If you only know Dishwalla as that band from the ‘90s who asked, “Tell me all your thoughts on God,” then congratulations—you’re like 99% of the population. But JR Richards, the man behind that one very inescapable hit, wants to remind you there was a second album. And despite the industry doing its best to smother it with a pillow, it’s still breathing.
In conversation with Kyle Meredith, Richards revisited the 1998 follow-up And You Think You Know What Life’s About. “It was a tremendous amount of pressure,” he said, explaining that after Pet Your Friends blew up thanks to “Counting Blue Cars,” everyone—from his band to his label—expected lightning to strike twelve more times. “They basically wanted 10 or 12 ‘Counting Blue Cars,’” he laughed. “Which, you know, isn’t stressful at all.”
Spoiler: it didn’t go great. The label shuffled its execs, the band brought in a more avant-garde producer, and right after the album dropped, their record company got sold. “There was no money or personnel there to really do the job,” he said, like a man who’s been waiting two decades to say it out loud.
It’s a familiar ‘90s tragedy—band makes moody, experimental second album; label changes hands; radio plays Matchbox Twenty instead. “There’s some of the best bands in the world that nobody will ever know about because of regime change,” Richards said. “We’re just one of them.”
That sophomore record, though? Still worth your time. It might not have had another mega-hit, but it had layers. There’s the trip-hop groove of “Truth Serum” (which ended up on the Avengers soundtrack—no, not that Avengers, the other one, the one everyone hates). And then there’s “Until I Wake Up,” written during what Richards calls “a serious bout of depression,” back when the only time he could relax was when he was asleep.
“It was hard to write on tour,” he recalled. “You can’t sing much if you’re constantly saving your voice.” So he’d sit at a piano, alone, while the other guys took off for a break. And yeah, maybe there was some wine involved.
After Dishwalla’s run, Richards swerved into film and TV scoring—yes, including Baywatch, and also How I Met Your Mother, where producers asked for multiple versions of “Counting Blue Cars,” including a dreamy one, a jukebox one, and an actual-studio-album one. “They were kind of using me as a tool,” he said. “And I was cool with that.”
He’s still writing, scoring, and now making solo records with a little help from his subscribers—because who needs a label when you have the internet and people who still like sad piano ballads?
“I’m working on a covers album right now,” Richards said, rattling off everything from “Unchained Melody” to “House of the Rising Sun,” chosen partly by fans. “They threw me, like, a hundred songs in two days,” he laughed. “Some Broadway show tunes. Some stuff I’d never heard of. But all fantastic.”
As for the next album of originals—his fifth—it’s in the works too, though it might take longer depending on whether he gets talked into a tour. “Time management,” he shrugged. “That’s the trick.”
He’s not counting blue cars these days, but he’s still counting on the people who stuck around. And if And You Think You Know What Life’s About was your favorite Dishwalla album? You’re not wrong. Just really, really outnumbered.
Listen to the interview above and then check out a few classics below!
