Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Adrian Quesada

Transcript

Adrian Quesada · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, y'all's Justin Richmond. Today on the show, we're
0:22
Speaker 1: talking to Grammy Award winning musician Adrian Quesada. He's best
0:27
Speaker 1: known as one half of the Black Pumas with singer
0:30
Speaker 1: Eric Burton, but since the pandemic started, he's been working
0:34
Speaker 1: on a solo project called Balros Psychodelicos or Psychedelic Bleros.
0:39
Speaker 1: Inspired by Adrian's longtime love of psychedelic music and Latin
0:43
Speaker 1: American love songs of the sixties and seventies, he started
0:46
Speaker 1: thinking about how he might recreate balros and balladas. The
0:50
Speaker 1: album includes singers from all over Latin America, as well
0:54
Speaker 1: as Tom Waite's guitarist Mark Ribot and Beastie Boy collaborator
0:58
Speaker 1: Money Mark. Released in June, Balto Psychoedelicos reached number one
1:03
Speaker 1: on the Billboard Latin Album Chart. On today's episode, Adrian
1:07
Speaker 1: and a few of the singers featured on the album,
1:09
Speaker 1: lay Angelica, Garcia, and Tita talk about how the new
1:13
Speaker 1: album came together, the collaborative process, and how boleros and
1:17
Speaker 1: bladas fit into Latin music today. This is broken record
1:25
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital Age. I'm Justin Richard. Here's
1:29
Speaker 1: my conversation with Adrian Quesada and his collaborators lay Angelica
1:34
Speaker 1: Garcia and Tita So. Adrian, last time I was talking
1:38
Speaker 1: to you was for the Black Pumas record. You've been
1:42
Speaker 1: riding like a wave of love and success on that record.
1:45
Speaker 1: That was seemingly unexpected, i'd imagine. And your new project
1:50
Speaker 1: is Ballero Psychedelicos and it's a Solowish project, a project
1:55
Speaker 1: you did yourself, featuring a bunch of different singers. How
1:58
Speaker 1: did this come together? So this was very much a
2:01
Speaker 1: pandemic record, you know. And always wanted to do something
2:04
Speaker 1: like this because I've just really been obsessed with this
2:06
Speaker 1: kind of music for a long time. But when the
2:09
Speaker 1: pandemic started, I was supposed to be on tour with
2:11
Speaker 1: Black Puma's all of twenty twenty, like everybody else, you know,
2:14
Speaker 1: like my ear just cleared out, and all of a sudden,
2:16
Speaker 1: like I was home. I had nothing to do. You know.
2:19
Speaker 1: Some people were like baking bread and stuff, getting hobbies
2:22
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, but I just started making music. I
2:25
Speaker 1: felt like that was what was keeping me from getting depressed.
2:28
Speaker 1: I just finally had time to do this, So I
2:29
Speaker 1: just started cranking out a ton of music, a ton
2:31
Speaker 1: of instrumentals, and then just started reaching out to amazing
2:34
Speaker 1: collaborators like Tita and Ela and they kind of brought
2:39
Speaker 1: it all to life. When in the process of tinkering
2:43
Speaker 1: and sort of just trying to distract yourself, did the
2:46
Speaker 1: idea for this record come? I had a playlist that
2:48
Speaker 1: I'd put together of a lot of songs in this
2:50
Speaker 1: kind of style, and then it helps me finish things
2:53
Speaker 1: if I have a concept, Otherwise I'll make a hundred
2:56
Speaker 1: songs and never finish them, you know. So like that
2:58
Speaker 1: helped me very much, just kind of make it cohesive.
3:01
Speaker 1: What were some of those songs on your playlist? We
3:03
Speaker 1: should play one? Yeah, one of the anchors was a
3:06
Speaker 1: song by La Lupe called Boys Set to Them and
3:10
Speaker 1: that song I had just been listening to a lot,
3:14
Speaker 1: thought like, there are songs like that that you can't
3:16
Speaker 1: I'm not going to top that song, you know, so
3:18
Speaker 1: you might as well just cover it and get it
3:21
Speaker 1: out of my system. But it was a good exercise
3:23
Speaker 1: for me to like do that and recreate it. Sometimes
3:26
Speaker 1: that's just a good exercise to do something like that.
3:28
Speaker 1: And uh, actually one of the first people I called
3:31
Speaker 1: was Gobby Moreno who sang that does Who's sitting next
3:34
Speaker 1: to me? His sister and Gobby was all about it,
3:36
Speaker 1: and that was one of the first songs that came together.
3:38
Speaker 1: Do you mind a to be listening to the Loupe
3:40
Speaker 1: version for a bit now, I'll go ahead, Yes, Where
4:22
Speaker 1: did you hear that song? I don't even remember why
4:24
Speaker 1: I heard that one, to tell you the truth, you know,
4:26
Speaker 1: I just listening to a lot of music. I discovered
4:28
Speaker 1: that one just recently, just a few years ago. But
4:30
Speaker 1: when I hear a song that I like, like that,
4:32
Speaker 1: I'll listen to it ten times a day and then
4:34
Speaker 1: three times at night for like a month straight. So
4:37
Speaker 1: that was just the only song I could listen to
4:39
Speaker 1: for a little while. What stood out to you about it,
4:41
Speaker 1: oh Man, so much? I mean, she's an incredible vocalist,
4:44
Speaker 1: and just the love the arrangement, and I love the
4:47
Speaker 1: drummer was nasty on it. The whole song was just
4:49
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just I don't know. At the time,
4:51
Speaker 1: it just all really spoke to me. I think that
4:54
Speaker 1: the like the drama in the in these songs is
4:56
Speaker 1: one of the things that, for whatever reason at the time,
4:58
Speaker 1: was was really appealing. What genre would that be considered
5:02
Speaker 1: if you could pin a genre on it, you know,
5:04
Speaker 1: I don't really know. I mean maybe a fun yeah, well,
5:10
Speaker 1: you know, because the song, if you like play the
5:11
Speaker 1: song just like on a guitar and a singer, that's
5:14
Speaker 1: a volero, you know, but the arrangement is different. What
5:17
Speaker 1: makes a bolero? It's a ballad, I mean, I don't
5:20
Speaker 1: know what how else you would you break down a
5:21
Speaker 1: bolero like? It tends to be romantic. It can be
5:25
Speaker 1: like a slow and very passionate with the songs and
5:31
Speaker 1: the interpretation, but also very intimate maybe, and they can
5:36
Speaker 1: be aboletto can be made with like a big arrangement,
5:39
Speaker 1: or also can be just played with a guitar and
5:42
Speaker 1: very bohemian ish. I don't know exactly the definition, but
5:46
Speaker 1: something like that. So it's like a romantic song, story song. Yeah,
5:52
Speaker 1: I think the lyrical content mostly love, you know, romance, heartbreak,
5:56
Speaker 1: diary ish kind of like a ballad at its core,
6:00
Speaker 1: you know, But there's a style to like the certain
6:02
Speaker 1: chord progressions and things and that make it that you
6:06
Speaker 1: can identify, you know, like in that song, is there
6:08
Speaker 1: like an era or certain like that. I'm trying to
6:11
Speaker 1: think of like equivalence that would have been like the
6:14
Speaker 1: stack sound or the motown sound. Is there like an
6:16
Speaker 1: equivalent for that? Would it have been through fana or
6:18
Speaker 1: would there have been like a particular time or group
6:20
Speaker 1: that would most identify some of the sounds. I guess
6:23
Speaker 1: at least that inspired It's like La Loupe, for instance.
6:26
Speaker 1: The genre of bolero I think goes from Cuba a
6:30
Speaker 1: long time ago to very much like the vocal groups harmonizing,
6:34
Speaker 1: and then in Mexico there was kind of its own
6:35
Speaker 1: interpretation of it, and this particular album kind of references
6:40
Speaker 1: the like late sixties, early seventies electric instruments, arrangements and
6:45
Speaker 1: like Ela was saying, it very much kind of started
6:48
Speaker 1: on a you know, a guitar, acoustic instruments and vocals.
6:51
Speaker 1: But I think in the late sixties or early seventies
6:54
Speaker 1: was when people started to you know, play with electric
6:57
Speaker 1: instruments and the drummer would play kind of funky and
7:00
Speaker 1: like there was certain things like that, and that's that's
7:02
Speaker 1: that's very much the era that this album was inspired by.
7:06
Speaker 1: So almost like what British Lose Acts and the sixties
7:10
Speaker 1: did to like more traditional style blues like Spoonful started
7:13
Speaker 1: as like an acoustic, more folky I guess song or whatever,
7:16
Speaker 1: and then Cream gets it and makes it like this
7:18
Speaker 1: like insane electric psychedelic version. Is that kind of what
7:22
Speaker 1: happened to the Ballero at some point something like that?
7:26
Speaker 1: Except it wasn't the British. It was like Latin America
7:28
Speaker 1: continued to do you know what I mean? Like it
7:31
Speaker 1: wasn't like it came to the US and then Latin
7:33
Speaker 1: like these groups are from you know, Chile and mayhic
7:35
Speaker 1: Go and still very much have was happening in Latin America,
7:38
Speaker 1: Like but yeah, they basically electrified it. You know, did
7:42
Speaker 1: you guys grow up with this? Like maybe everyone can
7:44
Speaker 1: sort of speak to that, Like Adrian, you grew up
7:47
Speaker 1: in Texas. Would this have been a sound that you
7:50
Speaker 1: hear grown up? No? No, I probably grew up more
7:54
Speaker 1: with like the more traditional little sponsors like things like
7:58
Speaker 1: that from Mexico where it was very much just like
8:00
Speaker 1: a vocal group, and and like I didn't know that
8:02
Speaker 1: this electric psychedelic type stuff existed. I grew up in Guatemala,
8:06
Speaker 1: but not in my house specifically, but maybe, like I
8:11
Speaker 1: remember at parties or in school, maybe at one point,
8:17
Speaker 1: it's very popular. All the songs are very popular in
8:19
Speaker 1: Latin America, so obviously everyone knows them. So yeah, there
8:23
Speaker 1: are songs that of course I know them, got It?
8:26
Speaker 1: And Angelica. You're from La, right, yeah, I'm Salva mex American.
8:33
Speaker 1: So I grew up in and around La and other
8:36
Speaker 1: parts of the US. A lot of the stuff that
8:39
Speaker 1: my family listened to was based in like ranchera music
8:43
Speaker 1: and also like gumbia kind of a central So I
8:46
Speaker 1: heard boletto sometimes, but it wasn't as played in my house. Ela,
8:51
Speaker 1: where did you grow up in. I'm from Puerto Rico,
8:54
Speaker 1: so yeah, I grew up listening to boleros a lot,
8:58
Speaker 1: because in Puerto Rico you hear a lot of salsa,
9:02
Speaker 1: and a lot of salsa singers also sang boleros, so
9:07
Speaker 1: like at the same time you can answer salsa, but
9:10
Speaker 1: then you can feel a bolero and and we still
9:14
Speaker 1: do it. Like there's some like street karaokes in Puerto
9:18
Speaker 1: Rico that some older people go and sing like classical
9:22
Speaker 1: boleros or sometimes like with a guitar. It's like very
9:26
Speaker 1: you know normal there to go to a place and
9:29
Speaker 1: someone is just playing boleros with a guitar. So yeah,
9:32
Speaker 1: I kind of grew up a lot with different types
9:35
Speaker 1: of music, but bolero and salsa was one of the
9:38
Speaker 1: main music that's interesting. So yeah, So like salsa music's
9:41
Speaker 1: about dancing a salsa singer, then throwing a bolero and
9:44
Speaker 1: a set would be like Michael Jackson just throwing a
9:47
Speaker 1: ballad in a set or something. Right, it's just like
9:48
Speaker 1: gonna We're gonna slow it down. Yeah, And with salsa,
9:52
Speaker 1: the experimented a lot. I mean, salsa has a lot
9:55
Speaker 1: of jazz and a lot of funk. So there are
9:58
Speaker 1: some boletos that have like a funky but like a
10:02
Speaker 1: slow funky style, especially like with Fannia singers that in
10:08
Speaker 1: the seventh This Day explore with all that stuff. Some
10:11
Speaker 1: of them were living in New York, so they like
10:13
Speaker 1: explored a lot with music that was going on in
10:16
Speaker 1: New York and with the salsa mix, so it was
10:19
Speaker 1: very interesting. There's a lot of cool songs, so it
10:22
Speaker 1: can be a slow burn, it can be a slow
10:24
Speaker 1: funky number. Yeah. There's another cover song on here that
10:27
Speaker 1: Tita You sang by Jeanette, Right, can we listen to
10:32
Speaker 1: a bit of the original? Yeah? Sure, cool Now listen
10:35
Speaker 1: to your version. Damn, it's a good song. I wish
10:39
Speaker 1: I listen to your version of Triste. Let's just listen
10:43
Speaker 1: to a bit of that, profu yo. It's a beautiful interpretation.
11:19
Speaker 1: So imagine I must have started with you hearing that
11:21
Speaker 1: and getting obsessed with it, Adrian, Is that true? Would
11:24
Speaker 1: have started with you hearing it and getting obsessed. I
11:26
Speaker 1: had never heard that song, and probably March twenty twenty,
11:29
Speaker 1: like right when I started working on some of this music,
11:32
Speaker 1: my daughter was playing it in the house in like
11:34
Speaker 1: another room on her phone. How old is she? Sixteen? Oh? Man,
11:39
Speaker 1: she's got great taste. She has an amazing taste. And
11:41
Speaker 1: she was fourteen at the time, and uh wow. She
11:43
Speaker 1: was playing it on her phone and I was in
11:46
Speaker 1: my studio, but I had the door open because my
11:47
Speaker 1: studio used to be at my house, and it was
11:49
Speaker 1: like the Bugs Bunny cartoons like tune. I just like
11:52
Speaker 1: took off running. I was like, what is that? And
11:53
Speaker 1: she goes Jeannette, and I was like okay. I went
11:55
Speaker 1: back and like the next day I laid down a
11:58
Speaker 1: version of it and I changed the feel of it.
12:01
Speaker 1: When you get inspired to recreate a song like that.
12:03
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's different every time, so maybe we'll say
12:04
Speaker 1: specifically this one, where do you start? Where did you
12:07
Speaker 1: start on this one? That's funny. I actually, in my head,
12:10
Speaker 1: I thought that I would send it to, you know,
12:12
Speaker 1: the band Krunkben. I was like, I want to get that,
12:15
Speaker 1: I want to get them to replay it. What made
12:16
Speaker 1: you go to her to sing it? Adrian. One of
12:19
Speaker 1: the first people I talked about with this project was
12:21
Speaker 1: Gabby Moreno and she, you know, Gabby is Tita's sister,
12:24
Speaker 1: and as soon as I mentioned this song, she was like, oh,
12:26
Speaker 1: you have to reach out to my sister. She's like
12:28
Speaker 1: she she knows the song, and uh, you know, getting
12:30
Speaker 1: a co signed from Gabby was enough for me to
12:33
Speaker 1: reach out to Tita. And it's perfect, you know, absolutely perfect.
12:36
Speaker 1: It's really funny that when I started um making music,
12:40
Speaker 1: everyone kept telling me that my music, my style, my
12:45
Speaker 1: voice was like Janette's. They could see like the resemblance
12:49
Speaker 1: from like in the style and everything, and of course
12:52
Speaker 1: she's an inspiration, but I've never thought about it like that.
12:56
Speaker 1: And then I kept listening to Janette's music and I
13:00
Speaker 1: really love it. And so it's funny because Gabby told me, Oh,
13:05
Speaker 1: like you always sing like really soft, you know, like, um,
13:10
Speaker 1: you have this voice, like a delicate voice. Yeah, but
13:13
Speaker 1: it's it's a contrast because my lyrics are like really
13:17
Speaker 1: dark or about heartbreaks or it's never a happy lyrics.
13:22
Speaker 1: You know, it's never a happy song. But with my voice,
13:26
Speaker 1: it's like this song from Janette, Like the lyrics is
13:28
Speaker 1: really sad, but you know it makes you want to dance.
13:33
Speaker 1: Did you listen to it and try to emulate it?
13:35
Speaker 1: Did you listen to it and try to find your
13:36
Speaker 1: own voice in it? Or did you pull the lyrics
13:38
Speaker 1: and then just try to sing along to Adrian's track?
13:41
Speaker 1: Like how did you? You know? I didn't want to
13:43
Speaker 1: listen to it a lot because then I was going
13:46
Speaker 1: to sound like exactly like Jeanette, and I didn't want that,
13:51
Speaker 1: so I rather just like keep listening to the version
13:55
Speaker 1: that Adrians sent me, which I love, by the way,
13:58
Speaker 1: and I love that it's a little a little faster, right, Yeah,
14:01
Speaker 1: it's just a different feel, just to change the feel.
14:04
Speaker 1: I felt really comfortable singing this because it's like my style.
14:08
Speaker 1: It really came out really natural. Yeah, it's a cool
14:11
Speaker 1: version of it. It's like the tumble might be faster,
14:13
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but it has laid back like groove
14:17
Speaker 1: to it that makes it like a little different and
14:19
Speaker 1: yeah interesting. Yeah. I actually sent um the vocal tracks
14:22
Speaker 1: and a few other things to a producer mutual friend
14:26
Speaker 1: with Elea from Puerto Rico named Pachman who's an amazing
14:30
Speaker 1: dub producer and musician, and I sent the vocals and
14:34
Speaker 1: a few separate things to him to he's kind of
14:36
Speaker 1: a dub scientist, master guy, and to dub it out,
14:40
Speaker 1: and he sent it back to me, and then I
14:41
Speaker 1: snuck it into the track, so it has like light
14:44
Speaker 1: flourishes of dub in there too. Who is Jeanette? She's
14:47
Speaker 1: an inspiration to a lot of um modern musicians, like
14:53
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, Mexican or Latin American female singers.
14:58
Speaker 1: I don't know. Have you heard this song? It's another
15:02
Speaker 1: hit by Janette? No? Should I play some if you want?
15:13
Speaker 1: Stan CONTI no movie walk Okay, deep us usk that's amazing.
15:41
Speaker 1: That's a great song. Yeah, yeah, Ela is the song
15:44
Speaker 1: that you sang. Was it a cover? No? Yes, I
15:48
Speaker 1: wrote the lyrics and Adrian did the whole music. Let's
15:52
Speaker 1: listen to it a bit and then I want I
15:53
Speaker 1: want to ask about that me baby see the kissing Yo.
16:06
Speaker 1: That's beautiful and funky and like all at the same time.
16:10
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Yeah, Conno, this is a much more traditional
16:16
Speaker 1: song than I guess you would normally perform, right, Eli,
16:20
Speaker 1: Maybe it's it's a part of me as well. I think,
16:24
Speaker 1: did you have the lyrics already when Adrian approached you
16:26
Speaker 1: to collaborate or did you write something specific to work together?
16:30
Speaker 1: Not at all. It was it was crazy because obviously
16:33
Speaker 1: it was all in the middle of the pandemic and
16:36
Speaker 1: my mind was in another place. And then suddenly Adrian
16:40
Speaker 1: asked me, like, do you want to do like a
16:42
Speaker 1: cover song or an original song? And I said, let's
16:45
Speaker 1: do an original song. I wanted to take the risk.
16:49
Speaker 1: But it was very fun to work with Adrian because
16:53
Speaker 1: I started analyzing, you know, his musical taste at first
16:58
Speaker 1: to see if we were going to be on the
17:00
Speaker 1: same page. He sent me some songs of boleros and
17:03
Speaker 1: I connected immediately because like he liked a lot of
17:07
Speaker 1: boleros that I also because blets, you know, they have
17:10
Speaker 1: their own style, like Adrian said before, so like you
17:14
Speaker 1: can like a voletto that maybe I don't connect with
17:16
Speaker 1: as much and it's some other style. So it was
17:20
Speaker 1: nice to see when he he sent me like some
17:22
Speaker 1: cool boleto songs and and we started, you know, getting
17:26
Speaker 1: into a particular vibe for this song. I like that
17:29
Speaker 1: she was testing your Adrian, let me see what's going on. Yeah,
17:37
Speaker 1: I mean I needed to, you know, because like blets,
17:40
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm pleo open ended kind of like. Yeah,
17:47
Speaker 1: and I also like, you know, these dark boleto songs
17:50
Speaker 1: as well, because there's some wonderful like bright boletos that
17:53
Speaker 1: are amazing. But I always like go dark, like even
17:57
Speaker 1: if even when I don't want to go dark, like
17:59
Speaker 1: darkness like wants me to go there, so I I
18:04
Speaker 1: and I also enjoy let you should watch out for that,
18:06
Speaker 1: by the way. Yeah, I try to manage it, but yeah.
18:11
Speaker 1: And I also like, um, you know, there's some wonderful
18:14
Speaker 1: singers and I love like great like fantastic, you know,
18:20
Speaker 1: spectacular voices. But I also enjoy like like these attitude voices,
18:25
Speaker 1: you know, if it's someone that you might know, like
18:27
Speaker 1: Dina Washington. Oh yeah, she had an amazing voice, but
18:30
Speaker 1: at the same time she was like talking to you
18:32
Speaker 1: through her voice, so um in Boleros. There are some
18:36
Speaker 1: other singers that have that style as well, Like they're
18:39
Speaker 1: telling you something very directly, and that's something that I
18:43
Speaker 1: wanted to do with the lyrics, you know, transmit that
18:46
Speaker 1: attitude like in a more you know, direct way as
18:50
Speaker 1: telling you something very important. What were you trying to
18:53
Speaker 1: say with that song? When you suddenly feel that in
18:57
Speaker 1: a relationship that you settle with something, but then suddenly
19:02
Speaker 1: you realize that you're settling, settling like with abuse, you know,
19:07
Speaker 1: because sometimes abuse can be small and difficult to perceive,
19:11
Speaker 1: but it's still abuse. And sometimes I feel like we
19:14
Speaker 1: get used to abusive patterns in a relationship, maybe because
19:18
Speaker 1: we've seen it in our family members or so, but
19:21
Speaker 1: we don't have to repeat things that always have been wrong,
19:25
Speaker 1: or we don't have to tolerate anything that we don't
19:28
Speaker 1: want to. So it's that moment when she realizes that
19:32
Speaker 1: and she says, this is something that I don't like,
19:34
Speaker 1: Like even if you bring me flowers of you try
19:36
Speaker 1: to decorate it, like the chort's not working and it's
19:39
Speaker 1: and it's hurtful and it's not a good relationship. So
19:43
Speaker 1: she's just saying in the course, like She's not to
19:45
Speaker 1: tolerate lies with Karino with affection. She don wants to
19:49
Speaker 1: tolerate lies with affection. So it's very dramatic. I connected
19:55
Speaker 1: with that era as well. With the music. Yeah, yeah, wow,
20:00
Speaker 1: it almost to me almost sounds like a like a
20:02
Speaker 1: Riza track, you know, like it's like there's this sinister
20:06
Speaker 1: feel to it. I don't know why, but like there's
20:08
Speaker 1: just like a dark, gritty feel. Oh well, yeah, like
20:11
Speaker 1: Eli said, you know, she wanted it to be a
20:13
Speaker 1: moody and set a tone, like, you know, especially with
20:16
Speaker 1: some of the subject matter, to just feel like vibe
20:20
Speaker 1: and kind of moody and not. You know, we weren't
20:22
Speaker 1: making a particularly bright, cheery song, so it was definitely
20:26
Speaker 1: setting that mood. But it also I think hip hop
20:29
Speaker 1: was such a huge influence on me when I was
20:30
Speaker 1: growing up. In my head, I wanted head bob like
20:33
Speaker 1: I'm listening to a hip hop song. Like, going back
20:36
Speaker 1: to the beginning of the production journey, did it start
20:38
Speaker 1: with like hip hop production? Yeah? Actually, I mean I
20:41
Speaker 1: started playing guitar when I was a teenager and played
20:44
Speaker 1: Nirvana and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and skate punk stuff
20:48
Speaker 1: and whatever. Was really into guitar. But the first music
20:51
Speaker 1: that I started to try to recreate and dissect was
20:55
Speaker 1: a hip hop And then also my first actual like
20:59
Speaker 1: trying to make my own music was with an MPC
21:02
Speaker 1: two thousand, an NPC two thousand, Just so people know,
21:05
Speaker 1: it's like a old sampler. Yeah, yeah, of hip hop
21:09
Speaker 1: producers in the nineties uses those, And that was my
21:12
Speaker 1: first introduction into like programming and sampling and production and whatnot.
21:18
Speaker 1: What were you sampling at the time when I was
21:20
Speaker 1: doing that. At the time, I mean, I had a
21:22
Speaker 1: lot of records, and that was like kind of the
21:24
Speaker 1: crate digging, like when there was compilations of cool samples
21:26
Speaker 1: and stuff. But when I first got my MPC two thousand,
21:29
Speaker 1: I was really into jazz and I was sampling like
21:31
Speaker 1: just weird jazz, free jazz and all on guard jazz
21:35
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But just learning how to do that,
21:39
Speaker 1: you know, because of the sound of the drums of
21:40
Speaker 1: an MPC two thousand, that's how I want drums to
21:43
Speaker 1: sound all the time. You know. As much as I
21:45
Speaker 1: used to listen to guns and Roses when I was
21:47
Speaker 1: a little kid, I don't I don't hear the drums
21:49
Speaker 1: like that. I hear the drums like Pete Rock, you
21:52
Speaker 1: don't hear the Paradise City drums. I mean, I could
21:54
Speaker 1: play all those songs on guitar, but you know my drums,
21:56
Speaker 1: I want him to sound like a hip hop drummer,
21:58
Speaker 1: you know. So that production style kind of like has
22:00
Speaker 1: stayed with you over the years. Just about everything I've
22:03
Speaker 1: ever I can't I can't shake it. It It was just
22:05
Speaker 1: too much part of who I am. How's it grown now?
22:08
Speaker 1: Because you're not still using a sampler, right, I've tried
22:11
Speaker 1: to bring three back to life that I have here
22:13
Speaker 1: in the studio MPCs, but it's like having an old car.
22:16
Speaker 1: It's a lot of upkeep and stuff, and it's just
22:19
Speaker 1: way more convenient now to do stuff on the computer
22:21
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But honestly, like a lot of these things
22:23
Speaker 1: are just we do live drums. We have to take
22:26
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back with more
22:28
Speaker 1: from Adrian, Angelica, Tita, and Ela. We're back with the
22:36
Speaker 1: rest of my conversation with Adrian Quesada and his collaborators.
22:41
Speaker 1: Like on this record, you played almost everything yourself, or
22:45
Speaker 1: I started everything myself and then would send it to
22:48
Speaker 1: people like that. One has a Jay Mumford on drums.
22:52
Speaker 1: He used to be a hip hop producer and DJ rapper.
22:55
Speaker 1: His storian from New York named Jay Zone. So a
22:58
Speaker 1: lot of these I'm not like a great drummer. I
23:00
Speaker 1: would just do what I had to do, and then
23:02
Speaker 1: I would think, like it'd be a lot better if
23:03
Speaker 1: somebody else just played these, So I sent them all
23:05
Speaker 1: off in friends. A lot of friends replayed drums and
23:08
Speaker 1: then boards and stuff like that, and then I kind
23:10
Speaker 1: of did the rest, you know, besides other things I
23:13
Speaker 1: can't do, like flutes and violins whatever you hear like
23:15
Speaker 1: orchestral stuff that's not me at all. Did you arrange
23:18
Speaker 1: it still a little bit? And then a lot of
23:21
Speaker 1: that was just um actually shout out. Brian Donoho, who
23:24
Speaker 1: does all the flutes on the album, was incredible with
23:27
Speaker 1: his arrangements because he just understood where to fit in,
23:30
Speaker 1: and you know, he would just send me tons of
23:32
Speaker 1: ideas back and then I just kind of arrange that,
23:34
Speaker 1: you know, and again that's where the sampling comes in.
23:36
Speaker 1: I would just take little parts that I liked and
23:38
Speaker 1: put one here and put one here, and like move
23:40
Speaker 1: that around. But he did an amazing job. Again during
23:43
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Like none of us were ever in the
23:45
Speaker 1: same room, so it's a different yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody
23:48
Speaker 1: ever came into the room. Were you looking in on
23:50
Speaker 1: like the sessions, like when they sang now they just
23:53
Speaker 1: send stuff over, just send stuff over? Would it be retakes?
23:56
Speaker 1: I go back, try, maybe try it again, like a
23:57
Speaker 1: couple of tries at it or not necessarily to tell
24:00
Speaker 1: you the truth, it was more from a technical standpoint.
24:03
Speaker 1: Some people were recording in a bedroom, then some people
24:05
Speaker 1: would record in a professional studio and then you know,
24:07
Speaker 1: so there was a little bit of back and forth
24:09
Speaker 1: with with Mentitas, with Elia and I. We took us
24:12
Speaker 1: a while to land on the chorus, and then when
24:14
Speaker 1: we got it, it was like hit it. So we
24:16
Speaker 1: should listen a little bit of Angelica's tracky dollars that cool? Yes,
24:22
Speaker 1: this dancers looking us camels come wow, Wow, what happened there? Guys?
25:11
Speaker 1: That was awesome. That's an original from me and Adrian
25:15
Speaker 1: and so that that was super cool. Hard to believe
25:18
Speaker 1: that was done remote. So you were in Texas, in Austin?
25:21
Speaker 1: Where were you in Jelica? Adrian actually caught me at
25:25
Speaker 1: a really big point of transition. I've been living in
25:29
Speaker 1: Virginia and I was prepping to move back to LA
25:31
Speaker 1: and I was really going through some things, and I
25:35
Speaker 1: was listening to a lot of at the time. So
25:38
Speaker 1: she's like Ranchetta music, right, Um, So it was kind
25:43
Speaker 1: of the perfect time to actually ask me to write
25:46
Speaker 1: Boletto's lyrics because I was very much in that head
25:50
Speaker 1: space of like sadness and Ranchetta music like predominantly like
25:57
Speaker 1: Mexican music, right, It's like a Mexican folk music pretty much.
26:02
Speaker 1: I grew up in a family of singers, Like my
26:06
Speaker 1: mom used to sing as a filed at rodeos like
26:10
Speaker 1: and sing Granchetta music, and so I had like strong
26:14
Speaker 1: voices from that style in my family. I could definitely
26:19
Speaker 1: hear some of the similarities with Voletos music, Like I
26:22
Speaker 1: don't know Voletos as much as like Lettus, but I
26:26
Speaker 1: know that I like Grancetta super powerful, and it's very
26:31
Speaker 1: like the lyrics are very important. So the styles are
26:35
Speaker 1: similar as lyric driven, emotionally potent music, right, I guess, yeah,
26:42
Speaker 1: And then how did you decide to do when original
26:44
Speaker 1: verses find a cover? I personally really love lyrics. It's
26:49
Speaker 1: one of my favorite ways to express myself. I like
26:53
Speaker 1: the chance to be poetic with them too, and you know,
26:58
Speaker 1: pop music doesn't always allow for that, but this was
27:01
Speaker 1: just kind of like a perfect opportunity to really be
27:04
Speaker 1: as poetic as I wanted to be. It's pop music
27:08
Speaker 1: typically you kind of where you're working. I guess I
27:12
Speaker 1: do kind of like alternative pop, and I mean I
27:14
Speaker 1: still love my lyrics and stuff, like I still try
27:18
Speaker 1: to prioritize them, but it was nice to lean into
27:21
Speaker 1: the genre and the feel and know that I could
27:24
Speaker 1: go there and it would have a solid foundation, like
27:28
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have to convince people of it, if that
27:30
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, Like and pop there's a little more
27:33
Speaker 1: like you got to make sure people are following you.
27:35
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, what are some of the lyrics to this?
27:38
Speaker 1: I was just imagining this person's eyes, and like it's
27:43
Speaker 1: kind of like in like in my turbulent hours, your
27:50
Speaker 1: voice is the only thing that I hear, and I'm
27:58
Speaker 1: like apologizing to everybody in the room because my Spanish
28:00
Speaker 1: is like probably the worst ally, but um, it's like
28:06
Speaker 1: bewitched by the potency that we have both felt, and
28:13
Speaker 1: like your your shadow is so beautiful that it costs
28:17
Speaker 1: me my free will to know it. I really went there.
28:23
Speaker 1: Shout out to everybody for being moody a feel. Yeah,
28:28
Speaker 1: what was it about where you were at that took
28:30
Speaker 1: you there? Lyrically? I was in love with somebody, you know.
28:35
Speaker 1: And also just like the big transition of like moving
28:40
Speaker 1: in such a heavy time in my life and having
28:43
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to so many people and not being
28:46
Speaker 1: able to say goodbye in the way that you wanted to.
28:49
Speaker 1: There was like definitely a particular person in my mind,
28:51
Speaker 1: but you know, just the heaviness of not being able
28:54
Speaker 1: to say what you want to say in the moment
28:57
Speaker 1: because you can't. Yeah, well I gotta say too like that, Like,
29:01
Speaker 1: did you end up moving back to La? Yeah? I did.
29:05
Speaker 1: How did you get to Virginia? I mean, I can't
29:08
Speaker 1: think of two places more dissimilar than La in Virginia
29:13
Speaker 1: I moved when I was a teenager with my family.
29:16
Speaker 1: But yeah, Richmond is awesome. There's so much school arts
29:19
Speaker 1: and I think I recorded, like in my apartment for
29:22
Speaker 1: the first draft on a garage band and Adrian's like, Nat,
29:26
Speaker 1: let's get you to do it in a studio in La.
29:29
Speaker 1: This garage band Mike sucks, But yeah, it was awesome.
29:34
Speaker 1: I don't remember which friend I got to work with,
29:37
Speaker 1: m Alberto Lopez who also played in La Right you
29:40
Speaker 1: recorded him? Yeah, he also played percussion on Menthidas. Yeah,
29:45
Speaker 1: he was also percussion on This is Incredible. We talked
29:48
Speaker 1: a little bit about your voice too. Voice was incredible
29:50
Speaker 1: on that. Thank you. When didn't you start singing as
29:53
Speaker 1: a child, I guess I just I always had music
29:56
Speaker 1: around me and I loved it. And I was taught
29:59
Speaker 1: by my family basically like singing to the radio and
30:03
Speaker 1: stuff until I was in high school and I went
30:06
Speaker 1: to this It was like a public arts high school
30:10
Speaker 1: in LA and I had an incredible like jazz voice
30:13
Speaker 1: teacher named Pat Bass, And I think having that real education,
30:20
Speaker 1: like I definitely had like a rootsie like home education,
30:24
Speaker 1: and my mom would always be like, m do it again.
30:28
Speaker 1: I don't believe you. Yes, it's not good. I don't
30:30
Speaker 1: believe you. Like And I think Ranchetto was especially great
30:34
Speaker 1: to learn first because it's so emotive, and she's like,
30:37
Speaker 1: if I don't believe you, what's the point of view
30:39
Speaker 1: singing like you're supposed to be full heart heartache right
30:43
Speaker 1: now and you don't sound like it. You know, you
30:45
Speaker 1: just sound like whatever, you know, and her mom did
30:49
Speaker 1: her did your job for you. Yeah, she's just great
30:52
Speaker 1: executive producer, yeah, I know. And so like by the
30:56
Speaker 1: jazz teacher Pat Bass, she's incredible and she kind of
30:59
Speaker 1: like helped me like fanesse it if that makes sense,
31:02
Speaker 1: like just really clean it up and go with breath
31:05
Speaker 1: and everything. And Adrian, so, how did you find music
31:09
Speaker 1: for the lyrics to that that one? You know? So
31:12
Speaker 1: I had this inspiration playlist that I would reference, you know,
31:15
Speaker 1: when I started it, But honestly, at a certain point
31:18
Speaker 1: into it, I kind of stopped listening to it. When
31:20
Speaker 1: I was writing original music, I kind of stopped for
31:23
Speaker 1: a while and was like, I don't want to like
31:25
Speaker 1: just recreate songs. First, it was really important to dissect
31:28
Speaker 1: the Genette song and dissect was a seither than me
31:31
Speaker 1: and all that to really get those that like the
31:34
Speaker 1: way that the chord progressions moving stuff in my head.
31:36
Speaker 1: But then at some point I stopped and was like,
31:38
Speaker 1: I need to do my own thing with it, or
31:40
Speaker 1: I might as well just do all covers, you know.
31:42
Speaker 1: So I think by that point, I honestly wasn't really
31:44
Speaker 1: listening anymore. I was just off and playing stuff that
31:47
Speaker 1: was at some point sort of loosely inspired, so that
31:50
Speaker 1: one really didn't have that real traditional like anything boleto
31:55
Speaker 1: The only thing it did have, and I love what
31:57
Speaker 1: she did with it was you know, some of those
31:59
Speaker 1: songs are like have this kind of brooding, kind of
32:02
Speaker 1: dark thing, and then they go real happy. It's like
32:05
Speaker 1: theater or something like it's like everything's real sad and
32:08
Speaker 1: then everybody's super happy. That was very bipolar song, but one,
32:12
Speaker 1: but then it comes back to just like yeah, we're
32:14
Speaker 1: all happy and we're all in love, but like back
32:16
Speaker 1: to like, no, everything's dark and everything's sad, and that's
32:19
Speaker 1: how and sometimes they end on the up notes, sometimes
32:21
Speaker 1: they don't. But that one that was the only thing
32:24
Speaker 1: I threw in was like the like, oh everything's you know,
32:26
Speaker 1: happy and everybody's in love and birds and flutes and
32:30
Speaker 1: but then back to the darkness and and she wrote
32:33
Speaker 1: it perfectly and this made it real theatrical. That's about
32:36
Speaker 1: the only thing that had the influence of a Boletto
32:38
Speaker 1: on that one. You know, is going to that real
32:40
Speaker 1: major section. It's hard for me to do anything and
32:42
Speaker 1: with major chords. It was just an impression of a
32:45
Speaker 1: Boletto and he plans to take this on the road somehow,
32:49
Speaker 1: or to take this further than just the record, or
32:52
Speaker 1: I would love to do it if you all are done.
32:54
Speaker 1: It would be very hard to take this on the road.
32:55
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people. We only have three out
32:58
Speaker 1: of like ten singers here. But uh, but yeah, I think,
33:01
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about a couple. You know, it
33:03
Speaker 1: could be cool to do a couple of exclusive concerts
33:06
Speaker 1: here and there, but you know, I think the logistically
33:09
Speaker 1: it might be very hard to do anything. I want
33:11
Speaker 1: to listen to one more track. It's instrumental and it's
33:15
Speaker 1: worth college of knowledge. Es nolo, hey dicho yo. Hopefully
33:20
Speaker 1: I said that right here we go. You know what
34:03
Speaker 1: I love about this record is like you manage to
34:06
Speaker 1: create a vibe. Everything has like a really incredible great
34:10
Speaker 1: vibe to it and groove to it. But the songs
34:12
Speaker 1: didn't sacrifice because of it. You know, It's not like
34:14
Speaker 1: you didn't just like loop something and just create like
34:16
Speaker 1: a simple groove that could just kind of get you
34:19
Speaker 1: and like this sort of like meditative of space. It's
34:22
Speaker 1: like these songs are so dramatic and move so much
34:25
Speaker 1: like listening to that one, it was almost like, um,
34:28
Speaker 1: like a John Barry like song or something like yeah,
34:31
Speaker 1: like z Old James Bond like John Barry cuts like
34:34
Speaker 1: Goldfinger or whatever. It's like it just moves everywhere, but
34:38
Speaker 1: it still manages to just have like this really heavy
34:40
Speaker 1: vibe and it's incredible, thank you because everything is so
34:43
Speaker 1: heavy emotionally and lyrically. I imagine this kind of like
34:47
Speaker 1: a movie or like a theater piece. And the reason
34:50
Speaker 1: there's a couple of instrumentals is I thought those would
34:52
Speaker 1: be like intermissions, you know, like give you a little
34:54
Speaker 1: break from the like drama. You know, it's like go
34:59
Speaker 1: go get your popcorn and your glass of wine and
35:01
Speaker 1: come back after the intermission. And then to that point
35:04
Speaker 1: that makes it so much like a movie score, like
35:06
Speaker 1: they give it like the old like um, you know
35:08
Speaker 1: black Flotation albums like Truck Turner or trouble Man right
35:12
Speaker 1: where it'd be like you'd get those instrumental cuts. I
35:14
Speaker 1: love that each song is really different from one another. Yeah,
35:18
Speaker 1: each song is very different, and not just because the
35:21
Speaker 1: featured singers different. It's like or the featured group is different.
35:25
Speaker 1: It's like each song just has its own spirit, which
35:28
Speaker 1: is super cool. That song is a cover. That was
35:31
Speaker 1: something I was actually sending some ideas to a amazing
35:36
Speaker 1: Cuban singer who Gabby worked with, and I was submitting
35:39
Speaker 1: them some instrumentals and I started what I'd just do
35:42
Speaker 1: is start like dissecting songs and redoing them just to
35:45
Speaker 1: get in the mood. And by that point I was
35:47
Speaker 1: almost finishing the album, and I was pretty hitting a
35:50
Speaker 1: wall and just kind of like sick of it. It
35:52
Speaker 1: just all or started sounding the same. And with that one,
35:54
Speaker 1: I actually I sent it to College of Knowledge as
35:57
Speaker 1: alias of a really dope group called a Surprise Chef.
36:01
Speaker 1: At that point, I sent it to them and they
36:03
Speaker 1: were like, what do you want to do. I was like,
36:04
Speaker 1: just replay it all. I'm sick of it. I hate
36:06
Speaker 1: this album, I hate my life, I hate this music.
36:09
Speaker 1: I'm done. I don't know what else to do. I
36:11
Speaker 1: just sent it to them and they completely replayed it
36:13
Speaker 1: and they sent it back and I was like, there
36:16
Speaker 1: it is. Every once in a while the producer gets
36:19
Speaker 1: to do that, you know, you just call the right people.
36:21
Speaker 1: And what a Pete did? He said, I don't write rhymes,
36:24
Speaker 1: I write checks. So that one I was just like, man,
36:26
Speaker 1: just replay it please, I can't do this anymore, and
36:29
Speaker 1: like they, yeah, yeah, I just mixed it, and so
36:32
Speaker 1: I can't take a lot of credit on that one.
36:35
Speaker 1: So funny. So you said that one was intended for
36:37
Speaker 1: Amata Petunda, Yeah I was. I was actually just recreating
36:41
Speaker 1: a lot of her her older material just to kind
36:44
Speaker 1: of get to start sending her some things. But that
36:46
Speaker 1: one I just kind of set aside. I was like,
36:47
Speaker 1: this is really cool and thought it would be a
36:49
Speaker 1: good one addition to the album. Fantastic. I should just
36:51
Speaker 1: say for people, I mean, like she's like famously from
36:54
Speaker 1: like the Buena Vista Social Club. Is how you would
36:56
Speaker 1: know her voice? Legend amazing, amazing, legendary Cuban singer. Were
37:00
Speaker 1: still performance We're lucky to still have with us. You
37:03
Speaker 1: should still send something over there. You gotta get her
37:05
Speaker 1: on something. M Yeah. So this Arby is just like
37:08
Speaker 1: kind of I guess in a way a one off
37:10
Speaker 1: because pandemic boredom. But how much do you plan on
37:14
Speaker 1: sort of being able to keep doing these projects like that,
37:18
Speaker 1: Like you know, like when something inspires you to sort
37:20
Speaker 1: of be able to just dive into a world for
37:23
Speaker 1: an album or two. I mean, I love doing that.
37:26
Speaker 1: It's hard to I kind of get obsessive about stuff
37:29
Speaker 1: like that. You know. I try to have hobbies, you know,
37:33
Speaker 1: like I try to ride my bike and play basketball.
37:35
Speaker 1: But the hobbies just inspired, Like I get an idea
37:39
Speaker 1: on a bike rider, I'm like, damn, I gonna get
37:40
Speaker 1: to the studio and do something, you know, Like I
37:42
Speaker 1: was saying, I could be healthy for me to not
37:43
Speaker 1: be in the studio and not work on music. But
37:46
Speaker 1: all the hobbies. If I think if I went fishing,
37:49
Speaker 1: like I'd be like, have a song idea and they're like, oh,
37:52
Speaker 1: I need to get back. So I don't know. As
37:54
Speaker 1: time permits, you know, are you gonna still keep doing
37:57
Speaker 1: Black Pumas? Yeah? Yeah, our touring schedule is still pretty heavy.
38:00
Speaker 1: You know, we're still besides all the touring right now,
38:03
Speaker 1: still made up dates from twenty twenty, you know, we
38:06
Speaker 1: have we have so I'm leaving you know, in a
38:09
Speaker 1: few days again tomorrow. Actually, are you guys gonna write
38:12
Speaker 1: anything more too? Or Yeah? We have a lot of
38:13
Speaker 1: new music in the works. Yeah, I have a lot
38:15
Speaker 1: of a lot of stuff. Cool cool, can't wait to
38:17
Speaker 1: hear that. Last time we spoke, I didn't realize that
38:21
Speaker 1: you were involved in a quote The Soul Sounds. Yes, yes,
38:23
Speaker 1: your CD Taurus M. I want to go out one
38:26
Speaker 1: of those songs like soundtracked like every party I threw. Wow,
38:30
Speaker 1: like maybe a year and a half, crazy man, awesome.
38:33
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah, that was a project
38:35
Speaker 1: with my good friend Martin bad Enough from Anti Ballas
38:39
Speaker 1: and he and I made four albums under a quote
38:42
Speaker 1: The Soul Sounds and you know it's funny our our
38:45
Speaker 1: debut album and Lino solo actually is uh. Next year
38:49
Speaker 1: is the twenty year anniversary for it WI Yeah, time flies,
38:52
Speaker 1: so we uh, we're looking to kind of rerelease some
38:55
Speaker 1: of the stuff next year. But yeah, that was a
38:58
Speaker 1: super fun project that we did. Um you know, started
39:01
Speaker 1: as kind of a one off, turned into four albums.
39:02
Speaker 1: We did a little bit of touring, but our individual
39:05
Speaker 1: touring schedules and life and everything made it hard to
39:08
Speaker 1: really do it. But yeah, that was that was one
39:10
Speaker 1: of my favorite things, you know, to be involved in.
39:13
Speaker 1: So good. I want to I want to play a
39:14
Speaker 1: little bit of this song on the way out and
39:16
Speaker 1: El Temblorder feature Chico Man, which is Marco Scarcia Yah
39:21
Speaker 1: who happened to know from around Long Beach from antiballis uh. Yeah,
39:24
Speaker 1: this is one of my favorite things ever done. Yeah,
39:26
Speaker 1: that album one of the best things ever. Still so good.
39:40
Speaker 1: Thank you man, Thank you still so good man. It's
39:43
Speaker 1: hard to play that because I geeked out when I
39:45
Speaker 1: realized that. Yo. Everyone, thank you so much for for
39:50
Speaker 1: for for hanging out for a bit on Zoom. Appreciate it.
39:53
Speaker 1: Thank you man. Get to see you again. Yeah, good
39:55
Speaker 1: to see you too. Thanks to Adrian Cassada, Ela Angelica,
40:02
Speaker 1: and Tita for walking us through their songs on Volero Psychedelicos.
40:06
Speaker 1: Can hear the album and our favorite Adrian side up
40:09
Speaker 1: produced songs. Check out the playlist at broken record podcast
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Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel
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Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast, where you
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Speaker 1: can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
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Speaker 1: us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
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Speaker 1: Helpful Lea Rose, Jason Cambrell, Venttaladay, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez,
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Speaker 1: with engineering help from Nick Chasin. Our executive producer is
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Speaker 1: Mia Lobell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
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Speaker 1: If you like this show and others from Pushkin consider
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Speaker 1: that offers bonus content an uninterrupted ad free listening for
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Speaker 1: four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts subscriptions, and if you like the show, please
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Speaker 1: remember to share, wait and review us on your podcast
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Speaker 1: app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.