Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Remi Wolf
Transcript
- 0:15Speaker 1: Pushkin.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Singer songwriter Remy Wolf burst out of the pandemic like
- 0:23Speaker 2: a ray of light, spreading joy with her infectious production,
- 0:26Speaker 2: capricious outlook, and jaunty hooks. She appeared to come to
- 0:30Speaker 2: us fully formed, but Remy's been working hard on her
- 0:33Speaker 2: craft for the last decade. She started regularly performing with
- 0:37Speaker 2: local bands around the Bay Area during high school. She
- 0:40Speaker 2: even tried out for American Idol at seventeen years old,
- 0:42Speaker 2: singing Marvin Gays, Let's get it on to j LO. Eventually,
- 0:46Speaker 2: she wound up studying music in La at usc where
- 0:48Speaker 2: she met many of the people she still collaborates with
- 0:51Speaker 2: to this day. On today's Broken Record, Remy Wolf discusses
- 0:55Speaker 2: finding her musical footing in Los Angeles, walks us through
- 0:58Speaker 2: the writing of her new album, Big Ideas, and talks
- 1:00Speaker 2: about her summer experience opening up for Oliver Yar Rodrigo
- 1:04Speaker 2: in Europe. This is Broken Record Liner notes to the
- 1:09Speaker 2: digital Age.
- 1:10Speaker 1: I'm justin Mitchmill.
- 1:12Speaker 2: Here's my conversation with Remy Wolf. To see the video
- 1:15Speaker 2: of this podcast, head over to YouTube dot com slash
- 1:18Speaker 2: Broken Record Podcast.
- 1:21Speaker 1: I love the Toro hat. Oh yeah, thank you, one
- 1:23Speaker 1: of my favorite.
- 1:24Speaker 2: Songs on your album's Toro Toro into Alone in Miami.
- 1:28Speaker 2: It's a great combo.
- 1:29Speaker 3: Yes, the twins eternal twins.
- 1:32Speaker 1: Is that how you think about them?
- 1:34Speaker 3: Yeah, They're like there were birds from the same egg
- 1:39Speaker 3: to me, really yeah, but different sperm.
- 1:45Speaker 1: The same all right, that's that's twins. You're right, twins,
- 1:48Speaker 1: that's genius. Okay, what what makes them?
- 1:51Speaker 3: Or maybe it's two eggs and then two different spirms.
- 1:53Speaker 1: Not that's not think too deeply.
- 1:55Speaker 3: Not prepared.
- 1:56Speaker 2: I'm not a scientist to figure that out.
- 2:00Speaker 1: What those are the earliest songs you.
- 2:02Speaker 3: Wrote, Yeah, those were written in kind of the first
- 2:07Speaker 3: couple of sessions I did for the album back in
- 2:12Speaker 3: twenty twenty two with my friend Jack de Mayo and
- 2:16Speaker 3: my friend Ethan Gruska up in mantrase, Los Angeles. Yeah.
- 2:22Speaker 2: Was it a writing session specifically for a new album
- 2:25Speaker 2: or just yeah?
- 2:27Speaker 3: I mean I knew that coming out of my first album,
- 2:33Speaker 3: I wanted to make a second one, being on a
- 2:36Speaker 3: major label and everything, but but I didn't really know,
- 2:42Speaker 3: like exactly how it would come together. And those sessions
- 2:47Speaker 3: with Ethan and Jack were kind of the beginning of
- 2:50Speaker 3: the exploration of kind of the sonic and storytelling identity
- 2:57Speaker 3: of this album, I guess, yeah. We wrote. We us
- 3:03Speaker 3: two wrote together for like two weeks in total, but
- 3:09Speaker 3: they were separated by a couple months, and I think
- 3:11Speaker 3: within those two weeks we wrote like fifteen or sixteen songs,
- 3:16Speaker 3: so we kind of like, really were.
- 3:18Speaker 1: What songs that made the album come out?
- 3:20Speaker 3: Of those Toro Alone in Miami and uh, frog Rock.
- 3:25Speaker 1: I Love I fucking love frog Rock.
- 3:27Speaker 3: Yeah, the frog Rock's fun. Yeah, that was the first
- 3:29Speaker 3: song we actually wrote of all of those days. That
- 3:33Speaker 3: was the first song of all of them, which was cool.
- 3:36Speaker 1: Did you complete it that day or that in that
- 3:38Speaker 1: in those sessions of two weeks?
- 3:40Speaker 3: Uh, the song was like written. We went back and produced,
- 3:46Speaker 3: produced it out a little more and kind of got
- 3:48Speaker 3: a little bit deeper with the production almost a year
- 3:52Speaker 3: later probably, but yeah, that song the Yeah, the identity
- 4:00Speaker 3: of that song was kind of created in the first day.
- 4:04Speaker 3: Pretty much. Toro and Alone in Miami were both alone,
- 4:09Speaker 3: little different. We wrote both of those on acoustic guitar,
- 4:14Speaker 3: and we like recorded the demos on acoustic guitar and
- 4:18Speaker 3: then came back a while later and kind of reopened
- 4:22Speaker 3: them and built them out a little bit more from there.
- 4:25Speaker 3: Toro is an entirely different song than what it first
- 4:29Speaker 3: or like, it sounds just so wildly different.
- 4:32Speaker 1: It was just think there's any guitar on it, acoustic
- 4:34Speaker 1: guitar really right, even.
- 4:35Speaker 3: In the there's no acoustic guitar. It's kind of all
- 4:38Speaker 3: like little funky electric licks and stuff like that. Really
- 4:43Speaker 3: bass heavy. Now. At first, it was just kind of
- 4:48Speaker 3: this like almost motowny acoustic guitar song. I remember going
- 4:54Speaker 3: into the songwriting of that one. I was like, I
- 4:57Speaker 3: really wanted to write something that felt like Motown, which
- 5:01Speaker 3: is so interesting that it's now Toro because it's it's
- 5:06Speaker 3: a it's sonically, I mean definitely not most.
- 5:09Speaker 2: Step and I don't think by the way, it's a
- 5:12Speaker 2: little different than My Girl.
- 5:15Speaker 3: I mean yeah, in terms of the content or whatever.
- 5:17Speaker 3: I mean, you know, there were there is some Motown
- 5:21Speaker 3: has some sexual innuendos going on up in those songs.
- 5:26Speaker 3: Maybe they're a little bit more hidden than mine. I
- 5:28Speaker 3: don't know I.
- 5:29Speaker 2: Think of which ones, you know, yeah, probably some Marvin somewhere.
- 5:34Speaker 2: Sure there was some.
- 5:39Speaker 3: Sugar Pie Honey Bunch. Sugar Pie Honey Bunch. I think
- 5:42Speaker 3: it's just me, but yeah, it.
- 5:47Speaker 1: Could be, though I see what you mean. I see
- 5:49Speaker 1: what you mean, like that could be, But I don't.
- 5:51Speaker 1: I think it was more. I think it's more innocent
- 5:53Speaker 1: than that. What made you?
- 5:55Speaker 2: What made you want to that particular day? What made
- 5:59Speaker 2: you want to write a motown sounding song?
- 6:04Speaker 3: I have no idea. I couldn't tell you.
- 6:06Speaker 1: Is it a catalog you listened.
- 6:08Speaker 3: To a lot sometimes? I mean, like the classics I
- 6:14Speaker 3: feel like are on my shuffle, you know, in my
- 6:18Speaker 3: in my library. But I don't know. I think I
- 6:21Speaker 3: just wanted I think we I think we were writing
- 6:25Speaker 3: a lot of kind of folk rock stuff that week,
- 6:29Speaker 3: and I kind of wanted to just change it up.
- 6:31Speaker 3: And I guess when when I was in college, I
- 6:36Speaker 3: went to USC Thrton School Music, and part of our
- 6:41Speaker 3: curriculum was we spent almost a full semester on motown
- 6:48Speaker 3: wow and like learning those songs front to back, like
- 6:53Speaker 3: replicating them essentially in our performance class. So i'd I'd
- 6:59Speaker 3: had a lot of experience kind of getting inside those songs,
- 7:02Speaker 3: and I hadn't done that for a while. But Jack,
- 7:07Speaker 3: my friend that I was writing with, went to school
- 7:10Speaker 3: with me, so we both kind of had that repertoire
- 7:14Speaker 3: like within us, and I think that I was kind
- 7:17Speaker 3: of just like, we should do something that is kind
- 7:20Speaker 3: of a throwback to Motown, throwback to like that time
- 7:25Speaker 3: that we spent together in school almost. I mean, I
- 7:29Speaker 3: don't know, I said it on a whim and we
- 7:32Speaker 3: kind of just rolled ran with it.
- 7:34Speaker 1: But and the demo does sound like maybe closer to.
- 7:38Speaker 3: Yeah, I think some of the chords, you know, are
- 7:42Speaker 3: kind of two five to one chord progression in there,
- 7:46Speaker 3: which is pretty motowny and just pretty jazzy and solely.
- 7:51Speaker 1: That college education.
- 7:53Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I feel I'm so distant from it now
- 8:00Speaker 3: that like all of my knowledge is a little bit rusty.
- 8:02Speaker 3: But if you had caught me when I was like nineteen,
- 8:05Speaker 3: I could just riddle off some theory.
- 8:07Speaker 1: Intense theory, I'm sure, right.
- 8:09Speaker 3: Yeah, Now it's kind of it's kind of gone, and luckily.
- 8:12Speaker 2: I don't it's probably for the best right somewhere back there,
- 8:15Speaker 2: Like it's still there, it's still.
- 8:17Speaker 3: There, but it's it's fuzzy. And I think I always
- 8:21Speaker 3: kind of kept my like actual education at arm's length,
- 8:28Speaker 3: especially when going into you know, writing music for my
- 8:32Speaker 3: own project. It's because I like didn't want any rules
- 8:39Speaker 3: attached to what I was making, And I think school
- 8:42Speaker 3: it's really good for a lot of things, but they
- 8:44Speaker 3: do kind of you know, there there's a lot of
- 8:47Speaker 3: processes that they that they kind of instill, and some
- 8:51Speaker 3: of them are really for the best, and some of
- 8:53Speaker 3: them I think can stifle your creativity at times. So
- 8:56Speaker 3: I've I've kind of gotten to pick and choose what
- 9:03Speaker 3: what I learned from my education that really works for me.
- 9:08Speaker 2: So how many people that you collaborate with now work
- 9:13Speaker 2: with now come from your time at school at USC?
- 9:18Speaker 3: Some people, Yeah, Jack, he's a big one. Connor Malloy,
- 9:21Speaker 3: my drummer. I've been with him. He's been playing in
- 9:24Speaker 3: my band since we were in college together, so we've
- 9:28Speaker 3: been playing together for probably eight years now. I mean
- 9:33Speaker 3: a lot of my lot of my friends. My friend
- 9:37Speaker 3: Danny Fahrenbach, he plays trumpet for me. Sometimes you still
- 9:41Speaker 3: hang with a lot of people from Yeah, Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
- 9:44Speaker 3: My friend Liz, who I have famously written a song about. Yeah,
- 9:50Speaker 3: she's around, She's like one of my best friends. Yeah,
- 9:53Speaker 3: we're all kind of floating around. I feel like I've
- 9:57Speaker 3: my main collaborators musically did not go to USC with me,
- 10:05Speaker 3: but I mean Jared Solomon, who's like been my main
- 10:09Speaker 3: collaborator for a really long time high school since high school. Yeah,
- 10:12Speaker 3: I mean yeah, we met in high school.
- 10:14Speaker 1: Didn't go to the same high school as you were,
- 10:16Speaker 1: just kind of from No.
- 10:17Speaker 3: We went to the same after school music program together,
- 10:21Speaker 3: and yeah, we had like a very kismet meeting where
- 10:29Speaker 3: like we had the same instructor and one day we
- 10:32Speaker 3: were there at the same time and he threw us
- 10:34Speaker 3: both in a room and Jared was like, you know,
- 10:37Speaker 3: really good guitar player and I was a singer, and
- 10:40Speaker 3: he's like, Okay, you guys should do a cover. So
- 10:43Speaker 3: we covered Valerie the Amy Winehouse cover that she did
- 10:49Speaker 3: with Mark Ronson, and we kind of were like both
- 10:54Speaker 3: very wide eyed at each other. We were like, oh,
- 10:58Speaker 3: you're good at this, and it.
- 10:59Speaker 2: Was like you you're good at guitar, You're great at singing.
- 11:02Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like a very mutual like okay, And
- 11:08Speaker 3: I think that opened up a world for us at
- 11:12Speaker 3: the time. And then we ended up being in a
- 11:14Speaker 3: band together in high school, writing a lot. We did
- 11:18Speaker 3: like battle the bands together, We like played at bars
- 11:21Speaker 3: and restaurants and we busked together, and he ended up
- 11:28Speaker 3: going to Berkeley College of Music, and he was a
- 11:31Speaker 3: year older than me, so I he was gone and
- 11:34Speaker 3: I went to USC and then four years later we
- 11:38Speaker 3: ended up. He ended up coming through LA on a
- 11:42Speaker 3: tour that he was on with one of his friends
- 11:44Speaker 3: from school, and he ended up hitting me up to
- 11:47Speaker 3: ask if he could stay in my house for a
- 11:49Speaker 3: week and a half. And luckily, I kind of lived
- 11:52Speaker 3: in a bit of a trap house at the time,
- 11:54Speaker 3: so I was like, yeah, sure, you can, like sleep
- 11:56Speaker 3: on the couch, and he came through and then we
- 12:01Speaker 3: set up a little studio in my room and that
- 12:03Speaker 3: was kind of the beginning of us working together again.
- 12:07Speaker 3: And that kind of kicked everything off.
- 12:09Speaker 2: And was that I'm trying to because it's funny. I
- 12:12Speaker 2: was looking back first of all, Remy and Chloe. I
- 12:17Speaker 2: just discovered that like a week ago. But the cover.
- 12:19Speaker 2: I used to live in the Bay around that time,
- 12:23Speaker 2: and the cover was like a flag.
- 12:25Speaker 1: I knew. I'd seen that in a couple of places.
- 12:27Speaker 2: I don't know if I got coverage in like the
- 12:28Speaker 2: East Bay Express or the time I was working on
- 12:31Speaker 2: the Calyx the radio stations, so.
- 12:33Speaker 3: Maybe the cover of our songs.
- 12:35Speaker 1: Yeah, the cover of that r E P the EP.
- 12:39Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's so funny.
- 12:41Speaker 1: I flashed back. I was like, yo, I know this
- 12:43Speaker 1: cover from that's so wid Yeah. Yeah, I mean I
- 12:47Speaker 1: didn't realize it was.
- 12:48Speaker 3: We played. We played around the Bay area a lot,
- 12:51Speaker 3: like we played in San Francisco, we played in Oakland,
- 12:54Speaker 3: we played in Redwood City, we played in Alalto, Memo Park,
- 12:58Speaker 3: San Jose, like we were kind of.
- 13:00Speaker 1: Probably saw in Oakland or somewhere.
- 13:02Speaker 3: Yeah, we were, we were. We were up and down
- 13:04Speaker 3: the the Silicon Valley. It was. It was that's crazy.
- 13:12Speaker 2: Yeah, it was interesting like seeing that stuff, like going
- 13:15Speaker 2: back and checking out some of that stuff, you like,
- 13:19Speaker 2: were much more like kind of roots like your music
- 13:23Speaker 2: full stylings were much more like rootsy. You know, it
- 13:25Speaker 2: seemed like you were much more connected to and probably
- 13:28Speaker 2: still are, soul music in a lot of ways.
- 13:30Speaker 3: And and you know, yeah that. I mean, my my
- 13:33Speaker 3: musical upgrade upbringing then was a lot of Stevie Wonder,
- 13:41Speaker 3: a lot of like the Beatles, a lot of Red
- 13:46Speaker 3: Hot Chili Peppers, James Taylor, uh, you know, funk stuff.
- 13:56Speaker 3: I mean I was listening to a lot of stuff,
- 13:58Speaker 3: but I a lot of Marvin Gaye, a lot of
- 14:01Speaker 3: Emmy Winehouse. I mean I loved her as a kid.
- 14:04Speaker 3: I remember I listened to a lot of Joss Stone. Yeah,
- 14:08Speaker 3: when I was a young girl.
- 14:11Speaker 2: I was just thinking about her recently. I haven't I know,
- 14:13Speaker 2: I was too.
- 14:14Speaker 3: I don't know why, but she came up. I don't
- 14:16Speaker 3: know why she came up, but she was so sick.
- 14:18Speaker 3: She had some great, great songs, and she was really young.
- 14:24Speaker 1: Those are great records, No.
- 14:25Speaker 3: They are Adele, I mean classic, I Eric Abatdo. I
- 14:33Speaker 3: had like a little snarky puppy face when I was
- 14:36Speaker 3: a kid. Yeah, yeah, tool Randomly, I was just kind
- 14:43Speaker 3: of like soaking it all in. And I was in
- 14:45Speaker 3: this I was in this after school program, and essentially
- 14:49Speaker 3: I was just surrounded by all these kids who were
- 14:51Speaker 3: also interested in music, and we all would play together
- 14:55Speaker 3: in these bands, and we would play covers, we'd do
- 14:58Speaker 3: like recitals, and I learned so much music that way.
- 15:04Speaker 3: And I've kind of always been into like live band
- 15:08Speaker 3: can figurations and kind of the sound of like rock
- 15:12Speaker 3: and live like live stuff in that way, because it's
- 15:16Speaker 3: how I grew up. And I think that's such a
- 15:19Speaker 3: it's still such a core element of how I make
- 15:21Speaker 3: my music now, it's like I need it to be
- 15:25Speaker 3: real instruments or else. I am lost some yeah, I'm lost.
- 15:30Speaker 3: Something's wrong. It's like it's losing part of me.
- 15:34Speaker 1: Well, it's incredible.
- 15:35Speaker 2: How long I want to show you this because I
- 15:37Speaker 2: blew me away when I saw this. This is incredible. How
- 15:39Speaker 2: long you've had this is? I think this is you
- 15:41Speaker 2: in when you're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
- 15:44Speaker 1: The band's amazing, though.
- 15:45Speaker 3: Okay, what is it?
- 15:47Speaker 1: You tell me? What?
- 15:49Speaker 3: Oh god, oh I can't believe you're pulling this up.
- 15:53Speaker 1: We don't.
- 15:55Speaker 3: This is awesome music, is my Yeah, you're in high school?
- 16:02Speaker 3: Oh my god? Do that? Those are my voice?
- 16:05Speaker 1: Kids are? Kids?
- 16:06Speaker 3: Are sick? Yeah, we're doing it. You know. That's my
- 16:09Speaker 3: friend Chloeing. That's my friend Greg. Is that Dreg?
- 16:18Speaker 1: Yeah? Who are the bass players killing it too?
- 16:20Speaker 3: That's Terry Justice. He was in my van. I actually
- 16:25Speaker 3: just saw him for the first time in like ten years. Bro.
- 16:29Speaker 3: I just saw him for the first time in Copenhagen.
- 16:31Speaker 3: He lives there. He's in there. Yeah, he's lived there
- 16:34Speaker 3: for like seven years. And yeah, just reunited with him
- 16:39Speaker 3: like a month ago, and it was so amazing. To
- 16:41Speaker 3: see him, like he's so unchanged. He's the same, same dude.
- 16:44Speaker 1: Is he doing music still?
- 16:45Speaker 3: Yeah, he's in like cover bands with like fifty year
- 16:48Speaker 3: old man and stuff. But he's thriving. I mean he
- 16:51Speaker 3: loves it over there. But yeah, he's he was really
- 16:54Speaker 3: he was in my life. We were good friends. And
- 16:57Speaker 3: Aaron Valaio is the drummer.
- 16:59Speaker 2: He was a killed drum He took a drum solo
- 17:01Speaker 2: in that video later. Yeah, he shows you to check
- 17:03Speaker 2: it out. He killed the solo.
- 17:04Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't seen him. I haven't. I probably haven't
- 17:07Speaker 3: seen him since I don't know, twenty fourteen and yeah, but.
- 17:12Speaker 1: Yeah, like you had like good musicians around you.
- 17:15Speaker 3: We were Yeah, we were like training, we were doing it.
- 17:19Speaker 3: Everybody's very passionate about it.
- 17:21Speaker 2: What I was trying to figure out where the jump
- 17:27Speaker 2: came from to, you know, like the music you started
- 17:31Speaker 2: putting out twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, that feels much less like,
- 17:37Speaker 2: you know, just derivative, Like your music is so original
- 17:40Speaker 2: to my ears, thank you it like, but there's clearly
- 17:44Speaker 2: I don't know, it seems like there was clearly a
- 17:46Speaker 2: change in the way you started if not writing like
- 17:49Speaker 2: thinking about you know, producing out your songs or whatever.
- 17:53Speaker 3: I think me going off to school and really exploring
- 17:57Speaker 3: songwriting on my own was really helpful in that process
- 18:00Speaker 3: because I was kind of figuring out what chords I liked,
- 18:03Speaker 3: what keys I liked singing in like, I started just
- 18:09Speaker 3: kind of to figure out how to write songs that
- 18:12Speaker 3: made sense to me. And that was just my own
- 18:19Speaker 3: journey that I was taking kind of in my bedroom
- 18:21Speaker 3: in school, because to be honest, I like I love
- 18:26Speaker 3: to skip class, loved it and did that a lot,
- 18:33Speaker 3: and I would just kind of be writing in my
- 18:34Speaker 3: room and or hanging out with like my roommates and
- 18:37Speaker 3: jamming in my living room, or like I had this
- 18:42Speaker 3: little EDM phase where me and my friend Danny would
- 18:45Speaker 3: go into his room and like take out or all
- 18:48Speaker 3: and like make so much DM music. And that was
- 18:51Speaker 3: so crazy. I think I just I just was. I
- 18:57Speaker 3: essentially didn't release or record any music for four years,
- 19:01Speaker 3: like in all of the time that I was there, and.
- 19:03Speaker 1: Twenty fifteen to nineteen, rough.
- 19:06Speaker 3: Like twenty fourteen to twenty eighteen, I essentially was just
- 19:09Speaker 3: like Silent. I did a couple live shows here and there,
- 19:13Speaker 3: We did a lot of house parties where we would
- 19:15Speaker 3: do like covers and stuff. But I was kind of
- 19:19Speaker 3: just bubbling and like letting myself explore in a way
- 19:25Speaker 3: that I hadn't really done before.
- 19:29Speaker 2: Did it feel good or did you feel kind of
- 19:31Speaker 2: wayward lost because you seem like hyper focused when you
- 19:34Speaker 2: were younger on?
- 19:36Speaker 3: I never felt lost. I just felt like I was evolving.
- 19:42Speaker 3: I feel like that That's one thing about me that
- 19:45Speaker 3: I like about myself. Not to validate myself, but I
- 19:51Speaker 3: like that I'm I've always kind of been a person
- 19:54Speaker 3: that if I set my mind to it and if
- 19:57Speaker 3: I tell myself I'm gonna do it, I just do
- 19:59Speaker 3: it and there's like no second thoughts. And I I
- 20:06Speaker 3: just I still am that way even in my music,
- 20:11Speaker 3: mostly in my music making of just like I am
- 20:16Speaker 3: a deep, deep believer in my intuition and my gut
- 20:23Speaker 3: and in my subconscious to kind of guide me to
- 20:26Speaker 3: where I need to go. And I've kind of always
- 20:30Speaker 3: had that trust in myself since I was little, especially
- 20:34Speaker 3: in music.
- 20:35Speaker 1: Come from a nate, I don't know.
- 20:39Speaker 3: I think my parents were always really supportive of me.
- 20:43Speaker 3: I don't know if that had anything to contribute to it,
- 20:46Speaker 3: but even even early, like when I wasn't good, like
- 20:53Speaker 3: when I couldn't like sing on pitch or whatever, I
- 20:56Speaker 3: was still like, eh, you know, I got this. And
- 20:59Speaker 3: then eventually, like my ability is caught up I think
- 21:02Speaker 3: with me, and I was kind of able to I mean,
- 21:05Speaker 3: even when it was horrible. I just had this belief
- 21:08Speaker 3: in myself and.
- 21:09Speaker 1: Other people validating you.
- 21:11Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I was being validated by like, you know,
- 21:16Speaker 3: other musicians who were my age, and I had some
- 21:19Speaker 3: teachers who were really encouraging. For sure. I think I
- 21:24Speaker 3: don't know something vocally, something switched when I was fifteen.
- 21:29Speaker 3: I don't know if it was hormones or whatever the hell.
- 21:33Speaker 3: I don't know what the hell it was, but I
- 21:35Speaker 3: could all of a sudden when I turned fifteen, and
- 21:37Speaker 3: I was like able to sing with this rasp and
- 21:41Speaker 3: like really strongly, whereas like before, I was kind of
- 21:44Speaker 3: wasn't working as well. Yeah, And I think once I
- 21:48Speaker 3: kind of started to be able to tap into my
- 21:50Speaker 3: voice and discover the power of my voice, I like
- 21:54Speaker 3: was really I really started leading in leading into too,
- 21:59Speaker 3: like really singing and performing and making music because it
- 22:02Speaker 3: just made me feel good.
- 22:04Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more from Remy Wolf After
- 22:07Speaker 2: this break, we're back with more from Remy Wolf. How
- 22:14Speaker 2: much earlier than fifteen did you start singing?
- 22:17Speaker 3: Like I started singing when I was in probably fourth grade?
- 22:24Speaker 3: Third or fourth grade.
- 22:27Speaker 1: Your parents aren't musical, right, Like they're not.
- 22:29Speaker 3: No, not at all.
- 22:31Speaker 1: Is anyone else in your family musical?
- 22:33Speaker 3: No? Not, like not really at all. My some of
- 22:37Speaker 3: my siblings can like hold a tune for sure, and like,
- 22:42Speaker 3: I mean, nobody else in my family makes music. Actually,
- 22:44Speaker 3: some of my my cousins love to write poetry and
- 22:49Speaker 3: like rap, but none of them have pursued it professionally
- 22:53Speaker 3: in the same way that I have. But I think
- 22:58Speaker 3: my family is a creative family. Like my mom is
- 23:02Speaker 3: in is a chef, has been into cooking her whole life.
- 23:07Speaker 3: My grandparents are really into food. And my grandpa is
- 23:13Speaker 3: like an entrepreneur. He's started I like countless, like so
- 23:17Speaker 3: many random little businesses. Like he had this like little
- 23:20Speaker 3: business where he would make side tables out of stone,
- 23:25Speaker 3: and then he has like a pickle company, and he
- 23:28Speaker 3: has like a vinegar company.
- 23:30Speaker 1: Those kind of those go together.
- 23:33Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, pickles of vinegar, that's cool. But and then
- 23:36Speaker 3: my dad is like really entrepreneurial as well, so I
- 23:40Speaker 3: think I think what I learned from them was like,
- 23:43Speaker 3: if I want to be my own boss, I can,
- 23:48Speaker 3: which I now am, which I don't think there's any
- 23:51Speaker 3: other way that I could exist. As I said before,
- 23:56Speaker 3: I'm like too controlling and I would just never be
- 24:00Speaker 3: able to hold down a job. I don't think there's
- 24:03Speaker 3: some creativity flowing through just.
- 24:07Speaker 1: In the way your family existed.
- 24:09Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess.
- 24:11Speaker 2: Just talking about bosses, you mentioned it earlier that you
- 24:14Speaker 2: did get like you are signed to a major label,
- 24:17Speaker 2: signed to Island.
- 24:19Speaker 1: How did that happen?
- 24:20Speaker 2: What was the process, like, you know, I mean, you
- 24:22Speaker 2: started putting out music in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty again
- 24:25Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, nineteen twenty. Yeah, people really started liking it.
- 24:28Speaker 2: At what point did labels start reaching out to.
- 24:31Speaker 3: You very immediately? Which was crazy. I put out a
- 24:39Speaker 3: song called Guy in January of twenty nineteen, and I
- 24:48Speaker 3: was it kind of immediately got on kind of this
- 24:52Speaker 3: Spotify new music algorithm, do you know how no clue,
- 25:00Speaker 3: no idea, And that was kind of like the beginning
- 25:04Speaker 3: of Spotify, like the playlisting boom. Yeah, but yeah, it
- 25:12Speaker 3: got in some sort of system and was being you know,
- 25:18Speaker 3: fed to people on their algorithm, and from that I
- 25:22Speaker 3: was reached out to by a couple anrs. One an
- 25:27Speaker 3: R being this anar Hill that I ended up signing
- 25:30Speaker 3: with at Island. He was the first an R that
- 25:31Speaker 3: ever reached out to me, which I felt was Yeah,
- 25:35Speaker 3: it was like fitting and really the signing process took
- 25:38Speaker 3: about a year and I ended up signing with him
- 25:43Speaker 3: in the end, but you know, I went through all
- 25:45Speaker 3: the rounds. I went to a lot of the major
- 25:49Speaker 3: labels I had meetings with. It was a very overwhelming
- 25:54Speaker 3: process for me. I don't know. It took about nine
- 25:57Speaker 3: months of me releasing music for me to really come
- 26:01Speaker 3: around on the idea of like, Okay, I think now's
- 26:04Speaker 3: the time to sign. And I signed because I just
- 26:10Speaker 3: wanted more support and I wanted to be able to
- 26:13Speaker 3: do like bigger things.
- 26:15Speaker 1: Yeah like open for Olivia Rodrigo. Yeah, like that some
- 26:20Speaker 1: wild ship.
- 26:21Speaker 3: That is wild. I just got off that tour and
- 26:24Speaker 3: that was that was a long tour, really fun, really crazy.
- 26:28Speaker 3: Learned a lot. Europe is huge, Germany is huge.
- 26:31Speaker 2: Oh and that's where you met up with Harry Justice.
- 26:33Speaker 2: Then yes, that's a cool way to reconnect with it. Yeah,
- 26:38Speaker 2: high school.
- 26:39Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really really crazy, really crazy a set of circumstances.
- 26:44Speaker 1: But yeah, how many months was that?
- 26:47Speaker 3: That was two months? Ten week tour? Wow, long tour.
- 26:51Speaker 3: That's a long tour.
- 26:52Speaker 1: What was it?
- 26:53Speaker 2: I mean it's weird because in a way you're you've
- 26:56Speaker 2: I mean I don't know. I mean you're at least
- 26:59Speaker 2: older than her, so and I imagine I have a
- 27:01Speaker 2: little more Yeah, I don't know.
- 27:03Speaker 1: Like what was that it? Like?
- 27:04Speaker 3: No, I mean she is a powerhouse. She like was
- 27:08Speaker 3: born I think to do this, to do this show. Yeah,
- 27:13Speaker 3: I mean she like she gets it done, and she's
- 27:16Speaker 3: so consistent, and it's it's it's crazy like what she
- 27:19Speaker 3: does every night, her shows two hours long. I mean,
- 27:22Speaker 3: and her voice just it's just crystal clear. I smoke
- 27:27Speaker 3: and drink, which is, you know, not awesome for the voice,
- 27:31Speaker 3: but also it's it's okay, my voice holds up. But yeah,
- 27:36Speaker 3: I mean, I think these opening tours, because I've also
- 27:40Speaker 3: opened for Lord and for Paramour and still Losing and
- 27:44Speaker 3: Cautious Clear, I've done a bunch of opening tours in
- 27:47Speaker 3: my time. They're really interesting, especially at the arena level,
- 27:54Speaker 3: because in those rooms they're so big, and you are
- 28:00Speaker 3: really feeling the depth of people not knowing who you
- 28:06Speaker 3: are at all. And I think that I've kind of
- 28:13Speaker 3: taken that on as a challenge for myself, not only
- 28:18Speaker 3: to like get them stoked for the main act, whether
- 28:25Speaker 3: it be like Paramour or Olivia or Lord whoever it is,
- 28:28Speaker 3: because that's really my job. When I go on an
- 28:30Speaker 3: opening tour, it's like I want to warm up the
- 28:32Speaker 3: crowd so that when Olivia steps on stage, they are
- 28:38Speaker 3: so gassed already.
- 28:39Speaker 1: Someone put up I think at least pretty near complete
- 28:43Speaker 1: recording of your of your set opening for her, and yeah,
- 28:46Speaker 1: washing it and you're like, I mean the audience.
- 28:49Speaker 2: Stretch literally stretched, yeah and shit for Olivia. Yeah, I
- 28:53Speaker 2: mean that's it was like James James Brown level of
- 28:55Speaker 2: commitment to the job.
- 28:57Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, I commit really really hard. And I
- 29:00Speaker 3: also just like for her crowd, especially to half of
- 29:03Speaker 3: that audience, it's their first concert ever, so they there
- 29:07Speaker 3: is an element of them feeling uncomfortable because they've never
- 29:11Speaker 3: been in a room like that before. So I kind
- 29:14Speaker 3: of took it upon me to get them warmed up
- 29:18Speaker 3: into the space, yeah, so that there could be like
- 29:22Speaker 3: a communal vibe which is. I mean, to me, a
- 29:26Speaker 3: show just should be a huge house party or just
- 29:31Speaker 3: like a huge essentially DIY experience. I just wanted to
- 29:35Speaker 3: feel like you're like super communal and like you're all together.
- 29:40Speaker 1: I want to be a hostess.
- 29:42Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm trying to host like truly. I yeah, and
- 29:45Speaker 3: that's that is probably why I like hosting, because I'm
- 29:50Speaker 3: just like I want everybody to have a good time.
- 29:53Speaker 3: But yeah, I think I learned. I learned or I
- 29:56Speaker 3: started really refining like how to expedite that process of
- 30:00Speaker 3: getting that audience like engaged and ready really quick and
- 30:06Speaker 3: like that is doing the exercises. It is like putting
- 30:09Speaker 3: your hands up and shaking around and working your hips
- 30:13Speaker 3: out and like singing like we do everything together. And
- 30:16Speaker 3: I think that it really does get people comfortable and
- 30:19Speaker 3: like in themselves and present and ready for that intensive
- 30:24Speaker 3: inexperience because concerts, I mean they're like they're intense. Yeah,
- 30:28Speaker 3: they're loud, they're emotional, they're you're packed together like really tightly.
- 30:33Speaker 3: And doing these opening gigs have has really helped me
- 30:38Speaker 3: refine that skill and know that it's something that I
- 30:42Speaker 3: want to do.
- 30:43Speaker 1: Yeah for people, you enjoy it? Yeah, how long?
- 30:45Speaker 2: Did it take you to like kind of warm up
- 30:47Speaker 2: to be in the warm up for Olivia like on
- 30:49Speaker 2: that tour. Hmm, when did you feel like you had
- 30:53Speaker 2: to die? I'm like, all right, now I know how
- 30:55Speaker 2: to get the audience like.
- 30:58Speaker 1: Oo.
- 30:58Speaker 3: I think maybe at show like ten, probably once we
- 31:02Speaker 3: got to London that was maybe like show eight. I
- 31:05Speaker 3: think I started I started really saying into it. But
- 31:10Speaker 3: I mean we did thirty one shows or thirty two
- 31:13Speaker 3: shows or something altogether for her, and I mean the
- 31:17Speaker 3: show kept morphing, like it's like if you you can't
- 31:20Speaker 3: just do the same thing every night. So I started,
- 31:23Speaker 3: you know, started morphing it. By the end of the show,
- 31:25Speaker 3: I was dropped, dropping f bombs and flashing my tips
- 31:29Speaker 3: to the crowd. That was very different from the beginning
- 31:33Speaker 3: of the show or of the lead anticipate.
- 31:36Speaker 2: I was gonna ask because, like you know, you were saying,
- 31:38Speaker 2: it was like a lot of people's first show like
- 31:39Speaker 2: concert liked So did you have the tailor cut out
- 31:43Speaker 2: certain songs maybe.
- 31:44Speaker 3: Or yeah, but you know, yeah, for like for my
- 31:48Speaker 3: song Toro, which is about having like this essentially like
- 31:52Speaker 3: a fuck fest in a hotel. I mean that is
- 31:57Speaker 3: what that song is about I obviously couldn't say that,
- 32:01Speaker 3: or I didn't want to lead with that with these
- 32:03Speaker 3: like children, so I ended up saying like, yo, you
- 32:09Speaker 3: guys ever had a crush, Like, raise your hand, if
- 32:12Speaker 3: you ever had a crush, raise your hand. If you
- 32:14Speaker 3: have a crush right now, raise your hand, if you've
- 32:16Speaker 3: ever been in love? And then I would kind of
- 32:18Speaker 3: be like, Okay, this song is about like the biggest,
- 32:22Speaker 3: fattest crush I've ever had. But then by the end
- 32:30Speaker 3: I would do this whole thing and I was like, yo,
- 32:32Speaker 3: if you ever had a crush, Okay, have you ever
- 32:35Speaker 3: been in love? Okay, who's never had a crush and
- 32:37Speaker 3: never been in love? Like hell yeah? And then I
- 32:40Speaker 3: turn around and be like, all right, this song's about
- 32:42Speaker 3: fucking in a hotel and it's funny. It's It was
- 32:48Speaker 3: funny too because at a certain point we were in
- 32:50Speaker 3: all these countries and I realized that English is not
- 32:54Speaker 3: their first language. Point and I was like, Oh, it
- 32:59Speaker 3: doesn't really matter, fine, I could just like say it.
- 33:01Speaker 2: And I think their sensibilities are like way different too
- 33:03Speaker 2: than like American audiences.
- 33:05Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you're up. This is such an interesting
- 33:07Speaker 3: it's such an interesting like market to dip your toes
- 33:12Speaker 3: into as a American because I you just never It's
- 33:17Speaker 3: like you there's there's so much of every country's culture
- 33:22Speaker 3: that you just are never gonna understand. But I was
- 33:26Speaker 3: trying my best to kind of catch vibe. But it's
- 33:29Speaker 3: it's it's crazy. It was, it was crazy, And I
- 33:35Speaker 3: would love to go back and actually like be able
- 33:38Speaker 3: to kind of be in those countries a little bit longer,
- 33:41Speaker 3: just to understand more about the people and more about
- 33:45Speaker 3: the culture and what they like. But yeah, I mean
- 33:49Speaker 3: the audience's country to country were drastically different.
- 33:52Speaker 1: Wow.
- 33:53Speaker 3: Yeah, just as as a collective.
- 33:56Speaker 1: Whole, Like what were the differences you noticed?
- 33:59Speaker 3: Italy loose as hell? They are just rowdy as all. Shit,
- 34:05Speaker 3: I cannot even describe to you. I felt like my
- 34:08Speaker 3: open been in act brought down their energy. It was like,
- 34:15Speaker 3: and those are my people, so like I get it,
- 34:17Speaker 3: Like I am, I'm half Sicilian, like i I'm I
- 34:21Speaker 3: ride I ride for I ride for them.
- 34:25Speaker 2: Yeah, they were you could have matched their free.
- 34:30Speaker 3: I could not. I was trying, really, I was really trying.
- 34:33Speaker 3: My bath. I went I went hard that show.
- 34:36Speaker 1: I was like progressively just harder and harder.
- 34:38Speaker 3: Oh my god, and it was at least ninety five
- 34:41Speaker 3: degrees in the venue. There was no ac wow, it
- 34:45Speaker 3: was it was it was a time that was a show. Yeah.
- 34:49Speaker 3: And then like I don't know, like you are in
- 34:54Speaker 3: Switzerland and they're very polite and they're like a little
- 34:59Speaker 3: bit more stiff, and then you're in I don't know
- 35:03Speaker 3: if I should even say this, but then you're in
- 35:04Speaker 3: Germany and they love an order, they love taking orders.
- 35:08Speaker 1: Oh.
- 35:09Speaker 3: And then the UK is different, different because you know
- 35:12Speaker 3: there there were speaking the same language still and that's
- 35:17Speaker 3: just like a. I mean, it's it's so crazy. I
- 35:20Speaker 3: don't even know. Yeah, I don't even know.
- 35:22Speaker 1: How were you too much for the orderly Germany German audience?
- 35:26Speaker 3: No, I don't think so. I think that they they
- 35:28Speaker 3: warmed up to me. I mean the the handshaking and
- 35:31Speaker 3: the hips hips swiveling always work.
- 35:34Speaker 1: It's everyone right, yeah.
- 35:35Speaker 3: And I did this like big vocal warm up with
- 35:37Speaker 3: an oh and everybody can sing an a oh yeah,
- 35:42Speaker 3: so you know I was I was trying my best.
- 35:45Speaker 2: That's that's amazing because you get to like debrief with
- 35:47Speaker 2: like Olivia at all, like about playing those kinds of venues.
- 35:52Speaker 3: Yeah, we debriefed a little bit. I mean we towards
- 35:56Speaker 3: the beginning of the tour. I remember having a conversation
- 35:58Speaker 3: with her being like, WHOA, Like Europe's different, dude, and
- 36:03Speaker 3: she was like yeah, She's like yeah, I know.
- 36:07Speaker 1: She was noticing it too.
- 36:08Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, she she had done I think she on
- 36:11Speaker 3: her last album Sour, I think she had done a
- 36:17Speaker 3: European run and I think she yeah, she was. Yeah,
- 36:21Speaker 3: but I had never done as extensive as a run
- 36:24Speaker 3: as we just did, so it was all kind of
- 36:27Speaker 3: it was new to me and I was kind of
- 36:29Speaker 3: just soaking it up.
- 36:30Speaker 1: Man, that'd be that seems like a fun bill though,
- 36:32Speaker 1: you know, Yeah it was.
- 36:34Speaker 3: Actually it was so fun. And I watched her show
- 36:36Speaker 3: almost every single night, Like I loved the show. Yeah,
- 36:38Speaker 3: it was so fun. I got to be really really
- 36:41Speaker 3: good friends with her crew and her dancers and her band,
- 36:44Speaker 3: so like we were just having a blast.
- 36:46Speaker 1: Was such as a great band. Yeah, oh my.
- 36:49Speaker 3: God, they're sick. They're all so talented, they're all women,
- 36:52Speaker 3: are non binary, and they're just I mean I've never
- 36:56Speaker 3: been in a situation where like it's so female heavy. Yeah,
- 37:03Speaker 3: in the live space, And that was a really really
- 37:08Speaker 3: cool to exist in for a second.
- 37:11Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I guess I think that I was
- 37:13Speaker 2: was looking at the credits for for your album, new
- 37:16Speaker 2: album and your other album. It does seem like a
- 37:18Speaker 2: lot of your collaborators are like men.
- 37:22Speaker 3: Yeah, I work with a lot of dudes.
- 37:24Speaker 1: There.
- 37:24Speaker 3: There are a lot of men around.
- 37:27Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, in general in this room and outside.
- 37:30Speaker 3: Yeah. And you know, I I don't have much to
- 37:35Speaker 3: say about it other than all these people that I
- 37:37Speaker 3: work with are I love them all. They're all great
- 37:41Speaker 3: people and regardless of them being men or women or whoever.
- 37:46Speaker 3: I really I surround myself with people who I love
- 37:50Speaker 3: and trust. And I work with a lot of men.
- 37:53Speaker 3: I work with a lot of women work with I
- 37:57Speaker 3: just worked with a lot of people.
- 37:58Speaker 2: Yeah, last album, in this album did some work with
- 38:00Speaker 2: Kenny Beats. How did that come to be?
- 38:05Speaker 3: Oh my god, Kenny? How did we meet? I think
- 38:09Speaker 3: we met through an Instagram DM, as most people do nowadays.
- 38:17Speaker 1: Which way you hit him or you hit me?
- 38:20Speaker 3: Which was cool because I had been you know, I
- 38:23Speaker 3: think the Cave was really big at the time, and
- 38:26Speaker 3: I had been yeah, super sick show and I'd been
- 38:29Speaker 3: watching that and he invited me over to his studio
- 38:34Speaker 3: and I just kind of went and hung out with
- 38:36Speaker 3: him and we made a song. That first day, I
- 38:39Speaker 3: was really shy. I remember. I think at the time
- 38:44Speaker 3: I was kind of used to going everywhere with Jared,
- 38:48Speaker 3: and I think I didn't bring Jared to that session,
- 38:51Speaker 3: and I just remember being shy and quiet. And then
- 38:56Speaker 3: the following day I brought Jared. Yeah, we had two
- 39:01Speaker 3: days together and then we made another song, and yeah,
- 39:06Speaker 3: then we've just like become boys. I yeah, I love
- 39:10Speaker 3: him and him and his whole team like are literally
- 39:13Speaker 3: like family to me. Like I really they were like
- 39:17Speaker 3: some of the first people in this industry to kind
- 39:20Speaker 3: of like really welcome me with open arms and be like, yo,
- 39:24Speaker 3: we're here to like support you. That's dope. And they're
- 39:29Speaker 3: really They're really awesome and like really have lifted me
- 39:34Speaker 3: up and kind of have been my champions for a
- 39:41Speaker 3: long time, and I love them for that.
- 39:44Speaker 2: After this last quick break, we'll be back with the
- 39:46Speaker 2: rest of my conversation with Remy Wolf. We're back with
- 39:53Speaker 2: the rest of my conversation with Remy Wolf.
- 39:57Speaker 1: I feel like I lost the thread.
- 39:58Speaker 2: I wanted to go back and find out like the
- 40:03Speaker 2: most like was it that session with your friend Jared
- 40:07Speaker 2: when he came to state you're living, like trying to
- 40:09Speaker 2: pinpoint when, like when your music start to sound in
- 40:12Speaker 2: the way it does now, which is like it's seriously,
- 40:15Speaker 2: it's like, I mean, I don't know, like maybe I'm tripping,
- 40:17Speaker 2: but if to me it sounds so original, and it
- 40:19Speaker 2: sounds like the finished product differs a lot from like
- 40:24Speaker 2: the original song that you write, maybe or at least
- 40:29Speaker 2: some of the time.
- 40:30Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean me and Jared, I think have a
- 40:33Speaker 3: really special creative relationship where we are kind of able
- 40:38Speaker 3: to fill in each other's gaps. And I think we
- 40:42Speaker 3: figured that out when he came to stay with me
- 40:45Speaker 3: during those during that week in twenty eighteen. I think
- 40:50Speaker 3: it was. But he's an incredible instrumentalist. He knows how
- 40:57Speaker 3: to record, and he is super I mean, he's on
- 41:06Speaker 3: his own production journey and he's like doing amazing things
- 41:10Speaker 3: with so many different people now. But at the time,
- 41:14Speaker 3: we both like had no idea what we were doing,
- 41:17Speaker 3: but like enough to get by. And I think in
- 41:22Speaker 3: the beginning that originality I think partially stemmed from us
- 41:28Speaker 3: having a very locked in sense of taste together combined
- 41:36Speaker 3: with us sometimes not even knowing how to like execute that.
- 41:41Speaker 3: So we were kind of just like freestyling and free balling,
- 41:46Speaker 3: and we're creating these beats that sounded interesting and created
- 41:52Speaker 3: these songs that sounded interesting and different and unique, and
- 41:56Speaker 3: they were because we didn't know what the fuck we
- 41:59Speaker 3: were doing, and we were kind of just like doing
- 42:03Speaker 3: what we could with what we had, which at the
- 42:05Speaker 3: time was like a focus right interface and like a
- 42:10Speaker 3: shitty mic that I had in my room and a
- 42:12Speaker 3: shitty guitar that I had just bought off of Craigslist.
- 42:17Speaker 1: And is that what you did guy on? Yes? Wow?
- 42:21Speaker 3: Like the first two EPs were essentially just that set up,
- 42:24Speaker 3: like so bare bones in my bedroom or in like
- 42:28Speaker 3: an Airbnb that Jared was staying in, And so I mean,
- 42:35Speaker 3: we were just making it happen by the skin of
- 42:38Speaker 3: our teeth. But we were so driven a lot with that. Yeah,
- 42:43Speaker 3: we were so driven. And I think that sometimes when
- 42:46Speaker 3: you have nothing, you're forced to be really creative. And
- 42:52Speaker 3: I think that's kind of where my vocal harmony, layering
- 43:01Speaker 3: instrumentation came from. Because we didn't have all these instruments,
- 43:05Speaker 3: we didn't have a bunch of syns, and I very
- 43:07Speaker 3: quickly knew that I wasn't a huge fan of like
- 43:12Speaker 3: MIDI like plug in sense, Like I just never loved
- 43:16Speaker 3: the vibe. And there's some songs in the early days
- 43:19Speaker 3: where we were using like ominosphere or something like that.
- 43:23Speaker 3: I was always was kind of of this mindset of
- 43:26Speaker 3: wanting to create everything ourselves, like all the sounds at least,
- 43:32Speaker 3: which kind of led me to create this really intricate
- 43:36Speaker 3: and detailed vocal style where I was building essentially an
- 43:42Speaker 3: instrument out of my layering my voice, which I think
- 43:48Speaker 3: what made my early shit sound really different from a
- 43:53Speaker 3: lot of other stuff was that, like I was really
- 43:56Speaker 3: reliant on harmonies and almost making my vocals sound like
- 44:03Speaker 3: a synthesizer in their own.
- 44:05Speaker 1: Right is a particular way you learned to do that.
- 44:09Speaker 3: We were just experimenting, like truly, there was nothing that
- 44:13Speaker 3: we were really basing it off of. I think I've
- 44:15Speaker 3: always been a huge lover of harmonies, and I think
- 44:20Speaker 3: we figured out that layering my voice on top of
- 44:23Speaker 3: itself sounded cool because there's something about, uh, I have
- 44:30Speaker 3: a really kind of piercing tone, Like it's it's very
- 44:35Speaker 3: it's it's strong.
- 44:36Speaker 1: You have a strong voice for sure.
- 44:38Speaker 3: Yeah, it's strong, and so when you layer it it
- 44:41Speaker 3: sounds almost like an organ or something. It's so it's
- 44:45Speaker 3: like has that kind of honkiness that an organ would have,
- 44:50Speaker 3: and I think we just kind of leaned into that.
- 44:52Speaker 3: So yeah, a lot of those those og tunes we
- 44:55Speaker 3: were just it was so bare bones, and I think
- 44:57Speaker 3: that is what made it so that we had to
- 45:00Speaker 3: be so creative and innovate cool.
- 45:03Speaker 2: I mean, one of the things too, that's really interesting
- 45:05Speaker 2: about it is like it doesn't sound like it definitely
- 45:08Speaker 2: doesn't sound like it comes out out of because it's
- 45:12Speaker 2: i think lyrically in the forms and everything you're doing,
- 45:15Speaker 2: and like the way it's arranged or so unique, it
- 45:18Speaker 2: doesn't really sound like it shares a relationship with pop music.
- 45:23Speaker 2: But then you also do borrow some like you have
- 45:26Speaker 2: hooks that are just like sound like insanely ridiculous pop books,
- 45:29Speaker 2: you know whatever, you're able to like kind of like
- 45:31Speaker 2: blend so much stuff.
- 45:34Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
- 45:35Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it does sound like maybe at some
- 45:37Speaker 2: point in that four year sort of you know where
- 45:41Speaker 2: you're just were simmering, like I.
- 45:45Speaker 1: Don't know, you picked up some pop sensibilities too.
- 45:47Speaker 3: You know, Like yeah, I mean I've always. I mean
- 45:49Speaker 3: I've always loved pop. I mean I loved old pop,
- 45:56Speaker 3: you know, seventies pop, sixties pop, uh, nineties pop, which
- 46:03Speaker 3: was grunge. I think I've always loved big hooks, catchy songs,
- 46:13Speaker 3: and I think I've always gravitated towards towards music that
- 46:18Speaker 3: like can stand the test of time in that way
- 46:21Speaker 3: just by like being a great song or a great
- 46:23Speaker 3: melody or like a great vibe.
- 46:27Speaker 1: What are the songs for you that are like the
- 46:30Speaker 1: holy grail of that?
- 46:32Speaker 3: Oh my god, oh god, let's see holy grail of
- 46:38Speaker 3: a great vibe? Yes, I love Sugar by Chaka Khan, which.
- 46:45Speaker 1: Is also seen in Chaka Kan on the Way Here.
- 46:47Speaker 3: But Shaka is she's like one of my biggest inspirations.
- 46:53Speaker 3: She's amazing because she's like a belter singer who's like
- 46:57Speaker 3: very free and smoke cigarettes and but is just is
- 47:06Speaker 3: so incredible at her instrument, but it's also an incredible improviser.
- 47:11Speaker 3: And you can like really tell in her music that
- 47:14Speaker 3: she is like living yeah and having fun yeah, and
- 47:18Speaker 3: it's like coming out of her naturally. And so I've
- 47:23Speaker 3: always been like really really inspired by.
- 47:26Speaker 2: Her, even when she I was listening like coming up here.
- 47:28Speaker 2: A song called actually was inspired. I was listening to
- 47:31Speaker 2: frog Rock and I was listened. I listened to this
- 47:34Speaker 2: like I love the sense soul on that. So then
- 47:36Speaker 2: I went to photo ID, which has a great Sin
- 47:37Speaker 2: solo and then made me think of a great I'm
- 47:40Speaker 2: incidentally wearing a great Herbie since solo on a Shaka
- 47:43Speaker 2: song M called the Melody lingers On.
- 47:46Speaker 1: And now I was like, the fuck who sings jazz
- 47:48Speaker 1: like this?
- 47:49Speaker 2: Like it was such like like like like it's just
- 47:52Speaker 2: she makes it sound so fun and like no one
- 47:55Speaker 2: brings that to that tradition you know these days in
- 47:59Speaker 2: my view, you know, like that level of fun that
- 48:01Speaker 2: she brings to it.
- 48:02Speaker 3: I agree. I mean she's like a funk She's like
- 48:05Speaker 3: a funk machine. Like she's like the Lady funk machine.
- 48:08Speaker 3: And I really love her. Got a chance to holler
- 48:12Speaker 3: yet or no no, uh not not really. I maybe
- 48:19Speaker 3: I should try a little bit harder to make the connect.
- 48:21Speaker 3: But when I was at school, she actually came through
- 48:25Speaker 3: my freshman year maybe and she was We had this
- 48:29Speaker 3: class called pop Forum. It was every Friday for two
- 48:33Speaker 3: hours and essentially they would just like bring in an
- 48:35Speaker 3: industry professional and they would either get interviewed or something
- 48:41Speaker 3: of the sort. And Shaka came and they selected for
- 48:46Speaker 3: singers to sing Shaka songs for her, and I was
- 48:50Speaker 3: not selected, but I I was like sitting very close
- 48:54Speaker 3: to her and she was so so incredible and so kind,
- 48:58Speaker 3: and I remember at the end she got up and saying,
- 49:00Speaker 3: tell me something good. And it was the most mind
- 49:05Speaker 3: blowing fucking performance I'd ever seen in my life. She
- 49:08Speaker 3: like was just so relaxed and just soaring. I I mean,
- 49:17Speaker 3: I was just like completely taken by her. Yeah, she's
- 49:20Speaker 3: like a powerful, powerful lady.
- 49:23Speaker 1: That's a that's a hard song to do like a
- 49:25Speaker 1: cappella too, because oh my.
- 49:26Speaker 3: God, I mean it's just her songs are so challenging
- 49:29Speaker 3: to sing. She's an incredible singer, Like what the hell?
- 49:33Speaker 2: Yeah, Shaka's insane man and Rufus too, Rufus and the
- 49:39Speaker 2: solo stuff. I guess it may Oh you know, it's
- 49:42Speaker 2: thinking about Shack. I'm thinking about Prince and your song.
- 49:45Speaker 2: You have a song on here called.
- 49:48Speaker 1: Cream and Cherry's and Cream, which.
- 49:52Speaker 2: Made me listening to us like not since Prince, like
- 49:55Speaker 2: like ballad at Dorothy Parker has like a cheating song.
- 49:59Speaker 1: It's so incredible, like sounds so fucking ent. It's like,
- 50:03Speaker 1: what is it?
- 50:04Speaker 3: Thank you?
- 50:05Speaker 1: Yeah, which I assume that's what about. I don't know that.
- 50:06Speaker 3: It is so spot on, it's it's like my Mistress song. Yeah,
- 50:12Speaker 3: thank you for saying that. That song was really kind
- 50:16Speaker 3: of a magnum opus of mine and like getting it.
- 50:22Speaker 3: We just wanted it to be kind of this psychedelic
- 50:28Speaker 3: dream movie of like I wanted it to completely take
- 50:32Speaker 3: you to a different world sonically, and we spent so
- 50:36Speaker 3: long like crafting every single little detail in that tune.
- 50:40Speaker 3: I mean for that song, I was really I was,
- 50:44Speaker 3: I mean lyrically very inspired by uh, Mistress Vibes that
- 50:50Speaker 3: I've Yeah, that's one of my friends, Mistress Vibes star. No,
- 50:59Speaker 3: I mean I've you know, I've had experiences in my
- 51:01Speaker 3: life that have been slightly unpleasant in that realm of
- 51:05Speaker 3: which I won't go into here. But the first part
- 51:08Speaker 3: of that song that I had was the the pre chorus,
- 51:11Speaker 3: which goes, is it wrong, Oh fearful in this like
- 51:16Speaker 3: kind of deep like like god godly or not just
- 51:23Speaker 3: like deep kind of scary wizard god type, like a yeah,
- 51:28Speaker 3: operatic wizard in the sky, and that kind of took
- 51:32Speaker 3: me on this journey of really trying to get in
- 51:35Speaker 3: the mind of like led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and
- 51:40Speaker 3: like kind of where where they were writing from in Yeah,
- 51:45Speaker 3: I mean they loved Lord of the Rings and they liked,
- 51:50Speaker 3: you know, I mythology, Yeah, mythology like that. So I
- 51:54Speaker 3: kind of when I went back in to write the verses,
- 51:58Speaker 3: which was a while later, which is actually not a
- 52:00Speaker 3: typical process for me. Normally, I write the whole song
- 52:04Speaker 3: first day and it's that's kind of set in stone,
- 52:07Speaker 3: and then we kind of go back in and finalized
- 52:09Speaker 3: production stuff. But for this song, it kind of it
- 52:12Speaker 3: took it was a journey to kind of get everything
- 52:14Speaker 3: to walk together. But I don't know, like in the verses,
- 52:18Speaker 3: I'm like you fly morning dove way above my terrain,
- 52:21Speaker 3: And I was kind of just trying to think about, like,
- 52:24Speaker 3: you know, what would what would led Zeppelin's talk about
- 52:27Speaker 3: or how would they talk about this, how would they
- 52:31Speaker 3: talk about this these mistress vibes in their in their terminology,
- 52:38Speaker 3: And I kind of was just like, all right, I'm
- 52:40Speaker 3: gonna talk about expansive like nature metaphors. So yeah, that
- 52:47Speaker 3: song is me really trying to tap into some like
- 52:51Speaker 3: staple psychedelia.
- 52:54Speaker 1: That's funny because I guess, I guess, I mean, I guess.
- 52:57Speaker 2: Robert Plant wrote about that from the opposite perspous thing
- 53:00Speaker 2: about like since I've been loving you, he goes open
- 53:03Speaker 2: my front door or my back door slam must be
- 53:05Speaker 2: one of those new fangled back door man.
- 53:07Speaker 1: He's like talking to this lady. Oh my god, he's
- 53:10Speaker 1: just more directive about it.
- 53:11Speaker 3: Yeah. I was a little bit more uh more heady.
- 53:14Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the more. But it's a great it's
- 53:18Speaker 1: a cool song.
- 53:19Speaker 2: You know, when it took me if you listened before,
- 53:21Speaker 2: like I wasn't really don't really listen for lyrics all
- 53:23Speaker 2: that much. So after if he listens, I started hearing
- 53:25Speaker 2: the lyrics, I was like, oh, ship, yeah.
- 53:27Speaker 1: It's it's a it's a bold choice, Yes it is.
- 53:31Speaker 1: Has I gotten you in trouble?
- 53:32Speaker 3: Like, no, not yet. I'm very conscious of that. I'm
- 53:41Speaker 3: really conscious of not speaking about anything or anybody in
- 53:49Speaker 3: a way that's going to piss them off, especially if
- 53:51Speaker 3: there are people in my life that are close to
- 53:53Speaker 3: me and still there and that I love and I
- 53:57Speaker 3: mean I mean a lot of times, you know, I'm
- 54:00Speaker 3: writing about romantic relationships sometimes friendships. I'm like a really
- 54:09Speaker 3: strong believer in being friends with your exes. So I'm
- 54:12Speaker 3: like friends with all of my exes, like they're all
- 54:14Speaker 3: around or like part of the fan.
- 54:15Speaker 1: What does that do for you? What is that? Like?
- 54:17Speaker 1: What's the philosophy behind it?
- 54:20Speaker 3: I just I there's a reason that I was with them,
- 54:26Speaker 3: with all of them, and I mean a lot of
- 54:30Speaker 3: them are friends with my friends, and I to me,
- 54:35Speaker 3: there's no reason unless something really really bad happened. There's
- 54:39Speaker 3: like no reason for like a long term animosity to
- 54:42Speaker 3: like ruin you know, the piece between the larger friend
- 54:45Speaker 3: group and just like I don't have to avoid someone.
- 54:49Speaker 3: I'd rather just put our ship in the past and
- 54:51Speaker 3: be able to like be homies. And I've been able to,
- 54:57Speaker 3: you know, do that. And with most of them, there's
- 55:04Speaker 3: a couple that, you know, are exceptions. Yeah, there's some
- 55:08Speaker 3: that are out of my life life, probably for good.
- 55:12Speaker 3: But that's it's a that's a complex it's a complex thing.
- 55:16Speaker 3: It's a complex thing to be writing about people in
- 55:19Speaker 3: your life or experience that you've experiences that you've gone through,
- 55:26Speaker 3: and there's a balance there.
- 55:29Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, which I guess maybe we should return then
- 55:33Speaker 2: to Toro and Alone in Miami. Not necessarily with those
- 55:39Speaker 2: who that's about or anything, but obviously very personal experience
- 55:43Speaker 2: is how do you And there's a lot of like
- 55:46Speaker 2: intricate detail in Alone in Miami, like the the hula
- 55:50Speaker 2: girl on the dash or what you know, or I
- 55:52Speaker 2: assume it was on the dash because you said you're
- 55:54Speaker 2: in an uber.
- 55:57Speaker 1: Did you?
- 55:58Speaker 3: Yeah? I wasn't an uber?
- 56:01Speaker 1: Did you say that?
- 56:02Speaker 2: No, s okay ship, But you give so many details
- 56:05Speaker 2: in the song that I did start to like you
- 56:07Speaker 2: picture it. I start to pick sure, I guess it
- 56:09Speaker 2: painted an accurate picture for me. Yeah, but like, did
- 56:12Speaker 2: you just remember like when you wrote this, were you
- 56:14Speaker 2: in that moment being like, I'm gonna write a song
- 56:16Speaker 2: about this, and theref I'm gonna remember this feels like
- 56:18Speaker 2: a moment that's potent in some way, and so therefo
- 56:21Speaker 2: I'm gonna remember the details and write about it, or.
- 56:23Speaker 1: Because how the fuck did you remember all that stuff?
- 56:25Speaker 1: There's so many random details.
- 56:26Speaker 3: I know. I think that the week that I was
- 56:29Speaker 3: in Miami was just honestly like this wild life changing
- 56:35Speaker 3: experience for me, just in the sense that it was
- 56:37Speaker 3: so it was so memorable because it was it was
- 56:42Speaker 3: out of a fever dream. I don't know if you've
- 56:44Speaker 3: been you've probably been to Miami. Have you been there?
- 56:47Speaker 2: Just there for the first time in a long time
- 56:48Speaker 2: in October, and it was like in and out and
- 56:51Speaker 2: it was just it wasn't It wasn't for me.
- 56:52Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a wild place.
- 56:55Speaker 3: And I was there for Art Basil, and Art Basil
- 56:58Speaker 3: is you know this. It's like this art festival where
- 57:01Speaker 3: people come in from all around the world and there's
- 57:03Speaker 3: art galleries all around the city. Even more importantly than that,
- 57:07Speaker 3: there's crazy parties all around the city and almost every
- 57:11Speaker 3: building there's like fashion parties, art parties, brand parties. Like
- 57:16Speaker 3: everybody's hosting a party and they're all nuts and everybody
- 57:19Speaker 3: has alcohol, cocaine, powdered substances.
- 57:25Speaker 1: Miami.
- 57:26Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Miami, I mean, and I'd never been and
- 57:28Speaker 3: I was there by myself, and I was there to
- 57:32Speaker 3: attend a Playboy party. I was there for Playboys and
- 57:39Speaker 3: I went there four days early, which I formed to attend. Yeah,
- 57:46Speaker 3: it's like just to hang and so I went there.
- 57:50Speaker 3: I was flying from London to I flew from London,
- 57:54Speaker 3: and I was in London for about three weeks because
- 57:59Speaker 3: I was there on tour, and the tour ended up
- 58:02Speaker 3: getting canceled because of COVID and I couldn't come home
- 58:05Speaker 3: because of COVID, so I was just there for a
- 58:06Speaker 3: long time. And then I flew into Miami and I
- 58:11Speaker 3: just had these four days alone meeting all these new people,
- 58:16Speaker 3: doing drugs, eating kubanos, being really existential, like on the
- 58:23Speaker 3: beach by myself, listening to Liz Fair.
- 58:25Speaker 1: Like.
- 58:26Speaker 3: I remember everything so vividly from that trip. I don't
- 58:29Speaker 3: know why. It just was like so crazy wow, and
- 58:34Speaker 3: I'd know. I mean, at the end of the trip,
- 58:36Speaker 3: I had no I wasn't like, oh, this needs to
- 58:39Speaker 3: be a song.
- 58:39Speaker 2: But so like two years later, when you're writing it,
- 58:42Speaker 2: you just remembered, like all of that just came flooding.
- 58:45Speaker 3: But I think I wrote it maybe four months later,
- 58:47Speaker 3: maybe five months later, okay, And I remember it was
- 58:50Speaker 3: with Jack and Eaton, and I remember the first thing
- 58:53Speaker 3: that I sang. I started playing these chords, and I
- 58:55Speaker 3: think the first thing that I said sang was alone
- 58:57Speaker 3: in Miami with you there, and then I was like, wait,
- 59:00Speaker 3: we should write a song about my Miami trip. And
- 59:04Speaker 3: then essentially I was just telling them. I essentially told
- 59:08Speaker 3: them what I just told you, and I was just
- 59:11Speaker 3: telling them all the details of what happened. And at
- 59:14Speaker 3: a certain point, I was just like, wait, we literally
- 59:16Speaker 3: don't need to do anything except for tell exactly the
- 59:20Speaker 3: story of like what happened there, Like, we don't need
- 59:22Speaker 3: to make up anything, Like there's nothing that even needs
- 59:25Speaker 3: to be embellished. So essentially that's what we did. Yeah,
- 59:29Speaker 3: the song was was written, it was written for it
- 59:32Speaker 3: essentially wrote itself.
- 59:33Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite songs on the album. So
- 59:35Speaker 1: thank you. Glad you made that call. Glad you ended
- 59:40Speaker 1: up in Miami too.
- 59:41Speaker 3: Me too. Yeah, I mean that's a crazy trip.
- 59:47Speaker 2: Anyway, Congratulations on your album.
- 59:50Speaker 1: It's really good. Thank you.
- 59:53Speaker 2: I'm glad I got to spend the last couple of
- 59:56Speaker 2: weeks with it. It's been fun listening. Yeah, I'm glad
- 59:58Speaker 2: we got a chance to talk about it.
- 59:59Speaker 3: Yeah, me too. Thanks for thanks for sitting down with me.
- 1:00:06Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Remy Wolf for talking to me about
- 1:00:07Speaker 2: getting her start and about our new album, Big Ideas.
- 1:00:11Speaker 2: Be sure to check out the video of today's episode
- 1:00:13Speaker 2: at YouTube dot com. Slash Broken Record Podcast and check
- 1:00:16Speaker 2: the link in the episode description for a playlist of
- 1:00:18Speaker 2: all of our favorite.
- 1:00:19Speaker 1: Remy Wolf music.
- 1:00:21Speaker 2: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
- 1:00:24Speaker 2: broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our
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- 1:00:31Speaker 2: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
- 1:00:34Speaker 2: marketing help from Mark Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
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- 1:01:03Speaker 2: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.