Chuck Prophet has put out 17+ solo records, 10 records with his former rock band Green on Red, and has worked with Bruce Springsteen, Kim Richey, Kelly Willis, Alejandro Escovedo, and Tony Visconti, appeared on many late night shows, toured with Lucinda Williams, and more. We chat with Chuck about transitioning from being in a band to having a solo career, San Fransisco as inspiration, how major successes come out of the blue, learning by doing, songwriting as a self taught art form, the need for more danger in music, and a whole lot more.
Chuck Prophet has put out 17+ solo records, 10 records with his former rock band Green on Red, and has worked with Bruce Springsteen, Kim Richey, Kelly Willis, Alejandro Escovedo, and Tony Visconti, appeared on many late night shows, toured with Lucinda Williams, and more. We chat with Chuck about transitioning from being in a band to having a solo career, San Fransisco as inspiration, how major successes come out of the blue, learning by doing, songwriting as a self taught art form, the need for more danger in music, and a whole lot more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of the other 22 hours podcast. We have officially made it. This is the final episode of 2025. And I am still your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:17] Michaela: and I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And we're so happy to still be here at the end of our second year.
And we will be back for a third year.
[00:00:24] Aaron: Before we jump into today's episode. As you guys know, we have just three quick asks. You guys have been an incredible community and continue to be. So if you have heard our show before and know that you like what you hear and what we put out there, if you could just do a few things, first thing is to subscribe on whatever you're listening to or watching.
We know that most of y'all that watch on YouTube aren't subscribed, please do it. It helps. And secondly, to share word of mouth is amazing. However, you heard about our show. If there is somebody in your circle that doesn't know about it, just send them your favorite episode. And lastly, if you would like to directly support our show we have a Patrion community that is ever growing, ever evolving, small, but mighty and about the cost of mediocre coffee from Dunkin Donuts If that interests you, there is a link below in the show notes.
[00:01:14] Michaela: And one of the things we really pride ourselves on for this podcast is that we are not journalists. We are musicians ourselves. So instead of calling these interviews, we really think of them as just conversations.
Like we're sitting around the kitchen table talking about the very honest realities of what it is to build a lifelong career on your art.
[00:01:33] Aaron: which is wild for sure. And so we've distilled that all down to the underlying question of what do you do to create sustainability in your life so that you can sustain your creativity?
And today we got to ask that question of Chuck Proffitt.
[00:01:47] Michaela: Chuck Proffitt is a San Francisco based musician. He got his start in the 80s in the psychedelic desert rock group Green on Red. He's been putting out solo records since the 90s. He's one of my personal favorites. we talk about it in the episode, but we met him in 2020, right before the pandemic hit when we played in San Francisco and he came to my show.
We were label mates at the time on Yep Rock and it just started my infatuation with his records. particularly Night Surfer. I'll let Aaron take away what else he's done after I've gushed about just what a fan I am of his music.
[00:02:24] Aaron: Yeah, on top of playing in his rock band Green on Red and touring the world and making records all over the world with them, he's also worked with Bruce Springsteen, Kim Ritchie, Kelly Willis, Alejandro Escovedo, Tony Visconti, a lot of really cool people that make really cool music and have really moved the marker and You can hear it in our conversation with Chuck.
We talk about, being in a band first being solo, stepping into the scene in Nashville, which was completely out of his wheelhouse at the time and coming here for rights. We talk about the city of San Francisco itself and how inspiring that is and how there's so many diverse art forms there and how that's really important.
We talk about the fact that the music industry is pretty pedestrian these days and we need some more danger in it.
[00:03:07] Michaela: Too many well adjusted people in direct contradiction of the foundation of this podcast probably.
[00:03:13] Aaron: Yeah. Our bad. Sorry, Chuck. One last note our editor will make it sound amazing, but this whole conversation that was like one of those really annoying internet delays. So if you hear some awkward pauses, it was a great conversation where we had to do the early 2000s cell phone thing where we say something and then wait.
and then get cut off and jerk and all that just wanted to raise that because Chuck is such a funny guy. He's so witty and so quick. You'll hear it in our conversation. So without further ado, here's our conversation with Chuck profit.
[00:03:42] Chuck: I'm back in
[00:03:43] Aaron: Perfect.
[00:03:44] Chuck: know, normally I just use my phone, but I thought, Oh, stack some books and I'll,
[00:03:47] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:03:49] Chuck: I got one down there. so here we are. I went the extra mile. So you guys better.
[00:03:54] Aaron: Perfect.
[00:03:54] Michaela: So we better go the extra mile
too. Yeah.
[00:03:57] Chuck: Whatever it
[00:03:58] Michaela: Yeah. Thank you for agreeing to come and chat with us.
you, are you home in San Francisco now?
[00:04:05] Chuck: Yeah, this is San Francisco. I'm at my so called office. It's just kind of a shoebox. sized space that I rent in the ghetto, and in the heart of it, and uh, yeah, it's a place that I work, and I don't really record, but you know, it's where I write and stare out the window,
[00:04:21] Aaron: I take it, it's a separate spot from your house or is it in
the same building? by all means. Yeah, first of all, my wife Stephanie and I, we work together and we've worked together for years. live in a pretty small apartment. I was thinking this morning about all the people I've co written with and that every one of those was like a lesson. You know, all became teachers.
[00:04:42] Chuck: I remember years ago writing with Jules Scheer and he had a,
[00:04:46] Michaela: Mm-hmm
[00:04:46] Chuck: place to write. And I thought, wow, I guess, maybe that's what I need. So I do have a designated place to write, co write or shout at the walls. and I should have done it a long time ago.
[00:04:56] Michaela: Yeah. It makes a difference. I was, just thinking about how my like office is my writing room, but it's also where I do all of like business. So it's not exactly like inspiring because,
that's like another challenge of is it where you're answering emails and approving graphic designs for records and stuff.
And then you're also trying to write in the same space.
[00:05:19] Chuck: It's a lot better than when all that stuff was at home. Because you can never really get away from it and it's gonna be nagging you and, you know, I mean, There's always something to do. I try to be responsible about returning emails and things like that, there are times when, you know, who cares? Heh. hard to know. I think we all as artists do things to make us feel good. And sometimes that can be spinning your wheels, I have to have a place that I can go, but if I
[00:05:47] Michaela: Mm hmm.
[00:05:47] Chuck: just do emails and shuffle papers around, I guess that's what I do.
But I gotta be here. I may not do anything creative. might sit here for eight hours and just take care of some, mundane stuff. And then in the eighth hour, something might happen. It's called showing up, I guess. It's my happy place,
[00:06:04] Aaron: Yeah.
Yeah, what was it. Yeah, I Chuck Close. The artist he has that famous quote that like, I'm paraphrasing and obviously not saying it nearly as eloquently as he did, but basically like amateurs wait for inspiration and for the muse to show up those of us that have been lucky enough to able to call our creativity in our art our career.
We just show up and Make things happen more or less, just keep showing up and keep being there
Oh,
[00:06:31] Chuck: you know, and she's made a couple records over the years and she's been writing lately and she's written some great songs. her thing with me is like, yeah, you know, she says I've written some songs but, I can't grind it out like you do. that's her image of me anyway, I don't know if I grind anything out, I worry things into the ground, I'm not, yeah, I can overthink
[00:06:53] Aaron: yeah.
[00:06:54] Chuck: In fact, I was speaking to someone at Yelp Rock and they said, I think you're overthinking this. And I made a mental note, I said, yeah well, There's a place in hell for all the people who told me that I overthink things, and you're there now. So I can overthink anything. I can't
[00:07:10] Michaela: Oh, I wonder who that
[00:07:11] Chuck: it came at
[00:07:12] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:07:13] Chuck: I didn't consider it, insulting or anything. I just have the ability to roll things around,
[00:07:18] Aaron: We moved.
Made the potion. We live in Nashville now. We've been here for about 10 years and moved here from Brooklyn, New York. And when we first got here, it was within the first six months of being here. I heard somebody say, in the typical Southern dialect of having short sentences to say a lot.
Somebody told me you can't plow a field by turning it over in your head. And I'm like, Oh, cause I'm, I'm all up in my head.
[00:07:41] Chuck: I love Nashville. spent a lot of time there over the years. And I met some of my best friends I met there. And I was lucky to come there at a time when I needed it, really.
[00:07:51] Michaela: the people what really make,
yeah, the people here really what, make it for us. I think because we lived in New York City for 10 years, we wish we lived in a walkable City. In some ways but I think the community of musicians is just really strong here, and you really can't replace that where, you can decide, I wanna record a song tomorrow and call just some of the best musicians and have them over and write together.
That's what's so wonderful about being here?
[00:08:18] Chuck: Yeah, when I went there, I had been in bands, we'd been signed, we'd been dropped, I made a couple solo records, I got signed, I got dropped, you know, I'd been, I was kind of banged up and I really didn't have any prospects or much of anything going on, and I live here in San Francisco, you know, day to day, it's just not that kind of place.
When I went to Nashville, I ended up writing with a lot of people that, I probably wouldn't know in normal life, anything in common with. they were always professional. the idea was to wrestle an idea to the ground and get out of there. And so, learned a lot. And then I also made some lifelong friends.
It was a great experience for me. And the thing is, is that there were a lot of people my age that had been through the ringer. And they found themselves in Nashville, in a writing community,
[00:09:08] Michaela: Mm-hmm .
[00:09:09] Chuck: it's interesting, because I would listen to country radio occasionally, And I heard this song, Believe Me Baby, I Lied, it was a Tricia Yearwood song number one record, as it turns out, And it was written by some people you probably know, Angelo, And uh, Larry Gottlieb, and of course, Kim Ritchie, on my first trip, I think I ended up
[00:09:29] Michaela: Mm-hmm
[00:09:30] Chuck: people. to me, just mind blowing. You
[00:09:32] Michaela: Mm-hmm
[00:09:32] Chuck: in a room with them. And we're still all friends. I haven't seen Gottlieb in ages, but he's an, character. Larry Gottlieb, out. But, uh, yeah, so Nashville was a great place.
[00:09:42] Michaela: yeah, I love Kim Ritchie. I know you've worked with her and we've attempted a few times to write together and what often happens is that we sit and talk for like the whole time and then we're like, shit, we got to go. So we've yet to finish a song we mostly just get together and talk shit together.
[00:10:01] Chuck: I see. Well, that's all part of it.
[00:10:03] Michaela: we need the follow up. You need like the first session when you haven't seen each other in a while to talk it out and then come back the next day and actually get the song on the page. I think is the plan of action.
[00:10:14] Chuck: Well, It helps, you know, I mean. kim is a pretty gifted writer. There's not really many people like her. And also a really
[00:10:23] Michaela: Mm hmm.
[00:10:23] Chuck: know, natural writer. She has her antenna up and if you get some music going, she generally pulls things out through the music. she's just the best man. And funny.
[00:10:33] Michaela: Yeah. You mentioned That it was a time when you came to Nashville there was a group of people around your age that you all had been through the ringer, do you remember what age in your life that was
[00:10:43] Chuck: 34, you know, pushing my mid thirties. I mean, Nashville was a different place. was the place you could describe as like a science fiction movie where they'd killed all the young people. there really weren't any young
[00:10:57] Michaela: Mm
[00:10:58] Chuck: Angela started working with the Kings and Leon, and we started seeing, another generation of, kids, you know, which is great.
And which is where you are today, you know. But, yeah, it was,
[00:11:07] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:11:08] Chuck: made a record there, Green on Red, my old band, we made a record the Sound Emporium, in the smaller room probably
[00:11:14] Michaela: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
[00:11:18] Chuck: the big room, and we just kinda walked in there a couple times, and just watched the sessions, you know, nobody cared.
we were drinking a lot back then, and we would always go to rider's nights or whatever was happening. We had our rental car and I think we were staying at the Holiday Inn over on Vanderbilt, is that, it used to be a tower records over there. yeah, we would go out to those rider's nights and there would be
whoever cut this song back in 79, it was really good for me and it was very fascinating. And I think the Bluebird was there at the time as well. we would
[00:11:45] Aaron: Mm hmm. Okay.
[00:11:47] Chuck: and look for trouble.
[00:11:48] Michaela: I'm always curious about the age, because we're in our mid late thirties, and One of the things with this podcast is we've noticed there's a lot of young people now in Nashville. But we've made it a thing of we want to talk to people Who are at least a few album cycles into their career or at least like a decade we will make exceptions But we've noticed within our own community it's important to kind of go through the ringer your
[00:12:12] Aaron: knees a few times.
Yeah.
[00:12:13] Michaela: You have like a different perspective versus like the naive, beautiful enthusiasm of your twenties , then getting through the ringer and staying committed to this that's what we really wanna talk to people about people who've been roughed up and are still doing it.
Mm-hmm
[00:12:31] Chuck: there's So much to learn about the art form and the process of making records and, you're gonna make mistakes and you're gonna learn things are times when you're gonna be uncomfortable, but don't push through then, just don't grow, know how else to say it.
[00:12:45] Aaron: I've noted in my own life that when things are going well or smoothly or things are coming easily, I don't necessarily learn anything. But if I'm getting beat up and, things aren't quite going my way or, whatever it might be I learned really quickly.
[00:13:01] Chuck: it.
[00:13:05] Michaela: When you kind of were in that period of time where you went, through the ringer and didn't have any prospects, what kind of kept you going because I'm assuming there is a turning point where all of a sudden you did get some prospects and know that you started putting out solo records and have had, a couple different indie record deals with New West and then now still with Yep Rock.
what Was that experience for you of feeling like, Is anything going to happen? And how did you kind of stay your course and where was the turning point?
[00:13:36] Chuck: I was on a British label, British major label that was an affiliate of Warner Brothers, and I made a record in 95 called Feast of Hearts, and it looked like it was going to come out in the States, and then it looked like maybe it wasn't going to come out, and then clearly it didn't come out, and, we'd done a few showcases, and when that was over, I thought maybe I would like write for television or something, I don't know.
I did have a publisher somewhere around then and I made an independent, a couple independent records for a label in England called Cooking Vinyl. And my publisher had the idea to send me to Nashville, really. He'd had experience with people like Big Al Anderson and wasn't very kind to me about being an artist or a performer.
And so that kind of wasn't on the table, but decided that I could be a writer. And, that's when I went to Nashville and I had some appointments and some co writes and people I didn't really know. And it was a good time for me because It kept me engaged, and the thing is, is that, there's always something going on.
You're writing, or somebody's making a demo, or somebody's playing the showcase, or the, you know, there's always something going on, and I think that was probably pretty healthy for me.
[00:14:43] Michaela: Did you feel like it kept you from?
[00:14:45] Chuck: 98 there,
[00:14:47] Michaela: sometimes we can see with ourselves and with artists, if we're in a kind of a downflux or wondering what our prospects are of like the keeping engaged in some other way is really helpful to keep you creatively nourished, also distracted.
So like if you're not having a lot of touring opportunities at the time and that's like weighing on you and then engaging in this other way of, oh, okay, there's some opportunities to write that helps you like not wallow and dwell in a way and focusing on what's not flowing and kind of being open to these other channels.
[00:15:21] Chuck: I always stayed busy in some way or another. I played guitar in other bands. I've, you know, written. The thing that I enjoyed about Nashville was that I never saw this coming, but all the things that I learned being in a band, it's a self taught art form, and nobody really tells you how to do it.
So if you're in a band, you know, you might say let's go to a bridge, or let's go to some other place here and maybe it'll be fresh when we go back to the other part. It feels good. A lot of songs do that, I've noticed. And so all the things that I learned playing in bands since the time I was like 12 or whatever, it actually helped me,
[00:15:56] Michaela: Mm
[00:15:58] Chuck: and he said that early on thing that kept him going was that he wanted to hear His music coming out of the big speakers. Here's a guy from Alabama, got a little publishing deal, and if you could write something strong enough, Rick Hall, his publisher would let him go into the big studio.
And they were engineering themselves, and I
[00:16:16] Michaela: hmm.
[00:16:17] Chuck: that. Sometimes it's just well, we, want to get this together just enough to do the gig. So, You're getting ready for a gig, or you're getting over, but the writing stuff it's kind of a self taught art form, and so I was happy that all those things helped me, because I was pretty intimidated, to go into a room at the BMI building or whatever with a stranger.
But I was surprised
[00:16:37] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:16:38] Chuck: I'd learned along the way actually were able to be useful.
[00:16:42] Aaron: kind of touching on a subject that I'm always really interested in coming and getting your start as part of a band and then setting off doing everything yourself. So not only the creativity, but just like the direction, the motivation, the momentum, all of that.
Did you find? it was a adjustment period for you across the board, not just with the writing.
[00:17:03] Chuck: lucky in so many ways and one of the things is I had my kite up the wind changed direction, and there was a time when Green on Red kind of disintegrated. I started playing solo gigs in San Francisco. And there were some places here like the Paradise and the Albion and these rooms that we would play.
And we would end up doing three sets a night. by necessity, Stephanie and I, she would play accordion, I would play guitar, and we'd have rhythm sections. But just through doing it, and then I got a deal in England, and we started touring the UK. Up and down the Angry Island, playing every pub in Leeds and Sheffield, just by doing it, we actually started to get good confident, and all those Barg Band gigs really came in handy because, you know, audiences in the UK can be, Pretty salty, you know, and, uh, you know, you gotta have that experience. And I loved it. I still do, it's still one of my best markets and one of my favorite places to play.
I look around Yeah, we
get in the time,
[00:18:08] Aaron: Yeah, we see that here too. It's like there's such a Focus on like I want to play these big theaters. I want to do all that and I started playing gigs when I was like 14 years old I grew up in Maine, so there wasn't a ton of gigs, but, as soon as my friend got his license, we were driving all over and playing every, brick oven pizza place and book shop in Maine that would
have three high
school kids to play music.
and then when Mikaela and I met in Brooklyn and I played so many gigs that were, two, three sets in weird places, in weird corners, Italian
[00:18:36] Michaela: restaurants, and yeah, getting in the way of people waiting in line to buy
[00:18:40] Aaron: a coffee, you know, like wherever, playing on the street, I played in like a brass band with a, trumpet player, a tuba player, and myself.
We'd play on the street walk into bars and play and, at the end of the night, we'd walk away with a few hundred bucks person, just wherever we could.
[00:18:54] Michaela: We thought we were living large when we got paid like 300 and a meal. Yeah, exactly. It's this is
[00:19:00] Aaron: a great gig.
[00:19:01] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:19:01] Aaron: 300 for the whole band. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:04] Chuck: beautiful thing is that as time goes on, it gets easier and easier to romanticize them.
[00:19:08] Michaela: Mm hmm. For sure.
[00:19:09] Aaron: Exactly. Exactly. Absolutely.
[00:19:12] Michaela: I'm so glad there's no recordings of that time. how long have you and Stephanie been together? Cause I'm also like intrigued by creative couples who have lifelong partnerships and work together musically and
professionally
in life.
[00:19:27] Chuck: We're not 100 percent sure because we were in other relationships. There may have been some overlap, I'm thinking maybe 1989 or so,
[00:19:34] Michaela: Okay.
[00:19:34] Chuck: had seen Stephanie play. She was in a group with my best friend's sister, who was an actress, Mare Winningham, and they had a group. And I saw them playing. And Stephanie playing piano and singing had kind of a McGregor sisters thing.
And I just looked at her and was like, Wow, And then later, There was a kind of a back room of a bar called the Albion, And they had a weekly put on gigs there on the weekends and we did a kind of a in the round song swap thing with me and Patrick Winningham who later wrote some songs for the Counting Crows and Steve Yerke, just an incredible songwriter loved to argue about songwriting and he always won and Stephanie would play accordion and sing harmony and that was really the beginning of our relationship musically and otherwise, And, you
[00:20:18] Aaron: cool. I'm, I'm
[00:20:19] Chuck: lot of this, a lot of that. And, uh, it's amazing that it hasn't really broken us apart. It's actually, you know, brought us closer together, I think. Because I think that these kind of relationships can get kind of brittle.
[00:20:32] Aaron: Totally. it's quite the dance to mix the personal and the creative that then becomes the professional and there's quite a few layers, especially, in our situation, I've played in Michaela's band for a long time. So it's, just a weird dynamic where, Michaela performs under her own name, it's her project, it's her music, she's the front woman and, I'm in service to that, we're in partnership with each other, and there's a big dance to it all.
[00:20:58] Chuck: Yeah, maybe, if I had it to do over, I would have maybe formed another band, but I just didn't see that. I didn't see myself as doing that, I kind of thought I had my shot. when I was in Green on Red we did all those stupid things that bands do, you know, we toured around the world, we made records.
In L. A., in Nashville, in England and, we had all the battles with the outside world, and then we had all the battles with each other, you know. and I just didn't see being in
[00:21:23] Michaela: Mhm.
[00:21:24] Chuck: that time. So I quietly made, a couple solo records,
it was something to build on. Played some gigs, and Five people show up and next time there's ten and twelve and, you know, it started making a little bit more sense, but Make a record every 18 months or so and then try to go out there and give it the college try and do the hand to hand combat to take it out to the, people.
And that's pretty much what it's been and it's built into something that's, pretty solid now.
[00:21:53] Aaron: Yeah, so coming from Green on Red that was touring the world and all of that, and then, into the early days of your solo career when you're, back to playing small rooms and having to basically start from square one and rebuild, what, if anything, did you find kept you going, was there any thought of man back here like, what am I doing?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:22:16] Chuck: I remember when we were all playing the Albion and I would see some of the same faces at the shows. it felt good. I felt like, something's happening here.
And people are coming back. And then there would be a little line, I remember the guys that I was playing with were like, When are we going to play a real gig, you know?
And, I thought well, kind of doing it. I remember even playing
[00:22:37] Michaela: Mmh. Mmh.
[00:22:41] Chuck: days later playing a bar, You know, for 30 people or whatever, I felt like something was happening, And the rest of it would take care of itself.
[00:22:48] Michaela: Mmh.
[00:22:49] Chuck: I believed in it. I
[00:22:50] Michaela: has that sustained or have you ever had times where you had to re evaluate or think, wait, what's happening? It doesn't feel like it's on an upward trajectory the whole time. Mmh. Mmh. You
[00:23:03] Chuck: is defining your success, can be a struggle. But, it's more like, am I lucky enough to pull a few songs out of the air that get me excited about the next chapter? I'm lucky enough to do that, then I wake up feeling pretty excited about the day.
and that's all I can hope for, really. I had more high powered management and it wasn't really a great fit for me. Ultimately I remember I was playing a gig up in Davis or something and pulled into the parking lot and the, Promoter was pulling into the gravel lot at the same time, and he's like, Oh, hey, Chuck.
I said, Oh, hey, you know, I'm here. And he said, Sorry, I got a call from your manager. I had to go back to the store to get some non alcoholic beer for you. And I said, What? Because I was trying to get sober at the time, and so my day to day guy at the management company had called the promoter, and said, Yeah, I don't want any beer backstage, maybe some non alcoholic beer. And I thought, Wow feels nice, you know, somebody cares about me, so I ended up leaving that management and just working with the day to day guy, Dan Kennedy, and he was really my partner in business. Through all of this stuff, he was a believer. He ended up a high school math gig and managing me and no other artists. And that took us through all the New West years and up until just recently when, he was retiring from teaching and wanted to, his options open a little bit his you know, later years, so we split, but we had a really great run And that was worth so much more to me than the things I thought I wanted, and we made it happen. We really got into this thing records and we're gonna play gigs. And we're going to tune everything else out. And that's pretty much what we did.
[00:24:40] Chuck: We had no money. We tried to keep the van running. We're trying to pay poor guys in the band and trench warfare, you know, just every day, just one foot in front of the other. And of course, you know, I romanticize that time now when say, Look, I got you a Texaco card, use this for a while.
And then that, that would burn out and we'd have to get another card. And we were all in. that's the groundwork for what I'm still doing. And I like it.
[00:25:02] Aaron: I love hearing that because like Michaela mentioned, being in our late thirties and our community being roughly the same age there's, as we all know, so many gatekeepers in this industry. And so you think Oh, this big name booking agent or all this big name manager or this, whatever, these are who I need on my team to get to where I want to be.
And we see with ourselves and with other people in our community, that it's like. After we've had the experience of having people with a larger name and a deeper resume, then like really in the end, what it matters is finding somebody like Dan, like you found somebody that's a believer that's invested.
That's like, cool, let's try these things. Let's try this. You know, What about this? And it's hungry and is creative and inventive.
[00:25:44] Michaela: And particularly understands you. I think that's the rub sometimes with like the bigger named management or agents. It's do they have the capacity, the time, the belief, the interest, and really getting to know each individual artist and what they need.
Especially depending where they're at in their career, where you're at in your career. There's so much more to it than just, Oh, they've done these great things, so they'll be able to do great things for me. Yeah.
[00:26:14] Chuck: there's a lot to that, you know, and in some ways you just have to take the vow of poverty and get on with it, and another thing that I realized through the years is that We were playing for the bartenders and the sound men initially. And they liked us, would see bartenders like, Oh yeah, when I saw this on the calendar I signed up so I could have a shift that night. And we'd just kind of tune the rest of it out.
[00:26:34] Aaron: There is a really cool camaraderie with venue staff, the bar staff, especially at places you play all the time. we're in this together, you know, when the lights come up and you see all the. shit on the floor. We're here together. It's still working.
[00:26:46] Chuck: a big deal. I mean, You know, there's a record deal or something and someone says maybe a lawyer should look at it. And you know, spoiler alert, lawyer doesn't like it. Anybody can say no, I think.
And I think the thing is, is that I was probably just game.
[00:27:05] Aaron: speaking of like the vow of poverty, I was raised on like, The Grateful Dead and in my later years, Neil Young, some of these other people all around the San Francisco music scene, Jefferson airplane, like all of that in kind of the, sixties, seventies scene, I always wanted to move to San Francisco, but by the time I was old enough to move there, it would have been 2004.
So then I felt that the city was just kind of unattainable for me. you know, San Francisco is notoriously crazy expensive having so many years in the city, how has that affected your creativity and your approach and like your freedom to move and experiment and try things?
[00:27:44] Chuck: San Francisco has been my education in so many ways, films, you know, there are so many art houses here when I was coming up, when I was 18, 19, you know, in my twenties, there was so many of them. In fact, before I was dating Stephanie, my girlfriend at the time.
And I got together with Stephanie, her boyfriend, we decided we were going to go see godfather one and two back to back at the York Theater over on York and 24th, if you're ever in San Francisco. I don't know what it is now. It's a nonprofit theater of some kind. But I remember we went in there at like noon and we got out like it was dark and that's just San Francisco.
I don't know what we were doing if we had jobs you know, I just think about that so San Francisco's been my education, you know. when I was living in the suburbs, I was 15 or 16 years old, Joe LaBiaffa was running for mayor. And the local news channels, they just loved him.
And they gave him lots of air time. he said that if he won, then, there would be a statue of Dan White downtown and We would make money by selling tomatoes that they could throw at the statue. He said that all businessmen would have to wear clown suits and people took him seriously.
Cause he was a kook, you know, but it's been that kind of town. The Dead Kennedys and, a lot of bands in San Francisco, unlike the East Bay, noticed. I've noticed. They came out of the Art Institute, whereas in the East Bay they came out of like Berkley High, bands with horns, Tower of Power, or Ska Bands, Berkley was always more educated, that came out of the city were always more conceptual, a lot of people from the Art Institute You know the Avengers and the sleepers and this band called crime Which I don't know if they ever made a record, but they made great posters and they're still out there so.
Anyway, I don't know. You're asking me what San Francisco means to me Creatively, it's everything, Stephanie and I we live in the Castro You So, local politics, we have a heightened awareness of these things, filmmakers and music and, I used to play a guitar with this comedian when I was 18, Sobel, who went on to write for SNL and things and, I think I saw Dana Carvey like, working on the church lady skit, you know, I think I saw some,
[00:29:53] Aaron: Yeah. Wow. and I learned a lot from being around those comedians in retrospect. They might have five minutes they were working on, and they would go and change one little thing. You know, And that would be a huge leap of faith to them. And I would think well, it doesn't seem like a big deal. But, was.
[00:30:12] Chuck: And so I played with Barry, and he ended up doing Carson, I think, twice. Which was a real big deal at the time. So yeah, it's all been part of my education.
[00:30:20] Michaela: How has that changed as the city has changed? And of course, always hearing about like the tech world and extreme wealth and, pricing out artists have you felt that impact at all in your life and your ability to maneuver?
[00:30:35] Chuck: Yeah, absolutely. in a very real way, there's less musicians out there that are living on the fringes or working on the fringes, I was talking to a friend of mine, I said, where's the bass player that bartends a couple nights and also has some students? And he said, oh Chuck, that sounds like white privilege to me.
I said, I don't know what that is. But a lot of that fringe element I feel is gone but that's all part of it, some people are against rent control because they think it prices out young people and that the young people can't move into the city because it's cost prohibitive and people are hunkered down in their rent controlled apartments.
But, when Stephanie and I got our apartment, which is a rent control apartment was a sketchy neighborhood. It was not like it is today. now you see, nannies, generally pushing strollers with twins, cause somebody probably used a turkey baster and a lot of twins.
[00:31:26] Aaron: Mm-hmm see things like that. Yeah.
[00:31:29] Chuck: said, it prices out the young people, and I
[00:31:31] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:31:31] Chuck: people, don't need to go to Brooklyn or Williamsburg or Queens or, they need to go to Daly City or, or, push it out. That's all part of it.
[00:31:40] Michaela: That's what we've seen. We, I feel like 15 years ago, we had a lot more friends who lived in San Francisco. Mm-hmm . And feel like everyone's moved out. to different parts of the bay that I don't think I know anybody anymore who lives in the city except for you, Chuck.
[00:32:00] Chuck: when I saw you guys play on Valencia Street you know, that was a short
[00:32:04] Michaela: Mm
[00:32:05] Chuck: very much a walking city yeah, it's everything to me. It's where I invented myself.
[00:32:10] Aaron: Yeah, I loved what you were saying about, creative influence and inspiration there, like you mentioned a few bands, but mostly you mentioned art houses and film and theater and comedy and all of these other art forms, which is something I really cherish.
It's something that I really miss about living in a city like New York or like San Francisco that has such a high caliber of all these other art forms. We're lucky to live in Nashville because of the music community and obviously it's a Um, opportunity and it's accessibility to the music scene out far out sizes.
It's actual population but there's not a ton of other art forms here. There's no major art gallery. There's a little tiny film festival that happens every August. There's a comedy club, but it's Of no comparison to a city like San Francisco or New York, and I think that's so important for creativity and inspiration.
[00:32:58] Chuck: Well, You got a lot of churches
[00:33:00] Aaron: That's true.
[00:33:03] Chuck: I just got back from Europe, you know, where they've turned some great churches into great gigs and I'd like to see more of that.
[00:33:09] Michaela: I know. Yeah. I wanted to go back to something you said when you were talking about staying on your path and like really focusing on your own thing. And you said that the problem can come in when you start letting other people define your success. And I was wondering if you could give some examples of that When that has come into play and how you've been able to be like, nope, cool, I'm good.
[00:33:33] Chuck: There's success and then you know what you can measure in money. And money is money's wonderful,
but there's also
[00:33:39] Michaela: hmm.
[00:33:40] Chuck: is just to write a song you're proud of or make a record that, you believe in. You gotta please yourself. And as far as a team, you know, it's good to have a team, a label, and a publisher, and a bookkeeper, and whatever you can do to Move this stuff down the road, but as far as the people and what their expectations are You know you just don't know until you're in bed with somebody you really don't know if they're good or bad Or honest, and I think that's just all part of it Everybody's gonna get into business with people that maybe it doesn't go great But like I said earlier anybody can say no it doesn't really
[00:34:17] Michaela: I think that's an important point to bring up because someone's idea who is potentially working for you, whether it's an agent or a management or a label and their definition of what they deem successful, if it's based purely on numbers, attendance, fans, whatever, money, It cannot align with yours.
And that doesn't mean that you are not as successful as you should be, but I think it's challenging to protect yourself from the kind of like mental challenge and emotional challenge if you are not deemed as successful as somebody might want you to be in bed with you essentially. And I think the really important thing is To know for yourself what is successful, I come back to that a lot of like, when I go on tour, was it good only if it was like more tickets sold than I thought? Or is it like the stories and the connections and experiences that I got to have because of the tour, I think of that San Francisco show that you came to, that was like right when the pandemic hit, I think the city shut down
[00:35:21] Aaron: a week later,
[00:35:22] Michaela: later.
And that was such a, treasured memory because of meeting you, Chuck, and not because I was like, Oh my God, Chuck Proffitt came to my show. But because then I went home and listened to your records incessantly and became a huge fan and your music had an impact.
on my life. And so it's like those little connections of like what introduces you to something, what, you know, furthers or deepens your inspiration, all of that stuff. I think we have to take into account as artists of how that feeds our idea of feeling like a success versus a failure. Did I sell more tickets, and do I have, the big people thinking I'm a success, and all of that stuff.
[00:36:02] Chuck: I know that my, having been signed and, dropped so many times and had these relationships with labels I remember when I was between record deals, maybe 20 years ago, I called over to Cooking Vinyl because I think I'd made a record for them, and then I left to go to New West for a couple records.
And then, I was a free
[00:36:21] Michaela: Uh huh.
[00:36:22] Chuck: you know, went through all that and shook myself off. I called over to Cooking Vinyl. I remember I'd spoke to Martin Goldschmidt, the president or the owner of the label. And I said well, this is what's going on. I'm working on this record and I'm kind of looking for a home.
And he said well, hold on a second. He said, I'll call you back. he called me back like 10 minutes later and he said, yeah, I just walked around the office and asked people if they like working with you, and they said, most of them said they like working with you.
Why don't we do something? I think he was just looking for something that wasn't gonna, bring drama, know? I think that that was, for me, some
[00:36:52] Michaela: Uh huh. Uh Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Adversarial?
[00:36:58] Chuck: work with different bands.
I worked with this band, The Reubenews, and They were childhood heroes of mine when I was in high school. I went probably saw them 25 times. They'd been on American bandstand. had gone to England and had a hit record and played on the old gray whistle test. and so I work with them now.
And the singer, John is constantly doing things I have to tell him, John, this is in the seventies. We don't have these, Relationships like that anymore, you know Everybody's out to get each other, you know, it's like you're gonna have to just soften up a little bit not antagonistic.
But what do you call that? litigious or whatever, those kinds of Relationships, you yeah adversarial. Thank you. Not really interested in adversarial relationships But it's the bread and butter of the old
[00:37:44] Michaela: Yeah, so
yeah. It is. Yeah. Yeah. That makes me think a lot about some relationships I've had with older people in this industry.
[00:37:52] Chuck: Sure.
[00:37:53] Michaela: did that kind of become a helpful part of your definition of like positive working relationships rather than just making decisions based on that versus what you think that they'll, get from it.
[00:38:05] Chuck: Well,
I also like to think that I matured a little bit. I got sober somewhere along the line. 1997 to be exact. And I think I've grown. And matured. And,
all that stuff comes into play. I think I'm a little bit less of an asshole.
[00:38:19] Michaela: That helps. Mm hmm. Yeah. it's funny how that feels like a common theme as well in just this business maybe it's all businesses and I've, only have ever worked in the music business, so I don't know, but I feel like that's a positive of getting older in an industry that often really treasures youth.
But. I've had friends, acquaintances and bands where we're all getting older and I remember one of them, I won't name him by name so that it's anonymous, but he mentioned he used to be an asshole and I thought about it and I was like, Yeah, you were, I was like, and I just accepted it and I was like, what happened?
You know, and his explanation was just like, life happened he started growing up, he had some hard knocks and I think that's a helpful thing to stay on, this path cause so much is also about community and relationships.
[00:39:11] Chuck: in the moral words of Andy Warhol, you're trying to get people to pay for something they don't need,
[00:39:17] Michaela: Yeah, the ego that has to come into play sometimes when you're trying to like, get people to pay attention to you
times. entertain yourself, maybe other people will find it entertaining. And if it's fun
[00:39:29] Aaron: Yeah. It's, there's
[00:39:31] Chuck: People pick up on that.
[00:39:32] Aaron: yeah, bringing it back to seeing, bands on stage, Tell when the, band isn't getting along, you can feel that On stage you can feel that energy and if they're up there having a great time. You can feel that too
[00:39:50] Chuck: I wish I was watching somebody was laying it all on the line. Just trying to express themselves, and there's something going on beyond the music, I'm not saying that, it's so well adjusted now.
But There has been a kind of, increase in well adjusted people in music. Just a lot of like, nice people, and super well adjusted, and they probably did very well in high school, and they were part of the entertainment council, and I remember those kids, you know, I remember seeing, like, I remember seeing like, school plays and thinking, like, How'd they get in this play?
I would've liked to have done something like this. where was I? so, you know, it's not all good. It used to be dangerous. I don't know that being in a band is, particularly dangerous anymore. It's funny. There's these kind of up with people bands, came out of Canada and stuff, and just nice people. It's, it's boring.
[00:40:47] Michaela: that's hilarious.
[00:40:48] Chuck: We're gonna start the master class now.
[00:40:51] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:40:52] Chuck: and to get people out of the house and, to get them somewhere to pay money, to get a babysitter or whatever, you know, I think they want to be surprised. I think they want, some electricity.
I don't know.
[00:41:02] Aaron: there's this saying that I love That is, if you do what you've done or if you do what's been done You're gonna get what you have and it all just ends up feeling pedestrian.
Like you said Yeah Yeah, yeah,
[00:41:16] Chuck: In fact, I was talking to an engineer here in San Francisco and he was talking about recording the Dead Kennedys and he said that when came in, the studio gave him the gig because it was all vintage gear and he was the only guy that really understood it. And they said, you understand the gear, we can't have things breaking down, these guys are a little, We don't want trouble with these guys.
He agreed to engineer the session. The Dead Kennedys came in, very suspicious, of the whole corporate rock atmosphere. Cunoberti is his name, by the way. Great guy. He's a mastering engineer and does great work. He said when they came in, he was in the control room and they were playing and he was like, this is a great idea.
joke, right? Somebody's pranking me. And he was convinced that, it was a joke. And then he went to see the Dead Kennedys live, and he began to understand it. But the music that he grew up on, and he later did the Joe Satriani records, the music he was interested in and the path that he thought was the serious path of music Ended up being 180 degrees from where he ended up, because everybody wants his sound after the Dead Kennedys singles.
Everybody wanted his sound. it was just dumb luck, and it was random, and There's a million of those stories. Yeah.
[00:42:26] Aaron: It's kind of an Alan Watts kind of thing. The, philosopher, thinker, talker. He talks about like controlled chaos, just grabbing the wheel and yanking it to the left and changing everything and just seeing what happens in the world just exists on controlled chaos and being able to do that with, intention almost to shake things up and to free things up.
[00:42:46] Chuck: my hands are on the wheel.
[00:42:49] Aaron: For sure. Important note.
[00:42:53] Michaela: Yeah, Alright,
well, thank you so much, Chuck.
[00:42:56] Chuck: I, enjoy your podcasts. I did a little poking around, as you do.
[00:43:01] Michaela: thank
you.
[00:43:02] Chuck: enjoyed listening to you guys and enjoyed your guests and, It's I'm happy to be included and I appreciate the attention.
[00:43:09] Michaela: Thank you. Thank you
[00:43:10] Aaron: for taking the time.
[00:43:11] Michaela:
[00:43:11] Chuck: Okay kids well, you
[00:43:12] Michaela: I will.
Yeah,
[00:43:14] Aaron: it
[00:43:15] Michaela: Thank you so much, Chuck.
[00:43:16] Aaron: Take care.
See ya.