Maxine, on Civic Media, we are local music
with the earthlings, and I had to do it for myself.
And just to satisfy myself,
I had to give Noah, Gil Filfer, and a call
from the earthlings.
Noah, good evening.
Welcome to Maxine, radio.
Hey Jimmy, thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
It's a pleasure to have you.
It's been a while since we spoke on the air.
How's the summer been for the earthlings?
Are there any highlights you like to share with the people?
Oh man, it's always feels like a little bit of a disservice
to the moments that Art mentioned by mentioning any of them,
but we had people fast this summer was super awesome.
Our first concert out at Driftless Music Gardens,
that was definitely a highlight.
We did Burning Troll in Mount Horib,
which is another little music festival
out by Donald Park, by the town Mount Horib.
That me and Elliott went to school.
Me and Elliott kneel all into high school at,
and that's like, you know, they set ablaze
this giant, you know, 20-foot tall wooden troll sculpture.
And that was definitely a highlight,
kind of like playing this really cool, you know,
community festival thing right by the town where we spent our youth.
Were you playing music on stage
while the troll was burning?
No, so they had the hand fibions, like, you know,
local drumming drum, like a Latin drum group.
They were playing while the troll was burning.
We were the band right before the troll was burning,
so we kind of like played as the sun was setting,
and then we all got to go hang around the setting,
a light of the troll.
So we got to just kind of sit back and enjoy that moment.
I love about Horib.
There's so clever and unique out there and the trolls.
What is there not to love, you know?
Where do you guys work?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right?
Where do you guys work it on right now, the earthlings?
Anything new coming down the pipe for you guys?
Yeah, we've been doing some writing
and like squeezing in some recording this summer.
So we have like, you know, a couple track in the works,
and we have some date on the calendar
to kind of do some writing retreats,
Luke Peters, guitarist, and kind of OG founding member
that recently moved back to Wisconsin from Colorado.
He's got a cabin up in the delts,
and we got like a weekend up there coming up
where we're just gonna go with, you know, no pre prescribed ideas
and do some writing, you know, kind of the thing
like summer's so busy playing all these shows and stuff
and just trying to stay on top of stuff.
You gotta carve out time to be creative and explore.
So we're excited that we kind of have set that aside
for ourselves and yeah, it's been great.
Even the couple tunes that we got going on
in the studio now are sounding great.
And yeah, well, it's just a good time to be, you know,
in a band.
Absolutely.
I imagine getting away to the cabin
and a little inspire the creative juices for you
and the band.
And of course, that's always a lot of fun.
We're talking with Noah from the earthlings.
They are playing the freaking Halloween weekend
at the high noon saloon Saturday, October 26th.
We're gonna talk about the band year paying tribute to it
just a couple of minutes.
We spoke with Adam last hour,
and the one thing he brought up Noah was that the earthlings
has been a staple of this Halloween show for many years.
What is it about this particular show
that keeps the earthlings coming back to pay tribute to bands?
Well, you know, one is Chad, you know,
the guy puts it together has been a really good friend
of ours since the elephant days we were,
we were kind of band roommates in the practice space
that elephant played.
And so him kind of like extending the invitation
and bringing his like enthusiasm and energy to it
is like we just very much just bit right away.
And then it's kind of just a great opportunity
to go to music school for like, you know, a couple months
and dive deep into a band that we all really love
and found a lot of influence from.
And when you gotta put together a set of music for it,
you really kind of kind of take,
look behind the curtain and see like what makes
all these bands really cool and awesome.
And it's a, yeah, it's a great educational experience
to kind of kind of pick the things that we like
and bring them to our own music.
And it's always a hard thing to kind of pick a 40 minute set.
So we wind up like cramming as many songs
into 40 minutes as we can
and kind of do medley style stuff.
So like, you know, still trying to be creative
and bring our own flavor and clear to the process.
And yeah, I've been doing it a while.
So just kind of going down the list of bands that we love.
You know, I think the first one we did was smashing pumpkins.
We've done duck punk.
We've done the strokes.
We've done LCD sound system.
What's the preparation like?
You know, Adam, Adam brought up the fact
to the amount of work that the musicians have to do as a band
to get the set that you're paying tribute to together.
I mean, you're playing somebody else's music.
You wanted to rock, obviously.
What is your personal approach into learning these songs
and how much of little personal flares do you put into it?
Yeah, well, I mean, the first step is always just deciding
like everybody kind of gets a ride or die song
like this one we got to have in the set.
And then when you're a big band like we are,
it's like that leaves only so much more to songs to throw in.
So first is just kind of figuring out, okay,
what songs do we want to play?
And then, you know, we were talking about this Monday
when we were practicing and grant the basis
to probably the most formerly musical educated person
in the band, like you was talking about how,
when you're learning Bach and like this Baroque music
in school, it's like you learn all the notes,
you learn the song as it is.
And then that gives you a good foundation
to like improvise and bring your own pace and flair to it.
So we do try to like find like the core of what makes each song
awesome and great and make sure that we're doing
like the spirit of the song justice.
But once you have that down, there really is like some great room
to kind of play around with texture.
And you know, since we are, since we try to cram way more way,
way too many songs into a 40 minute set,
it gives, it gives some opportunity to interpret
and like cut from this part of the song to this one
or maybe put the chorus from this song to this one.
So kind of like making sure that we,
we understand what makes each of these tunes,
like really kick butt and then not lose those things,
but then add on to it.
And you know, once you're up on stage
and you're in the moment with your five out of their buds,
rock, scissors, magic at that point.
Yeah, it's just, yeah, it's just magic at that point.
Awesome.
I love it.
Noah Gilgrapin from the Earthlings
are on the phone with us right now.
Freakin, how the weekend is happening
at the high noon's loon on Saturday, October 26th.
It's a great lineup this year.
One of the little bands are playing, of course,
is the Earthlings and Noah,
you all are playing tribute to radio head this year.
That's awesome, man.
Why radio head this year?
Well, one that we haven't done yet
and we've done some of some more like obvious picks
that we were like, oh, we really wanted to do
Daft Punk for a while.
Like we all love Smashing Pumpkins,
that's Smashing Pumpkins.
And this year, I think one of the reasons radio head
was kind of like a good and clear choice was
we have like three guitars in the band now,
which we've never had before.
We got Neil Barhite, who's like those lots of kind of lead
and more affecting kind of guitar stuff.
Luke Peters, who I mentioned before,
like a founding member, moved away,
moved back a little bit ago.
He's playing guitar and he's like a little bit more
just kind of rhythm style.
And then I've been picking up the guitar
as if I didn't have enough instruments going on
behind my like palette door with effects and sampler
and mixer on it and two synths.
So I've been playing some more kind of like
affecty and fuzzed out guitar stuff.
So we've been working on some songs of our own
that are like three guitar.
And I mean, radio head I think is one of like the greatest
three guitar bands of all time.
You know, you got them, you got King Gizzard
and Blizzard Wizard.
Got a Kingston Lizzy was also like a three guitar band.
The Eagles were going way back.
And there's like, they were huge for all of us growing up.
I mean, like in rainbows in particular was like an album
that me and Neil and Elliott were just like
listening to nonstop when it came out in high school.
So, you know, music that we've loved for a long time
and then it's got a lot of that textural kind of really,
you know, artistic for lack of a better word like color to it
and they're very like color kind of focused band
in terms of how do you, how do you have three guitarists
like doing stuff and it's not just mush.
So the idea of like, oh, if we learn a bunch of radio head,
this is something that we can like bring to our own stuff too.
I was just going to say maybe a three guitar song
or three in the next Earthlings album.
I could see that happening now.
Oh, undoubtedly.
We've got a couple cooking right now
and it's just, it feels so cool to have like that many
stringed instruments on stage.
I think we have one that we've been working on
that's three guitars and then Grant plays a bass six,
which is like, you know, it's a six string instrument
but it's an octave down from a guitar
and it's got like chunky strings
but the neck is still pretty narrow.
Like, I know Led Zeppelin used it sometimes
and then like the beach boy is like surf guys would use it
to like double bass lines a lot and then Elliott
is playing bass on that song.
So we had bass, bass six and three guitars on a song.
So we've been indulging for sure.
Can't wait to hear that Noah Gilgurfen
from the Earthlings on the phone with us.
We're talking about freaking how to weaken
at the high noon saloon Saturday, October 26th.
Of course, Radiohead be performed by the Earthlings.
Your sister is part of the police tribute
with Aspergain and the Barnacles.
Sean Michael Darigan is doing ELO.
That's gonna be really cool.
Members of the Sharp Bells,
Gentle Brontosaurus and Kitty Butler
doing the Durand, Durand tribute
and then Iron Metal Jackson doing Metallica
to close out the night at about 1130.
That's gonna be, that's gonna be a treat for everybody.
I'm sure.
Yeah, it's just like a killer,
killer line up across the board.
It really is.
You want to get your advanced tickets right now folks
as this show is going to sell out.
Advanced tickets are only $15.
They're available at the Sylvie box office.
You can also get them online at high-noon.com.
We got the link for you in the Facebook event
on the book.
Get access that link from the Maxine Gradio page.
Noah, it's been a pleasure speaking with you.
Happy Halloween and my goodness.
Have some fun in two weeks here.
Oh, it's gonna be hard not to.
Thanks for having me, Jimmy.
Appreciate what you do for the music scene here in Madison.
We're lucky to have you.
Well, be a part of it.
I'm lucky to have all of you
as my paint on my canvas.
I could say, I don't know.
That was probably corny.
I don't know.
Thanks Noah.
Appreciate you.
Appreciate you, bud.
Thanks, Jimmy.
Let's do some radio head right now.
This song is called Body Snatchers.
It's Maxine.
On Civic Media, we are local music.