Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Pino Palladino and Blake Mills

Transcript

Pino Palladino and Blake Mills · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Pino Palladino and Blake Mills are renowned session musicians
0:24
Speaker 1: who recently collaborated on their own album, Notes with Attachments.
0:28
Speaker 1: It's an experimental, jazz leaning project that blue Rick Rubin's mind.
0:34
Speaker 1: Pino Palladino is a bass player who has played on
0:36
Speaker 1: records with everyone from DeAngelo to The Who to Adele.
0:40
Speaker 1: Guitarist Blake Mills co founded the band DAWs in two
0:43
Speaker 1: thousand and five and has gone on to release critically
0:46
Speaker 1: acclaimed solo albums himself and has also produced records for
0:49
Speaker 1: the Alabama Shakes, John Legend and Fiona Apple. Three years ago,
0:54
Speaker 1: Pino and Blake started working on what would become Notes
0:57
Speaker 1: with Attachments. The album features other incredible session musicians like
1:01
Speaker 1: drummer Chris Daddy Dave and sax player Marcus Drickland, and
1:05
Speaker 1: it pulls from influences as diverse as West African Huban
1:09
Speaker 1: and even English folk music. Rick talks first with Pino
1:13
Speaker 1: Palladino on today's episode about those wide array of influences
1:17
Speaker 1: and how hearing motown music because a young boy in
1:19
Speaker 1: Wales changed his life. Pino also walks us through his
1:23
Speaker 1: evolution to becoming one of the most in demand session players. Later,
1:28
Speaker 1: Blake Mills joins the conversation to talk about collaborating with
1:31
Speaker 1: Pino and why he feels bad for the toy musicians
1:34
Speaker 1: who have to play his bass parts on the road.
1:40
Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
1:43
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin with Pino Palladino and
1:51
Speaker 1: Blake Mills. I want to start by saying the album
1:55
Speaker 1: is magnificent. It made me feel like I was hearing
1:58
Speaker 1: something from another time. And when I say from another time,
2:03
Speaker 1: it didn't feel like it could have been made at
2:06
Speaker 1: any other time but now. But it had the gravitas
2:10
Speaker 1: of a classic album that I think of as like,
2:13
Speaker 1: you know, like a Miles Davis album. It really touched
2:17
Speaker 1: me and blew my mind that it's possible to make
2:21
Speaker 1: an album like this today. Wow. Right, that's amazing and wow,
2:25
Speaker 1: I'm so I'm just so pleased that that has had
2:30
Speaker 1: an impact on you like that that you would say
2:31
Speaker 1: something like that, that's incredible. Flip me out. Is this
2:35
Speaker 1: I don't know, is this your first quote unquote solo
2:38
Speaker 1: album or solo album with a friend? Yes, yeah, both
2:41
Speaker 1: of those things either and both yes. It is has
2:45
Speaker 1: the material been written over time or did it all
2:47
Speaker 1: come together specifically for this project. No, there are a
2:51
Speaker 1: lot of ideas that I've been carrying for quite a
2:53
Speaker 1: while with a view to doing something with them at
2:55
Speaker 1: some stage. I'm being a librun never getting round to it,
2:59
Speaker 1: you know, forty years later, and I think it's it's
3:02
Speaker 1: serendipiculous too, just the way things came together with me.
3:06
Speaker 1: I'm meeting Blake beautiful, Yeah, And the more we took
3:09
Speaker 1: about it, the more it seemed like this could be
3:11
Speaker 1: something really exciting too, you know, for me to bring
3:14
Speaker 1: out my first project on Yeah, fantastic. Tell me about
3:18
Speaker 1: I mean, we've hung out a bit and I've got
3:21
Speaker 1: to see you play in the studio, absolutely, But I
3:24
Speaker 1: know very little about your history other than certain things
3:28
Speaker 1: you know, certain bands you played with. But tell me
3:30
Speaker 1: from the beginning, what's your first experience of music in life? Wow? Yeah,
3:36
Speaker 1: that would have been in Catholic school, just learning hymns.
3:40
Speaker 1: And if I think back a long way, I remember
3:43
Speaker 1: one of the first things that really hit me musically
3:46
Speaker 1: was learning the song inch one, which is the kind
3:49
Speaker 1: of a desk cant that we did in my school.
3:52
Speaker 1: When I was about eight or lone years old when
3:54
Speaker 1: I just remember being really excited by the sound of
3:57
Speaker 1: that cadence where one thing sings, you know, the melody,
4:01
Speaker 1: and then the desk cant comes in later and adds
4:04
Speaker 1: a harmony too beautiful. What was your first instrument the
4:08
Speaker 1: Spanish guitar, Spanish guitar, nylon spring guitar exactly, yes, and
4:13
Speaker 1: that again comes from from school. We had a priest
4:17
Speaker 1: in school called Father Delaney, who was a real fantastic character,
4:21
Speaker 1: old Irish priest, actually not all young at the time,
4:24
Speaker 1: but yeah, he used to do these guitar lessons in
4:26
Speaker 1: school and it was an opportunity to get our classes
4:29
Speaker 1: early sometimes and we would learn the chords to hymns
4:34
Speaker 1: and sort of Ralph McTell songs that were popular back
4:37
Speaker 1: in those days. Fantastic, yeah, and then play them in
4:41
Speaker 1: folk masses, like Catholic folk masses. So in a way
4:44
Speaker 1: it started for me in church and was it that's
4:48
Speaker 1: always a fingerpicking style, is that correct? Yeah? Or mostly
4:51
Speaker 1: strumming like cowboy chords. And then I had a couple
4:53
Speaker 1: of Spanish guitar lessons, like maybe for a month or something.
4:56
Speaker 1: My mom paid for a few Spanish guitar lessons and
4:59
Speaker 1: I got some basic technique from that and learned a
5:02
Speaker 1: few pieces and really just went on from there. What
5:06
Speaker 1: was the first popular music that really spoke to I
5:09
Speaker 1: would have to say Motown Studio wonder my Sherryan Moore
5:16
Speaker 1: around about that year where I was really starting to
5:19
Speaker 1: hear music and really loved it. And then I got
5:23
Speaker 1: opportunity at one point with the school trip, we went
5:26
Speaker 1: to a skating ring outside of Cardiff when I was
5:31
Speaker 1: born in Wales, and they were playing Motown music really
5:34
Speaker 1: loud through the PA and that's the first time I
5:37
Speaker 1: remember really thinking whatever was going on down but I
5:40
Speaker 1: didn't even know it was bass guitar, but I just
5:42
Speaker 1: love what was happening, So I remember that vividly. And
5:46
Speaker 1: then when when was the first time he picked up
5:48
Speaker 1: a bass? I actually started on guitar, as I said,
5:51
Speaker 1: and didn't play bass till I was about seventeen. I
5:54
Speaker 1: started I was playing out in my first band. I
5:58
Speaker 1: kept on playing bass players bass. I really enjoyed playing it.
6:01
Speaker 1: He had a seventies jazz bass. Over time just realized
6:04
Speaker 1: that that was probably why I should be playing. Tell
6:07
Speaker 1: me about the band, did you do covers. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
6:10
Speaker 1: rock and roll, Huchiku Johnny went to led Zeppelin, Beatles,
6:15
Speaker 1: Wishbone ash amazing. What would you call your first professional
6:19
Speaker 1: job in music. I don't remember getting paid for any
6:21
Speaker 1: of the gigs we did in the cover bands. But
6:24
Speaker 1: we went to Germany with my first band, and long
6:27
Speaker 1: story short, when we got there, we found out we
6:29
Speaker 1: didn't have a gig, so we drove all the way
6:31
Speaker 1: to Munich and sort of survived there for a month
6:35
Speaker 1: or so. You know, we just won weeks with the work,
6:39
Speaker 1: so all that that was my first really official professional gig.
6:43
Speaker 1: I mean, we just certainly didn't make any money, and
6:45
Speaker 1: we all got repatriated by the by the console as well.
6:48
Speaker 1: We got chucked out of Germany. It wasn't that successful.
6:52
Speaker 1: What's the first time you played on the recording? I
6:54
Speaker 1: think back. It was actually a show band that my
6:57
Speaker 1: friend was playing with and they were recording at Rockfield
7:00
Speaker 1: in Wales, and I just went down down there to
7:03
Speaker 1: sort of hang with my friend who was the keyboard player,
7:07
Speaker 1: and before I knew playing bass on this track, and
7:12
Speaker 1: that's the first time I remember actually having headphones on
7:14
Speaker 1: in the studio and thinking, wow, I really liked this,
7:18
Speaker 1: this is fun. But did you build your life as
7:21
Speaker 1: a session player in the UK? First? I never thought
7:25
Speaker 1: of being a session player. I just wanted to be
7:27
Speaker 1: in a band. But as I played with I had
7:30
Speaker 1: more interaction with different musicians. I started to think about,
7:34
Speaker 1: you know, what it would be like to just play
7:36
Speaker 1: on different records, and it just seemed like such a
7:38
Speaker 1: cool thing to do. And then before you know it,
7:40
Speaker 1: did you become a session player? Did you ever find
7:44
Speaker 1: a band where it felt like this is my band
7:47
Speaker 1: and this is what we're going to do you No,
7:50
Speaker 1: but there did come a point where I thought, you know,
7:53
Speaker 1: my strength is being freelance and being able to go
7:57
Speaker 1: into different projects with different genres, and I really start
8:01
Speaker 1: to enjoy the interaction with different musicians and different forms
8:06
Speaker 1: of music. The first time I heard your name was
8:10
Speaker 1: as it related to the Who. What happened before the
8:13
Speaker 1: Who that allowed you to end up playing with the Who? Well,
8:17
Speaker 1: in the early eighties, this is going back quite a way.
8:21
Speaker 1: I had a call from a friend of mine, Chris Slade,
8:23
Speaker 1: who was playing drums with Gary Human, Great druma and
8:27
Speaker 1: proper Welshman. So he founded me up and said, look,
8:31
Speaker 1: I'm in the studio with Gary Numan and he's looking
8:33
Speaker 1: for a frantless bass player. Chris knew that I had
8:36
Speaker 1: a friendless, so I ended up going down to the
8:37
Speaker 1: studio and working with Gary and working on an album
8:40
Speaker 1: called by Assassin, which really featured him. You know, he
8:44
Speaker 1: just gave me an open, open card, really and just said,
8:47
Speaker 1: whatever you want to play on this stuff, just you know,
8:49
Speaker 1: bring something. So moving along, that led to Paul Young,
8:55
Speaker 1: Paul Youngs producer at the time in the eighties Laurie
8:57
Speaker 1: Latham you know here in the record and thinking it
9:00
Speaker 1: would be cool to bring me in on some of
9:01
Speaker 1: the Paul Young stuff. So Paul Young again Fretless Space.
9:05
Speaker 1: The next major calling up was from Dave Gilmour out
9:09
Speaker 1: of the blue one day as I was in the rehearse,
9:10
Speaker 1: so I couldn't believe it, you know, they's followed me
9:14
Speaker 1: up such a huge Floyd fram from backing the day,
9:17
Speaker 1: and that led to me working on a Dave Gilmore album.
9:20
Speaker 1: He had written a song with Pete Townsend for that
9:23
Speaker 1: album and then Pete decided to do that same song
9:26
Speaker 1: on his album White City. So Dave recommended me to
9:30
Speaker 1: go in and play on this song. Amazing. Pete just
9:33
Speaker 1: threw this other song of me. He said, look, I've
9:36
Speaker 1: got this idea. I've been working with the song of
9:38
Speaker 1: Phillips and Dave Gilmore and it's not really a song yet,
9:41
Speaker 1: but would you want to have a play on it?
9:43
Speaker 1: And it turned out to be the song called give Blood.
9:46
Speaker 1: You know, I heard it and I was just I
9:47
Speaker 1: was so happy. I thought, you're gonna let him plant this.
9:50
Speaker 1: This is incredible. So I did my thing on that
9:53
Speaker 1: and me and Pete sort of hit it off that day,
9:55
Speaker 1: and that's really what led to my connection with the
9:58
Speaker 1: who incredible and the Gilmore side of it I didn't know,
10:02
Speaker 1: and that's amazing. How did Dave Filmore hear about you
10:05
Speaker 1: from my playing on the Paul Young records? Wow? The
10:09
Speaker 1: friendless bass was sort of featured on one song in
10:11
Speaker 1: particular co Wherever Like My Hat, which is a cover
10:14
Speaker 1: of a mob and gay b side that we sort
10:16
Speaker 1: of worked up. The bass ended up being the sort
10:18
Speaker 1: of vocal point other than the voice obviously, so that
10:22
Speaker 1: brought up a lot of attention to play. It's funny
10:25
Speaker 1: when you hear something remarkable. I can remember a record
10:29
Speaker 1: producer friend playing a song for me and it was
10:32
Speaker 1: I think it was a cover song and it got
10:35
Speaker 1: to the guitar solo, and all I needed to know
10:39
Speaker 1: in that moment was who's playing a guitar solo? Now,
10:41
Speaker 1: for me, it's an odd question in a cover song,
10:44
Speaker 1: I wouldn't normally ask. I wouldn't normally even I would
10:47
Speaker 1: probably if it's a cover song, I would probably tune
10:50
Speaker 1: out for a guitar solo, right, do you know what
10:53
Speaker 1: I'm saying? But in this case, I tuned in. It's
10:56
Speaker 1: like who is that? And that's how I got to
10:58
Speaker 1: meet Blake. Amazing, there you go. It can just be
11:01
Speaker 1: a spark. Sometimes it's it's there's something there that's like,
11:06
Speaker 1: I want to know more about this, whatever this is,
11:10
Speaker 1: need to know more. Again, the first time I heard
11:12
Speaker 1: your name was in relation to the who. The time
11:16
Speaker 1: that I learned who you were actually was based on Voodoo,
11:20
Speaker 1: which was, you know, maybe my favorite album and wanting
11:24
Speaker 1: to know how did this happen? Who played on this?
11:27
Speaker 1: And that's what led to our getting to work together
11:30
Speaker 1: some time? Though. Absolutely, it's amazing. It's amazing how that
11:34
Speaker 1: thing just translates, how it connects. Yeah, beyond Motown, what
11:40
Speaker 1: would you say influences on your style. Where would they
11:43
Speaker 1: come from? Well, in Cardiff, where I come from, it's
11:48
Speaker 1: quite similar to Liverpool. It's a docks area, so there's
11:51
Speaker 1: a lot of different nationalities. I had some friends that
11:54
Speaker 1: live down on the Bay and there were clubs down
11:56
Speaker 1: there that played a lot of American funk, reggae from Jamaica,
12:01
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff and some African musications, and
12:04
Speaker 1: so that was hugely influential to the time. A lot
12:08
Speaker 1: of king jazz, folk, soul, reggae, lottle reggae music in
12:12
Speaker 1: the mid to late seventies. And you know, I had
12:15
Speaker 1: some pretty pretty tough lessons working with some reggae musicians,
12:18
Speaker 1: some older guys down there, and also in London. You know,
12:21
Speaker 1: I was learning fusion to play all sorts of different
12:23
Speaker 1: things that tom and was playing way too many notes,
12:26
Speaker 1: and these guys would sometimes be in the studio and
12:29
Speaker 1: they would tap out the beat and sing the sort
12:32
Speaker 1: of bassline to me on the back of my shoulder,
12:35
Speaker 1: like hard, you know, like boom boom boom, boom boom,
12:38
Speaker 1: really drilling it into me. So that really helped me
12:41
Speaker 1: with the economy, you know, a sense of economy and
12:43
Speaker 1: bass play he learned restraint. Yes. Absolutely, We're gonna take
12:48
Speaker 1: a quick break and then we'll be right back with more.
12:54
Speaker 1: We're back with more from Rick Rubin and Pinot Palladino.
12:58
Speaker 1: Guitarist Blake Mills also joins a conversation. Right, let's see
13:01
Speaker 1: the album this morning. Talk to me about the arrangements.
13:04
Speaker 1: Who did the arrangements? And are all of the instruments
13:07
Speaker 1: that sound like instrum mens actual instruments? Yeah, yeah, I
13:12
Speaker 1: mean in terms of the arrangements, so I think again,
13:15
Speaker 1: Me and Blake pretty much flesh those out between us
13:17
Speaker 1: over a period of time and with the sounds of
13:21
Speaker 1: the instruments. Yeah, there's a lot of real instruments on
13:23
Speaker 1: the Great I'm definitely curious just because it all sounds magnificent.
13:29
Speaker 1: There are a couple of moments where it felt like
13:30
Speaker 1: it went from an organic what seemed like a clearly
13:33
Speaker 1: organic place to a non organic place, and it just
13:37
Speaker 1: sucks me in and makes me want to listen more.
13:40
Speaker 1: You know, it's just interesting, it's beautiful, felt really tastefully done. Well,
13:44
Speaker 1: that's beautiful and post. Me and Blake really wanted these
13:46
Speaker 1: songs to envelop you and just allow you to go
13:50
Speaker 1: into a journey if you allow it, and you know,
13:54
Speaker 1: I feel, I feel really happy with the way that
13:56
Speaker 1: the songs are turned out. So what would be an
13:59
Speaker 1: example of what you brought like if you if you'd
14:02
Speaker 1: had collected material for the project, in what form would
14:06
Speaker 1: it exist before you started with? How fleshed out was
14:10
Speaker 1: it in your mind? Quite a few of the ideas
14:14
Speaker 1: actually originated with myself and Chris Dave at my home
14:18
Speaker 1: in London. And that's an interesting story too, because the
14:22
Speaker 1: first time I actually physically met Chris was at Shangri
14:25
Speaker 1: La because you brought us together for a Dell's album.
14:28
Speaker 1: So this is a nice full circle, you know, talking
14:32
Speaker 1: to you now about the record. We hit it off
14:34
Speaker 1: from that day we met and continued to kind of
14:36
Speaker 1: hang and work on different things together, and whenever we
14:39
Speaker 1: were together, we would put down music in some way,
14:42
Speaker 1: whether it's at my house or at a studio in
14:45
Speaker 1: New York, if we were both in New York or LA.
14:47
Speaker 1: And so quite a few of those I would say
14:49
Speaker 1: three or four of those ideas started off as the
14:52
Speaker 1: stuff that me and Chris had worked on together, with
14:54
Speaker 1: me playing guitar and bass and Chris playing percussion. Occasionally
14:57
Speaker 1: adding the odd keyboard. Other things were like fully fleshed
15:02
Speaker 1: out tunes, as one tune in particular called Man from Molise,
15:06
Speaker 1: and that was a tune that I recorded in New
15:08
Speaker 1: York with some amazing Cuban musicians and it was like
15:12
Speaker 1: a nine minute arrangement with bridges and solos and all
15:16
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff, and so that was that was a
15:19
Speaker 1: different form that one. I played to Blake and he
15:23
Speaker 1: loved it. But he said, how about if we slowed
15:26
Speaker 1: it down? And I thought, okay, we'll slowed it down
15:30
Speaker 1: a couple of bits a minute, that would be great,
15:32
Speaker 1: but he meant half speed, so he really slowed it down.
15:35
Speaker 1: So you can imagine, you know, you have a song
15:38
Speaker 1: that's kind of grouping in a certain way, and then
15:39
Speaker 1: you take it down to half speed. It's like, that's
15:41
Speaker 1: that's a bit of a shot. But ultimately I was.
15:44
Speaker 1: I was open to it because of his daring, experimental
15:49
Speaker 1: kind of nature, and it tuned into something completely different
15:53
Speaker 1: and we just got right into it. And I mean, yeah,
15:57
Speaker 1: we're both pretty sick like that, and Blake those decals
16:00
Speaker 1: we need to go down a rabbit hole and fight
16:03
Speaker 1: our way out, you know, if we need to. I mean,
16:05
Speaker 1: you play with arguably the best drummers in the world
16:08
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Tell me about what makes Chris
16:11
Speaker 1: Dave Chris Dave. I mean, he's just extravagantly gifted in
16:15
Speaker 1: terms of what he knows physically well. He can play
16:18
Speaker 1: at the same time, various rhythms and and just incredible chops.
16:23
Speaker 1: But it isn't even that. I mean, it's a creativity
16:25
Speaker 1: and the fact that you just what he's going to play.
16:29
Speaker 1: He has amazing instincts. He'll listen to a song. You
16:32
Speaker 1: know you will, right, He'll listen to a song and
16:35
Speaker 1: he might say, let me hear that again. By the
16:38
Speaker 1: time he's going into play, he's got it all worked
16:41
Speaker 1: out in his head in a way, or if he hasn't,
16:44
Speaker 1: whatever happens is usually correct and new and vibrant. It's
16:50
Speaker 1: just so fresh. One of the things that I find
16:53
Speaker 1: interesting with Chris is that regardless of what he plays,
16:56
Speaker 1: regardless of how simple and straightforward the thing he might
17:00
Speaker 1: choose to play, is you want to listen to it.
17:03
Speaker 1: Like it the feel he could play boom cha, boom cha,
17:07
Speaker 1: boom boom cha, and you want to listen to it.
17:11
Speaker 1: And anyone else plays the same beat and you tune
17:13
Speaker 1: out and it's just there's something there, there's something. It's
17:18
Speaker 1: always groovy and it's always interesting, regardless of how fancied.
17:23
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be fancy for it to be
17:26
Speaker 1: compelling when he's playing. Yeah, I agree with it. It's
17:30
Speaker 1: very engaging. Listen. Where in the project did you decide
17:35
Speaker 1: this is going to be a coproject with Blake? Pretty
17:39
Speaker 1: early on? Actually, I think probably like two songs in.
17:45
Speaker 1: I think it goned on us at the same time,
17:46
Speaker 1: because I remember we had a we decided to meet
17:49
Speaker 1: up my place here in La and said out side
17:51
Speaker 1: and had a chat, and yeah, we were both on
17:54
Speaker 1: the same page. It just it seemslutely the way to
17:57
Speaker 1: go and the way I see it is, although it's
18:00
Speaker 1: my music and most of the ideas originate from me,
18:04
Speaker 1: you know, presenting them to Blake and having his reaction
18:08
Speaker 1: to them just took it in such an interesting direction.
18:11
Speaker 1: If it just absolutely was perfect to be a collaboration,
18:16
Speaker 1: and the guitar work on it is spectacular and unexpected
18:20
Speaker 1: and spectacular beautiful. A lot of it's probably Pino. I mean,
18:28
Speaker 1: the thing is, like we were just talking about this recently.
18:31
Speaker 1: The My approach to playing guitar on the record was
18:35
Speaker 1: so informed by getting to learn more and more about
18:39
Speaker 1: Pino's musicianship, you know, as a bass player, as a ranger,
18:44
Speaker 1: a writer like I started to become aware of note
18:49
Speaker 1: length and how much character there is in that. With him,
18:54
Speaker 1: it really was kind of trying to be an extension
18:57
Speaker 1: of of his musical personality. Would the tracks typically start
19:02
Speaker 1: with the three of YouTube and Chris playing together? No? Actually, never, never? Well, yeah,
19:09
Speaker 1: some of the ideas, as I mentioned, really a stamp
19:11
Speaker 1: from ideas of me and Chris had the prerecorded I
19:15
Speaker 1: think survibes, and then we would sometimes break them down
19:19
Speaker 1: in the studio in terms of maybe not using all
19:21
Speaker 1: the stuff that we recorded or all the parts of
19:24
Speaker 1: the drum kit. But from there was there more material
19:28
Speaker 1: that didn't make the record. Yeah, I mean, there are
19:30
Speaker 1: a lot more ideas hanging about. I suppose we arrived
19:33
Speaker 1: at the eight songs on the album, and for a
19:36
Speaker 1: while we wondered if that was enough. It's perfect here
19:39
Speaker 1: to me it is too, yeah, I mean, you know,
19:42
Speaker 1: I can't really listen to too many songs on a record,
19:46
Speaker 1: Like the first time it dawned on me that we
19:48
Speaker 1: actually had a record was when I got the opportunity
19:51
Speaker 1: to sequence to songs and just imagine what it would
19:54
Speaker 1: be like as a vinyl record. And then I'd finally
19:57
Speaker 1: let go of it and thought, yeah, it's a record now.
19:59
Speaker 1: It really feels like you've got enough here. Let's talk
20:03
Speaker 1: about jeff Ron. It started off with myself and Chris
20:08
Speaker 1: David my home in London and just jamming on some stuff.
20:11
Speaker 1: Chris came up with a beat that you hear featured
20:16
Speaker 1: three chords of the way into the song on there
20:19
Speaker 1: and I played just a baseline idea with it, and
20:24
Speaker 1: I went in the next day and listened to this
20:26
Speaker 1: beat and thought, wow, what a cool beat, and then
20:28
Speaker 1: I tried to write something new to it. So I
20:30
Speaker 1: wrote a chord sequence to It's like a four bar
20:33
Speaker 1: chord sequence with a sort of bridge idea, and so
20:36
Speaker 1: that's how that song lived for quite a while. It
20:38
Speaker 1: was just that, and we actually played it live a
20:41
Speaker 1: couple of times with Chris Stephen friends, and there is
20:44
Speaker 1: gigs that we did. It was the title was there
20:47
Speaker 1: just wrong? But I presented that to Blake and then
20:50
Speaker 1: we started MUK with chords a little bit. Still the
20:53
Speaker 1: same sequence, but just looking at putting some of the
20:56
Speaker 1: chords in a different order in the bridge and making
20:59
Speaker 1: it a seven bar bridge or nine bar whatever it is.
21:02
Speaker 1: I haven't counted it, and it didn't have a melody
21:06
Speaker 1: or any really fleshed out arrangement at that point. And
21:10
Speaker 1: then the first person we brought in was Larry, actually
21:14
Speaker 1: Larry Goldings. He came in and I had an idea
21:17
Speaker 1: for melody. We got Larry to play it on melotron
21:21
Speaker 1: with some sounds that I hear him playing that were
21:23
Speaker 1: like sampled Ben Webster horns or something like that, and
21:27
Speaker 1: then Blake had an idea to harmonize some of that stuff.
21:30
Speaker 1: So we just really was a very organic process. And
21:33
Speaker 1: then eventually Sam came in Sam Gandel and played on
21:38
Speaker 1: top of the melody and added all his sort of
21:40
Speaker 1: polyphonic stuff through the tune, just him playing chords on
21:45
Speaker 1: the sacks and just warming up some of his voices.
21:48
Speaker 1: The reason why this song is special to me on
21:51
Speaker 1: the record is because it's also the first time where
21:54
Speaker 1: we opened up this project together in the studio at
21:58
Speaker 1: sound City, which which I and my partner Tony Berg
22:02
Speaker 1: had the first time we got to open a song
22:07
Speaker 1: in the studio and and really kind of build things
22:10
Speaker 1: outside of the box, not from previous recordings. I think
22:15
Speaker 1: it actually sort of grew simultaneously. You know, we were
22:21
Speaker 1: listening back to what we were doing and kind of
22:24
Speaker 1: catching a vibe from you know, this, this other collaborator,
22:28
Speaker 1: which is the studio, you know, the space and the
22:32
Speaker 1: listening environment. I think that might be what feels so
22:36
Speaker 1: modern about it, is the intervention of the studio. Yeah, yeah,
22:41
Speaker 1: for sure. We're gonna take a quick break here and
22:44
Speaker 1: then we'll be back with more from Rick's conversation with
22:46
Speaker 1: Pino Palladino and Blake Males. We're back with the rest
22:53
Speaker 1: of Rick Rubin's conversation with Pino Palladino and Blake Males.
22:57
Speaker 1: How different is it playing on a session first, playing
23:02
Speaker 1: for your own piece, It's overall the same approach, because
23:07
Speaker 1: I'm reacting to the piece of music, whether it's or
23:09
Speaker 1: somebody else's and trying to bring something to it and
23:12
Speaker 1: just bring some light into it somehow. But if it's
23:15
Speaker 1: my own thing, I mean, I get a lot more
23:17
Speaker 1: time for one thing, you know. I could I could
23:20
Speaker 1: do something one day and come back the next day
23:22
Speaker 1: and message which is not always the best thing, is it.
23:24
Speaker 1: Sometimes your first instinct isn't the thing you know, and
23:28
Speaker 1: you have to be saved from yourself. So absolutely putting
23:32
Speaker 1: more time into something doesn't necessarily make it better. Yeah
23:36
Speaker 1: you can, you can exhaust possibilities, but you'll probably come
23:38
Speaker 1: back to your first instance. Tell me a little bit
23:41
Speaker 1: more about session work in general, just because you've done
23:45
Speaker 1: a lot. Tell me about that experience. What's it like
23:47
Speaker 1: playing with different people. What's it like if you like
23:50
Speaker 1: the material, what's it like if you don't like the material?
23:53
Speaker 1: I think fundamentally, the thing that I always come back to,
23:58
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's really you're being asked to
24:01
Speaker 1: plan on something as people they want you there. Obviously
24:04
Speaker 1: they've hear something that I've done and they want me
24:07
Speaker 1: to be a part of the music. So you know
24:09
Speaker 1: you're winning straight away there. If somebody's actually ask you
24:12
Speaker 1: to come because they want yet so so really, I
24:16
Speaker 1: think then it becomes really important how you turn out,
24:19
Speaker 1: how you present yourself. And I'm not talking about clothes
24:23
Speaker 1: or any of that. I'm just talking about what you
24:25
Speaker 1: bring to the studio in terms of like your confidence
24:29
Speaker 1: and your ability to communicate with people, it's really important
24:34
Speaker 1: straight away that you you try and set up some
24:37
Speaker 1: sort of you know, a way of dialogue. That's a
24:41
Speaker 1: that's a really important thing for me. And then the
24:44
Speaker 1: music is more than often, more often than not, the
24:47
Speaker 1: easy part of it. Once you've established that, you know
24:51
Speaker 1: you're there to do a great job, and you're over
24:54
Speaker 1: to communication and ideas. I think that's really important as
24:58
Speaker 1: a session player. If that thing even exists anymore, Like you, Houston,
25:02
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure it does. And then in terms
25:06
Speaker 1: of like when you hear the song sometimes views songs
25:10
Speaker 1: and I'm just so well, I'm so lucky to get
25:12
Speaker 1: to play on this thing. It's already sounds amazing and
25:15
Speaker 1: as long as I don't fucking spoil it, it's going
25:17
Speaker 1: to be great. How different are the different um playing
25:21
Speaker 1: on different genres of music in terms of what the
25:23
Speaker 1: feeling of the session is like, Yeah, fitting into into
25:27
Speaker 1: the genre, that's the thing. I mean. I've always felt
25:30
Speaker 1: like I wanted to just play the best possible thing
25:33
Speaker 1: I could think of winning that genre. I guess you
25:35
Speaker 1: need to be hit to a lot of music to
25:38
Speaker 1: be able to do that and have an appreciation for
25:42
Speaker 1: the different sort of skills involved in different genres of music. Yeah,
25:46
Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a similar role in producing
25:50
Speaker 1: as there is in being a session player, in that
25:52
Speaker 1: you you have to quickly infer what's what's not going
25:58
Speaker 1: to be spelled out for you, what's not going to
26:00
Speaker 1: be sort of explained, or what's not figured out by
26:02
Speaker 1: the artist, so that the artist can come in and
26:06
Speaker 1: has the freedom to focus on what is important to them.
26:10
Speaker 1: You know, whether you're you've got an instrument in your
26:13
Speaker 1: hand or not. You're everybody's on the same team, servicing
26:19
Speaker 1: the same goals and allowing each other to be themselves
26:24
Speaker 1: and do what they're they're they're special at doing pino.
26:27
Speaker 1: When you were early in your career, it would typically
26:31
Speaker 1: be playing on the floor with a band of musicians.
26:34
Speaker 1: Would that be correct? No, because I came through in
26:36
Speaker 1: the eighties, so it was more often than not sitting
26:40
Speaker 1: in the control room with a producer on an artist. Wow,
26:43
Speaker 1: because I think that was your experience as well. Yes, Yeah,
26:47
Speaker 1: I mean after being in a band and making a
26:50
Speaker 1: record with an ensemble, starting to do sessions with producers
26:54
Speaker 1: who layered things and solo artists, that was definitely the
27:00
Speaker 1: way that we would build records. Everything I ever did
27:03
Speaker 1: with you was always an ensemble recording. Yeah, so there
27:06
Speaker 1: were certain certain times where, for whatever reason, that's what
27:10
Speaker 1: you were doing. I remember the very first time that
27:14
Speaker 1: we worked together on an ensemble recording, and it was definitely,
27:19
Speaker 1: definitely it was wild. It was a fast learning curve
27:23
Speaker 1: because I remember the expectation was different than what was
27:28
Speaker 1: happening in the moment completely. I mean in so many
27:32
Speaker 1: ways too. There was like the question you had earlier
27:36
Speaker 1: about genre, you know, and how important that is or
27:39
Speaker 1: how much that can affect, you know, your approach. There
27:42
Speaker 1: was a bait and switch in terms of the genre
27:44
Speaker 1: that I was expecting we were going to be working
27:47
Speaker 1: in that day, you know, not not by anybody in
27:50
Speaker 1: particular or intentionally, but just we went in with a
27:54
Speaker 1: preconceived notion of an artist's background and their repertoire and
27:59
Speaker 1: what we were probably going to be working on. And
28:01
Speaker 1: then it did a complete one eighty and it was
28:04
Speaker 1: great because we all sort of responded to only what
28:08
Speaker 1: was happening in the moment, and we were creating new
28:11
Speaker 1: music that was not informed by you know, what we
28:15
Speaker 1: knew and come out prior or whatever. Yeah, I try
28:19
Speaker 1: not to even listen to an artist's past work before
28:22
Speaker 1: I work with them because I don't want to have
28:24
Speaker 1: any preconceived idea of what it's supposed to be. Just
28:27
Speaker 1: what can we do to make the best thing we
28:29
Speaker 1: can make? You know? Yeah? Same here? Have you two
28:32
Speaker 1: played on many things together prior to this? Good question? No? Interesting,
28:37
Speaker 1: I don't think so. No. I don't think I've ever
28:39
Speaker 1: played on anything that you would I would have known,
28:43
Speaker 1: I would have taken note of that same. Yeah, Yeah,
28:45
Speaker 1: it's interesting in it because it's different worlds in a
28:48
Speaker 1: way coming together. I never thought it like, yeah, interesting,
28:51
Speaker 1: I would. I would have guessed that you guys had
28:53
Speaker 1: done a lot of work together, would have been my guests.
28:55
Speaker 1: But fascinating that it wasn't the case. Yeah, that's what
29:00
Speaker 1: music industry is though, right, there's so many different parts
29:03
Speaker 1: of the music industry and different parts. Shown was a
29:06
Speaker 1: music that sometimes you just missed people you never connected. Blake,
29:11
Speaker 1: you're both a solo artist and play on everybody's records
29:17
Speaker 1: as well as producing records. On your solo works, do
29:20
Speaker 1: you have other people playing typically? Is it typically a bad? Not? Typically?
29:24
Speaker 1: The first record was mostly myself, layering with certainly some exceptions.
29:31
Speaker 1: And then the second record was much more of a
29:35
Speaker 1: celebration of some of my favorite studio musicians and and
29:40
Speaker 1: just musicians in general at the time, and getting to
29:43
Speaker 1: work with them with the support of a label behind
29:47
Speaker 1: me and being able to afford to do that at
29:49
Speaker 1: a big studio and try all that. And then the
29:53
Speaker 1: third record or I guess sort of subsequent projects after
29:56
Speaker 1: that were some form in between. I'm a little less
30:03
Speaker 1: moved by the idea of ultimately making something where all
30:08
Speaker 1: of those are extensions of my own musical personality. Typically,
30:12
Speaker 1: when you produce an artist, do you play on the
30:14
Speaker 1: on the record or not? Necessarily seems to be more
30:18
Speaker 1: the case when it's a solo artist. There's there's a
30:21
Speaker 1: little more room for performance from me. But in the
30:24
Speaker 1: case of the band like Alabama Shakes, for example, I
30:29
Speaker 1: barely picked up an instrument for the three months you
30:32
Speaker 1: know we worked on that album, say for maybe a
30:35
Speaker 1: tambourine or something like that. Her voice is so beautiful. Course,
30:40
Speaker 1: early experience of music, Tell me what was what first
30:44
Speaker 1: got you excited about music in your life? It was
30:48
Speaker 1: really MTV for me, and maybe it similarly Tupino, like
30:53
Speaker 1: an escape from schoolwork, you know, and other expectations from me.
30:59
Speaker 1: I just kind of fell in love with the stuff
31:02
Speaker 1: that was playing on MTV inbah One at the time,
31:05
Speaker 1: so it would have been Nirvana and Sound Garden, itallica.
31:10
Speaker 1: The commonality with all these bands and the music videos
31:13
Speaker 1: was always some iconic shot of somebody with a guitar.
31:17
Speaker 1: How old were you when you got your first guitar?
31:19
Speaker 1: I was ten and h and I bought it from
31:23
Speaker 1: a guitar store where if you got a guitar, you
31:25
Speaker 1: got you know, a certain amount of free lessons, and
31:28
Speaker 1: and I wanted to learn those songs, so it was
31:31
Speaker 1: kind of a it was just a direct access to
31:35
Speaker 1: sort of that fantasy world. And it was beautiful how
31:38
Speaker 1: how quickly a beginner could pick up some of those
31:42
Speaker 1: riffs and and all of a sudden be in the
31:46
Speaker 1: teen Spirit video, you know what I mean, Like, once
31:49
Speaker 1: you learn the part, you're you're transported. And I think
31:54
Speaker 1: even even before I took listening to music as something
31:59
Speaker 1: that could be really serious and transported it, I think
32:03
Speaker 1: the seeds were sort of planted that that this could
32:05
Speaker 1: be an escape. Were you hopeful to be a band?
32:09
Speaker 1: Was that the dream at that point. It definitely was
32:12
Speaker 1: once I was in high school and started to figure
32:15
Speaker 1: out that, like, you know, what kinds of songs girls liked,
32:20
Speaker 1: the girls that I was interested in, like who they
32:22
Speaker 1: were listening to. I was born a little too late
32:25
Speaker 1: for like the age of of guitar being you know,
32:27
Speaker 1: some kind of a symbol of mystery. And but but
32:32
Speaker 1: like songs, you know, like Ben Folds and Elliott Smith
32:36
Speaker 1: and Jeff Tweedy, you know, these were these were the
32:40
Speaker 1: heroes of not only my musical heroes, but like also
32:45
Speaker 1: you know, the the opposite sex. And in those formative years,
32:50
Speaker 1: you know, nothing is more important. So I started writing
32:54
Speaker 1: songs with a schoolmate of mine and we ended up
32:57
Speaker 1: forming a band called Simon Dawes and and they're still
33:00
Speaker 1: a band called Dogs today. And I think we went
33:03
Speaker 1: through the process of falling in love with records and
33:07
Speaker 1: the fantasy of of co authorship of songs together, you know,
33:13
Speaker 1: listening to Nick and Keith and Lennon McCartney and just
33:18
Speaker 1: having those teenage years, those formative years being formed by
33:21
Speaker 1: that music. I think, you know, it really imparted something
33:26
Speaker 1: on me in terms of an appreciation for the songs.
33:30
Speaker 1: Tell me about that journey as a player influences styles.
33:39
Speaker 1: I think the most like succinct way that I could
33:42
Speaker 1: talk about my playing as it pertains over like a
33:47
Speaker 1: long period of time, because you know, there's so many
33:49
Speaker 1: phases that you go through in life. But the thing
33:53
Speaker 1: that's always sort of remained steadfast is that I feel
33:58
Speaker 1: like my personality is prone to trying to find the
34:02
Speaker 1: exceptions to the rule, you know, like the sort of
34:06
Speaker 1: like I know that this is how it's supposed to
34:08
Speaker 1: be done, but what if, what if there's another approach,
34:12
Speaker 1: another way, another answer, and so on the instrument, I'm
34:16
Speaker 1: always thinking about that without thinking about it and searching
34:21
Speaker 1: for that, without you know, really spending a lot of time.
34:24
Speaker 1: I think I might just instinctively bypass something that feels
34:30
Speaker 1: obvious and try to come upon something a little less so,
34:36
Speaker 1: you know, a little more unique. What's the first thing
34:38
Speaker 1: you played on with Pino? The first time I got
34:42
Speaker 1: a chance to work with Pino was on the John
34:44
Speaker 1: Legend record, and we pretty quickly decided that we wanted
34:49
Speaker 1: to have a live rhythm section for that album, and
34:52
Speaker 1: so I reached out to Pino and Christa to sort
34:55
Speaker 1: of be the engine for this record with John. I
34:59
Speaker 1: kind of looked for any opportunity that I could find
35:03
Speaker 1: to do some playing on that record, to just get
35:05
Speaker 1: a chance to play with that rhythm section. But there
35:10
Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot of guitar on the record. And
35:13
Speaker 1: after being amazed for three weeks straight, you know, hearing
35:17
Speaker 1: the ideas and the composition and the parts and seeing
35:21
Speaker 1: how it will come about, there's this other layer of
35:25
Speaker 1: the physicality of the tone, you know, and and and
35:29
Speaker 1: your hands, Pino, that that I don't think a lot
35:33
Speaker 1: of people even understand is a part of what they're hearing,
35:36
Speaker 1: you know, until they have an opportunity to try to
35:38
Speaker 1: fill your shoes. And those poor souls know it, like
35:43
Speaker 1: the guys who have to go out and play your
35:46
Speaker 1: your parts live, you know, and can't figure out how
35:49
Speaker 1: it is you're getting that tone, you know, or that
35:52
Speaker 1: that much weight, that profundity that was That was the
35:57
Speaker 1: thing that really kind of knocked me out. It is
35:59
Speaker 1: a lot more to the sound than the equipment turns out. Yeah,
36:03
Speaker 1: real depth. Thank you so much. Great seeing you both too. Likewise,
36:09
Speaker 1: once again, thank you for the album. It's awesome. Thank you.
36:13
Speaker 1: I'm gonna listen to it again today, thanks the Pino
36:19
Speaker 1: Palladino and Blake Mills for talking about their new album
36:22
Speaker 1: Notes with Adenagments. You can check it out on a
36:24
Speaker 1: playlist of all of our favorite Pieno Palladino feature songs
36:27
Speaker 1: and Blake Mills songs at broken Record podcast dot com.
36:31
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
36:34
Speaker 1: dot com slash broken Record Podcast we can find all
36:37
Speaker 1: of our new episodes. Broken Record is produced with help
36:41
Speaker 1: from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and
36:45
Speaker 1: Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafey. Our executive
36:50
Speaker 1: producer is mio a Bell. Broken Record is a production
36:53
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. You can follow us on Twitter at
36:56
Speaker 1: broken Record and please remember to share, rate, and review
37:00
Speaker 1: us on your podcast. Our theme musics by Kenny Beats.
37:03
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond.