Transcript

#50 Nick · Heavyweight

0:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can I ask you a question?
0:04
Speaker 2: Yeah?
0:05
Speaker 1: Is it healthier to take a bath or a shower?
0:09
Speaker 2: Is it healthier shower?
0:11
Speaker 1: From a medical perspective, I think more relaxing. Okay, which
0:15
Speaker 1: is better? Bacon or ham? Which is better for the heart?
0:19
Speaker 3: Lake?
0:19
Speaker 1: Which is more heart healthy?
0:21
Speaker 4: That's a toss up.
0:22
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll say bacon is screaming a good cardiovascular workout.
0:33
Speaker 2: Gummy?
0:36
Speaker 1: All right, Time to take a bath while eating bacon
0:40
Speaker 1: and screaming my head off. From Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan
0:50
Speaker 1: Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode.
0:55
Speaker 2: Nick.
1:03
Speaker 1: Right after the break, Hey.
1:12
Speaker 4: Hey, how's it going?
1:13
Speaker 3: How are you?
1:15
Speaker 4: The clocks move forward an hour so it's not all
1:17
Speaker 4: dark anymore.
1:19
Speaker 1: Huh. These two subdued dudes aren't on ludes. They're Canadian
1:26
Speaker 1: and their lack of expression is an expression of their
1:29
Speaker 1: proud Canadian heritage. One of these Canadians is me, Jonathan Goldstein,
1:36
Speaker 1: and the other is Nick. Nick grew up in Ontario
1:40
Speaker 1: with his older brother Chris. They had the same dad,
1:43
Speaker 1: but different moms. Still, Chris would always say.
1:47
Speaker 4: There's no such thing as a half brother, no matter
1:49
Speaker 4: what anyone says, like we're brothers.
1:54
Speaker 1: Chris split his time between his parents' houses, so the
1:57
Speaker 1: brothers mostly saw each other on weekend, but I think.
2:00
Speaker 4: Because of the rarity of his presence, it was that
2:03
Speaker 4: much more special to spend time together. We'd stay up
2:06
Speaker 4: until four in the morning playing video games, listening to music.
2:09
Speaker 1: Nick says his brother introduced him to the music that
2:12
Speaker 1: would form the blueprint for his taste. Chris loved electronica
2:16
Speaker 1: and house music, but his special love was beatboxing, and
2:20
Speaker 1: Chris was an amazing beatboxer.
2:23
Speaker 4: It was like relentless, Like we would go to McDonald's
2:26
Speaker 4: and the car ride there would be beatboxing, Sitting down
2:29
Speaker 4: in the booth would be beatboxing. It would just be
2:31
Speaker 4: like constant. I'm not taking the picture.
2:35
Speaker 1: Nick sends me a grainy YouTube video from two thousand
2:38
Speaker 1: and six. In it, a shaggy haired teenage Chris is
2:42
Speaker 1: leaning against a wall with a group of friends outside
2:45
Speaker 1: a bowling alley. He pulls the gum from his mouth,
2:48
Speaker 1: and as casually as whistling a tune, starts to beatbox.
2:55
Speaker 1: It's hard to understand how the sound of a whole
2:58
Speaker 1: drum line is coming from the mouth of one seventeen
3:01
Speaker 1: year old boy. In the YouTube, comments a twelve year
3:07
Speaker 1: old Nick has written you were My Hero, only a
3:15
Speaker 1: few months after the video was shot. Nick remembers coming
3:18
Speaker 1: downstairs one morning to find his mom sobbing. She told
3:22
Speaker 1: him Chris had been in an accident.
3:25
Speaker 4: At which point I thought, Okay, Chris has been an
3:27
Speaker 4: accident and broke his arm, Chris has been an accent
3:29
Speaker 4: and broke his nose, whatever it might be. Yeah, you know,
3:32
Speaker 4: when nothing that bad has happened to you in your life,
3:35
Speaker 4: you don't jump to the worst case scenario when someone
3:37
Speaker 4: says there's been an accident and then Chris had died.
3:48
Speaker 1: Chris had been killed in a car crash. He was
3:50
Speaker 1: seventeen years old.
3:58
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm warned in the way a twelve
4:01
Speaker 4: year old would like. I would often find myself doing
4:05
Speaker 4: things that I would think that Chris would have thought
4:07
Speaker 4: were cool to do, and trying to keep those parts
4:09
Speaker 4: of him that I admired alive. So I got like
4:13
Speaker 4: a little bit more into beatboxing, and of course listening
4:17
Speaker 4: to music to music that he liked, like mostly Bonobo.
4:21
Speaker 1: Binobo is a British DJ and electronica musician. He was
4:26
Speaker 1: Chris's favorite, and so became a favorite of Nick's too,
4:30
Speaker 1: and even as Nick grew older, Chris's musical influence remained.
4:34
Speaker 1: Through the years, he kept an ear out for new
4:36
Speaker 1: albums by Chris's favorite bands, always wondering what Chris would
4:40
Speaker 1: make of them, which brings us to twenty seventeen. By
4:45
Speaker 1: this point, Nick was in his early twenties. He was
4:47
Speaker 1: at his parents' place having a beer with a friend
4:50
Speaker 1: when the friend put on the newest Bonobo album.
4:53
Speaker 4: And he started playing this track that opens like very
4:56
Speaker 4: clearly with beatboxing.
5:00
Speaker 1: It was just a short sample, a few seconds of
5:02
Speaker 1: beatboxing that Binobo had looped several times.
5:14
Speaker 4: And the second I heard that, I'm just like, I
5:18
Speaker 4: was like, that's Chris for sure. The sound of his
5:23
Speaker 4: beatboxing is like just totally drilled into my head, like
5:28
Speaker 4: I just I just know what it sounds like, in
5:29
Speaker 4: the same way I know what my wife's sneeze sounds like. There's,
5:38
Speaker 4: of course, like the very logical part of me that
5:40
Speaker 4: was being like, there's no way this is just some
5:43
Speaker 4: random sample. There's no way that could be Chris. But
5:47
Speaker 4: the other ninety nine percent of me, I'm just like,
5:50
Speaker 4: that's got to be him, Like that's got to be.
5:53
Speaker 1: Him in that uncanny moment as he listened to the
6:04
Speaker 1: sound of his brother being brought back to life a
6:07
Speaker 1: decade after his death. Nick looked over at his friend
6:10
Speaker 1: and said, nothing.
6:13
Speaker 4: I remember, not wanting to bring it up in the
6:14
Speaker 4: moment as to not like kind of freak him out,
6:17
Speaker 4: to be like, well, this song reminds me of my
6:21
Speaker 4: dead brother.
6:22
Speaker 1: Nick's modus operandi is to never impose a burden on others,
6:26
Speaker 1: but as a result, even into his adulthood, he's never
6:29
Speaker 1: quite figured out how to broach the subject of his
6:32
Speaker 1: brother's death, even with some of his closest friends. Many
6:36
Speaker 1: of them don't even know Nick ever had an older
6:38
Speaker 1: brother at all. But in the weeks that followed, Nick
6:41
Speaker 1: played the song in private over and over. The experience
6:47
Speaker 1: of listening to it and feeling Chris's breath in it
6:50
Speaker 1: provided him with a space to grieve. Since Chris was cremated,
6:55
Speaker 1: there isn't a grave for Nick to visit, and so
6:57
Speaker 1: the sonic space became all the more in value.
7:00
Speaker 4: Feels like that sound came from a different time, Like
7:04
Speaker 4: came from the time of my memories as a kid
7:06
Speaker 4: with Chris. It's nice to hear a person's voice, so
7:09
Speaker 4: you don't get to hear anymore.
7:11
Speaker 1: But Nick wants to be absolutely sure that he is
7:14
Speaker 1: hearing his brother's voice. Despite his initial certainty, a part
7:18
Speaker 1: of him wonders is his brain just working through the
7:21
Speaker 1: grief or is he really hearing his dead brother's voice
7:25
Speaker 1: in a track by a Grammy nominated musician. Nick has
7:29
Speaker 1: several points of evidence to support the latter. First, of course,
7:33
Speaker 1: it just sounds like Chris. Second, Chris often reached out
7:37
Speaker 1: to musicians he admired. In fact, at the Ottawa Jazz Fest,
7:42
Speaker 1: Chris even navigated backstage to meet Binobo. The two ended
7:45
Speaker 1: up chatting about sampling in a bid to further impress Bonobo.
7:50
Speaker 1: Nick thinks it's entirely possible Chris followed up that interaction
7:53
Speaker 1: by sending him beatboxing samples. Samples Binobo might have saved.
7:59
Speaker 1: The third point of evidence the song's name Ontario, Ontario,
8:06
Speaker 1: the Canadian province Nick and Chris are from. Bonobo is
8:10
Speaker 1: from England, but he met Chris in Ontario. Nick has
8:21
Speaker 1: tried everything to get a definitive answer. He searched online
8:24
Speaker 1: for information about Bonobo's samples, and about once a year
8:28
Speaker 1: he'll reach out to Bonobo. His management and his record label.
8:32
Speaker 4: I'll like go on an emailing spree and I'll reach
8:35
Speaker 4: out to like everyone who's ever sniffed Banobo, being like
8:40
Speaker 4: I do not want to like say that my brother
8:43
Speaker 4: deserves credit for anything, or.
8:45
Speaker 1: Like you just want to know payment or anything like that.
8:47
Speaker 4: I just want to know.
8:48
Speaker 1: And they've never responded and never responded. I mean it's
8:51
Speaker 1: not like the Rolling Stones, right, I mean you'd think
8:53
Speaker 1: that he would be a little more accessible. Yeah, I'm
8:56
Speaker 1: just looking at Banobo just to get a sense of
8:59
Speaker 1: but all I'm coming up with a wow, amazing pictures
9:02
Speaker 1: of primates. Oh yeah, that would also cow. I'm just looking.
9:06
Speaker 1: Oh god, it's very moving. You haven't experienced true emotion
9:11
Speaker 1: until you've seen a picture of two bonobos playing with
9:14
Speaker 1: their baby. And then there's their personalities. Did you know
9:18
Speaker 1: bonobos share food with strangers, or that they make love
9:22
Speaker 1: face to face, or that female bonobos show a preference
9:26
Speaker 1: for unaggressive males, that is, males who are subdued, not rude.
9:32
Speaker 1: But Nick did not approach me to learn about bonobos,
9:35
Speaker 1: even though they are wonderful. Nick came to me for help.
9:40
Speaker 4: It would be amazing to use your fame and clout
9:44
Speaker 4: and power to get a hold of the people that
9:48
Speaker 4: I haven't been able to get a hold of.
9:51
Speaker 1: Nick has an outsized view of my fame and clout
9:54
Speaker 1: and power. But it's not like I'll be trying to
9:57
Speaker 1: get an actual Bonobo on the phone, which by the way,
10:01
Speaker 1: would be adorable. I'll only be trying to get Bonobo
10:04
Speaker 1: on the phone. So I promise to try, and Nick,
10:09
Speaker 1: in a subdued way, is thrilled. Awesome, thank you, thank you?
10:15
Speaker 1: And in my own subdued way, so am I I
10:19
Speaker 1: even break out a little beatboxing a mouse boosh? Did
10:23
Speaker 1: you hear that?
10:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, a little scratching.
10:40
Speaker 1: Is it possible for a beatboxer to be recognized by
10:43
Speaker 1: just a brief sample? Can one actually identify beatboxing as
10:47
Speaker 1: one would a voice? In short? Does Nick's story make sense?
10:52
Speaker 1: Before approaching Bonobo? I want to consult an expert, and
10:56
Speaker 1: Nick thinks he knows just the person, beatboxing ic and
11:00
Speaker 1: former member of the Roots Rozelle.
11:03
Speaker 4: I remember Chris saying that Rozelle is the greatest of
11:07
Speaker 4: all time.
11:08
Speaker 1: I know this other guy named Devon.
11:12
Speaker 5: Nice.
11:13
Speaker 1: Did I mention him last time we spoke. Devon was
11:16
Speaker 1: a Gimblet intern who participated in many beatboxing competitions. Every
11:21
Speaker 1: time I'd run into him, like say in the bathroom
11:24
Speaker 1: or about to go into the bathroom or coming out
11:27
Speaker 1: of the bathroom, I'd say, hey, Devon, want to spit
11:31
Speaker 1: a little something for me? And he'd laugh and say
11:35
Speaker 1: maybe later. Yeah, Devon's pretty cool.
11:39
Speaker 4: Rozelle is like beatboxing Royalty.
11:44
Speaker 1: But Nick seems super stoked about this Rozelle guy.
11:47
Speaker 4: But I mean no, like, in no way do I
11:51
Speaker 4: mean to discredit Devon.
11:57
Speaker 1: I send Rozelle an email, and when I don't hear back,
12:01
Speaker 1: my producer Khalila finds a phone number for him, which
12:04
Speaker 1: oddly is listed on his Instagram. Is it possible that
12:08
Speaker 1: he's not aware of it, that he did it by accident?
12:11
Speaker 4: That would be weird.
12:12
Speaker 1: I don't know. Look at me, I'm constantly making mistakes.
12:15
Speaker 1: How old is he?
12:16
Speaker 4: It's fifty seven?
12:17
Speaker 1: Oh fifty seven? What an inspiration?
12:20
Speaker 4: Wow, here's more excited to talk to him because you're contemporaries.
12:24
Speaker 1: He's fifty seven and he's still beat boxing away. Fantastic.
12:37
Speaker 5: Leave your name and your number and someone will return local.
12:41
Speaker 1: So I think we got the right number. The mailbox
12:46
Speaker 1: is full.
12:47
Speaker 2: I cannot accept any messages at this time.
12:49
Speaker 1: The box it is, of course it is Devin. Remember
12:59
Speaker 1: that I said I knew named Devon, great beatboxer, really
13:03
Speaker 1: cool guy.
13:06
Speaker 2: Hey.
13:07
Speaker 5: Yeah.
13:09
Speaker 1: After Nick's hero Rozelle crap the beatboxing bed, I was
13:13
Speaker 1: blessed with the good fortune to get Devon on the phone.
13:18
Speaker 6: For pro beatboxers, it's very, very easy to tell who
13:22
Speaker 6: the beatboxer is just by a quick sample of their
13:25
Speaker 6: beat boxing.
13:26
Speaker 2: Right.
13:26
Speaker 6: Your idea that somebody could recognize that just from the
13:29
Speaker 6: beatboxing is totally on point.
13:31
Speaker 1: After Devon tells me that I'm totally on point, I
13:34
Speaker 1: asked if you could listen to the Bonobo sample alongside
13:37
Speaker 1: a recording of Chris to see if it's the same person.
13:41
Speaker 5: Let's take a gamber.
13:46
Speaker 1: When you went, I thought you were going to launch
13:49
Speaker 1: into some beatboxing. Now you've given me an appetite.
13:53
Speaker 6: Hey Ontario by Bonobo.
13:56
Speaker 1: Devin forges ahead, ignoring my hint to rustle up a
14:00
Speaker 1: hasty beatboxing Bouya Bayze Ontario by Bonobo. Next, for a
14:08
Speaker 1: point of comparison, I send him the YouTube video of Chris,
14:12
Speaker 1: and to my surprise, I've seen this video.
14:15
Speaker 6: Really, I swear I've seen.
14:19
Speaker 1: That how why would you have seen it?
14:23
Speaker 6: Because YouTube was the only way people learn how to beatbox,
14:27
Speaker 6: and this video is like, he has really really good
14:31
Speaker 6: skills also for that time. It's shocking to me that
14:35
Speaker 6: you would be this good in two thousand and six.
14:36
Speaker 6: That's crazy. Those are really impressive boxing skills.
14:41
Speaker 1: So impressive in fact, that Devin wonders, if indeed Chris
14:45
Speaker 1: is being sampled on the track, why wouldn't Binobo use
14:48
Speaker 1: a flashier example of his talent. Why would he instead
14:52
Speaker 1: loop something that sounds so sedate.
14:59
Speaker 6: Like just very basic, That sort of would be the
15:02
Speaker 6: type of thing anyone would do as their first sounds.
15:05
Speaker 6: So I just don't know why he would take some
15:07
Speaker 6: random kid sample of the most basic version of beatboxing
15:11
Speaker 6: and put it.
15:12
Speaker 1: In Stylistically, Devon isn't able to link the Banobo sample
15:16
Speaker 1: to the YouTube video, so I send him another example
15:19
Speaker 1: of Chris's work, hoping it might help clarify.
15:29
Speaker 6: Okay, I heard something interesting.
15:31
Speaker 1: What's that right there? Okay, so is it that sound?
15:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, he does that.
15:37
Speaker 6: It's the same thing from the Lenobo song. It does
15:39
Speaker 6: actually sound pretty similar now that I'm hearing just that part.
15:49
Speaker 1: Now that Devin's confirmed the plausibility of Nick's story, reaching
15:53
Speaker 1: out to Bonobos seems like a reasonable next step. So
15:56
Speaker 1: email is record label, then an email is management. Then
16:00
Speaker 1: I email his record label again, and his management again.
16:05
Speaker 1: After waiting several weeks, I call in a favor from
16:08
Speaker 1: a friend with music industry connections who gets me a
16:10
Speaker 1: more direct email address. But just like Nick, I hear
16:14
Speaker 1: nothing back. Thanks calling red Light management if you know
16:18
Speaker 1: your part of the extension. So I try phoning Bnobo's
16:21
Speaker 1: management company, but there's no operator, no directory. I have
16:25
Speaker 1: no way of knowing what extension to dial. Let me
16:28
Speaker 1: just try a random one maybe.
16:31
Speaker 2: In Validentary. Try again, in validentary, Please try again one
16:39
Speaker 2: one a ah in Validentary.
16:47
Speaker 1: For God's sake, my fame, power, even my clout is
16:52
Speaker 1: getting me nowhere. Why is it so difficult to get
17:00
Speaker 1: a response. In all my correspondence, I keep explaining over
17:04
Speaker 1: and over how this isn't about money or credit, how
17:08
Speaker 1: Chris idolized Bonobo and Nick listens to Ontario as a
17:11
Speaker 1: way to mourn him, and yet I still can't get
17:14
Speaker 1: anyone to even engage. Maybe there's something about the whole
17:17
Speaker 1: business of sampling and authorship that's making them touchy because
17:21
Speaker 1: when sampling took off in the seventies, almost nothing was cleared,
17:25
Speaker 1: but then about a decade later, the tide turned and
17:29
Speaker 1: the lawsuits began. The Beastie Boys are still paying for
17:32
Speaker 1: the samples on Paul's boutique. Kanye West was sued by
17:36
Speaker 1: the parents of a child he sampled from a YouTube video,
17:40
Speaker 1: and just last summer there was drama between Beyonce and
17:42
Speaker 1: Calise because Beyonce used a sample for milkshake without Callis's permission.
17:49
Speaker 1: Is it possible that for all our reassurances, Bonobo's people
17:53
Speaker 1: still think we're angling for a lawsuit? And then, at
18:03
Speaker 1: long last, Benobo's people finally get back to me. I'm
18:08
Speaker 1: sorry for the delay in responding. The email reads, I
18:11
Speaker 1: did get confirmation that the person you've emailed us about
18:15
Speaker 1: was not sampled in the song Ontario, thank you and best.
18:21
Speaker 1: There's no sense of who was doing the confirming, no
18:24
Speaker 1: mention of Chris by name. He's only referred to as
18:27
Speaker 1: the person you've emailed us about. I write back, asking
18:31
Speaker 1: who and what was sampled so I can close the
18:34
Speaker 1: loop on this whole thing. After waiting three months and
18:37
Speaker 1: receiving no reply, I follow up, but I never get
18:41
Speaker 1: a response. I did get confirmation that the person you've
18:45
Speaker 1: emailed us about, you know, being your brother was not
18:48
Speaker 1: sampled in the song Ontario. After all the waiting, all
18:52
Speaker 1: I have for Nick is a generic letter that turns
18:54
Speaker 1: his beautiful talisman, the song he's been listening to for
18:57
Speaker 1: five years to dust. I wish that I even had
19:01
Speaker 1: an email from them that was a little bit more considerate.
19:07
Speaker 7: Yeah, for sure, but yeah, thanks again so much for
19:12
Speaker 7: looking into it and really appreciate it. Well.
19:15
Speaker 1: Nick's subdued reaction is to be expected. As a subdued
19:18
Speaker 1: Canadian myself, I can tell the news hurts, but being
19:22
Speaker 1: the kind of person who never wants to burden, Nick
19:25
Speaker 1: shows more concern for my disappointment than his own. Before
19:36
Speaker 1: this whole undertaking, Ontario could exist in a gray zone,
19:40
Speaker 1: Nick could believe he was hearing his brother. Now that
19:43
Speaker 1: that's been taken away from him, he's lost his place
19:46
Speaker 1: to mourn. But maybe there's another way to provide Nick
19:49
Speaker 1: with such a space. And so I brainstorm ideas for
19:53
Speaker 1: a new Sonic memorial. Maybe I could get a remix
19:57
Speaker 1: from that guy Devin, whom I think I already mentioned.
20:00
Speaker 1: What about offers my producer Khalila, that other musical act
20:05
Speaker 1: Chris liked. Do you mean Devin, I ask no, She says,
20:11
Speaker 1: the erbalizer Khalila is contradicting me. Isn't due to insubordination alone.
20:18
Speaker 1: She's referencing a detail from that story about Chris's meeting
20:21
Speaker 1: Bonobo at the Ottawa Jazz Festival. Nick had mentioned that
20:25
Speaker 1: when Chris first slipped backstage, he ran into another.
20:28
Speaker 4: Group and He's like, Hey, can you guys tell me
20:31
Speaker 4: where Bonobo is? Do I really want to meet him?
20:33
Speaker 4: He's my favorite.
20:35
Speaker 1: One of the men in the group turned to Chris
20:37
Speaker 1: and said, in a pronounced British accent.
20:40
Speaker 4: Banobo, like, fuck Bonobo?
20:41
Speaker 1: Where the herbalizer, the erbalizer? Pottymouth Banobo? Hating the erbalizer.
20:49
Speaker 1: The erbalizer would go on to become another one of
20:52
Speaker 1: Chris's all time favorites and Nick's as well. And so
20:56
Speaker 1: I email an address I find online and explain Nick's situation,
21:00
Speaker 1: and then I make my request. Maybe the Herbalizer could
21:04
Speaker 1: create a song that features Chris's beatboxing. Whereas I'd spent
21:16
Speaker 1: months trying to get anyone even remotely associated with Bonobo
21:20
Speaker 1: to respond I get an email from the Erbalizer that
21:23
Speaker 1: same day. It's from the band's co creator, Jake Werry,
21:27
Speaker 1: who explains that while the Herbalizer is now defunct, he's
21:31
Speaker 1: working on a new project with a new partner. He
21:34
Speaker 1: tells me they'd be up to hear more about the idea.
21:37
Speaker 1: So a few days later, I get on a video
21:39
Speaker 1: call with James Moss aka DJ Sterling Moss and Jake
21:44
Speaker 1: Werry aka The Herbalizer.
21:47
Speaker 8: With British and we say the Herbalize us sorry today,
21:50
Speaker 8: an h you know none of this Herbalizer. Now look
21:53
Speaker 8: look here, oh boy, this is the bloody.
21:55
Speaker 1: Herbalizer Herbalizer, Okay. Jake has the vibe of a character
22:00
Speaker 1: from a Guy Ritchie film, the ex rugby player who
22:03
Speaker 1: works as an enforcer for a loan shark played by
22:06
Speaker 1: Jason Statham. You know, scary, but he is well within
22:11
Speaker 1: his right to be tearing me a new one. I
22:14
Speaker 1: apologize for the faux pas.
22:15
Speaker 8: Oh, I'm minded kidding.
22:17
Speaker 1: I loved it. Sure, I've produced radio stories, but I've
22:27
Speaker 1: never once produced a song, not even one of those
22:30
Speaker 1: public radio premium ones. Ira Glass and Peter Segel singing
22:35
Speaker 1: a parody version of Biggie and Puff Daddy's more money,
22:38
Speaker 1: more problems, but with lyrics about how your money solves problems,
22:43
Speaker 1: problems inherent to sustaining important journalism. So, with neither musical
22:48
Speaker 1: training nor the slightest idea what I'm doing, I start
22:51
Speaker 1: music producing, offering suggestions for the vibe I'm going for.
22:56
Speaker 1: Elegiic might be overstating it, but like allowing some of
23:00
Speaker 1: that feeling of loss into it.
23:02
Speaker 3: Or you know, I think that the way that he
23:06
Speaker 3: beat boxes is not wistful. The story might be, but
23:10
Speaker 3: that's not the why that he performed.
23:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was just.
23:12
Speaker 1: Thinking wistful beatboxing. What was I thinking? James and Jake
23:18
Speaker 1: are well within their rights to be tearing me yet
23:20
Speaker 1: another new one.
23:22
Speaker 8: It should be more like a celebratory, positive, happy thing.
23:26
Speaker 8: It should be about him living on through the music.
23:30
Speaker 8: But I think to see what happens, rather than trying
23:33
Speaker 8: to force it to go in a direction, just just
23:36
Speaker 8: let that, let the vibe happen. Man.
23:40
Speaker 1: Throughout our conversation, my mind keeps turning back to one question.
23:45
Speaker 1: Why would two popular, successful musicians be so amenable to
23:49
Speaker 1: talking to a first time music producer like myself. James
23:53
Speaker 1: has performed for crowds that have numbered in the hundreds
23:55
Speaker 1: of thousands, and Jake has had songs featured in Hollywood films.
24:00
Speaker 1: Why would they entertain a request to write a whole
24:02
Speaker 1: piece of music honoring someone they don't even know. But
24:06
Speaker 1: it won't be long before the answer to my question
24:09
Speaker 1: is revealed, And in the meantime, when I tell Nick
24:12
Speaker 1: the idea, he's thrilled.
24:17
Speaker 9: Walking through a really nice suburb of London, Oh my
24:22
Speaker 9: way to see Jake.
24:23
Speaker 1: In June, Nick travels to England to see family, but
24:27
Speaker 1: knowing Jake lives in London and being such a big fan,
24:30
Speaker 1: Nick nervously asks me if Jake might want to meet up.
24:33
Speaker 1: I figure it's not a bad idea for the two
24:35
Speaker 1: of them to get to know each other. It might
24:37
Speaker 1: even help the song. So I asked Jake if he'd
24:39
Speaker 1: be open to it, and once again Jake surprises me.
24:43
Speaker 1: Not only does he agree, but he invites Nick over
24:46
Speaker 1: to his home.
24:47
Speaker 9: It's lovely little street. It's not where i'd imagine Jake
24:52
Speaker 9: of the Herbalizer to live.
24:54
Speaker 1: Nick records the visit and tells me about it later.
24:57
Speaker 4: There's a little nerve wracking walking up there. Hey, Jake,
25:01
Speaker 4: it's good, eh man, and this is surreal. That means
25:04
Speaker 4: you have to say, honestly, I.
25:06
Speaker 8: Wake up in the morning, I put my pants on
25:08
Speaker 8: just like you.
25:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
25:09
Speaker 7: I think I was a bit intimidated both it being
25:11
Speaker 7: someone who I kind of admire, who's music especially I
25:14
Speaker 7: mean I admire, and then also just like the fact
25:16
Speaker 7: that they're British and you know, have that you know,
25:19
Speaker 7: different sense of humor and a bit of an edge
25:21
Speaker 7: to them and stuff. When I was here visiting my cousin,
25:24
Speaker 7: he's like a diehard always sister.
25:27
Speaker 1: Okay, right, Jake ushers Nick into the house and doesn't
25:31
Speaker 1: bother standing on ceremony. Almost the second Nicks inside, before
25:35
Speaker 1: he's even positioned his microphone, Jake gets right into it.
25:39
Speaker 8: So how long is it since your brother poss uh?
25:43
Speaker 4: Two thousand and six? I think, so, okay, I want
25:47
Speaker 4: one two thousand and four.
25:49
Speaker 1: My wife died in two thousand and four, Jake says.
25:52
Speaker 1: And this, it turns out, is the reason why Jake's
25:55
Speaker 1: been so open to Nick. He relates to him. Around
25:59
Speaker 1: the same time Nick lost Chris, Jake lost his wife Mary,
26:03
Speaker 1: also unexpectedly and also tragically, off.
26:06
Speaker 8: Of the plane going to jailing Popeans and I got
26:09
Speaker 8: a call from my nigh by saying get to the hospital.
26:12
Speaker 5: Case hospital.
26:13
Speaker 1: The neighbor had heard Jake's two sons, only four and
26:15
Speaker 1: five at the time, crying next door. An hour later,
26:19
Speaker 1: the kids were still crying.
26:21
Speaker 8: She heard my little one say it's a pillow under
26:24
Speaker 8: her head.
26:26
Speaker 1: It was then the neighbor jumped over the back fence
26:28
Speaker 1: and found Mary lying on the floor dead. Mary had
26:32
Speaker 1: been emptying the dishwasher, hanging the utensils up on a
26:35
Speaker 1: rack when she suddenly collapsed. It would take a few
26:39
Speaker 1: days to work out what had happened, but it seems
26:42
Speaker 1: to screw on the utensil rack had connected with a
26:44
Speaker 1: live wire under the wall. Mary was electrocuted. It was
26:49
Speaker 1: a freak accident, amazing.
26:51
Speaker 8: Mary was really tough, but I had two little kids
26:53
Speaker 8: and so it has a testament to my love to her.
26:57
Speaker 8: So I'm not going to fucking destroy me. Yeah, the
27:00
Speaker 8: best style I can.
27:01
Speaker 3: Like.
27:01
Speaker 7: I was essentially a stranger walking into his home and
27:04
Speaker 7: he told me his life story within five minutes, which
27:06
Speaker 7: is admirable. You know something that I wish, I really
27:09
Speaker 7: wish I did have more the confidence just to be open,
27:12
Speaker 7: just to be brutally open with everyone.
27:15
Speaker 3: Well.
27:15
Speaker 1: Nick often worries that talking about his grief might be
27:17
Speaker 1: a burden to others. With Jake knowing he's been through
27:21
Speaker 1: something similar, that burden disappeared, and so Nick was more
27:25
Speaker 1: open than he usually is. He and Jay chatted about
27:28
Speaker 1: their respective losses.
27:29
Speaker 7: There's something he said at one point that really stuck
27:32
Speaker 7: with me. This like, you know, once you hit a
27:34
Speaker 7: certain you know, a certain low point, you just can't
27:37
Speaker 7: get any lower than that, you know, you kind of
27:38
Speaker 7: bottom out. And and I related to that. Despite the
27:42
Speaker 7: fact that on paper his hardship seriously pelt Weigh's mind,
27:45
Speaker 7: you know it, it felt like I've been where he's been.
27:55
Speaker 7: He guys the most lovely little backyard with a cherry
27:58
Speaker 7: tree in it and a few cherries, and my.
28:02
Speaker 8: Answer check clumps. There's a fucking pain growing your own vegetables.
28:05
Speaker 7: And then in the back backyard there's this studio, which
28:10
Speaker 7: is like also equally magical. It's a big, big shed,
28:13
Speaker 7: got everything that's got a full drunkit inscene, collection of vinyl,
28:17
Speaker 7: all sorts of other instruments.
28:19
Speaker 8: That's one of my favorite ones.
28:27
Speaker 1: In the studio, Jake plays Nick some of the things
28:30
Speaker 1: he's been working on. As they continue to talk, I've had.
28:33
Speaker 8: Some fucking down, down down moments, days, weeks, months, years,
28:40
Speaker 8: and music has definitely really been very cathartic for me.
28:44
Speaker 1: When he was at his lowest, Jake couldn't bring himself
28:46
Speaker 1: to make any music at all. It was a drought
28:49
Speaker 1: that lasted years. But lately he's been on a tear.
28:53
Speaker 1: He tells Nick about a night last January, just after
28:56
Speaker 1: leaving the studio two.
28:57
Speaker 8: In the morning, I was pretty high and went to
29:00
Speaker 8: bed and I was just playing the tracks on my
29:02
Speaker 8: phone on repeat. I was just like, I found myself
29:06
Speaker 8: chuckling aloud to myself with this like deep belly laugh,
29:10
Speaker 8: with this profound sense of just joy that the music
29:15
Speaker 8: I was listening to sounded fantastic, and the realization that
29:17
Speaker 8: I had made it.
29:19
Speaker 1: I just couldn't believe it.
29:20
Speaker 8: So this sounds amazing, and I've made it.
29:24
Speaker 1: Jake's collaborator James, stops by to also meet Nick, and
29:29
Speaker 1: Nick tells him about that fateful meeting backstage at the
29:32
Speaker 1: Ottawa Jazz Fest.
29:34
Speaker 10: Noble Worth of Herbalizer, and that's a fair responded it.
29:50
Speaker 4: I mean, he made me a Keish.
29:52
Speaker 7: In all fairness, it was a microwave Keish, but it
29:54
Speaker 7: was a very good microwave.
29:56
Speaker 1: Keish.
29:56
Speaker 7: Threw together a little salad fa We made keish and
30:01
Speaker 7: salad in his backyard, and I think that was one
30:03
Speaker 7: of those real moments where it's like, you know, I'm
30:06
Speaker 7: not particularly religious, but if Chris were watching down on
30:09
Speaker 7: me in that moment, he'd be having the laugh that
30:11
Speaker 7: I'm having Kish with the fucking herbalizer.
30:14
Speaker 5: Yeah.
30:15
Speaker 7: If Chris could see this, he'd think it's insanely cool.
30:21
Speaker 1: Nick is a husband, a new dad, But no matter
30:24
Speaker 1: how life moves along, and no matter how old he gets,
30:27
Speaker 1: it'll always continue to think of Chris as the cool
30:29
Speaker 1: older brother, his hero, and eating Kish with the fucking herbalizer.
30:35
Speaker 1: Chris would definitely approve.
30:43
Speaker 8: We're gonna have to go to train.
30:45
Speaker 7: At the end of all this, Jake offered to drive
30:48
Speaker 7: me to my train to the airport, which was so
30:50
Speaker 7: so nice of him, and I honestly I don't think
30:53
Speaker 7: I would have made my flight if it wasn't for that.
30:58
Speaker 4: Thanks again, man so much for all this.
31:02
Speaker 7: The moral of the story is, indeed, fuck Binopo verb Flaser.
31:19
Speaker 8: Hey Hey, Hi, Nick, Hey, how's it going.
31:21
Speaker 5: It's good.
31:22
Speaker 4: I miss you guys.
31:23
Speaker 1: Three months after they bonded with Nick. That day in London,
31:27
Speaker 1: Jake and James get back in touch and they've made
31:31
Speaker 1: a song, a song featuring Chris's beatboxing. So we all
31:35
Speaker 1: get on a call together to listen. Okay, here we go,
31:38
Speaker 1: sona up Nick. The track is called We Are the Paradox.
32:02
Speaker 5: Twitch.
32:06
Speaker 3: You know, we wanted to build something around your brother.
32:10
Speaker 3: He's the engine, and I had this really real feeling
32:14
Speaker 3: towards the end. It was like, you know, he's back.
32:17
Speaker 3: He's here now and it's great to work with him,
32:21
Speaker 3: even though he's not here.
32:26
Speaker 1: Leaving Jake's one day, James said he had this lyric
32:28
Speaker 1: rattling around in his head. Put the beat in the box.
32:31
Speaker 1: So they added it to the song.
32:33
Speaker 3: And there's a lyric that says, cut the phone, stop
32:36
Speaker 3: the clocks, which is a reference to a W. H.
32:39
Speaker 3: Jordan poem called funeral Blues. It's an odes to a
32:43
Speaker 3: lost loved one. We are the Paradox, which you can
32:55
Speaker 3: interpret however you like. It will mean when it means
33:00
Speaker 3: to you as it means for what it means to us.
33:16
Speaker 1: Later, Nick also plays the song for his dad, unbelievable.
33:21
Speaker 8: Twitch and then at the end everything drops out and
33:48
Speaker 8: it's kind of like sending Chris back to back to
33:52
Speaker 8: the world that he's in now, so kind of everything
33:54
Speaker 8: fades out and then Chris kind of goes to the
33:57
Speaker 8: distance as well. It's it's saying goodbye again. Sorry.
34:13
Speaker 4: Just incredible.
34:15
Speaker 7: To have that much life and energy in the track
34:17
Speaker 7: was something Chris would have been happy about.
34:19
Speaker 5: You know, I don't know.
34:21
Speaker 4: It just feels right. It feels right, and I'm glad
34:24
Speaker 4: to feel like like it's mine.
34:29
Speaker 1: We're all a mess of paradoxes, believing in things we
34:32
Speaker 1: know can't be true, missing the dead, but also whunwilling
34:36
Speaker 1: to talk about them. We walk around carrying feelings too
34:40
Speaker 1: complicated and contradictory to express. When it all becomes too
34:44
Speaker 1: big and words aren't enough to help get it all out,
34:48
Speaker 1: there's always music. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by
35:19
Speaker 1: senior producer Khalila Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with
35:22
Speaker 1: Mohey mcgauker. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Special thanks
35:27
Speaker 1: to Chris's parents, Steve and Stephanie, as well as to
35:30
Speaker 1: Emily Condon, Steve Marsh Liz Fulton, Max Green, Ellen Frankman,
35:34
Speaker 1: Natalie Russell, Alex Bloomberg, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed
35:38
Speaker 1: the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K.
35:41
Speaker 1: Samson and he himself, Bobby Lord. James and Jake's new
35:46
Speaker 1: group is called The Brilliant. Keep an eye out for
35:48
Speaker 1: them in twenty twenty three, and in the meantime, check
35:51
Speaker 1: out our own Brilliant, Christine Fellows' new album, Stuff We
35:55
Speaker 1: All Get. Additional music credits can be found on our website,
35:58
Speaker 1: gimlipmedia dot com. Slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by
36:02
Speaker 1: The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on
36:06
Speaker 1: Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimbletmedia
36:09
Speaker 1: dot com. This is our fiftieth episode. Next week fifty
36:13
Speaker 1: one is our final episode of the season and if
36:17
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, I believe it is our longest episode yet.
36:21
Speaker 1: So see you then.
36:32
Speaker 5: Twitch cut got the.
37:09
Speaker 11: Look the trap look down.
37:28
Speaker 5: The part Then drop.
37:38
Speaker 12: Boss what trop trop.
38:14
Speaker 11: Wijn the drop look Come on the particle, the Trop
38:29
Speaker 11: down the particle, the trap, moss in the mossssch moss
38:48
Speaker 11: in the moss.
38:55
Speaker 5: Twitch twists.
39:13
Speaker 13: H twork, she was, she was, she was, she wash,
39:23
Speaker 13: she was, she was.
39:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm being foxing even he loots.
39:30
Speaker 13: Yeah, be being boxing even heavy loots.
39:37
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm being foxing.