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

Transcript

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

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Raised, an English pop singer songwriter whose debut album
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: My twenty first Century Blues snagged Album of the Year
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: at this year's BRIT Awards, but that was just one
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: of six total awards she took home that evening. For Ray,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: who at twenty six, has already survived in tumultuous rides
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: through the music industry, the evening was a complete coup.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Ray started writing songs as a young girl growing up
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: in South London. By seventeen, she signed her first record
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: deal with Polydor Records and worked for the next seven
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: years as a songwriter. While writing songs for artists like Beyonce,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: John Legend and Rihanna, Ray was also writing her own songs,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: which her label refused to release. She was eventually able
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to leave Polydor and in twenty twenty three independently released
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: her debut album to heaps of critical acclaim, kicked off
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: by her viral TikTok powered hit Escapism. Ray's vulnerability on
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: her album about her own struggles with self esteem, substance abuse,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and sexual assaults have proven to resonate deeply with fans everywhere.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: On today's episode, I talked to Ray about her wild
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: journey through the music business. She explains how a quote
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: from Nina Simone gave her the courage to take control
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of her career, how a ski trip in Utah helped
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: inspire some of her best songwriting ever, and about her
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: sprawling new single out Everywhere now called Genesis. This is
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Ritchman.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Here's my conversation with ray Man. Your Coachella set seemed
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: like it was really well received. I got to see
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a bit of it. It was awesome.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: It was definitely really a special one for us. I
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: think it's the first time I've witnessed a crowd like
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: that for me in a festival in the States, you know,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So that was like a really special change. But it's
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: something I'm not used to out here.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: What felt different about that crowd?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I think in America, like it's it's always been intimidating.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I think as a British artist, you know, the idea
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: of like performing in America anyways, just intimidating. And you know,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I've done quite a few, not loads, but a few
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: other festivals out here where you're like, right, we need
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: to win the crowd, we need to grow the crowd. Yeah,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: so Coachella just I wasn't expecting it to be that full,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: and people were really engaged and it was really special.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: This wasn't a case of you getting your music out
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to a bunch of people at the festival. It's like
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: those were people are like now converted, like people are
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Ray fans.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Do you know what? I do have a habit during
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: during shows of really over analyzing everyone's faces. I feel
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: like at the beginning of the set, I was like, right,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I need I was like, right, I need to win.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I need people to get to know me, you know
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: kind of thing. And I always try and leave a
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: bit of space. We ended up taking a song or
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: two out so that I'd have more time to chat.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I like to have a little chat some people. She
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: needs to stop talking about. I'd just like to talk.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And I think also it's a case of maybe some
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: people have heard the songs or maybe the song that
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: started to cross over here, and they're like, let's go
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: and see what it's about. And I think my mission
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: is always during a performance, I just want people to
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: walk away and be like I would see that again,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: or that was good. You know, That's my goal. Yeah,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: and you can see people being one of you know,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: people going from stern faith or just like watching with
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: no expression to being like okay, or do you know
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: what I mean, You're like way even they're doing it
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: and you're like okay, cool, Like you know, have.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: You discovered little things that you can do over the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: course of a set to maybe like reliably win people over.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I think honesty has always been something that's kind of important.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I've never really I don't really plan what I say.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I kind of keep the music. You know, we know
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: what we're doing within the songs, but even some of
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the endings of songs we leave space, and I just
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: kind of like it to be as open as possible.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: And I think sometimes when you're just playing songs and
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: not talking, people can't really get to know you. They're
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: just getting to know the music. So I think that's
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: an important thing as well. I like to try and
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: give a little back story behind whatever this song is
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: about or this moment, and just.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Being not a script your stage banter at all.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: No, So sometimes I'd be like, oh my god, why.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Did I just say that you halfway through targets, Like
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: what am I saying? Yeah? No, there is a lot
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: of that when am I going with that?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I think I even did that. I was like, I
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: don't know why, I just told you that, let's move on,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, the way the album came about
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: was kind of security's It wasn't a situation where you
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: were at a label. It basically there was a lot
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: of roadblocks if you want to just I guess walk
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: us through some of those.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not necessarily been as simple ten years
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: to get to this moment. You know. I was about
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: seventeen when I signed my deal, and I was with
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: a record label for seven years, and I think, yeah.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Can we name them? No? I mean, I mean, I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: think it's on the record.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And you know, I think being a British artist, it's
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: a very different world out there. I think it's very
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: dance orientated. There are formulas typically that are safer formulas
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: that you practice as a songwriter. You know, I started
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: in this game as a songwriter from the age of
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: fourteen is when I really took it seriously, and I
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: was doing sessions off school and stuff, and you kind
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: of learn really quickly. Okay, there's a formula to this,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: you know, accessibility, repetition, symmetry, you know, the whole math spine,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: the kind of the songwriting thing, and.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: How did that change your songwriting as a young Like
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: when you're fourteen, I imagine you're coming to it pretty pure,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: like just probably just want to do express and eight yeah,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and then you're realizing there's like a formula. Did that
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: change your songwriting.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Opposed to like change? I think it's just almost a
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: world of just gathering skills. You know, when I started
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: writing songs, it was very much feeling and freestyling and
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: what felt right and being like, oh, I did a
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: lot of songwriting in Sweden. There's some incredible pop rous
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: songwriters out there, and I used to fly out for
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks at a time and write with
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: all the producers and writers to anyone that would let
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: me in a session. And from that you're like, oh wow,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: you know, it's not just whatever melody feels nice. It's like, okay,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: we have a melody here. The end of the melody
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: is a little bit too complicated. This word doesn't roll
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: off the tongue as nice, you know, and chipping away
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: and sculpting something, so yeah, you know, they're all skills
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: that I'm really glad I acquired. And I think for
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: different artists and different sounds and different genres, you kind
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: of need more of one skill than another and stuff
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: like that. But within that space, you know, dance music
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: is huge at symmetry and maths and repetition and lyric
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: that everyone can relate to and easily digestible and stuff
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: like that. So I kind of, from a younger age
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: realized I had a knack at being persistent and chipping
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: away at something until the artist or the person I
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: was writing with was happy and.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: You could take whatever criticism that would come with a
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: version one.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: And when writing for someone else, it's not about you know,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: my opinion to a degree, But you know, I'm a
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: people pleaser as well, So I'm going to make this song,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: going to do it so they love it. You know,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: it's all a performance as well. In another way, it's
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: kind of funny. But yeah, I think when that started
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: to cross over and bleed into what my label at
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the time wanted from me, and the goal was selling
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: opposed to the art itself, did.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: You know that going in or was that kind of
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: a were you blindsided a bit by Oh?
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: No, of course not. Yeah, nobody does. Yeah, it's a
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: real thing. You know that moment before you put pen
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: on paper. Everyone is so nice. They take you for dinners,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: sell you a whole lot of lovely dreams and promises.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Like some of the things. I was like sixteen years
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: old when I started doing the rounds and some of
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: the things I heard, Oh my god, I'm not even
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: gonna run me on here, because but it's wild.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: What are you wear?
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Something like? You know this? We have this artist said artists.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I won't even name the name, but they've heard your music.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: They've agreed to endorse you. If you sign with Vice,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: you're going to have this. You're going to have that.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: This isn't even this is just people just talk and
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: artists in this stage. No people will say anything to
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: get you to put your name on that piece of paper.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: When you're sixteen years old from South London and you're
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: like in America doing meetings with these big, huge people,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: it can absolutely just muddel your brain up and false
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: hope and a lot of lies, a lot of air
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: that's real. I was like, raw, this place is dark.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: How quickly after you put fended papers you realize that,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: oh I just got bamboos.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'd like to say a year in maybe Also
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: the guy who had signed me had then left, so
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: the dynamics changed pretty quickly after that.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty common story too, I think, I hear, yeah,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: it is your support structure leaves and then you're kind
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: of left.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: There's actually a contractual clause called a key Man clause,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: which artists should know about, and I didn't at the time,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: but it means, you know, you get that clause put
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: into your contract, means if the person who signs you leaves,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: that you have the right to terminate or move with them.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: It's called a key Man clause, and it's just something
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I wish I knew about when I was seventeen.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: To what extent were you happy with the early phases
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and stages of your career like those first from like
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen to you know, a couple of years ago,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: only a few years ago.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it was a tricky one because it
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: wasn't about my goals. It was about, you know, needing
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: to impress these people who basically have my career in
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: their hands. You know, they get to decide whether they're
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: going to promote something or they're not, whether they're going
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: to pause my timeline or help me move things along.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: So you have to play ball, you know, and you
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: learn that pretty quick. Yeah, So I did my best
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: to do that. The goal always has been since the
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: day that I signed to now in my career, to
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: be an album's artist. I wanted to release bodies of work,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: and I was really excited to be able to earn
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: the right to decide what music I wanted to share.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: And it was kind of always presented that. You know,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: when you have a song that's big enough and you've
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: earned an audience that's big enough and wants an album
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: from you, that you can do that.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, when did your debut album start coming together?
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: When did you record that?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I would say maybe about four or five years ago.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Some of the earliest songs started coming together.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: What were the first few?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Oscar Win in Tears was there for a long time
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: hard out Here, but the instrumental was made years ago.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: But then I wrote a whole nother song on top
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: of it Worth It was an older one, yeah, A
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: couple of songs had just been around for a while.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Five Stars was an old one, yeah, and I had
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: the title about four years ago. It's funny because I
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: was going through some of my notebooks at home and
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: I found this notebook. It was dated like twenty eighteen
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: or something. It said my twenty first century Blues.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: So the title the ideas were forming for a while.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember why that title came to you?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Why that phrase came to you?
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know completely. What I do know is when
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: I was a kid, maybe it was about four ten
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: years old, and my dad and my uncle we went
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: on a road trip. Basically, we drove through America. We
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: started in la and we went all the way through
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: to I think it was Atlanta. We ended somewhere and
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: we drove all through Nashville, We drove through New Orleans
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: and Louisiana. We like did our whole trip. And at
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: that time, everywhere we'd drive, we'd put on the local radios,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: you know in the UK. You know, I've listened to
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of gospel and some of the greats, amazing singers,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: but there was so much music and genres I've never
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: been exposed to. And I think I had a life
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: changing experience when I was in New Orleans, and it
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: was at a place called the Preservation Jazz Hall and
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: it was like a room, like one hundred and fifty
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: people coming to this room and there's just this band.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And I remember being sat cross legged on the floor.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: I was sat right underneath this guy's trombone. I had
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: like spit flying in my face. She sat there like
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: wide eyed, just like.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: What is this.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I'd never experienced anything like it. And it was just
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: a fusion of kind of jazz and the blues. And
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I remember being like, whatever this is, I want a
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: part of that. And since then, I kind of my
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: tastes changed and I just wanted to know more and
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: understand more about this feeling, this kind of music. And yeah,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: so although we barely scratch over any kind of blues
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: textures in this album, what I fell in love with
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: was the songwriting and how you know, we go to
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: these bars and you've got people playing.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Be like.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: When I was a little boy, I went to school
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: one day and then I sat on a chair, no
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: just say you know what I mean? These stories and
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: each one was different. It was the same riff and
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: just all these stories and I was like, wow, so
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: this is their blues. And I was like, this is
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: deep and they're deep stories, moving stories, very honest and
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: transparent and clearful, and I fell in love. I'd always
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: had this idea if I wanted to make whatever my
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: version of the blues is, even though it's not necessarily
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: that genre, it's that candidness.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Well, and there's a bravado on a lot of your
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: you know. I don't know if it's like the whole album,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: because there's some very vulnerable bits, but there is an
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: added to a backbone to this album for sure that
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: runs through it. And I love the book ends. It's like,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: as you put it on, it's like you're being transported
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to like a smokey jazz club, you know what I mean.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And and by the time it ends, you're right back there,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and then you're almost ready to play right over again.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: And it's amazing to hear that that stuck with you,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and then that made it that far from child a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: childhood road trip across the ten through from LA to
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: New Orleans and up that that stayed with you all
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: these years. It really did. After a quick break, we'll
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: be back with more of my conversation with Ray. We're
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: back with more from Ray, who referenced wanting to be
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: in an album artist. What were some of the albums
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: that you grew up on that were like the bed
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: rocks for you, like the ones that were like the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: perfect records for you.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: My goodness. The first two albums that played such an
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: important part in my childhood was Alicia Keys The Diary
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: of Alisha Keys. That was a big one for me. Wow,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: that was the first hard copy album I ever bought.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: And then Who Is Jill Scott? Jill Scott? That blew
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: my mind? And I think also like being in the
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: UK and just again the stuff we was exposed to.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And then my uncle shout out. Uncle jose put me
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: on to this album. He started with a Long Walk
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: and I was listening to this song like she's just
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: talking with melodies. You know, you're used to hearing these
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: perfect rhyming couplets and everything being whatever, but she's just
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: like speaking to you like a conversation, and it was
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: so casual the way she would sing that entire album
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: blew my mind. Watching me, you know, she's like she's
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: talking about CCTV and people watching her like she's just
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: gone to the shop to buy some double or triple
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: A batteries. She's like checking and see where I go?
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Who I be? How where with who I make my money?
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: What is this?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Excuse me? Miss may, I have your telephone number and
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: your social security She's like, who me? It's like literally
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: telling I was like, what is happening? It completely blew
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: my mind and I fell in love. So those were
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: like two really important albums in my childhood.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about your relationship with
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: hip hop because it feels like there's a certain cadence
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that you can get into sometimes that that would also
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: explain it a lot too, Like that kind of being
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: able to where it's like are you talking? Are you singing?
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Kind of doing both Jills Queen of that isn't it?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes you just like she'll be doing that
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and then just take off to whoa Okay, I forgot
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: who was right?
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And it's also so free, you know with her. I
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: love her style of you feel like anything could happen,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? It doesn't feel too perfect.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: It just feels so authentic. And I've always loved her
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: about her the way she sings and performs as well. Yeah.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Were you listening to a lot of hip hop too
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: growing up?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah? A fair amount. I mean I did get to
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: that age where like Party next Door was my everything
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: that's not really hip hop, but you know Drake the
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Weekends Party next Door, you know that era we all
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: had where we're.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: All like, oh my god, going up on a Tuesday.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Other Weekend's first album was was a big one,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: the trilogy. Yeah, But in terms of like hip hop,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know what kind of exposed to some different stuff.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I was exposed to a lot grown up and like
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: different family members as well.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Did you see Uncle Jose.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's actually lives in America. So my mum and
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: my uncle were both raised in Ghana. When they're about
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: twenty two to twenty three, mum moved to the UK
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: and Uncle Jose moved to America. And he's always been
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: so supportive as well, Like he bought me my first laptop,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: my MacBook where I used to start making sessions on
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: garage band and stuff like that when I was about
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: thirteen for my thirteenth birthday, and so I started making
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of demos on there and it really helped
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: spark my passion for production and vocal production and just
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: making music in general. It's so funny because even though
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: none of us before me and my sisters had ever
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: practiced music. It was always the desire for it and
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: the passion for it was always in the blood. I'd say,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: like my dad's dad, he used to write songs. He
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: used to want to be a songwriter professionally in a
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: little town in England, north of England, Yorkshire. He used
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: to write songs on record them onto tape and score
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: it out and write the lyrics, and he'd send a
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: box of tapes and the sheet music to record labels
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: in London, hoping that you know, someone might hear his
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: songs and like it. And I can't even be too
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: can But he did have a song stolen from him
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: that turned out to be really successful. But you know,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: theres a lot of songwriters it happened for back in
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: the day. He didn't get credited and no one believed him,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: and he had no way legally to prove it because
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: he didn't have the money to do that, and then
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: he gave up on his dream then and there. It's
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: so funny that I was a kid and I didn't
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: even know the story, and I'm like, I just want
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: to write music. So it's funny at that time, No,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I was like seven eight nine when I was like
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: making silly, weird poems and copying the melodies i'd hear
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: in the TV kids shows I was watching. And I
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: remember one time I was watching this like TV show
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: and I liked the melody. It was like this kind
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: of jazzy and I was about eight, and I pretended
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: that I wrote it, but I just changed all the words.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And then I went to dad, my dad, and I
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: was like, listen to this song I wrote, and he
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: was blown away, but I didn't tell him I'd stolen
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: the song and just change the lyrics to some terrible
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: lyrics about snowfalling and a Christmas song. It was so bad.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I like, how that still sticks with you somewhere, like
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I'm afraid of plagiarism. But then I realized that's what songwriters.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Some songwriters do that, or it's sampling essentially.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, way to get started, you know, like copy a
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: bit and the lyrics so you can figure out how
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to do a whole class. Yeah.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's always been in the my family. We
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: love music. You know. I grew up in church as well.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: My dad and mom used to sing. Mom used to
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: sing in the choir. Dad used to leave worship so
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I grew up watching and listening to music being sung
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: every Sunday.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: In like in a church where you grew up, what
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: was leading worship? Like would that entails?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: It was like, I don't know, like it's not a
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: big church that maybe forty or fifty people, you know
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: in a church in Tooting in South London where I
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: grew up, and my mom and dad would.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Just sing so like a gospel choir.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: No, it's not big, like you know in America, you
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: guys have an amazing like huge production set ups, like
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: amazing music. You know, this is very like down to
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: earth from the heart, very.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Direct from you guys to God in the gospel.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: You know, come as you are mate.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: You know, did you listen to much gospel?
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, Yeah, growing up with a lot of Kurt
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Franklin and Donnie McClerkin and some amazing music I was
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: exposed to from a really young age. And I think
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: about gospel as well, is it's just musically so complex.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I don't even think gospel gets enough credit for how
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: technically difficult it is to really execute those things. You know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: you have them mds live in the church on a
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: microphone like okay, we're going to chord four and then five. Hold, hold, hold,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: we're going six to seven, don't. I'm like, this is
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: serious practice.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Oh for real, it's not joke. No, it's great. I
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: want to go back now. So you have a few
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: songs for my twenty fifth Century Blues. You're still with Polydor.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: You're kind of getting the run around what happens next.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: The understanding from my perspective also was if I was
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: going to do an album, it would need to be
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: a dance album. So my twenty first Century Blues kind
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: of got put on the back burner and I was
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: working on a record I needed to hand in songs
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: one p fifteen bpm or above, like it needed to
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: be like that kind of sound. So, as far as
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: my constraints allowed, I set out to make an album
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: that I was going to call dark dance Songs, and
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: it was going to be minor. And I'd say the
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: closest thing I had to it was that black mascara
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: which I put on my twenty fifth Century Blues. It
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: was all this kind of I was trying to find
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: my compromise, and then yeah, it just ended up that,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: you know, I had a new person who just joined
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: our team and started working as my day to day
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: and she was supposed to tell me we were in
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the middle of a shoot for something else. You know,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I'm like maybe four or five months into writing this album,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: and I'm becoming invested and I'm excited about what it's
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: going to be. And then she'd basically just said that
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: if this song you've just put out doesn't do good,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: You're not going to be able to do the album.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: It just got really messy, and I was just I
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: hit just a boiling point, a breaking point. I was
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: so angry and so frustrated and so pissed off. I
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: felt like just I was just getting treated so unfairly,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: and I've been trying so desperately for the last seven
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: years to prove to them that I am a musician, Like, look,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I'm writing for this person, Like are you proud of
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: me yet?
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Like I was just so desperate who are you're writing for?
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: At that time, you know, I had a good healthy
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: amount of cuts, you know, in the dance world and
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: with some girl bands and some solo artists, and I'd
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: been doing good things and every time I remember, every
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: time I get caught, I'd kind of want to tell
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: them and be like, look, look, I was just so
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: desperate for them to believe in me. Really, I've really
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: tried so hard to achieve that and I just failed.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it just got to a breaking point.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah so I know you sent a tweet out at
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: some point? Was that a spur of the moment thing?
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Was that calculated like let me just try something here?
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Or what was the zero strategy and planning into that?
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Not tell you? I just was like in my head,
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: what the F do I have to lose? Like I
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: have nothing to lose. I was at a point where
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: I was like, I would rather just be a songwriter,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: like I've seven years is a long time, especially from
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: a kid, you know, and then that pressure of that,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I think it's a lie personally, but that pressure of
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: you know, when you're young, it's exciting and as you
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: grow up you're going to miss your window, especially as
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: a woman, like these lies you hear and Yeah, just
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: got to a place where if this is what it
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: is to be an artist, I don't want to do this.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I hate some of these songs I'm putting my name
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: to that. I'm out here smiling and returning her like
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: trying to sell this is like soul destroying, especially when
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I'm like in love with my craft. I'm in love
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: with music. I was a kid when I decided to
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: dedicate my life to work in music and wanting to
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: pursue a career, and it was breaking my heart. It
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: was just making me so sad. Yeah, So I just
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: got to a point. We just moved house and I
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: was in my room. It didn't have a bed in it,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: so I just remember being like on a block mattress
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: on the floor, and the only thing I had in
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: my room was a picture of Nina Simone and under
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: it it said a quote it's an artist's duty to
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: reflect the times. And I remember sat there in tears, like,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: what the hell am I doing. I'm not doing anything important,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not doing anything that feels right. Nina would be
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: so disgusted by everything I put to my name. She
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: would be like, ill get her out of my face.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I was like, what have I become like? And I
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: said no, no, no, and I just let it rip.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: That's a very needless, a long thing to do. Let
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: it rip. I mean, thankfully it all worked out. I suppose,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: as the story goes from that tweet, do you guys
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: work something out so they let you go. Does that
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: go back to that clause the key man.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: No, I sadly never had that clause in my contract.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: I think I just got so lucky in that people
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: decided to care about what I'd shared. And I think
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: probably there's also a lot of people unaware of all
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: the ins and outs of what goes on behind closed doors.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: And I had a lot of news platforms in the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: UK reaching out, wanting to have a conversation and wanting
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: to understand more about what's going on and what it
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: can be like for a lot of artists sometimes when
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: you're having difficulties on seeing eye to eye with the
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: teams that you're contractually bound to, and that became leverage
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: and I was able to be like, respectfully, let's leave
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: this here now and.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Then you get to put out your album independently. Yeah.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know that it could have worked out more
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: perfectly in the end.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: No, it's honestly how everything's turned out, is all I
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: can describe it as is a series of just miracle
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: after miracle. I think I was so overwhelmed at how
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: much music of mine was already out there in the world.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: In my head, I was like, how could I possibly
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: change the narrative? In the UK, people see me as
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: a feature vocalist, a voice like, who's going to care?
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I just got so ridiculously lucky and Escapism receiving so
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: much attention on TikTok and then all of its suddenly
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: getting pushed out to all these new ears and that's
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: the first they've heard of me, and that's so it
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: was so exciting and like, wow, you know, anything really
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: is possible.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Were you shocked by the reception of Escapism?
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Oh? Completely, yeah. But I was also so happy because
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: I love that song. I remember when we put that out.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Like, if only people were going to
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: be able to hear this song that was my thing
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: in my head. I was like, oh, just if people
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: could just hear this song, you know. I remember me
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and my dad was talking. I was like, Dad, could
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: you imagine, Yeah, if something crazy happened and Escapism just
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: went really big and became number one, we looked at
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: each other and we were like, ah, ha ha, that'll
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: never happened. I remember that conversation clear as day. I
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: was like, could you imagine? He was like, yeah, I
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: could imagine. That would be crazy right, and then bang.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Fruish. Why did you write that song in Utah?
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I did.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: What's the story on that?
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: We took a road trip another road trip.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I like, good for you.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I like a car. I like a long drive. And
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: also it's good to get out of the city. I
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: think when you're in a city and you know, be
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: there or whatever, it can be distracting and you could
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: be like someone like do you want to do this?
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: La la la, and you just want to go somewhere
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere where you're just in a
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: peaceful place and you just have to be present. It
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: was nice never No. All the two people I went
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: with are good at skiing. I'm not very good at
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: save only skied once before in the school trip. I
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: decided to join them for skiing in between writing, and
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: it was a disaster. These two are like cross country,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: like off Pieced Mountain, freaking skiers. Yeah, they're like, don't worry,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: we'll stay together, We'll go slow. I took a wrong
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: turn in black Run. What the only way is down?
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: This?
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Whatever? Foot drop? Absolutely not?
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Whatuld you do?
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: And my friend's screaming at me, like you have to
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: ski down? I was like bitch, I skiing down, I'm walking.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: She's like free sure, And there's all these like four
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: year old kids like just gunning it down the hill.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Took me about an hour to get down. It was hell.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: After that, I left them to it. I went sat
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: on the campfire near the entrance and just made friends.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: But yeah, skiing, it's gonna be a while before I
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: go back there.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Maybe take some time on there. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: But the songwriting was productive. We were there for seven
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: days and it was such a nice time and we
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: wrote basically the other half of the album that was missing.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: It all started with titles. Titles are usually how a
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: song will start for me, So I had title Mary Jane,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: environment and anxiety. Escape is body dysmorphia. So those were
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: my four titles. There was one or two more that
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: we wrote, but that didn't make.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: It Environmental Anxiety. Speaking of the Nina Simone quote in
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: artists duty is to reflect the times your I mean
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: is so intense. How did you capture that so well?
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: We booked a log cabin and we were staring it
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: across it was like a mountain in some trees and
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: we were like, wow, that so beautiful. Was in the
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: morning and Mike Sabbath, the producer who I made this
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: album with. The guy is so eccentric. We got downstairs
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: and he'd made this little like oh no, no, it's
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: like weird like sound. He'd like morphed his voice to
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: sound like a chipmunk l whatever, and it's just looping
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: around and around and just playing these weird bells. And
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: I was like, Mike, you've lost your absolute mind, but like,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: let's fucking go, do you know what I mean? And
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: we were looking at the view and we was like, damn,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: like we're being so cruel to our planet. And we
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: just started on a tangent, you know. And I think
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: it's something a lot of us are worried about but
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: are powerless to really do any actual change, or it's
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: something that needs to come from our governments. Yeah, a
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: lot of people don't care.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: You kind of sum it all up and put a
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: bow on it in like three minutes and ten seconds.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: It's like, yoh wow, like you kind of like distill
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: all the anxieties of kind of our world at large
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and all the problems and issues and and Boris johnson'sn't cooking.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: We all know that's true, but come on, it seems
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: seems like it's true this article, yeah, which is so funny.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: But they tested the sewage. I don't know who was
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: testing the sewage of the houzards of Parliament and they
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: found such a high concentration of cocaine in the sewage.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I don't even know if we should be talking about this.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: But meanwhile, you're arresting kids with possession of smoking a
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: little bit of weed on the street, I mean, putting
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: them in jail for that. Meanwhile, you're all in there
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: doing coke. It's just not fair. None of it's fair,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: is it.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: But I'm glad you're speaking to someone like you.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: May we gotta put these things on blasts. It's incorrect.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful song. So those are all voices on that intro, right,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: all those sounds, it's all a voice manipulated. And then
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: your voice incredible. You harmonize with yourself really well.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: I love harmonies. When a voice can become a pad
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: or a simp or something as well, it's exciting.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, it's a really gorgeous sound your voice,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: like when it builds out like that. It's gorgeous escapism too.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I love the two different perspectives two different voices. It's
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: like you're in the story and then you kind of
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: get like you're narrating it for us, right, which is
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: like a cool thing to do.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: So love to bounce between first person and third person.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I find that fun and like, yeah, the narration aspect
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: of it. I always like it's funny. Sometimes I'll be
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: writing and all the other day with me and my
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: creative director, we're trying to do something, and I kept
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: I realized, I just love to mix. He's like, you know,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: this sentence is third person and this sentences first person.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like, you know what, I like mixing it.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Fuck it.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Yet? Why not? Yeah, after this last break, we'll come
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: back with the rest of my conversation with Ray. We're
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: back with the rest of my conversation with Ray. It's
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: not by Mary Jane a little bit. What made you
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: choose that as a song title?
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: All the songs we wrote in Utah? You know, I
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: wanted to address kind of these subjects kind of pretty
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: head on. And I think I've always had a very
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: kind of addictive personality, and I've i think especially because
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: I was playing this like sweet little hot artists kind
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: of character, or at least that's what I was attempting
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: to sell. But really behind closed doors, I was just
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: really not dealing with things great, and I was just outside,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: not even outside. I was just moving mad. Yeah, and
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: I got trapped into some pretty intense kind of cycles
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: and picked up some unhealthy habits, you know how it be.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Sometimes Also you become really good at hiding it. I
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: was just distant from my family. I was just lost
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: and not happy.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Does your family kind of recognize what was going on?
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I didn't really seen it. I think it was
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: like a year or whatever. I saw my parents like
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: twice in a year, which is really unlike me. Now
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: my parents are like around me all the time and
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I tell them everything and I love him. But yeah,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: there was just a period of time where I was
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: fully on escapers and vibes. Yeah, I mean, just yeah,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: running away from reality. There's a lot of these subjects
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: which I find there's no real place to have these
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: conversations or in a space where you don't feel judged
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: or you don't feel disgusting or embarrassed.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I talk in this song about codeine, you know, and
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of us who can develop these kind
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: of dependencies on things, and it's so easy to keep
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: a secret and hide it and it can get dangerous,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: and it did for me for a bit, you know.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: So I just wanted to write a song, kind of weird,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: twisted kind of love song. I think it's one of
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: those things as well. Once you open Pandora's box, you know,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: but they say it's it's hard to close it.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, were you ever wary of I mean, Mary Jane escapeism,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: body dysmorphia? Was there ever a part of you that
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: we felt like maybe I don't want this on the app?
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Because then of course just from the bit of press
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: that I've picked up about you over time, it's like, wow,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: people are asking you really like heavy. I'm like, I
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: don't know if I don't want to talk about this,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Like I just just like, how how did you ever
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: feel worried about that? Do you not? Do you regret it?
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: But does every part of you feel like damn? I
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: don't know if I want to go? You know.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: It's like you know what I think, I think a
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: conscious choice you have to make as an artist, Like
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: what kind of artists am I going to be? There
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: are incredible artists who don't let you in on that
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: side of their life who close those doors and they
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: deliver perfection, And that's a whole other thing, because then
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: you're just dealing with all of those things behind closed doors,
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: but you present this and I have so much respect
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: for those kinds of artists, and that in itself takes
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: a whole load of bravery and rehearsals and skill and delivery.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: That's a whole other thing. And then I think there's
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: the other end of it where it's like I'm going
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: to be an open book. But then that at the
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: same time, that also comes with people who you don't
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: know knowing things about me that four years ago my
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: own family didn't know. Do you know what I mean?
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting choice I've made, And definitely there are
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: days where it's like, damn, I really just did a lot,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: and days are on stage like why did I decide
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: to be so open about this? But for all of
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: the times I do find it tricky or overwhelming, I
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: do think that's the kind of artists I want to be,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: even though it's not always easy. Does that make sense? Yeah?
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I mean it kind of does make you a real
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: writer in a way, and that writers really want to
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: write about real human experience and are kind of always
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: drudging and mining that stuff all the time, you know,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: like kind of the misery and a sense and sometimes
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the joy and all that too, but kind of moving
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: between those two in music, you know, I think some
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: people shy away from that.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: It's difficult, but also it's what you feel comfortable, or
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: what your purpose is. Some artists purposes to entertain, and
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: damn well do they entertain, you know. And I think
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: for me as a writer, I kind of see it
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: as you're creating a commentary on the human experience from
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: your perspective, and that does require honesty. I think vulnerability
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: is so important and it's difficult. Sometimes it can be
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: very difficult for me personally in my taste. I always
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: find the music that I connect to the most is
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: where I feel just like I've been let in and
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: I'm just hearing candidness. It hurts. Sometimes it's like oh sugar,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: or it's like not even for me just as a listener,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: you know, you're like, oh my god, this is bringing
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: tears to my eyes. You know, if someone's telling your
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: story and you're just you have goosebumps all over your
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: skin and you're completely enchanted. And then it takes you
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: to somewhere in your life and then provide some sort
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: of aid or band aid we say, plaster, or some
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: sort of hug or some sort of space for you
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: to cry and feel it. So as a listener, that's
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: where I feel most moved. But it's definitely not an
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: easy thing to do.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Was ice Cream Man? Was that a difficult song to
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: record and to Yeah, I.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Mean, without a doubt, Yeah, definitely the whole. Yeah, that
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: one's deep. It's just deep, because my god, that song,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: it's just I'm still you know, like a lot of
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: us are working through those things in it. But I
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: got a message the other day on my Instagram DMS.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Trying not to spend too much time on my socials
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: and stuff, but every now and then I have a
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: little look. And it was maybe about two days ago,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: and I got this message from this lady and she
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: was about in her fifties and she sent me this long,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: beautiful message. It was really sad message about her life,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: and she was telling me about some of the things
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: she went through as a child and working through it,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: and it was so moving. I was so moved. I
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: read it about six times. Even brings to his to
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: my eyes now, and I was just like, my goodness,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: like some of us are carrying so much. And she
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: just expressed at the end of the message that she
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: was really grateful for that song because it gave her
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: the confidence to talk to someone that she loved about
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: something she'd beencerned about her whole life. There are so
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: many of us out here dealing with things, carrying things,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: holding things. There's no instruction manual what to do. This
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: is where music is like medicine and provides a space
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: of healing or reflection. So as tricky is that song
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: is for me on the worst to days, I'm just
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: so grateful that even if it was only her, you
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: know that that's even been able to provide some sort
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: of I don't even know what the words are, but
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: I was just so mood.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Do you perform the song?
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I do now. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes I do
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: cry a lot. Sometimes I could sing it and I
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: feel really powerful. I feel really safe inside my music.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: I think that's another thing that maybe allows me to
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: be so honest and vulnerable. It feels like if I
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: was just to say some of the lyrics in this
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: conversation with you, but without a melody and without the
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: safe space inside a song, I would not be comfortable
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: to do that at all, which is weird. But it
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: feels like within a song, it's on my terms in
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: the sonic bed. That feels like it's correct to lie
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: and it feels safe. It feels like no one can
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: spin this or nobody can have an opinion too negative
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: besides not liking the song, but they can't be like,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: well I don't believe her, Well this and that, you know,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: all the scrutiny that you can get from being open
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: and transparent about your life. But without a song, Yeah, you.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Have a new single Genesis, and it's really great. But
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: when it started, I was like, okay, all right, like
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: we and then you know, three quarters of the way
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: through or halfway through, there's a change, and it's like
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: the most uplifting. The first half is a little it's
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: a little like, oh shoot, like this is like I
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: feel like I was a little worried as I guess
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: she's still in like a and by the end I'm like,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: oh shit, it feels like I'm in preservation Hall and
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: new and it's like the lyric is what's the lyric about?
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Light Like blood and lighting.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: They'd be l like, yeah, they'd be light.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: It feels maybe more like where your life is now
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: than some of the album, you know, I know that
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: feels true to you.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the Planners will put out the full
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: seven minutes and then the week after kind of split
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: them into three different songs. So you have Genesis one,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: which is that kind of really sad reflection in the
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: mirror of depressing conversation with yourself someone. Song two is
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: that heavy whatever sound, and then song three is the
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: kind of big band vibe at the end, and I
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: think you can almost see it as maybe an EP
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: or something. But I wanted to put all the songs
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: in one and kind of force you to try and
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: have to listen to all of it just in one,
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: which is a lot and I think I really took
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: like a lot of passion and a lot of time
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: went into the lyrics for me and making sure that
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: it said what it needed to say. I wanted it
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: to be cutting and again honest, and I wanted to
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: talk about themes of you know, suicide and which is
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: again just I think also even for young men, I
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: think there's this kind of thing of like just feeling
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: things and not talking about it. I recently lost someone
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: who was really close to the family, just gone, you know,
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: and you didn't even know that they were going for anything.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Suicide.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of people just as you know,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: fighting a lot of stuff. I wanted to create a
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: song that felt like if you are going for anything
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: like that, or you do feel in any sort of
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: way burdened or like you're going for a really tough time.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: I wanted to create a piece of music that you
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: could allow yourself to feel it in the beginning, and
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: then the music kind of starts to lift you up
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: in the middle, even though the lyric is still heavy,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: taking you maybe to a more powerful place to process
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: that emotion, and then by the end hopefully feeling some
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: positivity and some hope. So I wanted it to be
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: this journey of if any one even relates to one
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: of the sentences in that song, you know, And I
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: was trying to create an open scape of my honesty.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: But then also what else are people our love or
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: people I don't even know going through or need from
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: this song? So it's quite a deep one, Yeah it is.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm so grateful you loved us with that we needed,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: so we absolutely needed. Yeah, man, how are you going
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: to do that live? Well?
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Look, in my dream scenario, there will always be many
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: many musicians on the stage. From a cost efficiency perspective,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: we're working now, but you know who needs to make
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: notes of money? Like who needs to do that?
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Sure? I mean travel with the big band? Bring them out?
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: You worked with Dark Child? I love Dark Child? Rodney Man,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: how did you look about Rodney?
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: That's my bro. I actually met him when I was
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: a kid, like my first trip to LA when I
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: was about seventeen, and I was taking some meetings and
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: I remember at the time I hadn't made anything good
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: enough to like really capture his attention. But I remember
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: thinking in my head like one day he's going to
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: hear my music and be like she's sick. Like I
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: remember that being a goal. And then we got connected
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: and maybe like two years ago, and got in the
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: studio and started working on what is this song? So
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: it's been a labor of love for quite a long time.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: He's really brilliant and I have a lot of love
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: for him, and I put him through the ring.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: On this Tell me about it.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: Oh my god. I called him again and be like,
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: we need to fix the drums. I'm like, we need to.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: You know, we had this original drum loop and I'm like,
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: it's giving, but it wasn't live. It had a live texture,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: but some of the frequencies were too sharp and it
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: was jarring. And I was like, we need to it
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: needs to have the same feel, but it needs to
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: feel clean and a bit more raw and down to
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: earth and and not have that kind of distracting whatever.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: And he'd be like, okay, okay. So we trapped different
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: things and then we go back and back and and
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: then it was like, finally, yes, we got it. So
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: we took the original drummer and made it like twenty
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: percent in volume and then played this new one over
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: the top so you still get that whatever. And then
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: I remember I was at the baseline. I think we
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: need a completely different melody to it. So then we
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: did this baseline where I basically recorded twenty and we
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: stacked and stacked and stacked, vocally manipulated it, put it
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: down the octave, and then played a symp with it.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Like there was so much experimentation and things that needed
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: to be changed, things that needed to be added, and
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: he was so patient with me because I'm so annoying
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: every little detail life Ronnie, we needed her, I'll call
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: him like Hi, Ray, Like hey, So, I was just
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: thinking that we need a new verse two, you know,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: and maybe we do a string section. I even have
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: notes now, and we've handed in the master, and I'm
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: thinking maybe the vinyl is going to be different to
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: the version that's going to come out. I think we
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: need a more soft detexture on verse one because the
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: lyrics already so hard that you need some softness around it,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: you know. And then we played these brass on SNL
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: that was so good that I'm like, we need to
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: add that in. So there's probably going to be some
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: changes in the vinyl of seven inch version that we
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: printed to what you're hearing now. Rodney's such a jeep,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: like he's a legend. He's one of the best in
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: the game. He's just constantly leveling up, creating music that
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: just stands and tests the time wherever or some.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Of the best singers Janet Tony Braxton, I mean, come on,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: I mean just the greatest singers work As an album artist,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: do you have a sense of what you want to
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: do next? I like to make an album, okay, but
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: doing it out like you do, you have a goal
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that I want it to be by boom or you just.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Like it just has to be good by my own standard,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: and I think I'll need to live a little bit
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: to like make a really good album. Otherwise I'm just
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: gonna be writing about hotel rooms and winding roads and
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: nobody wants to hear that. So I need to go
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: and collect some stories as well and live a little bit.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: I'm aware that it's a bit scary in the times
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: we're in with everyone having such short attention spans, and
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: you know, we're it's such an amazing place right now
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: that everyone's like, oh, well, when's the next shit coming on?
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Like fucking hell damn, Like, I need to go. I
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: need to write. I'm not going to put anything out
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: that I don't love and I don't believe it's good,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: and it's got to at least be a little bit
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: better than, in my opinion, the album we just put
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: out of what's the point, I mean, got be leveling up.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, well, I can't wait to hear it. I hope, Yeah,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: me too, I can't wait to hear it. I'm sure
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: it'll be great. It's a great great talking to you
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: no like guys. Thank you. Thanks to Ray for speaking
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: so openly about her life, inspiration and her music. Her
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: new single, Genesis is out now everywhere. You can hear
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: a playlist of all of our favorite race songs at
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
• 49:42
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• 49:48
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• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.