Episode 166 with Jason Pilling who is on the show to discuss his musical origins as well as some influences and processes.
Plus, making music you want to hear, lyrics, poetry, an eight beat note and much much more.
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Jason Pilling Music – DIY Electric Upright Bass Build
Other Links
2025 Lookback: Becoming A Parent Didn’t Make Me Any Less Palmer
A Canadian So Nice, Coupland Covered Him Twice
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:05 – 00:00:24:03
Agent Palmer
Previously on Jim palmer.com 2025. Look back. Becoming a parent didn’t make me any less Palmer a Canadian so nice. Copeland covered him twice. And can you believe I’ve been at it to have six volumes of one final question, because we’re well on our way to seven already. This is The Palmer Files episode 166 with Jason Pilling, who’s on the show to discuss his musical origins as well as some influences and processes.
00:00:24:11 – 00:00:33:21
Agent Palmer
Plus making music you want to hear lyrics, poetry and eight beat note and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:00:33:26 – 00:00:53:23
Jason Pilling
And because I grew up with it in my house, it didn’t occur to me that my dad was an awesome piano player. I actually thought everybody’s dad could just play the piano that well. Little did I know, that would be my last gig for 15 years.
00:00:53:27 – 00:01:12:16
Jason Pilling
I never wanted to be casual about music, so I think the reason I stopped dead is because I could only be casual about it. When I started focusing on being a parent. I think I was a great student of music.
00:01:12:20 – 00:01:41:49
Agent Palmer
Hello and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stern, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 166th episode is Jason Pilling. He’s a musician. I stumbled across on YouTube where I didn’t at first listen to his music. I actually watched him build an acoustic double bass. We kind of get into that, but first we discuss some of his musical journey before discussing influences, just how hard playing bass can be, lyrics, poetry, contemporary music, a very truncated version of his musical journey, and much, much more.
00:01:41:50 – 00:02:01:35
Agent Palmer
But before we get there, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterward, you can find all related ways to contact Jason and myself in the show notes. You can see all of Jason’s stuff at Jason pilling.com. That’s Jason pilling.com, or look up Jason Pilling or Young Dukes on Spotify or SoundCloud or YouTube.
00:02:01:44 – 00:02:15:59
Agent Palmer
Don’t forget you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:02:16:03 – 00:02:35:54
Agent Palmer
Jason, you are a musician at heart and I know it wasn’t always your, I guess, career as such. But what’s what’s the instrument? Where’s it start? What’s the first? Is it drums? Is it a guitar? Is it a piano?
00:02:35:59 – 00:02:48:27
Jason Pilling
I guess there’s a couple of ways to answer that question. My dad was a music teacher. Okay, so, I kind of grew up around sort of skilled music. Could.
00:02:48:34 – 00:02:50:55
Agent Palmer
Could he play everything?
00:02:51:00 – 00:02:59:29
Jason Pilling
He was a very good piano player. He was one of those guys that could just sit down at the piano and play anything by ear.
00:02:59:43 – 00:03:00:56
Agent Palmer
That’s amazing.
00:03:01:01 – 00:03:23:58
Jason Pilling
I always remember when I was a kid that people would tell me, oh, your dad is such an awesome piano player, and because I grew up with it in my house, it didn’t occur to me that my dad was an awesome piano player. I actually thought everybody’s dad could just play the piano that well. Okay, so people would tell me, your dad’s an awesome piano player, and I’m like, what are you talking about?
00:03:23:58 – 00:03:47:41
Jason Pilling
He’s just my dad. He’s just a guy that plays in my living room. So I always sort of like, make jokes with my dad that, you know, he set such a high standard for musicianship that on some level, I never really knew I had any potential because I was like, well, I’m not even as good as my dad.
00:03:47:46 – 00:04:14:08
Jason Pilling
But, you know, I eventually sort of recovered from that as I, you know, got out and started playing with people. I’m like, oh, actually, I am okay. I can keep up with the other people. I guess I sort of got into it playing bass in high school. Okay. My, my brother once said to me, which I think is totally true, is, yes, we’re a family of bass players because we don’t really want to be like the star where we’re not sort of egotistical people.
00:04:14:08 – 00:04:34:20
Jason Pilling
So we just, we just want to be part of the team that does something cool. So I started playing bass, and then I think I eventually just got into, like, doing the singer songwriter thing, like really late high school, early university, because I just like, I think a lot of people, I felt like I had something to say.
00:04:34:33 – 00:04:41:10
Jason Pilling
So I’m gonna say it. Yeah. And then, you know, that’s basically how it started. That was, you know, music career version.
00:04:41:16 – 00:05:11:09
Agent Palmer
Well, so, I want to talk about bass for a second because not too long ago or guess, late last year, I had a drummer on who I. And I made the statement after talking with him. I think on the podcast, although it, it’s a, it’s a thought I’ve been harboring for years. Is that the rhythm section, whether it be percussion, drums or bass, we tend to make the best producers, editors, engineers.
00:05:11:14 – 00:05:45:15
Agent Palmer
If we’re stepping from playing to behind the scenes because we’re always the backbone anyway. And so everything kind of relies on our foundation and to step then to behind the producer or behind the screen for editor or whatever, it always seems like these I run into more people that were drummers or bassists who are in those positions now than I do, like former guitarists or former lead guitarists or former.
00:05:45:20 – 00:06:07:29
Agent Palmer
It just seems like, I don’t know, maybe we’re always like, like I hear everything. We have to have a good ear to keep everything together anyway. So it’s like, I think, I think this is, this is great. Like, I have this. I know what I’m doing now. I, I’m sure none of us thought of that when we first picked up the bass.
00:06:07:29 – 00:06:29:04
Jason Pilling
No, not at all. I, I think when I picked up the bass, I, I had an inferiority complex. My brother was a guitar player, and I think I had, like, this inferiority complex. Like, I wasn’t good enough to play guitar. So I should start playing bass because it’s easier. Yeah.
00:06:29:04 – 00:06:37:13
Agent Palmer
I by the way, I just want to say, for anyone listening right now, well, there are four strings.
00:06:37:18 – 00:06:38:09
Jason Pilling
There is not.
00:06:38:16 – 00:06:39:19
Agent Palmer
No universe.
00:06:39:19 – 00:07:02:51
Jason Pilling
In which bass is easier. Oh, I know you. You learn that over time that that playing bass really well, like the, the difference is like it’s a totally different skill, but like, I would, you know, the joke is, well the bass players actually play in time and guitar players don’t. And you hear every single mistake on bass. Oh yeah.
00:07:02:56 – 00:07:36:08
Jason Pilling
And and guitarists basically have an, you know, an elevated art form of slopping over in their mistakes. And like the the game on bass is to almost like play perfect. Yeah. And and that’s not the game on guitar. So it’s like it’s totally a different approach. Yeah. It’s not easier like because because you you’ll see like high skill guitar players pick up a bass and they just don’t have the, the muscle memory and the and the skills to play it as well.
00:07:36:08 – 00:07:40:38
Jason Pilling
Like they, they immediately demonstrate that, no, it’s a whole new thing.
00:07:40:38 – 00:07:59:15
Agent Palmer
When I, when I, I mean I started on I guess acoustic but you know that was playing by myself and so then you go like oh well, I can get in a band with a bunch of friends, but they need a bass player. So I’m like, now, now pick up the bass. That’s fine. I, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not proud.
00:07:59:15 – 00:08:26:14
Agent Palmer
Like, I just want to hang out. I want to play music like, I’ll. Yeah, I’ll pick up the bass and then it was all bass all the time. I had a guitar that I would fiddle around with, and it’s not until much later that I go like, oh, wait, I can, I can be totally sloppy on this. And I mean, I, I fronted a, a two man band in college at one point because we didn’t have anybody else.
00:08:26:18 – 00:08:50:00
Agent Palmer
My roommate at the time was a drummer, and I was like, well, I can play. I can play guitar now. Well, but like, I can play and I would play and sing, you know, we would just do covers and, he would play and sing sometimes and. Like, I mean, I don’t know, just there’s a, there’s a freedom that you have from like, oh no, no.
00:08:50:02 – 00:09:23:30
Agent Palmer
And I’m not picking on them. But like you can get away with a lot of mistakes playing Green Day like it’s just the distortion covers a lot. And I think some of it is, the music. But there’s a, there were other things I played where I was like, dude, this is passable. Whereas like, if I was playing in a trio or a quartet, and we were covering something, I remember one of the early cover bands we, we covered, stairway to Heaven and on bass, you’re basically playing the root note in most of that song.
00:09:23:35 – 00:09:50:03
Agent Palmer
So anything you do has, like, you like it’s that perfection you’re talking about. Anything you do that’s not quite right. Well, stand out like a very sore thumb. Which is I guess where you know, that’s kind of where it’s, that’s the height of it for me. It was in that cover band. I never really got any further than, than just playing with friends.
00:09:50:08 – 00:09:58:15
Jason Pilling
Yeah. Like I remember playing in my pre-pandemic band because everybody had a pre-pandemic band because all bands broke up during pandemic. Yeah.
00:09:58:15 – 00:10:00:14
Agent Palmer
You couldn’t get together. Yeah.
00:10:00:19 – 00:10:29:24
Jason Pilling
So in my pre-pandemic band, I played bass and it was like a proggy band. And I remember there was this one song where I had to play like basically, a note that would last eight beats. And then, you know, another note that would last eight beats, but it was just the nature of the song that it was so delicate, how I hit the transient on that, because if I hit it too hard, it wouldn’t suit the song.
00:10:29:24 – 00:10:58:04
Jason Pilling
The song was like a very soft song, and it was like building, like this really soft glow. And so I had to hit a note hard enough to get it to ring for eight beats, but not so hard that it like, went bang in the middle of this nice soft thing that was building up. And I often like, you know, tell that story of the that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever played on bass.
00:10:58:19 – 00:11:00:56
Jason Pilling
Was playing a single note for eight beats?
00:11:01:01 – 00:11:15:21
Agent Palmer
No, it makes sense. I do want to. Let’s go back for a second, though, before I forget. So you pick up the bass, to play with people or, just to pick it up?
00:11:15:26 – 00:11:37:40
Jason Pilling
Well, I, I just played it and I picked it up and I played it, you know, against guns and Roses records for, for a while. And, you know, this is one of my regrets is that I didn’t join any high school bands. I didn’t join a band. And like, I played a lot. I was a quite a good bass player before I joined a band.
00:11:37:45 – 00:11:45:40
Agent Palmer
I’m surprised. I mean, I mean, I’m surprised nobody just saw you. I mean, did you keep it quiet that you were playing bass? Is that what it was? Because I felt like it’s.
00:11:45:45 – 00:11:49:02
Jason Pilling
It’s because I’m an introverted nerd.
00:11:49:07 – 00:11:51:43
Agent Palmer
Like every other bass player I don’t like kind of.
00:11:51:43 – 00:12:10:06
Jason Pilling
Yeah, I just I just didn’t know the people. I’m. I would have gladly joined a band with my friends, but my friends didn’t play music, okay. Like, And I just didn’t hang around with the right people to get in contact with the situation where I was like, yeah, you need to come play with us.
00:12:10:11 – 00:12:28:34
Agent Palmer
Look, I don’t say this because, where you’re from, but, I mean, the time frame you’re talking about, I mean, rush would have been pretty big, and. Yeah, you need a bass player to cover for rush.
00:12:28:39 – 00:12:59:04
Jason Pilling
Yeah, that’s that’s kind of true, I guess. But, you know, it was also, you know, by the time I’m playing all this stuff, it’s it’s just kind of like preaching to Nirvana. Okay. And I really wasn’t terribly interested in hair metal. I, I, I kind of didn’t like it, and I wasn’t really quite what sure. What to do with popular music in the late 80s.
00:12:59:04 – 00:13:22:55
Jason Pilling
I really wasn’t into it. And, you know, that was another thing that kind of affected my music career, I think, because I, I kind of really rejected popular music in the late 80s. And, and I think I was suspicious of Nirvana when they came out and when grunge kind of came out like Nirvana, Pearl jam, Soundgarden came out.
00:13:22:55 – 00:13:36:07
Jason Pilling
But I do like them all now. I think it took me a few years to sort of believe it, that, you know, they were more there were much more interesting lyrically from my point of view. Right, as opposed to.
00:13:36:12 – 00:13:37:53
Agent Palmer
Musically, sonically.
00:13:37:58 – 00:13:54:36
Jason Pilling
Well, no. It’s just like the Bon Jovi’s and the Poison’s in all of those ones. In the in the late 80s and to some degree guns N roses, they were just their lyrics were not interesting to me. They were. They were basically about getting laid.
00:13:54:41 – 00:13:56:49
Agent Palmer
Getting drunk, getting laid, doing drugs.
00:13:56:54 – 00:14:18:07
Jason Pilling
Yeah. And I wasn’t into any of that. So I was like, well, I guess music’s not for me because I’m not. I’m not into that stuff. So I don’t want to sing songs about that. And then when Nirvana came out and, you know, it started, it started to be more thinking about how you how you felt about yourself in the context of the world.
00:14:18:07 – 00:14:37:51
Jason Pilling
And I was like, at first I was just like rejecting it because I just rejected all music and I was just like, stupid teenager. But I should have latched on to Nirvana immediately. And it was kind of too bad that they called it Smells Like Teen Spirit, because I sniff that one too. Right away. I’m like, they’re making fun of us.
00:14:38:45 – 00:14:41:23
Jason Pilling
So so I’m not going to be a fan of that.
00:14:41:23 – 00:15:04:29
Agent Palmer
So what? I mean, what were you listening to? Because I, I hear you, maybe more so than I’d like to admit, because I, I’m a little. I’m just slightly younger than you, that I can make this statement, which is, I did buy into a bit of the hair metal. But, it was before my time, right.
00:15:04:29 – 00:15:30:52
Agent Palmer
So I was coming up just post grunge. Because those years make a huge difference in the popular music of the time. And I was always looking backwards. So I also missed grunge as it happened, because I was looking past it and I was looking into the 70s and 80s more, than what was happening at the time.
00:15:30:57 – 00:15:36:41
Agent Palmer
And it’s not until, oh God, I’m.
00:15:36:46 – 00:15:42:28
Agent Palmer
Post millennium, basically, that I start looking back and going like, oh, but I think I like grunge, too.
00:15:42:33 – 00:16:07:07
Jason Pilling
I think that there were some bands that maybe started to, I guess, resonate a little bit more. They still weren’t like a really great fit. I remember one of the first bands I discovered sort of in that, sort of rock area, but they weren’t hair metal. It was a band called Drive In and Cry, in which they were, like, mildly popular.
00:16:07:07 – 00:16:30:07
Jason Pilling
They were not big. I don’t know if you I know that reference works, but but they just did. Their lyrics were just much more interesting to me. It was immediate, like, oh, this guy is not singing about those things. And another band is the Canadian band, so I’m sure you wouldn’t know. They were called 13 Engines. And they had like math references in their songs.
00:16:30:12 – 00:16:44:51
Jason Pilling
And their first album was called Perpetual Motion Machine. And it’s like they were they were doing hard rock, but their lyrics were very introspective. It was like it was like folk lyrics with hard rock.
00:16:44:51 – 00:16:48:04
Agent Palmer
So did you. Did you like rush then?
00:16:48:04 – 00:16:50:02
Jason Pilling
Because it. No, I didn’t like rush, okay.
00:16:50:02 – 00:16:55:03
Agent Palmer
Because, I mean, I’m just thinking, like, lyrically, I know that’s, you know, in a.
00:16:55:03 – 00:17:15:29
Jason Pilling
Way, I probably, I probably would have liked rush lyrics and some of my friends really liked rush, but I was never into like, that, sort of like weird shit. Like, honestly, I like, I still listen to, like, you know, the poison and I actually, I quite like Guns and Roses because musically they’re just super talented people.
00:17:15:35 – 00:17:21:19
Agent Palmer
Yeah, it’s a weird it’s not a super group, as we would call it, but like, it feels like.
00:17:21:23 – 00:17:22:32
Jason Pilling
It’s a bit of a what.
00:17:22:32 – 00:17:40:19
Agent Palmer
Yeah, what Duff does on bass and what slash does on guitar. And when Izzy shows up, or Gilby or whoever’s doing rhythm like they just had it. I know people can love or hate Axl’s voice, but like for that music that worked and it.
00:17:40:23 – 00:18:02:56
Jason Pilling
Yeah. And also then Axl Rose was also reasonably poetic, like there were a lot of songs where I could appreciate the poetry of them, even if I didn’t really like what the lyrics were saying. But that’s why I like I was referring to those other band, the 13 engines and the driving and crying. That’s when it sort of came together for me.
00:18:03:01 – 00:18:26:31
Jason Pilling
And then, you know, this is all in the rock area, but to kind of like jump ahead a little bit. There was there’s a Canadian artist called Bob Wiseman who nobody’s heard of, Bob Wiseman. Okay. He’s tiny, like, he actually he, he sometimes runs the open mic now that I go to, but he did pretty well because he was a founding member of Blue Rodeo, which many people have heard of.
00:18:26:35 – 00:18:37:47
Jason Pilling
Yeah. So I, you know, and he’s actually going for his I think he just defended his PhD, like he’s basically a professor now. He’s a very interesting, cool guy.
00:18:37:47 – 00:18:51:37
Agent Palmer
It’s a and yeah, it’s, it’s that Brian May kind of PhD track like, wait a minute, wait wait wait wait, why why are these rock stars going to school? Like, why are these rock stars getting letters after their name? That’s a PhD. What’s going on?
00:18:51:41 – 00:19:12:06
Jason Pilling
Yeah. So he he wrote the music. That kind of hit me as, like, the most human music that I’d ever heard up until that point. And it was sort of. It was like a little bit of a lightning bolt for me. It’s like, oh, you can write music about this kind of stuff.
00:19:12:13 – 00:19:16:06
Agent Palmer
Okay. And did I mean, did you like, is that.
00:19:16:11 – 00:19:40:41
Jason Pilling
Do you I think I think that was, you know, sort of what I started to try to do. And another, another one that I guess is all like after high school, right after, after the grunge revolution. This is into like the mid 90s, late 90s when I’m in university. And another one that was like became a big influence was Stephen Fiori, which is another Canadian that nobody knows outside of Canada.
00:19:40:41 – 00:19:51:04
Jason Pilling
But he’s a fingerstyle guitarist who writes pretty interesting lyrics from my point of view. But also layer is it over? Like not just a strum, strum, strum.
00:19:51:05 – 00:19:51:44
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:19:51:49 – 00:20:17:04
Jason Pilling
But he is a top tier acoustic fingerstyle guitar player as well. Okay. So like he’s layering these lyrics on top of guitar work that makes your jaw drop at the same time. And I’m like, wow, he’s doing that at the same time. And he’s a good singer. So like, these are the these are the people who kind of influenced me a lot more.
00:20:17:04 – 00:20:18:45
Jason Pilling
Sarah Harmer was another one.
00:20:19:00 – 00:20:22:57
Agent Palmer
Do you then just put down the bass and pick up an acoustic guitar? Yeah.
00:20:23:02 – 00:20:43:47
Jason Pilling
So this is basically at which point I put down the bass and I’m playing acoustic guitar now because I, I’m much more into that stuff. I’ve kind of moved past my rock and roll phase and I still listen to it. I, I still, I don’t listen to any hair metal anymore except slap some Van Halen because the guitar works fantastic, right?
00:20:43:47 – 00:20:48:55
Jason Pilling
But Bon Jovi and Poison are dead to me.
00:20:49:00 – 00:20:59:15
Agent Palmer
So so do you go back further? Do you check out, like, Lightfoot and Dylan and, you know,
00:20:59:20 – 00:21:20:24
Jason Pilling
You know, I like early Dylan. I feel like there was a Dylan phase early, but it’s before my time. And this is one thing that I’ve noticed about me in particular. I’m really big on contemporary lyrics. Okay, I’m not really big on nostalgic stuff.
00:21:20:35 – 00:21:20:56
Agent Palmer
Okay?
00:21:21:11 – 00:21:49:59
Jason Pilling
So, like, I go back and I can listen to old Dylan and I again, I appreciate the poetry of it, but he’s speaking to a time that is 30 years before any consciousness I had. Yeah. So I want to listen to the people who are talking about stuff today, like, who’s the best lyricists of my time is like, Gord Downie.
00:21:50:01 – 00:22:06:18
Jason Pilling
Yeah. Aimee Mann, any DeFranco? Fiona Apple. Andrew Bird, like, these are the lyricists that I really enjoy. And they’re talking about stuff today. I mean, at least.
00:22:06:23 – 00:22:07:00
Agent Palmer
At the time.
00:22:07:11 – 00:22:12:06
Jason Pilling
Yeah, well, the things that are happening today are in their lyrics.
00:22:12:06 – 00:22:12:37
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:22:12:42 – 00:22:24:03
Jason Pilling
Right. They’re they’re reacting to current events and I, I for whatever reason, I that’s a big deal for me. And I like I said, I know it’s not a big deal for everybody.
00:22:24:03 – 00:22:30:50
Agent Palmer
Well I, I but I enjoy I enjoy hearing you say that because.
00:22:30:55 – 00:22:53:11
Agent Palmer
When I, when I co-hosted our liner notes, I would always joke with, the main host, Chris Meyer, because Chris was a music guy. Not so much a lyric guy. Like just not just not he’s that and I don’t, I, I used to pick on him for it but I understand it. He’s a, he’s a music guy.
00:22:53:11 – 00:23:21:11
Agent Palmer
That’s fine. And I, I straddled the line a bit like I enjoy music but I enjoy lyrics. I’m a little bit both. Right. But I think that, I never gave the weight to my contemporary ness, I guess as a as a word, that you are. But I can understand why that would be important, especially to,
00:23:21:16 – 00:23:44:32
Agent Palmer
I think you may have been able to convert me 20 years ago. You know what I mean? Like, oh, but these guys are talking about what’s going on now. But that was never a conversation that musically that I that was around nobody I didn’t nobody was talking about now or the music of now. Nobody. Nobody framed it in the way you just have.
00:23:44:37 – 00:24:14:59
Agent Palmer
And I think that’s important because while I have gone back and I’ve done my own research of like, listening to all of Dylan’s albums and listening to all the stones albums and listening to, any number of bands all the way through, because I want to hear how they grew and what changed. Because obviously I’m a curious person, and that education of from one album to the next.
00:24:14:59 – 00:24:39:39
Agent Palmer
Maybe it’s a small difference, but like Dylan and the stones have changed so much that they’ve almost come back to themselves in a way. But you have to listen to all of it. You can’t. You can’t cherry pick, you can’t skip an album here and there. Like there’s a there’s a progression and I like learning that. But oh my God to to find out what’s going on.
00:24:39:44 – 00:24:54:39
Agent Palmer
Today, because I’m fairly far removed from what I would say is contemporary music as much as I like music. I, I’d have to write it myself. I feel.
00:24:54:41 – 00:25:12:17
Jason Pilling
Well, like I sort of I participate in the, you know, the, the music community and something that I noticed, like in the last year, that really became very obvious is that everybody was suddenly doing a protest song.
00:25:12:22 – 00:25:17:23
Agent Palmer
But it’s, you know what? It’s I kind of like it. I don’t, I mean, I just.
00:25:17:28 – 00:25:29:10
Jason Pilling
I, I liked, I liked that I was, I was in there with them, but it was just, it was interesting to me that everybody just kind of like joined into the same instinct that they just.
00:25:29:15 – 00:25:30:14
Agent Palmer
I had enough and.
00:25:30:19 – 00:26:02:13
Jason Pilling
Yeah. And I and I enjoyed listening to some of them because I felt like, oh, they’re, they’re being inspired by the same events as me right now. And it’s speaking to me and it’s something I care about. And I feel it right now. And I know that sometimes you could go back to some song from the 70s and, and see the parallels and stuff like that, and sometimes I’ll listen to, you know, songs from the 70s, especially like Stevie Wonder had some great social commentary, songs that you feel like you’re transported back to that.
00:26:02:13 – 00:26:26:37
Jason Pilling
But that is a different thing for me. Like, I appreciate it on a completely different level, but I just I want to hear I want to spend time thinking about the future or the present and the future, I guess. But like something like, you know, a famous song like, you know, Gaga’s Born This Way, that’s not a 70s song.
00:26:26:42 – 00:26:41:00
Jason Pilling
No. Right. There’s no way she could have wrote that in the 70s and been popular. She would have been accused of so many things and thrown away for a song that is now like a huge anthem for people.
00:26:41:05 – 00:27:08:45
Agent Palmer
Yeah, it’s it. If we have, I guess in a weird way, for as far as we’ve come, we haven’t really gone that far. I’m just excited that people are writing protest anthems because, you know, my parents grew up in the late 60s, early 70s, and they had things to protest and they had music to go along with it.
00:27:08:45 – 00:27:32:38
Agent Palmer
And it’s not like there haven’t been protests and things to protest in the 80s and 90s and early aughts. And now, yeah, it’s just that we never had anyone pick up the the closest we’ve come other than the the, the mass outpouring of some of those songs now is Green Day’s American Idiot.
00:27:32:43 – 00:27:40:49
Jason Pilling
Which is I think that was a famous one. And I, you know, I guess it was always it was always there. I guess it just wasn’t popular.
00:27:40:59 – 00:27:42:05
Agent Palmer
That’s true.
00:27:42:10 – 00:28:03:35
Jason Pilling
Because, yeah, I would argue like someone like Bob Wiseman I mentioned before, he’s been writing protest songs for 30 years and, and, you know, they they’re they’re very contemporary. Like, if you listen, you listen to them. He’s, you know, he I’m not going to like you. He’s not like everything from ripped straight from the headlines or anything like that.
00:28:03:35 – 00:28:13:34
Jason Pilling
But it does. It feels very contemporary and sometimes it is straight from the headlines. But but that’s, that’s Bob Wiseman. And, you know, that’s one of the things I love about him.
00:28:13:34 – 00:28:50:11
Agent Palmer
But that’s I mean, that’s when I was introduced to the hip. That’s one of the things that I noticed was this is a band writing about a chord specifically, but like the this is about this, like this album came out in 98, whatever. Like this is about 1998. That’s what this is about. This isn’t about, some of it’s about the future, but like, this is about now, which to me, having spent the majority of my life without the hip, like listening to it in hindsight, going like, wow, I didn’t.
00:28:50:16 – 00:28:58:52
Agent Palmer
I think R.E.M. might be the closest I have to somebody writing about now. Within my old sphere.
00:28:58:57 – 00:29:21:27
Jason Pilling
Yeah, I think they probably did it as well. I, I noticed, like, for example, the the hip being a good example, a lot of like hip or huge in Canada. Right. But a lot of people kind of, stopped listening at some point though, like they stopped listening after a head by century was, you know, you know, massive, massive, domestic hit here.
00:29:21:27 – 00:29:42:59
Jason Pilling
Right? Because the way I viewed is, like Gord Downie started, he just kept writing about what was going on in his life, and he started writing about his kids and started writing about his wife and like, you know, in a very tender, beautiful way. And, you know, when I look back on and I say, if you were the right age, you could just grow up with the hip.
00:29:43:04 – 00:29:47:31
Jason Pilling
Okay? Yeah. And he would be writing about whatever was going on in your life.
00:29:47:31 – 00:30:03:08
Agent Palmer
You would have a wife. You would have kids, you would absolutely relate to these things in the moment. Not necessarily have to wait and rediscover an album by the when you finally get married or when you finally have kids.
00:30:03:16 – 00:30:29:39
Jason Pilling
Yeah. And I’m almost the perfect age, like, you know, the hip or popular in the early 80s. So he’s, he’s roughly 10 to 15 years older than me. And, you know, I did a big catch up because I got married at 24 and I had a kid by 27. So, you know, my I don’t know my I don’t know how old Gord Downie’s kids are, but they’re probably not much older than mine.
00:30:29:43 – 00:30:42:24
Jason Pilling
But that that was what was so beautiful about later hip to me. I wanted those songs. And I was seeking out that kind of music, like, desperately.
00:30:42:29 – 00:31:10:33
Agent Palmer
So. So I have to I have to interject. So, you’re capable. I know we’re skipping ahead, but that’s fine. You’re capable of playing, and you’ve probably written. And. Look, we’ve all written bad stuff and we’ve all written good stuff. And we’re our own worst critic, so ignore that part for a moment. But if you’re searching for this, is there a reason you’re not just writing it?
00:31:10:38 – 00:31:13:56
Jason Pilling
That’s exactly what my motivation became.
00:31:13:56 – 00:31:15:53
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:31:15:58 – 00:31:40:56
Jason Pilling
I, you know, I stopped playing music. Not really by plan, but when my daughter was born, it’s just, you know, life gets in the way. And I kind of stopped actively pursuing music. My daughter was actually born, like, the day before my, you know, my last solo gig. She came early and.
00:31:42:13 – 00:31:53:26
Jason Pilling
And so, like, we’re at the hospital and my daughter, my daughter is born, and my wife’s sitting there in a hospital bed, and she’s like, you can play the gig. I’ll play the gig.
00:31:53:31 – 00:31:57:43
Agent Palmer
And she knows it’s your last one for a while.
00:31:57:48 – 00:32:19:20
Jason Pilling
Well, I don’t know that either of us really knew, but but but my mother in law was there, so, like, my, my wife is sort of taken care of. And and there wasn’t necessarily anything I had to do. So I went in there, played the gig. Little did I know that would be my last gig for 15 years.
00:32:19:25 – 00:32:44:30
Jason Pilling
I thought I’d be back at it in, I don’t know, a few months, but, you know, I’m. I like to say I like to think that I’m a responsible parent, like, you know, the any, any parent that’s tried to do it, you know, it’s just like it becomes the thing that you think about and you no longer have the the mental energy to be.
00:32:44:41 – 00:32:46:38
Jason Pilling
I never wanted to be casual about music.
00:32:46:46 – 00:32:47:34
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:32:47:39 – 00:33:10:47
Jason Pilling
So I think the reason I stopped dead is because I could only be casual about it. When I started focusing on being a parent. And then basically this is all fast forward. You know, once your kid gets to about 13 or 14 and you no longer have to drive them around and they want to get somewhere, you say, here’s your bus pass.
00:33:10:52 – 00:33:34:45
Jason Pilling
Suddenly I had free time again. And this whole time I’d been, you know, trying to consume music. But I started to this started to creep in that I felt like music is no longer speaking to me. I’m desperate for music that speaks to my life. And it was somewhere around, you know, when my daughter was in her, I had just have one, the one kid.
00:33:34:45 – 00:33:59:51
Jason Pilling
But, you know, my daughter’s teenager and I just decided, you know what? I’m going to make an album about, working in an office, okay? Because that’s my life. And so that’s what I did. And that kind of rekindled it, like, I. I’d never had a dog before. I was just like one of those guys that would just, like, everything was live off the floor kind of thing.
00:33:59:56 – 00:34:17:24
Jason Pilling
Okay. In my version, one of my career. But when I came back to version two, it’s just like, oh, there’s a dog now. Well, you can do all these crazy things with samples. And since this is amazing, I love this, you know, and it’s sort of a self-produced an album and kind of learn the the new craft. Now making making that album.
00:34:17:24 – 00:34:41:39
Agent Palmer
Look, we’re going to, we’re going to jump all over the place. But when you decide, all right, I have some free time, I’m going to make an album. Did you have any, you know, awareness of actually editing or recording or, you know, any or you or even just, you know, you hadn’t written songs in a while.
00:34:41:39 – 00:34:59:15
Agent Palmer
You have to dust, you know, the pen off and get the paper back out, you know, like what? What are you are you prepared for, you know, or do you know what you’re getting into? Or is this just I want to make an album. I’m going to leap and I’ll, I’ll fall where I fall.
00:34:59:20 – 00:35:10:52
Jason Pilling
Well, I, I’d made a song up until that point. Okay. All right. Like, I had this. I had this silly song. I called it milk and it was from my daughter’s perspective. And in the chorus was, I want milk.
00:35:10:58 – 00:35:13:06
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:35:13:11 – 00:35:30:14
Jason Pilling
And so I sort of self-produced that song. And so I, I sort of knew the process of how to make a song. Okay. And then I just like, kind of that was just sort of silly. But then I kind of got serious, like, well, what do I want to write about? Yeah. Because I didn’t want to be.
00:35:30:14 – 00:35:41:52
Jason Pilling
Like I said, I didn’t want to be casual about it. I wanted to be sort of serious art about it. And I felt like if I want this, somebody else must want this.
00:35:41:57 – 00:35:42:30
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:35:42:35 – 00:35:59:31
Jason Pilling
Yeah. And and so I’m like, I’m going to, I’m going to do this seriously. So I, you know, started writing lyrics. I was kind of bored at work and I would just like, bugger off for my lunch hour and just go sit there and write lyrics for an hour.
00:35:59:36 – 00:36:07:21
Agent Palmer
All right. So, pause for a second. Are you writing lyrics with a melody or are you just writing lyrics?
00:36:07:25 – 00:36:33:52
Jason Pilling
I was always very lyrics first, like the words had to exist on the page before I, you know, you, you might think of melodies as you’re writing lyrics, but the what the song was trying to say that was always was always the most important thing to me. So I would write the the words first, and I’ve changed my process a little bit over time, but it’s still very lyric driven.
00:36:33:57 – 00:36:41:43
Jason Pilling
It’s not purely lyrics first anymore, but at that time it was purely lyrics first. Now everything was written out.
00:36:41:44 – 00:36:44:52
Agent Palmer
Were you a writer before this?
00:36:44:57 – 00:36:48:56
Jason Pilling
No. I read a lot.
00:36:49:07 – 00:36:50:08
Agent Palmer
Okay. I mean, well, what.
00:36:50:08 – 00:36:50:47
Jason Pilling
Kind of writer?
00:36:50:55 – 00:37:03:32
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but that’s, I mean, I, I mean, that’s the I think if you’re not reading, you’re not going to be like, if you’re not reading a lot, then you’re just, you know.
00:37:03:37 – 00:37:04:06
Jason Pilling
Know.
00:37:04:06 – 00:37:11:43
Agent Palmer
Your own story, like you need to read, to build up everything else. Just like you need to listen to music to make it.
00:37:11:44 – 00:37:29:21
Jason Pilling
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I was a great student of music. Okay. I listened and carefully analyzed and thought a lot about music for a long time. In that middle period, I was a serious listener.
00:37:29:25 – 00:37:51:40
Agent Palmer
And how were you getting stuff? Was it radio? Was it friends? Was it the internet like? Because obviously that’s a big period. That’s a bit like that. You know, we’re talking from, you know, even just going off of your daughter’s age that’s like 14, 15 years, but like that’s also, you know, before streaming’s really ubiquitous,
00:37:51:45 – 00:38:06:28
Jason Pilling
Apple Music, Napster. Okay. Napster was a big deal. I went on an absolute crazy binge, like to me. So you I used to be the guy that would go to the library. Okay. And get 20 CD’s.
00:38:06:28 – 00:38:07:40
Agent Palmer
And rip them.
00:38:07:45 – 00:38:29:34
Jason Pilling
No, I was just listen to it, okay? Like just random shit. Oh, that that, like, what’s this? And I’d skip skip, skip skip. Like I’m not wasting my time, but I’m just like, searching for new, interesting music, okay? Constantly my entire life. So I actually don’t remember what I did after Napster, because there was some point after Napster where I just said, I don’t like this is unethical.
00:38:29:34 – 00:38:46:05
Jason Pilling
I don’t want to do it anymore. Okay. But but for a while it was just like a kid in a candy store. I was listening to everything. It was like what you can do with streaming now, you know, you can listen to anything you want. Like for that first phase of Napster, I treated it the same way. It’s just like, oh, I can listen to anything.
00:38:46:05 – 00:38:59:15
Jason Pilling
Wow, this is amazing. And so I don’t actually remember so much what I did afterward. There was also, you know, the fact that I was, you know, still a parent with a full time job. So I didn’t have as much time to as explore.
00:38:59:20 – 00:39:09:53
Agent Palmer
I mean, were you, I don’t know, music magazines. Were you checking out blogs to, you know, get suggestions or was it just like I’m hearing what I’m hearing?
00:39:10:07 – 00:39:31:34
Jason Pilling
Well, I think when when Apple Music came out that you could, like, listen to the first 30s that was another explosion. Okay? Right. You could listen to the first 30s before you had to buy it. Yeah. And I would do the same thing. I listened to the first 30s of so many songs, and I just started buying shit.
00:39:31:38 – 00:39:52:08
Jason Pilling
Because I wasn’t, I was making good money, so I wasn’t really worried about the money. It’s just like bing, bing bing bing, just gimme gimme gimme, gimme more music. Yeah. And also I felt like, whatever, I’m supporting artists. It’s not such a bad thing. So yeah, I, I think I’ve always been sort of a voracious appetite.
00:39:52:08 – 00:40:18:07
Jason Pilling
I had a one friend who I think was a really important a source. He was the guy that read all the Pitchfork articles, the top ten lists, and he would he was a serious collector of music. So. So shout out to Kelly if he if he hears this, he he was an important part of keeping my discovery mode alive because he was into pop music and I was never into pop music.
00:40:18:07 – 00:40:51:28
Agent Palmer
Okay. Yeah. We all, I’m gonna say it, because you just, you know, painted the picture like you all you if you want to be fully formed and not have your music education fall off a cliff, you need a Kelly. You absolutely need someone. And even if it’s not pop music, even if it’s just new to you, you need someone who’s going to continue to introduce new to you stuff in some capacity.
00:40:51:32 – 00:41:14:10
Jason Pilling
Yeah. And my my brothers are also actually pretty important for that. Okay. My, one of my younger brothers is never had a normal job in his life. And he’s been one of those guys. It’s just like a voracious appetite for new, interesting things. And so he would introduce me to a lot of things. And my older brother always, always had great taste in music.
00:41:14:10 – 00:41:37:24
Jason Pilling
So I, I constantly had like interesting music thrown at me by, by those guys as well. So I guess, you know, if there’s 3 or 4 people in my life that are, you know, a serious source of, yeah, new interest in music, because I gotta tell you, when you work in finance, where I worked, it’s a bit of a dead zone.
00:41:37:29 – 00:41:50:50
Agent Palmer
Well, yeah. How much music can you listen to when you’re in a meeting? Right. Like. I mean, there’s a there’s an amount of time that you have where you may be on your own in your, I’m guessing, cubicle.
00:41:50:55 – 00:42:08:12
Jason Pilling
Yeah. But it’s but it’s also just like there are obviously people like me in finance because I was there and there was a small minority of people like me who are sort of like the intellectually curious part, but, you know, like the jokes about, you know, guys that works at banks. There’s a there’s a certain amount of trust.
00:42:08:16 – 00:42:20:14
Jason Pilling
Okay. You know, you know, they’re not a lot of them are not intellectually curious people. Okay. They, they can be very talented and they can be very smart at their thing, but it’s not intellectual curiosity.
00:42:20:19 – 00:42:53:19
Agent Palmer
So you you’ve been slowly even throughout the your youth and as you know, these, you know, all these people around you, you’ve been keeping your musical, palette, I guess, spinning. And it’s always kind of getting refilled in some small capacity here and there. Yeah. So you’re, you’re ready to write an album. Are you taking, you know, have, like, do you know what it sounds like before you even start writing?
00:42:53:24 – 00:43:26:11
Jason Pilling
No, because this was me with a dog. And, I mean, I don’t know how many of your listeners. Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s the thing that you used to build songs. Yeah. It’s the computer. Yeah, it’s. Yeah. And so it it it gave me access to layered production. Right. Because when you’re writing at home with your guitar, the only sound you have that flows out at any particular time is what you can make right now with you, your voice, your guitar.
00:43:26:11 – 00:43:49:12
Jason Pilling
Right? Yeah. And so your song is built around a guitar and, and once you got access to the door and I could do layers suddenly the, the range of things that I got into kind of exploded because, you know, what did I, I was listening to us. I’m basically listening to stuff that’s on the edge. Jazz. Okay. Like that.
00:43:49:14 – 00:44:10:47
Jason Pilling
That’s clearly where my my tastes was flowing. Or even like prog. Like even like rush stuff. If you wanted to reference that. I still haven’t gotten into rush to this day, but but, you know, I do respect it. I think that their songs are just a little too long for me.
00:44:10:52 – 00:44:19:27
Agent Palmer
So, without a door, would you have still done, like, a straightforward singer songwriter acoustic album?
00:44:19:32 – 00:44:20:33
Jason Pilling
I’m sure I would have.
00:44:20:35 – 00:44:28:05
Agent Palmer
Okay. You. Because you were. This was like you had just decided somewhere in the back of your head like, I’m. I’m doing this.
00:44:28:10 – 00:44:38:39
Jason Pilling
Yeah. But so that that album, called White Collar Melodies, it’s like a genre. Mishmash.
00:44:38:45 – 00:44:39:46
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:44:39:51 – 00:44:59:35
Jason Pilling
It’s got hard rock songs. It’s got, like, pretty laid back folky songs. It’s got like weird folk songs. And you’ll hear folk a lot. I, I think I identify as indie folk, but I definitely have rock leanings from my, you know, hair metal days. Do you.
00:44:59:40 – 00:45:20:47
Agent Palmer
Find that? And I only bring this up because you just defended it as if it needed to be defended, and I don’t think it does. I don’t know if an album needs a genre. I think that’s a music industry thing. Like, I, I, I like the idea that, you know, I’m going to go to a very specific place, and it’s only because it’s all I can think of right now.
00:45:20:47 – 00:45:46:17
Agent Palmer
And if you gave me a couple hours, I’d be able to come up with a probably a better example. But on Metallica’s Reload is a country ish song called Low Man’s lyric that, a bunch of my friends who are big metal heads when when they’re picking it, load and reload as two albums that Metallica cut their hair and sold out on.
00:45:46:21 – 00:46:14:06
Agent Palmer
That’s the song that they always pick because it’s the acoustic song and it’s not quite as it doesn’t have a solo like, say, Unforgiven or, or Nothing Else Matters, where it’s acoustic, like kind of still has some of that electrical elements. Low man’s lyric is by far basically a country song. The James is singing, and I love the idea that people will take a chance on that.
00:46:14:06 – 00:46:31:37
Agent Palmer
I’m not saying it’s my favorite track on the Reload. I haven’t listened to reload in a while, but I like the idea that there’s all these hard rock things and then there’s this. I’m not a big fan of country, but I just like that they took a left turn. I don’t need it all. I don’t need a a White Bread album.
00:46:31:37 – 00:46:36:55
Agent Palmer
This is the rock album, so everything on it is rock. I don’t need that.
00:46:37:00 – 00:47:01:05
Jason Pilling
I well, I mean, that’s good because that’s that’s what I’m offering. I, I’ve become a little more focused, I think, in that in that case, it was like I had all of this huge range of ideas. And, you know, the other thing to sort of keep in mind is that, you know, I was working in finance, and the truth is, I had some money, I had access to tools.
00:47:01:10 – 00:47:20:50
Jason Pilling
Okay. So I got, I got them all and I tried them. And so they were all, it was like this creative playground for me. I like long McQuade is like the Canadian music store. It’s like the Guitar Center of Canada, except it’s way better. Everybody actually likes.
00:47:20:55 – 00:47:22:20
Agent Palmer
It. Okay.
00:47:22:25 – 00:47:47:21
Jason Pilling
They’re so artist friendly. Great guys. Great. Great policies. Anyway, I just went along. McQuade and I rented everything, brought it home, tried it out. I tried every type of guitar. I tried every type of amp. I tried everything, and some of them, it’s just like stuff I rented. Ended up on that album. And just mucking around like I’d never played with a Rhoads before.
00:47:47:21 – 00:48:03:56
Jason Pilling
It’s so fundamental to like, pop music, but I’d never played a Rhoads before. I didn’t rent a Rhodes, but Rhodes samples really well. So, you know, you get a Midi controller, you can play a Rhodes, so stuff like that. It was just like, oh, this is really cool. I’m gonna do this. So did you.
00:48:04:00 – 00:48:09:10
Agent Palmer
Did you did you print this album? Are you playing all the instruments?
00:48:09:15 – 00:48:19:47
Jason Pilling
Yes. Okay. Yeah, I played everything, I mixed it, and while I failed to master it, I didn’t actually know what mastering was at the time, so I mixed it.
00:48:19:52 – 00:48:28:12
Agent Palmer
So. But but this was, but this was part of the vision. Like, I’m, I’m going to do this.
00:48:28:17 – 00:48:52:07
Jason Pilling
Well, I think that I, you know, even even though I had access to money, I chose not to spend it. Okay. I, I said that I told myself that the only way you’re going to learn how to do this stuff is to do it the hard way. And that’s always been a lesson of my life, is do things the hard way and you’ll be better off in the long run.
00:48:52:19 – 00:49:12:50
Jason Pilling
Yeah. And I, I think that was absolutely true. I learned so much about music production, what I was making. And when I listen back to it now, I’m like, it’s pretty good. I did pretty good for my first album. I, I would hold up my first self-produced album against anybody else’s self-produced album, and I feel like I did pretty good.
00:49:12:55 – 00:49:34:33
Jason Pilling
I could do better now, but I have absolutely no shame about the quality of that music production. I think I mixed it pretty good. I produced it pretty good. There’s a lot of crazy ideas on there that I might not do again. But whatever.
00:49:34:38 – 00:49:55:55
Agent Palmer
I mean, I guess, I mean, regrets it, you know, that it’s. You took a big swing, right? Like, I mean, it. Yeah. You didn’t let the pitch go by to to keep the metaphor going, like you took a swing. It doesn’t matter what happens. You put action into action, and the result is the result. That’s a whole different kind of a thing.
00:49:55:55 – 00:49:59:39
Agent Palmer
But you didn’t just go, man. All right.
00:49:59:43 – 00:50:10:17
Jason Pilling
Yeah, I think I think that that was when, you know, when I was doing that, I’d say that was the peak self-confidence of my life.
00:50:10:22 – 00:50:12:32
Agent Palmer
Where did it go?
00:50:12:37 – 00:50:16:56
Jason Pilling
I became a musician.
00:50:17:01 – 00:50:28:39
Agent Palmer
So let me let me ask then, you know, is there any part of you that wants to go back and, you know, re Re master it?
00:50:28:44 – 00:50:45:24
Jason Pilling
Oh, it’s a plan. Ten year anniversary. I’ve already remixed a few of the songs. Okay. I actually did a remake of some of the songs. I made a I made an album that I released last year called Power Down, which refers to going acoustic.
00:50:45:29 – 00:50:46:58
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:50:47:03 – 00:51:11:38
Jason Pilling
So that album, I kind of like doing that now. I kind of like more have themes to the stuff I do now. So Power Down was like, I’m going to do everything acoustic. There are no electric instruments on the album except for the bass, just because it’s kind of hard to play acoustic bass. Although, well, you can’t hear it on the podcast, but there’s a that’s an acoustic bass just behind me there.
00:51:11:40 – 00:51:44:19
Jason Pilling
That’s awesome. But, so yeah, it had electric bass, but everything else was acoustic. And so I remade a couple of the songs from that okay album and kind of reproduce them with whatever wisdom I have now. But I was also I was trying to reestablish myself at the time, kind of like brand wise, and I kind of felt like I need to stop doing rock and roll on my main brand, because I feel like it’s just too confusing.
00:51:44:19 – 00:52:13:47
Jason Pilling
Like to coming back to your point about, you know, does an album need to have a genre? Well, it doesn’t, but also if if I managed to hook someone in for anything I do, I’d like to not lose them on the next song. Okay? Because the very next thing I do is something that they’re just not into. So I’m, I, I decided a while ago that I would, I would anything rock n roll because I still have rock n roll instincts.
00:52:13:52 – 00:52:17:10
Jason Pilling
I published that under a different artist name called Young Dukes.
00:52:17:24 – 00:52:18:58
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:52:19:03 – 00:52:23:30
Jason Pilling
So now my main brand. No more rock n roll.
00:52:23:35 – 00:52:35:31
Agent Palmer
Now I will say, for everyone who’s listening, the, acoustic bass that’s behind him, if you go on his YouTube channel, it’s not just any acoustic bass. You built it.
00:52:35:36 – 00:53:06:28
Jason Pilling
Yeah, yeah, well, they started building instruments. Yes. That’s part of my, like, self producer obsession. I think, you know, playing with Midi, like when I did that first album and, you know, you have this, like, all of these tools available to you. And then as I grew as a producer and musician, I started to understand the value of having something you could touch, okay, and be expressive with.
00:53:06:28 – 00:53:29:33
Jason Pilling
And I know that some people are amazingly expressive with a synth, so I’m not saying that A can’t do that, but I don’t think I was ever really into synths enough. We go back to my core of who I am. It’s playing a thing with strings and frets. Yeah or not. No, no frets, because I play fretless instruments too.
00:53:29:38 – 00:53:54:04
Jason Pilling
But I want to be able to touch it and and I’ve definitely, I think been rewarded for that is like so I wanted instruments that I could play and get that expression out of them. So at some point I decided I wanted a bass, that I could bow because I wanted to get that sound. You can only get out of bowing a bass.
00:53:54:09 – 00:54:29:06
Jason Pilling
So I built one, and and this is just whatever. It’s just my personal history that, you know, my family’s also, in addition to being musical, has always been pretty DIY. So I kind of grew up in a DIY culture. Small town Saskatchewan, DIY culture, I, I, I will often if I’m trying to explain small town which I’m sure applies to the US as well as Canada, but you live in a small town and and my explanation is if you need a plumber in a small town, you get your tools.
00:54:29:11 – 00:54:31:55
Jason Pilling
If you need a plumber in a city, you get your phone. Yeah.
00:54:32:00 – 00:54:44:47
Agent Palmer
That’s fair. That’s so, so, I guess, right. You know, musician, producer, luthier or not quite just amateur luthier. At the moment.
00:54:44:51 – 00:55:08:45
Jason Pilling
I don’t sell my instruments. Okay. They’re there for me to play. And, you know, they’re they’re very playable and they’re high quality from a sound point of view, because I will work my ass off to get them to that state. I will not be satisfied with anything less. But sometimes esthetically, you can tell. But I don’t really care about the esthetics.
00:55:08:50 – 00:55:31:49
Jason Pilling
I care about what it sounds like and what it feels like to play it. And then I just want to move on to the next thing. So I don’t really call myself a luthier. I call myself, I actually, I call my, like, larger music brand make it fit. And the concept of make it fit is you’re just you’re just focused on the utility of it.
00:55:40:40 – 00:55:59:34
Agent Palmer
Doing things the hard way. And you’ll be better off in the long run. I agree with Jason on this, but I have to add a caveat. Personally, I think this is the proper way to think, especially when it comes to creative projects and passions. But the caveat is that you have to learn from the hard way. You have to learn.
00:55:59:43 – 00:56:20:46
Agent Palmer
That’s the unsaid part of Jason statement. Learning from the hard way is the reason you’ll be better off in the long run. Now, you may have noticed that we really didn’t talk about Jason’s musical journey in a linear way, though we did start at the beginning. Well, fear not, Jason will be back in a few episodes and we’ll dive a little deeper into his start, his break, and his return.
00:56:20:56 – 00:56:40:40
Agent Palmer
Until then, listen to the music, listen to the lyrics, or if you’re one or the other, pay more attention to the other. You might just find another appreciation for your favorite music or discover something new. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 166. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays.
00:56:40:43 – 00:57:00:41
Agent Palmer
If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact Jason or myself in the show notes. You can see all of Jason’s stuff at Jason pilling.com. That’s Jason pilling.com. Or look up Jason Pilling or Young Bucks on Spotify or SoundCloud or YouTube. The music for this episode was provided by Hino Hyder.
00:57:00:50 – 00:57:20:31
Agent Palmer
Email and comments can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
00:57:20:36 – 00:57:53:12
Agent Palmer
And you?
00:57:53:17 – 00:57:55:21
Agent Palmer
All right, Jason, do you have one final question for me?
00:57:55:21 – 00:58:35:03
Jason Pilling
So as an artist, I think that I want to produce art that connects with people. Yeah. And I’ll admit that it’s a struggle to try to break through. Especially in, you know, saturated social media market. So I guess you’ve talked to a lot of people. Yeah. And sort of interesting people. So my question to you is, what do you think people want from sort of the contemporary art that they casually consume, which is kind of what most music is.
00:58:35:16 – 00:58:36:20
Jason Pilling
Yeah, I.
00:58:36:24 – 00:59:17:16
Agent Palmer
I it’s weird because, I’m slowly, pulling myself into contemporary ness, I guess, I, I was teased to 15 years away from anything remotely contemporary for a long time, you know, I’ve there’s always, like, some radio hits that just are ubiquitous. They get shown on TV or, commercials or, you know, just some songs you can’t get away from.
00:59:17:21 – 00:59:44:01
Agent Palmer
But I wasn’t really watching a lot of TV. I was listening to old music. I were I was reading old books, and I was watching old TV and old movies for a very long time. And, it was maybe only a few years ago, a friend of mine was a big swifty was like, you know, you should you should just listen to to to her stuff.
00:59:44:01 – 01:00:08:58
Agent Palmer
And I was like, all right, well, I mean, yeah, all right, all right, but I’m not. I’m in in for a penny in for a pound kind of guy. So I was like, all right, well, I’ll just listen to all of her stuff. Like, I’ll just start at the beginning and go all the way through. And, and I have, and I, I made notes, I have a blog, I have a podcast, and I haven’t done anything with my Taylor Swift notes.
01:00:09:03 – 01:00:27:27
Agent Palmer
But that got me thinking about this is when I, you know, in, in this episode when I talked about, like, listening to, like, all of the stones and all of Dylan, it came from that Taylor Swift journey which ended, I don’t know, before Tortured Poets, because then I listen. Now I just listen to the albums when they come out.
01:00:27:27 – 01:00:53:14
Agent Palmer
But, so I, I had after after that, I put together a list of, I don’t know, 20 artists that are foundational to my musical journey that I either knew of or wanted to know more of, and I listened to them as they were so like, yeah, the Dylan’s the the stones that that’s in there. But I’m also listening to them in chronological order as they bounce off of each other.
01:00:53:19 – 01:01:12:22
Agent Palmer
So I hear what happens in 1967, right? I, I, you know, for that list of 20 bands, maybe there’s four albums that come out in 67. I’ve listened to all of them in the order that, you know, had I been alive back then, I would have. And so, but a lot of these artists, and I’m on my that was my first musical journey that ended.
01:01:12:22 – 01:01:32:22
Agent Palmer
And then I started a second one, which I’m in now. Because I want I’m also rediscovering my love of the album as a whole. But one of the things that’s weird about it is I’m starting to get to a point where, like, all right. Yeah, but the stones put out an album in 2025 that I, I think I did listen to that one.
01:01:32:22 – 01:02:05:29
Agent Palmer
But like, there were, there were gaps in contemporary music for these older artists. And now I’m listening to younger artists and I’m trying to get better at seeing the now. But what I’m discovering most of all is that, people enjoy what’s popular. It’s kind of like candy. It’s the popcorn at the movie. Like you’ll keep eating it even if it’s not good for you, because you kind of like it, you know, like that.
01:02:05:38 – 01:02:46:11
Agent Palmer
That’s fine. That’s to me, that’s radio. To me, that’s, the top 20, that’s billboard, that’s whatever. You know, whatever Spotify is decided to move to the top that that’s what that is. And people will enjoy that. I’m not you know, that’s that’s fine. But I think what people really want and this is a this is a very specific kind of a thing people are looking for like a 90, like a, like a, like a think of, like a, 1700s, minstrel who can only do his job if he’s got a wealthy patron.
01:02:46:16 – 01:02:50:53
Agent Palmer
It’s an act like where we get the origin of the patron of the arts, right?
01:02:50:58 – 01:02:51:37
Jason Pilling
Right.
01:02:51:41 – 01:03:21:22
Agent Palmer
And that patron is important for two very specific reasons. And in today’s culture, I think everybody is looking for a patron because of what the patron means. One, If I’m your patron, Jason, I’m supporting you in some way. And in today’s day, that’s not just money, that’s social currency. That’s, me saying, hey, everybody should go listen to Jason’s new album, right?
01:03:21:27 – 01:03:21:45
Jason Pilling
Yeah.
01:03:21:58 – 01:03:44:55
Agent Palmer
But the other side of the patron is that I’m supposed to be promoting you and saying, hey, everybody, listen to Jason’s album. And people I think, want a specific individual connection. They don’t want me going on. They don’t want a Google ad specifically where it’s like, oh, Jason’s just his album just comes up anytime you look up rock music.
01:03:44:55 – 01:04:17:36
Agent Palmer
No, no, no, no, they want well, I’m friends with Agent Palmer, and he said I should listen to this Jason guy. I think they want that curated personal thing that you’re not going to get from a Spotify. Really? I mean, I guess you could follow me and see what I’m listening to, but people are looking for that true patron of the arts who is willing to support it monetarily with social currency, but also turn around and do the word of mouth thing, which I.
01:04:17:40 – 01:04:18:37
Jason Pilling
I do that.
01:04:18:51 – 01:04:23:55
Agent Palmer
In news like that feels like, because that I’ll be honest, that’s how it hits me.
01:04:24:00 – 01:04:56:53
Jason Pilling
When I see that in the artist community, I see it much less outside the artist community, because it’s hard because y’all have these blinders on, right? And I used to be outside the artist community, and I would, I would, I would sort of like I referred to long or whatever sometime earlier in this conversation about it being a bit of a dead zone, which is, you know, there were people that gave me good recommendations there, but most people, they just weren’t interested in talking about that kind of stuff.
01:04:56:58 – 01:05:09:25
Jason Pilling
But now I’m in the artist community is like constantly talking about what’s interesting. And it’s just like, so I’ve lost sight of, I guess, how normal people.
01:05:09:30 – 01:05:40:00
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I still think everybody’s looking for that one person to be like, hey, you know, I really think you’d like this. And I think that as as commercialized as it’s all gotten, you know, I can’t remember if it was 1 or 2 years ago now. I lost a friend, a long lost friend, basically. He was, he was about 15 years older than me.
01:05:40:00 – 01:06:08:54
Agent Palmer
He was my assistant manager at the first fast food, place I worked at. But his story about one very now ubiquitous album is my favorite music story of all time. And that is, he had a friend in high school who came up to him with a tape and said, you need to listen to this album. This album is absolutely amazing.
01:06:08:59 – 01:06:16:43
Agent Palmer
And it was 1987 and it was appetite for destruction. But here’s the thing in 1987, appetite for destruction doesn’t blow up until 89.
01:06:16:43 – 01:06:19:26
Jason Pilling
Exactly. So he’s got a hundred.
01:06:19:37 – 01:06:45:41
Agent Palmer
You know, he’s got a friend who heard it on release and was like, dude, you got to listen to this and handed him the tape. And I think for all the technology we have and as you know, great as it is that I can talk to you over distances and meet people around the world and listen to almost any music ever.
01:06:45:45 – 01:06:53:14
Agent Palmer
Deep down, we all still really want somebody to come up and hand us a tape and say, like, you’re going to like this.
01:06:53:19 – 01:07:20:37
Jason Pilling
I actually do kind of agree with that. And, and I, and I encourage I think that’s been like part of what I’ve felt personally as I, you know, been hiding in the basement making music and on some level, I lost some of the casual social interaction that I used to get in the office. And I really started to feel more deeply that loss of peer interaction.
01:07:20:37 – 01:07:29:31
Jason Pilling
And, and you just see that coming up over and over again that people are feeling more and more distant. Yeah. And, I’ve started to encourage people just just go.
01:07:29:31 – 01:07:30:58
Jason Pilling
To a show. Yeah.
01:07:31:10 – 01:07:47:30
Jason Pilling
Of course, I have self-serving interest to say, just go to a show. But but I also kind of believe it. It’s just like, just go and be with other people. Yeah. And at a community event doesn’t have to be a show. Just go do a community thing. And that’s very similar concept. Just like, just give me the tape.
–End Transcription–
<p><em>This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).</em></p>