Go That Road: Interview with Iration Lead Vocalist and Golf Nerd, Micah Pueschel
This week’s interview is with Micah Pueschel aka “Poosh,” the lead vocalist and guitar player for Iration, an alternative/reggae band that is heavily influenced by the band’s upbringing in Hawaii, as well as elements of rock and pop. This interview’s title refers to the band’s song, “Go that Road,” which begins with the lyrics: “A fork in the road / No plan of action / Stuck in the middle and I’ve got no traction / Got no job but I’m educated / The travelled path’s so overrated.” Needless to say, I was curious to learn more about Micah’s story, how he navigated his own fork in the road, and what he’s learned from a life and career spent on an unconventional path.
Unlike the classic archetype of the musician’s story, Micah didn’t grow up dreaming of being a musician. It wasn’t until he graduated from Pomona College and moved in with his future bandmates, who were attending UCSB in Santa Barbara, that his journey to becoming a professional musician began taking shape. When Micah arrived, his friends had already started a cover band and were regularly playing at college parties and bars. He started as a backup singer and gradually got pushed to the front as band members graduated and rotated out. At the same time, Micah was developing as a songwriter and taking the lead on shaping the band’s music. Eventually, the group was faced with a decision: become professionals on the well traveled path or venture into the unknown and take a chance on making it in the music industry? Micah felt strongly that the band had something special, and he rallied the group into giving it a go. His gut instinct was right. Twenty years later, Iration is still touring and making music together. During that time, Micah has gotten married, had kids, and rekindled a deep passion for the game of golf as a self described “humble golf nerd.”
Over the course of the interview, we chatted about:
The mentality that pushed him to take the road less traveled
What he’s learned about navigating uncertainty and the role of experimentation in finding Iration’s sound
Leaning into being uncomfortable and believing that good things will happen if you do the right things for the right reasons
How golf has influenced his life and music
What he’s learned about staying present and enjoying where he’s at, even amidst doubt and imposter syndrome
His advice for anyone considering taking an alternative path
Note: The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. While every effort has been made to preserve the integrity of the conversation, please be aware that the quotes may not be verbatim but reflect the essence of the dialogue.
How would you describe what you do for work?
First and foremost, I am a musician, songwriter, and performer. For the most part, I think my job has always been to make people feel good. You want people to connect with the music in a way that gives them a good feeling. As a musician, you perennially feel like you're young, but time does go by, and it’s now been twenty years during which time I’ve gotten married, had kids, and entered my forties.
You wrote the song “One Way Track” about the life of a touring musician. What’s the most honest way you would describe that lived experience?
Number one, you’re a professional traveler. You’re a shapeshifter, and you need to be super adaptable, not only to things like weather, but also to cultures and changing circumstances. Unexpected things happen every single day; things that most people deal with in work and life, but the difference is that every single night you have to be able to be on stage giving people your best. You’re playing the songs every night, but for the people in the audience, it might be the first and only time they ever see us in their life. They're expecting it to be awesome every single time. Whatever you're going through that day, you need to be able to bring that same energy and that same focus and performance level to every single show. That’s a challenge, but it’s fundamentally the job of a touring musician.
I want to rewind to the beginning of Iration. After graduating from Pomona College, you moved in with the guys who had started the band and were attending UCSB. At that point, you all were mostly playing covers, and there was a rotating cast of members in the band. A lot of those original members didn’t continue on with the band after college, but you and Catlin Peterson decided to make a go of pursuing music as a career. What was the mentality that influenced you deciding to pursue the road less traveled?
I grew up in a small town, and then went to a small private school in Waimea on the Big Island. I think when you grow up in that environment, you're able to shine a little bit more if you have a particular talent or strength. You're not one of a million. You’re one of a hundred or a thousand. If you have something going, people recognize it. In my case, they said, “Wow! You can do this. You can sing.” That said, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I literally didn't know I would pursue music until after I graduated from college. I had been learning to play guitar and write songs just for fun. It was like getting the golf bug. I got the bug of playing guitar and writing music.
The guys in the band had already started Iration and invited me to be the backup singer. Slowly people started to graduate from college and move away, and I started getting pushed to the front more and more. The guys already had some instrumentals and some things that were vaguely songs. I took the reins on putting them together and turning them into songs. We got to this point after a year or two of playing college parties, where I had this strong feeling that we had something different and unique going on. Some of the guys were waffling on whether or not they wanted to pursue the band more seriously. We had degrees. They were asking: Are we gonna go be professionals or do this? There were a lot of question marks. I remember saying, “I'm confident that we have something unique, that our sound is different, and that what we have going for us is different than whatever the other bands in our genre are doing. I think if we do this we could make it.” I was the one pushing it. Probably half the guys believed me. At best they thought, “Maybe, but we’ll go along with it because he’s pushing it.” We were able to keep the group together for the most part, and we kept writing, started touring, and just kept going. I think the feeling that we really had something is what fueled me. I will say this. If I would have known how long and how difficult the road was going to be, I don’t know if I would have been as gung ho about it, and I don't know if everybody would have been along for the ride.
What kept you going during those early years when you were broke, touring constantly, and going through a lot of trial and error trying to figure out how to make it as a band?
I think it was the commitment. Once you've committed to something, you just do it. There wasn't really another option. We all had day jobs in the beginning right after college. Some of the guys were bartending. I was working in sales. Growing up, my summer job was always working construction in Hawaii, digging ditches, and doing manual labor. My dad said, “If you do this, it’s going to motivate you to get a degree and not have to do this for a living.” Sure enough, it worked. No matter how difficult it was being in a van, broke, eating gross stuff from gas stations at 3:00am, not sleeping, it was still an adventure and much better than digging ditches in the hot sun every single day.
I do want to talk about Iration’s musical evolution. On the Bag Drop Podcast, you talked about experimenting a lot with Iration’s sound on the two albums following 2013’s Automatic. It’s easier said than done to consider what you want and what inspires you versus defaulting to what you think people expect, what might drive the most success, or even sticking to the comfort of what you know. What beliefs or mentalities helped you feel comfortable experimenting despite what others might have seen as a risky move?
A big part of that was Kai Rediske leaving the band. He was the other main singer on our first record and Time Bomb. He’d gotten married and didn’t want to be touring anymore. That changed things a lot because he’d done the vocals on 25-30% of the songs on the record we’d just recorded. He was also the co-writer with me. He's been my best friend since we were little kids, and we co-wrote and pretty much did everything together. We took 3 years between the finishing of Automatic and the release of Hotting Up because we were trying to figure out what it was. We really rushed Hotting Up because we were about to tour, and it would have been four years without a new record. It really felt like we just had to get it out. It was after that where it felt like we finally got into a good groove of working together, writing together, and experimenting. We wrote dance songs. We wrote songs that are full blown funk and have nothing to do with reggae. We ended up adding Micah Brown, who became my co-writer. We were just trying lots of stuff and trying to get as much music out of us as we possibly could. After Coastin’, it felt like we’d done enough experimentation, and we could go back to our original sound. Daytrippin felt like us honing back in on what the Iration sound is now.
I don't want to put words in your mouth so you can tell me if this sounds off. It’s almost like if you hadn't done that experimentation, you might not have come to that comfortable place of, “This is what the sound is.”
That's it. You kind of have to stretch out to the maximum to see how far you can take these things.
I did want to ask about Kai leaving. He’d previously been the band’s other main vocalist, as well as your co-writer. As you mentioned, it took a few years for the band to find its sound after that. What did that period teach you about navigating uncertainty and challenging moments?
It's like making a swing change or a grip change in golf. It doesn't feel good at first and doesn't feel natural at all. It’s about putting in the time and getting through it. It’s the same in life. A change is always gonna feel a little uncomfortable at first.
When Kai left, it never felt bad. He didn’t leave on negative terms. We totally understood where he was coming from. He’d met a girl who is now his wife and the mother of his children. He wanted to be with her, and he’d never felt like being on stage was 100% his thing. We’re still best friends and talk everyday. So it wasn’t bad, but it did feel daunting. I had to re-record all of the songs on our record that featured his vocals. All of a sudden, now the identity of the band is one singer instead of two. I was in my twenties and still trying to figure out who I was. I wasn't a complete person at that point by any means. I was drinking a lot and wasn’t confident. When you get on stage, that shows and you have to drink to have confidence on stage. It wasn’t the healthiest time of my life.
I would love to say that I handled it, went up there, and did it all with pure confidence. There were a lot of times where I was scared, nervous, anxious, didn't know what was going on, didn't know what to do, and felt like it was all on my shoulders. That said, I have always been a person that trusted in the idea that as long as you do the right things and do them for the right reasons, the little things will fall into place and the world will open for you. I’m a firm believer in that, and it’s worked out in my life.
I met my wife and she really motivated me to stop drinking. Once I stopped drinking, I really was able to focus on performing and being there. During the first 20 shows I did sober, getting on stage and not having a drink felt terrifying. I had never been on stage sober in my life at that point. But then I got to a point where it was comfortable, and I was playing better than at any point where I’d been drunk on stage. It was all part of an evolution where we were all growing and changing.
I think an undertone of this interview is seeing that uncertain feeling, or being scared or terrified, and not immediately labeling that feeling as bad.
I would 100% agree with that. I think a big thing in life is not getting stuck in a comfort zone. I’ve heard that from so many successful people that I respect. And it doesn’t just apply to work, it also applies to relationships and your personal life. You can definitely get to a place where everything is comfy, and you’re just going through the motions. I think that's when you start to lose passion. It’s always good to push that comfort zone. For example, we worked with the same producer for 3 albums. For the next album, I felt like we had an opportunity to change it up. We started working with Suzy Shinn as a producer, started working with different writers and collaborators, and tried different things with our writing process. When you start opening yourself up in that way, it doesn't feel good at first. You’re nervous. With musicians and performers, it’s very common to feel like a fraud or imposter. I perennially feel that way, but it can be a good thing because it keeps you motivated to prove yourself. Then you get those small nuggets that reassure you and affirm that feeling of, “I can do this.”
We, of course, have to talk about golf, which is a major passion area for you. How has golf impacted the bigger picture of your life? What have you learned from the game that’s impacted who you are as a person and musician?
There are a lot of parallels for me between golf and music, especially the idea that perfect doesn’t exist. There’s no perfect round of golf. There's no perfect song. There's no perfect performance. You're always searching for better and better. Writing songs is about being able to look at yourself and write about what you're feeling and thinking in a real way. Just like in golf, you can’t fake it. If you don't practice and you're doing things the wrong way, you will get exposed eventually, and there’s nobody that you can blame but yourself. There's no teammate that you can blame for screwing you over. I love the challenge of working at something, getting good at it, getting better at it, and then being able to go and test yourself. There's no completion or end of the mission. The mission is just the path and the journey.
I really enjoyed this quote from your interview on the Golfer’s Journal podcast where you spoke about your experience writing a piece about your home course, Soule Park, for the magazine. You said, “It was a cool opportunity. I feel unworthy of it. But it’s like playing Pine Valley or Oakmont. Do I feel worthy of playing these places and doing these things? Not really. But I accept and I’ll enjoy it and make the most out of it.” Things like imposter syndrome and doubt keep a lot of people from being able to enjoy reaching places they never dreamed of. What do you think has helped you be able to lean in and enjoy those moments and experiences?
When I first got the offer, there was a big part of me that felt like, “This is not the kind of writing you do.” Even though it was outside of my comfort zone, I realized, “I can talk about golf. I can talk about Soule Park. These are things that I feel very confident that I can talk about in a way that is meaningful.” If it was totally out of my depth I might have said no, but I did feel like there was something I could add. I really ran the opportunity through my internal checklist of: Can I say something interesting? Do I know what I'm talking about somewhat? And finally: Why not take advantage of such a cool experience?
You wrote the song “Go That Road” about taking an alternative path in life. It’s now been 20 years since you made the choice to not go down what you refer to in the song as “the travelled path.” What would you say to someone who’s at a similar fork in the road deciding between the “travelled path” and a more unconventional life?
At the risk of sounding cliche, you only have one go at this thing. Why would you not just do what you want to do or at least try? Of course there is fear. If you really want something and you care about it, you'll make it happen. I was a big procrastinator in school and would wait until the last minute to do everything. I think there's something to be said about that pressure. Sometimes that’s when you do the best things. For example, when we’re making an album, sometimes the day before the deadline is when we write the best songs. That actually happened with the last song we wrote on Time Bomb. We wrote it and recorded it in the studio before it even felt like a finished song. That became our biggest song and made our career. I believe that uncomfortable situations make chemistry happen. If you’re passionate about something, why not try? The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work out. If that happens, maybe another pathway opens up, you end up going that way, and it ends up being better than you imagined. I’ve heard variations of that story so many times. I think it’s all about being mentally and spiritually open and being okay with being uncomfortable. Sometimes the hard part is actually finding that thing that you’re passionate about, and I think that comes with being open and not trying to force it. Do something you enjoy doing that gets you to the next phase. Don’t hit the hero shot. Just get back in the fairway.
The ethos behind No Directions is that there are many, many different ways we could live, work, and build a life. What does the life that is uniquely yours look like today?
The band is lucky to be in a place where we really do most of our touring during the summer. The rest of the year I'm off quite a bit, which means there's a lot of time for family. I’m married with two little kids. I love that I’m able to spend a lot of time being their dad. I take my daughter to school every morning. I wake up, make breakfast, and make lunches. My wife is in the process of growing a business so I’m at home being a dad, going to Costco, going to Trader Joe’s. I’m just a normal dude, and I love it.
My wife was an elementary school teacher at a public school for a long time. I’ve always said that she worked ten times harder than I did in life, and she didn't get people cheering her on everyday. I literally go sit on a tour bus, I play golf, and then I get on stage and have thousands of people cheering for me. I don't deserve this, but I deeply appreciate making music. It’s surreal that I get to do that.
Outside of touring, my life is very normal. I’m focused on: How can I spend time with my kids? How can I have set time with my friends? How can I be as present as possible? I do write and record a lot in the off season. I’m continuing to create and figuring out new ways to do things and live and be happy. That’s really what it’s all about: live and be happy.