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

Transcript

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

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin.
0:20
Speaker 2: Indie rock band Not a Serf first hit big on
0:22
Speaker 2: college radio in ninety six with their driving guitar forward
0:26
Speaker 2: song Popular. The band had started playing together four years
0:30
Speaker 2: earlier while attending college in Vermont, but they're perhaps best
0:33
Speaker 2: known as a New York City band where their lead
0:36
Speaker 2: singer and primary songwriter, Matthew Kaus came of age. Kus
0:40
Speaker 2: is known as a vulnerable and often reflective songwriter who
0:43
Speaker 2: tackles everything from social anxiety to politics in his work.
0:48
Speaker 2: Not a Serf's latest album, Moon Mir is the band's
0:50
Speaker 2: tenth studio album, and it's every bit as introspective and
0:54
Speaker 2: at times hard hitting as ever. On today's episode, Bruce
0:57
Speaker 2: Helm talks to Matthew Kabs about growing up on Manhattan's
1:00
Speaker 2: Upper West Side in a house filled with baroque music
1:04
Speaker 2: and how he thinks some of the classical instrumentation may
1:06
Speaker 2: have influenced his own writing. Matthew also recalls the time
1:10
Speaker 2: Not a Serf backed up Joey Ramone and played a
1:13
Speaker 2: full Ramone set at Coney Island High Plus. He performs
1:17
Speaker 2: two songs from Not a Serf's latest album, moon Mer
1:20
Speaker 2: Forest Live. This is broken record Liner notes for the
1:26
Speaker 2: Digital Age I'm justin Ritchman. Here's Bruce headlam with Matthew Cars.
2:01
Speaker 1: This a new propeller.
2:06
Speaker 3: Turning up by. There's a whooful spinning digging a saw grace.
2:22
Speaker 3: There's growing menu of preanu mistakes, same old ground I've
2:35
Speaker 3: always walked on. Now they call it face dopy free.
2:58
Speaker 3: You won't be replaced, don'py.
3:05
Speaker 1: Free, you won't bearing. There's a new day coming. We
3:22
Speaker 1: don't know its name.
3:27
Speaker 3: There's new methods bruin. Some will be the same. There's
3:38
Speaker 3: growing feeling going down the drain. Same old ground I've
3:49
Speaker 3: always walked on. There's always new pain.
4:08
Speaker 1: Don't be fred you will belted. Don't bet you will belt.
4:30
Speaker 3: There's a brando flavor, a seat again, its taste. There's
4:41
Speaker 3: a brand new picture. Color has gone to waste.
4:51
Speaker 1: There's a growing feeling nobody is chased.
5:01
Speaker 3: Same old ground I've always walked on. Sliding in the lake.
5:21
Speaker 3: You felt a bright white law. You gave it a name. Man,
5:28
Speaker 3: you said a prize. Okay, then may be a guy
5:36
Speaker 3: and they love you with all the hall. But there's
5:41
Speaker 3: no place underground.
5:46
Speaker 4: There is no devil has We're alone.
6:18
Speaker 1: But you are the door prize. Watch it go it's.
6:24
Speaker 3: Twilin We're alone, but you are the door prize.
6:32
Speaker 1: Watch it go. It's lovely twil.
6:41
Speaker 5: Matthew cause, thank you so much from not a Surf
6:44
Speaker 5: coming in to talk about your new album Moon Mirror. Yeah,
6:49
Speaker 5: and we have lots to talk about. Great and I
6:51
Speaker 5: wanted to get to that song, so we're going to
6:53
Speaker 5: start with it. You did, Okay, tell me about that song.
6:56
Speaker 6: Well, I started writing it a long time ago. You know,
7:00
Speaker 6: sometimes start something and finish it right away, but sometimes
7:04
Speaker 6: you know, write half and put it away for a
7:06
Speaker 6: few years. And I was writing this one when Trump
7:09
Speaker 6: was running for office the first time, and I he
7:13
Speaker 6: and Mago, which maybe at the time wasn't exactly called that,
7:16
Speaker 6: but that feeling seemed to me like a like a
7:19
Speaker 6: giant cruise ship propeller turning up the water and destabilizing things.
7:26
Speaker 6: And then when I got to the line, don't be
7:30
Speaker 6: afraid you won't be replaced, I was a bit nervous
7:32
Speaker 6: about it because what I was thinking about was people
7:35
Speaker 6: who have a demographic paranoia, who are afraid that they'll
7:41
Speaker 6: be replaced by another race, or immigrants in general, you know,
7:46
Speaker 6: And I was thinking, in very simple terms, you are
7:49
Speaker 6: alive and you will live out your life. You can't
7:53
Speaker 6: be replaced, you know, the way like jealousy doesn't help,
7:58
Speaker 6: this fear isn't going to help anybody's life, you know,
8:02
Speaker 6: and maybe that's not the point of it. Anyway, of
8:04
Speaker 6: that fear, you know, it's a road to blame, to
8:08
Speaker 6: blame other people for whatever you have going on, and
8:11
Speaker 6: then a road also to anger as a relief, you know.
8:14
Speaker 6: I think anger is a relief to people. Blame is
8:17
Speaker 6: a relief to people because then you don't have to
8:18
Speaker 6: feel your own troubles. But anyway, I was nervous about
8:21
Speaker 6: it because it seemed like it was flirting with sympathy,
8:25
Speaker 6: which I wouldn't want to be accused of. But I
8:27
Speaker 6: think I'm more thinking about just humanity. You know, if
8:29
Speaker 6: people feel heard, sometimes they can let their defenses drop
8:34
Speaker 6: a little bit. I've had the experience of a couple
8:36
Speaker 6: of times, at least maybe three, where on Facebook or
8:39
Speaker 6: something I'd said something vaguely political or overtly political, and
8:43
Speaker 6: somebody had commented in an aggressive way, you know, from
8:49
Speaker 6: say a maga point of view, for example, and other
8:52
Speaker 6: friends of mine would then you know, fight with them,
8:54
Speaker 6: and I found myself these two or three times, talking
8:58
Speaker 6: to them very calmly, and then taking it into private
9:02
Speaker 6: messaging and spending two hours just talking. And what I
9:06
Speaker 6: did find was that each time the person said at
9:10
Speaker 6: the end, you know, I was surprised. I was used
9:14
Speaker 6: to democrats yelling at me. I thought everybody would yell,
9:17
Speaker 6: you know, So there's this of course, there's a lot
9:20
Speaker 6: of civility lacking, but also the sort of illusion that
9:23
Speaker 6: it doesn't exist or something. Those are the ideas I
9:25
Speaker 6: was playing around with with it. And then Mark Pellington,
9:30
Speaker 6: who directed a video that's I think it's pretty great
9:34
Speaker 6: for it. He'd done a video for a song called
9:36
Speaker 6: just Wait on our Last record and he has to
9:38
Speaker 6: hear it, and I sent him the record and he
9:39
Speaker 6: really zeroed in on that song. And what he's really
9:42
Speaker 6: zeroed in on also was the sort of understory that
9:46
Speaker 6: I was also feeling at time that once I started
9:48
Speaker 6: seeing those lines, I'm like, that's about AI, or it
9:51
Speaker 6: feels like that's what it's about. Also, you know, when
9:54
Speaker 6: lyrics sort of matched two meanings, and he zeroed in
9:56
Speaker 6: on that and absolutely thought that's what it was about,
9:58
Speaker 6: which I thought was great because it just gave it
10:01
Speaker 6: another dimension. And there's a great podcast I like called
10:05
Speaker 6: Soda Jerker and Lloyd Cole was on it, and one
10:08
Speaker 6: of his sort of best practices for songwriting was that
10:10
Speaker 6: he said, don't be at all attached to the meaning
10:13
Speaker 6: that you intended. Be okay, be at peace with any interpretation,
10:18
Speaker 6: which I think is really good advice.
10:20
Speaker 5: You know, well, I'm interested that it started as a
10:22
Speaker 5: more overtly political song. Yeah, but I didn't take that.
10:25
Speaker 5: And when you said you didn't want to betray any sympathy,
10:29
Speaker 5: I found those lines incredibly sympathetic.
10:32
Speaker 7: Oh good.
10:33
Speaker 5: Not just about AI, but I think that I think
10:36
Speaker 5: there's a feeling in society that people are so much
10:39
Speaker 5: more connected, yeah, through media, and yet for that reason
10:42
Speaker 5: you feel, yeah, people feel more expendable.
10:46
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm glad you heard it that way.
10:48
Speaker 6: And I guess I was speaking very specifically about sympathy
10:51
Speaker 6: for white supremacists. That was the thing I was uncomfortable with,
10:55
Speaker 6: but sympathy for people absolutely. And I also find that's
11:00
Speaker 6: an experience that I have sometimes when there's a certain meaning,
11:05
Speaker 6: sitting alone in my room and singing something and then
11:09
Speaker 6: to an audience, what is the communal feeling? And I
11:12
Speaker 6: think the sympathy for each other that we need so
11:15
Speaker 6: much of in any way to express it feels good
11:19
Speaker 6: or valuable.
11:19
Speaker 5: Well, it's a terrific song on a really great album.
11:22
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
11:23
Speaker 5: That I guess Rolling Stone just said is your best
11:26
Speaker 5: in maybe the best of your career, which is you've
11:29
Speaker 5: had a long that's almost thirty years. That's pretty good.
11:31
Speaker 7: I haven't seen that review yet. I just got a
11:33
Speaker 7: text about it. Okay, Well, I'm very pleased to hear
11:36
Speaker 7: that's what it says.
11:37
Speaker 5: Your last record was Never Not Together, which on the
11:41
Speaker 5: surface felt a little more experimental choral intro and a
11:47
Speaker 5: spoken intro in another song. This one feels kind of
11:50
Speaker 5: more direct and new propeller aside, a little more joyful.
11:56
Speaker 5: And it's got that great sound that you have perfected.
12:02
Speaker 7: Oh thank you tell me because it is such.
12:05
Speaker 5: A distinctive sound. How do you get that? How do
12:07
Speaker 5: you take that song? You go into the studio and
12:10
Speaker 5: I'll even ask for the boring details of how you
12:13
Speaker 5: set it up and how you how you're recording. How
12:15
Speaker 5: do you get that that great not a surf sound?
12:20
Speaker 6: Part of I guess part of any band's sound is
12:22
Speaker 6: like what the rhythm section feels like and Iron Daniel,
12:26
Speaker 6: where the forever members of the band have a certain
12:29
Speaker 6: vibe together. So that's part of it. I think it's
12:32
Speaker 6: Guitar layering is a thing. I borrowed a four track
12:36
Speaker 6: from somebody when I was fifteen and sat down with
12:40
Speaker 6: my WHO songbook and recorded a couple of songs, two
12:44
Speaker 6: guitars doing the exact same thing and two vocals doing
12:47
Speaker 6: the exact same thing. And I became immediately hooked on
12:52
Speaker 6: double tracking, which has led to triple tracking, etc.
12:55
Speaker 7: Just take it a bit further, and.
12:57
Speaker 6: I guess I really like the sound of a few
13:00
Speaker 6: guitars doing the exact same thing, so it becomes a
13:03
Speaker 6: sort of super nature, you know. And certainly when you
13:07
Speaker 6: double track yourself doing something impossible, And that's why siblings
13:12
Speaker 6: sounds so special. I think when siblings sing together, there's
13:16
Speaker 6: the fact that the grain matches so well.
13:19
Speaker 5: The brother sounds yes, yeah, yeah.
13:21
Speaker 6: And so when one person does it, it kind of
13:23
Speaker 6: sounds fictional.
13:25
Speaker 7: You know, you're you're doing something that doesn't.
13:27
Speaker 6: Exist, but maybe it sounds Maybe that's the supermagic of
13:29
Speaker 6: the elderly brothers. They sound impossible too, and it's impossibly
13:32
Speaker 6: beautiful in their case, so that and just trying to
13:38
Speaker 6: fill it up a little bit. I'm always chasing the
13:41
Speaker 6: high of the first time I had shivers hearing a song,
13:49
Speaker 6: and I remember it was She's So Cold by the
13:51
Speaker 6: rolling Stones on a little battery powered FM radio under
13:55
Speaker 6: my pillow while sleeping in a tent in the summer.
13:57
Speaker 6: We were working in our house and there was no
13:59
Speaker 6: room for us kids in the house, and I remember
14:02
Speaker 6: that shiver, And you know, I'm just trying to get excited,
14:06
Speaker 6: or chase excitement, or chase pleasures. It's like pleasure seeking
14:10
Speaker 6: in a way. You know, what sound is going to
14:13
Speaker 6: feel really blissful to me, you know, And I would
14:15
Speaker 6: never claim it's it.
14:16
Speaker 7: Is blissful in an objective way. I just mean to me.
14:20
Speaker 5: So, how many guitar tracks, for example, would New Propeller have, Oh.
14:25
Speaker 6: In the intro, maybe as few as two, just playing
14:30
Speaker 6: just playing this, but with a pick two electrics and
14:33
Speaker 6: probably two acoustics. So there you go, four playing the
14:36
Speaker 6: exact same thing, and then this.
14:40
Speaker 7: You know, that's probably three or four electrics. So it's
14:44
Speaker 7: not crazy. We don't change mixers every record.
14:48
Speaker 6: We've used some of the same John Anniello, who's a
14:51
Speaker 6: New Yorker who's now in North Carolina. John Goodmanson from
14:55
Speaker 6: Seattle mixed this record. He produced Lucky in its entirety.
14:58
Speaker 6: He did a couple of songs on the way It's
15:00
Speaker 6: a Gift. He did a few on if I had
15:02
Speaker 6: a high fi. When you hear something again and again,
15:05
Speaker 6: you almost become too sensitive to it. And when he
15:08
Speaker 6: sent the first mixes, I actually thought they were over crispy,
15:12
Speaker 6: too much, and.
15:12
Speaker 7: I'm saying, sorry, John, this is just all hyped, you know.
15:15
Speaker 6: And in fact they were totally perfect, and I think
15:18
Speaker 6: they're really beautiful and super well done.
15:21
Speaker 7: But sometimes you get a little too close to.
15:23
Speaker 5: It when you get a tape like that back, the
15:26
Speaker 5: mixed back, do you like you listen to it in
15:29
Speaker 5: one room, to go to other rooms, to go to
15:31
Speaker 5: your car.
15:32
Speaker 6: If I'm nervous about hearing it, I'll put it on
15:34
Speaker 6: I have a little home studio. I'll put it on
15:36
Speaker 6: my little home studio and hit play and go to
15:38
Speaker 6: the other room. You know, you know, like when you
15:40
Speaker 6: open an email you're afraid of Yes, you're kind of
15:44
Speaker 6: you're ready to shut the screen.
15:46
Speaker 7: Are you looking through you know, through a gap? In
15:48
Speaker 7: your fingers.
15:49
Speaker 5: We just had crowded house in here. Yeah, and I
15:52
Speaker 5: think Neil Finn said something of it. Sometimes the songs
15:55
Speaker 5: just sound better in the next room.
15:56
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, totally.
15:57
Speaker 5: And you're right, You're like it has that kind of
15:59
Speaker 5: magic quality.
16:01
Speaker 6: If I think that I'm tripping, I guess what I
16:04
Speaker 6: mean is if I think I'm being paranoid about something,
16:06
Speaker 6: or having circular thoughts or obsessing or something, very often
16:09
Speaker 6: I'll just like put in earbuds and take a long
16:13
Speaker 6: walk and listen to it a bunch of times until
16:15
Speaker 6: whatever weird feelings I was having disappear. And it's like
16:19
Speaker 6: walking to objectivity, Like I have to walk out the
16:24
Speaker 6: overthinking or the panic or something.
16:26
Speaker 5: There's an old Latin phrase It's solved by walking.
16:29
Speaker 7: I can't.
16:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, just you go for a walk.
16:32
Speaker 7: Wonderful.
16:34
Speaker 2: After quick break, we'll be back with more from Not
16:36
Speaker 2: a Serf's Matthew Cars.
16:42
Speaker 5: So let's go back to the beginning. Yeah, you grew
16:45
Speaker 5: up in New York, right, that's right, Okay, where'd you
16:48
Speaker 5: grow up?
16:48
Speaker 6: I grew up on eighty first in Lexington. My parents
16:51
Speaker 6: taught at Hunter College, so they wanted to get an
16:55
Speaker 6: apartment near there. My dad was a philosophy professor, and
16:59
Speaker 6: my mom was in French at first but then moved
17:02
Speaker 6: on to comparative literature and also English, and now at
17:07
Speaker 6: ninety one, has been an art has story and for
17:09
Speaker 6: quite a few years.
17:10
Speaker 5: So did you grow up in a was it a
17:12
Speaker 5: musical family.
17:14
Speaker 7: Only in fandom?
17:15
Speaker 6: My father had been kind of promising at piano, but
17:18
Speaker 6: he grew up in a fundamentalist Christian cult in England
17:21
Speaker 6: called the Exclusive Brethren or the Plymouth Brethren, and he
17:25
Speaker 6: wasn't allowed to play anything but hymns, and he felt
17:28
Speaker 6: constricted by that and sort of moved on. And my
17:30
Speaker 6: mom had played a little bit, but they they were
17:32
Speaker 6: fairly obsessive listeners to baroque music, and in fact, to
17:37
Speaker 6: one record in particular, which I was so glad that
17:39
Speaker 6: I came around to asking my dad about that. I
17:42
Speaker 6: would think I was in my thirties, and I said,
17:44
Speaker 6: I know it was mostly back in the house, but
17:46
Speaker 6: it's with anything in particular we listened to because his
17:48
Speaker 6: you know, it's overwhelming, there's so much work, and he said, yes,
17:52
Speaker 6: ten fifty two. So I went and found it's b BWM.
17:57
Speaker 6: There are three letters, and then there's a number, and
17:59
Speaker 6: that's that's the way Bach works are classified. And anyway,
18:03
Speaker 6: I knew every note it was. They must have played
18:06
Speaker 6: it so often because I felt like I could see
18:08
Speaker 6: the dust on the coffee table, you know. It was
18:11
Speaker 6: so brought me back to Saturday mornings Tuesday nights, like
18:14
Speaker 6: they must have played it all the time.
18:15
Speaker 5: And did any melodic lines or harmony crept their way
18:18
Speaker 5: into your.
18:20
Speaker 6: I wouldn't know how to say that. But Phil Peterson,
18:23
Speaker 6: who played strings on the one you want on this record,
18:26
Speaker 6: and who's played all the strings on the last three
18:28
Speaker 6: or four albums of ours, we were talking about that
18:31
Speaker 6: and he said he heard something baroque in some of
18:34
Speaker 6: my melodies, which I thought was a kind of a
18:36
Speaker 6: thrilling thing to hear, even though I don't even know
18:38
Speaker 6: how to interpret it. No, Like I don't even know
18:41
Speaker 6: you know in fact, what that means. But I guess
18:43
Speaker 6: I liked hearing that.
18:44
Speaker 7: It's a nice thought.
18:45
Speaker 5: And then was you mentioned hearing She's so cold by
18:49
Speaker 5: the stones? Yes, getting that chill?
18:50
Speaker 7: Yeah?
18:51
Speaker 5: Had you started playing music by that point?
18:53
Speaker 7: Yes.
18:54
Speaker 6: My mother's older sister, peg Garson passed away a few
18:56
Speaker 6: years ago.
18:57
Speaker 7: She had bought a guitar for my dad.
18:59
Speaker 6: In the sixties, and he wasn't interested, so she put
19:02
Speaker 6: it in the closet. And then when I was eleven,
19:05
Speaker 6: she pulled it out and asked me if i'd like
19:07
Speaker 6: to play it, and she showed me one chord E major,
19:10
Speaker 6: and I went into the other room and played that
19:11
Speaker 6: chord for an hour.
19:13
Speaker 7: I was so thrilled.
19:14
Speaker 6: And I hadn't yet discovered the ramones, which I would
19:17
Speaker 6: a bit later, but just just doing that over and over,
19:20
Speaker 6: and then I thought, what if I move it?
19:22
Speaker 7: I'll move it up. What if I go this way? Oh?
19:24
Speaker 7: What's that? That's interesting? What if I move it over here? Oh?
19:27
Speaker 7: So I moved this one shape? Yeah, yeah, and yeah.
19:32
Speaker 6: So I started picking up then, and then when I
19:33
Speaker 6: was sort of thirteen and fourteen, then I started playing
19:36
Speaker 6: it a lot more often.
19:37
Speaker 5: Was there a band that inspired that or the Yeah?
19:39
Speaker 6: Well, my formative musical moment was when my best friend,
19:45
Speaker 6: Philip Platel was his name. They lived near us, and
19:48
Speaker 6: I went to his house every day after school for
19:50
Speaker 6: years and years and years, and there was a real
19:53
Speaker 6: sweetness to our relationship, and you know, sometimes when it
19:56
Speaker 6: was time for me to go home, he'd walk me
19:58
Speaker 6: home the three blocks to my house, and then I'd
20:00
Speaker 6: say I'll walk you home, and then we turned around
20:02
Speaker 6: and walked to his house and he said I'll walk
20:03
Speaker 6: you home, and we'd do that a few times. He
20:05
Speaker 6: had an older brother who went to boarding school, so
20:08
Speaker 6: I didn't see very often, but I always thought he was
20:10
Speaker 6: really cool. He had these really interesting posters in his
20:12
Speaker 6: room and seemed like a lovely guy. And one day
20:16
Speaker 6: he was home from school and he when we were thirteen,
20:18
Speaker 6: and he said, you guys want to come into my
20:19
Speaker 6: room and listen.
20:20
Speaker 7: To some music. Yeah?
20:22
Speaker 6: Absolutely, So we went and sat on his bed and
20:24
Speaker 6: he played us with no comment, front to back, three
20:28
Speaker 6: entire albums, Ramon's Rocket to Russia, Velvet Underground, Loaded and
20:34
Speaker 6: Talking Heads Remained in Light those three and it was
20:38
Speaker 6: I sometimes get misty thinking about it. It was so overwhelming.
20:41
Speaker 6: I was so interested and thrilled and knocked out. And
20:46
Speaker 6: it was funny. I mean, the remote romone songs were funny,
20:50
Speaker 6: really just rhythmically exciting moments sounds I didn't understand, you.
20:53
Speaker 7: Know, like Remain in Light. I can't remember which were the.
20:56
Speaker 6: Tracks, but there are a couple where it's a series
20:58
Speaker 6: of like impossible, sounds like an emotional computer or something,
21:03
Speaker 6: you know. And then a kid at school, a new kid,
21:06
Speaker 6: gave me a cass head of Tommy, and I became
21:08
Speaker 6: a whot and bought all their old records, and Pete
21:12
Speaker 6: Townsend started to feel like a like another dad, or
21:16
Speaker 6: like an older brother or something.
21:17
Speaker 5: It's interesting that he's I think underestimated as not as
21:21
Speaker 5: a guitar player, but almost as an influence on people.
21:24
Speaker 5: He's so, yeah, he is unique, but that propulsive style,
21:30
Speaker 5: no one plays the way he does. Yes, but he doesn't.
21:33
Speaker 5: He's not in that pantheon of oh I love Clapton
21:37
Speaker 5: or I love this guy, right, but in terms of rhythm,
21:40
Speaker 5: he's completely his own.
21:41
Speaker 6: Beast absolutely and and sound and approach and and and
21:45
Speaker 6: tricks and adventure.
21:46
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, and it's super punk.
21:48
Speaker 6: I know that's a that word as a whole hours
21:51
Speaker 6: long discussion, because it's sometimes very slippery, you know the
21:54
Speaker 6: meaning of it. But just the wildly adventurous kind of
21:59
Speaker 6: reigned in organized chaos and doing stuff that you know,
22:04
Speaker 6: sounded like the speaker is blowing up kind of a
22:07
Speaker 6: pickup switching and and string scratching, and it's just so exciting.
22:11
Speaker 5: Did that music I'm thinking, particularly something like Remain in Light,
22:15
Speaker 5: it's fairly esoteric.
22:17
Speaker 7: Yeah, for sure.
22:18
Speaker 5: Did you feel like I can go do this?
22:20
Speaker 6: Absolutely not? And that was the great thing about the
22:23
Speaker 6: Ramones and the Who. I really I loved classic rock
22:26
Speaker 6: and love the songs, really loved Zeppelin and Hendrix too,
22:30
Speaker 6: and that to me was not particularly encouraging music because
22:35
Speaker 6: it was so many steps away.
22:36
Speaker 7: I couldn't see it. I always felt that.
22:38
Speaker 5: Way with them as I grew up on that kind
22:39
Speaker 5: of music and just thinking like, be like if somebody
22:42
Speaker 5: gave me like eat Sock Pearlman and said here's a violin,
22:45
Speaker 5: and I'd be like, well, I don't know where to start.
22:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, where whereas a lot of like Who in Ramones,
22:50
Speaker 6: it is sort of like, if you can drum this
22:53
Speaker 6: beat out with your hand on a desk, you can
22:55
Speaker 6: probably actually do it because all you have to do
22:57
Speaker 6: is put your fingers in a certain position to get
22:58
Speaker 6: a chord and get used to holding a pick and
23:01
Speaker 6: do that same rhythm you were beating out on the desk,
23:03
Speaker 6: do it on the guitar and you're kind of there,
23:05
Speaker 6: you know, not to overly simple, I mean obviously they're
23:08
Speaker 6: incredible players, unbelievable, but yeah.
23:10
Speaker 7: Much much more, much more doable, reachable. Yeah.
23:14
Speaker 5: Well, there's something else I want to ask you about,
23:16
Speaker 5: because you made a short little filmed about it, which
23:19
Speaker 5: is you had a tremor when you were a kid.
23:21
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, and do you still I do.
23:24
Speaker 6: It's I'm really lucky in that it's going the opposite
23:27
Speaker 6: direction of most people I know have it. It tends
23:29
Speaker 6: to get worse. Mine is getting a little better. But
23:31
Speaker 6: I just had very shaky hands as a child. There's
23:34
Speaker 6: you know, teased a fair amount for that, you know, while.
23:36
Speaker 5: You're so nervous, because did it made you appear nervous?
23:40
Speaker 7: Yeah?
23:41
Speaker 6: You know, if I would meet like my girlfriend's parents
23:43
Speaker 6: and they asked me to pour them a glass of
23:45
Speaker 6: water or something, you know, thinking that something was going
23:48
Speaker 6: to go wrong I was going to start shaking, would
23:50
Speaker 6: make me shake very much. So there's that kind of
23:53
Speaker 6: psyching yourself out problem. What's the neurological it's just for
23:58
Speaker 6: that intentional tremor, And I wish I knew more, But
24:02
Speaker 6: it's something like intentional, I e. When you don't want
24:05
Speaker 6: to do it, you do it.
24:06
Speaker 5: So is it almost like stuttering, Yes.
24:10
Speaker 7: Exactly right.
24:10
Speaker 6: And it's gotten better in part because I'm just calmer
24:13
Speaker 6: and happier as a person.
24:15
Speaker 7: I meditate.
24:17
Speaker 6: I don't have totally, you know, super regular practice or anything,
24:20
Speaker 6: but I do it pretty often. And just I have
24:24
Speaker 6: this theory that as you get older, you get happier
24:26
Speaker 6: because you were in so much danger when you were
24:29
Speaker 6: a child, or there was so much danger that you
24:31
Speaker 6: needed to communicate to your parents when you were a baby.
24:34
Speaker 6: You needed to let them know you were tired, or
24:36
Speaker 6: that you were hungry or thirsty or cold. And now
24:39
Speaker 6: that now that we're older, maybe our bodies are like,
24:43
Speaker 6: maybe it's okay to turn off some alarm systems now
24:45
Speaker 6: because things seem to have been going pretty regularly for
24:50
Speaker 6: a few years. So I've been experiencing this increase in
24:54
Speaker 6: peace as I get older.
24:56
Speaker 5: It absolutely happens, and it's well documented the U shape
25:00
Speaker 5: oh happiness. The low point apparently is forty seven, right.
25:06
Speaker 5: It actually I'm maybe the isolated to the one day
25:12
Speaker 5: forty And I'm not sure, but I'll bet you when
25:14
Speaker 5: you were a kid, did did tremor affect how you
25:17
Speaker 5: played guitar?
25:18
Speaker 4: Well?
25:18
Speaker 6: I think I think it discouraged me from getting too
25:21
Speaker 6: far into fingerpicking, which is kind of a regret. I'm
25:23
Speaker 6: trying to mend that now and learn a little more,
25:26
Speaker 6: you know, trying to figure out how to play scarboroughfair
25:29
Speaker 6: and stuff like that. But no, I mean, because once
25:31
Speaker 6: I'm into it, it would kind of disappear. It's like
25:34
Speaker 6: the first few minutes on stage used to be a
25:35
Speaker 6: little dicey. I think, like my breath is going to
25:38
Speaker 6: be really short, and I'm going to sing. You'll hear
25:41
Speaker 6: my nervousness. But that's gotten shorter and shorter, and it's
25:44
Speaker 6: kind of dissipated. But even back then, after a few minutes,
25:48
Speaker 6: just the act of doing something I love so much
25:50
Speaker 6: would calm me down and then I'd get through.
25:52
Speaker 5: Interesting, you're such a propulsive player, maybe that helps you
25:57
Speaker 5: to start.
25:58
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think so.
25:59
Speaker 6: And I was just talking about XDC the other day,
26:02
Speaker 6: you know, Andy Partridge stopped touring and I think it
26:04
Speaker 6: was eighty two or something from Stage Fright, and I
26:06
Speaker 6: was talking to a friend about how he's seem to
26:09
Speaker 6: be such an animated and active and compelling frontman.
26:13
Speaker 7: But maybe that's how.
26:14
Speaker 6: He got through his Stage fright was by by just
26:18
Speaker 6: becoming wild. So that he would forget that he was afraid.
26:23
Speaker 5: You know what's interesting to me about particularly this new record,
26:28
Speaker 5: because you have been a band that's been around for
26:30
Speaker 5: a while. Most bands that have been around this this long,
26:34
Speaker 5: most singer songwriters, you know, some of my favorite performers
26:38
Speaker 5: in the world, they lose their fastball. It becomes very
26:42
Speaker 5: hard for them to do the fast songs the way
26:46
Speaker 5: they used to. But your band, you still do amazing
26:50
Speaker 5: fast songs. And I think you're I'm not gonna say
26:53
Speaker 5: one of the few, but you're one of the bands
26:55
Speaker 5: that can still pull off a great fast song without
26:57
Speaker 5: making it sound like here's our new fast song. I'm
27:00
Speaker 5: trying really hard without that. So what accounts for you
27:05
Speaker 5: being able to do this so well for so long?
27:08
Speaker 7: Guys, thank you for the very kind words. I don't know.
27:11
Speaker 6: I heard a Johnny Mark quote. He said something like,
27:13
Speaker 6: I have two speeds, fast and slow. We're very fast
27:16
Speaker 6: and very slow, and so I don't know if there's
27:19
Speaker 6: this habit like I'm used to. I'm used to moving
27:23
Speaker 6: my right hand really quickly. I have like jittery legs,
27:26
Speaker 6: you know, nervous legs. And remember when I was a kid,
27:29
Speaker 6: I was at like a play with my parents, and
27:32
Speaker 6: during the intermission somebody from three or four seats away
27:35
Speaker 6: came over to me and.
27:36
Speaker 7: Said, kid, you gotta stop moving.
27:39
Speaker 6: But anyway, that was when I was a kid, So
27:40
Speaker 6: it doesn't explain now. I don't know it just it
27:43
Speaker 6: feels like it comes naturally.
27:45
Speaker 5: I'm not wrong though. A lot of bands kind of
27:47
Speaker 5: lose their.
27:48
Speaker 6: Yeah, well we check ourselves now and again and keep
27:51
Speaker 6: asking ourselves, is too fast right? Because we tend to
27:54
Speaker 6: play everything faster, live, just excitable.
27:57
Speaker 5: Well that's you know, that's the Ramones tradition, right, wasn't
28:00
Speaker 5: the famous quote They asked one of them how the
28:03
Speaker 5: tour was going, and one of them said, we're doing
28:07
Speaker 5: it in fifty minutes whatever. It's like crazy number of songs. Said,
28:10
Speaker 5: but we're trying to get it down to forty five.
28:13
Speaker 6: Well, you know we We did an iggy Pop song
28:16
Speaker 6: on a compilation called We Will Fall the nineteen ninety
28:19
Speaker 6: eight or something, and Iggy Pop was on it, and
28:22
Speaker 6: the label was based in New York and they wanted
28:24
Speaker 6: to have a record release party and they needed a
28:26
Speaker 6: band to back Joey up, so they we were the
28:29
Speaker 6: only New York band on that record, so they asked us,
28:31
Speaker 6: and of course we said yes, and they said, okay,
28:33
Speaker 6: you're going to do I want to be sedated and
28:36
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy this do just song.
28:38
Speaker 7: So we practiced.
28:39
Speaker 6: For two weeks, I mean completely obsessively, and then at
28:42
Speaker 6: practice for the thing when he came, you know, and
28:45
Speaker 6: we're just like grinning like kids, were so excited. Daniel
28:49
Speaker 6: Ray was this great producer, was with him and he
28:52
Speaker 6: counted it off at the speed that the Ramones were
28:55
Speaker 6: doing it, you know, right up until the end. And Ira,
28:58
Speaker 6: our drummer, to his total credit, said actually, could we
29:01
Speaker 6: do this? Could we do it at this speed? And
29:03
Speaker 6: clicked out the album speed, which is quite a bit slower.
29:07
Speaker 6: It's really twenty twenty twenty four, it's not that fast.
29:11
Speaker 6: And Joey really liked it, which was so it was
29:14
Speaker 6: so great. And then he said, after we'd done the
29:17
Speaker 6: record release party, he said, hey, if you want the
29:19
Speaker 6: next time you have a gig in New York, learn
29:21
Speaker 6: your seven favorite Romone songs and I'll get up and
29:23
Speaker 6: sing them. And we had a show at conyel And
29:26
Speaker 6: High two weeks later, and he did it.
29:29
Speaker 5: Oh my god, it was so great.
29:31
Speaker 7: I still have the setless. I just can't.
29:33
Speaker 6: I can't believe it actually happened, but it did. It
29:35
Speaker 6: was a total thrill, I mean thrill of a lifetime obviously.
29:38
Speaker 5: Wow, so fantastic.
29:40
Speaker 7: Yeah, so great.
29:40
Speaker 5: You see even he wanted to go mid tempo when
29:42
Speaker 5: he got older. Yeah, what a great guy.
29:45
Speaker 7: Yeah, he was so super sweet. Yeah, incredibulous.
29:49
Speaker 5: So where did you meet your bandmates?
29:51
Speaker 6: So Daniel Lorca, the bass player, he went to the
29:55
Speaker 6: Lise Frosse and I did too because my parents took
29:58
Speaker 6: sabbatical years and I lived. We lived in parisise five
30:01
Speaker 6: years old and then twelve years old later, and they
30:04
Speaker 6: put me in the local school and I didn't understand
30:07
Speaker 6: a word, and then started to pick up a little
30:09
Speaker 6: bit of French, and by the time we got back
30:10
Speaker 6: to New York, I was Frenchish enough that my parents
30:13
Speaker 6: put me in that school.
30:14
Speaker 7: So Daniel was there.
30:15
Speaker 6: He's from Spain, but his father was a diplomat and
30:18
Speaker 6: they'd moved around a lot.
30:19
Speaker 7: So that's two of us.
30:21
Speaker 6: And then when we were sixteen, we went to see
30:25
Speaker 6: a band called the Fuzztones a bunch of times and
30:28
Speaker 6: thought their drummer was great and met him and he
30:30
Speaker 6: seemed like a really nice guy. And there were a
30:33
Speaker 6: few times when Daniel and I had a couple of bands,
30:36
Speaker 6: and there were a couple of times, yeah, maybe only
30:38
Speaker 6: two times when we needed a drummer and he said,
30:40
Speaker 6: let's call Iron. I said no, because I thought he
30:43
Speaker 6: was too good, and I thought we might not be
30:46
Speaker 6: able to hold on to him. You know, a really
30:48
Speaker 6: good drummer in New York who was also a really
30:51
Speaker 6: sweet guy and funny.
30:52
Speaker 7: You know, that's like gold. So I thought, let's not
30:55
Speaker 7: do it Unicorn, Yeah, exactly.
30:57
Speaker 6: And then and then a couple of years later, I
31:00
Speaker 6: kind of started to have some confidence in the songs
31:02
Speaker 6: that we had and I said, yeah, let's call him,
31:04
Speaker 6: and he joined up. And then Louis Lino, our keyboard player,
31:08
Speaker 6: was here, and Williamsburg and Daniel in nineteen ninety one
31:11
Speaker 6: moved into the apartment under Louis and he had a
31:14
Speaker 6: recording studio, and we became friends and would sometimes record
31:18
Speaker 6: a little something in his studio, and over the years
31:21
Speaker 6: he could you know, mix a song here or there
31:24
Speaker 6: and add some keyboards to a couple of songs on
31:25
Speaker 6: a record, and finally started touring with us, and now
31:28
Speaker 6: he's full time.
31:28
Speaker 5: And then how did you meet rick O Kasik, who
31:31
Speaker 5: produced your first record.
31:33
Speaker 6: Well, Daniel would go back to Spain every summer and
31:36
Speaker 6: we made a forty five. A friend of mine, Joehabiko,
31:39
Speaker 6: wanted to start a label, but he couldn't afford to
31:43
Speaker 6: put out a single and I couldn't either, so we
31:44
Speaker 6: split it and I made the covers.
31:46
Speaker 7: He made the.
31:47
Speaker 6: Vinyl and a song called the Plan, and Daniel took
31:51
Speaker 6: that to Spain and played it for somebody, who played
31:53
Speaker 6: it for somebody, and we were offered a deal to
31:56
Speaker 6: put out a record in Spain. So we made an
31:58
Speaker 6: album and sent it to this label and they said, well,
32:01
Speaker 6: we want it worldwide, and we said, you know, we
32:04
Speaker 6: knew that, even though we were just pretty green, that
32:08
Speaker 6: if somebody didn't have something going on in the whole world,
32:10
Speaker 6: you couldn't give it to them for that. So I
32:12
Speaker 6: was sitting on this tape of a record that we
32:13
Speaker 6: didn't know what to do with, and I sent it
32:15
Speaker 6: to the indie labels I really liked, and never heard
32:17
Speaker 6: back from him. I was sitting on the subway one
32:19
Speaker 6: day and there was Mitch Easter like twelve feet away
32:24
Speaker 6: reading the daily news. I was too shy, and I
32:27
Speaker 6: regretted it immediately when I got out of the train,
32:29
Speaker 6: and I hadn't given him a cassette. So I told myself,
32:31
Speaker 6: I'm never going to do that again. If there's a
32:33
Speaker 6: chance i'm supposed to take, I will take it. A
32:36
Speaker 6: couple of weeks later, I went to see a blonde
32:37
Speaker 6: redhead knitting factory and I was walking out and I
32:40
Speaker 6: saw Rick Okasak walking in, and I mean, I'd always
32:44
Speaker 6: loved him.
32:44
Speaker 7: I always loved the cars. I knew he was a
32:46
Speaker 7: producer too, and he's a really good one.
32:49
Speaker 5: Underrated as a producer. He did a lot of music. Yeah,
32:52
Speaker 5: people remember him as a singer.
32:53
Speaker 6: Song right, Yeah, Romeo Avoid Suicide, Bad Brains and then Weezer, Weezer.
32:58
Speaker 7: Yeah.
32:58
Speaker 6: So I went up and said, so sorry to bother you,
33:01
Speaker 6: but I'm an abandon and could I give you a tape?
33:03
Speaker 6: And he said, oh, sure, is your number on it?
33:04
Speaker 6: It's very gracious. Wow, And I never thought in a
33:08
Speaker 6: million years you would call. But I, as the saying goes,
33:10
Speaker 6: went out to dinner on that for a couple of weeks.
33:12
Speaker 6: You know, I told some friends, you'll ever get So
33:13
Speaker 6: I gave a tape and then one day I came home,
33:15
Speaker 6: my roommate said, you need to listen to the answer machine,
33:18
Speaker 6: and there was a message from him, and I called
33:20
Speaker 6: him back and he invited me to his house and
33:24
Speaker 6: beautiful spring night. I locked my bike to nothing, just
33:28
Speaker 6: I leaned my bike against a pole outside his house,
33:30
Speaker 6: but locked it nothing.
33:32
Speaker 7: I was so right, just based out on cloud nine.
33:36
Speaker 6: And he was really sweet, really sweet, and we hung
33:39
Speaker 6: out for a little while, you know, I mean.
33:41
Speaker 7: You know whatever.
33:42
Speaker 6: He had coffee, had water, you know, like nine or
33:46
Speaker 6: ten o'clock, and then he invited me to his studio
33:48
Speaker 6: downstairs and he said, so, what is this What is
33:50
Speaker 6: this tape? And I said, well, it's this record that
33:52
Speaker 6: we don't know what to do with. And he said, well,
33:54
Speaker 6: you could put it out, but if you ever want
33:56
Speaker 6: to rerecord these songs, I'll produce them and I'll be
33:59
Speaker 6: really cheap.
34:01
Speaker 7: That's great. And he said, do you have a record deal?
34:02
Speaker 7: I said no, and he said, well, just keep my number.
34:05
Speaker 6: And a couple of weeks later, unbelievably, we were playing
34:07
Speaker 6: a bar called Rebar on six steenth Street on the
34:09
Speaker 6: West Side, and this really nice guy called Bobby McCain
34:13
Speaker 6: came up after and said, I'm into label called Number six,
34:15
Speaker 6: and I'd heard of them because they put out a
34:17
Speaker 6: Dean Ware Them single and they'd put out the Unrest
34:20
Speaker 6: record an Imperial FFRR, which I thought was so good.
34:24
Speaker 6: And that was my dream that somebody who put out
34:26
Speaker 6: cool records would come up to me after a show
34:27
Speaker 6: and just say could I hear a tape? So we
34:30
Speaker 6: gave him one and the next day he called and said, actually,
34:33
Speaker 6: my day job is at Electra and my friend Ben Weber,
34:36
Speaker 6: who happens to be our manager now played it for
34:39
Speaker 6: his boss and he wants to meet you today. So
34:41
Speaker 6: he went up there and we were offered a deal,
34:42
Speaker 6: which we turned down for about a month and thought
34:45
Speaker 6: about it. Kind of scared us, you know, right, that
34:47
Speaker 6: was so quick, and i'd heard stories about you know,
34:50
Speaker 6: this was the period of commercial alternative when a lot
34:53
Speaker 6: of indie kind of bands were getting signed by big labels.
34:56
Speaker 6: It didn't noise end well, but in the end we
34:58
Speaker 6: said yes, and he was great in the studio. He's incredible.
35:01
Speaker 6: He didn't let the label visit. They wanted to come down.
35:03
Speaker 6: He said, absolutely not, and we wouldn't have.
35:05
Speaker 7: Been able to stop them.
35:07
Speaker 6: And the other wonderful thing he did for me. It
35:09
Speaker 6: was great, was that when we would record a song,
35:12
Speaker 6: he would have me sing what's called a scratch vocal
35:14
Speaker 6: where you go in andto you know, and you'd say, okay,
35:16
Speaker 6: do that one more time. Then we did guitars and
35:18
Speaker 6: and so about eight or nine days into the record,
35:20
Speaker 6: we were running out of things to do, and I
35:22
Speaker 6: knew it was time to sing. And I sort of
35:24
Speaker 6: nervously said, you know, Rick, is it time to do
35:27
Speaker 6: the vocals? And I said, You're done. He knew that
35:30
Speaker 6: what I was going to do naturally after a take relaxed,
35:34
Speaker 6: was you know, maybe not great, but it was going
35:36
Speaker 6: to be better than Red Light Fever. So that was
35:38
Speaker 6: really that was a really sweet thing. I think he's
35:40
Speaker 6: really good at young bands. My father figure.
35:45
Speaker 5: You know, those car records he did were so I know,
35:48
Speaker 5: he didn't produce small, but they were so slick and
35:51
Speaker 5: highly produced.
35:52
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, your.
35:54
Speaker 5: First record wasn't Yeah, it was more ramshackle. And did
35:59
Speaker 5: that surprise you? Did you think he was going to
36:01
Speaker 5: give you the cars sound?
36:04
Speaker 6: No, but it's it's a little wilder maybe than the
36:07
Speaker 6: We's a record.
36:08
Speaker 7: For example.
36:09
Speaker 6: Parably, I already knew that he really likes suicide and
36:11
Speaker 6: stuff so and bad brains. Right, So like he clearly
36:14
Speaker 6: he liked wilder music also, right. But but you know
36:18
Speaker 6: he even in the ramshackle nature that record, he was
36:21
Speaker 6: he zoned in on certain things, said double this word,
36:24
Speaker 6: put another guitar here, you know, And I knew what
36:27
Speaker 6: he was going for was a little precision. Yeah, like
36:30
Speaker 6: when you would have me double track of guitar, you'd
36:31
Speaker 6: have me do it seven or eight times. And I
36:33
Speaker 6: was just doing the same thing over and over, and
36:35
Speaker 6: he was just waiting for the one where accidentally I
36:37
Speaker 6: hit it the same micro second and it had a
36:39
Speaker 6: little more power to it, And he was looking for that,
36:42
Speaker 6: which is kind of a pop thing to be looking for,
36:44
Speaker 6: looking for impact.
36:45
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, and then you know from there, you've had
36:48
Speaker 5: this career that's it's like the history of modern music.
36:51
Speaker 5: You had a big single, right popular that's on MTV. Yeah,
36:56
Speaker 5: and then you're dropped by your label.
36:58
Speaker 7: Yeah.
36:59
Speaker 5: Then you put out you know the album where I
37:02
Speaker 5: discovered you let Go or a lot of people discovered you. Yeah,
37:05
Speaker 5: and I discovered it because someone gave me a compilation
37:10
Speaker 5: They used to give out it Starbucks. Oh yeah, yeah,
37:13
Speaker 5: here music used to do them, and I know everybody
37:16
Speaker 5: makes fun of you know, oh Starbucks music. Those compilations
37:20
Speaker 5: were actually fabulous. There are a bunch of great bands,
37:22
Speaker 5: and you did it was a blizzard of seventy eight seven,
37:25
Speaker 5: which I have to ask you about that song because
37:28
Speaker 5: growing up in Canada as I did. Yeah, I heard
37:31
Speaker 5: that song and I thought, wow, this guy knows what
37:34
Speaker 5: a blizzard really is. Yeah, yeah, tell me about that song.
37:37
Speaker 7: Well, I remember blizzards in New York.
37:40
Speaker 6: I mean I blizzards everywhere. I mean snow days. Did
37:43
Speaker 6: you find that snow days were like heaven?
37:46
Speaker 5: I mean they were like magic.
37:48
Speaker 7: It's like magic.
37:49
Speaker 6: And we'd wait by the phone to hear if there
37:51
Speaker 6: was the announcement that that schools were closed in New
37:53
Speaker 6: York today, and I love that the city would disappear.
37:57
Speaker 6: All the cars are gone, everything's white, everything's new clean.
38:03
Speaker 6: I knew that there was a big blizzard in seventy eight.
38:06
Speaker 6: Seventy seven was catchy number, though I moved it over
38:09
Speaker 6: by one. But I was just thinking back to those
38:12
Speaker 6: joyous I mean that line at least is thinking back
38:15
Speaker 6: to those joyous days. And then you meet up with
38:17
Speaker 6: your friends in the park and you see people on
38:20
Speaker 6: cross country skis going down the avenue and the cars
38:24
Speaker 6: are just lumps in the snow the way the lyrics say.
38:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, then it becomes a love song. It's not a
38:28
Speaker 5: blizzard song at all.
38:30
Speaker 7: Yeah.
38:31
Speaker 6: The reason it's sort of a for us kind of
38:33
Speaker 6: quiet song is that I was sharing a room with
38:35
Speaker 6: Daniel in a hotel in Amsterdam when we were on tour.
38:38
Speaker 6: I was starting to hear the song in my head
38:40
Speaker 6: and didn't want to bother them, so I went into
38:41
Speaker 6: the bathroom and played it really quietly into a little
38:45
Speaker 6: portable four track, and we like the way it sound
38:47
Speaker 6: kind of hushed, so we kept it that way.
38:49
Speaker 5: Is that how you write? You just have a four track?
38:51
Speaker 5: Or do you sit down with pen and paper? What's
38:53
Speaker 5: what's your well? Chie?
38:56
Speaker 6: I do a little pen and paper, but that stuff
38:59
Speaker 6: doesn't seem to last. Maybe I'll fish a line out
39:02
Speaker 6: of it or something. But the bits that seem to
39:05
Speaker 6: have the best shot. Or when I sit down and
39:08
Speaker 6: write some words, ani melody and some chords all at
39:10
Speaker 6: the same time, like all married to each other, and
39:13
Speaker 6: it can be just a short like one little line,
39:16
Speaker 6: and some of them I'll really like and want to
39:18
Speaker 6: do more or you know, it depends on it depends
39:20
Speaker 6: on if I'm hunting, like if I'm waiting for a
39:23
Speaker 6: song to appear, or whether I have an idea, because
39:25
Speaker 6: sometimes it's like a concept, you know, and chase it down.
39:28
Speaker 2: One last break and then we'll be back with the
39:30
Speaker 2: rest of Bruce Headlam's conversation with Matthew Cas What was
39:38
Speaker 2: writing like on this album?
39:40
Speaker 6: Well, this is for the first time I had a
39:42
Speaker 6: real system for a little while, and that is that
39:46
Speaker 6: it was sort of tail end of COVID and I
39:49
Speaker 6: hadn't done very much with all that extra time except
39:52
Speaker 6: spend glorious time with my then toddler. But it was
39:56
Speaker 6: really time to get the band going. And so for
39:59
Speaker 6: about two months I woke up at five or five
40:01
Speaker 6: thirty most mornings, and I found that it was it
40:05
Speaker 6: was because then I'd have the house to myself. My
40:07
Speaker 6: wife and kid would still be asleep, and I'd have
40:08
Speaker 6: the living room all to myself. It's nice to be
40:11
Speaker 6: in a big room. Sometimes something about the sound not
40:13
Speaker 6: coming back at you from a wall that you're near
40:16
Speaker 6: is sort of less assaulting. But what I found, and
40:21
Speaker 6: it's a kind of a corny way to put it.
40:23
Speaker 6: But it's really what it feels like is that my
40:25
Speaker 6: inner critic was still asleep, because like a lot of people,
40:30
Speaker 6: I have a fairly active inner critic, and I'm ready
40:33
Speaker 6: to shoot down a lot of things that I make.
40:35
Speaker 6: And often the fuel or the AMMO of this critic
40:39
Speaker 6: is like, this isn't you know A, this isn't very good,
40:42
Speaker 6: and you should have started three hours before because it's
40:44
Speaker 6: two pm. What we you know, procrastinatory, ADHD, whatever it is,
40:47
Speaker 6: whatever caused me to start later than I meant to,
40:50
Speaker 6: and that guilt turns into shame, et cetera. But I've
40:54
Speaker 6: found that at five, six, six point thirty in the morning,
40:58
Speaker 6: I was just innocent. There's nothing wrong. I couldn't have
41:01
Speaker 6: wasted the day. There hasn't been a day, it hasn't
41:04
Speaker 6: been anything.
41:04
Speaker 7: It's all free. Maybe I won't use it later, but
41:07
Speaker 7: it's not wrong. It's okay.
41:09
Speaker 6: And the sort of heart of most of the songs
41:13
Speaker 6: was from those mornings, and I would I'd record whatever
41:17
Speaker 6: I liked that morning and label it with a date,
41:19
Speaker 6: and then every couple of weeks go back and go
41:22
Speaker 6: through those dates and see what was there and try
41:24
Speaker 6: to get organized what lines did I like, where the hooks,
41:27
Speaker 6: what hooks would go with other hooks and sort of
41:30
Speaker 6: build it from there.
41:31
Speaker 5: I just saw this interview with Ringo Star and he
41:35
Speaker 5: said something I hadn't heard him say before, which is
41:38
Speaker 5: that he gave a lot of credit to Paul McCartney
41:43
Speaker 5: for he said, always making them work. And he said,
41:46
Speaker 5: if it weren't for him, we would have put up
41:49
Speaker 5: three albums and been forgotten. So what is it about
41:53
Speaker 5: your band that has endured? Are you the task master?
41:57
Speaker 5: Are you the guy that gets them all working? Or
42:00
Speaker 5: is there some other dynamic that's allowed you to produce
42:02
Speaker 5: music for so long.
42:04
Speaker 6: I'm a little bit of that guy, but no, because
42:08
Speaker 6: we work so much more slowly than the Beatles. You know,
42:10
Speaker 6: it's four years since our last record. They would have
42:12
Speaker 6: made six.
42:13
Speaker 5: It was half their career.
42:14
Speaker 7: Yeah, half their career, Yeah, exactly, So we're on a
42:17
Speaker 7: much slower track. But yeah, I get real excited. But
42:21
Speaker 7: we all do, you know, we all love it.
42:24
Speaker 6: And the producer on the last couple of records has
42:27
Speaker 6: been this wonderful guy called Ian Lawton, who's been our
42:30
Speaker 6: sound man in Europe for over twenty years and our
42:33
Speaker 6: tour manager and he he's a get stuff done guy
42:36
Speaker 6: with a really sweet touch, you know, not a sergeant,
42:40
Speaker 6: more like an encourager, cheerleader, coach, and he gets us going.
42:46
Speaker 7: But I'm fairly driven once I get going.
42:49
Speaker 5: How much do the songs transform once you're with the
42:52
Speaker 5: rest of the band, you.
42:53
Speaker 7: Know, from not a lot to a lot.
42:56
Speaker 6: It's really a case by case, not tons, but they
42:58
Speaker 6: just take on so much more life. And you know,
43:01
Speaker 6: Daniel's a really he's a very adventurous player, and we'll
43:05
Speaker 6: come up with pretty unorthodox baselines and so often something
43:09
Speaker 6: I wouldn't have thought of. And what I really love
43:13
Speaker 6: is sometimes that it will feel alien at first, almost wrong,
43:16
Speaker 6: and then I'm like, oh, it's great.
43:18
Speaker 7: You know. I love that sense of adventure. IRIS like
43:20
Speaker 7: that too.
43:21
Speaker 5: You know, I mentioned this album was full of like
43:24
Speaker 5: good straight ahead, yeah guitar songs, but you know, Open
43:28
Speaker 5: Seas and Give Me the Sun. There's just a lot
43:30
Speaker 5: of really really sharp songs. Can you talk about the
43:33
Speaker 5: first single in.
43:35
Speaker 7: Front of me now?
43:36
Speaker 5: Yeah?
43:36
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah.
43:37
Speaker 6: So there's a story, there's a very specific story to
43:40
Speaker 6: the song, and it is that I was at home,
43:44
Speaker 6: I was vacuuming the house and I was wearing noise
43:46
Speaker 6: canceling headphones, and my wife came up the stairs and
43:49
Speaker 6: she said, could you fill the bath? I want to
43:51
Speaker 6: put some bleach in it and give it a good clean.
43:53
Speaker 6: Said it absolutely, So I start filling the bath. I
43:55
Speaker 6: put my noise canceling headphones back on, and I keep vacuuming, assuming,
44:01
Speaker 6: of course, that I will remember that I'm running a bath.
44:03
Speaker 6: Well I did not remember, and she came running up
44:05
Speaker 6: the stairs ten minutes later, yelling so.
44:08
Speaker 7: That I would hear her what is happening.
44:10
Speaker 6: And all our smoke alarms in the house were going
44:12
Speaker 6: off because I was I was flooding the kitchen from
44:15
Speaker 6: the bedroom upstairs.
44:16
Speaker 7: Total utter disaster, to my great shame.
44:19
Speaker 6: So I go into whatever action I can mop stop,
44:24
Speaker 6: try to turn off the smoke alarms. A few hours later,
44:28
Speaker 6: we get the power back on. Seems like everything's drying out.
44:32
Speaker 6: We stopped it in time. Nobody's mad, It's all okay.
44:35
Speaker 6: But I'm left with this cloud of feeling so dumb
44:41
Speaker 6: and disappointed and worried that this is my brain. You know,
44:45
Speaker 6: this is the brain I have to live with. It's
44:47
Speaker 6: the only one I've got. We'll do something like this unbelievable.
44:50
Speaker 6: And a couple of days later, I'm driving. I said,
44:52
Speaker 6: it's sort of an errand to do a couple hours
44:55
Speaker 6: drive and I'm trying to get out of this funk,
44:58
Speaker 6: and I start making a deal with myself. I say,
45:02
Speaker 6: the problem is I do too many things at once.
45:04
Speaker 6: I'm going to try and do one thing at a time.
45:07
Speaker 6: And this tears me up because you know, when you
45:09
Speaker 6: make a deal with yourself, it's kind of on on credit.
45:13
Speaker 6: You know, I'll feel better now because I'm promising myself
45:17
Speaker 6: that I'm going to do X, Y or Z and
45:19
Speaker 6: you know, ps that thing. And that song has kind
45:22
Speaker 6: of helped me multitask less, but only by like five percent,
45:26
Speaker 6: but still every every little bit helps, I guess. But
45:29
Speaker 6: so I started writing this song at the wheel, which
45:31
Speaker 6: is funny because that's the kind of multitasking too.
45:33
Speaker 5: But I wrote more dangerous.
45:36
Speaker 7: Well, I was definitely watching the.
45:38
Speaker 5: Road, but somebody, yeah, no, I didn't.
45:40
Speaker 6: I wasn't using a pen. I was just thinking about it.
45:44
Speaker 6: And I didn't get every line, but the concept absolutely.
45:46
Speaker 6: I used to be this while I was that. Now
45:50
Speaker 6: I'll do what's in front of me. Now, Yeah, that's it.
45:52
Speaker 5: And there's something very joyful about that song. Yeah, but
45:55
Speaker 5: you're actually just going to take things as they come.
45:58
Speaker 6: I think so, I think so, and just the yeah,
46:00
Speaker 6: and it's kind of a tumble, which is sort of fun.
46:02
Speaker 5: Yeah, you've got a great rhyme with decembering. I can't
46:05
Speaker 5: remember what.
46:05
Speaker 6: It yes in the middle of summer. I used to
46:09
Speaker 6: be haunting, not just remembering. In the middle of the summer,
46:12
Speaker 6: I was decembering.
46:13
Speaker 5: Now, when you get an idea like that, are you
46:15
Speaker 5: just so eager to sit down because you just know
46:17
Speaker 5: the lyrics can be? Yeah, how far can I take this?
46:21
Speaker 3: Yeah?
46:21
Speaker 7: Totally, And I what I enjoyed doing.
46:25
Speaker 6: I showed it to a couple of people, and I
46:28
Speaker 6: was just making up lyrics on the spot and always
46:31
Speaker 6: always messing up, you know, stumbling and out it because
46:33
Speaker 6: it's too fast to think of at least for me
46:35
Speaker 6: to think of a new words or concept every few seconds.
46:38
Speaker 6: But it was just fun to think that it could
46:40
Speaker 6: be anything. You know, I used to be cleaning when
46:43
Speaker 6: I was dreaming, or I used to be eating when
46:45
Speaker 6: I was sweeping, or you know.
46:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, it almost feels like like one of the old
46:50
Speaker 5: list songs like Johnny Cash is I've been everywhere or
46:53
Speaker 5: something like that that just like goes through the whole.
46:56
Speaker 7: I love a list song.
46:57
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, so tell me about the song Losing.
47:00
Speaker 6: That is by Louis Leno, our keyboard player. And we
47:05
Speaker 6: were at Daniel's house where we have band practice, and
47:08
Speaker 6: we were waiting for everybody to show up and just
47:10
Speaker 6: playing each other stuff, you know, tracks or demos on
47:14
Speaker 6: our laptops, and he played me that and.
47:16
Speaker 7: Just I was floored.
47:18
Speaker 6: I loved the chorus right away, really really loved it,
47:21
Speaker 6: and asked him if he wouldn't mind, you know, contributing
47:24
Speaker 6: it to the band, which means, you know, splitting the
47:27
Speaker 6: writing and stuff, because we're kind of a collective that way, right,
47:29
Speaker 6: no matter who writes. And yeah, he was into it,
47:32
Speaker 6: and I was thrilled. And hats off to John Goodminson
47:35
Speaker 6: who makes this record, because he managed to make sense.
47:38
Speaker 7: Out of a whole.
47:41
Speaker 6: I recorded a lot of kind of my bloody Valentine
47:44
Speaker 6: knee early teenage fan club me string bendi whiny stuff,
47:49
Speaker 6: which is a real mess, but he managed to kind
47:51
Speaker 6: of corral it into something that still works.
47:53
Speaker 5: You're not a big string bender.
47:55
Speaker 7: But that's yeah, No, I'm not usually you did on.
47:57
Speaker 5: That and second Skin, which is the song that leads
47:59
Speaker 5: the album.
48:00
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's one of the ones I wrote early in
48:02
Speaker 6: the morning. And it's just like the idea of those
48:06
Speaker 6: times in life where I felt I was hiding some
48:09
Speaker 6: thing or trying to present a certain way, you know,
48:11
Speaker 6: which is not a lot. I've had a lot to hide,
48:13
Speaker 6: but you know, I still have those moments and just
48:16
Speaker 6: not feeling good in your in your skin. Yeah, and
48:19
Speaker 6: just about that and about how I've started to feel better.
48:23
Speaker 6: So it's kind of you know, chronicling that a little
48:26
Speaker 6: bit and searching for better ways to feel.
48:30
Speaker 7: What is it?
48:31
Speaker 6: I tried so many new and old ways to die
48:33
Speaker 6: and self improve, from divining with dead sticks to fall
48:37
Speaker 6: in yogi hot moves.
48:38
Speaker 7: That's like, you know, doing hot yoga for a while.
48:41
Speaker 6: And then just making friends with that skin. Or maybe
48:44
Speaker 6: it's mine. Maybe this is my brand new skin. Maybe
48:47
Speaker 6: maybe I'm not hiding anything, maybe I'm just maybe I'm
48:50
Speaker 6: just me and maybe I'm just here.
48:52
Speaker 7: Yeah.
48:52
Speaker 5: And the last song on the album, Oh there's the
48:55
Speaker 5: loveliest lovely.
48:56
Speaker 6: Song, Oh Thanks, And that's kind of a in a
48:59
Speaker 6: really Fisher Price my first Riff kind of way, is
49:04
Speaker 6: an attempt at kind of a baroque feel, the way
49:08
Speaker 6: that line kind of drips down, you know, on one
49:11
Speaker 6: finger moves, then the other finger moves when the one
49:14
Speaker 6: finger stays, et cetera. Which I love those moments at
49:17
Speaker 6: the end of bock Pieces where he hits the final
49:19
Speaker 6: chord and then but then there's still some little modulations
49:21
Speaker 6: inside it, some little changes inside. I find that really thrilling.
49:25
Speaker 6: And then the rest is another kind of looking for
49:29
Speaker 6: piece song.
49:30
Speaker 5: Well, it is a very optimistic, great sounding record.
49:34
Speaker 7: Thank you.
49:34
Speaker 5: Do you want to play another song from it?
49:36
Speaker 7: Sure? Can I play in front of me now?
49:38
Speaker 5: Shure? Absolutely?
49:39
Speaker 7: Okay, great, seeah, this goes.
49:54
Speaker 3: I used to be dreaming when I was driving. I
49:57
Speaker 3: used to be leaving when I was a raving. I
50:00
Speaker 3: used to be calling when I was walking. I used
50:04
Speaker 3: to be thinking when I was talking. I used to
50:07
Speaker 3: be counting when I was sharing. I used to be
50:10
Speaker 3: blanking when I was staring. I used to be rolling
50:15
Speaker 3: when I was parking. I used to be raining when
50:18
Speaker 3: I was poking. To day, I do what's in front
50:26
Speaker 3: of me. Now to day, I do what's.
50:31
Speaker 1: In front of me now.
50:33
Speaker 3: I used to be stopping when I was trying. I
50:37
Speaker 3: used to be landing before I was flying. I used
50:40
Speaker 3: to be haunting, not just remembering. In the middle of summer,
50:44
Speaker 3: I was decembering, always rewriting when I was reading, but
50:49
Speaker 3: also doubting.
50:51
Speaker 1: I was conceiving. I used to be dropping when I
50:54
Speaker 1: was collecting.
50:55
Speaker 3: I used to be building when I was dissecting. I
51:03
Speaker 3: do what's in front of me now to day, I
51:10
Speaker 3: do what's in front of me, what's.
51:12
Speaker 1: In front of me?
51:16
Speaker 3: I do what's in front of me now. I used
51:19
Speaker 3: to be missing when I was kissing. Why wasn't a present?
51:23
Speaker 3: I could have been living. I used to be dodging
51:26
Speaker 3: when I was catching.
51:28
Speaker 1: I used to be dying.
51:29
Speaker 3: I could have been hatching. I used to be drowning
51:32
Speaker 3: when I was drinking. I was only masking. I could
51:36
Speaker 3: have been feeling. You used to surround me whenever you
51:39
Speaker 3: found me. I could have learned more from the friends
51:42
Speaker 3: around me. I used to be falling when I was
51:45
Speaker 3: leaning Catastrophe Carden. I could have been dreaming. I was
51:50
Speaker 3: Korean in looking for me that which I was relaxing.
51:54
Speaker 3: I could have been breathing today. I do what's in
52:01
Speaker 3: front of me now today.
52:07
Speaker 1: I do what's in front.
52:08
Speaker 3: I mean, Oh, there's too many lanes. There's too much
52:15
Speaker 3: to see in the frame at once. It's too much
52:18
Speaker 3: to contain. Oh, there's too much to rain. I can
52:27
Speaker 3: never explain it all too much for my friend. Do
52:38
Speaker 3: what's infront of me, what's in front of me?
52:43
Speaker 1: Do what's in front of me.
52:45
Speaker 5: Now, beautiful, Thank you so much for coming in.
52:55
Speaker 7: Man, Thanks for having me, joy, thank you, thank you,
52:58
Speaker 7: thank you.
53:01
Speaker 2: Thanks to Matthew Calls for taking us inside his creative process.
53:04
Speaker 2: I'm Not a Serf's latest album, moon Mare. You can
53:07
Speaker 2: hear all of our favorite songs from a surf on
53:09
Speaker 2: a playlist in the episode description. You can find this episode,
53:13
Speaker 2: along with past episodes, on YouTube dot com slash Broken
53:16
Speaker 2: Record Podcast, and be sure to follow us on Instagram
53:19
Speaker 2: at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on
53:22
Speaker 2: Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited
53:26
Speaker 2: by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and
53:29
Speaker 2: Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record is
53:33
Speaker 2: a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show
53:37
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53:41
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Speaker 2: for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you
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Speaker 2: like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review
53:54
Speaker 2: us on your podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats.
53:58
Speaker 2: I'm justin Richmond.