Joe Rogan - Liz Phair on Starting Out in Music

I didn't want to fanboy out when I met you, but I'm a huge fan. Thank you very much. Just to let you know. I really love your music. Thank you very much. I think Dave Cross is the first guy to turn me on to you. I think, yeah. I don't remember how. I just remember him telling me about exile in Guyville. Do you mean Mr. Show? Yeah. Yeah, he's the one. He was a big, Mr. Show was in my happiest touring iteration. Like, that was what we watched every night after the show. We'd hit the bus and everyone would watch Mr. Show till he passed out. That's a genius show. I think it's like for Bob, I mean, Bob did great on Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. He's done a lot of other stuff. It's awesome too. But there's something about the two of those guys together. Very unusual combination. And their writing is just so bizarre and weird, but they did a Netflix thing for a while. I don't know if they're... Are they still doing that? Do you know? I think he's doing those other shows now. I don't think so. Too bad. Anyway. Dave Cross introduced me to Liz Fair. Well, that's a nice touchstone since it was part of my touring life. There you go. I feel very good about that. So, what do you have now? You have a box set out coming out? A compilation? Is that what it is? Yeah, it's kind of like a reissue of my first record, Exile in Guyville, with the original girly sound tapes that I made on a four track in, God, late 80s, early 90s. Was that when you were living at home? Yeah, that was when I was recalled back from San Francisco having not gotten a job and run out of money and grifted my way across the Bay Area. I mean, I had a place. I was rooming. Everyone from my college class moved out to San Francisco, basically, from Oberlin. So, I went too. I made these little cassettes that I forwarded to two friends, and one of them got super busy making copies of these cassettes and sent them to every fanzine in America with this glowing recommendation. And all of a sudden, I was living at home, still didn't have a job, and I would get these envelopes coming to me saying, like, please make me a cassette copy. Here's $10. And can you imagine what happened to the $10? How awful is that? I truly just, like, I was like, great, thanks. Thanks for 10 bucks. Yeah, there's about 100 people that didn't get their cassette, but I wasn't making the cassettes. But anyway, that's sort of, Tae Won Yoo is actually the person who made lots of cassettes and sent them around. So, I'd love him to thank. Did you have a thought that you were going to eventually make it or be a big singer? Was that even an idea? Not a clue. That's crazy. I hated being in front of people. Like, I would not want to... I loved being in the studio. I loved recording. But I didn't... I was super stage frightened. And I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do less than get up in front of people and play music or do anything. Really? Absolutely. Wow. It was hard. But you obviously have a love of music. I love playing music. I just... I get very self-conscious with a crowd. You gotta pull this sucker up to you otherwise we're not gonna... I get very self-conscious in front of a crowd. Still? Not so much anymore. I do... About two weeks before I hit the stage, I will stop sleeping. And then... Really? Yeah, and I'll work myself into this kind of cold sweat when I think about it. You know? And I'll be like, can I leave the country? And then, like, I get on the stage and it all comes back to me and I'm like, I've done this a million times. This is the best job in the world. Wow. And it just... I can't psych myself into that feeling until I'm actually on stage. Maybe that's just because you care about it so much. Probably. Yeah. I'm too alert. We should be smoking those joints that are not in that head. We can. I have some over here. I can't even imagine where we'd go with that. We do it all the time. If you want to do that, let me know. We're about ten minutes in and you change your mind. Okay. Anytime. Let me know. If it gets really rough, if it gets really personal, maybe I'll... Yeah, sometimes you have to. I'm just... I'm a very awake person. Mm. Well, that's a good thing.