Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.

I'm Rhett Miller.

Josh Rouse is a songwriter.

He and I have a lot of similarities.

Sometimes it seems like the universe features these archetypes of people.

And if that's true, I think Josh and I are slotted into an archetype together.

We're close in age.

We've dedicated our lives to this craft.

We came up at the end of one sort of business model, artistic world, and we have found

ourselves now middle-aged, middle-class songwriters, working in a new

and different world. He and I have toured together. That actually happened after the recording

of this interview. So this interview is weirdly the first time we ever really connected.

Our orbits must have been elliptical and off-setting or something.

We never encountered each other before meeting up for this interview and then the subsequent

shows that we've done together, which really submitted a friendship, and I think the world

of him.

So I'm really grateful that Wheels Off gave me the opportunity to pick his brain before he

and I were ever, even in a backstage together sharing a toured itinerary.

He's a really cool, you know what, you're going to find all this stuff out.

He's great.

He's very funny, very down-to-earth, sweet guy.

So please enjoy this Wheels Off interview with Josh Rouse.

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