Guestsplaining: The Hillbilly Thomists on Preaching Through Music | Fr. Jacob-Bertrand Janczyk
September 30, 2024
Fr. Jonah: Thanks. Great to be here.
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Thank you so much. Great to be here.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Why don’t we start by, well, you both were on the podcast. I don’t know, a couple of years ago now, was it?
Fr. Jonah: Yeah, it was a while back.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, let’s, you’re both super famous, but for those who might not know the Hillbilly Thomists or whatever, why don’t we start with a little intro? Yeah, if you can introduce yourselves to our listeners, that’d be great.
Fr. Jonah: Sure, well, I’m the, I’m the less super famous of the two of us. I am a priest of four years now. There’s a, May 23rd is my fourth anniversary priesthood. I’m currently serving as Parochial Vicar at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Greenwich Village in downtown Manhattan. And I’m the fourth best guitarist in the band. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Awesome, congrats. [laughing]
Fr. Jonah: Yeah, thank you. Notice that he’s not disputing that. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, nor I. [laughing]
Fr. Thomas Joseph: I agree with that. No, yeah, yeah. (laughs) Yeah, I’m the, Thomas Joseph White. I’m the rector at the Angelica Monroe Mar University in Rome of the Dominican Order and I teach theology here. And yeah, I’ve been a casual member of the Hillbilly Thomas from the time that it was just a hobby that we did for fun, and I’ve been really thrilled to be part of the project, and I usually play the banjo in the band.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: That’s cool. Yeah, it’s awesome. I was in formation at the House of Studies with Father Jonah, um, so we go way back.
Fr. Jonah: So many memories.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: So many memories and Father Thomas Joseph was, uh, running the Thomistic Institute and teaching at the Dominican House of Studies when I was in formation there. So a lot of memories there too, just trying to heal from all the abuse that I took. You know, that’s the process-
Fr. Jonah: [laughing] You can’t say that about seminaries. You can’t say that. You’re not allowed to say.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: If a process, no, you know, we have to be a little vulnerable-
Fr. Thomas Joseph: I thought you were treated very well. I thought you were treated very well.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: I’m sure you do.
Fr. Thomas Joseph: And, you know, I think when it comes to, you know, verbal barring, you seem to have understood the Lord’s dictum, “it is better to give than to receive.” –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: I just want to be a self gift, you know, to everybody that I encounter. So it’s a real beauty. So yeah, that’s awesome. Before we talk about, so you guys, you all have an album coming out, which we’re gonna talk about in a second. But for those, I imagine a lot of people who are listening are familiar with the Hillbilly Thomists, but some people might not be. So can you give a little intro to what the Hillbilly Thomists is, why it’s called the Hillbilly Thomists, that sort of thing, just to give people up to speed?
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Well, I think it’s important to understand that it’s not required to be a Dominican Friar or priest that be a member of a bluegrass Americana folk band, but it does happen from time to time that priests play music in, you know, informal settings. So anyway, we created this band really mostly congealed around, I’d say, 2015-2016 and has eight members who are all Dominican friars from the east coast province who all played music together in Washington DC and very few of us are there now, but what we do is we play both classic, you know folk and bluegrass songs, but we also write a lot of our own stuff and we do some instrumental. There is a lot of instrumental and kind of complicated harmonic singing in the music that makes it a little bit more technical, at least to us kind of technical and interesting. And at the same time it’s kind of old kind of old style Appalachian feel to it and there’s yeah some of the lyrics can be either more serious or more comic they tend to have a kind of religious side to them, not always. So I don’t know if that, and we took the name of the band from Flannery O’Connor because she says in her letters that people think she’s a “hillbilly nihilist” as where she’s really a Hillbilly Thomist. Since she’s a southern author and she considers herself a Thomist and our band has a kind of southern roots, gothic, southern charm to it. And we’re all Thomists, we thought that title was appropriate. –
Fr. Jonah: Yeah, that’s right. We really, the band has kind of grown up playing music that we like to hear. And we like the song, we’ll play the song. And Father Thomas Joseph and Father Austin Litkey, they were the original founders of the band. And they were very kind when about, I don’t know, five or six younger idiots came to the Dominican House of Studies and started playing music and said, “Hey, Hillbilly Thomists, that’s a cool name.” We’ll just use that for our band. And so we just kind of took that and slapped it on ourselves. And then when we decided we were going to record an album, they very graciously came on board for that, their gravitas and their very serious men and they take the craft very seriously. So it was a really good heavy balance to our levity. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s great. One of the, actually the other day, well, one of my favorite T-shirts, maybe I shouldn’t, like this is, like I’m supporting you all now, but is the Hillbilly Thomas t-shirt with the peacock on it, you know, an homage, another homage to Flannery O’Connor who owned peacocks. I do have to say if peacock, if like Flannery were my neighbor with peacocks, they would be dead in a week, like those things are not just, they’re so loud.
Fr. Jonah: Yeah, they’re much better in print.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, we’ve been working very, very slowly on trying to update our Godsplaining swag, which means that we haven’t done it in two years. And we keep brainstorming about it. We had a retreat recently. And we’re soliciting ideas from people. And we got like cardigan sweaters and like other weird things that people wanted which aren’t going to happen. But we keep going back to the Hillbilly Thomists swag merch page because your guys stuff is a lot cooler than ours.
Fr. Jonah: Well I’ll just say that um, while people for all the fans of Godsplaining while you’re waiting for them to update their merch, you can consider every piece of Hillbilly Thomist merch as supporting Godsplaining. Spiritually, financially it will support the band. But just to be a very, if you want to support Godsplaining but get some cool merch, definitely get Father Jacob-Bertrand’s favorite t-shirt, which is the peacock band t-shirt.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: See, you like that? That was a nice, you know, lob that right in for you to make a big one. I really appreciate that. Right over the plate. All right. All right. So you are all coming out with album number four.
Fr. Jonah: That’s right.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: When? Soon, soon, like, tomorrow soon?
Fr. Thomas Joseph: End of July. The first single is up online. It’s a song called “Justify You.” It’s on Spotify, Apple Music and all that. And we’re going to release the second single and the third single shortly in the coming weeks sequentially. And then the whole album comes up on Spotify and anywhere music is sold online for purchase in late July. And we have a tour in late July, early August. And the album’s called “Marigold.” And there’s a– –
Fr. Jonah: Why is it called “Marigold?”
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Yeah, there’s a song on the album called “Marigold.” And we made it a title song. It’s a reference to the birth of Mary. –
Fr. Jonah: Which was its own journey. I mean, at a certain point, I think we had a list of maybe 24 different names, of varying seriousness that we’re like, like one of the, Father Timothy Danaher, Fr. Jacob-Bertrand, I believe you are assigned with him now, he would collect potential album –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: He’s assigned to me, you know, that’s what it is. –
Fr. Jonah: Oh, wow, okay. That’s great. You’re collecting Tim’s. You’re collecting Father Tim’s. Yeah. So we had a lot of different band album title options. And then we landed on “Marigold”. I can’t remember the exact reason it won out, but I think we just have a real soft spot for the song itself. It’s one of our first kind of Marian songs, though our lady isn’t referenced explicitly, but I think there’s a clear homage to her there. So I think there’s probably also the Dominicans being the Order of Our Lady. We were naturally inclined to pick that.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Is it a song that you all wrote? Is it a real song?
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Justin Bulger wrote the song. It’s got a very complex harmonic setting of voices. It’s up tempo, but also really kind of sort of, I mean, it’s more like a serious song, but not in a heavy way, in a sort of a beautiful way. And yeah, so that’s the title track. And this a long album, almost an hour of music, I think there’s like 13 songs on there. So we’re continuing our tradition. Kind of, I wouldn’t say cramming, but putting a lot of songs on the album. Lots of different-
Fr. Jonah: I think 12 of them, if I’m not mistaken, those are original. There’s only one kind of old hand that we picked up and dusted off.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Cool. Yeah, I think I’ve heard, I don’t, Father Timothy, who you just mentioned, who lives up here in Hanover, he had some of like some of the record- well, I think it actually, it was when a group of you were here, working on some other music. I heard some snippets of, I don’t know if I heard of, heard anything from Marigold, but heard some snippets of the, you know, of what you guys were working on. I don’t think maybe they were, I don’t know what they were, but they were, that was cool. Wait, so I’m thinking now, okay, this is like the years are turning. So Marigold, is the flower Marigold named after an honor of the Blessed Mother? –
Fr. Jonah: It better be. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Or is that just kind of coincidental? –
Fr. Thomas Joseph: We just think that they’re poetically or it could be associated, but your historical question is a really good one. We didn’t even worry about it. –
Fr. Jonah: Okay, we don’t worry about history.
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Yeah, I mean, it’s a good question. Yeah, I mean, in the symbolism of the song, he did the author of the song, who’s Justin, he did put the two things together, and it works. I think the way he connected the idea of spiritual growth and perseverance waiting for the spring. Some interesting images, I think. So he used that as a kind of poetic trope to develop an idea of the inter-spiritual life of a human being.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: That’s cool. So you mentioned that the albums 13 tracks, an hour long. Is that similar to the previous three? I can’t remember. –
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Yeah, they’re all kind of in that range. I think we may have, we have more songs on this one than some of the other albums, but it’s kind of continuing to pattern. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. So what’s, I guess on the other side, what’s different, what’s new with, you mentioned, Father Jonah, that a lot of original music, that’s how we’re going to do, it’s exciting about it. –
Fr. Jonah: Sure, well, the last three albums, so we have four albums, total, the last three albums have been predominantly originals. So that’s remained the same. One thing that we tend to do with each album, we add a new instrument, or what I mean, it says, that we discover an instrument that we all become sort of collectively obsessed with and then we make Father Peter Gouch learn that instrument. He’s like the best musician of the whole band. I mean this is a guy who can like you can play like an eight person jam for ten minutes and at the end of it he will look at the man across the room and tell him that he’s like D string is flat, and it will be. So it basically happens. It was the album before this one. It was a resonator guitar that we got excited about. It’s like, “Peter, learn how to do cool things with this.” Then this year we discovered the dobro, which is like a guitar that you play on your lap. It’s got raised strings you play with a slide and finger picks. And so he said, “Peter, learn this song, this instrument.” And he did. So that is the kind of new thing to look for. We’ve got this awesome dobro slide guitar sound that influences a lot of the different album, of different songs. But Father Thomas Joseph is kind of our, I would say, research and development guy when it comes to finding instruments, he’s been responsible for that. So can you explain why? –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Except he didn’t do the research on Marigold. So… –
Fr. Thomas Joseph: That’s true. But I did get into the dobro and I did convince Peter to purchase that dobro. So, and that was probably, I think, a good decision. Yeah, I mean, it’s a classic bluegrass and country music instrument, but you can play up tempo kind of, you’re more up tempo country music with it. And when you add it with other things like the violin, the banjo, or the fiddle, banjo. You used a lot of deep bass. As a kind of both rhythm, like rhythm percussion instrument on the one side and kind of providing lower tones. So I mean, like the new song that’s out, Spotify you, has, so I’m sorry. (laughing) Justify You. (overlapping conversation, laughing). But I mean if you listen to the thing on Spotify, that just by you saw it, the Peter Gouch’s dobro solo is really indicative of a lot of what we tried to do on this album. But what’s interesting is to watch how that engages with the very powerful bass playing on that song, which is excellent. And we added some electric piano on that. That it’s a pretty complicated song. I’d say one of the differences that’s also on this album, besides like exploring stuff with the dobro, is this is the most musically complicated album we’ve made, which is not the same, it’s always best, but you know, there’s more, there’s like more harmonies, I think here, vocal harmonies in general, there’s a lot of musical…there’s more musical layering. I think if you look back two albums ago, we were playing slightly simpler, simpler musicals and I think that that’s all positive, necessarily, I’m not saying that complex album.
Fr. Jonah: I would, if you want some band drama, there are definitely kind of two camps in the band. There’s like the Father Thomas Joseph and me camp, which is like three chords, some lyrics, great. This song is definitely done after a couple takes, and we’re gonna move on to like, you know, lunch. Then you’ve got Father Justin and Father Peter, who hear, you know, like dogs can hear things like on frequencies that nobody else can hear. That’s that. They can hear things. And Father Justin has literally written a song called “I’m a Dog.” So I think it’s true. But they can, they’ll hear like, oh no, we can do something different with this harmony or let’s literally do 50 takes of a solo. And they just want to over and over and over again till you want to throttle them. But I mean, they’re probably right in the end because the songs sound really lovely, but there’s definitely two camps of like that’s, but also the extreme of me and Father Thomas Joseph is Father Timothy Danaher. He is a one-take machine. If he had his way, we would show up for one day, do each song once and we’d be done.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, when you all were up here in Hanover doing some recording, though, you guys were recording something and I was like sitting listening and just enjoying the music because it’s great to listen to. And I remember at some point, it might have been your brother, Father Simon, who said, okay, let’s do five more takes of whatever. It might have been even three times, there’s like three more, and then you did one. And then like, he was like, okay, three more. And that would happen like three or four times where the number wasn’t coming down. And I was like, is anyone else realizing he’s not counting anymore? He’s just saying the same thing over and over. I mean, I get the process, but at some point I was like, I’m done. I gotta go.
Fr. Jonah: You can only hear. I mean, once, because you play this on like 10 or 12 times at like when you’re actually recording just to get that many takes. So Father Justin can do like Frankenstein stuff on Pro Tools, but yeah, around take eight, your fingers are killing you and you’re just ready to, you don’t love the song with as much like immediate pathos. –
Fr. Thomas Joseph: I will say sometimes it’s the eighth, ninth, tenth take where it really crystallizes. And there’s a time actually at which point you don’t get better at it. That’s also very important. Like if you’re playing when you’re recording, it’s kind of fun because you can make the songs improve. And you can, as Jonah is suggesting, you can select out like this solo or that chorus that’s particularly beautiful. And so it stays authentically your music, but you put what you did best together sometimes it’s possible to do that, but you know you also get better at playing the song and so…but there’s a threshold to that right? I mean you just there’s a point at which it’s diminishing returns as as Justin himself will say, you know, it’s you put we’re playing a slot and it’s not getting better so it’s time to accept it as it is. And I think that that’s where his perfectionism meets realism. And also I think that it’s a kind of balance, right? I mean, when you’re recording, it’s kind of like when you’re writing or when you’re doing something in a job, you want to try to get better at it. But you also want to not lose the joy of doing it. Yeah. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: So there’s something obviously unique about Dominicans or priests playing music in a public way, you know, as far as not just like playing in the backyard or in the common room or just enjoying it together. I know like with respect to Godsplaining one of the things that we often say about ourselves that like we’re not podcasters, we’re preachers, so that the ability to preach the Gospel in various ways is important to it. Like that’s why we do Godsplaining not to be on the airwaves per se, but to be able to talk about our Lord, to people who listen or who might otherwise not have the opportunity. So I guess like where, how does that work with Hillbilly Thomists? Does it work with Hillbilly Thomists? What I guess is like the, is there an evangelical motivation or is it just like, we like playing music? And what is, I guess, what’s the kind of mentality there with you all? I mean, I could say some things, what I think.
Fr. Jonah: Yeah. I mean, my sense of it– I mean, really, I’m sitting here with Father Thomas Joseph wants to say. But my sense of it is that it sort of– I mean, Christ is at work trying to reach His people throughout all time in all places and He involves, you know, His creatures in that process. So He involves these Dominican preachers. And so the reason I start with that is that like in some ways I really do play music just because I love playing music with my brothers. It’s a real joy. It’s something that naturally kind of spills out of our fraternity and it’s an expression of that. And it’s our way of like, also articulating what we think about God and His creation. And there’s something about it that we just choose it for that. But at the same time, and in the same sort of motion, you do have a sense of wanting to share it with other people and you have this instinct that it’s something that other people want to listen to as well. It’s something that can also create bridges, points of connection with unlikely audiences who might not ever want to step into a church, but might like your music or at least respect your music or just be, they get like a gimmick and that’s the thing. It’s kind of gimmicky, but it’s really good. So it’s not just a gimmick. But that’s all for me kind of, you know, like as far as intention goes like second, though I recognize that like I think Jesus does His work through His preachers, but the way that I experience it primarily is like I love playing music with my brothers, and I also know that that is being used for the Lord’s purposes. I don’t know. Thomas Joseph?
Fr. Thomas Joseph: No, I like that. So, you know, I think I think it’s very different than say writing a book. I think when I write a book, it’s like, why write theology books? I have a pretty instrumental view of those. Like, you know, I want to help people think about belief, faith, intellectual life, philosophical thinking. And you know, although I believe in trying to be articulate or elegant in writing, or maybe occasionally poetic, although that’s not really my disposition personally or my vocation, you know, I think that’s more, I have a more instrumental or workman like view of language, but I think that this is, I feel very differently like about playing music. I really don’t even think about Hillbilly Thomists as kind of primarily like a so-called Christian music thing. I just think it’s fun to play fun or really kind of fascinating to play music and to try to have this kind of creative outlet. But I also think exactly as Father Jonah said, like it does delight or interest some people. And life is more than just ideas and propositions or even maybe major moral choices. It’s also just sometimes enjoying life. And I believe in the beauty of the liturgy, that’s a different thing, but there’s also being with other people in the car or listening to music around the house or when you’re washing the dishes, listening to music. And I think the Hillbilly Thomists stuff or listening to music around the house, or when you’re washing the dishes, listening to music. And I think the Hillbilly Thomists stuff provides a forum for people to live as Christians or Catholics, or just human beings. Just by delighting in music and other venues of life. I mean, it’s just fun music to listen to it. At least for some people, we’re big with the under six crowd. There’s a lot of little kids who love our music.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, it’s funny that you mentioned the little kids because my sister has two little kids. He’s just turned two.
Fr. Jonah: What’s the name of her oldest child?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: He just turned two, they haven’t named him yet. It’s Jonah. That’s why he’s asking. So Jonah turned two and my niece, Avila, is just over one and they love the Hillbilly Thomists and now that they’re, my nephew’s talking, anytime, my sister will put it on like the YouTube videos and he just thinks it’s me. He thinks it’s a bunch of me. So he gets, he thinks that I’m all of the members of the Hillbilly Thomists ‘cause he just sees the habit.
Fr. Jonah: Have you told him that?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: No, no, not at all. No, but he’ll yell my name at the TV and it’s like you guys singing. And my sister’s like, oh my gosh. –
Fr. Thomas Joseph: So I mean, honestly, the way I feel at this point is you could have just told me, you have a sister who has children and she’s a Catholic in the United States. And I would say, oh, so her kids are Hillbilly Thomists fans. It’s a weirdest thing. But you know, the music’s not actually for children, if you think about like the lyrics, so sometimes funny or strange, but they’re like actually laden with all this theological significance. So…
Fr. Jonah: There’s even a bad word in one of your songs!
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Yeah, a little bit.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: An explicit album.
Fr. Thomas Joseph: But I mean, you know, the thing is that you have these little kids singing all this theology, and occasionally they understand it even, which is funny.
Fr. Jonah: There’s one line in “Holy Ghost Power” that Thomas Joseph wrote, which talks about like the Truth essentially. Like now I eat it in the body and I drink it in the wise blood and we got fan mail from somebody that said like that her little child after communion whispered to her, “Mommy, I like the wise blood.” [laughing]
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: That’s awesome.
Fr. Jonah: Yeah that’s cool.
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Flannery. Flannery O’Connor’s famous novel, Wise Blood. Right so that was a Flannery O’Connor reference, and now we’ve indoctrinated a two year old in the higher ways of American Christian literature. So I don’t know. I kind of find that interesting, you know, poetically. ‘Cause you know, you don’t. You write music hoping people like it, but you don’t actually think about it intergenerationally. But I don’t know, you know, you know, families come to the concerts, young people also like it. I mean, I think that our statistics online, which someone, one of our assistants showed us is that, you know, we were most popular with men in the, in the 30, in their 30s, you know, but I presume that a lot of them are playing it for their families. And, you know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t think of music instrumentally. I’m doing this to, that’s right, it influenced the world, like some James Bond villain or something. It seems to strange. Yeah. It’s where, you know, if you’re talking to somebody in preaching, you aren’t preaching to like perform a beautiful sermon. You’re preaching because you can communicate something that’s deeply true. But I think with music music there’s like a delight in the form of the music and you know this is also like music where there’s a mixture of discipline and innovation like jazz has also. You have to be pretty good at it but once you get pretty good at it it’s so fun. It’s just like a level of kind of creative spontaneity in it that’s what we explore and that’s just delightful. I mean it’s just part of being human. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertand: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, we have a couple minutes left. So I wanted to make mention of two other things. I can mention the other album. I think you said that’s cool. So you’re working on a Christmas album too, which that’s what you all were working on up here in Hanover. So I got to listen to some Hillbilly Thomists Christmas music in production, which was awesome. Is that coming out for this season or is that like a longer term project? –
Fr. Jonah: Yeah, I mean, it could come out anywhere between this year and 2027, we’ll say. –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Perfect, okay. So stay tuned.
Fr. Jonah: By December 17th, 2027, I guarantee it’ll be out by then.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Perfect, okay.
Fr. Jonah: It very well could come out this year. We’ve got a lot of work done on it. We really like the sounds of what we have. And it’s just a matter of seeing if we can get a little bit of studio time. Basically, after we make Father Peter, like play all the hard stuff. You know? But we got that. We have a tour coming up.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, I was going to ask, say something about that.
Fr. Jonah: Sure. So starting in July, and you can go to hillbillythomists.com. I think it’s dot com. Anyway, if you find Hillbilly Thomists’ website, there’s only one of them. We’re going on a tour, a Marigold tour starting in late July, mid-late July, and running through about the middle of August. And we’ll be going all over the place. We’re playing some shows in the Pacific Northwest. Parks in Utah, Whiting, Indiana at a pierogi festival, which apparently gets hundreds of thousands of people. The National Echaristic Congress, the band will be there. St. Augustine, Florida, Savannah, Georgia, Knoxville, Asheville, North Carolina, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, and maybe a couple other places I’ve forgotten, but we’re kind of moving all over the place. We initially billed it as a southern tour, but then it got out of hand. But that you can find all the dates and buy tickets at our Hillbilly Thomists website, which I think is HillbillyThomists.com.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: It is indeed .com. I’ve done my research. My research department has gone back to me. I have one request. Should there, is there, are there machinations for a fifth album?
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Oh yeah!
Fr. Jonah: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Okay. So request. Instrument. New instrument. I, since 2016 or 17, Father Peter and I were living together at St. Dominic’s in 16 to 17, I’ve wanted him to get a harp guitar.
Fr. Jonah: A what?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Look it up, I’m not going to do your research. I can’t do everything. A harp guitar. That should be the instrument featured on…
Fr. Jonah: Woah! Woah.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Just let that percolate.
Fr. Jonah: I like those.
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Of course, I want to respect your…want to respect your intentions there. There may be tensions between your intentions and some of my intentions, but I’m do, as he said, I’m the instrument researcher so I’ll look at the harp guitar.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: But you’re, maybe album six, you know, we got time.
Fr. Jonah: Do you- is there a current instrument besides the telecaster that’s stolen your heart lately?
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Well, I think we should be thinking a little bit about that. The telecaster, I think we should also be thinking a little bit about like the slide steel guitar. I think maybe we should go back. I think that we’ve been a little bit hard on the electric piano and piano. I think we should maybe think about integrating those things back in. And maybe just occasionally a saxophone solo.
Fr. Jonah: Oh my gosh.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Wow. Well, you know who plays the saxophone? Father Patrick Briscoe.
Fr. Jonah: No way. Our invisible host?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Could he be an honorary member of the Hillbilly Thomists? Please say no, because we’ll never hear the end of it. –
Fr. Jonah: No, we’re not gonna say that on air. That’s too dangerous to say. And just the very fact that we asked the question means that you’re gonna be like an Our Sunday Visitor editorial about like, are the rumors true? Is this Patrick Briscoe a member of the Hillbilly Thomists? –
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, that’s right. Well, we’ll see, we’ll see what happens. But I guess we’re gonna leave it here. And then unless there are any final thoughts where it’s comments, contentions that you all want to provide. –
Fr. Jonah: We need to see everybody on tour. –
Fr. Thomas Joseph: Yeah, we’d like to see everyone on tour and check out the Hillbilly Thomists on Amazon Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and wherever music is available. Spotify you.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, so check it out. Check out the single that’s been released, “Justify You,” that’s on Spotify and wherever you listen to your music. We’ll drop links in our show notes for your website, which is indeed dot com, that has information on their tour upcoming. If they’re coming, the Hillbilly Thomists are coming to your area definitely get tickets. It’s worth seeing and hanging out links to the merch, especially that sweet peacock t-shirt, those, that’s cool. The other stuff is really cool too. And their other albums, there are other three albums are available on Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you listen to your music. “Marigold” is gonna drop later this summer, so be sure to check it out and stay tuned. Father Jonah, Father Thomas Joseph, thanks so much for being on the podcast. It was fun talking, fun hanging, with you guys, for a little bit. Yeah, to all of you listening, thanks for tuning in to this episode of Godsplaining. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, like, subscribe. Leave a five-star review. If you’d like to donate to the podcast, you can do so through Patreon. There’s a link in the description there. You can also follow the links in the description to shop our outdated Godsplaining merch to stay tuned for upcoming Godsplaining merch and to get information about our upcoming events and retreats. Until next time, pray for us. We’re praying for you and God bless.