Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Bon Iver's Past and Present

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Bon Iver's Past and Present · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Bonivere started in two thousand and six as a
0:14
Speaker 1: solo project for Justin Vernon after the breakup of his
0:16
Speaker 1: college band. He recorded his first album in his dad's
0:20
Speaker 1: hunting cabin deep in the woods of Wisconsin, just him,
0:23
Speaker 1: an acoustic guitar, a lot of fresh venison, and DVDs
0:26
Speaker 1: of northern exposure. That debut got so big that within
0:29
Speaker 1: a few years of its release, bony Vera was collaborating
0:32
Speaker 1: with people like Beck and Kanye West, which may help
0:35
Speaker 1: explain the shift in musical direction Bonievere's music has taken.
0:39
Speaker 1: His Palliative Sounds has expanded a lot across four albums,
0:42
Speaker 1: and Bonivere is no longer just a solo project either.
0:45
Speaker 1: It's still centered around Justin, but it includes a whole
0:48
Speaker 1: bunch of collaborators from Wisconsin, where Justin still lives, and
0:50
Speaker 1: it's building his own Shangraloss style recording studio. Surprisingly, Justin
0:54
Speaker 1: and Rick Rubin had never met until they recorded this podcast.
0:57
Speaker 1: Despite their close working relationship with Kanye, there's a chance
1:01
Speaker 1: for them to get to know one another, discuss Justin's career,
1:03
Speaker 1: and shout about one of Justin's all time favorite groups,
1:07
Speaker 1: The Indigo girls. This is Broken Record Season three. Liner
1:14
Speaker 1: notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Just a
1:21
Speaker 1: quick note here. You can listen to all of the
1:23
Speaker 1: music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you
1:26
Speaker 1: can find a link to in the show notes. For
1:29
Speaker 1: licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode,
1:32
Speaker 1: you'll hear this sound effect all right. Enjoy the episode.
1:39
Speaker 1: Here's justin Vernon and its producer Chris Messina and conversation
1:42
Speaker 1: with Rick Rubin that I've right into the kind of
1:44
Speaker 1: talk producer's love by building a live work studio space
1:47
Speaker 1: far away from the noisy world. Tell me about your place.
1:50
Speaker 1: I've heard great things about it. Well, me and Chris
1:53
Speaker 1: have been working on it for many years. It's under
1:57
Speaker 1: construction right now because we kind of we hit a
1:59
Speaker 1: point where we needed to to spread out a little bit.
2:02
Speaker 1: Tell me the whole story of how it How did
2:04
Speaker 1: it come to pass? The house I grew up in,
2:06
Speaker 1: it's only three miles from there, and it's uh my
2:09
Speaker 1: brother found it and it's on tap ten acres, you know,
2:13
Speaker 1: super cheap and old. It was an old like seventies
2:16
Speaker 1: ranch house and that indoor pool and they had a Yeah, awesome. Yeah,
2:22
Speaker 1: we end up making that our makeship live room for
2:24
Speaker 1: many years, but it's not ten acres in the woods
2:27
Speaker 1: and it's like my ship, you know, incredible. Yeah, and
2:30
Speaker 1: so but we sort of did it d I Y
2:32
Speaker 1: for a while, and then I found Chris and took
2:34
Speaker 1: him off of a production touring thing and and got
2:38
Speaker 1: him out there to just basically make it proper, you know.
2:43
Speaker 1: And so we've been kind of out of the d
2:45
Speaker 1: I Y zone and more and like a trying to
2:47
Speaker 1: make a proper tracking space for about eight seven years.
2:50
Speaker 1: Now you've been out there, I guess, Chris, how how
2:53
Speaker 1: would you say it changed from it's d I Y
2:56
Speaker 1: incarnation to the current one. I feel like more less
3:00
Speaker 1: stuff falls off the walls now maybe or's something. Yeah,
3:02
Speaker 1: I'm not the one putting stuff on the walls that. Yeah,
3:05
Speaker 1: I feel like that we did like a lot of
3:06
Speaker 1: teear tottering kind of before I got there, and then
3:08
Speaker 1: even still after I did just baby steps when we
3:12
Speaker 1: really just needed to do one kind of big move. Yeah.
3:16
Speaker 1: But I think it's just been getting the recording spaces,
3:19
Speaker 1: you know, more attractive sounding, and then also improving all
3:21
Speaker 1: of the wellness spaces and just the vibe of the place,
3:24
Speaker 1: because that's you know, made a pretty good record with
3:28
Speaker 1: just a pretty cruddy studio. Yeah, and then it's because
3:32
Speaker 1: the vibe is there, you know, which obviously you understand
3:35
Speaker 1: pretty well. Absolutely, And when I just lived there too,
3:39
Speaker 1: like I lived there for many years until I live
3:42
Speaker 1: in the guesthouse up back, which is cool, but I'm
3:45
Speaker 1: gonna build a house next door actually, just but just
3:50
Speaker 1: being in the studio and it not being set up
3:52
Speaker 1: for really being having like a home home base or
3:57
Speaker 1: a really I don't know, any a wellness vibe. It
4:00
Speaker 1: was just recording making music, you know. Yeah. So we
4:04
Speaker 1: went through like the different iterations too, of like not
4:08
Speaker 1: knowing if we wanted to be a commercial space or
4:09
Speaker 1: if we were going to be a private space or
4:11
Speaker 1: just justin or what the deal was going to be,
4:13
Speaker 1: And so we went through all those different versions. We
4:16
Speaker 1: had to do that to learn what we didn't like basically,
4:20
Speaker 1: and it's really just better off to be kind of
4:21
Speaker 1: a friends and family zone and us it's it's the
4:24
Speaker 1: best version of it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's pretty much
4:28
Speaker 1: how we do it too. It's yea. And originally I
4:30
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't think anybody else would work here but us.
4:33
Speaker 1: But then I was away and friend asked, oh, you
4:37
Speaker 1: think we could work here. It's like, that'd be cool.
4:40
Speaker 1: And so now I like the idea because if because
4:44
Speaker 1: I've worked so much over the course of my life,
4:46
Speaker 1: that it's like a way to trick myself into not
4:49
Speaker 1: being a workaholic. There you go, that's that. We're just
4:52
Speaker 1: talking about that in the way out here. It's like, man,
4:55
Speaker 1: it's like I love music so much and I could
4:57
Speaker 1: do it every single day. Yeah, but it's not a
5:00
Speaker 1: comfortable feeling when you're like, is this all I am? Yeah,
5:04
Speaker 1: then you can get caught up in it. For it's
5:05
Speaker 1: easy too when you love something so much. But and
5:08
Speaker 1: I don't know if work with a capital W is
5:10
Speaker 1: really the name of the thing that we do because
5:13
Speaker 1: we love it so much. But it's at the end
5:15
Speaker 1: of the day, it is what you're spending time doing, right, absolutely, absolutely,
5:19
Speaker 1: And and for most of my life it was in
5:21
Speaker 1: you know, dark rooms with no window, dark little dirty rooms,
5:25
Speaker 1: So most of my life was just like in really
5:28
Speaker 1: unpleasant places. Yes, it doesn't encourage you to be a
5:31
Speaker 1: healthy person all the time either, And I think so
5:35
Speaker 1: much of the inspiration of the work we do comes
5:38
Speaker 1: from not just doing the work. The fuel that drives
5:42
Speaker 1: the process comes from life outside of the studio. Yes, exactly,
5:47
Speaker 1: it's exactly. The fuel has been my metaphor lately. It's
5:50
Speaker 1: like gas and the tank, healthy engines. You know, everything's
5:53
Speaker 1: running on, you know, and music is beautiful enough to
5:55
Speaker 1: be inspired by only music. But then that isn't it.
5:59
Speaker 1: That's not a closet, right, so you gotta go out
6:02
Speaker 1: and go to Grandma's house or whatever it is. Do
6:06
Speaker 1: you call it a band? Yeah, idea project band. I
6:10
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. Was it a clear like,
6:12
Speaker 1: tell me from the beginning? How did it start? That's
6:15
Speaker 1: actually an easier way to answer it. It's like I
6:20
Speaker 1: was in a band with with some of my closest
6:22
Speaker 1: friends and people that grew up learning how to play
6:24
Speaker 1: music around, and we sort of had that mid twenties
6:28
Speaker 1: sort of breakup winner separate ways, and I was kind
6:31
Speaker 1: of considering not trying to make a career in music
6:34
Speaker 1: and maybe go back to school and all this stuff.
6:36
Speaker 1: But in that very moment is when I sort of
6:40
Speaker 1: started making the first songs for what would become Bonevair,
6:44
Speaker 1: And I remember not having a name until I finished
6:48
Speaker 1: finished the album and I was watching Northern Exposure, that
6:51
Speaker 1: show from the early nineties, and there's this episode where
6:54
Speaker 1: the first snow falls in this little Alaskan town and
6:57
Speaker 1: everyone goes out and greets each other like Boneva Believer,
7:00
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, that's a good thing, because that's
7:03
Speaker 1: kind of what that's I've always been inspired by where
7:05
Speaker 1: I'm from and all that it lacks, you know, everything
7:10
Speaker 1: that it lacks, it doesn't have that the other big
7:12
Speaker 1: cities in the world have. There's something I've always enjoyed
7:15
Speaker 1: about and keyed in about what it's like to be
7:19
Speaker 1: from where I'm from, and how tough the winter makes
7:22
Speaker 1: you and and how really nobody has the time and
7:26
Speaker 1: energy to prove anything to anyone else or something which
7:29
Speaker 1: can be very beneficial and have its drawbacks as well.
7:32
Speaker 1: But that's that's where it came from. So I thought, this,
7:34
Speaker 1: this Bonavierre thing, it's almost feels like a community, a town.
7:38
Speaker 1: Even though it started with just me. I had this
7:40
Speaker 1: idea that it's like it's gonna be a town or
7:44
Speaker 1: a little town, or a growing thing or a greeting
7:48
Speaker 1: or something. And and of course at the end of
7:50
Speaker 1: the day. It's a band, it's an artist, it's a thing,
7:52
Speaker 1: and so I try not to be too precious about it.
7:54
Speaker 1: But that's how I still believe in it. And you know,
7:56
Speaker 1: eleven twelve years later, now I guess it is it.
7:59
Speaker 1: It really has blossomed into a real breathing community with
8:03
Speaker 1: love and support and all everything beautiful. Yeah, did you
8:07
Speaker 1: make the first album by yourself? Yeah? Tell me tell
8:10
Speaker 1: me the story. Yeah, So I was. I was living
8:12
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, and I'd started some of these things,
8:15
Speaker 1: and as the band kind of broke up, I I
8:17
Speaker 1: sort of kind of high tailed it back to Wisconsin.
8:20
Speaker 1: I really lived in Wisconsin my whole life, minus that
8:23
Speaker 1: year and whatever amount of time I've been on the road.
8:27
Speaker 1: But at that point, I'd never been on the road
8:29
Speaker 1: really before. I'd never really had any paying music work
8:33
Speaker 1: other than weekend bar gigs and guitar teaching. So I
8:38
Speaker 1: brought I brought my little Digio one pro tools rig
8:43
Speaker 1: and my MACG four up to my dad's hunting cabin
8:47
Speaker 1: kind of an hour north of where where we grew up,
8:50
Speaker 1: and he just kind of let me go in there,
8:52
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
8:54
Speaker 1: If I'd go back to school to be a music teacher,
8:55
Speaker 1: I'd have to wait to the fall, and this was
8:58
Speaker 1: right in the winter, and so he just let me
9:01
Speaker 1: set up there. And I just had my little set
9:02
Speaker 1: up in a couple of guitars, and and I'd done
9:05
Speaker 1: some engineering and some making some records before, but I
9:08
Speaker 1: had kind of just lost some of the gear and
9:10
Speaker 1: so it was a very very meager setup, which ended
9:13
Speaker 1: up being a really great thing. And so over the
9:17
Speaker 1: over kind of a three month period, just kind of
9:19
Speaker 1: being there by myself, unless my dad would stop by
9:21
Speaker 1: over the weekend to work on a sawmill or something like.
9:24
Speaker 1: I was just there letting myself be bored, allowing myself
9:29
Speaker 1: to do to have a day where nothing happened for
9:32
Speaker 1: the first time in my life, and not have any
9:33
Speaker 1: guilt about it. It was just the first time I
9:36
Speaker 1: really truly was on my own, beautiful. Do you think
9:38
Speaker 1: of it as an enjoyable time? Yes, I mean there
9:43
Speaker 1: were there was boredom. There was like sort of just
9:47
Speaker 1: sitting there, maybe an unhealthy amount of alone time or
9:50
Speaker 1: something like that, But I do I look back at
9:52
Speaker 1: it as a very very positive experience to let go
9:57
Speaker 1: of a lot of things too. I was making it
10:00
Speaker 1: for myself. I had kind of given up on the
10:02
Speaker 1: idea of chasing anymore. And of course once you're once
10:06
Speaker 1: you're done with chasing, you're arriving given up on that idea.
10:12
Speaker 1: What would what would your days be like? Like, what
10:16
Speaker 1: if you're alone for three months? Yeah, it was I'd
10:20
Speaker 1: wake up and probably crack three eggs and some veniceine,
10:24
Speaker 1: you know, because we'd do some hunting up there. But
10:28
Speaker 1: there's a little TV up there in a DVD player,
10:30
Speaker 1: so I'd watch a lot of the Northern Exposure and
10:32
Speaker 1: and strangely it's my favorite like thing, novel, book, show, whatever,
10:37
Speaker 1: whole time because it was just you know, so there
10:40
Speaker 1: might be a day where I only watch DVDs, you know,
10:44
Speaker 1: and you know, smoke a joint and drink six beers
10:48
Speaker 1: for no reason or something. But then then a day
10:52
Speaker 1: I would just wake up, go sit on the computer
10:55
Speaker 1: stool and just be there in it. You know, we're
10:58
Speaker 1: reworking and mixing and doing that thing on that album. Yeah,
11:02
Speaker 1: I wonder if I was thinking about growing up and
11:05
Speaker 1: the amount of boredom involved in uh, you know, get
11:09
Speaker 1: home from school and what are you supposed to do. Yeah,
11:13
Speaker 1: it's like what do you do? So I'm wondering if
11:16
Speaker 1: if putting yourself in that state somehow taps into something
11:23
Speaker 1: that a lot of people feel more often than they realize.
11:25
Speaker 1: It's just a real I mean, you did an extreme
11:29
Speaker 1: thing by by regular standards in our society, but it
11:37
Speaker 1: took you to a place that's probably not so different
11:39
Speaker 1: than growing up in the United States, but without having
11:44
Speaker 1: anybody like get outside, or you do this, or you
11:46
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, my parents gave it. My dad and
11:49
Speaker 1: this kids gave me a very supportive experience, or supported experience,
11:54
Speaker 1: i should say. And it was it was that that
11:56
Speaker 1: boredom was like, huh, you spent a lot of time
12:00
Speaker 1: being busy and overworked, and I just I just recently
12:04
Speaker 1: had quit a job at a kitchen that had really
12:06
Speaker 1: created new anger and stress in my in my mind
12:10
Speaker 1: and body. You know, never have I had been that
12:12
Speaker 1: stressed or angry or overworked. And and so I think
12:16
Speaker 1: it was I just sort of looked at as like, well,
12:17
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing, and I there was
12:21
Speaker 1: something going on with these songs where I was like,
12:22
Speaker 1: this is a new thing for me. Just just keep working.
12:25
Speaker 1: And I think just it was a correct, correct recipe
12:30
Speaker 1: to be in the right headspace to make the right
12:33
Speaker 1: kind of music. Did you do you toured the first album?
12:36
Speaker 1: Toured the first album pretty a lot, you know, that
12:39
Speaker 1: kind of smashed me up a bit, but not completely
12:42
Speaker 1: smashed me up. And so we were making the second record.
12:45
Speaker 1: By then, I was using a lot of musicians. You know,
12:47
Speaker 1: I grew up playing in the jazz bands and I
12:49
Speaker 1: had a nine piece band in high school to all
12:52
Speaker 1: my friends with horns and everything. So it was a
12:54
Speaker 1: natural inclination to want to be around more people. But
12:59
Speaker 1: what naturally happened as I started to share some of
13:03
Speaker 1: the load of the songwriting and but also very holding
13:07
Speaker 1: on really tight. And I think, and this isn't a
13:13
Speaker 1: negative thing, but I think in many ways, I've stepped
13:16
Speaker 1: farther and farther and farther back from the chief position
13:21
Speaker 1: of making the records. And it's funny, after after making this,
13:26
Speaker 1: these four records, I'm feeling like maybe I returned to
13:30
Speaker 1: just hanging out on my own for a for a
13:32
Speaker 1: year or something to get back to that place, because
13:34
Speaker 1: you know, I so often would grow up play guitar
13:37
Speaker 1: and write a song, sit and write write this song
13:39
Speaker 1: down it. It went from sort of that with the
13:43
Speaker 1: first record too, almost none of that with with where
13:48
Speaker 1: we're at now in the last you know, this this
13:51
Speaker 1: process this ten years, and so I saw a lot
13:54
Speaker 1: of a lot of the death of the ego in
13:58
Speaker 1: a good way and then also being lost because at
14:02
Speaker 1: times because I didn't have that connection to like what
14:05
Speaker 1: I knew was right when I was all by myself
14:07
Speaker 1: what I knew, what I didn't have to answer to
14:10
Speaker 1: or you know, like I didn't have Chris like man,
14:12
Speaker 1: that sucks or that's really great, either one or problematic
14:16
Speaker 1: answers for me sometimes when you're when you're drifted farther
14:19
Speaker 1: aback away from your your frontal igo. And so you know,
14:25
Speaker 1: I see that, I see that happening in the last
14:29
Speaker 1: ten years, that arc of sort of stepping back, getting
14:33
Speaker 1: the music bigger and experimenting more and more. I'm feeling, like,
14:40
Speaker 1: you know, I can't predict what the next year is
14:41
Speaker 1: going to be like, but I'm feeling like a little
14:43
Speaker 1: bit of a return to that interesting that that place
14:45
Speaker 1: that's coming up kind of is the hunting Lodge still there.
14:48
Speaker 1: It is better than ever. I get along with my dad,
14:51
Speaker 1: so well, but I don't think it's it would be
14:53
Speaker 1: the same situation. He's he's built a big barn, he's
14:56
Speaker 1: got a sawmill, and he's got like four hundred maple
14:59
Speaker 1: trees tapped up there, and so he's always got people around.
15:01
Speaker 1: And plus we've sort of we've sort of made April
15:04
Speaker 1: Base into into that zone, even though we're not quite
15:09
Speaker 1: I don't quite have my own room yet. We're working
15:12
Speaker 1: on that, but that's in the next year or so.
15:14
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. After the break. We're back with
15:21
Speaker 1: more from Bony Vair. There's a million things to ask
15:24
Speaker 1: you about the past, but for a moment, how how
15:27
Speaker 1: do songs typically start? Would you say your do you jam?
15:32
Speaker 1: There's some improvisation in you know, studio setting, like maybe
15:35
Speaker 1: not like instruments and stuff, but maybe some drum machines
15:39
Speaker 1: and just looking for odd recipes that could create something
15:45
Speaker 1: very surprising. It's probably our favorite thing to do, doing
15:49
Speaker 1: some just playing in general. I grew up writing a
15:52
Speaker 1: lot of songs and guitar and it sort of just
15:54
Speaker 1: stopped happening that way, and I've been playing a lot
15:57
Speaker 1: more guitar lately, and songs are trickling out, But there's
15:59
Speaker 1: still this thing I think is I've developed more as
16:03
Speaker 1: a singer than maybe I was before, or where I
16:07
Speaker 1: really started to hone in on the voice part of it,
16:11
Speaker 1: I think I became less. It became less important for
16:15
Speaker 1: me to write the song and be this songwriter person
16:19
Speaker 1: and more like how do we how do I get
16:21
Speaker 1: my voice on something that sounds interesting to my voice,
16:25
Speaker 1: if you will, And so a lot of we do
16:27
Speaker 1: a lot of improvisation or budding two things together, like
16:31
Speaker 1: have a saxophone go through a harmonizer while I'm playing
16:33
Speaker 1: it and singing it, or just looking for things to
16:37
Speaker 1: clash or to make something that sounded brand new so
16:42
Speaker 1: that it would be exciting to sing on. That's been
16:47
Speaker 1: the main process, you know. And every once in a while,
16:48
Speaker 1: maybe just a guitar riff would would PLoP in and
16:52
Speaker 1: create a song in and of itself. But I'd say
16:55
Speaker 1: that's been our biggest way of doing it, is just
16:57
Speaker 1: looking for moments that that seem magical. Yeah, and it
17:01
Speaker 1: sounds like mainly musical moments. So you'll be working on
17:04
Speaker 1: track ideas essentially with the idea does it start with
17:10
Speaker 1: that feeling of this is interesting, or does it start
17:12
Speaker 1: with this is interesting I have I can see what
17:16
Speaker 1: I would do on top both. I mean every every
17:20
Speaker 1: time is different. Every time it's different, and sometimes just
17:23
Speaker 1: something sounds good so you want to keep it around,
17:25
Speaker 1: but you're like, well, this isn't really going to be
17:26
Speaker 1: for this project, So we don't know what to do
17:30
Speaker 1: with those ones. Exactly. Like the two generally for us
17:33
Speaker 1: go go hand in hand. It's like when we hear
17:37
Speaker 1: something that we've somehow come up with that sounds really interesting,
17:40
Speaker 1: justin immediately wants to sing on it, and that's like, Okay,
17:44
Speaker 1: we're we're into something here. That's kind of the biggest
17:47
Speaker 1: giveaway that we're onto something. Yeah, I might like a
17:51
Speaker 1: lot of things. Again, if I don't have anything to
17:53
Speaker 1: sing on it, it's sort of like, well maybe we
17:55
Speaker 1: should give this to someone else. Yeah, And like and
17:58
Speaker 1: like whenever you try and get him to sing on something,
18:00
Speaker 1: it's like not a good not a good vibe. I mean,
18:02
Speaker 1: it's very, it comes very, it's it springs forth. Yeah. Absolutely,
18:06
Speaker 1: when it's there, it's there, and when it's not, it's
18:08
Speaker 1: really not. I think with the with the previous record
18:10
Speaker 1: twenty two million, we did a lot more jamming. I
18:13
Speaker 1: mean great. Granted it was over like a period of
18:15
Speaker 1: five years that we were writing that record or something,
18:18
Speaker 1: but there were some pretty extensive, long multi person jams
18:22
Speaker 1: that would happen that we got some stuff out of.
18:24
Speaker 1: But that was kind of a way where Justin I
18:26
Speaker 1: think was maybe struggling with with trying to get his
18:30
Speaker 1: songwriting going again. That was a way for us to
18:32
Speaker 1: do it. It was bringing a lot of people, make
18:34
Speaker 1: as much noise as we can for a long period
18:36
Speaker 1: of time and see what happens. See if there's any
18:39
Speaker 1: moments that pop three you can that you could then
18:41
Speaker 1: like hey what about that? Let's go focus right and
18:43
Speaker 1: then that little moment that happened, either use it directly
18:46
Speaker 1: usually that's what we do, Use that moment directly and
18:48
Speaker 1: shape around it and like you know. But this this
18:52
Speaker 1: album was definitely a lot more there's more playing. We
18:57
Speaker 1: entered with a lot more intention on a number of
19:00
Speaker 1: levels with this, this record, the newest record, and more
19:03
Speaker 1: of the touring band than ever before too, yep, which
19:06
Speaker 1: was a great, great addition. Yeah, But I think sonically
19:13
Speaker 1: we I think we've kind of quietly made an active
19:15
Speaker 1: choice to not mess with his voice as much as
19:18
Speaker 1: we had previously. We knew I think that we were
19:21
Speaker 1: going to focus on the lyric content more than we
19:24
Speaker 1: ever have. Not that we weren't saying something before or
19:28
Speaker 1: Justin wasn't saying something, is that we wanted it to
19:30
Speaker 1: be heard and we wanted it to be maybe clearer
19:32
Speaker 1: than it ever had been. And so I think with
19:35
Speaker 1: those may have been the two most like sort of
19:38
Speaker 1: unspoken decisions for this record, but we were all aligned
19:43
Speaker 1: on that and everything else just came so much easier. Yeah,
19:48
Speaker 1: it was so much more, I don't know, just free
19:50
Speaker 1: and easy. It was great. Nice. Yeah, maybe that'll be
19:54
Speaker 1: it's it sounds like that can be going forward. It
19:58
Speaker 1: sounds like there's that could be our job. Yeah. I
20:01
Speaker 1: think it was a huge realization with with this, with
20:03
Speaker 1: finishing this record as not as quickly but so much
20:06
Speaker 1: faster than the previous one. Yes, that we were just like, oh,
20:09
Speaker 1: this is what it can be all the time. Brad,
20:10
Speaker 1: Brad Cook and I talked about I mean all three
20:12
Speaker 1: of us did, but yeah, Brad and I talked about
20:14
Speaker 1: that a lot of just like this is what we
20:16
Speaker 1: can make it. Every time there was a breakthrough, Yeah,
20:19
Speaker 1: this is all we got to do. Every time, it's great.
20:21
Speaker 1: Did you record many more than the songs that are
20:23
Speaker 1: on the album or the songs on the album? Pretty much? It?
20:25
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it is? It usually that way? Yeah,
20:29
Speaker 1: I think we pretty pretty early on know whether something's
20:32
Speaker 1: going to get chased down further or not. So we
20:34
Speaker 1: still have like fragments that will probably revisit in a
20:37
Speaker 1: year or something. But I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure.
20:40
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't have this feeling like there's like
20:43
Speaker 1: great songs waiting for us. We sort of like worked
20:46
Speaker 1: on what we worked on. What was the thought on
20:50
Speaker 1: the title? By the way, man, it's it's it's really
20:55
Speaker 1: a lot about this whole self care and caring about
20:58
Speaker 1: your friend thing. It's to me, it's that's the thing
21:02
Speaker 1: that Bob Marley introduced me to when I was a kid.
21:05
Speaker 1: Is this I and I? It's I and I, it's we,
21:09
Speaker 1: you are me, I am you? Uh. This is all
21:12
Speaker 1: of us kind of thing together, this this sort of
21:15
Speaker 1: responsibility to one another, maybe responsibilities and even strong enough
21:19
Speaker 1: a word, it's like we are connected. It's not just
21:21
Speaker 1: like we choose to be or not when we hurt ourselves.
21:24
Speaker 1: I feel like it has a reaction to others, and
21:27
Speaker 1: so that that was my whole thing is just like
21:30
Speaker 1: Marley vibes Rastafarian vibes, like it's uh, we are responsible
21:35
Speaker 1: for one another. It is a line that no, no
21:40
Speaker 1: branches of a tree are so foolish that they would
21:42
Speaker 1: fight with another branch on the tree. Yeah, exactly exactly.
21:49
Speaker 1: So it started guitar and vocal, guitar, vocal and the
21:52
Speaker 1: ensemble all at once. And then when when did the
21:55
Speaker 1: lyrics come in the process of writing, Like, I think
21:59
Speaker 1: I had this guitar riff laying around for like years,
22:02
Speaker 1: and it was always just I thought that this was
22:04
Speaker 1: half a love. I thought that this was half a love. Uh,
22:08
Speaker 1: follow to the Raging Sea. That's all it ever was.
22:10
Speaker 1: And so Brad was just like, why don't you just
22:12
Speaker 1: consider that's a that's a song you can have. You
22:15
Speaker 1: can have a three two line song. So accepted that,
22:18
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh I love this, Okay, great, Yeah, yeah,
22:22
Speaker 1: that's kind of the story with that one. It's just like,
22:25
Speaker 1: sometimes it's enough just to have a small little idea absolutely, yeah, yeah,
22:29
Speaker 1: sometimes it's all it wants to be. Yeah, if you
22:32
Speaker 1: try to force it, you're what what are you doing cool?
22:36
Speaker 1: Pick another one? Or do you want to see the list? Oh? Sure,
22:38
Speaker 1: let me think here? Sure? Can you see it? I
22:44
Speaker 1: can't see it. It's probably pretty good. I don't know.
22:53
Speaker 1: Man man like you's pretty good? I like, man like here,
22:58
Speaker 1: let's try that one. The big story with this one
23:02
Speaker 1: is that Bruce Hornsby. It's Bruce Bruce's track Lately he
23:07
Speaker 1: just wrote. He just had He came up we were
23:09
Speaker 1: helping him with his record and he just had this
23:12
Speaker 1: piano figure. He had it on a burned CD. He
23:14
Speaker 1: brought over and was like, what is that play? Yeah?
23:17
Speaker 1: I was like, first of all, we have to buy
23:18
Speaker 1: a CD player now, But he just played a bunch
23:23
Speaker 1: of this kind of music that he'd been working on.
23:25
Speaker 1: I was like, what is that track doing? Because it
23:28
Speaker 1: was one of those moments where I was like I
23:30
Speaker 1: almost heard the entire melody, just like I went in
23:33
Speaker 1: there and just like it was just there. And had
23:36
Speaker 1: I not been a little more open and like not
23:39
Speaker 1: so like I better be the guy to write all
23:41
Speaker 1: these songs, I might not have had that feeling. But
23:44
Speaker 1: it felt so good just to jump on and it's
23:46
Speaker 1: just a mood that I couldn't have come up with
23:48
Speaker 1: It feels so fun to to sing on me and
23:52
Speaker 1: Brad did so much bass playing on the album. You
23:56
Speaker 1: know he's he's predominantly a bass player. I'm kind of
24:00
Speaker 1: a cute bass player, acute, acute and cute. But so
24:06
Speaker 1: we do a lot of playing bass in the album
24:09
Speaker 1: where I would play it and then he'd be like,
24:11
Speaker 1: I can do better, and then I can be like, oh,
24:13
Speaker 1: I liked what you did there, but I would kick
24:15
Speaker 1: your So we did a lot of that on the
24:18
Speaker 1: on the album. I don't know. I haven't heard these
24:21
Speaker 1: I haven't heard the jam since we actually have played
24:24
Speaker 1: all these shows. It's kind of interesting. How do they
24:28
Speaker 1: transform live? They have transformed a lot live. You know
24:31
Speaker 1: that our band is awesome. I just love playing with
24:36
Speaker 1: each other. They ultimately feel more alive. I mean liter
24:40
Speaker 1: literally living, and I love I like records that have scrapes,
24:44
Speaker 1: and you know they don't. I like records that sound
24:47
Speaker 1: very high fi as well. But with our records, I've
24:50
Speaker 1: sort of always tried to keep it a little dusty
24:53
Speaker 1: or a little got some knicks and knicks in there.
24:58
Speaker 1: How many people are in the band live now? It's
25:00
Speaker 1: six now, and we've we've waxed and weighed on that
25:02
Speaker 1: we've had. Last year, we had like five trombone dudes
25:05
Speaker 1: from Richmond, Virginia traveling with us. Uh, what do we
25:11
Speaker 1: call them? Bone trombone paradise. Trombone paradise, that's right. But
25:17
Speaker 1: now it's a lot of the same dudes that have
25:20
Speaker 1: been in there a really long time. And then we
25:22
Speaker 1: added this lady, Jen Wasner who has his band Why Oak,
25:25
Speaker 1: and she is a monster, having another high voice, a
25:30
Speaker 1: higher voice, and she's also a crushing profit player as
25:35
Speaker 1: guitar player and bass player as well. So it's been
25:38
Speaker 1: it's been really fun. And the songs they just they
25:41
Speaker 1: just live and breathe. You're playing him rather than like
25:43
Speaker 1: pressing play on him, you know what I mean. I
25:45
Speaker 1: think we're staying truer to the record with the most
25:48
Speaker 1: recent songs than we did with twenty two million. I
25:51
Speaker 1: mean those really we tried to those took on a
25:54
Speaker 1: whole new life live it's that are it's great. But
25:58
Speaker 1: I think with these, yeah, they they definitely even breathe,
26:00
Speaker 1: but we're we're staying closer to the record. It also
26:03
Speaker 1: makes sense that you said there's more playing on the
26:05
Speaker 1: record too, so it's makes sense to same people played
26:08
Speaker 1: it on the record and now I'm playing it live.
26:10
Speaker 1: It's makes sense. Yeah, absolutely, not interpolating. Yeah, the picking
26:17
Speaker 1: and choosing with only having six people is like, okay,
26:20
Speaker 1: well you we can't We're just physically can't play that
26:22
Speaker 1: part because we don't we don't have any tracks or
26:24
Speaker 1: anything like that. Yeah, So making those choices is always
26:27
Speaker 1: like Okay, what's the most essential moment or can you
26:30
Speaker 1: play this one moment on guitar, but then do the
26:32
Speaker 1: rest of it over here? You know, making those choices
26:35
Speaker 1: has been really fun, I think this time. Yeah, I
26:39
Speaker 1: don't know what else to play? What else is hard
26:41
Speaker 1: to play? Rick Rubin your record man. When we come back,
26:46
Speaker 1: justin Vernon talks to Rick about some of his favorite music.
26:53
Speaker 1: We're back with more from Bony Vair. What would you
26:56
Speaker 1: say is the most fun part of the entire process
27:04
Speaker 1: in this band or the project? What's your favorite part
27:08
Speaker 1: of it? It's a great question. Lately, it's been, if
27:13
Speaker 1: not all the whole time is when we have a
27:15
Speaker 1: piece of music that we can play, that that drifts,
27:20
Speaker 1: that is really alive, that we don't have to follow
27:26
Speaker 1: follow the grid, or we don't use to click tracks
27:29
Speaker 1: or tracks really, but especially you know, there's a couple
27:33
Speaker 1: of songs that we're playing live now from this record
27:36
Speaker 1: where it's like, wow, we're really it's really a push
27:40
Speaker 1: and pull thing. There's really a lot of group improvisation
27:43
Speaker 1: going on, group listening, group reacting, And I really enjoy
27:48
Speaker 1: that because in one hand, I've got this feeling like
27:51
Speaker 1: I love a song, I love a good folks so
27:53
Speaker 1: on that lets you know kind of who he is
27:56
Speaker 1: right away. But I also love Coltrane and you know
28:00
Speaker 1: music that that just makes you feel strange. I like
28:05
Speaker 1: the combination of those two comforts, the feeling strange and
28:08
Speaker 1: the feeling comfortable. And what do you listen to? Mostly?
28:13
Speaker 1: I mean I bounce around a lot. I do listen everything.
28:16
Speaker 1: We grew up. I grew up listening and studying jazz
28:19
Speaker 1: in school and stuff, and so I was just exposed
28:22
Speaker 1: to a lot. My parents are musical folks, and so
28:25
Speaker 1: what would be the music like growing up in the house?
28:27
Speaker 1: What would your parents play? John Prin was probably number one,
28:32
Speaker 1: And a matter of fact, he's probably like the He's
28:35
Speaker 1: the backbone of our spiritual philosophy as a family. I
28:38
Speaker 1: guess I would say that that that was the he
28:42
Speaker 1: was the main one. I think you could distill all
28:44
Speaker 1: other listening visa v. John Prian, And do you did
28:48
Speaker 1: you extend from John Prine into others like in the
28:51
Speaker 1: singer songwriter world? Was that? Yeah? Dylan came pretty pretty
28:55
Speaker 1: close after and still still very central you know, my
29:00
Speaker 1: understanding of the of the craft of like writing a
29:03
Speaker 1: song on the guitar, you know, with that whole tradition.
29:06
Speaker 1: So in both cases, would it be a lyric centric
29:10
Speaker 1: draw started out that way? I think I think once
29:15
Speaker 1: when I saw how complete a song could be with
29:17
Speaker 1: such little lyricism, when I when I with John Prine,
29:21
Speaker 1: especially you know, compared to Dylan or something. But kind
29:26
Speaker 1: of right after that, I always liked a good lyric
29:30
Speaker 1: But it's you know, that would have been when I
29:32
Speaker 1: was like, you know, eleven twelve, when I actually get
29:34
Speaker 1: my own discman and listen to John Prine on my
29:36
Speaker 1: own you know. So did you start writing songs as
29:38
Speaker 1: a kid? I did, Yeah, write it, Like when I
29:41
Speaker 1: was twelve or thirteen. I'd write little songs about like
29:43
Speaker 1: my friends at camp or stuff like that. It's just
29:47
Speaker 1: something that came pretty naturally to me. Would you call
29:50
Speaker 1: them like it, would you call them folk songs? Yeah?
29:53
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I was probably listening to
29:55
Speaker 1: like pro jam and Nirvana, so I was probably just like, oh,
29:57
Speaker 1: these are just songs, man, I don't know what I
29:59
Speaker 1: was things. And actually, if you would describe them now,
30:04
Speaker 1: what would you say they would rooted in? Would they
30:06
Speaker 1: be like a pearl jam song played on acoustic guitar? Yeah,
30:09
Speaker 1: I think they're probably they're probably the early days, more prime,
30:13
Speaker 1: more just three chords in the truth kind of situation.
30:16
Speaker 1: But then shortly, you know, then eventually you get into
30:18
Speaker 1: alternate tunings, and then you're listening to Joni Mitchell and
30:23
Speaker 1: then it gets a little farther out. Who would you
30:24
Speaker 1: say would be the singers that inspire you or there's
30:30
Speaker 1: always three? I think of my first favorite was was
30:37
Speaker 1: Amy Ray from Indigo Girls. She had this there's this
30:41
Speaker 1: folk thing going on in that their group and songwriting,
30:44
Speaker 1: but she was yelling a lot, and like, there's this
30:48
Speaker 1: fever that was just so connected to her spirit and
30:51
Speaker 1: what she was trying to communicate in her songs. Was
30:54
Speaker 1: she still communicating in her songs and that that sort
30:58
Speaker 1: of unbridled yelling and and sort of like this when
31:03
Speaker 1: you lose it, Can you think of a good example,
31:05
Speaker 1: because I'd love to hear I can. I can pull
31:08
Speaker 1: it up for you and you can look. Oh yeah,
31:13
Speaker 1: my favorite song of all time is called Fugitive. That's
31:15
Speaker 1: like my number one song. That's the Indigo Girls and
31:17
Speaker 1: maybe maybe that's not her yelling, but she's definitely like
31:20
Speaker 1: pushing her voice and it's yeah cool, it's my number
31:24
Speaker 1: my number one favorite song of all time. They played
31:27
Speaker 1: that in Missoula, right, I mean I literally had to
31:31
Speaker 1: sit down. It's true, you stumbling back to You're just
31:33
Speaker 1: like I can't believe this just happen. Yeah, this is
31:38
Speaker 1: my favorite song, my favorite album. I think when I
31:42
Speaker 1: was twelve, like my mom and sister got me into them,
31:44
Speaker 1: and I think I was like, so, mom, they're they're gay,
31:49
Speaker 1: you know, like and then just realizing they have all
31:51
Speaker 1: these problems because of that, and like, Okay, for some reason,
31:57
Speaker 1: I was just like, well, this is wrong that they
32:00
Speaker 1: have issues, you know, like I don't understand. And then
32:03
Speaker 1: that gave me more and I adored them more and
32:07
Speaker 1: more and more. The more they had strength in the
32:09
Speaker 1: face of their adversity and that but they never became bitter,
32:15
Speaker 1: they would have feelings about it. I don't know, they're
32:17
Speaker 1: just they're they're my favorite group ever. Uh and Emily's
32:23
Speaker 1: the harmony, the other singer. She writes other other songs too.
32:25
Speaker 1: I mean, they're both just together. It's it's like my
32:29
Speaker 1: favorite ship. But Donnie Hathaway and Bonnie Raid are probably
32:32
Speaker 1: my other two, just like as far as soul. Yeah,
32:37
Speaker 1: the thing that moved me most was after the first
32:39
Speaker 1: sort of rocking part, it drops down into a very
32:44
Speaker 1: into unexpected intimate moment just for a moment. Yeah, but
32:50
Speaker 1: it got real. Yeah, got really really got real. Yeah,
32:53
Speaker 1: and it's good feeling. Yeah, that's the feeling, man, that's
32:56
Speaker 1: the feeling Like I mean, I tattooed those lyrics on
32:59
Speaker 1: my chat for a reason. It's like, this is what
33:01
Speaker 1: I want to be carrying around it. That's the feeling
33:03
Speaker 1: when you whce. We get to that verse, you're like
33:06
Speaker 1: you're exposed from all this yelling and this guitar sol
33:09
Speaker 1: and this orchestration, and then it all goes away. You're
33:12
Speaker 1: just back to this place where it's like we need
33:15
Speaker 1: to we learn, need to learn how to respect what
33:18
Speaker 1: we don't understand. We are fortunate ones. We are fortunate ones,
33:20
Speaker 1: I swear. It's just like the best thing you can say.
33:24
Speaker 1: It's like we don't know anything, and we have to
33:26
Speaker 1: try to learn and we have to understand that how
33:30
Speaker 1: lucky we are. Beautiful. That's that's that's why it's my
33:33
Speaker 1: favorite song. But yeah, it's it's a displaying intimacy and
33:38
Speaker 1: and vulnerability is a really important part of communicating as
33:42
Speaker 1: a human being, and it is a musician or songwriter.
33:45
Speaker 1: It's like you have to be able to be like,
33:47
Speaker 1: yes I am I feel awful or yes I am scared.
33:51
Speaker 1: You know. I think those are such valuable things in
33:54
Speaker 1: our valuable assets to ourselves. The vulnerability. You know, it's beautiful.
34:05
Speaker 1: That was justin Vernon bony Beare and his producer Chrismasina
34:08
Speaker 1: in conversation with Rick Rubin from Shangelos Studios in Maladu.
34:12
Speaker 1: The new record I Comma is up per Album of
34:14
Speaker 1: the Year at the Grammys. You can stream it using
34:17
Speaker 1: the Spotify playlist we put together for this episode at
34:19
Speaker 1: Broken record podcast dot com. You can also sign up
34:22
Speaker 1: for a behind the scenes newsletter while you're there. Enough.
34:25
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Meo
34:28
Speaker 1: La Belle, and Leo Rose. Our theme music is by
34:30
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. Stay tuned for next week's episodes. Brittany Howard
34:33
Speaker 1: and Andre three thousand, thanks for listening.