TCBCast 423: "Moody Blue: Between the Lines" (feat. Matthew Zeiss)

Justin is joined this week by musician Matthew Zeiss, professionally known as ZEISS, who is also the director of the forthcoming documentary "Moody Blue: Between the Lines," which was announced with a trailer during Elvis Week 2026 and is set to premiere in August 2027. Featuring new interviews with Glen Hardin, Jerry Scheff, Estelle Brown, Larry Strickland, Brent Maher, Layng Martine Jr, Letitia Henley Kirk, Shirley Dieu, archival interviews with James Burton and Mark James, and more yet to be announced, "Moody Blue" the documentary will explore Elvis' creative process in the less-commonly-explored late 1970s, including the abandoned 1977 Nashville session. Zeiss & the TCE band have also recorded new interpretations bringing their own influences and love of Elvis' music to the known demos selected for that session like "Energy," "By Day by Day" and "That's What You To Do Me," as well as covering several studio tracks from the Jungle Room sessions to craft one possible imagined alternate "Moody Blue" album. But come to find out, they would never have undertaken either project to begin with if not for an episode of TCBCast... the guys also talk plenty about numerous songs and demos Elvis was pitched, considered recording, or were written for him, including a fascinating rarely-discussed Mark James song that has also been uncovered by Zeiss, which the "Suspicious Minds" writer had explicitly told author Ken Sharp that he intended as Elvis' first possible disco hit. The duo also geek out about EPiC, mull over future Elvis projects such as EPE's announced hologram show, where tribute acts and AI-generated songs often fail at capturing the soul of Elvis' music despite technical accuracy, and much more. The trailer for Moody Blue: Between the lines is viewable on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbKD6X7Zc3U Moody Blue, ZEISS' album, can be heard on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/album/21XXQzTPXyLNE6SlGnzdEc