Episode 4: Kitchen Dwellers
Jamgrass band Kitchen Dwellers on a forthcoming album, Jimmy Buffett, heaven, hell, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — recorded in Denver.
Bub & Pop | Episode 4: Kitchen Dwellers (recorded January 25, 2026)
Join music journalist Matt Hoffman at a VentureX in Denver, as he has a conversation with jamgrass boundary pushers Kitchen Dwellers in the midst of a run of shows in Denver, where the conversation touches on Jimmy Buffett, a forthcoming new album, heaven, hell, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
An audio-first version of this podcast is available here.
Kitchen Dwellers | Website | Denver Run (review) | Torrin Daniels' speech at the Mission
Bub & Pop | Discord | YouTube | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook | X | Threads | LinkedIn | Audio-first
Host: Matt Hoffman | Producer: Tedd Kanakaris
Some Things We Discussed
Bob Dylan & Joan Baez play "A Pirate Looks at Forty at Hollywood Bowl in 1982
Reed Mathis | The Gifts of Improvising | Dylan Playlist (Lyrics) | Dylan Playlist (Instrumental)
TRANSCRIPT (minimally QC'ed)
* note: this transcript got a little janky because some of the lav mics picked up multiple people, so it wasn't entirely clear who was saying what – to solve for this, we've labeled everything coming from one of the Dwellers' mics as "Kitchen Dwellers," without specifying who specifically said what.
Matt Hoffman [00:00]
Hi, I'm Matt Hoffman, and this is the Bub & Pop podcast where we talk about music, careers in music, life, the universe and everything. Today, I am super excited to share this conversation I had with Kitchen Dwellers, and our conversation covered a lot of different areas that I hope that Dwellers fans will appreciate, because I'm not sure it's stuff that they've always talked about. And for folks who don't know them so well, I hope this will give you somewhat of a sense for their M.O. and what a thoughtful, talented, intentional group they are. I think that carries over into their recorded music as well as their shows, a lot of which are available on Nugs. And ultimately, the pleasure was really mine in speaking with them, so I'm excited to share that conversation with you now. Well, so we're here in Denver where you guys recorded the last EP that you put out. Right. Katabatic. Mhm. Um, did you — and you mixed it, Max, is that right? Mhm. Did you mix it back then or did you mix it more recently as you got ready to release it.
Kitchen Dwellers [01:18]
Uh, just recently, right before we put it out. Um, yeah. We recorded it in 2021. Um, and we kind of been sitting on it and we wanted to put it out. But then we started working on Seven Devils and um, we kind of revisited it recently and we thought, oh man, we should see if we can put that out. Um, and I recently had a kid, so while I was at home, I learned about how to use some of the mixing software, and I thought it'd be fun to try. But, um, so myself and then Stefan Gagan, our front of house — he did a lot of work on it, and, um, yeah, it was kind of cool. I feel like it was like a very Kitchen Dwellers produced thing. Yeah. Like, we kind of did that whole EP on our own, which was kind of fun.
Matt Hoffman [02:13]
And was that the first time you had released music with a horn player? With Eric Benny Bloom on the — I guess.
Kitchen Dwellers [02:20]
Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [02:25]
Well, so I'm also assuming because I know you're a skier — like, katabatic been in your vocabulary in the past?
Kitchen Dwellers [02:31]
No, not in mine. In these guys for sure. Yeah. Uh, it's. Yeah, it's, uh, it's.
Kitchen Dwellers [02:38]
Uh, kind of a Montana thing, uh, around Bozeman and Livingston. A lot of things in Livingston particularly are named katabatic. There's a brewery called Katabatic, and there's a few other things. Um, and it's referring to the wind coming out of Yellowstone Park and into Paradise Valley there. But, uh, Stu just informed me that there are several different types of katabatic winds present in even in this country. So, yeah. We had all grown up in Alaska, too. Oh, yeah. That's right. He always said that he called them the Taku Winds up there.
Matt Hoffman [03:19]
So what does that term kind of bring to mind for you guys? I mean, at the very least there's the Alaska version and the Montana version. Just — it just sounds cool, oppressive.
Kitchen Dwellers [03:29]
The wind.
Matt Hoffman [03:30]
In.
Kitchen Dwellers [03:30]
That valley.
Matt Hoffman [03:31]
Almost always is.
Kitchen Dwellers [03:33]
Yeah. Boils like a hundred miles an hour.
Kitchen Dwellers [03:36]
Yeah. We left our New Year's show a few years ago at the Elm in Bozeman. And, um, when I got to — I lived in Livingston at the time, and I got to my house there, and it was like, you know, only like ten degrees or something. It was super cold. Typical Montana January. But, um, the wind was blowing 80 miles an hour at my house when I got there. So yeah, it's a phenomenon there, for sure. Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [04:07]
So how did you decide to name this EP after that? And also, had there been more tunes that you decided not to release from that session?
Kitchen Dwellers [04:18]
That was just really a two-day session we had. Those were songs that we — well, two of them we've been playing live. Katabatic and Miss Anita. Um, and those are just kind of interesting instrumentals that we've been playing live. And then Shawn had a song, Madison, and, uh, we just wanted to book studio time. You know, if we get restless and we have been in the city a little bit, we want to get in and try to record. But, um, that was sort of — we were thinking that was almost going to be like a pre-production thing on an album. Like we were going to go in and see what we could come up with, but we were only there for two days. Um, and it was more just kind of booked for fun and to record those songs. So, um, you know, that was it — it was just kind of like what we had in between a couple albums. And then we thought — we didn't know if those were gonna be put on Seven Devils, and they ended up not being on the album. So, um, it's cool that they're out, you know.
Matt Hoffman [05:26]
Yeah. I'm trying to think of any of the kind of Seven Devils plays that they might have been paired up with, because Madison has lyrics, but the other two are — yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [05:36]
Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [05:37]
Mhm. Um, there are some lyrics from Madison that I wanted to ask you about — on Shawn, I'll ask you because it sounds like you wrote them. Yeah. "Sometimes I find I let them go and they swing, swing back to the same damn hole." Yeah, it's just a literal thing about fly fishing that I think people can find their own metaphor within. Um, but yeah, she's just talking about basically — the idea is that this girl kind of likes hanging out at the river more than with other people. Um, and I think she's drawing a comparison to some of the relationships she's maybe had with men in her life at that line, and she's basically given up on guys. Um, you know, her friend punches another guy in the face and so on. So it started as a literal thing about fly fishing, and then it kind of became more of a woman talking about her own experience with, uh, shade dudes. Mhm. And, uh, have you guys — I know that Katabatic has been pretty actively in the rotation. Have you just been folding Madison in more recently? Yeah. Um, I think the first time we played it live, I think it was this fall at Pine Creek. Right?
Kitchen Dwellers [06:58]
Yeah. So now.
Matt Hoffman [06:59]
Yeah. So we played it a handful of times since then, but, you know, not, uh,
Matt Hoffman [07:06]
it's not a super regular song at this point. Gotcha. Uh, I'm glad you mentioned Pine Creek, uh, because that — as I understand it — was the debut of Shawn singing the tune. Is that right? It was. Yeah. So why then, after so long as it — I'm not asking because, you know, it's that thing. I think it probably had to do mostly with the theme that we were running with, because our theme was Rendezvous, which is kind of like the Mountain Man version of Renaissance Fair. Um, and that song is a fictional story I wrote — you know, a historic fiction story about a mountain man character. Um, so I think it just kind of — it was too on the nose to not give a shot to, and it went well. So I've done it a couple times since then. And how did you — or how did you guys decide that he would sing lead on that? Ah well.
Kitchen Dwellers [08:05]
Yeah. Yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [08:06]
So, so he would write music — he's been writing songs that he doesn't sing, at least on the records. Okay. For years. And yeah, eventually we were like, screw you, dude, you got a finger.
Matt Hoffman [08:19]
You're like, writing a lot of songs.
Kitchen Dwellers [08:21]
You're singing this one.
Matt Hoffman [08:22]
Yeah, you can nail the harmonies, you can leave.
Kitchen Dwellers [08:24]
Yeah, yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [08:26]
Uh, yeah. Typically, Shawn writes a lot of songs that I end up singing when we record them, and then so I end up singing them live. Um, which I don't mind at all. They're great songs and getting to sing your buddy's song is pretty gratifying in and of itself. But then that one came along and it was like — the first line is "my name is O'Hanlon," and I was like, if you think I'm going to sing that line next to your pasty Irish white ass standing next to me on stage, you got another thing coming. Basically.
Kitchen Dwellers [09:02]
Yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [09:02]
And, uh, yeah. It's been — I mean, yeah, it's been a long time coming. Yeah, I think Shawn found his voice.
Matt Hoffman [09:11]
Nice. Exhausting.
Kitchen Dwellers [09:13]
Too soon after.
Kitchen Dwellers [09:14]
That. After that show, he was like, I can't believe you guys do that every night.
Matt Hoffman [09:20]
I was so tired after. Just, like — was it healing physically? Mentally? Emotionally? Yeah. I probably just kind of felt like I was patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time the first time. Um, but it seemed easier since then, for sure. Awesome. You think, uh, maybe more of that in '26 and beyond — not committing to anything, but Joe's nodding his head. Yes, probably. I will see to what extent. Um, but yeah, most likely we'll try to do some more. Uh, let's say you guys all went out to do like karaoke or something like that. What are some things you might think about singing? Uh, we've already — we've done this. Yes. Yeah, we did go do this. I sang Kryptonite, and I did the thing from, like, this guy from Old School where I dropped like a random F-bomb.
Kitchen Dwellers [10:11]
Oh, yeah. He's in.
Matt Hoffman [10:12]
Uh, it gave me 100% score. Yeah, I won.
Kitchen Dwellers [10:17]
It's, uh — he does it in the, um. It's in The Hangover too. It's the Dan.
Matt Hoffman [10:21]
Bass. Dan Band.
Kitchen Dwellers [10:22]
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Hoffman [10:23]
They have.
Kitchen Dwellers [10:23]
Like, albums. Yeah, yeah. I just recently figured out about this. I had someone send me their album and I was like, oh, that's the fucking guy. That's. Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [10:31]
So I did Kryptonite. Yeah, yeah. No, they harmonized really well. That's like three dudes, I think. Yeah, they.
Kitchen Dwellers [10:37]
Kill.
Matt Hoffman [10:38]
It. What would you guys sing? I know what I was going to say.
Kitchen Dwellers [10:40]
Uh, I just.
Kitchen Dwellers [10:41]
Did it last night.
Matt Hoffman [10:42]
Yeah, yeah. That was wonderful too. I'm a massive fan. That's actually — like, I always liked you guys and like Max, but, like, hearing you guys cover Song of the Sun at Annapolis Grass last year. Oh, yeah. And I texted Max. I'm like, that was cool. I love Jimmy. He's like, we love Jimmy. I was like, all right.
Matt Hoffman [11:03]
Um, and I like the way that you put it last night — it's like, no, we really like Jimmy Buffett.
Kitchen Dwellers [11:08]
Yeah, yeah. Some people think it's like an ironic thing. Um, and that's kind of a usual thing for musicians, though. I know a lot of other — even bluegrass musicians — that really like. Travis Book loves Jimmy Buffett. Anders Beck loves Jimmy Buffett. But as a musician, you kind of have to, I think, a little bit have the appreciation for things that other people are not necessarily going to like or might make fun of.
Matt Hoffman [11:36]
I mean, the guy lived incredibly freely.
Kitchen Dwellers [11:39]
Yeah. He was awesome. Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [11:40]
He was one of the first people to ever catch a tarpon on a fly rod on LSD. Yeah, probably the first.
Kitchen Dwellers [11:46]
Yeah, yeah. I think that.
Matt Hoffman [11:48]
Was the first and last thing. Yeah. I mean, and he hung out, you know, around our beloved Pine Creek Lodge quite a bit. Yeah. Um, and Livingston in general. So have you heard the Bob Dylan stories there? There are a couple of Dylan things I've kind of come across in my research. Um, one — there was a Rolling Stone article, maybe like late '70s, early '80s, and they were like, there are some songwriters you like. And he said, Buffett is my favorite one. And it's like, you never know if you can take Bob Dylan seriously.
Kitchen Dwellers [12:21]
Yeah. Right.
Kitchen Dwellers [12:22]
Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [12:22]
But then in '82, he and Joan Baez did a duet on "The Pirate Looks at 40" at the Hollywood Bowl. Oh, what a fucking goosebump city. It's just beautiful. Wow. Um, I've not seen it. But even with that, maybe it's like, is he punking us? 'Cause, like.
Kitchen Dwellers [12:37]
Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [12:38]
You never know with Dylan.
Kitchen Dwellers [12:39]
Yeah. A massive.
Matt Hoffman [12:40]
Troll. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Um, well, I'm also, uh, I'm glad you mentioned the historical fiction thing because you've gone down that path, right, with the Ma song. This is nonfiction. Yeah, yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [12:54]
Fan fiction? Yeah. Historically accurate.
Matt Hoffman [12:56]
Okay. How did you wind up kind of making that decision creatively?
Kitchen Dwellers [13:02]
Uh, so where I was living in Bozeman, my neighbor is an author. And he turned me on to this book, The Immortal Irishman by Tim Egan, who's a writer from the northwest. And, uh, he was telling me about this book, and I was like, oh, this is really cool. It's Irish history. And, um, you know, he winds up in Montana. But I read this book and it blew me away. This guy's story — I was just like, I've never heard this guy's story before, but he lived just an incredibly epic life. It was like a saga from leaving Ireland, being banished to an island, to then coming to New York, to being this Irish leader in the Civil War, to then going to Montana. Just his life was insane.
Matt Hoffman [13:54]
Um, he became the first governor of Montana.
Kitchen Dwellers [13:57]
Yeah, he was acting governor of Montana Territory, which almost became named New Ireland. Um, and so I was just reading this book and I was like, I feel like I need to write something about this guy.
Matt Hoffman [14:11]
It's fantastic. When I was listening to it — and lyrics sometimes take a while to, like, sink in for me — um, but I was thinking of this Mark Knopfler tune that he wrote with, I think, James Taylor on the Sailing to Philadelphia album. It's about Mason-Dixon — Mason, Dixon — and how the Mason-Dixon line, for the non-East Coasters, is the southern border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. And it's like, oh wow, they can write a cool song that I have learned something from. That's pretty sweet.
Kitchen Dwellers [14:42]
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Hoffman [14:43]
Huh? Um, have you continued to think about drawing on kind of history or nonfiction as a.
Kitchen Dwellers [14:52]
Well, I'm actually reading this book right now. Um, it's about a ship that I'm thinking about writing a song about. There's no song about it — it's about a boat that was on Lake Superior. It went down in like '75. It's called the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Kitchen Dwellers [15:08]
I never saw.
Matt Hoffman [15:10]
No — a Canadian writing the song. Is that.
Kitchen Dwellers [15:12]
Right? But that's funny.
Kitchen Dwellers [15:13]
I am reading that book right now and I'm like, damn.
Matt Hoffman [15:16]
The fact of the matter is that the Titanic event was just the Edmund Fitzgerald wreck of the ocean.
Kitchen Dwellers [15:22]
Right? Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [15:23]
Right. Yeah. You know, it's quite a big deal.
Kitchen Dwellers [15:25]
Yeah. It's what is known as the Midwest 9/11.
Matt Hoffman [15:29]
I also heard it called that. Yes. I made an ass of myself in front of my students recently. We were talking about the Titanic, and I was like, hey, does anyone know the name of the sister ship? And they were like, yeah, it's the — I think the Olympia and the Britannica. And I was like, no, it's the Lusitania. They're like, no, you're wrong. I was — the Lusitania is the one that rescued them, though. Yeah, yeah. Then got sunk by the Germans in World War One. Exactly. The Britannica, the sister ship, also sank somewhere. There are people out there keeping people like me honest.
Matt Hoffman [16:00]
Um, well, so, you know, thinking about different kind of approaches to lyrics — uh, you know, Joe, I'd ask you about a few tunes from some of the last couple albums. Uh, with a little more time under your belt, like, how does Pendulum kind of hit now, uh, versus, say, when you would have released it?
Kitchen Dwellers [16:22]
I feel like it has honestly kind of evolved from how I originally started writing it. Like even the meaning behind the words — as it would for a listener or audience member — like, the meaning of the song has sort of changed for me along the way. And, um, yeah, I don't know.
Matt Hoffman [16:43]
How has it changed?
Kitchen Dwellers [16:45]
Um, like, I started writing it about specific events in my life, and then it sort of just changed into, like, a general — um,
Kitchen Dwellers [16:56]
at least this is the way I see it — interpret how you want — but like, the general baseline of dopamine addictiveness in people, and how when you give up one thing, you often replace it with another. And that's sort of like the pendulum swinging back and forth, and the balance that you have to create in your life to get through those addictions.
Matt Hoffman [17:15]
Yeah. It's almost ironic to have all these Instagram ads telling you about dopamine addiction and how they cure it for you. Um, yeah. You, uh — I think you mentioned meditation in that song. Is that something you continue to do? Yeah. Uh, what, uh — do you like a persona TM?
Kitchen Dwellers [17:33]
Um, just sitting with breath in the morning is typically what I do, and it's a practice. I'm at a lot of practice at the moment, but, yeah.
Matt Hoffman [17:41]
It's like the hardest thing. It's supposed to be super easy — or the easiest thing that feels super hard. Yeah. Um, yeah. I've been off and on with it a lot over time. When I was trained in transcendental meditation, it felt a little woo-woo for me. Then I was like, well, what if I suspend disbelief a little bit?
Kitchen Dwellers [18:00]
And then yeah, we have a couple friends who do that. And that's almost exactly what they said. You do have to, like, suspend that pushback and just let yourself go into it. And then it actually works.
Matt Hoffman [18:13]
Yeah, yeah. Um, well, so to stay with you — like, when, um, can you talk about your kind of evolution just as a player in terms of, like, the crayon box on the floor in front of you, all your effects, and kind of branching out from — you know, a lot of the sounds you conjure are not what people think of with an upright bass.
Kitchen Dwellers [18:35]
Totally. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just kind of the story of this band. We've always kind of just tried to do what sounded cool to us. And, um, we got into effects pretty early on, and
Kitchen Dwellers [18:49]
I just started getting more and more and just seeing what was cool. I came from like an electronic music-ish background. So I love like synthy, heavy bass stuff. And so I try to incorporate that not just into the effects, but into my playing style too. Um, sometimes I'm not really like playing on the one and three bluegrass bits — I'm hitting on the one, just to kind of get that almost house feel or something. Um, but I think a lot of the effects have just evolved from like what I want to hear. Um, not necessarily that I'm trying to push a certain envelope or anything, but just it's fun to make cool noises that mesh and also make bluegrass sound weird. I don't know.
Matt Hoffman [19:37]
I mean, same thing with me — if somebody would make a show talking to you about the stuff I want to talk to you about, I would watch the shit out of it. But, you know, nobody is, so here we are.
Kitchen Dwellers [19:46]
Yeah. Um.
Matt Hoffman [19:47]
I'm also glad you mentioned the one and three, because last night — whatever the tune was right before you went into the Radiohead National Anthem — I had just noticed, like, looking out at the crowd: with a lot of rock music, everybody's on the two and the four, and it's just like people are suddenly jamming hard on the one and the three, and then it's like, is that Radiohead? Yeah, it is.
Kitchen Dwellers [20:10]
Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [20:11]
Like, what is it like for you guys in terms of crafting a setlist? Like, are you thinking as you're going through a jam, okay, this is where we need to wind up to go into the next thing? Or is it looser than that? Tighter than that?
Kitchen Dwellers [20:27]
Those thoughts are there. I mean, that was just spur of the moment. Oh, you weren't.
Kitchen Dwellers [20:29]
Playing. Yeah. That one actually wasn't on the setlist.
Matt Hoffman [20:31]
But it was great. It was.
Kitchen Dwellers [20:32]
So great. We needed a little more time in that. Yeah. We were like, we need to read that five minutes or like — and then no one said anything, and then somebody.
Kitchen Dwellers [20:42]
Just started.
Kitchen Dwellers [20:43]
Playing it. Yeah, I just started playing.
Matt Hoffman [20:45]
Yeah, yeah, that was, uh — that was good.
Kitchen Dwellers [20:47]
I mean, it depends — that's an interesting question because, um, Torrin, you know, Torrin writes the setlist, and then we have input and it kind of gets worked out from there. Um, so most often we have a pretty solidified roadmap. Um, and it's kind of a — I mean, it's funny that we do a lot of sandwiches. Our band is Kitchen Dwellers, we sandwich songs in between each other. It's awesome. Yeah. Uh, the other night, though, we did — for the first time, when Joe's travel got goofed up and we were like — we've also
Kitchen Dwellers [21:29]
just gotten really comfortable playing with each other. And I feel like we have been playing together so long. And I've been wanting to do this for a while. But the other night we were like, we're just not going to write a second set. And we called songs. It was so much fun.
Matt Hoffman [21:43]
Wow.
Kitchen Dwellers [21:44]
Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [21:45]
Was everybody calling the ball or.
Kitchen Dwellers [21:46]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it got passed around, and it was kind of like whoever had an idea first — when we finished the first song, it kind of went from there. But, um, yeah. Made for some really cool transitions. We had a couple bust-outs — songs that we hadn't played in a really long time, like covers that we hadn't played in a really long time. And yeah, that was super cool. Very gratifying, because a lot of it — I feel like when we're thinking about the setlist, or even in jams — one thing you know is that we
Kitchen Dwellers [22:20]
— Torrin and I both play with capos, but we're not always capable of the same thing for songs. And we're sandwiching — like, one of us is changing capos, and like, what key are we playing in? Uh, so that's something that's always on the brain, which — like, the other night when we did the set of just calling songs — it was, you know, it was pretty seamless to be like, oh, we know what key we're in. This is what we could maybe move to.
Matt Hoffman [22:44]
Um, was the improv different on the night where you were just calling the songs on the spot? Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [22:51]
I would think that there was.
Kitchen Dwellers [22:53]
We were forced into, yeah, uncomfortable places just because we don't usually do that.
Kitchen Dwellers [22:59]
Yeah, I just did a gig with Everyone Orchestra.
Matt Hoffman [23:02]
I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. Matt Butler is one of my favorite humans.
Kitchen Dwellers [23:06]
Yeah. He's the man. Yeah, I used to live in Portland, so I hung out with Matt Butler quite a few times. Um, and yeah, having just done that last month — that whole ethos is just like, you're just like a puppet for Matt when you're in Everyone Orchestra. And it's really — the most important thing is being able to hear, like just to hear what everyone else is doing. Because it's not only important you hear like the bass and the drums and the rhythm and the vocals and stuff, but it's all improv. Like,
Kitchen Dwellers [23:43]
the trumpet player might start the song. And so you gotta know — you gotta be able to pick out what notes he's playing, like, fairly quickly and efficiently to be able to build off of it. And so, um, I think we've been sort of treating a lot of our shows and jams like that. There's been a lot more type two things cropping up lately. And it's fun to do that. It's awesome to see like what we make in the moment and then revisit it.
Matt Hoffman [24:15]
It was — I thought it was really interesting to just see — I think you had posted something on social, like, you're kind of rough.
Kitchen Dwellers [24:22]
Oh yeah, high notes before we played.
Matt Hoffman [24:24]
And that's like — that is the best distillation of a set I've ever seen from, like.
Kitchen Dwellers [24:29]
He used it on his — he recorded all the songs and he's like, he's going to publish the shows because he said those were the best Everyone Orchestra shows in like a few years.
Matt Hoffman [24:39]
Yeah, I saw the word Phrygian on there and just got uncomfortable.
Kitchen Dwellers [24:42]
Oh yeah. Yeah. It was. Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [24:45]
So Phrygian.
Kitchen Dwellers [24:46]
Yes. It was Phrygian Dominant. Yeah, it was fucked up.
Matt Hoffman [24:49]
The, uh — the first guy we interviewed for the show is, uh, Jonathan Coleman, the bass player from Muscle Tough and a trio with Johnny Kimock and Eli Lindemann. And he's like a theory wizard and looks at the world through the Lydian kind of frame. This like George Russell Lydian chromatic concept stuff that — like, when I say the words, it sort of suggests that I understand it, but I really don't.
Kitchen Dwellers [25:14]
Is that why you chose this building?
Matt Hoffman [25:16]
Yeah, right. Lydian on.
Kitchen Dwellers [25:17]
The outside.
Matt Hoffman [25:18]
Yeah. It's kismet. Yeah. But yeah, the Butler thing was great. Is that the kind of thing that you might like to do more of — that you guys might have any interest in?
Kitchen Dwellers [25:27]
I.
Kitchen Dwellers [25:27]
Loved it.
Kitchen Dwellers [25:28]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was incredibly gratifying. Yeah. I really love making something from nothing — like, that's what I feel like we do our best work in the studio. That's when our best jams come around in the live setting. And yeah, I feel like that's when you're really living into musicality. Mhm.
Matt Hoffman [25:46]
What do you guys bring to the studio as you're getting ready to record — like riffs, lyrics, whole songs? All the above?
Kitchen Dwellers [25:55]
All the above. Yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [25:57]
Yeah. It's kind of been less and less as we've gone on. We've done a lot more of the creation in the studio, pretty much every album.
Kitchen Dwellers [26:04]
Um, but yeah, sometimes they start out as literally just a riff, and then there's a song by the end of it. Sometimes it's fully completed — chords, melody, lyrics.
Matt Hoffman [26:14]
In the end, I guess Shawn — you typically are always coming in with a song, like. Yeah, Torrin's singing this.
Kitchen Dwellers [26:21]
I mean, yeah, in the past it's been kind of the way it goes, but, uh,
Kitchen Dwellers [26:27]
yeah, we'll see where it goes in the future.
Matt Hoffman [26:29]
I mean, he kicked you out of the nest, man.
Kitchen Dwellers [26:31]
Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta.
Kitchen Dwellers [26:33]
Say.
Kitchen Dwellers [26:34]
You gotta grow my wings.
Matt Hoffman [26:36]
Well, the other thing I've been thinking about — you know, I read some stuff online, and everybody's got an opinion where it's like, well, you know, Seven Devils was kind of the fire and Katabatic is this contrast with the cold. But then I'm thinking like, well, Seven Devils is also about descent, and katabatic is like a downward kind of flow.
Kitchen Dwellers [26:58]
Like, yeah.
Matt Hoffman [26:59]
Of course the fans think about this shit way more than anybody else, but like.
Kitchen Dwellers [27:03]
I love that that discussion is happening out there somewhere. That's hilarious. Yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [27:09]
Hey, isn't the last level of Dante's Inferno frozen? Because the bottom of the descent is frozen and isolated.
Kitchen Dwellers [27:18]
Yes. Frozen in ice. That's funny. We'll see what they, uh.
Kitchen Dwellers [27:24]
I don't know if — this might end up getting cut — but we just recorded an album. Oh, I don't know how much we should talk about it, but, um, it'll be funny to see — maybe — what comes of that thought process. Is it like the.
Matt Hoffman [27:39]
Lukewarm Water album? Yes, I think.
Kitchen Dwellers [27:42]
It's the waterfall. It's the room temp water. Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [27:44]
That's right, that's right. Um, well, so, I mean, I feel like there are a lot of sort of, you know, comparing and contrasting you could do when you think about the Dwellers, like — you're a bluegrass band playing bluegrass instruments, but Torrin doesn't play like any other bluegrass player. And you guys are using effects like crazy. Um, you know, I was also curious to see that it looks like you're using mostly analog effects and not digital. Yeah, like.
Kitchen Dwellers [28:16]
Mine's all digital.
Matt Hoffman [28:17]
Okay, where do you — what are you using?
Kitchen Dwellers [28:19]
I use Strymon pedals for my effects, and they're all digital. But Joe is very committed to analog.
Kitchen Dwellers [28:27]
Was that him?
Kitchen Dwellers [28:28]
Just the warmth.
Kitchen Dwellers [28:29]
He doesn't like our sound guy. Well, yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [28:33]
I like that I'm making my own sounds — it's literally my adjustments and my playing that's affecting the tone, rather than something digital, zeros and ones spit out the other side.
Matt Hoffman [28:46]
I mean, I switched to a Quad Cortex in the last couple of years and it's super convenient. But it's also weird that like when you push the volume, it just gets louder — it's not getting like dirtier.
Kitchen Dwellers [28:58]
Yeah, it's not getting more intense.
Matt Hoffman [29:00]
Yeah, yeah. Um, well, so it's also funny, uh, because — I've been thinking a lot about these different kind of contrasts in music, right? Like, uh, analog versus digital, original versus playing other people's music, whatever. Yeah. Um, and actually — Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — there's a part of that that's always stuck with me since I was 17. I probably haven't read it since I was like in my 20s. Um, and you guys have a song called Phaedrus from Montana. Talk to me. Tell me about that book.
Kitchen Dwellers [29:39]
I mean, I wrote that so long ago, and I read that book so long ago — would probably be hard for me to talk about it. Fair. Um, and I think I maybe even read that book — I can't remember if I was already living in Montana. Um, but just, you know, the whole thought about the quality of your time, the quality of your life — not necessarily like, was it good or was it bad, but the weight to it. Um, and, uh, and I was, you know, very impressionable at that age. And, um, I was doing, I was still doing a lot of traveling — personal traveling around the country. And that's kind of just where that song came from.
Matt Hoffman [30:24]
Yeah. It's like that or The Fountainhead — the book that everybody reads in their like late teens or early 20s.
Kitchen Dwellers [30:29]
Just like.
Matt Hoffman [30:30]
Can't get it off your brain.
Kitchen Dwellers [30:31]
Yeah, definitely.
Matt Hoffman [30:32]
Well, so in the book — as I recall — he talks about the classical approach versus the romantic, where, um — I even think this is sort of open to interpretation — but he talks about, like, needing to fix a friend's motorcycle while they're on a trip, and he's like, oh, you can just use this little piece of a beer can. And he's taking this classical, sort of practical approach. And his friend is like, a beer can on my BMW? Like, no way. How could you? I feel like some people might look at what you're doing and say, this isn't bluegrass. How dare they? Other people might be like, yeah, exactly — forget about titles. It's just.
Kitchen Dwellers [31:16]
You know. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah, I like that. Um, I actually think about that a lot — um, through the process of hooking up these like old instruments and older-style instruments to effects, and like sort of the silly avenues that you have to go through in order to do that. So, like, banjo was made not to put a pickup on, by any means — no one wants to hear that. It's so loud. And you might as well put a pickup on an accordion — it's kind of that. And so, um — but people have been doing it to a guitar for much longer, so that process is sort of way more smoothed out, way more streamlined, and way more predictable. And so through this process — like, I have this pickup in this banjo, but then the thing that's actually making the pickup sound okay and not go crazy is a piece of shipping foam that's inside the banjo. And then I'm like looking, you know — and of course you have to get a good pickup or you have to get a good microphone. But the avenues by which you do that — the microphone is zip-tied to the banjo because there's no mounting system. They make mounting systems for drums, and they make mounting systems for everything else, but not for banjo. And so zip ties are there. And I was like — and then I was talking to our friend Chris Pandolfi, who has been playing banjos and especially plugged-in banjos much longer than I have. He's like a doctorate in banjo. And I'm like, well, what do you use to put your mic on? Like, why is your mic so sturdy? And he was like — oh, he said Becker rigged this up with a coat hanger. And I was like, so he has like a Gibson — like a 12, was like a $20,000 banjo — and then his clip-on mic is a coat hanger and duct tape holding that on there. And I was like, all right, good. You're literally just explaining it. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Right. I was like, glad. Yeah. Glad to see that. Self-reliance hasn't fallen out of style.
Matt Hoffman [33:17]
Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, sometimes you gotta just.
Kitchen Dwellers [33:20]
Figure — I mean, yeah. I've got zip ties and tape holding my microphone the way it connects to my mandolin too, just because there's not something that exists.
Matt Hoffman [33:32]
Yeah. Not yet. Maybe you guys get into your own proprietary thing.
Kitchen Dwellers [33:37]
Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [33:37]
Jake Cinninger from Umphrey's.
Kitchen Dwellers [33:39]
Oh, yeah.
Matt Hoffman [33:40]
Proprietary. The Blade.
Kitchen Dwellers [33:41]
Yeah. The Blade.
Matt Hoffman [33:42]
I do. Have you played one?
Kitchen Dwellers [33:44]
Uh, no, I haven't. I mean, I know Montana has one on all of his guitars. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Matt Rogers has a Jake Blade on every guitar. He does? Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [33:54]
Yeah. I have mixed feelings about it because, like, I don't know, sometimes it's easier to have it right there, but other times it's easier to have it out of the way. Fortunately I'm not.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:04]
It's like a whammy bar, but it's only like this big. Yeah. Yeah. It's like teardrop-shaped and.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:08]
Just.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:09]
Sits on your bridge and you can just, like, palm it. It's basically made to sit right here. Gotcha. Yeah. Cool. It works.
Matt Hoffman [34:17]
Yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:17]
Matt Rogers shreds.
Matt Hoffman [34:18]
So it is fantastic. Yeah. Um, well. So what — I mean, 2025 was a massive year, right? Like selling out Red Rocks and all kinds of stuff.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:28]
We didn't.
Matt Hoffman [34:29]
Sell. Oh, no.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:30]
We.
Matt Hoffman [34:31]
Did. I mean.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:31]
It was good, though. The tickets were good. The numbers were.
Matt Hoffman [34:34]
Good. The numbers. Okay.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:34]
The numbers are good, Jerry. Yeah, those are good.
Matt Hoffman [34:37]
So. Right. Really big show. Yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [34:40]
There were a lot of people.
Matt Hoffman [34:41]
It was full. Oh, yeah. It felt fun. I do that in reviews sometimes where it's like — I can't say sold out, I'll just be like, shoulder to shoulder or whatever. Yeah, right. The reviews are funny too, because sometimes it's just like, who's got the best thesaurus, you know? Or like, talks about, you know, fluttering like a Mixolydian jam or something.
Kitchen Dwellers [35:03]
Yeah, exactly.
Matt Hoffman [35:04]
Exactly. To each their own. Um, but, uh, you know, I don't think you guys are doing Winter WonderGrass, right?
Kitchen Dwellers [35:13]
Not.
Matt Hoffman [35:13]
This year. Okay.
Kitchen Dwellers [35:14]
We've been doing it pretty steadily for several years now. Okay. Love fest. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. There's no reason, actually, that we wouldn't do it, except that we want time off. Sure, sure.
Matt Hoffman [35:27]
That's great. How is your little one, Max?
Kitchen Dwellers [35:30]
Almost seven months. Wow. Yeah, man. Yes, he was born July of this year.
Matt Hoffman [35:35]
Okay. And it's your second or your first. Okay. Yeah. Wow.
Kitchen Dwellers [35:39]
So I took a little bit of time off the road, and I am very excited to get home trying to figure it all out.
Matt Hoffman [35:44]
That's, it's — yeah. I am. There's a bass player I was talking to yesterday, a guy named Julia Xavier Chatto who goes by the Jazz Dog. Um, and like, I'll — I'm writing an article, I'll send it to you guys. But he, like, he really fucked up his arm with a random incident with a knife while he was dropping dishes. Oh, um. And it's like, that's a pretty devastating thing, you know? But like, as we were talking about it, he also had a kid during that window, and he was home with that kid for eight months that he wouldn't otherwise have been able to do. Yeah, let's — if only we could do all of the things all the time, you know? But yeah, alas.
Kitchen Dwellers [36:25]
Yeah, it'd be great.
Matt Hoffman [36:26]
Uh, what else are you guys excited about this year? It sounds like maybe an album. Um, anything you're thinking about tour-wise, show-wise? I know like all the announcements aren't out yet.
Kitchen Dwellers [36:36]
I mean, tomorrow night the Mission is going to be a pretty big deal.
Kitchen Dwellers [36:39]
Yes, the Mission's going to be sick. It's looking like it's going to be pretty packed. Yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [36:46]
We have a pretty decently busy first six months of the year, and it's all in places that we love to play.
Kitchen Dwellers [36:52]
We've been trying to get back to the Southwest for a number of years. We haven't been to Arizona in a while. So yeah, we're really excited to get back there. There's Tucson, New Mexico, California, Joshua Tree.
Kitchen Dwellers [37:05]
The Northwest.
Kitchen Dwellers [37:06]
The Northwest, Roman.
Matt Hoffman [37:07]
Annapolis Grass, in August or September?
Kitchen Dwellers [37:11]
I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, I.
Matt Hoffman [37:14]
Sort of, like, very gently reach out to them. I'm like, so, guys, what's going on?
Kitchen Dwellers [37:18]
Yeah. Oh, yeah. We just — we love Annapolis Grass. Yeah.
Matt Hoffman [37:23]
It's such a good festival. Yeah. And also, like, knowing how you guys kind of lean green — I think what they're doing is so amazing.
Kitchen Dwellers [37:30]
Yeah, it's really awesome. Yeah. I actually personally know Jason Kelly here in Denver, so I see him semi-regularly.
Matt Hoffman [37:37]
You see Phife Dawg?
Kitchen Dwellers [37:37]
I don't see Dawg as often but I do know who Phife Dawg is.
Matt Hoffman [37:42]
I haven't met Phife. I'd like to. Every time you post a picture, I'm just like, yo, unemployed places?
Kitchen Dwellers [37:47]
Yeah, yeah.
Kitchen Dwellers [37:49]
Does that.
Kitchen Dwellers [37:49]
Say butter? Oh, but.
Kitchen Dwellers [37:52]
I was like, I know, jel, talk about butter.
Matt Hoffman [37:54]
Right, right. Do you keep your butter out on the counter or put it in the fridge?
Kitchen Dwellers [37:59]
I am.
Matt Hoffman [37:59]
Both okay. Yeah, I'm a fridge guy.
Kitchen Dwellers [38:01]
I freeze the butter, and I have fridge butter, and I have counter butter. My daughter loves butter, too.
Matt Hoffman [38:07]
Oh, yeah. How old is she?
Kitchen Dwellers [38:09]
Almost three. Uh, while.
Kitchen Dwellers [38:11]
Might be her favorite.
Kitchen Dwellers [38:11]
Food.
Matt Hoffman [38:13]
There are worse things that kids can be into. Yeah. That's true. I'm — it's not.
Kitchen Dwellers [38:17]
Sharing right now. It's butter. Uh, bone marrow and paté.
Matt Hoffman [38:22]
Wow. Interesting. Yeah. He's raising a cage fighter. Yeah. Yeah, right. Cage fighter. Or like a super hoity-toity chef or something? Yeah. Right. Yeah. What kind of paté? I'm like, I'm —
Kitchen Dwellers [38:34]
Uh, yeah. Beef, chicken liver, and apple and onion and stuff.
Matt Hoffman [38:39]
I'm Jewish, like, of Eastern European descent, so, like, chicken liver is my — yeah. Yeah, that's some good stuff. Nice. Um. What is she into as a three-year-old? Like, I have a six-year-old daughter and a ten-year-old.
Kitchen Dwellers [38:52]
Skiing. She is obsessed with skiing right now.
Matt Hoffman [38:55]
That's amazing. We've just started our girls skiing. My in-laws have a place in southern Vermont right near Mount Snow. So, like, we try to get up there around the end of the year, get them skiing. And it's like, my older daughter doesn't like not being good at stuff. Yeah. So sometimes that's motivating, and other times it's discouraging. We try to, you know, get at it in the right way. Thanks, guys. Are you coming tonight? Yeah. Nice — tonight and — oh, I might. Well, I'll talk to Stu. I don't know if we're on the list, but we'll get — oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just — yeah. He is the best tour manager, wears many hats. Um, he.
Kitchen Dwellers [39:33]
has to think about what's happening, like, in a very high level of detail — what's happening today. And at the same time, he's thinking about six months from now, a month from now. And, um, he is also a photographer.
Matt Hoffman [39:46]
Yeah. Um, I'm gonna put his pictures in a lot because I'll — yeah, I mean, he does a lot of taking pictures at the show tonight. And also, crazy thing is — he posts all the setlists and stuff because he loves that — he's our archivist. Yeah. I like how he makes the notes. So what he does every morning after the show — this is really crazy — is the whole time he's taking pictures during the show, he's mentally logging the footnotes, like the teases and just other silly shit that we do. And then he will text me his list of the notes at the end of the show, after he's editing photos, as I have to share his photos. He texts the list. He's like, are these notes right? And he remembers shit that I don't remember that we played — like, he did this morning, and I was like, yeah, it looks good to me. I guess it does. So yeah, it's great. I'm like, yeah. People think I'm like, not having a good time at a show because I'm on my phone. Oh yeah. Yeah. You're like — I'm well, yeah. I'm like — the way I write is all really, like, subjective. So like, so, um, like when I saw you guys in Philly and you did the, uh, the pre thing like with the VIP — like you were tapping your foot. Oh, yeah. You're not going to hear the boot tap on the stage, but you're there like — that's a cool detail I didn't want to forget. You know. Yeah. That's um — so, uh, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time. And I've loved getting to know you. The run has been great, and I'm just, like, sitting — thank you, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. This was fun. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Awesome.