Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Revisiting: RAYE

Transcript

Revisiting: RAYE · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. To close out the year at Broken Record, we've
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: been revisiting some of our favorite conversations from years past.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We started a couple of weeks ago with Patti Smith
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and Raphael Sadiq. This week, we're revisiting a conversation with
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: English pop singer-songwriter Ray. Ray just won the Mercury Prize
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: over the weekend for his sophomore release, This Album May
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Contain Hope, which featured the huge single, Where's My Husband?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: But this conversation covers her debut album, My 21st Century Blues,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: which won Album of the Year and a historic total
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: six wins at the 2024 Brit Awards. In our chat,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: we discuss how a quote from Nina Simone gave her
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the courage to take control of her career, and she
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: explains the inspiration behind her sprawling multi-part single, Genesis. This
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: is Broken Record, liner notes for the digital age. I'm
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Justin Richmond. Here's my conversation with Ray. man, your Coachella
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: set seemed like it was really well received. I got
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to see a bit of it. It was awesome.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: It was definitely really a special one for us. I
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: think it's the first time I've witnessed a crowd like
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: that for me in a festival in the States, you know.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: So that was like a really special change. It's something
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not used to out here.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: What felt different about that crowd?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I think in America, like it's, It's always been intimidating,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I think, as a British artist, you know, the idea
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: of like performing in America anyway is just intimidating. And,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: you know, I've done quite a few, not loads, but
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: a few other festivals out here where you're like, right,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: we need to win the crowd. We need to grow
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the crowd. Yeah. So Coachella just, I wasn't expecting it
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: to be that full and people were really engaged and
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: it was really special.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: This wasn't a case of you getting your music out
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to a bunch of people at a festival. It was like,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: those were, people are like now converted. Like people are
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Ray fans.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Do you know what? I do have a habit during,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: during shows of really overanalyzing everyone's faces. I feel like
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: at the beginning of the set, I was like, right.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I was like, right. I need to win. I need
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: people to get to know me, you know, kind of thing.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: And I always try and leave a bit of space.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: We ended up taking a song or two out so
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: that I'd have more time to chat I like to
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: have a little chat some people say she needs to
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: stop talking but I just like to talk and I
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: think also it's a case of maybe some people have
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: heard the songs or maybe the song that started to
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: cross over here and they're like let's go and see
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: what it's about and I think my mission is always
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: during a performance I just want people to walk away
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and be like I would see that again or that
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: was good you know that's my goal yeah and you
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: can see people being one up you know people going
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: from stern face or just like watching with no expression
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: to being like, oh, okay. Or do you know what
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: I mean? You're like wave and they're doing it. And
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: you're like, okay, cool. Like, you know.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Have you discovered little things that you can do over
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the course of a set to maybe like reliably win
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: people over?
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I think honesty has always been something that's kind of important.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I've never really, I don't really plan what I say.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I kind of keep the music, you know, we know
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: what we're doing within the songs, but even some of
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: the endings of the songs, we leave space. And I
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: just kind of like it to be as open as possible.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And I think sometimes when you're just playing songs and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: not talking, people can't really get to know you. They're
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: just getting to know the music. So I think that's
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: an important thing as well. I like to try and
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: give a little backstory behind whatever this song is about
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: or this moment.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So you don't script your stage banter at all? No.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So sometimes I'll be like, Oh my God, why did
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I just say that out loud?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you halfway through talking, you'd be like, what am
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I saying now? What's going on?
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Where am I going with this?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I think I even did that. I was like, I
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: don't know why I just told you that. Let's move on.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. The way the album came about
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: was kind of circuitous. It wasn't a situation where you
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: were at a label. It basically, there was a lot
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of roadblocks. And if you want to just, I guess,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: walk us through some of those.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not necessarily been a simple 10 years
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: to get to this moment. You know, I was about
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: 17 when I signed my deal and I was with
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: a record label for seven years. And I think... Polydor.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Can we name them?
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: No, I mean... I.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Mean, I think it's on the record, right?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I think being a British artist, it's
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: a very different world out there. I think it's very...
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: dance orientated there are formulas typically that are safer formulas
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: that you practice as a songwriter you know I started
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: in this game as a songwriter from the age of
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: 14 is when I really took it seriously and I
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: was doing sessions after school and stuff and you kind
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: of learn really quickly okay there's a formula to this
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: you know accessibility repetition symmetry, you know, the whole math
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: spine kind of the songwriting thing.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: And, um, how did that change your songwriting as a young,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: like when you're 14, I imagine you're coming to a
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: pretty pure, like just probably just wanting to express and create. Yeah.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And then you're realizing there's like a formula. Did that
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: change your songwriting?
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Opposed to like change. I think it's just almost a
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: world of just gathering skills. You know, when I started
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: writing songs, it was very much feeling and freestyling and
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: what felt right and being like, Ooh, I did a
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: lot of songwriting in Sweden. There's some incredible pop songwriters
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: out there. And I used to fly out for a
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks at a time and write with all
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the producers and writers, anyone that would let me in
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: a session. And from that, you're like, oh, wow. You know,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: it's not just whatever melody feels nice. It's like, okay,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: we have a melody here. The end of the melody
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: is a little bit too complicated. this word doesn't roll
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: off the tongue as nice, you know, and chipping away
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: and sculpting something. You know, they're all skills that I'm
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: really glad I acquired. And I think for different artists
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: and different sounds and different genres, you kind of need
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: more of one skill than another and stuff like that.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: But within that space, you know, dance music is huge
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: at symmetry and maths and repetition and a lyric that
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: everyone can relate to and easily digestible and stuff like that.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: So I kind of, from a younger age realized I
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: had a knack at being persistent and chipping away at
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: something until the artist or the person I was writing
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: with was happy.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: And you could take whatever criticism that would come with
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: a version one.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent. And when writing for someone else, it's
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: not about, you know, my opinion to a degree, but
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm a people pleaser as well. So I'd
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: be like, I'm going to make this song, I'm going
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to do it. So they love it. You know, it's
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: all a performance as well in another way. It's kind
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: of funny. But yeah, I think when that started to
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: cross over and bleed into, um, what my label at
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the time wanted from me and the goal was selling
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: opposed to the art itself.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Did you know that going in or was that kind
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: of a, were you blindsided a bit by that?
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Oh no, of course not.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Nobody does.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It's a real thing. You know, that moment before you
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: put pen on paper, everyone is so nice. They take
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: you for dinners. They sell you a whole lot of
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: lovely things. dreams and and promises like some of the
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: things I was like 16 years old when I started
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: doing the rounds and some of the things I heard
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: oh my god I'm not even gonna repeat on here
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: because but it's wild what did you hear what something
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: like you know this we have this artist said artists
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I won't even name the name but they've heard your
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: music they've agreed to endorse you if you sign with
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: us you're going to have this, you're going to have that.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: This isn't even, this is just, people just talk. And
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: artists in this stage know people will say anything to
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: get you to put your name on that piece of paper.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: When you're 16 years old from South London and you're
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: like in America doing meetings with these big, huge people,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: it can absolutely just muddle your brain up and false
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: hope and a lot of lies.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: A lot of air.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: So it's real. I was like, rah, this place is dark.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: How quickly after you put pen to paper did you realize, uh-oh,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I just got bamboozled?
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'd like to say a year in, maybe. Also,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the guy who had signed me had then left. So
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the dynamics change pretty quickly after that.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty common thing. story too, I feel like
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I hear.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Your support structure leaves and then you're kind of left.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: There's actually a contractual clause called a key man clause,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: which artists should know about. And I didn't at the time.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: But it means, you know, you get that clause put
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: into your contract means if the person who signs you
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: leaves that you have the right to terminate or move
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: with them. It's called a key man clause. And it's
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: just something I wish I knew about when I was 17.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: To what extent were you happy with the early phases
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: and stages of your career like those first from like
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: 16 17 to you know a couple of years ago
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: only a few years.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Ago well I think it was a tricky one because
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: it wasn't about my goals it was about you know
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: needing to impress these people who basically have my career
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: in in their hands you know they get to decide
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: whether they're going to promote something or they're not whether
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: they're going to Pause my timeline or help me move
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: things along. So you have to play ball, you know,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: and you learn that pretty quick.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: So I did my best to do that. The goal
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: always has been since the day that I signed to
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: now in my career to be an albums artist. I
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: wanted to release Bodies of Work and I was really excited.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: to be able to earn the right to decide what
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: music I wanted to share and it was kind of
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: always presented that you know when you have a song
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: that's big enough and you've earned an audience that's big
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: enough and wants an album from you that you can
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: do that so.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah When did your debut album start coming together? When
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: did you record that?
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: I would say maybe about four or five years ago.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Some of the earliest songs started coming together.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: What were the first few?
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Oscar winning Tears was there for a long time. Hard
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Out Here, but the instrumental was made years ago. But
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: then I wrote a whole nother song on top of it.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Worth It was an older one. Yeah, a couple of
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: songs had just been around for a while. Five Stars
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: was an old one. Yeah. And I had the title
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: about four years ago. It's funny because I was going
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: through some of my notebooks at home and I found
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: this notebook. It was dated like 2018 or something. It
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: said my 21st century blues.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So the title and the ideas were forming for a while.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember why that title came to you?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Why that phrase came to you?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know completely. What I do know is when
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I was a kid, I was about 14 years old
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: and my dad and my uncle, we went on a
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: road trip. Basically, we drove through America. We started in
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: LA and we went all the way through to, I
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: think it was Atlanta or we ended somewhere. And we
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: drove all through Nashville. We drove through New Orleans and Louisiana.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: We like did a whole trip. And at that time,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: everywhere we'd drive, we'd put on the local radios. You know,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: in the UK, you know, I'd listen to a lot
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: of gospel and some of the great, amazing singers, but
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: there was so much music and genres I'd never been
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: exposed to. And I think, I had a life-changing experience
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: when I was in New Orleans and it was at
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: a place called the Preservation Jazz Hall. And it was
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: like a room, like 150 people come into this room
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: and there's just this band. And I remember being sat
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: cross-legged on the floor. I was sat right underneath this
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: guy's trombone. I had like spit flying in my face.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I'm literally sat there like wide-eyed, just like, what is this?
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I'd never experienced anything like it. And it was just
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: a fusion of kind of jazz and the blues. And
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I remember being like, whatever this is, I want a
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: part of that. And since then, I kind of, my
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: tastes changed and I just wanted to know more and
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: understand more about this feeling, this kind of music. And yeah,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: so although we barely scratch over any kind of blues
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: textures in this album, what I fell in love with
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: was the songwriting itself. And how, you know, we go
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: to these bars and you've got people playing this. I'd
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: be like. When I was a little boy. I went
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: to school one day. And then I sat on a chair.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: I had my teacher say. Do you know what I mean?
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: These stories and each one was different. It was the
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: same riff and just all these stories.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And I was like, wow.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: So this is their blues. And I was like, this
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: is deep. And they're deep stories, moving stories, very honest
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: and transparent and clear and beautiful. And I fell in love.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I always had this idea of I wanted to make
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: whatever my version of the blues is, even though it's
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: not necessarily that genre. It's that candidness.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Well, and there's a bravado on a lot of your,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if it's like the whole album,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: because there's some very vulnerable bits, but there is an attitude,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a backbone to this album for sure that runs through it.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And I love the book ends. It's like, as you
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: put it on, it's like you're being transported to like
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a smoky jazz club.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And by the time it ends,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: you're right back there and you're almost ready to play
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: right over again.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: It's amazing to hear that that stuck with you and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: that that made it that far from a childhood road
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: trip across the 10 through from LA to New Orleans
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and up, that that stayed with you all these years.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: It really did.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: After a quick break, we'll be back with more of
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: my conversation with Ray. We're back with more from Ray.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: You referenced wanting to be an album artist. What were
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: some of the albums that you grew up on that
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: were like the bedrocks for you? Like the ones that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: were like the perfect records for you?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: My goodness. The first two albums that played such an
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: important part in my childhood was Alicia Keys, The Diary
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: of Alicia Keys. That was a big one for me. Wow.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: That was the first hard copy album I ever bought.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: And then Who Is Jill Scott? Jill Scott.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: That blew my mind. And I think also like being
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: in the UK and just, again, the stuff we was
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: exposed to. And then my uncle, shout out Uncle Jose,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: put me on to this album. He started with A
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Long Walk. And I was listening to this song like,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: she's just talking with melodies. You know, you're used to
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: hearing these perfect rhyming couplets and everything being whatever. But
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: she's just like, speaking to you like a conversation and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: it was so casual the way she would sing that
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: entire album it just blew my mind watching me you
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: know she's like she's talking about cctv and and people
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: watching her like as she's just gone to the shop
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: to buy some double or triple a batteries she's like
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: checking to see where I go who I be how
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: where with who I make my money what is this
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: excuse me, miss, may I have your telephone number and
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: your social security? She's like, who, me? It's just like
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: literally telling, I was like, what is happening? It completely
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: blew my mind and I fell in love. So those
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: were like two really important albums in my childhood, yeah.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about your relationship with hip
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: hop because it feels like there's a certain cadence that
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you can get into sometimes that would also explain it
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a lot too. Like that kind of being able to
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: where it's like, are you talking? Are you singing? Kind
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of doing both. So fire.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Jill is a queen at that, isn't it?
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes she'll be doing that and then just
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: take off. What? Whoa, okay, I forgot who I was
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: listening to.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: And it's also so free, you know, with her. I
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: love her style of, you feel like anything can happen.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, it doesn't feel too perfect. It just feels
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: so authentic. And I've always loved that about her, the
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: way she sings and performs as well.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Were you listening to a lot of hip hop too,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: growing up?
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a fair amount. I mean, I did get to
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: that age where like Party Next Door was my everything.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: That's not really hip hop, but you know, Drake, The Weeknd,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Party Next Door, you know that era we all had
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: where we're all like, oh my God.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Going up on a Tuesday.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: The Weeknd's first album was, was a big one. The trilogy.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: But in terms of like hip hop, I don't know.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: We're kind of exposed to some different stuff. I was
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: exposed to a lot growing up and like different family
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: members as well.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Did you say you had an Uncle Jose? Yeah.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: He's actually lives in America. So my mom and my
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: uncle were both raised in Ghana when they're about 22, 23,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: mom moved to the UK and uncle Jose moved to America.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: And he's always been so supportive as well. Like he
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: bought me my first laptop, my Mac book, where I
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: used to start making sessions on garage band and stuff
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: like that when I was about 13, no for my
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: 13th birthday. Yeah, and so I started making a lot
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: of demos on there and it really helped spark my
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: passion for production, vocal production and just making music in general.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: It's so funny because even though none of us before
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: me and my sisters had ever practiced music, it was
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: always the desire for it and the passion for it
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: was always in the blood, I'd say. Like my dad's dad,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: he used to write songs. He used to want to
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: be a songwriter professionally in a little town in England,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: north of England, Yorkshire. He used to write songs on,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: record them onto tape and score it out and write
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: the lyrics. And he'd send a box of tapes and
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: the sheet music to record labels in London, hoping that,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: you know, someone might hear his songs and like it.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And I can't even be too candid, but he did
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: have a song stolen from him that turned out to
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: be really successful. But, you know, there's a lot of
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: songwriters that happened for back in the day. He didn't
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: get credited and no one believed him and he had
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: no way legally to prove it because he didn't have
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: the money to do that. And then he gave up
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: on his dream then and there. So it's so funny
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: that I was a kid and I didn't even know
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: this story. And I'm like, I just want to write music.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: So it's funny.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: You didn't know it at that time?
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: No, I was like seven, eight, nine when I was
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: like making silly, weird poems and copying the melodies I'd
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: hear in the TV kids shows I was watching. And
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I remember one time I was watching this like tv
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: show and I liked the melody it was like this
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: kind of jazzy and I was about eight and I
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: pretended that I wrote it but I just changed all
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: the words and then I went to dad my dad
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: and I was like listen to this song I wrote
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: and he was blown away but I didn't tell him
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I'd stolen the song and just changed the lyrics to
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: some terrible lyrics about snow falling and a Christmas song
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: it was so bad.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I like how that still sticks with you. That's gnawing
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: at you so much. Like I'm a fraud.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Plagiarism. But then I realized that's what songwriters, some songwriters
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: do that. Or it's sampling essentially.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a way to get started, you know, like
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: copy a bit and make it your own.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Take a melody and just change the lyrics.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: So you can figure out how to do a whole class.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's always been in the blood. My family,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: we love music, you know. I grew up in church
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: as well. My dad and mom used to sing. Mom
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: used to sing in the choir downstairs. used to lead worship.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: So I grew up watching and listening to music being
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: sung every Sunday.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And like in a church where you grew up, what
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: was leading worship like? What did that entail?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: It was like, I don't know, like it's not a
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: big church, like maybe 40 or 50 people, you know.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: In a church in Tooting, in South London, where I
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: grew up. And my mum and dad would just sing.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It sounded like a gospel choir kind of thing.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: No, it's not big in, like, you know, in America,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: you guys have amazing, like, huge production setups, like, amazing music.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: You know, this is very, like, down to earth. From
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the heart. Do you know what I mean? Very....
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Direct from you guys to God. Mainline in the gospel.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: You know, come as you are, mate.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Did you listen to much gospel?
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, growing up was a lot of Kirk
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Franklin and Donnie McClurkin and some amazing music I was
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: exposed to from a really young age. And the thing
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: about gospel as well is it's just musically so complex.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: I don't even think gospel gets enough credit for how
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: technically difficult it is to really execute those things. You know,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: you have them, MDs live in the church on a microphone, like, okay,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: we're going to chord four and then five. Hold, hold, hold.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: We're going six, seven. I'm like, this is serious practice.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, for real. It's for real.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It's not a joke.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: No, it's great. I want to go back now. So
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: you have a few songs for My 21st Century Blues.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: You're still with Polydor. You kind of get in the
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: run around. What happens next?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: The understanding from my perspective also was if I was
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: going to do an album, it would need to be
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: a dance album. So My 21st Century Blues kind of
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: got put on the back burner. And I was working
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: on a record. I needed to hand in songs 115
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: BPM or above. Like it needed to be like that
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: kind of sound. So as far as my constraints allowed,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I set out to make an album that I was
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: going to call Dark Dance Songs. And it was going
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: to be minor. And I'd say the closest thing I
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: had to it was like Black Mascara, which I put
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: on my 21st Century Blues. It was all this kind of,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I was trying to find my compromise. And then, yeah,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: it just ended up that, you know, I had a
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: new person who just joined our team and started working
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: as my day to day. And she wasn't supposed to
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: tell me. We were in the middle of a shoot
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: for something else. You know, I'm like maybe four or
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: five months into writing this album and I'm becoming invested
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: and I'm excited about what it's going to be. And
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: then she'd basically just said that if this song you've
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: just put out doesn't do good, you're not going to
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: be able to do the album. It just got really messy.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And I was just, I hit just a boiling point,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: a breaking point. I was so angry and so frustrated
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: and so pissed off. I felt like just... I was
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: just getting treated so unfairly. And I've been trying so
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: desperately for the last seven years to prove to them
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: that I'm a musician. Like, look, I'm writing for this person. Like,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: are you proud of me yet? Like, I was just
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: so desperate.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And who were you writing for at that time?
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: You know, I had a good, healthy amount of cuts,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: you know, in the dance world and with some girl
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: bands and some solo artists. And I'd been doing... good things.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: And every time I remember, every time I get caught,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: I'd kind of want to tell them and be like, look, look,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: I was just so desperate for them to believe in me, really.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: I've really tried so hard to achieve that and I
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: just failed. So yeah, it just got to a breaking point. Yeah.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So I know you sent a tweet out at some point.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Was that a spur of the moment thing? Was that calculated? Like,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: let me just see, we'll try something here or what was.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Zero strategy and planning went into that moment, I'll tell you.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I just was like in my head, what the F
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: do I have to lose? Like I have nothing to lose.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: I was at a point where I was like, I
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: would rather just be a songwriter. Like I've, seven years
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: is a long time, especially from a kid, you know,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: and then that pressure of that, I think it's a
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: lie personally, but that pressure of, you know, when you're young,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: it's exciting. And as you grow up, you're going to
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: miss your window, especially as a woman, like these lies
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: you hear. I just got to a place where if
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: this is what it is to be an artist, I
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: don't want to do this. I hate some of these
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: songs I'm putting my name to, that I'm out here
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: smiling and pretending I like, trying to sell. This is
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: like soul destroying, especially when I'm like in love with
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: my craft. I'm in love with music. I was a
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: kid when I decided to dedicate my life to work
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: in music and wanting to pursue a career. And it
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: was breaking my heart. It was just making me so sad. Yeah,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: so I just got to a point, we'd just moved
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: house and I was in my room. It didn't have
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: a bed in it, so I just remember being on
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: a block, mattress on the floor. And the only thing
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I had in my room was a picture of Nina
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Simone and under it it said a quote, it's an
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: artist's duty to reflect the times. I remember sat there
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: in tears, like, what the hell am I doing? I'm
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: not doing anything important. I'm not doing anything that feels right.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Nina would be so.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: By everything I put to my name. She would be like, ew,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: get her out of my face. I was like, what
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: have I become? And I said, no, no, no. And
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: I just let it rip.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: That's a very Nina Simone thing to do, let it rip.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, thankfully it all worked out. I suppose as
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the story goes from that tweet, you guys work something out,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: so they let you go. Does that go back to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: that clause, the key man?
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: No, I sadly never had that clause in my contract.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I think... I just got so lucky in that people
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: decided to care about what I'd shared. And I think
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: probably there's also a lot of people unaware of all
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: the ins and outs of what goes on behind closed doors.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: And I had a lot of news platforms in the
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: UK reaching out, wanting to have a conversation and wanting
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: to understand more about what's going on and what it
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: can be like for a lot of artists sometimes when
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: you're having difficulties on seeing eye to eye with the
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: teams that you're contractually bound to. And that became leverage.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: And I was able to be like, respectfully, let's leave
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: this here now.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: And then you get to put out your album independently. Yeah.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know that it could have worked out more
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: perfectly in the end.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: No, it's honestly how everything's turned out is all I
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: can describe it as is a series of just miracle
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: after miracle. I think I was so overwhelmed that how
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: much music of mine was already out there in the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: world in my head. I was like, how could I
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: possibly change the narrative? In the UK, people see me
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: as a feature vocalist, a voice, like who's going to care?
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: You know, I just got so ridiculously lucky and escapism
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: receiving so much attention on TikTok and then all of
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: a sudden it getting pushed out to all these new ears.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: And that's the first they've heard of me. And that's so,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: it was so exciting. And like, wow, you know, anything
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: really is possible.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Were you shocked by the reception of Escapism?
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, completely. But I was also so happy because I
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: love that song. I remember when we put that out,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh my gosh, like if only people
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: were going to be able to hear this song. That
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: was my thing in my head. I was like, oh, just,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: if people could just hear this song, you know. I
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: remember me and my daddy, I was walking, I was like, dad,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: could you imagine, yeah, if something crazy happened and escapism
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: just went really big and became number one. We looked
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: at each other and we were like, ah, that'll never happen.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean? I remember that conversation
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: clear as day. I was like, could you imagine? He
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, I could imagine that would be crazy, right?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: And then bang.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Came to fruition.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Wild.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Did you write that song in Utah? Yeah.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: What's the story on that?
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: We took a road trip.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Another road trip.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I like a road trip.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Those are good for you.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I like a car. I like a long drive. And also,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: it's good to get out of the city. I think
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: when you're in a city and you know people there
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: or whatever, it can be distracting. And you can be like,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: someone will be like, do you want to do this? La, la, la.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: And you just want to go somewhere in the middle
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: of nowhere where you're just in a peaceful place and
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: you just have to be present. It was nice.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Had you been to Utah?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Never.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: No. No.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Well, the two people I went with are good at skiing.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: I'm not very good at skiing. I've only skied once
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: before in the school trip. I decided to join them
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: for skiing in between riding. And it was a disaster.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: These two are like cross-country, like off-piste mountain freaking skiers, yeah?
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: They're like, don't worry, we'll stay together. We'll go slow.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: It's not encouraging. I'm not going to do it. No,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: I took a wrong turn in. Black run. What? The
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: only way is down this whatever foot drop. Absolutely not.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: What'd you do?
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: And my friend's screaming at me like, you have to
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: ski down. I was like, bitch, I ain't skiing down.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I'm walking. She's like, Rachel. And there's all these like
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: four-year-old kids like just gunning it down the hill.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: This isn't a drive.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: It took me about an hour to get down. It
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: was hell. After that, I left them to it. I
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: went to the campfire near the entrance and just made friends.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: But yeah, skiing, it's going to be a while before
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I go back there.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe take some time on that. Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: But the songwriting was productive. We were there for seven
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: days and it was such a nice time. And we
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: wrote basically the other half of the album that was missing.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: It all started with titles. Titles are... usually how a
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: song will start for me. So I had title Mary Jane,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Environment and Anxiety, Escapism, Body Dysmorphia. So those are my
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: four titles. There was one or two more that we wrote,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: but that didn't make it.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Environmental anxiety, speaking of the Nina Simone quote, an artist's
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: duty is to reflect the times you're in.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's so intense.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: It's an intense song. It's so intense. How did you
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: capture that so well?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: We booked a log cabin and we were staring across.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: It was like a mountain and some trees. And we
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: were like, wow, so beautiful. It was in the morning.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: And Mike Sabbath, the producer who I made this album with,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: the guy is so eccentric. we got downstairs and he'd
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: made this little, like, this, like, weird, like, sound. He'd, like,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: morphed his voice to sound like a chipmunk or whatever
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: and he was just looping around and around and he
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: was playing these weird bells and I was like, Mike,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: you've lost your absolute mind but, like, let's fucking go,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? And we were looking
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: at the view and we was like, damn, like, we're
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: being so cruel to our planet and we just started
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: on a tangent, you know, and I think it's something
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of us are worried about but are powerless
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: to really do any actual change or it's something that
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: needs to come from Our governments.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: A lot of people don't care.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: You kind of sum it all up and put a
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: bow on it in like three minutes and 10 seconds.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: It's like, yo, wow. Like you kind of like distill
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: all the anxieties of kind of our world at large
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and all the problems and issues and Boris Johnson's on coke.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: We all know it.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's true.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, come on.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Seems like it's true.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I saw this article, yeah, which is so funny. But
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: they tested the sewage. I don't know who was testing
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: the sewage of the Houses of Parliament. And they found
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: such a high concentration of cocaine in the sewage. I
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: don't even know if we should be talking about this.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: But meanwhile, you're arresting kids for possession of smoking a
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: little bit of weed on the street. Do you know
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: what I mean? Putting them in jail for that. Meanwhile,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: you're all in there doing coke. It's just not fair.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: None of it's fair, is it? Yeah.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: But I'm glad you're speaking to us.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: I'm glad someone like you.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Nah, mate.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: We've got to put all these things on blast. It's incorrect.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: And it's a beautiful song. So those are all voices
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: on that intro, right?
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: All those sounds, it's all a voice manipulated and then
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: your voice. Mm-hmm. Incredible. You harmonize with yourself really well.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: I love harmonies. When a voice can become a pad
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: or a synth or something as well, it's exciting, you know?
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really gorgeous sound. Your voice, like when
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: it builds out like that.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you. It's gorgeous.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Escapism too. I love the two different perspectives, two different voices.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: It's like you're in the story and then you kind
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: of get like, you're narrating it for us. Right. It's
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: just like a cool thing to do in a song.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: I love to bounce between first person and third person.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: I find that fun. And like, Yeah, the narration aspect
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: of it. I always like, it's funny, sometimes I'll be
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: writing and all the other day, me and my creative
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: director were trying to do something and I kept, I
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: realized I just love to mix. He's like, you know,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: this sentence is third person and this sentence is first person.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: And I was like, you know, I like mixing it.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Fuck it.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: You don't mind mixing tenses.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Why not?
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. After this last break, we'll come back with the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: rest of my conversation with Ray. We're back with the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: rest of my conversation with Ray. Let's talk about Mary
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Jane a little bit. What made you choose that as
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: a song title?
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: All the songs we wrote in Utah, you know, I
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: wanted to address kind of these subjects kind of pretty
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: head on. And I think I've always had a very
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: kind of addictive personality. And I think especially because I
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: was playing this like sweet little girl. pop artist kind
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: of character, or at least that's what I was attempting
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: to sell. But really behind closed doors, I was just
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: really not dealing with things great. And I was just outside,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: not even outside. I was just moving mad.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: And I got trapped into some pretty intense kind of
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: cycles and picked up some unhealthy habits. You know how
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: it be. Sometimes also you become really good at hiding it.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: I was just distant from my family. I was just
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: lost and not happy.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Did your family kind of recognize what was going on?
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't really see them. I think it was
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: like a year or whatever. I saw my parents like
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: twice in a year, which is really unlike me. Now
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: my parents are like around me all the time and
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I tell them everything and I love them. But yeah,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: there was just a period of time where I was
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: fully on escapism vibes. Yeah, I mean, just running away
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: from reality. There's a lot of these subjects which I
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: find there's no real place to have these conversations or
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: in a space where you don't feel judged or you
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: don't feel disgusting or embarrassed. You know, I talk in
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: the song about codeine, you know, and there's a lot
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: of us who can develop these kind of dependencies on
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: things and it's so easy to keep a secret and
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: hide it and it can get dangerous. And it did
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: for me for a bit, you know? So I just
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: wanted to write a song kind of weird, twisted kind
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: of love song. I think it's one of those things
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: as well. Once you open Pandora's box, you know what
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: they say, it's, it's hard to close it.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Were you ever wary of, I mean, Mary Jane, escapism,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: body dysmorphia. Was there ever a part of you that
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: felt like, maybe I don't want this on the, because then,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: of course, just from the bit of press that I've
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: picked up about you over time, it's like, wow, people
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: are asking you really, like, heavy, like, I'm like, I
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: don't know if I want to talk about this shit
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: all the time. I just was like, how, did you
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: ever feel worried about that? Do you, not do you
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: regret it, but does ever a part of you feel like, damn,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I really want to, you know,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: it's like, You know what I think?
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: I think it's a conscious choice you have to make
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: as an artist. Like, what kind of artist am I
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: going to be? There are incredible artists who don't let
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: you in on that side of their life, who close
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: those doors and they deliver perfection. And that's a whole
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: other thing because then you're just dealing with all of
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: those things behind closed doors, but you present this. And
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I have so much respect for those kinds of artists.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: And that in itself... It takes a whole load of
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: bravery and rehearsals and skill and delivery. That's a whole
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: other thing. And then I think there's the other end
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: of it where it's like, I'm going to be an
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: open book. But then at the same time, that also
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: comes with people who you don't know. Knowing things about
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: me that four years ago, my own family didn't know.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's an interesting thing. choice I've made. And
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: definitely there are days where it's like, damn, I really
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: just did a lot. And days on stage, like, why
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: did I decide to be so open about this? But
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: for all of the times I do find it tricky
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: or overwhelming, I do think that's the kind of artist
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: I want to be, even though it's not always easy.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it kind of does make you a
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: real writer in a way, in that writers really want
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: to write about real human experience and are kind of
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: always drudging and mining that stuff all the time you
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: know like kind of the misery in a sense and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: sometimes the joy and all that too but kind of
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: moving between those two in music you know i think
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: some people shy away from that it's.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: It's difficult but also it's what you feel comfortable or
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: what your purpose is yeah some artists purposes to entertain
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: and damn well do they entertain you know and i
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: think for me as a writer i kind of see
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: it as you're creating a commentary on the human experience
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: from your perspective. And that does require honesty. I think
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: vulnerability is so important and it's difficult sometimes. It can
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: be very difficult. For me personally, in my taste, I
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: always find the music that I connect to the most
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: is where I feel just like I've been let in
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: and I'm just hearing candidness. It hurts sometimes. It's like, oh, sugar.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Or it's like, not even for me, just as a listener,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: you know, you're like, Oh my God, this is bringing
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: tears to my eyes. You know, if someone's telling you
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: a story and you're just, you have goosebumps all over
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: your skin and you're completely enchanted. And then it takes
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: you to somewhere in your life and then provides some
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: sort of aid or band aid, we say plaster, or
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: some sort of hug or some sort of space for
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: you to cry and feel it. So as a listener,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: that's where I feel most moved.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: But it's definitely not an easy thing to do.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Was Ice Cream Man, was that a difficult song to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: record and to.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, without a doubt.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Definitely. The whole... Yeah. That one's deep. It's just deep.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Because, my God, that song, it's just... I'm still, you know,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: like a lot of us are working through those things
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: in it. But I got a message the other day
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: on my Instagram DMs. I try not to spend too
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: much time on my socials and stuff, but... Every now
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: and then I have a little look and it was
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: maybe about two days ago and I got this message
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: from this lady and she was about in her 50s
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: and she sent me this long, beautiful message. It was
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: a really sad message about her life and she was
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: telling me about some of the things she went through
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: as a child and working through it and it was
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: so moving. I was so moved. I read it about
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: six times. It even brings tears to my eyes now.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: And I was just like, my goodness, like some of
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: us are carrying so much. And she just expressed at
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: the end of the message that she was really grateful
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: for that song because it gave her the confidence to
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: talk to someone that she loved about something she'd been
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: saying about her whole life. There are so many of
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: us out here dealing with things, carrying things, holding things.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: There's no instruction manual on what to do. This is
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: where music is like medicine and provides a space of
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: healing or reflection. So as trick is that song is
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: for me on the worst of days i'm just so
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: grateful that even if it was only her you know
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: that that's even been able to provide some sort of
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: i don't even know what the words are but i
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: was just so moved.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Do you perform this song.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah i do no sometimes it's sad sometimes i do
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: cry a lot sometimes i sing it and i feel
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: really powerful I feel really safe inside my music. I
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: think that's another thing that maybe allows me to be
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: so honest and vulnerable. It feels like if I was
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: just to say some of the lyrics in this conversation
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: with you, but without a melody and without the safe
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: space inside a song, I would not be comfortable to
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: do that at all, which is weird. But it feels
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: like within a song, it's on my terms in the
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: sonic bed that feels... like it's correct to lie and
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: it feels safe it feels like no one can spin
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: this or nobody can have an opinion too negative besides
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: not liking the song but they can't be like well
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: i don't believe her well this and that you know
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: all the scrutiny that you can get from being open
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: and transparent about your life but without a song yeah.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: You have a new single genesis and it's really great
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: but um When it started, I was like, okay, all right.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: And then three quarters of the way through or halfway through,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: there's a change. And it's like the most uplifting. The
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: first half is a little like, oh, shoot. I was
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: a little worried. I was like, is she still in
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a bath?
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: What's going on?
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: And by the end, I'm like, oh, shit. It feels
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: like I'm in Preservation Hall in New Orleans. Oh. And
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: it's like, the lyric is, what's the lyric about light? Like,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: let in light in.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Let there be light, yeah.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Let there be light. And it feels maybe more like
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: where your life is now than some of the album,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: you know. I don't know if that feels true to you.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the plan is we'll put out the
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: full seven minutes and then the week after, kind of
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: split them into three different songs. So you have Genesis 1,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: which is that kind of really sad reflection in the mirror,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: depressing conversation with yourself, song one. Song two is that
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: heavy whatever sound and then song three is the kind
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: of big band vibe at the end and I think
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: you can almost see it as maybe an EP or
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: something but I wanted to put all the songs in
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: one and kind of force you to try and have
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: to listen to all of it just in one which
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: is a lot and I think I really took like
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of passion and a lot of time went
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: into the lyrics for me and and making sure that
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: it said what it needed to say I wanted it
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: to be cutting and and Again, honest, and I wanted
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: to talk about themes of, you know, suicide, which is, again, just,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: I think also even for young men, I think there's
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: this kind of thing of, like, just feeling things and
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: not talking about it. I recently lost someone who was
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: really close to the family, just gone, you know, and
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: you didn't even know that they were going for anything.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Suicide? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of people just, as we know, fighting
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. I wanted to create a song
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: that felt like if you are going through anything like
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: that or you do feel in any sort of way
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: burdened or like you're going through a really tough time,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: I wanted to create a piece of music that you
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: could allow yourself to feel it in the beginning. And
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: then the music kind of starts to lift you up
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: in the middle, even though the lyric is still heavy,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: taking you maybe to a more powerful place to process
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: that emotion. And then by the end, hopefully feeling some
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: positivity and some hope. So I wanted it to be
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: this journey of if anyone even relates to one of
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: the sentences in that song, you know, and I was
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: trying to create an open scape of my honesty, but
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: then also what else are people I love or people
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: I don't even know going through or need from this song.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: So it's quite a deep one.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It is. I'm so grateful you left us with
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the hopefulness at the end.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: We needed some hope at the end. We absolutely needed
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: some hope. I'm so grateful you left us with that.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man. How are you going to do that live?
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Well, look, in my dream scenario, there will always be many,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: many musicians on the stage. From a cost efficiency perspective,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: we're working that out. But, you know, who needs to
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: make loads of money? Like, who needs to do that?
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Travel with the big band. Bring them out. You worked
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: with Dark Child on the single? I did, yeah. I
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: love Dark Child.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Rodney, man.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: How did you hook up with Rodney?
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: That's my bro. I actually met him when I was
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: a kid, like, my first trip to L.A. when I
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: was about 17 and I was taking some meetings. And
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: I remember at the time I hadn't made anything good
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: enough to, like, really capture his attention. But I remember
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: thinking in my head, like, one day, he's going to
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: hear my music and be like, she's sick. Like, I
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: remember that being a goal. And then we got connected
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: and maybe like two years ago and got in the
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: studio and started working on what is this song. So
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: it's been a labor of love for quite a long time.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: He's really brilliant. And I have a lot of love
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: for him. And I put him through the ringer on
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: this song.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Oh my God. I call him again and be like,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: we need to fix the drums. I'm like, we need to,
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: you know, we had this original drum loop and I'm like,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: it's giving, but, It wasn't live. It had a live texture,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: but some of the frequencies were too sharp and it
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: was jarring. And I was like, we need to, it
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: needs to have the same feel, but it needs to
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: feel clean and a bit more raw and down to
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: earth and not have that kind of distracting. And he'd
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: be like, okay, okay. So we try out different things
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: and then we go back and forth, back and forth,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: back and forth. And then it was like, finally, yes,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: we got it. So we took the original drum and
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: made it like 20% in volume and then played this
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: new one over the top. So you still get that.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Whatever.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: And then I remember I was at the baseline. I
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: think we need a completely different melody to it. So
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: then we did this baseline where I basically recorded 20.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: And we stacked and stacked and stacked, vocally manipulated it,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: put it down an octave and then played a synth
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: with it. Like there was so much experimentation and things
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: that needed to be changed, things that needed to be added.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: And he was so patient with me because I'm so annoying.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Every little detail, like, Bonnie, we need her. I'll call
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: him and be like, hi, Ray. Hey, so I was
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: just thinking that we need a new verse too, you know,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: and maybe we do a string section. I even have
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: notes now and we've handed in the master. And I'm
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: thinking maybe the vinyl is going to be different. to
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: the version that's gonna come out, because I think we
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: need a more softer texture on verse one, because the
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: lyric's already so hard that you need some softness around it.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: And then we played these brass on SNL that was
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: so good that I'm like, we need to add that in.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: So there's probably gonna be some changes in the vinyl
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: seven inch version that we printed to what you're hearing
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: now Rodney's such a G. He's a legend. He's one
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: of the best in the game. He's just constantly leveling up,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: creating music that just stands the test of time, whatever.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Some of the best singers, Janet, Tony Braxton. I mean,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: come on. I mean, just everywhere. The greatest singers he's
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: worked with. As an album artist, do you have a
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: sense of what you want to do next?
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I'd like to make an album.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Feeling it out? Do you have a goal
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: that I want it to be by boom?
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: It just has to be good by my own standard.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: And I think I'll need to live a little bit
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: to make a really good album. Otherwise, I'm just going
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: to be writing about hotel rooms and winding roads and
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: nobody wants to hear that. So I need to go
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: and collect some stories as well and live a little bit.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I'm aware that it's a bit scary in the times
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: we're in with everyone having such short attention spans. And,
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: you know, we're at such an amazing place right now
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: that everyone's like, oh, well, when's the next shit coming?
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I'm like, fucking hell, like, damn, like, I need to write.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to put anything out that I don't
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: love and I don't believe it's good. And it's got
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: to at least be a little bit better than, in
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: my opinion, the album we just put out. Otherwise, what's
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: the point? Do you know what I mean? Got to
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: be levelling up.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Hey, well, I can't wait to hear it. I hope. Yeah,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: me too. I can't wait to hear it. I'm sure
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: it'll be great. Aw, thanks. It was great talking to you.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: No luck, guys.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. Thanks to Ray for speaking so openly
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: about her life, inspiration, and her music. Her new single, Genesis,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: is out now everywhere. You can hear a playlist of
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: all of our favorite Ray songs at brokenrecordpodcast.com. Subscribe to
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast where you can
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: find all of our new episodes. You can follow us
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Toleday. Broken Record
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and ad-free listening for $ 4. 99 a month. Look for Pushkin
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Plus on Apple Podcast Subscriptions. And if you like this show,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.