Oso Oso on Getting Older, David Foster Wallace, and What's Worth Worshipping

This is a free post from Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter. Paid subscribers get one or two email-only Baker's Dozens every week featuring music I've been listening to and some critical observations around it, along with a Screen Memories column every one or two weeks where I write about stuff I watched lately.

Here's what is going down today: Oso Oso's Jade Lilitri has been on a very impressive run for more than a decade now, and his new album An Exchange of Information—which sees release today via Hop Along drummer Mark Quinlan's new label Feral Twin—might honestly be one of his best. I was very pleased to hop on a call with Jade near the end of September and talk through his impressive career and perspective on life, I found his words very insightful overall. Check it out:

Walk me through how this record came together. The press materials suggest that it really started coming together after Mark reached out.
Yeah, Mark hit me up near the very tail end of 2025 and told me that he was starting a label. I think they were planning on putting out some albums that were reissued that they thought were overlooked. For our stuff, they'd have to talk to a label—we don't have the rights to it. So then we were talking about making new albums, and I basically said, "If I could get $20 grand to make a record, I could do it like that." I'm at the point where, we did the last record ourselves, and it went pretty fine—but there's just so much that goes into it that we don't really have at our disposal anymore. We needed a label, and it worked out perfectly.

When we were on the phone the first time, he said, "Send me some demos of what you're working on." I was supposed to make the demos earlier in the year, and it fell through. Then he randomly hit me up about a month later and was like, "You said [you needed] this much to make a record. I've been listening to the last record a bunch this past month—let's just do it."

Talk to me a little bit about your experience with labels over the years in general. You've self-released stuff, and you've also put out stuff with other people as well.
The band first started out with this super-small label operation called Soft Speak Records. It was a handshake deal, pretty loose. After a while, we gave [those releases] to Counter Intuitive, [and] we got that back. We were about to self-release Yunahon, but our friend at Seal Mountain Records was like, "I'm down to press the vinyl for this." They put that out initially, and Triple Crown ended up picking it up, so we signed a three-album deal with them—then we self-released life till bones.

When we put out Yunahon, we started getting reviews without a PR cycle. I think it luckily happened because we put it out in January, before anybody put anything else out. We had a release show at this small place called Creative Corner on Long Island two months later—but it wasn't like the band was growing like crazy. It was just internet hype. At the end of the show, somebody introduced themselves, and they were actually with Atlantic. We were like, "What the hell?" That tour was the first time—and the only time—that we've talked to a lot of labels.

I think what happened was, Atlantic realized halfway through that our band had more hype than actual growth. I think they got cold feet on the deal that they initially said they wanted to do. We were like, "Ah, this probably doesn't seem like a good idea," as they were backing out. Triple Crown was down to re-release Yunahon, and we just went with that, because everybody else at the time wanted us to get back into the studio once they realized that it was mostly just hype. We thought that album had some legs, and [Triple Crown] was the first label that wanted give it a re-release and tour on that, instead of putting us in the studio right away.

It's interesting to hear you talk about that brush with Atlantic. These days, in terms of rock bands specifically making the leap to the majors, I think it's almost seen as a blessing when you avoid that. I have not seen it work out for too many people!
Yeah, knowing what I know now, I think it definitely is a blessing. There's ways that different bands could be smart about it, know how to get something out of it in advance, and make that money work for them. I don't think we're really smart like that. It probably would've ended up bad if we'd done that.

You know, I'm picking up on something while I'm talking to you here, which is a self-deprecating streak. Am I headed in the right direction, or is this just a sense of humility?
I don't know. I mean, if you're picking up on it, it's probably something real. It doesn't really feel like self-deprecation to me. I just think different people place a different value on different things. Every artist has to figure out how you're going to have a career, if you want to do that. For us, it's always going to be just putting out records and playing shows—and that'll always be up and down. With every artist, it's always up and down. Obviously, there's some bands where it's just exponential. They'll never have to worry about selling tickets and stuff like that. But I do know that I am not good with money, so if we got an advance, it probably would've gone into the band. Whereas there's other people that are able to say, "Okay, we might never make this money back, so let's all this chunk of an advance and put it towards this non-music idea I have." I just turned 34 years old, and for the first time I'm starting to think of other stuff like that, because the focus has been so much on just making records and playing shows. It's what I want to do, you know?

You mentioned turning 34. I have a friend who's in their forties, and we were talking recently about how people say that 30 is a milestone, but it's really around 34 or 35 when you start to feel like you're figuring your shit out. It sounds like that's been the experience for you recently. Talk me through what that's been like for you, in terms of entering a new era of your life.
I've always been going through this inner spiritual renaissance. Right now, I just feel way more like stable mentally—not so guided by impulse or emotion. I'm trying to figure out what's important to me. There's some things that you can have your cake and eat it with, and there's other things that you can't. It's a balancing act for me, even thinking about something like, do I want to have kids? What would that look like? If you're somebody in a position that I'm in, then music has to be different.

Something that's really important to me is having this big catalog of music for people to look back on when I'm gone. Being creative is the thing that carries me out of these depressive bouts. It's such a simple idea, but it seemed so hard to figure that out for a long time. Even in these moments where you go, "If I had a little bit more money, everything would be fine"—I've realized that's really not true for me. What really makes me happy is making something, finishing it, and going, "Okay, I didn't really get there, but I'm getting closer to making this perfect thing"—and you'll never get there, but it keeps you going.

That sounds like a wise perspective. The other direction doesn't necessarily lead to happiness for a lot of people.
For some people, it does—and that's cool too. Every year, I feel like I get to know myself a little bit better, and I've realized that what I want to do is keep being creative—wake up with an idea and chase that. It's what makes me excited, and what makes me want to get up.

In terms of your personal life, was there anything taking place in between this record and the last that made it into the songwriting?
I lost some friends, but that's just something that has happened constantly through my life. It's something that I kind of almost don't want to talk about, because I just don't want to be the dude that just writes songs about his dead friends all the time. But that's definitely something.

I met my girlfriend, who I've been with now for, like, two and a half years. There's stuff on the album about that. "know you know me better" is about trying to break through with this person that you've been with. I don't know if it's because you're older and you feel more guarded, but it just feels harder to get to these deeper levels for communication.

How else do you find ways to get in touch with difficult feelings?
I'd say it's probably 80% in the songs. But, I don't know. I like listening to shit. I don't want to name drop stuff that I'm reading, but I was listening to a lot of David Foster Wallace interviews lately, as well as whatever my YouTube and Spotify algorithms lead me to.

David Foster Wallace is somebody who successive generations of young people have continued to find some solace and insight in terms of how he was thinking and the art that he created. What have you found in his work that has spoken to you specifically?
In the "This Is Water" speech, where he's talking about how there's no atheism in adult life, and how no matter what, you're gonna end up worshiping something. That resonates with me. It feels super real. Whether it's for better or worse, the type of stuff that I want to worship is making music.

Talk to me about your evolution as a songwriter—what's changed, and what's stayed the same.
What's stayed the same is the chord progressions. There's only so many of them, and figuring out how to disguise them might be the toughest part. There's some songs where you just have to go, "I don't really give a shit. This is obviously going to stand out right away."

Lyrically, I think I've probably grown a bit more confident—just because it feels like there's an audience. When I started writing songs, it was talking to the void. Now, I go into it with the idea that I have a serious opportunity to really affect someone's life. What do I want to say to them? What do I want them to take away from it? What do I want to clue them in on—what I'm going through, and what I've learned? Even having that M.O. when going in to write a song—back in the day, it was just like, "I got to get this out," or, "I have five songs, I have to write five more." Now, I just know that they're going to come. I don't feel like I have to force anything. I know that they're in there.

What's some music that has really spoken to you recently?
I'm pulling up my Spotify real quick. There's a Lucinda Williams song, "Fruits of My Labor"—that song has stuck with me all year. I heard a dude last week, Martin Newell. You know him?

Yeah.
I'd never heard him before. I heard "The World of Dandy Leigh," and I was like, "Oh, this is awesome." So I have that in there. But I tend to just listen to the same stuff I've always loved. I've been listening to a bunch of Wednesday. Karly's amazing. Her lyrics really make me stop and think, "Oh shit, this is amazing."

Let's talk a little bit about Long Island.
So, here's the thing. I grew up in Long Beach, and the joke about Long Beach is that people from Long Beach never leave Long Beach. Not in a "You never make it out of your hometown" type thing—they literally won't go over the bridge to do stuff. They think it's far. So growing up, I didn't really have an idea of Long Island culture. When I was 17, I played in a band with my friend who lived in Rockville Center, and she'd find shows for us and introduce me to all this Long Island stuff. Growing up, I definitely listened to all the quintessential Long Island emo stuff. But yeah, I went to school in Long Beach and I never left. As I got older, I even went to high school in Hicksville, but I'd just come back to Long Beach after school. I didn't really know too much about the Long Island stuff.

Do you like watching movies?
I do.

What have you seen lately that you've liked or disliked?
The other night I saw Buddy.

How was that?
I loved it. I don't want to say it was trash—I think a lot of people would absolutely despise it—but it was right up my alley. I thought it was creepy and funny in all the right ways. I'm a big Martin McDonough guy.

You're about to eat really good with the new one coming out soon.
Yeah, I'm super excited. Seven Psychopaths is my favorite all-time movie, probably.

Well, I'll tell you something: I end all my interviews by asking about movies, and you might be the first person in three months to not say that the most recent thing they watched was Obsession or Backrooms. So, congratulations.
I obviously had to see both of those. Have you seen anything recently that you thought was awesome that I could check out tonight?

Did you know that the movie Psycho has three sequels?
I did not.

Psycho III and IV are not that good, but Psycho II is very impressive. If you want an interesting horror movie, I'd definitely recommend that one—and I believe it's on Shudder, if you have Shudder.
Oh, hell yeah.