Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 420] Beck: The Man Behind the Myth with Josephine Riesman

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[EP 420] Beck: The Man Behind the Myth with Josephine Riesman · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: You dig deep enough, anybody who makes art that you
0:02
Speaker 1: like is going to have some kind of opinion you
0:05
Speaker 1: really vehemently disagree with, or something in their past that
0:08
Speaker 1: you think they shouldn't have done. And the solution is
0:10
Speaker 1: to not idolize people. The solution is to not necessarily
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Speaker 1: turn them into more than what they are, but rather
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Speaker 1: think of them as humans and grapple with the art
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Speaker 1: they make, which is often the best part of themselves.
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Speaker 2: We're totally booked. Rock and roll! Wow.
0:27
Speaker 1: I think I'll leave you to your reading.
0:28
Speaker 2: Little Hans says it's time to rock and roll.
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Speaker 1: Rock and roll!
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Speaker 2: We are totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock.
0:39
Speaker 2: Conversations with authors, musicians, and insiders revealing the stories behind
0:43
Speaker 2: classic rock's greatest songs, albums, and artists. I'm Eric Senech.
0:47
Speaker 2: Great to have you back. I want to thank everybody
0:49
Speaker 2: who supports the show on Patreon. Backstage Pass members can
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Speaker 2: along with early access to new episodes. If you're interested,
1:00
Speaker 2: grab the Backstage Pass by clicking the link in the
1:02
Speaker 2: show notes or go to BookDownRock.com, just $ 5 a month.
1:06
Speaker 2: All right, now on to our guest, Josephine Reisman, who
1:10
Speaker 2: has a brand new book titled The Last Temptation of Beck,
1:14
Speaker 2: The Untold Story of a Pop Messiah. She explores the
1:17
Speaker 2: complicated story behind one of the most distinctive and enigmatic
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Speaker 2: artists to emerge from the 1990s, drawing on interviews with
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Speaker 2: people closest to Beck and previously unpublished documents. Reisman examines
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Speaker 2: Beck's rise from the Los Angeles underground, the mythology that
1:33
Speaker 2: grew around him, and the questions of fame, faith, authenticity,
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Speaker 2: and identity that followed. Welcome to the podcast, Josephine.
1:41
Speaker 1: Oh, it's so good to be here. Thank you for
1:43
Speaker 1: having me. I'm very eager to discuss.
1:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was so excited to talk to you about
1:48
Speaker 2: this because Beck is such an intriguing figure. I've been
1:53
Speaker 2: a fan of his, but more so lately with especially
1:56
Speaker 2: these mellow country rock albums and he put out another one.
2:01
Speaker 1: He just put out a new one, yes, Ride Lonesome,
2:04
Speaker 1: which is being billed as sort of the third in
2:07
Speaker 1: a trilogy beginning with 2002's Sea Change and continuing into
2:11
Speaker 1: 2014's Morning Phase. It's very interesting in that I think
2:15
Speaker 1: that that stage of his career, which really begins in
2:19
Speaker 1: 2002 with Sea Change, but takes a while for him
2:22
Speaker 1: to really get as his focus. That form of Beck...
2:29
Speaker 1: is a form that a lot of people have as
2:33
Speaker 1: kind of their first love encounter with that music that
2:37
Speaker 1: he makes, with music that he makes, period, which is
2:40
Speaker 1: always interesting to me because I'm a millennial. I was
2:44
Speaker 1: born in 85, so I'm right smack dab in the
2:46
Speaker 1: middle of the millennial generation. I was a huge Beck
2:49
Speaker 1: fan circa the end of the century, and I know millennials...
2:56
Speaker 1: who were barely aware of Beck or sort of knew
2:59
Speaker 1: about Beck, but Morning Phase and now Ride Lonesome, those
3:02
Speaker 1: are things they really dig. And then they went backwards
3:05
Speaker 1: and listened to Z Change. It's so interesting. He has
3:08
Speaker 1: so many faces and you can really fall in love
3:11
Speaker 1: with one of those faces and not even know about
3:13
Speaker 1: the others.
3:14
Speaker 2: I was on board from day one because I was
3:16
Speaker 2: working as an intern at a rock station that played Loser.
3:20
Speaker 1: Oh, no kidding. Which station, if I might ask?
3:22
Speaker 2: WPLR in New Haven.
3:24
Speaker 1: Oh, no kidding.
3:25
Speaker 2: And here's the great story. My cousin Andy, years later,
3:29
Speaker 2: told me a funny story because at that time, nobody
3:32
Speaker 2: knew who Beck was.
3:33
Speaker 1: Sure. He was a mystery.
3:35
Speaker 2: My friend said, you know, friend of his said, hey, Andy,
3:39
Speaker 2: I got some tickets for Toad's Place in New Haven
3:41
Speaker 2: to go see Beck.
3:43
Speaker 1: Right.
3:43
Speaker 2: So my cousin thinks it's Jeff Beck. He says.
3:47
Speaker 1: Common problem.
3:48
Speaker 2: Right. So he says, hell yeah.
3:50
Speaker 1: I'm going. Yeah, let's see Jeff Beck shred.
3:53
Speaker 2: He's waiting outside the venue, and he says to the
3:58
Speaker 2: guy to his left, he's like, ah, man, I'm bummed.
4:01
Speaker 2: I thought this was Jeff Beck. And the guy goes, hey, man,
4:03
Speaker 2: you know, who knows? Maybe, you know, it's going to
4:07
Speaker 2: be a good show. You never know. And that was
4:09
Speaker 2: Beck sitting next to him. You're kidding me. Well, you
4:14
Speaker 2: never know.
4:14
Speaker 1: I might do well. That's very funny.
4:17
Speaker 2: So my cousin goes in, and the show starts, and
4:19
Speaker 2: he's like, Oh shit, that's the guy who was just
4:22
Speaker 2: sitting to the left.
4:23
Speaker 1: Well, that's so funny because that's the Beck that began
4:28
Speaker 1: this journey in the music industry. And it's very much
4:31
Speaker 1: not the Beck you see now.
4:33
Speaker 2: No.
4:33
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not going to run into him in
4:35
Speaker 1: that particular way now, which is not an indictment, but
4:39
Speaker 1: it is a sign of how strange, what a long,
4:42
Speaker 1: strange trip it's been to borrow from another musical act.
4:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, but that leads to this book called And
4:52
Speaker 2: the theme of the book would be that he's a
4:55
Speaker 2: mystery figure now because he got so famous that he
4:59
Speaker 2: became this myth. But the question is, did he make
5:03
Speaker 2: himself a myth? So before we get into his story,
5:06
Speaker 2: what was it about Beck and the mythology that grew
5:09
Speaker 2: around him that made you want to spend years, which you.
5:12
Speaker 1: Did try to uncover? Yeah, it ended up being four
5:14
Speaker 1: difficult years where I almost gave up a couple of times.
5:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:20
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, look, on a purely selfish basis, when
5:24
Speaker 1: I was a youngster, I was very into Beck and
5:27
Speaker 1: very confused by the fact that you couldn't figure out
5:30
Speaker 1: what Beck's real story was. And so part of this
5:36
Speaker 1: was purely just I had a selfish excuse once I
5:39
Speaker 1: got a hot tip about some information people didn't already
5:43
Speaker 1: know to indulge my own fascination. And I always tell
5:48
Speaker 1: young journalists that If you follow your own fascination, you'll
5:52
Speaker 1: likely end up at things that other people are going
5:54
Speaker 1: to be fascinated by rather than just trying to chase trends.
5:57
Speaker 1: So I followed my gut. And what I found was, well,
6:01
Speaker 1: initially what I thought I was looking for was a
6:03
Speaker 1: political story about how, you know, this rebel of Generation
6:07
Speaker 1: X hung up the spurs and why. And what I
6:12
Speaker 1: found was so much more interesting, still political, but not
6:15
Speaker 1: like that, because what I found was that Beck was
6:17
Speaker 1: totally apolitical. And everyone who knew him who I would
6:22
Speaker 1: ask about that would say, oh, yeah, he didn't read
6:24
Speaker 1: the news. He didn't know. He didn't care about voting.
6:28
Speaker 1: None of that. It wasn't that he was conservative or
6:30
Speaker 1: liberal or anything. It just didn't register for him, which
6:34
Speaker 1: led me to start thinking hard about why that could
6:39
Speaker 1: be and why that was when he was surrounded by
6:41
Speaker 1: people who were political. And the conclusion I came to was. A,
6:47
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors, but B, the big factor
6:49
Speaker 1: was his being raised in the Church of Scientology, which
6:53
Speaker 1: although it has political components to it, is very disengaged,
6:58
Speaker 1: or at least it tells its adherents to be somewhat
7:00
Speaker 1: disengaged from earthly, regular, partisan politics. And that led me
7:06
Speaker 1: down a real road of understanding this person that I
7:10
Speaker 1: think led to something universal, which is this question of
7:14
Speaker 1: how do you survive... things that happen to you that
7:19
Speaker 1: are difficult when you're young that are done to you
7:21
Speaker 1: when you're young that you don't even have the full
7:24
Speaker 1: information about and how do you not only survive that
7:28
Speaker 1: but not then turn that trauma around onto other people
7:33
Speaker 1: it's a great question it's one of the great questions
7:35
Speaker 1: of existence is how to uh grow and how to
7:40
Speaker 1: be a person who's pro-social and even when you've endured
7:43
Speaker 1: some things that are a little rough. And that, you know,
7:47
Speaker 1: without giving away too much, was a lot of what
7:50
Speaker 1: happened to Beck in Scientology, which he was born into, left,
7:54
Speaker 1: and then came back to, and then has sort of
7:57
Speaker 1: left since.
7:59
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the question. Yeah, I was going to ask
8:01
Speaker 2: that as well. But he was born into a family
8:03
Speaker 2: deeply connected to Scientology.
8:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, especially his father. His father... David Campbell, who
8:10
Speaker 1: is still alive and very successful in the music industry
8:12
Speaker 1: as an arranger of strings for a wide array of
8:17
Speaker 1: artists who you've heard of.
8:18
Speaker 2: Aerosmith. Which song on Aerosmith?
8:20
Speaker 1: Green Day.
8:21
Speaker 2: He did.
8:22
Speaker 1: Oh, God.
8:22
Speaker 2: Crazy. It was crazy.
8:24
Speaker 1: I think it was crazy. I believe it was crazy.
8:25
Speaker 2: Amazing. One of those off of Get a Grip. Yeah.
8:28
Speaker 1: But the funny thing about Crazy was it was directly
8:30
Speaker 1: competing with Loser on the charts at the same time. And,
8:33
Speaker 1: you know, his father had done the strings for it.
8:35
Speaker 2: Anyway.
8:37
Speaker 1: You know, David Campbell... by David Campbell's on admission, got
8:40
Speaker 1: into Scientology in the mid sixties when he was studying
8:43
Speaker 1: piano in Manhattan. Uh, there was a teacher of his
8:47
Speaker 1: who was already into Dianetics and Scientology who took him
8:51
Speaker 1: under his wing and got him into some Dianetics courses.
8:53
Speaker 1: So by the time, uh, and then, uh, his Beck's mother,
8:59
Speaker 1: Bibby Hanson met, uh, went to a Dianetics meeting in
9:03
Speaker 1: California and met David there. So, uh, Beck was born
9:07
Speaker 1: into Scientology. And not only that, by the time he
9:10
Speaker 1: was coming up in Scientology, his father had abruptly become
9:15
Speaker 1: something of a success. When they joined, he was a
9:18
Speaker 1: well-trained musician, but he was still kind of busking. Within
9:22
Speaker 1: a few years, he's playing viola on Carole King's Tapestry
9:26
Speaker 1: and then arranging strings for Entire's follow-up album to that.
9:30
Speaker 1: He's arranging for Lita Ronstadt and Cat Stevens, all these people.
9:34
Speaker 1: And he becomes something of what they call basically an
9:39
Speaker 1: official designation, a celebrity at the Church of Scientology, which
9:43
Speaker 1: means he's a high commodity and his family can get
9:48
Speaker 1: away with certain things or that certain blind eyes will
9:52
Speaker 1: be turned in a way that they might not be
9:54
Speaker 1: with more rank-and-file people. So, yes, his father has continued
9:58
Speaker 1: to be very involved in the Church of Scientology and
10:02
Speaker 1: is high-ranking there. His mother is no longer affiliated, as
10:08
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, but all of these connections
10:11
Speaker 1: are very confusing and shadowy because you never want to
10:14
Speaker 1: make a big deal about leaving the Church of Scientology.
10:17
Speaker 1: If you do... that you might be cut off from
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Speaker 1: the people you still know who are in the church. So,
10:23
Speaker 1: you know, for example, Beck gave an interview in 2019
10:27
Speaker 1: where he said, I was never in the church, that
10:31
Speaker 1: never had any connection to it like that, which is
10:33
Speaker 1: just patently false. He had been on the record many
10:36
Speaker 1: times in the previous 15 odd years saying that he,
10:40
Speaker 1: almost 20 years, that he was a Scientologist. So Anyway,
10:42
Speaker 1: I'm rambling here.
10:44
Speaker 2: No, that's okay. That's okay. And he was born, we
10:46
Speaker 2: should mention this, born Beck David Campbell, B-E-K. Yes.
10:52
Speaker 1: I will say, one of the mysteries that I hope
10:55
Speaker 1: to maybe solve for the paperback, because maybe somebody will
10:57
Speaker 1: finally find some evidence on this, is why B-E-K? I
11:03
Speaker 1: don't know why he was spelled that way, but by
11:06
Speaker 1: the time he was in school, they were spelling it B-E-C-K,
11:10
Speaker 1: because it seemed like a more... rational name, but you know, look,
11:15
Speaker 1: his mother was a bohemian and is, Debbie Hansen. She
11:21
Speaker 1: was in Warhol's factory scene. The name Beck also has
11:25
Speaker 1: connotations of Nordic background. Her father was Al Hansen, who
11:30
Speaker 1: was of Norwegian descent and a great Fluxus artist. So yes,
11:35
Speaker 1: he was born Beck David Campbell in 1970 and was
11:40
Speaker 1: raised in the church, yes.
11:44
Speaker 2: His grandfather, I'm glad you mentioned that. His grandfather, this
11:46
Speaker 2: is what's interesting, is his grandfather, unconventional, teaches him that
11:51
Speaker 2: almost anything, junk, noise, destruction, could become art. How do
11:55
Speaker 2: you think those two different influences, that and Scientology, shaped
12:00
Speaker 2: the artist that he becomes?
12:01
Speaker 1: They're forever at war, I think, with him. Or at
12:04
Speaker 1: least they were very much in the 90s. And it
12:07
Speaker 1: was a conflict that I don't envy him having, but
12:11
Speaker 1: which was productive for a lot of interesting art. You know,
12:14
Speaker 1: for me, my favorite of the actually released back albums
12:20
Speaker 1: is Midnight Vultures. And Midnight Vultures is kind of this...
12:24
Speaker 1: apex moment that really shows you, gives you an answer
12:27
Speaker 1: to the question you just asked of how is he
12:30
Speaker 1: balancing the Fluxus influence with the Scientology influence? Well, the
12:34
Speaker 1: fact is these two things are like oil and water,
12:37
Speaker 1: but you can have a delicious vinaigrette with oil and water.
12:40
Speaker 1: You know, you can really mix together some strange influences
12:43
Speaker 1: that don't quite fit together and still get an interesting taste.
12:46
Speaker 1: And that's what Midnight of Ultrus is. He had already
12:49
Speaker 1: started letting Scientologists back into his life, including his father. Um,
12:53
Speaker 1: and you know, at the same time, his grandfather who
12:58
Speaker 1: had died four years prior was still a huge influence
13:00
Speaker 1: on him. And he was doing art exhibitions about, uh,
13:04
Speaker 1: his grandfather. So his grandfather was fresh on his mind.
13:06
Speaker 1: His grandfather was not a Scientologist. He was an avant-garde artist.
13:10
Speaker 1: So Midnight Vultures, I think if you listen to it,
13:13
Speaker 1: gives you a real window into that splintered mind, uh,
13:17
Speaker 1: where on the one hand you have the sort of,
13:20
Speaker 1: Al Hansen style, ferociously sexual junk collage. And on the
13:24
Speaker 1: other hand, you have the more removed approach of Scientology,
13:32
Speaker 1: which is not as raw and filled with junk. It's
13:37
Speaker 1: smoother lined and more precise. And those dual influences you
13:44
Speaker 1: can really hear in the music. But you can see
13:46
Speaker 1: it in his life, too. I mean, the 90s were,
13:49
Speaker 1: as his friend Ross Harris put it to me, Beck's
13:54
Speaker 1: rumspringa from Scientology, like the Amish who will sometimes... let
13:59
Speaker 1: their young people out into the non-Amish world to decide
14:03
Speaker 1: whether they want to live in the Amish world. And
14:06
Speaker 1: the 90s, almost exactly that 10 years, were kind of
14:09
Speaker 1: Beck's room springer from Scientology. And then through a series
14:13
Speaker 1: of influences, he ended up going back.
14:15
Speaker 2: You uncover a disturbing episode involving a 15-year-old Beck and
14:20
Speaker 2: a woman in her 30s that was reported to Scientology officials.
14:23
Speaker 2: With Beck and his mother not participating in the book,
14:26
Speaker 2: what were you able to establish about what happened? How
14:29
Speaker 2: were you able to reconstruct that story?
14:32
Speaker 1: That one was not something I went looking for. I
14:36
Speaker 1: did not go into this book knowing about childhood intimate
14:40
Speaker 1: abuse that Beck might have suffered as a minor. But
14:45
Speaker 1: once I started seeing some rumors and comment sections and
14:49
Speaker 1: then chased them down, I ended up with a lot
14:52
Speaker 1: of documentation from a man named Skip Press, who was
14:56
Speaker 1: a Scientologist at the time and no longer is. He's
15:00
Speaker 1: become a vocal ex and anti-Scientologist in many ways. But
15:05
Speaker 1: I got in touch with him, and to my utter shock,
15:11
Speaker 1: he had kept a trove of documents related to this
15:17
Speaker 1: childhood abuse because he had been the one who uncovered it.
15:20
Speaker 1: He was a fill-in ethics officer, which is a term
15:24
Speaker 1: I don't need to explain. I don't have time to
15:27
Speaker 1: explain here. But he was interviewing, he was talking to
15:32
Speaker 1: a divorcee who said that she was having an intimate
15:39
Speaker 1: relationship with Beck, as she put it, Beck Campbell. who
15:43
Speaker 1: was 15 at the time. And Skip was faced with
15:45
Speaker 1: the question of what he should do about this because
15:49
Speaker 1: the Hanson Campbells were celebrities and there might be backlash
15:53
Speaker 1: if he said something negative about them. But he ended
15:56
Speaker 1: up concluding that he should file what's called a knowledge
15:59
Speaker 1: report and send it to the relevant agencies within Scientology
16:03
Speaker 1: to try to get this handled. So short answer to
16:07
Speaker 1: your question is I saw the documents and And what's
16:10
Speaker 1: amazing is the documents don't just include the knowledge report,
16:17
Speaker 1: which would have on its own been very compelling evidence
16:20
Speaker 1: because it was a contemporaneous record of what Skip had
16:24
Speaker 1: heard in this conversation with the divorcee, with the woman
16:28
Speaker 1: who was having the inappropriate relationship. But in addition to that,
16:32
Speaker 1: there's a handwritten letter from a friend of Bibby's, a
16:37
Speaker 1: woman named Michelle Geller, that basically confirms everything, every allegation,
16:44
Speaker 1: just points the blame away from Bibby towards David. But
16:48
Speaker 1: the point is, this is somebody who was close to
16:51
Speaker 1: the family who has written a note that is authorized
16:54
Speaker 1: by the family defending them and confirming the allegation that
16:59
Speaker 1: this older woman was having an intimate relationship and sleeping
17:02
Speaker 1: in the same bed as Beck when he was 15
17:04
Speaker 1: and calling him her whole track item, which is a
17:08
Speaker 1: Scientology term for soulmate. And this is a troubling piece
17:14
Speaker 1: of information. And I really grappled with how to present it.
17:17
Speaker 1: Because as you say, Beck and Bibby did not participate
17:19
Speaker 1: with this book. They chose not to. I gave them
17:22
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunities and it didn't happen. So I
17:27
Speaker 1: was faced with the question of what do I do
17:29
Speaker 1: with this information? And there was part of me that
17:33
Speaker 1: wanted to just bury it and say, if I don't have,
17:36
Speaker 1: I don't want to risk re-traumatizing someone by bringing up
17:41
Speaker 1: traumatic information. But I realized that the alternative was continuing
17:48
Speaker 1: a 40-year cover-up. There was a 40-year cover-up that perhaps
17:53
Speaker 1: most importantly, not only continues to this day with the
17:57
Speaker 1: church when it comes to the abuse that Beck suffered,
18:01
Speaker 1: but also that institution still has some kind of coercive
18:05
Speaker 1: force over him. It's not that he's necessarily a member,
18:09
Speaker 1: but like his father's a very prominent member. He has
18:12
Speaker 1: people in his life who are prominent, who are very
18:14
Speaker 1: much members. And if he were to speak up about
18:18
Speaker 1: what happened to him, then he could lose a tremendous
18:23
Speaker 1: amount of his life. And so I opted to not
18:28
Speaker 1: continue a cover up. I opted to try to talk
18:32
Speaker 1: about what happens in secretive organizations like these. especially ones
18:38
Speaker 1: where children are considered, as L. Ron Hubbard reportedly put it,
18:42
Speaker 1: adults in small bodies. So it was a very tough call.
18:47
Speaker 1: It was a very tough call. But perhaps the added
18:50
Speaker 1: part to that is if I didn't include that, there's
18:54
Speaker 1: so much that happens later that I think doesn't make sense.
18:58
Speaker 1: Or to be blunt... there are a lot of things
19:02
Speaker 1: that happen later that if you don't know about the
19:04
Speaker 1: trauma that Beck lived through, it makes his actions seem
19:08
Speaker 1: inexplicable and cruel. And perhaps the reader will judge them
19:13
Speaker 1: to be cruel. It's not for me to say, but
19:15
Speaker 1: I wanted to provide context to show perhaps some of
19:19
Speaker 1: the elements that led him down the path to becoming
19:21
Speaker 1: the person who he was and is.
19:24
Speaker 2: I felt some sadness reading the part where he was,
19:26
Speaker 2: teenage Beck was in a documentary called Innerscapes and he's,
19:30
Speaker 2: He said even kids who feel used or abused are
19:33
Speaker 2: ultimately responsible for their own situation. Yes.
19:37
Speaker 1: He said this somewhat unprompted. When I have gone through
19:41
Speaker 1: the editing processes with this story, people keep asking, like, well,
19:45
Speaker 1: what was the context of that? And I go, I'll
19:47
Speaker 1: show you the documentary clip. There isn't one, really. The
19:50
Speaker 1: context is he's talking about making this poetry zine with
19:53
Speaker 1: his friends. And he says, well, you know, I think
19:57
Speaker 1: people have to take responsibility and young people have to
19:59
Speaker 1: take responsibility. I wanted to express myself, so I made
20:02
Speaker 1: this zine. But if kids feel they're being used or abused,
20:06
Speaker 1: they're ultimately responsible for their own condition. which is a
20:09
Speaker 1: classic Scientology doctrine. And although it's related to what he's
20:15
Speaker 1: talking about, it is somewhat an unprompted, perhaps, creed occur,
20:20
Speaker 1: some part of him just trying to talk about what
20:23
Speaker 1: he's going through. I'm speculating at this point, but it
20:26
Speaker 1: is an odd moment and one that reinforces how much, tragically,
20:32
Speaker 1: it seems, at least at the time, he seemed to
20:33
Speaker 1: internalize the notion that he was responsible for whatever happened.
20:38
Speaker 2: So let's get into his music now. Around 1989, that's
20:42
Speaker 2: an important year because he's immersed in New York's anti-folk scene.
20:47
Speaker 2: He played Woody Guthrie's 1913 Massacre for a veteran folk musician,
20:52
Speaker 2: Arthur Stern, who told him, essentially, you need to make
20:56
Speaker 2: your own stuff. Do you see that, I guess, that humiliation,
21:01
Speaker 2: that moment as a turning point in Beck finding his
21:03
Speaker 2: own voice as a songwriter? Yes.
21:05
Speaker 1: The anti-folk, in general, his.
21:09
Speaker 1: About a year hanging out with the anti folk scene
21:13
Speaker 1: in New York City was a major turning point. And
21:16
Speaker 1: that visitor, Arthur Stern, where who had played with Guthrie
21:22
Speaker 1: many decades prior and was a septuagenarian by this time,
21:26
Speaker 1: that audience in which he was told you need to
21:28
Speaker 1: make your own stuff. That, I think, was very important
21:32
Speaker 1: to Beck coming up with his own stuff. Also important
21:35
Speaker 1: was that at the same time he was trying to
21:37
Speaker 1: get a gig at one of these so-called anti-hoots, anti-hoot nannies,
21:42
Speaker 1: which were these gatherings of anti-folkies where people got to
21:46
Speaker 1: showcase their own original music. But the trouble was Beck
21:49
Speaker 1: didn't have any great original music. According to Latch, who
21:52
Speaker 1: was the mononymous person who ran the anti-hoots and is
21:56
Speaker 1: one of the keepers of the flame for anti-folk, Beck
21:59
Speaker 1: did the anti-Hooten, had like five kind of OK songs
22:03
Speaker 1: that nobody remembered and they were sort of tossed off.
22:05
Speaker 1: So Beck really struggled to come up with his own
22:08
Speaker 1: material in New York. And what I find fascinating is
22:12
Speaker 1: he doesn't really come up with his own material until
22:14
Speaker 1: he finally leaves New York. But it's pretty much right afterward.
22:18
Speaker 1: Like he learned a lot in New York, but I
22:20
Speaker 1: think he had to leave that milieu in order to
22:24
Speaker 1: start thriving as a songwriter as opposed to just a
22:27
Speaker 1: very gifted player and mimic. Right.
22:29
Speaker 2: He went to Los Angeles. And that's where I was leading.
22:32
Speaker 2: I was going next was next question is we get
22:35
Speaker 2: to 1991 and there are a couple of guys, Ross
22:38
Speaker 2: Harris and Steve Hanft, I guess.
22:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Ross Harris and Steve Hanft.
22:42
Speaker 2: So they hear back. It was about 2021 at the time.
22:45
Speaker 2: He he's playing for the first time for them. And
22:48
Speaker 2: they're stunned by how convincingly he can move from old
22:51
Speaker 2: blues and country into his own strange folk songs. Was
22:55
Speaker 2: he developing an original musical identity there? at this point?
22:58
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, yes. By the time he meets Steve and Ross, he,
23:03
Speaker 1: let me put it this way, he plays a bunch
23:05
Speaker 1: of folk and blues and some originals that are very
23:09
Speaker 1: odd and off kilter. And then Steve walks up to
23:12
Speaker 1: him and says, hey, do you like Bob Dylan? And
23:16
Speaker 1: Beck cryptically says, no, I like Slayer, as in the
23:20
Speaker 1: heavy metal band. Now, the thing is, Beck loved Bob Dylan.
23:24
Speaker 1: But that answer tells you everything about the myth he
23:27
Speaker 1: was trying to build at that point. He didn't want
23:29
Speaker 1: to be seen as the Bob Dylan of the 90s,
23:31
Speaker 1: which is what people often called him. He never talked
23:34
Speaker 1: about Dylan, despite the fact that Dylan was a massive influence,
23:37
Speaker 1: according to the people I talked to who knew him
23:40
Speaker 1: when he was young. So instead, he's building this myth
23:45
Speaker 1: as kind of being a boy from nowhere. He didn't
23:47
Speaker 1: talk about his parents. He didn't talk about his religious upbringing.
23:51
Speaker 1: When he sang personal songs, they were about heartbreak, but
23:55
Speaker 1: they were oblique. It was not about him being confessional, really,
24:01
Speaker 1: in terms of just blurting out what his real life
24:04
Speaker 1: was like. He was building a myth at all times
24:07
Speaker 1: once he got back, especially once he got back from
24:09
Speaker 1: New York. And part of that was seeing myths getting
24:13
Speaker 1: built in New York by anti-folk performers such as his mentor, Paleface.
24:18
Speaker 1: But another part of that was just trial and error
24:21
Speaker 1: because the more he did these little open mics or
24:26
Speaker 1: gorilla sets, once he got back to LA, the more
24:30
Speaker 1: he found that people responded to the stuff that was
24:32
Speaker 1: cryptic and goofy as opposed to emotional or traditionals. And,
24:39
Speaker 1: you know, I think that was, yeah. Yeah. I hope
24:42
Speaker 1: that answers your question.
24:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. It does. But when he was in
24:45
Speaker 2: New York, there was one thing kind of going back
24:47
Speaker 2: a little bit to that period when he's there, He's
24:50
Speaker 2: exposed to everything from raw outsider music, old folk and
24:54
Speaker 2: blues to the Beastie Boys.
24:57
Speaker 1: Paul's Boutique, because he's there in 1989 when Paul's Boutique drops.
25:01
Speaker 1: That was a massive moment because the Dust Brothers, who
25:05
Speaker 1: had produced it, along with the Beasties, created this real masterpiece.
25:10
Speaker 1: I mean, I love Paul's Boutique. I listen to it
25:12
Speaker 1: all the time.
25:13
Speaker 2: Love it.
25:14
Speaker 1: But Beck and Paleface, who I spoke to, claims he
25:18
Speaker 1: picked it up and played it for himself and Beck
25:21
Speaker 1: and their minds were just blown. And they were like, wow,
25:24
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be cool if we could find some kind
25:25
Speaker 1: of way to marry hip hop with anti-folk? And then
25:29
Speaker 1: that's kind of what Beck ends up inadvertently doing with
25:32
Speaker 1: Loser just a few years later.
25:35
Speaker 2: For those who may not know that term anti-folk, how
25:38
Speaker 2: would you describe it?
25:39
Speaker 1: Antifolk was this scene that didn't last very long, but
25:43
Speaker 1: it had a certain impact, especially in the form of
25:46
Speaker 1: Beck's training there. It was a group of musicians, singer-songwriters,
25:52
Speaker 1: who collected themselves in New York City downtown. in the
25:57
Speaker 1: late 80s, early 90s, and really not a very long explosion.
26:03
Speaker 1: It was like four or five years, but it was
26:05
Speaker 1: very intense what was happening. It was a bunch of
26:08
Speaker 1: folk-influenced musicians who wanted to reclaim what the roots of
26:13
Speaker 1: folk had felt like. The protest songs of the 30s,
26:17
Speaker 1: the earthy Lomax field recordings, all that sort of thing.
26:22
Speaker 1: Not the glossy... Uh, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, kind of
26:30
Speaker 1: that vibe of folk, which is what it had become
26:33
Speaker 1: by the end of the seventies into the eighties. So
26:35
Speaker 1: they were trying to recapture the more political and the
26:38
Speaker 1: more rough edged folk of an earlier era. And Beck
26:45
Speaker 1: fell in with them. Having read an article about them
26:49
Speaker 1: in some magazine and just sort of wandered down to
26:52
Speaker 1: one of the venues and ran into pale face. who
26:55
Speaker 1: was one of the rising stars in Paleface and him
26:57
Speaker 1: became very close. And Beck learned a tremendous amount from
27:00
Speaker 1: Paleface about how to have a myth, how to have
27:03
Speaker 1: an act. And Defoe was very important for Beck's development
27:07
Speaker 1: as a performer and ultimately as a songwriter, even if
27:10
Speaker 1: he didn't write all that many great songs while he
27:13
Speaker 1: was there.
27:14
Speaker 2: Let's get to the big breakthrough single now, Loser. In 1992,
27:18
Speaker 2: he recorded it with producer Carl.
27:20
Speaker 1: He recorded it in late 91. Late 91. I managed
27:24
Speaker 1: to track down, I couldn't find studio session dates for
27:28
Speaker 1: the exact recordings, but I was able to find the
27:31
Speaker 1: date of the concert that began it all, which was
27:34
Speaker 1: September 27th, 1991. Beck was doing a Gorillaz set. He
27:38
Speaker 1: wasn't even billed that night. uh, before a band called
27:42
Speaker 1: Dick Tit, if you'll pardon me.
27:43
Speaker 2: Pardon my French. And he's, what became of them?
27:47
Speaker 1: What became of Dick Tit? Well, a lot of things
27:50
Speaker 1: the members went on to do, but, um, the point is, uh,
27:54
Speaker 1: Beck did this guerrilla set where he played a song
27:56
Speaker 1: called The Cut in Half Blues, which is about a
27:59
Speaker 1: man whose girlfriend saws him in half. And Tom Rothrock,
28:04
Speaker 1: who was part of the then starting to come into
28:08
Speaker 1: existence bong load records, happened to be in the audience
28:11
Speaker 1: and saw Beck perform and was enchanted and basically signed
28:15
Speaker 1: him that night. And they went and did the recording
28:17
Speaker 1: of Loser within a month. So it had to have
28:20
Speaker 1: been within late September, probably early to mid-October of 1991.
28:25
Speaker 1: But they sat on it for like a year and
28:27
Speaker 1: a half. Nothing happened for a while.
28:30
Speaker 2: Well, I should ask my cousin when he saw Beck
28:32
Speaker 2: at Toad's in New Haven then, because that would have
28:36
Speaker 2: been probably... after the album came out.
28:38
Speaker 1: Maybe not. I think it's probably after the single dropped.
28:40
Speaker 1: He was not getting big audiences anywhere until the Loser tape, well,
28:46
Speaker 1: the Loser single, there was a vinyl 12-inch that got
28:49
Speaker 1: released in March of 1993 after the sort of, the
28:54
Speaker 1: guy with the money at Bogload heard just at a
28:57
Speaker 1: like hangout session with the other two label heads, heard
29:01
Speaker 1: Loser playing in the background as background music. He's like,
29:03
Speaker 1: what the hell is this? Why haven't we released this?
29:06
Speaker 1: And so they pressed a bunch of vinyls, but what really,
29:08
Speaker 1: you'll remember this, what really happened was without, it wasn't
29:12
Speaker 1: that like college record, college radio stations were, or indie
29:17
Speaker 1: radio stations, alternative, whatever, were getting the vinyl, they were
29:20
Speaker 1: getting cassette tapes. They were bootlegging each other because the
29:24
Speaker 1: demand was so fast and massive that they didn't even
29:30
Speaker 1: have enough copies of the vinyl to go around, really.
29:33
Speaker 1: So for a while, you have people, you have radio
29:35
Speaker 1: stations just playing dubbed cassette recordings of other stations or
29:41
Speaker 1: their friends who have a copy of the vinyl, whatever,
29:44
Speaker 1: having Loser. It was a massive hit overnight.
29:49
Speaker 2: Carl Stephenson, the producer, supplied the beat and the sitar.
29:52
Speaker 2: Beck added the slide guitar and experimented with rapping. Even
29:56
Speaker 2: the title grew out of his frustration with his own performance.
29:59
Speaker 2: How much of that song was discovered in the studio
30:02
Speaker 2: rather than something that he had envisioned beforehand?
30:05
Speaker 1: As far as I can tell, it was pretty much
30:09
Speaker 1: riffed on in the studio. Because what you have to
30:11
Speaker 1: remember is Beck was not a rapper. He kind of
30:14
Speaker 1: still isn't. He's more of a poet. And he was
30:17
Speaker 1: a poet by that point. He was a published poet.
30:19
Speaker 1: He had done the youthless zine and been documented in
30:23
Speaker 1: the documentary for it. So when you look at Loser,
30:26
Speaker 1: what you're looking at in those lyrics is not necessarily exactly...
30:29
Speaker 1: hip hop. It's more like a free form poetry and
30:34
Speaker 1: that he was good at that he could come up
30:37
Speaker 1: with on the fly. So he may have had some
30:40
Speaker 1: vague idea beforehand, but from all accounts that I've seen
30:44
Speaker 1: in on that day in Carl Stevenson's apartment during the
30:48
Speaker 1: six odd hours before his girlfriend got home and had
30:52
Speaker 1: to kick them out because she hated the noise. Uh,
30:56
Speaker 1: you know, Beck came up with the vast majority of
30:58
Speaker 1: that song. And I believe it because at that stage,
31:04
Speaker 1: he was cranking... I mean, when he met Tom Rothrock
31:06
Speaker 1: at that Dictate concert, the story goes that Tom, according
31:10
Speaker 1: to Tom, Tom said, you know, I love that song
31:13
Speaker 1: you did. Do you write a lot of songs? And
31:15
Speaker 1: Beck said, oh yeah, three or four a day sometimes.
31:18
Speaker 1: Like Beck was just generating lyrics at a hyper lexical
31:23
Speaker 1: level at this point. So... I'm not surprised that the
31:27
Speaker 1: accounts tend to point towards him coming up with Loser
31:31
Speaker 1: in the studio. Now, he did have the term Loser
31:34
Speaker 1: fresh in his head because he was in a punk band,
31:36
Speaker 1: or a hardcore band, rather, which Steve Hampt called Loser.
31:40
Speaker 1: But I don't think he came up with, like, all
31:43
Speaker 1: the In the Time of Chimpanzees, I was a monkey,
31:45
Speaker 1: all that, sitting at home getting ready for this session.
31:48
Speaker 1: Because the stories just don't point to that. I could
31:52
Speaker 1: be wrong, but I think most of it was him riffing.
31:54
Speaker 2: Okay, what is he saying before I'm a loser, baby,
31:56
Speaker 2: so why don't you kill me?
31:58
Speaker 1: Soy un perdedor. I'm a loser in Spanish. Soy un perdedor.
32:04
Speaker 2: So it sounds like he was just riffing.
32:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was riffing. And the Spanish Spanglish is a
32:11
Speaker 1: recurring motif, at least, in Beck's music. A lot of
32:14
Speaker 1: it may have come from his brief time in a
32:16
Speaker 1: public school that was predominantly Latinx and was surrounded by
32:21
Speaker 1: Spanish all the time. You know, he named... There's Odale,
32:25
Speaker 1: which was a corruption of the phrase Odale. And then
32:29
Speaker 1: there's Guero, his album. So he comes back to this
32:32
Speaker 1: over and over again. But Spanish. And his stepfather is Mexican-American,
32:38
Speaker 1: John Carrillo. So he was surrounded by a certain degree
32:41
Speaker 1: of Spanish growing up and throughout his L.A. existence.
32:46
Speaker 2: Josephine Reisman, the author of The Last Temptation of Beck,
32:49
Speaker 2: The Untold Story of a Pop Messiah. Once Loser explodes
32:52
Speaker 2: on radio, now he's found the fame. That he had
32:55
Speaker 2: talked about wanting, yet he panicked when major labels came calling.
33:00
Speaker 2: Talk about that and his fear of selling out.
33:02
Speaker 1: You have to remember, this is the 90s when the
33:04
Speaker 1: cardinal sin was being perceived as a sellout or a
33:10
Speaker 1: wannabe or a poser or we didn't have the term yet,
33:13
Speaker 1: but basically a nepo baby. And Beck did not want
33:17
Speaker 1: to be seen as any of these things. He had
33:18
Speaker 1: worked hard at crafting this myth over the course of
33:21
Speaker 1: the previous few years. And when abruptly Loser became this
33:24
Speaker 1: mega hit and the labels were chasing after him, from
33:28
Speaker 1: the accounts I've gotten from people who were around him
33:31
Speaker 1: around then, he was pretty much like a deer in headlights.
33:34
Speaker 1: He didn't really have any idea what to do with
33:36
Speaker 1: this sudden attention and was very afraid of getting exploited
33:42
Speaker 1: or having a bad deal, whatever. So he also didn't
33:48
Speaker 1: want to be perceived as being too corporate. And one
33:51
Speaker 1: of the reasons he went with David Geffen with Geffen
33:53
Speaker 1: Records at the time run by David Geffen was Sonic
33:57
Speaker 1: Youth were on there and Sonic Youth had gotten away
33:59
Speaker 1: with it. So it was like you could be on
34:02
Speaker 1: Geffen and also you could have creative control. That was
34:06
Speaker 1: the thing Beck negotiated in a very long custom contract.
34:10
Speaker 1: was that he would retain creative control over these first
34:14
Speaker 1: two albums for Geffen, what became Mellow Gold and Odelay,
34:18
Speaker 1: and they would basically just have to release whatever he
34:20
Speaker 1: gave them. He'd be getting less money, but he'd also
34:23
Speaker 1: be allowed to do side records and recordings for other
34:26
Speaker 1: people's labels, as long as they weren't major things. So
34:30
Speaker 1: it seemed like a good compromise at the time. Now,
34:34
Speaker 1: you know, eventually it gets bought by Interscope and things
34:37
Speaker 1: get rowdy and, you know, Beck's no longer in that
34:41
Speaker 1: brand anymore. But at the time in 1993, 94, it
34:46
Speaker 1: seemed like a pretty decent idea to go with Geffen
34:50
Speaker 1: because they were offering creative control. They already had some
34:53
Speaker 1: artists with indie cred with alternative cred and, um, and
34:58
Speaker 1: he needed money. I mean, the fact was his father
35:01
Speaker 1: was a very successful arranger, but his father wasn't in
35:03
Speaker 1: his life at that point and hadn't been for a
35:05
Speaker 1: few years. Sure.
35:06
Speaker 2: And somebody like Peter Gabriel was on Geffen. You'd think, well.
35:10
Speaker 1: A lot of really creative, interesting people were on Geffen.
35:12
Speaker 1: David Geffen allegedly called Beck personally to beg this 23-year-old
35:17
Speaker 1: to sign on. So, yeah, it was not the worst
35:21
Speaker 1: home for him at the time. And to their credit,
35:24
Speaker 1: they did release Mellow Gold and Odelay, which are two
35:26
Speaker 1: very weird albums. The second of which... They really tried
35:31
Speaker 1: to get him to not release, but he, so the
35:35
Speaker 1: legend goes, he really insisted on, and it became this
35:39
Speaker 1: surprise mega hit.
35:40
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, in exchange, Geffen was happy they got two
35:43
Speaker 2: hit albums, right?
35:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Odelay especially. They then were chasing after
35:48
Speaker 1: the high of Odelay forever after. I mean, Midnight Vultures
35:53
Speaker 1: wasn't Odelay. I love Midnight Vultures, but it wasn't Odelay.
35:55
Speaker 1: It didn't sell like Odelay. It didn't have the impact
35:58
Speaker 1: of Odele. Guero wasn't Odele, although it did sell pretty well.
36:02
Speaker 1: It didn't have that same cultural cachet and critical response. Odele,
36:07
Speaker 1: which was 30 years ago, God, I feel so old,
36:10
Speaker 1: was just, it was kind of a singular phenomenon, that album.
36:14
Speaker 2: It's crazy. But yeah, you speak, talk about feeling old
36:18
Speaker 2: and see the Van Halen banner behind me and Beck's
36:21
Speaker 2: part of Van Halen history with that 96 MTV Video Awards.
36:25
Speaker 2: Oh my God. The poor fella had to stand there
36:29
Speaker 2: while the second down or third downfall of Van Halen.
36:33
Speaker 2: It was the first era of Dave went down and
36:35
Speaker 2: then we had the Sammy era go down. And then
36:37
Speaker 2: we see the aborted reunion of, of, of Dave with
36:41
Speaker 2: Van Halen while poor Beck is sitting there. And he
36:43
Speaker 2: was so cool about it. He's like, I want to
36:45
Speaker 2: thank Van Halen and David leaves behind him doing the
36:48
Speaker 2: dance and Eddie's all pissed off.
36:50
Speaker 1: And I mean, I love getting this Lord cause I
36:53
Speaker 1: only know the Beck side of it. I didn't, I
36:56
Speaker 1: didn't know where the Halen stuff was.
36:58
Speaker 2: If you look on YouTube, I don't know if you've
36:59
Speaker 2: seen this, but Eddie and Alex were reliving that experience,
37:04
Speaker 2: and Alex chimes in. He goes, it was disrespectful to Beck,
37:09
Speaker 2: what Dave did. Yeah, it's fine. It's on if you
37:12
Speaker 2: go to YouTube.
37:13
Speaker 1: I got to look for that. I did not know that.
37:16
Speaker 1: Maybe that'll show up in the paperback. But yeah, no, no,
37:19
Speaker 1: Halen did have their moment of business. That was the
37:21
Speaker 1: thing was like, this is the thing that blows my
37:24
Speaker 1: mind about Beck was Beck grew up, there was a
37:27
Speaker 1: portion of Beck's childhood where he's living in a mansion
37:29
Speaker 1: formerly owned by Marlon Brando in Laurel Canyon, going to part,
37:34
Speaker 1: like he's, you know, a few years old and he's
37:37
Speaker 1: running around in like, you know, Jackson Brown's there, Linda Ronstadt, whatever.
37:41
Speaker 1: And it's kind of just the environment he's in. Then
37:43
Speaker 1: he leaves that environment and creates this myth of being
37:46
Speaker 1: a boy from nowhere. So he's, When he re-encounters showbiz,
37:52
Speaker 1: which he was sort of born into, he always has
37:55
Speaker 1: this aw shucks look like, oh boy, I can't believe
37:57
Speaker 1: I'm near this. It's like your mom go-go danced for
38:01
Speaker 1: the Velvet Underground. Like this is part of your heritage,
38:05
Speaker 1: but part of his image was, well, I don't know
38:08
Speaker 1: what I'm doing here. When in many ways, he was
38:11
Speaker 1: kind of to the manner born.
38:12
Speaker 2: Man, that just makes him so fascinating in my eyes.
38:16
Speaker 1: It makes him so fascinating, doesn't it? You don't think
38:19
Speaker 1: about the fact that his dad worked with Bob Dylan.
38:23
Speaker 2: And there aren't many celebrities out there these days in
38:26
Speaker 2: this era where there's things you don't know about them
38:29
Speaker 2: because everything is out there.
38:31
Speaker 1: But Beck, who has done so many interviews over the years,
38:34
Speaker 1: not as many in recent years, well, in the past
38:37
Speaker 1: couple of months, he's done a ton of them, but
38:40
Speaker 1: he's been well-documented. But the real story just hadn't been told. Like,
38:46
Speaker 1: he has constructed an interesting myth. I happen to think
38:50
Speaker 1: the real story is more interesting and more instructive.
38:53
Speaker 2: Well, the timing of Odele is interesting because Scientology under
38:58
Speaker 2: David Miscavige was becoming increasingly focused on celebrities. Hello, Tom Cruise, right? Yes.
39:05
Speaker 2: How important was that sudden success to their I think
39:10
Speaker 2: that was crucial. Yeah, they started contacting him. From what
39:15
Speaker 2: I can tell, what happens is Scientology wins this huge
39:19
Speaker 2: victory in, I believe it was October, December, something like 1993.
39:25
Speaker 2: Right around when Beck is blowing up with Loser, Scientology
39:29
Speaker 2: wins this huge victory. against the government of the United States,
39:32
Speaker 2: where they get the IRS to finally recognize them as
39:35
Speaker 2: a religious organization, which gives them nonprofit status, certain protections,
39:39
Speaker 2: et cetera. And shortly after that, they have a few initiatives.
39:44
Speaker 2: One of the big initiatives.
39:45
Speaker 1: That David Miscavige, according to reporting on Scientology, kicks in
39:48
Speaker 1: is like, we need our celebrities back. Like if we're
39:51
Speaker 1: going to if we're going to dominate, we need to
39:53
Speaker 1: be cool. And so, you know, Tom Cruise is the
39:58
Speaker 1: most famous of those stories. It takes a few years
40:00
Speaker 1: for that to fully kick in. But that's very well
40:03
Speaker 1: documented by other people, Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright. they
40:08
Speaker 1: really made an effort after Tom Cruise was perceived as
40:11
Speaker 1: straying to pull him back in. And what I've uncovered
40:15
Speaker 1: is that they basically did a similar thing with Beck.
40:18
Speaker 1: It was a long-term process that really climaxed. It was
40:22
Speaker 1: one of those old, you know, the line about gradually
40:25
Speaker 1: and then all at once, where Beck becomes a hit,
40:30
Speaker 1: Scientology no longer is distracted by the government, and then
40:34
Speaker 1: within just a few months, there's this quote-unquote chance encounter
40:39
Speaker 1: where Beck happens to run into his estranged father, David Campbell,
40:44
Speaker 1: at a vegetarian restaurant that he frequents. And they have
40:48
Speaker 1: this reunion. And then within a few months, David Campbell,
40:55
Speaker 1: his father, is hanging out in his trailer for Lollapalooza
40:59
Speaker 1: and friends are meeting David Campbell. And then eventually there's
41:02
Speaker 1: a new bassist who's from Scientology and it sort of
41:05
Speaker 1: gradually happens. They do what appears to be something of
41:12
Speaker 1: a charm offensive. They wanted him back, and they made
41:16
Speaker 1: efforts to do so. And then that sort of, I
41:19
Speaker 1: imagine you're going to ask me about this later, so
41:20
Speaker 1: I won't do it yet, but it all sort of
41:22
Speaker 1: climaxes in this very dramatic moment where they sort of
41:27
Speaker 1: do get Beck back by kind of breaking his brain
41:32
Speaker 1: on some level.
41:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, talk about that now if you want.
41:36
Speaker 1: Beck had been with the, uh, a romantic partner for
41:40
Speaker 1: nine years when they broke up. Her name was Lily Moan. Uh,
41:45
Speaker 1: she's still alive. And, uh, to correct myself from when
41:48
Speaker 1: I say was, but, um, Lee and Lee had been
41:52
Speaker 1: something of Beck's anchor in the, so let's say secular world. Um,
42:00
Speaker 1: She and he had talked about Scientology and his upbringing
42:03
Speaker 1: a little bit. They'd made fun of Scientology early on.
42:07
Speaker 1: It didn't seem like much of a factor. But eventually
42:10
Speaker 1: he is getting drawn in more. And what that culminates
42:17
Speaker 1: in is Scientology, from the best I can tell in
42:20
Speaker 1: my investigation, determining that in order to get Beck back,
42:25
Speaker 1: Lee needs to be out of the picture. much as
42:28
Speaker 1: they had done with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. In
42:31
Speaker 1: order to have Tom Cruise back, they needed to break
42:33
Speaker 1: up this relationship that was anchoring him outside of Scientology.
42:39
Speaker 1: So while he was on tour in Japan in 2000,
42:45
Speaker 1: in late May of 2000, somebody affiliated with Scientology got
42:50
Speaker 1: in touch with him and told him that Lee was...
42:55
Speaker 1: was a major drug addict and sleeping around with lots
43:00
Speaker 1: of people that he knew. There may have been other
43:03
Speaker 1: information in there. Only Beck knows for sure. There was
43:06
Speaker 1: a legitimate email that somebody had somehow ganked from Lee's records.
43:13
Speaker 1: But the point being, this revelation, whether it was true
43:18
Speaker 1: or not, and there are disputes about whether Lee was unfaithful,
43:22
Speaker 1: and remember, they weren't married, but Whether or not that's true,
43:26
Speaker 1: this information and set of allegations, at least, was used
43:33
Speaker 1: by the Church of Scientology to shatter the relationship and
43:38
Speaker 1: basically convince Beck that he couldn't trust anyone outside of Scientology. Like,
43:43
Speaker 1: that's sort of what that breakup adds up to is this...
43:49
Speaker 1: Attempt to say, look, even the person who you had
43:52
Speaker 1: closest to you couldn't be trusted. You can't trust anybody.
43:56
Speaker 1: Return to the faith of your father. That sort of thing. And,
44:00
Speaker 1: you know, that that does appear. I'm basing that on
44:04
Speaker 1: information I've gotten, evidence I've found, and also what ends
44:07
Speaker 1: up happening, which is he does return to the faith
44:09
Speaker 1: of his father. He does break up with Lily Moan.
44:12
Speaker 2: And the father starts contributing to the music. They're now.
44:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, that had been happening already, but now it happens
44:19
Speaker 1: all the time.
44:20
Speaker 2: Even more so, yeah.
44:21
Speaker 1: Even more so. I mean, down to Beck having a
44:24
Speaker 1: tour a couple of years ago where he was touring
44:26
Speaker 1: with orchestras in different cities, and it was just his
44:30
Speaker 1: father's arrangements. I mean, he was basically playing the greatest
44:33
Speaker 1: hits of Beck and David Campbell because he was playing
44:36
Speaker 1: all the songs that had orchestral arrangements, which were arranged
44:40
Speaker 1: by his dad.
44:43
Speaker 2: What's interesting is kind of going back a little bit
44:45
Speaker 2: before the 2000s, just to talk about mutations, because after
44:49
Speaker 2: the success of Odele, which has Where It's At, Devil's Haircut,
44:53
Speaker 2: The New Pollution, which are just huge hits and such
44:56
Speaker 2: great songs. And you mentioned the Dust Brothers helped produce that.
45:00
Speaker 2: But after the success of Odele, he could have repeated
45:04
Speaker 2: that formula, but he doesn't. He makes 98's Mutations.
45:08
Speaker 1: Made Mutations, which was this interesting experiment in making records
45:11
Speaker 1: the way that people used to make records in the
45:14
Speaker 1: 60s and 70s or even before that, which was you
45:16
Speaker 1: just crank out a whole bunch of material almost live
45:20
Speaker 1: to tape. He had two weeks of studio time in
45:23
Speaker 1: Ocean Way Studios, which is where Pet Sounds was recorded
45:27
Speaker 1: and Frank Sinatra's That Was a Very Good Year. I mean,
45:30
Speaker 1: a lot of amazing recordings were laid down in Ocean Way,
45:33
Speaker 1: which no longer exists. And he... went there for just
45:37
Speaker 1: two weeks in the spring of 1998 with a bunch
45:40
Speaker 1: of his musicians and laid down a bunch of tracks.
45:42
Speaker 1: Two weeks! It wasn't that long! But some of them
45:46
Speaker 1: were tracks he'd had laying around, some of them were new,
45:49
Speaker 1: and Mutations was my entry point as a new album.
45:53
Speaker 1: I had already heard Odelay and fallen in love with
45:56
Speaker 1: it when I was 12, 13, and then when I
45:58
Speaker 1: was 13, uh mutations came out so it's my first
46:04
Speaker 1: new back album.
46:05
Speaker 2: And that's interesting because there were no big hits no
46:08
Speaker 2: big hits but great album but.
46:10
Speaker 1: No but it's great i'll tell you what it may
46:12
Speaker 1: not have had any big radio hits outside of uh
46:15
Speaker 1: chicagoland but i was growing up with chicago's wxrt uh
46:20
Speaker 1: 93 xrt the alternative not alternative they were like the
46:23
Speaker 1: i don't know what you would describe them as they
46:25
Speaker 1: were sort of an adult contemporary station in some level
46:28
Speaker 1: But I listened to them every morning. I loved them.
46:30
Speaker 1: And for them, Mutations was a big hit. They played
46:33
Speaker 1: Tropicalia all the time.
46:35
Speaker 2: Tropicalia, yeah.
46:36
Speaker 1: Tropicalia, which was not really much of a single anywhere
46:38
Speaker 1: else around the world. But for whatever reason, XRT loved
46:42
Speaker 1: it and played it. And I felt very special that
46:44
Speaker 1: I had been a fan.
46:45
Speaker 2: And then 99's Midnight Vultures.
46:47
Speaker 1: They're trying, yeah, Midnight Vultures was this really, because Mutations
46:51
Speaker 1: Beckett even in interviews sort of written off. He'd said
46:54
Speaker 1: this is a parenthetical work. This is between Odele and
46:58
Speaker 1: whatever comes next. And so what came next was Midnight Vultures,
47:02
Speaker 1: which is a beast of precision. I mean, it's incredible
47:06
Speaker 1: how much of a well-oiled machine it is, oftentimes actually
47:12
Speaker 1: sounding like a machine, and deliberately.
47:15
Speaker 2: And Beck's creating a character here. It's like the flamboyant, hypersexual, hypersexual,
47:21
Speaker 2: completely different. Yeah.
47:22
Speaker 1: Very different from who he was.
47:24
Speaker 2: Another example of him, you know, using, using the performance
47:28
Speaker 2: and the irony to keep that real person hidden.
47:31
Speaker 1: Right. Possibly. I mean, it was very much him occupying
47:35
Speaker 1: this narrator figure who likes to have a lot of
47:39
Speaker 1: sex by the accounts. I've heard Beck is not that
47:42
Speaker 1: hypersexual person. I'm not, I don't want to get into
47:46
Speaker 1: unnecessary detail, but like he is not that character. There
47:50
Speaker 1: are people in rock and pop who are that character
47:53
Speaker 1: who will sleep with anybody and anything that they can find.
47:58
Speaker 1: An instructive story from that tour where he's going around
48:02
Speaker 1: talking about like, oh, I'm, I'm singing all these songs
48:04
Speaker 1: about having sex with all these ladies was at one
48:06
Speaker 1: point he's in Paris and Jane Birkin, the great Chanteuse
48:10
Speaker 1: and former muse and collaborator, uh, of Serge Gainsbourg, she does,
48:17
Speaker 1: she performs an old Serge and Jane song with Beck,
48:20
Speaker 1: Liana Moore. And I got the story from behind the
48:24
Speaker 1: scenes of Jane tried to sleep with Beck, and Beck
48:30
Speaker 1: said no, because what would Lee think? And the irony
48:36
Speaker 1: there is incredible, but that shows you, he was on
48:40
Speaker 1: the tour for Midnight Vultures, offered the opportunity to sleep
48:44
Speaker 1: with one of the most beautiful women in the history
48:47
Speaker 1: of pop music. And he said, no, because he, that's
48:51
Speaker 1: not the kind of guy he was. He was a character.
48:52
Speaker 2: 2002 sea change. How much of that record can be
48:56
Speaker 2: traced to the breakup with Lee?
48:58
Speaker 1: Oh, a lot. I mean, not all of those songs
49:01
Speaker 1: were written because of Lee. Some of them he did
49:03
Speaker 1: kicking around from a breakup, like almost a decade earlier,
49:07
Speaker 1: over a decade earlier. Um, But with this woman, the
49:12
Speaker 1: young woman he dated named Rain Spurlock. But some of
49:16
Speaker 1: those songs he revived now that his heart was broken again.
49:20
Speaker 1: But most of that material and the fact that he
49:23
Speaker 1: puts it out is related to the heartbreak that he
49:28
Speaker 1: had suffered in that breakup. Now, again, this was sort
49:32
Speaker 1: of engineered heartbreak in many ways, weaponized heartbreak, but it worked.
49:37
Speaker 1: And he was very devastated by it. He didn't initially
49:42
Speaker 1: want to release these songs, though. He recorded some demos
49:45
Speaker 1: that I'd kill to hear, and I've talked to people
49:48
Speaker 1: who have heard them, and apparently they're amazing. But he
49:51
Speaker 1: recorded some demos for Sea Change that sound way more
49:55
Speaker 1: stripped down than the very glossy, highly produced, beautiful, finished product.
50:00
Speaker 1: And he sort of thought that was just, he got
50:02
Speaker 1: out of his system. He wasn't going to do anything
50:04
Speaker 1: with it. And then for reasons that are slightly obscure,
50:07
Speaker 1: he decided to end up doing it. And I have
50:10
Speaker 1: to wonder how much of that was pressure just from
50:13
Speaker 1: everybody to put out a new record. And these happened
50:15
Speaker 1: to be the songs that were available. And how much
50:18
Speaker 1: of it was, you know, whatever coercive forces, perhaps the
50:24
Speaker 1: church saying like, you need to really consecrate that this
50:28
Speaker 1: is a new you. And whether or not there was
50:31
Speaker 1: a coercive force, that is what the message becomes in
50:34
Speaker 1: See Change. I mean, the title is See Change. The
50:37
Speaker 1: idea is like a massive shift. And it is a
50:40
Speaker 1: massive shift. It's him sounding like everything he was rebelling
50:43
Speaker 1: against in Antifolk. Because it sounds very inspired by the
50:49
Speaker 1: James Taylor records and Johnny Mitchell records of the late 70s.
50:53
Speaker 1: And has those elaborate production sounds. And it just shows
50:57
Speaker 1: how much he had changed in time. you know, a
51:00
Speaker 1: decade and a half.
51:01
Speaker 2: What I remember about that, I'm interested in what you
51:03
Speaker 2: recall about that period was that that album may not
51:06
Speaker 2: have been this commercial juggernaut of the, of the previous albums,
51:10
Speaker 2: but from a critical standpoint, not that they didn't take
51:13
Speaker 2: him seriously before, but I remember these discussions about.
51:16
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
51:17
Speaker 2: He grew up. They were starting to take him even
51:20
Speaker 2: more seriously.
51:22
Speaker 1: Yes.
51:22
Speaker 2: If, if they never did now they are. and from
51:26
Speaker 2: that point moving forward it was like okay beck's never
51:29
Speaker 2: gonna be he's not he's not as he gets older
51:31
Speaker 2: he's not gonna be able to maintain that pop star
51:33
Speaker 2: thing but he's going to be around and he's gonna
51:37
Speaker 2: be an artist that we want to see what he's
51:38
Speaker 2: gonna do next that's the feeling i got.
51:40
Speaker 1: He tried to do the pop star thing a bunch
51:42
Speaker 1: of times it just that it didn't break through.
51:44
Speaker 2: Yeah because he had some great songs uh Yeah, what
51:48
Speaker 2: came out? Guerrero had.
51:50
Speaker 1: But I'm saying well even after that. Guerrero has some
51:54
Speaker 1: legitimate hits. Ipro, Girl. These songs actually caught on and
51:59
Speaker 1: it sold pretty well. But what I'm talking about is
52:02
Speaker 1: it's not so much that he settled into this country
52:04
Speaker 1: sound because he... For example, 2017, 2019, he puts out
52:09
Speaker 1: Colors and Hyperspace, which are both very deliberate. And he
52:14
Speaker 1: said this in an interview, just attempts to have a hit.
52:16
Speaker 1: He wanted to get behind the science of modern pop
52:19
Speaker 1: music and just engineer a hit. Now, there are also
52:23
Speaker 1: breakup albums about his marriage failing, but he couldn't talk
52:25
Speaker 1: about that at the time, at least with Colors, because
52:29
Speaker 1: the divorce was not public yet. The split was not public, rather. But,
52:33
Speaker 1: you know, he really was trying for that pop sound.
52:36
Speaker 1: I think now.
52:37
Speaker 2: Can he accomplish that, too? I mean, he can write
52:39
Speaker 2: these catchy songs.
52:40
Speaker 1: I love that stuff.
52:41
Speaker 2: Think I'm in Love... is another one you're like.
52:43
Speaker 1: It's undeniable. That's another one that was very quick at
52:45
Speaker 1: you from back then.
52:46
Speaker 2: Undeniable.
52:48
Speaker 1: I vouch for Colors. Colors, I think, is an even more...
52:51
Speaker 1: Colors from 2016. Yes.
52:53
Speaker 2: Oh, my God. I love that album.
52:54
Speaker 1: It's an even more interesting breakup album to me than
52:57
Speaker 1: Sea Change because he's doing more with it lyrically.
52:59
Speaker 2: Was Up All Night a hit? Because that song is like...
53:02
Speaker 2: It should have been. Everybody's on the dance floor with
53:04
Speaker 2: that one, man.
53:05
Speaker 1: Love that one.
53:06
Speaker 2: Dreams.
53:08
Speaker 1: I'm very fond of Seventh Heaven. Seventh Heaven, which is
53:10
Speaker 1: a beautiful song about the arc of a relationship that
53:13
Speaker 1: doesn't end up working out. And he couldn't really talk
53:15
Speaker 1: about what it was about at the time. So it's
53:18
Speaker 1: kind of no wonder that the album was a bit
53:19
Speaker 1: of a flop. Also, it took forever to get finished.
53:22
Speaker 2: But man, he can write music.
53:24
Speaker 1: He can write music.
53:25
Speaker 2: He's an incredible musician. Such a range.
53:28
Speaker 1: Whatever you walk away with from this book, I hope
53:31
Speaker 1: no one walks away from this thinking this person is
53:34
Speaker 1: not an artist because... He's many things and has done
53:38
Speaker 1: lots of things to people, some good, some bad. But
53:41
Speaker 1: he is he's a musician and I continue to love
53:44
Speaker 1: the music.
53:45
Speaker 2: Which leads to the question you wrestle with that difficult
53:48
Speaker 2: question near the end of the book. How do we
53:49
Speaker 2: respond when music that means something deeply personal to us
53:53
Speaker 2: is made by somebody whose choices or beliefs may trouble you?
53:56
Speaker 1: Right.
53:56
Speaker 2: Where do you ultimately land on your relationship with Beck's music?
54:00
Speaker 1: And the fact is that's true of virtually everyone. Like
54:02
Speaker 1: you dig deep enough, anybody who makes art that you
54:05
Speaker 1: like is going to have some kind of opinion you
54:07
Speaker 1: really vehemently disagree with or something in their past that
54:10
Speaker 1: you think they shouldn't have done. It's just a matter
54:14
Speaker 1: of how much you actually know. It's not about, I'm
54:17
Speaker 1: not saying everybody's, you know, secretly evil, but you can
54:20
Speaker 1: always find something that will make you, if you were
54:23
Speaker 1: to dig deep enough, that would make you go, oh,
54:25
Speaker 1: my pop idol, well, maybe they're not my idol anymore.
54:28
Speaker 1: And the solution is to not idolize people. The solution
54:30
Speaker 1: is to not necessarily turn them into more than what
54:34
Speaker 1: they are, but rather think of them as humans and
54:36
Speaker 1: grapple with the art they make, which is often the
54:40
Speaker 1: best part of themselves.
54:41
Speaker 2: Sure, absolutely.
54:42
Speaker 1: Very often the best that they have to offer the
54:44
Speaker 1: world goes into the art they make, and they have
54:47
Speaker 1: difficulty doing the righteous thing in their non-musical lives. And
54:54
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you can't learn from the righteous music.
54:57
Speaker 1: You just should also, I personally think, if there's an
55:01
Speaker 1: artist you really like, it's worth learning about that artist's
55:03
Speaker 1: life so you can have a fuller understanding of this
55:07
Speaker 1: art and what it means to you and how it
55:09
Speaker 1: can be impactful in the world. I just think putting
55:12
Speaker 1: your head under, into the sand and saying, well, the
55:15
Speaker 1: music is the music and I don't want to know
55:17
Speaker 1: anything about the true story because it makes me uncomfortable,
55:20
Speaker 1: really robs the listener of the opportunity to have a
55:23
Speaker 1: richer experience with some great art.
55:29
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you finally understand who Beck is
55:31
Speaker 2: after working on this book for years?
55:33
Speaker 1: I never feel like I understand.
55:34
Speaker 2: He still remains a mystery.
55:36
Speaker 1: Cause if I, what do you mean understand? Like, what
55:38
Speaker 1: am I going to give you like a one sentence
55:40
Speaker 1: summary of him? It'd be like, I often think of
55:42
Speaker 1: Alan Moore in his, uh, the great comics writer and
55:45
Speaker 1: his epilogue to from hell is Jack the Ripper, uh,
55:49
Speaker 1: chronicle where he talks about how, like, Some people want
55:52
Speaker 1: to simplify history into like World War Two is a
55:55
Speaker 1: game of Clue where like it was Hitler with economic
55:58
Speaker 1: depression in Weimar, Germany. And it's like it's never as
56:02
Speaker 1: simple as that. And such is true with biographizing as well.
56:06
Speaker 1: I can't summarize back in one sentence. If I could,
56:09
Speaker 1: then he'd be much less interesting person and I wouldn't
56:12
Speaker 1: have written a book about him.
56:14
Speaker 2: The mystery ultimately is part of who he is.
56:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, we've talked a lot about Beck in
56:20
Speaker 1: this interview. I want people to know this book is
56:22
Speaker 1: told from many perspectives because I had a lot of point.
56:25
Speaker 1: I think that he's the locus point. He's what everybody's
56:28
Speaker 1: looking at. But very often this story is told for
56:32
Speaker 1: the POV of people who are not Beck or not
56:35
Speaker 1: even in Beck's inner circle, but find stuff out about
56:37
Speaker 1: Beck that is very illuminating. So anyway.
56:41
Speaker 2: The book is out October 6th. So this episode will
56:45
Speaker 2: be out either on or just before then. This is
56:48
Speaker 2: a guy, like I said, this, this day and age,
56:50
Speaker 2: it's hard to find somebody who can remain somewhat of
56:53
Speaker 2: a mystery. You know, it's, it's not easy, but this,
56:57
Speaker 2: this is one of those stories, the last temptation of Beck,
56:59
Speaker 2: the untold story of a pop Messiah. So, okay. Josephine Reisman,
57:04
Speaker 2: where can we find you online? Where can people reach
57:06
Speaker 2: out to you?
57:07
Speaker 1: Right now I'm just trying to sell the book. So
57:09
Speaker 1: go to Beck book.com B E C K B O
57:12
Speaker 1: O K.com. That is your hub for all last temptation
57:15
Speaker 1: of Beck needs. And I can find out how to buy. Um,
57:19
Speaker 1: if you want to find out more about me and
57:20
Speaker 1: my other work, you can go to Josie J O
57:23
Speaker 1: S I E dot zone, like the twilight zone. That's
57:27
Speaker 1: just Josie dot zone on your URL bar. And yeah,
57:33
Speaker 1: please buy or I always tell people, if you don't
57:36
Speaker 1: have the money to buy, please request from your local library.
57:39
Speaker 1: I love libraries and giving them the action is just
57:43
Speaker 1: as good for me. So please, please consider running out
57:47
Speaker 1: and getting it.
57:47
Speaker 2: Josie, I know you said I can call you Josie.
57:49
Speaker 2: So Josie, thank you so much. I was looking so
57:52
Speaker 2: forward to this. I'm just fascinated by this guy.
57:55
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
57:56
Speaker 2: Hey, and people go out and listen to Beck's new album,
57:59
Speaker 2: Ride Lonesome. Brilliant.
58:00
Speaker 1: I love it. That's it. It's in the books.