Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / James Fauntleroy

Transcript

James Fauntleroy · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. James Fauntleroy is one of the most prolific pop
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: songwriters of the last fifteen years. Some of his most
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: prized placements include songs written for Beyonce, Rihanna, Justin, Timberlake,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Bruno mars In, so many others. He's also contributed background
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: vocals to songs by Travis Scott, Jay Z, and his
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: longtime friend the late Nimsey Hustle. Similar to his music
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: industry idol and mentor Babyface, James Fauntleroy is also an
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: artist in his own right. His own songs, that are
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: best described as a really innovative take on alt R
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and B have lived on streaming platforms for the last decade,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but in December he finally released his first official debut album,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: The Warmest Winter Ever, a Christmas album that's put through
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the font Leroy filter. On today's episode, I talked to
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: James Fauntleroy about why he decided to drop his debut
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: album well over a decade into his career. He also
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: explains how hundreds of his songs were stolen and posted
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: online by international hackers, and why he considers both weird
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Al Yankovic and John Mayer among some of his biggest
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: musical influences. This is broken record liner notes to the
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: digital Age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's my conversation with James Fauntleroy,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: little man.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, too, what's that?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I through?
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my first album came out today?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Your album?
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: I know, man, come on dog, this is this is it?
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: So that's nice? And then my first the last album
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: for that was not my album, but it got nominated.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure you know.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the EP with with with Terrists, that's right.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to sing one of those songs today.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: You nervous about it?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: No, I that's hard for me to feel nervousness. That's
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: always been like that. It's hard to feel nervousness and
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: also excitement, like since a kid, even yeah, I don't know,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: there's always been like that. Always just been like fuck it,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: getting on stages and talking and doing speeches and know whatever.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: If you don't feel you have nervousness, how do you
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: deal with Not that you've experienced a lot of it,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: but how do you deal with any even small level
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: of not even failure. I guess it's something not going.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: On experienced exponential amounts of failure. Rejection, disappointment because that's
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: music business. It sounds like good podcast stuff, but I
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: think that it helps in that sense, because you have
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to be some type of insane to continue to do
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: anything after you've been told no, I'm seven.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Hundred for me. I've only recently gotten to the point
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of where I was just just fuck it, you know
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: what I mean. Like people used to say that, like
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like or that Cat Williams
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: bit back in the day of just you know your
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: a little fucking well.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: That's probably because a lot of artists have like tough lives.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: So my life was so rough before I started doing this,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't even notice it was a thing you could do.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Man, So before the music industry, you sh your life
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: was tough. It was crazy.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: It was crazy on multiple levels.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: When you look back, what do you what do you see?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: I see somebody that ended up being really super lucky,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: just general lucky, also l the luck of being exposed
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: to different identities and possibilities. So yesterday I met with
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: the Department of Corrections, which was funny cause the first
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: cause I'm doing a pilot program for like juvenile probation
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: kids and shit, and the lady was like, just so
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: you know, these kids are dangerous, and I just started
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: laughing cause I was like, lady, I'm dangerous. I'm not
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: scared of these kids. You know, I know what their
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: lives are, like, I know why they cause I had
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: the same experience. It was like all ds and f's
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: for the entire time I was in school. Which is
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: so funny because I'm such I'm so such an intellectual
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: that it's almost like, you know what I mean, like.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: You damn yourself identify as a nerd right.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Like, oh not damn near it. I mean, I'm wearing
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: a Pokemon diamond chain. But yeah, I've been thirty modeling
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: for ten years. I'm always trying to get people to
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: watch CS fifty that's Harvard's free computer science course on YouTube.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I'm a serious, serious nerd. But I just happened to
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: be born in you know, a wild environment at a
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: wild time. It was like the height of well when
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I was born was the year Crack was born.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: And so my father, who I don't know he was,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: he was military intelligence. When you finish military with that
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: level job, you can get a good corporate job. So
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: he got hired at Xerox Corporate where he was taking
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: money out of the safe to buy cocaine, and people
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: didn't know that crack turned you into a zombie. So
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: when he ran out of money, obviously got fired. That
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: caught him. Can put the money back fast enough and
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: he started smoking crack. Just take the edge off and
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: then boom, that's crackhead. So how old are you when
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: he was strung out of three? So I don't have
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: any memory of it. When my dad was a crackhead.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: My first cousin was a heroin that age. I grew
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: up in all these extreme like just hood environments, losing
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: friends and gun violence from childhood to my adulthood because
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Nipsey was one of my best friends. So like I'm
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, one of my friends died last year. Still,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: so it's still like that, even though it's nowhere near
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: what it was when the murder ate it was like
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: two thousand people.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. When when things like Nipsey happened, now, man,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: it's almost for me it feels like like damn, Holy
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: pat Like it feels like because it was obviously where
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: it was much more, it was happening much more often,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: but so it feels, I hate to say, like a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: throwback almost sometimes still when when.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, you know, if you if you work
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: on the symptoms and not the cause, then the disease
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: is not gone. So the cause of the environment, of
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: low socio economic environment is something that we're not allowed
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: to actually talk about, our address under the social contract
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: of human life. So until we can do that, which
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: is gonna take, you know, probably another couple hundred years,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: then the issue is not gonna change.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Revolution is slow.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't know we were we were doing the podcast,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: so I wouldn't even talk about you won't take that
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: and we can take it out. No, no, it's cool.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: See let me know, man, all right, so let's start. Hey,
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: what's up. Well, now we're gonna put it.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: We're gonna put a mask on that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: What's up, hey man?
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: How you doing?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Hey good? How are you doing? Man? Man? Congratulations on
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: your debut album.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Man, it's a wild thing to
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: have a debut album almost twenty years.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Into it's like a young buck.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah man, yeah, bro, it's I think it's time. I
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: think we're in an era that it's hard to keep
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: that age stigma. You know, existing in the Internet era,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: because it's just obviously not really anymore.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: This project that you put out almost whenever been out
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to some degree a couple of different iteration years.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Yeahah, the majority of.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It, so first time in twenty fourteen, first batch of
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: songs released in twenty fourteen, then twenty twenty sixteen. Yeah, yeah,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: why did you decide to compile those and drop those? Now?
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: It's a gift, you know what I mean? Like, I
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: haven't identified as an artist for this my entire career
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: for a bunch of different reasons. But from the very
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: beginning till now, Like let's say I had a thousand
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: fans when I started off, but like ten of the
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: fans were some of the biggest artists on the planet Earth,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: and they were finding my music either from me working
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: in a session somebody or someone telling them about it,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: and then going on YouTube, where I had hundreds of
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: songs uploaded, and especially at that time I uploaded exactly
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: zero of those songs. We were all hacked, and like
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: who was putting them up? There were hackers from Germany,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: from Paris, from Russia. They would contact me and tell me,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: like I remember one time, this is just I think
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: it was a German, German or French hacker, but he
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: found my aim, this aim at the time, and he
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: sent me a picture of like two hundred songs and
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: was like, these hundred, these are all stolen. He was like,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: these hundred I'm posting, but this hundred over here, I
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: really like these. I'm gonna hold on to these. Just Rockulus.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: So shout out to the hackers because they really they
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: were my first digital marketing team.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: How did these hackers know about you? Like?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: What was basically the hustle was, which a lot of
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: music business people don't even know that because they're not
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: computer people. And I've always been a serious, serious computer man.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I knew the hackers were going to be stealing people's
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: songs before it happened, because I know how, I know
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: how it works and how they stole it. And so basically,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to say who it was with a
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: prominent music business person sitting out a mass email one time,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: and they didn't know how to use blind carving copies,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: so they put the email of almost everybody I'd ever
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: met in the music business was in this one email,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: and I remember seeing it and I was like, knowing
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: what I know about hacking. I was like, this is
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: this is not good because the wrong person gets their
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: hands on all these emails. This is the beginning of
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: my career.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And I was like, and with someone trying to help
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you essentially that he just.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Was sending out like a blast about an artist. It
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: was like, yo, I got a new artist. Everybody look
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: at this. But he put almost everybody's music in the
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: music business email and this thing. And I was like,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: this is just not smart to have everybody's emails in
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: one place like this. This is the purpose of blind
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: carving copy. And shortly after that people started receiving these.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: It's called phishing, which now is a more known term.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: But sure enough, phishing emails started going out of people,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: you know, like cloning industry emails and saying, yo, did
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: you get this file to this? And they still do
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: that to this day. But basically what they what you're
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: able to do, especially the further you go back in time,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: the less security you had to deal with the emails,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: and so they were tricking them into giving you their
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: user name or not to use the name of their password.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Then when you can go in the email and set
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: up an attachment filter and have it forwarded to another email.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: So basically they were going in all the an RS, executives, producers,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: everybody's emails, setting up attachment filters to forward all attachments
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: to their emails. And then they're incentive for doing this
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: was they were uploading all these leaks to websites where
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: like music fans would go, and then they were getting
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: money from the ads on the website. Wow, so they're
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: cleaning up.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I was on those websites. I'm those websites yet, so.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Think about it.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: When you went to them old websites in the early
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: two thousands or mid two thousands, they were covered in ads.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Crazy ass.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the hackers were cleaning up. But they also
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of these guys, which if you think about
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: it makes sense because a hacker is someone that sits
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: in front of a computer all day. So they love.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Music, you know what I mean.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: So like because they're listening to music while they're doing
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: their various hack things.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: It's not all it's not it's not only commercial concerns.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: So like these under songs, I'm.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: No, they're like and And a friend of mine got
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: to email that of a hacker that was like, we
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: want all of your James Funtleroy unsure. Uh, I forgot
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: who the other people were they were. It was like
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: he was like, we're coming for your ship.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: We know you got them Usher songs. We coming to
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: get that ship.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: And so what end up happening is they're putting all
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: they're putting all these songs on YouTube also so they
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: can get ad revenue. And now my small fan base,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: which includes some of these huge celebrities, are able to
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: go on YouTube and listen to my songs and other
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: writers and go on YouTube and listening to a hundred
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: of my songs, and so that that really had a
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: big impact on me getting work and having something to
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: support the word of mouth, but also giving like hundreds
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: of writers, like just hundreds of songs to study my style.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: So that was a part of my style.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Becoming proliferating around right big with this in the you
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: know R and B saying, so you were just making
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: these songs like your own personal songs.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And I was trying to get placements. So when I
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: got my first placement or or song on someone's album,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: it was on Katherine McPhee's album, and I don't remember
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: the name of the song. But I was so excited
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: because you know, like just getting one song place is
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: a miracle. And the time, yeah, it was popping, I
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: was I was happy. And the guy, one of the
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: guys that worked at the publishing company came to me
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: and he was keeping track of like everybody's songs because
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: that was part of his job, and he gave me
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: a spreadsheet and was like, I want you to see this,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: and showed me that I had written or started three
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: hundred songs before my first placement. So like a lot
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: of those songs and we're the ones that people are
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: sending to an rs and stuff trying to shop them,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: which is so funny because I have almost no I
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: have like five hundred releases, and I think one came
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: from shopping of all those five hundred songs, the other
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: hundreds of songs came from people was just finding my
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: personal music and becoming fans. And to answer this extremely
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: long answer to your question why I wanted to do
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: this now is because over the years, my super small
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: fan base has grown to a bigger small fan base
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: of people that are really so supportive and just you know,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: like giving me so much energy, especially when I'm the
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: music I've been releasing over the years is really just
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: you know, like to satisfy create my creative you know,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: desire or whatever, just wanting to be able to release
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: things that I don't have to think about all the
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: parameters that come with working with superstars, even though I
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: also love parameters because they forced you to do something different.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: And so why I'm putting the album out now is
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I I just can't take it anymore. I want to
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: let the fans and people that listen to my music
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: in the community and at large know that I appreciate
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: all the support by putting some energy into it. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: then also I want to update these niggas because you know,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: like so many people study me. And then also it's
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: because I've already seen a lot of people talking about
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: like why is James's first album on Christmas? Album? Actually,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: today I.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Saw don't steal My question broll No.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Today I saw a sweet that said James Finloy's debut
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: album being a Christmas album is such a James Finleroy
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: thing to do, and I was like missing accomplish. So
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: it was why is your first album with christ Well
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: part of it, there's a couple of answers one is like,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: because these songs have been out for so long I have,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: I've had a lot of time to see what people
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: like or not, you know, and I get a lot
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: of responses about this Christmas music throughout the year and
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: four years, like so I know people like it, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: I know people listen to it not only in Christmas,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: but creatively. It's just it's a fun way to stretch
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: my imagination because like, like, for instance, I did an
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: album one time that people don't even know. It's seven
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: songs on the projects and each one of them is
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: referencing one of the days of creation in the Bible.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: And you know, like I did that because I was
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: studying philosophy at the time, but also because it's just
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: fun when you give yourself new. You know, almost every
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: song is about the same like three or four things.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And I told you I wrote three hundred songs before
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: my first one, so you can imagine that was almost
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: twenty years ago. How many have written up to this
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: point and you started running out of shit to say
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: and do, and like, how do you how do I
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: make this fun? It's like coming up with something new
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: to challenge myself and pull something new out of myself
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: and I'm still I feel like I still haven't had
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: which is gonna sound crazy. I can feel it right now,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: but I feel like I still haven't had the success
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: trying to get well.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: But it's funny because you're working in two different like
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: like you could judge your success a couple different ways.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Like obviously, working as a writer producer, you've had just
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: about as much success as won't can help to have
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: as a writer producer, right, But then there is this
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: like thing of you as an artist, and it's like,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you know, now, when I go to look for James
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Fauntleroy on Apple Music or Spotify or whatever, it's not
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: just you featured on whatever, it's like an actual body
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: of work from you that I could So it's like
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: this other thing probably keeps things fun for you man
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: to like keep yourself challenged.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I got to think of something because the
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: music business is not fun.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: So like what do you mean by that?
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: It's terrible? I mean, like, you know, every movie about
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: the music business is terrible, like The Temptations, that's the
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: one I always use.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: But you got to stay off of drugs.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: You got to show because it's like we're selling an
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: intangible product, you know, and so like it's a breeding
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: ground for common and you know, like people who are
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: unscrupulous because it's it's it's a great environment to hustle,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: you know. So like that's really one of my life
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: goals is to prove that you can be successful without
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: being a piece of shit and fucking people over left
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: and right, and you know, like doing fair business.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: And do you find yourself in the and wanting to
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: practice less predatory sort of business practices? Do you do
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: you find that like people try to screw you over
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: every day?
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And do you think people are trying to screw you
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: over more because necessarily see that as maybe a weakness
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and you're not trying to hustle.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: I think they're just on autopilot, just doing whatever they can,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: just trying stuff like the raptors in Jurassic Park when
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: they're like hitting an electric fence. That's these guys are
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: just like testing every fence they get they come in
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: contact with. And I wish it would be nice if
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: people would, you know, like consider that before I got
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: to this latest person that's trying to take advantage of me,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: how many people I had to get through to get
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: to this point, it would be nice and they would
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: just but I can't be mad. I you know, I've
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: been in Vegas. I played Rouette once.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: It was really I was like, I get it, you
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: get it.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, you know you win one time and it
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: just hooks you. So every time somebody, every time I
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: see anyone do anything crazy or say anything crazy, my
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: first thought is, though they got away with that shit before,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: and that's why they think they could do that.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: So it's really it's the business that's not fun.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the music that can also lose its excitement for
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: a number of different reasons. But yeah, it's the business
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: and just human life. Like I study forhilosophy so extensively,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Like I spoke at the Philosophical Research Society. I think
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: that was this year.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Wow, what'd you speak on? This?
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: One was about a famous philosophical text called The Secret
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall's who founded
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: the Philosophical Research Society. And my first talk there was
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: like a decade ago, and that was on NPR. And
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I just found the footage because I feel like people
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: think I'm lying when I say that ship, but I got.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Evidence now it's on NPR.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And then it with NPR and now I had college
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: professors for risks.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Bro, you did it.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: It's like I did it on Believe.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah it Ron Rihanna Sance, You're like pulling up MPR footage.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Chance Bro, Damn well, how'd you go to the philosophy going? Broke?
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: Some people?
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: When you lose all your money, that's when you really
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: started looking for God, right in that moment you started
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: praying and ship.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: It was just after you had some money.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Man, you know, I haven't met a person yet that
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: didn't blow their first million dollars, and most people I
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: know are have also blown their last million dollars. So
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: it's just a That's Another part of the predatory environment
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: that makes it hard to enjoy is like you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: like in sports, for instance, they have preferred business management
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: and regulatory boards, and they have all these things that
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: have come into place to protect the young.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Athletes, mentorship systems, it's the whole.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Thing address that because they realize that the quality of
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: life the players are experiencing has an impact on the product.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Versus in our industry, there's none of that. There's no
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: regulatory boards, so people can do any deal that you
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: will sign and with no oversight. There's no even like
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: industry of what the term business manager implies. So like
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: the biggest firms that are typical and the biggest entertainers
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: that are going to like what you would consider like
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: music firms, what they're getting is a CPA that's an accountant.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: So the accountant is like paying your bills typically on
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: auto pay, calling the credit card company when your car
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: doesn't work in room or whatever. But what business manager
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: implies is that they're going to manage your business. So
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: what you're actually looking for is wealth management. Somebody that's gonna,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: you know, come up with a plan for your money
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: so that you can build a wealth and budgeting and
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: whatever versus. I mean, my last business manager I had,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: you know, I would call and say, hey, can I
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: afford this? They'd be like, hell, yeah, bye too, you
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: know what I mean, And that actually that's not the truth.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: And so was that a good thing?
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: No, it was a terrible thing.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Sounds like great great news to me too, I wish.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's not that's not real, you know what
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I mean. Because basically what they're doing is banking on
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: the fact that you'll just always have income, and that's
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: not how we get we we rarely get paid, especially
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: if you're a songwriter. That's a whole other conversation because
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: producers at least get fees, and a songwriter as big
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: as I am, I get fees sometimes, but that's not
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: what we're all expecting that I'm not going to get
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: a fee, you know what I mean. And so for
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: a songwriter it's it's even harder because like, you just
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: don't have any way to get paid except for your
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: publishing advance, which is based on your ability to have
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: hit songs, which is something you also can't control.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Right after a quick break, will be back with more
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: of an interview with James Fontleroy. We're back with more
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: from James font Leroy. Your name has always been a
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: gold standard in terms of so I know you're saying
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: you're not Babe Ruth, you can't call hits, and it's true,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: but you've had an overwhelming amount of great songs written
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: with great artists over you know, now damn near twenty years.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: How have you been able to retain that level of creativity?
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: And well, a hit song is that's something you buy,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like, a hit song is
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: not a sound it's an element of a marketing campaign
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: that costs a certain amount of money. So when people
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: are when I hear like an amateur, like I got
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: my new single coming out, I'm like, no, you don't
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: have any money. You're putting a song out. That's what
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: that's called a single, or somebody that's a budget behind.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: That's that's what a single is.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: That's why I'm like, I can't, I can't call it
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: hit because that depends on you know, like what what
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: people respond to, but more importantly, how much money people
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: are spending on it. Now, what I can say is
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: that I have really good tastes. And why my taste,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: why I have so much confidence confidence in my taste
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: is because although some of it is inherent or whatever,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: but for the most part, it's it's not about that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: It's we have evidence of what works. We have Stevie Wonder,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: we have Prince, we have Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: we got Babyface, we got Dying Warren, we got all
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: these people, and it's really our job as modern creators
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: to try to comprehend not how to do what they did,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: but what worked. You know, I had an argument with
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: them he's a really big executive now. At the time
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: he was a big executive. I had an argument with
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: this guy one time because he was telling me that
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: my songs were too complex, which she was right, but
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: he was like it was crazy too, because he was
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: asking me to work for this artist and I was
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: like no, And then he was like, come on, work
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: with the artist, and I was like no. So then
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: he said he wanted to have a meeting with me.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Then he calls me in the meeting, and the whole
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: meeting is him telling me why my songs won't be
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: hit songs. And so this is the early part of
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: my career. So I'm sitting here. Also, at the time,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: my manager was there, and my poor manager didn't know
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: what my personality was like because growing up in the
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: environment I grew up and I knew, like, you know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: like in these kind of situations, yeah, unless they know
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the better he does. So I'm just like he imagine
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: me for like almost two years, and he didn't know that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I was like I am. So I'm sitting here listening
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: to this guy who just I told no twice, tell
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: me why my songs will never be hits, And I'm like,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: I feel the pressure rising up that I'm about to
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: let this guy have it, and I'm like, oh no,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: my manager, this is gonna happen. And so even though
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: I haven't, I've never yelled at anyone in the music business.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: But and I have theories on why people feel like
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I'm yelling at them when I'm talking calmly, because I
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: sounded just like this when I'm talking to this guy.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: But after I let him say all this ridiculous shit,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I was like, man, with all due respect, like if
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: you take the number one songs from any period, like
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: the last year, the last ten years, last thirty years,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: they're different tempos, different topics, different genres, different looking people.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: None of those factors are the thing and something else
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: that they have in common that I know that you
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: don't know. And so for you to sit here and
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: tell me that I don't know how to write his song,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: it's absolutely ridiculous. Nobody knows, you know. But of the
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: two of.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Us, yeah, you know more than.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: He was like, you're absolutely right. I hope he here's
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: the shit and not just the truth. So like how
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I have there's two things I'm thinking about. I'm measuring
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: the quality of my music and the quality of the
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: writing and melodies and all this stuff against these greats
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: that I listed. So I'm like, I'm not looking at
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: what people right now are doing. I'm looking at the
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: people that already proved to us. Oh, because this is
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: another thing I tell people all the time. Every generation
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: thinks their music is the best, right man, When I
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: was young, it was so good. I think that too now,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: even though I know what I'm about to tell you
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: And also, people are always like, you got to make
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: music simple because everybody's stupid, right, And so I tell
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: people all the time, one, people have always been stupid,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: day one, the first human to the last is going
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: to be an abundance of idiots. So when Stevie Wonder
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: was putting out music, people were just dumb as they
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: were now. And then further, when I think about all
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: these these different people that I'm talking about the other
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: element of what makes people like songs, It's like, yes,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I'm comparing myself quality wise to all these greats. But
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: what I'm really trying to do with the song is
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: turn a consumer into a believer, you know what I mean.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Like that's yeah, Like that's something that connects you with
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: the person because I'm always telling people, which is just
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: funny because I have I've seen I just saw an
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: interview with somebody saying the opposite of what I'm about
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: to say. But art is it's it's already cathartic, you
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: know what I mean. When you're when you make a
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: piece of art, you're you're using your experience to make
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: it right everything, but the value of it, the part
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: that people are paying you money for, is not about
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: your catharist It has nothing to do with you. So
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: like my my secret or my my, what I'm thinking
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: about is, you know, there's the quality part I told
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: you about, but my intent is to make something that
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: connects the listener because of the level of service this
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: song is providing in their lives. And so you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: there's different venues. There's barbecues, there's the car, there's the club.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: A great example. I always tell people because for whatever reason,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: people think I only listen to classical music and shit,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: because whenever I tell people I listen, I listen. I've
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: listened to I started listening to classical, right, I do
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: listen to classical music, but I love all kinds of stuff.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: So I always tell people a great example of a
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: song that is of extreme like levels of use is
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: back that ass up, right, Oh my god, because well
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: we'll use that song till the end of time. Tell me, yeah,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: like Mariah Carey the Christmas song, back that ass up.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: You know, there's just like a couple of songs that
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: we consider classics. Oh yeah, I just reader. My other
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: point was that people always think music is so good
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: from their era, But the fact is we stopped playing
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: the ship that's not of use, playing the things that
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: aren't good anymore.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: That's real, man. So there's a lot of the because
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: that's the thing.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: They'll be.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: They'll be certain sounds that I like when I'm listening
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to them at the time, I get real tired of
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: real fast, and I can't listen to any of it.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Ten years later, fifteen years later, when all like the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: weakest versions of that style have kind of gone away
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: and you only have the cream has risen, and it's like, oh, wait,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: why did I love this shit?
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Actually? Why did I?
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Why did I not listen to it? It's like, oh, because.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: That's that's how it works, the ones that are impactful,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: and and also that's good, that's great. You said it
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: like that because like it's also the ones that really
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: capture the sound the best. Yes, you know, like from
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: the Ratchet era, we have rack City and Loyal. Those
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: two songs are gonna be the representatives of that genre
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: in twenty years, even though there is and there's a
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: couple more.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: It was great time, I got to be honest, I
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: It was great. So yeah, there's like probably five, six, seven,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: maybe ten of them songs. It was a thousand that
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: came out, the same thing for the nw Jack sound.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Same thing for New Jack was tough. Like the growing
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: up with new Jack was it was just everywhere and
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: it kind of got old for me at the time.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But going back, you're like, yo, I don't know, man.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Certain ones that we're always gonna play them. And so
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: that's my goal is like to make something like that,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: something that is so useful.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: You have a really unique sound though.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Man, I know, man, well it was unique in the beginning.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I feel like it still is. Like I
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: feel like listening even to this record, like it's clear
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: like people make music more like you now, but there's
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: still something in you doing it and in your songs
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and then you performing them that make them sound original still,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and unique. But I maybe we can talk
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: about your songwriting. Yeah, your structure is come on very
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: different than most songwriter structure. Were you trying to play
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: with form or was it just like that's just how
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you heard it.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: No, it's very intentional. When I started, you know, there
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: were writers I really admired that. I was trying my
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: best to write songs like just like everybody else. Well
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: my biggest right at the time I actually got signed
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: the Underdogs who I actually ended up getting signed to
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: where they were kind of like redefining R and B
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: at that time. So I was really like studying their
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: music hard and it was unbelievable. I couldn't copy because
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I didn't know how you know what I mean. But
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: it was certain little things that I was like, I
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: like this, I like that. But then I ended up
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: going there and being trained in that style so much
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: so that it was like, and don't do it any
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: other way either. So that was another like final development.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: But when I got there, people were telling me, even
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: though Brandy's one of the best singers ever and really
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: foundational to my sound and everything. Also, even like the
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: people she wrote with, I consider them like Lashawn Daniels,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: for instance. I consider them to be huge influences on
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: my writing. But being the kind of person I am,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I don't want to hear that shit all day. I
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: don't want to hear people telling me I sound like
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Brandy all the time because I'm like, what do you?
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: What are you?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: What are you saying?
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: So I really sat up there for like, and I'm
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: still doing it today, Like I'm really like, I was like,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: I want to I want my own sound. It would
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: never not have Brandy in it, you know. Like I
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: think even while I was consciously developing my sound, that's
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: when I discover Imaging Heap and you know, like the
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: eighties in general are big, you know. I think that
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: was when when humanity really started nailing down what pop
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: music really could be. And so that's a big part
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: of her style. I can hear too. But when I
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: heard Imaging Heap, it was like, Okay, this is what
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to do, you know what I mean?
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Sense because you got that real the soul thiss of
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: a Brandy with those weird sounds that you might hear,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: and the productions are big, like like like the best
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: because I.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Am from the hood too, you know what I'm saying.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: But also that's another funny thing about the Hood experience
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: is like gangsters love music. Man, Like I was getting
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: a great you know, I was learning a lot about me.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: I think the first person that really, my mom was
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: the first person to try to convince me that Prince
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: was somebody actually get into. But it was really like
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: a bunch of thugs. I was riding around blasting prints
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: out of lowriders that I was like, let me check this.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Outber my dad trying to put me on the DJ
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: quick by telling me of the best Prince of hip hop.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: He's just like Prince. It was right.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: He was like, Rhythmalism is one of the best albums
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: I ever heard of my whole entire life, hands down,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: including every type of music I've ever heard. That's like
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: top five albums for me.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: It's amazing stuff.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: I really talk about Dave Hollister as an influence with
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: that was a big influence. And he's doing like soul
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: gospel kind of singing, and I was really getting into that.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Michael Franks is a big influence on you know. The
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: least people I come in contact are familiar with Michael Franks.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: But I also know some ghetto people that I'm not
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: the only one in the hood, mister Franks that listens
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: to your music. But you know, I just had all
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: these different influences. And basically there's two things one. Singing
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: and writing is night and day skills. They don't go together.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Most of the big writers that have ever lived were
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: not great singers. Most of the great singers I know about,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: we're not great writers. So those are two different things
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: I had to study, you know, Like my story of
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: my singing style is a different path.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: But you wanted to have both, You wanted to have
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: singing and songwriter.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a choice. You know, you can't choose
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: it if you can sing or not, you know what I mean.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: So I just happened to be at one with it.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: But I love books, and I'm a nerd, so I'm
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: into words and tone and writing, and like I was
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: already an avid reader, you know what I mean. So
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I was I already was interested in the process of writing,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: like you know, like literary writing. But as far as songwriting,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: before I started really writing songs, my favorite writer was
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: probably where it now. Every song I wrote before, including
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: my first song, I wrote period. My first song was
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: a joke because like, you know, that's all, that's what
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: writing was to me. I didn't know it was a job.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: So the only things I ever wrote were like parodies
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: like the Hot Boys. I wrote a song called hot
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Breath when I was and uh in high school like that.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: It was just a hot breath, the hot Breath. I
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: remember like writing the verses out and everything because I
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: love where it. Now.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: We're gonna pause for another quick break and then we'll
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: be back with more from James font Leroy. We're back
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: with the rest of my conversation with James font Leroy.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: When did songwriting become a thing you knew that you
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: could do, like as a career, Like, when did that
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: become like I want to do this?
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Well, it was when I found out you could get paid,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: you know what. I'm seen somebody pull up in a
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: nice car with a nice outfit on a nice this
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: and that, and I was like, what's up, what's going
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: on over here? And so that's when I found out
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: because I was at a publisher's I was at Universal's
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: publishing studio. They had a recording studio, and I had
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: actually been there before singing a demo for somebody right
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: before I actually had my first like writing session there,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: and I just had no idea about what publishing was,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: the pubishing deals and admin and all this stuff. So
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: when I found out what it was, I got on
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: the internet and I researched it so thoroughly that when
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: I got my first terrible deal, I told my lawyer.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: I was like, Yo, this is bad right, and he
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: was like, I don't know the hell you think you are.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: You need to sign that shit. So I actually got
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: to make a decision on the spot. I was like,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: do I want to take this bad deal and get
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: the opportunities, which I don't suggest other people do that,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: but they ended up working out for me because it
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: was worth it.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was worth just getting your foot in the door.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it doesn't always work like that. I've seen the
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: majority of people in those situations. They end up so
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: dejected that they they can't function after they realized because
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: everybody has this moment where you realize you signed something
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: that wasn't in your best interest. And I remember one
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: time talking to my publisher about it, even though knew
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: the deal was fucked up when I got it, But
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I remember talking to my publisher about it, and I
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: was like, why did you think? I've said this to
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: several people in the music business. I said, why do
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: you think this is? Okay?
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: That's a great question, you.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Know what I mean. And the typical answer is, this
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: is how it happened to me. This is how it's done,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: which is actually what made me want to start the
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: school and get into education and all this other stuff
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: I got going on. But my publisher was like, well,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: we didn't know you, and I was like what, And
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: so I always since then, I've been like two things. One,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: if you do better business and it turns out bad,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: then you know at least you did your best. If
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: you do good business and it turns out well, then
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: you just exponentially multiply what you can do with that person.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: And if you just.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Want to be a criminal, you know, no judgment, but
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: rob them in the end, not in the beginning. Why
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: are you so dumb if you really think this person's
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: worth robbing, why would you steal them their money when
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: they have one hundred and fifty thousand versus when they
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: have fifteen million. Ye're crazy? H So that that's why
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: all your criminals out there, that's a free one.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Do you think the music industry is fixable?
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't think it's fixable at all.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: I think it's just business, you know what I mean,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Like the music part is it's it's not even important.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: And that's evident in the fact that we haven't had
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: any new superstars really for the last decade, and it's
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: solely because that's not in the best interests of the machine.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: How do you feel, I mean, I'll say, as a
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: just as a person who's a fan of music, the
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: fact that there's have been no true superstars built over
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: the last built or put out or come out or
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: come about over the last decade, it's a drag man.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: It is man And basically it's just it just takes
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: time because the Internet has been rearranging everything since it
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: popped off. Because basically, right now, like you know, you
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: have Internet fame, which doesn't translate into international market and
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: right now, the label systems have territory partners that they
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: can make an act a global priority, meaning like you know,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: their partners in different territories will open up budgets to
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: market that person in different territories, which then creates a
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: global superstar. Yeah, and so I think that the way
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: the Internet is closing all these bridges and gaps, you're
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: going to start having people who are recreating the environment
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: without the need of that system. And so the labels
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: are aware and they figured out a lot of really
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: smart Like I'm not angry at the labels, like I
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: always hear my collaborators, especially all of us, because all
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: of us have much money, we have left, We're making
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars, you know what I mean, So I
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: don't have emotions about it.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I just also feel like music's better when there's a
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: strong label system.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: But it's alway but like, oh yeah, they don't feel
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: any sense of responsibility to the art, which I do.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: So that's a big part of everything I'm doing is
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: like I feel because all the people that came before
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: me had such an impact on me that I could
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: go from zero to traveling the world and having money
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: and doing all this, I'm like, who's going to do
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: that for the next people? So that's why I'm like
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: really working hard to fill in that gap and really
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: trying to support and work with other people that feel
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: like that, which is almost every collaborator I had that
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: people name when they name who I worked with. It's
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people who are also really concerned with
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: preserving the art, you know, like Bruno is one of
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: the best examples, Like every superstar though, like all the
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: people that are on my list of people that I
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: worked with, one thing I noticed they all have in
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: common is they're all like music historians, every single one
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: of them.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Justin Timberlake, he's one of them, absolutely, Beyonce, Beyonce.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Like just expert. They could all teach Ivy League classes
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: on music history, all of them.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: What does that bring to writing sessions or recording sessions?
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Wisdom? You know, like knowing what works and knowing the
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: rules enough to recreate them or break them or bend
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: them or whatever. And you just have to do that.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: If you want to make something new, you have to
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: understand what came before it. Yeah, that's not a super
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: popular thing on the planet Earth, but the people that
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: know that have advantage.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's starting to change. It feels like this hip
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: hop fiftieth thing has been cool. It's been great to
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: see people embrace artists that I think before we're just
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: kind of aligned as like it's like that's old This
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: old school's wax it's you know, it's like, but it
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: feels like there's a lot of good will going towards
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: our legends these days, and so.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I see that too, But that's just really that's
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: that's the mainstream and public perception. But the truth is,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: you know, like whoever the biggest young rapper, like a
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: TikTok guy or whoever you want to name, they don't
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: have as successful a global touring career as the Wu
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Tang clan, you know what I mean. So even when
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: we were all not looking the world, because even the world,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: we all have this tendency to look through the lens
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: of America. But the fact is that you're not going
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: to find too many of these TikTok guys doing global
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: dates versus these old guys they've been out here getting
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: this money. Yeah, I think he's good that the Internet
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: is peeling away all sorts of machines and industry's ability
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: to tell you that something is one way when it's
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: really nothing.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: And I also think too, like to an earlier point,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: you're twenty years in just about releasing your debut album,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: there really is no timeline anymore. Like the fact, like
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: if we dropped a really good album this year, people
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: would bang it just as hard as right as that.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: It's by nods these last right like some of the
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: best music NAS has ever done. It sounds as relevant
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: as ever. People loved it as much as anything new
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: that came out, and he.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Boy was nominated for Partucer the year off.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Of that deserved. Hell, yeah, deserved.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: He should get it every year. That's my boy. He's
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: on fire.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I talked to him a few months ago just because
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I was so I was so pumped on those NOS records.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I met him to day zero. I met him when
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: I was trying to get the publishing did with the Underdogs.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: That's when we met, so I know him from my
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: whole entire.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Was he also trying to get a deal there?
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: That's a funny story.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: Actually, I don't know if he talks about the fact
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: that it used to be hit boys. Did he tell
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: you that, Yeah, it used to be two of them. No, Ill,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: it used to be two hit boys and one of
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: them left to what we thought was signing to deal
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: with the Underdogs, which ended up to be actually not
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: the case.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we did talk about his his initial bad
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: We all.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Were trying to everybody. Basically, it was like, it was
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: in this building that now Diane Warren owns that Babyface
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: used to own that used to be Solar even Dick
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Griffy right, yep, it's on Hollywood and Kowana Wow. And
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: so the underdogs had the third floor because they have
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: a relationship Babyface with subt. I shout out to Babyface,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: it's one of the greats. Why I consider him the top.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: I consider me the top if I'm being totally honest.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: But if I'm taking myself, I think you need twenty
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: more years.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: I love you know.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: I talked to about this. I said, yo, man, I
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: can never be Babyface, Like, what's how can I even
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: do it? And he was like, he said, really, how
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: you need to think about it is that because I've
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: been doing this so long, there's things that I've done
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: that you just can't do. He was like, you can't
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: work with Whitney Houston, you know what I mean. So
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: you can't We can't match each other on that in
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: that regard. But he was like, the same thing will
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: be true for you one day.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Twenty years though. Beyonce and Rihanna, they're gonna be the
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: way we think of Whitney now which is like.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Like, so you know I'm
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Babyface now Babyface. Yeah, I'm gonna let you hold on
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: to the name because you earned it.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Did you always love his music?
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely as an artist before I knew he was writing
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: everything under the sun. Who was the first person I
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: heard about doing a catalog sales? So that's how you
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: even learned that that existed. And that was probably sixteen
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: seventeen years ago, and he recouped it, which is just
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: that's not even a thing today. So you know, statistically
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: he's we can't argue if he's as far as uh writing,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: he's my number one.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I know, as far as my taste, he's got to
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: be one of the great songwriters of all time.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, I think he's number one, especially just from
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: writing standpoint. But then, like you know, my top guys
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: are baby Face. It's me, It's me five times, but
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: it's baby Face. What's six to ten, it's baby Face,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Stevie Wonder, John Mayor. I feel like we're not taking John.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Way to say I'm gonna keep keep going, Wenna, we
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: can go back.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: So baby Face, Stevie Wonder, John Mayor, Prince And then
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: I'll say Diane Warren.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: All right, I love John Mayer. We go go back
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: to that? Is that in order? No, okay, that's good.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I mean Stevie, I love baby Face, but it's hard
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: to put.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Well, Stevie Wonder got a bunch of songs about singing ship.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: So who could be who can compete with that? How
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: we're gonna beat that one? You just you're not You're
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: not going to get to that level of creativity.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: What is it about John Mayer that you feel like?
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Put the other the other four? I mean, I love
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: but I'm.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Telling you John Mayer is on the same level. He's
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: one of the best writers ever on earth, to ever live, period,
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: and he's also an amazing singer and arranger and musician.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: He's like unbelievable. I would say, you think you got a.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Song as good as anything on the Waiting to Excel soundtrack?
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: I think it's more than one. Yeah, yeah, like Stop
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: this Train?
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: You know that song Stop the Trains Continuum?
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I don't. I don't know what what song we
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: could confidently say is better than that song? You would
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: have to be as good as that song. I'm just
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: telling you, as one of the greatest writers of all.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Time as one, two, five, Yeah, that song, it's that's
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: just that's it's a good song.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: It's a great song. It's it's a song that captures
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: the human condition in a way that's almost impossible to
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: do in a digestible format. It's relatable, it's introspective, it's
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: musically incredible, it's proof that he's one of the greatest
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: writers of all times.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: It's definitely one of the great albums.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: That whole album, I mean, his first album, What Come.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: On Continuum has got to be his top.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Contenue is definitely best album. But his first album, he
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: was letting us know right there. He's still on every song.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: The first one I heard was the first single that
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: was by these in Wonderland was the second one, if
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, because the first one was I Want
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: to Run through the halls of my high school. So
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: that one I was like, that got and this is
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: before I was even writing, and that got my attention,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: like what's going on here? But then when I heard
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: your Body's Wonderland, I was like, so, you know what,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: I want to add him to my list of influences
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: because I really think about how he writes as like
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: a great example of all these things I'm talking about,
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: as far as like adhering to the examples that all
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: these grades have set before us and then doing it
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: his own way. I think he's up there.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: What about you as a guitar player, Oh.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I suck, dude, Like I just loved the guitar. I'm
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: so in love with the guitar, so I've been playing
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: it now for a long time. But I'll never forgive man.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: I did this show because when I first I taught
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: myself the guitar as an adult, and I just had
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: it in the car with me and the band with
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: me everywhere. I'm just strumming it and fucking with it.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: And then I wrote this project called String Theory because
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: I'm a nerd, and I performed it at this this
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: venue called No Name that was on Fairfax back in
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: the day. And I don't even know if Robert Cavallo
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: remembers this. This is my I love him to death,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: like I just talked to I went to his birthday
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: last year and I told him the Dookie Green Day
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: poster is the only music poster I ever had on
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: my wall in my life.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the only music poster I ever had. I
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: was a big fan of Green Day and a bunch
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: of things at that time. But I don't even know
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: if he knows this, because I met him several times he.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Produced that record.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I went to his house when I first started
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: writing with Justin Lake and we had a funny exchange there.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: But he walked up to me at the show. I
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: don't even know if your members of this, but after
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: I perform my this is my first time performing live
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: playing the guitar, and he walks up to me. He's like,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: you don't know who I am, but I'm a pretty
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: successful rock producer and I can tell you don't know
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: how to play the guitar. And I was like, you know,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: oh shit, I'm caught. And he was like, and I
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: really wanna tell you that you're a genius. He was like,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: I can tell you don't know what you're doing, but
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: the fact that you figured this out ay and and
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: how creative the arrangements are and how you're just doing
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: all this stuff, he was like, you're a genius. This
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: is insane, like that you just did that and you
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: don't even know how to play the guitar. And so
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: That's kind of how I feel about it. It's really like,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: can't really play anything, But I just am lucky to
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: have the ability to comprehend why I love what I
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: love about music. And then even though I can't tell
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: you the numbers of the root, Nope, so their progression
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: or none of these other really important vitals that you
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: need to casef a musician. But I know how it's
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: supposed to sound, and I'm creative.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't even know if it's how it was
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: supposed to Like you play something, I don't even know
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: if that's how it's supposed to sound. It just sounds
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: like there's stuffing on you on the record you just
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: put out today, like Magic, where I'm like, what is that?
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: Like?
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: What is like? You know, it's like working Man was
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: listening to it.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: We were picking songs for the show. I just didn't
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: I can tell. They were like, what's going on?
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: But it's crazy, Like but it's like it makes no sense,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: but it's absolutely beautiful and somehow it fits into the
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: song and you're like, I don't know how he made
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Like I don't know how you made that song out
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: of that riff or how you fit that riff into
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: that song well out which wherever way it went, it's incredible.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you. It's observing. Man. I worked with John Mayer
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: a bunch of times, so I was great. I was
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: already already felt how I felt before I even met him,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: but then I was able to see him work too,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: so that showed me some things about how to what
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: to do with the guitar. And then also this producer
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: named Mike Elizondo and Mike Alzando I've worked with so
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: many times over the years. But even though his biggest
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: hit is in the Club probably, but he's like an
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: incredible rock producer. Like he's so so like serious about
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: all the genres he does. He can do anything. But
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: like I worked with him in a bunch of sessions
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: that were like rock leaning, you know, like it was
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: pop rock or like just rock stuff. So I got
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: to watch him making you know, rock music the way
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: he imagines it, and it was just certain things I
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: learned from watching both of those guys that I was like, Okay,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: so I don't need to really be good, I just
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: need to know how to do it, and you know,
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: like do what I'm trying to do with with everything
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: I've learned in singing and writing and production because I've
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: really been producing longer than both of those other things.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: Like people don't know that, but I know how to
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: just get it to feel the way I wanted to feel.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: And then once I get this feeling, then now I'm like, Okay,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: now back to what I was saying earlier. Now this
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: song is abuse, this is creating the feeling.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: And that's why I was saying that, like, yeah, I know,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: like there's a lot of people have copied your style,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: but it's something that hits very different when you're doing
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: it or when it's you're thinking there's an emotion in it.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: That's just that doesn't translate to someone who's trying to
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: just do a song that sounded like one of yours
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: is a really like a it's like something that was
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: captured in the room. It's like documenting something in the room.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's necessarily. There's a few.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Things that the people that study me, even though I'm
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, you know what I mean. It's not
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: a secret, but it's just a few things that one
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: thing is it's my style. While complex, there's some entry
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: points that are just not hard. You know what I
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: mean because like that it's supposed to be something that
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: people can can enjoy. It's not supposed to be like
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: you know, just like music for the sake of for
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: other musicians, like for people been Also there's just things
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: that they everybody hasn't picked up on yet, you know,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Like there's dynamic stuff, which I got this from. I
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: heard prince An shot it. Shot is a huge influence.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Thiss is shot it tattooed on my hand. Yeah, shade
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: as Mary, It's amazing, So that's another huge influence. But
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: like Shota in print and like kind of singing a
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: and also a lot of singers can't even do this
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: to emulate it, but like singing a low octave and
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: a high octave that creates a certain kind of feeling
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: that I noticed people haven't picked up on that yet
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: thinking of the singer as a character, you know. Like
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: I noticed this on the song Village Ghetto Land by
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Stevie Wondering, which we all now know he loves classical
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: music and that's why he was doing all these different
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: classical leaning things. But when I heard that song, he's
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: singing with like a slight British accent on the song
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: and So what that taught me was that, you know,
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: because that why I instantly knew why he did it.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: I'm like, it's classical music. It's already it's interesting because
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: you're talking about the life, the ghetto life experience with
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: the backdrop of classical So that's a lesson right there,
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: because that's interesting. So that's a lesson that everybody needs
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: to understand. And then the other thing is that he
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: put himself into a character. He changed how he's pronouncing
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: the words, his robrato, all these other things. So I'm like,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: you can do that on every song. Every song, Every
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: every song has a different intent, and so like yeah, yeah,
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: so like you know, I literally change how I sing,
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: how I pronounce words, how if I'm singing louder, I change,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: like in the arrangement. Different harmonies might have different characters,
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: but for sure, when I'm doing the performance, I'm acting,
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like you're you're acting. I
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: think of the whole thing in terms of movies, the
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: whole and everything about my music is is I'm thinking
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: about cinematic dynamics, special effects, building it up, conflict. I
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: always used to Hangover as an example of what I'm
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: thinking when I'm writing, like in The Hangover, what a
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: lot of people do in their writing, like if we're
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: thinking about that scene and the Hangover the next day
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: is they're like they'll have a song called smoking chair
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: with a chicken on it, right, and it'll be like,
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: there's a chair with smoking a chicken and right. And
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: what the Hangover is doing is when everybody wakes up,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: the camera pants around the room and you just see
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: the aftermath of what happened. And then for the rest
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: of the movie you're finding everybody's trying to figure out
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: what happened. And so in a song, while you can't,
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: that's a type of song. There's instruction songs like back
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: that ass up pretty clear.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: What you need to do.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: But then when you're making a cinemat when you're creating
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: a scene, it's better to describe the scene to get
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: the point across. So like, as far as the performance
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: is concerned, that's part of it. That's like part of
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: the scene is I'm describing the scene to you because
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: you can't see it most you know, unless there's a video.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: And then I'm acting it out in as particular character,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: so you feel emotion. It's supposed to invoke.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Wow, it's incredible, And that's a great point about village Ghettoland.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I never the song would be a lot less interesting
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: to be. I mean, it'll be a good song, but
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: to be way less interesting if you didn't perform it
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, it's an incredible lesson to take from that.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: It's something that the listener doesn't need to know, you
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: know what I mean. It's it's something that is for
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: It's a detail that's for the person that wants to
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: learn how to communicate at the highest level with their music.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: And so I used that on almost every single song.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: There's a song on this album it's Slay.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: On a Slay song.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: On the second verse of that song, and I actually
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: I wrote the first half of that song in a
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: songwriting class at my school. What Yeah, some of my
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: students watching me write the first half of it.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: I was trying to teach them, Yeah, while I.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Wrote that song, and then the second verse, since I'm
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: already like in education mode when I'm thinking about the song,
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: I literally sang the first and second line in two
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: different characters. First line, how I'm singing it is different,
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: how I'm pronouncing the words is different. You know, It's like,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot more not articulate, but like it's
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: it's more sophisticated. The first character and then the second one,
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: I literally have like a Southern not as real Southern accent,
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: but it's like, you know, a lot more draw yeah,
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: like just a different person. But you know.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: It's the second line, on the second line of the
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: second I'm listen for that again. I love that song.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't even pick up on that.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: I can play it right now.
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so subtle but different guys.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Wow, same voice, but the first one, I'm articulating the words.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: I'm singing softly. It's you know, it's a complicated yeah, right,
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: And in the second line, I'm just a head back
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: to together.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Wow. Man, that's a great lesson.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Thanks. The same thing I talked about in the beginning,
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: about like when I first started and I was really
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: focused on creating my own style. I'm still doing that.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: I'm still you know, like changing every song is a
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: new opportunity for me to see what can I do,
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: What did I do before that I liked, what did
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I try that didn't work? And then what can I
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: add in now that I haven't done before? So I'm
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: still trying to figure it out.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Man. Well, thanks for kicking it, man, appreciate it. The
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: beautiful record.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: I'm glad it's like compiled finally into one like listenable,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: digestible thing.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you don't have to switch when you're running
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: or whatever. That's what I hear all the time. It
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm tired of I'm on a treadmill. I'm
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: going between sounds. I can't relate to that. I'm not
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: on treadmill, but I got you, you know what I'm saying.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks to James fontler Way for chatting about his songwriting career,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: your and his debut album, The Warmest Winter Ever. You
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: can hear it along with our other favorite James Fauntleroy
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: Penk songs on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
• 1:00:40
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• 1:00:43
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  Speaker 1: podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
• 1:00:58
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• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Our theme Music's back, any beats. I'm justin Richmond.