What are some songs you potentially could do, that you decided not to?

Justin: The more country sounding old-time songs. Some song like "Ground Hog." The more bluegrass sounding songs we steer away from.

Walker: Everyone thinks we’re a bluegrass band but we’re not, the proof is in the fact that we can’t play bluegrass for shit. We don’t sing in high whiny voices and Justin mostly plays claw-hammer style instead of picking...we don’t have a mandolin.

Where do you go for your songs?

Walker: Old recordings. The Smithsonian Anthology of Folk Music is just a gold mine. There’s an album called Mountain Music of Kentucky that’s another gold mine for us. Old
Time Music at Clarence Ashley's—there are a lot of good songs on there. Records from the Pratt Library that Jay and I used to get out...Listening to [WAMU-FM in Washington's]The Dick Spottswood Show. But also I really like to meet people who know songs and get them to teach them to me. If Jay brings a song to practice I always insist that he not play the recording for me so I can learn his interpretation of it, and (then have my own) interpretation. Giving the music a chance to evolve more rather than trying to imitate other performers. When we're at practice we'll play anything. We sing Beck songs and Bob Dylan songs, but as far as playing at the shows...

Justin: Walker and Jay pretty much bring everything to the table.

Paul: That's why it's The Walker and Jay Show.

Walker: It's just that me and Jay have been playing together for such a long time that we have a huge repertoire. We've only been playing with these guys for, it'll be a year in January, and in that time we've only scratched the surface of the songs that me and Jay already know how to play together.

Content-wise what do you look for in a song?

Walker: Murder, suicide, love, downright silliness...

All: Downright silliness!

Justin: Absurdity, rowdiness.

Walker: I think one thing that distinguishes us from a lot of bands that play old-time music is the emotional intensity we try to give the songs. These songs that people have played hundreds of times, there are so many standardized versions of them that are just re-hashes...take for example that song "Goin' Down the Road, Feelin' Bad"...

Justin: People sing it and they're so happy sounding.

Walker: There are a lot of bluegrass versions of that where they don't sound like they are feeling that bad at all. I don't wanna do that. If I hear a song and think, "That's a hell of a sentiment," then I'll play it, but anything less than that, and it's not worth playing... I think the music should always be influenced by the story. Like that song we were working on before—it’s about this guy who’s really sad. He’s trying to talk to this girl who won’t even talk to him. That’s why I like to play it in a way where it sounds like it’s hard to even get the words out. It was so weird when people laughed during that song:

“If the women were squirrels
with high bushy tails
I’d fill up my shotgun
with rock-salt and nails”

But it’s funny.

Walker: This guy’s been betrayed and he’s just full of rage and pain.

Justin: But it makes sense that people laughed. It’s a clever lyric in a way... Plus it was heartfelt. If you’d done it funny no one would’ve laughed.

It’s also just not romantic at all. And people are used to a lot of romantic sentiment, especially when they think of old-time songs.

Justin: But that’s not true at all in folk music. Romance in folk music is so skewed in so many ways.

Walker: The truth is that people want to get sentimental and remember a time past when things were simple and easy to understand. But the world has always been a fucked up place.

Justin: But with popular music it was different. Like with Tin Pan Alley songwriters—that’s all very sentimental.

Walker: Right. They’re giving people what they want. A neat and orderly world where everything makes sense.

It's been said that nostalgia increases at times of political turmoil and war, and that young people are always "discovering" the culture of the past as their own next big thing. What do you say to that?

Walker: That might be true in terms of audience acceptance, that right now there's a market for it because there's a certain level of instability in the world. But it's not like traditional music disappears in between those periods. There's a whole culture and a whole community of people that dedicate their lives to it.

What are some choices you have in playing the music in a way that makes it your own?

Justin and Walker: Changing the tempo, playing with the arrangement... we sometimes change the words to suit our personal experiences.

Paul: I have fewer choices. Bass is kind of about letting go of your ego. Sometimes when I was younger I'd wanna show off a little, but it's really all about doing what's right for the song.

Walker: That's why these guys were perfect for Jay and I to include in what we were doing. We easily could have found people who'd been playing old-time music for years, people who were virtuosic on their instruments...The thing that's great about these guys is that they appreciate that the goal is to treat the song the best way the song can be treated...The songs will persevere well past when we're done with them. When we're no longer alive the songs will still be there. Us as people, we're just instruments to the songs. They're playing us.

That one you just played (“Sweethearts in Heaven”)—is that fun to do? It looked like it.

Walker: It’s fun as all hell. It’s more fun with Jay, cause he’s crazy. He does this thing on the fiddle (imitates a violin solo that escalates wildly in the end) that’s really cool.

You were in the music huddle.

Walker: Yeah the folk music huddle where we can all really hear each other. We’re saving up for one of those mics that we could just stand around and face each other. I think the spirit of old-time music is right there in the huddle.

Paul: You can feel the energy.

Justin: You can hear everything perfectly too.

Walker: [The last time] we played it was a bitch. Jay was standing between me and Justin. I couldn’t see or hear him. It was as though he wasn’t even there. To not be able to see or hear Justin is like trying to play guitar with your arm cut off.

Justin: Awww. That’s sweet.

Paul: Or like one of your fingers smashed with a hammer?

Justin: I’m the whole arm!

Walker: It’s tough playing in clubs, cause the real meat and potatoes of our whole style is these fast songs. Jay and I kinda developed that style from playing on the street down at Fell’s Point, which we used to do for years before we ever played shows. When you [play on the street] it requires you to grab people’s attention, otherwise they’ll just keep walking. So you develop this way of playing really fast and really loud, just basically taking all the intricacies of bluegrass technique out and just pounding on our instruments and singing as loud as you can. It’s really hard to get that energy across when you’re up on stage and there’s all these people watching you like (crosses arms and stares). The energy of the huddle doesn’t leave the stage even if you get it up there on the stage. What ends up happening is, our slow and sad songs go over a lot better than our other stuff.

Thank you all so much.

Paul: You should hear us rehearse sometime when Jay’s here.

Walker: But he wouldn’t have answered your questions anyway. He would’ve just played.