As part of the release of Digcast X, the third installment of my NYC music series, I’m posting on each band in the podcast. We continue this week with The Soft Collapse.
Follow the link above to listen to members Ryan, Dave, and Rob discuss “Dancing on Ledges,” what they each contributed to the song, and how they feel about Korean Barbeque, Drew Barrymore, and other NYC things.
The Soft Collapse was one of the first bands I ever shared from email submissions. I had been writing just a few months before I realized I was getting emails, probably learning of the account sometime towards the end of 2010. I decided to start fresh in 2011, making “Black on Black on Black on Black” one of the first moments when I checked out something completely unknown and was instantly hooked on what I heard. It’s a sensation I’ve been chasing ever since. As I started getting into presenting shows, I reached out to them and they participated in the second TWD night, which was at Union Hall in January. I can only hope they are once again an early example of something I’ll be doing for awhile.
Besides the enjoyment that comes from meeting talented, thoughtful artists, I also have really dug hearing how the sound of The Soft Collapse has developed from that initial recording Little Songs to the most recent work Dancing on Ledges. We talk about all this more in the interview below, but what started as an acoustic guitar & cello duo playing self-described “bedroom folk” eventually doubled in size to a four piece, expanding the sonic palette, before paring back to a three-piece that has become a tight, danceable, rocking unit. The original members are singer/guitarist Ryan Montgomery and cellist Dave Teufel, and Rob Galgano rounds out the group as a drummer. All three had been in a band called Heroes in the Seaweed. The fourth member for the Comm,a record was Jane Cramer, also a singer and guitarist.
This most recent EP is an especially interesting progression. With the fusion of indie-rock and classical sensibilities, even a little jazz, a strong focus on rhythm and songcraft, and similarly delivered vocals and literate lyrics, I couldn’t help but think a lot about Andrew Bird throughout. The title track, included in the podcast, is an epic. It all starts with that propulsive beat. The cello and guitar lock in on the rhythm and it’s hard not to want to dance. But it shifts over the course of its near six and a half-minutes into some dark atmospheric passages as well, making the whole track quite engrossing. “Dust to Me” has a buzzy electric guitar riff that gets a nice counterpoint in the elegant cello lines that sprout up through the verses. The beat is once again the kinetic anchor. Oh, and there’s kind of an instrumental freak out, but it never overtakes the song’s main thrust, perhaps a musical version of the battle to fight off obsolescence I hear in the words. After these two tracks, the jagged “No One Prepared Me” conveys more power as it explodes into the open spaces we hadn’t really gotten. I like Ryan’s vocal delivery a lot, especially the moments right before the chorus where it’s like a bluesy aside.
It’s unclear how appropriate the present tense is when describing some of these things because in the interim between recording and posting this interview, I’ve learned The Soft Collapse will be taking a hiatus. It’s not necessarily permanent, but there is no specific plan for the near future. Let’s not say this is it, but if it is, I’m glad we have the songs we do. You should still get their music on Bandcamp, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter. I do feel very confident that Ryan, Rob, and Dave aren’t done making music, whether under the name Soft Collapse or not, and I’m sure we’ll be sharing it on Those Who Dig when they do.
The interview we had was a good time. Just like with Hey Anna, I got the sense that these guys have a strong bond, which makes a lot of sense considering their long history making music together. They cracked some jokes and they also jumped off each other’s points to shape their own comments. I visited their Williamsburg practice space to talk about how the band has evolved and ask some questions I had previously asked Ryan before the Union Hall. We also touched upon the Beyonce documentary, the Pixies, the recording process, and more.
Steve: Let’s start with a little background on how this all came together.
Ryan: We were in a band called Heroes in the Seaweed, which started in 2003, the year after I graduated from college. That existed for probably 2 or 3 years. I think Dave & I started playing together because I had continued to write. Some of the songs on the first record were Heroes in the Seaweed songs. How did that happen? Kate approached you, didn’t she?
Dave: She just said, “Do you play the cello? I love the cello. Do you know Ryan?” I’m like, “Yeah” (laughs).
RM: Oh, that’s right. This is my soon to be wife, and this was in 2007.
D: We were at that party at your house that you weren’t at.
RM: My roommates threw a party and I was painting mural and I didn’t get to go. I was kinda pissed because I had committed to painting this thing and doing it at night with lights set up. But then they planned this party. I don’t think Kate had ever met Dave but I played her the Heroes in the Seaweed records and I was like “Man, I want to play music again.” And she was like “Yeah, you’re stupid” (laughs). “These sound really good. You should play again.” So she approached Dave and somehow we ended up, kind of casually back at it.
D: Yeah, you had asked me “Do you want to work on some stuff?” We got together at your apartment. It was a quieter thing, just me on the cello and Ryan was singing and playing the acoustic guitar. We did a couple of shows and ended up with an album’s worth of material just the two of us. It was funny, when we went in to record we were like “Oh, maybe we’ll get a few songs,” but it just clicked and we banged out 11 songs in two days. “Alright, we have an album.”
RM: That was fun because with the exception of the most recent record, those first two, it was all live. You can hear all the mistakes and everything (laughs). When we made the Heroes in the Seaweed record, we worked with this guy Pete Min who was awesome but his whole philosophy was “This is a treasure, this thing you’re going to create that could be heard for all time and you need to get everything perfect.” The philosophy was basically the complete opposite when we went to record Little Songs. It was like…
Rob: “How much are we talking?”
RM: Exactly, it was more about money at that point, we were like “Well, we’ve got two days, what can we do?” I guess it was three days with mixing.
S: So the change was out of necessity?
RM: Sort of, but for me at least, it was a little bit at the time, I was into for a lack of a better word, lo-fi and trying to make something that wasn’t perfect and theoretically valuing those imperfections.
S: Now that you’ve done both approaches, what do you like about each one? Do you prefer one to another?
RM: I’m curious what you guys think about that, actually.
RG: Pete made everything sound amazing. Going in, listening to it on the headphones it sounded kind of pretty awful.
RM: Really?
RG: I thought so. And I remember listening to the drums saying “This guy’s lost his mind.” And then he played it back and sat there doing his thing and it sounded like magic, he did a great job with it. He’s big time.
RM: My understanding is he works on commercial music. Works with these super pro singer and does voice over recordings and stuff like that. What’s your answer for that?
D: I really enjoyed the last stuff we did where we took a lot more time with each individual element. But it’s sort of a different animal. The first one was like a document of where we were at the time. These are the songs we did, we played them live, recorded them, and it is what it is. There wasn’t a lot of manipulation. I think there’s values in both approaches.
RM: I think that’s a good point. That’s what I neglected to say before. When we were recording that record, even up until this most recent record, such a huge part of what my thought process was like I just want to have an artifact, I just to want to have something where I now know I can listen to these recordings when I’m 60. Or at least I hope I’ll be alive (laughs). At least I know all those songs that we put all this work into exist somewhere. That’s how that record was, I just want to make sure we recorded it because we had been so precious with the Heroes in the Seaweed EP. We only got five songs recorded and we must have had 12, 13.
D: 15 songs.
RM: There was another guy Bradley who was writing songs in that band and I’ve actually thought about recording a couple of his songs because I want to hear them.
RG: That one recording is decent, we all did in the basement at my house.
S: Are all of you from New York and the NY area?
RM: I’m from outside Boston originally.
D: I grew up in Syracuse.
RG: Long Island.
RM: You’re ashamed.
RG: Shut up! (laughs).
S: So after that first record, Little Songs, you came in after that?
RG: Yeah.
S: Also Jane, right? How did that come together?
D: First we brought Rob in. We asked him if he wanted to work on some stuff with us. Add drums, develop some of the songs. We had some newer ones we wanted to add drums to. We played with him before, we’re friends with him, we know what a great player he is, so he was an obvious choice for something like that.
RM: It’s tricky to trace too because we didn’t actually put Little Songs out until… what, 2 years after we recorded it?
D: Yeah, we really dragged our feet actually getting it pressed. We had this idea we were going to press it on vinyl and do big 12″ artwork and make it really awesome. I still have that vinyl master. We got it mastered for vinyl but then decided it was way too much money to press. But an actual vinyl copy of that first record does exist. It sounds great.
RM: The master is this really thick vinyl. I also have the artwork, it’s the size of an LP, which is cool. The other two records’ artwork, Kevin did it a little bit smaller.
D: So we kept working with Rob and got a practice space. Before, we were just playing in each other’s apartments and stuff but with Rob in the mix, eventually we got a regular space.
RM: This is our third space actually. But Jane, I went to school with her, but I didn’t know her then.
D: Something Ryan kept saying constantly was “I want some back-up vocals, I want a female vocalist in these songs. Do you know any?” And I’m like “I don’t know anybody. Sorry.” Jane and I have a mutual friend who was always telling me “Oh my friend Jane, she’s an awesome singer and she writes songs and you should guys should totally play music together.” I said “Ok” and sent her a text as a stranger. “Hey, I’m a friend of Alyssa’s, do you want to come and play music in my band.” And she did.
RM: The moment she came is still funny to me. She was sitting on the park bench outside of our old space. I walked up to her and was like “Are you Jane?” I immediately recognized her but I didn’t know why. We both went to Pratt and never knew each other in the four years we were there.
D: You graduated in the same class.
RM: And we have a bunch of mutual friends. But it was funny because she was like “Nah, I don’t think we do.”
D: “Alright, creep, whatever.”
RM: We figured out the Pratt connection pretty quickly. Anyways, I don’t think we had put out Little Songs at that point.
D: We were just about to, just finally releasing it when she came on board.
RM: Yeah, we took that long to release, which I probably got in touch with you like the day after.
S: Yeah, I hadn’t been doing it that long or even in New York then.
RM: How long have you been here?
S: About a year and a half. I came in July 2011. It’s pretty cool.
RM: You don’t feel overwhelmed by it?
S: Oh no, I do. Pretty constantly (laughter). But it’s also constant stimulation. As much as it brings me down, it brings me up.
We spend a little talking about our backgrounds and the notion of balancing working a job with doing other things.
RM: I think wanting to spend more time on creative stuff is part of all of our stories, too. We all have day jobs. I think that’s the part of the deal, though. You have to. I think we all know somebody, or have at some point, who does do it professionally and even if they are able to pull it off, it’s not like they are living that large. I feel like we used to talk about that a lot with Heroes in the Seaweed.
D: Way back before our dreams were crushed (laughter).
RM: No, but I think it’s having a more realistic view. We started playing and the third show was at the Mercury Lounge in 2004.
D: Our buddy Nate that I went to college with, he decided that “I’m going to start a record label and be your manager.” And he was awesome, he got us gigs.
RM: And we all got really lazy. “We’ll just right the songs.”
D: And our egos got bigger and he probably lost a lot of money on us.
RM: He paid for us to record the EP.
D: And then he went and started his own band. Which, we share a practice with.
RM: Yeah, Krikor who played with us, he’s in that band.
D: But when you don’t have somebody like that, a manager… I’m sure the model in the music industry has changed quite drastically over the past 10 years, but put yourself in 2003 and the thought “We can get discovered by a record label and make a ton of money,” was a real possibility in your mind. Now, it’s just that I want to have fun doing it and not starve, so I have to keep going back to my day job.
RM: Which is probably a healthier approach anyways. That’s the approach we should have had then. People definitely told us that, but we were like “Nope. We’re going to be fucking famous” (laughter).
S: Dream big, right?
D: It’s so funny too, when we got that first Heroes in the Seaweed recorded mastered it was like some space with black leather couches and a receptionist and gold records on the wall and it felt like very like “Wow, we’re in the business!” When we got the next record mastered after that band broke up, some time had passed, Ryan and I did our thing, we got our record mastered with Paul Gold at Salt Mastering. He did a fantastic job but it’s a very different type of operation.
RG: DIY.
D: It’s like a small studio, he’s got a soldering iron out on the bench.
RM: He’s definitely a mad scientist. He has the, what is it, an oscilloscope?
D: He’s got an oscilloscope, he’s got two different vinyl pressing machines, it’s crazy.
RM: It’s so much more the vibe you want though as a band. I was going to say too, I actually personally would definitely take working with those guys at the Seaside Lounge versus doing the super studio.
RG: Pete Min was really just the sound.
RM: You’re right, the studio itself wasn’t uber-professional, his sound was just slick.
D: But the whole idea that huge bands get to go into the studio without having the material written yet and spend three months writing and hashing it out, nobody gets to do that (laughter). That’s not how it works for like 99% of musicians. There’s every other aspect of your life intruding on it and you have to work a little bit harder to make it work. You have to be prepared when you go in there and you have to know what you want out of it.
RM: But I think that definitely presents it on challenges in a good way. Having some parameters has been good. It’s funny how it’s becoming less and less. We went in with Little Songs and we recorded 11 songs. And then Comm,a was 8?
D: 7.
RM: 7, right. And then this we had enough songs that we could have made another record, but we spent a little more time recording them so it’s only 3. And I keep thinking we should just go and do a single next time. I got a Christmas song I really want to record (laughs). But I wonder how much that on a larger scale is changing anyways. I watched that Beyonce documentary.
RG: How was it?
RM: It was not good. You don’t learn anything.
D: She’s not a good director of a biopic about herself? (laughter).
RG: She directed?
RM: I think she did, yeah. You don’t learn anything you don’t already know, which, whatever, I don’t really listen to her music. I only know the singles. My point is, I only knew her singles, which I’ll say…I guess I’m too old to be ashamed of it, I like Beyonce, fuck it.
D: She’s amazing! It’s ok. We all know it.
RM: Anyways, she is talking about how she puts out bodies of work and she’s comparing it to people out there who “Just want to make a single.” And I’m like, number one, you are one of those artists that puts out singles. And, I don’t know if anyone’s even really looking for a body of work anymore.
D: Well, her perspective is that is her day job, so hopefully to her it’s more significant than a catchy tune.
RM: That’s a good point.
D: That’s her main purpose. That justifies her existence.
RM: That’s interesting because what you’re saying basically is if we had all the money to spend, how would we approach it? Do you spend a lot of time on one song and record this great single? Or do you spend a lot of time on twelve songs and record a great album. I don’t know. I think part of it is I’ve downloaded a few records based on singles and been totally disappointed recently and I know that always happens.
D: But also it makes me wistful for a good album. When I was a kid growing up, it wasn’t so much about singles as this cool thing. My friend’s older gave me this Pixies record and it’s like, amazing.
RM: Oh, totally. And I’m going to read all the lyrics.
S: And look at the artwork.
D: Speaking of Pixies, I was listening to that in the car. I don’t know if you know the Trompe Le Monde record very well, but there’s this song called “Space (I Believe In)” and the refrain is like “Jefrey! With one F, Jefrey!” I was like, “What are they saying? Let me look up the lyrics, what is this song about?” Apparently they had a session player called Jefrey who played the bass with them and was not in the band, just on the recording. All of the lyrics are about space, filling up space in the album. They needed another song. They were just talking about this session player and about how they needed to fill space. If you listen to the lyrics, it’s just meta about writing another song. So it doesn’t always have to be making a big statement. It was always one of my favorite Pixies songs.
RM: That’s Frank Black’s approach. I heard supposedly when he writes, he doesn’t ever take pencil to page. He just plays guitar and whatever comes out of his mouth, that’s what the lyrics are. Which seems like it’s probably true.
D: It adds up, it makes sense.
S: The newest release, the three song Dancing on Ledges EP, your sound has sort of shifted from the mellower beginnings of the duo. Now you got electric guitars, it’s more rhythmic. Is that conscious? Or it just kind of evolved? How have you all seen it change?
RM: It’s a combination. No joke, it’s kind of part of playing in practice spaces that don’t have any sound-proofing. When Dave and I were playing, it was really quiet. I called the first record “bedroom folk” because it was very literally songs I was playing in my bedroom for years. We moved to the living room when we started playing together (laughs).
D: Right. I remember my downstairs neighbor – we were playing acoustic guitar and cello, not that loudly – and he banged on the ceiling. We had already had conversations about it so I went and reamed him out, “What is your problem!?” He’s like “My child is trying to sleep!” And I’m like “It’s 8 o’clock, relax, man!”
RG: “We’re playing a lullaby.”
D: But it was necessary to be quieter given the environment, so we moved into a practice space where there’s like a metal band or a soul band and people get loud. Out of necessity, it’s like “Turn it up a little bit.”
RM: Right, and I actually have been very intentionally pushing Rob to play rhythmic beats. He can talk about how he feels, but I know with Heroes, that was a similar thing where we had bass, two guitars, cello and didn’t have a drummer. We auditioned drummers, Rob came in after a bunch of songs were written. The thing that blew me away back then was most drummers want to be out front, drummers want to show you they fucking play drums. And Rob is the only drummer I’ve ever met where it’s “Come on, dude. Louder, louder!” Because it’s this delicate sensibility. He knows how to feel out the song and the texture rather than just take over and demand that there’s this really driving beat. So in some ways, I’ve been over the past two records going, “Come on, more, more, more!” (laughs). But I think he’s embarrassed because he feels with “Dancing on Ledges,” that song is a disco beat.
S: It is a dancier vibe throughout the EP. It all works in a live setting, you guys sounded good. You obviously played more than those 3 songs at Union Hall. You didn’t play too much from the earliest album, right? And there was stuff I didn’t recognize.
RM: We played what would have been considered the single from Heroes in the Seaweed, which Dave didn’t want to do and I made him.
RG: (laughter).
RM: Cause we played that songs so many times back in the day. Probably literally if we were asleep we could play that song. But we kind of changed it around a little bit, Krikor added in his guitar part. What else did we play? We played some unrecorded stuff that’s new. Are you looking at the set list?
D: Yes.
S: So you have a bunch of new songs you’ve been working on?
RM: Yeah, there’s some new songs and there’s some old songs too. Actually there were at least two songs from Little Songs.
D: We did “Pink Tile” and “Colorado,” which were really reworks at this point. They don’t resemble the original all that much anymore.
RG: Chopped and screwed (laughter).
RM: For me that was a lot of fun. To do “Pink Tile” in particular, it was a pretty subdued song originally. We had this pseudo soul thing, at least that’s what we were going for. What else was on the set list? A lot of it was unrecorded songs. Four songs. It was a mix.
S: Do you have any plans for recording in the near future?
RM: Not any solid ones. It seems we’ve gone every summer for the past few years, but we haven’t made any yet. I’m about to get married, so I’m putting a lot of money and a lot of work into that.
S: Congratulations. Is that coming soon?
RM: Thank you. It is, May. And Dave’s actually going to play during the ceremony.
D: Assuming I can find a cello to rent in Austin. I’m not putting it on a plane.
S: I think the cello is a pretty cool instrument. Have you played it for your whole life?
D: Yeah. Both my parents were classical musicians, so it was sort of a requirement for myself and my sisters to learn an instrument when we were growing up. I started at five.
S: Two part question: Who are some of your classical influences or heroes, and who are some cellist in more of a rock and pop setting if any come to mind?
D: I always think it’s cool when I see someone else playing the cello in another band, but I don’t have anybody in particular.
S: Maybe any songs that use it?
D: The only thing that really sticks out to me in particular, there’s a Built to Spill record that uses it really effectively on some songs.
S: Yes! I was going to say that’s one of my favorites. I love Built to Spill.
D: That’s really a rock setting. I think Perfect From Now On is the album.
S: There’s Nothing Wrong With Love has cello, too.
D: “I Would Hurt A Fly” has a really nice, it’s not quite a solo, but there’s this bridge part where the cello sounds so awesome.
S: That’s one of the bands that made me aware of the cello in a new way.
D: I saw on a late night show or something, AC Newman did a recent song and he’s got this big cello line. I don’t remember how it goes, but it was cool how he put it at the forefront there.
RM: He recorded a lot of stuff at Seaside.
D: Yeah, it’s interesting, the same place we recorded, that’s where he records as well. I think he lives a couple blocks away. As far as classical, I don’t know. Growing up, having it be a requirement from my parents, as soon as I hit 18 and went to college, I didn’t play for awhile. I was like “I’m going to listen to rap because that’s what I like,” that kind of thing. Do whatever the opposite of that was.
S: Didn’t Juvenile use the cello? (laughter)
D: I don’t know, quite possibly. But obviously Yo-Yo Ma was big.
S: He’s amazing.
RM: He went to my church when I was a kid. Not for a very long time.
S: What about non-musical influences or other art that has inspired you, whether from a writing perspective or just really impacted you? I always find that interesting, you know, like films or books or paintings or literature?
RG: Ryan.
RM: I inspire you?
RG: (laughs) No, go.
RM: If I’m answering that, I mean it’s such a cliche thing to say, but all of that feeds into it. I have a film degree, I do window display for a living, I write and paint, and I just see all of that stuff as different forms of media and I think you can express a lot of different things with these different tools. You can say sort of the same thing with a film that you could with music, you’re just saying it in a much different way.
S: Ok, maybe not influences, but I’m curious who are some of your favorite non-musical artists?
RG: Gilmore Girls (laughter).
RM: I do love the Gilmore Girls, no joke. I watch too much TV, that’s the truth.
S: What other TV shows do you like?
RM: My answers are also cliche because Breaking Bad has to be the best show on TV. The Wire was fantastic. I can tell you about some terrible TV shows I watch.
RG: (laughs).
RM: Kate and I have been watching Nashville, which has Hayden Panettiere. That was one of those things where we watched an episode and we were like “This is fucking terrible.” But a friend of ours gave us their Hulu Plus account and then we just watched the entire season.
RG: I did that with Homeland.
RM: I love Homeland.
RG: I do but it is not good TV. I watch Girls.
RM: A lot of people hate on that show, but I think it’s kinda deep. Season two is definitely the more divisive season.
RG: She’s a lot more naked in season two.
RM: It gets to the point where you’re so used to it, it doesn’t even faze you.
RG: “Want to trade shirts?”
RM: I know you said it doesn’t have to be an influence, but it’s hard to say how one thing translates to another. With songwriting, it comes from the ether sort of, where you’re like “Why the hell did I write that?” Like “Black on “Black,” I remember walking off the train and it just literally coming into my head and being like “Oh, ok, I guess I’m going to write that song now.” Dave, Rob? Dave has so much more of an eclectic taste in music than I do.
S: Such as?
D: Flying Lotus is really great stuff. What else is really awesome? That new Dirty Projectors record, the arrangements are really great. I think he writes it all, all the string arrangements, and he’s got two or three girls in the band. Some of the songs are just him and the girls doing the harmonies. Like it’s drums and maybe a sparse bassline and he’s singing and he’s got three girls harmonizing, it’s pretty unique and stellar stuff.
RM: I feel like we all consume a lot of media. As I’m thinking about it, it’s three people who are difficult to ask what influences them. I think all three of us watch so much TV…maybe we should talk about books (laughs).
D: Friends reruns.
RM: That one song is based on King of Queens because I used to hate that show.
D: Oh, “Sitcom Couple?”
RM: Yes, it was based on that. I hated that show for years, “God that show is fucking terrible.” But then one day, “Wow, this show is really funny.” I love the show now, I don’t know what changed.
S: You mentioned for books you were into Tana French [in an interview done in advance of the TWD Union Hall show]
RM: Halfway through her first book I thought she was a man. It’s a name I never heard and the main character is a man. I actually think she’s kind of a genius because she writes these murder mystery novels and I don’t really read murder mystery novels, but my whole family does, and she writes in this very literary style. I don’t know who you would compare it to, but if you took a very literary Brooklyn author, she’s not from Brooklyn, but had them write a murder mystery, it would be…called Motherless Brooklyn (laughs). Which is also a good book.
S: Yeah, that is a good book.
RM: It’s a more little more conventional than that. She writes this engaging story but it’s also written in this really beautiful language. I think she’s awesome.
S: I hadn’t heard of her but she sounds interesting.
RM: With books, I jump back and forth, same with TV, from really trashy to stuff that’s considered high art.
RG: A book I liked because of the language was one you were reading at Seaside Lounge…which I also saw on the discount shelf for 5.99…was Little Bee. It started out, the imagery was amazing. It petered out a little bit, but it got better by the end and it’s a decent story.
RM: It’s got some questionable plot points I think is what it is. These moments where you’re like “Would that really happen?”
RG: Homeland! (laughs)
S: That was the other thing you said, if you could meet a TV character, you’d meet the mother from Homeland.
RM: Oh right (laughs). That mostly is because I think she’s super hot. I actually saw her on North 6th once. I forget her real name. She was still doing that show V and the super short alien hair. It’s funny because whenever I watch that with Kate, she’s like “God, I can’t stand her!” and I’m like “Yeah..” (really unconvincing) (laughter). And neither of you had answered that question.
D: Off the top of my head, Peter Griffin.
RG: The first one off the top of my head was Alf. That’s not cool, no one wants to be Alf.
RM: No, it’s who you want to meet.
D: Oh, well I would want to meet Peter Griffin, it seems like he leads a charmed life.
RM: I like that you guys completely accepted that I want to be the mom from Homeland (laughter).
RG: Got to go with Alf again.
S: How about this, Ryan’s go to jukebox song was Stevie Wonder’s cover of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” What are yours?
RG: At Buffalo Wild Wings, I’ve been known to play “Reign in Blood.”
D: One time I put Rihanna’s “Umbrella” on ten times in a row and then I left the bar.