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

Transcript

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

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. In the thirteen years since Kevin Parker first posted
0:14
Speaker 1: Tam and Paula music on MySpace, he's gone from being
0:16
Speaker 1: a member of Perth, Australia's psych rock scene to a
0:19
Speaker 1: huge Coachella headlining act in the States. In the process,
0:23
Speaker 1: he's developed the best of both worlds, the respect of
0:26
Speaker 1: all your favorite artists and legions of fans who'd dissect
0:29
Speaker 1: every lyric and sound on his albums. Like most of
0:32
Speaker 1: his past releases, Kevin did everything on the newest Tam
0:35
Speaker 1: and Paula album, The Slow Rush, himself, all the singing, playing, production, mixing. Everything,
0:42
Speaker 1: he tells Krubin is how he's most comfortable creating alone.
0:46
Speaker 1: But in the five years between his last record and
0:48
Speaker 1: the new one, he was busy collaborating with The Weekend,
0:51
Speaker 1: Travis Scott, Kanye West, Sizza and a bunch of other
0:54
Speaker 1: people have talked about wanting to work with him too,
0:57
Speaker 1: everyone from Dua Lipa at Christina and the Queens. Kevin
1:00
Speaker 1: connected recently with Rick on Zoom. It's been sheltern in
1:03
Speaker 1: place back in Australia ever since the coronavirus interrupted his
1:06
Speaker 1: tour after two sold out nights at the Forum in La.
1:09
Speaker 1: He talks with Rick about how being perceived as a
1:11
Speaker 1: band started eating away at him early, and also asked
1:14
Speaker 1: Rick about making two albums. He loves Californication in Jesus.
1:23
Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
1:26
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin and Kevin Parker, and
1:34
Speaker 1: you might hear Rooster's crown in the background every once
1:36
Speaker 1: in a while. Unfortunately, sheltern in place sometimes means being
1:39
Speaker 1: surrounded by wild chickens. What was your introduction to music?
1:43
Speaker 1: What's what are your first memories of listening to music
1:46
Speaker 1: as a kid. My dad was kind of a musician
1:50
Speaker 1: by hobby, like like, loved music, loved playing music and
1:53
Speaker 1: playing like a cover band, just playing kind of sixties
1:57
Speaker 1: you know, Beach Boys, Badels, roll Stones, covers, and so
2:01
Speaker 1: he would always have a sort of guitars and stuff
2:03
Speaker 1: lying on the house and in the end in the garage.
2:06
Speaker 1: I guess of your dad's music was the first Your
2:09
Speaker 1: first memory of was of him playing music or of
2:14
Speaker 1: the music he listened to the music listened to it
2:17
Speaker 1: because he would he would always have music playing in
2:18
Speaker 1: the car. In fact, it's weird because there's this one
2:21
Speaker 1: song that that I have this memory of always asking
2:25
Speaker 1: him to play, and I remember there was every time
2:27
Speaker 1: I heard it was like, you know, I must have
2:29
Speaker 1: been about four years old I was. I was like, damn,
2:33
Speaker 1: play this song. And to this day, I don't know
2:35
Speaker 1: what that song is. It's heartbreak. Does your dad still remember?
2:40
Speaker 1: He passed away about ten years ago, so um so yeah,
2:45
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think he would have remembered anyway, though,
2:48
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, I have a feeling it's The Shadows,
2:51
Speaker 1: a song by the Shadows. Do you feel like if
2:53
Speaker 1: you randomly came across the song in life, it would
2:58
Speaker 1: a light bulb would go off and you would say
3:00
Speaker 1: it is It would probably trigger some sort of weird episode,
3:05
Speaker 1: you know, like wherever I was, and probably you know,
3:09
Speaker 1: just sort of stop breakdown in some way. But at
3:12
Speaker 1: the same time, I think it might be a song
3:14
Speaker 1: that I know at the moment by the Shadows, because
3:18
Speaker 1: I have a feeling it was instrumental, and I know
3:21
Speaker 1: that it was really like touching and melancholic, which which
3:24
Speaker 1: kind of points directly to the Shadows. And then what
3:27
Speaker 1: was your first music that was yours? Probably Navana? You know,
3:34
Speaker 1: like I just I would have been about eleven years old.
3:37
Speaker 1: My friend played me vinyl because we were like the
3:39
Speaker 1: first kids in our class to get into music. You know,
3:43
Speaker 1: like I go on his house every Tuesday or something
3:47
Speaker 1: like that after school and we'd kind of like discover
3:50
Speaker 1: rock music. You know. It was kind of it was
3:51
Speaker 1: just like epiphany, absolute revolution of life, like just like
3:56
Speaker 1: jumping around the room that you know that that that
3:58
Speaker 1: whole that whole kind of discover that whole story, which
4:02
Speaker 1: is you know, probably everyone but yeah, I mean Nirvana.
4:06
Speaker 1: And then it was kind of just a cascade of
4:09
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins, silver Chair, anything with distorted guitar, anything with
4:14
Speaker 1: drop D tuning. But there was always the kind of
4:17
Speaker 1: part of that music that was kind of, um it
4:21
Speaker 1: wasn't just like angsty. It was kind of discovered the
4:23
Speaker 1: emotion in it, like like like Smashing Pumpkins. You know,
4:27
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins has that that real, that real kind of
4:29
Speaker 1: sensitivity to even though it's just like blaring wall of sound,
4:33
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Do you remember when you
4:35
Speaker 1: first started started experimenting with making music. Uh, yeah, Well
4:39
Speaker 1: my brother played drums, so yeah, he's two years older. Um,
4:46
Speaker 1: so he had a drum kit which I just thought
4:49
Speaker 1: was incredible. I like, sort of, you know, just watch him,
4:54
Speaker 1: you know, and it was kind of like wow, so
4:55
Speaker 1: obviously I immediately wanted to copy him. Hea. We had
5:00
Speaker 1: this tape deck in the music room, which was kind
5:04
Speaker 1: of just a room in the house. We had a
5:05
Speaker 1: tape deck that had a microphone input. You remember those
5:08
Speaker 1: like kind of like cassette cassette decks, and for some
5:12
Speaker 1: reason they'd just be like a chorion's jack in the
5:14
Speaker 1: corner just says a microphone, you know, And so we
5:19
Speaker 1: plugged a microphone into it and just recorded ourselves playing drums,
5:22
Speaker 1: just to sort of sealed it sound like. And then
5:25
Speaker 1: we had this little keyboard sitting in the room as
5:29
Speaker 1: a little cassio kind of thing. And one day I
5:32
Speaker 1: was kind of just playing along to myself playing drums
5:36
Speaker 1: with the cat like I didn't even know how to plays,
5:38
Speaker 1: just hitting random notes, you know. It sound like a
5:40
Speaker 1: nursery rhyme probably, And then I noticed in the room
5:42
Speaker 1: there was a second cassette deck with the same thing.
5:45
Speaker 1: So I stuck a mic into that, stuck the mic in,
5:47
Speaker 1: did that and recorded myself just hitting these keys over
5:51
Speaker 1: the top of me. You're playing drums and listened back
5:53
Speaker 1: to that tape and it was me playing keyboard to myself.
5:57
Speaker 1: It was me playing two things at once. It blew
5:59
Speaker 1: my still would have been about eleven amazing. Yeah, yeah,
6:09
Speaker 1: who did the idea of starting to do it with
6:13
Speaker 1: the ideas of making it for other people to hear? Start? Well,
6:18
Speaker 1: I mean, like like every young teenage musician, I had
6:22
Speaker 1: like grandiose dreams of being a rock star, especially because
6:28
Speaker 1: my favorite band was Silver Chair and they were only
6:32
Speaker 1: like fifteen sixteen and I was sort of like twelve
6:35
Speaker 1: thirteen by that point. I was like, I was like,
6:37
Speaker 1: they're fucking like fifteen sixteen. That means I've got like
6:40
Speaker 1: two three years, Like two three years I can I
6:43
Speaker 1: can still get to where they're they are. I can
6:46
Speaker 1: be them. You know, you think it had to do
6:48
Speaker 1: with how young they were, because because they were such
6:50
Speaker 1: little kids. Yeah, for whatever reason, whether it was because
6:54
Speaker 1: I do you know, because they were like young Australian boys,
6:59
Speaker 1: or because like they're kind of they would have been
7:01
Speaker 1: a similar headspace, you know that they kind of like
7:03
Speaker 1: their approach to it would have been in the same
7:06
Speaker 1: realm as mine. How did you decide to end up
7:08
Speaker 1: being a solo artist as opposed to being in a band.
7:13
Speaker 1: Uh well, I always I played in bands the whole
7:17
Speaker 1: time in high school, Like I was obsessed with the
7:19
Speaker 1: idea of playing in bands, but I also had the
7:21
Speaker 1: making music thing at home since before I accidentally multi
7:26
Speaker 1: tracked myself. That time I was playing at a band.
7:28
Speaker 1: It was kind of this um this music school that
7:31
Speaker 1: I went to where like they teach you an instrument,
7:34
Speaker 1: mom's drums, and then every Saturday morning they get all
7:38
Speaker 1: the kids from different instrument like tuitions and put them
7:43
Speaker 1: and put them in bands. So they put me in
7:45
Speaker 1: the in a band. So I was in a band
7:47
Speaker 1: that age eleven, which I fucking loved. I could not wait.
7:52
Speaker 1: I could not wait for Saturday morning to come around
7:55
Speaker 1: because it was like, you know, playing music with other
7:57
Speaker 1: kids was just this another mind blowing thing. But I
8:02
Speaker 1: also and then so I sort of got better at that,
8:04
Speaker 1: and I slowly got better at recording music by myself,
8:06
Speaker 1: and the two worlds never really met, Like even even
8:10
Speaker 1: at the start of like Tamian Parlor, when I was
8:14
Speaker 1: sort of like twenty one twenty two, we were playing
8:19
Speaker 1: songs that I'd written for us to play live and
8:21
Speaker 1: they were different to the ones I was recording at home,
8:24
Speaker 1: we even had on MySpace. It took a while for
8:26
Speaker 1: the two worlds to kind of converge, if that makes sense,
8:30
Speaker 1: because I just didn't know how. I didn't know how
8:32
Speaker 1: to translate what I was kind of doing at home
8:35
Speaker 1: and like expressing on my own because that music was
8:39
Speaker 1: like super kind of I guess, I guess sensitive is
8:42
Speaker 1: the word, and kind of nuanced and genre less. But
8:47
Speaker 1: the music I was making in bands, I mean, like
8:49
Speaker 1: that was music was more kind of like what we
8:51
Speaker 1: had listened to was a group like kind of more angsty,
8:53
Speaker 1: like heavy kind of stuff. At the time that you
8:57
Speaker 1: started making music with the idea of putting it up
9:02
Speaker 1: on my space, what would you say the influences were
9:05
Speaker 1: what we listening to and what might might have been
9:08
Speaker 1: who would you hope to get to play with? For example,
9:12
Speaker 1: that was around the time that I was super kind
9:14
Speaker 1: of obsessed with sixties music, so it was kind of
9:18
Speaker 1: it was all like the doors Jefferson Airplane. I didn't
9:21
Speaker 1: have a lot of kind of like modern day idols
9:25
Speaker 1: um just because of like that was a kind of
9:29
Speaker 1: lifestyle I was leading, and like I was living in
9:31
Speaker 1: a sharehouse with other people were kind of just we
9:33
Speaker 1: were just permanently listened to seventies psycher rock constantly. Um,
9:39
Speaker 1: I mean there was this band called dungyin that I
9:42
Speaker 1: was super into it, still am to this day. That's
9:46
Speaker 1: that's still just gives me goosebumps, you know. Yeah, it's
9:49
Speaker 1: and like it's funny because I listened now and I
9:51
Speaker 1: can hear my first album all over it. You know,
9:56
Speaker 1: It's something I didn't really notice at the time consciously,
9:58
Speaker 1: but just like the Yeah, and then how do you
10:01
Speaker 1: describe how the second album differed from the first. It
10:06
Speaker 1: was it was a hundred times more indulgent, which is
10:10
Speaker 1: what I wanted, you know, because I'd had this kind
10:14
Speaker 1: of like surge of confidence that I didn't have previously prior,
10:21
Speaker 1: you know, like when I made in a Speakers is
10:23
Speaker 1: kind of like shy stoner kind of you know. And uh,
10:28
Speaker 1: and you know, like we had a lot of I
10:31
Speaker 1: had a lot of success the first album. We went
10:34
Speaker 1: on tours and all this kind of stuff, and so
10:37
Speaker 1: I suddenly realized that, um, it kind of validated my
10:43
Speaker 1: approach and my kind of like what I wanted to do.
10:47
Speaker 1: So I can't say Lonerism was kind of like just
10:50
Speaker 1: blowing that wide open. How did the third album when
10:54
Speaker 1: that came, how was that different? Well, I mean the
10:57
Speaker 1: second album, I still didn't fully know what I was doing.
11:00
Speaker 1: I kind of like I got Ableton and I and
11:04
Speaker 1: instead of just sort of it being the corner of
11:07
Speaker 1: my bedroom in a share house that I made it
11:10
Speaker 1: for the second album, I was like, fuck it all right,
11:12
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dedicate to this, you know, So I set
11:15
Speaker 1: up a studio in a in a in a room
11:17
Speaker 1: in my sharehouse. It got it's got, it's my studio,
11:20
Speaker 1: got its own full room for once, um, and I
11:23
Speaker 1: would just make hours and hours of I just I
11:28
Speaker 1: like was using SyncE Organs fucking anything, you know. I
11:31
Speaker 1: was kind of it was kind of just that, you know,
11:34
Speaker 1: that kind of typical moment for a solo artists where
11:38
Speaker 1: they where they make their you know, their self indulgent opens.
11:42
Speaker 1: It really was that. Looking back, like at the time,
11:44
Speaker 1: I was like, fuck yeah, you know, it seemed like
11:47
Speaker 1: the first two albums, the arrangement seemed more complicated. Yeah,
11:52
Speaker 1: that's probably true because in the third one, I was
11:56
Speaker 1: kind of like influenced by a lot of kind of
11:58
Speaker 1: R and B and electronic music. So I was kind
12:02
Speaker 1: of embracing the way that that music was made more,
12:06
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean, sort of like finding
12:08
Speaker 1: a loop and kind of like almost kind of making
12:12
Speaker 1: making a beat like a you know, in like the
12:15
Speaker 1: hip hop sense, like sort of just having like a
12:18
Speaker 1: four bar loop and just sort of making the structure
12:20
Speaker 1: out of that, rather than going like, Okay, we're going
12:24
Speaker 1: to be going with this bit for a while, We're
12:26
Speaker 1: gonna jam on these chords and then like do a
12:27
Speaker 1: huge drum fill and go into these chords and then
12:29
Speaker 1: let this thing for five and a half bars. Do
12:32
Speaker 1: you remember what the music that inspired that switch? Like
12:36
Speaker 1: what would have been the things you were listening to
12:38
Speaker 1: that maybe you want to make more program based music.
12:41
Speaker 1: I mean, like it was always music that I was into,
12:45
Speaker 1: but just music that I'd kind of shied away from
12:47
Speaker 1: making because I figured, like my world was weird, expansive
12:53
Speaker 1: side rock, and like if I tried to do more clean,
12:57
Speaker 1: focused pop kind of stuff, I assumed it wouldn't work,
13:02
Speaker 1: you know. So Currence was the album where I'd kind
13:04
Speaker 1: of like just went, I'm going to try it, you know,
13:07
Speaker 1: try to make kind of like disco R and B
13:10
Speaker 1: kind of like, really the beats are like super strong
13:13
Speaker 1: and heavy. Would you would you consider the first two
13:17
Speaker 1: as a pair and the last two was pair? No,
13:20
Speaker 1: I've never thought of it that way. Um, all right,
13:23
Speaker 1: maybe some people would, I guess with the third one.
13:27
Speaker 1: Third one where I was is the one where I
13:28
Speaker 1: was kind of like I knew that there would be
13:31
Speaker 1: fans of the first two that turn their noses up,
13:34
Speaker 1: Like I was ready for that, do you know what
13:35
Speaker 1: I mean? I was kind of like I decided, you know,
13:41
Speaker 1: kind of definitively that that. Um, but I wanted to
13:45
Speaker 1: change my sound, and I knew that some people wouldn't
13:47
Speaker 1: like it, you know what I mean. That was kind
13:48
Speaker 1: of that part of my career where where I kind
13:51
Speaker 1: of like sucked it up. Do you know what? It's
13:53
Speaker 1: a great thing to do, Earthly on If you'd made
13:57
Speaker 1: four albums that sounded in the same vain and then
14:01
Speaker 1: the fifth one was different, it would have probably alienated
14:06
Speaker 1: more people. Yeah, you know, It's like you did it
14:09
Speaker 1: early enough in the trajectory where you let people let
14:14
Speaker 1: the audience know that, hey, we're gonna go on different
14:17
Speaker 1: rides and I want you to come with me and
14:20
Speaker 1: I think people are more forgiving of the style changes
14:24
Speaker 1: if you prepare them for it. Yeah, yeah, if if
14:29
Speaker 1: if change is one of the constants. Yeah, It's like
14:33
Speaker 1: if if the Ramans fifth album, All of a Sudden
14:35
Speaker 1: was a you know, program dance record, I don't think
14:38
Speaker 1: anybody would have been excited about that, right. And also
14:41
Speaker 1: something I realized was that, I mean, what's funny is
14:44
Speaker 1: that the first album and the second one I like
14:50
Speaker 1: as well, Taiman Palla was always kind of perceived as
14:53
Speaker 1: a band, and I was kind of cool with that
14:57
Speaker 1: because like, because it's it sounded like a band, people
14:59
Speaker 1: will you know, it's it sounds like a bunch of
15:03
Speaker 1: guys jamming, you know, like I love this, I love
15:05
Speaker 1: I love these guys, you know, I love the way
15:07
Speaker 1: they jam out. Um. But I kind of like it.
15:11
Speaker 1: Kind of it was eating away at me that it
15:14
Speaker 1: wasn't like the truth. Um. And also because and also
15:19
Speaker 1: like I wanted I wanted people to know that it
15:22
Speaker 1: was kind of more of a solo recording project because
15:27
Speaker 1: I realized that solo artists get away with completely changing
15:31
Speaker 1: their sound a lot more than bands, do, you know,
15:34
Speaker 1: like with someone like like Beck, you know, Beck can
15:37
Speaker 1: just take a complete left turn with one album, you
15:40
Speaker 1: know um, and everyone'll be like, oh, well, that's that's back,
15:44
Speaker 1: that's what he does. But like with a band, it's
15:46
Speaker 1: kind of like I think, I feel like a few
15:48
Speaker 1: things have to happen, like everyone in the band or
15:51
Speaker 1: everyone in the group rather has to like decide on
15:54
Speaker 1: it together, which is more difficult. You know. They all
15:58
Speaker 1: have to be sort of like moving in the same action,
16:00
Speaker 1: whereas people, you know, people, especially as time goes by,
16:03
Speaker 1: people like Drift Apart. When he decided to give the
16:07
Speaker 1: project a name originally as opposed to your name was
16:11
Speaker 1: it was it the opposite of what you just said
16:14
Speaker 1: was the original impression was for it to seem like
16:18
Speaker 1: a band. Yes. Absolutely. In fact, the record label when
16:22
Speaker 1: they signed us didn't even know we were it didn't
16:25
Speaker 1: it didn't know it was me that was playing drums
16:26
Speaker 1: and guitars and bass and multi jacking like they we
16:30
Speaker 1: I outright lied to them when we met up, Like
16:34
Speaker 1: the contract that we signed was for three of us. Um.
16:39
Speaker 1: I think yeah, because I just I didn't want to
16:43
Speaker 1: say it was just me, you know, um for a
16:47
Speaker 1: number of reasons, Like number one, I was kind of shy.
16:49
Speaker 1: I just you know, it's really weird because looking back,
16:54
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, why the fuck didn't you just
16:56
Speaker 1: like own it? You know. Um. But also, like the
17:00
Speaker 1: kind of music scene I was in was a very
17:04
Speaker 1: communal scene, you know, like we lived to jam and
17:09
Speaker 1: lived to like play gigs. So like for the thing
17:14
Speaker 1: that finally came out of that scene to be just
17:19
Speaker 1: one like a solo project, think it felt kind of wrong,
17:23
Speaker 1: like they'd be it would be the kind of this
17:24
Speaker 1: like scene that we kind of had going in Perth
17:27
Speaker 1: was kind of like a bunch of us, but there
17:29
Speaker 1: weren't that many people. But that what we made tons
17:32
Speaker 1: of bands out of it, you know, so they'd be
17:34
Speaker 1: like ten people and they'd be like six bands with
17:39
Speaker 1: like different combinations of those people, just just because you know, like, hey,
17:42
Speaker 1: why the fuck, why the funk not when we come back,
17:45
Speaker 1: we'll have more with Kevin Parker. We're back with Rick
17:51
Speaker 1: and Kevin Parker. It feels like it was like four
17:53
Speaker 1: or five years between the third album and the new
17:58
Speaker 1: album M and that before yous you didn't you didn't
18:02
Speaker 1: write songs or make any music. I did. I absolutely did,
18:06
Speaker 1: but I just didn't see it as taim and Parlor,
18:09
Speaker 1: And it kind of seemed more like a drag to
18:13
Speaker 1: think of a song as Tame and Parlor, because it like,
18:16
Speaker 1: every time I thought of a song, if I imagine
18:19
Speaker 1: it as taim and Parlor, it came loaded, like the
18:21
Speaker 1: idea was loaded with all these kind of things that
18:24
Speaker 1: came with it, Like it just seemed so much more
18:28
Speaker 1: magical and wondrous to think of it as a song
18:31
Speaker 1: I could collaborate with a different artist on, you know,
18:35
Speaker 1: like me making taim and Parlor music now, h and
18:40
Speaker 1: always it's like it's a deep dark hole that I
18:45
Speaker 1: have to go into and you know, like come out
18:47
Speaker 1: like it drains, it drains every bit of me, you know.
18:51
Speaker 1: And I realized that the end, like working at the
18:53
Speaker 1: end of the third album, you know, I've I've I
18:55
Speaker 1: always dreamt of making a tam and Parlor album where
18:58
Speaker 1: I didn't feel completely spent at the end of it,
19:01
Speaker 1: like completely drained and completely like depressed even And I
19:04
Speaker 1: kind of realized after a while that that was inevitable
19:07
Speaker 1: and that was the only way it could be. In
19:09
Speaker 1: the course of those four years before you started working
19:12
Speaker 1: on a new album, did it reveal itself that it
19:15
Speaker 1: was time or was it the decision you made, or
19:18
Speaker 1: did one particular track come up where you felt like, oh,
19:22
Speaker 1: this could be the beginning of something. It was a
19:27
Speaker 1: combination of the first two, you know what it was.
19:30
Speaker 1: It was more like it was the process of it,
19:35
Speaker 1: because I'd fallen in love so much with this idea
19:38
Speaker 1: of music being a collaborative thing, you know, like the
19:44
Speaker 1: energy in a room when you're working with other people,
19:49
Speaker 1: like you know, I started working with Travis Scott someone
19:51
Speaker 1: like that, Like the energy in the room is just
19:53
Speaker 1: so electric, you know, and I was like, hey, I
19:58
Speaker 1: can I can have that energy on my own too.
20:01
Speaker 1: I just have to. I just have to embrace it,
20:06
Speaker 1: you know. And so then I started so like the
20:08
Speaker 1: way I started working on the album again was by
20:13
Speaker 1: like pretending I was in a recording session with a
20:15
Speaker 1: bunch of other people, you know, staying up late, just
20:18
Speaker 1: getting getting drunk and stoned, you know, and kind of
20:22
Speaker 1: just having a party by myself. I guess, just embracing
20:27
Speaker 1: that kind of way that when you're on the in
20:30
Speaker 1: the depths of working by yourself, you feel like many people.
20:34
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're channeling particular people or is
20:39
Speaker 1: it more of a general feeling of this is not me,
20:42
Speaker 1: it's someone else, or do you envision or Travis is
20:46
Speaker 1: here with me? What would you do? Both? But in
20:49
Speaker 1: different times it's like me imagining I'm someone else is
20:51
Speaker 1: kind of more when I get stuck, you know, it's
20:54
Speaker 1: like what would or would Forrell Williams do in this moment?
20:58
Speaker 1: You know. Actually it's funny. One of the one of
21:01
Speaker 1: the things that got me inspired I was what I
21:04
Speaker 1: started for some reason. I started watching um there's this
21:08
Speaker 1: like six part YouTube video series on the making of Justified,
21:18
Speaker 1: and it's it's it almost seems like leaked footage because
21:21
Speaker 1: it's just fly on the wall. Someone's just holding a
21:23
Speaker 1: video camera the entire time. It starts from like them
21:26
Speaker 1: in the in Justin Timberlake's private jet and they're flying
21:29
Speaker 1: to the recording session. But most of it is just
21:32
Speaker 1: someone sitting on the couch like filming Farrell and Justin
21:37
Speaker 1: kind of messing around, like having a laugh and like
21:40
Speaker 1: making the song. So you can see Farrell kind of
21:42
Speaker 1: piece together um uh Senorita. So like there's like, you know,
21:49
Speaker 1: like a twenty minute patch of him just sort of
21:51
Speaker 1: playing drums just so good. That's what it's that's not
21:56
Speaker 1: how it starts out, but he slowly, it seems slowly
21:59
Speaker 1: converge on the beat that ends up being signorated, you know,
22:04
Speaker 1: so he's like, Okay, gets up, He's like, hey, leap
22:06
Speaker 1: that back. And I don't know why, but for some reason,
22:11
Speaker 1: that kind of just made me think about how I
22:14
Speaker 1: make music, and it kind of reminded me. In fact,
22:17
Speaker 1: one of the songs on the album kind of like
22:19
Speaker 1: came out sounding similar to something I would imagine Forrell
22:25
Speaker 1: and Justin would be doing for Justin Team, which is
22:27
Speaker 1: the song breath Deeper. The first the beat from the
22:30
Speaker 1: start of Breath Deeper was kind of me pretending us, no,
22:34
Speaker 1: it's Farrell and Justin making Justified. Let me ask a
22:37
Speaker 1: specific question. You often have a little intro signature intros
22:43
Speaker 1: that are not necessarily part of the track, you know,
22:46
Speaker 1: like the drums. It will either be a different beat
22:49
Speaker 1: or it sounds really different and it sets up the song,
22:54
Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel like it's part of the song.
22:56
Speaker 1: Did those happen after? I guess that's just me trying
23:03
Speaker 1: to um just create those kind of moments of like
23:09
Speaker 1: jelting into the track, you know, like in the way
23:13
Speaker 1: that you here and hip hop. The way that like
23:18
Speaker 1: like just cutting to something completely different is because sometimes
23:22
Speaker 1: one of the most satisfying things and so sometimes it
23:25
Speaker 1: give me an accident, like accidentally accidentally played the track wrong.
23:31
Speaker 1: For example, the start of backwards feels like we're going
23:33
Speaker 1: to go backwards on Learnerism was me I had it
23:36
Speaker 1: on loop. I had one beat on loop that's kind
23:40
Speaker 1: of like you know, the last beat of the chorus
23:45
Speaker 1: or something, you know, I had any and I was like,
23:49
Speaker 1: oh shit, you know, that's one of like I don't
23:52
Speaker 1: have many happy accidents in this year, I've most Not true,
23:55
Speaker 1: I do, I have a lot, but um, that's one
23:57
Speaker 1: just one of those happy accidents, you know. So I
23:59
Speaker 1: guess I'm just always look out for things that can
24:01
Speaker 1: consider like take you one way and then quickly back
24:04
Speaker 1: the other, you know what I mean. And so more
24:06
Speaker 1: more often, some accident might happen somewhere during the course
24:11
Speaker 1: of making the song, and you might think, oh, maybe
24:15
Speaker 1: I can use this piece at some point and then
24:18
Speaker 1: you and then you figure out how to use it,
24:20
Speaker 1: or or might you have a finished song and think, okay,
24:24
Speaker 1: now I want to I need an intro and I
24:26
Speaker 1: don't want it to be like the rest. I mean,
24:28
Speaker 1: those kind of things, those kind of moments, those accidents,
24:31
Speaker 1: they're almost it's almost something that I rely on happening,
24:35
Speaker 1: you know, And because like you know, I i'd like
24:41
Speaker 1: to recordpreate late at night. Sometimes I like to get
24:43
Speaker 1: kind of just spaced out, and you know, in those times,
24:47
Speaker 1: I'm not very musically proficient. You know, but because because
24:51
Speaker 1: you're not consciously aware of everything you're doing, it frees
24:56
Speaker 1: you from that the boring straight down the line cognitive
25:00
Speaker 1: thinking that you do. You know. It's that kind of
25:02
Speaker 1: so it's almost like your subconscious is involved in the
25:05
Speaker 1: rating process. Yeah, exactly exactly. I mean I try I
25:10
Speaker 1: try to bring that as much as possible because I'm
25:13
Speaker 1: someone that naturally I'll try and process everything. You know,
25:17
Speaker 1: I'm probably more um uh naturally an overthinker than i'd
25:24
Speaker 1: like to be, you know, So like smoking weed in
25:28
Speaker 1: a recording session, that's kind of just something I do
25:30
Speaker 1: to stop myself from overthinking, because that's that's that's that's
25:33
Speaker 1: a time when I'm just like, oh, yeah, that's cool,
25:35
Speaker 1: let's go with that, you know, like, oh that's sick.
25:38
Speaker 1: Don't think about it, don't think about it, you know,
25:41
Speaker 1: not that not the nothing you need to be done
25:43
Speaker 1: to to like to get into that kind of space,
25:45
Speaker 1: but all those kind of times. It's it's also like
25:49
Speaker 1: like being being in a heightened emotional state, like being
25:52
Speaker 1: super feeling super emotional in whichever direction is also something
25:58
Speaker 1: that brings out that where you're not you're not thinking
26:00
Speaker 1: about whether something's good, it's just it just it hits
26:03
Speaker 1: a spot of you because you're feeling depressed, or because
26:06
Speaker 1: you're feeling elated, or or you know, particularly joyous or
26:11
Speaker 1: particularly sad. Those are times when you don't overthink things too.
26:15
Speaker 1: Are all of these things we're talking about all instrumental
26:19
Speaker 1: at this point where we're at in talking about making
26:23
Speaker 1: music and those feelings that you get excited about. Are
26:27
Speaker 1: we only talking about instrumental at this point? Uh? No,
26:31
Speaker 1: it can happen all at once. I mean, in fact,
26:33
Speaker 1: like most of the ideas I have for songs, our
26:36
Speaker 1: ideas I've had not even in the studio. And that's
26:39
Speaker 1: kind of the other thing about catching you off guard
26:42
Speaker 1: is that songs come to me when I'm not thinking
26:47
Speaker 1: about writing a song. You know, in fact, if I
26:52
Speaker 1: consciously decide that I want to write a song I
26:54
Speaker 1: can you can pretty much guarantee it's going to be
26:56
Speaker 1: the shitter song I've ever written. I've often tried to research,
27:02
Speaker 1: like when it is that I that an idea will
27:04
Speaker 1: come to me, and like the only thing I can
27:07
Speaker 1: um that I've noticed, like a pattern or whatever, is
27:10
Speaker 1: like going from like a loud place or like a
27:15
Speaker 1: place where there's a lot of energy into us into it,
27:18
Speaker 1: just like like walking outside, stepping outside from a room
27:21
Speaker 1: of people, suddenly going from like lots of shit going on,
27:25
Speaker 1: thinking about it and then suddenly nothing, and then my
27:28
Speaker 1: brain has to find some way of feeling that void.
27:31
Speaker 1: Suddenly a beard. I think that's something that's as great
27:36
Speaker 1: and the fact that you notice that is really it's
27:40
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful note. And I'm really helpful for you
27:43
Speaker 1: that I'm so happy that you realized it. Sure, yeah, yeah, well,
27:49
Speaker 1: I mean, like I think I'm a science person, so
27:52
Speaker 1: I'm always like, how how does that happen? Not not
27:55
Speaker 1: so that I can fabricate it or not that I
27:59
Speaker 1: can like force it to happen, but just just because
28:01
Speaker 1: I want to know you. I'm just curious, like what
28:03
Speaker 1: makes me think of ten songs in three days sometimes
28:07
Speaker 1: and then nothing for five months. Okay, So now let's
28:10
Speaker 1: say you just left the loud room where there's a
28:12
Speaker 1: lot going on. You stepped outside and it's silent. What
28:16
Speaker 1: might one of these seed ideas look like? What would
28:20
Speaker 1: be the first thing that would come. It's like flicking
28:24
Speaker 1: on the radio, melody, lyric, both both all all at
28:30
Speaker 1: the same time. Yeah, it's like it's like it's it's
28:34
Speaker 1: like flicking on the radio, and it's like fee on
28:36
Speaker 1: the radio because it's not like it's not like starting
28:38
Speaker 1: the song at the Start's like a song starts, you know,
28:41
Speaker 1: zero point zero zero song starts. It's like coming in
28:45
Speaker 1: halfway through a chorus. You know, it's a vibe. You
28:48
Speaker 1: pick up on the vibe. Yeah, and then and then
28:52
Speaker 1: I just do my best. I do my best to
28:56
Speaker 1: get to a place where I can record it before
28:59
Speaker 1: I forget it. Um. So I've obviously got like a
29:02
Speaker 1: hundred voice members on my phone. It'll be like a
29:06
Speaker 1: two bar or one bar um bit of music. So
29:12
Speaker 1: the drums, all the drums. With the drums, I mean,
29:14
Speaker 1: let's let's try and find one um. But but it's
29:18
Speaker 1: it's rare that I'll listen back to it and decide
29:20
Speaker 1: that it was good enough. Just I don't know why.
29:22
Speaker 1: It's like someone singing on it hear is like, hey man,
29:24
Speaker 1: what about this? It goes no, no, no, no no, just
29:29
Speaker 1: and sometimes at the end of my note, I like
29:32
Speaker 1: feel compelled to go record this, Just fucking record it.
29:36
Speaker 1: This wouldn't sound like much you listen to it, but
29:38
Speaker 1: record it. Um play play one. I'd love to hear it.
29:53
Speaker 1: This is very candid, you know, two doul. So that's
30:14
Speaker 1: obviously like the kind of the rhythm section that's a
30:19
Speaker 1: vocal melody. Um. Yeah. So I guess like often I'll
30:24
Speaker 1: go back and just like force myself to a call
30:27
Speaker 1: one of us. I haven't recorded that one. That's the
30:29
Speaker 1: first time I've listened to it. I'd say about ninety
30:31
Speaker 1: nine things out nine out of ten ideas that I
30:34
Speaker 1: have I'll forget because I'll be meaning to like record
30:40
Speaker 1: up my voice memo, but someone will be next. I'll
30:42
Speaker 1: be like talking to someone and then we'll get into
30:46
Speaker 1: a car with the car radio playing, and it'll absolutely
30:49
Speaker 1: just wipe. It'll wipe whatever I'm thinking. You know, I'm
30:52
Speaker 1: to catch him fast, absolutely and and and and easily
30:56
Speaker 1: forgotten too. And I always feel bad about going, just
31:00
Speaker 1: feel a bit kind of ego about ego maniac about going, Like, hey, guys, coone,
31:04
Speaker 1: just shut up, come one, shut up. Plays I've got
31:06
Speaker 1: an idea, you know, like I could never do that
31:08
Speaker 1: in a room full of pain or with anyone I'm with.
31:12
Speaker 1: Here's the suggestion, go to the bathroom. Yeah that's true.
31:17
Speaker 1: Hey there's music playing in bathroom sometimes, but yeah, but yeah, no,
31:22
Speaker 1: you know, Neil Young has rule that regardless of what
31:28
Speaker 1: is going on in the moment where he is or
31:31
Speaker 1: what he's doing, if a song comes to him, everything stops. Yeah,
31:36
Speaker 1: I love it, And he gets that idea down before
31:39
Speaker 1: that goes away because he knows it's fleeting and we
31:43
Speaker 1: don't have control of them coming. Like you said, sometimes
31:45
Speaker 1: you'll get you might get a bunch in a couple
31:48
Speaker 1: of days, but then you might go months without without
31:50
Speaker 1: getting another one. So they really are valuable. And they're
31:54
Speaker 1: also valuable because they're all different and you never know
31:56
Speaker 1: which one is the great one, you know, Yeah, maybe
31:59
Speaker 1: one of the best ones evaporated. Yeah that's true. I
32:04
Speaker 1: I family believe I you know, I genuinely believe that
32:08
Speaker 1: I could have songs that are my best songs or whatever.
32:11
Speaker 1: You know, Like, there's definitely things that have disappeared that
32:13
Speaker 1: that would have been great. But that's just life, you know. Okay, Well,
32:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you permission to always either ask
32:21
Speaker 1: people to be quiet or to wow, or to invite
32:25
Speaker 1: you to leave the where you are to go capture
32:28
Speaker 1: these ideas because there you're doing a service. You're doing
32:32
Speaker 1: a service to the world. Wow, that's that's actually really
32:36
Speaker 1: powerful to hear from you, Rick Rubin. Can I get
32:38
Speaker 1: a little soundbot from you saying like, hey, everyone, can
32:42
Speaker 1: you get the fuck out Kevin? He's to record something
32:46
Speaker 1: just so I can play it to them, Like it's like, hey,
32:49
Speaker 1: I will make one for you and send it amazing.
32:52
Speaker 1: That would be amazing, Just like Hey, guys, Rick Rubin here,
32:59
Speaker 1: I love When we come back, we'll have more with
33:02
Speaker 1: Kevin Parker. We're back with Rick and Kevin Parker from
33:09
Speaker 1: Team and Parlor. Do you listen to music for a
33:12
Speaker 1: final While I don't and I want to more, I
33:16
Speaker 1: have less and less since I started making music, since
33:20
Speaker 1: music became the thing that I do, I've been more
33:23
Speaker 1: and more preoccupied with making it, so I haven't given
33:27
Speaker 1: myself time to listen to it. Like, it's extremely difficult
33:30
Speaker 1: for me to justify putting on an album to listen
33:35
Speaker 1: to over potentially thinking of a song, because for me,
33:40
Speaker 1: like if I put on an album, that's an hour
33:42
Speaker 1: that I won't have an idea, you know, I'm that
33:46
Speaker 1: obsessed with coming up with a new with like finding
33:51
Speaker 1: a new song, making a new song, because making a
33:56
Speaker 1: new song makes me feel like nothing else in the world.
33:59
Speaker 1: There's no other feeling in the world that I get
34:01
Speaker 1: from um the feeling of starting a new song that
34:05
Speaker 1: I think has great potential, sadly more so than than
34:09
Speaker 1: listening to something that that is equally that is that
34:15
Speaker 1: is great, you know. But but I do want to
34:17
Speaker 1: I do want to force myself to listen to me
34:18
Speaker 1: more music. I heard uh Um Todd of the Creator
34:22
Speaker 1: and his Nordwire interview the other day. He said, like
34:25
Speaker 1: he wakes up every morning listens to two hours of
34:27
Speaker 1: music hasn't heard before. I was like, Fuck, that's amazing.
34:29
Speaker 1: I want to do that, you know, just like, yeah,
34:33
Speaker 1: have you ever started a song with another song in mine? Um,
34:40
Speaker 1: like a song that already exists, like a just like
34:44
Speaker 1: a song, like a song that you a song from
34:47
Speaker 1: the sixties. Anything, Wow, this is my inspiration. What would
34:52
Speaker 1: I do that that would be in this vein? Not
34:54
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting copying it, but I'm saying being inspired
34:58
Speaker 1: by it to want to make something that makes you
35:00
Speaker 1: feel like that feels uh, not that I know of,
35:05
Speaker 1: but um, something that I do sometimes kind of subconsciously.
35:10
Speaker 1: There might be a song um playing in the background,
35:16
Speaker 1: like you know, and like on the radio or something,
35:21
Speaker 1: and then I'll and then like they'll get switched off,
35:23
Speaker 1: and then I'll think of something that goes on from there,
35:27
Speaker 1: like like I'll have the rhythm and maybe the key
35:30
Speaker 1: in my mind is subconsciously I'll just start singing a
35:33
Speaker 1: song that goes on from that as though as though
35:35
Speaker 1: the song kept going but it changed. There's an example
35:38
Speaker 1: of that which I don't know if I feel like
35:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get busted. M Well, you know what fuck
35:45
Speaker 1: it it was? It was twenty and twelve. No, there's
35:49
Speaker 1: a song. Well, my song feels like we only go backwards. Um.
35:54
Speaker 1: I must have been listening to this, why I've traced
35:57
Speaker 1: it back. I think I was listening to this song
35:58
Speaker 1: by Beach House earlier that morning. It's called Walk in
36:03
Speaker 1: the Park, I think, And it's funny because it's the
36:07
Speaker 1: same tempo and the same key and possibly even similar chords.
36:13
Speaker 1: But it was for me at the time, it was
36:17
Speaker 1: kind of it was too much of a coincidence. And
36:19
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was around that time that song
36:21
Speaker 1: came out, So I'm pretty sure that I'd done that
36:25
Speaker 1: with that song, kind of like that song had stopped
36:27
Speaker 1: and then i'd kind of just like my brain had
36:29
Speaker 1: continued it on, same tempo and same key, you know,
36:33
Speaker 1: maybe even like there's probably even like a little motif
36:36
Speaker 1: in there that's the same kind of combo of two
36:39
Speaker 1: or three notes, do you know what I mean. So
36:41
Speaker 1: that's something that happens. Yeah, I don't think there's anything.
36:46
Speaker 1: I think all great artists are heavily inspired by other artists,
36:50
Speaker 1: and it's only good. Yeah. What's funny is that when
36:53
Speaker 1: I say that now it doesn't seem that bad, But
36:57
Speaker 1: but I think back then, I used to be so
36:58
Speaker 1: precious about like the sacredity of melodies and the sacredness
37:03
Speaker 1: of artistry being being wholly wholly as like whe Dadada
37:11
Speaker 1: inspired and not influenced by anything. So like back then
37:14
Speaker 1: I would have thought that was terrible but now now
37:16
Speaker 1: that I said out loud, it's kind of that's just
37:18
Speaker 1: one of the ways that like great song can come about.
37:21
Speaker 1: And then especially like I discovered or not discovered, but
37:23
Speaker 1: like I appreciated hip hop more and like sampling and
37:26
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So you know, that's that's another whole
37:29
Speaker 1: realm of taking music that already exists. Yeah, I think
37:33
Speaker 1: creative use of a sample to create something new is
37:37
Speaker 1: it's just a new form. It's like it's a great
37:39
Speaker 1: new form of creativity, a beautiful way to express yourself,
37:44
Speaker 1: to flip something for a new use like recycling. It's
37:47
Speaker 1: really cool. Yeah, it's also a completely other other category
37:53
Speaker 1: of skill that can be mastered. You know. I guess
37:56
Speaker 1: that's something I didn't realize early on when I started,
37:58
Speaker 1: you know, when I was like making to socker rocking style.
38:01
Speaker 1: Not that I have do you that I've sampled myself,
38:04
Speaker 1: but like I used to think, like someone's done that already,
38:07
Speaker 1: like how can you take credit for that? But finding
38:09
Speaker 1: that in itself and realizing how it can be reimagined
38:13
Speaker 1: and like represented is extremely difficult, especially when there's an
38:18
Speaker 1: there's a universe of music out there, Like finding the
38:21
Speaker 1: right thing to use and how to use it is
38:23
Speaker 1: something that I that I admire extremely Now, yeah, that's
38:28
Speaker 1: it can happen even I mean even with cover songs.
38:32
Speaker 1: A different artist could take the same song with someone
38:35
Speaker 1: else did and just through their interpretation of it completely
38:40
Speaker 1: changed the meaning of the song. You know. It's there's
38:43
Speaker 1: so much that can happen in the personalization process of
38:48
Speaker 1: music fully fully, like that that Mad World song. You know,
38:54
Speaker 1: it's it's a cover. It's really that really a somber song, yes,
38:58
Speaker 1: and it's like, how could this song I've ever been
39:01
Speaker 1: anything else other than this? You know. Yes, the cover
39:04
Speaker 1: version is spectacular, and if you listen back to the original,
39:07
Speaker 1: it's cool, but the cover is is it? Yeah? Exactly?
39:13
Speaker 1: Great example, the first BG's hit was a song that
39:17
Speaker 1: they wrote for um Otis Redding. Do you know the story? No, No,
39:23
Speaker 1: I want to know. I love somebody? Oh okay, I
39:27
Speaker 1: love somebody. Yeah. They wrote that for Otis Redding and
39:33
Speaker 1: then Otis Redding died and never got to record it,
39:37
Speaker 1: and then they recorded it themselves and put it out.
39:40
Speaker 1: But when you hear that song, you don't think of
39:42
Speaker 1: Otis Redding and you think of the BGS. It's like
39:44
Speaker 1: it's a it's a classic BGS song. Yeah, a great
39:48
Speaker 1: example of a song with in their mind that was
39:51
Speaker 1: for someone else. Yeah. Yeah, I like hearing stars like that.
39:55
Speaker 1: It's kind of comforting for me to know that there's
40:00
Speaker 1: that kind of uncertainty that honest have as well with
40:03
Speaker 1: with where a song should end up. Anything else you
40:07
Speaker 1: want to talk about, Uh, well, you know, I'm tending
40:11
Speaker 1: to ask you about everything you've done, but I don't
40:14
Speaker 1: know that that's probably something done a million times. What
40:18
Speaker 1: was what was recording Californication? Like, just because that was
40:22
Speaker 1: one of the albums that like was big for me,
40:25
Speaker 1: that was kind of like my first year of high
40:28
Speaker 1: school album that I was kind of obsessed with. Well
40:31
Speaker 1: did typically the way it worked with the Chili Peppers
40:34
Speaker 1: as we would they would write songs on their own
40:36
Speaker 1: for a long period of time, and then we would
40:38
Speaker 1: get together in pre production and they would play me
40:42
Speaker 1: songs in various stages of completion, and we would talk
40:48
Speaker 1: about them and discuss strengths and weaknesses and how they
40:54
Speaker 1: could maybe be better and where they had too many
40:56
Speaker 1: parts or whether they had maybe mad enough parts. Yeah,
40:59
Speaker 1: and then we would usually by the time of that
41:04
Speaker 1: album really work up the songs as a live band
41:08
Speaker 1: in the in the rehearsal room, so that when we
41:12
Speaker 1: went into the studio it was purely just getting the performance,
41:16
Speaker 1: like everything was worked out completely just with the players.
41:23
Speaker 1: Maybe not all of the words, but I think back
41:27
Speaker 1: then maybe many of the words were already written where
41:31
Speaker 1: they could perform it live and and the goal of
41:36
Speaker 1: that really was to to not confuse the writing process
41:44
Speaker 1: with the performance process, so that when we were in
41:47
Speaker 1: the studio we really knew what we were doing. And
41:50
Speaker 1: still we might play the same song a hundred times
41:54
Speaker 1: to get it to just come together in that in
41:58
Speaker 1: that way where it feels like it's the perfect version,
42:02
Speaker 1: but it's also got mistakes in it, and it's you know,
42:05
Speaker 1: it's natural. It's just it sounds like a band on
42:09
Speaker 1: a really good night. It doesn't sound like machines playing it.
42:14
Speaker 1: It sounds like the best night that they played that
42:18
Speaker 1: on tour. This was we happened to catch the best one,
42:22
Speaker 1: so to play things over and over with that idea,
42:25
Speaker 1: and someone happened very quickly, someone take a long time,
42:27
Speaker 1: and then and then all of the overdubs would happen
42:31
Speaker 1: after that, and we would make decisions of things to try,
42:34
Speaker 1: and we would usually record many, many, many more songs
42:38
Speaker 1: than whatever was on the album. Pretty much always the case. Wow,
42:42
Speaker 1: Like I would say for every album we made, there
42:44
Speaker 1: were at least twice as many songs as the songs
42:48
Speaker 1: that were on the album, and what happened to them
42:53
Speaker 1: eventually come out and based on kind of some have
42:56
Speaker 1: some happen. Wow, that's that's crazy because like for me,
43:02
Speaker 1: that's that's such a wild things to think because for me,
43:06
Speaker 1: like I just make the songs that I need for
43:08
Speaker 1: an album, Like a song will will not get pasted well,
43:12
Speaker 1: it won't get passed anywhere close to halfway finished unless
43:16
Speaker 1: I know it's going to be on the album. So
43:18
Speaker 1: I rarely ever have B sides of any kind. So
43:22
Speaker 1: the idea of to think of like a completely a
43:27
Speaker 1: complete other, like a parallel universe album that never existed.
43:32
Speaker 1: That's funny because it's sung on Californication. But um, but
43:35
Speaker 1: I guess I guess that's I guess that's how most artists.
43:38
Speaker 1: Have you noticed? Have you noticed how a song when
43:42
Speaker 1: you first get excited about it and you think, oh,
43:46
Speaker 1: you know, I've worked on these songs, but this this
43:48
Speaker 1: new one is my favorite of the batch so far,
43:51
Speaker 1: and then as you work further it maybe doesn't become
43:55
Speaker 1: your favorite of the batch. And then another song that
43:58
Speaker 1: you think, well, this is pretty good, but maybe not
44:00
Speaker 1: my favorite song, that as you continue working on it,
44:03
Speaker 1: it becomes your favorite song. Have you ever had that
44:05
Speaker 1: experience or now? Well, my thing is like for a
44:09
Speaker 1: song to make an album, it has to at some
44:13
Speaker 1: point have been my favorite song ever, Like I have
44:17
Speaker 1: to have had a moment with that song, Like it
44:19
Speaker 1: has to like for at least a day, has to
44:22
Speaker 1: have been just like my favorite thing I've ever done.
44:26
Speaker 1: You know, it can never be like just for some reason,
44:29
Speaker 1: like I won't bother going through with a song unless
44:34
Speaker 1: at some point I've thought that it's like potential is limitless,
44:39
Speaker 1: or it could be the greatest thing I've done, and
44:42
Speaker 1: like greatest, not just greatest, like oh it could you know,
44:45
Speaker 1: be the most critically claimed or whatever, but just just
44:49
Speaker 1: just the greatest, you know, Like I guess for me,
44:52
Speaker 1: the thing is like from starting a song and having
44:56
Speaker 1: all these and just thinking it's and having a moment
44:59
Speaker 1: with a um feeling great about it. It's kind of
45:04
Speaker 1: just like a race to the finish line to get
45:06
Speaker 1: the song finished and have me still feel the same
45:09
Speaker 1: way about it, or just for me to still love it.
45:11
Speaker 1: You know, you always finish one song before moving on
45:15
Speaker 1: to the next song. No, No, I mean like hours
45:20
Speaker 1: for the hours up until mastering. I'm still writing lyrics
45:25
Speaker 1: for a song for it, like up until you know,
45:29
Speaker 1: a few hours before it's done, of like a year
45:32
Speaker 1: of working on it. I'm sort of like writing lyrics,
45:37
Speaker 1: writing and recording lyrics and editing drums and you know,
45:42
Speaker 1: so I do everything at once because I'm my attention
45:45
Speaker 1: spand is too short to well my kind of like
45:47
Speaker 1: my work, I have horrible work ethics. So for me
45:51
Speaker 1: to sit down and do like one task until it's done,
45:55
Speaker 1: it's extremely rare. You know. I'll just I'll sort of
45:58
Speaker 1: like be recording a baseline for it and get sort
46:03
Speaker 1: of like halfway down there, Oh I canna do something
46:06
Speaker 1: else now, you know, I'm gonna Because that's the luxury
46:09
Speaker 1: of doing it by myself. I can do it without
46:11
Speaker 1: it derailing the session, you know, so I can kind
46:14
Speaker 1: of just like, oh, you know, now now I want
46:16
Speaker 1: to think of some lyrics, or now I want to
46:18
Speaker 1: do a bit of mixing. You know, I want to
46:19
Speaker 1: edit some drums, you know, I'll do everything at once
46:22
Speaker 1: and then which which can which can sort of like
46:25
Speaker 1: create this sort of like complete mess of and and
46:28
Speaker 1: can make me feel can can make you lost in
46:33
Speaker 1: the progress of a song. So sometimes I'm like, oh,
46:36
Speaker 1: I don't know where I am with this, So I
46:38
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know if it's almost finished or
46:40
Speaker 1: if it's nowhere near there, you know. So I'm kind
46:44
Speaker 1: of just like in lost in this, in this, uh
46:47
Speaker 1: in the in the woods? Do you ever go too
46:51
Speaker 1: far and have to backtrack? Yes, I mean I hate
46:55
Speaker 1: back I hate backtracking, but but yes, um, it's interesting.
47:00
Speaker 1: I was something I wanted to I've always wanted to know,
47:04
Speaker 1: and like maybe maybe you're not able to say because
47:06
Speaker 1: if you know, it's like uh secret or whatever. But um,
47:11
Speaker 1: with Jesus, you know, because there's the myth that he
47:16
Speaker 1: there's a story that he came to you sort of
47:17
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks before it was done, and you
47:19
Speaker 1: kind of went like, let's get rid of that, Let's
47:21
Speaker 1: get rid of that and like strip it down, which
47:23
Speaker 1: to me, like that story is like is this holy
47:26
Speaker 1: grail of discipline? Like executive discipline to say like we
47:32
Speaker 1: don't need any of this, you know, because for me,
47:34
Speaker 1: that's it's it's it's it's extremely hard if I recorded
47:37
Speaker 1: apart for a song, it's extremely difficult for me to
47:40
Speaker 1: say he doesn't need to be in the song, because
47:42
Speaker 1: like my brain's like, oh no, there's a there's there'll
47:44
Speaker 1: be a place for it, you know. So my songs
47:46
Speaker 1: can end up being so extremely dense and I'm just
47:49
Speaker 1: sort of finding a way to sort of like fit
47:51
Speaker 1: in there, in there. But to me, like the greatest
47:53
Speaker 1: strength and the greatest ability in production is to say
47:59
Speaker 1: all of this stuff here doesn't doesn't need to be
48:03
Speaker 1: you know. So I I real wonder to know how
48:05
Speaker 1: that like happened. Well, um, you have to be ruthless
48:10
Speaker 1: in the edit, and uh rot I like that word ruthless.
48:15
Speaker 1: It's the right word because you have to be comfortable
48:19
Speaker 1: taking your favorite part out of a song if it
48:22
Speaker 1: doesn't if it doesn't serve the song. The most important
48:26
Speaker 1: thing is that what what's presented is the best that
48:32
Speaker 1: it could possibly be, and it's not a collection of
48:35
Speaker 1: things in that one song. It's what makes this song
48:39
Speaker 1: the best it could possibly be, And anything that doesn't
48:43
Speaker 1: need to be there, needs to go. And I would
48:47
Speaker 1: say just the opposite in terms of I never feel
48:52
Speaker 1: bad about taking stuff out. But then again, you know,
48:55
Speaker 1: from the beginning, there's always been my uh, my instinct
49:01
Speaker 1: is to have the least amount of stuff to get
49:03
Speaker 1: the idea across with the least amount of stuff. Doesn't
49:06
Speaker 1: mean that that's um. I'll say that that's an organizing
49:10
Speaker 1: principle for the way I work. But then sometimes we'll decide, oh,
49:13
Speaker 1: let's put a bunch of stuff on this, and that's
49:15
Speaker 1: the way we like it. It's fine. So it's not
49:17
Speaker 1: a uh, it's not a rule to live by, but
49:21
Speaker 1: it's a it's a way of thinking. And and there's
49:24
Speaker 1: a reason for it, which is when you clear as
49:28
Speaker 1: much space as possible, the things that are left, you
49:33
Speaker 1: really hear them, you really feel their personality. There's less um,
49:39
Speaker 1: there's less jocking for for your attention. So each thing
49:45
Speaker 1: gets to live in its own space. And that's space
49:48
Speaker 1: is what makes things sound so beautiful. It's the it's
49:50
Speaker 1: really you know, the old the old adage, the quiet
49:53
Speaker 1: between the notes. Yeah, exactly, Matt, And that's that's that's
49:58
Speaker 1: that's ruly remarkable. Because as for me, it's like it
50:03
Speaker 1: would be torture to do something like that, you know,
50:06
Speaker 1: like the idea for me, because I'm listening to you go,
50:09
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh fuck, you know, because my brain it's
50:12
Speaker 1: to the place my brain goes to is like, how
50:14
Speaker 1: can a song be the best that it can be
50:18
Speaker 1: without your favorite bit in the song? Well, that the
50:20
Speaker 1: favorite bit might end up being a different song. Yeah, true, true,
50:25
Speaker 1: it's like what serves the same. It's like it's It's
50:29
Speaker 1: one of the things that I learned early on we're
50:31
Speaker 1: working with bands who are really great players, is that
50:35
Speaker 1: most great players want to show that they're great players,
50:38
Speaker 1: and there is there isn't much room for that in recording.
50:42
Speaker 1: In recording, it really is what needs to be there
50:46
Speaker 1: to best serve the song. It's not in certain unless,
50:50
Speaker 1: of course, it's you know, a guitar hero album and
50:52
Speaker 1: it's really about showing the dexterity of the player. But
50:56
Speaker 1: if it's about if it's about the songs, it's never
50:59
Speaker 1: about the coolest part. It's about how the parts interact
51:03
Speaker 1: to make the greatest fall. And sometimes the thing that's
51:07
Speaker 1: really cool ends up being a distraction. Yeah, Yeah, it's true. Yeah,
51:14
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's that's kind of like the
51:18
Speaker 1: kind of philosophy that I'm like developing in myself at
51:22
Speaker 1: the moment, you know, because like so much of my
51:24
Speaker 1: music has been this kind of like this like layered
51:29
Speaker 1: psych rock kind of symphonies. You know, Like with Loan
51:31
Speaker 1: Reasm was kind of like the pinnacle of that, right
51:33
Speaker 1: because it was so indulgent. It was like, Oh, I'm
51:36
Speaker 1: gonna this sent melody, I'm gonna do this fucking guitar line, Oh,
51:39
Speaker 1: this Basseline's going to come in here, you know, and
51:41
Speaker 1: it was like packed in the packed in. So it's
51:44
Speaker 1: like really sonically, it's really interesting album listen to because
51:47
Speaker 1: nothing really jumps out at you except all these bits,
51:50
Speaker 1: which is it's simultaneously what's wrong with it but also
51:55
Speaker 1: what's kind of like charming and beautiful about it. But
51:58
Speaker 1: you know, like that kind of discipline that you're talking
52:01
Speaker 1: about is something that I'm that that I that I
52:04
Speaker 1: see is as u kind of one of the greatest
52:08
Speaker 1: wisdoms to have, you know, being able to sense what
52:13
Speaker 1: what what what a piece of music needs and what
52:15
Speaker 1: it doesn't needs doesn't need, and and the idea that
52:19
Speaker 1: maybe for a particular project, you want it to be
52:22
Speaker 1: super dense and yeah, you know, stepping on itself and
52:26
Speaker 1: that's the that's that's what makes that project that project.
52:29
Speaker 1: That's fine. So it's not it's not like everything has
52:33
Speaker 1: to be that way. It's more of a no, you're on,
52:37
Speaker 1: it's in the bag of tricks. It's in the bag
52:39
Speaker 1: of tricks, right, gotcha? Yeah, Yeah, no, for sure. I
52:43
Speaker 1: guess I just feel like, yeah, that that that's kind
52:46
Speaker 1: of like a because it's a new and wonderful thing
52:49
Speaker 1: for me. It's kind of it's one of those things
52:50
Speaker 1: I'm curious about. You know. Well, the next time that
52:53
Speaker 1: we're both in the same place and our uh and
52:58
Speaker 1: the world is the world where we're allowed to be
53:00
Speaker 1: in the same room, then let's let's get together and
53:04
Speaker 1: listen to music together and I bet all be fun.
53:06
Speaker 1: Fuck yeah, man, that sounds good. I love that. Thanks
53:12
Speaker 1: to Kevin Parker for jumping on zoom to talk with
53:14
Speaker 1: Rick about his new album. Be sure to check out
53:16
Speaker 1: The Slow Rush, along with our other favorite Tamo Paula songs,
53:19
Speaker 1: on a playlist we created at Broken record podcast dot com.
53:23
Speaker 1: You should also know we'll be taking a little break
53:25
Speaker 1: over the next two weeks, but we'll be back May
53:27
Speaker 1: nineteenth with new episodes for you. In the meantime, stay
53:31
Speaker 1: in touch with us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod,
53:34
Speaker 1: Shoot us a message if there's an interview you really
53:36
Speaker 1: want to hear us do and dive into old episodes
53:39
Speaker 1: of the podcast you might have missed on whatever podcast
53:41
Speaker 1: app you use, or on our YouTube channel at YouTube
53:44
Speaker 1: dot com slash Broken Record Podcast. Broken Record is produced
53:49
Speaker 1: to help from Jason Gambrel, me La Belle, Leah Rose,
53:52
Speaker 1: and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. A theme musics by
53:56
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening. Four