YABAI! Band – Phil & Mitch

by

YABAI! Is a sunny, upbeat, punk/emo-influenced indie rock from Burlington VT.

I was joined by Phil Smith – guitar / lead vocals and Mitch Bergeron – guitar / vocals. Also in the band are Eric Winebrenner – bass / vocals, and Scott Barrett – drums / vocals.

    Contact Details

    Interview Details

    Date: 2/18/2025
    Location: Burlington
    Length: 48:27
    Episode Number: 54
    Show Notes Link: vermonttalks.com/yabai
    Short Link: vermonttalks.com/54

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    Transcript

    Becca: What’s New 802? I’m Becca Hammond and you’re listening to Vermont Talks. Vermont Talks may include graphic or explicit content. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Vermont Talks. I’m here today with Phil and Mitch of YABAI and it is the 18th of February and we’re in Burlington and it is the 54th episode of Vermont Talks and YABAI.

    Exclamation point, very important, is a sunny upbeat punk emo influenced indie rock group from Burlington, Vermont. Here today we have Phil, like I just said, who plays guitar and does lead vocals and Mitch who also does guitar and vocals. Not with us today is Eric who does bass and vocals and Scott who does guitar, drums, sorry Scott, drums and vocals. Welcome Phil, welcome Mitch. How you guys doing? Hey, doing great. Happy to be here.

    Mitch: Can you please tell me what YABAI means and I don’t want to spell it out real quick. Y-A-B-A-I exclamation point. We got to get that down. What’s it mean?

    Phil: Yeah, so YABAI is a Japanese expression that means holy shit. So, you know, we figured that’d be just about the best band name we could come up with. The very, very beginning phase of this band I think before we even had a practice before Mitch was even part of it because Mitch joined like after two weeks of jam sessions I think. Anyway, we were trying to figure out what the band name was going to be and I had just come back from living in Japan for a couple of years and I was teaching high school English and so I heard a lot of YABAI. And I was like, yeah, okay. And so when I ended up texting the guys I was like, I know what the band name is. I figured it out.

    It’s YABAI because they both heard me talk. Had nausea in the boat. My time in Japan. And they were like, okay, yep, got it. That’s the band name. And I don’t know, it just felt perfect.

    Having to explain it, the SEL of it, not the best, but you know what? It’s YABAI. So, you know, we just love the all caps exclamation point band name. YABAI.

    Becca: When you scream it like that, it fits so well. When I first read it and I hadn’t heard you scream it like that, I was like, how do I say this? But now it fits so well.

    I feel like you need the sound bite of the band name. I really appreciate it. So let’s talk a little bit about both of you. So, Phil, I know you’re from Massachusetts, right?

    Yes, that’s right. And tell me about your musical journey through the years. Where did you start? Why did you start? Anything you want to share? Because I know everyone asks about influences and stuff, but whatever you want to talk about, tell me about your life with music. Sure.

    Phil: Well, I started playing bass in the eighth grade because I wanted to be in a rock band. I decided that would be a cool thing to do. I was a tween going through phases and the phase was be in a rock band. And then the next year, I was able to actually make that happen with a couple new friends at a new high school and then started singing and playing bass in a couple bands in high school. And then about halfway through high school, I kind of dropped the bass, got more interested in guitar, and then started playing guitar and bands and then went to college, kind of transitioned away from the pop rock indie rock kind of thing that I’ve been doing in high school and kind of leaned more into the acoustic side of things.

    Did a lot of solo singer-songwriter things, spent a little bit of time in a punk band. But was mostly just doing my own thing. And then I kind of got away from music. It stopped being a passion of mine for several years. Around like 2017 or so, my interest just started to shift. I got more into snowboarding and hiking and cycling and music just kind of fell by the wayside. But then randomly got back into it just in time to basically form Yabai. And it was my first time really playing music in I would say about six years. So yeah. Solid, very solid.

    Becca: Mitch, how about you? Where are you from? And what’s your musical journey been like?

    Mitch: Yeah, so I’m from Burlington, Vermont. So from here. But I would say mine is kind of a less exciting version of Phil’s story, not entirely, but I was in a few bands and had always been very into rock music from a very young age.

    And yeah, I don’t know. Phil and I are both left-handed, which I think is like a fun little tidbit. And so I’d always grew up idolizing certain guitarists and always had a thing for left-handed guitarists because it’s like, yeah, that’s like me. And me at 10 was like, all right, well, like I can’t get a Stratocaster because that’s like the Jimi Hendrix guitar. And everyone’s gonna be like, oh, your left hand is Stratocaster. And then so I got a Les Paul, which I like playing. But like, you know, they’re all great for different reasons. But but you know, that that was sort of the energy I think I had as a kid.

    Like, all right, yep, this is a start to something. But then I didn’t through most of high school and honestly, even like most of college, I was making music. But like, I don’t know, it never felt like I’d had anything sort of polished or anything sort of had come about of it. For a couple years, I did like some what’s it like soundscape kind of stuff, just playing like ambient guitar. And that’s pretty cool. Like some local art houses and stuff like that. But yeah, other than that, I don’t know, not a ton. But your bias been great.

    Phil: You know, I think it should be said that Mitch and I met through a professor of ours, we were both in the same Champlain class and that professor was a poetry professor, I studied writing, Mitch, so you creative media, is that right? Yep. Yeah.

    Becca: What was the professor’s name?

    Phil: Jim Ellison. I think I’ve met, I used to be a young writer’s con. Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, well, Jim’s a cool guy. And he saw something in both me and Mitch. And he’s like, you guys got to meet. So, you know, we met and we got to jamming. And I think that was the first time I heard Mitch play guitar. And he’s, I mean, I’m sure he’s heard it a long time ago.

    Mitch: Yeah. He’s a great, great guitarist.

    Phil: And yeah, I took it to you with the fact that you said that your story was less exciting. I don’t know if that’s true.

    Mitch: I don’t in terms of bands playing at actual venues type of thing. But not necessarily, yeah.

    Becca: Playing it out is a whole other ball game. It’s really not.

    Mitch: I’ve just struggled even just getting gigs. I was a solo musician. So, I don’t know. It’s a lot of hustling. Yeah. I’m bad at networking. Like, I’m not.

    Becca: Same way. And I like playing music by myself. That’s what I do too. It’s just kind of jam, whatever. It doesn’t need to be anything official. And then I don’t, I finish playing whatever I’m playing and I’m just like, whatever falls off into the ether. So, I can appreciate the non.

    Phil: I’ve been there before. You don’t have to have anything official. You don’t have to make an album.

    Becca: But it’s funny because I know a lot of musicians in the same exact boat. Like, there’s some really wonderful musicians who have 26 albums by the time they’re 30. And then there’s some who are like, I just jam. And then they play and you’re like, oh, you’re a guy.

    Phil: Okay. Yeah, absolutely. There’s so much talent just hiding in random bedrooms. Yes.

    Becca: Yeah, especially around Burlington area. Oh, yeah. So, how long has it been since you by officially formed? First question.

    Phil: I think we would have to say that you by formed in its current spot when Mitch started jamming with us, which I think was late October of 2023. Is that right?

    Mitch: Maybe early November? That’s right. Either late October or early November. I think it may have been early November, but around that time.

    Phil: Sure. Sure. Well, either way, you could say it’s like you buy as a year and change.

    Becca: Yeah. Cool. Because you’ve played a handful of shows out. Yeah. Any particular that you were like, this was the best one so far. Any that you’re like, oh, cringe.

    Phil: Oh, man, we could definitely talk about both of those. I think our best show was probably Mitch’s birthday show.

    Mitch: Yeah, I would agree. I think that one was pretty chill. Yeah. Just because there were so many people there that I just was like, oh, I know that person because I was like, it’s my birthday. Come see us play.

    Phil: The incredible leverage of going to somebody’s show and his third birthday is crazy. But also, I think we just played really, really well. We usually end our sets with a song called Plum Island. We do a little vamp towards the end of the song where I introduce the band members and then at that show, you know, it was like the end of our last song in our set.

    And I think we were the last band playing too. And as I introduced Mitch, I said, you know, oh, by the way, it’s his birthday. Let’s stop and sing him a happy birthday. And then everybody in the audience sang Mitch happy birthday while we all stopped playing for a second. And then once we’d done that, we just hopped right back into the vamp. And that might be my single favorite moments of playing live music as you buy. I thought that was really funny.

    Mitch: Yeah, that was good. I enjoyed that as well.

    Becca: What venue was that one at? Despacito. Ah, classic. The great. Yeah, gotta shout out to Despacito. Every band in town seems to have played there.

    Mitch: I think yeah. We’ve played a couple other venues, but most of our shows so far have been there.

    Phil: Yeah, that place is great. We love love love love love Despacito. They very odd stage area. You’re kind of like funneled into this triangle and you have to pick one of the

    Becca: corners to play in the angle you want. Yeah. But the sound punches above its weight and people show up and they are just happy to book anybody. And I just really appreciate that because a lot of other venues in town, you know, it’s just harder to book there. So Despacito is like, Yep, we’ll have you. We sound good.

    Phil: Come play. So I just really, really appreciate that about Despacito.

    Mitch: Yeah. They have these like big windows too, which like I like when they’re open and bands are playing because you can like in the summer at least you can be outside and just be like, ah, I’m outside not like 10 degrees warmer in there with everyone and I can still hear the band. I don’t know. Sorry about that. It’s nice.

    Phil: It’s enticing to you walk by and it’s like, what’s happening in there?

    Becca: Yes, everyone looks every time. Oh yeah.

    Phil: Yeah. Check out who’s in there. I love Despacito sidewalk lookers. Showed out to Despacito sidewalk lookers.

    Becca: So tell me about the cringy shows. Was there anything? What went wrong? What? Why was it cringy? Okay.

    Phil: Also at Despacito, we had a show and I think it was primed to go pretty well, but it went very poorly because when we were going there, I butt dialed my tuner’s frequency away from 440 hertz and so my guitar was like 1.1 something steps or half steps away from what it should be and then we all could not figure out for the life of us what was going on. You know, we were tuning, tuning, tuning. Nothing was sounding right.

    It sounded atrocious. So we, I kind of regret this now, but we just, we barreled forward. We just like charged head on into our set, not understanding what was going on and we just did it. We did not sound good and I feel like a lot of lessons were learned there. Don’t play if you’re not sounding good, take a moment to figure out what’s going on. It’s okay. The audience will forgive you to get a damn tuning pedal. So I’ve got a damn tuning pedal and Eric got one too and Mitch already had one.

    Mitch: I already had one. I should have, I feel bad in retrospect of that because in the moment I kept like when you were struggling with tuning and I think Eric was also struggling with tuning.

    Phil: I think that’s why you got that pedal sound. No, he was tuning against me and that was why you were struggling. Oh, I see. Okay. But like when we found out what was going on with it, I was like, oh, I feel like I should have known because I knew what, I knew what thing you were using to tune and I was like, why is it? Yeah, it’s all good though and in hindsight it’s 2020.

    Becca: It’s fine now. Should the app let you do that?

    Phil: That’s a good question. And I will say I don’t like that tuner anymore because the way that we discovered this, that it had gone to like 428 Hertz or something like that was I, that next weekend I was tracking three different songs for our album. I spent an entire day in like a, like, I don’t know, eight, 10 hour session just making sure I absolutely flawless takes like four takes for each of these songs. And then I sent them off to the band and then Eric said, or he sent to the group chat, Phil, is it just me or are all of your takes out of tune?

    Like on every single song. And this was like a week after this show disaster and I was like connecting the dots in my head. I felt like that meme of the woman doing math, you know? Yeah. That meme where she’s thinking about equations and theorems in her head.

    Mitch: Anyway, I felt like her. And then I was like, I’m taking another look at this tuner. And then when I saw that it was not set to 440 Hertz, like the aha moment was legendary and all that work undone and that, you know, I don’t know, it’s a bummer, but again, lesson learned, you know, like I will never, ever, ever make that mistake again. I feel like we’ve also just had a lot of like, not the tangent from the rest of that Despacito story. I don’t know if you had more, but I feel like there’s a lot of just things we learned over there because we’re pretty much done absolutely making our album now. And like, there were so many things that like, we just like, I was like, oh, I have to just redo that.

    I did that wrong. Or like, you know, things like that where it’s like, oh, this didn’t work at all. So we just spent hours working on a part that just didn’t end up in the song at all.

    Becca: Like, yeah, that’s art. It’s like, oh, hey, it was in the other, it might fall over. It’s okay.

    Phil: It was the first experience that any of us had had recording an album before and we did it.

    Mitch: Especially that way. Because I’ve recorded some stuff in the past, but not with any sort of professional level, but like with like, somewhere, actually some of the equipment we used, but like, anyway, that aside, yeah, the way we did it was pretty, do you want to explain to me? Sure.

    Phil: Yeah, so we hired a producer, Michael Barrett, who’s based out of Germany. He is Scott’s older brother. Cool. And also just, you know, he’s a phenomenal producer. He’s produced quite a bit of music. So he had us record our takes here in this house, for the most part. I think Eric recorded his takes elsewhere. But anyway, so we got a kind of a sphere that you fit over a recording mic and then that kind of creates a soundproof room.

    So we’re able to record right in the basement or right here in the living room and have it sound pretty good, which is nice. And then Michael’s job is to mix that. No, he did some production on this first, right? Yeah, he would, he would work on the tones. He would usually have like zooms with each one of us about what we want for the song, and then mix it. And then once we all signed up on that, go into mastering from there.

    And each song was quite a process, not just the recording, but the like, you know, figuring out what we want out of it. I’m really, really proud of the result. We’re not 100% done, but we are 95% done.

    Mitch: Yeah, we’re pretty close. Yeah. But

    Becca: yeah. Did you play, so you each separately recorded your tracks? Or did you play? That’s right.

    Mitch: Okay. Yeah. And we also, for at least the like stringed instruments, we did like a direct in kind of thing. So we didn’t use amplifier, we didn’t record, or we didn’t use microphones to record guitar sounds, which for me specifically was very like, I’d never done, like it’s not unheard of, but for us to do it on like all the stuff was very like, oh, okay.

    Becca: Right. Like I was not just skeptical, but like hesitant, but like, I don’t know, it’s, but it was a lot after the first couple, it was a lot more like, okay, now this is like fun, because I get to talk with Mikey about like plugins and we mess around and stuff with, you know, different sounds. Yeah, it gives you a lot of flexibility and yeah, yeah.

    Mitch: Things. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a fascinating field. I keep on learning more and more.

    Phil: Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure. You know, I’m talking about that thing we have over the microphone and I’m like, well, what about, you know, these headsets?

    Mitch: This is, this is pretty remarkable. And yeah, you know, with every song that we recorded on that album, um, I feel like we got better at not only the recording, but like our understanding of how the process works, because we really need nothing when we made our first single simplify.

    Like looking back on that, oh my God, was there so much extra work that not only we did that we didn’t need to do, but that we kind of hoisted on Michael, um, having just not known what the process was like. So he’s been really, really patient and flexible with us as we’ve learned how you should work with a producer. Um, so that’s, I really appreciate that.

    Becca: There’s a lot to it. That’s, I think a lot of people when you come into something like that for the first time, you have a lot of assumptions and you just got to kind of chill out, respect the process now that it’s not going to be perfect every time and and let it be. Yeah. And with, you know, the third or fourth song you record, suddenly it’s more fun.

    Phil: Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. Definitely.

    Becca: So the single, tell me about the single. When did that one come out and who helped record that one? Was that also Scott’s brother?

    Phil: Yeah. I already forgot his name. Michael. Michael. Are you talking about simplify? Yes. Yeah. Um, that was the first time we recorded and we had that one finished before we even started a second one, I think. Yeah.

    Mitch: That also took, I think by far the longest. Definitely. Maybe there’s one other song that maybe Stangen took around the same amount of time, but Stangen had a lot more elements, whereas like, I think it was just, we didn’t know what we were doing on our end for simplify. So that definitely, I feel like, added to it.

    Phil: That was the main reason. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah. Yeah. No, after we got it, the single though, we were all so amazed by it that, um, we decided to work with Michael on an entire album and it came out great.

    Becca: I’ve got to say, I really enjoy simplify. It’s very, it sounds good. Like it sounds professionally done.

    Phil: Yeah. It is. Yeah. Michael knows what he’s doing.

    Becca: Yeah, definitely. I included, I don’t know if you guys realized by had you played on big heavy world stream because I went and got interviewed by Abby and I was like, who should I play on my show? Well, I’m gonna have you buy off.

    Phil: Oh my gosh. I did not know that. So we played simplify. That’s on her. So Abby does, uh, this is an aside, but Abby does a, the abstract podcast and she does, uh, playlists for every single interview basically. And even if you don’t play music, she’s like, what songs do you want me to play? Cool. Well, thanks for the show.

    Becca: That’s amazing. I appreciate that. I just wanted to let you know, because that was simplify and I was, I was stoked about it. Not that I hadn’t listened to it before.

    Phil: Still, that’s really thoughtful of you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. You guys should get in touch with them on the radiator.

    Mitch: Yeah, we haven’t, but we have been meaning to. Yeah. So we have to figure that out, but definitely.

    Becca: Yeah. Eventually at some point, random

    Phil: aside, I like big heavy world a lot. Awesome. Yeah. Good people there.

    Becca: Uh, any who the album, now I need details. Tell me what it’s, what you can tell me because I don’t want you to spoil anything, but I want to know about how long, like how many songs are going to be out on this one.

    Phil: Uh, this is a 10 song album. Um, we’ve played all of the songs that are on the album live before.

    Mitch: At least once. At least once. Yeah. I think two of them on the album, that would be Will I See You and Let’s Just Dance Together. Um, we’ve only played those each once, so we’re hoping to play both of those a little bit more, um, before the album releases, which right now we’re looking at kind of a mid-spring release date, like late April, early May. So when we have a show, it’s like walkable and not, you know.

    Becca: Yes. Yes. And you should definitely have an album release get together.

    Phil: Absolutely. Yeah. Cause why not? Um, yeah. So it’s a 10 song album.

    Becca: Um, so it’s not an EP. It’s a real album.

    Phil: No, it’s a full length album. I put all the songs back to and I think I figured out that it’s like 38, 39 minutes, something like that.

    Mitch: Solid. Yeah. Like average. Yeah.

    Becca: Cool. Is there any sort of theme to it? All your music kind of flowed well together, but is there any, obviously you’re still getting started and you’re kind of putting everything together, but is there any specific message or something? Sure.

    Phil: Yeah. I mean, I would say that not in every single song is there a message. Like, you know, the first track on the album, Sundog is pretty much just about having a fun time snowboarding. So that is not about, you know, I don’t sing about snowboarding in any other songs. But, you know, I would say there’s a unifying theme. I also, I didn’t write every song on the album. There’s one song Eric wrote and then one song Mitch wrote. So I think that actually those two songs do kind of tie into the theme of the album, which not to, you know, belabor the point in your favor.

    Mitch: I think they do. Yeah.

    Phil: I think they both thematically fit with the… Absolutely. Anyway, I would say it’s kind of about just like losing touch and time moving on and relationships changing. And, you know, kind of the melancholy of that, but also kind of the acceptance of it, I suppose. There’s themes of that on more than half the songs, I would say. Just like the inexorable march of time and so on and so forth, I think particularly in regards to just how human relationships change.

    Becca: That they do. That they certainly do. I think everyone I’ve met had these weird moments. Either they’re mid or late 20s where they’re like, oh, this is life.

    Phil: Yeah, you know, 100% Stevie Nicks wrote Lancelot when she was 27 and, you know, children get older, I’m getting older too. And, you know, in interviews, she said, you can feel really old at 27. And I first heard that when I was 26. So that really stuck with me.

    Becca: No, it’s true. That’s the thing is like the amount of people I know who have kids that are like, Like going to high school soon and I am like, whoa, I am not an adult compared to you. Oh yeah.

    Mitch: No, I feel that daily. Right, we graduated high school together.

    Phil: I mean, I teach third and fourth grade and all of the parents teach at conferences with parents who are my age and it just floors me every time. I’m like, oh, we live different lives.

    Becca: Yes, exactly. Like, whoa, we took the same amount of time to do there.

    Phil: Wonderful. Okay, so I love to hear that you guys are intermixing on the songwriting. What’s the process like? Do you kind of, it sounds like you jam together on a weekly, if not bi-weekly basis. Yeah. Are you coming up with stuff as you’re practicing?

    How does it work? I always have asking of these questions because some people are like, I show up with the lyrics and then we go from there or they’re like, no, I, he started jamming and I started humming and things just came together. We don’t jam, I would say really at all, except you and Eric sometimes get into a groove when we’re wrapping things up and then Scott jumps in occasionally. That’s true. But those almost never, those jams aren’t real.

    Mitch: They’re just fun. They’re filler. Yeah, they’re like, we all have our instruments and we’re waiting for something to happen. Like you’re either tuning or something. Yeah. You’re doing something. Usually it sounds like wipe out by the Beach Boys.

    Mitch: That’s true. Yeah, it does. Yeah, I would say that whoever wrote the shell of the song, I don’t want to say that I wrote to simplify because I wrote it on guitar and I brought the guitar part to the band, but then

    Phil: everybody added so much to it that it is now, I don’t know, I listened to my original demo of it right after we got in the final version. I was like, whoa, the song’s really changed. And I think that happens to every song that I bring. And I think that’s happened for Mitch and Eric as well. Yeah.

    Mitch: Not to say for you. I also think Eric’s may have been the closest, well, things were added, but I don’t know.

    Phil: Yeah, that would be true. He had like, because he made a whole demo of the song he wrote before bringing it to the band. So it kind of does vary depending on song. True. But then we kind of all

    Mitch: embellished and did our own versions of the things he’d sort of done a demo of. Right. So.

    Becca: Yeah, kind of natural, not too fixed. See, I always think of, I don’t know if you guys know the band Between the Buried Me.

    Mitch: They actually compose. Yeah, they compose everything and then they learn it. So like people have such weird like methods of doing these things. So it’s always funny here because some that’s it. Some people are very rigid, but then they come off in like a punk rock way where you’re like, I can’t believe you’re like this strict on how you write this because it doesn’t come off. It comes off more like fun than you’d think.

    Phil: Yeah, we definitely have like when we, anybody brings a song to the band and then we decide to work on it. Usually we’ll like get the song introduced to the band and then we’ll jam on a part for a little bit and then we’ll move on to the next part and then go back to like, let’s play the whole song.

    Let’s hear this part in context and then often we’ll open it up to like, okay, what can we change here? We were working on a song that I wrote the shell of. The shell. The shell. The shell. The shell. The shell.

    The shell. This past Saturday and we engaged in or maybe it was actually a week ago. I don’t know. Anyway, Eric brought up that he was like, this part needs to develop in a different way. And I was like, hmm, interesting thought. And anytime anybody suggests something, we always, always try it.

    You know, we don’t shut down suggestions without giving it a shot first. Right. I think that’s a pretty hard and fast rule of Yabai. Someone has an idea, we try it. And then if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. And sometimes songs have changed pretty substantially as a result of that and sometimes they haven’t. Right.

    Becca: Well, that’s how you find something new, right? You got to try it. You can’t just. Yeah.

    Phil: I also think it’s kind of disrespectful to anybody who has an idea and then you just say, no, we’re not going to try that. No. Ideas are worth the time in practice. Right.

    Becca: Right. Because that’s what I’ll say every time the band that comes out that the rest of the world rips off for the next three years, they did something different, right? And it wasn’t.

    You can’t plan on something new because it hasn’t been done before. Yeah. It’s kind of the whole point of creativity. You’ve got to have that room to breathe and grow and. Yeah.

    Phil: Build the play statute. Build yourself into a new way. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Cool. So everybody writes, everyone sings.

    Becca: Very impressive. It’s cool that everyone sings. That’s really kind of unique. Most bands kind of have one person who just doesn’t get a microphone.

    Phil: Well, sometimes that’s Scott because most venues only have three mics.

    Becca: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s also a great singer. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I got to hear him. I guess at that basement show I went to must be, right? Yeah.

    Phil: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he had a mic and he was.

    Mitch: He was talking. Yeah. He was. What? You gotta give him a mic every time. Yeah. He definitely mentioned that he’s

    Phil: like, I don’t normally have one of these. The answer became hilarious because he suddenly could say things.

    Becca: Yeah. No, that was a fun show. That’s it. I got to see the tail end of you guys, but it wasn’t really you guys because Fisher was singing.

    Phil: Oh, that’s how I’m doing. Yeah. That one. And then the basement show. I’ve seen those too.

    Mitch: Okay. That’s funny.

    Phil: Show us the Fisher. Yeah. Yeah. I had laryngitis for like two months this past fall. And it totally got in the way of things. And Fisher, thankfully, was able to step in and sing a few of our songs. And then we also did songs that Eric was able to fill in and lead for one. Mitch was able to fill in and lead for another.

    And then one of our most iconic songs I barely even sing on, which is Must Be Free, which is a Mitch wrote that actually you got to explain Must Be Free. Come on.

    Mitch: Oh, sure. It is. Tell me. It’s like it’s entirely different, genre-wise, than all of our other songs. It’s a minute and 20 second hardcore song. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Which is consistent of me.

    I’m supposed to ramp up, but depending on where we play it, and I said I usually just scream most of it. But the entirety of it is just me saying if the item doesn’t scan, it must be free. So I say that three times and then there’s like a little like hardcore Must Be Free, like interlude thing. And then it’s just that one more time. And then that’s the whole song.

    Becca: It’s a great punk song. Very fun. Very fun to play. I remember it very consistently. Very easy to play. We don’t practice it. Yeah. Like we learned it and we don’t need to practice it. It’s raw. It’s raw. Yeah. No, it’s perfect. That was the greatest like self-checkout song ever. There’s something very legit about that because apparently that’s what everyone does. They uh.

    Mitch: Oh, it’s self-checkouts. I have heard of that. That’s not exactly what it’s about. It’s so funny because I work in retail as like my day job. So a lot of times people just like whenever something doesn’t ring up or doesn’t have a price or whatever, they’ll be like, oh, it must be free. So it’s kind of coming from that perspective. But then yeah, I’ve also heard that’s an interesting new one of like I haven’t really heard the self-checkout thing.

    Becca: But I have heard of people doing that. So like it’s definitely a thing. It’s a real thing. They said they’re losing like millions and millions of dollars.

    Mitch: Some of that seems very like. Because there’s all these different methods of doing it where you hold a cheap item under an expensive item. That’s so sophisticated. Oh yeah. They’re they’re very serious about this. They got all sorts of stuff they’re doing. The way the they weigh the cheap vegetable instead of paying for the expensive thing.

    Phil: I will say when I’m doing the self-checkout and I’m like, you know, picking out which which produce item

    Mitch: this is when I’m paying at the register, I’m always like What if I put white onion instead of yellow onion? There’s a people that do inventory. I never do it. I always put what it actually is every single time.

    Becca: Right. We try most of us try.

    Phil: Well, I don’t know if it’s a value thing. I think it’s just what I do.

    Mitch: Well produce specifically. I don’t I mean I haven’t thought about this but there’s I don’t know. It’s very it’s all pretty low. I feel like in my in my brain, I’m usually thinking of like like, is that like target and stuff like that or like, you know, those kinds of stores? Because I’ve heard of a lot of people doing that kind of thing where like, but like as far as groceries that is funny and just like the I don’t know exactly what my point was there. But like, I don’t know.

    Becca: People are very. Yeah. You are real weird with that. Yeah. I think if I was like, I’ll scan something and it won’t scan and I’ll call them over and I’ve had the worker take it look at me and throw it in my bag. Yeah. Okay. All right. As long as you did it.

    Phil: You know, you go to the price chopper just up the road from here. The mall’s day one.

    Becca: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right where I live. Yeah. Yeah. So you probably know that if you go in there without the store card, they ask you, do you have a store card? And then you say, no. And then every single time you’re like, okay, I’ll scan the store one. Never once have I asked every single time I have ever gone to that grocery store and it’s on my way home. So I go there fairly often. They scan the store one for me and I’m always like, thanks. I wonder what the deal is with that. Someone in the store gets the points.

    Phil: That’s why they love to win. Right. One of them gets free groceries for like a bit. I get a discount. Right. Exactly. Like all the way. I love that store. It’s so tiny. It is tiny.

    So okay. Here’s a random other grocery shopping thing. I have a feeling because you pick the right produce. Do you always put your cart in the cart kiosk? Oh yeah.

    Mitch: Of course. I feel like those are different levels of category. Like one, it’s like, oh, hi.

    Phil: You steal a couple blocks from a store. A mega mart. Whatever. But you get in some, an actual human being’s way and make somebody have to go out in the rain to get your cart.

    Mitch: Or, oh yeah.

    Becca: That’s an entirely different, that’s amazing. This is a very baseline. This is a personality test baseline. Are you a good person? Is do you put the cart back? And if they say no, then you give them a skeptical look. Oh yeah.

    Phil: You got to glare so intensely that it can be heard in the podcast.

    Becca: Yes, exactly. Like why? Why can’t you put your cart away? I never got that.

    Phil: It’s just take a dang second.

    Mitch: There’s a good, like, it’s probably as a vine, but there’s a good little clip that’s like somebody like, oh, you don’t want that cart? And like after someone just left it, someone’s like, oh yeah, like I’ll put it away. And then they just put it behind the person’s car.

    Becca: Oh my god. That’s so funny.

    Phil: Oh my god. The other day I was like, I was at Hanifers and I was getting something from one of the fridge aisles and I had not noticed, but two fridge doors over for me. It was wide open and some other guy said, oh, do you need me to close that for you?

    And he was just another civilian, non-employed. And I did not know what he was talking about because I didn’t realize what was going on. So I said, huh? In that exact voice. And he said, and then he closed it. He’s like, oh, sorry, never mind. Yeah. Oh, sorry. And then he walked away and I was like, huh?

    Becca: He assumed you off to open.

    Phil: Yeah. I think he assumed I left it open. Yeah. I don’t know. Oh, it was, it was baffling for a moment. Why did he apologize to me twice? I’ll never know.

    Becca: Probably because he realized he was being a bit of a dick. Maybe. When you’re like, huh? He’s like, oh, wait, maybe you didn’t just intentionally look at this.

    Mitch: Oh. Yeah.

    Phil: But like, I don’t know. Did he go into that interaction trying to be passive-aggressive? I don’t know. I don’t know.

    Becca: I have no idea. If he said something to you, like, I’ll close the door for you.

    Phil: Look, look, look, look, the darkest version of me thinks, what a passive-aggressive dump piece of shit. Maybe he wanted to actually do me a favor. Who knows?

    Becca: I don’t know who he is. I mean, he was doing a good thing.

    Mitch: He wants me. He just, you know, he was probably having a bad day.

    Phil: Or maybe he was having a good day and wanted to do me a favor. Whoa. Could be.

    Mitch: Either way, I went, huh? Oh, it’s freaking. Yeah. All right.

    Phil: I remember just an odd interaction.

    Becca: Freezer Isle equivalent of putting the cart away.

    Phil: Yes. Thank you. That’s true. That’s why I told that story. I could not have remembered that.

    Becca: No worries. Hey, grocery store etiquette is very important people. Oh, yeah.

    Phil: Anytime you’re in a place.

    Mitch: And that’s, that’s like half the songs in the album are about.

    Phil: So it goes right back in. Yeah. It’s pretty much the grocery store. That’s the weirdo title.

    Becca: Working title. Yeah. Oh man. Okay. So late April is when you’re shooting for on that one. What are we at for time? We are at 38 minutes. Is there anything specific that you want to share about the band? Any stories you want to share? Anything important that I haven’t asked about that we haven’t covered yet? So we should definitely cover it if there’s anything you want to bring up.

    Phil: Oh, we got a couple of upcoming shows. March 6th at Despacito. We are playing with Dogwater and we’re really, really excited to play with them because, you know, we’ve been friends with them for pretty much since we started gigging around in June, but we’ve never played a show with them. So we’re really excited. We were both asked by the same touring group to support them.

    Cool. And actually, you know, Dogwater DMed you by and was like, we are so excited to finally play with you and, you know, it’s very much reciprocated. So definitely come to that show.

    It’s the Dogwater Yabai. Show? Yeah. Show is a great word for what I was going to. Yeah. I like that show. Let’s go. I was going for some sort of highfalutin kind of thing that let’s go with show.

    Mitch: Justfalutin enough sometimes. The Dogwater you buy,falut. That’s F-A-L-U-T-E.

    Becca: I don’t think I’ve heard Dogwater. Are they also kind of potpunky? What do they follow?

    Phil: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if I would describe them as potpunk. They’re alt rock and they’re, you know, within the greater Burlington punk-ish scene. I mean, I’m not even sure if I would describe us as punk necessarily, but we certainly are friends with Valerie Falls.

    Becca: It’s a really hard thing to find in genres. Yeah. Last guy I talked to had Cajun soaked rock. That sounds delicious. It is actually. It’s like mind-bogglingly good and it’s not like country at all. But he’s like Danish and Florida roots and then you live near Boston and like the weirdest group of accents that come off as straight American.

    Phil: It’s really weird. It’s very, very intriguing. Right. Oh yeah, definitely. Eddie, random aside, but it’s really hard to pin down genres and some bands are very rigid about what you say. And I just want to give the breathing room to whatever people want to define themselves. That’s why I just say that we’re indie rock because this is a wide umbrella. And I certainly don’t think we’re reinventing the wheel with our music, but I’m proud of what we do. And I don’t think there’s other bands that sound exactly like us. So, you know, I don’t think it’s the most unique thing in the world, but I definitely really like the music we make.

    Mitch: I think we have our own sort of thing going on within that though. Like, you know, you could put us on like a playlist with other like generically large indie rock as the genre and it would be like Ed’s sign that fits in with that. But like, yeah, I do think we also. There was, I can’t remember who it said, but someone said this to you, Phil, I believe. I said that, like, described us as like Weezer if Weezer was an indie rock band.

    Becca: Yeah. I thought that was funny. That’s really interesting. No, I can actually feel it.

    Phil: Yeah, the most appreciate on this I have ever heard about. Yeah, yeah.

    Mitch: Yeah. Yeah, no, that was Tristan Gillis. Oh, okay. That’s cool.

    Becca: Solid. Solid. Shout out to Tristan. Oh, man. Yeah, no, it’s really, it’s hard to pin that kind of thing down. And honestly, it just kind of feels like a bucket that you get put in, which honestly is not always the best thing to be pigeonholed.

    Phil: Yeah, you know, when we upload our music to streaming, it’s like, pick three genres. And it’s like, okay, we’re not classical. We’re definitely not Christian folk. We’re for sure not Aboriginal music.

    Mitch: So not any of those three. All right. Is it like a drop down menu?

    Phil: All right. Oh, okay. I think Aboriginal came to me because it’s A and then B.

    Becca: So I see it a lot. But there’s got to be like thousands of genres.

    Phil: Yeah. Yeah, but then, yeah, it’s been a mood for each song. And there’s like 25 moods.

    Becca: And some of them. Is this Spotify specific? I forget if it’s Spotify or just like the… Because I don’t think Bandcamp would have that.

    Phil: No, it’s not that. But I can see Spotify for their play it was. This is CD Baby, which then, you know, you pay like 10 bucks a song and then they distribute it out on Spotify and YouTube and Apple Music.

    Becca: And just the whole host of whatever. Yeah. CD Baby’s interesting. The guy that made that company is an interesting read.

    Phil: Oh, that’s enticing.

    Becca: I mean, it has some homework to do. Random dork things. If you’re a nerdy kind of person, it’s interesting.

    Phil: Look at me. If you like tech stuff, but you know, all of the bands, that’s I talk to so many musicians from like, yeah, no, that’s… If you’re on those D-Stro services, that’s really cool. That’s a good…

    Becca: I think they cost a little bit. Yeah. It’s so much less effort than having to do it on Spotify. Having to do it on Bandcamp, having to do it on YouTube, having to do it on Instagram. And like, it kind of spreads it around. And also to the weird ones that we don’t all know.

    Phil: That you would never, yeah. Yeah. And you know, I was looking at Spotify data and actually like a solid third of our listeners comes from like song radios for random people and like discover weeklies and stuff like that. And I don’t know.

    I just look, Spotify is a monstrous, evil thing, but I still like it when the numbers go up. And you know what? I’ll admit it. But I don’t know. I don’t expect us to ever make money off this. And we’re not really trying to. We all have day jobs that we’re not interested in quitting. And it’s just cool to know that there’s people listening to our music all over the world.

    Becca: Right. Right. Well, that’s the thing. Like Spotify sucks, right? We can all agree. We know. Spotify sucks. But there’s a reason that people, you know, everyone gravitates to these social media platforms and things. That’s where the listeners are. That’s where the people are. I know so many people whose only intention of making a Facebook account was because their friends were on Facebook.

    And like then all of a sudden they can see all of your music that you share on Facebook. So these weird buckets of humanity. Okay, fine. People are on Spotify. But grudgingly fine. 100%. But yes, no, it’s good when the numbers go up.

    Phil: Like obviously that’s a good thing. Anytime any number I’m associated with goes up. I’m like, yay, a little bit of dopamine. Thank you. Exactly.

    Becca: Exactly. I could go on a whole rant about that. There’s these really interesting studies they’re doing on dopamine and cell phones and social media. Uh-huh. Oh my God. It was really, really interesting.

    Phil: Oh man, you and I could have a whole other episode about that because I also have opinions. Whoa.

    Mitch: I don’t. Never thought of thought.

    Becca: But people should go and listen to you on all of the random streaming platforms. So then the numbers go up and you guys can go, yay.

    Mitch: Do you want to give us a little bit of dopamine? Yeah. Go listen to our music.

    Phil: Yeah, we have a new single out as of a week or two ago, staying in. So give that a listen and keep an eye out for the album out of touch, which should be releasing later this spring. Nice.

    Becca: And you refer to your band as Yabai Band. I wanted to call that out because there’s a couple like other things that use the same name, but most of them are not English speaking. Yabai Band. For Bandcamp, Yabai Band for Instagram, and Yabai Band for Facebook. Yes. So the big three.

    Phil: Yeah. All the Facebook straight up dead.

    Becca: I really hope so.

    Phil: No, no, no. I mean, like the Yabai page is dead.

    Becca: I don’t pay attention to it. Look on Instagram. I don’t blame you. Managing Facebook pages is the worst. Yeah. I just want to say.

    Mitch: It’s very like, yeah, at this point too, I feel like a lot of people have just generally gravitated to not using it as much. Right. At least that I know. I don’t know. I’m sure obviously millions still use it.

    Becca: The hard thing is the events. Yeah.

    Mitch: I do miss that. Events are the one thing that Facebook excels at. And if I don’t go on Facebook, I miss the events. Yeah. I’m like, oh, I need to find a way to separate the band shows from the social media so I can still go without having to Facebook.

    Phil: It’s a necessary evil for now.

    Mitch: I do miss the dope I mean I’d get from hitting a like maybe on an event that I just know I’m not going to go to. There’s something about that. I was like, yeah, maybe it’ll change. I don’t know. And then day off, I’m like, ah, there’s just no way. But there’s no obligation.

    Phil: I said maybe.

    Becca: Totally. And there are always like 500 people said maybe four people.

    Mitch: This is arguing. Okay. All right. So I want to say thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

    Phil: Thank you for having us, Becca. Thank you. You bye the band. You bye.

    Becca: Shout out to Eric. Shout out to Scott. Sorry, you guys couldn’t be here today. I hope you feel better soon. I’m going to rattle off some links real quick. Lay April. Why is the album called again? Out of touch. Out of touch and your latest single. Staying in. Staying in. Okay. And facebook.com forward slash you buy band. You buy on Spotify. I didn’t get the link right, but you buy exclamation point.

    Phil: Yep. The estimation point is key. There’s a lot of random other like, I think there’s a couple of rappers and at least one other band called you by we’re the one with an exclamation point. So when you search us, search with the exclamation point. We did it for SEL, but now I just love it on an emotional level.

    Mitch: So I just have always liked that. I was a big fan and from the get go of the exclamation point once we all capped.

    Phil: All caps exclamation point. That’s the band name. Right.

    Becca: That’s how you have to say it too. Yeah. Bye. Exactly. Cool.

    Mitch: Instagram is your buy band. I mentioned that. And the band camp is your buy band. Yes. And the show notes for this episode, which will have all of these links on them as well as transcript of today’s episode and random other things. I usually embed the a couple songs from the bands, things like that. Check it out at VermontTalks.com forward slash 54 for this episode. I think we’re good.

    Becca: Thank you both for coming on the show and thank everybody for listening. Have a good day, y’all. Bye.