BEANS ON TOAST - JAY MCALLISTER

"I really fell in love with that moving about, and it's the best job I've ever had." Jay McAllister, singer/songwriter, Beans on Toast

PREVIEW:

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

ABOUT BEANS ON TOAST:

Jay McAllister, better known as Beans on Toast, has produced nine albums and countless tours in his career. Jay joined the show, recorded on the Salty Dog Cruise 2018, to talk about how he even got started playing music and being in bands. His infectious storytelling and devil-may-care attitude has given him a great outlook on life, his career , and what is to come. Plus we talk about playing on the cruise and what is next for Beans on Toast.

ON THE FUELED BY DEATH COMPANION SHOW:

This week, Jeff talks about his recent trip to Salem MA. The recent K2 mission of the Kepler Spacecraft has already yielded some amazing results. Two new planetary systems have been found, and Kepler begins to set its sights on looking closer at the moons of gas giants. The recent marketing campaign of 'Blondes Break Rules' from Starbucks confuses Dustin and Jeff on The Roast. Finally, some new changes are happening at deathwishcoffee.com and the next mug from Death Wish Coffee is being released.

DEATH STAR OF THE WEEK:

This week its the first ever DOUBLE Death Star - with CJ Man and his daughter Kirra. They are local to Death Wish Coffee Company, and remember when it was just starting out at Saratoga Coffee Traders. Meet CJ and Kirra here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Jeff: Speaking on music, let's go to music. Speaking to musicians-

Beans on Toast: Can't we introduce ourselves first? Sorry.

Jeff: Sure, we can introduce ourselves. I'm Beans on Toast.

Dustin: Actually he's Beans, I'm Toast.

Beans on Toast: I'm coffee.

Jeff: There we go. Yay!

Beans on Toast: Sorted.

Jeff: Sorted. No, no, no, Jeff.

Beans on Toast: Jay.

Jeff: Yes, nice to meet you.

Beans on Toast: Nice to meet you, Jeff.

Dustin: Dustin, officially.

Beans on Toast: Dustin. And Jeff.

Jeff: That's it.

Beans on Toast: And Jay.

Jeff: And Jay.

Beans on Toast: Here.

Jeff: And we're here, and we're talking. I love this. This is one of my favorite questions to ask musicians, and especially somebody like you who's ... We just saw you command a crowd in a hallway, but command that crowd. I gotta know, where did music start for you. When did you start playing guitar, or wanting to sing, where did it come from?

Beans on Toast: I guess music as a whole started as, my parents, as much as they weren't musicians, they were huge fans. My mom was in the height of Beatlemania.

Dustin: [crosstalk 00:01:05] Oh yeah, great. Wow.

Beans on Toast: And she was a die-hard ... When they did the big 60-year documentary about the Beatles, my mom was actually in it four times, just the back of her head. And she was like, "That was me" in the Let It Be video. She was actually there.

Dustin: That is awesome.

Beans on Toast: Growing up in London in the '60s, she was a die-hard Beatles fan. My dad was ... When people from outside of England love English stuff, they're called anglophiles. I don't know if Americaphile is a word, but my dad was ...

Dustin: It is now.

Beans on Toast: But my dad raised me on Randy Travis, Jimmy Buffett, and he loved all kind of what I would now call cheesy country, which was pretty unheard-of ...

Dustin: Wait, was cheesy country like Johnny Cash, or?

Beans on Toast: I found that amongst the ...

Dustin: I wouldn't call that cheesy country by the way, though, but ...

Beans on Toast: No, Randy Travis is though.

Dustin: Right, right.

Beans on Toast: This was the '80s'. [crosstalk 00:02:00] Even Johnny Cash was pretty cheesy in the '80s.

Jeff: In the '80s, yeah.

Beans on Toast: It wasn't like, "Let's put on the classics." It was like, "Here's Johnny Cash's new album," in 1986-

Dustin: Yeah, yeah,

Beans on Toast: And that is pretty cheesy. So I'm coming from a family of music fans, I guess. But as far as playing music ... When I was 16, I just wanted to be in a band, so me and my mates started a band before we could play instruments.

Dustin: Okay, okay.

Beans on Toast: And just graffitied the name around the school.

Dustin: Okay. So, I love this. I love this. What was the name?

Beans on Toast: Jellico, the band were called.

Dustin: Jellico.

Beans on Toast: Yeah.

Dustin: Okay, cool. 'Cause when you're a kid and you're in a band, it's the coolest thing in the world, and sometimes those names are the best.

Beans on Toast: Actually, coming back to my folks, my mom come up with the name. It was some captain of the ... a sort of old captain that tried to start a war, and got on a boat, and everybody died, and never got to the place where he was trying to start a war.

Dustin: [crosstalk 00:02:57] That's kind of cool.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, the band was called Jellico. But we had niched it just right, told everyone, "We're in a band." Graffed it everywhere. And I don't how much longer later, but I was like, we probably need to ... What else do you have to do apart from telling people you're in a band, and stuff like ...

Dustin: Record an album or something, right?

Beans on Toast: Well, you know, it's just even get a guitar. That's a good start.

Dustin: Write a song, maybe?

Beans on Toast: We started from there. And from that, there was three of us, and again we chose our roles before ... It's very Nirvana and Placebo, so that's-

Jeff: "Alright, you're the bass player"-

Beans on Toast: Exactly. "You're the bass player"-

Jeff: "I'm obviously the drummer."

Beans on Toast: "I've got a bass." And more, not because of what I could necessarily sing, but at the time I'd just discovered the Doors, and was smoking loads of weed.

Dustin: Nice, nice.

Beans on Toast: It's more about the actual songwriting. Since the first song that I wrote for that, I was like, okay, shit, I can just do this for a while. And it was like, bang, creating something out of nothing, which I still find is ... Since I first wrote a song, I've never stopped. I've written maybe a song a week, or at least a couple of songs a month from that day when I was 15 until today. And it still fascinates me, and seeing myself initially by coming up with a new song that I enjoy. And looking at it. I say "Wow, what a line!" And still, that thing ... It's weird. I'm obsessed with that. It's nothing, and it's just sitting in a room.
I write songs about guitar as well. I'll be sitting on a bus or whatever, I could just be like ... If I get a new idea. All my songs are the same fucking chords. I don't need to practice the guitar. [inaudible 00:04:50] In fact some of the best songs I write, I never write them down. I write the whole thing and then pick up a guitar and go, "Oh, okay," and then just sort of finish it up.
Yeah, song writing after that, it started from ... I don't know why we just pretended we was in a band. Just to look cool.

Dustin: [crosstalk 00:05:09] Yeah, why not?

Beans on Toast: Get laid.

Dustin: [crosstalk 00:05:10] Yeah, that's the ... right?

Beans on Toast: Probably more like a handjob, you know.

Jeff: Still-

Beans on Toast: The sentiment was there.

Jeff: Still it's the [inaudible 00:05:18].

Dustin: Back then, that's what getting laid was.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, it was certainly the doorway.

Dustin: So, you seem more like a poet, 'cause you're a storyteller, it seems.

Beans on Toast: That's just because I'm a bad guitar player.

Dustin: But it's almost like the trick to being a good musician is defining your strengths and capitalizing on them.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, I'm all about the words. And with that, I think, I think it's more just because my songs are so fucking obvious. You know exactly what I'm singing about. This is a song about one particular thing, and then ... Which is actually like a country trick.

Dustin: Yeah, yeah, right.

Jeff: Yes. For sure.

Beans on Toast: Again, country songs, they're not masking their feelings in beautiful poetry, which I'm not knocking that kind of music at all. That is incredible, but mine is very much say what you see, you know, "This is a song about chickens," and there's chicken every other fucking line. You know what it's about.
Because that's so clear, I think it becomes quite instant, and then the actual music itself can ... It's not as important, so therefore I don't really do much to it. The music itself is just ding-di-ding-di-ding, just the fucking guitar keeping the rhythm. So I don't know whether that's poetic or not. I actually think that sounds less poetic.

Dustin: Really? I think that's more poetic.

Beans on Toast: I think it's sort of rambly. Poetry on the page ... You write my songs down on a page, it looks like a fucking child wrote it.

Jeff: That's good poetry, though, a lot of times.

Beans on Toast: Well, I'd say it's easy. I'd say it's easy rather than deep.

Dustin: Or more like stream of consciousness writing.

Beans on Toast: To be fair, I try not to overthink it. [crosstalk 00:07:02]

Dustin: That's what stream of consciousness is, you're not thinking about it. You're literally just writing out what's coming out.

Beans on Toast: There's that. There's different words for it, but that kind of like ... All the best songs, or anybody that's creative has that thing, that little moment where they're not thinking about other people, or what they're trying to do. The doors open up, and then at the end of it you're like, "Oh, no, it's nice."

Dustin: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: But it's really that thing ... I don't know what the word for it is, but I know how big it is. It's like a little doorway. I open it up and it comes from somewhere else, it's what you really want to say.

Dustin: That's what I always found music to be, is that the best musicians are channeling. It's not coming from them. It's because they've been able to open themselves up to this pathway that's greater than themselves.

Beans on Toast: I'd say it's very much still them. It's still me when I write, but it's just like the ... I think when you're writing a song, you're going to get what everybody ... The good ones, it comes from you in a way that also then passes on. Because when you open that door and it goes [inaudible 00:08:13], it just feels really natural and really easy. And then people listen to it and they go, "Oh, that felt really natural and really easy and really honest."

Dustin: Right, right.

Beans on Toast: That doorway, when you get it, other people can hear it, and they're like, "Fuck, he's not bullshitting."

Dustin: Right. It's not contrived at all.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, yeah, he meant it. If we're not trying to get laid, then we should be looking for the truth.

Dustin: The truth is, we're trying to get laid.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, my man!

Jeff: I like that a lot.

Dustin: Let's not argue.

Beans on Toast: I was going to say I should write that out, it's recorded.

Dustin: That's why we're here.

Beans on Toast: Go back over it.

Jeff: We got that, we got that. It's locked and loaded.
You said you were in a band in high school and that kind of thing. When did this iteration, when did Beans on Toast start?

Beans on Toast: Jellico, so, and Jellico did well. In my little grunge band, I used to sing in a high-pitched American accent, which is weird.

Jeff: Excellent.

Dustin: Can you show us an American accent?

Beans on Toast: [inaudible 00:09:23]
But weirdly, considering we were so shit, we actually did quite well. And I think of it as more my fucking drive than the songs. We were young, and we were fucking hungry. We was all working factories at the time, in Essex, which is kind of like the New Jersey of England, just outside of-

Dustin: Manufacturing all over the place.

Beans on Toast: We were just outside of London, where they're just outside of New York. Now, I know it's south-side. And we were like, "Okay, we can't get out of factories. We're going to move to fucking London and do the band."
And we did that, and the band actually did well. We did a Peel Session, but the move to London basically killed the band. The bass player was, he didn't want to fucking go there. No love was lost, but the band finished.
And I see like, the move into London was enough to fulfill my excitement with it.

Dustin: You got a taste of it.

Beans on Toast: Well, I started working in club nights. I was really good. I wasn't that good a guitar player, and at the time I was singing in this weird accent. But I was really good at getting people to come to shows, and stuff like that, and being out. I went down, and basically I started running clubs. I'd just DJ off a laptop and this was 2001, so we're talking old laptop. First ever iTunes. I decided not to pay the DJ.
I started running club nights, and I got everything I needed out of that [inaudible 00:10:51]. And I was big. I did like a thousand people every week. We used to have other bands play, used to have all the indie bands play. And we got into this thing that was surrounded by music and doing the primary bit and not having to write. Still writing, but not really writing for any purpose.
And from that, I was living right in amongst all the ... I was living above a pub at a venue, we had the parties and that, and it was all just easy. My songwriting became so lack-luster almost because I would just get up in between the bands, and it was like ... Writing songs like I didn't give a toss. Because I had all this shit going on.

Dustin: Was that good for your music, or?

Beans on Toast: It was amazing, yes. That's where I created what I did. It's weird to niche it to play music like you couldn't care less. And as soon as it started, I were all, "I guess [inaudible 00:11:42], maybe I'll start a band." I had these songs, and I was like, "I just can't play them here and there." [inaudible 00:11:46] I was going to a lot of festivals at the time, just jumping fences and stuff.
At Glastonbury, I had about six songs, and I was like "I'm going to start at band." I had the name. I was like, "I'm going to start a band," but it was all just like, really it's like, I didn't need anything. I didn't need anything from it.


Beans on Toast: I didn't need anything.

Dustin: Right.

Beans on Toast: Didn't need anything from it. I had it so down with the fucking ... At the time I'd given up DJing. I literally was just throwing a party, and the thing about throwing parties is: if you organize them well, you don't have to do anything else.

Jeff: That's true. That is true.

Beans on Toast: On the night, you can just walk around high-fiving everyone.

Jeff: I did this. I did this.

Dustin: So, how long ago was this?

Beans on Toast: That was [inaudible 00:12:25], which was the cup night. It was like 2003, for three years, I guess was.

Jeff: It's crazy that that's fucking 15 years ago. That's nuts, man. It still feels like yesterday.

Beans on Toast: Definitely been some good years.

Dustin: So, can you describe, in summation, your journey from 2003 until 2018, when you're on this fucking crazy cruise? Or even flashback to a few years, to when you started on this cruise.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, I can. All right. So, that was that guy on, and I had this kind of "I can now write music without care." And I did it. I got somebody, and I had the songs. I was going to start a band. And it was a sort of open-mike-y type thing at the festival, quite relaxing. And I was like, "I got some tunes. I'll get up." All my songs were about hammered people at festivals, and I was preaching to the converted.
And halfway through the first song, I was like, "Oh, I am not going to start a band. I fucking got this." It went down so well, that first tune. I was like, "Fuck." And I never thought about folk music or singer-songwriter. None of that shit. They were [inaudible 00:13:33]. But I was just like, "Wow. This sort of song was written when I played them in that format, to the people I was singing about. It was just like, "Man." And after that, it was solo. It was so easy. I've been working with bands. I know the shit they got to carry, people they got to pay, all that shit's fucking difficult.

Dustin: Artists are so fickle too.

Beans on Toast: Difficult. From knowing the industry from the outside and being like, "Uh-uh. Well, I just won't do that." Still to this day, I've been after fucking ... My rule of thumb: I turn up half-hour before doors, just plug in the quick little sound check. And I'm not carrying people. I want to see the town. I don't want to sit in an empty fucking venue for four hours.

Dustin: That's awesome.

Jeff: And wait for the drummer to unload all his shit and yeah.

Dustin: I've had enough of that. That sounds good, man.

Beans on Toast: There's the early joke. You don't have to beer with anyone. Now, the reality is, you don't have to share your fee with anyone. I know. I'm going off on a bit of a tangent. So, I don't know how bands ... If there's four of us to start with, there's no way this could be here as a band. It's just purely financially, you can't build that up.
I've worked. I did it. I still run the [inaudible 00:14:50]. I did [inaudible 00:14:52] gigs and tours. No worries. You got to lose money. Who cares? Switzerland, let's just go. But anyways, yeah, you lose money on it. But when you do make it, you don't have to share it.
What was the thing? How to bring it to now? So, from that ... So, that was going on. As I said, I was living above a venue in Holloway Road called Nambucca. It was like a pub. 11 of us lived there, a venue downstairs, and it wasn't like a squat, but it might as well have been. No one had seen the owner for like two years.

Dustin: Typical artist household, I mean, assuming it was all artists and musicians.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, exactly. It's one of them spots. And from that-

Dustin: Jeff and I are very familiar with those spots.

Jeff: Oh yeah. Lived in one for a very long time.

Beans on Toast: So, I guess that was where I started the Beans on Toast album, kind of writing the first album there. And Frank Turner used to drink there, mostly.

Jeff: Oh shit.

Beans on Toast: And it's from the gigs that he used to come and play there. He used to come and play Neil Young covers when he was in Million Dead on the sly. He'd come and do his little Neil Young covers, and then he fucking started his own art. It was a lot of change, then he was just like bang. And his first tour ... He took me on the first tour and it was like, "Okay, saw a little bit of that."
And then it was like Beans on Toast kind of turned into a thing. And yeah. A general rule of thumb is: don't ask for gigs. A few times, I'd be like trying to force my way into a gig, and it'd never be a good gig. It's like if you just do what you're going to do, one gig will always lead to another.
Again, it goes back to me not really needing anything from it and being like the music's careless, and also the kind of overall attitude is careless. Like I said, I didn't need much cash from it. It's quite a sort of ... I don't know. I guess, almost like an odd set up because people were always knocking on the door for gigs and whatnot, but I'd just play and I'd miss ... I'd be out walking out the doors, they'll go, "Mate, do you want to come and play this other place next week?" It's like yeah. Why not?

Jeff: Yeah. Fuck it, why not?

Beans on Toast: And just sort of follow the natural lead of that until it turned into ... I'm actually gigging more than I'm not.
I fell in love with touring as well. Before I first started touring, just in England, I think maybe I've never been up north, never been to any major cities, which now I've seen people and they're like, "Oh, I've never been to X." I'm like, "What are you doing?" It's like just fucking seeing so much. I really fell in love with that moving about, and it's the best job I've ever had. I mean, even the clubs with gigs, doing fucking coke and high-fiving everyone [crosstalk 00:17:42] And this way, people clap at you. Oh, shit. They literally cheer. [crosstalk 00:17:49]

Jeff: That's great.

Dustin: So, how did you get onto the boat? How did you get onto this?

Beans on Toast: Again, from Frank. Again, from Frank. So, it started from Wembley gig. So, because I did the early tours with Frank, and he was always like, "I've got you." From day one, "I've got you." And then he did this Wembley show, which is like a big kind of arena in the UK, and it was like when he did it, it was like a big move for him because he was like, "Oh, we're doing arenas." Everyone was coming, [inaudible 00:18:25] was like, "You're doing the opening songs." He's like "cool." Everyone was like, "What about playing [inaudible 00:18:29]" I Fucking nailed it. 20 minutes long. When I had a song specially planned for the night, crowds off of the stage.

Jeff: Off of that, in Wembley. That's amazing.

Beans on Toast: And the DJ played Mr. Big Stuff while I'm getting set up.

Jeff: Shut up.

Beans on Toast: "Who do you think you are, Mr. Big Stuff?" And I was just went out, and everything at Wembley just went amazing. And Frank was just like, "Man, I can't. We're doing an arena tour and you got to do an hour." I basically just got the gig for the whole tour. And on that tour, Flogging Molly were [inaudible 00:19:02]

Dustin: Okay, cool.

Jeff: There you go.

Beans on Toast: And from that, we did the first night. Back in my club days, I used to play fucking "Drunken Lullabies" on, or it's like the sound ... Actually, I'd never seen him live. First night, it was I think at Cardiff, and yeah. And in fact, Dave walked straight out. I played again. I was ready for one guy nailing the little arena shows. Just then, like, "Hey."

Jeff: Yeah, right?

Beans on Toast: And it just worked. Treating it like, getting really hammered, and treating it like, again, like you didn't give a shit. Everyone's like, "Ah man. Arena gigs. You just work." It was like, "I'm actually shit-faced." It just worked. No one could believe it.

Dustin: Fuck it, I'm killing it.

Beans on Toast: It's like, "Dave, we're on a tour." It works. And Flogging Molly walked on, and Dave was just like, and I'm not mad, at this point, he just walked up to the microphone and he was like "Beans on Toast." I just started. Really, he was so nice to me. And then he was like, "And here's something completely different." And he just kicked in, and it was a Flogging Molly's show. And then that night, it was just like, met them all, and friendships happen quite quickly on tour. So, over the course of the tour, three days in, and now the reason they do things is they're such a beautiful band that like simplest way to describe it is: their dressing room door is wide open. Like, pinned back, wide open.

Dustin: Very friendly characters. It's crazy.

Beans on Toast: Very friendly. Every night, you couldn't walk past without being like, "Come on," which you hear all the stories about bands being-

Dustin: All of them too. Dennis, Matt, they're all top-of-the-line characters, Bob, all of them.

Beans on Toast: So welcoming. And the tour went so well. And it was like, when was it? At the end of that tour, me and Bob were doing like a little US tour, one of our first ones.

Dustin: Oh, cool.

Beans on Toast: And in passing, Nathan was like, "If you can ever get to a Flogging Molly gig, you can open." And I was like, "I'll be there."

Jeff: I'll be there tomorrow.

Beans on Toast: And that was it, yeah. And we looked at the-

Jeff: When's the next show, motherfucker?

Beans on Toast: We looked at the dates and the dates we was there, and the dates he was there, and he was like, the only one you'd be able to do is Detroit, but it would be like a nine hour drive there from New York and then a nine hour drive back to Rochester. And we was like, "Sounds good."

Jeff: Yeah, well, sign me up, motherfucker.

Beans on Toast: And basically, that was what we did. Got there, did the fucking Fillmore in Detroit, which is kind of hometown for Dave and Bridget as well. After that, it was like, "Do you want to do another one?" They sort it out. So, we did one in New Orleans, that one as well. And then it was that, and then after New Orleans, Nathan was like, "We're sort of putting this cruise thing together. We're going to do like a festival on a boat. All these bands, and you should-"

Dustin: What'd you think when they first brought that up?

Beans on Toast: He was like, "You should come." I was like, "Fuck yeah."

Jeff: Fuck... You were like, "Fuck it, sign me up."

Beans on Toast: Yeah. Exactly. Where do I sign? This is the end of quite a long tour, so I was in fucking New Orleans. So, it was said, and it just sort of like vanished off into the voodoo of the night. And yeah, the line up was announced the first year. It was like, "Fuck, well, you know, we're not on it."
But of course, I called Nathan, was like "You remember?" He was like, "I've got you man." He was like, "I've got you. We're not going to put you on the poster now because it's out, but I remember saying it and I stick by it and you're not just on the list, but we'll put you ... You got proper gigs. Come. You're playing. And that first year, I just couldn't believe that I was on it.

Dustin: I heard it went dry on the first year. Is that true?

Beans on Toast: Nah.

Dustin: So, is this a vacation for you too, or ...

Beans on Toast: It's four. This is my fourth year. I've got my mom and dad [crosstalk 00:22:51].

Jeff: That's awesome. They must have loved it too, right?

Beans on Toast: Fucking why, they don't love me now. But they're going to ... They're at home screwing. Yeah. I just share it out. I got my old school friend this year.

Jeff: Oh, nice.

Beans on Toast: He lives in New Zealand. I never see him, so I'm like, "Come on, man. Come on." Because it's easier for us to meet in the fucking states because he's so far away. So, it's like, "Come out. I'll take you on a cruise." And he's like, "What the fuck," and he's trying to work out what's going on still.

Dustin: Florida must be opposite of what London is like, as far as ...

Beans on Toast: Well, no. Yeah. It's literally the opposite. Strange for me, to be as far away as it can get.

Jeff: That's nuts. That's nuts.

Dustin: So, have you seen this boat tour change much as far as year after year, have you seen a build up?

Beans on Toast: The worst thing, my only worry would be like how normal is this shit. Imagine if it was like, "Oh, yeah. I've done that before." Or it's not a big deal that you got free food and free booze, you got to see the Bahamas. But do anything enough, and it will become normal.

Jeff: I guess, but-

Beans on Toast: No, but I'm fighting that.

Jeff: I think you got another decade, easy.

Dustin: You don't want to get too comfortable.

Beans on Toast: Before it's like

Jeff: I don't want to get too comfortable.

Speaker 1: Give it a decade.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Easy.

Beans on Toast: Before he sat. But Ed Stewart, a little bit, I remember him talking to me before I go and he's like, "Oh, where you're going?"
I said, "Oh, you know, I'm just doing cruise and all that."
"Oh, what's the cruise?"
I was like "Oh, you know, it's fucking Winter theme from home and all that."
"What are you talking about? What, why are you talking about it, and why are you talking about it as if you're going to fucking Watford? You know? You're going to the supermarket."
I said, "Oh yes. Oh yes."

Dustin: It's no big deal.

Beans on Toast: But, I think, as an event in our first year, I've never seen anything become so, from doing a lot of festivals and whatnot, it was like for a brand new event to become so entrenched in people, it was like it really won people over. And it's sort of like everybody was really part of it.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: It's a community.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: From there. All the sort of 'outlaw' Facebook groups, and stuff.

Jeff: Yeah, we were talking about that one.

Beans on Toast: Dream promo, as well. I think it was like, it's good to have something new, isn't it?

Dustin: Really?

Beans on Toast: I'm not knocking your standard festival, I love that, it's my bread and butter. But, it's like, some men, no offense, just sort of surprise everybody. I always had a thing, because a festival has a fence around it, but here, you really are detached.

Speaker 2: And, nobody's telling you what to do. There's nobody being like, 'Oh, you can't go there'.

Beans on Toast: There's a weird lawlessness to it.

Jeff: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: Which, you'd figure it'd be worse.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I feel so safe, but I also feel like I could get away with murder.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, well, you've got to look after yourself. There's a little bit of that; you're away from civilization.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: It's up to you. Which, I fully believe in the governing of ourselves. In fact, in the first year, on one of the water slides, they had a waiver. You basically, are like, it's a water slide. There isn't anything particularly dangerous.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: They're just like, 'Sign here before you go on it'. Basically, signing away your rights for anybody to be able to sue you, or whatever.

Jeff: Right.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Beans on Toast: And, once we got up to this water slide, as I went down; one's kind of the boring way that you normally go down water slides, went up for my second and I was like, 'Do you mind if I do a front flip?'. And the guard was like, 'Do what you want'.

Jeff: You signed the waiver, right?

Beans on Toast: You fucking signed. And after that I was like, I'm going to start carrying around waivers in my pocket. If someone's like, 'You can't do this', it's like, 'Why? What? There you go. I take responsibility for myself'. If I fall over, I'm not going to blame you, I'm going to blame me. I'll be like, 'Not on your head be; on my head be it'. That's what will be on the top of my waiver. 'On my head be it'.

Jeff: On my head ...

Beans on Toast: Yeah, and just live a freer and easier life. Just like, it's not your ... if someone gets hurt, immediately, straight away, people think someone's to blame and someone's got to pay. I think that's detrimental to humanity.

Jeff: Right, right, right.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: Basically.

Speaker 1: It's like, 'Who wasn't doing their job?'

Beans on Toast: Then, when people make money the you see the fucking hounds coming out; 'Were you injured at work?'

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: They turn it into a thing. Accountability, I think sometimes you've got to turn around and go, 'Sorry, man, not your fault'.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: You burnt your hand on the fire.

Speaker 2: That's not what the lawyers want to hear, though, you know?

Beans on Toast: Well, fuck the lawyers.

Dustin: Indeed, Sir.

Jeff: Yeah, screw them. I love hearing your ethos on your career and the way that you create music. This idea of-

Dustin: It's a totally different perspective, by the way, than all the artists that we've talked to, as far as, your approach seems very unique to all the other artists that we talk to. So far as, you're a very no pressure, like, I do what I want, because I don't have anyone else that relies on me, and I don't rely on anybody else, so it begs the question; what fuels you to do what you do?

Beans on Toast: Does it beg?

Dustin: It does. It begs it very deeply.

Beans on Toast: It's nice hearing you say that about it. I've not thought about this much, but I guess it's almost like a self-fulfilling cycle. I do it so that I can do that, that form of self-expression.

Dustin: But, where's the enjoyment?

Beans on Toast: Where's the enjoyment? Out playing gigs. Fuck, where's it not?

Speaker 1: It's so obvious.

Beans on Toast: Yeah. Everywhere about playing gigs is fucking brilliant. Mid, the before, the after, the travel, like, everything's great. I guess I do it just for the sake that I can do it. It's not even like I feel like anybody should hear what I've got to say.

Dustin: No, yeah.

Beans on Toast: It's just like more that, if I can say it and people are willing to come see it, then it opens up this kind of life, basically. As I said on stage when I was slamming my hand in a car door, -

Dustin: Yeah, I see that. That doesn't look like fun.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Almost looks like black nail polish.

Dustin: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: It's not. It's definitely not. But, at the moment, it's not that bad. This is a true optimist coming out.

Speaker 2: But it gave you some perspective, as far as-

Beans on Toast: Really, because from a minute from when the door slammed, up until I looked at my fingers, I thought I had chopped my fingers off.

Speaker 2: Oof.

Beans on Toast: My instant thought was, I'm not going to be able to do this tour.

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.

Beans on Toast: I had a few shows before the cruise, and I'm doing some afterwards. Between it coming up, I was like, I wondered about the tour. Then it was like, actually, I might not ever be able to play again.

Dustin: If you lost your fingers, yeah.

Beans on Toast: Then I looked. The nails hadn't smashed and there wasn't bleeding and they were still on, so I was like, 'I think they're alright'. And then, I went white and I got all shaky. My wife had to fucking get me home, quick sharp. It was bad. I never knew how close everything is to slipping away.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: In an instant. It was a quite hectic day, anyway, but just to think, one day, just like that, just from putting your hand down you might lose the ends of your fingers.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dustin: But, life is fleeting, and we are all fueled by death. Like, that whole thought of, 'it's around the corner'. Not only death of my soul and my life on this planet, but death of the career that could just change tomorrow.

Speaker 1: Or, the thing I love.

Dustin: That's why it's always like, what keeps me going? What is the thing that makes me do the thing that I'm doing tomorrow?

Beans on Toast: Love.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dustin: It really is, right?

Beans on Toast: Yeah, fucking A, yeah.

Speaker 2: That's awesome.

Beans on Toast: Love for my wife and family, but yeah, love of life, as well.

Dustin: Yeah.

Beans on Toast: And all the bits with it. Even this fucking slamming the hand in a car.

Dustin: It seems so simple, but it really does give you perspective. I've had moments like that, where I've injured myself and it's like, I guess that's it.

Beans on Toast: Could have been worse. Sounds like this guy'll get shitty tonight. It could have been worse.

Dustin: It could be worse.

Beans on Toast: And, it always could be.

Speaker 2: Especially here, man.

Jeff: Definitely. Definitely. Well, we want to thank you so much for sitting down and talking with us.

Beans on Toast: My pleasure. I feel like it went quite well.

Dustin: It went swimmingly.

Jeff: It definitely did. Just for our listeners and viewers out there, where is the best way to keep up with what you are doing?

Beans on Toast: Well, Beans on Toast doesn't translate very well in America, but it is a very popular dish in England.

Speaker 2: I've never had the combination of beans and toast in my life.

Beans on Toast: It's almost like being called hotdog. It's that popular.

Jeff: Alright, alright.

Beans on Toast: It's so weird. Little did I know when I come up with the name that one, I'd ever play a gig in America, or two, I'd have to explain it. But, at home it was quite interesting watching myself grow up on the Google search. If you Google search 'Beans and Toast', slowly I made my way to the top-

Jeff: Nice.

Beans on Toast: -in England. In America, I'm still not there. I'm still four or five down. So, the best way to find me-

Jeff: I feel like your SEO would be good for that, because we don't have any beans and toast in America.

Beans on Toast: It comes up like, 'Americans are eating beans on toast', YouTube video, or whatever. But, so ideally, everybody could look at me by how they find everything else, just Google it and slowly I will creep up.

Jeff: Yep.

Dustin: Right. Right.

Beans on Toast: Until, I'll one day be the top of the search engine [crosstalk 00:32:54].

Dustin: Do you rock social media at all? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

Beans on Toast: Yeah, fuck yeah. Of course. Necessary evil.

Dustin: Yeah, right.

Speaker 1: Yeah, necessary evil and I'll put all those in the show as well. So, yeah.

Dustin: Awesome, man. This was great.

Beans on Toast: Google it. Google it, mother-fuckers.

Dustin: I love your perspective. You definitely have an amazing amount of uniqueness to your career.

Beans on Toast: I thought that was a good end. We could fade out on the 'mother-fuckers'.

Speaker 2: Cheer, mate. Thank you so much, brother.

Jeff: Yes.