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

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

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: The British band Idols has released five albums in only
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: seven years, starting with their critically acclaimed debut album Brutalism
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen. The band's been growing steadily ever since,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: with their bombastic sound that brilliantly balances joy, chaos and
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: an often critical take on the powers that be. The
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: five piece band's lead singer, Joe Talbot, has always channeled
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: his personal pain as well as his dissatisfaction with Britain's
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: ruling class, into his songwriting. Mark Bowen, idols guitarist and producer,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: serves as Joe's primary musical partner in the band. They
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: both bring a love of hip hop and old school
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: soul and arm beat the mix, along with UK techno
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: and house music. All of these influences can be heard
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: on their latest album, Tank, a project produced by Mark Bowen,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: our friend Kenny Beats, and radiohead Nigel Godrich. On today's episode,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I talked to Joe Talbot and Mark Bowen from the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: green room of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon about
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: their tumultuous creative partnership. They also explain how Mark helps
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: temper Joe's sometimes passionate rage, and Joe breaks down why
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: he'll forever despise England's monarchy. This is broken record liner
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: notes for the digital Age.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: I'm justin Mitchman.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Here's my conversation with Joe Talbot and Mark Bowen of Idols.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you for doing.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: This, Thank youth for having us.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: No man, I mean, you.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Guys are backstage at Jimmy Fallon right now. I don't
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: know how you guys keep it together. I can hardly
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: do one thing in a day. You guys must be
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: doing you know, a million things.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: I mean it comes to a sense of gratitude like
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: we've been fucking fifteen years ago, Like Crappy sound Engine is.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: We give us shit form turning up early.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: When we're working fifty sixty weeks and then we turn up,
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: get paid fifty bucks for a show and some warm
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: beers and then drive for four hours home to play
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: to ten people. But we knew the value of that,
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: we knew the experience, and we knew how special the
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: learning curve was. So when we're here and we're given opportunities,
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: we take them because that's fucking gift. When you have
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: a platform, whether you're lucky or not. And there's a
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: lot of entitled people in our industry. But when your
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: gifted a platform, that is a beautiful opportunity to challenge
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: yourself and give the audience back the energy they've given
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: you by being present and fucking vital and full of
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: life because you only get one and it's magic.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Is it weird to see the audience get bigger and
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: bigger and more like fans And.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, it's got to be insane,
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: but you get.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: What you build.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Man, Like we a dialogue with our music that was
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: a continual growth. You know, there's no surprises. We know
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: what's happening, and we know what we've made, and we
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: know what our audience is building. They've helped us from
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: the start, so we've been carrying each other from twenty
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: eleven and like, there's no surprises. You get what you
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: work for.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: I love how self assured that answer is. You know
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: what I mean that you guys kind of know what
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: you put out there, and it really listening to the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: new record. You know, as the records have come out,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: it seems like you guys are pretty self contained. Like
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: from the jump, you guys knew what you wanted to say,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: which you wanted to do, how you wanted to present it,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: even though I've seen the changes, Like every album sounds
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: and feels very different. Every album is a really strong statement.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: Definitely our biggest kind of moo as creators is the
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: we're very much driven by our intent and our intentions
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: you know, in the music, and then they kind of
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: create with Joe's design and stuff like that. It's all
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: very much there from the outset. It's not you know,
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: about jamming and you know, exploring things in that way.
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: It's about how do we represent what we're intending here.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: It's not you know, stumbling upon something. So yeah, it's
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: a it's a big thing in this bland.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: The title always comes first, the artwork of follow soon after,
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: and then it's like conversations around that, and it's about
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: kind of like Choo expressing what he meant when he
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: gave that title, and then we talk all about that
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: and talk kind of about maybe sometimes like what the
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: song is going to be about or what the kind
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: of music's going to be about.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: But you don't really have lyrics or music at that.
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: We don't have distract. We don't have anything, it's all.
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: It's all dealing in abstraction. And I think that I
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: think that dealing in.
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: The abstract is why we write the music first always
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: because it's it's easy to translate the abstract into something abstract,
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: and then it's about too translating that into into word.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the whole purpose of every album is,
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: you know, life is abstract. There's there's no there's no
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: actual rules. The whole point in philosophy, if you look
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: at Plato's Republic, that's just creating structures that are imagined
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: in order to understand the socio political like narrative that
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: goes on and how people are dying to find purpose
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: and meaning to move forward. And that's what art is.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Art is the breach of existence. It allows you a
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: sense of purpose and where you're at right there, and
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: the more you understand your momentary purpose, the more you
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: can move forward with vigor and understanding and more purpose.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: So every album is about the human condition and either
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: how I'm affected by socioeconomic situations or relationships or whatever
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: it is. I put that in, I document it, but
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: that always comes from the present thing that's most of mind.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: I already know what the next album is going to
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: be about and what it's called and with each one,
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: and Bowen then takes my very small thing because I
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: don't want to like overwhelm him his ship with my ego,
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: because it's not just about my ego. It's about it's
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: about some sort of landscape that we can make brilliant music.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: So I just go, well, this is the kind of
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: thing I'm going to be talking about.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: But I don't have any lyrics and I won't force anything,
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: but this is what I'm interested in thematically, and then
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: he goes okay, and then he puts color to that,
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: and he puts you know, some terror firma down.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Some strong terror firm.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I believe, and then like and once it's all done,
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: then then I sing on top. But it has to
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: be done.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Does the color that Mark comes up with in the
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: rest of the band, does that help you sort of
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: hone you in on what you want to talk about?
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: Well, it's Bowing and I that writes some music. So
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: it's kind of like just pushing, pulling together. Because he's
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: a very philosophically and just emotional practice, very different to me.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: So between us we have this like really beautiful pushing
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: pool creatively. That allows me a new perspective, like, you know,
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: just saying I just wanted to smash the room up
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: and I had to talk to Buying. I'd be like,
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: what do I punch? And he's like, well, how about.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: You do this?
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. You
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: know he's my guy and like this because he's the
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: opposite to me. So we understand that to create parameters
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: within an album, it has to be outur boundaries. Create
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: the boundaries, work within them, and you'll flourish.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like it's also a strict if.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: I'm like, uh no, that's not joy as an act
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: of resistance enough, no, no, no, no, no, it's not like that.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: So this is where I'm at, and that's a conversation.
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: And I think that's why our music very much sounds
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: like an insular entity is because we allow each other
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: to breathe, all five of us, obviously the boys right
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: shit as well. It's not just me and him, but
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: it's mostly us. We allow all five of us to
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: breathe within a parameter, but we have to have those parameters.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: That's the best way of creating something. I think creative
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: thinking comes from problem solving and like it's good to
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: have that, Like do whatever you want, but you can
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: only use the color blue, and you're like, oh that's sick. Okay,
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: where so do whatever you want. You're like, uh, okay.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: It's a little intimidating.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, h it's just a little flat, Like what's
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: the challenge in there? You like doing anything? That's how
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: life works. Life doesn't go yeah, go ahead. We know
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: how privilege we are, and we use to have privilege
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: that there are people like the most brilliant and the
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: most beautiful art comes from those voices that have a
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: sense of tumultuous fire. They have to fight against something,
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: whether it's oppression, depression, love, fucking civil wars, genocide, whatever
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: it is. There's things under the like that's when the
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: voices are most resent. I just think, Yeah, you set
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: yourself the boundaries, and you set yourself the parameters to flourish. Obviously,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: like two different degrees. I'm not comparing myself to fucking
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Billie Holidays, you know what I mean. But I've been
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: through some horrible shit and I'm allowing my traumas in
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: in order to make a more brilliant picture.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Mark, what's your sense of your guys's relationship? Is it similar?
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's it's tumultuous, but that's good. That's
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: that's where we get, you know, out of the rumble.
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: You know, we start to move the earth around us,
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: the water starts to flow, and I think that's it.
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: It's like we're just so different creatively as well, and
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: it's useful.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: And part as well.
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: You know, you like, for two people that are so
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: as individuals, so strong in their feelings about their creativity
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: and about their about but it would it would almost
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: suit us better to be auteurs and to be on
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: our own, you know, just having people that are like
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: yes around us, they all that happened, but it wouldn't.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Have the same impact. It wouldn't work.
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: It would be too self self serving and self immilating
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: as well, because it's like, you know, Joe's approach needs
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: my touch and my and my approach needs Joe's touch
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: to become full, become complete, to become become resonant in
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: that intention as well. I think that you know, you
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: can have two down the line or to abstract to
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: like you know, flourishy or or kind of a coming
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: from a very different perspective. So I think I think
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: it requires that for idols to be a thing.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: But probably more generally too.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's the in you know, the
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: year twenty twenty four, it's like partnerships groups bands are
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: rarer and rarer, but you kind of you look back
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: over all of the best music came from on some
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: level of partnership, you know, off the walls of solo record,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: but that's a partnership with him in Quincy, and yeah,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: there's always got to be something to sort of rein
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: you in or something to play off of, you know.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I think it's the playoff of.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: But I think it's also because like when you're creating art,
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: you're creating something from your perspective to be observed from
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: from a different perspective. So I guess it's useful at
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: that at that point of creation for the art to
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: them be informed by something from a different perspective, because
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: it allies the best of a singularity. Because there is
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: no singularity, there's no there's no truth.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm all for like that.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: There are there are things that are created like Nick
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: Drake pink Man, that's just him on his I entirely.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: I mean maybe there's an engineer and a producer that,
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: but I think you can get magic from anywhere. Some
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: people are completely introverted. I think Baron and Aya, I'm
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: definitely half half introvert extrovert, like I need time on
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: my own to process, but we process very different. I
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: think we just learned democratically, and you know, people forget
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: democracies and the leaders. So like, you know, we're just
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: we's taking it's a few albums, but now we're at
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: a point.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Where it's like, this is your two man, I'm just
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: going to sing you crack on. I'm like, I'm fucking ready.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: This is beautiful, and that that's.
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: A real thing as well that we've kind of learned
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: as we've gone along as the idea of service. You know,
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: we've learned more about kind of serving the song as
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: we write, but also service to each other. You know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: there's there's times where, especially when you're dealing with Joe's
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: lyrics and his vocal approach, you know, sometimes it's not
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: what I've been expecting or would have wanted, but you
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: can see that there's something that you needed to get out,
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: and it's like, actually, yeah, you're right, this doesn't need
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: my two cents right now.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: And that happened with me with Gospel. It ended up
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: getting cut and nothing to do with me piano. There
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: was parts it was just short. I was unsure about
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: the landscape because it's very you.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: It was you.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a different version of a Gospel the
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: song on the new record.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's all there. It's all there.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: It's just like restructured a bit, as if there was
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: something taken out.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So it just happens once, but like that's it. It's
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: not crazy.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: But I was just like, I felt how important it
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: was to bow and how amazing it was. So I
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: was just like, even though you know it got cut
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: after your discussion with Nigel, right, it wasn't like my input,
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: but I felt that.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I was like, but I knew there's his. Also.
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: The other thing was that whenever I showed it to you,
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: you were like, oh, that's the verse and it's not.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what it was.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: The more big was the chorus in my head and
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: whatever you said it was, I was like, that's not it,
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: but then it has to be.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: It was the thing about Gospel I don't know if alright,
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: it's just one big yeah.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you guys are sometimes confused by your song
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: structures too, because I was about to bring that up
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: about one of the new songs. I'm often I don't care,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: but if I listen back and trying to think, well,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: what's the verse, what's the chorus, what's the pre chorus, It's.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Like, I don't actually, I don't know, like I have
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: noub Yeah, I think.
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: I think it's especially on this one, it was about, like,
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: you know what, one of one of the biggest drivers
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: that we've not actually spoken about that much actually and
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: impress on this was like when we started out of
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: this album, the things that we were listening to. Most
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: of the things we were leaning on most was fifties
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: and sexonties pop music and cool and that's really informant
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: that you know, Roy is called Roy because I was
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: trying to hep Roy Orbison song at the.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Time, beautiful song Jesus Christ.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I mean that was something that song is probably a
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: perfect example of us too, like not compromising, what's the
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: way colliding? So I had this chorus, it was like
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: a Lee Moses chorus that I wanted to write for
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: like two to three years.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: It's not the one. It's not the one.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: And Buying had this like the verse and the bridge,
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: and the bridge was the chorus, and I was writing
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: it with my friend like trying to write at home.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: It's the only thing I tried to write home, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: I was like, everything I'm writing isn't the.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Chorus, but it works and it's sick, and that's what's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: on the album.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: And then we were in the studio and we were
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: packing down, the drugs were packed away. It was only me,
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Bowing and John in the studio with Nigel and Miko
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: and like in London, and I was like, fuck, it's
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: the Limoses chorus. And then I wrote the drum beat
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: in what about a minute. I was like dagda and
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: John was like, oh shit, okay okay. And then like
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: I wrote all the films, got it down in like
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: probably five minutes recorded.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: But I was like buying it, would you reckon? And
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: we both were like for.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: Organ, I was like organ line four chords and then
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: we both be almost exactly the same.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I sang the same notes progressive and we.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: Were like that's it, that's the fucking one, and like
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: you know, that it wrote itself in a minute, like
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: it just and that's how fifties pop should be.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: That like soul, like sixties soul.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: It's like that ship was natural and like so it's
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: called soul music because it's the most humane fucking element
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: of music. It's like, well, of course that's it. It
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: sounds easy to write because it's so fucking innate in
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: the human condition to listen to what it's reading or
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Nina Simono fucking even like the Flamingos and shit like that.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: It just feels.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: It feels like you're being spoken to and you're heard,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: and when you feel heard, it just it feels like
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: you're limb. And like that's what that's what I want
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: from pop music. That's what I want from soul music.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: That's why you know you get all these I'll play
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: my dad Frank Cosch.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: And Ivy and he's like, all right, I get it,
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: I get you know you would.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: No one could be like, what's this ship?
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and like you hear the soul, you know, it's
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: so you feel the soul fuck everyone else, and like
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: we were trying to connect that that's what we wanted
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: when I said I want to make people dance.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: It's about the magic of music that you get when
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you allow it in.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: But you can only allow it in if the message
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: is portrayed in a way that allows you to feel open,
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: you know, And that's you know, the favor of the
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: sun and the moon. If you just shine, you open
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: that person up. If you blow hard and you get
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: aggressive and you're trying to come on and just join
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: us to say, it doesn't allow the sense of dialogue.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: So like it was all these things that we were
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: practicing in that fifties pop thing was the first thing
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: that really melded us together with purpose. And then next
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: thing I know is writing fucking all sorts of shit.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: We're taking a break and then coming back with more
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: of a conversation with Joe Talbott and Mark Bowen of Idols.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: We're back with Joan Mark of Idols. So Roy became
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: like the kind of like the leadoff in a sense.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: That was the thing that kind of made it all
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: come together.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: That was it.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: That was the only thing that we connected on all
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: of us. Gotcha completing something that we're all like, that's it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Everything else was parts. We came to the studio in
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: France with seventeen parts with like two or maybe three
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: instruments song but like a verse and that's it.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: So we had we had we had an album too, right,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: we had nothing? Yeah, that was it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: And that was when the idea of the fifty pop
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: thing became slightly more abstract. It was more just about
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: tone and that sense that the untenable thing that you
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: can't really put a name too. And then it was
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: about being playful with structure and playful with but I
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: felt with like choosing your moments, like I think you know.
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: Another big moment on the on the album was the
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: instrumental end section of pop pop pop.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: I have that highlighted to ask you, like, what is
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: the hook?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: It's like the sunbeams, some beams and the gold sugar
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: part and then goes back to something what's going on here?
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: I mean it happens twice in really quick succession, then
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: one time at the end, and then it's like that
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: song was really kind of like very much for us.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: It was like it was so abstract the whole way through.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: I think, I mean it was it came from my
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: idea I had. I had to beat in mind for
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: quite a while again, and like it came from like
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: UK garage and Mika Levi Mika Chew in the Shapes,
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: which is like real grimy pot act that kind of
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: crossed the line between sometimes grime, sometimes pot, sometimes indie,
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: sometimes punk. Like they did whatever the fuck and it
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: always sounded infectious, danceable, and I was like that. And
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: there then MySpace what you call it, like the description
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: genre description was pop pop pop oh sack because it
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: was kind of like wre I came from. Yeah, yes,
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Like basically there was this reper the same garage at
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: the time, which you know, everyone had the gun things.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: I didn't obviously think I'm talking about like that, like
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: in the garage scene in Manchester, in London and Birmingham,
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: you know, there was it was a real heavy gun
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: crime in those areas and it was a very beautiful
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: community of people that made something great out of serious
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: deprivation at the time. There was also a lot of bullshit,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: you know, as it always with the racist media attaching
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: gun crime to garage.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: It was like, but the gunfinger thing was a real thing.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: So I always thought it was kind of a reference
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: to that because some of that ship the beats that
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: used were kind of grime beats, anyway, fast forward, and
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: I had this beat that kind of felt like because
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: with the nature of sick beats, you change it from
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: one twenty to one forty to one sixty to one eighty.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: You've just gone through techno, garage, house drum and bass,
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: you know, and all those things. You put that beat
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: on no matter what the speed was on that fucking dancel,
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: and I wanted a beat that you can do that with.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm guessing it's probably one fifteen or something
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: one two three, one two three, okay, so yeah, it's
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: technical beat, but it's got that kind of pushing Paul swing.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: So it's like this was in our head, wasn't it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: And then like I started playing the thing, and then
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: bon took over because I was playing this bass line
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: on that an open bodied bass, she started feeding back
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: like fuck on this pokea. So I was like, play
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: that bassline with like this, and obviously I don't use
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: feedback and ship that's busting. So he just finessed it.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: It sounded sick.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: It was that thing. It basically he was he was.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: He was playing it and you heard the the original
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: note and then the feedback was creating the harmonic.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: But because it was a because there was a hollow body.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: You still had the original note in there as well,
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: so it made this chord and I was like, oh,
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: can you did you change the feedback home?
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: And was like I could keep hitting this single now
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: for so I read him and then we're like walking around.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I was trying to find it. Was like, where's the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: next note in the secrets? Where? And where is? Where
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: does it? We find it? And I was like, ah, ship,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: we got it, and we got the we got the sequence.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: In order, and then that was it and like we
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: we fucking it didn't sound like but Bowen added the
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: chords later on on the on the on the Prophet, which.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: For me finess.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: But like in between that and that, Kenny and I
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: are in the studio next door to these guys.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: In Frank Kenny beats. Yeah. Boy.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I texted him yesterday that this is my ship. I
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: was like, yo, Roy, it's crazy, glad.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: You like it.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know if he worked on that one or not, but.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: Work everything, yeah, he said with us the whole son.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: So I was in there and I was like, I
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: was like started going in hard. Kenny was like, nah,
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: they say't that what are you doing I was like okay,
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: and then he You know, Kenny's got this amazing way
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: of just like he's very intuitive and he understands the
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: person as a musician. So what I mean by that
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: is any person can sing, but a musician understands how
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: to create a dialect of you outwardly. So you have
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: an internalized group of masks that are all you. They're
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: all true, but they come in cadence, they come in intonation,
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: they come in a timber, whatever it is tone.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: You can use that to.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: Truly portray your person who you really are, and like
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: that comes from somewhere within that you lack. You have
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: to have that openness with yourself and try new shit
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: to you Like that is that's it. That was me
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: when I was twelve, and that's how I want to
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: sing on this tune. I listen, this song reminds me
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: of the Cordetts and that was a time of innocence.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: I'm going to sing with that innocent twelve year old
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: voice because that's what this song is and that's who
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: I am on this song. But you Need One is
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: incredible as Kenny pets, he puts you in there, he
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: goes think about where you are right now.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Think about who you are.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Remember when you told me that thing six months ago
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: about your mother that day and you said that thing
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: that's you right now go and you'd be like, that's
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: it brings out that thing and that's the voice, but
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: that's the dimerstudy musician, and a karaoke thing is that
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: you can easily.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I was doing it the.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: Other day we covered the Warpman and I was I
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: just basically was trying. It sounded like I was trying
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: to sit like Hamilton Lighthouse. Obviously that guy's much better
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: voice than me, and I reined in. But I know
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Kenny in my head like what you do it? And
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: I was like, okay, what will Kenny do? You know,
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: you have to find why you want to sing that
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: song and then you portray that with your skill set.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Right, that's great, I mean, that's beautiful.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I mean back to the fifties and sixties point, it's like,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: how many times did artists do I mean they weren't covers,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: but like versions of things, and they weren't covers because
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: they didn't just like ape whatever the I mean, sometimes
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: they did, but a lot of the great you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Aretha's respect per version versus Otises. It's like they're both beautiful,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: but Aretha clearly had a vision of herself for that song.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: You know, there wasn't just let's do what Otis did
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: It's also like if you go back to the early
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: first UK and US top tens, there would be three
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: versions of the same song in the top ten. Yeah
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: that's fucking well, but that's it. Like good example, I
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: thought that a Change Is Gonna Come was by Otis reading.
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: I didn't realize it was Sam Cooked until like muchs later,
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: and like I was like, does that mean in my
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: head that Otis owns it? Because it's the one that
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: I believe, But like the context of Sam Cook and
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: the reason why I wrote it and the bravery it
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: took for him to do.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: That, it's insane.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like if you put that in context of the
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: pop machine then and how racist it was, the bravery
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: is untouchable. But that I'm like this Besides, the point
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: is virgin is the one because it's it's what I
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: learned it to be, And like I think it's like
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: if that's a sense of ownership, like if I own
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: the Walkman's song and make it mine, because I mean it,
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: it's not my writing, but if I mean it, then
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: it's it's as beautiful.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I wish that way of thinking was a little more
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: prevalent in music because it's like there, I mean, why
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: not pull from other things, you know, like make a
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: song yours like that kind of adding that kind of
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: variety back in the music would help make it, in
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: my view, more interesting.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: There's issues there, like if you like, I mean, how
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: many writers did Harry Stele sound on that album? And
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: you get credit on all of it? I don't know
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: how much he wrote. I'm not criticizing the guy obviously,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: Like I'm not gonna lie. I like Harry Starles's music,
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: but like obviously had lots of writers on that, and
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: I don't know whether I want to know that or
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: I don't think if I thought that Harry Steals wrote
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: it all, I'd enjoy even more. Yeah, not all of it.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: I just like his singles. Some of them are really
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: good pop songs. I think like knowing that an artist has.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: But like I think Frank Hoschsin is a great example.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: How many producers does does he work with? And it's
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: still incredible to me? So I guess it's I don't know,
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: it's a cut us as well. I think I just
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: the less I know the better when it.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Comes to that stuff. I think, you know, that's it.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: If you ignore all the bullshit and the noise around
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: the song, it's a good song. Because one of the
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: things I fucking hate that he's gatekeeping pricks in music
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: to think that you're not allowed to like something because
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: it's like in the pop machine or you know what
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, Like, you know, I got no time for
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: that ship. I think a good song is a good song.
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: The less I know the better because I'm a judgmental prick.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: It's good to know about It's a good thing to
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: know about yourself, you know, as you move through the world.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you three therapy man.
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: But I mean, but that's it. The mystery is key,
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: I think, especially since becoming musicians full time and as
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: a producer, and you kind of look behind the wizard's
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: curtain and it does dissolve away some of the mystery,
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: and it's kind of really, I'm not as enthusiastic about
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: other people's music anymore as I once was because I've
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: lost some of the sense of mystery.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, has it made making your music less fun in
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: a way too, or no, no.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. That's the thing.
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: It's not added to that experience because I've got more
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: control to the chaos to happen. You know, we're not
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: sat behind the producer who's in front of us and
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: they're in charge of all this stuff and they're gatekeeping
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: some of the information and some of the way we
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: could go about stuff. No, I'm stood up there and
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: I'm going now, or you know, let's do this like
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: that was that was a big thing move on this
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: album was about what we've done before in the past,
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: and this isn't the negative things. Is just what happens
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: with bands, especially when they don't know a lot of
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: that about production is you bring the music, it guides
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: the production, but it's you're never able to completely one
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: hundred percent get what you were trying to guide because
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: there's a confluence through the producer that go through. And
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: what I wanted on this one was I wanted the
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: production to inform the writing so that it was all unified.
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: So that's why, you know, like on pop Up Up,
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: we were just talking about one of the reasons that
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: song is so successful in that achievement around the UK
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: garage kind of like aspect of it is because it's
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: on a tape loop, and because the tape loop, because
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: you're only hearing four snares, ever those snares on repeat,
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: it becomes a drum machine. It becomes that that thing
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: that you can patch on to you know, what's coming
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: up next to you, that repeated rhythm thing. But even
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: further down the line, I mean it's like, yes, no,
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: I can hear when that's happening in other people's music
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: and you're like, you know, it's kind of like why
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: is that so cool?
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: And I know why it's so cool.
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: That kind of removes some of the mystery, but it
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: also kind of adds another.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Tool to the expression.
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, whereas before we were like we got so close
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: with that, but it's not it. Now we're like, we
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: got it, we got it, We've got the thing we're set.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: At night to do.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I imagine working with Nigel god Rich too, is like a
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: big aid in that way, right, like in terms of
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: creating a more organic process between the writing and the
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: production and all that. Kenny, having Kenny, both Kenny and
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Nigel involved.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much too.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: I'm like absolutely The cool thing about working with Nigel
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: is that it's again coming back to that fifties and
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: sixties pop stuff. There is nothing that Nigel god Pritz does.
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: I mean, he likes to keep the mystery alive. He
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: doesn't like talking about his process too much. But there
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: is nothing that Nigel Godrich does that people weren't doing
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: in the sixties.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: It's just a taste things tape.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: It's all these old crappy eyeboard stuff that's broken. It's
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: all working around the restrictions of what you have to hand.
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: That's what I love, and I think that that's very
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: rare these days because we've all got access to everything. Yeah,
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: you know, you've got splice, You've got like all your
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: loop banks, you've got any kind of like process that
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: you want to hand. You can just you know, download
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: the vst you and a where you go. You've you've
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: got any kind of processing that you want. And you're
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: losing the restriction that creates creativity, and you're losing the
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: restriction that allows you to relinquish some of the control
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: because you're like, oh, this is the way that its
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: signs going through this great you know, like and once
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: once you get into certain places and you find that
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: little patch, the little thing, you know, like a weaverb
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: or something like that, that just that will inform the
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: sign to the rest of the album. As long as
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: there's a drum going there, something else in the background,
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: the vocals splashing the rhyme, it'll feel like the album.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: So that was that was really cool. He challenged us
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: all in the right way.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: I found it very difficult to start, but he was
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: very patient and insightful. He was intent on making us
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: as accomplished and brilliant as possible, and that meant being
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: uncomfortable and challenged. And he is forthright in making the
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: best of a song and an album as Kenny is,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: and he worked us and he worked as brilliantly, and
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: I'm very fucking grateful that he allowed us the opportunity
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: to make something great, because you know, it's like it's
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: a steep learning curve keeping up with Nudge, Godrich and
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: Kenny beats. Yeah, it's not that fucking around time. It's
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: about learning, and I'm very grateful that they were all
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: so willing to learn. I hope we can continue for
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: at least one more album. If you're listening to Nodule
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: I'm fucking coming for you, boy.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I'm sure he loves to hear that. We're gonna pause
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: for one last quick break and then come back with
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: the rest of my conversation with Idols. We're back with
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: the rest of my conversation with Joe Tarbott and Mark
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Bowen of Idols.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Were you fucking around it? You really know? The next
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: album is the name.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: I'm never fucking around No, I mean I am, but
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: not like not with that stuff like that. Now I've
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: got it, it's on.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: It's on lock Yeah, Okay, this is the latest he's
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: done this.
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: By the way, he's normally doing it when we're in
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: the studio working on the album, and then it becomes
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: all he talks about. It's normally when he's done his vocals,
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: he's like, so, guys, ive got the book on your.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Still drums recording on this song? You know?
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: It's like yeah, but I mean and me and both
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: talked about it two days ago over coffee in the morning,
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: and I was like, I've got it.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I've got a new title. I've got it, and sometimes
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: it's not right now. The first the first one, like
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: a Tomorrow, is going.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: To be called Meditations wasn't it, because that was about stoicism,
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: and I realized I'm not patient enough to be a
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: stoic raga punk something.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: So yeah, the King.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: It's a rough time to be saying fuck the King. Man,
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: I don't no, no, no no, it's not no no, no,
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: no no. There's a there's a separation, you see. You
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: need to understand. And it's a good opportunity on the podcast,
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: so you was to do that. There is a difference
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: as a citizen of our country between the human being
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: that is Charles who has cancer. There's nothing fucking brave
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: or funny about celebrating someone else's demids with cancer. It's
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: pathetic and stupid. But I will for despise the monarchy
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: until it's abolished. There are people starving in our country
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: and the poor have been blamed for shit that our
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: government and the aristocracy have implemented, and our country is
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: falling apart because of that, because of the greally one
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: percent and the fucking horrid shit that they're getting away
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: with on a daily basis, one of which is the monarchy.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: It needs to stop.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: And until that happens, I will say fuck the King
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: with my eyes wide open. I know what I'm saying,
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: and I fucking mean it. Fuck the king and everyone
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: that reigns after it.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: It's not my place to speak on that. I just
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: going to say I love the conviction.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as a human being, I want for better all.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: Ultimately, you seem consumed and driven by passion. You see
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: a better way forward, a vision for something to be better,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: to be fair and just. It's not and I like that.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: You know there's a fine line in this while I'm
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: exploring different tones and the produties to my message, because
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: I understand I've come across as a sanctimonious prick, and
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: the last thing I do is judge someone who I
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: feel is making a loveless choice in a voting ballad,
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: or a loveless choice when they're crossing a rod, or
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: a loveless choice when they say something to someone online
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: like I may judge their action, but I understand the
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: person behind that bullshit is scared, frustrated, hungry, fucking exhausted,
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: overworked all these things. And you know it's up to ask,
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: as a purveyors of messages within the populace, to try
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: and cut through the lines in order to create a
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: sense of empathy and love in order to move forward
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: with grace and power. That is, the people connecting on
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: a human level.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Were you a reader growing up? You have such a
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: really beautiful way with words. You know, whether it's lyrics,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: whether it's speaking extemporaneously. You know how to wield the
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: power of words.
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: Man, you know, I think I'm got tired of breaking
• 37:07
  Speaker 7: my knuckles. You needed another way to exp like that,
• 37:12
  Speaker 7: And you really almost punched the wall in the other room.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: That that was me.
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: I would never punch a wall. Yeah, I think my
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: friend said it brilliantly once when I was younger. He
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: was just like, there's nothing more stupid than losing a
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: fight to an object. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you're never
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: going away either.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: What I meant was, I was very I was very frustrated,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: and when my frustrations come out outwardly, I understand that
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: comes across quite aggressive. So I needed to cool off
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: and then just process it with Bone because Bones very
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: level headed and pragmatic when it comes to ship like that,
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: and he's who I trust, So I go to him
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: that I'm not punching anything, not anymore.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: It's often that kind of like that aggressive kind of
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: angry approaches from a place of afters because you expect better.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: You hope, yeah, for more from the world.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: Do you hope for kindness, empathy and understand thing and
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: people to be as passionate, as driven them as as
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: wanting the best as you do, and then you get
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: disappointed by that.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean the other thing is that I'm
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: just like, you know, you've got to do it yourself.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: It doesn't get done right. That's that's what me and
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: Marco will manage to slime.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: That's we're unnet stoicism as well.
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you're slowly coming round to the basically Marcus school
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: really is you are not Marcus really.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Is making picture Joe as a as a stoic. I mean,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: maybe you know, borrow some tenants. It just doesn't really
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: seem like you can wear that.
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, speaking as Marcus really is tattooed on his ribs,
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: you are on the journey too.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: But I'm more, I'm more I'm Biggie Smalls. I got tired.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: If you see more two PACs recorded me than.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: That yeah, I'd say artistically, but I never got I
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: never got on the two packs of music.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: To be fair, I appreciate it. Obviously I'm not fucking stupid,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: but I just I just love the flow.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: The flow a bit off all day, all day.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Anyway, So fucking.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Fire hose like Park Man, like you just.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: It's like you watch park and abusing me like this
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: motherfucker twenty two was like, it's like this guy was
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: a fucking genius.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: It's kind of I'm not. I don't want to call
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: you a genius to your face.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Nor bad. I'm not fucking genius. But here's the thing,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what if you listen to his.
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: Stunning, glorious, fucking parents and what they stood for, and
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: and you know I came from that, I am. I
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: am half my mother and half my father, and I
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: owe a lot of that today, the moral stance. My
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: father's an artist, my mom was a fucking powerhouse, and
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: they were full of love and empathy and courage in
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: different ways.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: And I'm a product of that.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: My dad was a socialist, is a socialist, and and
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: my mom was a fucking beautiful dancer.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: And that that's where I come from.
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: And I you know, you can see that to the
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: beautiful things that he stood up for, you know, And
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: the same as bot I see his parents in him.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: If you know how beautiful and wonderful his parents. His
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: mother is a power, his father as the powers in
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: different ways, and as a parent. Now I realized it's
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: so fucking magic and important.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: That is.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you have a kid. We do, yeah, both of us,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: not together. You guys would make great parents. Are you
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: kidding me? Like you guys like the perfect co parent insituation?
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, no, it's like it's the thing
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: about the difference between now. So it's okay whenever. It's like,
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: you're creative, baby, but because we can cross each other's lines,
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: but I think on parents and it's real tough when
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: you cross each other's lines.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I do want to ask Joe the repetition.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in lyrics, it's really cool.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know if something you do consciously, if it's
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: a float thing because you're in the biggie, if it's
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: something to do with the meaning of the words, but
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: like it comes up that Yeah.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: I like wordplay, poetry and obviously rap music, so I
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: kind of grow up on airprop And is that thing
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: about a vocal hook, you know, like a soundple hook
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: or a vocal hook, you know, I just see certain
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: things like a sledgehammer, if you want to force something
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: home and make someone uncomfortable, or make something iconic, iconic
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: meaning that if you see, if you squint, you see
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: something blurred from a mile away, you know what it
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: is because you've seen it before, you've heard it before.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: And I think, like, it's not necessarily my self as
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: part of the song, but if you use repetition in
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: a way like The Fall did it, there's a lot
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: of postport that did it as well, and like, I
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: just think it's word play and I think there's many
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: ways you can you can be beautiful, and I think
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: hip hop's the best example for that obviously.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Like for me, repetition is one. It's like a tropro
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of us, like it's part of the Bibles is language,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: and on.
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: This album, the more so I think in in its
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: purest form of garden like samples. I think, like both
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: of us, you know, your background is kind of hip
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: hop and your influences, and I come like I listened
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: to the loops of techno and hard Heus and stuff
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: like that as a kid, and so it's all like
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: you know, samples and actual repetition of sign and.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I think on the on this album. We've always tried
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: to do that.
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: You know, We've done it very in a very post
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: punk way, that kind of crowd rock way where you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: you've got that motoric B and the bass line and
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: it's loop and rind and there's you know, pocket and
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: feel kind of comes out of that.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: But like on on Tank, for the first time, we.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: Literally are using samples of our Yeah yeah, yeah, it's
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: not all the played it's like, you know, the signed
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: on Pop Up Pop. You know, we only got those
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: frequencies once. We didn't run through the whole song.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: I'd say, you what, So when we're in the studio
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: of Pop Pop Pop when I was in m Kenny, Yeah,
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: we were trying to figure out chorus and I was like,
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: I thought about a hip hop sample hook and I
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: was like, this is our hip hop sample. I was like,
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: I'll just sing it far away from the mic and
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: distort it and it would just sound like an old sample.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: And he was like, fuck yeah, So I just did
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: that some beams because it's based on a Roll Dark
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: quote where he says that like basically shitty people and
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: their ugly thoughts come out in their face and they
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: look mean and they look like fucking horrible, not necessarily
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: ugly people about and what he's saying is so like
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: if you're a nasty prick, you can see it in
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: your face. But he said that good people and people
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: that have beautiful thoughts, it shines out of their flace
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: like somebeams.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: And I just love I love that quote. And knowing
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: what he was like, you thought he was a real cynic.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: He wrote, he's really kind of like Uncanny Chill, these
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: books that are kind of a bit sinister for sick
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: and empowering for children in like a wicked way. So
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: I wanted to do that quote, so I chucked it
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: in a sort of song spots for my kid. I
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: wanted it to be like a steparate thing that's a
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: sample and not to this song. It doesn't lyrically fit
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: with what I was singing in the verses, but it
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: fits in the theme of the song as a sample.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: That's cool. And that's what I love about too.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: It's like there's a lot of repetition, but there's also
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of chaos in your songs, and so it's
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: never like there's repetition so I know what's next, or
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: there's repetition. So I've heard this before, and I think
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: that's what makes you guys' music so listenable, you know,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: like just makes people want to go back and listen
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: more and again. And you know, listening to Brutalism again recently,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: it was like there's new things I'm hearing in that,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: you know that I haven't listened to that in a
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: couple of years, And I can't believe you guys have
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: five albums in seven years.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I mean we're very you know, we're privileged. Man,
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: We're lucky. We've got we've got time and space and
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: money to make beautiful ships. So we'll keep making it.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Until we're hunger for it as well.
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean obviously, Yeah, that's that's part of our
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: that's part of our privilege. Yeah, it's not just about
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: our circumstance and what we've been allowed. It's the fact
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: that we get up in the morning and we've got
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: shipped to do.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's fucking a gift to me that if I
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: got canceled like next week, I'd be like, well, let's
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: get the studio.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: It's getting the studio.
• 45:36
  Speaker 8: Yeah, this is what else is going to do, Like
• 45:40
  Speaker 8: not not ship I mean Kenny's like that though as well,
• 45:44
  Speaker 8: like like more so he's insane, Like it's worked like
• 45:50
  Speaker 8: insane crazy, You'll be you'll be like working with stuff
• 45:52
  Speaker 8: and his hest and chilling, and then like these other
• 45:54
  Speaker 8: people will just turn up. It's like, yeah, just like
• 45:57
  Speaker 8: my brillin has just like dumped everything it has, can
• 46:02
  Speaker 8: you possibly have sparce.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: To do more? And he's just he just is, He's
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: you know, he's gonna bring out the best in that
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: person exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah sick.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that's the thing about great producers,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: like how it split. Like I couldn't thought about like
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: a father. I couldn't imagine splitting my time between like
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: eight different families of kids.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: It's like, what the fuck? How do you? But people
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: like Kenny have this beautiful.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Gift of showing up being themselves in all these different
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: ways with all these different people.
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: And he shows up he's himself, but he's also like
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: I've never know, I've never seen him not change your
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: rip if he comes in the room, and he'll just
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: like he does something profine to people. It's an energy,
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: it's it's class.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: I appreciate talking to y'all and good luck on the performance.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Tonight should be fun.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah fuck yeah, all right, much up later, guys.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Joe Talbot and Mark Bowen of Idols. They're
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: talking about their creative push and pull and the recording
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: of their latest album Tank. You can hear it along
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: with our other favorite Idol songs on the playlist at
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: broken Record podcast dot on. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast, where you
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions. And if
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,