Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Bartees Strange

Transcript

Bartees Strange · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Bartis strange is an amalgamation of musical styles. Listen
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: to any given song on his newest release, From to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Table and you can hear hints of Earliott's emo, auto
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: tuned hip hop vocals, and country blues, all housed in
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: an indie rock veneer. Bartiz wide reaching sound makes perfect
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: sense given his Midwest upbringing and early influences. He was
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: raised in Mustang, Oklahoma, as one of the few black
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: kids in an area still rife with the threat of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: racial violence. As a young teenager, Bartiz discovered Christian hardcore music,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and for the first time, he felt at home in
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a scene that embraced outsiders of all kinds. After graduating college,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Bartisse moved to d c where he joined the labor
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: movement and worked with President Obama as a press secretary
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: at the FCC. Overcome with the urge to play music,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: barti He's moved to Brooklyn when he was twenty five
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and found a bunch of musical collaborators. In twenty twenty,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: he released his genre bending debut album, Live Forever. This year,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Bartiz dropped his follow up album, Farm to Table to
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: critical acclaim. On today's episode, I talked to Bartie Strange
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: about his ascent into the upper echelon of indie rock
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: now that he considers artists like Phoebe Bridgers, Justin Vernon,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and Lucy Dacas friends. Bartisse also performs an acoustic version
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of a song heavy Heart for us, and he plays
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: stems from two of my favorite songs from his new
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: album and reveals how he's able to expertly blend what
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: he calls sections on sections. This is broken record liner
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's my
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: interview with Bartie Strange from the Bridge Studio in Brooklyn.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: We start things off by talking about his recent work
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: producing other artists. How does make your records for others
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: impact to your own music or does it not tremendous?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Slay So, like I put out Lift Forever in twenty twenty.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I produced that record and recorded it with my friends
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and we'll say it New York in a in a barn.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: After that record, I got all this production work, so
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I was able to quit my day job right and
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I had already started writing farm to Table, but I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm gonna wait on recording that until I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: record these four albums because I'm gonna try a bunch
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of stuff that I'm gonna do on Farm to Table
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and so for proper cinema, hearts Low Tides this band
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: called Cherish out of DC. I just tried all types
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of stuff on those records to see if I could
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: get the sounds I wanted. And you know, I wanted
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to make the records too. Their beautiful records, and they
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: don't sound like me, so I put it. There's a
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff on Farm to Table that I tried
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: on those other records. If you listen to them, you'll
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: hear it for sure. How did you get the sounds
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: on Lift Forever? It's gorgeous sounding record, Thank you. I
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: think the way I got those sounds was being pretty
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: limited in the tools I had. Honestly, I had to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: really use my ears, and I had a really clear
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: vision of what I want wanted it to sound like.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I knew I wasn't capable of making a like pristine album.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't have the skills to do it, but I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: did know I wanted it to have sauce like. I
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: wanted it to be like interesting and flavorful more so
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: than anything. I was like, I want vibe vibe first,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and I do the same thing for all the records.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I catch sounds on the way in. I don't do
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in post like I don't do
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of like dry tracks, Like every reverb, every delay,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: every compression, I catch it on the way in. I'm
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: squeezing super hard as I track. What's the genesis of
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: that record? Lif Forever? Lif Forever? What's the earliest known
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: either song or part or even just lyric from that record?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Two songs, Mustang and Boomer. I think I played those
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: songs in different capacities in like three or four bands
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: before I decided on the arrangement for Lift Forever, and
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: pieces of those songs songs are in bands. I played
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a band called Stay Inside Almos, a hardcore band out
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: of Brooklyn. They still make music together, but my first
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: inklings of those songs were in those in those hardcore bands.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: The lyrics, I do lyrics like Dead Dead, Dead Last.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I never really start songs with lyrics. I'll start with
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: like a melody, but I don't know what the song's
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: about until I finished the song. The arrangement that kind
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of tells me what the song is about. Honestly, you
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: don't even have a thought about what it's about based
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: on the feeling. I know what the emotion is, but
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know the words. I just kind of freestyle
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in the demos and once i'm the arrangement is there
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: in a way that I feel like truly emotionally captures
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the song. I feel like I'm able to meet the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: song with the lyrics. It's almost I have to build
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: it and then I can like put the final like
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: jinga piece in it. You know. It's Yeah, it's a
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: really interesting way of working. Oh it's cool because I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: feel like it takes all the pressure off of me
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: as a lyricist, because it's like the song is telling
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: you where to go, Like if you nail it, the
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: song is it's like giving you the answer. Sometimes and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I try to write lyrics before the song's done, I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: end up writing for a song that doesn't exist. It's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: like these lyrics don't fit in that song. It fits
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: in this other world that's in my mind. But like
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: this song doesn't want those lyrics. Yeah, it wants something else.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's any song of yours then that
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: might be operating and like on two levels, like an
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: emotional truth that comes through the feel and the sound
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: and the arrangement, and then maybe even lyrics that refer
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to something that might not even have anything to do
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: with the initial drive of what you were trying to
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: capture in terms of feeling. Yes, Heavy Heart the first
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: song on Farm to Table. The lyrics of that song
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: are very kind of sad. I think the hook is like,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I never want to miss you this bad. I didn't
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: mean to run out like that. Some nights I feel
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: just like my dad rushing around. I never saw the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: god in that. I work so hard if you can't
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: fall back, And then I remember I really upon a
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: heavy heart kind of thinking about times I feel guilty
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: for things I can't control. But I wanted to juxtapose
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: that with a song that felt super victorious and driving
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and upward moving. It kind of feels like a song
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: by the National, like off a Boxer or something. The
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: drums are extremely like pounding and repetitive and driving and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: NonStop sixteenth notes the whole time. You know, the guitars,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: there's like five guitar tracks. They're going the entire time.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: They create like a round, like a loop, it's like
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: a mantra, and then it just explodes through the bridge
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and you have all of this arrangement that's sending a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: signal of like extreme momentum upward, but the lyrics are
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: like downward. You had that arrangement, that exact arrangement before you.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I definitely thought some of the arrangement must have come
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: after the lyrics, but I guess you the lyrics are
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: reacting to the arrangement. That makes sense. I just some
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: reason thought of it because when I heard the arrangement,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is a perfect picture of the record.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to paint where it's like holding two extreme
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: emotions and at the same time, because most people are
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: happy and sad all the time. Yeah, it's like good
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: days and bad days have happened on the same day
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: all the time. And that song was me trying to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: do that through the composition and the arrangement of the track.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Do you want to play the first song on heavy Heart? Yeah? Yeah,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: yeah cool. There's three reasons for heavy Us. This past year,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I thought I was booking you so nice, Cherry Scoff,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: we should go to n I never want to miss
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: you this back. I never meant to run now like that.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Some nights I feel just like my dad rushing around.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I never saw the god and that while work so hard,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: if you can't fall back, then I member rely too
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: much upon my heavy are. And that's a shame putting
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: up black. It's with scheme. It's a NAT's on the train,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: that's on DC. Fuck you man, put the red down
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: on your team. Yet I don't need no one but me. Yeah,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: she said in my turn, and I geeked. She said
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: in my turn, and I geet. She a whole lot
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: of bad news. Put the law on it. Yeah, fool,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I'm a rich nigga rad dude. I can buy that,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: damn fool. When I think about Jay last week's Yeah,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: how you blad out in them sheets here, how the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: doc said you were clean? Holloway y'all put on me.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I never missed you this bat. I really had had
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: to run out my bad my hand on the small,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: love your back touching around. I really thought the God
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: in that watching how he braced for impact. Then I
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: remember that too much of fun, my heavy heart. There's
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: reasons for heavy heart this pastie. I thought I was brokeken.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: You look so nicey a cherry scar hard we should
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: go to to run No more often. I never want
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: to miss you this bad. I never meant to run
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: now like that. Some nights I feel just like my
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: dad rushing around. I never thought a god in that.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Why work so hard if you can't fall back? Then?
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I remember I RelA too much, A punt. I hear
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you keep on rocking, MB free world, baby beautiful. Thanks.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Where did those lyrics come from? Yeo? So COVID was
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a weird time. Is continues to be a weird time.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: After I put out livet Forever. I mean I was
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: working a full time job and working from home and
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: doing the whole thing. Record came out and I got
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: all this production work and I was able to quit
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: my job and everything was going so well for me
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: at a time when so many people in my life
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: were experiencing like the most trying times of their lives.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: My grandfather died, they had a funeral, everyone went to
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the funeral, got COVID, A few of them died. It
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: was just over and over and over, just horrible things.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And I was like, Yo, this is horrible, but also
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: like I'm having like the best time of my life,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you know. And I was like, at a certain point,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: You're like I want to celebrate this, but I feel
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: guilty for wanting to, but I felt like it was
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: still important to celebrate. I think like joy as a
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: form of resistance is like super real. So eventually, after
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: feeling guilty and having a heavy heart and feeling bad
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: about everything, I was like, I'm going to take a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: second and just like take some take stock here because
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: things worked. This is working, and that was really big
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: for me to do, Like I had to do it
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: for myself, And that's what the song is about. It's
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: kind of counting all of these things that I felt
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: so guilty for, you know, my dad working so hard
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: all the time, or us not going to my partner's city, Toronto,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: you know she's from Toronto, not going up there and
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: we had a chance, and now we're locked in the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: house for two and a half years and I feel
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: bad that I didn't schedule the time. Or my granddad
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: dying and me not seeing him enough before he died,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: you know, and then being like, but then I realized,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you know, you can't continue to like move forward in
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: life feeling bad about everything that happened in the past.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: At a certain point, you gotta turn over a new
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: leaf and move forward. Reminds me of tours. I imagine though,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: that that's written about your experience of touring, right of
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: being a working musician, quitting your job being a working musician. Yeah,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: kind of to me. The song's about turning into your parents.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: My dad was in the military, he was an engineer,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and he would go on tour quote quote military tour
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: all the time. My mom, she's an opera singer, so
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: she would tour a lot too, And I remember being
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a kid and being like, oh, I'm never gonna do that,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Like I'm going to be home and like raise a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: family and do the thing. And then I got I
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: got older, and music worked out. I was able to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: like tour and I love it. And in that realization,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I learned more about my parents and like why they toured,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and it was because they loved it and they wanted
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: me to see them doing something they loved. And so
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the end of the song I ended by saying like,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm your son, like I'm you, you know, and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: another realization of getting older, just being like dang, like
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: and turn it into my parents, you know in this
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: in this funny way. Have you had conversations with them
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to this effect and it's cool because my parents have
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: always been so supportive of my music and they're so
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: pumped that everything is going the way it is, and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: it's not uncommon that I'll reach out and I'll be like,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: this shit is so hard, and they're like, no one
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: can encourage me like they can, you know, because I've
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: seen them do hard things and they know what it's
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: like to sacrifice and go after things and face challenges
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and overcome them in a way that we can relate
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to each other on a deeper level now, So it's
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a special relationship. Music has deepened our relationship in that way.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So when people hear military dad, I think the first
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: thing they would think is like disciplinarian, And if they're
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: opera singer mother, then they would probably think that she
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: might have been the lenient one or maybe pushing you
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: towards the arts. Military man and an opera singer, yeah
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is a great pairing. Yeah. My mom and dad they
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: met in high school. My mom was the girl that
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: could sing and dad was an athlete. In North Carolina,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: my mom went to Eastman School of Music. Her choir
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: director at church sent a tape to the director of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: music at Eastman and let my mom in school and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: then my dad he didn't really have a lot of guidance,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: so he joined the military. And you know, over the years,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you know, my mom she was you know, heavy and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: teaching us how to sing, and you know, we sang
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: in church and I went to opera camp and my
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: mom was very involved. But she never like forced me
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: into music. She was a musician herself, and which I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: think she knew how hard it was, and she was like,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: if you really want to do this, you got to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: really want it, and I'm not gonna like force you.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: You know, what was her experience as a musician, like
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: after going to school. I think my mom faced a
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: lot because there were a lot of black opera singers,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: especially not once from the South and black woman at
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Eastman and Rochester, New York in the seventies. You know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I think she there was a lot of firsts for her,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and I know that it was hard for her. Did
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: she want to go to New York? Did she ever
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: do that? And I think she did. She did, and
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: then she got some gigs in Europe and that was
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: another reason. You know, my dad was station in Europe.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: My mom was singing in Europe, you know, Hawk Shuler
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: and London. You know, she was doing her thing. But
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: after she had us, she moved into like the educational
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: role and she taught music at the University of Oklahoma,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: where I ended up going to school. She was a
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: vocal professor there, got her PhD at Columbia. You know,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: she's a she's real, she's deep. But my dad was
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: the one that actually really got me deep into music
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: because he was a record collector and when he would
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: come back from Japan or Korea or wherever, he would
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: always bring like turntables or like tape decks, reel to reels.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: He was like really into like monitor like listening to music.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: He's not a musical person creatively, but he collects, and
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: so he was putting me onto like sly Stone and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Teddy Pendergrass and Parliament and Rides the Funking Stein and like,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: honestly that was like rock and roll to me. I
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, these are like rock records that I
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: fell in love with. First, Bootsy Collins, you know, Rick James.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: That was my baseline. Was like opera gospel from mom,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: but like the expansiveness of what music can be through
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: what my dad was showing me and looking back, it's funny,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Like you would expect my dad'd be the disciplinarian, but
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: he was more of the creator. Like my dad like
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it's super handy, works on cars all the time, like
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: always building stuff. He's an engineer, but like that creative
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: tick and like wanting to engineer and build things. I
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: got that from my dad, that need to create something
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: out of nothing. I repurpose something, yeah, something better or
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: more useful to you or whatever, or being like how'd
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: you make that? Like that's like my dad in a nutshell.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: He's always like, how do they build that? I'm going
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to figure it out today. We'll be right back with
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: more from my conversation with Barties Strange. We're back with
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: more of my conversation with Barties Strange. So you mostly
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: grew up in Oklahoma, right, Yeah, that's where most of
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: all my raising was. Aside from what you're parents were
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: playing around the house. What was the music that you
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and your friends were listening to. The first like record
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I ever bought was Millennium by the Backstreet Boys. Yeah
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I had that, Yeah, it was great. And then the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: second one I got was Get Richard Died Trying fifty
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: cent record. My mom was like super Christian. She was
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: kind of like weird about letting like too much secular
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: music in the house. But like I said, at the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: same time, my dad was like playing me Rick James records.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Black parents are hilarious. They'll be like, you can listen
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to Teddy Pendergrass, but you can't listen to like one twelve. Yeah, yeah,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: super freak school. Yeah. I'm like, okay, cool, right, turn
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: off to the night side of Candle. That song so good.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: But um yeah so. But the thing that really grabbed
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: me though, early was hardcore music. My friend invited me
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to a show. I think it was like Victory Christian Center,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: some church in Oklahoma City, and Norma Jean was playing
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: in the basement. Wow, that's I haven't heard that name
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: in a long time. That was heavy, heavy, heavy, and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I'll never forget seeing Norma Jeane. I saw It's too
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Actually that you mentioned that they're Christian band in California. Yeah, yeah,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: they're a Christian band. My mom let me go because
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: they were a Christian band. I just told her. I
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: was like, yo, like, there's a concert at church. It's Wednesday,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you know, Wednesday night church. You know. She was like, great, go.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: You know, she was just like probably excited I wanted
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: to go to church, and she drove me, dropped me
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and my friend off. We watched Norma Jeane play and
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I found out about all those Tooth and Nail bands,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: you know, under Oath the almost like I fell in
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: love with hardcore music through that, and like at the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: drive in came close after, and yeah, they're from El
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Paso and so they would tour through Oklahoma and I
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: just remember been like, dang, these guys always just speak Spanish,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: they don't give a shit about That was beautiful, you
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: know for me to see because I was one of
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the only black kids people of color in my world
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: at the time. But yeah, hardcore music kind of was
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the thing that grabbed me. And like skateboarding culture, we're
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: like born in the exact same year, yea, and so
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: similar experiences, and that if it wasn't rap or R
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and B well around the time like we were teenagers,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: was like very white spaces. Extremely Yeah. Yeah, I think
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that's why I loved hardcore music so much, because like,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: even though everyone was white, I didn't feel like I
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: stood out because everyone was kind of wild, like people
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: had like snake bites and like tattoos on their faces
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and crazy hair. I was just there in like khakis
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and a button nut, Like I was just a normal
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: kid at the thing, you know, I wasn't the weird one.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: And I kind of loved that because I always felt
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: like everyone was staring at me every time I went
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: anywhere growing up. Yeah, but those shows, it didn't feel
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: like that. So I found like a safe space and
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: hardcore venues and those little like shitty bars and like
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: random DIY spaces in Oklahoma City. When did you start
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: to recognize that people were looking at you? My parents
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: were really because they grew up in the South, were
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: very upfront about the world that we lived in and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: wanted me and my brother and sister to be very
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: like clear about where we lived and the repercussions of
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: staying out too late or looking a certain way or
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: being too loud or whatever. So I always kind of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: was hyper aware, I would say, like as a teenager
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and as a college student living in Oklahoma, I lived
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: near like clansmanaged and shit people like end up missing
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and stuff when I was growing up, So you couldn't
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: help but realize that is a part of your reality
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and this wasn't the time when black people were getting
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: tied up and drug behind trucks and Texas. Yeah, man,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I had friends from high school guys I knew, you know,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: have a bad football game, people run them out of
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: town and shit like crazy stuff. And this was before
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: like body cams and people tweeting and sharing videos and iPhones.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: It was like people would just go missing in two
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: thousand and four, you know, like this is a nineteen
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: sixty five, you know, and so we were aware, you know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of who we were. And that was kind of like
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize how scared I was, honestly until I
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: moved to like Brooklyn. It was the first time I
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: lived in an all black neighborhood. I was twenty five
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: years old, and you felt normal, Like you just felt
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: like how you should have felt your whole life. Yeah,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and I wrote Live Forever. Really that's literally how it happened. Wow,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Like I was in a spot where I was around
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: black people, creative people that looked like me. I didn't
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: feel so weird. I was able to like really grow
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: and express myself fully. And those friends are still my
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: friends to this day. It's interesting you've heard to the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: fact that you went to Oklahoma University, and you kind
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of had a nice successful career going before music, Like
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: you're on your second career here, you know, like your
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: second endeavor. Yeah. I played football at Emporious State and
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I transferred to Oklahoma. And after University of Oklahoma, I
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: moved to DC and started doing political work. Worked for
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Obama as a press secret two the FCC, and ended
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: up joining the Labor Movement and I was an organizer
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and commas director in that world for years, and then
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: the Environmental Justice Movement, doing a lot of campaign planning
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and political work there too, which was really special. Were
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: you playing music at the time, Yeah, just playing guitar.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: When did you start playing music? I mean I had
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: a guitar in high school, so I had like a
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: little band called Belmont, which was the name of my neighborhood.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: You know, classic situation. And then when I went to college,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I kind of played around school. I played with some
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: really great players, John Calvin now at Abney, John Moreland,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Samantha Crane. Those are some of the best in Oklahoma
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: right now. And then when I moved to DC, I
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: kind of shelved it because I was like, I need
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: to like get serious about life and like make the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: place for hardcore music though the birth home I know,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I remember well, I had to sell I had no money.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I sold all my music equipment and moved to DC
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and I tried to find some bands to play in.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: But I wasn't really plugged in and I was I
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: had no money, like you know, I lost my first apartment.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I was homeless. I was like living out of my car.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And then I met a girl and I was living
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: out of the dorms at Howard, you know, pretending I
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: was a student there. I was just trying to like survive.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't have time to like join a band, got you,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: you know. So then when I started getting jobs, I
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: was just like cool, this is what I'm doing now.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And then I hated it didn't feel good, and I
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: moved to New York started playing in band. So I
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: was like twenty five when I really started hitting it
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: hard in New York, and I just gigged for five
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: and a half years. Basically, So lifevers inspired by your
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: moved to Brooklyn to New York and finding a space
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: where you finally feel yourself like free, like comfortable, like
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: not like an oddity everywhere you go, or no one's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: staring at you or wondering. What were the first songs
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that came out of that feeling Boomer, Mustang, Ghostly, those
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: three probably I wrote. I wrote a lot of music
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: for that record. I just picked those ten Boomers a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: crazy song. So I like that song. Where did you
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: find the confidence to mix? Like I actually wrote down.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I had to write this song out and like track
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: what's going on in it? Because you know, first of all, listen,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I was like, that's that's fucking cool. And then I
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: was like, wait a second. I'm like the verses are
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: like storytelling through like rap, and then you're into like
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: a pre courses like R and B pop course just
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: feels indie rock, and then the bridge is like a
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: country blues or something. You know, You're like, yeah, damn.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: There's been adventurous artists like Prince has songs that feel
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: like a country song or a gospel song. In Parliament
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: the same. But it's like, don't everything into one song
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: that guts yeah, some courage, man, dude. The songs, I mean,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: a song scared the shit out of me. It's it
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: was a scary song to write because I thought people
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: were gonna think I was corny. When I wrote it,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, people are gonna think this is whack.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Like I love this, but I don't think anyone's gonna
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: really understand this. But luckily, my friend Brian Damilia was like, dogs,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: that's the best song on the record, Like easy, you need,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: we're putting that on the record. I almost didn't put
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: it on the record at all. I was like uh,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't think I'm gonna take
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: it off the record, and he was like, that song
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: wraps up the record. It like it's like such a
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: clear picture of who you are, you know, Like I
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: grew up in the country. The first shit I learned
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: how to play was like blues and country music, and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: then it was like hardcore and I fell in love
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: with hip hop and it's all of it in one song. Yeah, great,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I love that song. It's a beautiful gift that you have.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Did you always have that level of confidence? No, because
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I was scared all the time. I was scared of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: everything growing up. I was horrified to be myself. I
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: felt like I was gonna get killed for it. That
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was like all I learned from my parents, grandparents, everyone,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: like everything was about fear. So when I moved here,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I was the first time I met black people who
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: weren't scared of anything, Like Nigga's outside all day, like
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: like all day, you know, just kicking it, smoking, partying, drinking,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: having a good time whatever. You know. I never seeing
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: black people so free. So I was like, I want
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: to be like that. And so as I got closer
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: to that, I was like, dang, superpowers, Like this is amazing.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: That's where it came from. I love it. I think
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I got drunk off of it because I've never had
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: it before. It's an intense voice that you found. Yeah,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: but it's so different, Like did you feel that you
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: had to make music that was from that same place,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: like almost trapped by your own creation in that sense,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: like or scared of it. No. I felt like that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: record gave me all the running room I could ever want.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Like people expect me to do whatever I want after
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: that record. If I made a country record, they'd be like, well,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of weird. Or if I made
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: like a freaking like a fusion record, they'd be like,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: he kind of does whatever he wants, you know, Like,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of the career I want. I want
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: to make a lot of stuff, and in my mind,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not limited. There are things I want to do
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: that I'm just I'm gonna do. It'd be very hard
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: for someone to pressure me into making a specific record
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: unless it was like a fat check, you know, if
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I get the Kanye gig or something. Yeah, you know,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: now you're on four A D. You've you've taken the
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: fat check A check? Yes, h h check? Okay, won't
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: we won't, we won't. It's okay, it's good, it's very good.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I'm happy. My life is fine. Do you feel like
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: there's more people telling you what they do now or
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: no or anyone strongly recommending. That's why I signed with
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: them When I made Lift Forever, like no one wanted
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: to sign me at all. Everyone passed on my album. Everyone.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I was like, I get it, like it's weird as well,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you know, it's weird whatever, but I think it's gonna work.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: And it worked. And then everyone came back and they
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: knew I had vision, and they knew that I knew
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: what I was doing and that I could make the record.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't need a lot to make the record.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I can make them by myself, make it with my
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: friends whatever, you know, like if I say I'm gonna
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: do it, I'm probably gonna do it. And so for
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: a d they you know, they I felt like with them,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: they they understood me the deepest and they understood that
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I had vision and they were just going to trust me.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: And I felt like they understood that I was in
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it for the long haul. Like I wasn't looking for
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: a hit. I wasn't trying to make like the biggest
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: song of twenty twenty two. I was just like, I'm
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: gonna build this thing over time, and one day we're
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: all gonna look down from the mountain and be like,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: look what we did. Because the bands I admire, that's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: what they did, Like what groups the National Radiohead TV
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: on the Radio, Nick Cave, people who like, over decades
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: build these followings that are just like you can't fuck
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: with it. It's deeper than like having a hit. It's
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: like I want a career like those because I feel
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: like there's not enough black people that get that opportunity
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: to be in like the alternative space and like have
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a career like the National. You know, there aren't. I mean,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: there's Prints, there's MJ. You know, there's dev mind. You
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: know these people they're like pop kind of world. But
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: like in my world, it's like, after all the music
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: black people have made, like it's it's weird that there's
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: not like a band like The National that's black. It's
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: had like seven great albums and it's just like, you
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: know has built that following. And I want to do that.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I mean TV on the radio made some great music.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: They did, but they don't make music anymore. I know
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: what happened. They need to. I really want them to
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: make music again. Dog. I met tun Day for the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: first time like two months ago, and I was just
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: like almost, I was like, keep it together. You know,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: he's like patron saint of my the world in my mind.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: You know, you're just like you're the greatest. Yeah. I
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: had billboards all over LA for my album from the Table,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and he was he was telling me about how he
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: kept passing him and how he was like listening to
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the songs and how he loved the music. And I
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: was just like, dude, like I remember watching you play
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Wolf like me in two thousand and six on The
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Letterman Show. Me asking my mom to get me a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: guitar the next day and I got a guitar, and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I started dressing like you and like covering that song
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: at every party I went to for like two years.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: And now I'm like just like talking to you at
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a bar in La before I go on headline at
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the Getty tomorrow. Life was fucked up. Man, It's crazy
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: what can happened? And we have to pause for a
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll be back with more from
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Bartie Strange. We're back with the rest of my conversation
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: with Bartie Strange, who's about to play as stems from
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: his latest album Farm to Table and break down how
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: he built some of the tracks. We should talk about
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the creation of your new record. I know you brought
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: some stems. Yeah, which song should pull up first? Whatever
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: you want to pull up with mulholland drive, okay out
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: of this track? Get built the song started with this
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: wrote it on electric. Yeah, so straight up. I love
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: like emo music like Twinkled Daddy, shit from the Midwest, Snowing,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Sam Ruddick, American football owls, Cap and Jazz Cap and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Jazz Mike and Tim Kinsella, all those guys, Victor Villareal.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that happened in this song.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: But it all started with a guitar line which is
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: kind of like an emo kind of Midwestern thing of
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: ainsla thing, like now you say, like tim yeah, big time.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I mean it's especially when you kind of get towards
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the end of the song. There's some big licks that
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: are big emo licks. I'll just press play, I guess yeah,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: please listen. Yeah. And now it's like war on Drugs.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: It's easy track. I don't know what's happening. I know
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: who's playing on this, so I'm playing that lead line.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: My buddy Dan Kleiderman is playing the cool guitar lines
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: which you'll hear during the chorus, and some of those
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: commenting left here headphone guitar lines, the kind of like
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: filling lead lines. Um. I played bass, and then my
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: buddy John Days played bass as well, kind of the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: way I there's two basses on it, there's four, So
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the way I track, I'll play and then I'll have
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: other people play and I combine parts like all the time.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Can you solo the bass so you can hear that.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: So here's one bass track during this section, it's just
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: synth bass. Day didn't just get over me. That's all
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: we have, right, now that's the bass. What's happening? But
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: then what stuffs men in my boat? Cutty in incoming
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: every single time. So right there, it goes from wide,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: spacious base to a very focused based sound in the middle,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: which is this, this is me playing bass, this is John,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: and this is the other one. So you get this
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: thing where normally people go verses are small, choruses are wide,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to go opposite. Made the chorus is
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: very like direct and punchy. And the way I accomplished
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: that was by making the bass focused and direct. Wow.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: So a trick. So yeah, that's a vibe. Moving on
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: second verse, classic move different vocal melody than the first verse,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and I threw an auto tune on it because I'm
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: like switching characters. This is like not the same person
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: that was in the first verse. I'm on the team.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: It's your favorite sing angel friend, the biggest and singing
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: songs and the sand and I'm in such a So
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: if you compare the verses first first vocal like, I
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: don't know what's happening in man to this guy, I'm
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: on the team, it's your favorite thing. I'm your nigga,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I ain't your friend. Let's gop to the legglow the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: biggest and play the bands. Remember singing songs in GC
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: all about how you like ty dollars? Yeah, sh it's hard.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Do you identify with one more than the other? I'm
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: both at the same time. I wish everyone listening to
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: see your face right now, I'm like cheesing so hard.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I love this, Okay, moving forward, jazz emo moment. You
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: know what made you throw that those couple of chords
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: in before the It felt like it was time to
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: move on, you know, like I love that chorus because
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you know, first chorus is short, no repetition, it's just
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: it's sung through one time. Second time, we sing it
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: through twice with a little bit of an added measure,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: and then we come out of it with these jazz chords,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: which are very natural to me. I taught myself how
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: to play guitar, so I don't really know what I'm
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: doing most of the time. I don't know notes or
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: chords or anything like that. But I wanted to create
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: a shift that was out in the jazz sense, like
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: something that really doesn't fit the vibe of the song,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: but creates a break that ends the space we were in.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to like leave that world and
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: go somewhere else like now, you know, I didn't want
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: to create a transition. I was just like shut that door,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: next room, amazing, And so I felt like that voicing,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like sounds like like Robert Fripp, you know, um.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: And to me it's also I like to show off,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: I guess you know. I like to be like, yeah,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I can do that too, whatever Bloom Boom jazz or
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: right next scord, you know, disrespectful. All my freaking band
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: members are jazz nerds, like Berkeley freaking losers. You got
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a stunt on them. Yeah. I was just like I
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: didn't do any schooling. And you know, I'm kidding. I
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: love those threats. Yeah, I love them so much. And
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: they and they're always like, yo, what key is this in?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, you tell me my my guy, because
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I just work here at Bartey strangealousy. I signed the checks.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Somehow I feel like you've got cards to me. I
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: don't really feel like I'm supposed to be my band,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: my brand, my band, my brand. Somehow I feel lucky
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: to card to me. I don't want to be I
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: was pupposed to be my band, my band, my band.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I find it hard to get over this right now
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: because when I'm talking it off, I've seen you like
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: a bye. I find it hard to get over this
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: right now. By you're really showing off on this song.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: And now I'm realizing, yes, you have more parts than
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: you know what to do with. Yeah, sections, sections on sections,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: but yo, there's method to the madness. So that section,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: you expect it to go somewhere, but it never climaxes.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: We leave that and we just go right back to
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the chorus and we end the song. So even in
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: writing it, did you feel like you wanted to go
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: big there and stop yourself? What did you? Yes? I
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: felt I was like, I was like, I want to
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: lead them somewhere, and I don't want it to actually
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: be gratifying. I want to suck it all back in
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: and refocus it all small because That's how I'm feeling. Yes,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: it feels powerful too to take it away and not
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: give it to them as a writer, as a musician,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: especially after showing them I can do all these things
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: like I can do the jazz move, I can do
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the big guitar lick, I can write the tight chorus.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: We can do the cool auto tune thing. Got a
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: nice sound of lead vocal in the first half. But
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to give you the climax, and it's
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: a choice. I like it. Yeah, should do one more. Yeah,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: let's see co signs or this song is. I was
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: really proud of this, this song co signs right. I
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: had this beat for a while. Actually, I had this
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: for a while, this sound. Let's see if we can
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: make this louder. And I came upon that sound because
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know who Nils from is from
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: a race tapes? I think so, yeah, he's a piano player. Yes, yeah,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: that sound is like sampled from his hit. He did
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: this beautiful prima vera set with a juno one oh six,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: and that bouncy, scynth thing was a sound he was
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: getting from that juno, and I like recreated the patch
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and played it right. So programmed that and I was like,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: this is dirty. And then Tom York put out Anima,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that solo project, and I was like, this is like
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: the coolest record I've ever heard. I really loved it.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: And so I was playing around a lot with like
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: these like more Housier songs and It's like I came
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: up with that little thing, and somewhere along the way.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I think it was because Chris Conner's my co producer,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: was just coming off of this Kanye gig because he
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: was working on the latest Kanye record, and he was
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: telling me about it and how they were attracting the
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: vocals and just how aggressive the vocals were. And then
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: I was like, dang, let me dig in. So I
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: started digging hard and all this Kanye stuff and I
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: was like, damn, I really love how like evil and
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: mean and aggressive and ridiculous this vocal sound is. It's
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: like this insane, saturated, supergated, like really risky tracking. And
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, let's see how close we can
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: get to that. And then when it's like this radiohead
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: meets Kanye meets like this indie rock thing, and I
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: fell in love with it. I thought it was like
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: a really interesting portrait or like amalgamation of ideas. I
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: was also having this realization. I was in four A
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: D's studio in Wandsworth in London, and I just come
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: off towards like Lucy Dacis and Phoebe Bridgers and I
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: was about to go onto at Courtney Barnett and Bonavere
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: just checked in to see it what my touring schedule
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: was like, and Martin Mills was coming down and listening
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to the music every couple of days, and I was like, Man,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know what happened, but this is working, Like
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I'm doing this shit. Yeah, And this song is kind
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: of it's that energy. It's kind of like Boomer on
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Live Forever to me where it's like it's two or
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: three vibes in a song, smashed in and succinct, but
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: there's like an honesty behind it that like, I honestly
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: felt like I was the only person who could have
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: made this song because I was like in a stage
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: of my life that I felt like it was really
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: unique and I was around people that I'd always wanted
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: to be around, and I was able to capture that
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: feeling in this recording. Yeah, because that's a feeling you
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: only have once. Yeah, you only kind of are ascending once,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: you know, all of that shit happens for the first
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: time one time. And then I made this song. Damn,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: just got out the van. You personal hit me bass
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: and ticks on me to sing my address first and
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Chicks and Day forget to sing time to fit this chance.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: It ass coma need to binge. I'm a I'm with Phoebe,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I'm a jens Dan, I'm a chet, I'm a little see,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: I just got the scan hit according as my already stand,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: I'm a FaceTime. I'm with Justin. We already friends, We
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: already friends, We already I'm FaceTime repeat the line just
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: like Kanye West began. Definitely to me, I can hear radiohead,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: like the freaking bass line. It's like ball, just like
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: the repetitive nature of the track and how it evolves
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: over time. It feels like that to me. Anyways, it grows, Well,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: what's going on with the guitars in the background. Yes, lord,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I play these guitars. They're the wiggliest, most fun guitars.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And then this horn comes in. It's awesome. It's so
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: fucking right. I love it. It's bizarre, man, It's like,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: that is not what the beat that you started with. Yeah,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: I would never in a million years think to put
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: those guitars on it. It's weird. And then you've got
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: this bassline down the middle. Could have been a radio
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: ed song, right. I got co signs and Suns gonna
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: ask my team my putter love for forty feet at
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: the Beacon four week with the multiple pointy atus bed
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know, yall. Yeah wow, that kind of jumps
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: off into this like very what I would say, like
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: a Tom York Anima style like housey section, like an
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: intense thang like remember system of a down of course
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: check this out not arials right Oh oh, I told
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: you say, Yeah, Wow, those are good drums. Beautiful, that's
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: a great playing. Yeah. My buddy Fabian Prinn played those
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: in the UK at the forty studios. He's the house
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: in here for four A d crushing drummer though, and
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: literally we wrote it and I was like, okay, I
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: can try and play the drums. And I went and
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: played it, and I was like, you gotta play better
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: version of this. Dog. I can't. I can't be the
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: I can't be the drummer on this song. Good joy, Yeah, beautiful, Yeah,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: you crushed it. It's a beautiful, beautiful drumming. And then
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of processing and dog, that's how those
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: drums sounded when we recorded him, Like all these sounds
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: for the most part were done live. That this vocal
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: take I did it's all live. It's just hell of processing,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: like mostly through UA D stuff and a bunch of pedals.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: How many configurations did you have to go through til
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: you found that chain? It took me like an hour
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: because I knew what I wanted to sound like. I
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: was like, it used to come off a guitar amp.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I wanted to hit a space echo and it's got
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: to be smashed and I need an auto tune. So
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: I was like, how do we want to do this?
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like we got you know, let's figure
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: it out. And yeah, when we figured it out, me
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Christ and Fabian nils Um Radiohead System of a down kanyets,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah insane. Yeah, here, I'll play this vocal track for
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: you just really quick. Just got out the van. Universal
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: hit me Battle Chicks on me to sing me my address,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: first food chicks that they forgot to sing time to
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: flip this transit what we work were doing for Universal?
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: By the way, Oh, I didn't do anything for Universal.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: I just thought the line was dope, Okay, I just
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: want no. It's like a hip hop move where it's
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: just like I don't have a Bugatti. I'm not buying
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Birken bags for chicks, but I'm gonna rap about it,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: like because I will one day. I love it. It's like,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: but that's the fun of the song. It's like, when
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: do you ever hear like a rap song talking about
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: like Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dakis and Justin Vernon. It's like, yeah,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: it doesn't exist. Yeah, you know, it's like the it's
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: an art project. It's it's fun. I love what you're doing.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Than thanks man, Thank you so much, Bartise Man, Thank you.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: This was awesome. Thanks to Bartis Strange for dissecting a
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: couple of songs off his new album Farm to Table
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: and for sharing his creative jargon with us. You can
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: hear all of our favorite Bartis Strange songs on a
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: playlist at broken record podcast dot com. Be sure to
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: broken record Podcast. We can find all of our new episodes.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Record is producing help from Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Vent
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Holiday and Sandler from Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is Mia Lobell. Broken Record
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries. IF you like this
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: show and others from pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: an uninterrupted, ad free listening for four ninety nine a month.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Look for Pushkin Plus on podcasts subscriptions, and if you
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: us on your podcast That or the mus expect Anny Beats.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond,