TRANSCRIPT Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: Les Savy Fav’s Tim Harrington and Syd Butler

Les Savy Fav recently released OUI, LSF, their first album in 14 years. On the latest episode, Jesse chats with Tim Harrington and bassist Syd Butler of Les Savy Fav. Harrington is in his 50’s now and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder not too long ago. He opens up about taking better care of himself. Butler and Harrington also get into the new record, which was recorded in Harrington’s attic – please don’t tell his landlord.

Guests: Syd Butler Tim Harrington

Transcript

[00:00:00]

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Transition: Gentle, trilling music with a steady drumbeat plays under the dialogue.

Promo: Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

Music: “Huddle Formation” from the album Thunder, Lightning, Strike by The Go! Team—a fast, upbeat, peppy song. Music plays as Jesse speaks, then fades out.

Jesse Thorn: It’s Bullseye. I’m Jesse Thorn. My previous guest this week, Serj Tankian, was a brilliant standout in the nu metal scene in the early 2000s. My next guests were also brilliant standouts, also during that same era, but they stood out in a very different scene.

Music: “The Sweat Descends” from the album Inches by Les Savy Fav.

The sweat descends

My psyche bends

I’ll never be

The same again

The soul is twisted

(Music fades out.)

Jesse Thorn: Les Savy Fav came out of New York City. It was a world of bands that were mostly either dance-y and fun or artsy and sincere. But Les Savy Fav were the rare act that was all those things, often at the same time. The song we just played is a great example, “The Sweat Descends”. It has that fun early 2000s dance punk beat—the classic angular guitar critics used to love to write about.

(A guitar riff from the song plays.)

A driving bassline from Syd Butler, and then Tim Harrington’s voice—part singing, part talking, part screaming.

Music:

The sweat descends

The sweat descends

One cocksure fox in a house of hens

My mouth will water

Where the sweat descends

(Music fades out.)

Jesse Thorn: It sounds fun. Right? But listen to the lyrics. You hear something darker at play. Tim writes impressionistically, dotting in vivid glimpses of violence and sex. So, it’s a song that sounds fun, but doesn’t feel completely fun. And then, of course, there were the live shows. Harrington does wardrobe changes on stage. He crowd surfs on a mattress. He climbs fences and amps. He jumps into rivers, if there happens to be a river nearby. And all of that is fun. I mean, incredibly fun. But it is also taxing—not least for him.

He’s in his 50s now. He has a family and a steady job. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder not all that long ago. He’s been taking better care of himself. The last album Les Savy Fav released was back in 2010. But now, there’s a new one. Oui, LSF—that’s O-U-I, L-S-F—was released earlier this year, and this band has still got it. I’m really excited to get to talk to Tim and Syd from Les Savy Fav. Let’s kick things off first with a song from the new record, “Legendary Tippers”.

Music: “Legendary Tippers” from the album Oui, LSF by Les Savy Fav.

Nuns have their habits, but I have none

Nobody gets how I get things done

Delete my inbox, ‘cause it’s just no fun

I count on fetishes and superstitions

(Music fades out.)

Jesse Thorn: Hey guys, welcome back to Bullseye. It’s nice to see you.

Tim Harrington: Hey, it’s good to see you.

Syd Butler: Thanks for having us.

Jesse Thorn: So, this is a mind-bendingly obvious first question, but why this? Why now? It’s been a long time.

Tim Harrington: That is a good question, actually. I’ve asked it myself a few times. It really has to do with the sort of stars lining and timing working out in some ways. You know, I feel like a couple of years ago—was it two years ago now? Just before COVID, we booked a show to go play at Primavera Fest in Barcelona. It’s like our favorite thing. And I jokingly—I’m always like, “Oh, we like stay as a band, play infrequently so that we can occasionally get invited to go to Spain.”

So, we got invited to do that, and then COVID happened, and nobody saw each other or did anything. And we got back and Harrison, our drummer, was unable to make the date. So, we had a friend come and help us play. And Tucker from this band Thursday came, and we ended up rehearsing a bunch. And for me I feel like that time, all of a sudden, we’re like in a practice space once a week for a couple of months or something, it kind of got the bug going a bit. And then we had also, around the same time, we had an EP that came out—maybe in 2000, something like that—

[00:05:00]

—called ROME (Written Upside Down). And it had been like languishing and only existed as like someone’s YouTube posts. And we got that. And were able to like put that on Spotify and stuff. And that was always one of our favorite things we recorded. And sort of somehow between spending more time in the practice space together and that coming out got us sort of thinking about recording again.

Syd Butler: And also, just to add one thing, we realized that we were being asked to play more shows because of Primavera. And we kind of came to the consensus that we needed to write one or two more songs just to keep our own personal interest in playing music and writing music again. So, that led to the record.

Jesse Thorn: I mean, you guys existed in an unusual kind of liminal space between being a band and not being a band. Like, you never dissolve the band and have always played together. But there have been times when you have played together about the least you could and still consider yourself a (inaudible), you know what I mean?

Tim Harrington: Yeah, absolutely. You know, someone told me once you can’t get fired from a job that doesn’t pay you, and you don’t have to quit.

(They chuckle.)

I think I remember at one point being like, “Are we allowed to be a band?” And whoever—I think it was Steve Silverstein, a good friend of ours and a great recording engineer here in New York, who was like, “Why?” I mean, worst case scenario, five people show up, and that was definitely good enough for us to begin. And sometimes five people is like a stretch goal for me.

Jesse Thorn: (Laughs.) At the same time, I think quitting and coming back is a much better business proposition. Like, there’s an exciting narrative to “everything collapsed, and then they rebuilt it from scratch” that can allow you to play bigger festivals or whatever. (Laughs.)

Tim Harrington: That does seem glorious.

Syd Butler: Or that this is our final show.

Tim Harrington: That seems clever. Who knows? This might be—any one of our shows could be the final or never show.

Music: “Sleepless in Silverlake” from the album Root for Ruin by Les Savy Fav.

We hit the hills, and we hit ‘em hard

With iron wills and with Mastercards

We moved the mountains into our homes

We kept in touch with our mobile phones

LA…

(Music fades out.)

Jesse Thorn: How is it different now that you are comfortably in middle age?

Syd Butler: I think it’s better now, to be honest with you. I mean, to be—when we first started, I loved it. It was exciting. It was full of possibilities. And now I feel like we’ve all settled into our jobs and families and relationships. So, when we approach it now, it has a different tone to it. It’s more relaxed. I felt writing this record, personally, that it was very touchy-feely. Like, I really like that guitar line. You know, almost therapeutic—like, three years of therapy, like very supportive to each other. Versus in the past, it would be—we sort of pushed against each other a lot more. So, we came together a little easier.

Tim Harrington: I really liked, I think, waiting this long. I think it kind of made us forget how to record? (Laughs.) How to write. And so, what was fun is kind of having that feeling of newness that you have when you first start a band stacked behind 30 years of having a band, I think was really fun. And you know, the last time we were recorded, I remember not—being like, “I don’t want to record this way again. I don’t want to like go into a studio for two weeks.” And like, we don’t have—you know, we were never a band that had the kind of resources, time, or money-wise to just like—we wouldn’t record it in LA in a mansion for a couple months. It was always a dense thing where it was 150% all-in, like absorb your whole life.

And I think this record was the opposite of that. We recorded it in my attic for the most part, wrote it in my—like, the studio. My apartment has an attic that the—if the landlord’s listening, yes, I did take over the attic. But I put the floor in. But it was like—we recorded it over a period of months in the most casual possible way. And I think, really, we probably had three quarters of the song written and recorded before one of us was like, “What if this is the recording?” (Chuckles.) ‘Cause we kept being like, “We’ll have to go to the studio.” And then realizing that actually this is the way we wanted to do it. And it really gave—

[00:10:00]

It figured out a way for me to like, you know—for us to be able to write in a way that felt good. And prior to that—you know, when we were younger, we just all lived together and played music 24 hours a day. And then we started like cramming that same thing into a tiny amount of time. And this format really was like—for me, was like figuring out how to be a band and also have my grownup life.

Music: “Brace Yourself” from the album Let’s Stay Friends by Les Savy Fav.

Before I was a war, I was a sword

(I was a sword, I was a sword, I was a sword)

Before I was a tree, I was a seed

(I was a seed, I was a seed)

Before I was a cliff, I was a canyon

Before I was a feast, I was a famine

Before I was a day, I was a dawn

Before I was a prince, I was a swan

(Music fades out.)

Jesse Thorn: We’ve got more to get into with Tim and Syd from Les Savy Fav after a quick break. Stay with us. It’s Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

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Transition: Thumpy synth with a syncopated beat.

Jesse Thorn: Welcome back to Bullseye. I’m Jesse Thorn. My guests are Tim Harrington and Syd Butler. Tim sings lead vocals in the band Les Savy Fav. Syd plays bass. The band has been around on and off for almost 30 years now. This past May, they released a brand-new album, Oui, LSF. That’s the French oui. Let’s get back into it.

How is it different to be in a band when the money that you make from the band does not have to be the money that you eat with? Is it better? Worse? Different? How?

Tim Harrington: I mean, it’s cool, because we literally do whatever we actually want. If someone just doesn’t feel like playing a show, we don’t play a show. I mean—well, obviously once we commit to one, we do it.

(They chuckle.)

But if in advance someone can’t do it, we don’t have to do it. We can put out music whenever and however we want. I think, you know, the challenge—there was a period I feel like for me where I thought, oh, if I had known how much more being in a band cost time-wise… You know, and this was like as I like got my family. And I thought, Oh, if I had known that, maybe I would have worked harder so that I could do it more. But then, you know, over the past 10 years, I think we just sort of figured out how to absorb that as well into it. You know what I mean? The band is… I can’t imagine just not having the band, any more than I can imagine like not having a part of my body or not having a person that’s in my actual family.

Jesse Thorn: When you are playing the old songs, are you trying to access the feeling that you had 15 and 20 and 25 years ago? Or are you trying to find something new about them?

Syd Butler: That’s a great question. I think certain songs I always—there’s a song going back to what Tim talked about earlier, we have an EP called ROME (Written Upside Down).

And the song, “Rome”, we play every show or almost every show.

[00:15:00]

And I think collectively as a band, we all love that song so much for so many different reasons. But every time I play it, I’m just sort of transported to a place that I look forward to being, even for a second. I know that I will have a great show, because that song is on the set list. I will know I’ll be transported to a sort of euphoric place because of that song.

Music: “Rome” from the album ROME (Written Upside Down) by Les Savy Fav.

It’s amazing how sentimental they get

When they realize…

(Music fades out.)

Syd Butler: And it allows the band a creative space to explore at the end of the show. That song and other songs always… we sort of curate the list to sort of find those euphoric moments. Certain songs have sort of lost their luster, and they don’t make the set list anymore. But we definitely, I think for me, curate—

Tim Harrington: Or they’re too hard to play.

(Syd agrees with a laugh.)

Certain songs still have plenty of luster. But, uh—

Jesse Thorn: They need the nimble fingers of children, like making a handmade rug?

(They both agree.)

Syd Butler: But that’s for me. I don’t know about Tim, but…

Tim Harrington: Yeah, I mean, you were talking about playing—I think that’s funny that it’s—like, a dichotomy in the band is probably we could play the same song five times in a row, and I’d be like, totally different every time. ‘Cause there’s so much of what I’m doing is just like improvising, performance art, just like physicality. That—you know, playing these songs from back then and now always just feels like “what’s going to happen?”. And you know—and it’s actually funny. It’s harder probably to remind yourself that it’s not going to be the same way necessarily than it is to be like, “Uh, it’s too many times.”

I don’t know. I think that… it’s funny, you’re talking about ROME (Written Upside Down) and how we play that song like all the time. It wasn’t even available to be listened to by anyone for (laughs)

Syd Butler: Probably like 2005 ‘til last summer.

Tim Harrington: And that’s like—that’s kind of indicative of why we’re such a commercially successful band.

(They laugh.)

Syd Butler: Yeah, we kind of do it our way.

Music: “Appetites” from the album Root for Ruin by Les Savy Fav.

Have they been counting your blessings

On their fat fingers and toes

And when you find it distressing

Are they like, “God only knows”?

(Music fades out.)

Jesse Thorn: Tim, you mentioned feeling like you spent the last decade or so figuring out how to get your life in shape. What did that mean?

Tim Harrington: I had about… maybe it is—I like just turned 50. Right around when I turned 40. I had—we had put out Root for Ruin. I had left a like regular job and had written and illustrated a couple of kids books, was doing art and had a full studio practice and was like, “This is my life. I’ve like extrapolated myself from the job, and I’m figuring out a way to be a creative person who, you know, doesn’t have to have the mic in the hand.” You know, like these are all these other creative interests I had. And then I ran out of money and was in a place where I was in the same attic where we recorded the record every day, banging my head against the wall, trying to figure out what I was going to do and really just kind of unraveled.

You know, I had some serious—I have bipolar disorder, and it took a long time for me to really like learn about that, know what it was, and just being like, “Oh, I thought I just needed to like be in fugue state constantly.” And as that like—that was unavailable to me, all of a sudden it became like a very chaotic thing in our household and in my family.

Jesse Thorn: Did you know that you were bipolar at the time?

Tim Harrington: No, I had no idea. I didn’t even know what was that. I didn’t know there was poles. (Laughs.) And I didn’t know what it was. And I think that, in a lot of ways, the more consistent band lifestyle had made it that it didn’t matter. You know? I pretty much was like, “Oh, I feel great when we go on tour, and I come back from tour, and I need to sleep the entire—every time.” And once I decided I was like, oh, I want to have—

[00:20:00]

You know, I want to have this life that’s not on tour all the time and that’s not defined by the band, and that isn’t—you know, largely had been defined by the band or being like a doctor on call waiting for the band. And when I decided I was going to commit to sort of like building out a life and learning how to have a job and all of those things, it was really, really hard. And I did spend so much time trying to just feel stable and feel like my life was like locked in a stable place that it became hard to imagine the musical side. Because I had associated it so much with like my manic tendencies.

Jesse Thorn: How did you learn that you were bipolar and what that meant?

Tim Harrington: Really by being like extremely manic for a long period of time (laughing) and my wife really being like, “This is not normal,” and really helping me find someone to talk to about it and get with a doctor and get all that stuff together. And it was a total—it was a total revelation. You know, it just was like all these things that I thought were normal. I would—you know, like read a book about it. It was like, oh, this is—I get this!

But yeah, really, I think that like had I been by myself, I don’t know what I’d be. You know, my wife, Anna, really helped motivate that. And partly like sharing a house and a family makes the crazy person in the attic (chuckling) more of a pressing concern. But yeah, that. And I think it just took a really long time. You know, I’ve been working—like, I work in like advertising as a creative director. And just being able to figure out to get that working was tough. Because, you know, I’d go and meet people. And they’d be like, “Oh man, I love your band!”

And I’d be like, “I also do things with pants on.”

(They chuckle.)

And it was hard to sort of convince people that. And also, it was hard how to integrate that personality. And I’d always worked in like job-y jobs, particularly in like creative and marketing. And I’d always try and pass like a professional person. And really when I went back to work sort of in my mid-40s, after this period that was like really rough, I was like I gotta go back and be the person that like you see every day. You know, be the person that people see on stage and figure out how to like—how to really be that person in a way that made sense in day to day. I don’t know. That didn’t really make much sense there, but. (Laughs.)

Jesse Thorn: No, it did. Syd, was it scary for you to see your friend that you love in manic or depressive states?

Syd Butler: I wouldn’t say that. I trust my relationship with Tim. And I think Les Savy Fav exists because we both agree on things and completely see the world differently. And because of that, we’ve been incredibly honest and vulnerable with each other for—I don’t know, since 1995. So, as Tim started to share his process with us, we were very supportive and felt very connected to him because of that, because of our history with him.

Tim has always been one of the most courageous people I’ve ever met. And because of that, I’ve been able to—and I think other guys in the band have been able to support him and/or each other in that way. When I first met Tim, he was at RISD, and he was wearing a tail. And decided not to talk to anyone for a week as an experiment. So, even those small, little, fun creative arts school things, I really appreciated meeting him in that place and going on that journey with him—both as a creative genius, but also as someone who wanted to challenge life.

And as his bipolar was revealed, it made sense to us. But I think because of our friendship and our deep connection over, you know, 25 years, we were able to really see him and support him.

Jesse Thorn: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, rock and roll isn’t always the venue for a stable life, but we’ll talk with Syd and Tim of Les Savy Fav about how they keep things manageable. It’s Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

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[00:25:00]

Promo:

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Brea: Reading Glasses, every Thursday on Maximum Fun.

(Music fades out.)

Jesse Thorn: This is Bullseye. I’m Jesse Thorn. I’m talking with Syd and Tim from Les Savy Fav. Their new album, Oui, LSF, is out now.

Tim, did you have to explain to your doctor or therapist or someone else in your life that your job was in substantial part enacting mania on stage?

(They laugh.)

Tim Harrington: Yes. It definitely was like, “We’re going to need to pull up, Google real quick, so you can really understand the picture.” But even then, I feel like my doctor—he’s awesome.

Jesse Thorn: Because I mean, like there’s—look. The people in my life are bipolar, their job is IT support, right? So, they don’t have to worry about—they’re very creative as well, and like that’s essential to their life. But they don’t have to worry about if I cramp my style by whatever—taking my lithium or whatever—(chuckling) am I not going to pay my rent or what?

Tim Harrington: Yeah, well, luckily it doesn’t—the band never paid my rent. So. (Laughs.) I mean, it’s like on stage is just such an easy place to access, for me. And I never really felt—it’s always felt super safe. You know, it’s funny how completely safe I feel performing. Like, even though I’m like objectively, physically unsafe sometimes. But it’s like, people say, “Oh, wow, it’s so amazing. Like, you’re just so out there, and you go out there, and you have no concern.” And I feel like as safe in an audience as I would like—I don’t know what; being held in someone’s arms. It just like feels completely natural and safe to me.

Weirdly, like I feel much more… you know, on the record, there’s some songs that are more like vulnerable, and that’s so much more difficult than just like splatting myself out. It’s very easy for me to just like dump the paint bucket that is me everywhere. It’s kind of harder to show me holding the paint bucket.

Jesse Thorn: Syd, do you have to—when you’re in the attic with Tim, do you have to guide the vulnerable part of it? Do you have to say it’s okay not to splat it all?

Syd Butler: I think with this record, Tim had a pretty good sense of where he was at as it progressed. I think I was either there for moral support or just to be like, “Done is better than perfect.” I kind of—in terms of this record or even other records that French kiss put out, we try to do one or two records. The first two records—because I find that bands are most exciting on their first or second record. The most vulnerable. And I was really proud of Tim, as he sort of expressed, you know, over beers and pizza, where he want the record to be. And as he was playing some songs that he had written—I mean, he had written more songs that didn’t make it onto the record, but as this process was happening, he was sharing what his process was and where he wanted his journey to go.

And we all respected that. So, we were just there to be like, “Okay, let’s support this. Let’s make music that can fit that.”

Tim Harrington: Yeah, I (inaudible). I mean, from very early on, I feel like I knew what the first song on the record was and the last song on the record were. You know, and the songs are in like counterpoint to each other and sort of a lot of the other songs came together that way. And so, I think that was—I don’t know, that was just something that was on my mind. I was thinking recently that I should try and figure out, since there’s 14 songs and it’s 14 years, maybe there’s one song per year. (Laughs.)

[00:30:00]

So, a lot of the stuff in the record are things that like… were like me finally having a creative way to articulate something that I couldn’t even have talked about, because it was not even like processed enough. And that lyrically for me is what drove me on the record, was all of a sudden being like, “Oh, I’m 50, and I have something I can talk about that I couldn’t talk about when I was 30/40.” Any other time really. And that was that sense of creative authority where it was like, oh, I don’t want to sing—you know, I can’t and don’t want to sing in a pretend voice that was one I had 15 years ago. And I also don’t want to run away from that and try and make some other thing.

And that realization for me, and like a lot of the stuff in the record about things being sort of comic and tragic. And like—(chuckling) I mean, I guess it’s obvious, like if we’re talking about like bipolar stuff. It’s about like, you can—being able to like—you know, it’s not about running from one or the other. It’s about learning to have both of them at the same time. And you know, I feel like lyrically that’s a thing I touched on more in this record than I would have thought even as we first started.

Syd Butler: But just to add to that as a point, as a label side of things, the song “The World Got Great” is the last song on the record. I think it’s one of the best songs on the record. And we had a—you know, the label side of my brain was like, “No, the song needs to be up in the order.” You know, Spotify this, and Apple Music that, and people stream this. And going back to sort of—

Jesse Thorn: Just because people—those things feed into the algorithm, based on what’s most listened to.

(Syd confirms.)

And people tend to start at the beginning of the record, and maybe they listen to half the record, and then that last one doesn’t ever hit the algorithm in the same way.

Syd Butler: Exactly. The first three songs are usually what people listen to. And we’re very proud of that song, but Tim’s point about his process and his conceptual part of this record was that it had to be the last song. So, you know, to respect Tim’s process, we made it the last song. We agreed to that. But I think in previous years, I would have been like, “No, it’s absolutely song three. It’s absolutely song four.”

And people who work at Frenchkiss were like, “It has to be song four. It’s going to get buried.”

And we were like, “We’re not really a band that needs commercial success. So, that’s just who we are. We’re going to put it to last. Hopefully people listen to it.” We made a video that’s great. But that’s the chance we’ll take.

Music: “World Got Great” from the album Oui, LSF by Les Savy Fav.

Same game, same rules

Same job, but with different tools

Lost our taste, it all got lame

Changed the place, but the view’s the same

(Music fades out.)

Jesse Thorn: Tim, what’s the hardest thing that you do to maintain or defend the stability that you created.

Tim Harrington: Mm. Just boring stuff. Like, the hardest part is just doing normal things. (Chuckles.) It’s really easy for me to do things that are kind of out there. You know, so I think the hardest part is really comes down to… sitting with things, not like trying to push the thing in one direction or another and being able to identify that as a good thing. You know, I think that even as I say it, I’m like, oh no, like you want it to be like a big one direction or big one the other direction—like, creative art, that thing. And yeah, the hardest part is to be like, no, I’m still the creative person, even when I’m not behaving in a way that’s like a cliche trope of an artist. I guess. You know, and it’s hard to identify that, I think. And it’s hard for me to look at myself and be like, oh, I’m a normal guy. And being like, that’s fine, it turns out. It’s hard to be a normal guy.

Jesse Thorn: Syd, did you always feel confident that this thing that you guys had all made together would be the same and be successful if Tim was a normal guy?

Tim Harrington: (Laughs.) Syd’s like, “Tim’s still not a normal guy.”

Syd Butler: Yeah, if you had asked me that question years ago, I would have a totally different answer. I don’t—I wish I could give you a great answer to that. I don’t really have one. I think that Les Savy Fav is the sum of its parts. I think that Tim is Tim. I don’t—he’s Tim at 50 now. He was Tim at 19 when I met him.

[00:35:00]

And all the things that make him Tim are all things I’ve always loved and have driven me to smash my head against the wall. At the same time, I don’t know how many years of therapy I’ve talked about Tim, you know, and what that means, and what it means to me, to the band, to other things. And as much as it’s driven me crazy, I’ve respected it and have always felt that his growth and my growth were always going to meet up again, or always match up again. It would always fit; the puzzle piece would always fit. It’s like a cog will come back, and we’d fit again.

And I always had confidence in that. And I think there were times when I was sad that we were out of sync. But I think at the back of my head, I was fully confident—to answer your question—that we would meet up again and high five. We’re mature enough to be like, alright, let’s go have a beer. Let’s have it done. Let’s go.

Music: “Let’s Get Out of Here” from the album Root for Ruin by Les Savy Fav.

I want you

I want you

I want you right now

(Music continues under the dialogue.)

Jesse Thorn: Well, guys, thank you for your time. It’s really nice to see you. I hope it won’t be so long until the next time.

Tim Harrington: Yeah, we’re going to be out in LA in September.

Jesse Thorn: Great. We’ll see you then.

Syd Butler: Thank you.

Tim Harrington: Alright.

Music:

I just want you to want me right now

Let’s get out of here now

Let’s get out of here

(Music continues under the dialogue.)

Jesse Thorn: Les Savy Fav. Tim Harrington and Syd Butler. The song you’re hearing is “Let’s Get Out of Here”. So, uh, why don’t we?

Music:

Let’s get out of here now

Let’s get out of here

Let’s get out of here now

Let’s get out of here

(Music continues under the dialogue.)

Bullseye: That’s the end of another episode of Bullseye. Bullseye, created from the homes of me and the staff of Maximum Fun, in and around Greater Los Angeles, California. Here in Los Angeles, my dog Junior—I got a nice new leather collar. A beautiful, buttery leather collar, and I—you know, I figured this dog’s gonna have this forever. And then he immediately jumped (chuckles) headfirst into a wading pool, soaked it completely, and it got all weird. Now I gotta buy another one. Anyway, he’s a good dog.

Our show is produced by speaking into microphones. Our senior producer is Kevin Ferguson. Our producers are Jesus Ambrosio and Richard Robey. Our production fellow at Maximum Fun, Daniel Huecias. We get booking help from Mara Davis.

Special thanks this week to Neil at NPR New York for recording our interview with Syd and Tim of Les Savy Fav. Our interstitial music is by DJW, also known as Dan Wally. Dan and me and our buddy, Ben, went to see Brent Weinbach’s album recording. Standup comedian Brent Weinbach. Truly one of the funniest dudes in the world. It was a great night out. Our theme song is called “Huddle Formation”, written and recorded by The Go! Team. Our thanks to them and to their label, Memphis Industries.

You can find Bullseye on Instagram, @BullseyeWithJesseThorn. I am on Instagram, @JesseThornVeryFamous. You can also find us on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. And I think that’s about it. Just remember: all great radio hosts have a signature signoff.

(Song ends.)

Promo: Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

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About the show

Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney’s, which called it “the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world.” Since April 2013, the show has been distributed by NPR.

If you would like to pitch a guest for Bullseye, please CLICK HERE. You can also follow Bullseye on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. For more about Bullseye and to see a list of stations that carry it, please click here.

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