Above The Basement - Boston Music and Conversation

Episode 145 - Chadwick Stokes and Sybil Gallagher

Episode Summary

We sat with Sybil Gallagher and her husband Chadwick Stokes from the band DISPATCH. In 2008, Chad and Sybil founded Calling All Crows, the social activist organization that brings their commitment to hands-on service and activism on the road. They work with musicians, fans, and nonprofits to better the lives of women locally and globally.

Episode Notes

We sat with Sybil Gallagher and her husband Chadwick Stokes from the band DISPATCH – aka The Biggest Band No One Has Ever Heard Of. This despite the huge following and many, many loyal fans they continued to have even after a long hiatus that began in 2004.  Just before that hiatus - that is now over, Chadwick Stokes started another band out of Boston called State Radio which allowed him to continue his personal musical journey as wel  l as satisfy his itch to be more vocal on social issues.

To that end in 2008, Chad and Sybil founded Calling All Crows, the social activist organization that brings their commitment to hands-on service and activism on the road. They work with musicians, fans, and nonprofits to better the lives of women locally and globally. Their current focus is preventing sexual violence at shows and festivals through their #HereForTheMusic campaign, which has trained over 1700 musicians, venue/festival staff, industry professionals, and fans to-date.

Chad and Sybil are about to celebrate their 12th annual benefit concert in support of Calling All Crows at the House of Blues on Saturday, December 21st, 2019.  Performing with his band the Pintos, money raised at the concert will help channel the power of live music toward community change for women and girls. Tickets for the concert are $36 and up and are available at LiveNation.com.

We got to sit down with both Sybil and Chadwick along with my guest co-host Kristina Latino at Woods Hill At Pier 4 in Boston where we had another amazing dinner. 

So we talked about their mission, how live-music venues should be a safe place for women and how we all share a responsibility in making changes to improve the lives of women and girls around the world. Oh and we also talked a little music and got a few live songs from Chadwick.

Episode Transcription

Chuck Clough 1:00

Hi, this is Chuck from Above the Basement-Boston Music and Conversation. You were just listening to "Year of the Woman," a new single by the band Dispatch, also known as the biggest band no one has ever heard of. This despite the huge following and many, many loyal fans they continue to have, even after a long hiatus that began in 2004. Just before that hiatus, that is now over, Chadwick Stokes started another band out of Boston called State Radio, which allowed him to continue his personal musical journey, as well as satisfy his itch to be more vocal on social issues.

To that end, in 2008 Chad and his amazing wife, Sybil Gallagher founded Calling All Crows, a social activist organization that brings their commitment to hands on service and activism on the road. They work with musicians, fans and nonprofits to better the lives of women locally and globally. Their current focus is preventing sexual violence at shows and festivals through their Here for the Music campaign, which has trained over 70 Hundred musicians, venue and festival staff, industry professionals and fans to date. Chad and Sybil are about to celebrate their 12th annual benefit concert in support of Calling All Crows at the House of Blues on Saturday, December 21 2019. Performing with his band, The Pintos, money raised at the concert will help channel the power of live music toward community change for women and girls. Tickets for the concert are $36 and up and are available at livenation.com.

We got to sit down with both Sybil and Chadwick, along with my guest co-host Kristina Latino at Woods Hill Pier Four in Boston. Where we had another amazing dinner. For a quick plug, chef Charlie Foster provides Woods Hill Pier Four guests with food that is both flavorful and sustainable. All elements of the restaurant demonstrate the high quality that can only be achieved through complete dedication to both craft and thoughtful sourcing. Woods Hill Pier Four joins the restaurant family of Woods Hill Table, and its sibling Mexican constant Adelita in Concord, Massachusetts. Located at 300 Pier Four Boulevard in Boston, you can get more information at 617-981-4577. Or at woodshillpier4.com.

So we talked about their mission, how live music venues should be a safe place for women, and how we all share responsibility in making changes to improve the lives of women and girls around the world. Oh, and we also talked a little music and got a few live songs from Chadwick. So here is our conversation with Chadwick Stokes, and Sybil Gallagher recorded at Woods Hill Pier Four in Boston, Massachusetts.

Kristina 4:00

I know you have been emailing with Chuck, but I just wanted to introduce myself quickly, so I'm Kristina. No, it's all good. I'm Kristina and I'm a local artists manager in town and get to co-host these every now and then

Chuck Clough 4:13

Yeah, but you've also worked a little bit with Calling All Crows, correct?

Kristina 4:17

Well, I have attended a Calling All Crows service event before a show years ago, I think at Paradise Rock Club.

Okay. Thank you for joining us.

Kristina 4:27

Oh my god. Yeah. I loved it. It was something that really bonded actually me, and my two best friends. Kind of coming up into college and stuff. So yeah, I met a Calling All Crows volunteer or leader at the Rock and Roll Rumble last year.

Chuck Clough 4:45

Yes, talking about Kim.

Chad 4:47

Yeah, okay. She's our executive director now.

She's a superstar.

Chuck Clough 4:58

Yeah, she's great. You know, you walk into Once, it's the first thing you saw right there. She's a trooper. Cause she was there well, I mean, not every night but she had someone at the table every night. I do want to get into that, but first I want to thank you guys for for doing this. I know you're doing a big press thing right now for the event you have coming up on Saturday night at House of Blues. And that's to benefit Calling All Crows.

Chad 5:25

Yes. Correct.

Chuck Clough 5:26

That's the reason why, well you're both from around here. You both settle here now?

Sybil 5:30

Yeah, we live together actually, in the Boston area.

Chuck Clough 5:34

Wow, so unique!

Chad 5:36

Yeah, so we actually we actually spent a lot of time together. And yeah, we live in Milton.

Chuck Clough 5:42

Milton. And you're from Worcester?

Sybil 5:45

Yeah.

Chuck Clough 5:45

All right. Well, you live in...

Sybil 5:47

Cambridge now. Okay.

Chad 5:48

Keeping it local.

Sybil 5:49

Yes, definitely.

Chuck Clough 5:50

Yeah, that's good. And that's funny because I watched your documentary The Last Dispatch.

Chad 5:55

Yeah, right.

Chuck Clough 5:56

And I saw a very young Adam Klein in it, which was very interesting when you watch it literally, and then all of a sudden you're like, "I know that guy!" Just very briefly right before the crush of hundred and fifty-thousand people came in. And you know a little more, well I don't know if you had more hair, but you certainly had browner hair.

Kristina 6:12

Shade about the hair.

Chuck Clough 6:13

It's okay, I don't mind. You guys can make fun of my bald head anytime you want. I have no problem with that. But I really enjoyed the piece. You know, they must seem like a century ago.

Chad 6:25

It it does in some ways. Yeah 

Chuck Clough 6:28

The main thing I heard when I first heard of dispatch, other than 2004 was when that happened? Dalton, he's the manager now right?

Chad 6:34

Yep.

Chuck Clough 6:34

So I started hearing about Dispatch more and more. One of the things that I've heard about you guys is that you're the greatest band no one's ever heard of. Yeah, that's like the line people keep on saying. But anyways, that's something that they came up with, like I always heard about them. And you know, I was just kind of, I was aged out of it.

Chad 6:52

I think that's what it was for a long time. If you were even a year older than us, or two years older than us. You'd never heard, because we had this kind of ground swell of high schoolers and college kids, you know that, and we because we were barely out of high school when we were playing, so it really started. But we weren't playing to young professionals or anything we were playing to kids our age or younger. So if you were older than us, the boat kind of, the boat kind of moves on.

Kristina 7:20

Yeah, I was listening a lot in high school, like feeling very cool listening in my church parking lots in my like, 93 Toyota Corolla. And yeah, it was great.

Chuck Clough 7:31

You remember the car and everything.

Kristina 7:32

Yeah, it was an important moment.

Chuck Clough 7:33

It is an important moment.

Kristina 7:34

So you've got the benefit at the House of Blues this week. And that's with your band The Pintos, right?

Chad 7:39

Yes.

Kristina 7:40

And you just have, you've got a new album out.

Chad 7:42

Yeah.

Kristina 7:43

I was listening to it this week. I love it.

Chad 7:45

Thanks, thanks. All the Pintos are now in my 2004 van driving up from Nashville.

Chuck Clough 7:51

Wimpy?

Chad 7:52

No, this is Wimpy's predecessor, okay. 

Sybil 7:55

Hezekiah Butterworth

Chad 7:56

Hezekiah Butterworth

Chuck Clough 7:57

Hezekiah Butterworth.

Chad 7:59

Yes.

Chuck Clough 8:00

Explain that one. Where does that come from?

Chad 8:03

That name we were we were trying to figure out what to name the van and there was an NPR article with Hezekiah. It's something that was on 90.9 here in Boston. And they were talking about some some fella named Hezekiah Butterworth. It seemed to make sense at the time.

Chuck Clough 8:18

I like it. Let's talk about Calling All Crows because I think it's an amazing organization. There's a bunch of things I want to talk about. Certainly, you've said these kind of things before, but maybe you can kind of talk about the genesis of this idea.

Sybil 8:30

Well, we started calling on crows about 12 years ago, one night at the Brattle Theater. We gathered a bunch of family and friends and fans, and Chad did a show, an acoustic show and we announced sort of the beginning of Calling All Crows and we had been really involved with social activism leading up to the start of Calling All Crows, but we were on the road working in the music industry. And we were sort of inundated by different opportunities.

We quickly realized that it made sense to focus our efforts. And we as a team and as partners, years ago determine that focusing on women's issues was just absolutely crucial for a whole variety of reasons. And felt really important to us, as men, women, Americans,

Chad 9:23

Citizens of the Earth.

Sybil 9:24

Citizens of the earth, felt like if we focused our efforts on women's issues, we would stay very busy. And we have and it's been an incredible journey of learning how to manage a nonprofit. We've had wonderful, wonderful people working with us and it's given us the freedom to sort of focus on social issues that we feel really strongly about with this machine that has been built basically by music fans and volunteers.

Whether it's focusing on women refugees in Sudan or women in Afghanistan affected by domestic violence or how gay rights is affecting women in the US. It's just been an incredible education for us, and we've learned along the way with music fans, pre-show projects or activism opportunities, also through our partnerships with organizations that we link with for these different campaigns. And it's also helped us integrate ourselves in a different way with the music industry as sort of activists and you know..

Chad 10:29

Liaisons which are out here for the music campaign, which is just for the last couple years it's been adopted by big promotion companies and a bunch of other bands.

Sybil 10:38

And tons of festivals and that's been really interesting, is sort of honing in on this industry that we work in with a campaign within Calling All Crows because we usually do two year long campaigns.

So we feel like we can really dig into something but not tire the fan base, or musicians, or artists in general on an issue, and we're at the tail end right for the music campaign.

Kristina 11:00

I wanted to ask a little bit about that in relation to scope when you're working on a challenge, like helping women refugees versus helping women. So the Here for the Music campaign is about helping women feel safe at concerts and at festivals, right?

Sybil 11:16

Yes, people in general. But yes, it's proven to be mostly women.

Kristina 11:19

I feel like that kind of a campaign is something where if you're encountering people at show, for example, it's so directly applicable to their lives. They really feel it, they can see it. And it has kind of that tighter focus or not, not hyper focus, but maybe a smaller, more local scope.

Sybil 11:35

A more tangible variable?

Kristina 11:37

Yeah, but I'm wondering, basically, from the moment that you started Calling All Crows to now, has your approach toward the mission for each two year chunk, and the way that you think about kind of scope and locality changed at all?

Sybil 11:51

Well, it's interesting, the people who work with a set Calling All Crows probably find this very annoying, but at the end of your campaign, we basically come to them and we say, "This is what we want to focus on," and in their eyes, there's probably no rhyme or reason to it, but it just happens to be what we feel strongly about at the time, and what we really want to tackle. So there's no science to it.

Chad 12:11

I would say that with Trump as president, it would be hard for us to not be domestically concerned. So this is a it'd be really hard for us not to be focusing on this country for the next couple of years. And I feel like it was like that with our push for gay marriage, and, and here for the music. So I think we're going to continue to look not to go overseas with our campaigns.

Sybil 12:39

Yeah, we're about to launch our next campaign.

Kristina 12:41

That's really interesting.

Chuck Clough 12:43

What's that next campaign?

Sybil 12:44

We're announcing it this weekend.

Kristina 12:46

Oh my God!

Sybil 12:46

So we're still sort of sculpting it and we have some final details to figure out.

Chuck Clough 12:53

Well, you don't want to spoil the surprise.

Sybil 12:54

It is. It will kill me if I say anything about it, because it's finely tuned.

Chuck Clough 13:00

Well, you know, it's true. It's like with with Trump in office, you know one of one of the things when I first heard of this podcast, I swear to God, we're not going to get political. But it's impossible! Yeah, not to get political. So I gave up on being political, and I'm a liberal snowflake, so it's all good. But you know, he brings up basically a new social terribleness in America these days, that you've got a full bag of things to pull from with this, and it's a terrible thing, but it's not like these things didn't exist before.

So it really kind of gives you a platform every time he says something or something happens now. It's like, well you don't have to think about it too hard. This is really our next step. I would imagine that can be a blessing in disguise, to a certain extent.

Chad 13:46

Things are very obviously, yeah.

Sybil 13:49

Encouraging social responsibility from all of us. I mean, it's like forcing us to look at these issues and for all of the disturbing things, that have happened in the last two or three years. I think it's brought some really important stuff to the forefront, and you know, like with the Me Too movement, even, you know. I know so many women who are so triggered by Donald Trump, you know, seeing him, listening to him.

It encouraged, you know, it forced us onto this path of looking at our own industry and how that type of power dynamic is affecting people. So it's been, it's been really fascinating to watch, you know, so many things unfold over the last couple of years. It really has.

Kristina 14:31

Yeah, the level of engagement locally in like, in the music industry, in terms of social consciousness has really escalated in the past several years. I volunteer as the chapter chair for the Boston chapter of Women in Music - Boston, which is a nonprofit, with chapters kind of all over the globe.

Really, it just started in Boston five years ago, but just in the past couple of years, the number of people who have come to us and said like I'm interested, let's make this into something has really gone up and you can really see that kind of silver lining through it all.

Chad 15:02

Yeah, I hope so.

Chuck Clough 15:03

Yeah. You know, the other thing is it does kind of throw the light back at yourself. Where you think, "What am I doing?," or "What have I done in the past that I... you know, I should be ashamed of" or like, you know? It's like this is I mean, certainly we live in a PC universe now and I to be honest, I think it's all for the better that we're as PC as we can be. But it's one of those things where, you know, before you start pointing fingers, you're like, "What am I doing? What am I involved in right now? Who am I hanging out with that that access way?" Yeah. So it's a very, it's a mirror back upon yourself? I think.

Sybil 15:37

Yeah, and we all contribute to it. You know, it's it's really interesting. We have had just so many interesting conversations over the last two years within this campaign. We travel with people who we're very close with, who basically you live with when you're on the road, we can be really raunchy, we can. We're sexual people, all of us, you know, like, like most people, you know.

So it's been this very interesting journey sort of figuring out how to live and work with people, while remaining appropriate, but also being free, you know, in a way that's healthy. So it has led to a lot of hard and interesting conversations. And you know, just evaluating our own partners and how we can be healthy sort of sexual beings, but also appropriate...

Chad 16:17

And respectful.

Sybil 16:28

And respectful. We are not preaching to anybody about you know, we were looking at ourselves as well. Yeah.

Chad 16:34

Yeah, and in how we, in past years, we've been complicit in not calling someone out or, or celebrating a certain... Yeah, yeah, it does.

Sybil 16:47

We see a lot in this industry. It's everywhere.

Kristina 17:35

Chad can I ask, so your music is political and politically engaged? Would you say that your writing... how would you say it's impacted by your work with Calling All Crows? I feel like when I listen to your songs they touch on so many different topics... Like do you feel like when you're working on a particular campaign, those thoughts kind of affect your writing in a particular way?

Chad 17:54

Yeah. The cool thing about Calling All Crows is that it gives, because of the activism of service we do, it gives me hands on experience. Whether it's at Pine Ridge in South Dakota, the Native American reservation, or if we are talking to survivors of harassment or sexual assault with the Here for the Music campaign, so it you know when you have those those real experiences, I pick up a lot of stuff from reading, or kind of listening to peoples' stories or stories that they know that they're telling, you know.

But nothing is really as as acute as this hands on experiences in Calling All Crows because it's, it's woven into the fabric of our touring and life on the road. Yeah, so I get to have those experiences.

Chuck Clough 18:47

I went to a Roger Waters concert a couple years ago at the garden and have you, did you see what he did last time? It's like Trump's head, and a pig, and it' floating around. It's like all these, he is...

Chad 18:58

He's not afraid.

Chuck Clough 18:59

He's not. It's so inspiring, it's great. Here's a funny thing. It's like, if you know Roger Waters at all, if you're a fan of his, you know, he's political. If you don't think he's political, then you have no idea who...

Chad 19:09

Who he is. Yeah.

Chuck Clough 19:11

And people were complaining about, like, "I just wish he would shut up and sing and do all that." and I've heard you've gotten that a little bit too, which I don't understand anybody who could like your music, or like music in general, but I guess it depends on what kind of music listen to who, can be a shut up and sing person. I don't get it at all. And I don't know, I don't know if anyone can explain it.

Chad 19:31

Well, from my experience people like music, they like the beat or they like the tune, and often it doesn't go it doesn't go further than that. So you don't get into the lyrics, you know, and I, I'm guilty of that too. Not that it's a bad thing because I think we all connect with music is immediate, you know, but sometimes the words that come later, you know that's what's so great about like Rage Against the Machine for me, you know. I would love the song. And then I'd be like, "Well, what is Zach? What's, what's he talking about here and then?" and then my connection with the song would just go to the next level and I'd be over the moon about it.

But I think there are a lot of people out there who are just, you know, maybe especially with Dispatches, they want to go party or hang out and just like smoke weed outside and listen to music, you know, and maybe they're not all that engaged too. But so I think that's, that's where it comes from.

Chuck Clough 20:19

You can, you can do both, you can ignore the lyrics and like, just, I mean, there's plenty of songs out there that are happy, fun songs, there's still the message you don't have to get all worked up about it. It's not like we were talking about Nazis or something, which didn't happen very often. I don't I, I mean, I hear I hear you saying, but I don't know. I don't like those people.

Sybil 20:35

I think also people are more reactive, not so much when they hear songs, but when there's additional, you know. Like when they see a music video attached to a song or when, when an artist sells something from the stage or, to me that's when you start to really get reactions.

It's less from the songs in my opinion, but some of the, some of the campaigns we've you know, we looked at gun violence and like how women are affected by gun violence in the US. The feedback was terrifying. I mean, it is just the feedback around gun issues is, especially when it comes to, like for us we were focusing on how women are affected by gun issues. And it is so clear statistically what a problem this is for women and how dangerous guns are for women in this country, and you would think some of the stuff that people would say on social media or in person is just terrible.

Chad 21:22

That's usually the most polarizing, topic that we come across.

Sybil 21:26

Or another topic is addressing white male power. That's been a very polarizing topic as well, which, you know, is something that we've had to call out in this industry and what we see in other industries, but I think it's a very sensitive subject, and one that we're trying to understand ourselves and talk about and learn about.

Kristina 22:36

Can I ask a little bit about language in your work? I feel like more and more certain words, like PC versus socially conscious, or you know there are certain words that are just very coded for political beliefs or for identity really like social identity. If you think about that in your advocacy work or in your music, I mean obviously, you're thinking about lyrics all the time.

Chad 23:02

Yeah.

Kristina 23:03

How do the, kind of like hot terms of the moment, come into your work and impact the way you interact with your volunteers and your audience?

Chad 23:13

Well, when we were talking about gun reform, you know, we were really about gun safety, you know, whether we like focus on that. It kind of plays where we could all meet and we thought like well, how can anyone not be in favor of gun safety, whether you own guns or not? I feel like even the Me Too movement, is like tinged with you know...

Like I'll mentioned that to other, you know, other males in the in other bands or whatever, and there's a slight kind of aversion to that. And the word feminist like we don't shy from that at all, I'm so proud of anyone who's to call me a feminist. I'd be like, "Hell yeah." We try not to shy away from anything, but we also want to be effective, you know. And then lyrically, I think it's Billy Bragg said that, you can say a lot in a song.

Without that, you could say, you can't say straight up, I'm not too worried, and I feel like if people disagree, you know, I'm open to the dialogue that may then ensue.

Sybil 24:08

Yeah, that's something I really admire about Chad is divisive issues. Don't stop him. You know, he just sort of sticks with what he believes in and is so well informed, and makes sure that he is before you advocate for something, and then doesn't really care how popular it is or unpopular.

Chuck Clough 24:24

Well, that can be the trick, right? You can get in an argument with someone who's just really good at arguing.

Sybil 24:29

Yeah.

Chuck Clough 24:29

That they can almost talk you out of anything if you weren't so worried, if you weren't morally sure of your compass, right. So, you know, I don't get into arguments. They're probably smarter than me. They can probably talk rings around me, and I'll probably somehow lose the conversation. So I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna do it. So yeah.

Kristina 24:46

You know, the key to winning an argument is just volume and eye contact.

Chuck Clough 24:49

Yes and yelling louder?

Chad 24:51

Yeah, confidence.

Sybil 24:53

That's good advice.

Chuck Clough 24:55

Just to kind of finish up on the training part of what you do, you not only are training the people who go to concerts, but you're also training venues is it? Well, what else are you training? Who else are you training?

How do you pull together the curriculum? How did you, who did you talk to to pull it together how to do these things?

Sybil 25:07

So within here for the music campaign, we have, over the last two years trained thousands of music fans on how to be active by standards, and music venues and their staff, large promotion companies, festivals; We've been to dozens of festivals and have worked to train there on the ground staff to deal with these scenarios and how to be active by standards.

Because what we found is in this culture, in the music industry, people are just turning away. They're turning away when they say these things. You know, at Bonnaroo, we did a survey where over 85% of women claim that they have been assaulted in some form at a live music experience. So we've just tried to hit as many outlets as possible within this industry over the last two years.

We're trying to bring this to the forefront and it's anything from like, someone being groped at a concert, to the power dynamic at a record label between men and women. It has been fascinating. It has been just been a fascinating experience and a humbling one, and we have learned a ton and it's felt really good to focus on this industry.

 So Kim Warnik, our executive director, is like a guru in this area. She works for the Boston Rape Crisis Center. And this is a curriculum that was pulled together by many very well versed people and we use that to train people.

Chad 26:35

We don't train sometimes, people think we train like the whole audience at a show, but for the listeners out there, so we...

Sybil 26:43

Don't worry, you don't have to sit down.

Chad 26:46

We do, so we collect as a group, you know a few hours before doors, and people sign up and and sometimes it's a mixture of staff and fans. Yeah.

Kristina 26:56

Would you say a lot of men have participated?

Sybil 26:59

Yeah.

Chad 26:59

Yeah.

Kristina 26:59

The ratio been encouraging?

Sybil 27:01

Definitely.

Kristina 27:02

Yeah, that's awesome.

Chad 27:02

Yeah, for sure.

That's part of the, part of the benefits of music being the gateway for this because, we may have more men in the audience slightly than women. That's probably reflected in the volunteers.
 

Chuck Clough 27:16

Well you know, it's interesting because there's such an opportunity for musicians, I would think that in more cases than any other kind of entertainment, I guess, but it's an opportunity for if a musician has some sort of cause, it puts such an amazing spotlight on that because of how many people they can reach. And I think more than any other kind of medium, it really can have more of an effect.

That seems to be more an emotional attachment with the music that they're listening to, and the musicians that they love, have some sort of charity that they have a personal relationship.

Sybil 27:51

Definitely. That's why we started Calling All Crows, because we saw what an incredible vehicle this was for change and for social awareness and I mean, it's like nothing I've ever seen before. And I worked in nonprofits for a number of years before we started this, it's just so effective when it's done right.

Kristina 28:07

Can I ask Are you also a musician?

Sybil 28:08

No.

Kristina 28:09

Okay.

Sybil 28:10

Not even close. I love to sing though.

Chuck Clough 28:13

You are a designer.

Sybil 28:15

Yeah, yes.

Chuck Clough 28:16

SirTank.

Sybil 28:16

SirTank. Yep, Sir Tank Design.

Chuck Clough 28:18

Sir Tank Design, and that's named after your dog.

Sybil 28:21

Yeah, one of em.

Chuck Clough 28:23

Who passed unfortunately, yeah. Tank. He looked like a tank.

Chad 28:26

Yeah, he did. He did, but he didn't appreciate the name. That's why he communicated to the... so he wouldn't prefer Sir Tank or Sir Tankard.. I love animals, but I can't hear their words, or talk to them like this. We have some friends who actually can talk to animals and this was conveyed to us.

Chuck Clough 28:45

I listened to my doctor. They haven't. There are a other couple causes that Dispatch and you have both been a part of, is the Elias Fund is amplifying education, and the relief project... Well actually no, before that, I do want to talk about the state radio video that you did for Calling All Crows.

Chad 29:05

She's in it! and she hates it.

Chuck Clough 29:06

You were in it?

Chad 29:07

Oh god and she hates...

Sybil 29:07

Cameras. It's um, this is a really funny story.

Chad 29:10

She likes podcast, just not cameras. That's why last night when we went to WGBH where we were pulling in, she's like, "Wait, is this TV" and "I was like no?"

Sybil 29:20

I don't like cameras but yeah, we said to our friend Andrew Mudge who he's a Bostonian, amazing filmmaker and director.

Chad 29:29

He also directed Knights of Bostonia, another state radio.

Sybil 29:33

So we had this idea for this video, and we called Andrew and we said, "Listen, we are trying," I think the album was being released, "We needed a video quickly." We said, "Andrew, we need this video done. And we're wondering if you would be willing to leave in nine days to travel around the world?" and he said great.

Chad 29:51

They said something like, "We have $4,000. We need you to fly around the globe stopping in different places, connect with production companies in...
 

Sybil 30:01

Brazil, yeah.

Chuck Clough 30:03

So he wasn't just going to like Germany, England, France. He was going to South Africa. He was going to... I mean, he was everywhere. He was real perfect.


 

Chad 30:11

The perfect guy. He's an amazing director, an old friend of ours since we were babies,


 

Kristina 30:18

And he had a lead time of nine days?


 

Sybil 30:20

Yes, yeah.


 

Chad 30:23

We went down to New York.


 

Sybil 30:25

New York. Yeah, yeah. I think he went to Brazil first and yeah, he sort of pulled the idea together for that video and, it's so nice that he's tied to that video because we love him and he's such a dear friend, but it also it just felt like a great representation of the song and sort of the beginning of our organization and it's somthing we were really proud of.


 

Chuck Clough 30:43

It was a fantastic, fantastic video. But before that, you had those other three and then you also have the, I might be butchering the name of this, the Lauzie Award?


 

Sybil 30:53

Oh yeah.


 

Chuck Clough 30:54

Is that something you still give give?


 

Sybil 30:55

We give it every year.


 

Chuck Clough 30:57

Can you talk about that?


 

Sybil 30:58

It's, yes. Well the Lauzie Award is named after my mom, who was this, just incredible woman. She's not on this earth anymore, but we give that award in her honor because she had this incredible spirit and she so encouraged service in people, and she was so great at celebrating people. It was her greatest quality. So every year we give the Lauzie Award to someone who is really invested in the work that we're doing within that campaign for the time, and for that year. And it's been really fun to sort of figure out each year who that award is going to, and to think of her sort of watching from afar.


 

Chuck Clough 31:36

Is it coming up, the new the next one or?


 

Sybil 31:38

Yep, we give it on Saturday night.


 

Chuck Clough 31:39

Giving it on Saturday night? Cool.


 

Kristina 31:40

What's going down on Saturday night? I know it's the benefit. I know there will be special guests, they'll be music, you'll announcethe next campaign...


 

Sybil 31:47

Yeah so, we announced the next campaign on Saturday night. It's a way for us to celebrate a year of service for Calling All Crows, the reception ahead of time, but then it's just a night of awesome music. And Chadwick Stokes and the Pintos have a new album out and they've been out on the road and their show is just so awesome right now, the album is really amazing and the show is incredible.


 

Chad 32:09

Kat Wright is opening for her band.


 

Chuck Clough 32:11

Oh Kat Wright, right? Yeah, she's great.


 

Chad 32:12

She's great. Her band is incredible.


 

Chuck Clough 32:15

Your name is so rock'n'roll. It's frickin great man. I wish my name was Chad Stokes. It's very Chadwick Stokes.


 

Chad 32:20

I'm you know, I met Steven Tyler once and that's what he kind of said in a matter of words. He, cuz I know Carly Simon, she sung on that, some of the solo records forever, and I saw that too and that the two of them were together. This is on Martha's Vineyard, and they, they look like twins. These wide brim hats.


 

Chuck Clough 32:38

I can see that, yeah.


 

Chad 32:39

Giant beautiful mouths. And he said, and she introduced me to him and he goes, "Chad Stokes cool name." I was like, Okay, I'm done. I can go, I can hang it up now.


 

Chuck Clough 32:53

It is great when a band member, of the main band Dispatch, has other projects. I actually think it's said that you're, you're more political band is State Radio.


 

Chad 33:06

Yeah.


 

Chuck Clough 33:06

And I remember seeing in the documentary that there was like, a lyric that someone had a problem with. And there was like some argument..


 

Chad 33:13

Sure. Yeah.


 

Chuck Clough 33:14

Was it a? Was it a way for you to take maybe, what you wanted to have in the lyric out of Dispatch? Because it maybe was making the other guys uncomfortable or just to kind of make it so like, I really need to... I wanted to have my own words, be my be my own project, or how did that come about? Yeah.


 

Chad 33:30

I guess I felt a little censored in that band at that time.


 

Chuck Clough 33:34

Yeah, that's a long time.


 

Chad 33:35

I don't anymore because they've come around. At that time, yeah I really, I hated feeling like we weren't using the platform responsibly. And I was kind of like, why even do it? If we can't say this or, or or stand for something that I felt was important. It was a reason why, you know, we broke up at that time.


 

Sybil 33:59

One of the reasons, yeah.


 

Chuck Clough 34:00

But you got back together?


 

Chad 34:02

Yeah. Yeah. And we kind of like slowly you know, started you know, one show here. Let four years pass, do another show, let another four years pass. You know, we all kind of grew up and...


 

Kristina 34:14

I had totally forgotten this until just now, it was one of the reunion shows down at the TD Garden, in like...


 

Chad 34:20

2011?


 

Kristina 34:21

Yeah, just a quick story. I was in New York that summer, and really wanted to go to that show with two friends and took the bus ride from hell from New York to go to that show. Yeah, it was like an eight hour bus ride. We're going into South Station, I've got my bag on I run. I like go in and a police officer is like, "Hey, you can't bring a backpack into this concert." And I was like, "You don't understand." I was like, I could hear the music.

I was like, "I needto get in there," and the police officer looks at me and he's like, "God, all right." And he goes, he's like, "Come with me."


 

Chad 34:54

No way!


 

Kristina 34:55

And he takes me to his cruiser, puts my bags and all my stuff in his car and was like, "Here's my cell numbers. Call me when you're out. You can come get your stuff." And I like went in. I only missed four songs.


 

Chuck Clough 35:08

Oh, that's pretty good.


 

Kristina 35:09

Yeah.


 

Chuck Clough 35:09

I'm impressed.


 

Kristina 35:10

Nicest police officer. I had completely forgotten that until right now.


 

Chuck Clough 35:15

I don't think he would have done that for me.


 

Sybil 35:17

You're right.


 

Kristina 35:19

I'm sure I looked really panicked.


 

Sybil 35:20

mustget in!


 

Chuck Clough 35:24

But good for you. That's, that's awesome.


 

Kristina 35:25

Yeah. Are the kids musical?


 

They're getting there. Yeah, we're not really forcing it too much.


 

Chuck Clough 35:30

How old are they?


 

Sybil 35:31

Uh, 7, 6, 2. Yeah. Piano mostly.


 

Kristina 35:35

Cool.


 

Chuck Clough 35:35

Good. That's the only thing I forced my kids to do.


 

Sybil 35:38

Really? They play?


 

Chuck Clough 35:40

We let my older daughter play until like, I still came every morning when we let her stop, but my younger daughter, she's still taking it. Yeah. It's the only thing I mean, we tried to get them to read, I can't get them to read. Well, we can't force them to go to piano lessons. And they, they have no choice they have to learn. So yeah, there you go.


 

Chad 35:56

That's great. We're forcing our kids to play piano and to play hockey.


 

Sybil 36:01

Hold on. We are not hockey...


 

Chad 36:06

Ice Hockey, yeah. Actually, the only thing is piano, everything's optional. They wanted to do it. Ice hockey is the one thing that's manditory.


 

Sybil 36:15

I didn't know when we moved to the town that we're living in now that it's like hockey Die Hard town. You know, it's it's very exciting.


 

Chuck Clough 36:25

I guess this is the end of the show. No, it's fine, Chris. I think we're gonna, we're gonna pull it together now. What you guys doing next? What's going on next, after Saturday? Take a little vacation?


 

Chad 36:38

Oh, yeah. Well, The Pintos and I Head Out West.


 

Sybil 36:42

Such a good song.


 

Kristina 36:43

Hell, yeah.


 

Chad 36:45

Classic.


 

Chuck Clough 37:06

So go ahead. What do you doing?


 

Sybil 37:08

Pintos heading back out on the road in January, and Chad's recording in February for a new album for...


 

Chad 37:13

New Dispatch album.


 

Sybil 37:15

Hanging with kids, working, just enjoying our day.


 

Chad 37:18

Big, big tour. Dispatch tour coming up this summer.


 

Chuck Clough 37:21

Oh, sweet. Are you going to play somewhere big in Boston?


 

Chad 37:25

I'd like to play on one of the Boston Harbor islands.


 

Chuck Clough 37:29

Interesting. Have they done that?


 

Chad 37:32

Maybe a little bit? It would be kind of hard to get out there.


 

Chuck Clough 37:35

Yeah, yeah.


 

Chad 37:36

But it would be a thing.


 

Chuck Clough 37:37

It would be a thing. So you're not touring? Don't have your touring manager hat?


 

Sybil 37:41

No, no, no, I haven't tour managed in years. Since we started Calling All Crows. I tour manage during the State Radio days, but not since then. They don't want me tour managing, trust me. I'm not organized and...


 

Chad 37:55

She was an amazing tour manager.


 

Chuck Clough 37:58

I bet. Well, thank you very much. Are you gonna play us a couple of songs?


 

Chad 38:01

Oh yeah, would be happy to.


 

Chuck Clough 38:02

That'll be awesome. And then we're gonna have some good food and, thanks very much.


 

Sybil 38:06

Thank you so much for having us.


 

Chad 38:07

Thanks. Do you have a request?


 

Kristina 38:12

I liked, I think I forgot the name of it.


 

Chad 38:14

Chaska maybe?


 

Chuck Clough 45:13

We would like to thank Chadwick and Sybil for all their great work and for joining us to talk. If you want to get a ticket to their December 21 show, go to livenation.com to learn more about Calling All Crows go to callingallcrows.org.

A special thanks to my co-host Kristina Latino. Kristina is the founder of Cornerscape, an independent artist management and music events company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cornerscape is all about connecting people with great music. They do this by focusing on three areas, artist management, live music events, and their music and arts curation service. They believe that music can forge deep, powerful connections between people, that music brings joy, and that artists deserve careers that fulfill them both professionally and personally. To learn more about Kristina and her work at Cornerscape, go to cornerscape.com.

Finally we'd like to thank Kristin Canty, owner of Woods Hill Pier Four, located at 300 Pier Four Boulevard in Boston, Massachusetts. Get more information at 617-981-4577. Or at woodshillpierfour.com.

Go to abovethebasement.com, you can sign up for our newsletter, listen and subscribe to our podcast, like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, and look at all the nice pictures we post on Instagram. We are everywhere. From all of us at Above the Basement, thanks for listening. Tell your friends and remember, Boston music like its history is unique.


 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai