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[0:05] Joe Iconis: Hi, I'm Joe Iconis, and this is my co-host.

[0:09] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Jennifer Ashley Tepper. Today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about a song that Joe wrote in 2010 called The Protector, as sung by the great Jason SweetTooth Williams. This song pays tribute to a state that's very near and dear to my heart.

[0:22] Joe Iconis: Indeed, and it also holds the distinction of being the song that more than any other song on the album, people have said is really creepy.

[0:31] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: That's quite an accomplishment.

[0:33] Joe Iconis: I'm proud of it.

[0:37] Joe Iconis: I clear my mind. I down scotch.

[0:44] Joe Iconis: The Protector.

[0:46] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, when did you write The Protector? It was 2010?

[0:49] Joe Iconis: 2010. Yes, precisely.

[0:50] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[0:52] Joe Iconis: I wrote this song with Jason SweetTooth Williams in mind. And it's, you know, it's of, I feel like a lot of my songs are these character snapshots that have a very sort of clear set up, like they're living in a clear space.

[1:19] Joe Iconis: The character's issue is front and center. And it's kind of sort of easy to understand exactly what's going on. The Protector is a song that I kind of knew what it was about when I started writing it, but I wanted to be intentionally vague.

[1:39] Joe Iconis: And so it, I think, is kind of this weird sort of in-between song where it very much is a character song and it very much is a sort of portrait of a man. But it is more purposefully vague insofar as what is literally going on than a lot of the other songs on the album.

[1:58] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: What kind of direction did you give to Jason about it, given that that was how you felt about the song?

[2:04] Joe Iconis: I mean, you know, the collaboration that I have with Jason is, it's one that we just, we truly understand each other so deeply that he tends to, he just gets it. So it's like, I remember I sent him the song and then we met for a drink at Fusion, which was a bar on 10th Avenue right by Ars Nova that has long since closed.

[2:39] Joe Iconis: But I remember us talking about the song and him being so excited by it and just being like, oh, I think it means this and I think it means this and I think it means this. And we were like, we could talk about it like it was something that neither of us were involved with, you know what I mean? And so, and he just sort of inherently got it.

[2:58] Joe Iconis: He got that it's a guy who sees his own weaknesses or his own demons in someone younger and he's trying to steer them away. And that was kind of all he needed to know to act the song. And then we just, you know, we talked about what it could, what it could mean.

[3:23] Joe Iconis: I get, I never thought of it this way because I don't think of like lyrics are not poetry, but it is in terms of the vagueness. It is like more akin to poetry than most of your songs, especially in the end when you're, you know, the lyrics are listing different things and you can't quite figure out exactly how they fit into the story.

[3:39] Joe Iconis: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I am, you know, when I, when I think of it, I think of, you know, the, the sort of literal language that gets used in the song. I think it, it establishes, I guess, maybe really not till the end, but we're in a, you know, in a kitchen like late at night. And that's where I think the song takes place in a house, I think.

[3:58] Joe Iconis: And, but, but yeah, it's, and it's, I guess it's hard to talk about because of that, you know, it's like a song that because it is sort of intentionally vague. And I, I know what I, I know, you know, what I thought the scenario was, but I kind of don't want to, I don't want to say because I think it's, I think that it's, it's like, it really has nothing.

[4:21] Joe Iconis: It's none of, it's none of my business how anyone interprets the song. You know, it really is like, it's meant to just kind of be what it is and whatever you think about the song is, is correct. You know, whatever you take away from it is correct.

[4:35] Joe Iconis: And sometimes it's like, and I, when I think about the song, I think about, you know, when you're sort of learning how to write musical theater or when you're, you know, just someone who's interested in music. Like when I was a young, when I was a young man and, and reading as much as I could about musicals and, and, and, you know, listening to like interviews with the greats.

[4:59] Joe Iconis: One of the things was always, one of the things that seemed so important. One of the things that felt like, well, you have to be able to do this in a musical is this idea of like, you should, you should be able to like sum up your musical in one sentence or, or you should, you should, or what people would always ask, like, what is the audience supposed to get from this?

[5:22] Joe Iconis: Right. And I, and I always like pinged me because I always felt like, well, I, I think, you know, if you're, whether you're writing one song or a full musical, it should of course be clear and you should, of course, you know, you should know what you're doing. But I do think that there are many musicals where audiences get different things from them depending on the person, you know, and I think that that's great.

[5:44] Joe Iconis: And I think that actually is the thing that, that is a hallmark of a great musical when two audience members can have two different experiences from the same show. And so The Protector is like one of those songs to me, or, you know, it's like, if we want to think of all these songs as mini musicals, it's one where I just feel like the, the strength of it is that it's not over explaining.

[6:04] Joe Iconis: The strength of it is that you can't talk about it in one sentence. And the strength of it is that two people can listen to it and have two totally different ideas about what the thing is, is about. And that feels correct to me.

[6:19] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I really think of kind of this song in this time of like 2010 as sort of a turning point in your writing songs for specific people and voices and like maybe doing that a little more. I feel like around the time of like The Protector, you know, obviously other people can perform it, other people have performed it, but like writing a song on not just an actor's voice or like range, but also their, you know, specific qualities and abilities and just that kind of, I always think of like Elaine Stritch and The Ladies Who Lunch of like, how am I going to show what I want to say and like what an actor can do that only I know they can do and use all of those things to kind of like create a new piece.

[7:01] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I don't know, do you feel like that kind of started in 2010 at all?

[7:05] Joe Iconis: Yeah, it definitely started more in 2010. I think also just because I, you know, by 2010 I had had a few years of actually getting to work and make art with a lot of these actors who I, you know, still work with. And so I had always loved this idea of writing theater and, you know, writing songs for specific actors who I loved and I, you know, so many of the artists who I idolized like Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson, they had this kind of stable of actors and I always felt like, oh, that's such an amazing way to make art, I would love to, you know, be lucky enough to do that in my career.

[7:43] Joe Iconis: And then I found myself having that, you know, and so then it was sort of like, it was kind of, you know, making good on the promise of writing for actors and I just kind of couldn't help it, you know. And during that time I really, I was very, you know, very prolific and I was just writing a ton and it was inspiring to me to have these people who I love so much and, you know, to be able to write to their abilities and their strengths and all that.

[8:10] Joe Iconis: It also overlapped with, you know, The Protector obviously was written when, you know, Blood Song of Love was happening at Ars Nova. And I think if not the first, some of the first times The Protector was performed was in the Ars Nova Penthouse during their showgasm, like post-show concerts.

[8:25] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And I feel like almost probably everyone in Blood Song of Love had a song like this around that time, right before, during Blood Song, right after that was this kind of, oh, I like wrote this on you, even as you were also doing like a new musical with those folks.

[8:40] Joe Iconis: Yeah, very much so. I mean, and that also, I think it's just, you know, as we talked about, like, I just love actors. I love what they can do and I love, you know, I love exploiting all the different shades of their talent.

[8:54] Joe Iconis: And I think that, I think that probably one of the reasons why I did end up writing so much for that Blood Song cast was because I was getting to, you know, work with them every day making a musical. And I was so excited by their performances in that musical. But it's like, you know, someone in a musical can only do so much.

[9:12] Joe Iconis: It's like you can't, you know, show every side of every person in a musical. And I think I just, whether I knew it or not, wanted more. You know, so it's like, and I guess the songs that I kind of wrote for people, you know, whether it was like Party Hat or, or...

[9:25] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Was Dirty Little Things around that time?

[9:26] Joe Iconis: Dirty Little Things, yeah. It's like I wanted to like, you know, I wanted to, to make use of the person's talent and then give them something else to do. Something that they, that is kind of different from what they were doing in Blood Song.

[9:39] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[9:40] Joe Iconis: I think there's like, there's quite a few songs on this album that would fall into that category.

[9:43] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Maybe Norman also?

[9:44] Joe Iconis: Yeah, 100%.

[9:45] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[9:46] Joe Iconis: 100%. That was that exact time.

[9:48] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I also have a lot of memories of our longtime stage manager, Sarah Barnes. Like, she loves this song so much. And when you wrote this song, you told me like, oh, you're going to have a reaction to some of the lyrics in the refrain.

[9:59] Joe Iconis: Like, it was the first time you ever were like, you're going to have a reaction to this song.

[10:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: So Sarah Barnes always, sorry, I guess spoiler, calls this song in Florida and laughs a lot in the audience when that song, that part of the song starts getting sung. So everyone from Blood Song was just like very much part of these songs that were written at that time.

[10:16] Joe Iconis: Yeah, for sure.

[10:17] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And, and yeah, how does the song make you feel as someone from Florida?

[10:23] Joe Iconis: I feel like maybe I understood immediately that it was like a kaleidoscope of different, it feels like a lot of different characters.

[10:32] Joe Iconis: And I can very much picture them in Florida because of the way that the song is written.

[10:37] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[10:38] Joe Iconis: Yeah, I've, I've like had a, I've almost felt like different people listening to this song over time. Because like, I sometimes think it's about one thing and then I sometimes think it's about another thing. All very much colored by my Floridian existence.

[10:50] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, I love this song.

[10:52] Joe Iconis: Thanks.

[10:53] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It also related to the like actor thing. I feel like it was around this time that like you and Jason taught me about the greatness that is Philip Seymour Hoffman. And I feel like I actually like being someone who hadn't seen a lot of his movies other than maybe Almost Famous. I kind of started to understand more of like how you wanted to embody the movie world for the musical theater world from like learning about him.

[11:21] Joe Iconis: I don't know. Like, I don't, I guess if Philip Seymour Hoffman was a musical theater actor, he could have sung this song is where I'm going with this. Like, this is kind of like a Philip Seymour Hoffman song.

[11:27] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Like a hundred percent.

[11:30] Joe Iconis: And when, you know, and I always like, I frequently said that Jason SweetTooth Williams is my Philip Seymour Hoffman, you know.

[11:36] Joe Iconis: And this is like the most like Philip Seymour Hoffman-esque song.

[11:40] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I love that you said that because I do think it is like weirdly infused with his spirit.

[11:45] Joe Iconis: Okay.

[11:46] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Is there any other song that you feel like, oh, there's like an actor that wouldn't actually maybe sing this in a similar way, but who could inspire this song?

[11:54] Joe Iconis: Maybe just some of the actors who played the original roles in some of the movies that then inspired.

[11:59] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[12:00] Joe Iconis: I mean, there's, yeah, there's definite ones.

[12:02] Joe Iconis: Like, I think that, I mean, another SweetTooth song, but like the werewolf song, I feel like John Goodman.

[12:08] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Oh, totally.

[12:09] Joe Iconis: I think of John Goodman when I think of that song.

[12:12] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[12:13] Joe Iconis: Yeah.

[12:15] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[12:16] Joe Iconis: Happy Halloween.

[12:17] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: The Protector.

[12:18] Joe Iconis: The Protector.

[12:21] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: So many Halloween songs.

[12:22] Joe Iconis: Yeah.

[12:23] Joe Iconis: Hey, thanks so much for listening or watching to my podcast. Do me a favor and go to wherever you just listen to or watch this thing and subscribe or like or give us a great rating or review and then head to bpn.fm/slash album to find out even more information about this podcast.

[12:40] Joe Iconis: More ways to watch more ways to listen and check out my album album. Thanks so much for hanging out. Album podcast is executive produced by Liz Armstrong produced by Dori Berenstain, Alan Seals, Kim Garris, and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network.

[12:55] Joe Iconis: Be sure to visit bpn.fm/slash album for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to album.