Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Future Islands

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Future Islands · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: The Baltimore based synthpop band Future Islands was first thrust
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: into the national spotlight in twenty fourteen after making their
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: TV debut on The Late Show with David Letterman. The
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: bands unassuming frontman Samuel t Herring, danced ecstatically around the stage,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: seething with emotion. The performance quickly went viral, making it
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: one of Letterman's most memorable live appearances ever. At the
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: time of their big break, Future Islands had already released
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: three albums and been touring relentlessly for nearly a decade,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: and while they would become one of the most prominent
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: bands on the festival circuit for the next several years,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Future Islands always managed to maintain a sense of unparalleled
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: raw vulnerability on stage, in part thanks to the deeply
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: confessional nature of Sam's songwriting and his stage presence. On
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: today's episode, Lea Rose talks to Future Island's lead singer,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Samuel t Harring about the band's latest album, People Who
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Aren't There Anymore. Sam also describes the physical toll his
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: energetic performance style has taken on his body over the years,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: and his long held gripe with guitar based music. This
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: justin Mitchman. Here's Lea Rose's conversation with Samuel t Herring.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: When Future Islands started. What was important for you to
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: convey to audiences through your performance style?
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Well, the beginning of Future Islands is a little strange
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: because the impetus for a beginning of the band was
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: a tour that we were supposed to have played as
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: our first band that we had forgotten about, and so
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: the impetus of the band was basically art Lord. Our
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: fourth member left at the end of two thousand and five,
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: and we kind of just didn't have a band for
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: four or five months, and I don't think me, William
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: and Garrett really even talked about what we were going
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: to do next. I think we were still kind of
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: sad and confused about what had happened because our other
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: member just like dipped town and was like, you know,
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: I'm not doing the band anymore, and we're like, well,
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: do we want to keep doing it without, you know,
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: our friend that's been here since the beginning. So and
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: then in January of two thousand and six, William got
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: an email that was basically like, Hey, how's that tour coming,
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: because William used to book all of our He booked
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: all the Art Lord shows, he booked the first like
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: four or five years of Future Islands as well, and
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: so yeah, so instead of you, basically William called me
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: and Garrett and was like, I was supposed to book
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: this tour and I forgot.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Do you guys? Do you guys want to start a
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: new band?
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: And so within like three weeks we wrote and recorded
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: five six song EP and then we went we did
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: a tour. I mean honestly, there was no thought process.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: I mean that's kind of you know, even the roots
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: of art Lord, even though it was high concept, the
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: function was punk because we didn't own instruments, you know.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: Williams guitar or Williams bass guitar was borrowed from a friend.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: Like all the amps were borrowed. All the keyboards except
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: for one were we're like found at thrift stores or
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: borrowed from friends. So the mode was really you know,
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: eurosynth pop, but it was but we felt like punks.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we stunk and we played your living room, so
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: we were punks. And with Future Islands, it was it
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: started very much the same, you know, and at the
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: time I was I had really bad drug problems. I
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: was trying to get out of that, you know. Shortly
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: after Future Rounds began, I left town to get my
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: life together and get clean. So Future Islands just kind
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: of began with these songs. Garrett was kind of playing
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: solos for the first time. William's bass was going super fast,
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: and for the first time ever, I had kind of
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: a drum kit behind me that was creating this propulsive
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: It was a propulsive element in the music that we'd
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: never had before. Like before that, I was trying to
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: be the propulsive element through my movement, but it was
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: much more of a dance and a performance and a
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: bit of theater. But all of a sudden, I wasn't
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: the most you know, I wasn't the thing pushing it forward.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: So I had to I had to figure out how
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: to match that energy of the drums. And then that
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: brought this whole other element of anger and angst, which
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: is a lot of things I was going through at
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: the time, fighting drug addiction and feeling really lost in
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: my life.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Were you on hard drugs like I was a.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Cocain It was like two two and a half years.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: It was like a Gramma day habit. But yeah, I was.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: I was a dealer and became a fiend and then yeah,
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: it was really really crazy stuff. It's crazy to think
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: about now how much that part of my life was.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was selling weed when I was fourteen,
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: fifteen and up until I was twenty two, twenty three.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: I was gonna ask you if you ever had like
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: a regular job, but I guess.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was a terrible drug dealer.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: I was just like make sure everybody's got what they
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: need and I get high for free. But yeah, all
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: this stuff. You know, it's such a strange world to
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: think about, but you know, these are the things. This
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: is my life that I, you know, one time, was
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: very afraid to share that I'm very open with now
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: because I want people to know, like, yeah, there is
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: another side, and you know, and I've I've slipped many times,
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: you know, And that's part of it too, you know.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: Part of it is saying like you don't say like, yeah,
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: I used to be I used to have a problem.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: You're like, no, I have a problem. I just don't.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: I don't do it. You know, I have all the problems.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm addicted to so many things.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And that that's part of it.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: But that process of leaving town began with a conversation
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: with the guys to ask them if it was okay,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: and they're like, yes, please, like we know that you
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: have a problem, please get go get help. But by
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: the time we got to Baltimore, you know, I finally
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: was starting to feel like myself again. I was with
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: my friends again, who's like lives I'd missed.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: That was when I think we decided to believe in
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: ourselves and go after a thing that in the past
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: it had been like, you know, maybe this this is
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: like really fun and people want to see us play,
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: so we'll go play some shows, to being like it's
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: time to go for it. And that's when we you know,
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: once two months after Garrett got to Baltimore, we went
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: on our first US tour and then just stayed on
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: tour for five years, almost five years. We played like
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: in that four and a half years, we played close
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: to eight hundred shows.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: And that's when the band grew, you know, from being
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: from playing you know, for peanuts and playing like five
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: and ten people at the beginning around the country to
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: to like making a living at the end. Yeah, you know,
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: there was a time in our lives where we wanted
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: to you know that you think everybody's listening.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: And when was that time? Was that like around the
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: time of the Letterman performance.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was like twenty into twenty fourteen and fifteen
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: we really felt like, oh, people are finally care about
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: what we do, you know, our fourth album. You know,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: we're all you know, we didn't expect to be a
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: spotlight band at that point, like we were. We had
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: gotten over the feelings and like had accepted that that
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: was never going to happen, and that was actually really
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: freeing to be like, Okay, cool, I guess nobody really
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: cares that much, but the audience cares. You know, We've
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: built our own We've built our own audience through our
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: own hard work, and then all of a sudden we
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: were in the spotlight and that really affected us in
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: it did make us think about who the audience was
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: and writing for that perceived audience. And then we created
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: an album that we just kind of rushed and I
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: don't think took the proper time, but I think we
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: were also so exhausted. Yeah, we were just lost. So
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: there was that period where you said, oh, maybe people care, Yeah,
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: and let's write for them, and maybe this will take
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: us to another step up and then you kind of
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: get to that step. I wrote a line in a
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: rap song that came out in twenty nineteen, the album
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: of by Buddy Kinney Siegel, and I said, uh, basically like, yeah,
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: there's no air at the top, and it's hard to
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: breathe when your breath is something you lost. And it's
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: just like that idea of like I wanted all of this,
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: I did all of this, I got to the top
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: and I couldn't breathe, and then you know, the years
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: after that is accepting like I don't want to be
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: up there struggling. I want to be at a place
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: where I feel comfortable and I can be the artists
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: that I set out to be.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how is that different than what you thought it
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: would be?
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: Like, I think one of the things that I realized
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: is that before we have the really the national exposure,
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: I kind of perceived it as when it gets bigger,
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: it's easier, but it gets a lot harder. It takes work,
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: and I think it made me really respect the people that.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Can do it for so long and.
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: Can do it at that reach a certain level because
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: I kind of thought, oh, yeah, you just get bigger
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: and then you have a bigger team, and then they
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: just figure out, they make all the decisions and you
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: just get to walk out on stage and you know,
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: maybe that's what like bon Jovi gets to do. But yeah,
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: just fly in and play the show and go home again,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: fly out. But it's a lot of jumping through hoops,
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: it's a lot of kissing the ring. You have to
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: be like more humble, you have to play the game,
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: and it's it's all part of the process of getting
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: that more and more exposure. And that just wasn't who
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: we were. And I think we've just done it too long.
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, the biggest thing, you know, I've always had
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: kind of a social anxieties, but through that process they
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: really got heightened. And as my life has gone on
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: since that point, my social anxieties have gotten worse. Like
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: I'm learning how to try to feel more comfortable and
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: deal with anxiety and soothe myself and these kinds of
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: things you learn about. But but it is like I
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: didn't used to feel as out of place as I
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: do now. That's part of why I'm like in a
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: new city is because I feel a freedom in a
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: new place, like I don't feel I feel less judged,
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: I feel anonymous. Yeah, you know, and that feels good.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: It's interesting to me that you would say you have
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: social anxiety when your performances are so they feel so
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: vulnerable and you feel so open and you're so transparent
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: with what you're feeling, and you're crying, you're growling, you're
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: shaking your fist at the sky, and you're completely wide
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: open at that point. Yes, So how are you able
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: to do that if you also have the other side
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: of you, which can feel scared.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: Well, there's a difference between being in a crowd and
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: being in front of a crowd. There's power that comes
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: with a microphone in a stage when you're in a
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: group of people, or entering into a group of people,
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: especially if you're if you don't feel like you have
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: a place, or you are searching for a friend, you know,
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: somebody to talk to, or you know you're alone, even
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: like going to you know, like I have like anxiety
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: going to like a friend's house for like a Christmas
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: party or something, you know, And that's really sad because
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: then you very quickly learn like oh yeah, these are
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: all my friends. I don't have anything to be worried about.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: But so when you're entering into a space where you're
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: an anonymous person, you don't get to you don't get
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: to like express who you are. You're kind of you're
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: scene for who you are on the outside. There's none
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: of who you are on the inside. You're only viewed
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: by people's perceptions. When you're on stage, you get to
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: express who you are. You get to share who you are,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: and you get to prove to people who you are. Like,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: my thing is that I've always felt like I didn't
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: belong and because of that, I felt like an underdog
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: who had to prove themselves. You know, that's the story
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: of Future Islands, That's the story of me. Is like
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: I have something to prove that I belong, that I'm
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: worth a damn, that I have meaning in this world.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: And that's not for me to just prove to other people.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: It's for me to prove to myself and for me
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: to share that you can feel this way but still
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: make a place for yourself in this world and that
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: you're not alone. So you know that that's the difference
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: between being the person watching the show and the person
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: you know being the show is now I have something
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: to tell you. Yeah, I've always loved the stage because
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: it allows me to express myself and feel like that
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: allows people to see me for who I am. Whether
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: or not they like that is not my concern. It's
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: really about I mean, you want people to like what
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: you do. But it is like, now I've at least
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: expressed who I am, and that makes me feel really courageous.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: You know, it makes me feel brave. I don't know,
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: it makes me feel free. It is so it is
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: such a strange paradox, Like I understand so many of
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: these things are like my weaknesses that I've turned into strengths.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: It strikes me when I see you on stage, it
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: strikes me that like, you're doing exactly what you're supposed
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: to be doing, Like it feels so authentic and for
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: somebody to be able to find that feels really really special.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it also.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Strikes me that, like, why aren't more people who are
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: lead singers or front people, Like why aren't they doing that?
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Like I love that you give it your all and
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: you like think about it from the perspective of an entertainer,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: and like why don't more people do that.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: Well, the entertainment is it's the hook, you know, Yes,
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: and you got to have a hook. You got to
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: have something that catches people. And you know, that's also
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: comes into the songwriting and how you choose to what
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: you choose to share, and how you choose to share.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: But for me, the performance is a way to express
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: without words because words get lost. But then so you know,
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: you show the story through your emotions or through actions.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, the dance. The dance is a hook.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: It's to pull people in so that they don't look away,
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: and then you hit with truth and you hit them
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: with emotion, and that's important. But you know, I believe,
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's definitely front people that I watch and
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: I say, do something, But I really believe that it
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: doesn't matter how you perform if you're bringing something that's honest,
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: because my performance comes from an honest expression of emotion
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: in a writing process. So then when I come on
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: stage and I have to share something that's very personal
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: for the first time and the second time the third time,
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: things that I'm still becoming comfortable with myself. To share
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: that with people is to feel electricity shooting through your body.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: To feel the wall of emotions behind your eyes. It's
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: to feel like life coursing. And I mean that that's
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: for me. But I believe that if there's an artist
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: who sits at a piano and they're just gonna, like
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: I've seen it before, if they write an on a song,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: it doesn't matter. They don't have to dance and move around.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: They just have to play that song and you're gonna
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: feel that electricity. You're gonna feel the hair stand up
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: on your arms. You know, you're gonna feel the emotion
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: because the song is honest. So that's always my goal
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: is it's reaching a level of truth so that it's
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: not dishonest on stage. And I don't feel like I'm
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: that I got to put on a show, you know
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: what I mean, Like you want to feel, you know,
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: because there are times where you go out on stage
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: and you're like you're just tired from the road and
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: you feel disconnected and you do have to you do
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: put on the show. I'm great at those shows too,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: But the but the truly transcendental shows are the ones
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: like you're just like really connecting with the original spirit
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: of the song. You're seeing the faces of the people
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: that are gone, like like you're walking into those rooms,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: you're smelling those smells.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: So I mean my yeah, my performance is a hope.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: It's like I hope that I can connect with the
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: muse and and share share like some real truth and
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: emotion with people. But uh, but yeah I have If
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: you're out there and you're a singer who is afraid
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: of being open on stage, my my thing that I
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: have a personal I have a personal trick that I
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: do for those times when I go on stage. And
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: it's funny because I I will always watch singers to
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: see their body language, and you can you can see
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: the people that are that are closed off because there
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: they literally hunched their shoulders, they close themselves with them
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: with a mic stand and all of this. But if
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: I go out on stage and after a couple songs,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm not connecting with the audience or
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: the audience is not connecting with me, then I actually
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: like pull my shoulders back, stand up straight, and slowly
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: open my arms completely to the audience, which they're very
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: confused about. They don't know what's happening. They just see
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: it's it's the it's the actual physical opening up for
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: whatever you have for me. I am here, I am
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: completely open, and you feel the judgment, you feel the fear,
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: and you say, I don't I don't care, you know,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: But it's it's that it's a literal opening of my
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: body that's always helped me to to like reconnect with
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: the feeling why am I here? And but plus, you know,
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: it just confuses the hell out of people and then
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: you and then you get them.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: Is it purposeful that the rest of the band is
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: just like really like looking down, disconnected, like looks like
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: they couldn't give a shit about you, like totally disinterested.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Is that on purpose?
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: It might be now, but I don't think it was originally.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: Garrett's always been really shy. You know, when me and
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Garrett were first friends, he Garrett barely spoke like he
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: was He was so quiet that a lot of our
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: conversations were really it was just like me da da
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: da da da da da da da.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: And Garrett like yep, like fuck this, fuck that, fuck this, yep.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: And and you know, Garrett's different now, he's grown up
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: a lot and changed. But that's part of when I
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: talk about trying to channel, trying to speak for the music,
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: is also giving a voice to my friends. They really
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: allow me to go into these really honest places about
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: my own life and they stand behind it. That's also
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: why I won't sing about certain things because it also
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: is representative of them. Does that make sense? Like within
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: my rap work, I sing a lot more about like
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: drug addiction and and things like that, because because that's
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: a place where I feel free to express myself about
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: these things that maybe they don't, you know, want their
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: parents to hear.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Or Yeah, when you write a new song, do you
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: bring the lyrics to them? How do you share the
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: song with them? And do you need them to sign
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: off in a way or is it just known that
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: like you handle lyrics, they handle music.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: I used to be more hands off with them about
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: my lyrics. I used to be like, do not criticize
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: or say anything. But I'm a lot more open to
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: it now, and so when I send demos, so usually
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: what happens is whether I'm in studio with them and
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: I make a recording on my computer or my phone
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: or in the old days, I used to like carry
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: around a big brick conference table cassette recorder and I
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: come home and write over tapes or off my computer
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: and then I take that or or if Garrett sends
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: me an idea or William sends me an idea, I
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: usually demo kind of on what we're talking through right
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: now as best I can, and then I send to
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: them Mike, William, Garrett, I send them the song and
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: the lyrics. It has to be a safe space. You know,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: there is egos involved when you are in a band,
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: and these are things you navigate over time and you
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: like learn to recommunicate again. These are like marriages. You know,
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: you got to go on dates. Man, got to go
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: on dates, keep the spark alive. Yeah, like these things
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: are important just to reconnect and yeah, and you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: I know that they're in the past.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I've was like, do you have any suggestions? Like, screw that.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I don't like that suggestion.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: But now I'm trying to be more, you know, and
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: all parts of my life like really taking the time
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: to listen to other people's people's thoughts and because it's
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: their band too, you know, because there's that part of
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: me in the past. It was just like, well, this
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: is my life that I'm singing about, so I know best.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: And then you're like, yeah, but everybody's got to play it,
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: and everybody's got to stand behind it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: We're going to take a quick break and then come
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: back with more from Lea Rose and Samuel t Hering.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: We're back with Samuel t Hering.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: How long has the album been finished? Like, does it
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: feel like it's like an ancient piece of work at
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: this point or does it still feel fresh?
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: I would say because of the emotions that were captured
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: on the back half of songs that were written, it
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: feels fresh, like it's it's one of those things where
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: it's still revealing itself because you know, sometimes especially if
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: you look at even our last album, there was a
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: lot of reflection within a new relationship. You know, the
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: reflection was, oh, there was a lot of really bad
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: things that happened in that once you're in a healthy place.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: So then this album kind of picks up in the
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: middle of the pandemic, separated from that person, and then
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: ultimately the first seven songs were written through through the pandemic.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: And you know, my ex was was in Sweden and
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: I was unable to get to her. So a lot
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: of this distance, which is also a big part of
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: our work through touring, you know, saying a lot about distance.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: I know, I feel for you. Man, it's like, how
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: do you do that? Yeah, Like, how can you maintain
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: a relationship on the road all the time. It seems
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: nearly impossible.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm a very good example of that.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: You can't. But then you know, there are is successful
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: within that too.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: You know, Garrett has a really beautiful family and and
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: you know, and also you know, me and Garrett are
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: very different people.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: I think that's the thing you find too, is why
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: things work and why things don't work. The people we choose,
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: why we choose the people we choose, why they choose us,
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: you know, and these kinds of things that go deeper
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: to the root of like who we are as humans.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: But since the first half of the album was written
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: before a breakup, and then the back half was written,
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: you know, I finally got back to Sweden, I finally
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: got my residency card I had an apartment with this person,
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: and then I got back and we just it was over,
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: you know, like the feelings were the thing that we're gone.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: So then all of a sudden, I'm rushed into this
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: breakup which I did not expect or foresee, And those
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: songs came very quickly, so as opposed to in the past,
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: I could kind of you know, these songs are coming
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: with the reflection or an understanding, like over time or
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: like this is where I am at now. The first
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: four songs were written in the flash and bang of
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: this breakup and my whole life feeling like it was.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: You know, you have an idea of where you're going
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: and then it's kind of all taken away from you.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: You don't.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I just felt completely upended and confused. And that's
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: scary when you're any age.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: You know, is there ever a part of you when
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: you're going through something like that and it's maybe becoming
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: clear like Okay, this relationship is ending. Is there like
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: a small part of you that's like, ooh, the silver
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: lining is I'm going to get great material from this.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get great songs from this situation.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Well that's what you.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: Tell everyone to hide your own emotions, you know. That's
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: like the joke that I would make for years and
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: years and years of my life, and then I did that.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: I remember I was, you know, like a bachelor party
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: for Garrett when he got married a few years ago,
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: five six years ago, and you know, we ran in
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: a cabin just out in the woods with a group
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: of friends and it was a really nice time. One night,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: we ate some mushrooms and I'm like, I'm like staring
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: at a tree with Dan Deacon, just like that tree
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: is amazing, and talking to him about about this recent
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: split with someone, you know, and kind of the realization
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: that I, you know, I had this very short, short
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: relationship with a person at a time when we were
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: finishing our fifth album, The Far Field, or we were
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: working on our fifth album, The Far Field, and I
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: was very devoid of emotion at that time, and I
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: didn't have anything to write about.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I've just been on the road.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: For three years straight and I was destabilized just because
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: the way my life was. But I told Dan about
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: this thing, going through this breakup, and you know, but
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: at least I'm going to get some I'm gonna get
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: some juicy songs out of it.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And did I like mind that thing?
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: And then it's like, oh, yeah, I got into a
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: relationship with a person that I really had nothing in
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: common with other than we were attracted to one another.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Because I knew that it would fail. There was no
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: way this thing was actually going to work, and then
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: I could take from it and Dan. But what Dan
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: said to me was just like I basically looked at
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: me and cried and said, I don't like to see
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: you hurting. I don't like to see you doing this.
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: I feel like you're doing this to yourself.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And it was a very emotional moment. That moment made
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: me change the.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: Way I made that joke, because it wasn't a joke, Like,
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: if you really look at that on the surf, what
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: the truth of that is pretty actually disgusting. I mean,
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: you know, of course this is a mutual attraction between people,
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: but you're just like, yeah, I shouldn't even been there,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: Like I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have like
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: waste my time or somebody else's time. I shouldn't like
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: be making light of art. And that that's one of
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: the reasons that I have issues with that record is
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: that I feel that I was I was kind of
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: empty that in those years after the success of Singles,
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: I was our fourth album and I felt really empty
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: and lost and confused about where I was. I used
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: to be so sure of myself as an artist and
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: what I had to give and why it was important
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: to give, but what I missed. The thing that I
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: was also not doing was saving anything for myself, Like
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: I was just giving. I was just giving it all
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: away and not looking.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: And that's what Dan was saying.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: I wasn't looking out for my own emotions. Was I
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: was giving and I was I was looking for failure
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: so that I could, you know, idealistically get through their
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: issues in their lives. But I wasn't actually protecting myself.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: I wasn't keeping anything for myself. There was and there's
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: still a part of me now that does fear that
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: it's time to stop sharing about my romantic life. And
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: that becomes fearful because you're like, well, that's kind of
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: it's kind of the story of our albums, you know, yeah,
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Like the albums have become this chronicle of my life,
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: and I fear. I don't think it's really hard to
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: shut the faucet when it's open, you know, Yeah, I mean.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: But also, like would that make a difference for you personally?
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Do you think you would be able to reach a
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: point with someone that would be like unchartered territory if
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: you're not so open about what you're going through in
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: your experience, what would you actually achieve do you think
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: by not sharing so.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: Much, no idea and it's almost like a challenge.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Maybe, just like I'm going to try something different because
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: what I've been doing hasn't been working. It's not serving me,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: is it that.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: Sort of Well, it's also you know, the other thing
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: that happened when I got back from Sweden was that
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: I went to therapy for the first time, and in
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: doing that, you realize, you know it, well, it was
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: I went because I was terrified of spiraling out of
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: control into a place that I've been before, you know,
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: a substance abuse type substance abuse, you know, just like
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: too much sex, too much drinking, too much drugs. I
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: was like, I'm not that person anymore. I don't want
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: to be that person anymore, you know. Like I was
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: so happy when I was in a relationship for years
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: with someone who I really cared about and thought that
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: was my future because I didn't have to go back
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: to those places of emptiness, like I finally had somebody
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: to share with. And in getting out of that, I
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: was like, I don't want to go back there, right,
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: I don't want to be at that place where I
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: was in twenty seventeen, to twenty eighteen, where I felt
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: really empty. I want to continue this feeling of feeling
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: like I'm on a positive path for myself and looking
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: out for myself, because so often, especially within relationships, I
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: look out for the other person and I don't look
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: out for myself, which is actually more of a burden,
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: as I would find through therapy, is more of a
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: burden on that person. But through that process of they
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: just really just reflect me onto me so I can
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: see me, and it made me see that, Okay, I
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: write these songs about these relationships, they're cycling like I'm
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: writing a song that I could have written about the
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: same relationship.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Eight years ago.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I don't think the problem is the people. There's
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: something else that needs to be broken in this process,
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: you know, there's more to explore within myself to illuminate
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: something deeper.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Like I saw a YouTube.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: Comment a couple maybe two or three months ago on
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: a new song of ours, and the guy was just like,
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: I wish this guy would stop singing about love because.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Some of us have never had love and will never
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: have love. We'll be alone forever. And I was just like, bro,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: please don't feel that way.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: It's kinda be okay, and maybe really sad that, but
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: it also was like, okay, I guess there actually are
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: people that don't, you know, because for me, I'm always
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: trying to find a universal way to sing about all
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: all manners of feelings.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: How much do you think about your perceived audience when
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: you're writing.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Not too much.
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, of course I think about them. But if
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: it's a good song that good songs just write themselves,
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: I mean good to me, So I should I should
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: be clear that you know, what I think is a
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: good Future Island song isn't. It's not everyone's cup of tea,
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: and that's okay, But I know that if I feel,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: if a song makes me feel, it has the potential
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: to move people. Like I don't really remember writing the
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: good songs. I don't really remember writing songs there except
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: for maybe ones that I have struggled with. But the
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: ones you struggle with you're really proud of, but they
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: aren't the hits.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: As a song writer, what do you think you're best at?
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: Just channeling emotion of music?
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's my that is my goal is.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: To connect with the music and speak for it, like
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: the partnership of the partnership of me, William and Garrett.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: That's a relationship that's gone back, coming up on twenty
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: one years. And the thing is is like we didn't
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: when we started making music. William had never played bass
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: before and Garrett had never played keyboards before. And I
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: was a rapper. I didn't I could sing. I knew
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: I could sing, but I wasn't a singer, and I
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: didn't want to be a singer. Like I wanted to
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: be a rapper and that was my goal, like going
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: to school musically, I was like wanted to find a
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: producer to make beats. And so the strange thing is
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: the way that we grew was really together, like everybody
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: kind of learned these new instruments together. And the fact
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: is is like, for being an eight year old kid
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: who never wanted to sing in a band, I immediate
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: because I didn't think it was cool.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Really, what didn't you think was cool about it?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Well, to me, bands were like they were like.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: Whiny, which is really funny because like future rounds is
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: so emotional, but yeah, bands were like whiny and guitary.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: I didn't like guitars. I was like, you know, I
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: like beats and like I like descending.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I live.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: The falling blocks is what I call them, Like these
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: kind of descending synth lines and sample based stuff, and
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: I just didn't I was never drawn to guitar guitar rock.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: I'm still not, you know, it's just not my not
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: my thing. It took me a long time to even
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: get into, like I'm a big you know, I'm a
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: big jazz head, but it took me a long time
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: to even get down with like jazz guitar. I love
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: a little django, but I mean like electric jazz guitars.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Cool. There's some greats.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: Anyways, let's not talk about. But yeah, like it just
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: it just didn't appeal to me. But the thing is
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: is like when those guys started making music together, it
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: pulled something from me that I couldn't explain. And I
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: still just like get this feeling. And I don't know
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: if it's because of a deeper connection with those guys,
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: especially like you know, get me and Garrett were best
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: friends through high school and went off to college together.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: I never made music because Garrett played guitar, you know,
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: and he was like he was like a metal guitarist,
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: you know, he was just like ripping on his Jackson. Yeah,
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: you know, and like, yeah, me and Garrett obviously are
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: not going to to make music together. So that so
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: then for him to kind of come into this conceptual
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: project that me and William had together was really cool
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: to have my best friend. And then all of a sudden,
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: him and William were just like melding and like learning
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: and creating really very quickly, like within six or seven months,
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: they were creating these really beautiful ideas from this kind
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: of from scratch, you know, from where we started, where
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: it was a little loose. But anyways, that's just like
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: a thing that has continued to pull for me. But
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: as Garrett, you know, Garrett being my best friend. When
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: we were kids, you know, a lot of our friendship
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: was based around mutual anger and alienation about you know,
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: the world as fourteen year old kids who didn't feel
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: like we fit in and felt like the way fourteen
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: year old kids are every moodst What were.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: You guys like? Like, what were you like in middle
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: school and high school?
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: I mean Garrett was a skater. I hung out with
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: skaters like when we were like twelve or thirteen. And
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: then I shouldn't give away all Garrett's secrets, that's for
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: him to give away. But I started smoking cigarettes and
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: smoking weed and went away. We were both like played
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: sports and stuff. But then we kind of went away
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: from that. I got really into a kind of discovered poetry,
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: weed and drawing all at the same time, and that
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: kind of became my life. And you know, through that
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: hip hop and I was very much you know, by
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: the time I was like fifteen sixteen, I was like,
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: I'm an artist and I'm a rapper and I know
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: exactly who I am.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it was just on this.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Journey with words and and uh, you know, Garrett was
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Garrett was. We were both like really into art. We
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: had a short lived graffiti crew that was not very cool.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: It was just the two of us.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: We're like, go behind the k art and we're like
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: we were gonna do a bombing run on the cam art.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Was there anyone in your family who was artists? Like,
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: did you have anyone to look up to?
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, my have like a small family, me and
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: an older brother. I mean my brother was the one
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: who turned me onto He turned me onto hip hop.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: I mean he was the one that brought the records home. Yeah,
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: and uh, he was all into Pantera and crazy into
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: Jane's addiction and Danzig and I love Danzig, but I
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: didn't get Jane's addiction at all when.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: I was younger.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: I can really appreciate some of it now, but back then,
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: I was just like, was terrified about what was happening
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: to my brother. You had like he had like holes
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: punched in the wall with like pictures of Perry Farrell
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: and then with he had one that it said like
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: written in like oil crayon around on the wall, just
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: like in this hole lives the Wicked King. And I
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: was just like, this is I'm very concerned about my
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: big brother.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: My parents were too.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: I mean that actually affected me really deeply because when
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: I was ten, I you know, went snooping through my
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: brother's room when I when I played hooky from school
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: to like see what kind of trouble he had that
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: I could get into. Ye, and I found Jane's addiction.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: This movie called The Gift that he did. It's like
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: heroin overdoses and necrophilia. Yeah, oh right, and he had
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: so it was that and he also had gg Allen hated.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: So I was like ten eleven years old watching a
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: grown man throw feces around naked and I was like,
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: I was just like, I think when I get into music,
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: were you.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Close with your parents at that time? Like what was
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: your relationship with They were.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: Always like kind of supported music and art and and
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: it was years later until I found out that my
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: dad was a painter when he was a kid.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, my dad built a lot of furniture.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's cool.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: And uh and my mom, but my mom played piano
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: and loved to play and sang. So there was always
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: like stacks of sheet music in the house and that
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: was kind of something that me and my brother and
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: my mom shared, Like still to this day when it's
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: around Christmas time, my mom and brother will sit up
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: at the piano and play Christmas songs. But then that
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: but also the other thing that happens is then they
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: they do all of Jesus Christ Superstar.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: And you know, if you've seen me perform, you think
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: that I'm I'm a big showman.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: That you should see my brother do Jesus Christ Superstar
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: the living room. Yeah, I mean it came from somewhere. Yeah,
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: you know, my brother was really the first front person
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: I ever saw in person, you know, he was, and
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: that was a big thing too, Like he was the
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: one who was in bands. So when I when I
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: discovered rap that that was kind of like, oh, that's
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: what I'm going to do because Joel does. Joel's in bands,
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: so I'll do this thing, you know. It would be
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: kind of like it was still like out of some
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: want to impress him, but at.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: The same time it was differentiating your path.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, having my own thing and feeling more like mine.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: And also that was probably had something to do with
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: like I always you know, that partnership with Garrett and
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: William and now with Mike or is so important to me.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: But I've always been from.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: A young age very alone, you know, in in how
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: I want to move or at least how I feel
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: comfortable in the world.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Is it's that lone wolf syndrome, you know.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: I think it's actually a symptom more of feeling, you know,
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: that alienation and isolation at a young age and not
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: feeling like I fit in. So then I accepted being
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: different to be like, oh no, I choose this.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, wee last quick break and then the rest of
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Leah's conversation with Samuel t Hearing and now the rest
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: of Samuel t Hearing.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: I noticed on this new album, there's a lot of imagery.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: You mentioned night a lot, and was there something specific
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: that happened at night or is that just a time
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: of day that you feel particularly reflective.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: That's really funny. I didn't realize how much I talked
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: about night. Yes, it is.
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: I think the night carries And this once again goes
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: to I really believe in using these very simple ideas
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: to tell the stories, to try to reach as many
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: people as possible. And in the way that the day
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: has certain connotations or but different times of day have
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: have different meaning. You know, the sunrise means something different
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: than the sunset, and in the same way the first
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: fall of night, you know, deep in the middle of
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: the night, or or the end of night hoping for
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: the morning, and in these kinds of things like I
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: think for me, I spent a lot of time in
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: this album. It felt like it was all through the
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: pandemic and then after the pandemic, but the pandemic was
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: like had created an environment where the sun didn't come
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: out again for a bit because of the the split,
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: and then my life feeling like I didn't know what
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: was up or down or what was night and day
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: and the night like scared me, you know, like the
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: night was when, yeah, being alone and being afraid of
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: those things that I'd said, like being afraid of the
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: ghosts of my past.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: To come back.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: And you know, I was like probably going to bed
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: at like eight thirty nine every night after that because
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: I wanted I didn't want. I didn't just didn't want
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: to be tempted by it. I didn't want to be
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: alone with my thoughts, which is all I was. You know,
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: when I was writing a lot of this album, it
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: felt like it wasn't ever going to end. I think
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: that's why those moments are important. Like the way the
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: Garden Wheel ends the record is to say that, you know,
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: the things rise again and and you know the sun,
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: the sun is out again.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: We're out of the room.
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: But at the same time, like King of Sweden starts
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: the record, there's a line in that song that is
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: it's an inside story between me and this person. But
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: you know, there was a time I was driving on
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: the down a back road and in the countryside and
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: southern Sweden, and I could see the moon like through
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: the clouds, this big bright moon, the perfect circle of it,
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: hazy through the clouds, low on the horizon. I was like,
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: the moon is beautiful, and she was just like, dude,
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: that's the sun.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: The moon. I was like, the moon is shining through
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: the clouds in the daytime.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: She's like, you're like a nocturnal creature who should not
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: be out during this.
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but then we just like laughed. I was like,
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: that's hilarious. But yeah, I say in the line, you
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: know the moon was low and incensed or was it
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: the sun in the horizon that lit the figure in
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: the distance. And that's that's how the song start, or
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: the album starts with King of Sweden and the sun
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: low on the horizon going down into the night, and
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: then we rise up again with the last song.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: King of Sweden is such a good song, thank you,
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: thank you very much. When you finish that song where
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: you're like, oh, this is like a banger, like this
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: is a good one.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, that one felt really good. And a lot
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: of those pretty much all the cadences, and I would
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: say about fifty percent of the words, if not more,
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: were we're actually freestyles or freestyle improvisations. We we wrote
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: that on a jam and then I was like, you know,
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: press record and I was just like, yeah, getting.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: That flow, and I was like, this feels really good,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: it feels fun.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: It's really really good. And then that I believe it's
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: the second song the tower. M do you think about
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: like the little like I I like, are those things
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: that you add in intentionally for the song to be
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: catchy or is that just how the song worked itself out.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: Well, that's just how it got wrote. That's my that's
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: my southern coming out. That's how I got wrote. Yeah, no,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: now that wasn't intentional hook put in. I'm glad that
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: you think it's hooky.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it's the type of song
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: where like by the second or third verse, the first
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: time hearing it as a listener, you can start participating
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: with it and it's you know, you can repeat it
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: and it hooks you in really quickly.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: It is funny because I was home at uh I
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: was home at Thanksgiving and and I shared the finished
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: record with my parents and my mom was doing that
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: around the house. I just like here in different rooms.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, that's cute, that's real cute. But
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: it's actually funny because if you're you know, there's probably
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: like five hundred people out there that would know. But
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: our first band, art Lord and the Self Portraits.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Had a song.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: One of the last last songs you wrote was a
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: really awesome song called.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I I I and I would be like I I.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: Is that the band that you like were kind of
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: like a character?
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was me And that was me and William
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: and Garrett's first first group before a future.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: So what was the thinking behind the character? Like, what
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: was that all about?
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I told you that when I went
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: to college, I didn't really want to I didn't want
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: to be in a band, like want to be a rapper,
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: and and that's kind of how I saw it. And
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: then when I met I was also really into conceptual
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: and performance art and had discovered that you know, you
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: can stand anywhere you want and do a performance. If
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: it's a performance to you, then you know, you can
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: stand on the sidewalk and do a performance, and you
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: can create art in any moment. Like these ideas as
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: a very stoned seventeen eighteen year old were a mind
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: blowing to me that I could make art that didn't
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: have a product. It was creating reactions, you know, creating
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: something for people hopefully good, you know, And I think
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: that's something that still is a big part of It
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: was a big part of when we started Art Lord
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: and Self Portraits, and it's still a big part of
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: myself today, which is trying to create reactions within an
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: audience in a live setting, because I know the value
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: of that. Whether negative or positive, the experience or the
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: reaction that you get, it is still pulling something from people.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: It's causing them to uh, it's causing them to think
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: or feel. That's been the goal of this band for
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: a long time, is to create that safe space for
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: an audience to be able to feel free and feel
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: like they can be vulnerable and not be afraid. Because
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: if we're on stage and we're coming from a PowerPoint,
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: you know, a place where we have your attention and
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: we can and we can share strong emotion and we
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: can cry, and we can fight through things and still
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: be strong and share in that moment, then we can,
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: you know, just just illustrate through living, you know, this emotion.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: So it's a long process. Life is long, Yeah, it's not.
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: Life is short. I lived by that idea for so
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: many years of my life, just thinking thinking that I
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: was going to die, expecting death, wanting death, and really
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: coming to terms in the last ten years, like, Nope,
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: it's going to keep going and you're going to find
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: better ways to get through it and enjoy things and
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: enjoy people and to have a good life instead of
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: putting yourself into a bad place. Yeah. I mean that's
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: been a big change in the last few years. We've
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: made the decision to stop touring so much and to
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: make more space for our own lives. And part of
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: that is just because it just doesn't feel this touring
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: feels a lot different between twenty five and forty.
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I imagine is that where you get the biggest
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: financial gain is through touring. So making that decision, is
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: that changing the way that you know you're going to
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: do financially in a year?
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Part of that is.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: Part of that is an acceptance of for me personally,
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: what I need to make a life work. I mean,
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: of course, there was a time where we couldn't take
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: a day off on a tour because if you take
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: a day off, then you lose money, and there isn't
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: any money you can't afford to take time off, So
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: that that kind of the diy ethos leaked into a
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: time when we could have taken a break and Because
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: of that, we really hit the wall hard a couple times,
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: and the fear of hitting the wall again is is
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: the next time you hit the wall the last one,
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: you know, because you do run the high risk, not
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: even you don't even run the risk of exhaustion. Being
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: a Tory musician, you will get exhausted, and some people
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: don't recover from that, you know, it mentally scars them
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: and affects them ideal.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: I have my own.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: Damage from touring and the things that it's done to
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: my personal life, the things that it's done to me physically,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: Like I have a busted knee from playing shows, and
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: I now associate like the month before tour is really
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: hard for me because I know that I'm about to
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: put myself in pain. Yeah, so it's like I'm psychologically scarred.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: So this thing that brings me so much joy and
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: gives me purpose is also causes me great pain.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'm doing all kinds of things.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: I'm in physical therapy to like try to get to
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: a better place with my knee and make it sustainable.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: But that's what the you know, pairing down from playing
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty shows a year to playing one
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: hundred shows and now probably down to like fifty or
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: sixty is where we're at now and not pushing past
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: that is about making this, making the decision to do
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: this for the rest of our lives. Like we could
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: either we could eat to do this one hundred and
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: fifty shows a year for the next five years until
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: we never want to do this again, or we can
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: you know, play fifty shows a year for you know,
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: years and years and also be more interesting within our
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: music because we can actually take the breaks to live
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: life so we have something to reflect on and have
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: something to speak about and connect with people on. Like
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: we have our first, you know baby in the band,
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: and like I don't want that child to grow up
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: with out their dad around.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: Is that Garrett Garrett has a baby, yeah, and I.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: And that's it's really important to me that everybody is happy.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: I think that think that's where we all got to
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: And I know that I don't need you know, this
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: potential amount of money to be happy, Like that's going
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: to make me less happy. I only need like this
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: to survive, you know. Let me just play the shows
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: and like get that joy, not hurt myself, not hurt
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: my friends and and you know, feed the audience, but
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: like also hold something for ourselves and yeah, and enjoy life.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, congratulations on the new album and the promo
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: and everything that's to come. It sounds like you're in
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: a great space.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for doing this. I really appreciate you.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, but I really appreciate you taking the time
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: and making space for us on your podcast.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Samuel T. Harring, the feature Islands for chatting
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: about the band's latest album, People Who Aren't There Anymore.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: You can hear it along with our other favorite feature
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Islands Songs on a playlist at broken Record podcast dot com.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: is Ben Toliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
• 54:21
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• 54:24
  Speaker 2: ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
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  Speaker 2: podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.