Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Nora Jones, and today I'm playing along with
Speaker 1: Andrew Bird. I'm just playing alone.
Speaker 2: Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
Speaker 2: Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do doo
Speaker 2: with you do do do Do do doo.
Speaker 3: I'm just playing long with you. I'm just playing in
Speaker 3: lone with you.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Norah Jones. With me as always is Sarah Oda.
Speaker 2: Welcome to our show.
Speaker 1: Hello and hello to you and you and you.
Speaker 2: Our guest today is the endlessly talented multi instrumentalist and
Speaker 2: singer songwriter Andrew Bird.
Speaker 1: Oh He's so great. This was a fun one.
Speaker 2: He's an incredible violin player. He's very skilled in using
Speaker 2: a loop pedal, has a beautiful voice, and my favorite
Speaker 2: is his whistling.
Speaker 1: He whistles like nobody else and it's a big part
Speaker 1: of his music. And we talked about that. And I've
Speaker 1: never met Andrew Bird until this podcasts, but I've been
Speaker 1: a fan for twenty years. We figured out, which is
Speaker 1: crazy because I feel like I'm twenty but I'm not.
Speaker 2: He's put out sixteen studio albums and that doesn't even
Speaker 2: include the live albums and EPs. He's also released You'll
Speaker 2: hear about his evolution from playing violin at a very
Speaker 2: young age. Yeah all the way through yeah, yeah, all
Speaker 2: the way through his finest work yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a cool guy. And this was this is
Speaker 1: a fun one, fun one.
Speaker 2: This is our first violinists, which is I love because
Speaker 2: you know, I played violin and viola when I was
Speaker 2: littler and you know, through high school and stuff, and
Speaker 2: it's like I felt like I got wedged into just
Speaker 2: the technical level of it being so perfect all the time,
Speaker 2: and like the competition of like it was all about
Speaker 2: just getting the little metals and doing well in these
Speaker 2: like performances, and it was never about enjoying it. And I,
Speaker 2: you know, took a lot of fun out for me.
Speaker 2: And I feel like that's kind of why I kind
Speaker 2: of fell off of doing it. But I feel like
Speaker 2: if I heard Andrew Bird when I was little and thought,
Speaker 2: oh that's something I can do with violin, awesome, Like
Speaker 2: I'll stay with it.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know that, Yeah that's too bad. Well
Speaker 1: you can still play though, I've heard you. I heard
Speaker 1: you on a little demo. Yep, I heard you can
Speaker 1: still do it. Can you whistle?
Speaker 4: I can?
Speaker 1: Let's hear you. But I mean you know, Andrew Bird, Well,
Speaker 1: give me, give me a song. I don't am like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe we should save the whistling for.
Speaker 5: The Oh it's my birthday.
Speaker 1: I was so sad you did it, though, but I
Speaker 1: did it inhaling and then I had too much air
Speaker 1: and I couldn't. I couldn't exhale quick and you.
Speaker 2: Why you could whistle in but not out. It's the
Speaker 2: same me too, my friend.
Speaker 1: For sure did you leave that word? I'm sure that
Speaker 1: was me whistling in and here's me whistling out. I
Speaker 1: can't do it. I've tried.
Speaker 2: Try moving your tongue around.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should get set your episode.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I wish people could have seen what I'm
Speaker 2: sure they could hear it.
Speaker 1: There's nothing there's nothing better than mouth noise on a mic.
Speaker 1: That's like an album titled Okay, Well, this episode is
Speaker 1: packed full of songs. Yeah, there's more music in this
Speaker 1: episode than most and we had a really good time.
Speaker 1: I think we do mostly. Yeah, it's all his songs. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you mind.
Speaker 4: Sit back.
Speaker 1: There's a little surprise nugget in there. Please enjoy the
Speaker 1: incredible Andrew Bird.
Speaker 6: She's alone she's alone, lone lone DiDio. She's alone, She's alone, lone,
Speaker 6: lone DiDio. Get along, Get along without her, get along,
Speaker 6: get along without.
Speaker 7: Him, lone did y.
Speaker 8: Every Saturday night she came in with him, save or six.
Speaker 9: In the back, tall period in a gym. Now she
Speaker 9: comes in alone, long idyo.
Speaker 8: Wheny lasses of keep you say any leaves and.
Speaker 7: It makes you pay for you Jim.
Speaker 9: That's it comes.
Speaker 7: In alone, not idiot.
Speaker 10: M hm.
Speaker 11: Put the top down, skip down, yellow COVID up to
Speaker 11: these way trees, sway never get.
Speaker 12: Away, going ahead for the heels Montana, gotta get away
Speaker 12: from these mad senate no.
Speaker 7: Long Ever Saturday night she came in.
Speaker 8: With him table six in the back, tall, be around
Speaker 8: a gin. That's she comes in a lord MONDI any
Speaker 8: losses and keep you sifle.
Speaker 9: Any lease and he makes you pay for your gin.
Speaker 13: Now she comes in long did he.
Speaker 4: M hmm.
Speaker 1: I love that song. That's from your new album. It
Speaker 1: came out last year, came out.
Speaker 4: I've lost all sense of time, but I think it
Speaker 4: was last spring.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. Did you write it all during the COVID
Speaker 1: times or before?
Speaker 4: Some of it before that one I think was written
Speaker 4: during I was reading a lot of Joan Didion.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, yeah, obviously, but yeah.
Speaker 4: It also goes back to a story of a friend
Speaker 4: of mine who used to work it. I'm sure you
Speaker 4: know Baltazar. Yeah, I used to seat them. I heard, uh,
Speaker 4: Joan Diddon and her husband. They had like a regular table.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how I pictured it when I was
Speaker 1: imagining what this was about, I was picturing her in
Speaker 1: a restaurant. Yeah, it means the picture.
Speaker 4: But then it was in I think two thousand and
Speaker 4: three or two thousand and four, when she would seat
Speaker 4: them as the major d you know, like uh, every
Speaker 4: Saturday night and they had their they ordered the same thing,
Speaker 4: got the same drinks, and then then they didn't come
Speaker 4: in for like two months, and then she came in alone.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, that's right when all that was going down.
Speaker 1: I read that book. Ye, you're magical, thinking, yeah, god,
Speaker 1: that's so heartbreaking.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: Well, I love how the song paints it. Though you
Speaker 1: know she would love this.
Speaker 4: I wasn't sure it. I felt little guilty about it,
Speaker 4: like I was violating her privacy in some way. But
Speaker 4: given that there's that inside, I.
Speaker 1: Feel like it's poetically pleasing to someone of her aesthetic.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's kind of beautiful.
Speaker 4: But I mean I couldn't hear that story and not
Speaker 4: do something with it because it affected me so much.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really beautiful. Yeah, this song is manifest?
Speaker 1: Which album?
Speaker 4: Is this?
Speaker 1: From?
Speaker 4: My finest work yet?
Speaker 1: The best album title ever? Do you feel like that
Speaker 1: about every album though? In general?
Speaker 4: Well? I was when you get to album number fifteen
Speaker 4: or sixteen, You're like, who are we kidding?
Speaker 1: Of course, why do I keep trying to because people.
Speaker 4: Would always ask ask if this if is this your
Speaker 4: definitive record or whatever? It was like, sure, sure it
Speaker 4: is your bed.
Speaker 1: How many albums have you put out?
Speaker 4: Sixteen?
Speaker 1: It's crazy? Sorry, Okay, that sounds good.
Speaker 8: I'm coming to the edge of the wildest canyon, my companions.
Speaker 4: Do you.
Speaker 8: Starting to question my manifest destiny?
Speaker 9: I claim to this frontier.
Speaker 8: Into the brink of the great disaster and just has
Speaker 8: to be near.
Speaker 9: The spence festive?
Speaker 10: Is?
Speaker 7: Why pass your whisper's death in your ear? Don't pertain,
Speaker 7: you can't hear.
Speaker 9: Don't pertain you can't.
Speaker 10: I can't hear it.
Speaker 7: Turner resting.
Speaker 14: Dig in.
Speaker 7: Rather think it's warm, this sandmans.
Speaker 14: Live.
Speaker 7: Then you be exhuming by to.
Speaker 8: Fave can say that she's indeed, rather call every.
Speaker 7: Neither you know them.
Speaker 9: She's a blast, and no one.
Speaker 7: A blasting, no.
Speaker 8: One wilom come and see the age of the risin
Speaker 8: and sarche commotion and fear keeping all the rosin waters
Speaker 8: on those rosin and all we hold Dear, I'm coming
Speaker 8: to the brink of the great disaster and just hasn't
Speaker 8: been near the spin spassorisis rad passier wisper.
Speaker 15: Is death innoy. Don't pertain, you can't hear. Don't pertain,
Speaker 15: you can't.
Speaker 8: I can hear it.
Speaker 7: Saner rosted.
Speaker 8: Dang albertains wam this sirs.
Speaker 1: Live?
Speaker 9: Then you being soon bad to baba? Can't you say.
Speaker 10: That she's indeed.
Speaker 9: Look bad?
Speaker 7: Cheffy now I can'd damn kid, she's a blast.
Speaker 10: To know one.
Speaker 7: Last No, h.
Speaker 3: You cared here.
Speaker 9: Do frits and you care?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 1: That's fine.
Speaker 4: Your way of playing piano is perfect for that song.
Speaker 4: I love that that. I don't know what'd you call it?
Speaker 4: A little bit of like Memphis Dusty, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's I was working on it this morning and I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, yeah, you're perfect.
Speaker 1: You picked the perfect songs for us together, I think.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was thinking this one, and then Armchairs, which
Speaker 4: is when I hardly ever played Sprawling. It's haunting, but
Speaker 4: it's such a long, linear song, you know it is,
Speaker 4: but it's so beautiful and it's like a whole journey,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: But I like songs like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I remember recording that years ago, and I
Speaker 4: was telling you earlier, I don't play piano because my
Speaker 4: hand turns purple because I'm contort to play the violin
Speaker 4: for so many years that when I turn it the
Speaker 4: other way it cuts off circulation.
Speaker 1: But it's horrible.
Speaker 4: I had a very obsessed with how the piano should
Speaker 4: sound on Armchairs with that kind of octave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4: I just ended up playing it myself.
Speaker 1: Because did you play it like two fingers?
Speaker 4: I had to do overdubs. Is that sad? Like?
Speaker 1: I kind of, no, it's not. I think that some
Speaker 1: of my favorite piano parts in recorded history are from
Speaker 1: people who don't normally play the piano.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: They're very simple, Yeah, and I like it's more melodic
Speaker 1: sometimes in that way, It's.
Speaker 4: True, like sometimes piano can go wrong. Pretty easily when
Speaker 4: you have too much at your disposal. But that I
Speaker 4: always love that. Think actually call it country Polotan style
Speaker 4: of like the Nashville that octave melody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. I've
Speaker 1: never heard it called that.
Speaker 4: Did you say Peloton country?
Speaker 1: Polatan country Polaitan? I thought I was thinking about the
Speaker 1: exercise bike for a second country Politan. I've never heard that,
Speaker 1: like the like the Floyd Kramer kind of vibe, or
Speaker 1: it's different.
Speaker 4: Who's the guy? There was a piano player that in
Speaker 4: the era of shel Silverstein, that kind of hippie era
Speaker 4: of Nashville. It was named like Pig or something with
Speaker 4: his name. I don't know, a session guy, and you
Speaker 4: would do that kind of rolling octave thing that became
Speaker 4: kind of part of that kind of thing that but
Speaker 4: more in the low low end. Yeah, I'm trying to think,
Speaker 4: who's the best example of that sound. I think it's
Speaker 4: kind of like a early seventies like beautiful production.
Speaker 1: I love that. I must know what. I just don't
Speaker 1: know exactly the term to put to the thing that
Speaker 1: I probably know in my brain somewhere.
Speaker 4: But the theme to armchairs is that.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, should we do that one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it? Okay, okay, oh in the beginning,
Speaker 1: do you do the Ammian stuff or you want me
Speaker 1: to do a little something? And then I mean I
Speaker 1: could you would do it on violin? That would I
Speaker 1: think that would be cool. And then let me do
Speaker 1: the yeah, yeah, and then you can switch while I'm
Speaker 1: doing that.
Speaker 4: It's a loop that I can just queue up.
Speaker 1: I think that would be cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let me switch the other violin. Okay.
Speaker 7: I dreamed you were a cosmin on.
Speaker 8: The space between our chairs, and I was the cartographer
Speaker 8: the tangles in your head. I sat a song and
Speaker 8: silent sing. This is a one did everybody.
Speaker 7: Don't know or everybody don't knows?
Speaker 14: A song.
Speaker 9: That suden sing And this is all good.
Speaker 8: These looms that weave, the park of foot, the hanging
Speaker 8: from a strand, darking empty rooms, a full vin candes
Speaker 8: in hand, an awkward pase, a fatal fly time.
Speaker 9: It's a crooked ball.
Speaker 7: Times a crooked ball.
Speaker 8: Time.
Speaker 9: You need to learn to loot.
Speaker 8: The ebb just like the flow, grab hole, love your bootstraps.
Speaker 9: And pull our hell to gravity.
Speaker 7: Feel sorry for you, Let you go.
Speaker 8: As if you like the proper chemicals to know. Oh
Speaker 8: the way I felt the last time you let yourself.
Speaker 9: For days.
Speaker 10: Lodime.
Speaker 16: It's a cook in sounds, a cook in sounds a crooked.
Speaker 8: Fifty five and three as years later at the bottom
Speaker 8: of a jig and a cradle. Then arm chair calls
Speaker 8: to you. Oh, the m share calls to you. Letting it, says.
Speaker 9: Song Dy. We'll get back at them all with POxy
Speaker 9: and a paraplus His ancient sea slugs begin to crawl
Speaker 9: through the ragweed and bard wire. No, no, you didn't ride,
Speaker 9: you didn't come.
Speaker 17: It didn't cross your mind at all, going through the
Speaker 17: ways way Savelian squab. You couldn't feed thing at all,
Speaker 17: you fifty five and days.
Speaker 2: So so.
Speaker 10: There we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so pretty.
Speaker 4: It's like I said, it's sprawling.
Speaker 1: It's sprawling.
Speaker 4: That's it. That's the sound. That's the country politan sound,
Speaker 4: is it here? I'm talking about country politan. I'm not
Speaker 4: a music historian, but I have heard that phrase before.
Speaker 1: I guess I have. Yeah, I think I know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Now. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love this.
Speaker 1: Do we do a gig?
Speaker 10: Now?
Speaker 1: Yeah? We should do some gigs.
Speaker 4: I don't know why we haven't done one up until now.
Speaker 1: I can't believe we've never met. Yeah. Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: your first album in two thousand and three and I
Speaker 1: was really into it, and I've been a fan for
Speaker 1: It's twenty years ago. That's insane. I can't even believe that.
Speaker 13: I know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. Where did you come from? Where
Speaker 1: do you come from?
Speaker 4: I come from Fronts No. I U from Chicago Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: grew up there. My mom is an artist, and she
Speaker 4: imagined all our kids playing classical music.
Speaker 1: So wow.
Speaker 4: I started suzuki when I was four, and I'm the
Speaker 4: only one that kind of stuck with it.
Speaker 1: How many siblings?
Speaker 4: Three other siblings?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a big family.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and yeah. It was like twice a week. I
Speaker 4: would go to the group lesson and then the private lesson,
Speaker 4: and my mom just she would she got a violin
Speaker 4: to learn with me.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that's what they said, sweet bonding thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's not an antagonistic thing.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, you must practice, and then you're like, why
Speaker 1: don't you practice? That's a really good idea. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to do that with my kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going to steal that it works when they're
Speaker 4: really young. But like with my kid, like he doesn't
Speaker 4: like me to play violin with it, like he wanted,
Speaker 4: you know, he plays guitar and just now he's eleven,
Speaker 4: Like he's letting me jam with him on violin, but
Speaker 4: he's like, keep it cool, dad. He preferred me to
Speaker 4: be inferior on the guitar with him, which I am.
Speaker 1: It's pretty funny. Yeah, it's funny the dynamic that happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's really cool. How long did she take? How
Speaker 1: long did she play with you or did she stop
Speaker 1: after soon after?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, but that's still a really nice entry and a
Speaker 1: nice way to bond with your parent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was, it was, It was good. And I
Speaker 4: remember I would always be like, okay, now now play
Speaker 4: minu at one and this is all by ear, which
Speaker 4: is the idea of Suzuki.
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, I was going to ask because I don't
Speaker 1: really I know of it, but I don't really know.
Speaker 4: That's what I thought though, Yeah, which is a complaint
Speaker 4: that people have about it, But I think it's like
Speaker 4: the whole point.
Speaker 1: Well, it's great for young kids, that's the whole point, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so I would be like, she'd say, play minuet one.
Speaker 4: I'd be like, how does it go? And then she'd
Speaker 4: like go, yeah, I ac should just get carried away
Speaker 4: singing it for me and you. Yeah, And I'd be like,
Speaker 4: I got it. I got it.
Speaker 1: That's really sweet. But that's funny because suzuki is a
Speaker 1: classical method.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but there's folk tunes in there.
Speaker 1: Okay, So as I say, it seems really good to
Speaker 1: set somebody up for playing no in classical music.
Speaker 4: It is key for me, Yeah, to get to get
Speaker 4: up mix.
Speaker 1: Your ear is huge, right.
Speaker 4: Huge, so much so that my ear could always learn
Speaker 4: things faster than my brain could with sight reading. So
Speaker 4: but it got extreme when I would have to be
Speaker 4: in an orchestra and I'd have to learn Strauss's Don Wallan,
Speaker 4: which is like a page of black notes, you know,
Speaker 4: and I couldn't really sight reader well enough. So I'd
Speaker 4: get those tapes you could, Like I said, tapes. It
Speaker 4: would loop and they would play the same passage over
Speaker 4: and over again, and I would play it when I
Speaker 4: went to sleep.
Speaker 1: And that's how you learned it.
Speaker 4: That's how I learned it.
Speaker 1: That's cool. It kind of sets up the whole my
Speaker 1: whole image of how you play and makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense.
Speaker 4: Right, And then once I got out of music school,
Speaker 4: I'm rarely had to read or needed or wanted to
Speaker 4: read anything.
Speaker 1: Reading is hard for me. My kids are taking piano
Speaker 1: now and it's super simple, so I can read it.
Speaker 1: But when it gets to two handed many notes, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I learned that way, but not really since I was
Speaker 1: eighth grade. Maybe I kind of started reading chord charts
Speaker 1: after that and it's just right, so much easier for me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but did you were you in bands? And did you
Speaker 1: go to college?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I went to Northwestern Music School.
Speaker 1: Is that a Is that a broad music school or
Speaker 1: is it mostly classical?
Speaker 4: It was mostly classical. They had a small jazz program,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't very far along. You know. It's like,
Speaker 4: don't play with vibrato because you won't get the gig,
Speaker 4: you know kind of Yeah, that's funny, like they're very
Speaker 4: like dogmatic. Anyway, it was, you know, we could talk
Speaker 4: about that for I'm sure jazz.
Speaker 1: Oh I went to jazz school. Yeah, but it's different
Speaker 1: because I'm not a string instrument player, right, But that's funny.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I was itching to get out of the
Speaker 4: western music thing. And I was in school and I
Speaker 4: did study jazz through ethnic musicology because there was a
Speaker 4: fairly well known professor there that taught who studied jazz
Speaker 4: as an ethne musicology thing. So we'd have to transcribe
Speaker 4: col Trane's Blue Train and yeah, and various solos that
Speaker 4: have to learn them.
Speaker 1: And was that the first time you were into jazz
Speaker 1: in high school or are you hearing it growing up?
Speaker 4: I didn't hear it growing up. It took me a
Speaker 4: while to find the stuff I liked. Yeah, because in
Speaker 4: college they did just jump right into hard bop. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's like, here's giant Steps. It's like, wait, where's the
Speaker 4: history that God us to giant Steps?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's like there's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: led to that. Yeah, yeah, that's that's funny. I remember
Speaker 1: somebody telling me about Giant Steps. I went to Interlock
Speaker 1: and Arts camp in high school.
Speaker 4: For two years, and I went there for a summer
Speaker 4: you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we weren't there at the same time. But it
Speaker 1: was fun, right. Did you like it?
Speaker 11: No? You hated it?
Speaker 1: I loved it. It was like the best went to
Speaker 1: the school. Oh, I went to the summer okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: summer camp.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you're in the orchestras were brutal.
Speaker 1: Well, it seemed brutal. Actually, I get that because I
Speaker 1: had a lot of class school friends. I was one
Speaker 1: of very few jazz majors because they had a small
Speaker 1: They had a great jazz program, but it was small,
Speaker 1: and I would I loved going to hear the orchestra
Speaker 1: every week, but yeah, it seemed kind of hard. But
Speaker 1: I remember this girl who was another one of the
Speaker 1: few jazz majors. She played Berry Sacks and she was
Speaker 1: a character and she was like, I was like, what
Speaker 1: are you listening to? Oh, I'm learning Giant Stuves And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, what's that cool? She's like, you
Speaker 1: haven't heard of giant stuffs. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm fifteen. Yeah, And it was kind of a funny
Speaker 1: introduction to it as well, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it kind of all that. That's sort of
Speaker 4: what we call jock jazz kind of world of like,
Speaker 4: you know, it's technique. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like when I hear people play Giant Steps as
Speaker 1: a ballad and it's actually really beautiful. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 4: I'm getting ready to make a jazz album so I'm
Speaker 4: this is great timing, Oh wow, because I've always i mean,
Speaker 4: my first couple of records were kind of in the
Speaker 4: jazz idiom to some kind of an old timey version
Speaker 4: of it. Yeah, it's like the long I've had a
Speaker 4: long relationship with as a listener to jazz. It's just
Speaker 4: my go to. Yeah, And the particular branch of the
Speaker 4: jazz tree that I'm I've always loved is like the
Speaker 4: you know you got the It starts with New Orleans
Speaker 4: Sidney Pichet, Louie Armstrong, then the great tenor players like
Speaker 4: Coleman Hawkins.
Speaker 1: I love Coleman Hawkins.
Speaker 4: Lester Young is my favorite. Yeah, and they go I'm
Speaker 4: just kind of ignoring, kind of ignoring the Charlie Parker
Speaker 4: part of the tree at this point and going straight
Speaker 4: to like the mid fifties when those those guys were
Speaker 4: kind of at the end of their career and making
Speaker 4: really beautiful albums. Yeah, but it's mostly those tenor players
Speaker 4: that I respond to more than it's like a voice.
Speaker 1: They sound like a singer, yeah, because it's the read.
Speaker 4: It's the read, it's the breath, and that the phrasing
Speaker 4: that comes from it being a breath of air. I
Speaker 4: think that lends to it, and then that kind of
Speaker 4: rich tone, And that's when I'm trying to just just
Speaker 4: in the last couple of months, like going back into
Speaker 4: student mode a little bit, yeah, and trying to like
Speaker 4: get to another level as an improviser.
Speaker 1: Was that something you did a lot early on in
Speaker 1: college when you were getting into that kind of zone.
Speaker 4: I mean, generally, I never have been a great student
Speaker 4: to music. I've always just got it in my bones
Speaker 4: enough to, yeah, to get by.
Speaker 1: Because you seem like a great improviser, especially when you
Speaker 1: see you do the loopy stuff and it seems like
Speaker 1: it's all improvised.
Speaker 4: A lot of it is. But when it comes to
Speaker 4: those like I can't tell you that that what's happened.
Speaker 4: This passing chord is like a thirteen slus nine, like
Speaker 4: neopolitan six whatever. Like I don't know what's happening in
Speaker 4: music theory wise, and I don't really still don't feel
Speaker 4: like I need to. I just get it in my bones.
Speaker 4: I just play.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of math in jazz chord progressions,
Speaker 1: and it's nice to know a little bit of the
Speaker 1: basics to feel like you, yeah, to feel like you
Speaker 1: understand what you're doing. But yeah, there's also so many
Speaker 1: great musicians who don't have that, and they're just as amazing.
Speaker 1: So music is such a funny thing in that way.
Speaker 4: It is, I think, because I guess I've been thinking
Speaker 4: about this lately, like I don't want to learn enough
Speaker 4: so much math that I would be able to play
Speaker 4: something beyond what I hear in my head.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know what I mean, or you know. I
Speaker 1: feel like also some people learn it all and then
Speaker 1: you get to the place where you've learned it and
Speaker 1: you can kind of forget it. I think I'm similar
Speaker 1: to you. I don't really little of a lax student
Speaker 1: of the technical stuff, you know, but right I love
Speaker 1: to go with the flow. I'm with you there, hence this.
Speaker 1: And I grew up playing jazz. That was my main
Speaker 1: thing until after I left North Texas. I went two
Speaker 1: years to jazz school in college, and then I came
Speaker 1: to New York and I went to the jazz clubs
Speaker 1: and I loved it so much. But then I got
Speaker 1: into like songwriting and other stuff, and I never had
Speaker 1: a lot of chops and could never play fast in
Speaker 1: that genre, you know. And because I'm the laziest practicer
Speaker 1: on the planet.
Speaker 4: I am too, honestly, Yeah, I'm just a free range practicer.
Speaker 4: I don't stay on task.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm too distracted. I'm like that. But I think
Speaker 1: you know, it takes all kinds. I appreciate people who
Speaker 1: can do that. Lock themselves in a room, I feel
Speaker 1: like it interlocked. I remember a lot of people like that.
Speaker 1: They were locked in their practice huts in the woods practicing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I still that's the most sentimental sound to me,
Speaker 1: Just a bunch of people practicing in the woods.
Speaker 4: It's either it's most sentimental in the sound of madness.
Speaker 1: Madness absolutely. So you're doing a jazz record. That's very cool.
Speaker 13: Yeah, just.
Speaker 4: The first one is going to be my favorite standards, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and the second one is going to be more of a.
Speaker 1: Free Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, But I wanted to get through my favorite
Speaker 4: old classic tunes, really good ones such as Body and Soul,
Speaker 4: which is like I feel like that's again the Colemanhawkins
Speaker 4: solo on that one is famous. Yeah, and it's it's
Speaker 4: such a I heard. I've just got into it in
Speaker 4: the last few years, and I was like, that is
Speaker 4: about as good as it gets that's like the best
Speaker 4: music I've ever heard is the way he plays on
Speaker 4: that too. And that's what I mean about going into
Speaker 4: student mode is like I want to I want to
Speaker 4: figure out what he's doing. Yeah, and I'm not It
Speaker 4: could take a couple more years to really maybe lifetime
Speaker 4: to figure it out.
Speaker 1: But well, I mean he was so good. But also
Speaker 1: he's also just playing from his heart, which is I
Speaker 1: think what it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah as well, Yeah, totally that's the goal, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to connect also, like all these years of
Speaker 4: just sitting on the cash writing songs, I have kind
Speaker 4: of what I can whistle in my head is way
Speaker 4: beyond what I can play on my violin. These days
Speaker 4: used to be closer together. So that's kind of where
Speaker 4: I'm at trying to connect. That's funny, what's in my
Speaker 4: head to my instrument?
Speaker 13: Again?
Speaker 1: Where did the whistling come from? By the way, when
Speaker 1: did you learn to whistle? Could you just always whistle? Well?
Speaker 4: I don't know. I just do it incessantly, like non stop.
Speaker 4: They would drive you nuts.
Speaker 1: I love it. I can't whistle no, no, I know
Speaker 1: they say you just put your lips together a little bit.
Speaker 1: I've tried my whole life. I can whistle sucking in
Speaker 1: a little.
Speaker 4: Bit, but not out through the teeth at all.
Speaker 1: I have teeth, You have teeth. Oh no, I can't
Speaker 1: whistle through my teeth. Is that whistling?
Speaker 4: Not?
Speaker 1: Really? Just anyway, we can go over this later, you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a It's just like I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like it must be like singing, where you
Speaker 1: just kind of are good at it. It's kind of
Speaker 1: in you, or it's not. Maybe and you'd get better
Speaker 1: at it, but yeah, maybe it's just something you were
Speaker 1: born whistling.
Speaker 4: I definitely was from an early age, and and it's
Speaker 4: I didn't put it on albums at first because I thought,
Speaker 4: you know, whistling so easy. Why would you do something
Speaker 4: that's so easy? Or I was afraid it would just
Speaker 4: be considered like a novelty thing. But then then it
Speaker 4: seemed kind of weir You're to be whistling all day
Speaker 4: long and then go in the studio or go on
Speaker 4: stage and not whistle. I just it just seemed conspicuous
Speaker 4: not to do it.
Speaker 1: But it's so cool because your whole thing is really
Speaker 1: unique and the whistling is part of what makes it unique,
Speaker 1: and and then you don't whistle on every song, but
Speaker 1: when it comes in, it's like it's.
Speaker 4: So special, you know, And I think it's because it's
Speaker 4: just it's part of you. I don't always intend for
Speaker 4: I don't say, oh, here's where I'm going to whistle. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but it's sometimes it's like my hands are busy playing,
Speaker 4: and so to carry the melody, here's where the melody goes,
Speaker 4: I whistle. And it's so it's so much just like
Speaker 4: what i'd be doing when I was doing the dishes,
Speaker 4: that it becomes more honest than anything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just another way of getting at the melody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just you use what you got. Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1: You want to try?
Speaker 4: What is next?
Speaker 1: I have? Is it Lusitaniaia?
Speaker 4: Do you want do this one? Do it?
Speaker 11: Like?
Speaker 4: Do you know the there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I can do the.
Speaker 4: I can do that part, yeah, the second verse?
Speaker 1: Who sings that on your record?
Speaker 4: Annie Clark?
Speaker 1: I thought, so that's so funny. I was like, that
Speaker 1: sounds like Annie. But then I didn't have time to
Speaker 1: look it up, and I was like, no, that's not Annie, No,
Speaker 1: that sounds like Annie. That's crazy. Yeah, I heard it.
Speaker 4: We were touring together and when I wrote that song.
Speaker 4: So that's awesome, all right, are you ready?
Speaker 9: Well if you loosen.
Speaker 18: Loubblops, they keep sinking all my ships old, then y'all
Speaker 18: the one you sink my loose it say.
Speaker 8: Here, but somehow.
Speaker 7: Don't register tost pain.
Speaker 14: At all.
Speaker 9: Until it found. A cookie in vain is sull o
Speaker 9: small remember the maid.
Speaker 8: Whoa?
Speaker 9: You lay your minds alone.
Speaker 4: You.
Speaker 9: Show you the reading, so we don't say it swell.
Speaker 19: So we let our backbone slip until we are splits
Speaker 19: from my finger tips and we will become a hazard.
Speaker 9: And moray.
Speaker 1: And we get charge out in the ray.
Speaker 19: This sixty side, go home, go ahead, says Slin.
Speaker 9: Dumb boy, there's no shame.
Speaker 1: There's no.
Speaker 19: Say goodyhead, say something number, there's no shame.
Speaker 13: Oh you're laying mans against you, the holy bot, so.
Speaker 8: We know that it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one. It's I love your lyrics.
Speaker 1: They're really uh. It's fun to dig into music this
Speaker 1: way because you know, when you're listening, I can't. I
Speaker 1: don't really tune in on every lyric all the time,
Speaker 1: So to actually read them, it's beautiful.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I assume Musitania is a ship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's two ships in the song. There's the main
Speaker 4: which was the Spanish American War was sunk in the
Speaker 4: harbor in Cuba, and it's what what there was the
Speaker 4: reason for us to go to war with Spain, and
Speaker 4: the Lusitania was the reason for us to go to
Speaker 4: war in World War one one jeez man. But so
Speaker 4: it's like it's as a metaphor for like a conflict
Speaker 4: in a personal relationship. So it goes from macro like
Speaker 4: history to personal and you're laying minds along your show
Speaker 4: or you know, creating these like uh, it's it's it's
Speaker 4: imagining a couple. That's it's deliberate, deliberately wounding each other,
Speaker 4: deliberately abating battleship. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't need
Speaker 4: to explain it too much, do I?
Speaker 1: No, No, you don't explain it. But I just just
Speaker 1: such a great word, lusitanium.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's also the name of the Roman name for Portugal.
Speaker 1: Oh cool, Okay, I feel like I'm learning a lot.
Speaker 1: You read a lot, I think? Am I right about that?
Speaker 4: I do read a lot?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially as I get older, I read pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, keep it up. Most people are reading less these days,
Speaker 1: so I love it. Yeah, most people just read their
Speaker 1: phones more. I liked that one was that?
Speaker 4: Okay, that was brilliant. Okay, it's so nice, dude. I
Speaker 4: love singing with piano and I don't do it that often,
Speaker 4: but it brings out something cool with the way I
Speaker 4: sing that I like.
Speaker 1: I love when you get all high and lonesome. You
Speaker 1: have that quality sometimes in your voice, and it makes me.
Speaker 1: It gives me chills. It's really really great. It makes
Speaker 1: me want to do like an old country tune with you.
Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, that's your next venture. Maybe we'll do
Speaker 1: a country Let's do a country record.
Speaker 4: Let's do a country record.
Speaker 1: That would be really fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I love the duet too.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I notice that you have a lot of you
Speaker 1: sing with a lot of different women, right or is
Speaker 1: there one specific?
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's mostly I just feel like after in
Speaker 4: an album, like after three or four songs from the
Speaker 4: same point of view, you're ready for someone else. Yeah,
Speaker 4: too fresh, Yeah, because it just feels, no matter how
Speaker 4: good a record might be, you get a little exhausted
Speaker 4: from the same point of view. But and I like
Speaker 4: what duets bring out in me. Plus there's there's when
Speaker 4: I'm writing the song in my head, there's you know,
Speaker 4: how like you're you're there's a conversation in your head
Speaker 4: between self one and self two usually mm hmm. And
Speaker 4: but since it's in your head, there's no need for pronouns,
Speaker 4: it's just you talking to you. Yes, So at a
Speaker 4: certain point, I'm like, wait, who's talking to whom? Who's
Speaker 4: playing what role? And then I have to like consciously
Speaker 4: step away and say, okay, this person, this could be
Speaker 4: a little one act play. Yeah, you know, a conversation
Speaker 4: between two people. And then I like to kind of
Speaker 4: cast Yeah, those two people.
Speaker 10: I like that.
Speaker 4: But it's usually I figure that out after I've written
Speaker 4: that kind of song.
Speaker 1: I never think to write duets in that way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, but do some songs come as
Speaker 4: internal conversations? Now?
Speaker 1: I bet they all do. Yeah, I feel like they
Speaker 1: all do. But that's an interesting way to frame it,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about songwriting, I feel like everybody has
Speaker 1: their own little way of doing.
Speaker 11: It, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I don't know what I'm doing until it's
Speaker 4: almost done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think that's the best, most fun way.
Speaker 8: To do it.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know, Yes, And then that last twenty percent
Speaker 4: you have to finish is hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be stressful because you want it to
Speaker 1: be great and you don't want it to be Yeah, incomplete, and.
Speaker 4: You're using a different part of your brain.
Speaker 1: You're like trying to Yeah, it's true. You're really creative
Speaker 1: and like you're capturing everything in spurts and then you
Speaker 1: have to sort of wrap it up.
Speaker 4: I have to make sense to your audience at least
Speaker 4: make some attempt too. Yeah, yeah, what else would you
Speaker 4: like to try to?
Speaker 1: Well, we could try ellips as if you don't mind
Speaker 1: me playing along. Of course, we did it earlier and
Speaker 1: it was kind of awesome for a second, but I
Speaker 1: think we were talking over it. But I would love
Speaker 1: to try that one because I think it's so cool
Speaker 1: your loop situation. Did that start out of necessity or
Speaker 1: how did that start?
Speaker 4: Kind of? I so I got up to the point
Speaker 4: of having a five piece band in the late nineties
Speaker 4: and a lot of people. It was a lot of people,
Speaker 4: and it was starting to I kind of felt like
Speaker 4: my songs were getting inadvertently hijacked by the by the band,
Speaker 4: as great as they were.
Speaker 1: Well, when you have so many people on stage, everybody
Speaker 1: has to have something to do, right, and it kind
Speaker 1: of it can be hard to capture the same intimacy
Speaker 1: you know otherwise, like why are you paying everybody to
Speaker 1: lay out half the tune?
Speaker 4: You know? So when you got when you've got a
Speaker 4: big ear, you're a dat You become adaptable as a player,
Speaker 4: Like you hear someone go in a certain direction and
Speaker 4: you go with them even though that's not really what
Speaker 4: we're how you heard it. So to get to that,
Speaker 4: your question is like, I kind of disbanded the band
Speaker 4: for a while and moved out to the middle of
Speaker 4: nowhere for two years. And where is that Western Illinois, Okay,
Speaker 4: near Dubuque, Iowa, near the Mississippi River.
Speaker 1: Wow, so cold. It was cold.
Speaker 4: It was cold and lonely, but it was it was
Speaker 4: by yourself. I was by myself.
Speaker 1: That's intense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was intense. And I was twenty and I
Speaker 4: remember talking to this guy who ran this local club
Speaker 4: and he's like, this is the point where you should
Speaker 4: be thinking about going to New York or LA in
Speaker 4: your career and I'm like, nope, I'm going to going
Speaker 4: to Dubuque the Highway.
Speaker 1: Very strange choice.
Speaker 4: But it was anyway, I brought one of these looping
Speaker 4: puddles with me. Ah, And it wasn't like I was
Speaker 4: going to replace the band. I wasn't thinking that. I
Speaker 4: was just it allowed me to expand an otherwise linear
Speaker 4: instrument into a one with multiple layers and demo on
Speaker 4: the fly kind of. You know, I could play twenty
Speaker 4: six seconds, which is enough to get in sixteen bars.
Speaker 4: Maybe yeah, you could choose the verse or the chorus
Speaker 4: one or the other.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool though.
Speaker 4: And then I didn't think, oh that, I didn't think
Speaker 4: this anyone would go for this live. But then I
Speaker 4: was in a situation where I couldn't get a band
Speaker 4: and I had to play solo and it went pretty well.
Speaker 1: People love it. I think it's so fun for people
Speaker 1: to watch you create something on the fly. You know,
Speaker 1: feels like very very inside the process for people. For me,
Speaker 1: even like even watching you do it earlier when when
Speaker 1: we were checking the sound, it's it's kind of incredible.
Speaker 1: And then it gets so big, you know, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: becomes such a huge sound from one person.
Speaker 4: Does It works with the violin to a point. It
Speaker 4: works with this particular one because it fades out the
Speaker 4: old ideas as you layer new ones in I like
Speaker 4: that other ones layer everything at the same volume and frequency,
Speaker 4: so they just build up the same frequencies and it
Speaker 4: gets congested. Yeah, that's really creatively. It allows you to go.
Speaker 4: You could end up somewhere completely different than where you started.
Speaker 1: That is really Technology can be so creative.
Speaker 4: As long as you keep it, keep it something kind
Speaker 4: of fast and dirty like this, okay, because it's like
Speaker 4: it's just like I don't like recording myself at home.
Speaker 4: I don't if you feel that. I don't like pressing
Speaker 4: play and record. But this is kind of like this
Speaker 4: is like my four track demo thing. But it's like,
Speaker 4: as soon as you want to move on to a
Speaker 4: new idea, you have to erase the You can't get
Speaker 4: precious about anything.
Speaker 1: You have to That's what's cool about it. It's like
Speaker 1: analog and spontaneous and improvising. Yeah.
Speaker 11: I like that.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So this tune Ellipses is from Echo Locations, which is
Speaker 4: a project I did a few years ago and continue
Speaker 4: to do. And it's, uh, this is just something I
Speaker 4: completely improvised. That's why when you asked to do it,
Speaker 4: I had had to go listen to it again. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was like I could have done fifty of these.
Speaker 1: It sounded like it was that's why I said, or
Speaker 1: something like it. But I do love this recording of
Speaker 1: it is great.
Speaker 4: Well, let's just cool.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I wish I had a loop now. I
Speaker 1: want to try that. I wonder if that would be
Speaker 1: weird with the piano. I don't know.
Speaker 10: Yeah, the lists as.
Speaker 16: Least let a.
Speaker 14: Sou out out same.
Speaker 10: Book.
Speaker 1: That was so fun. Yeah, that is so cool how
Speaker 1: it fades slowly and it turns into something else completely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a metamorphosis of that.
Speaker 4: That is that.
Speaker 1: I never thought about it that way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just fun to do these, uh, these sort
Speaker 4: of polyrhythmic patterns. There's endlessly it's fun to play over.
Speaker 1: What is your I'm not a good gear person, but
Speaker 1: if we record it, I'll remember. What do you use?
Speaker 1: What is that loop?
Speaker 4: It's a line six D L for I just call
Speaker 4: it the green box.
Speaker 1: It's great, Okay, I'm getting one.
Speaker 4: Yeah you should.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm gonna use it with, but
Speaker 1: I'll get one.
Speaker 4: Yeah for it?
Speaker 1: This was so fun? Can we do? Can we just
Speaker 1: go on tour and or do something sometime?
Speaker 10: Done?
Speaker 1: That would be fun, let's do it. Do you ever
Speaker 1: tour solo? Are you do? You always have different sort
Speaker 1: of incarnations of what you're doing based on the project
Speaker 1: you're doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm somewhere between a trio and a quartet now,
Speaker 4: but I've there was a time when I and those
Speaker 4: those lonely isolated days out in the country where I
Speaker 4: would just go straight from this bar and I was
Speaker 4: living in load up my van and go on tour
Speaker 4: by myself and wow, and I still and then other
Speaker 4: times I would be on tour with the band and
Speaker 4: then they would have to get back to their families
Speaker 4: and I would just one night it would be a
Speaker 4: full band, next night would be solow.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, no matter what was happening out of necessity.
Speaker 4: But I mean I could travel light in those days
Speaker 4: when I was trying to build an audience.
Speaker 1: Do you like did you looking back? I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: you do what you do, but do you like traveling
Speaker 1: alone like that? There must be some freedom to it.
Speaker 1: And also do you get bored?
Speaker 4: Then it was an adventure for sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't really get bored musically if you have
Speaker 1: the loop pedal like that, I feel like.
Speaker 4: No, I would just be like so you know, legally drunk,
Speaker 4: exhausted from like driving eight hours between shows and doing
Speaker 4: all the work yourself, no tour manager, nothing. But it
Speaker 4: was kind of like I was finally getting an audience
Speaker 4: and I was just like, let's go.
Speaker 14: You know.
Speaker 4: I was just like, you feel like Robin Banks or something.
Speaker 4: It was like, I feel like an outlaw, basically.
Speaker 1: Going against the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, across the state lines.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Merch money in one pocket, show you know, show money
Speaker 4: in the other.
Speaker 1: See I've never done that on my own.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But then always before I was about to have a
Speaker 4: total either mental or physical breakdown, I would just in
Speaker 4: time get the support I needed to keep.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know that's great. Yeah, it's not sustainable forever.
Speaker 4: But I still like the freedom of playing solo, like
Speaker 4: and but it is a bit lonely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it can be lonely. I would imagine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well anything, if you do too much of it, you
Speaker 1: get to where you want to do something else.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Musically I feel like, yeah, you know, but that's cool,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it's just a duo.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've never done a solo, I mean since those early
Speaker 1: days of restaurants, I haven't really done a lot of
Speaker 1: solo shows because I don't. I could do like a
Speaker 1: twenty minute set, but I I feel limited by my
Speaker 1: lack of technique to do fast stuff. I guess like
Speaker 1: I'm afraid it'll be all too similar tempos. And I
Speaker 1: really feed off of other people. I have more fun.
Speaker 1: I have a lot more fun playing that way. So well,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It was so great to meet you.
Speaker 4: My pleasure. I'm so glad you asked me.
Speaker 10: I am do.
Speaker 1: Oh that was so fun. Wow. He's really just so good,
Speaker 1: so good, and so sweet and so like calming. I'm
Speaker 1: calm doing, I'm soothed. His songs are beautiful. I love
Speaker 1: that his songs are stories. They're really interesting. The lyrics
Speaker 1: are just yeah, they're a storyteller, interesting lyrics. I wonder
Speaker 1: what his brain is like on the inside. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening everyone, Thanks for being my friend. Sarah Ohda, I
Speaker 1: thought you were telling them thanks, I was, and then
Speaker 1: I switched it. I didn't know what to think to
Speaker 1: anybody who's that weird. Thanks to all of you for listening.
Speaker 1: We love you, love you, Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to subscribe to Nora owns is playing along
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss a
Speaker 2: new episode.
Speaker 1: This episode was recorded at Golden Hour Sound in Glendale, California,
Speaker 1: by Eric Razinski, mixed by Jamie Landry, edited by Sarah Oda,
Speaker 1: Additional engineering by Matthew Vasquez. Artwork by Eliza Frye, Photography
Speaker 1: by Shervin Linez. Produced by Me and my Odo