Quick-Fire Quips is a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the State of Alabama! In this episode, Alabama Public Radio host Baillee Majors talks with to Birmingham musician Cash Langdon.
Baillee: Hi, Cash!
Cash: Hi.
Baillee: How’s it going?
Cash: Good, how are you doing?
Baillee: Great, happy to talk with you today! So, tell me about your music. What’s your music all about? How would you describe it?
Cash: I would describe it as heavy, kind of guitar music with sort of a country-rock, indie-rock kind of throughline. A lot of sort of pop songs mixed in with, you know, slower, ballady Americana-type stuff.
Baillee: Have you released anything new lately?
Cash: Yeah, my second album, Dogs, came out in May [of 2025] and that’s the most recent thing.
Baillee: Can you tell me what Dogs is all about? What’s the message? What kind of inspired that?
Cash: It’s a set of songs that are kind of all over the place, but the main through line was living in East Lake, Birmingham, which is this neighborhood in northeast Birmingham. That’s sort of the main thing that I was talking about.
There’s kind of a loose dog problem in East Lake, and that’s due to dog breeders and dog fighting, etc. But thinking about the kind of human parallel—of no one asking to be born, and no one being able to decide their fate in a socioeconomic or cultural way—I felt like dogs were kind of an interesting parallel to that.
Baillee: Are there anything other projects that you want to talk about?
Cash: This other band that I play in, Caution... me and my friend Nora Button, it's our sort of long-distance band. She lives in Minneapolis.
So, basically what we do is we both write songs, and she sends me her ideas, and then I kind of basically act as, like, a producer role. And it's a lot of drum machine, a lot of synth.
I'd say it's stylistically pretty different from my solo music, but the songs are, you know, kind of—you know, it's still me writing half of them, but we're very proud of it.
(Editor's note: Cash is talking about the music from Caution's album Peripheral Vision, released in December 2025. The 12-track indie rock/shoegaze record features the single "Mind Like A Tool." Listen to the album here.)
Baillee: Well, now that the introductions are done, let’s get you warmed up to answer the questionnaire. To do that, I want you to say "Quick-Fire Quips" three times fast.
Cash: Okay. Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips.
Baillee: Okay, here’s the first question: What do you think of when you hear "Alabama"?
Cash: Honestly, the nature here. I think about the trees, the biodiversity. Yeah, it’s a very green state.
Baillee: Very pretty trees. What is a hidden gem in Birmingham that you think more people should know about?
Cash: Burdock Book Collective is a cool local group who sell kind of radical books. They sell some fiction and stuff, but it’s mostly sociopolitical kind of stuff. They’re very cool.
Baillee: What is a bad stereotype, or something that people get wrong about Alabama?
Cash: That we’re all stupid hillbillies.
Baillee: Yeah—that we don't wear shoes. (Baillee and Cash laugh) Some people don't wear shoes because they don’t want to, right? But it’s not like we don’t have access to them.
Cash: Exactly. We have access to shoes here, yeah, for sure.
Baillee: Are they good shoes? Maybe. People live in flip-flops here.
Cash: Yeah, the spectrum of shoes is wide.
Baillee: Okay, let’s talk a little bit about music. What is something you wish more people knew about the music industry in general?
Cash: The practice of being yourself and creating is far more important than anybody who’s going to toss money at you... It should be about making the thing as opposed to selling the thing.
Baillee: What is something you wish was more well-known about the local music scene?
Cash: It’s pretty thriving. There’s a good bit of diversity here. There’s a pretty strong experimental scene here. Sweet Wreath—they run a record label—every release on the label is great. They're a really cool group of people.
Baillee: Are there any artists that you take inspiration from in Alabama?
Cash: There’s a band on that label called Vernal Scuzz, who I absolutely love. Janet Simpson and Will Stewart are two local songwriters that I love a lot; they also have a band together called Timber. I love The Dexateens from Tuscaloosa.
Baillee: When it comes to vinyl, cassettes and CDs, which is the best to listen to music on?
Cash: I love listening to cassettes on one of those little portable cassette players. Yes, nothing really sounds like that. It sounds "bad," but in a good way.
Baillee: I like that cassettes are coming back, and even portable CD players are coming back! So, If there was an alien invasion, what are three albums you would give the aliens to represent Earth’s music?
Cash: America Eats Its Young by Funkadelic.... A Beatles album—we’ve gotta put a Beatles album on there—Rubber Soul.... And I want to throw something weird in there: William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops... Can I tell you about those?
Baillee: Yes, please do.
Cash: He’s this ambient, kind of experimental dude. He’s been around for a while, but The Disintegration Loops—the story with them is that he was dubbing these tapes on the roof of his apartment in New York as 9/11 happened.
The heat or the fumes or something from the planes caused the tapes to start to literally disintegrate, but he was recording the whole time. So, you hear them fall apart; you just hear it. It’s like ambient music, but you hear it get more and more degraded.
Baillee: What is your favorite getaway spot in Alabama?
Cash: This isn't really a getaway spot, but something I really like to show people is the Ave Maria Grotto outside of Cullman... That's a really cool place.
Baillee: Who was your childhood hero?
Cash: Bob Dylan. And as a little kid, He-Man.
Baillee: Are either of those still your heroes today?
Cash: Not so much He-Man. Bob Dylan, for sure. (Cash and Baillee laugh). They will never be able to say enough about him. He’s just so singular.
Baillee: Do you have any superstitions or irrational fears?
Cash: Oh, so many. I’m a very paranoid person. My friend Byron kind of got me on this: Never let anybody sweep under your feet. It’s very bad luck.
I’m a pretty big believer in karma, so I think just being a decent person goes a long way toward preventing "the horrors."
Baillee: Keep the horrors at bay. "The horrors persist, but so do I," kind of thing?
Cash: Exactly. I’m stronger than them.
Baillee: What is something on your bucket list?
Cash: I’ve been to a little bit of Europe, but I really want to go to more of Europe and generally travel more. I’d really like to go to Mexico... I’d like to drive the Autobahn.
Baillee: Are you a speedster? Like Ricky Bobby (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) style?
Cash: Yeah, a little bit. It's kind of a problem.
Baillee: Kind of a problem?! (Baillee and Cash laugh). So, how many speeding tickets do you have?
Cash: Not many, actually. I’m way too good.
Baillee: All right, here’s the last question: What does Alabama need?
Cash: Empathy. Alabama needs people talking to one another and just social connection in general. I think the gap here in terms of relating to one another is pretty big.
So, yeah, I’d say just the ability to talk to strangers and be honest about the way that you feel about things.
Baillee: That's it for today's Quick-Fire Quips, a speedy questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the state of Alabama. That was Birmingham musician Cash Langdon. I'm your host, Baillee Majors. Find us at APR.org for more Quick-Fire Quips.
