Jay Franze: 0:41

And we are coming at you live. I am Jay Franze, and uh with me tonight, the grace to my will, my beautiful co-host, Ms. Tiffany Mason.

Tiffany Mason: 0:50

Good evening.

Jay Franze: 0:52

And if you are new to the show, this is your source for the latest news, reviews, and interviews. So if you would like to join in, comment, or fire off any questions, please head over to jayfranze.com. All right, my friend. Tonight we have a very special guest with us. We have two very special guests with us. We have two thirds of very special guests with us. All right. Hailing from the great state of South Carolina. We have Gale Byrd. Josh, Sean, how are you?

Josh Gale: 1:20

Jay and Tiffany, thank you both for having us on.

Jay Franze: 1:23

Yeah, doing well. We're doing well. Is it Josh or Joshua? Which one do you prefer?

Josh Gale: 1:28

Either one. That's I think that's uh, you know, obviously my last name is Gale, which is part of the name of the band, which is a story in itself, and um how those nicknames formed over the years, uh, but you know, usually go by Josh or Joshua, whatever whatever someone's calling me.

Jay Franze: 1:45

All right. Well, that's what I want to know. Let's just start there. What is the story behind the name?

Josh Gale: 1:50

So, story behind the name. Uh, so I've got two older brothers, and we all grew up in Plano, Texas, right north of Dallas. And so that's football country. So, of course, oldest brother's six foot five, you know, making a name for himself, playing sports.

Tiffany Mason: 2:05

Oh, wow.

Josh Gale: 2:05

Next brother up is fast making a name for himself, and then coming up behind everybody is that is the big redheaded Josh Gale. So the coaches are had already become familiar uh with our dad, who was a former college football player, just a very high-intensity type of person, the one from every TV show or movie, Friday Night Lights, that you'd ever you'd ever heard of, the guy that that uh God, I hear him. You know, you hear him louder than any other person in the stands. So the last name, you know, everybody in football calls you by your last name. So for Gale, it was me, but my dad would choose to yell out my nickname, which was J Bird. So he'd come, you know, yell, come on, bird, and really loud. And so as soon as coaches found that out, the nickname uh from just calling me Gale turned into Gale Bird. So it caught on pretty quickly, and in sports, it just became Gale Bird. Around school, it became Gale Bird. I think when uh we were recording, you know, some tracks. What a couple of years ago, Sean, we had to come up with a band name and we just started throwing out names. One of mine being Gale Bird, and it just kind of stuck. Uh, we didn't hate it. Uh, I don't think any band name's good until you make it. Um, and so we can we can go with a whole list red hot chili peppers, you know, what's another one, Sean? Uh ACDC. Yeah.

Sean Monahan: 3:31

Just letters. Yeah, Led Zaplet has a bunch, yeah.

Jay Franze: 3:34

I tell you, my favorite name of a band ever was Make Lisa Rich.

Tiffany Mason: 3:40

Lisa Rich. You know, Joshua, I thought maybe the the name was from uh like Sing Sweet Nightingale, you know, and you were like a song bird, and so it was like a gale bird.

Josh Gale: 3:54

Yeah, but no, it's kind of a way more masculine story. Yeah, well, it's more morphed into that over the years, and um my wife and her family all had an affinity for birds, and I showed up to pick her up for our first date, and I have a big giant bird on my shirt, and they just knew, oh my gosh, that's an omen, this is meant to be kind of thing. And it just always became something special to us. And of course, I'd buyer things with birds on them and whatnot. So it's always been special to us, and then I do sing my see my wife has a song bird and uh her beautiful voice and all that kind of stuff that actually, you know, we didn't discover until we got married. I had no idea she sang.

Tiffany Mason: 4:34

What a beautiful surprise!

Josh Gale: 4:36

Yeah. So uh there was uh apparently a uh a young boy in elementary school that that she had a crush on, and he just told her she should never sing again. And she little little third grade Melissa heard that and she received it and she stopped singing. She would participate in choirs and things like that, but never never having the confidence to step up and sing. So I heard her singing when we we got married, and I was like, hey, I'm not trying to flatter you like we're already married, but uh I I really think you have an amazing voice, but it took a lot of convincing and encouragement to get her to even sing in front of her own family. That's where we kind of started was getting her to sing in front of her family. She would always threaten me. Please do not ask me to sing, I will fight you, kind of thing. Um, but then it just expanded from there. And then I convinced her to sing with me one Sunday at church, and she got enough feedback there to be like, okay, Josh is not just lying to me, you know. It's you know, because I've had, you know, if you've played out enough, you've always got somebody coming up that's had too much to drink that's saying, Hey, you gotta let my wife sing a song, she is the best, and so you're like, Okay, I kind of am up for a little bit of entertainment. What is your favorite song? And she bombs, but her husband is literally just the happiest man on planet earth, like so happy. Somehow he's got like shallow how ears or something like that, you know. And he see he hears something different than we do, but he is just he's just having the time of his life, and you know, those are the guys that always will throw a tip jar something out, you know, for you or whatever. But this wasn't the case. She knew it, she felt like genuine care that people people noticed that she had something that was pretty, pretty, pretty great.

Jay Franze: 6:24

So, how long were you guys playing before you brought her into the band?

Sean Monahan: 6:28

We started pretty early. We started out out of college, so I don't know, what, 14 years ago now? We went to colleges that were maybe 20 miles apart. So we'd get together every once in a while and we'd play around town. And through Josh starting to date her, and then you know, us growing closer as a band, we start realizing she's got potential. And so she started singing pretty late into us starting. We took a 10-year break, we started having families. Uh, I have two kids, Josh has four. And then a couple years ago, Josh called me up and said, Hey, I think I think we want to give this another go. And so she had started with us back then, but it just made sense. And she does have a beautiful voice. Oh my goodness. So we started back up, and she's been the the one that makes us look good ever since.

Tiffany Mason: 7:19

Now, Sean, when is your wife joining? When do you guys become a quartet?

Sean Monahan: 7:22

You know, I've been working on trying to get her on an instrument, and it is it has been a struggle, but we're gonna keep working.

Tiffany Mason: 7:29

Yeah, photographer.

Sean Monahan: 7:31

We we tried the photography. The photography didn't work, but um she yeah, she's incredibly gifted artist. She actually, oh, she um did design one of our our um album art. Uh she's incredible portrait artist, and uh she did a uh single-line sketch of uh of Melissa actually for Crumble Down.

Josh Gale: 7:52

That's one pen stroke that is uh a portrait of Melissa that she just nailed, and that was the album art cover or the single art cover for that one. She's extremely talented. She does charcoal portraits, she does oil. I mean, she is extremely talented, but we've always been very cautious of that too. You know, there's always tons of stories of how there was, you know, a yoko that broke up the band. Um and uh we've we've had run-ins with that before as well, you know, in college days where you know somebody asks their significant other to come in. And I'm telling you, if you can't hear your harmonies super well and they're not super confident, uh playing live is extremely hard because you don't know what you're gonna get at any venue. You never know. I mean, you're given what you're given, unless you're bringing your front of house and you're and your ears and your two sound guys, you have no idea what you're going to receive at any venue. And so if you're not extremely confident, we've ran into that before where the harmonies disappear or things like that. So we've always been cautious of all that, but we get to play with the rest of our family as well. Uh, family is extremely important to us. And so my brother-in-law, all day long, he works the head of one of our largest hospitals in South Carolina. He works the head of the palliative care, so that's like end-of-life care. So his his his life's pretty pretty crazy, you know.

Tiffany Mason: 9:16

Monday is the music.

Josh Gale: 9:17

He needs the music. It's like the beginning, Monday morning, it's like who died over the weekend, you know. And so every chance he gets to jump in with us is like his out, his, and it's we have such a blast. And then our lots of other friends that join us that are just have so much energy and are just such incredible musicians. COVID was insane, but one thing I'm thankful for is that it brought some incredible musicians here to Charleston when kind of you know, Music Row shut down, parts of Nashville shut down. Some people followed their wives or their girlfriends back down south over into Charleston and South Carolina, and and um, we're so grateful that we ended up with some incredible friends from that. So some great things came out of that as well, including members from our band.

Jay Franze: 10:03

So you take this 10-year hiatus and you come back, and now you're playing with your wife in the band. What's the difference, the feel difference between beforehand to the way it is now?

Sean Monahan: 10:17

It's night and day. I think just life is different, you know. We have kids, and so it does change priorities. Uh, we're not trying to play out as often as we were back then. It's a little different grind, you know. It's it's a lot more of the when can we find pockets in the studio and and things like that. But it's also just I think really shaped what we write about at this stage of life. A lot of what we're thinking about is how can we be a better partner in our marriage and how can we encourage other people in that. We think it's important. One of the most important things in life is to invest in your family, and and so it's really shaped the dynamic of the band now. So a lot of what we're writing about is trying to like spark hope into marriages and into our um our own marriage. It's therapeutic in a lot of ways. So we we've always had a little bit of a bent towards rock country and and that style, but but thematically and dynamically, we I think we have shifted a good bit.

Jay Franze: 11:19

So, how would you describe the style of what you guys are doing now versus what it was?

Sean Monahan: 11:26

That's a good question. I I think initially we were more focused on the live show, and so a lot of what we were writing and where we were heading towards was how do we make something that's super engaging and fun and exciting for a live crowd? When we started back again a year or two ago, we started in the studio, and so it was a little bit different approach. When we still play live, we want to make sure we're having a good time and you know, exciting and engaging still. But when we're writing for the studio, it's almost a different mindset now of uh how we're approaching a song. And so approaching production looks a little different. We're thinking more as a producer's mindset, what can we add to the song that really elevates the what we're trying to communicate well? That gets prioritized over making the the chorus this big anthemy thing that we hope the crowd will sing with us. And then we're thinking also genre-wise, like, are we trying to write for a specific audience? Uh, are we looking at playlists and and trying to stay within a genre? It's it's been very different and very interesting. And I think we're still trying to figure out exactly what that looks like for us, but we have definitely shifted more toward country than we were 15 years ago.

Jay Franze: 12:41

Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. I mean, it started with a rock feel, and you're kind of moving into the country world, more of an Americana style feel to it. So, what were the influences in the rock world?

Sean Monahan: 12:53

That's kind of always an interesting dynamic between me and Josh because Josh, you can speak to this, but I I'm pretty sure he was majority country with a lot of what he listened to. And my parents did not like country music, so I didn't grow up listening to any country. I started playing guitar young, and so I found out about Brad Paisley and Keith Urban, and so I started listening to the guitar players, but it wasn't until the last few years that I've really kind of started listening and adding that more to what I'm digesting. So I grew up with classic rock and 90s pop. I grew up with a lot of uh contemporary Christian music from uh playing at church and things like that. And then I studied jazz in college. In working in studios, I've done a lot of different genres from Latin to orchestral and country. And so I come to the table with kind of a wide variety of things, none of which are very super strong country. And so a lot of times Josh is having to rein me in to keep me in genre, but um, but it it also I think creates some really cool nuances that are different, yeah.

Josh Gale: 14:01

Josh, yeah, for me. Um, so the first couple years of my life was was sent with spent with my grandmother, who's from Hickory, North Carolina, which is Appalachia, just strong southern accent. And then we we we made a move to Dallas, and it was anybody and everybody, nobody has an accent in Dallas, and somehow it's in Texas, but everybody lost it. I think my parents encouraged that as well and would correct grammar, would correct all that kind of stuff, because uh there's at some point, you know, we know in the South that that sometimes folks think that that's a sign of ignorance, you know. So that was corrected a lot growing up, and so my wife would even notice, like, man, when you say certain things or when, you know, whatever it is, it it just almost comes out, you know. And so I I stopped trying to correct myself as much um over the years and just kind of let what was natural be natural. And first record, you know, uh living, let's see, I was on a uh a bus in 2002, and I wanted to buy a new record for this bus ride from from Plano to San Antonio, and uh I was going on a trip to sing with a with a group of guys that we had we'd been nominated, and it's called the Texas Music Education Awards. It was a giant thing. So yeah, football and then like competitive singing in Texas. It's a huge thing.

Jay Franze: 15:24

They go they go together, they go together.

Josh Gale: 15:27

Uh so we were uh it was a long bus ride across the entire country of Texas, and uh um I got one record. We went to Walmart, went to the CD Rack, and it was Tim McGraw and the and the Dance Hall Doctors. It was this record that like blew my mind. There was not a single track on that record that I did not fall in love with, and somehow it related to 2002 Young Josh that kind of explained some like some emotion to me that I had not yet like been able to experience or convey. Just an incredible record. If you've never had a chance to listen to the entire thing from beginning to end, it it is an incredible journey. Just red ragtop was one of the singles from that record, which was an incredible song. Probably too young to completely understand what the heck I was even singing. But you know, that's why God made Mexico.

Tiffany Mason: 16:20

Jesus, sometimes. Sometimes the songs that like my kids sing along to, I'm just like, oh, but I'm like, okay, it's going over their head, it's going over their head.

Josh Gale: 16:30

Yeah, yes. And then now I think about it, you have like Alexa in the house now, and they can literally play any song they want to at any time, which is great, but but at the same time, like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not that one. We have the moments here, yeah, 1000%. Um, did not want to have that conversation today with the child, but there it is. So that that record, and then my first concert, you know, I'm going other end of the spectrum was this pop rock concert. A friend of mine got tickets, her name was Michaela Kennedy, and she said, Hey, my mom said she'd take us. Well, I got my first concert with a girl that I thought was really cute, and it was John Mayer at the Smyrnoff Center in Dallas. Again, my my my mind was blown. Like your first concert being John Mayer. I had my son's first football game is about to be the Dallas Cowboys at uh in Charlotte against the Panthers in a suite. So a friend of mine called me and said, Hey, we have a suite. My son's first football game is in a suite with food. He'll never go anywhere else. That's just he'll never win anything else. I'm like, far high. Yeah, yeah, we gotta we gotta be super successful now. So uh John Mayer, you know, had this great record. I had this great incredible live experience, and I I from that moment I knew I I wanted to put on a rock show somehow that was that incredible. And the opener for John Mayer that day, none other than good Counting Crows. Okay, and so it was like you couldn't have asked for a better first concert. I had not even listened to the Counting Crows prior to that to that concert because I'm in I'm in like sixth grade. Exactly, but I had no idea what I was even walking into until I got there. And and Michaela played music, and so we would go and we'd try to like write songs and join the talent show and all that kind of stuff, and that began that and an injury in football kind of launched me into just playing music until I could recover from that injury, and so that's where I went. I went to music, it was there, and it's always been there for me.

Jay Franze: 18:35

How does Charleston affect the way you play now?

Josh Gale: 18:40

Absolutely. So um, yeah, I'll let Sean speak into it as well. I just Sean is incredibly talented. I hear something in my head, he can breathe it, make it happen, put life into it. Yeah, I hear a sound, I hear you know something. And it and his his ability to produce is is just incredible. And is uh if I was owning a business, that would have been the greatest hire I ever made. The secret sauce, the success.

Jay Franze: 19:06

How much money would it make?

Josh Gale: 19:08

We're working on it. I'm just working on it. And um, so, anyways, my wife and I have a boat club membership. We can pick from a hundred plus boats. We pick the title.

Tiffany Mason: 19:19

Is it freedom?

Josh Gale: 19:20

It's freedom, yeah. Yeah, yes, and we love it because number one, I love to play music, I love computers, all that kind of stuff. I cannot fix anything to save my life, uh, which has always been a source of contention because my father-in-law is a contractor. So my wife's always like, Oh, it's all right, I'll call my dad. I'm like, oh, you know, that makes you feel exactly. So I show up, we get on the boat, we take the boat out, and everything else shuts up. Every other anxiety, anxious feeling, fear, whatever's bothering me, annoying me, everything, even if my wife and I weren't getting along, like you cannot not get along on a boat with beautiful weather and the harbor and sunsets and just everything. You can't be unhappy in that scenario. That influences a lot, you know, for us is that we're living the life that I think people dream of and write about living. We're already there. It's incredible. Uh, we get to experience it with our kids and try, you know, our goal is to spend as much time as humanly possible with our children, and that's how we've set up our life. And so that finds its way into our songs. And it just when everything else leaves your brain and you're out in nature, that's when the influence, that's when the lyrics come. That's when you're flooded with emotion that can just compel you to write an entire song that also influences how the song should even sound.

Tiffany Mason: 20:49

Isn't that weird though? Doesn't that feel like they should all have steel drums in them?

Josh Gale: 20:54

I've tried. I got bells, I got bells and I still do. And Sean had to figure out how to make that work because you can't really tune a bell, but we've we figured it out. And um at some point I think it'll make it in, and uh, especially the way country is these days. You've got new and old country, new country, you know, you've got what the new Chris Tapleton song that just came out, it's got this the 70s groove to it, you know. It's like everything's on the table now. Let's just try it, let's figure it out. And I'm you know, talking back to John Mayer from very first John Mayer that's pop and universal for everyone, to really what John really wants to write and record is what you know, more of what we're getting in later years of John Mayer. So it's for us, it's that struggle too, is like something's got to be somewhat universal, but I want to still have my stamp on it and make it a little weird. And so we try to find that balance into it. Sean, what is it for you?

Sean Monahan: 21:48

I definitely echo, you know, my parents live on the marsh, and there's just something special about being able to go out there. To me, it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I I've done writing retreats in the mountains and I've been out west and seen some beautiful places, but there's just something about the marsh that does something when I look out and see just the the colors of the the sky contrasting with the grass and the water there and the breeze. It is something special and it definitely influences our writing. We do a lot of writing outside, and we're really working to see what that sounds like in our music. So, yeah, absolutely. I think it's a huge influence. And on another note, the the way Charleston has influenced us is I think we're very fortunate. It's got a great music, music life. There's a lot of different genres that do well here. And uh, I know one of the harder ones is original music. It'd be easy to find a bar gig for three hours playing someone else's stuff, but that's not what we want to do. And so um, it's not been the easiest thing, but there is a there is a scene for for original music, and we found some contacts and some great opportunities. We've got a a concert coming up at an awesome venue down here called the Poor House. It's out on James Island, and it's uh this great inside and outside venue. So we'll be outside on the deck about let's see, late October. Should be beautiful outside, just getting cool, maybe get the fire pits going. But yeah, we we have opportunities to do do live music here, which which is such a blessing. We love it.

Tiffany Mason: 23:24

How often do you guys get out to do live shows?

Sean Monahan: 23:27

It's a little tough in in this season with you know having the families. We don't want to be out every weekend. So we try to really craft seasons. So for the fall season, we'll have three or four shows, take a little break during the winter, do a few more. And part of the goal also is like we want to make the couple experiences that we get with our fans just excellent on every level. Yeah, super fun, super engaging, you know, always promoting what we're doing next, but doing different versions of it and maybe trying some of the ways we wanted to do it in the studio, but it didn't make sense to to record it that way. We'll try it out live. And we we try to limit it a little bit, but uh it's it's worked out really well for us so far.

Tiffany Mason: 24:10

Well, what I feel like I'm hearing you guys say is that you know, there's always like this visionary, and I have heard that the most desired yet most difficult to find is a visionary and an implementer. And in my observation, it seems like Joshua, you're kind of the visionary, and then Sean, you're coming along as the implementer. How does Melissa play into all of that?

Josh Gale: 24:34

Yeah, you know, for me, the lot goes into songwriting. You know, you listen to some of our songs, it's figuring out a turn, you know, how somehow God turned a mess into a message. Marriage is hard, y'all.

Tiffany Mason: 24:47

Like it's we've been married for a minute.

Josh Gale: 24:51

It's tough. It is really tough. We have.

Tiffany Mason: 24:54

Well, not Jay and I.

Jay Franze: 24:58

My wife's gonna be pretty upset she hears that.

Josh Gale: 25:02

But it's tough, you know. When the when the you know, Jay, I'm assuming, but when the when the Boston wants to come out of Jay, and then all of a sudden your wife is, you know, who's as sweet as can be, gets on the other side of that. It's like, dang. Have you met her? No, see, I've I'm assuming, but when the the Josh that grew up with a house full of men shows up, the things don't go well, right? It's not that I don't have holes in the drywall, I don't have all this stuff, but but I didn't grow up with I didn't grow up with women in the house. They're to be engaged differently, and now I've got three girls and one boy. Like I'm I'm trying to figure this out. And and and they're cut some of them are coming of age where I'm like, hold up. This is this is really, really different. And so I'm trying to figure out.

Tiffany Mason: 25:44

Did the temper come from the red hair?

Josh Gale: 25:46

Yeah, um, it's it's from somewhere. It's from somewhere. Sean and I we we meet at the gym every morning around six o'clock, and we try to get as much of that stuff out of the way as possible. But no, it's um, you know, my wife and I are both extremely passionate. You know, for me, being super passionate and being driven to do so many things kind of puts you in a busy cycle, which then, you know, everything's grabbing for your time. And my wife, her number one love language is time.

Tiffany Mason: 26:15

Wait, are you talking about my marriage? Oh, you're talking about your marriage. Oh, okay.

Josh Gale: 26:19

Sorry.

Tiffany Mason: 26:19

I thought you were talking about mine for a minute.

Josh Gale: 26:22

Yeah, absolutely. But it's she'll let me know uh more ways than one, and I'm usually pretty, pretty dumb to not realize it right away.

Tiffany Mason: 26:31

I was gonna say non-receptive.

Josh Gale: 26:33

Non-receptive. Well, that she's banging on eventually she's banging on the door, and it's very obvious that she does not feel loved because we're not spending time together.

Tiffany Mason: 26:43

Jay, remember I told you that Mr. Mason and I got into a pretty good argument this weekend? It might have been about quality time. I don't know. It might have been. I don't know. It's tough when kids are little though. It is and you know you're still trying to chase your dreams and you're trying to support each other. And I always think of the country song, trying to keep the balance up between love and money.

Sean Monahan: 27:03

Yeah. It's a shame.

Tiffany Mason: 27:04

Is it the same thing for you, Sean? Are you multi-passionate?

Sean Monahan: 27:07

Yeah, absolutely. So the bridge of that song Josh was just quoting, I still do, it essentially comes from my feeling of I wasn't looking for a woman as good as I got. I had a high bar, but when I've got to know my wife, my goodness, she's incredible. So I definitely fall short often. But I'm I'm also very fortunate, uh, and it's worked out really well for our situation, is we've been able to make it work. So she stays home and homeschools the kids. So I do most of my work upstairs in the studio, and I get to just like today. I came down and my kids are into this old 90s game called Beyblade. I didn't even play it as a kid, but it's coming back apparently. And so they are just they don't even have the real toys, they have just fake tops that they'll spin. And so anyway, I got to come down and I got to play with them and just say hi to everybody for a couple minutes. And uh I think it's that dynamic has has helped as I've shifted. I I had a more normal scheduled job for a while. And right as we started writing and getting in the studio and we got signed with a label, I had left that job to freelance. So I'm at home most of the time. I I play around town still with some other groups, uh, not other bands, but like just collections of jazz musicians or whatever, and do some marketing and stuff on the side. But most of the day I get to either produce music or be at home with with the family. So it's still sometimes not enough. But I yeah, I do get to be around a lot.

Jay Franze: 28:39

You guys have all talked about the songwriting process, and you've mentioned that you do production. So can you kind of walk us through that that process when it comes to your songs here?

Sean Monahan: 28:49

Yeah, so so typically the way it's worked for us, Tiffany, like you were saying, Josh is absolutely a visionary. You you nail it on the head. He is incredible with just vision and looking ahead as to uh, you know, great ideas for songs, themes. He's great in the business sense of that, he's great with marketing. He covers so many aspects of what Gale Bird is able to do. And so typically what I try to do is once he's has an idea and a theme and he's got some lyrics down, I try to kind of take all the pieces and see, you know, how can this function as a full song? And and so we get to work together on that. Melissa will come in and and help as well with that. And so then once we have our idea ready, we'll usually talk with the label and we have a great relationship with Holy City Music, who we're signed with here. And uh, we kind of get to start running with it. And so once we all agree on at least a direction, I get to kind of take it into my my creative studio and just have fun with it.

Jay Franze: 29:50

All right. So describe the studio.

Sean Monahan: 29:53

So my studio here at the house is is awful looking. Aesthetically, it's so I I can't record podcasts in it. It looks so bad because it's just instruments everywhere. Every square foot is taken up with some sort of microphone or baffling or random African percussive instrument. I I've I have all sorts of stuff, but it's my favorite thing because in any moment as I'm creating, if I have an idea, I can five feet away grab what I need. Or we're we're recording a song right now and I heard a moment that just needed something. I needed it to feel like it was airy. We kind of so uh we have a song we're gonna release called Roses and it's it's just a beautiful song. I'm so excited for it to get out. But I was kind of going for a vibe of being out in the garden and I had the thought I was like I have wind chimes on the front porch. I need those right now. And so grabbed those tracked them for a second in there. It's just it's a mess but it's like my brain I guess it it works. I can function in it really well. We start piecing it together and make sure everybody's on board with the direction and usually by the time I kind of have a foundation Josh is coming in with some excellent ideas on on vocal production and then the studio engineer is is incredible with with creative ideas on how to image it and and uh just make it really come to life. So it's a team effort.

Jay Franze: 31:17

All right so you mentioned studio engineer so does that mean that you're tracking someplace else or do you do it all at your studio?

Sean Monahan: 31:27

Great question. So I have a studio upstairs at my house. I'm able to do a lot of it there but the label has its own studio. So typically we're kind of splitting uh depending on how important the capture is so uh with vocals I'd say 90% of those we're gonna try to grab them at the studio at the the label studio excuse me yep but if it's if it's things like I've got a great rig for my acoustic guitars here at the house for my electrics for keyboards so I can I can track a lot of that stuff I can do a lot of the preliminary cleaning tracks and things before I send them over there and then we'll grab the the really high quality high fidelity stuff that we need to capture at you know top level there.

Josh Gale: 32:10

So when I'm behind the glass that's what how many feet thick and the doors that are you know when they shut it's like yeah all the air comes out. So I'm back there Sean's Sean's behind uh the soundboard and Sean will know exactly what we need and how how much of it we need where we need it to go and then how many different versions and what we can try. And then if we've got a little bit of voice left we're gonna we're gonna give this a shot and he is coaching me in so many different ways to to get the best thing that we could possibly get hit but his way of I've been able to share them with other friends as well in different genres and they're like oh my gosh I didn't know that this would even be possible Sean made things so incredible throughout the process he's got that he's got that producer gift that not everyone has I'm just trying to tell a story you know and he's able to bring that story into production to where everyone would enjoy it equally all right so the studio itself the the label studio they use Pro Tools and they go through a small SSL console.

Jay Franze: 33:18

So what do you use at your home studio are you using Pro Tools as well?

Sean Monahan: 33:24

So I've grown up with Logic um so I'm pretty exclusively Logic X. I've I've been using that for a while I've got a pretty decent uh 16 channel rig uh and then I've got a travel rig as well with some of my I I produce some other clients some other artists so it's nothing near as as nice and fancy but I've got a got a few little tools that that at least keep up you know for the things that I'm doing.

Jay Franze: 33:48

You mentioned the 16 channels what IO box is it?

Sean Monahan: 33:53

So I've got a uh a motu 8M and then it's also connected to a focus right I'm not sure which which one it is but another eight channel.

Jay Franze: 34:02

Very cool. So you guys are tracking these songs combination between the two studios when you started at your home studio is that the foundation that you take into the label studio or do you redo it once you get to the label studio?

Sean Monahan: 34:17

Yeah it it depends on the song with the one we're coming out with coming up it was I wanted the bass to be acoustic guitar. My my whole vision of it is I want the listener to feel like they're listening to an acoustic song but it's produced in a way that by the time they get to the climax there's all sorts of stuff happening and they didn't re realize they got there. And so with that being the case I wanted to make sure I tracked acoustic first. So I tracked that here along with some of the more ethereal stuff I'm doing on the electric guitars and some strings and then brought that over to the studio for them to do vocals. Other times if especially if it's a full band project I want to grab the drums and bass first I trust the studio to they they get such great drum sounds in that room I don't even want to mess with that at my house. So I'm doing a foundation over there and then starting to add stuff maybe at my studio where I'll come in. I would there have been a couple times where I know I'll I'll have a bunch of organic instruments that I need to track all in one day. So if I got a a banjo a mandolin and a 12 string I'll just bring it over there and he'll bring out the ribbon mic and just it'll be perfect. And it's less that I have to do at the house.

Jay Franze: 35:26

Two things there one especially when you're starting at your house are using a click track I'm assuming. Okay and two you mentioned ribbon mic which one is it you know ooh I do not know I just know I probably can't afford it it's a very impressive situation I mean the way you guys have it set up is pretty cool. So Josh we have the opportunity tonight to talk to you and Sean and get the you know the idea of how you guys put things together.

Josh Gale: 35:55

Can you explain to us more what your wife's process is during all of this yeah so you know of course not just being some of the inspiration for me trying to song some of these songs are apology letters. Maybe I've screwed up and and I get it and not just a simple sorry but which sometimes she's telling me please just say sorry really quickly and then sometimes I'm just like I had to pour it out in a song and it didn't come out as quickly. No she um she is a breath of fresh air she is um anytime in the studio things can things can get a little like not tense but you're under the clock right you only have a set amount of time there are different uh all sorts of different factors especially when doing vocals she's one take Melissa perfect pitch perfect key she goes through a song and it's like she's done and then here I am and I'm like I want to try it this way I want to try it this way I'm doing this Sean's trying to you know we're trying to really pull the most out of it you know I'm taking spoonfuls of honey and we're we're trying to figure everything out but she uh just her optimism her you know just ability just to just to shift an atmosphere we're still trying to learn how to write together writing groups are really you know really important you know especially when you have three usually is a is a great number most of the time at the house it's just Melissa and I and we're we're trying to figure some stuff out we've had some success but it's it's still extremely hard when it's your spouse like you can't throw out especially somebody who you know they're newer in the process you can't throw out hey I don't I don't think that's any good I don't like that I don't like that what let me tell you my wife has no problem doing that I mean you say you you can't do that with her my wife has absolutely no problem telling me what she doesn't like I think my husband would say the same thing Jay but when you're in that songwriting process which is everything out on the table exposed well and they're so personal right so so personal.

Tiffany Mason: 37:59

So to say something that she's really feeling and maybe even wanting you to feel that with her and then you come back and you're like nah let's go back to the drawing board I could see that being really hard for both of you to say okay you know let me be vulnerable and put this out there where if it's just you and Sean it's not as personal or emotional or you know how songs help us to say those things could be you don't know what their relationship's like that's true.

Josh Gale: 38:29

But Sean Sean's my litmus test I don't I don't share when I write a song I don't share it with anybody except for Sean right away usually because just think about when you're growing up you did a doodle on a piece of paper really quickly you drew it with crayons and your parents were like incredible Picasso right but then all of a sudden you you grow up and you write a song you send it to your buddy who has no idea what songwriting even looks like and what's a good song and they're like incredible dude that's awesome you know they'll never listen to it again but they're gonna give you some great feedback. Sean's the litmus test I sent to Sean I say hey dude the hook's not strong enough I don't know that that bridge didn't really match you know the rest of the feel of the song I mean he literally it's without being critical he's just telling me yes or no like this is good enough or hey Josh I can see where you're trying to go or I can say Josh I hear what you're trying to figure out and I think the best part of that song is this let's ditch everything else and keep that and write around that and then there we are and then we'll get on a Zoom call uh we've got a friend that we went to college with that's in Nashville he tours with like Ann Wilson and he's on tour right now with Ben Fuller great musician bass player guitarist songwriter and we get on a zoom and every time what the three of us get on a zoom an hour or two hours later we have a whole song and it's it's a it's a pretty good song. You know Looky Here we wrote together the the most recent single and we've just written so many cool songs. We wrote a song called My Lines no uh you know just about you know no one's gonna take my lines do you have some things that only your spouse needs to share with you that you can't hear it from anybody else it means the most coming from your spouse. And if you're not saying those things you better believe that somebody may step in one day and say the right things to your wife and if they're not hearing it from you or your spouse if they're not hearing it from you what more of a temptation is that to feel loved? And so it's like encouraging, you know, so we wrote this song out in a day and all the three of us all knew exactly what it meant immediately because we've known how much we've dropped the ball without saying enough to our spouse. The most recent song that we've been working on like Sean said that we'll release in October is called Roses and part of the premise of the song no matter where you are politically in the world right now part of what the tragedy that's happened in in in several cases this year is that somebody's going home or somebody's dad's not coming home or somebody's mom's not coming home. And that is the most impossible thing for me to even comprehend that the the loss of life where it's it's so tragic but what we have as humans we have amnesia we forget so easily that like we're not guaranteed tomorrow at all we're so we're we're so um you know what's the word I'm looking at future focused we're so future focused that we don't realize how vulnerable we really are and if you took every statistic in the world it would just make you sick and it makes me think about my brother in law and his line of work he thinks about death every single day I don't have to and I don't and so the song Roses is is the basically the opening line of the song is don't hold your roses to the till the funeral take every chance to tell her she's beautiful because I just got the chill I'm telling you this entire song it's like depressing but it's not depressing at all because it's like hold up something in me just made me want to sit up and go like hug and kiss my wife and tell her how much I love her because I may never get the opportunity to you know everything in that happened in the past couple weeks is if it doesn't make you think anything else is that we're life is precious and it's not guaranteed at all. The only thing that we're guaranteed what is is is death and taxes is that is that what the saying is but we're so we have so much amnesia that we forget that so instantly that we get caught up in so many other things that we forget how precious life is and that and what our job is and what our commitment was the day we said I do. And so this song we weren't even planning on releasing it and I and I sent Sean back the demo that that we had recorded and I said dude like I know this was an awesome song and we weren't going to the only reason we weren't going to release it was it because it wasn't going to be a strong enough single that was going to go out and get playlisted and and just feel like it was going to perform really well but the song at the the decision and the meeting between the us and the label was I think the song was created for such a time as this and the and the craziest thing in the world is if you look back at the shared note the song was written almost a year to the date of of everything that's going on right now in the world and it was like holy cow like I think this song is for such a time as this let's go ahead and release it so that we can we can kind of encourage some people to to lean in a little bit more to their relationships and and and um be closer and I think at the end of the day like that's that's incredible.

Jay Franze: 43:32

Alright Sean let's lighten things up a little bit you guys have known each other for an awful long time at this point. Take us back and tell us some juicy piece of gossip about Josh.

Sean Monahan: 43:47

Oh man something about Josh did y'all meet in the high school so no we met in college we were both uh a part of a campus ministry I was at a the college downtown Charleston and he was at one in North Charleston and I man I I'm struggling to think of one specific memory but I will say Josh was a prankster and he was known as that we would maybe twice three times a year have uh both the college groups meet up and man he was a he was a mess in the best way in the fun way is he still like that now he's uh he's a little tamer but he definitely is at heart yeah he's he's still got he's still got the prankster at heart josh tell us how is April Fools at your house yeah so that's actually my birthday I was born on April Fool's Day and I don't think anyone's ever April Fool's me so I'm kind of inviting Josh are you welcome for the challenge I need someone to just tempted you well no extremely up for it mine are mine are pretty pretty crazy um trying to think of one I came up with the other day um but it's um yeah it's nothing that would cause a lot of harm but could be pretty embarrassing and uh those are the ones we like yeah I'm trying to think of some some actual you know one of the super pranks if you wouldn't have asked me Jay I would have told you every single one um but put you on the spot yeah um gosh oh I okay I have I have one it's it's the only one I can think of it's not the best but I remember we were had this one Josh getaway I'm thinking we have this was for something this was like all of the schools in the southeast or at least in South Carolina get together from from this campus ministry and so we were at this event and so maybe 200 300 people in the room and it was a great weekend had a ton of fun out on the lake and had meetings and stuff and and so anyway at the end Josh is the MC he's hosting it and he's a they've invited whoever wants to come share uh what they learned or what they experienced to the whole group and I guess Josh decided he didn't have wrap up music there was no there's nothing to kind of urge this going on and so as people started going longer and longer he had this trick where he would just start he was holding the mic he would slowly start bringing it lower and lower and it was shocking how many people would just keep getting lower and lower with the mic rather than getting the clue. But that's that that's that's what I think of when I think of Josh he's he's gonna be funny and communicate that really well in front of people. That's awesome.

Josh Gale: 46:28

Yeah um never put me on speakerphone especially my wife will tell you especially if you're at the store if you're on FaceTime or speakerphone at the store because I will make every noise known to man or say something extremely inappropriate really loud um so that everyone around you can hear it. Gosh I don't know I'm usually did you get the ointment did you get the yes all the things um you know I'll even get my 11 year old daughter with that she's trying to make some kind of selfie video for something I'm just I can't I'm a child I the child comes out in me and it's every fart sound in the world that you could imagine.

Jay Franze: 47:03

My daughter was making a TikTok in the kitchen tonight while we were trying to get ready for dinner and I just stood behind her and danced and she had no idea it was there. Shirt comes on whatever it is and whatever's needed.

Tiffany Mason: 47:14

Nobody wants to see that Josh I can't take my shirt off around my family okay so Sean it sounds like you play every instrument under the sun or you know of every instrument under the sun. Josh do you play any instruments?

Josh Gale: 47:30

I uh yes um I can't say really well compared to the people that I'm around because I've I've hired two that weakness uh no I'm um like I said you know I got injured playing sports and the guitar was there uh every dollar I'd ever saved went to purchasing instruments and I went straight in I the electric guitar the half stack guitar amp uh B-52 had just come on uh the scene and their solid state half stack was the clean on it was really incredible that got electric guitars gear PA system everything I still have the the PA system I bought at that time as well Yamaha was they don't make things like they used to as far as that that hardware and went straight in and and never looked back so play guitar um but it's it's different. I mean I you know um I guess what folks would tell me is that they feel like there's a relationship between me and my guitar like the way I play it may it the guitar and I are one or there's something coming out of it that's a little bit different than the way they hear other people playing it. I don't know if you want to call it passion. I don't know if you want to call it whatever but it's it's my own style you know Sean will usually translate Sean would Sean will probably do most of the tracking because we're you know if we're trying to to be on studio time and all that kind of stuff it's uh it he can translate it pretty well but yeah play guitar I can play the bass I can I can do a few other things the harmonica enough to be a little bit dangerous or to you know enough to you know impress I don't know I don't know I did not impress my wife with it um she could care less if I could play guitar and sing um but enough to impress some people and uh so but enough to have fun and I think that's our live performances like Sean said we just are trying to put on a rock show and any way I can add to that I do.

Tiffany Mason: 49:24

Would you say live performing is more fun than studio recording? Do you enjoy it more for me I do.

Josh Gale: 49:32

I love I love people and I just love moments. I love creating these moments that they're not expecting at all and I love putting the right people in the in place to do it. The band we have together for the poor house show I've got I've got a Venezuelan on the keys that's that's an incredible keys player that's really celebrated around town and that can play across so many genres whether it's Latin music or jazz or anything and then Sean's of course over there on the electric guitar doing things that that most people cannot do with a guitar and you know got bass play we got a drummer that's got more energy than than anybody would know what to do with if we could bottle it would be incredible. But to put the right people in the right place to put something together to where if that was your first rock show like John Mayer then you'd want to put on a rock show for the rest of your life and that's that's what we're trying to do. That's what I want to do. And so for me that's the fun the aspect of it.

Sean Monahan: 50:26

And doing it with my wife my you know you know Sean is one of my best friends getting to do it with those two pretty incredible yeah not many people get to do that uh especially as they as they get uh older in life yep all right sir well we do this thing here we call unsung heroes where we take a moment to shine the light on somebody who's worked behind the scenes or somebody who may have supported you along the way do you guys have anybody you'd like to shine a little light on what you take it Sean I'll I'll say my parents honestly they've they've been so supportive and there's a ton of people we could we could say here but they were a big part of what got us started financially back 15 years ago along with another a donor from from Josh's friends um in Texas and uh man I just like we we wouldn't be I don't think doing what we're doing it wouldn't have continued this long without their support so I just want to I'll shine the light on them. There you go.

Josh Gale: 51:23

Unexpected but it's the first thing that came to my mind right now my local thrift store uh community thrift on uh Rivers Avenue uh my favorite guitar I always wanted this 1970s Martin guitar and this thrift store is like the kidney foundation thrift store and I know I'm gonna try to wrap it up real quick uh they will come and pick up all your junk uh when somebody passes away and all of a sudden I walk in one day I kind of had it on my schedule to go buy at least like twice a month and all of a sudden there's this guitar case and it doesn't look like much right and I open it up and I see this guitar. I've never heard of this brand before called Penco. Okay so uh I started to look it up Google it because this looks just like a Martin I mean you couldn't look more like a Martin I took a picture of it and my phone AI told me it's a D28 and I'm going holy cow okay I start to look it up well Penco is this Japanese brand that knocked off Martin and Gibson so well that they became um sued it was called a it's a lawsuit guitar. Anyways Penco shut down uh Pennsylvania company which then later reopened as Ibanz and I love this guitar so in Charleston we have this uh guitar shop over um um in Mount Pleasant is another part of the the metropolitan area the only person that is like certified in this area of the country to reset Martin guitars uh is about 78 years old um and I took this guitar to him he knew exactly what it uh what it was he treated it just like a Martin he reset it put Grover tuners on it put new strings reset the bridge did a little glue work put a um L R Bags pickup in it and I'm telling you all I've never been so in love with an instrument like I am this one and I invested a total of $500 into this guitar and I love it so maybe that's why you become one when you play it I think so but it's so in love with it. I got all my other Martins are collecting dust so here it is. Anyways I want to thank my local thrift store that's not a bad choice.

Jay Franze: 53:34

Yeah all right folks we've done it we've reached the top of the hour which does mean we have reached the end of the show if you have enjoyed this show please tell a friend and Miss Tiffany if you have not tell two all right you can reach out to both of us over at jayfranze.com you can actually reach out to all four of us five reach out to josh's wife that's fine too you can do all of that over at jayfranze.com Josh Sean we would like to leave the final words to you uh Melissa thank you for watching the kids tonight putting them to bed I love you sweetheart you mean the world to me yeah and if you're local we'd love to see you October 23rd at the poor house it's a Thursday night.

Tony Scott: 54:12

All right folks on that note have a good night thanks for listening to The Jay Franze Show make sure you visit us at jayfranze.com follow connect and say hello