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

Transcript

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

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Today on the show, we'll be hearing from sylvan Essos,
0:23
Speaker 1: Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath. They've been making music together
0:26
Speaker 1: since twenty thirteen, when Amelia asked Nick, a music producer
0:30
Speaker 1: and bassist, to remix her band Mountain Man's hit single
0:34
Speaker 1: play It Right. He did. End as they say, the
0:37
Speaker 1: rest is history. From the very beginning, sylvan Esso's had
0:42
Speaker 1: a very sleek electro pop feel to their production. Amelia's
0:46
Speaker 1: powerful voice is front and center, surrounded by harmonies and
0:50
Speaker 1: samples of her own voice. Nick's genre destroying bass creates intricate,
0:54
Speaker 1: pulsing grooves for Amelia's voice to inhabit. Now, the married
0:59
Speaker 1: couple and electronic duo have released their fourth studio album,
1:02
Speaker 1: No Rules Sandy. It's a follow up to the band's
1:06
Speaker 1: Grammy nominated twenty twenty album Free Love. This new album
1:10
Speaker 1: is a mix of improvisation and experimentation, recorded primarily in
1:15
Speaker 1: the span of three weeks at a rented studio space
1:17
Speaker 1: in La just earlier this year. On today's episode, Bruce
1:22
Speaker 1: had them speaks with Amelia and Nick about their creative
1:25
Speaker 1: process and how No Rule Sandy came to be. They
1:28
Speaker 1: also play songs off their new album Live for Us.
1:35
Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age.
1:38
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. Here's Bruce had them with Amelia Meath
1:42
Speaker 1: and Nick Sandborne of sylvan esod banging coming fine watchman,
1:59
Speaker 1: I'm looking fine streets back in the same body. Try
2:11
Speaker 1: to where be wait wait just for me me. There's
2:17
Speaker 1: a lot of down fallow down. When she said, when
2:22
Speaker 1: they got down beating down to follow, follow to let
2:40
Speaker 1: see the lading, be let the echo, gut your v
2:47
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people down down fall down, she stays,
2:53
Speaker 1: when they got drive beating baring all around, everybody played
2:59
Speaker 1: down to how there's a lot of em falled down.
3:07
Speaker 1: When she stays, when they got laid down, you want
3:15
Speaker 1: to do now, there's a lot of people want people work,
3:35
Speaker 1: they don't. You don't work. They don't. They don't work.
3:42
Speaker 1: They don't. Don't You don't work, they don't. So fortu listen,
4:09
Speaker 1: you were were so many many as among you. I
4:15
Speaker 1: was waving a small mon bye bye bye bye bye
4:22
Speaker 1: bye bye bye thane bye bye bye bye bye thne
4:32
Speaker 1: bye bane bye bye bye b bye bye bye bye
4:41
Speaker 1: bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye
4:52
Speaker 1: bye fine fine, fine, do now do play down right?
5:47
Speaker 1: No right now no right no no no no right
5:55
Speaker 1: no no no r no no no no no no
5:59
Speaker 1: no no no. Well, thank you so much. That was
6:04
Speaker 1: a live version of Echo Party from Sylvan Esso's new album,
6:09
Speaker 1: which is No Rule Sandy. All. That sound was created
6:13
Speaker 1: by just two people in the studio with me Amelia
6:17
Speaker 1: Meath and Nick Sandborn. Thank you so much for coming,
6:20
Speaker 1: thanks for having us, and thanks for that great version
6:23
Speaker 1: of that song. I will also mention that the new
6:25
Speaker 1: album got a rave review from the New York Times,
6:30
Speaker 1: which does not often give rave reviews. Before we get
6:33
Speaker 1: into how you create so much music just the two
6:37
Speaker 1: of you, let's talk a little bit about this new
6:39
Speaker 1: album how it came about. Nick and I have started
6:43
Speaker 1: a tradition where every January we load our car full
6:47
Speaker 1: of things and drive from North Carolina to Los Angeles.
6:51
Speaker 1: This January was no different. We were on our way
6:55
Speaker 1: to go both do a bunch of songwriting sessions and
6:57
Speaker 1: also go to the Grammys at the end of the
6:59
Speaker 1: month and gets in Los Angeles sunshine. And then when
7:02
Speaker 1: we got there to our rental, the omicron variant had
7:05
Speaker 1: spiked and everything was canceled. So Nick and I found
7:08
Speaker 1: ourselves like a little baby studio set up in this
7:11
Speaker 1: house with no one to hang out with other than
7:14
Speaker 1: each other. And so every day we tried to write
7:19
Speaker 1: a song, and the most magical part of it was
7:22
Speaker 1: that every time we tried we could. We wrote all
7:25
Speaker 1: these songs about the span of three weeks together. Yeah,
7:29
Speaker 1: it was just kind of this magical, totally unexpected time
7:33
Speaker 1: that neither of us really saw coming, and it was
7:36
Speaker 1: all kind of born out of this wild trip that
7:39
Speaker 1: like where everything went wrong except this. Do you write
7:43
Speaker 1: every day when you're in Durham as well or only
7:46
Speaker 1: only when you have to put out an album? No,
7:48
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I find that when I'm in
7:51
Speaker 1: the practice of songwriting it won't be like around a
7:55
Speaker 1: record necessarily, but I'll do it in a short period
7:58
Speaker 1: of time, pushing towards something. But normally I have to
8:01
Speaker 1: like chill out between writing. Otherwise I only write songs
8:05
Speaker 1: about writing songs, and you can only write so many
8:08
Speaker 1: of those when you are writing, because you, guys, this
8:12
Speaker 1: is electronic music. How does the song typically begin? Does
8:15
Speaker 1: it begin with a loop? Does it begin with a sound?
8:17
Speaker 1: Does it begin with a lyric. How does this come together?
8:21
Speaker 1: It happens in all sorts of different ways. How it's
8:24
Speaker 1: been happening most recently is Nick and I will sit
8:28
Speaker 1: in the same room and we'll Nick will start making noise,
8:31
Speaker 1: and I will encourage him in the directions that I like,
8:36
Speaker 1: so like if he finds like a beautiful section then
8:38
Speaker 1: he makes I'll be like, loop that, Let's loop that
8:40
Speaker 1: and then let's build something around that. Or sometimes he's
8:46
Speaker 1: just doodling around and then I begin responding by writing lyrics. Yeah,
8:53
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like we haven't We haven't never found
8:56
Speaker 1: like a formula, or the minute we do come up
8:59
Speaker 1: with anything that works more than once, I think we
9:01
Speaker 1: immediately get sick of it or it doesn't feel its
9:03
Speaker 1: inspiring anymore. It's kind of it's kind of this process
9:06
Speaker 1: of each of us is trying to kind of shock
9:08
Speaker 1: or prize the other one into maybe something we wouldn't expect,
9:11
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, it's kind of this Jacob's Ladder kind
9:14
Speaker 1: of situation where we're trying to hit the ball a
9:16
Speaker 1: little higher than the other one. Well, there's a host
9:19
Speaker 1: of great songs on this record. Tell me how this
9:22
Speaker 1: one came about? The one you just performed Echo Party. Yeah,
9:26
Speaker 1: we got the chorus first because Nick had that beautiful
9:29
Speaker 1: bass part. Yeah, we had we had like the beat
9:31
Speaker 1: in the bassline, and we knew sometimes that's all you
9:34
Speaker 1: need to know something's gonna be cool. Like you know,
9:37
Speaker 1: you can see you can't quite see the whole song yet,
9:40
Speaker 1: but you have this this piece of it that's so
9:42
Speaker 1: promising that you almost don't want to mess with it
9:45
Speaker 1: too much for fear that you might overcook it or
9:47
Speaker 1: screw it up somehow. Yeah, that was the loveliest part
9:49
Speaker 1: of this song. As we got the chorus first, and
9:51
Speaker 1: then the chorus had no words. It was just me
9:54
Speaker 1: going like yeah, and Nick and I got so stoked,
10:00
Speaker 1: and we kept on trying to play it for other
10:02
Speaker 1: people and everyone would be like, h but I do that.
10:06
Speaker 1: It was Nick and I were like this loally great. No,
10:10
Speaker 1: we could only hear it in our heads though, Yeah,
10:13
Speaker 1: and now you got to like kind of let it
10:14
Speaker 1: reveal itself. Yeah. And then one day I just sat
10:19
Speaker 1: Unlike all of our other records, usually I agonize about
10:23
Speaker 1: lyrics and they either they either appear right when I'm
10:26
Speaker 1: writing the melody on top, or they are incredibly elusive.
10:31
Speaker 1: But with this record, I just sat down and would
10:34
Speaker 1: make myself just write them out, so like one day
10:37
Speaker 1: we got all the lyrics. I knew that it was
10:39
Speaker 1: going to be about like being in an empty city
10:42
Speaker 1: at nighttime and like trying to find the party of
10:45
Speaker 1: your dreams. Well, you had that idea of the of
10:48
Speaker 1: there being less people every time you go back to something,
10:51
Speaker 1: and that's kind of where that that echo party phrase
10:54
Speaker 1: cards started happening, and that kind of became like the
10:56
Speaker 1: central like everything kind of not looking around that. Yeah,
10:59
Speaker 1: it's about how it fades in everybody verberation. Oh yeah,
11:03
Speaker 1: that's really interesting now because of the way the songs
11:08
Speaker 1: are put together and they're or loops and then there's
11:10
Speaker 1: a baseline, often very syncopated. Are you guys thinking in
11:13
Speaker 1: terms of conventional chords? Are you like you ever say
11:18
Speaker 1: well this sounds good, but here I'll I'm going to
11:20
Speaker 1: play a C minor on top of that, because that's
11:23
Speaker 1: how most people write. They sit at a guitar or
11:25
Speaker 1: they sit at the piano and they play a few chords.
11:30
Speaker 1: Whereas you, guys, it feels like you're on a high
11:33
Speaker 1: wire with what you're doing because it doesn't have that
11:36
Speaker 1: sort of harmony running through the whole set. I think
11:38
Speaker 1: a big thing we do is more like reharmonizing. That's
11:41
Speaker 1: a big we want. A second earlier about trying to
11:44
Speaker 1: surprise each other is something that I will do a
11:46
Speaker 1: lot is She'll have a melody that we really love,
11:49
Speaker 1: but like, let's say the third time it happens, I
11:51
Speaker 1: want to it's like she changed, the lyrics change, and
11:53
Speaker 1: the feeling of what she's saying changes, even if the
11:56
Speaker 1: melody doesn't. So like, in that way, we'll absolutely think
11:59
Speaker 1: about in a more theory kind of base menthet of like, Okay,
12:01
Speaker 1: how can I reharmonize the thing she's already doing to
12:04
Speaker 1: kind of change your perception of the same idea. We
12:07
Speaker 1: do that all the time. I love we do. I
12:10
Speaker 1: learned how to play the guitar during the pandemic, and
12:13
Speaker 1: all the songs that I write on the guitar aren't
12:15
Speaker 1: as melodically interesting as the ones that I write in
12:18
Speaker 1: the air or in like in response to what Nick makes.
12:22
Speaker 1: So I'm sticking to that at the moment. Oh that's interesting.
12:25
Speaker 1: You find it more confining then, yeah, or like maybe
12:29
Speaker 1: it's also because I'm a little guitar. Baby, you know,
12:31
Speaker 1: it's a CDG world for me in the guitar, and
12:36
Speaker 1: if I'm just writing in the air, all chords are open. Yeah,
12:39
Speaker 1: it's just much freer. Now. What was your music experience
12:42
Speaker 1: growing up in your home? I'm from a theatrical singing family.
12:47
Speaker 1: We used to sing around the dinner table a lot.
12:49
Speaker 1: And I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and there was
12:52
Speaker 1: a solstice celebration called the Revels, So every Solstice we
12:58
Speaker 1: would all get together and sing folk songs. Wow, were
13:01
Speaker 1: your parents were they performers or are they just amateurs? Yeah?
13:04
Speaker 1: There were amateurs. My mom was in audio and my
13:08
Speaker 1: dad was in TV. But there's a lot of singing
13:11
Speaker 1: in musicality and creativity. So you grew up on their
13:15
Speaker 1: folk music. Is this like sixties folk music? Or oh really,
13:19
Speaker 1: what we're listening to in the house is like Bonnie
13:21
Speaker 1: Ray and Foreigner and Nick Lowe. But the songs that
13:26
Speaker 1: we would sing were all were like a mix of
13:30
Speaker 1: those and folk songs. Okay, And then you're I don't
13:35
Speaker 1: know if it's your first career, but you sing mountain
13:38
Speaker 1: music with Mountain Men, which was your first group. Yeah,
13:41
Speaker 1: Mountain Man, right, and you still perform, is that right? Okay?
13:45
Speaker 1: Uh so, and did you play piano growing up then
13:49
Speaker 1: or anything else? It was just it was just a
13:50
Speaker 1: singing thing. I tried to play piano, but or I
13:54
Speaker 1: just hated practicing, right, yeah, well hated it, couldn't do it. Yeah,
14:00
Speaker 1: you took piano lessons, which just kills more piano players
14:03
Speaker 1: than anything. I also think that's one of those things.
14:06
Speaker 1: I was always jealous of people who could sing really
14:08
Speaker 1: well at a young age because I think if you
14:10
Speaker 1: have that, you're kind of set like nerds like me
14:14
Speaker 1: who didn't have that. I think that's why I practiced
14:16
Speaker 1: so much, because I really wanted to be in a band,
14:19
Speaker 1: but I couldn't do the natural thing. You know, Well,
14:22
Speaker 1: but you actually know what you're doing, But only because
14:24
Speaker 1: I've sat for a billion hours looking at charts and
14:28
Speaker 1: stuff like that, you know. I think that's cooler also
14:30
Speaker 1: the thing that you do, like, I feel like you
14:32
Speaker 1: get to relish the experience of having gotten good at something.
14:38
Speaker 1: I'm much better at singing than I was when I
14:39
Speaker 1: was six. But like it doesn't Oh is there no
14:43
Speaker 1: like moment? No, yeah, no, it's just the thing you do,
14:47
Speaker 1: so you never felt I've achieved this level of expertise. No, no, no, no,
14:55
Speaker 1: I don't think so maybe I can see that when
14:59
Speaker 1: you get your honorary degree from Berkeley. Oh my god,
15:03
Speaker 1: I hope you feel. Oh my god, last that you've got.
15:07
Speaker 1: Once you have that piece of paper exactly, then we'll know. Yeah, oh,
15:11
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. When that happens, that's gonna be
15:13
Speaker 1: great dance all around. Yeah, you're the you need the
15:20
Speaker 1: diploma you look from the Wizard of Oz. Yeah, yes,
15:23
Speaker 1: that's what you need. I love diplomas. Yeah. Uh, and Nick,
15:28
Speaker 1: you need a heart. Yeah, I'm kidding weirdly, I'm the
15:32
Speaker 1: one without a diploma, but yeah, it's true. Okay, So
15:36
Speaker 1: what was your musical experience, Grip? Oh my my dad's
15:39
Speaker 1: a really great manelin and guitar player. Um, and so
15:42
Speaker 1: we always were singing in the house and he taught
15:44
Speaker 1: me how to play a guitar when as a little kid,
15:45
Speaker 1: and I was just always excited about it, like I
15:48
Speaker 1: got you know, we could get into orchestra in like
15:50
Speaker 1: the fourth grade or whatever. And it was lucky enough
15:52
Speaker 1: to go to a public school it had a music
15:54
Speaker 1: program and Madison, Wisconsin. Okay, so that kind of opened.
16:00
Speaker 1: I mean, that was just like massive for me as
16:02
Speaker 1: a kid, you know, being able to being able to
16:05
Speaker 1: do that was was just crazy. So I like, you know,
16:09
Speaker 1: got into like I think it played like violin or
16:11
Speaker 1: something horribly. And then I started playing saxophone and ended
16:15
Speaker 1: up playing bass in the jazz band. I really loved that.
16:19
Speaker 1: And then when I went to college before dropping out,
16:22
Speaker 1: that was the composition major. Where was that? You to
16:25
Speaker 1: be Milwaukee? Okay? Yeah, And then we will have to
16:30
Speaker 1: describe your setup because this is electronic music and I'm
16:35
Speaker 1: looking at a table with a bunch of different modules.
16:39
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, including one that has many many patch chords
16:44
Speaker 1: running in or out. I don't know how to describe
16:46
Speaker 1: it except to say that if your breaker box at
16:49
Speaker 1: home looks like this, call an electrician. It's just an
16:54
Speaker 1: utter chaos up here. Tell me what you've got, and
16:56
Speaker 1: can you give me a sample two or two of
16:59
Speaker 1: the sounds you create? Yeah, so we have I kind
17:02
Speaker 1: of have this whole computer setup that has kind of
17:04
Speaker 1: all the individual little pieces of our songs, and it
17:07
Speaker 1: set up kind of in this like really a Abert
17:09
Speaker 1: DJ style, Like I'm DJing each individual little piece of
17:13
Speaker 1: a thing. So that's one side of it, and then
17:16
Speaker 1: I'm sampling Emilia's voice, and then I also have this
17:19
Speaker 1: whole other side that's all these other instruments. Uh, the
17:22
Speaker 1: the breaker Rocks who were referring to my modular synth
17:24
Speaker 1: is doing a bunch of drums and processing and stuff
17:27
Speaker 1: like that. Um, but it's all Actually, is that a
17:31
Speaker 1: mugue or I'm never sure if it's mug or moug No,
17:34
Speaker 1: there is a moge. I think it's I think it's
17:36
Speaker 1: mug it is. There's a mug in here. This thing
17:38
Speaker 1: called a d fan which sounds like this. It's this
17:46
Speaker 1: little like kind of does a lot of drums and
17:50
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Right, you know, it's all getting the
17:54
Speaker 1: clock from the computer. But then there's also all sorts
17:57
Speaker 1: of little drums in here. I've got this little thing
17:58
Speaker 1: that makes kind of a it's kind of weird little
18:06
Speaker 1: wavetable thing. All this is just to kind of bring
18:09
Speaker 1: like a live edge, and it's all things where I
18:13
Speaker 1: can replace something that's happening from the record, or alter
18:17
Speaker 1: it in some way, or stretch it out. I always
18:19
Speaker 1: like it when I see a show and it feels like,
18:25
Speaker 1: you know, there's this beautiful painted picture of the song
18:27
Speaker 1: as it was, and then you can go in and
18:29
Speaker 1: just kind of mess it all up and then try
18:31
Speaker 1: to snap it back into focus. So all the things
18:35
Speaker 1: are kind of leaning into trying to make something like
18:36
Speaker 1: that happen. I have this little sampler that I use
18:38
Speaker 1: all the time that's got, you know, pieces of Amelia's
18:41
Speaker 1: voice or pieces from the records that I can then
18:43
Speaker 1: kind of pitch all around. Now, are you ever sampling
18:45
Speaker 1: her voice live? Yeah, when she's singing. Oh yeah, you're
18:49
Speaker 1: sampling as well? And then yeah, definitely Amelia is that
18:52
Speaker 1: does he often surprise you? He's suddenly your voice. You're
18:56
Speaker 1: hearing your voice in a way you didn't expect. Yeah.
18:59
Speaker 1: I usually had to keep pretty low in my mix
19:01
Speaker 1: because if you're if a voice comes in while you're singing,
19:04
Speaker 1: it can pull you off pitch. But Nick is able
19:08
Speaker 1: to sample anything that I say. Wow, I would say,
19:12
Speaker 1: it's a it's a good thing. You guys get along
19:15
Speaker 1: so well. It really he wanted to mess you up.
19:18
Speaker 1: He really could. He could mess you up in a heartbeat.
19:21
Speaker 1: And then you sometimes use a drum machine on stage?
19:24
Speaker 1: Is that right? I do it sometimes, But honestly, I
19:26
Speaker 1: really like when we're live. I'm like being able to
19:29
Speaker 1: sing and connect directly with the crowd and with Nick
19:32
Speaker 1: and have that be my role. And Nick, you are
19:36
Speaker 1: playing this like a DJ. You don't have a keyboard,
19:39
Speaker 1: a traditional well, I do, you know? I do? Normally,
19:42
Speaker 1: we didn't bring it today because we weren't playing any
19:44
Speaker 1: songs that needed it. But I have. I have this
19:46
Speaker 1: one synthesizer that I use a lot, but none of
19:49
Speaker 1: it even that it isn't getting I don't know what
19:52
Speaker 1: it's all live, you know, I'm playing little or peggios
19:54
Speaker 1: and stuff over the tops of the songs. But yeah,
19:58
Speaker 1: most of it is just this kind of more abstract
20:01
Speaker 1: way of thinking about it, which is my That's just
20:03
Speaker 1: my favorite. I like it when something feels a little
20:05
Speaker 1: bit more like an idea maybe than an instrument, if
20:08
Speaker 1: that makes sense. How does that? How did you discover
20:11
Speaker 1: that then? After playing guitar, after playing bass, after playing mandolin,
20:18
Speaker 1: in which you're locked into fairly traditional role. Yeah, what
20:22
Speaker 1: was your first encounter with electronic music and what do
20:28
Speaker 1: you remember what grabbed you? I think a big thing
20:30
Speaker 1: for me was when I was playing in the jazz
20:33
Speaker 1: band and I was about to go to college. I
20:36
Speaker 1: kind of had this realization that if I was going
20:40
Speaker 1: to keep doing what I was doing, I was going
20:41
Speaker 1: to be practicing like eight hours a day to just
20:44
Speaker 1: try to be a middle level jazz player. And I
20:48
Speaker 1: think I kind of started realizing that the idea of
20:52
Speaker 1: what was happening was so much more interesting to me
20:54
Speaker 1: than what I thought I had to say as a player,
20:58
Speaker 1: and so that I leaned into that, and I moved
21:02
Speaker 1: into composition and started going that way, and I think
21:04
Speaker 1: electronic music was just a natural extension of that. It
21:07
Speaker 1: was like, okay, like I've been, well, I've been in
21:09
Speaker 1: this role playing bass and kind of filling this spot
21:13
Speaker 1: within a band, and that's its own skill set. But
21:16
Speaker 1: with electronic music, it was like, well, how do I
21:18
Speaker 1: put this whole piece together? What does this full picture
21:21
Speaker 1: look like? And that's just became way more interesting because
21:25
Speaker 1: I could be the whole band, you know, and I
21:28
Speaker 1: could try things out without worrying about wasting anyone else's time.
21:31
Speaker 1: There's no set way to do it, and so everybody
21:34
Speaker 1: who gets into it is kind of reinventing their own
21:37
Speaker 1: wheel in a way, and that to me is really exciting.
21:40
Speaker 1: I love thinking about like systems and how something could
21:43
Speaker 1: work to me. One of the things that's interesting about
21:46
Speaker 1: your music you mentioned you came in with a chorus
21:49
Speaker 1: first on this is you move from ideas very quickly.
21:56
Speaker 1: If you were if you were in a big band
21:58
Speaker 1: or the kind of bands you grew up with, you
22:01
Speaker 1: would be you guys would get a groove and then
22:03
Speaker 1: someone would be soloing. But it's very much about kind
22:06
Speaker 1: of finding that one thing and finding people playing over it. This.
22:10
Speaker 1: You move very quickly from peace to idea to idea,
22:14
Speaker 1: and just when I think, oh, you know, I like this,
22:18
Speaker 1: and then it veers into something else. Is that just
22:20
Speaker 1: part of playing electronic music for you? I think we
22:24
Speaker 1: definitely love surprising each other, and I think that leaks
22:29
Speaker 1: is lean into contrasts, you know, So I think generally speaking,
22:33
Speaker 1: we love having things that feel like there's a bunch
22:35
Speaker 1: of hard left turns being made and that feels really engaging.
22:39
Speaker 1: But it's also pop music, so every part that appears
22:42
Speaker 1: usually comes back, unless it's the bridge, So if it veers,
22:46
Speaker 1: usually it returns once more. That's I think the most
22:49
Speaker 1: interesting part too, is like seeing how hard of a
22:51
Speaker 1: turn you can make and still make it make sense
22:55
Speaker 1: that you got back where he started, Yeah, and live
22:57
Speaker 1: inside the pop music structure. And maybe that's maybe when
23:01
Speaker 1: I said high wire earlier, maybe that's what it is.
23:04
Speaker 1: That is like jazz and that like how far can
23:06
Speaker 1: this guy go on a solo or how far can
23:08
Speaker 1: she go on al Yeah? Is she gonna be able
23:10
Speaker 1: to find her way back? Is always kind of the
23:13
Speaker 1: fascinating question. I love that idea too, of like communicating
23:16
Speaker 1: intent to the listener, like figuring out ways to show
23:22
Speaker 1: them that they can trust you to make their make
23:24
Speaker 1: your way back, or that you're not just going to
23:26
Speaker 1: waste their time. We think about that a lot, with
23:28
Speaker 1: things like how can we design a song or a
23:31
Speaker 1: recording that shows somebody that we made this wild choice
23:36
Speaker 1: on purpose so that next time we do, you know
23:40
Speaker 1: that we're not gonna fake you out like we're gonna
23:43
Speaker 1: This is all like an equation, like we're getting somewhere.
23:47
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from Bruce Headlam, Amelia Meath,
23:50
Speaker 1: and Nick Sanboy. We're back with more of Bruce's conversation
23:58
Speaker 1: with Amelia and Nick. Now, Amelia, was your first encounter
24:02
Speaker 1: with electronic music when you guys met oh No I've
24:07
Speaker 1: always been a fan of a like music. Okay, what
24:11
Speaker 1: in particular was you know? What did you like? Yeah?
24:14
Speaker 1: I started with Elo naturally, and then got more excited
24:20
Speaker 1: about the the independent music of the early ADTs, you know,
24:24
Speaker 1: Animal Collective, Caribou, Fortet, just the people who were popular
24:29
Speaker 1: or interesting when I was like a little baby going
24:32
Speaker 1: to shows. And then when and when Nick and I met,
24:37
Speaker 1: it was the first opportunity I'd had. I thought to
24:40
Speaker 1: find a collaborator with whom I could make pop music. Now,
24:45
Speaker 1: there is the story that the first time you met
24:47
Speaker 1: you asked him to arrange a song that you had written.
24:51
Speaker 1: Is that true? Yeah? It was a song that was
24:54
Speaker 1: for Mountain Man, and I wanted to do a remix album,
24:57
Speaker 1: and so I asked Nick. And that was the first
25:00
Speaker 1: time you'd met. Shortly thereafter, yeah, shortly thereafter, yeah, because
25:06
Speaker 1: he opened for us in Milwaukee at the Cactus Club.
25:10
Speaker 1: And when we became friends on Twitter, it was like
25:12
Speaker 1: the early days of Twitter when it was nice to
25:14
Speaker 1: be on there. It was like when you could like
25:17
Speaker 1: make friends and stuff. Yeah, it was nice. We had
25:20
Speaker 1: followed each other on Twitter for a little while, and
25:22
Speaker 1: I asked Nick for a remix of that song, mostly
25:25
Speaker 1: because so many of Mountain Man's the arrangements that I
25:28
Speaker 1: would do for Mountain Men were naturally quite sparse, and
25:32
Speaker 1: it took him a really long time. No Pressure, well,
25:36
Speaker 1: no pressure next year. I didn't know. What did you
25:40
Speaker 1: think if you were you guys dating at that point
25:43
Speaker 1: or no band? First? Oh? Yeah, but if I think
25:46
Speaker 1: if I had known that it was going to lead
25:48
Speaker 1: to this, it would have taken me even longer, though
25:50
Speaker 1: I would have been I would have felt more pressure. Well,
25:52
Speaker 1: that's good that you didn't know, here's my song. No Pressure. Well,
25:59
Speaker 1: it was terrifying too, because the thing that's one of
26:01
Speaker 1: the many things that's so special about Mountain Man is
26:03
Speaker 1: just what isn't there? And so the idea of trying
26:07
Speaker 1: to add instentation to a Mountain Man song as a
26:10
Speaker 1: fan of theirs was like terrifying to me, because every
26:13
Speaker 1: time I put something in, I made the song worse,
26:15
Speaker 1: you know. And there was a kind of light in
26:17
Speaker 1: the attic moment when I figured out that if I
26:21
Speaker 1: used their voices as the extra instruments, that that was
26:25
Speaker 1: a way in that was that kind of unlocked the
26:27
Speaker 1: whole thing for me, And then kind of defined a
26:29
Speaker 1: lot of what we still do now. I mean, even
26:31
Speaker 1: that last song we played Echo Party that started on
26:34
Speaker 1: a as a loop of Amelia's voice, that little backbeat,
26:38
Speaker 1: like we do that all the time to this day.
26:40
Speaker 1: To explain that to me again, that so like we
26:43
Speaker 1: I took her voice, like she sang. We were trying
26:46
Speaker 1: to find a way to start, yeah, saying this. One
26:48
Speaker 1: day I did a stack yeah, like and then I
26:56
Speaker 1: did another part on top of that, and yeah, and
26:59
Speaker 1: then like another part on that, and then you know
27:02
Speaker 1: a thing that we say all the time to each
27:03
Speaker 1: other's and then we chopped it up and made it
27:05
Speaker 1: into a beat, which is what we did well. So yeah,
27:07
Speaker 1: so then I took this local loop of hers and
27:10
Speaker 1: put it in this uh what did you call it? Earlier?
27:13
Speaker 1: The breaker box put the scary looking Greg, Well, it's
27:17
Speaker 1: what the breaker box looks like in my play. Yeah,
27:19
Speaker 1: that's I just reminded that my house might be burnt
27:22
Speaker 1: down by the time I get there. But yeah, so
27:25
Speaker 1: I just kind of kept playing with it and and
27:28
Speaker 1: changing the way it was sequenced and moving the little
27:30
Speaker 1: bits of it around and and found that initial loop,
27:34
Speaker 1: that little that little thing just kind of popped out,
27:38
Speaker 1: and the minute we found it we were like, oh
27:39
Speaker 1: that here we go, now we can start. Okay, now
27:42
Speaker 1: that you've been doing this emelia for eight years, how
27:44
Speaker 1: has it changed how you sing? At first? I imagine
27:47
Speaker 1: you were singing and he was grabbing parts of it,
27:50
Speaker 1: samples and manipulating it. Wouldn't it become tempting after a
27:54
Speaker 1: few years to like, well, I'm just gonna I'm gonna
27:57
Speaker 1: sing a sample. I'm not going to sing the way
27:59
Speaker 1: I used to sing. I'm going to try and sing
28:01
Speaker 1: almost in in a kind of in a sampled way,
28:05
Speaker 1: in a sampled or electronic in a sound bite way. Yeah,
28:09
Speaker 1: I think, if anything, I'm more In order for the
28:12
Speaker 1: samples themselves to be good, you have to be singing
28:15
Speaker 1: like I really have to be solidly in my lane,
28:18
Speaker 1: doing exactly what I'm doing, and then the sample will shine. Otherwise,
28:23
Speaker 1: if you're being tentative or if you're not, if you're
28:26
Speaker 1: trying to do something as opposed to actually doing it,
28:31
Speaker 1: then it gets lost. So I think, if anything, I
28:35
Speaker 1: have just become a better, a better and more confident singer.
28:40
Speaker 1: Now a lot of Mountain Man's songs were a cappella,
28:45
Speaker 1: so I think you must have already felt comfortable singing
28:48
Speaker 1: without a kind of full arrangement behind you or a
28:51
Speaker 1: piano or a guitar to kind of establish what you're doing.
28:55
Speaker 1: What's it like singing in this music? Because you very
29:00
Speaker 1: very distinctive style the way you do it, and you
29:03
Speaker 1: interact with the sounds in this unique way. I think
29:08
Speaker 1: there's big because of the way that I naturally write
29:12
Speaker 1: in the air or in response to what Nick is doing,
29:14
Speaker 1: and I write lyrics and melody usually at the same time.
29:18
Speaker 1: My voice is in general, I kind of think of
29:22
Speaker 1: it like a percussive instrument more than I do like
29:25
Speaker 1: a like a narrative device, or or both things are
29:29
Speaker 1: happening at the same time. So that's the thing, is it?
29:32
Speaker 1: Because because I think of it as an instrument, unto itself,
29:36
Speaker 1: it's more percussive. It's actually quite easy. It's like being
29:39
Speaker 1: a you know, water and more water. M Can we
29:44
Speaker 1: hear another song? Sure? Great? It's a jump two right.
30:00
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's a step inside its cloud.
30:09
Speaker 1: I don't know how to work in this girl, Come onder,
30:11
Speaker 1: teach you hull we hope, let me remember how to
30:21
Speaker 1: live my life. The room, so each new lening out
30:30
Speaker 1: to be seing, but true, it's c real, dy, it's
30:44
Speaker 1: your reality. It's a jump two right, lift off right now.
31:00
Speaker 1: I don't know he is women the come on teach
31:03
Speaker 1: Hull to step inside the strad is God, don't know.
31:09
Speaker 1: I don't walk to this guy. Come on that teach
31:11
Speaker 1: you her. We let me back back. Let me remember
31:18
Speaker 1: up to the b lamy was a rich Now say
31:25
Speaker 1: don't any to be sent me, don't let me building
31:31
Speaker 1: now watch my chance now that when waking at this train,
31:38
Speaker 1: say so, don't snow the same, send my note to
31:44
Speaker 1: do so so so resumes you know it's serious, say
31:51
Speaker 1: that it sus serious for ba trainer, it's seriously you know.
32:39
Speaker 1: So that's on your reality. Nick and I hear the
32:42
Speaker 1: one in a different place, and we decided as we
32:45
Speaker 1: were writing it that we were going to affirm each
32:49
Speaker 1: of our counting styles in it. And I knew in
32:54
Speaker 1: order to justify the second rotation of the verse, I
32:58
Speaker 1: wanted to have a backup part that would roll continue
33:04
Speaker 1: to roll the song forward, but like add add kind
33:07
Speaker 1: of a different count to it for myself. So I
33:13
Speaker 1: wrote that no rules part, no rules, Sandy, no rule, Sandy,
33:19
Speaker 1: tell me what that means. Normally, when Nick and I
33:22
Speaker 1: are recording or writing together, I'll like secretly write something
33:28
Speaker 1: and then the first time he'll hear it is when
33:30
Speaker 1: I record it, And that was the case with this,
33:34
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a joke to him and we
33:36
Speaker 1: kept Also it just felt like, well, when we played
33:40
Speaker 1: the song for our friend Jen, who we play everything for,
33:44
Speaker 1: she immediately was like, Oh, that's got to be the
33:46
Speaker 1: title of the record. And I think the thing that
33:50
Speaker 1: she was pointing out that we realized she was right
33:51
Speaker 1: about was just that it kind of perfectly encapsulated everything
33:54
Speaker 1: that we were feeling when we were making this thing was,
33:57
Speaker 1: you know, just the last couple of years and everything
34:00
Speaker 1: everyone's going through this great re examination of like what
34:03
Speaker 1: matters and what doesn't and what did I think was
34:06
Speaker 1: important that I'm now realizing actually isn't, And did I
34:09
Speaker 1: make the box that I see myself in? And I
34:14
Speaker 1: think for a lot of different reasons, that just felt
34:16
Speaker 1: like all of that was wrapped up, not only in
34:19
Speaker 1: this song, but in this whole process of making this thing.
34:22
Speaker 1: And it's also just inherently silly, which is I think
34:26
Speaker 1: another thing we loved about it was that it's it's
34:30
Speaker 1: very true, but it's also kind of unserious in a
34:35
Speaker 1: way that felt the way our lives feel. I don't know,
34:40
Speaker 1: I think I feel like silliness is a it's such
34:44
Speaker 1: a huge part of my emotional experience, like as a
34:47
Speaker 1: human being alive. But I hear it in almost none
34:51
Speaker 1: of the music that I listened to. But it's such
34:53
Speaker 1: to me. It's it's the it's the it's the other
34:56
Speaker 1: side of that doom coin. You know. It's like it's
35:00
Speaker 1: such a natural way of processing horrible things, and it's
35:05
Speaker 1: such a like an important like seasoning in in at
35:10
Speaker 1: least my emotional experience. And there's so much silliness even
35:14
Speaker 1: in this record to me, even when it's pointing at
35:17
Speaker 1: something that's very serious. And the minute she pointed that out,
35:21
Speaker 1: it's like we couldn't unsee it. Like that had to
35:23
Speaker 1: be the name of the record. I'm going to do
35:25
Speaker 1: a little rhythm nerd thing for our older listeners out there,
35:29
Speaker 1: because you said you hear the one in a different
35:32
Speaker 1: place where you did, meaning the first beat of the bar. Yeah,
35:36
Speaker 1: is that right? And so you maintained that you you're
35:38
Speaker 1: playing basically you're you're starting at different points. Yeah. Normally
35:44
Speaker 1: we that's the kind of thing we would resolve or
35:47
Speaker 1: one of us would end up, you know, being quote
35:48
Speaker 1: unquote right about but what oncet quote unquote It changes
35:54
Speaker 1: every time. Oh okay, but I think once once she
35:56
Speaker 1: had written the lyrics and they were about what they
35:58
Speaker 1: were about, it was like there was no like we
36:00
Speaker 1: had to justify both those things. Like the whole song
36:03
Speaker 1: is about letting go of that kind of arbitrary decision
36:06
Speaker 1: and having two different experiences of the same moment. Here's
36:11
Speaker 1: the rhythm nerd part of this, which is the song
36:14
Speaker 1: in the air tonight, the Phil Collins song. Yeah. Yes,
36:17
Speaker 1: the drummer who played with him, who's this famous jazz drummer,
36:20
Speaker 1: Chester Thompson, always had trouble with that song. That was
36:23
Speaker 1: Chester Thompson. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, well I'm
36:26
Speaker 1: not playing on the rod the record, but he played
36:28
Speaker 1: with him live, and it's because in that drum pattern
36:31
Speaker 1: there's no one him out. I mean, but that's different
36:36
Speaker 1: than what you're doing. You're starting in the one different places,
36:38
Speaker 1: which is really interesting. Yeah, we just said we are
36:40
Speaker 1: brains interpret that melody differently. I think I'm right. The
36:45
Speaker 1: funniest part though, is that we brought to other people
36:47
Speaker 1: in on that. So Gabriel Kahan Kahane did the string
36:50
Speaker 1: arrangement and t Jmianni played drums on that. And the
36:54
Speaker 1: wildest part was that Gabriel heard it the way I
36:57
Speaker 1: hear it and TJ heard it the way Amelia hears it,
37:00
Speaker 1: and they each tried to lean into making it so
37:03
Speaker 1: that neither of us was right. But we were split
37:06
Speaker 1: evenly of all the people who played on that song.
37:08
Speaker 1: That's how it should be. I love the string arrangement
37:10
Speaker 1: on that it and I don't know if this was conscious.
37:12
Speaker 1: It reminds me of a Steve Reich piece. Oh thanks,
37:16
Speaker 1: that's what gave when I talked about that when he
37:19
Speaker 1: was going through a strung Steve Reich phase, no pun intended. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
37:29
Speaker 1: And we wanted we wanted to talk about the Yeah,
37:32
Speaker 1: that that first loop particularly, Yeah, he's moving in and out. Yeah,
37:35
Speaker 1: he's just so he's so good at that feeling of
37:40
Speaker 1: having the strings almost like they're like a flock of birds,
37:44
Speaker 1: like swarming over the top of the song. You know.
37:48
Speaker 1: We talked about that a lot, that feeling of something
37:49
Speaker 1: fluttering over the over the top of it, and he's
37:53
Speaker 1: just that it's I don't know that you feel the
37:56
Speaker 1: movement of it. You almost want to like swirl your
37:57
Speaker 1: body around. I want to as I'm as I'm listening
38:00
Speaker 1: to it. That's so cool. We'll be right back with
38:03
Speaker 1: more from Nick Sanborne and Amelia Meath. After a quick break,
38:11
Speaker 1: we're back with the rest of Bruce Edlum's conversation with
38:14
Speaker 1: Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath. I'm not going to express
38:17
Speaker 1: this very well, but I'm going to try, which is,
38:20
Speaker 1: lots of people perform music and then you're there, Oh,
38:22
Speaker 1: they're they're singing this song, they're doing this. There's something
38:25
Speaker 1: about your music that you seem that you're inside the song.
38:31
Speaker 1: And that's the only way I can express it. I
38:34
Speaker 1: don't I'm not even entirely sure what it means. It's
38:36
Speaker 1: more of a feeling, but it's it's though something swirling
38:41
Speaker 1: around and you're in the middle of it. It's very
38:43
Speaker 1: different kind of performance. Does that make any sense? Yeah,
38:47
Speaker 1: I think if you're going to performing over Being a
38:51
Speaker 1: musician is such a strange thing in general, because you
38:53
Speaker 1: have like two main products. You have your performance and
38:57
Speaker 1: you have the recording, some would say you also have
38:59
Speaker 1: your persona. At first, I was really into performing and
39:02
Speaker 1: Nick was really into recording, and now we've kind of
39:05
Speaker 1: like met in the middle and maybe shifted a little bit. Yeah,
39:08
Speaker 1: definitely a very strong belief that, like, if you're performing
39:12
Speaker 1: a song for somebody, it's an energy you're going through
39:16
Speaker 1: an energetic shift, and you're you know, anytime you try
39:19
Speaker 1: to get someone to listen to your music, you're literally
39:21
Speaker 1: holding out your hand being like, here, come with me
39:25
Speaker 1: to this place. And it's much more easier to get
39:28
Speaker 1: them to come with you if you promise a journey,
39:32
Speaker 1: if you go there with them. Well, I also think
39:34
Speaker 1: there's a thing a lot of on the records. At least,
39:39
Speaker 1: we're both really resistant to the idea of the vocals
39:43
Speaker 1: sounding like a performance and we want it to really
39:48
Speaker 1: feel intimate and to feel like you're there with us,
39:51
Speaker 1: And so a lot of times that leads us to
39:54
Speaker 1: using the very first take that Amelia does, like the
39:57
Speaker 1: minute after she writes it, she'll sing it into a
39:59
Speaker 1: microphone and we'll kind of think it's going to be
40:01
Speaker 1: for the demo or whatever, but like that ends up
40:04
Speaker 1: being the real take, And every time we try to
40:06
Speaker 1: redo it inherently, we kind of hear it as some
40:08
Speaker 1: version of a performance rather than her living the song.
40:12
Speaker 1: And it's it's a really sensitive and really specific thing,
40:15
Speaker 1: but so much of our music is about inviting the
40:18
Speaker 1: listener in, and I think that's just another way that
40:23
Speaker 1: we're really sensitive to that. But it's everything's very integrated somehow.
40:28
Speaker 1: And again I'm struggling to explain this, but it's not
40:31
Speaker 1: as though, you know, if you're listening to an old
40:33
Speaker 1: Gerald record, you're like, well, here's where she hits that
40:35
Speaker 1: high note. You're not really thinking what the band's doing
40:37
Speaker 1: behind her. It may be a great record. It's not
40:40
Speaker 1: a criticism, but your records seem to be it's the
40:43
Speaker 1: space or something that you're in. Thanks. I also think
40:46
Speaker 1: a part of that maybe is that everything that's not
40:50
Speaker 1: her voice that's in the track we try to make
40:53
Speaker 1: it a thing that came from her voice in some way,
40:55
Speaker 1: So if even if it's just the musical idea, like,
40:57
Speaker 1: all of it to me is intended to point back
41:00
Speaker 1: towards her voice, like because that's the doorway, you know,
41:04
Speaker 1: at least emotionally, for me, when I'm hearing something, it's
41:07
Speaker 1: usually the vocal. If it's a vocal record, I'm that's
41:10
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing. So a lot of our songs, the
41:13
Speaker 1: minute something distracts me from her voice, will usually get
41:17
Speaker 1: rid of it. Well, we want all of it to
41:19
Speaker 1: be like kind of like like the realization of a
41:22
Speaker 1: dream that she's having. Well, it's interesting because a lot
41:25
Speaker 1: of electronic music almost ideologically wants to eliminate human sounds
41:34
Speaker 1: or acoustic sounds. But ironically, to me, it's like, but
41:37
Speaker 1: all those instruments were still made by humans with this
41:39
Speaker 1: idea of perfection in them, like like even like an
41:43
Speaker 1: eight to eight drum machine, Like that's a fascinating device
41:45
Speaker 1: to me on a human level, just because somebody sat
41:49
Speaker 1: down and thought, all right, well it's in four to
41:51
Speaker 1: four and there's sixteen steps, and these are what these
41:54
Speaker 1: drums sound like, and this is what swing sounds like.
41:56
Speaker 1: It's like, it's like, by creating your idea of a perfection,
42:01
Speaker 1: idea of perfection, you're showing the humanity of it. You're
42:06
Speaker 1: showing kind of like what we what we think of
42:10
Speaker 1: as the right quote unquote thing to do. That's super
42:13
Speaker 1: interesting to me. I love I love incorporating those things,
42:16
Speaker 1: and especially when they're right up against very broken human elements,
42:20
Speaker 1: because I think it draws out like kind of the
42:22
Speaker 1: humanity the whole thing. If that, I don't know if
42:24
Speaker 1: I'm saying that quite excularly. I think you're totally doing
42:26
Speaker 1: it right. Also, it's the most human thing in the
42:28
Speaker 1: world where where we're like, well, it's electronic sound, as
42:32
Speaker 1: if electronics were born and not made, you know, yes, well,
42:39
Speaker 1: mandolins and guitars are made, yes too. You know. The
42:42
Speaker 1: early electronic music, a lot of those people were obsessed
42:46
Speaker 1: with the sounds they were hearing in everyday life, which
42:50
Speaker 1: was industrial. Yeah, and that's what they they thought, well,
42:55
Speaker 1: music needs to reflect people's everyday soundscape, which is now.
42:59
Speaker 1: They thought everybody lived in the city, so it wasn't.
43:01
Speaker 1: There were a lot of synthesizers that imitated cows. We
43:05
Speaker 1: were talking about this before. We live in a digital world,
43:07
Speaker 1: and those are the kind of sound you're dealing with.
43:10
Speaker 1: To me, the most interesting things happen when you when
43:13
Speaker 1: you push all those textures up against each other. When
43:16
Speaker 1: there's this you know, kind of idealized drum machine sound
43:20
Speaker 1: next to a very raw feeling vocal next to you know,
43:25
Speaker 1: a scratchy sounding acoustic guitar. That is that you can
43:28
Speaker 1: tell has been manipulated. I love that feeling when when
43:30
Speaker 1: you can tell somebody's changed something, the kind of human
43:35
Speaker 1: fingerprint on that, even if it's an electronic sound, that's
43:38
Speaker 1: when that's when all those kind of feelings of humanity
43:42
Speaker 1: come out more to me. So, for example, the last
43:45
Speaker 1: song in your album is a big surprise because it
43:48
Speaker 1: starts with somebody's drumming an acoustic guitar, which I don't
43:53
Speaker 1: know if that's the first time you've done that in
43:54
Speaker 1: a song, but it's it's a it's a surprise when
43:56
Speaker 1: those acoustic sounds come in. It's it's a it's a
43:59
Speaker 1: jeweled Yeah. So you have the acoustic but then but
44:03
Speaker 1: then I think your your vocal is treated. Isn't it
44:05
Speaker 1: that you ran it through something? It's not just he's
44:08
Speaker 1: a really old vocoder. O oh is that Ryan? We
44:11
Speaker 1: love that. We love the old vocoders, Yeah, because most
44:14
Speaker 1: of them are broken and so they do really wild
44:17
Speaker 1: and strange. Again, you like hear the chip like, I
44:19
Speaker 1: just love that feeling. But that one, like you know,
44:22
Speaker 1: like we to me that the vocoder in that song
44:26
Speaker 1: as just as much humanity as Sam saxophone. You know,
44:29
Speaker 1: it's it's because it's all coming from her voice. Like
44:32
Speaker 1: both the vocoders sound and Sam's melodies that he's that
44:35
Speaker 1: he's playing are all are both from this very raw
44:39
Speaker 1: vocal take that she did, and it feels like they're
44:42
Speaker 1: all leading back to that same thing. It's been amazing
44:46
Speaker 1: watching you work here circuit board there um your toy
44:52
Speaker 1: train sat yes, my trains. Yeah, it reminded me of
44:55
Speaker 1: m I don't know if you've seen those famous probably
44:58
Speaker 1: in documentaries, you know, George Martin or Paul McCartney will
45:03
Speaker 1: demonstrate how they used faders on tomorrow never knows. Oh yeah,
45:07
Speaker 1: those are great and and I don't know if this
45:09
Speaker 1: is actually the case. I'm sure it's not the case,
45:11
Speaker 1: but it's probably the case in pop music. It's the
45:13
Speaker 1: first time the performance was really the engineer's performance that
45:18
Speaker 1: really made that. Yeah, mixer is still an instrument. That's
45:20
Speaker 1: what I love playing a mixer. Yeah, um, well you
45:24
Speaker 1: did it. Well. It's just it's just amazing to watch.
45:27
Speaker 1: It's it's a very if someone's used to more traditional instruments,
45:31
Speaker 1: it's it's just an amazing thing to watch. Thanks I
45:35
Speaker 1: mean for people who kind of perform in this space,
45:38
Speaker 1: it's kind of digital space. I would say two things.
45:42
Speaker 1: You seem fascinated by analog technology. You've got a song
45:46
Speaker 1: about a train, you got a radio song. And is
45:50
Speaker 1: it true you used old tape of your Is it
45:52
Speaker 1: your mother used to cut tape for radio? We used
45:57
Speaker 1: her old, real real for that. Yeah, oh that's amazing.
46:01
Speaker 1: The second thing is, and you know you've got little
46:03
Speaker 1: snatches of conversation and phone messages. Musicians now have to
46:08
Speaker 1: live in that world. They have to be active on
46:11
Speaker 1: social media. They have to interact with fans in a
46:14
Speaker 1: way they didn't before, not like in the good old
46:16
Speaker 1: days of Twitter. Good old days Twitter so nice on there,
46:21
Speaker 1: and music has made in a very different way. Now.
46:24
Speaker 1: I'll put on a record at home and my son
46:29
Speaker 1: who's eight, will say, well, it hasn't started yet, and
46:30
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, no, it's just really quiet, like you're
46:33
Speaker 1: not used to quiet music anymore. Just wait for the
46:37
Speaker 1: vocal to come in. Actually it's been on, like the
46:39
Speaker 1: piano has been there for thirty seconds. But you know,
46:41
Speaker 1: the range is different everything. I know every musician is
46:44
Speaker 1: in this world now, you guys sort of also exploit
46:49
Speaker 1: those things as part of your sound and I think
46:53
Speaker 1: almost part of your philosophy. What's it like being those
46:57
Speaker 1: kind of digital creatures. The only way I figured out
47:00
Speaker 1: how to do it is to do it authentically, which
47:04
Speaker 1: isn't as glamorous looking as the way other people do it.
47:10
Speaker 1: In order to be able to interact with the Internet
47:12
Speaker 1: in any way that feels honest, I have to be myself,
47:16
Speaker 1: which is kind of unfortunate because being yourself is embarrassing
47:19
Speaker 1: most of the time, particularly when you're when you're doing
47:22
Speaker 1: it for your job. But that's the that's the only
47:25
Speaker 1: way I've been able to do it. It takes a
47:28
Speaker 1: lot of energy, but because of that, because of the Internet,
47:31
Speaker 1: like here we are, we're able to do this. This
47:33
Speaker 1: is our job because of the amount of people we
47:35
Speaker 1: were able to reach. But your your song radio addresses that.
47:39
Speaker 1: It asks about how many clicks and have you done
47:43
Speaker 1: something so you can make the news it does it does?
47:49
Speaker 1: Was that performed with or was that written with some ambivalence? Yeah? Yeah,
47:53
Speaker 1: I was in a phase of songwriting where I was
47:55
Speaker 1: really into being very direct and talking about what I
48:00
Speaker 1: was feeling. I'm with that song in particular, I wanted
48:05
Speaker 1: to write about, you know, wanting to get on the radio,
48:08
Speaker 1: trying to make our sound something that was consumable by
48:11
Speaker 1: a lot of people, or to be able to convince
48:15
Speaker 1: a radio promoter that it was consumable by a lot
48:19
Speaker 1: of people, but also trying to be authentic at the
48:21
Speaker 1: same time, and the way that those two things interact.
48:26
Speaker 1: Also how pop culture and media is just an excellent
48:30
Speaker 1: distractor from disaster. You've mentioned disaster a couple of times
48:36
Speaker 1: during this interview, So do you see yourself sort of
48:39
Speaker 1: as a bulwark against disaster your music or is it
48:42
Speaker 1: just what people have to do if they feel they're
48:45
Speaker 1: facing something terrible in life. Oh my god, no, I can't.
48:50
Speaker 1: I would never even I think, you know, an important
48:53
Speaker 1: part of living is experiencing destruction and heartbreak and sadness.
49:01
Speaker 1: And I think for me, the thing I like to
49:03
Speaker 1: think that my hope is that the music can be company,
49:09
Speaker 1: a friend, something that people can look at and say,
49:15
Speaker 1: here's this this this happened to them, or this is
49:20
Speaker 1: my song for for feeling how I feel right now.
49:23
Speaker 1: It's something that can float float people through the saddest times. Okay,
49:32
Speaker 1: you guys made a terrific film and during the pandemic
49:36
Speaker 1: where you you did a bunch of your songs with
49:38
Speaker 1: a full band, yeah, which and it's called with Love,
49:42
Speaker 1: and I suggest everybody would go out and watch it.
49:44
Speaker 1: What was that like? Is that the first time you
49:46
Speaker 1: would you had rearranged the songs for no, we had
49:49
Speaker 1: done so we right in the fall of twenty nineteen,
49:52
Speaker 1: we took that same band out on tour and we
49:54
Speaker 1: did like seven shows. We did like four cities. We
49:58
Speaker 1: didn't do very many, and then we put it. There's
50:00
Speaker 1: a there's a full length doc of that out that
50:02
Speaker 1: you can find on the It's just called with And
50:04
Speaker 1: So that was kind of the first time we had
50:07
Speaker 1: really leaned into that wed I tried playing stuff with
50:10
Speaker 1: people before and it had been great, but this was
50:12
Speaker 1: the first time we like really put a show together
50:14
Speaker 1: and put it on for people. And then when the
50:17
Speaker 1: pandemic hit and we were putting this record out, we
50:22
Speaker 1: realized that this could be a great excuse for us
50:24
Speaker 1: all if we could figure out a way to safely
50:26
Speaker 1: get together, that this could be a just an amazing
50:29
Speaker 1: thing for all of us involved. That we missed each
50:32
Speaker 1: other so much, and we really wanted to find a
50:36
Speaker 1: way to do it, and so you know, it was
50:37
Speaker 1: like right when testing was getting really available and you know,
50:40
Speaker 1: we had this whole thing worked out. But that was
50:43
Speaker 1: kind of the whole impetus was just we miss our friends.
50:47
Speaker 1: And the craziest part has been hearing other people who
50:51
Speaker 1: watch it who weren't there, saying that they connected with
50:54
Speaker 1: that same thing about it, that it made them feel
50:56
Speaker 1: more together. It was it was I'm so grateful for
50:58
Speaker 1: the entire experience. It was really fun to shoot, mostly
51:02
Speaker 1: because we hadn't gotten to play music with other people
51:04
Speaker 1: in you know, a year, and we'd put out a
51:08
Speaker 1: record during the pandemic, Free Love. Everyone who released an
51:13
Speaker 1: artistic feat during the pandemic knows the strange feeling of
51:18
Speaker 1: like dropping a pee down at a plumb line or something.
51:23
Speaker 1: So it felt really great to get to celebrate with
51:27
Speaker 1: our friends for a live stream for something that had been,
51:30
Speaker 1: you know, a way of revisiting the songs that we
51:34
Speaker 1: hadn't gotten to play yet, and it was just it was,
51:37
Speaker 1: it just existed for its own sake. That was I
51:40
Speaker 1: think one thing I loved about it was that there's
51:42
Speaker 1: no nobody had to do that. I mean, we weren't
51:46
Speaker 1: making a ton of money or anything. It wasn't like,
51:47
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it just existed because we wanted
51:50
Speaker 1: to be together. It was great. Well, I recommended to everybody.
51:53
Speaker 1: So you've got this new album out, What is next? Oh,
51:57
Speaker 1: we're going a tour forever? Yeah, right now. We put
52:00
Speaker 1: the record out so fast. For the first time in
52:04
Speaker 1: like seven years. Were opening for a band right now,
52:07
Speaker 1: which is really fun. But we'd already signed up to
52:10
Speaker 1: open for them before we'd written the record. So now
52:14
Speaker 1: we're in this interesting space where we just put this
52:16
Speaker 1: record out and we're opening an arena tour. Who are
52:20
Speaker 1: you opening for? Oh? Okay, yeah, so tell me. What's
52:26
Speaker 1: it like playing this music to so many people, to
52:29
Speaker 1: such a big audience. It's nice, it's good. Yeah. Well,
52:34
Speaker 1: you know, when we play shows, it's usually it's like
52:38
Speaker 1: four thousand less people, but not that they're comparable to
52:42
Speaker 1: our to our size. It's like side too. It's yah yeah, yeah, no,
52:46
Speaker 1: I didn't mean like they ever played to like I
52:53
Speaker 1: wish I miss bars. It's really nice. It's interesting. It's different. Uh,
52:58
Speaker 1: it's different group of people than like our fan base,
53:02
Speaker 1: and it's a whole different job to open shows. Than
53:04
Speaker 1: it is to host them. So we're like getting our
53:07
Speaker 1: chops back. Yeah, this part is that's all we used
53:10
Speaker 1: to do. Like that's how we kind of came up.
53:12
Speaker 1: We got a couple of great opening slots, like for
53:13
Speaker 1: two Yards and Volcano Choir, like right when we started,
53:16
Speaker 1: kind of miraculously, and we just like loved, we relished
53:21
Speaker 1: that feeling of like having thirty five or forty minutes
53:24
Speaker 1: or whatever to like convince everyone to like you. And
53:26
Speaker 1: we've been pretty much headlining ever since. And so it's like,
53:31
Speaker 1: I don't know I've said this before, but it feels
53:33
Speaker 1: like I'm like working out every night. It feels like
53:35
Speaker 1: we're like getting a muscle back that we lacks, you know,
53:38
Speaker 1: through the cushiness of everyone already knowing all the words
53:40
Speaker 1: to our songs. Yeah, it's been great. I love it.
53:44
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, trying to figure out what they're
53:46
Speaker 1: going to react to on any given night is so
53:48
Speaker 1: it changes so wildly. It's cool exactly. So we're going
53:51
Speaker 1: to finish this tour and then hopefully in twenty twenty
53:54
Speaker 1: three will actually to our new rules. Sandy, right, and
53:59
Speaker 1: this is how musicians make their living now. Oh yeah,
54:02
Speaker 1: that's right, that's the only place where the money is
54:05
Speaker 1: that and you know car commercials looking forward to both.
54:10
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming in. It's been just
54:12
Speaker 1: fabulous and the performances were wonderful. It's just great. Thank
54:15
Speaker 1: you for so much for having us. Yeah, thank you.
54:19
Speaker 1: Thanks to Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn if silvan Esso
54:22
Speaker 1: for coming through Broken Record to talk about their lives,
54:25
Speaker 1: creative process and their new album. And you're all of
54:28
Speaker 1: our favorite Sylvaneso songs on a playlist at broken record
54:32
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube
54:36
Speaker 1: channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where
54:39
Speaker 1: you can find all of our new episodes. You can
54:42
Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
54:45
Speaker 1: a producer of help from Leah Rose, Jason N Brow, Vantaladay,
54:49
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez. Our editor is Sophie Crane.
54:54
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Mio Lava. Broken Record is a
54:59
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and
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Speaker 1: us on your podcast app. For Things Expect Any Beats,
55:22
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond,