Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Jacob Collier, Part 1

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Jacob Collier, Part 1 · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Today's the first of two episodes featuring a musical
0:23
Speaker 1: genius multi instrumentalist, Jacob Collier. In twenty eleven, when Jacob
0:29
Speaker 1: was only seventeen, he began posting videos to YouTube of
0:32
Speaker 1: himself singing and playing music. They were a massive hit.
0:36
Speaker 1: His breakout video, a rendition of Stevie Wonders Don't You
0:39
Speaker 1: Worry About a Thing, received millions of views and praise
0:43
Speaker 1: from musical legends like Herbie Hancock, David Crosby and even
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Speaker 1: Quincy Jones. Since then, he's gone on to release five albums,
0:52
Speaker 1: including his twenty sixteen debut In My Room, and in
0:55
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two's Piano Ballads, an eleven track album of
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Speaker 1: improvised piano pieces he played at various shows during a
1:02
Speaker 1: recent tour. Throughout his career, Jacob's collaborated with artists like Sissa, Coldplay,
1:09
Speaker 1: Hi Dollar Sign, Tory Kelly, Daniel Caesar and her He's
1:13
Speaker 1: also won five Grammy Awards and is the first UK
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Speaker 1: artist to win a Grammy for each of his first
1:19
Speaker 1: four albums. On today's episode, Bruce Hellam speaks with Jacob
1:23
Speaker 1: Collier about the making of his latest live album, his
1:27
Speaker 1: creative process, and his musical admiration for Stevie Wonder. Jacob
1:32
Speaker 1: also plays piano throughout the two episodes, illustrating advanced musical concepts.
1:38
Speaker 1: These conversations with Jacob are the world's most interesting music
1:41
Speaker 1: theory class ever, a masterclass. This is broken record liner
1:49
Speaker 1: notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchell. Before we
1:53
Speaker 1: get into the conversation, here's Jacob Collier's live rendition of
1:56
Speaker 1: Can't Help Falling in Love? Wis males only fools rushing?
3:12
Speaker 1: But I can hell falling in love? Over shoot? I stay?
3:41
Speaker 1: Would it be onon VI? Con hell falling in Love?
4:02
Speaker 1: Year like the river flows surely to the sea Doe
4:19
Speaker 1: and so he goes somethings are my take, my take,
4:44
Speaker 1: my horse life to because I can falling in love?
5:49
Speaker 1: Jacob Collier, thank you so much having me. It's great
5:53
Speaker 1: to have you here, you know, as part of your
5:55
Speaker 1: quest to remake all of Western music. Oh gosh, is
5:59
Speaker 1: that my quest? It seems to be your quest. You're
6:02
Speaker 1: very busy. That was the old Elvis tune. Yes, indeed,
6:05
Speaker 1: and that's from your new album Piano Ballads, Sure which
6:09
Speaker 1: first tell me just a little bit about the album,
6:11
Speaker 1: and then I have many, many questions about what you
6:12
Speaker 1: just played, but first tell me just the idea behind
6:14
Speaker 1: the album. Sure thing, Okay. So I've just been on
6:17
Speaker 1: tour this year, which has been very cathartic, especially after COVID,
6:21
Speaker 1: and I've done seventy shows so far. One of the
6:23
Speaker 1: challenges that I set myself in order to kind of
6:26
Speaker 1: keep myself on my toes was in every show I
6:29
Speaker 1: was to play a different piano ballad, and that the
6:32
Speaker 1: rule was this piano ballad was totally improvised. As long
6:36
Speaker 1: as I know the song, I let whatever comes out
6:38
Speaker 1: come out, and that is what it is. And so
6:41
Speaker 1: many of the ballots on tour i'd actually never rehearsed
6:44
Speaker 1: or played ever before. And I sat on stage in
6:47
Speaker 1: the show and I thought, right, I'm going to do
6:48
Speaker 1: a rendition of X or y or Z and just
6:52
Speaker 1: kind of see what happens. And it was very interesting
6:55
Speaker 1: to follow my energy throughout the tour and see which
6:57
Speaker 1: ballads kind of ended up connecting with me and connecting
7:01
Speaker 1: with the crowd. And I really loved the experience so
7:04
Speaker 1: much that I thought it would be nice to share
7:06
Speaker 1: a kind of vignette of my most favorite ballot. So
7:09
Speaker 1: I released this album about a month ago now, and
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Speaker 1: it's eleven of the seventy and it's my absolute favorite
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Speaker 1: ballads thus far. I'm going to keep on doing this
7:17
Speaker 1: throughout the rest of the year of touring. But that song,
7:20
Speaker 1: which I always think of, it's been called wise men
7:22
Speaker 1: say it. Actually it's called Can't Help Falling in Love.
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Speaker 1: It's a yeah, one of the greatest songs that I've
7:28
Speaker 1: ever encountered. I performed that on tour actually using my
7:32
Speaker 1: vocal harmonizer, which is an instrument that I had custom built.
7:35
Speaker 1: I collaborated with my very different Ben Bloomberg, and we
7:38
Speaker 1: built this instrument together, and there's a performance of the
7:40
Speaker 1: song through that instrument. It's like almost like a vocoda.
7:43
Speaker 1: But I thought today I would play it on the
7:44
Speaker 1: piano because I've never done that before. So that was
7:46
Speaker 1: a spontaneous rendition. Do you remember the first time you
7:49
Speaker 1: heard that song. I can't remember the first time I
7:51
Speaker 1: heard that song. It was probably a few years ago.
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Speaker 1: It's such a classic tune and so many people have
7:56
Speaker 1: reinvented it with such vigor and personality. So I've always
7:59
Speaker 1: been drawn to the song, but I've never really thought
8:02
Speaker 1: to do it until now, but that song was special
8:04
Speaker 1: on tour for another reason, which is that across the
8:07
Speaker 1: US portion of the tour, in every show of the tour,
8:11
Speaker 1: I had the audience sing one word from that song,
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Speaker 1: and so in Portland they sang wise, and then in
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Speaker 1: Vancouver they saying man, and then in Seattle they sang
8:20
Speaker 1: say like this, and it went on like this, and
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Speaker 1: it just so happened, by complete coincidence that by the
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Speaker 1: final show of the tour, which was in Columbus, we've
8:27
Speaker 1: done every word of the song exactly to the number,
8:29
Speaker 1: which is completely unplanned. But what I then did when
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Speaker 1: I got home was string all the cities together and
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Speaker 1: you have this great, big, long rendition of the song
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Speaker 1: which is about one hundred thousand people singing together, which
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Speaker 1: is such a philosophically dreamy and sound idea in my mind.
8:45
Speaker 1: And so I actually just I released the video of
8:48
Speaker 1: that about a week ago now, because I actually had
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Speaker 1: every member of the audience record themselves singing the word
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Speaker 1: with their phone, and there was a QR code hanging
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Speaker 1: above the merch table at every show, and so at
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Speaker 1: the end of the show, the audience members would scan
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Speaker 1: the videos into the QR code and send them to
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Speaker 1: me at home, and when I got home I compiled
9:05
Speaker 1: it was over ten thousand submissions of different videos, and
9:08
Speaker 1: in total the number of things, as I say, about
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Speaker 1: one hundred thousand. And I spent a lot of time
9:12
Speaker 1: editing all of that audio together and worked with an
9:14
Speaker 1: incredible video team whose name is Light Sale, and they
9:17
Speaker 1: and I edited all these little faces. So if you
9:20
Speaker 1: if you watched the video, there's all these little mosaic
9:23
Speaker 1: tiles of these audience members, each from each city, singing
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Speaker 1: each word of the song. There's something, I think in
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Speaker 1: that song that everyone can connect to. You know, there
9:30
Speaker 1: is something listening to this album and really listening to
9:32
Speaker 1: it despite your technical skill, which we're going to get
9:36
Speaker 1: to in a minute. There's something very old fashioned about
9:39
Speaker 1: people singing sitting around at piano. What happens to be
9:42
Speaker 1: you at the piano. But there's something very and maybe
9:44
Speaker 1: there's a post pandemic feeling, something very comforting about it.
9:48
Speaker 1: Well for me, I definitely feel comforted. I think to me,
9:51
Speaker 1: I've spent much of my life and career making these
9:53
Speaker 1: kind of multilayered tapestries of sound, and for me, it's
9:57
Speaker 1: always been such an important place to kind of learn,
9:59
Speaker 1: but also to share just by sitting at the piano
10:01
Speaker 1: and playing. And so yeah, it felt like an important
10:05
Speaker 1: thing on the tour, just to have a moment in
10:07
Speaker 1: amongst the chaos of the full production, because tours it
10:10
Speaker 1: is a vast thing. You know, there's six of us
10:12
Speaker 1: in the band, there's lights, there's staging, there's about one
10:16
Speaker 1: hundred musical instruments on the stage and we're all hopping
10:17
Speaker 1: around between all of them. It's it's a lot of fun.
10:19
Speaker 1: But this moment in the show where I just sit
10:21
Speaker 1: and play a song on the piano feels, as you say,
10:23
Speaker 1: an intimate, comforting and rather old fashioned. The anticipation of
10:27
Speaker 1: the crowd you can feel when they recognize the song
10:30
Speaker 1: firstly and then they're invited to sing tremendous release for them. Yeah, yes,
10:35
Speaker 1: I think so. I love it when everyone sings together. Now,
10:39
Speaker 1: I want to ask a little bit about when you
10:41
Speaker 1: sit down at the piano in one of these concerts
10:43
Speaker 1: and you think I'm going to play this song, do
10:46
Speaker 1: you know the key you're going to sing it in
10:47
Speaker 1: when you sit down. No, I normally decide at the
10:49
Speaker 1: end of the introduction, So I'll sit and play a
10:51
Speaker 1: few notes, and it's like following your nose, you know.
10:53
Speaker 1: You think, oh, I'll play, you know, oh, and then
11:01
Speaker 1: and then suddenly I'm in F sharp. I don't know why,
11:03
Speaker 1: but that just fell out, you know. So so oftentimes
11:05
Speaker 1: I'll start playing, and I'll play for a couple of minutes,
11:08
Speaker 1: and sometimes I haven't even decided what song I'm going
11:10
Speaker 1: to play, you know, until the end of that introduction,
11:12
Speaker 1: I think, do you know, I think I'm going to
11:13
Speaker 1: do How Deep is Your Love? Or I think I'm
11:15
Speaker 1: going to do Caledonia or whatever. Yeah, and the other
11:18
Speaker 1: thing I'd like to do it just because it's fun,
11:20
Speaker 1: and sometimes it really helps tell the story of the song.
11:23
Speaker 1: Is is change key throughout? So you may start in
11:25
Speaker 1: one key and then move to a different keys as
11:27
Speaker 1: the song continues. If I'm taken there, so one thing
11:31
Speaker 1: you were doing, and I'm not sure if you did
11:32
Speaker 1: it this time, you're modulating, Yeah, from key to key. Yes,
11:36
Speaker 1: and you're also reharmonizing. That's true. Can you just briefly
11:41
Speaker 1: explain what that means? Yeah, sure, I'll hop to the piano.
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Speaker 1: So modulating is the idea of moving the gravity of home, right,
11:51
Speaker 1: like musical home. So with this song. If I do
11:54
Speaker 1: wise men say this is my home, I'm a F
12:02
Speaker 1: major today, if I went that's a different key that's
12:09
Speaker 1: in D flat or I mean a right. So on
12:14
Speaker 1: the piano, we have twelve keys, and there's all sorts
12:16
Speaker 1: of ways to move between them. But one of the
12:19
Speaker 1: things I'd really like to do most is, yeah, as
12:20
Speaker 1: I said, to find a way from one key to another.
12:23
Speaker 1: And it can feel really like a bigger lift when
12:25
Speaker 1: you change key. What's the hinge you use to move
12:28
Speaker 1: from one key to another? You know, in modulation they
12:31
Speaker 1: heard at the end of songs, you know Willie Nelson
12:33
Speaker 1: goes up a tone, right, Yeah, are you just looking
12:36
Speaker 1: for common tones between the notes, because you don't, you
12:39
Speaker 1: don't just modulate up a tone like you're just not
12:42
Speaker 1: there for like slightly higher. Yeah, you're You're like, there's
12:46
Speaker 1: a different degree of difficulty. So when you're when you're
12:48
Speaker 1: moving from one key to another, what's the signal that
12:51
Speaker 1: you can do it? What I found myself doing is
12:53
Speaker 1: building bridges from one key to another. So say, for example,
12:56
Speaker 1: if I'm an F, which i am this note, a
13:02
Speaker 1: right A exists in other keys besides, so for example,
13:05
Speaker 1: D R a ism in D major and in F major.
13:12
Speaker 1: It lives in both both worlds, right, So there are
13:19
Speaker 1: all sorts of ways you can move between keys. But
13:22
Speaker 1: if I end up singing an A, if I go
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Speaker 1: faalling right, then I've moved changed. But the A was
13:35
Speaker 1: my bridge from one to the other. You know, It's
13:38
Speaker 1: almost like visualizing different different kind of tributaries away from
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Speaker 1: the river that you're sailing down and then kind of
13:45
Speaker 1: having faith that you'll find a way there, because a
13:47
Speaker 1: lot of the things that happen when you imbroise happened
13:50
Speaker 1: by chance. And if you're too contrived about it, or
13:53
Speaker 1: even too thoughtful about it, then it can it can
13:55
Speaker 1: remove the natural storytelling of the thing. When I spent
13:58
Speaker 1: many hours of my life sitting at the piano and
14:01
Speaker 1: thinking about these different sounds and how they connect to
14:05
Speaker 1: each other. But when I sit on stage and sing
14:06
Speaker 1: a song, I'm not thinking about any of that stuff.
14:08
Speaker 1: I'm just singing the song. And it may it may
14:10
Speaker 1: end up that I find myself starting in F and
14:12
Speaker 1: ending in D flat. You know, it might just be
14:14
Speaker 1: one of those days, And you can turn off the
14:18
Speaker 1: more deliberate part of your brain to do that well,
14:20
Speaker 1: to me. It's a bit like talking the English language.
14:23
Speaker 1: I'm not consciously thinking as I'm talking to you about
14:25
Speaker 1: grammar or spelling, you know, even though those things are
14:28
Speaker 1: helpful to think about when I'm learning how to put
14:30
Speaker 1: my language together, it helps me contextualize things. But when
14:34
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you now, I'm improvising based on my syntax,
14:37
Speaker 1: my sort of internalized syntax, which comes from people I've
14:40
Speaker 1: listened to talk and time I've spent thinking about words
14:43
Speaker 1: and writing words and practicing talking a lot at home
14:45
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, you know. So it's a
14:47
Speaker 1: similar approach I think to playing. I can tune into
14:51
Speaker 1: what the chords are, you know. I know, for example,
14:54
Speaker 1: that the A is a third. I could describe it
14:57
Speaker 1: as a third, but it's also just the note, you know.
15:00
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be called a third or have
15:01
Speaker 1: a name at all. But I understand the kind of
15:04
Speaker 1: emotional properties of that note, all the ways it can move,
15:16
Speaker 1: and you can follow those things. So it's melodies, harmonies, rhythms,
15:20
Speaker 1: all these things kind of connect. But yeah, I don't
15:22
Speaker 1: tend to be particularly thoughtful on stage. Sometimes there are
15:25
Speaker 1: days where I am, and I think those are the
15:27
Speaker 1: days where I'm I'm I'm in myself, you know, I'm
15:29
Speaker 1: within my own world, and it's it's sometimes harder in
15:32
Speaker 1: that space to really tell a story and connect with
15:34
Speaker 1: a room. I think there's an old expression in jazz,
15:36
Speaker 1: now it's time to forget all that shit and just
15:38
Speaker 1: play exactly. Yeah, I couldn't put it better myself, So
15:41
Speaker 1: that's modulating. We didn't talk about reharmonizing, which is something
15:46
Speaker 1: you do. When I say you're remaking Western music, you're
15:49
Speaker 1: essentially reharmonizing Western music. As far as I can tell,
15:51
Speaker 1: it is one of my hobbies. Yeah, show me one
15:54
Speaker 1: of two of the things you did to reharmonize that tune.
15:57
Speaker 1: So this dude goes right. It's very simple tune, Slae
16:04
Speaker 1: because every note I've just realised, every note from that
16:06
Speaker 1: song is actually in one scale, the major scale. It's
16:10
Speaker 1: very lovely and welcome sound to most ears. So when
16:15
Speaker 1: you think about harmonizing and this, I might get a
16:17
Speaker 1: bit nerdier, But when you think about harmonizing, you're essentially
16:20
Speaker 1: departing home and arriving home. That's like, in a nutshell,
16:23
Speaker 1: that's what you're doing with a song like this. So
16:25
Speaker 1: basically I'm going that's what I'm that's the journey in
16:31
Speaker 1: a very very crude sense. So there are all sorts
16:33
Speaker 1: of ways you can depart from home, right, And when
16:36
Speaker 1: we think about harmonization, it's easy and pleasurable to think about,
16:40
Speaker 1: for example, the idea of localities. You know, keys that
16:44
Speaker 1: are neighbors to f and I think that the two
16:47
Speaker 1: most kind of most sound neighbors to ff fs are
16:51
Speaker 1: called one, you could say, is called four, which is
16:53
Speaker 1: B flat just around the corner, and called five, which
16:57
Speaker 1: is around the other corner, right. And actually you can
17:02
Speaker 1: play chord one, four, and five. You can play almost
17:05
Speaker 1: every song that's ever been written, because so many songs
17:07
Speaker 1: are made from those chords. And there are all sorts
17:10
Speaker 1: of permutations of these chords. So even if you just
17:11
Speaker 1: take the chord F major, if you reorganize the notes
17:15
Speaker 1: in that chord, then you have what's called inversions of
17:21
Speaker 1: the chord, which are like different sensations, different ways in
17:23
Speaker 1: which that chord can feel. So we call this one
17:25
Speaker 1: root position, like it's most grounded form. This one. It's
17:30
Speaker 1: slightly more it's like it's perhaps on its waist somewhere.
17:33
Speaker 1: It's still grounded, but it's it's it's it's moving. It's
17:35
Speaker 1: it's not stable because the third, the A is in
17:37
Speaker 1: the base, right, so maybe it wants to go there, right,
17:42
Speaker 1: it wants to move. And then the final one it's
17:45
Speaker 1: actually I really this inversion. This is called second inversion,
17:48
Speaker 1: and it's when we have the fifth in the base.
17:50
Speaker 1: And I really like this in version because it's like you,
17:52
Speaker 1: you are arrived, you are here, but you're not really
17:56
Speaker 1: you're not here. You're just kind of purging, right, You're
18:05
Speaker 1: you're you, you've arrived, but you're you haven't fully arrived.
18:08
Speaker 1: And so when I think about these chords and harmonization
18:10
Speaker 1: re harmonization, I'm using these chords as kind of emotional
18:14
Speaker 1: devices to tell stories. So the idea of how home
18:16
Speaker 1: you are, that's a concept that it's not that's not
18:19
Speaker 1: musical in nature, that's human. So human concept. I'm this
18:23
Speaker 1: amount pulled home, or I am this amount safe or
18:27
Speaker 1: this amount stable. You know that these are things that
18:29
Speaker 1: we understand as people. And so you as a harmonizer
18:34
Speaker 1: have all sorts of devices as to how how you
18:38
Speaker 1: want to move people. So stay with these first three notes. Well,
18:42
Speaker 1: I could just do and that doesn't go anywhere really,
18:47
Speaker 1: but or I could just do, which is a slight,
18:51
Speaker 1: sweeter version of again not really going anywhere. But if
18:53
Speaker 1: I went, then I've moved somewhere, and that's a bit drastic,
19:00
Speaker 1: perhaps the first phrase of the song. But F, which
19:03
Speaker 1: exists in F major, also exists in D flat major,
19:06
Speaker 1: which is where I just went to. And that's cool
19:08
Speaker 1: because flat major is actually it's quite foreign to F.
19:11
Speaker 1: It's quite far away key. And so what you can
19:16
Speaker 1: do when you harmonize is you can really take people
19:19
Speaker 1: by surprise. Right, I mean a chord like that, it's
19:29
Speaker 1: very austere. It's a kind of bitter sweet chord because
19:33
Speaker 1: these notes are tugging on each other and these notes
19:36
Speaker 1: are stable, and that note is sour, you know, compared
19:41
Speaker 1: to the sweetness of this, Right you think, oh, and
19:51
Speaker 1: I mean again, it's it's just storytelling. Tell me, what's
19:53
Speaker 1: the chord you're playing now? This chord, well, it's you
19:56
Speaker 1: could call it a B a B major seven sharp five,
19:59
Speaker 1: so it's a B major with a seven and a six.
20:03
Speaker 1: But the fifth, which is this is actually sharpened, so
20:06
Speaker 1: it's it's what we call like an augmented chord. I
20:08
Speaker 1: suppose an augmented chords are naturally quite quite stretched and open.
20:12
Speaker 1: It's like an unnaturally large open gap. But if I
20:16
Speaker 1: were to do that, oh, I've ready made some contrast.
20:21
Speaker 1: And now when I go and you start to really
20:28
Speaker 1: paint pictures, you create tension and you release tension. And
20:31
Speaker 1: so you know this obviously when you're practicing this and
20:34
Speaker 1: sitting at the piano, you're thinking, you're, okay, what are
20:37
Speaker 1: these core? How do they fit together? What are my
20:39
Speaker 1: common tones? But when you sit on stage and improvise,
20:41
Speaker 1: you're just painting a picture from from your mind, you know.
20:44
Speaker 1: So it's a split second decision. Sweeten, it up lead
20:56
Speaker 1: at home, away from home, heading towards home, and I'm
21:03
Speaker 1: not going to change key because I feel like it, Sweeten,
21:18
Speaker 1: I've changed key. Change key again. So I actually started
21:31
Speaker 1: an F and then I went to D flat, and
21:32
Speaker 1: then I would end up in E flat, which I
21:34
Speaker 1: didn't really plan. But but these these kinds of things
21:37
Speaker 1: happen not only when you have you've acquired at a
21:41
Speaker 1: language of sorts, but also mainly when you're just fearless
21:44
Speaker 1: enough to give stuff a go. You think, oh, what
21:46
Speaker 1: would happen if I did this? And then you try
21:49
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's it's horrendous, you know,
21:52
Speaker 1: But I'm kind of here for all of it. And
21:53
Speaker 1: I think that one of the joys of touring in
21:55
Speaker 1: this way is that all the imperfections of figuring this
21:58
Speaker 1: stuff out in real time, it's all shared as an experience.
22:01
Speaker 1: It's I'm not keeping this to myself or it's just
22:04
Speaker 1: for me to hear in my practice room or closed environment.
22:07
Speaker 1: I think you always learn most when you put yourself
22:09
Speaker 1: in the real world and learn a skill, and I
22:11
Speaker 1: think that for me, this experience on tour was almost
22:14
Speaker 1: like a determination to learn how to do this freely
22:19
Speaker 1: and truly be comfortable with whatever kind of gets thrown
22:23
Speaker 1: at me. Whether it's something in my own mind or
22:25
Speaker 1: song or something from the audience or whatever. It's it's
22:27
Speaker 1: a practice of being very present and kind of awake
22:29
Speaker 1: to yourself. We'll be right back with more from Bruce
22:33
Speaker 1: Endlum and Jacob Carlier. After a quick break, we're back
22:40
Speaker 1: with more from Bruce's conversation with Jacob Carlier. Reharmonization, particularly
22:45
Speaker 1: chord substitution, is a big feature of jazz. Yeah, were
22:50
Speaker 1: there players you listen to that inspired your interest in
22:54
Speaker 1: chord substitution. Was it just something that you always had? Yeah,
22:58
Speaker 1: I mean there are so many people. Even if you
23:00
Speaker 1: think of someone like Stevie Wonder, you know, Stevie Wonder
23:02
Speaker 1: is one of these extraordinary humans who writes these really
23:06
Speaker 1: universal songs. But even within his own songs are really dense,
23:10
Speaker 1: colorful chords, and he's really kind of being able to
23:13
Speaker 1: bridge the gap between this this dense, emotional, harmonic language
23:17
Speaker 1: and kind of just this universal songwriting. But when I
23:19
Speaker 1: was a teenager, there's a group called Take six that
23:21
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're familiar with them. Sure, they're just an
23:23
Speaker 1: unbelievably killing a group of it's like a six part
23:27
Speaker 1: gospel jazz singing group. And the kinds of chords that
23:31
Speaker 1: they would come out with, you know, a chord just
23:32
Speaker 1: like you know, the kinds of thirteen chords and stuff
23:38
Speaker 1: like that. I hadn't really heard anyone do what they
23:41
Speaker 1: did until they did it, you know. And it wasn't
23:44
Speaker 1: just their own original music, it was the way that
23:46
Speaker 1: they reimagined songs. Like they got a Christmas album called
23:49
Speaker 1: We Wish You Americ Christmas. I think it's called It's
23:51
Speaker 1: a great title for a Christmas album. And they would
23:53
Speaker 1: take songs that I knew as a kid, but they
23:56
Speaker 1: would put a spin on the songs harmonically just completely
23:59
Speaker 1: blew my mind. And so I think that gave me
24:01
Speaker 1: permission as a child to think, oh, so it's cool
24:03
Speaker 1: to do that. Then I can I can take a
24:05
Speaker 1: song like you know, Twink Twinkle, Little Star or Isn't
24:08
Speaker 1: She Lovely? Or whatever happened to be and work out
24:11
Speaker 1: a way to do this in my own harmonic way.
24:14
Speaker 1: So when I was a teenager, I got so deeply
24:16
Speaker 1: kind of really really into and obsessed with the idea
24:19
Speaker 1: of taking a melody and harmonizing and crazy ways. And
24:23
Speaker 1: there's one arrangement I did of a Stevie tune called
24:25
Speaker 1: Don't You Worry About a Thing? You know? That's ad
24:33
Speaker 1: And there's a bit in the middle where it goes
24:39
Speaker 1: right and I remember thinking, oh, man, that would be
24:44
Speaker 1: fun to rehrmonize because it's just a chromatic scale, you know,
24:48
Speaker 1: how does he harmonize it? He sort of goes right right,
24:58
Speaker 1: And then I so something like that. The fun of
25:06
Speaker 1: that was thinking, if you remove any idea, any concept
25:10
Speaker 1: of functional harmony, like you remove the idea that we're
25:13
Speaker 1: in any key, or that any chords need to belong
25:16
Speaker 1: within each other's families. You just take every note on
25:32
Speaker 1: a journey that's very dense harmonically. But for me, especially
25:35
Speaker 1: at that age seventeen eighteen, when I was really getting
25:38
Speaker 1: into this, this was so important for me to do
25:40
Speaker 1: this kind of experiments because I was discovering cause I
25:43
Speaker 1: didn't understand my ear would find a chord like even
25:45
Speaker 1: this chord. It's not really a name for that chord.
25:49
Speaker 1: I mean, you could say it's a cartal voicing that's
25:50
Speaker 1: made of fourth, or you could say it's like a
25:52
Speaker 1: C major seven over the made I mean, it's a
25:55
Speaker 1: strange chord basically doesn't really have a name. But I
25:58
Speaker 1: has a feeling and I love that feeling. And so
26:01
Speaker 1: if every one of these notes moves to a satisfying place,
26:04
Speaker 1: regardless of your key center, I mean that again, it's
26:11
Speaker 1: quite a foreign cause it's a flat minor over f.
26:17
Speaker 1: You know, every note has a pathway like a journey.
26:23
Speaker 1: So when you re harmonize that part of that song,
26:25
Speaker 1: you weren't actually thinking in terms of chords. You were
26:28
Speaker 1: just moving your fingers so you had the sound you wanted.
26:31
Speaker 1: I would say I was thinking in terms of cause,
26:33
Speaker 1: but I wasn't thinking in terms of tonality. I was
26:36
Speaker 1: thinking more in terms of voice leading, which is like
26:38
Speaker 1: a name that we give to the idea that every voice,
26:40
Speaker 1: if this chord is a five voice chord, and every
26:45
Speaker 1: note within that chord has it has its own pathway,
26:48
Speaker 1: you know. So it going back to wise men say,
26:51
Speaker 1: if you think about it being soprano, alto tenor ound
26:54
Speaker 1: base right as Bark would think about it, why right,
27:00
Speaker 1: then every one of those those paths needs to have
27:02
Speaker 1: its own melody. So for example, the alter part goes
27:06
Speaker 1: why dude, I can sing that, the tene goes Whisey, right,
27:16
Speaker 1: base goes Wis and the baseline is always the most
27:20
Speaker 1: important if you've got these two things going in motion,
27:25
Speaker 1: and that's always very sound. And so yeah, each of
27:28
Speaker 1: these voices has its own pathway. So so if I
27:30
Speaker 1: do this crazy complex kind of course, it's the same principle.
27:34
Speaker 1: Every every note within the chords kind of needs it
27:37
Speaker 1: a satisfying destination. If one part is going, then it's
27:41
Speaker 1: not fun to sing and you don't emote with it.
27:43
Speaker 1: If every path has a journey and a destination, then
27:46
Speaker 1: you can you can emote with it. And I don't
27:48
Speaker 1: think you need to understand all these notes and their
27:51
Speaker 1: momentum to feel it, you know, because when I know,
27:54
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I would hear these chords
27:57
Speaker 1: go past in you know Stevie Wonder songs, and I
27:58
Speaker 1: wouldn't know what. I don't know what the chords were,
28:00
Speaker 1: but I felt I felt them. I felt what the
28:02
Speaker 1: chords did. And I think my passion and fascination to
28:06
Speaker 1: this day is how how do I reverse engineer that
28:09
Speaker 1: those kinds of emotional reactions to music that I experienced
28:13
Speaker 1: as a listener, How do I reverse engineer that as
28:15
Speaker 1: a creator of music? And it basically just starts with
28:18
Speaker 1: being curious, you know, it doesn't start with knowing everything
28:20
Speaker 1: on being aware. It just starts with being open to
28:23
Speaker 1: figuring stuff out. Tell me about growing up. Your mother's
28:26
Speaker 1: a musician, she's a violent er. Your grandfather is a musician. Yes,
28:29
Speaker 1: also a violin player. Yes for sure. Okay, it seems
28:32
Speaker 1: you broke the family curse. You don't play violin. Yeah.
28:34
Speaker 1: I started playing violin when I was two, and I
28:37
Speaker 1: gave up by the age of four. No, I thought
28:39
Speaker 1: that's wonderful, too impatient. I wanted to go and have
28:43
Speaker 1: a result, you know. But the thing about the violin,
28:45
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the most beautiful instrument in the whole
28:47
Speaker 1: wide world, but if you pick it up a go,
28:49
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound good for about a year. You have
28:52
Speaker 1: to just sort of play open strings for ages before
28:54
Speaker 1: you can even make one note sound good. And I
28:56
Speaker 1: think as a child I was I didn't have the
28:59
Speaker 1: patience for it. I want, I wanted to hit the
29:02
Speaker 1: drama and to go back, and that was so kind
29:05
Speaker 1: of instantaneous, you know. So what was your first instrument
29:08
Speaker 1: after the violin? I suppose my first real instrument was
29:10
Speaker 1: that the cassio, a cassio keyboard. So I think I
29:13
Speaker 1: played something called a CTK eleven. I think it was called.
29:15
Speaker 1: But it was just a bog standard but excellent keyboard
29:19
Speaker 1: with two hundred sounds and one hundred rhythms, you know,
29:21
Speaker 1: so the rhythms you go through all these different genres
29:23
Speaker 1: you have sort of you know, Boston over and and
29:27
Speaker 1: poker and rock and roll and stuff like this, and
29:30
Speaker 1: it was it was great, you know, you skip through
29:31
Speaker 1: the things and it would go, you know, and you
29:37
Speaker 1: go through and I learned kind of learned how music worked.
29:40
Speaker 1: Through that thing, and then you have these sounds trombone, tympani,
29:44
Speaker 1: you know, vibraphone, viola, or it sounds like I wouldn't
29:48
Speaker 1: know that these sounds in the real world unless I'd
29:50
Speaker 1: had access to that instrument. Nowadays, I mean, man, it's
29:53
Speaker 1: crazy now what you can do. And in something like
29:55
Speaker 1: garage band or logic, there's all these extraordinarily well recorded
29:58
Speaker 1: samples of you know, full orchestra, synthesizers, drum machines. It's
30:02
Speaker 1: it's really kind of overwhelming and amazing, and I think
30:06
Speaker 1: growing up now as as a musician, there's so many
30:08
Speaker 1: things you can play with, which is both thrilling and
30:11
Speaker 1: also troubling because one of the great things about that
30:14
Speaker 1: keyboard is there were just two hundred sounds. I didn't
30:16
Speaker 1: have any more than two hundred. Now there's infinite that
30:18
Speaker 1: sounds any sound in the world. So I loved having
30:21
Speaker 1: that as a device or exploration. There's even a little
30:24
Speaker 1: sampler inside where you could layer things up. So I
30:26
Speaker 1: would do like a drum, a drum beat, and then
30:30
Speaker 1: I would on the second one, I would do bass,
30:33
Speaker 1: you know. Then I'd do a piano thing, or a branch,
30:35
Speaker 1: trumpets or whatever. And just playing around and music was
30:39
Speaker 1: going in to my mind because my whole family was
30:44
Speaker 1: musical and there was in every corner of the house
30:46
Speaker 1: that someone was either playing or listening to music. So
30:48
Speaker 1: it wasn't like there was a shortage of material. But
30:50
Speaker 1: the crucial thing for me was having a keyboard, an
30:52
Speaker 1: instrument where I could actually throw paint and for it
30:55
Speaker 1: to stick. And when I was seven years old, I
30:58
Speaker 1: actually got this recording stuff I called cue bass, which
31:01
Speaker 1: is a way in which you can layer tracks in
31:03
Speaker 1: the computer, and that was very exciting for me. You know,
31:05
Speaker 1: little kids pick out melodies on tiny keyboards. You always
31:09
Speaker 1: interested in harmonizing those notes. Yeah, for me, it was
31:11
Speaker 1: chords chords first, but I mean melody was was was inevitable,
31:16
Speaker 1: but but harmony was the thing that I really got
31:18
Speaker 1: got my rocks off on. It was like, whoa you
31:20
Speaker 1: can that's crazy? Oh man, that's a that's an unbelievable sound.
31:24
Speaker 1: There's so many things going on there for someone like
31:27
Speaker 1: as a kid, for someone with musical ears to get
31:29
Speaker 1: my ears around. Wow, there's there's five sounds there, but
31:36
Speaker 1: they are together one sound. And there's also within that
31:39
Speaker 1: this sound and this sound which are two different worlds
31:42
Speaker 1: and they rub against each other. Oh, and just like that,
31:45
Speaker 1: the rubbing, I mean that that's such a special part
31:47
Speaker 1: of music for me, is just like the way that
31:48
Speaker 1: notes interact with each other. But as a as a kid,
31:51
Speaker 1: I mean, I would sit at the piano for hours
32:00
Speaker 1: just doing this, and then I'd move one note. It
32:06
Speaker 1: changes everything, right, note by note it changes and each
32:31
Speaker 1: one of these is a different universe. It's just a
32:33
Speaker 1: different world, and I feel myself moved by them. I'm
32:39
Speaker 1: moved by the way that these interact and feel. And
32:44
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think as a kid, you can take
32:46
Speaker 1: any melody in the world. That's fine, But it's the
32:49
Speaker 1: way that you clothe it that that is really what
32:54
Speaker 1: thrills me most. I'm assuming just watching you you have
32:57
Speaker 1: perfect pitch, I do. Yeah. Do you think that helped
33:00
Speaker 1: you sort of figure out the relationships between them? Thinks?
33:03
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, if you take this sound, you know,
33:05
Speaker 1: being able to hear, be able to ascertain that there's
33:07
Speaker 1: a D sharp and a G sharp I any is helpful.
33:11
Speaker 1: I don't think that you need perfect pitch to become
33:15
Speaker 1: interested and very good at this, but it's like a
33:18
Speaker 1: sort of cheat code kind of it's like an ease
33:21
Speaker 1: of access, you know, being able to say be flat,
33:24
Speaker 1: like I know that's a B flat, but without having
33:25
Speaker 1: to check an instrument. It mostly helps with with audience
33:29
Speaker 1: singing actually because I don't have to refer to an
33:31
Speaker 1: instrument to get the audience to sing a chord, which
33:33
Speaker 1: maybe that safe for example, of the introduction to a
33:35
Speaker 1: song came. Then sit down and play a song and
33:37
Speaker 1: they're already in the key that I was in, but
33:39
Speaker 1: without me, without me having to check or okay, you
33:43
Speaker 1: know it's it's not I can kind of plug the
33:44
Speaker 1: notes out of my mind and and that that's actually
33:47
Speaker 1: very handy. There's nothing crazily supernatural about it. I think
33:50
Speaker 1: it's just it's a type of memory that you can
33:53
Speaker 1: develop if you're very familiar with the particular way of
33:55
Speaker 1: thinking and working. So there was clearly classical music in
33:59
Speaker 1: your house for sure. Growing up. One of the kinds
34:01
Speaker 1: of music was it you mentioned Stevie Wondering. Where did
34:04
Speaker 1: you first hear Stevie Wonder? Oh my mom is like
34:07
Speaker 1: the biggest Stevie Wonder fan, and she's she's all about Stevie,
34:10
Speaker 1: and I think, yeah, as a kid, it was just
34:11
Speaker 1: it was so many, so many parts of Stevie's discography
34:14
Speaker 1: would just be in the house. I remember there's an
34:17
Speaker 1: album he may called Hotter than July, and the first
34:19
Speaker 1: song on that album is called did I Hear You Say?
34:21
Speaker 1: And it starts with this like oh, and it was
34:27
Speaker 1: so exciting. I remember dancing as it, just dancing as
34:30
Speaker 1: a child, thinking I'm so exciting, you know, it's so
34:33
Speaker 1: so fun. He is one of those artists that, even
34:36
Speaker 1: with all the gold records and all the acclaim, he's
34:38
Speaker 1: still strangely underrated. Yeah, I would say so. I mean, yeah,
34:42
Speaker 1: underrates that. It's a funny word. But I think that
34:45
Speaker 1: I think the thing when you're when you get as
34:46
Speaker 1: big as Stevie has gotten, is that you're taken at
34:49
Speaker 1: face value as someone who is just big only and
34:52
Speaker 1: big big is not the deepest you can be. You know,
34:55
Speaker 1: big is big is a scale question, not not a
34:58
Speaker 1: breadth or depth question. And so Stevie did achieve the
35:03
Speaker 1: biggness of scale. But I think the thing that he
35:06
Speaker 1: achieved that was more important. And I think the thing
35:08
Speaker 1: that has stayed, the that stood the test of time,
35:10
Speaker 1: and the thing that I revere and all of my
35:12
Speaker 1: Peers Revere is the depth of what he was doing sonically, harmonically, vocally, tonally, lyrically, politically.
35:19
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just so in touch with everything, and so,
35:21
Speaker 1: you know, I think the idea that he was able
35:23
Speaker 1: to scale that depth on such a global scale is huge.
35:26
Speaker 1: But it's funny when you say, yeah, he's underwater. I
35:28
Speaker 1: think perhaps it's because people think, oh Steve, oh yeah,
35:30
Speaker 1: he's really famous, isn't it. You know, he's a really
35:32
Speaker 1: famous musician and he does lots of songs that everyone knows,
35:34
Speaker 1: which is very true. But the deeper you go into Stevie,
35:37
Speaker 1: the more you feel, and I think that's like a
35:41
Speaker 1: real sign of greatness. Is that? Also, don't you worry
35:45
Speaker 1: about a thing that the song that made you famous
35:47
Speaker 1: because you did a YouTube version of it. That's from
35:50
Speaker 1: his best side of music. I think the second side
35:52
Speaker 1: of Interrovisions. I think it's like the best side of
35:55
Speaker 1: any It's higher ground. Jesus, Children of America, you haven't done. Yeah,
36:03
Speaker 1: that's fulfilling. This Oh man, that album is just crazy. Yeah,
36:05
Speaker 1: it's album. It ends with the mister no just oh yes,
36:09
Speaker 1: such an incredible god. It's just it. I mean, such
36:12
Speaker 1: a statement, and I think you can also you hear
36:14
Speaker 1: when he's you here, when he's thirsty and so from
36:17
Speaker 1: I think my favorite currently, my favorite Steve album might
36:19
Speaker 1: be Talking Book. And it's not because it's his most
36:22
Speaker 1: refined album or complete as a thought process. It's it's
36:26
Speaker 1: that he's so he's so thirsty to figure it out.
36:30
Speaker 1: He's like, he just wants to write songs. Can He's
36:32
Speaker 1: just so desperate to play around with with stuff, and
36:36
Speaker 1: and you can you can feel him being and he's
36:38
Speaker 1: twenty one when he's doing that up. He's discovering it
36:40
Speaker 1: before our ears, you know, before our eyes. He's figuring
36:43
Speaker 1: it out on that album. And I think that later
36:46
Speaker 1: on in his career he'd figured it out already more.
36:50
Speaker 1: And I mean nothing he's ever made has not been tremendous,
36:53
Speaker 1: But I think that there's a youth and an experience
36:56
Speaker 1: of gathering and being moved by something in the present
37:01
Speaker 1: about that early stuff where he's he's just he's just
37:03
Speaker 1: ravenous for it. And you can tell that as a
37:05
Speaker 1: as a listener. It's interesting reading back about him and
37:09
Speaker 1: time because there was a point in which Motown sort
37:12
Speaker 1: of thought it was over for him, that he was
37:13
Speaker 1: a child prodigy. You might sympathize with this because you
37:17
Speaker 1: were so young when you started. They thought he'd peeked.
37:19
Speaker 1: And then I think he produced that great Spinner's song
37:22
Speaker 1: It's a shame, and I always thought that was so
37:24
Speaker 1: unfair because he's not a guitar player primarily, but it's
37:26
Speaker 1: one of the greatest guitar licks of all time. That, yeah,
37:30
Speaker 1: how did he do that? No, I know for sure
37:32
Speaker 1: that the thing that I think with Stevie was so
37:34
Speaker 1: cool and I think we need to remember is you know,
37:36
Speaker 1: he made that album called Where I'm Coming From right.
37:38
Speaker 1: He was twenty years old when he made it, and
37:40
Speaker 1: it was kind of his first record after the Motown years,
37:42
Speaker 1: where he thought, okay, this is a statement and it's
37:44
Speaker 1: a weird album. Man, it's dark and gnarli and it's
37:47
Speaker 1: it's not you know, it's not amongst his most palatable work,
37:50
Speaker 1: but he needed to make that album. It's there's some
37:53
Speaker 1: amazing stuff on there. And I think that the amazing
37:55
Speaker 1: thing is that he was given the chance to make
37:58
Speaker 1: that album. It's like, of course you of course made
38:00
Speaker 1: and we'll put it out. Of course we'll put it out.
38:02
Speaker 1: Because if he hadn't made that album. If he tried
38:04
Speaker 1: to make a hit record at twenty, he wouldn't have
38:07
Speaker 1: done it because he needed to go into that depth
38:10
Speaker 1: and the depth of music of My Mind and Talking
38:12
Speaker 1: Book before he managed to get to something like Inner Visions,
38:14
Speaker 1: you know, or songs in the Key of Life. I
38:16
Speaker 1: think that there's this kind of disease that you know,
38:18
Speaker 1: you have to make if someone doesn't make popular music
38:21
Speaker 1: at one point in their career, you know what, it's
38:22
Speaker 1: all over for them, and it's all going downhill. I
38:24
Speaker 1: think it's a it's a really tragic kind of thing
38:27
Speaker 1: because people under fulfill their potential as experimenters by negating
38:35
Speaker 1: some of the darker or more gnarly interesting, strange ideas
38:39
Speaker 1: musically in favor of things to which people, which are
38:42
Speaker 1: more people will like and relate to. And you know,
38:46
Speaker 1: I think this is a problem that's it's deeper than
38:48
Speaker 1: the music industry. I think it's it's a human tendency
38:51
Speaker 1: I think to kind of disregard or think of parts
38:54
Speaker 1: of ourselves, the non palatable or darker parts of our
38:57
Speaker 1: personalities themselves, as kind of weaknesses you can say or
39:00
Speaker 1: not things to be discussed or shared but I actually
39:03
Speaker 1: think those things, those things make us so much, even
39:06
Speaker 1: even more sometimes than the parts of us that we've
39:09
Speaker 1: we've got all figured out. It's welcoming those parts of
39:11
Speaker 1: yourself in that makes you a deep person and a
39:14
Speaker 1: whole person and a real person, because you can't just
39:17
Speaker 1: be the good stuff. You have to welcome in all
39:19
Speaker 1: the stuff. And Stevie is such a shining example of
39:22
Speaker 1: someone who musically really got in touch with the depth
39:26
Speaker 1: of an experiment and through that came around to these
39:30
Speaker 1: totally eternal, universal songs which borrowed from and learned from
39:35
Speaker 1: and gleaned from the kind of experiments that were stranger,
39:39
Speaker 1: and had he not done, would not have informed those experiments,
39:43
Speaker 1: and I think would not have made that music quite
39:45
Speaker 1: so deep now as someone who started so young and
39:48
Speaker 1: was part either so young, Is that a journey you're
39:51
Speaker 1: conscious of making, I would say so. I think my
39:54
Speaker 1: career started almost by accident. I didn't think of myself
39:57
Speaker 1: as starting off a career when I was making those
39:59
Speaker 1: YouTube videos at home. I thought, I'll just make some
40:01
Speaker 1: videos and it'd be really fun. And mostly I really
40:05
Speaker 1: I just wanted to push myself musically as far as
40:06
Speaker 1: I could possibly go in every direction, because I was
40:09
Speaker 1: so ravenous for understanding staff and for playing around with stuff,
40:12
Speaker 1: and so I did that stuff, and it was it
40:14
Speaker 1: was almost this kind of this accidental symptom of those
40:17
Speaker 1: experiments that people started to listen to the music. And
40:20
Speaker 1: I remember I got an email from Take six, my
40:22
Speaker 1: childoed heroes, and and that was closely followed by an
40:25
Speaker 1: email from Pat Matheny, who was not one of my heroes,
40:27
Speaker 1: and then following that it was Herbie Hancock, and then
40:29
Speaker 1: finally it was Quincy Jones and and I think that's
40:32
Speaker 1: when I sort of thought, gosh, perhaps there is something
40:34
Speaker 1: in what I'm doing that you could describe as having
40:36
Speaker 1: a career being a musician or being an artist. You know,
40:39
Speaker 1: I thought of myself as someone who is eternally fascinated
40:42
Speaker 1: and playing around. And I'm a musician for sure, But
40:45
Speaker 1: I don't know if I thought about myself as a
40:47
Speaker 1: as an artist for a little while yet. And I
40:50
Speaker 1: suppose it wasn't until I made this album called in
40:53
Speaker 1: My Room, which is the first album I made, and
40:54
Speaker 1: I made it on my own, in this room in London.
40:56
Speaker 1: That's when I really thought, Okay, I'm going to write
40:58
Speaker 1: some songs which I hadn't really done much of before,
41:01
Speaker 1: and I put this music into the world, and I
41:02
Speaker 1: think that's when I'll feel like this is my story
41:05
Speaker 1: at the beginning, you know, even though my story had
41:07
Speaker 1: been going for twenty years before, with the experience I've
41:09
Speaker 1: been doing, it felt like that was the first time
41:11
Speaker 1: I'd kind of thought, Okay, this is a statement that
41:13
Speaker 1: I'm making as a cohesive Jacobean thing. And I felt
41:18
Speaker 1: really strongly that I wanted to kind of produce the
41:20
Speaker 1: album myself and mix it myself. And I played every
41:22
Speaker 1: instrument on the album when I did every single thing
41:25
Speaker 1: for that album myself, because there were all sorts of
41:26
Speaker 1: people who thought, oh, can I produce it or can
41:28
Speaker 1: I mix it? Whatever? And I was quite firm about
41:31
Speaker 1: doing it myself in some ways. It regardless as to
41:34
Speaker 1: whether that was even the right thing musically, I think
41:36
Speaker 1: it was definitely the right thing philosophically for me because
41:38
Speaker 1: I was able to learn how it felt to be
41:40
Speaker 1: the author of all the different parts of my experience
41:42
Speaker 1: and my exploration. And I definitely took my time, and
41:47
Speaker 1: I'm very glad that I did. And I would credit
41:50
Speaker 1: not only Quincy who at that time. Was he became
41:53
Speaker 1: a sort of godfather slash manager figure to me, but
41:56
Speaker 1: also someone like my mum who was just so present
41:59
Speaker 1: in the process and very much encouraged me not to rush.
42:02
Speaker 1: I think my mum's never really cared about the idea
42:05
Speaker 1: of oh gosh, you know, Jacob's a big star, always
42:07
Speaker 1: got celebrity. It didn't really feature in her mind. I
42:10
Speaker 1: was never put under any pressure. We should point out
42:13
Speaker 1: you're wearing a T shirt or you're sorry, you're wearing
42:15
Speaker 1: a sweatshirt. It's your mother's name on it, right that
42:17
Speaker 1: this Yes, Susie Collier number one fan. Right, yes, says
42:21
Speaker 1: Susie Colliers number one fan. It was given to some
42:23
Speaker 1: of my mum by a found out my mom's that
42:26
Speaker 1: should be the only thing in your merch table. Yeah, totally.
42:29
Speaker 1: I'm I'm so here for that. She truly is the greatest,
42:32
Speaker 1: and I think she had a way a meeting since
42:33
Speaker 1: I was very very young, of not not put me
42:35
Speaker 1: under pressure to be a thing. It was a question
42:37
Speaker 1: more than an answer. It was how do you see
42:40
Speaker 1: the world, Jacob, But how do you hear this? How
42:41
Speaker 1: do you experience this? We'll be right back after a
42:44
Speaker 1: quick break with more from Jacob Collier. We're back with
42:52
Speaker 1: the rest of Bruce Ellen's conversation with Jacob Collier. Did
42:56
Speaker 1: you have trouble letting go? Because sometimes people who go
42:59
Speaker 1: into studios this is the myth of I don't mean
43:01
Speaker 1: the myth that it's not true, but I mean the
43:03
Speaker 1: mythology of Brian Wilson. He goes in to do Smile
43:05
Speaker 1: and it can't get finished. Could you've trouble just saying
43:08
Speaker 1: at some point it's got to go out in the world,
43:10
Speaker 1: it has to be done. Yeah, I have. I definitely
43:11
Speaker 1: experienced trouble in that way. I think when you have awareness,
43:15
Speaker 1: you're awake to all the different elements of something. Or
43:18
Speaker 1: I could just make this, I could turn the kick
43:20
Speaker 1: drum up zero point five dB, or I could I
43:21
Speaker 1: could equ out a little bit of two hundred and
43:23
Speaker 1: forty hurts from the vocal. Or oh, I could just
43:26
Speaker 1: nudge that drum thing by a tenth of a second.
43:27
Speaker 1: You know, those kinds of details when you when you're
43:29
Speaker 1: aware of them, it's really hard to let go over them.
43:31
Speaker 1: Because everything you hear in your own music when you're
43:33
Speaker 1: making it becomes those kinds of zeros and ones. If
43:37
Speaker 1: it was just a tiny bit this way, then it
43:38
Speaker 1: would be more, it would be better, it would be
43:40
Speaker 1: more emotional, it would be more a more concise statement.
43:42
Speaker 1: And sometimes as well, it's like it's loosening. Oh it's
43:44
Speaker 1: too tight. I need to make it sloppier. Let me
43:46
Speaker 1: just make it a little bit sloppier, and then it's
43:47
Speaker 1: gonna be just right. And all this is possible now
43:51
Speaker 1: in a way that wasn't available. Yeah, I mean, this
43:53
Speaker 1: is the thing is the miracle and the disease of
43:56
Speaker 1: our time is that these tweaks are endlessly possible. So
43:59
Speaker 1: I mean exactly as you say, I think there is
44:01
Speaker 1: a there's a certain point where it's like, well, I
44:03
Speaker 1: need a deadline to work against, you know, so so
44:06
Speaker 1: that things get done or things can be born int
44:08
Speaker 1: the world, because if there is not a deadline, it's
44:10
Speaker 1: just this utter infinite thing that it could always I
44:14
Speaker 1: could always do a new thing or a fresh thing,
44:16
Speaker 1: or a tweak or whatever. That said, there are certain
44:18
Speaker 1: things I think that I that I make and have
44:20
Speaker 1: made over the years, and I'm experiencing now I'm making
44:23
Speaker 1: where I know that I can't do the thing I
44:26
Speaker 1: did better than the thing that I just did. I
44:28
Speaker 1: think when you're faced with total infinity, which is one
44:31
Speaker 1: of the kind of privileges and challenges of my life creatively,
44:35
Speaker 1: there are immense reliefs to be found when you ground
44:38
Speaker 1: yourself in a particular form. I'll get thank good as
44:41
Speaker 1: I found a form. It's one of the reasons I
44:42
Speaker 1: love playing these songs on the road so much is
44:44
Speaker 1: because I'm it's it's totally unlimited, but I'm held together
44:47
Speaker 1: by the fact that there's a song with words and
44:51
Speaker 1: a beginning, middle and an end, and a crowd in
44:54
Speaker 1: a room. There's just the right criteria for me to
44:57
Speaker 1: feel actually very free. Because if I were with a
45:00
Speaker 1: song at home with no audience, in my own spare time,
45:03
Speaker 1: it's way for it to gather form because there aren't
45:06
Speaker 1: the confines of a listening crowd, an audience who can
45:09
Speaker 1: sing and who who are aware and awakes to the music,
45:12
Speaker 1: and a certain amount of time in the set that
45:14
Speaker 1: I need to feel you know, all these things that
45:15
Speaker 1: make that possible. I think for me, Yeah, one of
45:18
Speaker 1: the creative quests of my life is ways to contain
45:22
Speaker 1: my ideas and my essence. And when I do it well,
45:25
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, a concise expression of infinity.
45:29
Speaker 1: That's kind of what I aim for. And it's much
45:33
Speaker 1: easier said than done, because I find that that. Yeah,
45:36
Speaker 1: there's so much in the world to express and explain,
45:39
Speaker 1: and there's so many ways to say things. But there
45:43
Speaker 1: are those times, even say with the English language, where
45:45
Speaker 1: you say something with a sentence in a way that
45:47
Speaker 1: it could not have been better said than the way
45:49
Speaker 1: you've said it. That's like writing a song where you think, what,
45:51
Speaker 1: I don't need to try and write that song everyone,
45:53
Speaker 1: because I've already written. It's done, and that's always such
45:55
Speaker 1: a relief, think, oh God, it has done. I finished.
45:57
Speaker 1: It's it's good. And those moments are very kind of
46:00
Speaker 1: seldom and been very very welcome to me. You know,
46:03
Speaker 1: you're making me think of the famous psychologists. Stephen Pinker
46:06
Speaker 1: years ago at a conference, raged a lot of people
46:10
Speaker 1: by saying that music had no evolutionary value, it was
46:14
Speaker 1: not valuable in the evolution of people, and a lot
46:17
Speaker 1: of other neuroscientists have said, well, actually, it's one of
46:21
Speaker 1: the crucial ways we learn cause and effect and expectation.
46:25
Speaker 1: Just as you said, every note you're playing it has
46:28
Speaker 1: a home. It's trying to get to and that's something
46:30
Speaker 1: that actually children learned from songs, oh totally. Whereas you know, pinkers,
46:34
Speaker 1: I mean the awful world he was painting. I don't
46:36
Speaker 1: mean in general, but of music is it's sort of formless,
46:39
Speaker 1: and it does, it does go on forever, and you
46:41
Speaker 1: can't contain it. Yeah. Well, I suppose then that brings
46:44
Speaker 1: up the philosophical question of whether something that goes on
46:46
Speaker 1: forever has value in the present or even in gathering
46:51
Speaker 1: form over say generations. I would say yeah. I would
46:55
Speaker 1: say music is very, very similar to language, spoken language,
46:59
Speaker 1: or visual languag or whatever. And I think that as people,
47:02
Speaker 1: we naturally have a yearning for and a gift for
47:05
Speaker 1: connecting and communicating ideas to each other. One of the
47:08
Speaker 1: things we do best. The music is one of the
47:11
Speaker 1: more delicious dialects kind of in which we can do this.
47:16
Speaker 1: But you can express by screaming or shouting or stamping
47:19
Speaker 1: or roaring or talking or crying or laughing whatever these things.
47:23
Speaker 1: And I think music is it's like an extended limb
47:26
Speaker 1: of these sensations in life, and it's a really visceral
47:30
Speaker 1: kind of coloring palette where you can you're able to
47:33
Speaker 1: be very descriptive. If we stop communicating in person with
47:36
Speaker 1: each other, if we end up being siloed within our
47:39
Speaker 1: own languages are kind of digital languages and we don't
47:41
Speaker 1: connect communicity. I think that's when we stop evolving, because
47:44
Speaker 1: we evolve from each other, with each other by each
47:47
Speaker 1: other's ways, each on our own terms, but as a collective.
47:50
Speaker 1: And I think that music has an accelerated gift at
47:53
Speaker 1: offering people experiences that give them access to that. I
47:56
Speaker 1: think we've learned that's not what technology provides. It's like
48:00
Speaker 1: a mirror in a sense. It's an extension of our natural,
48:04
Speaker 1: very pure wish to form meaningful connections with each other.
48:08
Speaker 1: And you know, I would say musically, I mean we
48:10
Speaker 1: were discussing earlier on the idea if you know two
48:12
Speaker 1: hundred sounds on a cassio versus you know two million
48:15
Speaker 1: sounds in musical software, both sides are real. You could say, well,
48:20
Speaker 1: what a pity. You know, there's so many possibilities and
48:22
Speaker 1: so little guidance. You know, it's hard to make a start,
48:25
Speaker 1: or it's hard to beat whatever. But you could also say, well,
48:27
Speaker 1: what an immense cathartic relief that our children have a
48:31
Speaker 1: way of playing with sounds that truly is as infinite
48:34
Speaker 1: as the world and the only limit is their imaginations.
48:36
Speaker 1: And so technology, I mean, it's enabled me to have
48:40
Speaker 1: a career to share music with the world, to create
48:43
Speaker 1: visual form, musical form, to collaborate with you know, hundreds
48:47
Speaker 1: of musicians all over the world over FaceTime, and we
48:51
Speaker 1: transfer and drop box all these kinds of things, let
48:54
Speaker 1: alone amassing a digital audience. And I think, you know,
48:56
Speaker 1: being able to share meaningful things with the world just
49:00
Speaker 1: as much as it's distracted me as the same with
49:03
Speaker 1: everyone else from the real world and takes me out
49:04
Speaker 1: of the present and all sorts of things. But it's
49:07
Speaker 1: a double edged sword, and it's able if we choose
49:11
Speaker 1: to really augment the parts of us that make us
49:13
Speaker 1: really human. Although for you you have the experience now
49:17
Speaker 1: of playing in concert in which you're bringing all these
49:20
Speaker 1: people into your songs. Growing up, did you play with
49:23
Speaker 1: each other around the house? Was sort of collaborative music
49:26
Speaker 1: a part of her growing out very much. So, so
49:29
Speaker 1: we will sing in my house. So my family is
49:31
Speaker 1: like me and my mum and my two little sisters,
49:33
Speaker 1: and and so we we sing us mentioning Barker on
49:36
Speaker 1: SATV Sopartelebates. We sing four part bark carras Christmas carols
49:41
Speaker 1: like whenever we possibly can, whenever we other day we're
49:43
Speaker 1: at all four in the house, which now is actually
49:45
Speaker 1: quite seldom, but we'll sing. It's such a delight, it's
49:48
Speaker 1: so so nice. And at school, you know, I started
49:51
Speaker 1: lots of bands at school. I wore different hats, you know.
49:53
Speaker 1: I started like an African drumming ensemble with a bunch
49:56
Speaker 1: of gemba drums, and I started an improvisation and group
49:59
Speaker 1: where everyone just improvised, And I played drum kit in
50:01
Speaker 1: my concert band at school, and I did some arrangements
50:04
Speaker 1: for the school choir, and I sang in the school quiet.
50:06
Speaker 1: So I was kind of trying these different outfits of
50:08
Speaker 1: working with other people, and I've really had had a
50:10
Speaker 1: good time doing it. But I found that my fundamental
50:12
Speaker 1: learning happened when I took whatever I learned home and
50:17
Speaker 1: applied that to my own kind of internal introverted tapestries,
50:21
Speaker 1: you know. And I think it's only over the last
50:23
Speaker 1: ten years or so that I've really kind of learned
50:26
Speaker 1: the skills or I'm still learning the skills of unpacking
50:28
Speaker 1: those internal scientific balanced worlds and presenting them to people
50:33
Speaker 1: in real life, you know. And it's funny. I've spoken
50:36
Speaker 1: to people, some artists I really respect, really young and
50:40
Speaker 1: people who blew up kind of over quarantine through videos online.
50:44
Speaker 1: And now I'm faced with this challenge, or how do
50:46
Speaker 1: I what is playing live? You know? How do I tour?
50:49
Speaker 1: It's such such a different thing to do from sending
50:52
Speaker 1: your phone on portrait mode and just playing out song
50:54
Speaker 1: and having nice lighting. It's such a different thing to
50:57
Speaker 1: stand on stage and say not just that I'm going
50:59
Speaker 1: to sing the right notes and play my song, but
51:01
Speaker 1: actually communicate that to a room. And I had to
51:03
Speaker 1: figure that out over about a year or two when
51:05
Speaker 1: I first started touring, because I told with a pretty
51:08
Speaker 1: ambitious set up. I talked with the one man show.
51:10
Speaker 1: So it was me in the center of a circle
51:12
Speaker 1: of about twelve different musical instruments, and I was in
51:14
Speaker 1: the middle essentially playing them all at once. So I
51:16
Speaker 1: would play bass and it would loop, and drums it
51:18
Speaker 1: would loop, and keys and it would loop, and guitar
51:20
Speaker 1: and it would loop. Then I'd sing and I'd play
51:21
Speaker 1: harmonizer and it was and I'd do a piano sol
51:24
Speaker 1: over the thing, I'd loop, then it would change key.
51:25
Speaker 1: You know. It was a very, very kind of involved production,
51:29
Speaker 1: and it was it was quite singular from a technological
51:32
Speaker 1: standpoint and really hadn't really been done in that way before.
51:35
Speaker 1: And so a lot of it I was figuring out
51:37
Speaker 1: as much as that anyone else was figuring it out.
51:40
Speaker 1: But I think for the first kind of year or
51:42
Speaker 1: so of touring, a year and a half of touring,
51:43
Speaker 1: I was I was just learning how to play music
51:46
Speaker 1: on stage and feel comfortable and be cool with the
51:50
Speaker 1: fact that there was an audience there that was listening
51:52
Speaker 1: in and a part of it. And you know, I
51:54
Speaker 1: wouldn't say I was I was, you know, hugely nervous
51:57
Speaker 1: or anything, But I would just say I hadn't figured
51:59
Speaker 1: out how to really enjoy and be comfortable in a
52:02
Speaker 1: situation where I'm under that kind of pressure. And and now,
52:06
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm more at home on stage than I
52:08
Speaker 1: am in many other areas of my life. It's like
52:10
Speaker 1: I'm like a fish and water on stage. And I
52:12
Speaker 1: think I've just I've learned how to not only kind
52:15
Speaker 1: of survive and cope under pressure, but just alchymize it
52:19
Speaker 1: in to the optimum comfort and creativity, and I think
52:22
Speaker 1: that it takes time to do that. And I don't
52:25
Speaker 1: think you can just spring out of the box straight
52:27
Speaker 1: from YouTube or Instagram onto the stage and you know
52:30
Speaker 1: you're fully formed. But because I think that all the
52:32
Speaker 1: nuances of how to build a build a performance like
52:35
Speaker 1: that take time. I mean, I'm very very aware of
52:38
Speaker 1: all the different elements of my show. For example, that
52:40
Speaker 1: I've been touring this year. You know, we got as
52:43
Speaker 1: I say, six musicians on stage playing all sorts of
52:45
Speaker 1: different kinds of things, and you know, even down to
52:47
Speaker 1: the set design and the lighting. You know, I've sat
52:50
Speaker 1: with the lighting operator. His name is John John Rodgers,
52:53
Speaker 1: and sat with him and crafted exactly the tone of
52:56
Speaker 1: the green that is triggered when Christian the drummer plays
52:59
Speaker 1: the snare sound, you know, and a green light. But
53:02
Speaker 1: it's like is that dark green or medium green or
53:05
Speaker 1: light green? And how much neon is in the green?
53:07
Speaker 1: How many decimals of a second? And does it take
53:09
Speaker 1: for that green to fade out just to go or
53:12
Speaker 1: you know, and so all these kinds of forms, they're
53:15
Speaker 1: all part of the music, they're all part of the expression,
53:18
Speaker 1: and it sounds kind of cerebral when I say it
53:22
Speaker 1: out loud, But actually it's just a natural extension of
53:25
Speaker 1: a communication form that I've been familiar with just by
53:28
Speaker 1: being a human and being watching the world and thinking.
53:31
Speaker 1: But it's it's right for there to be a blackout
53:34
Speaker 1: when this word is said, or it's right for the
53:36
Speaker 1: lights to go from left to right rather than right
53:38
Speaker 1: to left because the attention needs to be moved to
53:41
Speaker 1: this musician or away from this thing, or and all
53:44
Speaker 1: those degrees. I think that as a creator of shows,
53:47
Speaker 1: I think I've I've developed and I'm developing more and
53:51
Speaker 1: more skills that the more I do it, And I
53:53
Speaker 1: think that that it's the same, same, same, same is
53:56
Speaker 1: true for everyone. I think the same was true for
53:57
Speaker 1: the One Man Show. I didn't really understand what I
54:00
Speaker 1: was doing at that time, but I was learning so
54:02
Speaker 1: fast and so much. And what a privilege to be
54:05
Speaker 1: able to learn in the real world with with real people.
54:09
Speaker 1: And this still boggles my mind to still now to
54:12
Speaker 1: go to a city and turn up on a stage
54:14
Speaker 1: and and there's two thousand people who somehow they found
54:17
Speaker 1: my songs. It's just crazy feeling. I mean, it's just
54:20
Speaker 1: it never gets old. I never walk out there. Well,
54:23
Speaker 1: of course there were people here. You know. It's why
54:25
Speaker 1: would why would people know myself? Why would they know
54:27
Speaker 1: my songs? You know. It's just it's an astonishing thing
54:30
Speaker 1: and something I take very seriously as someone who kind
54:35
Speaker 1: of builds experiences and shares things with the world in
54:38
Speaker 1: terms of I want to communicate the best I could
54:41
Speaker 1: possibly possibly communicate about how I feel as a human,
54:46
Speaker 1: because that's my duty as an artist. I must explain
54:49
Speaker 1: the world as I see it, because if people are
54:52
Speaker 1: turning up, I mean, what a privilege to be in
54:54
Speaker 1: that position. And I say I take it seriously with
54:57
Speaker 1: the lightest possible touch, you know, because you could say
55:00
Speaker 1: life is very serious, but it's also to be taken
55:02
Speaker 1: very lightly, and I think the same is true with music.
55:08
Speaker 1: Makes it Jacob Callier again for sitting down to talk
55:11
Speaker 1: to us about his career and about his process and
55:14
Speaker 1: about some insane musical theory. You can hear piano ballads
55:18
Speaker 1: and all of our favorite Jacob call Your songs on
55:20
Speaker 1: a playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com. Be sure
55:24
Speaker 1: to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com
55:27
Speaker 1: slash Broken Record Podcast, where can find all of our
55:30
Speaker 1: new episodes You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
55:35
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with help can Lea Rose, Jason Gambrell,
55:39
Speaker 1: Ben Holiday, Eric Sandler, Jennifer Sanchez. Our editor Sophie Crane.
55:44
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Neil Reibell. Broken Record is a
55:48
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and
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56:10
Speaker 1: us on your podcast. That app O theme musics by
56:13
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats on Justin Richmond