This is New Wisco Weekend. I'm Lisa Hale. You've heard of one-man bands, right? Well,
Cody James doesn't walk around with a drum on his back, but he is a single musician who
creates and records with just himself. He recently appeared on Mino in the Mayor. Here
he is with Jim Schmidt, Darryl Burnett, and Dennis Peters.
I want to welcome you. Welcome. Hello. And you are Cody James. You're not bringing in
three pieces. You're the guy. Yeah, it's just me. So the solo thing is all me. I just released
a new song a couple of weeks ago, and I'm playing drums on it. I play bass on it. I produced
it at home. I have a studio at home. I did everything from the ground up. No outside
influence, except for the music that I listened to and whatnot.
Cody, I'm curious. Yeah. You released a record last week. It must be very freeing for an
artist to be able to have the ability to get it out there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially
at my level where I don't have a label and I don't have, you know, anybody's, you know,
hands of my pockets or anything. I can do whatever I want. You know, I can do anything
I want. And I can, you know, do anything. And it kind of can be a double-edged sword because
anybody can do anything. So you got to cut through a lot of noise. But you have to, you
got to not worry about that. You know, I'm not doing this to cut through noise, right?
I'm doing this because I'm passionate about music. And I have something to say. And, you
know, really better people's lives. And so if I can do that with just one person, that's
success to me. You know, I always ask myself, what is my motivation for doing this? For
anything, you know? And it's definitely with music and what I'm doing, I try to keep
it as pure as I can, you know? This song that just came out thousand miles is the first
single to an album that's coming out September 5th. And that's going to be a hundred percent
homegrown. Here we go. Here's thousand miles.
And I want to lose myself with you. And I want to love you just like you want
me too. A thousand miles in a thousand ways. A thousand smiles in one thousand days
with you. My level of purity backings your name. And I want to lose myself with
you. And I want to love you just like you want me too.
A thousand miles in a thousand smiles. A thousand miles in a thousand smiles. A thousand
smiles with you.
Wow.
That was awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I forgot to ask. Was there a person
that inspired you to pick up the voice or the guitar? It was definitely, like I said,
it was definitely kiss. I think they were the biggest, the big one in the beginning.
I wanted to be a big rock star. But I love Nirvana as well. I remember being a third
grade and wearing this big, big Nirvana shirt with baggy pants. I was always just kind
of different from other kids, you know, for whatever reason. And I just knew that I had
to pursue it. I don't know. I just had this thing inside of me that I knew that that's
what I was going to do. There was never any other option. There was never a plan B. There
was never any of that. You have to stick with it. You have to be okay with being a little
bit different. And you'll find other people who are a little bit different. And then you'll
have your group and you'll be good to go, you know. And sometimes it'll be tough. And
sometimes you'll fall on your face. And sometimes you'll have embarrassing moments and you'll
suck and whatever. But you got to get through. You have to go through that and to see the
other side of it. How'd you like to bring yourself for the weekend?
So I think I released this song. This is on my EP that came out in November. It's the
only acoustic track on the album. It's called Wasteland. And what that is all about is I
love to meditate and be all inside of myself and try to, you know, figure myself out as
much as I can and shine a little bit of light in the gooey, gooey darkensets in their
hull. And I call that place the Wasteland. Okay. And so I'm always in the Wasteland.
Okay. And so this song is called Wasteland. Fantastic. I need this. Have a good weekend
everyone. Thanks for listening, you bet.
Oh, and we need some courage to get there. It's dark and ambiguous. But if I contribute
my life. Thank you for being a part of New Wasteland. Our look at summer safety. New
Wasteland is produced, written and directed by Lisa Hale. Our executive producer is Todd
Michaels with features by Melissa Kay, Conrad Krieger, Brittany Murlow, Joanne Croulette,
Pete Schwabba, and commentator Amanda Nimmer. Special appearances this week by Jim Schmidt,
Darryl Burnett, and Dennis Peters. If you have a story you'd like to hear covered,
email me at Lisa.Hale at civicmedia.us. I'm civic media northeast Wisconsin bureau chief,
Lisa Hale for WISS and WGBW News. Be unstoppable.
