Speaker 1: Pushkin. Bonivere started in two thousand and six as a
Speaker 1: solo project for Justin Vernon after the breakup of his
Speaker 1: college band. He recorded his first album in his dad's
Speaker 1: hunting cabin deep in the woods of Wisconsin, just him,
Speaker 1: an acoustic guitar, a lot of fresh venison, and DVDs
Speaker 1: of northern exposure. That debut got so big that within
Speaker 1: a few years of its release, bony Vera was collaborating
Speaker 1: with people like Beck and Kanye West, which may help
Speaker 1: explain the shift in musical direction Bonievere's music has taken.
Speaker 1: His Palliative Sounds has expanded a lot across four albums,
Speaker 1: and Bonivere is no longer just a solo project either.
Speaker 1: It's still centered around Justin, but it includes a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of collaborators from Wisconsin, where Justin still lives, and
Speaker 1: it's building his own Shangraloss style recording studio. Surprisingly, Justin
Speaker 1: and Rick Rubin had never met until they recorded this podcast.
Speaker 1: Despite their close working relationship with Kanye, there's a chance
Speaker 1: for them to get to know one another, discuss Justin's career,
Speaker 1: and shout about one of Justin's all time favorite groups,
Speaker 1: The Indigo girls. This is Broken Record Season three. Liner
Speaker 1: notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Just a
Speaker 1: quick note here. You can listen to all of the
Speaker 1: music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you
Speaker 1: can find a link to in the show notes. For
Speaker 1: licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode,
Speaker 1: you'll hear this sound effect all right. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 1: Here's justin Vernon and its producer Chris Messina and conversation
Speaker 1: with Rick Rubin that I've right into the kind of
Speaker 1: talk producer's love by building a live work studio space
Speaker 1: far away from the noisy world. Tell me about your place.
Speaker 1: I've heard great things about it. Well, me and Chris
Speaker 1: have been working on it for many years. It's under
Speaker 1: construction right now because we kind of we hit a
Speaker 1: point where we needed to to spread out a little bit.
Speaker 1: Tell me the whole story of how it How did
Speaker 1: it come to pass? The house I grew up in,
Speaker 1: it's only three miles from there, and it's uh my
Speaker 1: brother found it and it's on tap ten acres, you know,
Speaker 1: super cheap and old. It was an old like seventies
Speaker 1: ranch house and that indoor pool and they had a Yeah, awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we end up making that our makeship live room for
Speaker 1: many years, but it's not ten acres in the woods
Speaker 1: and it's like my ship, you know, incredible. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so but we sort of did it d I Y
Speaker 1: for a while, and then I found Chris and took
Speaker 1: him off of a production touring thing and and got
Speaker 1: him out there to just basically make it proper, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we've been kind of out of the d
Speaker 1: I Y zone and more and like a trying to
Speaker 1: make a proper tracking space for about eight seven years.
Speaker 1: Now you've been out there, I guess, Chris, how how
Speaker 1: would you say it changed from it's d I Y
Speaker 1: incarnation to the current one. I feel like more less
Speaker 1: stuff falls off the walls now maybe or's something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not the one putting stuff on the walls that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like that we did like a lot of
Speaker 1: teear tottering kind of before I got there, and then
Speaker 1: even still after I did just baby steps when we
Speaker 1: really just needed to do one kind of big move. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I think it's just been getting the recording spaces,
Speaker 1: you know, more attractive sounding, and then also improving all
Speaker 1: of the wellness spaces and just the vibe of the place,
Speaker 1: because that's you know, made a pretty good record with
Speaker 1: just a pretty cruddy studio. Yeah, and then it's because
Speaker 1: the vibe is there, you know, which obviously you understand
Speaker 1: pretty well. Absolutely, And when I just lived there too,
Speaker 1: like I lived there for many years until I live
Speaker 1: in the guesthouse up back, which is cool, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna build a house next door actually, just but just
Speaker 1: being in the studio and it not being set up
Speaker 1: for really being having like a home home base or
Speaker 1: a really I don't know, any a wellness vibe. It
Speaker 1: was just recording making music, you know. Yeah. So we
Speaker 1: went through like the different iterations too, of like not
Speaker 1: knowing if we wanted to be a commercial space or
Speaker 1: if we were going to be a private space or
Speaker 1: just justin or what the deal was going to be,
Speaker 1: And so we went through all those different versions. We
Speaker 1: had to do that to learn what we didn't like basically,
Speaker 1: and it's really just better off to be kind of
Speaker 1: a friends and family zone and us it's it's the
Speaker 1: best version of it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's pretty much
Speaker 1: how we do it too. It's yea. And originally I
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't think anybody else would work here but us.
Speaker 1: But then I was away and friend asked, oh, you
Speaker 1: think we could work here. It's like, that'd be cool.
Speaker 1: And so now I like the idea because if because
Speaker 1: I've worked so much over the course of my life,
Speaker 1: that it's like a way to trick myself into not
Speaker 1: being a workaholic. There you go, that's that. We're just
Speaker 1: talking about that in the way out here. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: it's like I love music so much and I could
Speaker 1: do it every single day. Yeah, but it's not a
Speaker 1: comfortable feeling when you're like, is this all I am? Yeah,
Speaker 1: then you can get caught up in it. For it's
Speaker 1: easy too when you love something so much. But and
Speaker 1: I don't know if work with a capital W is
Speaker 1: really the name of the thing that we do because
Speaker 1: we love it so much. But it's at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it is what you're spending time doing, right, absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And and for most of my life it was in
Speaker 1: you know, dark rooms with no window, dark little dirty rooms,
Speaker 1: So most of my life was just like in really
Speaker 1: unpleasant places. Yes, it doesn't encourage you to be a
Speaker 1: healthy person all the time either, And I think so
Speaker 1: much of the inspiration of the work we do comes
Speaker 1: from not just doing the work. The fuel that drives
Speaker 1: the process comes from life outside of the studio. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's exactly. The fuel has been my metaphor lately. It's
Speaker 1: like gas and the tank, healthy engines. You know, everything's
Speaker 1: running on, you know, and music is beautiful enough to
Speaker 1: be inspired by only music. But then that isn't it.
Speaker 1: That's not a closet, right, so you gotta go out
Speaker 1: and go to Grandma's house or whatever it is. Do
Speaker 1: you call it a band? Yeah, idea project band. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. Was it a clear like,
Speaker 1: tell me from the beginning? How did it start? That's
Speaker 1: actually an easier way to answer it. It's like I
Speaker 1: was in a band with with some of my closest
Speaker 1: friends and people that grew up learning how to play
Speaker 1: music around, and we sort of had that mid twenties
Speaker 1: sort of breakup winner separate ways, and I was kind
Speaker 1: of considering not trying to make a career in music
Speaker 1: and maybe go back to school and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: But in that very moment is when I sort of
Speaker 1: started making the first songs for what would become Bonevair,
Speaker 1: And I remember not having a name until I finished
Speaker 1: finished the album and I was watching Northern Exposure, that
Speaker 1: show from the early nineties, and there's this episode where
Speaker 1: the first snow falls in this little Alaskan town and
Speaker 1: everyone goes out and greets each other like Boneva Believer,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, that's a good thing, because that's
Speaker 1: kind of what that's I've always been inspired by where
Speaker 1: I'm from and all that it lacks, you know, everything
Speaker 1: that it lacks, it doesn't have that the other big
Speaker 1: cities in the world have. There's something I've always enjoyed
Speaker 1: about and keyed in about what it's like to be
Speaker 1: from where I'm from, and how tough the winter makes
Speaker 1: you and and how really nobody has the time and
Speaker 1: energy to prove anything to anyone else or something which
Speaker 1: can be very beneficial and have its drawbacks as well.
Speaker 1: But that's that's where it came from. So I thought, this,
Speaker 1: this Bonavierre thing, it's almost feels like a community, a town.
Speaker 1: Even though it started with just me. I had this
Speaker 1: idea that it's like it's gonna be a town or
Speaker 1: a little town, or a growing thing or a greeting
Speaker 1: or something. And and of course at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. It's a band, it's an artist, it's a thing,
Speaker 1: and so I try not to be too precious about it.
Speaker 1: But that's how I still believe in it. And you know,
Speaker 1: eleven twelve years later, now I guess it is it.
Speaker 1: It really has blossomed into a real breathing community with
Speaker 1: love and support and all everything beautiful. Yeah, did you
Speaker 1: make the first album by yourself? Yeah? Tell me tell
Speaker 1: me the story. Yeah, So I was. I was living
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, and I'd started some of these things,
Speaker 1: and as the band kind of broke up, I I
Speaker 1: sort of kind of high tailed it back to Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: I really lived in Wisconsin my whole life, minus that
Speaker 1: year and whatever amount of time I've been on the road.
Speaker 1: But at that point, I'd never been on the road
Speaker 1: really before. I'd never really had any paying music work
Speaker 1: other than weekend bar gigs and guitar teaching. So I
Speaker 1: brought I brought my little Digio one pro tools rig
Speaker 1: and my MACG four up to my dad's hunting cabin
Speaker 1: kind of an hour north of where where we grew up,
Speaker 1: and he just kind of let me go in there,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: If I'd go back to school to be a music teacher,
Speaker 1: I'd have to wait to the fall, and this was
Speaker 1: right in the winter, and so he just let me
Speaker 1: set up there. And I just had my little set
Speaker 1: up in a couple of guitars, and and I'd done
Speaker 1: some engineering and some making some records before, but I
Speaker 1: had kind of just lost some of the gear and
Speaker 1: so it was a very very meager setup, which ended
Speaker 1: up being a really great thing. And so over the
Speaker 1: over kind of a three month period, just kind of
Speaker 1: being there by myself, unless my dad would stop by
Speaker 1: over the weekend to work on a sawmill or something like.
Speaker 1: I was just there letting myself be bored, allowing myself
Speaker 1: to do to have a day where nothing happened for
Speaker 1: the first time in my life, and not have any
Speaker 1: guilt about it. It was just the first time I
Speaker 1: really truly was on my own, beautiful. Do you think
Speaker 1: of it as an enjoyable time? Yes, I mean there
Speaker 1: were there was boredom. There was like sort of just
Speaker 1: sitting there, maybe an unhealthy amount of alone time or
Speaker 1: something like that, But I do I look back at
Speaker 1: it as a very very positive experience to let go
Speaker 1: of a lot of things too. I was making it
Speaker 1: for myself. I had kind of given up on the
Speaker 1: idea of chasing anymore. And of course once you're once
Speaker 1: you're done with chasing, you're arriving given up on that idea.
Speaker 1: What would what would your days be like? Like, what
Speaker 1: if you're alone for three months? Yeah, it was I'd
Speaker 1: wake up and probably crack three eggs and some veniceine,
Speaker 1: you know, because we'd do some hunting up there. But
Speaker 1: there's a little TV up there in a DVD player,
Speaker 1: so I'd watch a lot of the Northern Exposure and
Speaker 1: and strangely it's my favorite like thing, novel, book, show, whatever,
Speaker 1: whole time because it was just you know, so there
Speaker 1: might be a day where I only watch DVDs, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, smoke a joint and drink six beers
Speaker 1: for no reason or something. But then then a day
Speaker 1: I would just wake up, go sit on the computer
Speaker 1: stool and just be there in it. You know, we're
Speaker 1: reworking and mixing and doing that thing on that album. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if I was thinking about growing up and
Speaker 1: the amount of boredom involved in uh, you know, get
Speaker 1: home from school and what are you supposed to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like what do you do? So I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: if putting yourself in that state somehow taps into something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people feel more often than they realize.
Speaker 1: It's just a real I mean, you did an extreme
Speaker 1: thing by by regular standards in our society, but it
Speaker 1: took you to a place that's probably not so different
Speaker 1: than growing up in the United States, but without having
Speaker 1: anybody like get outside, or you do this, or you
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, my parents gave it. My dad and
Speaker 1: this kids gave me a very supportive experience, or supported experience,
Speaker 1: i should say. And it was it was that that
Speaker 1: boredom was like, huh, you spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: being busy and overworked, and I just I just recently
Speaker 1: had quit a job at a kitchen that had really
Speaker 1: created new anger and stress in my in my mind
Speaker 1: and body. You know, never have I had been that
Speaker 1: stressed or angry or overworked. And and so I think
Speaker 1: it was I just sort of looked at as like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing, and I there was
Speaker 1: something going on with these songs where I was like,
Speaker 1: this is a new thing for me. Just just keep working.
Speaker 1: And I think just it was a correct, correct recipe
Speaker 1: to be in the right headspace to make the right
Speaker 1: kind of music. Did you do you toured the first album?
Speaker 1: Toured the first album pretty a lot, you know, that
Speaker 1: kind of smashed me up a bit, but not completely
Speaker 1: smashed me up. And so we were making the second record.
Speaker 1: By then, I was using a lot of musicians. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up playing in the jazz bands and I
Speaker 1: had a nine piece band in high school to all
Speaker 1: my friends with horns and everything. So it was a
Speaker 1: natural inclination to want to be around more people. But
Speaker 1: what naturally happened as I started to share some of
Speaker 1: the load of the songwriting and but also very holding
Speaker 1: on really tight. And I think, and this isn't a
Speaker 1: negative thing, but I think in many ways, I've stepped
Speaker 1: farther and farther and farther back from the chief position
Speaker 1: of making the records. And it's funny, after after making this,
Speaker 1: these four records, I'm feeling like maybe I returned to
Speaker 1: just hanging out on my own for a for a
Speaker 1: year or something to get back to that place, because
Speaker 1: you know, I so often would grow up play guitar
Speaker 1: and write a song, sit and write write this song
Speaker 1: down it. It went from sort of that with the
Speaker 1: first record too, almost none of that with with where
Speaker 1: we're at now in the last you know, this this
Speaker 1: process this ten years, and so I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of the death of the ego in
Speaker 1: a good way and then also being lost because at
Speaker 1: times because I didn't have that connection to like what
Speaker 1: I knew was right when I was all by myself
Speaker 1: what I knew, what I didn't have to answer to
Speaker 1: or you know, like I didn't have Chris like man,
Speaker 1: that sucks or that's really great, either one or problematic
Speaker 1: answers for me sometimes when you're when you're drifted farther
Speaker 1: aback away from your your frontal igo. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I see that, I see that happening in the last
Speaker 1: ten years, that arc of sort of stepping back, getting
Speaker 1: the music bigger and experimenting more and more. I'm feeling, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't predict what the next year is
Speaker 1: going to be like, but I'm feeling like a little
Speaker 1: bit of a return to that interesting that that place
Speaker 1: that's coming up kind of is the hunting Lodge still there.
Speaker 1: It is better than ever. I get along with my dad,
Speaker 1: so well, but I don't think it's it would be
Speaker 1: the same situation. He's he's built a big barn, he's
Speaker 1: got a sawmill, and he's got like four hundred maple
Speaker 1: trees tapped up there, and so he's always got people around.
Speaker 1: And plus we've sort of we've sort of made April
Speaker 1: Base into into that zone, even though we're not quite
Speaker 1: I don't quite have my own room yet. We're working
Speaker 1: on that, but that's in the next year or so.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. After the break. We're back with
Speaker 1: more from Bony Vair. There's a million things to ask
Speaker 1: you about the past, but for a moment, how how
Speaker 1: do songs typically start? Would you say your do you jam?
Speaker 1: There's some improvisation in you know, studio setting, like maybe
Speaker 1: not like instruments and stuff, but maybe some drum machines
Speaker 1: and just looking for odd recipes that could create something
Speaker 1: very surprising. It's probably our favorite thing to do, doing
Speaker 1: some just playing in general. I grew up writing a
Speaker 1: lot of songs and guitar and it sort of just
Speaker 1: stopped happening that way, and I've been playing a lot
Speaker 1: more guitar lately, and songs are trickling out, But there's
Speaker 1: still this thing I think is I've developed more as
Speaker 1: a singer than maybe I was before, or where I
Speaker 1: really started to hone in on the voice part of it,
Speaker 1: I think I became less. It became less important for
Speaker 1: me to write the song and be this songwriter person
Speaker 1: and more like how do we how do I get
Speaker 1: my voice on something that sounds interesting to my voice,
Speaker 1: if you will, And so a lot of we do
Speaker 1: a lot of improvisation or budding two things together, like
Speaker 1: have a saxophone go through a harmonizer while I'm playing
Speaker 1: it and singing it, or just looking for things to
Speaker 1: clash or to make something that sounded brand new so
Speaker 1: that it would be exciting to sing on. That's been
Speaker 1: the main process, you know. And every once in a while,
Speaker 1: maybe just a guitar riff would would PLoP in and
Speaker 1: create a song in and of itself. But I'd say
Speaker 1: that's been our biggest way of doing it, is just
Speaker 1: looking for moments that that seem magical. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like mainly musical moments. So you'll be working on
Speaker 1: track ideas essentially with the idea does it start with
Speaker 1: that feeling of this is interesting, or does it start
Speaker 1: with this is interesting I have I can see what
Speaker 1: I would do on top both. I mean every every
Speaker 1: time is different. Every time it's different, and sometimes just
Speaker 1: something sounds good so you want to keep it around,
Speaker 1: but you're like, well, this isn't really going to be
Speaker 1: for this project, So we don't know what to do
Speaker 1: with those ones. Exactly. Like the two generally for us
Speaker 1: go go hand in hand. It's like when we hear
Speaker 1: something that we've somehow come up with that sounds really interesting,
Speaker 1: justin immediately wants to sing on it, and that's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're we're into something here. That's kind of the biggest
Speaker 1: giveaway that we're onto something. Yeah, I might like a
Speaker 1: lot of things. Again, if I don't have anything to
Speaker 1: sing on it, it's sort of like, well maybe we
Speaker 1: should give this to someone else. Yeah, And like and
Speaker 1: like whenever you try and get him to sing on something,
Speaker 1: it's like not a good not a good vibe. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very, it comes very, it's it springs forth. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: when it's there, it's there, and when it's not, it's
Speaker 1: really not. I think with the with the previous record
Speaker 1: twenty two million, we did a lot more jamming. I
Speaker 1: mean great. Granted it was over like a period of
Speaker 1: five years that we were writing that record or something,
Speaker 1: but there were some pretty extensive, long multi person jams
Speaker 1: that would happen that we got some stuff out of.
Speaker 1: But that was kind of a way where Justin I
Speaker 1: think was maybe struggling with with trying to get his
Speaker 1: songwriting going again. That was a way for us to
Speaker 1: do it. It was bringing a lot of people, make
Speaker 1: as much noise as we can for a long period
Speaker 1: of time and see what happens. See if there's any
Speaker 1: moments that pop three you can that you could then
Speaker 1: like hey what about that? Let's go focus right and
Speaker 1: then that little moment that happened, either use it directly
Speaker 1: usually that's what we do, Use that moment directly and
Speaker 1: shape around it and like you know. But this this
Speaker 1: album was definitely a lot more there's more playing. We
Speaker 1: entered with a lot more intention on a number of
Speaker 1: levels with this, this record, the newest record, and more
Speaker 1: of the touring band than ever before too, yep, which
Speaker 1: was a great, great addition. Yeah, But I think sonically
Speaker 1: we I think we've kind of quietly made an active
Speaker 1: choice to not mess with his voice as much as
Speaker 1: we had previously. We knew I think that we were
Speaker 1: going to focus on the lyric content more than we
Speaker 1: ever have. Not that we weren't saying something before or
Speaker 1: Justin wasn't saying something, is that we wanted it to
Speaker 1: be heard and we wanted it to be maybe clearer
Speaker 1: than it ever had been. And so I think with
Speaker 1: those may have been the two most like sort of
Speaker 1: unspoken decisions for this record, but we were all aligned
Speaker 1: on that and everything else just came so much easier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was so much more, I don't know, just free
Speaker 1: and easy. It was great. Nice. Yeah, maybe that'll be
Speaker 1: it's it sounds like that can be going forward. It
Speaker 1: sounds like there's that could be our job. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think it was a huge realization with with this, with
Speaker 1: finishing this record as not as quickly but so much
Speaker 1: faster than the previous one. Yes, that we were just like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what it can be all the time. Brad,
Speaker 1: Brad Cook and I talked about I mean all three
Speaker 1: of us did, but yeah, Brad and I talked about
Speaker 1: that a lot of just like this is what we
Speaker 1: can make it. Every time there was a breakthrough, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is all we got to do. Every time, it's great.
Speaker 1: Did you record many more than the songs that are
Speaker 1: on the album or the songs on the album? Pretty much? It?
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it is? It usually that way? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we pretty pretty early on know whether something's
Speaker 1: going to get chased down further or not. So we
Speaker 1: still have like fragments that will probably revisit in a
Speaker 1: year or something. But I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't have this feeling like there's like
Speaker 1: great songs waiting for us. We sort of like worked
Speaker 1: on what we worked on. What was the thought on
Speaker 1: the title? By the way, man, it's it's it's really
Speaker 1: a lot about this whole self care and caring about
Speaker 1: your friend thing. It's to me, it's that's the thing
Speaker 1: that Bob Marley introduced me to when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Is this I and I? It's I and I, it's we,
Speaker 1: you are me, I am you? Uh. This is all
Speaker 1: of us kind of thing together, this this sort of
Speaker 1: responsibility to one another, maybe responsibilities and even strong enough
Speaker 1: a word, it's like we are connected. It's not just
Speaker 1: like we choose to be or not when we hurt ourselves.
Speaker 1: I feel like it has a reaction to others, and
Speaker 1: so that that was my whole thing is just like
Speaker 1: Marley vibes Rastafarian vibes, like it's uh, we are responsible
Speaker 1: for one another. It is a line that no, no
Speaker 1: branches of a tree are so foolish that they would
Speaker 1: fight with another branch on the tree. Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So it started guitar and vocal, guitar, vocal and the
Speaker 1: ensemble all at once. And then when when did the
Speaker 1: lyrics come in the process of writing, Like, I think
Speaker 1: I had this guitar riff laying around for like years,
Speaker 1: and it was always just I thought that this was
Speaker 1: half a love. I thought that this was half a love. Uh,
Speaker 1: follow to the Raging Sea. That's all it ever was.
Speaker 1: And so Brad was just like, why don't you just
Speaker 1: consider that's a that's a song you can have. You
Speaker 1: can have a three two line song. So accepted that,
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh I love this, Okay, great, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the story with that one. It's just like,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's enough just to have a small little idea absolutely, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's all it wants to be. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: try to force it, you're what what are you doing cool?
Speaker 1: Pick another one? Or do you want to see the list? Oh? Sure,
Speaker 1: let me think here? Sure? Can you see it? I
Speaker 1: can't see it. It's probably pretty good. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Man man like you's pretty good? I like, man like here,
Speaker 1: let's try that one. The big story with this one
Speaker 1: is that Bruce Hornsby. It's Bruce Bruce's track Lately he
Speaker 1: just wrote. He just had He came up we were
Speaker 1: helping him with his record and he just had this
Speaker 1: piano figure. He had it on a burned CD. He
Speaker 1: brought over and was like, what is that play? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I was like, first of all, we have to buy
Speaker 1: a CD player now, But he just played a bunch
Speaker 1: of this kind of music that he'd been working on.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is that track doing? Because it
Speaker 1: was one of those moments where I was like I
Speaker 1: almost heard the entire melody, just like I went in
Speaker 1: there and just like it was just there. And had
Speaker 1: I not been a little more open and like not
Speaker 1: so like I better be the guy to write all
Speaker 1: these songs, I might not have had that feeling. But
Speaker 1: it felt so good just to jump on and it's
Speaker 1: just a mood that I couldn't have come up with
Speaker 1: It feels so fun to to sing on me and
Speaker 1: Brad did so much bass playing on the album. You
Speaker 1: know he's he's predominantly a bass player. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: a cute bass player, acute, acute and cute. But so
Speaker 1: we do a lot of playing bass in the album
Speaker 1: where I would play it and then he'd be like,
Speaker 1: I can do better, and then I can be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I liked what you did there, but I would kick
Speaker 1: your So we did a lot of that on the
Speaker 1: on the album. I don't know. I haven't heard these
Speaker 1: I haven't heard the jam since we actually have played
Speaker 1: all these shows. It's kind of interesting. How do they
Speaker 1: transform live? They have transformed a lot live. You know
Speaker 1: that our band is awesome. I just love playing with
Speaker 1: each other. They ultimately feel more alive. I mean liter
Speaker 1: literally living, and I love I like records that have scrapes,
Speaker 1: and you know they don't. I like records that sound
Speaker 1: very high fi as well. But with our records, I've
Speaker 1: sort of always tried to keep it a little dusty
Speaker 1: or a little got some knicks and knicks in there.
Speaker 1: How many people are in the band live now? It's
Speaker 1: six now, and we've we've waxed and weighed on that
Speaker 1: we've had. Last year, we had like five trombone dudes
Speaker 1: from Richmond, Virginia traveling with us. Uh, what do we
Speaker 1: call them? Bone trombone paradise. Trombone paradise, that's right. But
Speaker 1: now it's a lot of the same dudes that have
Speaker 1: been in there a really long time. And then we
Speaker 1: added this lady, Jen Wasner who has his band Why Oak,
Speaker 1: and she is a monster, having another high voice, a
Speaker 1: higher voice, and she's also a crushing profit player as
Speaker 1: guitar player and bass player as well. So it's been
Speaker 1: it's been really fun. And the songs they just they
Speaker 1: just live and breathe. You're playing him rather than like
Speaker 1: pressing play on him, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think we're staying truer to the record with the most
Speaker 1: recent songs than we did with twenty two million. I
Speaker 1: mean those really we tried to those took on a
Speaker 1: whole new life live it's that are it's great. But
Speaker 1: I think with these, yeah, they they definitely even breathe,
Speaker 1: but we're we're staying closer to the record. It also
Speaker 1: makes sense that you said there's more playing on the
Speaker 1: record too, so it's makes sense to same people played
Speaker 1: it on the record and now I'm playing it live.
Speaker 1: It's makes sense. Yeah, absolutely, not interpolating. Yeah, the picking
Speaker 1: and choosing with only having six people is like, okay,
Speaker 1: well you we can't We're just physically can't play that
Speaker 1: part because we don't we don't have any tracks or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Yeah, So making those choices is always
Speaker 1: like Okay, what's the most essential moment or can you
Speaker 1: play this one moment on guitar, but then do the
Speaker 1: rest of it over here? You know, making those choices
Speaker 1: has been really fun, I think this time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know what else to play? What else is hard
Speaker 1: to play? Rick Rubin your record man. When we come back,
Speaker 1: justin Vernon talks to Rick about some of his favorite music.
Speaker 1: We're back with more from Bony Vair. What would you
Speaker 1: say is the most fun part of the entire process
Speaker 1: in this band or the project? What's your favorite part
Speaker 1: of it? It's a great question. Lately, it's been, if
Speaker 1: not all the whole time is when we have a
Speaker 1: piece of music that we can play, that that drifts,
Speaker 1: that is really alive, that we don't have to follow
Speaker 1: follow the grid, or we don't use to click tracks
Speaker 1: or tracks really, but especially you know, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of songs that we're playing live now from this record
Speaker 1: where it's like, wow, we're really it's really a push
Speaker 1: and pull thing. There's really a lot of group improvisation
Speaker 1: going on, group listening, group reacting, And I really enjoy
Speaker 1: that because in one hand, I've got this feeling like
Speaker 1: I love a song, I love a good folks so
Speaker 1: on that lets you know kind of who he is
Speaker 1: right away. But I also love Coltrane and you know
Speaker 1: music that that just makes you feel strange. I like
Speaker 1: the combination of those two comforts, the feeling strange and
Speaker 1: the feeling comfortable. And what do you listen to? Mostly?
Speaker 1: I mean I bounce around a lot. I do listen everything.
Speaker 1: We grew up. I grew up listening and studying jazz
Speaker 1: in school and stuff, and so I was just exposed
Speaker 1: to a lot. My parents are musical folks, and so
Speaker 1: what would be the music like growing up in the house?
Speaker 1: What would your parents play? John Prin was probably number one,
Speaker 1: And a matter of fact, he's probably like the He's
Speaker 1: the backbone of our spiritual philosophy as a family. I
Speaker 1: guess I would say that that that was the he
Speaker 1: was the main one. I think you could distill all
Speaker 1: other listening visa v. John Prian, And do you did
Speaker 1: you extend from John Prine into others like in the
Speaker 1: singer songwriter world? Was that? Yeah? Dylan came pretty pretty
Speaker 1: close after and still still very central you know, my
Speaker 1: understanding of the of the craft of like writing a
Speaker 1: song on the guitar, you know, with that whole tradition.
Speaker 1: So in both cases, would it be a lyric centric
Speaker 1: draw started out that way? I think I think once
Speaker 1: when I saw how complete a song could be with
Speaker 1: such little lyricism, when I when I with John Prine,
Speaker 1: especially you know, compared to Dylan or something. But kind
Speaker 1: of right after that, I always liked a good lyric
Speaker 1: But it's you know, that would have been when I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, eleven twelve, when I actually get
Speaker 1: my own discman and listen to John Prine on my
Speaker 1: own you know. So did you start writing songs as
Speaker 1: a kid? I did, Yeah, write it, Like when I
Speaker 1: was twelve or thirteen. I'd write little songs about like
Speaker 1: my friends at camp or stuff like that. It's just
Speaker 1: something that came pretty naturally to me. Would you call
Speaker 1: them like it, would you call them folk songs? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I was probably listening to
Speaker 1: like pro jam and Nirvana, so I was probably just like, oh,
Speaker 1: these are just songs, man, I don't know what I
Speaker 1: was things. And actually, if you would describe them now,
Speaker 1: what would you say they would rooted in? Would they
Speaker 1: be like a pearl jam song played on acoustic guitar? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're probably they're probably the early days, more prime,
Speaker 1: more just three chords in the truth kind of situation.
Speaker 1: But then shortly, you know, then eventually you get into
Speaker 1: alternate tunings, and then you're listening to Joni Mitchell and
Speaker 1: then it gets a little farther out. Who would you
Speaker 1: say would be the singers that inspire you or there's
Speaker 1: always three? I think of my first favorite was was
Speaker 1: Amy Ray from Indigo Girls. She had this there's this
Speaker 1: folk thing going on in that their group and songwriting,
Speaker 1: but she was yelling a lot, and like, there's this
Speaker 1: fever that was just so connected to her spirit and
Speaker 1: what she was trying to communicate in her songs. Was
Speaker 1: she still communicating in her songs and that that sort
Speaker 1: of unbridled yelling and and sort of like this when
Speaker 1: you lose it, Can you think of a good example,
Speaker 1: because I'd love to hear I can. I can pull
Speaker 1: it up for you and you can look. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: my favorite song of all time is called Fugitive. That's
Speaker 1: like my number one song. That's the Indigo Girls and
Speaker 1: maybe maybe that's not her yelling, but she's definitely like
Speaker 1: pushing her voice and it's yeah cool, it's my number
Speaker 1: my number one favorite song of all time. They played
Speaker 1: that in Missoula, right, I mean I literally had to
Speaker 1: sit down. It's true, you stumbling back to You're just
Speaker 1: like I can't believe this just happen. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: my favorite song, my favorite album. I think when I
Speaker 1: was twelve, like my mom and sister got me into them,
Speaker 1: and I think I was like, so, mom, they're they're gay,
Speaker 1: you know, like and then just realizing they have all
Speaker 1: these problems because of that, and like, Okay, for some reason,
Speaker 1: I was just like, well, this is wrong that they
Speaker 1: have issues, you know, like I don't understand. And then
Speaker 1: that gave me more and I adored them more and
Speaker 1: more and more. The more they had strength in the
Speaker 1: face of their adversity and that but they never became bitter,
Speaker 1: they would have feelings about it. I don't know, they're
Speaker 1: just they're they're my favorite group ever. Uh and Emily's
Speaker 1: the harmony, the other singer. She writes other other songs too.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're both just together. It's it's like my
Speaker 1: favorite ship. But Donnie Hathaway and Bonnie Raid are probably
Speaker 1: my other two, just like as far as soul. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the thing that moved me most was after the first
Speaker 1: sort of rocking part, it drops down into a very
Speaker 1: into unexpected intimate moment just for a moment. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it got real. Yeah, got really really got real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's good feeling. Yeah, that's the feeling, man, that's
Speaker 1: the feeling Like I mean, I tattooed those lyrics on
Speaker 1: my chat for a reason. It's like, this is what
Speaker 1: I want to be carrying around it. That's the feeling
Speaker 1: when you whce. We get to that verse, you're like
Speaker 1: you're exposed from all this yelling and this guitar sol
Speaker 1: and this orchestration, and then it all goes away. You're
Speaker 1: just back to this place where it's like we need
Speaker 1: to we learn, need to learn how to respect what
Speaker 1: we don't understand. We are fortunate ones. We are fortunate ones,
Speaker 1: I swear. It's just like the best thing you can say.
Speaker 1: It's like we don't know anything, and we have to
Speaker 1: try to learn and we have to understand that how
Speaker 1: lucky we are. Beautiful. That's that's that's why it's my
Speaker 1: favorite song. But yeah, it's it's a displaying intimacy and
Speaker 1: and vulnerability is a really important part of communicating as
Speaker 1: a human being, and it is a musician or songwriter.
Speaker 1: It's like you have to be able to be like,
Speaker 1: yes I am I feel awful or yes I am scared.
Speaker 1: You know. I think those are such valuable things in
Speaker 1: our valuable assets to ourselves. The vulnerability. You know, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That was justin Vernon bony Beare and his producer Chrismasina
Speaker 1: in conversation with Rick Rubin from Shangelos Studios in Maladu.
Speaker 1: The new record I Comma is up per Album of
Speaker 1: the Year at the Grammys. You can stream it using
Speaker 1: the Spotify playlist we put together for this episode at
Speaker 1: Broken record podcast dot com. You can also sign up
Speaker 1: for a behind the scenes newsletter while you're there. Enough.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Meo
Speaker 1: La Belle, and Leo Rose. Our theme music is by
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. Stay tuned for next week's episodes. Brittany Howard
Speaker 1: and Andre three thousand, thanks for listening.