Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life. I'm Rhett Miller.

That's when it got wheels off. We started up and we ain't going to starve us. I like you.

I could like it or not. That's when they got wheels off. I spoke to Chuck Prophet from his home in San Francisco, where he's locked down, unable even to go to his office there in San Francisco.

But he's in good spirits, and he's still feeling somewhat creative, and it was great to talk to him. One of the

hardest things about the global pandemic for me personally is that I miss seeing and talking to

other musicians and other artists and getting to do these conversations for

wheels off has been one of the main ways that I've felt a little more normal. So talking to Chuck

was like talking to an old friend. Well, I guess it was literally talking to an old friend. I guess it was literally talking to an old friend.

And our conversation gets pretty relaxed.

He reached out to me after we recorded this,

concerned that some of the jokes he made

and some of the songs he referenced specifically a loud

in Wayne Wright song that you'll hear in the

interview might come across as being too flip, too like casual in terms of the way he was referencing,

you know, kind of tricky subject matter. This happens a lot in bands and in music and in green

rooms. My band Old 97's used to joke that we have a karma filter on our old white van that we toured around in because, you know, musicians, especially if it's just a bunch of dudes, and I don't mean to make it gender because my drummer Angela can, you know, keep up with

all of the grossest dudes. But we, musicians, tend to be like 14-year-olds. So sometimes the

jokes can get pretty crass. And it's a Peter Pan syndrome kind of thing. Anyway, Chuck was worried that people might take it out of context.

I think that he was being serious.

I can't speak for him, but I know Chuck Prophet is a good dude.

He has spent his life since his first band Green on Red in the 1980s

and his career as a songwriter and an artist

...