King Tuff with Morgan Nagler

After finally getting my old Tascam 388—the same tape machine I used on King Tuff Was Dead—out of my parents’ house in Vermont and into L.A., I recorded “Twisted On A Train” and instantly felt like myself again. In just a few hours, the song was written and finished, a total contrast to months spent hunched over a computer moving waveforms, second-guessing, and trying to force life into sterile recordings. On tape, everything felt alive, tactile, and joyful—more like painting than editing—where every decision stuck and mistakes didn’t matter. I played my beat-up blue Gibson SG, sang without hating my voice, slammed out bad drums in mono, and loved how gloriously messy it all sounded. Rock & roll, to me, should crawl out of a trashcan or a crypt—not be perfect, polished, or on the grid—and even now, as a chubby, balding 43-year-old punk weirdo, it still makes me feel completely energized.