yeah, yeah, a little bit. There's a Joe Instagram.
13:17What a dream that is. All right, so whether it's back home, Chicago, Northeast, LA,
13:26Atlanta, New York, what feels like home?
13:30Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know the answer to that right now. I mean, I've
13:33like lived in New York for a bit, but to be honest with you, I've been in and out of New
13:39York so much just because of work stuff. This ready for the most corny thing of all time,
13:49it's the people that make it feel like home. So yeah.
13:53Your soft shoulder feels like home.
13:55Exactly. My sisters, two of my sisters live here and I've got a lot of great friends here.
14:01My family up in the outskirts of Boston. I've got a great community of friends down in Atlanta
14:08who I really love and miss. So yeah, it's really the people, I guess.
14:15So where's the final spot? Where do you think you end up?
14:18Oh man, probably Vegas, I guess. I'm a gambling addict.
14:29Yeah, I could tell.
14:30Yeah, that's my big...
14:32That's the next crypto.
14:34That's the next crypto.
14:35It's Joe, guys. Thanks so much for joining us on the Odyssey Soundspace.