The Creative Independent

How did you go from pastry chef at The French Laundry to this?

The French Laundry is a very different world. As a restaurant, it’s just a different format. There’s a formula: an ice cream course, a fruit course, a chocolate course—and the three shall not meet. Working within that kind of structure was cool. My chef taught me how to really make those t...

How would you describe your creative philosophy?

I probably have a couple of dozen dad-isms or whatever that I tend to repeat. If I collected them into a little booklet, we could call it the Little Black Book or whatever, the Black Francis Book of Thoughts. But I can’t say that it boils down to a single cliché kind of statement. Although I did just th...

What did making music in the nineties look like in Maryland?

Brian Weitz (Geologist): Dave and I started playing together in ‘94, Josh and Noah, maybe even earlier. The area of Towson was a big part of it. There was a guy in our school named Guy Blakeslee who played in the The Entrance Band. He was a couple years younger than us, but he lived i...

How did you go from having the idea of being somebody who makes videos where you talk about music to actually doing it?

I never thought I would be making videos about music. I had always wanted to make films since I was a kid, and that naturally turned into me trying to make YouTube videos when I found out how hard it is to get into actually working o...

How long have you been making music?

I’ve been performing since I was nine. So that means, officially, 21 years—wow. I just turned 30. That’s really nuts. That gives me a lot of perspective. It means my artistic self is a 21 year-old and she wants to party. It’s giving me insight.

What is something you wish someone told you when you fi...