Hi there, friends, and welcome to episode 153 of Just the Zoo of Us.

This week, I am joined by a personal icon of mine, a musician whose work has soundtracked my life for many years,

and he's also an artist whose comics you may have seen floating around on social media,

and, of course, a birder here to chat with me about the touring musicians of the

North American skies Sand Hill cranes.

We talk about the mental health benefits of birding, how crane couples keep their romance alive,

what a musical interpretation of their iconic call might sound like, and way more.

There is just so much to love about these incredible animals that, as Jukebox the ghost says,

I will not hold it in.

Just the Zoo of Us presents Sandhill Cranes with Tommy Siegel.

Music with Tommy Siegel. Hey everybody. It is Ellen Weatherford. I am here with Just the Zoo of Us. This is your favorite animal review podcast. And this week, I almost can't even express how excited I am because this is an episode of great

personal significance to me as a person. This week we have a brand new friend who, some

of you all may already be familiar with your work. This is Tommy Siegel. Say hi, Tommy.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for being here. Can I get your pronouns real quick?

He him.

Thank you so much. So Tommy, I'm going to walk our listeners through how I came to know of you,

which is through your music. You are the guitarist

and the songwriter for the best band in the entire world, Jukebox the Ghost. Can you introduce

our friends to Jukebox the Ghost a little bit? Wow. No pressure, right? Yeah, no pressure at all.

Yeah, so I play guitar and sing and jukebox the ghost. We've been a band for over 15 years. It's just the three of us, and we're kind of like a piano pop band. Some people say we sound kind of like queen, but we do our own thing. That's just, it's just easy to be able to toss a band comparison in there. Yeah, we just came out with our sixth album, which is called Cheers. And it's incredibly good.

Thanks. I just say that Hey, Maude is like one of my favorite songs I've ever heard. I've probably listened to it 500 times already. That's awesome. I've heard y'all's sound described as power pop. Yeah. Is that a thing? It's a thing. We never know how to describe our band because we sort of, you know, you know our music.

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