Steve Poltz has been around the proverbial block and has the stories to prove it. From dicking off when he was supposed to be writing a six-figure jingle to chatting with some dude about Black Flag, Poltz proves that he just wants to vibe, maaan.
Problem is, so do I. Why is that a problem? Because I had to cut down a 20-page interview by half because we just kept going on tangents. Don’t worry, I left a few in here.
Racket.
Your bio says that you you live in East Nashville. I’m curious, what caused the move from San Diego, or is there anything in between those two?
Steve Poltz
Oh, so I just moved back to San Diego! So I was in Nashville the last ten years, so. And I’m, I moved out there to, just for the change, you know. Check it out. And it was definitely really fun. And a creative environment. And I loved it.
Racket.
Where in San Diego are you back in now?
Steve Poltz
Yeah. North Torrey Pines State Beach area.
Racket.
Nice, nice. Yeah. I, I lived in North Park, and I used to work at the Tower Records in La Jolla in like, 2001. What a time to be alive.
Steve Poltz
Did I used to go to that one? That’s when lived in La Jolla. I lived at Windansea. I’m a beach guy, so I had to go back to the beach. I missed the ocean.
We got so much rain in Nashville. It rains more than in Seattle. And it’s just gross after a while. Especially if you’re a beach person from SoCal.
Racket.
Did you have the San Diego area code the whole time you were in Nashville?
Steve Poltz
Yes. I’ve never changed this number.
Racket.
Hell yea. I still have my 909 number from Redlands. Doesn’t it feel like it’s just kind of part of your identity to the point where it feels, like, unsettling the thought of changing it?
Steve Poltz
Yeah. I would never like I have to be anything but 619. .
Steve Poltz
From here. I, I that when I lived at the beach, you know I had a remember when we had landlines.
Racket.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Steve Poltz
So I had this number. It was 619 [REDACTED}. And then I Bell changed it to 858. T
Steve Poltz
There you come. I cannot accept this thing. I hate being an eight, five, eight. I called Pac Bell and I said, go to hell. So I hear you, Redlands man. I see I grew up in Palm Springs, so I know Redlands.
Racket.
I taught PR classes and I taught at the Cal State San Bernadino campus in Palm Desert.
Steve Poltz
Cool. And you taught PR there? Yeah. Nice.
Racket.
Yeah, by day, I’m a communications guy for a state pension agency, and it is as dry as it sounds.
Steve Poltz
I wish I had a pension, and I chose this as my living. I have no pension.
Racket.
No, I’m well aware this is the first time I’ve ever actually known what a pension was versus just a retirement plan.
Steve Poltz
Oh, yeah. Man, the longer you stay in, the more you’ll get. Yeah. One thing I’m glad about is I, I will get Social Security.
Racket.
Oh, yeah? Yeah.
Steve Poltz
Even as a musician. Yep. But that’s only because I’ve paid my taxes.
Racket.
Yeah, yeah. It’s great. It’s crazy how you think more about this as you mature, but I have a I have a six-year-old now. My previous retirement plan was alright, but I had to look bigger. Being a parent can make you boring. When he was born, I was the publicist for a tribal casino in California.
Steve Poltz
I wrote a jingle for a casino.
Racket.
Which one!?
Steve Poltz
Sycuan.
Racket.
Oh, really? The ones there’s a couple of my friends and my old bosses are there.
Steve Poltz
And this guy, I don’t know, he got a little bit of time. This is kind of a rambling thing, but. And then the years ago, I opened for John Mellencamp at SDSU.
Know it’s I called the Federal Credit Union something now. But anyways, back then it was just out of the SDSU. So I opened for John Mellencamp because he kicked the Wallflowers off the tour because he’s really… he’s John Mellencamp and he’s got a crazy temper. And he thought they were taking too long to soundcheck or something. So anyways, he said, can you get a solo artist who can still hold a crowd? I don’t want a band going on big.
For me, I got pitched for the gig and I got it to do like some dates up the coast. So one of them was at the SDSU outdoor amphitheater, and they had this manager at the time, and he’s like, whatever you do, don’t do any of those stupid answering machine songs.
Yeah, if you called my house, you would hear songs the answering machine. So and so, he said, “whatever you do, you don’t do any of those stupid answering machine jingles. You’re looking for John Mellencamp.” And that was like him telling me, “do all answering machine songs.” So he was standing side stage, Okay, then I go, here’s a song from my answering machine CD as 50 617 45 seconds. This is called Sugar Boogers, and he was just like disgusted.
There was this guy in the audience named Scott Bernstein, who I think still does stuff for Sycuan. He was their like some marketing director. He was like a full-time guy that he does ads for them.
And, so he was in the audience and then tracked me down through my manager. And my manager had to be the one to call me and say, hey, he loved it that you did his answering machine songs and wants to pay you. And did they paid it. This is way back when we used to make really good money doing this.
It was 150 grand. Oh my God, a jingle ring nowadays you would get anything. When you get a song in a movie, you know, and stuff like those days are gone.
Racket.
But that’s fucking rad.
Steve Poltz
That just doesn’t happen anymore. They were good giving 75 grand up for it and then said right as jingle jingle. And I took the money and just was surfing every day over it. And you’re just chilling at Windansea not doing jack shit. Just be. And then it was like, hey, we want to check.
And I go, oh yeah, it’s done. then it’s like, what? Can you send me it? And I didn’t send them it and I hadn’t written anything. And then he goes, “Okay, we’re going to have a dinner with the tribal members and come over to my house, and we’re going to have steaks.”
Steve Poltz
And the tribal members are going to bring their kids, and you can sing the jingle for everybody. And so I had to be there that night, and I still hadn’t done anything right. And then I went surfing, and then it was like I had to be there and like three hours later and thought “I should write a jingle.” So I just grabbed my guitar and wrote the first thing that came to my mind.
Racket.
Oh my God.
Steve Poltz
I get out there and you know, when you write a song, it was new and you forget it. Yeah. You know, I said, I can’t for the life of me remember it. I had it on this tape recorder. So I had to call somebody to go into my apartment, play the tape recorder over the phone. And I have the tribal guys are there. And then they go, okay, we’re ready to hear the song. And then, you know, are you familiar with the show Mad Men? Yes. You know, Don Draper, the main guy. Also, then it was like I became Don Draper because I got out and I just go, I was thinking everybody’s using these terms like staycation and staying home.
That you could make it like a vacation just being at Sycuan. And I was like, I don’t even know who I was at that moment. I summoned all my bullshit skills from college to just speak like just with authority. And I go, so my whole idea was, you can’t say you’re going to win at a casino, but I wanted to use the words when I break into the song.
And this song got played so much on the radio, people started hating me like certain people, because his ego was paid so much. So I go, I just grab my guitar, I go in it, and it had to be a short jingle, right? It’s a win-win situation with me minutes away, miles apart.
It’s goes, “minutes away, miles apart. Take a second vacation. Take a second vacation.” So I just do that. And then the meaning. One of the tribal members looks at me and he goes, “that my son, is a winner.”
And they gave me the other 75 grand, and that shit got played like at Padres Games, like on the radio, you know, you would hear it all the time. And people started thinking, I wrote the quirky commercial or something like that. It’s like, okay, that’s song that I wrote, like eight, seven, seven Kars for Kids.
I wrote a second one for them, too, after that one. And I wrote it when I was in Croatia and it had, like, whistling. I can’t remember how that one or the first one was more of the hit. And, I couldn’t believe how much I got paid to do that.
You know what I regret? I found out I could have made money from it being played on the radio.
Racket.
Oh, boy. This story rules. Yeah. Coming back to now, with your new single, If it Bleeds, It Leads,” …I’m not thrilled with how relatable it is.
Steve Poltz
Right.
Racket.
And I’m wondering if there was like a specific instance that inspired it or is it just kind of like, this is distilling a feeling.
Steve Poltz
I think I might have been home. I might have been with my wife at home, but I remember screaming at the television when the news came on, just like sometimes. We can get so worked up and rightly so, right? It’s like, right, we’re stuck where you’re like, you’re just bringing it in the dark. Like, you know, you hear stories of Elvis Presley shooting right through the television.
Like he blew a hole. So I was like oh man this is cool. So I had that opening line of I can never watch the news with you because you yell back and you scream like they can hear you in the television set. What am I to do? And all you’re doing is yelling at the top of your lungs or even scaring all the pets.
And if I can make myself laugh, I feel like I’m entertained and I feel like I did something. Even I’m the only one who likes it. Which, believe me, has happened millions of times.
Racket.
Happens with me all the time.
Steve Poltz
You know, they used to say you have some songs that instantly die. Maybe this is like totally inappropriate, but they would call them sad songs. And my Friend that compiled a list of all these songs that were said songs. He called them with. I would do them once and then, just for whatever reason, that song doesn’t last. And then there are songs that you dig up from the grave, and they get a second shelf life, and those are cool.
Racket.
Yeah, I’m sure. What are three of your favorite words?
Steve Poltz
Petrichor.
Racket.
Yeah.
Steve Poltz
Well, which is the track two on the new record. the scent after the rain stops. I love that word. And then I love the word chasm for some reason, because it looks like ch-iasm. And I love the word loggerheads.
Racket.
Okay. Yeah.
Steve Poltz
Yeah, those are just quick ones off the top of my noggin. What about you?
Racket.
Lexicon.
Steve Poltz
Oh, yeah.
Racket.
Pontificate. And epizeuxis.
Steve Poltz
What’s that?
Racket.
It is something you repeat for emphasis. For emphasis.
Steve Poltz
Oh, like I did in my song. Scaring scarring, scarring, all the pets.
Racket.
A use of an epizeuxis, yes.
Steve Poltz
Epizeuxis, I love that.
Racket.
Yeah. Big fan of that word.
Steve Poltz
Okay, I’m gonna write a song. This is this song.
Racket.
There’s a, a YouTube freestyle, his name is Harry Mac, and he goes on Omegle, which is like this ChatRoulette. You just get connected to some random person and he says, I want to do a freestyle rap for you. And he’s like, give me three words. And then he makes the entire song based on these three words.
And if you give him something like parmesan as the word, he’ll have like 16 bars about different kinds of cheeses and the different meanings of each of them.
Steve Poltz
What?
Racket.
It’s off the top of his head. It’s insane.
Racket.
From what I’ve heard from you just today, and what I’ve seen in in your music and in touring, it seems like you really enjoy connecting with people and the first single sounds like it’s the antithesis of connecting with people. That the news is that that kind of driving wedge between people. I’m wondering if what you think that people should do to connect with each other more.
Steve Poltz
Yeah, that’s a great question.
Well, there’s so much that is out of our control. Like, I’ll just say that right away. So with the tools we have and the finite amount of time we have, my thing is I love what is going on anywhere I am and I just talking to strangers. And I do it every day. It’s like I’m hooked on it, but I, I just like, ask questions like, you know, you’ll be with somebody and you’re like, Jimbo’s getting your groceries and hey, what’s your favorite movie? People love being asked questions. What’s your favorite thing you read? Maybe they don’t read. So maybe they do, maybe they don’t. That everybody’s watched a movie or watched a show or what do you like to do when you’re not working? And, it’s like it gives people a respite from them and not in the, in the day to day grind.
Remember the Charlie Chaplin movie where it’s like a big political movie and they’re all cogs in the machine. I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s so good, but.
There’s this one you should watch. Look it up. It was really cool. Everybody’s just a factory worker. But, I just like talking to folks and, you know.
That’s why I’m using this as an example. So just yesterday, the guy had a Black Flag tattoo on the back of his arm and I was like, wow, Black Flag. And he was a like just like like he was having an angry day and he goes, it was my misspent youth.
A big smile and like, did you ever see him play? And we start talking about stuff and we start talking about all different kinds of music and what he’s into now. And it was like a cool five-minute conversation. So that was kind of cool.
Racket.
With you you having immigrated to the U.S., are you still a Canadian citizen? And are you worried about being deported?
Steve Poltz
I am a dual citizen, so I was lucky enough to have come over at the right time. And I never want to let either citizenship go. It’s really like I always renew my passports and everything, and so, you know, I feel very fortunate that I have both passports. So as of yet, I’m not worried about that. But yeah, that’s a good question.
Racket.
With years of tours taking you all over, do you find yourself comparing the cities, or any aspect of them, like the cities? Burritos are terrible in this city, but burritos are amazing in this one?
Steve Poltz
Yeah, I do like I know when I go to Melbourne, Australia, I am going to go to get like, the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to go to this place to get some Italian food. It’s in this really cool area and they have good coffee in its name is escaping me right now. It will come to me that I love this place. (He asked his wife later, it was Mario’s!)
I mean, I always have everybody meet me there. So that’s really cool. And then when I’m in Nashville, I love going to Mas Tacos. People for whom I think their tacos are better than. Like, and I’m in San Diego and I love it, which is weird to say. And then when I’m in Philadelphia, I’m going to go to, different taco place that’s near where all the cheesesteak places are.
Racket.
Yeah, like there’s, there’s a couple, err, OK Mexican spots here in Eugene and in Oregon as a whole. But this place is where they invented the tater tot, and they excel at the tater tot.
My last question for you is what is the best Christmas gift you’ve ever received?
Steve Poltz
I just got it this year. My stepson, you know, gave me a pair of Eugene, Oregon Nikes that have Grateful Dead face logo on it. And they have, like, a furry swoosh. And I couldn’t believe he got me those.
Racket.
Yeah. The Ducks had like a grateful Ducks week recently.
Steve Poltz
He got me a pair of great Ducks shoes. Unfortunately the Ducks got roasted this year.
Racket.
They did.
Steve Poltz
Yeah, they ran into a juggernaut. Yeah. Nobody’s going to beat Indiana. I don’t think the Canes can. I don’t think the Kansas stand a chance. But put all your money in Indiana this year. Yeah, I love sports, by the way. We didn’t even get into that.
Steve Poltz is currently running amok across America. Go see him buy some stuff, and ask a few questions.