Latest / Kyle Meredith With... / Rewind: Joan Armatrading & Mike Scott on Love, Longevity, and Keeping the Songs Honest

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Rewind: Joan Armatrading & Mike Scott on Love, Longevity, and Keeping the Songs Honest · Kyle Meredith With...

• 0:00
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• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've had some great guests here lately including Mike Patton, you know, I'm a Faith No More, a Mr. Bungle to talk about,
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• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's starring in ponies, but we also got to talk about her role with Sam Rockwell in Good Luck Have Fun, Don't Die.
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• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just an example of what you get when
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's me Kyle Meredith today.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a special rewind episode.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to head back to 2017 and 2018 for a pair of interviews that I did with Joan armoured trading and Mike Scott's of the water boys.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, Joan armoured trading broke through in 1976 with herself titled album.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: launching a career that's that's now passed well past 20 studio records.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's she's one multiple Grammys.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Ivory novella awards a Brit for outstanding contribution and a CBE in 2020 in the UK.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's Mike Scott who formed the water boys in 1983 led the band through four decades of evolving lineups and releases beginning with that early acclaimed for albums like this is the
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Armantrating became the first female UK artist to debut number one on Billboards Blues Chards while Scott has remained the constant creed of force behind the waterboys catalog.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Two legendary songwriters, two very different approaches, and both in this rewind episode.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll start with Joan Armantrating.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: We taped this one back in 2018 and she had called in to discuss her 21st album at that point, called Not Too Far Way.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: her decision to write all the lyrics first, so the emotion would lead the music.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: She just talked about keeping songs gender neutral, so more people could see themselves inside them, as well as programming her own drums and fully embracing the solo process.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: She does the whole thing from top to bottom.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's where we'll start part one of this special rewind episode.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle Meredith with Joan Armatrating.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Kyle, hi, it's Joan Armatrating.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, not too far away, I've only had about an hour to digest this, the whole record, but man, what a lovely, gorgeous album that you've created.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just incredible.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I have to admit I like it myself.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I should have told you so.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so 21 albums in, you know, now 21 is what the, I think the official count is at the moment.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you find the challenge in finding new ways to tell these stories?
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Especially in love songs, which, you know, is one of your, what you're known for?
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: No.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: I said no very quickly, and now I'm thinking, should I have said maybe?
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, the thing is, you're always meeting different people, new people, everybody has a different way of looking at things.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: One of the things, one of the things I like to tell a lot is that one day I was on the train.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: and a bunch of young girls were on the train and they were all gigantly and all excited, but this one particular girl with the one who had the more kind of laughing and everything, because she just discovered olives, and she was talking about how these olives were incredible, and she can believe they think olives existed and could
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I was just fascinated because, you know, I know volumes.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: I got excited about all these years ago.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And she's just discovery and all these.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it was this fascinating for her.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that's really what it's like when you talk about, you know, people's experiences, lots of different things, people come into things at different times.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they were expressing themselves.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: sometimes in very similar ways but in their own unique way.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: So when you look at how people fall in love or what you can have people communicate with each other because they like somebody it's always slightly different and I'm looking at these different things and I'm thinking about that that's okay I wrote a lot of song about that but this is this is saying something else
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's a line in your most recent press release that says, you know, you take the deeply personal and you make it universal.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's the trick, right?
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if it's a trick, but it's how it is because it's as I say, we're all going through very similar things.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: We will express it in different ways.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're feeling in different ways, but we are all experiencing very similar things.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: put the words to get the loud people to be able to identify this similar thing, then it works because if I go to Japan or if I go to Australia, if I go to Germany, if I go to Switzerland, if I go to Europe and America, if I think a certain song, the reaction to that song tends to be exactly the same in those places because the expression of the song is like people can relate to.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: As a songwriter, that's what you want to do.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: You want to be able to allow people to express themselves through this music.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and going into this, I mean, your last few records had been thematic.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if you had an idea going into this, but was it freeing without the parameters?
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: If I feel like playing it on the piano, I'll play it if I feel like playing it on the guitar.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's whatever happens, I don't tend to kind of formalize it before it begins.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's my normal way of writing.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: When I decided to do the trilogy, which was blues rock jazz, that was a very disciplined thing.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: So the first one was the blues into the blues.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: I had to kind of rain myself in.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: If I was writing something and that would be quite nice to do.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: a jazzy thing here.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, I had to make sure I stayed with the blues.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Same with the rock, same with the jazz.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: I had to just make sure I was disciplined and kept to the thing that I wanted to keep to.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this one was similar in that I decided that I would write all the words first.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: Never written an album where I wrote all the words first.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I wanted to write the words first, because I actually really wanted people to listen to the words and to get the emotion of the words
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I felt that if I got the words right, the music would fall into place, which to me is seems to be what's happened.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I spent my time and my efforts just really, you know, making sure that what I wanted to say was being said.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll be right back right after this.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Look at back, it's Kyle here with Joan Armatrating.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: With the way a song, it might be about one thing.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: It might be about a relationship.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Love, as we're talking about.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in certain times, that same thing can feel very reflective of what's happening outside.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I follow you online.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know that you're seeing all the same things we're all seeing.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And was that part of the filter with those words?
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Everything is part of the filter.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's what I'm seeing friends go through.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's what I'm seeing the world go through.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's what I'm reading in the paper.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of all around us.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're in a certain time and this might sound so pretentious and I don't mean it to be.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I was sort of hoping that when I wrote the words,
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: It would reach out to people and they would want to identify with those words and they would want to use those words and that's to express themselves and to have it express something to them, you know, so that's really what I was trying to do.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not trying to be deep, but I really wanted it to be leading for.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, the first song that we see, you know, even the title alone, no more pain.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that says much, you know, even before the song starts.
• 9:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and that pain is not necessarily a physical, you know, of cut my hand pain.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's what ever this ailment is, it's the pain of losing somebody, it's the pain of
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: of finding somebody because sometimes that's finding somebody can be quite painful if you found the one that doesn't find you, that's can be, that can be pretty painful.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: So there's all kinds of areas.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: It could be just, you know, your business area, you know, where you're in a certain kind of business and things are not going well for you, that's, that's can be a pain that
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it covers all kinds of things and what the sun is saying as a certain point, you must decide who is in charge of these feelings, is it the object that's going to make you feel or is it you, you know, you're in charge of yourself and at some point you're able to say,
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's certainly my head.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to be in this situation.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I want to free myself up and I'll be the one to say that's enough.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I gotta tell you, the first very first listen on that song.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It became one of my favorite songs of this year, just completely.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, but that's great.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's great.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I still want to stick with the bigger topics for just a second because someone pointed out online as I was researching that you rarely used gender in your songs and I was wondering if you consciously did that through your career and the rest of the world is finally catching up with the topics there.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, because I want it kind of just repeating myself, I want people to identify with the songs.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: boy girl, man, you know, if you say that, then it limits the song to that person.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I wrote a song called Weetness in Me.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: But the amount of men and women that come to me and said, oh, that song just describes this thing, hoping going through this, you know, it's painful breakup and this who am I going to choose thing.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then and women will kind of say that to me.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: So sometimes
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: There was a song, or that song, does my blues, does my blues, and the song is talking about the chap and the woman and you know, I don't like that song, but how do I sing?
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I don't really do cover songs, but I was thinking about how would I sing that?
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because I'd have to
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: Workouts, how to not say he and she.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I was just kind of experimenting and thinking about how would I, how would I, how would I have written that those lyrics so that it's so that it can relate to anybody.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because sometimes as soon as you identify that gender, you're kind of, you've excluded a few people.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, again, I do think this is a beautiful record.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do read that you do everything on the record.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's more solo than anyone, right?
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like this is an actual solo record.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, the last is 2003.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I've been doing that.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, I love a speak into the blues.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: This charming live starts.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: They say, well, they're all just me.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: On the trilogy, on the blues.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: the child enough, I used the drummer, but I played everything.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then from, and then starlight, I decided to program the drums myself.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I did that.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: So that really was just me.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then this one is really just me because I programmed the drums on this one as well.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm playing everything.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I produced it.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: I engineered it.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Roger, do you think Sangha, do you think the show off?
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just a show off.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that can be dangerous for some artists because, you know, you can start to lose whatever, you know, and focus isn't the right thing because I think maybe it has ultimate focus, but these songs, I mean, they're still so concise and so well constructed that it seems like you never lost the plot of the entire thing.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's, that's so impressive.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't want to lose the plot.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't want to lose the plot.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to write these songs.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I love listening to them.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many fun moments in this.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I did make a note how much fun invisible was to hear because it has a great guitar groove going on, you know.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's some cool stuff.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm really like that song.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: I love the
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Anything that you say, actually, I love the guitar, but I love the solo, and I kind of talk it and then I sing, and he's got those kind of quirky rhythms going on going on there.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the album, I think, has a theme if you like of acousticness, but at the same time, it kind of rocks along.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: and invisible is a great example of that.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's all acoustic sounding, but it's still really moving.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Joan, again, so honored to have this conversation.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for talking today.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I look forward to the release, May 18th, right?
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: May 18th, yep.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's definitely a pleasure.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, thank you.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking forward to it as well.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: I can't wait to see how people respond to this
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you can at least count me as positive.
• 15:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's a one down one down one down one down next.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Joe.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, God up.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll be right back right after this.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, welcome back now time for part two of this special rewind episode.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: The water boys, Mike Scott, this was back in 2017.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: He called in to break down the ambition behind the double album out of all this blue.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about his no filler rule.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was inspired by classics like Exile and Main Street, how new love, fatherhood, even making up songs for his daughter fueled a flood of creativity at that point.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: He also dived into bringing funk and hip hop textures into the mix and expanding the water boys into a nine-piece live band with two drummers.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do this part two of the special rewind episode.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle Merith with Mike Scott of the Water Boys.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, Kyle.
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: My story here.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I guess what's to talk about?
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's a double album.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's not an easy thing to do.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's sort of a balancing act you have to do with a double album, right?
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, my golden rule making a double album is that there can be no filler, right?
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Every track has got to be good enough to fit on a regular single album.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's got to be no relaxing of the standard.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Then it makes for a cool double album.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: And when I think about it to great double albums of the past, like XLM industry, that was the case with those records.
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: that's a lot of confidence in your songs right there because that there's a lot of chance for there to be filler and you pull it off somehow.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what you do that.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well I should say I'm not trying to do my songs necessarily the standard of XL and Main Street.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just to my own best standard if you know what I mean, but I've got I've got range of what my own best work is these days because I've produced a lot of my own records And I just kept to that standard and instead there were even more songs that didn't make this right how many how many songs didn't make I like the title track I know didn't make it that's right It may be half a dozen others for various reasons a couple of them I didn't think we're quite good enough But there were some others that weren't recorded right and I'll come at them again from a different angle later
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I do sort of wonder with the backstory about, you know, you falling in love in the time and getting married.
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know heartache is really good for art, but I also know that new love, I don't know, can be like speed of musical speed.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of wonder if that contributed to this, this outpouring of music.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Definitely.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the bit of heartbreak is well in some of the songs earlier on the record.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: and you had to marry those together, I guess.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, the record is my song right and from a cash and period of about three years.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: So there's a lot of stuff in there.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's also a big development as I became a dad.
• 18:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm forever making up little songs for my four-year-old daughter.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: And because I'm making up songs for her, maybe a song about how to put the shoe on the right foot, right foot, now with it the shoe on the left foot, left, you're making up these all the time.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it means that my creative juices are flowing.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: and it's only a short leap from right to left to do a rock song.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't thought about that but you know when I look at the the first single if the answer is yeah I mean this is a this is a fun turn for you musically and you've done so many turns throughout your career that it's even hard to say that there is our turns anymore but
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, what is a humor in a lot of these songs and a funk, I love funk music and that's the the musical direction one is you're going on this one funk and hip hop production values.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Had you ever tried other one of those before?
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'd
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Messed around with loops and hip-hop crews before in the past, but never with great dedication, only doubling.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well while we're on the subject of that first single there, you know, beyond just kind of going in there and finding the creative juices and letting the fun pour out, is there, is there any, does that tie into the second part to the love part of your story?
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the album starts, I just, I love how it starts, too, because it says, I don't know that I have the lyrics exactly right, I'm trying to remember them, but looking for her, but found you.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think...
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was looking for her, but I fell for you.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's sort of how life usually happens, right?
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, in the first song, where it's a mystery of love and the confusion of love, and then through the course of the album, love govern rivals itself and strains itself out.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: This album?
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's both.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a rom-com.
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a romantic rom-com.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: What did you get from it, though, is I guess there's a lot of unanswerable questions all over it.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm even, you know, going aside from the word answer it is even in a title.
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: But do you find that writing helps answer any of these questions for you?
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: No.
• 20:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thinking and using of things and talking to people answers questions.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, uh, an exploration of feelings and an expression of feelings.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: I read an interview with Neil Young recently who's talking about the 70s and he says, no, I had all those feelings.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then I wrote all those songs, and I thought, yeah, that's the way it works.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I guess the most impressive thing is, and with Neil and with, you just a few minutes go, I was talking with Bruce Coburn, and I'll throw him into this pile as well.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's fresh in my mind, but, you know, to have a career this long, as you've had, you know, we all, of course, continue to have feelings for all of our life, that's not that it is
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: How big is that challenge for you?
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's my job.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Sure?
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: My job.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: But be like, okay, I clock in and that's what I do.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you don't find it as a really great challenge, though?
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm afraid I don't think that as a challenge.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just what I do.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's my gig.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't write in about my feelings or about other people's feelings as far as I can discern them.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of artists could probably take a note from that then.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe they make it too hard on themselves.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I like having a good time, and I'm kind to myself.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: I enjoy my life, I'm comfortable in who I am.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm grateful to be who I am.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I love making music, I've got the best job in the world, I get to travel around, make a music with my mates, exploring new zones, it's fantastic.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And speaking of mates, this is an expanded band for you this time, right?
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, the live band will be a nine piece.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: How?
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kind of like Joe Corker's old mad dogs and Englishman band.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Two drummers.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: How's the rehearsals done?
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you on the tour yet?
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, we haven't begun the rehearsals yet.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: We've been doing some of our festivals with a five-piece band.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: But the expanded ensemble will get together in October.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: OK. And we have a great new guitar protocol, Bart Walker, from Nashville.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: He was playing with the Royal Southern Brotherhood.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if you know that band of things.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: Ivan Neville's band.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure that's going to sound huge.
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I hope, though, yeah.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: And as I say, two drummers and we've got two great backing vocalists.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: And for the first time, we live a front line with, I think, five voices.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: No cool.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Usually when the water boils to it, it's me and maybe one guy in the band, croaking a bit in the background.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: and me broken some of the time as well but this time wow we're going to have this front line of vocals going to be great the two drummers is that to you know you talk about loops and the hip-hop thing does that about with that is that what that says it really does on a lot of the tracks have used two loops at the same time or two different sounds at the same time and our usual drummer Ralph he's a fantastic drummer incredibly versatile he could pull it off but I wanted to
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he liked the idea of 2002 so we expanded.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the second drama is actually a young guy called John Green.
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, he's not that young but he's young compared to me.
• 23:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: He was our drum tech on the last big tour we did.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he used to sit in with me at Sandchecks when I'd be trying out some of the songs.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because I'm a fast eater, you see.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we would have our dinner before the Sandchecks.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I would always be finished before the band.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'd go on the stage and use the 20 minutes and so that I had to try some new song ideas.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: members of the crew would play with me to help me out as a young John would play drums for me on my new songs and he was really great so he was a natural choice to come in as the second guy.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: It seems to be a good chance for something unique I guess.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think so yeah we should bring it to the states next year.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mike, it was a real pleasure talking to you.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love out of all this blue, you know, again, for being a double album for a solid as it is, you've done nothing short of a miracle for something.
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much, Kyle.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: There you have it, Mike Scott, big thanks to Mike, and Joan, and of course to you.
• 24:33
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• 24:54
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• 24:58
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• 25:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: That does it for another edition of Kyle Meredith.
• 25:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll see you next time.
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• 26:12
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