Early 2000s New York: the Last Romantic Age of Rock’n’Roll

It’s the 1990s, and in New York, guitar music is at its nadir. But as the new millennium approaches, new bands rise out of the ashes of the past. The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, and LCD Soundsystem, are just a few of those bringing a new, powerful sound to the Big Apple.

In the middle of this renewal, however, another, wholly discordant, sound rings out over New York: that of terror on 9/11. And in the years that follow, more changes take place. Rents rise, ending the ability of upcoming musicians to live and play close by, while the advent of music downloads forces bands to find new ways to make money.

Meet Me in the Bathroom explores the rise of New York’s millennial bands, their love of music, and the essential role that friendship played in their development. Using archival footage, as well as interviews with the musicians themselves, the film charts their rise, journey through 9/11, and beyond.

The film’s co-directors, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, join Matthew Sherwood to discuss this renewal of New York’s music scene at the end of the twentieth century and the tumultuous events at the start of the twenty-first. They look at the importance of Britain to the bands, the ‘romantic’ nature of this period – a time when the lack of social media meant that bands had a greater element of mystery about them – and of New York itself. Dylan and Will discuss how they made the film, the challenges they faced, and the goldmines they found, as well as how the pandemic lockdown proved to be both a blessing and a curse.

Meet Me in the Bathroom is both an exploration and, as Matthew says, a tribute to another age in music, one more innocent, but no less powerful and authentic.

‘What we knew we could do [is] sort of viscerally bring to life the time and a sense of the culture, a sense of the differences between then and now, just through building this kind of collage of that period.’ – Dylan Southern

Time Stamps

00:00 – Trailer for Meet Me in the Bathroom
02:08 – Matthew Sherwood introduces this episode’s guests, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, and their film, Meet Me in the Bathroom
04:28 – Will explains what Meet Me in the Bathroom is about
05:39 – Dylan discusses what the music scene(s) in New York were like at the turn of the century
07:31 – Will looks at why bands came to New York
10:24 – Dylan discusses England’s ‘symbiotic’ role with the New York music scene
13:32 – Discussing what made the turn of the century the last romantic age of Rock N Roll
19:49 – Will and Dylan on how 9/11 affected New York’s musicians
23:08 – How Will and Dylan found the archive material used in Meet Me in the Bathroom
26:42 – How the pandemic affected Will and Dylan’s search for archival material
28:04 – Will discusses the interviews used in the film
29:41 – A shout out for Meet Me in the Bathroom’s hard working editors
30:00 – Dylan compares Meet Me in the Bathroom with some of their previous films
31:11 – Discussing Elizabeth Goodman’s reaction to the film
32:52 – Dylan and Will discuss their ‘key to success’
34:10 – Dylan reflects on what type of film they would like to make next
35:39 – How changing times have forced musicians to change as well
37:11 – Old and new ways of discovering bands

Resources:

Meet Me in the Bathroom
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures

Connect with Will Lovelace:

IMDb

Connect with Dylan Southern:

IMDb

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Transcript for Factual America Episode 135: Early 2000s New York: the Last Romantic Age of Rock’n’Roll

Speaker 1 00:05 (00:00)
What's more important: a good sound or a good time?

Speaker 2 00:09
Sounding good having a good time.

Speaker 3 00:13
I remember thinking, maybe New York isn't the kind of city anymore that produces iconic bands.

Speaker 4 00:19
The Strokes launched a fireball.

Speaker 5 00:22
Started playing New York a year ago. We've been tearing stuff up.

Speaker 6 00:27
A lot of people quit their jobs and just were like, I'm gonna play music full time.

Speaker 7 00:31
We felt like we were gonna take over the world.

Speaker 8 00:35
People went crazy for it.

Speaker 9 00:36
Suddenly nerd bands everywhere. It all happened so fast.

Speaker 10 00:42
We're ready. Right team? Go team.

Speaker 11 00:57
Julian was telling me how scared he was. Things were never going to be normal for him again.

Speaker 12 01:07
Being a woman fronting a rock band, I was sensationalised.

Speaker 13 01:14
There was a lot of tension in the studio.

Speaker 14 01:15
He said you really don't want people to hear this.

Speaker 15 01:18
But I've lived in fear my whole life, and I had nothing to lose.

Speaker 16 01:27
You could feel the love from the community.

Speaker 17 01:30
You could fail, and it didn't matter.

Speaker 18 01:32
It was about freedom.

Speaker 19 01:33
It became our home.

Speaker 20 01:37
Those years were the big bang of my life.

Speaker 21 02:01
You guys want to be in a documentary?

Matthew Sherwood 02:08 (02:08)
That was the trailer for the feature documentary, Meet Me in the Bathroom. And this is Factual America. I'm your host Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary, and then talk to the filmmakers and their subjects. Meet Me in the Bathroom is an immersive journey through the New York music scene of the early 2000s. When bands like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, and LCD Soundsystem, just to name a few, kickstarted a musical rebirth for New York City. Join us as we talk with directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, as we step back 20 years to a time before social media when bands performed simply for the love of music. Sounds like a dream, doesn't it? Stay tuned.

Matthew Sherwood 02:53
Will and Dylan, welcome to Factual America, how are things with you? Dylan. Illustrating what we were talking about before we started this. I didn't even follow my own advice. I will start with you, Dylan. How are you?

Dylan Southern 03:10
Really good, thanks. Really glad to be on with you.

Matthew Sherwood 03:15
Okay, and Will?

Will Lovelace 03:16
Yeah, also good. Thanks for having us.

Matthew Sherwood 03:19
Are you all based in the UK?

Will Lovelace 03:23
Yes. Both based in London.

Matthew Sherwood 03:25
Okay.

Will Lovelace 03:27
So, it's still - it's - because we're now in summertime, it's still light outside. But if this goes on for a while, it'll be...

Matthew Sherwood 03:34
Yeah.

Will Lovelace 03:35
... getting dark.

Matthew Sherwood 03:35
Yeah, Dylan might have to change locations or do something, but coming to us alfresco there. Well, anyway, welcome to Factual America. It's great to finally get you guys on. Just to remind our listeners and viewers, we're talking about Meet Me in the Bathroom. It came out last year, but it's now on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, and do let me know if there are other places where people can see it. I think it's already had a theatrical release. So, I don't know if it's still in cinemas or theatres anywhere. But welcome again. Really great to have you on. Maybe we just start - for our listeners who haven't had a chance to see this film, Will, maybe start us off. Maybe you can tell us what Meet Me in the Bathroom is all about. Maybe a brief synopsis.

Will Lovelace 04:28 (04:28)
Yeah. It's a music film, a music documentary, which is sort of loosely inspired by Lizzy Goodman's book of the same title, which came out I think in 2017. And it's an immersive view into, or an immersive journey into the New York music scene around the kind of turn of the millennium. So, the years from 1999 onwards, when, you know, there seemed to be a kind of musical explosion in New York. Lots of different bands kind of coming through at that point. So, that yeah, that's the film.

Matthew Sherwood 05:09
Okay. And Dylan, maybe set the scene for us because - I mean, I actually used to go to - went to New York quite a bit in the late 90s, and even was in Alphabet City, although, my friends obviously weren't taking me to the right clubs, because I don't remember seeing any of these - any of these bands. But what was New York like, leading up to this sort of musical explosion that you guys document for us? I mean, what was the music scene like in New York before, you know, these guys, some of these bands hit?

Dylan Southern 05:39 (05:39)
Yeah, I mean, you know, speaking to them all, specifically, you know, these are guitar bands, and they come from a kind of - a certain lineage, and I think, for people that kind of were into that kind of music, New York seemed pretty dead in the late 90s. You know, I think culturally, guitar music was in a bit of a nadir. And there's a lot of like, pop-punk kind of stuff happening in, you know, that was popular in the general community. I mean, New York's always vibrant for music, you know. There's not stuff going on with guitars, there's stuff going on in hip-hop, or jazz, or whatever. So, I'm sure there was like, some amazing scenes happening at that point. But the general feeling for the people in the bands that we cover, who at that point, were arriving in New York, you know, with expectations that they'd sort of built up, you know, looking back to the Stooges, and CBGBs, and all that kind of stuff. I think when they got to New York, they're like, oh, you know, it isn't quite what it was. And I think that vacuum is one of the things that led to the creation of this scene at that point.

Matthew Sherwood 06:55
Yeah. And Will, I mean, yeah; so, this sort of - I mean, as you say, Dylan, I mean, let's face it, I mean, New York's a very vibrant city, it always will - has been, and will be, but it does seem to kind of seemingly come out of nowhere. And what was this - I mean, what was it that brought all these bands to New York, and what was the genesis? And it's not just - I mean, you highlight, obviously, The Strokes play big in this, but it's certainly not limited to them. What was - what were they - what were they tapping into, do you think?

Will Lovelace 07:31 (07:31)
Well, I think, you know - I think Dylan sort of touched upon it there. You know, New York's a city that has that amazing musical history. And so, for those bands who - or those people who came to the city, you know, I'm sure there was some, you know, it was that kind of history that they were thinking about when they arrived there. But it still had the city itself at that point. And this is one of the things that interested us about this period, the city itself was sort of about to change, you know, it was still cheap enough to live in the Lower East Side...

Matthew Sherwood 08:09
Right.

Will Lovelace 08:10
... which it wouldn't be a few years later. So, you had this, you know, this sort of situation where lots of the bands could move into the centre of New York, really, and, you know, and grow up and, you know, find out the sort of music they wanted to make. And one of the things that sort of we really liked about Lizzy's book when we read it was that it sort of felt like a series of coming of age stories, really. They all - all of these characters in their own ways, either came to the city or, you know, grew up in the city. And it was that moment that was most interesting to us, that it felt like all of these bands - actually not - they weren't as kind of, they weren't living in each other's pockets, but they were all in a similar parts of town, and were all growing up and making music.

Matthew Sherwood 09:04
Yeah. I mean, I think you make - you raise a good point. I think even in the film, one of the - I forget who it is - but someone talked about how the rents were so cheap, you could just experiment. You could do whatever you want in the music scene. And that's kind of, almost - that's unimaginable, these days, right? And it's - especially like in Brooklyn, and - we've had other, you know, like you said, there were other scenes going on. We had, you know, there's some thriving stuff going on in Brooklyn, too, in terms of rap and that kind of stuff. But it all is very similar. It's very similar, sort of socio-economic things going on at this time, late 90s, and stuff where - I mean, New York is - maybe talk more about this too, because I think that's, again, what your film's partly about as well, but where New York was then versus where it was after. After this all hit. And you guys are based in the UK. The thing that struck me - we're a UK based podcast - these very strong links to the UK. Which are - Dylan, I mean, maybe you can say more about that, because, I mean, some of them had their - if not all of them had their first successes, or some of their first big successes in the UK, and you document that well.

Dylan Southern 10:25 (10:24)
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a sort of symbiotic relationship between Britain and that scene in that, as you say, quite rightly, you know, The Strokes got signed in England before America knew about them really, and all of these bands, came to England and played to like, like, sold out shows without having released anything, or released, you know - and I think something that played a huge part in that is that in Britain, at that point, we had a very voracious music press, we had the NME, the Melody Maker, you know, lots and lots of kind of, you know, well established music magazines, and they were always looking for a scene to get behind. You know, we'd had Britpop in the 90s, which had sort of gone on its way. And again, it's sort of perfect timing, that the music press was looking for a scene to get behind, and there happened to be all of these things bubbling up in New York, and, you know, New York with its musical heritage, and to us as Brits, it has this romance about it. So, I think it was just a kind of perfect storm, that, you know, because when you look at it, it wasn't a scene in the way that you might think about a scene; like, they weren't all hanging out together, they didn't all like, you know, go to the same places. And they're actually making quite different music, you know, Interpol and Strokes, aesthetically, are very, very different. You have the whole kind of art rock thing happening in Brooklyn, and you have James Murphy, sort of fusing dance and punk. And they're all kind of different, and I think it was the British music press that kind of like, well, went, we'll can kind of put this together and present it to the world as this New York scene, and I think - I guess America is a hard country to break, you know, you can break a city or a region in America, but England, is the size of some American states. And you can, you know, if you break England then that reverberates back around the world. And I think those bands that were a big deal in New York could suddenly be seen through another, you know, through the prism of the English music press, which kind of then beams back across the Atlantic.

Matthew Sherwood 12:45 (13:32)
Well, you don't need me to confirm this, but I actually moved to the UK in September of 2001. And I hadn't actually even heard of The Strokes, but I land and like, The Strokes are everywhere. I mean, you know, that Is This It cover was everywhere. I mean, back - talking about a different era, you know, you still had music stores, right? You still had Virgin and HMV and all these places. And that's the main - that's the album cover you saw everywhere. It was the posters were everywhere, in the tube and whatnot. And I thought at first they were a British band but quickly figured out they weren't but, you know, it's - so yeah, it was very - it was a very interesting link and dynamic and it does seem like a long ago era. And I noticed that one thing that you, you know, it's in some of your - the discussions about the film is it's described as the last great romantic age of rock n roll. I think that's even on your website. What - I'll address this to both you - what made it romantic? And what made it great, and what made it the last of the great romantic ages?

Dylan Southern 13:57
So, you know, I think that quote comes from the subtitle of the book. I don't think...

Matthew Sherwood 14:03
Is that right?

Dylan Southern 14:03
... that originates with us, but, part of what we discussed when we were making this was like, could it ever happen again, you know, given that how much the world has changed in the intervening years, how we consume music, how we, you know, make music, you know, who, what, how audiences are made up now, everything's changed so significantly, that part of our sort of thesis going into the film was that it probably is the last time it would have - you know, a scene would emerge organically in a geographically specific location and have such an impact. And I think it's romantic because, I think in a way, you know, it did tap in to everything that had gone before in terms of rock and roll and that, you know, it sort of - weirdly, there's a sense even though it was all about drugs and debauchery and kind of, you know, all that cliché band stuff - when you look at it now it does have an innocence about it because it's before, you know, tech consumed our lives, and it's before - it's when bands still had some mystery, you know, you didn't see what they'd have for breakfast on their Instagram or, you know everything about them through Twitter, you know; so, I think there's a romance in that kind of mythical aspect of music, the fact that musicians and stars used to be, you know, harder to know than they are now. So, that's one aspect. And I also think, when you look at the bands in the early days, as they are in the film, these are all bands based on friendship, and based on kind of, you know, a love of music. And that's quite romantic as well, you know. Of course, they all spiral out of control and fall apart as most bands do, but there is a sense of - I think the third reason is New York itself. You know, there's an incredible - it's almost like a beacon to creative people or artists because of everything that's gone on there from, you know, Warhol and The Factory...

Matthew Sherwood 16:14
Right.

Dylan Southern 16:14
... jazz era to everything. There's a romance about the city. And I think we were quite keen to sort of look at that, but also show the reality of it as well.

Matthew Sherwood 16:26
Will, did you want to add anything?

Will Lovelace 16:28
No, I think Dylan said it better than I would. You know, I think one of the things he said there, which I agree with, is they - all of these bands, it feels like, at the beginning of their careers when we join them, it feels like they just want to make music, they're not - they haven't really got a plan about conquering the world and being huge bands; they just want to make the thing that they want to make. And I think there's something romantic in that. And yet, obviously, they become incredibly popular, but I don't think...

Dylan Southern 17:00
I think in most cases, they haven't thought about it at all, and the ramifications of the success that they have, you know, it comes as a shock to a lot of them. But I also think it's - one of the things that fascinated us about it as a story was that this is all happening in the months before the entire world is going to be looking at New York for a very different reason. And that something sort of, you know, fascinating that this is happening for all of these people, at probably one of the most tumultuous times in the city and America's history.

Matthew Sherwood 17:35
I think that actually gives us a good point to give our listeners and viewers an early break. We'll be right back with Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, the filmmakers behind Meet Me in the Bathroom. It's on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Do check it out.

Factual America Midroll 17:52
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @alamopictures to keep up-to-date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the programme, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew Sherwood 18:11
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, the filmmakers behind Meet Me in the Bathroom. You can find it on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. We were just talking about this romantic era of music as well as a romantic era for New York. You used a word that I wasn't sure we could use in terms of describing it, but it does seem appropriate: an almost an innocent age. As you, you know; it seems a bit odd given everything that you document on there, but it does feel that way. And so, yes, there are these amazing - I mean, this is all ongoing. And then 9/11 happens. And - I mean, you don't necessarily, you know, it's not the kind of doc where you just - it's not a bunch of talking heads talking about, well, this is what I felt like when, you know, planes hit the, you know, the towers, but, I mean, what is - did this influence them at all, any of these bands? You know, in terms of how they - or are they just kind of juxtaposed against what was also happening? Obviously, and you show that in terms of what was obviously happening in the world and New York specifically and what New York went through in those last - those first few years after 9/11. But it's - in that sense, besides a music scene, you are documenting the life of a city, aren't you? And the evolution of a city. Will, is that...?

Will Lovelace 19:49 (19:49)
No, I think that's exactly what we were doing. I mean, I do think it impacted them all in different ways. You know, in the film, Karen O, talks a lot about how it impacted her. We have the Kimya Dawson track, 'Anthrax', which, you know, happened, just sort of after the 9/11...

Matthew Sherwood 20:11
That's right.

Will Lovelace 20:11
... you know, and then lots of the artists talk about that kind of shift from Manhattan to Brooklyn occurring at the same time as well. So, I think in individual ways, they all, you know, deeply affected by it, as was everyone in the city, and we wanted to sort of allow them to say that in their own words, really.

Dylan Southern 20:36
Yeah, I think one of the things that was really fascinating is obviously, in the decades since it happened, we've seen kind of 9/11 from every kind of angle possible. And when we read the book in the first place, it was really interesting to see it from the perspective of a creative community, you know, and the impact it had, you know, as Will mentioned, Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs said that kind of one of the only way she could deal with the sort of anxiety she felt at the time was the release of performing onstage, you know, and then some of them, you know, the Anthrax, the song that Kimya sings, is actually a kind of a reaction to 9/11. There's a lot of an attitude of like, people being, like, shit, if this can happen in our city, let's just double down and carry on doing the thing that we loved doing, you know, and I think, to your other point, that this is a document of a city over time, so we knew going in, you know, slap bang in the middle of this story, 9/11 happens, and we can't make a film about New York in this time without kind of dealing with it. So, we knew we had to deal with it in a way by showing how it intersected with our story, and one of the most amazing pieces of archive we found was Paul from Interpol, on the day of 9/11 who, you know, whose friend had filmed them walking the streets as there's still kind of paper from the offices falling, and they're picking up leaflets about giving blood, and you get just, you know, for it to intersect directly with one of the characters in the film, it gave us licence to kind of like, go there. We didn't just want it to be, '... and then 911 happened'.

Matthew Sherwood 22:23
Exactly, exactly. I mean, in terms of this sort of tribute to another time and lost youth, you just mentioned this incredible, archival footage that you've got in this film, I mean, to me, it feels like you were there. I mean, it feels like this documentary - and in fact, I know you have the thing at the beginning where I forget which band it is, but someone said, do you guys want to be in a documentary, you know, kind of thing. But, I mean, it's amazing. Where - how'd you find this all? Where do you - you know, I mean, it's incredible. I do feel like, it's you guys were there in 2001 or '99 onwards and just filming the whole thing.

Will Lovelace 23:08 (23:08)
I mean, it would have been easier if we were there ourselves, but, yeah, I mean, we sort of - when we first read the book and decided to make it into a documentary, we kind of wrote the film, and knew key bits of archive, knew the music videos, knew the sort of obvious stuff. But we didn't - we assumed and hoped that there would be lots of other archive out there. And then that became sort of two years of our lives really to searching out this stuff, and doing it in quite a DIY way, really, because you can't just go on to, you know, an image library and find this stuff. It's like, often people, like us, in their homes, who've filmed a gig or, you know, had, you know, was a photographer who took a load of photographs or a journalist who did an interview and still had a kind of MiniDisc recording of that interview. So, it was a really...

Dylan Southern 24:10
... it was proper detective work at points, because it was finding people, pulling up old message boards from the period and finding people and then trying to figure out where they were at this point, and someone would say, Oh, I remember there's a guy with a camera who was always filming gigs. So, it was a process of like, being - of sleuthing, really; being detectives and figuring out where all this stuff was. And that takes time, and you have moments where you think, oh, we're not going to get anything that covers this period. How are we going to do that? And then something amazing will come in at the last minute. But yeah, we always said we want to build this entirely from material that comes from the time so it doesn't just end up being sort of typical...

Matthew Sherwood 24:58
Right.

Dylan Southern 24:59
... you know, behind the music kind of documentary, where it's 'wasn't it great back then'; we wanted it to sort of feel like you were there and immerse people in that moment in time.

Will Lovelace 25:10
I mean, one thing that sort of made it difficult, but in the end worked in our favour was that when this was happening, there were, there was no - YouTube didn't exist. There wasn't really a place to upload videos. So, whilst that stuff was really hard to search out, it was also stuff that no one had ever seen before. You know, quite often it was, you'd find - you'd get in touch with someone, and they had never looked back at the tapes that they'd shot. There was a photographer called Nancy Saruth, who had shot tonnes of stuff with lots of these bands, and had a kind of suitcase full of tapes and rolls of films and so on that she'd never looked at since it was shot. And there was a few instances like that, where you'd get a kind of goldmine of stuff, which was amazing. And then at other times, the bands themselves would try and point us in the right direction, like James Murphy said, of their first show in London, yeah, someone was definitely filming; there's a guy there right out front with a camera. So, we knew it existed, but didn't necessarily know how, where to find it.

Matthew Sherwood 26:21
And how did you find that guy?

Dylan Southern 26:24
That's a good question. Trying to remember.

Will Lovelace 26:27 (26:42)
It was one of the one - we should remember, because it was right near the end of the editing, the edit. But yeah, that was - it was, you know, again, someone mentioning a name, and that person who mentioned - you know, it was a lot of that, and - I mean, it was fun. It also took place, just as lock down happened. We started the edit...

Dylan Southern 26:47
I was going to say... yeah, it was kind of - it was a disaster at first because we were going to go to New York, and we were going to kind of like, do a lot of this sort of hunting in New York, but then it proved to be sort of beneficial, because everyone was stuck at home, everyone had time to go up into their attics, or to look in the kind of, you know, look through their old stuff. And I think also that first lockdown made everyone slightly nostalgic as well. And like, people were very, very open to kind of helping us and I think we got a lot more archive than we would have, if people hadn't been, you know, locked into their homes, and, you know, if they'd been doing their nine-to-fives, or they'd been out on tour or whatever, we probably wouldn't have ended up with as much great archive as we did.

Matthew Sherwood 27:41
And as, you know, as you say, people being more open. I mean, is that also when you're doing these audio interviews: is that about that same time? Because - and, I mean, it's interspersed and voiced over throughout the film, but seems like you pretty much got everyone - was seemed pretty keen - was everyone keen to cooperate? Because it seems like you've got just about everyone coming?

Will Lovelace 28:04 (28:04)
Yeah, I mean, the majority of the - of what you hear of - the audio interviews are kind of actually built from recordings we found from, you know, same period the film takes place. So, we went - we did a process of finding every interview that anyone had ever done, you know, radio, television, whatever. And then we also decided to contact all the print journalists who had interviewed people and asked them if they still had their recordings on MiniDisc or whatever format that was.

Dylan Southern 28:36
We're doing a lot of work with MiniDisc, which...

Will Lovelace 28:40
Yeah, and so - and that was a kind of conscious decision that we wanted to have them speaking in the main at that time, rather than now looking back; so, we did do interviews, but they were kind of follow up interviews where we were, you know, where we'd already kind of...

Dylan Southern 29:03
Everyone was really, really great with giving their time and giving us their archive. And the audio interviews that we did, in the later stages of the edit, were really, really useful because, you know, no matter how good all the archive you find is, you still need little bits to kind of give you context or to sort of act as segues from one bit to the other or to clarify something that perhaps isn't as clear as it could be. So, you know, everyone was really, really great and really supportive of the project.

Matthew Sherwood 29:33
Wow. I mean, did you guys sleep? Sounds like to me, you were - well, you know...

Will Lovelace 29:41 (29:41)
The editors didn't sleep as much as they should have done, for sure. We had two editors, Andrew and Sam, who are, you know, full credit to them because they kind of worked round the clock as well. But yeah, it was a long - it was a long project, a lot of late nights, definitely!

Dylan Southern 30:00 (30:00)
And it was a very different way of working because we've made, you know, music documentaries before. We made one about Blur, which was, you know, did have talking heads interviews, and it had a live element in that it was the band's reunion tour. But then it also had archive to tell the band's history, but it was perhaps more a traditional documentary. And then the next one we made, Shut Up and Play the Hits, was more of a concert film with documentary elements. So, this was the first time we'd worked entirely in archive. And, you know, it's such a different process, you know; we had an idea of the story we wanted to tell, we wrote it, we did a kind of writers' room at the beginning, and we had our kind of vision of the film we wanted to make, and then you have to set out trying to find the stuff that you need to make it and, you know, sometimes that stuff is hard to find, sometimes you don't find it at all, sometimes you find something that sends you in a slightly different direction. And, you know, everyone on it sort of has to be prepared to adapt and to kind of, like, you know, build this thing in good faith, hoping at the end of the edit that we'll have it.

Matthew Sherwood 31:11 (31:11)
What does Lizzy, think of this - of the film?

Will Lovelace 31:16
I hope she likes it. I think she does. Yeah, she was, you know, a big part of the whole process, was very helpful. You know, with both getting us kind of going, introducing us to people, watching edits and all that stuff. So yeah, Lizzy was great, really.

Dylan Southern 31:38
And she was with us when we did the premieres in America and stuff. She's like, she was there, at every one doing the Q&As with us; so, I think she really enjoyed the process of making it. And I think she'd lived with it for so long. I think it took her like, six years to write the book or something. So, she was just sort of excited to see the story in someone else's hands, and see how [...] you know, and we didn't want to just remake the book in sort of documentary form; like, our whole thing was, like, the book as an oral history, that's what books do best, you know, it has that [...] quality of a sort of dialogue going on between lots of people. And, you know, that Rashomon quality that, you know, everyone's got their side of the story, and the truth is somewhere in the middle, and like, the book does that wonderfully. What we knew we could do, as filmmakers, is something that the book can't do; you know, it can do it in people's imaginations, but we could actually sort of viscerally bring to life, the time and, you know, a sense of the culture, a sense of the differences between then and now, just through building this kind of collage of that period.

Matthew Sherwood 32:52 (32:52)
And you guys, I note that you - you've already mentioned you do a lot of collaborations together. I mean, what's the key to success? You know, maybe I'm gonna open up a can of worms here, but what is the key to success as collaborators? I mean, is it - I mean, one thing that the film shows is, you know, all these creative differences and things that bands have and the conflicts and stuff. I mean, what is the - but often, that there's something about that tension that leads to creative success. What is it like for you guys collaborating on these projects?

Dylan Southern 33:27
We hate each other.

Matthew Sherwood 33:28
Yeah, you hate each other, yeah.

Will Lovelace 33:30
Certainly, yeah, you just gotta get through it.

Matthew Sherwood 33:36
I mean, maybe the other way I should put it is, and I feel like, you know, getting ready for this chat we're having, I kept worrying that I was - you've got some great scenes in there where you've got really, I mean, at least I found them annoying music journos asking questions - just really stupid questions. So, I've just kept thinking, don't ask the really stupid question, don't - you know, don't be like one of those guys that you have on there. But what is - you guys are gonna keep collaborating? What's next for you guys in terms of projects?

Dylan Southern 34:10 (34:10)
Yeah. I mean, we're sort of searching for a new - we've done several music documentaries. And, you know, our hope is that the next documentary we make will not be a music one. Not because we don't like music documentaries. It's just because, you know, we've told stories of that genre and in that world before, and I think it'd be nice to kind of open out to something new. So, we've been discussing a few ideas, but nothing's kind of, like, concrete yet.

Will Lovelace 34:42
And as much as it was great fun making an archive only documentary from 20 years ago, I'm not sure...

Dylan Southern 34:50
We might wait another 20 years.

Will Lovelace 34:51
Exactly, yeah.

Dylan Southern 34:53
Although we won't have any problems getting archive in 20 years’ time for bands today. It would be the opposite problem.

Matthew Sherwood 35:01
Well, I mean, not to - I will be, but not to sound like the old man in the room, but that's the thing that I, you know, a lot of people say, and you were saying this, or Lizzy maybe said it first, but about this romantic age and what the bands - bands just wanted to make music. I mean, the thing I've heard is that there's a lot of people who - I mean, there's a lot of great artists out there, don't get me wrong, and a lot of these - most of these bands, I think, are still performing, but there are a lot of people who are trying to - it's all about - their thinking first in terms of getting famous and less about music, or - so, it is about getting on Instagram or Tik Tok, or whatever...

Dylan Southern 35:39 (35:39)
I mean, so much has changed, like, you know, 20 years ago, the notion of like, a sort of respected artist, doing a sponsorship deal with a brand or, you know, it could never have happened, it would have been, you know, sacrilege, or it would have been like that - you know, it would have dented that person's reputation. But now, if you don't have a kind of like, brand sponsorship, or a hook up with some kind of corporate entity, then you're not, you know, I guess because there are so - you know, the revenue streams from live and from releasing records is so kind of low now. But, yeah, no, it's a completely different world. It's - yeah, these guys in our documentary were making fliers and photocopying them. Now you can, you know, and probably 100 people might pick them up and see them. Now you just stick it on social media, and, you know, building an audience is a very, very different thing now, and getting people's attention is a very different thing, and has to be sort of constant, to the point where, as I was saying earlier, like, there's no mystery to musicians anymore, there's no kind of sense of them occupying a different space, which is good in some ways, but bad in other ways, because you do want a, you know, you do want a Bowie or a Bob Dylan; you know, you don't necessarily need to know.

Matthew Sherwood 37:11 (37:11)
And I guess for some of us who aren't musicians, but love to go to see bands, and live music and everything, it's almost kind of a lost innocence for us as well, because there was that - us of a certain age - of that joy of going to some club in a really bad neighbourhood, and you and one of maybe four or five other people watching this band, you're thinking, oh, they're going to be the next great thing. And, you know, and then they didn't end up being the next great thing. But, you know, there was something about that, that is - I mean, does that happen anymore, really?

Will Lovelace 37:45
Well, I think that's what was so exciting about this, is that this film is that it felt to us a little bit like the last sort of time that if you wanted to go and watch those bands, or discover that music in its infancy you had to be in the city or had to be in and around the city, whereas now I don't think that makes any difference. You can find out about, listen to, watch any artist from anywhere in the world. I mean, I'm sure there are loads of really interesting scenes happening that we're not aware of.

Dylan Southern 38:16
I'm sure there's a version of that going on somewhere, you know, for - yeah, but I'd say sort of the, across the board, like, people discover bands by algorithms now. And, you know, whether that's as exciting as walking into a, you know, sweaty club and feeling like something's happening, you know, and getting that energy off everybody else in the room, which I'm sure still goes on, but - I don't know, we're old now, so, probably, don't know where.

Matthew Sherwood 38:55
And what I will say is, I think, on many levels, but your film certainly captures that, I will say - I mean, it took me back. That energy of going into clubs and seeing bands like this perform. So, again, and to fans or not - or fans, or people are not even fans of that scene or these bands, it's definitely well worth the watch. So, thanks again. Really, very much appreciated. Thanks for coming on to the podcast. Great to finally get you guys on. And just to remind our listeners and viewers we've been talking with Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, the filmmakers behind Meet Me in the Bathroom. You can find it on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Guys, that's a wrap if it's okay with you. Thanks again, really enjoyed it. And really enjoyed the film. And yeah, look forward to - if we haven't scared you away if you - it may not be a music doc next time but, yeah, definitely look forward to the next project, and love to have you on again sometime.

Dylan Southern 39:59
Brilliant. Thank you so much.

Matthew Sherwood 40:00
All right, take care.

Will Lovelace 40:01
Thanks a lot.

Matthew Sherwood 40:04
I also would like to thank those who help make this podcast possible. A big shout out to Sam and Joe at Innersound Audio in York, England. Big thanks to Amy Ord, our podcast manager at Alamo Pictures, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show, and that everything otherwise runs smoothly. Finally, a big thanks to our listeners. Many of you have been with us for four incredible seasons. Please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. Please also remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.

Factual America Outro 40:45
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures, specialising in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guests, and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @alamopictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films, and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk