Kevin Morby and Jason Schwartzman Discuss Rushmore

Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore (Courtesy of The Criterion Collection) Kevin Morby

wait to see it.” I couldn’t wait to see it, with someone else in it. Kevin: It sounds like you were relating to Max Fischer as a character. And I also like the idea that this movie means so much to so many people, but they are just watching it. Obviously, you’re literally in it, so you can’t separate. But I’ve never done that before. I’ve wondered about your reaction the frst time you saw the screening. But I never thought about your reaction to reading the script. And I love that it’s almost like you’re reading a book or something. And I love that you were like, “It’s great. Whoever’s going to get this is going to have so much fun.” Jason: Yeah, I was just so excited for whoever was going to be in it. But then I had another moment right after that, when I gave the script to my mother, and she said, “Can I see it?” And then she’s like, “I’ll be right back.” And I remember she went out and rented three movies I had never heard of. But they were The Graduate, Dog Day Afternoon, and Harold and Maude. And I had never seen them. I had a fever or something. And I put in the VHS of Dog Day Afternoon and then watching it and this feeling came over me that I’ve never had with a movie but that I had had with albums. It’s weird, it just feels really good. And I remember in that moment going like, “I’m not going to be in this movie. And I really would like to make records and tour. But whatever I’m going to do with my life, I don’t know what this feeling is. But I’d like it to be sort of near this feeling.” I just thought, “This just feels so much better than a lot of other things that people talk about wanting to do with their lives.” And obviously, it’s an extremely lucky, great thing to get to do. I don’t know, I thought, “Maybe I can work on a movie or set or work on a recording.” I didn’t know what I was doing, but I needed to hover around this feeling. And I just remember those movies. I don’t know why it never occurred to me, but just like thinking like, “Oh, wow. You can do things with your body that you can’t really do with an instrument.” Or just like the way the camera [creates] a different dimension. That’s why each art form is so unique. It offers you its own special superpower. But the frst time watching those movies it was like, “Wow!” Because there’s a scene where Al Pacino, the way he takes this shotgun out of this box. Kevin: Yeah, that’s so good. Obviously Harold and Maude and The Graduate make so much sense, but I would’ve never guessed Dog Day Afternoon. And it’s very keen of your mom to get that because that is a sort of like Max Fischer in a way. I know it’s a true story, but he’s [Al Pacino] fying blind. He has no plan and he’s just going through this thing and he’s like, “I’m just going to convince the world I have this plan, but I know I don’t have a plan.” Jason: Yeah. Kevin: And that’s so good. I really love that. And it’s so funny just watching some of those old movies and obviously, Wes Anderson is a master on his own. Because I’d never seen anything like that would be a Criterion Collection movie in my life. Life for me was all just whatever’s on the radio. Whatever’s playing at the movie theaters in suburban Kansas. And so to see something like Rushmore, it was exactly like that feeling you got with those movies. I felt like, “I don’t even know what this is. It feels like old but new.” The music’s so good and I’ve never seen actors like this before. It transformed everything I thought was real. Jason: And that’s exactly why I was bringing it up. Because I’m fattered that you feel that way about Rushmore. And I know the feeling of loving things a lot. And these things mean so much to me, and it’s hard to compete with a moment that’s happening in real-life. Sometimes you feel, “I’d really just love to listen to that song right now.” It’s hard to compete with that [thought]. Kevin: Sure. Jason: Like how can this barbecue compete with that album that’s so great and I could just go listen to. [Laughs] I don’t know. But also like how much movies and music and things have meant to me. It’s just so hard to not compare them to just like lunch. “I don’t know, what are we supposed to talk about right now? Lunch?” I could just go be alone and listen to an album or watch this movie. And that’s one reason I’m so excited to talk to you because I love your music. I’ve loved it for a long time, and I play it on my show [Coconut Radio]. And it’s really hard, too, because one of the things about having this show on Sirius XMU, is the frst year you have all these songs, and you know why you love them, and it’s part of you. Like you’re saying, “Here, here’s another one.” But you fnd, it’s really hard to describe why you like something, especially something as ephemeral as music. And I’ll be like, “I love this song because of the hi-hat sound.” There’s just like three seconds of a hi-hat sound. To me, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. It’ll just be like cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha. I know like on Paul McCartney’s frst solo album there’s one song, and it’s just going along and then cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha, cha. It happens like one time in the song. It’s a crazy weird delay thing, and I’m thinking, “That was incredible.” But going on to associate the words “hi-hat” to it, is hard because all the stuff exists outside of language. Kevin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jason: That’s why it’s hard to convey what your music is to me. Where it’s a similar thing to what you were describing where I was like, “What is this that I’m hearing right now?” I remember hearing a song many records ago, since you’ve made so many now. But you have an ability to say something and I’ll say, “Holy shit, I think I know what he means,” and I don’t know if I’m right, and I don’t want to know if I’m right, but I think I know. “Piss River” is an example where you sing, “Oh my God Mama I’m scared.” I will be walking around my house, and I’ll have that song playing in my head, but no one else is hearing it. And so I’m looking at my kids, and I’ll just be like, “Oh, goddamn.” And they’re like, “What’s going on?” “Sorry. I’m sorry about that. I was coming in with the chorus of the song.” And so it becomes a part of you. It’s like “Mama, I’m scared,” and just the way it’s voiced and even the lyrics. It’s just amazing. That’s three words right there. But the way that it comes on those chords, the way you say it, everything just lines up. It’s like a constellation. And it’s just like, “Oh my God, I don’t know what just happened, but I feel so much better when I hear that than I did before I heard it.” And that’s why I think music is so wonderful is because you can take it with you and it can feel like armor. I guess it’s like people also work out to music, so I’ll walk around and have headphones on just like when your new album came out, which I just love so much. I feel like I’m okay because I’m listening to this and no one else is having [this same experience] right now in this room. I just feel stronger because I’ve got the music on, and I’m connected to this thing. Anyone can join in if they want, but it’s like you feel great because you have this [inside track]. And I love all the demos you’ve been putting out too, like “Bittersweet, TN” on the new album. Because that’s one thing I’m so blown away by is like the process of fguring out, “That’s something. Oh, yeah, that’s something,” and knowing whether or

not something [is good]. I always wonder if a novelist knows, for instance, that’s such a different art form. Like what’s the demo of a novel? Do you write a hundred pages and go, “Nah, I don’t think it’s going to work,” you know what I mean? Kevin: No clue. That art form, to me, seems the craziest. I can’t even imagine because it’s so internal and with music or flm it’s music or sound, you’re pulling sound out. Writing is like there’s your brain and there’s the page. I took a creative writing class, actually in the pandemic in 2020. And I left the class feeling that it would be insane to write a book. I don’t know how anyone does that. Jason: Yeah, I know because with music even if the song isn’t good, or going to be used or anything, at least you can say, “Here’s something I did.” And you could hear it. But if you’re writing a novel, everyone writes differently, of course. But from people I’ve interviewed, it’s like, “What did you do today?” And they say, “This paragraph.” It’s so much slower and how do you know what you’re working towards. There’s less evidence of it at the end of each day. Kevin: You almost can’t show it until it’s completed. It’s just a lonelier process. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of touching on something I wanted to ask you. It’s funny, literally, right before I was doing this, I was getting ready to upload the “Bittersweet, TN” demo. Whenever I post those demos, I’m thinking, “Where’s the moment where I knew this could be a song?” Because I do this all the time, and a lot of it’s throw away. But there’s something, for whatever reason, that you’ll be like, “Oh, wow. That’s the thing.” And I don’t know what that feeling is, but it’s almost like a personal experience mixed with how you could interpret someone else hearing it, with all these things coming together. And I know nothing about the flmmaking process. I’ve never done it. I’ve made music videos, but with something that has become as special as Rushmore, was there a moment when you’re reading the script and you were like you said, “This is special.” But when you were making it, was that feeling there? Was there just an electricity? Because even from afar, you look at it and there’s this second wave of Bill Murray, and it’s your frst movie. And Wes Anderson is on the rise. He has a little bit more of a budget than probably Bottle Rocket [Anderson’s frst flm]. It seems like that very special sort of “it only happens once,” but there’s two sides to that fence. When I think of Rushmore, I think it’s made so much better by its budgetary restrictions. You can feel the homemade nature to it. But it’s also more than Bottle Rocket. And obviously, Wes Anderson kept coming with bigger stories, bigger budgets, and then was kind of off to the races from there. But I feel like there’s just something when I think of Rushmore, there’s just so many things converging to make this very special thing. Did you feel that at the time? Would you say that was in the air? Jason: Well, because I had never worked on a movie, I really had nothing to compare it to. I think in retrospect, frst of all, you go, “Wow, that’s really like special experience.” But Wes and I were staying at this hotel and he was four doors down from me. Kevin: What hotel, may I ask? Jason: The Houstonian. Kevin: I’m always so interested in this idea. I think growing up in Middle America, you always think that people on the coast, people in New York and LA are the ones to be in movies. So I love you saying, “No, I didn’t relate to that.” But I always am so interested in people coming from LA and then living in [someplace like] Houston. I wonder what that experience was like for you. And at that rate, what I love about it being Houston is, to someone outside, you don’t know where it’s flmed. It could be anywhere. It could be England. Or it feels like Kansas City. You know what I mean? Or someone could tell me it’s LA and you’d be, “Oh, yeah, sure.” So, I’ve always been curious as to, you’re so young, you’re doing a movie for the frst time, how did you fnd Houston? How did you fnd Texas? Jason: I loved it. Well, frst of all, it was wild because I was going into my senior year of high school and [my band] had been recording a record and I remember I had to get a tutor. It all happened really fast, by the way. There was no time to think. I think that I met the [casting] director in October and we were shooting in the beginning of November. It was really fast, I believe. That’s how I recall it. I could be wrong, but I just recall it happening so fast. And being around Bill Murray, I describe him as like a calculator. I just never do life without a calculator. There’s always been a calculator. The most incredible version of that. This person who’s literally been in all my favorite movies. And I found out he was going to be in it. And by the way, when I did the audition, I remember this other feeling of going out so scared. And I saw Wes had these Converse sandals. And I had never seen Converse sandals. And it threw me off. I was like, “Whoa, those are one stars? What

“I was a kid in high school and then all of a sudden I’m with a Ghostbuster. It was freaky for me.” – Jason Schwartzman

are those? Where do you get those?” We were just talking about these shoes and it was so nice. It was so pleasurable that I had this feeling. Like after we were done talking about it, I was like, “Well, thank you for your time.” Because I remember thinking, “I really like this person.” I didn’t know what I was expecting on the other side of this door. But, when you go to an audition, it’s just like test taking and you sit in the room and there’s other people who are possible contenders for this thing. And you’re sitting in there and each person’s name gets called. They walk in and you kind of hear them [auditioning]. I remember one time I was doing an audition and the person was crying and screaming. This is later on. And I remember thinking, “Did I read the same script?” I didn’t even think there was anything sad. Like, “What am I doing? What did I do wrong?” I remember the door opens, the actor is like wiping his eyes. Why is he getting slapped on the back? Like, “Great. And that was so good, you did great” And I was just like, “I think let’s leave you guys to enjoy that, because this ain’t going to work.” But I remember [for Rushmore] walking in and talking and having this feeling similar to reading the script, where I was like, “I don’t think I’m going to get this part,” or whatever, but I think that we are going to be friends. Kevin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jason: I felt super locked in with Wes very instantly. It’s almost like there was the movie, but then there was this person, and I felt that was the magic. Because also, he said, “What are you doing the rest of the day?” and I said, “Nothing. I skipped school to be here.” And he’s like, “Why don’t you go walk around this area and come back in a little bit, and we can keep working on this?” and I was like, “Okay.” I didn’t know if that was unusual for an audition or not. But I came back, and then I read with the actors playing Bill Murray’s kids. And I remember just having so much fun and I remember it being the frst time that an adult, who wasn’t in my family, was actually asking me what I thought about something and looking at me in the eye like it really mattered. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know why. But to me, it just felt like this person actually wants to talk to me. And when I say we were at this hotel, and I was staying three doors down, it’s a very important time. I was there on my own. I moved there on my own. I had a guardian assigned to me, but I left my family in Los Angeles and I went to live in Houston and this was like the frst time I saw a lot of movies. We had HBO. So I saw a lot of very weird movies, like this one called The Peanut Butter Solution. Very weird. That has a crazy plot for a movie, by the way, if you ever happen to fnd it. It’s about a kid who loses their hair because they’re scared, then walks into their kitchen at night and these two people are in there and they give him this recipe for a solution that they can paste on your head to make your hair grow back. But he gets the ingredients wrong, puts on too much and his hair starts to grow too fast. But then they realized that if you cut this [new] hair and you paint a painting with this hair, you can then go into the painting. So this evil person kidnaps him and chains him up and there’s this shot where he’s at the top of a warehouse chained down, and his hair grows all the way down onto a conveyor belt where other kids are chopping it and making paintbrushes. It’s the most insane thing ever. So that was the kind of movie I’d seen a lot of. I had also gotten really into Human Highway, the Neil Young movie. Neil Young directed it and Devo was in it. And so I had a great friend in high school, who just somehow, naturally knew the movies to watch and things that really kind of blew my mind. So we were watching Human Highway and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the movie. So that’s what I was into in high school. But I had never seen [the cinematic movies]. No offense to those other movies. It became this friendship [with Wes] where after work every day we would have dinner in his room and we would talk about the day’s work and the next day’s work and also watch movies. He loved movies and knew so many great ones. And so he was showing me all these movies and it was the frst time I was being exposed anything like that. Kevin: What were some of those movies? Jason: Well, one was Stolen Kisses by François Truffaut. He did this whole series of movies called the Antoine Doinel series. There’s The 400 Blows, there’s a little short one, and then there’s Stolen Kisses, Love on the Run. Kevin: I know 400 Blows. I love 400 Blows. Jason: Yeah. And you should watch [this segment] on Criterion. There’s a great thing, they’re interviewing all those kids from the movie. You can see the director interviewing all those kids. It’s amazing to watch. And you see where he’s about to choose this kid who’s going to go on to make all these movies. And these kids are really little 12-year-old French men. [Laughs] They’re so incredible. But to me, the magic or the feeling to me was always that the relationship meant so much to me. And I was so aware of that at the time. That was the thing that meant I could feel so connected to this person, really connected to this person and locked in, in a way with an adult that wasn’t in my family for the frst time in my life. He was like a mentor, in the true sense of word. They come into your life at this perfect time. I’m 17 and it’s just like, “Have you ever heard of this? Have you ever heard of this?” And I’m like, “No.” “Have you ever heard of this record or this thing?” And having a love of music and being able to share music and talk about albums with this person. And to this day, such a big part of our relationship is sharing. When I see like, “Oh, what book is that? Darn, is that a whole new thing?” And I’ll be like, have you

ever heard this song, “City Music?” Anyway, I’m going to send him This Is a Photograph because I just know he’s going to love it so much. And I want him to know it. It’s just a kind of a built-in given Kevin: Thank you. Jason: But [getting back to the movie] I was also thinking here I am with this Ghostbuster [referring to Murray’s iconic role]. I was a kid in high school and then all of a sudden I’m with a Ghostbuster. It was freaky for me. So I almost think of it in terms of the work. I didn’t know what we were doing. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it’s a weird almost negative space way to work. Like if someone said, “Here are some gloves. Go into the ring with Mike Tyson.” Or this one thing because I was just worried about “What does this person think of me? Bill Murray.” Kevin: Yeah. Sure. Jason: And Wes just said, “Stay with me. Stay locked in with me, and we’re going to do this together.” And that was kind of my protection, my guiding light. Just be near Wes and he’ll get me through it. Kevin: And it is so interesting to think of that because it’s his frst time working together with Bill Murray as well. And now he’s been like in every of Wes’ flms. Jason: I think so. Yeah. Kevin: Just so fun. I’ve never thought about it before. What was the last thing you shot? Jason: The last thing we shot? It’s a great question.

Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore (Courtesy of The Criterion Collection)

maybe it’s not fghting. Maybe it’s like, “Here’s a race car. Basically what you do is you do this, this, this, and this. And now you’re going to go work with these great professionals.” To me, I wasn’t thinking about winning or [doing well] I was just like, “How do I not crash the car?” Kevin: Sure. Sure. Jason: “How do I fnish the race?” I don’t even care if I’m anywhere near winning. How do I just not crash this car? So every day in my mind I was saying, “Survive!” I wasn’t like, “How am I going to be great?” Kevin: You’re like, “Even if I strike out, do I look like I know what I’m doing.” Jason: Yes. And especially I remember the frst day at work, we shot at this big factory where I go see Bill Murray and I ask him for all this money. And then later that same day we shot these scenes where it’s all these training montages. And Wes was saying, “Jason, so you’ll do these things and Bill just follow him.” And I remember just going like, “Wait, he’s going to do what I did?” This doesn’t make sense to my brain. Kevin: That’s the frst thing you shot, those were the frst things? Jason: Yeah, the very frst thing shot is me riding my bike on to the premises. I remember that morning too, I was so scared. I remember we were in the car and we were driving to the set. I opened the door and I realized that I still had my toothbrush in my hand. I hadn’t let it go since brushing my teeth. I was like, “Oh my God, this is crazy.” I was literally that unaware. Of course, I was so panicked. But yeah, we shot that and then built up to where I asked him for money. And then this training montage for the frst few days, it was really intense. I was so freaked out. And I think Wes just said Gosh, I don’t even know. But for some reason, I feel like it was sort of the Vietnam [play] scene. Yeah. And then the dance and everything. I remember feeling like it had a culmination to it in real life too. But I do remember, just my memory of being there. And also at that time too, what I did in Houston was listen to so much music and try to feel at home. That’s my frst time being away from my house and no one was with me and I was defnitely into it. Kevin: What was it like post Rushmore or maybe even before it was released. What was the moment like when you got back to LA and now you had flmed this movie? And then also what was it like when the flm came out? Jason: Well, when I got back to LA, I remember I was still in school so I had been doing my homework still on set. And I had a great art teacher, this guy Tony de los Reyes, who was like, “Look, you’re not going to really be able to do an art history class from abroad. I don’t know how it’s going to work.” So he says, “In Houston there’s the Mark Rothko Chapel.” I think that’s what it’s called, I don’t know the name of it. Mark: Yeah, that’s right. Rothko Chapel. Jason: Yeah. He’s like, “The Rothko Chapel. What I want you to go to is go there on the weekends and sit in there and then write about it for your grade.” Kevin: What a great teacher. Jason: Right? He was so nice to me. And so I did that. I’d go and sit in the Rothko Chapel. I think it’s nondenominational and has, I believe, texts from various religions. When you walk in it’s maybe an octagon or a pentagon. I forget. I don’t want to get it wrong. Look at me, I did a report on it and don’t remember. [It’s an octagon for those keeping score.] Anyway but it’s just this overwhelming space. It’s beautiful. But I remember the frst thing when I got back from school from shooting and I was walking on campus and my English teacher telling me that I had failed, that my paper could have been better. It was just not nice. And I hadn’t really told anybody where I had been. Kevin: No one really even knew what you had just done? Jason: I don’t even know. My school was small enough that people would have known I was gone. But, I will say that I remember thinking that was my [last] acting experience. So now I’ll go back to music and fnish my album and that’s it. I didn’t ever think that there was going to be another one ever. I felt like that was that experience and now I’ll go back to recording music and hopefully go on tour and fgure out if I’m going to go to college or not. I didn’t get into any colleges. I wrote to all the colleges but didn’t get into any. Kevin: Because you failed that English paper. Jason: I failed. It really sucked. And so yeah, I think that I was kind of like, “Well, I’m back now and no one really knows what I just did.” I had this incredible experience with this person and this adult who listened to me and we had all this fun and now I’m back and I don’t feel that way anymore. Kevin: So sort of like a [concert] tour in a lot of ways. I know you were just in one place, Houston, but you form these connections and then you’re just back and the thing is over. But it’s interesting because unlike a tour, it’s going to come out and the world is going to see you up on the big screen, right? And how old are you then when it came out? Were you out of high school at that point? Jason: Eighteen, yeah. Kevin: And the school year had ended. Jason: Yeah, yeah, next year. And I wasn’t in college. Yeah, and this is a really weird thing to say but I remember when I saw [Rushmore] for the frst time I remember looking at it going like, “Wow, it looks real. It looks like a real movie.” [Laughs] Kevin: I love that. Jason: When we were on set, it was just like we were there but now I’m looking at it and it looks like a real movie. And I also remember thinking it was a real lesson to me. I was like, “I was there with Bill Murray. I was there and yet didn’t see any of this.” I did all of this stuff and some of [what he did] was so slight and subtle. I was like, “When did he do all of these things I’m seeing in this movie? I was there opposite this. When was he doing this? When did he do that?” It was like some other thing had been done that I didn’t notice in real life. Kevin: Right. Right. That’s so funny. So you mean the parts that you weren’t in? Jason: No, the parts that I was in! It was like, I was in that scene and it wasn’t like this. Mark: Yeah. So one scene I just love is when you and Bill Murray were on the elevator coming down in the hospital. That blows me away. That had to be so intimidating just standing next to him and not saying anything. Kevin: I love that scene, too. There’s so many iconic scenes, like I said earlier I truly believe in Rushmore there’s no scene left behind. The elevator scene is so iconic but there’s also all these quick [takes]. It feels like maybe you did a bunch of takes and then it’s almost like you’re splicing the takes together. Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Kevin: That’s so interesting. So you’re saying, “I was there for this but it didn’t feel how it looked up on the screen?” Jason: Right. Well, for instance, the idea of [Bill Murray] smoking the two cigarettes is funny but in real

life when we were doing it, it did not seem funny. It just seemed totally normal, like what we were doing. Kevin: Oh, I see what you’re saying Jason: I remember seeing it with the audience laughing at things. And I was like, “I didn’t think that was funny doing it.” You know what I mean? Also, things that were funny. It’s just like how did he [Murray] do that? But it’s just what makes people them. I remember going, “That’s a Bill Murray thing right there.” I just saw it. I didn’t even feel that when it happened. But I remember he shaved his mustache off at the end of flming and I saw him after it was over. I was like, “Whoa!” Yeah, I mean, it’s just like one experience, but nothing will ever be like it again. But it’s also just nothing will ever be like anything again. That’s sort of why I have this thing, especially with movies, anything where I fnd I’ve seen people get uncomfortable when they’re like, “This is not the way I need to do this thing,” and I see them so uncomfortable. And that’s why I feel like everything is different. And so in every movie situation, you have to fgure out the way it works for these people, and just go with it. That’s sort of my feeling. Every brain is so different that it’s like a musician thing. It’s like feeling out what the band is like. How loud am I supposed to be? I don’t know. I’ll see when I get there and see what the room is like. Kevin: Yeah, see what the room is like and let people play to their strengths or it’s always shifting. It can shift tour by tour, especially in the studio when I go to make a record. The producer of a record is like the director of a flm, it’s always like, “Yeah, I’ve done this six or seven times before, but now I’m in a new room with a new person.” I think it’s so much of it, too, because even if it’s the same people, circumstances can always change. You always want a baseline goal, get the race car to the fnish line, right? I think it’s just one of those things where it just feels like everything about it was so special to everyone [involved and] that comes through the screen. And it doesn’t feel conventional. It feels like its own thing. Like in the studio where I hear music back and I’m like, “That sounds like a record.” That sounds like no one’s ever thought of that. Jason: Right, right. You do have to have the confdence to well, frst of all so to be able to just leave for New York City, I mean, that’s so frightening. Did you know anybody? Kevin: No, I knew one and a half people. When I think about the train ride that I took from home to New York, it was so terrifying. But I literally, and I’m not just saying this, I had Max Fischer in the back of my mind. Jason: Oh, that’s crazy. Kevin: You just do it. You just kind of fake it until you fucking make it, just like Max Fischer does. You know what I mean? Jason: Right, right, right, right. Kevin: Let me segue all that into one thing I want to ask you about, which is, did you see Licorice Pizza? I saw Licorice Pizza, and I thought it was so good. And it’s funny, too. And then I thought about Alana Haim. She’s also a musician who was acting like herself. She’s so great in that. I love the movie and a big thing for me I was like, “I love that. This is for me, the new Rushmore.” I saw so many correlations to it. I don’t know. I’m sure you’ve met a lot of people like me who are just people who like the movie. But do you feel like Rushmore is out in pop culture. You know what I mean? Maybe not pop culture, but [Max] still existing to infuence people. And that’s why I love that movie [Licorice Pizza]. But a big part of that for me was, “I really think that this may not exist without this other thing. That’s really special.” It’s just going to keep going. I always get into infuence because I always think that the trajectory of infuence is so powerful. And I always think about when young people are infuenced by something that they have no idea about. If Kim Gordon had not done this one thing in the ’80s, or taken this one press photo that infuenced this person in the ’90s, and then this band might not exist in 2022. That’s my big thing in the world. Jason: It’s amazing. There’s this guy, this artist, fuck me. What is his name? Pete Frame. You can look him up. He does these tree diagrams. He’s been doing these diagrams for years. I have his books. I just found them in a bookstore one day, and he basically like makes these rock family trees about infuences. Check this out [showing a screen shot]. These are all by hand. He’ll do The Velvet Underground and then how it broke off into the fnal destination. So you were talking about infuence, so I just thought you would like that if you’re interested in that. Kevin: Oh, amazing. Yeah, I should look this guy up. I love that…. Have you ever read that book, Lonesome Dove? You know that book? Jason: No. Is it the movie? Like the movie? Mark: Larry McMurtry wrote that? Kevin: Yeah, Larry McMurtry. Jason: Yeah. I never read the book. Kevin: It’s like a thousand pages long. And it’s like the greatest book ever written. It’s so good. I highly recommend it. It’s the greatest Western and it’s so amazing. But there’s this phrase in it that is Latin and they actually never tell you what it means so you have to look it up on your own. But the phrase translates to, “When a grape sees another grape, it ripens.” And it’s all about no matter who you come in contact with, everyone’s going to infuence the next thing. And it’s just something that’s always been, and again, like seeing Rushmore where I’m like, “Wow, it’s so cool.” Like, you could be someone young and not understand that this thing was infuenced in some part by this other flm. And that flm was infuenced by all these other flms. Jason: Right. Kevin: I love that lineage. When I see stuff out in the wild where it’s great to know that it’s still in the universe. Like I was saying, this person might not even know [they were infuenced by it]. It’s my favorite thing in the world. Mark: Well, and Rushmore got put in the Library of Congress. So it is immortal. Kevin: That’s immortal. Yeah. Well, if you were going to just make a closing statement on Rushmore. In fve words or less, can you just sum up your feelings on it? Jason: Just, I thank you for talking about it with me and how it affected me. It changed who I am. The experience. And so, literally I would not be me without the experience. So that’s really what it is. It’s just like it’s almost like your frst love or tragedy or just some meal that made you never want to eat that meal again or made you fall in love with that food again. It’s one of those moments where I don’t think about it as something that I did. It’s just something that I was a part of, that I experienced that made me who I am. Kevin: Right. That’s what I’m saying about my relationship to Rushmore. I don’t even need to watch it, it’s just so in there with me.

(Rushmore is available on Blu-ray and DVD from The Criterion Collection, www.criterion.com. Kevin Morby’s This Is a Photograph is out now via Dead Oceans.)