The second Weekend Run Club album, “Liminal Space Race,” finds the band hitting its stride and frontman Mitchell Kinn cementing his metaphorical and lyrical voice.
Mitchell and Xack (bass) join me for pizza slices from Lobo in Logan Square, and we talk about all the coming of age issues and trauma that fuel Mitchell’s art (and therapy sessions, as we learn).
See Weekend Run Club at Beat Kitchen on July 3!
Car Con Carne (a Q101 podcast) is presented by Alex Ross Art. Visit Alex Ross on YouTube (@TheAlexRossArt) to keep up to date with one of the comics industry’s most important and celebrated creators.
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The summer season at Ravinia is here… and there’s no place more comfortable to see outdoor shows.
Load up your picnic basket and head to the show… or take advantage of some of Ravinia’s outstanding food options inside the park.
Violent Femmes are set to do an album play of their debut album with the Chicago Philharmonic. It’s been hard for me to imagine stripped down songs like Gone Daddy Gone and Add It Up done with a classical collaboration. Get tickets and see the full schedule at ravinia.org.
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TRANSCRIPT
I’m parked directly under the L track.
Car Con Carne is presented by Alex Ross Art.
And I just want to thank Alex Ross.
I’m a fan.
I mean, walking into this sponsorship, I was a diehard fan, have been for decades.
It’s been a real honor and thrill to have Alex Ross as the sponsor of this podcast.
This episode is sponsored by Alex Ross Art, alexrossart.com.
Here’s a video if you’re watching on Facebook or YouTube to really help you understand what Alex is all about.
Car Con Carne, also sponsored by Ravinia.
It’s here, the season is upon us.
It is Ravinia time.
So many great shows coming up.
Roger Daltrey, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
I mean, these are stone cold legends.
The Violent Femmes doing an album play of their debut album.
That’s all happening within the next month or so at Ravinia.
Get your tickets, find out the whole schedule by going to ravinia.org.
And sure, bringing a picnic basket, a charcuterie tray is something you do at Ravinia.
Or you could just make it easy on yourself.
Leave that stuff at home and rely on Ravinia.
They’ve got awesome food choices for you on site.
Again, ravinia.org.
So I hear you asking, what’s a smart home?
Fair question.
Great question, in fact.
A smart home connects virtually all the technology in your home.
And with an easy automation installed smart home system, you and your family, roommates, whomever, can control nearly every device and system in the house in ways that are easy and sure fun to use.
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Embrace the future of smart living.
It’s your home, your rules.
Get a quote.
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And it’s so easy.
Get a quote by going to easyautomation.net, easyautomation.net, or call my guy, Dan.
My guy, Dan, he’s the guy to talk to you if you want to make your home a smart home.
Give him a call.
This is his mobile phone, 630-730-3728, 630-730-3728.
This is Car Con Carne sitting under a blue line track in Logan Square.
Joining me for this episode, it’s the Weekend Run Club.
Mitchell is to my right, if you’re watching.
And Xack is in the back.
Xack, X-A-C-K, the X is pronounced like Z, like Professor Charles Xavier of the X-Men.
Yes, I actually say like Xylophone is my go-to.
I think Professor X is even cooler.
I mean, but I have to go for something that everyone’s gonna know.
Most people know Xylophone.
A lot of people know Professor Xavier, but.
Fair, fair, okay.
So, Weekend Run Club, oh, you can start eating.
We’re not standing on ceremony.
We are outside Lobo at Fullerton in Sacramento and Logan Square.
One of the many things I like about Lobo is just that window on the sidewalk on Sacramento.
Walk up, order a slice, walk away.
That’s a wonderful thing.
And it’s dirt cheap and the pizza’s pretty good.
That’s very good.
Very easy decision to make coming here, although it took me about 30 minutes to find a parking space.
Really?
Well, yeah, because this stretch of Sacramento is usually pretty packed, and if you don’t get a spot right away, you gotta go around the block, which is not a quick trip.
I had to do it.
Yep.
There is no quick trip around the block in Logan or Wicker or anywhere near Milwaukee Avenue.
Oh my gosh, yeah, I used to live right off Milwaukee, and so it is, it’s a time.
It’s a time.
So Weekend Run Club is a five piece in the alt-pop band.
The second album from the Weekend Run Club is this right here.
I’m gonna hold it up to the camera, just like they do on TV talk shows.
It is Liminal Space Race.
It is the second album from Weekend Run Club.
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And as we talk, as we’re recording this, we’re at the end of May, beginning of June.
Beat Kitchen is when the next show will be?
On July 3rd, right?
That’s right.
And most recently you played Bottom Lounge, right?
That’s right.
Yes, Bottom Lounge.
With Friday Pilots Club.
How did that go?
Oh my gosh, it was incredible.
I mean, Friday Pilots Club was just kind of popping off right when we started Weekend Run Club.
Is that good?
Is popping off good?
The popping off is good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they just started popping off.
They hit the scene.
Yeah.
Reminds me, I literally saw them at Subterranean just a couple years ago.
I was at that show.
Were you at that show?
With CMS?
Yeah, I had to pee really bad, and the blue line trains weren’t running, so I peed off of the tracks for the first time.
I’m proud of you.
By the way, that was one of the last shows I saw before COVID.
I think so, I think same year.
I think it was January of 2020.
Yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, speaking of Friday Pilots, saw that show, we got to play with them finally.
I mean, Drew has worked on one of our songs before.
James helped produce the last album.
So, you know, we’ve been pseudo in that sphere for a while.
So it was really nice to play with them and Better Love as well.
I think that’s the biggest sold out venue show we’ve ever played.
So it was, it was great.
And a bad start to the summer.
End of spring, start to the summer.
Yeah, we just got to do the paper machete too at the Green Mill.
So we got to be a musical guest.
Highly recommend checking that out.
It’s very, very funny.
So Liminal Space Race, like I said, second album.
I think you’ve really found your voice on this one.
Ah, thank you.
I think, I think so too.
On the Surface, songs about growing up, adulting.
Yeah, coming of age.
I think writing has always been a part of my growth journey and like very, very relevant to what I’m talking about in therapy at the time.
So a lot of these songs are about change.
We had a pretty big lineup change and a couple of the songs had been written prior to that.
So I think three of them had been, two of them had been pretty much written.
One of them had been started.
And then I had a handful of things that I had actually brought up to the old lineup that they weren’t super into.
But then with the change, we were kind of able to, I was able to regroup and we found three new people, lovely Xack over here.
Hello, lovely Xack.
Lovely Xack.
That’s what they call me.
And it’s just been great.
I mean, I think that there’s been a big shift in my own confidence in the writing of the album and how things are delivered and how I wanted to use my voice on this record.
So I’m really happy with it.
We’ve already started writing the next one.
So I’m really eager to see what else.
So you’re in a groove with this lineup?
Yeah, I mean, we actually, we did just have someone, we just have a swap.
But we’re already in a groove with that as well.
This is like sports, you trade players?
It is, and I think what’s unique about Weekend Run Club is it’s never been a group of people that knew each other prior to starting.
It was a Facebook meetup with the original person I started it with.
And then we’ve had members that met each other on Tinder, that knew each other from working at a Target.
And I think Chris helped one of our guitarists’ mom find a phone once.
So we’ve had people in and out.
So it’s not like the story of, oh, we went to high school together.
No, it’s not, it’s not.
And I think that there’s a part of me that was always kind of bitter that I didn’t have that.
But at the same time, I think it’s been really unique to not have that because you meet people who kind of want similar things as you or you have a similar goal in mind, and you really are forced to just get to know each other as you work on that goal together.
And I think there’s something kind of special about that.
I’m not sure if it shows in our music, but I’d like to think that it does a little bit.
So Weekend Run Club is kind of like a law firm.
Like new people join the firm all the time.
And if, you know, if they do the work and prove themselves worthy, they get elevated to partner at some point.
Yeah, yeah, I guess it is kind of like that.
I guess it is.
So the firm as it is right now, playing Beat Kitchen on July 3rd, again, Liminal Space Race is the new one.
Very personal album for you.
I mean, you mentioned therapy.
I know this is just a form of therapy for you.
Absolutely.
I mean, you’ve been through some stuff.
I have been through some stuff.
Let me tell you, is it that obvious on there?
No, I think that music has always been therapy for me, literally.
Listening to it, gosh, just getting the courage to write music for the first time was huge for me.
And I’m very grateful for the early iterations of Weekend Run Club, the people that I was.
Choo-choo.
Food time.
Food time, sure.
See, who needs editing when we can include these authentic environmental sounds of the city?
I love that, I love that.
I was gonna say, everybody’s been very encouraging when The New Lineup joined, when Xack joined.
Xack, another person I met kinda randomly, we met at the bottom lounge, we played a show with Guard Rail.
They are the preeminent diet punk band of Chicago.
They are, yes, the only one, I think.
But they were all really encouraging of the stuff I brought to the table for this album, and that helped my confidence a lot.
So I’m very, very grateful for everybody.
I’m also grateful for how talented they are.
But yeah, I got a lot of shit on my mind.
There’s some breakups.
There’s just general feelings of, I don’t know, I’m already 28 and I still feel like I’m seven and I’m just gonna grow up one day and everything will be okay.
So I’m still trying to figure all that stuff out.
Lots of loss, lots of just trying to be a decent human and how hard that can be sometimes.
Well, and I mean, you wrestle with issues like leaving the church.
Oh yeah, oh my God, I forgot about that too.
I mean, so you grew up in a religious home.
Yeah, yeah, I grew up in a very religious, I don’t know, my parents were like crazy, crazy religious, but I went to Catholic school my whole life until college.
I came out in high school, which was incredibly, unfortunately, traumatic for myself.
And I think that-
Did your parents not?
No, I’m lucky.
My parents were cool.
There were a couple things that took some time for us to work out, but I lost a lot of friends.
I left the church completely.
So that’s something that I was no longer a part of.
And losing something like that was really, really tough because I had to find a lot of reasons.
I don’t know, I had to ask myself, why should I be a good person now?
And there’s like, I talk about it a lot as like, it’s a part of you and when you get rid of it, there’s a hole and you don’t know how to fill it.
And I think that the best way to go on is to not try to fill it and just to learn what it is to accept loss, to learn what it is to accept moving forward.
It’s a lot for a kid to shoulder.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think that one of the things I’m very lucky is that I had parents who saw that I was struggling and wanted to help me.
So I’ve been in therapy, you know, since I was 16 and I almost never miss a week.
And so I’m very lucky I had help.
Well, yeah, and I’m glad that you understand the value of taking care of your mental health.
Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I like that you’re sharing that now so that people watching or listening get that message.
I appreciate that.
I remember being in like a group therapy session when I was in high school and just thinking, you know, how are so many of us going through this?
We have to talk about it.
We have to do what we can to come together because I think it’s really hard to go through any challenge, but it’s even harder to go through it alone.
I know Xack can vouch for me on this one as well.
Sure.
I mean, I don’t know.
Like, what am I backing up here exactly?
Therapy good?
Therapy good, yeah.
Having friends good?
Give it a shot.
If you’ve never gone, give it a shot.
You might be surprised to find out that your relationship with your parents isn’t as good as you thought.
As you start peeling things back.
Yeah, exactly.
Again, Liminal Space Race.
Let’s talk about Prince of Wales.
There are soul and R&B vibes to this.
This is a summer song.
I mean, we’re sitting here, the sun is peeking out.
That’s the kind of song you want to listen to in the summer.
I’ve been calling it our Yacht Rock song.
Yeah, I love that.
That’s a good porch drinking song.
Let’s find a porch, plenty of porches over here.
Yeah, actually the place we filmed it is like less than five minutes away from here.
We could just go over there and drink on that back patio.
Filmed it with the hard working Alex Erick?
Yes, shout out to Alex Erick.
He’s done everything for us.
He’s an immensely talented videographer.
Lots of views on this video.
Yeah, it did.
You got some eyeballs.
It did well for some reason.
It kind of popped off.
Again, there it is, popped off, but we were really, really lucky with that and happy people are enjoying it.
So the concept, the awkward dinner party, drums in the kitchen, cookies being stolen.
It seems like just superficially, you guys are most comfortable in your own skin when you’re plugging in and just playing in the backyard.
Yeah, I think that’s the vibe.
It was inspired by a dinner party that I went to a couple of years ago, and I really wanted to fit in.
It was really fancy.
I’m not a very fancy person.
I mean, many local musicians are not fancy, so.
I don’t know anyone who’s fancy.
I truly, in my circle, I don’t know anyone who wants to go to a fancy dinner party.
Not a soul.
I would rather hang out on the corner of Sacramento and Fullerton and eat pepperoni pizza.
I think that is a better choice.
I think that is a better choice.
And I think that writing the song was me realizing that.
I grew up in Naperville, so if you’re familiar with the Chicago suburbs.
It’s the swingers’ capital of America.
Is it really?
That’s what I hear.
That’s hilarious.
Weird.
Look for the upside down pineapple.
It’s also kind of bougie.
And I think that that party I went to was a bunch of more established people, just in terms of age.
I was a guest of a guy I was dating at the time, and I really wanted them to like me.
And I felt like, oh my gosh, you know, I don’t have a high paying job or any of this stuff.
I don’t have fancy clothes.
I don’t know a lot of people.
And realizing I didn’t fit in at first was like, ah shit, like what am I doing here?
But then as I got to talk to more people at the party, I realized, oh, I don’t want to fit in here.
These people seem to not think it was cool that I was an artist or they kind of talk down on people that didn’t see the world the same way that they did.
And I just realized it was more closed off than I wanted to be.
Yeah.
I like the fact that we’re not right next to a stop, because it goes by quickly.
It does.
Other side.
Double whammy.
Double whammy.
Speaking of awkward dinner parties, just a tangent here, have either of you ever seen the movie, The Invitation?
Yes.
From a few years ago?
No, I’m thinking of The Menu.
You’re thinking of, oh, The Menu, also super fun movie.
Super fun movie.
The Invitation is about a dinner party gone horribly wrong.
Highly recommended.
It’s kind of a horror movie, kind of a thriller.
That’s my jam.
Is that the one where there’s a woman and she’s a guest at this house and?
No, there’s a movie called The Invitation that came out within the past year or two and it’s like a Dracula movie.
That’s the one I’m talking about.
Okay, I did see the ads for that.
Okay, look up The Invitation.
I think it’s probably from like 2017, 2018.
I love the movie to death and just thinking of awkward dinner parties, you’ll feel like your dinner party was a walk in the park.
Oh, gush.
I can’t wait.
I said gush and god at the same time.
That’s awesome.
Gush, can’t wait.
All right, more songs on this album.
I love the frantic energy of Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.
That’s my favorite.
I like that too.
I’m glad that you like that one.
That was one of the ones that we had started writing before the lineup change and then we changed stuff that I think made it infinitely better.
Can you guess what it’s about?
It’s about liars.
Welcome to TalkVille, the Ultimate Smallville Rewatch Podcast guest star, Sarah Carter as Alicia Baker.
Although I didn’t really work with her a lot, but Tom did, and they had some real big smoochy scenes.
Could there be any more sex?
What was a three page makeout scene that just kept going?
Good Lord, we get it, they have chemistry.
Jump in now or catch up on any of the past seasons of TalkVille on YouTube or wherever you listen.
Also, a song that I think is kind of unique on the album is How It Be.
It’s pop smart, the vocals are a little synthy, and then it becomes like a Steely Dan song.
That’s really funny, Ryan’s gonna be so happy that you said that.
Ryan’s favorite band is Steely Dan.
Is it really?
Yeah.
Is it really?
Ryan has such an eclectic music interest, and I think has more records than all of us combined, probably.
I don’t know how Steely Dan became an influence for this band, but it did.
It did.
It snuck in.
There’s a lot of stuff that has snuck in.
I mean, I’m sure Xack has some crazy, like, hardcore punk that’s snuck in for sure.
I definitely listened to the weirdest stuff possibly.
I mean, Ryan’s taste is insane, but I definitely got some weird stuff that comes out sometimes.
Well, and that’s the thing.
I don’t think anyone listens to just one type of music.
That’s where radio always got it wrong for me.
Like, if you pull up any of our playlists on our phones right now, I’m sure it’s all over the place.
It’s all over the place, yep.
We try not to let genre define the stuff we write too much, and I’m a big believer that, I mean, if it’s all coming from my heart, it’s gonna sound like my voice, and if it’s coming from all of our hearts, it’s gonna sound like us anyways, so let’s have, like, some sugar pop, and then let’s have some stuff that gets a little harder as well.
I think that’s kind of one of the nice things about the record is it really is kind of all over the place, and like, you’ll go from songs like Strangers or Candyman, like, into something like Big Kids, or like how it’d be, like, the slow runners at the end.
It is truly kind of all over the place.
Hard to put in one genre camp.
Glad you mentioned runners at the very end of the album.
It feels very final for the last song of the album.
It feels very cinematic, maybe even a little hopeful sonically.
It is hopeful.
I think with Zoo, our album that we put out prior to this one, we had one slow song that was more of a love song.
And I wanted to make sure we had something that had a slower sentiment to it.
And this time I chose something more cathartic.
100% the song is about saying farewell to the old chapter of Weekend Run Club.
There are shout outs to some specific past members, some not.
Some of the members I’ve talked to about it, and we’ve had really nice conversations about how we’ve grown over the years.
Some people I know I probably will never talk to again.
And so it’s kind of one of those songs that I wrote for myself, but I don’t know.
It just poured out.
I mean, Greg and I actually wrote that song in like 30 minutes.
So we have some songs that took months to write, but that one kind of just poured out.
And we’re like, all right, there we go.
That’s the song.
So I liked that one a lot.
It’s interesting as you talk about musically being all over the place.
You didn’t grow up with a lot of these sounds.
I mean, you grew up as a classically trained singer.
I did.
Oh my gosh.
You really did your research.
I’ve been doing this for almost 1000 episodes.
But I mean, the point is like, there are no sacred cows for you.
Like everything’s fair game because you didn’t, you don’t have those preconceived ideas of what the band should sound like.
You’re so right, James.
And I’m glad that you noticed that I grew up listening to the mix and like top 40s pop, and I’m the youngest in my family.
I’m very influenced by, as a kid, I was very influenced by following in the shoes of my older sisters, following in the shoes of, of my family, just trying to find my place in my family.
So I didn’t think for myself musically.
I grew up playing classical piano because that’s just what there was.
When I started voice lessons in high school, again, I was in choir and that’s all there was for me.
And it wasn’t until I started to have like my first real struggles that I would start to listen to genres that were unique to myself, like, you know, emo and pop punk and stuff like that.
So, yeah, I mean, I’m a, I’m an opera school dropout because, A, that shit sucks, no offense, but it’s just not for me.
And so because of that, I’ve always just wanted to write something that sounds contemporary, and that is enough for me.
And I’m glad that everyone in the club is down to just entertain that idea as well.
All the members of the firm?
All the members of the firm.
Yep.
Yep.
I love that analogy.
It’s an arbitration.
There’s never, never a hard time there.
You have a client meeting tonight.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
So we can run club.
Speaking of records in this album, it’s on vinyl?
It is on vinyl.
Yeah, we got to put this out with Say Ten Records.
Again, cool experience.
They are a 99.9% punk band or punk label.
Hey, I’ll say ten.
That guy’s walking with his hands on his ears.
So funny.
I always do that too.
But yeah, they’re predominantly a punk label.
They also have a lot of cool queer artists.
Actually, the singer of Sarah and the Safe Word, who we’re going on tour with at the end of June.
It’s a great band.
I agree.
She has a solo project on them.
There’s a lot of cool bands.
So we’re somehow we’re on their their roster right now with this album.
And Adam’s been really, really great helping us get the record out.
So you can go buy it on their website or at a show.
We are selling them.
And again, the show they can buy it at, Bottom Lounge, or not, I’m sorry, Beat Kitchen, July 3rd.
And at that point, the entire world shuts down.
Like no one’s working.
No one’s thinking about doing anything productive.
That’s the week to go see a show.
Exactly.
July 3rd.
I mean, come on.
That is peak summer in Chicago.
Yeah.
We’re ending tour that day.
So if you aren’t leaving Chicago to go to Indiana for some weird reason, for the 4th of July, come to the show.
If you are going to Indiana, we’re also playing South Bend on that Friday.
So wherever you go in the Midwest, we’ll be there that week.
The Weekend Run Club will be there for you.
All right, guys, thank you for doing this.
I hope you haven’t touched your pizza.
Is it me?
No, no, it’s not you.
The pizza’s fire.
First of all, I’m shy about eating and talking.
I got over that.
I understand that.
It’s been so long since I had those emotions and feelings that I forgot what it was like.
There we go.
I’m proud of you.
He’s also been doing a lot of the talking.
I joined the band a few years ago, so a lot of the history and a lot of the songwriting, I don’t actually have as much to say about.
Weekend Run Club, thank you again so much.
We’ll keep seeing you.
We’ll keep supporting you.
Keep doing what you do.
Thank you so much for having us.
Thank you for having us.
This is really fun.
Welcome to Talkville, the Ultimate Smallville Rewatch Podcast.
Guest star Sarah Carter as Alicia Baker.
Although I didn’t really work with her a lot, but Tom did and they had some real big smoochy scenes.
Can we talk about that?
Could there be any more sex?
What was a three-page makeout scene that just kept going?
Good Lord.
We get it.
They have chemistry.
Jump in now or catch up on any of the past seasons of TalkVille on YouTube or wherever you listen.
