Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Sturgill Simpson

Transcript

Sturgill Simpson · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Kentucky singer songwriter Sturgil Simpson is used to doing
0:17
Speaker 1: what he wants one he wants, at least until contracting
0:21
Speaker 1: COVID in early March sidelined him. After a rough month
0:24
Speaker 1: long battle with the virus, Sturgil was itching to get
0:27
Speaker 1: back into the studio, so in October he released a
0:30
Speaker 1: surprise bluegrass album that masterfully reworks his back catalog, called
0:35
Speaker 1: Cut and Grass Volume One. Sturgel was in his mid
0:39
Speaker 1: thirties when he found fame as a country artist in Nashville.
0:42
Speaker 1: He had already lived at full life, including the stint
0:45
Speaker 1: in the Navy and years spent working in Salt Lake
0:47
Speaker 1: City rail yards. His outsider status in Nashville only boosted
0:51
Speaker 1: his outlaw peel, but as time passed, Sturgil began to
0:55
Speaker 1: despise the relentless expectations of the major label system. So
0:59
Speaker 1: in true fashion, Sturgil has now taken back control of
1:03
Speaker 1: his career and returned to his independent roots. In this
1:07
Speaker 1: interview with Rick Rubin, Sturgel explains why is bluegrass album
1:10
Speaker 1: is the purest expression of his work, why it bothers
1:13
Speaker 1: him that people often overlook the stories and the songs,
1:16
Speaker 1: and why being classified as a country star has been
1:19
Speaker 1: perhaps the biggest detriment to his career. This is broken
1:26
Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmondon.
1:34
Speaker 1: Here's Rick Rubin and Sturgill Simpson. What's happening in Maine?
1:38
Speaker 1: Oh no much man. Sunday morning is a donut day
1:42
Speaker 1: around these parts. So for the kids, So let's my
1:45
Speaker 1: daddy's day to get up early and go handle breakfast
1:48
Speaker 1: and all that from is donuts only on Sundays. Oh yeah,
1:51
Speaker 1: only on Sundays and only for the kids. I don't
1:53
Speaker 1: I don't touch those shit. So what's your what's your diet? Like? Overall?
1:57
Speaker 1: Mostly I just try to monitor blood pressure. Ever since
1:59
Speaker 1: the it's nothing that's gonna like cause a lot of
2:02
Speaker 1: cholesterol and things like that. Blood pressure or blood oxygen.
2:05
Speaker 1: Blood pressure? Really, how did COVID affect your blood pressure? Uh?
2:11
Speaker 1: The early onset, everything was just insanely high. When I
2:14
Speaker 1: went to the hospital. My initial reading when I checked
2:18
Speaker 1: into that R was like one eighty seven over one
2:20
Speaker 1: sixty four, about to stroke out like an old man.
2:23
Speaker 1: So is that a normal COVID? I hadn't heard that
2:26
Speaker 1: one before, you know, I'm not sure. I Honestly, I
2:30
Speaker 1: was pretty obsessive about it for a couple of months
2:32
Speaker 1: after I had it, and then now I feel like
2:34
Speaker 1: I have superpowers, but so I've gotten kind of lazy.
2:37
Speaker 1: I don't know where the preliminary studies are coming out,
2:39
Speaker 1: but I mean, septems are sort of all over the place.
2:42
Speaker 1: For me, it was just this really intense frontal lobe
2:44
Speaker 1: headache and some severe chest tightness, which is what led
2:48
Speaker 1: me to have her take me in. Yeah, did you
2:51
Speaker 1: did you know people who had it before you had it? No? Man.
2:54
Speaker 1: We we played the last show of our tour on
2:57
Speaker 1: March tenth and Charleston, South Carolina, and it was only
3:02
Speaker 1: that day that there was any type of mainstream media awareness,
3:06
Speaker 1: where like when all the panic buttons started going off
3:09
Speaker 1: and we were all just sort of like, WHOA, there's
3:11
Speaker 1: a lot of people back here, you know. So the
3:13
Speaker 1: next day we had off. We're supposed to be heading
3:16
Speaker 1: to I think Virginia or Philly for some shows that weekend,
3:19
Speaker 1: and my wife and I were still in Charleston. I
3:21
Speaker 1: was just like, man, I don't feel right, Like I
3:23
Speaker 1: was just physically just I don't know how to even
3:26
Speaker 1: describe it. Man, it was so the most intense fatigue
3:29
Speaker 1: I felt in a long time. And you know this job,
3:33
Speaker 1: if there's one thing that you become accustomed to, it's fatigue.
3:36
Speaker 1: But this was something different. So and then that that
3:39
Speaker 1: day I just told her. I was like, I don't think.
3:41
Speaker 1: I think I need to go home and rest, like
3:42
Speaker 1: something's not right. I can't breathe, and all the inner
3:49
Speaker 1: voices like I probably got this shit in Europe, like
3:51
Speaker 1: here we go. And then the next morning I was
3:54
Speaker 1: in the hospital, so wow, and how long we in
3:56
Speaker 1: the hospital for? Oh? I was just there for about
3:58
Speaker 1: six or seven hours. They would and well, they wouldn't
4:01
Speaker 1: even test me. And then the doctors spent about forty
4:03
Speaker 1: minutes sitting on my bed with his mask off, telling
4:07
Speaker 1: me all the reasons why I couldn't possibly have contracted
4:09
Speaker 1: and it wasn't Europe at that time, and it was
4:11
Speaker 1: so rare and all the stuff we now know to
4:13
Speaker 1: be completely false, and not to complain, there's a whole
4:16
Speaker 1: lot of people in a hell of a lot worse
4:17
Speaker 1: shape than I was. But so how did you know
4:19
Speaker 1: you had it if they wouldn't test you? Just what
4:22
Speaker 1: they were saying about symptoms, And it felt like I
4:25
Speaker 1: had a ratchet strap going on around my chest, and
4:28
Speaker 1: my wife had been really fatigued and tired too, And
4:32
Speaker 1: that initial onset only lasted for a couple of days.
4:36
Speaker 1: Those those symptoms all sort of evaporated as fast as
4:39
Speaker 1: they came on, and then I was just really tired
4:41
Speaker 1: for about two or three weeks. I felt just you know,
4:44
Speaker 1: took like two naps a day, which is very unlike me.
4:46
Speaker 1: What made it better? Because you didn't take any therapeutic drugs? Actually, yeah,
4:52
Speaker 1: my booking agent JL brought me a big old cornucopia
4:55
Speaker 1: basket of like holistic medicines and vitamins and a lot
5:00
Speaker 1: of a lot of you know, detoxifants and stuff. I
5:03
Speaker 1: was just drinking tea, a lot, a lot of water,
5:05
Speaker 1: and plus we live out we're pretty secluded. I probably
5:08
Speaker 1: overshot it on the solution, to be honest, and so
5:12
Speaker 1: just to eating a lot of vegetables and trying to
5:15
Speaker 1: be healthier and going for walks and uh. And then
5:18
Speaker 1: I think it was around March twelfth or thirteenth thousand
5:22
Speaker 1: in hospital and we didn't actually get tested until the first,
5:25
Speaker 1: very very early April, and I was still still detected
5:28
Speaker 1: like positive. Wow result so I must have had a
5:31
Speaker 1: really large viral load or exposure. I guess for it too.
5:34
Speaker 1: I'll stick around that long. I don't know. And do
5:36
Speaker 1: you have any um, like, do you have asthma or
5:38
Speaker 1: any Uh? No, no, allergic to anything. No, my lungs
5:42
Speaker 1: are huge, man, I got like big fat swimmer lungs.
5:46
Speaker 1: So the whole tour, you know, we played nine or
5:48
Speaker 1: ten shows I can't remember, and like something wasn't right.
5:51
Speaker 1: I remember vividly knowing I just couldn't get a real
5:56
Speaker 1: deep inhale on stage. And I've lost like twenty pounds
5:58
Speaker 1: before the tour. I was really making a conscious of
6:00
Speaker 1: it to be healthy, and I was living cleaner. I
6:02
Speaker 1: stopped smoking pot and all that shit, you know, and
6:05
Speaker 1: and just every night I was like, what is it? God,
6:08
Speaker 1: I'm old, Like this is middle age. It's here now.
6:10
Speaker 1: You know something's going on. But I guess it was
6:14
Speaker 1: just slowly metabolizing through my system. But you you essentially
6:19
Speaker 1: beat it with no Western medicine. You're saying, yeah, I'm
6:23
Speaker 1: just healthy. It was, you know, I mean it sucked.
6:25
Speaker 1: I've definitely never woken up in my entire life and
6:27
Speaker 1: said I need to go to the emergency room. Yeah,
6:30
Speaker 1: and this was like something's very not right here, and yeah,
6:34
Speaker 1: and then it went away. And then you know, some
6:36
Speaker 1: friends like Prime passed away that was pretty close after.
6:41
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, It's it's so funny to me
6:43
Speaker 1: that you see all the denial and people just falling
6:48
Speaker 1: at fear, moo, hungering or whatever. We were here renting
6:50
Speaker 1: a house on the East coast, and the guy we
6:53
Speaker 1: were renting from he got it, was in the hospital
6:55
Speaker 1: for a while, like the handyman who I would constantly
6:58
Speaker 1: have to ask him to mask up, tell me come
7:00
Speaker 1: over in the lard. We kind of look at me laugh.
7:02
Speaker 1: He was in the hospital for two weeks just recently,
7:05
Speaker 1: so you know he's not laughing now. But it's it's
7:07
Speaker 1: some real shit, man. Absolutely, Man, I'm so glad you're
7:11
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're over it. It's like I said, now,
7:14
Speaker 1: it's I feel strangely sort of rejuvenated. I haven't felt
7:17
Speaker 1: I'm probably just from being off and having rest for
7:20
Speaker 1: the first time eight years, but I feel pretty great
7:22
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, tell me about Kentucky. You grew up
7:25
Speaker 1: in Kentucky. What's it like growing up there? And again,
7:29
Speaker 1: I'm really asking how to ignorance. I know very little.
7:31
Speaker 1: In some ways not at all what most people probably think,
7:34
Speaker 1: and in a lot of ways exactly like that. Kentucky's
7:37
Speaker 1: a weird state. Depending on what corner or region you're in,
7:41
Speaker 1: you might as well be in different worlds. I'm originally
7:44
Speaker 1: from southeastern Kentucky or the Appalachian region, so um, you know,
7:49
Speaker 1: we used to be coal mining, strip mining country, bluegrass country.
7:53
Speaker 1: And then my dad had a he was a state trooper,
7:56
Speaker 1: kind of ran the gamut of that career, and I
7:58
Speaker 1: think when when I was young, he was doing some
8:01
Speaker 1: more sketchy kind of work that put a lot of
8:05
Speaker 1: stress on my mom in their marriage when I was
8:08
Speaker 1: a young kid. So I think we ended up moving.
8:10
Speaker 1: He took a transfer and got out of doing that stuff,
8:12
Speaker 1: and we ended it moving up to central Kentucky, eventually
8:17
Speaker 1: settling in a little town, Versailles, the locals called Sales.
8:22
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, it's a good place to grow up.
8:24
Speaker 1: But I do remember always feeling the wanderlust, you know,
8:30
Speaker 1: So I left. I left for boot camp and the Navy.
8:33
Speaker 1: I don't a week and a half, two weeks after
8:34
Speaker 1: I graduated high school, just ready to go and get out,
8:37
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, what was the music in the house
8:40
Speaker 1: that he grew up in, Like in the house I
8:43
Speaker 1: grew up, and my mom would listen to a lot
8:45
Speaker 1: of motown like Rod Stewart and stuff like that. And
8:49
Speaker 1: then she had she still had her old forty five
8:51
Speaker 1: when she was a teenager. And then my grandmother had
8:54
Speaker 1: she had one of those old you know, the furniture
8:56
Speaker 1: type record players had the built in speakers and he'd
8:59
Speaker 1: flip the list, had to reach down in and my
9:01
Speaker 1: grandmother just had a ton of old soul music and
9:04
Speaker 1: that's what she listened to. So those were probably the
9:06
Speaker 1: first records I was exposed to. And then CCR and
9:11
Speaker 1: I think the first song I learned how to play
9:13
Speaker 1: on guitar was probably Sunshine of Your Love. How old
9:16
Speaker 1: were you then? Probably was second grade? So I got
9:21
Speaker 1: my first guitar around second or third grade. And I
9:24
Speaker 1: remember why, I was like Nickelodeon was really big back then,
9:27
Speaker 1: you know, so I remember I was I watched the
9:29
Speaker 1: Monkeys when I was a little kid on TV. So honestly,
9:32
Speaker 1: those songs I had all those records, those songs which
9:35
Speaker 1: we now know were like Nielsen and Neil Neil Diamond Tunes,
9:39
Speaker 1: so you know, they're getting that melodic chop burned into
9:41
Speaker 1: your brain at a young age. And then an older
9:44
Speaker 1: cousin and also older next to her neighbor. Both of
9:47
Speaker 1: them were teenagers when I was in like i'd say,
9:50
Speaker 1: fifth grade, and they both corrupted me pretty good and proper.
9:53
Speaker 1: I mean, I was exposed to Appetite for Destruction and
9:57
Speaker 1: I don't know Man Hendricks and the whole Zeppelin box
10:00
Speaker 1: that found it all like probably I used to stay
10:03
Speaker 1: way too young, but now, I mean I responded immediately,
10:05
Speaker 1: so I guess it was right on time. You know,
10:08
Speaker 1: when you were a kid and you'd hear Jimmy Hendrix
10:11
Speaker 1: and you'd hear Appetite for Destruction, did it all seemed
10:14
Speaker 1: like it was music from the past? Or was it
10:18
Speaker 1: clear when something was more current and something was from
10:20
Speaker 1: the more distant past. I definitely think it was clear
10:25
Speaker 1: when things were more from a different era or just
10:28
Speaker 1: the way I remember like the sound of it, you know,
10:30
Speaker 1: it just sounded lived in and cooler. And but now,
10:36
Speaker 1: you know, appetite even that sonically to a fourth or
10:40
Speaker 1: fifth grader because at the time MTV was probably playing
10:43
Speaker 1: god knows what Poison and def Leopard videos add nauseum
10:48
Speaker 1: over and over. But I remember vividly seeing that video
10:51
Speaker 1: for Welcome to the Jungle come on because we were
10:53
Speaker 1: living in this apartment one summer and I couldn't go
10:56
Speaker 1: outside a mom and dad worked all day. I had
10:57
Speaker 1: to stay inside, and uh, I was so young, I
11:01
Speaker 1: couldn't really do much. So I was just sitting watch
11:02
Speaker 1: MTV all day and that video came on, man, and
11:05
Speaker 1: it was like you could just feel the danger, you
11:07
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I was just like, oh shit,
11:09
Speaker 1: this is this is something entirely different, like this is real,
11:12
Speaker 1: you know. I remember, I remember that being so clear,
11:15
Speaker 1: like I gotta know everything about this, you know. And
11:19
Speaker 1: and then later on that year, I guess I hadn't
11:22
Speaker 1: really heard the record yet. And we had an older
11:24
Speaker 1: My next door neighbor was this older kid, Michael, and
11:27
Speaker 1: he had a navy blue Chevy Nova, and he'd like
11:29
Speaker 1: used to run away from home all the time, and shit,
11:31
Speaker 1: you know, he's a bad kid, and uh he was.
11:34
Speaker 1: He was basically woodson from from days and confused, and
11:38
Speaker 1: uh he pulled up one day just cranking that record
11:43
Speaker 1: in his car, and I was out. I was outside.
11:44
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I was doing, probably sitting
11:46
Speaker 1: on my button in grass and I heard it. I
11:47
Speaker 1: was just like, what is that man? And he and
11:49
Speaker 1: he was such a dick. He was just like, fuck,
11:51
Speaker 1: you've been kid in the caves, guns and roses man.
11:54
Speaker 1: And he gave me the cassette tape like he gave
11:57
Speaker 1: me the cassette and it still had had the original
11:59
Speaker 1: artwork in the middle with the robot jump in the
12:01
Speaker 1: fence and all that shit and men. I wore it out.
12:03
Speaker 1: My mom found it threw it away because she saw that,
12:06
Speaker 1: she saw the artwork and everything. I think I ended
12:08
Speaker 1: up buying like two more copies that ended up getting trashed.
12:11
Speaker 1: But that that record was a huge, a huge bomb
12:14
Speaker 1: going off for me. And then yeah, Cream Hendricks and
12:18
Speaker 1: then I had a big Clapton phase for a while.
12:21
Speaker 1: I got real into Clapton. I just like reading everything
12:24
Speaker 1: I could find about him, and then that takes you
12:26
Speaker 1: down these holes to you know, guys like Peter Green
12:29
Speaker 1: and all the John Male stuff, which which takes you
12:32
Speaker 1: back to the Chicago and Delta, and it was just
12:36
Speaker 1: this rabbit hole. Man. I was like a weird sixteen
12:38
Speaker 1: year old into a lot of shit that you know,
12:41
Speaker 1: it was probably nerdy, I guess looking back on it.
12:45
Speaker 1: Did you have many experiences of your mom taking away
12:47
Speaker 1: stuff and throwing it away? That record and the other
12:50
Speaker 1: one she pulled, she popped out of the tape deck
12:52
Speaker 1: and tossed out the car window. Once was Stepping Wolf
12:55
Speaker 1: when the Pusher came on, she was just like, no, sir,
12:59
Speaker 1: you know anything talking about pimping and pushing hose and
13:03
Speaker 1: selling drugs was probably nothing your mom. My mom once
13:05
Speaker 1: they're nine year old bumping too. My dad was a
13:08
Speaker 1: steak cop too, and he was probably the biggest supporter
13:11
Speaker 1: of it. He bought my first guitar and what was
13:14
Speaker 1: what was your dad's tasted music like rock and roll? Yeah, yeah,
13:18
Speaker 1: he took me. He took me to see Van Halen
13:20
Speaker 1: in like fourth or fifth grades, so it was always,
13:22
Speaker 1: you know, he liked a party. Do you ever go
13:25
Speaker 1: down rabbit holes of different kinds of music that you
13:27
Speaker 1: haven't listened to before? Absolutely? Yeah, I mean I think
13:30
Speaker 1: that's important. One year, one year to Blonde come out,
13:36
Speaker 1: that Frank Ocean record sixteen, maybe when Sailor's got I
13:40
Speaker 1: think it was around the same time A Sailors guy
13:41
Speaker 1: came out, and I was just I wanted to listen
13:44
Speaker 1: to something like so far away from anything that I
13:47
Speaker 1: did or understood. And I heard a song. A friend
13:50
Speaker 1: of mine play was listening to that and heard a
13:52
Speaker 1: song and I was just like, I remember being struck
13:55
Speaker 1: by the production values and the sounds, and I just
14:00
Speaker 1: was like, I have no idea what he's doing or
14:02
Speaker 1: how he made these noises, and that it really fascinated
14:05
Speaker 1: me to just stick my head in something that was
14:08
Speaker 1: so different than the tools that we use, you know.
14:12
Speaker 1: And I listened to that record for about a month straight.
14:15
Speaker 1: Must have been but yeah, a lot of hip hop, weirdly,
14:19
Speaker 1: maybe not. I don't know. One thing I never really
14:23
Speaker 1: got into, I guess was jazz other than the basics.
14:26
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I predict you will maybe it's coming.
14:31
Speaker 1: Yeah he'll billy jazz. But let's talk about bluegrass a
14:34
Speaker 1: little bit in general. I know almost nothing about it.
14:38
Speaker 1: Tell me about what do you know about bluegrass? You
14:41
Speaker 1: could start from the beginning. Well, okay, I got out
14:44
Speaker 1: of the navy. I know, I know more now, I've
14:48
Speaker 1: forgotten a lot. In my twenties, I was obsessed, like
14:51
Speaker 1: scoured the earth kind of shit. And when I was younger,
14:54
Speaker 1: my grandfather I wrote this little letter sent out with
14:56
Speaker 1: the record. He my paternal grandfather, was obsessed with it.
14:59
Speaker 1: It's he thought about, spent his entire later years going
15:03
Speaker 1: to festivals and it's always listened to. Oh to the
15:07
Speaker 1: point it would drive my mom crazy, and he would
15:09
Speaker 1: always trying to push it on me, you know, even
15:11
Speaker 1: like a real young age. But my palette wasn't ready, man,
15:14
Speaker 1: because it's it's very complex music. You know, it's always
15:17
Speaker 1: recorded or would you see people play it live? Mostly
15:21
Speaker 1: field recordings. And then he took me to a festival
15:23
Speaker 1: one year out the horse Park and it was like
15:26
Speaker 1: that was that I do remember vividly feeling like I
15:28
Speaker 1: was watching magic because these guys were like dancing around
15:31
Speaker 1: the mic. It was old school, you know, it's still
15:33
Speaker 1: early eighties. And then in Jackson, where I'm from, every
15:37
Speaker 1: Labor Day they had this a festival in the city
15:39
Speaker 1: called the Honey Festival, and on Friday nights, I think
15:42
Speaker 1: they have rock bands, and on Saturday night it was
15:44
Speaker 1: bluegrass and all the old timers. I mean, dude, it
15:47
Speaker 1: was like something right out of a time where these
15:50
Speaker 1: guys would come down from the Hollers and the Hills,
15:52
Speaker 1: like in their start shirts and overalls and dances this
15:54
Speaker 1: ship and it was like probably the last of that stuff,
15:59
Speaker 1: you know, time capsule kind of thing, but those images
16:02
Speaker 1: are burned into my head and so that was really
16:05
Speaker 1: the early exposure. But then it wasn't until I got
16:08
Speaker 1: out of the military. I'd gotten off some pretty pretty
16:12
Speaker 1: heavy drugs. I was kind of floating pretty hard for
16:15
Speaker 1: about a year and I got home. I was clean.
16:17
Speaker 1: I was just like dealing with all that, like the
16:20
Speaker 1: shame spiral and everything, and like trying to figure out
16:22
Speaker 1: my mom would remarried. Nothing, everything was just uplifted. You
16:27
Speaker 1: went into the military just to escape escape home, but well, yeah,
16:31
Speaker 1: escape home. And also I kind of got in some trouble.
16:34
Speaker 1: I got really lucky, but I got in some trouble
16:36
Speaker 1: my senior year of high school, just doing shit I
16:39
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been. And it was sort of like a
16:41
Speaker 1: wake up call. What was the experience? Your service experience?
16:45
Speaker 1: Like what it was peacetime for starters, And I was
16:49
Speaker 1: stationed overseas, the majority of it in Asia, Southeast Asia,
16:53
Speaker 1: and we'd go a lot of places I would have
16:55
Speaker 1: never seen otherwise. And it turned into some songs later
16:58
Speaker 1: on in life, thankfully. But you know, a lot of
17:00
Speaker 1: a lot of experiences that were eye opening, a lot
17:04
Speaker 1: of expensive experiences that were probably things I could have
17:08
Speaker 1: done without. Things I wish I hadn't seen older dudes
17:11
Speaker 1: I hadn't. I wish I hadn't been exposed to, you know,
17:13
Speaker 1: sailors in life. That comes with that, and you just
17:17
Speaker 1: hard to wash a lot of that shit off man um.
17:20
Speaker 1: But then a lot of a lot of most a
17:23
Speaker 1: lot of drinking and partying, to be honest with you,
17:26
Speaker 1: and and uh, a lot of girls. That kind of thing,
17:30
Speaker 1: like what you do when you're stuck in this like tyrannical,
17:33
Speaker 1: oppressive environment with lots of sharp corners and gray paint,
17:37
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like as an artist, it
17:39
Speaker 1: was like the fuck have I done? You know, and
17:42
Speaker 1: you're you're stuck. We'd go out to see sometimes like
17:44
Speaker 1: ninety one hundred and eight days, you know, so like
17:48
Speaker 1: it's basically prison. I mean, you're basically in prison eating
17:51
Speaker 1: better food maybe, I don't know. So I got out
17:54
Speaker 1: and I was just ready to I was ready to
17:56
Speaker 1: not be that anymore, and I went a little too
17:58
Speaker 1: buck wild. How long were you in for long enough
18:02
Speaker 1: about three years. Yeah, And it's like I said, I
18:06
Speaker 1: just sort of burned it at both ends. And I
18:08
Speaker 1: came home and I was really lost, man, I was
18:10
Speaker 1: really lost and probably severely depressed, and serotonin levels were
18:14
Speaker 1: still finding their way home and that kind of ship.
18:16
Speaker 1: And was driving down a row one day and I
18:18
Speaker 1: heard it was a Monroe Brothers song, and I want
18:22
Speaker 1: to I'm trying to remember what the song was. It
18:24
Speaker 1: wasn't something as easy as it was, like a deep cut,
18:27
Speaker 1: probably long journey home or something, man, and I had
18:29
Speaker 1: to pull the chuck over. I was just like the tears,
18:32
Speaker 1: just it just it slam me in the chest. But everything,
18:35
Speaker 1: like whatever it was, was extremely visceral connection, an emotional
18:41
Speaker 1: reaction to that music. And then for the next i'd
18:45
Speaker 1: say seven or eight years, I don't give a fuck
18:47
Speaker 1: about anything else. Was it in the song itself or
18:51
Speaker 1: were you reconnecting to something from childhood by hearing it.
18:54
Speaker 1: It was the inflection of their voices, It was the lyric,
18:57
Speaker 1: the underlying like there I say, religious themes with like
19:01
Speaker 1: pain and lament and sorrow. But mostly man, it was
19:04
Speaker 1: just the voice, the voices and the music and the
19:07
Speaker 1: notes it took me back to like just childhood memories
19:11
Speaker 1: and like funerals and these things that you can't really
19:14
Speaker 1: put a finger on, but I knew like this is,
19:16
Speaker 1: this is where I'm from. We'll be right back with
19:19
Speaker 1: more Rick's conversation with Sturgil After a quick break, we're
19:27
Speaker 1: back with Rick Rubin and Sturgil Simpson. Let's talk about
19:30
Speaker 1: the Sailor's album a little bit. It's it's very different
19:34
Speaker 1: than what came before. How about how does it happen?
19:38
Speaker 1: I mean that one, I think more than any record
19:41
Speaker 1: of me I probably heard in my head or in
19:44
Speaker 1: terms of the blueprint before we went in what I
19:46
Speaker 1: wanted to do and what I wanted to incorporate. I
19:48
Speaker 1: was listening to a lot of Marvin Gay, a lot
19:50
Speaker 1: of Memphis Elva stuff at the time and wanted to,
19:54
Speaker 1: you know, meta modern. Was just me and the three
19:57
Speaker 1: other guys in the room. Once we set the mics
19:59
Speaker 1: up record, we didn't really move or change anything. It
20:02
Speaker 1: was It wasn't so the songs has all kind of
20:05
Speaker 1: been carved out live on the road and this three
20:07
Speaker 1: month tour prior to us going in and banging that
20:10
Speaker 1: record out, and so I knew I didn't want to
20:13
Speaker 1: do something that stripped down and raw again for starters.
20:15
Speaker 1: And then two I was was my first label record,
20:20
Speaker 1: and the only reason I really signed with the label
20:22
Speaker 1: was for a larger recording budget. So I was like, well,
20:25
Speaker 1: you know, I don't really want to make a ten
20:27
Speaker 1: thousand dollar album because that's that's not what we're doing here.
20:30
Speaker 1: So and you have that toolbox now available and opened
20:34
Speaker 1: up to you, and I just kind of went all
20:35
Speaker 1: in on it, man, and wanted to make this really
20:38
Speaker 1: lush and cinematic sort of soundscape to accompany the story
20:43
Speaker 1: of the album. And some of it was notes. Some
20:45
Speaker 1: of like I told you, man, I had like probably
20:47
Speaker 1: four songs, five songs, and then we got in the
20:50
Speaker 1: studio and I had little pieces and things that there
20:53
Speaker 1: was nothing for me to play for the band, so
20:55
Speaker 1: they could chart out form and sit there and do
20:58
Speaker 1: the things. It was kind of like nobody really knew
21:00
Speaker 1: what was happening but me too much to Ferg's dismay
21:05
Speaker 1: some days, and but it all came together pretty pretty fast,
21:11
Speaker 1: I think four four or five days maybe, And so
21:14
Speaker 1: you did the basic tracks with the band and then
21:16
Speaker 1: all of the orchestration happened after. Yeah, we overdubbed the
21:20
Speaker 1: strings and the horns later, but those were in your
21:23
Speaker 1: original vision for the songs. Those were always there. Some
21:27
Speaker 1: yes and no, but it was I think there was.
21:30
Speaker 1: There was definitely a moment once with that first three
21:33
Speaker 1: days of tracking, and I just looked at furg and
21:35
Speaker 1: I was like, we gotta do a cox this ship. Man.
21:37
Speaker 1: I was like, we gotta get we gotta get strings.
21:39
Speaker 1: I want to hear horns. He was. He just kind
21:40
Speaker 1: of set there, smoker a cigarette. He's like yeah, and
21:43
Speaker 1: then you know, so we went up to New York
21:46
Speaker 1: for a couple of days and recorded the Dap Kings
21:48
Speaker 1: and the and the String Quartet there at the Atlantic Studios. Yeah,
21:52
Speaker 1: and then that's when I finally heard it, you know
21:54
Speaker 1: what I mean. I was just like, Okay, there it is.
21:56
Speaker 1: It's such a surprise coming from the first two records.
21:59
Speaker 1: You know, it's like it's a total departure, but for me,
22:03
Speaker 1: not so much. I felt like getting away from other
22:06
Speaker 1: influences or maybe agendas. I was finally able to make
22:10
Speaker 1: the music I'd actually been influenced by and listening to
22:13
Speaker 1: as a kid growing up, which was more soul and
22:17
Speaker 1: rock and roll and things more so than like Hank
22:19
Speaker 1: Junior or Waylon Jennings, you know, whereas you moved to
22:23
Speaker 1: Nashville and I just had all these country songs, and
22:25
Speaker 1: I guess just not norm where to start. Well, this
22:28
Speaker 1: is what you do now, You make like these hard
22:29
Speaker 1: country records. And I love that music too, but I
22:32
Speaker 1: don't really hear a lot of my voice, especially on
22:35
Speaker 1: that first one, met a modern more so because like
22:38
Speaker 1: I said, we worked it out on the road and
22:40
Speaker 1: Dave did a good job on the console and Mike
22:43
Speaker 1: choices and stuff like that. But Sailor's Guide was honestly
22:47
Speaker 1: for me, I guess stretching my legs a little bit
22:50
Speaker 1: more for the first time and talk about the new
22:53
Speaker 1: one a little bit. The grass was there was zero
22:58
Speaker 1: planning on that one. That was definitely okay. Well, I've
23:02
Speaker 1: always wanted to make a bluegrass record. Now I have
23:04
Speaker 1: the time. I'm not going on a tour anytime in
23:06
Speaker 1: the next two or three years. So I was feeling better.
23:10
Speaker 1: I think I was mostly just excited that I was
23:13
Speaker 1: finally feeling good. By June early June, and I called
23:17
Speaker 1: furg up and I was like, man, I've always wanted
23:19
Speaker 1: to do this. We did this big fundraiser thing online
23:22
Speaker 1: because I had this We've been on Instagram for maybe
23:25
Speaker 1: a month or two, and then just everything hit the fan.
23:28
Speaker 1: We had incorporated some charity stuff into the tour with
23:31
Speaker 1: the ticket sales, and I was just trying to figure
23:34
Speaker 1: out a way to continue that and actually hold through
23:36
Speaker 1: on that promise. So and then it turned in, you know,
23:38
Speaker 1: there's a big tornado in Nashville and all the COVID shit,
23:42
Speaker 1: and we just we were like, well, we could raise
23:43
Speaker 1: some money from music cares because everybody's out of work now,
23:46
Speaker 1: and the fans totally blew it out of the water. Man,
23:49
Speaker 1: I don't know what I expected all and all, we
23:51
Speaker 1: raised about a half million dollars a thing, so amazing.
23:55
Speaker 1: I was just like, well, I gotta put a record
23:57
Speaker 1: out now, because I promised him I would. So I
24:02
Speaker 1: also knew I was about to have at least the
24:04
Speaker 1: rest of this year off. Yeah, and I knew I
24:08
Speaker 1: wanted to spend a lot of time folks and on
24:10
Speaker 1: my kids and home things that had sort of slipped
24:13
Speaker 1: through the cracks because of the work. And I didn't
24:16
Speaker 1: want to sit around the next six months thinking about
24:18
Speaker 1: what that next thing would be. So I just said,
24:20
Speaker 1: fuck it, let's just do the next thing now and
24:23
Speaker 1: get it in the can. And then it was I'm
24:25
Speaker 1: glad I did it because now I've just been fishing
24:27
Speaker 1: and changing diapers for the last couple of months while
24:30
Speaker 1: we set up putting this thing out. It's great, though,
24:34
Speaker 1: I really love it. Had you ever looked at the
24:37
Speaker 1: songs through the filter of bluegrass before making the record, well,
24:42
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, they were all written on a D
24:44
Speaker 1: twenty eight, probably sung on played a little too fast,
24:47
Speaker 1: just because that's where my natural I have a tendency
24:49
Speaker 1: to push things a little bit ahead, like most blue
24:53
Speaker 1: grass pickers, and so when you make country records, you
24:56
Speaker 1: basically just slow everything down. I could put some form
24:58
Speaker 1: changes here and there to make it stretch out and phrases,
25:01
Speaker 1: but they were all I mean, no bullshit, man. I'd
25:04
Speaker 1: say eighty percent of them were written as more as
25:08
Speaker 1: bluegrass songs than anything. So so these renditions of the
25:11
Speaker 1: songs are closer to how they were originally written, yeah,
25:15
Speaker 1: before they became country. They're written closer to who I
25:18
Speaker 1: am more naturally, that's my voice and my instrument and
25:23
Speaker 1: like I saved, like if I had to express myself
25:26
Speaker 1: in a medium as truly as possible, this would be it. Yeah,
25:30
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that came away from listening
25:32
Speaker 1: to it was the lyrics. Now, even though I've heard
25:37
Speaker 1: these songs before, there's something about hearing lyrics when there's
25:42
Speaker 1: not drumming going on that they hit me in a
25:46
Speaker 1: different way. You understand them in a different way. Generals,
25:53
Speaker 1: it feels like this this album really is the storytelling
25:57
Speaker 1: version of the story of these songs, where it's really
26:01
Speaker 1: about the lyrics. Thanks man. It's always been something I've
26:05
Speaker 1: never said anything about it, but it has always sort
26:07
Speaker 1: of bothered me that the last six or seven years,
26:10
Speaker 1: I put these records out and I'm writing all the songs,
26:12
Speaker 1: and anybody talks about is my voice or the production
26:15
Speaker 1: or the instruments, But it's like they're missing the story. Yeah,
26:19
Speaker 1: and even some of the fans aren't really listening, or
26:23
Speaker 1: at least some of the fans I used to have,
26:24
Speaker 1: because they've kind of fallen off now that they figured
26:26
Speaker 1: out more who I am. So it's been it's all
26:30
Speaker 1: just learning and growth, I think. But finally hearing these
26:34
Speaker 1: songs the way they were probably always intended to is
26:37
Speaker 1: very gratifying for me. Is it is it acceptable to
26:41
Speaker 1: do songs that are not in the cannon in the
26:43
Speaker 1: bluegrass style? I don't. I think anything is acceptable if
26:47
Speaker 1: you mean, I'm just asking the bluegrass community. I don't
26:50
Speaker 1: know anything about bluegrass. I mean, I was told like
26:54
Speaker 1: it was unacceptable to put horns on a country record,
26:56
Speaker 1: even though I grew up in my grandfather's car here
26:59
Speaker 1: and merl Agger do it, So I don't. I don't know, man.
27:01
Speaker 1: I guess it depends who you ask, based on their
27:04
Speaker 1: their criteria of what fits their identity that week. I
27:07
Speaker 1: don't know. I made what I thought to be a
27:10
Speaker 1: true bluegrass record with some songs that are probably country
27:14
Speaker 1: songs and also bluegrass songs. So yeah, I feel like
27:20
Speaker 1: it's got potential to turn more people onto bluegrass who
27:24
Speaker 1: might not already be into it. I feel like that's
27:26
Speaker 1: the real potential that's held in this world. That's the goal.
27:31
Speaker 1: I mean, I've always been trying to turn people on.
27:34
Speaker 1: We've went with earlier stuff, maybe to country music that
27:37
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily be into it, or to change their opinions
27:40
Speaker 1: of what it could be, and then it's been all
27:44
Speaker 1: this is weird to say, but having that word, that
27:47
Speaker 1: c word attached to my name as an artist has
27:50
Speaker 1: probably been more of a detriment to me in my
27:55
Speaker 1: career in terms of reaching my actual fan base than anything,
27:59
Speaker 1: because so many people well that don't listen to country music,
28:02
Speaker 1: they only know it by what they've been told the
28:05
Speaker 1: last twenty five years. To believe it is, you know,
28:08
Speaker 1: from watching awards shows on TV and stuff, or you know,
28:12
Speaker 1: I have no desire to sit here and talk shit
28:14
Speaker 1: about any of that crap but anymore. But it just
28:17
Speaker 1: is what it is, you know. Um So then you
28:20
Speaker 1: have to sort of point out, oh, we can also
28:22
Speaker 1: be this, you know. I don't know if artists would
28:24
Speaker 1: ever really give any of this stuff thought if they
28:28
Speaker 1: didn't have to sit down and answer questions when it
28:30
Speaker 1: was time to foot records about it. You know. I
28:32
Speaker 1: think sometimes it's interesting to think about though, Like I
28:35
Speaker 1: feel like we find clarity through through discussion if we
28:40
Speaker 1: think about things who wouldn't normally think about. And I
28:42
Speaker 1: don't know, I learned a lot through the conversations, you know. Well,
28:47
Speaker 1: you know, man, I'll tell you what, starting in this
28:50
Speaker 1: business at thirty five thirty six really actually taking a
28:53
Speaker 1: go at it trying to be a pro musician. I
28:56
Speaker 1: was damn near middle aged, unlike i'd say ninety five
29:01
Speaker 1: or even more percent of the people that start out
29:04
Speaker 1: at eighteen or nineteen, and this is all they ever know,
29:06
Speaker 1: you know. And I was so held bent at first
29:10
Speaker 1: on like I finally found something in my life to
29:13
Speaker 1: be ambitious about because we had a child on the way,
29:15
Speaker 1: and I knew, like, I have to make this work,
29:17
Speaker 1: it has to happen, it has to succeed. I gotta
29:20
Speaker 1: take care of my family. I want to have something
29:22
Speaker 1: I can look back on and know that like I
29:24
Speaker 1: didn't compromise whatsoever, and this is like, I did this
29:26
Speaker 1: the right way and it was very important to me
29:28
Speaker 1: and it still is. And then somewhere along the lines,
29:32
Speaker 1: you know, you get on the train and it's hard.
29:34
Speaker 1: I've always said, it's hard to tell how fast the
29:36
Speaker 1: train's going when you're on it. And next thing you know,
29:38
Speaker 1: you think, well, like you get in, you get sucked
29:40
Speaker 1: in or like manipulated in the music industry has a
29:43
Speaker 1: really scientifically applied methodology about making artists feel like if
29:48
Speaker 1: they don't keep treading water, they're gonna drown because everybody's
29:52
Speaker 1: got to keep generating their paychecks, you know what I mean.
29:54
Speaker 1: And if something's working, you want to keep working. So
29:57
Speaker 1: you just keep throwing fuel on the fire. And then
29:59
Speaker 1: next thing you know, you weigh up and you just
30:00
Speaker 1: completely burnt out, and you're like, how did this happen?
30:03
Speaker 1: Who was taking care of me to keep this from happening?
30:07
Speaker 1: And I realized that nobody was putting more pressure on
30:12
Speaker 1: me than I was. And I tell you two things again,
30:15
Speaker 1: there was two very distinct incidences that were wake up
30:19
Speaker 1: calls from me and very touchdown reminders. The first one
30:23
Speaker 1: was when I went to Merle Haggard's house for the
30:27
Speaker 1: very first time ever, and he I think Merle only
30:30
Speaker 1: won one Grammy in his career. And when you walked
30:34
Speaker 1: into the house, it was sitting on the floor used
30:37
Speaker 1: as a doorstopper to hold the screen door open, just
30:39
Speaker 1: scratched and be all to hell, And I was like,
30:42
Speaker 1: got it, you know what I mean? Yeah? And the
30:45
Speaker 1: second one was when Ferd when we came out to
30:50
Speaker 1: La to go to the awards, and when he took
30:53
Speaker 1: you came, he brought me to visit and meet you
30:56
Speaker 1: for the first time. And I can't Yeah, we were
30:58
Speaker 1: hanging out. We were there in the room that you're
31:00
Speaker 1: sitting in right now, and he asked you you got
31:04
Speaker 1: any records up for anything this year, Rick, And you said,
31:09
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I knew you weren't bullshitting, and
31:12
Speaker 1: I was like, that's it. I mean, that's it. Just
31:16
Speaker 1: just make art. Fuck the rest, you know. And and
31:20
Speaker 1: I've been trying to like commit and live in that
31:23
Speaker 1: headspace ever since, man, and just just block out all
31:26
Speaker 1: the trivial nous and the hedge of money. Yea of
31:30
Speaker 1: the system that makes us think we all have to
31:33
Speaker 1: end up on these lists every year, like standing at
31:35
Speaker 1: a podium giving little speeches because it doesn't have shit
31:39
Speaker 1: to do with anything about like connecting with human beings
31:42
Speaker 1: and making music. Yeah, there's so many distractions that can
31:47
Speaker 1: really get in the way and and putting the blinders
31:51
Speaker 1: on and focusing on making something that you love. That's
31:54
Speaker 1: all it's about. If you love it, it doesn't matter
31:57
Speaker 1: if anyone else likes it. And if you of it,
32:00
Speaker 1: there's a better chance someone else might like it because
32:03
Speaker 1: at least one person cares about it. You yeah, or
32:06
Speaker 1: it wasn't for that person, which is fine, but there's
32:10
Speaker 1: two or three other people out there that maybe everything
32:13
Speaker 1: I've done before wasn't for them, but this thing save
32:16
Speaker 1: their fucking life, you know, I don't know. It's hard
32:19
Speaker 1: to describe. How much do you take into consideration the
32:24
Speaker 1: audience in the making process when you're writing and when
32:27
Speaker 1: you're recording. Is it okay to say zero? Absolutely, that's
32:32
Speaker 1: the right answer. In the studio, I'm not thinking about
32:35
Speaker 1: how's this going to translate live? That's all. That's like
32:37
Speaker 1: a problem to worry about later, you know. It's really
32:40
Speaker 1: just it feel right? Does it sound right? Could this
32:43
Speaker 1: be better? Or is this gross enough? I don't know,
32:47
Speaker 1: Like these are thoughts that I have. More so, there
32:48
Speaker 1: are people are gonna like this. I think if you
32:51
Speaker 1: start thinking like that, you're gonna make some shitty records,
32:54
Speaker 1: for sure. Absolutely, That's that's why I asked a question.
32:57
Speaker 1: And so and there are so many artists who really
32:59
Speaker 1: do pollute their process thinking about the audience, and it
33:03
Speaker 1: really just undermines the whole, the whole enterpress. And you
33:07
Speaker 1: can hear that people just keep making the same records
33:09
Speaker 1: over and over. Then what are you What are you
33:11
Speaker 1: really chasing or serving? I guess, But well, the bluegrass thing. Honestly,
33:15
Speaker 1: this probably came more of That's what I was listening
33:19
Speaker 1: to me before we cut this. I was listening I
33:21
Speaker 1: love Van Morrison. Him and Marvin are probably my two
33:24
Speaker 1: favorite singers, and and I think I love Van Morrison
33:29
Speaker 1: even more because a lot of times it's hard for
33:31
Speaker 1: me to understand what he's saying. And that's a complaint
33:33
Speaker 1: that I get about my voice a lot. It's like
33:37
Speaker 1: the annunciation becomes far less important than the emotion behind
33:41
Speaker 1: the note, you know what I mean, Like you can
33:43
Speaker 1: just feel him squeezing and it's coming from all these
33:46
Speaker 1: different places as opposed to just like I am articulating now,
33:51
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But listening to a lot
33:53
Speaker 1: of his stuff, I feel like with the bluegrass record,
33:56
Speaker 1: I feel more in tune to that kind kind of
34:00
Speaker 1: thing right now, maybe more of like a hillbilly astral
34:03
Speaker 1: week sort of. That would be like my dream record
34:06
Speaker 1: to make. Sounds pretty good, It's what I'd like to hear. Yeah, man,
34:11
Speaker 1: It's it's weird because I was one on social media
34:15
Speaker 1: at all until this year, and I you know, I
34:17
Speaker 1: don't want to be like some definitely have no desire
34:21
Speaker 1: in like hiding behind a public persona or some crafted
34:25
Speaker 1: image to sell records. So I don't know how to.
34:27
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a detrimental at times, So I do engage
34:30
Speaker 1: with people even though people say not to. I mean,
34:33
Speaker 1: the fans are coming, they want to connect and know you,
34:36
Speaker 1: and I've realized that that platform is invaluable in the
34:40
Speaker 1: case you ever really wanted to represent yourself, as opposed
34:44
Speaker 1: to having go through the filter of the press or
34:46
Speaker 1: you know, a press release and hope that the narrative
34:49
Speaker 1: is what you intended it to be, where as opposed
34:52
Speaker 1: now like I could just I got a mic and
34:53
Speaker 1: a light in a computer. You're gonna line and say
34:55
Speaker 1: whatever I want. However I want to say it and
34:57
Speaker 1: it can't be twisted. So I think I'll always keep
35:00
Speaker 1: it for that if no other reason. But also like
35:03
Speaker 1: just seeing the love from people, man, and the really
35:07
Speaker 1: seeing the difference that music makes in people's lives, especially
35:11
Speaker 1: through shit like what's happening right now. It's been really
35:15
Speaker 1: motivating for me in a way, and sometimes the haters
35:18
Speaker 1: are the funniest part. Like you know, if you read
35:22
Speaker 1: that shit after a while, it truly doesn't mean anything anymore,
35:25
Speaker 1: and it's it almost. I told my wife like this summer,
35:29
Speaker 1: I would get on there and blast them back for
35:31
Speaker 1: like ten minutes fifteen minutes every day with my coffee.
35:33
Speaker 1: And I was told HER's like, it's kind of like
35:34
Speaker 1: my yoga now, Like I do that and then I
35:36
Speaker 1: don't look at it. I can go walk out in
35:38
Speaker 1: the woods and I just feel amazing, you know, so
35:41
Speaker 1: and eventually they go away. It's so funny also the
35:46
Speaker 1: social dynamic of it all, because if life isn't complex enough,
35:49
Speaker 1: it just fascinates me. Something. Last week she pointed out that,
35:53
Speaker 1: like I was, the record was number one on iTunes.
35:56
Speaker 1: My wife told me that. She was like, yeah, it's
35:58
Speaker 1: it's between you and Luna. This this a pop band.
36:00
Speaker 1: I was like, that's insane, you know, it's like the
36:02
Speaker 1: bluegrass record and a pop record. And I made a
36:06
Speaker 1: post about the absurdity that, and of course there was
36:10
Speaker 1: like you can't control that. It's like you've seen Ghostbusters too. No, okay,
36:15
Speaker 1: I'll spare you anyway. There's a river of slime and
36:17
Speaker 1: when you talk me into it, it bubbles up, and
36:19
Speaker 1: I think, well, that's like that's the Internet, you know,
36:23
Speaker 1: And of course, like some some slime bubbles started popping up,
36:26
Speaker 1: and it was teetering in some cases towards some some xenophobia,
36:31
Speaker 1: and I was just like, oh shit, like what did
36:33
Speaker 1: I What did I do? You know, I feels I
36:35
Speaker 1: feel responsible. You can't control you. You create this this
36:40
Speaker 1: ripple and then it turns into this other thing and
36:42
Speaker 1: it's out of your hands. So then all the all
36:45
Speaker 1: the lunar fans started coming at me on Twitter, man like.
36:48
Speaker 1: It was like, holy shit, this is amazing to watch
36:51
Speaker 1: in a way. Then I listened to the record and
36:53
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I kind of dig lima, this
36:55
Speaker 1: is actually pretty bumping. So I just said like, look, guys,
36:58
Speaker 1: you need to motivate. You know, the girls deserve they
37:01
Speaker 1: deserve more love and respect, and like if you want
37:03
Speaker 1: them at number one, you need to get off your
37:05
Speaker 1: ass and do the work. You know. Yeah, it's like
37:07
Speaker 1: where's my T shirt? I'm here for it. Orbit all
37:10
Speaker 1: the way and it turned into a really beautiful thing
37:14
Speaker 1: in the end. We'll be right back with Sturgill Simpson
37:17
Speaker 1: in just a moment. We're back with the rest of
37:24
Speaker 1: Rick's conversation with Sturgill Simpson. You said, when you came
37:27
Speaker 1: back from the Navy, you were depressed. How would you
37:30
Speaker 1: say your moods tend to run in general? Like what's
37:32
Speaker 1: your Oh, brou I'm a geminium, pretty mercurial. Uh I can.
37:39
Speaker 1: I can. I can either be the nicest, most giving,
37:42
Speaker 1: kindest human being on the planet or like I can
37:45
Speaker 1: definitely I'm aware, Like especially in the zone if I'm working,
37:50
Speaker 1: is it like that you're focused to the point of
37:52
Speaker 1: where niceties? No, man, it's environmental. I real to multiple's childhood,
37:58
Speaker 1: there's some trauma there and then and between between, Like
38:02
Speaker 1: just experienced military and then working railroad. I just wasn't.
38:05
Speaker 1: I was never in these nurturing environments, you know. I
38:08
Speaker 1: mean I was always in like shit needs to be
38:09
Speaker 1: done now world, and I don't have time for your
38:12
Speaker 1: fucking feelings. So coming into this world at thirty five
38:16
Speaker 1: and learning like, oh these are artists and sensitive feeling
38:19
Speaker 1: like I'm also a very sensitive dude. You know, I'm
38:21
Speaker 1: very emotional dude, And uh, We're all vulnerable. We all
38:25
Speaker 1: have like giant egos and the insecurity that comes with that,
38:28
Speaker 1: and learning how to be a better leader or just
38:35
Speaker 1: to empathize with people who although you need them to
38:39
Speaker 1: do a job, like they also have lives outside of that,
38:41
Speaker 1: and even people that have worked for me, like I
38:45
Speaker 1: have very clear expectations, you know, especially when you're paying
38:49
Speaker 1: people money, and not just musicians, Like I've lost friends
38:55
Speaker 1: and relationships around me just from like I am not
38:58
Speaker 1: happy with what you're doing and these my expectations, and
39:01
Speaker 1: then people start crying in the meeting and all of
39:03
Speaker 1: a sudden like okay, well, I guess I can't verbalize
39:07
Speaker 1: those things like that anymore. And these have been very
39:11
Speaker 1: very important lessons for me, like to know, everything is
39:15
Speaker 1: not a train that's forty five minutes late, but it's
39:19
Speaker 1: it's always circumstantial. It's not just you wake up in
39:23
Speaker 1: a bad mood one day and na, man, I probably
39:26
Speaker 1: got some some some shit going you know. I probably
39:29
Speaker 1: got me and Kanye got the same birthday. I'm just
39:31
Speaker 1: gonna leave it at that, you know. But all of that,
39:36
Speaker 1: with children and family and root the last four years
39:40
Speaker 1: is I'm feeling I had some I had some stuff
39:42
Speaker 1: going on. I'll just be really honest, without teetering up
39:46
Speaker 1: to like insurance policy, red flags and ships twenty seventeen
39:49
Speaker 1: and twenty eighteen, I got pretty dark. I don't know why.
39:53
Speaker 1: I think I just was out there too long. I
39:55
Speaker 1: was drifting too hard, and things got slippery and I
39:59
Speaker 1: fell back into some some ugly shit, especially on the road.
40:03
Speaker 1: And you know, you spend too much time alone in
40:05
Speaker 1: hotel rooms, man, and sometimes that translates into more escape
40:10
Speaker 1: and freedom on stage, and it's not necessarily a good thing.
40:12
Speaker 1: But and then I woke up to it and just decided,
40:17
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm done, that it's never never happening again.
40:21
Speaker 1: And ever since then, it's just been like focusing on
40:25
Speaker 1: trying to be a better husband and the best father
40:28
Speaker 1: I can be, and not wasting this opportunity that I've
40:34
Speaker 1: been given. Was just to make art that will be
40:36
Speaker 1: here long after I'm gone and affect people that I'll
40:40
Speaker 1: never even know or meet, And like, when you really
40:42
Speaker 1: weigh the gravity of that, it's an immense responsibility. Absolutely.
40:48
Speaker 1: I think the only people who I've ever met who've
40:52
Speaker 1: become successful musicians starting in their thirties are you and
40:57
Speaker 1: Bill Withers. I think you're the only you. I was
41:01
Speaker 1: just talking the other night on a zoom called Donald
41:05
Speaker 1: Glover about some other things, and he said the same
41:08
Speaker 1: thing his manager, Fan told me that once two years ago,
41:12
Speaker 1: and I watched that documentary and I love Bill Wither's music,
41:15
Speaker 1: but I didn't really ever know that much about his life,
41:17
Speaker 1: and it was kind of I was taking it back
41:20
Speaker 1: some of the similarities, especially in our life before music.
41:23
Speaker 1: He was in the Navy. I think he was from
41:25
Speaker 1: a West Virginia coltown. Hated the industry side of the business,
41:28
Speaker 1: the fickleness and the manipulation of it all was I
41:31
Speaker 1: was just like, whoa man? And then Donald, Yeah, Donald,
41:34
Speaker 1: we were just talking about the other night. And Bill also,
41:37
Speaker 1: I don't know he. I loved the interviews I have
41:40
Speaker 1: read that he gave Since then, it I feel like
41:45
Speaker 1: I understood and know that guy just how he handles
41:48
Speaker 1: those situations and those types of questions, and there's not
41:52
Speaker 1: a lot of fool suffering, I guess. Yeah. One of
41:57
Speaker 1: the things that was really interesting him out him as
42:00
Speaker 1: well is that his music is put in a box
42:04
Speaker 1: because of the genre that he came from, as you know,
42:09
Speaker 1: urban music really because he's black yea. But he has
42:13
Speaker 1: more in common with Bob Dylan than he does with
42:17
Speaker 1: most R and B. You know, he's really a singer songwright.
42:21
Speaker 1: He's a folk song folk folk song right basically with
42:25
Speaker 1: incredible feel incredible. Do you think yourself more as a
42:30
Speaker 1: guitar player, songwriter, singer, Like does the music come first?
42:36
Speaker 1: Or is it what you're saying? It just depends. Man.
42:39
Speaker 1: I've never made a record the same way twice, and
42:42
Speaker 1: that wasn't intentional. It's just the way it worked out.
42:44
Speaker 1: Like the way we approached Sound of Fury wasn't anything
42:47
Speaker 1: like Sailor's Guide or Metal Modern and cut and Grass
42:50
Speaker 1: was the easiest thing I've ever done, the fastest thing.
42:54
Speaker 1: But I mean, I played guitar every day I got
42:57
Speaker 1: I got a fifty four strap downstairs. That's like the
42:59
Speaker 1: first hour of my day every morning. But the songs,
43:02
Speaker 1: if I'm like, if you're asking, like where do the
43:04
Speaker 1: songs come from? Usually a melody or like me just
43:06
Speaker 1: play All my songs are written on acoustic guitars, and
43:09
Speaker 1: then I come up a little risks and things around
43:11
Speaker 1: them later. But it's always like a melody singing. Mostly
43:14
Speaker 1: it comes from it here, and usually the melody comes
43:17
Speaker 1: before the words. Usually a line will start things and
43:20
Speaker 1: then the rest comes generally pretty quick. I'm not one
43:23
Speaker 1: of those guys that like wakes up every day and
43:24
Speaker 1: says I'm gonna write for three hours and like trying
43:27
Speaker 1: to craft like a creative college essay or some shit.
43:30
Speaker 1: It really like, if it takes me more than forty
43:32
Speaker 1: minutes to write a song, it's probably not very good song.
43:35
Speaker 1: Do you write a lot of songs? It goes in phases.
43:40
Speaker 1: I'm pretty lazy. But when I sit down and do it, yeah,
43:44
Speaker 1: I'll write like five or six in a week usually,
43:47
Speaker 1: But no, I don't sit down every day and be like,
43:49
Speaker 1: I'm a just a blue song writer. And God bless
43:53
Speaker 1: people that can do that. It's just not for me.
43:55
Speaker 1: Do you collect lines like yeah, over the course of
43:59
Speaker 1: your life, if you over hear a phrase or or
44:02
Speaker 1: an idea for a song, Yeah, a lot of a
44:04
Speaker 1: lot of scribbled napkins, a lot of like notes on
44:07
Speaker 1: your phone, where like you'll write a line and then
44:09
Speaker 1: six months later that ends up being the first thing
44:12
Speaker 1: in a chorus or something, or I hear somebody's A
44:15
Speaker 1: lot of songs come from hearing things, just observation. You'll
44:18
Speaker 1: hear people talking or pick something up and it's underlying
44:22
Speaker 1: meanings or turning things that weren't meant to be metaphors
44:24
Speaker 1: into them. Just play on words kind of stuff fascinates
44:28
Speaker 1: me more or anything. I guess have you ever written
44:30
Speaker 1: a song without having an instrument in your hand? Like?
44:33
Speaker 1: Has it ever come? For sure? At work? Like work,
44:36
Speaker 1: I find I don't have a job anymore, but when
44:38
Speaker 1: I worked at the railroad or when I was in
44:41
Speaker 1: the navy, just like purpose and daily monotonous purpose, like
44:45
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of songs and music and
44:47
Speaker 1: melody can come out of that, man Like Yeah, you know,
44:50
Speaker 1: without without being conscious of a thing. Yeah, a lot
44:53
Speaker 1: of music comes to me like that when I'm not
44:55
Speaker 1: sitting down to write music. I wrote Turtles in the shower,
44:59
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much that whole entire first two verses
45:02
Speaker 1: just like came to me in a shower one morning,
45:04
Speaker 1: and I literally almost killed myself getting out of the
45:07
Speaker 1: shower to write it all down. What was it like
45:10
Speaker 1: working for the railroad? Actually I loved it, man? What
45:14
Speaker 1: was the job? What was your job? I started as
45:16
Speaker 1: a switchman on a switching yard, as like at this
45:20
Speaker 1: intermodal opera, the Union Pacific Yard, and then you kind
45:22
Speaker 1: of go through you work up like things that engineer
45:25
Speaker 1: would drive the trains. Our main job. It was like
45:27
Speaker 1: a main artery center for the entire western region United States.
45:31
Speaker 1: We'd have trains coming literally an X from all corners
45:34
Speaker 1: of the United States. They pull in and we'd have
45:36
Speaker 1: to tear them apart, put other cars on them, slough
45:39
Speaker 1: them off, build other trains, and then get them crewed
45:41
Speaker 1: and out the gate on time and that kind of thing.
45:43
Speaker 1: So it was like heavy, dude shit. You know. It
45:46
Speaker 1: definitely saw train rex and you know, big big boy
45:50
Speaker 1: pants type stuff. And I ended up. I became a
45:53
Speaker 1: yardmaster for a while, which is like you're in this
45:55
Speaker 1: pickup truck with eighteen radios and you're kind of coordinating
45:58
Speaker 1: all the movements of everything. And then they had a
46:00
Speaker 1: nighttime assistant manager position come open, and I decided more money,
46:05
Speaker 1: let's do it. Did that, and then I just by chance,
46:09
Speaker 1: about a year later, the main operations manager took a
46:13
Speaker 1: transfer and they offered me. They offered me the office
46:17
Speaker 1: and like running the operations of the yard, and I
46:20
Speaker 1: took it. And that's where I fucked up, or i'd
46:22
Speaker 1: probably still be there. I just you know, with the
46:27
Speaker 1: conference calls and all that gets literally screamed at by
46:30
Speaker 1: dudes I'll never meet in my life. Because the train
46:32
Speaker 1: came in two minutes late and left three minutes early
46:36
Speaker 1: instead of picking up an hour, you know, and I
46:40
Speaker 1: think I hit vaporlock in a way just like, wow,
46:44
Speaker 1: this is not this is not who I am. So
46:46
Speaker 1: I started playing or writing for the first time in
46:48
Speaker 1: about four years at night, and my wife, we weren't
46:52
Speaker 1: married at the time, and she was just like, she
46:55
Speaker 1: just set me down one night, you know, because she's like, look,
46:57
Speaker 1: I know your miserables is creating tension with you and me.
47:00
Speaker 1: This is what you should be doing, whether anything comes
47:04
Speaker 1: up or not. This is who you are, you know. Yeah, beautiful,
47:07
Speaker 1: And that was it, and we I think two three
47:10
Speaker 1: months later we had sold everything we couldn't fit in
47:14
Speaker 1: the Bronco and drove Nashville Wow two into two thousand
47:19
Speaker 1: ten a blue. And it's interesting if it wasn't for
47:23
Speaker 1: that change in jobs, like you say, like you you
47:26
Speaker 1: worked your way up the ladder at the point of
47:29
Speaker 1: where it didn't suit you anymore, and luckily we get
47:33
Speaker 1: we get your music now. Yeah, I mean, before I
47:35
Speaker 1: took the management gig man, I was out on the
47:37
Speaker 1: yard like twelve hours a day, and it was good.
47:39
Speaker 1: We'd work three days, have three days off, work four,
47:41
Speaker 1: have four off. You know, Salt Lake City's beautiful. Man,
47:46
Speaker 1: it's kind of a well kept secret. The yard was
47:48
Speaker 1: out in the west part of the valley, in the desert,
47:51
Speaker 1: so like my office was looking at the Okrah Mountain
47:53
Speaker 1: Range and over here is the western face of the Rockies,
47:55
Speaker 1: and there's three hundred days of sunshine, and uh, I
48:00
Speaker 1: very well possibly might still be there if all of
48:03
Speaker 1: that hadn't gone the way it did, which is a
48:06
Speaker 1: strange thing to think about. Yeah, it's amazing how so
48:11
Speaker 1: much of this is out of our control, you know. Yeah,
48:14
Speaker 1: control is an interesting concept. Letting go of that I
48:18
Speaker 1: think has been the greatest lesson for me. But also
48:22
Speaker 1: that job taught me a lot that most musicians probably
48:25
Speaker 1: don't know, like logistics and overhead and keeping numbers in
48:29
Speaker 1: the blacks. So like, you know, even the people around me.
48:31
Speaker 1: I keep a pretty tight grip on my business. And
48:35
Speaker 1: I'm thankful for that because I see, I see how
48:38
Speaker 1: easy it would be for a lot of artists just
48:39
Speaker 1: be copacetic and complacent and then you wake up and
48:42
Speaker 1: you like, why am I broke? You know? So that
48:45
Speaker 1: would be that's something in terms of dealing with the
48:49
Speaker 1: mechanics and especially the record labels and then I self
48:51
Speaker 1: manage myself for about three years, so I learned more
48:55
Speaker 1: about the business than I probably want to know. Just
48:58
Speaker 1: out of sheer necessity. I would sit on the lawyers
49:00
Speaker 1: that make them explain things to me and like really
49:03
Speaker 1: the back channels of how it all unfortunately works. So
49:08
Speaker 1: and that's been good, and it's terms of like working
49:10
Speaker 1: with my friends, people like Tyler and Margot, I've been
49:12
Speaker 1: able to hopefully give them some pretty valuable advice to
49:16
Speaker 1: keep them from making even some of the mistakes that
49:18
Speaker 1: I made, knowing what I know, you know, and I
49:21
Speaker 1: think it's just finding a new path and what is
49:24
Speaker 1: ultimately a wild, wild West again, and there's a real
49:28
Speaker 1: opportunity for artists to put a lot of the power
49:31
Speaker 1: back in their own hands. Yeah, any recommendations you have
49:34
Speaker 1: for artists in general, don't sign anything. There's no such
49:39
Speaker 1: thing as a good record deal, even if you've got
49:41
Speaker 1: a great one, it's it's essentially a bad loan from
49:45
Speaker 1: a really shitty bank. And in this day and age,
49:47
Speaker 1: if you've got work ethic and hustle and you're not
49:49
Speaker 1: afraid to go out and do the laps, and by
49:52
Speaker 1: that I mean go out and build a fan base
49:54
Speaker 1: as opposed to go onto an industry town and waiting
49:56
Speaker 1: for a bunch of suits to make it happen for you,
49:57
Speaker 1: because that ain't gonna happen. They're not taking game anymore.
50:01
Speaker 1: And if that does happen, I guess those are the
50:03
Speaker 1: people that like wake up and don't know how hard
50:05
Speaker 1: they just got fleeced a year later. But if you
50:07
Speaker 1: want to play music, do what musicians do and go
50:10
Speaker 1: play music. You know. That's that's what I did, and
50:13
Speaker 1: that's the only reason I'm sitting you're talking to you
50:15
Speaker 1: right now. Yeh, make good music, play good shows, wash rents. Repeat.
50:20
Speaker 1: My wife, we're okay. But like she told me one
50:23
Speaker 1: time and I realized she's a serious I probably turned
50:25
Speaker 1: down more money than I made just because of what
50:27
Speaker 1: came with it, you know, because like that, a lot
50:29
Speaker 1: of it really kind of freaks me out because you're
50:33
Speaker 1: as an introverted only child, you're letting a lot of
50:36
Speaker 1: shit into your bubble and there it is, you know,
50:39
Speaker 1: And I know there will be a day where I
50:40
Speaker 1: probably don't do this anymore. Yeah, So I wonder, I
50:46
Speaker 1: wonder if that's true, because if this really is what
50:49
Speaker 1: you're meant to be doing. You can do this for
50:51
Speaker 1: a long time, and in some ways, by choosing not
50:56
Speaker 1: to take the check, you're not taking the office job.
51:00
Speaker 1: You're still working in the train yard. Yeah, doing the
51:04
Speaker 1: thing that that feels good. Yeah. I think for me,
51:09
Speaker 1: I love the studio, I love creating, and I love
51:12
Speaker 1: playing live when I want to. Yeah, I don't know
51:16
Speaker 1: that I really ever feel the need to go spend
51:19
Speaker 1: nine months a year on a tour bus again, though
51:21
Speaker 1: that's not really At a certain point, you're like, wait,
51:23
Speaker 1: who am I doing this for it? You know, because
51:26
Speaker 1: I wanted to go home three months ago. So I
51:29
Speaker 1: think it's learning your limits and learning you just want
51:33
Speaker 1: everything to be the best you have to give, and
51:35
Speaker 1: it's hard to be inspired if you're not. So that's
51:38
Speaker 1: what I've learned from it all. Sometimes the best thing
51:40
Speaker 1: I can do for my music is to not play
51:42
Speaker 1: music and go and just live for a while. Yeah,
51:46
Speaker 1: I really have been. I've been fishing all summer. Man,
51:50
Speaker 1: we're down we're down here on the coast. So I
51:52
Speaker 1: just feeding the crabs and playing guitar, playing with the kids,
51:57
Speaker 1: reading a lot of Harry Potter to them. And then, uh,
52:01
Speaker 1: you know at night, I spend time on the internet
52:03
Speaker 1: looking at really expensive cars that go way too fast.
52:07
Speaker 1: And that's that's sort of where I'm at. You know,
52:10
Speaker 1: sounds pretty good. Yeah, it's something to do. Yeah, writing,
52:14
Speaker 1: writing songs when they come, and then looking looking forward
52:17
Speaker 1: to what's next. Great man, Well, thank you for talking,
52:21
Speaker 1: you too, man, Thank you, Rut. Thanks to Stigill Simpson
52:27
Speaker 1: for catching up with the Rick. You can hear all
52:29
Speaker 1: of our favorite Sturgil songs on a playlist at Broken
52:31
Speaker 1: Record podcast dot com, and be sure to subscribe to
52:35
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast.
52:40
Speaker 1: There you can find extended cuts of new and old episodes.
52:44
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel,
52:47
Speaker 1: Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and it's executive produced by miol Bell.
52:52
Speaker 1: Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries. And if you
52:55
Speaker 1: like our show, please remember to share, rate, and review
52:57
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53:01
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond, Bass m