Ep 5 - Beans on Toast

This week I was joined by British folk singer Beans on Toast, to talk about first albums, most played records and stories of sneaking into shows.

You can find Beans on Instagram @beans.on.toast, and on Twitter @beanstoast. You can also find him on his website www.beansontoastmusic.com

We spoke about:

• First Purchase: The Simpsons - Sing the Blues
• Most recent purchase: John Prine - The Tree of Forgiveness 
• Recommend to everyone: Brent Cobb - Keep 'Em On They Toes
• Most played: Kae Tempest - Let Them Eat Chaos
• Most interesting backstory: Grandaddy - The Software Slump 

You can find me on Instagram @Vinyl__Tap, on Twitter @ItsRecordTime and on Facebook by searching "It's Record Time Podcast". Or drop me a message at ItsRecordTimePodcast@gmail.com

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Transcript

Alex  0:06  
hello and welcome to the hits record time podcast i am your host alex and this is the show where each week i'm joined by different guests to talk about their favorite albums biggest influences and the bands that they love this week i was joined by uk focusing beans on toast beans is one of the nicest and most optimistic people around so chantay was just brilliant to be perfectly honest we spent our time talking about glastonbury festival which at the point of recording still look like it could actually happen sneaking into shows and rediscovering nature during lockdown it has become a tradition over the last 10 years or so that beans releases a new album each year on his birthday which is the first of december and in 2020 he went one step further and release to knee deep in nostalgia and the unforeseeable future both are great both can be picked up from this website and there's links to the buying pages for that in the show notes that's it for me for now i will be back at the end for a bit more chat until then enjoy so how are you how's your day been how's your week

Beans On Toast  1:15  
um yeah you know the same as the many weeks beforehand yeah all good you know looking after my daughter all day basically which is kind of you know what i've been doing throughout lockdown making sure that her life is as big as possible and then have an evening either kind of songwriting or talking to new people through the computer about records that are bought and stuff like that so good yeah amazing i obviously worry about almost goes without saying now that everybody's worried about the state of the world as a whole you know i obviously am concerned but personally my days been tickety boo

Alex  1:57  
are you good with like having free time and stuff obviously the last like 10 months now we'll have a long it's been like we've just sort of a you like able to fill that time and you climbing the walls like when when you're

Beans On Toast  2:09  
climbing the walls for me so yeah i mean i i've kind of that throughout the lockdown and pandemic and stuff i've not been really as 30 feet apart from count my blessings i feel really lucky like even with the yes sucks that there was no festivals and gigs and stuff but i worry more for the you know the seven eight year old who was about to go to his first festival you know i've been into enough fucking festivals like for example so it's like not going for one summer didn't really feel like i was in in any position to complain about that you know and uh you know i've definitely of course i've been missing gigs i actually find that i've been missing gigs is turned into quite a physical thing for me because i've and i have just turned 40 so it might be sort of psychosomatic as well i'm i'm kind of akin now and i think because without touring and gigging that i don't have that kind of like adrenalin bash i used to get so regular and it wasn't like i get particularly nervous about going on stage but you know it's always a rush and not having that for prolonged i think is actually you know gigging for me is quite healthy and it's a not having that boost is sort of showing itself in like weird aches and pains you know and if that's all i've got to fucking worry about you know bad backs then you'd like i said you know just threw out i've just just been counting my blessings we actually moved out of london in between lockdowns and okay our landlord gave us a notice which was a bit of a head spin but we're outside now on the coast and ken and we've got you know more room and yeah you know getting on with stuff you know right in and raising my daughter basically

Alex  3:58  
superjealous you being by the coast i grew up i grew up on the coast and essex and i just miss being by the sea so much i've lived in london for like 1218 years now but i still miss sort of being in the sea and having that space and

Beans On Toast  4:12  
yeah it's it it's my wife's from from around here so we kind of came back here i mean one thing where stony beach were living i've developed a new obsession with stones i love her i had no idea i've always like i've always liked trees big tree fan and it's like trees is really ancient all knowing beings and i was like fucking stones as the same man you know but they never get a look at no one ever is that hugger stone or that so i'm like i've been writing quite a lot of songs about stones actually about the all knowing story secret story that buried in a sense because it's so fucking many of them i want to know whether there's as many stones on the beach as there is stars in the sky i reckon it might be completely you know like the exact same amount which be good show you're

Alex  4:59  
taking locked down okay then

Beans On Toast  5:01  
yeah

i mean if i think if anything it's exposed to a lot of people how important nature is isn't it yeah yeah where we've been cut off from it i've never heard so many people talk about you know back last year so everybody i've chatted to as i didn't spring really beautiful and as i never you know people that would never normally say that that i think that you know as and when you know the world starts turning again and it's safe to go out i'd like to think that there will be some lessons learned and one of them is probably how important our kind of connection with nature is so go out and other stone guys so i'm saying

Alex  5:39  
you're like super optimistic anyway like how optimistic are you around 2021 in like festivals coming back and being able to gig again at some point this year or like at the time of recording this we've just about a week into another national lockdown and you know it's all a bit gloomy and everything's dark and awful one

Beans On Toast  5:56  
yeah i mean i can't i've rescheduled my album launch it was going to be in december is now kind of bit there was going to be in january and now we've moved it to april which is i guess an optimistic look and i sort of said to everybody who's bought tickets if we have to keep on moving this delay then we will and i think everybody's trying to second guess what's going to happen and i am definitely not you know not the person who asked me to say because of my sort of like a brazen optimism i mean i had in between lockdowns i did quite a lot of gigs there was is a kind of there was that small couple of weeks where he was allowed to play to people sat down in groups of six and just because the nature of the music that i make everybody wanted to fucking book me you know because it was like who can play to sit down crowd and you still sell booze you know so it was like i was the ideal candidate for these sort of like socially distant gigs so i did a load of them and i was sort of taken by the being able to play again and being out there and i was on stage we like the way out of this is gonna be so much easier than the way then you know like the end is inside and i really you know i particularly believe then that that was it and obviously it hasn't been a now if you ask me i'll say that this is you know there is like the although i to back up that claim i remember at the start seeing a kind of you know the kind of the language about a second spike and mutations and show that was there from the get go and there was i remember the very start saying like this is how the graphs normally go you know they're little bouts and there's a massive one and this could happen with this is the worst possible scenario of what could happen and it feels like the fucking worst possible scenario has already happened now isn't it the second spikes gone fucking nuts that it's mutated to make it more transmissible so alright so you know i can't remember hearing anything else that wasn't the worst case scenario that we haven't now gone through and now we're just on the road back you heard it here first

Alex  7:58  
say anything any any sort of optimistic predictions you make during this chat were just going to be great yeah

Beans On Toast  8:06  
yeah i mean you could also look at my sort of like sort of political history has been a major sort of political decision or referendum or vote that i you know i've it's as it's never gone the way that i've sort of you know wanted it to or sung about and so sometimes i think about that you know

Alex  8:30  
i'm i'm trying to stay optimistic like i was i was filled with less hope last week when glastonbury came out and said that they will hold tickets back for 2022 again i'll say if they've had that conversation i'm now worried that my sort of experience with paul and taylor and all the rest of it's going to be off the cards for another year

Beans On Toast  8:47  
yeah the i mean glass stove kind of if anyone can do it they can and i think they're in a they're in a great position to kind of rewrite the rulebook for everybody else because everybody loves gas lighting kind of like the band's love it you know people that buy tickets everyone would do anything to make it happen more so than any and they've also got the greatest you know sort of production team in on the planet effectively so i think they're generally average if it'd be great if you know if it was something they could do and i was like this is how we're going to do it because it's at the start of summer and if glastonbury can factor pull it off then it will give everybody else the you know the the confidence to go through and but you know who knows just for like a full now and it you know i've canceled enough gigs and and ruined it through but you know it will come back and and it will be you know glorious when it does i mean that that's also what i got from the kind of gigs that i did in between lockdowns where not a lot of people saw that you sort of went out and you know people are ready to be with people

Alex  9:59  
so much Every time it gigs Come on sale, sort of within about 50 miles of me in the last sort of eight months now I've got, well, I'm gonna buy a ticket because I'm going to go to everything as soon as I think reopen slyke. I

Beans On Toast  10:09  
mean, that can sort of, you know, save, save a lot of assets as well could net you know, it is if, and again, it's this thing of learning what's important to us bit nature and nature and culture, you know, where perhaps, things that were taken for granted won't be in the new world.

Alex  10:27  
So I tell you, you're the, you're the absolute, like tonic, I need to talk to you on a daily basis been.

Beans On Toast  10:35  
I was, I actually for our did a podcast off, it's not about fucking COVID as well just gets people's music, and here we are, it's impossible to know.

Alex  10:45  
I know I've recorded a few of these over the last few sort of few weeks, and every single time I'm like, we're not gonna talk about COVID we just end up talking about COVID. So we're gonna

Beans On Toast  10:52  
you can't say how are you without getting someone's fucking two pence worth on it basically, again, so let's get stuck into some records.

Alex  11:00  
Before we get stuck into other people's records, I'm gonna talk about your records for a minute. So end of 2020, you released two records. Yeah, you had the unforeseeable future and knee deep in the stature. The self unforeseeable future was like a super focus on the pandemic and very much based in the present. waist like knee deep and nostalgia was like an album about you basically. And like your past your history, like how did those two albums come to be,

Beans On Toast  11:29  
we're knee deep in nostalgia was the album that was would have happened anyway, it was coming out on my 40th birthday. And I kind of wanted to have a year kind of an album about sort of walking down memory lane. And I had all of those songs that are on the record, and Frank Turner produced it. And that was always the plan, you know, we had that all locked down. And, and I was just writing towards that record, basically. And then I had all of them songs in March, basically, all of that all of those songs were written in March. And then and then when everything you know, when they are, you know, the rug got pulled from beneath our feet, I didn't when I picked up my guitar wasn't really like feeling whimsically walking down memory lane I was writing about, and I instantly, when locked down here, I started writing. And I was like releasing at the same time, I'd kind of, say I write song, make a video for it, and release, which was, you know, a man, just sort of the fact that you could do that I thought was was incredible. And I just cut like, it was a real knee jerk reaction to tragedy for me was was writing basically, and I just kept writing and releasing. And then it was like, I've got to think about releasing too much music anyway. It's not actually it's hard to get people to listen, especially because I was like, started holding some songs back. And there was, there was just the songs just weren't gonna marry themselves, you know, on an album, and it just, it ends very early on, it was like, Well, you know, it's gonna be two different records, I wouldn't have wanted to, because the songs that I were putting out were like, just me recorded on my phone, you know, in actual quarantine, and I wouldn't want to then go to a studio and try to re record that and re summon up their energy for that song. So it's like, right, just do all the songs recorded at home. And then me and Frank again, we did it in between lockdowns, I just went round to his and we worked on his laptop and, and sort of did the other record like that. And yes, that was like, you know, knee deep nostalgia would have happened anyway. And then the unforeseeable future is basically a kind of knee jerk reaction to what happened in you know, this year and, and it was just like, put them both out. It's kind of it's sort of what what you wanted to listen to on the day as well as some people like you know, surrounding themselves and what's going on some people use music to forget the fuck about everything can I kind of had both of them sorted.

Alex  13:53  
So you said a sort of your 40th birthday was in December when you release the records? Was that the catalyst then to sort of having that nostalgic album then because like, a lot of your stuff is like it's normally focused in the here and now and it's you know, it's that folk thing of telling stories about what's going on in your life in the present.

Beans On Toast  14:09  
Yeah, more and more now find that why my past albums, like the album that I've just finished right in war kind of pushed me on to the next one, like the album before knee deep was album called the inevitable train wreck. And that was all about like, the race, Rise of AI, you know, climate change, the collapse of civilization and all that, and, you know, I fuckin the end, I was like, I can't write any more songs by the end of the world. It's fucking doing my head in. So as I can't, I sort of had to step outside, right? I just want to write about, you know, easy, fun stuff. And then that, I guess that and it's, I think, maybe the first song on the album, you know, I wrote that first and was like, wow, you know, like, going all the way back to singing about being 10 years old. So I fit then I had the name for the album, and it just kind of conjured it up there, but I find more and more now. Right in the sort of albums as a body of work, like the album will have an overarching theme to it, and then I'll be off the back of that it will be like, like I said, can't write about it anymore and sort of move into a different a different space. So that's kind of a and obviously, I ended up writing a whole nother album about the end of the world that were my fault.

Alex  15:21  
So I was listening to knee deep in the start of the day, it came out back in December, and one of the tracks on the album is called the app of the day. And as soon as I heard that track, I was like, I'm going to email beans, see if he wants to come on this podcast and talk because a key part of that song is about albums that are important to you, and like sharing music with your daughter and stuff. So I was like, yeah, this feels like a real, like, great opportunity to sort of tie these things in as well. So I'm really, really glad you wanted to come on. So should we crack on with some other people's records? So the first one I wanted to start off with was your first purchase, tell us what it is. And when you got it,

Beans On Toast  16:00  
the Simpsons sing the blues. And, and I did, I looked at this online to kind of check but it I got it when it came out in 1990. So I would have been 10 years old. And it's is probably like, as much as that was the first record that I bought. It wasn't like that was any kind of introduction to music. For me. It was very, you know, my parents were avid music fans, like insane music fans. My mom was like, the Beatle maniac, you know, like, running out after the Beatles every day of her teenage life. And my dad, you know, both had huge record collections. And that which they sold they kept with the time sold and bought CDs, you know, like those so I never really needed to to purchase music. Have you know, to go out and do and when I when I did I ended up buying this set which I which again on the cusp seems like a really naff first purchase. But when you dig a bit deeper, and it wasn't a ship comic album, it was like a lot of it was like Chuck Berry was on there, dr. john, and it was, I mean, baby. And none of the songs were on The Simpsons even I was all night standalone songs kind of kind of in in their own right. And it's not like a particularly loved the album. You know, it wasn't like non stop. It was just, I remember it being the kind of beginning of something because it was like, Well, I don't just have to listen to my dad's Randy Travis records which ended with me listening to Wu Tang clan, basically we are far away from you know, from as country as you can get.

Alex  17:49  
I was really love it when when the first purchase question comes up and people talk about it because people have that reaction being like, yeah, it's not a cool album. Like, no one's first record is cool. Like,

Beans On Toast  18:01  
yeah, and if they tell you that it is a lie,

Alex  18:06  
guys, so you said that like this wasn't an album that got you into musical tool. It was like your parents and stuff. What was that stuff you were listening to when you were sort of like around this age a little bit older like when you first started buying your own records

Beans On Toast  18:18  
like rat Randy Travis, which is here's kind of like of the kind of ilk of like Garth Brooks country like at his country, overproduced? Like really Baladi songs. And just almost without, you know, access to anything else, it was just my dad played in the car. And I loved Randy Travis, you know, like, and it is kind of really soppy sentimental love songs, very similar to what I write now, you know, and that whole kind of, like, there's a thing about that kind of country where it's like, the lyrics, you know, exactly what the song is about. It's not like they're sort of painting a picture with words or it's like, poetic over, this is a song about a thing. And we're gonna tell the story of the thing in the song. And again, that's very much you know, what I what I still do to this day, I mean, I also had, like, throughout my life, like, I'd hear songs, like, like, I know that my dad has spent a lot of time weights and stuff at that time, just kind of going through me, but we're not here. I'm not black. I know this song. Hang on a minute. And. And so yeah, but I think ran. I mean, I knew all the words and still due to Randy Travis, and you know, if anybody was like, you know, yeah, he was my favorite.

Alex  19:38  
Was there much stuff from like, the 90s then so you were a teenager across the 90s. So presumably, like some of that stuff like fed in?

Beans On Toast  19:44  
Yeah, I mean, so you know, that was what you know, I guess, before kind of school and shit like that. And then through that, I mean, it was so different back then. Because you didn't really like each you the music To the listen to kind of define who he was, and it was almost like you couldn't listen to anything else. So I gave up on country music and I started listening to gangsta rap, you know, which is it was such a phenomenon. And it's so it was so strange because there's a, you know, as a 12 year old in Braintree in Essex, I didn't really have much in common with, you know, sort of gangsters in LA, but I, you know, I fucking felt it. And I was I wrote raps me and my mate used to write raps about having bitches and an ak 40, sevens and all this shit. And it's like, you know, we're two virgins, literally, they live in a village. And it was a strange phenomenon. I mean, it must have been because the actual production of the music was so groundbreaking, that it kind of took the world by storm and you didn't need to be able to relate to it. But I listened to hip hop sort of like avidly for the first part of the 90s and then becoming slightly disillusioned with the raps. I was writing I think almost, I sort of I got off the hip hop train and got on the kind of grunge train like quite late like after Kurt Cobain had died and whatnot, but like, for it was free placebo, I guess Really? That was like, you know, I listen to placebo, and was just like, feels like this musics a bit more. Me. Yeah, every now and then. And then, you know, before, you know, I had rips in my jeans. And I painted my fingernails. And you know, and, and you know, and we started a band. And it was like, it was it felt easier to write songs in that ilk than it did. You know, I'm a gangster, and I'm coming to shoot you.

Alex  21:37  
So you always sort of writing songs and suffering said you were in a band when you were a teenager. Like, is that what

Beans On Toast  21:41  
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, like I said, the little little raps. And then the minute that it was like, what, okay, if we're going to not listen to it, but we're going to listen to grunge, like, let's start a band. And we couldn't, none of us could play the band that we played in at school. But we all we sort of told everybody about the band and graffiti, the name on the toilet. And then it was like, fuck what the bands do, like, we need to work out a place some instruments. And that was that I even then I knew, I was like, Well, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be the singer, but not because I particularly wanted to sing more, because I wanted to come up with the words and what was being said. So, and no, you know, it's like, free, really good mates. And, you know, Dave played the drums job played the bass, and that was it. And then, you know, we just kind of didn't ask anybody how to do it. And, you know, I mean, it, we, we played two gigs. Before, we knew that you had to play the same notes with the bass. And the guitar, allow first gigs, just used to be like, this is a cool baseline. And I just be like, yeah, this is cool guitar live, and just sort of see itself. And, I mean, you know, bless us, but I kind of think, I think that if I saw someone doing that now, I would go up and be like, What the fuck are you doing? You got to do that, like, but nobody did?

Alex  23:00  
was music, like, sort of all encompassing for you? Or is that like other stuff going on as well? Like, I you've spoken on the album about how you did like plays and stuff when you're in school? Like, drug was

Beans On Toast  23:10  
definitely the other thing? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we used to, again, I think that i think i started smoking weed the same time I started listening to the doors. And then two went fucking hand in hand, you know, four hours Jim Morrison for a spell. And and again, and that through that kind of wanted to come up with words and stuff like that was from you know, obsessing over Jim Morrison his lyrics and, and that, you know, yeah, that was probably, you know, drugs, sort of, like, you know, like girlfriends and amazing sex drugs and rock rocks who say that was my teenage years, but little did I know at the time, yeah.

Alex  23:47  
Based on like your songwriting and like, seeing you on stage and stuff, like I wanted to know if like, comedy was like a big thing for you as well. So you've mentioned this wordplay thing and like being interested in the way the worms fought was formed, and your songs always very, like, there's a real there's a like a proper dry wit in your music as well. So I didn't know if that was influenced at all, or was that just like,

Beans On Toast  24:06  
I sound bad saying it because you know, each their own or that, but I'm just not a fan of stand up comedy like so. I mean, I love like, Bill Hicks and like George Carlin and stuff like that, but early on, when I first started, I'd quite often be kind of like paired up on on sort of variety bills of a couple of comedians myself, and I kind of not that I sort of said, No, but I sort of dodged out, I sort of purposely went down a different route than that. Because, yeah, I don't know. I mean, yes, obviously, I try, you know, go have a sense of humor in songs. But yeah, I find it quite a different thing, then. Yeah. Then kind of stand up. Basically,

Alex  24:51  
I can see why people would sort of try and marry sort of what you're doing with splitting on the same bills or stand ups and stuff, but I can imagine like, as a musician, you're going I'm different to that.

Beans On Toast  25:02  
Yeah, I think it was soccer right dick I've I just I do want to go and play my show and they leave you know like because there wasn't into what was going on afterwards it just didn't really felt like that's to me it didn't feel like that's what I was doing. Basically,

Alex  25:20  
I'm gonna move on from first purchase to most recent purchase Can you tell us what it is and name of the album?

Beans On Toast  25:29  
All right, yeah john prine and the tree of forgiveness and I mean in all fairness I don't purchase little to no music you know and and the only reason that I did purchase that record was because I went to the in store that john prine did a rough trade off the back of the of the record. And I mean to me, you know, john prine is one of you know, the greatest song you know if not the greatest songwriter for me personally, obviously passed away this year which Scotland kind of got all of the, you know, all the emotions and all and all the songs going up. But like I mean, again, it was another person that my dad used to play me and when I very first started beans on taste, I was obsessed with john prine live album, which had loads of stories he liked chatted as much as he played and was like, his songs were funny and simple. And I think the reason that he's so important for me personally says, I love him as a songwriter. I love his songs. But I also if I really love other songwriters, I really love like sort of more modern songwriters like Todd Snyder or Tyler Childers, or Conor Oberst. Like these are all children of john Bryan. And you know that because he took them on tour, you know, they, they did collaborations john prine was also wonderful for, you know, lay in his, you know, putting his arm out for other folk singers, and, you know, and expressing gratitude towards them. And you could see that from a distance. And he was just like, a feels like and certainly looks like like a guide and never really put a foot wrong was just called like, and even that, you know, he was touring that last album, and he knew it was his last album. You know, his the last song on his last album is called when I get to heaven, and it's all just like, how it's all been a joke and how it's going to be more of a joke. When he gets there, he's gonna have a drink and smoke a big cigarette and have a party. And it during the Rough Trade gig, it was like, you know, really honored to be there, like tiny little crowd who's like playing and this fucking, like the alarm goes off in Rough Trade halfway through a really sentimental song, kick it off. And it's just, it doesn't bat an eyelid. And he just carries on playing, it stops and the whole audience breathe a sigh of relief and he just carries on it goes again. And every what you know, like when you can feel a crowd getting infuriated, and he weren't fazed at all. And then at the end, he was I sure hope they're trying to steal my album. And he's

still got it.

I think is amazing, you know, and then obviously an impasse in a way this year. And I think, again, like me, right in that whole album, The unforeseeable future, that is, you know, finding out that john prine had just died in a time when all songwriters were sent back to their, you know, to the drawing board, it was quite a sort of like, like a godlike moat, like move actually exists was that if anybody who writes songs was short of an idea, just you know, you could you could pick up a jar. And the thing is, because I don't really play other people's songs, and I just can't I find them really difficult. But john prions, I can and in the same way that I can, the only people that whose songs I might play on guitar are the people that I would call the children of john Bryan, like I said, Tyler children, where it's like basically free chords, you know, it's tied up afterwards, but he could just ramp it out and just get a vibe and just just go of it. So yeah, train forgiveness was my last purchase. And, you know, like I said, I only really bought it because that because I was there. I would be listening to it on Spotify or whatever.

Alex  29:06  
I was listening to john today and like, His voice is just like that incredible, like really gravelly tone to air. Yeah, I hadn't I didn't know this album. I'd listened to like a little bit of john in the past, but I hadn't sat down and done like this album front to back. And it's really like as like a last album. It's It's good. Like as an 18th album, like, Fuck, like, yeah, who can produce 18 albums worth of great stuff? Like it's really strong?

Beans On Toast  29:31  
Is it as a wisdom to what he does and always has been? I think like, even when you look at how he started, like, he basically got up on stage and started playing because it just in retaliation to no one being any good at his local bar. He was an artist guy shit. So I was like God, and you do better and it's all right. And he got off and played. And then you know, three months later, that pub was rammed every Wednesday night. And then and some you know, and then a record label came down and said, Hey, you wanna record and it like didn't even you know, if he didn't go drink it in that bar that night had no this would have happened which again it just yeah just you know a great just just a wisdom which sounds like he lived by the wisdom in his life and it can come across in his songs.

Alex  30:17  
So you said that you only pick this one up like physically because it was like part of that install thing. So you predominately do everything digitally and do you have the classics on record or the classics on table, whatever, then everything else is just done for Spotify.

Beans On Toast  30:29  
Ever I have like my iTunes account with all my mp3 from you know, I was at for a long time I was an Apple Music Man. But like more recently, I've sort of switched to I kind of bounced between old MP freeze on iTunes and Spotify. But I got nowhere to play a CD, I've got my record player, the one that features in the album of day video is a lot more visually pleasing than it is you know, it's better on the eyes than it is on the ears. And that's just my brother got that and like throwing out like when he was clearing houses, you know, like he just took it from our house and I want it from him in a game of cards actually. And so I keep looking over my shoulder. And I don't you know, I don't really ever listen to music on vinyl, I find I'm a bit too careless with vinyl. Like, it just scratches easy and you're supposed to put it back in the thing after you listen to it and all that shit. So I find it quite hard work. And you know, and I'd Yeah, I find listen to music. I listen for a streaming service. Of course.

Alex  31:37  
I was on. I was on your web store a few days ago looking at your stuff on record. And I remembered I read somewhere recently that your mum and dad run your like much stuff and your webstore

Beans On Toast  31:47  
is they did they did pre pre lockdown. I've had to bring it back in house for their new album. But yeah, historically they did it was. And it was a great little setup, because it is that that time when we started off, it was like, all right. I've never been said anything online. And then my wife who's really good at stuff, she was like, I'm gonna set up your shop and you can sell stuff. Well, I was just sounds that fucking hard work, you know. And it is like, I was just, you know, I'm the sort of person if you give me something to say, Can you put this into postbox, I'll fucking find it in the back three weeks later. And and it's just everything's geared up for to me to provide a really bad service. And and it weirdly it was I was sort of having a whinge about it to my mother in law. And she said, I could do it for you, I'll happily do it. And I was like, No, I can't have you doing it. But I could definitely get my folks to do it. So, you know, my dad had recent work, they're both retired, and I just sort of went back and was like, I've got an idea. I mean, I've you know, of course I pay them for it. But it was because it's kind of like, it's not like a job. It's just like, you need to do a little bit of something every day. Yeah. And they, you know, they and they took it on board. They're amazing. I mean, the customer service was to begin with rock stars that right? I'm not doing anything that is perfect. Now my wife, my wife taught them how to do it. And then they just cracked on. And then somehow I got looped into an email, and my mom had been signing off the emails mummy be never once have I called her mummy. Never. I mean, I couldn't but I was like what we got a real they said that maybe I do need to be more involved. So I sort of put a stop to the mummy been shit. And then. But yeah, they were great year but with the new album, and because what we'd normally do for albums is we'd all go somewhere together. Yeah, we'd all because I'd have to sign em and bow. So we'd have like, album day. But yeah, it's been moved. We obviously you know, not being able to see family and whatnot. So we have we haven't done that for this record. But yeah, generally very much a cottage industry, as they say.

Alex  33:57  
So if anything, if anyone orders anything, and it comes late, it's on you, not your mom right now then.

Beans On Toast  34:03  
May I mean, there's a whole difference. Not has I mean, the mailing out of this record has been a fucking and nightmare. You know, a lot of people have been very patient because it's, you know, it's mail services down it, Brexit, you name it, you know, it's it's hard to get post out. And the kind of irony of it all is that there's a song on the album called patience, you know, with a question mark, and it's that you buy an album, some people have bought the album when I put the pre orders up in, you know, the beginning of October. And it's, you know, the album's been out a month. They're politely emailing saying like, we're still waiting and we send out enough second copies. But if you listed anywhere in our record, yes, I mean, it is on me to a certain extent I've done as much as I can physically do and I'm better now. And, you know, we've got our systems down, should I say click and drop, motherfucker? They can drop.

Alex  35:11  
Right So for our next category, I'm going to keep us with singer songwriters for a moment. So we're gonna go with the album that you recommend to everyone. Can you tell us what you've gone with

Beans On Toast  35:22  
the album that I'd recommend people listen to his album called keep them on their toes by Brent Cobb. It's a new record it came out last year. And I guess if you're going to recommend music to people, it's always good to, to recommend new stuff. He's at American singers like Georgian singer, I think based in Nashville. And and I mean, his this album in particular is so nice. Like, it's quite it's so light about like, that piece peace on earth, basically, you know about light and it's about get, you know, get off your soapbox get together. It's all about love and family. And, you know, and it comes from a lot at a time, you know, you see all this fucking white supremacist bullshit going on. And it kind of looks like a country and western gig sometimes, you know, and it's so it surely if anybody you know, like, can maybe get through to, you know, to these people, and perhaps, you know, use the medium that they used to like country music, and to know that there's this kind of like, hippie, they're basically in the in the country music thing kind of, you know, doing really well. And I don't even know where I first heard his heard his music. At one. It's his last album was really good as well as shine on my dog. I don't know who put me onto it in the first place. And But yeah, I was kind of excited for the record to come out on it. And it's been pretty solid. And yeah, I'd recommend it to people because it's feel good in times of troubles. And it's new, basically.

Alex  36:57  
Like he's got he's another one that's just got this amazing voice. He's got this really cool southern drawl to it and like, he's only like, in his mid 30s, but I was listening to the album earlier. And I thought, Oh, this guy must be like, in his 50s or whatever. Like, he's got that sound to his voice.

Beans On Toast  37:12  
Yeah, sort of, again, it's a wisdom, I think. Yeah. And, and a kind of owner. Yeah, it's just sort of like, I don't know, it's very pro as well find out the production of all his albums and stuff like that are just like, Fuck, you know, like, incredible play. And it's, I reckon the players are old dudes. If you know, I mean, I reckon he's got like the Nashville old guard on there. And he's just like, I think it's is that kind of vibe, like, everybody likes him? are curious. Man. Yeah, great album.

Alex  37:46  
So like you're like, firmly part of that, like focusing now and like, you've been playing shows and festivals for years in and around, like this sort of music? Like, how did you start sort of playing these songs? And when did you decide it would just be like you and a guitar doing sort of the story driven sort of folk country esque songs.

Beans On Toast  38:05  
It was at Glastonbury Actually, there, I was the band that I was telling you about earlier, kind of, we moved to London, and it sort of fell to pieces. And off the back of me kind of learning how to promote the band. I started running club nights. And me and Dave, the drummer from the band, were just running club nights for years. And it was like, it was a good time. bass is like, fine. We don't even need to play gigs. We put on other other people's bands, you know, that? We're not throughout all of that I was always writing, but never really. It wasn't like at school where it's like, we need to write these songs to get out of Braintree or that Was that fun? This is just you know, we're having a party, there's no need. So I was always writing and then loosely, I had like a whole bunch of songs and a loose and I'd started in the first band, I used to sing an American accent, you know, as was the way for a lot of bands, you know, not like singing this sort of high pitched American accent. And I met some I was playing some of my songs. And I was like, Fuck, why do you think it's such a stupid voice? And no one I'm quite hard person to. To take criticism. I know that about myself. And like, no one had sort of pulled me up on it. And this guy was just like, Why the fuck do you mean, you sound like an idiot? Like, because it's not how you talk. And I was like, What? And he's like, I ended up living with this guy for a bit. And it's sort of drilled out of me, and I was like, You know what, he's fucking right. And in order to sort of, sort of banish the American accent out of my voice, I sort of started writing these really English songs. And I was like, doing that and I had quite a collection of them. And and, and I was like, Well, I'm going to start a band, and this is going to be the bed. And I think the beans don't taste was the name that I sort of had planned for the band. And I think I'd even spoke to a few mates and would have had a bit of a plan for it in my head when I went to Glasgow. And it wasn't even like an open mic, there was just this guy that was doing sort of solo stuff. And his guitar was just left. And he was sort of said, you know, if anybody wants to plan as I'll go and do, I gotta do my song. And, you know, got off. And by the time I was halfway through the first song, it's like, Fuck, you know, I don't need a band all this is it, like, you know, and it was singing songs about getting hammered at festivals to hammered people at a festival, you know, is, it worked? And is like, and off the back of that, you know, an off the back of that someone was like, Can I book you another show at Glastonbury this weekend, and it was like, game on, you know, off we go. And that was it. And, and it became, said, I definitely didn't sort of think about it or plan is that way, and it just, it meant that everything, because I'd also managed bands as well. So I knew about the kind of, you know, the decision making process and the kind of managing of diary and stuff like that around, you know, four or five people in their sort of late 20s, or whatever. So it's like, Fuck, if I can do this by myself, and I can make every decision and do every gig without involving anybody else. And then there's, you know, the truth of the matter is, is that the only reason I've been able to do it for so long, and, and, you know, and it's now my livelihood, is that there's only one mouth to feed, you know, like, it's, you can do it cheap, basically, you know, like, and, and, you know, yet because there's only one mouth to feed basically. So it's like, there's no way that if I hadn't have gotten glassware and had started a band, we would I mean, you know, who fucking knows, but if it had gone down a similar path would have been very, very difficult for for a four piece band to have done, why, what I did, because for the first three or four years, you know, I was still running clubs, and still had, you know, I wasn't, I was doing gigs, because I wanted to, not because I needed to. And I think that was the initial draw for why people liked watching me play because I was like, this guy's fucking hammered. And he don't give a shit. Image, he looks like he doesn't care less. And it's and I kinda didn't know, I didn't care about the songs. But you know, like, there, there was an area, I wasn't after anything bigger, or there wasn't a sort of master plan. And that was that ended up being the kind of, you know, the master plan, i