Episode 22 transcript

Note: this transcript is AI-generated, and as such, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.

Chad (00:01)
Hello and welcome back to the Aural Mess podcast. I'm joined this week by Cimcie Nichols. Hi Cimcie.

cimcie nichols (00:07)
Hey, how are you?

Chad (00:11)
doing great. It's so good to be back on camera with you after what has it been like a year?

cimcie nichols (00:16)
Literally, it has been a year. Can you believe it? Like time is flying. Well, June, it's 2024. my god. So yeah, June 2024, last year, June 2023, we had a lot of fun.

Chad (00:23)
Yeah, that is crazy.

Hahaha!

cimcie nichols (00:37)
And then thankfully you came to my rescue to help me do all those amazing interviews and the YouTube live sessions. Yeah, it's been a year.

Chad (00:47)
Yeah, well, rescuing you was like a dream come true for me because, you know, I got to be on camera with a few of my personal musical heroes. So it was just like the coolest thing ever. I still talk about it to this day to anybody who will listen, you know. So what have you been up to? Why don't you fill us in on, you know, the events of the last year and, you know, your feelings on sort of where things have gone since the the the Danes on kind of peaked, you know, last summer.

cimcie nichols (01:01)
I'm listening.

Well, yeah, so I guess just to catch everybody up if they maybe don't know what we're talking about, about last year around June -ish, you know, I...

I mean, this is kind of my why I hate to keep talking about it, but I we all went through the pandemic and then I went through a divorce and I ended up at my mom's house in central Illinois and I'm sitting there still surrounded by my dad's stuff. And I had people still contacting me wanting to hear what was on this cassette tape I had posted the previous year that I had had. Right. Unknowingly, I was like, hey, what do I do with this? And then I was like, what everybody was like.

You have you what you have to share that what is on that? I didn't know right so now we know but Sitting there surrounded by all this stuff, and I was just like I really F it had an effort moment, and I was sick of holding on to this stuff, and I just wanted to put it out there

and share some of my dad's archives with everybody, you know, because he'd been gone now for over a decade. And just like at some point, it was a moment where I was like, I gotta get this stuff out of my life. So I shared what was on the second arrangement cassette tape.

It went viral. We had fun with it. It brought so much joy, which really made me cry because it was so emotional. I was like, wow, this cassette tape that was in a drawer for 40 years, I mean, like made everybody so happy. There was actually this moment where like I was in such a deep grief and sorrow and then just me kind of letting it all go brought so much joy.

Like that energy was amazing and I'm so grateful for it and I'm so grateful for the community. But yeah, we posted it online and then people like you came in and were like, this is so fun and exciting. And I'm like, wow, yeah, I have all this stuff. Let's talk about it. And so for, I don't know, a month or something, we then got together. You thankfully helped me interview these guys because...

I grew up around Steely Dan. So I am not... I hate to say I'm not an audiophile because I do appreciate hi -fi, sonic quality. But like, that's not my thing. I'm not an engineer. I'm not a musical producer. I have like other skills and I was the kid, right? So growing up around all these guys, like...

Chad (04:08)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (04:12)
when we decided to interview them and have some fun and celebrate the danisance that was happening, you know, because then it was like, once we posted the song online, everybody was like, yay, let's talk about it. And I'm like, my gosh. You know, thinking about like what I wished I had done when my dad was alive is I really wished I had gotten him on tape more and we had asked him questions more. And I'm like, these guys are still alive.

I can call them. Why don't we get them on YouTube, do a live and ask them all the questions you want to ask them? Because you know, one day they won't be here and we can't ask them anything, right? So it just was like this perfect storm and it all worked out that you were available to help me ask the questions because I was like, I really don't know what to ask them. But so, yeah, we did that last year, June, July.

We had our Sunday sessions and we brought in like Skunk and Denny and Gary Katz. And I was like, let's just get the Steely Dan band together to the best of our ability and ask them all the questions. Right. So yeah, that's a long winded, like what we did last summer. But what did you do last summer?

Chad (05:13)
Totally.

Yeah.

hahahaha

said, yeah, exactly. Well, I know what you did last summer. For me as a Steely Dan nerd, it was like I said, it was like a dream come true and it was just surreal and I was so nervous. And, you know, listen, I've spoken in front of lots of people. I've done a lot of, you know, presentations professionally throughout my career. Like I have no problem getting up in front of a room in front of anybody and talking. But when it was like Gary Katz or Denny

I was like, you know, like kind of.

cimcie nichols (05:58)
Wait, did I just say his name wrong? Denny Diaz. I just said his name wrong. Denny? Diaz.

Chad (06:02)
It's okay. I said it wrong for years. I didn't know it was Diaz until like a year or two ago Because I never heard it spoken out loud

cimcie nichols (06:07)
That's not like tomato. Yeah, I just messed that up. Did I think Denny tomato tomato? See, that's why I needed your help. Like.

Chad (06:15)
Hahaha

Like I said, I didn't even know until right before I think right before we recorded with him, I think it came out that it was like, you know, pronounced differently. But yeah, so just being on camera with those guys and asking questions and luckily they're both like just so genuinely sweet. You know, Gary Katz could not have been like nicer and you know, Denny's just so chill. So it put me at ease and let me sort of, you know, get back to what I do, which is, you know, I think I asked some pretty good questions, my own plus, you know, we fielded a bunch from folks on the internet from

Reddit and Twitter and Discord and every place else. Yeah, that was a lot of fun because we got to ask a lot of, you know, sort of fun, insightful questions, things that I didn't think of or I didn't even know about, honestly. And, you know, by the way, that whole experience sort of was was really part of a catalyst that inspired me to start the podcast because I was like, hey, you know, how fun would it be? And I didn't, you know, I didn't want to do a Steely Dan podcast necessarily because, you know, there are a few other ones out there that are doing a great job at that. But.

cimcie nichols (06:52)
That was fun. Yeah.

Right.

Chad (07:19)
just through virtue of how I started the podcast. My first like six episodes were like 80 % Steely Dan content, which was kind of funny. But again, gave me sort of the springboard of, you know, sort of coming in and this is episode 22, I think right now. And I've got 23, 24 and 25 lined up. So who knew? All right, a year later, here I am.

cimcie nichols (07:44)
I love it. I love it with your window lab shirt on my shirt.

Chad (07:47)
I had to low -key wear it. I just had to put it on, you know, I just had to do it.

cimcie nichols (07:51)
Yeah, yeah, I love merch. It's fun. Look, you know, it's like that is for sure a deep dive. If someone understands that shirt, like, I was at actually a Steely Ann concert a couple years ago and I was wearing my Wendell shirt and one person got it. But like they got it. They're like, that's such a deep dive. I was like, yep.

Chad (07:58)
you

And did they put two and two together on who you were? Because they probably would have shit themselves. If they were a real fan.

cimcie nichols (08:16)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was fun. And I think a few people actually were at the concert wearing their Wendell shirts.

Chad (08:26)
wow.

cimcie nichols (08:30)
I mean, merch is fun. Yeah, that's fun to see. I mean, my dad would have laughed at that. I mean, some ancient machine. Yeah, on t -shirts and now actually, Wendell is going to get an exhibit. So Wendell, we've sent Wendell to a museum.

Chad (08:42)
Like a 70 pound brick.

cimcie nichols (08:56)
I can talk about it because we've shared it on socials, but it does take a while to put an exhibit together. But dad is going to have an exhibit at the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville.

Chad (09:07)
wow.

cimcie nichols (09:09)
But yeah, it's the Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville. So yeah, it's not the country hall. It's like there's this another amazing museum and it showcases everybody like behind the scenes. So like James Burton, who played with Elvis and John Denver, it's like got his outfit and his guitar that he had played on these certain songs. So it's like definitely like a fun, like musicians museum celebrating all the people.

behind the celebrities because you know a celebrity is not an island there's this whole team of people you know and I love that because of my dad being an engineer and I've been surrounded by all these session guys and producers like I for sure love celebrating the people behind the music so yeah Wendell we sent Wendell to the museum

Chad (09:43)
yeah. Right.

cimcie nichols (10:02)
Put him in my mom's trunk. She drove him to Nashville because I mean how do you even shi - it's literally seven pounds - 70 pounds. 70. I weighed it. I held it. I got on a stick - Gale. You know I did the minus and I was like, this is 70 pounds. And it was the first laptop. I can't even believe technology. My dad would always laugh at technology kind of advancing because like...

Chad (10:06)
wow.

Yeah. Right.

Ha ha ha.

cimcie nichols (10:31)
talk about things going on a date quickly and yeah, getting cheaper and cheaper and anyway, so yeah. 70 pound laptop. It's at the Musicians Hall of Fame and there's going to be an exhibit of my dad.

but Wendell being the fun focus, because it's like a cool thing to look at. It's like, you know, it's the first drum replacement machine. Basically, I feel like people have argued that it is the grandfather of DAW, like the digital audio workstation, since it was like a computer that my dad wrote the code for, and then he sampled the drums and fed the samples through the computer. And then like,

edited them on the screen with like assembly language or something like this

Chad (11:20)
Yeah, he had a hand code like every drum beat basically, and it took like 15 minutes or 20 minutes to type everything in. Nuts, nuts.

cimcie nichols (11:28)
Yeah, so that is, I've heard debates, I've seen debates on the internet whether it could be considered one of the first DAWs, which is a fun thing to kind of, I like those conversations, I think it's interesting, but yeah, so that's kind of a cool, that's cool. I'd like go to a museum to see that and be like, wow, this is like one of the first studio computers. We're talking late 70s, so.

Chad (11:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, I would totally go.

Right.

Yeah.

cimcie nichols (11:59)
computers weren't in the studio.

Chad (12:01)
What was it, 79 when they were in the middle of recording Gaucho?

cimcie nichols (12:05)
And I think my dad started to develop it in like 78. Yeah.

Chad (12:10)
Okay.

Crazy.

cimcie nichols (12:14)
So yeah, so Wendell is gonna be, there's gonna be an exhibit, so that'll be fun. That's a good place for it, instead of like my closet. My mom's garage.

Chad (12:23)
Yes.

So what else? What else has been going on in the intervening year since Steely Dan summer happened?

cimcie nichols (12:30)
I know, our Steely Dan summer! I love calling it that. The Steely Dan summer.

Chad (12:36)
Every summer is a Steely Dan summer as far as I'm concerned.

cimcie nichols (12:39)
I know. Yeah. Yeah. Steely Dan Summer. That was my Steely Dan Summer. And that was for sure fun. Well, look, life keeps on lifeing, thankfully. And after that, it took me a few months, but I had this dream to randomly move to Savannah, Georgia.

living in LA for 20 years and I was born in Malibu. Like I'm a California girl, right? Southern California gal. My dad was a California guy. Like my sister was born in LA. Like, so Los Angeles is my home, I guess. Cause we did move around a lot when I was a kid. Like we lived in Nashville, in New York, in Miami. And I had a really...

Not unstable, it was stable, but just like we moved around a lot, right? Upbringing. Moved around a lot. So, I don't know, after the pandemic, things in LA for me felt a little weird, and then I got a divorce and was like.

starting over from scratch, because I lost my job during the pandemic. I was sitting in my condo. Then that condo, I had to leave. And I was like, I was starting from scratch. And I was like, well, I could sit in LA and be miserable. And everywhere I look, I feel pain. Or I could just try something completely new. So it was like really hard to move across the country. But it felt harder to stay.

Chad (14:14)
Yeah, totally makes sense. How did you land on Savannah?

cimcie nichols (14:15)
Does that make sense? I really felt like my - I -

I sat and I got really quiet. Because I had a plan A and that was it. That was my plan. That was my life path. And then when that kind of got taken away and I had to come up with a new life plan, I honestly had no idea. I didn't know what to do. So I got quiet and meditated a lot. Every morning I asked,

anything, my dad, anybody that was listening, I meditated, I did Reiki, I did all the things to try to figure out like what to do next. And I was like, what would make me happy?

And at that moment, like, I was just so miserable. I was just trying to find that, like, speck of light in the darkness, right? I was like, what is that shimmer of hope? Where is that speck of light going to come from to help me survive this grief abyss?

And I said, you know, I really love the warm ocean. I love floating. I'm a water baby. My dad was a scuba diver instructor. I scuba dive. I love the tropics. So I was like, you know what? Maybe I just need to go float in the ocean. So that was the first ding, ding, ding, little light bulb. And then I looked and I was like, ugh, I don't want to live in Florida.

Sorry, Florida. So then the next thing from Florida was Mobile, Alabama.

Chad (16:02)
Okay.

cimcie nichols (16:02)
or Savannah, Georgia. Just next warm ocean, you know, the Atlantic and the Gulf. And I was like, okay. So I looked at Savannah, I had one friend here and I came to visit like October or November of 22. And I was like, this is beautiful. It's so beautiful. It felt like a warm, sad hug.

Chad (16:22)
Yeah.

That's a great description.

cimcie nichols (16:31)
Yeah, you had like the Spanish moss and these like gorgeous buildings and it felt European, but not. Yeah, and I was like, wow, this feels like Europe. And I didn't have the energy to like move to another country. I still kind of needed to be like in the same country because I'm now operating in like trauma brain. I like I like I needed different stuff, but I like.

Chad (16:34)
Mm -hmm.

All the squares, yeah.

cimcie nichols (16:59)
Different country was like way too much. So, yeah, it was just, it was just beautiful. That's kind of it. Next to warm ocean is beautiful. It was spooky. I love goth industrial haunted house stuff. And so it felt spooky. There was ghost tours here. There's like ghost industry. And so I just like,

Chad (16:59)
Not that different. Yeah.

I love Savannah. Yeah.

took a ghost tour. Yeah.

cimcie nichols (17:29)
F it. Why not? Right? Everything else has exploded in my life. Why not just do it? Why not? So that's a long to do, but that's how I ended up on Savannah with no plan and no job.

Chad (17:32)
Right.

That's where the effort factor really comes into play, right? It's like, okay, here I am, now what?

cimcie nichols (17:55)
Have you, so you said, have you been to Savannah? You said it's beautiful.

Chad (17:58)
I have, yeah. My wife and I spent half of our honeymoon there. We split it between Savannah and Charleston, South Carolina. And same, we fell in love with it. And we actually, at some point, said we'd move there, maybe even retire there. Charleston's like a whole other kind of vibe. But Savannah, like you said, it just feels magical.

cimcie nichols (18:18)
Mm.

Chad (18:18)
the the Spanish moss, the old houses, all the things that you said, the hauntedness of it. There's like this thriving arts community and people are just so cool and funky. And, you know, it's not what I expected it to be before I went, you know, like I'd heard great things about it and my wife had always wanted to go. So that's what we did and loved it. Took a ghost tour, not a hearse tour. I don't think they had them back then. We did a walking tour, which was just a hoot. You know, it was a a of fun.

cimcie nichols (18:48)
So what era is this? How long ago?

Chad (18:49)
this was 2004. Yeah, 2004, yeah, we went December 2004.

cimcie nichols (18:58)
Yeah, so that's 20 years ago. I hear it's changed. Sorry to remind you that it's been two decades. So 2004 feels like a few years ago, actually. I'm like, wait, that was it like three, four years ago? It was literally 20 years ago.

Chad (19:04)
Hahaha!

20, I know.

cimcie nichols (19:17)
A lot of people I've actually met that are transplants and didn't grow up here did the same thing. They're like, I came here once and I was like, why not after maybe some sort of tragedy or just like, you know, having a change, like just, I'm not the only person who's done it, which is interesting. Like Savannah summons people.

Chad (19:43)
It's very interesting. It does. It totally does.

cimcie nichols (19:48)
which is kind of interesting because it is so haunted. I'm like, it summons people. But look, I guess the point then of that long -winded story is getting quiet and listening. Because if you now look, since I've landed in Savannah,

Chad (19:51)
hahahaha

Hmm.

cimcie nichols (20:15)
You know, I'm sitting at my mom's house and I'm trying to also while we're having fun with all the steely and stuff, I'm like, what am I going to do next? Right? I had

decades experience in like sales and marketing and I love the health and wellness industry. I worked for vitamin lines and supplement lines. I actually got really into health and wellness when my dad got sick with cancer because we tried to figure out how to save him. So that was actually like my origin story with like I'd always loved plants. I mean, I was a drug addict. So maybe like I loved plants too much. But then like it's been this interesting journey because I've been sober for a few decades to figure out.

how to use plants to help me instead of hurt me. So when my dad got sick, I really leaned into mushrooms and antioxidants. And then I was like, I love talking about this stuff. So I started working in the industry and...

Chad (21:01)
Hmm.

cimcie nichols (21:18)
I guess I'm sitting at my mom's and I'm also going to sound therapy school to be a sound therapist. Like I've got sound bowls and I actually vibrational medicine really helped me kind of navigate all that trauma. I love sound bath and vibro tables and so I'm like, what do I do with all this stuff now? I was like, do I open a practice? Am I like a sound therapist now? Do I go back in sales and

I just had this moment where I was like, you know what would be really fun? To open a bar that didn't serve alcohol. Like what if we just did elixirs and like beautiful things? Cause plants are medicine. Like there's cava and there's CBD and there's ashwagandha and there's all these amazing plants that can actually help calm you down.

Chad (21:56)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (22:10)
that aren't necessarily booze. And I was like, these non -alcoholic bars were starting to pop up all over the place. And there was this, it like kind of came out of my trauma fog for a minute. And thankfully the social media algorithm gods were in my favor and started showing me all this like non -alcoholic content. And I was like, my gosh, there's this huge movement right now.

for like non -alcoholic bars, non -alcoholic brands. I was like, everybody pickled themselves during the pandemic. And now is now it was kind of like a Renaissance. It was like we have like the dark ages. Yeah. Are you raising your hand? Did you pickle yourself during the pandemic?

Chad (22:51)
I'm raising my hand. I did. I had some shit going on. So.

cimcie nichols (23:00)
We all did. I mean, like, that was only four years ago, three years ago. What the? I don't even know. Like, it's like I still feel like I'm kind of like, what happened? You don't just like snap and all of a sudden we were released into the wild and that whole year of sitting, especially so you're in New York, right?

Chad (23:04)
I know.

Yeah.

I'm in New Jersey, but yeah, close to New York.

cimcie nichols (23:21)
New York and LA, like we all sat in our condos. I don't know for a long time. I don't know about y 'all, but I also as a kid, you know, I got in trouble all the time. I felt like if I walked outside, like I was going to breathe and just not make it. I felt like I wasn't going to get away with it. So I just, I got so scared. I just sat in my condo. I was like, I don't know what to do. I'm just going to sit here. So.

Chad (23:49)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (23:51)
Yeah, all that, that was so intense. So, you know, I took, now I've got years of experience in health and wellness, sound therapy, and I also love the nightclub scene. I love to dance. I love nightlife. Dancing is really therapeutic, right? I used to go to dance clubs to dance and...

It's a good stress relief, dancing, getting out, right? So I was like, why don't I open a bar? And that was like crazy, because you need a lot of capital to open a bar. But.

Chad (24:18)
Sure. Yeah.

yeah.

cimcie nichols (24:33)
I was like, that could be fun. What if I open a space and we could have sound bath nights and horror movie nights and dance nights and serve these beautiful drinks and like a moody, moody environment. Like it felt good. I think coming out of all of this isolation and intensity to start creating like community spaces again. And then I love dark, moody stuff. So I was like, why not lean into that and have like a fun, moody bar?

that serves elixirs and non -alcoholic concoctions and like lean into things that can help people feel a little better but not necessarily need to be booze. Like, how do you, okay, when you go have a drink or when you used to have a drink, like what, why would you drink?

Chad (25:27)
a little bit of a few things. I think, you know, to take the edge off a rough day sometimes or just, you know, because it's Friday night and I don't have to get up for work on Saturday and my wife and I would just have a glass of wine and watch a movie or, you know, if she was doing something, I just, you know, have a whiskey or something. Like, you know, I was really into, still am really into trying all different kinds of Scotch, bourbon, all different sorts of whiskeys.

and it was like a hobby more than

like last night, for example, I was, my wife was out, my daughter was out, I was watching a movie and I was like, I'm gonna have a nice little pour of scotch. So I did. That was it, you know, it's just like a,

almost, right?

cimcie nichols (26:10)
Right. Yeah. Ritual. Take the edge off. So you can still create those feelings or those moods, you know, with plants and other things that aren't necessarily booze. Because, you know, maybe if you want a boozy drink and then you want another drink and you don't want to drink like two scotches, like that's where a fun non -alcoholic cocktail could come in. Or you're just like.

Chad (26:26)
Sure.

cimcie nichols (26:38)
I don't want to drink tonight. Or maybe it is a slippery slope and you're like, I drink one and then it ends up to be five. But I still need to take the edge off. Like at this moment, I'm like, you know what? I didn't get sober to suffer. Like that doesn't mean that like, because I got sober and have been raw dogging life for decades doesn't mean that I have to like suffer.

What do I do? Right? To help take the edge off.

Chad (27:09)
great tagline by the way I didn't get sober to suffer.

cimcie nichols (27:17)
Like, I need the edge taken off.

And then I was like, okay, so that's also why I wanted to like kind of lean into plants. You know, there's ashwagandha, there's CBD. People are also there's kava bars, there's other things to help that can kind of like take the edge off that aren't necessarily like drugs to get addicted to or Western meds or

So, you know, I know it's like, there's always a huge origin story. But out of all of that, that perfect, beautiful storm of chaos and moments of getting quiet and having decades of experience, I came up with this concept called Hatchet Granny. So I was like, I'm going to open a bar. OK, what's the name of the bar?

But like, I didn't want to preach, I didn't want the word sober, I didn't want zero proof, I didn't want non -alcoholic, I wanted it to be kind of like a fun thing. Cause also, like, let's have some fun. Like, it was like now four years of year, or three years of like intense, so intense, endemic divorce. it was just so intense. And I was like, I kind of had this moment where I just wanted to like, another F it moment, F it.

Chad (28:29)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (28:42)
Let's just have some fun. Because you know what? Fun hits different when you've suffered. So let's have some fun, right?

Chad (28:51)
Yes. Where did you come up with Hatchet Granny, by the way? Where did the name come from? I never asked you that.

cimcie nichols (28:59)
Okay, so in my brainstorm I'm looking for fun names and I'm seeing all these brands online and I'm like, okay what What should my name be, right?

And then I flashed back to going to a prohibition museum in Montana with my friend years ago. And we learned about this woman called Carrie A Nation. So Carrie Nation was the woman who ushered in prohibition. She was like the leader of the woman's temperance movement.

And she was mad. Booze took her first husband, I think died from alcoholism. I think maybe the second husband left her. I read her autobiography, but yeah, she basically was mad at alcohol. And now we're in Kansas in the 1900s.

Okay, so I think it was a dry state. I think bars weren't supposed to be operating or there was like, I don't know. So she went into these dive bars and she had a hatchet and she would go in. She's a six foot tall woman, 1900 Kansas going into dive bars with a hatchet and she just started to destroy it with a hatchet. She would smash the bar. She'd go and she'd smash the barrels and these guys are like.

Chad (30:09)
Right.

cimcie nichols (30:38)
What are we doing? First of all, it's a lady and she's six foot tall and she's just mad. They started to call her the Hatchet Granny.

Chad (30:39)
Right, right.

I never knew that I've heard of Carrie nation and I know about the whole women's temperance thing but I did not know that was the thing. That's awesome. Okay.

cimcie nichols (30:55)
That's her nickname! CarrieNations' nickname, the Hatchet Granny, because she would throw it in bars and she'd destroy them with her hatchet and then she started getting these other grannies together and they all had hatchets and they called themselves the Hatchetations? The Hatchet... I have to look. It was like they called themselves the Hatchetations and they had little pins, little hatchet pins. It's just all these little mad old ladies. They were not even that old, but you know.

Chad (31:00)
Hahaha!

cimcie nichols (31:27)
Mad La Ladies with their hatchets storming into bars and destroying them.

Chad (31:35)
Wow, I'd love that connection.

cimcie nichols (31:38)
So yeah, so I was like, my God, Hatchet Grady. I was like, that could be really fun. And then like,

I was like, my God, I can visualize the logo of like a little grainy head, make it like a skull with like hatchets as the crossbones.

Chad (31:55)
It's perfect. I love it. Yeah.

cimcie nichols (31:57)
So I had my friend help me create the logo and I had another friend who's this amazing mocktail crafter in Canada help me kind of brainstorm the first few recipes, because I wasn't a cocktail maker. I've got sober right before 22. I barely was even in bars. So sort of brainstorming some recipes with my friend. I had my other friend help me with the logo and I was like, you know what?

It's gonna be really fun to lean into the macabre, unhinged ridiculousness of life while at the same time celebrating it by drinking these beautiful drinks that help people feel a little better in that moment. So, pleasure.

Chad (32:43)
Yes.

cimcie nichols (32:52)
with purpose, right? Let's have some fun. Let's lean into unhinged goth ridiculousness. I mean, like, Carrie Nation, that's ridiculous. Going into bars and smashing them with a hatchet. Like, how did she not get unalived? Like, she was in jail and stuff. But like, this is Kansas, like 1900s.

Chad (32:55)
Cool.

Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah, I'm like the Wild West, right?

cimcie nichols (33:18)
I think maybe they were just so shocked. They were just like... And she also, I mean, she was also coming from like a really religious kind of... And I'm not leaning into that at all, but I think kind of like the energy behind that audacity is fun to have like a non -alcoholic brand. So I got to Savannah and I just said, OK, I'm going to do that.

Chad (33:37)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (33:47)
I just got to Savannah and I was like, you know what? I do mocktail bars. And they were like, you do? And I was like, yes, I do. And so I did an event, like the first week I landed and everybody was like, this is amazing. Cause there's a huge alcohol community. It's like, there's a huge, amazing bar scene here and people are drinking in the streets.

Chad (33:53)
I do now.

cimcie nichols (34:11)
And people are like, wow, Savannah's a really wet town. I don't know about non -alcoholic stuff. But you know what? Because it's a really wet town, there are loads of people that don't drink. So now I'm coming here with this concept, and I've created some beautiful drinks with my friend. And I started doing mocktail bars. And then I just started to get out into the community and get feedback. Like, do you guys want a bar like this here? An elixir bar? And.

Chad (34:21)
Sure.

cimcie nichols (34:40)
like yes, yes, yes. And then I started making drinks and then working in consumer packaged goods and retail for so long. I was like, it'd be really fun to make my own drink, like a hashy granny beverage. Right? So I started messing with recipes and I'm in the kitchen and I'm just like.

Chad (34:55)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (35:03)
It's like almost like I'm ferocious about it. I was just, I made like 10, 15 different, I was like trying to get it just right. That's when like the nickels kicked in and I was like now obsessive over getting my recipe right. So where my dad was obsessive over sound, I was now obsessing over herbs and plants and getting this recipe right. So I got it right. And I started to serve it to people.

and they loved it. And my feed, the feedback was great. And I was making like an herbal mixer, like a syrup, and people loved it. They were like, and I would see them take a drink. And this is the part that I love is like when they take a drink of something that we've made at Hatchet Granny, like they go.

Like they kind of like are like, this is like how they feel. You can see that moment where they like, it's like an herbal hug or they like feel better or something. And that is really beautiful to see. It's like even like listening to your favorite record, you know, or listening to that song for the first time where you're like, this is amazing. So I was seeing that and I was feeling encouraged to keep going and.

Chad (36:14)
That's rewarding. Yeah.

cimcie nichols (36:32)
Now, you know, I landed in October and now it's June. I had another effort moment and I was like, you know what, I'm going to produce this and sell it. See where it goes. So just a series of events. I found a manufacturer out of Atlanta that creates.

and manufactures elixirs and cambootches. I found a designer that does really good labels. And you know what? I was like, I have a working credit card and I'm fueled by audacity. So let's just another moment. I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna try. I'm taking this recipe now and I am manufacturing it. So we're gonna have an herbal syrup and a soda. And the line is gonna be, there's gonna be three.

We're calling them elevated herbal mixers, but it's basically like a syrup that you can mix into seltzer or put in your coffee or put in your tea. And then there's going to be three syrups and then three sodas. So we're launching the first one probably like in a month. We're actually we're going to do Kickstarter to help with pre -sales. Like the manufacturer has been hired. We're working.

Chad (37:41)
wow.

cimcie nichols (37:52)
on the sample run right now to get it shelf stable, the labels being created, like it's going to be done. So the Kickstarter is basically to help with pre -sales and maybe get a little bit of funding to help. Cause like, this is scrappy. People that launch beverage lines, like there's sometimes big capital behind it. Cause it takes.

Chad (38:17)
sure.

cimcie nichols (38:18)
a lot of money to launch something into the retail space. But I'm just scrappy. I'm just coming at it. I'm like, I'm like, I got that Nichols audacity and I'm funded by Ghost Tours right now. I'm doing Ghost Tours in Savannah and the community here has been so supportive and excited. They're like, you know what?

Chad (38:27)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

cimcie nichols (38:42)
We love this and they've been rallying around me and helping me create content and do photos and throw parties. And it's like going back to what you said about Savannah having a huge design community. Yeah, there are there's this amazing community here filled with young artists. There's a design school and they just want to have fun and create and we have this beautiful backdrop.

Chad (39:03)
Yeah, scad.

cimcie nichols (39:12)
So it's like I was summoned to Savannah and Hatchet Granny was born here and Hatchet Granny is being launched by this beautifully haunted creative city.

Chad (39:24)
Amazing. You're being fueled by the spirit world. Think of it that way.

So cool.

So you're going to have some sort of callbacks to some Steely Dan stuff, right? You're making mocktails that might have some certain names. Do you want to talk about that?

cimcie nichols (39:38)
It's.

fun. Yeah, okay, look.

I can't help it. I love you all. I love Steely Dan. I love what my dad did. I've been a champion for him and his legacy work for over a decade. I love it. I love the danisans. I love that there's 20 year olds that are fanatic about Steely Dan. I think it's amazing and fun.

So yeah, I made Steely Dan themed mocktails because I'm also still a music industry kid. Like I grew up in the music industry. Like, yes, I have different skills and different passions, but like the music industry is my home. I love being around.

producers, engineers, musicians. I love that there's guitars behind you. And you know what I mean? Like, I love it. That's like my home. So I was like, still finding ways to keep connected. So, you know, the people I love and I was like, my gosh, how much fun to create mocktails like named after songs. Right? So I did like, I did I think my first one was the Haitian divorce.

Chad (41:08)
Yeah.

Hahaha

cimcie nichols (41:16)
And I did, it was like a pineapple, coconut, with like spirulina. And like, depending on the bartender you picked, like we could make it blue or green. So it's like, life is all about choices, you know? Because the fun thing about cocktails is it's an experience. So then I did, I think something called the Time Out of Mind.

which the time out of mind the song has a lyric in there about chasing the dragon. So that drink, I put some CBD seltzer in it. And then I had a syringe filled with blood red cherry elixir and like we put to like call in like heroin, I guess. Or yeah.

Chad (42:03)
Nice.

Cherry wine. Yeah, right.

cimcie nichols (42:09)
Like so that made sense for time out of mind so it's actually been really fun to take like song titles and like create themed drinks from the song titles Okay, like it if Steely Dan had a taste what would it taste like?

Chad (42:32)
salty and bitter.

cimcie nichols (42:38)
That question is awful on so many levels though because if you think about what a Steely Dan is, sorry I just had a moment I was like, this could get really inappropriate. So yes, Steely Dan being salty is -

Chad (42:44)
Hahaha

Yeah, let's leave it at that.

man.

cimcie nichols (43:00)
and better. Okay, so if you could...

Chad (43:01)
dark. You gotta get dark in there somehow.

cimcie nichols (43:05)
I think actually as an adult, this is why I love Steely Dan now because I'm actually listening to the lyrics and I'm like, you know what? These guys are kind of messed up. It's dark. I was like, maybe I do like this because as a kid you just hear like the music and you're like, I'm an angsty teen and I'm like, what is this jazz fusion, whatever. But now I'm like really listening and I'm like, maybe these guys are kind of metal. There's like, my God.

Chad (43:14)
Hahaha.

cimcie nichols (43:35)
Maybe I do like Steely Dan.

Well, if you could come up with a, what Steely Dan song title would you like to see as a drink? Like if you could come up, okay, so, like what is a song that you love and what do you think it would taste like?

Chad (43:44)
Hmm.

that's a great question. I had to think about that one. You know, we should crowdsource this too. You should put that, we should like ask the question officially if anybody's watching and listening, drop that in the comments.

cimcie nichols (43:52)
I feel like -

What song would you like to see made into a drink or what song like I feel like Deacon Blues could be a drink

Chad (44:07)
Deacon Blues could be a drink.

cimcie nichols (44:08)
Maybe that's like a whiskey, maybe that's a flat drink. And there are non -alcoholic, there's like zero proof whiskies and stuff, but then it's hard not to make it blue.

Chad (44:18)
Yeah, be kind of obvious. Maybe a bad sneakers. That'd be a cool name for a cocktail.

cimcie nichols (44:22)
deep in blues.

What would bad sneakers taste like?

Chad (44:29)
Well, I hope it wouldn't taste like they would smell, but it would be like your quintessential gritty New York stomping on the avenue. Like, what would that be? I don't know.

cimcie nichols (44:34)
Great.

I did make something called the Immortal after Dad, and it was a non -alcoholic, so there's also this Zero Proof Spirit movement, which is, okay, so there's two things. You have people that are making non -alcoholic whiskies and tequilas, and then you have people that are creating these new spirits that are plant -based that don't necessarily taste like...

anything specific, but they're still like used as a spirit. And so there's this one called the Pathfinder and it's a fermented hemp seed and root. I think they have like wormwood and sage and it's really kind of complex and interesting. Zero -proof spirit. And so I took that and I added some Coca -Cola.

Cause my dad's favorite, I was like, I gotta make a drink in honor of my dad. I'll call it the immortal. It has to include Coca -Cola. So, it was like the Pathfinder, Coca -Cola. I made a ginger simple syrup, some key lime juice, and I added some like liquid bliss tincture. So it's like invigorating and feel good. And then the rim was like a sugar clove rim.

Chad (45:44)
Okay.

wow.

cimcie nichols (46:05)
So you kind of have this like smell like I like creating drinks that are like sensoriums, right? Smell, taste, feel. It's like you can have the taste. Fine, make a tasty drink. But I'm for sure having fun leading into also how do you want to feel? And then how does it smell? How does it look? Like it's activating all the senses.

Chad (46:11)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

cimcie nichols (46:34)
So that's been really fun to lean into all that. All right. I don't know about bad sneakers. I'm going to just say that. I think Deacon Blues could be a drink.

Chad (46:39)
Hahaha!

Zotpha something with ginger I'm getting I'm getting a ginger vibe for that one

cimcie nichols (46:48)
Boris?

Yeah, the police...

Bodhisattva could have ginger because that's kind of like energizing. And Bodhisattva is very spiritual. So maybe we could create like an energizing drink, like uplifting mood and uplifting mood support drink.

Chad (47:17)
throw some bitters in it.

cimcie nichols (47:23)
So.

Chad (47:27)
You could do a fire in the hole.

cimcie nichols (47:30)
that could be a fiery drink. You could do like a fire cider. Sriracha. Have you had Sriracha in a drink?

Chad (47:33)
Something spicy, yeah, like Tabasco or Sriracha, yeah.

No, but how cool would that be? We used to drink, years ago, I used to drink a shot called a Prairie Fire and it was tequila and Tabasco and a shot glass. And if you drank enough of them, you'd be sorry. And I did and I was.

cimcie nichols (47:56)
Tequila and Tabasco.

Fire in the hole.

Chad (48:01)
I've never seen it since. Yeah, fire in the hole could be something with hot something hot hot sauce hot pepper chili pepper. Yeah.

cimcie nichols (48:06)
La Kayen. That one can be that see that could be good because you can do something energizing and do like a fireside or a kind of energizing non alcoholic cocktail.

Yeah, I don't know. We'll have to ask. I'm like trying to, I'm like going over the song titles now.

We'll have to ask the crowd to see what they think.

Chad (48:35)
Yeah, yeah, if anybody listening or watching has a suggestion, drop it in the comments and we'll take a look.

cimcie nichols (48:41)
Yes, because I think so far I've made the Haitian divorce time out of mind. The immortal. I made something called the green earrings. And that was super minty. And it was green. And then the garnish looked like earrings. And it was like I had fresh mint and chlorophyll. And it was like a non -alcoholic tequila and some lemon lime soda.

Chad (48:50)
right, I saw that.

huh. Right.

Cool.

cimcie nichols (49:11)
So that was fun, yeah. That was fun.

Chad (49:12)
Yeah, I love it. So, god.

cimcie nichols (49:16)
So yeah, actually, and then one more thing on the bottle. I am going to have a call out to the second arrangement, I think in my verbiage somewhere. Because you know, it's also amazing about the second arrangement thing happening last summer is I also was having to figure out my second arrangement. So now this hatchet granny is my second arrangement. Really?

Chad (49:19)
Yeah.

I was gonna...

Right.

and you redefine the first arrangement, right? Which was, which was fucking.

cimcie nichols (49:44)
Yeah!

I haven't said it, can we say fuck it?

Chad (49:51)
You can say whatever you want.

cimcie nichols (49:53)
I was like censoring myself.

Chad (49:55)
I didn't know if you were holding back on purpose. Yeah, no, we can swear. This is a not safe for work podcast.

cimcie nichols (49:58)
We can say fuck it.

my god, I could have been saying fuck it this whole time. Fuck it. I'm just like, this has for sure been the fuck it era. But yeah, so I'm gonna have, I'm gonna do some call out on the label for the first syrup. It's called the Heartbreak Healer.

Chad (50:06)
Yes, you could have.

Okay.

cimcie nichols (50:25)
and it's all plants and stuff and botanicals that lean into heart, energetic heart health like rose and lavender. So things that are calming and also nervines, plants that help with stress support and...

Chad (50:36)
Cool.

cimcie nichols (50:43)
Yeah, it's actually a really beautiful formula. And I'm working with these guys in Oregon that have created a spagyric tincture. It's like this alchemical process. Spagyric, see this is alchemy. This is another fun thing to lean into. And in the plant world, in the herb world, there are people...

creating tinctures that capture kind of like the mind, body, and soul of the plant. So it's about extracting all the stuff. It's extracting all the stuff from the plant and alcohol because you can extract all the good stuff from the plant. Alcohol brings all that stuff out. So that's why you see a lot of...

Chad (51:15)
Hmm.

cimcie nichols (51:30)
alcohol based tinctures, and then it extracts the rest of it into water and then they take the plant material and they burn it to a white ash and then they put that ash back in the tincture. So it's like the sum of the parts is as great as the whole, is this concept. So yeah, so there's like, yeah, so the concoction that we are crafting right now,

Chad (51:42)
Huh, okay.

Yeah.

Right.

Interesting, yeah.

cimcie nichols (51:58)
It tastes good, it's fun, it's ridiculous, but there's a lot of magic behind it and there's a lot of meaning behind it, which feels like a really good place to come from.

Chad (52:13)
Yeah, I love that. So speaking of second arrangement, are there any other potential unicorns in the Roger Nichols archive that we haven't come across here that you haven't come across yet? I know you have like boxes and crates full of stuff that you haven't still gotten a chance to really go through, right? Or.

cimcie nichols (52:34)
So, I don't think so. But I didn't think that tape was anything until I posted it. I've been trying to share what I found. I'm not with my dad's stuff right now. But I don't think so. I think I've looked at everything. And people have asked me about some certain names or titles. And I don't think I've seen those.

Chad (52:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

cimcie nichols (53:04)
I mean, there's tubs of like dads. But that is from like the 90s era. So that's stuff that like dad recorded off the board during the Alive in America tour. So that's like 90s Steely Dan concert stuff, which actually could be great to transfer if they're not ruined because dads are not as stable of a media as some other things I heard they kind of disintegrate or anyway if.

Chad (53:16)
Mm -hmm.

cimcie nichols (53:33)
I'm like, I feel like my dad probably transferred all that stuff, you know, because we still have hard drives and I feel like we've dug into most of the hard drives. So. I mean, that's kind of a like long winded, like, I don't think so, but you never know. I do know, though, I got all those pictures scanned. So in this, like archiving process and digging in my dad's stuff again and posting some of those photos online, I realized that I did have.

Chad (53:49)
Right.

cimcie nichols (54:04)
photos that people hadn't seen before from Steely Dan in the 70s. And then so I also started getting feedback like, this is cool. And I was like, it is? And they're like, yeah, there's no photos of Steely Dan in the 70s. And I'm like, my god, there's not. Like they were like an insular band and my dad had a really professional camera. So he was just snapping photos in the studio. And when they just formed as a band,

Chad (54:19)
Right.

cimcie nichols (54:34)
They went to the street to try to do an album cover shoot and some band shots. And then dad just had, he was a professional race photographer. So he had all this gear and I think he was just in the studio snapping some photos. So I was like, I was like, my gosh. I was like, that is cool. And I had somebody reach out to me.

to license some of the photos for a project. And I looked and I opened a box and I'm like, wait a minute.

there are negatives here. I was like, how have I not seen these before? I was like, my God. I was like, there's more? I was like, I can't believe it. Just when I think that I've found everything, last summer I opened a box and I'm like, there was a shoe box full of negatives. And I'm looking and it's like, Steal It In 1972. And I'm like, I was like, no. I was like, now what do I do?

Chad (55:14)
hahahaha

cimcie nichols (55:35)
Cause then I was like, okay, well now I have to figure out how to transfer them correctly. And then that led us on a whole nother expedition of Steely Dan archiving where like, I was talking with these people and this person who had an archive and we ended up at a photo lab in Chicago and it took months to archive like hundreds and hundreds of these Steely Dan photos.

Which now I have those. So not necessarily like music related, but there is hundreds of Steely Dan in the studio photos. Like, so Steely Dan band. So this is like 72 to 75. There's probably at least like 300 of them in the studio. And I mean, we transferred, I think, like 800.

Chad (56:23)
Wow.

cimcie nichols (56:28)
because I mean, I had scanned a bunch of like these transparencies. Like when my dad was alive, I found his slides and we did start to go through them. And I'm like, dad, these are really cool. I was like, are these you guys young? And he was like, yeah. And we were starting to go through his slides and I'm like, these are awesome. I was like, we need to transfer these. And so he actually helped me transfer the ones that I already had and I shared on those videos and stuff. But this was a whole shoe box.

Chad (56:53)
Right.

cimcie nichols (56:56)
of negatives. They weren't just the transparencies. So I was like, no. More, I was like excited, but I also knew it was going to like send me off on this whole nother like quest. Like, like another quest. I was like, it never ends. I mean, thankfully for us, cause it is fun, but still I was like, just when I thought I released everything and got it out of my system. And then there's more, but wait, there's more.

Chad (57:08)
Side quest.

How much would you pay now?

cimcie nichols (57:27)
So...

So now I do have those photos. We have those photos. Now what to do with them? I'm trying to find someone to help me. I think it could be fun to do like a gallery showing, like stealing down on the street. There's.

one of Donald Figg and exiting the ocean in jorts like, yeah, that's not him in the studio, but that's super hilarious and amazing. And I think it would be fun to create a very large image of that. But so then I mean, there's just like candid photos. And

I think it could be really amazing. The big dream would be to have a fun gallery showing and we could have a party and see all the photos together. Maybe create some sort of prints. Some sort of like, you know, create a couple hundred prints of a photo or two that is really amazing and possibly sell those as a collector's item.

Chad (58:24)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (58:40)
So that would be fun to think about and I need help to do that because that's not my world. And also what's really interesting about the photos is that is my dad's IP. The music is not my dad's IP. In theory, he should have been a producer and he should have had points on the album.

the amount of work that he did was for sure producer level. I think at one credit they gave him like executive engineer as a credit. Like what is that even? Like, this is like, you did so much engineering. Like you're not even like a regular sound. It was like executive engineer. I don't know. That's not my world. I don't know. But that was everybody's.

Chad (59:07)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (59:27)
situation back in the day, like there were studio session musicians that just got hired by the day or my dad, he was just hourly like that's just what you did, right. So what's interesting about these photos is that is my dad's IP and we can do something with it.

Chad (59:37)
sure.

Yeah. Right.

cimcie nichols (59:46)
Which is really wild to wrap our brains around because the thing that he's famous for is recording these amazing albums. Like he's a sound engineer. But the thing that we could possibly celebrate and maybe even sell as an artist kind of thing is his photos. That's so interesting.

Chad (1:00:07)
Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. I can't wait to see where that lands.

cimcie nichols (1:00:11)
And actually, what's also interesting about that is my dad's grandfather, my dad's great -grand - my great -grandfather, my dad's grandfather, was a famous photographer. His name was Elmer Fryer, and he was a Hollywood land photographer. He was the head photographer for Warner Brothers in the 30s.

Chad (1:00:24)
Really?

wow, that's crazy.

cimcie nichols (1:00:36)
You can search him. He's got photos online. He actually invented this like light and dark thing. Like, like he would take these like glamour shots, right? 30s. Like he did all those. That's my dad's grandfather. Famous photographer who was a musician as a hobby and my dad was a sound engineer. Photos as a hobby.

Chad (1:00:49)
Yeah, like the real high key, yeah, okay.

No way.

cimcie nichols (1:01:05)
So us being able to now possibly do something with these photos that my dad could make something or my mom, my mom, us, right, could sell as a product is so like, it's so interesting.

Chad (1:01:25)
the line from a movie and it goes the universe tends to unfold as it should. Whether you believe that or not over the last couple years for your for your own personal journey I don't know but how cool is it that that kind of came back full circle right? Like...

Two generations later, yeah, life is very weird.

cimcie nichols (1:01:45)
Life is weird.

Generations, yeah, full circle. That doesn't, I know. Life is so, if you really like, look at things, you're like, wow, life is amazing and weird and hard and beautiful. So if you just keep going, things can change.

Chad (1:02:15)
Audacity, Cimcie, audacity.

cimcie nichols (1:02:19)
I don't even think we talked about music on this podcast.

Chad (1:02:22)
Well, hey, perfect segue. I was just going to say, I think that's a good sort of turning point. Why don't we talk about music for a bit? So what are you listening to lately? Like what's, what's, what's on hot rotation and in the car and at home and elsewhere?

cimcie nichols (1:02:30)
Apparently.

I love 90s goth music. It's super dramatic and emotional. Like my favorite bands are Nine Inch Nails, Sisters of Mercy. I love really emotional, fun, dramatic music. But lately I've actually had Dark Techno on.

because I've needed to keep up my energy to like get all the tasks done. So like when I'm walking around my room doing the things before I getting ready to do the ghost tours and working on the hatchet granny Kickstarter and da da da da da da. I've got dark techno on in the background. Actually, can I get my phone? Because I don't know any of the names. This is actually OK, this is a hilarious thing about me. I don't know any.

Chad (1:03:03)
Yeah.

who are some dark techno artists? Yeah, of course.

cimcie nichols (1:03:26)
Song titles or band names. I've got the worst memory for that I'd actually make a horrible DJ because I'd be like, what is the name of that song? Are you good at member? Are you good at remembering?

Chad (1:03:28)
Ha ha ha ha!

I am. Yeah, I unfortunately have like this this encyclopedic memory for songs and artists and album names and stuff like that. I mean, nine times out of 10 when I'm in the middle of recording a podcast episode, I draw blanks on ship. But that's just, you know, I guess being 52 years old and starting to lose it. But, you know, I mean, like my wife is just like, how do you remember all this stuff? Because song will come on and she's like, I haven't heard this song in years. Who is this? And I'm like, it's so and so.

Song title is this and it's from like 1983 and she's like, why do you know that? Like just why do you know that? She's like, there's no reason for you to know that.

cimcie nichols (1:04:15)
Thank you, yeah. And it's very helpful for people like me and your wife. I don't know that.

Chad (1:04:21)
Yeah, useless. No, it's useless knowledge. It's it's trivia, but it's fun. That's what lives in my brain.

cimcie nichols (1:04:29)
I'm gonna mess up all of these names by the way. Okay, so some of this stuff, I feel like I wanna play it. my God, this song has been great. It's, I love this song. Okay, it's called, the title is called Insane. And the band is called Jen.

G E N dot cloud K L O U D or the person. I feel bad being a music kid and I'm awful with names, but sorry. and then actually there is this artist, Thomas Schumacher.

Chad (1:04:55)
Okay.

Ha ha ha.

cimcie nichols (1:05:09)
there's this other great band, producer duo called I Hate Models. So Werewolf Disco Club is the song title and I Hate Models is their name.

Chad (1:05:16)
Okay.

gonna make a playlist which I always do for each episode so I'll throw some of these on there and you can send me your playlist if you want.

cimcie nichols (1:05:30)
and then there's this amazing female producer named Sierra.

Sierra and What's the song?

Stronger is a good one. Actually Unbroken is a good one by Sierra.

She actually did something with health called hateful, but I like unbroken by Sierra and then

I have like a list of I should just share my I Should share my dark techno playlist Are we are you on Apple music?

Chad (1:05:59)
Yeah, send it over and I'll put it, I'll post it.

Please do.

I'm on Spotify, but I can take an Apple Music and convert it.

cimcie nichols (1:06:17)
Spotify.

Chad (1:06:19)
I know at this point it's just out of convenience but so are you familiar with a genre and it sounds like it's pretty close to dark techno but it's called Russian witch house.

cimcie nichols (1:06:35)
No, what is that?

Chad (1:06:36)
I think I think I think you would like it. It's it's primarily obviously Russian artists, but it's like some of the words that are in the playlist description are dark synth hard wave neo grime anime game witch house and wave.

And I stumbled across this playlist completely by accident. It's one of those like random things that Spotify just pops up and says, hey, you might like this. And I'm like, why would I like this? But I put it on and it just blew my mind like that this even exists. So I'll post that in the notes and I'll send it to you too. Yeah.

cimcie nichols (1:07:11)
Yeah, because I'm looking and all right, maybe Spotify is helpful sometimes because I don't see anything called Russian witch house on Apple Music. That sounds right up my alley. And like there are some newer like goth artists I love, like I have like a newer goth. I actually have a whole hatchet granny playlist because I was doing I did throw a few parties here in Savannah because.

Chad (1:07:19)
Ha ha ha.

cimcie nichols (1:07:36)
Like there's a lot of things I love about this town, but there's no dance clubs and I love dance clubs. Like I love alternative goth. I mean, living in LA for so long, like I got so spoiled, I guess, cause there's loads of dancing. so I actually threw a few parties here and we had like a 90s goth industrial dark techno kind of dance party. We were playing like horror movies on the wall.

Chad (1:07:41)
Hmm.

Cool.

cimcie nichols (1:08:03)
I had my friends help me DJ and then we were serving like the hatchet grainy drinks. And that was a lot of fun. But also she passed away. They are really fun. Yeah, she passed away. They're from, is it the song that is, all their songs I love, but Dirda Dunya. I don't think I'm saying that right, but there's a Boy Harsher remix. Where are they from? my God, we could look.

Chad (1:08:13)
wow, that's a band.

cimcie nichols (1:08:33)
This is see, this is the knowledge I don't this is where I need your brain to remember all this stuff. But she passed away is from. I guess we could just look, sorry.

Chad (1:08:37)
hahahaha

cimcie nichols (1:08:49)
She passed away. They had their band from Turkish, formed in 2006. So that's newer stuff.

Chad (1:08:56)
wow, okay.

cimcie nichols (1:09:03)
She passed away is great. I feel like they're amazing.

And then there's this band called Qual, Q -U -A -L, Take Me Higher. That's a great song. I just love stuff that like makes you want to move. It's kind of like funky, it's got beat or like the drama.

What is, besides Steely Dan, what is some of your favorite music?

Chad (1:09:46)
I listen to so much different stuff. Like I'm really all over the map, but if I had to pick, and I usually say this when people ask, if I had to pick some favorite bands, it's like Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Prefab Sprout.

I like sort of the bebop era of jazz. So like, you know, some of the Miles Davis quintet stuff, quintet rather, I said quintet. I'm trying to think what else. Like my wife and I last night were like just listening to funk. Like we were listening to like Earth, Wind and Fire and the Brothers Johnson. And, you know, I love Prince. Prince is a huge, huge favorite of mine.

cimcie nichols (1:10:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chad (1:10:33)
Yeah, I mean, everything, but I think I've had to pick top groups. I like Ben Folds Five. I don't know if you know them. Yeah, big fan of them. I think what else? Oddly enough, recently I've been going back to a lot of like 90s, not so much grunge, but the stuff that came sort of right after.

cimcie nichols (1:10:39)
Mm -hmm.

What came after, so 90s. See, that's when I started actually as a teen, that's when I started really coming into my own musical taste. I think I, and I started like digging things up because I was in Nashville as a teenager and this is like really pre -internet. So, and I didn't have an older sibling. So I had to really kind of figure out stuff and it maybe took me a little longer. Like my sister grew up on Nine Inch Nails because I was always playing it.

Chad (1:11:26)
Hahaha.

cimcie nichols (1:11:27)
But the grunge stuff. Yeah, I loved like Nirvana. I remember I waited out on outside. I remember the unplugged album like I have this vivid memory of being 14 or something 15 and I was waiting. We went at midnight to the record store on Halloween. I made my dad take me to get the new MTV unplugged Nirvana album.

Chad (1:11:45)
hahahaha

Love it.

cimcie nichols (1:11:54)
Yeah, remember those days where you had to like go to the record store to like sing? It was like a big to -do.

Chad (1:11:56)
I do. I do. I remember a few midnight releases. Couldn't tell you which ones I went to. I don't remember. But yeah, I remember those. And I remember just like even just being there at like nine o 'clock on the dot when they pulled up the gate at Sam Goody in the mall, you know, because the record was coming out that day, you know.

cimcie nichols (1:12:17)
Right, I think, like, and even like, I think even Trent Reznor talked about this, where, yeah, there was something about having to do that, the experience of having to, like, wait in line or get the thing. It was, like, such a special moment to have this album.

and you sit and you listen to it from front to back, you have the experience of the album and that just doesn't really happen anymore. I think because of just like the consume, it's like so easy to get and everybody is like kind of like all over, there's like, there's too much content all at once. Like that was something that was like an event and it was an experience that doesn't necessarily happen anymore.

Chad (1:12:42)
And you listen to the whole thing, right?

Yeah.

And you had liner notes to sit and read and pictures of the band. And now it's like, you're lucky if an artist even puts a picture up on Spotify. Right. And so many artists are doing. And I just had this conversation a couple of weeks ago with, with somebody and it's singles, it's, it's songs. They're releasing songs. Nobody's releasing albums anymore. Like there are definitely artists who are still doing like older artists. They're doing still albums and you know, even concept albums and things like that. But a lot of these newer artists are just real song driven. Yeah.

cimcie nichols (1:13:37)
EPs. EPs, which is what, four or five songs? Like that's not... Yeah, it's like why? I don't know. I don't know. I think even Nine Inch Nails did that. They did like a three EP thing, but like together it made an album. I don't know. But yeah, I don't know. I really just think that it's just like, it's too much. It's overload.

Chad (1:13:41)
Yeah. Right.

cimcie nichols (1:14:07)
content consuming and it's just like you can't keep anybody's focus that long. I do remember actually have a vivid memory of Bush. Remember their... remember that album? Everything's in, everything's in. I don't think so. I remember when that album came out, I had my Walkman. I remember my dad had the best Walkman, the seedy Walkman. It had shock absorbing.

Chad (1:14:07)
Hehehehehe

god yeah. Yep.

Yes.

cimcie nichols (1:14:35)
That was like, so I like, I used it, I basically like siphoned it. I was like, this is mine now. And I remember buying the Bush album and I was sitting in like my grandparents guest room and I had it on. I was just like, listening to it front to back.

Chad (1:14:41)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

cimcie nichols (1:14:53)
I did that a lot too with the downward spiral. The downward spiral, once I found the downward spiral, like I think I was like a kid and I didn't see the music video for closer. And I was like, yeah, and I was like, what is that band? I was like, that is the band. I was like, and then so I went and I got the downward spiral. I think my parents had to get it for me. And then,

Chad (1:14:56)
Yes.

god. Really?

Yeah, sure, because it was probably explicit, right? It had the sticker on it.

cimcie nichols (1:15:21)
Actually, fun fact. So I'm in LA with my dad, Walter Becker and Kavai Becker, Walter's son, and we're in Tower Records. So this is mid 90s, maybe 95, 94, 95, 94. I don't know. But we're in Tower Records and I...

told Walter, I said, Walter, I love has like my favorite band right now has nine inch nails. And he was like, he's like, you should listen to the pretty hate machine. So Walter Becker actually told me to get the pretty hate machine, which means my dad had to buy me the pretty hate machine.

Chad (1:15:59)
Hahaha!

cimcie nichols (1:16:09)
And then I think I like bought like biohazard or I think Kavai Becker was like here, get the biohazard record. I was like, this is great. But yes, Walter Becker from Steely Dan turned me onto Pretty Hate Machine. He told me.

Chad (1:16:24)
Not many people, probably nobody else on the whole planet can actually say that. That's amazing.

cimcie nichols (1:16:29)
I was like, yeah, National is my favorite band. He was like, you should listen to their first album.

Chad (1:16:37)
I'm trying to picture Walter Becker sitting and listening to Nine Inch Nails. I just can't make the mental picture, but I guess, you know, wow.

cimcie nichols (1:16:47)
Now I appreciate that. Then it was just like my dad's friend telling me to get it. I was like, wow, that's awesome. I was like, great. And then yeah, I got Pretty Hate Machine. I love Nine Inch Nails. I think they're my favorite band because I grew up with them. It's like.

Chad (1:16:49)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha ha!

Awesome.

cimcie nichols (1:17:11)
Every once in a while there's a band and other people maybe can relate to this with other bands, but Nine Inch Nails is like my band because when I was a teen they were making, so the downward spiral came out and that was my mood as a 15 year old. I was angsty, I was having issues with...

emotions and not feeling comfortable in my skin. I actually started to dabble in drugs and alcohol to feel better. So nine years ago I was like, spoke to my soul. It was like cathartic to listen to and hurt. I remember being on the bus listening to Hurt. And I still cry when I hear hurt because like,

Chad (1:17:50)
Sure.

cimcie nichols (1:18:01)
I did almost die. I barely made it out of drug addiction as a teen. Some of my friends did not make it. And so I really do feel lucky and grateful. I feel like everything from my 20s is like my second chance anyway, and maybe also helping with my fuck it era. Like, I'm just gonna keep on fucking living. So I might as well try some crazy shit, right?

Chad (1:18:05)
Wow.

cimcie nichols (1:18:25)
because I made a decision that I was gonna stay alive when I got sober. I was like, okay, I'm going to be alive. So Nine Inch Nails was like the theme of my mood as a teen and then Pretty Hate Machine was funky. And actually one of my dad's friends said, hey, do I hear Wendell on the Pretty Hate Machine? He thinks that he heard, because Wendell Jr. was in the studios. So actually, if I ever...

Chad (1:18:51)
Right.

cimcie nichols (1:18:54)
When? When I interviewed Trent Reznor, maybe for my dad's doc or maybe we'll be somewhere I get to ask him. I have to ask him if they use the Wendell Jr. on the Pretty Hate Machine because my dad's friend was like, hey, is that the kick? That sounds like the Wendell kick. And there is a lot of chatter of the Wendell Jr. being in a lot of studios in the 90s and being used on possibly Nirvana, Metallica. Like we could be hearing Wendell samples on

Chad (1:19:05)
Hehehehe

Sure, sure.

cimcie nichols (1:19:23)
way more records than we think. It could be like literally Jeff Viccaro or whoever dad sampled, you know, playing actually as the fill for like some Metallica or whatever Nirvana or like there's all this. I don't know. I have to ask all these guys, but there's...

Chad (1:19:25)
Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, that needs to be uncovered for posterity for sure.

cimcie nichols (1:19:44)
That could be fun. Maybe as part of dad's documentary, like, like digging into like where Wendell wow. All these records are actually Jeff Picaro is actually playing on the Metallica album. I don't know. I don't know. Or whatever. Right. Whoever that sampled. I've seen the names on the samples. I think he didn't sample just Jeff Picaro. But anyway. Yeah. So.

Chad (1:19:48)
Yeah.

Hahaha.

Right, right.

cimcie nichols (1:20:13)
Nine of Snails spoke to me and I remember, I remember this vividly. I remember when Trent Reznor was touring. So the first show, I went to the Nine of Snails show with my mom. My mom took me. Because we were in Nashville, Tennessee and I'm 14.

You know, you had to, your parents had to take you places at 14. I was like, mom, Ninety Nails is playing. They're my favorite band. Can we go, can we go, can we go? And dad had been on tour. They were touring. Stylian was touring in the nineties. So they were just starting to tour again. And so my mom actually called backstage. I don't know what they did. This is the nineties. So she's like,

Chad (1:20:33)
Sure, sure.

cimcie nichols (1:20:56)
found the production manager's number and she called backstage and she like got

tickets and backstage passes. This is like, this is like, I think, Charm Resonator for that tour. I think they toured like 18 months. It was like almost two years. I think they toured a long time with the downward spiral. So this is the beginning of the tour, I think in like 94. And they were playing a smaller theater. And so I'm with my best friend and my mom, Nine Is Nails.

Chad (1:21:04)
Nice.

cimcie nichols (1:21:29)
Marilyn Manson opens up for Nine of Chanel's and the Jim Rose Circus. The Jim Rose Circus. My mom did not like the Jim Rose Circus. Cause they're like, you know, hanging stuff from their tongue. It's like a freak show. It was like smashing glass and eating it. Then Marilyn Manson comes on with like a witch hat and he's got like some dildo. He's like slinging and...

Chad (1:21:32)
wow. wow.

I remember that.

Yeah, I bet.

cimcie nichols (1:21:58)
Then we get to Nine Shnails and it was amazing and raw and fun and we have backstage passes and we're getting ready. The show's over and we're walking backstage. My mom with two 15, 14 year olds and I'm like, I was like, my God, I'm so excited. I'm gonna meet Chirp Pilsner. So we're walking and my mom gets to the door and she goes, nope, you're way too excited. We gotta get out of here. And I was like, what?

She said later she had this moment where she could like smell. She said she smelled pot. I don't know. But she had this moment. She's like, I'm about to fucking walk my teen girls backstage into whatever the hell is happening here. I got two teen girls with me. She was like, this is probably not the best idea right now. Me, I didn't think about that. You know, you don't think.

I mean, a 14 year old hanging out with 20 year olds. I wasn't thinking sexually. I was just like, this is my, this is my favorite person ever or anything. I wasn't thinking, you know, I was like, no naive, right? But yeah, my mom was like, who knows what was going on back there, but she was like, yeah.

Chad (1:23:02)
Sure. Yeah.

Ha ha ha.

Yeah, the math ain't mathin'.

cimcie nichols (1:23:15)
And it was funny is actually we're at the NAMM trade show and I met Robin Fink and I got to tell him that story and that was so funny. I was like, and my mom was with me. I was like, my mom tried to bring me back. She, we had backstage passes and we were going to meet you. And my mom at the last minute decided to like bail. And he was like, yeah, it's probably. I mean.

Chad (1:23:26)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Hahaha.

cimcie nichols (1:23:42)
So, and then in 95, I went to go see Ninety Nails again. And then when they did, when he did the Fragile, when he toured the Fragile, I was so in the depths of my drug addiction. I was now on...

really bad drugs and I didn't even have the money. I did not have the money to go see the show. And I remember I was in Miami and it was on the radio that Nine of Shills was playing tonight, touring with the Fragile and I was like, I couldn't go because I couldn't afford the ticket. I was in the middle of the throes of drug addiction. So then Trent Reznor gets sober. I get sober.

Chad (1:24:21)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (1:24:27)
or he stops or whatever he is, I don't know what he is, but whatever he basically survives his addiction and demons and I survived my addiction and demons. So it's like, it's like weird that and beautiful that I feel like this band kind of evolved as I evolved. So it's been interesting to kind of take that journey with this musical artist that was like feeling how I was feeling as a teen.

and also had battles with demons and drugs and stuff, survived that, and now has continued to create music that I enjoy that's not the same as like 90s. I mean, like, that's a moment, right? You don't. That's a moment. People evolve. And so some people might get upset that, it doesn't sound like the early stuff. Like, OK, it doesn't. But it's that person is also different now.

So I think Nine Years and Nails for Me has been that band because we have, I feel like, evolved together. And I do appreciate the music that he's been making since then. Like we've both kind of grown up together, even though he's his own person and older and you know, does that make sense? Like we kind of like...

Chad (1:25:45)
Yeah, no, it makes sense. Like, yeah, you can totally relate to where you are in life, to where a musical artist is sometimes in their catalog or their career. Like you said, you kind of grow up with them. And I have, you know, I can't think of anything off top of my head, but.

I definitely feel that way about specific artists. Like, you know, they had a certain sound and then they sort of changed or evolved or, you know, went away and then came back years later. And, and, you know, I'm here for it because I'm in a different place in my life. They're in a different place in their life. The music means different things now than it did before. So, yeah, I totally get that.

cimcie nichols (1:26:18)
Is there a band that you've had that with you think that has not like that? I don't know if a lot of bands do that.

Chad (1:26:27)
So one of the bands I forgot to mention when you asked about my favorites and I'm really mad at myself for not spitting out their name, but Buffalo Tom. I started listening to Buffalo Tom kind of late in the game really, because they came out in like 88, I think, and I didn't really get hip to them until like 92, 93. But same thing where, you know,

absolutely fell in love with this band. Sort of through serendipity got to meet them. I was working at a school district in South New Jersey, and lovely woman who worked in administration there just

by chance happened to be the mother -in -law of Bill Janovitz, who's the lead singer. So one day talking about music and, you know, huge age gap. I mean, like I'm in my 20s, she's probably in her 50s and we're just chit chatting because, you know, I just, you know, had a lot of people that I was friendly with at the school and stuff. And,

cimcie nichols (1:27:10)
No.

Chad (1:27:24)
I forgot how we get on the topic of music, but she said, you know, have you ever heard of a band called Buffalo Tom? And I'm like, heard of them. I love them. Like, you know, how do you know who they are? And she was like, you know, my son -in -law is in the band. And I'm like, what?

Right. So got all excited and it turns out that I had tickets to see them in Philly like within the next like three, four weeks or whatever it was. And she was like, are you going to see them when they play in Philly next month or whatever? And I'm like, yeah, I have tickets. And she's like, I'll call Bill. I'll get you backstage. You know, you can meet the band. And I was like, my God. So I did. They were great, just great guys. You know, got to hang out with them a little bit before the show, watched 80 percent of the show from the side of the stage, you know, because they invited me.

cimcie nichols (1:27:37)
and

Chad (1:28:06)
I had to do that, me and my girlfriend at the time. And yeah, a band that sort of continued to grow and change and evolve their sounds. Their releases have sort of been fewer and farther between. They all have day jobs. You know, they're all, I think, hitting their mental eight fifties right now. So but the funny thing is like their subject matter meant a lot to me. The lyrics really hit hard when I was in my 20s. But the stuff they're putting out now and they just released a new album a few weeks ago.

cimcie nichols (1:28:24)
I don't know.

Chad (1:28:36)
So the subject matter in the lyrics now hit really hard to 52 year old me, right? So it's that same kind of journey where, you know, I can still listen to the stuff from the 90s and really, you know, get lost in it. But I can listen to their new stuff now. And like they're talking about like their kids being grown up and like moving on in their lives and like some of their topics just sort of match up with where I am, you know? So it's fascinating.

cimcie nichols (1:28:44)
Really.

Yeah, see, right. Yeah, that's great. I love it. Yeah, there's a lot of bands that, I mean, first of all, can have like a catalog where they I mean, like, look, you want to be like, one hit wonders, like, it's a bad thing. But it's really hard to get one hit. So for an artist to actually like release continuous albums and have that evolution, I feel like is really amazing and rare.

Chad (1:29:09)
Yeah.

cimcie nichols (1:29:29)
I mean, you know what I mean? Like, I don't even know an artist today. I don't know, do big rock bands that have like arena poles, are they even like existing or are we like old now where it's like boomers and you're like, there's no good music today. Like there's great music today. Like some of this newer stuff we were just talking about is great. But like that, like.

Chad (1:29:31)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, like universal recognition and like these huge arena shows. I feel like it's really, if it's not Taylor Swift, then who else is it, right? That's in the current sort of generation of artists. I don't know. Nobody's packing stadiums and generating that kind of buzz anymore.

cimcie nichols (1:30:01)
ooh.

or I guess is creating, yeah, I guess Taylor Swift has created multiple albums and people are following her journey with, so I guess that is a more current artist that's doing something like that. But yeah, look, I feel like instead of creating an album, I created a drink, right? I took my...

Chad (1:30:23)
Right.

Love it. Yep, absolutely.

cimcie nichols (1:30:43)
pain, my grief and like, like that's how beautiful these songs you like listening to these songs. I'm like, of course there's so many songs about heartbreak. That shit is fucking ridiculous and stupid and hurts. So no wonder everybody's talking about it. I like, I can't even listen to songs about heartbreak. Now I'm like, whatever. But what I did is I channeled that and I made a drink. I made drinks. I made beautiful drinks.

Chad (1:30:56)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

cimcie nichols (1:31:12)
So that's my album. That's my album. The Hatch & Granny beverage line is my album.

Chad (1:31:13)
Love it. Well, I -

I can't wait to try one and when the Kickstarter going to launch because I really want to help share that and get that out to people too, if I can.

cimcie nichols (1:31:25)
Thank you. Thank you. Look, yeah, this is I might try to create something fun for my Steely Dan friends. Like maybe I can come up with some sort of gifty fun thing to honor the Steely Dan community and who helped me really navigate the grief of this last year. Like all that fun we had all that celebration.

was so helpful for me to to kind of get me to the next thing. Like y 'all had fun listening that song. Like you really were my life raft last year. Like really, like I could cry. I'm just so grateful for the support and the excitement and the encouragement. So I might try to create like a fun little Steely Day on gift here.

But it's gonna launch June 21st. So we might already be, I mean, it'll run a month. So June 21st is the summer solstice, so that felt fun to just launch it. And actually, I think it's, and it's my birthday, June 23rd. So every time somebody says happy birthday to me on Facebook, I'm gonna put my Kickstarter like, I'll be like, thank you. Like, and it's not, yeah, and look.

Chad (1:32:22)
Okay.

That's right. Thank you. Go buy my... Go buy my elixir.

cimcie nichols (1:32:47)
Thank you. I don't ask for gifts. I don't. I mean, this year I'm going to be like, you know what, this actually is a solid ask. Like, just, and it's not, it's a Kickstarter where actually you're buying a product. Like the product is getting made. So you're actually buying the bottle of thing. It's not just, it's not, not just a movie, but it's not funding a movie or project. It's actually buying a physical product, which feels fun.

Chad (1:32:59)
Right.

Yeah, you're getting something in return. Sure. Love it.

cimcie nichols (1:33:16)
So you're gonna get like a little founder pin. I'm gonna make a little hatchet pin. This is founder.

Chad (1:33:23)
You're not gonna send people actual hatchets, are you?

cimcie nichols (1:33:26)
I mean, could I? Like, I got one. I'm gonna go take a photo. my god, like, though I put tape on it.

Chad (1:33:36)
Ha ha.

cimcie nichols (1:33:37)
I don't hurt myself on accident.

Chad (1:33:42)
little scared but I love it.

cimcie nichols (1:33:46)
Don't be scared.

Chad (1:33:46)
Hahaha

cimcie nichols (1:33:49)
Well, you have to take photos. I can't create a brand called Hatchet Granny and not have a hatchet. Hatchet photo. So actually, after this, we're going to go take some photos in the cemetery.

Chad (1:33:59)
That's true.

cool.

cimcie nichols (1:34:10)
Look y 'all come to Savannah come visit me. I'll take you on a ghost tour. It's like beautiful.

Chad (1:34:19)
Say hi to bird girl for me when you go. she's not in the cemetery, right? Or is she?

cimcie nichols (1:34:24)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Bird girl, right? Isn't that a statue?

Chad (1:34:27)
Yeah, the bird girl statue. Yeah, is she in the cemetery or is she not in the cemetery? I forget where she is.

cimcie nichols (1:34:33)
So she was in Bonaventure. I think she was in Bonaventure, but they moved her. I feel like she's in like the Telfer Museum. Because I went to Bonaventure. Bonaventure is the really famous cemetery. It's like acres. It's huge. OK, that's beautiful. Like the headstones.

Chad (1:34:35)
Okay.

Yes.

Yeah, I went there when we were in Savannah.

cimcie nichols (1:34:59)
It really is like my dad. I think he got like a brick somewhere like people I don't even know if they do such intricate like work for headstones anymore. It's just it was like So yeah, I think bird girl from midnight. It's because it's on the book right midnight in the garden of good and evil. My god, I can't I don't know do this hatchet now. I just could sit with this hatchet I Take the tape off. No, let's be safe. Let's be safe kids Do you like it? This is my makeshift?

Chad (1:35:14)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha!

Yeah, safety first.

cimcie nichols (1:35:28)
Just thinking, I don't know y 'all mindfulness, mindfulness.

So yes, that's why I put.

Chad (1:35:36)
You

cimcie nichols (1:35:37)
My little safety. paper tape. Paper tape safety.

Chad (1:35:40)
Amazing.

cimcie nichols (1:35:43)
So I guess for our friends that are listening, the takeaway is don't die and things can change. And also life rafts, music, fun things to drink, beautiful projects to focus on, and people. People.

Chad (1:35:55)
Yes. Excellent advice.

That's right.

people. Yeah.

cimcie nichols (1:36:10)
leaning into your friends and community where you can and those moments where you are feeling alone. Scroll TikTok. TikTok actually was really big life for me last year. I was just scroll TikTok. I'd just be sitting in bed. I'd be like, my God. And then the algorithm would just show me all these other people going through the exact same thing. And I was like, well, I guess I'm not so alone.

I was like, ugh, so yeah. So yes, and I think that's it.

Chad (1:36:45)
All right.

All right, well, thank you so much for coming on.

cimcie nichols (1:36:49)
I think that's it. I just appreciate. Yeah, I appreciate you. And what is your next? So you've got a few you've got some podcasts lined up. And then so is there anything big fun for you? Coming up?

Chad (1:37:05)
I have a few more guests. I'm hitting episode 25, like I said, and then once I've recorded episode 25, I don't really know what's next. I think I'm going to keep reaching out and trying to find I have a few interesting people that I want to pitch on coming on for an episode. But I'm wondering if I can keep up this pace of having a different guest every week because it's a lot.

But what I might do is maybe have a guest host every other week. And then in the alternating weeks, I might just do a quick 20 minute solo episode on just something I'm listening to or something that I read about a band or just do like a short informational episode. So that way I'm getting something out every week, but I'm saving the bigger, longer conversations for every other week so that they're spaced out a little more. So we'll see.

cimcie nichols (1:37:57)
I think as far as wrapping up, like, you know, I thought last summer I was maybe done with Dad's legacy for a minute and I was enough to move on to something that was more mine, like the hatchet granny thing, you know, because I also needed to get kind of out of my dad's.

past, does that make sense? Like it was like all my dad and I was, I really did focus on it because I think also his ending was really sad for me so it was a way to channel my grief to like celebrate him and make sure that his legacy stuff was out there instead of just disappearing in the garage so.

Chad (1:38:19)
Sure.

cimcie nichols (1:38:37)
We did accomplish things of like sharing, you know, the tape, we got to share that with y 'all. And also, I got this album back from like, Record Limbo. It took like seven years. There was an album my dad released called John Denver and the USSR. And we finally got the rights back to it, which was a big to do. I got the estate involved and it was released, but then it got lost and like,

Chad (1:38:57)
Alright.

cimcie nichols (1:39:06)
this weird no man's land where it was on streaming platforms, but we weren't getting checks and that was like a, that was a big to do. And so we finally got the rights back to that and that's been streaming. And then we found producers that are going to do the Roger Nichols documentary. That will be really exciting and that'll be a fun thing to celebrate. So that's also takes time, but thankfully I've.

Chad (1:39:27)
Awesome.

Yeah.

cimcie nichols (1:39:35)
found people that do music docs and have gotten docs done and it's in the list. It's green lit. It's in their list of things coming. So I don't know the exact timeframe on that, but the Roger Nichols doc will be here. so I got to volleyball that off, volley that to another, couple of people to help me complete.

And then the Roger Nichols exhibit at the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville. And then figuring out how to release his photos. And I think that's a solid way to like honor my dad. I think those documentary, he had his, we did a book for him, his photos and exhibit. There, there, there you go, dad. So that, that's coming.

Chad (1:40:19)
Yeah.

Nice.

cimcie nichols (1:40:34)
and also the Hatchet Granny has launched. And now I can kind of move into my...

stride right now, which is launching Hatchet Granny, doing mocktail bars, events. Hatchet Granny is going to be at some music specific events, more to be revealed, right? Hatchet Granny mocktail bars, the Hatchet Granny line of beverages, and so...

Chad (1:40:58)
nice cool yeah

cimcie nichols (1:41:06)
being able to do mocktail bars at like music events, music industry events, keeps me kind of tied into the community I love, while also doing my own thing. So that's gonna be really fun to see where that goes in the next year. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for celebrating with me.

Chad (1:41:14)
sure.

Excellent. Well, I can't wait to see. Yeah, of course. Thank you for coming on. This is a long time coming. I'm so glad we were able to make this work. And we'll have to obviously we'll be in touch. But I mean, you have to come back at some point in the future when Hatchet Granny is like fully up and running and we can sort of have another another good chat.

cimcie nichols (1:41:45)
Okay, good. We'll do that little 20 minute thing you talked about. 20 minute thing. Yeah, sure. No, it's fun. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you for asking and I'll talk to you soon. Okay, bye everybody.

Chad (1:41:48)
Yeah, totally. Alright, that works. Great. Thanks, Cimcie Of course.