Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Win Butler

Transcript

Win Butler · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
0:14
Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
0:17
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
0:19
Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
0:23
Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right.
0:29
Speaker 1: Enjoy the episode. It's been ten years since Arcade fires
0:32
Speaker 1: exceptional third album, The Suburbs, earned a Grammy for Album
0:36
Speaker 1: of the Year. It's a distinction that helps catapult the
0:39
Speaker 1: quirky indie rock band from Montreal into one of the
0:42
Speaker 1: biggest bands and the world that's ready to start from
0:47
Speaker 1: the Suburbs. With the string of chart topping conceptual albums
0:52
Speaker 1: and a live show that's arguably unmatched by any other
0:54
Speaker 1: modern rock band. Arcade Fire's genius can be attributed to
0:58
Speaker 1: their tireless work ethic, a collective musical mastery, and lead
1:02
Speaker 1: singer Win Butler's total surrender to an elusive musical spirit.
1:06
Speaker 1: Win Butler spoke with Rick Rubin from his home studio
1:08
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, where he lives with his wife and
1:10
Speaker 1: band member Regine Chassan. When describes the night he and
1:14
Speaker 1: Regine wrote the first songs together, explains why he set
1:17
Speaker 1: out to be the weak link in the band. Why
1:19
Speaker 1: the only place he would ever talk to Bob Dylan
1:22
Speaker 1: is side stage at an arcade fire show. This is
1:28
Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
1:37
Speaker 1: Here's Rick Ruben's conversation with Win Butler. What's happening? Man? Hello? Hello?
1:42
Speaker 1: Where are you? I'm in New Orleans? Oh nice? How
1:45
Speaker 1: long have you lived there? Five years or something? How's
1:48
Speaker 1: it been? I love it? It's funny. Or like when
1:51
Speaker 1: COVID started, I started watching like New Orleans films because
1:54
Speaker 1: I like miss New Orleans, miss New Orleans so much.
1:56
Speaker 1: It's like, even though I live here, I'm like, it's
1:59
Speaker 1: a manzie And how much of the city is just
2:02
Speaker 1: in the people? Yeah? How did you choose to move there?
2:07
Speaker 1: So Regie, my wife who's in the band, my partner
2:11
Speaker 1: is her family from Haiti and she grew up in Montreal,
2:15
Speaker 1: so she's sort of Francophone Haitian. And when we were
2:20
Speaker 1: working on the Suburbs, we did a road trip from
2:23
Speaker 1: Houston to New Orleans and we sort of got to
2:26
Speaker 1: we kind of got to near Lafayette, like the kind
2:28
Speaker 1: of like creole zydeco country, and we went to these
2:33
Speaker 1: like clubs, these little zydeco clubs, and it's like all
2:35
Speaker 1: black kids singing in French. And she understood everything from
2:41
Speaker 1: the Haitian side and the Quebec side and were just
2:43
Speaker 1: like like this weird family tree sort of thing. And
2:48
Speaker 1: I grew up in Houston, so it's sort of like,
2:50
Speaker 1: I don't know, we both feel really at home here.
2:52
Speaker 1: For it's like just feels like our natural place. Is
2:55
Speaker 1: the Haitian connection stronger even than in Montreal. There's a
2:59
Speaker 1: lot more Haitians in Montreal, like there's more of a
3:01
Speaker 1: community and culture, but the kind of spiritual like the
3:06
Speaker 1: old like you kind of have all this eighteen hundreds
3:09
Speaker 1: Haitian culture here that's like kind of like really deep
3:13
Speaker 1: more this spiritual spiritual piece of it is really strong here, beautiful.
3:17
Speaker 1: What's your connection to spirituality or do you have any
3:20
Speaker 1: or have you ever had any? I kind of like
3:22
Speaker 1: my parents, my mom's my mom's family. So my grandfather
3:27
Speaker 1: was Alvino Ray, who was a big band leader. He
3:31
Speaker 1: was actually one of two jazz guitarists in New York City,
3:34
Speaker 1: like in the twenties. He was like one of the
3:37
Speaker 1: first people that played jazz on a guitar, and my
3:40
Speaker 1: grandmother was a singer and the King Sisters, and so
3:43
Speaker 1: my mom kind of grew up in this musical like
3:47
Speaker 1: very musical family. They were on television like musical Overload.
3:50
Speaker 1: My mom's a harpist, jazz harpist. And my dad's family
3:54
Speaker 1: is from Maine, like they're like boat like island people,
3:59
Speaker 1: like Harvard academic East Coast sort of people. And my
4:04
Speaker 1: mom my mom's family's Mormon, but I kind of call
4:07
Speaker 1: them like Martini Mormons, like they were like jazz Mormons.
4:11
Speaker 1: You know. I kind of grew up exposed like going
4:15
Speaker 1: to Mormon church, but my dad never went, and my
4:17
Speaker 1: dad was like completely agnostic and like kind of like
4:20
Speaker 1: have fun guys sort of vibe. And then as I
4:23
Speaker 1: kind of got older, I went away to boarding school
4:26
Speaker 1: and I ended up like I studied my degrees actually
4:29
Speaker 1: in religious studies, because I ended up sort of in philosophy.
4:33
Speaker 1: And then the more I studied philosophy, the more I
4:36
Speaker 1: realized it all just kind of came back to the Bible. Anyway.
4:38
Speaker 1: I was like, well, at least I should at least
4:40
Speaker 1: understand what this shit is talking about, because like that's
4:43
Speaker 1: what all of Western culture is referencing. I don't know
4:47
Speaker 1: there were there is. I mean, music is a spirit,
4:50
Speaker 1: like that is what it is, and that's one of
4:52
Speaker 1: the things that brought me to New Orleans. It's like,
4:55
Speaker 1: you really don't feel like a crazy person feeling that way,
4:58
Speaker 1: because like it's self evident. But I think it's become
5:02
Speaker 1: my spirituality has become very churchless and very kind of like,
5:07
Speaker 1: you know more. I've studied a lot of different stuff,
5:11
Speaker 1: but I probably know more about the Bible than I should.
5:16
Speaker 1: Do you think it's informed your songwriting? Yeah, definitely. I
5:20
Speaker 1: mean I think it enables you to be kind of
5:23
Speaker 1: crazy enough to think of it as a vocation, which,
5:26
Speaker 1: even even if you're full of shit, at least it
5:28
Speaker 1: gives you a purpose. Let's talk about the difference between
5:34
Speaker 1: how a song would come about on the last album
5:36
Speaker 1: versus the first album. On the first album, might it
5:39
Speaker 1: be acoustic guitar, singing, playing and finding a song? Would
5:44
Speaker 1: it start with lyrics? What would be your typical process
5:46
Speaker 1: then most recently versus traditionally? So the song everything Now
5:54
Speaker 1: was I was actually I started I started Djane, we
5:58
Speaker 1: did a record with James Murphy and and I kind
6:01
Speaker 1: of started actually listening to music and clubs, and like
6:06
Speaker 1: I remember hearing Doctor Dre in a club for the
6:08
Speaker 1: first time, and I was like, what the fuck, that's
6:10
Speaker 1: what that shit sounds like. I had no fucking idea,
6:13
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh shit, Like I knew it was great,
6:15
Speaker 1: but I didn't know that that's what it sounded like.
6:17
Speaker 1: You know. So it's like when you hear what it
6:19
Speaker 1: sounds like and you start to get the production connection
6:22
Speaker 1: between the speaker is the last It's like you're making
6:26
Speaker 1: some shit that hits the speaker, and the speaker is
6:28
Speaker 1: actually what's doing the last bit of the word. And
6:31
Speaker 1: so I was actually working on a remix. There's a
6:34
Speaker 1: Francis Bay bass song called Coffee Kola that's like kind
6:37
Speaker 1: of this beautiful pigmy flute. It's like kind of a beatbox.
6:41
Speaker 1: It's this French African singer. And as I was working
6:46
Speaker 1: on the remix, I started playing all these different chords
6:48
Speaker 1: over this little loop and I just started singing a
6:51
Speaker 1: melody that was completely unrelated to the song and it
6:55
Speaker 1: was just its own song. It took me minute to
6:58
Speaker 1: even realize it was a song because I wasn't thinking.
7:00
Speaker 1: I didn't I'd never hadn't really worked on sample based
7:04
Speaker 1: music before, and it was like it felt like a
7:07
Speaker 1: like a tool. I don't know, the way that playing
7:10
Speaker 1: the guitar felt for me, like when I was fifteen.
7:12
Speaker 1: It felt like that. It was like it was like,
7:13
Speaker 1: oh wait, this is just a tool, like any other tool,
7:17
Speaker 1: but it was like the melody and the lyrical point
7:21
Speaker 1: of view and everything was like all there. But then
7:22
Speaker 1: even just to accept that it was a song took
7:25
Speaker 1: like six months. We ended up working with Tomah from
7:30
Speaker 1: Daft Punk, and we did we did the big session
7:33
Speaker 1: for that record in his studio in Paris, which is
7:35
Speaker 1: like the most amazing studio I've ever been in. It's amazing,
7:38
Speaker 1: And we actually got Francis Baby's son, who plays the
7:43
Speaker 1: same instrument, to come to the studio to play with us,
7:46
Speaker 1: and so we didn't actually end up using the sample
7:49
Speaker 1: and so we're like kind of like thinking about it
7:52
Speaker 1: very cerebrally and just like oh, like, I don't know,
7:55
Speaker 1: I feel like there's this very PC like is this
7:58
Speaker 1: appropriative to us an Africans, Like I don't, it's like
8:01
Speaker 1: this MPR think or some shit. And then Patrick Baby
8:06
Speaker 1: walks in the room with his flute and we play
8:07
Speaker 1: in the song and he's like almost like weeping and
8:10
Speaker 1: just like starts playing the song with us, and I
8:12
Speaker 1: was like, no, this is fucking what's up, you know,
8:14
Speaker 1: and like just I don't know. So that was like
8:17
Speaker 1: a really beautiful, really long process where it took almost
8:21
Speaker 1: like a year or to even realize it was a
8:22
Speaker 1: song or something. Amazing was the last album the first
8:26
Speaker 1: album that that experience happened totally. I mean that that
8:29
Speaker 1: was the first time I would have ever been I mean,
8:32
Speaker 1: since I was much younger where I would have even
8:35
Speaker 1: really been I don't know, even the idea of remixing
8:39
Speaker 1: something or like kind of changing the context of something
8:42
Speaker 1: as a thing that would have spent time on, I
8:44
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been practicing that. That's I feel like I'm
8:48
Speaker 1: just constantly trying to feel like an amateur. It's like
8:50
Speaker 1: you just like I don't know what it's like. The
8:52
Speaker 1: first time I heard Nirvana, my takeaway was like I
8:55
Speaker 1: don't need to play a guitar solo, Like I like
8:59
Speaker 1: my least was like fuck a guitar solo. Not that
9:02
Speaker 1: guitar solos aren't great, but I'm just like, there's it
9:05
Speaker 1: was more just like wanting to feel like like I
9:08
Speaker 1: never really learned to play the guitar. I've never really
9:10
Speaker 1: gotten any better at any instrument. Like I've almost like
9:14
Speaker 1: studiously maintained my amateur noss so I can like pick
9:18
Speaker 1: something up being like how does this work? And so
9:22
Speaker 1: that becomes sort of part of the process. And I
9:25
Speaker 1: just everyone in my band is smarter than me and
9:29
Speaker 1: better at every instrument, Like I wanted to be in
9:31
Speaker 1: a band with wherever I was the weak link musically
9:36
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know, like like I like the
9:38
Speaker 1: people that I've When I met Regie, I was like, oh,
9:41
Speaker 1: you're smart at me about everything, So like you just
9:43
Speaker 1: want to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.
9:47
Speaker 1: Did you guys start in a relationship or did you
9:50
Speaker 1: start in the band and be come together? How what
9:53
Speaker 1: was the timing of it? It was the same. I
9:55
Speaker 1: went to Sarah Lawrence College, which is like super like
9:59
Speaker 1: post art school, like outside of New York City. It
10:02
Speaker 1: was like seventy thirty female to male. Jordan Peel was
10:06
Speaker 1: actually in my class, and I got there and I
10:08
Speaker 1: was just like I just spent all my time making
10:11
Speaker 1: four track recordings and like not going to class and
10:13
Speaker 1: I was just like, this is stupid. So I basically
10:17
Speaker 1: dropped out and started a BAM with my high school
10:20
Speaker 1: friend and then sort of ended up moving to Montreal.
10:25
Speaker 1: I actually never even thought about Canada. Yeah, I wasn't
10:28
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna move to Canada one day or like,
10:31
Speaker 1: it wasn't really I didn't know shit about Montreal. I
10:34
Speaker 1: didn't even really know that it was French, really like
10:37
Speaker 1: really like I knew, but I didn't like, no, no,
10:40
Speaker 1: because you're American, so of course, how would you know.
10:43
Speaker 1: We don't learn, We don't learn that. I grew up
10:45
Speaker 1: in Texas. I took Texas history, like I can tell
10:48
Speaker 1: you about the fucking Battle of San Jacento, but like
10:50
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about European history, like you know.
10:53
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I was just like this idiot American
10:59
Speaker 1: and like moving to Cannon in the winter, just like fuck,
11:02
Speaker 1: it's fucking gold here, like what's going on? And I
11:05
Speaker 1: would just I would. I would go to the music
11:08
Speaker 1: to McGill, to the music school and just hang out
11:11
Speaker 1: outside the drummer rooms trying to find a drummer, just
11:14
Speaker 1: listen to people practice drums for like hours. And I
11:20
Speaker 1: was in the cafeteria and Regime was actually studying jazz
11:23
Speaker 1: at at McGill. She's like, who the fuck is this
11:26
Speaker 1: six foot five guy in a cowboy hat, Like he
11:29
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't go to school here. And I saw her
11:34
Speaker 1: and I went up to her and I was describing
11:36
Speaker 1: to her like the kind of music I wanted to make,
11:39
Speaker 1: and and she I think she was suspicious of like
11:43
Speaker 1: you know, she was like, uh, I mean I said
11:45
Speaker 1: all things that she would have been in. I probably
11:47
Speaker 1: said like like it would have been like Neil Young
11:50
Speaker 1: the Pixies, classical music, fucking you know, radiohead, Like it
11:55
Speaker 1: would have been like a weird hodgepodge of whatever I
11:57
Speaker 1: was into. She was like, well, I might know someone
12:00
Speaker 1: who plays drums. She gave me your number and she
12:03
Speaker 1: never called me back or anything. And then I happened
12:05
Speaker 1: to be at an art opening at the art school
12:08
Speaker 1: and she was singing like like she had like a
12:11
Speaker 1: jazz trio that she was singing for like a baronessage
12:15
Speaker 1: like for a art opening. And I saw her singing,
12:19
Speaker 1: I was like, I went up to her afterwards. I
12:21
Speaker 1: was like, we have to play music together, like I'm
12:23
Speaker 1: gonna call you again. And she came over to my
12:27
Speaker 1: apartment and I played her a bunch of songs and
12:30
Speaker 1: she was like, oh shit, this guy is not full
12:32
Speaker 1: of shit. Like you know, I don't even remember what
12:35
Speaker 1: I played her, but we ended up writing a couple
12:36
Speaker 1: of songs like that night, and it was pretty much
12:39
Speaker 1: like that was it. You know, we were kind of
12:41
Speaker 1: I mean, it took a long time to put it
12:43
Speaker 1: all together, but from there it was just like we
12:44
Speaker 1: were just sort of in it, you know. And now
12:46
Speaker 1: it's twenty twenty and you have a kid. You have
12:51
Speaker 1: a kid, and it's a global pandemic. And he moved
12:55
Speaker 1: and he moved back to the states Man. He told
12:57
Speaker 1: me I would move back to the South. I was like,
12:59
Speaker 1: get the fuck out of here. I'm going as far
13:02
Speaker 1: as I can't, Like, I'm going to fucking Montreal, like
13:05
Speaker 1: fu fuck Texas. But and now ironically we're planning on
13:09
Speaker 1: going back to Texas to make the next record during
13:13
Speaker 1: the elections. So that'll be fun. We'll be back after
13:16
Speaker 1: a quick break. We're back with Rick Rubin and Wynn Butler,
13:24
Speaker 1: who were the other big inspirations for you. Actually, I
13:28
Speaker 1: found I found recently a flyer that we put up
13:31
Speaker 1: in Montreal. When we were looking for musicians, we were
13:33
Speaker 1: kind of looking for We had the band, but we
13:36
Speaker 1: were looking for orchestral musicians. We were looking for like
13:40
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a violinist or or someone who
13:42
Speaker 1: played woodwins or we just wanted some other color in
13:45
Speaker 1: the band. And it was like we listed ore. It
13:48
Speaker 1: was like this funny flyer that Regia and I made
13:50
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to remember it was on there, but
13:51
Speaker 1: it was like the Pixies, Debuc Neil Young, Motown and
13:58
Speaker 1: Dylan those that was was on the list, like looking
14:01
Speaker 1: for orchestral musicians with like those influences, you know. And
14:06
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like, it's pretty like a new order, a
14:09
Speaker 1: new order that was the other vand and when I
14:11
Speaker 1: look at our shit, I'm like pretty on point, Like
14:14
Speaker 1: that's pretty much. That's sort of like the it's a
14:17
Speaker 1: big it's actually a really big sandbox to play with,
14:21
Speaker 1: like if you stretch the edges of those. And then
14:23
Speaker 1: the other piece is really like Caribbean music and Haitian
14:28
Speaker 1: music and like and that sort of poll of Regime's background,
14:32
Speaker 1: and then in there it's like it's almost too much.
14:35
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh, too much, real estate in here.
14:38
Speaker 1: What would be the electronic music that has come in
14:42
Speaker 1: since that gets added? I mean I would say that,
14:46
Speaker 1: you know, for me, like Radiohead and Bork Buyork is
14:50
Speaker 1: like to me like Bowie Incarnate, like you know, talk
14:54
Speaker 1: about not give you a fuck and just being like
14:57
Speaker 1: sticking to your guns and shit, Like I I feel
15:00
Speaker 1: like York slaughters, you know, she's so fucking tough and hardcore.
15:05
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess like kid A and Homogenic and
15:08
Speaker 1: like those records would have been, those would have been
15:10
Speaker 1: deep in there. I mean, I feel like kraft Work
15:13
Speaker 1: is probably the most there is no modern music without Kraftwork.
15:17
Speaker 1: That's like the if you triangulate all EDM and hip
15:21
Speaker 1: hop and every like craft Works the fucking and who
15:24
Speaker 1: would think this weird German minimalist electronic group is like
15:29
Speaker 1: But they're at the crossroad of all of it. You know,
15:32
Speaker 1: if they got like a tenth of a penny on
15:34
Speaker 1: all that shit they like, they should, you know, they
15:37
Speaker 1: should be buildings in Berlin with the Craftwork logo on
15:40
Speaker 1: them and the fact that it's as funky as it
15:43
Speaker 1: is considering how coldly programmed it is, it makes no
15:47
Speaker 1: fucking sense. I don't. I still don't quite understand it.
15:50
Speaker 1: But I mean it's like the funkiness is in the
15:53
Speaker 1: space because it's like actually realized that would kneel some
15:56
Speaker 1: of Neil shit, like the swing even he always the
16:00
Speaker 1: same beat, but if it's it's more of a soul
16:03
Speaker 1: it's actually a slowed down it's like you're playing soul
16:07
Speaker 1: music but really Stone like it's actually there is actually
16:11
Speaker 1: like a kind of funky swing to the ship that
16:13
Speaker 1: he does. It's not just a straight thing. There's a
16:15
Speaker 1: little bit of a lilt to it. Like the thing
16:18
Speaker 1: in New Orleans which is so amazing is that all
16:20
Speaker 1: the there's all the second line music, which is like
16:24
Speaker 1: people like normally today, if it wasn't COVID, I would
16:28
Speaker 1: hear there'd be a band in the street and people
16:31
Speaker 1: just go through the neighborhood and drink, and you follow
16:33
Speaker 1: the band around and you either play kick drum snare
16:37
Speaker 1: or you play you play kick drum with a with
16:40
Speaker 1: a with a high hat symbol with a screwdriver that's
16:43
Speaker 1: like one instrument, and then or you play the snare
16:44
Speaker 1: or you play and so if you if you're a
16:47
Speaker 1: kit drummer from New Orleans, you started monophonically just playing
16:51
Speaker 1: the kick or just playing the snare, and so the dude,
16:54
Speaker 1: but everything so spread out physically that in order to
16:57
Speaker 1: play in the pocket, the pocket is really slow and behind.
17:01
Speaker 1: Everything's really behind because because the physical distance, there's latency
17:06
Speaker 1: between the tuba and the kick drum and whatever. So
17:08
Speaker 1: the pocket is like this like super behind. Like you're like,
17:12
Speaker 1: how the funk this possibly groove and it like it's
17:15
Speaker 1: the exact point where it grooves. And then if you
17:18
Speaker 1: learn to play the kit after you're coming from a
17:20
Speaker 1: monophonic kick drum, and then you're putting it together. And
17:24
Speaker 1: that's why all those New Orleans, like all the La
17:28
Speaker 1: Studio dudes, like there's New Orleans dudes are just like
17:30
Speaker 1: because they played the fucking kick drum for like five
17:33
Speaker 1: years before they learn how to play the kit, and
17:36
Speaker 1: then you put it together, and so you're thinking about
17:38
Speaker 1: it as these different instruments as opposed to one instrument,
17:41
Speaker 1: and like and then you hear people some of these
17:43
Speaker 1: old dudes play at the Preservation Hall and I'm like
17:47
Speaker 1: watching this dude, he's like ninety years old, loading out
17:50
Speaker 1: his own kid at the end of the night, and
17:51
Speaker 1: I'm watching and play, I'm like, who the fuck is
17:54
Speaker 1: that guy? And he's like, oh, he played on every
17:56
Speaker 1: Ray Charles record, like like he just like the fucking most.
18:02
Speaker 1: Like I'm almost like crying just watching him play this
18:04
Speaker 1: traditional song, and it's like, Oh, that's why, that's that's
18:07
Speaker 1: what's up. Isn't it remarkable that you can hear you
18:12
Speaker 1: don't have to know any backstory, and you hear it
18:16
Speaker 1: and you know, oh, this is different than everything else,
18:19
Speaker 1: and it's something else music a million times, but I'm like,
18:22
Speaker 1: but that dude, who the fuck is that dude? It's like, oh,
18:26
Speaker 1: he's one of the best drummers in the world. Who
18:29
Speaker 1: ever lived? That? No one's ever heard of? Who does
18:32
Speaker 1: you know? I can remember I was listening to a
18:34
Speaker 1: station of I know very little about classical music. I
18:37
Speaker 1: like classical music and I listened to it a lot,
18:39
Speaker 1: but I know very little about it. And I was
18:41
Speaker 1: listening and a piece came on that just felt better,
18:46
Speaker 1: not written better, not even necessarily performed better, but there
18:49
Speaker 1: was something about It's like, oh, this is different than
18:52
Speaker 1: everything that's played all day. And then I find out
18:55
Speaker 1: who does the arrangement and it turns out to be
18:56
Speaker 1: this guy at clauds Argerment, and I asked some friends
19:00
Speaker 1: of mine who know about this stuff. He's like, oh,
19:01
Speaker 1: of course, clouds Arga. It's of course he's the master.
19:05
Speaker 1: He's the guy who taught everybody. So it's like you
19:08
Speaker 1: can hear it. It's um, it's innate in the in
19:12
Speaker 1: the dna of it, that that energy. Yeah, but most
19:17
Speaker 1: of us just feel it. So it's like you feel
19:20
Speaker 1: sad and you don't know why or you like you
19:22
Speaker 1: just feel like it just it just gets it out
19:25
Speaker 1: of you. Regine. Regine is like I mean, she grew
19:29
Speaker 1: up none of her family's musical, but she she's just
19:32
Speaker 1: a savant who like taught herself to play Mozart when
19:35
Speaker 1: she was five in the basement on a weird or
19:37
Speaker 1: Like she's just like one of these can play any instrument.
19:41
Speaker 1: She started playing drums like two weeks before we started
19:44
Speaker 1: recording Funeral, and she plays drums on half that record,
19:47
Speaker 1: like she'd never played a drum kid, and she's like,
19:49
Speaker 1: I can play a drum kid, give me the drums. Um.
19:52
Speaker 1: But she's studied composition, she was at McGill, studied classical music.
19:57
Speaker 1: But she has this like kind of she'll hear and
20:00
Speaker 1: it's like the arrange the performance of the orchestra, and
20:03
Speaker 1: she's like, fuck, it's like nails on a chalkboard because
20:05
Speaker 1: she knows like all the minutia of like the feeling.
20:09
Speaker 1: It's not just the notes on the page. It's like
20:11
Speaker 1: it's like the conducting and how it's played and like
20:14
Speaker 1: all that shit is like where the soul of it is.
20:16
Speaker 1: But I'm just sort of like fantasious school, Like I'm
20:19
Speaker 1: just like I really like Fantasia, you know, like any
20:24
Speaker 1: any shows that you can remember throughout your life that
20:26
Speaker 1: really impressed or inspired you live. I didn't really go
20:31
Speaker 1: to any show when I was a kid. I was
20:35
Speaker 1: in the suburbs of Houston. If you can't drive, you
20:38
Speaker 1: can't do shit in Houston, like like until you can drive,
20:41
Speaker 1: it's like you're a prisoner. And shows would come through
20:45
Speaker 1: town and I would like read them out in the paper.
20:47
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I wish I could figure out how
20:49
Speaker 1: to get to that. I just I couldn't figure it out.
20:52
Speaker 1: And then I went to boarding school and that was
20:54
Speaker 1: like not shows, you know. It was like I played
20:57
Speaker 1: in a cover band and there were bands on campus
20:59
Speaker 1: and ship, but wasn't like I was going to shows.
21:01
Speaker 1: So for me, like when I moved to Montreal, that
21:04
Speaker 1: was really my first like real punk rock music scene.
21:08
Speaker 1: And there's a band in Montreal called wolfridd and we
21:11
Speaker 1: played with them the first time they ever played their
21:14
Speaker 1: first show. They just moved from Vancouver and they were
21:17
Speaker 1: on the bill and I was in the bathroom and
21:19
Speaker 1: I was just like hearing it through the wall and
21:21
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, what the fuck is that? And
21:25
Speaker 1: that was like the first band I heard there where
21:28
Speaker 1: I was like, we gotta get our ship together. And
21:30
Speaker 1: so like there was a band called The Unicorns. There's
21:33
Speaker 1: a band called the Hidden Cameras. It's like a queer
21:37
Speaker 1: like fifteen piece queer kind of folk band, and they
21:40
Speaker 1: would only play in porn theaters and it was like
21:43
Speaker 1: kind of sounded like almost like Christian religious music but
21:47
Speaker 1: like all about golden showers, and like, man, I'll put
21:50
Speaker 1: I'll put that band up against ninety percent of the
21:53
Speaker 1: shit I've seen on planets, Like you just you're like
21:55
Speaker 1: you're assaulted by how mediocre your ship is, like because
21:58
Speaker 1: they were just like just like going so fucking hard.
22:02
Speaker 1: There was a lot of like really people really doing
22:05
Speaker 1: it and being on the ground. I don't know, I
22:08
Speaker 1: feel like some of that's lost. I don't even know
22:10
Speaker 1: how you would ever do anything if you're not constantly
22:13
Speaker 1: ashamed at how whack your shit is. You just get
22:17
Speaker 1: your feed off the energy of how good other people are.
22:20
Speaker 1: Got to I mean you, I mean you've got to.
22:22
Speaker 1: Like I've met so many my heroes in my life,
22:25
Speaker 1: and I've never met Bob Dylan. But I was like,
22:28
Speaker 1: I would never want to meet Bob Dylan ever unless
22:31
Speaker 1: he was side stage of our show and I'd be like,
22:33
Speaker 1: nice to meet you, mister Dylon. But like, I have
22:35
Speaker 1: no fucking interest in like just cold meeting Bob Dylan.
22:39
Speaker 1: Like I remember, like, oh I played in a band,
22:41
Speaker 1: like like I'm good, you know, like on Neon Bible
22:45
Speaker 1: on our second record, I was obsessed. Do you ever
22:48
Speaker 1: get to meet Bob Johnson before he passed? He was
22:52
Speaker 1: the producer who did what all the Dylan shit Johnny
22:57
Speaker 1: Cash Live at folsome Willie Nelson in Leonard Cohen to me,
23:02
Speaker 1: Bob Johnson, like if you look at his discography, that's
23:06
Speaker 1: like no one fucks with Bob john Like to me,
23:08
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's the holy Grail. Incredible and so he
23:12
Speaker 1: came out to Montreal. We were working on the record,
23:14
Speaker 1: and he was like Willie Nelson, but who didn't take
23:18
Speaker 1: the drugs as well. He was out of his fucking mind,
23:21
Speaker 1: like completely out of it. But we were working on
23:23
Speaker 1: a song called My Body as a Cage and he
23:26
Speaker 1: sort of like sits up and he's like, my Body's
23:28
Speaker 1: a cage and like he'd like love the song my
23:31
Speaker 1: Body's a Cage, and like was really just like, yes,
23:34
Speaker 1: this that is a holy thing that you're working on.
23:38
Speaker 1: And and then he was sort of out of it,
23:39
Speaker 1: you know, but he was like, I'm shocked that the
23:42
Speaker 1: song that gets mentioned is that song, because at the
23:45
Speaker 1: end of his interview, I was going to say, my
23:47
Speaker 1: favorite song of yours is my Body as a Cage
23:50
Speaker 1: And would it be okay for us to listen to
23:52
Speaker 1: it and talk about it because I love that song. Um,
23:56
Speaker 1: do you mind if we listen to it? If you
24:00
Speaker 1: would have written that song sooner, there is no question
24:03
Speaker 1: in my mind that Johnny Cash would have sung that
24:05
Speaker 1: song and it would have been mind blowing. Yeah, there's
24:08
Speaker 1: definitely some room sound on that motherfucker. Yeah, tell me
24:12
Speaker 1: the story of the song. It's interesting It's like I
24:14
Speaker 1: was sort of transported. I haven't really listened to it
24:17
Speaker 1: in a while. But I don't really know Brandon Flowers
24:20
Speaker 1: from The Killers, but he's Mormon. We both playing these
24:23
Speaker 1: giant bands. We've met each other airports a couple of times,
24:26
Speaker 1: and I reached out to him recently just to be like,
24:29
Speaker 1: keep going, man, I really appreciate your record and keep
24:33
Speaker 1: keep doing it. And he was like, he was like,
24:35
Speaker 1: I remember meeting you on Funeral and you had this
24:37
Speaker 1: little keyboard, and I remember thinking, man, this guy's writing
24:41
Speaker 1: music on tour, I should really work harder. And like
24:45
Speaker 1: I had this little cassio cassio keyboard on the Funeral
24:49
Speaker 1: tour that had a sampler and the whole tour. I
24:53
Speaker 1: brought it with me and I would we were in
24:55
Speaker 1: a we were in a sprinter van. I would sit
24:57
Speaker 1: in the back with headphones for like nine hours driving
25:01
Speaker 1: across Texas, like to the next gig, and I would
25:04
Speaker 1: play this fucking thing for two years. And that's the
25:08
Speaker 1: only song I wrote in that entire two year period
25:11
Speaker 1: that that was the only one. And I remember singing
25:16
Speaker 1: it in the shower of like some fucking Motel six
25:19
Speaker 1: somewhere in the desert and then the car broke down
25:23
Speaker 1: somewhere in Arizona and I was sitting on the curb
25:26
Speaker 1: with the headphones on. I just figured out how it went,
25:29
Speaker 1: and I was like, regime, I wrote one like I
25:32
Speaker 1: got I have this, you know, and just sitting like
25:36
Speaker 1: just sweating, like it's like evening that I'm sitting on
25:39
Speaker 1: this weird curb. It's like literally the smallest sound. I
25:43
Speaker 1: was playing the littlest fucking thing, this little keyboard, and
25:47
Speaker 1: it sounded like what we just heard in my head.
25:50
Speaker 1: But it was like literally the smallest thing. And then
25:53
Speaker 1: like maybe a year and a half later, we cut it,
25:57
Speaker 1: and so like we cut it the backing band when
26:01
Speaker 1: Bob Johnston was there in this church we bought outside
26:04
Speaker 1: of Montreal, like an hour outside of Montreal, and then
26:08
Speaker 1: we cut it live on this I found it. I
26:11
Speaker 1: found this little church. It actually wasn't the church we owned.
26:13
Speaker 1: It was another church that had a pipe organ in it,
26:16
Speaker 1: but it wasn't the right pipe organ sound. And I
26:18
Speaker 1: found it's like one of the giant this giant cathedral
26:21
Speaker 1: in Montreal that like you play and there's like an
26:23
Speaker 1: eight second delay, like giant fucking thing. I just I
26:27
Speaker 1: want to something that feels like the way it sounds
26:30
Speaker 1: when you walk into a church and you really hear it.
26:32
Speaker 1: And we had this engineer. It was this like really
26:36
Speaker 1: like indie rock kind of cold dude. And I remember
26:40
Speaker 1: finishing it in the echo for like ten seconds afterwards,
26:44
Speaker 1: and I looked at me. He was crying. It was
26:46
Speaker 1: like crying, like just from the physical It was so
26:49
Speaker 1: fucking loud in the room, like the bass and everything.
26:52
Speaker 1: It was like the loudest sound I've ever heard. Did
26:55
Speaker 1: you sing it and play it live? No, it's the organ.
26:58
Speaker 1: I sang it live in that other room, and then
27:01
Speaker 1: we overdubbed the organ, and and there's French horn that
27:05
Speaker 1: don't like, there's this kind of um that was recorded
27:09
Speaker 1: in the same church, like from like one hundred feet away,
27:11
Speaker 1: like just horns echoing in this giant cathedral. What about
27:16
Speaker 1: the rhythm track. The rhythm track is um. I think
27:20
Speaker 1: it's regime playing the drums. Like the whole first half
27:23
Speaker 1: of the track is just organ and drums and just
27:26
Speaker 1: regime playing like kind of like I remember that her
27:32
Speaker 1: reference point was Prince. Maybe I'm just stuck my mother,
27:37
Speaker 1: do Like there's that sort of rhythm underlying it, and
27:42
Speaker 1: then it just sort of opens up and everything's on eleven.
27:44
Speaker 1: They're just like I remember kind of taking some shit
27:47
Speaker 1: on that record for it being so Bombat's like, so like,
27:51
Speaker 1: how pretentious to make something bombastic? And I was like, motherfucker,
27:56
Speaker 1: like this shit's not bombastic enough, like like it it's fun.
28:00
Speaker 1: I would have never I would have never noticed the
28:02
Speaker 1: Win Doves Cry reference on the drums. But when you
28:05
Speaker 1: say it's like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, but not
28:08
Speaker 1: obviously not the same production, but yeah. But it's interesting
28:13
Speaker 1: how a reference point, even a super well known reference point,
28:18
Speaker 1: when you change the context of it, turns into completely
28:21
Speaker 1: new music. Any memories about the lyrics at all. When
28:24
Speaker 1: I hear myself saying on those really the first two records,
28:28
Speaker 1: I was ill. I was like I had a chronic
28:32
Speaker 1: I had chronic sinus infections and I would basically be
28:35
Speaker 1: sick for four months at a time. My voice is
28:38
Speaker 1: just fucking shredded, you know, like, and I would just
28:43
Speaker 1: scream every note of every song from beginning to end
28:46
Speaker 1: every night. But I was really like not well, and
28:49
Speaker 1: even at the end of Funeral, I was still sick.
28:52
Speaker 1: We launched the on Bible and we were in Sweden
28:56
Speaker 1: or something. We went to play the show and just
28:58
Speaker 1: like like nothing, no sound like my voice, like I've
29:03
Speaker 1: never had that before. We had to cancel the whole tour,
29:05
Speaker 1: like I could, like not a whisper of sound came
29:07
Speaker 1: out of my voice. And so I feel like my
29:10
Speaker 1: body as a cage was like just like you're just
29:13
Speaker 1: being suffocated by your life. It was just like I
29:16
Speaker 1: had like my body wasn't my own, and I'm doing
29:20
Speaker 1: what I've always dreamed of doing on planet Earth and
29:23
Speaker 1: it's fucking hell, but like but it's also my wildest dream,
29:29
Speaker 1: you know. But it wasn't like later it got fun.
29:33
Speaker 1: It got once. You know, once you have money and
29:35
Speaker 1: you're staying at nice hotels and it's like a little
29:37
Speaker 1: bit cushier. But like there was no nuance to what
29:40
Speaker 1: we were doing. We were like it was war Like
29:43
Speaker 1: every show was like we're at war with the audience.
29:46
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a Kumbaya sort of shit. It was
29:49
Speaker 1: like we're trying to fucking kill Like you're not gonna
29:52
Speaker 1: be like, oh what was that band? Like we were
29:54
Speaker 1: like we were coming to kill you every night, you know,
29:57
Speaker 1: like I don't care if there's three people like we're
30:00
Speaker 1: at eleven, you know, and which is it's great when
30:03
Speaker 1: you're when you're young. And I didn't even drink or
30:06
Speaker 1: anything then, So I can't even imagine how I would
30:08
Speaker 1: have done it if I was like higher some shit.
30:11
Speaker 1: How did you end up solving the infection issue? I
30:13
Speaker 1: got a sinus surgery and they kind of opened I
30:16
Speaker 1: had like one side that wasn't drained. They opened it up,
30:19
Speaker 1: and then afterwards my dad was like, oh, yeah I
30:21
Speaker 1: had that too, and so do your brother. I was like, fuck, Dad,
30:23
Speaker 1: like I've been sick for like three years, Like you
30:25
Speaker 1: could have hit me that. It was like a completely
30:29
Speaker 1: like genetic It's like, yeah, I had that surgery a lot.
30:31
Speaker 1: It was like, have you noticed that I've been ill
30:34
Speaker 1: for forever? We'll be back with Winn Butler and Rick Rubber.
30:45
Speaker 1: Here's the rest of Rick Rubin's conversation with Wynn Butler.
30:49
Speaker 1: Are you are you writing and working towards whatever the
30:53
Speaker 1: next project is going to be? Yeah, we were. We
30:56
Speaker 1: It depends on the record, but at least a year
30:59
Speaker 1: or more pretty much full time before we start even
31:04
Speaker 1: demoing stuff. We've been writing for a year and we're
31:08
Speaker 1: doing our first session towards the record when when kind
31:12
Speaker 1: of COVID came down and so like it was it
31:14
Speaker 1: felt like sort of like being on the on the
31:17
Speaker 1: roller coaster and it goes up and like you you're
31:20
Speaker 1: going into it and it's like exactly then once your
31:23
Speaker 1: your body's already going like there was, there's no stopping it.
31:28
Speaker 1: So I've just been writing, like I can't remember a
31:32
Speaker 1: time where I've written more, just like it feels like
31:35
Speaker 1: being eighteen, Just like sitting in a piano for five
31:38
Speaker 1: days in a row and working on a melody for
31:41
Speaker 1: a verse and shit like that. It's pretty It's been
31:43
Speaker 1: pretty amazing, actually really beautiful time. Great. Do you feel like,
31:49
Speaker 1: had had the situation been different, you would already be
31:53
Speaker 1: in recording mode based on the year previous of writing,
31:57
Speaker 1: we would have been kind of get and towards wrapping
32:00
Speaker 1: up I think of finishing an album. Yeah, So instead
32:04
Speaker 1: we just wrote two or three coming about how the
32:08
Speaker 1: last album was different than all that came before them.
32:10
Speaker 1: For you, I mean, it sort of feels like the
32:12
Speaker 1: way we do it, we're kind of a new band
32:16
Speaker 1: every single time. It's like we take so much time
32:19
Speaker 1: in between that it's like almost like we've forgotten to
32:21
Speaker 1: play our instruments. It's like we're remembering how to be
32:25
Speaker 1: a band, and we kind of end up building. We
32:29
Speaker 1: really build a studio pretty much every record. And the
32:32
Speaker 1: last record we had just moved to New Orleans and
32:35
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time in Haiti and Jamaica,
32:38
Speaker 1: and we used to we used to have a studio
32:41
Speaker 1: and a church, and then over the years, like the
32:43
Speaker 1: space has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller,
32:46
Speaker 1: and so our new studio is like maybe three hundred
32:51
Speaker 1: square feet, but with it's like an old shotgun of
32:53
Speaker 1: like a of an old New Orleans house, like eighteen
32:56
Speaker 1: hundreds house, and it's like sort of like a black
32:58
Speaker 1: arc like Jamaica. Like the console in the corner, we
33:02
Speaker 1: had like fifteen musicians. Everyone's like sweating their ass off
33:06
Speaker 1: and touching each other and sort of like really physically
33:08
Speaker 1: close and just everything's within It's like you're on a boat,
33:12
Speaker 1: so every all the gear is here and the eqs
33:14
Speaker 1: and everything just like immediate. So that was the first time,
33:18
Speaker 1: that was the first record we made in that space.
33:20
Speaker 1: That was really just like the smallest possible space that
33:24
Speaker 1: and that was chosen on purpose to get that feeling.
33:28
Speaker 1: It's just sort of what I was gravitating towards, just
33:31
Speaker 1: like immediacy, and like, um, I remember visiting, like on
33:36
Speaker 1: the first tour we went, we went to the Motown
33:39
Speaker 1: Studio in Detroit. That's like in the basement, and just
33:42
Speaker 1: like how small that space is and they have those
33:45
Speaker 1: uh like on the walls like we're normally like all
33:50
Speaker 1: modern studios have like deadening foam and shit everywhere, and
33:52
Speaker 1: I'm always just like, get me the fuck out of here.
33:55
Speaker 1: I hate this space so much, Like I'm just like,
33:58
Speaker 1: how is the spirit supposed to get into a room
34:00
Speaker 1: where all the windows are hermetically sealed? But the Motown
34:04
Speaker 1: studio had these boards, lacquer boards. They were meant to
34:07
Speaker 1: reflect the sound to make it more exciting, so it
34:12
Speaker 1: bounce off and hit the piano player and hit the
34:14
Speaker 1: drummer so it would be more more feedback and more
34:17
Speaker 1: slap back and brighter, so the fucking musicians play better.
34:21
Speaker 1: Everything is designed now to be separate, like the most
34:24
Speaker 1: separation possible. And I always responded more to like I
34:27
Speaker 1: wanted to hit me so that I sing better or
34:30
Speaker 1: sing differently or I play better. Might it might have
34:32
Speaker 1: something to do with the volume, because I think as
34:36
Speaker 1: bands have gotten louder and louder, with you know, bigger
34:39
Speaker 1: amps and louder stuff, it's harder to control that sound
34:43
Speaker 1: in a space, whereas in the Motown days people played
34:47
Speaker 1: pretty quietly. Even on James Brown records, if you listen,
34:50
Speaker 1: it's like ms barely play yeah. So it's a different
34:56
Speaker 1: it's a different animal. And are the songs on the
35:01
Speaker 1: earlier records. It's clear how the songs would be written
35:03
Speaker 1: in advance and then turn into what we're familiar with
35:06
Speaker 1: on the records. Does it work the same way in
35:09
Speaker 1: the more modern style of production? We always have recorded
35:14
Speaker 1: to tape. Pretty much in the last six months is
35:17
Speaker 1: the first time where I like working on a computer
35:20
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh, this shit actually sounds just as
35:22
Speaker 1: good to my ear, Like, like it's kind of hit
35:24
Speaker 1: a point where it's not really for sonics anymore. Tape
35:27
Speaker 1: is more for methodology. We're not We've we've certainly jammed
35:31
Speaker 1: a lot a lot over the years. I don't know
35:34
Speaker 1: how many things we've written that way, like probably only
35:37
Speaker 1: a couple things, but you'll end up kind of more
35:39
Speaker 1: for arrangements, like coming up with different ideas and stuff
35:42
Speaker 1: for arrangements. So from the would what would a song
35:48
Speaker 1: look like when you first bring it into the band?
35:51
Speaker 1: So the song exists, the band has not played it before.
35:55
Speaker 1: Now we're going into the studio. What does that process
35:58
Speaker 1: look like? It's been different every time, you know, it
36:01
Speaker 1: depends on the era, you know, Like as I've as
36:05
Speaker 1: we've kind of ended up having a studio in our house,
36:08
Speaker 1: it's really hard not to end up just demoing something
36:12
Speaker 1: to the point where it basically sounds like a record.
36:14
Speaker 1: And then it's just like this like kind of tortuous
36:17
Speaker 1: process of trying to figure out how it works as
36:20
Speaker 1: a band thing or what it is. From my perspective,
36:24
Speaker 1: like the the thing I'm most interested in is the
36:28
Speaker 1: song itself. And you really have no you don't have
36:33
Speaker 1: much say in whether or not you get a song,
36:35
Speaker 1: except for the more time you put in, the better
36:40
Speaker 1: your odds are that you'll be hanging around when some
36:42
Speaker 1: shit shows up. I mean, just you like, if you
36:45
Speaker 1: do it more, you're more likely to be there, Like
36:48
Speaker 1: you can't schedule it. Like the more a part we
36:50
Speaker 1: are and coming back together, it's like, well, okay, well
36:53
Speaker 1: this month, that's when we're gonna get the ship. And
36:55
Speaker 1: it doesn't really work that way because it, like music
36:58
Speaker 1: shows up whenever the fuck it want, so it doesn't
37:00
Speaker 1: give a shit about your life. It's like, my dad's
37:03
Speaker 1: family's from Maine, but actually I have my grandmothers from Hawaii,
37:07
Speaker 1: and I've spent time in Hawaii. And when you're in
37:09
Speaker 1: the ocean in Hawaii, the Pacific doesn't give a shit
37:13
Speaker 1: if you're alive or dead. It doesn't care at all.
37:16
Speaker 1: You're just like the energy I get from that ocean
37:19
Speaker 1: is like your existence is like inconsequential to me. And
37:25
Speaker 1: I feel like music is this comes from the same
37:28
Speaker 1: spirit as that, where it like like it doesn't give
37:32
Speaker 1: a shit about you. But if you're there and you
37:34
Speaker 1: want to, if you want to participate in what it's doing,
37:38
Speaker 1: then you're welcome to participate. But it doesn't really if
37:41
Speaker 1: you're alive or dead. It's gonna find someone else. If
37:43
Speaker 1: you've got other shit going on, it'll be like, Okay,
37:46
Speaker 1: see later, I got someone just got born. I gotta go.
37:49
Speaker 1: You gotta go check them out and see what see
37:50
Speaker 1: what they're thinking about. You know amazing. Tell me about
37:55
Speaker 1: you've so now you're at a point where you might
37:59
Speaker 1: demo up music on the computer and then you figure
38:02
Speaker 1: out how to turn it into the band or tell me,
38:05
Speaker 1: just tell me what's the process? Shit? Man, it just
38:07
Speaker 1: gets complicated because everyone's so spread out. Now my brother
38:10
Speaker 1: lives in Brooklyn, who's in the band of a lot
38:13
Speaker 1: of band members are in Montreal, and then our drummers
38:16
Speaker 1: in Australia actually, which is like extremely inconvenient. That seemed
38:21
Speaker 1: like a reasonable thing even like six it was like, oh, sure,
38:24
Speaker 1: we all live in different points of the globe, and
38:26
Speaker 1: then this shit happens and it just seems absurd. You're like, what,
38:30
Speaker 1: like what are we what were we thinking in the
38:32
Speaker 1: last ten years? But you know, I mean it's like ideally,
38:36
Speaker 1: like I would say, back in the day when we
38:38
Speaker 1: were when we were hurting, like we had a loft,
38:41
Speaker 1: we lived in, our drums were in the living room,
38:43
Speaker 1: we had had band practice, and so the odds that
38:47
Speaker 1: people are around when the shit happens is higher because
38:50
Speaker 1: everyone's hanging out. So it's like, even if you don't
38:53
Speaker 1: play something, if you're there when it's happening, it's still
38:55
Speaker 1: you still feel like you don't need to play on it.
38:58
Speaker 1: You can just you can just be there and kind
39:01
Speaker 1: of like be part of the process. So it's harder
39:05
Speaker 1: to orchestrate that happening, I think with a band. But
39:09
Speaker 1: on the flip side, the band is so fucking great
39:13
Speaker 1: at their instruments, Like everyone's so so much more technically
39:17
Speaker 1: proficient and so such a tight amazing I don't know,
39:22
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I'm not trying to like toot
39:23
Speaker 1: our horn, but we're not a shitty live band. And
39:26
Speaker 1: and and we've when we play like we're not fucking around,
39:29
Speaker 1: like we're like, if the clash is watching us play,
39:32
Speaker 1: we're not going to be embarrassed, Like we're like, we're
39:34
Speaker 1: like coming, We're going for the throat when we play.
39:37
Speaker 1: So it's like over fifteen years of doing that, it's
39:41
Speaker 1: like we're so the range of what we can express
39:44
Speaker 1: is so much better. So this time around, it's like
39:47
Speaker 1: we've been in lockdown, have a studio, have every keyboard
39:54
Speaker 1: and drum machine and piano and everything I could ever want,
39:57
Speaker 1: and fucking time. So it's like and and the one
40:01
Speaker 1: piece that's been missing is the time, And now the times,
40:04
Speaker 1: like the time is there. So it's like in a way.
40:09
Speaker 1: It feels like a more extreme version of what we
40:11
Speaker 1: would have done anyway. But it's, uh, I don't know
40:14
Speaker 1: if it's been. It's been cool just to really like
40:18
Speaker 1: stay with it and just like I don't know, there's
40:22
Speaker 1: like no magic, no magic thing that's going to come
40:25
Speaker 1: and write the song for you. It's just like it's
40:27
Speaker 1: just you. So it's like figured out. Yeah, are you
40:31
Speaker 1: ever surprised by what comes back as opposed to what
40:34
Speaker 1: you're expecting or what you're looking for? I mean that's
40:37
Speaker 1: that is sort of that is the joy of a
40:40
Speaker 1: band is when it's it's it's better than what you
40:44
Speaker 1: thought it was, you know, and it's different and it's
40:46
Speaker 1: like kind of fleshed out absolutely. I mean that's mostly
40:51
Speaker 1: that is what it is, you know, um, and it's
40:54
Speaker 1: in its best form. We were so hardcore about never
40:57
Speaker 1: editing everything, like back like the first three four records,
41:01
Speaker 1: we wouldn't touch a fucking thing, Like we wouldn't move
41:05
Speaker 1: one piece of drums, and it was just like, no,
41:08
Speaker 1: that's what it is. Like if we couldn't do it,
41:10
Speaker 1: that's what it is. And so I feel like the
41:13
Speaker 1: computer makes it. When I hear most modern music, it
41:16
Speaker 1: feels like I'm listening to editing, like like it's essentially
41:20
Speaker 1: become an art form of editing, which is cool, it
41:24
Speaker 1: is really cool. But it's like it feels like digital
41:26
Speaker 1: digital quilting or something like that doesn't feel like a
41:30
Speaker 1: musical performance. It feels like an editing performance, like an
41:32
Speaker 1: amazing editing. It's the same thing as a big budget
41:35
Speaker 1: film or something when it's just like it's like a
41:38
Speaker 1: magic trick of editing. I was actually sort of realizing
41:41
Speaker 1: this the other day, like the kind of heyday of
41:44
Speaker 1: like fifties and sixties and like some of the music
41:47
Speaker 1: that was really recorded in the room, like is VR.
41:51
Speaker 1: It's VR before VR, And if you if you can
41:54
Speaker 1: hear a room, if you close your eyes, you hear
41:56
Speaker 1: the piano player, you hear the drummer, you can hear
41:59
Speaker 1: the room. And so every time you hear that shit,
42:02
Speaker 1: you're in like Richie Vallen's playing, Like that's why these
42:06
Speaker 1: mediocre recordings from the fifties of like La Bumba and shit,
42:10
Speaker 1: you hear it and you're like, motherfuck because it's like
42:13
Speaker 1: it's a photograph of a thing. So for me, that's
42:16
Speaker 1: still the ship. That is the great song and the
42:19
Speaker 1: best arrangement and has that. To me, that's the shit
42:22
Speaker 1: that list forever, because it's like it's like it actually
42:25
Speaker 1: is a room. I have a slightly different take on it,
42:31
Speaker 1: similar but different. My feeling is if you hear the
42:35
Speaker 1: room that they're in, it doesn't take into account the
42:39
Speaker 1: room you're in, the listener. Yeah, and I want the
42:44
Speaker 1: music to come out of the speakers as if the
42:47
Speaker 1: band was in the room that I'm in, and experience
42:51
Speaker 1: it as if they're here playing for me in my space,
42:54
Speaker 1: because otherwise it's two rooms. It's their room plus my room,
42:58
Speaker 1: and it's confusing to me. No, I that's that's how
43:01
Speaker 1: I feel you. I mean, what you're describing as like
43:04
Speaker 1: is uh. I mean obviously, if you hear a fucking
43:07
Speaker 1: dancing queen that's in the room you're in, like that's
43:10
Speaker 1: in your room, it's not their room, like and that's
43:14
Speaker 1: just like that's that seven just immaculate, guru level shit
43:18
Speaker 1: as well. But there's still like for me, like when
43:21
Speaker 1: I hear like um stand by me or some shit
43:24
Speaker 1: like that, that's the fucking or like Louis Armstrong or whatever,
43:28
Speaker 1: like that's the to me, that's just like what the
43:31
Speaker 1: fuck are you going to say about like that ship
43:32
Speaker 1: will live for a thousand years. I mean now too,
43:35
Speaker 1: it's like we're mixing for this shit, we're mixing for
43:37
Speaker 1: iPhone and like club speakers, and like it's like it's
43:43
Speaker 1: enough to make you insane. How how aware are you
43:47
Speaker 1: of the perception of the work you make after it
43:50
Speaker 1: comes out? Are you wear it all or just you
43:53
Speaker 1: make it and then you move on? Definitely aware? I
43:56
Speaker 1: mean I've always most of the bands that I liked
43:58
Speaker 1: when I was a kid had broken up twenty years
44:00
Speaker 1: before I was listening to them, like I wasn't like
44:02
Speaker 1: in high school, like Radiohead and Byork were like that
44:06
Speaker 1: was that was it for me? Like in terms of
44:08
Speaker 1: the contemporary this came out this week. I bought it
44:11
Speaker 1: this week, But most of the shit I listened to
44:14
Speaker 1: the bands had broken up twenty years before, and so
44:16
Speaker 1: I always had the perspective of, like, how do you
44:19
Speaker 1: even know if any of it's any good until twenty
44:23
Speaker 1: years after it comes out? Like how I've just like
44:25
Speaker 1: read these enemy reviews of like the Clash and whatever
44:28
Speaker 1: and what they're talking it's absurd. You read it and
44:31
Speaker 1: you're like, this is absurd, you know, like, how could
44:33
Speaker 1: anyone take any of this shit seriously? And so I
44:37
Speaker 1: was I was always coming from that perspective where it's
44:40
Speaker 1: like I'm almost like distrustful of a good review, where
44:43
Speaker 1: it's like it's like, oh shit, our ship must not
44:45
Speaker 1: be that good if it is a really funny Rolling
44:49
Speaker 1: Stone put out a collection of everything written about Neil
44:53
Speaker 1: Young in Rolling Stone as a book. Yeah, and you
44:57
Speaker 1: read the review of each album, and every review is terrible, worst.
45:03
Speaker 1: You know, Neil's worst, he's lost, it doesn't know what
45:07
Speaker 1: he's doing. Lost, And then you get to these and
45:10
Speaker 1: then you get to the decade's finest albums, and he's
45:13
Speaker 1: always in the Those same albums are always in their
45:15
Speaker 1: top ten of the best albums of the decade, every consistently,
45:19
Speaker 1: every single time. Yeah, Neil, Neil doesn't give a fuck
45:24
Speaker 1: if like you don't drop out of Crosby Steals in
45:27
Speaker 1: nash if you give a fuck, Like he had a
45:29
Speaker 1: really good thing going, Like just imagine the balls it
45:32
Speaker 1: takes to be like Springfield, Tim Buffalo's Like I'm in
45:36
Speaker 1: two of the biggest bands in the world, Like I'm
45:38
Speaker 1: just gonna go in my basement and like fucking play
45:42
Speaker 1: some shit and like, yeah, Neil is like like that's
45:46
Speaker 1: that's the north Star. I feel like for people who
45:48
Speaker 1: do what I do are just like that's a cold
45:50
Speaker 1: blooded motherfucker. He doesn't give a shit. What's your favorite
45:53
Speaker 1: Neil album? I mean, I love After the gold Rush
45:57
Speaker 1: is probably the one that I've just lived with the most,
45:59
Speaker 1: like it just like it's my favorite. That's my favorite.
46:02
Speaker 1: But I mean Harvest is, like, I mean, what the
46:04
Speaker 1: fuck are you gonna say about Harvest? Like in terms
46:06
Speaker 1: of the like the live needle and the damage done
46:10
Speaker 1: like a live recording, and then the orchestral stuff like that,
46:13
Speaker 1: like the magic trick of that is amazing. Definitely After
46:17
Speaker 1: the gold Rush the one that that's my Like, I'm
46:20
Speaker 1: going to that one. It's it's a pretty magical. It's
46:23
Speaker 1: a pretty magical one. That's That's a record I would
46:26
Speaker 1: love to make and it would be really hard. Like, man,
46:30
Speaker 1: have you seen that? I imagine you've seen the BBC
46:33
Speaker 1: Neil Young from right around that time. I've seen a
46:37
Speaker 1: lot of that shit, but I'm trying to remember which
46:40
Speaker 1: there's a particular film with him playing and he's playing
46:42
Speaker 1: like um old man and man needs a maid and
46:48
Speaker 1: he's playing them for an audience who's never heard them before,
46:50
Speaker 1: and the records are not out yet. Yeah, and it's
46:53
Speaker 1: just the heaviest, most incredible thing you've ever seen. So,
46:57
Speaker 1: I mean, old Man's one of the because we did
46:59
Speaker 1: we did them his charity thing with him a couple
47:02
Speaker 1: of years and hearing him sing that as an old
47:04
Speaker 1: person and thinking like he wrote that at twenty two
47:06
Speaker 1: four when he was old, and it sounds more relevant
47:10
Speaker 1: like now than it did then, that's I mean, that's
47:12
Speaker 1: that's the trick going into the next album. Do you
47:17
Speaker 1: have a clear vision of what the album sounds like
47:21
Speaker 1: or do you have a clear vision of the material?
47:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I know what the song sound like. I
47:26
Speaker 1: don't know what do you? What do you? What would
47:28
Speaker 1: you want our record to sound like? I want to
47:31
Speaker 1: be surprised, and it's always good to be surprised. I
47:36
Speaker 1: like to be surprised. I think you'll be surprised, and
47:39
Speaker 1: I want it to be really good, you know. I
47:41
Speaker 1: care less about the trappings of it and more about
47:47
Speaker 1: it being really good at whatever it is that it is.
47:51
Speaker 1: So I care less about what it is and more
47:54
Speaker 1: about how good of a version of whatever the thing
47:56
Speaker 1: that you decided to be is. I mean, that's the
47:59
Speaker 1: tough It's like, there's not it's hard to you look
48:01
Speaker 1: at role models and people have done it in the past,
48:04
Speaker 1: and it's like it's it's it's interesting. It's like you
48:07
Speaker 1: start to like we were fortunate enough to spend a
48:09
Speaker 1: lot of time with Bowie and and and he sings
48:12
Speaker 1: on a record and got to like really, you know,
48:15
Speaker 1: like I've got to like actually pick his brain. And
48:19
Speaker 1: when he died, it really felt like a planet died
48:23
Speaker 1: or something like. There's like it was like I did
48:26
Speaker 1: not expect like it kind of took me by surprise.
48:29
Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't totally well, but then like someone
48:32
Speaker 1: like that, it was just like it's not about like
48:35
Speaker 1: oh this this record is perfect and all these perfect records.
48:38
Speaker 1: It's just like about the the total commitment, like total
48:43
Speaker 1: and complete commitment to like to art. That's what I
48:47
Speaker 1: think about. It's just like not like not letting what's
48:50
Speaker 1: hard about it, like keep you from the art art
48:54
Speaker 1: of it, you know. But I don't know, I feel
48:57
Speaker 1: it's so lucky just to have a fucking band that's
48:59
Speaker 1: a great band, really good people that I love and
49:04
Speaker 1: and just like being able to fucking I don't know,
49:08
Speaker 1: I feel like I took so much more for granted
49:11
Speaker 1: before this whole global pandemic. I'm just like, I feel
49:15
Speaker 1: so like so much gratitude, but also just like, fuck,
49:19
Speaker 1: if I do I'm getting into a studio asap, there's
49:22
Speaker 1: gonna be a problem. Yeah. Yeah, so you're looking at
49:26
Speaker 1: you're looking forward to the process. I can't wait, Like
49:29
Speaker 1: I just want to fucking sing and feel like an
49:31
Speaker 1: artist and just like feel uninhibited and just like feel it.
49:35
Speaker 1: I just it just feels like there's so much logistics
49:38
Speaker 1: like the world. It's like there's there's like things that
49:42
Speaker 1: used to be you would kind of take for granted
49:45
Speaker 1: or suddenly really complicated. And I can't wait to just
49:49
Speaker 1: be in a room making noises. And I feel really
49:54
Speaker 1: like a teenager in that regard where I'm just like
49:57
Speaker 1: it still feels like really exciting to me, and I
50:01
Speaker 1: don't know, not sucking as a motherfucker. And I don't know.
50:05
Speaker 1: It's like like I'll let you know when I figure
50:08
Speaker 1: it out. Great, maybe we uh, maybe we'll speak again
50:12
Speaker 1: when you're done and we listen to it together and
50:14
Speaker 1: talk about our Yeah, I'll send you some shit. You
50:16
Speaker 1: tell me what's good. Okay, happy too, cool man? Yeah, thanks,
50:20
Speaker 1: that was that was fun. Nice to nice to talk
50:23
Speaker 1: about music. Thanks to Win Butler for breaking down his
50:29
Speaker 1: writing and recording process. We hope he's crammed into a
50:32
Speaker 1: tiny studio space with his band playing new music soon.
50:35
Speaker 1: You can hear all of our favorite arcade fire songs
50:37
Speaker 1: and I playlist at Broken record podcast dot com, and
50:41
Speaker 1: be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
50:43
Speaker 1: dot com slash Broken Record Podcasts. There you can find
50:47
Speaker 1: extended cuts of our new and old episodes. Broken Record
50:51
Speaker 1: is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Martin Gonzalez.
50:55
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler is executive produced by Meilabelle. Broken Record is
51:00
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like Broken Record,
51:04
Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review our show on
51:06
Speaker 1: your podcast. Apt Our theme musics by Kenny Beats I'm
51:10
Speaker 1: justin Richmond Bass