17 April 11th-April 17th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | pricks. You’re annoying the people around you. I know there’s all kinds of arguments, like, “Well, the removing all those people is annoying.” Uh-huh. It’s called conse- quences. This is what happens here. You do it in a theater, you do it at a play, you do it at an orchestral performance, you get removed. You don’t get to do it. Do it at an opera, you’re leaving. It’s rude. You’re here to experience a thing. You paid all that money to be here to witness what we do, not what you do. How much of Sessanta is collaborative and how much was you saying, “This is what I want?” The music director and the whole production director is (Puscifer guitarist) Mat Mitchell. Puscifer Entertainment’s putting this thing on and he’s basically in charge of orchestrating the whole thing. He’s working with our lighting director, Sarah Landau, to put the actual lighting and video and stage production together. So it’s basically him in terms of how it’s going to go. As far as song choices, that comes down to me, making sure what comes where and how it runs. I end up being the one who’s directing what songs, just basically because I’m singing with two bands so I’ve got to pay attention to not doing all the hardest songs to do. Sessanta is in honor of your 60th birthday. Are these milestone birthdays a time for self-reflection? I think the big milestones are important. The 10-year marks are big when you get older. They can be scary. They can be inspiring. But I kind of keep busy and inspired by my father. He’s still going. It’s crazy. He had a hip replacement, and then had an injury, but still went all the way over to Helskini to ski for competitions. He’s 84 and he’s still going strong. … So when you have somebody like that who’s unstop- pable, when you hit 60, it’s not that scary. Do you get your work ethic from him? I think I get my work ethic from Michigan. But yeah, from him, too. How do you manage to accomplish all the things you do in your various fields? Efficiency. I’ve kind of figured out ways to do things with yeah, efficiency. Economy of movement, I guess. We use that term in martial arts. You’re not expending extra energy when you don’t need to. It’s all about the geometry and physical structure. So the economy of movement is when you stay ahead of the energy drain. But if you have ideas, if you have some grip on the economy of move- ment, you can see projects through without them dragging you down. How does that apply to fields like music or winemaking? Diligence. You get up in the morning, you have a coffee, right? Well, don’t let yourself have a coffee till you write a riff or a beat or write a couple words. And you look back after a month and go, “Holy shit, I got a lot done.” So if you just take those extra steps and kind of whittle away at those things daily, and make them part of your routine and don’t let yourself off the hook for them — forgive yourself if you have to, if you miss a day — but be diligent about developing your skill, developing your writing, developing your winemaking, developing your cooking. Be diligent about going through the motions because I feel like nowadays, the programming you’re receiving through media and kind of our fantasy life, that Marvel universe, a young girl gets a bracelet from her grandmother in the mail and now she’s a superhero. Really? That’s it? Because the mail showed up, she’s a superhero? Come on, man. No work toward anything, you just get to have it? That’s a very Amazon way of thinking about things. People forgot to put the work in. So if anything, at this age, I figured out you have to put the work in. I didn’t get here by getting a package in the mail and I just get to have the fucking superpower. Just do what you love. A lot of times we end up excelling in an area because we get praised. I think you’re never going to be happy or satisfied if you’re constantly chasing the reward, right? The extrinsic stimulation to get a thing done. You’re always going to be dissatisfied. If it’s a thing you want to do, it’s an intrinsic reward of doing the thing because you love the thing and getting better at the thing, whatever it might be. If you love doing it because you get money, you’re never going to be satisfied, because you’re never going to have enough money. You have to be happy to do the thing. All the money and that shit will come if you’re just really excited about and diligent about getting better at the thing. You’re at an age when many people would be looking toward retirement, and you just keep adding projects. Why is that? I have no interest in turning my brain off. They’re just puzzles. I like solving puzzles. I like fried chicken. I make good fried chicken. Now I don’t have to make it. Somebody else makes it for me and every- body else gets to enjoy it because there’s not a lot of good fried chicken in the (Verde) Valley here. I solved a puzzle, fulfilled a need. When you look back at your life, do you have regrets? We always have regrets about things but it’s a matter of making sure you flip those around as a learning experience in general. All your life experiences can be used as a method of introspection and rebuilding and building. They’re foundational. I don’t think I have anything — if anything, it’s how you made somebody feel. Those are the regrets that are the biggest, I think, if you’re human and you understand how you made somebody feel. That’s always bad. I heard a quote recently: “Just because I’m not nice doesn’t mean I’m not a good person.” So that, I feel like that’s almost a marching order for myself. I’m not concerned about being nice. I’m concerned about doing the right thing and being a good person and being there for you when you need me. Would you consider that your life philos- ophy, to use a cliche? Yeah, I guess. Do no harm, but do. Do you have plans for a personal birthday celebration? I’ll be on stage in Phoenix with a bunch of my friends. “I’m not concerned about being nice. I’m concerned about doing the right thing.” (Photo by Jim Louvau) An Arizona icon among the wine barrels. (Photo by Jim Louvau) 60th Birthday, Present from p 14
