Latest / The Other 22 Hours / Richard Thompson on coming back to center, songs that live in the margins, and catching the horse.

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Richard Thompson on coming back to center, songs that live in the margins, and catching the horse. · The Other 22 Hours

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I think kicks in around 10 a.m. of a showday and I picture that there's a paddock, you try to catch the horse in the paddock and so you slowly work into a corner, slowly so you're during the day, you just keep it pre-drink that you're getting close to and close to and then when it's showtime you can hold the reins of the horse and you get on the horse we often define artists by their output, their records, books,
0:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But the art is made in the quiet, the struggle, and the mundane, the hours that no one sees.
0:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm McKayla Ann.
0:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Aaron Kray for his.
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the other 22 hours, an exploration of the creative life lived in between.
0:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we are talking to the legendary virtuosic guitar player, musician, songwriter, Richard Thompson.
1:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Richard Thompson started his career back in the 1960s with the very important folk band Fairport Convention, which he co-founded.
1:13
[SPEAKER_00]: He has gone on to have a 60-plus-year career.
1:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He has released dozens of albums.
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: He has been nominated for multiple grimmies.
1:22
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from BBC Folk Awards and the Americana Award Association.
1:28
[SPEAKER_00]: He's received the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth.
1:33
[SPEAKER_00]: He has incredible accolades, he has performed all over the world, and he has worked with or his songs have been recorded by artists like Jeff Tweetie, David Byrne, Bonnie Rate, Emma Lou Harris, Blind Boys of Alabama, the chorus, the Neville Brothers, just to name a few.
1:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you can imagine with somebody who's career-spanned six decades, he shows up with just a wealth of wisdom and experience that he just graciously openly shares with us, we like to pry the show on being part head and part heart.
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: part routine, part spirituality and approach and Richard embodies both sides of that spectrum.
2:13
[SPEAKER_01]: We get to talk so much about his spiritual practice and his spiritual approach to creativity and his career and the industry, but then also he shares some great nuggets on tangible like routines of his, whether that's writing to how he prepares on a showday.
2:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It just checks all the boxes from talk to bottom.
2:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So please enjoy our conversation with the great Richard Thompson.
2:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to start every conversation the same way with how are you, and that's a how are you really, and where are you physically and creatively?
2:49
[SPEAKER_02]: am I?
2:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm fine.
2:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Where am I?
2:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in London, England.
2:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I've finished an album in January.
2:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's come out this month.
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It comes out next week, I think.
2:59
[SPEAKER_02]: The creative thing of the subs are yeah.
3:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm off the right now.
3:01
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have quite busy out the summer.
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a band here in the US in January, February.
3:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a European server, the band in April, my
3:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm rising on a regular basis.
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't seem to push it that much, but I just just come all the time.
3:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I keep rushing stuff down, which is nice.
3:17
[SPEAKER_02]: The muse is smiling upon me, come be all bad, kind of really.
3:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
3:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you found over the years?
3:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Does the muse always feel like it smiles upon you?
3:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Or have you had times, especially when you're navigating the up and down cycle of on the road off the road, promoting?
3:32
[SPEAKER_00]: How does that kind of influence or how has it influenced your writing and your muse?
3:37
[SPEAKER_02]: When COVID came along, it was interesting because suddenly you couldn't play live for two and a half years.
3:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Which was a bit of a shocker.
3:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't been off the road since I was 18.
3:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Even as I 18, I was busy and on the road.
3:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe 12 will be more accurate though.
3:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But I started doing gigs, you know.
3:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, that was the first time that the cycle had really broken,
3:59
[SPEAKER_02]: record to over and over and over and over and over and over again.
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: In your days of the bigger record companies, they control the cycle much more.
4:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And now it's more in the art's hands, how they deal with that.
4:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And I keep thinking I'm going to slow down or something, but I just have to do something with songs.
4:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have to make records and then if you make a record then you have to tour it and round around we go.
4:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And even if I don't have a record out, I go out and do solo work anyway.
4:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I just love playing.
4:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I love playing for an audience.
4:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Life goes on as long as you're healthy, you keep doing it, make sure all the bits working, make sure you fingers work, your ears work, you've got the energy to stand up on stage, if you haven't got the energy to stand up, you sit down on stage, it's been a life, actually, hasn't it?
4:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Cracky.
4:45
[SPEAKER_02]: That promising career in account is the, I don't think it's ever going to happen.
4:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Never mind.
4:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:50
[SPEAKER_01]: With somebody like yourself that is always writing and loves recording and all of that in a perpetual cycle like that, I always like to ask how much of a rough percentage wise how much of your songs and your creations actually see the public.
5:05
[SPEAKER_01]: From songs you write how many of those do you record and of the
5:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Just I mean the bad songs or anything, it just means that I've fit maybe, that I've fit in a project.
5:21
[SPEAKER_02]: In terms of projects, you might have a few piles of songs.
5:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You might have all, this is definitely a song that's prepared by a band.
5:28
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's because in the band, this is a song that should never be played by a band.
5:31
[SPEAKER_02]: This goes in the acoustic pile.
5:33
[SPEAKER_02]: They're discussing that dream project, you know, that Broadway musical pile, you know, put that over there.
5:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm, but other times, you know, maybe you want to do a project with some other musicians, so yeah, you might be writing songs for that as well So yeah, it's all about piles of the musical variety, not the more painful for I see.
5:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think disposed of it's probably 50% ish
5:54
[SPEAKER_02]: and sometimes you might raid the rejects of spare parts.
5:58
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a particular bridge here, you know, my careful, and you kind of try and wedge it into a different song, which may ever have some massive key change or something.
6:06
[SPEAKER_02]: That may or might not work, but it's the thing I've done time to time.
6:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
6:10
[SPEAKER_00]: The way you said that, read the rejects for spare parts.
6:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
6:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, spare parts are good, but I suppose.
6:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Even just, you know, not even a bridge or a verse or something, but just a line sometimes.
6:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
6:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
6:22
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a good poetic line.
6:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got to use that somewhere, so that may crop up in a song in some relevant or not way.
6:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Relevant or irrelevant way.
6:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder at least speaking for myself, I can get so attached to a line or a section that I like, especially if it's taken a lot of work.
6:42
[SPEAKER_01]: How long did it take you to be okay with scrapping the whole song if there's this line that really sticks out?
6:50
[SPEAKER_01]: How long did it take to kind of break that attachment to that one or do the kind of I was coming actually to you?
6:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a massive range of time variation.
6:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got something that is taking me 20 years to finish.
7:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It just means one more verse, I can't find whatever, so I get shum back on the back banner.
7:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't say sum sum, so you're not ready for almost, you're going to start with this idea, but you don't really know what to do with it, but then maybe a decade later you figure out a way to make it work.
7:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You change the tempo, you change the key, something, basically work.
7:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And you read about people, write your sum to 10 minutes, 20 minutes.
7:23
[SPEAKER_02]: and I've done that as well.
7:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the best songs get written that way.
7:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of you also do, which kind of amuses me in many ways, it is.
7:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I have some songs that I think is a very important song, and I'm really determined to get the song finished, where it is quite difficult.
7:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So I spent a long time on this song.
7:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And while I work on this song, I get other little ideas, so I scroll the ideas in the margin, okay, well that's gonna come back to that in a minute.
7:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Next day I come back to this incredibly important song again, and oh there's another idea, I just school that one in the
7:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, the really important song, like, never ever gets finished.
7:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's just, it's total pretentious place for forever.
7:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And, um, all the good songs are written in the margin.
7:59
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you look at it afterwards.
8:00
[SPEAKER_02]: You can think, like, this is amazing.
8:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost like you, uh, almost unconsciously writing this stuff down.
8:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And then thinking, you know, like, it wasn't important.
8:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You weren't even thinking about it.
8:09
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just jotting that down stuff.
8:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But this stuff actually turns out to be good stuff.
8:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably because she won't think about it.
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm so interested in, I mean, obviously because of these conversations, we're interested in not just the career of creating things, but the actual life of, I mean, I think every human has the need to create, but not every one of us answers that call as often as we probably should and so for musicians and artists who are actively
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: excavating.
8:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so interested in our how our mindset and the psychology of it enables it and that what you were talking about of like sometimes the thing we're how we hold it the work in our mind as it's coming out so deeply influences What is actually able to come out and so I've been playing with I coach other songwriters and then with my own songwriting have really been trying to explore
9:06
[SPEAKER_00]: What if when you sit down, your mindset isn't, okay, I'm going to try to write a song.
9:11
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I trying to say?
9:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me try to make this good song.
9:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And instead saying, okay, I'm ready, and I'm going to allow whatever wants to come out, or needs to come out, to come out on the page.
9:23
[SPEAKER_02]: very true.
9:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost having to struggle to get to that point where your conscious mind loses control a little bit.
9:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Your semi-conscious or subconscious can work properly in a creative way, but the conscious mind will interfere with their process.
9:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it better when you're half asleep and maybe it is?
9:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it better wake up or four in the morning and write something sometimes that works with people as well?
9:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a tough one.
9:48
[SPEAKER_02]: The thing about COVID as well was having more time to write was interesting.
9:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I wrote so much stuff.
9:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still processing that stuff.
9:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I write during COVID.
9:56
[SPEAKER_02]: As a working singer, songwriter, you're out there singing the songs that you've written.
10:00
[SPEAKER_02]: You do have less time than say a full time songwriter.
10:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Someone who...
10:04
[SPEAKER_02]: working in the brawl building or something that is in there every day, you know, or even roaches and heart, or you know, roaches and hammers started.
10:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Professional songwriters who were writing at least to show a year, maybe sometimes two shows a year, and the show is what 16 songs or something, that's like a job, but it's still creative.
10:22
[SPEAKER_02]: They're still pushing themselves, but they're still reaching that same crazy point, even though they're sitting in an industrial building, creating this stuff.
10:30
[SPEAKER_02]: and rising solo versus rising in a partnership is also a big difference, I think.
10:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, if you're a team, if you're a words and music team, one person does the words, one person does the music, you still get to these points where the creativity kind of bursts through regardless of maybe you sit in the same room as somebody else, or you go away and and write the lyrics later, or do they go away and write the tune later?
10:53
[SPEAKER_02]: have to get to the same creative point.
10:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I find being older, I can get to that point quicker.
10:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Old and sober is kind of interesting.
11:00
[SPEAKER_02]: When I was a kid, I'd be drinking a lot more, you know, a younger lifestyle and I'd figure that the best time to write would be starting up 12 midnight.
11:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I might finally get to some creative point about three in the morning and then I'd collapse from an exhaustion of four in the morning.
11:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So I didn't have an hour window, really, that was any good, where it's being older and more responsible.
11:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I can write in the mornings.
11:22
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where Beethoven used to write.
11:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It's in the morning, so if it's good enough for Beethoven, it's good enough for me, if I haven't said it.
11:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I start 6 a.m. 7 a.m.
11:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I work for noon up there.
11:34
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a much longer, crazy period.
11:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And if it's going well, I can go all afternoon.
11:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I've still got the energy.
11:40
[SPEAKER_01]: The schedule of creativity is something that really intrigues me.
11:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I find that too, especially like working in the studio, you know, you have bands that want to go all night.
11:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, to me, I'd rather start the session earlier in the morning when people are fresh.
11:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll kind of steer artists towards that and band's towards that.
11:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And by, by dinner time, we're out of diminishing returns.
11:59
[SPEAKER_01]: People are scrambled and they're just making choices to make choices and they're not really serving the song or serving what's going on.
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, so being able to note your creativity even if it's like against like what the artist's stereotype is, is a really valuable thing.
12:13
[SPEAKER_02]: That's because the creative stereotypes are up all night recording.
12:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But you don't get up till noon.
12:18
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the other way.
12:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Ask those people who insist you record all night to get up at seven in the morning and they won't quite be able to do that, I think.
12:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it definitely is informed by lifestyle of like you said when you were younger and when we were younger, I've never been a late night person like on a lot of times touring has been hard for me because of the late nights.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But now we have children.
12:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a one and a half year old in a five year old.
12:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are like, I don't want to stay a blate.
12:47
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be looking at the same.
12:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So no, absolutely.
12:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to head young children.
12:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to train myself to write anywhere.
12:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I couldn't wait to go to my special place.
12:58
[SPEAKER_02]: at my special time because there was no peace.
13:01
[SPEAKER_02]: My life was taken over, but I guess as I had to learn to have a tea thing, baby, or one shoulder, and a shop, and the other hand, you know, create anywhere.
13:09
[SPEAKER_02]: If possible, it gets tougher.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely.
13:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It gives you kind of resilience when your kids finally grow up.
13:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You still have that gift being able to write, walking down the street on the train, on the bus, wherever.
13:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're less precious about it.
13:21
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, per hour to work.
13:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
13:23
[SPEAKER_02]: That's true.
13:24
[SPEAKER_02]: That's true.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was just thinking about, for me, it's a really interesting dichotomy of both sides of preciousness.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm less precious about like, oh, I need this certain time in these certain settings to be creative and to create.
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm less precious about that, but then I'm also more precious about the time that I do have to create.
13:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't show up and kind of, uh, which is like, maybe you can feel more of it.
13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm working around and waiting for the news to show up.
13:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I show up and I'm like, I have time right now, let's make some stuff.
13:54
[SPEAKER_00]: In my songwriting coaching and then in our life, I've been really thinking about this and creating in the stolen moments and kind of retraining your brain to be like, I'm going to be open to creativity, like through, and children are a great vehicle for that if you can get into the right mindset, because when I'm overstimulated and annoyed and like, oh my god, I'm overwhelmed with the needs of these children, I'm not creative,
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, they always want stories and I have to think creatively of how I can get them to stop doing what they're doing and go do the thing I need them to do without having a tantrum that all is of use to my creative self.
14:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not an annoyance or an inconvenience, but I've realized it's.
14:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So much mindset and when I change my mindset on my best days, which are hard, but then all of a sudden it's like everything is of use and everything is of service to creating songs and stories and ideas.
14:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a whole new approach from pre-kid life where you just, I write a song when I want to, and I get to go spend hours or go on a retreat.
15:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a very different approach that I think takes a lot of conscious shifting.
15:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so, but so, most of the results can be different as well.
15:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You can come up with a whole different thing because of the pressure on myself.
15:19
[SPEAKER_02]: The preciousness of the time windows can make you create something different than the old.
15:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got time to do it.
15:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't you?
15:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Raising kids.
15:30
[SPEAKER_02]: You can never stop being assorted in somebody's head there, so.
15:34
[SPEAKER_02]: When the last one goes off to college, it's a wonderful feeling, so I can say.
15:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've got a long way but I'm really interested in if you feel comfortable talking about what the internet I don't always trust everything the internet tells me so correct me if I say anything that's not accurate
15:54
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the internet, you went on a spiritual seeking at a pretty young age in response to grief and disillusionment with the music industry.
16:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm handing this over to you first to explain, but the question is really just your journey of seeking some spiritual groundedness and how that has informed your life and your approach to your creativity and career.
16:19
[SPEAKER_02]: big question.
16:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you got four hours?
16:22
[SPEAKER_02]: No, probably.
16:24
[SPEAKER_02]: The six is going into the seven seasons.
16:26
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people were looking for spiritual answers.
16:30
[SPEAKER_02]: The age of Aquarius and all that stuff.
16:31
[SPEAKER_02]: The Beatles go off to see the Maharishi, Jewish Harrison gets into Indian music and hence Indian spirituality.
16:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all these gurus appear, mostly from the East really.
16:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of people embrace that or embrace it in a kind of a
16:47
[SPEAKER_02]: weekend's only kind of way, you know, but the people really were sincerely looking for answers that they were not finding in Western culture, that they weren't finding in Christianity as it was being taught anyway at that point.
17:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And suppose I was the same, you know, I'm not sure it was a reaction to anything, it was just what was built into me, what was to look for a spiritual artist to understand the nature of the universe, why am I here, what am I doing?
17:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And physics would take you so far.
17:14
[SPEAKER_02]: In some cases, spiritual parts would take you so far.
17:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I really wanted to find out who I was and where I was.
17:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew some English guys, they were banned, they were called the action, they were kind of a mod banned, they played a lot of Motown covers, but the time, and they got some Morocco to visit this, particular teacher, and they came back as Sufi's, and I thought that they have a quality.
17:36
[SPEAKER_02]: about them.
17:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I want for myself, look, I should have described it really.
17:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of like a courtesy or a way of approaching life that just seems something that I want to say embrace myself.
17:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So I did.
17:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Moroccan clash was very strong.
17:48
[SPEAKER_02]: That particular community fell apart in the 70s.
17:51
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a bit of corruption crept in.
17:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm still basically there.
17:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I still think in that way.
17:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I still pray to religion in that way.
17:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Does it help with the music?
17:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think it does.
18:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it also helps you to navigate the shark filled seas of the music business.
18:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I'd like to say, it's almost like a grid that you like across the day.
18:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But you keep hearing about this same point.
18:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And the same point is a spiritual point.
18:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the you know, the day kind of goes on and it kind of overwhelms you and then you come back to the same point again and you come back to the same point again.
18:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So I keep she's saying, keep she balanced.
18:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I think ballast is a big thing in that situation and it gives you the overview.
18:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You are a small little chip of light and you're connected in some way to this huge big block of light.
18:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And one day somehow you're going to reconnect with the big thing with the great spirit.
18:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You're the little spirit and you're going to reconnect with the great spirit.
18:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the expression.
18:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The great spirit as opposed to the other names we have for God but it's less prejudices and expression.
18:50
[SPEAKER_02]: How's that?
18:50
[SPEAKER_02]: That wasn't a four hours, but it's a quick one.
18:52
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that was.
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: That was wonderful.
18:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was, you know, in so many of these conversations, we talked to musicians and artists about self-doubt or how the ambition and the writing, the ups and downs of careers.
19:08
[SPEAKER_00]: how that can inform how we feel about ourselves and how we go through life and we all know the tropes and the stories of addiction because we're at the whim of all of these highs and lows.
19:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm always curious and we're both just personally curious and
19:26
[SPEAKER_00]: interested in mindfulness and self-work and spirituality, groundedness, and what kind of tangible ways that help you navigate the ups and downs of the career and stay building self-worth and identity outside of whether you are succeeding or not in a public way for your music.
19:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, self-worth is incredibly important and when I say it wasn't the music business that kind of drove me to looking for something spiritually that was really who I was, that didn't mean that I didn't see the fork in the road when I was about 23 and I said this way, I'm gonna destroy myself, I'm gonna die and this way there's hope, there's a choice, a very close choice.
20:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've been sober since I was 23, which is pretty nice, you know, there are other ways of getting drunk if you like, you can get spiritually drunk, you can get ecstatic at other ways.
20:19
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't give you a hangover the next day, so there was definitely a choice and so many contemporaries in the music business didn't make you know, I'm very, very aware of that, the casualty rate is very high.
20:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's a tough lifestyle.
20:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to deal with so many things.
20:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to deal with the pressure of being successful.
20:37
[SPEAKER_02]: That can actually destroy people.
20:38
[SPEAKER_02]: The travel angle, the boredom, all these things can contribute to self-destruction, self-medication, anyway.
20:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the toughest, the toughest, so I'm so glad that I do have an overview that I can apply all the time.
20:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, it's a much situation that leads me to space to be a musician, to be creative.
20:57
[SPEAKER_02]: The other stuff receives, and so your relevance really.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey just a quick pause from this conversation.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: The other 22 hours is an independent production built entirely on the idea that he's quiet on his conversation's matter.
21:10
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21:22
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21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being here.
21:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get back to our conversation.
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to go back to, when you're talking about this practice and having little points of the day that bring you back to, in my own words, to presence to the moment, you know, in the day starts running and it's very busy and then you come and stop and it's the elasticity of time.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: is intriguing to me and also having those little points of awareness.
21:50
[SPEAKER_01]: My spiritual practice is definitely more meditation-based.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Both that had a big influence on me was peace in every step.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I take not haunt, which is talking about the little things that happen throughout our day, whether it's a church bell or somebody honking their horn or something that's in invitation back to the presence and being here.
22:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one thing to have a practice and a routine that you stay to while you're home.
22:11
[SPEAKER_01]: and then all of a sudden you're traveling in your touring, especially on an album cycle where maybe you're going to the radio in the morning, then you have an interview in the afternoon, then you have to go to soundtrack, and then you have a dinner with whatever team mate is in that town at that time, and then you have to show, and then after the show, how do you keep your practice going?
22:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're on the road, or have you just come to the acceptance of it's just a roller coaster and you ride it and you catch it where you can.
22:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever I do allows certain flexibility.
22:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you are traveling, then you can delay things.
22:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You can move things around it as necessary, really.
22:43
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's never a real problem, actually.
22:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You can always find that small space in the middle of the busiest times.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: It's different than what I feel like is so trendy right now.
22:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like wake up and cold plunge.
22:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And
22:57
[SPEAKER_00]: meditate for 20 minutes and journal for five pages and all these kind of things that are pretty difficult to sustain, especially if you have children or you have flights to catch or whatever.
23:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm curious about when it's like a, like you said, a more flexible, the tangible of your practice, is it just a reminder of yourself or are there kind of physical tangibles like sitting in stillness?
23:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I do a physical thing and I do a meditation thing as well.
23:24
[SPEAKER_02]: If you meditate, you will change as a human being.
23:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care what kind of meditation there is if it's TM or whatever.
23:30
[SPEAKER_02]: To meditate is to clear your mind out and be receptive to the universe.
23:35
[SPEAKER_02]: That changes people and you can...
23:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes, to spot the people who spend a little time treating themselves out, seeing them walking down the street and you think, okay, I recognize, I recognise some stillness in that person.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I see the same.
23:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an intentionality, I guess.
23:52
[SPEAKER_01]: When you have spent time and stillness, it is definitely something you can see in other people.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Michaela, when you were talking with like the trendy things happening now with like, you know, do this and do this and do this and you're doing all of these things with the initial intention to broadly free yourself, right, to be present, to be open, feel more alive and free, but then all of a sudden like you're a slave to this routine that is three and a half hours long that you need to get up at four in the morning and start to be able to start, you know, and then it becomes this point of stress rather than becoming this point of releasing of stress or metabolizing stress.
24:25
[SPEAKER_00]: and like tasks to do.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm someone who really struggles with maintaining any routine.
24:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I have been like, okay, I'm gonna do a morning routine.
24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I'm so like am I doing it?
24:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing it rather than like the point of it because you're trying to clear my mind.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, becomes another task and yet.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I also, when I have been in more of a practice of meditation, even if it's like lying in bed for five minutes before I get out of bed, even if it's like a guided meditation, which is the only type of meditation I've ever been able to really do, I see how that informs
25:04
[SPEAKER_00]: my whole day and my nervous system of I'm definitely like I've been described as like a chihuahua or like a dog chasing a ball like I have more of a high energy and I I noticed that that when I have moments where I can write in my journal for even two pages or meditate that all of a sudden I'm not frantically rushing for
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: through the entire day.
25:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I witness people who I know have a practice, there's like a self-position that I think you can gain when you're not then pulled in all these, oh, maybe I should go there, maybe I should do this, maybe I should be like this, maybe it, you know, I think you can gain that self-position when you take time to sit with yourself, clear your mind, connect with the overview, as you've said, which is really helpful.
25:52
[SPEAKER_02]: That sounds wonderful.
25:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, a minute of just meditating, minute five minutes.
25:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And it gives you a tool.
25:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a tool that you can just apply through the day.
26:00
[SPEAKER_02]: You just get that kind of overview of the importance of things and the unimportant things.
26:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, you could kill, I mean, it's just a joy to be with children anyways.
26:08
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a wonderful thing.
26:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And one day you'll get some sleep.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
26:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, much easier to accept that reality on a with a second trial actually it's like both these paths Yeah, you know the phases pass on wondering and I know Michaela has a practice like this like with the coming back in the overview and the slowing down Is that something that you do on the road like intentionally before going on stage?
26:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have like a pre-show Things yeah something that brings you to the moment and kind of collects yourself from wherever you've
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: been prior.
26:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, there's two things.
26:42
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a kind of mental thing and a physical thing.
26:44
[SPEAKER_02]: The mental thing, I think kicks in around 10 a.m. of a showday.
26:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And I picture that there's a paddock.
26:51
[SPEAKER_02]: You try to catch the horse in the paddock.
26:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you slowly work into a corner.
26:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Slowly, like, during the day, you just keep picturing that you're getting closer and closer.
27:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when it's showtime, you can hold the reins of the horse and you can get on the horse.
27:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of a mental thing.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: interesting.
27:07
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing I do is to get myself into my body.
27:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You can slap yourself.
27:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Very hard.
27:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, steps of all accessible points that you can.
27:16
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, yeah, it kind of is alive in shape.
27:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It wakes you up and you tingle a bit.
27:20
[SPEAKER_02]: But you feel absolutely present and in your body as opposed to closing just outside of it or something.
27:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You actually write there and you're ready to go.
27:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I find that really, really helpful.
27:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I love both of those things.
27:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That idea and image of the horse and the paddock is so great.
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was fully expecting you to be like, yeah, you know, some time after soundtrack is something that this building started the morning of.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such just like a gentle easing to that moment.
27:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just preparing, you know, a meanti for that thing.
27:48
[SPEAKER_02]: To get on the horse, you're leading the room in a sense.
27:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You're getting front of the audience, and they might be sitting in your wife's standing, but you're the kind of conduit through which the business kind of flog.
27:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But everybody in the room is in part of the experience.
27:59
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a certain density of molecules in the room.
28:02
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all these human beings in one place.
28:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you take this person out of the room, the energy would change a little bit, you know, shifts.
28:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But you're part of a whole thing.
28:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just a guy having to be singing, you're the wireless and the other receiver.
28:14
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the beautiful thing about it.
28:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the fact that you're communicating, where you're trying to communicate that these songs that you've written, that mean something to you, let's see if they mean something to other people as well, let's see if we really do communicate.
28:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are songs that don't communicate.
28:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Those songs that you think are just fantastic, but nobody else does.
28:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So you keep that one, you see that to yourself in the bath or something.
28:36
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll use who let you know if they get it.
28:38
[SPEAKER_02]: There's always the interesting time where you sing a song live for the first time.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And you look for the reaction to see if the song can be crossed.
28:46
[SPEAKER_02]: If you communicate it properly with the audience.
28:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes that's the only time you ever sing that song.
28:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you really ask your singing it.
28:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You realize, oh, you know, this doesn't work.
28:57
[SPEAKER_02]: That doesn't work.
28:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to change this.
28:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to change that you either go and change it and make it a better song or you never go back.
29:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So you just dump it right there and then I've had a few songs like that.
29:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you still like those songs though?
29:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing that, okay, I think this song is great, but it didn't land with this particular audience because you also aren't testing every single human being in the world, but what's your relationship to that song then?
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm always so curious about how we let reception and form our own feelings about our work versus, okay, it didn't connect with them, but
29:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It connects to me, so I get to keep it for myself and the song is still worthy.
29:39
[SPEAKER_00]: What's your feelings about that?
29:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think you either did it.
29:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You just say goodbye, this wasn't a great idea.
29:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Or you say, I believe in it song.
29:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I have faith in it song.
29:49
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a good song.
29:50
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't get it, they're wrong.
29:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to persevere with this song.
29:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to do something else without putting on a different kind of record.
29:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll do a choir version.
29:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll do something with it.
30:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But I believe in this song, even if people don't.
30:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And some songs like that, you do put out any way on another record.
30:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And people still don't like it.
30:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You'd know at that point that you've written a good song and after your dead people will say, I want to grace on that voice.
30:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that kind of rejection or criticism is also helpful information because like you said either you're like, well, I wasn't that attached to it anyway, so I'm going to get rid of it because
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: clearly I don't feel that strongly or they're rejecting it and I still feel really strongly about this and it's helpful information of that response even if it's painful of okay well maybe I want to rework this or this shows me how much I actually do care about this piece and that kind of framing is always helpful.
30:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you work with other musicians as well, they'll kind of let you know as well.
30:55
[SPEAKER_02]: If they think your songs are any good through their enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
31:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Only might tell you, if they're good enough friends, they'll tell you point blank.
31:05
[SPEAKER_02]: This isn't working or something.
31:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
31:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Or they might like subtle suggestions like, what are we just change that middle late then?
31:11
[SPEAKER_02]: If you feel pretty extra beats in there, just to give, you know, if you trust people that much, if you have people close enough to you,
31:21
[SPEAKER_00]: but also nobody knows.
31:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody just has opinions.
31:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I always think that Tom Petty documentary, they talk about how the heartbreakers, multiple members of the heartbreakers, didn't like free falling, and was said it was a bad song and he was like, one man put out solo.
31:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So nobody knows.
31:42
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a difficult position if you're a member of the heartbreak.
31:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you're employed by someone, do you say something?
31:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you just trust his judgment or whatever?
31:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you perform most songs before you record them?
31:57
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't perform myself.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I perform a few.
32:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe a half an hour I will perform before recording it because I want to keep some surprises for myself or much.
32:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to go into studio and say to other musicians, you know, it is a song how we're going to do it, what do you think?
32:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And there may be surprises for me in that process.
32:14
[SPEAKER_02]: There might be things that have been thought of, that might improve the song.
32:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So I tend to be a bit 50, 50 about it.
32:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this last up now, did I think we only performed three songs before, where hasn't come out yet, comes out next week, but we only would perform three songs live, acoustic versions of what became band songs.
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's okay.
32:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I sort of like the old days where Sergeant Pepper came out and nobody heard anything.
32:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It just like landing.
32:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
32:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, here it is.
32:40
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the whole thing.
32:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, you know, so you've blown away.
32:43
[SPEAKER_02]: You haven't heard any of it at all.
32:45
[SPEAKER_02]: and it just comes out and surprises the hell out of everybody.
32:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that idea, but marketing seems to have changed these days, so they do kind of release tracks out there.
32:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm afraid of big runway.
32:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, before the actual release day of an album, I've got two tracks out there now, and I think that's going to be it.
33:00
[SPEAKER_02]: They've got two, where they call singles.
33:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never seen those singles with that big, and they're going to be great.
33:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, I can also imagine you're referencing songs that are already recorded in part of the record, but I can also imagine now it is someone at your stature, if you're playing a song that you haven't even recorded yet, there's people in the audience that are filming the show taking video of the show and all of that.
33:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have the song that like,
33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: might be in your mind 85% done and you're trying to embody the song and feel it in the room feel What it feels like the reform to see if it's there and you have people that are posting it on the internet Like here's this new Richard Thompson saw that shirt.
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this takes away from the surprise This is a problem.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm concerned
33:41
[SPEAKER_02]: but nothing I can do about it.
33:42
[SPEAKER_02]: People will film.
33:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of discourage people about being on their phones during a show.
33:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd rather that they were pristened in the room rather than an anti-clever.
33:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Look what I've recorded.
33:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Do people go home and watch those again?
33:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I know people that film are shows, but I don't know people that's then then people who are sitting in their couch and watch it back.
34:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think some people do put it on the internet, but it's, yeah.
34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's up front of it.
34:06
[SPEAKER_01]: time back into what you're saying about the energy in the room, that's the matching about live music to me.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it exists only in that moment between the reformer and the audience?
34:16
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter how much you watch, rewatch a video or see a performance, it's not the same.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: As being there in that moment, it's like I want to say incidental art, but
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying like you can have a great performer in a bad audience and the show isn't great and you can have a bad performer in a great audience and the show isn't great Both people need to show up in their role and then be there and hold up their side of the agreement for it to be a it always feels like levitation when the show is there and the audience is there Yeah, they said you had to be there to be there
34:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
34:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
34:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
34:46
[SPEAKER_02]: We are fortunate we have a whole history of recorded music anyway.
34:49
[SPEAKER_02]: You could listen to stuff from so our 1890s.
34:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
34:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a fantastic, two amazing database to be able to access.
34:57
[SPEAKER_02]: But baby, if you've got a show, you should just kind of go to a show because it really has a transaction.
35:01
[SPEAKER_02]: People play music and you're listening to music.
35:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You're receiving music.
35:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It can be a really beautiful thing.
35:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can walk out of a theatre or a club or wherever.
35:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Feeling changed, feeling different.
35:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:12
[SPEAKER_00]: definitely.
35:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I think all the time about the different shows that have stuck with me for various reasons and that I don't have any record of them on my phone, but I'll live with that emotion of that experience forever.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Just for whatever reason, the performance was magical, the shape of the room, the space here and all of it informs the experience, I think.
35:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, lingers is a feeling.
35:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, Richard, we like to be aware of the time that our guests give to us for these conversations much like we start with the same question we like to end with the same question of everybody and it's a choose your own adventure either or I would love to hear maybe it's something that somebody has said to you or something that you've
35:57
[SPEAKER_01]: read or absorbed along your journey that continues to keep you inspired and keep your cup full or something that you wish you knew at 16 years old when you were first starting and first, you know, making a career on your creativity.
36:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Too much of that stuff, too much of that stuff,
36:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I read it, I'm a quiet deal day by the English poet John Benjamin, he said, I don't think I'm any good.
36:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I did think I was good, I wouldn't be.
36:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I can go along with that, I think.
36:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of modest, but it isn't, you know, it's knowing your own worth being modest about it, but actually you're kind of both the same time.
36:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I like that.
36:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
36:34
[SPEAKER_00]: There's infert in there that you're always trying still, that you are working towards it.
36:39
[SPEAKER_02]: There's still things to learn.
36:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Rhythmica.
36:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, you know the subland.
36:43
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the other great thing about music is, if you're not learning, you're kind of dead.
36:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to be a student for you're a student of music.
36:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's always a sub-slan.
36:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It always a sub-slan.
36:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I had a conversation the other day with a new friend since we just moved to a new town and she's not a musician and so she was asking me about my life and she has kids too and we're talking about how I go on tour and I go away a bit and so Aaron often stays home with the kids and she was like, do you see a time in life where that would change?
37:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, you know, I don't
37:14
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I can't imagine not performing and she was like, as a musician, like, where does it all go?
37:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been thinking about that question.
37:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, well, you never stop because there's always more to explore and learn and process.
37:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You've never written enough songs or...
37:33
[SPEAKER_00]: played enough notes like then I think of all of these artists I love like yourself and we just saw Mary Goshe who's in her 60s and I mean there's certain aspects that you know might get old like the cycles but I'm like the music itself it never ends.
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where it goes forever.
37:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we hope so, yeah, forever.
37:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's the idea, anyway.
37:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah.
37:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go for that, I sounds good.
38:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Richard, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to sit with us.
38:04
[SPEAKER_02]: My pleasure, it's nice to virtually meet you, and I thank you so much for this, this is great.
38:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We know your time is valuable and we're greatly chose to spend this hour with us.
38:16
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38:19
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38:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're looking for a way to go to next, you can find curated playlists by topic on our YouTube channel or simply scroll back in the speed to find our conversations with Rogan Cash, New York Times bestselling author, Maggie Smith, Lucius, Jadey McPherson, and many others.
38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: This show is produced by me, Mary Shavervace, with Help from a Kala Ann.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And all the music he hears written, performed and produced by me as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Our show is edited and mixed by Leland Holden at Pod Punch and we are proud members of the Bluegrass situation podcast network.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you next time.