with his demise.
See a castle in the sky.
You've taken bad advice
on the rest of your life.
You've taken bad advice on
the rest of your life.
Yeah, yeah.
Man, I love it.
It's a little, I get a little doors.
I get a little birds.
You know, little henjaws with the backward guitars.
It's got a whole garage psych.
Yeah, that was going on.
Really, really cool.
Our guest today, Will Hoffman,
lead vocals of The Night Times.
That's The Night Times.
And Ryan is in that band, Ryan Havers.
That is me.
That is the name of me.
And this is Dom Dorman.
That is the name of me.
And we are The Sunlight Moonlight Podcast.
Thanks for joining.
This is where we talk to people about being creative,
working people who are being creative
and what working people do to be creative
and what creative people do for work.
I have to apologize.
You know, I think I'm going to be in the back of the room
and I'm going to be back in a little while.
And I'll be back.
I will be back.
We will be back in a little while.
And I will be back in a little while.
And as soon as I get into the weather,
I am recovering from some kind of disgusting thing
that a three-year-old has brought home from daycare.
Put me out of commission for the last couple of days.
But I'm slowly getting my voice back.
Ryan may have to do a little more talking than me today.
Apologies in advance.
Perfect.
sound really confident and prepared.
Very prepared.
The Night Times is one of the projects of Ryan and our guest today, Will Hoffman.
Will Hoffman is a creative director and a vocalist.
And we've got some fantastic music to share with everyone today on the Sunlight Moonlight
podcast.
When did that record come out, Ryan?
Oh my God, when did it come out?
That, so that was an EP.
We had two songs.
That's Wake Up Dead.
And that came out.
It's, you know, it's funny.
We've been together for over 10 years, but it seems like we just kind of started.
It's crazy.
I feel like, I remember coming out, it feels recent, but maybe it was longer than anything.
I mean, at least like, Will will have to confirm.
But I think at least five years ago, it's been a while.
But again, I don't know with COVID and everything, it's like time just like there was this lapse in time where everything kind of stopped.
And it's just, it's weird.
Yeah, I was surprised to realize that we've been together for 10 years at this point.
It's crazy.
You know, sometimes some of my older tunes will pop up in like a shuffle or a mix or something.
And a look at the date of it, then I can't believe, you know, time really does fly.
Yeah, I had a trio back in the day called Dom Dorman and the Icemen.
And that record came out, I believe it was like the cusp of 99 into 2000.
And to think that that's 20 over 24 years ago.
That is crazy.
Oh my God.
Is really crazy.
Yeah.
And well, I'm excited to talk to will getting into it.
Will is also a multi instrumentalist, a man of many talents.
And this is what we try and do her on the program is to bring on folks who are following different paths throughout their creative and professional experiences.
People who wear a couple of different hats and to talk to them about the effect that doing multiple things like that and sort of having multiple projects going.
The effect that has on you yourself, your family, your mental health.
Things like that.
Things that Ryan and I recently have been going through as sort of two semi freshly unemployed.
Long, long tenured media folks.
In starting this podcast, we're we're trying to talk about the things that we know the things that we're going through.
So, Ryan, how you know, knowing that you, you have a show coming up, don't you.
I have a couple of things going. Yeah, I have I have a show coming up with my other group, Ears with Eyes on April 27th at Beacon Music Factory.
And it's going to be an intimate. It's a smaller room. It's going to be an intimate show.
And actually, it's called the BMF Music Hall.
This is this is it's a music school, but they also do live performances there.
That sounds great.
Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it.
And I just put out a song called the Cadillac of Conference Calls last.
Two Fridays ago. I don't know. I am terrible with time.
I don't know when maybe we can close with that today.
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
That would be great.
But yeah, I time is just, you know, I don't know like the band started 10 years ago.
I don't know when Wake Up Dead came out.
I don't know when my last song came out.
Time is not real. It's a human construct designed to sell calendars.
It really is completely meaningless.
And it's not worth tracking.
Who are you?
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
I regret to say, I think I have family in town that night, the 27th.
So I don't know if I'm going to be able to go, but maybe I can drag my brother-in-law along to come see.
If he wants to see, you know, a dad bod Iggy Pop.
I mean, who doesn't want to see that?
Well, let me put it to him that way and we'll see what he says.
Because that's the elevator pitch I think.
That's the hook.
Yeah.
So let me ask.
So I've seen Ryan perform several times with several different acts.
We also performed the same shows.
We've played similar shows together on the same bill at clubs throughout New York City.
We were just talking about the Pussycat Lounge, which we get well on.
We got to, we have to reminisce a little bit, I think, for this show.
That was a great show.
We had a catwalk.
And so Ryan took full advantage of the catwalk.
Also played the entire show shirtless.
Which was, it's a bold move.
You are quite your suit.
Yeah.
And it's a lot.
It's a lot to sort of handle.
It's a very Nigel Tufnel.
There's a, you were basically channeling Nigel Tufnel the entire night.
The entire time.
I think we were, we played the show in matching, my band was Dr. Ghost at the time.
We played the show in matching white sweatsuit uniforms from Japan.
I remember that.
And they were very warm, but they looked, I don't know.
I don't know what happened.
I think I was at like, I was at like Target or something.
I saw them.
And I said, I don't know.
Cause we were, we went through a period where we wore matching clothes.
Yeah.
And because we were a trio.
So it was sort of like, it was cheap to be able to do so.
So we would pick, you know, like a flannel shirt, but the same flannel shirt.
And we'd wear that, you know, but that was a special gig and a special night.
You know who else played that night was Akiva?
Do you remember that?
Yes.
Remember him?
Yeah.
He actually, good friend of mine, friended me recently.
Well, because of his podcast.
Well no, but you were, you were looking for a gig.
Remember where he was working?
Yes, that was part of the in that we had.
That's right.
At that place.
But I mean, when we started promoting the show, that's when he popped up.
So I assumed it was because we were promoting this show.
He knows that you're on it.
This is a fantastic show.
This is the sunlight moonlight podcast.
I'm here with Ryan Havers.
I am Dom Dorman.
I think Ryan, do you want to, what do you want to do?
Do you want to, you want to bring Will in?
Well, you know, we usually catch up about, so I mean, enough about me.
What do you have?
What's going on this week?
You got, you got sick.
I got sick.
And I didn't feel sick.
Normally my sicknesses start with like a sore throat and end with a cough.
And this one just kind of went right into like, I lost my voice.
Yeah.
And there was a benefit for the elementary school here in town that I went to on Saturday
night.
There was an open bar.
Yada, yada, yada.
You know, yeah.
Yeah.
And that was a little disruptive.
Run though.
My, my son is, we had our son's birthday party this past weekend.
It was very cute.
It was like a little, there was like a little pottery place in the next town over and the
kids all got like their little, you know, figures to paint and stuff like that.
That was a lot of fun.
That's cool.
It was a lot of fun for the kids.
I was somehow, it was very warm in the place and I was just, I remember sort of like yelling
and sweating the whole time.
So, you know, I mean, it's another day.
Really?
There is yelling and sweating.
Oh, and then this morning I spent the morning waiting around for Con Edison only to have
my neighbor to remind me at noon that the nine to noon appointment that I had on the calendar
for today is actually occurring next week.
So that was fun.
Nice.
It's like waiting for the cable guy and you kind of just didn't get it right.
Aren't you working on new music?
You recently told me.
I am.
So there's a new in a neighboring town here.
There's a new person trying to drum up a new open mic.
And I think it's a bi-weekly basis.
And so assuming that I can sing next week, I'm going to try to go down to the open mic
and play two or three songs.
I'm working right now and putting a set together.
It's probably about 80% originals, 20% covers.
And I'm working in three song chunks so I can get them sort of, you know, ready for
prime time and then be able to perform, you know, a nine to 12 song set.
So that's kind of what I'm working right now.
So this past week was a little difficult just because I couldn't sing, but I've been playing
a lot.
I've been selling guitars because I have too many guitars and I don't have a job and it's
a weird fit for me.
And it's also really interesting, you know, when you're selling or buying or trading instruments,
everybody's got a story, you know, and there's always some something interesting.
I'll share this before we bring on our guest, Will Hoffman, who I'm very excited to talk
to and I haven't caught up with in a very long time.
I purchased this Chinese copy of a like a Paul McCartney Hoffner bass on Facebook Marketplace.
And the guy came by, he had like a rumble amp, a Fender rumble amp, which sounds fantastic
for their size.
And this Hoffner, it's a Hoffner bass, but it's made in China.
It's sort of a lower quality version of the McCartney bass.
And the guy, you know, came to the door and I, it was an older gentleman and I said, you
know, do you mind, do you mind telling me why you're selling it, you know, just to make
sure it's not broken or whatever.
And he said, well, you know, I used to play around a lot and there's not, there's not
a lot of people to play with anymore.
And so we don't get a lot of use out of it.
I didn't really think anything of it that seemed like a very, you know, sort of general thing
that happens all the time, right?
So I had this bass for about six or eight months and start getting these weird Facebook
messages from this person I don't know who's saying, Hey, did you buy a bass?
Did you buy a Hoffner bass?
And I was like, creepy.
Okay.
So I, so I, I sort of looked at her profile and I was like, okay, she doesn't seem like
a stalker.
Stolen.
Right.
And that's my first thought.
I was like, Oh my God, this thing is hot.
And I'm going to have to give it back and I'm going to be out, you know, whatever it was,
300 bucks or whatever.
It's hot.
So we wind up talking over Facebook and it turns out that the bass actually belonged to
her father and her father, her father and mother, their washing machine broke.
And he didn't want to tell his wife that he didn't have enough money to buy a new washing
machine because he was ashamed.
So he went and sold his base and his amp to get money to buy a new washing machine.
And then he died.
Oh man.
And then they said, the daughter who's the person is messaging me said, we can't, we
couldn't for the life of us find this base.
It was like his prized possession and it was the thing he loved most in the world.
And he had sold it to try and get money for this washing machine, but couldn't tell his
family was so ashamed.
He couldn't bring it, bring up the courage to tell his family.
So she said, I said, Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
Like this, he seems like such a nice guy, like this really tragic.
And apparently he just kind of like dropped dead out of nowhere.
Oh man.
And so, you know, I say it or I said, obviously, I would you like the base?
Like you can have the base back.
I don't need it.
I don't need it that much.
You know, it can get another one.
But if it has sentimental value to you, of course, I will, I will sell it back to you
guys.
I mean, I don't want to lose money, but like you're welcome to buy.
I will sell it to you.
And so we a couple of months go by because they're all down in Florida and the mother
finally comes back up here.
And you know, we put this date together to put for me to go deliver this base and sell
it back to the widow.
I show up to the widow's house and she comes to the door and she like immediately starts
crying.
And she's very grateful and she's like, you're such a nice person.
Thank you so much for doing this.
And I was like, listen, I like, I just want this thing to be home where it belongs.
And it was really kind of touching and moving to be part of this story somehow that, you
know, there's this guy who has so much pride that he gives up, he sells the thing he loves
most in the world to make sure that his wife, you know, doesn't have to go to the laundromat.
I just want this base to be home and I think for it to be in its rightful home, it's going
to be double what I paid for.
Right.
That'll be $8,000.
Yeah.
No, I only asked for what I paid for.
Well, I said, I actually really like the amp.
Do you want the amp too?
Because I'd like to keep the amp.
And she was like, I don't care about the amp.
We just need the guitar.
I said, okay, fine.
Get the amp out of here.
I don't need the amp.
The amp sounds great.
Rumbles are good.
But it had, he was cute.
You know, he had like the, like the, you know, the black strings on it, like, you know,
McCartney, and like he was like a big Beatles guy.
That's cool.
Well, that's a good story.
Yeah.
I just thought it was interesting, you know, as I'm, and anybody who knows me will tell
you I'm very big and sort of like the take it or leave it groups or the Facebook marketplace
things of both buying and selling.
And it really what has, it has become me being unemployed.
What it has become for me is like, there's always a little bit of a story there as far
as like giving something away or taking something or selling, you know, I sold an, an Ibanez
acoustic guitar the other day.
And the guy's story was that he, his brother has the same guitar and he's always loved
it, but he's never been able to find the same model.
And so he saw mine.
He was like, now, like I have one just like my brother.
And like, now I don't have to play his anymore because I love playing his.
And I was like, okay, cool.
Right.
So that's my story.
That's that didn't happen this week, but that happened a couple of weeks ago.
And I was just thinking about the whole selling guitars thing.
So I'm not at a point where I'm selling guitars.
I hope to not be.
Yeah.
Well, it's not like that's going to, you know, pay my mortgage, right?
But it's really a sort of when I look around, it's like, okay, this is, I might have too
many guitars.
This is insane.
Cause it's more than that.
It's like whatever's back there.
This is like what's out.
It's bad.
Um, all right.
Why don't we play a song and bring our guests will Hoffman on.
Wait.
So you want to, you want to play a song and then bring will on?
Yeah.
Out of the song, we'll have will on.
Okay.
What song do you want me to play?
Why don't we play, um, we play pretty little suicide.
All right.
Stand by pretty little suicide.
So this is going to be the night times, which includes, no, no, this is, this is country
club.
Oh, sorry.
This is, oh, I got it.
Country club in the porn horns.
Was it just country club at this point?
It was just country club.
Yeah.
What happened to the, the porn horns?
We, we let's bring, let's bring will on.
Well, on.
All right.
I'm going to play the music.
As I play the music, I'm going to bring well on.
We'll listen to a tune and then we'll get into it with, with will Hoffman.
Hang on here.
This thing has auto played.
So I got to bring it back Jack and do it again.
We're talking about country club.
There it is.
All right.
You're looking handsome.
Very good.
Yes.
Thank you.
All right.
Let me get rid of the gum.
Get rid of the gum.
Man, I love that.
I get so much out of that.
I get Kiss.
I get Erasmith.
I get Rocky Horror.
Like there's so much going on.
So the blending of styles and the musicianship.
Seeing you guys live was probably, I mean, it's, it, you guys put on such a great show
and there was so much going on all the time.
Those were the days.
That was fun stuff.
Yeah.
There was a, yeah, it was, it was a, it was a ruckus.
It was a ruckus.
There's a lot going on.
There's six, six guys in the band and everybody was bringing something to the table, writing,
performing, singing.
So there was a lot to see for sure.
And you wrote that song in particular.
You wrote everything on that song.
Yeah.
Well, I think you might've had a hand in some of it too yourself.
What was you?
Where did you sort of start with that?
It seems to me it's almost like, it sounds almost like a, like a pulp fiction novel,
you know, like a, like a, a campy movie from the 60s, you know.
Oh yeah.
Interesting.
Well, I think I was listening to a lot of garage rock, which is fairly evident there.
The sonics was really listening to a lot of the sonics at that time.
And that song, I, you know, don't remember exactly where that came from.
Although I do, I think it was written about a boss of mine who made you want to commit
suicide.
So that was like, you know, sort of about her, sort of about a car at the same time.
Okay.
A car and a woman, you know, how music works in different ways.
Rock and roll cars and women.
What are your meanings?
Well, we're, you know, we were actually talking the, our previous episode, Ryan, we were talking
a little bit about songs that can sound romantic, but are actually about something else that's
not a woman or like not a significant other.
Do you remember this?
Am I making this up?
I don't remember.
I might, I might have had a dream about this, but well, we were just talking about how to
that end, you know, the, the double meanings inside what's so cool about music and lyrics
is that you can paint a picture that's not always what it seems.
Right.
So it's like, you know, I was just listening to, they just aired the, the Billy Joel special
on CBS that actually got cut short.
I don't know if you guys saw it.
I read about that.
Ridiculous.
But my wife and I were at that show actually that, where that was recorded.
And I was listening to, you know, he's got his new song, Turn the Lights Back On.
And, you know, effectively or on the surface, it sounds romantic, but it's actually a little
bit about him and his relationship with music and writing music.
And so something like that, you know, something that can be about a woman or a car or, you
know, I actually wrote a song about a friend of mine who's a male who we were not, you
know, and we were just friends, not in any sort of relationship, but there's some lines
in the song that make it sound like it's kind of like about a girl, but it's really not
just because it's about feelings and emotions and stuff.
So I think that's really cool.
I love that.
Yeah.
And I like when I allow myself to not have to fully define what a song is about.
Like, you know, it's nice to have a sense of it because it's hard to even come up with
the words if you don't have some sense of where you're going with it, but to not have
to necessarily be super specific to let the words flow.
And if you like them, you like them and sing the song, play the song, record the song and
let people interpret it for what they want it to be as well.
Yeah.
You give folks an opportunity, like make it, make it about whatever you want, you know,
if this speaks to you, if you connect with this, it doesn't have to be what I want it
to be.
It's your experience.
That's great.
Well, you've been writing a lot lately for the night times.
And you also, you have this, another project with another friend of ours, Josh Stark, doing
some country music.
Are you guys writing in that as well?
Yeah.
And I hesitate to necessarily call it a full-on project.
Just the two of us and we're getting together once every week, every other week.
And, you know, we both share a common interest in honky-tonk music, country music, a little
more from like the West Coast style, the Bakersfield area of country music.
And we both share that interest and we both love to play the music.
And so we're giving ourselves the opportunity to sit down with another person and play that
music.
And it allows us to bring old classics in and sing them together, sing harmonies, work
on that, play lead parts, work on that and to bring the originals in.
So I think I have three originals that we're jamming on right now.
Josh has got a couple.
But yeah, I've been trying to write, trying to stay busy with that and just demoing these
songs out at home.
And I love it.
It's great.
A lot of fun.
I feel like I should know this because, I mean, here's the other thing.
Will and I, for folks tuning in, like we've known each other since 99, 2000.
I think 2000.
Yeah, I think 2000.
And we were in a previous band, Country Club.
It was called Country Club of the Pornhorns and Country Club.
And then we changed it to Clause of Paradise.
Oh, that's, yeah.
You're trying.
I think that was around about 10 years, wasn't it?
You know, it was maybe only like eight or nine years.
I don't think we made the 10 year mark.
But you know, we did a lot in that time.
I'm going to round up.
Yeah, I'm going to say a decade.
And now night times.
So we've been playing music together pretty for quite some, you know, 20 years.
Yeah.
It's been great.
But when we, we've written as a band in band settings, but how do you, when you're, when
you're writing at home, what's the starting point?
How do you, how do you start?
I think I tend to start with a vocal on usually, not always.
But I think I, if I have a vocal line that I hear in my head, usually there's words that
I like and there's a melody that I like.
Sometimes maybe it's just a melody.
I got to figure out those words later, but usually it's something around a vocal line
and that allows me to feel like, okay, I've got a hook here.
I've got something that I can, that I can build off of.
And so then I'll start building in, you know, maybe I'll hear like a counter melody in the
car and then I'll hear what the bass is going to do and I'll start building it in that way.
On occasion, you know, maybe I'm fooling around on guitar and come up with something and I'm
like, oh, okay, that riff is something and then I'll sit down and work around that riff.
But I think it's, you know, eight times out of 10, it's, you know, based on a vocal line.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
And you know, it's funny, writing in a band is, is, is so, it doesn't seem like it would
be, but it's so different than writing alone or even, even writing, you know, you and I
have collaborated, we're collaborating on a song for ears with eyes.
And that was, that was really cool because that gave me some more insight and how you,
you come up with different things, you know, like you come up with a lot of different embellishments
and variations and stuff, which is really cool.
I don't, I come up with like nuts and bolts and, and, you know, apart here, apart there
progression.
And that's for me, that's something I sort of lack in is the variation in the embellishment.
Like I like loops, I could listen to a loop.
I could listen to loops all day, you know.
But so yeah, that's interesting.
Come with with vocal lines.
How about you, Dom?
What do you, what do you come up with?
I go at it from every angle, basically, sometimes I'll come up with a phrase, you know, I did
a song called, look at me when you lie to me.
And I came up with that phrase and I wrote a song around it.
Sometimes I come up with a riff and I'll do lyrics to the riff.
So one of my most effective methods, and it's actually interesting, you know, sort of how
my output is affected because one of my favorite writing techniques is to do music, to put
demos together and then to listen to them in the car while I'm driving and come up with
vocal lines.
And there's something about being in the car to me psychologically that is very safe,
because I know nobody can hear me.
And so there's a little bit of a freedom there to sort of like try new and different things
that may not sound good the first time.
Whereas, you know, when I'm here in my studio and I know my wife is working from home on
the other side of the house, there's just that little bit, that little fear deep down
inside where it's like, I might be trying stuff out and she might hear it and be like,
oh, God, like, how awful is that?
I know exactly what you mean.
Right.
And the car is like, it's a vocal booth.
Right.
Yeah.
And I guess, like, the house is empty.
I'll be like, all right, I got like a half an hour, let me go in there and record some
vocals.
Right.
Because I just, you know, I want to have the freedom to blast it out, make mistakes,
be off key, you know, and just figure out what I want to do.
And I don't want this, I don't like the feeling of somebody could be outside the door listening.
Yeah.
Same.
And that, and I really like, I like to vary sort of like song origins.
I like to vary where they do come from.
I don't want to do an entire record where I do all the music and then I come up with
all the lyrics.
I don't want to do a whole record of like poetry that I've written and then set it to
music.
I like the idea of each song having a different birthing process because it makes it so much
more interesting for me.
And then it really gives you stories to tell to say, like, you know, hey, I was, I was just
really into the Beatles that month, you know, and I came up with this thing that reminded
me of George Harrison or, you know, I was playing a lot of drums that week.
And so I came up with the beat first and then I wrote a song around it.
So that's, but I know that there are people who are very regimented in saying, like, I
will come up, I need to come up with the music first, you know, and just to talk about Billy
Joligan.
And I think he's one of those guys where he in interviews I've heard with him, he says,
you know, I come up with the music and then I'll put lyrics to it.
Wow.
But there's some that's a part of the beauty of the art, right?
Is there so many different ways?
I know for anything that I'm doing and not even music wise, like, I have until three
o'clock usually because when the kids get home, like, I've tried to cut vocals while
they're here, I'm not really self conscious in front of them.
More self conscious in front of Lori than I am the kids.
But they're so loud that it just, it comes right through into the mic.
I'm just like, I can't, there's no, I can't do it.
And it's always like, you know, dad, I'm hungry or this, you know,
Oh, you're just a butler.
You're just a butler.
Exactly.
And it's like, and this happens all the time.
It's just like, dad, dad, I'm thirsty.
Can you get me some water?
You know how to get water.
I can't.
You know where the glasses are.
You're 11, you're 13, you know how to do this.
Like, no, I'm not going to, I put my foot down.
I was like, no, I'm not doing it.
Go get it.
Get up off the couch and get it.
Yeah, this morning it was, dad, can you put some Cheerios in a Ziploc bag for me?
Wow.
I could, but so could you.
Yeah.
It's, it's maddening.
What, let's talk a little bit about what, like, what pays the bills for you and how,
how does it sort of pay in the bills?
When you're paying the bills, you're doing the things to pay the bills.
How do you manage, you know, the, the, the day job and the extracurricular activities?
You guys are very active.
Like I'm not nearly as active as I used to be, or as you guys are when it comes to performing
live and things like that, but how do you manage that?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, paying the bills is, you know, first priority, right?
And as you, I think you said earlier, I'm a creative director.
So I, you know, I'm a, I'm buy trade, a graphic designer and, you know, spent my career growing,
growing through that trade to where I'm a creative director now.
And that's, that's got to be top priority.
Got to make sure that the bills get paid.
But the, you know, so you're, I guess you're asking like, how do we, how do we find the
time to build in the creative around that?
Yeah.
I mean, what's the, what's the rub or what's the challenge for you?
Or, you know, you actually have a job that, that earns you money that is creative by nature.
Does it, because it is creative by nature, because you're earning money on it, does it
feel more like work than your other stuff?
Or is, do you still consider it creative?
Yeah, it does.
It does feel like work.
And especially when you, when you become a creative director and you're doing less hands
on, you've got a group of designers, art directors who are working for you and reporting to you
and you're reviewing work, you're less part of, you're less hands on, you're less creating.
The best part of that job for me is getting a group of people together.
You might get an art director, a writer, an animator and into a group conversation and
your brainstorming on how you're going to approach something.
To me, that's, that's really fun because that is truly creative and you're doing it with
people that you respect, talented people who you've brought together.
So that's, that's probably my favorite part of being a creative director is, is working
with, with folks in that way.
But you know, ultimately to answer your question, yeah, I mean, it does feel like work.
It is work.
And, and then, you know, becoming a creative director also brings in all the administrative
duties along with it.
So, you know, you're responsible for making sure your team has got great creative output,
but you're also dealing with budgets and, you know, firing, hiring, layoffs, you know,
whatever it may be, compensation, you're dealing with maybe executive conversations, business
conversations.
So there's, there's more to it.
That's work.
That's like, that's work in the camp before.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm currently, currently I am freelancing, which has been nice because I'm no longer
a creative director.
So now for, for at least for the time being, I'm an art director freelancing.
So I'm back to hands on, which is a lot more fun.
And you know, I'm enjoying that right now.
And it's giving me the freedom to do this podcast with you guys and write songs.
So yeah, getting back to, you know, you know, I think since I left my, my job as a creative
director a few months back, since then, yeah, my writing has increased.
I've been, I've been, I've had more time to sit down and make things happen musically.
You know, before it was always, it had to be after hours, after the kids are in bed.
All right.
Let me sit down.
It's like nine o'clock at night and I'm tired and I want to write some music.
And sometimes it starts happening and sometimes it's just not happening because your brain
is just too exhausted from the day.
So this little time that I've got right now where I'm, where I'm bouncing around and freelancing
is nice because it gives me that midday opportunity to, to get creative.
It's, it's so, it always, sorry, Ryan, I just, I'm not quick.
Then this is a recurring theme.
It makes me so sad and angry that the, when all is said and done in a work day and in a
day with family or friends or commitments, the time that you get to yourself to be creative
when it's all over is such shit time because you are, you're pissed, tired, like done with
it.
You either want to just go to sleep or drink, have like four beers or smash your head against
the wall or however anybody blows off steam.
And it's like, I find that it's so unfair.
It's like you're, you're giving the best hours of your day away to everyone else except yourself
and it just pisses me off.
That's actually what I wanted to say just to piggyback on there is that will is out of
anyone, anyone of my friends will has got such a huge tank.
Like dude, you, you are like, like you always have ideas, you're always working on something
and you're always ready to rehearse in play shows.
Like you're always like, Will is like the Paul McCartney of both bands that we've been
in together where it's like, I'll be like, I don't want to do it tonight.
And he's like, dude, come on, we're going to rehearse, right?
We're going to do it, right guys?
Like, actually the guys and, and you know what?
A band needs that.
I need a guy like that in my life.
But Will has deep reserves, man.
And I give you credit for that.
Yeah, I guess.
Oh, and I find myself tired and, and, but, you know, it's like, there only is so much
time in, in your life to do these things.
And so I think that's where, you know, some of that encouragement comes from.
Like, come on, Ryan, we got to do it because let's not let another day go by where we don't
do this.
You know, let's make it happen.
And it's been hard.
Like with the night times, like all of our rehearsals going back, like Ryan said, we've
been together 10 years now.
We started all of our kids were really small and there's four, there's five of us in the
band.
Four of us have kids.
And so when we started, I mean, the kids were really little.
I think I had twins that were born within the first year or two of the band.
So we had a little bit of a hiatus at that point, but, you know, started working it back
in, but it's always been late night rehearsals.
Um, I, I've, the name, the night times always felt really appropriate because we, we are
always late night rehearsals.
Yeah.
Um, as we've gotten, as our kids have started to grow up a little bit, I think we've been
able to get some earlier rehearsal instead of starting at 10 or 10 30, we're starting
around nine.
So it's getting a little better here and there.
Um, but it is always a nighttime thing, you know, and it's like either you're going to
do it or you're not.
Um, I'd rather do it.
I like how it was, it was so very natural for Will to be like, come on, Ryan, we got
to do it because he's had to text that so many times and just say that to me.
That's a real thing by the way.
No, and look, consider yourself fortunate.
Sometimes he's falling asleep though in one of the kids beds and times.
Yeah.
And we don't get them.
So I've learned though, just text, just text Lori and say Lori, go wake up Ryan.
We're waiting on that.
That's, that is the way to, to make sure that, to keep Ryan honest.
Yeah.
But, but you need, listen, I wish, I wish I had that, that guy.
I mean, will, can you just like text me every three days and be like, Dom, finish, finish
your songs.
What are you doing?
What are you doing right now?
Dude, that's a niche thing.
You could, you could like, that's a new business reminder, right?
The reminder, the profession, you're a professional reminder.
Yeah.
That's my new career.
Yeah.
You're like, dude, get your car washed, like enough already.
Like, go get your car changed.
Something else I want to touch upon is, as long as I've known Will, as long as I've known
you will, you're like visually creative as well.
Will has always made all of the artwork, both Country Club and the night times.
And you can see like on his back wall there, some of his designs, but where do you, I don't
know that I've ever really talked to you about it.
Like where, I mean, that's obviously an interest.
That's how you got into becoming a creative director for different brands and different
companies.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I think that was how I found graphic design.
So I had gone through NYU, right?
And I was getting close to graduating, but, you know, I was starting to make just Flyers
for the band I was in was before Country Club and the Porno.
It was another band, but I would start to make Flyers and doing it the old fashioned way,
pasting things together, going to Kinko's and that was all fun.
And, you know, the name of that band was illustrate up.
Then I somehow.
Booba.
Oh, we lost him.
Oh, wait.
Yeah.
Can you say that again?
But at the time, Budo, Vooba.
Yeah, there you go.
Budo, Vooba.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
You got me.
You hear me?
We got you.
Yeah.
It was a little bit.
So yeah.
Okay.
Just let me know if it happens again.
But started making posters, Flyers like that by hand and then realized, oh yeah, there's
this thing called graphic design that people do for a living.
Maybe I should do that.
And, you know, I was already ending my undergrad studies at NYU.
So I had to teach myself graphic design.
And when you start digging in and learning about it, you're like, oh, there's all these
other things that I didn't know about.
I didn't know that about typography and what a skill and, you know, art form typography
is learning about typefaces themselves and the art of making typefaces.
Just like, you know, principle design principles that, you know, guide what you do as a designer.
And then of course, like, how does brand design come together?
So I had to learn that stuff over time.
And so I think at one, you know, at that point when I, when I realized that that's kind of
what I want to do for a career, for money, started to separate the rock poster stuff
from the graphic design stuff.
Like when I do, when I do posters for the night times, yes, there's, it's graphic design,
but there's also illustration involved.
It's a little more art, it's a little more of making art than it is of like brand design.
So what I guess what I'm saying is it helps me and maybe Don, maybe, Don, maybe this goes
back to what you were asking about like separating work and fun is I think having that outlet
for creating posters and album art, I did, I did our latest album artwork, which we could
talk about in a minute.
Ryan was in the photo.
But being able to have that outlet helps me like when I'm just bogged down in corporate
brand world every day, you know, to know that, oh, I'm going to do something really cool
for the band later tonight, or I've got a photo shoot where I'm going to bury Ryan in
dirt and he's going to lay there with the worms for an hour and he can't move and he
can't scratch an itch.
You know, that's, that's, that's really fun.
And that kind of allows me to have that, that truly creative part of what I do.
So it's all connected.
It's all part of the same world, but you know, corporate brand design is very, it's much
more technical, whereas, you know, rock posters and album art can be a little more fun.
That's cool.
I mean, it's sort of like you have these different like strata of like, you know, you drill down
to like, there's the hardcore corporate stuff, which is like people management and finance
and all that kind of stuff and being a creative director.
And then there's like sort of art director, which is a little bit more hands on, but in
the same sort of venue.
And then there's, you have this, you know, Venn diagram where they overlap where you're
doing art for your music.
And then you have the music and you have the lyrics.
And it's like, it's like this sort of like, I'm just imagining like a tiered diagram of
like, you know, Will Hoffman's creative endeavors or Will's head, you know, yeah, it's like,
yeah, yeah, it's all, it's all sort of like, you know, it's like a pyramid.
But it's good.
That's a good way of looking at it for sure.
It's really right.
It is kind of cool how there's that part.
And then, but it bleeds into the actual music itself.
Like you said, like that's that, you know, I'm glad you said that because that's, it's
very true.
It's like, it's not just like I'm doing the artwork, but it's for my music is my lyrics,
my stories.
So it's, yeah, it kind of all comes together.
It's nice.
Yeah, it's really, it's really cool.
And also to be able to have that.
And it reminds me of cake a little bit, you know, because like they, they do all the music,
like they go to Sony music and they say, you know, we're going to have this record in a
year and the execs say, okay, just hand it to us.
And John McCrae does all the artwork.
He started out as a silk screener making t-shirts.
He does all the artwork.
And then he just basically hands, oh, careful Ryan.
I think our mic's cut out when we, when we leave the scene.
Do you remember that?
That's awesome.
I can hear you.
No, it's on our recording.
It's like a little, it's like a weird glitch, but we might be able to replace that though.
Right, Ryan?
Yeah, I just wanted to show the, I just wanted to, yeah, it was so cool.
Fix it in post.
Yeah.
Fix it in post.
But no, it's probably a picture of Ryan.
I probably have a raw picture of Ryan in the dirt we can, we can get to you too.
It's awesome.
It's such a, I love the visualization of the actual like, it's like the literal sort of
like, in the name of the album.
Let me, let's just show that again real quick.
Yeah, we could talk about this a little bit because this is fun.
I'm, I'm pretty psyched about this album cover and I think what, what this does to is it
brings a lot of what I do together.
So you know, there's a man, Ryan, buried, buried in the dirt.
Like he's being buried in a shallow grave on his shirt is the title of the album, bury
me in my favorite shirt.
Wanted, I wanted to make sure, because we come from like a psych garage thing.
I thought it'd be kind of fun to have some psychedelic looking typography.
So this was all hand created typography, hand lettered, which was really fun.
I really enjoyed doing stuff like that.
It reminds me of the posters, like from the Fillmore, like the sixties and stuff, right?
Yeah, yeah, it's from that.
It's coming from that, that genre, right?
And so it was fun to create all that.
But then I had some shirts made up some, there were prototypes for shirts that we eventually
made to sell as merch, but got some prototypes made up.
Then we buried Ryan and our friend Liam did the, did the photography and he was really
he brought some good, some good aesthetic to it as well.
The way he lit it, you know, he wanted to go for like, as if they were headlights, like
as if somebody had driven a car into a field and they were burying somebody by headlight.
And I think he got that really well.
That's great.
You know, when he cut out a lot of the color, so it's like almost like Ryan's hands look
like, you know, he's rigamortises said and he's just got no color left in his skin.
And so it was really fun.
It all came together, you know, and then of course, you know, putting the packaging together
becomes a kind of a more traditional graphic design thing.
So creating like, you know, the credits and the liner notes and that kind of stuff.
So for me, it was fun because it brought all these different things together.
And we had a good time doing it.
We did a band photo shoot as well around it.
So the coffin shape of burying me in my favorite shirt is pretty cool.
And then also the guitar pose, the rig, the rigamortis guitar pose.
And and we should say that is Liam Goodman was the photographer of this.
He's out of Beacon, New York.
Awesome photographer, really, really awesome to work with.
Yeah, and a great guy.
Yeah.
And then we were able to make the shirts, which was fun.
Then we got to sell the shirts.
You can you can buy yourself a shirt that says bury me in my favorite shirt.
And so it all kind of comes together.
It's a fun, fun little concept.
So there was a good time doing all that.
I'm going to find this other this other version here and tight of the the band photo shoot.
If I can just move this around here we go.
So let's check this one out.
No, it's just Brian.
Hey, we're not.
Hi.
We don't want that.
We have them.
Hold on.
Oh, here we go.
Okay.
So we're going to do this and then we're going to move this around.
Bear with me, folks.
There we go.
So this is the other band photo, which I love this one.
This is like my favorite.
That's when I had pink hair.
Yeah.
The pink hair and we had the shovel.
Yeah.
The shovel was was fine because when we did our record release show, they brought the
shovel up on stage.
So, you know, we got to at least bring a little bit of, you know, theme to it, which was nice
without without going overboard.
And it did the lighting is perfect.
It absolutely looks like someone has driven a car into a graveyard.
Yeah.
I think we got lucky too.
It was just the way the sun was.
It was good that day.
It's really cool.
It was a daytime shot.
Looks like a nighttime shot.
It's really cool.
This is great, man.
Ryan, do you want to what do we do?
We got a couple of minutes left with Will here who has work to do on like us losers who
are I'm just going to go and like eat a sandwich.
But what do we want to get into?
Do we want to get into fight?
Do we want to get into easy, uneasy?
Do we want to let will off the hook?
What do we want to do?
Let's do easy, uneasy.
Okay.
So, well, we we have a little segment here.
We do easy, uneasy question where we ask an easy question.
I will ask an easy question and then Dom will ask an uneasy question or a question that
maybe makes you uneasy.
Oh, you're gonna love this.
Okay.
All right.
Now let's see the easy question.
What is your favorite motel chain?
Wow.
It's not that easy because I don't stay in motels very much.
We'll call it motel six because they leave the light on for you.
There you go.
Wow.
That's a brand recognition, huh?
Okay.
So, here's here's the flip side, the question that may make you uneasy.
All right.
I'm nervous.
Have you ever touched a dead body?
Yes.
What was it?
What was it like?
Um, just dead.
It was I, it was like, I think it was a friend's funeral.
And, um, open casket and people were kind of like touching his hand.
So I did.
Um, and it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't awful.
It wasn't awful, but it wasn't pleasant either.
Did it, did that, and just to take the comedy out of it, but that did that, um, what did
that provide you with?
It definitely felt like a closure moment.
Like you're able to, it's a final, a final send off.
You know, I wouldn't re, I don't regret it.
It was, it was like, you know, I saw other people doing it.
I was like, Oh, that's nice.
That's kind of nice.
Um, I'm sorry.
Yeah.
I come from, um, a predominantly Italian family and, um, it's, it's sort of like a
thing where like the older folks in the Italian family will like accost the corpse and like
hug it and lay on it and like it gets a little like, okay.
All right.
Can you get out of the casket now?
You know, it gets a little emotional and a little overboard, but, um, that sounds much
more reasonable to just sort of make contact with, with the, the, the earthly representation
of someone you cared about.
Right.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, I, I was there when my father passed.
So obviously I touched him, um, at that moment.
So yeah, I guess a couple.
I know, thanks for bringing up the question.
I hadn't thought about it, Tom.
That's a good question.
Well, look, when you do, when you, when you agree to participate in easy uneasy, you know,
it's a little bit of a grab bag.
You don't really know what you're going to get.
It's good stuff.
Um, Will, do you, do you have anything that you want to promote or, or talk about?
Hmm, I don't have much to promote right now, guys, um, working on some, trying to get some
night times gigs.
That's, that's the thing right now.
Um, so, well, we can talk about, I mean, it's the night times dot bandcamp.com, uh, where
you can listen to and purchase these songs that we've been listening to.
Again, that's the night times.
That's two T's.
It's two T's.
It's got bandcamp.com and it's got some of the songs that we featured here.
And again, keep your eyes and ears out in the, in the Hudson Valley music scene for
the night times playing out live.
I know you guys play, uh, Quinn's pretty often, right?
Is that like your jam?
Yeah, we're, we're, um, kind of branching out.
We're looking down, uh, a little down south.
We play the city sometimes, um, trying to get up north of here.
But yeah, beacons are home base.
Seeing in beacon has changed a little bit.
So we're trying to roll with the punches, um, here in town.
Um, yeah, looking to do a, probably last, last spring we did our record release party.
So we produced our own show.
We rented out the old auditorium in the old high school here and did a big production
there.
Um, so I think we're looking to do that again this spring slash summer, um, at a different
location.
So stuff in the works, um, you know, I should, I should promote myself at least in some
way.
So if anybody out there is looking for an art director, creative director, willhoffbincreative.com,
willhoffbincreative.com, you can find me there.
Um, but yeah, um, that's great.
No, listen, look, that counts too.
I mean, we're, we're, you know, I'll piggyback off of will.
I mean, hey, I need a job.
Uh, so anybody wants the higher area.
I also, yeah, in addition to need a job as well to.
Yeah.
This is the shameless, um, self promotion.
No one's going to hire me.
No, but we're, we're on LinkedIn and what is that?
It's willhoffbincreative.com.
You got it.
That's right.
All right.
Great.
Spelled just like it sounds.
Yeah.
Two Fs.
H-O-F-F-M-A-N.
Awesome.
And we're, we're here on the sunlight, moonlight podcast.
Ryan and Will, do you want to pick a song to play us out here?
You want to do machines?
Will?
Yeah.
Let's, let's give it a go.
This is a fun one.
This is one that I brought to, I had, I had demoed this years before the night times existed.
Um, I had been playing with a few people in Jersey city at that time and that thing didn't,
that group didn't go anywhere.
But I had demoed this out.
It's a six, eight time.
Um, and it's cool, cool guitar part.
Um, it's a burner.
And then it gets into a four, four, a fast four, four.
Um, and then I think somebody else in the band came up with the idea of going to like
a slower three, four outro.
Um, but yeah.
So this one came out of my brain for the most part and it was fun to like pull some old
demo out and I played it for the guys and they were like, yeah, let's do it.
So, uh, it made the album.
That's always such a good feeling.
Like, you know, you have this old demo that you always kind of liked, but never did anything
with and then like you pull it out and other people like, Hey, this is good.
And you're like, Oh, I'm not a moron.
This is awesome.
It's super fun to play this one too.
It's like it's, it just makes, it makes me want to dance all over.
This is great.
Well, well, um, what a fantastic conversation we had.
I really enjoyed catching up and hearing about, um, the, how you sort of balance your
different creative endeavors personally and professionally.
We're here on the sunlight, moonlight podcast, Ryan Havers.
Yes.
Any final thoughts for this particular episode?
I want to say thanks.
I want to say thanks guys.
This was a pleasure and Dom, it was really great to speak with you again because it's
been, I have no idea how many years.
I know it's great to see you and have a conversation.
So thank you guys.
Of course.
Next time, you know, maybe we'll have will on again.
We got to talk about the pussycat lounge.
We didn't.
Oh, we do.
We'll say, you know what, save that for, for the sequel, right?
We'll always have the pussycat lounge.
Yeah, we'll always have it.
All right.
Here we go with the night times.
petitimes.bancamp.com.
This is a song called machines.
This is a song called Machines.