Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Bon Iver: Broken Record Classic

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Bon Iver: Broken Record Classic · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. In two thousand and six, Justin Vernon started his
0:22
Speaker 1: solo project, Bonivae, after the end of a romantic relationship
0:26
Speaker 1: and the breakup of his college band. He recorded that
0:30
Speaker 1: first album for Emma Forever Ago alone over three months
0:34
Speaker 1: and his dad's hunting cabin deep in the woods of
0:37
Speaker 1: western Wisconsin. His setup consisted of a small recording rig
0:41
Speaker 1: and a couple of guitars. For sustenance, he d a
0:44
Speaker 1: stash of fresh venison and watched old DVDs of Northern Exposure.
0:48
Speaker 1: That debut was released in two thousand and eight to
0:51
Speaker 1: critical acclaim. The album attracted the attention of other boundary
0:55
Speaker 1: pushing artists like Kanye West and James Blake, both of
0:58
Speaker 1: whom went on to become collaborators of Justin Vernon's In
1:02
Speaker 1: the years since his debut release, Justin's music has evolved dramatically.
1:07
Speaker 1: For one, Bonivere is no longer just a solo project.
1:10
Speaker 1: It's still centered around Justin, but it now includes a
1:13
Speaker 1: bunch of other musicians and collaborators, including his engineer Chris Messina. Today,
1:19
Speaker 1: we'll revisit a conversation Rick Rubin had with Justin Vernon
1:22
Speaker 1: and Chris Messina In twenty nineteen, Justin talks about how
1:26
Speaker 1: allowing himself to be bored without any guilt led him
1:29
Speaker 1: to creating his now classic debut. He also talks about
1:32
Speaker 1: how the harshness of the Wisconsin winters, along with the
1:35
Speaker 1: absence of any big city thrills, first influenced his sound,
1:40
Speaker 1: and Justin explains his unwavering love for his favorite song
1:44
Speaker 1: of all time, Fugitive by the Indigo Girls. This is
1:50
Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Michon.
1:55
Speaker 1: Here's Justin Vernon and his engineer Chris Messina in conversation
1:58
Speaker 1: with Rick Rubin. They dive right into the kind of
2:01
Speaker 1: talk being at Shangri La inspires about building a live
2:05
Speaker 1: work studio space far from the rest of the world.
2:09
Speaker 1: Tell me about your place. I've heard great things about it. Well,
2:12
Speaker 1: I me and Chris have been working it for many years.
2:15
Speaker 1: It's under construction right now because we kind of we
2:17
Speaker 1: hit a point where we needed to to spread out
2:20
Speaker 1: a little bit. Tell me the whole story of how
2:22
Speaker 1: it How did it come to pass? The house I
2:24
Speaker 1: grew up in, it's only three miles from there, and
2:27
Speaker 1: it's uh, my brother found it and it's on tape.
2:31
Speaker 1: Ten acres, you know, super cheap and old. It was
2:33
Speaker 1: an old, like seventies ranch house and that had indoor
2:36
Speaker 1: pool and they had a yeah awesome. Yeah, we end
2:40
Speaker 1: up making that our makeshift live room for many years.
2:44
Speaker 1: But it's not ten acres in the woods, and it's
2:45
Speaker 1: like my shit, you know. Yeah, and so but we
2:49
Speaker 1: sort of did it d I Y for a while,
2:51
Speaker 1: and then I found Chris and took him off of
2:53
Speaker 1: a production touring thing and got him out there to
2:59
Speaker 1: just basically make it proper, you know. And so we've
3:02
Speaker 1: been kind of out of the d I Y zone
3:04
Speaker 1: and more and like a trying to make a proper
3:06
Speaker 1: tracking space for about eight seven year years. Now you've
3:09
Speaker 1: been out there, I guess, Chris, how would you say
3:11
Speaker 1: it changed from its DIY incarnation to the current one.
3:16
Speaker 1: I feel like more less stuff falls off the walls
3:18
Speaker 1: now maybe or something. Yeah, I'm not the one putting
3:21
Speaker 1: stuff on the walls that. Yeah. I feel like we
3:23
Speaker 1: did like a lot of teear tottering kind of before
3:25
Speaker 1: I got there, and then even still after I did
3:27
Speaker 1: just baby steps when we really just needed to do
3:30
Speaker 1: one kind of big move. Yeah, But I think it's
3:34
Speaker 1: just been getting the recording spaces, you know, more attractive sounding,
3:38
Speaker 1: and then also improving all of the wellness spaces and
3:41
Speaker 1: just the vibe of the place, because that's you know,
3:44
Speaker 1: made a pretty good record with just a pretty cruddy studio. Yeah,
3:48
Speaker 1: and then it's because the vibe is there, you know,
3:51
Speaker 1: which obviously you understand pretty well. Yeah. Absolutely, And when
3:55
Speaker 1: I just lived there too, like I lived there for
3:57
Speaker 1: many years until I live in the guesthouse up back,
4:01
Speaker 1: which is cool, but I'm I'm gonna build a house
4:03
Speaker 1: next door actually, but just being in the studio and
4:07
Speaker 1: it not being set up for really being having like
4:10
Speaker 1: a home the home base or a really I don't know,
4:15
Speaker 1: any kind of wellness vibe. It was just recording making music,
4:18
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. Yeah, So we went through like the
4:20
Speaker 1: different iterations too, of like not knowing if we wanted
4:24
Speaker 1: to be a commercial space or if we were going
4:25
Speaker 1: to be a private space or just justin or what
4:28
Speaker 1: the deal was going to be. And yeah, so we
4:29
Speaker 1: went through all those different versions. We had to do
4:32
Speaker 1: that to learn what we didn't like basically. Yeah, and
4:35
Speaker 1: it's really just better off to be kind of a
4:37
Speaker 1: friends and family zone and us it's it's the best
4:40
Speaker 1: version of it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's pretty much how
4:43
Speaker 1: we do it too. It's yea. And originally I didn't.
4:46
Speaker 1: I didn't think anybody else would work here but us.
4:49
Speaker 1: But then I was away and friend asked, oh, you
4:52
Speaker 1: think we could work here. It's like, oh, that'd be cool.
4:55
Speaker 1: And so now I like the idea because I've worked
4:59
Speaker 1: so much over the course of my life that it's
5:02
Speaker 1: like a way to trick myself into not being a workaholic.
5:05
Speaker 1: There you go, that's that. We're just talking about that
5:07
Speaker 1: in the way out here. It's like, man, it's like
5:10
Speaker 1: I love music so much and I could do it
5:12
Speaker 1: every single day. Yeah, but it's not a comfortable feeling
5:16
Speaker 1: when you're like, is this all I am? Yeah, then
5:18
Speaker 1: you can get caught up in it. For it's easy
5:20
Speaker 1: too when you love something so much. But and I
5:23
Speaker 1: don't know if work with a capital W is really
5:25
Speaker 1: the name of the thing that we do because we
5:28
Speaker 1: love it so much, but it's at the end of
5:29
Speaker 1: the day, it is what you're spending time doing, right, absolutely, absolutely,
5:33
Speaker 1: and and for most of my life it was in
5:36
Speaker 1: you know, dark rooms with no window, dark little dirty rooms,
5:40
Speaker 1: so most of my life was just like in really
5:42
Speaker 1: unpleasant places. Yeah, it doesn't encourage you to be a
5:46
Speaker 1: healthy person all the time either. And I think so
5:50
Speaker 1: much of the inspiration of the work we do comes
5:53
Speaker 1: from not just doing the work. The fuel that drives
5:57
Speaker 1: the process comes from life outside of the studio. Yes, exactly,
6:02
Speaker 1: it's exactly. The fuel has been my metaphor lately. It's
6:05
Speaker 1: like gas and the tank healthy engines. You know, everything's
6:08
Speaker 1: running on music is beautiful enough to be inspired by
6:11
Speaker 1: only music. But then that isn't it. That's not a
6:14
Speaker 1: closed circuit, right, So you gotta go out and go
6:18
Speaker 1: to Grandma's house or whatever it is. Do you call
6:21
Speaker 1: it a band? Yeah, idea project band. I don't know
6:25
Speaker 1: what it is. Was it a clear like, tell me
6:28
Speaker 1: from the beginning? How did it start? That's actually an
6:31
Speaker 1: easier way to answer it. It's like I was in
6:34
Speaker 1: a band with some of my closest friends and people
6:37
Speaker 1: that grew up learning how to play music around and
6:40
Speaker 1: we sort of had that mid twenties sort of breakup
6:43
Speaker 1: winner separate ways, and I was kind of considering not
6:47
Speaker 1: trying to make a career in music and maybe go
6:49
Speaker 1: back to school and all this stuff but in that
6:51
Speaker 1: very moment is when I sort of started making the
6:54
Speaker 1: first songs for what would become Bonevair, And I remember
7:00
Speaker 1: not having a name until I finished finished the album,
7:03
Speaker 1: and I was watching Northern Exposure, that show from the
7:05
Speaker 1: early nineties, and there's this episode where the first snow
7:09
Speaker 1: falls and this little Alaskan town and everyone goes out
7:11
Speaker 1: and greets each other like bon Boniev and I thought, well,
7:15
Speaker 1: that's a good thing, because that's kind of what that's
7:17
Speaker 1: I've always been inspired by where I'm from in all
7:20
Speaker 1: that it lacks, you know, everything that it lacks, it
7:24
Speaker 1: doesn't have that the other big cities in the world have.
7:26
Speaker 1: There's something I've always enjoyed about and keyed in about
7:30
Speaker 1: what it's like to be from where I'm from, and
7:32
Speaker 1: how tough the winter makes you, and and how really
7:36
Speaker 1: nobody has the time and energy to prove anything to
7:38
Speaker 1: anyone else or something which can be very beneficial and
7:42
Speaker 1: have its drawbacks as well. But that's that's where it
7:45
Speaker 1: came from. So I thought, this, this Bonavie thing, it's
7:47
Speaker 1: almost feels like a community, a town. Even though it
7:50
Speaker 1: started with just me. I had this idea that it's
7:53
Speaker 1: like it's gonna be a town or a little town,
7:57
Speaker 1: or a growing thing or a greeting or something. And
8:01
Speaker 1: and of course, at the end of the day, it's
8:02
Speaker 1: a band, it's an artist, it's a thing, and so
8:04
Speaker 1: I try not to be too precious about it. But
8:06
Speaker 1: that's how I still believe in it. And you know,
8:08
Speaker 1: eleven twelve years later, now I guess it is. It
8:11
Speaker 1: really has blossomed into a real breathing community with love
8:15
Speaker 1: and support and all everything beautiful. Yeah, did you make
8:19
Speaker 1: the first album by yourself? Yeah? Tell me tell me
8:21
Speaker 1: the story. Yeah, so I was. I was living in
8:24
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and I'd started some of these things, and
8:26
Speaker 1: as the band kind of broke up, I sort of
8:29
Speaker 1: kind of high tailed it back to Wisconsin. I really
8:32
Speaker 1: lived in Wisconsin my whole life, minus that year and
8:36
Speaker 1: whatever amount of time I've been on the road. But
8:38
Speaker 1: at that point, I'd never been on the road really before,
8:41
Speaker 1: I'd never really had any paying music work other than
8:45
Speaker 1: weekend bar gigs and guitar teaching. So I brought my
8:49
Speaker 1: little Digio one pro tools rig and my macgi for
8:54
Speaker 1: up to my dad's hunting cabin kind of an hour
8:57
Speaker 1: north of where we grew up. And he just kind
9:01
Speaker 1: of let me go in there, and I was like,
9:02
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing. If I go back
9:03
Speaker 1: to school to be a music teacher, i'd have to
9:05
Speaker 1: wait to the fall, and this was right in the winter,
9:08
Speaker 1: and so he just let me set up there, and
9:11
Speaker 1: I just had my little setup in a couple of
9:12
Speaker 1: guitars and and I'd done some engineering and some making
9:16
Speaker 1: some records before, but I had kind of just lost
9:18
Speaker 1: some of the gear and so it was a very
9:20
Speaker 1: very meager setup, which ended up being a really great thing.
9:25
Speaker 1: And so the over kind of a three month period,
9:27
Speaker 1: just kind of being there by myself unless my dad
9:29
Speaker 1: would stop by over the weekend to work on a
9:30
Speaker 1: sawmill or something like. I was just there letting myself
9:34
Speaker 1: be bored, allowing myself to have a day where nothing
9:38
Speaker 1: happened for the first time of my life and not
9:40
Speaker 1: have any guilt about it. It was just the first
9:42
Speaker 1: time I really truly was on my own. Beautiful. Do
9:45
Speaker 1: you think of it as an enjoyable time? Yes, I
9:49
Speaker 1: mean there were there was boredom. There was like sort
9:53
Speaker 1: of just sitting there, maybe an unhealthy amount of a
9:56
Speaker 1: lone time or something like that. But I do. I
9:59
Speaker 1: look back at it as a very very positive experience
10:03
Speaker 1: to let go of a lot of things too. I
10:06
Speaker 1: was making it for myself. I had kind of given
10:08
Speaker 1: up the idea of chasing anymore. And of course once
10:12
Speaker 1: you're once you're done with chasing, you're arriving. Yes, giving
10:18
Speaker 1: up on that idea. What would your days be like
10:21
Speaker 1: like if you're alone for three months? Yeah, I'd wake
10:24
Speaker 1: up and probably crack three eggs and some venison, you know,
10:28
Speaker 1: because we'd do some hunting up there. But there was
10:31
Speaker 1: a little TV up there in a DVD player, so
10:33
Speaker 1: I'd watch a lot of The Northern Exposure And strangely
10:36
Speaker 1: it's my favorite like thing, novel, book, show, whatever, of
10:40
Speaker 1: all time, because you know, so there might be a
10:42
Speaker 1: day where I only watch DVDs and you know, smoke
10:45
Speaker 1: a joint and drink six beers for no reason or something.
10:51
Speaker 1: Then then a day I would just wake up, go
10:53
Speaker 1: sit on the computer stool and just be there in it.
10:56
Speaker 1: You know, we're reworking and mixing and doing that thing
10:59
Speaker 1: on that album I'm seeing about growing up and the
11:03
Speaker 1: amount of boredom involved, you know, get home from school
11:06
Speaker 1: and ye, what are you're supposed to do. Yeah, it's
11:10
Speaker 1: like what do you do? So I'm wondering if if
11:12
Speaker 1: putting yourself in that state somehow taps into something that
11:17
Speaker 1: a lot of people feel more often than they realize.
11:20
Speaker 1: That's just a real I mean, you did an extreme
11:24
Speaker 1: thing by regular standards in our society, but it took
11:29
Speaker 1: you to a place that's probably not so different than
11:32
Speaker 1: growing up in the United States, but without having anybody
11:36
Speaker 1: like get outside or yeah, you do this or you
11:38
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, my parents gave it. My dad and
11:41
Speaker 1: this case gave me a very supportive experience, or supported experience,
11:45
Speaker 1: i should say. And it was it was that that
11:48
Speaker 1: boredom was like, huh, you spent a lot of time
11:51
Speaker 1: being busy and overworked, and I just I just recently
11:55
Speaker 1: had quit a job at a kitchen that had really
11:58
Speaker 1: created new anger and stress in my in my mind
12:01
Speaker 1: and body. You know, never have I been that stressed
12:04
Speaker 1: or angry or overworked. And and so I think it
12:07
Speaker 1: was I just sort of looked at as like, well,
12:09
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing, and I there was
12:12
Speaker 1: something going on with these songs where I was like,
12:13
Speaker 1: this is a new thing for me. Just keep working.
12:17
Speaker 1: And I think just it was a correct, correct recipe
12:21
Speaker 1: to be in the right headspace to make the right
12:24
Speaker 1: kind of music. Did you do you toured the first album?
12:27
Speaker 1: Toured the first album pretty a lot, you know, that
12:31
Speaker 1: kind of smashed me up a bit, but not completely
12:33
Speaker 1: smashed me up. And so we were making the second record.
12:36
Speaker 1: By then, I was using a lot of musicians. You know,
12:39
Speaker 1: I grew up playing in the jazz bands and I
12:40
Speaker 1: had a nine piece band in high school to all
12:43
Speaker 1: my friends with horns and everything. So it's a natural
12:45
Speaker 1: inclination to want to be around more people. But what
12:49
Speaker 1: naturally happened is I started to share some of the
12:54
Speaker 1: load of the songwriting and but also very holding on
12:57
Speaker 1: really tight and and this isn't a negative thing, but
13:02
Speaker 1: I think in many ways I've stepped farther and farther
13:05
Speaker 1: and farther back from the chief position of making the records.
13:11
Speaker 1: And It's funny, after after making this, these four records,
13:15
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like maybe a return to just hanging out
13:18
Speaker 1: on my own for a for a year or something,
13:20
Speaker 1: to get back to that place, because you know, I
13:22
Speaker 1: so often would grow up play guitar and write a song,
13:25
Speaker 1: sit and write, write this song down it. It went
13:28
Speaker 1: from sort of that with the first record to almost
13:32
Speaker 1: none of that with where we're at now in the
13:35
Speaker 1: last you know, this this process this ten years, and
13:39
Speaker 1: so I saw a lot of a lot of the
13:43
Speaker 1: death of the ego in a good way and then
13:45
Speaker 1: also being lost because at times because I didn't have
13:50
Speaker 1: that connection to like what I knew was right when
13:52
Speaker 1: I was all by myself, what I knew, what I
13:54
Speaker 1: didn't have to answer to or you know, like I
13:57
Speaker 1: didn't have Chris like and that sucks or that's really great,
14:00
Speaker 1: either one or problematic answers for me sometimes when you're
14:04
Speaker 1: when you're drifting farther aback away from your your frontal ego.
14:10
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I see that happening in the
14:14
Speaker 1: last ten years, that arc of sort of stepping back,
14:17
Speaker 1: getting the music bigger and experimenting more and more. But
14:21
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like, you know, I can't predict what the
14:23
Speaker 1: next year is going to be like, but I'm feeling
14:25
Speaker 1: like a little bit of a return to that interesting
14:27
Speaker 1: that that place that's coming up kind of is the
14:29
Speaker 1: Hunting Lodge still there? It is than ever. I get
14:33
Speaker 1: along with my dad so well, but I don't think
14:34
Speaker 1: it's it would be the same situation. He's built a
14:38
Speaker 1: big barn, he's got a sawmill, and he's got like
14:40
Speaker 1: four hundred maple trees tapped up there, and so he's
14:42
Speaker 1: always got people around and and plus we've sort of
14:45
Speaker 1: we've sort of made April Base into into that zone.
14:48
Speaker 1: Even though we're not quite I don't quite have my
14:52
Speaker 1: own room yet. We're working on that. That's in the
14:54
Speaker 1: next year. So we'll be right back after the break
14:57
Speaker 1: with more from Justin Vernon, Christmassina, and Rick Rubin. We're
15:04
Speaker 1: back with more of Rick Rubin's conversation with Justin Vernon
15:07
Speaker 1: and Chrismasina, who showed detail on Bonivar's latest release from
15:11
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. I comma, there's a million things to ask
15:15
Speaker 1: you about the past, but for a moment, how do
15:19
Speaker 1: songs typically start? Would you say your do you jam?
15:23
Speaker 1: There's some improvisation in you know, studio setting, like maybe
15:27
Speaker 1: not like instruments and stuff, but maybe some drum machines
15:31
Speaker 1: and just looking for odd recipes that could create something
15:36
Speaker 1: very surprising. It's probably our favorite thing to do, doing
15:41
Speaker 1: some just playing in general. I grew up writing a
15:44
Speaker 1: lot of songs on guitar, and it sort of just
15:46
Speaker 1: stopped happening that way. And I've been playing a lot
15:48
Speaker 1: more guitar lately and songs are trickling out, but there's
15:51
Speaker 1: still this thing. I think as I've developed more as
15:54
Speaker 1: a singer than maybe I was before, or where I
15:58
Speaker 1: really started to hone in on the voice part of it,
16:02
Speaker 1: I think I became less. It became less important for
16:05
Speaker 1: me to write the song and be this songwriter person,
16:09
Speaker 1: and more like, how do we how do I get
16:11
Speaker 1: my voice on something that sounds interesting to my voice,
16:15
Speaker 1: if you will, And so a lot of we do
16:17
Speaker 1: a lot of improvisation or budding two things together, like
16:21
Speaker 1: have a saxophone go through a harmonizer while I'm playing
16:23
Speaker 1: it and singing it, or just looking for things to
16:27
Speaker 1: clash or to make something that sounded brand new so
16:32
Speaker 1: that it would be exciting to sing on. That's been
16:36
Speaker 1: the main process, you know. And every once in a while,
16:38
Speaker 1: maybe just a guitar riff would would PLoP in and
16:41
Speaker 1: create a song in and of itself. But I'd say
16:45
Speaker 1: that's been our biggest way of doing it, is just
16:47
Speaker 1: looking for moments that seemed magical. Yeah, and it sounds
16:51
Speaker 1: like mainly musical moments, so you'd be working on track
16:54
Speaker 1: ideas essentially with the idea, does it start with that
16:59
Speaker 1: feeling of this is interesting or does it start with
17:01
Speaker 1: this is interesting I have I can see what I
17:05
Speaker 1: would do on top both every times different and sometimes
17:09
Speaker 1: just something sounds good so you want to keep it around,
17:11
Speaker 1: but you're like, well, this isn't really going to be
17:13
Speaker 1: for this project, so we don't know what to do
17:16
Speaker 1: with those ones exactly. Like the two generally for USCO
17:19
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. It's like when we hear something
17:22
Speaker 1: that we've somehow come up with that sounds really interesting,
17:25
Speaker 1: justin immediately wants to sing on it, and that's like, okay,
17:29
Speaker 1: we're we're into something here. That's kind of the biggest
17:33
Speaker 1: giveaway that we're onto something. Yeah, I might like a
17:36
Speaker 1: lot of things. And again, if I don't have anything
17:38
Speaker 1: to sing on it, it's sort of like, well maybe
17:40
Speaker 1: we should give this to someone else. Yeah, and like
17:42
Speaker 1: and any like, whenever you try and get him to
17:44
Speaker 1: sing on something, it's like not a good not a
17:47
Speaker 1: good vibe it springs forth. Yeah, absolutely, when it's there,
17:50
Speaker 1: it's there, and it's not it's really not I think
17:52
Speaker 1: with the With the previous record, twenty two million, we
17:54
Speaker 1: did a lot more jamming. Granted it was over like
17:57
Speaker 1: a period of five years that we were writing that
17:59
Speaker 1: record or something, but there were some pretty extensive, long
18:03
Speaker 1: multi person jams that would happen that we got some
18:05
Speaker 1: stuff out of. But that was kind of a way
18:07
Speaker 1: where Justin I think was maybe struggling with with trying
18:10
Speaker 1: to get his songwriting going again. That was a way
18:13
Speaker 1: for us to do it. It was bringing a lot
18:15
Speaker 1: of people, make as much noise as we can for
18:17
Speaker 1: a long period of time and see what happens, and
18:20
Speaker 1: if there's any moments that pop through you can that
18:22
Speaker 1: you could then like, hey what about that. Let's go
18:24
Speaker 1: focus right in that little moment that happened. Either use
18:27
Speaker 1: it directly. Usually that's what we do. We use that
18:29
Speaker 1: moment directly and shape around it and like you know.
18:32
Speaker 1: But this this album was definitely a lot more there's
18:36
Speaker 1: more playing. We entered with a lot more intention on
18:39
Speaker 1: a number of levels with this this record, the newest
18:43
Speaker 1: record or more of the touring band than ever before
18:45
Speaker 1: too yep, which was a great, great addition. Yeah, But
18:49
Speaker 1: I think sonically, I think we've kind of quietly made
18:53
Speaker 1: an active choice to not mess with his voice as
18:55
Speaker 1: much as we had previously. We knew I think that
18:59
Speaker 1: we were going to focus on the lyric content more
19:02
Speaker 1: than we ever have. Not that we weren't saying something
19:05
Speaker 1: before or Justin wasn't saying something, is that we wanted
19:07
Speaker 1: it to be heard, and we wanted it to be
19:09
Speaker 1: maybe clearer than it ever had been. Yeah, And so
19:12
Speaker 1: I think with those may have been the two most
19:14
Speaker 1: like sort of unspoken decisions for this record. We were
19:20
Speaker 1: all aligned on that and everything else just came so
19:23
Speaker 1: much easier. Yeah, Yeah, it was so much more, I
19:27
Speaker 1: don't know, just free and easy. It was great. It
19:31
Speaker 1: sounds like that can be going forward. It sounds like
19:35
Speaker 1: there's that could be our job. Yeah. I think it
19:37
Speaker 1: was a huge realization with with this, with finishing this
19:40
Speaker 1: record as not as quickly but so much faster than
19:42
Speaker 1: the previous one. Yes, that we were just like, oh,
19:45
Speaker 1: this is what it can be all the time. Brad,
19:47
Speaker 1: Brad Cook and I talked about I mean all three
19:48
Speaker 1: of us did, but yeah, Brad and I talked about
19:50
Speaker 1: that a lot of just like this is what we
19:52
Speaker 1: can make it. Every time there was a breakthrough. Yeah,
19:55
Speaker 1: this is all we got to do every time it's great.
19:57
Speaker 1: Did you record many more than the songs that are
19:59
Speaker 1: on the album or the songs on the album? Pretty much?
20:01
Speaker 1: It that's pretty much it is? It usually that way? Yeah,
20:06
Speaker 1: I think we pretty pretty early on know whether something's
20:08
Speaker 1: going to get chased down further or not. So we
20:11
Speaker 1: still have like fragments that will probably revisit in a
20:14
Speaker 1: year or something. But from the yeah, I'm not sure.
20:16
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't have this feeling like there's like
20:19
Speaker 1: great songs waiting us. We sort of like worked on
20:22
Speaker 1: what we worked on. What was the thought on the title?
20:25
Speaker 1: By the way, man, it's a it's it's really a
20:29
Speaker 1: lot about this whole self care and and caring about
20:32
Speaker 1: your friend thing. It's to me, it's that's the thing
20:36
Speaker 1: that Bob Marley introduced me to when I was the kid.
20:39
Speaker 1: Is this I and I. It's I and I, it's we,
20:43
Speaker 1: You are me, I am you. Uh, this is all
20:46
Speaker 1: of us kind of thing together, this this sort of
20:49
Speaker 1: responsibility to one another, maybe responsibilities and even strong enough
20:53
Speaker 1: a word, it's like we are connected. It's not just
20:56
Speaker 1: like we choose to be or not. When we heard ourselves,
20:58
Speaker 1: I feel like it has a reaction to others, and
21:01
Speaker 1: so that that was my whole thing is just like
21:04
Speaker 1: Marley vibes Rastafarian vibes, like it's uh, we are a
21:08
Speaker 1: response posible for one another. It is a line that
21:12
Speaker 1: no branches of a tree are so foolish that they
21:15
Speaker 1: would fight with another branch on the tree. Yeah, exactly
21:19
Speaker 1: exactly what I thought. Did this was half full what
21:29
Speaker 1: I thought that, this was half flow from the guys
21:44
Speaker 1: where I thought that this was held. Yeah, we recorded, uh,
22:08
Speaker 1: we recorded this lie with a little orchestra, I guess,
22:13
Speaker 1: or we called it the worm Crew ensemble of bizarre
22:16
Speaker 1: kind of connected harmonica to saxophones and two trombones and violin.
22:26
Speaker 1: Created some challenges sonically, but it was fun to play
22:30
Speaker 1: an entire play an entire song with an ensemble live,
22:37
Speaker 1: especially one with it was out of meter. Yeah. So,
22:40
Speaker 1: I mean Rob, the arranger that I always love working with,
22:43
Speaker 1: Rob moose He I'd been showing him this riff for years,
22:48
Speaker 1: and I was always expecting that I would write another
22:50
Speaker 1: portion of the song or something like that. But then
22:52
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I was like, we just
22:53
Speaker 1: got to try this idea because I always thought it'd
22:55
Speaker 1: be so fun to improvise with like a small conducted
22:59
Speaker 1: ensemble yea, And so he wrote really cool arrangements around
23:04
Speaker 1: the guitar section, and then we sort of just dressed
23:08
Speaker 1: it up a little bit. So there's obviously like overdubbs
23:13
Speaker 1: and stuff, but yeah, the most of it's just a
23:15
Speaker 1: guitar and the ensemble and the vocal. We did live
23:20
Speaker 1: too that added vocals to it. But so it started
23:24
Speaker 1: guitar and vocal, guitar, vocal and the ensemble all at once.
23:27
Speaker 1: And then when when did the lyrics come? In the
23:30
Speaker 1: process of writing, Like, I think I had this guitar
23:34
Speaker 1: riff laying around for like years, and it was always
23:37
Speaker 1: just I thought this was half a love. Thought that
23:39
Speaker 1: this was half a love. Uh, followed to the raging. See,
23:43
Speaker 1: that's all it ever was. And so Brad was just like,
23:45
Speaker 1: why don't you just consider that's a that's a song
23:47
Speaker 1: you can have. You can have a three two line song.
23:50
Speaker 1: So accepted that, and it's like, oh I love this, Okay, great,
23:55
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that's kind of the story with that one.
23:58
Speaker 1: It's just like, sometimes it's enough just to have a
24:00
Speaker 1: small little idea absolutely, yeah, yeah, sometimes it's all it
24:04
Speaker 1: wants to be. Yeah, if you try to force it,
24:07
Speaker 1: you're what what are you doing? Cool? Pick another one?
24:10
Speaker 1: Or do you want to see the list? Oh? Sure?
24:12
Speaker 1: Let me think here? Uh sure, man like he's pretty good.
24:16
Speaker 1: I like man like you. Let's try that one. M
24:29
Speaker 1: I will see you now down the back of love Ridge.
24:34
Speaker 1: There's just something that I got the soul you. There
24:40
Speaker 1: is no man's right in the coming in case hit,
24:44
Speaker 1: ain't nothing that you say, you with your arms. Track
24:52
Speaker 1: and just give some time presently does include dudes and
25:00
Speaker 1: just standing premissions mothers fairly repetition tell yourself for ta.
25:19
Speaker 1: The big story with this one is that Bruce Hornsby.
25:22
Speaker 1: It's Bruce Bruce's track like he just wrote he just had.
25:26
Speaker 1: He came up. We were helping him with his record
25:28
Speaker 1: and he just had this piano figure. He had it
25:31
Speaker 1: on a burned CD. He brought over and was like,
25:33
Speaker 1: what is that play? Yeah? I was like, first of all,
25:36
Speaker 1: we have to buy a CD player now, But he
25:40
Speaker 1: just played a bunch of this kind of music that
25:42
Speaker 1: he'd been working on. I was like, what is that
25:44
Speaker 1: track doing? Because it was one of those moments where
25:47
Speaker 1: I was like I almost heard the entire melody, just
25:50
Speaker 1: like I went in there and just like it was
25:52
Speaker 1: just there. And had I not been a little more
25:55
Speaker 1: open and like not so like I better be the
25:58
Speaker 1: guy to write all these songs, I might not have
26:01
Speaker 1: had that feeling. But it felt so good just to
26:02
Speaker 1: jump on. And it's just a mood that I couldn't
26:04
Speaker 1: have come up with. It feels so fun to to
26:08
Speaker 1: sing on. I mean, Brad did so much bass playing
26:13
Speaker 1: on the album. You know he's he's predominantly a bass player.
26:16
Speaker 1: I'm kind of a cute bass player, acute, acute and cute.
26:23
Speaker 1: But so we do a lot of playing bass in
26:26
Speaker 1: the album where I would play it and then he'd
26:29
Speaker 1: be like, I can do better, and then I can
26:30
Speaker 1: be like, oh I liked what you did there, but
26:32
Speaker 1: I'll kick your So we did a lot of that
26:35
Speaker 1: on the on the album. I know I haven't heard
26:38
Speaker 1: these I haven't heard the jam since we actually have
26:41
Speaker 1: played all these shows. It's kind of interesting. Do they
26:45
Speaker 1: transform live? They have transformed a lot live. You know
26:48
Speaker 1: that our our band is awesome. I just love playing
26:53
Speaker 1: with each other. They ultimately feel more alive, I mean
26:57
Speaker 1: liter literally living, and I love I like records that
27:01
Speaker 1: have scrapes, and you know they don't. I like records
27:04
Speaker 1: that sound very high fi as well, But with our records,
27:08
Speaker 1: I've sort of always tried to keep it a little
27:10
Speaker 1: dusty or a little got some knicks and nicks in there.
27:15
Speaker 1: How many people are in the band alive now it's six.
27:18
Speaker 1: Now we've we've waxed and weighed on that we've had.
27:21
Speaker 1: Last year we had like five trombone dudes from Richmond,
27:23
Speaker 1: Virginia traveling with us at the dudes, what do we
27:29
Speaker 1: call them? Bone trombone paradise. Trombone Paradise that's right now.
27:34
Speaker 1: Now it's a lot of the same dudes that have
27:37
Speaker 1: been in there a really long time. And then we
27:38
Speaker 1: added this lady Jen Wasner who has this band Why Oak,
27:42
Speaker 1: and she is a monster um having another high voice,
27:46
Speaker 1: a higher voice, and she's also a crushing profit player
27:51
Speaker 1: as guitar player and bass player as well. So shit,
27:53
Speaker 1: it's been it's been really fun. And the songs they
27:56
Speaker 1: just they just live and breathe. You're playing him rather
27:59
Speaker 1: than like pressing play on him, you know what I mean.
28:01
Speaker 1: I think we're staying truer to the record with the
28:05
Speaker 1: most recent songs than we did with twenty two million.
28:08
Speaker 1: I mean, those took on a whole new life lives
28:10
Speaker 1: that are it's great, but I think with these, yeah,
28:13
Speaker 1: they definitely live and breathe, but we're we're staying closer
28:17
Speaker 1: to the record. It also makes sense that you said
28:18
Speaker 1: there's more playing on the record too, so it's makes
28:20
Speaker 1: sense too. Yeah, same people played it on the record
28:23
Speaker 1: and now we're playing it live. It's makes sense. Yeah, absolutely,
28:29
Speaker 1: not interpolating. Yeah, the picking and choosing with only having
28:33
Speaker 1: six people is like, okay, well you we can't. We're
28:35
Speaker 1: just physically can't play that part because we don't we
28:37
Speaker 1: don't have any tracks or anything like that. Yea. So
28:40
Speaker 1: making those choices is always like, Okay, what's the most
28:43
Speaker 1: essential moment or can you play this one moment on guitar,
28:46
Speaker 1: but then do the rest of it over here? You know,
28:48
Speaker 1: making those choices has been really fun, I think this time. Yeah,
28:53
Speaker 1: when we come back, Justin Vernon talks to Rick about
28:55
Speaker 1: some of his favorite tracks of all time, and we're
29:01
Speaker 1: back with the rest of Rick Rubin's conversation with Justin
29:04
Speaker 1: Vernon and Chris Messina. What would you say in this
29:08
Speaker 1: band or project what's your favorite part of it. It's
29:12
Speaker 1: a great question. Lately, it's been if not all the
29:16
Speaker 1: whole time. Is when we have a piece of music
29:18
Speaker 1: that we can play, that that drifts, that is really alive,
29:24
Speaker 1: that we don't have to follow follow the grid, or
29:29
Speaker 1: or we don't use to click tracks or tracks really
29:33
Speaker 1: but especially you know, there's a couple of songs that
29:36
Speaker 1: we're playing live now from this record where it's like, wow,
29:39
Speaker 1: we're really it's really a push and pull thing. There's
29:43
Speaker 1: really a lot of group improvisation going on, group listening,
29:47
Speaker 1: group reacting, And I really enjoy that because in one hand,
29:51
Speaker 1: I've got this feeling like I love a song, I
29:54
Speaker 1: love a good folks on that lets you know kind
29:56
Speaker 1: of who he is right away. But I also love
30:00
Speaker 1: Coltrane and I you know, music that that just makes
30:05
Speaker 1: you feel strange. I like the combination of those two comforts. Yeah,
30:09
Speaker 1: the feeling strange and the feeling comfortable. And what do
30:13
Speaker 1: you listen to? Mostly? I mean I bounce around a lot.
30:16
Speaker 1: I do listen everything. We grew up. I grew up
30:19
Speaker 1: listening and studying jazz in school and stuff, and so
30:22
Speaker 1: I was just exposed to a lot my parents and
30:24
Speaker 1: musical folks, and so what would be the music like
30:27
Speaker 1: growing up in the house, what would your parents play?
30:29
Speaker 1: John Prine was probably number one, And a matter of fact,
30:33
Speaker 1: he's probably like the He's the backbone of our spiritual
30:37
Speaker 1: philosophy as a family. I guess I would say that
30:40
Speaker 1: that that was the he was the main one. I
30:42
Speaker 1: think you could distill all other listening visa v. John Prine,
30:46
Speaker 1: And do you did you extend from John Prine into others,
30:49
Speaker 1: like in the singer songwriter world, was that? Yeah? Dylan
30:53
Speaker 1: came pretty pretty close after and still still very central,
30:59
Speaker 1: you know, my understanding of the craft of like writing
31:02
Speaker 1: a song on the guitar, you know, with that whole tradition.
31:05
Speaker 1: So in both cases, would it be a lyric centric
31:09
Speaker 1: raw started out that way? I think, I think once
31:14
Speaker 1: when I saw how complete a song could be with
31:16
Speaker 1: such little lyricism, when I when I with John Prine,
31:20
Speaker 1: especially you know, compared to Dylan or something. But kind
31:24
Speaker 1: of right after that, I always liked a good lyric
31:28
Speaker 1: But as you know, that would have been when I
31:30
Speaker 1: was like, you know, eleven twelve, when I actually get
31:32
Speaker 1: my own discman and listen to John Prine, on my own.
31:34
Speaker 1: You know. So, did you start writing songs as a kid?
31:36
Speaker 1: I did, Yeah, UM write it like when I was
31:39
Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen. I'd write little songs about like my
31:41
Speaker 1: friends at camp or stuff like that. It's just something
31:45
Speaker 1: that came pretty naturally to me. Would you call them
31:47
Speaker 1: folk songs? Yeah, I don't know. I think I was
31:50
Speaker 1: probably listening to like Pearl Jam and Nirvana, so I
31:52
Speaker 1: was probably just like, oh, these are just songs, man.
31:55
Speaker 1: I don't know what I was thinking. Actually, if you
31:58
Speaker 1: would describe them now, what would you say they would
32:01
Speaker 1: rooted in? Would they be like a Pearl Jam song
32:03
Speaker 1: played on acoustic guitar? Yeah, I think they're probably they're
32:06
Speaker 1: probably the early days, more prime, more just three chords
32:10
Speaker 1: in the truth kind of situation. But then shortly, you know,
32:13
Speaker 1: then eventually get into alternate tunings, and then you're listening
32:16
Speaker 1: to Joni Mitchell and then it gets a little farther out.
32:20
Speaker 1: Who would you say would be the singers that inspire
32:23
Speaker 1: you or excite you? There's always three I think of
32:28
Speaker 1: My first favorite was Amy Ray from Indigo Girls. She
32:36
Speaker 1: had this there's this folk thing going on in that
32:39
Speaker 1: their group and songwriting, but she was yelling a lot,
32:42
Speaker 1: and like, there's this fever that was just so connected
32:45
Speaker 1: to her spirit and what she was trying to communicate
32:48
Speaker 1: in her songs. Was she still communicating in her songs
32:52
Speaker 1: and that that sort of unbridled yelling and sort of
32:57
Speaker 1: like this when you lose it? Yeah, can you think
32:59
Speaker 1: of a good example, because i'd love to hear. My
33:01
Speaker 1: favorite song of all time is called Fugitive. That's like
33:04
Speaker 1: my number one song. That's the Indigo Girls. And maybe
33:06
Speaker 1: maybe that's not her yelling, but she's definitely like pushing
33:09
Speaker 1: her voice. It's my number my number one favorite song
33:11
Speaker 1: of all time. They played that in Missoula, right, brought
33:15
Speaker 1: it brought you? I mean I literally had to sit down.
33:17
Speaker 1: It's just like I can't believe this just happened. Let's
33:22
Speaker 1: listen to it. Yeah, this is my favorite song, my
33:25
Speaker 1: favorite album. I think when I was twelve, like my
33:45
Speaker 1: mom and sister got me into them, and I think
33:47
Speaker 1: I was like, so, Mom, they're they're gay, you know,
33:51
Speaker 1: like and then just realizing they have all these problems
33:55
Speaker 1: because of that, and like Okay, for some reason, I
33:59
Speaker 1: was just like, well, this is wrong that that that
34:02
Speaker 1: they have issues, you know, like I don't understand. And
34:05
Speaker 1: then that gave me more of my adoreded them more
34:10
Speaker 1: and more and more. The more they had strength in
34:12
Speaker 1: the face of their adversity and that, but they never
34:15
Speaker 1: became bitter. They have feelings about it. I don't know,
34:19
Speaker 1: they're just they're They're my favorite group ever. Uh and
34:24
Speaker 1: Emily the Harmony, the other singer. She writes all the
34:27
Speaker 1: other songs too. I mean, they're both just together. It's
34:30
Speaker 1: it's like my favorite shit. But Donnie Hathaway and Bonnie
34:33
Speaker 1: Raid are probably my other two, just like as far
34:36
Speaker 1: as soul. Yeah, the thing that moved me most was
34:40
Speaker 1: after the first sort of rocking part, it drops down
34:44
Speaker 1: into a very into unexpected intimate moment just for a moment. Yeah,
34:51
Speaker 1: but it got real. Yeah, you got really really got real. Yeah.
34:55
Speaker 1: And it's good feeling. Yeah, that's the feeling, man, that's
34:58
Speaker 1: the feeling. Like I mean, I tattooed those lyrics on
35:01
Speaker 1: my chest for a reason. It's like, this is what
35:03
Speaker 1: I want to be carrying around it. That's the feeling.
35:05
Speaker 1: When she when we get to that verse, you're like
35:08
Speaker 1: you're exposed from all this yelling and this guitar sol
35:11
Speaker 1: and this orchestration, and then it all goes away. You're
35:14
Speaker 1: just back to this place where it's like we need
35:17
Speaker 1: to we need to learn how to respect what we
35:19
Speaker 1: don't understand. We are fortunate ones. We are fortunate ones.
35:22
Speaker 1: I swear. It's just like the best thing you can say.
35:26
Speaker 1: It's like we don't know anything and we have to
35:28
Speaker 1: try to learn and we have to understand that how
35:32
Speaker 1: lucky we are. Beautiful. That's that's that's why it's my
35:35
Speaker 1: favorite song. But yeah, it's it's a displaying intimacy and
35:41
Speaker 1: vulnerability is a really important part of communicating as a
35:44
Speaker 1: human being, and it is a musician or songwriter. It's
35:47
Speaker 1: like you have to be able to be like, yes
35:49
Speaker 1: I am I feel awful or yes I am scared.
35:53
Speaker 1: You know. I think there's such valuable things in our
35:56
Speaker 1: valuable assets to ourselves vulnerability. You know, it's beautiful. Thanks
36:06
Speaker 1: to Justin Vernon and Christmasina for sharing their career vision
36:09
Speaker 1: for Bonivair with Gray. Do you hear our favorite Bonivare songs?
36:13
Speaker 1: Check out the playlist at Broken record podcast dot com.
36:17
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
36:20
Speaker 1: dot com slash broken record Podcast, where can find all
36:23
Speaker 1: of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter
36:26
Speaker 1: at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help from
36:29
Speaker 1: Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Entaladay, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez,
36:33
Speaker 1: with engineering help from Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is
36:37
Speaker 1: Mel Lobell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
36:42
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37:01
Speaker 1: For our the music Spectady Beats on justin Richmond,